Saturday, August 28, 2021, Craig Stowe

 Themeless Saturday by Craig Stowe 

Our Toronto themeless regular is back for more Saturday entertainment after a one month absence! Here is what Craig had to say about this puzzle:

Hi Gary,

Thanks for the email.  I hope you're doing well.

I don't have much to say about this one.  I started with THERE'S THAT and PODCASTER as anchors and wove my way around the grid looking for interesting fill.  I hope people enjoy it!

All the best,

Craig

ACROSS

1. Dangerous Beijing blanket: SMOG - SMOG is now back to the its pre-covid level 

5. Many an online host: PODCASTER - My favorite

14. Unladen weight: TARE - Also called light weight (LT WT) for an empty rail car

15. Ephemeral emporium: POP UP STORE - Here's a unique one that will be gone soon

16. Biblical Rodin work: ADAM - Interesting ties between Rodin's Adam and Michalangelo (even I get the extended right index finger)

17. Phenomenal: SUPERHUMAN - Our healthcare workers and first responders!

18. Business card abbr.: TEL.

19. Honduran hands: MANOS.

20. Filing aids: TABS.

21. May birthstones: EMERALDS.

23. Not as nice: WORSE.

24. Pay equity concern: SEXISM - Teacher pay schedules are the exact the same for men and women 

25. Word with social or media: EVENT.

27. Muse with a lyre: ERATO.

28. Classical theaters: ODEA - Speaking of Greek, here is an ODEUM (pl. ODEA) where those using ERATO as a muse might present their work

29. Brit's nap: KIP - All you'd ever want to know about KIP and nap

32. Georgia neighbor: ARMENIA - ALABAMA was just so "not Saturday" cluing (yeah, I put it in  first anyway)

34. Its capital is St. George's: GRENADA.

37. Lille lily: LYS.

38. Ostrichlike bird: RHEA.

40. Industrial heavyweight: BARON.

41. Deplete: USE UP - The erasers on my crossword pencils (e.g. LIT replacing HOT and others from yesterday)

43. Economic curve: DEMAND - The far right side is for people who bought Beanie Babies many years ago.

44. Brief aides?: ASSTS.

46. Precursor of today's musical theater: OPERETTA - such as:

48. Mackerel type: CHUB 

Chub Mackerel on top
Blue Mackerel on bottom

49. Make short work of the test: ACE IT - Hey, it could happen!

50. Subside: EBB.

51. "Point taken": THERE'S THAT.

53. Woody Guthrie, e.g.: OKIE.

54. Like some feuds: HEREDITARY - "Hey, gramps, can you even remember why we're mad at those Hatfields?"

55. Brief bio: VITA - VITA Curriculum is a crossword staple

56. Ergo: AS A RESULT.

57. River partly on the Poland-Germany border: ODER.

Down:

1. Washington's features George: STATE SEAL.

2. Partied hearty: MADE MERRY.

3. Deterrents to ghostwriting: ORAL EXAMS.

4. Treasure: GEM.

5. Hammer: POUND - We baseball peeps know of Hank "The Hammer" Aaron for how he used to POUND the baseball. Okay, also for the alliteration. 

6. Not in favor: OPPOSED - Being OPPOSED to your party leader's position can have serious consequences for you

7. Some charges: DUES - Three days of subbing last week earned me enough for 40% of my yearly golf club DUES

8. ER technique: CPR.

9. He played Michael in "That '70s Show": ASHTON - I recently saw ASHTON Kutcher starring as Steve Jobs in the movie Jobs

Steve Jobs                                 Ashton Kutcher

10. Mary, Queen of Scots' house: STUART - Mary is five lines down on the STUART side before she was beheaded by her Tudor cousin Elizabeth.

11. Some memorials: TOMBS - Mary's remains were moved to Westminster Abbey and this is her TOMB

12. Wipe out: ERASE.

13. __ Zhengfei, CEO/founder of smartphone giant Huawei: REN.

15. Church reading: PSALM.

19. Cement mixer: MASON - We MASONS called it a mortar mixer

22. Liturgy: RITE.

23. Grate (on): WEAR - Fran Drescher discusses  her "grating" voice

26. Lyra's brightest star: VEGA - This summer when you saw VEGA as a bright star in "The Summer Triangle", that light left VEGA in 1996 and just reached Earth in 2021.

28. Home to most of Hawaii's population: OAHU - This population density chart for Hawaii makes it pretty easy to pick out OAHU

29. Mr. Miyagi's charge, with "The": KARATE KID - "Wax on, wax off"

30. "It's ok, you can trust me": I DON'T BITE.

31. Black-and-white Chinese native: PANDA BEAR - Its range has really shrunk

33. More than displeases: IRES.

35. Pulitzer Prize-winning critic: EBERT.

36. Title: NAME.

39. Earth-shattering: EPOCHAL - Truman, Churchill and Stalin made EPOCHAL decisions at Potsdam in 1945

41. Person of interest?: USURER - Are these people USURERS?

42. "Father of Eng. History": ST BEDE.

43. Exalted one: DEITY.

44. Smarts: ACHES.

45. Superheroine Adora, more commonly: SHE-RA.

47. Rush drummer Neil: PEART.

49. Alaskan island in the Eastern Hemisphere: ATTU - Fun fact: Alaska has the farthest East and West point in the USA

51. Lil Wayne's "__ Block Is Hot": THA - He made a filthy version and a radio version and I guarantee you that kids today know both.

52. Household nickname: SIS.

53. Ab __: from day one: OVO - Latin for "from the beginning, the origin, the egg"

Saturday, July 31, 2021, Craig Stowe

 Themeless Saturday Puzzle by Craig Stowe

Our Torontonian friend gives us another puzzle from north of the border whose main feature is his pinwheel stacks of nine which were very helpful. Here are Craig's gracious comments:

Hi Gary,

Thanks for getting in touch.  I've been trying for ages to fit LAVAZZA into a grid because it seems so crossword worthy, but I could never make it work.  I decided to start with it as the main entry instead and work out from there.  I'm not actually a huge LAVAZZA fan, though it's good. The grind we get here is too small for my French press.  I get my beans from a Canadian company called Kicking Horse.  I suspect LAVAZZA will be a little more familiar to folks.

I really wanted to say thank you to Rich and his team as well as to this blog for everything you do.  This is about my 50th puzzle with the LA Times and it's not by accident that most of my publications are with this venue.  I cannot stress enough to new and aspiring constructors how wonderful Rich is to work with.  If he likes the general feel of a puzzle he will do what he can to make it happen.  That is an amazing trait for any editor to have and it really helped me get to where I am today.  The insightful commentaries made by the bloggers and regulars helped shape the styling of my puzzles over these past five or six years.  I could go on but I'm starting to embarrass myself.

Sorry about having two affixes in a themeless, I originally had EPI- but a revision in the NE corner led to the inevitable -ETTE.  Never having been pregnant, I thought ANTENATAL and prenatal were interchangeable but some of you may disagree.

Cheers!

Craig

Across:

1. Entertainment genre with a French name of uncertain origin: VAUDEVILLE - Origin of the word of the word. Early TV was heavily populated with former VAUDEVILLE stars

11. Wicked biblical king: AHAB.

15. "There's no point": IT'S USELESS 

16. Kiwi plant: VINE.

17. Biloxi or Gulfport: COUNTY SEAT - These two cities are both COUNTY SEATS of Harrison County, MS. There are ten such counties in MS with two COUNTY SEATS. What?

18. Suffix akin to -ule: ETTE - Buzz and Neal landed on the Moon in the small Lunar Module but I doubt it had a real kitchenETTE

19. Persona: IMAGE.

20. Johnny Cash's "At Folsom Prison" was recorded in one: STATE PEN.

22. Makes smooth and shiny, as hair: SLEEKS.

25. Voiced, in phonetics: SONANT - I'm always happy to learn

26. Heartland of America Park city: OMAHA - It is currently undergoing a multi-million dollar renovation down by the Missouri River

28. Emmy-winning journalist O'Donnell: NORAH.

29. Not at all fatty: LEAN.

32. Weave: ZIGZAG.

35. Downed: ATE.

36. "So __ heard": I'VE.

37. Longtime Italian coffee brand: LAVAZZA - Craig finally got this coffee into a puzzle! More info 

38. __ es Salaam: DAR.

39. Flooey lead-in: KER.

40. Unmoved: IN SITU - NASA repaired the Hubble Space Telescope IN SITU rather than bring it back to Earth.

41. Remove: DELE.

42. Gay leader?: ENOLA - Col. Paul Tibbets picked the B-29 he wanted off the assembly line in OMAHA where it was made. He then named that plane after his mother and flew it on that historic mission on August 6, 1945.

44. From Trondheim, e.g.: NORSE - The adjective NORSE refers to Norwegians or Scandinavians

46. Disclose: IMPART.

48. Was barely heard: PEEPED.

51. Viral oral malady: COLD SORE - Provide your own visual 😟

54. Comedian Kemper: ELLIE - Her IMDB. 

56. Fastidious to a fault: ANAL - All currency in my billfold must be arranged in ascending order with the faces all in the same orientation. ANAL? 

57. Check things out: POKE AROUND.

60. Russo of "Velvet Buzzsaw": RENE - Sometimes audiences like movies way more than the critics and sometimes...

61. Guided: SHEPHERDED - Successful coaches are sometimes said to have SHEPHERDED teams to championships

62. Saw: EYED.

63. "You betcha!": YES INDEEDY.

Down:

1. Caesarean section?: VICI - Bill Murray's variation on Caesar's proclamation of Veni, VICI, Vidi

2. They make up everything: ATOMS - Fun cluing

3. Prevailing: USUAL.

4. "The Pit and the Pendulum" setting: DUNGEON.

5. Appreciation: ESTEEM.

6. "Oy __!": VEY - Yiddish for "Woe is me!"

7. They, to Thierry: ILS - If Sonny and Cher sang I Got You Babe in French, it would start,  "ILS disent que nous sommes jeunes et nous ne savons pas"  ("They say we're young and we don't know")

8. Wranglers' cousin: LEES.

9. 180 is its max. score: LSAT.

10. Spanish pronoun: ESTAS - Elvis would have sang: ¿ESTÁS sola esta noche? ("Are you lonesome tonight?)

11. Brand with a Positively Radiant line: AVEENO.

12. Ranked musical listing: HIT PARADE - Take as big a bite out of this 65-yr-old trip down memory lane that you like...

13. Like care during pregnancy: ANTENATAL - A synonym for PRENATAL

14. "I can relate": BEEN THERE.

21. Pacific archipelago: TONGA - 170 islands with white sand beaches that are mostly unoccupied 

23. "Death of a Salesman" Tony winner: KAZAN - Arthur Miller's words and Lee J. Cobb's acting in 1949 probably helped Elia get a Tony for directing 

24. Makeshift blades: SHIVS.

27. On-__, off-__: AGAIN - Sounds like government mask policies 

29. "Whatevs": LIKE I CARE - This slang for "Whatever" begs the question: How did "I could care less" come to mean the same as " I couldn't care less"

30. Toss-up: EVEN MONEY - Equally likely

31. Heathrow lander: AEROPLANE - When in Britain, spell as the British spell

33. Trio with notable beards: ZZ TOP - Bassist Dusty Hill ( left below) died this week at 72 years old.

34. Fair color?: AZURE - With apologies to Irving Berlin: "AZURE skies smilin' at me, nothin' but AZURE skies do I see:".

37. Inventors of a sort: LIARS - Clever!

41. Lament: DEPLORE.

43. Dished up: LADLED.

45. Blow a fuse: SEE RED - Two words

47. Meryl's "Mary Poppins Returns" role: TOPSY - I remember TOPSY as a character in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin.

49. Duck: ELUDE.

50. Enjoyed a bistro: DINED.

52. Architect Mies van der __: ROHE.

53. Just makes, with "out": EKES.

55. Go around in circles?: EDDY - "Hey, Gary, didn't you use this picture in your write-up last week as well?" "Uh, yes, ya caught me!"

58. It may be left of center: EPI - Meta clues can be really tricky

59. "Kung Fu" actor Philip: AHN 

Philip AHN and David Carradine