Short Japanese sword / SAT 3-29-25 / Soffritto-based sauce / Where to get into the nitty-gritty? / Primary lang. of Gambia / Underground venues for some heavy-metal bands? / Political grp. dedicated to helping those who are H.I.V. positive / Birthplace of writer V.S. Naipaul / Cry from a cutthroat competitor

Constructor: Christina Iverson and Jacob McDermott

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: TANTO (16A: Short Japanese sword) —

A tantō (短刀, 'short blade') is a traditionally made Japanese knife (nihontō) that was worn by the samurai class of feudal Japan. The tantō dates to the Heian period, when it was mainly used as a weapon but evolved in design over the years to become more ornate. Tantō were used in traditional martial arts (tantojutsu) and in the seppuku suicide ritual. The term has seen a resurgence in the West since the 1980s as referring to a point style of modern tactical knives, designed for piercing or stabbing, though the style is not present on any traditional tantō.

A Tanto knife may refer to an American style of blade based [on] the Japanese tantō, usually with a squared rather than curved tip. (wikipedia)

• • •

Nice easy (-ish) Saturday puzzle. Felt way more like a Friday than a Saturday on every level—well, on two levels. The grid shape has good overall flow, which I associate with the best Fridays. No getting boxed into stupid sequestered corners, no giant hunks of white space. Also, the cluing was accessible, so while I definitely had to exert some effort here and there, the primary solving sensation was closer to "whoosh whoosh" than "aargh." There was only one answer that struck me as kind of obscure: I had no memory of TANTO, except maybe as an Italian word ... yep, it looks like that's the way it was clued literally every time it appeared before today (and it appears far less today than it did in days of yore). [So much, in music] is the most common clue for TANTO, but today they went with the samurai sword (the seppuku sword!), and I imagine that's going to slow a lot of people up, at least a little (as it did me). I got a few crosses and then thought "oh, they've just found a new non-Lone Ranger way to clue TONTO, cool." Nope. They found a new non-music way to clue TANTO. Anyway, TANTO stands out like a sore TANTO in this grid, as everything else feels extremely LEGIT and familiar. Well, maybe not ORBED, but the rest of it, for sure.

[TANTO ... also Spanish ...]

The only things I really winced at, or came close to wincing at, or didn't particularly care for, were the THE in THE MONA LISA (not hard, just ... gratuitous and ugly) (23D: Only beauty to go through history and retain her reputation, per Will Rogers) (I think Will Rogers is making me wince here more than the THE is). I'd also never heard the expression "barreled out," so even with -ELED sitting there, I had no idea what was going on. Barreling implies speed to me, whereas "peeling out" absolutely positively explicitly refers to leaving rubber on the road (and making a screeching sound while doing it). And while I've heard of barreling, I've never heard "barreling out." Unfamiliar clue phrase plus bad answer equivalency = frowny face emoji. Also didn't love the very general answer for the very specific clue at 40D: The W.N.B.A.'s Caitlin Clark, for one (PHENOM). There are so many specific things that she is, for one, that I never would've suspected something as generic as PHENOM. I thought maybe they wanted her team (Indiana Fever) or her position (point guard) or maybe even her native identity (Iowan). If you play for the Lakers, you're a Laker, and if you play for the Celtics, you're a Celtic, but what are you if you play for the Fever? Or the Heat, for that matter? A Hot One?

How'd you get started on this one. I opened with ... the MINES part of IRON MINES (1A: Underground venues for some heavy-metal bands?). With four letters open before MINES and "heavy-metal" clue, I probably should've been able to infer IRON, but I figured, why not just test the MINES part first, before you get too confident. Testing MINES proved ... inconclusive. All I was able to "confirm" was ENG (correct!) (8D: Primary lang. of Gambia) and ... "I'M OVER" (in correct). I dunno, "I'M OVER here!" just seemed plausible, what can I say? (6D: "___ here"). NO WORRIES, though, as I was fairly certain 20A: Gun was REV, which took out "I'M OVER" and gave me the "V" I needed for NAIVE (7D: Like a mark) (a "mark" here is the target of a scam). [Neon sign word] was clear all on its own (OPEN), no crosses needed, and from there, everything just opened up. Northwest, sorted. Nothing else took nearly so much effort.

["Mr. DINKINS, would you please be my mayor?"]

The first big highlight of this puzzle for me was CHEWING GUM, specifically the clue on CHEWING GUM (27D: Wrigley field?). It's an obvious pun, but a good one. I also loved the casual colloquialness of "NO WORRIES," "I DON'T CARE," and "EAT MY DUST" (I had it as "EAT MY DIRT" for a second or two, conflating "EAT MY DUST" with "EAT DIRT," I think). "EAT MY DUST" takes us back to PEELED out, which now makes me like that answer a tiny bit more (but then I never hated the answer, just the clue). The long (8+) answers in the NE were probably my favorite. Not sparkling, exactly, but very solid (ANTI-SOCIAL BACKSTORIES!). Liked the strange and potentially misdirective clue on COIN TOSS (28A: It requires a flipper), and adored Mr. TUXEDO CAT, hello, baby (32A: One always seen in a fancy fur coat). So happy when he turned up. I was spinning my wheels a bit in the center of the grid, trying to figure out what state the steak was in (CUBED) and [Encircled] could possibly mean (ORBED!?), when I decided to change SAND DUNES (9D: Where to get into the nitty-gritty?) to SAND BOXES, and bam, "X" marks the spot. Put that letter in and then there he was, my TUXEDO CAT. I wrote him in thinking "if this is wrong I do not want to be right." 

[it wasn't wrong]

More stuff:

• 25A: What's got about an ounce of scents? (SACHET) — I had no idea how much a typical SACHET holds by weight (or volume), so I'm just gonna take the puzzle's word on this one. I assume the SACHET is filled with pot pourri, whatever that is. A mix of things, I think.

• 46D: Soffritto-based sauce (RAGU) — "soffritto" = aromatic ingredients sautéed over low heat for long time. "In Italian cuisine, chopped onions, carrots and celery is battuto, and then, slowly cooked in olive oil, becomes soffritto. It may also contain garlic, shallot, or leek." (wikipedia). RAGU here is the general name for the meat sauce, not the brand name (although ... I mean, the jarred stuff probably also starts with "soffritto" so ... I guess that works, too).
• 48D: ___ Convy, host of TV's "Super Password" and "Win, Lose or Draw" (BERT) — yet another opportunity for me to talk about The Love Boat, on which BERT Convy was a frequent guest, including one time where he went on the cruise in drag (with his pal ARTE Johnson, who used to appear in crosswords allllll the time, ask your parents). 

[yes that's 3x Academy Award nominee and
mother of Laura Dern, Diane Ladd]

• BERT was in drag because it was a ladies' cruise (was this the one where there was a contest and the grand prize was a date with Engelbert Humperdinck? Having watched well over 150 episodes by this point, it's possible I'm conflating episodes). He was on the ladies' cruise because he was stalking his own wife, whom he suspected (for no reason) of being unfaithful. Scarily, even violently jealous men were considered cute back then. You get a lot of them on Love Boat. Real creepfest, much of the time. My wife and I are constantly turning toward each other and going "Why Do These Women Like These Guys!?" But back to BERT. IMDb tells me he was on seven (7!!!) episodes of The Love Boat. Google image search tells me he was also on something called The Love Boat II (!?), which I think was just a late (1987) Love Boat special (the series per se ended in 1986). Check out this TV ad—I miss the good old days of ridiculous TV and the ridiculous print ad illustrations that went with it ...

[a real Who's Who of '70s/'80s TV talent ... and also Celeste Holm!!]

[Celeste Holm!]

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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Hungarian violinist Leopold / WED 12-25-24 / Unidentified person, in slang / Prepare, as a watermelon / What some fear A.I. might become / "___ anges dans nos campagnes" (French carol)

Constructor: Jacob McDermott

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "O, CHRISTMAS TREE" (5D: Holiday carol ... or a literal hint to what can be drawn by connecting nine letters when this puzzle is finished) — connect the "O"s (which represent ornaments, it seems) and you get a giant triangle ... unless the software connects them for you, and adds a lot of detail, including color, in which case you get a Christmas tree (see above). Things associated with said tree can be found around the grid:

Theme answers:

• LIGHTS (2D: What might be strung from the item hidden in this puzzle)
• PRESENT (just one?) (11D: What might be set under the item hidden in this puzzle)
• GARLAND (just one?) (33D: What might be draped form the item hidden in this puzzle)
• TINSEL (43D: What might be hung from the item hidden in this puzzle)

Word of the Day: Leopold AUER (53A: Hungarian violinist Leopold) —

Leopold von Auer (Hungarian: Auer Lipót; June 7, 1845 – July 15, 1930) was a Hungarian violinist, academic, conductor, composer, and instructor. Many of his students went on to become prominent concert performers and teachers. [...] Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was especially taken with Auer's playing. Reviewing an 1874 appearance in Moscow, Tchaikovsky praised Auer's "great expressivity, the thoughtful finesse and poetry of the interpretation." [...] Auer is remembered as one of the most important pedagogues of the violin, and was one of the most sought-after teachers for gifted students. "Auer's position in the history of violin playing is based on his teaching." Many notable virtuoso violinists were among his students, including Mischa Elman, Konstanty Gorski, Jascha Heifetz, Nathan Milstein, Toscha Seidel, Efrem Zimbalist, Georges Boulanger, Lyubov Streicher, Benno Rabinof, Kathleen Parlow, Julia Klumpke, Thelma Given, Sylvia Lent, Kemp Stillings, Oscar Shumsky, and Margarita Mandelstamm. Among these were "some of the greatest violinists" of the twentieth century. (wikipedia)

• • •

Hello and Merry Christmas. Gonna make this short today (no, really!), partly because it's Christmas morning and I just wanna get downstairs and sit in the dark with my cup of coffee next to the lighted Christmas tree for a while, before the sun comes up and the family starts stirring. It's my favorite time of day on any day, that immediate post-blogging time, but at holiday time it's particularly nice. The other reason I want to make this quick is I don't actually relish spreading negativity on Christmas Day. I don't actually relish it on any day, but today I really don't want to mess with the peaceful, joyous, good-will-toward-men-ish VIBE. And yet ... this puzzle HASA problem (one of which is HASA, but let's not dwell on that). The theme is ... "O CHRISTMAS TREE?" More like "Oh ... Christmas tree ... huh." As much as I loved yesterday's puzzle, I disliked today's. OK, maybe not that much, but this concept felt weak to me. It's just "O"s. I connect "O"s. And you don't even tell me to connect the "O"s, you just say "nine letters" (which is kinda confusing / vague), and anyway, *I* don't actually have to "connect" them because as soon as I enter the final letter of the puzzle, ta-da, the puzzle does it for me. And it doesn't just connect the "O"s, it goes all out with colored ornaments and a colored tree and … maybe there’s TINSEL and GARLAND in there (?), but anyway, the revealed tree is covered in Christmas junk and looks very much like a tree ... unlike what you'd get by merely "connecting nine letters," which, as I say, is just a big triangle.

Also, the tree is not "hidden," as the theme answers claim (also, weird to call a whole-ass Christmas tree an "item," but let's not dwell on that). That "tree" is not hidden. It's not there at all. "Hidden" implies that it is there to be found, in some clear, recognizable fashion. You have to add so much detail in post-production to make those "O"s legible as a "tree" that calling what's actually in the grid a "tree" seems dishonest. And all the "bonus" Christmas answers, the Christmas-oriented clues on regular fill, which yesterday seemed charming, now feel like ... well, it feels like the puzzle is trying to go back to the well, but it's run dry. Like it's trying to capture a magic that was there yesterday, but it's just not there today. It's like when Bill Murray has that perfect day with Andie McDowell in Groundhog Day, and then the next day (which is the same day) he tries to make it happen again, and he can't. He keeps trying to force it, and it keeps going sideways. This puzzle went sideways.

There's something sad about a single PRESENT sitting under the (alleged) tree, not to mention just a single GARLAND draped across its (alleged) branches. And GARLAND? What is that? That is not a word I associate with Christmas tree decoration at all. Real "one of these things is not like the other" VIBE to GARLAND. The only GARLAND I associate with Christmas is...

OK, I said I wouldn't dwell, so ... on with the not dwelling!

Explainers and further comments:

• 53A: Hungarian violinist Leopold (AUER) — never saw this, and thank god, because oof, the undiluted old-school crosswordese of it all, yeesh. This and HASA were the presents under the Christmas tree that absolutely nobody asked for.
• 38D: Handle things? (AT SIGNS) — your “handle” (or name) on some social media platforms has a “@“ at the front of it.
• 26A: What some fear A.I. might become (AWARE) — ??? I assume A.I. is already "AWARE," in some general sense of the term. "AWARE" doesn't really get what is awful about A.I.—currently awful, not "in the future" awful. And as for what people might "fear": SENTIENT ... SELF-AWARE ... those terms get at the specific "fear" way better than mere "AWARE" does.
• 30A: Instruction from a taxi driver ("GET IN!") — OK it's been a while since I took a cab in NYC but I don't remember receiving this instruction, ever. "GET IN!" "Oh, is that what you do with this yellow contraption? I had no idea, thanks for the 'instruction.'" I guess if you're outside the cab and asking the cabbie if they can take you someplace, they might say this.
• 62A: Pairs of jolly bells? (ELS) — a “letteral” clue; the answer is “L”s, i.e. the “pairs” of letters found in the words “jolly” and “bells”
• 4D: Prepare, as a watermelon (CUT OPEN) — overall this puzzle was astonishingly easy (easier than even yesterday's, for me), but this was the one answer that took some crosses to get. I wanted something having to do with seeds ... deseeding? ... or slicing? Shrug. Hard for my brain to get from "watermelon" to CUT OPEN. I guess a cadaver clue wouldn't have been too "Christmasy." 
• 45A: Unidentified person, in slang (RANDO) — I love this term. I'm always happy to see it. I don't quite understand why it makes me happy, but it does. Hope you're not seated next to some RANDO at Christmas dinner tonight. "Hi, I'm Kurt, Julia's boyfriend!" "Oh, hi ... who's Julia?" Actually, in this scenario, maybe you're the RANDO. 

And now, here are some more Holiday Pet Pics to go with your (actual, honest-to-god) Holiday:

Charlie made you Christmas dog treats! What's that you say? You don't like dog treats? Oh, that's ruff, guess Charlie will have to eat them all, Oh Well!

[Thanks, Dawn]

Sassy the Tuxie likes to help with the Christmas present wrapping by doing the one thing cats do better than all other animals: sit on any random thing just because it is there. Here she is keeping the bag of bows and tissue paper from flying away:

[Thanks, Connie]

This is Nelly. She belongs to Ellen. "Ellen" is suspiciously close to "NELLY" spelled backward. Is this ... is this your cat, Ellen, or are you a shapeshifter? Either way, nice-looking cat. This cat could sell you a miniature Christmas tree. "Perhaps I can interest you in this model?" Absolutely, yes, you've convinced me, Nelly, I'll take four.

[Thanks, Ellen]

Moki needs to have a serious talk with you. It's about treats. Specifically: Where are they? And don't say "in your stocking" because that does not check out. Moki's a dog, and dogs can smell these things. Don't lie to Moki. Just go get the treats ... yes, now ... and then you can go back to your little picture-taking or whatever it is that you're doing here.

[Thanks, Bryan]

"The first Noel / The kittens did scream..." Sing it, Mandy!

[Thanks, Emily]

Franky! Look at this sweet baby. Get that Santa, Franky! Look at his long beard and smug face. His impudence can not be tolerated! Finish him! 

[Thanks, Marietta]

Franky looks like my Alfie, seen here surprised to find himself on my desk. Me: "Buddy, don't look at me, I did not put you there. I'm just as surprised as you are."

And here's my other cat, Ida, in a more appropriately "Holiday" photo—lounging by the gingerbread house, which is a model of our actual house (made by our daughter)

From our house to yours, Merry Christmas, or just Happy Day, if Christmas is not your thing. May your day be merry and bright and generally free from the strife and violence seen here (they normally get along, but every once in a while ...):

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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What "waftaroms" represent in the comics / FRI 7-19-24 / Physiologist whose namesake exercise is part of an Army fitness test / Final Fantasy and others, for short

Constructor: Jacob McDermott

Relative difficulty: Hard (19:06 with a couple "Check Puzzle"s)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: ODOR (What "waftaroms" represent in the comics) —

The Lexicon of Comicana is a 1980 book by the American cartoonist Mort Walker. It was intended as a tongue-in-cheek look at the devices used by comics cartoonists. In it, Walker invented an international set of symbols called symbolia after researching cartoons around the world (described by the term comicana).   

• • •

Hey squad, Malaika here! What a treat to review a themeless puzzle for once! I like my puzzles easy and themeless, and this one hit one of the marks. I really struggled to get a start on this-- absolutely fell into the [It might turn red or blue] trap, and dropped in "litmus test." (I also, slightly more embarrassingly, initially had "rizz" instead of GAME for [Flirting ability, in slang].) I was able to make consistent progress for about fifteen minutes and then I majorly stalled with everything filled but the two lower corners. It took some guessing and checking down there to get me to the end.

Also-- there were two places where I had to fully guess. The crossing of WON / LAW took me a second because I couldn't crack that fiendishly clever clue [Appealing subject?], and while I guessed that "jeon" was Korean, I totally blanked on the currency. I also didn't know the crossing of SIENA / CANA, although I guessed correct on my first try.

Looking over the grid, nothing stands out as particularly hard (I was able to plop in some of the non-ideal stuff like IN OT and YER just because I've done lots of puzzles), so I'm trying to figure out why I got such a slow start. I think it's because the cluing was trivia-heavy.

To me, trivia, more than anything else, can stretch the range of a puzzle's difficulty. Trivia is the thing that makes a puzzle a breeze to some and a struggle to others. ("What about proper nouns??" you might ask. And to you I say-- those are often a subset of trivia!) Obviously sometimes trivia is fully necessary, but here we got trivia clues for entries that could have been clued otherwise, like OPERA (Setting of a date for Edward and Vivian in "Pretty Woman") and SIENA (New York college known for opinion polling) and ODOR (What "waftaroms" represent in the comics) (Did the grammar feel weird on that to anyone else? I really wanted a plural.) and BURPEE (Physiologist whose namesake exercise is part of an Army fitness test) and NILE (River traveled by passenger boats known as dahabeahs) and NORTH POLE (Locale with the ZIP code 88888) and even BALI (Neighbor of Java) and YAM (Sub-Saharan crop). That seemed like a lot to me!!

There were also some puns that worked and others that didn't. I already mentioned [Appealing subject?] as a win. On the other end of things was [Things that are head and shoulders above the rest?] for PROFILE PICS, whose wordplay just didn't land-- I've had plenty of profile pics which feature below my shoulders... or aren't even a picture of me at all. Spinning 180 again, I'll devote several sentences to [What might prompt you to flip the bird?] for OVEN TIMER, which is one of the best clues I can remember in a long time. Changing the meaning of both "flip" and "bird" is so genius, and the "Aha!" moment was incredibly delightful and satisfying. I'll be keeping this one in my back pocket the next time I'm teaching someone how to write the perfect Question Mark Clue.

I'm running out of room in this review, so I'll close by flagging my two favorite entries-- LOVE POTION and IM ON A ROLL. The former is just so evocative and almost poetic; the latter selfishly reminds me of a puzzle I wrote from a couple months ago.

Lots of bullets today:

• [Upon which a dragonfly frequently lays its eggs] for POND — This phrasing was bonkers to me!! I have never seen phrasing for a clue like this before, and for a moment I thought this was going to be a themed puzzle.
• [Boyfriend of Nancy Drew] for NED — I was a huge reader but I never read these! In terms of mysteries, I preferred The Boxcar Children. If you're trying to buy a mystery for a kid you know, I highly recommend the Truly Devious series.
• [Farmers business: Abbr.] for INS — Please, someone, tell me what this means
• [Holiday time, informally] for VACAY — Does anyone else spell this "vaycay"? Actually, as I'm typing it, that looks dumb. Never mind.

xoxo Malaika

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Japanese aesthetic that embraces imperfection / SAT 5-4-24 / Iconic line on 1950s TV / Altos might follow this / Vice President Harris's family nickname / Singles material, say

Constructor: Jacob McDermott

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: WABI-SABI (35D: Japanese aesthetic that embraces imperfection) —

In traditional Japanese aesthetics, wabi-sabi (侘び寂び) is a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of appreciating beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete" in nature. It is prevalent in many forms of Japanese art.

Wabi-sabi is a composite of two interrelated aesthetic concepts, wabi(侘) and sabi (寂). According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, wabi may be translated as "subdued, austere beauty," while sabi means "rustic patina." Wabi-sabi is derived from the Buddhist teaching of the three marks of existence (三法印, sanbōin), specifically impermanence(無常, mujō), suffering (苦, ku) and emptiness or absence of self-nature(空, kū).

Characteristics of wabi-sabi aesthetics and principles include asymmetry, roughness, simplicity, economy, austerity, modesty, intimacy, and the appreciation of both natural objects and the forces of nature. (wikipedia)

• • •

I'm calling this one "Easy-Medium" but honestly that "Medium" part is there solely because of two answers in particular, two names, that I didn't know at all, and I had to work around them, and I figured others might have to as well, and maybe this would add some difficulty to the overall experience, and so ... "Easy-Medium." The thing about MOMALA and WABI-SABI is that they weren't just names I didn't know, they were names in which I had no real ability to infer any of the letters—that is, until I got the WABI- part. For some reason, that made me think WABI-SABI, but that sounded like possibly some nonsense Japanese that a dumb American would make up, so tested the crosses before putting it in. WABI-SABI is obviously a term that is getting used carelessly by non-Japanese speakers; otherwise, why would wikipedia warn me "Not to be confused with wasabi"? Hey, wikipedia, you're not the boss of me. If I wanna apply WABI-SABI to my tuna roll, I'm gonna apply WABI-SABI to my tuna roll. Embrace the many imperfections of GAS STATION SUSHI, I say. It's probably the only way you're going to enjoy it. (For more on GAS STATION SUSHI, see yesterday's puzzle)

But where was I? Right, Japanese aesthetic concepts and Vice Presidential family names (!?). This latter one ... wow, I did not understand the clue at all (40D: Vice President Harris's family nickname). I was looking for a family name (I missed the "nick-" part), and so figured it was her family name—the last name she had before she got married. Anyway, how am I supposed to know that MOMALA is what the Vice President's stepchildren call her (!?!?) (it's a portmanteau of "mom" and "Kamala")!? Also, why would I want to know that? When I google this term, I get a lot of hits involving a recent episode of the Drew Barrymore Show (that's a thing?) where she apparently asked the VP to be "MOMALA" for the country (!!?!?), and people are mad at how embarrassing or problematic this is, or something like that. There are stories about this at seemingly every major media outlet (!?!?). The "think pieces" this has inspired in the last (squints at screen ... checks watch) three days ... including in the NYT (!?!?!) ... so many lecturey think pieces. All because of something that Drew (aside:  "... really? ..." (checks notes)) ... yep, Drew Barrymore said. Wow. I do not ... understand ... what interests people. (One of the worst aspects of this job is looking things up. "You'll learn things!" Will I, though?)

Oh, right, the puzzle. It's a very first-person plural puzzle. "WE ARE SO DEAD!" "WE CARE!" "SPARE US!" It's also packed with multiword answers, with six (!) of the seven long Acrosses running to three words or more. This could've/should've made parsing those answers difficult at times, but it really didn't. The worst trouble I had was trying to parse RAISE A STINK from the center—just a bunch of ultracommon letters in an incomprehensible pile-up. But once I got the "K" from FREAKS, even that answer just fell over. Very colloquial grid as well—lots of spoken phrases, including the iconic "LUCY, I'M HOME!" It's fun, this grid. It's not really showing me anything new, but it's doing what it's doing fairly well. I think I like the NW corner the best, where the longer answers are concerned. There's just a nice zip, as well as a pleasing textural contrast, in that BANANA CHIP / "LUCY, I'M HOME!" stack. Plus I enjoyed learning new TARA REID facts! (11D: Portrayer of Bunny Lebowski in "The Big Lebowski"). She's more than just ["Sharknado!" actress], people!

Probably shouldn't have "family" in your MOMALA clue when you've got FAMILY in your grid (5D: Where roots are branches => FAMILY TREE). But I only just noticed this. As I was solving, there was very little that made me cringe or groan. As for errors, I had just three, and they didn't last long. The one that threatened to do the most damage was APTER for ABLER (1D: Better fit).  But when I ended up with an iconic 1950s TV line that started "TUCY!" I knew something was wrong. I spelled FEY with an "E" because ... well, I thought that was how you spelled it, frankly (4D: Elfin folk => FAY). From merriam-webster.com:

Fey is a word that defies its own (original) meaning, since it has yet to even come close to the brink of death after being in our language for well over 800 years. In Old and Middle English it meant "feeble" or "sickly." Those meanings turned out to be fey themselves, but the word lived on in senses related to death, and because a wild or elated state of mind was once believed to portend death, other senses arose from these. The word fay, meaning "fairy" or "elf," may also have had an influence on some senses of fey. Not until the 20th century did the word's most recent meanings, "precious" and "campy," find their way into the dictionary. 

Speaking of Merriam-Webster (well, WEBSTER, anyway), that's the other answer I screwed up. I had -STER at 37A: Man of many words? and wrote in TOASTER (as in ... the man ... who gives a toast ... thus saying many words, perhaps).

Notes:

• 5A: Stays hungry (FASTS) — the FASTS / SHOTS / LOS patch was dicey for a bit. You're assuming someone who is fasting is hungry. And started hungry and then stayed that way. I get that you're doing a misdirection bit here, but it feels mildly off. SHOTS (i.e. small glasses of liquor) got clued as if it were a verb (7D: What some do during a night out), so that was tough. Then LOS got clued as if it had something to do with music (24A: Altos might follow this). Just a wicked little patch of black ice. But still, ultimately navigable.
• 9D: Dimension, e.g. (SPEC) — again, I see that you are doing a bit here with the doubling of the "dimension" clues at 8- and 9-Down, but in the singular, in this context, this is weird. I would count "dimensions" (plural) as one SPEC.
• 60A: Singles material, say (CLAY) — really really trying on these misdirection clues. One dollar bills? Unmarried people? No. Tennis, with the "material" being tennis playing surfaces.
• 2D: More than tipsy (SAUCED) — SAUCED/SOUSED is an entirely unexpected kealoa*! Luckily I had the "C" from ECO firmly ensconced, so no problem here.
• 3D: Figure that's not usually discussed (INCOME) — unless you are a professional baseball player, in which case it's all anyone discusses.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

*kealoa = a pair of words (normally short, common answers) that can be clued identically and that share at least one letter in common (in the same position). These are answers you can't just fill in quickly because two or more answers are viable, Even With One or More Letters In Place. From the classic [Mauna ___] KEA/LOA conundrum. See also, e.g. [Heaps] ATON/ALOT, ["Git!"] "SHOO"/"SCAT," etc. 

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Bladderball players, historically / FRI 1-19-24 / World capital since 1971 / What U.P.S. routes tend to avoid / Subjects of the 2019 Pulitzer-winning novel "The Overstory" / Launchpad for many comics, in brief

Constructor: Jacob McDermott

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Thomas Campion (44D: "Follow THY Fair Sun" (Thomas Campion poem)) —

[Perfect, thanks, Google]

Thomas Campion (sometimes spelled Campian; 12 February 1567 – 1 March 1620) was an English composer, poet, and physician. He was born in London, educated at Cambridge, studied law in Gray's inn. He wrote over a hundred lute songs, masques for dancing, and an authoritative technical treatise on music. [...] While Campion had attained a considerable reputation in his own day, in the years that followed his death his works sank into complete oblivion. No doubt this was due to the nature of the media in which he mainly worked, the masque and the song-book. The masque was an amusement at any time too costly to be popular, and during the Commonwealth period it was practically extinguished. The vogue of the song-books was even more ephemeral, and, as in the case of the masque, the Puritan ascendancy, with its distaste for all secular music, effectively put an end to the madrigal. Its loss involved that of many hundreds of dainty lyrics, including those of Campion, and it was due to the work of A. H. Bullen (see bibliography), who first published a collection of the poet's works in 1889, that his genius was recognised and his place among the foremost rank of Elizabethan lyric poets restored. (wikipedia)

• • •

This one got off to a very bad start with me, as I cannot adequately express how much I do not care about and am not curious about the lore and practice and general behavior of YALIES, who have, historically, been overrepresented in the crossword, compared to other institutions of higher learning, to an absolutely absurd degree. YALIE YALIES ELI ELIS ELIHU OLDELI BOOLA LUX (et Veritas) and on and on, seemingly. So ... Bladderball? I have no &^$%ing clue. I assume it's something embarrassing like Quidditch. The name itself is something someone should've changed a long time ago. I know and admire and even love many people who have attended Yale, but dear god please stop making me know things about Yale. So, right from 1-Across (1A: Bladderball players, historically), it's a NO(-NO) from me. OK OK? No, it is not OK (OK)? But then things got better. I do not know if that is how I would spell "LOOKIE HERE!" or if I could spell "LOOKIE HERE!" at all, but I like the bounce of the phrase, and I also like that it feels like a rejected revealer for *yesterday's* puzzle (LOOK! "IE" HERE!). Also recalling yesterday's puzzle: HIHOS, LOL! Ask for the bygone cracker spelling, get the bygone cracker spelling! The next day! Maybe OOXTEPLERNON (the God of Short Bad Fill) actually does answer prayers. Oh Great One, please, hear me out about the Yale stuff, for god's (your?) sake! Amen.

Follow Thy Fair Sun

BY THOMAS CAMPION

Follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow, 

Though thou be black as night 

And she made all of light, 

Yet follow thy fair sun unhappy shadow. 

Follow her whose light thy light depriveth, 

Though here thou liv’st disgraced, 

And she in heaven is placed, 

Yet follow her whose light the world reviveth. 

Follow those pure beams whose beauty burneth, 

That so have scorched thee, 

As thou still black must be, 

Till Her kind beams thy black to brightness turneth. 

Follow her while yet her glory shineth, 

There comes a luckless night, 

That will dim all her light, 

And this the black unhappy shade divineth. 

Follow still since so thy fates ordained, 

The Sun must have his shade, 

Till both at once do fade, 

The Sun still proved, the shadow still disdained. (1601) (poetryfoundation.org)

Once I got out of the NW (the ELIS to ERTES (ugh) stretch). Things were noticeably more pleasant. I like the juxtaposition of AHAMOMENT and "DUH!" although I do call foul on the clue for "DUH!" which very much screams "D'OH!" (25D: Cry that might accompany a forehead slap). If headslaps are involved, I assume "D'OH!" not "DUH." "D'OH" is much more self-accusatory. "DUH!" might be as well, but unlike "D'OH!" it's often turned outward, toward another dummy besides yourself. I had "D'OH!" there, locked in, and that created the one real sticking point in the puzzle (didn't help that it was located right at the passageway into the entire SE section—had to go all the way around from and come at that section from below. MULCH "DUH" LIBRA was the last set of answers to go in. My favorite section was probably the SW, because the longer answers both had something special going for them. KINDA SORTA is just fun, so that one's got fun going for it. And STAYCATION, while it doesn't move me as much as an answer, per se, does have a fantastic clue today (59A: Break in?). If you take a "break" "in" your own home ... STAYCATION! Nice, clean, compact misdirection there. STAYCATION also makes a nice echo of its near-symmetrical counterpart, "HOME AT LAST!" If the couch is your favorite place, this is the puzzle for you!

Beyond the "DUH" / "D'OH" confusion, I didn't have any mistakes besides AGED for FIRM (57D: Like cheddar, but not brie, an error I made because I couldn't get the help I needed from the first-letter cross, 56A: What U.P.S. routes tend to avoid (LEFTS). I had no idea!. I was like "... LEAFS? LEDGE? LEAKS?" Do they "avoid" them or just "minimize" them? Can you really have an entire U.P.S. route with no LEFTS? Are the brown trucks really that cumbersome? I'm much more curious about U.P.S. lore and practice than I am about Yale, that's for sure.

Bullets:

• 17A: World capital since 1971 (DOHA) — I had no idea its capital status was so young. Admittedly, I don't think a lot about DOHA. In fact, it's possible I wouldn't think about it at all, or even know of its existence, were it not for crosswords. This is true of much of the world. Is OSLO even real?
• 23A: Grand ___, town in Nova Scotia that's a UNESCO World Heritage Site (PRÉ) — biggest "???" in the grid for me, by far. This is a prefix dressed up in geographical costume. The name translates to "Great Meadow," and wikipedia has it as hyphenated ("Grand-PRÉ"). 

During the French and Indian War (the North American theatre of the Seven Years' War), the Acadians were expelled from Grand-Pré during the Bay of Fundy Campaign (1755). There were various British soldiers who kept a journal of the deportation from Grand-Pré such as Lt. Col. John Winslow and Jeremiah Bancroft. The site of Grand-Pré during the expulsion was later immortalized by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow with his epic poem Evangeline.

Acadians from Grand Pré were dispersed in many locations and some eventually returned to other parts of the Canadian Maritimes such as Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and New Brunswick. Many Acadians expelled from the Grand-Pré area eventually settled in the New England States and travelling overland to South Louisiana in the United States after being dropped on the Atlantic coast. In Louisiana, the term Cajun evolved from the name Acadian. (wikipedia) (my emph.)

• 41A: Subjects of the 2019 Pulitzer-winning novel "The Overstory" (TREES) — my wife really loved this book and keeps telling me to read it. I keep putting it off. I don't know why. Maybe it's the pre-existing mountain of books that is my To Be Read Pile.
• 16D: Antlered animals (ELKS) — never budging from my contention that the plural of ELK is ELK.
• 11D: Good speller? (MAGE) — because a mage casts spells...
• 29A: Galactic scale? (LIBRA) — because LIBRA is the "scales" sign of the zodiac, and also a constellation (hence part of the "galaxy"?) 
• 64A: Brews (STEEPS) — I'm a coffee drinker, as I believe I've (frequently) mentioned, but I just subscribed to a newsletter about tea called "Leafhopper" by Max Falkowitz, and I love it. It is beautifully, nerdily, warmly obsessive about all aspects of the tea world, from cultivation to drinking. Highly recommended (by me as well as Helen Rosner, the New Yorker food writer from whom I found out about it). Now it's time for my coffee...

See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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