Japanese room divider / SAT 11-23-18 / Dora the Explorer catchphrase / Drink that competes with Monster / Actor who says it takes smart guy to play dumb

Constructor: David Steinberg

Relative difficulty: Easy (5:10, fastest Saturday time since I started recording in April)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: BOFA (55A: U.S. financial giant, for short) —

So, apparently this "bofa deez nuts" thing just became a thing and I can't figure out why. From what I remember, almost the entire internet hated the "deez nuts" vine, but now for some reason it's relevant again? Every time I see it introduced out of context, "BOFA" is in all caps but no one seems to know what it is the acronym for. Google keeps giving me results for "Bank of America" whenever I search with "bofa" as a term but I can't see how that would make sense considering the proper way to abbreviate those types of terms would be "BoA" I have no idea why the F would need to be there, or why it is also capitalized. Urban dictionary says that it is slang for "both of" but that doesn't clear up anything about the origins of the recent meme, if one can even call it a meme. I shouldn't be looking this far into it, but this is just driving me crazy. (reddit) (emph. mine)

Well, having had a young daughter in the early '00s really paid off today. I don't remember her being a huge "Dora" fan, but "SWIPER, NO SWIPING!" was a total gimme (1A: "Dora the Explorer" catchphrase). First thing in the grid. I couldn't believe it. Like a gift from heaven. I wrote it in while saying "No way..." Sometimes the breaks just go your way. I have a feeling that today is either going to be Very easy for people, or Very hard, based almost entirely on this answer, which is surely nonsensical if you don't have the context from the show (Swiper is a character ... he, uh, swipes things, and Dora, or someone, repeatedly tells him not to ... if I have this wrong, someone will correct me). It took me longer (much longer) to get the short Dora clue (SRTA) than it did to get "SWIPER, NO SWIPING!" Bizarre. But with all those first letters in place—and I mean, *all* the first letters in place for the Downs at the top of the grid—the Saturday puzzle instantly got much easier. GENE PAT INAHOLE STUNS RAPSHEET NIETZSCHE PHEW EMS IGLOO and WIDER, all with no or little help. Held back a bit on INAHOLE, but it ended up being right. Also held back, 'cause I had to, on ONCE (coulda been ONLY) (8D: Part of YOLO). So, knowing 1A meant Obliterating the top third of the grid. Weirdly, it didn't get much tougher from there.







The stacks are solid and there's very little junk in this grid. The middle has all of the black squares and none of the interest; weird. The answers I struggled over most were:

Five issues:

• 23A: Japanese room divider (SHOJI)— wanted SCRIM at first, but that doesn't sound very Japanese. Not sure why SHOJI eventually felt right. For the "J" cross, I was lucky to have at least have heard ofJESSIE J (24D: ___ J, singer with the 2014 hit "Bang Bang")
• 13D: Spark provider (INITIATOR)— just couldn't get a grip on what form of "initial"-something was going to go here. INITIATION? "Spark" sounds like it's related to an idea, and INITIATOR sounds more like a person, so I just fumbled a bit here
• 50D: ___ Tatin (upside-down pastry) (TARTE) — well, I didn't know BOFA so the "A" in TARTE was a Total guess. Coulda been "O" as far as I knew
• 29D: ___ big (YEA)— Me, figuratively and literally: "YAY!" :(
• 34A: Angel's antithesis (BRAT) — had the "T" and wanted GOAT. . . I didn't say it was a good guess

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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