Cool giant sun / TUE 1-9-18 / Falcon rocket launcher / Game craze of late 1980s '90s / Intradermal diagnostic for short / Popular Belgian beer for short

Constructor: Peter A. Collins

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (fast but not whoosh fast)

THEME: MEET IN THE MIDDLE (39A: Compromise ... or a phonetic hint to this puzzle's circled squares)— types of "meat" (phonetic!) are embedded in the themers inside the circled squares:

Theme answers:

• NORTH AMERICA (20A: Big part of the New World)
• LIVE A LIE (24A: Present oneself falsely)
• CLAMBAKE (51A: Seaside cookout)
• STROBE EFFECT (56A: Flashing light phenomenon)

Word of the Day: some information that you won't remember on stellar classification (9A: Cool, giant sun (S-STAR)) —

In astronomy, stellar classification is the classification of stars based on their spectral characteristics. Electromagnetic radiation from the star is analyzed by splitting it with a prism or diffraction grating into a spectrum exhibiting the rainbow of colors interspersed with spectral lines. Each line indicates a particular chemical element or molecule, with the line strength indicating the abundance of that element. The strengths of the different spectral lines vary mainly due to the temperature of the photosphere, although in some cases there are true abundance differences. The spectral class of a star is a short code primarily summarizing the ionization state, giving an objective measure of the photosphere's temperature. // Most stars are currently classified under the Morgan-Keenan (MK) system using the letters O, B, A, F, G, K, and M, a sequence from the hottest (O type) to the coolest (M type). Each letter class is then subdivided using a numeric digit with 0 being hottest and 9 being coolest (e.g. A8, A9, F0, and F1 form a sequence from hotter to cooler). The sequence has been expanded with classes for other stars and star-like objects that do not fit in the classical system, such as class D for white dwarfs and classes S and C for carbon stars. (wikipedia)

Hello, solvers. It's early January, which means it's time for my once-a-year, week-long pitch for financial contributions to the blog. The idea is very simple: if you read the blog regularly (or even semi-regularly), please consider what it's worth to you on an annual basis and give accordingly. To be clear—there are no major expenses involved in writing a blog. There's just my time. A lot of it. Every day (well, usually night), solving, writing, hunting down pictures and videos of various degrees of relevance and usefulness, chatting with folks and answering puzzle questions via email and social media, gathering and disseminating crossword-related information of various kinds, etc. It's a second job. My making this pitch means I'm all in for another calendar year of puzzle revelry with all y'all. I'm excited about the year. I've got my own crossword construction project I want to get off the ground, and I'm hoping to take a more active role (along with some crossword friends) in recruiting and mentoring new and aspiring constructors. But the bulk of my work will be the same as ever: I'll be here with a new post every single day. Solve, write, repeat. Despite my occasional (or, OK, maybe frequent) consternation with the State of The Puzzle, the crossword community continues to give me great joy, and I'm proud to run an independent, ad-free blog where people can find someone to commiserate with, someone to yell at, or, you know, someone who'll just give them the damn answers. Some people refuse to pay for what they can get for free. Others just don't have money to spare. All are welcome to read the blog—the site will always be open and free. But if you are able to express your appreciation monetarily, here are two options. First, a Paypal button (which you can also find in the blog sidebar):

Second, a mailing address:

Rex Parker c/o Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
Binghamton, NY 13905

All Paypal contributions will be gratefully acknowledged by email. All snail mail contributions (I. Love. Snail mail!) will be gratefully acknowledged with hand-written postcards. This year's cards are "Women In Science"—Rachel Ignotofsky's beautiful cartoon portraits of women scientists from antiquity to the present. I've heard of a few of these women (mostly crossword names like ADA Lovelace, Marie CURIE, MAE Jemison) but most of these names are entirely new to me, so I'm excited to learn about them as I write my thank-you notes. Please note: I don't keep a "mailing list" and don't share my contributor info with anyone. And if you give by snail mail and (for some reason) don't want a thank-you card, just say NO CARD.  As ever, I'm so grateful for your readership and support.

Now on to the puzzle!

Puzzle lost my good will at 1-Down and never got it back, despite the fact that it's technically fine—a typical example of the embedded word-type theme, with a little punny wordplay in the revealer. There's not much beyond that little semi-chuckle of a pun, though. The themers don't have anything going for them, excitement-wise, and though the grid is not bad, it's not interesting, either. The one attempt to be interesting—the inclusion of SPACEX—resulted in the very worst part of the puzzle—the inclusion of SSTAR. The What Letter Will It Be-STAR variety of answer is entirely loathsome and should be discarded by every reasonable constructor immediately, save for those very rare moments where you are *very* desperate to make a *very* good idea work out. Would've been nice to see livelier fill overall (see yesterday's puzzle). Too much SDS ITALIA ITE RET ENT ARPEL SNO EOS IOS (both?) ESME ILE etc. going on here.


Where were the solving snags today? I honestly didn't know the president's* middle name, so that, combined with stunned disappointment that Will keeps gratuitously shoehorning a serial sexual assailant into the crossword, caused me to be slow right out of the gate. But then I went from SLOTH to whatever the opposite of SLOTH is. Cheetah? After I got done being totally befuddled by the clue on SLAT (5A: Airplane wing feature) (was looking for FLAP), I tore through this thing pretty easily.


You can be forgiven not knowing SSTAR. As I say, that answer type is terrible. Nothing else here seems too outré. Took me a little work to get ANTITANK, as 35A: Like some missiles is pretty vague. I thought the clue on EURO was prettttttty iffy. [Tip of France?]? I get that "tip" = money and the currency in France is the EURO, but ... "Tip of France" isn't even wordplay. Does France have geographical tips? There's gotta be a better "?" clue waiting for EURO.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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