Tackle item hung from floaters / SAT 3-30-24 / Paradoxical line of amazement / Two-character Mamet play / ___ Records, onetime label for the Kinks and Petula Clark / Hanky, slangily

Constructor: Blake Slonecker

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: GILL NET (1A: Tackle item hung from floaters) —

[The Salmon Fisher, Eilif Peterssen (1889)]

Gillnetting is a fishing method that uses gillnets: vertical panels of netting that hang from a line with regularly spaced floaters that hold the line on the surface of the water. The floats are sometimes called "corks" and the line with corks is generally referred to as a "cork line." The line along the bottom of the panels is generally weighted. Traditionally this line has been weighted with lead and may be referred to as "lead line." A gillnet is normally set in a straight line. Gillnets can be characterized by mesh size, as well as colour and type of filament from which they are made. Fish may be caught by gillnets in three ways:

1. Wedged – held by the mesh around the body.
2. Gilled – held by mesh slipping behind the opercula.
3. Tangled – held by teeth, spines, maxillaries, or other protrusions without the body penetrating the mesh.

Most fish have gills. A fish swims into a net and passes only part way through the mesh. When it struggles to free itself, the twine slips behind the gill cover and prevents escape.

Gillnets are so effective that their use is closely monitored and regulated by fisheries management and enforcement agencies. Mesh size, twine strength, as well as net length and depth are all closely regulated to reduce bycatch of non-target species. (wikipedia)

• • •

Well this was hard, which is what a Saturday should be, but again I cannot say that it was particularly fun. GILL NET was probably the most unfun thing in the puzzle, and it was the first (and last) thing I encountered. There are certain words, like GILL NET, and to a lesser extent CORN PIT, that make me wish constructors curated their wordlists better. I don't know why you would ever want something as ... let's say, niche ... as GILL NET at your 1-Across position. Following that up with CRAPPER, well ... that sets a tone, for sure (see also NOSE RAG, yeesh). There was lots of clever cluing in this puzzle, and some of it worked well, but the grid itself is just OK. As with yesterday's puzzle, not nearly enough marquee answers for my taste. Unlike yesterday's puzzle, though, this one is absolutely choked with proper-noun trivia. I found this puzzle difficult and I knew almost all the trivia stuff. Can't imagine what it would've been like if it was beyond your ken (as GILL NET was beyond mine—the only thing in the grid that was). I wrote in OLEANNA like "oof, do people still know that?" (59A: Two-character Mamet play). And right next to that, TIM REID (great actor, but possibly obscure to younger solvers) (58A: Actor who played DJ Venus Flytrap on "WKRP in Cincinnati"). A thirty-year-old tennis comeback down there too (48D: Tennis star with a famed 1995 comeback), and a bygone record label (53A: ___ Records, onetime label for the Kinks and Petula Clark), and two financial services names (fun!) (sarcasm!). I knew all these names, and maybe you did too, so maybe there's no problem. But it felt like A Lot. 

The joy (as often happens) came from the longer answers, which managed to stay hidden from me for a while. Really tough to bring down. Shot 'em full of crosses and they still wouldn't fall, but when they finally did, they were all satisfying. The hardest one really gave me a "D'oh!" feeling when I finally got it. I was, of course, reading the "Patient" (and thus the "check-ins") in 32A: Patient check-ins all wrong. "Patient" turns out to be an adjective, not a noun, and the medical context is absolutely phantasmic. I had REMINDERS and still no clue. "Appointment REMINDERS? Take-your-pill REMINDERS? What the hell fits in 6 letters!?" Plus, one of the GENTLE crosses, 33D: Stripling, could've been LAD or TAD ("a small child, esp. a boy"—merriam-webster.com), so yeah, GENTLE was tough to come up with (esp. since I was getting no help from the largely empty NW (aka the GILL NET corner). But the clue works. The misdirection works. You got me, and I'm not mad, which is always the goal. Mad at GILL NET and the CRAPPER (worst buddy pic of all time), not mad at GENTLE REMINDERS at all. CHRISTMAS SEASON also had some nice misdirection (it's when "the lights" go outside, not when the lights are extinguished) (8D: When the lights go out?). And while "THERE ARE NO WORDS" didn't have any tricky misdirection in its clue (7D: Paradoxical line of amazement), the clue was still interesting (kind of funny), and hard. So the bones of this puzzle are strong, at least.

Lots of things to explain today so ... let's start explaining (best we can)

Explainers (and gripes and highlights):

• 16A: Stanley Cup edge (HOME ICE) — "Edge" here means "advantage"; when you play at home, as opposed to away, you (presumably) have the "edge."
• 20A: With 22-Across, pricey import (FOREIGN / CAR) — this didn't track. What is a FOREIGN CAR, anyway? I always thought Honda and Toyota were "foreign" (i.e. Japanese), but they're not "pricey." Does the actual manufacture have to take place abroad to qualify? Even looking up "FOREIGN CAR" isn't that much help. People can't seem to agree what the term means with any precision.
• 25A: Kennedy center? (ENS) — the "letteral" clue strikes again! (these are the letters, the "n"s (ENS) at the "center" of "Kennedy")

• 26A: Verb that becomes a five-letter alphabet run if you change its middle letter (ABIDE) — this is so dumb that I kind of like it. Anyway, it was a gimme (I had the "B" from BAD SPOT and could infer all the other letters from the clue)
• 35A: Means of excellence? (A AVERAGES) — "Means" = mathematical term, equivalent to ... "averages"
• 44A: +/- (OR SO) — gotta say it out loud ("plus or minus") for it to really register
• 60A: Name in 2008 Wall Street news (STEARNS) — Ah, the global recession and subprime mortgage crisis. Who doesn't love remembering that? (this one was a vibe-killer, the GILL NET of the southern half of this grid)
• 3D: Where the Cedar Revolution took place (LEBANON) — the one answer that I had sitting comfortably in the NW after my first pass. At some point I learned that that's a cedar tree on LEBANON’s flag, and never forgot it.

• 34D: Grp. concerned with digital learning (NEA) — really really thought there was going to be a "digital" misdirect here (i.e. that the answer would have to do with fingers ... maybe something to do with braille, sign language, I dunno ...), but no. Just ... e-learning in general (NEA stands for National Education Association, the largest labor union in the country). Kinda boring. But NEA is boring fill, so who cares? Moving on.
• 52D: Big blow (GALE) — saw right through this one, i.e. knew it was going to be wind-related and not impact-related. Had the "G" and wrote in .... GUST :(
• 5D: Simple souls (NAIFS) — and we're back to GILL NET. Again. I had the answer here as WAIFS, which isn't a particularly good answer for this clue, but unlike NAIFS, it's a word humans actually use. NAIFS, esp. in the plural, looks insane. Almost as insane as seeing PISCINE clued as anything but a French swimming pool (12D: Like some schools = schools of fish; in English, PISCINE just means "of or related to fish").

• 15A: Instruction to trick-or-treaters (ONE EACH) — the NW corner strikes again. I had "TAKE ONE" here. "ONE EACH" sounds brusque and, when facing excited little children dressed in ridiculous costumes, kind of dickish. Don't be so miserly. Or just put the candy in the kid's bag yourself if you need to be so controlling. 
• 1D: Wood source (GOLF BAG) — A "wood" is a variety of golf club. Woods and irons (drivers putters and wedges too, or so I'm told, I'm allergic to everything about golf that isn't miniature)

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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