Constructor: Blake Slonecker
Relative difficulty: Medium
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THEME: none
Word of the Day: INA May Gaskin (21A: ___ May Gaskin, author of Spiritual Midwifery") —
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A proper Saturday. In terms of difficulty, just about where I want it to be. In terms of excitement, less so, but I'm OK with Saturday being more about the grind and less about the sizzle. The spanners today just didn't do anything for me. Hard to get excited about CLASSROOM ROSTER—dull and old-fashioned-sounding, somehow (17A: Sub's reference). Over and over, I'd get part of a longer and still have no idea about the rest of it, so the phrases just weren't ... clicking, for me. Got CLASSROOM and ... no idea. Got CLASSICAL and ... no idea. I knew I knew who Andrés Segovia was, but I just couldn't retrieve it in the moment. I had him as a singer (Andrea Bocelli?) or a classical pianist (Alfred Brendel? Claudio Arrau?) at various points before that blessed "ovoid packaging" took me back to the drug stores and grocery stores of the '70s, where I found the L'EGGS (37A: Hanes brand once sold in ovoid packaging), which gave me the "G," which immediately gave me GUITAR (and a "d'oh, of course"). But back to partial answers being no help. I had ROTATE and ... no idea. I had -DETAILS and ... no idea (JUICY? GORY? Gah!). The problem was that once I got the full answers in all these cases, I didn't have that fulfilled "click" or "aha" feeling. Just a shruggy kind of "yeah, I guess that is a thing." The term SLOTTED SPOON clicks. The term SLOTTED SPATULAS ... not really (8D: Kitchen flippers). I mean, we have one of those in our kitchen, so they're real enough, but ... I dunno, there's just something kind of flat—"yes, that exists" as opposed to "wow, nice"—about the marquee stuff today. Still, I liked that I had to fight for it today. I love a Saturday that makes me work.
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I was excited to get SPIT (well, about as excited as you can be about a disgusting word like "SPIT") (26A: Ward off bad luck, in a Greek tradition), and even more excited to "confirm" it with the colloquially perfect PULL UP (2D: Arrive curbside). So I struggled in the NW a little bit more wondering why PULL UP didn't work. I will say that ROLL UP was an answer I was happy to see, one that didn't end up kind of flat or disappointing once it finally showed. ROLL UP and PULL UP both work great, both right-on-the-money and in-the-language ... but only ROLL UP works with the crosses. But at just a two-letter difference, PULL UP is a rough mistake. But as I say, the mistake *did* help, a bit, with the 4/6 (so ... 2/3) of the letters that were correct. I also botched 30D: Mass apparel, but botched my way into one important and correct letter—I had ROBE, the answer was ALBS, but that "B" came through for me anyway, helping me get the LABS part of AV LABS (35A: Media-based learning sites, informally). I also threw an "S" down at the end of 1D: What passwords unlock, figuring "passwords" might indicate a plural answer. I was wrong, but the "S" there was what got me to see SPIT in the first place. So it was a good day for accidental success.
Nots and explainers:![]()
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Medium
Word of the Day: INA May Gaskin (21A: ___ May Gaskin, author of Spiritual Midwifery") —
Ina May Gaskin (née Middleton; born March 8, 1940) is an American midwife who has been described as "the mother of authentic midwifery." She helped found the self-sustaining community, The Farm, with her husband Stephen Gaskin in 1971 where she markedly launched her career in midwifery. She is known for the Gaskin Maneuver, has written several books on midwifery and childbirth, and continues to educate society through lectures and conferences and spread her message of natural, old-age inspired, fearless childbirth. According to Carol Lorente (1995), the work of Gaskin and the midwives might not have had the impact it did, if it hadn't been for the publication of her book Spiritual Midwifery (1977): "Considered a seminal work, it presented pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding from a fresh, natural and spiritual perspective, rather than the standard clinical viewpoint. In homebirth and midwifery circles, it made her a household name, and a widely respected teacher and writer." By the early 1990s, after multiple reprints, Spiritual Midwifery was acknowledged as a "classical text on midwifery" with a "lasting impact". // The Gaskin Maneuver, also called all fours, is a technique to reduce shoulder dystocia, a specific type of obstructed labour which may lead to fetal death. Gaskin introduced it in the U.S. in 1976 after learning it from a Belizean woman who had, in turn, learned the maneuver in Guatemala, where it originated. In this maneuver, the mother supports herself on her hands and knees to resolve shoulder dystocia. Switching to a hands and knees position causes the shape of the pelvis to change, thereby allowing the trapped shoulder to free itself and the baby to be born. Since this maneuver requires a significant movement from the standard lithotomy position, it can be substantially more difficult to perform while under epidural anesthesia, but still possible, and can be performed by an experienced delivery room team. (wikipedia)
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[Spin right round?]
Even my successes today started out as failures. Here, check out my screenshot from early on, when I finally (and proudly) got traction in that NW corner:
Aside from the very beginning (often the toughest part of a late-week grid, since you have no answers to play off of yet), there was no part of the grid that stood out as more difficult than the others, though the INA / BRAGG section over there in the NE felt like a real proper noun challenge. I didn't know INA from Adam, so no hope there. On the other hand, I know Billy BRAGG really, really well (28A: English folk singer Billy). I listened to his music a lot in college and through the '90s, and still own a handful of his CDs to this day. But "folk singer"? If you wanna hide Billy BRAGG from me, yes, call him an "English folk singer." Look, it's not wrong. Not wrong wrong. But for us college radio kids of the 80s/90s, he was more of an indie rock singer-songwriter. More electric, more modern than "folk" suggests, although he could be painfully earnest and he's definitely deeply political (big labor / union supporter, lots of protest songs to his credit). He worked with people like Johnny Marr (The Smiths) and Natalie Merchant (10,000 Maniacs). I see that wikipedia has his "genre" as "punk folk." Anyway, huge "d'oh!" when the "English folk singer" I was struggling to come up with turned out to be someone I've been listening to most of my life.
["But I never made the first team / I just made the first team laugh"]
- 19A: What always ends well? (ELS) — a "letteral" clue. I saw right through this one, but wrote in "ELL," which is how I've been trained to spell the damned letter. For example, November of last year: [Late start?] = ELL. What is this "EL" nonsense? ELS are trains, ELLS are letters (or building annexes, I guess).
- 27A: Noted name in lithographs (IVES) — had the "I" and thought "how am I supposed to know this?" Then remembered the printing team of Currier & IVES. Why do I know them? I think maybe they were in a song lyric? "Like a ... something from Currier and IVES?" What am I thinking of? Ha! Yes! "Sleigh Ride!" Tis the season!
["It'll nearly be like a picture print by Currier and IVES"]
- 29A: Inveigled (COAXED) — totally forgot the meaning of "inveigled." I thought it meant "hid" or "cloaked." Must've been thinking of "veiled" (?!).
- 36A: Word on many "No Trespassing" signs (POSTED) — I think you have to live somewhere fairly rural to see these. Luckily, I do. Or at least live rural-adjacent. If you walk in the woods around here for any length of time, you'll definitely see "POSTED!" signs eventually.
- 42A: The case, so to speak (TRUE) — "that's not the case,""that's not TRUE" ... a tough but fair swap-out.
- 4D: Temple Square letters (LDS) — "Temple Square is a 10-acre (4.0 ha) complex, owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), in the center of Salt Lake City, Utah." (wikipedia)
- 7D: P, B, D, T, K and G (PLOSIVES)— tough one! I was gonna make PLOSIVES my Word of the Day, but turns out I already did that earlier this year (1/28/24). Basically, it's a linguistics term for the letters that require you to stop airflow and then expel a burst of air when you say them.
- 13D: Outspoken parenting critic, maybe (TEENAGER) — I liked this clue a lot. It's a bit caricature-y, but any well-raised teenager is gonna push back at their parents' authority at some point, so ... fair.
- 18D: Subject of the 2021 documentary "Once Upon a Time in Queens" (METS)— Citi Field, where the METS play, like SHEA Stadium before it, is in Flushing, Queens.
- 28D: Certain Thanksgiving dish (BOAT) — anyone out there trying to serve GOAT for Thanksgiving? Anyone? No, just me? Ah well. (I've never seen "BOAT" without "gravy" in front of it, but for the GOAT mistake alone, I approve this clue)
- 40D: Home to England's Jurassic Coast (DORSET) — got it off the -SET, having never heard of "England's Jurassic Coast" at all.
- 46D: Galley command (STET) — tough misdirection on this one. I thought "galley" as in "ship" and "galley" as in "kitchen" before I thought "galley" as in "not-yet-final version of a book or article."
See you next time.
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