Philosophy of Simplicity / THU 8-30-18 / Home of the oldest university in the Western Hemisphere (founded in 1551) / Ancient mother goddess

Constructor:Grant Thackray

Relative difficulty:Easy-Medium

THEME: ADBLOCK (64A: Popular browser extension... or a literal description of four black squares in this puzzle) —  Puzzle where four BLOCKs (black squares) represent the letters AD

Theme answers:

• MANSPRE[AD] (5D: Annoyance from a subway seatmate)
• SAL[AD] (11A: Light lunch choice)
• BUTTLO[AD] (16D: Whole lot, slangily)
• [AD]DRESS (17D: Speak to)
• UNDE[AD] (37A: Like zombies)
• [AD]OPTARO[AD] (38A: Program for reducing litter on highways)
• [AD]LIBS (40A: Lines screenwriters didn't write)
• [AD]ULTING (45D: Doing grown-up things, in modern lingo)
• [AD]ORKABLE (47D: Endearingly awkward)
• HOTHE[AD] (48D: Easily angered sort)
• [AD]AMS (70A: Number 2 or 6)  [as in, the 2nd or 6th president]

Word of the Day:Thomas KYD (Playwright Thomas who predated Shakespeare) —

Thomas Kyd (baptised 6 November 1558; buried 15 August 1594) was an English playwright, the author of The Spanish Tragedy, and one of the most important figures in the development of Elizabethan drama.

Although well known in his own time, Kyd fell into obscurity until 1773 when Thomas Hawkins, an early editor of The Spanish Tragedy, discovered that Kyd was named as its author by Thomas Heywood in his Apologie for Actors (1612). A hundred years later, scholars in Germany and England began to shed light on his life and work, including the controversial finding that he may have been the author of a Hamlet play pre-dating Shakespeare's, which is now known as the Ur-Hamlet.

I've seen a lot of crosswordese in my time, but this is my first encounter with Thomas KYD. I suspect it won't be my last. (Also, "Ur-Hamlet"!)

Anyways, hi! I'm Rachel, a new faculty member at a medical school in central New York who somehow managed to twitter my way into covering for Rex while he is, as far as I can tell, eating his weight in Minnesotan baked goods. In case it isn't obvious from the fact that my entire tweet was an emoji, I am a (fully ADULTING) millennial, and therefore (mostly) loved this puzzle.

🙋‍♀️

— Rachel Fabi, PhD (@faBioethics) August 25, 2018

For the most part this played pretty smoothly for me. I landed on UNDE[AD] almost immediately, and then skipped to the theme clue and worked out the ADBLOCK. Knowing to look out for missing ADs made the rest of the puzzle fall into place pretty seamlessly. I did have a slight speed bumps in the SE, where it took a few painful seconds to wrap my head around what an [AD]AMS was in relation to 70A: Number 2 or 6.


Aside from my new friend Thomas KYD, most of the grid felt fresh and exciting, with MANSPREAD and ADULTING both making their NYT debut. Both of those terms have theirdetractors, but neither is as bad as ADORKABLE, which should really be sent to a farm upstate. We've also seen it once before, in 2014. Also making its NYT debut is BUTTLOAD, which I'm sure some will find objectionable, but it made me laugh. I appreciate the almost aggressive youthfulness of this puzzle; in addition to the modern young-people-speak, we have SEENSAY, which I understand is a very retro toy, and MEGAMAN, a slightly-less-retro video game.



The fill struggled in some placed under the weight of the 11(!) theme answers (I'm looking at you, ORLAUST RAS IDA ENE BMOC INS). But as with my browser extension, I'm willing to overlook a lot of issues not to have to have to see any ADs. The double-AD BLOCK on ADOPTAROAD is an impressive feat of construction that more than makes up for the occasionally-spotty fill.


Bullets:

• POPUP (23A: Temporary, as a store) — I wonder if this was originally clued in reference to the theme as a pop-up ad?
• SKIPIT (26A: "Let's go to the next one")—In light of the youthfulness of this puzzle, I'm also curious whether this was originally clued as the 80's-90's toy that you... skipped?

• ATONESPEAK (31D: Performing Flawlessly) — Booo. In addition to this being a dumb phrase, my brain parsed it as ATONE SPEAK, like some sort of command to verbally make up for something.
• NERDSROPE (7D: Crunchy candy with a gummy string center) — Objectively one of the worst candies don't @ me 

[Follow Rachel on Twitter where she mostly tweets about public health, ethics, and immigration]