Rebellion leader of 1786 / FRI 4-12-19 / Sweet locale in T.S. Eliot's Wasteland / Utterly in modern slang / Jalapeño after smoking / Classic book that begins At far end of town where Grickle-grass grows

Constructor: Howard Barkin

Relative difficulty: Easy (4:12) 

THEME: none

Word of the Day: SHAYS Rebellion (32D: Rebellion leader of 1786) —

Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising in Massachusetts in opposition to increased government coercion in taxing individuals and in their trades^[2]; the fight took place mostly in and around Springfield during 1786 and 1787. American Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays led four thousand rebels (called Shaysites) in a protest against economic and civil rights injustices. Shays was a farmhand from Massachusetts at the beginning of the Revolutionary War; he joined the Continental Army, saw action at the Battles of Lexington and Concord, Battle of Bunker Hill, and Battles of Saratoga, and was eventually wounded in action.

In 1787, Shays' rebels marched on the United States' Armory at Springfield in an unsuccessful attempt to seize its weaponry and overthrow the government. The federal government found itself unable to finance troops to put down the rebellion, and it was consequently put down by the Massachusetts State militia and a privately funded local militia. The widely held view was that the Articles of Confederation needed to be reformed as the country's governing document, and the events of the rebellion served as a catalyst for the Constitutional Convention and the creation of the new government.

The shock of Shays' Rebellion drew retired General George Washington back into public life, leading to his two terms as the first president of the United States. (wikipedia)

Personal record for a Friday, and first thing in the morning, too. Such a delightful way to wake up. This is such a clean and bouncy and lovely grid. This grid wants you to rise and shine so it can make you pancakes. The number of "ick""no!" and "ugh"s it elicited was virtually zero. Possibly actually zero. I actually had very bad feelings right off the bat, as I wrote in BERG (which is a fine word) for 1D: Sight on an Alaskan cruise, but then had to change it because of ANT (19A: Aesop's "The ___ and the Grasshopper"), leaving me with "blank blank blank A" for the Alaskan cruise sight, and four letters ending "A" ....? Well, I disgruntledly wrote in ATKA, aka the Island Home of Crosswordese. It's where the infamous Oracle of OOXTEPLERNON is located (OOXTEPLERNON is the God of Bad Short Fill, and I don't say his name much because he's kinda like Voldemort that way). So I was like "Really, puzzle, right off the bat, we're goin' back to ATKA (ATKA ... ATKA), we're going back to ATKA?" Nah, I don't think so! Turns out the Alaskan cruise sight is just an ORCA (also crosswordese, but also a very real creature, so no one cares that it's crosswordese). I had a few tiny struggles getting out of the NW—SET AT and WASPS both eluded me for a little bit, and the last three letters of STEPMOM required crosses because -SON or -DAD were both viable. But I went down SHOWPIECE, over to the west with MESSI, back to the middle with AT THE MOMENT and CURAÇAO, and just exploded into the rest of the grid. Polished it off with barely any hesitation and much delight. No "SON OF A"s from me. Just OOH and some more OOHs and The End.


I honestly thought it was SHAY apostrophe S Rebellion, so I balked at writing in SHAYS, since the clue did not indicate a possessive. So much for my Letter of Commendation in AP US History from 1986! I also had a moment of head-cocked-in-slight-disbelief slow-typing when, after getting STREET FOOD, I looked at 50A: Led a parade, musically (--F--) and wrote in "F-I-F-E-D-? ... huh ... let's check these crosses, then ... FROM ... IOTA ... wow, yeah, it's FIFED. OK then!" Seems like a very specific kind of parade, but I got the answer quickly, so fifiing must be iconic enough as a parade-leading musical activity to work. Loved the clue on ROGET (49D: 19th-century author whose works are still read word for word) ("word for word"! 'Cause he wrote a thesaurus! Good one, dad!). The only answer I had no clue about was LORI (54D: Rick's wife on "The Walking Dead"), since I stopped watching that show when it became terminally boring (i.e. early in season 2). My lasting image from this puzzle will surely be of THE LORAX as a SEXTing SATANIST. Thanks, Howard.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. 24A: Starbucks competitor (MCCAFE) = hard LOL. Take that, Howard Schultz!

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