Thursday, October 14, 2021 Jim Holland

Today we get a return visit from constructor Jim Holland, whose last puzzle here was on December 17, 2020 and who started with us nearly 10 years ago on December 18, 2011.  Perhaps Lemony can add some spice to this from his secret stash.

Jim is not revealing his theme, but it appears to involve adding an S to common phrases, thus transforming them into PUNISHING new ones:

17A. Fan on a farm?: SWINE COOLER.  A riff on WINE COOLER, for those who use a thermometer to check their wine temperatures.  Very expensive.  We keep the REDS in the cellar because it's cool, and we keep WHITES and ROSÉS in the refrigerator.

 27. Hors d'oeuvres for a horror movie?: SCREAM CHEESE. A take on CREAM CHEESE. Teri makes a delicious dish with cream cheese, cream, butter, shrimp, fresh peas, and pasta.  Yummy!

49A. Surveillance snacks?: STAKEOUT FOOD.  A riff on TAKEOUT FOOD. Cops can get pretty hungry on a 7 x 24 stake out, and the Brit bobbies seem to prefer  CHINESE or KEBABS (see 50D for a recipe).

64A. Finishing touch for a gastropod?: SNAIL POLISH.  A take on NAIL POLISH. My NAILS are galvanized, so they don't need to be polished.

And if that weren't enough, here's some more polysemous punishment ...

Across:

1. Geometry numbers: AREAS.

6. Shows displeasure (at): CARPS.  I don't mean to be KOI about it, but if you eat a CARP, you'll probably CARP about it for days.

11. Part of A&E?: AND.  AND?  Is that all?

14. Absorb: SOP UP.  In case you've been wondering what the difference is between absorb and adsorb?

15. Ferrell's "SNL" cheerleading partner: OTERI.  We did that clip in a previous review where CHERI appeared.  She is well known for her impersonations, especially of BABA WAWA and here she is seen interviewing herself:

16. Card-beats-card game: WAR.  As it's a perennial favorite, here's a quote from Ambrose Bierce:
 

19. Shakespearean title noun: ADO.  As in Much Ado About Nothing, the story of Beatrice and Benedick.  Which Begins here ...

 

... followed by Much Ado about literally Nothing (you'll have to read the play to find out what it Isn't)  ...

...and then Ends here ...
 

20. Bee attraction: NECTAR.

21. Wrestling place: MAT.

22. "Armageddon" author: URIS.  Leon Marcus Uris (August 3, 1924 (Baltimore, MD – June 21, 2003 (Shelter Island, NY)) was an American author of historical fiction who wrote many bestselling books including Exodus (published in 1958) and Trinity (published in 1976).  Armageddon: A Novel of Berlin, is a chronicle which ends with the lifting of the Berlin Blockade in 1949.
 

Uris in Israel in the 1950s

23. Chain founded by Ingvar Kamprad: IKEA. As the founder's name sounded suspiciously Sveedish, it had to be IKEA.  Which painfully reminds me, three IKEA drawers in one of my office cabinets have been jammed shut for years and will have to be opened somehow before we can sell this house!

25. Movie trailers: TEASERS.  You've been teased enough for one day.

31. "Gotcha!": OHO.

32. Head of Paris: TETE.  Today's French lesson. LOO was too short.

33. Like some escapes: NARROW.

37. Done in: BEAT.

39. AOL, e.g.: ISP.  Internet Service Provider.  One of the earliest.  And I'm pretty sure we had it two weeks ago.

41. Aria, say: SOLO.  Here's Mimi pouring her heart out in the eponymous La Bohème:
 

42. Watch all night, maybe: STREAM.  BINGE might have been better, but you need to be able STREAM to do it.

45. Topers: SOTS.  Those who tope too much.

48. High flier until 2001: MIR. The Russian space station Mir ended its mission on 23 March 2001, when it was "deorbited", entered the atmosphere and was destroyed.  The next time you see MIR, it'll probably be clued "Deorbited in 2001".

52. Make like the original: RESTORE.

55. Hurry away: FLEE.

56. Place for a bid: EBAY.

57. Arabic "son of": IBN. Today's Arabic lesson.  Everything you want to know about Arabic name structures, of which IBN is only a small part.

59. Syrup once used as a poison remedy: IPECAC.  No longer used for these reasons.  IPECAC causes vomiting and has been abused by bulimics, notably singer Karen Carpenter who probably died as a result of it.

63. No-frills bed: COT.  The plural COTS is a also an acronym for Commercial Off-the-shelf Software, a better alternative to "rolling your own", unless you really know what you're doing.  Of course you still need to know what you're doing to implement COTS based systems.  These people will sell you a COTS product to help you implement your COTS products!  Something I like to call the "Cybernetic Imperative".

66. Aussie school: UNI.

67. Cellist Casals: PABLO.  Pau Casals i Defilló ( 29 December 1876 – 22 October 1973), usually known in English by his Spanish name Pablo Casals was a Catalan and Puerto Rican cellist, composer, and conductor. He is generally regarded as the pre-eminent cellist of the first half of the 20th century and one of the greatest cellists of all time. Click here to hear him play Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007: IV. Sarabande.

Pablo Casals
with his Stradivarius Cello

 

 

 

68. Capone henchman known as "The Enforcer": NITTI.  Francesco Raffaele Nitto,  January 27, 1886 – March 19, 1943), known as Frank Nitti, was an Italian-born American gangster in Chicago. Nitti was in charge of all money flowing through the operation. He later succeeded Capone as boss of the Chicago Outfit. No mug shot for him!

69. Whiskey choice: RYE.  One brand was originally distilled just up the road from where we live in Pikesville, MD, now produced in Louisville, Kentucky:

70. Sales rep's friendly personality, e.g.: ASSET.

71. Early computer: ENIAC.  Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was the first programmable, electronic, general-purpose digital computer made in 1945.  It was Turing-complete and able to solve "a large class of numerical problems" through reprogramming.  Here's a comparison of the ENIAC to your cell phone.

Down:

1. Part of NCAA: Abbr.: ASSN.  The sponsors of March Madness. This was prepared to help students of English as a Second Language understand this madness (but maybe useful to sports noobs on the Corner as well, e.g. yours truly).

2. "Dirty Jobs" host Mike: ROWE.  You never know what kind of "dirt" you can surf up on somebody on the Internet.  Here is philosopher Mike Rowe, in a church in Baltimore, describing a "tough job" he once had: that of auditioning for the role of the philosopher Shaunard, singing his heart out as he set off to  the Paris streets to sell his trusty overcoat to buy medicine for la Bohème, whom we met in 41A, and who is now dying:

3. Large-scale tale: EPIC.  For example The Epic of Gilgamesh. a lengthy poem from ancient Mesopotamia c. 2100 BC, and probably the origin of the story of Noah's flood in the Hebrew Bible.  Gilgamesh is regarded as the earliest surviving notable literature and the second oldest religious text, after the Pyramid Texts:

The Deluge tablet
of the Gilgamesh epic

"Ahem", I can hear Vidwan saying,  "You call those Epics?  I'll give you Epics!"

4. Pretzel chain __ Anne's: AUNTIE.

5. Deliver an address for: SPEAK AT.  I could try the groaner about the Gettysburg Address, but MalMan beat me to it last Thursday.

6. Soft cry: COO. The cry of a Pigeon or Mourning Dove perhaps?

7. __ smasher: ATOM.  The first cyclotron ("atom smasher"), invented by Ernest Lawrence and colleagues in 1931, was a mere 4" in diameter.   Its modern successor, the CERN Large Hadron Collider, first turned on in September of 2008 is 17 miles across.  Here's an aerial view:

8. Tell: RELATE.

9. Many a junior high student: PRETEEN.

10. Polite title: SIR.  Or MAAM. Like my Mom always said, "Mind your manners!"

11. Clued in: AWARE.  I hope everyone was clued in on this clue.

12. Zenith's opposite: NADIR.  More Arabic. The NADIR at a given point is the local vertical direction pointing in the direction of the force of gravity at that location. The direction opposite of the NADIR is the ZENITH.

13. Slag: DROSS.

18. Liqueur word: CREME.

22. Password creators: USERS.  There are as many ways to create passwords as there are USERS (who are just another SYSTEM component in the eyes of many programmers).  My passwords are constructed from acronyms derived from selected verses of PSALMS, and are probably still hackable.  A CSO for your method.

24. "Hamlet" beginning: ACT I.  Or to be more specific “Who's there?”

26. Solid-rock link: AS A.  Not always, e.g. Pumice, which is more like solidified foam.  Still solid I guess, but not something you'd want to build a house on.

27. Emotional outbursts: SOBS.

28. Guitarist Atkins: CHET.  Chester Burton "Chet" Atkins (June 20, 1924 – June 30, 2001), known as "Mr. Guitar" and "The Country Gentleman", was an American musician, occasional vocalist, songwriter, and record producer who helped create the Nashville sound.  My Dad's kind of music:
 

29. "I am woman, hear me __ ... ": Helen Reddy lyric: ROAR.  Helen Maxine Reddy (25 October 1941 – 29 September 2020) was an Australian-American singer, songwriter, author, actress, and activist. Born in Melbourne, Victoria, to a show-business family, Reddy started her career as an entertainer at age four.  Her feminist anthem "I am woman" is her most famous song, but she did write lots of others and also covered songs by others, like this number one hit written by Alan O'Day:

30. "Steppenwolf" author: HESSE.  Hermann Karl Hesse (2 July 1877 – 9 August 1962) was a German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. His best-known works include Demian, Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, and The Glass Bead Game (my favorite novel), each of which explores an individual's search for authenticity, self-knowledge and spirituality. In 1946, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature.
 

Hermann Hesse

34. Former Dallas QB Tony: ROMO.  Antonio Ramiro Romo (born April 21, 1980) is a former American football quarterback and analyst who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 14 seasons with the Dallas Cowboys.

Romo before the 2008 Pro Bow

35. Hodgepodge: OLIO.  This review perhaps?  It's just a smorgasbord, so sample what you like.

36. "Agreed!": WORD.  Has anyone heard "WORD!" used as slang for AGREED?  Or could it be the most generic definition for "Agreed!",  a WORD?  Our favorite extinct reptile doesn't seem to AGREE:

38. Irritable: TESTY.  I used to be a LAB TECH and I was TESTY all day.

40. Sound accompanying a disappearance: POOF.  This is the second time I've had this in a month.  I can't seem to make it disappear.

43. From __ Z: A TO.  The entire GAMUT.

44. Places to tie up: MARINAS.  Often pretty swanky places.  Here's the Baltimore Inner Harbor Marina.  That's the Rusty Scupper restaurant in the foreground.  Great crab cakes:
 

46. Spring bloom: TULIP.  You can get the blooms or the bulbs year round from Holland, the TULIP capital of the world.

47. Start of a job: STEP ONE.  Begin at the beginning.

50. Skewered foods: KEBABS.  Here's a recipe!
 

51. "You've Lost That Lovin' __": 1964 hit: FEELIN.  "Blue-eyed Soul" by The Righteous Brothers:

52. Arise anew: RECUR.

53. Dark wood: EBONY.  Ebony is a dense black/brown hardwood, most commonly yielded by several species in the genus Diospyros, which also contains the persimmons. Ebony is dense enough to sink in water. It is finely textured and has a mirror finish when polished, making it valuable as an ornamental wood. It is also considered an endangered species:
 

Rough Ebony

54. "Sonatine Bureaucratique" composer: SATIE. The Sonatine bureaucratique (Bureaucratic sonatina) is a 1917 piano composition by Erik Satie. The final entry in his "humoristic" piano music of the 1910s, it is Satie's only full-scale parody of a single musical work: the Sonatina Op. 36 N° 1 (1797) by Muzio Clementi.  The score is annotated with satirical remarks above the musical notes, which you'll see if you follow along:

58. Africa's Blue __: NILE.  The Blue Nile is a river originating at Lake Tana in Ethiopia. It travels for approximately 1,450 km (900 mi) through Ethiopia and Sudan. Along with the White Nile, it is one of the two major tributaries of the Nile, and supplies about 80% of the water in the Nile during the rainy season.

The Course of the Blue Nile

60. __ Field: Mets' home: CITI.  The home of the New York Mets.

61. Whodunit dog: ASTA.  The Cornerite's favorite puzzle pooch and pursuer of perps.  But even ASTA (alias SKIPPY) was guilty of a misdemeanor.
 

Asta in the Director's Chair

62. Geek __: CHIC.  I used to be a GEEK, but nobody has EVER accused me of being CHIC.  Apparently such a thing really does exist: for girls and for guys. 

64. Place for a peel: SPA.  Doesn't sound very appeeling to me.

65. "'Salem's __": Stephen King novel: LOT.  King's second novel.  Scary stuff!.

 

Here's the grid:

waseeley

Cheers,
Bill

And thanks as always to Teri for proofreading and constructive criticism.

Thursday, December 17, 2020, Jim Holland

 

Good morning, once again, cruciverbalists.  As you may recall from C.C.'s note on last Thursday's blog, Bill (waseeley) and yours truly will now be writing the recaps on alternating Thursdays.  I would like to take this opportunity to thank Bill, and Boomer, for shouldering much of the past and future work load.

Theme:  Equivalency - Perhaps, E Equals M C Squared ? - Not

He was, justifiably, a difficult man to impress but, be that as it may, today's theme is quite clever if you're into sort-of-weird-word-play.  For this crowd, that, however, is pretty much a given.  Remember, also, that this puzzle comes from the person who played around with vowel sounds and morphed The Grateful Dead into The Grateful Dud, referred to the Detroit baseball team's salary structure as Pay Per Tiger and introduced us to the vocal styling of the Three Tanners.

At three locations within the puzzle, Jim has placed quantitative answers which, when taken together with the key word(s) in the clue, combine to form an equivalent name for a well-known object or place.

17. Equivalent Stanley award?: EIGHT OUNCES.  MM's first reaction was "What the"?  However, the light slowly dawned.  There are EIGHT OUNCES in a full measuring cup.  Combine CUP with STANLEY, et voila, we get Stanley Cup which is the National Hockey League's trophy awarded to the playoff champions.  STANLEY EIGHT OUNCES = STANLEY CUP   

Lord Stanley's Cup

39. Equivalent Scotland locale?: THIRTY SIX INCHES.  A yard is a measurement defined as being three feet, or THIRTY-SIX INCHES, long.  Make the substitution and we get SCOTLAND YARD which is the headquarters locale of the London Metropolitan Police.  SCOTLAND THIRTY SIX INCHES = SCOTLAND YARD  

61. Equivalent type of horse?: FIVE NICKELS.  A nickel is worth five cents.  FIVE NICKELS are worth a quarter of a dollar.  Following along the previous path we come upon a QUARTER HORSE which is a breed of horse named for its dominance in quarter-mile races. FIVE NICKELS HORSE = QUARTER HORSE   

...and now on to the rest of today's puzzle

Across:

1. "Vice" (2018) Oscar nominee Amy: ADAMS.  Right off the bat, a reference with which this solver was totally unfamiliar and a proper noun at that.  Thanks, Jim (sarcasm) or perhaps the editor.  Thanks, perps (not sarcasm).

6. Pairing: UNION.  Two weeks ago we had SCAB.  Today we have UNION.

11. __ water: TAP.  A fill-in-the-blank with many possible answers (e.g. Evian, mineral, hot, potable, soda, seltzer, heavy, etc.).  Fortunately, the three-letter constraint put a cap on the number of possibilities. 

14. Jazz pianist Chick: COREA.  This one was a gimme and, for what seems like the ten thousandth time, reconfirmed my love/hate relationship with proper nouns in crossword puzzles.

15. Fit provider: HONDA.  Misdirection.  Neither a personal trainer nor a tailor but, rather, an automobile.  The Honda Motor Company describes their Fit model as "a small car ready for big adventures."

The Honda Fit

16. Gulf st.: ALA.  ALAbama  The abbreviation for "state" tells us that the answer is also an abbreviation.  Sometimes "st." might stand for "street" or "saint" but in that case it is usually capitalized.  Of course, by convention, the first word of every clue is capitalized and some sly constructors play on that.

19. Storage unit: BIN.  This one felt a bit "off" in that a bin is not really a unit of anything.  In this case, the BIN, itself, is the unit.  Still, "I Love You a BIN and a Peck" is not a song from Guys and Dolls.

20. __-Caps: candy: SNO.

21. Memo opener: IN RE.  IN RE means "in regard to" or "in the matter of".  

22. Went up: SCALED.  SCALE has several different meanings.  Music.  Reptile skin.  A device for weighing.  But in this instance it is a mountain climbing, or a workplace, reference.

24. Produce: CREATE.

26. Venue that may sell naming rights: ARENA.  I wonder how this has worked out for the sponsors who each paid handsomely (estimated at $20 million  - $25 million per year) to have the new NFL ARENAs in Los Angeles and Las Vegas named for them.

27. Forward, in a way: RE-MAIL.  Not "to the front" or an NBA player or overstepping the boundaries of good taste.  Instead, it is another almost-made-up word formed by sticking RE in front of a verb.  I am sure that you were able to RE-solve this one.

30. Take different paths: PART.  

32. Cake decorators: ICERS.

33. "The Ra Expeditions" author Heyerdahl: THOR.   Appropriate for a Thursday, n'est ce pas?  While Heyerdahl successfully demonstrated that it was possible for a primitive raft to sail across the Pacific Ocean, DNA evidence now shows that his theory about Polynesian origins was incorrect.

35. MSN and AOL: ISPS.  Internet Service ProviderS

42. Japanese sandal: ZORI.  When I was just a kid, in the summer we wore those cheap synthetic sandals that bruised the space between your big toe and the adjacent toe.  We called them ZORIs but had no idea as to the origin of the word.

43. Not taxing: EASY.  This one was.

44. Cuban boy in 2000 headlines: ELIAN.  ELIAN Gonzalez was the subject of a much-publicized custody battle involving the governments of the United States and Cuba.  Public opinion was, as they say, highly polarized.

45. Thickener in Asian desserts: AGAR.  I always forget which one is the thickening agent (AGAR) and which one is the banned apple growth-regulator spray (Alar). 

47. They may be special or secret: AGENTS.

Secret Agent Man - Johnny Rivers - 1966 

48. Passionate dance: TANGO.  From the sort-of-sublime to the ridiculous (unless you're into this sort of thing) - Tom Lehrer's The Masochism Tango.  I am not sure when he wrote it but I first heard it on a album that was released in 1959.

The Masochism Tango 

51. Bouts: SPELLS.  Perhaps, as in fainting SPELLS.

54. Off-topic: AFIELD.  Originally, the expression "Far AFIELD" referred to physically coming from a long ways away.  Now the term is also applied in reference to scientific, intellectual, and other, pursuits.

56. Ohio border lake: ERIE.

Lake Erie

57. Anonymous party: DOE.   John DOE.  Jane DOE.  Sometimes ROE.

60. __ service: LIP.  Again, the three letters made it a bit easier.  Although it could have been TEA service it clearly was not going to be POSTAL service or FOREST service or ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET service.

64. Mound stat: ERA.  A baseball reference.  A pitcher's Earned Run Average is computed by multiplying the total number of earned runs that the pitcher has given up by nine and then dividing that product by the total number of innings pitched.

65. Long-stemmed mushrooms: ENOKI.   Know your mushrooms, campers, some are toxic...and some are psychoactive.

Enoki Mushrooms

66. Some South Pacific carvings: TIKIS.   TIKI bars/lounges were very popular in the 1930's - 1960's.  Some are still operating.

67. Court unit of at least six games: SET.  A tennis reference.

68. Search for water: DOWSE.  DOWSing is a type of divination employed in an attempt to find groundwater.   Despite some anecdotal reports of success, it has never been proven to work. 

69. "Mad Men" pool member: STENO.  According to Hollywood's take on the corporate culture of the 1950's, women started their careers in the STENO Pool or Secretarial Pool and men started in the mail room (no pun intended).

Down:

1. Blackjack cards: ACES.  If a player's first two cards are an ACE and a picture card or a ten, then the player has a "natural blackjack".

Blackjack

2. "Whatcha __?": DOIN.  The slanginess of the clue clues us into the fact that the answer will also be slangy.  Still, not the high point of this puzzle.

3. Cornstarch brand: ARGO.

4. Indifferent reaction: MEH.  MEH.

5. Stephen Colbert, for one: SATIRIST.  Not to be confused with a slightly dyslexic sitarist.

6. Enterprise officer: UHURA.  A Star Trek reference.  UHURA was the communications officer aboard the Starship Enterprise.

Lieutenant Nyota UHURA

7. Large chamber group: NONET.  The more or less standard instrumentation of a NONET is flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon, violin, viola, cello and double bass.  If Jim had needed a leading M we would have seen Monet.

8. Fortune competitor: INC.  First, we have to figure out that FORTUNE is referring to a magazine and not a pile of money.  INC. is also the name of a business-focused magazine.

9. 2016 work by Pulitzer poet Sharon Olds: ODES.  I am not familiar with this poet.  Thanks, again, perps. 

10. Org. with a long track record?: NASCAR.  A clue meant to be taken quite literally.  The "ORG" tells us it will be an abbreviation and the "track record" bit steers us in the right direction.  National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing

11. Put on ice: TABLE.  We might think of cooling a beer or a soda but, nooooo.  Both the clue and answers are colloquialisms for delaying a decision.

12. Strange: ALIEN.

13. World Wildlife Fund logo animal: PANDA.

18. New law student: ONE L.  A first-year law school student is sometimes called a ONE L. 

23. Things, or written things: ARTICLES.  The thing is, this was a very well written clue.

24. Baby transport: CARRIAGE.  I always have trouble with that "extra" A.

25. Bond creator?: EPOXY.  More misdirection.  Re-misdirection?  Fortunately, neither Ian nor Fleming nor U.S. Treasury  was going to fit in the allotted space.

27. Big name in hotels and crackers: RITZ.  Should you elect to combine the two, it would be a good idea to tip the housekeeping staff generously if you leave crumbs all over the room.

Puttin' On The Ritz - Young Frankenstein

28. Lingering effect: ECHO.  One of the best-ever takes on ECHO is Stan Freberg's version of the Elvis classic Heartbreak Hotel.

29. Golda of Israel: MEIR.  Born in Kiev, and raised in Milwaukee, Golda Meir served as Prime Minister of Israel from 1969 to 1974.

31. MSNBC analyst Melber: ARI.  Another unfamiliar proper noun for this solver - probably because of my lack of cable/satellite television.

33. Romanov royals: TSARS.  A hundred years have passed and yet humans are still fascinated by the former Russian royal family.

34. Casual hellos: HIS.  Didn't we have a similar clue with the exact same answer last Friday?

36. __ guard: SHIN.  Another fill-in-the-blank clue.  Praetorian was not going to fit.

37. Fuel from a bog: PEAT.  This Marine mammal loves the qualities of PEATed Scotch Whisky and, even with flippers in lieu of hands, could write volumes on stills, malting barley, barrel aging, distilleries, etc.  Those of you who share this passion should feel free to email the Manatee.

38. Taxpayer IDs: SSNS.  Social Security NumberS

40. Pro vote: YEA.   Yes, although we always have to also consider that AYE might be the answer.

41. Pays no attention to: NEGLECTS.

46. Hit the links: GOLFED.  Several regular contributors here likely got this one in an instant.  Links became synonymous with GOLF because a links golf course is the oldest style of GOLF course.  Types of Golf Courses  This clue plays on the past tense/present tense duality of the verb - in this instance, "hit".  Bet, cut, fit, put, set, wed and hurt are other verbs that allow constructors to attempt to mislead us.

47. Others, to Ovid: ALII.  Et Al is the abbreviation not only for Et ALII (masculine plural) but also for Et Alia (neuter plural) and Et Aliae (feminine plural).

48. Grimm accounts: TALES.  A bit of playfulness with the double-m in the first word of the clue.  Always up for an MM (or an M&M) moment.

49. Pumped up: AFIRE.  I suppose it could be as in "She was AFIRE with enthusiasm."   Went through AMPED up and even FIRED up before getting this one.

50. Go after, puppy-style: NIP AT.

52. Sneaks a look: PEEKS.

53. Orange half of a "Sesame Street" duo: ERNIE.  There is still some debate as to whether or not Bert & ERNIE are a gay couple or if they are just best friends.  According to the writer, Mark Saltzman, they are a couple . . . and  writers can mold their characters into anything that they wish them to be.

Ernie & Bert

55. Purple pet in old cartoons: DINO.  The Flintstones' dog-like pet was a small dinosaur named DINO (dee no).  Not to be confused with one of these guys.

Dino Desi & Billy

57. Fake in the rink: DEKE.  In ice hockey, a DEKE is a move that causes an opposition player to move out of position.  The derivation is from decoy.

58. Lena of "The Reader": OLIN.  At least this proper noun has been seen several previous times and the actress is fairly well known.

59. Exxon, formerly: ESSO.  ESSO is the phonetic version of S. O. or Standard Oil.

62. Sacred promise: VOW.

63. Assembly-required boxful: KIT.  Also a young fox.  This fox was photographed a couple of years ago by yours truly roughly one hundred feet from where I composed this write-up.

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MM OUT