Goddess of Pop / WED 8-8-18 / Very pixel-dense as TV picture / Teammate of Babe on 1920s Yankees

Constructor: Andrew Kingsley

Relative difficulty: Easy (3:26)

THEME: GREAT / MINDS / THINK / ALIKE (1A: With 27-, 49- and 66-Across, phrase applicable to five innovations in this puzzle (as suggested by the starred clues)) — I guess it means that both the dudes in the clues ... innovated the innovations in question? Sure, let's go with that:

Theme answers:

• LIGHT BULB (18A: *Thomas Edison and Joseph Swan)
• CALCULUS (23A: *Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Isaac Newton)
• PERIODIC TABLE (33A: *Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev and Julius Lothar Meyer)
• ATOM BOMB (50A: *Leo Szilard and Joseph Rotblat)
• TELEPHONE (54A: *Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray)

Word of the Day: Danny AINGE (50D: Longtime Boston Celtics executive Danny)—

Daniel Ray Ainge (born March 17, 1959) is an American basketball executive and former professional basketball and baseball player. Ainge is currently the general manager and President of Basketball Operations for the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA). 

Ainge was an outstanding high school athlete. At Brigham Young University, he was named national basketball college player of the year and won the John R. Wooden Award for the most outstanding male college basketball player. While in college, Ainge also played parts of three seasons with the Toronto Blue Jays of Major League Baseball(MLB), mostly as a second baseman. He was then drafted into the NBA by the Celtics. Ainge completed 14 seasons, playing for the Celtics, Portland Trail Blazers, Sacramento Kings and Phoenix Suns, primarily as a shooting guard. He went on to coach the Suns for three seasons before joining management of the Celtics, with whom Ainge has three NBA Championships to his credit (two as a player, one as President/GM).

He is the only person to be named a high school first team All-American in american football, basketball, and baseball. (wikipedia)

Trivia theme. Not very interesting to me, at all. Who are these people? Joseph Swan? Honestly, most of the names in these theme clues, I've never heard of. I mean, I could look them up, but I'd forget them quickly, no doubt, and anyway I'm not playing a trivia contest. What's bizarre is the gap between the clues (which are arcane to me) and the difficulty level (just a tad over Monday, i.e. super easy). The clues could've just been "some random dudes' names" and the puzzle would've been almost as easy (I think Edison and Newton and Bell probably helped a little). So it's a trivia theme (a minus, in my book) where the trivia is pretty much non-essential to not just solving, but destroying the puzzle. But honestly, I was negatively predisposed from 1-Across. Any 1-Across that wants me to look elsewhere, let alone at three elsewheres, can get bent. Audibly sighed and ughed when I saw that  1-Across clue. Nearly fell INAHEAP (more ugh), but I soldiered on. I'M OK. There's not much interesting here besides maybe CALL UP, which I like because I like baseball. I just looked at INRE and TATAS, so my displeasure is spiking. Let's move on.


OH WELL, there's not really anywhere to move to. I felt like I was struggling badly early on, but that was just my brain struggling to shake off the solver rage brought on by the 1-Across clue. Once I got MINDS, I went ahead and filled in the other words in the revealer, and then started building the grid up from the bottom, off ALIKE, so my path around the grid was bizarre, which usually results in a higher-than-average time, but not today. I feel like I could've been under 3 today if I hadn't let 1-Across throw me and I hadn't bounced around the grid so much. Man, that 1-Across clue. Sorry, but I can't leave it alone. I also lost time because that stupid clue also forced me to pause to adjust the clue box in my software, which wasn't showing the entire stupid stupid overlong grammatically atrocious and in all ways terrible 1-Across clue; "applicable,""innovations,""suggested by"—so much vague clunkiness gumming up the works). I need A NAP. Didn't have many missteps today. Wrote in OGRE for MAGE (8D: Dungeons & Dragons figure). That's about it. I guess I should say that though the fill is not good, it could've been much much worse. Almost every Down had to go through one if not two themers. Not a lot of wiggle room. So that's something.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. I did an interview Osvaldo Oyola for the website "The Middle Spaces (comics. music. culture.)"—it's primarily about my experience teaching comics, but there's a ton in there about crosswords as well. You can check the interview out here.

P.P.S. a reminder that the MAMA clue (27D: Papa's mate) is heterosexist, OK bye

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