Woman in dire need? / SAT 9-14-24 / Puppy chow ingredient / Trying way too hard, in modern slang / Apollo was conceived in them / Sister label of Volt Records / Baseball mascot with fluffy green snout / Highly rated French vineyards

Constructor: Christina Iverson

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Puppy chow (51D: Puppy chow ingredient => CHEX) —

Puppy chow, also known as monkey munch, muddy buddies, muddy munch, reindeer chow, or doggy bag, is the name for a homemade candy made in the United States, primarily in the Midwestern States. The recipe's name and ingredients can differ depending on the version, but most recipes will typically include cereal, melted chocolate, peanut butter (or other nut butters), and powdered sugar. Nut free versions can be made using nut butter alternatives, like Notnuts or sun butter. Corn, wheat, or rice cereal can be used, usually Chex and/or Crispix. The true origins of the candy are not known.

• • •

Considered making this whole write-up just a list of bullet points, since seemingly every clue is, well, SO EXTRA (12D: Trying way too hard, in modern slang). Feels like lots of things might need explaining today. We'll see. In what feels like a late-week trend for me lately, I totally washed out in the NW at first pass. Yes, ESSO, I got that, but otherwise, zilch. I was thinking of the Phillie PHANATIC when I read the mascot clue, but I've only ever heard him (him?) referred to by his whole name, and anyway didn't really know that you spelled it in that phunny way. ASHAMED seems obvious in retrospect (1A: Red in the face, say), but after BLUSHED (?), I had no ideas. Abandon ship. Finally got traction with FIR FISTS IDAHO IDES STAX, and you'd think that "X" would've sent me flying out of that corner, but no, "modern slang" (unsurprisingly) held me up. There's just so damn much of it, and it keeps changing, and I'm really hoping that millennials and even Gen Z are beginning, now and then, to feel that feeling of "wait, the kids are saying what now?" because it's a special feeling. Pfft. I've actually heard "SO EXTRA" plenty, I think, but I wasn't sure exactly how "modern" we were talking and I took one look at that clue (12D: Trying way too hard, in modern lingo) and was like "SO-X---? The clue says 'Trying,' so ... Something-ING? SOXXING? Are people SOXXING now?" 

Might've busted out of the NE more easily except I got fooled by the (unexpectedly) cryptic clue on RENEE (18A: Woman in dire need?) (i.e. the woman's name found inside the phrase "dire need"). The "?" had me wondering where the wordplay was in "dire" or "need," but there's no play, or no play related to word meaning. Just consecutive letters. So I had to work for that first corner, but I got through, and then (finally) was able to throw WINDOW WASHER into the middle of the grid (27A: Job that anyone could see themselves doing?), and then a couple longer answers off of that, and so that awful feeling of "am I even gonna be able to do this?" (which I often feel on Saturdays, actually) went away, or abated, at any rate (even if you're making good progress on a late-week puzzle, you never know when some corner, some cross, is gonna leap out and bite you)

[I like that YODELERS is coming down from on high ... like a yodel (34D: Some long-distance callers)]

The only Weaving I know in the world of acting (or anywhere) is Hugo Weaving, so SAMARA was a ??? but she weirdly posed very little problem. Had her as SAHARA for a hot second, but SMALL CRAFT eventually took care of that (29D: Kind of boat affected by a wind advisory). As pop culture clues go, SAMARA was not nearly as brutal as LOTTA Sea Lice, a 2017 album that was on a lot of "Best of" lists that year but still, yikes. I say "yikes" as someone who has actually heard of the album, someone who has listened to Courtney Barnett (if not Kurt Vile) a great deal. I'm 100% certain that a huge chunk of you won't recognize even the names of the artists, let alone the name of the album. Its chart success was extremely modest (51 on the US album chart), so if you're not an indie rock fan, I feel for you today. The crosses all seem fair, so there's that.

Anyway, after escaping the NE and getting into the middle of the grid, there were no terrible trouble spots, just a steady Saturday struggle. Backed into the NW—the -THS got me POLYMATHS—and made pretty short work of it. The SW was a little tougher. I actually blanked on FINCHES, though that's really a gimme, or should've been (36D: "To Kill a Mockingbird" family). I could picture the "family" but the only name coming to me was "Scout." Anyway, easy with a few crosses, but the FITS part of FITS IN, not easy (36A: Doesn't stick out). ART STUDIO, not easy (30D: Setting for a sitting)—I had ART SCHOOL! Then there was "CHUG!" which I (of course?) had as "TOGA!" (showing my age, I s'pose) (48A: When repeated, college party chant). So there was futzing to be done in there, but nothing too hard. Finished in the SE ... sadly, I finished with CHEX, which I didn't understand at all. In the end, I reasoned that there must be some kind of snack called "puppy chow" made with CHEX that I'd just never heard of ... and I was right (see Word of the Day, above). Supposedly a midwestern thing. I lived in the "midwest" for the better part of a decade, never heard of it. There are many midwests, you learn, if you live long enough.

Bullets:

• 1D: Gala, e.g. (APPLE) — obviously a very vague clue, so I needed help from crosses. But even after I got it, I thought Gala was an Apple product, like the iPad... then I remembered no, it's an honest-to-god edible apple variety.
• 59A: Apollo was conceived in them (SIXTIES) — needs the "the," but OK. "Apollo" here is the space program.
• 4D: Where the average American lives (ANYTOWN, USA) — Because PEORIA, IL wouldn't fit.





• 5D: Word with the same meaning in English, Swahili and Mandarin, among other languages (MAMA) — interesting, but the clue was initially no help at all. 
• 42A: It once ran the headline "Santa Dies on Xmas Trip": Abbr. (NYT) — I don't get it. Like, I don't get the joke or reference or anything. I guess it's funny but ... why? Is this a known headline? I guess they wanted to make it sound (kinda?) like The Onion, so you wouldn't immediately think "oh, you're talking about yourself, good one, NYT." [Looks up headline] ... Oh. Oh wow. You are not prepared, I promise you, for how maudlin or mawkish or one of those "m"-words this story is—from the front page of the Christmas Day edition, 1913 ... I give you this apparently legendary story about a dude w/ TB who died doing cosplay for the neighbor boy:

Annnnnyway, Merry Christmas, everybody! See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]