Saturday, May 18th, 2013, Julian Lim

Theme: None

Words: 70 (missing Q,V,Z)

Blocks: 34

   We have us a non-Saturday looking grid today - but there was a grid climber in the center, which I did not see at first glance.  I actually worked this one faster than yesterday's, which is unusual, since I have been historically stumped by Mr. Lim's end-of-week bruisers.  So, to the long fills;

7D. Words of dread : I SHUDDER TO THINK

26A. Impatient cry : I CAN HARDLY WAIT

42A. Order in an oater : REACH FOR THE SKY - Oater being a Western "shoot 'em up" flick

On-Ward~!

ACROSS:

1. Faraday's field: Abbr. : ELECtricity - Good start, if you knew the scientist; I bought one of these flashlights for Christmas - no batteries~!

5. Paris is in it : ILIAD - Not France, or any other location; the character

10. __ champêtre: garden party : FETE - seems logical, now that the perps filled it in

14. Love letters? : XOXO - Found at the bottom of Valentine's cards, etc

15. Exploits : CASHES IN ON

17. Bali specification : C-CUP - Nailed it - even the cup size, for some reason

18. It's more acceptable when it's self-mocking : ETHNIC JOKE - "How do you get a...." -HEY- not here....too 'blue' (see below)

19. Danish director von Trier : LARS - IMDb

20. NBC's usual "Must See TV" night : THUrsday

21. Flight segment : RISER - stairs, that is - the vertical board between treads

22. Clerical garment : ALB

23. Way to spread the green? : SEEDAGE - yeah, but I wanted SEEDING, and a clecho -

31. Green : MONEY

32. Shade tree : ELM - especially when it's "green"

33. About, legally : IN RE

35. Single __: tournament type : ELIMination - It's best-of-seven in the NHL

36. Kinky dos : AFROs

38. LaBeouf of "Holes" : SHIA - Didn't see this movie, but I did like Eagle Eye

39. Mollycoddle, with "on" : DOTE

40. Code word : DIT

41. United nations, perhaps : BLOCS - meh

46. Bleep, say : EDIT OUT

47. Stew staple : PEA - any other three-letter ingredients you can think of?

48. 5-Across poet : HOMER

52. "... by good __, yonder's my lord": "Timon of Athens" : HAP

53. Isn't serious : KIDS

54. Started to shoot : OPENED FIRE

57. Crowning : ATOP

58. Conversation barrier : BUSY SIGNAL

59. Hana Airport's island : MAUI - detailed map; airport code HNM

60. Federal inspection org. : OSHA - Occupational Safety and Health Administration

61. Invite for : ASK TO

62. Old, in Oldenburg : ALTE

DOWN:

1. Hollered : EXCLAIMED

2. Regional asset : LOCAL COLOR - the local color of today's blog is, um, red....

3. One with a long commute, probably : EXURBANITE

4. Arresting characters : COPS

5. Poolside refresher : ICE TEA - not gonna say it....

6. Form foam : LATHER - DAH~!  I plan to build my own home using Insulated Concrete Forms, and so I was stuck in that frame of mind to start

8. Philip __, first Asian-American film actor with a Hollywood Walk of Fame star : AHN - IMDb #2

49. With 9-Down, conspiratorial group in "The Da Vinci Code" : OPUS  9. See 49-Down : DEI - you either knew this, or you did not read Dan Brown; when his next book, "Angels & Demons", again with 'Robert Langdon' as the main character came out, I made this; there is another movie coming out for "Lost Symbol"

10. Vanua Levu's archipelago : FIJI - map

11. Slaughter with a bat : ENOS

12. Vegas tip : TOKE - straight up definition, but not the one I'M familiar with

13. Cabinet dept. with an Office of Science : ENERgy - WAG

16. Bad thing to have loose : SCREW - Thought about "CANNON", too

23. Recoil : SHY

24. Prefix meaning "other" : ALLO - we just had Allosaurus

25. Treadmill settings : GYMS - ah, not RPMs, which didn't seem 'right' to me; we need the actual setting for the piece of equipment

27. Valley where Hercules slew a lion : NEMEA

28. Where fliers walk : AISLE - the aisle in an airplane, that is

29. Recuperating at the Royal London : IN HOSPITAL - my mom was just "in hospital", as she had a stomach virus, and needed IV FLUIDS - hey, that would make a good fill....

30. Covered in bling, say : TRICKED OUT - usually in reference to one's 'ride'

34. "No sweat!" : EASY AS PIE - lots of multi-word answers today

36. Child psychologist's concern, briefly : ADHD - here's the Wiki; if you ask me, this modern sound-byte, smart phone, subliminal advertising, video game world we live in is the direct cause of the 'disease'

37. Minnie Mouse's peke : FIFI

41. Antioxidant food preservative : BHT -for the scientific mind

43. Demeter's Roman counterpart : CERES - Goddess of agriculture/grain crops - hence, 'cereal'

44. Find hilarious : ROAR AT

45. Swamp tree : TUPELO - here I thought it was a city in Mississippi

48. Down Under swagman, in the States : HOBO - learning moment for me

50. Fit well : MESH - I had MELD to start

51. "Oíche Chiún" singer : ENYA - upon re-reading the clue, with EN-A filled in, seems pretty obvious now

53. Hindu god of desire : KAMA - as in the Kama Sutra - and C-cups....

55. Miércoles, por ejemplo : DIA - Spanish "day", Wednesday, by example

56. Three-pt. plays : FGs - Field Goals, and if I am not mistaken, this is in both football and basketball

Splynter