A third of the way through January already and work is back with a vengeance. I was double and triple booked many times this week with a big conference happening, retirement of one of my bosses, and everyone who returned to work from the holidays decided to schedule meetings this week. I really needed something to take my mind off work, and this is the puzzle to do it so let’s take a look.

• Name: Trendy Terms
• Grid size: 15×15
• Number of entries: 74
• Difficulty: Medium Hard (my solve time: 8:05)

I kind of scratched my head at the title, and still not 100% I get the theme/gimmick. All the themers are terms that have trended recently, though zeitgeist has been around for over a century, and metaverse isn’t really all that new. I really don’t know why the themer clues are in all caps:

• 17A: [SUPPORTING A MOVEMENT FROM THE COMFORT OF ONE’S COUCH]: SLACKTIVISM – Wikipedia says that slacktivism is “the practice of supporting a political or social cause by means such as social media or online petitions, characterized as involving very little effort or commitment.” Looking at this ngram, it appears it first appeared around 2000, and really took off in the 2010s.
• 25A: [3D VIRTUAL REALITY WORLD]: METAVERSE – According to this article, metaverse was first coined in Neal Stephenson’s 1992 novel, “Snow Crash“. Of course, its use took off in the past year or so as Facebook really began pushing their version as the future of the internet. We’ll see about that…
• 37A: [DOING NO MORE THAN THE BASIC JOB REQUIREMENTS]: QUIET QUITTING – This term flared up in the news and on social media recently as the next iteration of the “Great Resignation,” I guess.
• 48A: [GENERAL FEELING OF THE TIME]: ZEITGEIST – This is a term that has been in use for well over a century (in English – presumably it’s been used in German for far longer than that) so not sure how it’s “trendy” and, along with the all-caps clues, makes me think I may not be fully getting the theme/gimmick.
• 59A: [SCREEN MEETING OVERLOAD]: ZOOM FATIGUE – I definitely have a case of this, as well as Webex fatigue, Teams fatigue, Google Meet fatigue, and whatever-else-is-out-there fatigue.

It would have been a relatively smooth solve, except I misread 1D as “Lays down the law again” about 100 times and it really threw me for a loop, since I had no idea on 20A and 23A. Finally figuring that out took me a solid minute or more, so this really would have been Medium difficulty if I paid closer attention. Otherwise, pretty straightforward, though I needed most of the crosses for the white squirrel town.

Canadian content:

• 2D: [Actor Page, once known as June Page]: ELLIOT – I didn’t know Elliot Page was Canadian; he has an impressive acting career and hopefully a continued bright future as an actor and director.
• 23A: [Onetime NHL enforcer Tie ____]: DOMI – Born in Windsor in 1969, he had a long NHL career from 1989-2006 and played with the Rangers and the Jets before spending the bulk of his career with Toronto. I had __MI and absolutely no clue what the first two letters could be. I made a lucky guess at 2D, but it took me a while to read the clue for 1D correctly and get the fist letter.
• 31A: [“I am Canadian” sloganeer]: MOLSON – I like me some Molson – may have to pick some up for this weekend.
• 35D: [___ patch (Alberta job hub)]: OIL – At first I thought that this would be impossible – how is anyone supposed to know a specific unemployment office in Alberta? Then I remembered the oil sands and what a huge employment boon that has been for the area.
• 44A: [Ontario town nicknamed “Home of the White Squirrel”]: EXETER – The invaluable resource Roadside America says it’s worth a detour if you happen to be on a road trip in the vicinity.
• 58A: [“The ___ Coast” (B.C., jokingly]: WET – While I have been rained on plenty of times when visiting British Columbia, I have also experienced some spectacularly beautiful days.

Other stuff:

• 1D: [Lays down the lawn again]: RESODS – I was racking my brain to figure out a term for putting laws in place, again. It really had me hung up in the NE, but it finally registered that it was “lawn” not “law” and the (dim) bulb came on.
• 20A: [To hear, to Hernando]: OIR – I’ve heard and read my share of Spanish but “to hear” hasn’t crossed my path that I’m aware of.
• 54A: [Three-horse Russian wagon]: TROIKA – I knew this word as the Russian form of triumvirate, but I learned something new today about the 3-horse wagon.

Quote of the week:
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”
—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.