Today I am blogging my fifth Saturday themeless by Brian Paquin in less than a year.
I ripped through this in twenty-five minutes and enjoyed a lot of the fill (no jelly) and cluing along the way.
I hope you enjoyed Brian's puzzle and had a nice doughnut brimming with your favorite jam or jelly while completing the exercise.
Now let's see what has filled our grid today:
Across:
1. "Yikes!": OH NO and 53. Harassed "SNL" clay character: MR BILL - Having MR BILL and his signature cry of distress in the same puzzle can not be an accident (:05)
5. "Dance of the Seven Veils" play: SALOME - John The Baptist lost his head over this dance
11. Common commuter letters: MTA - But did he ever return?
14. __ red: BEET.
15. Got around: ELUDED - Dr Kimbell ELUDED Lt. Gerard for five years on TV
16. Slur in musical notation, e.g.: ARC - A slur ARC joins different notes not to be performed separately. It's called a tie when it connects two notes of the same pitch
17. Not at all slack: TAUT.
18. Shocking weapons: TASERS.
19. Spendable amount: NET - If you win a million in a Nebraska lottery, you will NET $406,700 after taxes. You will NET $700,000 if you take the 30 year annuity payout
20. Set of keyboard keys: ARROWS.
22. Season ticket holders, usually: HUGE FANS - Huskers have sold out every FB game since 1962
24. Personal ad "looking for": ISO - In Search Of...
25. Boo-__: HOO.
27. Gates of philanthropy: MELINDA - She and her husband have formed the world's largest private charitable organization. 28. Impressive: NO SLOUCHes they, when it comes to sharing their wealth31. Votes against: NAYS - When "independency" was first proposed to the Continental Congress on June 7, 1776, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and South Carolina voted NAY
32. Make a bad situation worse: FEED THE FIRE - Sometime said about a bad relief pitcher (Last Saturday we had "Treading Water - NO WORSE)
36. Magnificence: STATELINESS - I saw it while in the redwoods!
38. Many a "Twister" character: STORM CHASER - I enjoyed the Helen Hunt/Bill Paxton movie but this KC farm team on the prairie stirs things up 35 minutes from my house
40. "Not happening!": AS IF.
43. Colors in the family: SHADES OF - Click on any color to see SHADES OF that family
45. Rascals, old-style: VARLETS.
49. Bard's preposition: ERE.
50. __-pitch: SLO - SLO in/fast out
51. High seas greeting: AHOY MATE - And on the telephone if Alexander Graham Bell had gotten his way
55. Salon acquisition: TAN.
56. 1887 Verdi debut: OTELLO - Original poster for when it was performed at the Theater At The Stairway (Teatro Alla Scala)
58. __ rage: ROID - One side effect of taking a steROID is the rage it can generate
59. "__ too!": ARE - Am not, ARE too, ad infinitum
60. Kind of calendar: JULIAN - Pope Gregory XIII's calendar replaced it in 1582 as the 1,500 year old JULIAN calendar was 11 days (correction) off
61. Girl of Avonlea: ANNE.
62. "Gnarly!": RAD.
63. "Either way": I'M EASY - An academy award winning song for a one-hit-wonder
64. Roman Catholic prelate: Abbr.: MSGR- The MonSiGnoR at my grandson's first communion lost the kids after 15 seconds but went on for 15 minutes anyway
Down:
1. Come into: OBTAIN.
2. Learns about: HEARS OF.
3. Obsessions, often: NEUROSES - Road Rage is listed an example of a NEUROSIS
4. German aviation pioneer Lilienthal: OTTO - In 1912, Wilbur Wright said of this glider pioneer, "He presented the cause of human flight to his readers so earnestly, so attractively, and so convincingly that it was difficult for anyone to resist the temptation to make an attempt at it himself"
5. Has every intention that one will: SETS OUT TO - Wilbur and Orville SET OUT TO take OTTO's curved surface gliders/flyers and put a motor on them
6. In the manner of: ALA.
7. Well-kept, as a lawn: LUSH - Ours has to be mowed every third day
8. Concert hall: ODEUM - A small theater of Greece or Rome
9. Emulate Time and Warner: MERGE - Our Time/Warner cable company is now Spectrum
10. Ford who championed the Model A: EDSEL - Henry and son EDSEL unveiling the 1928 Model A
11. Procrastinator's word: MANANA - Sung here by the surprising cowriter
12. Fashionable: TRENDY.
13. Plays the role of: ACTS AS.
21. New Orleans Saints chant: WHO DAT.
23. Tactful handling: FINESSE.
26. Earth pigment: OCHER.
29. Unleashes: LET'S FLY
30. Big wheels: HELMS - Here's one on the RMS Titanic
33. Sheet of microfilm: FICHE - from French fiche "card, index card, slip, form". Here is a microfiche reader that magnifies the fiche card where the information has been shrunk and stored
34. Singing like Pentatonix, e.g.: IN HARMONY - Acapella was one letter short
35. Keeper of many books: READER - Books fill his shelves or his eREADER
37. Meetings: SESSIONS.
39. On the road: ROLLING.
40. Gamer's icon: AVATAR.
41. About 30% of Africa: SAHARA - From space
42. Did a laundry job: IRONED.
44. Office item: FOLDER.
46. Tiny birthday cake, perhaps: EMOJI - Yeah, I've used one before too
47. Art of jazz: TATUM - Here ya go (alt. Goose of the Globetrotters)
48. Stone marker: STELE - The seven foot tall basaltic STELE, Law Of Hammurabi, is now housed in the Louvre
52. Director Kazan: ELIA - He named names to the HUAC and was a Hollywood pariah from then on
54. Name on the cover of "Dracula": BRAM - A $10,000 first edition
57. Syllables in some madrigals: LAS - Can you count the TRA'S and LA'S
Go ahead and comment. I have a raspberry filled long john waiting for me!
