Brand of orange crackers / TUES 8-6-24 / Hole in one's head / South American corn patties / Micronesian nation composed of 200+ islands

Theme answers:

• AS YOU PLEASE (17A: "Any option is fine by me") 
• AS THEY SAY (21A: "Or so the motto goes") 
• AS I LIVE AND BREATHE (27A: With 33-Down and 51-Across, "What a surprise!") 
• AS WE SPEAK (59A: "Currently ...") 
• AS IT HAPPENS (65A: "By a stroke of luck ...")

Word of the Day:NUYORICAN (3D: Many a resident of Spanish Harlem) —

Nuyorican is a portmanteau word blending "New York" (or "Nueva York" in Spanish) and "Puerto Rican," referring to Puerto Ricans located in or around New York City, their culture, or their descendants (especially those raised or currently living in the New York metropolitan area). This term is sometimes used for Puerto Ricans living in other areas in the Northeastern US mainland outside New York state, as well. The term Nuyorican is also sometimes used to refer to the Spanish spoken by New York Puerto Ricans. An estimated 1,800,000 Nuyoricans are said to live in New York City, the largest Puerto Rican community outside Puerto Rico. The Oxford English Dictionary cites this word as evolving slowly through roughly the last third of the 20th century, with the first cited reference being poet Jaime Carrero using neorriqueño in 1964 as a Spanish-language adjective combining neoyorquino and puertorriqueño. (Wiki)

That was a pretty fun and harmless puzzle. The theme on its own (which really is just connected because all phrases start with “as”) isn’t anything to write home about. And I would’ve loved an “as you wish” in there (“The Princess Bride” being one of my favorite movies and all). But the construction was impressive, with two sets of phrases directly on top of each other, starting on the far left and finishing on the far right. And I really liked how AS I LIVE AND BREATHE (27A) zigzagged through the puzzle and acted as a connector for the other theme answers. Each of the theme answers was generally nice in and of itself. My favorite was probably AS IT HAPPENS (not solely because it reminds me of the amazing movie “It Happened One Night”)

I really liked a lot of the words in the puzzle, which felt fresh. POLYP (13D: Individual coral organism) isn’t a word you see all that often. Nor do you see BOTANIST (53A: Plant biologist, by another name), SENSATE (45D: Opposite of numb), AREPAS (52D: South American corn patties), or NUYORICANS (3D) often. Heck, we even got CHEEZ-IT (10D: Brand of orange crackers)! (I used to love those until my body decided it doesn’t like eating gluten.) BARRE (53D: Ballet rail), RAW TALENT (36D: Innate skill), and TWANG (55D: Southern way of speaking) were nice to see, as well. 

There were a surprising number of words ending in two vowels in the puzzle — ALUMNAE (14A), MAO (16A), PALAU (12D), PUPAE (40D), and MEA (47D). And it felt to me like other answers had more back-to-back vowels in them than usual, too, but I don’t have the data to back me up on this one. There were also quite a few people in there, too — OSCAR (54D: Witty Wilde), SELA (7D: Emmy-winning Ward), MARA (58A: Actress Kate or Rooney),  SAHL(43A: Wry Mort), ELIA (61A: Kazan who directed "A Streetcar Named Desire"), andARIANNA (70A: Huffington who founded The Huffington Post). 

My biggest hang-up with the puzzle was probably DASH IT (9D: "Drat!"). I’m not sure I’ve actually ever heard someone say DASH IT (not even my father), so I had “dang it” and thought that was certainly right. Lo and behold, that caused me some issues in the north section of the puzzle. 

We also had a lot of the typical crosswordese that I’m not a big fan of, such as TAT (57D: Bit of ink) (this is in puzzles way too much). Then there was APP (11A: Instagram, for one) and PIC (31A: Instagram post, for short). Did we really need to double up on Instagram clues? We had RAN (68A: Campaigned) and TAN (69A: Beachgoer's goal, maybe), right next to each other, no less. 

Some other words and abbreviations were just meh, like EXEC(29D: Business bigwig), CDC (8A: Org. in "Outbreak" and "Contagion"), PER (49A: According to), PIN (67D: A.T.M. need), and WAS (48A: Is no longer). I also don’t know if 66D: Experiencing little to no amorous attraction, informally for ARO was clued clearly enough. I put “ace” there, which is when people experience little to no sexual attraction toward any gender. But the answer was ARO, which is when people experience little to no romantic attraction toward any gender. I’d say “amorous” in the clue does lead you more toward ARO, but maybe the clue still should’ve been a little more explicit.

Misc.:

• It’s pretty funny to have the SEINE (56D: River through Paris) in the puzzle given all the controversy surrounding it and triathletes being forced to swim in it for their event and possibly getting E. coli. One athlete even said he tried to prepare himself for swimming in the SEINE by microdosing E. coli leading up to the event… which is just… awful. They never should’ve had to swim in the SEINE, and there absolutely should’ve been a backup. 
• One of my favorite restaurants in college was a small Colombian place that was known for their AREPAS (52D). And it very quickly became my favorite place to take friends and family when they would visit. 
• My coworker the other day had to get a copy of a client’s file ready for them, and it was so big that it needed to go on a CD ROM (46A: Obsolescent PC storage medium). She said that she’d never burned a CD before and was excited, which made me (at 28) feel incredibly old.
•  Anyone looking to become a better person might be looking for that GNUEWE (5D and 72A). There’s my attempt at a Dad joke. I’ll see myself out… 
• “TEXAS Hold ‘Em” (32A) by Beyoncé is a phenomenal country song and Cowboy Carter a great album. Please, Grammys, finally give her album of the year for this one. 
• Sense8 (or SENSATE (45D)) was an amazing show on Netflix that lasted a couple seasons before being unceremoniously canceled. It was a unique concept, with 8 strangers around the world being connected to another’s thoughts and actions, and Netflix shouldn’t have canceled it like they do EVERY GOOD SHOW!! Maybe I’ll go rewatch the show once the Olympics are over, and I don’t know what to do with myself anymore.

Signed, Clare Carroll, a medal contender in yelling at the TV

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