Thursday, May 5, 2011, Julian Lim

Theme: Gone with the wind. The main answers all have had their "hat" blown away.

17. "Don't tell a soul!": KEEP IT UNDER YOUR. It is likely that there's no direct link to hats at all and that 'keep it under your hat' just meant 'keep it in your head'. "The man whose estate lies under his hat need never tremble before the frowns of fortune."--Anthony Trollope

31. Spout nonsense: TALK THROUGH ONE'S. This has quite a few speculative explanations.  My favorites are a reference to the emptiness of the hat atop one's head, as if one were thinking and speaking with an empty head, and Joseph Smith (the book of Mormon) reading a stone that nobody can see with his face buried in his hat.

41. Moonlight, say: WEAR MORE THAN ONE. To hold multiple jobs. This one is fairly direct. Back when almost everyone wore hats, if a man who was an admiral, a Lord Lieutenant of a county and Chancellor of a university - each of which has an impressive ceremonial hat - was going to an official function, the question "which hat will you be wearing?" would mean "in which capacity will you be attending?".

60. Instantly ... or how this puzzle's other three longest answers came about?: AT THE DROP OF A HAT. In the 19th century it was occasionally the practice in the United States to signal the start of a fight or a race by dropping a hat or sweeping it downward while holding it in the hand. The quick response to the signal found its way into the language for any action that begins quickly without much need for prompting.

Hi all, if it's Thursday, it must be me...

ACROSS:

1. Some graphic works: EROTICA. I wanted to fill this with "ESCHERS".

8. It often involves x's: ALGEBRA. Solve this equation for "X". Tricky putting this immediately following the preceeding clue to misdirect your thinking.

15. Of words: LEXICAL. From Greek "Lexikos", pertaining to words. A Lexicon is a dictionary of words.

16. One doing a lot of riding: NEEDLER. Riding in the sense of "giving a hard time". To needle is to goad or provoke a response.

19. Phishing targets: Abbr.: SSNS. An insidious form of Spam emails that can do damage if they bait you to bite at the lure. Legitimate companies don't email you for personal information. They only request it if you initiated a transaction with them. Never give out your identity in respnse to an unsolicited email or phone call, even if it looks legit.

20. Handbill: FLYER. Meaning of "small handbill or fly-sheet" is from U.S. slang (originally especially of police bulletins), on notion of "made to be scattered broadcast."

21. Nothing special: SO-SO. Every puzzle has some of these fillers.

22. Wroclaw's region: SILESIA. Today's geography lesson. An ancent region, now part of Poland and the Czech Republic.

24. Refillable candy: PEZ. The name Pez was derived from the letters at the start, the middle and the end of the German word for peppermint, Pfefferminz, the first Pez flavor. Pez was originally introduced in Austria.

25. Equilibrium: STASIS. The Greek word, meaning "a standing still".

29. 34-Down degree: NTH. A mathematical term indicating indefinite number, in which n is an abbreviation for number.

38. Carl's sweetheart, in "Up": ELLIE. Pixar movies are for everyone, and this one tugs at your heartstrings while still being funny. If you haven't seen it, don't let the fact that it is a "cartoon" keep you from renting it.

39. Double-slash container: URL. Internet locators that web browsers understand start several different ways, the most prevalent is:  http://  This is so common that you don't even have to type it in when you manually enter one in the address bar, all modern browsers will assume you meant to do it.

40. Deteriorate slowly: ERODE. I think I did this before... Latin erosionem "a gnawing away", from rodere, to gnaw, related to rodent.

44. Black and __: two-beer drink: TAN. Bass Pale Ale and Guinness (yes, the ones who produce the record book), usually, layered carefully, not mixed together.

45. Pugilism venues: ARENAS. Boxing.

46. "The Island of the Day Before" author: ECO. Umberto. Wiki has a fairly succinct plot synopsis.

49. Event with a queen: PAGEANT. First thoughts were of the recent Royal Wedding, a planned distraction, I'm sure.

53. Entre __: NOUS. French. Between us. A movie of that name was subtitled Coup de Foudre, which means "love at first sight".

55. Tanager homes: NESTS.  Colorful birds.

56. Impatient sounds: TSKS.

63. Cape user: MATADOR. Spanish, literally "killer," from matar "to kill or wound," probably from Arabic mata "he died."

64. Ex claim: ALIMONY. From Latin alimonia "food, support, nourishment, sustenance". "I won't pay," he said.  "Oh, yes you will," she Ex claimed.

65. Suffering terribly: IN AGONY. From Greek agonia "a (mental) struggle for victory," originally "a struggle for victory in the games.

66. "Listen to Your Heart" pop duo: ROXETTE. Official video.

DOWN:.

1. Horned game: ELKS. Other choices, both singular and plural, DEER,  BUCK.

2. "Cheers" actor Roger: REES. Character: Robin Colcord.  Didn't really remember him at first.

3. Paddy animals: OXEN. Rice paddies.

4. Inside information: TIPS.

5. Here, in Haiti: ICI. More French.

6. Cajun entrée: CATFISH. Not a big fan of "blackened" foods, I have a midwest "bland" taste palate.

7. __ in the conversation: A LULL. Related to lullaby, as in a "sleep".

8. Range along the Ring of Fire: ANDES.

9. Wolf's activity: LEERING. Howling, anyone? Wolves as a symbol of lust are ancient, e.g. Roman slang lupa "whore," literally "she-wolf". The equation of "wolf" and "prostitute, sexually voracious female" persisted into 12c., but by Elizabethan times wolves had become primarily symbolic of male lust.

10. Lux. neighbor: GER. Luxembourg and Germany.

11. Breyers alternative: EDYS.

12. It barely gets beyond the infield: BLOOP. Baseball.

13. Conserve, in a way: REUSE. Reclaim, recycle.

14. __ con pollo: ARROZ. Spanish, rice with chicken.

18. Science educator Bill: NYE. Bow ties are cool. Oh wait, that's a different character, Who knows Who I mean?

22. Display of links: SITE MAP. Usually created by the site webmaster for search engine crawlers to catalog, but regular users can also save time searching for something if they know it is on specific site.

23. Really: AT HEART.

25. Worry: STEW. Fret. To simmer in one's own juices.

26. "The Handmaid's __": Atwood novel: TALE. "Speculative" fiction. Beginning with a staged terrorist attack (blamed on Islamic extremist terrorists) that kills the President, a movement calling itself the "Sons of Jacob" launches a revolution, ousted Congress, and suspended the U.S. Constitution under the pretext of restoring order. Taking advantage of electronic banking, they were quickly able to freeze the assets of all  "undesirables" in the country, stripping their rights away.

27. __ puttanesca: with a spicy tomato sauce: ALLA. Literally "whore's style spaghetti" in Italian.

28. Avoid: SKIRT. Outskirts are the border or edges of a city or the hem of a skirt.

30. Mezzo Marilyn: HORNE. In keeping with the plethora of foreign language today, here's Habenera.

32. Capek play: RUR. Rossum's Universal Robots. More like androids, but this introduced the word "robot" to the English language (and science fiction).

33. Refinable rock: ORE.

34. Like z: Abbr.: ULT. Latin "ultimo", meaning last.

35. When two hands meet?: NOON. Probably the cleverest clue in the puzzle, clock hands. Imagine how boring the world will be if everything becomes digital-only instead of analog.

36. Author Buchanan: EDNA. Mysteries.

37. Dates: SEES.

42. With no end in sight: ON AND ON. Or, facing forward...

43. His co-pilot was a Wookiee: HAN SOLO. Star Wars.

46. As a friend, in Marseilles: EN AMI. French.

47. Trig function: COTAN. I think math counts as a foreign language, too...

48. "__ sight!": OUTTA. Uptight and all right. Little Stevie Wonder.

50. Elbridge __, governor famous for redistricting: GERRY. A portmanteau word Gerrymander came about because a district in MA looked like a salamander after political machinations were enacted to redistribute voting blocs to favor the party in power for future elections.

51. Peruvian pronoun: ESO. Spanish for "that".

52. How some stocks are sold: AT PAR. At the original price, no discounts or premiums.

54. Woolly rug: SHAG.

56. Far from titillating: TAME. Not graphic (1A).

57. Recorded on film: SHOT.

58. Key figure in epistemology: KANT. Immanuel.  Philosophy, the study of knowledge and justified belief. If you want to immerse yourself...

59. Eyelid nuisance: STYE.

61. Japanese capital of yore: EDO. Tokyo today.

62. Quandary: FIX. With "in a".

Answer Grid.

Al

Thursday, Apr 28, 2011, Jonathan Porat

Theme: MAD GAMES. Each answer consists of two magazine names which are given a crazy clue that forms a play on words. It is revealed in 57A: Place to find both parts of 20-, 36- and 43-Across: MAGAZINE RACK.

20A. Lawyer after too much coffee?: WIRED ESQUIRE.

36A. A day at the spa?: GLAMOUR TIME.

43A. George, Abe et al.?: MONEY PEOPLE. Dead presidents.  It's all about the Benjamins, who, of course, wasn't a president, but I'll still collect his pictures.

Happy Thursday everyone, Al here.  A very scrabbly puzzle today, six X's and two Z's, and a pangram to boot.

ACROSS:.

1. Given by: FROM.

5. Milton or Shelley: ODIST. John Milton (Christ's Nativity), and Percy Bysshe Shelly "Hail to thee blithe spirit" (Ode to a Skylark).

10. 2004 Best Actor: FOXX. Jamie Foxx as "Ray" (Charles).

14. __ lamp: LAVA. Use only as directed and don't heat these on a stove.  The Mythbusters showed that even if the exploding glass shards aren't fast enough to kill, anyone nearby would be severely burned.

15. Rocker's place: PORCH. Anyone fooled into entering ARENA?

16. Top: APEX. Or ACME, fill in the "A" and wait for at least one perp.

17. Had too much: OD'ED.

18. Comforting words: I CARE. CBS cares, too.

19. Midas competitor: CAR-X. "Don't worry, call the Car-X man".

23. Military response: NO SIR.

24. Came with: BROUGHT.

28. Bowie's scientist role in "The Prestige": TESLA. A magician's grief for his wife and obsession over his ex-partner's impossible trick turns into a deadly rivalry. I liked it, but the ending was a bit disturbing. Oh, and I wouldn't have even noticed that David Bowie played Tesla if I hadn't paid attention to the credits. It wasn't really a small part, either.

32. "I'm just __ boy, I need no sympathy": "Bohemian Rhapsody": A POOR. Ah, Freddie, we miss ye.

33. Bank worker that never takes time off: ATM. Fresh clues can sometimes make up for the occasional bit of trite fill.

39. Snub, say: SHUN.

41. First U.S. multimillionaire: ASTOR. John Jacob, fur, real estate and opium.

42. Draft status: ONE-A.

46. Prime meridian std.: GST. Greenwich Standard Time is not usually used, GMT, Zulu, or UTC, all names for the same thing are more common.

47. Pianist Claudio: ARRAU. We've had him before.

48. Ruby's spouse: OSSIE. Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee.

50. Welcome site: DOORMAT. Ours reads: There's no place like 127.0.0.1 (geek joke about the Internet Protocol Address that all computers keep for themselves internally)

53. Onetime "SCTV" head writer Harold: RAMIS. That other ghostbuster. You know...the tall one.

61. Gertz of "Still Standing": JAMI. Unknown to me, but apparently appeared in quite a few TV series.

64. Truth held to be self-evident: AXIOM.

65. Roquefort hue: BLEU. Sheep's milk cheese. To each their own, I suppose, but it's not for me.

66. Israeli arms: UZIS. No one was fooled by this arms/weapons misdirection, right?

67. Tubes on the table: PENNE. Pasta.

68. Gas or elec.: UTIL.ity.  Abbr. clue/answer

69. Olympic VIPs: GODS. I was expecting a plureal abbreviation for the International Olympic Committee, IOCS.

70. Newark's county: ESSEX. New Jersey

71. Chilly and wet: DANK.

 

DOWN:.

1. Left the coop: FLOWN.

2. Ham's medium: RADIO. Amateur radio operators, in the sense of amateur actors, or "hams".

3. Printing extras: OVERS. It is a standard in the printing industry to allow for overs and unders. If the printer runs a quantity below a certain percentage (the standard is generally 10%) the manufacturer/printer is obligated to print more to meet the minimum, at their expense. But if the manufacturer prints hundreds of additional packages more than what you ordered they can only charge for a maximum of 10% over the original order.

4. Is living the dream: MADE IT. If only...

5. 60s TV munchkin: OPIE. Little Ronny Howard. The word was coined by L. Frank Baum in "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz." He never explained how he came up with it.

6. MS Word output: DOCS.

7. OPEC founding member: IRAQ. Fill in IRA and wait for the perp.

8. Cancel, slangily: SCRUB. As in a military mission.

9. "... over __ flock by night": Luke: THEIR. Shortly afterwards, according to King James, those watching shepherds were terrified by an angel's appearance.

10. Deal with: FACE UP TO.

11. __-Locka, Florida: OPA. OK, now you're just making stuff up. Four square miles and a population of 15K.  Sounds kind of dense, actually.

12. MTV Generation member: X-ER. The generation after the boomers.

13. Old designation for strong beer: XXX.  Traditional brewers mark for barrels of "extra strong" beer - extended to other alcoholic beverages and other products having an "extra strong" dimension (varying from washing soap to pornography) and probably also to poison as a (possibly humorous at first) comment about the alcohol designation.

21. Bit of sediment: DREG. From Old Norse "dregg" for sediment.

22. Big engine sound: ROAR. The (Mustang) National Anthem.

25. __ concern: GOING. A viable business.

26. Geographical mnemonic: HOMES. Huron Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior, The Great Lakes.

27. Spring for, with "to": TREAT.

29. Reaction to an offensive line, perhaps: SLAP. "Can I buy you a drink, or do you just want the money?"  On the other hand, in football, there used to be a lot of those little sneaky "fanny pats" caught on camera after the play was over. That was kind of taking the offensive...

30. Zap: LASE. A verb back formation from the acronym "LASER" (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation), which became a noun for the device.  So, if the device is called a laser, then it must be something that lases, right?

31. Recess riposte: AM TOO. A quick thrust after parrying a lunge. Oh, the sharpness of wit it must have taken...

33. Equally irate: AS MAD.

34. Complete, briefly: THORO. Noah Webster tinkering with English simplification again. Thorough. Ugh.

35. Saki's real name: MUNRO.

37. "My bad": OOPS.

38D. Addresses with dots: URLS. Internet addresses: Universal Resource Locators such as blogger.com

40. "Phew!" evoker: NEAR MISS. See 37D.

44. Sunniest place on Earth, per Guinness: YUMA. Arizona desert.

45. Cork's location: EIRE. A county in Ireland, not a bottle stopper.

49. iPod accessory: EARBUD. Didn't your mom ever tell you never to put anything smaller than your elbow in your ear?

51. Like losers' faces after a buzzer-beating shot: AGAPE.

52. April concern: TAXES.

54. Island nation near Sicily: MALTA.

55. Trap at the chalet: ICE IN. Verb form, to trap.

56. Move furtively: SKULK. Norwegian "skulke", to shirk, malinger, avoid notice.

58. Some reds, briefly: ZINS. Zinfandel wines.

59. Actress Skye: IONE.

60. Roswell's st.: N. MEX. State, New Mexico. Even the McDonald's there is saucer-shaped.

61. Makeshift band instrument: JUG.

62. Nitrogen-based dye: AZO.

63. Day's beginning?: MID. If I ever get to retire, midday will be all my days' beginnings, at least for the first few months.

Answer Grid.

Al

Thursday, April 21, 2011 Neville L. Fogarty

Theme: Backronyms, sort of. Common internet TLAs (Three-Letter Acronyms) are reinterpreted as a new phrase, and the pairings appear together, each pair on the same row in the grid..

17A. Acquire incriminating info (on), as hinted by 19-Across: GET THE GOODS.

19A. "I'm heading out," in netspeak: GTG. Got To Go.

32A. "Here's how I see it," in netspeak: IMO. In My Opinion

33A. Lament about a lost opportunity, as hinted by 32-Across: I MISSED OUT.

38A. "Break time's over," as hinted by 41-Across: BACK TO WORK.

41A. "Oh, and did I mention ...," in netspeak: BTW. By The Way.

55A. "That's too funny!" in netspeak: LOL. Laugh Out Loud.

56A. Charity for young alopecia sufferers, as hinted by 55-Across: LOCKS OF LOVE. Getting long hair cut short to make wigs.

Hi all, Al here. That's one way to minimize the effects of having small abbreviations as grid fill, make them be part of the theme!  Eight theme entries today; it's "odd" to have a high even number of clues.

ACROSS:

1. "__: Legacy": 2010 sci-fi sequel: TRON.

5. Chihuahua city: JUAREZ.

11. Is for all?: ARE. Verbs, forms of "to be".  I am, he is, you are. Just another reason English is maddening to learn.

14. Top-notch: A-ONE.

15. 2010 World Cup campeón: ESPANA. Champion, Spain.  Waka Waka. I could have linked a vuvuzuela vid instead...

16. Polar abbr.: NEG. Battery poles, negative and positive.

20. Ethically indifferent: AMORAL. Neutral, as opposed to immoral.

21. Facebook friends, e.g.: USERS.

23. Pearl weights: CARATS. 1 carat = 200 milligrams, 0.007055 oz, the weight of an average carob seed.

25. Stone's 14: Abbr.: LBS. One stone = 14 pounds.  no longer a "legal" measurement, but still customarily used to express a person's weight. Not all stone measures are the same, just as troy pounds do not equal avoirdupois pounds.  So a pound of feathers really does weigh more than a pound of gold...

28. First-century B.C. pharaoh, briefly: CLEO.patra

29. "... but a __ without a cat!": Alice: GRIN. Alice in Wonderland, the Cheshire Cat.

30. Pay-per-view event: BOUT. Old English byht, a bend, in the sense of a circuit, as a plow path. Evolved to a "round" of any sort of exercise, to a round at fighting, or of drinking.

31. Color in a stable: ROAN. Reddish brown cattle or horses.

36. Unexpected issue: SNAG. The stump of a tree or a branch, Old Norse snaggi, a clothes peg. From the sense of steamboats getting caught on stumps lodged in riverbeds.

37. Bracelet bit: BEAD. From Old English gebed "prayer", as the beads of a rosary.

44. Bullish start?: TAUR. Latin prefix form of taurus, the bull.

45. Eliza's 'elper: 'ENRY. George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion. Oh, ok, if I must, the movie My Fair Lady.

46. Storied cocky racer: HARE. Aesop's fable

47. Poet Pound: EZRA.

48. Check out: SEE.

49. Slatted containers: CRATES.

51. Rich soils: LOAMS.

53. Wood shop device: C CLAMP. Shaped just as it is named.

61. Scrape up, with "out": EKE.

62. Turn right?: ORIENT. To right something, as in to put it in an upright position, not to "gee" as per horse instructions.

63. Mideast airline: EL AL. Hebrew, to the skies.

64. "Norma __": RAE. Sally Field. The subject matter of unions has been much in the news of late.

65. Large TV family: BRADYS. It's the story/ of a lovely lady/ who was bringing up three very lovely girls...

66. Marathon prep, maybe: TEN-K. 26.2 miles (42 Kilometers) vs 6.2 miles (10 Kilometers)

DOWN:

1. Playground runaround?: TAG.

2. Fish delicacy: ROE. I wonder about the first person who thought it would be a good idea to eat fish eggs.

3. Michigan neighbor: ONTARIO. As has been previously mentioned, a part of Windsor Canada lies south of Detroit.

4. Court figure: NET MAN. Tennis, badminton?  Others?

5. Greets the visitors: JEERS. Sports rivals, not Big Box Mart.

6. Open org.: USGA. Golf.

7. Good-lookers: APOLLOS. Adonises.

8. 1991-'96 Indian prime minister: RAO.

9. Put the kibosh on: END.

10. Silents star Pitts: ZASU. Two family members named EliZA and SUsan each wanted her to be named for them.

11. "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" autobiographer: ANGELOU. Maya.

12. Private place: RETREAT.

13. Exhorts: EGGS ON. From Latin exhortari "to encourage, stimulate"

18. Gossip-worthy: HOT.

22. New England catch: SCROD. A guy hops into a cab and asks the driver, "My good man, take me someplace where I can get scrod." The cabbie replies, "Pal, that's the first time I've ever been asked that in the passive pluperfect subjunctive."

23. "Avatar" spec. effects: CGI. Computer Generated Imagery.

24. Upper limb: ARM.

26. Water bearer, maybe: BUSBOY.

27. One in a herd: STEER.

30. It often gets away, so we've heard: BIG ONE.

33. Cartridge filler: INK. Printers, not ammunition.

34. Partners: MATES.

35. Deadwood's terr.: DAK. An HBO series about crime and corruption in early South Dakota.

36. "Get lost!": SCRAM. Could be a shortened form of "scramble" or possibly from German "schramm": depart.

38. Antitank weapon: BAZOOKA. From name of a junkyard musical instrument used as a prop by U.S. comedian Bob Burns; extension of bazoo, slang for "mouth" or "boastful talk", probably from Dutch bazuin "trumpet."

39. Civil War love song: AURA LEE. The melody was used by Elvis for "Love Me Tender".

40. Totaled: WRECKED.

41. Robin's way down: BATPOLE. Robin's pole was smaller in diameter than Batman's.  Just sayin'...

42. Uno e due: TRE. Italian (I think).

43. Bentley of "Ghost Rider": WES. Played a demon, Blackheart, pitted at the end against Nicolas Cage's Johnny Blaze, who sold his soul to Mephistopheles, Blackheart's father.

44. One taking a lot of notes: TELLER. Bank notes, i.e. money.

46. Claudius' nephew: HAMLET.

49. Congeals: CLOTS. As with cream or blood.

50. Brit. fliers: RAF. Royal Air Force.

52. Pig at the table: SLOB. I wanted CHOP or LOIN first, but tricksy Thursday.  Although, there wasn't too much of this today.

54. "Ohio" folk-rock quartet, initially: CSNY. Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young.

57. Hockey great: ORR. Bobby.  Played defense, but won the league scoring title.

58. "Covert Affairs" org.: CIA. Central Intelligence Agency.

59. Soccer mom's need: VAN. Don't see all that many station wagons any more, or at least, I don't.

60. Hooved grazer: ELK.

Answer Grid.

Al

Thursday, Apr 14, 2011 Daniel A. Finan

Theme? The clue is a part of the answer... The three theme answers all end with a word that indicates a fraction of a whole, and the clue word is contained as part of each of the first words.

20. Pan?: COMPANION PIECE. PAN is a PIECE of the word COMPANION. A companion piece is one work that compliments another, like the two movies: Letters from Iwo Jima and Flags of Our Fathers, each tells the "same" story from a different perspective. 

33. With 44-Across, ten?: SENTENCE.  44. See 33-Across: FRAGMENT.  TEN is a FRAGMENT of the word SENTENCE.  I accidentally the whole thing.

54. Kin?: SMOKING SECTION. KIN is a SECTION of the word SMOKING. Is this subject still a hot button for an argument about rights?  The statement I remember setting off a war was something like this: Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a pool.

Hi all, Al here.  I finally saw the light... Only three theme answers. They all left me puzzled, and didn't help with solving.  No unifier clue anywhere, either. The clue words are contained in position 4-6 of all the answer words. The parts given as the clues all end with an "N", preceded in order by a vowel, in order, A,E,I.  I was pulling out the last of my hair trying to see what was right in front of me.  At first, I noticed that of the three, only smoking -kin = smog made another word, sence might make sense if you're British, and comion isn't a word, so it didn't appear to be letter drops in common. So how are the clues related to the answers? Argyle finally gave me the clue I needed from an interview that Daniel had given Sept 3, 2009:

 "To me the perfect puzzle is a simple, elegant, and subtle gimmick puzzle. I really like the crosswords that have a metapuzzle. For example, with some (themed) puzzles, I can fill in the entire grid, and I still don't "get it." So I have to really dig deep to find the theme... it's then that I get that satisfying "Aha!" moment. I wonder how many people miss the whole point of subtle puzzles like that."

I went back and re-read the whole  interview, and he had talked about PARTS of speech as the theme from another of his puzzles, and suddenly the light came on...

ACROSS:

1. Flying group: CREW. Captain and crew on an (air) ship.

5. Comic Johnson: ARTE. Soundbite from Laugh-in: "Very interesting."

9. Hyphenated dessert name: JELL-O.

14. Half dodeca-: HEXA. Prefixes for 12 and 6, respectively.

15. Liner danger: BERG. Ocean liner, ice berg.

16. Hater of David, in Dickens: URIAH. Heep.

17. Theater giant?: IMAX. As Ed Sullivan might say, a really big shoe. 70 mm film instead of the standard 35 mm and 300 foot screens.

18. In __: confused: A FOG.

19. High humor?: JINKS.  Hijinks. From an old party game where guests threw dice to determine who would perform some silly task or down a large drink. Either outcome would cause amusement to everyone present. Kind of like truth or dare, but with drinking instead of truth.

23. Relative of -like: OID. Suffixes for similar. For example, android means human-like. (Greek "andro" means "human".)

24. Wine bar offerings: PORTS. From the Portugese city of Oporto (the port). Less-known 4-letter wines: Hocks (German Hochheim region), Tents (Spanish reds "tinta"), and Sacks (Spanish white, a precursor to Sherry).

25. Moshe Dayan's "oxygen of the soul": FREEDOM.

29. Guff: GAS. Empty noise, nonsense. Oh, you're just a bag of gas.  Guff, like a puff of air, vaguely onomatopoetic.

30. Moo chew?: CUD. Come to Wisconsin and smell our dairy air.

35. Change genetically: MUTATE.

37. Former lover of Riker on "Star Trek: T.N.G.": TROI. in "The Next Generation" of Star Trek, Marina Sirtis played Deanna Troi, an empath who was the ship's counselor. William Riker, played by Jonathan Frakes, was the first mate to Patrick Stewart's Captain Jean Luc Picard.

38. Pontiff's wear: ALB.

40. Foreshadowing: OMEN.

41. Service station vessel: OIL CAN. That takes me back.  All I have seen for a long time now are plastic bottles.

47. Org. whose members are concerned with lies: PGA. Ask not where your ball lies. And don't tell any lies about it, either.

48. Birling roller: LOG. The lumberjack contest to see who can stay upright longest on a spinning log.

50. Radius, e.g.: ARM BONE. Along with the ulna and the humerus.

51. San __: San Francisco Bay city: MATEO.

53. Airline to Copenhagen: SAS. Scandinavian Airlines System.

60. Centipede maker: ATARI. One of the early 8-bit video arcade games with a tracking ball instead of a joystick.

61. Spice: ELAN.

62. Yes-__ question: OR NO.

63. Veal piccata ingredient: LEMON. Veal sliced, sautéed, and served in a sauce containing lemon, butter, and spices, usually parsley.

64. Part of Caesar's boast: VENI. vidi vici. I came, I saw, I conquered.

65. N.L. East squad: NATS. National League Baseball, the Washington Nationals.

66. Country sound: TWANG.

67. Golden Fleece vessel: ARGO. From "The Odyssey", Jason's ship.

68. Sin in the film "Se7en": ENVY. The "deadly" sin that the killer was guilty of.

DOWN:

1. Very smart: CHIC. Fashionably smart.  Meaning "sharp, severe, stinging," related to  "quick, active, clever" probably from the notion of "cutting" wit, words, etc. expanded to the meaning of "trim in attire".

2. San __: REMO. On the Italian Riviera.

3. Student's stressor: EXAM.

4. Emulate Cyrano: WAX POETIC. In Edmond Rostand's highly fictionalized play, Cyrano was the source of the love poems for his romance to Roxanne through the handsome but less articulate Christian.

5. It may be reckless: ABANDON.

6. Update mtge. terms: REFI.nance a mortgage.

7. Band: TROOP.

8. Quaff garnished with nutmeg: EGG NOG. Quaff perhaps from Low German quassen "to overindulge (in food and drink)," with -ss- misread as -ff-.

9. Technique of ancient samurai: JU JITSU. The gentle, or yielding art.  The (mostly) weaponless technique of using an opponent's own momentum against them using balance and leverage, because that was more effective than trying to simply hit someone wearing armor.

10. Some native New Yorkers: ERIES.

11. Afro-sporting "Mod Squad" character: LINC. Three young people in trouble with the law are allowed to avoid jail in exchange for infiltrating the counter-culture and exposing bad guys.

12. Vacation location: LAKE.

13. Cries of understanding: OHS.

21. Hill worker: AIDE. Capitol Hill, not an ant hill.

22. Buggy relative: PRAM. A baby buggy.

25. Depth-of-field setting: F-STOP. Camera terms.

26. Outfit again: RE-RIG.

27. __ Gay: ENOLA. The B29 that dropped "little boy" on Hiroshima, named for the pilot's mother, Enola Gay (Tibbits).  Pilot: Paul Tibbits.

28. George Strait label: MCA. Music Corporation of America.

30. Actor's day job?: CAMEO. Because waiter was too long.

31. SEC school that retired Peyton Manning's number: U TENN. South Eastern Conference, University of Tennessee.

32. Pasta al __: DENTE. "to the tooth", just a little chewy.

34. Santa's 21-Down: ELF.

36. O.K. Corral town: TOMBSTONE.

39. It's usually uplifting: BRA.

42. Diced and served in a mushroom cream sauce: ALA KING.

43. "Don't look at me!": NOT I.

45. Hall of fame: ARSENIO. Hall as a famous last name, not as a place of recognition.

46. Ally Financial Inc., formerly: GMAC. General Motors Acceptance Corporation.

49. City on the Rhone: GENEVA. Today's geography map.

51. Jerk: MORON. American English carnival slang, perhaps from jerkwater town, where a steam locomotive crew had to take on boiler water from a trough or a creek because there was no water tank. This led to an adj. use of jerk as "inferior, insignificant." Moron is directly from Greek for "foolish, dull". Still, connotatively, these don't really feel synonymous to me...

52. Stare master?: OGLER. A play on words for stair master exercise equipment.

54. Ratatouille, for one: STEW. The full name of the dish is ratatouille niçoise. It originated in the area around present day Occitan Provença and Niça (French: Nice). Derived from ratouiller and tatouiller, two expressive forms of of the French verb touiller, meaning to stir up.

55. Doll's word: MAMA. You'd say mama too, if someone kept tipping you upside down until you made noise.

56. Did some selling out: SANG. Ratted on. Snitched.

57. Mashhad is its second-largest city: IRAN.

58. Airing: ON TV.

59. Intrusive: NOSY.

60. PC key: ALT. Used to change (alternate) the function of other pressed keys. Most computers today use the ASCII character set, which only needs 7 of the 8 bits in one byte to represent all the numbers and letters, both upper and lower (and punctuation, plus certain special signal sequences).  The ALT key was originally used to set the "extra" 8th bit so an extended value could be entered, but because of the requirements of internationalization of character sets, it no longer works that way, but instead alters what other keys do depending on the program being used at the time.  TMI, right?

Answer Grid.

Al