Ancient allegory paralleled in plot of the Matrix / SAT 3-13-21 / Journalist who wrote 1990s-2000s comic strip Capitol Hell / Eponymous founder of a San Diego research institute / It has coronoid and styloid processes

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I didn't have a good time with this one, but it's truly not the puzzle's fault. I made the world's dumbest mistake early on, which gave me a cross that I couldn't make sense of from the clue, and then hit two clues in a row where the answers didn't seem to fit into the given boxes ... and then I looked at the grid and thought "Oh, no, is there a theme in this one? Is this a Saturday rebus? Are they really gonna ruin my Saturday like this?" But no, it was I who was ruining my Saturday. I completed the puzzle, eventually, *with the world's dumbest mistake still in place*, and then struggled to find my mistake because, to my eye, everything in the grid looked just fine ... except for that cross I just couldn't make sense of. How, how in the world, could [Things often seen in windows] be TUBS?, I pondered. I turned it over and over, through all the meanings of TUBS ... only eventually to realize, so very late, that there's No Such Place as PLUTO'S CAVE. I mean, maybe Pluto had a cave, he was a god and all, he probably had a lot of things, but if he had a cave, I don't think anyone wrote about it. PLATO, on the other hand... [facepalm] [headdesk] [etc.] And I threw PLUTO'S CAVE down so fast, no hesitation. I blame used clothing store Pluto's Closet ... oh crap, that's PLATO too!?!? Plato's Closet??! Didn't Pluto get anything!? (I thought maybe Pluto's Cave was the name of the sex club in the 1982 Ron Howard film Night Shift, a movie I watched *a lot* as a teenager, but I just spent 15 minutes tracking that little bit of trivia down, and the name of the sex club is actually Paradise Fell ... which, you know, keeps us in the realm of Great Literature, but ... still no Pluto). Did I mention I have a Ph.D. in literature? And I've taught Plato? But then I also just finished teaching Dante's Inferno, which depicts a kind of Underworld, which is the realm of Pluto (even if Pluto's not actually in Inferno), so ... I'm gonna blame my confusion on that. Yes, I feel better now. It has been quite a morning.

Not EVENING(S) but EVENTIDE (8D: When a vesper bell rings). Not NESTEA but NESCAFÉ (9D: Beverage brand portmanteau). Worst of all, not SOLEMN but SOMBER (14D: Like many minor-key compositions) (that mistake was real and brutal). No idea about MAIA. Once I got out of the NW, things evened out considerably. Many long answers are very nice today, particularly "I MEAN COME ON!,"NOT IF BUT WHEN, and BENTO BOXES (somewhat surprised I don't see BENTO in puzzles more often). Had no idea Jake TAPPER wrote a comic strip (22A: Journalist who wrote the 1990s-2000s comic strip "Capitol Hell") and no idea ANGORA CATS had different colored eyes (11D: Pets that commonly have different-colored eyes, such as one blue and one amber) (why are there examples of the colors???). The only puzzle thing I actually didn't like today was the clue on OPEN BOOK EXAM (20D: Hardly a test of one's memory). The idea that these are inherently easy or don't require you to remember anything is laughable. With the move to distance learning, *all* my exams went to "open book" format, but weirdly grades did not magically get better—if you ask the right kinds of questions, and your exam is time-limited, then open books aren't much of a crutch at all. You just don't have time to look up everything you need to know, let alone process it into thoughtful, analytical prose. Anyway, that flippant clue can go **** itself. Most of the rest of this seems like decent Saturday entertainment.