Chewy barbecue bits / SAT 6-29-24 / Magazine with a "Skater of the Year" award / Exploding part of a touch-me-not / Parsons who worked on "Abbey Road" and "The Dark Side of the Moon" / Down during difficult times? / Modern medium for jotting things down / Touristy district in Rome

Constructor: Adrian Johnson and Rafael Musa

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: EID AL-ADHA (13A: Islam's feast of sacrifice) —

Eid al-Adha (Arabic: عيد الأضحى, romanized: ʿĪd al-ʾAḍḥā, EED əl AD-hə; IPA: [ˈʕiːd alˈʔadˤħaː]), commonly translated as the Feast of Sacrifice and also known as Yawm an-Nahr (Arabic: يوم النحر, romanized: Yawm al-Naḥr), is the second of the two main Islamic holidays alongside Eid al-Fitr. In the Islamic calendar, Eid al-Adha falls on the 10th day of the twelfth and final month of Dhu al-Hijja, and celebrations and observances are generally carried forward to the three following days, known as the Tashreeq days.

As with Eid al-Fitr, the Eid prayer is performed on the morning of Eid al-Adha, after which udhiyah, or the ritual sacrifice of sheep, may be performed. In Islamic tradition, it honours the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son as an act of obedience to God's command. Depending on the narrative, either Ishmael or Isaac are referred to with the honorific title "Sacrifice of God". Pilgrims performing the Hajj typically perform the tawaf and saee of Hajj on Eid al-Adha, along with the ritual stoning of the devil on the Eid day and the following days.

Eid al-Adha is also sometimes called the "Greater Eid" (Arabic: العيد الكبير, romanized: al-ʿĪd al-Kabīr). In India it is also called Bakra-Id. (wikipedia)

• • •

Aaaaaand once again Saturday is the new Friday. This was Friday- (not Saturday-) easy, and had all the pop and whoosh and flow and fun that I want my Fridays to have. Well, it wasn't all fun. I finished up in the SE, where there was definitely some grumbling. My grumbling. LOL that I'm supposed to know the name of a skating (i.e. skateboarding) magazine (42A: Magazine with a "Skater of the Year" award), though I will say that THRASHER was inferrable, as I guess I've heard of skateboarding as "thrashing" before. This "Glossary of Skateboarding Terms and Slang" (from Surfer Today dot com) defines a "Thrasher" as "an avid or enthusiastic skater," so there you go. Ooh, also, looks like there's an iconic skateboarding movie of 1986 called Thrashin'. Iconic to skaters, that is. Maybe not "iconic." Well-known, perhaps. Divisive, it seems. (This conversation between Josh Brolin and Tony Hawk (both in the movie) is very funny):

But beyond this random piece of skating trivia, there were other "???" moments in the SE, the worst of which, for me, was TRAIL AWAY (46A: What a speaker might do if nobody is listening to them)—specifically the "AWAY" part. The phrase is "TRAIL OFF," isn't it? I mean, don't answer, it definitely is. When I got TRAIL and OFF wouldn't fit I made the saddest/angriest face. But oh, before that, I had to actually *get* to TRAIL, and that wasn't easy, what with GRAM Parsons sitting in on the Abbey Road and Dark Side of the Moon sessions, dear lord! I had just listened to a series of podcasts about GRAM Parsons, so I should've known the timeline and especially the catalogue was wrong here, but, I mean, famous musical Parsons, four letters, the "A" works ... I was semi-locked in. Gah! (43D: Parsons who worked on "Abbey Road" and "The Dark Side of the Moon" = ALAN). I also encountered my third "ON" of the grid down here (READ ON, after ON HAND and ADD-ONS), which is a teeny thing, really, as glitches go, but my accumulated good will from the previous 3/4 of this puzzle felt like it was draining away, so I was feeling every little imperfection. Trivia nearly killed me (THRASHER) but then trivia really bailed me out, as Aidy BRYANT is a very familiar name to me. Stunned to discover AIDY has been in the grid only once (Oct. 2023). That's a name built for crosswords. Today's BRYANT clue doesn't even contain "Aidy," which made it hardish. But I could infer it from a few crosses. Anyway, this corner was a mild bummer, but my overall experience was something close to elated. And check out Aidy BRYANT in Shrill, it's very good. 

Back to the elation. Nice to have a big fat gimme at 1-Across today (1A: Sound from a kid = MAA). Gave me all the first letters in a bank of 6-letter answers, hurray. ADORED and AIN'T SO to POD and MESS UP and bam, the whole far NW is set before I have a chance to think. But now I've got EID ... and, uh ... if the next bit is not MUBARAK!, I confess, I give up. I *should've* known EID AL-FITR (which would've fit ... r), since that's the EID I know—the feast celebrating the end of Ramadan. But I didn't even have that in my arsenal. And EID AL-ADHA—totally new to me today. But if it's one of the two main Islamic holidays, I can't exactly complain it's obscure, now can I? I enjoyed learning that there's more than one EID, and I especially enjoyed that I was able to learn this without my grid absolutely blowing up—all crosses fair! And I'm grateful that EID AL-ADHA introduced a little struggle into my solve (which needed it). My main experience of the NW was not the struggle caused by EID AL-ADHA but the explosion of great answers that started here and then shot across the grid in all directions. STRESS EAT (19A: Down during difficult times?) and SNOW ANGEL (17A: Something that's made lying down) into THEATER DISTRICT (getting DISTRICT was my first big whoosh) (6D: Play area), and then onto the UNEVEN BARS and getting down with the BOSSA NOVA, with very little trouble. And the hits kept coming: "I WON'T BITE"! RUSSIAN SPY! (great clue) (36A: Red plant?). RIB TIPS! (29A: Chewy barbecue bits). And "JUST FYI," so good, so colloquially on-the-nose (33A: "In case it's of interest ..."). I had just the terminal "I" and thought "what the hell!?!?" So nice to go from "what the hell!?!?" to "Oh, wow, yes, that's it. Seemed impossible, but ... there it is!"

I think I've covered my only real sticking points today. I absolutely botched AKON by totally misreading the clue. I kept thinking the last letter was moved to the front instead of the front to the back, so even after I'd finished the puzzle, I was wondering where the Hell NAKO, Hawaii was. You have no idea how many four-letter singers I tried in there. "ENYA? ... BONO? ... CHER? ... NE-YO? ... come on, one of you gotta have a Hawaiian name in you somewhere!" AKON => KONA. That was the key. 

Notes:

• 24A: Exploding part of a touch-me-not (POD) — no idea what this is. Looks like it's a plant that recoils from touch, also called a "touch-and-die" and "shameplant," wow. In addition to recoiling, they have seed pods that "explode," it seems. In addition to never having heard of this, I misread the clue (again!) as "Exploring part ..." and so was looking for "tendril" or ... I don't know, something, "reach-out-and-touch"-y like that. "Touch-me-not" apparently has (human) sexual meaning as well as botanical meaning. I'll leave you to explore (!) that meaning for yourself. [UPDATE: apparently "touch me not" is the name for "two unrelated groups of plants" (!?) and wikipedia gave me the "wrong" one. Sigh. Here's the "right" one (a variety of impatiens)]:

• 27A: Online chatter? (BOT) — chatBOTs are a pretty common (and horrible) feature of online life, especially if you're trying to deal with, say, your local internet service provider or the power company or whatever.
• 31A: 1990 civil rights legislation, for short (ADA) — Americans with Disabilities Act
• 2D: "You're lyin'!" ("AIN'T SO!") — after "ARE NOT!" wouldn't fit ... "AIN'T SO!" didn't take too long. I had yokel-speak on the brain because we're in the middle of a two-part Love Boat episode where Donny Osmond is an aspiring singer about to get his big break (singing on a cruise!?) but his "mountain folk" family has decided to show up and see him and he's embarrassed by their country ways so I'm sure he's gonna learn some kind of lesson about being yourself and loving your family blah blah blah. Anyway, his mom is played by Marion ("Mrs. C") Ross and his dad by Slim Pickens and his sister by Loni "I used to be in crosswords more" Anderson, who they've got done up as a pure "hillbilly" caricature, from the look to the accent. Kind of a cross between Ellie Mae (Beverly Hillbillies) and Daisy Mae (L'il Abner). Loni's engaged to some farmer guy but now that she's on this cruise, she's seeing what the big wide world has to offer, and this includes the notoriously sexy Rich Little yes that Rich Little no I am not making this up. Rich Little is the record producer or agent or I forget what but he's the guy who's gonna "discover" Donny Osmond ... but now he's hitting on Donny's sister Loni ... who is already engaged. What will Mrs. C think!? I'll be sure to let you know how it turns out once I watch Part 2. I forget why I started telling you all this in the first place. 

• 10D: Modern medium for jotting things down (NOTES APP) — not an exciting answer, but original, probably, and very real. I use a NOTES APP all the time when I've got text I want to retain or ideas I need to dump and I don't know what to do with them just yet.
• 31D: Robbins who co-wrote the "Rocky" theme "Gonna Fly Now" (AYN) — the kind of ridiculous trivia you resort to when you Know your puzzle is gonna play too easy. If it ain't Rand, then I AYN't gonna know what you're talking about. 
• 48D: Make rent (RIP) — "rent" = "torn" here.
• 54A: Something seen in a demo, for short (TNT) — "demo" = demolition. So I just learned that "dynamite" and TNT are not the same thing, and that where demolition is concerned "The industry’s material of choice remains dynamite, especially in concrete demolition and large, complex applications." (on-sitemag.com). Here's more, from wikipedia:

Trinitrotoluene (TNT) is often assumed to be the same as (or confused for) dynamite largely because of the ubiquity of both explosives during the 20th century. This incorrect connection between TNT and dynamite was enhanced by cartoons such as Bugs Bunny, where animators labeled any kind of bomb (ranging from sticks of dynamite to kegs of black powder) as TNT [...] Aside from both being high explosives, TNT and dynamite have little in common. [...] TNT has never been popular or widespread in civilian earthmoving, as it is considerably more expensive and less powerful by weight than dynamite, as well as being slower to mix and pack into boreholes. TNT's primary asset is its remarkable insensitivity and stability: it is waterproof and incapable of detonating without the extreme shock and heat provided by a blasting cap (or a sympathetic detonation) (my emph.)

I'm obviously out of my depth here, but I'm now weirdly wondering if TNT is, in fact, used for "a demo" (in the controlled, industrial sense). I can't say that I care, but I am wondering. OK bye.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Magnus Carlsen achieved one of 2882 / FRI 6-28-24 / What Anne Brontë and Anaïs Nin have in common / MGM co-founder Marcus / National advocacy grp. for L.G.B.T.Q. issues / "Frankly," in texting shorthand / New York Post gossip section named for its location / Mythical creature likely inspired by Madagascar's elephant bird / Letter derived from Phoenician's "heth"

Constructor: Enrique Henestroza Anguiano

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (on the slow side, for me, for a Friday)

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: PFLAG (27D: National advocacy grp. for L.G.B.T.Q. issues) —

PFLAG is the United States' largest organization dedicated to supporting, educating, and advocating for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) people and those who love them. PFLAG National is the national organization, which provides support to the PFLAG network of local chapters. PFLAG has nearly 400 chapters across the United States, with more than 350,000 members and supporters.

PFLAG (pronounced /ˈpiːflæɡ/ PEE-flag) is no longer an acronym, but the actual name of the organization. Prior to 2014, the acronym stood for Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (later broadened to Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays). Until removal of the hyphen in 1993 the name was officially styled as P-FLAG. In 2014 the membership of the organization voted to officially change the name to PFLAG to reflect the decades of fully inclusive work it had been doing in the LGBTQ+ community. (wikipedia)

• • •

Couldn't ever really find the groove with this one. Whatever that means. Maybe I didn't find my groove. The puzzle and I didn't groove. Something wasn't groovy. The NW set the tone. I kinda shrugged at the longer stuff but felt bombarded by short stuff that felt olden or clunky. The whole CPLUS PRU LOEW ULNA area was wearisome. And then there was the stuff I just don't care about at all, the stuff that is never gonna be my thing. No poker today (eternally not my thing), but there is KENKEN (no interest) and chess terminology (I've seen ELO clued this boring non-musical way a bunch—pretty sure I've had the chess meaning of ELO as my Word of the Day before—and I still couldn't tell you what any of the letters stand for) (ah, that's because the letters don't stand for anything; it's a rating system named after a guy named Arped ELO) (I'm already forgetting this fact as I type this sentence). It's hard to think of a bigger waste of marquee space than TELEPRESENCE (26A: Virtual participation in a remote event). Just a horrid word on its face. I guess it's original, but I can't say I'm happy to see it. NOT SO NICE, that answer (unlike NOT SO NICE, which is, in fact, pretty nice). The grid just felt more bony than meaty overall. I mean, literally bony. ULNA and SACRA, really? I know "sacrum" well, from years of yoga, but SACRA is a word I never see in the plural outside crosswords. INIT NONA HTTP ... they hold the puzzle together, but they're not exactly answers I WANNA SEE (though WANNA SEE? is another answer I actually like up top). This one just never got off the ground. Or I never did. For whatever reason, my Friday Fun Feelings just sat there, largely unactivated. 

The bottom half didn't liven things up much more than the top half did, though there's something intriguing and provocative about the THREESOME / IBUPROFEN juxtaposition, and "WHAT A TREAT!" is, in fact, a bit of a treat. But it's really (really) hard to get excited about DIAERESES (38A: What Anne Brontë and Anaïs Nin have in common). That three-vowel run ("IAE") had me certain something was wrong, though nothing was wrong. I was lucky enough to know PFLAG. If you didn't, I can see that section getting really thorny indeed. I think I've been spelling "diaresis" ("dieresis"?) wrong my whole life. Well, to the extent that I've been spelling it at all, which is ... unlikely. You're not supposed to call that double-dot mark in "Brontë" or "Anaïs" an "umlaut" because on a technical level it is not an umlaut despite looking exactly like an umlaut. It's function is to signal a new, discrete syllable. Basically it tells you "Brontë" has two syllables not one (i.e. "BRON-tay," not "BRONT") and "Anaïs" has three and not two (i.e. "ah-nah-ees" (or "uh-NAY-iss"), not "An ACE"). It's a hard word to love, TBH. Speaking of TBH ("to be honest"), really hope everyone is up on there textspeak, because that "T" cross for TBH seems potentially rough (seems reasonable for people to imagine that there's an "MLB on CBS"). I don't know how you'd rationalize CBH as an answer to that clue (33A: "Frankly," in texting shorthand), but I often have no rationalization of the things I put in the grid. I mean, ELO, for instance. See above. Hey, is CBH the cannabis stuff ... nope, that's CBD (short for "cannabidiol," the active ingredient in cannabis). You can add cannabis to chess, poker, KENKEN, and other things I am clearly no expert on (and not particularly interested in). 

Dupes aplenty today, NOT SO NICE and IT'S NOT FAR. NOS and NO-NONSENSE and NONA and NANO (I know those last two aren't proper "nos" but the alliteration is hard to stop once you start). Today I learned a new NONA. I put a NONA Hendryx song on the blog the other day when the puzzle *didn't* use her as a clue (it opted instead for the geometrical prefix NONA-, as in "nonagon"). NONA Gaye's discography seems pretty thin, but she did some pretty high-profile acting there for a while. She was in Ali as well as the Matrix sequels. She also collaborated with (and dated!) Prince. I mistakenly thought that NONA Hendryx was the daughter of Jimi Hendrix (she was born "Hendrix") but they're basically the same age. "Distant cousins," according to her. Anyway, connections to music royalty all around. 

Puzzle notes:

• 42A: No small part (SPEAKING ROLE) — hey look, another "No" to add to the list of "NOS" and "NOTs" we've already got going. I wrote in STARRING ROLE here. I don't really understand the clue on this one—many SPEAKING ROLEs are in fact Very small parts. 
• 4D: Top choices (T-SHIRTS) — big misdirect in the clue, but even so, I should've known the answer wouldn't start "TOP" (which I literally wrote in the grid for a bit, what the hell?!). I was thinking "hmmm, like TOP PICKS, something like that?" when I should've been thinking "That can't be right! 'Top' is in the clue, you idiot!"
• 7D: MGM co-founder Marcus (LOEW) — wrote this in as LOEB. As in "Leopold and." Or, you know, the LOEB Classical Library (red for Latin, green for Greek):

• 60A: Like the flavor of much mezcal (SMOKY) — mezcal is one of my favorite base spirits for cocktails and I still managed to fumble this one a bit. Had the -MO-Y and like "... EMORY?" Tik TOK to the rescue with the "K" (TOK, among the uglier entries of the day)
• 37D: New York Post gossip section named for its location (PAGE SIX) — the things I don't care about just Keep Coming. I'm aware that the Post exists, but can't imagine reading it. And a "gossip section"? I'd sooner solve a KENKEN (which, believe me, is Saying Something)
• 46D: Greek goddess of peace (IRENE) — so many great IRENEs in the world, why would you go this route? I was like "Is it IRENE? IRENA? IRINA?" Ugh. 

• 39D: Mythical creature likely inspired by Madagascar's elephant bird (ROC) — I know this exclusively from some version of "Sinbad the Sailor," I think. Hey, do you remember the sitcom "ROC"? Early '90s? Fox? Starring the great Charles Dutton? Is that streaming? I remember really liking it. Gonna see if I can't track that show down... 

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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