Thursday, January 2, 2025 Matthew Stock

  

 Do You Want Fries
With That?

Today veteran Matthew Stock treats us to an embedded letter theme, and doubles our fun by embedding two consecutive letters, and then doubling them in the fill. And to add to our fun he has at least one Easter Egg, plus some sparkly fill -- and as we'll see very shortly, some of it may be too sparkly!

Here are the themers ...

20A. "Wait for meeeee!": I'M COMING I'M COMING.  A preview of coming attractions? ...

25A. Harry and Sally from "When Harry Met Sally ...," e.g.: ROM COM COUPLE.  I started with the iconic "I'll have what she's having" clip (just Google that phrase if you don't know what I'm referring to), but then stumbled on this video review, which has much more to say about Harry and Sally's long term relationship than the 3 minute scene in the restaurant. It also has a brief scene about the influence that the movie had on other ROM COMS, notably Heartburn another Nora Ephron film ...

And this is how it all ended ...

49. Oscar-winning song from "Mary Poppins": CHIM CHIM CHEREE. Dick van Dyke at his finest ...

And at 99 he's still going strong!

Here's the reveal ...
 
59A. Golden Arches order with two patties, and an apt title for this puzzle: MCDOUBLE.  It would be easy to miss this if you mentally parsed the three themers, because the double MCs each span two words, as is the crossword convention.  Feast your eyes on this ...

McDonald’s McDouble

5 Health Benefits of a McDonald’s McDouble, and Why You Should Eat One at Your Desk Daily. 😀
 
Here's the grid ...

Here's the rest ...

Across:

1. Brand with a four-ring logo: AUDI.

5. Box in, perhaps: TRAP.

9. D.C. ballplayers: NATS. The NLE Washington Nationals.

13. Small cut: SNIP.

14. __ Bock: dark beer from Texas: SHINER.  Bock beer is a dark beer first brewed in the 14th century in the Hanseatic town of Einbeck in Lower Saxony.  This one is brewed in Shiner, Texas ...
 

16. Dieciséis dividido por dos: OCHO.  Today we get a Spanish lesson and a math lesson all rolled into to one: "16 ÷ 2 = 8"

17. Behind: TUSH.  KEISTER or PATOOTIE were too long.

18. Hindu practice: TANTRA.  Tantra (Sanskrit: तन्त्र, lit. 'expansion-device, salvation-spreader; loom, weave, warp') is an esoteric and quite complex tradition that developed on the Indian subcontinent from the middle of the 1st millennium CE onwards in both Hinduism and Buddhism.  The term tantra, in the Indian traditions, also means any systematic broadly applicable "text, theory, system, method, instrument, technique or practice".  A key feature of these traditions is the use of mantras, and mandalas.  While Tantra is often associated in the West with eroticism, this connotation is not widespread in India.

Sri Yantra mandala

19. Welcome downfall for a gardener: RAIN.

20. [Theme clue].

23. Kindergartener: TOT.  A little TATER? 

24. RV park chain: KOA.  KOA (short for Kampgrounds [sic] of America) is an American franchise of privately owned campgrounds. Having more than 500 locations across the United States and Canada, it is the world's largest system of privately owned campgrounds.

25. [Theme clue]

31. Brewpub offering: ALE.  A constructor's favorite brewski, but now it has competition -- see 14A.

33. Big changes: SHAKE UPS.  We may be in for a few SHAKE UPS in the coming year.

34. Race unit: LAP.

37. Perjurer: LIAR.

39. Soft mineral: TALC.  Number 1 on the Mohs Hardness Scale,  talc is a clay mineral composed of hydrated magnesium silicate, with the chemical formula Mg3Si4O10(OH)2. Talc in powdered form, often combined with corn starch, is used as baby powder (⚠). This mineral is used as a thickening agent and lubricant. It is also an ingredient in ceramics (glazes and low-fire clay bodies), paints, and roofing material. It is a main ingredient in many cosmetics.

Talc

40. "Your Majesty": SIRE.  If a Brit were to encounter this gentleman on the street, he/she would initially address him as "Your Majesty", and then address him in any further conversation as SIRE.  I've never met him, but I hear he's a nice bloke ...

King Charles III
United Kingdom

41. Natural hairstyle: AFRO.  An AFRO is hairstyle that was popular among some African Americans beginning in the 1960s, including the author of an autobiography I read recently called More Than I Imagined by CNN journalist John Blake -- about growing up in West Baltimore during that time.  It is a remarkable book that was strongly recommended to me by Nina (inanehiker), and I strongly recommend it to you ...

42. Cadence: RHYTHM.  While RHYTHM, along with MELODY and HARMONY has always been an essential component of Western music, it wasn't until the advent of Jazz that it moved to the front of American Music ...

44. Bread flour: ATTA.  Atta is a type of wheat flour, originated from the Indian subcontinent, used to make local flatbreads.  Whole common wheat (Triticum aestivum) is generally used to make atta; it has a high gluten content, which provides elasticity, so the dough made out of atta flour is strong and can be rolled into thin sheets.  Some of our favorite Indian dishes with atta flour are parathas (a portmanteau of from the Sanskrit "parat" and "atta" meaning literally "cooked dough").  The easiest to make are Aloo Parathas. 

Aloo Parathas

45. Inexperienced sort: NEWBIE.

47. Some field journalists: EMBEDS.  Today's constructor EMBEDDED MC into today's crossword fill -- definitely an Easter Egg.

49. [Theme clue]

54. African cackler: HYENA.  The "Laughing Hyena" is also known as the "Spotted hyena".  Not only are they funny, but they are highly intelligent.  Here are a couple of the cacklers having a laugh ...

55. Traveling: AWAY.

56. Rule: REIGN.  See also 40A.

58. "Helpful hardware folks" company: ACE.  Ace Hardware Corporation is an American hardware retailers' cooperative based in Oak Brook, Illinois, United States. It is the largest non-grocery retail cooperative in the United States.

59. [Theme reveal]

62. Higher ed hurdle: GRE.  The Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) is a standardized test that is part of the admissions process for many graduate schools in the United States and Canada and a few other countries. The GRE is owned and administered by Educational Testing Service (ETS). The test was established in 1936 by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

63. Not feeling so hot: ILL.

64. Passed (out): HANDED.  METED was too short.

65. Put a spell on: HEX.  Today's German lesson: "Witch = HEXE".  This brings to mind one of my favorite songs by Robert Schumann: Waldesgespräch ("forest conversation") about an encounter in a forest between a hunter and a witch named Loreley --  things do not go well for our hunter.  Here it's sung by Welsh mezzo-soprano Angharad Lyddon (with English subtitles) ...

66. In medias __: RES.  Today's Latin lesson: "In the middle of things".  Also today's literary lesson.  This phrase is used to describe a narrative than begins in the middle, rather than beginning at the beginning.  Some good examples are Hamlet, The Iliad, and the Odyssey.

67. Comes out with: UTTERS.

68. Vietnamese holiday whose full name translates to "festival of the first day": TET.

Down:

 1. Italian wine town: ASTI.

2. E pluribus __: UNUM.  Today's Latin lesson: "Out of Many, One", and the motto on the Great Seal of United States.

3. Shuffleboard piece: DISC.  Shuffleboard is a game in which players use cues to push weighted discs, sending them gliding down a narrow court, with the purpose of having them come to rest within a marked scoring area ... 

4. Onetime Apple media app: IPHOTO.  iPhoto is a discontinued digital photograph manipulation software application developed by Apple Inc. It was included with every Mac computer from 2002 to 2015, when it was replaced with Apple's Photos application. 

5. Larger __ life: THAN.

6. Take a toll?: RING.

7. Against: ANTI.

8. Long-lasting do: PERM.

9. Par for the course: NORMAL.

10. __ na tigela: Brazilian dish with berries: ACAI.  Today's Portuguese lesson: "CROSSWORDESE = CROSSWORDESE".  😀

11. Like a stick: THIN.

12. Karaoke selection: SONG.  I picked this one, but it might not be popular with some of our solvers ... 😀

14. Disney character initially called Experiment 626: STITCH.  Experiment 626 was created on another planet and sent to destroy the Earth.  After crash landing he is found by orphan girl Lilo, who names him STITCH.  Lilo & Stitch have appeared in an animated film, and a TV series and are set to return in a new animated, real life movie scheduled for release in theaters on  May 23, 2025 ...

15. Amass: RACK UP.

21. May honorees: MOMS.

22. "Silly me!": OOPS.

25. Rollers that might get stuck in the mud: REAR WHEELS.  AKA RWD.   There are actually 4 types of drivetrains:  FWD, RWD, AWD and 4WD -- what's the difference?

26. Vow: OATH.

27. "Uh-huh ... ": MKAY. If I read this correctly it is a slurring of OKAY and a near clecho to 51D (this one doesn't have a bang (!)).  This is supposed to tell us that the person quoted agrees with you. Don't you just love quote clues? 😀

28. Gaelic speaker: CELT.  They are not only speakers, but great singers as well ...

29. "Stop poking me!": OUCH.

  30. Rare spot for a No. 12 seed: ELITE EIGHT.  Like "March Madness," the phrase "Elite Eight" originally referred to the Illinois High School Boys Basketball Championship in 1956, the single-elimination high school basketball tournament run by the Illinois High School Association (IHSA). 

31. Astronaut Shepard: ALAN.  Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. (November 18, 1923 – July 21, 1998) was an American astronaut. In 1961, he became the second person and the first American to travel into space and, in 1971, he became the fifth and oldest person to walk on the Moon, at age 47.

Alan Shepard, Jr.

32. Progression from birth to death: LIFE CYCLE. "To everything there is a season '' - Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

35. Creative's credential: ART DEGREE.  An artist is not a special person, every person is a special kind of artist -- and we all color outside the lines now and then.

36. Matar paneer vegetables: PEAS.  Today's Hindi lesson: "MATAR = PEAS" and "PANEER = CHEESE".  Here's Swasthi's recipe.
 

Matar Paneer

38. Songbird with an orange belly: ROBIN.  They used to be a harbinger of Spring, but on the East Coast they seem be around all year ...

American Robin

Not to be confused with the English Robin, which albeit smaller, has been described as "aggressive, vicious, but peculiarly British".  Aww, does he look vicious to you?

English Robin

40. Buffalo NHLer: SABRE.  The Buffalo Sabres are a professional ice hockey team based in Buffalo, New York. The Sabres compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference. 

42. Suggestion, casually: REC.  Nina and I strongly REC reading the book highlighted in 41A.

43. Nothing to write home about: MEH. Meh.

46. Prayer leader: IMAM.  For Sunni Muslims, Imam is most commonly used as the title of a prayer leader of a mosque.  For Shia Muslims an Imam is a rightful descendent of the Prophet Mohammed and exercises not only spiritual power, but political power as well.

48. Trifling: MERE.  Or a 21D in France.

50. Tore into: HAD AT.

51. "Uh-uh!": I WON'T.  A near clecho to 27D (this one has a bang (!)). This is supposed to tell us the the person quoted doesn't agree with you.  Don't you just love quote clues? 😀

52. "Euphoria" actress Apatow: MAUDE. Maude Annabelle Apatow (born December 15, 1997) is an American actress. She is best known for portraying Lexi Howard in the HBO drama series Euphoria (2019–present) -- IMHO an alternate title might be Depression. 🙃

Maude Apatow

53. E- kin: CYBER.  The prefix E(lectronic) and the prefix CYBER(netic) both connote machines.

54. Small margin of victory: HAIR.  A hair can be anywhere between 17 to 181 microns (micrometers), but I don't think the cameras recording race results are that precise. 😀

57. On deck: NEXT.  Mr. CHU ensues ...

60. "Wicked" director Jon M. __: CHU. Oz in an alternate universe -- Wicked is a 2024 American musical fantasy film directed by Jon M. Chu and written by Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox, with songs by Stephen Schwartz. It is the first installment of a two-part film adaptation of the stage musical of the same name based on the 1995 novel, which in turn is based on the L. Frank Baum's Oz books and the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.  Here's the trailer ...

61. Mormon church inits.: LDS.  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Their official logo

Cheers, 

Bill

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

waseeley