Rapper with the 2010 hit "No Hands" / WED 5-24-23 / Khmer temple / Whoops in a text / Yuzuru ___, first skater to successfully land a quadruple loop in competition / Funky bit of noodling / Academic acronym / Feeding apparatus at a petting zoo

Constructor: Kavin Pawittranon and Nijah Morris

Relative difficulty: Easy (except, in my case, for the SE corner)

THEME: PAC-MAN (68A: Where to find the starts of 17-, 28-, 45- and 58-Across) — first words of the theme answers are associated with the iconic video game:

Theme answers:

• PELLET DISPENSER (17A: Feeding apparatus at a petting zoo)
• GHOST OF A CHANCE (28A: Slightest opportunity)
• FRUIT OF THE LOOM (45A: Big name in underwear)
• WAKA FLOCKA FLAME (58A: Rapper with the 2010 hit "No Hands")

Word of the Day: WAKA FLOCKA FLAME (58A) —

Juaquin James Malphurs (born May 31, 1986), known professionally as Waka Flocka Flame, is an American rapper. Signing to 1017 Brick Squad and Warner Bros. Records in 2009, he became a mainstream artist with the release of his singles "O Let's Do It", "Hard in da Paint", and "No Hands" (featuring Roscoe Dash and Wale), with the latter peaking at number 13 on the US Billboard Hot 100. His debut studio album Flockaveli was released in 2010. His second studio album Triple F Life: Friends, Fans & Family was released in 2012 and was preceded by the lead single "Round of Applause" (featuring Drake). [...] In April 2015 Waka Flocka did a collaboration campaign with Rolling Stone magazine in which he pretended to run for president. [...] In April 2015, Malphurs announced that he was running for president, despite the fact he was below the constitutionally required age of 35, as he was only 30 by the time of the 2016 United States presidential election. His platform included legalizing marijuana, raising the minimum hourly wage to $15, and creating better trade opportunities for school students. His other proposals included banning dogs from restaurants and making it illegal for people with shoe sizes above 13 to walk on the street. He also seemed to be dismissive of Congress, and had an anti-war stance. Former professional wrestler Ric Flair was his running mate. (wikipedia)

• • •

Whether this puzzle works or not rests entirely on WAKA FLOCKA FLAME, which is ... a choice. I mean, it's going to delight some, for sure—it's an original, grid-spanning answer that comes from fairly contemporary (as opposed to olden) popular culture, and it's got the puzzle's best element in it: the WAKA sound. I mean, the theme is a complete dud without the WAKA. The WAKA is the most inventive part, by a long shot. I don't even associate PELLETs or FRUIT with PAC-MAN that strongly (or maybe I just never thought of the dots as "pellets")—whatever specific qualities that game has, the only ones that have stuck with me beyond the little yellow guy himself and the maze structure he has to navigate are the ghosts and the WAKA WAKA WAKA sound (which I've never seen spelled out, or even thought about spelling out, which is another reason having WAKA as the final theme element is so delightful—it's surprising *and* on-the-nose). The down side of putting all your eggs in the WAKA FLOCKA FLAME basket, though, is that some sizable segment of the solving population won't have any idea who that is, and, what's (kinda) worse, won't have any real way to even *infer* the name, as no part of WAKA FLOCKA FLAME is exactly ... namelike. 

So I've written a Lot about how important it is to handle your names—how all kinds of names should appear in puzzles, regardless of whether they are universally famous, but that the puzzlemaker should always have an eye on that part of the solving population that *doesn't* share their particular cultural demographic, and make sure that those folks are brought along for the ride. This is typically done by watching *all* the crosses on the name in question and making sure they're fair, and that you're not essentially creating two puzzles: an easy / fun puzzle for those who know the same pop culture you know, and a challenging slog for those who don't. Here, I think the crosses are all fair, but so *much* of the puzzle rides on this answer—it's not just long, it's the punchline—that I think that it's going to be divisive along predictable cultural lines, with younger solvers appreciating it far more than older solvers. Essentially your love of the puzzle is going to depend on how you feel about the name WAKA FLOCKA FLAME, and a lot of that is going to be dependent on whether you knew him in the first place. It's a lot of weight to put on one name. We'll see how it plays. I like it—as I say, the theme is nothing without it—but I *knew* the WAKA FLOCKA part and *still* got brought to a screeching, jarring halt in the SE. I don't have much patience for the "I don't want any rapper names in my puzzle!" crowd, but I'll have at least a little sympathy for those who struggle with this particular name today.


WAKA FLOCKA FLAME isn't the only name the puzzle throws at you today. There's also HANYU (9D: Yuzuru ___, first skater to successfully land a quadruple loop in competition), totally unknown to me, but in that case, the answer is short and all the crosses are easy and so it's only a small bump in the road. This makes it easier to appreciate the new (to me) name. I was a bit worried about the general quality of the fill at the start of this one, as that NW corner really did not bode well:

[Kinda disappointed when first themer turned out not to be PELLE THE CONQUEROR]

 

No one answer is particularly terrible, but when you get AREOLA LOL OLE WAT SOL OREO in a big wad like that, right up front, I think it's reasonable to be worried. But the crosswordiness never gets that thick again. The grid isn't exactly sizzling, but the quality levels out, and EIGHT BALL and ASTROTURF and especially SAFE WORD (!!!) (38D: Something agreed upon by consenting sexual partners) are nice long anchors. One of the reasons the end of the puzzle (for me, the SE) was so jarring is that the rest of the puzzle was (generally) sooooo easy. I had to navigate around HANYU, but other than that, the only clue that slowed me down even a little was 23A: One who is one, e.g. (BABY). I was thinking of something ... I dunno, spiritual? Like ... one ... with the universe? It's such an oddly enigmatic clue for something that is also absolutely literal and straightforward ("one who is one ... year old!"). But the only part of this puzzle I even remember solving is the SE—getting stuck will tend to bring things into focus that way. I could not remember FLAME part of his name to save my life. Me: "WAKA FLOCKA ... there's more? WAKA FLOCKA ... JONES? That seems unlikely ..." I wrote in TSA and LTD before FAA (61D: Sky safety org.) and LLC (62D: Inc. cousin), which immediately gummed up the whole SE section. Thought the "mangle" in 55D: Mangle, e.g. (MAIM) was the old-fashioned TOOL people used to use to wring clothes dry after washing, didn't know people still texted MY B (!?) (short for "my bad") (55A: "Whoops," in a text), *and* I misread 65A: Spiteful feeling (MALICE) as [Spiritual feeling] (!?), so yeeeeesh the wheels really came off down there. I mean, I put the wheels back on without *too* much struggle, but compared to how quickly and smoothly I moved through the rest of the grid, this part was a disaster. But I worked it out. Hope you worked it out too, and that the WAKA (waka waka) bit made you smile at least a little. If not, that's cool too. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Bird whose Latin root means "dog" / FRI 2-10-23 / Who reinvented the wheel in 1893 / Jumble of speech / Beach acclaimed 1991 children's book set in Harlem / Alternative to pinot grigio / What's read in tasseomancy / Klaatu's vehicle in The Day the Earth Stood Still / Late-night talk show from 2010 to 2021

Constructor: Kavin Pawittranon and Nijah Morris

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Der SPIEGEL (58A: German newsmagazine Der ___) —

Der Spiegel (German pronunciation: [deːɐ̯ ˈʃpiːɡl̩], lit. "The Mirror") is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 695,100 copies, it was the largest such publication in Europe in 2011. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner, a British army officer, and Rudolf Augstein, a former Wehrmacht radio operator who was recognized in 2000 by the International Press Institute as one of the fifty World Press Freedom Heroes. Typically, the magazine has a content to advertising ratio of 2:1.

Der Spiegel is known in German-speaking countries mostly for its investigative journalism. It has played a key role in uncovering many political scandals such as the Spiegel affair in 1962 and the Flick affair in the 1980s. According to The Economist, Der Spiegelis one of continental Europe's most influential magazines. The news website by the same name was launched in 1994 under the name Spiegel Online with an independent editorial staff. Today, the content is created by a shared editorial team and the website uses the same media brand as the printed magazine. (wikipedia)

• • •

Look, it's a SHIT-LOAD and a CRAP-TON and I will die on this (filthy) hill! (32D: Crazy amount => CRAPLOAD). Actually I don't care that much, but those are the expressions that feel right to me, and they both google better than their oppositely-suffixed counterparts (well, "crap-ton" does ... there are issues with whether you do or don't include a hyphen in your search term). I think "shit-ton" (hyphenated) is probably what I'd say soonest, of the whole lot, followed by "shitload" (unhyphenated) ... I think I have largely phased "crap" (and its assorted variations) out of my life, as it feels like a euphemism that has somehow over time come to sound more vulgar than the thing it's a euphemism for (namely shit). So ... there. I got my one real objection to this puzzle off my chest, right up front. Oh wait, I have one other: who ever heard of reading a single TEA LEAF (30D: What's read in tasseomancy). One leaf? One? "Tasseomancy" has the French word for (tea) cup right in it, so if you are reading what's at the bottom of the cup (which you are) then a single TEA LEAF ... is doubtful, improbable, borderline fantastical. You can, of course, use "TEA LEAF" adjectivally (i.e. tasseomancy = "TEA LEAF reading"), but the way the clue is phrased here ... no. It doesn't work. I like "tasseomancy," though. It's a sweet word, I'd love to see it in the grid itself, but the fact remains, if I found one giant TEA LEAF in the bottom of my cup, there'd be only one possible fate in store for me: "You will be finding ... a new place to drink tea." I just found out that "tasseomancy" is also known as "tasseography," "tasseology," and "tassology," so add those to your wordlists too, I guess. Why not? Just know that it's leaves that are being read, not a single leaf.

Leaving the tea leaf crap aside now ... I really liked this puzzle. It's got a lot of that whoosh-and-zoom quality that I like to see in a Friday, with lots of lovely longer answers darting across the grid, creating a nice flow, a feeling of openness. I wasn't as whooshy or zoomy as I often am on Fridays, or ideal Fridays, anyway, but that's mostly because I couldn't make anything work at first. I came out of the NW with only EMAG in place (4D: Slate, e.g.). I tried to make the plural of "genus" work at 18A: Subdivisions of families (GENERA), but my Latin totally failed me and after GENUSES (as well as GENIUSES (?) and GENII (!?)) didn't fit, I had to bail out completely. I decided to have at the short stuff in the NE, and that was the right call: HAD ON / KNEE / CLICK / LAX / TOE ... that was the starter kit I needed and then finally, a whoosh, out of the NE and into the middle of the grid via CHEAP THRILL! Thrilling. Lots of excitement and energy in this one, with the thrills and the partying (at the PARTY SCHOOLS) and the dancing (with the SLAM DANCERS). FREUDIAN SLIP rounds out the Big Four answers in this one, and those four provide a great latticework to hang the rest of the grid on. 

Didn't like FEELS OKAY both because it's kind of limp as a phrase and because the clue only added to that limpness—[Seems acceptable] is just (synonym for FEELS) + (synonym for OKAY). So you've made your long answer into two boring ones, basically. I also don't get how ILY is something in ASL, since ASL, as I understand it, does not involve (written) letters. I guess you sign the letters, one at a time? But I've seen the abbr. ILY outside ASL, for sure (it's the only way I could've inferred it), so the connection to ASL felt strange / forced to me. The use of "major" in the clue for REST AREA also felt a little forced (27A: Major turnoff, perhaps). I've stopped at lots of REST AREAs in NY and PA. If they're just REST AREAs (and not service plazas, with gas and lots of food vendors and stuff) then I'd hardly call them major. But if you would place service plazas under the very widespread banner of REST AREA, then I guess it makes sense. It's clear why you wanted "major" there—to heighten the misdirection on "turnoff." But when you do that (really push the fakeout meaning), I'll say it's a real ... turn-off ... when the fakeout feels forced. 

I thought states had FLAGS, not FAIRS (21A: Most states have state ones), and that families had CELL PLANs, not DATA PLANs (23A: A family's might be unlimited), at first. I also thought that the days of "YAS, queen" were behind us, but apparently that era is still upon us, so that's ... good to know (3D: Praise for a queen). Lots of "S"-enders in this grid. If I draw a (very crooked) line from the "S" at the end of SLAM DANCERS / EDITS to the "S" at the end of PARTY SCHOOLS, I can pick up a total of nine (!) terminal "S"s along the way. Nothing wrong with "S"-ending words, obviously. Just something I've been dinged for as a constructor before, by crossword editors. They can be .... crutches, those terminal "S"s, and in great numbers, they stand out. But if your grid is great then I don't think anyone (but me) is likely to notice or care. And this grid is pretty great. So there. Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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