Sing like Ella Fitzgerald / TUES 6-24-25 / Ouzo flavoring / Regular at the Met, maybe / "Yadda, yadda, yadda"

Hi, everyone! It’s Clare for the last Tuesday in June. Hope everyone is staying cool in the middle of this crazy heat wave — D.C. is currently horribly hot and humid. I’m writing this after attending an outdoor concert where the temperature was 90-plus degrees (the concert was amazing but ended a few songs early because of the extreme heat), and I’m now enjoying the AC in my apartment… In more important news, this month, the rest of the BTS members returned from their military service, so get ready to hear a lot more about them in future write-ups:) 

Anywho, onto the puzzle…

Constructor: Ingrid Steffensen

Relative difficulty: Medium (if you're not solving the crossword at a concert)

THEME: PARAS (54D: Law firm aides, informally … or a hint to 17-, 26-. 48- and 62-Across) — Each theme answer is a “pair o’” something and when combined with “para” forms another word

Theme answers:

• DOCKS DOCKS (17A: A couple of places to secure boats ... or a logical contradiction?) [Paradox]
• DICE DICE (26A: A couple of sets of game cubes ... or heaven?) [Paradise] 
• LIES LIES (48A: A couple of fibs ... or incapacitate?) [Paralyze] 
• FRAYS FRAYS (62A: A couple of melees ... or put into new, simpler words without changing the meaning?) [Paraphrase]

Word of the Day: “SMELLS Like Teen Spirit” (43A: Nirvana's "___ Like Teen Spirit") —

"Smells Like Teen Spirit" is a song by the American rock band Nirvana. It is the opening track and lead single from the band's second album, Nevermind (1991), released on DGC Records. Having sold over 13 million units worldwide, it is one of the best-selling songs of all time. The success propelled Nevermind to the top of several albums charts and is often marked as the point when grunge entered the mainstream. It was Nirvana's biggest hit, charting high on music industry charts around the world in 1991 and 1992, and was number one on the charts in Belgium, France, New Zealand and Spain. (Wiki)

• • •

The theme was quite inventive. It took me a while to understand, but once I did, I really appreciated it. Though, the theme answers looked quite strange on their own, without reference to the revealer (DOCKSDOCKS, LIESLIES, etc.). The repetition really helped with the solve after you got the first couple, but the theme itself did skew a bit later in the week for me. I enjoyed the multiple layers to each clue and answer and how it all came together. But — and this is a huge one — I will go to the ends of the Earth to shout from the rooftop that PARAS (54D) is not a short form for “paralegals.” I don’t care what Google or Wikipedia or anyone else may say (though I think they mostly agree with me anyway). It’s just not a common way to refer to that profession. I work in the legal field and work with a lot of paralegals, and I’ve never once heard someone be called a PARA (54D), let alone heard that word around the office. Sorry, that soured me some, apparently! 

Otherwise, the puzzle felt like a pretty standard Tuesday solve. There were some fun words in there — SCOFF (43D: React to a ridiculous suggestion, maybe), BUNGLE (19A: Muff), DRAM (67A: 1/8 fluid ounce), and SCRUM (23D: Rugby pile), to name a few. If you say each of those words out loud, they just have a certain panache (another favorite word) to them. APOGEE (4D: Pinnacle) is also a good word. And then the answer YEA (63D: Word said in passing?) was clever.

Overall, the fill was fine but nothing much to write home about. The long answers outside the theme were okay. OPERA FAN (56A: Regular at the Met, maybe), I can see. SEATBELT (21A: Thing to be clicked in a "Click It or Ticket" campaign) wasn’t horrible. MINISTERS (35D: Preachers) was meh. NANNY CAMS (3D: Surveillance systems installed by parents) was probably my favorite of the long answers other than the themes, though they’re rather creepy (unless you put one in your room when you go to a concert to keep an eye on your puppy to see if you need to ask your roommate to look in on her). 

22A: 1917, 1984, 2001 and others with YEARS seems really basic. Having RPMS (61D: Tachometers measure them, in brief) plural is redundant, as the R stands for “revolutions.” And I don’t have any idea if it’s proper, but DEWS (37D: Morning condensations) as a plural also looks weird, and I’m not sure I’ve seen it written like that before. I struggled a bit with ASSAI (41D: Very, in music) and GELID (33D: Very cold), particularly with them so close together in the puzzle.

Misc.:

• With PACER (10D: Indiana basketballer), all I feel is sadness for the team and Tyrese Haliburton and his stupid Achilles tendon. Poor guy. (For those of you who didn’t watch the NBA Finals — he led his team to the seventh game of the Finals, and into the lead, despite a serious calf injury, then tore a tendon.) Having that answer in the puzzle next to ANKLE (11D: Body part that may be twisted), clued as something that can be twisted, felt ominous. 
• My puppy has an ID TAG (15D: Canine collar attachment) that, on one side, says “Red” and has my phone number. On the other side, it says “Oh f*** I’m lost. Call my mama.” 
• MANO a MANO (16A: (how two foes confront each other) is an interesting one to me because many people seem to think mano a mano means man to man, but it means hand to hand. 
• LEO (6D: Actor DiCaprio, in the tabloids) doesn’t make me think of Leonardo DiCaprio but rather my cousin’s son who’s only five and is trilingual. (My cousin is American, her husband is Italian, and they live in Spain, so little Leo speaks three languages quite well). I feel inadequate. 
• Right now, instead of APRIL (51D: T.S. Eliot's (and the I.R.S.'s) "cruellest month"), June is feeling like the cruelest month because of this heat! 

And that’s all from me. Here’s to cooler weather (HAR) and a great month of July!

Signed, Clare Carroll (I’m signing off now, so I guess that makes me a PARAGON) 

P.S. I really did solve the puzzle at the concert—

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Encrypted messaging software / MON 6-23-25 / Org. to which to report a phone scam / Fuzzy green stuff on some trees / Texas city in the book and film "Friday Night Lights" / Popular vitamin brand or its recommended dosage / Groups of spin doctors, informally / Yorkie-___ (dog hybrid) / Nursery item with slatted sides

Constructor: Zhouqin Burnikel

Relative difficulty: Medium (solved Downs-only) (failed, though—one wrong square)

THEME: "Shut up!" — all theme clues are synonyms for "Shut up!" and follow the pattern "[Verb] it!"; the answer is something you literally [whatever the verb is]:

Theme answers:

• DILL PICKLE (15A: Can it!) (you might can a DILL PICKLE)
• SLEEPING BAG (33A: Zip it!) (you might zip a SLEEPING BAG) 
• BEDROOM DOOR (40A: Shut it!) (you might shut a BEDROOM DOOR)
• DRESS SHIRT (60A: Button it!)  (you might button a DRESS SHIRT)

Word of the Day:  FTC (4D: Org. to which to report a phone scam) —

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government whose principal mission is the enforcement of civil (non-criminal) antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection. It shares jurisdiction over federal civil antitrust law enforcement with the Department of Justice Antitrust Division. The agency is headquartered in the Federal Trade Commission Building in Washington, DC. (wikipedia)

• • •

Hello from the coast of Lake Ontario. It's lovely here.

I don't have my usual blogging set-up here; specifically, I don't have a printer. It feels terribly awkward for me to write about the puzzle if I haven't printed it out and marked it up by hand, if only because I have to toggle between windows to see the damned puzzle at all. I'm sure that for some digital natives, such toggling feels like second nature, but I need the print-out. I need to annotate with a pen. So this no-print-out thing sucks. But I'll survive. As for this puzzle, the theme seems fine. You see this type of clue in the puzzle all the time (e.g. [Beat it!] for BONGO, say, or EGG). And today you get a whole theme's worth, with the unifying factor being that all the theme clues have the same idiomatic meaning (i.e. they all mean, essentially, "shut up!"). Solving Downs-only, I never saw the theme clues, so the theme answers seemed random. No way to see the connection among the answers. Obviously, not a fault of the puzzle's. Anyway, theme seems fine. Fill also seems fine. No real complaints. Loved OPEN MRI. Didn't love SENATE BILL (just a bit on the dull side). Not sure how I feel about "I HAD A BLAST." I think I come down in favor of it. Seems like a complete, self-contained, free-standing phrase. Overall, the grid is pretty choppy, with lots of short answers, so you have to suffer through a lot of KOLA KAMA ASANA APIA SNO ODESSA BENET ANDS AOL SATON INAPP and other unprettiness. But the grid's more solid than not. 

I failed in my Downs-only efforts. I thought the org. you complained to about phone scams was the FCC. Federal Communications Commissions. The phone is a means of communication, I reasoned (poorly). The real answer was FTC (Federal Trade Commission—see Word of the Day, above). FCC gave me SCRAP in the Across, which, as you know, is a perfectly legitimate-looking answer. So ... that's it. Sucks to fail on a cruddy initialism, but these are the risks you take. 

Bullet points:

• 13D: Encrypted messaging software (SIGNAL) — I would never know this software exists were it not for the utter incompetence of the Secretary of Defense et al. around the bombing of Yemen earlier this year, which, of course, everyone forgot about almost immediately because every day brings some fresh incompetence that would've been career-ending in any prior administration. Remember when Clinton fired Joycelyn Elders as Surgeon General because she said that masturbation should be mentioned as part of a safer sex school curriculum? "Elders' comments on masturbation caused great controversy and resulted in Elders losing the support of the White House." Black woman speaks frankly and realistically (and responsibly) about sex, gets fired. But completely unqualified white guy breaks law by going outside established communication protocol, endangers US soldiers' lives in the process, and then lies about it ... everyone acts concerned for a day or so and then .... nothing. What a world.
• 31D: See 30-Across (RADIO) — Kinda hard to "See 30-Across" when you aren't reading Across clues. Had to just wing this one. Had ROGE- at 30-Across and thought maybe ROGET at first but then ROGER made RADIO look plausible, and since there was a clear thematic connection there, I just went with it.
• 33A: Zip it! (SLEEPING BAG)  — obviously I didn't see this clue (solving Downs-only), so when I got to SLEEPING --G, I went with what seemed like the obvious answer (to me): SLEEPING DOG. As in, let SLEEPING DOGs lie. No idea how my brain bypassed the much more reasonable SLEEPING BAG. But then I also wrote in LEAK at 57D: Faucet annoyance when I'd already written it in as the correct answer for 54D: Air mattress problem. I blame vacation brain. Up late last night at concert, busy all day today with travel / seeing best friends / drinking / eating / ice cream / jigsaw puzzling / drinking ... probably not the best conditions for peak puzzle-solving. Good thing I've got substitute blog writers for most of the rest of the week. I think I'm back on Thursday. See you then (Clare's on at her normal last-Tuesday-of-the-month time, tomorrow).

Stay cool, everyone.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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