Theme: Gone with the wind. The main answers all have had their "hat" blown away.
17. "Don't tell a soul!": KEEP IT UNDER YOUR. It is likely that there's no direct link to hats at all and that 'keep it under your hat' just meant 'keep it in your head'. "The man whose estate lies under his hat need never tremble before the frowns of fortune."--Anthony Trollope
31. Spout nonsense: TALK THROUGH ONE'S. This has quite a few speculative explanations. My favorites are a reference to the emptiness of the hat atop one's head, as if one were thinking and speaking with an empty head, and Joseph Smith (the book of Mormon) reading a stone that nobody can see with his face buried in his hat.
41. Moonlight, say: WEAR MORE THAN ONE. To hold multiple jobs. This one is fairly direct. Back when almost everyone wore hats, if a man who was an admiral, a Lord Lieutenant of a county and Chancellor of a university - each of which has an impressive ceremonial hat - was going to an official function, the question "which hat will you be wearing?" would mean "in which capacity will you be attending?".
60. Instantly ... or how this puzzle's other three longest answers came about?: AT THE DROP OF A HAT. In the 19th century it was occasionally the practice in the United States to signal the start of a fight or a race by dropping a hat or sweeping it downward while holding it in the hand. The quick response to the signal found its way into the language for any action that begins quickly without much need for prompting.
Hi all, if it's Thursday, it must be me...
ACROSS:
1. Some graphic works: EROTICA. I wanted to fill this with "ESCHERS".
8. It often involves x's: ALGEBRA. Solve this equation for "X". Tricky putting this immediately following the preceeding clue to misdirect your thinking.
15. Of words: LEXICAL. From Greek "Lexikos", pertaining to words. A Lexicon is a dictionary of words.
16. One doing a lot of riding: NEEDLER. Riding in the sense of "giving a hard time". To needle is to goad or provoke a response.
19. Phishing targets: Abbr.: SSNS. An insidious form of Spam emails that can do damage if they bait you to bite at the lure. Legitimate companies don't email you for personal information. They only request it if you initiated a transaction with them. Never give out your identity in respnse to an unsolicited email or phone call, even if it looks legit.
20. Handbill: FLYER. Meaning of "small handbill or fly-sheet" is from U.S. slang (originally especially of police bulletins), on notion of "made to be scattered broadcast."
21. Nothing special: SO-SO. Every puzzle has some of these fillers.
22. Wroclaw's region: SILESIA. Today's geography lesson. An ancent region, now part of Poland and the Czech Republic.
24. Refillable candy: PEZ. The name Pez was derived from the letters at the start, the middle and the end of the German word for peppermint, Pfefferminz, the first Pez flavor. Pez was originally introduced in Austria.
25. Equilibrium: STASIS. The Greek word, meaning "a standing still".
29. 34-Down degree: NTH. A mathematical term indicating indefinite number, in which n is an abbreviation for number.
38. Carl's sweetheart, in "Up": ELLIE. Pixar movies are for everyone, and this one tugs at your heartstrings while still being funny. If you haven't seen it, don't let the fact that it is a "cartoon" keep you from renting it.
39. Double-slash container: URL. Internet locators that web browsers understand start several different ways, the most prevalent is: http:// This is so common that you don't even have to type it in when you manually enter one in the address bar, all modern browsers will assume you meant to do it.
40. Deteriorate slowly: ERODE. I think I did this before... Latin erosionem "a gnawing away", from rodere, to gnaw, related to rodent.
44. Black and __: two-beer drink: TAN. Bass Pale Ale and Guinness (yes, the ones who produce the record book), usually, layered carefully, not mixed together.
45. Pugilism venues: ARENAS. Boxing.
46. "The Island of the Day Before" author: ECO. Umberto. Wiki has a fairly succinct plot synopsis.
49. Event with a queen: PAGEANT. First thoughts were of the recent Royal Wedding, a planned distraction, I'm sure.
53. Entre __: NOUS. French. Between us. A movie of that name was subtitled Coup de Foudre, which means "love at first sight".
55. Tanager homes: NESTS. Colorful birds.
56. Impatient sounds: TSKS.
63. Cape user: MATADOR. Spanish, literally "killer," from matar "to kill or wound," probably from Arabic mata "he died."
64. Ex claim: ALIMONY. From Latin alimonia "food, support, nourishment, sustenance". "I won't pay," he said. "Oh, yes you will," she Ex claimed.
65. Suffering terribly: IN AGONY. From Greek agonia "a (mental) struggle for victory," originally "a struggle for victory in the games.
66. "Listen to Your Heart" pop duo: ROXETTE. Official video.
DOWN:.
1. Horned game: ELKS. Other choices, both singular and plural, DEER, BUCK.
2. "Cheers" actor Roger: REES. Character: Robin Colcord. Didn't really remember him at first.
3. Paddy animals: OXEN. Rice paddies.
4. Inside information: TIPS.
5. Here, in Haiti: ICI. More French.
6. Cajun entrée: CATFISH. Not a big fan of "blackened" foods, I have a midwest "bland" taste palate.
7. __ in the conversation: A LULL. Related to lullaby, as in a "sleep".
8. Range along the Ring of Fire: ANDES.
9. Wolf's activity: LEERING. Howling, anyone? Wolves as a symbol of lust are ancient, e.g. Roman slang lupa "whore," literally "she-wolf". The equation of "wolf" and "prostitute, sexually voracious female" persisted into 12c., but by Elizabethan times wolves had become primarily symbolic of male lust.
10. Lux. neighbor: GER. Luxembourg and Germany.
11. Breyers alternative: EDYS.
12. It barely gets beyond the infield: BLOOP. Baseball.
13. Conserve, in a way: REUSE. Reclaim, recycle.
14. __ con pollo: ARROZ. Spanish, rice with chicken.
18. Science educator Bill: NYE. Bow ties are cool. Oh wait, that's a different character, Who knows Who I mean?
22. Display of links: SITE MAP. Usually created by the site webmaster for search engine crawlers to catalog, but regular users can also save time searching for something if they know it is on specific site.
23. Really: AT HEART.
25. Worry: STEW. Fret. To simmer in one's own juices.
26. "The Handmaid's __": Atwood novel: TALE. "Speculative" fiction. Beginning with a staged terrorist attack (blamed on Islamic extremist terrorists) that kills the President, a movement calling itself the "Sons of Jacob" launches a revolution, ousted Congress, and suspended the U.S. Constitution under the pretext of restoring order. Taking advantage of electronic banking, they were quickly able to freeze the assets of all "undesirables" in the country, stripping their rights away.
27. __ puttanesca: with a spicy tomato sauce: ALLA. Literally "whore's style spaghetti" in Italian.
28. Avoid: SKIRT. Outskirts are the border or edges of a city or the hem of a skirt.
30. Mezzo Marilyn: HORNE. In keeping with the plethora of foreign language today, here's Habenera.
32. Capek play: RUR. Rossum's Universal Robots. More like androids, but this introduced the word "robot" to the English language (and science fiction).
33. Refinable rock: ORE.
34. Like z: Abbr.: ULT. Latin "ultimo", meaning last.
35. When two hands meet?: NOON. Probably the cleverest clue in the puzzle, clock hands. Imagine how boring the world will be if everything becomes digital-only instead of analog.
36. Author Buchanan: EDNA. Mysteries.
37. Dates: SEES.
42. With no end in sight: ON AND ON. Or, facing forward...
43. His co-pilot was a Wookiee: HAN SOLO. Star Wars.
46. As a friend, in Marseilles: EN AMI. French.
47. Trig function: COTAN. I think math counts as a foreign language, too...
48. "__ sight!": OUTTA. Uptight and all right. Little Stevie Wonder.
50. Elbridge __, governor famous for redistricting: GERRY. A portmanteau word Gerrymander came about because a district in MA looked like a salamander after political machinations were enacted to redistribute voting blocs to favor the party in power for future elections.
51. Peruvian pronoun: ESO. Spanish for "that".
52. How some stocks are sold: AT PAR. At the original price, no discounts or premiums.
54. Woolly rug: SHAG.
56. Far from titillating: TAME. Not graphic (1A).
57. Recorded on film: SHOT.
58. Key figure in epistemology: KANT. Immanuel. Philosophy, the study of knowledge and justified belief. If you want to immerse yourself...
59. Eyelid nuisance: STYE.
61. Japanese capital of yore: EDO. Tokyo today.
62. Quandary: FIX. With "in a".
Al
