Hinduism's "king of fruits" / FRI 1-31-25 / Wanders around a terminal, for short? / Alpine crooner / Hairstyle for Violet in "Peanuts" / Short-distance driver / It's followed by an extra point / Request following some failed attempts / One with sound judgment? / "The most engaging cowardice," per Robert Frost / Cat's scan?

Constructor: Adrian Johnson

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (Easy everywhere except the middle)

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: SMART PILLS (18A: Capsules that can track health info) —

A digital pill (also known as a smart pill, or ingestible sensor) is a pharmaceutical dosage form that contains an ingestible sensor inside of a pill. The sensor begins transmitting medical data after it is consumed. The technology that makes up the pill, as well as the data transmitted by the pill's sensor, are considered to be part of digital medicine. The purpose of the sensor is to determine whether the person is taking their medication or not (called "compliance").

There are privacy concerns with respect to who receives the data and what is done with it. Such concerns, along with uncertain economic benefits, have made the broad introduction of digital pills in the healthcare practice challenging, despite accumulating body of clinical evidence indicating their efficacy and safety. (wikipedia)

• • •

"We're going to record data from inside your body to see if you're being 'compliant'!?!" Huh, I wonder why those pills haven't caught on, they sound great and completely non-dystopian! Needless to say, SMART PILLS was one thing I'd never heard of. Sounded awful, seems awful, unless there are uses beyond checking "compliance," which maybe there are, but still, you'll pardon my suspicion of data-tracking devices implanted in my body. Moving on from privacy concerns, Big Data, etc., I thought this puzzle was mostly delightful. That is, there were enough good marquee answers to make the effort seem worthwhile. Whatever I think of SMART PILLS (not much), it's part of a very solid and vivid stack there in the NE. In fact aside from ADAB (which is fairly innocuous), that whole corner is beautifully smooth and clean—not easy when you're stacking four long answers like that. Its counterpart in the SW is also gorgeous. No compromises in the fill, anywhere, MAIER is about the softest thing down there, and, well, it's a real name, so if that's the weakest thing in your wide-open corner, you're doing your job right. Was thrilled to remember AYO today and even more thrilled to think that I helped some reader, somewhere remember AYO as well (I dwelled on my own forgetfulness of her name less than two weeks ago, and I'm hoping that highlighted her name enough for it to stick to the brains of other name-strugglers) (43A: Emmy-winning actress Edebiri of "The Bear"). There were some cluing choices here and there that I wasn't thrilled with ([Cat's scan?] ... oof, that was a groaner ... real stretch from "scan" to MICE, both in terms of sense and in terms of number (single clue, plural answer)). But on the whole, this was pitched at a reasonable Friday level and hit that breezy, whooshy Friday sweet spot more often than not.

Speaking of whooshing, I whooshed all around the outside of this grid, through all the corners with all their long answers, whoosh whoosh whoosh ... but the nucleus, the center hub, that thing locked up on me pretty good there for a bit (at least by comparison). The only place I had to pause, stop, think, hack. All the purple ink (I'm using a purple pen now, I don't know why) on my puzzle print-out is located in the center of my grid. OK not all of it, but most of it, for sure. I've got SMART PILLS squiggly-underlined with the word "dumb" written next to it, and then I've got the "NY" part of STONY circled (to remind me to mention that I had STOIC there at first, which seemed wrong for the clue ... and was). But all other ink on this print-out is in the middle. The real killer, for me, was 37A: Hinduism's "king of fruits" (MANGO). Me: "oh no, Hindu gods, you know how bad you are at remembering those ... let's get some crosses and hope for the best." Me a little later: "What ... Hindu god is this? In five letters, I think I only know SHIVA ... who is -ANG-?? The god of fruits? Man, I am lost." But, as you know, I wasn't supposed to be looking for a god, or an Actual “king,” but for a Metaphorical “king.” Of fruits. The top fruit, I guess. The most high fruit. MANGO! I do love MANGO, so I get it, but yeesh throwing "Hinduism" and "king" in a clue and having the answer not be a Hindu god? Wrecked me. (Is there a "god of fruits"? There should be a "god of fruits." If there is no such thing, I volunteer). Speaking of MANGO, I finished watch Dead Calm yesterday, a late-80s nautical thriller starring Nicole Kidman, Sam Neill, and Billy Zane. There's a hairwashing scene where Kidman fantasizes about the foods she's going to eat when they get back to land, and MANGO is one of them. It's a memorable scene. Oh look, it's on YouTube. Here you go (note: it's a pretty bad movie overall, and since they (the writers of the movie) kill a little dog with a harpoon, it's a disqualified movie in my book (I was so mad), but if you can get past the dead dog, the movie has its (thrilling, campy, ridiculous) moments).

But back to the middle of the grid. MANGO was the king of tough answers, but I ALSO struggled with ALSO (26D: It's followed by an extra point) ("extra" = "subsequent") and VALET (31A: Short-distance driver) and the front end of "MAY I TRY?" (37D: Request following some failed attempts). It's possible I also wrote in ROSE at first for 31D: Bougainvillea, for one (VINE), despite thinking, as I was doing it, "yeah, that's not right." I never think of BANGS as a "Hairstyle." It always seems like just the front part of a "hairstyle." Like, Violet has her hair in a bun, typically, right? Yeah, here we go:

That "bun" part is the part I think of as the "hairstyle." The BANGS are just some front-end business. Anyway, this is just to say that it took me a few beats to get BANGS despite knowing Violet's profile well. 

Notes and explainers:

• 1A: Many job fair attendees: Abbr. (SRS.) — a gimme at 1-Across, always welcome
• 16A: One with sound judgment? (AUDIOPHILE) — one of my favorite answer/clue pairs today. I have a 😀 written next to this clue and 54A: Focus group? (CAMERA CREW) 
• 46A: He's taken! (MARRIED MAN) — this clue seemed so obviously to be talking about a MARRIED MAN that I assumed there was no way it could be about a MARRIED MAN. But then it was. 
• 57A: Wanders around a terminal, for short? (TSA) — maybe you've seen this pun before. I have. The TSA sometimes use "wands" to scan your body for weapons or other metal. Thus, they are "wanders" (as in "users of wands"). It's rough, yes—that is not a way that anyone has ever used "wander"; even wizards are like "really? come on"—but extreme corniness of pun has its limited place in Crossworld.
• 5D: "The most engaging cowardice," per Robert Frost (HUMOR) — he sounds fun.
• 30D: Palestinian, e.g. (ARAB) — Adrian (today's constructor) is one of the organizers of Puzzles for Palestine 2, a collection I told you about last time Adrian had a puzzle in the Times. The puzzles are out now (available with any donation to the Palestine Aid Society of America). Adrian has also shared some food distribution photos and extends his thanks to those of you who supported this project. Worth noting: the puzzles in the collection are really inventive and entertaining. 
• 44D: Hermann ___, champion skier known as "The Herminator" (MAIER) — a big name in late '90s / early '00s skiing. "His 54 World Cup race victories – 24 super-G, 15 downhills, 14 giant slaloms, and 1 combined – rank third on the men's all-time list behind Ingemar Stenmark's 86 victories and Marcel Hirscher's 67 victories" (wikipedia). Today, I weirdly got him confused with Eddie the Eagle (a not-so-champion British ski jumper)

• 39D: Passionate, domineering sort, it's said (LEO) — because it is three letters, and two-thirds vowels, LEO makes more appearances in the grid than any other sign of the zodiac, and I therefore know a disproportionate amount about what LEOs are "said" to be (LIBRA gives it a run for its money—fewer overall appearances, but *all* LIBRA clues are zodiacal, whereas only some LEO's are). As a SAGITTARIUS, I'm not likely to see myself in the puzzle very oft- ... wait, never!? SAGITTARIUS has literally never been in the grid? Any grid? Going back to Margaret Farrar? Never? Wow. OK, so, hey, all you constructors who seem so eager to debut half-baked garbage, why not SAGITTARIUS—the only sign of the zodiac never to appear in a crossword. On second thought, don't, it's fine. We like our privacy.

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]