September 13, 2020

Title: UPEND

Constructor: Zhouqin Burnikel

Editor: Erik Agard

Theme Answers:

DIAMOND NECKLACE (4D: Heart-shaped "Titanic" prop)

DEEMED NECESSARY (7D: Judged to be crucial)

FIRST THE BAD NEWS (9D: "I'll start on a low note...")

Theme synopsis: Each theme answer contains the letter string D-N-E. As the theme answers are all vertical, reading UP, each answer contains the word END.

Things I learned:

• REED (19A: Historian Annette Gordon-___) Annette Gordon-REED won the Pulitzer Prize for History for her book, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family. Gordon-REED's work has changed the scholarship on Thomas Jefferson's relationship with Sally Hemings (one of Jefferson's slaves) and her children. Previous historians had concluded that rumors Jefferson was the father of Hemings's children were simply attempts to ruin his reputation. By reexamining evidence and identifying underlying unexamined assumptions of previous research, Annette Gordon-REED concluded that Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings had a sexual relationship. DNA tests have supported that the descendants of Sally Hemings are related to Thomas Jefferson.
• TED (12D: Sam Lloyd's "Scrubs" role) Sam Lloyd played the recurring character of TED Buckland in the TV series, Scrubs. He reprised the role for three episodes of the TV show Cougar Town. Not having seen the show Scrubs, I didn't know this answer. Normally I would simply have filled in the answer from crosses, but that was complicated since I didn't know Annette Gordon-REED either. Still, TED is a common name, and was inferable once I filled in FIST (9A: ___ pump). Filling in FIST took a bit of work, though, because I had SUMP initially. (I have had several conversations about SUMP pumps recently, so it was the first thing to come to mind!) All of this is to say that this small corner presented a challenge for me. However, I was eventually victorious!
• AARON (28D: Model ___ Philip) Upon signing with Elite Model Management in 2018, AARON Philip became the first Black, transgender, physically disabled person to be represented by a major modeling agency. AARON details her life experiences as a child with cerebral palsy in the autobiography, This Kid Can Fly! (Note on the use of the term "disabled" - I used it here only after discovering Philip uses this term to refer to herself.)
• EATS (31A: Enjoys some banchan, say) Banchan is a collective name used to refer to several side dishes served with rice in Korean cuisine.

Random thoughts and interesting things:

• DEAD TREE (30A: Counterpart of digital) Although I'm familiar with the phrase, DEAD TREE, it did not leap immediately to mind, and took a few letters filled in from crossings to discover. 
• SO DOPE (42D: "Wow, that's cool!") Is this expression still in use? I am not a good judge of what's "in" and what's "out."
• SADE (55A: "The Big Unknown" singer) It occurs to me I could add SADE to my imaginary concert of "Crossword-Friendly-One-Named Singers."

Geography review:

• DOHA (56A: Largest city in Qatar) DOHA is the capital of Qatar. The country of Qatar occupies a peninsula with the Persian Gulf on one side, and the Gulf of Bahrain on the other. DOHA is located on the coast of the Persian Gulf.
• PLANO, TEXAS (57A: City north of Dallas) The name of PLANO, TEXAS comes from the Spanish word for "flat," and is a reference to the unvaried, treeless terrain. 
• CHINA (27A Country that's the world's largest instant noodle market) A fun piece of trivia incorporated into this clue. China is also the world's most populous country, with a population of around 1.4 billion (2019 statistic).

FIRST THE BAD NEWS: this puzzle provided more of a challenge for me than usual due to the difficulties I described above with the upper right corner, and my struggle to fill-in GLADE (1A: Fabreze competitor). For some reason my brain kept thinking Fabreze was a fabric softener instead of a room freshener. Sometimes my brain devises extra challenges for me! However, as I've stated before, challenges are okay. I am HARDY, and eventually prevailed. As such, I don't really consider this as bad news, but simply couldn't resist using this delightful phrase as a lead-in! I really appreciated learning about Annette Gordon-REED today. SNEAK A PEEK is a playful phrase and fun to see. An enjoyable, slightly challenging solve to begin my Sunday morning.