"East of Eden" girl / THU 7-24-25 / Relative of a votive candle / Stereotypical attire for tech bros / Lasting lash effect / † symbols on manuscripts / Japanese rice cake / Genre for "Double Indemnity" / One might be cooked "casino"-style

Constructor: Ginny Too

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: BIRD / CALL (38A: With 41-Across, a hint to this puzzle's theme) — four birds are clued as if their names were different "calls" (speaking-related verbs):

Theme answers:

• COMMON SNIPE (17A: "Nice of you to show up") (because that's a "common" (?) way to "snipe" at someone)
• AMERICAN CROW (28A: "Hey, England, happy Fourth of July!") (because that is how an "American" might "crow" at their former colonial rulers)
• AMAZON PARROT (45A: "Say 'goodnight' Alexa." "Goodnight Alexa") (because someone "parrots" (i.e. repeats) some words about an "Amazon" product)
• COOPER'S HAWK (61A: "Bottom-of-the-barrel barrel prices! Buy today!") (because a "cooper" is someone who makes "barrels" and then (presumably) "hawks" (i.e. sells) them)

Word of the Day: Joseph Cornell (5D: Many a Joseph Cornell artwork = DIORAMA) — 

Joseph Cornell (December 24, 1903 – December 29, 1972) was an American visual artist and filmmaker, one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of assemblage. Influenced by the Surrealists, he was also an avant-garde experimental filmmaker. He was largely self-taught in his artistic efforts, and improvised his own original style incorporating cast-off and discarded artifacts. He lived most of his life in relative physical isolation, caring for his mother and his disabled brother at home, but remained aware of and in contact with other contemporary artists.

• • •

Well, it's about birds, so my inclination is to like it. I'm currently (literally) wearing this Feminist Bird Club t-shirt (which I got as part of a fundraiser last year):

I am a very stereotypical COVID-era birder, someone who only started paying close attention to the birds around me when I all of a sudden had a lot of free and alone time on my hands. And now every day is bird day. All I do is look at and listen to birds. They're singing out there right now (it's 5am). On any given day, find me staring at a tree hoping the damned oriole I know is in there will just come around to my side! Or standing in the middle of the street because that's the best place to get a view of a bald eagle flying overhead. The most ordinary birds, the ones I can see in my neighborhood, out my own windows, are somehow endlessly fascinating to me. And beautiful. So as far as this theme goes ... you have my attention. 

[taken from my kitchen sink]

I thought the concept was very cute, and I liked the way the clues incorporated the first word of the bird's names into the clue (i.e. we get an example not just of someone "crowing," but of someone crowing in a specifically pro-"American" way—American Crow-ing). The one wobbly thing, to my ear / eye / sensibilities, is ... grammatical? The bird name seems to function almost as a noun, even though it represents a verb. We get an example of an American Crowing, not an AMERICAN CROW. Is "crow" a noun meaning "an act of crowing"? I know "snipe" can be "an act of sniping," but the other bird names don't seem to work that way very well. The parrot clue is an example of "parroting" about Amazon. It is not an AMAZON PARROT because that would make "parrot" a noun (awkwardly and/or impossibly). I almost believe the first three birds could be nouns without the -ing on the end. But a HAWK ... is not an act of "hawking." So the bird names don't seem to match the clues grammatically very well. "Hey, England, happy Fourth of July!" is more like "an American crowing" than an AMERICAN CROW. "Bottom-of-the-barrel barrel prices! Buy today!" is more "hawking done by a cooper" than a COOPER'S HAWK. The whole clue-to-answer equation feels grammatically ... off. The association is clear, but something is off in the way the alleged equivalency is expressed.

I also don't get what's "COMMON" about COMMON SNIPE. The other three are very clear in terms of how their first words are represented by the clue. I see the Americanness, the Amazon-ness, the Cooper's-ness of the other clues. But I don't see the "COMMON" part of "Nice of you to show up." Also, I'd say the American clue is more of a taunt than a "crow" (see how "crow" doesn't want to be a noun like that?). "Crowing" just means bragging, not necessarily rubbing your success in someone else's face. So the execution of this theme felt imperfect. I'm having to do a lot of mental lawyering to justify things today. But I'm still fond of the basic concept.

I want to say the fill is better today than it's been for the past few days, but it's hard to say that with a straight face when the puzzle opens like this:

Ugh, I even misspelled MOCHI (1D: Japanese rice cake). Ignore that. But do notice OBELI (14A: † symbols on manuscripts) and HUP, two wholly unappetizing short words crammed into the small space that is the NW corner. A really unwelcoming beginning. The only time I ever see the word OBELI is in crosswords. Classic crosswordese. The kind of fill that seems like a bad omen of what's to come, esp. if you run into it right up front. It's a real enough word, it just reeks of grids gone by. It's pretty obscure, and it feels desperate. I'd try like crazy to rewrite a corner with OBELI in it. And then there was ABRA, always bad, but especially bad with that olden clue (33D: "East of Eden" girl). How many people solving the puzzle at this point have actually read East of Eden? Where is it in popular culture? It just doesn't seem like a common reference point any more (if it ever was) and so asking us to know a tertiary character from it seems bizarre. Better to rewrite the grid without ABRA in it at all. ARO continues to smash its record for annual appearances—today was the ninth (9th!) of the year, and the year still has five months left in it. Here's a chart tracking ARO in the Shortz era:

Hurray for representation, but ... there may be such a thing as overrepresentation. The fill on this one ends up being actually OK, a step up from recent puzzles, even if it could be stronger. I like CAESAREAN and SPELUNK and DIORAMA and TEA LIGHT and ARMADILLO just fine. And MELISMA! Great word. That's when you sing multiple notes on the same syllable. It's a common "vocal flourish" used all over the place, so the Lady Gaga references didn't do anything for me, despite the fact that I know "Bad Romance" pretty well. Here's a compilation of Whitney Houston clips that gives you a good sense of what this vocal flourish entails:

And, what the hell, here's "Bad Romance" as well:

What else?:

• 39A: Stereotypical attire for tech bros (VESTS) — true enough, but for the full effect, you really need the word "fleece" to be in there somewhere, although I guess some of them are "puffer" vests as well. Big article on this divisive fashion trend here.

• 66A: "___: The Origins of Our Discontents," Isabel Wilkerson best seller (CASTE) — I found this book fascinating. Especially the part about Nazis learning their race "science" from American eugenicists. But it's about much more than that, and offers a fresh way of thinking about social hierarchies and systems of oppression. I mostly spend my time reading fiction and watching film NOIR, but I'm glad I made time to read this one.

• 32D: Lasting lash effect (WELT) — ouch. Went into this one thinking "ooh, a makeup clue!" And then ... smack!

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]
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