Theme: Sponsored by Betty Crocker. Four "cake" mixes are presented in four theme entries arranged pinwheel fashion .
17A. Very close : NECK AND NECK. I'm glad I wasn't the one who had to sort this lot out at the 2004 Athens Olympics TRACK EVENT:
11D. Dash, but not dot : TRACK EVENT. A friend dog-sits for a family of pit bulls named Dot, Dash and Bracket.
60A. Holiday to-do list task : BAKE COOKIES. I tried "MAKE" first which meant figuring out the auction site was a little trickier than it could have been. I think this might be a little too close to the "cake" theme, but that's probably just me being grumpy today.
28D. 1954 Best Actress Oscar winner : GRACE KELLY. She went on to marry Prince Rainier III and became Princess Grace of Monaco.
and the reveal:
38A. Birthday party staple, and a hint to this puzzle's circles : CAKE MIX. Is the cake mix the party staple, or the cake? Methinks the latter.
You can make 24 varieties of CAKE with your figurative mixing bowl and whisk; Matt's picked four of them and slotted them across word boundaries in the four theme entries. There are some nice expanses of white space, especially in the northwest and southeast.
Let's see what else we've got:
Across:
1. Powerful watchdogs : AKITAS. My mind was well down the "consumer rights" type of watchdog before I managed to reel myself back in. Even seen the movie "Hachi - a Dog's Tale"? Two packs of Kleenex, minimum.
7. Silk Road desert : GOBI
11. Pulls a Halloween prank on, for short : TP'S. Do you really TP a house on Hallowe'en? I'd have thought there were too many people around to get away with it.
14. Put a new handle on : RENAME
15. "... wish __ a star" : UPON
16. Part of the fam. : REL. ative. We call them "relations" in England, it looks odd to my eyes now.
19. Police blotter letters : AKA
20. Daughter of Polonius : OPHELIA. No better excuse to link the song from The Lumineers.
21. Dependable source of income : CASH COW
23. Tearful queen : NIOBE. Quite why I knee-jerked SHEBA in here when I had the B I can't really tell you. Fixed it eventually.
25. Short strings? : UKES
26. More skittish : EDGIER
29. Dark mark : SMUDGE. Nice word.
33. Admonish : WARN
34. Artisan pizzeria feature : STONE OVEN. Food! Yum! I don't eat a lot of pizza, but thin crust like this - yes please!
37. Seventh in a Greek series : ETA
40. Big Band __ : ERA
41. Pastoral residences : RECTORIES. For some reason, I knew what Matt/Rich were getting at right away here. Technically, a rector lives in a rectory and a pastor in a pastorium, but we won't let that get in the way.
43. Huff : SNIT
44. Self-involvement : EGOISM
45. Williams of talk TV : MONTEL
47. "The Square Egg" author : SAKI. Hector Hugh Monroe to his formal friends. Ronald Searle also wrote a book with this title - I remember enjoying it some years ago. If you're not familiar with Mr. Searle's artistic talents, here's a taste:
49. Square, e.g. : SHAPE. See shape above.
51. Former Jesuit school official : PREFECT. We had prefects at my grammar school, but it certainly wasn't Jesuit.
55. Stretch : EXPANSE
59. Sushi selection : EEL
62. "The Miracle Worker" comm. method : ASL. How to fingerspell:
63. 2016 MLB retiree : A-ROD
64. Online newsgroup system : USENET. Is this still a thing? I thought Blogger, Facebook, LinkedIn and all the others would have consigned this to the technology scrap-heap of history.
65. Pop artist Lichtenstein : ROY. All I need to say is "WHAAM" and you can see the diptych.
66. Sun., on Mon. : YEST. Hmmm. Make a sad face and move on.
67. Mother in Calcutta : TERESA. Now promoted to Saint.
Down:
1. Ponte Vecchio's river : ARNO. Florence's river. Back in the day when we weren't such seasoned travelers, I remember a colleague returning from an Italian vacation raving about an unknown city he'd discovered called "Firenze".
2. Conserve : KEEP
3. Foot part : INCH. Tried ARCH. Was eventually proven wrong.
4. Hornswoggled : TAKEN IN
5. Charlotte __ : AMALIE. I thought this was either a movie character or an actress. Now I discover it is the capital of the US Virgin Islands. Learning moment.
6. Frequent discount recipient : SENIOR. I get a 5% discount at my local hardware store. Apparently 55+ is the new magic number - I get a discount at the swimming pool too.
7. Word with water or air : GUN
8. Energy org. since 1960 : OPEC. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
9. Florida city, familiarly : BOCA. Raton.
10. They're kept in pens : INKS. Didn't hesitate when K was already there.
12. Orange __ : PEKOE. Fill-in-the-blank avoids the awkward "type of tea" discussion/argument.
13. Picnic dishes : SLAWS Food! Can't beat a nice, crisp, freshly-made coleslaw. My coleslaw recipe has shredded carrots, cabbage and a dressing with a couple or ten ingredients, something like that.
18. Smidge : DAB
22. Sci-fi award : HUGO. Great-looking things.
24. Values highly : ESTEEMS
26. Spouted vessel : EWER. I hesitated over this for a while until the crosses made it obvious - I think of a spouted vessel more like a teapot, and a ewer to have a pouring lip, not a spout.
27. Palm fruit : DATE
30. Some den leaders : MOMS
31. Cycle starter? : UNI
32. Showtime title forensic technician, familiarly : DEX. From the show "Dexter", as you would assume.
34. Aspen gear : SKIS
35. Scary-sounding lake : ERIE
36. NASA part: Abbr. : NATL.
38. Soft sound : COO
39. Meyers of "Kate & Allie" : ARI. Thanks, crosses.
42. Certain happy hour exclamation : TGIF!
43. Bit of 11-Down gear : SNEAKER. Bit of retro 11-Down gear. I'm not sure those hi-tech Nikes, Reeboks and what-nots are called sneakers any more.
45. Borrow the limit on : MAX OUT
46. Combat : OPPOSE
47. Sharp weapon : SPEAR
48. "You __ grounded!" : ARE SO
50. '70s TV lawman Ramsey : HEC. Thank you, crosses. Before my (US) time. Hec Ramsey.
52. Auction venue : EBAY. Not EMAY as my MAKE COOKIES insisted that it was.
53. Bit of TLC? : CARE
54. WBA decisions : TKO'S
56. Muse count : NINE. I'm going to learn them one day. Calliope, Clio, Euterpe, Thalia, Melpomene, Terpsichore, Erato, Polyhymnia and Urania.
57. Goes with : SEES
58. Spanish pronoun : ESTÁ. Comó?
61. D.C. summer hrs. : EDT. Most of us waved goodbye to EDT just last weekend for another six months. It's about time we stopped messing around with the clocks, although it's less onerous than it used to be. The only manual adjustments I need to made are the analog kitchen clock and the microwave. Obviously I have a technologically-challenged zapper. It doesn't even have it's own IP address.
The sun came up again today - woo hoo!
Here's the grid!
Steve
17A. Very close : NECK AND NECK. I'm glad I wasn't the one who had to sort this lot out at the 2004 Athens Olympics TRACK EVENT:
11D. Dash, but not dot : TRACK EVENT. A friend dog-sits for a family of pit bulls named Dot, Dash and Bracket.
60A. Holiday to-do list task : BAKE COOKIES. I tried "MAKE" first which meant figuring out the auction site was a little trickier than it could have been. I think this might be a little too close to the "cake" theme, but that's probably just me being grumpy today.
28D. 1954 Best Actress Oscar winner : GRACE KELLY. She went on to marry Prince Rainier III and became Princess Grace of Monaco.
and the reveal:
38A. Birthday party staple, and a hint to this puzzle's circles : CAKE MIX. Is the cake mix the party staple, or the cake? Methinks the latter.
You can make 24 varieties of CAKE with your figurative mixing bowl and whisk; Matt's picked four of them and slotted them across word boundaries in the four theme entries. There are some nice expanses of white space, especially in the northwest and southeast.
Let's see what else we've got:
Across:
1. Powerful watchdogs : AKITAS. My mind was well down the "consumer rights" type of watchdog before I managed to reel myself back in. Even seen the movie "Hachi - a Dog's Tale"? Two packs of Kleenex, minimum.
7. Silk Road desert : GOBI
11. Pulls a Halloween prank on, for short : TP'S. Do you really TP a house on Hallowe'en? I'd have thought there were too many people around to get away with it.
14. Put a new handle on : RENAME
15. "... wish __ a star" : UPON
16. Part of the fam. : REL. ative. We call them "relations" in England, it looks odd to my eyes now.
19. Police blotter letters : AKA
20. Daughter of Polonius : OPHELIA. No better excuse to link the song from The Lumineers.
21. Dependable source of income : CASH COW
23. Tearful queen : NIOBE. Quite why I knee-jerked SHEBA in here when I had the B I can't really tell you. Fixed it eventually.
25. Short strings? : UKES
26. More skittish : EDGIER
29. Dark mark : SMUDGE. Nice word.
33. Admonish : WARN
34. Artisan pizzeria feature : STONE OVEN. Food! Yum! I don't eat a lot of pizza, but thin crust like this - yes please!
37. Seventh in a Greek series : ETA
40. Big Band __ : ERA
41. Pastoral residences : RECTORIES. For some reason, I knew what Matt/Rich were getting at right away here. Technically, a rector lives in a rectory and a pastor in a pastorium, but we won't let that get in the way.
43. Huff : SNIT
44. Self-involvement : EGOISM
45. Williams of talk TV : MONTEL
47. "The Square Egg" author : SAKI. Hector Hugh Monroe to his formal friends. Ronald Searle also wrote a book with this title - I remember enjoying it some years ago. If you're not familiar with Mr. Searle's artistic talents, here's a taste:
49. Square, e.g. : SHAPE. See shape above.
51. Former Jesuit school official : PREFECT. We had prefects at my grammar school, but it certainly wasn't Jesuit.
55. Stretch : EXPANSE
59. Sushi selection : EEL
62. "The Miracle Worker" comm. method : ASL. How to fingerspell:
64. Online newsgroup system : USENET. Is this still a thing? I thought Blogger, Facebook, LinkedIn and all the others would have consigned this to the technology scrap-heap of history.
65. Pop artist Lichtenstein : ROY. All I need to say is "WHAAM" and you can see the diptych.
66. Sun., on Mon. : YEST. Hmmm. Make a sad face and move on.
67. Mother in Calcutta : TERESA. Now promoted to Saint.
Down:
1. Ponte Vecchio's river : ARNO. Florence's river. Back in the day when we weren't such seasoned travelers, I remember a colleague returning from an Italian vacation raving about an unknown city he'd discovered called "Firenze".
2. Conserve : KEEP
3. Foot part : INCH. Tried ARCH. Was eventually proven wrong.
4. Hornswoggled : TAKEN IN
5. Charlotte __ : AMALIE. I thought this was either a movie character or an actress. Now I discover it is the capital of the US Virgin Islands. Learning moment.
6. Frequent discount recipient : SENIOR. I get a 5% discount at my local hardware store. Apparently 55+ is the new magic number - I get a discount at the swimming pool too.
7. Word with water or air : GUN
8. Energy org. since 1960 : OPEC. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
9. Florida city, familiarly : BOCA. Raton.
10. They're kept in pens : INKS. Didn't hesitate when K was already there.
12. Orange __ : PEKOE. Fill-in-the-blank avoids the awkward "type of tea" discussion/argument.
13. Picnic dishes : SLAWS Food! Can't beat a nice, crisp, freshly-made coleslaw. My coleslaw recipe has shredded carrots, cabbage and a dressing with a couple or ten ingredients, something like that.
18. Smidge : DAB
22. Sci-fi award : HUGO. Great-looking things.
24. Values highly : ESTEEMS
26. Spouted vessel : EWER. I hesitated over this for a while until the crosses made it obvious - I think of a spouted vessel more like a teapot, and a ewer to have a pouring lip, not a spout.
27. Palm fruit : DATE
30. Some den leaders : MOMS
31. Cycle starter? : UNI
32. Showtime title forensic technician, familiarly : DEX. From the show "Dexter", as you would assume.
34. Aspen gear : SKIS
35. Scary-sounding lake : ERIE
36. NASA part: Abbr. : NATL.
38. Soft sound : COO
39. Meyers of "Kate & Allie" : ARI. Thanks, crosses.
42. Certain happy hour exclamation : TGIF!
43. Bit of 11-Down gear : SNEAKER. Bit of retro 11-Down gear. I'm not sure those hi-tech Nikes, Reeboks and what-nots are called sneakers any more.
45. Borrow the limit on : MAX OUT
46. Combat : OPPOSE
47. Sharp weapon : SPEAR
48. "You __ grounded!" : ARE SO
50. '70s TV lawman Ramsey : HEC. Thank you, crosses. Before my (US) time. Hec Ramsey.
52. Auction venue : EBAY. Not EMAY as my MAKE COOKIES insisted that it was.
53. Bit of TLC? : CARE
54. WBA decisions : TKO'S
56. Muse count : NINE. I'm going to learn them one day. Calliope, Clio, Euterpe, Thalia, Melpomene, Terpsichore, Erato, Polyhymnia and Urania.
57. Goes with : SEES
58. Spanish pronoun : ESTÁ. Comó?
61. D.C. summer hrs. : EDT. Most of us waved goodbye to EDT just last weekend for another six months. It's about time we stopped messing around with the clocks, although it's less onerous than it used to be. The only manual adjustments I need to made are the analog kitchen clock and the microwave. Obviously I have a technologically-challenged zapper. It doesn't even have it's own IP address.
The sun came up again today - woo hoo!
Here's the grid!
Steve
