Damsel in distress in Donkey Kong / THU 2-6-25 / Ballpark player not wearing a uniform / Ijeoma ___, author of 2018's "So You Want to Talk About Race" / Platform that might update while you sleep / Wonks ... or a candy once owned by the Willy Wonka Candy Company

Constructor: Aidan Deshong and Jacob Reed

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (16 wide, so times will be slower than usu., but this ain't harder than usu.)

THEME: split-state cluing — In order to be understood, italicized theme clues have to be read in two parts—the first two letters (which must be taken as a state code) is the first part, and then the rest is the second:

Theme answers:

• RUSSET POTATO (18A: Identity?) (i.e. ID [Idaho] entity)
• WILMINGTON (25A: Deport?) (i.e. DE [Delaware] port)
• OZARKS (35A: Arrange?) (i.e. AR [Arkansas] range)
• PADRES (37A: Canine?) (i.e. CA [California] nine)
• KAMEHAMEHA (49A: Hiking?) (i.e. HI [Hawaii] king)
• GULF OF MEXICO (58A: Fledge?) (i.e. FL [Florida] edge) 

Word of the Day: Ijeoma OLUO (16A: Ijeoma ___, author of 2018's "So You Want to Talk About Race") —

Ijeoma Oluo (/iˈdʒoʊmə oʊˈluːoʊ/; born 1980) is an American writer. She is the author of So You Want to Talk About Race and has written for The Guardian, Jezebel, The Stranger, Medium, and The Establishment, where she was also an editor-at-large.

Born in Denton, Texas, and based in Seattle, Washington, in 2015, Oluo was named one of the most influential people in Seattle, and in 2018, she was named one of the 50 most influential women in Seattle. Her writing covers racism, misogynoir, intersectionality, online harassment, the Black Lives Matter movement, economics, parenting, feminism, and social justice.

She gained prominence for articles critiquing race and the invisibility of women's voices, like her April 2017 interview with Rachel Dolezal, published in The Stranger. (wikipedia)

So You Want to Talk About Race is a 2018 non-fiction book by Ijeoma Oluo. Each chapter title is a question about race in contemporary America. Oluo outlines her opinions on the topics, as well as advice about how to talk about the issues. The book received positive critical reception, with renewed interest following the May 2020 murder of George Floyd, after which the book re-entered The New York Times Best Seller list. [...] The book received renewed attention, following the murder of George Floyd, in May 2020. Having been listed for one week, previously, it re-entered The New York Times Best Seller list in the category Combined Print & E-book Nonfiction on June 14, 2020, peaking at position #2, on June 21. It remained on the list, until September 13,and it reappeared October 4.

• • •

An old-fashioned theme that is executed just fine. Simple, consistent. A little rudimentary, as Thursday themes go, but that's OK. They don't all have to be barn-burners. If anything, this came in a bit on the dull side today. Once you grasp the theme, the remaining themers become very easy to get, and none of them are particularly sparkling answers in their own right. KAMEHAMEHA is a bit flash, I suppose, but what else rises above the ho-hum? NOT A LOT (that is, not a lot, not the answer "NOT A LOT," which is in fact just a plain, adequate answer). I got the theme quickly, though at first I thought the state code part was reduplicative—that is, I interpreted [Identity?] as "Idaho identity" (because potatoes are, in fact, part of that state's identity, so much so that "potatoes" is in their damned state slogan, on their license plates "Famous Potatoes!"). Only after encountering Deport? / WILMINGTON did I realize, no, you actually break the theme clues in half: state code + the rest. Fine. No problem. KAMEHAMEHA probably has the most interesting of the cluing experiments (HI + king), though I think I liked PADRES clue best (CA + nine). I just like the idea of calling a baseball team "nine." Reminds me of John Fogerty's "Centerfield"... (Baseball, take me away....)

["Well, I spent some time in the Mudville Nine..."]

The most ambitious, but also (I think) worst of these themer clues is [Fledge?]. Calling an entire damn gulf an "edge" is a bit strange. Yes, it's on one "edge" of Florida (the western one), but the figurative distance from "edge" to an enormous body of water is, indeed a gulf. Also, I think this puzzle is out of date now. Didn't that PUTRID traitor in the WH officially redub it the GULF OF AMERICA last week? (yes, he did). And since I am nothing if not compliant... well, I tried, Mr. President, I tried. 

[Can't wait for the Executive Order banning "woke" crosswords]

The worst part of this puzzle was the editing decision at OLUO / SOO. Ijeoma OLUO is crossworthy enough, but as she's not especially famous, and she's almost all vowels, you really really gotta watch those crosses, and ... would not say that a completely made-up spelling of "so?" counts as "watching the crosses" (11D: "Your point being ...?"). The opposite, in fact. Look, you put SOO (crosswordese) in your puzzle, please use one of the established crosswordese clues for SOO, thank you very much. There are several. I realize that that would mean crossing two less-than-superfamous proper nouns at a vowel, which is the Definition of a Natick, but the idea that SOO is somehow "easier" to get than the SOO Canals or Phillipa SOO. "SOO" is an awful spelling of "extended 'so.'" in that it's not extended nearly enough. At SOO, it looks like a typo. Or a name (which it is). You gotta go to at least three "O"s to get the effect you're going for. I have said a version of slowed-down / extended "so" that sounds much more like "SHO" before, so I was sincerely contemplating an "H" there for a bit, but the "O" just seemed right. Actually, OLUO seemed right. I knew that was a name I had heard. But I really really hate the clue on SOO here today. That's just a bad cross in general, whatever the clue on SOO. I'd tear that little corner out and try again to get it cleaner.

Lightning round:

• 1A: Damsel in distress in Donkey Kong (PAULINE) — played this game almost daily at Round Table Pizza in Fresno, CA from about 1981 to 1983 and I never knew the damsel had a name. I was able to infer her name today from the serial melodrama title "The Perils of PAULINE"

• 23A: Platform that might update while you sleep (IOS) — do other platforms not update while you sleep??? I thought that was just normal.
• 7D: Medium strength? (ESP) — saw right through this one, as all old-timers will have. The "Medium" here is a crystal-ball-reading type of "medium." A psychic medium.
• 35D: Ballpark player not wearing a uniform (ORGANIST) — I like this one. Never saw the clue because that section just filled itself in so easily. I like the misdirection here, though. "Oh, *that* kind of player!" Pretty sure some ballpark organists slap on jerseys now and then, but still, the clue works.
• 14D: Become fuller, in a way (WAX) — took me a bit to get this one because I had no idea about the context (the context was the moon) (although I guess non-moon things can WAX as well ... but the most common context for the word is lunar.
• 59D: Air quality org? (FCC) — they're punning on "air" here (Federal Communications Commission oversees airwaves, not the air you breathe), but seriously, the NYTXW is going to have to rethink all its abbrs. for gov. oversight orgs. From day to day, I don't know how many of them still exist. I made a joke about OSHA being abolished ("because safety is woke and workplace fatalities make America great!"), but then the next day a legislator actually intro'd a bill to abolish OSHA, so ... there are no jokes anymore. If you can imagine it, these dimwitted lickspittles will do it, for sure.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]