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Oklahoma tribe originally from the Southeast / FRI 7-12-19 / Advice column query / "This isn't over" / Means of interstellar travel

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Constructor:Evan Kalish

Relative difficulty:Hard (for a Friday)


THEME: Themeless

Word of the Day:CHICKASAW(15A: Oklahoma tribe originally from the Southeast) —
The Chickasaw (/ˈtʃɪkəsɔː/ CHIK-ə-saw) are an indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands. Their traditional territory was in the Southeastern United States of Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee.[2] Their language is classified as a member of the Muskogean language family and in the present day, they are organized as the federally recognized Chickasaw Nation. 
Sometime prior to the first European contact, the Chickasaw migrated from western regions and moved east of the Mississippi River, where they settled mostly in present-day northeast Mississippi and into Lawrence County, Tennessee.[3] That is where they encountered European explorers and traders, having relationships with French, English and Spanish during the colonial years. The United States considered the Chickasaw one of the Five Civilized Tribes, as they adopted numerous practices of European Americans. Resisting European-American settlers encroaching on their territory, they were forced by the US to sell their country in the 1832 Treaty of Pontotoc Creek and move to Indian Territory (Oklahoma) during the era of Indian Removal in the 1830s. [wikipedia]
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Hello everyone! Jenna LaFleur here, filling in for Rex. When Rex gave me a few possible dates I could sign up for, I was glad to see a Friday among them. Friday, in general, is my favorite day of the week for crosswords, so I had my fingers crossed that this would be a good puzzle and give me something fun to blog about. After the last four puzzles in a row all left me feeling somewhere between :-| and :-(, I'm glad to report that I enjoyed this one overall!

The band BATTLES (21D: Much of military history), one of my own personal favorites

I set myself up to stumble early on: I started to enter CHEROKEE for 15A, realized it was one letter too short, thought to myself I guess it's CHEROKEES then?, and proceeded to get frustrated when nothing else in that corner (besides 1D and 2D) seemed to be working. Eventually I gave up and moved elsewhere in the grid to try and gain a new foothold, but I left that incorrect guess in place for way too long.

The long entries in this grid are, in general, prime examples of the kind of fun and interesting stuff I enjoy seeing in Friday puzzles. In particular, TO BE CONTINUED (33A: "This isn't over") and WHAT SHOULD I DO (36A: Advice column query) stuck out to me as the highlights of the bunch. On top of that, I thought the fill here was pretty clean throughout. When stuff like UTE and TAM is the worst a puzzle has in terms of crosswordese, that's a good sign in my book.

36A: If you're looking for serious advice, probably don't write in to the McElroy brothers.

Overall, though, I feel like the cluing on this puzzle was closer to Saturday-level than Friday-level difficulty. For example, REM being clued as (38A: Ad ___), instead of the sleep phase or the band, led me to confidently plonk down HOC in that spot, another mistake that took me a while to correct. Similarly nonstandard cluing angles for other entries all added up to make this a slow solve for me, but others' experience may vary.

Bullets:

  • MARTS (46D: Selling points) — This might be my favorite clue in the puzzle. Fun little bit of wordplay.
  • SKY (5D: Something on the horizon)— On the other hand, here's a clue I didn't like. I don't think I would really consider the sky to be on the horizon, merely above it.
  • SEVEN (49A: This clue's number divided by this clue's answer)— Hey, I came to this puzzle for words, not for math! :-)
  • IN A MOMENT (60A: Shortly)— Did anyone else get this based on some of the first few letters, and then only fill in IN A M_____ because it could also be IN A MINUTE?
I've gotta go now, but it's been fun getting to fill in for a day. I hope to return sometime in the future, so, as 33A says, TO BE CONTINUED!
    Signed, Jenna LaFleur, Friend of CrossWorld

    [Follow Jenna LaFleur on Twitter]
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