THEME: YEAR OF THE OX (53A: 2021 in the Chinese zodiac, with a hint to 17-, 27- and 40-Across) — first words of themers are all bovine categories to which an ox might belong:
Theme answers:
STEER CLEAR (17A: Avoids, with "of")
BULL MARKET (27A: Good time on Wall Street)
CATTLE CALL (40A: Open audition, informally)
Word of the Day: Ox —
[merriam-webster.com]
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I thought the grid was pretty good. There are some weakish and dull parts, but the largeish corners allow for some interesting stuff to bloom. I especially love the heavy "Popeye" imagery in the NW (the ANCHOR on his bulging MUSCLE) as well as the heavy FDR imagery in the SE (with the president waxing ELOQUENT in his FIRESIDE CHAT). I wonder if the GLAXO / TEDX crossing is going to wipe anybody out. I totally blanked on GLAXO, and even now, I know it only as part of the larger conglomerate name GlaxoSmithKlein (GSK). I have no idea how well known TEDX is (49A: Lecture series focused on "ideas worth spreading"). Ted Talks are well known, and have appeared as an answer and in clues. But the "X" part ... not sure. It's such a hilariously gratuitous-seeming "X," and yet, since it's actually out there in the middle of the grid, between two themers, holding everything together, it is really rather essential. It's certainly one of the more interesting moments in the whole puzzle. So, though the grid has its share of repeaters like AREOLAs and TIARAS (there's a show idea for you) and AGORAS and ALTA EER TINED etc., there's more than enough zing here to make it interesting.
I am ambivalent about the theme. On the one hand, it's timely, and YEAROFTHEOX is a great answer all on its own. I just ... and it's very possible this is a 'me' problem ... found the relationship of "ox" to the other bovine words a little haphazard. The only time I ever think of "ox" is in the plural (OXEN) and only (literally only) ever as a yoked plowing team. So it's very clear that my understanding of what exactly an "ox" is is not definitionally sound. Is an ox a steer?
Yes, a specific kind of ox, it seems, but not being at all familiar with the minutiae of bovine classification, I just had to go with the idea that "steer" and "ox" *felt* related. Somewhat similar experience with "bull" (specifically uncastrated) and "cattle" (the most general category—just any bovine held as property and raised for use). I guess if you take the absolutely most general definition of "ox" ("a domestic bovine animal"), then all the other words involved in the theme are also "domestic bovine animals," so sure, it works. The associations are all so shifting and overlapping, though, that the revealer, while it gave joy as an answer on its own, didn't exactly snap every other element of the theme clearly into place. Also, I know this wouldn't be as timely, but CATTLE CALL feels like the better revealer. It's what the ends of the other themers literally are (when read aloud). Also, "cattle" is the most general of the terms. I'm trying to think about what's best from a *puzzle* standpoint. But it's fine to want to highlight YEAROFTHEOX this way (with revealer status), so I'm not mad. The puzzle is 2021-specific, but solid enough that I suspect it will AGE WELL (8D: Not look bad after all this time).
Notes:
30D: Crowded places on Black Friday (MALLS) — are they, though? between cyber-shopping and pandemics, this clue felt spookily dated
1A: Body part whose name comes from the Latin for "little mouse" (MUSCLE) — dang that is a hard clue. Harder still because "body part" makes it sound like, well, a specific part, as opposed to one of hundreds of such "parts" that you have in your body.
4D: Pizzeria tool (CHEESE GRATER) — just thinking about the pizza I'm going to have for lunch today ... that's all, moving on ...
35D: Energy source in Minecraft (RED STONE) — LOL, no idea. My nephew (still a teenager) is a*longtime* Minecraft ... I dunno, engineer? Is that the term? Like, very highly accomplished, goes to conferences, runs teams, etc. I don't claim to know anything about it, but I know that his level of involvement is deep and his understanding sophisticated. The only REDSTONE I know is the late billionaire media magnate Sumner REDSTONE. I'll take this RED STONE any day.
A long time ago, I was solving this puzzle and got stuck at an unguessable (to me) crossing: N. C. WYETH crossing NATICK at the "N"—I knew WYETH but forgot his initials, and NATICK ... is a suburb of Boston that I had no hope of knowing. It was clued as someplace the Boston Marathon runs through (???). Anyway, NATICK— the more obscure name in that crossing—became shorthand for an unguessable cross, esp. where the cross involves two proper nouns, neither of which is exceedingly well known. NATICK took hold as crossword slang, and the term can now be both noun ("I had a NATICK in the SW corner...") or verb ("I got NATICKED by 50A / 34D!")
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