Onetime boxy Toyota / WED 6-28-23 / Saxophonist who pioneered modal jazz, to fans / Classic collection from the magazines Super Science Stories and Astounding Science Fiction / Fabric derived from wood pulp / Stereotypical shout-out on a jumbotron

Constructor: Matt Fuchs and Victor Sloan

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: animals in things — familiar phrases that involve animals being "in" things, represented visually by said animal crossing said thing:

Theme answers:

• PARTRIDGE in a PEAR TREE (3D: With 14-Across, first (and last) gift of a seasonal song)
• FROG in one's THROAT (10D: With 15-Across, cause of some hoarseness)
• SNAKE  in the GRASS (30D: With 38-Across, hidden traitor)
• ANTS in one's PANTS (35D: With 42-Across, source of restless anticipation)
• BEE in one's BONNET (58D: With 62-Across, persistent little obsession)
• CANARY in the COAL MINE (44D: With 59-Across, harbinger of danger) 

Word of the Day: modal jazz (43A: Saxophonist who pioneered modal jazz, to fans (TRANE)) —

In musical parlance, the word “mode” simply means “scale”; it is often used to describe a scale other than major or minor. Our present-day major and minor scales derive from the “modes” of medieval music, which in turn derive from the music of ancient Greece. Modes were used as a resource by some relatively modern classical composers like Debussy and Bartok, who felt the need to go beyond traditional major/minor tonality. In the 1950s, jazz musicians also began to work with modal approaches.

The term “modal jazz” refers to improvisational music that is organized in a scalar (“horizontal”) way rather than in a chordal (“vertical”) manner. By de-emphasizing the role of chords, a modal approach forces the improviser to create interest by other means: melody, rhythm, timbre, and emotion. A modal piece will generally use chords, but the chords will be more or less derived from the prevailing mode. [...] Miles Davis, always a trend-setter in jazz, utilized this approach in his composition “Milestones” (1958), on the album of the same name. The structure of this tune is AABBA. The A sections are based on the G dorian scale; the B sections are based on the A aeolian scale (see “The Classical Modes,” below).

His next album, Kind of Blue (1959), is the definitive example of modal jazz, and was a pivotal moment in the evolution of jazz. [...] 

The modal approach was pursued further in subsequent recordings by Miles and by other jazz artists. John Coltrane’s work in the 1960s with pianist McCoy Tyner advanced the modal concept in an intense, even spiritual direction (e.g., his albums My Favorite Things, Impressions, A Love Supreme), and deeply affected the subsequent development of jazz. (Peter Spitzer, jazzstandards.com)

• • •

It does what it does, and then it keeps doing it. This seems like a clever concept, but it played really flat, and knowing the concept made all subsequent themers easy to uncover, and since the themers all ran in two directions, knowing the themers made whole sections of the puzzle easy to uncover. So it was a bit like a child's game, but instead of "What sound does the cow make?" or whatever, it was "What's the froggy in? What's the birdy in?" Etc. I cannot fault the execution–it's very theme-dense, and the fill holds up reasonably well under the circumstances. I also like, or at least don't mind at all, that the answers aren't perfectly symmetrical, or that the connecting words in the phrases are not all the same (i.e. "in a" "in the" "in one's"). The grid has been built specifically to isolate the themers into their own little sections, their own little habitats, and then each section has been carefully constructed around its themers. This is why you have such a segmented grid (those NE and SW corners are particularly dramatically cordoned off). So it's all very neat, but it was all very same-same, and ultimately very simple. I am impressed that they found enough animals in enough things in enough familiar phrases to make this one work out. A CAT in the CRADLE would've been remarkable (especially if you could've worked SILVER SPOON into the grid somewhere), and WOLF in SHEEP'S CLOTHING would've blown my mind. Maybe that's the issue I'm having—none of these animal phrases were big or bold. They were all very ordinary, with nothing rising to marquee-level material. [side note: I know CAT / CRADLE wouldn't have worked because of specific phrasing, just let me enjoy the song]

Was worried about the fill at first, especially with 1-Down being A-PAT (!?!), which is about as terrible a partial as I can imagine under any circumstances ever (1D: Pit-___). I also have no idea what ALPINISM is, but I'll take the puzzle's word for it that it's a mountain-climbing sport. Sounds like a lifestyle, like NUDISM, but OK, "sport," fine (now if NUDE ALPINISM is your thing ... well, respect). By the time I got to SPIT AT, I'd grimaced at least three times at the fill, and by UAR it was up to four. But grimacing mostly ceased after that. INSIDE MAN and GOES BROKE gave the puzzle some life, and the Alanis clue made me smile remembering the time in the mid-90s when NPR had an English professor on to talk about what, precisely, was—and was not—IRONIC about the putative examples of irony in the song "IRONIC." Oh my god, I just confirmed that this radio spot actually happened! I can't find a recording, but here's the description at NPR's site (The president of the MLA! 1997! I can remember exactly where I was standing in my girlfriend's kitchen when I heard this, LOL, memory is weird):

Weird to go to the boxy bygone car for an ordinary word like SCION. Maybe editors knew this was gonna play way, way too easy and they needed a speed bump or two. Four "AT"s today seems particularly bad (AT SEA AT LAST SPIT AT GRABS AT). Like ... that's a lot of "AT"s. Even if you don't care about two-letter words, that is a lot of "AT"s for a non-"AT"-themed puzzle. Yeesh. I don't know if I loved either EUROAREA or STYLE TIP, but I thought they were at least original- and inventive-seeming, so that's something (63A: Currency zone whose members include Finland and Malta + 65A: Advice on a fashion blog). 

Anything need explaining? The TAT clue was very clever, I thought (18A: Parlor decoration, for short) (a decoration you get on your body, not ... I don't know, a Tiffany lamp or decorative ashtray or something). Ooh, [Flat sign] definitely held me up for a few seconds for sure (TO LET). I was looking for a musical flat, or maybe a sign that your tire (tyre!) had a flat. I guess the "flat" part means that the phrase "TO LET" is primarily British (their version of "For Rent"). You can't argue with the clue at 45A: Noted seashell seller? SHE definitely does sell them. Down by the seashore, I hear. I've never seen her, but people talk about her a lot. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Nickname for subzero 1967 NFL Championship Game / 10-14-21 / National Medal of Arts recipient whose novel Juneteenth was published posthumously / Puzzle whose name comes from the Japanese for cleverness squared / Mitch's husband on Modern Family / Fountain near Spanish Steps

Constructor: Matt Fuchs

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: FUCKING 'UP'! ["The opening of this animated film featuring the voice of Ed Asner is making me cry in public!"] — or, you know, "Curses!" would maybe be a good description. Anyway, ordinary two-word phrases are clued as if they are curses:

Theme answers:

• BLOODY NOSE (16A: "My allergies are really acting up!")
• FREAKING OUT (23A: "That third strike cost us the game!")
• DARN SOCKS (36A: "I keep losing things in the dryer!")
• ROTTEN APPLE (52A: "My iPhone never works!")
• BLASTED OFF (61A: "This bug spray is useless!")

Word of the Day: ICE BOWL (44D: Nickname for the subzero 1967 N.F.L. Championship Game) —

The 1967 National Football League Championship Game was the 35th NFL championship, played on December 31 at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

It determined the NFL's champion, which met the AFL's champion in Super Bowl II, then formally referred to as the second AFL–NFL World Championship Game. The Dallas Cowboys (9–5), champions of the Eastern Conference, traveled north to meet the Western champion Green Bay Packers (9–4–1), the two-time defending league champions. It was a rematch of the previous year's title game, and pitted two future Hall of Fame head coaches against each other, Tom Landry for the Cowboys and Vince Lombardi for the Packers. The two head coaches had a long history together, as both had coached together on the staff of the late 1950s New York Giants, with Lombardi serving as offensive coordinator and Landry as defensive coordinator. 

Because of the adverse conditions in which the game was played, the rivalry between the two teams, and the game's dramatic climax, it has been immortalized as the Ice Bowl and is considered one of the greatest games in NFL history. NFL 100 Greatest Games ranked this game as the 3rd greatest game of all time. [The Packers won, 21-17] (wikipedia)

• • •

My main reaction here is "How is this a Thursday?" The trickery is really not that substantial, and I haven't solved a Thursday puzzle this easy overall in I don't know how many moons (many, probably). As for the concept ... I don't know. It didn't do anything for me, and it seems pretty wobbly in the execution. The NOSE and the SOCKS don't change meaning in their clues, but OUT, APPLE, and OFF sure do. Also, I assume the curse word "rotten" actually derives from the actual concept of rotten, and the locus classicus of rottenness (along with the rotten egg) really is the ROTTEN APPLE, so that clue doesn't really move the meaning of "rotten" all that much (compared to how much the other "curse" words are moved). DARK SOCKS is a rotten stand-alone answers (unlike the others, which stand alone just fine). Also, something about FREAKING doesn't seem like a plausible curse. You'd at least drop the "g." More likely you'd use "friggin'" if you really needed a euphemism for the "F" word. The whole thing felt kind of corny. No real laughs, no surprising cleverness. Like a MIDWEEK (i.e. T or W) puzzle from 20+ years ago. The fill also felt that old—at least that old. I would list all of the relevant fill, but I'm tired, and presumably you can see it right in front of you (or in the grid I posted above). ISI? RES? DYER? An OMIT NEMO ETNA stack? The return of COED?  NRA again, on back-to-back days!? ERE NOLA LOO? LITE EKE? It's all pretty grueling. My favorite part of the grid, as I look it over, is the spooky short story I've imagined using the words in the 14th row: gather round the campfire, everyone, it's time to hear the tale of "SADE and the EERIE EWER." In my imagined story, SADE is the one-named singer, and she has some kind of adventure in a haunted house ... or a museum with a lot of still-lifes, I guess. Yes, I am a WEIRDO, but when the puzzle lets you down, you gotta entertain yourself somehow.

I blasted (!) through this grid with almost no resistance. I wrote in LAB RATS instead of LAB MICE, an inevitable and easily fixable mistake (1D: Maze runners). But after that, I didn't hesitate much at all until 45D: Balls in a pocket (FALAFEL). That's a decent Saturday-level clue that forced me to put on the brakes and work a lot of crosses. I also weirdly couldn't get WEIRDO at first pass, even with -DO in place (57A: Wackadoodle), probably because WEIRDO is a noun and (as I know it) "Wackadoodle" is an adjective. But maybe it can be a noun. Or WEIRDO can be an adjective?? I don't know. Don't much care, either. I am terrible, truly terrible at [Word with ___ or ___] clues. Even if you give me a more specific hint, like [Word that can follow ___ or ___] or [Word before ___ or ___], my brain frequently just seizes up. So STREET didn't come quickly either (48D: Word with fair or fight). But with everything else, it was just "fill in squares as fast as you can." The fill didn't thrill me, but the SE corner is decent (and tasty), and something about IMNOUSE is making me laugh, both because of the Charlie Brown-level patheticness, and because I imagine it's being said over and over again by a guy named NOUSE who can't get people to understand his name, or who keeps getting mistaken for someone else. "Dr. House?" "No, I'M NOUSE." "Well what good are you, then?" [walks away]. 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. Happy birthday, Penelope :)

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