Call to cruisers, for short / WED 10-7-26 / Bygone company whose website has been revived as satire / Sly reply to "You can't possibly know that!" / Patterned fabric

Constructor: Ben Zimmer

Relative difficulty: Hard!! (20:02-- most Wednesdays take me under 15min)

THEME: DO A DOUBLE TAKE — Theme answers are pairs of words. One word has two of the same letter removed to form the other word.

Theme answers:

• TRUE BLUE for [Staunchly loyal]
• "Take" the two Us to make TREBLE
• SATURDAY for [Popular date night]
• "Take" the two As to make STURDY
• RAIN GEAR for [Macs and wellies, e.g.]
• "Take" the two As to make RINGER
• ATLANTIS for [Aquaman's domain]
• "Take" the two Ts to make ALANIS

Word of the Day: GRABLE (Pinup icon Betty) —

Elizabeth Ruth Grable (December 18, 1916 – July 2, 1973) was an American actress, pin-up girl, dancer, model, and singer. Her 42 films during the 1930s and 1940s grossed more than $100 million, and for 10 consecutive years (1942–1951) she placed among the Quigley Poll's top 10 box office stars (a feat only matched by Doris Day, Julia Roberts and Barbra Streisand, although all were surpassed by Mary Pickford, with 13 years). The U.S. Treasury Department listed her as the highest-salaried American woman in 1946 and 1947, and she earned more than $3 million during her career.

• • •

Hi squad! Welcome to another Malaika MWednesday! I thought this puzzle was hard and I don't think that I often say that. I am trying to crystallize what made this hard. I think it was the entries in the grid. Upon closer look, this grid only has 72 entries in it! (The fewer the entries, the harder it is to fill the grid.) And, nine of them are theme entries. (The more theme entries, the harder it is to fill the grid.) And, the theme entries cross! (When areas of the grid are dense with required entries, it is harder to fill the grid.)

Sometimes I get on my high horse and say "Just because a theme is impressively tough to construct doesn't mean it should be a puzzle." Well, not today! I clocked this theme as impressively hard to construct, but I don't know that it's obvious to the majority of solvers. (Chime in though!) And the revealer is so, soooo good. I do think it's worth it.... I thiiiiink. I'm like 90% sure it's worth it. There were aspects of this puzzle that felt a little irrelevant-- why did it matter that the entries crossed? Why did it matter that the letters U, M, A, and T, were "taken"? Why was the revealer phrased like that, when DOUBLE TAKE could have worked just as well? But nevertheless, I think it was worth it.

The Internet tells me this horse is called Do A Double Take

I have had the experience of hearing a phrase when I'm out in the world touching grass, thinking that it could be a revealer, and then trying to think what it would actually literally mean for it to be a revealer. And I have also had the experience of a revealer and the associated mechanism appearing in my head fully formed like the birth of Athena. This puzzle strikes me as the former, but I wonder what Ben's brainstorming process was like! I think there are a lot of ways to interpret the phrase "double take."

Some of the harder entries for me were partial, or had partial energy. ALB, ARE SO, LIE TO, RACE IN, OH BUT I DO, EATS AT, TIDED, NO TAR, KEEP TABS, EASE INTO, TOSS OUT. I wonder if the grid could have been updated to have a couple more black squares (and thus, entries) to avoid this. (Fwiw, at a cursory glance that does not seem possible!) Stats about a puzzle often betray the core vibe of it. Standard specs might claim that a longer entry is better than two three-letter words, but I would prefer having known entries like "cat" and "leg" over tough-to-parse stuff like KEEPS TABS.

Bullets:

• [Dolly Parton vis-a-vis Dollywood] for THEME — I don't know why this clue rubbed me the wrong way. It's correct! It just felt a little dehumanizing. Like she's a costume instead of a person. I was looking for an entry here like "inspo" or "namesake"
• [___-famous (reel popular?)] for INSTA — Ugh I would have looooooved to see this not as a partial!! I want [Reel popular?] as a clue for "Insta-Famous"!!! This is referring to the fact that vertical videos on Instagram are called "reels"
• [Well-manored men?] for EARL — Fantastic clue! Perfect for a Wednesday.
• [Musical artist with the fastest video to reach one billion views on YouTube] for ADELE — I was absolutely shocked by this stat! I knew she was popular, but wow! This was for the music video for "Hello" which came out in October 2015.
• [Hall with a self-titled daytime talk show] for TAMRON— This was completely unknown to me. I needed every cross for every letter.

xoxo Malaika

P.S. My boss Andrew told me that his brother reads all of these. Hi John!! Feel free to tell your brother that I am intelligent, charming, well-spoken, etc etc. Whatever moves you.

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