Eyebrow-filling technique / FRI 7-31-20 / Pants slangily / Brand with classic wavy varieties / Gymnastics eponym of a double back somersault with three twists / Country whose name is believed to come from ancient Greek for honey-sweet / Hilton pulitzer-winning critic for New Yorker

Constructor: Claire Rimkus and Erik Agard

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (Medium, but I had an eternal-seeming free fall in the SE corner, so that threw my time off badly)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: MICROBLADING (9D: Eyebrow-filling technique) —

Microblading is a tattooing technique in which a small handheld tool made of several tiny needles is used to add semi-permanent pigment to the skin. Microblading differs from standard eyebrow tattooing because each hairstroke is created by hand using a blade which creates fine slices in the skin, whereas eyebrow tattoos are done with a machine and single needle bundle. Microblading is typically used on eyebrows to create, enhance or reshape their appearance in terms of both shape and color. It deposits pigment into the upper region of the dermis, so it fades more rapidly than traditional tattooing techniques, which deposit pigment deeper. Microblading artists are not necessarily tattoo artists, and vice versa, because the techniques require different training. // Microblading is also sometimes called embroidery, feather touch or hair-like strokes. (wikipedia)

This grid has many strengths, and I enjoyed solving it right up to the very end, when I hit a clue that made no sense to me and got completely stuck. Freefall stuck. Three blank squares left and ... no hope. Or so it seemed. The main problem is a clue that, in retrospect, seems actually very truly bad, on multiple levels. That clue is the clue for STUBS (48D: Movie reviewers often trash them). I worked that answer down to STU-S and ... nothing. No idea. I figured I had an answer wrong, since STUDS couldn't be right, and nothing came to mind that seemed remotely right. And the cross was 57A: Life partner, for which I had -IM-, and for which the only answer that occurred to me was TIME. Isn't TIME/Life a company of some kind? I seem to remember TV ads featuring TIME/Life operators, standing by ... to do ... something. Hang on, let me look that up... oh yeah, man, that company had a real racket going with their eternal series of books for whatever you're in to. Photography. Cooking. This baloney:


Point is, I am old and TIME seemed a very reasonable answer for [Life partner]. Then there was 52D: "___ pass" (IT'LL). I had the IT- ... but never considered IT'LL. Instead, the only thing I could think of was "IT'S A pass" (kinda like "It's a no" ... like, a way to phrase a rejection, as in "no thanks"). That left one answer that could—and eventually did—rescue me: 60A: Brand with "Classic" and Wavy" varieties (LAY'S). Really, really should've gotten this earlier, but I got so distracted by the stuff I couldn't make sense of, I didn't think this one through enough. The "wavy" part, combined with having -AY- in place, eventually got me LAY'S which got me ITLL which got me LIMB which brings me back to ... STUBS. What the hell does that clue think it's doing? Well, no, I know what it *thinks* it's doing. The STUBS are supposed to be *ticket* STUBS (I think), and you throw them away (or "trash them" after seeing a movie? OK, well, uh, two things. First, movie *reviewers* see screenings before the general public, right? I mean, now they probably just watch screeners, but the point is I don't know what the STUBS situation is like for movie "reviewers" because they just don't see the movies with the rest of us schlubs. I assume the tix are comped and STUBS aren't involved. Point is, I would never associate the general-public ticket *stub* with a movie *reviewer*. That's just nonsense. Further nonsense—even I, an old, don't even deal with STUBS any more. The last few movies I've seen in the theater, my ticket was on my phone. The ticket-taker scans it, bada-bing, I'm in. No STUBS to "trash." So this clue is somehow both factually wrong and dated. And that is what I'm left thinking, at the end of an otherwise nice grid. I'm left with that feeling of "why did you write such a bad clue?" (I have no idea who's responsible here; could be constructors, but editor rewrites lots of clues, as a rule). The clue is just a badly misguided attempt at wordplay, and it really detracted from the enjoyment I was having up until that point.

[Cinema ephemera of yore]

Wasn't sure about ELASTIGIRL because I don't remember "The Incredibles" (15A: Superhero in "The Incredibles"). I think I had both ELASTICMAN and ELASTICGAL in there before crosses led me to the right answer. Don't really like the clue on HALF at all (31D: Like 50 U.S. senators). Yes, 50 is HALF of the *number* of U.S. senators, but the clue is phrased like the adjective is going to describe them (like, in a fair and representative world, the answer could be MALE, say). Clue is awkward as is. Deliberately misleading, but not in a clever way. I also found the clue on LUSTS (24D: Groin pulls?) really truly CRINGEWORTHY. I get that it's about the fact that lust involves a "pull" (or attraction) on your "groin" (or genital ... area) but the image it conjures up, and that "pull" conjures up specifically, is that of a dude masturbating and ... yeah, in my crossword? It's a pass!

While I didn't love cringing, I did love CRINGEWORTHY as an answer, just as I loved "AMEN TO THAT!", MICROBLADING, and HIS AND HIS (saw right through that attempt to trip me with heterosexism, though HER did briefly occur to me as a possible last three letters) (31A: Like some monogrammed towels). Lots of women in this grid (DINAH SHORE! Now there's an old-school answer I can get behind) and in general the puzzle felt gender-balanced, not gender-biased the way it often can in the (somehow still) male-dominated world of NYTXW constructors.  So if I just look at the grid, I think this puzzle is really nice. I just found a few of the clues really off, or off-putting, and that kinda soured my experience.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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