Saturday, March 6, 2021, Jamey Smith

Saturday Themeless by Jamey Smith

 

Today we hear from Jamey Smith and his puzzle was a real challenge for this word cowboy. I told Jamey it was a "delightful struggle" and he replied that was exactly what he was going for! Here is a nice note from him that includes some fun references to his contemporary fills:

Hi Gary, 

Many thanks for your fun illustrated write-ups and for giving those of us who make puzzles an opportunity to talk about them. I appreciate all the Crossword Corner bloggers and the solvers who take the time to weigh in.

I’m a native Texan and worked at the University of Texas at Austin, my alma mater, for many years. While there, I moonlighted as a freelance writer for local nonprofits. Now semi-retired, I can devote more time to my real passion: taking it easy.  :-) A few years ago, in the mood for a new hobby, I blithely plunged into crossword construction. How hard can it be, I remember thinking. Well, dozens of humbling rejections later, it somehow continues to be an enjoyable and stimulating diversion. That’s been especially true this past year.

I’m finding the LA Times and I are a pretty good editorial match. That’s not to say by any stretch that Rich keeps all my clues. I probably go overboard on pop culture. My clue for CLOUD ATLAS referenced the novel/film by that name (author David Mitchell is a favorite of mine), while GUANTANAMO alluded to a Harold & Kumar movie.

Those who appreciate 80s nostalgia may be glad that my “Dynasty” clue for FOES survived. But [80s brand touted as “The world’s best-fitting jeans”] was evidently a bridge too far for CHIC. Or maybe just too long. 

Until next time!

Jamey

Across:

1. Arrest: HALT.

5. Dwarf planet named for a goddess: ERIS - Hey,Pluto, you're on our team now!

9. Places to relax: BATHS.

14. Prefix meaning "personal": IDIO - We all have our IDIOsyncracies 

15. Caribbean isle seriously damaged by a 1995 volcanic eruption: MONTSERRAT - A minor eruption as seen from the International Space Station in 2009

17. Threshold adjoiner: JAMB - Door JAMB

18. Law enforcement tool that may be triggered by a siren: BODY CAMERA 

19. Natural healer: ALOE.

20. First-class freebie on long-haul flights: AMENITY KIT - I never saw one back in seat 43D

21. 1959 winner of 11 Oscars: BEN HUR - Charlton Heston did drive the chariot for some closeups 

23. Alfred of coffee fame: PEET 

24. Mollycoddle: COSSET - The verb COSSET “to treat as a pet, pamper, coddle” is a derivative verb use of the noun COSSET “a lamb raised as a pet.

26. Jocular headlock accompaniment: NOOGIE - My uncles called these "dutch rubs" and they bordered on abuse

31. Yani __, youngest golfer to win five majors: TSENG - She was #1 in the world for 109 weeks starting in 2008. Now she has fallen to #387 but has earned $10,550,000.

32. Flip out: SNAP

33. Trendy: CHIC.

35. Head makeup: SUDS - Beer talk

36. Loose: UNLEASH - Seen more often as an adjective, here it is a verb. as in "He has LOOSED the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword"

38. Some holy city dwellers: MECCANS - MECCA, Saudi Arabia is Islam's holiest city. A hajj to MECCA by an 11-yr-old girl

40. They go with guys: GALS - not

41. Ithaca opening: IOTA - Ιθάκη - Ithaca in Greek letters

43. Pirogue, e.g.: CANOE - Great for huntin' gators

44. Campaign buy: SPOT AD - Some broadcasts are now showing them in split screen mode while there is a break in the action

46. Reply card, say: INSERT.

48. Viral internet item: MEME - You can generate your own at this site

50. NFL highlight reel clip: TD PASS.

53. Barista's concoction: CAFFE MOCHA - CAFE AU LAIT fit beautifully but... 

58. Get in the game: ANTE  - Ya gotta pay to play!

59. Reference for budding meteorologists: CLOUD ATLAS - The cover of the 1956 edition with a page. Not the movie Jamey was thinking of

60. Acid __: RAIN.

61. Sara Pennypacker kid-lit heroine: CLEMENTINE.

62. Capone capturers: T MEN - Eliot Ness worked for the treasury department and was not a g-man (FBI)

63. Evening stroll: PASEO - Also a boulevard in K.C.

64. Stone massage sites: SPAS.

65. Class with poses: YOGA - Here's a bunch of 'em 

Down:

1. Muslim veil: HIJAB - Generally, they can't be worn for passport or driver's license pictures 

2. Allan-__: Robin Hood cohort: ADALE.

3. Citrus liqueur: LIMONCELLO - Ubiquitous in southern Italy. We sampled some at a concession stand near Pompeii. 

4. "Truth is ... ": TO BE HONEST 

5. Imprisons: EMBARS - EMBAR, debar, disbar 

6. Leeway: ROOM.

7. Thorough: IN DEPTH 

8. Composer Jule: STYNE - His song (lyrics by Bob Merrill) People, was almost cut from Funny Girl

9. Reach ahead of: BEAT TO.

10. Private employer: ARMY - Also a general employer 

11. Wisconsin-based bike brand: TREK - Headquarters in Waterloo, WI

12. Spydom name: HARI - Myth?

13. Actuarial datum, e.g.: STAT.

16. Rocket __: SCIENCE 

Buzz Aldrin

22. Bob Jones Award org.: USGA - He never turned pro and so Yani Tseng a lot more money

25. Parrot: ECHO.

27. Prime spot for stargazing?: OSCAR PARTY - Hey, this meme generator stuff is fun!

28. Cuban city with a U.S. Navy base: GUANTANAMO - Not the movie Jamey wanted

29. SSN, e.g.: ID NO.

30. To be, in Latin: ESSE - You don't have to be a rocket scientist to translate this: "ESSE aut non ESSE"

31. Harbor sights: TUGS.

32. Flip out: SNAP.

34. Mononymous supermodel: IMAN - She walks our cwd runway frequently 

37. Jazz group guy: SIDEMAN - Backup players for featured artists like Louis Armstrong

39. In the loop: CCED.

42. Accessory with a suit: TIE CLIP - I don't see TIES or TIE CLIPS much anymore

45. Artist Modigliani: AMEDEO - Painter, sculptor noted for elongation. Yeah, I knew that 😏

47. Equilibria: STASES - Achieving this state might be the key to long space flights

49. Big name in apple products: MOTTS - Small "a"

51. "The Girl Who Played With Fire" author Larsson: STIEG  - Flickan Som Lekte Med Elden in his native Swedish. More

52. Medicinal shrub: SENNA - This plant produces sennosides which are the active ingredients in many laxatives. I wonder who first discovered this?

53. Cosmonaut's insignia, once: CCCP - Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space

54. Spaghetti __ puttanesca: ALLA.

55. Krystle and Alexis on the 1980s "Dynasty," e.g.: FOES - Yeah, I'd say...

56. Stew: FUME - Krystle appears to be FUMING above

57. Maui's famously twisty Road to __: HANA - One of the stops on this twisty highway is Charles Lindberg's gravesite. 

Friday, March 5, 2021, Lewis Rothlein

Theme: Dyslexic's Nightmare!!

The reveal: 63-Across. Hair problem, and what three short puzzle answers each has: SPLIT END.

Chairman Moe here, trying to "tackle" the elusive "split end" that Lewis Rothlein featured in today's crossword puzzle. Not the easiest of tasks for this blogger, as I had to cheat several times in solving the puzzle. And then I had absolutely NO CLUE about the puzzle's "reveal" until my sister (who is visiting us for awhile) looked at the filled-in puzzle grid, and saw the SPLIT ENDS.

Let's insert the grid now, and please pay attention to the letters in red, including the circled ones:

First things first: if your puzzle came with no circles, this would be almost impossible to find. Second, the clue (in 63-Across; "what three short puzzle answers each has") was a bit misleading at first. This puzzle is filled with 3-letter answers, not circled. But I digress. Even looking at the circled "words" and trying to make heads or tails from them, all I saw were: CIM/MIC; TIP/PIT; SEY/YES; NOT/TON; DOG/GOD; and TOP/POT. And what, pray tell, did all of these mean? Four of the six circled words were "mirrored anagrams": TIP/PIT; NOT/TON; DOG/GOD; and TOP/POT. Hmm.

My first thought as I began blogging was to look at the uppermost circles: MIC and TIP. The "ends" of these words are "split" apart from their beginnings. What is a MIC TIP you ask?

Same with TOP and DOG.

And the third SPLIT END is NOT YES, it's HELL YES!

But then, as the clues and answers unfolded (I was all the way to 10-Down. "Sure!": WHY), when it finally hit me like a can of V-8! The "SPLIT ENDS" are: HOT MIC, HOT TIP, WHY NOT, WHY YES, AND LAPTOP, LAP DOG! Duh. All of these resemble what a SPLIT END looks like!! I hope it didn't take all y'all as long to figure it out as it took me. I literally wrote over 50% of the blog before I got it. And after devoting about 2-1/2 hours to my draft, I am not going to re-write the whole thing! So just bear with me, OK??!!

Anyway, that's my story and I am sticking to it!! Thanks, Lewis for a VERY CLEVER puzzle

Across:
1. "Born From Jets" automaker: SAAB. Not your average SAAB story

5. Fiscal exec: CFO. Chief Financial Officer

8. Sign of danger: BEWARE.

14. Like letters in an outbox: UNMAILED. Do you folks still use a mailbox flag to indicate your UNMAILED letters?

16. Transport again: RE-HAUL. Different than U-HAUL I presume . . .

17. Connecticut home of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament: STAMFORD. Learning moment for me. Perhaps my Friday blog partner-in-crime, (and native to the Nutmeg State) Lemonade714 would care to comment?

18. Nobody special: ANYONE.

19. One may reveal a secret: HOT. As in HOT TIP! A HOT MIC is not shown, but refers to a microphone that is active

20. Inconsistent: STREAKY. As a college student in the early '70's, my first thought about seeing the root word for this is captured by Ray Stevens below:

22. Pro Bowl side: Abbr.: NFC. National Football Conference. Or could've been AFC. Pro Football all star game. Football used to have SPLIT ENDS until they re-named them wide receivers. And if the game goes 23-Across. Past regulation, briefly: we would say that it's IN O.T.

25. Land in the ocean: ISLE.

26. Cal Poly setting, initially: SLO. San Luis Obispo. California Polytechnic Institute has a campus here. See the map image below, courtesy of Google Maps ... San Luis Obispo is north of Santa Barbara ...

27. Morlock prey: ELOI. You knew this, right? The ELOI are one of the two fictional post-human races, along with the Morlocks, in H. G. Wells' 1895 novel The Time Machine

29. Area 51 figures, supposedly: ETS. This link courtesy of Brittanica dot com has a lot of information, as well as an imbedded video worth watching. Are they really revealing the truth about Extra Terrestrial BeingS? What about this picture?

30. Way to earn interest?: FLIRT. Cute clue

32. Recipe amts.: TSPS.

34. "1984" superstate: OCEANIA. H.G. Wells with ELOI and now George Orwell with OCEANIA from the book Nineteen Eighty-Four

36. Find: LOCATE.

39. Lab tubes: PIPETS. Moe-ku:

Great Expectations
Was translated to Klingon.
Named, "PIP", for ET'S

40. Comparable things: ANALOGS. This one was a stretch for me. Too Friday-ish perhaps?

42. "Black Narcissus" figures: NUNS. Perps filled in this answer for me. A 1947 movie in which a group of Anglican NUNS, led by Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr), are sent to a mountain in the Himalayas

43. Word on mail from Toledo, maybe: AEREO. "Apartado aéreo" in Spanish means "air section/air post office", in English ... I think ... Toledo as in the city in Spain

44. Abate: EBB. Crossword puzzle staple

46. Just the best: TOPS. See the TOP DOG reference in the intro

49. __ thai: PAD. PAD Thai is stir-fry dish made with rice noodles, shrimp, chicken, or tofu, peanuts, a scrambled egg and bean sprouts. The ingredients are sautéed together in a wok and tossed in a delicious pad thai sauce

50. Mystery novelist Paretsky: SARA. SARA Paretsky is an American author of detective fiction, best known for her novels focused on the protagonist V. I. Warshawski

51. Sine qua non: NEED. From Latin. Loosely translated means: an essential condition; a thing that is absolutely necessary. NEED. Friday clue. But the wine geek in me saw this clue and thought about a California cult wine called "Sine Qua Non"

53. One often chosen for lightness: LAP. As in LAP TOP! Cats love them, and fittingly, the picture below ALSO shows a LAPTOP computer. No LAP DOG in this first picture, but the second one is questionable, methinks

54. Arced woodshop tools: C CLAMPS. Used in carpentry

57. Mex. title: SRA. SenoRA

58. Hercule's creator: AGATHA. Big day for books and authors. Wells, Orwell, Paretsky, and now Christie. Methinks our constructor must enjoy books and reading

60. "Join us for lunch?" regrets: I'VE EATEN. Sure; makes sense

62. Put back in the fridge: RE-COOL. Meh. Not an expression I would use

64. Drafted: DREW UP. Also defined as bringing a body of troops in array

65. Many a quote, for short: EST. LOL!

66. "South Park" co-creator Parker: TREY. Perps. I've heard of "South Park" but not the co-creator. Here is a clip of TREY Parker's favorite episode

Down:
1. Temaki or futomaki: SUSHI.

2. San __: Texas city nickname: ANTONE. Not gonna diss this clue and answer, because phoenetically, it fits. But just as natives from San Francisco do not refer to their city as "Frisco", neither do San Antonians refer to their city as "San ANTONE". Just sayin'

3. Explosive mixture: AMATOL. A high explosive consisting of a mixture of TNT and ammonium nitrate

4. "Kapow!": BAM.

5. Thicken, as cream: CLOT. According to Wikipedia dot com, CLOT(TED) cream is a thick cream made by indirectly heating full-cream cow's milk using steam or a water bath and then leaving it in shallow pans to cool slowly. During this time, the cream content rises to the surface and forms "clots" or "clouts", hence the name. It forms an essential part of a cream tea. And now you know!

6. Martha's Vineyard arrivals: FERRIES. I think that now, the only active ferry routes to Martha's Vineyard embark from Woods Hole, MA; Hyannis, MA; and Nantucket Island.

7. Most unexpected: ODDEST. Weird; I got this one!

8. Slow up: BRAKE. Do you say this to slow up or slow down?

9. Counting word: EENY. EENY, meeny, miney, MOE!! (That's me, in case you thought Malodorous Manatee was blogging today's puzzle . . .)

11. Internet recovery program: A. A. ON-LINE. This clue and answer didn't resonate when I was filling it in. And still didn't until I found this:. I guess that during the pandemic it is/was the safest way to continue the recovery process

12. Flee in fear: RUN FOR IT.

13. Utility abbr.: ELEC. Our ELEC bills range between $130 a month in the winter to well over $300 a month in the summer. But nothing like the recent bills in Texas this past month

15. Possibles: IFS. One of my favorite expressions (and I may be paraphrasing here): If IFS and buts were candy and nuts, we'd all have a Merry Christmas!

21. As a bonus: ALSO. Did you get this, too?

24. Came to: TOTALED. As in added-up

26. Applies carelessly: SLAPS ON. But not in the case of "wax"

28. Puerile retort: IS TOO. Great word, puerile! Defined as: childishly silly and trivial. This answer could've been clued differently if it weren't a Friday

30. Artful dodge: FEINT. Another great Friday clue/answer. Our resident Canadian, Canadian Eh! might know it as this:

31. Prof.'s aides: T.A.'S. A teaching assistant (T.A.) or teacher's aide or education assistant or team teacher is an individual who assists a teacher with instructional responsibilities

33. Fielder's strong throw: PEG. An archaic baseball term, or it could've been clued as "a nickname for Margaret". But my "Margaret" does not want to be called this

35. PC brain: CPU. Central Processing Unit

36. SoCal ball club, on scoreboards: LAA. Los Angeles Angels. LAD fit, ALSO. As in Los Angeles Dodgers

37. Short report: ONE PAGE'R. Not this PAGER:

38. Turtle shell, e.g.: CARAPACE. I thought this a bit obscure, but it's been seen in other puzzles, recently

41. Letter closer: SEAL. Like this one:

42. Curry and Antetokounmpo, recently: NBA MVPS. National Basketball Association Most Valuable PlayerS. Steph Curry of the Golden State Warriors, and Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks

45. Sear and simmer: BRAISE. How to braise:

47. Vex: PESTER. Apparently our Thesaurussaurus has not heard of this synonym

48. Cool: SERENE. Another Friday clue for this answer methinks

50. Resell to desperate fans, maybe: SCALP. The word "SCALP" has some negative meaning, too. But the term meaning to resell tickets goes back a long way

52. Fine partner: DANDY. Did this come to ANYONE's mind?

53. Shortening, maybe: LARD. It's actually pronounced "uhts". My favorite potato chip

54. French cabbage: CHOU. Frawnch!

55. Hide: PELT. Moe-ku for SportsCenter fans:

ESPN host,
Now that he's bald, should be known
As Scott Van No PELT

56. Roman numeral?: SEI. As in "VI"?? SEI --> Italian for "six". Wow, what a stretch!!

59. Garage service: TOW. As in TOWing a vehicle to the garage for service

61. ABA member: ATT. American Bar Association has, as its members, ATTorneys

This was fun! Hope to hear from many of you about your solving trials and tribulations on today's puzzle . . .

Thursday March 4, 2021 Bruce Haight

 

 

Today's puzzle was constructed by Bruce Haight.  As an ophthalmologist, Bruce spends a lot of time staring intently into the faces of his patients.  He experiences them FACE TO FACE, the theme of this puzzle.  Like his experiences with his patients, this puzzle's themers are multi-layered: he first asks us to look at 4 common-place objects and phrases and then to take a closer look.  We then see that these objects are word pairs consisting of 4 pairs of  "FACE types".  Let's take a look at each of the theme clues and answers and peel off some of their "makeup".  It turns out there's a lot more here than meets the EYE:

17. Circuitous: ROUND ABOUT.  ROUND ABOUTS are used to speed-up the flow of traffic at intersections, especially in major cities.  Here is Washington State's illustrated MANUAL of rules for traversing ROUNDABOUTS (whatever happened to STOP on RED and GO on GREEN?).  ROUND ABOUTS can be real white knuckle experiences, especially when driving in England!  Or even worse in Harbin, China where my son and I visited when he adopted Ray, our 2nd oldest grandson.  I'm pretty sure this pic was PHOTO SHOPPED to remove all the traffic, which day and night was always 6 lanes deep and bumper-to-bumper all the way around.  Our driver Soong had a preternatural ability to make sharp left turns through to the center, zip around to the desired exit, and make a sharp right turn to get out.  And we're all alive to tell about it!
 

Roundabout in Harbin China

But wait there's more: ROUND also describes a common SHAPE for a face:

 

and ABOUT FACE is a military drill command to "do a 180" turn on the heels facing the way you came.

26. Unfilled, as a schedule slot: LEFT OPEN.   Simple enough, but a LEFT FACE is also a drill command to turn LEFT 90 DEGREES.  And if you do and look down, you'll be facing an OPEN FACE HAM and CHEESE sandwich:

36. No-frills card game: STRAIGHT POKER.  A variant of POKER, along with STUD and TEXAS HOLD EM.  BUT you need a STRAIGHT FACE (a.k.a. a POKER FACE) or your REVEAL will TELL on you and give away your HAND:
 

49. Short nightgown: BABY DOLL.  As clued, a type of LINGERIE (as this is a family blog I'll skip the pic for this (BLUSH)).   But it's also a CHILD'S TOY:
 

 ... and a BABY FACE:

 and DOLL FACE (I hear the originals are worth a fortune):
 

I think that's most of the MASCARA, so here's the reveal:

 60. In person ... and like 17-, 26-, 36- and 49-Across?: FACE TO FACE.

Oh yes, and there were other clues ...

Across:

1. Logo of The Hartford: STAG.   The Hartford Insurance Co. logo is derived from this iconic painting by English painter Sir Edward Landseer.  The word HART is an archaic synonym for STAG:
 

The Monarch of the Glen

5. Less noble: BASER. Seems to me there must be a less BASE word for less NOBLE.

10. Pueblo people: HOPI.  Just a little of the Hopi's history, customs, culture, and spirituality.

14. Thick book: TOME.  Repeat after me: 3 letters and it's OED, 4 letters and it's TOME

15. Amazon assistant: ALEXA.
 

16. Spoonbill kin: IBIS.  The National Aquarium in Baltimore has several of these stunning birds in its rooftop rain forest.
 

Scarlet Ibis

19. Daily vitamin, e.g.: PILL.  Also a pejorative for hard to swallow people ...

20. Puzzled: AT SEA.  Spitzboov can explain this a lot better than I can.

21. Some German imports: AUDIS.

23. PreCheck org.: TSA.  Expedited security checking courtesy of the Transportation Safety Administration.

24. Plump: FLESHY. 

28. Many MIT grads: EES.  I believe Dash T is a Double E.  Don't know his shoe size.

29. Roleo surface: LOG.  A portmanteau of RODEOS and LOG ROLLING contests.

31. "Expand on that," in improv comedy: YES AND.  All you want to know about it ...

32. Lummox: BIG APE. GALOOT didn't perp.  Apparently a distant synonym for a famous PHILISTINE.

35. Quite a stretch: AGES.

40. Emperor after Galba: OTHO.  Reigned in the Year of 4 Emperors (69 AD) .  OTHO lasted 3 months.

41. State bordering Arizona: SONORA.  But not one of the Estados Unidos.

42. Like a quarter's edge: REEDED.  Aside from describing OBOES, SAXES and such, this is also specialized adjective describing the RIDGED rims of COINS.

45. Podcast interruptions: ADS.

46. "LOTR" menace: ORC.  Really really mean MEANIES.

52. Turin title: SIGNOR.

54. "__ have what she's having": quip from "When Harry Met Sally...": I'LL.  A truly classic SCENE if you haven't SEEN it!

55. Super sexy: SO HOT.  Particularly when attired in a 49A.

57. "I'll pass": NOT ME.  And so will I.

58. "On the double!": STAT.  FROM the Latin STATIM, which means “instantly” or “immediately.”  Hands up everyone who swagged ASAP first?  MDs want it STAT, MBAs want it ASAP.

62. "Howdy ... you just get here?": OH HI.

63. "Looking 4 Myself" R&B singer: USHER.  Heard of him.  Never heard him.

64. Each: A POP.  The origin of this phrase seems obscure.

65. Wall St. index: NYSE.  It's the New York Stock EXCHANGE, but is it an INDEX?  Like the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), or Standard and Poors (S&P 500), or the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASDAQ)?

66. Fresh: SASSY.  Not really CW fresh, but still very GLUEY.

67. __ Martin Cognac: REMY.  All you want to know about Rémy Martin.  I would have taken you directly to their website, but you have to be older than 21 to login to it.  A CSO to CMOE to take a shot at this one.

Down:

1. Attack from above: STRAFE.  My Mother was never strafed, but she told me that Stoke-on-Trent, England where she grew up was regularly bombed during WWII.  Here family would black out the windows and all huddle under a big oak table in the basement

2. Mosey: TOOTLE.  As of 2001, the third largest selling children's book in the English speaking world:

3. Tickles: AMUSES.  I'm sure Tootle, tickles a lot of little children.

4. Parental units?: GENES.  Before anyone knew how they worked (and we're still a long way off  from that), the existence of discreet units of inheritance was demonstrated by Gregor Mendel, an Augustinian monk living in 19th century Bohemia. His discoveries were made around the same time as Charles Darwin's publication of The Origin of Species, but Darwin  died before Mendel's work became widely known around 1900 and thus the former knew nothing about the latter. The term GENE was actually coined by Danish botanist Wilhelm Johannsen in 1909.

5. Ewes do it: BAA.  As do lambs and rams.

6. "L.A.'s Finest" actress Jessica: ALBA.  If she's the "Finest" actress in L.A. how come she was nominated or won 5 Golden Raspberry Awards between 2006 and 2011?

7. Gangnam District city: SEOUL.  More than you want to know about Gangnam Style ...

8. Ooze with: EXUDE.

9. Formally approve: RATIFY.

10. Trendy: HIP.

11. Where to find departure info?: OBIT PAGE.  Clever clue.

12. Beer named for a Czech city: PILSENER.  Constructors tend to prefer ALES, not only because of their taste, but because they are SHORTER and much GLUIER.  But Stella Artois and Pilsner Urquell are pretty refreshing after a hot summer day in the garden.

13. Christmas and Easter: ISLANDS.  Clever clue.  I struggled with it for awhile.

18. Mexico's national flower: DAHLIA.

22. Office address abbr.: STE.  Short for street?

25. "You can observe a lot by watching" speaker: YOGI.  Wanted YODA.

27. 2020 US Open winner Naomi: OSAKA.

30. Pranks: GAGS.

32. "The Pianist" Oscar winner Adrien: BRODY.  Brody won an OSCAR for Best Actor in 2002 at age 29, making him the youngest actor to win in that category.  Here is the performance of the Chopin Nocturne No. 20 from the original soundtrack, performed not by Brody, but by pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman.
 

33. Beef broth soup: PHO.  Today's Vietnamese lesson.  I've had Pho ("fuh")  several times, as one of my sisters is a gourmet cook married to a Vietnamese born physician/scientist.  Delicious, but a lot of work.  Here's the recipe she uses.

34. Italian volcano: ETNA.

36. Like ninjas: STEALTHY.

37. Ennui: THE BLAHS.

38. Sci-fi vehicles: PODS.  Hands up everyone who swagged UFOS?  When it perped I was immediately reminded of a horror film called The Invasion of the Body Snatchers that came out when  I was 9 years old.  I had nightmares about it for years. The aliens in this film arrived in the form of seed PODS from outer space, captured human bodies, and then walked zombie-like among us.  In fact they may STILL be walking among us!  Very scary!
 

39. "Twelfth Night" duke: ORSINO.

40. "Only the Lonely" crooner: ORBISON.  Roy.  A torch song often follows a long and torturous path from its origin to the throat of a singer.  This song actually had its beginnings in the 18th Century from the pen of the great German polymath and poet  JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE in his 1796 poem Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt ("Only those who know longing").  The gauntlet was later picked up by the Russian PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY in a song setting called  "None but the Lonely Heart".  His version became popular around the world and was eventually used in English translation by none other than FRANK SINATRA, circa 1958.  Orbison followed with his rendition in 1960 "Only the Lonely", which shot to number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and hit number one in the UK and Australia:
 

43. Slate slate, briefly: EDS.  An Ezine.  Editors.

44. Inept one: DOOFUS.   I felt like a DOOFUS at times as I TOOTLED all over the landscape of this puzzle.

46. Saved, in a way: ON TAPE.  TAPE can save you in more ways than one.  I picked this flowchart up years ago from the hilarious Canadian skit comedy series, THE RED GREEN SHOW.  Although they used DUCT TAPE way more than WD40 (another CSO to DASH T):
 

47. Hallmark Channel fare: ROM COM.  See 54A.  Then see the flick if you haven't seen it.  I considered posting the YouTube clip here, but then again this IS a family blog.

48. Goosebumps-inducing: CREEPY.  Those 38As were pretty CREEPY to a 9 year old.

50. Potala Palace city: LHASA. The home of the LHASA APSO in the land of the DALAI LAMA.

51. Scottish vacation sites: LOCHS.  Fine if you don't mind PLESIOSAURS popping up on your beach:

Nessie

53. Accomplish much: GO FAR.

56. Golf course areas: TEES.

59. Draw: TIE.  While I was TOOTLING around down here ...

61. Sample: TRY.      ... I got TIED up for TRYING.

Here's the grid:

 While putting this together I've been nagged by thoughts of a 5th themer pair: ROCK FACES.  Thought about illustrating it with a ditty from ROD STEWART and his house band FACES.  But Dw suggested this instead:
 

waseeley

Cheers,
Bill

s