Constructor: Kameron Austin Collins
Relative difficulty: Challenging
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THEME: none
Word of the Day: Ronald KESSLER (10D: Journalist Ronald whose book "The Bureau" identified Deep Throat as W. Mark Felt) —
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Brutal. This was harder for me than most Saturdays. The combination of proper nouns I didn't know and deliberately misleading (i.e. intensely Saturday-level) cluing meant that I moved easily through almost no portion of this puzzle. I'm just glad the timer wasn't on. That said, the grid looks very nice, and many answers were genuinely pleasurable to discover, particularly MISE-EN-SCÈNE, TIN PAN ALLEY, and ALOE VERA GEL, which I'm not sure I *like* liked it so much as I enjoyed the odd sensation it gave me as it floated into view, as if from the fog. It was eerie. Like my fingers just sort of slowly made it appear, partly resistant to the odd letter combinations that were unfolding, partly curious to see where it all would end. There's something monstrous about it, ALOE VERA GEL. Sounds like some uncanny creature you'd encounter in Dungeons & Dragons. It's an answer that looks like it swallowed a lot of other, smaller, unsuspecting words, words like EVE and EVER and ERA and AGE and RAGE, poor things. So my feelings for it are more like a biblical Awe or respectful Terror than love. It was memorable, at any rate.
Relative difficulty: Challenging
Word of the Day: Ronald KESSLER (10D: Journalist Ronald whose book "The Bureau" identified Deep Throat as W. Mark Felt) —
Ronald Borek Kessler (born December 31, 1943) is an American journalist and author of 21 non-fiction books about the White House, U.S. Secret Service, FBI, and CIA. [...]In his book The Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI, Kessler presented the first credible evidence that Bob Woodward's and Carl Bernstein'sWatergate source dubbed Deep Throat was FBI official W. Mark Felt. (wikipedia)
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But yeah the names got me today, pretty badly. Actually, one name got me worse than any others: KESSLER. Zero idea. None. And while at times I wanted KESSLER (there was a poet who used to teach her named Milt KESSLER who was kind of a big deal, so at least I'd seen the name before), but when crosses wouldn't work out, I'd start doubting KESSLER. Just couldn't stick to it. The very worst letter was the last because it was the first letter in RHYME (31A: Rap, per old-school rappers), which absolutely stymied and befuddled me, despite the answer's ultimate obviousness and simplicity. In fact, because of that obviousness. I had no idea RHYME was "old-school," that it had stopped being a word for rap, which probably means that I am old, which ... yes, that checks out. But I also was unclear on how to spell COCHLEAS (I only know the term from the adjective "cochlear," as in "cochlear implant, and I honestly thought there were two "C"s immediately preceding the "H"). Then YEAS and MESH were just too hard for me to get, so the "Y" and "M" in RHYME stayed hidden. Throw in my near-total unfamiliarity with whatever SODA ASH is (45A: Water-softening compound), and that eastern section gets Real Scary. Somehow eventually got YEAS from that clue (32D: Consensus from a bloc), and crawled to the ending. Horrible feeling to have the last thing you get (RHYME) be such a simple thing. But we can't choose how we go out. These things just happen.
Had the same RHYME-type experience with MYA (4D: Grammy winner for 2001's "Lady Marmalade"), where, once I got her from crosses, I thought "Oh, her ... *she* was on that track!?" I can name *three* other women who sang / rapped on "Lady Marmalade" (L'il Kim, Xtina, Missy ... ooh, looks like Pink's in there too), but wow, MYA ... I just forgot. Oh, hey, here's a thing I just learned, MYA has an accent aigu over the "Y" (!) (like on the "E"s in ÉTÉ, every solver's favorite French season)—my keyboard won't even let me put that accent on a "Y." Only the real vowels are allowed such an accent, apparently. So just remember to mentally supply it. Not sure what it's supposed to do to the pronunciation. But that's her name so that's her name. Other name snags: OLGA (54D: 2018 Liteature Nobelist Tokarczuk); SOTO (30D: Mississippi's De ___ National Forest (De SOTO was an explorer, and I know his name now that I see it, but I was never gonna get it from "De ___"); and BIG MAC (!) (1A: Sandwich originally named the Aristocrat) (no clue). Then there was NINON, which ... wow that is at the bottom of my five-letter crossword fabrics list. TWILL TULLE TWEED ORLON NYLON SATIN SERGE BAIZE CREPE LINEN MOIRE TOILE VOILE ... but NINON? Non, non. It's not even on wikipedia's List of Fabrics, LOL. So that was rough (not NINON, NINON is a smooth, sheer fabric, but coming up with NINON as an answer—rough). Also rough, comparative adjectives no one would ever say, i.e. WINSOMER (22D: More charming). Love "winsome," but the comparative is an implausibility. But if I was SADDENED today it was mostly by my own feeling of incompetence. The grid feels mostly very solid and occasionally delightful.