Twitch streamer with a digital avatar say / THU 8-24-23 / Green booking / Theater section for Statler and Waldorf on "The Muppet Show" / 2016 title role for Auli'i Cravalho / Liqueur in some coffee cocktails familiarly

Constructor: Robin Yu

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: ROLLING BLACKOUTS (34A: Temporary, controlled power shutdown ... or a hint to reading four of this puzzle's answers) — the word OUT is represented by a BLACK circle-like dealie with an arrow in it. You have to imagine the word "OUT" in that space and then follow the arrow into and out of that space in order to make sense of four theme answers:

Theme answers:

• WENT OUT THE WINDOW (2D: Suddenly fell through, as a plan)
• VOTER OUTREACH (14A: Campaign to increase Election Day participation)
• EMOTIONAL OUTLETS (53A: Activities that relieve psychological stress)
• SWEPT OUT TO SEA (43D: Carried away by the tide)

Word of the Day: René Lalique (12A: Style of René Lalique's glasswork = DECO) —

René Jules Lalique (6 April 1860 – 1 May 1945) was a French jeweller, medallist, and glass designer known for his creations of glass art, perfume bottles, vases, jewellery, chandeliers, clocks, and automobile hood ornaments.[...] Lalique was best known for his creations in glass art. In the 1920s, he became noted for his work in the Art Deco style. He was responsible for the walls of lighted glass and elegant coloured glass columns which filled the dining room and "grand salon" of the SS Normandie and the interior fittings, cross, screens, reredos and font of St. Matthew's Church at Millbrook in Jersey (Lalique's "Glass Church"). As part of the Art Nouveau style, many of his jewellery pieces and vases showcase plants, flowers and flowing lines.

Both unique and commercial works of René Lalique are in the collections of a large number of public museums around the world including the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian in Lisbon, the Lalique Museum of Hakone in Japan, the Musée Lalique [fr] and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in France, the Schmuckmuseum Pforzheim [de] in Germany, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Metropolitan Museum and the Corning Museum in New York State, and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. (wikipedia)

• • •

Big thank-you to Linda Holmes for (inadvertently) alerting me to the fact that my downloaded puzzle grid did not have the visual element needed to make sense of the theme. My grid just looked standard, so ... you know, I finished, and I "got" it ("OUT"s have been "blacked out") but I didn't get it get it, in that the "ROLLING" part made absolutely no sense. When I opened the puzzle at the NYT Games site and saw what the grid was supposed to look like, I had an "...oh" (as opposed to an "aha!") moment. As in "Oh ... yes, that is very visually literal, that is." I wonder if the arrows made it easier to solve. It was pretty darned easy without them. Anyway, my main feeling about puzzles that rely heavily on physical alterations of the grid for their impact is something less than joy. I can see how the visuals break up the visual monotony of most crossword grids, but I dunno, today, the little swirlies just don't do much for me. Well, they didn't do anything for me, as we've established, but seeing them after the fact did not make me think I'd've enjoyed the puzzle a whole lot more if I'd had them. The theme is fine. It's mildly interesting that in each case, the "OUT" is sandwiched, in its phrase, between a word that ends in "X" letter and a word that begins with "X" letter. Not literally the letter "X"—that would be truly astounding! But you know what I mean. WENT crosses THE at the "T," VOTER crosses REACH at the "R," etc. Doesn't really add anything to solving enjoyment, but it's a nice little flourish. But I think the only thematic energy coming from this puzzle is decorative. You see that grid and go "whoa!" ... and then you've got sort of a ho-hum solving experience on your hands.

[Sorry, I know I post this video every time "black" or "out" is thematically

relevant, but its "F&%^-you!" energy is just irresistible to me]

The fill is a mixed bag. A mixed TOTE BAG, filled with some goodies (DONE DEAL, GOING GAGA, and OPERA BOX (esp. as clued)) and some baddies (really hard to work up any love for ECOHOTEL or VTUBER). Beyond the theme, there is nothing especially tricky or difficult about today's puzzle. And the thematic trick wasn't that tricky to begin with so ... the puzzle is weak in the trick department. Undertricked, I feel. The only things I struggled with were dumb little details like "ugh, is is EEO or EOE?" I wish I had more to say about the fill, but it's rather straightforward. I wrote in DADA before DECO, that was fun. What would DADA glasswork even look like? It was interesting to learn that Jimmy Carter's Secret Service code name was DEACON. I was just telling my wife yesterday that that is what I want to call our next dog. Then I could call him "Deke" or "DEACON Jones" or "DEACON Blues" or "DEACON King Kong" or "Total Deke-lipse of the Heart" or if he's mellow maybe "Dekaf" etc. The possibilities are endless. My wife is currently favoring "Vienna," but I told her we'd just end up singing Ultravox's "Vienna" to her all the time, and that might get boring—though if I sang it in the dog’s voice, that might be fun: (extreme emo dog voice) "The feeling is gone / Only you and I / It means nothing to meeeeeeee / This toy means nothing to meeeeeeee / IIIIII'm Viennaaaaaaaaaa!" I mean, that could work. But I'm still Team DEACON. 

Explainers:

• 41A: News stand? (OP-ED) — a piece that takes a "stand" in a "news"paper. That's kinda cute.
• 21D: Something that's designed to be buggy? (WEB) — Yes, spiders do "design" their webs in order to catch "bugs," so that works.
• 24A: House of reps? (GYM) — best of the "?" clues, for sure. You do reps at the gym. Nice legislative pun.
• 48A: Foil, e.g. (SWORD) — a "foil" is a fencing SWORD, 
• 31A: Exactamundo (BANG ON) — this one clanked. I think of BANG-ON as a fairly ordinary expression, whereas I think of "Exactamundo" as something I've only ever heard Fonzie say. The "word"—in my experience—exists only in the Fonziverse. Nowhere else. Also, it's an exclamation, not an adjective. This clue is very un-Fonzie-like, i.e. uncool

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Sci-fi cult classic of 1974 / THU 4-13-23 / Romantic music genre originating in the Dominican Republic / Dutch astronomer with an eponymous cloud / Onetime auto replaced by the Chevrolet Aveo / Trendy and overconfident slangily

Constructor: Robin Yu

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging? Hard then Easyish? Somewhere in there...

THEME: TOO LITTLE TOO LATE (65A: Not enough, and without the urgency, to make a difference ... or a literal hint to 18-, 30-, 38- and 48-Across) — familiar phrases that begin with "TOO," where the word "TOO" is "little" (i.e. crammed into one box) and appears "late" in the answer (i.e. at the end instead of the beginning):

Theme answers:

• CLOSE FOR COMFORT (TOO) (18A: Dangerously near)
• HOT TO HANDLE (TOO) (30A: Like a controversial political issue, maybe)
• COOL FOR SCHOOL (TOO) (38A: Trendy and overconfident, slangily)
• "LEGIT TO QUIT (TOO)" (48A: Triple-platinum 1991 Hammer album)

The "TOO"s:

• ARTOO-DETOO (14D: Film character whose lines were all bleeped out?)
• TOOTIN' (43D: "Yer darn ___!")
• TOOLBOX (53D: Place for a screwdriver)

Word of the Day: "DARK STAR" (7D: Sci-fi cult classic of 1974) —

Dark Star is a 1974 American science fiction comedy film directed and produced by John Carpenter and co-written with Dan O'Bannon. It follows the crew of the deteriorating starship Dark Star, twenty years into their mission to destroy unstable planets that might threaten future colonization of other planets.

Beginning as a University of Southern California student film produced from 1970 to 1972, it was gradually expanded to feature-length until it appeared at Filmex in 1974, and subsequently received a limited theatrical release in 1975. Its final budget is estimated at $60,000. While initially unsuccessful with audiences, it was relatively well received by critics, and continued to be shown in theaters as late as 1980. The home video revolution of the early 1980s helped the movie achieve "cult classic" status; O'Bannon collaborated with home video distributor VCI in the production of releases on VHS, LaserDisc, DVD, and eventually Blu-ray.

Dark Star was Carpenter's feature directorial debut; he also scored the film. It was the feature debut for O'Bannon, who also served as editor, production designer, and visual effects supervisor, and appeared as Sergeant Pinback. (wikipedia)

• • •

I went from howling "how am I supposed to know that!?" at BACHATA to howling, louder, "how is anyone but me supposed to know that!?" at "DARK STAR." LOL, how many of you have seen or even heard of "DARK STAR"? I actually watched it recently, but the only reason I even knew it existed was because it was one of the first movies featured on Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary's podcast "Video Archives," which started just last summer, and which I listen to semi-religiously. I just want you to know that at the same moment I was thrilled to see that movie in the grid, I was thinking of alllll of you who would be going "what ... the ... hell is that???," and I sympathized. Hopefully, the crosses were helpful enough to get you through. As they were for me and BACHATA (27D: Romantic music genre originating in the Dominican Republic), though man was I sweating that last letter (i.e. which for me was the first letter, the "B," which seemed like it could've been annnnnything, until SNOB became undeniable). But I've gotten ahead of myself a little here (this is what happens when you finish up with a one-two punch like BACHATA / "DARK STAR"). Let's back up and take a look at the theme, which is the highlight of every Thursday, the day when themeness is typically at its most complicated and flashy. Actually, let me talk about how I stumbled into the theme, which involved a bizarre path through the grid that had me getting the revealer first. After fumbling around a bit up top I took the TAO wormhole (i.e. followed the cross-reference in the clue 31D: "The way," per 48-Down) down to LAO-TSE, who I knew was going to be the answer at 48-Down (even if I wasn't entirely sure which spelling I was going to be dealing with; sometimes you see -TZU, I think...). Once I got down there in the SW, it was like a different puzzle—the whole corner went in super-easily, which gave me the front end of that last themer, which was actually the revealer. So this was me, very early in the solve:

Sometimes, on Thursdays, it can be extremely helpful to attack the revealer first (assuming the puzzle has one), and today was Definitely one of those days. I have no idea what it must've been like to descend the grid  from top to bottom, trying to make sense of the themers. Maybe it was easy—the answers themselves are pretty straightforward. There's just that little hitch in how you enter them in the grid. I don't know how much not knowing the gimmick would've made those answers hard. But I can tell you that having the revealer in place gave me an 'aha' real quick. I had the front end of "Too Legit to Quit," and knew the album title very well, so I could see the "TOO" was just ... missing. I figured maybe TOO LITTLE ... was telling me that "TOO" was so little it ... disappeared? And that was the lovely little revelation in this one. "TOO" wasn't gone, it was just "little" and "late." I had tried to make sense of the whole MALIK / ALMOND area and was getting nowhere when I realized "oh! TOO goes in that last square after "LEGIT TO QUIT," so it's ... (TOO)LBOX!" (53D: Place for a screwdriver). And then it was off to the races. I could put "TOO" at the end of every themer, then mentally supply it at the beginning of every themer to figure out what the answer was. Cake walk, all the way back to the top of the grid for the little AR(TOO)-DE(TOO) rebus double whammy.

So, by total accident, I ended up getting the revealer first, and that made all the difference. Gave me a nice push, and then Hammer gave a nice big "aha!," and then things sped up, moving toward the big BACHATA / "DARK STAR" finale. Super-strangely, the last square I entered was the square in the far NW corner, i.e. the square that's so often the first to go in (today, the "P" in "PAC-Man"). Because of my accidental path, I loved how this one unfolded, and the core gimmick is exactly the kind of bonkers that I enjoy. You've got a word that's both moving and shrinking, and a revealer phrase that expresses all of it perfectly. Plus, the grid is spicy enough to hold your interest between the thematic bits. I may be the first person ever to call the GEO METRO "spicy," but damn if I don't love the way that stupid bygone car name looks in the grid (3D: Ontetime auto replaced by the Chevrolet Aveo). Overall, a very nice Thursday puzzle.

[For some reason, while the Hammer *song* was stylized as "2 Legit 2 Quit," the album title had "Too" and "To" written out normally (as the puzzle has it)]

Trouble spots included, most notably, COMFITS, which ... honestly, I don't really know what that is (25D: Candied fruits and nuts). I think of COMFIT as a kind of jelly? Sauce? Like "duck COMFIT," is that something? Oh shoot, that's CONFIT. Anyway, yikes and yikes, COMFITS ... don't see that word very often. Needed every cross. MONOXIDES also meant nothing to me (71A: Some compound gases), though that one was somewhat easier to infer (eventually). Had to wait on the second vowel in MALIK because I thought maybe MALYK (there's a "Y" in "Zayn" so why not one in "Malyk"?) (58D: Singer Zayn). The only parts I didn't really like were -PEDE (a terrible standalone suffix) and RETAPE, which isn't the worst answer I've ever seen, but it's not a good answer, and you should not put tricksy "?" clues on your clearly not-good answers, because now I just have to spend more time struggling with your not-good answers, which only serves to highlight their not-goodness (13D: Take over?). Plus "take" just feels too close (!) to "tape" here for the "joke" to be any good. Otherwise, loved this one, thumbs-up, would solve again. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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