Constructor: Amanda Rafkin
Relative difficulty: Medium (skewing slightly harder depending on how rough the proper nouns were for you)
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THEME: none
Word of the Day: Dorothy LAMOUR (27D: Dorothy of old"Road" films) —
Had some trouble in the middle of this one, but otherwise, a pretty normal Friday. A little heavy on names, but maybe that's just the SE, where BADU BENES HEIDI and TOO $hort all cross each other just a little bit over from the RAND / O'NEIL cross. LAMOUR and LASSER are old(er) names that might have caused trouble as well (though LASSER is, or was, reasonably common at one point). All of the names are fine, individually. Perfectly suitable for crosswords. There were just a lot of them piled up, which can make solving dicey, as proper nouns are feast or famine for solvers. The NW was, bizarrely, the easiest part of the puzzle for me. Usually, getting started can involve a lot of sputtering, but I went to the little guy early (FAD), and that terminal "F" got me A BIT OF—and thus the first letters of All the Acrosses in that section. LACUNA is kind of a tough word, but it's one I know, so I made quick work of that NW section. It was only when I hit the center that I ran into problems—total stoppage, in fact. See if you can see where my problem is:
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Relative difficulty: Medium (skewing slightly harder depending on how rough the proper nouns were for you)
Word of the Day: Dorothy LAMOUR (27D: Dorothy of old"Road" films) —
Dorothy Lamour (born Mary Leta Dorothy Slaton; December 10, 1914 – September 22, 1996) was an American actress and singer. She is best remembered for having appeared in the Road to...movies, a series of successful comedies starring Bing Crosby and Bob Hope.
Lamour began her career in the 1930s as a big band singer. In 1936, she moved to Hollywood, where she signed with Paramount Pictures. Her appearance as Ulah in The Jungle Princess (1936) brought her fame and marked the beginning of her image as the "Sarong Queen".
In 1940, Lamour made her first Road series comedy film Road to Singapore. The Road series films were popular during the 1940s. The sixth film in the series, Road to Bali, was released in 1952. (wikipedia)
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Well, ENO, obviously (30D: Singer/songwriter of 1980's "Kiss Kiss Kiss"). I actually had ONO in there at first, but -YLO- looked wrong at 29-Across so I pulled it. I also have NESTEA instead of NESTLÉ at 25D: Parent company of Gerber and Lean Cuisine. That's the real killer, because that's two wrong letters reaching into the empty part of the grid, giving me false footholds. Bad news. Even with the A-K- at the top of 28D: 13, for many (AWKWARD AGE), I couldn't see it (wanted something like "unlucky number"). The only thing that makes me mad at the *puzzle* and not myself is 27A: Modern lead-in to speak (LOL). I've been on the internet for, well, a while, and I don't know what "LOLspeak" is. LOLcats, yes. LOLspeak, no. Lulz, yes, LOLspeak ... can't even imagine. Hang on. Wow, ok, it seems that LOLspeak is the language of LOLcats. The ungrammatical language of cat memes. OK.
When I googled "LOLspeak," LOLcat came up. I love cats, but the whole LOLcat thing got very old very fast. It all feels very 15 years ago, i.e. a lot less "modern" than the clue believes. I really hope you knew LOLspeak, or knew Dorothy LAMOUR, because that crossing seems maybe tough otherwise. I briefly thought the actress was Dorothy MALONE (just watched "Written on the Wind"), and was very eager to find out what MOLspeak was. But then I fixed it.
I think MADE BANK is my favorite thing in this grid (13D: Raked in the dough). AWKWARD AGE is also nice, even if the clue did flummox me for a bit. And both CEREAL AISLE and its clue are very nice (53A: Way of Life?). Though I talk about her every time I teach the Aeneid, I never think of Helen as a DEMI-GODDESS, but of course she is, just as (technically) Aeneas is a demi-god (mother = Venus). Helen was the offspring of Leda (a mortal princess) and the Swan (aka noted shapeshifter-rapist Zeus). What else? Oh, lots of women in the grid—very noticeable, largely because the norm is the reverse. In fact, men are better represented in this grid than women are in the typical NYTXW grid. Nice to see the effort here to even things out a bit, though it shouldn't just be women constructors who are fixing this issue.
Lastly, if you don't get the clue on VOWELS (37A: Complete set in musical comedy?), it just means that a complete set of the VOWELS (a e i o u and even y) can be found in the phrase "musical comedy." Until tomorrow...