Gesture with razzle-dazzle / TUES 2-25-25 / Native of the Dutch Caribbean / Call after last call? / Mario Kart item providing temporary invincibility

Hi, everyone, it’s Clare for the last Tuesday in this short month of February! My write-up last month was delayed because I had to prep for a client’s asylum hearing. It ended up being postponed but only until last week, AND HE GOT ASYLUM! In other, not-at-all-related good news, my Liverpool Reds are looking mighty good right now (yes, I just knocked on wood). There are 11 games left in the Premier League season, and we have a large lead over Arsenal (my sister’s team; sorry, Shannon!) My other Red (my puppy) is also doing well. She’s getting so big (already 23 pounds at four months) and is still very cute, if a little insane and energetic and bitey sometimes (all the time?).

Anywho, on to the puzzle...

Constructor: Greg Snitkin

Relative difficulty: Easy-medium

THEME: NOT ON MY WATCH (56A: "I forbid this" … or what a smart device wearer might claim regarding the ends of 20-, 30-, 40- and 48-Across?) — the end of each of the theme answers contains a typical feature of an analog watch that would presumably not be found on a smartwatch

Theme answers:

• BILLY CRYSTAL (20A: Meg Ryan's co-star in "When Harry Met Sally …") 
• DRUNK DIAL (30A: Call after last call?) 
• NUT CASE (40A: Kook) 
• JAZZ HANDS (48A: Gesture with razzle-dazzle)

Word of the Day: NENA (59D: Band with the 1984 hit "99 Luftballons") —

Nena was a West German Neue Deutsche Welle band formed in West Berlin in 1981. In 1983 and 1984, their German-language song "99 Luftballons" (and its English version, "99 Red Balloons") reached number one in the singles charts of countries around the world. By the time the band released its second album ? (Fragezeichen) in Germany in January 1984, "99 Luftballons" was starting to climb the US charts, where it reached number 2 and became one of the most successful non-English-language tracks in US Billboard chart history. With the English version of the song ("99 Red Balloons") achieving the number 1 position in the UK, the band became internationally famous. (Wiki)

• • •

That was a decently cute puzzle. It was also somehow on my wavelength, so this was one of the faster Tuesdays I’ve had in a while. I liked the theme answers, especially JAZZ HANDS (48A) and DRUNK DIAL (30A), and the phrase for the theme revealer, NOT ON MY WATCH (56A), but the more I think about it, the less I’m convinced the revealer really fits. My sister’s Apple smartwatch has a DIAL and a CASE, and the displays on some smartwatches can be made up of LED CRYSTALs. 

Some of the clues may have been trying a bit too hard to be clever, but there were several clue/answer combos that I chuckled at and enjoyed. My favorite was 25D: Big name in brewing as LIPTON. And then the puzzle had SAMUEL (51D: Adams in a bar) in it, too, which was clever. I liked 63A: Call it an early night? as DUSK and 33D: Launch party? as NASA. Less clever was 69A: Most of 1999 as NINES (though I liked that the clue number had a nine in it.) I think the clue for 62D: Leave a small tip to get HINT (62D) was trying too hard to misdirect us toward thinking about a restaurant; you don’t “leave” a tip if you are HINTing about something; you “give” a tip. I could take or leave 39A: Sister as NUN, which has been done before, but it also reminded me of the movie “Conclave” and how it feels like this awards season is a reenactment of the movie’s plot. We may even get a real conclave soon, if the pope’s health sadly continues to deteriorate. 

The construction of the puzzle was fairly basic. There weren’t any answers longer than seven letters, other than the themes and revealer, and there were only two of them. The bulk of the puzzle was instead four- and five-letter words, which weren’t terribly exciting and which made the puzzle feel a bit dry. (Though I did like METE and DEFT.) The puzzle was actually a pangram, which I don’t think necessarily added much but which also didn’t feel like a stretch, as pangram puzzles sometimes can. 

I didn’t like having both TONI (57D: Woman's name that's an anagram of 58-Down) and TORI (2D: Spelling or Amos) in the puzzle, along with IS IT (19A: "You sure about that?") and ON IT (58D: "I'll get to work right now!") and then TIS (43A: "___ the season") to round it off. Having DONEZO (29D: Finished, in slang), ZONKED (49D: Totally beat), and NOOB (53A: One most likely to get pwned) all in that western section together was a bit too much slang. I was prepared to dislike REAL MAN (4D: One who wears pink, in a breast cancer awareness campaign) because it sounded very strange to me, until I remembered that “Real Men Wear Pink” was a campaign for breast cancer awareness. I do think, then, a better answer would’ve been “real men.” 

But overall, this was a cute enough puzzle with good theme answers, a few interesting words, and fun phrases (see: YOGA MAT, JAZZ HANDS). And it's always satisfying to be fast.

Misc.:

• I’m confused why, when you click on 58D on the puzzle on a computer, it highlights 1A. That didn’t happen on my phone, though, so it seems like it was a bug of some sort. 
• USA (32D: Women's soccer powerhouse) is indeed very, very dominant. For those interested, the USWNT is playing in the SheBelieves Cup right now, and the final game is Wednesday night. If the USA beats Japan, they win the tournament. Yes, it’s a mostly meaningless tournament and is about getting young players more minutes and trying different formations, but it’s still the USWNT and is therefore incredible. 
• My sister and I plan to go see GYPSY (55D: Hit 1959 musical with the song “Let Me Entertain You”) in New York with the insanely talented Audra McDonald. I just need to figure out what to do with my puppy while we’re gone. 
• With STAR (1A: Mario Kart item providing temporary invincibility) and ONE UP (66A: Extra life, in video games) both in the puzzle, I might need to play more video games! 
• Why wait until Black Friday to SHOP (10A)? Novices. I shop year-round. 
• No matter what he’s in or where I see him, BILLY CRYSTAL (20A) will always be Miracle Max from “The Princess Bride” to me

And that’s all from me! Have a great March. 

Signed, Clare Carroll, a smartWATCH-er of Liverpool

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