Cuban dance style / TUE 7--21-26 / 2023 double-platinum Chappell Roan record / Reactions akin to "OMG!" / chocolate bar's pronouns in a corny joke / Awe-inspiring solar phenomenon / Plumbing fixture found under the sink

Constructor: Kenneth Cortes

Relative difficulty: Easy (oversized at 16x15)

THEME: GO OUT WITH A BANG (34A: Finish flamboyantly ... like 17-, 28-, 43- and 56-Across?) — familiar phrases that end explosions:

Theme answers:

• "BADA-BING, BADA-BOOM!" (17A: "Easy-peasy!")
• SANDBLAST (28A: Clean with a rough spray)
• STARBURST (43A: Colorful taffy candy brand)
• "RED WINE SUPERNOVA" (56A: 2023 double-platinum Chappell Roan record)

Word of the Day: HABANERA (9D: Cuban dance style) —

 

Contradanza (also called contradanza criolla, danza, danza criolla, or habanera) is the Spanish and Spanish-American version of the contradanse, which was an internationally popular style of music and dance in the 18th century, derived from the English country dance and adopted at the court of France. Contradanza was brought to America and there took on folkloric forms that still exist in Bolivia, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Panama and Ecuador.

In Cuba during the 19th century, it became an important genre, the first written music to be rhythmically based on an African rhythm pattern and the first Cuban dance to gain international popularity, the progenitor of danzón, mambo and cha-cha-cha, with a characteristic "habanera rhythm" and sung lyrics.

Outside Cuba, the Cuban contradanza became known as the habanera – the dance of Havana – and that name was adopted in Cuba itself subsequent to its international popularity in the later 19th century, though it was never so called by the people who created it. (wikipedia)

• • •

I wanna say "this was a blast," 'cause, you know, pun, but I'm not sure it rose to "blast" levels. It was certainly enjoyable, though, and very smooth—never got tiresome, despite a preponderance of short answers. There's some mild confusion about whether the ends of the theme answers are explosions themselves (supernova) or merely the sounds made by explosions (boom), and there's a certain sad cessation of the "B" party when you get to the final themer (boom blast bang burst ... supernova?), but all in all, this is clever and creative work. The only difficulty today was figuring out how to spell BADA-BING, BADA-BOOM, since it's a thing I only ever hear, and then remembering the title of the Chappell Roan song (which some of you probably can't "remember" since you didn't know it in the first place—I'm guessing that for a lot of people, that title is going to be the biggest struggle in today's puzzle by far). I actually know the song, but because the clue said "record" (ambiguous!) I was thinking ALBUMS, and so the only thing in my head was ... is it PINK PONY CLUB? No, that's another song! Her one album is titled The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess—I think it was used in a recent clue for ROAN, actually. I'm not exactly in the right age demo for her music, but I generally like it all the same. "OH GROW UP!" I will not.

And now, the history of musical supernovas: a three-part journey. First, there was Liz Phair, who gave us a simple, straightforward "Supernova":

Two years later, Oasis came along and added alcohol:

It took a while, but after nearly three decades, Chappell Roan decided to swap out Oasis's champagne for red wine, and here we are:

There wasn't anything particularly tricky about today's puzzle, outside the theme. I didn't know HABANERA (probably had it in the grid as HABAÑERO at first) and I wanted "THAT HURT!" to be "THAT HURTS!," which was pretty easily ... adaptable. Had to wait for the Japanese city to develop—got the first few letters and thought NAGANO before NAGASAKI (probably because NAGANO appears in the crossword more often). The only thing I know about NAGASAKI is the nuclear attack, so it's nice to get a different angle on it here (6D: Japanese city that's home to the Chinese Sofukuji Temple). I liked all the animals roaming around the grid—there's some LABS and another DOG and a HISSing cat, plus a BIRD and, and then bam (boom, bang!), out of nowhere: a herd of RHINOS! (46D: Heavyweight beasts, familiarly).


Bullets:

• 21A: Awe-inspiring solar phenomenon (AURORA) — I didn't know it qualified as an awe-inspiring solar phenomenon without the "Borealis" after it.
• 43A: Colorful taffy candy brand (STARBURST) — You know, I ate STARBURST throughout my childhood and occasionally in my adulthood and I never thought of them as "taffy." I'm not disputing the description. It's just ... taffy occupied a completely different slot in my brain's candy categorization. You'd see it pulled at the fair, or else get it in individually wax paper-wrapped little pieces. Also, I think of taffy as way chewier than STARBURST. Salt water taffy, that's what I'm thinking of.
• 39D: "___/she" (chocolate bar's pronouns in a corny joke) ("HER") — is this the corny joke? This clue right here? I guess I can imagine a chocolate lover saying "my pronouns are Hershey." My experience is that lots of people don't exactly have a sense of humor about pronoun jokes. I think this is a non-boring way to clue HER, so I'm for it.
• 56D: World of Warcraft, e.g., in brief (RPG) — minor trouble here in the SW as I wrote in WOW here ("WoW" = a common abbreviation for World of Warcraft). I then wrote in WELPS for 63A: Reactions akin to "OMG!" (GASPS). "Welp" is far more a resigned exclamation than it is an "OMG!" equivalent. Even after changing WOW to RPG (role-playing game). I wanted GULPS before GASPS.

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Audio genre designed to trigger tingling, for short / MON 7-20-26 / 32-card card game / Car in "Thelma & Louise," informally / Someone who's not thinking may be on this / Important consideration for A.I. programmers / Counterpart of dahs, in Morse code

Constructor: Eric Rolfing

Relative difficulty: Medium (solved Downs-only)

THEME: "I FEEL FOR YOU" (60A: "My sympathies" ... of what could be said of 17-, 27- and 46-Across) — things you might feel for:

Theme answers:

• LIGHT SWITCH (in the dark) (17A: On/off device)
• SCRABBLE TILE (in ... the bag? is it a bag that you draw tiles out of? I do not care for that game) (yes, it's a bag) (27A: One with Q or Z is worth 10 points)
• POCKET CHANGE (in your pockets) (46A: Cause of some rescreenings in an airport)

Word of the Day: SKAT (42D: 32-card card game) —

Skat (German pronunciation: [ˈskaːt]), historically Scat, is a three-player trick-taking card game of the ace–ten family, devised around 1810 in Altenburg in the Duchy of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. It is the national game of Germany and, along with Doppelkopf, it is the most popular card game in Germany and Silesia and one of the most popular in the rest of Poland. A variant of 19th-century Skat was once popular in the US. John McLeod considers it one of the best and most interesting card games for three players, and Kelbet described it as "the king of German card games." The German Skat Association assesses that it is played by around 25 million Germans – more than play football. [...] The pack consists of 32 cards. Many modern packs use the French pack consisting of an ace (Ass), king (König), queen (Dame), jack (Bube), 10, 9, 8 and 7 in all four suits (clubs ♣, spades ♠, hearts ♥ and diamonds ♦). Some players in Eastern and Southern Germany and Austria prefer traditional German packs with suits of acorns , leaves , hearts  and bells , and card values of deuce (Daus), king (König), Ober, Unter, 10, 9, 8, and 7 in all four suits. Until recently in Saxony and Thuringia, for example, German-suited packs were used almost exclusively. By contrast, regions of the former West Germany had adopted a French-suited pack. (wikipedia)

• • •

Hoo boy I just (literally just) finished watching the World Cup final between Spain and Argentina, which Spain won 1-0 in extra time, and it was very dull until suddenly it wasn't and so I am very tired and slightly drunk because I had a Fernet & Coke to start the match (an Argentinian favorite) and then our regular cocktail-hour cocktail to end the match (today, a Diamondback), and between the late-game adrenaline and the alcohol I'm surprised I was able to get through this puzzle and only slightly less surprised that I am able to type letters with any kind of proficiency. In fact, I got very stuck in my Downs-only solve (predictably, on the long Downs), but then I took a pausa de hidratración (OK, actually, I took a bathroom break), and when I got back, the long Downs suddenly became very doable and I finished up no problem. The lone goal in the Spain-Argentina match came when Spain's Nico Williams saved a cross with his HEAD, putting it in the perfect position for Ferran Torres to drive the ball into the back of the net (finally!). Of course at that point Argentina was playing a man down because of a red card issued late in regulation time. That match ... boring, and then chaos. Thank god it didn't go to PKs—Spain was much, much the better team and deserved to win, however much I was kinda rooting for some kind of late Argentina miracle (which, frankly, almost happened, a couple of times). Annnnnnnyway ... still high on the game (and somewhat on alcohol). I need to go eat dinner. Then I'll write more.

OK we're back. This theme is pleasingly silly. It's probably more accurate to say you "fumble" for the light switch (in the dark) or change (in your pocket), but then Chaka Khan didn't sing "I FUMBLE FOR YOU," did she?

Speaking of fumbling, I fumbled a bit trying to finish this puzzle Downs-only. I put Thelma & Louise in a CHEVY, for starters (2D: Car in "Thelma & Louise," informally = T-BIRD). I also balked at ATHEISM since the "no more" part didn't really make sense. You might become an atheist after having been some kind of theist, but the rejection of prior faith is not an inherent part of ATHEISM. If you disavow previously avowed principles, technically you're an apostate, although in that case you've often left one religion for another. Anyway, this is all to say that I tried to make APOSTASY work (wouldn't fit). This is the kind of mistake you make when you read Milton every semester.

So spake th' Apostate Angel, though in pain,
Vaunting aloud, but rackt with deep despare: (Paradise Lost, I.126-27)

You know what clue is hard to understand if you've had even just one drink, and maybe if you've had none? 31D: Someone who's not thinking may be on this (AUTOPILOT). For some reason I could not find the rhythm, could not figure where the stress in my voice was supposed to go. "Someone who's not thinking" is the subject, and "may be" is the verb phrase, I see that now, but I was not expecting a complete sentence (crossword clues are overwhelmingly not complete sentences), so I was looking for someone who was not thinking ... something. So my brain heard the clue like this: [Someone who's not thinking "may be on this"], as if "may be on this" were the thing that "Someone" was not thinking. But that made no sense, so ... I had to say the clue aloud to myself to figure out the rhythm (and meaning). It's a fine clue, it just short-circuited my brain, briefly. The only one of those long Downs I got at first pass (solving Downs-only) was SPACE RACE (32D: U.S./Soviet competition of the 1950s-'60s), which I got off the "S" (though I probably could've gotten it without the "S"). This means that I had actually been able to infer ASMR (from the "-MR"), a huge feat for me since I literally never think about ASMR unless the crossword is making me (31A: Audio genre designed to trigger tingling, for short). I can never remember what the letters even stand for (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response). I just know that it has something to do with finding certain noises soothing.

The idea that ETHICS is an important consideration for A.I. programmers made me laugh. Since when? If the clue had said it "should be" an important consideration, sure, OK, but come on, who are you kidding, clue? (47D: Important consideration for A.I. programmers). I had some trouble with another e-clue as well: 11D: What search engine optimization hopes to increase (PAGE VIEWS). I wanted something like WEB TRAFFIC or SITE TRAFFIC and needed many crosses to realize what roughly synonymous phrase they were using today. Totally forgot my Morse code (which I've never actually known) and thought they were not DITS and dahs but DATS and dahs (8D: Counterpart of dahs, in Morse code). Couldn't remember if SKAT was spelled with a "C" or a "K" (yesterday's ELEKTRA problem all over again) (42D: 32-card card game). I spelled Salma HAYEK's name HAYAK. I think the Salma-not-Selma part of her name makes me want to make the "E" in her last name an "A" as well. I need a mnemonic. Salma HAYEK is ... not a yak. That is demonstrable. Maybe that will set me straight.

One last thing—I really thought the phrase was "no fuss no MUSS," not the reverse (58D: "No ___, no fuss!"). If you look it up, it seems dictionaries tend to favor the MUSS-first version, but not all of them. It's fuss/MUSS chaos out there, actually. The fuss/MUSS Wild West, people just ordering them willy-nilly, as the mood strikes them. I should stop writing now, as I'm starting to notice all this puzzle's EKES and DEKEs (and ETAS and LOCs and ASSNs and EEGs etc.) and I want to remember only the groovy weird theme and solid Downs. And Chaka Khan, of course.

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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Hairstyle similar to a bowl cut / SUN 7-19-26 / Whitesmith's material / Judge of diamond value? / Person providing a sworn account / One-named singer with the 1994 hit "You Gotta Be" / Strauss opera inspired by a Sophocles tragedy / Britain's most prestigious military decoration / Block someone's passage, say / 2000 Christina Aguilera #1 hit

Constructor: Michael Lieberman

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

[31D: "Star Wars" character Kylo ___]

THEME: "Raising Capital" — theme answers (running Across) jog upward for a stretch before returning to their normal eastward direction—that upward stretch spells out a world capital each time: 

Theme answers:

• THANKS A MILLION (25A: "I really, really appreciate it!") (Lima)
• MAIL-IN REBATE (28A: After-the-fact discount) (Bern)
• VICTORIA CROSS (69A: Britain's most prestigious military decoration) (Cairo)
• DROOLS OVER (71A: Fantasizes about) (Oslo)
• ERECT A BARRIER (73A: Block someone's passage, say) (Rabat)
• HOME MORTGAGE (110A: Bank offering for a property buyer) (Rome)
• "WHAT A GIRL WANTS" (112A: 2000 Christina Aguilera #1 hit) (Riga)

Word of the Day: EDGAR (3D: Hairstyle similar to a bowl cut) —

The Edgar cut, otherwise known as the Edgar or the Edgar haircut, is a hairstyle often associated with Latino culture. In the 2010s and 2020s, the haircut became popular with members of Generation Z and Millennials. The haircut first became popular in US border states in the Southwest, such as Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. The haircut has been compared to a bowl cut, a similar haircut with a straight fringe. // The Edgar hairstyle is usually characterized as the front hair having straight fringes, or bangs, along with the sides tapered. The hairstyle can be worn with any hair texture, including more wavy and curly hair. The Edgar hairstyle is most prominent among young Latinos. // The origin for the name Edgar is unconfirmed, although it is often misattributed to having been named after former Seattle Mariners baseball player Edgar Martínez in early 2019. // The hairstyle is associated with the takuaches, members of a Mexican-American subculture of truck enthusiasts, and sometimes called the 'takuache cut' as a result.. The hairstyle has been found to have similarities to the hairstyles of Indigenous tribes such as the Jumano. The haircut is famously slangily called the "cuh" in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, after the song Cuh 956 by Dagobeat. (wikipedia)

• • •

You're not really "raising capital," so much as raising the part of a phrase that, backwards, spells a capital, but I suppose that it's all OK, since the "raised" part reads correctly as a Down answer. It would be much harder to appreciate the "capital" part of it all if you had to read the capital upside-down. Anyway, this theme was mildly entertaining. I enjoyed remembering four- and five-letter world capitals, and piecing together the winding theme answers that contained them. Well, most of them. I did not particularly enjoy ERECT A BARRIER, which is giving off extreme EAT A SANDWICH vibes. Truly the worst, most contrived themer of the lot. But the others are all solid, even fun. OK, no one's ever going to describe HOME MORTGAGE as "fun," but THANKS A MILLION and DROOLS OVER have good (if messy) energy, and "WHAT A GIRL WANTS"—that's inspired. My favorite of the lot, by far. Man, I loved that song. Also "Genie in a Bottle" (same album, so same time period). Reminds me very, very much of my first year here in Binghamton. Huge hit. Catchy in a way I found hard to deny. I would love to be able to say I'm more a "Big Poppa" guy than a "WHAT A GIRL WANTS" guy, but I would be lying (I do like "Big Poppa," I just didn't listen to it with any regularity) (I also missed the Wu-Tang Clan entirely, somehow. What the f--- was I doing in the '90s??? Besides taking forever to write my dissertation, I mean? Huge hip-hop knowledge gap, sadly).

The fill today ... IT'S OK. Not sparkling, but not terrible either. I only DEEP SIGHed a couple of times. At ERECT A BARRIER, obviously. Also at DECLARANT (!?). Needed every cross to get that one. Yesterday, A FORTIRIORI, today DECLARANT. Yeesh. [Grimace]. Easy on the legalese, guys. Also did not love STEEPENS, as clued (80A: Gets more expensive). I know that "steep" is slang for "expensive," but when you put "steep" into verb form ... it really doesn't work. Can't imagine it. Ear rejects it. But beyond that, no real ugly spots. Maybe a bit more crosswordese than I'd like (SKEE IONIA ISO OHO SCH VSO OWS EMS ENT ULNAE etc. etc. AND ON AND ON), but then there's enough longer and livelier stuff to keep the puzzle from being a total drag. PLEADS OUT, NUTCRACKERS, "GET A GRIP!," stuff like that. There's nothing terribly obscure here today. Just a couple of pop culture items that are bound to throw many if not most solvers off balance. Firstly, DES'REE ... is there an accent on her name? ... no, spelled it right the first time, yay me. I would not call her a household name, but she sure has a name that's built for crosswords. If you were alive and near a radio at all in the mid-'90s, you definitely heard "You Gotta Be," though there's a good chance you never knew the name of the artist. Well, now you know.

It's also possible that you knew the band Mötley Crüe but had no idea what the lead singer's name is. That seems reasonable. I somehow knew he was Vince Neil, though I think I misspelled it at first today (NEAL). Continuing our musical odyssey, there's also the Psychedelic FURS—I was just looking at the Pretty in Pink soundtrack earlier today (that is, Saturday). They sang the title song. Also "Love My Way," which may be the only other song I can name by them. Oh, wait, no—they also sang "The Ghost in You," which is terrific.

Besides DECLARANT, the only thing I really didn't know was the EDGAR haircut (see Word of the Day, above). The theme was pretty easy to uncover. Once you hit the [See title] and [—] clues, and the theme answers don't seem to fit in their allotted spaces, you know something's up. [See title] makes things fairly obvious—part of the answer goes up ... probably spells out a capital. I actually thought the "capital" might be monetary (LIRE? EURO?), and like I said, at first I thought the "capital" would literally go up, from bottom to top, not top to bottom—but all this stuff sorted itself out in fairly short order. 

Bullets:

• 65A: Judge of diamond value? (AARON) — this is AARON Judge of the New York Yankees, 8-time All-Star and 3-time AL MVP winner. He played college ball for the Fresno State Bulldogs. This is of interest only to people who grew up in Fresno (i.e. me). 
• 55A: Actress Shirley of "The Apartment" (MACLAINE) — fun fact: The Apartment is my favorite movie. I mean, I hate to choose among my precious babies, but if I had to choose, then The Apartment wins (also in the mix: Cleo from 5 to 7, Chinatown, Killer of Sheep, and Rear Window)

• 79A: Brand seen on the U.S. World Cup jerseys (NIKE) — today, the World Cup concludes with the championship match between Spain and Argentina. Yesterday's third-place match between France and England, I didn't watch, but based on the absolutely insane score (England won 6-4), it doesn't seem like anyone was really trying, at least not defensively, yeesh. 10 goals combined??? That's the most of the tournament, the most since Germany beat Curaçao 7-1 in the Group Stage (first round). Expect the Spain-Argentina match to be a much, much lower-scoring affair, especially as Spain has conceded just one goal the entire tournament.
• 5D: Strauss opera inspired by a Sophocles tragedy (ELEKTRA) — I'm never sure if it's ELEKTRA or ELECTRA. Apparently it's both. Wikipedia's entry is for "Electra" ("also spelt Elektra"). The record label is ELEKTRA. "K" seems Greekier, but if you went with "C" there, that's a reasonable "mistake."

• 16D: Whitesmith's material (TIN) — I've not heard the term "whitesmith" before, though TIN wasn't hard to infer (blacksmiths work with metal ... three-letter metal ... tada). 

"A whitesmith is a metalworker who does finishing work on iron and steel such as filing, lathing, burnishing or polishing. The term also refers to a person who works with "white" or light-coloured metals, and is sometimes used as a synonym for tinsmith. Whitesmithing developed as a speciality of blacksmithing in the 1700s, when extra time was given to filing and polishing certain products." (wikipedia)

• 45D: Classic Italian appetizer (BRUSCHETTA) — after trying to make PROSCIUTTO work here for a second, I got enough crosses to figure this one out. The "CH" in BRUSCHETTA is hard, like the "K" in ELEKTRA. Broo-SKET-uh. You can pronounce it "sh." Lots of people do. Lots of wrong people. Or, you can pronounce it like this, which is my new favorite variation:

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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With even stronger reasoning, in law / SAT 7-18-26 / Titular animated dog of children's TV / Nairobi-based collection of NGOs / Bygone recorders / Figures listed on Zocdoc, for short / Cosmetic additive that comes from the Southwest / Smartphone feature that debuted worldwide in 2011 / Song whose titular subject has a "dark brown voice" / Retailer with mountains in its logo / Instrument that's held at about a 45-degree angle from the player's body

Constructor: Ryan Judge

Relative difficulty: Easy 

[33D: Actor who plays the title role on TV's "Andor"]

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Moe Berg (59A: W.W. II-era occupation for baseball's Moe Berg, following his playing career = SPY) —

Morris Berg (May 3, 1902 – May 29, 1972) was an American professional baseball catcher and coach in Major League Baseball who later served as a spy for the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. He played 15 seasons in the major leagues, almost entirely for four American League teams, though he was never more than an average player and was better known for being "the brainiest guy in baseball." Casey Stengel once described Berg as "the strangest man ever to play baseball."

Berg was a graduate of Princeton University and Columbia Law School, spoke several languages, and regularly read ten newspapers a day. His reputation as an intellectual was fueled by his successful appearances as a contestant on the radio quiz show Information Please, in which he answered questions about the etymology of words and names from Greek and Latin, historical events in Europe and the Far East, and ongoing international conferences.

As a spy working for the government of the United States, Berg traveled to Yugoslavia to gather intelligence on resistance groups which the U.S. government was considering supporting. He was sent on a mission to Italy, where he interviewed various physicists concerning the German nuclear weapons program. After the war, Berg was occasionally employed by the Central Intelligence Agency, successor to the Office of Strategic Services. (wikipedia)

• • •

[20D: Gustav Klimt masterpiece]

Hey, my Friday puzzle! A day late, but still, better late than never. This one had the flow and the oomph and the zing, as well as the lowkey fighting spirit, that yesterday's puzzle lacked. Give me a grid with all-over flow like this over a series of 15-stacks Any Day. More challenge, more fun today. Not really a Saturday-level challenge, but enough resistance to make it interesting, at least. You only get a couple of answers 10+-letters long (two 13s, to be exact, both great), but you do a get a host of 7-8-9s, which keep things crackling throughout, and while there's plenty of short fill to help you get traction, you never feel like you're drowning in it (which is how I felt yesterday when practically everything besides the puzzle's nine 15s was short filler). Today's puzzle is a little too pop-culturey for my tastes, but there was nothing obscure, to my mind, nothing that I hadn't picked up from either paying attention to the world generally or solving crosswords, specifically (everything I know about Elio and Andor, for instance, I learned from (writing about) crosswords). The puzzle covers a wide range of topics and moves from formal (A FORTIORI) to informal ("I JUST WORK HERE"). Fresh and surprising. Just what I like in a late-week puzzle. 

[7D: Results of one's labors, so to speak]

It wasn't a long journey today, from start to finish, but it was ... a journey. Please, come along with me, won't you, as I retrace my eventful and occasionally hilarious path to puzzle completion. Let's start in the NW corner, where we usually start, and where I made my first and possibly only outright mistake. And what a mistake it was. A gift from the gods! How often are mistakes gifts? Well, OOXTEPLERNON (the god of short bad fill, hallowed be his name) was uncharacteristically playful and generous today. He offered me a regrettable French possessive as my opening toehold (14D: "Bonjour, ___ amis!" = MES). Not an auspicious beginning, but what followed was ... epic. Historic. I was so proud that I remembered the [Nairobi-based collection of NGOs] (OXFAM). That "X" gave me "EXCUSE ME" (2D: "Um ... what?!") and so I was off and running ... or so I thought. My next move, however ... fatal. Silent, but deadly, you might say. You see, I crossed the "E" in MES not with SCORE (the correct answer) but with SCALE (17A: Conductor's reference). In retrospect, SCORE is soooo much better, but my brain was like "music, five letters, ends in "E" ... [pictures sheet music ... a progression of notes] ... SCALE! By dumb luck, SCALE and SCORE end up sharing 60% of the same letter DNA. So I "confirm" SCALE with TO SPARE, so now SCALE is really locked in ... which sets the stage for perhaps the greatest wrong answer I've ever entered into a grid—any grid, ever. Now, I don't know much about Latin legal terms, but I was pretty sure that this ... was wrong:

Lawyers, judges: I demand that one of you use "A FARTIRIORI" the next time you object to some line of argument on the grounds that it stinks. "Objection, your honor! A FARTIRIORI reasoning!" "Sustained! Clear the court!" Maybe you can work MALIO in there too, when the reasoning is particularly bad-faith. "A MALIO FARTIORI, your honor! I demand a retrial! Contempt of court!" Oh, man, A FARTIRIORI, I love you so much. Thank you for appearing to me in a crossword. What a blessing. 

Another great thing about the FARTIRIORI error is that I was able to catch it immediately, so it didn't bog me down. A lot easier to laugh at your mistakes when you catch them quickly. With the NW fixed, I zoomed into the center of the grid, for the first big whoosh of the day. I briefly considered EMOJIKEPEDIA (?) for 30A: Smartphone feature that debuted worldwide in 2011, but then ... success.

At this point, I had a toehold in the NE, and pretty good prospects for getting down into the SW and across the grid to the SE. This was the point at which the good answers felt like they started popping off like popcorn, in all directions. "I JUST WORK HERE," STUDY DATE, WIDE BERTH, etc. Not that there weren't some hiccups along the way. I misread "Zocdoc" (?) as "Zodiac" and so really really didn't understand when MDS ended up being the answer to 16D: Figures listed on Zocdoc, for short. I saw the -B-RT pattern at 26A and instinctively wrote in EBERT before deciding maybe I should actually read the clue and discovering that it was actually Q*BERT (26A: Orange video game character who appears in "Wreck-It-Ralph"). You ever watch the cartoon "Letterman" on the Electric Company back in the day? (this was the '70s, so you pretty much have to be over 50 for this). He was a superhero figure who would save the day by changing a letter in the name of something scary or bad, thereby rendering it harmless. Like turning a "gun" into "gum" or something. Anyway, I'm imagining Letterman changing EBERT into Q*BERT and it's making me happy.

Bullets:

• 31D: Cosmetic additive that comes from the Southwest (JOJOBA OIL) — I took one look at JOJO-, before looking at the clue, and the only thing I could imagine was JOJO DANCER (Your Life Is Calling). Luckily, I remembered JOJOBA OIL from ... I wanna say '70s shampoo commercials?

• 43A: Digs up by the roots (GRUBS) — this ... is not a word I know. I think of GRUBS as larvae. 
• 46D: Bygone recorders (TIVOS) — Today I learned that TIVOS are "bygone," LOL, wow, when did that happen. I rely on crosswords for all my TIVO-related information, so this is the first I'm hearing of it.
• 57A: What might add a bit of flavor to a salsa? (BONGO) — since I was having trouble coming up with EMBRYOS (39D: Items frozen in cryopreservation), I didn't have the final "O" here and thought that maybe people were livening up their salsa dancing by taking hits off of BONGS. Really adds flavor, they say!

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

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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