October 3, 2021

Title: SIMPLE AS ABC

Constructor: Zhouqin Burnikel

Editor: Erik Agard

Theme Answers:

ALWAYS BE CLOSING (16A: Sales motto)

ALL BUT CERTAIN (38A: Practically guaranteed)

ATLANTA BOY CHOIR (61A: Children's singing group based in Georgia)

Theme synopsis: The first word in each theme answer begins with A, the second word begins with B, and the third word begins with C.

Things I learned:

• FAN ART (34A: Lumity drawings, e.g.) The Owl House is an animated Disney TV series. Spoiler alert...two of the characters on the show, Luz Noceda (voiced by Sarah-Nicole Robles) and Amity Blight (voiced by Mae Whitman) become a couple in the second season of the show. "Lumity" is the mash up of the names Luz and Amity that some FANs have used to refer to this relationship. 
• ADA (41D: "Resident Evil" character Wong) Resident Evil is a series of Japanese horror video games. The video game series has been adapted to movies, a TV series, comic books, and novels. The antiheroine character, ADA Wong, debuted in the 1998 game, Resident Evil 2. 
• PARODY (46D: "The Wind Done Gone," for one) The Wind Done Gone is a 2001 novel by Alice Randall. The book is a PARODY of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind, and is written from the viewpoint of one of Scarlett O'Hara's slaves. The estate of Margaret Mitchell sued Alice Randall and Houghton Mifflin over the book's publication, claiming it infringed on the copyright of Gone With the Wind. The case was settled by Houghton Mifflin making a donation to Morehouse College in exchange for the suit being dropped. 
• OBOE (58D: Instrument descended from the shawm) The shawm is one of the earliest double-reed instruments, dating back to the 12th century.
• NAT (62D: Jazz trumpeter Adderley) NAT Adderley was a jazz trumpeter and composer. His 1960 song, "Work Song," has become a jazz standard. 

Random thoughts and interesting things:

• ALWAYS BE CLOSING (16A: Sales motto) ALWAYS BE CLOSING, sometimes referred to (appropriately for this puzzle) as ABC, is a motivational phrase used in sales. We saw ALWAYS BE CLOSING as a theme answer previously, in January of this year.
• STREAM (22A: Black Girl Gamers broadcast) Black Girl Gamers is an online community founded by Jay-Ann Lopez in 2015. Members of the community STREAM on the group's Twitch channel. 
• OREOS (37A: Cookies in some pie crusts) I would happily eat a pie with OREOS in the crust.
• HALOES (42A: Angelic circles of light) I briefly stumbled here because I wanted to spell HALOES without the E. Either spelling is acceptable, according to Merriam Webster. 
• ATLANTA BOY CHOIR (61A: Children's singing group based in Georgia) The ATLANTA BOY CHOIR has a 75 year history, during which it has toured in 15 countries, and won a Grammy Award (in 1989). The ATLANTA BOY CHOIR can be heard singing in a scene of the 2016 movie Captain America: Civil War. My biggest challenge with this answer is that I wanted BOY to be plural, and that didn't fit. 
• KEIRA (64A: Actress Knightley) and EPISODE I (10D: "Star Wars: ___--The Phantom Menace) KEIRA Knightley played the role of Sabé, Padmé Amidala's handmaiden in the 1999 movie, Star Wars: EPISODE I - The Phantom Menace. I enjoy discovering connections between answers in a puzzle. 
• LEAF (18D: Banana ___ (banh tet wrapper)) Bánh tét is a cake made from glutinous rice cake with a mung bean or pork filling. The cake is rolled into a log-like shape and wrapped in a banana LEAF. After cooking, the banana LEAF is removed, and the cake is sliced into wheel-shaped servings. Bánh tét is a traditional Vietnamese New Year food.
• ORCAS (31D: Whales featured in "Blackfish") Blackfish is a 2013 documentary about an orca named Tilikum, and the controversy of keeping ORCAS in captivity. 
• HARP (56D: Instrument for Joanna Newsom) Singer-songwriter, Joanna Newsom has been playing the HARP since she was eight years old. 

Geography review:

• YEN (63D: Currency in Osaka) Osaka is the capital of Japan, where the currency is the Japanese YEN.

Was this puzzle SIMPLE AS ABC for you? It's been less than a month since we saw an ABC-themed puzzle, though the two puzzles have different approaches. Fun to see different interpretations of theme material. I enjoyed the entry LIVE A LIE, and chuckled to see that the puzzle includes its own farewell greeting in the lower right - BYE! This puzzle was a fine way to begin my Sunday.

One more thing before I bid you ADIEU. If you're in the mood to try a slightly more challenging puzzle, check out today's Rosswords puzzle. It's a collaboration between Ross Trudeau, USA Today constructor Quiara Vasquez, and me.