Opposite of relief, in printmaking / SUN 1-21-24 / Aid in getting a leg up? / Exclamation before an ill-advised action, maybe / Moose's mating season / Yiddish word meaning "woe" / Pop singer with noted bangs (and bangers!)

Constructor: John Westwig

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "Funny Business" — puns based on some sad sack's failed business ventures...

Theme answers:

• 23A: "First, I founded an aerospace start-up, but I never ... GOT IT OFF THE GROUND"
• 39A: "When that fell through, I tried my hand at fishmongering, but we ... DIDN'T SCALE WELL"
• 56A: "Next, I pivoted into breakfast restaurants, but competitors ... POACHED OUR EMPLOYEES"
• 77A: "When I tried candlemaking, all my workers ... SUFFERED FROM BURNOUT"
• 92A: "I decided to try operating an airport, but just before launch we ... RAN OUT OF RUNWAY"
• 112A: "Finally, I decided to buy a grocery store on an intersection, but a rival had ... CORNERED THE MARKET"

Word of the Day: Hyperion (80D: The 380-foot-tall Hyperion, for one) —

Hyperion is a coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) in California that is the world's tallest known living tree, measuring 115.92 m (380.3 ft).

Hyperion was discovered on August 25, 2006, by naturalists Chris Atkins and Michael Taylor. The tree was verified as standing 115.55 m (379.1 ft) tall by Stephen Sillett. It was found in a remote area of Redwood National Park that was part of the original 1968 park boundaries. The park also houses the second, fourth and fifth tallest known trees, coast redwoods named Helios, Icarus, and Daedalus, currently 377, 371 and 363 feet, respectively. Hyperion was measured as 116.07 metres (380.8 ft) tall in 2019.

Hyperion is estimated to be 600 to 800 years old and contain 530 m³ (18,600 cu ft) of wood.

The exact location of Hyperion is nominally secret but is available via internet search. However, In July 2022, the Redwood Park superintendent closed the entire area around the tree, citing "devastation of the habitat surrounding Hyperion" caused by visitors, and now anyone who gets too close could face up to six months in jail and a $5,000 fine.

Researchers have said that woodpecker activity at the top may have prevented the tree from growing taller. (wikipedia)

• • •

[47A: Pop singer with noted bangs
(and bangers!) (SIA)]

I wish I had better news but wow this one was ... something. Pure corn, of an unabashedly olden, subdadjoke variety, just D-grade punning as far as the eye can see. And the fill did nothing to enhance the experience. I did not solve so much as endure this one. Would've quit very early if solving and being miserable and sharing that misery were not my job. This is one of those days when I just have to shake my head and accept that sometimes people are "tickled" by things that leave me cold. Less than cold. It wasn't even that the puns were groaners—I can absolutely handle a groanfest, if the groans are thoughtful and ambitious enough (go big or go home, where dumb puns are concerned). It's that these puns were so predictable, so flaccid, so tepid, so completely shrugworthy. There wasn't a one that was surprising or unexpected, literally none that seemed worth the price of admission. It felt like the puzzle was just going through the motions. And while some of the themers at least have a kind of internal coherence—CORNERED THE MARKET and RAN OUT OF RUNWAY at least seem like phrases that make sense and can stand alone—most of them feel like they've been beaten and mangled in order to fit symmetrically. "Got off the ground" makes sense, but the addition of "IT" makes it sound awkward. "DIDN'T SCALE WELL" ... yeah, OK, that's a thing one might say, though the "WELL" part felt slightly tacked-on. With POACHED OUR EMPLOYEES ... the "EMPLOYEES" part of that was probably the "hardest" part of the theme for me. I kept trying to think of another word for "ideas." POACHED OUR EMPLOYEES standing on its own seems slightly ridiculous. The "from" in SUFFER FROM BURNOUT feels wedged in there. Lots of little awkwardnesses all over the place. But the phrasing wasn't really the problem. The corny premise and the completely lackluster puns, those were the problems. All of that, with no good fill anywhere to alleviate the pain. Unless you are the kind of person who thinks an answer like BUSINESS SCHOOL *alleviates* pain, in which case, well, we are very different.

This puzzle did that clue doubling thing not once but twice, ugh. The whole "whose title sounds like a command" (in the clues for "LOVE ME" and "USE ME") adds absolutely nothing to either clue, or to my appreciation of either song, or anything. All you've done in both cases is make the clue longer. You've literally put more words in the clue, but that's it. I guess if you'd never heard of either song, you could maybe use the clues to help you (?), but there's nothing charming about the clue twinning there. The [Swiss cheese] / [Swiss "cheese"] doubling is much better. "Cheese" is (dated) slang for money, so ... you get actual cheese (GRUYÈRE) and metaphorical cheese (FRANCS). I have to admit, the clue twinning there actually works. Are AÇAI BOWLs still "trendy" (82D: Trendy treat of Brazilian origin)? I have never had one, or even been somewhere where one was on the menu. I only know they exist because crosswords tell me so (this is also the only way I know TSURIS (70D: Yiddish word meaning "woe")). Are we really doing WIFEY? We are? I'm being told we are. OK ... well, huh. Interesting choice. Not sure I'd've gone *annnnny* other way than the Judy Blume title there, but you wanna go with [The missus], knock yourself out, I guess. Seems like some solvers might hear it as condescending or insulting, but you do you, crossword guys!

 

The one potentially tough section, or so it seemed to me, was the NE, and that's due entirely to INTAGLIO (17D: Opposite of relief, in printmaking), a word lots of people won't know, or, if you're like me, will kinda sorta know, but not really, only in that cocktail party knowledge kind of way where if someone mentions it, you nod knowingly and murmur, "yes, of course, I've heard of that [sips martini, adjusts monocle]." All the crosses seem fair, though I guess I can imagine someone not knowing SIA and having no idea what letter to put in that INTAGL-O / S-A crossing. If that was you, I'm so sorry. I had my own struggles, but they were few, and not very significant. I wrote DAY ONE before ONE ONE (i.e. 1/1) (66A: New Year's Day). I had never heard of Hyperion the REDWOOD. I struggled with OTTOMAN because of its "?"-ness (34D: Aid in getting a leg up?) and GOODS because ... I don't know, sheer vagueness, I suppose (88A: Freight, e.g.). "YEAH, SO?" had that elusive quality, that all "UM, NO" / "UH, OK"-type answers have (95D: "Whatcha gonna do about it?"). I stared at ACT for a little bit, wondering how it worked for [State lines?], until I realized that actors "state" their "lines." I got YOLO easily, since it's been slang for about a decade now ("you only live once!") (110A: Exclamation before an ill-advised action, maybe). Did you know that YOLO went 46 years between appearances in the NYTXW!? It was clued as [California county] in 1968, back when Margaret Farrar was still editor, and then it went missing for the better part of a half century before turning up in the Shortz Era, in a 2014 Joel Fagliano puzzle, clued as [Modern acronym suggesting "seize the day"]. Quite a comeback for YOLO. Apparently, if you're YOLO, you do not, in fact, only live once. 

Just a final note to say that if you sent me snail mail recently in response to my annual solicitation of financial contributions, the postcards arrived from the printers last week and the first of the thank-you cards have just gone out. My teaching job started up again last week, so it will take me a couple weeks to get through the mail, please be patient. The cards have been so lovely—so many kind notes and also ... well, a lot of little extras. Little cards and stickers and photos and gifts and such. See if you notice a theme developing:

[It's cats, the theme is cats]

There was also this poem, from reader David D—, which felt like a fitting way to end today's write-up:

See you next time!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]