Constructor: Joseph Greenbaum
Relative difficulty: Easy
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THEME: none
Word of the Day: MARCEL (13D: Give waves to with a curling iron, once) —
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Well this puzzle was FULL OF SURPRISES (of course I was going to use that phrase, how was I not going to use that phrase, sorry to be so predictable, only human, etc.). The first surprise was hey, look, once again, Friday comes a day late. This puzzle had way more of the zing, bounce, and swagger that I come to expect from Fridays. Also, it was easyish, as themelesses go (like a Friday is supposed to be). I can see how solving this puzzle involved, at many points, being one thin proper noun away from complete breakdown, but if you knew the right names, as I seemed to today, then this one was a ... [drum roll] ... BREES! (that was one of the names! that I knew! and that if I hadn't known, yikes, AEROGEL (????) and B-TEN all of a sudden get a lot lot harder) (44D: 2020 N.F.L. retiree who leads all QBs in career pass completions (7, 142)). So I tooled along, blissfully aware of the cliffs and potholes around me. Another surprise was that I didn't have to work at all for the *longer* answers, whereas the shorter answers were occasionally thorny, fussy, and troublesome. Which -SAT is it? P- or L-? And I put my e-signature (ugh) where? LCD? PDA? PDF? Oh, and which Lesser Kardashian name was it? It was like when you walk through a bit of spider web and you're like "gah, what is this, get it off me." Spider web doesn't exactly put up a lot of resistance, but it's annoying and takes a bit of work to get completely off of your hair and face. I find. So long answers fast, short answers less so. Weird. Another big surprise was how many damn good answers are crammed into this grid: all five of the very long ones, all the central Downs (TURDUCKEN, RAIN DATE, and SYNAPSES, to arrange them according to level of quality), and even a few of the 7s—I like BURPEES (1A: Exercises with squat thrusts and jumps) 'cause I got it instantly and because of its weird spelling (-EES, not -IES), which flummoxed me for a bit, and I like AUTOPIA (51A: Disneyland attraction with a racetrack) because it provided a burst of nostalgia (needed crosses to get it, but then it all came back in one whoosh of childhood memories). Then of course there's the last surprise, the biggest surprise of all: the return of THE ROCK (55A: Actor in the "Fast & Furious" franchise, familiarly). That's twice in three days. That's a lot of THE ROCK. You can sit the next few out, buddy. You've done your part. Thank you for your service.
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Relative difficulty: Easy
Word of the Day: MARCEL (13D: Give waves to with a curling iron, once) —
Marcelling is a hair styling technique in which hot curling tongs are used to induce a curl into the hair. Its appearance was similar to that of a finger wave but it is created using a different method.
Marcelled hair was a popular style for women's hair in the 1920s, often in conjunction with a bob cut. For those women who had longer hair, it was common to tie the hair at the nape of the neck and pin it above the ear with a stylish hair pin or flower. One famous wearer was Josephine Baker. (wikipedia)
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ELEVATOR PITCH is great and FULL OF SURPRISES is great and then somehow THE WAR ON DRUGS is even greater, so the marquee answers were really doing their two most important jobs today: looking great and streaking across my grid like shooting stars. Look at the streaking of these long answers!
And I took that shot *before* THE WAR ON DRUGS and THAT HITS THE SPOT, both of which also went streaking across the grid, as I got them at first sight (after a few crosses had been filled in). Pyrotechnics, that's what this one had. I had started the grid slightly worried, as I didn't know (and still don't know) who this so-called "Patchwork elephant" is. Uh ... looks like ... a children's book series ... from 50+ years ago ... yeah, this is the very first I'm hearing of it, even though I would've been the perfect age for it when it first came out. My parents really let me down on this one.
Not too familiar with O'REILLY auto parts either. Not a "giant" where I live (that title belongs to NAPA and maybe AUTOZONE). So the NW was a slightly ominous place to start, with the elephant / auto parts issues, but ELEVATOR PITCH and RENEWABLE ENERGY both came shooting out of there, and nothing was too tough thereafter. Oh, except one particularly harrowing moment at the LEN / IRENE crossing. No idea what / who IRENE Neuwirth is, "jewelers" not being a subject I know anything about beyond KAY and DEBEERS and ... JARED, maybe (?), so I just had to infer a name there, and this was made much harder when I totally forgot if [Director Wiseman] was a LEN or a LES. I figured ... LEN Deighton, LES Wiseman, that must be the distinction. But no, they're somehow both LENs. Yeesh. Crossing proper nouns, once again, threatening my life. But IRESE is thankfully not a plausible name, even for a jeweler, so LEN and IRENE worked it out and I went on my merry way.
This puzzle gets a bit ugly only once, in the successive Downs APORT HOSP ACTI—I thought "left" was just PORT. But now I've gotta deal with *A*PORT? Would you say *A*STARBOARD? ... oh, well, yes you would, apparently ... ask a stupid question ... And I guess the clusters of short crosswordese in the west and east aren't terribly pretty. But honestly the subpar fill is too small and infrequent to be worth mentioning (much). The good stuff today outshines everything else.