Hunger hyperbole / FRI 3-8-24 / World leader associated with the justicialism movement / Manette woman in A Tale of Two Cities / Needle on a thread? / Balanced, as some molecules / Flotsam once in Boston Harbor / Bread with charred brown spots / Hot rods popular in the '60s / "Herb" ... or a lead-in to herb

Constructor: Jackson Matz

Relative difficulty: Easy Medium (started Medium, then really sped up)

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: justicialism (42D: World leader associated with the justicialism movement = PERÓN) —

Peronism, also known as justicialism, is a labour and left-leaning Argentine political movement based on the ideas and legacy of Argentine ruler Juan Perón (1895–1974). It has been an influential movement in 20th- and 21st-century Argentine politics. Since 1946, Peronists have won 10 out of the 14 presidential elections in which they have been allowed to run. // Ideologically populist, Peronism is widely considered to be a variant of left-wing populism, although some have described it as a Latin American form of fascism instead. Others have criticized these descriptions as too one-dimensional, as Peronism also includes many variants, including Kirchnerism and revolutionary Peronism on the left, and Federal Peronism and Orthodox Peronism on the right. Peronism is described as socialist by some political scientists, while other scholars evaluate Peronism as a paternalistic conservative ideology, with a mixture of militant labourism and traditional conservatism. However, proponents of Peronism see it as socially progressive. The main Peronist party is the Justicialist Party, whose policies have significantly varied over time and across government administrations, but have generally been described as "a vague blend of nationalism and labourism", or populism. [...] The pillars of the Peronist ideal, known as the "three flags", are social justice, economic independence, and political sovereignty. Peronism can be described as a third position ideology as it rejects both capitalism and communism. Peronism espouses corporatism and thus aims to mediate tensions between the classes of society, with the state responsible for negotiating compromise in conflicts between managers and workers.

• • •

Loved this one, except for SELF-DRIVING CARS (31A: Things going beyond your control?), which are a menace and yet another step toward humankind's complete acquiescence to, let's see, the automotive industry, big tech, A.I.—all the things entities that have made life on this planet such a glorious, non-soul-crushing experience. The Great Utopian Vision of "Convenience!" (dubious) and "Safety!" (elusive) all so we can't have basic, nice things like functional public transit (because that would be Communist and anyway I hear the subways are full of crime and we need to send in the military—all my white neighbors who don't actually live in the city are saying so!). OK, anyway, loved this puzzle, and actually, as an answer, as a term that exists and is fairly modern, SELF-DRIVING CARS is not bad. Just ... when I see the term, my brain makes a WHOOPEE CUSHION noise (13D: Butt of a joke?).

Lots of whoosh-whoosh today ... or ... more like two big Whooshes, first down the west coast, and later down the east coast, with a connecting whoosh in those damned SELF-DRIVING CARS. Love the feeling of getting a grid-spanning entry off the first few letters, and that happened ... well, every time I encountered such an entry today. "CARE TO ELABORATE?" off the CAR-, WHOOPEE CUSHION off the WHOO- (though I spelled it WHOOPIE CUSHION at first, which still looks more right to me, even though my blogging software is underlining it in "red" like "nope, buddy, it's wrong"). With the long answers in the east, I actually worked out their middles first using the crosses, everything from DEB down to HEP, but didn't even bother looking at the clues on the long answers at that point (I don't like to look until I think I've got enough crosses to give me a good chance of getting it). Oh, actually, I must've looked at 11D: Jewelry gift for a 25th anniversary because I remember writing BRACELET in and then figuring I'd just head north and fill in the NE corner to figure out what metal was involved. Anyway, I held back on the whoosh feeling until I went up and worked out that NE corner, and then wheeeeee ... down I went via "I COULD EAT A HORSE" (fun ... grim, if you think about the answer too much, but fun if you don't!). The momentum from that blasted me right through the SE corner, and that was that. Done at NAAN, wishing I could get on the ride and do it again.

The difficulty today was all in the short stuff. That LESS LAND LIFT trio made for a thorny little passage from North to West (21A: What some consume on a diet / 21D: Secure / 24D: Steal). Speaking of "trios" ... that is the word you want when speaking of the Jonas Brothers: trio. They're a trio. They're a trio far more than they are a THREESOME (15A: The Jonas Brothers, e.g.). I know, technically, trio means THREESOME, but I was disappointed that the puzzle passed up the spicier clue there, both because ... spice, who doesn't like spice!? ... and because the clue they went with is dull and inapt. I was happy today to remember things I didn't think I was going to remember. Like that a STEM is a small part of a watch (the part on the side that you pull out and twist when you want to change the time or date or whatever), and that MONACO was a very small place, and that BARN could go before "door" or "dance" (I'm usually so bad at the "word that can go before/after"-type clues, so it's stunning to me that I got one this easily, especially one so RURAL). I had a nice experience with BALLER, in that I thought "huh, B-BALLER doesn't fit ... oh wait, I think it's just ... is it? ... yes, BALLER!" Stumbling into correct answers! What a feeling!

[they're laughing at the Jonas Brothers clue]

Bullets:

• 16A: Needle on a thread? (TROLL) — a very hard "?" clue. A TROLL is a person who tries to "needle" people in an internet thread (or, say, a comments section). Nothing makes me happier than deleting TROLLs. Every day. Pew pew! Buh-bye! Trying to stir up shit? Don't know the difference between disagreement and being a dick? See ya. Go cry "freedom of speech" to your mama, sad boy.
• 26A: Practice squad? Abbr. (DRS.) — another hard "?" clue. Doctors often work together in orgs. called "practices," so there you go. At least I hope that's the logic. 
• 36A: Student enrolled in courses like Contracts and Civil Procedures (ONE L) — slang for a first-year law student. Ancient Crosswordese. Stunned to see that from 1997 to 1999 (when crosswordese would've been much more rampant), ONE L made just one appearance a year. It's made two already this year (though in the last case, it was the actual theme of the puzzle, so no penalties for crosswordese were incurred). 
• 28D: "That's what I just said!" ("JINX!") — these do not feel equivalent. You don't say "JINX!" when someone repeats what you said (which is what "just said" implies). You shout it when you say something at the same time that someone else says it. I feel like this exclamation, in some regional variants, also involves various rituals, like punching the other person in the arm, or possibly adding "you owe me a Coke!" Where am I getting that last bit from? Did we just make that up as kids? OMG there's a whole reddit thread about this, of course there's a whole reddit thread about this... The following is from user "Kelpie-Cat"

According to the OED, the first documented use of jinxing as a children's game is in 1973. An article called "The Jinx Game: A Ritualized Expression of Separation-Individuation" by Jerome D. Oremland was published that year in The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child. Oremland describes the jinx game as "a sophisticated, stereotyped ritual". The version of the game he analyzes uses only the cry of "Jinx!" without any reference to soda or another reward. That the game may be much older is suggested by its equivalents in other linguistic environments: "Though the Game is played in a remarkably identical manner in various geographical areas, the word used to induce the spell varies widely, e.g., Israeli children shout, Ain, the Arabic word for ghost or evil eye". There is also a French variant called Chips, although it's unclear whether this is derivative of the English "jinx".

• 29D: Good name for a last-minute planner? (EVE) — yet another "?" clue that I had no clue about. I'm not sure this is a good name for a last-minute planner. RUSH might be a better name for such a person (though why anyone would name a human being RUSH, for reasons other than spite or malice, is beyond me).
• 34D: Pre-algebra class calculations (SLOPES) — I got this easy enough but didn't really get the "class" part. Why isn't this just [Pre-algebra calculations]? "Pre-algebra" is the class that you would be in when making such calculations, so "class" seems redundant.
• 25A: A mover ... but not a shaker, one hopes (VAN) — does one hope that, though? Seems like some people enjoy a shaking van. Or so I read.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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