Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle: Cole Vandenberg

Constructor: Cole Vandenberg and Harit Raghunathan

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: Just add "S" — wacky two-word phrases where the second word is just the first word with an "S" at the beginning:

Theme answers:

LIVER SLIVER (17A: Skimpy serving of foie gras, say)
POTTER SPOTTER (23A: One of Daniel Radcliffe's paparazzi, say)
KETCHUP SKETCH-UP (35A: Heinz bottle blueprint, say)
MOTHER SMOTHER (45A: The biggest and most loving of hugs, say)
TATER STATER (53A: Idahoan, say)

Word of the Day: George OHM (42D: Physicist who built upon Volta's work) —

Georg Simon Ohm (/oʊm/; German: [oːm] ^ⓘ; 16 March 1789 – 6 July 1854) was a German mathematician and physicist. As a school teacher, Ohm began his research with the new electrochemical cell, invented by Italian scientist Alessandro Volta. Using equipment of his own creation, Ohm found that there is a direct proportionality between the potential difference (voltage) applied across a conductor and the resultant electric current. This relation is known as Ohm's law. // Ohm's law states that the electric current through a conductor between two points is directly proportional to the voltage across the two points. Introducing the constant of proportionality, the resistance, one arrives at the three mathematical equations used to describe this relationship:

$V=IR\quad {\text{or}}\quad I={\frac {V}{R}}\quad {\text{or}}\quad R={\frac {V}{I}}$

where $I$ is the current through the conductor, V is the voltage measured across the conductor and R is the resistance of the conductor. More specifically, Ohm's law states that the R in this relation is constant, independent of the current. If the resistance is not constant, the previous equation cannot be called Ohm's law, but it can still be used as a definition of static/DC resistance. Ohm's law is an empirical relation which accurately describes the conductivity of the vast majority of electrically conductive materials over many orders of magnitude of current. However some materials do not obey Ohm's law; these are called non-ohmic.

• • •

Looking ASKANT at this one. I thought I was looking "askance," but this puzzle has taught me otherwise. [...Consults dictionary...]. Nope, I was right, definitely "askance." Now I'm looking askance at ASKANT, specifically. ASKANT actually is in the dictionary, it's just within the definition of "askance" as a variant ("or, less commonly, ASKANT"). My friend Doug once put ASKANT in a puzzle, but at least he had the courtesy to add "old-style" to the end of the clue as a qualifier. The only good ASKANT clue I can see in the xwordinfo database is a fill-in-the-blank quote from Whitman: "And I saw ___ the armies": Whitman. I mean, the quote itself isn't great, and there's very little in the clue to suggest ASKANT, but the clue has one big advantage over all the other ASKANT clues, which is yes, I do believe a 19c. poet might have used ASKANT. That is exactly the milieu in which I'd expect to find ASKANT. A 21c. crossword puzzle, less so. I finished this puzzle on the "A" in ASKANT / ATTS (ugh, ATTS)—a bumpy landing, for sure. But ASKANT was merely the hardest clunk on a day that was full of many smaller ones —e.g. ADRATE OSIER OLLIE ONRYE IDE EDY ATTS (a cavalcade of crosswordese).

[Ruby Blue had an album called Glances Askances but I can't find the song I want from it so I'm playing a different song from a truly great album, Down from Above—I actually think this song was *also*. on Glances Askances, maybe in a different version; you don't need to know any of this ... anyway, just know there was a crossword "logic" that got me here]

So the fill skewed stale. I wish I had better news about the theme. I really do. But I don't. It's just a word ... and then that word, repeated, but with an "S" on its front. It's the kind of theme that I came up on, a very 30+-years-ago theme. Trying to squeeze a lot of "wackiness" out of a very small and ultimately unjuicy concept. The theme answers go all kinds of ways, none of them good. Well, one of them good: I really like TATER STATER for some reason. It's snappy. Concise. It lands. The others ... er, not as entertaining. There's something kind of grotesque about LIVER SLIVER, esp. as its clued via foie gras, a "delicacy" achieved only through a force-feeding process many regard as cruel. Daniel Radcliffe is not, himself, Harry Potter, so the clue makes little sense, and Radcliffe has done his damnedest to distance himself from the hateful woman who created Potter—I don't know why the NYTXW can't do the same, but clearly it cannot. I have no idea what a SKETCH-UP is. I know what a SKETCH is. I know what a "mock-up" is. SKETCH-UP, pfft, don't know it (it seems to be 3D modeling software from Google? if that's a very well-known thing, and that's what's intended here, then I apologize for my ignorance). There's nothing in the MOTHER SMOTHER clue to suggest "mother" at all and further, ick—the answer itself evokes not love but murder—matricide? infanticide?—or at a minimum mild suffocation. In short, the concept was flimsy and the execution awkward. The theme also makes for another excessively easy solve (once you know the concept, you just need a little of the front half of the answer to be able to write the whole thing in).

What else?:

10D: Mesh for securing items in transport (CARGO NET) — real trouble with the "G" here. Just couldn't parse CAR-ONET and thought the "mesh" might have a technical term, namely CARBONET!
6A: Rock, for one (COMIC) — the Rock in question is Chris Rock.
20A: Otis's love interest on Netflix's "Sex Education" (MAEVE) — I watched and liked the first season of this show, and then gave up on it in season two. I had absolutely no memory of any of the characters' names. This seems like an obscure answer today, esp compared to the rest of the highly unobscure fill. But you can get it from crosses pretty easily.
4D: "Richard of York gave battle in vain," for the colors of the rainbow (MNEMONIC) — a great word, but why on earth would you use *that* as your rainbow MNEMONIC when Roy G. Biv exists. Who does that? 1950s British schoolboys?!?!? Roy G. Biv. So concise. So useful. I used it literally just yesterday (when trying to explain a cryptic crossword clue to my wife—specifically, how the "red" part of the clue indicated "R"). Richard of York! "Gave battle"? Yeesh. Make it easy on yourselves, people of Britain!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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