What "maki" means in Japanese / TUE 10-21-25 / Slow-cooked taco filling / Seaweed wrap for maki / Nut-brown hue / Venue for combatants wearing vests with sensors / Valuable Minecraft blocks / Half of a classic lunch special / Advances from third while the pitcher is distracted, say

Constructor: Spencer Leach

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: A SHOT IN THE DARK (47A: Wild guess ... or what 19-, 24- and 41-Across let you take?) — one place and two things that (literally) let you take a "shot" in the dark (with the meaning of "shot" changing in each answer):

Theme answers:

• INFRARED CAMERA (19A: Device for capturing thermal images) (a "shot" with a camera)
• BASEMENT PARTY (24A: Where you might dance to some underground music?) (a "shot" of liquor)
• LASER TAG ARENA (41A: Venue for combatants wearing vests with sensors) (a "shot" with a laser gun)

Word of the Day: BARBACOA (37D: Slow-cooked taco filling) —

Barbacoa, or asado en barbacoa (Spanish: [baɾβaˈkoa] ^ⓘ) in Mexico, refers to the local indigenous variation of the method of cooking in a pit or earth oven.^[1] It generally refers to slow-cooking meats or whole sheep, whole cows, whole beef heads, or whole goats in a hole dug in the ground, and covered with agave (maguey) leaves, although the interpretation is loose, and in the present day (and in some cases) may refer to meat steamed until tender. This meat is known for its high fat content and strong flavor, often accompanied with onions and cilantro (coriander leaf). Because this method of cooking was used throughout different regions by different ethnic groups or tribes in Mexico, each had their own name for it; for the Nahuatl it was called nakakoyonki; for the Mayan it was called píib; for the Otomi it was called thumngö. (wikipedia)

• • •

Never saw the theme. Blew through this like it was a Monday themeless. Almost no resistance. The first time I thought about the theme was literally when I was starting this write-up and I got to the "Theme answers" part of my blog template and was like "oh yeah, right, what was that?" It was a nice discovery—taking a familiar idiomatic phrase and reimagining / literalizing it for three different contexts. The biggest reach / stretch / swing of the three is arguably the best of the three. Of course, it's arguably the worst of the three, ymmv, obviously. Are basement parties notably dark? Paradigmatically dark? Are they a specific type of party or just, you know, a party anyone might have in their basement? The "darkness" part doesn't seem as apt for that answer, and yet that answer takes "shot" in the most unexpected direction, so I like it. I kind of hate-like it. It's capital-"W" wacky, which is the only kind of "wacky" I really like. Or the kind I respect most, at any rate. Everything else about this grid is a blur. With a couple of exceptions, I filled in every answer in this puzzle almost as fast as I could read its clue. 

The few parts that caused me to stop and think for a second ended up being some of the more entertaining parts of the solve, though maybe they're just the places I happen to remember because they slowed me down. I had NICEL- at 10D: "Bravo!" and thought "NICE ... LEGS? NICE LUNGS? What are we doing here?" Took me a bit to see that the "L" was attached to "NICE," part of the same word. NICELY! Unless there's such a thing as a LYDONE and I'm completely misreading the situation. I didn't get slowed down with BARBACOA, but I did misspell it (BARBICOA). Is there something called a "Barbicon?" Or am I thinking of the Rubicon? Barbicon sounds like a doll convention. Hang on ... oh. It seems I was thinking of BARBICAN:

A barbican (from Old French: barbacane) is a fortified outpost or fortified gateway, such as at an outer defense perimeter of a city or castle, or any tower situated over a gate or bridge which was used for defensive purposes. (wikipedia)

There's also definitely a BARBIZON beauty college. I remember seeing (or hearing) ads for them when I was a kid in the '80s. Anyway, I blame either BARBICAN or BARBIZON or, sure, why not, BARBIE, I blame BARBIE (though not ISSA Rae specifically) (48D: Rae of "Barbie") for my thinking that BARBICOA was spelled that way. The only other thing  I screwed up in this puzzle was ACORN, which I did not know was a [Nut-brown hue], or any kind of hue. I had the "C" and wrote in OCHER. Or was it OCHRE? I can never keep them straight.

More:

• 51D: What "maki" means in Japanese (ROLL) — a triple "maki" puzzle (see also the clues on SUSHI and NORI) (44A: Maki or temaki and 2D: Seaweed wrap for maki). That's two more "makis" than have ever actually appeared in the NYTXW. MAKI made its sole appearance as an answer late last year ([Sushi roll wrapped in seaweed]), though it did appear once before that in a non-SUSHI context. Can you guess how it was clued? Let me stop you right now—you can't. Or you can, in which case I'm very impressed with your knowledge of the animal kingdom. MAKI is apparently a lemur. When I search "maki" it's the first thing that comes up—though admittedly, this set of definitions (which comes up at the top of the search — I use DuckDuckGo) does not inspire confidence:

[The what version of the what dictionary? And ... why is def. 3 ... the same as def 1?]

• 35A: Valuable Minecraft blocks (ORES) — OR-S and I swear I wanted ORBS. And then ORCS. Force of habit. My brain is a very fast but not always accurate crossword answer generator, and when it glitches, it glitches pretty bad.
• 58A: "Summer of ___," Questlove documentary about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival (SOUL) — I love how far out of its way this clue goes to get an excellent movie into the puzzle. 10 jillion potential SOUL clues out there and this one's like, "hey, I know, how about some amazingly joyful music? You like Gladys?"

• 20D: Tinder account datum that can't be edited (AGE) — someone sounds frustrated. Someone sounds like they tried to edit their AGE in their Tinder account.
• 26D: Advances from third while the pitcher is distracted, say (STEALS HOME) — nice answer, and a debut, although there has been a STEAL HOME (2017) and a STOLE HOME (2012 ... I know because that was me)
• 2427D: What team-building activities are designed to build (TRUST) — huh. I would've said MORALE. Or ... teamwork, something like that. Do you really have to TRUST your coworkers? Does anyone ever really TRUST their coworkers? Steve from Accounting? Really? Come on.

That's it for today. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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