Capote or chesterfield / SAT 5-16-26 / Trigger hair / Modern "go-to's" / Up to snuff, facetiously / Matches with forensics / Roman goddess who drives a two-horse chariot / Marriott property with the slogan "Whatever Whenever" / Victor over Washington on 11/12/1955 in "Back to the Future, Pt. II"—and in real life / Curtain for silhouetting on stage / Once-popular terra-cotta figurine / Spelling combinations? / Folks who enjoy a well-aged beef?

Constructor: Byron Walden

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: ZARFS (36A: Cup holders) —

A zarf (plural: zarfs, zarves; Turkish: zarflar; Arabic: zuruuf) is a cup holder, usually of ornamented metal, for a coffee cup without a handle // Although coffee was probably discovered in Ethiopia, it was in Turkey around the 13th century that it became popular as a beverage. As with the serving of tea in China and Japan, the serving of coffee in Turkey was a complex, ritualized process. It was served in small cups without handles (known as fincan, pronounced /finˈd͡ʒan/), which were placed in holders known as zarf (from the Arabic: ظرف, romanized: ẓarf; plural ظُرُوف ẓurūf, meaning "container" or "envelope") to protect the cup and also the fingers of the drinker from the hot liquid. // Cups were typically made of porcelain, but also of glass and wood. However, because the holder was more visible, it was typically more heavily ornamented. [...] The zarf was often made from metal, with silver, gold, copper, and brass being the most common materials used. Others were also made of woods such as coconut, ebony or other hardwoods, or of ivory, bone, horn, or tortoiseshell. Today, zarf can be the name of a cardboard coffee cup sleeve. (wikipedia) (my emph.)

• • •

It was only after I found myself struggling mightily in the NW corner that I bothered to look at the byline on today's puzzle. "Oh ... OK, that tracks." Byron's puzzles usually come in at above-average, and frequently well above-average, difficulty. Once I accepted that my opponent was going to be a worthy one today, I actually started to do better. Sometimes you just gotta get your head in the right space. I can't say this is among my favorite Byron Walden puzzles—the marquee fill was not terribly exciting, and there were an awful lot of absolute WTFs, which makes it harder to love a puzzle—but I appreciated the good old-fashioned challenge this one provided. There were some mildly contrived phrases—stuff that veered toward Green Paint territory (i.e. a phrase someone might say but that doesn't stand alone particularly well). I'm thinking of LANDED OUT and IN TWO ACTS and the bizarrely poetic RIVER SEINE in particular. But I'm not too mad at those. I'll give a late-week puzzle some leeway to get weird with it. As long as the puzzle puts up a fight and the grid doesn't feel loaded with junk, I'm gonna be reasonably happy on a Saturday. 

The main problem for me today was that I just found myself shrugging at clues and answers that meant nothing to me. That elaborate ANDY KIM clue, LOL, yikes (19A: Name shared by the singer of the #1 hit "Rock Me Gently" (1974) and the first Korean American elected to the U.S. Senate (2024)). None of that information helped me. I actually know the song "Rock Me Gently" from decades of intermittently listening to Oldies stations (and from listening to Casey Kasem's '70s-era American Top 40 countdowns every weekend when we drive to the bakery in Owego). But I had no idea who the singer was, and I continue to not know more than a handful of congresspeople. Been a long time since Congress has been anything more than useless, and I don't soak my brain in 24hr news networks of any political stripe, so ... ANDY KIM? If you say so! Junior senator from New Jersey! Sorry, New Jersey, for only knowing your other senator. Also, that UCLA clue?!?!?! (1D: Victor over Washington on 11/12/1955 in "Back to the Future, Pt. II"—and in real life). I don't remember a damn thing about Back to the Future, Pt. II. Maybe saw it once. Haven't seen it since it came out. I guess it features a football game? Again, if you say so. "Operculum"!? (28A: Operculum, e.g.). No idea. No hope. Is that a fancy name for your eyeLID? No, not exactly. 

[merriam-webster.com]

And ZARFS!? I have apparently been using them for years and didn't know it. It's been sixteen years since ZARF was in the puzzle. I don't think I've heard the term in the wild once since then. That was the last answer I wrote in. Not a nice way to finish—entering the last letter and just hoping it's right. Also, FEUDISTS? (32D: Folks who enjoy a well-aged beef?). Those who feud are FEUDISTS? There's something incongruously formal-sounding about a phenomenon I associate with the Hatfields and McCoys. I'd've thought FEUDERS But my software is red-underlining FEUDERS and leaving FEUDISTS alone, so I guess the puzzle is correct. Are there really people who practice the art of feuding? Is there such an art? The -IST ending really implies "this is a formal art or practice." Are there people who are just feud enthusiasts? I think they should be called FEUDIES. Like foodies, but for feuds.

The pleasure for me today was mainly in wrestling with the strange and often heavily misdirective cluing. The "Matches" in 22A: Matches with forensics is a noun, not a verb. [Don't start with me!] is someone you literally don't start (if you're a coach). (If the clue phrase had had quotation marks around it, then the answer would've been an equivalent phrase, but without the quotation marks, plus the "!," the clue is meant to be taken hyper-literally.) "Spelling" and "beef" both get used in unexpected ways. The [Wind pipe?] is a pipe that you hang in the wind (CHIME). The things that are "hard to pull off" are not tight articles of clothing, as I suspected, but FEATS (I'm not sure all FEATS are "hard to pull off," but some, sure, OK). ROUND 'EM UP and IN FOREVER are winning phrases, but primarily it was the (tricky, clever) cluing, and not the fill, that made this one (mostly) enjoyable. 


Bullets:

• 1A: Modern "go-to's" (URLS) — did not love this clue. I see what it's doing, but the quotation marks imply that someone might use that specific phrase in reference to a URL, and no. You do "go to" websites, it's true, but you wouldn't call them "go-to's." Take the quotation marks out and I like the clue better. 
• 14A: Capote or chesterfield (COAT) — I was so proud of myself when I remembered that a "Capote" was a type of ... CAPE. Sigh. So proud! Confirmed UCLA with that answer!! STAY BACK forced the change from CAPE to COAT. I know "chesterfield" primarily as a SOFA. Or a cigarette. [Side note: it is so grim, every time I search for information about a thing, to be presented with an absolute wall of commercial sites—URLS (!) trying to sell me home furnishings, for instance, instead of a site that will simply explain what a chesterfield is. No, I don't want to get my definition from "chairsactually" or "furniturecloud," thank u very much. I can get dictionary definitions easily enough, but to find anything more explanatory, I have to wade through all the sites trying to sell me stuff. It's a drag. A hyper-commercialized hellscape.]

• 15A: Emulates E.T., in a way (PHONES HOME) — too easy. Jarringly easy, in this puzzle. So easy that I actually doubted it for a half second. I guess a very tricky puzzle can sometimes throw you precisely by not being tricky—the cleverest trick of all. The non-trick! No one sees it coming! Diabolical.
• 24D: Trigger hair (MANE) —Trigger was Roy Rogers's horse. Kind of a deep cut, esp. if you're under, say, 50.

• 17A: Roman goddess who drives a two-horse chariot (LUNA) — it's weird how I "knew" this without knowing it. Maybe it's just that my brain has a storehouse full of gods and goddesses of various word lengths and LUNA sits near the top of the Roman four-letter bin. JUNO is probably at the top, but that "J" didn't seem likely in that position. 
• 34A: Up to snuff, facetiously (EPT) — aargh. I count on the short stuff being easy, or at least reasonably gettable, but this!? I needed every cross, I think. It's a back-formation from "inept," and its first recorded use was by E.B. White, in a letter from 1938. (“I am much obliged … to you for your warm, courteous, and ept treatment of a rather weak, skinny subject.”) (grammarphobia dot com)
• 10D: Marriott property with the slogan "Whatever Whenever" (W HOTEL) — that's the letter "W" and then HOTEL, not WHOTEL. It's not the main lodge in Whoville ... although I do think "Whatever, Whenever, WHOTEL!" is a great slogan.

• 23D: Once-popular terra-cotta figurine (CHIA PET) — wait, wait ... you're telling me they're no longer popular!? My Chia Obama is ... out of style!?!?

["Yes You Can!" LOL wow]

• 27D: State in which Gulliver is discovered by the Lilliputians (DEEP SLEEP) — so not TENNESSEE, then. Gotcha. (DEEP SLEEP helped me change RICER to DICER (27A: Aid in making salsa). I'm still not real clear on the distinction)
• 18A: Precious self-reference (LITTLE OL' ME) — OK now do you see why I balked and squawked at LI'L' OL' ME on Sunday!? Arbitrary elisions and non-elisions everywhere! It's madness! Next we're gonna get LITTLE OLD ME and LIL OLD ME and maybe LIL OLE ME (like Grand Ole Opry?!), where will it end!? 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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