Japanese board game also called Five in a Row / SUN 8-13-23 / Motivational content in modern slang / Texas metroplex to locals / Clothing style with retro and preppy influences / Style of alternative rock with psychedelic influences

Constructor: Manaal Mohammed

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME:"Use Your Noodle:— pasta puns

Theme answers:

• MEALS ON WHEELS (22A: Cookbook for rotelle lovers?)
• ELBOW GREASE (27A: Olive oil for a macaroni salad?)
• GET BETWEEN THE SHEETS (45A: Advice for saucing a lasagna?)
• RIBBON CUTTING (55A: Running fettuccine dough through the pasta machine?)
• SHELL STATION (68A: Self-serve spots at pasta bars?)
• SPIRALS OUT OF CONTROL (80A: Kitchen disaster with rotini?)
• BUTTERFLIES / IN YOUR STOMACH (100A: With 108-Across, aftermath of a farfalle dinner?)

Word of the Day: GO BANG (93D: Japanese board game also called Five in a Row) —

Gomoku, also called Five in a Row, is an abstract strategy board game. It is traditionally played with Gopieces (black and white stones) on a Go board. It is played using a 15×15 board while in the past a 19×19 board was standard. Because pieces are typically not moved or removed from the board, gomoku may also be played as a paper-and-pencil game. The game is known in several countries under different names. [...] The name "gomoku" is from the Japanese language, in which it is referred to as gomokunarabe (五目並べ). Go means five, moku is a counter word for pieces and narabe means line-up. The game is popular in China, where it is called Wuziqi (五子棋). Wu (五 wǔ) means five, zi (子 zǐ) means piece, and qi (棋 qí) refers to a board game category in Chinese. The game is also popular in Korea, where it is called omok (오목 [五目]) which has the same structure and origin as the Japanese name. // In the nineteenth century, the game was introduced to Britain where it was known as Go Bang, said to be a corruption of the Japanese word goban, which was itself adapted from the Chinese k'i pan (qí pán) "go-board." (wikipedia)

So ... pasta puns. There they are. They're pretty typically wacky. Some work, some don't, pretty standard Sunday-theme stuff. I like the idea, but somehow in the execution either the clue or the answer seemed to clank a bit too often. Like, if you're eating rotelle, the "wheels" are *part* of the meal, so I don't exactly get MEALS ON WHEELS as a plausible cookbook title (even at the Wackytown Bookstore) (22A: Cookbook for rotelle lovers?). And the "GET" in GET BETWEEN THE SHEETS threw me off completely. Totally. Had GET BETWEEN THE and absolutely no idea what expression was involved. BETWEEN THE SHEETS, yes, an expression. But with "GET"? That feels very made up. Made up in this case, obviously, for the purposes of symmetry, just as SPIRALS OUT OF CONTROL is "SPIRALS" and not "SPIRAL"—gotta get those answers to match in length. The difference is that adding the "S" to SPIRALS still feels natural, whereas adding a whole "GET" to the beginning of BETWEEN THE SHEETS ... doesn't. And while I appreciate the ultra-long, two-part BUTTERFLIES / IN YOUR STOMACH, I think that if you asked most people what "farfalle" are, they'd say "bow-tie pasta," not "butterfly pasta." The wikipedia page lists both, so this version is definitely defensible, just not the term I know. The theme answers I haven't yet mentioned all work just fine, I think. ELBOW GREASE is probably my favorite. I just like the phrase, all on its own, and as these pasta puns go, it's the one that feels most on-the-money. So themewise, this is standard fare. Like pasta, it fills you up, even if quality varies widely from dish to dish. Easy to PIG OUT ON, though not always satisfying. And so forth.