Chewy barbecue bits / SAT 6-29-24 / Magazine with a "Skater of the Year" award / Exploding part of a touch-me-not / Parsons who worked on "Abbey Road" and "The Dark Side of the Moon" / Down during difficult times? / Modern medium for jotting things down / Touristy district in Rome

Constructor: Adrian Johnson and Rafael Musa

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: EID AL-ADHA (13A: Islam's feast of sacrifice) —

Eid al-Adha (Arabic: عيد الأضحى, romanized: ʿĪd al-ʾAḍḥā, EED əl AD-hə; IPA: [ˈʕiːd alˈʔadˤħaː]), commonly translated as the Feast of Sacrifice and also known as Yawm an-Nahr (Arabic: يوم النحر, romanized: Yawm al-Naḥr), is the second of the two main Islamic holidays alongside Eid al-Fitr. In the Islamic calendar, Eid al-Adha falls on the 10th day of the twelfth and final month of Dhu al-Hijja, and celebrations and observances are generally carried forward to the three following days, known as the Tashreeq days.

As with Eid al-Fitr, the Eid prayer is performed on the morning of Eid al-Adha, after which udhiyah, or the ritual sacrifice of sheep, may be performed. In Islamic tradition, it honours the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son as an act of obedience to God's command. Depending on the narrative, either Ishmael or Isaac are referred to with the honorific title "Sacrifice of God". Pilgrims performing the Hajj typically perform the tawaf and saee of Hajj on Eid al-Adha, along with the ritual stoning of the devil on the Eid day and the following days.

Eid al-Adha is also sometimes called the "Greater Eid" (Arabic: العيد الكبير, romanized: al-ʿĪd al-Kabīr). In India it is also called Bakra-Id. (wikipedia)

• • •

Aaaaaand once again Saturday is the new Friday. This was Friday- (not Saturday-) easy, and had all the pop and whoosh and flow and fun that I want my Fridays to have. Well, it wasn't all fun. I finished up in the SE, where there was definitely some grumbling. My grumbling. LOL that I'm supposed to know the name of a skating (i.e. skateboarding) magazine (42A: Magazine with a "Skater of the Year" award), though I will say that THRASHER was inferrable, as I guess I've heard of skateboarding as "thrashing" before. This "Glossary of Skateboarding Terms and Slang" (from Surfer Today dot com) defines a "Thrasher" as "an avid or enthusiastic skater," so there you go. Ooh, also, looks like there's an iconic skateboarding movie of 1986 called Thrashin'. Iconic to skaters, that is. Maybe not "iconic." Well-known, perhaps. Divisive, it seems. (This conversation between Josh Brolin and Tony Hawk (both in the movie) is very funny):

But beyond this random piece of skating trivia, there were other "???" moments in the SE, the worst of which, for me, was TRAIL AWAY (46A: What a speaker might do if nobody is listening to them)—specifically the "AWAY" part. The phrase is "TRAIL OFF," isn't it? I mean, don't answer, it definitely is. When I got TRAIL and OFF wouldn't fit I made the saddest/angriest face. But oh, before that, I had to actually *get* to TRAIL, and that wasn't easy, what with GRAM Parsons sitting in on the Abbey Road and Dark Side of the Moon sessions, dear lord! I had just listened to a series of podcasts about GRAM Parsons, so I should've known the timeline and especially the catalogue was wrong here, but, I mean, famous musical Parsons, four letters, the "A" works ... I was semi-locked in. Gah! (43D: Parsons who worked on "Abbey Road" and "The Dark Side of the Moon" = ALAN). I also encountered my third "ON" of the grid down here (READ ON, after ON HAND and ADD-ONS), which is a teeny thing, really, as glitches go, but my accumulated good will from the previous 3/4 of this puzzle felt like it was draining away, so I was feeling every little imperfection. Trivia nearly killed me (THRASHER) but then trivia really bailed me out, as Aidy BRYANT is a very familiar name to me. Stunned to discover AIDY has been in the grid only once (Oct. 2023). That's a name built for crosswords. Today's BRYANT clue doesn't even contain "Aidy," which made it hardish. But I could infer it from a few crosses. Anyway, this corner was a mild bummer, but my overall experience was something close to elated. And check out Aidy BRYANT in Shrill, it's very good. 

Back to the elation. Nice to have a big fat gimme at 1-Across today (1A: Sound from a kid = MAA). Gave me all the first letters in a bank of 6-letter answers, hurray. ADORED and AIN'T SO to POD and MESS UP and bam, the whole far NW is set before I have a chance to think. But now I've got EID ... and, uh ... if the next bit is not MUBARAK!, I confess, I give up. I *should've* known EID AL-FITR (which would've fit ... r), since that's the EID I know—the feast celebrating the end of Ramadan. But I didn't even have that in my arsenal. And EID AL-ADHA—totally new to me today. But if it's one of the two main Islamic holidays, I can't exactly complain it's obscure, now can I? I enjoyed learning that there's more than one EID, and I especially enjoyed that I was able to learn this without my grid absolutely blowing up—all crosses fair! And I'm grateful that EID AL-ADHA introduced a little struggle into my solve (which needed it). My main experience of the NW was not the struggle caused by EID AL-ADHA but the explosion of great answers that started here and then shot across the grid in all directions. STRESS EAT (19A: Down during difficult times?) and SNOW ANGEL (17A: Something that's made lying down) into THEATER DISTRICT (getting DISTRICT was my first big whoosh) (6D: Play area), and then onto the UNEVEN BARS and getting down with the BOSSA NOVA, with very little trouble. And the hits kept coming: "I WON'T BITE"! RUSSIAN SPY! (great clue) (36A: Red plant?). RIB TIPS! (29A: Chewy barbecue bits). And "JUST FYI," so good, so colloquially on-the-nose (33A: "In case it's of interest ..."). I had just the terminal "I" and thought "what the hell!?!?" So nice to go from "what the hell!?!?" to "Oh, wow, yes, that's it. Seemed impossible, but ... there it is!"

I think I've covered my only real sticking points today. I absolutely botched AKON by totally misreading the clue. I kept thinking the last letter was moved to the front instead of the front to the back, so even after I'd finished the puzzle, I was wondering where the Hell NAKO, Hawaii was. You have no idea how many four-letter singers I tried in there. "ENYA? ... BONO? ... CHER? ... NE-YO? ... come on, one of you gotta have a Hawaiian name in you somewhere!" AKON => KONA. That was the key. 

Notes:

• 24A: Exploding part of a touch-me-not (POD) — no idea what this is. Looks like it's a plant that recoils from touch, also called a "touch-and-die" and "shameplant," wow. In addition to recoiling, they have seed pods that "explode," it seems. In addition to never having heard of this, I misread the clue (again!) as "Exploring part ..." and so was looking for "tendril" or ... I don't know, something, "reach-out-and-touch"-y like that. "Touch-me-not" apparently has (human) sexual meaning as well as botanical meaning. I'll leave you to explore (!) that meaning for yourself. [UPDATE: apparently "touch me not" is the name for "two unrelated groups of plants" (!?) and wikipedia gave me the "wrong" one. Sigh. Here's the "right" one (a variety of impatiens)]:

• 27A: Online chatter? (BOT) — chatBOTs are a pretty common (and horrible) feature of online life, especially if you're trying to deal with, say, your local internet service provider or the power company or whatever.
• 31A: 1990 civil rights legislation, for short (ADA) — Americans with Disabilities Act
• 2D: "You're lyin'!" ("AIN'T SO!") — after "ARE NOT!" wouldn't fit ... "AIN'T SO!" didn't take too long. I had yokel-speak on the brain because we're in the middle of a two-part Love Boat episode where Donny Osmond is an aspiring singer about to get his big break (singing on a cruise!?) but his "mountain folk" family has decided to show up and see him and he's embarrassed by their country ways so I'm sure he's gonna learn some kind of lesson about being yourself and loving your family blah blah blah. Anyway, his mom is played by Marion ("Mrs. C") Ross and his dad by Slim Pickens and his sister by Loni "I used to be in crosswords more" Anderson, who they've got done up as a pure "hillbilly" caricature, from the look to the accent. Kind of a cross between Ellie Mae (Beverly Hillbillies) and Daisy Mae (L'il Abner). Loni's engaged to some farmer guy but now that she's on this cruise, she's seeing what the big wide world has to offer, and this includes the notoriously sexy Rich Little yes that Rich Little no I am not making this up. Rich Little is the record producer or agent or I forget what but he's the guy who's gonna "discover" Donny Osmond ... but now he's hitting on Donny's sister Loni ... who is already engaged. What will Mrs. C think!? I'll be sure to let you know how it turns out once I watch Part 2. I forget why I started telling you all this in the first place. 

• 10D: Modern medium for jotting things down (NOTES APP) — not an exciting answer, but original, probably, and very real. I use a NOTES APP all the time when I've got text I want to retain or ideas I need to dump and I don't know what to do with them just yet.
• 31D: Robbins who co-wrote the "Rocky" theme "Gonna Fly Now" (AYN) — the kind of ridiculous trivia you resort to when you Know your puzzle is gonna play too easy. If it ain't Rand, then I AYN't gonna know what you're talking about. 
• 48D: Make rent (RIP) — "rent" = "torn" here.
• 54A: Something seen in a demo, for short (TNT) — "demo" = demolition. So I just learned that "dynamite" and TNT are not the same thing, and that where demolition is concerned "The industry’s material of choice remains dynamite, especially in concrete demolition and large, complex applications." (on-sitemag.com). Here's more, from wikipedia:

Trinitrotoluene (TNT) is often assumed to be the same as (or confused for) dynamite largely because of the ubiquity of both explosives during the 20th century. This incorrect connection between TNT and dynamite was enhanced by cartoons such as Bugs Bunny, where animators labeled any kind of bomb (ranging from sticks of dynamite to kegs of black powder) as TNT [...] Aside from both being high explosives, TNT and dynamite have little in common. [...] TNT has never been popular or widespread in civilian earthmoving, as it is considerably more expensive and less powerful by weight than dynamite, as well as being slower to mix and pack into boreholes. TNT's primary asset is its remarkable insensitivity and stability: it is waterproof and incapable of detonating without the extreme shock and heat provided by a blasting cap (or a sympathetic detonation) (my emph.)

I'm obviously out of my depth here, but I'm now weirdly wondering if TNT is, in fact, used for "a demo" (in the controlled, industrial sense). I can't say that I care, but I am wondering. OK bye.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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