Berth place / WED 3-6-2024 / Snack whose name comes from the Quechua for "dried meat" / Rathskeller offerings, informally

Constructor: Brad Wiegmann

Relative difficulty: Hard :( 11:46

THEME: Famous men / numbers / letters... — The entries describe the men literally, including their letters, and the descriptions go from 1-4

Theme answers:

• [Nicholson and Nicklaus, e.g.?] for ONE-EYED JACKS (They're both Jacks that only have one "i" in their names.)
• [Soren Kierkegaard and Chris Isaak, e.g.?] for DOUBLE AGENTS (They're both gents that have double "a"s in their names.)
• [Percy Bysshe Shelley and Billy Ray Cyrus, e.g.?] for THREE WISE MEN (They're both men that have three "y"s in their names.)
• [Henry the Eighth and Hubert H. Humphrey, e.g.?] for FOUR-H LEADERS (They're both leaders that have four "h"s in their names.)

Word of the Day: ADONIS (Persephone's lover) —

The myth goes that Adonis was gored by a wild boar during a hunting trip and died in Aphrodite's arms as she wept. His blood mingled with her tears and became the anemone flower. Aphrodite declared the Adonia festival to commemorate his tragic death, which was celebrated by women every year in midsummer. During this festival, Greek women would plant "gardens of Adonis", small pots containing fast-growing plants, which they would set on top of their houses in the hot sun. The plants would sprout, but soon wither and die. Then the women would mourn the death of Adonis, tearing their clothes and beating their breasts in a public display of grief. [Wiki]

• • •

Hey there, faithful solvers! Today's a Malaika MWednesday, and as always I am excited to share my thoughts and see what y'all have to say. If you'd like to get in the mood (the Malaika Mood, if you will), you can put on the same music I was listening to while I solved, which was "Bridge Over Troubled Water." More on that in the P.S. Onwards!

I really struggled with this puzzle. In retrospect, I have heard of both of the men in the first clue, but when presented with just their last names, I didn't get what I was looking for. At the next clue, I didn't know either of the men and literally sighed in a "Oh no, it's one of these puzzles," fashion. With the men in the third clue, there seemed to be more hope, but the men in the fourth clue threw me again-- I briefly got Hubert H. Humphrey confused with Hugh Hefner (yikes) and then Humbert Humbert (double yikes).

On top of that, I didn't know two of the theme entries themselves-- ONE-EYED JACKS and FOUR-H LEADERS were both new to me. The latter was incredibly hard to parse. The bottom left, where there was a pile-up of short multi-word entries (I FOLD, NO LIE, SUE ME) also caused me some problems. (I liked the food-filled corner opposite, though-- with PAPAWS, JERKY, and SALSA.)

In college sometimes I would eat jerky for dinner :)

I don't consider myself a huge stickler for parallelism in themes but here it leapt out at me-- you simply do not count by going One, Double, Three, Four! If it were entries that started with various mismatched numerical terms, like one, double, trio, quarter, I'd have less of a problem with it, although that would obviously be harder to work into the clues. The more I reflect on the cleverness of the parsing, the more this grows on me, but while solving I found it a bit of a slog, and even afterwards I wouldn't say I'm dazzled. Curious to see how you all feel!

Bullets:

• [Rathskeller offerings, informally] for BREWSKIS — I've heard of "brewski" for beer, but always figured the plural would be "brewskies." I think this entry is supposed to be the actual German word though, not the American slang, which is hinted at by using (apparently) the German word for "bar" in the clue.
• [Frog transformer] for KISS — I thought this was very cute :)
• [Convex navel] for OUTIE — I cracked up laughing at using the mathematical term "convex" to describe a belly button. But, they're not wrong!!
• [Gooey sandwiches, informally] for PBJS — Idk why but this grossed me out!! A sandwich should not be "gooey!!" Do not describe a sandwich to me as gooey!!!! 
• [Lighthearted refrain] for TRALA — This is one of those entries that I would like to see totally phased out, along with "tec." I'd be more sympathetic if it were Captain Underpants' "tra la la" but with just two syllables it sounds so lacking.

xoxo Malaika

P.S. On Twitter, people have been discussing the prompt "thirteen albums to know me." The idea is that it's un-ordered, and off the top of your head-- don't agonize over the decision!! Here were mine, if you're interested in knowing me: 

• Pure Heroine (Lorde)
• Jagged Little Pill (Alanis Morissette)
• Let Go (Avril Lavigne)
• Come Away With Me (Norah Jones)
• Lemonade (Beyonce)
• Bridge Over Troubled Water (Simon & Garfunkel)
• ANTI (Rihanna)
• SOUR (Olivia Rodrigo)
• Speak Now (Taylor Swift)
• Rumours (Fleetwood Mac)
• Tapestry (Carol King)
• Wildheart (Miguel)
• 19 (Adele)

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