Dish whose name means pierce flesh / Scifi series before DS9 / Brave person typically / Fitbit had one in 2015 / Attraction on bank of Yamuna River / Literary orphan who lived for while in cupboard

Constructor: Bruce Haight and David Steinberg

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium


THEME: three hats, or one hat falling through space in one way or another...— FLIPPING ONE'S LID (17A: Snapping ... as suggested by some black squares in this puzzle) / AT THE DROP OF A HAT (58A: With only slight provocation ... as suggested by some black squares in this puzzle), and there is a black square pattern through the middle of the grid that suggests a "flipping" or "dropping" hat, allegedly...

Word of the Day: The AGATHA Awards (46D: Name on an annual literary award) —

The Agatha Awards, named for Agatha Christie, are literary awards for mystery and crime writers who write in the cozy mystery subgenre (i.e. closed setting, no sex or violence, amateur detective). At an annual convention in Washington, D.C., the Agatha Awards are handed out by Malice Domestic Ltd, in six categories: Best Novel; Best First Mystery; Best Historical Novel; Best Short Story; Best Non-Fiction; Best Children's/Young Adult Mystery. Additionally, in some years the Poirot Award is presented to honor individuals other than writers who have made outstanding contributions to the mystery genre, but it is not an annual award. (wikipedia)

• A. themed Fridays are almost always unwelcome—it's the Best Chance for a good and crunchy puzzle I'm going to get all week, and themes just spike the likelihood of corny cruddiness
• B. that "hat" thing with the black squares might be a "flip," but is IN NO WAY a "drop" 
• C. that "flip" is rotating in what feels to me like the wrong direction
• D. that is barely a "hat"

And just now, I figured out what was bugging me. I *knew* something was off. It's the damned center hat—it's Not Centered. That is some nails-on-my-mental-chalkboard stuff. See how MAIN SQUEEZE (6D: Steady) comes all the way through, but there's no equivalent long answer in the eastern half? That was the first thing that made me wonder what was up. Why not make this 16 wide? I mean, maybe there are things I haven't considered, but centering that damned hat feels crucial. The damned puzzle has the word CENTER in it ... and yet that damned middle hat is like "screw you guys, I'ma do what I wanna do!"ALD, NONPROS, and esp. ENPLANE (which is one of my evil nemesis words) can take a hike, but otherwise the fill is totally reasonable. Steinberg is an old pro (despite being the far younger constructor here), so you get some fill discipline, which is nice. But give me a Steinberg themeless any day over this. Or put this on a Thursday and for god's sake *center the hat*!


There was nothing particularly hard about this, and no genuine sticking points that I can see. I think MTA and CENTER, weirdly, gave me more trouble than anything else. I've been to NYC enough and been an public transport enough that you'd think MTA woulda sunk in pretty far by now, but I thought there was something Staten Island-specific about the answers, so MTA actually never occurred to me (52A: Staten Island Railway inits.). But otherwise, this was easy to zip through. Not sure why my time wasn't closer to a record (I was somewhere in the mid-5s). HOP IMPS SNOOT GOAT QATAR, in that order, all fairly quickly. And once you've got a "Q," you know you're on your way. Then that "Q" led to a "Z." And so forth. Normally, crushing a puzzle gives me at least a mild predisposition to like it. But today, no such outcome. Not badly made, just thematically off (and off-center).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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