Dating axiom / THU 2-8-24 / Title role for Tom Hanks in 2022 / Dog on a cat? / Colorful Coke brand / Austin Powers catchphrase / Jazz great Shaw / Food items originally called Froffles / Uncle Sam's land, informally

Constructor: Samuel A. Donaldson

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (more Easy ... but the grid is oversized again today, and the theme is slightly tricky to figure out) (5:25)

THEME: OPPOSITES ATTRACT (40A: Dating axiom ... or a hint to interpreting four pairs of answers in this puzzle) — sequential two-word phrases appearing in the same row have the order of their words reversed as the words that are opposites of one another (one in each answer) are pulled toward one another at the center of the grid; so, for instance, OVERPASS and GO UNDER become PASSOVER and UNDERGO because the opposites ("OVER," "UNDER") are "attracted" to one another:

Theme answers:

• PASSOVER / UNDERGO (18A: Highway crossing / 19A: Fail) ("overpass / go under")
• ORDER IN / OUTLAYS (24A: Sequentially arranged / 28A: Explains in detail) ("in order / lays out")
• HAND OFF / ON LEAVE (54A: Like an impromptu remark / 56A: Keep wearing) ("offhand / leave on")
• PAT DOWN / UPCHARGE (62A: Rehearsed to perfection / 66A: Excite, as a crowd) ("down pat / charge up")

Word of the Day: ARTIE Shaw (52A: Jazz great Shaw) —

Artie Shaw (born Arthur Jacob Arshawsky; May 23, 1910 – December 30, 2004) was an American clarinetist, composer, bandleader, actor and author of both fiction and non-fiction.

Widely regarded as "one of jazz's finest clarinetists", Shaw led one of the United States' most popular big bands in the late 1930s through the early 1940s. Though he had numerous hit records, he was perhaps best known for his 1938 recording of Cole Porter's "Begin the Beguine." Before the release of "Beguine," Shaw and his fledgling band had languished in relative obscurity for over two years and, after its release, he became a major pop artist within short order. The record eventually became one of the era's defining recordings. Musically restless, Shaw was also an early proponent of what became known much later as Third Stream music, which blended elements of classical and jazz forms and traditions. His music influenced other musicians, such as Monty Norman in England, whose "James Bond Theme" features a vamp possibly influenced by Shaw's 1938 recording of "Nightmare".

Shaw also recorded with small jazz groups drawn from within the ranks of the big bands he led. He served in the U.S. Navy from 1942 to 1944, during which time he led a morale-building band that toured the South Pacific. Following his discharge in 1944, he returned to lead a band through 1945. Following the breakup of that band, he began to focus on other interests and gradually withdrew from the world of being a professional musician and major celebrity, although he remained a force in popular music and jazz before retiring from music completely in 1954.

• • •

This is architecturally fascinating. To find answers that do this—where the "opposites" can pull toward one another and leave you with new phrases that aren't gibberish—and then to find ones that fit so neatly and symmetrically in the grid!? It's ... something. Something impressive. The solve itself was not what I'd call exciting—mostly easy, but with occasional answers that seemed at first merely wrong, and then merely reversed. I had no idea what OPPOSITES ATTRACT was getting at until after I was completely done. There was a long and winding road from my first encounter with a theme answer ("that is not what 'highway crossings' are called!") to my final, post-game "AHA!" (tremendous clue on that one, btw (2D: "Now I remember who sang 'Take On Me'!")). I didn't even understand that the theme answers would make sense if you reversed their words until I was well below the puzzle equator, at HANDOFF (54A: Like an impromptu remark). "Well, the answer's 'offhand,' but ... oh! ... OH!" I had left a couple squares blank in earlier themers. Figured 24A: Sequentially arranged had to be ORDERED but I had an answer that clearly ended in "N" so ???? And I'd initially had OUTLINE before giving way to the incomprehensible (as clued) OUTLAYS (28A: Explains in detail). But with the "offhand" / HANDOFF click, I could look up and fix or make sense of all the earlier themers. Still, what this flipping of terms had to do with opposites attracting, I had no idea, until the entire finished grid lay out before me and then the juxtaposition of the "opposite" terms leapt out at me. Ta da. 

[refusing to play the obvious Paula Abdul song here]

The rest of the puzzle, as I say, was just mysteriously, suspiciously easy. The kind of easy that makes you wonder what you're missing (for what I was missing, see that last paragraph I just wrote). Still, the fill was more than just filler. Those banks of 7s and 8s in the corners are actually pretty solid, especially considering they had to be built *around* the theme material (unlike similar corners in themeless puzzles, where you can do whatever you want). Themers are fixed, and they can be tough to build around. Certainly tough to build around cleanly. Nothing scintillating in those longer non-theme answers, but I like the clue on CAPTCHAS (1A: Reality checks?), and while I'm not an Austin Powers fan, I do like the sass of "OH, BEHAVE!" here today. ETHICAL, GHOSTLY, TWO-STEPS, LINEAGE ... yes, that longer stuff holds up. There was some iffi-/ickiness in the short stuff here and there, most notably WAL (oof, maybe the worst partial name there is) and REPART, what in the world? (53D: Split hairs again?). I get it, you are parting your hair ... for a second time ... but ... this needs its own word? It's like RESLEEP or RECLIMB or RECARVE or something. Comprehensible, but basically made-up. The middle of the grid gets a little shaky (SSE AMSO SMH), but that was probably among the toughest parts of the grid to work out, with so much thematic crowding in. I think the fill holds up well over all—particularly well, given the thematic density. Often with gimmick puzzles, I feel like I merely *endure* the solve in order to get to some alleged "AHA!" that hardly seems worth it. Today, the "AHA!" felt genuine, and hard earned, and the solve itself was at least as pleasant as your average NYT solve, maybe moreso. In short, I like it.

Some notes:

• 1A: Reality checks? (CAPTCHAS) — These are the internet bots that ask you to prove that you're not one of them (i.e. that you exist in "reality"). Type the character sequence that you see, click on the squares with bicycles in them, that sort of thing. 
• 47A: "Unbelievable!," in internet shorthand (SMH) — "shaking my head"; I don't think of this initialism as something warranting an exclamation point (!) in the clue! "Unbelievable!" is OMG. "Unbelievable..." is better for SMH, which denotes more low-key bafflement than astonishment.
• 30D: Where trailers wind up (LAST) — Yikes, what? Not even a "sometimes" or a "might"? You might trail (in a race) and then come from behind and win. Or you might trail the leader for the entire race but wind up coming in second (out of some larger number, i.e. not LAST). And not even a "?" on the clue? Bizarre. Both the hardest and the worst clue in the puzzle.
• 67D: Dog on a cat? (PAW) — "Dog" is slang for (usually a human) "foot." So [Dog on a dog?] would've worked too, but I guess this way is funnier? Opposites attract? 
• 69D: Economic fig. (GNP) — a grim kealoa* ... gotta leave the middle letter blank and wait for help from the cross, because GDP works just as well.
• 70D: End of days? (ESS) — Hey, look, another "letteral" clue (where you have to take the clue "literally" and the answer is a "letter"). We had one of these yesterday. I guess the universe does want me to make "letteral" happen. Fine. I give in, universe. (In case it wasn't clear, ESS is the last letter (i.e. the "End of") the word "days")

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

*kealoa = a pair of words (normally short, common answers) that can be clued identically and that share at least one letter in common (in the same position). These are answers you can't just fill in quickly because two or more answers are viable, Even With One or More Letters In Place. From the classic [Mauna ___] KEA/LOA conundrum. See also, e.g. [Heaps] ATON/ALOT, ["Git!"] "SHOO"/"SCAT," etc. 

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