Stylized name for a caffeinated soft drink / THU 8-1-24 / They're found next to cabarets / Viable investment plans / Shows signs of mythomania / Cocktail served in a copper mug, familiarly / Isaac Newton from the age of 62 onward / Approximate recipe measure

Constructor: Rajeswari Rajamani

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: RIPPED ABS (61A: Many a gymgoer's goal ... or what the starred clues in this puzzle must have for their answers to make sense?) — you have to "rip" the "abs" (i.e. the letters "ab") from the starred clues to make sense of them:

Theme answers:

• EXPONENTS (17A: *They're found next to cabarets [carets])
• PONZI SCHEMES (24A: *Viable [Vile] investment plans)
• EMAILS (38A: *They might be marked as absent [sent])
• ORALLY (40A: *Baby [By] talk)
• BELOW THE BELT (49A: *Like some nasty habits [hits])

Word of the Day: Junipero SERRA (67A: Junipero ___, known as the "Apostle of California") —

Saint Junípero Serra Ferrer O.F.M. (/huːˈniːpəroʊ ˈsɛrə/; Spanish: [xuˈnipeɾo ˈsera]; November 24, 1713 – August 28, 1784), popularly known simply as Junipero Serra, was a Spanish Catholic priest and missionary of the Franciscan Order. He is credited with establishing the Franciscan Missions in the Sierra Gorda, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. He founded a mission in Baja California and established eight  of the 21 Spanish missions in California from San Diego to San Francisco, in what was then Spanish-occupied Alta California in the Province of Las Californias, New Spain.

Serra was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 25 September 1988 in Vatican City. Amid denunciations from Native American tribes who accused Serra of presiding over a brutal colonial subjugation, Pope Francis canonized Serra on 23 September 2015 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., during his first visit to the United States. Serra's missionary efforts earned him the title of "Apostle of California".

Both before and after his canonization, Serra's reputation and missionary work during the Spanish occupation have been condemned by critics, who cite alleged mandatory conversions to Catholicism, followed by abuse of the Native American converts. (wikipedia)

• • •

I made this harder than it had to be by resolutely refusing to go down to the bottom of the grid and figure out the revealer early. I thought about it, after the first two themers didn't quite seem to match their clues, but the puzzle was so easy to fill in that I thought, nah, just let the revealer be the revealer—wait for it. And I did. And it was RIPPED ABS. Which did, in fact ... well, it "explained" more than "revealed." Is there a difference? I would say the effect of a true "revealer" is "wow" or "ooh" or some kind of at least low-key amazement or impressed reaction, whereas an "explainer" just has you going "oh, OK, I see now." As in "Oh, OK, I see now, I just take the "ab" parts out of the starred clues ... yes, that does help." The idiomatic use of RIPPED didn't quite work for me. Rip out? Rip off? "Rip" can mean copy (as when you "rip" a CD to your computer). But "Rip" meaning simply "steal" or "take" just feels slightly off to my ears. Maybe it's a recent IDIOM that just missed me. It feels right, I get it, but on some fundamental level it feels off. Otherwise, the concept here is pretty straightforward. The "ab"-less clues are sometimes a little awkward (e.g. "by talk" for ORALLY) but it's no surprise if they're a little contrived—it takes some contrivance to make all your fake clues contain an unnecessary "ab" but still look like plausible clues. The one weird thing about solving, pre-revealer, is that the original clues occasionally seemed to *almost* fit a couple of times. Like, I got PONZI SCHEMES and thought, "hmmm, those are 'investment plans,' I guess ... but 'Viable'? ... is the theme 'Sarcasm'?"). BELOW THE BELT also felt *close* to its original clue (49A: Like some nasty habits). The nastiness is there, at any rate. So the theme "works" just fine, but it didn't wow me, mainly because the revealer didn't quite stick the landing (didn't help that my first thought for the type of "ABS" a gymgoer might want was WASHBOARD ABS ("washboard" being way more ab-specific than mere "ripped," which can apply to a gymgoer's entire body).

I didn't groove too much on the fill today. It's a pretty dense theme today, so there's not a lot of room to do other interesting or fancy things. The longer answers are OK but not sparkling. The weirdest of them is probably VIA MEDIA, which I know only as a religious concept (I think)—the middle way, the middle path. But that's Buddhist, so ... not sure it would be expressed in Latin, ever. Oh, look, it's a more broadly religious concept—(but it still doesn't mean "middle ground," as we would use the term "middle ground." "VIA" is a road or path. So VIA MEDIA is more a "way" than a "place." It's a way of living that is between extremes, a way of moderation. Somehow "Middle ground" doesn't quite get at that. I'm just really mad at "ground" today. I'm not mad at much else, because nothing is really trying hard to make me mad. I didn't like the fact that NDAS and PDA were in the same grid. All those letters mean completely different things, so there's no real violation here, I just don't like it. If RDA and ADA were in the puzzle, maybe you'd begin to feel why. It's one thing to have a lot of abbrevs, and another (worse) thing to have them be so close to each other. I also didn't like the duped "E-" prefix (EMAILS, EFILE). It's a tiny thing ... but it's a thing. Any other grievances? Well, I'm not too big a fan of the "stylized" soda name (48D: Stylized name for a caffeinated soft drink). I know those are the letters on the can / bottle / box, but MTNDEW looks like you slammed your face on the keyboard—there's nothing lovely about it. Also, it has me imagining what "Mutton Dew" would taste like (It ain't good). I had the initial "M" here and wrote in MR. PIBB (which was sometimes "styled" as "Mr. PiBB" but which is now "Pibb Xtra" ... you know, for the kids! Kids can't relate to "Mr.," man ... they like names with "X" in them! 'Cause it's Xtreme!). 

Outside the theme, the puzzle was Very easy. I made things harder on myself by misreading "cabarets" (in 17A: *They're found next to cabarets [carets]) as "cabernets," but I doubt it mattered much—"cabarets" wouldn't have gotten me any closer to EXPONENTS, at that point. Let's see, what else?

What else?:

• 7D: Spare, perhaps (LET LIVE) — I had LET FREE. I also had CITE before CLIP (36D: Excerpt). These are not very exciting mistakes, you're right. Let's move on.
• 43D: Where you might find yourself on edge? (ICE RINK?) — I don't get it. Is the idea that you are on the "edge" ... of the blade ... of your skate? Or are you hugging the edge of the rink because you know if you go more than a few steps out on the ice you're just gonna fall down?

• 39D: Fraud (IMPOSTER) — oh the ways I wanted to spell this. First, I imagined it was IMPOSTEUR (!?). That didn't fit (thank god), so I assumed it was IMPOSTOR. Something about IMPOSTER just seems wrong. Possible because POSTER has a completely different pronunciation as a standalone word. If it's spelled "POSTER," then I want to pronounce it "POSTER," but that's not how it's pronounced in IMPOSTER. Why does the "POST" in "IMPOSTER" rhyme with the "PAST" in "PASTA"? It's so weird. I object.
• 64A: [$@#%!] ("BLEEP!") — I thought I was supposed to write a swear word (or a word meaning "swear word"), not the sound covering the swear word. Grawlixes (those swear-word symbols in comics) aren't the same as BLEEPs. BLEEPs are used by censors; grawlixes are written/drawn by the artists themselves. BLEEPS are an audio effect; grawlixes are graphic. I guess they both hide or stand in for profanity, so OK. But also boo.

Need to go start my day. Gonna go make the coffee ... or chug some Mutton Dew, whichever. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. RIDGY? RIDGY? (42A: Like corduroy fabric). Apparently this is a perfectly valid word, appearing in dictionaries near you. Feels ridiculous, and I'd call corduroy fabric RIDGED, or even RIBBED, before I'd call it RIDGY (which, to be clear, I would never call it). But yes, it's an actual word. 

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