The Singing Walrus Presents Sun, Moon and Stars
Good morning cruciverbalists. Malodorous Manatee here to present today's recap with an assist from his friend The Singing Walrus. Today's puzzle setter is often-published (NYT, LAT, USA Today, etc.) constructor, Rebecca Goldstein. In today's outing we have a fairly straightforward theme so let's go right to the unifier (which proved helpful to this solver):
49 ACROSS: Classic arcade game with pixelated aliens, and what three answers in this puzzle have: SPACE INVADERS.
Released in 1978, most of us probably played SPACE INVADERS. Some of us, I would guess, to excess. Arcade game graphics have, of course, come a long, long way since then. As for the theme, each themed answer contains a celestial object. In a bit of a double play on words, those objects are found in what some call SPACE and they might also be said to INVADE each themed answer's SPACE.
17. Film festival hype?: SUN DANCE FEVER. The SUNDANCE film festival is held every year in Utah. FEVER as a synonym for hype is a bit of a stretch but not entirely opaque. Without the INVADER - Dance Fever.
27. Bucket list item for an aspiring astronaut?: COLLECT STARDUST. We are stardust . . . Without the INVADER - Collect dust.
33. Nagging newlywed?: HONEYMOON BADGER. Without the INVADER - Honey Badger. BADGERs? . . .
Raul's Wild Kingdom
1. Seat on the sidewalk: BENCH.
6. Guatemalan girl: CHICA. Esta es la primera lección de español de hoy.
11. Guffawed: ROARED.
13. Enters a password: LOGS ON. We often do not know, at first, if it's going to be LOGS ON or LOGS IN.
14. Airport city east of Los Angeles: ONTARIO. Those of us in SoCal probably had an easier time with this than did those folks in other locations. Still, roughly 4.5 million passengers flew into/out of ONT last calendar year.
16. Lil Nas X song subtitled "Call Me by Your Name": MONTERO. Unknown to this solver. Thank you very much, perps.
19. Small songbirds: LARKS. A hand up for first trying WRENS.
20. Excel function: SORT. A spreadsheet/database reference.
21. Himalayan ox: YAK.
23. NYC airport on Flushing Bay: LGA. Airport code for LaGuardia and our second airport clue/answer today. Named for the former NYC mayor (1933 through 1945), Fiorello LaGuardia.
24. Frozen Four game: SEMI. The Frozen Four is collegiate hockey's tongue-in-cheek equivalent of the SEMI Finals of NCAA Basketball tournament aka the Final Four. Only four teams left in the elimination tournament.
25. Dip in the Mediterranean?: AIOLI. A sauce. SWIM was too short (and in the wrong sea).
31. Cookbook writer Garten: INA. Today, we are also visited by ID INA (see 42 Across, below).
32. Traditional March 14 dessert: PIE. March 14th can be written as 3/14. Pi, of course, is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. As Pi equals approximately 3.14 some wag decided that 3/14 should be known as Pi day. . . or PIE day.
42. Menzel who won a Tony for playing Elphaba in "Wicked": IDINA. IDINA is very well known for her work in Frozen.
43. Iowa State city: AMES.
44. Good Grips brand: OXO.
45. Sausalito summer hrs.: PDT. Pacific Daylight Time. A bit of misdirection if you thought that the clue referred to a town in Italy rather than a town in Marin County, California.
46. Bygone Russian royal: TSAR.
47. H.S. class with a unit on heredity: AP BIO. Advanced Placement BIOlogy
53. French houses: MAISONS. C'est la leçon Français d'aujourd'hui.
54. Citation software: ENDNOTE. A computer software reference.
56. National park in Utah: ARCHES.
57. Fiddle (with): TINKER. Idioms.
58. Outwitted a Predator?: DEKED. Neither a hunting reference nor a CIA drone reference. The Predators are a National Hockey League team. A DEKE is a fake-out maneuver on the ice.
59. Requirements: NEEDS. (see 16 Down?)
Down:
1. Dude: BRO.
Dude One: Hey, Bro?
Dude Two: Yeah Bro?
Dude One: Can you pass me that pamphlet?
Dude Two: Brochure.
2. When dinosaurs roamed the earth: EONS AGO. We get something less scientific than MESOZOIC which would not have fit in any case.
3. __ gas: NATURAL. But it's all right now. In fact . . .
4. Jack-in-the-box appendage: CRANK. Not a fast food reference.
5. Collections of cattle: HERDS.
6. David who won the 1994 AL Cy Young Award: CONE. A baseball reference. During the 1994 strike-shortened season, David CONE played for the Kansas City Royals.
7. "House Hunters" channel: HGTV.
8. "That's a terrible hiding spot": I SEE YOU.
9. Pens in: CORRALS. Not a reference to writing something.
10. "Should I take that as __?": A NO. Apparently, yes.
12. Part of una semana: DIA. Esta es la segunda lección de español de hoy. Semana = week. DIA = day.
13. Studio site, maybe: LOFT. As in a studio apartment. Hand up for first thinking of LOT and wondering "Why the extra square?"
15. Beginning: ONSET.
16. Scholarship basis: MERIT. Often, we see NEED used as the answer (see 59 Across?)
19. Business ltrs.: LLC. Limited Liability Company. Letters is abbreviated, ergo . . .
22. Baby fox: KIT. A baby beaver, ferret, muskrat, or skunk is also called a KIT.
24. Phony deal: SCAM. IIRC, SCAM was also an answer two weeks ago.
25. Diva's time to shine: ARIA.
Nicola Keen and Jan Hartley
26. Carded: IDED. IDentifiED
28. Home security?: LIEN. Not a deadbolt . . . or a scatter gun. A lender's right to seize the property for non-payment.
29. New Age singer from County Donegal: ENYA. It's almost always ENYA.
30. Silver Alerts, e.g.: APBS. All Points BulletinS. A Silver Alert is a public notification system to broadcast information about missing persons - particularly senior citizens.
33. Toddler's perch, at times: HIP. Hand up if you first thought of LAP.
34. "If I had to bet ... ": ODDS ARE. What are the odds of a chronic gambler calling the addiction helpline? No, seriously. I have $100 riding on this.
35. Sweat the small stuff: NIT PICK. After nitpicking a small detail in my friend's story, he said to me "What are you? President of the Pedantic Society?" Vice President, actually.
36. Grove of palm trees, maybe: OASIS.
Ubari, Libya
37. Muscat's country: OMAN.
38. Chutzpah: NERVE. די היינטיקע יידישע שיעור (today's Yiddish lesson)
39. Lose it completely?: GO BROKE. A car stopped in front of a hotel. The driver immediately realized that she was bankrupt. What was going on?
40. Lived and breathed: EXISTED.
41. Kanga's kid: ROO. An A.A. Milne reference.
46. Hamilton bills: TENS.
47. Use as an ingredient: ADD IN.
48. Tubular pasta: PENNE. A Macaroni, a Penne and a Spaghetti were drinking wine in a bar one evening. They saw a noodle sitting by herself and discussed inviting her to join them. They all agreed she looked Cannelloni.
50. Tennis great profiled in ESPN's "30 for 30" special "Arthur and Johnnie": ASHE. It's almost always ASHE.
51. Like Sarah Lawrence since 1968: COED. CO-EDucational. Both genders.
52. Social insect: ANT.
53. Furious: MAD.
55. Triage ctrs.: ERS. Emergency RoomS Centers is abbreviated . . . yeah, yeah we know.
Here is how all of this appears in the grid:
Rebecca, you are invited to post anything that you'd like to share about this puzzle, its evolution, the theme, or whatever in the comments section below. We would love to hear from you.
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