Ocean State sch. / WED 6-7-23 / "Power" suffix / Goal of a half nelson

Theme answers:

• "BREAKING STORY: Large, crashing waves threaten cruise ship"
• "LEAKED FOOTAGE appears to show that the ship has been damaged"
• "Water is pouring into the ship! You can see it here STREAMING LIVE"
• "Changes in ocean conditions allowed the ship to return safely to port. Stay tuned for more CURRENT EVENTS"

Word of the Day: ART POP (Music genre related to glam rock) —

Artpop (stylized in all caps) is the third studio album by American singer Lady Gaga. It was released on November 6, 2013, by Streamline and Interscope Records. Gaga began planning the project in 2011, shortly after the launch of her second effort, Born This Way. Work continued until 2013 while Gaga was traveling for her Born This Way Ball tour and recovering from surgery for an injury she had sustained while touring. Gaga described Artpop as "a celebration and a poetic musical journey". It displays an intentional "lack of maturity and responsibility" by comparison to the darker and anthemic nature of Born This Way.

Hey squad, and welcome to another Malaika MWednesday. If you are in NYC (or anywhere in the NE / Eastern Canada?), I hope you are staying healthy and safe with all this air pollution. It looks downright apocalyptic outside! My solving music today was this Leon Bridges song... he really has a penchant for writing the most beautiful songs in the world.

Pun puzzle.... usually I hate them but I was kinda vibing with this one! Tragically, the last entry was the least funny pun, in my opinion. LEAKED FOOTAGE was the one that got an actual chuckle from me. Why did I like this puzzle when normally I don't like puns?? Could not tell you. Perhaps I liked the reminder of Boat Stuck, such a chaotic and incredible moment of 2021. Or maybe looking outside and seeing a landscape that looks like a horror movie just has me feeling a little more generous towards crossword themes.

URI and ELLISON were the biggest stumbling blocks for me here, plus I really wanted "birds' eggs" over BIRD EGGS, but the rest of the short stuff seemed like standard crossword fare. Like, FAS isn't elegant or anything, but I can type in the little letters without thinking too hard. And an impressive amount of fun entries!!l CIAO BELLA and PEA BRAIN and PLASMA TV and IRIS SCAN. I would have loved to see a Lady Gaga clue for ART POP, but I know what to expect with the Times. (And we got a Miley Cyrus reference!! So I shouldn't complain.)

Bullets:

• [Belle's counterpart] for BETE— There is an excellent restaurant I go to called Bar BETE, so my first thought was "Why didn't they write a clue about that restaurant?" Then of course, I remember that basically no one except me would know that lol. I also didn't love how this entry was crossed with BELLA when the clue used the term "Belle" but that's a nitpick for sure.
• [Hammer end] for PEEN — Okay. I'll say it. To me, PEEN has one meaning and it is "word that my friends used when talking about a p*nis in middle school." Every time I see this word in a puzzle I lose my mind and revert back to a sixth grader talking about a p*nis and I am like "Will Shortz why did you put a p*nis in my puzzle??" Sorry for talking about this but I needed y'all to know. 
• [Fix, as code] for DEBUG— I am very curious to know if this term is new for y'all! I am a software engineer and have been debugging things for about five years now. I was recently chatting with a friend who told me that no one in her family knew that "bug" was a term for "coding problem." They were very confused when she was telling them a story about a bug she had to deal with at work.
  

xoxo Malaika 

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