Dido vs. Dido (Solution No. 3,299)

Sabers (who is 15) refereed a college fencing tournament Sunday.
Competitors from (l to r: you can tell them by their socks) Navy,
William and Mary, Rutgers, Lehigh, and Virginia. 

“British pop singer’?  Don‘t ask me.  Despite having a teenager and a near-teen in the house, I remain blissfully ignorant of the latest boy bands and singer-songwriters.

I’m usually more in sync with Trazom, who in his day job is a classical music critic for the San Francisco Chronicle.  So it surprised me to see the definition part of 5d when Dido was also the queen of ancient Carthage and a character in Virgil’s Aeneid.

Purcell wrote an opera based on the legend of Dido and Aeneas, which I saw in concert performance at the Curtis Institute a few years ago, so that’s where I recognize the name.

Perhaps Trazom couldn’t bring himself to link “accomplished nothing” to that Dido and found an opportunity to editorialize on the state of pop culture.  If that’s the case, I agree.  On to the rest of this week’s puzzle.

Themework: As 31a says, the names of 11 well-known magazines are found in the acrosses of this puzzle.  

I looked, and I didn’t see a magazine named “Update” though there are plenty of periodicals named “___ Update.”  And the magazine for breeders of pigeons is called “Pigeon Fancy,” not “Pigeon.”

Difficulty (by standards of this weekly puzzle): easy

Political content: 29a

Solution and annotation to The Nation Puzzle No. 3,299 below the fold.

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

Across

1a	BI(L | L | BOA)RD	BIRD (“eagle, for instance”) containing (“swallowing”) L (“large”) + L (“large”) + BOA (“snake”)
6a	*WIRED	*I DREW (anagram indicated by “sloppily”)
9a	DEB | ONED	DEB (“young socialite”) + ONE D (“lacking depth”)
10a	*DETAILS	*DELTA IS (anagram indicated by “flying”)
11a	*NATURE	*TEA URN (anagram indicated by “polished”)
12a	PIG | *EON	PIG (“farm animal”) + *ONE (anagram indicated by “gets mixed up”)
14a	*AT(*LANTI)C	*ACT (anagram indicated by “surreal”) containing (“incorporating”) *LATIN (anagram indicated by “translation”) One of the tricks here is using “Latin” as the anagram fodder instead of it being a rebus clue for “L.”
17a	~TIME	~THYME (“seasoning,” homophone indicated by “we hear”)
20a	<SPIN<	<NIPS< (“bites,” reversal indicated by “back”)
21a	*DISCOVER	*DIVORCES (anagram indicated by “ugly”)
23a	_U(PDA)TE	_c_UTE (omission of first letter indicated by “topless”) containing (“case for”) PDA (“BlackBerry, say”)
24a	*ALLURE	*LAUREL’S (anagram indicated by “offbeat”)
28a	G_L | AMOUR	^G^ir^L^ (first and last letters indicated by “surface”) + AMOUR (“love for the French”)
29a	O(PALIN)E	PALIN (“Bristol”) contained in (“in”) OE (“Old English”) Whatever you think about her politics, from a puzzling perspective, you have to like the rise to prominence of Sarah Palin and her family.
30a	D_ WELL	D_o_ WELL (“succeed,” omission of O indicated by “without oxygen”)
31a	*MAGAZIN | E_S	*AMAZING (anagram indicated by “translation”) + ^E^verglade^S^ (first and last letters indicated by “outside of”)

Down

1d	BO(D)Y	^D^issent (first letter indicated by “start of”) contained in (“in”) BOY (“youth”)
2d	_LIB RA_	gli_LIB RA_tionalization (hidden word indicated by “concealing”)
3d	*BINAURAL	*RUIN A LAB (anagram indicated by “maliciously”)
4d	ADDLE	_p_ADDLE (“row” omission of first letter indicated by “missing the first letter”)
5d	DID | O	DID (“accomplished”) + O (“nothing”)
6d	WIT | H IT	WIT (“humor”) + HIT (“best-seller”)
7d	*RHINE WINE	*INN WHERE I (anagram indicated by “spilled”)
8d	*DISINTER	*DINER IT’S (anagram indicated by “disgusting”)
13d	*ACTS	*CATS (anagram indicated by “remake”)
15d	*THIRD (RAT)E	*DITHER (anagram indicated by “aimlessly”) containing (“about”) RAT (“someone who’s dishonorable”)
16d	TO DO	Triple definition: “big fuss,” “in Ecuador: everything,” and “part of a list” As Hot noted in Word Salad, triple definitions are fun, and they don’t feel a need to warn you.
18d	*ASSUAGE | D	*SAUSAGE (anagram indicated by “hash”) + mustar^D^ (last letter indicated by “last bit of”)
19d	CO(<OL J< | AZ)Z	COZ (“cousin”) containing (“captivates”) <J LO< (“Jennifer Lopez,” reversal indicated by “UP”) followed by (“north of”) AZ (“Arizona”)
22d	S | TROLL	^S^urprisingly (first letter indicated by “at first”) + TROLL (“fish”)
24d	A | MON | G	A (†) + MON (“weekday”) + partying^G^ (last letter indicated by “the end of”)
25d	RE_IGN	RE_s_IGN (“quit,” omission of S (enemie^S^, last letter indicated by “last of”) indicated by “eliminating”)
26d	G | RAM	G^oats (†, first letter indicated by “leader of”) + RAM (“sheep”)
27d	<ZEUS<	<SUEZ< (“canal,” reversal indicated by “flowing uphill”)