Shift from one dialect to another, depending on the social context / TV host with the autobiography "Born a Crime" / Animal wearing red pajamas in a children's book / Pioneer who lent his name to six U.S. counties / World capital once behind the Iron Curtain

Constructor: Erik Agard

Relative difficulty: Easy (6:25)

THEME: "Stoners' Film Festival" — phrases containing both words that can be interpreted as pot-related and words that can be interpreted as movie-related are hilariously interpreted as such

Theme answers:

• PUFF PIECES (23A: Stoner movies?)
• POT SHOTS (30A: Components of stoner movies?)
• HIGH DRAMA (43A: Tension in a stoner movie?)
• SMOKE BOMB (46A: Stoner movie that flops at the box office?)
• JOINT RESOLUTION (62A: Ending of a stoner movie?)
• ROLLING IN / THE AISLES (82A / 84A: Like an audience during a stoner movie?)
• BAKED HAM (98A: Bad actor in a stoner movie?)
• DIRECT HITS (107A: Be behind the camera for a blockbuster stoner movie?)

Word of the Day: NOSRAT (Samin ___, best-selling cookbook author) —

Samin Nosrat (Persian: ثمین نصرت‎, /səˈmin ˈnʌsrɑːt/, born November 7, 1979) is an American chef and food writer. She is a regular food columnist for The New York Times Magazine and has a Netflix docu-series based on her cookbook, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat.

...

Nosrat's 2017 cookbook Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, illustrated by Wendy McNaughton and including a foreword by Michael Pollan, was named "Food Book of the Year" by The Times of London and was a New York Times best seller. The cookbook also won the 2018 James Beard Award for Best General Cookbook, was named Cookbook of the Year by the International Association of Culinary Professionals, and won the 2018 IACP Julia Child First Book Award.

A Netflix docu-series based on the cookbook, also called Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, was released on October 11, 2018, with each of the four episodes based around one of the four elements of cooking set out in the title. In episode 1, Nosrat goes to Italy to talk about the use of fat in cooking; in episode 2, Japan for salt; in episode 3, Mexico for acid; and in episode 4, returns to the United States, cooking at Chez Panisse as well as with her own mother, to discuss heat. The show was described by The Washington Post as "unlike any other food show on TV." (Wikipedia)

• • •

It's me again, indie constructor Christopher Adams filling in for Rex while he's in DC for the Indie 500 this weekend. I've spent the day following along on Twitter (and feeling the #fomo) and wishing I could've seen everybody there today. Among the many excellent people there include tournament organizer Erik Agard, whose byline I really wish I saw more of. I was very excited to see his name on this puzzle, though honestly it didn't need it—his voice, personality, and style shine through this puzzle so much that I would have very little doubt, as a solver, identifying him as the constructor if I didn't know that ahead of time.

And, as expected, I loved this puzzle; it was, as the kids might say these days, MONDO DOPE (109A: Very, in slang / 110A: Hella cool). The theme is straightforward, but very well done; the title and the first theme answer perfectly give away the idea, and I had fun finding each theme answer as I made my way through the puzzle. It usually didn't take more than a letter or two to figure them out, but I genuinely enjoyed each of them.

The rest of the puzzle, I thought, was pretty easy too; the only difficulties, if I can even use that word, were things like writing AXES for AXED (25A: Fired), messing up my French (COTE for CITE at 27A: Île de la ___), or guessing the wrong AP class (CALC instead of CHEM for 88D: Tough H.S. science class). For that last one, in my defense, I'm a huge math person, and I'd just filled in STEM for 114A: Big acronym in education.

TARO is the only acceptable Bubble tea flavor, don't @ me

Anyway, even with some errors, and a few typos on top of that, this puzzle wasn't much of a challenge. I'd like to specifically note that the fill on this is squeaky clean, and between that and the clues, not a single letter is in doubt. This is a well-constructed puzzle, and it is what more puzzles should be (or, at least, aspire to be). I don't even care that the theme type isn't some boundary-pushing stunt or idea. It's a standard idea, but it's tried and true, and in the hands of a master craftsman, it works beautifully.

And on top of that, the fill absolutely sings. CODESWITCH, FLOOR MODEL, KEG STANDS, OFF THE GRID, LOUISVILLE, MOTOR CITY, and even AMATEURISH would all be assets in a themeless; here, where there's not as many long answer slots to go around (and more constraints, due to the theme), it's amazing that these are all great. Fun, new short fill too: the aforementioned NOSRAT, MONDO, and AP CHEM, but also CHICANA, I DID NOT, and RAINN (especially as clued).

Olio:

• ELIS (Ancient Greek land that hosted the Olympics)  was a complete unknown as clued, even though this is, more or less, the clue used three of the last six times ELIS has been in the NYT. At least crossings were fair. But definitely felt out of place, difficulty-wise. (See also CITE, a valid English word clued otherwise.)
• Film heroine who says "Somebody has to save our skins. Into the garbage chute, flyboy" is a great quote for LEIA, who will be dearly missed in the upcoming The Rise of Skywalker; also, interesting to have this intersecting LANDO without a cross-reference, or at least an acknowledgement in the clues.
• Part of V.S.O.P. is OLD; it stands for Very Superior Old Pale.

Yours in puzzling, Christopher Adams, Court Jester of CrossWord

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Baseball great who was the subject of the 2006 best seller "Game of Shadows" / Turnovers, e.g. / Winner of the lowest-scoring Super Bowl in N.F.L. history (16 total points) / Political figure who became a CNN commentator in 2015 / Locale of London's Leicester Square

Constructor: Ari Richter

Relative difficulty: Easy (3:20)

THEME:  none

Word of the Day: AD COUNCIL (27D: Group working on P.S.A. campaigns)—

The Advertising Council, commonly known as the Ad Council, is an American nonprofit organization that produces, distributes, and promotes public service announcements on behalf of various sponsors, including nonprofit organizations, non-governmental organizations and agencies of the United States government.

The Ad Council partners with advertising agencies which work pro bono to create the public service advertisements on behalf of their campaigns. The organization accepts requests from sponsor institutions for advertising campaigns that focus on particular social issues. To qualify, an issue must be non-partisan (though not necessarily unbiased) and have national relevance.

The Ad Council distributes the advertisements to a network of 33,000 media outlets—including broadcast, print, outdoor (i.e. billboards, bus stops), and Internet—which run the ads in donated time and space. Media outlets donate approximately $1.8 billion to Ad Council campaigns annually. If paid for, this amount would make the Ad Council one of the largest advertisers in the country. (Wikipedia)

• • •

Hi all! It's indie constructor Christopher Adams filling in for Rex while he's in DC for the Indie 500 this weekend. Really wish I could be there and actually see a lot of crossword friends, but I'll have to settle for solving the puzzles at home; as always, they'll be great, and I can't wait to solve them. To those of you solving live tomorrow: may your solves be fast and your grids be clean, and above all, may you have fun.

Anyway, onto this puzzle. I didn't recognize the name when I opened it, and turns out it's a debut. And a low word count debut, at that: only 62 words. The first thing I noticed was the sheer number of cheater squares; there's 14 of them. No doubt that was to aid in filling this; I have no problems with them myself, especially if they result in better fill across (and down) the board. And this puzzle had a lot of good, long answers. Every answer of nine or more letters hit home for me, and especially BLANKET HOG, NONE FOR ME, and MASHED PEAS. (THIS SECOND, maybe, thought it feels like it's missing RIGHT in front of it.) Some shorter goodies, too, including SAD FACE and SCREENER (though I feel that's more the actual physical copy of the film and not the showing itself, but YMMV).

That said, as good as the long fill was, the shorter stuff wasn't as good as I'd hoped, given all the cheater squares. Don't get me wrong; I liked the puzzle, and thought it was reasonably clean, all things considered. But a few too many ONELS, ILE, ESIGN, RETOOK, AEGIS, TFAL, SOG, SIMONES, etc for me to love it. Not that any of these are outright awful, but in toto it sours slightly, especially since I have such a high personal standard for fill. I'm sure many solvers won't bat an eye at this. And again, I liked the puzzle, but I did have slightly higher hopes. Still, a very solid debut.

As for solving, the quick time is, by and large, the result of the clues seeming way too easy for a Saturday puzzle. Of course, it always helps when 1-Across ("Baseball great who was the subject of the 2006 best seller "Game of Shadows") is a gimme (at least for this sports fan). So was ESIGN, with an incredibly straightforward clue (Authorize, as a digital contract). With the entire top row in place, most of the downs offered no resistance whatsoever. Some, like ONELS, are just things that show up all the time. Others, like EXCONS, DRONE, and SERGES, had direct clues that don't try to trip the solver up. And some, like SMOKE (Go to pot?) tried to be tricky, but I've seen so many clues along those lines that it didn't even register as clever.

Two clues that I did think was rather clever were 36-Across (Hot wheels?) and 40-Across (They're spotted at fire stations) for STOLEN CARS and DALMATIANS, respectively. (I might be slightly biased on the first; I've used "Grand theft auto?" for GETAWAY CAR myself, but it's so nice that I'd like it anyway.) Otherwise, not a lot of flash in the clues; as noted, most were straightforward.

33D: Locale of London's Leicester Square (WEST END)

Olio:

• (Winner of the lowest-scoring Super Bowl in N.F.L. history (16 total points)) PATRIOT — A gimme for me; I flew to Boston specifically to watch both The Replacements and this Super Bowl with a bunch of Boston-area friends who, if anything, were rooting against the Patriots while drinking Harpoon Dunkin' Coffee Porter. Fun times; pretty sure there were more people there wearing Shane Falco jerseys than Tom Brady jerseys.
• (Disturbed) DERANGED — This one was pretty hard for me; it's a straight synonym, but if you asked me to define DERANGED for you, I'm pretty sure I'd start talking about permutations before getting to the actual definition.
• (Baseball great who was the subject of the 2006 best seller "Game of Shadows") BONDS — The full title is Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports; not to be confused with the Sherlock Holmes movie starring Robert Downey Jr., although I'd watch the hell out of that crossover.
• (Annoying bedmate) BLANKET HOG — It me. (¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

Yours in puzzling, Christopher Adams, Court Jester of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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