Saturday, December 25, 2021, David Karp

  Themeless Saturday by David Karp

Hi Gary,

Thanks for inviting me to your blog, and Merry Christmas to you and your readers! I'm very excited as this is my first LA Times crossword, as well as my first themeless crossword to be published.

I'm a relatively new crossword constructor from Victoria, BC, Canada. I started solving crosswords a few years ago on a daily basis and took up construction as a hobby during the pandemic. When I'm not making crosswords, I'm a policy advisor for the provincial government and a new dad to a two-and-a-half-month-old Mattias.

Oddly enough, the seed entry for this crossword was BLOCKCHAIN. If you don't recall seeing it, that's because I eventually had to rip it out of the grid. It was part of a top stack that also included PRIVATE JET and CARICATURE, which the editors nixed because one of the crosses would have been too obscure (RALE, an abnormal sound in the lungs). But hopefully solvers enjoyed GIFT BASKET as the 1-Across entry, which seems particularly fitting for Christmas.

One of my favorite entries is RELIEF AREA, as it merges me and my wife Laura's love of dogs and travel, and I always find the bright green strips of Astroturf in airports look charmingly out of place.

Cheers,

David

Across:

1. Surprise with cheese and wine, perhaps: GIFT BASKET - $62.88 seems reasonable to me

11. Craft fare: BREW - Lazlo's microBREWery in Lincoln

15. Traveler's question: ARE WE THERE.

16. Mother of Judah: LEAH.

17. Pieces for a wannabe conductor?: MODEL TRAIN.

18. Afterthought preceder: ALSO.

19. U.S.'s leading employer of mathematicians, it's said: NSA - For years secretive National Security Agency employees said NSA stood for No Such Agency 

20. How some agents travel: INCOGNITO - An option in Google Chrome

22. What looks can't do?: KILL - Okay, not literally, but...

25. Wind: SNAKE - Verbs

26. Arranges: SCHEDULES.

30. Took off: LEFT.

32. Give false hope: LEAD ON - Ponzi schemes are an example

33. __ wedge: golf club with maximum loft: LOB - Phil Mickelson uses his LOB wedge to get the ball up over a man right in front of him

35. Evil: DARK.

37. Sunday morning server: URN.

38. Blank spaces: LACUNAE - (luh kyoo nai). I'm not immune to learning

41. Underwater beginnings: ROE

Salmon ROE sushi

42. First-aid product prefix: MEDI.

44. Cone's counterpart: ROD - Here ya go

45. Long and hard, as a stare: STEELY - High praise in NASA

47. Trig calculation: SINE.

49. Metaphors for high esteem: PEDESTALS.

51. Home of the 75-feet-tall Golden Driller statue: TULSA.

53. Controversial late Russian painter Glazunov: ILYA - Here ya go

54. Tiger, perhaps: EXOTIC PET.

57. Only team with a gold at every Summer Olympics: Abbr.: GBR - The USA boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics and the Russians did the same for the 1984 LA games

60. Bush advisor: ROVE.

61. Weather record: ALL TIME LOW.

65. Lumberjack: AXER - Hmmm...

66. Cleaning product claim: LEMON FRESH.

67. Lawn care brand: TORO - Now available in electric

68. Corridor: PASSAGEWAY.

Down:

1. Leg, slangily: GAM.

2. Pressing need?: IRON

3. Mulder and Scully, briefly: FEDS.

4. Fine-tuned: TWEAKED - This write-up has been TWEAKED several times

5. "The Fresh Prince of __-Air": BEL.

6. NFL passing stat: ATTempts

7. Ear-piercing: SHRILL - Gilbert Gottfried leapt to my mind 

8. New Jersey public university with a campus in China: KEAN.

9. Swedish company that invented Bluetooth: ERICSSON - So that's the origin of the bluetooth symbol. It uses the runes for King Harald Bluetooth of the tenth century. It is speculated he had a very bad tooth.

10. Mortise mate: TENON.

11. Shut out: BLANKED - The Royals BLANKED the White Sox

12. Place for pets at an airport: RELIEF AREA - This one's at LAX

34. Swiss cultural city: BASEL - My cousin lives in Hieden, Switzerland which is 13. Right way?: EAST of BASEL

14. "Yay!": WHOO.

21. __ pal: GAL.

23. Role model: IDOL.

24. Like some probes: LUNAR - Russia's Luna 3 LUNAR probe took the first pictures of the backside of the Moon in 1959

26. Blighted area: SLUM.

27. Dwarf planet between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter: CERES - I'd weigh 6 pounds there

28. "Give me that!": HAND IT OVER.

29. Get past: ELUDE.

31. Online flame thrower?: TROLL - The bane of all websites

36. 2019 and 2020 Grammys host, or what she plays: KEYS - Alicia

39. Get time off?: COP A PLEA - Two weeks in a row

40. Maker marketplace: ETSY.

43. Not yet delivered: INUTERO - An INUTERO surgery for spinal bifida at the Cleveland Clinic

46. Knickknack stand: ETAGERE.

48. Director Roth: ELI - Here ya go

50. Signs of repetition: DITTOS.

52. Hawk tickets: SCALP - SCALPERS disappeared at this year's CWS because tickets went all digital

54. Q.E.D. part: ERAT.

55. Amorous letters: XOXO.

56. Trees with split-resistant wood: ELMS.

58. Squandered: BLEW - NFL record - In 2017, the Falcons were ahead 25 - 3 over the Patriots and BLEW that lead to lose 28 - 34.

59. Parks of Alabama: ROSA - A real hero!

62. Words with bit and way: IN A.

63. Plant activity: Abbr.: MFG.

64. Word that sounds like its last letter: WHY.

  

Notes from C.C.:

1) Congrats on your debut, David!

2) The neurosurgeon removed Boomer's dressing yesterday. He's also off the catheter. Not much going on today due to Christmas, hopefully he'll have PT tomorrow.

 

3) Happy Birthday to dear Yellowrocks, our tenacious and knowledgeable Kathy! 

 

Kathy (Yellowrocks), Dec 10, 2020

  

4) Happy 84th Birthday to Lorraine (Fermatprime)! She sends me email occasionally. She continues to enjoy various online games. 

Thanksgiving, 2015