"ER Added"
17. How to get buns of steel?: TAKE THE A TRAIN
25. Axes one of the market employees?: BOUNCES A CHECK
43. "All these steaks are too well done"?: NOT ONE RED CENT
57. Hilariously react to a butt-baring prankster?: HOWL AT THE MOON
Remove the ER from the nouns to get the base phrases of these funnily redefined theme entries. The first one was the hardest for me to parse. Just took a bit of staring to see it. It was also the one that cracked me up the most.
This looks to be another debut for the LA Times crossword venue. Lemonade sent me an email saying that today's constructor and Jeff Chen collaborated on a pair of NYT puzzles in 2014. So six years later, it seems Dick has once again decided to dip his toe into crossword construction.
Across:
1. Stat cousin: ASAP.
5. Acronym often seen with a plus sign: LGBTQ. I forgot the Q part, and the intersecting "NBA Div." clue had me stumped.
10. 1886 debut at Jacobs' Pharmacy in Atlanta: COKE. The first year's sales averaged nine glasses a day @ five cents each.
14. Unflappable: COOL. For a moment, I thought Molly Brown was unflappable. Then remembered the correct adjective.
15. Stop on the Métro?: ARRET. Métro tells you it is French. The question mark alerts you that something is afoot.
Arrêt does mean stop. But a station on the Métro is formally known as a station de métro. Who woulda thunk it ?
Informally, the answer could mean stop... In the right context, arrêt would probably be understood to mean train station stop. But be careful, because a bus stop is known as an "arret de bus" so...
This convoluted explanation brought to you by me after reading an explanation on Trip Advisor. I defer to Kazie and those who are well-versed in travelling the Métro.
16. Anderson of "WKRP in Cincinnati": LONI. - The St. Paul, Minnesota born bosomy blonde bombshell probably kept the sitcom afloat and probably set aflame the hearts of the teenage boy viewing audience.
20. Rental at Aspen: SKI BOOTS. Boot rentals make sense unless you are an avid skier or a ski bum.
21. All agog: IN AWE.
22. Mme. counterpart: SRA. The abbreviations for Madame and Senora, respectively. Wlile we are at it, let's also review that Mademoiselle would be Mlle., and Senorita would be Srta.
23. Samsung : Bixby :: Apple : __: SIRI. Virtual assistants. High tech.
33. Sleep disturbance: APNEA. That's not what wakes me up at night.
34. Roxette and Eurythmics: DUOs.
35. "The Puzzle Palace" org.: NSA. I read the preview.
36. D-Day invasion city: ST LO.
37. Draining target?: SWAMP. Didn't they try that in the Everglades ?
39. Pressure: HEAT.
40. Adherent's suffix: ITE.
41. High-tech read: EMAG. I guess high tech because they are online, or because you read them on a high tech device. Technology ? Yes. High tech ?
42. "The Power of Now" author Eckhart __: TOLLE. A quick search tells me he is a spiritual teacher and best selling author. His 1997 book cited in the clue, " ... is intended to be a guide for day-to-day living and stresses the importance of living in the present moment and transcending thoughts of the past or future."
47. __ & Chandon Champagne: MOET.
48. Popular U.S. street name: ELM. There was a nightmare there.
49. Cheese shape: WHEEL. 200 and 220 pound wheels ? They are huge. But not this Wisconsin Baby Swiss:
52. Transmission problem: SLIPPAGE. I had this problem in my Grand Prix, way back when they were large cars. To save money, GM decided to put the small Turbo Hydramatic 200 transmission that was developed for the smaller Chevy Vega and Chevy Nova in all their larger cars. One day it wouldn't move in reverse gear. I called a transmission shop and they told me to contact the Better Business Bureau. GM paid for the replacement of a rebuilt 350 transmission.
60. "Get it?" response: I SEE.
61. Mazda MX-5, familiarly: MIATA. Anonymous PVX tells us: he has one, loves it, and isn't ready to replace it anytime soon.
62. Fly in the ointment: SNAG.
63. Drink garnish: ZEST. The store was out of Ivory, Dove and Dial bar soaps. So I bought Zest. The scent is too much for DW at night. She had to shut the bathroom door. Wait. I take that back. It was Irish Spring, not Zest.
64. Researcher's aid: INDEX. The Differences Between Indexes and Scales
65. Besmirches: TARS. Tars as slang for tarnishes.
Down:
1. Musical pair, commonly: ACTs.
2. Drench: SOAK.
3. World Golf Hall of Famer Isao: AOKI. His first and last names are very crossword friendly.
4. Working-class Roman: PLEB.
5. Capital of Pakistan's Punjab province: LAHORE. Nailed it !
6. Activist Thunberg and actress Scacchi: GRETAs. Only knew of the former but it was enough to fill in the blanks.
7. Support group?: BRAs. My wife did not think using her brassières as face masks was too smart. However, if you search YouTube, you'll find various videos of people using thongs and jock straps.
8. Saigon New Year: TET.
9. NBA div.: QTR. I had (blank) T R, and was stumped. Knew it wasn't CTR, and had to recite the alphabet until I got all the way to Q. Then it dawned. An NBA basketball game is divided into four 12 minute quarters.
10. Place with outpatients: CLINIC.
11. The last Mrs. Chaplin: OONA.
12. Was forewarned: KNEW.
13. Cork's home: EIRE.
18. Puccini heroine: TOSCA.
19. Winds, in a South American city name: AIRES. Buenos.
23. Film on water: SCUM.
24. Restaurant in the same corporate group as Applebee's: IHOP. The corporate group is Dine Brands Global. However, they may not be together much longer. On April 2nd, Reuters reported that activist investment firm JCP Partners filed a proposal urging shareholders to vote FOR having Dine Brands spin off IHOP. JCP argues that Applebee's has been a drag on corporate earnings. Shareholders will decide on May 12th. It may have been fortuitous that this puzzle and clue was published before then.
25. Water holder: BASIN.
26. Decide one will: OPT TO.
27. Vacant, in a way: UNLET.
28. Opposite of paleo-: NEO.
29. Saw: ADAGE.
30. Prepared to talk to a tot, perhaps: KNELT.
31. Virtual transaction: E-SALE.
32. Zagat, for one: RATER. Over the years since 1979, the Zagat Guides have reported on and rated restaurants, hotels, nightlife, shopping, zoos, music, movies, theaters, golf courses, and airlines. Probably not as trusted as it once was. I used the Michelin Guides in Europe.
Now they are all being supplanted by crowd sourced reviews on apps such as Yelp. The Yelp ratings are ok, as long as you have a healthy skepticism of reviews that are too glowing or too negative. That's because crowd sourced restaurant and product reviews are frequent targets of astroturfing by sockpuppets.
37. Bob Hoskins' role in "Hook": SMEE. He played Smee in 1991's Hook, and in 2011's Neverland.
38. Small flaw: WART.
39. Sweetie: HON. Terms of endearment.
41. Name on a historic B-29: ENOLA. The "Enola Gay" was so named by pilot Colonel Paul Tibbets in honor of his mother.
42. Beat: TEMPO.
44. Western, e.g.: OMELET. Wait a minute. Last week they said it was a Denver omelet. IHOP has a Colorado Omelet.
45. Rub out: DELETE.
46. Turning point: CLIMAX. Years ago I thought the band Climax Blues Band was a later version of the band Climax. "Precious and Few" was released in 1971 and sung by Sonny Geraci, who five years earlier in 1966 had a hit with the band, The Outsiders. I'd link that song, but "Time Won't Let Me"
49. Phenom: WHIZ.
50. Cheat: HOSE.
51. Rams' fans?: EWES.
52. Herring known for its roe: SHAD.
53. Military installation: POST.
54. "Frozen" princess: ANNA. Voiced, in part, by Kristen Bell.
55. Reverse, say: GEAR. Have I ever mentioned about my Pontiac Grand Prix that wouldn't move when I shifted gears to R ?
56. Joule fractions: ERGS.
58. Texter's "I didn't need to know that": TMI. Too Much Information
59. __ ear: TIN.
