Online initialism of rejoicing / TUE 6-1-21 / Figure skating biopic of 2017 / Part of the digestive system in brief / Mario's love interest in Super Mario games / Tech release of 2017

Theme answers:

• HALLE BERRY (16A: First African-American to win the Oscar for Best Actress)
• PROFESSOR PLUM (19A: He might have done it with the candlestick in the study)
• PRINCESS PEACH (52A: Mario's love interest in Super Mario games)
• FIONA APPLE (57A: Pop star with the 1996 3x platinum album "Tidal")

Word of the Day: DUA LIPA (33D: Singer with the 2019 #2 hit "Don't Start Now") —

Dua Lipa (/ˈduːə ˈliːpə/; Albanian: [ˈdua ˈlipa]; born 22 August 1995) is an English singer and songwriter. After working as a model, she signed with Warner Bros. Records in 2014 and released her eponymous debut album in 2017. The album peaked at number three on the UK Albums Chart, and yielded eight singles, including "Be the One", "IDGAF", and the UK number-one single "New Rules", which also peaked at number six in the US. The album has achieved platinum status worldwide. At the 2018 Brit Awards, Lipa won for British Female Solo Artist and British Breakthrough Act. [...] Her 2019 single "Don't Start Now" peaked at number two in the UK and US, and number four on the US Hot 100 year-end chart. It would become the most successful 2020 song by a female artist in the US. [...] Her second studio album, Future Nostalgia (2020), received critical acclaim and earned her six Grammy nominations, including Album of the Year, Record of the Year and Song of the Year. It became her first UK number-one album, with four top-ten singles including "Physical" and "Break My Heart". In 2021, Lipa was included on Time's 100 Next list about the future 100 most influential people in the world. She won for British Female Solo Artist and British Album of the Year at the 2021 Brit Awards. (wikipedia)

The basics of the theme are pretty unremarkable. Last names = fruit. The names have no relation to each other, and two of them are fictional, but they're names, fine. So, four fruit names. Not terribly exciting. Also, one of the fruits is more a fruit type. If you offer me an apple, a plum, or a peach, I'll either say yes or no (probably yes). If you offer me a berry, I'll ask "what kind?" I can picture the other three fruits, but BERRY is just a blurry mash of all the possible kinds of berries. But let's say, sure, berry, go ahead, you can be in this club. The problem with the theme is not the theme set, it's the revealer, which is chalkboard-scratch grating. My minor, inconsequential, matter-of-taste issue with it is I just don't like the way it sounds. I keep saying it out loud and it sounds awful. I think the past tense-ness of it is making it seem less stand-alone worthy than BEAR FRUIT would be. But that's just my ears freaking out—not a flaw per se. The flaw is the somewhat creepy biological angle here, the fact that our attention is directed not toward the answers but toward their ... parents? ... doing it? ... and then the mothers physically giving birth to babies? Never mind that two of the names are fictional and, seriously, does PROFESSOR PLUM even have parents? I don't know. But now I'm being asked to imagine his parents procreating? What in the world? The exclusionary, biologically-determined definition of parenting here is really off-putting. But mainly my point is none of this had to be. You had a fruit name theme. It might've worked, somehow. But that revealer is a thud. The clue on it is tortured and it asks me to go places, mentally, I have no interest in going. Not too happy about the stray fruit in the puzzle, either (4D: Cantaloupes and such = MELONS).

On the plus side, it's very very easy. The grid overall is fairly smooth and has some sparkly moments (TAQUITO TRUMPET!). And the theme answers themselves are colorful (!) all on their own. As usual, if there's any real difficulty today, it's gonna come with the names. Knew them all, though forgot which fruit the Super Mario princess was, so had let the crosses remind me. Also had a weird moment where I couldn't remember which part of HALLE BERRY's last name was -E and which was -Y. My brain seriously went "are you sure it's not HALLY BERRE!?" This is the second day in a row I've seen DUA LIPA in a puzzle. I've listened to her 2020 album Future Nostalgia, watched a "Song Exploder" (Netflix) episode about her, but I still couldn't get her name from this clue (33D: Singer with the 2019 #2 hit "Don't Start Now"). I know her name way way better than any one song title, so even though "Don't Start Now" was a big hit, it didn't register. You should expect to see her name, and name parts (DUA, LIPA), a lot now. She's a vowel-heavy 7, and, when you break her name apart, you've got two previously unusable and probably irresistible bits of short fill. Either way, she's gonna be around a while.

Thought the Heidi author was SPYRO despite having just looked at a copy of this book in our house (me: "throw away?" wife: "No!"). Is the puzzle corporately winking at us by driving IMACPRO (40D: Tech release of 2017) through APPLE? I can't say I'm a big fan of corporate winking. Do people still use FTW!? (short for "For the win!") (36D: Online initialism of rejoicing). Filled that in and realized I hadn't seen it in years and years. Feels very '09 (no idea what happened that year, it just sounds right). Hardest answer for me was GIFTS because it's inaccurate (28D: ESP and photographic memory, for two). I think the concept of "photographic memory" is disputed (wikipedia: "true photographic memory has never been demonstrated to exist"), but even if it's real, I *know* ESP is bullshit, so you cannot call something a "gift" if No One Possesses It. YUK. Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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