Saturday, November 14, 2020, Kyle Dolan

  Themeless Puzzle by Kyle Dolan

It seems like it was just yesterday C.C. asked me to be the Saturday blogger and here I am doing my tenth themeless puzzle from Kyle Dolan. Here is his generous and informative reply to my gmail:

Hi Gary!

Hope all is well with you!

The seed entry for this puzzle was HEART EYES. I sometimes seed themeless grids with long bottom-row entries, since these positions tend to be naturally more constrained than their top row counterparts. HEART EYES is a fresh, lively entry that also contains letters frequently found at the ends of words (E,H,R,T,S,Y), allowing much more flexibility to build upward.

The grid you're seeing now is fairly close to my original submission. Rich asked me to revise the central region, where I originally had ARBOL (clued as a kind of pepper) at 28-Down where ARIAL is now. Rich also changed the crossing at 44-Down and 50-Across from my MESCAL/DIS to MEZCAL/DIZ ("mezcal" is admittedly the more common spelling, but I'd hesitated about crossing it with DIZ at the Z).

You asked about clues--in the final version there are 46 clues where Rich used my original version or made only a minor adjustment (out of 72). I'm glad to see my clues for 16-Across, 45-Across, 34-Down and 57-Down all made the cut in some form. I often enjoy using duplicated clues in my puzzles, so when I learned that both OHIO University and UGA (Georgia) are both in towns called Athens, I knew I had to give them twin clues!

Thanks,

Kyle

My lone "mistake" was what Kyle mentioned in his note. I had an S for DI_/ME_CAL which not only seemed fine to me but it was Kyle's original intent and so I'll take a "got 'er done".  Rich could have settled for 50. Scorn in the hood for DIS and keep 44. Tequila relative for MESCAL.

Across:

1. Passage for change: SLOT - These SLOTS saw a lot of my change pass through in my misspent yute

5. Steadfast refusal: NO MEANS NO - Got it?

14. Lakeside rental: CANOE - My first pick was the wrong 5-letter C A _ _ _ word in this lake picture 

16. Morning person's mantra: UP AND AT 'EM - Waking up 120 teenagers everyday on my 23 Central Florida field trips was challenging.

17. Bone near a temple: ANVIL - The temporal bone forms the temple and has the auditory canal that leads to the ANVIL (Incus)

18. Sports-based nickname for Green Bay: TITLE TOWN - This celebrates their NFL Championships (most were pre-Super Bowl)

19. Like some online antivirus protection: REAL TIME 

21. Brad's Drink, nowadays: PEPSI.

22. PC panic key: ESC.

23. Galena, e.g.: ORE - Galena ORE has very little use but it is a very useful, though potentially toxic, source of lead 

24. CPA's column entries: AMTS.

26. Nullify: ABROGATE.

29. Michigan's state wildflower is one: IRIS 

33. Influential supporter: PATRON - As a PATRON of the arts, Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to paint a ceiling for him after Raphael turned down the job

35. Word with tie or fly: ROD - One helps steer your car and the other helps you catch fish

36. Spiritual teacher: LAMA - A spiritual leader in Tibetan Buddhism 

37. School in Athens: OHIO and 42. Sch. in Athens: UGA - OHIO University and The University of Georgia. Kyle loved the fact that these schools are both in cities named Athens. 

38. Maguire's "Spider-Man" director: RAIMI - Sam on the set with Toby Maguire and Kirsten Dunst. I ran across his name Monday in the NYT puzzle and so I was prepared.

40. Fights (for): VIES - In last Sunday's great puzzle we had 48A. VIE: MOVIE CLIP.
 
41. Fish-eating bird: LOON.

43. What might be made after an argument: AMENDS 

45. Minnesota WNBA team: LYNX - I wonder if C.C. and Boomer follow them

46. NBA team originally from Minnesota: LA LAKERS - Here is LA LAKER Kobe Bryant wearing a "retro" uniform honoring their predecessors: The Minneapolis (MPLS) Lakers.

48. Handle user: CBER - I had a Citizen's Band radio in the 1980's and used some of that lingo: "Breaker, breaker one nine for Single Cross. Ya got yer ears on? What's your 20? Come back." Yeah, I know... 

50. Jazz trumpeter's nickname: DIZ.

51. Snicker part: HEE.

54. Japanese soup stock: DASHI - Add this powder to warm water and you have DASHI stock

57. Outdoor cookers: HOT COALS - Marshmallows please!

59. Words after yawning: I NEED A NAP 

62. Long range: ANDES - The Andes Mountains extend over seven countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela, known as Andean States.

63. Banksy genre: STREET ART - An anonymous British artist

64. Lewis with the 2015 album "I Am": LEONA - Here 'ya go

65. Emoji related to Blowing Kiss: HEART EYES - Kyle's seed entry as seen on yours truly:

66. Influence: SWAY - Candidates try to SWAY voters

Down:

1. Cause to jump, maybe: SCARE.

2. Paths between gutters: LANES - These bumpers were a wonderful invention to keep the ball on the LANES and out of the gutters

3. Away, maybe: ON VACATION - Is anyone you know traveling these days? 

4. Plug away: TOIL

57. Fabulous racer: HARE - Fabulous here means "celebrated in fable" where the tortoise  exemplifies the previous clue/fill above

5. Pumpkin pie spice: NUTMEG.

6. TV kid in Miss Crump's class: OPIE - I had no idea on RAIMI but knew Miss Crump instantly. Andy Griffith's affair with Miss Crump (Aneta Corsaut) while he was married was "the worst kept secret on the set"

7. Yoga studio item: MAT.

8. Phot. lab request: ENL - In a 1948 film noir Call Northside 777, Jimmy Stewart's character uses an ENL in this scene to find a date that proves a man's innocence. Watch the entire movie

9. Expert: ADEPT.

10. FiveThirtyEight guru: NATE SILVER 

11. Organ part: STOP - The Mormon Tabernacle Organ has 5 keyboards and 147 STOPS you see on the left and right panels here

12. Breaking __: NEWS.

13. Four Seasons rival: OMNI - This hotel company often appears on our crossword itinerary 

15. Corrida foe: EL TORO - A corrida is a bullfight and... 

20. Despotic regime: IRON RULE 

24. Science word from the Greek for "indivisible": ATOM - From the Greek: "a" meaning not and "tomos" meaning cut

25. Pre-packaged promotional materials: MEDIA KIT - Here's what we want you to know/think about our company/policy

27. Raspberry since the 1920s: BRONX CHEER - It can be accompanied by a raspberry (an interesting derivation)

28. Easy-to-read font: ARIAL - This is the Georgia font I use. This is ARIAL

30. Leeward mountain dry area: RAIN SHADOW - Here you see Mt. Hood as part of the Cascade Range and the RAIN SHADOW that forms when the precipitation can't get over the Cascades.

31. Chatted with, briefly: IMED - My 80-yr-old widowed neighbor IMED (Instant MessagED) me just yesterday 

32. Time-out cause: SASS 

33. Election year staple: POLL - Polling can turn out to be very, uh, unpredictable 

34. Stern call?: AHOY - You could yell AHOY in style from the stern of this yacht

39. Food thickener: AGAR.

44. Tequila relative: MEZCAL - “An old Oaxacan proverb goes: "Para todo mal, mezcal, y para todo bien, también." Huh?

47. Embraces: ADOPTS.

49. Common overseas hotel amenity: BIDET.

52. Colleague of Neil and Sonia: ELENA 

Sonia Sotamayor, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch

53. Didion work: ESSAY - Bio and IMDB

54. Gossip: DISH - DISHing  dirt is way different than eating dirt

55. Pot builder: ANTE - When you hear, "Pot's light" in a poker game, it means someone has yet to ANTE

56. "Buona __": Italian greeting: SERA - A silly 1968 movie: Buona SERA (Good Evening) Mrs. Campbell Trailer

58. Singles: ONES.

60. Absorbed, as extra expenses: ATE - Ford lost $350M on the Edsel 

61. Anti-passing cry: NAY - On December 8, 1941 Jeanette Rankin of Montana was the only member of either house of Congress to vote NAY on the declaration of war on Japan. Hisses could be heard in the gallery as she cast her vote; several colleagues, including Rep. (later Senator) Everett Dirksen, asked her to change it to make the resolution unanimous—or at very least, to abstain—but she refused. "As a woman I can't go to war," she said, "and I refuse to send anyone else.

This picture shows her in a phone booth later that day calling for protection from people who were very angry with her.