Otis's feline pal / WED 9-13-17 / Fizzy citrus beverage / 1787 Mozart composition / Repeated Lyric in La Bamba

Constructor: Daniel Mauer

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: THE LITTLE THINGS (62A: They're what really count, so it's said ... or a hint to the multilingual answers to the starred clues)— three phrases begin with foreign terms for "a/the little"

Theme answers:

• LE PETIT DEJEUNER (17A: *Breakfast, in Burgundy)
• EINE KLEINE / NACHTMUSIK (23A: *With 52-Across, 1787 Mozart composition)
• UNA POCA DE GRACIA (40A: *Repeated lyric in "La Bamba") 

Word of the Day: ORANGINA (41D: Fizzy citrus beverage) —

Orangina (French pronunciation: ​[ɔʁɑ̃ʒina]) is a lightly carbonated beverage made from carbonated water, 12% citrus juice, (10% from concentrated orange, 2% from a combination of concentrated lemon, concentrated mandarin, and concentrated grapefruit juices) as well as 2% orange pulp. Orangina is sweetened with sugar or high fructose corn syrup (glucose-fructose) and natural flavors are added. // Orangina was invented at a trade fair in France, developed by Dr. Augustin Trigo Mirallès from Spain, and first sold in French Algeria by Léon Beton in 1935. Today it is a popular beverage in Europe, Japan, northern Africa, and to a lesser extent in North America. (emph. mine) (wikipedia)

This one was feeling stuffy from 1A: Hairdressers' challenges (MOPS). Something about that slang feels strangely dated to me—something you'd say about some Dennis the Menace-type's hair in the '50s. You'd probably also call the kid "impish." The kid would play marbles. You get my drift. But that was just a harbinger, an omen, boding ... not evidence of stuffiness. Evidence came later in an onslaught of overfamiliar short gunk (or OMRI, as I'm now calling it, for the second day in a row). This puzzle is seriously awash in it. HOTSY *and* EENIE? And then a dozen other things I've seen scores of times in the 25+ years I've been solving? (OPEL! SRI! Multiple OLES!) Sigh. But the theme? What of the charming theme, you maybe ask. Well it just doesn't work. I don't know why sticking the landing doesn't appear to be important to people. But it's important. It is. And LE PETIT DEJEUNER just doesn't work here, for at least two reasons. First, the other two are "a little" where this one is "the little." Yes, that matters. But what matters more is that the other two translate perfectly as "a little" (A Little Night Music, a little bit of grace), whereas no one but no one would translate LE PETIT DEJEUNER as "the little lunch" (though that is the *literal* meaning of those words). It's just ... breakfast. Also, why are these multilingual? And why doesn't the revealer have any relation to multilinguality? This just isn't tight. It's a slim idea, meekly executed. It does have I AM SO DEAD, which, ironically, is the answer that is in the least amount of trouble with me.


Here's a little more trouble for you, re: 24D: McDonald's founder Ray:

Wikipedia concurs, noting that, "It was founded in 1940 as a barbecue restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California." And also: "Controversially, Kroc would present himself as the founder of McDonald's during his later life" (emph. mine both times). Can't wait for the correction on that one. Wife just walked in, indignant about HOTSY. "Who says HOTSY-totsy? Have you ever said HOTSY-totsy?" I was like, "No, but I think I know what it means." But then I didn't. Ugh, HOTSY. Anyway, one upside of this puzzle is I solved it fast. EINE KLEINE / NACHTMUSIK was a lot of real estate to just give away, and the grid was chopped up into tiny, easy-to-get answers, so I finished in about the same time I had yesterday.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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