Dominated in gamer lingo / TUE 1-7-20 / Public perception in political lingo / How LPs were originally recorded / Picture from Ansel Adams say

Constructor: Ross Trudeau

Relative difficulty: Easy (3:07 first thing in the morning, which is when I'm at my slowest—felt like one of the fastest Tuesday I'd done in ages, though in actuality still 20 seconds off my record)

THEME: OUTSIDE SHOTS (51A: What 20-, 28- and 42-Across are) — themers are different kinds of literal and metaphorical OUTSIDE SHOTS:

Theme answers:

• THREE POINTER (20A: Long jumper, in hoops)
• GHOST OF A CHANCE (28A: Very slight probability)
• LANDSCAPE PHOTO (42A: Picture from Ansel Adams, say)

Word of the Day: Reggie Jackson (18A: Nickname for baseball's Reggie Jackson => MR. OCTOBER) —

Reginald Martinez Jackson (born May 18, 1946) is an American former professional baseballright fielder who played 21 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Kansas City / Oakland Athletics, Baltimore Orioles, New York Yankees, and California Angels. Jackson was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1993. (wikipedia)

Dutchess, 2002-2019

HELLO, READERS AND FELLOW SOLVERS. It's early January and that means it's time for my annual pitch for financial contributions to the blog, during which I ask regular readers to consider what the blog is worth to them on an annual basis and give accordingly. It's kind of a melancholy January this year, what with the world in, let's say, turmoil. Also, on a personal note, 2019 was the year I lost Dutchess, who was officially The Best Dog, and who was with me well before I was "Rex Parker." Somehow the turning of the calendar to 2020 felt like ... I was leaving her behind. It's not a rational sentiment, but love's not rational, especially pet love. Speaking of love—I try hard to bring a passion and enthusiasm to our shared pastime every time I sit down to this here keyboard. I love what I do here, but it is a lot of work, put in at terrible hours—I'm either writing late at night, or very early in the morning, so that I can have the blog up and ready to go by the time your day starts (9am at the very latest, usually much earlier). I have no major expenses, just my time. Well, I do pay Annabel and Claire, respectively, to write for me once a month, but beyond that, it's just my time. This blog is a source of joy and genuine community to me (and I hope to you) but it is also work, and this is the time of year when I acknowledge that! All I want to do is write and make that writing available to everyone, for free, no restrictions. I have heard any number of suggestions over the years about how I might "monetize" (oof, that word) the blog, but honestly, the only one I want anything to do with is the one I already use—once a year, for one week, I just ask readers to contribute directly. And then I let 51 weeks go by before I bring up the subject again. No ads, no gimmicks. It's just me creating this thing and then people who enjoy the thing supporting the work that goes into creating the thing. It's simple. I like simple. Your support means a lot to me. Knowing that I have a loyal readership really is the gas in the tank, the thing that keeps me solving and writing and never missing a day for 13+ years. I will continue to post the solved grid every day, tell you my feelings about the puzzle every day, make you laugh or wince or furrow your brow or shout at your screen every day, bring you news from the Wider World of Crosswords (beyond the NYT) every day. The Word of the Day is: Quotidian. Occurring every day. Daily. Whether you choose to contribute or not, I'm all yours. Daily.

How much should you give? Whatever you think the blog is worth to you on a yearly basis. Whatever that amount is is fantastic. Some people refuse to pay for what they can get for free. Others just don't have money to spare. All are welcome to read the blog—the site will always be open and free. But if you are able to express your appreciation monetarily, here are two options. First, a Paypal button (which you can also find in the blog sidebar):

Second, a mailing address (checks should be made out to "Rex Parker"):

Rex Parker c/o Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
Binghamton, NY 13905
All Paypal contributions will be gratefully acknowledged by email. All snail mail contributions will be gratefully acknowledged with hand-written postcards. I. Love. Snail Mail. I love seeing your gorgeous handwriting and then sending you my awful handwriting. It's all so wonderful. This year's cards are illustrations from the covers of classic Puffin Books—Penguin's children's book imprint.  Watership Down, Charlotte's Web, The Phantom Tollbooth, A Wrinkle in Time, How to Play Cricket ... you know, the classics. There are a hundred different covers and they are truly gorgeous. Please note: I don't keep a "mailing list" and don't share my contributor info with anyone. And if you give by snail mail and (for some reason) don't want a thank-you card, just say NO CARD.  As ever, I'm so grateful for your readership and support.

Now on to the puzzle!
I'm still not awake, frankly, so the fact that I solved puzzle in 3:07 (maybe half a minute under my Tuesday average) tells me it's very easy indeed. The only thing keeping this from being a dead spring were my fat fingers (got INTENTIONAL off the "IN-" but then proceeded to type it in like nine kinds of ways before I got the letters all in order, ugh) and a couple of terrible (if plausible-ish) wrong guesses. I never saw a theme. I might've sensed a theme, a longshot-type theme, but I had to look the thing over at the end to figure it out. I don't think I ever even really saw the revealer clue. Weird. And here's the thing about this puzzle: I kind of enjoyed solving it, when I had no idea what the theme was. It's smooth enough, the sports stuff is definitely my thing, and even though I don't actually believe anyone has ever uttered the word STEPNIECE (you really got time to cut things that fine?) and SCOTIAN on its own looks ridiculous, the fill felt mostly smoothish. The theme ... it has its cuteness, especially in that last themer with Ansel Adams, but LONG SHOTS keeps shouting at me from the sidelines like, "Hey! Hey! ... Yo! I shoulda been the revealer! This is some b***s***, man!"OUTSIDE SHOTS is a solid enough phrase, but stupid LONG SHOTS is over there shouting, convincingly, "I'm solider and you know it!" You'd have to get yourself a different third themer. Anyway, aside from having booring LONGSHOTS kind of heckling this thing in my brain, I thought it was tolerable and pleasant enough.


This puzzle reminded me of my dad and stepmom (though not STEPNIECE), because they are friendly with family members of the late Ansel Adams (taker of LANDSCAPE PHOTOs), and when I visit them these days, at their home in Carmel, CA, they often take me to this little seafood place on a pier in Monterey that is frequented by MR. OCTOBER, Reggie Jackson. I walked in one day and my dad was like "that's Reggie Jackson" and I wheeled around and yep, there he was. I was expecting some giant in pinstripes but he looks remarkably like every other old dude in Monterey. Hanging out with friends, wearing his windbreaker or whatever, eating his seafood. Shorter than I'd imagined. Still vibrant and handsome. I tried, mostly successfully, not to stare. Soon an otter floated by on his back outside the window, and so I was sufficiently distracted. Ironically, though Reggie Jackson was one of the first baseball players I ever knew about (and despised—grew up a Dodgers fan in the '70s), I absolutely blanked on his nickname at first becauuuusssse at 10D: Cause chafing, perhaps (RUB), I had the RU- and must've misread the clue as [Chafing cause] because I wrote in RUG. . Yup. That's what I wrote. Annnnnnyway, that was weird. 


I wrote in PEEKS AT instead of PEEPS AT (14D: Gets a furtive glimpse of), which ... you'd say PEEKS, wouldn't you? I can defend PEEPS ("Your honor, this yellow marshmallow bird and his friends were only etc.") but I really think that 4 out of 5 humans PEEK not PEEP. So SOU me! (are we still doing SOU? OK). Mixed, sleepy emotions from me, clearly. I'm gonna wrap things up now. Take care.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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