Friday, June 23, 2023, Kunal Nabar

Another day, another debut. Welcome, Mr. Nabar! This is an impressive first effort, for sure.

The first thing I noticed was that the grid had unusual symmetry, diagonal in this case, as opposed to standard crossword symmetry. The next thing I noticed was that I had difficulty getting started!

I put in dNA first, but made a mental reminder that it could be RNA (which it turned out to be). Probably better to leave that first square blank. My brain has a hard time imagining what words could be available when an ambiguous letter is already in place. IOTAS went in as well, confirmed by Paul ANKA. But that was it in that region. 

I made another choice in the NW corner that limited me when I put in DEmS. Even though HONED worked, I was stuck here.

I finally got going on the left side of the grid. TOI, STEPS, SEGO, OSLO, and EPCOT all opened things up rapidly, leading to the two long answers going down. 12D: Genre fro Gabriel García Márquez and Haruki Murakami (MAGICALREALISM) would have been a relative gimme for this fan, but 14D: Ingratiating sort (PEOPLEPLEASER) needed some of those crosses. With those two answer in place, the SW corner was pretty quick work. It helps that I enjoyed the Ethiopian restaurant ASMARA in Central Square for so many years.

Frankincense and myrrh RESINS. Not as shiny as gold

Now, with the starts in place, I figured out the long answers across the top of the puzzle. 12A: Playbills? (MONOPOLYMONEY) wins for best C/AP of the day. 14A: Refresher course? (PALATECLEANSER) is also excellent. I corrected my mistakes and was half done.

My third ambiguous letter answer of the day was also entered incorrectly. 28D: Many a Zoroastrian (IRANI) had a Q for a while. It could certainly have worked, with SQ____, but SNEERED was the correct answer.

I enjoyed the two punny "Apt cry of encouragement" clues, with ROCKON and KEEPITUP. Particularly the latter. LOL! 

My last error was putting in NEWSdesk for NEWSROOM, but that cleared up quickly as well, for a reasonable 6:39 time at the end.

- Colum