We're back! (Puzzle No. 3,252)

The technical glitch at thenation.com seems to have been a one-week thing, and the puzzle is back where it belongs this week.  A double brunch will be served this weekend (the health department wouldn't let me offer brunch while I was sick with a cold).

The new puzzle (3,252) is impressive for the limited use of routine rebus clues, and for more literals than I’ve seen in a cryptic of this quality.  I’ll forgive one piece of obscure fill (16d) if it’s at least an interesting word.  Clever cluing (this one was just ordinary) also can excuse fill like this, but using an anagram for such an obscure word almost ensures that solvers have to go to the dictionary or Google to finish the puzzle.

Link to puzzle: http://www.thenation.com/article/169865/puzzle-no-3252

Difficulty (by standards of this puzzle): somewhat hard.  It took me a while to get a toehold, but then I made steady progress around the grid. 16d is obscure.

Hozom's commentary: "Georges Perec on Puzzles" in which we learn much more about the Frenchman who wrote a novel that never used the letter 'E' (quite a challenge in French) and then wrote a novel in which the only vowel used was 'E.'  Did you know he also wrote a 1,247 word palindrome?  Wow!  Go read Word Salad for more.

Solution and annotation below the fold.

Legend: "*" anagram; "~" sounds like; "<" letters reversed; "( )" letters inserted; "_" or lower case: letters deleted; "†" literally in the clue, “^” first letter or letters, “{“ relocated letter or letters

Across

1a	SUPERVISION	Heteronym of “super vision” (“better than 20/20”)
7a	fAIRER	f_AIRER (“more evenhanded,” omission of F indicated by “avoiding false start”)
8a	B(UTTER)CUP	B CUP (“smallish bra”) containing (†) UTTER (“say”) Since I had the B from 3d first, I thought “bra” was the container and “smallish” was the definition
10a	<TOGAED<	<i_DEA GO T_o< (reversal indicated by “back”, omission of first and last letters indicated by “naked”)
11a	*KILLDEER	*ELK RILED (anagram indicated by “wild”) At first, I thought they’d spelled this wrong, but the “Kildeer” with one “L” is a suburb of Chicago
12a	*CO(ATT)AILS	*SOCIAL (anagram indicated by “changes”) containing (“capturing”) ATT (abbreviation of “attention”)
14a	_OSLO_	Czech_OSLO_vakia (hidden word indicated by “in”)
17a	_ACHE_	pre_ACHE_r (hidden word indicated by “internalized by”)
18a	~SOCCER MOM	~SOCK HER, MAUGHAM (homonym indicated by “shouted”)
20a	BU(MPS | O)FF	MPS (“military policemen”) + O (“operations,” first letter indicated by “chief”) contained in (“involved in”) BUFF (“fan”)
22a	DAM | PEN	DAM (“to block”) + PEN (“writer”)
24a	*RED PENCIL	*PRINCE LED (anagram indicated by “deranged”)
25a	O | ZONE	O (“disc” shape) + ZONE (“world”) I don’t think this clue worked too well.  “World” for “Zone” is rather a far stretch of the definition.  Needing a question mark should have been a hint that this clue was more confusing than serendipitous.
26a	C | OM | FOR | TABLE	C (“chant,” first letter indicated by “at first”) + OM (†) + FOR (†) + TABLE (“food,” as in cuisine). Interesting to have two literals in a row.

Down

1d	SE (RIG) RAPH	SERAPH (“angel,” singular of seraphim) containing RIG (“semi,” as in tractor-trailer truck) Many will not know this word, but when I was younger, I helped my mother screen print Christmas cards, posters, and even some t-shirts for my college hockey team.
2d	<PER >(MEAT)> E<	<E REP< (“eastern agent,” reversal indicated by “going north”) containing (“eating”) MEAT (†)
3d	RUB | E	RUB (“polish”) + E (“Estonian,” first letter indicated by “foremost”)
4d	*INTRINSIC	*NC RI SIT IN (anagram indicated by “organizing”)
5d	*IDEALS	*SAILED (anagram indicated by “at sea”)
6d	_NICHE_	orga_NIC HE_moglobin (hidden word indicated by “has”)
7d	*ANTECHAMBER	*BARMEN TEACH (anagram indicated by “mixing”)
9d	PERFOR (MAN) CE	MAN (“guy”) contained in (“entering”) PERFORCE (“by chance”) I had to guess the meaning of “ineluctably” (bet that’s never been used in a crossword before), but the answer was clear enough from the crossing letters that it’s OK
13d	*IP (SO FA) CTO	SOFA (“davenport”) contained in (“plunges into”) *TOPIC (anagram indicated by “arcane”)
15d	S (E | MAP) HORE	SHORE (†) containing (“about”) E (“excellent”) + MAP (“chart”)
16d	*HECATOMB	*BOTH CAME (anagram indicated by “unglued”) This one’s a clunker.  Very obscure word clued by an anagram so there’s no help from the wordplay or the crossing letters.  I originally had it as “hetacomb” before I looked it up.
19d	< E | STEEM<	<MEETS (“athletic competitions”) + E (“energy”)< (reversal indicated by “boosted”)
21d	M <EDOC<	M (“Morse,” first letter indicated by “bit”) + <CODE< (†, reversal indicated by “uploaded”)
23d	G (L) UT	GUT (“belly”) containing (“fill … with”) victuaL (†, last letter indicated by “ultimately”)