People of southern Kenya / SAT 8-11-18 / Two-pointed hat worn by Napoleon / Main antagonist in Toy Story / Emmy-winning newsman Roger / Tammany Hall cartoonist / Word from Latin for seaweed / Repetitive farewell from Sound of Music / Scientists who measure exact shape size of earth /

Constructor: Ryan McCarty

Relative difficulty: Medium (7:44)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: Luis SUÁREZ (14D: International soccer star Luis ___) —

Luis Alberto Suárez Díaz (American Spanish: [ˈlwis ˈswaɾes]; born 24 January 1987) is a

Uruguayan professional footballer who plays as a striker for Spanish club Barcelona and the Uruguay national team. Often regarded as one of the best players in the world, Suárez has won 16 trophies in his career, including five league titles and a UEFA Champions League title at club level, and a Copa América with Uruguay. A prolific goalscorer, Suárez has won two European Golden Shoes, an Eredivisie Golden Boot, a Premier League Golden Boot, as well as ending the six-year dominance of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo by winning La Liga's Pichichi Trophy in 2016. He has scored over 400 senior career goals for club and country. [...] On 20 November 2010, Suárez bit PSV's Otman Bakkal on the shoulder during a 0–0 draw. Ajax suspended him for two matches and fined him an undisclosed amount, which the club said they would donate to a "good cause" [...] On 21 April 2013, during a 2–2 draw with Chelsea in a Premier League match at Anfield, Suárez bit Branislav Ivanović; this was the second time Suárez had bitten an opponent. It was not noticed by the officials, and Suárez scored an equaliser in injury time. The bite prompted UK Prime Minister David Cameron to call on the FA to take a hard line with Suárez: the FA charged him with violent conduct and he was fined an undisclosed sum by his club. [...] For Uruguay's final group match against Italy on 24 June, Uruguay needed a win to advance to the knockout stagewhile Italy only needed a draw. Around the 79th minute and with the score at 0–0, Suárez clashed with Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini while waiting for a cross. Replays showed that Suárez lunged at Chiellini and bit his shoulder (Chiellini showed bite marks), followed by Suárez falling and clutching his face. (wikipedia) (biting emphasis mine)

So as I have said before one of my techniques for solving themelesses with quadrants that contain a stack of long Across answers is to just pound the short Downs as fast as I can, without much thought—first thing that comes to mind—and then look at the Across clues and see if what I've written makes Any kind of sense. Weirdly, despite near certainty that some if not most of my Down guesses will be wrong, this method yields results more times than not. Today, I missed the majority of the Downs in the NW, including three in a row (POUT, SOAR, LORD at 5D-7D, respectively), but I got YEARS and NILES and SUR, and somehow, through all the wrong junk, I was able to see BABY SLINGS almost immediately (1A: Alternatives to strollers). Pattern recognition is strange. Apparently you can see patterns even through a fog of bad information. Your brain can adjust to "only some of these letters are right" and find answers. Hurray, brains! Once I got BABY SLINGS, all the wrong Downs were instantly fixable (SULK, LACE, IDOL!), and the whole corner fell quickly.


Where I struggled was in the small corners, both NE and SW. POLS for [Stumpers?] was very tough. Had weird lot of trouble with ALGA because my brain kept shouting NORI at me (18A: Word from the Latin for "seaweed"). And no way I was getting the OIL part of OIL TOWNS. That was the last answer I put in the grid. They are major American cities. I don't associate them with oil (any more?) (actually, I never associated Houston with oil, and I associate Dallas with oil only because of the TV show "Dallas"). On the other side of the grid, I could swear I just saw GLENS Falls in a puzzle, only it was GLEN Falls (!?!?!?!). Weird hallucination. HELLUVA was very tough (34D: Extremely, informally). GAGMAN is a ridiculous term. MUDD I forgot. And DOTTED I'S ... ok that one I actually think is bad. Badly clued. Non-capital "I"s are by definition "dotted." Hawaii has I's. It has a double I. But ... there's nothing in the clue (and a "?" clue at that) that points to DOTTED, specifically. I would feel the same way I would if the answer to [What Chattanooga has that Nashville lacks?] was CROSSEDTS. Boo.


Bullets:

• 33A: Problems resulting from a poor paternal relationship (DADDY ISSUES) — No. Gross. This is a derogatory phrase used almost exclusively of women, frequently in reference to women's sexual behavior. No one (esp. no man) has any business touching this. Another boo.
• 48D: "Go back" button abbr. on some remotes (PREV.)— ???? What? Blecch.
• 55A: Elite operative, for short (U.S. NAVY SEAL) — I believe you mean "for long," because people just say NAVY SEAL.
• 23D: People of southern Kenya (MAASAI) — I did an extensive report on Tanzania in 7th grade, during which I learned a lot about the ... MASAI. Needless to say, this answer surprised me. I see that this double-, non-dotted "A" spelling is the preferred one (the one used by Wikipedia, for instance), but what the hell, middle-school reference material of 1982!? Why'd you hang me out to dry like that?

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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