Dance fad of the 1970s / TUE 3-18-25 / A wish might be made on a loose one / 1976 #1 novelty song by Rick Dees and His Cast of Idiots / Bourbon brand whose name originated from a hunting expedition / Tusked Ice Age mammal / Cardamom-spiced brew / Like someone with an "O.O.O." auto-reply set up, perhaps / Darth Vader's boyhood nickname / Like a person who might prefer platonic relationship, informally

Constructor: Larry Snyder and Jonathan Kaufman

Relative difficulty: Extremely Easy, even for a Tuesday

THEME: PARTY FOUL (65A: Knocking over someone's drink, e.g. ... or, homophonically, a hint to 17-, 27-, 39- and 54-Across) — familiar phrases that seem to describe "party"-ing birds (or "fowl"):

Theme answers:

• DISCO DUCK (17A: 1976 #1 novelty song by Rick Dees and His Cast of Idiots)
• SILLY GOOSE (27A: "You goofball!")
• FUNKY CHICKEN (39A: Dance fad of the 1970s)
• WILD TURKEY (54A: Bourbon brand whose name originated from a hunting expedition)

Word of the Day: FUNKY CHICKEN (39A) —

"Do the Funky Chicken" is a song written and recorded by American R&B singer and entertainer Rufus Thomas for Stax Records in 1969. The song was used as the title track of Thomas' 1970 LP, Do The Funky Chicken.

It became one of his biggest hits, reaching number 5 on the R&B chart in early 1970, number 28 on the US pop chart, and number 18 in Britain where it was his only chart hit. // The record was one of a series of novelty dance hits for Thomas. He improvised the song after performing with Willie Mitchell's band at the University of Tennessee, developing it further at a gig in Covington. Thomas said:

I did it in the middle of doing another song... and the words just started to come. I don't know how, they just came out of the blue. I just separated it. 'You raise your left arm up, and your right arm too.' When you're doing the funky chicken you use both arms. You don't just use one. It just happened I separated it. Then I put a little rhythm in between it. The same pattern that you heard on 'The Dog' is here on 'The Funky Chicken' but it is cut in half. That's how it came about.

Thomas added a spoken word section that he regularly used as a shtick as a radio DJ: "Oh I feel so unnecessary - this is the kind of stuff that makes you feel like you wanna do something nasty, like waste some chicken gravy on your white shirt right down front." The recording was produced by Al Bell and Tom Nixon, and the instrumental backing was by the Bar-Kays, featuring guitarist Michael Toles.

Reviewer Stewart Mason described the "Funky Chicken" as "the single goofiest dance craze of the 1970s... While Thomas clearly knows how silly the entire concept is – he starts the record off with his impersonation of a cackling hen – he doesn't let that stop him from getting behind those goofy lyrics and giving them everything he's got...." (wikipedia)

• • •

Slight case of Doja déjà vu this morning as I hit the revealer and got PARTY FOUL, the exact phrase used in a revealer clue just a few days ago. But instead of DOUBLE-DIPping, today's PARTY FOUL was actual partying fowl. Gotta say, I kinda like it, though man was it easy. Easier (and tighter, thematically) than the Monday puzzle yesterday. If your time wasn't the fastest you've ever seen, keep in mind that the puzzle is oversized (16 wide) so that may have something to do with it. Gotta have an even number of squares across so that FUNKY CHICKEN (12) can sit dead center. The themer set is fun and admirably coherent, and the revealer really did a nice job of tying it all together. Yesterday's revealer didn't really capture what was going on with the theme answers, but today's—right on the money, and with a "foul/fowl" pun to boot. The puzzle was way, way too easy, but at least the grid was clean. No groaning wincing or eye-rolling on my way from top to bottom. No real complaints about this one. I just wonder if maybe this played (much) easier for older (Gen X and up) solvers than for younger. Not one but two 1970s bird-based novelty songs!? That's ... well, all of them, probably (Morris Day and the Time did "The Bird," but that was in the '80s). Seems entirely plausible that people 40 and younger might never even have heard of DISCO DUCK or the FUNKY CHICKEN. If you're in that category, I hope you at least had fun learning that such greatness once existed.

Nothing flashy outside the theme answers, but as I say, the grid holds up very nicely. And though there aren't a lot of longer answers, FULL OF IT (39D: Talking sheer nonsense) and MASTODON (12D: Tusked Ice Age mammal) are both quite strong. The constructors wisely load up on cheater squares* in the NE and SW corner to take pressure off of what would otherwise be very open segments—lots of white space, very hard to fill cleanly. Today, your themer is the star—you don't want solvers getting bogged down in muck or distracted by awkwardness in the corners if it's not necessary, so put little black-square corner tabs in there and let the fill breeeeathe. The result is clean and even colorful answers, as well as a cool-looking grid with good flow. The puzzle felt slight, but I think the construction here is solid.

Bullets:

• 28D: A wish might be made on a loose one (LASH) — hardest answer of the puzzle for me. I couldn't get the image of a wishbone out of my head. Also, with no "EYE" in front of LASH, it was harder to see. Lastly, I've never known anyone who had this particular wish superstition. I've just seen it on TV and in movies.
• 59A: Like a person who might prefer platonic relationship, informally (ARO) — as in "aromantic." ARO was old-school crosswordese (clued primarily as [Orinoco tributary] or [Nigerian native]) until Shortz pretty much snuffed it out. Then it made a single appearance in 2012 as a character from Twilight ([Michael Sheen's character in "Twilight" (2015)]) before the sexual identity abbr. came along and took over ARO duties in 2022 (eight appearances to date).
• 54A: Bourbon brand whose name originated from a hunting trip (WILD TURKEY) — I was going so fast that I got complacent / cocky and just filled in the pre-TURKEY part of this answer with COLD. Sort of surprised that my brain defaulted to COLD and not JIVE (which would've been a great fit for this theme).

• 38A: Amount printed in red (LOSS) — had the "L," wrote in LIEN (?). This answer crossed 20D: Title pages? (DEEDS), which I also had a little trouble with. I also had issues with CFO (wrote in CEO) (62A: One managing a Fortune 500 company's fortunes, for short). So, besides trouble with LASH and trouble with COLD JIVE WILD TURKEY, all of my trouble was with short financial stuff. And all that trouble totaled up didn't amount to much trouble. The puzzle was still a flat-out sprint.

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

*"cheater squares" are black squares that do not increase word count, usually added to make the grid easier to fill  

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Tittle-tattles / SAT 9-16-23 / Trade org. of interest to publishers and authors / Dim sum dessert / Component of a Mr. Clean costume say / One-third of France's motto / Inexpensive drawing say / Second-densest naturally occurring metal / Comic's batch of bits / Biz corporate strategy / Nihilistic query

Constructor: Jonathan Kaufman

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: LIL BABY (11D: Grammy-winning rapper with the 2022 #1 album "It's Only Me") —

Dominique Armani Jones (born December 3, 1994), known professionally as Lil Baby, is an American rapper. He rose to mainstream fame in 2017 following the release of his mixtape Perfect Timing.^[4] His debut studio album, Harder Than Ever (2018), spawned the Billboard Hot 100 top 10 single "Yes Indeed" (with Drake). He later released mixtapes Drip Harder (with Gunna), which contained the Billboard Hot 100 top-five single "Drip Too Hard" and Street Gossip, which reached number two on the US Billboard 200.

Lil Baby's sophomore album My Turn (2020) topped the Billboard 200, was certified triple-platinum by the RIAA, and became the best-selling album of 2020. The album spawned the singles, "We Paid" (with 42 Dugg) and "The Bigger Picture", both of which reached the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and the latter of which received two Grammy nominations at the 2021 Grammy Awards. The following year, he released the collaborative album The Voice of the Heroes with rapper Lil Durk and won the Grammy Award for Best Melodic Rap Performance for his performance on the song "Hurricane" with Kanye West and The Weeknd. Lil Baby's third album It's Only Me became his third consecutive number-one album.

In addition to his Grammy Award, Lil Baby has received an MTV Video Music Award, and two BET Awards, and was crowned the biggest all-genre Artist of the Year at the Apple Music Awards 2020. (wikipedia)

• • •

Easier than yesterday for me ... or about the same, but the difficulty was more expected, what with its being Saturday and all, so if yesterday's was "Medium-Challenging," this is a couple steps down at "Easy-Medium." Got a lot more whoosh-whoosh action out of this one as well, with the marquee answers exploding across the grid like fireworks, the way I like. Well, all except SPA TREATMENTS, mannnnnn was that hard for me to parse (14D: What cucumber slices and seaweed can be part of). I had SPA- and kept assuming it was part of a larger word. Then I came around from below and got some of the middle of the word, but that did nothing. "SPACE ... MEAT ... something?" By the time I actually saw SPA TREATMENTS, I had all but two or three squares filled in. My other big mental block was on 44D: Picker-uppers (TONGS). I had the "T" and could think only of TONICS, which wouldn't fit. Could not get the idea out of my head that "picker-upper" was something to pick me/you/one up. Like a "pick-me-up." Really glad I didn't get paper towels in my head ("Bounty: The Quicker Picker-Upper") or I might still be trying to figure it out. Instead I let go and let crosses handle it. 

The most difficult part of the puzzle—harrowing, in fact—came in the SW, where yet another sing-songy hyphenated clue nearly did me in. With -TS sitting in the grid, I looked at 38A: Tittle-tattles and ... well, wondered what it meant. It sounded like a thing I'd heard before, but it also sounded like a million things (tattle tale, Fiddle Faddle, dilly dally, etc.), so I hesitated. Then I remembered that "tittle" definitely means "little bit" (as in the phrase "every jot and tittle," i.e. "even the smallest detail or amount"), so I thought "Eureka!" and wrote in WHITS (meaning "little bits" or "smallest amounts"). Then, the coup de grace: I Proudly "Confirmed" that "H" with "WHO ELSE?" (34D: "Of course it was me!"). Wrong answers are bad, but wrong answer you "confirm" with crosses are deadly. After I time, I pulled the answer back to -H-TS but still, no idea. Because HAT TIPS was so completely inscrutable to me (35D: Credit lines?) (I thought maybe HOT TIPS??), I had to work that section down to a single letter at CH-TS / H-T TIPS and then run the vowels. Luckily "A" is the first vowel. Never heard of "Tittle-tattles" meaning CHATS. Would not have thought of HAT TIPS as "lines," but I guess if you give someone "credit" for something and you write (as one often does, esp on social media) "hat tip to" whomever (often abbreviated "ht" or "H/T"), then OK, that "credit" does come in ... "line" form, in that you have written ... lines ... crediting someone. Anyway, that bit was grueling, but nothing else in the grid came close to flummoxing me so badly.

I don't think the marquee answers are marquee enough today. HERD MENTALITY and "WHAT'S THE POINT?" really stand out, but SPA TREATMENTS and GOING TOE-TO-TOE feel pretty bland (I've certainly seen TOE-TO-TOE a bunch), and we just saw some version of DID A SOLID not too long ago. Ooh, LOAN SHARK was good (20D: Figure in the criminal underworld, maybe), so the spine and two ribs of this thing are really solid, really lovely. Not much else going on, though. Of the corners, the NE seems like the standout to me, with solid answers all around, dynamic answers (BROILS! GRAPHIC!), a nice colloquial phrase ("I HEAR IT"), a crafty cool clue on OUTSELL (17A: Move more), and a performance by LIL BABY. The other corners are ho-hum, with the SE being the weakest, if only for the gruesome ONALEAD. It's not ATADESK bad (see yesterday), but it's pretty bad. Somehow worse that it wants to be about detectives and not dogs. And definitely worse than it might have been because it's the second (!?) ONA- answer in the grid. I tolerated ON A HIGH just fine, but ON A LEAD is an ONA too far, and it's absurd as clued. Google "on a lead" and it's all dogs. Wall-to-wall dogs. For a reason. Nothing else in that corner is helping to make up for the ugliness of ONALEAD.]

What else? I had PEON before PAGE (48D: Errand runner). I also had ROTE before RATE (8D: Derivative, essentially). Not exactly sure why—something about "derivative" sounding like a criticism of unimaginative art, and doing something by ROTE being automatic and hence unimaginative. That's my defense. Math never occurred to me. But before you (rightly) begin disparaging my math & science chops, I'll have you know that I absolutely dunked on IRIDIUM. I mean, I wouldn't know IRIDIUM from chewing gum but I know that it exists, that it is an element, and I parsed it from virtually nothing. The -RI-, I think. So there. Proper names weren't too hard today. A mix of things I did (SOLANGE) and didn't (NINA) know, with a one or two I knew but had trouble getting from context (PEROT). LIL BABY is like IRIDIUM to me, in that I know his name, I know he exists, but that is all I know ... and yet that was enough for me to get him pretty easily (I had -ABY in place before I ever looked at the clue). 

Biz OPS ... please never say that. Do you not hear yourself? Stop. Hey, what does the "B" in ABA stand for today (I mean, since it doesn't stand for its more customary meaning, "Bar") (21A: Trade org. of interest to publishers and authors)? I think it's "Booksellers" but I'm gonna have to check ... Whoa, I just googled "ABA" and apparently in the real, i.e. non-crossword world, everyone thinks ABA = "Applied Behavior Analysis" (whatever that is). My god it is hard to find today's ABA ... searching [ABA books] and [ABA library] is useless ... I'm getting American Beverage ... American Bankers ... ah there we go. I was right: American Booksellers Association. Man, google really Really doesn't want you to find this particular ABA. The quality of google as a search engine has so horribly degraded in recent years, and somehow the fact that it's hiding booksellers from me today feels ominously on-brand. Have a nice day!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Poet Hemphill of the 1980s Black gay cultural renaissance / FRI 7-14-23 / Benny Goodman jazz standard with the opening line "April skies are in your eyes" / Instrument heard in the iconic intro to the Who's "Baba O'Riley" / Brand of cutting-edge equipment / Japanese lunch option

Constructor: Jonathan Kaufman

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: ESSEX Hemphill (25A: Poet Hemphill of the 1980s Black gay cultural renaissance) —

Essex Hemphill (April 16, 1957 – November 4, 1995) was an openly gay American poet and activist. He is known for his contributions to the Washington, D.C. art scene in the 1980s, and for openly discussing the topics pertinent to the African-American gay community. [...] He would garner more national attention when his work was included in In the Life (1986), an anthology of poems from black, gay artists, compiled by Hemphill's good friend, lover, and fellow author, Joseph F. Beam. His poetry has been published widely in journals, and his essays have appeared in Obsidian, Black Scholar, CALLALOO, and Essence among others. In 1986, Hemphill received a fellowship in poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts.// Essex Hemphill also made appearances in a number of documentaries between 1989 and 1992. In 1989, he appeared in Looking for Langston, a film directed by Isaac Julien about poet Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance. Hemphill also worked with Emmy award-winning filmmaker Marlon Riggs on two documentaries:Tongues Untied (1989) which looked into the complex overlapping of black and queer identities, and Black is... Black Ain't (1992) which discussed what exactly constitutes "blackness." // In 1992, Hemphill published his largest collection of poetry and short stories, entitled Ceremonies: Prose and Poetry, which included recent work, but also selection from his earlier poetry collections, Earth Life and Conditions. The next year, the anthology would be awarded the National Library Association's Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual New Author Award and a Pew Charitable Trust Fellowship in the Arts. In 1993, he was a visiting scholar at the Getty Center. // In the 1990s, Hemphill would rarely give information about his health, although he would occasionally talk about "being a person with AIDS." It was not until 1994 that he wrote about his experiences with the disease in his poem "Vital Signs." He died on November 4, 1995, of AIDS-related complications. (wikipedia)

• • •

Very short write-up this morning, as window installers are arriving very early to ... well, install windows, it turns out. And I've still got some furniture to move around before they get here. 

I had no connection to this puzzle. Couldn't get my head around any of it very well, and none, literally none of the longer answers clicked for me, so the zoom-zoom factor was nearly nil. The best way to illustrate how Not For Me this puzzle was is to point to what I ultimately thought was the best answer in the grid ("DON'T BE THAT WAY") and then to point at its clue (33A: Benny Goodman jazz standard with the opening line "April skies are in your eyes"). As the puzzle itself says, "WHAT IN THE HECK?" You have this great colloquial phrase, one for which I can imagine all kinds of contexts, all kinds of colloquial cluing possibilities, and instead the place you go is ... whatever the hell this song is?? A proper noun? You steer *in* to the proper noun. And an obscure proper noun at that? Baffling. Benny Goodman, in the year of our lord 2023, when all kinds of more inventive (not to mention inclusive) cluing options are available to you? This ... this is how far apart this puzzle and I are today. Just not seeing eye to eye. I mowed through the NW corner pretty easily but then ... I mean, I couldn't drop *any* of the longer answers through the center, in *either* direction, despite having the front ends of virtually *all* of them. SODA ...? SPEAK ...? I CAN ...? WHAT ...? I thought SCOUT TEAM was correct (19D: N.F.L. practice squad) but kept pulling it because it wasn't helping me get any of the crosses. But the worst of all stuckness came from today's entry in the EAT A SANDWICH category of answer. For 16A: Drank discreetly, I had HAD A SIP locked in. Seemed perfect. So when it came time to try to make sense of 9D: Catches some waves, say (TUNES IN), this is what I was staring down: 

And as I kept going, as I finally filled in the center and circled back around to the NE, I was really truly stuck  with TUSES IN. And while in retrospect it's obvious which letter is wrong in that configuration, in mid-solve it was, well, less obvious. So, it's HAD A NIP ... great. Congrats. You got me. What ... fun.

The problem with all these answers in the middle, the ones I struggled with, was that when I finally got them, there was almost no sense of revelation or wonder or aha or any of it. It was "Oh, OK." Nothing felt quite like le mot juste, ever. "WHAT THE HELL?!" is what I wanted, "WHAT IN THE HELL!?" is what I wrote in ... only to find that it was "WHAT IN THE HECK?!" The SPEAK... answer was somehow worse, since it ended up having the dreaded ONE'S in it, ugh ("you" in the clue, "ONE'S" in the answer, always terrible). And then to wrap things up with one of the more disgusting "?" clues I've ever seen (47D: What might make one less likely to flip one's lid? => STYE). Ew, what? Why are you touching your STYE? Why are you "flipping" your (eye)lid At All, what does that even mean? Are you turning it inside out? Stunned that the clue-writer wanted the "flip your lid" pun that bad. Truly, this puzzle and I do not have the same idea what constitutes a good time. It happens.

I was happy to learn ESSEX Hemphill today. Kind of embarrassed I didn't already know him. I wrote in ESSIE and then crossed it with LIAISED at 22D: Acted as a segue for (LED INTO). I was like "No, not LIAISED! My most hated word!" And thankfully, no, not LIAISED. I had LAUDS at first for 1A: Praises loudly (HAILS), but few other outright mistakes (beyond those I've already mentioned). I like TAIL WAG a lot (24D: Dog's show of excitement). It's a funny little formulation (do we need the TAIL? What else is a dog gonna wag?) but it's vivid and colorful and feels very much in-the-language. Plus I just like dogs so dog stuff, especially goofy happy dog stuff, is always gonna please. OK, I gotta get coffee going and get ready for the window guys, then find somewhere else to spend the day so I can get some work done. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. SRO = "standing room only" / Some IPAs are "hazy," I don't really know what makes them so; read here / ORALS are [Defense mechanisms?] because the cluer has confused ORALS with thesis / dissertation "defenses." 

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