Theme: Abigail Adams need not apply - Four entries with two A's for initials, men only.
17A. Eight-time tennis Grand Slam champion : ANDRE AGASSI
24A. Yosemite environmentalist and photographer : ANSEL ADAMS
62A. Mole—and, read slightly differently, what 17-, 24-, 38- or 51-Across is : DOUBLE AGENT or DOUBLE 'A' GENT (It would seem there was a little trouble parsing, or printing, the first part of this clue. Did you have trouble?)
Argyle here and Alan Alda isn't. A couple of odd things; I started in the NW block which gave me Andrea for the start of 17-Across and a ???. Perps to the rescue. 38-Across was just the opposite; I filled in Adam Ant and never saw the word, adamant.
A little hard for a Tuesday but the perps seem to be very helpful. It was nice to see first and last names together. Not an easy thing. A debut for Jeff's partner today. See constructor's note.
Across:
1. Not very bright : STUPID. And 1D. Very bright : SMART. Clecho start!
7. Ride in new wheels, say : SPIN. Unless they're stolen, then it's a felony.
11. Tattooist's supply : INK
14. Threat : MENACE
15. Lovers' __ : LANE
16. "Pretentious? __?" : MOI
19. Unusual : ODD
20. Yank out of bed : ROUST
21. Padded footstool : OTTOMAN
23. Pear or plum : TREE
27. Parakeet's home : CAGE
29. Gridiron play also called a sweep : END RUN. No baseball today.
30. Drops on the grass : DEW
33. Steak on a stick : KEBAB
36. "Meh" : "SO-SO"
37. Doc's bloc: Abbr. : AMA. 30, 33, and 37-Across were 36A cute.
41. Env. insert : LTR. (letter)
42. Astronaut's gp. : NASA
44. Hip-hop headwear : DO-RAG. Haven't had this in awhile.
45. Drain-cleaning chemical : LYE
46. Freezer bag brand : ZIPLOC
49. Ship's slammer : BRIG
54. Quadri- doubled : OCTO. Numerical prefixes.
58. Without end : ETERNAL
59. Spirits measure : PROOF. The measure of alcohol in a liquor.
60. Means to enlightenment : ZEN
64. In days past : AGO
65. "What's more ..." : "ALSO ..."
66. Literary family name : BRONTË
67. Spitz in your lap, briefly : POM. The Pomeranian (often known as a Pom) is a breed of dog of the Spitz type.
68. River in western Belgium : YSER. Except in Belgium they call it IJser. Map.
69. __ & Hedges: British smoke : BENSON
Down:
2. Pavarotti, notably : TENOR. Three notable tenors. Link(3:57)
3. Excessive, as pressure : UNDUE
4. About 3.26 light-years : PARSEC. And I always thought it was a word made-up for Sci-Fi shows.
5. Rapper-turned-actor : ICE T
6. Anti-narcotics org. : DEA. (Drug Enforcement Administration)
7. Venetian blind parts : SLATS
8. Kindergarten adhesive : PASTE. Umm, tasty.
9. Shoe tightener : INSOLE. If you put a thicker one in your shoe than what you had, I suppose it would be tighter. Still, strange clue.
10. Upscale retailer __ Marcus : NEIMAN. A private company founded in 1907 in Dallas, TX. Ironically, they opened their own store rather than take a chance on the fledgling Coca-Cola company. Wiki link But they did alright.
11. "Can't stop me now!" : "I'M ON A ROLL!"
12. Indicate agreement : NOD
13. Kindergartner : KID
18. Like chunky milk : GONE BAD. Or real buttermilk.
22. Puts two and two together : ADDS
24. Like a prized cabernet, say : AGED
25. Affected by mold or mildew : MUSTY
26. Sound from a La-Z-Boy, perhaps : [SNORE]. La-Z-Boy = recliner chair.
28. Alias letters : AKA. (also known as)
30. Tony of "Taxi" : DANZA
31. Kind of address : EMAIL
32. Painful insect toxin : WASP VENOM
34. Latin 101 word : AMO
35. Biceps builder : BARBELL
39. Not a one : NARY
40. With "F," end-of-week cry : TGI. (Thank God It's Friday).
43. Came to earth : ALIT
47. At some point : ONE DAY
48. Christmas songs : CAROLS
50. Snake-haired she-beast : GORGON. Medusa was one of the Gorgons but was slain by Perseus.
52. Occupied : IN USE
53. Repair bill line : LABOR
55. "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" directing brothers : COENs
56. Kemo Sabe sidekick : TONTO
57. Quite a lot : OFTEN
59. Use a peeler on : PARE
60. Ray gun sound : [ZAP!]
61. Self-regard : EGO
63. Go out to sea : EBB
Argyle
This just in: Constructor's Note
I came up with the idea for this puzzle one day last fall while driving. The word AGENT just popped into my brain and somehow I parsed it abnormally and it came out A-GENT. I thought I could come up with names of men whose initials were A. It wasn't until days later when the phrase DOUBLE-A GENT appeared to me, that I knew I had something.
At that point I had only been solving crossword puzzles for a few months. I'm a geocacher. I like to hide things out in the woods and have people find them based on GPS coordinates. Sometimes I like to disguise the coordinates with the use of a puzzle. Some of my puzzles are word-based, so I thought I'd try my hand at making a crossword puzzle.
In October, Jeff had a puzzle appear in the NY Times. He offered his guidance to newbie constructors and I jumped at the chance. After many, many emails (and many more) back and forth, after a lot of hand-holding and hair-pulling, (hmm, I smell a puzzle theme) he helped me whip the puzzle into shape. Jeff is a very patient teacher and I owe him a huge amount of thanks for his guidance.
This is the first puzzle I ever worked on. With Jeff's help, it became publishable. My subsequent efforts have been miss-and-hit, mostly miss. However, I am happy to say I'll be having my first solo effort appear in a, shall we say, competing publication, sometime soon.
FWIW, most of the clues for today's puzzle were changed by the editor. I'm disappointed that I wasn't able to write more on-target clues for the Tuesday audience. That's something I need to work on, I guess.
Originally, each of the theme answers was clued in such a way that they sounded nefarious (ANDRE AGASSI was "Professional racketeer?", ALVIN AILEY was "Will help you move a body?"). And actually, to begin with, I had ALDRICH AMES instead of ALVIN AILEY. Jeff felt that since he was a real-life DOUBLE AGENT, that it messed up the consistency of the puzzle. I of course, bowed to his knowledge and experience.
My other favorite clues that didn't make the cut were "They're hidden under mattresses" (SLATS), "What the weird kid eats" (PASTE), "One that's always getting stepped on" (INSOLE), and "Like a prized cabernet (or chunky milk)" (AGED).
All in all it's been a fun and rewarding experience. I hope it provided a bit of entertainment for the crosswording community. In two weeks I'll be moving to the UK with my Air Force wife, but I hope to continue this new hobby of mine, and hopefully earn some more bylines. Thank you for this opportunity.
Jim Peredo
