Remote sensing technology that uses lasers / THU 10-8-26 / Audacious, informally / Perceived Democratic electoral bloc / "Midnight Cowboy" con man / Cezanne created a pyramid of them / Host Meredith of "25 Words or Less"

Constructor: Rachel Grey and John Kugelman

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: put it in reverse! — answers are literal descriptions of the clue, which is a word that has been turned around (to form a separate, unrelated word): 

Theme answers:

• COUNTERARGUMENT (17A: Taps) ("Taps" is "spat" backward (“COUNTER”), "spat" = "ARGUMENT")
• RETROCHIC (24A: Trams) ("Trams" is "smart" backward ("RETRO"), "smart" = "CHIC")
• FLIP OF A SWITCH (36A: Paws) ("Paws" is "swap" backward ("FLIP OF A"), "swap" = "SWITCH")
• HAIRY BACK (49A: Dessert) ("Dessert" = "tressed" backward (“BACK”), "tressed" = "HAIRY")
• DRINKS ALL AROUND (58A: Naive regal gnat) ("Naive regal gnat" = "Evian, lager and Tang" backwards (“ALL AROUND”), "Evian, lager and Tang" = "DRINKS")

Word of the Day: LIDAR (31D: Remote sensing technology that uses lasers) —

Lidar (/ˈlaɪdɑːr/, an acronym of light detection and ranging or laser imaging, detection, and ranging, often stylized LiDAR) is a method for determining ranges by targeting an object or a surface with a laser and measuring the time for the reflected light to return to the optical receiver. Lidar may operate in a fixed direction (e.g., vertical) or it may scan directions, in a special combination of 3D scanning and laser scanning. // LiDAR is used within terrestrial, airborne, and mobile equipment around the globe. It is commonly used to make high-resolution maps, with applications in surveying, geodesy, geomatics, archaeology, geography, geology, geomorphology, seismology, forestry, atmospheric physics, laser guidance, airborne laser swathe mapping (ALSM), and laser altimetry. It is used to make digital 3D representations of areas on the Earth's surface and ocean bottom of the intertidal and near coastal zone by varying the wavelength of light. It has also been increasingly used in control and navigation for autonomous cars and for the helicopter Ingenuity on its record-setting flights over the terrain of Mars. Lidar has since been used extensively for atmospheric research and meteorology. Lidar instruments fitted to aircraft and satellites carry out surveying and mapping – a recent example being the U.S. Geological Survey Experimental Advanced Airborne Research Lidar. NASA has identified lidar as a key technology for enabling autonomous precision safe landing of future robotic and crewed lunar-landing vehicles.

• • •

I appreciate the theme—a concept I think I've seen before, and one that was not at all hard to uncover—but solving it felt extremely fussy and awkward (lots of strangely clued 3s and 4s). I'm also not sure "Tressed" = HAIRY, in that simply having hair does not make one HAIRY, which is how you'd describe someone with a lot of hair (or a dog, I guess). They're not great synonyms. I mean, "tressed" isn't a great word at all, no one uses it ever in any context ever. It's usually used in combinations. "Golden-tressed," e.g. HAIRY ... doesn't get at it. So that themer was a big miss, but the others worked fine, with DRINKS ALL AROUND being the real winner, properly placed at the end of the puzzle (always save the best for last). Despite grasping the theme concept very early, the themers remained hard, as I still had a lot to figure out (what the synonym for the reversed clue would be + how the "backward" part of the answer was going to be expressed). I mostly just crossed those answers heavily and then looked at their clues. Solving that way,  there was only one themer I had any trouble with—FLIP OF A SWITCH—and that was because so many of the crosses in its first half were gobbledygook to me. 

Most of the green ink on my print-out today is concentrated in the WNW, right around BALLSY and its environs (which, as you can see, includes the front end of FLIP OF A SWITCH). The real killer answer through there, for me, was LIDAR, a word I've never seen in my life (not even in crosswords—this is a debut). I looked it up and ... there it is (Word of the Day), but [deep sigh] those are just five random letters to me. I just read what LIDAR is an acronym for and I've already forgotten. I had RADAR in there at first. I also had real trouble with FARADAYS (37D: Units of electric charge). Had the DAYS part and thought there was some term like "usage days" or "watt days" or something. My BLUE WALL was a BLUE WAVE, so that screwed that WNW area up even more (3D: Perceived Democratic electoral bloc). The CAB clue made *no* sense to me until I ran the alphabet at C-B. Could not see that the "way" in 27A: In the way of (À LA) meant "manner," ugh. Kept trying to imagine some kind of physical impediment. And then there's BALLSY, a word I just didn't expect the NYTXW ever to use (30A: Audacious, informally). Too testicular, I would've imagined. But OK. Anyway, all that confusion mashed into one little area meant major annoyance for me. Out of all that mess, I kind of like BALLSY, but the rest of it—untangling it was simply unpleasant.

[Pyramid of Skulls, 1901]

Hated the Warren Buffet clue about BETting on America, what a bunch of jingoistic billionaire horsesh*t, please don't show me billionaires talking in my puzzle, stop listening to billionaires. Tax. Don't listen. Tax. Similar feelings about the clue on AIM (10D: Making money or becoming famous, maybe). Those are stupid f*cking AIMs, empty, hollow, meaningless unto themselves. So many potentially beautiful AIMs in the world and we get this vapid, unimaginative crap. Make better BETs, have better AIMs. I was much happier w/ Cézanne's "pyramid" of skulls, which I had forgotten about. I briefly thought maybe he'd piled up some kind of flower. I also liked CROP DUST, in that it reminded me of North by Northwest, which gives me a chance to say R.I.P Eva Marie Saint, who died two days ago at the age of 102. Won the Academy Award for On the Waterfront and then got to be in one of the greatest suspense films ever made opposite the most gorgeous and charming screen talent of all time. This is chemistry:

["Think how lucky I am to have been seated here"]

[38D: Spray from a plane]

I was also happy to see Nora EPHRON today, especially as clued (41A: Nora who wrote "When Harry Met Sally ..."), as I just finished watching When Harry Met Sally... again for the first time in decades this past Monday and it remains a stunner. Genuinely funny and charming, with iconic autumn-in-New York settings and great supporting performances from Bruno Kirby and Carrie Fisher (the wagon wheel coffee table ... "baby fish mouth!" ...). The writing and storytelling are also nearly flawless, but the secret, irreplaceable weapon is Meg Ryan. Meg Ryan's face, her voice, her whole affect. It's like watching someone single-handedly create an ideal of a form—in this case, the romcom heroine. So many others seem like pale imitations by comparison.

[I watch a Lot of movies: you can follow me on Letterboxd]

Bullets:

• 9A: How low can they go? (BASSI) — read "how long can they go?" so you can imagine my confusion on (finally) getting the answer
• 57D: Thelma and Louise, e.g. (PALS) — this seems a flippant way to describe what they are. I had the PA- and wrote in PAIR ... PALS ... I don't think two people who are merely PALS drive off a *&^%ing cliff together, is all I'm saying.
• 65A: Everybody's hands (DEALS) — "Hands" are DEALS. The "Everybody's" threw me off. Badly.

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

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. one last song

  
["She looks like ..."]

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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