So-called "king of the road" / MON 3-31-25 / Basketball shot made while leaning backward / King of the gods, in Egyptian myth / Spinoff stories written by an author's readers, informally / Removes a dependence (from) / Like conga or mambo music

Constructor: Ryan Mathiason

Relative difficulty: Medium (normal Monday, solved Downs-only) (undersized 14x15 grid, so if it played faster than usual, that's likely why)

THEME: IT'S GROWING ON ME (35A: "I'm starting to like this" ... or a hint to the starts of 16-, 24-, 47- and 58-Across, in order) — states of hair-having, from no hair-having to a lot of hair-having:

Theme answers:

• BALD EAGLE (16A: Bird that's the U.S.'s national symbol)
• BUZZKILL (24A: Debbie Downer)
• FADE AWAY 47A: Basketball shot made while leaning backward)
• AFRO-CUBAN (58A: Like conga or mambo music)

Word of the Day: STAR ANISE (30D: Plant with eight-pointed pods used in cooking) —

Illicium verum (star anise or badian, Chinese star anise, star anise seed, star aniseed and star of anise) is a medium-sized evergreen tree native to South China and northeast Vietnam. Its star-shaped pericarps harvested just before ripening are a spice that closely resembles anise in flavor. Its primary production country is China, followed by Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries. Star anise oil is highly fragrant, used in cooking, perfumery, soaps, toothpastes, mouthwashes, and skin creams. Until 2012, when they switched to using genetically modified E. coli, Roche Pharmaceuticals used up to 90% of the world's annual star anise crop to produce oseltamivir (Tamiflu) via shikimic acid.

• • •

The main problem is really the progression, which is to say ... that is not how hair grows. You could grow from BALD to an AFRO, but you would not really hit BUZZ and you definitely would not hit FADE along the way—both of those are, by definition, styled (with a razor). So while the hair is definitely "growing," in a way, as the puzzle progresses, the progression itself is not really a logical one. In fact, a FADE is only appreciably longer than a BUZZ up top. On the sides, it's actually ... pretty BUZZed.

[fade = short on the sides, fuller on top, often tapered]

But sure, the haircuts featured here are, in general, increasingly long as the puzzle progresses. So ... that's something. I just wish the progression were more intuitive or made more sense or were tighter in some way. Otherwise, it's fine. The revealer is cute, even if it does mean we get a pitifully undersized grid. On the other hand, the grid does have one upside, which is the pairs of longer Downs in the NE and SW. They give the puzzle extra flavor. They also made the Downs-only solve much more of an adventure. Generally speaking, on average, the longer the answer, the harder it is to get with no help from crosses. If you've solved Downs-only at all, you know that most of the time, the nooks and crannies—the 3-4-5s crossing other 3-4-5s—are not nearly so much trouble as the places where the 7+-letter answers get involved. On most Mondays, you're lucky if you get just two long Downs in the puzzle, total, but today: abutting long Downs in two different sections. And unsurprisingly, that's where I was slowest. In the NE, instead of EMOTICONS, I had EMOJI- or ASCII-something, and I could make ARRIVAL TIME fit at 11D: Standard announcement of a pilot upon landing (LOCAL TIME). 

In the SW, I got A STUDENTS immediately (which feels amazing—getting a 9-letter answer with no crosses), but STAR ANISE was a no-go, and since it was next to FELIZ (which I also, for a while, forgot) (47D: Happy: Sp.), and next to GONE (which I thought might be LEFT) (36D: Departed), there were some GAPs in that corner for a while (though GAP, I also got immediately) (44D: Opening, as between teeth). The way these things finally come together, usually, is that because the themers extend to other parts of the grid, I'm able to use the letters from those parts to infer the entire themer, which then extends into the trouble spots and gives me new traction. For instance, inferring FADE AWAY from --D-AWAY gave me the "F," which gave me FELIZ, which gave me the "Z," which gave me ZEST, which *then* gave me enough letters that I was able to figure out STAR ANISE. This is why Downs-only is so much more interesting than just a straight solve for me, on Mondays—always the possibility for unexpected challenge and adventure.

Some more things:

• 1D: So-called "king of the road" (HOBO) — oddly hard for me, as I did not know that's what "king of the road" meant. I thought Roger Miller was the "king of the road"; or, rather, I didn't know Roger Miller was supposed to be a HOBO, but now that I recall the lyrics, of course he's a hobo ("Third boxcar / Midnight train / Destination, Bangor, Maine"). I often think about how great it is that I learned "King of the Road" from my 5th grade teacher, who would play guitar and teach us songs we could sing along to. Just imagine 25 ten-year-olds belting out: "... I ain't got no cigarettes!" You were the greatest, Mrs. Flam. Colorful polyester pantsuits, red hair swept up in a loose beehive atop her head. She was probably the same age that I am now. She really liked teaching and really liked us, and let me tell you, you *remember* the feeling of having a teacher like that.

• 8D: ___-Its (CHEEZ) — lol when "POST" didn't fit, I was baffled. Since CHEEZ is a partial brand name non-word, I should hate this as much as I hated ROLD Gold, but CHEEZ has its excuse built right in—gotta handle that terminal "Z" somehow! Not a lot of options!
• 9D: Yap (GAB) — most three-letters are a piece of cake on a Monday, but this one ... is "Yap" a verb? A noun? YAK? MAW? It's true that GAB seemed the most likely, but it's also true that I really had to be correct, because inferring those short Acrosses in the NE was gonna be murder if I didn't GAB right. 
• 15A: King of the gods, in Egyptian myth (AMON) — this was the one moment where I went back and double-checked my work. I knew that AMON-Ra was a thing, and that this was likely the context for AMON, but since you can spell AMON all kinds of ways, and since it's not great fill in general (esp. for a Monday), I was suspicious. But everything seemed solid otherwise, so I let it ride, and ... AMON it was.
• 45D: Spinoff stories written by an author's readers, informally (FANFIC) — "fic" being short for "fiction." I love FANFIC as an answer (though I wouldn't read it if you paid me). I sometimes call Dante's Inferno "Virgil FANFIC," but I'm mostly being flippant.
• 48D: Removes a dependence (from) (WEANS) — Clunk City, that clue, yikes. I just looked at it like "what?" In retrospect, it's literal enough, but wow is it ugly. 

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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