Saturday Themeless by Zhouqin Burnikel
...and the beat goes on. Quite soon after we celebrated the publication of her 400th LATimes Puzzle, C.C. supplies us with yet another lovely exercise. Her trademark clever cluing provided a lot of entertainment and "DOH!" moments! Obscure names were mere speed bumps.
Across:1. Waldorf salad morsel: GRAPE.
6. Hardly qualified: UNFIT - My first fill was INEPT in more ways than one
11. Disney Jr. rating: TVG.
14. Fired up again: RELIT - The service module engine you see firing in the picture below had to be fired, turned off and fired up again several times to get the Apollo command module to the Moon and back to Earth. It was what blew up on the Apollo 13 mission and made NASA go to Plan B to get the astronauts back home, but that's another story.
15. Like some vintage T-shirts: RETRO COOL - Will my double knit bell bottoms ever be cool again? 😀
17. "Healthier happens together" insurance company: AETNA.
18. Grill spot: BACK PATIO.
19. Voting coalition: BLOC - It's what our Congress has become
20. Wasn't in the game: SAT.
21. Athenian lawmaker remembered for severity: DRACO.
22. "Count on me": SURE, NO PROBLEM.
26. Ethically indifferent: AMORAL.
28. Hauls: LUGS - An occupation for Sherpas
29. Badly misinformed: FULL OF BEANS - An frequent comment make by my dad
32. Pvt. trainer: SGT.
35. Some Kias: RIOS - An alternative to "Spanish rivers", I guess
36. Chaps: GENTS.
37. Kallax seller: IKEA.
38. Surgery ctrs.: ORS.
39. Activity that raises spirits?: WINE TASTING 😀
41. Verb in flour-y language: SIFT 😀
42. Drives a team: MUSHES 😀 Where the most famous ones compete and is won by the 10. Big kahunas: TOP DOGS. Current standings
43. Reptile that can weigh 650 pounds: GIANT TORTOISE - Here is a "creep" of them in the Galápagos Islands
48. Home to the University of Jordan: AMMAN.
49. Arctic diving bird: AUK - There are no penguins in the Arctic but...
50. Lump of clay: CLOD - William Blake's poem tells of the CLOD of clay that can be molded but not the pebble which is rigid and unchanging.
53. Close the deal: SHAKE ON IT.
56. Florida city where Jane Castor is mayor: TAMPA.
57. Barely shows up in a painting?: POSES NUDE 😀
58. Gel alternative: CREAM.
59. GPS figs.: STS - My STreet is Skylark
60. Suspect: SENSE.
61. Tales of Greek gods, e.g.: MYTHS.
Down:
1. Take hold of: GRAB.
2. Go for a spin?: REEL.
3. "Memory" and "I Dreamed a Dream": ALTO SOLOS - Both show stoppers!
4. Hair that may be clipped: PIN CURLS.
6. __ renewal: URBAN - Sometimes it is called gentrification.
8. Agcy. that investigates telemarketing fraud: FTC - The Federal Trade Commission and Securities and Exchange Commission didn't think much of the Wolf Of Wall Street
9. Drive up the wall: IRK.
11. The bottom line: TOTAL.
12. __ prompt: VOICE - For _____ press ___, For _____ press ___, For _____ press ___, For _____ press ___, ad anauseum
13. Bad outlook: GLOOM.
16. Keto concerns: CARBS.
20. Treat that's not meant to be shared: SELF GIFT 😀 Last year I just decided that I am 78 and I want a red car. So I traded my perfectly good white car for this.
23. Dileep of the "Avatar" films: RAO ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
24. "Dear Evan Hansen" Tony winner: PLATT ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
25. Goes wild: RUNS AMOK.
26. __-Cuban jazz: AFRO.
27. "20/20" co-anchor: MUIR.
30. Box that might contain tamagoyaki and tonkatsu: BENTO - I knew the word for the crossword fill but had no idea what the fill in the box was. 😀
31. Toronto-to-Montreal dir.: ENE - If you leave at noon, your ETA is 5:30 pm
32. Peak protection: SKI HELMET 😀
33. Unit that might be edited: GENE 😀
34. Makes out, in a way: TAGS 😀 This took me awhile but I shoulda knowed C.C. would get baseball in the puzzle! This fielder has made the runner out.
37. Admission of fear: IT'S SCARY.
39. Court reporter?: WITNESS 😀
40. Fashion designer Anna: SUI ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Some of Anna's, uh, creations
41. Reptile not found in Iceland or Ireland: SNAKE - Despite the fact that it is St. Patty's day in two days, St. Patrick did not drive snakes out of Ireland. The last Ice Age drove them out and it remained too cold for them to come back.
43. Has a sudden inspiration: GASPS.
44. "Can we turn on the AC?": I'M HOT - Around here we "turn on" the a/c and do not "put it on"
45. Build up: AMASS.
46. Crashes a Twitch stream: RAIDS - ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Here ya go: A "raid" on Twitch is a feature where a streamer sends their entire chat to another streamer's channel at the end of their stream, which can sometimes cause the receiving streamer's chat to "crash" if a large number of viewers suddenly join, overwhelming the system and potentially causing temporary glitches or lag.
47. One in a class by herself: TUTEE.
51. Moonfish or sunfish: OPAH - An OPAH can grow to be big!
52. Hydropower sources: DAMS.
54. Unified: ONE.
55. Mother figure: NUN.
56. Network that airs many RKO films: TCM - These RKO classics can be seen on Turner Classic Movies.
