Long straight-sided smoke / TUE 2-16-21 / Popular video game console released in 2013

THEME:"BEER ME!" (62A: "I'll have a cold one, please" ... or a hint to 17-, 26-, 43- and 57-Across)— words on the front or back ends (alternating) of longer answers are brands of BEER:

Theme answers:

• NIP IN THE BUD (17A: Do something)
• STELLA MCCARTNEY (26A: British fashion designer who's the daughter of Linda and Sir Paul)
• ONCE IN A BLUE MOON (43A: Very rarely)
• CORONA CIGAR (57A: Long, straight-sided smoke)

Word of the Day: XBOX ONE (41D: Popular video game console released in 2013) —

The Xbox One is a line of home video game consoles developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third base console in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It was first released in North America, parts of Europe, Australia, and South America in November 2013, and in Japan, China, and other European countries in September 2014. It is the first Xbox game console to be released in China, specifically in the Shanghai Free-Trade Zone. Microsoft marketed the device as an "all-in-one entertainment system", hence the name 'Xbox One'. An eighth-generation console, it mainly competed against Sony's PlayStation 4 and Nintendo's Wii U and later the  Switch. [...] The system was succeeded by the Xbox Series X and Series S consoles, which launched on November 10, 2020. (wikipedia)

Really enjoyed this one, partly because I have such low expectations for Tuesday that anything halfway decent is likely to come across as pleasing, but mostly because the revealer is fresh and fun (even if, again, it's not in the *final* Across position—what is with this trend with revealers *hovering* one line up from the bottom in the SE? ... although ... I guess if you can get far better fill results by lifting the revealer off the bottom by one row, then it's enough for the revealer just to be in the SE section—still has a terminal feel, and quality of fill should be a paramount concern ... although DIEM and TREY and CEO aren't exactly eye-popping ... OK, stopping overthinking this now). NIP IN THE BUD is a tight idiomatic phrase that makes me not mind the presence of NIP so much (if it shows up on the first page of search results as an ethnic slur, it's worth thinking hard about whether you really want to use it). STELLA MCCARTNEY is a pretty inspired way to get a 15-letter STELLA (to balance out the 15-letter ONCE IN A BLUE MOON, which is about the only BLUE MOON phrase there is). I sadly thought she was STELLA MCCARTHY, which didn't stretch to the whole 15, and which is obviously wrong if you bother to Read The Whole Clue (my clue-reading impatience costs me once again). I don't really know what a CORONA CIGAR is, but I trust that it is a thing. "Cigar" feels redundant—I think I've heard of "corona," the way I've heard of "claro" and "panatela" (my entire cigar vocabulary, besides "stogie" comes from crosswords). It's a type of cigar, not a brand (according to Cigar Aficionado, which is not a phrase I ever imagined writing, "corona" is the "benchmark size against which all other sizes are measured," so there). The whole grid is very lively, the revealer pops ... yes, I'll take this.

I liked both "AW, C'MON" (11D: "Pretty, pretty please") and COME BY (65A: Acquire) even though that *almost* feels like a dupe (i.e. duplicate, i.e. "come" is (sorta) in both answers). I'm not sure there's any "please" implied in "AW, C'MON." Speaking of which, I *know* there's not any "please" implied in "BEER ME!" so I have no idea why they've appended "please" to "I'll have a cold one" in that clue. I know ARES very well but do not think of him as a "symbol," so that clue was bizarrely hard for me (51D: Symbol of militarism). I seriously wanted APES in there at one point. I forgot the XBOX ONE existed. I wanted XBOX NOW, which is probably a conflation of XBOX LIVE and some other product name. I shave my head so the BRUSHES clue was not intuitive for me (25D: Items often used in front of mirrors). Didn't know EMILIA (14A: "Game of Thrones" actress Clarke) or RORY (49A: ___ Storm and the Hurricanes (Ringo's band before the Beatles)), but didn't even see the clue for the former (got the whole NW corner from Downs), and the latter came easily with crosses. I think I thought OARMEN had an "S" in it ... so, "oarsmen." I'm never 100% sure about the final vowel in AUGUR (33A: Foretell), possibly because AUGER ("a tool with a helical bit for boring holes in wood") also exists. But outside the ARES next to XBOX ONE section, this one went pretty smoothly. Really hit the Tuesday spot. That does not often happen. So, ok then, good. Moving on ...

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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