Dad, in Korean / TUE 5-6-25 / Orange-colored fruit pastry / Member of the South Asian diaspora / Betting recklessly at the poker table / Desired effect of a plumping gloss / Listing of top tunes / System of hereditary titles and noble ranks / Flexible card in blackjack

Constructor: Enrique Henestroza Anguiano

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: COTTON CANDY — "COTT" (in circled squares) sits ON top of "C" AND "Y" (in circled squares) three times in the grid:

Theme answers:

• APRICOTTART (18A: Orange-colored fruit pastry)
• FALLACY (21A: Mistake in logical reasoning)

• GILSCOTTHERON (30A: "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" poet)
•   SPACY (36A: Head-in-the-clouds)

• COTTAGECHEESE (49A: Dairy product with curds)
• ICYSTARES (52A: Looks that might send a chill down one's spine)

Word of the Day: GIL SCOTT-HERON (30A) —

Gilbert Scott-Heron (April 1, 1949 – May 27, 2011) was an American jazz poet, singer, musician, and author known for his work as a spoken-word performer in the 1970s and 1980s. His collaborative efforts with musician Brian Jackson fused jazz, blues, and soul with lyrics relative to social and political issues of the time, delivered in both rapping and melismatic vocal styles. He referred to himself as a "bluesologist", his own term for "a scientist who is concerned with the origin of the blues". His poem "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised", delivered over a jazz-soul beat, is considered a major influence on hip hop music.

Scott-Heron's music, particularly on the albums Pieces of a Man and Winter in America during the early 1970s, influenced and foreshadowed later African-American music genres, including hip hop and neo soul. His recording work received much critical acclaim, especially for "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised". AllMusic's John Bush called him "one of the most important progenitors of rap music", stating that "his aggressive, no-nonsense street poetry inspired a legion of intelligent rappers while his engaging songwriting skills placed him square in the R&B charts later in his career."

Scott-Heron remained active until his death, and in 2010 released his first new album in 16 years, titled I'm New Here. A memoir he had been working on for years up to the time of his death, The Last Holiday, was published posthumously in January 2012. Scott-Heron received a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012. He also is included in the exhibits at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) that officially opened on September 24, 2016, on the National Mall, and in an NMAAHC publication, Dream a World Anew. In 2021, Scott-Heron was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as a recipient of the Early Influence Award.

• • •

Last day of classes today, and I'm kinda freaking out about how many Things I have to do, so I'm going to *try* to keep this short so I can go get coffee, sit in the comfy chair, and soothe myself by making a checklist so that everything seems manageable. I like the ridiculous way the revealer makes nonsense out of the phrase COTTON CANDY—absolutely dismantles it, breaks it down and sells it for parts. I like that you've just got this weird recurring BLOC of letters that makes no real sense until you hit the revealer. And I like that the revealer brings back the ampersandwich—the [letter] & [letter] combo that you sometimes see in crosswords (BANDB (for B&B), RANDB (for R&B), SANDL (for S&L), etc.). Here, the puzzle turns a regular word into an ampersandwich, which I've seen done thematically before, but never in this gaudy a way. Something about smashing to bits both "COTTON" and "CANDY" elevated the theme from meh to nice. True, the gimmick is fairly one-note, and once you get one of those circled-letter BLOCs, and then you see that the next circled-letter BLOC is going to be the same, you can just fill in that one and the third one, unassisted, which only makes an easy puzzle even easier. But it's Tuesday, it's supposed to be easy, and as for the repetition, it's wacky enough that I don't mind it. Again, I like the lumpy strangeness of the circled-letter chunks. And most of all, I like that those chunks result in answers in the grid that are actually interesting and not forced or awkward. Can't sneeze at any of those six theme answers. And then you've got BEER MAT (58A: Disposable coaster at a bar), HIT PARADE (12D: Listing of top tunes), and POUTY LIPS (35D: Desired effect of a plumping gloss) to boot. The grid felt a little choked with crosswordese (OTOE OER ENTS ADE SUI ADHOC OLE, all capped off by that lowest of answer types: the playground retort (AMNOT)). But as I've said many times, when the theme and/or the longer stuff shines, all your IDOs and ADOs feel a lot less irksome than they would otherwise.

Though the puzzle was very easy, there is one corner I can see possibly giving solvers trouble, and that's the SW. APPA in particular is going to be unfamiliar / new to a lot of people (66A: Dad, in Korean). I've probably seen it before (yep—once, two years ago, almost to the day), but I forgot it and so my first guess was OPPA (extrapolated (possibly?) from OPA—which is seen in puzzles sometimes as [German grandparent]). APPA over DESI crossing a somewhat trickily-clued MT. SINAI ... I can see how that might prove a trouble spot. Still, though, all the APPA and DESI crosses seem gettable, so hopefully no one completely crashed out down there. I had some trouble coming up with MT. SINAI, and somewhat less trouble coming up with ADSLOGANS (because it felt redundant—I wanted "SLOGANS" right away, but ... not enough letters). Despite having co-constructed a TANK TOP-themed puzzle one time (long ago), I got held up for a bit on GAS CAP as well (50D: Tank top?). Not too unusual to get slowed down by the "?" clues. Glad they were today, as they provided the only real resistance (assuming you knew who GIL-SCOTT HERON was—you really should know who GIL-SCOTT HERON is, if only because he's a frequent clue for GIL).

Four More Things:

• 16A: Bacall of "How to Marry a Millionaire" (LAUREN) — interesting movie choice for the Bacall clue. Kind of off the beaten path (the "beaten path" being her movies with Bogart). I saw her recently in another non-Bogart film, as a wealthy dilettante who tries but fails to tame trumpet-playing Kirk Douglas in Michael Curtiz's Young Man With a Horn (1950) (a biopic based on the life of jazz cornetist Bix Beiderbecke). Bacall is very good as a very awful person—an icy soul-sucking would-be intellectual studying psychiatry at Columbia (!?). Of course Douglas's road to redemption leads away from her and straight into the arms of wholesome Doris Day. It's ... not the least misogynist film I've ever seen. But Bacall and Day are quite good, as is the very underrated Juano Hernández as Douglas's musical mentor. JUANO has never been in the NYTXW before. Seems like an opportunity there for someone (putting his name next to VARDA and OZU on my cinematic "Debut When?" list)

[JUANO doesn't even make the trailer!? Boo!!!]

• 10D: Betting recklessly at the poker table (ON TILT) — grim victory today as I effortlessly remembered poker slang (the second-lowest answer type; see "playground retorts," above)
• 31D: Sch. with the cheer "Geaux Tigers!" (LSU) — my wife used to teach in the History Dept. here. Fun fact! (well ... fact, anyway)
• 46D: Flexible card in blackjack (ACE) — me, admittedly not thinking that clearly: "Aren't all cards ... flexible?" Physically ... yes.

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]