Saturday, September 18, 2021, Matthew Sewell

 Saturday Themeless by Matthew Sewell

Today we get another Saturday themeless from one of our regulars, Dr. Matt Sewell. I had to waltz around until his pinwheel 9's and 8's showed the way. PATRIA, Hephaestus and VILLAIN EDIT were new for me. Here are some comments from Matt:

Hello Gary,

Thanks for your note. I recall feeling good about this puzzle's range; whenever possible, I try to get a mix of classical/historical stuff with contemporary references, and that seemed to work out here. I also remember fussing with the NE corner of this puzzle a fair bit -- should it be SIX-SIDED? TEN-SIDED? I had a full corner using TEN-SIDED, but ultimately the most appealing clue options seemed to rest with TWO SIDES. The clue for DOOM is a tribute to my (much) younger self -- I certainly didn't need to do any research to know that that game ran on MS-DOS! I hope solvers enjoy the puzzle, and I'm grateful to Rich and the LAT team for their improvements to the final product.

Matt

Across:

1. Dispute over intellectual property: PATENT WAR - It is said only the lawyers made big money in this seven-year iPhone vs Samsung PATENT WAR

10. Little help?: ASST.

14. Consort of Hephaestus: APHRODITE - She was not a faithful wife to this God Of Blacksmiths

15. "Don't give me that!": PSHAW - McKayla Maroney's reaction to a silver medal in the London Olympics

16. Boarding site: TRAIN STOP - During the Chicago Cubs baseball season, this is a very busy TRAIN STOP on the Chicago Transit Authority Red Line

17. "__ is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with his freedom": Dylan: A HERO - Wise words from Bob Dylan

18. Drilling gp.: ROTC - Yeah, I'm the only the only one who put OPEC 😏

19. Metalworker's joints: SPOT WELDS - This SPOT WELDER is a machine 

21. Like shouts in texts: IN CAPS.

24. "Interview With the Vampire" actor: REA - Stephen

25. Metz pronoun: TOI - J'ai entendu une rumeur sur TOI (I heard a rumor about you)

26. Wood used for electric guitar bodies: ASH - Fender now uses mostly alder wood but this is one of their ASH body instruments which they still manufacture

27. Catch on: START A TREND.

31. Storage shed securer: PADLOCK.

32. Singer India.__: ARIE - I have never heard her sing but with all those vowels in her name, she can have a long career in crosswords 

33. Snacks with a pinwheel design: HOHOS.

36. Org. for those putting it nicely?: PGA - A made putt is, uh, "Putting it nicely"

37. Golfer's alternative to balls: DISCS - That clue went from "Huh?" to "Oh, now I get it!"

38. Largely dried-up sea: ARAL - That sea and its vowels live on here

39. Active by day: DIURNAL.

41. Slant given to a reality TV antagonist: VILLAIN EDIT - What is done on some productions to produce a villain which can help ratings. New to me.

43. Some NFL linemen: RGS - [Right/Left] [Guard/Tackle]

46. Brass source: EGO - Egotistical people can be said to be have a lot of brass

47. "Take __": ONE.

48. "Just say the word": NAME IT 

50. Winning four consecutive majors over a two-year span, as named for the first to do it: TIGER SLAM - Golf's Grand Slam is winning all four "major" championships in one calendar year. Tiger Woods won the U.S. Open, the British Open and The PGA Tournament in 2000 and then the Master's in 2001.

54. Union underminer: SCAB - My neighbor was a SCAB lineman for the 1987 Dallas Cowboys during an NFL strike

55. Sluggish: INERT.

56. "Is that all?": ARE WE DONE and 61. "What __?": ELSE.

59. More than passion: MANIA.

60. Crack wise: KID AROUND.

62. "A snap!": EASY AS PIE.

Down:

1. Nero's country: PATRIA - Latin for "Fatherland". Nero's PATRIA was Rome. Matt wrote me that his original clue was to use a Spanish name because PATRIA is also fatherland in Spanish. He thinks Rich must have chosen Nero in the clue to hint at PATRIA's Latin origin.

2. Spatter collectors: APRONS.

3. Organic roof choice: THATCH - Gilligan and The Skipper work on theirs

4. Durance of "Smallville": ERICA - She played a young Lois Lane

5. The "N" in NDA: NON - Taylor Swift made her boyfriend Calvin Harris sign a NON Disclosure Agreement so their activities would stay private

6. Jerry Rice's record 208, briefly: TDS.

7. Roasters, say: WITS - WITS lined up to roast Justin Bieber

8. Crowning: ATOP - Putting a crowning glory ATOP a church

9. Place for marks: REPORT CARD - I'd love to have a dime for every mark I ever put on a REPORT CARD

10. Connors rival: ASHE - Jimmy and Arthur in tennis 

11. Tax pro's suggestions: SHELTERS - Such as...

12. Biting: SARDONIC.

Dr. Greg House

13. Feature of every story, it's said: TWO SIDES - Custer and Crazy Horse saw it very differently 

15. Grab for clumsily: PAW AT - Not a good date move

20. Deck wood: TEAK - It contains oils that are beautiful and durable in marine environments 

22. Free TV spots: PSAS - Public Service Announcements 

23. Convention: Abbr.: STD.

28. Body of water often defined as above the tree line: ALPINE LAKE.

29. Aberrant way to go: ROGUE.

30. Bit of fencing: RAIL.

31. Request votes from: POLL - One of your Who Wants To Be A Millionaire lifelines is to POLL the audience. (*The answer is at the bottom of the page - hg)

33. Be available: HAVE TIME.

34. Not seen before: ORIGINAL.

35. Chlorine and iodine: HALOGENS - Here ya go.

37. Big __: DATA - Controlling information is the true power 

39. Rackets: DINS.

40. "Fire" diarist Anaïs: NIN - Her diaries were erotic to say the least

42. Circulatory passage: AORTA - Body parts with three vowels get a lot of use

43. Make back, as initial costs: RECOUP - This movie's gross revenue of $7M came up $93M short of RECOUPING its cost

44. Donatella's designer brother: GIANNI - GIANNI Versace and his 8-yrs-younger sister Donatella are in the middle picture. The people who played them in a TV series are shown on the outside.

45. "Venerable" Eng. monk: ST BEDE - This is the visual I used on Craig Stowe's August 28, 2021 puzzle

49. Original platform for Doom: MS DOS.

51. City at the intersection of I-90 and I-79: ERIE - Here's the map

52. Stage solo, perhaps: ARIA - "Don't judge a book by its cover" is a secondary conclusion to this video of my favorite ARIA. Paul brings judges and the audience to tears.

53. Scrips: MEDS - preSCRIPtionS

57. "__ cool!": WAY.

58. Detergent brand: ERA.

*The school with the "eating clubs" is Princeton 

Friday September 17, 2021, Annemarie Brethauer

Theme: Scrabble "T"iles

Hello, Cornerites! So, was anyone else (48-Down. Steamed ... and like five answers in this puzzle?) TEED OFF when they saw and solved this puzzle?? When I figured out 18-Across (Guitar connoisseur?: AX COLLECTOR), I immediately saw that a T was missing (TAX COLLECTOR), and thought, hmm, this could be interesting. Especially after (36-Across Cabdriver's pickups during a storm?) RAIN FARE (TRAIN FARE), and (1-Down Platform for primates?) APE DECK (TAPE DECK) emerged.

But as I drilled down to the last two, (41-Across Savings for replacing old tools?) RUST FUND, and (62-Across One with a lofty greeting?) HIGH SLAPPER, (TRUST FUND and THIGH SLAPPER) I was less impressed.

Still, it was a fun test - and my "Scrabble" reference in the theme fits, I think, as adding the letter "T" to the first words of the five long answers would allow you to score big points without sacrificing too many tiles . . .

Let's look at the rest of the fill:

Across:
1. Render speechless, maybe: AWE. Often I will use a homophone of this word when I have Facetime with my daughter and grandson ... AWW, he is so cute!

4. "Morning Joe" network: MSNBC. COFFEE didn't fit; LATTE does

9. Bach's instrument: ORGAN. I guessed wrong with PIANO but perps came to the rescue

14. Family nicknames: PAS. I'm not a big fan of these "forced" three-letter abbreviated plurals; unless of course I am using them in a puzzle that I construct!! LOL!!

15. "Goodies" singer: CIARA. Totally clueless. Not my music genre choice. Yours? Listen and please comment if you want

16. Muralist Rivera: DIEGO. Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera, was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the mural movement in Mexican and international art. Wikipedia

17. It may be bruised: EGO. Very clever clue, and yes, I've had mine bruised a few times

20. School team member who argues a lot: DEBATER. Sorry Ray-O-Sunshine, I'm gonna beat you to the punch:

Abe liked to argue,
As well as fish. It shows he's
A great DEBATER

22. Capers: LARKS. I initally thought of these when I saw the clue:

23. Fleecy females: EWES.

When rams in Trenton
Are paired with female sheep, Do
Folks say, "Hey EWES guys?"

24. Shakespearean villain: REGAN, and 26-Across. Shakespearean villain: IAGO. Clecho

29. Coopers' creations: CASKS. BARRELS didn't fit, but a CASK is a small one

31. Lets go: SACKS. The key to this clue is that the word "lets" is not spelled with an apostrophe

33. Burbank-to-Fresno dir.: NNW. Directional abbr.

34. Old Austrian money: KRONEN. Plural kronen\ ˈkrō-​nən \ Definition of krone 1 : the basic monetary unit of Austria from 1892 to 1925. 2 : a coin representing one krone. In German the addition of an "N" to a noun usually makes it plural. Spitzboov, Ist dass richtig?

38. Dunkable cookie: OREO. Had the word "cookie" been capitalized, one could argue that it would refer to what Alexander might do to his sister when they are in a swimming pool

40. Tall one: BEER. A Friday clue if I ever saw one. 16oz drafts are usually the "ones" that are "tall"

45. Chew out: RAIL AT. Vituperate is another term and synonym

49. Toward the 50-Across: AFT, 50-Across. See 49-Across: STERN. Does this count as a clecho?

52. "The Wreck of the Mary __": DEARE. This clue and entry appear about once a year, on average

53. Hoffman title role: HOOK. Dustin Hoffman played Captain HOOK; Robin Williams (shown below) played Peter Pan. Film trailer:

55. Hindu royalty: RAJAS. Rajas (Sanskrit: रजस्) is one of the three Guṇas (tendencies, qualities, attributes), a philosophical and psychological concept developed by the Samkhya school of Hindu philosophy. The other two qualities are Sattva (goodness, balance) and Tamas (destruction, chaos). Rajas is innate tendency or quality that drives motion, energy and activity.

Rajas is sometimes translated as passion, where it is used in the sense of activity, without any particular value and it can contextually be either good or bad. Rajas helps actualize the other aforementioned two gunas.

Nothing here describes "royalty". Maybe I chose the wrong Wikipedia entry??

57. Indulge, with "on": DOTE. There it is: the ninth example from our Thesaurussaurus

58. Like some bulls: PAPAL. PAPAL Bull. It's actually defined as an edict by the Pope, but I kinda like this cartoon version myself

60. Like many tuxedo shirts: PLEATED. Jerry's isn't PLEATED, but it's much funnier! Beware of the "low talkers"

65. Texter's lead-in: IMO. In My Opinion. IYO, what do you think of this as an entry?

66. Dividing range: URALS. From novaonline.com: " The Ural Mountains (Уральские горы, Uralskie gory, the Stone Belt) as a mountain range run roughly north and south through Russia to Kazakhstan for a little more than 1,500 mi. The highest peak is Mount Narodnaia (about 6,200 ft.), while the average height varies considerably but is often in the 3,000 to 4,000 ft. range. Geographically the Urals are often divided into five parts: Southern, Middle, Northern, Pre-Polar (the highest) and Polar. The Ural Mountains are among the world's oldest mountains, 300 to 250 million years old, and erosion has lowered them considerably. In many places, the mountains are little more than hills. In many respects, the Urals remind me of the Appalachian Mountains in the eastern United States, also old and considerably eroded. The Urals do not form a natural barrier between Europe and Asia. For example, the mountains did not hinder the Mongol invasion of Russia in the thirteenth century"

67. Hollow winds: REEDS. Another Friday clue

68. __ Wiedersehen: AUF. Das zeiter Deutches Wort in diesem Kreuzworträtsel

69. Home __: DEPOT. Technically, it's "THE" Home DEPOT

70. Center: MIDST. Also could be clued as "in the thick of"

71. Bad check ltrs.: NSF. iNSufficient Funds

Down:
2. Fight in a big way: WAGE WAR. In some of the publications for crossword puzzles, the word "WAR" is frowned upon, but apparently the LA Times is not one of them. Just in case you were curious about submission rules

3. Song with the phrase "kiss me mucho": ESO BESO. A CSO to Lucina, perhaps?! ESO BESO = "This kiss"

4. MD-to-be's exam: MCAT. The SAT for would-be doctors

5. 44-Down, once: SIXER, 44-Down. Four-time pro basketball MVP: DR J. I don't think that DR J (aka, Julius Erving) had to take the MCAT's! He best known for playing with the Philadelphia SIXERs in the NBA

6. Caviar spoon materials: NACRES. Not sure that I knew this. From the French "Cuillère en Nacre", or spoon of Mother-of-Pearl (aka, NACRE). Did they choose this because fish roe taste better on shellfish material? Here is an example of one:

7. Bud: BRO. The word "bud" has many meanings; perhaps adding (slang) to the clue would've made it easier

8. Arrange local transportation: CALL A CAB. How many of you have ridden in a CAB in the past decade or so? LYFT and UBER have seemingly taken over the "taxi" industry

9. Baltic feeder: ODER.

Pollution has made
A noted river smell bad.
The ODER's odor

10. Daytime host Lake: RICKI. This lady

11. Scores high: GETS AN A. A CSO to our CC poet laureate, OwenKL. He usually GETS AN A from Anonymous T

12. Previously: AGO. "He left five minutes AGO." Previously . . .

13. Postal motto word: NOR. Actually, I was happy to see that this clue and entry wasn't the abbr. for NORway. From the USPS: "Neither snow NOR rain NOR heat NOR gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds". But throw a holiday out there and it will . . .

19. More rangy: LANKIER. I've never been called "lanky". "Stocky" is my physique's descriptor

21. Memorable JFK words after "And so, my fellow Americans": ASK NOT. More famous quotation words, and powerful words they were

25. Needlefish: GAR. From Wikipedia: "Needlefish closely resemble North American freshwater GARs (family Lepisosteidae) in being elongated and having long, narrow jaws filled with sharp teeth, and some species of needlefishes are referred to as GARs or GARfish despite being only distantly related to the true GARs. And now you know

27. Axl's group, briefly: GNR. From the semi-eponymous band: Guns 'N Roses. Axl Rose

28. Run up a bill, say: OWE. This cartoon guy had quite the healthy bill!

30. Feudal laborers: SERFS.

Feudal softball game
Became confusing to fans
When they said: "SERF's up!"

32. Golfer with three PGA Championship top 10s after age 60: SNEAD. Nicknamed "The Slammer" for his prodigious strength as a ball stiker.

From Wikipedia: "Samuel Jackson SNEAD was an American professional golfer who was one of the top players in the world for the better part of four decades and widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time. His swing looked like a metronome

35. Not on any side: NEUTRAL. Like the Swiss

37. Curly-haired "Peanuts" girl: FRIEDA. Oh good! I get to post another cartoon!!

39. Like a mild chili: ONE ALARM. Unlike this guy. Homer goes to the Chili Cook Off:

41. Word of support: RAH. It's also a word found in many sports cheers; football especially: (with a slight correction to what Wilbur Charles entered on Sept 13) "RAH RAH ree, kick 'em in the knee. RAH RAH rass, kick 'em in the other knee"

42. Tabloid topic: UFO. Does anyone buy the National Enquirer?

43. Thrown-together: STOP GAP. Definition: a temporary way of dealing with a problem or satisfying a need. Thrown-together

46. Vientiane native: LAOTIAN. A native of Laos

47. Ross Martin's "The Wild Wild West" role: ARTEMUS. I never watched. A thirty second trailer for your viewing pleasure

51. Dozed for a bit: NAPPED. Happens to me occasionally

54. Painter Frida: KAHLO. Not to be mistaken with the answer to 37-Down. Her

56. Wintry rides: SLEDS.

59. Soft "Over here!": PSST.

61. In olden days, once: ERST. Crosswordese

62. 1963 Newman title role: HUD. More about this here

63. Real resentment: IRE. Did anyone else notice the plethora of three-letter entries today?

64. Louvre Pyramid designer: PEI. See 63-Across

The grid:

OK, folks! Your turn to add to the comments! Have a pleasant weekend. I am planning to play golf today; don't want to be late for my "T" time!