"Drink" for vocal critics / WED 5-20-26 / Epitome of slowness / Protagonist of "That '70s Show" / Musical notation that means "with vigor" / Boardroom bigwig, in brief / European city that "waits for you," in a Billy Joel tune / Establishment that serves zombies, perhaps / "Essential" product used as an anti-acne treatment / Spot to drink a matcha with a Manx / Florence-based fashion house

Constructor: Kathleen Duncan

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: "ISN'T THAT SPECIAL!" (58A: Condescending rhetorical question ... or what you might say about 16-, 26- and 44-Across) — three things that might be called "special":

Theme answers:

• OFF-YEAR ELECTION (16A: Nontraditional time for voting someone into office)
• SOUP OF THE DAY (26A: What a waiter might offer to start you off)
• VISUAL EFFECT (44A: Bit of movie magic)

Word of the Day: Zombie (1A: Establishment that serves zombies, perhaps = TIKI BAR) —

The zombie is a tiki cocktail made of fruit juices, liqueurs, and various rums. It first appeared in late 1934, invented by Donn Beach at his Hollywood Don the Beachcomber restaurant. It was popularized on the East coast soon afterwards at the 1939 New York World's Fair. // Legend has it that Donn Beach originally concocted the zombie to help a hung-over customer get through a business meeting. The customer returned several days later to complain that he had been turned into a zombie for his entire trip. Its smooth, fruity taste works to conceal its extremely high alcoholic content. Don the Beachcomber restaurants limited their customers to two zombies apiece because of their potency, which Beach said could make one "like the walking dead." // According to the original recipe, the zombie cocktail included three different kinds of rum, lime juice, falernum, Angostura bitters, Pernod, grenadine, and "Don's Mix", a combination of cinnamon syrup and grapefruit juice. // Beach was very cautious with the recipes of his original cocktails. His instructions for his bartenders contained coded references to ingredients, the contents of which were only known to him. Beach had reason to worry; a copy of the zombie was served at the 1939 New York World's Fair by a man trying to take credit for it named Monte Proser (later of the mob-tied Copacabana). [...] The cocktail is named in the lyrics for the song "Haitian Divorce" on the 1976 album The Royal Scam by Steely Dan. (wikipedia)

• • •

Well, this one started out hot—strong cocktails, right out of the gate...

... and then you get a few crosses, layer in some HATERADE (14A: "Drink" for focal critics), and then boom, there goes the first themer (which I actually got without having to look at the clue) (you solve Monday puzzles Downs-only for long enough, and you get real good at pattern recognition):

And then you cross all that with "IT FIGURES..."? Yes, I was pretty happy coming out of the NW corner (not something I say a ton). The puzzle sort of faded from there, though. It didn't crash and burn; it just kind of ... wilted. The fill gets extremely weak in that central choppy section (all 3-4-5s)—it was like falling down stairs, moving through that section, and when I landed at the bottom of the stairs, I turned around and took a picture (for insurance purposes—those are faulty stairs!):

You start out firmly in crosswordese territory with LIRE / ODIN, and then, once you round the corner into the middle of the grid, you go CFO NOLO HOOHA YOM HODA DEL ALEAP, clunk clunk clunk clunk, hitting your head on every step. It was like those answers were sounds I was involuntarily uttering with each impact. The rest of the fill holds up OK (your EKEs and your SLOs notwithstanding), but the good vibes of the NW become a kind of distant memory, and the theme ... sigh (he SIGHED). I want to like it, and I think there's a cleverish idea here, but the specials are inconsistently special. For the first and third, "Special" can simply precede the last word in the phrase in order to describe what you're talking about, e.g. an OFF-YEAR ELECTION is a "special election," a VISUAL EFFECT is a "special effect." But SOUP OF THE DAY works differently. That's just a "special." Unless it's supposed to evoke the phrase "special of the day," but ... that phrase tends to refer more to entrees. A SOUP OF THE DAY is not the "special of the day." It's just ... a special—an example of an offering not typically on the menu. I think the thing that's bugging me most about the theme, though, is VISUAL EFFECT.  All "special effects" are visual. So VISUAL EFFECT feels like just a dumb adjective swap-out (VISUAL for "special"), and a bad one, in that VISUAL EFFECT feels the less natural-sounding term. "Special effects," common phrase; "VISUAL EFFECTs," less so. Those two phrases are basically synonyms, whereas the other themers are examples of a type. An OFF-YEAR ELECTION is a kind of special election. SOUP OF THE DAY is a kind of restaurant special. VISUAL EFFECT is just a weaker way of saying "special effect." (although according to this wikipedia entry on "visual effects," they're actually increasingly distinct from "special effects," with "special" referring to mechanical effects and "visual" referring to digital). There's just something slightly off, slightly loose and clunky, about the way the theme is executed. But like I say, the core idea is at least interesting ... and we'll always have that NW corner.

Pretty easy solve today. I have no idea what SAGE OIL is, so that took some hacking (48A: "Essential" product used as an anti-acne treatment). I've heard of TEA TREE OIL, but not SAGE OIL, but then I've never had much of an acne problem, so this is really beyond my purview. Took me a bunch of crosses to see MOLASSES (it's perfectly clued, I just couldn't think beyond tortoise ... why is the tortoise and the hare story stuck in my head?) (38D: Epitome of slowness). The worst mistake I made today—maybe the only true mistake—was writing in TAKE POWER instead of TAKE POINT (32D: Be in charge, informally). TAKE POINT is apparently a military term, which is funny to me, as I always assumed it came from basketball (since the point guard typically runs the team's offense). And I know the phrase, when used metaphorically, as "run point." TAKE POWER really felt right, and as you can see, it has all but three of the same letters as the actual answer, so that slowed me down. The clue does say "informally," and there's nothing particularly "informal" about TAKE POWER, so I probably shouldn't have pulled the trigger on it. But I had TAKE PO-! How was I supposed to lay off?

Bullets:

• 15A: European city that "waits for you," in a Billy Joel tune ("VIENNA") — this song has a funny history. It never charted—I don't think it was even released as a single—but it became one of the most popular songs in Joel's repertoire and is somehow now a certified triple platinum record (!?). Apparently the movie 13 Going on 30 (2004), which featured "VIENNA," really caused the song to blow up. Anyway, it's a charming song. 

• 64A: Words a teenager might say with an eye roll ("YES, DAD") — the "eye roll" got me; I was expecting a lot more surface sass. Something slangy, maybe. But no, just a straight phrase of assent, dripping with teen exasperation.
• 1D: Mustachioed president who succeeded another mustachioed president (TAFT) — four-letter mustachioed president = TAFT. The mustache is all you need to know "not BUSH." Oh, crap, I forgot about POLK! POLK did not have a mustache—just really high collars and (by the looks of it) a need to consume human blood. 

[POLK! (p.s. the other "mustachioed president" mentioned in the clue was T.R.)]

• 9D: Careful, this might be hot! (MIC) — gah, a hot MIC. I was like "MAC ... because MAC & cheese ... is hot?"
• 62A: John in the sketch "The Fish Slapping Dance" (CLEESE) — this was way harder than it should've been because I read the clue as [Join in the sketch "The Fish-Slapping Dance"] and could not fathom how one might do that.
• 25D: Spot to drink a matcha with a Manx (CAT CAFE) — do they really have purebred cats in CAT CAFEs? I've still never been in one. I love cats, obvs, but something about trying to drink / eat around that many strange cats gives me ... paws.

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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