Ahura Mazda worshiper / SAT 12-22-18 / Court great Goolagong / Pragmatist philosopher Charles Sanders / Giant brain of 1940s headlines / Title city of film whose mayor is Leodore Lionheart

Constructor: Joon Pahk

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (felt like I was gonna be in record territory, but then I got stupidly stuck and refused to look at other clues, which a smart person would've done, and which would've sped things up tremendously ... anyway, 7:16)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: TACONIC State Parkway (20A: New York's ___ State Parkway) —

The Taconic State Parkway (often called the Taconic or the TSP and known administratively as New York State Route 987G or NY 987G) is a 104.12-mile (167.56 km) divided highway between Kensico Dam and Chatham, the longest parkway in the U.S. state of New York. It follows a generally northward route midway between the Hudson River and the Connecticut and Massachusetts state lines, along the Taconic Mountains. Its southernmost three miles (4.8 km) are a surface road; from the junction with the Sprain Brook Parkway northward it is a limited-access highway. It has grade-separated interchanges from that point to its northern terminus; in the three northern counties, there are also at-grade intersections, many with closed medians, allowing only right-in/right-out turns. It is open only to passenger vehicles, as with other parkways in New York, and maintained by the state Department of Transportation (NYSDOT), the fourth agency to have that responsibility.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had long envisioned a scenic road through the eastern Hudson Valley, was instrumental in making it a reality as a way to provide access to existing and planned state parks in the region. Its winding, hilly route was designed by landscape architect Gilmore Clarke to offer scenic vistas of the Hudson Highlands, Catskills, and Taconic regions. The bridges and now-closed service areas were designed to be aesthetically pleasing. It has been praised for the beauty of not only the surrounding landscape and views it offers, but the way the road itself integrates with and presents them. (wikipedia)

So easy to start (in the NW), and then I went right through the middle of the grid with GOING STEADY and finished off the SE with no problems either. From there, things went much more slowly. The middle was an annoying stack where 2/3 were "?" clues, and the top answer in the stack ... is just a gross concept in general. I'm sure that in theory the term isn't specifically gendered, but my experience is that dudes this term when trying to explain why they hooked up with an "unattractive" woman. It's objectifying and stupid and evokes a whole repulsive male culture that I've spent my whole life avoiding. So that's fun. Far worse, though, for me, is the completely asinine term ADULTING, one of my most hated of all 21st-century refuse-to-grow-up millennial-speak bullshit term (16A: Taking care of responsibilities like an actual grown-up). Yeah, being a grown-up sucks, but stop acting like it's cosplay. You're a grown-up. Shut up and grow up. It's so self-consciously infantilizing. Makes my skin crawl.

LOL to PERRY, in that ... she is absolutely unrecognizable (to me) without her first name (28D: First female artist with five Billboard #1's from the same album). She is first and last name. I had P-R-Y and zero idea what I was dealing with. Ended up getting it all from crosses, and then being like "Oh, right ... her."MILEY is at least known as MILEY (43D: 2000s female teen idol, to fans). On a related note: when was this puzzle made? Feels like 2005, but it would have to be after 2016, which is when "ZOOTOPIA" came out (never seen it, no idea what it's about). Proper nouns, man. Speaking of: TACONIC is some provincial nonsense. Lotsa letters strung together, none of them meaningful to me. Further: PEIRCE. I very vaguely know the name, but a. that is obscure, and b. that really looks like a typo. I didn't get too much joy from this. Lots of proper names I didn't know or (more likely) didn't care about, and a couple of answers I actively dislike. It's a well-made enough puzzle (despite your ARNESS and your EVONNE and your YSER), but not really for me.


Five things:

• 24D: Induces to commit a crime (SUBORNS) — Had SU- and wrote in SUCKERS at first. Then ... just had nothing. 
• 36D: Receive as a member (INCEPT) — uhrerufewhrhfghgherrrrrr ... I guess? No one uses that word. I wrote in INDUCT, forgetting that the clue to 24D (see above) exists. PS also no one says ESPIAL(50A: Act of noticing)
• 26A: Growth medium (SOIL) — wanted AGAR. 
• 26D: Ostentatious (SPLASHY) — wanted FLASHY. Really wanted FLASHY. Wrote in FLASHY, not even noticing that it came out FLASSHY.
• 32D: Want ad abbr. (EOE) — sorry, make that *three* answers I actively dislike. EEO, EOE, EIEIO, let's call the whole thing off

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Actual PS: Who, just noticed that 9D: SOB stands for "son of a bitch," which ... was totally unnecessary, considering SOB is a real word, but OK ... (9D: So-and-so)

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