One-named satirist of ancient Greece / TUE 11-22-22 / Moth's cocoon phase / Chinese dialect spoken mainly in Hunan province

Theme answers:

• 17A: *1971 film about coming of age in a small, one-cinema Texas town, with "The" ("LAST PICTURE SHOW")
• 22A: *Eloquence said to be acquired by kissing the Blarney Stone (GIFT OF GAB)
• 33A: *Exams that value analysis and understanding more than rote memorization (OPEN-NOTE TESTS)
• 43A: *Van Morrison song aptly featured in "An American Werewolf in London" ("MOONDANCE")
• 50A: *Owning, as an achievement (TAKING CREDIT FOR)

Word of the Day: LUCIAN (19A: One-named satirist of ancient Greece) —

Lucian of Samosata (c. 125 – after 180) was a Hellenized Syrian satirist, rhetorician and pamphleteer who is best known for his characteristic tongue-in-cheek style, with which he frequently ridiculed superstition, religious practices, and belief in the paranormal. Although his native language was probably Syriac, all of his extant works are written entirely in ancient Greek (mostly in the Attic Greek dialect popular during the Second Sophistic period). (wikipedia)

Hey all. I'm on (Thanksgiving / birthday week) vacation, so in order to spend maximum time with my family (whom I actually like), I'm gonna be microblogging for the next few days. Is that a term, "microblogging?" I feel like I've heard it. And now I'm doing it. Speaking of "Is that a term?": POLLER. Is POLLER a term? Well, funny story: I took a poll. Because I'm solving out of my element (i.e. at my mom's house, i.e. not in my office), I just decided to solve wherever I could get space, which meant the dining room table, which is less than shouting distance from the living room, which was where all my family was sitting. So I hit POLLER early (third answer I got), and I inaudibly groaned and sank in my chair, and then I asked my family, "Hey, what do you call [One sampling public opinion]!?" And my sister goes "... POLLSTER?" at the same time that my wife also goes "POLLSTER" and then I say "thank you!" and then my wife looks at me in horror and asks "omg did they try to foist POLLER on you!?" Yes. Yes they did. Therefore, because of this dramatic polling incident, I can say, with confidence, with the unbiased backing of at least two other reasonably intelligent people, that POLLER is a garbage non-word. 

I also asked the room, "Hey, for [Part of a blackjack dealer's ritual], how would you fill in the blank on the following phrase: 'CUTTING THE ___'"? I got three "DECKs." So again I say, with confidence, that today's puzzle is not [dramatically removes sunglasses] dealing fairly! These mots are not the mots justes. And the fill in general was a little subpar, a little xwordesey, a little hard to take (EIRE ETNA ÊTES etc etc). This is all too bad, as the theme is kinda cute. And of course it has to be "CARDS," not "DECK," or the entire premise doesn't work. So that's fine, actually. Just not a phrase I'd use for blackjack. Maybe clue it as part of a card trick? I dunno. Anyway, the theme works great. I don't really know what a PICTURE CARD is ... but I assume it's something, so ... thumbs up to the theme.

[You can see that the wikipedia entry is for "Cut (cards)" but when I add  "blackjack" to the search terms, predictive texts wants "deck"]

OK, this blogging is not micro- enough for my (and possibly your) tastes, so let's move quickly to ... 

Five Bullet Points:

• 19A: One-named satirist of ancient Greece (LUCIAN) — this seems an extremely non-Tuesday name. I barely know this guy, and I've spent a good deal of time around classical literature. This answer and XIANG (30A: Chinese dialect spoken mainly in Hunan province) really upped the level of difficulty today, though both answers were easy enough to get from crosses, and the rest of the puzzle was no harder than a normal Tuesday.
• 29A: Lustful, informally (RANDY) — I can't stop laughing at "informally." Is "Lustful" formal? When you're black-tie horny: Lustful. When you're casual-Friday horny: RANDY.
• 14A: Words of sudden recognition ("OH, IT'S YOU") — we interrupt this broadcast for a very necessary and relevant playing of "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)":

• 49A: Careless or carefree (BLITHE) — a perfectly reasonable word, but I struggled to come up with it. Since the two clue words seem miles apart from each other, I couldn't grab hold of a word that seemed to fit.
• 11D: Gritty residue in a chimenea (ASH) — whoa, I'm only noticing just now that the clue does not say "chimney"! I have never, ever heard of this term! "A chimenea /tʃɪmɪˈneɪ.ə/, also spelled chiminea (from Spanish: chimenea which derive from French cheminée, "chimney"), is a freestanding front-loading fireplace or oven with a bulbous body and usually a vertical smoke vent or chimney." (wikipedia). I didn't know these had a name! I'm just glad I saw it in a clue before I got run over by it as an answer! 

OK, that's all, see you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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