Often-reddish quartz / SAT 7-20-19 / Best-selling game with hexagonal board / Pioneering thrash metal band with its own music festival Gigantour

Constructor: Sam Trabucco

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (honestly it felt pretty easy, but clock said 8:48 when I was done, and ... I wasn't actually done, because I had errors that took me another minute to sort out)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: JANK (42A: Of very poor quality, in modern slang) —

google.com

Hey, I just learned that a JANKER is a device for transporting logs (Scot.). Handy! Honestly, though, that _ANK / _ASPER crossing was a teeny bit dicey for me. I know "janky," and I guess I have heard JANK (which means ... the same thing??), but I honestly considered DANK, and then wondered how it was possible that I've never really known what DANK meant at all (me : DANK :: Joni Mitchell : clouds). *Thank*fully I knew (vaguely) that JASPER was some kind of stone (don't ask me which kind) (42D: Often-reddish quartz), and DASPER seemed super-dumb, so felt pretty confident in that "J." The main memorable moment in this puzzle, however, was not a fun one. It was my ultra-confidently (and, to be quite honest, *correctly*) putting in LEROY at 38A: Man's name that means "the king" (ELROY). See, LEROY is a name that both means "the king" *and* might belong to a non-toon human being. ELROY is solely a Jetson, whereas Leroy Brown (both the titular Jim Croce character and Encyclopedia Brown!) and Leroy Robert "Satchel" Paige and artist LeRoy Neiman and, uh, former Mariners rightfielder Leroy Stanton are all very real Leroys. Whereas when I google ELROY my first hit is a Wisconsin town of about a thousand souls. Seriously, this is the big image at the top of the first page of hits:

So when I finished I had RETILD (23D) and SEEDRIDE (!) (35D), which I knew were wrong, but I just couldn't see how anything in the grid was off. That's how solid "Leroy" seemed. Eventually I saw SLEDRIDE (35D: It's going downhill) and got to the "right" answer.

first thing I put in the grid (2D: Nebula Award winner Frederik)

The one thing I really liked about the puzzle was "BEER ME!" (59A: "Another Bud, bud!"), though I haaaaaaate the clue, which no one would say, ever. Or, you know, I hope not, 'cause it's terrible. Less terrible, but still not great, is the "AH" at the beginning of "AH, THIS IS THE LIFE" (34A: Comment of complete contentment). It's a pretty well-known crossword fact that the sound one makes when luxuriating at a spa or some other place of deep relaxation and, let's say, contentment, is "AHH" or maybe "AAH," but not "AH," which is really just a tepid form of "AHA." As in "ah, I see." The whole deal with the sound you make before saying "THIS IS THE LIFE" is that you are siiiiighing it, and the mere two-letter "AH" does not convey this sense of audible bliss at all. It's like someone just stumbled on "the life," and was like "ah ... I guess this is it." Like they found the sock they were looking for.


Other issues:

• 12D: Complained loudly and publicly (MADE A STINK) — had MADE A SCENE, as did you at some point, I'm guessing
• 32D: Capital on the Balkan Peninsula (TIRANE) — ugh, *this* place. Puzzle can never decide whether it's final letter is "E" or "A," so I can't either
• 20A: "Bandleader" with a 1967 #1 album (SGT. PEPPER) — had "SG-" to start and thought, "well, that's wrong ..."
• 8D: Best-selling game with a hexagonal board (SETTLERS OF CATAN)— I guess lots of people play this. I know the name, of course, but was reluctant to put it in, as I thought "Catan" was spelled like "Bataan," i.e. with two a's. I guess it's just called CATAN now??? My nerd friend seemed to suggest that. I wouldn't know.
• 15A: Fix without doctoring (HOME CURE) — oof. Pretty sure term you're looking for is "home remedy"

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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