Simpsons sycophant / SAT 7-1-17 / Kanthapura novelist Raja / Place to celebrate Autumn Moon Festival

Constructor: David Phillips

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Raja RAO (42A: "Kanthapura" novelist Raja ___) —

Raja Rao (8 November 1908 – 8 July 2006) was an Indian writer of English-language novels and short stories, whose works are deeply rooted in Metaphysics. The Serpent and the Rope (1960), a semi-autobiographical novel recounting a search for spiritual truth in Europe and India, established him as one of the finest Indian prose stylists and won him the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1964. For the entire body of his work, Rao was awarded the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1988. Rao's wide-ranging body of work, spanning a number of genres, is seen as a varied and significant contribution to Indian English literature, as well as World literature as a whole. (wikipedia)

It has been a gruesomely humid day and I took not one but two naps—one of them flat on my back on the hardwood floor, one of them (much longer) on my couch, from which I only recently awoke. So I was sticky and groggy, i.e. In No Mood, when I sat down to do this puzzle precisely at 10pm. Not the greatest condition in which to meet the Saturday puzzle. And yet: I crushed it. Two hits: me hitting the puzzle, puzzle hitting the floor. I only came here to do two things: kick some puzzle ass, and drink some beer. So ... I guess it's beer time? I may have screwed that last saying up. Anyway, the puzzle had no chance. Seriously, it was unconscious before it hit the floor. SOBA AMATI REST EDNA THEM—that took about five seconds. And all the answers just kept falling before me. Straight down the west until I stalled at PROST (never was good with foreign toasts, which in my experience are only ever offered by pretentious Americans), then up into the NE easily via LITA FORD and ASHRAMS. Once I got PLIÉ, that section was toast (PLIÉ providing those first letters of the Across stack that PROST should've provided in the SW). Slight hiccup at SEGWAY. Had LANK for 44A: Lean (CANT), which was wrong, but half right, and that let me drop MINERAL and MADERA (having grown up in central California helped there), and those answers let me get back into that PROST corner. Hiccup at the end of AEROLOGY (because wtf). Done at the "O" in RAO. 4:47. Absurd.


I don't have much to say about this one. The stacks are fine. TRASH TALKS (55A: Bad-mouths) and YEAH, SURE (35D: "Uh-huh ... ri-i-i-ght") are the only answers I'm at all excited about. BEN STEIN, SMITHERS, GROHL—you may as well just give me these answers already filled in, the way they're clued. Needed just the "H" for HELENA, just the TV for TV CAMERAS (30D: Soap-making equipment?), just the "C" for COOPER (39D: Mini maker, originally). The SERIA part of OPERA SERIA was probably the hardest thing in the grid for me. Had OPERA and wanted ... something meaning "song"? OPERETTA? Shrug. But crosses filled it all in easily. There's some ugly fill in here (INKA, RAO, SAES), but it's mostly all just ... fine. Fine. OK. Too easy. But acceptable.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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