Sofia's husband in "The Color Purple" / FRI 2-3-23 / Outbuilding that's sometimes converted into a dwelling / Mined compound in the "Avatar" universe / Flowering plant such as old man's beard / Name written with an accent in Irish English / In science fiction suspended animation of a body at a very low temperature

Constructor:  Barbara Lin

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: OAST (23A: Outbuilding that's sometimes converted into a dwelling) —

 

An oast, oast house or hop kiln is a building designed for kilning (drying) hops as part of the brewing process. They can be found in most hop-growing (and former hop-growing) areas and are often good examples of vernacular architecture. Many redundant oasts have been converted into houses. The names oast and oast house are used interchangeably in Kent and Sussex. In Surrey, Hampshire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire they are called hop kilns. (wikipedia

This seems well-made enough, but it was extremely not for me, especially not on a Friday. It had a definite Saturday vibe—big chunks of white space, lots of deliberately vague and misleading cluing—and it also had what felt like a lot of trivia, particularly from areas I have know or care little or nothing about. I can't imagine seeing "Avatar" or its sequel. Like, spending my money or time to do ... that. I know billions of people have, but I can't think of a less consequential international blockbuster movie. No one talked about "Avatar" for a decade ... so they're making some more, and they're making gajillions of dollars ... for some reason ... it's a pop cultural phenomenon I don't understand, and, as I say, cannot conceive of paying to understand. This is all to say that UNOBTANIUM (27D: Mined compound in the "Avatar" universe) ... I needed most of those crosses for that, although I guess that a little bit of "Avatar" trivia (besides NAVI) must have made its way to my brain somehow, because *eventually* I recognized it as a familiar term (though at first, at "UNOBT-," I was certain I had an error). Unlike with "Avatar," I did at one point try to watch, but then deliberately walked away from, "Game of Thrones." Luckily, ARYA has now become crosswordese, so even though I'm never quite sure if it's ANYA or ARYA or AYLA, I got that one with less trouble. No idea about HARPO, though (42D: Sofia's husband in "The Color Purple"), so getting into that SW corner was probably the hardest for me, what with MARS ROVER"cleverly" hidden in what looked like a regular-word clue (49A: Perseverance, e.g.) and GRAPE SODAS being clued as "cans" (?) (44A: Crush cans, maybe). The "cans" part is bollocks. [Crushes, e.g.] would've been wicked, but "Crush" is the soda and "can" is the container and while "can" can *stand* for the soda, it can't stand for the soda *when the soda is already in the term*. "Be sure to pick up some Crush cans at the supermarket!" No. As for CRYOSLEEP (51A: In science fiction, suspended animation of a body at a very low temperature) ... well, I could infer it from its constituent parts, eventually, but I'll just have to trust you that it's a thing. Ugh, I just read that CRYOSLEEP was featured in the film "Avatar"—what is this puzzle, sponsored content? No idea that BIKE RIDES were measured in "centuries" (18A: Long ones can be measured in centuries). Just had an "if you say so" reaction there. "IF I WERE YOU..." and "WISH ME LUCK..." gave me a couple of jolts of excitement, but mostly I just slogged through this.

from xwordinfo.com

So "Outbuilding" had me like "what the ...?" Especially the part about living inside one. You can't live in an OAST! Isn't it ... hot in there? "There was an old lady who lived in an OAST. She's dead, of course." But then I go to wikipedia and there are pictures of, well, buildings, and the first paragraph of the wikipedia entry says you can convert them to dwellings, so ... I feel like I've been lied to my entire solving life. Everything I know about OASTs I know from crosswords ... and it's all been a lie. Great.