Thursday, May 30, 2024, Emma Oxford

 

The Stuff of Genius*

... and the staff of life.  People literally "broke" bread for their meals for thousands of years.  But all that changed in 1928 when Otto Frederick Rohwedder invented the bread slicer.  And constructor Emma Oxford has come up with the best invention since then -- sliced crosswords!  Well maybe not 😀.  But she does present us with the following fill for four pairs of theme clues, each with some of the letters circled (shown in RED below), sliced by a black square, and when sandwiched back together give us  four kinds of bread ...

17A. Radio City, for one: MUSIC HALL and  19A. In the lead: AHEAD -- CHALLAH BREAD.  Here's a recipe.

Challah Bread

32A. Arizona people: HOPI. and 34A. Drink mix made popular by NASA: TANG -- PITA BREAD.  It's not widely known that Otto also invented the bread stacker 😀.  Michelle tells you how to make your own stack without a machine.

46A. Dynamic start?: AERO. and 49A. Neat as a pin: TIDY-- ROTI BREAD.  And it's even less widely known that Otto also invented the bread peeler 😀.  Here's Karen's recipe.

Roti Bread

62A. Saint __: Caribbean island: LUCIA and 64A. Army unit: BATTALION -- which when sandwiched back together we get CIABATTA.  Looks like Otto's back in the slicer business.  Here's Gemma's recipe.

Ciabatta Bread

And slicing the puzzle right across the middle we have Emma's reveal ...

39. Basis of comparison for many innovations that's depicted four times in this puzzle: SLICED BREAD.  But who actually coined the phrase "That's the best thing since sliced bread?"

While the circles made the theme pretty obvious from the get go , the results were pretty nourishing (albeit some people's tastes may vary😀).

I noticed that there were no guys represented in the recipes, so I'm tossing in James Beard's Brown Bread (one of our favorites).  We just use a bread knife to slice it ...

Brown Bread

Here's the grid ...

Here's the rest ...

Across:
 

1. Elbows: JABS.

5. Tibetan monk: LAMA.  LAMA is a title for a teacher of the Dharma in Tibetan Buddhism. The name is similar to the Sanskrit term guru, meaning "heavy one", endowed with qualities the student will eventually embody. The Tibetan word "lama" means "highest principle", and less literally "highest mother" or "highest father" to show the close relationship between teacher and student.  Among the Tibetan lamas, the highest ranked is the 14th Dalai Lama.

Dalai Lama

9. Brand paired with devil horns for a Halloween costume: PRADA. Must be a very exclusive party.  A reference to this film perhaps?

14. "Yeah, sure": I BET.

15. Hertz rival: AVIS. ... and a Rara AVIS, is a rare bird.  Here are some recent sightings of rare birds by the American Birding Association, including this one ...

Blue Rock-Thrush
sighted by Jason Talbott
25 Apr 2024
San Francisco, CA

16. Like highways and running tracks: LANED.  And let us not forget BOWLING VENUES!

17. [Theme clue]
19. [Theme clue]

20. Gait between a walk and a canter: TROT.

21. Held on to: KEPT.

23. Verizon acquisition of 2006: MCI.  MCI, Inc. (formerly WorldCom and MCI WorldCom) was a telecommunications company before Verizon bought them in 2006.   For a time, it was the second-largest long-distance telephone company in the United States, after AT&T.   Teri did some consulting for them back in the day.

24. Stop on a crawl: PUB.  Some of my English cousins took me on a PUB crawl one night, but that's all I can remember. 😀

26. "__ the season ... ": TIS.

28. Beach problem: EROSION.

30. Accord, perhaps: TRUCE.  There are two places in the world that need a TRUCE right now.

32. [Theme clue]
34. [Theme clue]

35. Cooper of CNN: ANDERSON.  Anderson Hays Cooper (born June 3, 1967) is an American broadcast journalist and political commentator currently anchoring the CNN news broadcast show Anderson Cooper 360°.  His mother was socialite Gloria Vanderbilt and  his great, great grandfather was business magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who founded the prominent Vanderbilt shipping and railroad fortune.

Anderson Cooper

37. Poetic tribute: ODE.  ODES comprise 90% of the poetry in crosswords, the other 10% consisting of SONNETS, ELEGIES, IDYLLS, and a MOEKU or two every other Friday. 😀

39. [Theme reveal]

42. Sign of summer: LEO.  Has anyone heard from LEO III lately?

43. Petroleum jelly brand: VASELINE.  As distinguished from VICKS VapoRub.  Whatever you do, don't put the latter on sunburned skin. Ouch!

46. [Theme clue]
49. [Theme clue]

51. Pre-univ. warmup exams: PSATS.  Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Tests.  What the PSAT is and what to know about the exam (if you are a High School Junior or the helicopter parent of one).

52. Dressed for work, perhaps: IN A SUIT.  Or being SUED?

54. Fam member: SIS.  I have four.

56. Psychoactive constituent of cannabis: THC.  Shouldn't this clue have had some indication that this was short for Tetrahydrocannabinol?

Tetrahydrocannabinol

57. OB-GYNs, e.g.: MDS.

58. Like some Fr. nouns: MASC.  Today's French lesson -- but not a short one.  All French nouns are either MASCULINE or FEMININE (none being NEUTER, e.g. as in German).  The corresponding definite articles for these are LE and LA and the indefinite articles are UN and UNE.  In most cases, which of these articles to use for a given noun is a matter of memorization.  While that's easy for la jeune fille ("the young girl") and  le garcon ("the boy"), they must be memorized for nouns that don't have any associated real gender, e.g. HAT ("le chapeau") and DAY ("la jour").  But there are some general rules (and lots of exceptions) for figuring out the gender of a French noun ...

60. Warm, so to speak: NEAR.. Used a lot in party games -- "You're getting warmer", "You're getting colder", "You're freezing!". 

62. [Theme clue] .
64. [Theme clue]

68. Exams often given by committee: ORALS.

69. Way, way off: AFAR.  E.g. "You're in the next county!"

70. Up to the task: ABLE.  E.g. "Napoleon WAS ABLE to conquer Europe (and lose it) ERE he SAW ELBA".

71. "The War of the Worlds" writer: WELLS.   H. G. WELLS visited the Corner a week or so back in his Time Machine.  His War of the Worlds was made famous by an hour long radio broadcast on Halloween of 1938 by dramatist Orson Wells (no relation to the novelist) using a script derived from the novel.  The scale of the panic Wells created is disputed.  Here is a clip from that broadcast ...

72. Product preview: DEMO.

73. Absolutely must have: NEED.  Air? Water? Food?

Down:

1. Parsons of "Hidden Figures": JIM.  Jim Parsons is best known for playing Sheldon in the sitcom  The Big Bang Theory.  In Hidden Figures he played Paul Stafford, head engineer in the Space Task Group. In this interview he talks about the hard time he had accepting his role in the new movie and what a contrast it was to the part he played in TBBT ...

2. __ Dhabi: ABU.

3. Chums: BEST BUDS.  They say that Apple AirPods are the best, but they're expensive and I'm afraid I'd lose them. 😀

4. Step in a sauce recipe: STIR.  We've used cream sauce for years to serve over asparagus on toast, pastas, etc.  The only problem with it is the need to constantly STIR the mixture of flour, butter, and whole milk until it thickens to keep the milk from scorching.  Much easier to make, and just as tasty, is velouté sauce, which uses  chicken or vegetable stock instead of milk. Here's a recipe.  After the roux has thickened Teri stirs in a 1/2 cup of cream to per cup of sauce.

Velouté sauce

5. Actress Christine: LAHTI.  Christine Ann Lahti (born April 4, 1950) is an American actress and filmmaker. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the 1984 film Swing Shift. Her other film roles include ...And Justice for All (1979), Housekeeping (1987), Running on Empty (1988), Leaving Normal (1992), and A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019). For her directorial debut with the 1995 short film Lieberman in Love, she won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film.

Christine Lahti

6. Janelle's "Abbott Elementary" role: AVA.  Not the Janelle in Hidden Figures, but rather comedian Janelle James as Ava Coleman, in the mockumentary Abbott Elementary.  She plays the tone-deaf principal, who got her job by blackmailing the superintendent. 

Janelle James

7. Latte ingredient: MILK. 

8. Out like a light: ASLEEP.

9. "Allegory of the cave" philosopher: PLATO.  The "Allegory of the cave" is recounted in PLATO's Republic in a dialogue between his brother Glaucon and his mentor Socrates, and is narrated by the latter.  In the allegory, Plato describes people that have spent their lives chained in a cave facing a blank wall. They watch shadows projected onto the wall by objects passing in front of a fire behind them, and they give names to these shadows. The shadows are the prisoners' reality but not accurate representations of the real world. The shadows represent the fragment of reality that we can normally perceive through our senses, while the objects outside the cave represent the true forms of objects that we can only perceive through reason. Three higher levels exist: natural science; deductive mathematics, geometry, and logic; and the theory of forms. 
 
10. Stadium cheer: RAH.

11. Iron deficiency: ANEMIA.

12. Church minister: DEACON.  A DEACON is a Christian official generally associated with services of some kind, such as preaching and performing specific rites such as baptisms and marriages.  These services vary among theological and denominational traditions, such as the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, Lutheranism, Methodism, Anglicanism, and Mormonism.  The office was created very early in the history of the Church, as is described in the Acts of the Apostles 6:1-5.  The intent of the office was to offload some of the work of the Presbyters (priests) and Bishops.  Among the first seven deacons was St. Stephen.  If we follow the above citation from Acts a little further, we find that he was also the first Christian martyr -- from the Greek word for "witness".

The Stoning of St. Stephen
Luigi Garzi (1638–1721)

13. __ machine: ADDING.

18. Clique: COTERIE. "An intimate and often exclusive group of persons with a unifying common interest or purpose".  Merriam-Websters.  If they cluster around a personality like Taylor Swift or Beyoncé, the inner circle is called a POSSE.  They seem to have an affinity for the mononymous.

22. Monastic leaders: PRIORS.

24. School org.: PTA.  Parent Teacher Associations are not just a USA thing.

25. Self-serve dispenser: URN.

27. Steve Madden creation: SHOE. As I think product ads should be kept to a minimum in reviews, I decided on a Jeff McNally creation instead.  Here's a recent one from his rag, tag band of avian journalists ...

29. Moves without a sound: STEALS.  -- STEALTHILY.

31. Large strings: CELLOS.  Here a large group of large strings (a CELLO choir) from The Young Artists Orchestra of Las Vegas plays Argentinian composer Astor Piazzola's Libertango ...

33. Like some movie rentals: ON DVD.  You can't rent them from Netflix anymore, but here are still some other sources.

36. Nova __: SCOTIA.  One of Canada's Maritime provinces, and a CSO to CanadianEh!

38. Bathysphere realm: DEEP SEA.  The Bathysphere (from Ancient Greek βαθύς (bathús) 'deep', and σφαῖρα (sphaîra) 'sphere') was a unique spherical deep-sea submersible which was unpowered and lowered into the ocean on a cable, and was used to conduct a series of dives off the coast of Bermuda from 1930 to 1934. These dives were chronicled by explorer William Beebe in his book Half Mile Down.  

The Bathysphere
The National Geographic museum in 2009

We saw a friend recently, who mentioned that her son-in-law is a deep water geologist, and that these days all of this type of work is done by tethered drones.

40. Dark horses: BAYS.

41. Rant: DIATRIBE.  Notice how deftly I avoid one in 50D below.  😀

44. Advanced degree?: NTH.  And the NTH time we've seen NTH!.

45. Key above ~: ESC.  A CSO to Splynter ~ is his favorite separator.  And just above it, perennially on the lam is

46. Temper expectations: AIM LOW.  A guaranteed way to succeed!

47. Put up with: ENDURE.

48. Rogue: RASCAL. Here are two shots of my son's cat RASCAL, which he titled Royal Rascal and Roaring Rascal, respectively ...

I believe these were taken when Rascal was young -- he's much bigger now.  He'll be 13 this year and spends most of his time in the woods hunting -- it also gets him away from all the riffraff kitties that my granddaughters keep adopting.

50. "Things don't look good": ITS BAD.  As there are no discussions of politics on the Corner, we'll move on to the next clue ...

53. Amherst campus, familiarly: U MASS. A college in Amherst, Mass.  And  it is also the approximate atomic weight of  Uranium (U  MASS = 238.03).  It's not an integer because U is actually a mixture of 3 isotopes ...

55. Overture: INTRO.  There are basically two kinds of overtures: opera overtures and standalone concert overtures.  Brahms' Academic  Festival Overture  is of the latter type and was composed on the occasion of him receiving an honorary degree from the University of Breslau.  The university administration didn't take too kindly to it, but the students loved it, as it is essentially a pastiche of student drinking songs popular at the time.😀  Estonian conductor Neeme Järvi does the honors ...

59. Bistro: CAFE.

61. Actor Ruck: ALAN. Alan Douglas Ruck (born July 1, 1956) is an American actor. He is best known for portraying Cameron Frye in John Hughes' film Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), as well as television roles as Stuart Bondek on the ABC sitcom Spin City (1996–2002) and Connor Roy on the HBO series Succession (2018–2023.

Alan Ruck

63. Under the weather: ILL. I worked in ILLINOIS for a year and a half and I don't recall ever being under the weather, although it did rain sometimes. 💧💧💧

65. Hat that may match a kilt: TAM.  Here ya go ...

66. Part of a World Cup chant: OLE.

67. "Game of Thrones" patriarch Stark: NED.  NED  (né Eddard)  was played by Sean Bean, who among many other roles played Boromir in the  movie adaptation of The Lord of the Rings.  He is best remembered for his heroic death defending the other members of the Fellowship of the Ring from Orcs. In the Game of Thrones, it appears that Sean went over to the Dark Side ...

Ned Stark

Cheers,
Bill

And as always, thanks to Teri for proof reading and for her constructive criticism.

waseeley

* "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration" - Thomas Edison

Wednesday, April 17th, 2024, Emma Oxford

IN BLOOM

Nirvana - In Bloom

April showers bring....hey, wait, we're too early for the flowers~!  This is my second blog of an Emma Oxford puzzle this year ( see 67A.).  Four 11-letter and one 13-letter spanners for the theme - scrambled, or "wild" - flower names.  No circles, but "in my opinion" ( see 59D. ) it might have helped, as the first two themers are two-word scrambles, but then the second two are just the first four letters.  Your Experience May Be/Might've Been Different - in fact, I'm coining a new term, "YEMBD" - pronounced "yem-beady".  Very few names, plenty of foreign (read) French words, but a longer than usual solve time for me, as I did not get the "ta-DA~!" at the end due to my "LIKE to serve" mistake, which took a while to find.

18. *Be extremely helpful: LIVE TO SERVE - VIOLET - the original Willy Wonka

There's a valid argument for why she should have "won" the Chocolate Factory

29. *Staged a fireworks show: LIT UP THE SKY - TULIP - ah, there's an organ joke in there....

I do not have this record...

36. *Start of an instruction to an automated assistant: SIRI SET A TIMER - IRIS

The 'Monet' version; perhaps you're a Van Gogh type~?

44. *Sensitive area: SORE SUBJECT - ROSE - and the 'start' of the joke ....

Axl "ROSE is" on the piano - and, er, Slash is on piano, too....

58. Colorful elements of a meadow, and what can be found at the starts of the answers to the starred clues?: WILDFLOWERS

And Away We Go~!

ACROSS:

1. Gasteyer of "Mean Girls": ANA

4. Stand-up individual?: COMIC

9. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner: MEALS

14. Place for a pint: PUB - Bzzzt~! Not BAR - AND - 20A. Some pints: ALES

15. Miso soup mushroom: ENOKI - perps, but then again, a crossword staple lately

16. Data processor's need: INPUT

17. Lenovo products: PCs - Lenovo is a Windows-based computer maker

22. Crying harder: TEARIER - meh.

23. Tempo similar to largo: LENTO

25. Prepares, as a sleeping bag: UNROLLS

33. Part of EVOO: OIL - Extra Virgin Olive Oil

34. Used DoorDash, say: ATE IN - had food delivered, that is; I made my own version of General Tso's chicken the other day~!

35. Auction site: eBAY

41. Very: MOST - as in "she is most attractive"

"Très OUI" - Frawnche #1

42. Rene of "Tin Cup": RUSSO

43. Death on the Nile cause, perhaps: ASP - "Very dangerous...you go first"

50. Frightening vision: DAYMARE - as opposed to NIGHTmare - a new word for me; more here

52. Part of TNT: NITRO - Everything you ever wanted to know about trinitrotoluene

53. Do over and over: ITERATE - so to REiterate is to do over and over AND OVER~?

57. "Begone!": SHOO

62. Convent figure: NUN

63. Adult stage in insects: IMAGO

64. Provide an address: ORATE - ooh, clever misdirection

65. Here, in France: ICI - Frawnche #2

66. Airport structure: TOWER

"We have no tower - just a bridge, Sir"

67. "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" host Aisha: TYLER - strangely, this is the second time with this clue/answer for me in an Emma Oxford puzzle blog

68. "Evita" role: CHE


DOWN:

1. Revolt: APPALL - the "ick" revolt, not the political one

2. Atomic cores: NUCLEI - I read somewhere that our constructor Emma has atomic knowledge

3. Playing hooky, perhaps: ABSENT

4. Cartoon still: CEL

5. "Roger that, boss!": "ON IT~!"

6. Make emotional: MOVE - MOKE seemed like a possibility 😜

7. Maker of Ektorp sofas: IKEA - I have learned to default to "IKEA" when it's an oddly-named furniture clue....

8. Fruit type that tends to be in season in winter: CITRUS - I did not know this; read more here from "The CIA"

9. Kathy Bates film based on a Stephen King novel: MISERY - I am not a fan of this genre

10. Month after diciembre: ENERO - the Spanish spelling of January

11. Mo. after Mar.: APRil - the current "mid-spring" month - I have daffodils in my front yard

It would appear that I need to wash my siding

12. Hon: LUV - Thank God it was not the "other" three-letter cringe word

13. Sault __ Marie: STE - Frawnche #3

19. Sty sound: OINK

21. Queen Anne's house: STUART - I have had this type of misdirection before; not the actual house as in structure/style, but the "political" one - see the Wiki highlighted

A "local" example, the James Alldis house in Torrington, CT

24. __-Free: contact lens solution: OPTI

26. Piercing spot: LOBE

27. "Not true!": LIAR - I had "LIES~!" to start

28. Devious: SLY

30. Your, in Tours: TES - Frawnche #4

31. Dash, quaintly: HIE

32. __ nous: ENTRE - fifth and finale Frawnche

35. Characters in some texts: EMOJIS - 😀😎😜

36. Slugger Sammy: SOSA - an easy baseball reference, tho I am not a fan like our blog host C.C. - I did like the link to the two guys trying to hit 100mph fastballs, Chairman~!

37. Guessing game: I SPY

38. Ger. neighbor: AUStria

39. Nashville sch.: TSU - I WAGed this, figured it was something like "Tennessee State University"

40. ID on a Barnes & Noble buy: ISBN - ID is abbr., so too the International Standard Book Number

41. Outraged: MAD

44. Took, as an exam: SAT FOR

45. Baseball analyst Hershiser: OREL - does this mean he offers "Orel" exams~? ba-dum-tiss

46. Transplant: REROOT - I re-potted my houseplant a month ago, and it's still in shock; I don't want to lose it, because it was my mother's plant and I kept it when we sold the LI house after she passed

47. Pertaining to a certain culture: ETHNIC

48. Catcher's stance: CROUCH - ah; much better than "SQUAT", which was my first thought

49. Nickname for the Canadian $2 coin: TOONIE - I filled in LOONEY, as I have seen this before in Crosswords, but obviously had the wrong $ value, and spelling - but 50% correct~!

51. Small fly: MIDGE

54. Out of whack: AWRY

55. Blue-green shade: TEAL

56. Art Deco icon: ERTÉ - I happen to "MOKE" (😁) the Art Deco style - his Wiki

58. Cleverness: WIT

59. Brief "I would say ... ": IMO - In My Opinion

60. Order's partner: LAW - for those who are interested, the LAW & ORDER tab for the TV show theme from Ultimate Guitar; you'll have to create a log-in to see it if you don't already have one

61. Msg. from a pulpit: SERmon


Splynter

Friday, January 12, 2024, Emma Oxford

Thanks, again, Lisa for your help a couple of weeks ago.

This week, however, you may be missing the mark.

Good Morning, Cruciverbalists.  Malodorous Manatee here from the land of frozen (and decidedly not warm) waters to bring you today's recap.  Our puzzle setter is Emma Oxford and, at four places within the grid, she has provided us with amusing takes on familiar two-letter abbreviations.  Let's take a look:

18 ACROSS:  Big bash honoring detectives?: PI DAY CELEBRATION.  PI DAY comes on March 14th of each year because 3 can stand for March the value of Pi (the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter) is roughly 3.14.  In this case, however, P.I. is referring to Private Investigator.  PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR DAY CELEBRATION.

27 ACROSS:  Take steps to prevent patients leaving mid-appendectomy?: FIGHT OR FLIGHT.  We are all, of course, familiar with the FIGHT OR FLIGHT response but, in the puzzle, O.R. is used as the abbreviation for Operating Room.  FIGHT OPERATING ROOM FLIGHT.

47 ACROSS:  Certain facial recognition pro?: THE WIZARD OF ID.  The WIZARD OF ID is a cartoon strip by Parker and Hart.  In this answer, though, the reference is to identification as in (e.g.) I.D. Card.   THE WIZARD OF IDENTIFICATION.

The Wizard of ID

63 ACROSS:  Really annoy the computer help desk?: TAKE IT TO THE LIMIT.  A familiar expression recast as TAKE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY TO THE LIMIT.

This is how it appears in the grid:

. . . and here are the rest of the clues and answers:

Across:

1. Chasm: ABYSS.

6. Every which way: AMOK.  A little bit of a stretch definition-wise.

10. Worry about: SWEAT.  Both FRET and STEW were too short.

15. "Better in Time" singer Lewis: LEONA.   This could have been clued with a reference to the Queen Of Mean - LEONA Hemsley.

16. Placemat, in some restaurants: MENU.  Serving double duty.

17. Shelf: LEDGE.

21. Running wild: ON A TEAR.

22. Try and fail to walk on ice: SLIP.  Thanks for the reminder to put on those cleats.

23. __-Magnon: CRO.  What did CRO-Magnons call Rock, Paper, Scissors?  Rock.

24. Rock gp. sometimes joined by Young: CSN.  More abbreviations.

25. Signifies: MEANS.  MEAN sure does have a lot of meanings.

26. Besmirch: TAR.  As in to TAR one's reputation.

32. Kid-friendly card game: UNO.

33. Laze: LOAF.

34. "__-daisy!": OOPSY.  All about OOPSY-daisy

38. Certain English collegian: ETONIAN.

41. Oregon port named for a fur merchant: ASTORIA.  In addition to the fur trade, John Jacob ASTOR was involved with smuggling opium into China.

43. Grayish green shade: LODEN.  A deep olive green with shorter wavelengths.

44. Fictional terrier from Kansas: TOTO.  Clever.  A puzzle with references to both the Wizard of Id and the Wizard of Oz.

46. Bobby of the Bruins: ORR.  Not a UCLA reference.

52. Sleeve: ARM.

55. Matter basics: ATOMS.  I got arrested for having one sodium ATOM and one chlorine ATOM.  They said I committed a salt.

56. Pub bill: TAB.  As is to run a tab.

57. Actress Seydoux: LEA.  Unkown to this solver but easily perped.

58. Pool division: LANE.

59. Uneasy feeling, with "the": WILLIES.  Where Did This Expression Originate

66. Neptune's realm: OCEAN.

67. Home of the Blue Devils: DUKE.  DUKE University.

68. "Into the Woods" song sung by two princes: AGONY.  Last week, I went from AGONY to ecstasy in a span of a few days.  At this rate, I’ll finish reading the dictionary in a month or so.

69. [I have no idea]: SHRUG.

70. Missouri River Native: OTOE.  Frequent visitors.

71. Pick up: SENSE.  

Down:

1. Pet food brand: ALPO.

2. Form of nonviolent protest: BE IN.  The first Human Be-In (get it?) was held in Golden Gate Park in 1967.

3. Jedi voiced by Tom Kane on "The Clone Wars": YODA.

4. Seize: SNATCH.  I will not seize the moment, but, rather, let this moment pass.

5. "What __ thou?": SAYEST.   SAYEST is an archaic second person singular of say.

6. Pt. of USA: AMER.  United States of AMERica

7. First name of two Spice Girls: MEL.  MELanie Brown went by the stage name of Scary Spice and MELanie Chisholm went by the name of Sporty Spice.

8. Reflexive pronoun: ONESELF.

9. __ Khan: KUBLAI.  Mongol general and grandson of Genghis.

10. Paul Newman hockey film: SLAP SHOT.

11. Sopping: WET.

12. Decree: EDICT.

13. Ancient Greek marketplace: AGORA.

14. Hero in operas, typically: TENOR.  See also 52 Down.

19. __ oil: CANOLA.  RAPESEED (from which CANOLA oil is made) was more a more difficult name to merchandise.

May the Schwartz Be With You

20. Key spot: RING.  Not a reference to something important. Not a reference to a small island.

25. Juilliard deg.: MFA.  Master of Fine Arts

27. Gasohol, e.g.: FUEL.  A mixture of gasoline and alcohol.

28. Division word: INTO.

29. Yummy: GOOD.  Some things do not get better with age:

30. "Sons of Anarchy" actor Perlman: RON.

31. Furthermore: TOO.  AND would have fit the allotted space.  ALSO would not.

35. Univ. lecturer: PROF.  PROFessor

36. iPad speaker: SIRI.  "She" speaks out loud.  Not the audio speaker built into your iPad.

37. Gridiron unit: YARD.   I recently found a round, black piece of plastic with a hole in the middle and grooves on both sides. I picked it up and threw it. It flew for more than 300 yards.  I'm sure that must have been a record.

39. Wind up with: NET.  If you ever wonder "What's my NET worth?" it's probably less than you paid for it.

40. Getting some air: INHALING.  Not out for a walk.

41. "One __ time!": AT A.

42. Foray: SORTIE.

44. Call from a coach: TIMEOUT.

45. Wt. units: OZS.  OZ, as the abbreviation for ounce, came from the Italian onza meaning ounce.

48. Coup d'__: ETAT.  One of  Today's French lessons although thoroughly incorporated into English usage.  French for "stroke of state".   A coup d'ETAT is typically an illegal and overt attempt by a military organization or other government elites to unseat an incumbent leadership.

49. Is unacceptable: WON'T DO.

50. Mavericks city: DALLAS.  A basketball reference.

51. Do a favor for: OBLIGE.  They are then OBLIGatEd to you.

52. Unlikely heroines in operas, typically: ALTOS.  See also 14 Down.

53. Get to: REACH.  I went to the butchers the other day and I bet him fifty bucks that he couldn't reach the meat on the top shelf.  He declined the bet saying, "No, the steaks are too high."

54. Creative sort: MAKER.  Earlier in the week this might have been clued as Coffee ______ .

59. Cry of delight: WHEE.

60. "That's my cue!": I"M ON.  What are you on, dude?

61. __, zwei, drei: EINS.  Today's German lesson. 1, 2, 3.

62. Eye affliction: STYE.  A frequent affliction in our puzzles.

64. Mer contents: EAU.  Another of today's French lesson.  Mer = Sea and EAU = water.

65. Fight-ending letters: TKO.  A boxing reference.  Technical KnockOut

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