Theme: The joke's on Ewe!
17A. "My bad!" : I SCREWED UP! As I did in a couple of places today before sanity prevailed.
24A. Compact disk carrier : JEWEL BOX. I thought it was a Jewel CASE, now I know better.
37A. Stairway post : NEWEL. I want to buy a house with an upper floor just so I can point out my newel posts to visitors.
51A. Like shish kebab : SKEWERED. Oh Lordy - Awesome!
3D. Steered clear of : ESCHEWED. Wonderful word.
11D. Dodger great Reese : PEEWEE
26D. Common time between paychecks : ONE WEEK. I wish mine came as regularly!
39D. Fashionable retailer named for an address : NINE WEST. I actually knew this from spending some considerable time in women's shoe departments over the years shopping with girlfriends. You've got to have something to talk about while they're trying on three hundred pairs. The original store was at 9, W. 57th Street in Manhattan.
46D. Gushed : SPEWED
62D. See 59-Across : EWE
and the unifier:
59A. Fight insomnia, in a way ... and if you do it in this puzzle, you'll find ten 62-Downs : COUNT SHEEP
Hi everyone, Steve here with the latest outing from the Dynamic Duo! I'm sure there's a fancy-schmancy word to describe this style of puzzle, but what we've got here are no less than 10 theme answers, one of which is the theme word on its own, all tied together by the 11th unifying clue/entry.
My absolute favorite is 51A - Skewered! It seems so wrong, but so ... right! And Food!
The fill was full of fun too - when you've got so many W's floating around it had to be a struggle to fit everything in around the theme. I think Don and C.C. did a great job. I had a couple of "hmmmmms", but nothing that made me groan, at least not out loud. Let's see what else we've got here:
Across
1. Quite some time : AGES
5. Pals, in slang : PEEPS
10. __ arms : UP IN
14. Prurient interest : LUST
15. __ vincit amor : OMNIA. Love Conquers All.
16. Suvari of "American Beauty" : MENA. I had to dig this one out of the dim recesses. This whole quadrant was a struggle for me.
19. "MacArthur Park" songwriter Jimmy : WEBB. Part of my personal Natick today. I didn't know this gentleman, and I couldn't see that the "M" in U.M.W. didn't stand for Mineworkers, so I was thinking "Union of Mineworkers ... something .....". Darn. DNF for me for that one letter.
20. "Take this" : HERE
21. Work undercover : SPY
23. Whisper sweet nothings to, say : WOO
27. Harsh : ACERB. I love this word, and resolve to use it in a sentence today. ESCHEWED comes a close second for my WOTD.
29. Sound over a cornfield : CAW
30. Chieftain's group : CLAN. I had the music meme running around in my head - I knew the Chieftains were a group anyway, so this one stumped me for a while. Then - D'oh!
31. Composer of "The Wizard of Oz" songs : ARLEN. Who knew? Plenty of you smart folks I'm sure, but this was news to me.
32. Turn away, as one's eyes : AVERT
34. Maintain an address : RESIDE. I wanted "Orates for way too long when we all want to do is make the toast so we can start the party" at first but it didn't quite fit.
36. Diddly, in Cádiz : NADA
38. Med school subj. : ANAT. Is it Grey's Anatomy or Gray's Anatomy? One is the show, the other the textbook. Need to Google to check.
42. What Annabel Lee's kingdom was by : THE SEA. Edger Allen Poe's poem. I know the phrase from the title of a travel book by Paul Theroux describing a journey by train around the coast of the UK.
44. Chief's group : TRIBE. Nice echo of 30A here.
45. It may be liquid or frozen : ASSET. Cleverly done.
47. "What __ is new?" : ELSE
49. Born, in some bios : NÉE. French. I think you're not meant to put diacritical marks on capital letters in French, but I put the e-acute here for emphasis.
50. "Whammo!" : KAPOW!
53. Standout pilot : ACE
54. Bit of rest : NAP
56. From scratch : ANEW
57. Politico Gingrich : NEWT
64. TV musical set in Lima, Ohio : GLEE. I got this completely through crosses and didn't even see the clue until I got here to write it up.
65. Kitchen occupant of song : DINAH. Completely unknown to me, and again filled in through crosses. Jazzbumpa - any insight into this one?
66. "Even __ speak ..." : AS WE
67. "M*A*S*H" actor : ALDA. Alan of "Hawkeye" Pierce fame. Donald Sutherland played the character in the original movie.
68. Feat of genetic engineering : CLONE. Dolly the Scottish Sheep was the first of the clones clan. That sounds like a Star Wars sequel, and fits the theme today!
69. Early all-metal bomber : B-TEN. Another learning moment for me. I knew there was a B-17 and a number of subsequent numerations, I suppose it's obvious that there was probably even a B-1.
Down:
1. Baba the woodcutter : ALI
2. Gloomy guy : GUS
4. Scatter : STREW
5. Secretary of State before Rice : POWELL. I'm sure Colin was observing Memorial Day yesterday.
6. Linguistic suffix with morph- : EME. I just looked this up to give you all a jolly smart explanation of what a morpheme is. I can't. C.C. is my go-to person for language explanations, so I'll ask her to chime in here. (C.C.: To me, morphemes are what make up words. Two morphemes in "Cheated", cheat & ed. But I'll defer to our language expert Kazie. Welcome back, by the way!)
7. Wrap up : END
8. 1903-'14 pope : PIUS X
9. NFLer Warren who competed on "Dancing With the Stars" : SAPP. He was paired with my favorite, Kym Johnson and they were runners-up in Season 7.
10. Coal industry labor org. : U.M.W. (United Mine Workers). Second half of my personal Natick today.
12. Congenital : INBORN
13. "Nattering" big shot, in an Agnew speech : NABOB. How anyone could ever attempt to use the phrase "Nattering Nabobs of Negativity" followed up by "hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history" shows enormous faith in your speechwriter and your ability to deliver back-to-back alliterations.
18. Standing tall : ERECT
22. Home front? : YARD
24. Morning mugful : JAVA. I'm hopeless without it.
25. Uncovers : BARES
28. Easy to follow : CLEAR
29. Give the heave-ho : CAN
31. Have the sniffles : AIL
33. Dustin's "Midnight Cowboy" role : RATSO. Usually have to wait for the cross to decide between "S" or "Z" here, especially as Hoffman's character has the last name of "Rizzo".
35. Black Panthers co-founder Bobby : SEALE
37. Bottom line : NET
40. In for the night : ABED
41. Golfer's doohickey : TEE
43. Chopped down : HEWN
44. Adolescents : TEENS
45. Smallish battery : AA CELL. Hmmmmm - one of my least-favorites today.
48. Wrap snugly : SWATHE. However, this was one of my most-favorites, so all is forgiven. I didn't think until today that SWATHE has more than one meaning (cutting a swathe). For such an unusual word, well, it's unusual!
50. Milne bounder : KANGA. Roo's Mom in The Hundred Acre Wood. I much prefer the original book illustrations to the Disney-fied versions.
51. Ruin : SPOIL
52. P.T. center, e.g. : REHAB
55. Adaptable, electrically : AC/DC. Not just electrically, but that a subject for another day and another blogger.
58. Pekoe or oolong : TEA. Tea has the most wonderful names. A boon to crossword constructors everywhere.
60. Dos halved : UNO
61. Bread served with vindaloo : NAN. Yay! More food! Lamb Vindaloo too!
63. Fenced-in area : PEN
Answer grid.
That's all from me. I'm off to look up some recipes for lamb, this whole puzzle made me hungry.
Steve
1) Note from C.C. & Don:
Don got this idea while reading a comic book. He said the story line was about counting sheep to fall asleep. We thought of putting ZZZ in one corner, but discarded the idea eventually. Did you count how many EWEs we put in the grid?
2) Happy LXXIII-rd Birthday to EddyB! What's on the menu today?
