Good morning, cruciverbalists! Malodorous Manatee, here with the recap. Today you might sense a change in the air. Or, perhaps, it's "in the bag". To help illustrate this, my canine pal has shown up wearing a number of different outfits (while doing his best Jeff Lynne impersonation).
Our puzzle setter today, in what appears to be his L.A. Times debut, is Bill McCartha. Welcome to the Crossword Corner, Bill. We hope that it is just the first of many appearances.
At four places within the puzzle, Bill has cleverly placed streaks of consecutive letters that, when unscrambled, spell CLOTHES. That is impressive. The reveal provides us with a quite straightforward description of what is going on:
40 Across: Overnight bag item ... and what's literally hidden in 17-, 24-. 51- and 63-Across: CHANGE OF CLOTHES.
17 Across: Plane storage area: TOOL CHEST. A nice bit of misdirection. Something aeronautic? Nope. It's not an airplane but a carpenter's plane.
24 Across: Alpine resort features: SCENIC HOTELS. A bit awkward in that the alpine vistas are SCENIC but the HOTELS, themselves, probably would not be described as being scenic. Not too bad, though.
51 Across: St. Petersburg's Vaganova Academy, e.g.: BALLET SCHOOL. BALLET is often a good guess when the clue is looking for something Russian . . . et Les Ballets Trockadero hail from Monte Carlo (at least in name) so that won't be the answer.
63: Kyra Sedgwick TV title role:THE CLOSER. That second E in this answer was just a tiny bit confusing, theme-wise, for a moment.
Here's where the theme answer jumbles appear in the grid:
. . . . and here are the rest of the clues and answers:
Across:
1. Spot for honored guests: DAIS. A low platform on which to place a seat of honor.
5. AutoZone rival: NAPA. Often clued with an oenophilic reference.
9. Long-necked African mammal: OKAPI. What is the opposite of an OKAPI? An Original.
An Okapi Visited Us Last Sunday As Well
14. 1 for H, e.g.: AT NO. ATomic NO. (number)
15. Help flee a collar: ABET. A nice riff on Flea Collar. Collar, in this instance, as in slang for arrest a perp (no, not our kind of perp).
16. One finalizing a return, perhaps: FILER. Ah, a tax return. ELVIS ("Return to Sender") also came to mind.
19. Knighted golf analyst: FALDO. Sir Nick Faldo
20. Itzcoatl, for one: AZTEC. Itzcoatl was an AZTEC Emperor. This is probably not common knowledge but the word, itself, looked to this marine mammal like it might be from the Mesoamerican language group and that helped.
21. Kansas __: CITY. Kansas CITY here I come! Great BBQ.
Wilbert Harrison - 1959
23. Hardly flushed: WAN.
28. Kleptomaniacal toon monkey: ABU. ABU, a character from Walt Disney's version of Aladdin, swings by semi-regularly.
31. Paper gauge: PLY. Hmmmm. I think of gauge as a measure of thickness and PLY as a layer. Now, where did I put that micrometer?
32. Migraine symptoms: AURAS.
33. Excludes: BANS. Hold off on that third letter until you know if it's going to be an N or an R.
35. Pivot around: SLUE. We've seen a slew of SLUEs in our puzzles over time.
38. "This I __ see": GOTTA. Fill in the blank.
43. Arabian Peninsula capital: SANAA. The capital of Yemen regularly pops up in puzzles. Five letters. Three A's and an S. A constructor's friend.
44. Linguist Chomsky: NOAM. Known also for his social criticism and political activism.
45. Radio button: SEEK. The SEEK function searches up and down to find a station with a strong signal.
46. Seriously wounds: MAIMS. Today's "let's skip the graphic" moment.
48. Easy mark: SAP. There are many different definitions of SAP from which to choose. E.G. we often see a clue referencing maple syrup. Here, our puzzle setter/editor has gone with a usage derived from slang for a simpleton.
50. "Treasure Island" monogram: RLS. Robert Louis Stevenson
55. Name from the French for "beloved": AMY. From the Latin amare (to love) via the French (as clued).
56. Zip: BRIO. Neither ZERO nor NADA nor NONE (all four letters). Not a CLOTHES closure reference. Rather, "zip" as in energy or vigor.
57. Bounded: LEAPT.
61. Musical buzzer: KAZOO.
Tracy Newman - San Francisco Bay Blues
66. Abrasive mineral: EMERY. EMERY is commonly defined as a rock containing the mineral corundum (aluminum oxide) mixed with other minerals.
67. Quick correction: UNDO. One of today's computer references. Ctrl+Z
68. Diamond figure: NINE. The number of players in a baseball team's starting lineup (okay, ten if there's a DH).
69. Carpentry grooves: DADOS.
70. Quiet "Yo": PSST. A faint sound often heard in crossword puzzles.
71. One way to go: EASY. Borderline obtuse. FAST? FISH? OVER? INTO? PAST? JUMP IN THE LAKE? Thanks, perps.
Down:
1. __ mining: DATA. STRIP would not fit. Either GOLD or COAL would have fit the space but would not have worked out. DATA mining is a more modern concept.
2. The whole shebang: A TO Z.
3. How some close NFL games are won: IN OT. INOverTime
4. Pump bottoms: SOLES. Pump, as in a type of shoe.
5. "Not feelin' it": NAH. A bit of a punt.
6. The Great Emancipator, familiarly: ABE. Abraham Lincoln. A nickname clue for a nickname answer.
7. Frequent De Niro co-star: PESCI. Robert De Niro and Joe PESCI.
8. Tall story?: ATTIC. An amusing bit of word play. The uppermost story of a house. Although, often without much head room.
9. "Scoot along, now": OFF YOU GO. When the clue is in quotation marks then the answer can be almost anything a person could say.
10. Soul seller: KIA. FAUST? ROBERT JOHNSON? JIMMY PAGE? Nope. An automobile.
2020 KIA Soul
11. Come rain or come shine: ALL WEATHER. What is the opposite of a cold front? A warm back.
12. C&W strings: PEDAL STEEL.
The Byrds with Lloyd Green on PEDAL STEEL Guitar
13. Clubs seen near woods: IRONS. A golfing reference.
18. Sputnik letters: CCCP. Союз Советских Социалистических Республик. The Union Of Soviet Socialist Republics in Cyrillic. Sputnik was the name of the first man-made satellite sent into orbit and is also, now, the name of a COVID vaccine.
22. Hip-hop article: THA. Wha?
25. More: ELSE. If then ELSE?
26. Guitar string option: NYLON.
27. Gentle gaits: TROTS.
28. Beginner's lesson: ABCS.
29. Nassau rum drink: BAHAMA MAMA.
30. Like raw 1-Down: UNANALYZED. It seems appropriate to leave this one uncommented upon. Oops.
34. Gourmet gastropod: SNAIL. People on diets often eat SNAILS because they want to avoid fast food.
36. Storied abduction craft: UFO. Unidentified Flying Objects. A UFO is now often referred to as a UAP or Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon and also, sometimes, as CRAP or Completely Ridiculous Alien Piffle.
37. Internet funding: E-CASH. Yet another appearance of an "E word". Enough.
39. Big favors: ASKS. Slang.
41. Handhelds that debuted in 1989: GAMEBOYS. Developed by Nintendo
42. Texter's "Too funny!": LMAO. Laughing My Ass Off. Can we say that here or is it okay only in reference to Balaam?
47. Orchestra sect.: STR. STRings, I guess. Another bit of a punt. I suspect that Bill tried to find something else that work work. Glad that it didn't turn out to be an STD.
49. Interview: POLL. A bit of a stretch as clued by, hey, it's Thursday. I took a poll the other day. It turns out that 100% of people get angry when their tents fall down.
51. __ beans: BAKED. A straightforward fill-in-the-blank clue.
52. Abs-strengthening exercise: SIT UP. Alternatively, what a canine sometimes does to beg.
53. Attorney Roy and sports anchor Linda: COHNS. Linda COHN is a sportscaster with whom I am unfamiliar. I do not receive ESPN on my TV antenna setup. Roy COHN? That's an extremely lengthy story.
54. Spaghetti Western director Sergio: LEONE. With great music by Ennio Moricone.
58. K2 locale: ASIA.
59. Pilot and others: PENS. As with 17 Across, a bit of aeronautic misdirection.
60. Hoops long shot: TREY. "Hoops" is slang for basketball and TREY is slang for a shot worth three points.
62. Acapulco gold: ORO. Today's Spanish lesson. In the 60's Acapulco Gold was much sought after. Likely, it still is.
64. News VIPs: EDS. EDitorS
65. Barracks unit: COT. I suppose that if we can have a 215-bed hospital we can also have a 45-COT barracks. Of course, if you sin 90 times you will only be cot 45.
Well, Cornerites, that almost wraps up this Change of Clothes wrap up. Before packing it in, however, I will point out that roughly once each decade I am forced to change my clothes from the practical (usually denim or cargo pants, polypropylene shirt and good walking shoes) to a costume deemed by society to better suit a specific occasion. Here is a photo taken of Valerie and me at her niece's wedding last Saturday.
As the bumper sticker says, "When hell freezes over I'll ski there, too."
