Unseen wife on "Cheers" / SAT 9-6-25 / Ancient home to many pre-Socratic philosophers / Free kick, e.g., in soccer lingo / Sea creature also known as a redfin ocean pan / Bread whose dough is rolled on a chakla / 19th century naturalist buried in Westminster Abbey / Down Under colleges

Constructor: Kunal Nabar

Relative difficulty: Easy (a little harder, maybe, if some of the many proper nouns were mysteries)

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: SET PIECE (16D: Free kick, e.g., in soccer lingo) —

  

The term set piece or set play is used in association football and rugby football to refer to a situation when the ball is returned to open play, for example following a stoppage, particularly in a forward area of the pitch. In association football, the term usually refers to free kicks and corners, but sometimes penalties, throw-ins and kick-offs. Many goals result from such positions, whether scored directly or indirectly. Thus defending set pieces is an important skill for defenders, and attacking players spend much time practicing them; set pieces are one area where tactics and routines can be worked out in training in advance of matches. Some players specialize in set pieces. (wikipedia)

• • •

The big challenge of the day for me was trying to remember what Octavia Butler's middle initial was. Unlike Ursula K. LeGuin, another titan of science fiction, Octavia Butler's middle initial isn't as commonly used when referring to her. The "K" in Ursula K. LeGuin is iconic, whereas the "E." in OCTAVIA E. BUTLER is ... less so. Still, she is in fact billed as OCTAVIA E. BUTLER on her books (and her wikipedia page), so there's nothing wrong with including the middle initial here. I just whiffed it. I know Butler's name well and have read at least a couple of books by her and just could not retrieve her middle initial. When OCTAVIA BUTLER wouldn't fit, I briefly doubted whether she was the author in question or not, despite the fact that I had the "OC-" locked down, and what other author's name starts that way? OK, Ocean Vuong, but what other author? It's not like the "E" was hard to get—I could see the cross was likely -ERN (56D: Directional suffix)—but when I could hardly get any crosses off of OCTAVIA_BUTLER, that made me doubt myself all over again. ARTS and BEG and TIT seemed solid, as far as crosses went, but I came up empty everywhere else and had to go back to the NE and come down the east and middle of the grid in order to get the bottom of this puzzle to fall. Once I did, the bottom actually fell pretty easily. But yeah, trying to round that corner from the west into the south by way of "OC-" was the one moment where the wheels came off for a bit. I wouldn't classify it as a true struggle. More like a momentary delay, the significance of which was amplified by the fact that I hadn't had any delays at all with the first half of the solve (north and west sections). The upshot of all this is "E!" OCTAVIA E. BUTLER. "E" as in "Everybody knows that, dummy" (actually, it stands for "Estelle"). 

OCTAVIA E. BUTLER is the standout marquee answer today, imho. OPEN MARRIAGES, also interesting! I don't think all OPEN MARRIAGES involve "swinging," but "swinging" is mentioned as a "variant form" of open marriage on the "Open marriage" wikipedia page. I really don't want to get too far into the sex weeds on this one. I'll leave the sex weeds to you all. The clue seems accurate enough, and, as misdirections go, pretty clever. For the second day in a row, though, I wish the marquee stuff were ... more marqueeish. Actually, the more I look at the bottom stack, the better it looks. SILENT RETREAT has a lot of boring letters, but as an answer, it's cool and original. And TALKING HEADS is excellent; it just has a boring clue. Why would you go with "TV panelists" (zzz) when you could go with...

The proper nouns come thick and heavy early on, with VERA EMEKA KINTE and STEF all teaming up to cover enough cultural ground to thwart the \ forward progress of as many solvers as possible, at least a little. My familiarity with that group went from VERA (a gimme) to STEF (total unknown), with KINTE and EMEKA in between. KINTE was known to me, though I was not 100% confident of the spelling (KENTE?). And EMEKA Okafor is a name I've heard just by watching ESPN a lot 10 to 20 years ago, but even more than with KINTE (much more than KINTE, in fact), the spelling eluded me. Luckily, none of these names really held me up, as I went SHARK OPAH VERA, then changed JAMS (wrong) to MOBS (right) (1D: Packs), and those long Acrosses up top went down pretty easily. Wanted BARE NECESSITIES, but it wouldn't fit. But the ESSENTIALS went right in as my second guess, and the wine-dark SEA confirmed it, and so whoosh whoosh, down and left I went. Blocked at OCT- (as I've said) so back up top, down via SLEEPWEAR, and all the way home without much fuss. So many short answers and so many access points for every section made this one easy to bring down.

[DISCS]

Bullets:

• 45A: Jazz fest? (NBA GAME) — the "?" made it a gimme. "So ... it's not musical jazz ... what other 'jazz' is there?" A: Utah Jazz. Clue, solved.
• 2D: Sea creature also known as a redfin ocean pan (OPAH) — first of all, SEA is in the grid, so probably shouldn't be in this clue. Second, crossword fish to rescue! Sometimes crosswordese really helps you out, and that that telltale "H" in OPAH (which came from yet another sea creature, the SHARK) gave me a huge initial boost. OPAH is in prime position—with all its letters near the beginnings of all the long answers up top—so getting that answer was way more valuable than getting, say, TGIF (also a four-letter cross of all those upper answers, but in a far less useful position). OPAH WINFREY, is that something? Where's that theme? Where's the celebrity fish theme!? (actually, it's probably been done, or at least attempted ... somewhere)
• 24D: Subject of trade that gave rise to St. Louis and Detroit (FUR) — "Subject" really threw me for some reason. If the clue had just started [Trade...] I probably would've gotten it easier. Or not. At some point I was thinking of a sports trade (which makes no real sense) and then I was thinking about ... I dunno, the Louisiana Purchase, which wasn't really a "trade" at all, but more of a ... purchase (also, while the Louisiana Purchase included what is now St. Louis, it did not include Detroit). Anyway, the FUR trade, yes, that was a very big deal, economically, in early America.

• 39D: Bread whose dough is rolled on a chakla (CHAPATI) — me: "I don't know any Indian breads with a name that long!" Me, a little bit later: "Oh, CHAPATI! Hey, sorry I forgot about you, pal." I thought I was tapped out at NAAN and ROTI, but no, CHAPATI (also PARATHA and PAPADAM, if I'd been thinking clearly) (and those are just the ones *I* know—obviously there are lots (lots) more)
• 50A: "People are wrong when they say ___ is not what it used to be. It is what it used to be. That is what's wrong with it": Noël Coward ("OPERA") — I had the terminal "A," and since Noël Coward is a dramatist, I figured ... DRAMA. But no. But then, unexpectedly, elsewhere in the grid: yes! (32D: Much "Real Housewives" doings). Love when that happens. Such an eerie feeling.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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