Frequent Ja Rule collaborator / FRI 7-12-24 / Assignment in a classic first job / Secondary social media account, informally / Jewish noodle dish / "Because of Winn-Dixie" narrator / Predator on a continental shelf / What OpenAI's DALL-E creates / "A vodka and Red Bull for the discerning," per Difford's cocktail guide / Rapper featured on Taylor Swift's 2024 "Fortnight" /

Constructor: Malaika Handa

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (if you know the proper nouns ... probably harder if you don't)

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: POST MALONE (29D: Rapper featured on Taylor Swift's 2024 "Fortnight") —

Austin Richard Post (born July 4, 1995), known professionally as Post Malone, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, and guitarist. Malone has gained distinction and acclaim for his blending of various genres including hip hop, pop, R&B, and trap. His stage name was derived from inputting his birth name into a rap name generator. [...] Malone is among the best-selling music artists, with over 80 million records sold. His accolades include ten Billboard Music Awards, three American Music Awards, one MTV Video Music Award, and nine Grammy Award nominations. He holds several Billboard chart records: He is the first solo lead artist to top both the Rap Airplay and Adult Contemporary charts, while "Circles" set the record for longest climb to number one (41 weeks) on the Adult Contemporary chart by a solo artist. As of 2024, Malone holds the record for the artist with the most diamond-certified songs, with nine to his name. (wikipedia)

• • •

Usually when I say an answer made me laugh, I mean it figuratively, which is to say that I found it very funny, or it made me smile, so I'm laughing *inside* (it's usually 4 in the morning when I'm writing, with my wife still asleep in the next room, so outright guffawing would generally be, let's say, ill-advised). But today, I actually laughed, because I thought my answer to a clue was funny but that it *had* to be wrong ... only it turned out to be right. I'm speaking, of course, of "GIRL..." (55D: "Let me tell you ..."). The way I heard that answer so clearly in my head, LOL (It's the voice of a Black woman or a gay man or a drag queen). "Girrrrrrl..." is probably closer to the way I'd spell it. So often, crossword clues miss when they try to evoke a specific colloquialism, but this one: right on the money. I wrote in "GIRL..." to amuse myself, but then all the crosses checked out. Such an unexpectedly fun moment— about as much fun as a four-letter answer is capable of generating.

But I was very happy with this puzzle well before "GIRL..." The long answers are Not Wasted in this puzzle. So much marquee goodness just swooshing and SLASHING across this grid. Even the alcoholic abomination that is the ESPRESSO MARTINI felt fresh and fun (as a crossword answer) (39A: "A vodka and Red Bull for the discerning," per Difford's cocktail guide). If I have to have an ESPRESSO MARTINI, I definitely prefer it in crossword form (as opposed to liquid form, hard pass).  I love my coffee and I love my cocktails and never (ever) the twain shall meet. I know that the ESPRESSO MARTINI is one of the hot cocktails of the last decade or so but I just can't. Seems like something for people who drink their cocktails through CRAZY STRAWs. Maybe I just haven't had the right one (I haven't had any—not wasting my one cocktail-a-day limit on that). I do enjoy AMERICANOS, esp. when I know the brewed coffee is going to be *** (looking at you, Starb*cks). But enough about my imbibing preferences. I thought this puzzle did everything a Friday's supposed to do: whoosh and entertain. I can see how the puzzle would be less fun for people who had never heard of POST MALONE or ASHANTI; the latter hasn't really been a big name since ... well, since Ja Rule was a big name (20 years ago?), but POST MALONE is arguably the biggest musical artist on the planet not named Taylor Swift or Beyoncé (see "Word of the Day," above), so I'm afraid that if you don't know that name, that's harder to justify being outraged about. Anyway, both names are very fairly crossed, so hopefully if you didn't know either or both of those names, you got through OK and your enjoyment of the puzzle wasn't terribly diminished. Me, I was split. ASHANTI is an OK answer, but older, and I've seen the name before, whereas POST MALONE felt new and good (as with the ESPRESSO MARTINI, I don't partake of POST MALONE myself, as a rule, but I like when the puzzle lives, at least partially, in the Now).

There were only a few small parts of this puzzle that made me grumble. The first was really a "me" problem, in that I couldn't figure out BRS (6D: Abbr. in an apartment listing). Well, the fact that it's an ugly abbr. is a puzzle problem, but my fumbling it is a "me" problem. Admittedly, haven't looked for an apartment in over thirty years, but my brain wanted BDRM or BRM or something with an "M" in it. Maybe I'm confusing it with BSMT ("basement"), which an apartment listing probably wouldn't have. I guess BRS is a logical abbr. here. "B" = "bed," "R" = "room," makes sense. Still, there's no clue that's gonna make BRS good. Sometimes you need a small bit of gunk to hold your good long answers together. It's fine. The other "oof" for me came with the clue on DIGITAL ART (62A: What OpenAI's DALL-E creates). Any plug for generative AI, especially a plug for a specific company, is gonna diminish my solving enjoyment considerably. [Just imagine a long rant here about the dehumanizing / plagiaristic / environmentally disastrous aspects of generative AI, I'm too tired]. If y'all try to put DALL-E in a puzzle, I swear to god ....

Speed round:

• 3D: "Because of Winn-Dixie" narrator (OPAL) — this story / movie missed me entirely. I am aware of the title, but literally nothing else about it. For all I know, it's about a talking dog. Is it? I feel like there's a dog on the cover of the book. Yesssss! There is. Does it talk? Please say it talks. 

["I wuv you, wittle girl"]

• 36D: Carnival prize (TOY) — I wanted TAN (think Rio)
• 50D: Jewish noodle dish (KUGEL) — had the "K" and immediately wrote in KNISH; I knew it was wrong as I was doing it, but that didn't stop my fingers from typing the letters. My sincere apologies to the Jewish and culinary and Jewish culinary communities.
• 38D: Push one's buttons? (DIAL) — I love how wrong/right this answer is. That is, if you're literally DIALing, you don't push any buttons. We still use DIAL to refer to placing calls with a non-dial phone. Phones used to have literal DIALs kids. 9s took so long ... Things were better when they were clunky and slow and avocado green and not-at-all-mobile!
• 67A: Animated character who serves as an official Japanese tourism ambassador (HELLO KITTY) — always love seeing HELLO KITTY in the grid (this is its sixth appearance). Remind me of the story I've told here many times about when Andrea Carla Michaels told me Will Shortz rejected one of her puzzles that contained HELLO KITTY because he'd never heard of it and didn't think it would be well known, then shortly thereafter he saw an article about HELLO KITTY in an inflight magazine and told her what an amazing coincidence he thought that was. Anyway, clearly he came around, eventually. That story caused me to construct my first puzzle: a Norse gods puzzle (HELLO KITTY, "MOOD INDIGO," etc.), though I think I wasn't the first (or the last) to have that idea.
• 23D: First in a line of Egyptian pharaohs (RAMSES I) — I had the gist of it right but didn't figure on the "I" part and so tried to spell his name RAMESES

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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