Cousin of a machete / FRI 4-5-24 / Chaise alternative / Botanical stoma, e.g. / Dance party where participants wear wireless headphones / Online lecture franchise / Question for the naysayers / Nickname alternative to Coby, perhaps

Constructor: Rebecca Goldstein

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (much more like a Saturday than a Friday)

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: ANNO mundi (18A: ___ mundi) —

Anno Mundi (from Latin "in the year of the world"; Hebrew: לבריאת העולם‎), abbreviated as AM or A.M., or Year After Creation, is a  calendar era based on the biblical accounts of the creation of the world and subsequent history. Two such calendar eras have seen notable use historically:

• Since the Middle Ages, the Hebrew calendar has been based on rabbinic calculations of the year of creation from the Hebrew Masoretic Text of the Bible. This calendar is used within Jewish communities for religious purposes and is one of two official calendars in Israel. In the Hebrew calendar, the day begins at sunset. The calendar's epoch, corresponding to the calculated date of the world's creation, is equivalent to sunset on the Julian proleptic calendar date 6 October 3761 BCE. The new year begins at Rosh Hashanah, in Tishrei. Anno mundi 5784 (meaning the 5,784th year since the creation of the world) began at sunset on 15 September 2023 according to the Gregorian calendar.
• The Byzantine calendar was used in the Eastern Roman Empire and many Christian Orthodox countries and Eastern Orthodox Churches and was based on the Septuagint text of the Bible. That calendar is similar to the Julian calendar except that its reference date is equivalent to 1 September 5509 BCE on the Julian proleptic calendar.

While both calendars reputedly counted the number of years since the creation of the world, the primary reason for their disparity lies in which underlying biblical text is chosen (the Earth seems to have been created roughly around 5500 BCE based on the Greek Septuagint text, and about 3760 BCE based on the Hebrew Masoretic text). (wikipedia)

This is really one of the best themeless grids I've seen in a while, but the editing (i.e. cluing) continues to be ... not my thing. Puzzles continue to play way sloggier since Will's absence from the editorial chair. There's a smoothness that's missing, and I haven't felt a real Friday breeziness in what feels like ages. If I'd gotten this puzzle tomorrow, I think I would've been much happier. Today, I felt mad at the cluing for constantly, deliberately, and in puny/cheap ways, making the puzzle less enjoyable. There were some gimmes here and there (JANE EYRE, for instance, and ARYA Stark and EDIE Brickell), but otherwise it felt like every short clue was trying to be tricky or fancy or otherwise off (Other editors I know generally have a better sense of proportion about this stuff). Take the NW corner, where the short fill isn't exactly strong, but, instead of making it easily navigable (which would make it less noticeable), it's turned into total goop. The only thing I got at first pass up there was ELS (two sets of double "L"s in "Volleyball") (5D: Volleyball doubles?). Even worse—I put in APSE before ICON (?) (3D: Basilica sight) (if it hadn't been APSE it would've been NAVE). Clue feels like it was designed to make you step into that trap. No idea who the OLGA is up there, no idea what ANNO Mundi is, no idea about NOON because of the "?" clue (2D: High point?). ON ICE should've been gettable but wasn't (for me) without crosses (I had SPARE at one point) (1A: In reserve). Moved over one section and ... more of the same. No idea about BOLO (looks like BOLO is a kind of knife; I know it only as a string tie) (6D: Cousin of a machete). It's like the puzzle is all of a sudden self-conscious about being "original" with Every Single Clue. On a Friday, this is a drag, because I'm way more hung up on the short stuff (not the best stuff) when my attention should be on the exquisite longer stuff. I should probably give up on my expectation of a Friday/Saturday distinction, since I feel like it applies less and less (and this trend was starting even before Will's—hopefully temporary—departure). But I continue to want Fridays to whoosh and I continue to expect Saturdays to grind. I like the idea that there can be two sides to the themeless puzzle, friendly and cruel, and I will continue to be at least semi-mad when Friday and Saturday don't play their accustomed roles.