Botanical opening / FRI 3-20-20 / Chess concession / Kind of horn pitched in E flat / Acted cheekily in two senses / Required wear in some Hindu temples / Pen name of Ruth Crowley Eppie Lederer

Constructor: Wyna Liu and Paolo Pasco

Relative difficulty: Mediumish? Maybe a tad on the harder side (6:15)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: ATHLEISURE (15A: Sporty/casual fashion trend) —

Athleisure is a fabricated style of clothing typically worn during athletic activities and in other settings, such as at the workplace, at school, or at other casual or social occasions. Athleisure outfits can include yoga pants, tights, sneakers, leggings and shorts, that "look like athletic wear", characterized as "fashionable, dressed up sweats and exercise clothing". The idea is that gym clothes are supposedly making their way out of the gym and becoming a larger part of people's everyday wardrobes.

Athleisure can be considered as a fashion industry movement, enabled by improved textile materials, which allow sportswear to be more versatile, comfortable, and fashionable. (wikipedia)

OK, yeah, this was pretty good. I enjoyed this. I particularly enjoyed the showy long Downs that anchor this thing: WHO WORE IT BEST? (3D: Tabloid question next to two people in the same outfit) and "CARE TO ELABORATE...?" (12D: "Can you say more about that?"). Those are twin columns of contemporary flair and colloquial currency. Gotta make the most of your big answers, and this puzzle really does. The rest of the puzzle wasn't as wow-y, but it definitely holds up. What was most remarkable to me was how uneven it felt, difficulty-wise; specifically, the NW was a nightmare for me, whereas the rest of it was pretty Friday-average. Every clue in the NW felt either obscure or clued in a very deliberately obfuscating way. OSKAR *and* JOAN? Not one but two not-terribly-famous fictional first names. Yikes. (7D: "The Tin Drum" narrator + 24D: ___ Watson, role for Lucy Liu on "Elementary"). I had to wait for crosses to tell me what those were (JOAN was the harder by far). And then the clue on POWER CORDS looks like it wants a verb (1A: Needs to recharge), while the clue on REEL IN looks like it wants a noun (5D: Land, at sea). And then the clues on DRS and (esp.) SESH were just inscrutable to me. And then there was OTTOMAN with the corny "dogs" clue (2D: Place for dogs to rest) ("dogs" = feet, kids). The whole experience up there was nearly RUINOUS for me. Oh, I also didn't know that stolen kisses were (necessarily?) on cheeks. So the cheek-based clue had me thinking ... well, a different body part. Thought for sure the answer would have something to do with mooning. A wild ride, that whole corner.


Elsewhere in the grid, the only problem I had was in the TODOS / DOUR / GORDO area, because a. wtf TODOS? that's a noun?, and b. I just couldn't see DOUR from __UR, and I only had __UR because c. I didn't know if GORDO was maybe gonna be GORDA. I also didn't / don't really get how HERO is a [Beau ideal] (do you want your beau to be your HERO ... ideally?), and I don't play chess so the "I RESIGN" clue meant nothing to me (seems oddly formal). No other difficulty issues. Mostly just a pleasant, occasionally joyous solving experience, my whole flailing-in-the-NW experience notwithstanding.


I coulda done without TODOS (which, again ... what? ... I really don't like that as a noun) and ATTA and ARGH (somehow the spelling seems odd ... I think I write it with two "A"s?) and laugh syllables are always unwelcome (HAHS), but that's not much rough stuff, and it's pretty scattershot. On the other end of the quality spectrum, I really enjoyed "OH, GREAT" and EGG WASH and "NO DUH!" Do kids still say "NO DUH!" It feels so of My age, i.e. '80s, like "totally" and "awesome" and "rad" and saying "like" all the time. I think we also had "NO DOY!" but I have no idea what the etymology on that was; I'll leave it to the experts. I wrote in PRADO for 52A: El ___, but CUOMO sorted me out  (finally, a reason to like that guy!). Hope you found something to like in this one. Take care, everyone.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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