Rod-shaped parasite / THU 8-15-24 / Persian's realm? / Kingpin on "The Wire" / Afro-Caribbean religion / Embarrassment from a self-own, perhaps / Straight, informally / Friends, in slang / 18th-century French novelist whose name means "the wise man" / One half of the merger that formed Paramount Global

Constructor: Damon Gulczynski

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: SPEECH-TO-TEXT (39A: Technology used in writing the starred clues?) — clues are written as if SPEECH-TO-TEXT technology misheard the speaker / clue writer (i.e. clues contain errant homophones):

Theme answers:

• EIFFEL TOWER (18A: *Rod-shaped parasite) ("Rod-shaped Paris site" (or "sight," I suppose))
• PARTY SUB (27A: *Soup or sandwich) ("Super sandwich")
• BUTT DIAL (54A: *Embarrassment from a self-own, perhaps) ("Embarrassment from a cell phone, perhaps)
• CLOUDY SKIES (62A: *Grade-A quality) ("Gray day quality")

Word of the Day: Alain-René LESAGE (19D: 18th-century French novelist whose name means "the wise man") —

Alain-René Lesage (French pronunciation: [alɛ̃ ʁəne ləsaʒ]; 6 May 1668 – 17 November 1747; older spelling Le Sage) was a French novelist and playwright. Lesage is best known for his comic novel The Devil upon Two Sticks (1707, Le Diable boiteux), his comedy Turcaret (1709), and his picaresque novel Gil Blas (1715–1735). // Very little is known of Lesage's life and personality. Various anecdotes represent him as a very independent man, declining to accept the literary patronage required to survive. One story tells of the time he had been entreated to read his manuscript (according to the fashion of the day) at the Hôtel de Bouillon by the Duchess. The hour appointed for the reading was noon, but the dramatist was still very interested in legal matters and was detained until 1 o'clock attending the decision of a lawsuit. When he finally appeared at the Hôtel and attempted to apologise, the Duchess of Bouillon was so cold and haughty, observing that he had made her guests lose one hour waiting for his arrival. "It is easy to make up the loss madame", replied Lesage; "I will not read my comedy, and thus you will gain two hours." With that, he left the Hôtel and could never be persuaded to return to the Duchess's house. (wikipedia)

• • •

Is the EIFFEL TOWER "rod-shaped"?? Of all the ways I would've described that structure (which I spent a lot of time looking at the last couple weeks, on account of the Olympics), "rod-shaped" is not among them. I think of a "rod" as perfectly straight. Like the "inanimate carbon rod" that wins "Employee of the Month" in that one "Simpsons" episode. That rod is straight. Rods are straight. The EIFFEL TOWER tapers to a point. Seems more like a narrow pyramid than a rod. So much so that I have been sitting here saying "rod-shaped" over and over, hoping to discover some SPEECH-TO-TEXT possibility that I'm missing. It's not like I struggled to get that first themer—I had EIFF- pretty quickly, so I just wrote in the obvious and then tried to figure out how the clue was supposed to make sense. I got the "Paris site" pun pretty quickly, so felt good about leaving EIFFEL TOWER in place, but not that good. Still feels like there's something I'm missing, so weird is "rod-shaped." The word "rod" appears nowhere on the EIFFEL TOWER's wikipedia page. But OK, fine, it's "rod-shaped," moving on... I thought the theme was fine, though it really felt like something I'd seen before. Not much difficulty, but it is kind of fun figuring out the SPEECH-TO-TEXT errors. The hardest speech command to figure out, for me, was the one that might produce "Grade-A quality". Weird, now, as it seems obvious: "Grade A" sounds exactly like "gray day." But I think my brain was trying to make one word out of "Grade A" and was only getting something like "Grady." Grady is the absent-minded friend of Fred Sanford on "Sanford & Son," but it was hard to see how anything about him evoked CLOUDY SKIES, so I just cocked my head and stared dumbly at the screen for a few seconds, like a dog trying to understand television, until "gray day" finally popped into my thick skull.

I know the "technology" here as "VOICE-TO-TEXT," though "SPEECH-TO-TEXT" is not only valid but actually Googles about twice as well. Is there any difference between the two, or are they just two different names for the same thing? I never (well, rarely) use SPEECH-TO-TEXT technology, as I just end up having to make corrections, which often take at least as long as it would've taken to compose the message in the first place. But I also hate adapting to any new technology, and most of my more normal friends and family have been using SPEECH-TO-TEXT for a while now, especially when they're out and about and need to send a quick text. I wouldn't say the revealer was hard to work out—I could already tell there were "mishearings" afoot—but SPEECH was definitely the (non-Paris) site, or locus, or whatever, of the toughest (for me) part of the puzzle. Not SPEECH itself, but the answers all around and through it, starting with LESAGE, which is LOL obscure at this point. In the olden days, you used to see GIL or BLAS clued as LESAGE’s (once) "famous" French novel GIL BLAS, so I must've seen the guy's name before, but if so, it registered not at all (GIL hasn't been clued that way since '08; for BLAS, it’s been since '10; note: while there are myriad ways to clue GIL, there's only one non-LESAGE way to clue BLAS: [Panama's Gulf of San ___]). I got LESAGE like many of you probably got it—by inferring it from "the wise one." 

Also running through SPEECH was REMEDY, which I very confidently wrote in as REPAIR (off the "RE-") (35D: Fix). This meant that though I immediately thought EVILEST for 47A: Most diabolical, it wouldn't work. It also wouldn't work because for 40D: Plant in the mint family with healthful seeds (CHIA), I somehow wrote in DILL (!?) and off of that wrote in ISO- (again, !?) at 44A: Straight, informally (HET). That is some creative f-ing up right there. And was it "AW HECK!" or "AW HELL!"? I wanted the former, which, to my eye/ear, is more "colorful" than the latter (which is more common, and therefore lacking "color"). So everything in the vicinity of SPEECH ended up being a mess (though SPEECH itself was not to blame). My struggles (though minor) extended west and south from there, as PCB seemed like it could be anything. I considered DDT, then really wanted CFC (chlorofluorocarbons), but eventually got PCB entirely from crosses and still don't know exactly what it is. Looks like it stands for "polychlorinated biphenyl." Huh. Alright then. Looks like letter gibberish. TCB. PCP. PBJ. Blah blah blas. I also struggled with TENTS (55D: Rainflies can cover them). I guess I don't go camping enough (i.e. ever ... well, rarely—I'm not averse, just lazy). In truth, though, the puzzle wasn't that hard. My only mistake outside the whole center-to-SW region was when I wrote BENCH in, first thing (1A: City sitting spot = STOOP).

Bullets:

• 12D: Small sofa (LOVE SEAT) — for better or worse (mostly worse), LOVE SEAT is going to make me think of JD Vance for the foreseeable future

• 6D: Persian's realm? (CATDOM) — Speaking of Vance, here's one for all the "childless cat ladies" out there! I love cats. I have two cats. I guess this (gestures to entire surroundings) is CATDOM? All cats are CATDOM? I dunno. This is not a word I can imagine using, except maybe facetiously, the way you might stick the -DOM suffix on anything to refer to the wider world of that thing (thiefdom! breaddom!). And yet it's a word. In the dictionary. And so is DOGDOM. And HORSEDOM (though the second hit I get on that search is the OED, which assumes I meant to search for "whoredom" (!?)). I would keep googling through all of animaldom, but coffee is calling my name, so before I google "giraffedom," I'll just move on.

• 57D: Identifying words from a familiar voice ("IT'S ME") — I really like this clue. I can't put my finger on why; it's pretty ordinary-looking. But there's something ... perfect about it. Spot on. 
• 21A: Base figure, for short (NCO) — a military base, not a low or evil creature, or a number, or whatever else "base" or "figure" might've made you think (NCO = non-commissioned officer, one of the first pieces of crosswordese I learned back in the day)
• 26D: Friends, in slang (PEEPS) — your people are your PEEPS. Because your friends are neon-colored marshmallow birds. 

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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