Citrusy Japanese sauce / MON 7-27-26 / Branded fluffy slippers / Country in Oceania named for a biblical king / Violate the Tenth Commandment / Name that can be parsed as "the the" in Spanish / Portland college attended by Steve Jobs / Manipulate into doubting one's memory or experience / Eel, at a Japanese restaurant

Constructor: Aidan Deshong

Relative difficulty: Easy (solved Downs-only) (undersized at 14x15)

[40A: "Star Wars" character ___ Ren]

THEME: GRAYSCALE (59A: Smartphone setting that removes all color from the screen ... or a feature of this puzzle) — notes of the musical scale are found, in order, in gray boxes, two per answer, inside four theme answers:

Theme answers:

• "I DON'T CARE" (16A: "Either way is fine with me")
• SMILEY FACE (22A: Friendly emoticon)
• SOLOMON ISLANDS (36A: Country in Oceania named for a biblical king)
• SCOTTIE DOG (47A: Pet for Franklin Roosevelt or George W. Bush, informally)

Word of the Day: PONZU (19A: Citrusy Japanese sauce) —

Ponzu (ポン酢) (Japanese pronunciation: [pondzɯ]) is a citrus-based sauce commonly used in Japanese cuisine. It is tart, with a thin, watery consistency. Ponzu shōyu or ponzu jōyu (ポン酢醤油) is ponzu with soy sauce (shōyu) added, and the mixed dark brown product is widely referred to as simply ponzu.

The term originally came into the Japanese language as ponsu as a borrowing of the now obsolete Dutch word pons, meaning punch as in a beverage made from fruit juices. The sour nature of this sauce led to the final -su being interpreted as the word su (酢), meaning "vinegar".

Ponzu is made by simmering mirin, rice vinegar, katsuobushi flakes (from tuna), and seaweed (kombu) over medium heat. The liquid is then cooled, strained to remove the katsuobushi flakes, and finally the juice of one or more of the following citrus fruits is added: yuzu, sudachi, daidai, kabosu, or lemon (or even grapefruit, lime, bergamot, etc).

Commercial ponzu is generally sold in glass bottles, which may have some sediment. Ponzu shōyu is traditionally used as a dressing for tataki (lightly grilled, then chopped meat or fish) and also as a dip for nabemono (one-pot dishes) such as shabu-shabu. It is used as a dip for sashimi. In the Kansai region, it is offered as a topping for takoyaki. (wikipedia)

• • •

Well that is a scale and it is gray so mission accomplished, I suppose. I once accidentally set my phone to GRAYSCALE, in front of my students (before class) and was like "WTF?" until one of the students took pity on me, took my phone, triple-clicked on the side button, and turned it back to color. My future is basically handing devices to younger people and going "make it better." I'm fine with that. And GRAYSCALE is actually easy on the eyes. Apparently it also de-gamifies your phone—makes it (somewhat) less likely that you'll spend a lot of time on it. I forget where I read that. Here's a NYT article about it, but you can find the same idea all over the place. Annnnyway ... I like the revealer fine, as a word, but I just don't see how turning two-letter strings inside of long answers gray is a thing, a thing worthy of being called a theme. Maybe this is why SOLOMON ISLANDS seems like the strongest theme answer—it's the only one with a three-letter string. Higher level of difficulty. Seriously, how hard is it to find phrases with, say, a "DO" and a "RE" in them, in order. ODOR-FREE? DOG TREATS? ODOMETER READING? DONNA REED? DONOVAN'S REEF? 

 

The theme answers would all be fine in a themeless, but they're totally arbitrary as a set. The thematic restrictions just aren't narrow enough, so there's nothing special-seeming about any of it. So there's a "MI" and a "FA" in your 10-letter answer, so what? COMING OF AGE, there, done. See? There's just way too much leeway for the construction to seem like much of an accomplishment. The visual gag is somewhat clever, but the overall execution lacks a certain ... I dunno, heft, or sparkle, or something. It's just not tight enough. 

It was also exceedingly easy, even for a Monday, even solved Downs-only. After a very short amount of time, you can see the pattern developing in the gray squares, and so all the rest of gray squares immediately become obvious:

Just ignore the fact that I wrote in "SO" in stead of "SOL"—I got sloppy in my haste. With all those squares just handed to you, let me tell you, the Downs-only solve gets a Lot easier. The only area that gave me any pause at all was the SW corner, where STEPS (47D: Things taken on a walk?) and COVET (48D: Violate the Tenth Commandment) did not come right away. I wasn't completely sure about the "NOW" part of "TOO LATE NOW," either (27D: "You missed your chance"). But because the "TI" and "DO" were already locked in, I was eventually able to infer SCOTTIE DOG, and the SCO- gave me all the help I needed with those Downs in that corner. Elsewhere, I had "UH, OK" before "OH, OK" (a hazard of solving these awful [hesitation + "OK"] answers that are so unfortunately popular nowadays) (25D: "Um, sure"). I also wrote in DNA at 31D: Single-stranded molecule (RNA) before I remembered no, dummy, DNA is double-stranded. MDS looked perfectly acceptable in the grid, but luckily I knew enough to change the "D" to "R," resulting in MRS., the correct Across answer (30A: Title for a married woman). I had PONZ- and assumed the last letter was an "I" before the Down clue told me otherwise (17D: Heinie = TUSH). Lastly, I briefly entertained ELLE as the answer for 56D: Name that can be parsed as "the the" in Spanish (ELLA). But "LE" is not "the" in Spanish. French, yes, Spanish, no. So: ELLA. And ... done!

Bullets:

• 52A: As a precaution (TO BE SAFE) — kind of an adventure parsing this without having any reference to the clue. I had the -BE SAFE part and tentatively wrote in the "TO" while thinking "how is that a standalone phrase?" But then I heard it. As an introductory phrase, it's perfectly in the language. It's probably usually preceded by "JUST," but the JUST-less version seems fine too.
• 57D: Portland college attended by Steve Jobs (REED) — if Pomona hadn't accepted me, there's a reasonable chance that I'd've gone to REED. Either there, or Carleton, which had the temerity to waitlist me! Unforgiven, Carleton!
• 20A: Manipulate into doubting one's memory or experience (GASLIGHT) — enjoyed watching this answer come into view. Was hoping the clue would end up referring to the 1944 movie of the same name (Ingrid Bergman and Angela Lansbury, queens!), but the clue decided just to go straight to the concept, bypassing the film that inspired it.

• 48D: Violate the Tenth Commandment (COVET) — I had the "C" and wrote in CHEAT. Close!

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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