July 27, 2022

Title: BEAM UP

Constructor: Zhouqin Burnikel

Editor: Erik Agard

Theme Answers:

BABY ARUGULA (3D: Tender salad green)

PLAY AREA (8D: Place with a slide)

HOCKEY ARENA (25D: Venue for slapshots and hat tricks)

STORY ARC (37D: Narrative path)

Theme synopsis: A BEAM of light, in the form of the word RAY, is found going UP each of the vertical theme answers

Things I learned:

• LAMAR (45A: NFL quarterback Jackson) LAMAR Jackson is a quarterback for NFL's Baltimore Ravens. He previously played college football at the University of Louisville, and was awarded the Heisman trophy during his sophomore year. In 2019, his second NFL season, LAMAR Jackson was named as the NFL's Most Valuable Player. 
• ROWER (61A: Athlete such as Esther Lofgren) Esther Lofgren was part of the USA rowing team that won a gold medal in the Women's eight at the 2012 Summer Olympics. From 2007-2018, Esther Lofgren wrote about her rowing experiences on a blog titled Harder. Better. Faster. Stronger. I recently ordered some fun Forever stamps that feature Women's Rowing. The stamps fit together

  

  Women's Rowing stamps

  
  on the sheet of stamps to form rowing teams.
• UNIT (62A: Cun or inch) I'm familiar with the inch as a UNIT of length, but cun is new to me. Cun is a traditional Chinese UNIT of length, and is the width of a person's thumb at the knuckle. The cun is still used in some traditional Chinese medicine to chart acupuncture points. I've discussed this type of clue before. Providing two examples allows more opportunity for solvers to be successful. I easily filled in the answer from my knowledge of the inch, and now I've learned something new and added the cun to my knowledge base.

Random thoughts and interesting things:

• KILT (9A: Sartorial symbol of Scotland) I would have filled this answer in more quickly had I successfully remembered the meaning of the word "sartorial." My mind drew a blank, however, on remembering that sartorial means "of or relating to a tailor or tailored clothes."
• FOCAL (14A: The "f" in f-stop) Please don't tell my husband (a photographer) that it took me a moment to remember that the term f-stop was related to cameras and photography. The important thing is that I did get there! Having remembered how I knew the term f-stop, my first guess was "focus," but the crossing answers of MAKE and PLAY AREA soon sorted that out. The f-stop setting on a camera refers to changing the size of the lens aperture (the opening allowing light in). That is a simplified explanation, but here's an Adobe article that provides more detail.
• EYES (21A: Box jellyfish have 24 of them) A box jellyfish is so-named because of the cube-shaped bell that forms its body. Multiple hollow tentacles extend from the bell. The EYES of a box jellyfish occur in clusters located in pockets halfway up the outer surface of the bell. As the clue informs us, a box jellyfish has a total of 24 EYES.
• ALA (22A: Gambas ___ plancha (tapas dish) Gambas ALA plancha are grilled prawns.
• WORMHOLE (30A: Shortcut between separate points in space-time) A WORMHOLE, also referred to as an "Einstein-Rosen bridge," is a theoretical tunnel connecting two points in space-time. Although consistent with the general theory of relativity, the existence of WORMHOLEs has not been confirmed.
• CVS (35A: Largest pharmacy chain in the U.S.) As I filled in this answer, I had the thought that an alternative clue could be [Pharmacy chain with the longest receipts]. To be fair, I haven't shopped at a CVS in years, so I did a Google search to discover if their receipts are still notoriously long. The answer is yes, but apparently CVS is now offering a digital receipt option.
• ROSE PARADE (54A: New Year's Day event in Pasadena) Pasadena's ROSE PARADE was first held on January 1, 1890. It is held on New Year's Day except when January 1 falls on a Sunday; those years the parade is held on January 2. The ROSE PARADE originally featured horse carriages decorated with flowers. Over time the carriages were replaced by floats, some of which take nearly a year to construct. According to ROSE PARADE rules, all surfaces of a float's framework must be covered in natural materials. No artificial flowers are allowed.
• LEA (11D: ___ Salonga, first Asian woman to win a Tony) LEA Salonga won the Best Actress in a Musical Tony Award in 1991 for her role of Kim in the Broadway production of Miss Saigon. LEA Salonga is also the singing voice of Disney princesses Jasmine and Mulan.
• HOCKEY ARENA (25D: Venue for slapshots and hat tricks) Although I had to refresh my memory about what the terms meant, I did recognize slapshot and hat trick as HOCKEY terms. A slapshot is a particular technique that results in the HOCKEY puck traveling at high speeds across the ice. A hat trick refers to a HOCKEY player scoring three goals in the same game.

Geography review:

• DANES (34A: Some Scandinavians) The subregion of Northern Europe known as Scandinavia refers (most commonly) to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Therefore, DANES, Norwegians, and Swedes are Scandinavians. The term Scandinavia is sometimes applied more broadly to include Finland, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands.
• SELMA (37A: City west of Montgomery) The capital of Alabama is Montgomery. Located about 50 miles west of Montgomery is the city of SELMA. SELMA is located on the banks of the Alabama River, and has a population of just over 20,000. The Edmund Pettus Bridge that crosses the Alabama River in SELMA was the site of events on March 7, 1965, that came to be known as Bloody Sunday. Civil rights demonstrators were attempting to march from Selma to Montgomery to advocate for voting rights, when they were attacked by police as they were attempting to cross the bridge.
• ROO (57D: Quintana ___, Mexico) Quintana ROO is a Mexican state. There are 32 federal entities in Mexico - 31 states, plus Mexico City. Quintana ROO is the easternmost of Mexico's states, and has coastline on the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.

The weather is currently overcast where I live, so I'm thankful for today's puzzle providing RAYs of light. As the theme answers - a nice set of them - are vertical, there's a lot of lovely, sparkly fill in the puzzle's Across answers. My three favorites are the conversationally clued LOOK AT THAT (17A: "Oh, cool!"), SAY WHAT? (19A: "Come again?"), and I HEAR YA (52A: "True, true"). Thank you, Zhouqin, for this puzzle that was a fantastic way to start my Wednesday.