Thursday, May 13, 2021 Steve Mossberg

naral

Woodin' you know it that our constructor Steve Mossberg has gifted us today with a small forest of trees bracketing four themers:

18. Words of deferential obedience: AS YOU WISH.  Whatever. The tree in this clue is the ASH,  popular for creating the baseball bats known as Louisville Sluggers.  Our neighborhood was planted with these beautiful trees along the road when it was founded back in the early 20th century.  We had one in our front yard, but sadly they were all felled by a lowly insect called the Emerald Ash Borer.  These images don't begin to capture the beauty and grandeur of these trees:

24. Trendy coffee additive: OAT MILK.  The OAK.  Another magnificent tree, but hardier than the Ash.  There are many varieties of OAK: E.g. WHITE, RED, BLACK, CHESTNUT, and PIN.  The tree in the lower left is a WHITE OAK and I'm pretty certain it is the WYE OAK that stood on Maryland's Eastern Shore for over 400 years.  It was the largest White Oak tree in the United States and the State Tree of Maryland from 1941 until its demise in 2002.  My first visit to the Wye Oak was on the day it was destroyed by a storm.  It was splayed all over the town.

31. It helps achieve a crispier pie crust: PIZZA STONE.  Not a mineral I'm familiar with.  But I am familiar with the PINE.  Unlike the previous deciduous trees, PINES are conifers.  The former drop their leaves in the Fall and the latter drop them continuously, but in much smaller quantities.  One of the keys to identifying conifers is the number of needles in each sprig.

39. One way to find a website: BING SEARCH.  Bing is Microsoft's search engine.  While BIRCHES generally prefer Northern climates, the PAPER BARK BIRCH seems to do well in Maryland.  Not only do they shed their leaves in the Fall but their catkins in the Spring.  And their bark slowly sheds off in large sheets year round, hence their name.  Here's one planted years ago, just outside our garden:

And the reveal bundles them all back together:

54. Do a campground chore, and a hint to the circled letters: SPLIT WOOD.  They say that chopping wood warms you twice: first when you're splitting it and then when you're burning it.

 Across:

1. Core-strengthening exercise: PLANK.  This type of plank (as opposed to a piece of WOOD) is an exercise: "a push up that you hold it until you say 'uncle'".  A CSO to our unclefred!

6. Longtime Manhattan punk rock venue: CBGB.  Stands for Country BlueGrass Blues, but  a funny thing happened on the way to the founding of this club. It became so famous they had to make a movie about it, starring Alan Rickman and Malin Åkerman.  The movie was RATED R (not sure about the trailer):

10. Uno más de siete: OCHO.  "One more than 7".  Lección de español de hoy.  A CSO to Lucina, a DIEZ in my book!

14. Some area factors: RADII.   The areas of circles and ellipses.  Make no bones about it.

15. Warning from a king: ROAR.  You generally only encounter this royalty on Safaris.

16. "The Daily Show" host Trevor __: NOAH.  I've never seen this show as it comes on after my bedtime.  The original NOAH was STREAM-ABLE.  Why should TREVOR be any different?

17. Medicine cabinet brand: ORAL B.  Tooth paste or floss.  I prefer REACH FLOSSERS.  Despite the excessive size of my mouth, my hands are even bigger.

20. Super Bowl award: MVP.  I thought it was going to be this one:
 

Vince Lombardi Trophy

21. Outlaws: BANS. 

23. Runs across: SPANS.  Like the trees across today's themers.

26. Poetically huge: ENORM.  Like Beowulf's GRENDEL maybe.  Grendel's the one on the right.

27. Bodega cash source: ATM.  The three letters and "cash" were a dead give away.  A bodega is a small corner store or market that sells groceries and wine. Many bodegas are located in Spanish-speaking neighborhoods of large cities.  The word bodega means "wine shop" in Spanish, and it shares a root with the French boutique, and the Greek apotheke, or "store."  Whatever they're origin, they're not charities.

28. Jazz classic, say: STANDARD.  Here's God Bless the Child sung by Billie Holiday, who was born in Philadelphia and lived for a time in the Sandtown neighborhood in West Baltimore:

34. Dude: GUY.

35. Tunneling critter: MOLE.

36. Singer/songwriter Janis: IAN.  Society's Child, another classic

37. Nosh: BITE.

38. Silent communication syst.: ASL.  American Sign Language.  We have a signer at Mass and it amazes me that she can listen to the priest behind her and interpret for the deaf people in front of her at the same time.  And she's the only lay person I know who says ALL of the words in the Mass.

43. Wrangler relative: CHEROKEE.

45. Customizable Nintendo avatar: MII.  A Mii (/miː/ MEE) is a customizable avatar used on several Nintendo video game consoles and mobile apps. On the 3DS and Wii U, user accounts are associated with a Mii as their avatar and used as the basis of the systems' social networking features, most prominently the now-defunct Miiverse.  Sounds like it was all about Mii.
 

46. Hired muscle: GOONS.  Unfortunately an enduring feature of modern life.

47. Pyromaniac: FIREBUG.  Enough with the crazies.  I recall that Johns Hopkins University was doing research on FIREFLIES when we were kids and they would actually pay us small sums of money to collect them in Mason Jars.  Here is everything you ever wanted to know about these amazing creatures.

51. Shot banned in some pool halls: MASSE.    Masse shots have a greater potential to damage the cloth on the pool table. If an establishment doesn't allow those shots it's probably because most of the players in an average pool room aren't of high enough caliber to execute them.  This one's for all you pool sharks out there:

52. Tree hangers, at times: HATS. Clever clue. Wanted BATS, but perps told me Lucina wouldn't hear of it.  A HOLA to Lucina!

53. Jewelry company Alex and __: ANI.

56. Photo-sharing app, familiarly: INSTA.

58. "Stop right there!": HALT.

59. Not doing much: IDLE.

60. Replace a dancer, perhaps: CUT IN.  Another cute clue.

61. DaCosta of "Chicago Med": YAYA.  For all you "Chicago Med" fans.

62. Oolong and Pu'er: TEAS.  I've had Oolong tea before, but Pu'er was new to me.  Here's the scoop.

63. Prepared to be knighted: KNELT.  A Knight's female equivalent is a Dame.  The youngest person to receive a Damehood in modern times was the sailor Dame Ellen MacArthur, who was 28 when she was honoured. Tennis player Andy Murray is the UK's youngest knight after he received a knighthood in 2016 at the age of 29.   The names of honorees are preceded by either Dame or Sir and they can also use DBE and KBE after their names, the "BE" being the anachronistic "BRITISH EMPIRE".

Down:

1. BOGO, say: PROMO. Hey, they rhyme!

2. Early insect form: LARVA. Trillions of Brood X Cicadas are way beyond the LARVA stage and may be upon us as you are reading this.  "Seventeen Year Locusts" are a real force of nature and by my calculations this will be my fourth CICADA EXPERIENCE.  They are harmless, but their high pitched singing for perspective mates, multiplied by millions per acre, is so deafening night and day, that I've purchased contractor ear muffs so that DW and I can hear ourselves think while we work in the garden.  Aren't they cute 😊:

3. Change as needed: ADAPT.  We're gonna' have to ADAPT to these critters for about a month.

4. Soccer score word: NIL.

5. Spectate intrusively: Var.: KIBBITZ.

6. Turn (up), as volume: CRANK.  Oops!
 

7. Meeting caller: BOSS.

8. "Hunger" memoirist Roxane __: GAY.

9. Bond before Craig: BROSNAN.  Pierce Brosnan OBE is an Irish actor, film producer and environmental activist. He is best known as the fifth actor to play secret agent James Bond in the Bond film series, starring in four films from 1995 to 2002 and portraying the character in multiple video games. The first actor was of course was Sir Sean Connery KBE, who died last year.

10. "Let's keep going!": ONWARD.

11. Cousin of card tricks: COIN MAGIC.  There are copious coin trick videos out there, but we only have time for one:

12. Popular avocado variety: HASS.  One of my favorite fruits and the only one for which I know the Product Lookup Code (#4225).  The name is not a type of avocado, but rather the name of Rudolph Hass, who developed the original cultivar commonly referred to as California Avocados.  Here is everything you want to know about them.

13. Cry with a head slap: OHH.  Nothing to see here.  This is a non-violent Corner.

19. Leading by a bit: UP ONE.  That's all it takes.

22. Michigan city or college: ALMA.  A CSO to JzB!  Everything you want to know about the town of  Alma, Michigan (and I mean EVERYTHING) and its College.

25. Kid's menu diversion: MAZE.  It's amazing the ways you can distract kids.  Youngest grandson is just getting into jigsaw puzzles.

26. Stiff collars: ETONS.  You can order your very own ETON COLLAR here.

28. Put on: STAGE.  Somebody just told me "You ought be on the stage - there's one leaving town in 10 minutes - be on it!"

29. Gehrig teammate: RUTH.  The older of the two, Babe Ruth, was Lou Gehrig's hero:
 

Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth

30. Easter supply: DYE.

31. Suitable for the upper crust: POSH.  See 26D if you wanna' be.

32. Risking a ticket: ILLEGALLY.  Misdemeanors like parking, speeding, jay walking, whatever.

33. Trig ratios: SINES.  Today's math lesson.

35. Bub: MAC. noun.  The OED defines BUB as "An aggressive or rude way of addressing a boy or man".  One of the OED's definitions for MAC is "A form of address for a man whose name is unknown to the speaker."  IMHO you're taking a bit of a risk by being rude to a man you don't know.

37. Baguette spread: BRIE.  Here's a recipe. 

39. Help for a parade-watching tot: BOOST.  Full disclosure.  I do NOT work for President Brie.

40. "You didn't fool me!": I KNEW IT.  You can't be too careful these days.  I always try to get at least 3 independent sources for claims I read in the media.

41. Send forth: EMIT.  In the last decade of the 19th Century  Marie Curie, her husband Pierre, and Henri Becquerel discovered that certain substances EMITTED radioactivity (alpha particles, beta particles, and gamma rays).  All three were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1903, Marie being first woman to receive a Nobel Prize.  Pierre died in a Paris street accident in 1906.  In 1911 Marie received a second Nobel Prize in Chemistry, this time for her isolation of two radioactive elements,  Polonium (#84), named after her native country Poland, and Radium (#88),  Unaware of the dangers of radioactivity she took no precautions in her lab work.  She later died of aplastic anemia in  July of 1934, believed to have resulted from radiation exposure . 

42. Miserable in mid-flight, perhaps: AIRSICK.  I used to travel quite a bit for work and never developed airsickness.  Seasickness was a different matter.

44. Bilingual Muppet: ROSITA.  Rosita lives on Sesame Street.  Here she is with her puppeteer Carmen Osbahr:

47. Crew cut cousins: FADES.  Whenever I used to get my biannual haircut I'd tell the stylist to cut off as little as possible (so as not hasten the inevitable), but just enough that DW could tell that I got a haircut.  Now that DW is cutting my hair, she just has her way with me.  Here's one example of apparently many FADE styles:

48. Keep moist, in a way: BASTE.

49. Ending at: UNTIL.

50. Top-of-the-beanstalk dweller: GIANT.

51. Film-rating org.: MPAA.  I hope they don't give me any grief for the clip at 6A.

52. 44-Down's "Hi": HOLA.  Lucina gets at least three CSOs today!

54. Unlikely to make the first move: SHY.

55. Linguistic tribute: ODE.  Cwd glue.

57. Vow taker: NUN.  These VOWS usually include chastity, poverty, and obedience (see 18A).  Since nuns appear frequently in crossword puzzles (this past Monday in fact),  and as this is the last clue, I thought I'd close with an article providing little more info on this subject.  I'll just highlight a few things from it.  First a distinction should be made between NUNS and SISTERS, collectively referred to as RELIGIOUS women. NUNS live in monasteries (closed to lay people) and devote most of their days to prayer, meditation and housekeeping.  SISTERS on the other hand "live in the world" and are involved in services to society such as education, healthcare, and social work.  They may live in convents (which lay people may visit under certain circumstances) or they may even live in houses or apartments with other sisters or by themselves.  Another important point the article makes is that women religious are found in many other religions besides Christianity, such as BUDDHISM, JAINISM, and TAOISM.

Here's the grid:
 

waseeley

Cheers,
Bill

Tuesday, June 30, 2020 Steve Mossberg

The Can Can.



The first word in each theme answer can be placed before, or "open", the word Can to give us a common item often found in a kitchen.

17-Across. Open-air alehouse: BEER GARDEN.  Beer Can.

21-Across. Taunting banter between players: TRASH TALK.  Trash Can.

35-Across. Topper for a conspiracy theorist: TIN FOIL HAT.  Tin Can.

42-Across. Faux bronzing technique: SPRAY-ON TAN.  Spray Can.

56-Across. Traditional St. Patrick's Day slice: SODA BREAD.  Soda Can.  Here's a recipe for Irish Soda Bread.

And the unifier:

62-Across. Kitchen gadgets, and what the starts 17-, 21-, 35-, 42- and 56-Across are: CAN OPENERS.

Across:

1. Grating sound: RASP.

5. Self-restrained: STAID.

10. Partner of ebb: FLOW.

14. Twice tetra-: OCTA-.  Remember the Octomom, the woman who gave birth to 8 children?  Her octuplets are now 11 years old.

15. Black-and-white bamboo lover: PANDA.  China leases its Pandas to American zoos.

16. Saxophonist Coltrane named for sitarist Shankar: RAVI.  I am not familiar with Ravi Coltrane (b. Aug. 6, 1965).  He is the son of saxophonist John Coltrane (Sept. 23, 1926 ~ July 17, 1967).

19. Emergency op for choppers: EVAC.

20. Make euphoric: ELATE.

23. Green eggs lover: SAM-I-AM.  A reference to Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss.  His editor, Bennett Cerf, bet Seuss that he couldn't write a book using 50 or fewer distinct words.  The editor lost.  Green Eggs and Ham uses only 50 words.  "I do not like them, Sam-I-Am, I do not like green eggs and ham."

25. Request from: ASK OF.

26. Swing and Jazz: ERAs.  As in Swing Era or the Jazz Era.

28. Slap shot disks: PUCKS.

32. Reheats in a microwave: ZAPS.

39. "Mr. Blue Sky" rock gp.: ELO.   Also known as the Electric Light Orchestra.

40. Flimsy: TENUOUS.

41. Before, quaintly: ERE.

44. Test: EXAM.

45. Add, as a column of numbers: TOT UP.  This phrase has recently generated a lot of discussion in the puzzles.

46. TV screen types: LCDs.  As in a Liquid Crystal Display screen.

48. King's domain: REALM.

52. Cal. home of the Latino Walk of Fame: EAST L.A.

60. Showed again: RE-RAN.

61. Graven image: IDOL.

64. Screwdriver, e.g.: TOOL.  Also a drink made with Vodka and Orange Juice.  Between my junior and senior year in high school, I was admitted into a college summer program.  My roommate and I would go to the weekly concerts put on by the music department, not because we were interested in the music, but for the screwdrives that were served after the concerts.

65. Compound with a fruity aroma: ESTER.

66. Give in: CAVE.  Amazing drawings can be found in the Lascaux Cave in France.  I first visited the Lascaux Caves about 30 years ago.  We had been living in France, so were comfortable with the language, however, a tour was being offered for English speakers.  We opted for that tour.  It turned out English was the languge of all the people on the tour, but the tour guide still spoke French.  We ended up being the translator for the group.

67. Award for "Fleabag": EMMY.  I have heard of Fleabag, but never watched any episodes.

68. Sweetie pie: DEARY.

69. Series-ending abbr.: ET AL.

Down:

1. Sauna options: ROBES.  Robe or towel?

2. High-speed Northeast train: ACELA.  I learned of this train from doing the crossword puzzles.  It makes appearances from time to time.

3. Cook, as clams: STEAM.

4. Political groups: PARTIES.

5. Baden-Baden, e.g.: SPA.

6. Fruit dessert with shortcrust: TART.  Yummers!

7. "Rise Up" vocalist Day: ANDRA.  I am not familiar with Andra Day (b. Dec. 30, 1984), either.

8. Brainstorming output: IDEAS.

9. Local language, in Denmark: DANSK.  Also the name of a company that makes cookware and dinner ware.

10. Uneasy: FRETFUL.

11. Eruption content: LAVA.  //  Not to be confused with 54-Down. Cocoon dweller: LARVA.

12. Track shape: OVAL.

13. Fibrous candle feature: WICK.

18. Drive or reverse: GEAR.

22. Kachina carvers: HOPIs.  A Kachina is a spirit being in the religious beliefs of Native American cultures, including the Hopis.

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

27. __ Féin: SINN.  Sinn Féin is a political party in Ireland.  The phrase Sinn Féin is Irish for We Ourselves.

29. Square cereal: CHEX.  Apparently it comes in all kinds of weird flavors now.

30. Noted Silicon Valley journalist Swisher: KARA.

31. Modern education acronym: STEM.  STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.  STEM has come under fire in recent days.

32. Citrus peel: ZEST.

33. Nestlé pet food brand: ALPO.  The name is derived from from its original manufacturer, the Allen Products Company.

34. Fortified wine from the Douro Valley: PORT.

36. It may be cracked or roasted: NUT.

37. Stable youngster: FOAL.

38. Pound part: OUNCE.

40. Easygoing, personality-wise: TYPE B.  Type A vs. Type B personalities.

43. By ear: AURALLY.

44. Heart, soul, or heart and soul: ESSENCE.

47. Truth alternative, in a game: DARE.

49. Curving: ARCED.

50. Tenant's contract: LEASE.

51. Nandi of the Georgia Aquarium, e.g.: MANTA.  Here's the story of Nandi the Manta.

53. Grab the check: TREAT.

55. Adams in galleries: ANSEL.  Ansel Easton Adams (Feb. 20, 1902 ~ Apr. 22, 1984) is best known for his beautiful black and white landscape photography.

56. Googling target: SITE.

57. Leslie __ Jr., portrayer of Burr in "Hamilton": ODOM.  Leslie Odom, Jr. (b. Aug. 6, 1981) portrayed Aaron Burr in the original Broadway production.  If you haven't seen Hamilton, I highly recommend it.  It is a great show.

58. Unhappy fate: DOOM.

59. Not just a thinker: DOER.

63. Get nosy: PRY.

Here's the Grid:

QOD:  Did you know you have the right to remain silent even when you're not being arrested?  ~  Anonymous

Thursday, April 16th 2020 Steve Mossberg

Theme: : All Hale! Homophones form the last word of each theme entry, clued accordingly:

17A. Where the farmer relaxed to update the books?: POSTING BALE

27A. Story of how the spider monkey climbed the tree?: PREHENSILE TALE

44A. Obstetrician's job, sometimes?: DELIVER THE MALE

58A. Put the fix in on Black Friday?: RIGGED A SALE. This one was my favorite, nicely done.

A pretty fun theme; I'd quibble for a nanosecond at 27A - the spider monkey is not prehensile, his tail is, which is kind of the point. So a minor demerit for that one, but there again I can't really see any alternatives to fit the four-letter end-of-phrase theme. You might be able to conjur something up with GAIL/GALE or VAIL/VALE, but those would seem forced. So I've talked myself around. I'm sure Steve looked at all the options and settled on the most natural ones, so bravo.

I think this is the second LAT puzzle for Steve, JzB blogged his first back in August 2019. He's appeared in the Wall Street Journal too.

Let's take the Grand Tour:

Across:

1. Turning point: PIVOT

6. Pagoda instruments: GONGS. I wanted WIND CHIMES but was a little discouraged by the lack of room to cram it in.

11. Outdo: TOP

14. Big game setting: ARENA. Nice midirection. I ran through the safari park/Maasai Mara/Serengeti/Okovango thought process before the penny dropped. The Scottish soccer National Stadium, Hampden Park in Glasgow, hosts Scotland's international matches and has a capacity of more than 51,000. Oddly it is also the home ground of Scottish second-division club Queen's Park, who's average home crowd is between six and seven hundred. Yes, you read that right.

15. No-frills type: ARIAL. The sans-serif font. Nice clue.

16. "Yo, Hadrian!": AVE! Not from "Rocky", but a greeting to Roman Emperor Hadrian, who had a wall built between England and Scotland to keep out the marauding Scots. It's not as big as the Chinese Great Wall, but still a pretty impressive feat. The town at the eastern end of the wall is named, appropriately, Wallsend. It's not very tall now, but when the Romans departed as the roman empire dwindled, the locals took the stones to build with.

19. Cooper's creation: KEG

20. Not behind: ANTI. "Behind" in the "support" sense

21. Long-term digs in orbit: Abbr.: ISS. The International Space Station. Some interesting reminiscences this week as it is the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 13 mission.

22. Landscaping stones: PAVERS

24. Three-time Cy Young Award winner Scherzer: MAX

26. Visibility reducers: HAZES

33. Asian language: LAO

34. Takes up: ADOPTS

35. Cookware brand: T-FAL. The company name is Tefal, a portmanteau of Teflon and Aluminum.

36. Dethrones: OUSTS

38. Low digit: TOE

39. Tries: HEARS

40. One with a password: USER

41. Notably different, with "a": FAR CRY

43. JFK alternative: LGA. La Guardia.

47. Manicurist's tool: EMERY. Not liking this one - it's an emery board, not an emery.

48. NBC skit show: SNL. They tried a "virtual" SNL espisode last weekend, apparently not to great acclaim.

49. Sad-eyed hound: BASSET

51. Moody rock genre: EMO

53. Not too many: A FEW

57. Hundred Acre Wood know-it-all: OWL. I had "WOL" at first, because that's how he spells his own name, and he lives at The Wolery.

61. Med. scan: M.R.I. All kinds of three-letter scans to choose from, so wait for the crosses.

62. "Middlemarch" novelist: ELIOT. George, who was a female. She figured she had a better chance of being published if the adopted a man's pen name for her novels. In Silas Marner, the eponymous weaver, miser and loner adopts an orphan girl. I'm not sure that would fly with Social Services nowadays.

63. Mastery: SKILL

64. Competition pass: BYE

65. Nicks: DENTS

66. Cut back: PARED

Down:

1. Nickname for Haydn: PAPA

2. Press: IRON

3. Cummerbund alternative: VEST. There's a commercial for Capital One airing at the moment where the script misspells it as "cumberbund" (or maybe the actress mispronounces it). Drives me bonkers.

4. As scheduled: ON TIME

5. __ sushi: Japanese sea bream: TAI. Not liking this clue. Tai is the sea bream. It's got nothing to do with how it might eventually be prepared, but no harm, no foul.

6. April 1 array: GAGS. As we've got a San Serif font in the puzzle today, you might like to read about one of the early successful hoaxes pulled off by a national newspaper, in this case The Guardian in the UK in 1977.  Here's a great artice about the islands of San Seriffe.

As an aside, the paper was so renowned for typos that slipped past the proofreaders that it became known as The Grauniad to its readers. The best one I saw was the front page banner headline after the 1980 Presidential election which read in 72 point bold "REAGAN WINS IN LANDSIDE".

OK, back to the crossword.

7. Swingers on a perpetual-motion desk toy: ORBS

8. "NCIS: Los Angeles" actress Long: NIA

9. Laverne and Shirley, e.g.: GAL PALS

10. Vulgar content: SLEAZE

11. Is arrested, in slang: TAKE A FALL. I'm not sure I'd heard this idiom in this particular sense before.

12. Exceeding: OVER

13. Cello parts: PEGS

18. Put the kibosh on: NIXED

23. Sporty Chevy: 'VETTE

25. Sounds of realization: AHAS

26. Sophisticated, in a way, briefly: HI-TECH

27. Take a minute: PAUSE

28. Ygritte portrayer on "Game of Thrones": ROSE LESLIE. Thank you, crosses. I watched Season 1 then lost interest. Then I cancelled HBO and that was the end of my GofT-watching.

29. __ public: NOTARY

30. Cricket, for one: SPORT. One that is incomprehensible to many who didn't grow up watching or playing it. The long-form version of the international game is scheduled for five days and, more often than not, no-one actually wins. The Melbourne Cricket Ground in Australia is cricket's largest ARENA, it has a capacity of over 101,000.

31. Tee size: LARGE

32. Idina's "Frozen" role: ELSA. I still haven't seen the movie, but I'm getting pretty good at the character's names.

33. Vibrant, as colors: LOUD

37. Cuts back: TRIMS

39. "His Eye Is on the Sparrow," e.g.: HYMN. This one passed me by. My knowledge of hymns comes from the venerable "Hymns, Ancient and Modern (Revised)" issued at school and published in about 1805, so the "modern" bit was all relative. You were given a copy on your first day at Grammar School and woe betide you if it was lost or defaced.

41. Good for growing: FERTILE

42. Do a lawn job: RESOD

45. Went off course: VEERED

46. Yukon neighbor: ALASKA

49. Have a rough night at the comedy club: BOMB

50. Not as planned: AWRY

51. Four-award acronym: EGOT. Someone who has won all four "major" entertainment awards - An Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony - has an EGOT.

52. 1969 MLB upstarts: METS. The "Miracle Mets".

54. Midway event: FAIR. The world's first Ferris Wheel was erected during the 1893 World's Fair on the Chicago Midway, the original "Midway".

55. Redbook rival: ELLE. I don't think I'd heard of Redbook, but let's face it, I'm not exactly their target demographic.

56. Fuse: WELD

59. Sling spirits: GIN. Spirits? Spirit, surely. Maybe the constructor or the editor were mixing cocktails when they decided that a plural clue should reveal a singular answer. The classic Gin Sling is gin, simple syrup, sweet vermouth, angostura bitters, soda and a lemon spiral. Cheers!

60. Deadly biter: ASP

And there we have it, another puzzle wrapped up. Here's the grid, and I hope everyone is behaving themselves, keeping safe and "All Hale!" in ths spirit of the theme today.

As a reminder, if you want to chat about the crossword or anything else, send me your number to the email address in my profile and we'll connect.

Steve