April 8, 2023

Title: What a Roller Coaster!

Constructor: Brooke Husic

Editor: Erik Agard

Theme Answers:

LAURYN HILL (16A: "Doo Wop (That Thing)" singer)

ALBUM DROP (28A: Recording artist's big moment)

IT'S YOUR TURN (45A: Reminder to a board game opponent)

IN THE LOOP (61A: Aware of the latest updates)

Theme synopsis: The last word of each theme answer is a feature of a ROLLER COASTER: HILL, DROP, TURN, and LOOP. 

And now a word from our constructor:

Brooke: my favorite roller coaster is the cyclone on coney island, even though it does not have any loops.

Things I learned:

• EAGLE (60A: Bird on the Otoe-Missouria seal) The tribal seal of the Otoe-Missouria features the seven animals of the tribe: bear, buffalo, pigeon, EAGLE, beaver, elk, and owl.
• WALT (9D: NBA great Frazier) WALT Frazier played for NBA's New York Knicks from 1967-1979, winning championships with the team in 1970 and 1973. He played for the Cleveland Cavaliers from 1977-1979. WALT Frazier was a seven-time NBA All-Star, and was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1987.
• RRR (38D: 2022 blockbuster with the song "Naatu Naatu") RRR is a Telugu-language movie that tells a fictional story of two revolutionaries in India that fight against British rule.  "Naatu Naatu" is a song in RRR that was written to showcase the dancing talent of the heroes. The song won an Academy Award for Best Original Song, the first song from an Asian film to do so.

Random thoughts and interesting things:

• MARCH (1A: Bisexual Health Awareness Month) Bisexual Health Awareness Month was founded in 2014 by the Bisexual Resource Center. The aim of the initiative is to raise "awareness about the bisexual+ (bi, pansexual, fluid, queer, etc.) community's social, economic, and health disparities," as well as advocate for resources and inspire actions that improve well-being of the bi+ community. The theme of last month's campaign was Beyond Visibility. 
• LAURYN HILL (16A: "Doo Wop (That Thing)" singer) "Doo Wop (That Thing)" is a 1998 song from LAURYN HILL's debut studio album, The Miseducation of LAURYN HILL. The song won two Grammy Awards, and the music video won MTV's Video of the Year, becoming the first hip hop video to win that award.
• THERE'S (21A: "___ Your Trouble" (The Chicks song)) "THERE'S Your Trouble" is a 1998 song by The Chicks, who won a Grammy Award for their performance of the song.
• TAO (48A: The ___ Te Ching) The TAO Te Ching is a fundamental text for Taoism.
• CLAMPS (56A: Tools used to hold things in place) At our house, we have a running joke about CLAMPS. My husband does woodworking, and there was a time when he was working on a project and the number of CLAMPS he had limited how quickly the project could move
  
  forward. Multiple times since then I have encouraged him to buy more CLAMPS, and for Christmas 2021 I gave him a sticker that said, "I own too many CLAMPS said no woodworker ever." Currently he's working on making new cabinets for our kitchen; this is a huge project that will probably take all year. A couple of months ago, he glued the first cabinet together (inside because it was extremely cold in the garage at the time!), and he texted me this photo. All this is to say that this clue/answer made me laugh!
• ARBOR (64A: ___ Day (tree-planting holiday)) In the United States, ARBOR Day is celebrated on the last Friday in April, which will be April 28 this year. 
• BODAK YELLOW (23D: Cardi B's breakout hit) "BODAK YELLOW" by Cardi B was released in 2017, and reached the top of Billboard's Hot 100 chart. Cardi B was the second female rapper to reach the top of the charts with a solo song; the first was LAURYN HILL with "Doo-Wop (That Thing)" in 1998.
• DONGLE (40D: Small device that plugs in to a computer) An example of a DONGLE would be a USB flash drive, an adapter to convert a computer port to connect to another type of device, or a wireless adapter for bluetooth. Although the etymology of the word DONGLE is unknown, it's surmised that it's a corruption of the word "dangle" because the devices dangle from computers. 
• RACHEL (47D: Maddow or McAdams) RACHEL Maddow is a TV news host and political commentator. She currently hosts The RACHEL Maddow Show on MSNBC. RACHEL McAdams has an extensive filmography that includes portraying Regina George in Mean Girls (2004) and Irene Adler in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011). 
• IGBO (54D: Nigerian ethnic group) The IGBO people are indigenous to several states in Nigeria. Cameroon, Gabon, and Equatorial Guinea also have IGBO communities.

Geography review:

• SAHARA (6D: North African desert) The SAHARA, which is the world's largest hot desert, takes its name from the Arabic word for "desert." Extending over much of North Africa, the SAHARA covers parts of 11 countries: Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Western Sahara, Sudan, and Tunisia.

I hope you're not feeling dizzy after solving this ROLLER COASTER of a puzzle! I enjoyed this theme a lot, and I especially enjoyed that the ROLLER COASTER segments appeared in the puzzle in an order they might appear in an actual ROLLER COASTER. (The DROP followed the HILL rather than preceding it.) In addition to the answers I've highlighted above, I also liked the conversational "WEIRD, RIGHT?" and "HEY, BABE." Thank you, Brooke, for this thrilling Saturday puzzle.