"Kids these days..." speakers / SAT 4-25-26 / Showy insect with dark eyespots on its wings / War of 1812 treaty locale / Start of an old request for advice / Often-regretted behavior on social media, once / Creature of the internet / Give designs to Image editor, informally? / Suffix akin to -ess / "West Side Story" song that precedes the rumble / Big acronym in purifying filters / When a sports equinox typically occurs / Consumed, quaintly / Spider-Man foe with metal "tentacles," familiarly

Constructor: Sam Ezersky

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

[17A: "The Rise of Skywalker" role]

THEME: none [people are telling me the grid is supposed to represent an IO MOTH. Hmm … if you squint and wish real hard … maybe!]

Word of the Day: Ask Ann Landers (14A: Start of an old request for advice = "DEAR ANN...") —

Ann Landers was a pen name created by Chicago Sun-Times advice columnist Ruth Crowley in 1943 and taken over by Esther Pauline "Eppie" Lederer in 1955. For 56 years, the Ask Ann Landers syndicated advice column was a regular feature in many newspapers across North America. Owing to this popularity, "Ann Landers", though fictional, is now considered a national institution and cultural icon. [...] In 1995, Lederer commented thus in The New Yorker about Pope John Paul II: "He has a sweet sense of humor. Of course, he's a Polack. They're very anti-women." Polish Americans responded with outrage. She issued a formal apology, but refused to comment further. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel canceled her column after that incident. In the same article she noted that President John F. Kennedy's father, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., was anti-Semitic. [...] A 1995 "Ann Landers" column said, "In recent years, there have been reports of people with twisted minds putting razor blades and poison in taffy apples and Halloween candy. It is no longer safe to let your child eat treats that come from strangers." The vague warning was criticized for causing fear dishonestly, as there have been no documented cases of children receiving poisoned candy during door-to-door Halloween trick-or-treating. (wikipedia)

• • •

Gonna have to be a short one today, as, for the first time in ... yeah, I don't know how long ... I overslept! I didn't just hit Snooze, I turned the alarm off, and next thing I know, it's half an hour later. The cats usually walk all over me once that alarm goes off, but today they absolutely fell down on the job. The one day I needed them to be super-annoying and they were nowhere to be found. Of course as soon as I got up, they were like "WE'RE STARVING WHERE WERE YOU." Crying, ramming my shins. "Earn your keep, you little jerks!" ANYWAY ... where was I? Oh, this puzzle. Short write-up. Here we go. So ... I kinda liked this. First of all, I appreciate the weird grid shape, with its top-bottom mirror symmetry. Looks like some kind of spaceship, and it created a ... let's say, interesting flow. My first impressions weren't great, as I didn't think much of the longer answers on the west side. We speak of generations, plural, now, so the idea of one OLDER GENERATION feels odd and antiquated, and ugh to the sterile businessy MIDYEAR FEEDBACK (is that really a phrase that gets used?). But once I got into the meat of the middle of this puzzle, things improved dramatically. That phalanx of longer answers—the stack of three going across and the three cutting through it from above—are all winners. Solid, colorful, varied, modern. The grid is really clean, for the most part (ERES and ENNE and possibly VIS excepted). This was a fun time. Felt more like a Friday than a Saturday, but that's probably just because it had some of that Friday whoosh and zoom and less of that Saturday grind.

[21A: "___ Mia" (2014 Latin pop hit)]

What was hard? Well, the damn Star Wars answer, for one. I hate how one tiny little mistake can create total chaos, but today, REY is at a chokepoint, right at the point where it was in the position to help me get both of those long Downs, and so it was briefly but palpably disastrous when I wrote in REN instead. Kylo REN is someone, right? Someone in The Rise of Skywalker??? Yes! Gah! Pfft. OK, I feel slightly less bad. Still, that was annoying. Once I (finally) changed it to REY, I saw the MIDYEAR part of MIDYEAR FEEDBACK and worked things out from there. Before that I was like "MIDN- ... do they give MIDNIGHT evaluations now? Seems ... intimate." After that, I tore my hair out trying to think of a "word' that wasn't "tête" that could go on either side of "à" (28D: Word on either side of "à"). Even after I got the central "I." I ran the alphabet, gave up before I got to the end (d'oh!), and so had to wait for SEEING EYE DOG to give me the "S" that made me see "VIS." Stupid brain, not retrieving basic information for me like it's supposed to! Once that center stack went in, I had no further problems with this one, though finishing up in the NE was slightly slow going, as "DEAR ANN..." and PR AGENCY were both a bit difficult to parse given their less-than-obvious clues. I actually thought the "Image" in 16A: Image editor, informally? was the name of a magazine, and that that was why there was a "?" on the end of the clue. And then of course PRAGENCY looks nuts to begin with if you don't know that "PR" is an abbr. It's like someone misspelled "pregnancy." "DEAR ANN, what should I do about my unplanned PRAGENCY?"

Bullets:

• 1A: Showy insect with dark eyespots on its wings (IO MOTH) — almost high-fived myself when I got this one immediately. First thing in the grid. Pretty sure crosswords taught me what the hell an IO MOTH was in the first place.
• 27A: Get one over on (BOGEY) — oof, golf. This one got me. Thought the clue meant "get one over on" in the sense of "trick" or "fool."
• 32A: Helpful pointer, say? (SEEING-EYE DOG) — I have never seen a pointer used as a SEEING-EYE DOG. Mostly just labs and German shepherds. But "pointer" may be being used here simply to indicate that the dog "points" its human being in the right direction. I helped a man with a SEEING-EYE DOG find the car he was waiting for last weekend when I was in Manhattan. It took all my strength not to talk to his dog and pet him and ask him if he's a good boy, but I managed!

• 35A: War of 1812 treaty locale (GHENT) — Ha, I can't believe that my recent confession about confusing the Treaty of GHENT with the Council of TRENT actually paid off! Off the "G," woo hoo!
• 8D: "As men in ___ strike those that wish them best": Iago ("RAGE") — fill-in-the-blanks are always hard, and usually mildly disappointing. My disappointment today mainly stems from the fact that the puzzle's got RAGE and IRE right next to each other and ... nothing? No cross-referencing, no interaction between those two clues at all. Like, they're just gonna pretend they don't know each other? Awkward. 
• 14D: Often-regretted behavior on social media, once (DRUNK TWEETING) — lol "once." Come on. It's still "tweeting," even if the app isn't called Twitter any more. If not, then what is it? Xing??? Boo. I use BlueSky exclusively, and I still call it "tweeting." They want me to call it "skeeting," but I'd like to retain some modicum of dignity and self-respect into my old age, thanks.
  
• 19D: Be validated for vocalizing one's opinion (FEEL HEARD) — Thursday we felt seen, today we FEEL HEARD. It's a real validation-fest up in here lately.
• 37D: Creature of the internet (NEOPET) — virtual pets that I haven't thought about since my daughter was little. Apparently still a thing.
• 22D: Give designs to (STYLIZE) — I had so much trouble trying to understand what the puzzle meant by [Give designs to]. I kept imagining Greg trying to deliver Mike's architectural designs to the printer. Don't get distracted, Greg! Remember, the shortest distance between two points is ...

That's all 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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