Poem greeting the dawn / FRI 3-9-18 / Musical gir who cain't say no / 2008 Bond girl Kurylenko / Thrill starts with grille / Animated character who graduated from Dogwarts University / Wizard of Oz farmhand / Tom Sawyer's half brother / Cause of bad dreams in modern lingo

Constructor: Neville Fogarty and Doug Peterson

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: AUBADE (2D: Poem greeting the dawn) —

An aubade is a morning love song (as opposed to a serenade, which is in the evening), or a song or poem about lovers separating at dawn. It has also been defined as "a song or instrumental composition concerning, accompanying, or evoking daybreak". (wikipedia)

Both these constructors are friends of mine. Neville is perhaps best known for coming in second (with his mother) to me and my wife in the Pairs Division of last year's Lollapuzzoola crossword tournament. Doug, of course, is L.A.'s Batman. I was soooo happy to see their names on the puzzle, and they don't really make bad puzzles. It's nice that there are constructors about whom this can be said. I am usually very much on their wavelength(s), though today, right out of the gate, the whole thing went a little KABLOOEY (great answer, btw) (7D: Bad way to go). I wrote in RAT PACK right away and then hit the Downs. Me: "1D: One going against the grain? Let's see starts with "R" ... RIPSAW! (!?). OK, great. Next: 2D: Poem greeting the dawn. Starts with "A" ... ooh, I know this one ... dawn ... I think it's ... not AURORA, 'cause that means "dawn," but ... AURORE! Yes, that's it!" (no, that's not it; that's a thing from Harry Potter). I went through at least three more spellings of AUBADE before I got there, including AUDABE, all of which is very ironic considering I teach Donne's "The Sunne Rising" all the time, and *apparently* it is a paradigmatic example of the AUBADE. AUBADE, you devil!


Didn't read the "alphabetically" part of 17A: First world capital, alphabetically, and thought, "well, that's an ... odd ... way to clue ABU DHABI." Anyway, once I got the back ends of all the Acrosses in the NW, I slingshotted out of there and bounced around the rest of the grid like it was a Wednesday, for the most part. Slight slowdown in the NE because ADO ANNIE (like most things "musical") is out of my wheelhouse and even though I've seen her name before, I sure couldn't parse it here (12D: Musical "girl who cain't say no"). Also thought "Comeback Kid" was Joe BIDEN (!?) or ... who's that sad sack Democrat of yesteryear? ... Oh, right, Joe LIEBERMAN. Football's MONTANA wasn't even in my thoughts there (13D: Joe known as "The Comeback Kid"). I didn't know PROZAC was used to treat O.C.D. I'm glad AUTISM is in the grid, though it seems like the kind of thing people might be quite sensitive about, cluing-wise (31D: Special-education challenge). This clue seemed straightforward enough to me. The last stumbling block was literally the last block I filled in—I had SOUSED for 57A: Juiced (up). Great answer for [Juiced]; not so great for [Juiced (up)]. The answer was SOUPED (totally different kind of "juiced." And done!


Huge applause for NIGHTMARE FUEL (15D: Cause of bad dreams, in modern lingo) and, weirdly, NO SLOUCH (I say "weirdly" because it's such a strange thing to see standing on its own, and it gave me parsing fits, *but* ... when I got it, I thought a. original, b. perfect) (37D: Someone who's pretty darn good). I also loved the clue on MARSH (50A: Rail center?), though it also gave me fits—see, it's not that I don't like to be challenged, it's that when I'm challenged, I like the ultimate result to be Satisfying. Silver medalist Fogarty and Dark Knight Peterson get that.

Explainers:

• a "rail" is a bird one might find in a MARSH
• GROMIT is the dog from the "Wallace & GROMIT" animated films
• "Helicases are a class of enzymes vital to all living organisms. Their main function is to unpackage an organism's genes." (wikipedia)

Questions:

• can't a PAIR be a *very* exciting "poker holding," depending on context?

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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