Traditional garment in West Africa / WED 7-27-22 / Scandinavian drinking cry / What Lao-tzu said is hidden but always present / Fictional world entered through a wardrobe / Represent as a designer at a fashion show / Open to the thigh as an evening gown / Clearwater's neighborhood across the bay / Meaty bone for a dog

• • •

If you said "CAT!"—hello, we are of the same ILK.

The whole "wait, it's not CAT?" thing was a fiasco, but it was also the only part of the grid that gave me any difficulty whatsoever. This played like a Tuesday shading into Monday. I kinda wish I were still timing myself, because I wasn't really trying to speed and I still think I would've broken 3 minutes today (extremely, near record-breakingly fast for me on a Wednesday). I wrote in DELTS at 1A: Shoulder muscles, in gym lingo (TRAPS), that slowed me down for a few seconds right out of the gate. DELTS is a perfectly good answer for that clue, it's just ... well, lots of muscles connect to the shoulder, it turns out. But TOT got rid of DELTS and RNA got me TRAPS and then after getting waylaid in PANTSville for a bit, nothing else stood in my way. And even getting waylaid in PANTSville wasn't so bad, as all those long Down PANTS crosses were super easy. Or the Acrosses were super easy, and so the Downs were easy. I wrote in "THERE!" instead of "TRY IT!," that cost me maybe five seconds (29D: "Have some!"). But everything else was transparent. Most of the fill was common, repeater-type stuff (APED and ANAIS and ATIT and the like), but it was clean enough. As for the theme, I think it's pretty lovely. The metaphors got somewhat more familiar to me as the grid went on, with BLACK HAT and EMPTY SUIT being semi-familiar but not terms I'd use, and TURNCOAT and STUFFED SHIRT being familiar terms I wouldn't hesitate to use myself. There's a great consistency to this set, as the phrases don't just *end* with clothing (like endings being a conventional thematic premise), but stand, as a whole, for a kind of person. Clothing metonyms! Actually, only some of these are metonyms (where an attribute of a thing stands for the thing). BLACK HAT, EMPTY SUIT (actually, "SUIT" = "executive" is a paradigmatic example of metonymy). STUFFED SHIRT is more a metaphor, and actual SCAREDY PANTS don't even exist ... anyway, I'm in the weeds now. These are all clothing-based metaphors used to describe kinds of (flawed) people. The end. Nice.

I wish there were more to talk about. I could go off about what a great actress GENA Rowlands is and how much I always enjoy seeing her, even if you could argue her name falls under the general rubric of "Crosswordese." Greatness transcends "Crosswordese," imho. This is why I can never really be that mad at CHER or ADELE, no matter how many times I see them. I was reading about the rise of Tiki culture in California in the mid-20th century and the writer (Kevin Starr) dug back to its 19th century roots, when America's fascination with Polynesia began. Why is this relevant? Because he brought up Melville's classic tales of the South Seas, "OMOO" and "TYPEE," and honestly I nearly teared up because I hadn't seen them in so long. Those titles used to be All Over the grid. If you started solving in the last century, then one of the first things you learned, if you didn't know it already, was that Melville wrote "OMOO" and "TYPEE" and they were going to be your constant companions on your journey into griddom. Now ... they've gone the way of the ASTA. And that's good, I guess. It's good that grids got fresher and more diverse, and it's good that I lived long enough to actually get *nostalgic* for "OMOO" and "TYPEE." So "OMOO" and "TYPEE," if you're out there, I miss you guys. Call or write some time. Well, write. You probably don't have phones. MESSAGE in a bottle, maybe? Anyway, think about it.  

Last things:

• 45D: Put a ring on it (EAR) — I think you'd probably say "in" rather than "on," but you want your Beyoncé reference, I get it. 
• 6D: Represent, as a designer at a fashion show (WEAR) — I liked this and SLITTED (40D: Open to the thigh, as an evening gown) and CAFTAN (8D: Traditional garment in West Africa), which I saw as nice accompaniments (accessories?) to today's theme. It's warm out, why not WEAR a SLITTED CAFTAN!
• 30D: Glace after melting (EAU) — I had to scan and rescan this clue because I kept thinking I was misreading the first word. Then I thought "why don't I know that word?" And then a bit later I realized I did know that word—it's just a French word (for "ice"). French crossing French here (ETOILE) is probably not ideal. But not likely to trip many people up, I don't think.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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