Literally, "disciple" / FRI 9-10-21 / River personified by god Hapi / Jewelry creator Elsa who helped define the Tiffany brand / Hybrid citrus fruit native to China / Dispenser in many a vestibule / Nickname for Chicago's Cloud Gate sculpture / Matar in Indian cuisine

Constructor: Adrian Kabigting

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Jacqueline DU PRÉ (37D: Cellist Jacqueline) —

Jacqueline Mary du Pré OBE (26 January 1945 – 19 October 1987) was a British cellist. At a young age, she achieved enduring mainstream popularity. Despite her short career, she is regarded as one of the greatest cellists of all time.

Her career was cut short by multiple sclerosis, which forced her to stop performing at the age of 28; she died 14 years later at the age of 42. 

She was the subject of the 1998 biographical film Hilary and Jackie, which attracted criticism for perceived inaccuracy and sensationalism.

• • •

Image from Thirdlove

In retrospect, I wish I'd enjoyed solving this more. I guess I could say this about a lot of puzzles, but when I look over the grid now, it seems fine. It has nice parts. It's not as sizzling and bouncy and fresh as the best Fridays, but that NW corner looks pretty good, and the grid seems pretty clean overall. It just wasn't on my wavelength and the cluing often seemed off or awkward and for that reason (and possibly others) it played sluggish, more like a Saturday, and with little of that Friday "wheeeee" factor I always look forward to. It didn't work for me, but I don't think that means it didn't work. I'm not as thrilled by tech stuff as some are, so something like EXECUTABLE leaves me cold. DATA BREACH is a fine answer, but [Hack job] seemed so promising as a clue, like I was going to get some kind of cool slang, but all I got was a depressing real-world problem. Makes me think of the joy of having to change one or more of my roughly 3,000 passwords. I just didn't get a *hit* from many of these clues and answers. Some of my problems were slightly gendered, in that DEMI bra was not at all familiar to me, and jewelry designers? Not anything I pay attention to or care about. As soon as I got DEMI bra, I could imagine what it was, and it's certainly a familiar term in bra marketing, but it was weird to me that when I googled [define demi bra] I couldn't get just, like, a bra wiki with bra types, but instead just got commercial sites trying to sell me bras. Yet another example of how the internet (google in particular) is very broken, committed to selling you things rather than informing you about them. Anyway, DEMI bras are real! I also had no idea what the hell "G2G" was (3D: "G2G" (TTYL)). I assumed it meant "girl to girl"... like something one woman tells another woman, confidentially. But now I see it means "gone to ground"* ... 

I technically finished with an error, in that I spelled the [Cry of relief] WHEW and since I don't know jewelry designers, never went back to see how WERETTI was obviously prong. Are SET DESIGNS just "backgrounds" (62A: Backgrounds in theater). Wait, was that clue supposed to be a play on words?? Maybe that's the problem. Anyway, I assume designers design the whole set. Also, they're just sets. That's the word for what you're seeing up there on the stage. Design is the art of making them. A bunch of clues felt slightly off to me like this. EXECUTABLE had [Performing tasks according to encoded instructions, as a computer file], and the -ing implies something is happening whereas EXECUTABLE implies that it could happen, is able to happen, but isn't necessarily currently happening. See also [Pending acceptance, in a way] for WAITLISTED. Still not able to make that clue/answer swap work out in a sentence. I'm sure it's doable, but it shouldn't be this hard. "She got WAITLISTED," "She got pending acceptance"... nope. "I am WAITLISTED," "I am pending acceptance"... oof, I hope that's not it. When did we start calling the Arabian Peninsula a "boot"?? (18A: The toe of a geographical boot (OMAN)). There's one geographical boot, and only one. After Italy, all other "boots" are gonna look like massive pretenders, so stop, please. It looks like a cartoon boot, maybe, or one of those boots you wear if you break your foot. Anyway, I was looking for some Italian city there, maybe one that sits *right* on the toe. But no.

OK, when you isolate it like this, I see how it's boot-ish, I guess

Loved seeing Jacqueline DU PRÉ and MEYER LEMON in this puzzle, two things I like a whole lot. Had no idea a MEYER LEMON was a hybrid, LOL. I just thought "Meyer" was somebody who realized lemons should be slightly smaller and extra good (17A: Hybrid citrus fruit native to China). Wikipedia says it's a cross between a citron and a mandarin/pomelo hybrid, so ... double hybrid! Clever having DEBRIEF and HANES in the same puzzle, since DEBRIEF = [PEEL off one's HANES?]. SCREW IT! feels like a milestone in crossword profanity (52A: Words when throwing caution to the wind). Not sure of the substantive difference between "SCREW IT!" and "FUCK IT!" (the phrase I use hear more often). I assume the F-word isn't coming to a grid near you any time soon, but if I'm the F-word's agent, I'm making some phone calls.

Pretty sure this is a debut, so congrats to Adrian on that.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

*I know "G2G" is "gotta go" please don't email me about this :)

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