Saturday, December 7, 2019, Stella Zawistowski

Themeless Saturday by Stella Daily Zawistowski

Not to demean today's date, but this is a day that will live in infamy for me. STELLA!! (How tired must she be of hearing that?)

I had three natick black eyes (two of which now make more sense looking back) that you can see in the grid: 

* A vowel coin flip with names EMM_TT/N_LS. I picked an "E"

* No idea on an obscure TV show crossing an obscure expression -  AG_RO/AN_IE. I should have let go of ANNIE

* Completely unknown Finnish currency and a North African poached egg dish. As you'll read, Stella wished she could have gotten away from that crossing.

I wrote to Stella about this puzzle and this was her gracious reply:

As I look back on that puzzle, I wish I’d tried harder to get rid of that SHAKSHUKA/MARKKA crossing! And though EMMITT Smith is, I think, fair game in a hard themeless, I’m no longer crazy about him crossing another proper name. 

All this reflects that, as many puzzles as I’ve been a part of making, I’m still getting more experience every day as a grid maker. When I was half of Daily and Venzke, he made all the grids and I wrote the clues. So I’m far more experienced as a clue writer and theme thinker-upper than as a grid maker.

My seed entries in this puzzle were PAX ROMANA and SHAKSHUKA, the latter of which I think is a delicious dish more people should know about. As you may have seen in discussions on Crossword Twitter, I’m all for unfamiliar but interesting words in puzzles, especially themelesses. I’ve tried out quite a few things I’ve learned about from puzzles (like reading Leon URIS novels, which I love), and if somebody looks up what SHAKSHUKA is and decides to try eating it, I’ll have paid it forward a bit.

Here is a very interesting interview with Stella, who is a Brooklyn-based copywriter at a pharmaceutical advertising agency and a power lifter

I felt the same anguish that Stella is showing in this picture at the right where she is making a dead lift :-). In the interview, she labeled herself as a "brawny brain"!

         Stella                                        Stella doing a dead lift

Now let's get to the other heavy lifting

Across:

1. Hardly rah-rah: APATHETIC 

10. Peeved cries: DRATS.

15. Period that ended with the death of Marcus Aurelius: PAX ROMANA - Many consider the ascension of his erratic son Commodus in 180 AD to be a disaster after 200 years of ROMAN PEACE

16. See 20-Down: EIGHT and 20. Group of 16-Across: OCTET - I first this might be a type of animals paired with what a group of them is called but I liked this generic cluing

17. Regimen: TREATMENT.



18. Former TBS comedy "__ Tribeca": ANGIE - A Steve Carrell produced show that starred Rashida Jones who was in The Office with him

19. Longtime E Street Band member: NILS LOFGREN - Not NELS it turns out

21. Storage areas: CLOSETS - a physical one and 21. Storage area: CLOUD an electronic one

25. Gives the cold shoulder, in slang: ICES OUT - A cruel activity in a school lunchroom 

26. Like the weakest excuse: LAMEST.

27. Jones of jazz: ETTA - A remarkable career

28. Certain tournaments: OPENS - A tournament where anyone is welcome to try to qualify and the 34. Org. that runs some 28-Across: USGA supplies places to try to qualify for the U.S. OPEN

29. When body temperature is typically highest: AFTERNOON 

35. Bight, e.g.: INLET - Learning for me with solid perps - generic name for a bend or curve in a coastline

36. Words before many words: IN SO - Louis the XIV claiming he never actually said, "I am the state". Another Stella gem.

37. Sci-fi super weapon: DEATH STAR - You can build your own with this $499 LEGO kit

39. "The Lady of the Lake" author: SCOTT - Sir Walter SCOTT poetry from 1810

40. Touched down: ALIT - The last two of twelve American astronauts ALIT on the Moon 47 years ago

41. Rival of Kaspersky: MCAFEE.

42. Employment hot topic: WAGE GAP - I never saw one with my teaching colleagues

46. With nothing owing: PAID FOR - A burning mortgage is a sweet scent

47. Public relations specialists: IMAGE MAKERS - They make chicken salad out of chicken, uh, manure

49. One who can't pass the bar?: TOPER - So many euphemisms for drunks.Etymology

50. Savory North African poached-egg dish: SHAKSHUKA - Recipe for the dish which Stella is promoting 

55. Get ready to break: CREST.

56. Dissuade from doing: TALK OUT OF - Some people can not be TALKED OUT OF leaving an area where a flood CREST is approaching and often require a 57. Last-minute: HASTY, dangerous rescue

58. Unjokingly: IN EARNEST.


Down:

1. Well put: APT.

2. Standard course number: PAR - PAR is 70 at my course

3. Splitting tool: AXE.

4. Singing syllable: TRA.

5. Sex appeal: HOTNESS Cheryl Burke is high on the HOTNESS scale as she dances with 6. NFL great Smith who won "Dancing With the Stars" in 2006 : EMMITT

7. Asian weight units: TAELS - A 100 TAEL dark tea cake (5.39 oz)

8. Fawlty Towers et al.: INNS - Basil Fawlty tries to communicate with his waiter Manuel at the INN

9. Useful remedy for getting stuck in snow: CAT LITTER.

10. Unkind thing to turn: DEAF EAR.

11. Championship awards: RINGS - Uh, not this year, Bama

12. Combative, slangily: AGGRO - I ain't arguing with the brawny brain Stella! Merriam-Webster says it is an informal, British word.

13. '60s-'70s South Vietnamese president: THIEU - Nguyễn Văn Thiệu was the last president of The Republic Of South Vietnam

14. Medical tube: STENT - Help for clogged vessels 

22. Slip: LAPSE.

23. Onassis' first: OMEGA - In Greek Onassis is spelled Ωνάσης 

24. French upper house: SENAT.

27. Key of Beethoven's "Eroica": E FLAT.

29. Ristorante courses: ANTIPASTI - Usually the first course

30. Battery acronym: NI-CAD - Usually labeled with chemical symbols for Nickel (Ni) and Cadmium (Cd)

31. Binary, in a way: ON OFF.

32. Bony prefix: OSTEO - Orbiting astronauts can lose as much as 10% of their bone mass which is similar to what OSTEOporosis can do to senior citizens 

33. One who pays attention: NOTER - Stella!!

35. Faith with five pillars: ISLAM.

38. Julie of "Airplane!": HAGERTY.

39. Cut out: SCISSOR - Scissor as a verb? Yeah, I guess.

41. Pre-euro Finnish currency: MARKKA - With Jean Sibelius on the bill

42. First speaker in "Macbeth": WITCH - In Act IV these three witches chant the more famous, "Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and caldron bubble"

43. Marvel Comics' original Enchantress: AMORA - If you're interested

44. Reacts in wonder: GAPES.

45. Discharge: EGEST - One must digest SHAKSHUKA before it is EGESTED 

46. "A Guide to Confident Living" author: PEALE - by the author of The Power Of Positive Thinking
48. "Star Trek" villain: KHAN - Star Wars earlier and now...

51. Catalaunian Plains combatant, 451 AD: HUN - Attila was turned back and was dead two years later

52. Adaptable vehicle, for short: UTE - A vehicle name I only see/hear in these environs

53. Ali had 37: KO'S - Muhammad was "The Greatest"

54. Blackbeard's backward: AFT - Backwards on Blackbeard's boat, Queen Anne's Revenge, would be toward AFT - the back of the boat. Another great Stella clue!

Queen Anne's Revenge replica used in
Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean 4

I hope that after flexing your brains you are now ready to comment:

Friday, December 6, 2019, Jeffrey Wechsler

Title: Change the channel?

We are back under the magic spell of the creative mind of Jeffrey Wechsler. For this opus, he has combined two favorite themes - letter substitution and sound-alike. Of course, his goal is humor with the cluing. He pulls it all together with a very classic grid-spanning reveal smack dab in the middle [etymology is a bit vague- LINK] of the puzzle. Since JW's mind works differently than most, I am not sure what came first, the "T" changing to "V" or the sound changes in the new phrases. Such is the joy of solving. As is usual with JW,  he builds a consistent grid with the change in the first word in themer 1/5 and the second word for 2/4. Overall, the puzzle is not one of his most difficult ones with many 3 and 4 letter-fill to keep the solving going. He does add GYM SHOES, VANTAGES and SALES SLIP and introduces LINE C and PAPARAZZO to our vocabulary list. JD, if you are solving, do you still keep a list?
The theme:

17A. Street stand with full permits?: LEGAL VENDOR (11). Legal TENDER is the base phrase.

23A. "Who wants to visit Muscle Beach?"?: VENICE ANYONE (12). TENNIS anyone. Venice Beach California.

45A. Dumps litter in the woods, e.g.?: VEXES RANGERS (12). Baseball's TEXAS Rangers.

57A. King's pulse, BP, etc.?: ROYAL VITALS (11). Royal TITLES.
And the reveal:

37A. Got ready to binge-watch ... or a hint to phonetic changes in four puzzle answers: SWITCHED ON THE TV (15). A classic "reveal" that clearly inspired the creation of the puzzle.
On to the specifics:

Across:

1. Skip: BYPASS. Not the easiest of starts, but straight forward once you see it. The word has morphed from simply not doing something (I will bypass dessert) to become a significant medical term and procedure.

7. Say good things about: LAUD. Straight from the Latin laudare: to praise. We get our academic cum laude but not Lauderdale. More Latin ahead.

11. Umami source, briefly: MSG. MonoSodium Glutamate. We have discussed this new taste sense recently.

14. City grid feature: AVENUE. Perps are streets, among others.

15. Detective's need: INFO. A bit unfair as the phrasing does not suggest an abbreviation, but CLUE.

16. "So there it is!": AHA. Our moment. And ANA and ONO.

19. Filch: ROB. Played by Dick van Dyke when he was young.

20. Tee preceder: ESS. ARR ESS TEE

21. Sufferer cleansed by Jesus: LEPER. Too clearly a religious topic but you can find it in the KJV, Mark 1:40-45

22. See 35-Down: GIRL. 35. With 22-Across, proud parent's cry: IT'S A. One of two for those who hate this paired fill.

26. AFC South athletes: TITANS. With their new "star" quarterback- Ryan Tannehill.

29. Sen. Warren, e.g.: DEM. Senator - Democrat,

30. "... for none of woman __ / Shall harm Macbeth": BORN. Act IV, Scene 1
MACBETH
Had I three ears, I’d hear thee.

SECOND APPARITION

Be bloody, bold, and resolute. Laugh to scorn
The power of man, for none of woman born
Shall harm Macbeth.

31. Receipt: SALES SLIP.

40. Shutterbug who bugs: PAPARAZZO. The singular of Paparazzi and the topic surrounding the death of Princess Di.

41. Brewer's kiln: OAST. Will Owen host a poem about a boast from a brewer's oast to be read coast to coast?

42. VW Golf model: GTI.

43. Considered to be: SEEN AS.

51. Stout choices: ALES. Some beer punning.

52. Violate a truce: REARM.

53. Onetime part of Portuguese India: GOA. There much to learn about Portuguese Estado da Índia

56. Drug injector: PEN. Linked to 18D. 56-Across prefix: EPI.

60. Tokyo-born artist: ONO.

61. Group with pledges: FRAT.

62. "Quit it!": ENOUGH.

63. Was the boss of: RAN.

64. Numbers game: KENO. Sid Caeser in a Chevy Chase Vacation Movie, or

65. Pinball wizard's reward: REPLAY.

Down:

1. Farm storage unit: BALE. Not related to Christian.

2. First name in couture: YVES. St. Laurent.

3. Categorizes: PEGS.

4. Carrier with Tokyo HQ: ANA. All Nippon Airways.

5. In a dark mood: SULLEN. Morose,  dour, hostile, churlish, petulant, somber, gloomy, ugly, glum, surly, grumpy, bad-tempered, cheerless, crabby, cross, cynical, dismal, dull, fretful, gruff.

6. Winning slot machine line: SEVENS. More gambling. Hmm JW lives near Atlantic City?

7. Where to claim a W-4 head-of-household allowance: LINE-C.
Form W-4 2020
Employee’s Withholding Certificate
Enter Personal Information
(a) First name and middle initial Last name
Address
City or town, state, and ZIP code
(b) Social security number
▶ Does your name match the name on your social security card? If not, to ensure you get credit for your earnings, contact SSA at 800-772-1213 or go to www.ssa.gov.
(c) Single or Married filing separately
Married filing jointly (or Qualifying widow(er))
Head of household (Check only if you’re unmarried and pay more than half the costs of keeping up a home for yourself and a qualifying individual.)

8. Author Gide: ANDRE. An Essayist and Novelist I read in college both in English and French. You might like his WORKS or at least his perception. "It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not."

9. Airborne mystery: UFO.

10. Palme __: film award: D'OR. From the 72nd Cannes Film Festival

11. Super __: MARIO. The co-star of the great NES games. I wonder why they are not the Super Luigi Brothers?

12. Cut off: SHORN. I always think of Samson.

13. Gothic architecture feature: GABLE. Yes, they use Clark's picture on all the throwback buildings.

22. Fitness training apparel: GYM SHOES. I am not sure if shoes are in fact apparel. Look at a mall map for example. It's broken down into Men's Apparel, Ladies Apparel, Children's Apparel, Shoes, and depending on the size of your mall accessories (such as handbags, baby equipment, and jewelry).

If you look at it from a big box store perspective, such as Wal-Mart or Target, shoes are located in a completely separate area away from their core fashion. Men's shoes are never in the men's department for example. Also promotionally, if Target were to have a sale on apparel, such as 25% off all summer fashion, it would never include footwear unless it was explicitly stated.

23. Superior positions: VANTAGES. Ad?

24. Port SSE of Sana'a: ADEN.

25. Source of tweets: NEST. Not the one from Google, but nature.

26. Culinary meas.: TBSP.

27. "Field of Dreams" locale: IOWA. It is in Dubuque County, Iowa, near Dyersville.


28. Vacation option: TRIP.

31. "__ who?": SEZ. Sez me!

32. Hatchet relative: ADZ. An axlike tool, for dressing timbers roughly, with a curved, chisellike steel head mounted at a right angle to the wooden handle.

33. John in Albert Hall: LOO. So why is the term for bathroom in Britain? One theory - when emptying chamberpots out the window, British servants warned passersby in the street below with the shout “Gardez l'eau!” (French for “Watch out for the water!”), which was pronounced “gardy loo” in Britain and later shortened to “loo.”

34. Steakhouse order: LEAN. Sounds to me more like a corned beef or pastrami order.

36. Low mil. ranks: PVTS. And parts of a Howard Stern book title.

38. Old PC monitors: CRTS. Cathode Ray TubeS.

39. '60s musical: HAIR. A musical that began in 1968 reflected the hippies and anti-war and NUDITY! Still talked about, it was a show that impacted Broadway and mainstream counter-culture.

43. Sommelier, e.g.: SERVER. In America often called the Wine Steward.

44. White weasel: ERMINE.  White weasel, while alliterative, does not sound appealing. Popular in the pre-PETA days and appearing twice this week in the LAT.

45. Steam, for one: VAPOR. Hence vaping.

46. John Paul's successor: ELENA. Justice Stevens and Justice Kagan. Not Popes.

47. Element from the Greek for "strange": XENON. Also, Xenophobia.

48. Indo-__ languages: ARYAN. How many have watched MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE on AMAZON? Tiny spoiler alert.

49. "Peachy!": NEATO. Keen!

50. 128 fl. oz.: GAL. Right next to...

53. Conquest for Caesar: GAUL. "Omnia Gallia in tres partes divisa est." Six years of Latin should not go to waste.

54. Lingerie brand: OLGA. This is a deja vu moment for me, but perhaps I saw their products while shopping at Kohls with my wife.  LINK. I was sure it had just been in a puzzle here as clued.

55. Grayish: ASHY. We have many variations of this word lately.

57. '60s A.G.: RFK. Robert F. Kennedy was the Attorney General of the US-appointed by his brother.

58. Natural resource: ORE. A natural resource is defined as a resource that cannot be replaced in our lifetime. They include metal ores, fossil fuels, earth minerals, and in some in certain situations groundwater

59. Word with dollar or dog: TOP. Once again we reach the bottom of the puzzle, but come out on top from a very entertaining roller coaster ride.

We have had a great week of weather. Not quite cold enough for a fireplace, but we had fun with the grandkids at their firepit. I hope you all weathered the storm and slalomed your way through Jeffrey's latest opus. Lemonade out.

Note from C.C.:

Happy 82nd birthday to dear Lucina, who's been with our blog for over 9 years. Lucina travels to CA often and has met with a few of our blog (ex) regulars.

Left to Right: Chickie, JD, Garlic Gal and Lucina.

June 3, 2015 

Thursday, December 5th 2019 Mark McClain

Theme: Dog Show

17A. *Line never spoken by James Cagney: YOU DIRTY RAT! Well, "you dirty yellow-bellied rat" comes close. c.f. "Play it again, Sam".

23A. *Rock pile at a prehistoric gravesite: BURIAL CAIRN. There are some fine cairns, none prehistoric, in my neighborhood at the tree near the top of Mount Lee, better known as the "Hollywood Sign" hill. I hope there aren't bodies buried underneath. We used to picnic and play on Stonehenge before everyone got serious about the stones. Not cairns, I know, but happy memories of climbing a sarsen stone or two.

40A. *Like Juárez, vis-à-vis El Paso: ACROSS THE BORDER

50A. *Far-fetched, as a story: COCK AND BULL. There are arguments aplenty about the origin of this phrase, most involving two inns on the coaching route from the Midlands to London. However, it's difficult to argue that these lines from John Day's 1608 play Law Trickes were not the first usage - "What a tale of a cock and a bull he told my father".

Which brings us to the, quite frankly, inexplicable reveal:

64A. "__, Batman!": Robin's cry upon spotting the ends of the answers to starred clues?: HOLY TERRIER

So ... we've got four dog breeds which happen to be terriers - fair enough, so far. Now how to tie them together? How about an entry which has TERRIER in it, and has nothing to do with anything else in the puzzle, neither was the phrase ever used in the comic books, nor the TV shows nor the movie series?

I'm completely baffled by this one. I can't see a play on words with "HOLY", there's nothing to tie "YOU DIRTY", "BURIAL", "ACROSS THE" and "COCK AND" to each other. It's totally random. Honestly, this is "*Far-fetched, as a crossword theme" as you can get.

Maybe "YOU DIRTY RAT" was meant to clue us into the reveal was a line never spoken? Or was it all just COCK AND BULL?

There is plenty else to like though, I just wish Mark and/or Rich had been able to come up with a better reveal, or even go with no reveal at all and just find a substitute for that awful 64A.

That being said, let's see what else we've got, and please, if I'm missing the blindingly obvious, let me know via the comments.

Across:

1. Distillery mixture: MASH. Tried BRAN. Was wrong. Always good to get off on the wrong foot.

5. The Flyers' Gritty, e.g.: MASCOT. He's got about as much to do with Philadelphia and hockey as "HOLY TERRIERS!" Maybe this is the theme?

11. Poke fun at: RIB

14. __-inflammatory: ANTI

15. Corrida figure: EL TORO. Denizens of Southern California will remember the "El Toro Y" traffic warnings, a junction between the 5 and the 405 which every day caused alarums and excursions at rush hour.

16. Important card: ACE

19. Cutting remark: DIG

20. 4,300-mile range: ANDES

21. Novelist Waugh: ALEC. A very talented family. His brother Evelyn wrote two of my favorite novels, "Brideshead Revisted" and "Scoop!".

22. "In __ of gifts ... ": LIEU

26. Protect with a levee: EMBANK

30. Canon SLR: EOS. That's one high-end camera. I have a Canon Rebel, mostly to take pictures of my N-scale model railway - you just can't get the depth of field with the iPhone, although in some (bad modelling!) cases that's not such a bad thing!

31. Gorilla expert Fossey: DIAN

32. A pop: EACH

36. Sail (through): COAST

43. MGM part: METRO. Movie studio Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer, with Sam Goldwyn's name in eye-catching italics. The consummate self-promoter that he was, as Sam Goldfish, formed "Goldwyn" as a co-partnership with Edgar and Archie Selwyn. The name was to be either "Selfish" or "Goldwyn", so not hard to figure out which was the preferred choice. Immediately after the partnership was formed, Sam legally ditched his last name, and replaced it with "Goldwyn". The rest, as they say, is history.

44. Cork's place: EIRE

45. Racing legend Earnhardt: DALE

46. Brouhaha: ADO

48. Held to account: LIABLE

56. Car rental giant: AVIS

57. "Royal" seaside bird: TERN. Here's a turn for the better:

58. Spare: EXTRA

63. GQ or EW: MAG. A magazine. "EW" is "Entertainment Weekly", and though "GQ" purports to be "Gentlemen's Quarterly", it's published monthly. I'm not sure the full name has been used since the mid 60's. and certainly not since 1970.

66. Lyft driver's ballpark fig.: E.T.A.

67. Café option: AU LAIT. Coffee with hot milk added. I'm not sure what would happen if you ordered coffee with cold milk in France, the entire world is quiet on the subject. Here's the hot version:

68. Real estate ad number: AREA

69. Anthem contraction: O'ER

70. "Hard to Stop" air conditioners: TRANES

71. Use one's outside voice: YELL

Down:

1. "The Good Place" Emmy nominee Rudolph: MAYA, Minnie Riperton's ("Loving You") daughter. Who knew? No me, I just looked her up.

2. In a trice: ANON. I'd rather go with "soon" than "in a trice". If I want something "anon", it's "soon" - not right now, but not next February, more when it's convenient for the giver. If I want something "in a trice", it's more demanding "now", "ASAP" or "STAT". Funny how the "now" words are very recent.

3. Poker choice: STUD. A variant of the gambling game. Most of what you see today is Texas Hold 'Em.

4. Keep out of sight: HIDE

5. Debussy's "La __": MER. An orchestral piece. It takes a little while to get going, so you can listen to it "anon". Actually, it's been playing for 15 minutes while i work my way down this blog, and it's never really ever got started. Not on my favorites list to this point.

6. Chancel feature: ALTAR

7. Tablet accessories: STYLI. They still exist, mostly in the electronic form to draw on your iPad or other "small, portable, electronic devices" as the airlines like to call them.

8. Chick with Grammys: COREA

9. Soothsayer: ORACLE

10. Little one: TOT

11. Circle lines: RADII. Bones, too.

12. Less approachable: ICIER

13. Started: BEGUN

18. Library ID: ISBN. What happened to the good old Dewey Decimal System? Do librarians still use it?

22. Hall of Fame Dodger manager Tommy: LA SORDA

24. Luau strings: UKES

25. Estée contemporary: COCO. Lauder. Chanel.

26. Mild cheese: EDAM. I tried BRIE first, all the time grumbling that it's not always mild. Then I was wrong, so I ungrumbled. (Degrumbled?)

27. Nursery rhyme trio: MICE. Not PIGS then. A lot of backspacing/wite-out today.

28. Frequent prank caller to Moe's Tavern: BART

29. Arctic garb: ANORAKS

33. Snacked, say: ATE

34. McBride of "Hawaii Five-0": CHI

35. Sailor's pronoun: HER. "Thar she blows!" and sundry other stuff.

37. Very little: A DAB

38. Market: SELL

39. Walnut or pecan: TREE

41. Bar mixer: SODA. Not on my bar. Tonic, please!

42. Round signal: BELL This is quite nice - the end of a round in a boxing contest, but alarm bells tend to be round too.

47. Like a band in a bus: ON TOUR. Jackson Browne's paean to his tour team, recorded across the street from where I used to live - at the BBC's Maida Vale studios. I often used to pop in on my way back from work to see what was going on, sadly I missed this session in the (very tiny) auditorium.

49. "The Sopranos" actor Robert: ILER

50. Brief appearance: CAMEO

51. Egg-shaped: OVATE. Darn, I confidently put OVOID and then backed off, letter by letter.

52. Cuban export: CIGAR

53. Street of mystery: DELLA

54. "Trumbo" Oscar nominee Cranston: BRYAN. More famous for "Breaking Bad", a title I have tried on numerous occasions to make into a crossword theme. Never got there!

55. Set free: UNTIE

59. CT scan component: X-RAY

60. Run out of gas: TIRE. People tire, cars stop. I had a Jaguar XJS which had a gas gauge that never worked (quelle surprise!) and I had to estimate when I needed to fill up based on the mileage since the last time I topped up the tank. Sure enough, I ran dry on the 134 freeway in Toluca Lake - directly on an overpass above a gas station. A quick scoot down the embankment, a gallon in a plastic can and I was on my way in about five minutes flat.

61. Traditional dance: REEL

62. Mostly depleted sea: ARAL

64. Party accessory: HAT

65. UFO passengers, supposedly: ET'S

A sad day for grammarians everywhere, the Apostrophe Protection Society has this week disbanded, saying that "ignorance and laziness have won".

D'oh! May the greengrocers' plural live forever.

Steve

Oh, sorry, here'res' the grid. I like posting grid's.

Wednesday, December 4, 2019, Jeff Eddings

Theme: CAROL OF THE BE**S

21. Holiday song whose first line ends, "come sailing in": I SAW THREE SHIPS.

41. Holiday song first recorded by Gene Autry: FROSTY THE SNOWMAN.

61. Holiday song based on a traditional German folk song: O CHRISTMAS TREE.

74. What 21-, 41- or 61-Across is ... and, phonetically, a curiously apt common feature of those answers: NOEL. Each of the theme answers is the name of a popular Christmas song, containing no letter el. From Wikipedia: Christmas, from French Noël (“Christmas season”), may come from the Old French nael, may be derived in turn from Latin natalis, meaning "birth" Christmas carol, a song sung during Christmas. I wonder if the 21, 41, 61 was a lucky coincidence or planned.

Festive theme today, with supporting appearances by Eeyore, Babar, and the Muppets.

Across:

1. Retina 5K computer: IMAC.

5. Pet collar clip-on: ID TAG.

10. Theme park with a geodesic dome: EPCOT.

15. Bite: NOSH.

16. Béte __: NOIRE. French, literally ‘black beast.' A person or thing that one particularly dislikes.

17. Place to get clean: REHAB.

18. Medication unit: DOSE.

19. Crooner who co-wrote the "Chestnuts roasting ... " song: TORME. Another Christmas tune with no el.

20. Swim events: MEETS.

24. Pooh's dour friend: EEYORE.

25. Leader with a dot-edu address: DEAN. Academic institutions have domain names ending in .edu.

26. Brief "If only I could unhear that ... ": TMI. Too Much Information.

29. 2018 US Open winner Osaka: NAOMI.

32. Inductee: MEMBER.

34. Personal: OWN. As in, 'my own laptop.'

37. Marathoner's woes: CRAMPS.

40. One for the road?: AUTO. Nice clue.

45. "The Nutcracker" skirt: TUTU. More Christmas fill.

46. Like some owls: HORNED. Beautiful. A large, bulky owl with prominent ear tufts, white throat, gray beak, and bright yellow eyes.

​

47. Cottonelle layer: PLY. Bathroom tissue.

48. Jumps in: ENTERS. Wonder who else will jump into the 2020 presidential race.

51. Apply to: USE ON.

53. Nonprofit aid gp.: NGO. Non Governmental Organization. A nonprofit organization that operates independently of any government, typically one whose purpose is to address a social or political issue.

54. Opera set in Egypt: AIDA.

57. Curtains: DRAPES.

65. Storybook pachyderm: BABAR.

67. Pens: STIES. Nice to see the plural form here.

68. __ Kong: HONG. Not King.

69. "Home Alone" actress Catherine: O'HARA. More Christmas theme.

70. Line dance: CONGA.

71. French friend: AMIE. French. Ami is masculine and amie is feminine. They are pronounced exactly the same.

72. Area component: WIDTH.

73. Ready to pour: ON TAP. Ready to dispense, seems more accurate.

Down:

1. Many a low-budget flick: INDIE. Independent, not belonging to or affiliated with a major record or film company.

2. Reindeer cousin: MOOSE. Differences Between Deer, Elk, Moose and Reindeer.

3. Analyze: ASSAY.

4. Ponder: CHEW ON.

5. On paper: IN THEORY.

6. Spot for a wreath: DOOR. 🎄

7. Hankook product: TIRE. Brand.

8. Like bodyguards: ARMED.

9. "Six __ a-laying ... ": GEESE. More theme-related fill, but with els.

10. Valuable fur: ERMINE. Aka weasel or stoat. The species is called ermine especially during its winter white color phase.

11. Sound often not allowed?: PEEP.

12. Celebratory gesture: CHEST BUMP.

13. Granola kernel: OAT.

14. MLB playoffs broadcaster: TBS. Turner Broadcasting System.

22. Stretch of land: TRACT.

23. Holiday roast: HAM. More holiday themeage!

27. Heavy __: METAL.

28. Wry twist: IRONY.

30. "Do the __!": MATH.

31. Texting qualifier: IMHO. In My Honest Opinion.

33. Gaping hole: MAW.

34. Quite a lot: OFTEN.

35. Squeezed (out): WRUNG.

36. Decently: NOT TOO BAD.

38. Where the Amazon begins: PERU.

39. Nine-digit IDs: SSNS. Social Security Numbers.

42. Mystery writer Grafton: SUE.

43. Rush job phrase: NEED ASAP.

44. Fragrances: ODORS.

49. Really spirited: RAH RAH.

50. Title for Patrick Stewart: SIR.

52. Eponymous hot dog guy Handwerker: NATHAN. Nathan's are the best - served at Coney Island.

55. Summer songs?: DISCO. Donna Summer.

56. __ Martin: British car: ASTON.

58. Ad: PROMO.

59. Choice start: EENIE. Eenie, meeny, miney mo ...

60. Jason of "The Muppets": SEGEL. He executive-produced, co-wrote, and starred as Gary
in the 2011 movie.

62. E-commerce icon: CART.

63. Color variant: TINT.

64. Huge opening?: MEGA.

65. Present prettifier: BOW. Lol.

66. Sashimi choice: AHI.  Sashimi is thinly sliced raw seafood served without rice (image below) and is not considered a type of sushi. Sushi is vinegared rice, traditionally rolled with raw fish, but can include cooked seafood, veggies, or even other meats. Nigiri is raw seafood, similar to sashimi, served over hand-balled vinegared rice.