Lyra's brightest star / TUES 11-28-23 / South American grasslands / What an Uno player has in hand upon crying "Uno!" / Soccer star Hamm

ANYHOW on to the puzzle…

Theme answers:

• GRAY DAY (17A: Colorful rhyme for gloomy weather) 
• REDHEAD (18A: Colorful rhyme for a "ginger") 
• GREEN SCREEN (24A: Colorful rhyme for a filming background) 
• MELLOW YELLOW (44A: With 46-Across, colorful rhyme for a 1966 Donovan hit 
• ORANGE DOOR HINGE (58A: Colorful (albeit rare!) rhyme for an item at a hardware store)

Word of the Day: SEPSIS (19A: Harmful reaction to an infection)

Sepsis is a serious condition in which the body responds improperly to an infection. The infection-fighting processes turn on the body, causing the organs to work poorly. Sepsis may progress to septic shock. This is a dramatic drop in blood pressure that can damage the lungs, kidneys, liver and other organs. When the damage is severe, it can lead to death. (Mayo Clinic)

Well, the theme and the clues gave me the blues. Not entirely, but I couldn’t resist the rhyme, and I do think clues blues is a better rhyme than ORANGE DOOR HINGE (58A). The theme seemed to hinge (if you will) on that clue/answer, and I can sympathize with the constructor wanting an exclamation point there, but the answer just didn’t do it for me. 

I did really like MELLOW YELLOW (44/46A). I distinctly remember my dad often singing the single line, “They call me mellow yellow” – though he pays so little attention to music that he was probably picking up on the soft drink ad, not the song by Donovan. MELLOW YELLOW didn’t quite fit because the other answers all had the color first, but close enough. 

The vertical symmetry in the puzzle grid looked nice, and, while it probably wasn’t intentional, I liked the big sort of T shapes in the middle of the puzzle along with the clue for 41D: Partner of a crossed “t.” 

I didn’t know Benjamin HOFF (65A: Benjamin who wrote "The Tao of Pooh"), so I Googled him and now know that he wrote some popular books and then in 2006 wrote an essay that denounced the publishing industry and announced he was quitting writing books. I also wasn’t familiar with MEMOREX (42D: Big name in cassette tapes, once). I see that some commercials – “Is it live, or is it Memorex?” – were quite famous, but that was well before I was born, and somehow ads for recording tape don’t pop up much these days. I also had a mind-blowing revelation when I learned that LATISH (47D: Not quite on time) is the proper way to write that word and not lateish or late-ish. Whoops. 

The top part of the puzzle got off to a strong start, with GET RICH, TOOK OFF, AIR HOLE, ANDORRA, GRAY DAY, and REDHEAD. Then the puzzle got progressively less interesting to me. I think “Go bananas” should have been FREAK“out” (35A) or something akin to that. I hated TGIF (56D: What you might say as you crack open a beer). Does anyone actually still say that? Do people only crack open beers on Friday? And… NEATO!! My nemesis word is back. In a write-up a couple of months ago I said I never wanted to see that word again, and now it’s back haunting me. Last time, it was clued as “cool beans!” and this time it was “swell.” I personally think it’d be swell if we got rid of this word from our lexicon. Cool beans? Some of the rest of the answers were crosswordese and were just okay; I find the crosswordese excusable if there is an amazing theme, but this wasn’t one, at least for me.

Misc.:

• I’m a REDHEAD (18A), so it feels like this clue was tailor-made for me. (I do dye my hair, so I’m cheating a bit here but, oh, well.) In the realm of RED… my Liverpool Reds have been doing pretty well — we managed a tie against Man City at City’s home stadium when we didn’t look great. We’ll see how the rest of the season shapes up. 
• GEESE (24D: Birds in a gaggle) are awful when they’re on the bike path. They really just stand there on the path and make you barely squeeze past them and then look at you in a very mean way that makes you think they’re about to attack you. 
• Everyone needs to watch “The Americans.” It was a criminally underrated show and is one of my top three favorite shows of all time. I was obsessed with it. All six seasons are perfect. The series finale was the best and most fitting I’ve ever seen (even better than “Breaking Bad,” in my opinion). And Matthew RHYS (4D) and Keri Russell connected while starring in the show and are now partners and have a kid! 
• Another underrated show that was on Netflix was GLOW (33D) about female wrestlers. Side note: I really liked the clue (What fireflies and happy faces do) for that one! 
• It wasn’t quite a GRAY DAY (17A) in DC today, but it was rather cold and getting colder as we head into December… It’s going to make biking rather hard, but I shall try to double up (or triple up) on layers of clothing and see if I can make it work. 

Signed, Clare Carroll, whose colors are Black and Gold

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]