Willow used in basket-weaving / THU 3-10-22 / Brit's bottom / Grinder vendor / Volcanic vestige / Mad Men milieu informally / Dummy in Canadian slang / Hearing disorder remedy? / Movement that began with Stonewall informally

• • •

The fill was also quite unpleasant in many places. Who in the world is PLASTIQUE!!? LOL, I just spent the last six weeks teaching superhero comics and I've literally never heard of PLASTIQUE. If you read her wikipedia page, you'll see, there's not a ton of reason for me ever to have heard of her. And if *I* haven't heard of her, it seems, let's say, probable, that a sizable chunk of NYTXWsolverland isn't going to have a clue. Of course many of you won't have known ZENDAYA either, but you don't have as much to complain about there, as she is very (if fairly recently) famous (she won the Emmy for "Euphoria," an HBO show that I learned only recently is really really popular with college students; it's one of HBO's most popular series ever). Older solvers will have to content themselves with Danny KAYE and Mortimer SNERD. Speaking of names, just a gruesome one-two punch with ELON and RUBIO. Then there's the downer of REPO and the really badly timed super-downer of TOTAL WAR. Then there's the not-at-all foreign-language words, TUO (slightly rough if you don't know Italian) and HAEC, dear lord, HAEC, I studied Latin for a bit and forgot HAEC was a thing. And it's clued in a phrase I've never heard of. I just kept wanting the clue to be [In ___ veritas] so I could write in VINO and move on. Oof, HAEC. And who calls it GAY LIB!?!? Women's Lib, Gay Pride. I can figure out what is meant by GAY LIB, obviously, but I don't think it ever had the widespread currency that WOMEN'S LIB did. Also, like WOMEN'S LIB, it's a dated phrase. Anyway, I knew what Stonewall was, obviously, but LIB, yeah, did not see that coming. The worst mistake I made, though, by far, was writing in PRAT for ARSE (18D: Brit's bottom). I'm not even sure Brits say that. And wow, if you're gonna make a mistake, maybe don't make it in the answer that crosses the *one letter* ("A") that is going to be most crucial to your understanding the theme. Hard to see the "blank A blank" pattern when your "A" isn't there. Also, if you've got PRAT where ARSE should be, you get TRAIN PRIDE, and honestly, that seemed very right. A conductor should have TRAIN PRIDE, and the equestrian ... I don't know, maybe the horse's name is PRIDE?? Or else the equestrian will also be doubling as a lion tamer.

SAD SIGHT was tough, as I had SAD STATE and then later considered SAD SIGNS and SAD SIGHS before SAD SIGHT ever occurred to me. But perhaps the toughest struggle came with LOWKEY (24D: Chill), a perfectly good answer clued in a perfectly good way except, ugh, OYEZ, what is happening there!? It's a horrible little answer to begin with, and then you get cute with the clue and the horribleness just goes up exponentially (27A: Hearing disorder remedy?). So I guess ... there's a trial ... and something causes "disorder" in the court ... and maybe the bailiff shouts "OYEZ"!!? (it's an exclamation that essentially means "hear ye, hear ye"). But I can't blame OYEZ for my LOWKEY screwup. For that, I have to go to SCHWA, and a little bit to "OH, OK." I had the "S" and "A" at 30A: It begins "again" and didn't even hesitate to write in SOFT A. I'm not even sure that's a real thing, but I've seen "hard" letters (HARDG, for example), so I thought "well, I've got the "S" and the "A," so why not?" Well, "why not?" is because it's wrong. The SOFT also meant I got into trouble with 32D: Alarms—I wanted FIRE BELLS (!?!) instead of HORRIFIES. In short, there was not one section of this grid where the solving experience felt smooth or delightful. A slog from start to finish, despite the inclusion of some nice (NOICE!) fill here and there. Corny theme, depressing fill. This week has been particularly off. The themes just haven't landed right at all. Really looking forward to cleaning my palate with some crisp themelesses this weekend, and then ... well, I'm on vacation most of next week, so other people will be writing about the puzzles while I get some much-needed puzzle-free time. But in the meantime .... see you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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