20A. Recording industry technician : SOUND ENGINEER
The often unsung hero of the music industry. Here's the supremely talented Bill Price's mix for the Sex Pistol's "Pretty Vacant" including the curious "false start" at the three-second mark. Time Magazine in 2006 named the album "One of the 100 greatest, ever".
57A. Kitchen appliance : FOOD PROCESSOR. Food! My kitchen has five varieties in regular use - an electric whisk, a whizz-it up liquidizer, a stick blender big enough to mix concrete, a Cuisinart processor and when I need the big guns, a KitchenAid.
And now the twin unifiers:
68A. With 69-Across, what 20-, 38- and 57-Across do : THEY
69A. See 68-Across : MIX
Greetings, Earthlings. Steve here on either Wednesday or Miércoles depending on where exactly I am at 38,000 feet above the planet. Due to either alchemy or electro-magic I find myself connected to the interwebs and I don't see an ethernet cable trailing out of the back of the plane. Wonders will never cease. And Germany with a 7-1 trouncing over Brasil? Not quite sure what to say about that so I'm saying nothing! Let's move on ...
A nice Wednesday from Gary - a grid-spanner and two 13's, a couple of nice long downs and some other sparkle in the fill. Let's check out the rest.
Across:
1. Subway map abbr. : STA. Station. One of my all-time favorite bits of trivia concerns the London Underground. I've no idea how anyone actually came up with this, but there is only one Tube station on the entire system that does not contain any of the letters in the word "Mackerel". Wow!
4. Early fifth-century year : CDIV. 404. Emperor Flavius's web browser error message: "HTML CDIV. Page non est".
8. Dreadlocks wearer : RASTA. Rastafarian more formally.
13. Bud : PAL. Here's my pal:
14. Mechanical recitations : ROTES
16. Singer John : ELTON. Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE to be precise.
17. Transfusion letters : ABO. Not a good thing to get your blood types mixed up.
18. Stave off : AVERT
19. Nonsense : HOOEY. I needed the crosses for the ending of this - not a word with which I was familiar.
23. Tin Lizzie : MODEL T. "Any color you like as long as it's black".
24. Director Kazan : ELIA
25. Kingston Trio hit with the lyric "Fight the fare increase!" : M.T.A.
28. Fray, e.g. : WEAR
30. Santa __: Southwestern mountains : TERESAS. An obscure little range in Arizona.
32. Obsessed whale hunter : AHAB
35. It's not free of charge : ION. Nice clue!
37. Hoity-toity types : SNOBS
42. Take in or let out : ALTER
43. Petal puller's pronoun : SHE ... loves me, she loves me not.
44. Way out there : AFAR
45. Sicilian seaport : MESSINA
48. SOS responder : USCG. The US Coast Guard. Motto: "Semper Paratus", "Always Ready".
50. Prefix with thermal : ISO
51. Actress Catherine __-Jones : ZETA
53. Belief in one god : THEISM
60. Family car : WAGON. I hear a clecho.
62. Turkish titles : AGHAS
63. Galadriel in "The Lord of the Rings," e.g. : ELF. Not one to be messed with, either.
64. Deadly virus : EBOLA
65. Ruled perch? : ROOST. More nice cluing.
66. Ike's 1940s command : E.T.O. European Theater of Operations, as I'm sure most of us know by now.
67. Family car : SEDAN. I hear a clecho.
Down
1. Jerk : SPASM. I looked at SPAS_ for quite a while before I realized I wasn't trying to find some vaguely non-PC word for an annoying person.
2. Forbidden thing : TABOO
3. One way to read : ALOUD
4. Nursery need : CRADLE
5. Woodworking joint : DOVETAIL. We had to make these by hand in woodworking class back in school. I think it took most of one semester to join two small boards together.
6. Santa Monica-to-Jacksonville rte. : I-TEN
7. Threshold : VERGE
8. Run through lines : REHEARSE
9. Soothing succulent : ALOE. I needed some of this yesterday - I spent about 10 minutes too long in the sun.
10. Leaves in a huff : STORMS OFF
11. Pump part : TOE
12. Vague amount : ANY
15. Circus support : STILT
21. Ones with much to learn : NEWBIES
22. German's "never" : NIE. I must have known this at some point, but it slipped my mind. Crosses to the rescue.
26. Indian drum : TABLA
27. Nineveh's land: Abbr. : ASSYR. Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian empire.
29. Hold up : ROB
31. Brings to a boil : ENRAGES.
32. "Same here" : AS AM I
33. Green targets : HOLES. Oh - golf! I was scratching my head for a moment with this one.
34. Hurricanes and tornadoes, in insurance policies : ACTS OF GOD
36. School sweater letters : NUS. The lowercase letter looks like a "v". Who Nu?
39. Grand Canyon State native : ARIZONAN
40. Calendar abbr. : THU
41. Precedent-setting trial : TEST CASE
46. Outlaw Kelly : NED
47. Bond trader's phrase : AT PAR
49. Well-developed, in a way : CHESTY. I'll leave the linking to someone else for this one!
52. Shop jargon : ARGOT
54. "__ to recall ..." : I SEEM
55. Conductor Sir Georg : SOLTI. Let's link to a wonderful view of "Nimrod" from the perspective of a third (?) violin with the London Philharmonic conducted by Sir Georg. What a treat.
56. Dahl's "Fantastic" title critter : MR FOX
58. "Return of the Jedi" dancing girl : OOLA. Thank you, crosses.
59. "This is bad!" : OH-OH
60. "Rushmore" director Anderson : WES
61. Civil War prez : ABE
That about wraps it up, and just as "we are now commencing our final descent into Los Angeles International Airport and the captain has turned on the fasten seat belts sign" I'd better "power down my portable electronic device and stow it safely for landing". See you all next time!
Steve.
