Attire often used in filming C.G.I. scenes, informally / FRI 3-21-25 / Target of the 1890 Sherman Act / Bad thing to blow / Handful on the farm / Features of the sci-fi planet Arrakis / Some digital assistants, informally / How Mario introduces himself in video games / Country represented by the Black Star of Africa

Constructor: Boaz Moser and Jacob Reed

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Sherman Act (8D: Target of the 1890 Sherman Act) —

The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 (26 Stat. 209, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1–7) is a United States antitrust law which prescribes the rule of free competition among those engaged in commerce and consequently prohibits unfair monopolies. It was passed by Congress and is named for Senator John Sherman, its principal author.

The Sherman Act broadly prohibits 1) anticompetitive agreements and 2) unilateral conduct that monopolizes or attempts to monopolize the relevant market. The Act authorizes the Department of Justice to bring suits to enjoin (i.e. prohibit) conduct violating the Act, and additionally authorizes private parties injured by conduct violating the Act to bring suits for treble damages (i.e. three times as much money in damages as the violation cost them). Over time, the federal courts have developed a body of law under the Sherman Act making certain types of anticompetitive conduct per se illegal, and subjecting other types of conduct to case-by-case analysis regarding whether the conduct unreasonably restrains trade.

The law attempts to prevent the artificial raising of prices by restriction of trade or supply. "Innocent monopoly", or monopoly achieved solely by merit, is legal, but acts by a monopolist to artificially preserve that status, or nefarious dealings to create a monopoly, are not. The purpose of the Sherman Act is not to protect competitors from harm from legitimately successful businesses, nor to prevent businesses from gaining honest profits from consumers, but rather to preserve a competitive marketplace to protect consumers from abuses. (wikipedia)

• • •

I know the phrase "dirt cheap." CHEAP AS DIRT, not so much (33A: For a song). Why would you say this when the terser option is Right There? Seems wordy and sounds slightly archaic. Then there's DAT and DOIN', partial slang phrases that together seem just a little TOO CUTE (though I did appreciate the Friends reference in the DOIN' clue—Joey always was the most underrated Friend). As for "IT'S A ME...," again, it's just a partial phrase—I've seen the full phrase in the NYTXW before, once as an answer, and another time as one of the greatest theme clues ever conceived—in a puzzle with the theme HOLLYWOOD SHUFFLE, where actors were clued via anagrams, ["It's-a-me, Mario!"] was used as the clue for ... MARISA TOMEI. Truly, one of the greatest anagram finds in anagram history, congrats to Erik Agard on that one (not many clues that stick in my mind years later). So today's partial "IT'S A ME..." didn't really have the novelty impact that maybe it had on you. I normally really enjoy colloquial stuff in the puzzle, but today, that stuff was slight, partial, kinda clunky in my ear. And Pokémon is also of no interest to me (also: Mario and Pokémon in the same puzzle? Give it a rest), but at least GOTTA CATCH 'EM ALL was easy, I guess. I loved MEDIA DARLINGS, which is located where it belongs: in a marquee position, dead center (14D: People always getting favorable news coverage). ARTISTIC LICENSE isn't exactly exciting, but it's perfectly solid. The rest ... I wouldn't say it SPARKLES, but it does alright. Difficulty could've been amped up slightly today, but overall, I thought the puzzle was fine.

There were precisely two sticking points for me today. The first, as is typical, came early, in the NW corner, before I'd gotten any real traction. I guessed (correctly) that the quadruple-double was an example of a RARITY (1A: Basketball's quadruple double, e.g.), and then was pleased as punch (SLANG!) to "confirm" the "R" with ... RURAL ... and then "confirm" the "I" with ... ICED. Also confirmed (no scare quotes) THOR and YAP, but the RURAL ICED damage was done. Took a bit of work to get going again after that. ETSY's "Y" was the thing that helped me start to dig out. I knew a [Corsair] was a ship, but RAIDER was not on my ship list (!), so yeah, there was some flailing up there, early on. After that, I whooshed down the west side, only to hit another bank of short Downs that stymied me for a second. I had BIG and guessed LEAD at 29A: Bad thing to blow, but could not confirm any of LEAD at first. Clue on ALES is very tough (in that it seems to point you to mountains, not beer: I almost wrote in ALPS) (26D: Sierra Nevadas, e.g.). As for TEAT, I try to think of that word as little as possible, so my first stab at 27D: Handful on the farm was REIN. Then there's FLAP, which puts us back into "slang I don't use" (23D: To-do), so ... yeah, confirmation of the LEAD part of BIG LEAD was not forthcoming. But, as with my mistakes in the NW, the trouble here was minor. I got out of it without too much fuss, and never struggled again for the rest of the solve.

There's one truly original answer today, and that's MOCAP SUIT (MOCAP stands for "motion capture") (43A: Attire often used in filming C.G.I. scenes, informally). The first time I looked at that clue, I had many letters in place, but still just stared at the answer like "how do those letters make ... anything?" I think I had all of MOCAP-from crosses before my brain remembered the term I was looking for. Even if you've never heard the term, you've probably seen the suits before. I feel like they've been used in ads—I think of them as being used for CGI not just in movies, but in video games as well, particularly sports video games, when they want to get an accurate simulation of bodies in motion. Somebody who knows what they're talking about can explain better than I, but the point is that after I got MOCAP-, I could instantly see (in my mind's eye) the SUIT in question—a bodysuit with little globes all over it, if I recall correctly ... yup, here we go:

Bullets:

• 9D: Some digital assistants, informally (AIS) — no amount of wishing or praying or modernizing the clue is gonna make AIS good fill. In fact, by making it stand for "Artificial Intelligence"s, you've somehow made bad fill worse. No one wants that **** in their grids. It's awful and dehumanizing, pretending to be human by feeding off the work of actual humans. It's poisoning our information ecosystem (already pretty sickly). When A.I. is used in search engines, it absolutely positively measurably Does Not Work. So in puzzles, for me, just like TESLAS, "A.I." is a buzzkiller. And plural like this!? God no. You may as well go back to Sue Grafton's "___ for Alibi" if you absolutely positively have to stick AIS in your grid. (I have other ideas about where you can stick AIS, but let's just move on)
• 23A: It's a short walk from home (FIRST BASE) — hurray for the two baseball clues today—three if you count BIG LEAD. I was up at 6am Tuesday and Wednesday to watch the Japan Series between the Dodgers and Cubs—the first real games of the season. Dodgers took 'em both. Ohtani (the biggest star Japan has) hit a home run, because that's just what he does. Good times. Now I gotta wait an eternal (checks calendar) six more days for the real (stateside) Opening Day. Go Tigers.

• 37A: Show again, as a historical event (REENACT) — "show"? "Perform," maybe, but "show" seems weird.
• 38D: Philippics (TIRADES) — a great word ("Philippics"), as somewhat arcane words go. 

A philippic (/fɪˈlɪpɪk/) is a fiery, damning speech, or tirade, delivered to condemn a particular political actor. The term is most famously associated with three noted orators of the ancient world: Demosthenes of ancient Athens, Cato the Elder and Cicero of ancient Rome. The term itself is derived from Demosthenes's speeches in 351 BC denouncing the imperialist ambitions of Philip of Macedon, which later came to be known as The Philippics. (wikipedia)

• 42D: Features of the sci-fi planet Arrakis (DUNES) — yesterday, one of my students talked about loving the book Dune, and he said that there were lots of other Dune books besides Dune, but they were written by Herbert's son and not really worth reading. I said, "Wait, there's a Dune sequel? What's it called? ... DUNES?" Apparently there's a whole Dune universe (or, as I call it, Dune-iverse). The things your students teach you...

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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