Classic brand of candy wafers / SUN 5-31-20 / Opposite of une adversaire / Myth propagated to promote social harmony in Plato's Republic / Magical teen of Archie Comics / 2017 hit movie about an Olympic skater / Songbird with dark iridescent plumage

Constructor: Lewis Rothlein and Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (time in the 12s, but I stopped a bunch for screen shots, so I'd say at least a minute less than that) (oh and I've had a margarita, so probably need a difficulty adjustment there, too)

THEME: "What Goes Up Must Come Down" — themers have internal palindromes and those are represented in the grid by letters that literally go up (i.e. you read them up) and then down (i.e. you read the same letters back down) before continuing on with the non-palindromic rest of the answer:

Theme answers:

• MOBILE LIBRARIES (32A: Providers of books to remote locations)
• JUVENILE DELINQUENCY (34A: Unlawful activity by a minor)
• MEDICINAL PLANTS (66A: Some natural remedies)
• COMMERCE SECRETARY (69A: Cabinet position once held by Herbert Hoover)
• INOPPORTUNE MOMENT (104A: Untimely time)
• ELABORATE DETAIL (107A: Great depth)

Word of the Day: LENA (43D: Long river of Siberia) —

The Lena (Russian: Ле́на, IPA: [ˈlʲɛnə]; Evenki: Елюенэ, Eljune; Yakut: Өлүөнэ, Ölüöne; Buryat: Зүлхэ, Zülkhe; Mongolian: Зүлгэ, Zülge) is the easternmost of the three great Siberian rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean (the other two being the Ob' and the Yenisey). Permafrost underlies most of the catchment, 77% of which is continuous. The Lena is the eleventh-longest river in the world. [...] The Lena massacre was the name given to the 1912 shooting-down of striking goldminers and local citizens who protested at the working conditions in the mine near Bodaybo in northern Irkutsk. The incident was reported in the Duma (parliament) by Kerensky and is credited with stimulating revolutionary feeling in Russia.

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov may have taken his alias, Lenin, from the river Lena, when he was exiled to the Central Siberian Plateau. (wikipedia)

Hello! Or should I say, HELLO! (19A: Word whose rise in popularity coincided with the spread of the telephone). I have been realizing, slowly, as this pandemic wears on, that what I want most from crosswords isn't technical proficiency or theme pyrotechnics. It's fun. Joy. Yes, there's always some inherent joy in filling in boxes, getting the right answers, etc. But I will take a simple silly gimmick if it's genuinely ridiculous and warm-hearted and entertaining. Are you having fun or just going through the motions? Does the puzzle exist in order to fill space or does it seem designed to amuse? Has it been slapped together with all the usual old fill / clues, or has it been crafted with care and wit. Does it have at least a little currency? A little now-ness? A smile to offer? A wink? A slight "'sup?" of a head nod? I'm trying to figure out why this puzzle, which seems competent enough, just left me cold. I think that, once I saw what the themers were going to do, I thought, "well ... I guess they're just gonna do that ... some more." And they did. And then the puzzle was over. There was nothing more to it than the up and the down gimmick. And look, it's structurally at least interesting, and probably technically at least a little hard to pull off while also maintaining passable fill. But the overall effect was about as fun as tossing and catching a ball lightly in one hand, over and over. The tosses aren't remarkable in themselves. They don't connect to one another, or have anything in common. There's no revealer, no "here's why we did this!" Just the metronomic up and down of the bouncing ball. Just 'cause. And the fill was, with a few exceptions, industry standard. Shrug. I expect much more than a shrug. These days, I *need* much more than a shrug.


Here was my opening gambit:



Thought JUVENILE went through, then couldn't get the "I" to work, eventually got EQUIP and bingo, there was the theme. I thought maybe the up/down part would spell something or have some meaning or ... something. But that never panned out. Just a whole lot more up/down.


The clue on CELIBATE is just wrong, or at least wildly inappropriate. A "virgin" is someone who has not had sex. A CELIBATE person has made a deliberate choice to abstain from sex, usually for religious reasons. This answer makes my bile rise (not really, I just wanted to say that because BILE is literally "rising" inside this answer). Let's see, what else? I wrote in EUGENE instead of HELENA, so that was fun (14D: State capital in Lewis and Clark county). You'd think I'd've remembered that the capital of Oregon is SALEM, but no. I also wrote in ELLS and LIGHT (!?) before ERAS (111D: Museum sections, perhaps) and ANGLE (122A: Selfie taker's concern). I liked IMPOUND LOT better than anything in this grid, I think. I also appreciated the genderless I.T. PEOPLE (51A: Bug experts, informally). I would've spelled MEANY with an -IE (71D: Villain). NOBLE LIE seems like a really dumb answer you'd never use if it hadn't been in some wordlist somewhere (109A: Myth propagated to promote social harmony, in Plato's "Republic"). GET A FLAT has big EAT A SANDWICH energy (84A: Pop a wheelie?). Mostly the fill is just flat. MATTE. Dull.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. I love you, Minneapolis

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