Pacific root vegetable / WED 5-20-20 / Canadian sketch comedy show of 1970s-80s / Tender kind of lettuce

Constructor: Natan Last, Andy Kravis and The J.A.S.A. Crossword Class

Relative difficulty: Easy (4:01 at a trotting pace)

THEME: 1 word, 2 words — three-word phrases where the second two words, combined, are spelled the same as the first word ... so that in the grid, every themer looks like it's just an eight-letter word repeated:

Theme answers:

• BRIEFEST BRIE FEST (18A: French cheese tasting that lasts only a minute?)
• MUSTACHE MUST ACHE (28A: "That handlebar has gotta hurt!")
• HEATHENS HEAT HENS (51A: Headline about a pagan rotisserie shop?)
• FLAGRANT FLAG RANT (68A: Screed about Old Glory that goes too far?)

Word of the Day: Buzzards BAY (55A: Massachusetts' Buzzards ___) —

Buzzards Bay is a bay of the Atlantic Ocean adjacent to the U.S. state of Massachusetts. It is approximately 28 miles (45 kilometers) long by 8 miles (12 kilometers) wide. It is a popular destination for fishing, boating, and tourism. Since 1914, Buzzards Bay has been connected to Cape Cod Bay by the Cape Cod Canal. In 1988, under the Clean Water Act, the Environmental Protection Agencyand the State of Massachusetts designated Buzzards Bay to the National Estuary Program, as "an estuary of national significance" that is threatened by pollution, land development, or overuse. (wikipedia) 

• • •

JAYBIRD (22A)

It's a simple idea, kind of a wordplay standard (i.e. the idea words can be broken apart to form other words), but rather than being lifted from some website of prefab answers, the group of theme answers involved here are carefully chosen, and have common properties that link them together, elevating the theme and giving it a certain amount of consistency and structural elegance. They're all 16, to start with, which means that they're (apparently) the same 8-letter word twice. Then, through the magic of wackiness ("?"-style cluing), the second 8-letter word turns out to actual be two words ... and each time, those two words are two 4-letter words, which means that each time the first word is reparsed as two words, it is split precisely in half. 8 + (4 + 4). No 8 + (5 + 3)s, no 8 + (2 + 6)s. An 8 and two 4s, every time. So yes, the theme is light, but there's an architectural preciseness about it that I like. I kind of wish the parsing made the second half clank more rather than less; that is, I like MUSTACHE MUST ACHE, which *really* changes sound from first half to last half. HEATHENS HEAT HENS similarly involves a big sound change (elimination of the "TH" sound). BRIEFEST BRIE FEST, on the other hand, is a little on-the-nose (and I'm not entirely sure that the latter part wouldn't be spelled as one word rather than two, since "-fest" is a suffix, technically, e.g. "gabfest," "lovefest," etc.). FLAGRANT FLAG RANT changes (pronunciation-wise) only in the vowels, though when I sit here saying it out loud (in my kitchen, to myself, like a weirdo), it does sound pretty different. All's I'm saying is that I like when the reparsing involves a *jarring* repronunciation. There's a corollary here to the Wackiness Rule—bigger is better. Go big or don't bother. Anyway, overall, this all worked fine for me. There's evidence of craft involved today. Nice change from whatever was going on yesterday.


The fill is also light years better than yesterday's, despite a preponderance of short stuff. Again, that's evidence of craft. Care. Attention to small details that no one is ever going to praise you for ... but those details absolutely matter to solvers' overall enjoyment, whether they're conscious of them or not. The fill is *clean* and occasionally snazzy. I'm never gonna cheer for abbrs. but as abbrs. go, IVF is a good one (11D: Modern reproductive procedure: Abbr.). It's, well, modern, like the clue says. Also modern—MERCH (33D: Concert tees and the like). Short answers can be interesting and fresh! And if the bulk of the short stuff is simply solid, woo hoo. I say "simply"—it's actually hard (and underappreciated) work to get all the short stuff (or the vast majority of it) to come out clean. I've complained about the THE in answers before, but THE ARMY isn't bad, as definite article-containing answers go. Annoyed by the clue on 29D: Anagram and antonym of 34-Down (UNTIE), but only because it makes me have to go look elsewhere in the grid for info, which I Never like. But, as those highly annoying types of clues go, it's fine, actually. I had the TABLA (48D: Small Indian drum) as a TABOR, which ... what is that? June TABOR is a folk singer ... hmmm ... (looks up TABOR) ... hey! It's also a drum! Oh good, now I don't feel so bad:

: a small drum with one head of soft calfskin used to accompany a pipe or fife played by the same person (merriam-webster.com)

Had real trouble getting HYBRID, since I took [Animal crossing] to mean "a place where animals cross the road, possibly to get to the other side." That was probably the point of that clue. But otherwise, no problems here. Simple, snappy fun.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. J.A.S.A. (Jewish Association for Services of the Aged) in NYC offers a crossword construction class on a regular basis; this puzzle is a product of one of those classes. For more info on the organization, including how you can donate (they're doing good work during this pandemic), please go here. Thanks.

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