Hi all! Philbo here, kicking off another fun week of blogging. Just back from a weekend of RnR in the country with my wife + sis + bro-in-law and, as is generally the case after our get-togethers, I'm not firing on all cylinders at the moment. However! Soldier on! Today's theme is "Fabric-ations" and it didn't take long to figure out what that meant. Going through the grid, four adjacent pairs of clues end in the same parenthesized word; for example 38A "Washington post (SATEEN)" and 40A "Thumbs-up (SATEEN)". Thanks to fairly gentle crossers, the answers were quickly apparent : SENATE SEAT (clever!) and ASSENT. Both answers can be created from the letters in SATEEN - or, as indicated by the revealer clue ( "Having similar qualities..."), CUTFROMTHESAMECLOTH, as it were. Fortunately, as an avid cryptic crossword solver, I am familiar with this device, which is sometimes referred to as a "word factory", and consequently none of the theme pairs posed much of a challenge. I took the time to check and yes, each paired answer does require all of the letters in its "factory" word, once repeated letters have been taken into account.
Interesting/amusing tidbits along the way ... I looked up the HODGE conjecture, one of math's Millennium Prize Problems, and backed away quickly. Topology isn't really my thing, though I do like my quasiparticles, like a good PLASMON... a "huh" moment, learning that Auto-Tune was popularized by TPAIN. Not an Auto-Tune fan. They're called "singing lessons,", folks! (Lord, I'm curmudgeonly today!) ... CHILE is 2,600+ miles (that's around 4,200 km) long, we learn. It occurs to me that it's one of the few countries one would use the word "long" to describe.
Upshot - I enjoyed this puzzle but I didn't find it super challenging - which lines up very nicely with my state of mind today :) And on that note, I shall SAYNOMORE. "See" you tomorrow!
-philbo
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