Constructor: Sophia Maymudes
Relative difficulty: Easy
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THEME: none
Word of the Day: LASSI (53D: Indian drink made from yogurt) —
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It is dumb how good this grid is. This is the kind of fun I'm looking and hoping for on Fridays. It's so unusual to get this much sass and bounce from a Saturday. I like Saturdays fine, but they can feel somewhat more plodding as the cluing deliberately tilts more difficult. The gruelingness can kinda undermine the zing a little—otherwise, I can't understand why Saturdays should be any duller than Fridays. They just feel that way. Usually. But not today, as I literally exclaimed "Wow" or some variant of "Wow" at least three times, and I rarely had that squinting, skeptical "really?" feeling. Also, I don't think I winced once. Too busy enjoying the longer fill, which shines all over. I balked a little at ADULT SITE. I think I'm used to people just being more frank and calling them PORN SITES. And "I WANNA LOOK" sounds realistic-ish, but a bit only -ish: I can hear "I WANNA SEE!" much much more readily in my head. It's really hard to tell which phrase is more common because google searches show tons of hits for both, but that's usually because they've turned up longer phrases that merely start with with "I WANNA..." Still, it's a little suspect that when I google "I WANNA LOOK," near the top of the hit list is some NYTXW answer-bot site. But I've gotten off track here: the puzzle is overwhelmingly enjoyable. It single-handedly raises the pure pleasure standard for Saturdays. Saturday is the new Friday! (But Friday is also still Friday—never change, Friday!)
Relative difficulty: Easy
Word of the Day: LASSI (53D: Indian drink made from yogurt) —
Lassi (pronounced [ləsːi]) is a popular traditional dahi (yogurt)-based drink that originated in the Punjab region. Lassi is a blend of yogurt, water, spices and sometimes fruit. Namkeen (salty) lassi is similar to doogh, while sweet and mango lassis are like milkshakes. Lassi may be infused with cannabis in the form of bhang. Chaas is a similar drink of a thinner consistency. (wikipedia) (my emph.)
• • •
(top google hit for ["I wanna see"] ... if nothing else, I learned who
Jack Harlow is)
This is about as fine a NW corner as you're ever gonna see. I thought it was going to be way way too easy to crack open. TRIX to XANADU was instant, bam bam. Then I got a little boost from some very helpful crosswordese (thank you, OOXTEPLERNON, God of Bad Short Fill™!), i.e. ADEN, and ICED LATTE came soon after, but my first couple passes at the top two Acrosses didn't yield anything. Then I got the short Downs at the end there (ADT LIT KEEPS) and saw TRASH TALK. "Ooh, good one," I thought (I had previously thought that [Take pregame shots?] was gonna have something to do with drinking). But then the beat really dropped when the last thing that came into focus up there was RIDE-OR-DIE. That's when I said, "oh, wow."TRASH TALK + RIDE-OR-DIE + ICED LATTE—that isn't just a mood, that's a music video. That's a damn rock opera. I would've been happy to stop right there. Perfect corner that unspooled perfectly.
But turns out there was more ADRENALINE to be felt, right alongside ADRENALINE, in fact. When I dropped SEEMS LEGIT in there, as with RIDE-OR-DIE, I thought "this is the crossword change I want to see in the world!" I also love that ADRENALINE falls down the side of the grid and its clue is *about* falling, i.e. sky-diving (14D: Something released while skydiving). The third and final exclamatory high point came after I puzzled over LAS- at 40D: Team game played in the dark; I had to struggle to move forward because I didn't really know NOEL (I had NEIL there for a bit) (52A: Name derived from the Latin for "to be born"), and WOOLEN was a struggle as well (probably the toughest clue in the puzzle for me) (47D: Warm, in a way). But somehow I got ORATES and then it was down to "MEAN GIRLS" and then I looked back at the LAS- answer, and with the terminal "G" in place finally realized I was dealing with LASER TAG, which was another aha, which makes three true AHAS in this puzzle, which actually makes me less mad than I would normally be at a weird plural like AHAS (21D: Mental sparks). Thought I might be in for a rougher time of things in the SW, since I had to back into it (from the rear ends of the Acrosses) but -OP got me ALCOPOP and that first "O" got me OTTO and the whole corner came tumbling down despite my having never heard of MARIO PARTY (which was hugely inferable—I guessed the MARIO part even before realizing the clue was cross-referenced to LUIGI). Started with TRIX, finished with MIC, which is appropriate, since this puzzle was very colorful (like TRIX), and overall, it is something of a MIC drop. Good luck, future Saturdayers! More of this vibe, please.