Theme: Compass Pinots - I mean pitons - no, wait, piston? Anagrams of the primary compass points modify a well-known directional phrase; and hinted at by the circled N, E, S, W at the center of the puzzle.
17A. Authentic piece of a holy relic?: TRUE THORN. True North. The magnetic inclination (the difference between True North and Magnetic North) changes over time and also depends on where you are on the globe, but if you were standing at the North Pole and pulled out a compass, it would point you towards Ellesmere Island in northern Canada, more than 300 miles away.
58A. Biblical pronouns read by James Earl Jones?: DEEP THOUS. Deep South.
11D. Place reserved for one reconciling a dispute?: MIDDLE SEAT. Middle East. Funnily, the middle seat occupant on the airplane sometimes is the cause of a dispute over the armrest.
28D. Unwelcome leftovers?: THE OLD STEW. The Old West. Depends how old. Some stews get better left for a couple of days to let the flavors develop. Obviously, there's a tipping point :)
Right then, let's dig into this one. The anagrams don't seem forced in the four theme entries which is great, Debra did have a clever observation that there are anagrams to be had; and the circled letters highlighted in the grid do give you a nudge towards finding the compass points. A great way to solve an anagram is to write the letters in a circle; perhaps that was a subtle hint too, I'm not sure if this was Debra's intention. Maybe I'm reading too much into that, but I liked it.
Now, let's get to a couple of niggles - I'm thinking that if you're going to use "THE old west" you should also have "THE deep south" and "THE Middle East". These don't really stand on their own, unlike "True North" which doesn't need the definite article. I like consistency and to me this falls a little short. Also, if you're going to use "?" in the clue as the device to hint at the theme entries, you absolutely shouldn't have a clue like 20A. Your mileage may vary, naturally.
Moving right along ...
Across:
1. Ottoman bigwigs: AGAS
5. Wildly: AMOK. Amok is a funny word, you only ever see it paired with "run". I suppose "walking amok" doesn't have the same ring to it.
9. Peaks: ACMES
14. At hand: NIGH
15. Animated explorer: DORA
16. Patterned fabric: TOILE
19. Comedian Izzard: EDDIE. One of my favorite stand-up comics, I've linked to him before. How Britain built its Empire (TV-MA for language).
20. Sound investments?: STEREOS. See intro comment.
21. Like some deliveries: SAME-DAY
23. Indy guide: PACE CAR. Nice clue - "Lonely Planet" would be my first guess, despite having way too many letters. Since 2002, Chevrolet has had the exclusive rights to provide the pace car at the Indianapolis 500, they've all been Corvettes or Camaros, unsuprisingly. I wouldn't want to pace a field of IndyCars in a Chevy Spark.
25. She walked into Rick's gin joint: ILSA. "Play it, Sam".
26. Disastrous: FATAL Yep. Pretty much covers it.
29. Comedian Garofalo: JANEANE. Thank you, crosses.
31. Folk legend Phil: OCHS
32. __ Jose: SAN. Do you know the way?
33. Connects with: TIES TO
36. Arles article: UNE. It seems a shame to consign Arles to a crossword clue. I lived there for a few weeks, and who doesn't appreciate a nice Roman adqueduct?
37. __ West Records: Nashville label: NEW. Thank you, crosses.
38. Rosy-fingered goddess who rises in the east: EOS, Thank you, crosswords.
39. AirPod spot: EAR. Pops up again.
40. Get back in business: RE-OPEN
42. Product prefix that evokes winter: SNO-
43. Die down: WANE
44. Herbie, in Disney films: LOVE BUG
46. Outset: GET-GO
47. They don't last: FADS
49. Part of Curaçao: CEDILLA. The diacritical mark under the "C". The spendidly-named map-maker Heironymus Cock named it "Quraçao" on his 1562 map of the region, but that variant didn't catch on, so Curaçao it is.
51. Rather: INSTEAD
53. Apparel brand with a spinnaker logo: NAUTICA
57. Mesh: FIT IN
60. Red-pencil: EMEND. I had the first "E" already in place, so I wasn't tempted by AMEND.
61. December 24 and 31: EVES
62. "At Last" singer James: ETTA. A lovely song.
63. Georgia team, in sports headlines: DAWGS. Bulldogs, to give them their formal name.
64. Take a chance: DARE
65. Hoarse laugh: RASP
Down:
1. Tiny colonists: ANTS
2. Structural engineering piece: GIRT. Thank you, crosses. Want to know your studs and joists from your girts? Here you go ..
3. Chills and fever: AGUE
4. Tibetan leaders: SHERPAS. Not the Dalai Lamas then. I'm not sure I'd call a sherpa a leader, but I guess they are in the mountain guiding sense.
5. Specially formed: AD HOC
6. Saskatchewan city with a 34-foot animal statue named Mac at its tourist info center: MOOSE JAW. Here's Mac, with his "cute" Lego model which looks to be about eight feet tall!
7. NHL great Bobby: ORR
8. Dodge City native: KANSAN
9. "Up and __!": AT 'EM! Funny, I talked about this last week - we had "Up and About" then.
10. Cough medicine ingredient: CODEINE
12. Inventor Howe: ELIAS. He invented and patented the lockstitch sewing machine, and was involved in a protracted lawsuit for five years with Isaac Singer, who was producing and selling machines which violated Howe's patents. Howe won, and made a lot of money over the years with royalties from Singer. He was granted a patent in 1851 for an "automatic, continuous clothing closure", the zipper as we know it today. He didn't exploit the invention, possibly because he was making money from the sewing machine royalties.
13. "Peace out": SEE YA!
18. Marsh duck: TEAL. They can't walk straight, but they can fly in a corkscrew motion at speeds in excess of 50 mph. That's some achievement! The English expression "drunk as a duck" refers to the teal's characteristic waddle on land.
22. Schoolyard retort: ARE TOO!
24. U.S. neighbor to the north: CAN.
26. One of two in Hank Aaron's uniform number: FOUR. There's a mint-condition "Hammerin' Hank" 1954 rookie card on eBay at the moment going for $37,500 if you're interested!
27. Proactiv+ target: ACNE
30. First words in an alphabet book: A IS ... for ...
32. Largest of New York's Finger Lakes: SENECA. I don't know any of the Finger Lakes off the top of my head, but I had enough letters from the crosses to fill this in without a thought.
34. Tart taste: TANG
35. Mega Stuf cookie: OREO
37. Great Basin st.: NEV. National Park in eastern Nevada close to the Utah border.
38. One may be civil: ENGINEER. I used to go to football matches back in England with a friend who was a civil engineer. His language was anything but civil when his team was losing (which was often!)
41. Message board item: POSTING
42. South, in Avignon: SUD
43. Local news segment: WEATHER
45. Settled in for the night, with "down": BEDDED
46. Surfeit: GLUT
47. Fluted on the march: FIFED. I fell for the "PIPED" trap at first, but didn't take long to correct it.
48. Jungian inner self: ANIMA. I think I knew this, but the crosses filled it in for me.
50. Momentary error: LAPSE
52. Fades to black: ENDS
54. Bit: IOTA
55. Stops shooting: CUTS. I like that movie and TV directors still have megaphones; I saw a lot in use when I worked on the lot at Warner Bros.
56. "Stat!": ASAP!
59. Gabor of "Green Acres": EVA. Her sister, Magda, was briefly married to George Sanders, who had been previously married to the third sister, Zsa Zsa. Keepin' it in the family!
I think that about covers it for today. Here's the grid, with the circled "compass rose" in the center.
Steve
17A. Authentic piece of a holy relic?: TRUE THORN. True North. The magnetic inclination (the difference between True North and Magnetic North) changes over time and also depends on where you are on the globe, but if you were standing at the North Pole and pulled out a compass, it would point you towards Ellesmere Island in northern Canada, more than 300 miles away.
58A. Biblical pronouns read by James Earl Jones?: DEEP THOUS. Deep South.
11D. Place reserved for one reconciling a dispute?: MIDDLE SEAT. Middle East. Funnily, the middle seat occupant on the airplane sometimes is the cause of a dispute over the armrest.
28D. Unwelcome leftovers?: THE OLD STEW. The Old West. Depends how old. Some stews get better left for a couple of days to let the flavors develop. Obviously, there's a tipping point :)
Right then, let's dig into this one. The anagrams don't seem forced in the four theme entries which is great, Debra did have a clever observation that there are anagrams to be had; and the circled letters highlighted in the grid do give you a nudge towards finding the compass points. A great way to solve an anagram is to write the letters in a circle; perhaps that was a subtle hint too, I'm not sure if this was Debra's intention. Maybe I'm reading too much into that, but I liked it.
Now, let's get to a couple of niggles - I'm thinking that if you're going to use "THE old west" you should also have "THE deep south" and "THE Middle East". These don't really stand on their own, unlike "True North" which doesn't need the definite article. I like consistency and to me this falls a little short. Also, if you're going to use "?" in the clue as the device to hint at the theme entries, you absolutely shouldn't have a clue like 20A. Your mileage may vary, naturally.
Moving right along ...
Across:
1. Ottoman bigwigs: AGAS
5. Wildly: AMOK. Amok is a funny word, you only ever see it paired with "run". I suppose "walking amok" doesn't have the same ring to it.
9. Peaks: ACMES
14. At hand: NIGH
15. Animated explorer: DORA
16. Patterned fabric: TOILE
19. Comedian Izzard: EDDIE. One of my favorite stand-up comics, I've linked to him before. How Britain built its Empire (TV-MA for language).
20. Sound investments?: STEREOS. See intro comment.
21. Like some deliveries: SAME-DAY
23. Indy guide: PACE CAR. Nice clue - "Lonely Planet" would be my first guess, despite having way too many letters. Since 2002, Chevrolet has had the exclusive rights to provide the pace car at the Indianapolis 500, they've all been Corvettes or Camaros, unsuprisingly. I wouldn't want to pace a field of IndyCars in a Chevy Spark.
25. She walked into Rick's gin joint: ILSA. "Play it, Sam".
26. Disastrous: FATAL Yep. Pretty much covers it.
29. Comedian Garofalo: JANEANE. Thank you, crosses.
31. Folk legend Phil: OCHS
32. __ Jose: SAN. Do you know the way?
33. Connects with: TIES TO
36. Arles article: UNE. It seems a shame to consign Arles to a crossword clue. I lived there for a few weeks, and who doesn't appreciate a nice Roman adqueduct?
37. __ West Records: Nashville label: NEW. Thank you, crosses.
38. Rosy-fingered goddess who rises in the east: EOS, Thank you, crosswords.
39. AirPod spot: EAR. Pops up again.
40. Get back in business: RE-OPEN
42. Product prefix that evokes winter: SNO-
43. Die down: WANE
44. Herbie, in Disney films: LOVE BUG
46. Outset: GET-GO
47. They don't last: FADS
49. Part of Curaçao: CEDILLA. The diacritical mark under the "C". The spendidly-named map-maker Heironymus Cock named it "Quraçao" on his 1562 map of the region, but that variant didn't catch on, so Curaçao it is.
51. Rather: INSTEAD
53. Apparel brand with a spinnaker logo: NAUTICA
57. Mesh: FIT IN
60. Red-pencil: EMEND. I had the first "E" already in place, so I wasn't tempted by AMEND.
61. December 24 and 31: EVES
62. "At Last" singer James: ETTA. A lovely song.
63. Georgia team, in sports headlines: DAWGS. Bulldogs, to give them their formal name.
64. Take a chance: DARE
65. Hoarse laugh: RASP
Down:
1. Tiny colonists: ANTS
2. Structural engineering piece: GIRT. Thank you, crosses. Want to know your studs and joists from your girts? Here you go ..
3. Chills and fever: AGUE
4. Tibetan leaders: SHERPAS. Not the Dalai Lamas then. I'm not sure I'd call a sherpa a leader, but I guess they are in the mountain guiding sense.
5. Specially formed: AD HOC
6. Saskatchewan city with a 34-foot animal statue named Mac at its tourist info center: MOOSE JAW. Here's Mac, with his "cute" Lego model which looks to be about eight feet tall!
7. NHL great Bobby: ORR
8. Dodge City native: KANSAN
9. "Up and __!": AT 'EM! Funny, I talked about this last week - we had "Up and About" then.
10. Cough medicine ingredient: CODEINE
12. Inventor Howe: ELIAS. He invented and patented the lockstitch sewing machine, and was involved in a protracted lawsuit for five years with Isaac Singer, who was producing and selling machines which violated Howe's patents. Howe won, and made a lot of money over the years with royalties from Singer. He was granted a patent in 1851 for an "automatic, continuous clothing closure", the zipper as we know it today. He didn't exploit the invention, possibly because he was making money from the sewing machine royalties.
13. "Peace out": SEE YA!
18. Marsh duck: TEAL. They can't walk straight, but they can fly in a corkscrew motion at speeds in excess of 50 mph. That's some achievement! The English expression "drunk as a duck" refers to the teal's characteristic waddle on land.
22. Schoolyard retort: ARE TOO!
24. U.S. neighbor to the north: CAN.
26. One of two in Hank Aaron's uniform number: FOUR. There's a mint-condition "Hammerin' Hank" 1954 rookie card on eBay at the moment going for $37,500 if you're interested!
27. Proactiv+ target: ACNE
30. First words in an alphabet book: A IS ... for ...
32. Largest of New York's Finger Lakes: SENECA. I don't know any of the Finger Lakes off the top of my head, but I had enough letters from the crosses to fill this in without a thought.
34. Tart taste: TANG
35. Mega Stuf cookie: OREO
37. Great Basin st.: NEV. National Park in eastern Nevada close to the Utah border.
38. One may be civil: ENGINEER. I used to go to football matches back in England with a friend who was a civil engineer. His language was anything but civil when his team was losing (which was often!)
41. Message board item: POSTING
42. South, in Avignon: SUD
43. Local news segment: WEATHER
45. Settled in for the night, with "down": BEDDED
46. Surfeit: GLUT
47. Fluted on the march: FIFED. I fell for the "PIPED" trap at first, but didn't take long to correct it.
48. Jungian inner self: ANIMA. I think I knew this, but the crosses filled it in for me.
50. Momentary error: LAPSE
52. Fades to black: ENDS
54. Bit: IOTA
55. Stops shooting: CUTS. I like that movie and TV directors still have megaphones; I saw a lot in use when I worked on the lot at Warner Bros.
56. "Stat!": ASAP!
59. Gabor of "Green Acres": EVA. Her sister, Magda, was briefly married to George Sanders, who had been previously married to the third sister, Zsa Zsa. Keepin' it in the family!
I think that about covers it for today. Here's the grid, with the circled "compass rose" in the center.
Steve
