Good Morning, Cruciverbalists, Malodorous Manatee here with the post-puzzle summary. Today marks my first puzzle recap featuring a puzzle for which Patti Varol served as the Editor instead of as the Assistant Editor and I am looking forward to taking a look at this puzzle. Here is a link to the Tribune syndicate announcement:
Patti obviously has a wealth of experience as does today's puzzle setter, Stella Zawistowski. Here is a link to an August 2021 interview with Stella:
Browser Interview With Stella Zawistowski
We'll go with Ernie Banks' oft' cited quote to introduce today's puzzle:
LET'S PLAY TWO.
At three places within the grid our constructor has placed the names of two popular tabletop games back-to-back. The reveal employs a baseball reference - Doubleheader (two games played on the same day) - to clue us in as to what is going on. The reveal:
58 Across: Doubleheader feature, and what are literally found in 17-, 23-, and 44-Across: BACK TO BACK GAMES.
...and the application of this clever theme:
17 Across: Mission to go after imaginary germs?: COOTIE OPERATION. Cooties being imaginary germs and operation being a synonym (more or less) for mission.
23 Across: Military vessel in terrible condition?: SORRY BATTLESHIP. A warship in a SORRY state. I always think of Bill and Ted when the Battleship game is mentioned.
44 Across: Antitrust lawsuit, perhaps?: MONOPOLY TROUBLE.
And now for the rest of the story:
Across:
1. Epic __: FAIL. A relatively modern bit of slang.
5. Family unit: CLAN.
9. App with Social and Promotions tabs: GMAIL. The clue is a bit obscure but, hey, it's Thursday. Adding Primary to the two listed categories would have made things a bit less obscure. GMAIL sorts email into various piles.
14. Instrument for a Swiss mountaineer: ALPENHORN. A clever bit of misdirection. Not gear for a mountain climber. A musical instrument.
16. "The Big Bang Theory" co-creator Chuck: LORRE. The first of (too?) many proper nouns used in this puzzle (YMMV). The prolific Mr. Lorre also created Mom, Two and A Half Men, Dharma & Greg, Young Sheldon, Bob Hearts Abishola, Grace Under Fire, Cybill, Disjointed and The Kominsky Method. If you take a meeting with him, allow him to pick up the lunch tab.
19. Perfume samples: TESTERS. The small spray bottles. Not the people checking out the scents.
20. Loads: OCEANS. Not the transitive verb.
21. Old French coin: ECU. A rare coin that turns up (more often than rarely) in crossword puzzles.
22. "I'm so mean, I make medicine sick" boxer: ALI. Muhammad ALI. A pugilist often seen in crossword puzzles.
32. Calendar col.: TUE. A bit of a punt. One of seven days.
33. Sporty Camaro: IROC. International Race Of Champions. My auto racing friend, Eric, uses Iroc in lieu of his name as his online "handle".
34. Huge herbivore: RHINO. Elephant would not fit. Hippo would fit but would not work out . . . except for the last letter.
35. Site to find a handmade wedding dress, perhaps: ETSY. Site to find a handmade anything. We've seen this type of cluing before where the clue refers to something very specific but the answer demands something far less so.
37. Powerful sharks: MAKOS.
39. Ventura County tourist town: OJAI. Obscure, perhaps, unless you're familiar with SoCal geography. Sometimes we see "Oh, Hi" as an answer to a clue such as "greeting upon running into someone unexpectedly."
40. Parting word: ADIOS. We had to consider, and then discard, ADIEU although the first three letters worked just fine.
42. Epic party: BASH. GALA RAVE BALL FEST FETE
43. __ Toy Barn: "Toy Story 2" shop: AL'S.
48. Hard water?: ICE. Nice (not Nice, France) wordplay.
49. Abbr. on a pill bottle: USP. A unit of potency. United States Pharmacopeia.
50. Crowning point: ZENITH. Also, a brand of electronics.
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Tom Petty - Live At The Wiltern Theater Los Angeles, 1985
61. Benefit: AVAIL. A computer teacher asks the class to turn to page 404. The students search feverishly. To no AVAIL.
62. Feature of many a TV show summary: SCREENCAP. Screen Capture.
63. Aptly named novelist Charles: READE. Born 08 June 1814 - Died 11 April 1884. Having failed to recall his appearance ten days ago (in precisely the same location within that grid) I was forced to suss this one out. Fortunately, doing so was not difficult.
64. "I feel __": "It's like you know me!": SEEN. A new idiom to this marine mammal. Quite zen.
65. "Madam Secretary" actor Tim: DALY. Sister of Tyne.
65. "Madam Secretary" actor Tim: DALY. Sister of Tyne.
Down:
1. No mere opinion: FACT. Where do facts come from? The factory.
2. Part of a sunburn treatment, often: ALOE. Often, indeed.
3. Deprivatization events, for short: IPOS. Initial Public OfferingS. Selling shares of stock in a company. I had never before come across the word deprivatization but it was self defining. Reminded me of antidisestablishmentarianism. Another instance of a pluralized abbreviation.
4. Alphabet soup bite: LETTER.
5. Guardians of the Tree of Life: CHERUBIM. The Tree of Life is a motif referenced by multiple cultures.
6. "Gigi" playwright Anita: LOOS. A true pioneer.
7. Dada pioneer Jean: ARP.
Head With Mustache - 1926
8. 22.5 deg.: NNE. North North East on the 360 degree compass.
9. Montana's __ National Park: GLACIER. I have been lucky enough to ride the Going to the Sun Road on a motorcycle.
10. Sunbeam speck: MOTE. Not photon.
11. Number for soprano Pretty Yende: ARIA. An opera reference.
12. Hemoglobin mineral: IRON. The combination of this answer and ORGAN MUSIC (as an answer last Saturday) brought this to mind:
The Simpsons - "In The Garden of Eden" by . . .
13. Optometrist's concern: LENS. Hand up for first thinking EYES.
15. Nash of "When They See Us": NIECY. Unfamiliar with her. Thanks perps.
18. Hand __: sushi order: ROLL. An option other than a cut roll.
Cut Roll and Hand Roll
22. With no overhead added: AT COST.
23. Cook, as bao buns: STEAM.
23. Cook, as bao buns: STEAM.
24. One-up: OUTDO.
25. Piney ooze: RESIN.
26. Good for farming: ARABLE. By definition.
27. Hungarian wine: TOKAY. Also spelled TOKAJI. A naturally sweet wine from the Tokaj district of northeastern Hungary.
28. "The Chi" airer, briefly: SHO. A television/streaming reference.
29. Traditional religious garment: HIJAB.
30. As a whole: IN ALL.
31. Composure: POISE.
36. Fashion designer Jenny: YOO. Who? Seems to be big in bridal gowns.
38. No longer large: SHRUNKEN. Perhaps no longer as large. Whatever was SHRUNKEN could still be quite large. A star with a mass equal to our sun will leave behind a remnant white dwarf about the size of Earth. Bigger than a bread box.
41. Angry speaker's droplet: SPITTLE. Discomforting imagery to start the day.
45. Tres y cinco: OCHO. Our combined Spanish and mathematics lesson for the day.
46. "August: __ County": OSAGE. A book. A play. A motion picture.
47. Plateau: UPLAND. Also a city in San Bernardino County, CA.
50. Energy snack brand for kids: ZBAR.
51. Nesting site: EAVE. A bit of not-quite-misdirection. Tree? Limb? Often clued with a reference to wasps.
52. Frozen Four org.: NCAA. The Final Four refers to the NCAA basketball playoffs. Frozen Four riffs on that for the NCAA ice hockey championship.
53. "Joke, joke": I KID.
Triumph The Insult Comic Dog
54. Hobby farm measure: ACRE. Or a "real" farm measure.
55. Where it's fun to stay, per the Village People: YMCA. I will pass on posting an audio/video clip of this bit of Americana.
56. Evangelist's quality: ZEAL.
57. 2021 award for Naomi Osaka: ESPY. An award frequently handed out in crossword puzzles. It helped if you knew that Naomi is a tennis player.
59. Degrees for EEs: BSS. I didn't get this one. I took EE to mean electrical engineer. BSS most often refers to Bachelor of Specialized Studies or Bachelor of Social Studies or Bachelor of Social Sciences. There are, I am sure, people here who are far more familiar with the application of the BSS designation than I am.
60. Unreturned serve: ACE. A tennis reference.
I hope everyone had a good Easter week and/or is having a good seven (or eight) days of pesach or month of Ramadan.
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- This Year's Seder Plate -
Exhibiting A Bit Of Improvisation
From the X (word) Files: Last night I picked a NYT puzzle book off the bookshelf. The collection contained 250 puzzles originally published in 2000. I randomly opened it to puzzle number 199. The constructor? Rich Norris.
... and on that note
