Throws spray, in surfer lingo / SAT 3-7-26 / Dry streambed / Makeup of a plot / You might dance on one / Like the crescendo in Ravel's "Boléro" / Controller of floods in the video game Pharaoh / Low notes, but not the lowest /

Constructor: Fritz Juhnke

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: wadi (which was somehow not the answer to 28D: Dry streambed (WASH)) —

the bed or valley of a stream in regions of southwestern Asia and northern Africa that is usually dry except during the rainy season and that often forms an oasis : GULLY, WASH (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

The fact that WADI and WASH (28D: Dry streambed) are essentially synonyms is just about the cruelest joke the English language ever played on this Saturday solver. I mean ... dry riverbed, Saturday puzzle, starts WA- ... I dropped WADI in there without hesitation. Not only has WADI been in the grid before (91 times, 14 in the Modern Era), you wanna know how it was clued the last time it appeared (2024)? That's right: [Dry streambed]. Same damn clue as today's clue for WASH. The fact that it's been in the grid before is the only way I know the meaning of WADI at all. Learned it from crosswords! I was so proud of WADI. Well, not proud, exactly, but I did think "thank god I solve a lot, that's kind of a tough word." WADI has been [Dry streambed] three times, whereas WASH (which, unlike WADI, has infinite other clue possibilities) has only been clued as a [Dry streambed] once before today. So I don't know what you all were struggling with today, but for me, the WADI / WASH thing was the pro-trap to beat all pro-traps. That "D" made "AM I NUTS?" impossible to see, even with several crosses in place. And an already hard (and bizarre) clue on WHIM (43A: You might dance on one) became impossible with the "I" from WADI in the second position. So while other parts of the puzzle were also challenging, that tiny WASH / WHIM / TWOS section seems, in retrospect, like the most treacherous. 

KRONA / LAND / NOPE wasn't great either. Never know which vowel ("E" or "A") is going to end KRON-, and then LAND ... yeesh, that vague clue (24A: Makeup of a plot). A plot of LAND, I get it, now, but I wanted, like ACRES or DIRT or, I don't know, something, anything more specific than just LAND. Even with "L" and "N" in place, I didn't know. Started thinking of other "plot"s (like, conspiracies). I wish the difficulty on this one hadn't come so much in the fussy short bits of the grid (or, as this crossword insists on calling them, the DOTTED bits). I much prefer to struggle with longer stuff and then have a moment of revelation where a (preferably great) answer bursts forth and really opens up the grid. I got that feeling—struggle, struggle, pow!—only once, really: when I hacked my way to ELM ST. (45A: Location of a notorious 33-Down: Abbr.) and then realized that the answer I couldn't get earlier—the long answer starting with "N" (33D: Cause of a cold sweat, perhaps) was NIGHTMARE! That was fun. About as much fun as I've ever had with cross-referenced clues. No other moment of the solve was so thrilling, though I do think the corners are generally very strong. Loved "SPIT IT OUT!" over "HOLY MOSES!" It's like one half of a dramatic conversation. "SPIT IT OUT!" "[unheard but obviously shocking statement]." "HOLY MOSES!" 

OMNIVERSE is a stupid word since "universe" already means "Totality of everything," but whatever, I got it easily from the "M." CARD SHARK (1A: One who makes a living from fish), is always tricky, esp. if you know that the term is actually CARD SHARP. Actually, both terms get used now, but SHARK is the mutation, I'm pretty sure. 

Phrasefinder puts "card sharp" (or "-sharper") as the slightly earlier usage, with an 1859 citation for "card-sharper" and "card-sharp" in both Britain and in the US, while "card-shark" is cited to 1893 in the US. (wikipedia)

As for the "fish" part of the clue, those are the marks. Was the "fish" bit supposed to clue me in to the fact that the answer was going to involve marine life? Perhaps. That never occurred to me while solving (I actually didn't struggle much with this one because I had the "K" from KRON- before I ever knew that 1A had anything to do with cards). 

[Caravaggio, The Cardsharps, c. 1594]

I had to think for a bit to understand how STAR POWER fit the clue (15A: Screen grab?). I guess the people on the "screen" who "grab" an audience are said to have STAR POWER. Yeah, that must be it. Saw a couple of movies with a lot of STAR POWER over the last two days: On Thursday, there was Crime 101 (Halle Berry, Mark Ruffalo, one of the Hemsworth brothers (please do not ask me to keep them straight), Nick Nolte, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and the great Barry Keoghan (best thing about the movie by far)), and then yesterday there was The Bride! (Bening! Bale! Buckley!—the three B's!—plus Penélope Cruz, Peter Sarsgaard, and Jake Gyllenhaal). Neither film has been particularly well reviewed but I enjoyed both and really liked The Bride! STAR POWER is actually an important component of that movie, as Frankie, the monster (Bale), has an obsession with a 1930s movie musical star (J. Gyllenhaal), whose movies he goes to see obsessively, living vicariously through the star as a way of combating his own profound loneliness. That's STAR POWER.

POCO A POCO is pretty tough, as musical terms go (17A: Like the crescendo in Ravel's "Boléro"). I can hear Boléro in my head very clearly right now, but I had to infer POCO A POCO from crosses. The phrase is at least vaguely familiar to me. "Little by little"—which is how Boléro builds, at least in volume. The term POCO A POCO does not appear at all on the wikipedia page for Boléro. Someone more musical than I will tell you whether the term is apt. "NO, I INSIST" as an intriguing "OII" string (don't see those too often). Weird lot of first-person business today ("NO, I INSIST," and then "AM I NUTS?" crossing "I'M AN IDIOT"), but I don't have a problem with it. The pun on "smoking" in the RIB JOINTS clue, though (13D: Establishments where smoking is allowed)—that seems kind of forced. Smoking is not "allowed" in RIB JOINTS, it's one of the primary activities of RIB JOINTS. It's essential to RIB JOINTS. Permission is not a relevant issue. Boo to that attempted misdirection, for sure. 

Bullets:

• 19A: What travellers typically have in America? (ONE "L") — a "letteral" clue! Did not see that one coming. I guess if you have to use ugly crosswordese like ONEL, you may as well go ahead and try to make it interesting. As long as "interesting" doesn't mean "awkward and unnecessarily difficult," I don't mind.
• 29A: Controller of floods in the video game Pharaoh (OSIRIS) — had the "O," saw "Pharaoh" in the clue, wrote in OSIRIS. No video game knowledge required.
• 37D: R&B's Braxton (TONI) — I really enjoyed her music in the '90s and early '00s. Listened to this one a lot. Real Anita Baker vibes (extremely complimentary):

• 40A: Sémillon rouge and Médoc noir (MERLOTS) — had the "M" and those seemed ... red ... so guessed MERLOTS. No sweat.
• 62A: Woman central to electioneering? (IONE) — never saw this clue! Weird how you can struggle in some places and absolutely blow through others. Anyway, this is a hidden-name clue: "electioneering."
• 10D: Throws spray, in surfer lingo (SHREDS) — I know this as guitar-playing slang, but I was able to infer it easily enough today (thanks, RABBI and EMOJI!).
• 63A: "Big Little Lies" author Moriarty (LIANE) — a five-letter version of Veronica ROTH, in that she's a popular author whose name I cannot for the life of me remember, ever. I had to leave the final vowel blank here and wait for the cross, as LIANA is also a name one might have.
• 39D: Low notes, but not the lowest (TWOS) — definitely had TENS in here at some point. Completely forgot TWOS existed. I have a bunch of them stashed in the house somewhere, courtesy of someone who decided to make their annual $$$ contribution to this blog in ... unusual fashion. I should just deposit them, but their such weird, crisp little curiosities that I feel strangely compelled to hold on to them.

That's all for today. See you next time (and a "Happy" Daylight Saving Time to all of you) (I hate "springing forward" so much, esp. when it happens in winter and not in *&$%ing spring like it's supposed to)

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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