Thursday, December 31, 2020, Richard Shlakman & Brad Wilber
Happy New Year's Eve, cruciverbalists! In what has been a trying year, our final puzzle seemed, fittingly, to be a bit trying for a Thursday. Perhaps it was just the fatigue factor but it appeared to this solver as if this puzzle had more than its fair share of "forced" fill (word fragments, abbreviations and the like) and these required some time to work through.
Fortunately, the theme was fairly easy to identify and that helped out. In other words:
That Part Made Cents
First, the unifier:
67 Across: Items that can circulate or be tossed ... as illustrated in this puzzle's six sets of circles:COINS.
At six places within the grid, in both Across and Down answers, the word COIN can be formed by unscrambling adjacent circled letters.
17 Across: Birder's gear: BINOCULARS
Watch The Birdie
30 Across: California county where Fort Bragg is: MENDOCINO
The Sir Douglas Quintet - Mendocino
47 Across: Barrier-breaking report: SONIC BOOM A loud noise is sometimes called a "report" and the clue also refers to the sound barrier.
Chuck Yeager - B: 13 February 1923 D: 07 December 2020
63 Across: State capital about 100 miles from Sacramento: CARSON CITY By automobile, the state capital of Nevada, CARSON CITY, is roughly 135 miles from Sacramento, the state capital of California.
10 Down: Chance to plead one's case: DAY IN COURT.
29 Down: Tip of a toy arrow, often:SUCTION CUP.
Well, those are the themed answers. Now, let's take a look at the rest of the puzzle:
Across:
1. Potential fodder in a libel lawsuit, briefly: BAD PR. At the risk of being served with a libel lawsuit, I thought that BADPR (BADPublic Relations) was, to coin a phrase, a bad way to get the ball rolling.
6. Sackcloth material: HEMP. The reference is often to "sackcloth and ashes" with the sackcloth traditionally being made from goat hair.
10. Reduces, as glare: DIMS.
14. Lexus competitor: ACURA. An automobile reference.
15. Avocado shape: OVAL. Avocados are, however, three dimensional and an oval is two dimensional. Obovate would, perhaps, have been a more precise answer but it would have necessitated other changes. Fruit Shapes
16. "Stress cannot exist in the presence of __": Mamet: A PIE. The quote begins: "We must have a pie." I have no familiarity with this quote. I have no difficulty embracing the philosophical stance.
19. Afghan constitution?: YARN. A bit of misdirection in that the first impulse might be to assume that the clue was referring to the laws of the country that lies at the crossroads of Central and South Asia. Instead, the clue refers to the composition of an eponymous knitted blanket.
Misdirection
20. Newspaper VIPs: EDS. EDITORS Being a writer is enjoyable but being an EDITOR is more rewording.
21. Possessed by Shakespeare?: HADST. When we see constructors fall back on Elizabethan English may we assume that they got stuck?
22. Bathroom fixture: BIDET. This is the first time that I recall seeing this particular bathroom fixture in a crossword puzzle. A BIDET is a sensible idea if borderline inappropriate for a crossword puzzle. If you do not know what one is then you might want to ask Mr. Hankey to explain.
23. Overwhelm: AWE.
24. "Young Sheldon" star Armitage: IAIN. While I enjoy "The Big Bang Theory," I am far less familiar with the "Young Sheldon" spin-off and I was previously unaware of anyone named IAIN. Still, I suppose it would be good to remember this constructor-friendly (four letters, three vowels) name.
26. Laundry cycle: RINSE.
35. Nonalcoholic beer brand: O'DOUL'S.
37. Crimson, e.g.: RED. There are many shades of red represented in the English language.
38. What the nose knows: ODOR. The clue is nice play on words. I once tried to buy perfume from a vending machine but it was out of ODOR.
39. Soft mineral: TALC. What did the Moh's Scale say when it was feeling down? "I don't want to TALC about it."
40. Mortar and pestle stone: AGATE.
42. Sports org. whose name once included "Lawn": USTA. The United States (Lawn) Tennis Association
43. Shoot the breeze: CHAT. CHAT is also French (masculine) for cat.
44. Bon __: MOT. A Bon MOT is a witty remark.
45. Upset, as a plan: DERAIL.
50. Eye sores: STYES. It seems like a good idea to eschew the graphics for this one.
51. Scandinavian royal name: OLAF. We often have to wait a bit to determine if the answer is going to be OLAF or Olav.
52. Apr. addressee: IRS. Our good friends at the Internal Revenue Service.
54. Fogg's creator: VERNE. Phileas Fogg was a character featured in Jules VERNE's "Around The World In Eighty Days". He also made an appearance in an episode of "Have Gun Will Travel" (season 4, episode 12) .
57. Count with a band: BASIE. ... and a one, and a two, and hit it ...
Count Basie - Blazing Saddles
59. "That __ close!": WAS.
62. Lindros in the Hockey Hall of Fame: ERIC.
Eric Lindros
65. Prego alternative: RAGU. Very often, one of these brands of sauce is clued by referring to the other.
66. Polar chunk: FLOE.
68. "Don't dawdle!": ASAP. As Soon As Possible
69. Bygone GM line: OLDS. We often see Ransom Eli OLDS in puzzles. It usually has something to do with, or the answer is, REO.
70. Ryegrass fungus: ERGOT.
Down:
1. Innocent: BABE.
That'll Do Pig. That'll Do.
2. Prilosec target: ACID. Oh, stomach ACID. This could have been clued Orange Sunshine or Window Pane.
3. Hassles for payment: DUNS.
4. In favor of: PRO.
5. Ray who hosts the Yum-o! virtual cooking camp: RACHAEL. We often see RACHAEL Ray's pet name for extra virgin olive oil, or EVOO, in crossword puzzles.
6. Poker variety: HOLD EM.
7. Mendes and Gabor: EVAS.
The Gabor Sisters
8. Taskmaster: MARTINET. This is not a word that we often see, or hear, but it seems like a good addition to our crossword vocabulary.
9. Letters from a polite texter: PLS. Texting "shorthand" has provided a great many possibilities for constructors but, PLS, enough already, with this sort of thing.
11. Tablet at a Genius Bar: IPAD. To solve this, it helped to know that the tech support station at an Apple Store is called The Genius Bar. Most people do. If not, the perps likely filled it in.
12. Boggy area: MIRE. Fen has too few letters and Swamp has too many. Moor might have seemed to work out for a while.
13. Posted: SENT.
Gromit
18. Assembly line gp.: UAW. The United Auto Workers Union
22. Prefix with mass: BIO. The combined BIOmass of bacteria on Earth is more than a thousand times that of the combined BIOmass of all humans.
25. Went on to say: ADDED. Sometimes, too much is ADDED.
Joe Jones - 1960
26. University mil. programs: ROTCS. Has anyone before seen the plural of Reserve Office Training Corps ?
Navy ROTC
27. Twin Falls' state: IDAHO.
28. "Dunkirk" director Christopher: NOLAN. One might have clued this answer with a reference to this gentleman:
Nolan Ryan
31. Muse of poetry: ERATO. We often see one, or more, of the Nine Muses in crossword puzzles with ERATO being the most commonly spotted.
32. "My guess is ... ": ID SAY.
33. Casual remark?: NO TIE. This must be a reference to Casual Fridays.
34. Intense exams: ORALS. An academia reference. This clue really tees it up but this manatee shall, reluctantly, pass.
36. Latin steps: SAMBA. A dance reference. Both Tango and Rumba would have fit but neither would have worked out.
41. Cut-up: GOOFBALL. Not a cooking reference. Both the clue and the answer are synonyms for a silly person.
46. Bottom line: ESSENCE. A bit of a stretch in the cluing but not completely goofy.
48. The Cavs, on ESPN crawls: CLE. The CLEveland Cavaliers are a professional basketball team.
49. Air balls, e.g.: MISSES. In basketball jargon, a shot that MISSES everything, and hits neither the backboard nor the rim, is called an Air Ball.
53. __ Grande: RIO. I first thought of TACO Grande by Weird Al.
54. __ Bradley bags: VERA. VERA Bradley bags are well known in some circles.
55. Named stretches: ERAS.
56. Latvian seaport: RIGA.
58. J.Lo's partner: AROD. Alex RODriguez played twenty-two seasons of major league baseball but he might be even more famous for his relationship with Jennifer Lopez.
59. Kristen of 2016's "Ghostbusters": WIIG.
Kristen Wiig Ghostbusters Vignette
60. 8 for O, e.g.: AT NO. At no time would my first guess have been that this was a reference to the ATomic Number (NO) of Oxygen. However, by the third or fourth guess it became clear.
61. Betting aid: Abbr.: SYST. As with PLS, above, I did not care much for this abbrvtn.
63. Fiscal exec: CFO. Chief Financial Officer
64. __ anglais: English horn: COR. By definition. The COR Anglais originated in neither England nor France but, rather, in Silesia circa 1720.
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