Splashy government expenditure? / FRI 2-28-25 / Kaitlin of "Hacks" / W.N.B.A. star Jewell / Achaean strongman of myth / Common ingredient in Scotch pie / Subcompact Nissan offering / Ghostly image / Party-eschewing type: Abbr. / Fruit harvested by the ribeirinhos / Question that might elicit more questions

Constructor: Michael Lieberman

Relative difficulty: Medium to Medium-Challenging (depending on how many of the many many names you knew in the N/NW)

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Scotch pie (27A: Common ingredient in Scotch pie) —

A Scotch pie is a double-crust meat pie, traditionally filled with minced mutton (whereby also called a mutton pie) but now generally beef, sometimes lamb. It may also be known as a shell pie to differentiate it from other varieties of savoury pie, such as the steak pie, steak and kidney pie, steak-and-tattie (potato) pie, and so forth. The Scotch pie originated in Scotland, but can be found in other parts of the United Kingdom and abroad. // Scotch pies are often sold alongside other types of hot food in football grounds, traditionally accompanied by a drink of Bovril, resulting in the occasional reference to football pies. They are also often served hot by take-away restaurants and bakeries and at outdoor events. The hard crust enables it to be eaten by hand with no wrapping. (wikipedia)  

Bovril is a thick and salty meat extract paste, similar to a yeast extract, developed in the 1870s by John Lawson Johnston. It is sold in a distinctive bulbous jar and as cubes and granules. Its appearance is similar to the British Marmite and its Australian equivalent Vegemite. Bovril is owned and distributed by Unilever UK. // Bovril can be made into a drink by diluting with hot water or, less commonly, with milk. It can be used as a flavouring for soups, broth, stews or porridge, or as a spread, especially on toast. In 2004 Unilever removed beef ingredients from the Bovril formula, rendering it vegetarian, but in 2006, reversed that decision and reintroduced beef ingredients to the formula. (wikipedia)

• • •

[D'Jewelry, LOL; such a good show]

There are four not-universally-famous names in this grid and they are *all* in a relatively small 9x5 segment in the N/NW. The rest of the grid—mercifully free of such names. STREEP, that's what you call "universally famous." But NIA LOYD OLSON and even KORS, not so much. I say "even KORS" because that was the one name (of those four) that I knew outright, but despite his name’s being reasonably famous, and its having been in the puzzle before, I know for sure that lots of solvers still won't know it. KORS is not STREEP, after all. So ... you have to keep your eye on the crosses, and, well, I *watch* Hacks and I still don't know who Kaitlin OLSON is. She's not one of the two main stars, that's for sure. Now I gotta look her up ... Oh, ****, she's D.J.!? Awesome, love her, but, as I say, I had no idea what the actress's real name was. And OLSON is a name with a *notoriously* ambiguous spelling; even if you know someone's name is OLSON, unless you know that person very well, you're going to be haunted by the "E" v. "O" question. So anyway, my condolences to the non-zero number of you who finished with OLSEN / KERS. It's a bad cross. Just because I didn't fail there doesn't mean it’s not bad. See how that works?—whether you, specifically, knew one of the answers is *irrelevant*—the question is: is a sizable contingent of solvers likely to wipe out on a single square? Especially if that square involves two names crossing at an uninferable letter (*especially* a vowel)—that's a Natick. Or at least a potential one. A conscientious puzzlemaker, one who is truly attentive to craft, is going to see that issue and fix it. And then you've got both NIA (22A: "The Marvels" director DaCosta) and LOYD (4D: W.N.B.A. star Jewell) stuck in that same section??? A very unpleasant and overly name-y opening to what is, overall, a pretty decent puzzle. Names are fine, they're part of crosswords, but if they're not universally famous, you have to treat them like hazardous material. You have to be extra-attentive to Every Single Cross. And, ideally, space the damned things out, yeesh.

[Best thing about the grid! Never a bad time for Stevie!]

Once I got out of the N/NW, things smoothed out considerably, and I could (eventually) better appreciate how solid and even sparkly a lot of the grid is, especially those banks of longer answers in the corners. Not a fan of the very contrived "OKAY" (vs. "OK") in "OKAY, I GIVE," and I don't know what PAJAMA DAY ... is? Is that a thing at school? (12D: Event with a casual dress code). The clue should give some context. But SEX SCENES, outstanding, a, and all the other sets of long corner answers have no real weak spots. I particularly loved MISO PASTE (because it adds deliciousness wherever it goes, and also seems like an original answer) and PITCH CLOCK (Opening Day ... I can feel it ... it's coming). There's more gunky short fill than I would like, but I may be unfairly comparing it to yesterday's puzzle, where the gunky short fill was truly at a minimum. Nothing like CIT or LANED or PAI in yesterday's grid. But overall, this grid is probably actually less gunky than most. 

Only two actual mistakes today ("actual mistakes" meaning I literally physically put in the wrong answer and later had to retract it). I had ANA DaCosta instead of NIA (obviously semi-confusing her with ANA de Armas). I stopped going to Marvel movies almost a decade a go, and I stopped paying attention to them at all about the same time, so while I was vaguely aware of the major flop that was The Marvels, and vaguely aware that a woman had directed it … there’s a heavy emphasis on "vaguely.” "The film was a box-office bomb, grossing $206 million worldwide against a gross production budget of $374 million, making it the lowest-grossing film in the MCU and one of the few MCU films not to break-even in its theatrical run" (wikipedia). Just a little context for you. My other mistake was TOGA for SARI (54A: Draped garment). I struggled to get FOLLICLE (37D: Hair-raising thing?), and when I finally did ... I had it written as FOLLACLE (thanks, TOGA). Speaking of the clue on FOLLICLE ... ugh, too many "?" clues in the grid for my taste today. A few judiciously placed and perfectly written "?" clues are fine, welcome even, but eight (8) felt like an annoying barrage. Stop trying so hard to be cute. Stop winking at me. Every "?" you add beyond, say, the fourth, should have a higher and higher level of excellence. That is, if you're going to throw eight (8!) at me, they better kill. These .... are mostly just OK, at best. I don't even really get why "photographs" is involved in the SILO clue (56A: Subject of some grainy photographs). I get that you want your "grainy" pun real bad, but there's no necessary connection between SILOs and photographs. A SILO is just one of infinite things you might take a photograph of. Meh. Of the "?" cues, I think [Splashy government expenditure?] and [Hot takes?] are probably the best. They're worded just right, and the answers (PUBLIC POOL and SEX SCENES, respectively) are strong enough that they make the "?"-iness of it all seem worth it.

Bullet points:

• 15A: Question that might elicit more questions ("ANYONE ELSE?") — oy, I had only the "Y" at first (from the gimme, BY SEA), and so of course I wanted the first three letters here to be "WHY...?"
• 55A: Fruit harvested by the ribeirinhos (AÇAI) — no idea, really, but "ribeirinhos" looked Portuguese (i.e. Brazilian), so I went with the appropriate four-letter fruit. And was not wrong. Ribeirinhos are, per wikipedia, "a traditional rural population in the Amazon rainforest, who live near rivers."
• 61A: Work-from-home attire, perhaps (ATHLEISURE) — maybe it's the proximity / adjacency of the baseball answer (PITCH CLOCK) that did it, but I really thought "work-from-home" was going to be umpire-related.
• 5D: Party-eschewing type: Abbr. (IND) — It me! (as of last year). I like this clue, in that I was thinking of a completely different type of party, and was very tempted to write in INT (for "introvert") (it also me!). 
• 44D: Ghostly image (WRAITH) — the "image" part threw me. Badly. I think of WRAITHs as actual ghostly creatures, not mere "images." Maybe I'm misremembering my Monster Manual.

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. Congratulations to my daughter Ella on [redacted because I'm not allowed to post about it yet]! (there's a clue to what this redacted thing is in today's grid, actually, but I CAN'T tell you even that—it'd be too obvious. You'll just. have to speculate until she gives me the OK)

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