Does drudgery old-style / FRI 1-27-23 / Active volcano near Peru's dormant Pichu Pichu / Morally repulsive, in slang / Classic arcade game in which players can be on fire / Burns poem that opens "Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie"

Constructor: Joe Deeney

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: is that a theme? let's say "no" 

Word of the Day: LIANE Moriarty (51A: Moriarty who wrote "Nine Perfect Strangers") —

Liane Moriarty (born 15 November 1966) is an Australian author. She has written nine novels, including the New York Times best sellers Big Little Lies and Nine Perfect Strangers, which were adapted into television series for HBO and Hulu, respectively. (wikipedia)

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Well this was a huge miss on two levels. The only flashy long answers were the paired answers, up top and below, and those pairs look like a very bad attempt at a mini-theme. An actor and his movie, and then a musician and her ... album?  How ... why? Because each pair consists of cross-referenced answers, it really really looks like the puzzle wants you to see a parallel, but it's a wonky, clanky, just plain off parallel, made more confusing by the fact that JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE is also (like ALANIS MORISSETTE) a singer ... If "JAGGED LITTLE PILL" had been [some movie starring Alanis], that would've been interesting, or at least ... parallel. I don't know what this is. It's also just straightforward trivia—nothing interesting at all about the way those answers are clued. "THE SOCIAL NETWORK" clue (15A: 2010 biodrama co-starring 18-Across) is much much vaguer than the very obvious "JAGGED LITTLE PILL" clue (56A: 1995 alternative rock album by 59-Across that is one of the best-selling albums of all time), but still, they're both basic, plain-old, no-frills, ordinary facts-based clues. Ho-hum. So ... take the four marquee answers, try to get cute, and wreck the whole thing, that seems to have been the plan here. The grid is 16 wide, so those longer answers at least give you *more* puzzle, I guess, if you're into that. I just don't get it. Don't get why this attempt at thematically parallel stacks was deemed interesting at all. Hit your mark or just don't do the thing. 

The second, much more unbelievable level on which this puzzle missed is in duping "TRY." That is the worst, most flagrantly negligent dupe I've seen ... well, I don't know, I don't actually keep track, but it was stunning. I had "I TRY" (that fake-humble answer that just won't go away) (10D: "Just doing my job") and so when I wandered down to the bottom of the grid and saw -TRY at the end of an answer, I thought "well that must be something like VESTRY or TAPESTRY or CIRCUITRY or CARPENTRY or RE-ENTRY..." but no. No. There is "I TRY" up top, and then there is "NICE TRY" down below (40D: "It was worth a shot"). This is a new level of editorial "I Don't Give A ****." It's not like either answer is so good. Maybe if the answers were longer, and absolutely sizzling, you could get away with this. Also, you can dupe little words like prepositions and articles and prepositions and get away with it. No one's gonna notice that stuff too much. But a verb. And not a linking verb, either—a regular verb. And not even a different form or tense of the verb. Just "TRY" and ... "TRY." I've had grids sent back for revision because of dupes that were far, far less egregious than this one. Every constructor has had the experience of building a grid and completely missing that they have a dupe. You've got a grid that works, you're happy with it, and then after you've had some sleep, you come back to it and realize, "damn, I've got CHEESE in there twice" (an extreme hypothetical, admittedly). And they you *fix it*. The fact that it got left in and the editors test-solvers etc. were like "meh, sure," that is Disappointing. That second TRY ... well, it belies the sentiments of the first TRY, I'll tell you that much. I do not believe that this puzzle, in fact, tried.

I liked "TO A MOUSE" (12D: Burns poem that opens "Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie") and I liked that it crossed LOUSY, since Burns also wrote "TO A LOUSE" (more specifically, "To a Louse, On Seeing one on a Lady's Bonnet at Church"). There were no tough parts today except for names, and those weren't that hard. LIANE and LESLEA (only semi-familiar) both had simple crosses. I had a couple of hesitations were initial letters looked wrong. CNT- up front on 16D: Tallest free-standing structure in the Western Hemisphere (CN TOWER) and EON- up front on 38A: Big source of entertainment news (E-ONLINE). Parsing those was mildly fun. Wrote in CREAMY before realizing that was the the same as, not an "alternative to" smooth (where peanut butter is concerned) (2D: Alternative to smooth, at the grocery = CHUNKY). Couldn't remember the final vowel on EL MISTI so just waited for the cross to help me out (8D: Active volcano near Peru's dormant Pichu Pichu). Had SKEEVY before SKEEZY (14D: Morally repulsive, in slang), which, crossing FONZ (25A: 1970s-'80s TV character to whom the phrase "jumped the shark" originally referred), was maybe my favorite part of the grid. The FONZ was a little SKEEZY, in retrospect, much as I loved him as a kid. He snaps and women run obediently to his side? His "office" is a diner bathroom? I dunno. Something not right there. Oh no, I just noticed that in addition to TRY, the puzzle duped SEE as well (SEES FIT, SEE YA!) so I have to stop before I notice other unpleasant things. Oh, one last thing, I had HOO- at 34D: Ruffian and wrote in HOODLUM ... but it wouldn't fit, which I found baffling. "How many HOO- words for tough guys can there b- ... oh" (HOOLIGAN).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. IOTAS are "characters" because they are letters in the Greek alphabet (10A: Characters in the "Iliad"?). I'm not even sure that clue needs a "?"

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Gradually develop literally / THU 1-26-23 / Southwest city in 1947 news / Trademarked coffee holder / Opposite of dry to a vintner / Punished for the weekend maybe / Developing phenomenon literally depicted three times in this puzzle

Constructor: Dan Ziring and Quiara Vasquez

Relative difficulty: Challenging

THEME: SNOWBALL EFFECTS (33A: Developing phenomena literally depicted three times in this puzzle) — three Across answers unfold gradually, box by box, with letters accruing in each box, one letter at a time, so instead of GROW, written in the grid at 1A: Gradually develop, literally, you get "G" and then "GR" and then "GRO" and *then* "GROW"—so it's a kind of rebus, with multiple letters in all non-initial boxes for all related theme answers:

Theme answers:

• GROW (G/GR/GRO/GROW)
• Downs = GRAMPS (1D: Pop-pop) / GRANARY (2D: Farm storehouse) / GROUNDED (3D: Punished for the weekend, perhaps) / GROWLERS (4D: Beer containers)
• FORM (F/FO/FOR/FORM)
• Downs = FAKER (10D: Total phony) / FORCEPS (11D: Some surgical tools) / FORTUNES (12D: Enormous amounts to spend) / "FOR MY PART..." (13D: "As far as I'm concerned ...")
• SWELL (S/SW/SWE/SWEL/SWELL)
• Downs = ETS (47D: Fabled visitors to 49-Down, in brief) / SWEET (55D: Opposite of dry, to a vintner) / SWEATY (56D: Evidencing physical exertion) / SWELTER (57D: Suffer in the summer heat) / ROSWELL (49D: Southwest city in 1947 news)

 Word of the Day: CAPRI SUN (40D: Big name in juice pouches) —

Capri Sun (UK: /ˈkæpri/, US: /kəˈpriː/, stylized as CAPRISUN in the United States and Capri-Sun internationally) is a German brand of juice concentrate drinks owned by Capri Sun Group Holding in Germany, which is a privately held company of Hans-Peter Wild. It was introduced in 1969 and named after the Italian island of Capri. Capri Sun has been distributed in the United States since 1981. [...] The standard box is filled with ten 200-millilitre (7 US fl oz) pouches of liquid. In the U.S., Capri-Sun pouches are now 180 ml (6 US fl oz); previously they were 240 ml (8 US fl oz). The pouch is trapezoidal in profile when filled and rectangular when flat, with a flared bottom that makes the pouch able to stand upright when placed on a horizontal surface. A straw is supplied with each individual pouch. [...] In 2014, after continued pressure to fix what consumers described as worm-shaped food mold in Capri Sun pouches, Kraft released a clear bottomed pouch to allow consumers to better inspect the product before consumption. Additionally, the non-recyclable packaging has spurred environmental groups to pressure Kraft into redesigning their iconic pouch.

• • •

Oh, wow, it is too e ea ear earl early for this, man. Hell of a puzzle to throw at me on the morning when I have the least amount of time to solve & write! I guess my wish for "harder puzzles" finally came true in a not-gradually-developing way. Just bam, here's the hardest puzzle you've seen in months, enjoy! Well ... I did enjoy it, so there. I would've enjoyed it more if I hadn't felt the tick tock of my morning solving/blogging window fading away as I was solving, but that's not the puzzle's fault. The one thing this puzzle did provide was a genuine "aha" moment that was so long-coming and pent up that I think it came in the form of a semi-audible "oh my god" moment. This moment, right here:

[LOL 51-Across, "LEO" doesn't even fit, my god I was out of it]

I actually filled in this corner and then erased back to this initial moment so I could screenshot it. I wanted to capture the precise moment of revelation. so that you will understand why ... I didn't actually understand the theme completely, even after the "oh my god!" I just assumed that the "snowball effect" had to do with the Downs—that is, I thought that with where the theme answers were concerned, each subsequent Down cross picked up one more letter on its front end. So ... essentially, the Across was just rounding the corner a bunch of times. I was not cramming multiple letters into squares, I was assuming that the letters just flowed from the start of the Across and dropped down. It never occurred to me to put multiple letters in a square. Here, I'll try to demonstrate what *I* thought the theme was doing using arrows:

From where I was standing / solving, those Downs (above) all started at the "F" and then proceeded across and *rounded the corner*, dropping and finishing where they finish. There was no question of multiple squares in a box, just a matter of walking that Across answer over and Down. Turns out my understanding of the theme works perfectly ... and then suddenly, one time, doesn't. That time: ROSWELL (49D: Southwest city in 1947 news). I ended up, at the very end, staring at ROL and wondering how on god's green earth that was supposed to work. Never occurred to me that it was a themer. And when, finally, it *did* strike me as a themer, I couldn't make it square with the rest of the Down themers, *all* of which followed the drop-down pattern I was seeing in my head (and on my screen). Only after hitting "reveal all" did I see that my grid was correct enough: I had all the "right" answers, but was entering those three Across themers "wrong." I was supposed to be rebusing the Acrosses, adding one letter at a time to each subsequent box. I never do that with regular rebuses (when I'm actually solving, I just type the first letter and let it stand for the whole, and the app usually accepts that). So ... yeah, it didn't play great on screen, and it's super duper Duper weird that my understanding of how the theme unfolded worked for every involved answer but one (12 out of 13!). Would've been nice (helpful!) to mix it up a bit, have a few more of those Downs that enter from the top. Would've made what was going on clearer (maybe). But I still think that this is a brilliant conceit and that the execution is mostly masterful.

OK, very quickly, as this has taken way too long to solve and explain. The fill was good but they did not ease up on the difficulty in order to offset the theme difficulty. You got hard, vague clues for simple stuff like AIR (7D: Put on) (who wrote in "DON"?). I had ROO instead of SYD (for Sydney, Australia) and SALAD before BASIL (31A: Leaves in the kitchen?) and was really really not sure of the SCALAR / AYS / CHATTER nexus (25D: Quantity contrasted with a vector, in physics / 44A: Shakespearean cries (are they?) / 46A: Chinwagging). There was no part of this grid that I flew through. I was so so grateful to know CAPRI SUN today. It was the end of the solve and it had been such an ordeal and I got to that SE corner and thought "what fresh hell awaits?" and then CAPRI SUN was like "nah, I got you, come on in." And the puzzle was over. Well, I had to hit "reveal grid" to fully understand, but ... yeah, over. Hope you survived!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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