L.A.Times Crossword Corner

Apr 10, 2021

Saturday, April 10, 2021, Stella Zawistowski

Themeless Saturday by Stella Zawistowski

Our renaissance woman from Brooklyn returns! Stella is a copywriter, a power-lifter and an alto in the Oratorical Society of New York. Talk about a woman for all seasons!

I told Stella that I must be catching on to her delightful style as I made very good time and did not find any real heavy lifting. Here is Stella's fun and gracious note about this puzzle:

Don't judge me, anyone: Phil Collins is BY FAR my favorite pop artist. I love him by himself, I love him with Genesis, I even watched that terrible Disney movie "Brother Bear" because he wrote songs for it. So when I noticed that probably his most famous song of all, IN THE AIR TONIGHT, was a 15, I absolutely had to build a puzzle around it. Rich wasn't 100% sold on the first grid I sent, but he also loves the song and encouraged me to try
again fixing an area with less-than-great fill. I did not seed anything else in the puzzle before getting started filling; this was really about my love for Phil and nothing else!

My first published themeless as a solo artist, Inkubator's themeless #3 from June 2019, also included a Phil song as a seed: TAKE ME HOME, which I thought was appropriate for a final Across entry. Neither of these is my absolute favorite of his, his duet with Philip Bailey, EASY LOVER. That is a 9 made of lots of easy-to-work-with letters, so I'm sure you can expect that from me soon enough.

Across:

1. Calendario square: DIA

4. SAT prep topic: VOCAB - Wanna try a sample?

9. George Harrison played one in "Norwegian Wood": SITAR - Nice to listen to as you read

14. Point B, usually: END if Point A is Phoenix and Point B is47. Baja resort: CABO, it can involve three different modes of transportation

15. Warren Buffett's birth city: OMAHA - The house where he was born is at 4224 Barker Street in OMAHA

16. Stunned: IN AWE.

17. Makeup of some facial masks: MUD.

18. Big wheels?: LIMOS.

19. Breads sometimes served with meze: PITAS - Meze (both singular and plural) is a selection of small dishes served as appetizers sometimes on PITAS in parts of the Middle East, the Balkans, Greece, and North Africa.

20. Middle of dinner?: ENS = diNNer

21. Impolite look: STARE.

22. Weapon for Buffy: STAKE - Standard tool for your local, neighborhood vampire slayer

23. Put down: DISS - Street lingo for disrespect and an invitation to a confrontation

25. Competitive event: RACE.

27. Some anti-mob agents: T-MEN - T(reasury)-MEN got Capone

28. Argument-ending words: I SAID SO - When parental reasoning fails...

31. Relevant: ON POINT - "How did we wind up talking about that? Stay ON POINT!"

33. Fluffy herder: COLLIE - Anyone remember Rudd Weatherwax?

34. Kind of bird Blu is in the 2011 movie "Rio": MACAW - Wanna draw Blu?

35. 1981 hit known for its drum break: IN THE AIR TONIGHT - Drum break by Stella's fav starts at about 3:35

40. 10th-century Holy Roman emperor: OTTO I

41. "The Bathers" artist: RENOIR - As long as I'm making lists: He painted Bather With A Griffin Dog, Blonde Bather, The Large Bathers, Bathers Playing With A Crab, Seated Bather Drying Her Leg, Women Bathers, Bathers and The Bathers. Google at will.

42. Mate-related: SPOUSAL.

45. Carlisle of the Go-Go's: BELINDA - If you're a big fan, you probably know which one she is. I'm not and I don't but I liked We Got The Beat.

46. Waffle __: CONE - I've told the story before about how a waffle maker at the St. Louis World's Fair turned a waffle into a cone when an ice cream vendor next door ran out of dishes, so I won't repeat it.

49. Many a Snapchat user: TEEN - Snapchat is supposed to delete any image a TEEN sends right after it is viewed. Hmmm...what could go wrong with that?

50. Autumn colors: RUSTS - A beautiful view of a New Hampshire scenic drive from a drone

52. Current moment: NONCE - A redux from Joe Deeney's 3/31/21 puzzle

55. Is in the past?: WAS - The longer it is the better I WAS!

56. Ready to blow: IRATE - When I discovered I was so close to being scammed this week!

57. Like Romantic music: TONAL - TONAL, Atonal and Modal Music

58. Watson's co.: IBM - How about a nice game of chess?

59. No-holds-barred happening: MELEE.

60. Nocturnal carnivore: HYENA.

61. Aromatic neckwear: LEI.

62. Deltoid-working exercise: PRESS - Stella would know!

63. Gone from the table: EATEN.

64. "Silent Spring" subj.: DDT - Rachel Carson's seminal work

Down:

1. Lorenzo who sponsored Michelangelo: DE MEDICI - The Lorenzo DE MEDICI tomb with sculptures by Michelangelo

2. How Gregorian chants are sung: IN UNISON - I told Stella that I confidently put in A CAPELLA first and then ATONALLY

3. Seasons, in a way: ADDS SALT.

4. Bks. in a set: VOLS - A 1973 set of Funk and Wagnalls Encyclopedia - 27 VOLS

5. Drop: OMIT.

6. Muscly Chevy: CAMARO - There are countless pictures but I chose this "over-the-top" image

7. This minute, in Tijuana: AHORA - Quiero jugar golf AHORA (I want to play golf NOW)

8. Manicure layer: BASE COAT.

9. Tentative tastes: SIPS.

10. Bent on victory: IN IT TO WIN IT

11. Teahouse floor covering: TATAMI.

12. Come to: AWAKEN.

13. Begrudge: RESENT.

24. Many profile portraits: SILHOUETTES - Are you humming the theme?

26. Response to huge applause, maybe: ENCORE.

29. Plans for losers?: DIETS - Always fun cluing

30. It's about 950 miles north of LAX: SEATAC.

32. Comic-Con event: PANEL.

34. Sports doc's pic: MRI.

36. Gilbert and Sullivan operetta that satirizes Parliament: IOLANTHE.

37. Out of control: GONE WILD.

38. Pull-out furniture item: HIDE-A-BED - I always felt that metal bar in my back

39. Convey: TRANSMIT - John Logie Baird invented television. Here he is shown with his "televisor" that he used to TRANSMIT the first TV signal across the Atlantic in 1928