Bull rings? / SUN 7-12-26 / 2020 Christopher Nolan sci-fi movie / Mesoamerican staple cooked in a cornhusk / Spot treatment provider? / Dude in Jamaica / Noted example of oligopoly, in brief / Professional responsibilities, colloquially / Dress for a job you probably don't want? / The Big Crunch, theoretically, for our universe / What fighter pilots fight, for short / Gridiron unit that includes the nose tackle, informally / Video game setting for noobs / Obsessive supporters, in modern lingo

Constructor: Collin Drown

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "Slight Adjustments" — theme answers are familiar two-word phrases that are critical things describe things someone might say ("slights"), clued with examples that require that you interpret the first word of the phrase in a punny manner:

Theme answers:

• BITING REMARK (23A: "I vant to suck your blood!") (a remark about wanting to bite ... you)
  
• GROUNDLESS ACCUSATION (33A: "I know you're the one who used up the last of my artisanal coffee!") (an accusation about missing coffee, which I guess has already been ground, though usually "grounds" refers to the post-brewing remnants ...)
• THINLY VEILED THREAT (55A: "If you don't find the rings this instant, I'm calling off the wedding!") (a threat from one who is, or will be, thinly veiled, i.e. a bride)
• PATRONIZING REMARK (66A: "I love your paintings so much, I'd like to finance your next exhibition!") (a remark about patronizing an artist)
• BACKHANDED COMPLIMENT (87A: "Wow! With form like that, you're headed to Wimbledon!") (a compliment that is literally (possibly) about someone's tennis backhand)
• BALD-FACED LIE (107A: "I'm so glad you shaved! I hated when you looked like a sexy lumberjack!") (a lie that is literally about someone's bald face)

Word of the Day: EOIN Colfer (62A: Author Colfer of the "Artemis Fowl" series) —

Eoin Colfer (/ˈoʊ.ɪn/; born 14 May 1965) is an Irish writer of children's literature. He is best known for being the author of the Artemis Fowl series, a set of eleven fantasy books. As of 2013, the novels had sold more than 21 million copies worldwide and had been translated into 44 languages, making them one of the best-selling series of all time. In a 2010 public poll, readers also voted Artemis Fowl as their favorite Puffin Books title of all time.

Colfer worked as a primary school teacher before he became a full-time writer. In September 2008, Colfer was commissioned to write the sixth installment of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, titled And Another Thing ..., which was published in October 2009. In October 2016, in a contract with Marvel Comics, he released Iron Man: The Gauntlet. He served as Laureate na nÓg (Ireland's Children's Laureate) between 2014 and 2016. (wikipedia)

• • •

[you can get this on a t-shirt]

Just not enough humor or thematic coherence for me. Also, the grid is weirdly boring. It's not bad, just dull. It took me a while to understand the title—since the clues themselves are not "slights" (some of them are just statements, some of them are outright compliments), I didn't notice that the answers themselves are typically, in their normal, non-pun contexts, all examples of "slights," i.e. slightly to very derogatory things one might say to another person. "Adjustments" doesn't really get at anything except the punny clues, I guess. So you take negative comments and clue them in exceedingly literal ways. OK. The humor here tops out at mild, and honestly you don't even need to pay that much attention to the clues because the puzzle is so dang easy that if you just work the crosses, the theme answers just kind of fill themselves in. This is true of the longer non-theme answers as well. I literally never saw the clue for HAZMAT SUIT. The puzzle just didn't feel substantive enough on any level. There's a somewhat cute concept at the core, but execution is tepid, and the solving experience was a bit of a yawn. It's all very adequate, but not at all exciting or provocative, in any way.

The theme clues also get a bit wonky in places. If you're mad that someone took the last of your artisanal coffee, you aren't mad about missing "grounds," since the grounds are what you're left with after you make the coffee. I just signed up for a coffee club last week—it's a weekly dealie where you can opt to buy whatever special coffee they are featuring. They text you telling you what the weekly coffee is, you text back if you want some. So it's not really a subscription since you never have to buy. It's kind of cool if you are into coffee and want to experiment with fanciness every once in a while. I ordered my first batch just this week—something co-fermented with peaches (!?). I made my first cup just this morning. It was ... a little too peachy for me. But fun to try. Anyway, if you stole my grounds, I wouldn't care since that would mean I'd already enjoyed the coffee. Weird clue. Also, is the bride threatening the groom literally at the altar!? That's the only way THINLY-VEILED THREAT makes sense. But ... why does the groom have both the rings? Isn't she supposed to have one? I got married so long ago (23 years this September), I forgot how it all works. And there's nothing particularly "backhand"-y about that BACKHANDED COMPLIMENT clue. Just something about "form," which refers to the entire way you play, not just your backhand. So the clues not only don't rise to LOL levels, they're also a bit clunky around the edges.

As for the fill ... what was there? GODSPEED got my attention (in a good way), and HAZMAT SUIT is nice, even if I never did see the clue (14D: Dress for a job you probably don't want?). Otherwise, it's pretty smooth, but also very forgettable. I think the most remarkable thing is the way they decided to clue MON (71D: Dude in Jamaica). I wrote in "MAN" since I thought the pronunciation was just a matter of accent, not spelling, but then I realized "no, no way they're specifying Jamaica if they're not changing the spelling." And sure enough! I like it, I think. Better than just an abbrev. for Monday. Or a French possessive. Oh, I forgot: I really liked the clue on PRANK CALLS (66D: Bull rings?). Took me a while to get, and when I did, I was like "Hey hey hey, look who decided to show up ... finally." Wish the puzzle had exhibited more of that kind of cleverness.

Not much struggle today. No idea who David YATES is. Peter YATES, yes. Dude directed Bullitt, ffs (1968). Classic. David? Shrug, never seen a Harry Potter movie, never gonna. There's also Richard YATES, a novelist who wrote Revolutionary Road (which I remember really liking). "His daughter Monica dated comedian Larry David and was the inspiration for Elaine Benes on David's sitcom Seinfeld" (!?!?!) (wikipedia). What else gave me trouble. Oh, HATS, yeesh (88D: Professional responsibilities, colloquially). I think of HATS as roles, not "responsibilities," so that was rough. I've never heard of ABBA Arena, and resent the exclusion of one of the greatest pop bands of all time. If you're gonna use ABBA in your puzzle (yet again!) you may as well let me have fun by putting a catchy song in my head! Lastly, where struggles are concerned, I took one look at 73A: What fighter pilots fight, for short, saw that it ended with "-CES," and wrote in AIR ACES! Woo hoo! So smart! [fiery crash]

Bullets:

• 11A: You might need to lose a few to get them (ABS) — "lose a few (pounds)"
• 32A: Turkey part (ANKARA) — weird to call a city a "part," though it technically is. I guess the clue wanted me to think of the bird. Mission not accomplished. 
• 114A: The Big Crunch, theoretically, for our universe (END) — first: bleak. Why? Second, I thought the universe was expanding. What's this "crunch" business? The Big Crunch sounds like a Cap 'n' Crunch variant. Or a movie about some dude who's really into his ABS. "The Big Crunch is a hypothetical scenario for the ultimate fate of the universe, in which the expansion of the universe eventually reverses and the universe recollapses, ultimately causing the cosmic scale factor to reach absolute zero, an event potentially followed by a reformation of the universe starting with another Big Bang. The vast majority of valid evidence, however, indicates that this hypothesis is not correct" (wikipedia). Extreme LOL. 

• 15D: Apt name for a tuxedo cat (OREO) — so not TUXY? Or ORCA? Or MR. FANCYPANTS? Okay, it's your cat ...

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

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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