Traditional Indonesian percussion orchestra / SUN 2-11-24 / Soldier's helmet, in old slang / Director Walsh of old Hollywood / Having knobby bumps / When the original Big Five ruled Hollywood / Ohio home to Cedar Point, the "Roller Coaster Capital of the World" / You can trip on it in the desert / Metal receptacle by a fireplace / Letter-shaped groove used in framing / With [circled letters reading clockwise], American icon born 2/11/1847

Theme answers:

• MOVIE CAMERA (27A: It helps you get the picture)
• MIMEOGRAPH (3D: Duplicating machine)
• PHONOGRAPH (69D: Object in the classic painting "His Master's Voice")
• STOCK TICKER (64D: Bygone tape dispenser)
• POWER PLANT (38D: Something that's big with the current generation?)
• SPIRIT PHONE (66D: Failed device meant to communicate with the dead)
• MICROPHONE (15D: The "thing" in "Is this thing on?")

Word of the Day: GAMELAN (23A: Traditional Indonesian percussion orchestra) —

Gamelan (/ˈɡæməlæn/) (Javanese: ꦒꦩꦼꦭꦤ꧀, Sundanese: ᮌᮙᮨᮜᮔ᮪, Balinese: ᬕᬫᭂᬮᬦ᭄) is the traditional ensemble music of the Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese peoples of Indonesia, made up predominantly of percussive instruments. The most common instruments used are metallophones(played with mallets) and a set of hand-drums called kendang, which keep the beat. The kemanak, a banana-shaped idiophone, and the gangsa, another metallophone, are also commonly used gamelan instruments on Bali. Other notable instruments include xylophones, bamboo flutes (similar to the Indian bansuri), a bowed string instrument called a rebab (somewhat similar to the gadulka of Bulgaria), and a zither-like instrument called a siter, used in Javanese gamelan. Additionally, vocalists will be featured, being referred to as sindhen for females or gerong for males. (wikipedia)

[d. Raoul WALSH, 1949 (22D: Director Walsh of old Hollywood)]

Picture puzzles ... shrug. Don't really care. This is just a list of INVENTIONS. On a completely random birthday (Happy ... 177th?). The visual is ... what it is. There it is. It's awkward to have THOMAS ALVA sitting all on its own there, and then have to go back to the "filament" in the "light bulb" to pick up EDISON. The THOMAS ALVA part just seems sad, and unnecessary. Well, unnecessary for anything except thematic symmetry (i.e. you need it to balance out PHONOGRAPH on the other side of the grid). Anyway, what you have here is a picture ... and a list. For me, this kind of thing is meh. Major rules violation, having a central grid area that has *no* connection to the rest of the grid. I guess the idea is that a. the picture is important, and b. THOMAS ALVA gives you *some* kind of connection between center grid and rest of grid. I don't really care. I was a little anxious about having no way of building my way *into* the middle—about having to jump in with nothing to help me out. And after INC., I wasn't getting much. But then I tried out ASSTS and TALISMANS and then I got SAS and whoosh, the middle went down pretty easily, ultimately. I think the EDISON = light bulb filament gag is probably the most original and interesting thematic element of this puzzle. But it wasn't enough to lift the puzzle above the ho-hum. A list of INVENTIONS just isn't ... well, it never got me to exclaim "WHAT A HOOT!" is what I'm saying.

This took me exactly as long as the Sunday puzzle took me two weeks ago, so maybe 9:35 is average for me, but I have a hard time seeing any Sunday I can solve in under 10 minutes as anything but "Easy." I think I have to break 9 for it to be truly "Easy," though, so ... "Easy-Medium" feels right. Biggest struggle came from writing in REPENT at 57A: Feel discontented (REPINE). REPENT is a common word, whereas REPINE is most certainly not. I did think that REPENT didn't quite fit the clue, but ... I've seen answers not fit their clues plenty, so I didn't pull it. This meant that I ended up writing in and then pulling ASHCAN, which I probably had as ASHPAN at first (60A: Metal receptacle by a fireplace). As for NICOLE Miller, pfft, no idea (52D: Designer Miller). Also, IVAN the ... what? Who knows? Who cares? Some random IVAN (IVAN IV, it turns out) (51A: "The Terrible" czar). Sigh. Because of all this kerfuffle, I didn't see INVENTIONS for a long time. This hardly mattered, though, in terms of my ability to solve the theme answers. The only other mildly problematic part of the grid was the far SE, where OVERLIE does not feel like a word I know or would use or have seen anyone actually use (115A: Blanket), and where NO COVER ... well, that one's fine, but I was coming at it from the back end and assuming it was one word, so having --COVER was less helpful than it should have been. 

No idea what a SPIRIT PHONE is, but it's the only "invention" that is at all interesting to me today. I love that so many rational / scientific types were obsessed with spiritualism in the 19th century, but I didn't realize that someone had actually attempted to contact the spirit world by phone! "Uh, what's the area code?""How the hell should I know???" Or ... "It's busy.""Who the hell could they be talking to?! I'm the only one with a damned SPIRIT PHONE!" At least SPIRIT PHONE has the charm of wackiness and failure. The others, yawn, whatever. Yes yes, MIMEOGRAPH, great. Next!

Notes:

• 7A: Letter-shaped groove used in framing (T SLOT) — no idea. Makes me think of mail slots, but those aren't shaped like "T"s, are they?
• 23A: Traditional Indonesian percussion orchestra (GAMELAN) — no idea, but the word is familiar. I've heard it, or something like it, before. No idea when / where / how. Anyway, thank god the crosses were fair here.
• 6D: Acclaims (RENOWNS) — oof, this is a grim, grim plural.
• 87A: Ohio home to Cedar Point, the "Roller Coaster Capital of the World" (SANDUSKY) — forgot about this. Used to be quite familiar with it, as I lived in southern Michigan and you'd see ads for Cedar Point on TV. But it seems a very, very regional answer, despite the alleged "Capital of the World" moniker. 
• 77D: You can trip on it in the desert (PEYOTE) — good answer, good clue.
• 38D: Something that's big with the current generation? (POWER PLANT) — along with REPENT (for REPINE), this is where I had my only other wrong entry. In my defense, when I wrote it in, I had no idea this was a Thomas EDISON-themed puzzle. But with POWER P---T and "current generation" staring at me, I figured ... POWER POINT! And if you'd told me Edison invented POWER POINT, I'd've believed you. I mean, if SPIRIT PHONE, why not POWER POINT? Guy was clearly full of big ideas.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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