Greetings, curciverbalists. Malodorous Manatee, here. Today marks an anniversary of sorts. My first recap was posted on 17 September 2020. Waseeley, my partner in Thursday crime, wrote up the puzzle on the 16th of this month and that would have been exactly one year. I have never been one for counting rotations of this planet or its orbits around our sun (ask anyone who has put up with my commenting on the time references in any Star Trek television show or movie) but I realize that other folks like to keep track of such things. In any event, today is more-than-close-enough to mark the one-earth-year anniversary of may alter ego, MM, writing recaps for the corner. Please allow me to repeat what I said at that time: Thank you all for allowing me play in your sandbox. - - Joseph
Today's puzzle-setter is our frequent friend, Ed Sessa, and he has come up with something a bit unusual in that the theme answers are not located simply as Across or Down words patiently waiting to be filled in. Instead, they cross . . . and those patterns are placed diagonally, to boot. The reveal comes at:
54 Across. Linked in a way illustrated by three pairs of puzzle answers: JOINED AT THE HIP.
At three locations in the grid Ed has crossed the word HIP and the I of each word is shared in both directions. The completed long answers provide no hints whatsoever about the theme. It's the siting that counts. Pretty clever, if you ask this marine mammal. Here is how it looks in the grid:
Here is what this structure was built UPON (see 59 Across, although the word is used somewhat differently there):
Across:
1. "The Giving Tree" author Silverstein: SHEL. Most people do not know that SHEL Silverstein also wrote this:
The Highwaymen (Johnny Cash)
5. Gravelly voiced sort: RASPER. It's too bad that CEDO is not a word because RASPER is a bit of a stretch.
11. Top (out): MAX. From MAXimum or MAXimize. It can be stressful to MAX Out one's credit cards.
14. Ritzy: LUXE. DeLUXE (There's a Ray-ism in this one, for sure).
15. City on the Rio Grande: EL PASO. Also, a Marty Robbins classic.
The Drifter TV Show - 1965
16. Flamenco dancer's cry: OLE. Today's Spanish lesson.
17. Org. mandating eyewash stations: OSHA.
18. Canvassing technique: DOOR TO DOOR. Ding dong. Or, if you have a Ring camera, "There is someone at your DOOR."
20. Animals in a herd: HIPPOPOTAMUSES. The animals could have been many other species and still answered the clue. This answer sent me down a rabbit hole trying to figure out what the theme might be. Still, I want one.
Gayla Peevey Then (1953) and Almost Now (2016)
22. Face value: PAR. A financial reference. This could also have been clued with a golf reference.
23. Org. with 132 Pulitzer Prizes: NY TIMES. The New York Times.
24. Initiation rite: BAPTISM.
28. Tear up: WEEP. Oh, it's "crying" as opposed to "ripping into pieces".
29. Batter's stat: RBI. A baseball reference. Runs Batted In
30. One hanging around in the forest?: SLOTH. Also, a Deadly Sin - but not today. Anyone try HIKER first?
32. Give and take: SWAP. Today's "let's pass on a potential reference" moment.
37. Title teacher in a James Hilton novella: MR CHIPS.
40. Kipling's "Follow Me __": OME. OM, OM, Range
41. Insect dating from the Jurassic era: WASP. 150 - 200 million years later we now get the so-called Murder Hornets.
43. Board, as a bus: HOP ON. Board a Bus? Nicely teed up. Fore!
Weird Al Yankovic with Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz on The Tomorrow Show - 1981
Another One Rides The Bus
44. Darling of baseball: RON. A nice play on words.
45. Daughter of Cronus and Rhea: HERA.
48. Becomes clear: SOAKS IN. Ah, the idiom.
50. Digs: SHOVELS. Ah, not the idiom.
53. Stadium shout: RAH.
58. Hardwood with an edible seed: ALMOND TREE. The tree itself isn't often referred to as, simply, "hardwood" but Ed, or Rich, could not, for obvious reasons work the word "tree" into the clue.
59. After: UPON. UPON further reflection . . .
61. '60s-'70s Pontiac: GTO. My aunt Millie had a GTO. I have never been able to figure out how that come to be. Wa-wa,Wa, Wa. Wa. Wa. Wa. Wa
Ronnie and the Daytonas
62. Venetian Renaissance painter: TITIAN. I would have loved to use a video clip of the E. Buzz Miller's Art Classics (SNL) pronunciation-based wordplay here but I could not find one that was not copyright protected.
63. Mystery-solving Wolfe: NERO.
64. Virtual-city denizen: SIM. As in Sim City, the video game.
65. Strips in the freezer: STEAKS.
New York Strip Steaks
66. Torah holders: ARKS.
Down:
1. __-mo: SLO. SLOw-motion
2. Muzzle: HUSH. Used as a verb - as is muzzle. Interesting clue.
3. What some Woodstock attendees eventually became: EX - HIPPIES.
Who? Me?
4. Seize eagerly: LEAP AT. Does a ballerina LEAP AT the chance to show off her skills?
5. Go over again: REDO.
6. Cockeyed: ALOP. We have heard this word before but not often. Does anyone here use it?
7. Table setting item: SPOON. Hey diddle diddle.
8. House disciplinarians: PARTY WHIPS. The House of Representatives. A PARTY's WHIP is generally considered to be the member tasked with ensuring that members of a given party vote the way the party leadership wishes.
Toe The Line
9. Impressive spread: ESTATE. Hands up for thinking first of something to do with food.
10. One sharing quarters: ROOMIE. A bit slangy even though the clue is not.
11. Bullwinkle's last name: MOOSE.
12. Sunburn applications: ALOES. Balms applied frequently in crossword puzzles.
13. Boomers' kids: XERS. My XERS: Before anyone cries discrimination, please be aware that the settings of the photos could have been, and have been, switched for both of them.
Daughter - Law School Graduation
Son on the Great Wall
19. Breaks up with: DUMPS.
21. Feature of some eyeglasses: PRISM. PRISM eyeglasses are used to correct double vision.
24. Pub order: BREW.
25. Magician's opening: ABRA. ABRA Cadabra. ABRA is the Aramaic equivalent of the Hebrew "avra" meaning "I will create." Cadabra is the Aramaic equivalent of the Hebrew "kedoobar" meaning "as was spoken." "I will create as spoken!" Makes sense.
26. Camera type, briefly: SLR. Single Lens Reflex. Note the pentaPRISM.
27. Espresso-based coffee concoction: MOCHA LATTE. If "chocolate" had been in the clue this one would have been easier.
31. However, in poetry: THO. Short form of ALTHO?
33. Churchgoer, e.g.: WORSHIPER.
34. Mine, in Amiens: A MOI. Today's French lesson.
35. "Mystic River" Oscar winner Sean: PENN.
38. Nanki-__: POO. A Mikado reference (Gilbert and Sullivan).
39. Capture: SNARE.
42. Graph lead-in: PHONO. Thought, for a moment, that PORNO might work.
46. Social functions: EVENTS.
Somebody Forgot The Name Tags
47. "The front page of the internet" website: REDDIT.
49. Island big shot: KAHUNA. Today's Hawaiian lesson.
50. Chicago Symphony conductor with 31 Grammys: SOLTI.
Sir Georg Solti
51. Mouthed stadium greeting:HI MOM.
52. Narrow groove: STRIA. Often one of a number of similar parallel features.
54. Benders: JAGS. Not the British cars.
55. Shipbuilding wood: TEAK.
56. Toms' counterparts: HENS. A Turkey reference (not the country).
Hen and Tom
57. Questionable political spending: PORK.
60. Apt. IDs: NOS. Apartment Numbers. The clue (abbreviated so the answer will be, also) could have referred to streets, symphonies, or come to think of it, anything that is numbered.
I believe that this is No. 29. You know what's odd? Every other integer.
