Thursday, July 27, 2023, Jeffrey Wechsler

What's It All About?

Corner favorite Jeffrey Wechsler tries to stump us with a real POSER today.  Since the three theme clues all punt to the reveal we'll start with that ...

 55A. Profound philosophical subject, as defined by the answers to 21-, 32-, and 42-Across?: THE MEANING OF LIFE.  As you might imagine illustrating this was a real toughie, causing me to ponder several alternatives ...

Naturally the Monty Python film of the same name came to mind, but even the trailer was rated R! I then considered the "The Secret of Life" (the structure of DNA was published 70 years ago this past April 25) and the "The Theory of Everything" (physicists are still working on it), but rejected both as a bit too arcane.

I finally stumbled upon the incredible correspondence between the number for Jeffrey's third theme clue and this classic  revelation of  THE MEANING OF LIFE announced by the supercomputer Deep Thought in this trailer from the 2005 film A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, inspired by the magnum opus of British humorist Douglas Adams ...

Clever of Jeffrey to think of that.

So now that we've solved the question that has puzzled all of humanity since the beginning of civilization, what the heck do the following cryptic theme clues have to do with it?  Turns  out the answers are themselves clues to products all containing the word LIFE.

21A. See 55-Across: HISTORIC MAGAZINE.  LIFE.  Here's the Life magazine cover published 10 years after the discovery of the structure of DNA. LIFE always was a little slow out of the gate (story starting on page 73) ...

If you want the real story I recommend this book ...

BTW LIFE's LIFE as a weekly magazine ended on December 8, 1972. 

32. See 55-Across: BREAKFAST CEREAL.  LIFE is also a breakfast cereal produced by the Quaker Oats Company. Introduced in 1961, the cereal has a brown, checked square pattern and mainly consists of oat flour, corn flour, added sugar, and whole-wheat flour.

42A. See 55-Across: FAMILY BOARD GAME.  LIFE is also a board game. This collector's edition of The Game of Life in the original Tin box is available on Ebay for $110.00 (although I doubt that it's pure Tin (Sn)) ...

Here's the grid ...

Here's the rest ...

Across:

1. Electronic music duo __ Punk: DAFT.  A classic Wechsler clue for DAFT I'm sure. 😀  Daft Punk was a French electronic music duo formed in 1993 in Paris by Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo. They achieved popularity in the late 1990s as part of the French house movement, combining elements of house music with funk, disco, techno, rock and synth-pop.  Here's their Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.  Listen carefully, as you're not likely to hear this again ...

5. McEntire of country music (and old sitcoms): REBA.  I'm glad that parenthetical afterthought was included in the clue.  McEntire is a great musician, but apparently she's also quite a comedienne, and last week I didn't have room for two clips, so here's the funny lady today ...

9. Wetlands area: MARSH.  I grew up meandering along White MARSH run in Maryland before US 695 paved over most of it in 1962.  One of my most vivid memories of the area was all the dragonflies flying over our heads, which we called "Snake Doctors", and of which we were mortally afraid.

14. Uzbekistan's location: ASIA.  Uzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan, is a doubly landlocked country located in Central Asia. It is surrounded by five landlocked countries: Kazakhstan to the north; Kyrgyzstan to the northeast; Tajikistan to the southeast; Afghanistan to the south; and Turkmenistan to the southwest.

Uzbekistan in Asia

15. Yoked team: OXEN.

16. BP merger partner: AMOCO.

17. "A likely __!": STORY.

19. Noodle: BEAN.  Sorry, but I couldn't resist.  Just a little one ...

See also 36D.

20. Twangy: NASAL.

21. [Theme clue]

24. Physics particles: IONS.  An ION is an atom or molecule with a net electrical charge. The charge of an electron is considered to be negative by convention and this charge is equal and opposite to the charge of a proton, which is considered to be positive by convention. The net charge of an ion is not zero because its total number of electrons is unequal to its total number of protons.  Two IONS with opposite charges attract one another and can form an ionic bond resulting in a molecule, e.g. Lithium Fluoride ...

Electron transfer between
lithium (Li) and fluorine (F).
Forming an ionic bond, Li and F
become Li+ and F− ions.

25. Some Hollywood workers: AGENTS. Recently other Hollywood workers -- writers and actors -- went on strike demanding higher pay and regulation of the use of AI for generating scripts and cinematic images.

26. "Don't make me laugh!": GOSH NO.

30. Move like molasses: OOZE.  Especially in February.

32. [Theme clue]

38. iPad assistant: SIRI.  I'm not into giving computers speech therapy.

39. Pound mix: MUTT.  A CSO to PAT.

40. Superficially fluent: GLIB.

42. [Theme clue]

47. Pine for: MISS. 

48. Smoothed (out): IRONED.

49. Plays, as a banjo: STRUMS.  Here's Whitewater, written and performed by BANJO virtuoso Bela Fleck with special guests from his album My Bluegrass Heart ...
 

53. Silk Road desert: GOBI.  The Silk Road was a network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century.  It is also the moniker for the musical ensemble Silkroad conceived by cellist Yo Yo Ma in 1998 as a reminder that even as rapid globalization resulted in division, it brought extraordinary possibilities for working together.  Here's their performance of the theme Going Home from Dvorak's New World Symphony ...

55. [Theme reveal]

62. "Game of Thrones" actor Gillen: AIDAN.  We've never seen GOT, but we did see AIDAN Gillen in the creepy English village thriller Mayday ...

63. Nose wrinkler: ODOR.

64. Subway need, once: TOKEN.

65. Reduces slightly: TRIMS.

66. Vatican's environs: ROME.  A country within a city within a country.

St. Peter's Square
from the top of Michelangelo's dome

67. Shared one's poetry, say: READ.

68. Oscar winner Redmayne: EDDIE.  EDDIE Redmayne played physicist Stephen Hawking in the 2014 film The Theory of Everything...

Astonishingly Stephen Hawking, who held the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at Cambridge University and who predicted the emission of Hawking Radiation by black holes, was never awarded a Nobel Prize.  Here's why.

69. Some half pints: ALES.  Watson and Crick are reported to have quaffed quite a few ALES in the Eagle Pub in Cambridge whilst "they" discovered the secret of life.

70. Grub: EATS.

Down:

1. Short run: DASH. Or half an EM DASH (--)

2. Italian city east of Turin: ASTI.

3. Verizon bundle: FIOS.  This review is being brought to you in part by the ISP known as VERIZON.

4. Like cranberry juice: TART.

5. Bird associated with spring: ROBIN.  The ROBINS in my back yard seem to be here year round these days.  Like everything in America, they're bigger than English ROBINS.

American Robin        English Robin

6. Suits: EXECS.

7. Roofing timber: BEAM.

8. Swedish golf champion Nordqvist: ANNA.  ANNA Maria Nordqvist (born 10 June 1987) is a Swedish professional golfer who plays on the U.S.-based LPGA Tour and the Ladies European Tour. She has won three major championships: the 2009 LPGA Championship, the 2017 Evian Championship, and the 2021 Women's British Open. She is the only non-American woman to have won major championships in three different decades (2000s, 2010s and 2020s).

9. Supervisor: MANAGER.

10. Wow: AMAZE.

11. Violinist's aid: ROSIN.  Here's the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem singing Rosin up the Bow.  Apparently this substance loosens up the vocal cords (lyrics) ...

12. Meager: SCANT.

13. Boring outcomes?: HOLES.  If it turns out to be a Black HOLE, it might not be so boring (see 68A).

18. "Taking this!": YOINK.  DNK YOINK.  A sound effect created by Don Martin of Mad Magazine used to indicate the rapid pulling or removal of an object, much like 'Pow" or "Bam" would indicate a punch. ...

... Yiddish for YANK?

22. Certain sleigh's parking spot: ROOF.  That would be the one driven by SANTA CLAUS.

23. Wondering look: GAZE.

26. "Pygmalion" writer's monogram: GBS.  George Bernard Shaw.  Shaw's play was based on the Greek myth about the sculptor Pygmalion who falls in love with a statue he has created called Galatea.  The story was basis for a 1956 Lerner and Loewe stage musical, later made into the 1964 hit musical comedy-drama film My Fair Lady. The story has inspired many other works of art, including the operetta The Beautiful Galatea, by Franz von Suppé.  Here's the overture ...

27. "Deny thy father and refuse thy name, / __ thou wilt not, be but sworn my love": Juliet: OR IF.   The line just before it is one of the oft most quoted lines in Shakespeare and  here serves as Jeffrey Wechsler's signature.

28. Blood fluids: SERA.

29. "Women in Music Pt. III" pop band: HAIM.  Women in Music Pt. III is the third studio album by the sisters HAIM. It was released on June 26, 2020, in the United States by Columbia Records and internationally by Polydor Records. Here's Los Angeles (lyrics) ...

30. Director Preminger: OTTO.  OTTO Ludwig Preminger (5 December 1905 – 23 April 1986) was an Austrian-American theatre and film director, film producer, and actor.  He directed more than 35 feature films in a five-decade career after leaving the theatre.  He first gained attention for film noir mysteries such as Laura (1944) and Fallen Angel (1945), while in the 1950s and 1960s, he directed high-profile adaptations of popular novels and stage works. Several of these later films pushed the boundaries of censorship by dealing with themes which were then taboo in Hollywood, such as drug addiction (The Man with the Golden Arm, 1955), rape (Anatomy of a Murder, 1959) and homosexuality (Advise & Consent, 1962). He was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director. He also had several acting roles.

Otto Preminger

31. Four times bi-: OCTA.

33. Organic frozen-food brand: AMY'S.  Looks like good stuff.

34. Some sandwiches: SUBS.

35. Waffle brand: EGGO.

36. Rickman of "Love Actually": ALAN.  Here's the Necklace Scene with some familiar faces besides ALAN ...

37. Citrus fruit: LIME.

41. "The Princess and the Pea" prop: BED.  The PEA purportedly felt like this ...

43. Vast: IMMENSE.  See  above.

44. Simpson daughter: LISA.   LISA does the crosswords, while Homer rakes it in ...

45. Part of RNA: RIBO.  Prefix for RIBOSE, a sugar that forms the backbone of  RiboNucleic Acid, an important component of the cellular process for the synthesis of proteins.

46. Go with the flow: DRIFT.  Or CATCH somebody's meaning.

49. One of Mexico's 31: STATE.

50. Show place?: THIRD.  Clever clue. The THIRD in the sequence WIN, PLACE, and SHOW.

51. Overhauled: REDID.

52. Fish sauce taste: UMAMI.  Sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and UMAMI.

53. Fairy tale figure: GNOME. GNOMES are NICE figures.

Garden Gnome

54. Fairy tale figures: OGRES.  Some OGRES are NICE too, but misunderstood ...

Shrek

56. Romance writer Roberts: NORA.  A Marylander who made (very) good ...

Nora Roberts

57. Revered one: IDOL.

58. Ancestral knowledge: LORE.

59. World's largest furniture retailer: IKEA. Could also be clued "Four letter furniture manufacturer:"

60. Heroic deed: FEAT.  Here's a less heroic FEAT performing Dixie Chicken with Emmy Lou Harris and Bonnie Raitt ...

61. Aims: ENDS.  ... and thus ENDS the review.


Cheers,
Bill

And as always, thanks to Teri for proof reading and for her constructive criticism.

waseeley