Trendy compliment with shady undertones / FRI 12-27-24 / Language family of the Pacific Northwest / Put a hex on à la Shakespeare / Drawer with knobs? / Accessory named for a British school / Sweet's counterpart / Emperor from 54 to 68 / Musical prefix with -core

• • •

This was a solid Friday offering that kind of fell apart in the SE put held up overall. VETOER, oof, "veto" is not a verb that wants to be nouned like that (49D: Nay sayer). And CURST, yuck, no, pass. You know you all had CURSE in there at first, don't lie (51D: Put a hex on à la Shakespeare). And as for ABLED ... I have heard it as part of the phrase "differently ABLED," sure (not a term all disabled people love, but I've heard it). I have heard "ableist" and "ableism" and "able-bodied" and "neurotypical/divergent" but ABLED just sitting there on its own somehow felt weird, especially with that clue, which is worded really awkwardly, like it's trying *real* hard to be blandly nonspecific so as not to offend anyone (53D: Possessing a full range of physical and mental abilities). "Full range of physical and mental faculties?" Come on, does anyone really have the "full range?" What even is that? If people are saying ABLED to refer to the category of "non-disabled," OK ... yes, that seems to be a relatively common usage. "ABLED people" ... "The ABLED" ... I looked it up just now, and it's a word, but it's almost always accompanied by a qualifier (e.g. "the less ABLED"). Most of the dictionary definitions of ABLED have "normal" in them, which seems problematic. Ableist, tbh. I dunno. I would've liked a better clue here. Something with more context. Maybe there's a reason we haven't seen ABLED in the grid since 1975 (when it was clued [Made possible, old-style] (!?)). 

Beyond "I LOVE THAT FOR YOU," I can't say I loved the longer answers today, but I also didn't hate them, so that's something. LIGHT TIMER is original, at least, and GIVE OR TAKE has a nice casual colloquial swing to it. And at least two of the longer answers have really great clues on them, which I appreciate. That ETCH-A-SKETCH one is sneaky, using "Drawer" to mean "something that draws" rather than its more common "place to store clothes etc." definition. (This is like when clues use "tower" to mean "thing that tows" and "flower" to mean "thing that flows," usually a river) (34A: Drawer with knobs?). The clue on STONEHENGE is great in a different way (66A: Famous British rock group). Low-key. Subtle. Looks completely innocuous. No "?" or anything. But now that I think about it, it's basically doing the same thing as the ETCH-A-SKETCH clue. In fact, I'm not even sure why the ETCH-A-SKETCH clue has a "?" on it. The ETCH-A-SKETCH is in fact a "drawer" and does in fact have "knobs" so ... yeah, I don't see why you can't leave the "?" off there. Anyway, STONEHENGE gets its misdirection, obviously, from "rock group." Nice. 

Trouble spots? Yes, a few. Had IMHO before OTOH (2D: Texter's hedge), though luckily all the other Down surrounding it were right, so I was able to turn FILK into FOLK pretty easily and then get both OTOH and the Grandma Moses answer from there (1A: Grandma Moses, for one = FOLK ARTIST). Had HARASS and later HECKLE before HECTOR (24D: Be a pest to). I needed a lot of crosses to remember SALISH (my family is from the Pacific Northwest originally, so a lot of associated names are rattling around in my head—I just find it hard to grasp them sometimes). STAIN before STAMP (50D: Distinctive mark). And I needed a lot of help to get FATS, who I assume is FATS Domino, and not Minnesota FATS? Yes ... the Domino version (27D: Antoine Caliste Domino Jr., familiarly).

Notes:

• 15A: Accessory named for a British school (ETON COLLAR) — I know way more than I should about ETON, solely because of crosswords. In addition to the collar, there's an Eton jacket, an Eton cap, Eton blue, and an Eton mess (an English dessert). Apologies to all the Eton crap I omitted.

• 19A: High kicks? (HEELS) — "kicks" here is slang for "shoes"
• 30A: Ones who might invade your space, for short? (ETS)— as in "extraterrestrials." Back when I had HARASS instead of HECTOR, I thought the answer to this clue was ADS.
• 45A: Resident of the Mojo Dojo Casa House (KEN) — A Barbie (The Movie) reference.

• 52A: Destination for the van that Kevin fails to board in "Home Alone" (OHARE) — still never seen this movie that half the world has seen (I didn't see It's a Wonderful Life until I was in my late 40s; see also Casablanca—I had a perverse aversion to "everyone's seen that one!" movies.  Not having seen Home Alone didn't cause me too much trouble with the OHARE clue, though. Pretty inferrable.

[Thanks, Jon]

Dipper says, "Yes, just what I wanted, a bunch of discarded wrapping paper. You shouldn't have!"

[Thanks, Virginia & Dave]

Here are Phoebe and Kai, enjoying an elegant Christmas somewhere near Lisbon. Phoebe believes she is a cat, just go along with it.

[Thanks, Charles]

Paddy here is such an angel that he will allow you to put this angel contraption (i.e. halo) on his head and he won't even complain. He'll just stare wistfully out the window and wait for dinner.

[Thanks, Mary Grace]

And finally today there's Meredith, who is clearly a supercat, in that she not only wears festive bow ties and solves crosswords, she also reads my blog. I LOVE THAT FOR YOU, Meredith!

[Thanks, Rebecca]

Hope you all are enjoying this weird dead week between National Holidays. Is there still pie? There is here. And it goes great with coffee. So ... bye!
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]