Homer with one RBI in baseball lingo / FRI 4-24-20 / Destructive 2017 hurricane / Historic destination in County Kerry Ireland

Constructor: John Guzzetta

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (6:16)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: ISLA Fisher (25A: Actress Fisher) —

Isla Lang Fisher (/ˈaɪlə/; born February 3, 1976) is an Australian actress and author who began her career on Australian television. Born to Scottish parents in Oman, she moved to Australia at age six. After appearing in television commercials at a young age, Fisher came to prominence for her portrayal of Shannon Reed on the soap opera Home and Away from 1994 to 1997, garnering two Logie Award nominations.

Fisher made a successful transition to Hollywood in the live-action film adaptation of Scooby-Doo (2002), and has since achieved fame for her roles in Wedding Crashers (2005), Hot Rod (2007), Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009), The Great Gatsby (2013), and Now You See Me (2013). Her other notable film credits include I Heart Huckabees (2004), The Lookout (2007), Definitely, Maybe (2008), Burke & Hare (2010), Bachelorette (2012), Visions (2015), Grimsby, Nocturnal Animals, Keeping Up with the Joneses (all 2016), and Tag (2018). In addition, she has voiced characters in animated films such as Horton Hears a Who! (2008), Rango (2011), and Rise of the Guardians (2012). On television, she was cast in a recurring role on the fourth and fifth seasons of Arrested Development (2013, 2018). (wikipedia)

Rough. Before I was half done, I had exclaimed "what?" or else audibly groaned something like half a dozen times. This thing was stale the second I bit into it (i.e. at TIETACK), and though parts of it are decent, the overall taste was unpleasant, for sure. Fitting that it has ARCHAISM in it, because it felt old and ... old. In a bad way. In the way where ... like in the olden days, when you just had to know random biological trivia or you were ****ed. BRISTLECONE PINE? SHAGBARK? News to me and *real* news to me, respectively. Take your botanical fetish back to the Maleskan era, thank you kindly. While you're at it, take back your colonialism (BRITISH RAJ) and your TSAR and ABBA and poor old Will GEER and NCO and TRALEE and UPI and SSN and  ELLS and IDED and everything else that is in one way or another crusty. What is with the pile-up of plurals!?!?! GIRTHS over IDAHOS! STELAE (ugh, with the -AE spelling). PESTOS!? This puzzle was heavily reliant on plurals, but those, ouch. And they came in such quick succession. And my god the painful bombardment of four-letter "I" names. You get one of those in crosswords. We all accept that you're probably gonna need, like, an ILSA or INGA or something to get you through. But IOLA (clued via a Hardy Boy's girlfriend!!??!?!) *and* ISLA *and* IRMA. This is comical, or would be if it weren't joy-sucking.


What does BERTHA have to do with THE BAR (33D: Name that's an anagram of THE BAR). It's like you're shouting at us, "I have no idea what this name is!!!!! It means nothing to me! It was in my wordlist! Just deal!" I mean, if there was a great legal mind named BERTHA, I'd be happy to learn this, if only because it would help me learn what the hell was going on with this clue.  I will never not hate GIBE and I feel the same about JIBE. I'm not going anywhere near either of those. Unwelcome, always. I ... BEDAMN (!?) them (18A: Swear at). You know what's an ARCHAISM, besides "Thou"? BEDAMN. BEDAMN is an ARCHAISM. Is TOMBOYS and ARCHAISM? It feels like one. Did the MINOTAUR really just sit in the "center" of the maze? I have to reread my mythology. Seems like he might've, I dunno, moved around (54A: Center of a maze). This has been the weirdest puzzle week. I did not enjoy the two days that are usually my favorites (Fri, Mon) and thought the mid-week themed stuff (often dire) was pretty dang good overall. The Quarantine is messing Everything up. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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