Mind-reading scan, in a way / THU 6-18-26 / Bona fide numbskull / Employee after working hours, on "Severance" / Chemical agent used to make frosted glass / Follower of "4" on a love note / Adrenaline surge providers / Big name in archery equipment / Chemical agent used to make frosted glass

Constructor: Scott Hogan

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: remedial cryptic clues — theme clues are words referred to (cryptically) by the answers themselves:

Theme answers:

• BROADWAY OPENING (17A: Bro?) ("Bro" is the "opening" part of the word BROADWAY)
• VISITOR CENTER (35A: Sit?) ("Sit" is the "center" part of the word VISITOR)
• FAIRYTALE ENDING (54A: Ale?) ("Ale" is the "ending" part of the word FAIRYTALE)

Word of the Day: FMRI (52A: Mind-reading scan, in a way) —

Functional magnetic resonance imaging or functional MRI (fMRI) measures brain activity by detecting changes associated with blood flow. This technique relies on the fact that cerebral blood flow and neuronal activation are coupled: When an area of the brain is in use, blood flow to that region increases. (wikipedia)

• • •

A very easy puzzle where you never really had to figure out the theme if you didn't want to because the crosses were easy enough that it didn't matter. I'm not sure I ever saw the clue for the last two themers. In a puzzle like this, with completely inscrutable theme clues. I just hack at the short stuff and wait for something to happen. Today, the short stuff, and most of the longer (non-theme) stuff came very easily, like it was Tuesday, and so despite having no idea what was going on with the theme for a long while, I was able to move through the grid really easily. Here's a snapshot of my initial travels:

It's possible that I got a turbo boost there at the beginning because I just happened to remember that line from Keats's "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" about the SEDGE (5D: "The ___ is wither'd from the lake": Keats). The poem opens like this:

[poetryfoundation.org]

SEDGE is a weird enough word that, as you can see, the poetryfoundation website has helpfully highlighted it (if you click on it, you get a definition; in this case: "Grasslike or rushlike plant that grows in wet areas"). I used the SEDGE as a catapult ... although looking at it now, it didn't give me that much. I think OUTIE probably did more to propel me into the puzzle (14A: Employee after working hours, on "Severance"). At any rate, starting was easy, and once I got going, as you can see, I just drifted right across the grid, top to bottom, no problem. I was probably half done or more before I finally inferred the OPENING part of BROADWAY OPENING, and then ... that was pretty much it. I do cryptic crosswords every day, so this kind of self-referential way of referring to letter strings (today, "bro" "sit" "ale") is really familiar to me. What we get today is basically a clue/answer reversal—the clue is the indicated letter string ("Bro," etc.), and the answer acts as the cryptic clue for that letter string. It's a cute idea, but would not be very theme-worthy were it not for the progression that the puzzle sets up: OPENING, CENTER, ENDING. That gimmick gives the theme some much-needed coherence. The execution of the theme is neat and elegant. Not dazzling, but ... tidy. Would've been nicer if the puzzle had had teeth, if it had made getting those themers more of a battle by making the fill more challenging. But maybe this was the kind of thing where people really Really needed to be given ample opportunity to get those themers from crosses. Maybe the theme remained indecipherable to some people even after they'd completed it. Seems possible. If you had to come here to understand the theme, that doesn't make you a CLASS-A MORON, a term which I don't believe exists in the first place (surely if you really felt you needed to insult someone like this, you'd say GRADE-A, not CLASS-A). Apparently 30 Rock popularized the CLASS-A version, since it's all I'm seeing when I google it (there's an episode where the Post calls Jack a CLASS-A MORON). I never really watched 30 Rock, but I did watch the Simpsons, a lot, which (maybe) explains my ears' preference for GRADE A:

Though the puzzle was very easy today, there were several things I didn't know. [Big name in archery equipment]?? I don't even know a small name in archery equipment. Why would I or any non-archer have any idea about brands of archery equipment? The only HOYT I know is HOYT Wilhelm (although wow, if you google "Hoyt" it's archery as far as the eye can see). Now that I think of it, bowhunting is a reasonably popular pastime, so maybe the name is more familiar than I think; just not to me. Also unfamiliar to me: the answer directly next door to HOYT: ONO (8D: Fuyumi ___, author of the "Twelve Kingdoms" fantasy novels). Fantasy novels, like archery, not part of my daily existence, though I do read a reasonable amount and am in bookstores not infrequently, so I'm slightly surprised the name doesn't ring a bell. You'd think adjacent proper-noun unknowns might derail me, but nope, inferring both was easy. I also have no idea what the depressing-sounding Beautiful Boy is, so METH took some work (43A: Downfall of the boy in 2018's "Beautiful Boy," in brief) (spoiler alert!). METH, like fantasy novels and archery, also not part of my daily existence, though movies definitely are, so ... Beautiful Boy? (starring Steve Carell? Timmy C?!). Not sure how, but it missed me. 2018? What even was 2018? Feels like a fictional year. FMRI was the last of my mystery answers. Thankfully, the "F" cross was fair, otherwise, yikes, not sure how I would have come up with that "F"—had to look up what it stood for (see "Word of the Day," above).

Bullets:

• 36D: Chill way to take things (IN STRIDE) — big frowny face next to this one. Without "take (it)," this looks ridiculous.
• 3D: Absolut alternatives (STOLIS) — look, I'll give you one plural brand name like this per puzzle, but I will not give you two. Sorry, PEPSIS (9D: Colas in the "cola wars").
• 19D: Chemical agent used to make frosted glass (ETCHANT) — what are we doing here? ETCHANT should make you strongly reconsider tearing the grid down and starting over. Longer answers should not be wasted on obscurities. The "frosted glass" part of the glue had me briefly considering ETCH ART, but that didn't sound very "chemical agent"-y.
• 27A: Word rhymed with "flash" in "A Visit From St. Nicholas" (SASH) — one of the first poems I ever knew by heart, or close to it. I certainly don't know it by heart now, but I remember that my mom read it to me many times when I was very young. It's almost certainly the first place I ever heard "SASH" used in this way (in reference to windows). The lines in question are: "Away to the window I flew like a flash, / Tore open the shutters and threw up the SASH." The poem also famously contains the complete list of non-Rudolph reindeer:

More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,

And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:

"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now Prancer and Vixen!

On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!

• 38A: Alfred ___, co-creator of the original I.Q. test (BINET) — ah, the eugenicists' favorite test. Did you know that "moron" used to refer to those with an I.Q. score between 51 and 70 (one step up from "imbecile"!). I'm not sure if a CLASS A MORON is a higher or lower scoring moron. Might be one of those golf-type situations where lower is better (i.e. more moronic). If I never saw another I.Q. or MENSA clue again, I would not mind at all.
• 58A: Follower of "4" on a love note ("EVER") — the "4" (for "For") had me thinking the latter part would also be funnily "spelled," so I was like "4 EVAH?"

That's all for today. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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