Battle of ___ Jima / MON 9-5-2016 / Actor Don of "Trading Places" / Worthless stuff / Sparkling Italian wine / Mobster John

Hi, Crossworld! It's another Annabel Monday and I am EXTRA TIRED because my sophomore year just started last Thursday! But not too tired to write up the puzzle. :)

Constructor: Tracy Gray

Relative difficulty: Easy



THEME: JEANS— The beginning of every theme answer is a style of jeans.

Theme answers:

• BAGGY EYES (17A: Facial sign of sleep deprivation)
• SKINNY DIP (26A: Bathe in the buff)
• LOW RISE BUILDING (41A: It has only a few stories)
• FLARE GUNS (51A: Distress signal producers)
• CUT-OFF SAW (66A: Tool for severing a steel cable, maybe)
• JEANS (58D: Article of apparel with styles found at the starts of 17-, 26-, 41-, 51- and 66-Across)

Word of the Day: S STAR (55A: Celestial cool red giant) —

An S-type star (or just S star) is a cool giant with approximately equal quantities of carbon and oxygen in its atmosphere. The class was originally defined in 1922 by Paul Merrill for stars with unusual absorption lines and molecular bands now known to be due to s-process elements. The bands of zirconium monoxide (ZrO) are a defining feature of the S stars.

The carbon stars have more carbon than oxygen in their atmospheres. In most stars, such as class M giants, the atmosphere is richer in oxygen than carbon and they are referred to as oxygen-rich stars. S-type stars are intermediate between carbon stars and normal giants. They can be grouped into two classes: intrinsic S stars, which owe their spectra toconvection of fusion products and s-process elements to the surface; and extrinsic S stars, which are formed through mass transfer in a binary system.

The intrinsic S-type stars are on the most luminous portion of the asymptotic giant branch, a stage of their lives lasting less than a million years. Many are long period variable stars. The extrinsic S stars are less luminous and longer-lived, often smaller-amplitude semiregular or irregular variables. S stars are relatively rare, with intrinsic S stars forming less than 10% of asymptotic giant branch stars of comparable luminosity, while extrinsic S stars form an even smaller proportion of all red giants.

Poorly advised tweenage one-hit-wonders aside, this puzzle was awesome because I seriously love jeans. I'm pretty sure at least half of my wardrobe at this point in my life is denim. Most of them are SKINNY, but I think I have a pair or two of FLARE jeans, and CUTOFF shorts. I'm surprised "distressed" and "high-waisted" didn't make it into the puzzle, but hey, I guess you have to draw the A-line somewhere. (I know A-line dresses have nothing to do with jeans but I really wanted to work a fashion pun in there somewhere! Still not entirely sure what an A-line dress is though.)

The rest of the puzzle was pretty cool too, but not as cool as jeans. I do have to dock an imaginary point for using "apparel" in two different clues, and another imaginary point for having all those sports clues but no musical theater clues; IWOuld have liked that better. Also, is the saying really "UP AND AT IT"? I always thought it was "UP AND AT 'EM." Oh well.

Despite getting stuck in a couple places, though, this one was really fast for me. It usually takes me about half an hour to do the puzzle, but this time it only took 14 minutes. I wonder whether I've just been reviewing particularly easy puzzles lately or if I'm actually getting good at this? :0 Either way, Rex better watch out, because if this keeps up I'll be good enough to beat his time on a puzzle!*

Bullets:

• ICE (20A: Decorate, as in a cake)— I just thought it was cool that the constructor didn't go with the obvious choice here by talking about ice floes or something. The only downside is that now I am hungry for cake!!!
• ENSUITE (22A: Connected, as a bath to a bedroom) — Sooooo, since I'm a cool sophomore now, I get to live in a suite with two of my friends. We have a bathroom EN SUITE, as you might expect. However, there is no shower, and while there is a bathtub, it did not come with a bath plug. I assume we're supposed to bathe by sticking our heads under the faucet. (I mean, it doesn't matter that much, there's a bathroom down the hall, but. Why.)
• SLATE (19A: Roof material) — Another clue I'm grateful for; you would think they would just use the name of the magazine. Also, did anyone else have TILES here for like a million years? Because I did.
• LANCE (52D: Jouster's weapon)— Hey, did anyone know Maryland (my home state)'s official state sport is jousting? Isn't that so weird/cool??? We always used to watch it at the Renaissance Faire when I was little. Good stuff.

And, SCENE! Have a good month, and happy Labor Day, and all that.

Signed, Annabel Thompson, tired college sophomore.

*This is probably not going to happen.

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