Boston exurb / SAT 11-6-21 / Bell Labs development of the 1970s / Prominent attire for Jr. Pac-Man / Reciprocal of a siemens / Creature whose male incubates the eggs, during which it won't eat, drink or defecate for 50+ days / Toni Morrison title character who lives in the Bottom / Furry creature that Wallace becomes during the full moon, in a "Wallace & Gromit" film

Constructor: Brooke Husic and Will Nediger

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (could play lots of ways, depending on your specific type of pop culture knowledge)

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Diane ARBUS (5D: Photographer Diane) —

Diane Arbus (/diːˈæn ˈɑːrbəs/; née Nemerov; March 14, 1923 – July 26, 1971) was an American photographer. Arbus worked to normalize marginalized groups and highlight the importance of proper representation of all people. She worked with a wide range of subjects including; strippers, carnival performers, nudists, dwarves, children, mothers, couples, elderly people, and middle-class families. She photographed her subjects in familiar settings: their homes, on the street, in the workplace, in the park. "She is noted for expanding notions of acceptable subject matter and violates canons of the appropriate distance between photographer and subject. By befriending, not objectifying her subjects, she was able to capture in her work a rare psychological intensity." In his 2003 New York Times Magazine article, "Arbus Reconsidered," Arthur Lubow states, "She was fascinated by people who were visibly creating their own identities—cross-dressers, nudists, sideshow performers, tattooed men, the nouveaux riches, the movie-star fans—and by those who were trapped in a uniform that no longer provided any security or comfort." Michael Kimmelman writes in his review of the exhibition Diane Arbus Revelations, that her work "transformed the art of photography (Arbus is everywhere, for better and worse, in the work of artists today who make photographs)". (wikipedia)

• • •

Much nicer, and weirdly easier (for me), than this week's Friday offering. This puzzle has the thing that I like in all puzzles but especially in more toughly clued puzzles and that is (a homonym of) FLOE. It FLOWS. Long answers flow into long answers flow into long answers flow into long answers flow into long answers. Clues stump you at first take, but the whoosh of answers all around you allows for crosses to build up and dislodge you from wherever you've gotten stuck, such that you're never stuck for very long. Or I wasn't, anyway. The worst parts of the solve by far were those teeny corners in the NE and SW. Harrowing, because they are sequestered, with only one tiny way in and no way out. Seemed like you might go into either one of them and never come out. In an early-week puzzle, I would not fear those corners, but on a Saturday, they're potential nightmares. So those corners not only seem like haunted spaces you might enter and never be heard from again, they also offer comparatively little upside. That is, if you're successful, the only really positive feeling you have is the feeling of having survived. It's all short fill in there—very little reward for the briefly harrowing experience of going in in the first place. And sure enough, they were toughish little sections where I felt like I was only ever one lucky guess or one "just happen to know that" away from failing. Guessed SALEM off the "M" and then knew "SULA" (9A: Toni Morrison title character who lives in the Bottom), so the NE was definitely the easier of the two wee corners. In the SW you've got two cross-referenced clues jammed in there together, which immediately makes things harder. Also, I don't know my animated films at all, really, so "IGOR" had to come together from crosses. But I didn't actually get stuck in that corner either. Those corners still seem potentially lethal, but I survived. And the rest of the grid, as I say, was a sparkling ODYSSEY, ending at the bottom with my favorite little section, the PLAZA HOTEL and "I OWE YOU ONE!"

There is a danger of alienation and exclusion when you rely so heavily on very specific, some might argue niche, pop culture fill. "IGOR" at least was gettable from crosses and is a name I already associate with "monsters," so it doesn't matter so much that I never saw or heard of the movie. It would've been a little more frustrating if I'd never heard of the WERERABBIT (16A: Furry creature that Wallace becomes during the full moon, in a "Wallace & Gromit" film). Again, you can pick it up from crosses, and eventually infer its parts from the clue. But my condolences to the non-Wallace & Gromit fans today. Don't get me wrong, it's a great answer and I loved seeing it (I feel like we have the DVD somewhere, though haven't watched it since our daughter was little). But that and PROPELLER BEANIE made me wonder whether there were solvers out there being baffled by stuff that was just not on their radar. Now that I think about it, though, even if I hadn't heard of Wallace & Gromit or Jr. Pac-Man (which I thought it was Pac-Man Jr. and honestly don't really remember well at all), I probably could've put WERERABBIT and PROPELLER BEANIE together. The latter is a thing you might associate with a "Jr." and is a reasonably familiar item that can ultimately be inferred from crosses if not from video game knowledge, and WERERABBIT has familiar parts to it that are tipped by the clue. So all's fair. Nothing particularly exclusionary about how proper nouns / pop culture went down today. Again, as with the small corners, there's horror potential, but ultimately there's a happy ending.

I don't think of TEXTS as being parts of threads—I think of threads as a Twitter thing—but that's just because I use Twitter a lot and I don't text often. Also, my texts ... I just don't think of them as separated into threads. The conversation just ... goes ... doesn't feel so much like a discrete unit. Maybe this is because I'm not in a bunch of different group texts. Whatever, I still like the clue a lot (20A: Thread count?). Harrowing to get a "?" clue right at the gate of one of the teeny corners, but I worked it out. Forgot what hush puppies were so was Surprised by PONE (not as Wordsworthian as being "Surprised by Joy," but I could maybe write an ODE about it: "Surprised by PONE [...] I turned to share the corn bread—Oh! with whom / But thee!" Etc.). I was picturing STEVE Harvey but still couldn't come up with STEVE 'til I got crosses (1D: Martin or Harvey). Wrote in Anouk AIMEÉ (!?) before Sophia LOREN (2D: Actress with an Academy Award for 1960's "Two Women"). ADHD before PTSD (30D: What cognitive behavioral therapy might treat, in brief). If you went to a Starbucks and tried to order just a "Grande," they'd be confused, I think, so I wanted the answer to be STARBUCKS SIZES, not ORDERS, but of course that didn't fit. [Pickup line?] is a pretty good clue for CABS—you always order cabernet if you wanna pick someone up at a bar. Trust me, I have picked up precisely zero people this way, or any way, it'll work!* Congrats to this puzzle for getting the word "defecate" into the clues (50A: Creature whose male incubates the eggs, during which it won't eat, drink or defecate for 50+ days). Now onward, into the grid! Let the defecation era commence!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

*I know it's the vehicle kind of cab here, please don't email

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Cybertruck maker / FRI 11-5-21 / Jimmy of high-end footwear / Life-form led by Optimus Prime in the Transformers movies / Cabbage alternative / Automotive amenity that offers an annual Santa Tracker / Midcruise milieu / Protest movement launched in 2011 familiarly / Acorn by another name / Cousin of a firth / Paraguay's largest city after Asuncion / Big adventure through the concrete jungle

Constructor: Joseph Greenbaum

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: RAGTOPS (65A: Stingrays, often) —

1. a car with a convertible roof. (google)

• • •

The grid seems OK, but I couldn't find this one's wavelength at all, largely because of the clues, which managed to be both harder and duller than usual. The three longest answers are just fine, the rest was something of a shrug. Maybe if I were more into VETTEs and Stingrays, this puzzle would've spoken to me more. Or if I could hear the word GUESSTIMATE without wincing a little. Or if every little clue didn't seem like it was trying so hard to be hard (not so fun struggling to get short junk like ICI and IOU and ADOS). Or maybe it's the absolutely absurd and in my mind disqualifying repetition of the word STAR in the grid (STARDOM, SUPERSTAR). Maybe if the repeated "star" was the literal in-the-sky kind, I wouldn't have minded as much (or noticed), but this is a repetition in sense as well as look, and it's glaring. Makes the grid seem not well tended to, not carefully crafted. You have to rationalize doubling up on STAR, and once you start rationalizing your fill, you are done. I have no idea what an URBAN HIKE is (11D: Big adventure through the concrete jungle). I once walked from the Upper East Side to Chelsea after a crossword tournament—was that an URBAN HIKE? I thought I was just walking a long way, but maybe I was hiking and didn't know it. It was a bit of an adventure. Anyway, got URBAN and then pfft (that little pfft section, with IOU OUTS and SOIL (that clue???) (29D: Sovereign land, so to speak), was therefore even more fussy and annoying than it should've been). Does ONSTAR still exist? Do RAGTOPS have ONSTAR? Does anyone say "ragtop" anymore? I barely recollected the term—why did you need another name for "convertible" that wasn't really much shorter? Where is this PLUS "button" for enlarging an image? Is it on my keyboard? Because I have to hit *Command*-+ to enlarge things, I think. My image-editing software has a little magnifying glass icon with a PLUS symbol in it. Is that it? Nevermind, I don't care, it turns out. I just couldn't get into whatever it was that this puzzle cared about, couldn't relate to its [Vibe] (or ... SENSE? ... I guess), and that's just that. Bad day for me.

I don't think of chilling and VEG-ing as the same thing, somehow (38D: Chill). I think VEG is real dated now. Seems super-'80s, but like many decades-old terms, this one continues to live on in crosswords. NEATO! I just caught sight of OAK NUT and laughed out loud (44D: Acorn, by another name). If you say so. Control your wordlists, people, yeesh. Let's see ... mistakes. ODDBALL definitely set me back (16A: Quirky sort = ODD DUCK), as did BRAS (5D: Word with wonder or designer = DRUG). AILS hurt a lot (26D: Troubles = ADOS), as did TONKA (48D: Cybertruck maker = TESLA). Really glad I didn't see TOPO at all (until now), because that is an excitement-diminisher, for sure. But again, big thumbs up for the three longest answers. DON'T OVERTHINK IT is a worthy marquee answer, and MAKE LOVE NOT WAR is right on the money, slogan-wise. Familiar and enduring and a nice idea to boot. I've been buying more cassettes lately (weird boom in this retro format, not sure why), so I got a CASSETTE PLAYER / CD player that sits right here on my desk. It's a nice alternative to streaming, which is convenient but gives me the urge to switch music too often. Trying anything I can to keep the Distraction Monster from dominating my brain. Thus, my few cassettes get a Lot of play. I press play, it plays one side until it stops, then I turn it over (so satisfying, this little physical intervention), and play the other side. And so on and so on. My current work music (Duett, "Leisure") sounds like it should be playing in an '80s mall, or '80s TV crime drama, or an '80s TV crime drama set in a mall, and sonically that is basically where I want to live forever. 

Hope you enjoyed your encore serving of CHURROS (what a weird coincidence, seeing that one two days in a row) (15A: Dessert order at a Mexican restaurant). Gonna go watch the squirrels gather ... [checks notes] ... OAK NUTS ... now. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. "Cabbage" is (er, was) slang for money, in case you were wondering wth was going on with that IOU clue (36A: Cabbage alternative?).

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...