"Mixed Feelings," 2/26/17

Jamie and I alternated jobs this morning: one person plays with the baby, one person solves/reads out crossword clues, then switch when the baby watcher gets bored. [Usually we do the crossword while the baby naps, but we are sleep training him right now and his naps tend to be short and filled with crying.] So our solve time is slow since we were down to one brain at a time instead of two, and it was less fun solving by myself. Everyone should be so lucky to have a solving partner spouse!

Time to finish/time I gave up: 44:06

Commentary:
I thought the theme was fun because I like anagrams. It took us a long time to figure out what was going on though--we had TINYAXEATTACK (Assault involving a hatchet?) and STRUTWORTHY (Fashionable enough for a runway model?) done before understanding the anagram piece.

A lot of the clues this week were pretty straightforward/boring. I don't have a lot to write about (especially since I didn't even do approximately half of the puzzle, Jamie did), but here goes nothing.

Clues I especially liked! Yay!

• Of the themers, I especially like CURBYOURSUNATHEISM ("Stop insisting Ra doesn't exist!")
• 13D Character resembling a hat CARET This made no sense to me for a while but once I understood it I liked it.
• Just gonna leave this here...MOMJEANS

I'm too young for this $h*t

• Charo. I'm vaguely familiar with her name. Check out this description from her official website:
• "Only a few people in show business are recognized by just one name. Only a few people bring a smile to everyone’s face when that name is mentioned. Only a few deserve to be called 'multi-talented.' Charo is one of those few."

Really?

• "Bohemian Rhapsody" strikes again! I think it was two weeks ago that I admitted I don't like this song. If it keeps coming up in crosswords I'm going to have to learn it better I guess.
• Aleatory means depending on the throw of a dice or on chance; random. I could put this under "things I learned today," but since neither Jamie nor I have heard of this word I have decided it's too obscure for crosswords. 
• I recommend this Wikipedia article, it's pretty interesting: Aleatoric music

Things I learned today:

• Jean-Paul Marat was a French revolutionary dude who died in a bathtub. I am amused by his Wikipedia entry's organization, which contains the following heading/subheading combination:
• 6. Death
• 6.1 Memory in the Revolution
• 6.2 Skin disease
• 6.3 Tub
• I'm unfamiliar with the word "noodge." The internet leads me to believe it's sort of Yiddish. Do people say this?
• Gil Scott-Heron is a spoken word poet/musician. The New Yorker website informs me that he is the godfather of rap. Jamie informs me that he is sampled on Kanye West's "Who Will Survive in America?"
• Adding to the list of cities I haven't been to in Ohio yet, DAYTON, which I learned is home to the National Aviation Hall of Fame. Makes sense, what with this being the Birthplace of Aviation.
• Yall know that North Carolina is first in flight though, right??? 

Times I got to use my French major this week 

• Not a lot of French in this week's puzzle. What we had was history and geography, which we already know I'm bad at. We did get Spanish (ORO) and Italian (DIO) though, huzzah Romance languages.

Fritz out!