Thick tortilla that's the national dish of El Salvador / FRI 7-15-22 / Sibling of Sol in Roman myth / Relatively new addition to Thanksgiving? / Corporate carrot / Actress Beverly of 1989's Lean on Me / Niminy-piminy / Bruno to Mirabel in Disney's Encanto / Co. that patented the combination cup holder and armrest

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If ever in a comedy somebody tells a character or a group of characters to move/turn left, you can bet the character/one or more of the group will go right instead, prompting the phrase, "Your other left!" (Or they correctly turn left, at which point the first character realizes that they actually meant to say "right" and tries to cover with the same phrase.)

If this doesn't happen, it's usually replaced with a confused exchange about "My left or your left?", even if the characters are facing the same way. [...] To be entirely fair, though, it's not like this doesn't actually happen with an alarming regularity in real life. We're just talking about its predictable appearances on TV. For some reason, it's always "your other left," never "your other right", even though you'd think both occur equally often in Real Life [...]. A likely explanation is that most people, being right handed/right dominant, will default to the right when confused, prompting "The other left". (tvtropes.com) (emph. mine)

So I like / love the energy of the answer, but primarily it's the energy of the answer that isn't actually there, the correct one, the "LEFT" one. And as for "WHAT ELSE IS LEFT?" ... it's a plausible question, yes, but it does quite crackle with slangy specificity of, say "WHAT ELSE IS NEW?" I actually wanted "WHAT ELSE IS THERE?" to go in here, but as with "YOUR OTHER LEFT," it just didn't fit. What I'm saying is that there's a nice colloquial feel here, but the whole "theme" angle ... it doesn't really feel like they nailed it. 

The NW corner is dull by comparison to the rest. I love RESCUE DOGs, but the NE corner isn't doing a hell of a lot either. Things get much more interesting down below—also a little trickier. I really had to hang on to my hat there at the end, with SLUICE sluicing down through *three* blank squares to complete the grid. I don't think of the LINK as the "invite"—it takes you *to* the invite, but the LINK itself doesn't really invite you. Never heard of PUPUSA but after reading about them (above) they're all I want to eat right now. As for Buck O'NEIL, once again I apologize to him for not knowing for sure if he's an -AL O'Neal or an -IL O'NEIL (also couldn't have told you for sure if he's a one-L O'NEIL or a two-L O'NEILL ("he's a beast!"). Blanked on LUNA, which seems absurd, in retrospect, since they're practically handing you the sun/moon thing in the clue (34D: Sibling of Sol, in Roman myth). Thought 11D: Cross was a verb and so had ANGER before ANGRY ... which doesn't even make sense, now that I think of it. If you cross someone, sure, they might get angry, but "to cross" doesn't mean "to anger." Sigh. Wanted TRASH FIRES before TIRE FIRES (54A: Utter disasters), since those are the metaphorical fires I've seen referred to most on social media this past decade, but TIRE FIRES are also metaphorical disasters, so thumbs up to that answer, as well as SPACE/TIME, immediately above it (51A: Warped fabric, it's said). 

Not sure why, but I'm finding "HI ALL!" an adorable (and original) little 5 (53A: Friendly start to a group email). Always nice to find a way to bring some fresh, conversational energy to short fill. And I like the clue on SLURPEE, in the sense that I like the idea of the central answer of the puzzle just making a really disruptive noise. All the artsy intellectual types and SOCIALITEs are sipping their ROSÉ and eating canapés off of TOOTHPICKs and there's probably, I don't know, some light classical playing, maybe an actual string quartet, and then in walks some leather-clad / torn-jeans rebel who plays by their own rules, fresh from the 7-11, and right in the middle of, let's say, Vivaldi's "Spring"— "SLURRRRRRRRRP!" Cue affronted glares from the liter- and glitter- and possibly even Twitterati. End scene. What, doesn't everyone create elaborate if hackneyed movie/TV scenes from the answers in their crosswords? Ah well. I yam what I yam (to quote a famous sailor, and a recent crossword). And with that, the [Early morning caller]s are calling, so it's time to take my coffee to the porch and say hello to them: Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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