Theme: It's just your imagination.
Constructors Katherine Baicker and Laura Dershewitz have entertained us here before, together, separately, and with other co-constructors. Today they make us stop and wonder whether it's all been real, or just our imagination.
The theme clues and answers, placed symmetrically in the grid, are:
20-Across. Spot where parallel lines appear to converge: VANISHING POINT.
33-Across. Sensation experienced after a long day of sewing: PHANTOM THREAD. Seamstresses sometimes go home and still feel the sensation of a thread between their fingers.
42-Across. Erroneous result on a medical test: FALSE POSITIVE.
57-Across. Snide dismissal, and what can be said about 20-, 33-, and 42-Across?: THAT'S NOT A THING. Current slang for “that's not real/true” or “that doesn't happen.”
In every case, we see or feel evidence of something that is not real. But you know what is real? We have 132 other mysteries to solve! Here they come.
Across:
1. Move with a hop and a step: SKIP.
5. Circle dances: HORAS. Not just a Jewish dance enjoyed at weddings and b'nai mitzvah celebrations, variants of the hora (called hora or oro) have folks holding hands and moving in circles in Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Turkey, and elsewhere.
10. Tendril: WISP. While a tendril is part of a climbing plant, and a wisp is any little thin mass, both words can be used to describe strands of hair that fall away from the main mass of hair on the head. It's a thing.
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| Hayden Panettiere with straight wisps, and Chloe Sevigny with tendrils. |
14. Office assistant: AIDE.
15. Maker of a Breakout hit: ATARI.
16. Poker buy-in: ANTE.
17. One past 12?: TEEN.
18. Name, in Latin: NOMEN. From which we have the English nomenclature, the devising or choosing of names for things, especially in a science or other discipline.
19. Money mgrs.: CFOs. Chief Financial Officers.
20. [Theme clue]
23. Green prefix: ECO.
24. Protected: SAFE.
25. Electric creature: EEL.
26. Knucklehead: OAF.
29. Yale student: ELI. A nickname derived from Elihu Yale, the primary benefactor of Yale University.
31. Vague threat: OR ELSE.
33. [Theme clue]
37. Root in tropical cuisine: TARO.
38. __ juice: MOO. A cutesy way of saying "milk."
39. Backyard spot that's shovel-ready?: SHED. It's ready to store your shovel.
42. [Theme clue]
47. Work together: TEAM UP.
49. "I don't trust stairs because they're always up to something," e.g.: PUN. MalMan! Have you used this one?
50. Number of fielders in slow-pitch softball: TEN. Did Not Know.
51. Old tape dispenser?: VCR. Video Cassette Recorder.
52. Animated pics: GIFs. The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) is a bitmap image format developed by a team at CompuServe and released in 1987. Usage of the format has declined, often being replaced with newer formats such as PNG for static images and MP4 for videos.
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| This GIF is a real Thriller. |
55. "Eww!": ICK.
57. [Theme clue]
62. Home of the "American Gothic" house: IOWA.
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| American Gothic is a 1930 oil painting by Grant Wood. |
63. Avis rival: ALAMO. Car rental companies.
64. __ contendere: NOLO. "Nolo contendere" is a Latin term meaning "I do not wish to contend" or "no contest." In a legal context, it's a plea in a criminal case where the defendant doesn't admit guilt but accepts the consequences of a conviction. It's often used when a defendant wants to avoid the implications of a guilty plea in potential future civil lawsuits. Remember in 1973 when Vice President Spiro Agnew pleaded nolo contendere to a felony charge of tax evasion? As part of the plea bargain, he resigned from office, was fined $10,000, and sentenced to three years of unsupervised probation.
66. Average in math class?: MEAN.
67. Pipe alternative: CIGAR.
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| A little play on The Treachery of Images by René Magritte. |
68. Picked, as a Scrabble tile: DREW.
69. Sherbet brand: EDY'S. Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream makes Dreyer's brand frozen desserts for the Western US market, and Edy's brand for the Eastern and Midwestern US, so named to avoid confusion with Breyer's ice cream in those regions. Nestlé acquired Dreyer's in 2007, and in 2020, Nestlé sold all its US ice cream businesses to Froneri, the global ice cream manufacturer that Nestlé co-owns with PAI Partners. Big business!
70. Party throwers: HOSTS.
71. "You said it!": AMEN.
Down:
1. Didn't play: SAT.
2. Chicken __: KIEV. Chicken Kiev is chicken fillet, pounded and rolled around garlic butter and parsley, coated with egg and bread crumbs, and then fried or baked.
3. "Eureka!" elicitor: IDEA. "Eureka" (Ancient Greek for "I have found it") is an exclamation used to celebrate a discovery or invention. It is attributed to Archimedes, who stepped into a bath and noticed that the water level rose, whereupon he understood that the volume of water displaced must be equal to the volume of the part of his body he had submerged. He was so excited that he forgot to dress and ran naked in the streets yelling "Eureka!"
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| Archimedes has a revelation. |
4. Pasta with angled ends: PENNE.
5. Longtime Harrison Ford role: HAN SOLO.
6. Texter's equivocation: OTOH. On The Other Hand.
7. "Ghostbusters" actor Harold: RAMIS.
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| Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis |
8. The Eras Tour venue: ARENA. Taylor Swift's fans filled large arenas on her recent "Eras" tour.
9. Entertain, in a way: SING FOR.
10. Baylor University home: WACO. Baylor University is a private Baptist university in Waco, Texas. It was chartered in 1845 by the last Congress of the Republic of Texas.
11. Dribbler that gets a batter on base, e.g.: INFIELD HIT. An infield hit in baseball is when a batter hits the ball within the infield and safely reaches first base without the defense making an error that allows him to advance. It's typically a slow-rolling ground ball or a ball that is hit with enough speed to reach the infield but not the outfield, and the batter is able to beat the throw to first base.
12. Cairn elements: STONES. A cairn is a human-made pile of stones, typically used as a marker, a memorial, or a burial mound.
13. Mortar's companion: PESTLE.
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| The pestle is gripped and used to grind items in the mortar. |
21. "Rhyme Pays" rapper: ICE-T. You may know him from his acting role on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
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| Tracy Marrow AKA Ice-T |
22. Napoleon's father:
PÈRE. Père is French for "father." It's not Napoleon's father's name.
26. Stop waffling:
OPT. Choose! Decide! Pick one!
27. "Eureka!":
AHA. See explanation at 3-Down for Archimedes's "aha!" moment.
28. Like the galaxy from which 5-Down hails:
FAR, FAR AWAY. Harrison Ford played the character Han Solo in the Star Wars movies, which take place in a galaxy far, far away.
30. "Gotta do my thing!": I'M ME.
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| You do you. |
32. All-Star side: EAST. In the MLB All-Star Game, the National League represents the "East" side, facing the American League (AL). In the traditional NBA All-Star Game format, the Eastern Conference All-Stars play against the Western Conference All-Stars.
34. Linguist Chomsky: NOAM.
35. Blouse: TOP.
36. Stud alternative: HOOP. Earring styles.
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| Hoop with dangle, regular hoop, stud. |
40. Night before: EVE.
41. Cozy spot for 47-Down: DEN.
43. Hauls with effort: LUGS.
44. Ingredient in a Florentine dish: SPINACH. Chicken Florentine, Pasta Florentine, Eggs Florentine ... apparently people in Florence, Italy, love spinach.
45. Beaus: SUITORS.
46. Yardstick division: INCH.
47. Period between homework and dinner, for some kids: TV TIME.
48. Made a comeback: ECHOED.
53. Shakespearean volume: FOLIO.
54. Antlered deer: STAGS.
56. Ish: KINDA.
58. Catches some rays: TANS.
59. Amo, amas, __: AMAT. We had Greek earlier, so it's time for Latin: "I love, you love, he/she/it loves."
60. Par for the course: NORM.
61. Delight: GLEE.
65. BYOB part: OWN. Bring Your Own Beverage/Bottle/Booze/Beer.
Here's the grid:
Did you SKIP all the way to Finish It Right?
Was that a SOLO effort, or did you TEAM UP to solve the puzzle?
Or did you finally come close, but no CIGAR?
Let us know in the comments!
-- NaomiZ
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