April 7, 2021

Title: CHAIN OF COMMAND

Constructor: Zhouqin Burnikel

Editor: Erik Agard

Theme Answers:

TAKES A PAY CUT (20A: Makes less money)

AUTOGRAPHED COPY (38A: Book signing buy)

ANCHOVY PASTE (57A: Fishy condiment)

Theme synopsis: The last word in each theme answer is a computer COMMAND: CUT, COPY, PASTE. On a Mac, the shortcut for these COMMANDS involve the COMMAND key: COMMAND X, COMMAND C, COMMAND V.

Things I learned:

• MILES (54A: Spider-Man's first name) I completely fell into the trap here, and confidently typed in PETER as the answer. When the crossing answers were not making sense, I realized my mistake and remembered (vaguely) that the Spider-Verse has expanded in the last few years and there are multiple versions of the Spider-Man story. MILES Morales is one of the characters known as Spider-Man. He first appeared in the comic Ultimate Fallout #4 in August 2011. He was the main character in the 2018 movie Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
• TARA (67A: Author Schuster) TARA Schuster is the author of the 2020 book, Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies: And Other Rituals to Fix Your Life, from Someone Who's Been There. 
• TART (1D: Like the taster of calamansi) Calamansi is a citrus fruit cultivated predominantly in the Philippines. Calamansi is a hybrid between a kumquat and a mandarin orange. The TART fruit is frequently used in Filipino cuisine.
• ESSAY (55D: Da'Shaun L. Harrison piece) Da' Shaun L. Harrison is a Black trans writer, and the Managing Editor of Wear Your Voice magazine. Harrison is the author of Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness which will be published in August of this year.

Random thoughts and interesting things:

• THEFT (9A: Wage ____) Wage THEFT refers to employers not paying employees the wages or benefits they have earned. While the most straightforward wage THEFT is employees outright failing to reimburse workers what they're owed, there are other variations of wage THEFT that are less straightforward, but still illegal. For example, failure to pay the minimum wage, or failure to follow laws about minimum wages and tipped wages, making employees work "off the clock," not paying for overtime, and not paying for breaks that are worked instead of taken, are all forms of wage THEFT. Wage THEFT is a problem that disproportionately affects people of color, women, and foreign-born workers. 
• ANNA (14A: "One True Thing" author Quindlen) One True Thing is ANNA Quindlen's semi-biographical 1994 novel about the relationship between a young mother and her mother who is dying of cancer. The 1998 movie of the same name was based on the novel.
• NIXON (36A: "A Quiet Passion" actress Cynthia) A Quiet Passion is a 2016 biographical movie about Emily Dickinson. Cynthia NIXON played the role of the American poet. 
• COP (22D: "But you say it in a tweet, that's a ___-out" (Swift lyric)) This lyric is from Taylor Swift's song, "You Need to Calm Down."
• AFRO (38D: Nathalie Emmanuel hairstyle) Actress Nathalie Emmanuel's roles have include Sasha Valentine on the British soap opera, Hollyoaks, and Missandei on the TV series, Game of Thrones.
• GREEN TEA (39D: Matcha or sencha) Sencha is a type of GREEN TEA made by infusing processed whole tea leaves in hot water. Matcha GREEN TEA is made by mixing tea powder in hot water.
• NOVEL (53D: "Dream of the Red Chamber," e.g.) Dream of the Red Chamber is one of the Four Great Classic NOVELs of Chinese Literature, works which are among the world's oldest NOVELs. It was written in the 18th century during the Qing dynasty. 
• EGG (62D: Shakshouka ingredient) Shakshouka (also spelled shakshuka) is a dish in Middle Eastern cuisine consisting of EGGs poached in a sauce of tomatoes, peppers, onions, garlic, and spices.

Geography review:

• ASIA (15A: Guangxi's continent) Guangxi is an autonomous region of China, located in the southern part of China. After five puzzle appearances in March, this is our crossword-friend ASIA's first April appearance.
• HANOI (16A: Vietnam's capital) HANOI is the second-largest city in Vietnam, second to Ho Chi Minh City. This is HANOI's second puzzle appearance this week; we saw HANOI in Sunday's puzzle. 
• LAOS (24A: Country bordering Thailand) LAOS is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by Myanmar, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand.
• SAHARA (48D: African desert) The SAHARA is the largest hot desert in the world, covering much of North Africa. Eleven African countries are covered by parts of the SAHARA: Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Western Sahara, Sudan, and Tunisia.

Ah, CUT, COPY, and PASTE, three extremely useful COMMANDs. (My favorite COMMAND is "undo," which has saved me many a time!) In addition to the theme answers, the beverage options of GREEN TEA and ICED LATTE were nice. I also enjoyed SAME TO YOU. This puzzle was an enjoyable start to my Wednesday.