Everlasting, poetically / WED 2-7-24 / "War and Peace" character who determines through numerology that he is destined to assassinate Napoleon / Prez featured in "Annie" / Some reactions on Slack / Trade mag for marketers / Carter of jazz and Perlman of film / $1 bill in slang / Crop revered by the Abelam people of Papua New Guinea / What makes most moist? / Hindu god embodying virtue

Constructor: Daniel Mauer

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium to Medium (4:30 for an oversized 16x15 grid)

THEME: stuttered "refrains" — famous "refrains" featuring words with repeated first syllables:

Theme answers:

• "LA LA LA LA LOLA" (18A: Refrain in a 1970 hit by the Kinks)
• "CH- CH- CH- CH- CHANGES" (28A: Refrain in a 1971 hit by David Bowie)
• "MY G- G- G- GENERATION" (47A: Refrain in a 1965 hit by the Who)
• "P- P- P- POKER FACE" (64A: Refrain in a 2008 hit by Lady Gaga)

Word of the Day: RAMA (37A: Hindu god embodying virtue) —

Rama (/ˈrɑːmə/; Sanskrit: राम, IAST: Rāma, Sanskrit: [ˈraːmɐ] ) is a major deity in Hinduism. He is the seventh and one of the most popular avatars of Vishnu. In Rama-centric traditions of Hinduism, he is considered the Supreme Being.

Rama was born to Kausalya and Dasharatha in Ayodhya, the capital of the Kingdom of Kosala. His siblings included Lakshmana, Bharata, and Shatrughna. He married Sita. Though born in a royal family, Rama's life is described in the Hindu texts as one challenged by unexpected changes, such as an exile into impoverished and difficult circumstances, and challenges of ethical questions and moral dilemmas. Of all his travails, the most notable is the kidnapping of Sita by demon-king Ravana, followed by the determined and epic efforts of Rama and Lakshmana to gain her freedom and destroy the evil Ravana against great odds.

The entire life story of Rama, Sita and their companions allegorically discusses duties, rights and social responsibilities of an individual. It illustrates dharma and dharmic living through model characters. (wikipedia)

• • •

This felt very easy, but my time was not low. Weird. Must've got slowed more than I thought by the various names I didn't know (LUCID Air, PIERRE), or by my last-stage brain fritz, where I put in HEMOGLOBIN and then just locked up on all the -OBIN crosses and so tore out the end of HEMOGLOBIN ... only to put it right back in again (29D: Substance that makes blood red). I am very out of practice at full-pace solving. It can make you (me) very prone to errors like clue misreadings (for instance, my brain didn't process the word "singing" in the "IDOL" clue, for instance—kind of an important word, it turns out) (54A: Longtime TV singing series, to fans). There were a few other minor hold-ups. In that same section, the archaic (though still somehow crossword-common) "I SAY" was just not leaping to mind. I was too distracted by the fact that I had already seen "I SAW," which was running interference in my head. I also did not expect to have a non-stuttered word at the beginning of the third song, and so had all "G"s in there at first instead of "MY G- G- etc." (this seems like a design flaw—also, are there always that many "G-"s. Really feels like the number varies (I'll play the song later and see...)). I am on Slack for two different things (movies, music) and I can't remember anyone's ever posting a GIF, so GIFS was hard for me, and since I only wanted GOING SOLO (not FLYING SOLO) (12D: Going it alone), getting into the NE was slightly tricky. Biggest misstep today was probably NO-LOSE (40D: Surefire) to ONTO (53A: Privy to) ... which couldn't be ONTO because the clue had "to" in it, but I couldn't see what else it could be with the first letters ON-. To top it off, I had IN A SEC, not IN A FEW (51D: Shortly). So I had to wait for the Lady Gaga song to help me come at that section from below and clear it up (it's NO-RISK / INON). I guess these little problems added up, but I never felt any real resistance. The songs are all superfamous, and once you know you're dealing with stutters of a sort, you can fill a lot of the themers in easily (if you don't know the songs, well then god help you, I guess).

[yeah, OK, is it LA- LA- LA- LA- or L- L- L- L-  or LO- LO- LO- LO- …? The original Kinks’ version sounds kinda LO-ish. I’ve always heard LA- or a kind of flat LUH. Honestly, I’ve never really thought about it. But I'm fine with the LAs]

It's a cute theme, even if the Who song seems (as I said above) like an outlier in a couple of ways. I don't really get why the grid is 16 wide. Your longest themers are a perfect grid-spanning 15. And it's not like the fill has been visibly improved by this grid accommodation. In fact, it's puzzlingly bad in places. ETERNE!??! (39A: Everlasting, poetically). Why would anyone ever put ETERNE in their grid, especially in an easy-ish midweek grid where it's absolutely unnecessary? Even the tiniest change (ACME to ACTS) improves the grid considerably —yes, I'd much rather see the author of Tristram Shandy (Laurence STERNE) than ETERNE, but like I said, that's the change you can make without even trying. If you tried, surely you could de-ETERNE that middle in even more delightful ways. You could also de-ROOTER that NW corner with very little effort (15A: Enthusiastic fan). Maybe LOOTER was thought too grim, but nothing's as grim as the non-existent fake word ROOTER. And again, EMPIRE / ELLS is the *bare minimum* you could do to change things up there. With a little actual effort, you could certainly do even better. Maybe get rid of HERVÉ or one of the "ON" answers (IN ON, "IT'S ON"). The grid doesn't seem properly polished. The puzzle's getting by on the charm of its theme, and there's definitely charm there, but not quite enough to hide the REEK of ETERNE.

I now remember that I had trouble processing LOW HIT as well (19D: Tackle at the knees). Had the LO- and wanted, I dunno, LOP OFF? I briefly flashed on ABE as the president in "Annie" but then remembered "Annie" was set during the Depression and unless it was the ghost of Lincoln, it was probably a different prez (FDR). I always balk at Hindu god clues, sure that I'm going to put a vowel wrong. I tend to let crosses do the work there (37A: Hindu god embodying virtue). My knowledge of Indian *cuisine* is more on point. ROTI (like ATTA flour) is now a gimme for me (42A: Flatbread that can be served with dal), although without crosses you might think the four-letter flatbread was NAAN, I suppose. During my whole mini-meltdown in the SW, I read 66A: What makes most moist? and when I saw it ended in "I," I assumed I had an error. My brain was like "DEW!" and the other part of my brain was like "Oh, come on. DEW?! DEW makes *most* people moist? Really? What, are we all romping around at dawn now?" Yet another reason I tore out the -OBIN in HEMOGLOBIN (before eventually reinstating it). Anyway, in case it wasn't clear, if you put AN "I" in the word "most," you get "moist." I sometimes refer to these as "letteral" clues—the ones where words refer to themselves, their own letters, rather than some other thing. You take them "literally," they refer to "letters" ... "letteral." [Fresh start?] for EFF, that kind of thing. But I only call them "letteral" clues to myself, because I feel like I've coined enough crossword terms for now. Natick ... kealoa ... One per decade seems like a good pace. So "letteral" is gonna have to wait at least a few years before I try to make it happen. By which time someone else may have come up with something better. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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