Blue-skinned race in "Avatar" / TUE 9-23-25 / Gymgoer's goal, perhaps / Country that dropped "western" from its name in 1997 / Some Rhode Island Reds / Word before deck or hand / Iliac artery feeder

Constructor: Jacob Stulberg

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: JUG BAND (40A: *Where the starts of the answers to the five starred clues can all be found) — theme answers start with JUG BAND instruments

Theme answers:

• SPOONS OUT (18A: *Serves, as soup or ice cream)
• WASHBOARD ABS (23A: *Gymgoer's goal, perhaps)
• JUG BAND (40A: *Where the starts of the answers to the five starred clues can all be found)
• STOVEPIPE HAT (51A: *Accessory for Abraham Lincoln)
• BONES UP ON (63A: *Refreshes one's knowledge of)

Word of the Day: Bones (see 63A) —

The bones, also known as rhythm bones, are a folk instrument that, in their original form, consists of a pair of animal bones, but may also be played on pieces of wood or similar material. Sections of large rib bones and lower leg bones are the most commonly used bones, although wooden sticks shaped like true bones are now more often used. Metal spoons may be used instead, as is common in the United States, known as "playing the spoons". The technique probably arrived in the U.S. via Irish and other European immigrants, and has a history stretching back to ancient China, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. They have contributed to many music genres, including 19th century minstrel shows, traditional Irish and Scottish music, the blues, bluegrass, zydeco, French-Canadian music, and music from Cape Breton in Nova Scotia. The clacking of the loose rib bones produces a much sharper sound than the zydeco washboard or frottoir, which mimics rattling a bone up and down a fixed ribcage. (wikipedia)

• • •

I have absolutely no experience of JUG BANDs that are not headed by Emmet Otter, although I now realize that my childhood memories have conflated Emmet Otter's JUG BAND Christmas with the animatronic Country Bear Jamboree feature at Disneyland, which I might be conflating with various animatronic musical acts at Showbiz Pizza (RIP, Showbiz—you were better, and weirder, than Charles Entertainment Cheese Pizza ever was).

If you'd asked me to name the instruments in a JUG BAND before I'd solved this puzzle, I would've been like, "Well, jug, first of all ... washboard (ding!) ... maybe spoons (ding ding!) ... some kind of makeshift string instruments? (bzzt!)." I had to look up "bones" (though I correctly surmised that they were literally bones, at least originally), and I still can't really conceive of how one plays a "stovepipe." Wikipedia doesn't have a separate entry for "Stovepipe (instrument)," but has it filed instead under "Jug (instrument)":

The stovepipe (usually a section of tin pipe, 3" or 4"/75 or 100 mm in diameter) is played in much the same manner, with the open-ended pipe being the resonating chamber. There is some similarity to the didgeridoo, but there is no contact between the stovepipe and the player's lips.

So it's jugesque. My main question today is a cultural one, namely "how does anyone know what a JUG BAND is (anymore)?" How popular are they? Where? With whom? In terms of broader pop culture, where do you even see them? Do younger people know about Emmet Otter? If not, what are their JUG BAND touchstones? Every experience of JUG BANDs that I have involves puppets or animatronic animals, which seems crazy to me. It seems like the kind of musical act that, in live-action fictional representations, might lend itself (strongly) to caricatures. Maybe that's why the JUG BAND scene is dominated by animal puppets. Annnnnyway, today we get JUG BAND instruments. Some of them. And then a very dull Tuesday puzzle on top of that. I can't say I had fun solving it, but I can say I had fun doing 15 minutes' worth of JUG BAND research.

[with Jughead, inaptly, on drums]

I have almost nothing to say about the non-theme material today. Lots of repeaters, no surprises. Haven't thought about THE CW for a while (1D: "Superman & Lois" airer). Is it still a network? ... apparently it is, look at that. I haven't had cable TV for so long, I no longer know which of seemingly hundreds of networks are still viable. But I do remember that Superman & Lois once existed, and that it aired on an off-brand network. It's possible I wrote in THE WB at first. I'm writing at length about this clue because it's possibly the only clue that made me think much of anything. Oh, I had to think about what things are in the gym (there are definitely MATs, but they are not among the first, say, ten things that spring to mind, so that clue was less easy than others) (30D: Gym sight). I wrote in ENOS as the [Son of Adam], but ENOS is not the son of Adam. He's the son of (... wait for it ...) SETH! Who is, in fact, the son of Adam. ENOS is not only the son of SETH, he is also a baseball player in the Hall of FAME (really awkward crossreference there) (58A: Slaughter in the Baseball Hall of 61-Across). Different ENOSes I assume (oof, man, I do not recommend trying to write ENOS in the plural; feels ... bad). That's it for trouble. Nearly nonexistent.

[Just pretend they're saying "ENOS"]

Bullets:

• 4D: Doesn't give proper respect (SLIGHTS) — really (really? really) thought this was spelled SLEIGHTS. Like Janet LEIGH (27A: Hollywood's Janet or Vivien).
• 43A: "On the Road Again," for one (TITLE) — hilariously arbitrary. Stunningly arbitrary. Spectacularly arbitrary. Of all the millions of TITLEs in the history of the word, today's example is ... a Willie Nelson movie title track from 1980?! Do JUG BANDs play this? Well, yes and no (yes they play a song by that title, no it is not the Willie Nelson song):

• 2D: Country that dropped "western" from its name in 1997 (SAMOA) — occupied by various "western" colonial forces (Germany, then NZ after WWI, then the U.N.), SAMOA gained its independence in the 1962 and finally eliminate "Western" from its name in 1997. The country does, in fact, lie just "west" of American SAMOA.

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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