"Bad plan!," in Southern slang / SAT 1-6-24 / Unfiltered brew / Comment after a revealing moment / Out-of-focus effect in photography, from the Japanese for "blur" / Cells that handle low-light vision / Thin slice of silicon at the heart of an integrated circuit

Constructor: Ben Tolkin and Julian Xiao

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: BOKEH (5A: Out-of-focus effect in photography, from the Japanese for "blur") —

In photography, bokeh (/ˈboʊkə/ BOH-kə or /ˈboʊkeɪ/ BOH-kay; Japanese: [boke]) is the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in out-of-focus parts of an image, caused by circles of confusion. Bokeh has also been defined as "the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light". Differences in lens aberrations and aperture shape cause very different bokeh effects. Some lens designs blur the image in a way that is pleasing to the eye, while others produce distracting or unpleasant blurring ("good" and "bad" bokeh, respectively). Photographers may deliberately use a shallow focus technique to create images with prominent out-of-focus regions, accentuating their lens's bokeh.

Bokeh is often most visible around small background highlights, such as specular reflections and light sources, which is why it is often associated with such areas. However, bokeh is not limited to highlights; blur occurs in all regions of an image which are outside the depth of field.

The opposite of bokeh—an image in which multiple distances are visible and all are in focus—is deep focus.

• • •

Well this ended up being *much* easier than yesterday's puzzle, so people will undoubtedly like it more, but I don't know that it's any better. I should say that I actually *liked* yesterday's puzzle pretty well. Probably should've been a Saturday, but it was really well put together. Loved YOINKED and SMARTASS and the clue on DEAD BATTERY. All the longer answers were solid to sparkling. I feel like I got caught up in my struggles yesterday and neglected to say the positive things I felt. I thought about yesterday's puzzle as I was solving this one, which was much easier but felt less impressive. The long answers just missed me today, for the most part, and the puzzle's attempts to be fresh were hit-and-miss—a little TTH (trying too hard) at times. I loved HAZY IPA (10D: Unfiltered brew), but it's really hard to get excited about a brand name like ACUVUE or something as mundane as UNMUTES. As for BOKEH, that was just five random letters to me, I'll confess. I've probably seen it on my camera phone's needlessly detailed array of options, but it never sunk in. I can see how that answer might be exciting to some, though, so that's fine. The biggest issues I had were with the marquee longer answers—the crossing 15s. Hmmm, what order to take these in? ... So, how about the order in which I solved them. Probably easiest to show you my grid after my first encounter with 29A: "Bad plan!," in Southern slang:

And now a clip from "Futurama":

And now a Waylon Jennings song:

And finally, how about a clip of this guy? Remember this guy?

At first I couldn't remember what the dog won't do, but then I got the "H" from SIGH (21D: [Aw, jeez!]) and I remembered, oh right, THAT DOG WON'T HUNT. Little did it occur to me that my problem with the answer wouldn't be the last word, but the next-to-last (semifinal??) word. I can see that people have also said "THAT DOG DON'T HUNT" but this non-Southerner has only ever heard the "WON'T" version, so "DON'T" registered a huge clank in my ears for sure. And I have DR. FREUD to thank for helping me find and confront my error. You can imagine my bafflement when I looked at 11D: Comment after a revealing moment and then looked at the grid and saw: "PAGING W-------!" Who am I paging? Wario? Wonder Woman? Got the "F" from BFFS but that didn't help. "PAGING WAFFLES! Come in, Waffles!" (note to self: mmm, eat waffles today). Not sure when "DR. FREUD" eventually popped into view ("You rang!?!"), but I know that I changed that "W" to a "D" and then just stared at "THAT DOG DON'T HUNT." Then felt bad that I'd misremembered the Southern expression. Only after finishing the puzzle and looking up the expression did I feel good again. "WON'T" was a perfectly good answer there. Only DR. FREUD could tell you otherwise, and, you know, I'm not sure I 100% trust him. 

Also, do people still / really say "PAGING DR. FREUD?" That's the kind of cutesy thing that, thankfully, no one in my immediate vicinity has ever said. I wish I could be more excited about it. I was more excited about "DAYS OF OUR LIVES," to be honest. My wife's secret history involves her complete addiction to "AS THE WORLD TURNS" (15) (five NYTXW appearances, dating back to 1976), which I always confuse with "DAYS OF OUR LIVES" (14) (four NYTXW appearances, dating back to 2002). I kinda miss afternoon soaps, a staple of midday programming when I was a kid. In the '70s, my mom would put us down for a nap and then watch "Ryan's Hope." I think this was what they now call "Me Time." I also liked HUMAN PYRAMID today, and the fact that it's kinda sorta at the top of its own pyramid of answers (10A: Stunt for three, six or 10 people, typically). I mean ... yeah, if you squint and are feeling generous, that is a pyramid of answers that it's a part of.

Mostly, this puzzle was a breeze, with only BOKEH and that WON'T / DON'T confusion giving me any kind of resistance. I knew the proper nouns (NAPLES, ACUVUE, CLINT), I knew PROG rock (27A: Lead-in to rock). I got the first eight clues I looked at today, which is pretty much the inverse of yesterday.

[TATA, then all its crosses, in order, then HUMAN PYRAMID, DECAL, and ACE]

I hope this puzzle gave you renewed confidence after yesterday's ... well, from the comments, it looked like a bloodbath. Does anything need explaining today? ACE is a "big deal" (17A: It's a big deal) because it's the highest card in the deck (in most contexts). "Bars" are segments of a song, so that's why NATIONAL ANTHEM works for 13A: Olympic bars? An AISLE can be "long" and "divide" a theater or airplane or whatever (25A: Long division?). RESTS are marks on a musical score (38A: Some score marks). The Fool is a card in the TAROT deck (I lit-erally have a candle lit, right now, right next to my desk, depicting "The Fool," so that was fun—seeing that clue and then looking over and ... seeing that clue (19D: Fool's deck)):

That's all for now. Time for the penultimate posting of Holiday Pet Pics!

[Again, nothing really "holiday" about this picture of Booga, but it's hard not to admire a cat who does the crossword (thanks, Alice! Now come on, get Booga a pencil and some coffee!)]

[No "holiday" aspect here either, just a reader who wanted to use their beautiful dog Charlie to prove to me that "bog bridges" really do exist (I had expressed doubt late last year) (thanks, anonymous person!)]

[Orion with his name in the grid (thanks, Judith)]

[George smash cat. George rest now (thanks, Jackie!)]

[Kip stands accused of cat vandalism! Verdict: not guilty by reason of entrapment, provocation, and cuteness! (thanks, Adam)]

["Guh ... hello. What are we doing? Is it treats?" I don't know this baby's name! (thanks, Mark!)]

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]