Southern cornmeal dish / FRI 6-17-22 / 1987 Lionel Richie hit / Whose work may be all play / Comic who said I'm not addicted to cocaine I just like the way it smells / Popular poster

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PLOT TWIST: I loved this one. ON A SIDE NOTE: I did not love ON A SIDE NOTE. The more I look at it, the more plausible it seems, sadly (for me), but as I was solving, that was the one answer I had the most trouble parsing. I was trying to parse it from its opening letters, and that's the problem: the opening letters feel extraneous. If I use that phrase, or hear that phrase, I feel like it just comes in the form, "SIDE NOTE ..." The "ON A" was ??? and then even after I had NOTE I didn't really get it. Mr. DEEDS to the rescue there, for sure (34D: Mr. of film). I have three frowny faces written in the margin of my puzzle next to ON A (!) SIDE NOTE. Most of the rest of the margins are filled with "good"s and asterisks and "!!!" and smiley faces. Oh, looks like I have an arrow pointing from the frowny faces to SOU ... but SOU (extremely old-school crosswordese) is extremely tolerable when it's not part of a crosswordese avalanche and is being used deliberately and strategically to hold larger, more interesting parts of the puzzle together (as it is here). Definitely got a good dose of that whoosh-whoosh feeling I look forward to on Fridays. I even got it from a "?" clue, as 27D: One with sound judgment? sent me plunging down the west side of the grid off of just the "AU-." And in the places where I did struggle (a bit), there was a payoff that made it worth it. I'm thinking primarily of the NE, where I threw "IT'S A DATE" over to the east side of the grid, filled a bunch of the 4-letter answers above it, and *still* couldn't make any of those long Downs work. Considered pulling "IT'S A DATE" because I wanted GALAHADS for PALADINS, couldn't figure out what word was supposed to follow DRAMA, and had no idea what was going on with -AKETA- at 12D. But I hung in there, realized the complicated-sounding "file type" was just PDF (10A: File type used in paper-to-digital archiving), and was rewarded for my patience with both PALADINS (ah, the figures from "The Matter of France" in medieval literature *and* the D&D character class, I know them both pretty well), and FAKE TATTOO, which is just fabulous. That is, the answer is solid, but that clue was fabulous, for sure (12D: "Mom" for a day, say). Really enjoyed this from start to finish, with very few bumps along the way.

Although ... can I really say I "enjoy" an answer like INFLUENCER. It's one of the worst ideas / concepts / phenomena I can think of in the social media era. It bespeaks an unwarranted and youth-cultish power, primarily in the service of brands (i.e. capitalism), so it both seems nefarious and makes me sad for the youths. Every generation has its idols, so there's nothing truly new here, but somehow that idolization feels ... I dunno, weaponized by contemporary social media platforms, which are newly and uniquely able to harness it (for cash and / or to spread disinformation). The whole INFLUENCER thing feels extremely bound up with consumerism ... but again, youth culture has always been that way. Anyway, I hate the idea of the INFLUENCER, but as a *crossword answer*, I do admit it feels current and lively. I like that it sits under POOL NOODLE. Hard to look cool when you're sitting under a POOL NOODLE. Are there POOL NOODLE INFLUENCERs? If there are, well, that is a YouTube channel I might check out.

Really loved PLOT TWIST, both at the answer and clue level (1A: It was all a dream, maybe)—very nice way to start the puzzle. I wanted the LOFT to be a GARRET but of course that didn't fit (2D: Artist's pad, maybe). Then I thought "sketch pad," which is probably what the clue wanted me to do. Other clues that flummoxed me included the wonderful [Team building?], which is transparent ... once you actually see the answer (ARENA). But before then ... well, I really should've noted the lack of a hyphen in the clue (or the space between the words: looks like the term meaning "building of teams" is frequently spelled as one word, "teambuilding"). Anyway, it's literally a building for a team. Surprised by literalness! I had "GET ME!?" before "GET IT?" (18A: "Catch my drift?"), due entirely to the "my" in the clue. I was pleasantly surprised that I was able drudge up "SELA" from Mr. Richie's really ridiculously extensive pop hit catalogue. I mentally penciled it in and then discovered yes, my memory was correct, that was the title of one of his songs. Is this better or worse than [Actress Ward]? Who can say? Loved the clue on BOUT (51A: Round and round and round?)—the cluing was remarkably on point today. Did not love the clue on Richard PRYOR, which is to say I would've loved a clue that didn't evoke his addiction. If you need your clue to be edgy, you know, he's got a lot about race, including a really great bit about the cops killing Black people with impunity ...  But at least this cocaine line is his own joke about himself, not the general public or hack comedians using him as a cheap punchline, and punching bag (as they did for years and years and years). And it's a good line. And I always like seeing his name. So even this answer didn't really bring me down. I'm going to PIPE DOWN now. Bye.