Zest-y Wednesday (New York Times 12/2/2020)

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Like most daily solvers, I have the New York Times crossword app on my phone. It's one of the few apps outside of social media that I allow to send push notifications, and when I get the pop-up that the new crossword is ready, I'm there! It just so happens that I was in the middle of a rousing game of Scattergories at 10pm on Tuesday when the Wednesday puzzle went live. I should mention that with the COVID pandemic picking up steam all across the country, we were taking all necessary precautions while playing: safe distances apart, masked, small group that is otherwise normally isolated and all recently tested negative for the virus.

Anyways, it was a rare occasion of hanging out with my family, so I left the crossword for later. Honestly, it was the right choice. And not just because family is important and doing a crossword on my phone during game night would absolutely come off as simultaneously douchey and pretentious. Today's crossword was simply mediocre all around. The theme was fine, albeit done-before and done-better. The rest of the fill was perfectly acceptable: a few difficult answers sprinkled among well-clued and common words. I have nothing bad to say about it. The worst criticism is that I have nothing great to say either. I wasn't wow-ed by any aspect, but that doesn't make this an unworthy puzzle. For someone out there, this will be the best puzzle they've ever solved, and for them, that's great!

Starting with the across answers, both 22 and 32A were good answers. I may be a bit biases towards 22A "Prevailed" as the answer WONOUT is one of my favorite fills along with PANOUT. I think both answers make for interesting fill, and when the crosses leave solvers with situations like WO??UT, that's an answer that can provide a great aha moment. As for 32A "Fulminated (against)" the correct solution ... RAILED ... is a word that is very topical right now as politicians and pundits alike do just that concerning the recent election.

For the vertical clues, the puzzle starts on a high-note with back-to-back great ones at 1 and 2D: "Comment after a zinger" and "You and whose army?!" respectively. The former solves to ... OHSNAP ... while the latter is looking for ... MAKEME. Both were great examples of levity and and non-literal clueing that were in short supply elsewhere. A perfect example of literal clueing comes at 43D "Gentle breeze." This is, per the New Oxford English Dictionary, the exact definition of the answer... ZEPHYR. With that being said, the answer itself, like a breeze, was refreshing, as I cannot remember ever filling that word in before!

People and places to know to fill in this grid: 

• 14A "Film auteur Miyazaki"... HAYAO Miyazaki is best know for his work with Studio Ghibli, producing some of the finest works of animation ever to grace the silver screen. At his best when directing his own scripts, he is well known for films such as The Castle of Cagliostro, My Neighor Totoro, and Princess Mononoke.

• 25A "Tennis star Nadal" ... RAFAEL Nadal is a top-ranked tennis professional from Spain. He has won 20 Grand Slam men's singles titles and 13 French Open titles including a win this year over Novak Djokovic of Serbia.

• Novelists Virginia Woolf and Daniel Defoe: Ms. Woolf's work THEWAVES is clued at 6D as "Virginia Woolf's novel with interludes set on a beach." She was a modernist writer from England who published now-famous works in the mid-to-late 1920's and reached the height of her popularity in the 30's. || Mr. DEFOE, another Englishman, was born in the late 17th century. Clued as "'Robinson Cruesoe' novelist" the puzzle seeks his last name only. It is said his mentioned work has been translated into more languages than any other work of fiction and is second all-time only to the Bible.

• 11D "Creator of Hollywood's Chinese Theater" ... Sid GRAUMAN was responsible for both the clued theater and the Egyptian theater. The opening of the Chinese theater in 1926 was responsible for the now-famous practice of film celebrities immortalizing their hand and footprints in wet cement... although the story of exactly how that came to be is disputed.

• 31D "Rapper who forms one half of the duo Black Star" ... MOSDEF is an American rapper, actor and activist. Born Dante Smith, he now goes by Yasiin Bey. He has been nominated for Grammy, Primetime Emmy, Golden Globe and NAACP Image awards.

• 56D "Dictator Amin" ... IDI Amin was the president of Uganda during most of the 1970's and is best known as the "Butcher of Uganda" or the machete. 

The theme of today's puzzle was not much a theme honestly. The primary clues were unconnected save for the first and last two letters of each forming a word that described the outside of FRUIT as clued at 60A. The themed answers themselves were mostly unremarkable with the exception of ZEITGEIST, and with it's crossing ZEPHYR, were the highlights of the puzzle. Other themed answers included:

• 17A "Classic 1960 Platinum-selling Miles David Album" SKETCHESOFSPAIN.   

• 29A "Small stones used for driveways" PEAGRAVEL.

• 55A "Like... now!" RIGHTTHISSECOND. 

Looking at the first and last two letters of each answer will reveal: SKIN, PEEL, ZEST and RIND. Clever? Sure. A fitting pairing of theme, clues and answers? Not really. Without the inclusion of the answer FRUIT and the hint in the clue, this puzzle could have passed for a run of the mill, if slightly above average, theme-less puzzle. Not that that's a bad thing. Just wasn't great.

It reminds me of the joke "What do you a call the med student that graduated last in his class?"

Doctor!

While far from last in it's class in the world of crosswords, it probably didn't deserve as many words as I've devoted to it. And on that note, here are the answers:

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