— six Across answers must be read twice, i.e. they are actually two-part answers, with the second part being just one letter off from the first part in each case; where the letter changes, you must put both letters in the square they share in order to make sense of the Down answer, so, for instance,
Cynthia Erivo (; born 8 January 1987) is an English actress, singer, and songwriter. She is the recipient of many prestigious accolades, including a Daytime Emmy Award, a Grammy Award, and a Tony Award, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.Erivo began acting in a 2011 stage production of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. She gained recognition for starring in the Broadway revival of The Color Purple from 2015 to 2017, for which she won the 2016 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical and the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album. Erivo ventured into films in 2018, playing roles in the heist film Widows and the thriller Bad Times at the El Royale. For her portrayal of American abolitionist Harriet Tubman in the biopic Harriet (2019), Erivo received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress; she also wrote and performed the song "Stand Up" on its soundtrack, which garnered her a nomination in the Best Original Song category. She played The Blue Fairy in Disney's live-action remake of Pinocchio (2022).
On television, Erivo had her first role in the British series Chewing Gum(2015). She went on to star in the crime drama miniseries The Outsider(2020), and received a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for her portrayal of American singer Aretha Franklin in National Geographic's anthology series Genius: Aretha (2021). (wikipedia)
Well this started out weird...
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But then I figured it out it must be "It's a DEAL" at 4D: "It's a ___!" and so changed SUCK to VOID ... and *then* (eventually) changed DEAL to DATE. Sigh. Stumble stumble. Once I got back on my feet after tripping over my laces there at the starting line, I got up a pretty good head of steam and then ran right into the wall that I was supposed to run into, i.e. the theme. Wanted BREAK BREAD but couldn't figure out where the BREAD part had gone or was supposed to go. Off at a diagonal? Into a black square? Shrug. Worse, DON'T looked Perfectly Good as the answer to 32A: "That's a bad idea!" and since *my* theme clues were not (helpfully!) italicized, but instead appeared (unhelpfully, confusingly) inside quotation marks, I had nothing (except *double* quotation marks, which I didn't notice) to indicate I was dealing with theme material. Finally, SOCK DRAWER came to the rescue. "Well, this has to be SOCK DRAWER ... but ... wait, why does "KD" go in one square here, but with INORGANIC there's just that weird missing letter ... what do I do with INORGANC ... I don't g- ... oh":
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"DON'T DO IT!" Not "DON'T!" That changed everything. After that, the predictably hard part (grokking the theme) was over. There were some regular, less predictably hard parts to come (trying to work out every single letter in ERIVO from crosses, trying to learn the term CAT CONDO mid-solve, etc.), but overall it played just a shade tougher than your usual Thursday.
The theme is very clever and interestingly executed, and I thought GO TOE-TO-TOE was an incredibly inventive example of the theme concept. The grid's got a decent amount of non-thematic spice, and the Down answers running through the themers were kinda fun to work out (struggled most with LOSING TIME (largely because it ran through that ERIVO section)). The very end of my solve was a brutal dead stop in the SE corner, where I wanted only CAT COUCH at 40D: Item of feline furniture, and I couldn't figure out what the [Tiny pedestals] were (that should've been easy) and I couldn't get [D.C. address?] to save my life. Great, but brutal clue. A "?" clue sitting *directly underneath* another "?" clue (68A: Make amends?), in a very small section. Seems kinda cruel. I wanted split / loose ENDS, but CAT COUCH was making it impossible. Finally I got EDIT and then TEES and was finally forced to confront the fact that something called a CAT CONDO apparently exists. Is that what you call the multi-tiered climbing posts? Wow. This is the second time this month that some piece of pet furniture has been an absolute wrench in the gears. Not a fun way to end. Overall ... well, "I LOVED IT" is probably too strong, but I definitely liked it a whole lot.
See you tomorrow.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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