Libby offerings / FRI 8-16-24 / "Chain Reaction" singer, 1985 / Artist Cindy known for her photographic self-portraits / Meals that traditionally include four cups of wine / Cheese also known as French Gruyère /

Constructor: Kate Hawkins

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Libby (20A: Libby offerings = EBOOKS) —

The Libby mobile app requests the user's library card. With the library card, Libby connects to the user's account at the library and provides support in checking out books. The intent is improved service and ease of accessing the library instead of using the library's own website.

A reviewer for Literary Review of Canada praised Libby's management of reading data, including books read and books in queue for reading. A reviewer for Time called Libby one of the best apps of 2018. Popular Mechanics named Libby as one of the best apps of the 2010s.

According to OverDrive CEO Steve Potash, as of 2023, Libby is used by approximately "90% of public libraries in North America". Free library services of the sort supported by Libby are unusual in a time period when almost all such services come from commercial vendors. (wikipedia)

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The pillars of this puzzle are very nice (PLAYED MIND GAMES, "ALL KIDDING ASIDE..."), and the other longer answers are at least solid, with SELL SHORT over STAY TUNED being perhaps the spunkiest section (SPUNKIER, that is, than most other sections). That said, the puzzle runs a little plain, a little dull. Beyond the pillars, the marquee stuff doesn't quite sing. I might feel differently if I were more on the puzzle's cultural wavelength. There are probably people for whom ZOOLANDER is a welcome answer (30D: Film character who asks "Did you ever think that maybe there's more to life than being really, really, really ridiculously good-looking?"). I saw that movie when it came out, in the theater, once, and haven't thought about it since. The clue meant nothing to me. I had -OOL and thought there was some movie character named COOL Somebody Or Other. COOL KEN or something. It sounded like something a Ken would say. I've seen many Bond films in my life, though almost none of the recent (i.e. 21st century) ones, and if I ever saw Goldfinger, I certainly forgot that any part of it took place in the ALPS. That "Locale" could've been anywhere. Any four-letter place. CUBA? LAOS? I wanted to write in MOON (this is probably because I saw Moonraker at the New Beverly in L.A. two years ago, the last time I watched a Bond flick). And I lived through the '80s and listened to more radio then than at any other time in my life and I still have no idea, as I sit here right now, what Diana ROSS song this is—"Chain Reaction"? LOL OK now I see why I don't remember it. It Peaked at No. 66 (!?) In This Country, wwwwhhhhyyyy is this the Diana ROSS song you're using!? Yeesh. The woman had more Top Ten hits than you can shake a stick at (both solo and with the Supremes), and you give me "Chain Reaction?" Yes, it was (apparently!) No. 1 in Ireland and Australia and the UK, but I do not live in those places, and the bulk of the NYTXW's solvership does not live in those places, and the NYT is not based in those places, so cluing ROSS this was is inexplicable, really.

[listening to this now and I swear I've never heard it before, ever ... which, considering how much radio I listened to and how much MTV I consumed in the mid-80s, feels statistically impossible; this song simply didn't register in the U.S.]

Also no clue about Libby. None. I was thinking tea, but that's Lipton. Libby's (apostrophe "S") was a company that produced canned food and vegetables for a time. Libby's Libby's Libby's on the label label label you will like it like it like it on your table table table. If you watched a lot of TV in the '70s, then you know what I'm talking about. But E-BOOKS. Nope. I hate E-BOOKS. Reading for me is an opportunity *not* to look at a screen or hold a "device." I tried. Lord I tried. Seemed ... efficient, or paper-saving, or something, but the whole E-BOOKS experience is just soul-crushing for me, so nope. Nope. I do use the library app Hoopla, but mostly just to stream free movies. I've never seen the Libby logo until today. It seems ... popular. But I never heard of it. So once again, the puzzle just missed me, culturally. On the other hand, Cindy SHERMAN (24D: Artist Cindy known for her photographic self-portraits) and HOLLY Hunter (17A: Hunter on screen) are old friends (so to speak), so the puzzle's cultural POV didn't miss me entirely. It just missed me enough to make this otherwise easy puzzle somewhat difficult. Which put it right at expected difficulty level, I guess. The puzzle was very ... expected. I mean, it feels like the definition of "just fine." It's well made. It's not loaded with gunk. Some of the clues are tricky. A routine Friday, in most respects. Nothing particularly standout, nothing particularly godawful.

[OMG Cousin Oliver! LOL, wow, YouTube is a drug]

Lots of opportunities for missteps today, most notably, I think, at 54A: Add exaggerated details to, where you could have the first three letters (EMB-) and still write in the wrong answer, i.e. EMBELLISH. EMBELLISH fits, both spacewise and meaningwise, and it's a more common word (in this particular sense) than EMBROIDER. I'd use EMBELLISH. I would not use EMBROIDER. But that's OK. Not faulting the puzzle, only pointing out the dastardliness of the clue and the EMB- coincidence. There's also the potential RATTLE-for-RACKET misstep (36D: Clatter) (I made this one, or at least strongly considered making it). Did you spell BURGS right at first pass? (21D: Small towns). I didn't (BERGS!). I think that's it for actual slip-ups. There were some absolute did-not-knows, like COMTE (49A: Cheese also known as French Gruyère), and ... hmmm, that may be the only answer in the grid that I truly didn't recognize (though I've almost certainly seen it in cheese shops and cheese sections of supermarkets over the years, but like a pedestrian clod just kept buying boring old Gruyère, I guess) (which is Swiss, not French, despite its French-looking name).

Notes:

• 18A: English cathedral city (ELY) — a reflex answer for old-timers like me. Put it in your crosswordese quiver right now, 'cause you're gonna see it again (if you don't see Tarzan portrayer Ron ELY first) (there's also apparently an ELY, Nevada, and even an ELY, Minnesota, but it's the cathedral city and the Tarzan guy that dominate Elydom)
• 33A: Expeditions, e.g. (FORDS) — The Expedition is an SUV produced by Ford Motor Co.
• 30A: Where lines may be drawn in the sand (ZEN GARDEN) — excellent clue, one that kept me stumped for a good while (since I didn't have the "Z" from ZOOLANDER). ZEN GARDENs contain gravel or sand that is raked "to represent ripples in water." The rakes produce the lines ... in the sand.
• 14D: Things found in a well (STAIRS) — er, I guess. But you'd never call a stairwell anything but a stairwell. You'd never (ever) refer to the space in which one finds the STAIRS as simply the "well." This clue definitely feels like a case of TTH (Trying Too Hard). 
• 35D: Million ___ March (political event of 2000) (MOM) — you'd be forgiven for putting in MAN here. The Million MOM March was, in fact, modeled on (or at least patterned its name after) the Million Man March, which was held five years earlier. The "Man" march was concerned with the civil rights of Black men. The "MOM" march was concerned with gun violence.
• 55A: Coin once known as the "piece of eight" (PESO) — I have only ever encountered the term in the plural ("pieces of eight"), and then only because it was the title of a Styx album. I saw that album cover in record stores a lot as a kid. Never heard the title song, but this song (the biggest hit on the album) was a juggernaut: 

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]