Kinkajou cousin / THU 4-23-26 / Experience deep affirmation, in modern lingo / Media exec Sarandos / Lack of pulchritude / Follower of open or closed, sartorially / Owie kissers, perhaps

Constructor: Zhou Zhang and Kevin Curry

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: HAND-ME-DOWN (11D: Something that's kept in the family ... or a hint to making sense of three pairs of answers in this puzzle) — in three columns, "ME" is literally passed down from the upper answer to the lower answer, so the upper answer is missing a "ME" and the lower answer has an extra "ME" (both answers still look like plausible words or phrases)

Theme answers:

• CENT / BEEF LOMEIN ("cement" and "beef loin") (3D: *Material for a sidewalk / 28D: *Choice cut)
• "SO WHAT?" / COME UPON ("somewhat" and "coupon") (6D: *To a degree / 37D: *Supermarket shopper's clipping)
• HOLINESS / POMELO ("homeliness" and "polo") (9D: *Lack of pulchritude / 44D: *Sport that uses mallets)

Word of the Day: "Immaculate Reception" (42A: What the "Music City Miracle" and the "Immaculate Reception" took place in => NFL GAMES) —

The Immaculate Reception is one of the most famous plays in the history of American football. It was a touchdown which occurred in the AFC divisional playoff game of the National Football League (NFL), between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Oakland Raiders at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on December 23, 1972.

With his team trailing 7–6, on fourth down with 22 seconds left in the game, Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw threw a pass targeting Steelers running back John Fuqua. The ball may have bounced off the helmet of Raiders safety Jack Tatum, although many observers believe that Tatum never contacted the pass. Steelers fullback Franco Harris caught it just before it hit the ground and ran for a game-winning touchdown. The play has been a source of much controversy and speculation ever since, with many contending that the ball touched only Fuqua (and did not in any way touch Tatum) or that it hit the ground before Harris caught it, either of which would have resulted in an incomplete pass by the rules of the time. Kevin Cook's The Last Headbangers cites the play as the beginning of a bitter rivalry between the Steelers and the Raiders that fueled a historically brutal Raiders team during the NFL's most controversially physical era.

NFL Films has chosen the Immaculate Reception as the greatest play of all time, as well as the most controversial. The play was also selected as the Greatest Play in NFL History in the NFL Network's 100 series. The play proved to be a turning point for the Steelers, reversing four decades of futility with their first playoff win ever; they went on to win four Super Bowls by the end of the 1970s. (wikipedia)

• • •

This was enjoyable. It took me through many stages of revelation—the first "oh!" came when I realized there were missing "ME"s up top. "Aha, a missing 'ME' puzzle. I wonder why they're missing?" Later, I couldn't figure out why adding "ME" to BEEF LOMEIN was getting me nowhere, when suddenly I realized, "Wait ... this answer has an added 'ME'—I wonder why the 'ME's are missing in the top half of the puzzle but added below?" And then finally (truly finally—with the last letters I put into the grid), I got the rationale with the perfectly descriptive revealer, HAND-ME-DOWN. I don't think I'd noticed to that point that the "ME" shenanigans was contained to just three columns—my brain was still processing things in terms of top half / bottom half. So the revealer did its job (made sense of the wackiness in a punny way) and got me that final (of 3) ahas in a real exclamation-point kind of way. Always nice when the puzzle sticks the landing. I have only one minor complaint about the theme execution—I don't like that there's a stray, unhanded-down "ME" there at the top of the grid, in MESS (13D: State of a playroom, often). All the other Down "ME"s in the grid (except the one in the revealer) get handed down, but that "ME" is just sitting up there, tenaciously, thumbing its nose at the theme. "Haha, ya missed me, turkeys! I'm clinging to the ceiling of this grid and there's not a damn thing you can do about it!" If you change PALE to HALO, you've still got a lovely grid and bye bye extra "ME"! I am well aware that the theme is supposed to apply *only* in the case of the three relevant columns (with asterisked clues), but I like an immaculate execution, where the theme stuff stays contained entirely in the theme stuff. No strays! But, as I say, this is a minor issue. By its own stated rules, the theme works quite well.

The fill is far less interesting, but I appreciated how (relatively) clean it was. Sure, there are a bunch of overcommon short answers, but hardly any of those are what I'd call truly grating. No ugly abbrevs. today, no hoary old names from crossword grids of yore. The short stuff stays relatively innocuous, which is what I like short stuff to do. And then you get a few longer answers in there that liven things up a bit. FEEL SEEN is great (29A: Experience deep affirmation, in modern lingo), and WINDOW SILL, PRIDE MONTH, BEST MAN, "IN OR OUT?," and "IF I MUST" are all really good. So if I gotta endure an EENIE here and an ATON there and a pair of crossing crosswordese brands in the NW corner (AVEENO, AVIA), so be it. It's fine. Small price to pay for an otherwise well-crafted puzzle. 

Outside the inevitable theme confusion, the puzzle was pretty dang easy. They could've toughened this one up a bit, I wouldn't have minded. I'm looking over my grid and not seeing any places where I got particularly bogged down or even slightly delayed. All my problems came (predictably) very early, in that NW corner, where I wrote in NAIF instead of FAWN to start with (1D: Babe in the woods), and then tripped all over the missing-"ME" answers for a bit (two of them in that corner alone!). I had a little trouble remembering what a kinkajou was, so I briefly considered that its cousin might be a KOALA, and not a COATI. Now there's a crossword animal: COATI! I think of it as a South American raccoon. They're basically little fox-bear-cat-rats:

You can find them next to the OKAPI in the Crossword Zoo. Anyway, besides my brief flirtation with KOALA, I don't think I had any non-thematic missteps today. Basic basic, all around. Are there any interesting clues to talk about? Let's see ...

Bullets:

• 4D: Media exec Sarandos (TED) — no one wants to see a "media exec" in their puzzle, come on. Choose a better TED! (this one is co-CEO of Netflix)

• 17A: Spot for a catnap? (WINDOWSILL) — this "?" wasn't "?"-y enough. When you live with cats who nap in WINDOWSILLs every chance they get, well, this clue just doesn't have the misdirection force that it seems to want.

[OK he's not actually *in* the sill, but ... close]

• 36A: Follower of open or closed, sartorially (TOED) — I cannot honestly say that I like the answer TOED, but I do like this clue, a lot. It's elegant. I think I just enjoy the word "sartorially." This clue is well-dressed—classy—and I appreciate it.
• 41A: Queen's collaborator on the 1981 hit "Under Pressure" (BOWIE) — I would've said BOWIE's collaborator was Freddy Mercury, but of course it's his whole band. This music video was a staple of early MTV, which means I've watched it countless times. A great song.

• 9D: *Lack of pulchritude (HO[me]LINESS) — Came at this from underneath and despite knowing at that point that "ME"s were both disappearing from and squeezing into the answers for asterisked clues, I disregarded thematics entirely and wrote in UGLINESS with emphatic certainty. Lack of pulchritude is UGLINESS! It fit the clue so well! Perfectly, in fact! I love that "pulchritude" means beauty, since it is one of the ugliest words I've ever seen. It sounds like something you suffer from, not something you want. "What happened to Mary? I never see her any more." "Oh, she's sick. Doctors say it's pulchritude." "Oh no!" "Yeah, she never goes outside now, it's awful."
• 32D: Company that famously used the Beatles' "Revolution" in a 1987 TV commercial (NIKE) — at first I was like "Apple...?" but then I remembered. 1987 was the year I graduated high school / started college, and that commercial was, indeed, famous. First time a Beatles song was used in an advertisement. 

[God bless George Harrison and his doomed struggle against using Beatles songs to sell "brassieres and pork pies" LOL]

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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