Theme: Time for a drink! As the theme reveal neatly explains:
37. Breaks found on rows 3, 5, 11 and 13 of this puzzle?: INTERMISSIONS.
Intermissions are lovely. You put in your drink order at the bar before the first act, and when the curtain drops for the break, off you trot and find your order ready and waiting for you. It's part of the magic of live theater. In the case of "The Woman in Black" in London's West End, I damn well needed it. I was scared to death. My daughter (I think she was 17 at the time) had to pat my hand to calm me down. I did notice she downed her Jack & Coke pretty quickly though.
So moving on, the grid at the bottom gives you a better picture of the theme entries, but the "intermission" breaks up the names of four Shakespeare plays (Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth and Othello) on the four rows of the puzzle which have only one black square. I'm visualizing the black square as the curtain coming down for the interval. Coming back from the interval, you might see this:
I looked to see if there was anything deeper to the theme, but I couldn't uncover a "meta". We have a prince, a king, a thane first and then a king and finally a general, but nothing I can see to link the title characters together.
Straightforward enough theme then, nothing to anger the crossword gods as far as I can see. It might be a little on the easy side for a Thursday, but there's no harm in a breeze through the puzzle every now and then. Let's take a tour:
1. Gets ready for vacation: PACKS.
6. Initialed, perhaps: OK'ED.
10. Turkish title of honor: AGHA.
14. Before-bed read: E-BOOK. Peculiar clue/answer, why an e-book in particular and why specifically before bed?
15. After curfew: LATE. Before curfew: LATTÉ
16. Boy friends: BROS.
17. Entrée with a sweet glaze: CANDIED HAM.
19. Reply to "Shall we?": LETS!
20. __ Minor: ASIA.
21. Indian princess: RANI. Aghas and Ranis today. We are honored.
22. Grand, moneywise: GEE.
23. Making out: NECKING.
25. Do-it-yourself manual phrase: LEARN TO.
29. Baby blues, e.g.: PEEPERS. Jeepers, Creepers!
31. __ & Perrins steak sauce: LEA. Repeat after me. It's pronounced WUSTER. Guy Ferry (oh, I'm sorry "Fieri" as he now prefers to be known) revelling in his own ignorance annoys me just a little. It's not difficult. Moving on, rant over.
32. Make the grade?: PASS.
35. Country with the highest and lowest points in the W. Hemisphere: ARGentina. The high point is Cerro Aconcagua at 22,141ft and the low point is Laguna del Carbón which is 344 ft below sea level, making a height differential of 22,485 ft. Quite a climb from bottom to top.
36. Like cranberry juice: TART.
41. Senate staffer: PAGE. I tried AIDE first. Was wrong, but easily rectified.
42. Attila follower: HUN. I like this one - HUN follows ATTILA in his generally-accepted name, and the Huns as a whole followed him. Neat!
43. Lymph __: NODE.
44. Switch ups?: ONS. Switch downs - Offs. Just to confuse the issue, the Brits, not content with spelling words with a redundant "U" and driving on the wrong side of the road have "Off" being up and "On" being down. I know.
45. Old dinero: PESETAS.
48. River under the Arlington Memorial Bridge: POTOMAC. Not difficult if you know that the Potomac is in D.C but a nice clue.
50. "Don't miss it!": BE THERE!
55. ER workers: RN'S.
56. Animal house: LAIR.
58. Rink jump: AXEL.
59. Unintended ink, maybe: BLOT. Not a tattoo when you've had too much to drink? Someone should tell Jimmy Buffett "... how it got there I haven't a clue".
61. Sanrio character with a red bow: HELLO KITTY. I have a picture of myself with a six-foot Hello Kitty costume character at one of the Licensing Expos in Las Vegas. I'll spare you.
63. Car with a bar: LIMO. I was thinking railroads and trying to think of an alternate name for the bar car when the penny dropped.
64. H.S. subject: BIOL.
65. Cajun pods: OKRAS. I'm not sure I'd use the "S" to pluralize this one. To me, "okra" is singular and plural.
66. Cookbook abbr.: TBSP. How many okra to a tablespoon?
67. Binary code digits: ONES. Binary. It's as easy as 01,10,11.
68. Bill Parcells' real first name: DUANE. Nice bit of trivia this, I had no idea. The Big Tuna adopted the name "Bill" because at high school he was always being mistaken for another student called Bill, and he didn't like his given name, so he went with the misnomer.
Down:
1. Pie choice: PECAN. Apple for me.
2. Humble: ABASE. Verb, not the noun.
3. Like megaphones: CONIC.
4. Company that coined a photographic "moment": KODAK.
5. Compete in a biathlon: SKI. Then you shoot. The biathlon and the modern pentathlon are all based on what skills a soldier would need; in the biathlon's case an infantry soldier in winter, in the pentathlon's case a cavalry officer (although I'm not sure quite why a cavalry officer would need to swim unless his horse went on strike).
6. Time of one's life: OLD AGE. When does old age start? I remember when I was a kid that I was aghast when I worked out that by the year 2000 I'd be 41. I was convinced I'd never make it to be that old.
7. Actress Madeline: KAHN. Who? Thank you, crosses, always bailing me out with TV and film peeps.
8. Amazon and Etsy: E-TAILERS.
9. AOC, for one: DEM. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democratic reprentative for New York's 14th Congressional District.
10. More competent: ABLER.
11. Home of Thule Air Base, the U.S. Air Force's northernmost: GREENLAND. What happened to the plan to buy the country? That seemed to die a quick death.
12. In great demand: HOT.
13. Donkey: ASS.
18. Sea eagle: ERNE.
24. __ dixit: assertion without proof: IPSE. "That's just how it is".
26. Units of energy: ERGS. Derived from the Greek "ergon" meaning work, or task. In SI units it is equivalent to 1.000000×10−7 J; the Brits again make it complicated expressing it as equal to 7.375621×10−8 ft⋅lbf, but at least now you all know. I'd go with the SI version if you're ever asked.
27. Laconic: TERSE.
28. Cheerios grain: OAT.
30. Revolutionary pamphleteer: PAINE. Thomas Paine. He was born in Thetford in England and came over here to cause trouble. Not the first Englishman to stir the pot.
32. John's instrument: PIANO. Sir Elton, master of tickling the ivories.
33. Light-wave units: ANGSTROMS. Expresses wavelength and interatomic distances. Equivalent to 10−8 cm. We're getting quite a lesson in exponents today.
34. Sault __ Marie: STE. Thank you, crosswords past.
36. "__ bad!": TOO.
38. Flightless bird: RHEA.
39. Intrude (on): MUSCLE IN.
40. Research ctr.: INSTitute.
41. Soda: POP. Are all sodas pop, and are all pop sodas? I'm not sure, I'll turn it over to the wordly-wise.
45. Some govt. leaders: PM'S. Prime Ministers, or should that be "Ministers, Prime"? It's not widely known, but the designation of Prime Minister is usually an honorific, and not an official title, the UK included.
46. Govt. notes: T-BILLS.
47. Aviation prefix: AERO- You can have aeronautics, aerobatics and aeroplanes, but you can't have airnautics or airbatics, but you can have airplanes. Anyone care to tell us why?
51. Short verse: HAIKU.
52. More than needed: EXTRA.
53. Cure again, as leather: RE-TAN. I'm not sure if you can re-tan something, isn't it one and done, or worse, one and failed?
54. "Family Ties" mom: ELYSE. I never saw the show, but the solid crosses filled in the name for me.
57. Skin cream additive: ALOE.
59. Club alternative: BLT. The classic sandwich.
60. Ad-__: LIB.
61. "Big Little Lies" network: HBO.
62. Decked in a ring: KO' D.
[Cast Exeunt]
And so, here find ourselves at the end of the puzzle. Usually I'd just post the grid and be gone (begone with thee!) but today there's a little coda.
The sharp-eyed among you might have noticed that I skipped a couple of the solution entries, so here they are to finish things off:
49D. Good way to go out: ON TOP.
22D. Fun time: GAS.
As you might guess from that, this is my last blog at the Corner for the forseeable future (that's a cracking expression, isn't it - you can't tell what's going to happen in the next two minutes, so not exactly a lot of the future is foreseeable. A car crashed into my house once while I was sitting in this same chair, I certainly didn't foresee that happening, even two seconds before.)
I'm not sure I'm going out "on top" but I am going out "on Thursday" but you get the idea. And it's been a gas. Or, in the great words of the Rolling Stones - a "gas gas gas".
That's a cue for my final musical link: you might have to "click to expand" or unmute if you want to hear it. There's an expression "dance like no-one's watching" - I love how Mick Jagger dances precisely because someone's watching. So do the same. For the sheer musicianship, theatricals, lyrics and dance I think this is my favorite video of all time.
Thanks for all the education, comments, questions and clarifications over the years; it's been quite the experience. The blogging team here have been wonderful, and C.C. is an amazing mentor and inspiration.
Keep as well as you are able; and remember to be nice to each other. It's a short life, however long you live it. Or a long life, however short you live it. Don't hold back.
Now it's Theme Time - it's time for a drink!
Sláinte!
Steve
Notes from C.C.:
I'm very sad to tell you that today will be Steve's last write-up. He joined our team in 2012 and has faithfully guided us over 354 posts (thanks, TTP!). Steve blogged when he was traveling for work in India. He blogged when he was home in England for Christmas. No matter where he was, he's always here guiding us on Thursdays. Thank you so much for your hard work and dedication over the past 8 years, Steve. We'll miss your incomparable humor and wits You're a クールな男!"
