Uintah and Ouray reservation people / SUN 8-9-27 / ___ People's Campaign (1968 S.C.L.C movement) / The first "C" of Vietnam's H.C.M.C. / Setting for Ghassan Kanafani's "All That's Left to You" and Mourid Barghouti's "I Saw Ramallah"

Constructor: Erik Agard

Relative difficulty: Medium (I'm assuming it plays harder for most people since it's freestyle)

THEME: Freestyle Exercise — No actual theme, just a big, Sunday-sized freestyle puzzle!

Word of the Day: TONI STONE (57A: First Woman to play regularly in a major American men's pro baseball league) —

Toni Stone (July 17, 1921 – November 2, 1996), born as Marcenia Lyle Stone, was an American female professional baseball player who played in predominantly male leagues. In 1953, she became the first woman to play as a regular on an American major-level professional baseball team^[1][2] when she joined the Indianapolis Clowns in the previously all-male Negro leagues. (Two other women, Mamie 'Peanut' Johnson and Connie Morgan, would later play on the team).^[3][4][5] A baseball player from her early childhood, she also played for the San Francisco Sea Lions, the New Orleans Creoles, and the Kansas City Monarchs before retiring from baseball in 1954.^[6][5] Stone was taunted at times by teammates, once being told, "Go home and fix your husband some biscuits", but she was undeterred. It was reported that during an exhibition game in 1953, she hit a single off a fastball pitch delivered by legendary player Satchel Paige, although the claim has failed verification.

• • •

Hello one more time! It's Eli here to close out this session of Rexplacements before Blog Daddy (I know, I felt gross typing it) comes back tomorrow. I solved this one on the train home from a screening of Fritz Lang's M at the Academy Museum (I rode the D!), and when I opened the app and saw Erik Agard's name I knew I was in good hands. Being a Sunday, I assumed that "Freestyle Exercise" was going to be a theme, something like anagramming types of exercise, but I was thrilled that it was an actual 21x21 themeless (or "freestyle") puzzle. And WOW.

This just feels like a massive undertaking in construction. A pair of double stacked 21 letter grid spanners in addition to 2 symmetrical 13 letter across answers and 2 symmetrical 12 letter down answers basically create the frame. Then there's the central stepped triple stack making a very interesting grid shape. That central step practically looks like a word ladder with the endings (ONE, ONE, INE, ING, ING, ANG, ENG) but I don't know if that was intentional or just the best way to make it work. And with the possible exception of a couple more obscure proper nouns, I thought it held together exceptionally well. Let's dig in!

15D: I definitely had the Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back soundtrack in college

I struggled getting started a bit up in the northwest corner. Nothing stands out as too tricky up there, except maybe the crossing of LEGATE (4D: Papal representative) and OCEANUS (24A: Father of the river gods, in Greek myth), but it's probably more about having the two spanners in the middle. It didn't slow me down too much, I just had to move around to get a foothold. Let's talk about those spanners. CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT (23A: One of two in Hawaii) is fine, but not sparkly. CORPORATE SURVEILLANCE (91A: Controversial business oversight) is creepy, but I appreciate the clue calling it out as such. INVERTED ROLLER COASTER (96A: Amusement park ride in which one's legs dangle off the ground) is very cool to see. I do love a good theme park (though it's been a while since I rode an inverted coaster). But COME ON IN, THE WATER'S FINE (19A: Swimmer's invitation) really steals the show. It was easy and filled a lot of the grid as soon as I saw it, but it's a perfectly well-known phrase that you just don't get the chance to see in puzzles very often. Loved it.

Looking at the other long answers, I think the acrosses HAVE THINGS OUT (51A: Communicate through a disagreement) and TONGUE LASHING (62A: Reprimand that might be biting, ironically) make a very nice pairing. HONEST ANSWER (51D: Something that might not be well received when someone asks "How do I look?") tells a nice story, which you know I appreciate. ALPHABET SONG (21D: Number of letters?) bumps with me for some reason. Maybe it's because I usually call it "The ABCs," but it just reads weird to me. Even now, reading and writing it, my brain wants it to say "Alphabet Soup." Seems like a perfectly cromulent answer, and I like the clue, so it's probably just a me thing. 

34D: Last Beatles single before Paul McCartney's departure

I mentioned the proper nouns earlier, and that's probably the only real fault I can find here. I called out TONI STONE as the word of the day above. That's a name I'm surprised I don't know. Well, not surprised in a male-centric sport like baseball (especially since it involves the Negro Leagures), but it does seem like my kind of trivia. I'm also surprised I don't know SHENG (76A: Stand-up comic ___ Wang), but I guess I'm not as tuned into the stand-up scene as I used to be. I'll have to check him out. Also not sure how common LEIDEN (13D: Dutch city with a namesake jar) is, but I do know that I spelled it "Leyden" when I made a Leyden Jar in high school. None of these broke the puzzle for me, but I could see them causing trouble.

There were a couple of other fun bits I had highlighted in my notes. I feel like of the various silent letters, SILENT A (72D: Diamond component) is probably pretty rare. Nice trickery in the clue, too. Glad to see CIS (91D: Prefix with normative) highlighted after the puzzle I blogged earlier in the week. Time of day clues are always a little pedestrian, so I appreciated that the clue for TEN AM (10D: Time that's an artist's name backward) gives a bit of fun trivia. Also, 10am at 10 down is a nice coincidence (unless it was on purpose, in which case, that's crazy subtle). The clue for BEE STING (66A: Honey boo-boo?) also made me laugh a bit.

Overall, I had a lot of fun solving this puzzle, and Erik should be proud of this grid construction.

Stray Thoughts:

• 32D: Group in support of a queen (ANT COLONY)— Look, I've seen A Bug's Life, I know ants are supposed to be our friends. But we're dealing with some pest control issues at the house and I'm in no mood to think about a colony.

• 54A: Display perfect timing, much like dancers (MOVE AS ONE) — I was trying to figure out why I was hearing this as a song instead of a sentence, and I realized it's from Yorktown in Hamilton ("Take the bullets out your gun / What? / The bullets out your gun! /  What? / We move undercover and we MOVE AS ONE"). I guess that show just lives there permanently.
• 26A: Jamaican folk song about dock work (DAY-O) — I've probably posted this video on this blog in the past, but I don't care. Watch it again!

I think that's all I've got for today. I've had a lot of fun this week, and I know the other Rexplacements have, as well. I hope we've done a good job holding down the fort while Rex has been away. Until next time!

Signed, Eli Selzer, False Dauphin of CrossWorld

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