Yijing Chen is becoming a regular following her LAT debut earlier this year.
62. Oregon Trail cry, or an apt title for this puzzle?: WESTWARD HO. WESTWARD HO was an encouraging cry used by pioneers along the historic 2000 mile migration route. And if you can imagine hundreds of thousands of people walking across the U.S. in the mid-1800s, they needed all the encouragement they could get! Although if you were a movie star, they let you ride in a wagon.
As a title reveals, HO is to be appended to the west end (left side as in an ATLAS) of each theme answer, turning a common phrase into something jolly.
17. *Urn that self-returns?: HOMING VASE. A MING VASE that returns like a HOMING pigeon.
24. *Spreading the gospel of continental breakfast, turndown service, and free Wi-Fi?: HOTEL EVANGELISM. A TELEVANGELIST is usually a Christian minister who preaches via TV broadcasts and solicits donations. Here he's singing the praises of luxury HOTEL amenities.
37. *Corny, sappy, or cheesy?: HOKEY WORD. A KEYWORD is a word of great significance that describes the main idea of a text or a search query. Adding HO makes it HOKEY to match the clue.
53. *Treating guests to some honey, perhaps?: HOSTING LIKE A BEE. "Float like a butterfly, STING LIKE A BEE" is a famous line by boxer Muhammad Ali. The HO out front changes this to HOSTING like at a party serving BEE honey.
It took me a while to catch onto the West Side Story. I had several blanks in the themers until I got to the revealer and had my O-HO moment. Overall, I liked the mash-ups even though I found this puzzle to be more difficult than usual for a Thursday. Or maybe the last few Thursdays were easier than usual. In any case, very few proper names made this a winner.
Onward HO!
Across:
1. Bit of baby talk: DADA. DADA was also an art movement, but I don't think that's the kind of movement a baby talks about.
5. Soothe operator?: BALM. Fun clue right off the bat!
9. Hutches: PENS. I was thinking furniture for way too long. Hutches are generally cages for small animals.
13. Rink leap: AXEL.
14. Geography buff's compendium: ATLAS.
16. Milquetoast: BLAH.
17. [theme]
19. "Purple Haze" rocker Hendrix: JIMI. I have a life-size photo of Jimi playing my dream white Fender Stratocaster.
20. __ Strauss & Co.: LEVI.
21. Discord figs.: MODS. Not knowing that Discord is an online messaging and gaming app made this one hard. But I inferred it had something to do with social media, so someone who handles discord (the verb) would be a MODerator.
23. Flat cap: TAM.
24. [theme]
28. Took in: ATE.
29. The Roaring Twenties, e.g.: ERA.
30. Target of some recycling drives: E-WASTE. The world generates 66 million tons of Electronic Waste every year, and only about 20% gets recycled.
31. Some 35mm cameras: SLRS. Single-Lens Reflex cameras.
33. Woes: ILLS.
36. Submitter's button: ENTER. When I first started using computers (pre-PCs), I sometimes got a message to press any key to continue. I'm still looking for the ANY key...
37. [theme]
40. Discord fig.: ADMIN. A near clecho of 21A with my same logic arriving at ADMINistrator.
43. Seafaring wood: TEAK. We have several Danish Modern furniture pieces made of TEAK. Because of its natural oil content, it is unfinished and never needs polishing. Just wipe it down once in a while with TEAK oil to restore it's luster. This property makes it repel water so it works well on boats.
44. Isolate, in corporate jargon: SILO. I need to brush up on my jargons.
48. Small diadems: TIARAS.
50. Member of the fam: MOM.
52. Drops in the morning: DEW.
53. [theme]
57. Quitter's button: ESC. Is the ESCAPE key anywhere near the ANY key?
58. __-poly: ROLY.
59. Tex-Mex extra, for short: GUAC. This is just a little guacamole.
60. Screen type at many a science museum: IMAX. As Ed Sullivan purportedly said, "It's a really big shoe."
62. [theme]
66. CarPlay companion: SIRI. Apple CarPlay projects your iPhone interface onto your car's built-in display.
67. "Bo-ring!": SNORE.
68. On in years: AGED.
69. Rapa Nui monoliths: MOAI. MOAI are giant stone statues carved by the Rapa Nui people on Easter Island between the 13th and 16th centuries. Today, the eye sockets are empty, but white coral fragments discovered nearby suggest they originally had white eyes like this restored one.
70. Tried to get home, say: SLID. Baseball reference.
71. Journo's hook: LEDE. Journo is slang for a journalist and a LEDE (pronounced leed) is the introductory first line of an article. Newspapers changed the spelling to avoid confusion with "lead," the heavy metal used to typeset in old printing presses.
Down:
1. Morse code unit: DAH.
2. Mexican salamander found in mountain lakes: AXOLOTL. An AXOLOTL is a fully aquatic salamander, it never leaves the water.
 |
| Smile for the camera! |
3. Greek goddess of the harvest: DEMETER. DEMETER is the ancient Greek goddess of agriculture, grain, and the harvest. Her Roman equivalent is Ceres, from which we get our modern word "cereal." Apparently, no one wanted DEMETER and milk.
4. Still in it to win it: ALIVE.
5. Purse: BAG.
6. Off-rd. rig: ATV. All-Terrain Vehicles travel off-road.
7. Vicuña kin: LLAMA. Vicuña wool is the rarest, finest and most expensive animal fiber in the world. I knit my socks from it.
8. George __ University: MASON. GMU is located in Northern Virginia near Washington D.C. It is named in honor of George Mason, one of our Founding Fathers and frequent visitor to the colonial capital of Williamsburg, VA.
9. Vegan sando: PBJ. Who knew that I was a vegan throughout elementary school with my daily Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches? Mine were never cut on a diagonal like the rich kids.
 |
| Gourmet PBJ |
10. Gatekeeping type: ELITIST. Smith Corona type: ELITE
11. Word often said over prayer hands: NAMASTE. NAMASTE is a respectful Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain greeting meaning "I bow to you."
12. Sequins effect: SHIMMER.
15. Grasslike plant: SEDGE.
18. Murchison Falls river: NILE.
22. Setting of the animated film "Flushed Away": SEWER.
24. Consumes: HAS.
25. "Black Panther" villain Killmonger: ERIK. Killmonger sounds like a Marvel supervillain, but his first name is ERIK? That's like saying Darth Vader's first name is Bob.
26. Worker who gets around a lot: VALET. My other favorite clue.
27. Touches down: LANDS.
32. Henley, for one: SHIRT.
34. Curing agent for century eggs: LYE. The preservation process of century eggs (usually duck or quail) actually only takes 40 to 100 days. But that's still about 40 to 100 days older than I like my eggs.
35. Ashram leader, perhaps: SWAMI.
38. Broadcasting: ON AIR.
39. "I get the point already!": OK OK.
40. Pascal's wager subject: ATHEISM. Pascal's Wager is a pragmatic philosophical argument stating that a person should live as though God exists and believe in Him, because the reward of believing is infinite and the loss of being wrong is small. I never heard of this rationale, perhaps because it was posited 400 years ago.
 |
| Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) |
41. Spanish expression of shock: DIOS MIO. Oh my God! (I'm covering all bases now thanks to Monsieur Pascal.)
42. Lash thickener: MASCARA.
45. Lanyard attachment: ID BADGE. If you don't have an Identification badge, you'll just have to remember your own name.
46. Freeloaded: LEECHED. Equating a bloodsucking worm to a human parasite who drains someone else's resources dates back to 1784.
47. Have debts: OWE. I OWE, I OWE, so off to work I go...
49. Makes a winter blanket?: SNOWS. It didn't snow much in Williamsburg, VA as I grew up, but when it did, the blanket of SNOW turned the colonial area into a Currier & Ives print.
51. Grand opening?: MEGA. MEGA as a prefix for great or mighty.
54. Secluded valleys: GLENS.
55. Wipes brand: LYSOL.
56. Hearing-related: AURAL.
61. Number on an old clock: XII. I like the number 12 in Roman numerals at the top, but IIII instead of IV for 4 not so much. They do it to help balance the visual weight of VIII on the opposite side of the face.
63. Numeric prefix: TRI. TRI is the only prefix (from 1 - 10) that is the same in both Greek and Latin.
64. Married: WED.
65. Lines from an admirer: ODE.
HOped you liked it!
Be good. RB
