Dance with a clickety-clack / MON 9-23-24 / Antidiscrimination inits. in the modern workplace / "___ Not Gonna Take It" (Twisted Sister hit)

Constructor: Freddie Cheng

Relative difficulty: Easy (3:18)

THEME: Abbreviations? — Theme entries end with three-letter abbreviations. I'm not sure if there's something more here. It doesn't seem like the letters spell anything out, or have any relation to each other. Please let me know if I'm missing a connection in the comments.

Theme answers:

• [How some movies were released, pre-streaming] for DIRECT TO DVD
• [Bruce Springsteen album with a red, white and blue cover] for BORN IN THE USA
• [Question to someone who's on the way] for WHATS YOUR ETA
• [A piece of cake, so to speak] for AS EASY AS ABC

Word of the Day: NTSB (Accident-investigating org.) —

I put OSHA here, and had never heard of this agency, so thought I'd educate us all: The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is an independent U.S. government investigative agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. In this role, the NTSB investigates and reports on aviation accidents and incidents, certain types of highway crashes, ship and marine accidents, pipeline incidents, bridge failures, and railroad accidents. 

• • •

Hey squad, it's Malaika here for an Off Schedule Malaika Monday! Hope you all had a lovely weekend. I have been basking in the excitement of some recent late night dinners. From 2021 - 2023 we were losing a lot of late night spots in NYC, but I feel like there's been a little bit of a resurgence lately! Fingers crossed it continues-- sometimes you need an 11pm enchilada or a 3am pizza slice. If you have a fave Late Night NYC Spot, let me know in the comments and I'll check it out!!

I absolutely flew through today's puzzle! I'm trying to identify some of the vocabulary that, while easy for me, may have stumped a brand new solver-- KIR and ANODE stand out, and I wonder if new teenaged solvers are aware of ETTA JAMES and EDITH Piaf. (Fun to see them like this-- I usually see just "Etta" and "Piaf.") Anyway, do yourself a favor and listen to Beyonce's cover of "I'd Rather Go Blind" and Cristin Milioti's cover of "La Vie en Rose." Stunning songs. (Or listen to the originals!!! Also incredible, obviously!)

I wish there had been a little more to the theme here. It's totally serviceable, but this feels like a puzzle many people will solve without even realizing there was a theme at all, and I don't know if the long answers were fun enough to justify that. DIRECT TO DVD, in particular felt dated, rather than nostalgic, although maybe you disagree. I wanted the "ABC" in the last answer to indicate something, but it doesn't seem to be a revealer. 

Which is your fave Direct-to-DVD Disney sequel?

What else? I was surprised they didn't clue LUCKY ONE in reference to the Taylor Swift song given that it's not a particularly in-the-language phrase, and given that the NYT crossword loves a Taylor Swift clue. But I guess the song is called The Lucky One, so they would have had to do a weird fill-in-the-blank. There was also only one question mark clue ([One serving you a whopper?] for LIAR) which felt a tad low to me.

Bullets:

• [Mark Zuckerberg's company] for META — It's hilarious to me how he went through the whole rigamarole of changing the name in order to launch a Metaverse that was enormously panned and mercilessly mocked. Oh well. I guess he's still a billionaire so no huge loss.
• [Lingerie top] for BRA — Something felt off about this phrasing, maybe because I have many bras I would not consider lingerie, and some lingerie tops that I would not consider bras. Could the clue have benefited from a ", perhaps" ?
• [Bling worn on the head] for TIARA — I paused while solving because I thought this phrasing was so awkward. It felt like how an alien observing Earth and studying our language would describe a tiara.

xoxo Malaika

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