Focus of Gandhi protests / TUE 3-10-26 / 8-pointer in Scrabble / Mediterranean dish whose name can be translated as "pampered daddy" / Bizet's "Habanera," for one / All-time best-selling female rapper worldwide / Version of a car model / Sol's sister, in Roman myth / Eddie who voiced Donkey in "Shrek"

Constructor: Daniel Bodily

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (**for a Tuesday**)

[19A: "Star Wars" antagonist"]

THEME: J-LO (72A: Bronx-born star, to fans ... or a phonetic hint to 3-, 8-, 17-, 32- and 45-Down) — five Down answers end in "J," so in each case the "J" is ... "low" (visually, within its answer)

Theme answers:

• BRITISH RAJ (3D: Focus of Gandhi protests)
• FRESH OJ (45D: Drink that's just been squeezed, say)
• BABA GHANOUJ (17D: Mediterranean dish whose name can be translated as "pampered daddy")
• RADIO DJ (8D: One playing 45s, informally)
• NICKI MINAJ (32D: All-time best-selling female rapper worldwide)

Word of the Day: SKOPJE (70A: Capital of North Macedonia) —

Skopje is the capital and largest city of North Macedonia. It lies in the northern part of the country, in the Skopje Valley along the Vardar River, and is the political, economic, and cultural centre of the country. As of the 2021 census, the city had a population of 526,502. Skopje covers 571.46 km² (220.64 mi²) and includes both urban and rural areas, bordered by several municipalities and close to the borders of Kosovo and Serbia. [...] In 1912, following the Balkan Wars, Skopje was annexed by the Kingdom of Serbia. It became part of Yugoslavia after World War I and, following World War II, became the capital of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia, one of its constituent republics. In 1963, a major earthquake devastated the city, after which it was largely rebuilt with international assistance. Skopje became the capital of independent North Macedonia in 1991. (wikipedia) // North Macedonia, officially the Republic of North Macedonia, is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe. It shares land borders with Greece to the south, Albania to the west, Bulgaria to the east, Kosovo to the northwest and Serbia to the north. It constitutes approximately the northern third of the larger geographical region of Macedonia. Skopje, the capital and largest city, is home to a quarter of the country's population of over 1.83 million. The majority of the residents are ethnic Macedonians, a South Slavic people. Albanians form a significant minority at around 25%, followed by Turks, Roma, Serbs, Bosniaks, Aromanians and a few other minorities. (wikipedia)

• • •

Today I learned there is a North Macedonia, but no South Macedonia, or even just a plain old Macedonia. Just North Macedonia. The Balkans remain the part of the world to which I am the most map-blind. Like, I cannot keep all the countries straight. I grew up with Yugoslavia (Winter Olympics, 1984! That's how I learned Sarajevo existed). Then everything went to hell in that region in the early '90s, and by the end of the decade there were all these new countries, or new-old countries, and I have not made it a priority to go back and look at the region and figure out what and where they all are. And SKOPJE (pronounced "SCOPE-ya!") ... if you had shown me that name earlier this morning, I definitely could've told you it was a city, and I almost certainly would've placed it somewhere in the Balkans, but otherwise ... no clue. Needed many crosses (beyond the "J") to recall it today. This was one of several things that made this puzzle somewhat tougher than a regular Tuesday. Not tough tough, obviously. Just a little more challenging than usual.

Today's puzzle was another case of my liking the theme but not being exceptionally fond of the execution or the fill. There just aren't enough great longer answers ending in "J," so some of these come off as a little contrived. FRESH OJ also feels like you just slapped an adjective in front of OJ. Do people still drink frozen OJ? I think I heard recently that those cylinders of frozen orange juice concentrate (so familiar from my childhood) were being discontinued. Yep, confirmed. Anyway, if you do distinguish between kinds of orange juice, I believe the term is "fresh-squeezed." Also, RADIO DJ felt mildly redundant, as did BRITISH RAJ. Are there other RAJs besides the BRITISH RAJ? To be fair, none of today's theme answers sounded outright alien. They just seemed like common abbreviations with an adjectival modifier in front of them. BABA GHANOUJ and NICKI MINAJ both work great. I had real trouble with the spelling of BABA GHANOUJ. I knew the answer, but not the spelling. When I first saw the clue, I didn't understand the theme, and so that "J" ending, yikes. I think I must've imagined a "SH" ending? That's how it's pronounced (to my ears), and oh look, that's how it's most commonly spelled. Good, I'm not going crazy. Anyway, the "J" ... when I finally got it, I thought "oh, right. That spelling." But it didn't come to me straight away. As for NICKI MINAJ, she's a right-wing stooge now, so ... no (further) comment.

The fill on this one was on the weak side, largely because the grid is super-choppy and loaded with short stuff. IOTA ARIA ADHOC OFT AFAR ... that's quite a chain of repeaters. And there are more of them, everywhere. They really deaden the grid, though the longer Acrosses do give the grid some life back. That SW corner, though, is really rough. ON ZOOM ... my neck stiffened up just writing that. Wince City. Woof and oof. I DUNNO about that answer, man. Outside of the corner (the SKOPJE corner), I didn't have too much trouble anywhere except the NE, where writing in COURT instead of FLIRT (7D: Show romantic interest, in a way) really cost me some time. How much time? I dunno. Seconds? It's Tuesday, things go pretty fast no matter what the "relative difficulty" is. 

Bullets:

• 36A: 8-pointer in Scrabble ("J" TILE) — pretty sure I audibly booed this answer. Cheap way to get your "J" in.
• 31A: ___ Owens (birth name of Queen Latifah) (OWENS) — a good artist to listen to if you've ever had it up to here (with ... whatever):

• 58A: Apt anagram of BRUSH (SHRUB) — because they are similar types of plant, I guess. Although if you look up "brush," the word you will see is "scrub (vegetation)," not SHRUB.
• 6D: Version of a car model (TRIM) — this threw me because I think of TRIM as having to do with the aesthetics of the car (the exterior and interior finish), and that's correct, but something about the wording of the clue made me think the answer was going to describe a whole-ass car, not just the aesthetic. The clue's not wrong, my brain just couldn't process it.
• 27D: Comedian Bargatze (NATE) — an extremely popular comedian I've never seen. I follow some comedians on social media, so I'm aware of the phenomenon that is NATE Bargatze. But I couldn't tell you anything about him except that he is, as I say, very popular, and I think he doesn't really, uh, work blue. Is that still a term people use? Yeah, here we go: he's sometimes called a "clean comedian." He was the highest-grossing stand-up comic of 2024.

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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