Tuesday, September 6, 2022 Kevin Christian and Mangesh Sakharam Ghogre

Yoga Class:  The last word of each theme answer is also a yoga pose.

17-Across. *   George Plimpton football memoir set in Detroit: PAPER LION.  [Name # 1.]

25-Across. *   Courtroom hotshot: LEGAL EAGLE.

35-Across. *   Informer: STOOL PIGEON.  This is my favorite yoga pose.

48-Across. *   Cowardly type: SCAREDY CAT.

And the unifier:

57-Across. Asanas found at the ends of the answers to the starred clues: YOGA POSES.  Everything you wanted to know about Asana Yoga, but didn't know to ask.

Over a decade ago, C.C. interviewed Mangesh Sakharam Ghogre.  You can read the interview here.

Across:

1. "Sorry, rules __ rules": ARE.

4. Dizzying designs: OP ART.  Short for Optical Art.

9. __ up on: unites against: GANGS.

14. Villain Luthor: LEX.  [Name # 2.]  //  Change the vowel, and you get 29-Across. Bagel topper: LOX.

15. Prefix with -lithic: PALEO-.  Paleolithic.  Also known as the Old Stone Age.

16. Love to pieces: ADORE.

19. One awarding stars, perhaps: RATER.

20. "... the __ of defeat": "Wide World of Sports" phrase: AGONY.

21. "Black Panther" director Coogler: RYAN.  [Name # 3.]  Ryan Kyle Coogler (b. May 23, 1986) has directed a number of films.

23. Excite, with "up": AMP.

24. King or queen, but not prince or princess: CARD.

28. House pest: ANT.  Remove a consonant from the Pest and the ANT becomes a house Pet.  Yesterday, the ANT was an Unwelcome Picnic Guest.

30. Manage to achieve: ATTAIN.

31. Reciprocal of cosine: SECANT.  //  And 39-Down. Inverse trig function: ARCSINE.  We all remember our high school math class, right?

34. Trace: HINT.

38. Water-to-wine town: CANA.  A Biblical reference where Jesus performed the miracle of turning water into wine at a wedding.

40. Hiking sites: TRAILS.

41. Maker of Zesty Curly frozen French fries: ORE-IDA.  Yummers!  Actually, I have never tried these, but I do like Ore-Ida's Tater Tots, which appeared in yesterday's puzzle.

44. D.C. stadium: RFK.  Formally known as the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium.  It is currently being demolished.  [Name adjacent.]

45. D.C. fundraising org.: PAC.

51. Love, in tennis: ZERO.  Why does Love mean nothing in Tennis?

52. Chiding syllable: TSK.

53. Milne bear: POOH.  Winnie the Pooh is a fictional teddy bear created by A.A. Milne (né Alan Alexander Milne; Jan. 18, 1882 ~ Jan. 31, 1956) in the 1920s.

54. Puts in order: SORTS.

55. Sibling's daughter: NIECE.  Word origin.

60. Scandal-plagued energy company: ENRON.  This company disintegrated almost overnight back in 2001.

61. Nebraska city: OMAHA.  Hi, Husker Gary!  Years ago, when I was first looking for a job, I was offered a job in Omaha.  My potential boss told me, however, that moving from the Northeast, I would experience "extreme cultural shock" living in Nebraska.  So instead, I moved to the South.  No cultural shock there, eh?

62. Mined resource: ORE.  Not to be confused with the 41-Across and the Ore-Ida potato products.

63. Patch, as a lawn: RE-SOD.

64. Fruit-hitting-the-floor sound: SPLAT.

65. Big Apple paper, for short: NYT.  As in the New York Times.

Down:

1. Llama kin: ALPACA.

2. 1980s president Ronald: REAGAN.  Ronald Wilson Reagan (Feb. 6, 1911 ~ June 5, 2004) was the 40th President.  Can it really be over 40 years since he began his term as President?  [Name # 4.]

3. Commodity sold abroad: EXPORT.

4. The Grand Ole __: OPRY.  The home of country music.

5. Chum: PAL.

6. Boxer who said, "It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am": ALI.  Muhammad Ali (né Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr.; Jan. 17, 1942 ~ June 3, 2016) would "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee." [Name # 5.]

7. Corp. shake-up: RE-ORG.  As in Reorganize.  It seems like the banking industry is always undergoing re-orgs.

8. Skater Harding: TONYA.  Tonya Maxene Harding (b. Nov. 12, 1970) is best known for her troubles past.  In 1994, her ex-husband attacked her rival, Nancy Kerrigan.  Tonya was banned from competitive skating and turned to boxing.   [Name # 6.]

9. January birthstone: GARNET.  I have 3 options for my birthstone.

10. Oral health org.: ADA.  As in the American Dental Association.

11. "Why does this keep happening!?": NOT AGAIN.  Yup.  I'll be out next week again.

12. Unseen troublemaker: GREMLIN.  Also the model of a vehicle that was manufactured in the 1970s.

13. Garden of Eden creature: SERPENT.

18. Terminate: END.

22. Mobile's st.: ALA.  Mobile, Alabama is on the Gulf of Mexico.  The George Washington Tunnel on I-10 runs under the Mobile River, then emerges to join the bridge that spans the Bay of Mobile.  The tunnel is a bottleneck on the interstate and there is always a long line of traffic of cars waiting to go through the tunnel.  Interesting fact about Mobile: the first Mardi Gras in the Americas was held in Mobile.

25. El Pollo __: southwestern restaurant chain: LOCO.  El Pollo Loco is a California-based chain.  I was about to say I had never heard of this restaurant, but our local paper recently announced the company is expanding in south Louisiana.

26. Glorify: EXALT.

27. One of the Musketeers: ATHOS.  The Three Musketeers is a French historical adventure novel by Alexandre Dumas.  It was written in 1844 and is on my TBR list.  The novel, which is set in the 1620s, recounts the adventures of a young man named d'Artagnan who befriends Athos, Porthos and Aramis, who are the musketeers.  [Name # 7.]

29. Summer sign: LEO.  Hi, Leo III!

31. Flight part: STAIR.

32. "Fresh Air" airer: NPR.  Fresh Air is a radio talk show hosted by Terry Gross.  She has been hosting the show since 1975.  [Name # 8.]

33. Small crown: TIARA.  Apparently in the British royal family there are strict rules about wearing Tiaras.

35. Tennis shoes: SNEAKERS.

36. Birthday present: GIFT.

37. Caribou cousin: ELK.  What's the difference between an Elk and a Caribou?

38. Kevin of "Yellowstone": COSTNER.  Kevin Costner (né Kevin Michael Costner; b. Jan. 18, 1955) plays the patriarch in the television show Yellowstone.  [Name # 9.]

42. Rely (on): DEPEND.

43. Commotion: ADO.

45. Human being: PERSON.

46. Major thoroughfare: ARTERY.

47. Pamper: COSSET.  Not a Tuesday word.

49. Toys on strings: YOYOs.

50. Bite hard: CHOMP.

51. Opening setting of "Madagascar": ZOO.

54. Squabble: SPAT.

56. Dove's sound: COO.

58. "Death on the Nile" actress Gadot: GAL.  Gal Gadot (b. Apr. 30, 1985) is an Israeli actress.  [Name # 10.]

59. "I understand now!": AHA!

Here's the Grid:

חתולה

Wednesday, September 25, 2013 Mangesh 'Mumbaikar' Ghogre

Theme: Three's company - each of the three theme answers has a abbreviation for a type of business embedded therein. This puzzle has 16 rows and 14 columns with a left to right mirror symmetry. Our norm is 15*15 with 180 degree rotational symmetry.

19A. Animation pioneer : WALT DISNEY.  He had more nominations and won more Oscars than anyone else in history - 59 nominations leading to 22 awards. Mr Crowe of 37A didn't do quite so well.

27A. Warren Harding's successor : CALVIN COOLIDGE. I don't believe he was nominated for any Academy Awards, making him the odd man out here. Serious-looking chap too.

37A. 1999, 2000 and 2001 Best Actor nominee (he won once) : RUSSELL CROWE. He was nominated for The Insider and A Beautiful Mind and won for Gladiator in 2000.

55A. Company's main activity, and a hint to a different three-letter abbreviation hidden in 19-, 27- and 37-Across : CORE BUSINESS

Hello to everyone and hello to Wednesday already - time does fly when you're having fun. Steve here with this pretty fun puzzle from Mangesh. I like how the abbreviations for the different types of business all split on the 2-1 letter count in the "core" of each name.

(One common benefit of the Limited Company, the Incorporation and the Limited Liability Company is the fact that the personal assets of company officers are protected from claims by creditors and by lawsuits.)

Now that we're done with the corporate law lesson, let's see what else we're working with.

I had a couple of do-overs on the way - nothing too tragic but enough to keep me thinking. All good stuff.

Across:

1. Pizza Quick sauce brand : RAGU. Food! Well, almost! If you have a Trader Joe's near you, try their pizza dough for an even quicker pizza experience, it's really good.

5. Boxer's weapon : FIST

9. Frankly declare : AVOW. Had my first misstep here with AVER. I'll remember not to jump to conclusions next time.

13. Parade instrument : HORN.  I don't know how anyone manages to walk with these things, let alone play them too.

14. "The Andy Griffith Show" tyke : OPIE

15. Olin of "The Reader" : LENA. Perps all the way. I even had to look up to see if this was a movie, TV show or book reference. (It was a movie).

16. Cheers for a torero : OLES. We've had quite a few of these recently.

17. Like a blue moon : RARE. Didn't we have one last month? A blue moon is the second moon in a single month, and so named because the symbol was colored blue in the Farmer's Almanac (the first moon was colored red).

18. Overcast, in London : GREY. I can never remember which is which now as GRAY/GREY both look fine to me. So I wait for the cross to help me out.

22. Too scrupulous for : ABOVE

24. Peasant dress : FROCK

32. Jacuzzi effect : EDDY

33. 50+ group : AARP

34. Score after deuce : AD IN. This is a tennis term for those who've not come across this bit of crossword-ese before and it's shorthand for Advantage, Server.

35. Line on a map : STREET

43. Japanese fish dish : SUSHI. Food! I had sushi for lunch yesterday, one of two puzzle-coincidences for me today.

44. Battery post : ANODE

46. "Dear" one? : ABBY

47. __ qua non : SINE

51. Duds : TOGS. This has cropped up a couple of times recently, too, no?

52. Cry of pain : YIPE

53. Eat too much of, briefly : O.D. ON. I could easily overdose on sushi.

54. Poems of praise : ODES

58. Coyote's coat : FUR I see a lot of coyotes when I go hiking around LA. They're shifty-looking buggers.

59. Bridge player's blunder : RENEGE. You must follow suit in bridge if you can. Failing to do so is a renege, and you are penalized for this heinous crime.

60. Work on a garden row : HOE. I like the row/hoe rhyme

62. Garden pest : ANT

63. Low points on graphs : MINIMA. Nice word!

64. Benelux locale: Abbr. : EUR. The country grouping of Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg in Europe.

65. Billboard fillers : ADS

66. Lacking a musical key : ATONAL. Me, singing. I confine exercising my pipes to the shower to spare the rest of the world considerable anguish.

67. Souse's woe : DT'S. The bad thing about getting delerium tremens is that your hands shake so badly the only way to get a drink is to swig it straight out of the bottle until things calm down and you can pour into a glass again.

       

Down:

1. Frat letter : RHO

2. Longtime ISP : AOL. Calling your Internet Service Provider America On-Line seems quaint now. My first ISP was Compuserve - my email address was 35678-1931@compuserve.com - not exactly the easiest thing for people to remember.

3. Got tiresome : GREW OLD

4. Not in the know : UNSAVVY

5. Old West defense : FORT

6. High-tech release of 2010 : iPAD

7. Voice-activated app for 6-Down : SIRI. Quibble - Siri is on the iPhone, unless she's hiding somewhere very remote on my iPad. I've got the iPad right here and I can't find her.

8. Football supporters : TEES. I looked quizzically at this then remembered - kicking tees.

9. African country that was a French colony : ALGERIA

10. "Well, that's weird" : VERY ODD

11. With 12-Down, sign with an arrow : ONE

12. See 11-Down : WAY

20. Island ring : LEI

21. Patriots' org. : N.F.L. The New England Patriots of the National Football League. They probably have quite a supply of 8D's

22. Serving success : ACE. Two tennis references today.

23. Horrible : BAD

25. Modern film effects, briefly : C.G.I. or Computer-Generated Imagery. It doesn't seem to be given the period-abbreviation treatment in most of the industry literature that I see.

26. Understanding : KEN

28. __ the Great: boy detective : NATE. The junior Sherlock Holmes with his dog, Sludge.

29. Rob Reiner's dad : CARL

30. Hershiser of ESPN : OREL

31. Oil bloc : OPEC. The Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries. I wonder why no abbreviation indication in the clue?

35. FICA benefit : S.S.I.

36. La-la lead-in : TRA

37. Ruddy, as a complexion : RUBICUND. Great word - I want to find someone ruddy tomorrow so I can compliment them on their complexion - or is it not a compliment?

38. Places to plug in mice : USB PORTS. Because "funny-looking 9-pin socket all the way in back of my desktop computer" doesn't fit

39. More reserved : SHYER

40. En pointe : ON TOE. Ballet. I've never seen this translated in the ballet sense though.

41. Place to store cords : WOODSHED. Very nice. A cord of wood, given that it's properly and tidily arranged, occupies 126 cubic feet, and that's a pretty big pile.

42. Beats by a whisker : EDGES OUT

43. For instance : SAY

45. Slalom curve : ESS

47. "Fine" : SO BE IT

48. Words accompanying a shrug : I DUNNO. My last misstep - I had I GUESS first as I had the I and the U

49. Like much metered parking : NOSE IN. Took my a while to see that it wasn't NO SEIN because I had NO idea what that was all about.

50. Head-scratcher : ENIGMA

56. Columnist Bombeck : ERMA

57. Country singer McCoy : NEAL

58. SFO overseer : F.A.A. The Federal Aviation Authority oversees San Francisco International airport. My second puzzle co-incidence as I was in and out of SFO yesterday, and for the first time in memory there was no inbound delay due to fog or air traffic congestion, and no delay leaving to go home. I got upgraded to First both ways, so a happy travel day for me. I ♥ United Airlines (sometimes).

61. Hesitant sounds : ERS

Good luck to Oracle Racing Team USA in the down-to-the-wire America's Cup race today. A pretty amazing comeback whichever way today's race goes.

There it is, as the chef who rolled a chicken salad in a tortilla said - "it's a wrap"

Steve

1) Note from C.C.:

For those of you who do not use Across Lite, please click here for the Chronicle puzzle George Barany and Alex Vratsanos made last Friday. He had quite a few links there. Just click on here (A PDF file created from Across Lite). There is another special puzzle he and a friend created for a speical event last Friday. Click here, you can solve interactively too.

2) Note from today's constructor Mongesh:

Rich said in his acceptance mail ... "It's a nice, tight theme and a really 

clean, fun grid". I added the word Mumbaikar to my byline  to pay a 

tribute to my city Mumbai which has been with my  crossword journey

and has given me so much.

Thursday, May 12, 2011, Mangesh Sakharam Ghogre

Theme: Machine Language. All the clues are powers of 2: binary numbers, the way computers (or phone texters) communicate.

17A. 8?: HAD DINNER. Ate. (2³ or 0000 1000 in binary)

26A. 2?: EXCESSIVELY. Too. (2¹ or 0000 0010)

50A. 1?: TOOK THE GOLD. Won. (2⁰ or 0000 0001)

62A. 4?: IN FAVOR OF. For. (2² or 0000 0100)

39A. They're not literal, and this puzzle's title: FIGURES OF SPEECH. In math terms, numbers are "figures".

Hi all, Al here on Thursday, Thursday, gotta get down on Thursday... Any Rebecca Black fans? Oh, Friday, you say. Well, I guess that's as close as I'll ever get to being infamous.

I found the puzzle today strangely slow going at first, but it wasn't really all that hard, I just wasn't tuned in. The theme today was fairly modern and enjoyably geeky, even though I refuse to abbreviate my own text like that. I would have liked to see the clues appear in numeric or reverse numeric order though, to give it a third level of complexity, but still pretty tricky.

ACROSS:

1. Not quite dry: DAMP. Originally meant "a noxious vapor", the phrase "come in out of the damp" was from the notion of the night air being bad and miasmatic gasses arising from the soil.

5. "Battle Cry" author: URIS. Leon. A tale of a mixed-ethnic group of Marine enlistees coming together as a close-knit fighting unit.

9. Yippie name: ABBIE. Hoffman. Youth International Party, anti-Vietnam protests, the Chicago eight at first, then down to seven when Bobby Seale (Black Panthers founder) was singled out and tried separately.

14. French darling: AMIE.

15. Reduce bit by bit: PARE.

16. Virginia political family: BYRDS. Harry Flood Byrd and son (Jr.).  I prefer the musical group.

19. "Back Stabbers" group, with "The": OJAYS.

20. Ones with dark-spotted faces: DICE. Possibly my favorite clue for the puzzle today. You can always tell, without looking or touching, what the bottom number on a six-sided die is by subtracting the top from seven.

21. Annual draft org.: NBA. National Basketball Association.

23. 46th U.S. state: OKLA.homa.  Wolverine sings!

24. Nuevo __: Peruvian currency: SOL. A lesson in run-away economics, the original currency, the inti became so hyperinflated that new money had to be issued in 1991 at the rate of 1 sol = 1 million inti.

29. Dig up: UNEARTH.

31. "Ain't __ Sweet": SHE.  Some Beatles accompanied with 57A. Its full name means "jumping flea" in Hawaiian: UKE.

32. Pastures: LEAS.

33. Protein building block, for short: AMINO. Amino Acids. Haven't ever seen or heard it used in this shortened form.

36. Animal's stomach: MAW. Learn something new every day.  I used to think this word just meant a gaping mouth.

43. Happy hour order: ALE.  Ale, ale, the gang's all here!

44. Varnish resin: ELEMI.

45. When doubled, a fish: MAHI. I already think I know what JZB will say, half-baked, probably.

46. "Wheel of Fortune" purchase: AN I.

47. Contrary retort: DOES NOT. Playground rhetoric. The height of forensic capabilities.

55. Female rabbit: DOE. Whale? Cow.  Elephant? Cow.  You'd think there would be more original names for those.  At least a female swan is called something different, a PEN.

56. Business head?: AGRI. A prefix clue.  Agribusiness is a portmanteau of agriculture and business, referring to the range of activities and disciplines encompassed by modern food production.

58. Raison d'__: ETRE. French, "reason or justification for existance". Kiss.

60. Insipid: BLAND.  Orig. from Latin blandus "mild, smooth, flattering, alluring".  Current meaning probably influenced by blasé.

66. It's slower than adagio: LENTO. Musical terms, Italian.

67. Somber genre: NOIR. French for black.

68. "Up in the Air" Oscar nominee Farmiga: VERA. With George Clooney, a movie about downsizing, apparently. Why anyone would go to see that is beyond me.

69. First noble gas discovered: ARGON. The third most common gas in the Earth's atmosphere, more common than carbon dioxide.

70. Lake Michigan city: GARY. Indiana.

71. Noted sin scene: EDEN. As in original sin.

DOWN:

1. Morse character: DAH. Or DIT, or even DOT.

2. Org. featuring seasonal flu information: AMA. American Medical Association. Vitamin D3, and probiotics for prevention.

3. Fifties, say: MIDDLE AGE.

4. Start to cure?: PEDI. Another prefix. A Pedicure is foot care.

5. After the current act: UP NEXT.

6. Operated: RAN.

7. Goddess of peace: IRENE. Greek mythology.  Roman equivalent: PAX.

8. Some Bosnians: SERBS.

9. Donor classification letters: ABO. Blood types, A, B, AB, and O, along with Rh+ and - are the most-known, but actually Rh by itself has 50 types, where D, C, c, E, and e are the main 5.  The + or minus only refers to the D form.  And ABO/Rh are only two out of 30 blood group systems. It is much more complicated than you can imagine and has its own discipline called immunohaematology.

10. Exclamation from Colonel Pickering: BY JOVE. Jovis Pater (Jupiter), also linked to a euphemistic shortening of Jehova.

11. Start to stop: BRAKE. As in "apply the". Caught me trying to think of a prefix at first.

12. Pastoral poem: IDYLL.  Latin idyllium, from Gk. eidyllion "a little picture".

13. Common college admissions requirement: ESSAY. Latin exigere "test"

18. Cake finisher: ICER. Didn't get caught thinking about suffixes. There's a video game called Portal that tells you: "the cake is a lie", which basically is a metaphor for unkept promises made to you in an effort to get you to finish some task.

22. Like-minded gps.: ASSNS. Groups, associations.

Wednesday September 7, 2010 Mangesh Sakharam Ghogre

Theme: Easy as A-B-C - All the theme answers are phrases that begin with a single letter followed by a single word. And all in alphabetical order.

20A. Elite socialite : A-LISTER

22A. Place for a finance major : B-SCHOOL (Business School)

27A. Delivery method : C-SECTION. Caesarean section - surgical procedure to deliver a baby.

37A. Planned attack times : D-DAYS. From Wikipedia: "D-Day is a term often used to denote the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. The best known D-Day is June 6, 1944 — the day of the Normandy landings — initiating the Western Allied effort to liberate mainland Europe from Nazi occupation during World War II. However, many other invasions and operations had a designated D-Day, both before and after that operation."

48A. Online investing : E-TRADING. Electronic trading of securities, such as stocks and bonds.

54A. Camera lens ratio : F-NUMBER. Often called f-stop -f is for focal length, it is a measure of lens speed.

56. Bare wear : G-STRING. If i must. Wiki says "the origin of the term 'g-string' is obscure."

What else …? H- or I-Beam. O-Ring. U-Turn. X-Factor.

Great to see another puzzle by Mangesh. His second byline in LA Times. He was a commenter here for a time, and you can re-read C.C.'s interview with him here.

Mangesh also just had two puzzle accepted by the Games magazine (December issue). Congratulations, Mangesh! Do tell us how you developed today's Letter Openers theme.

Across:

1. Bit of cat chat : MEOW.

5. Phobia : DREAD

10. Cell signal strength indicators : BARS. A beautiful sight.

14. __ mater : ALMA. Latin for "nourishing mother.'

15. Unconventional : OUTRE. The Free Dictionary defines outre as Out of the common course or limits; extravagant.

16. Atty.-to-be's challenge : LSAT. Law School Admission Test.

17. Indian princess : RANI

18. Flightless birds : RHEAS. Similar to ostrich.

19. Where some descents start : ACME

24. Dick and Harry's leader? : TOM. Leader to the phrase "Tom, Dick and Harry".

25. __ name: computer ID : USER

26. "__ size fits all" : ONE

31. Russian coins : RUBLES. 1 Russian ruble = 0.0324 US dollars.

33. Grinders : HEROS. Sandwiches. Also called hoagie or sub.

34. 1960s Canadian prime minister Pearson : LESTER. Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957. Quote: "The grim fact is that we prepare for war like precocious giants, and for peace like retarded pygmies."

36. Pound of poetry : EZRA

38. Middle __ : EAST

42. Ironic tales' tails : TWISTS

44. Sharapova of tennis : MARIA. Russian.

45. Low parts : BASSES

50. Bambi's aunt : ENA

51. "Baseball Tonight" channel : ESPN

53. Like some stocks, for short : OTC. The phrase "over-the-counter" can be used to refer to stocks that trade via a dealer network as opposed to on a centralized exchange.

60. Wasatch Mountains ski resort : ALTA. In Utah.

61. Body-care brand named from the Latin for "snow-white" : NIVEA

63. Sch. with Riverside and Irvine campuses : UCAL. University of California.

64. Soup vegetable : LEEK

65. Stunning weapon : TASER. Great clue. Don't tase me, bro!

66. Tableland : MESA

67. __ majesty : LESE. The crime of violating majesty. No idea. Check out the picture.

68. Like some bars : SMOKY

69. Pitt in films : BRAD. Sigh.

Down:

1. Kate of "We Are Marshall" : MARA. Had no idea.

2. Airline to Ben-Gurion : EL AL

3. Prefix with bus : OMNI. Omnibus. Several meanings.

4. Oxford vests : WAISTCOATS. Crossing two theme answers.

5. Moola : DOREMI. Both are slang terms for money.

6. German coal valley : RUHR

7. Riviera season : ETE. French summer. Should be a gimme by now.

8. Emirate natives, mostly : ARABS

9. Menu heading : DESSERTS. Nailed it. I don't have much of a sweet tooth - for dessert i just want more dinner.

10. Not at all scintillating : BLAH

11. Comparable to a cucumber : AS COOL. Cool as a cucumber.

12. Punk rock icon Joey : RAMONE. Died of lymphoma in 2001.

13. Inscribed slabs : STELES. Like this.

21. Young 'uns : TOTS. Curtain climbers. Ankle biters.

23. Rock's Mötley __ : CRUE

25. Yet to be had : UNEATEN. Seems sad.

27. Revolutionary Guevara : CHE. Funny.

28. "Oh yeah? __ who?" : SEZ

29. Misjudge : ERR. I suppose.

30. Auto pioneer : OLDS

32. Bit of a fairy tale trail : BREAD CRUMB. Cute.

35. Process: Abbr. : SYST

37. Begs to differ : DISSENTS

39. Jackie's "O" : ARI. Aristotle Onassis, Jacquelyn Kennedy's second husband.

40. Sloth, for one : SIN. Seven deadly sins: wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy and gluttony. Anyone else have a favorite?

41. Price indicator : TAG

43. Hall of Fame NFL coach Ewbank : WEEB. Weeb was short for Wilbur.

44. Dillon of "There's Something About Mary" : MATT

45. Happen to : BEFALL

46. Shakers founder : ANN LEE. Had no idea, but she looks exactly like one would expect.

47. Pan-fries : SAUTES

49. Prayer beads : ROSARY

52. Trojan War king : PRIAM. Mythology, I never remember any of it.

55. Brand : MAKE

56. Computer nerd : GEEK

57. "Happy birthday" writer, perhaps : ICER. One who ices a cake.

58. Org. that reaches for the stars? : NASA

59. "I'm __ it's over" : GLAD. Almost.

62. Brandy letters : VSO. Very Superior Old.

Answer grid.

Melissa