"Super Dry" brewer / FRI 10-9-26 / Much-anticipated rivalry game in soccer's La Liga / Cricket's Men in Green, on scoreboards / Hounds that can run up to 35 m.p.h. / Device geared to draw rotationally symmetrical shapes / Near failure, colloquially / By an even stronger argument, at law / Glenn who co-founded the Eagles / Some Navy aircraft during W.W. II / What Odysseus's crew waxed on about?

Constructor: Nam Jin Yoon

Relative difficulty: Easy

35D: Princess who says "Governor Tarkin! I should have expected to find you holding Vader's leash. I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board"]

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: WONG Kar-wai (36A: ___ Kar-wai, acclaimed Hong Kong filmmaker behind 1994's "Chungking Express") —

Wong Kar-wai BBS (born 17 July 1958) is a Hong Kong filmmaker. His films are characterised by nonlinear narratives, atmospheric music, and vivid cinematography with bold, saturated colours. An auteur of Hong Kong cinema, Wong frequently appears at international film festivals. [...] Exhausted by the time-consuming production of Ashes of Time, Wong directed Chungking Express (1994), a smaller film that he hoped would rekindle his love of cinema during a two-month sabbatical while waiting for post-production equipment to arrive for Ashes of Time. The film, with its more lighthearted atmosphere, catapulted Wong to international prominence, and won Best Film and Best Director at the 1995 Hong Kong Film Awards. Wong followed up with the crime thriller Fallen Angels (1995), which has since become a cult classic of the Golden Age of Hong Kong cinema and is considered especially representative of Wong's style. Wong consolidated his reputation with the 1997 drama Happy Together, for which he won Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival. // The 2000 drama In the Mood for Love, revered for its lush visuals and subtle storytelling, concretely established Wong's trademark filmmaking style. Among his other works are 2046 (2004), a romantic drama and science fiction film, and The Grandmaster (2013), a biopic of Ip Man, both of which received awards and nominations worldwide. [...] In 2000, Empire ranked [In the Mood for Love] number 42 in its list titled "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema". It was ranked 95th on 100 Best Films from 1983 to 2008 by Entertainment Weekly. In November 2009, Time Out New York ranked the film as the fifth-best of the decade, calling it the "consummate unconsummated love story of the new millennium". // In the 2022 decennial critics' poll conducted by Sight and Sound, In the Mood for Love appeared at number 5, making it the highest-ranked film from the 2000s and one of only two from the 2000s to be listed in the top 10 of all time, along with David Lynch's Mulholland Drive. Wong's film was also the highest-ranked film by a Chinese filmmaker. The film owed its placement to the votes of 42 critics (out of 846) who placed it in their own individual top 10 lists.

• • •

Seems like it's been a while since I tore through a Friday, but I sure tore through this one. A few snags along the way, but overall, this felt more like a Wednesday. Almost all the difficulty for me lay in two answers, both sports (I don't follow): PAK and EL CLASICO. The funny thing about PAK is I didn't really know what sport I was dealing with, despite "Cricket's" being right there in the clue (38D: Cricket's Men in Green, on scoreboards). I was like "who is Cricket?" I thought "Cricket's Men in Green" was some kind of long name for, like, an Irish soccer team or something. We don't have cricket here. I shouldn't say that. I have seen South Asian men playing cricket in the local parks a few times over the years, so ... it's here. Just not professionally. That I know of. It's big in New Zealand, where my wife is from, but so is Marmite, and we don't have that here either (unless you know where to look) (we're exclusively a Vegemite household, but that's another story ... a yeast-extract spread story). So, because I was not processing "Cricket" at all ("Jiminy Cricket?"), that "K" (as you can see from the completed-grid picture above) was the very last thing I filled in. As for EL CLASICO (56A: Much-anticipated rivalry game in soccer's La Liga) ... I inferred it, eventually. One "S" in "CLASICO," eh? Cool. As for the rest of the puzzle, I whippet it, whippet it good.

[37A: Hounds that can run up to 35 m.p.h.]

Today's puzzle felt a little tepid. Solid, mostly, but without a lot of sizzle. A FORTIORI, oof, I got it easily enough, but that's too much real estate to give over to legal Latin on a Friday (17A: By an even stronger argument, at law). TOP PAIR, shrug, I get it, but it's not an interesting answer (41A: Two aces, say). No active complaints about most of the rest of the long stuff, but it never gave me a thrill. Except SISYPHEAN, that one I loved (58A: Extremely difficult and ultimately futile). I've had Camus's phrase "One must imagine Sisyphus happy" on my brain a lot lately, I'm not sure why. Maybe it's something to do with seeing Coyote v. Acme. Or maybe it was a video from We Rate Dogs of a lab fetching a ball from the water, dropping it on the shore, watching it roll back into the water, fetching the ball from the water, dropping it on the shore, watching it roll back into the water, fetching the ball etc. (I can't find a proper copy of the video or I'd show you) (It's here, at Facebook Reels). I also liked SIREN SONG (4D: What Odysseus' crew waxed on about?—because they put wax on (that is, "in") their ears so as not to hear the tempting tunes). And I thought the 8s dancing through the middle of the grid (SCROOGES CORONARY WHIPPETS "FRESH AIR") formed a nice set. Also thrilled to see WONG Kar-wei (though I spelled it WANG at first); kinda stunned they used Chungking Express instead of the much more famous In the Mood For Love in the clue, but always happy to see international cinema in the grid. Still waiting on VARDA and OZU, but ... some day ... 

Bullets:

• 10A: "Super Dry" brewer (ASAHI) — if you can manage to remember just one Japanese beer, make it ASAHI. If you can manage two, throw KIRIN in there as well. Five-letter beers. Very useful. 
• 52A: Drawing on another's life (PARASITIC) — took me longer than it should have because the clue seemed so innocuous and vague. I actually wanted PARASOCIAL but it wouldn't fit. "Drawing on" is accurate but doesn't really get at all the (potential) blood-sucking and disease-causing etc. The depletion, I guess, is what I was looking for. Something even slightly negative. But as I say, the clue is fair.
• 28D: Near failure, colloquially (ON THE ROPES) — was reading this as a noun, i.e. a "near-failure," so the prepositional phrase surprised me a little.
• 42D: Student of Socrates (PLATO) — maybe I didn't notice at first because they were mostly easy, but man there are a lot of names here at the bottom of the grid. Six of the last ten Down answers are names, plus ORCS, which are fictional and therefore name-ish. PLATO SATIE ERICA DALI ALY. Meanwhile, there are only a small handful of names scattered around the rest of the grid. I'm realizing now that this is not a very interesting observation. APOLOGIES (12D: "My mistake").

• 33D: One who regularly takes a best friend out? (DOG OWNER) — I understood the canine implications here pretty quickly (dog = "Man's best friend"), but OWNER, yeesh, that was not clear. I figured walking the dog would be part of the answer. Like DOG WALKER or DOG SITTER or something. But no, just the OWNER. Anticlimactic.
• 51D: ___ team (AS A) — bad fill should not get confusing clues. This thing I believe. If the OWNER part of DOG OWNER was anticlimactic, I don't know what to call discovering the answer here was AS A—disappointing? Sad? Horrifying? Probably "disappointing" will do.
• 9D: Device geared to draw rotationally symmetrical shapes (SPIROGRAPH) — is "geared" a pun? Because I believe literal "gears" are involved—at least they were on whatever childhood toy version of this device that I had...

That's all for today. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Thick tortilla that's the national dish of El Salvador / FRI 7-15-22 / Sibling of Sol in Roman myth / Relatively new addition to Thanksgiving? / Corporate carrot / Actress Beverly of 1989's Lean on Me / Niminy-piminy / Bruno to Mirabel in Disney's Encanto / Co. that patented the combination cup holder and armrest

Constructor: Matthew Stock and Nam Jin Yoon

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: well, there's a "LEFT" / "RIGHT" thingie going on, but basically "none" 

Word of the Day: PUPUSA (42A: Thick tortilla that's the national dish of El Salvador) —

A pupusa is a thick griddle cake or flatbread from El Salvador and Honduras, made with cornmeal or rice flour, similar to the Venezuelan and Colombian arepa. In El Salvador, it has been declared the national dish and has a specific day to celebrate it. It is usually stuffed with one or more ingredients, which may include cheese (such as quesillo or cheese with loroco buds), chicharrón, squash, or refried beans. It is typically accompanied by curtido (a spicy fermented cabbage slaw) and tomato salsa, and is traditionally eaten by hand. (wikipedia)

• • •

Not the kind of all-over fire I'm used to from Nam Jin Yoon, but still pretty good. This is more of a two-answer show, and though all the other answers are solid, and occasionally snappy, nothing comes near the slangy, colloquial heights of those two 14s: "WHAT ELSE IS LEFT?" / "YOUR OTHER RIGHT." But the highlight ends up also being something of a lowlight, in the sense that ... the phrase is "YOUR OTHER LEFT." It just is. I don't know why it is, but it is. If you're going to do a theme (or a coy "theme," like this one) on a Friday, then there better be good reason and that theme better *land*, and "YOUR OTHER RIGHT" just doesn't quite land. I was giddily typing in "YOUR OTHER LEFT" when I realized it wasn't going to reach. Then thought "well, I guess it's RIGHT, but that isn't ... right?" So then I looked it up, and if you google both phrases in quotation marks "right" wins by a mile, but that's only because "YOUR OTHER RIGHT" might appear accidentally in a ton of other contexts, whereas "YOUR OTHER LEFT" ... is unique to this particular gag (which is probably what makes it the funnier / more established option). Don't believe me? Here is the "YOUR OTHER LEFT" (not "RIGHT") entry from tvtropes dot com:

If ever in a comedy somebody tells a character or a group of characters to move/turn left, you can bet the character/one or more of the group will go right instead, prompting the phrase, "Your other left!" (Or they correctly turn left, at which point the first character realizes that they actually meant to say "right" and tries to cover with the same phrase.)

If this doesn't happen, it's usually replaced with a confused exchange about "My left or your left?", even if the characters are facing the same way. [...] To be entirely fair, though, it's not like this doesn't actually happen with an alarming regularity in real life. We're just talking about its predictable appearances on TV. For some reason, it's always "your other left," never "your other right", even though you'd think both occur equally often in Real Life [...]. A likely explanation is that most people, being right handed/right dominant, will default to the right when confused, prompting "The other left". (tvtropes.com) (emph. mine)

So I like / love the energy of the answer, but primarily it's the energy of the answer that isn't actually there, the correct one, the "LEFT" one. And as for "WHAT ELSE IS LEFT?" ... it's a plausible question, yes, but it does quite crackle with slangy specificity of, say "WHAT ELSE IS NEW?" I actually wanted "WHAT ELSE IS THERE?" to go in here, but as with "YOUR OTHER LEFT," it just didn't fit. What I'm saying is that there's a nice colloquial feel here, but the whole "theme" angle ... it doesn't really feel like they nailed it. 

The NW corner is dull by comparison to the rest. I love RESCUE DOGs, but the NE corner isn't doing a hell of a lot either. Things get much more interesting down below—also a little trickier. I really had to hang on to my hat there at the end, with SLUICE sluicing down through *three* blank squares to complete the grid. I don't think of the LINK as the "invite"—it takes you *to* the invite, but the LINK itself doesn't really invite you. Never heard of PUPUSA but after reading about them (above) they're all I want to eat right now. As for Buck O'NEIL, once again I apologize to him for not knowing for sure if he's an -AL O'Neal or an -IL O'NEIL (also couldn't have told you for sure if he's a one-L O'NEIL or a two-L O'NEILL ("he's a beast!"). Blanked on LUNA, which seems absurd, in retrospect, since they're practically handing you the sun/moon thing in the clue (34D: Sibling of Sol, in Roman myth). Thought 11D: Cross was a verb and so had ANGER before ANGRY ... which doesn't even make sense, now that I think of it. If you cross someone, sure, they might get angry, but "to cross" doesn't mean "to anger." Sigh. Wanted TRASH FIRES before TIRE FIRES (54A: Utter disasters), since those are the metaphorical fires I've seen referred to most on social media this past decade, but TIRE FIRES are also metaphorical disasters, so thumbs up to that answer, as well as SPACE/TIME, immediately above it (51A: Warped fabric, it's said). 

Not sure why, but I'm finding "HI ALL!" an adorable (and original) little 5 (53A: Friendly start to a group email). Always nice to find a way to bring some fresh, conversational energy to short fill. And I like the clue on SLURPEE, in the sense that I like the idea of the central answer of the puzzle just making a really disruptive noise. All the artsy intellectual types and SOCIALITEs are sipping their ROSÉ and eating canapés off of TOOTHPICKs and there's probably, I don't know, some light classical playing, maybe an actual string quartet, and then in walks some leather-clad / torn-jeans rebel who plays by their own rules, fresh from the 7-11, and right in the middle of, let's say, Vivaldi's "Spring" — "SLURRRRRRRRRP!" Cue affronted glares from the liter- and glitter- and possibly even Twitterati. End scene. What, doesn't everyone create elaborate if hackneyed movie/TV scenes from the answers in their crosswords? Ah well. I yam what I yam (to quote a famous sailor, and a recent crossword). And with that, the [Early morning caller]s are calling, so it's time to take my coffee to the porch and say hello to them: Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Jazz great Laine / FRI 5-13-22 / Actress Sink of Stranger Things / Facts-as-fiction work / Costume that might start with a cardboard box / Blue book alternative / Word from the Dutch to talk nonsense / Didn't come through as promised in slang

Constructor: Brooke Husic and Nam Jin Yoon

Relative difficulty: Challenging 

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: SADIE Sink (54A: Actress Sink of "Stranger Things") —

Sadie Elizabeth Sink (born April 16, 2002) is an American actress and model. She portrayed Max Mayfield in the Netflix television series Stranger Things and Ziggy Berman in the Netflix horror film trilogy Fear Street. Sink has also worked on Broadway, with credits including Annie and The Audience. She also starred in Taylor Swift's All Too Well: The Short Film. (wikipedia)

• • •

These are two of my favorite constructors, so yes, I liked this puzzle. But I knew, or had a feeling, just from seeing their bylines that it was going to be hard. Brooke in particular has a penchant for making very hard puzzles (try one of her "experimental/challenging" puzzles here, at her puzzle site, if you dare). Anyway, I wasn't wrong—this was a Saturday, for sure. It made me think about what I like in a Friday vs. what I like in a Saturday. I guess it does basically come down to difficulty, but it's also sensation, which is to say, I like the whoosh whoosh feeling, the flow, the feeling of pure delight in zipping from section to section on a Friday. I like the puzzle to be clever, but in a generous way. In short, I'm just not so amenable to the all-over struggle on a Friday. On a Saturday, I expect it, and I enjoy it, especially when the struggle has big payoff (as today's puzzle does, here there and everywhere). But I had no sense of flow today. There were very few places where I was able to pick up any momentum. It felt like  almost Every clue had some element of misdirection. You lay off some of the clues in a Friday. You can hit 'em all on Saturday. This is my deeply personal and highly impressionistic take on the ideal Friday/Saturday distinction, off the top of my head, at 5:17 in the morning. You don't have to say "AMEN TO THAT." Or you can. Your choice.

What's good? Well, it's all good. I don't have all day. Usually, the highlights jump right out, so it's clear to me what's worth writing about. Today? Yeesh, close your eyes and drop your finger anywhere on the grid and you've got something. Here, let me try that exact strategy ... dang, I hit a black square, but it's near the bottom of HORSE RACES and "AMEN TO THAT!"—a fine pairing. I struggled with HORSE RACES even with HORSE in place because I thought the "stakes" were actual, material stakes (the kind of you put in the ground, like ... posts! Dammit, that's what I was thinking of. Posts! But no, "stakes" is just a name for a race, like the Belmont Stakes. I assume. Horse-racing, not my bailiwick. If you scoot one answer over from "AMEN TO THAT!" you get BOOTY CALL, which ... feels weirdly dated to me, now, as a concept, but man, what a clue (27D: Summons before congress?). Best "?" clue in the bunch. And crossing ADULT SITE, LOL, nice (52A: Blue book alternative) ("blue" has the sense of "erotic" here). I loved CRUSH HARD, though mostly I'm just proud I got CRUSH HARD. The HARD was a guess, but it sounded right to my ear, and it was, hurray! I liked PLAY HOOKY, which was one of the few places today where I saw *right* through the clue—being a college professor surely helped (7D: One way to avoid a lecture). The long hits keep coming with WEIRDS OUT, "ANY TAKERS?," etc. The hardest long answer for me was definitely ROMAN À CLEF (13A: Facts-as-fiction work). I was braced for anything there. Thought maybe it would be a specific work, or else some modern coinage dealing with, say, a subset of fanfic or other bit of onlinery that I was unfamiliar with. But no, not modern, old, and French. A very familiar (to me) literary genre. Just very hard to parse. 

More things:

• 9A: Creatures with asymmetrical ears for accuracy in hunting (OWLS) — me: ORCS
• 18A: World's best-selling contemporary female artist of all time, per Billboard magazine (DION) — as in "Celine." Bizarrely hard for me. I guess Celine now seems "bygone" to me, not "contemporary."

• 34A: Trinket (TCHOTCHKE) — huge spelling victory for me
• 17A: "Join the club!" ("AREN'T WE ALL?") — weirdly, very weirdly, the first thing I wanted here, given the crosses that I had in place, was "AMEN TO THAT!" (see 3D)
• 43A: Data head? (CIO) — Chief Information Officer (I have to keep reminding myself about the meaning of every C-O that is not a CEO)
• 55A: Say goodbye to many a 34-Across à la Marie Kondo (DECLUTTER) — the CLUTTER part was easy, but I went with UN-. That SW corner got a little tricky. Not sure it was such a good idea to put "Say" in this clue when the answer sits right on top of SAY (57A: Destiny Child's "___ My Name"). But most people probably didn't notice.
• 1D: Newmark with an eponymous list (CRAIG) — totally forgot about this guy until someone reminded me of him literally yesterday. And bam, here he is. The universe is manifesting! (I have no idea what I mean, please don't ask)
• 4D: Word from the Dutch for "talk nonsense" (RANT) — You: "Hmm, is it RANT or RAVE?" Me: "... EDAM?"
• 5D: "Claws" channel (TNT) — ban all TV channels, especially basic cable channels starting with "T." I just can't any more.  
• 36D: What a bee may be (CONTEST) — this is oddly phrased. "Bee" can mean "contest." But if you say "a bee" there is some idea that you have already determined what the bee is that you're discussing and that you are therefore looking for some feature *of* that bee. But if you had a (say) spelling bee in mind all along, then that ... is by definition a CONTEST ... so the "may be" feels wrong. Essentially, the clue is saying "Hey ... psst ... bee! ... do you know what kind of bee I'm talking about?" or "What can the word 'bee' mean?" Would've liked this clue better as [Bee, for one]. Less disingenuous. 
• 53D: Card display? (STL) — sorry to all the non-sportsers out there. This one probably hurt a little (the St. Louis Cardinals (or "Cards," if you like) are repped by the letters STL on scoreboards and on their caps sometimes)

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. I like the diagonal mirror symmetry on this one. Took me a while to notice it.

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Teng, singer dubbed "Asia's eternal queen of pop" / SAT 3-5-22 / Fictional device in which to convey secret information / Calvin and Hobbes character described as a six-year-old who shaves / Expression ending with a rising voice / Traditional filling for momo

Constructor: Nam Jin Yoon

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: momo (30D: Traditional filling for momo (Nepalese dumplings) (YAK)) —

Momo (Nepali: म:म:,Tibetan: མོག་མོག་, Wylie: mog mog, Ladakhi: མོག་མོག, Hindi: मोमो) is a type of dumpling primarily popular in and native to Nepal, Tibet and parts of India.  Momo can be found in the cuisines of Tibet, Nepal and India. It is similar to baozi, jiaozi and mantou in Chinese cuisine, buuz in Mongolian cuisine, gyoza in Japanese cuisine, mandu in Korean cuisine and manti in Afghan cuisines. (wikipedia)

• • •

Is this my favorite constructor? I wouldn't really be comfortable picking just one. There are so many talented constructors working right now (particularly at the New Yorker and the American Values Club Crossword, as well many independent outlets), that it would be hard to say definitively, yes, this one constructor is my favorite. But as far as people who have bylines that appear at least semi-regularly in the NYTXW, I would, tentatively, say yes, Nam Jin Yoon is my favorite, despite the fact that he's been constructing for only a few years. Maybe *because* of that fact. There's a freshness, a life in his puzzles that genuinely crackles, and somehow he's able to marry that energy to a very careful and thoughtful craftsmanship. They feel like the work of a young visionary and an old veteran, simultaneously. They are youthful without that extreme "look at me being youthful!" try-hardness that comes from over-reliance on generation-specific proper nouns—though he's not afraid to throw new (to-the-grid) proper nouns at you, that's for sure. It's just that it seems like he wants you to get them, wants you to learn the names, and the foods, wants you to appreciate them. This feeling of "welcome" comes from balance, from moving the cultural and generational focus of your puzzles allllll over the map, as well as from making sure that relative obscurities and less famous names don't pile up in the same section. Again, that's craft. There's a sense of play and humor in the grids that is unmistakable and irresistible. I think anyone aspiring to make themeless puzzles should study the work of Nam Jin Yoon (even though there's not a ton of it to study yet!). I wish he would turn his hand to themed puzzles and see what he can do with them. Because he has the potential to be one of the greats. Like, Patrick Berry- / Liz Gorski- / Merl Reagle-great. Next time you wonder "Gee, Rex, don't you like *any* puzzles?," first, stop, I like a lot of puzzles, and second, just search "Nam Jin Yoon" on my blog. Hasn't missed yet.

[11D: ___ Teng, singer dubbed "Asia's eternal queen of pop"]

Despite nailing MOSS MOI ONES STOIC and SODOI right out of the gate, and despite knowing that 3D: Halter? was going to mean "one who halts," I could not come up with SENTRY, in part because I wanted DITTO (?) at 20A: "Uh-huh" ("RIGHT"). Without SENTRY or RIGHT or FLIGHT things just kind of broke down. Luckily I didn't have to look far to find a new starting point. HOYA was a total gimme. And then, off the "Y," I got TYRANNY (21D: Rule to take exception to). And that was all I needed to get well and truly moving—catapulted into the grid by HOYA TYRANNY! After that, I worked my way to the bottom of the grid, like so:

After that, the solve went into another gear, and a real Friday energy took over. Kinetic energy. Exhilaration. Zing zoom. Because at this point I had not yet tapped into the longer answers. But once I did: whoosh. The grid structure—a gorgeous mirror symmetry on the diagonal—allows the answers to flow really nicely one into the next. No dank corners, no dead ends. I enjoyed spinning and swirling around the unusually shaped grid. And while I enjoyed this puzzle from start to finish, and there are many highlights, nothing beat this absolutely apex solving moment:

I don't know if that clue is Will's or Nam Jin's or what, but it is really something to see a "?" clue elevate an already great answer like that. Just the perfect misdirection. Ridiculously clever. And immediately after this: CONE OF SILENCE! And then a final fall to the finish via the cascading CRÈME DE LA CRÈME and FORGET ABOUT IT! This puzzle knows it's the CRÈME DE LA CRÈME and no, you should not FORGET ABOUT IT. You should remember.

Some stuff:

• 30D: Traditional filling for momo (Nepalese dumplings) (YAK) — had the "YA-" and so filled my dumplings with YAM. This made NIKOLA the hardest answer to get in the puzzle By Far (39A: Tesla, for one). "NIM- ... NIMBLE? Was Tesla NIMBLE?"
• 7D: Chancellor Scholz of Germany (OLAF) — I have committed this OLAF fact to memory half a dozen times now, just since Scholz took power last year, and not a one of those half a dozen times has stuck. Really hard for my brain to get a name I'm convinced is Norwegian to stick to a German chancellor. I'll keep trying.
• 37D: Reversible patterned fabrics (DAMASKS) — a word I know exclusively from Shakespeare (and crosswords of course). "I have seen them damasked white and red..." It's from "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun," that sonnet. Hang on ... whoops, misremembered the quote. It's "I have seen roses damask'd, red and white." Here's the whole thing (Sonnet 130):

• 8D: Easily bought (VENAL) — I get this confused with VENIAL. This happened just the other day when I was trying to sort the distinction between Cardinal Sin and VENIAL Sin. I always want the sin to be VENAL, because if you're susceptible to bribery, well, that seems pretty sinful. But VENIAL stems from venia (L. "forgiveness"), while VENAL stems from venum (L. "thing for sale"). Oh, look, Merriam-Webster has a little essay all about this particular confusion:

• 46A: Like a dewlap (SAGGY) — a final salute to this puzzle for hiding little bits of joy in unexpected places; in this case, for working "dewlap" into the clue for SAGGY and then crossing it with IGUANA—a famously and extravagantly dewlapped creature (42D: Animal that climbs cactuses to eat their flowers). Bravo.

See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Blades used in Kill Bill / SAT 12-4-21 / Deadly household appliance according to Korean urban legend / Trousers named for an Asian country / Some transcript omissions / Classical music tradition from Hindustan

Constructor: Nam Jin Yoon

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (will vary highly depending on your knowledge of the proper nouns, or lack thereof)

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Scoville scale (53A: They rate very high on the Scoville scale => HABANEROS) —

The Scoville scale is a measurement of the pungency (spiciness or "heat") of chili peppers, as recorded in Scoville Heat Units (SHU), based on the concentration of capsaicinoids, among which capsaicinis the predominant component. The scale is named after its creator, American pharmacist Wilbur Scoville, whose 1912 method is known as the Scoville organoleptic test. The Scoville organoleptic test is the most practical method for estimating SHU and is a subjective assessment derived from the capsaicinoid sensitivity by people experienced with eating hot chilis. [...] In the Scoville organoleptic test, an exact weight of dried pepper is dissolved in alcohol to extract the heat components (capsaicinoids), then diluted in a solution of sugar water. Decreasing concentrations of the extracted capsaicinoids are given to a panel of five trained tasters, until a majority (at least three) can no longer detect the heat in a dilution. The heat level is based on this dilution, rated in multiples of 100 SHU. [...] A weakness of the Scoville organoleptic test is its imprecision due to human subjectivity, depending on the taster's palate and number of mouth heat receptors, which vary widely among people. Another weakness is sensory fatigue; the palate is quickly desensitized to capsaicinoids after tasting a few samples within a short time period. Results vary widely (up to ± 50%) between laboratories.

• • •

I like a puzzle that reviews itself at 1-Across. I like the confidence. If I had to nominate a Themeless Constructor of the Year, which thankfully I don't, Nam Jin Yoon would be it. He appeared suddenly, as if from nowhere (which I guess is how most novice constructors appear to most of us), and immediately started laying down perfect puzzles. I don't think I've done anything but rave about everything he has put out. His grids are clever, playful, clean, and ... yes, like I said up front, confident. The level of polish on his grids puts most other constructors to shame. The only thing that made me grumble even briefly was ETS, and that's only because they went with the standardized testing corporation (boo) instead of actual extraterrestrials (always go with the aliens, man). That's it. That was the height of my dissatisfaction. Otherwise, I had no ASKANCE glances for this one. For starters, there's the unusual grid, the unusualness of which maybe you don't notice at first. That giant NW corner, where three 9s run into three other 9s, is not echoed in the SW corner ... that's because you don't have conventional rotational symmetry. Instead, you've got mirror symmetry along the NW-to-SE diagonal, making the NW a kind of fat arrowhead of white space, or the giant head of some odd bird. It's whimsical and I love it, both for its look and for the overall feeling of *flow* that it allows. You can zoom around this grid; even when you get stuck, as I did repeatedly, you never get trapped. Plus, the difficulty comes largely from genuine clever cluing and SLY misdirection as opposed to niche trivia. Now, I say this as someone who knew all the "trivia" cold: HENRI de Toulouse-Lautrec and ANDIE MacDowell and ELLE WOODS and Elena KAGAN and H.G. WELLS. It all felt like general knowledge to me. The one moment where I was very aware of having a slight advantage over certain (non sports-fan) solvers was at ELIAS Sports Bureau, keeper of STATS. I know them from my erstwhile baseball fandom, but they're the official keeper of stats for the NBA, NFL, and other pro leagues as well. So that answer was slightly niche, and knowing it double-helped the same way that not knowing it probably double-hurt. But mostly, this puzzle felt warm and open and welcoming and inclusive. 

My local CYBER CAFE, now no more...

The puzzle just handed me a bunch of answers, which is the one substantial aspect of the solve that I almost want to fault it for. BORN AGAIN was a gimme. ANDIE, HENRI, ELLEWOODS, SADE, all gimmes. The sheer volume of handouts meant that I was never in danger of getting truly stuck. But while it's true that being on the easy side always makes a puzzle a little easier to love, this puzzle has far more to offer than mere doability. Wide-ranging fill, tricky clues, right on-the-money colloquial phrases ("SAY NO MORE" "NOTE TO SELF..."). I don't know what more you want. 

I started this one out with a miss. Wrote in BOIL at 5D: Sterilize, in a way (SPAY). I knew 20A: Overdrawn account? was going to involve some kind of tale or story, but I couldn't get there with BOIL in place. I ended up inferring KISS at the end of 1A: [Perfection!], used that to get KAGAN, then saw BORN AGAIN, and the whole corner just bloomed from there. Wanted SKIMPED before STINTED (8D: Wasn't generous) (lots of shared letters) but that didn't slow me down much. After that, the only part of the grid that had me even semi-stuck came down below, when I wanted NO PET instead of NO FEE at 61A: Like many apartment rentals. I haven't rented an apartment in forever so I don't really understand the concept here. I don't remember paying fees for my rentals. Anyway, the crosses for FEE (where I had PET) were "?" clue followed by "?" clue (53D: Printmaker? followed by 41D: Masked warning?), so I floundered slightly. But only slightly. There are just too many opportunities for toeholds in this one. I had DROLL before DRYLY (47D: Deadpan), but not much else went wrong. Hardest answer for me, weirdly, was SIT-IN (43A: March alternative). I just ... couldn't find the right meaning of "March," and even -ITI- wasn't helping me. At all. I was stuck in the realm of music. Or months. Or "Little Women." Military-type walking occurred to me, but the protest angle just didn't surface at all. Sometimes our struggles seem head-shakingly bizarre in retrospect.

What else?

• I enjoyed writing in AC/DC, briefly scuttling it for ABBA, and then returning to AC/DC at 23D: Rock group whose name came from letters found on a sewing machine. I think band-themed sewing machines could spawn a sewing revival. I know I'd want an ABBA sewing machine, especially if it played music. "If you change your mind / I'm the first in line / Honey I'm still free / Sew some pants on me"
• I did not know CHINOS had anything to do with an "Asian country." I think I thought CHINOS had something to do with the fabric (??). Had no idea they were named after Laos.
• A DÍA is a Spanish day, and there are many Spanish days in a Spanish month (in this case, the moth of May: mayo) (33A: Bit of mayo?)
• An INDEX "points" you to where you want to go in the book (18A: List of pointers)
• The BASES are highly unlikely to be "loaded with singles," especially not in today's game, where singles are increasingly rare, but maybe the clue wanted me to think wallets. Or bars. Anyway, it's baseball (45D: They might be loaded with singles)
• Love the clue on ERS, a bit of unlikeable fill made interesting by an unexpected (and misdirective) clue. I thought the "transcripts" were related to student records, but they're court transcripts, where the uhs and ums and ERS are sometimes omitted I guess.

Enjoy your Saturday.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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