Saturday, Dec 31st, Doug Peterson & Brad Wilber

Theme: None

Words: 68

Blocks: 34

 PHEW ~!  This offering from two of our regular constructors really forced me to dig down deep, and there was a point when I thought "I'd better give in", but I held my ground and got my "Ta-Da", and under my personal allotted time, too.  Doug Peterson has contributed several times to other Saturday 'gridsmiths', and has possibly set a record for having his name associated with 4 puzzles in a month - this month.  Of course, Brad is no slouch, either, with 8 Saturday puzzles this year, and one other Saturday contribution from both guys, Feb 5th this year. 

 So we had FIVE (5!) grid spanners in this one:

14. Flock tender : RELIGIOUS LEADER - Well, I knew it was something like this, but I was also thinking it might just be a reeeeally long version of "shepherd"

17. Style eschewing heavy sauces : NOUVELLE CUISINE - Never heard of this style, but I do know our group here at the blog has shared many a recipe over the time I have been visiting.

35. Brain cramp, so to speak : LAPSE IN JUDGMENT - More commonly known around here as a Brain "Fart"

55. 1926 novel set in Pamplona : THE SUN ALSO RISES - One of those "oh, I know this, I just need some letters to suss it out" - and I think I had T--SU------IS-S, and I ducked before the V-8 can bonked me

57. 1970s Patrick Duffy title character who can breathe underwater : MAN FROM ATLANTIS - I know who he is, in terms of "Dallas", but never heard of this show - here you go,  ladies

Onward ~!

ACROSS:

1. Removes, as a backpack from one's shoulder : UNSLINGS - Well, I figured it was UN-, so I tried SLINGS, and didn't look back

9. Described in letters : SPELT - Shall we start a dispute over SPELLED?  I thought it was "written on paper" letters, so I tried WROTE first.

18. Was Grinch-like, in a way : SNEERED - Timely, but I only like the cartoon version of this classic

19. Trattoria offering : RISOTTO - Makes me think of Chef Gordon Ramsay from "Hell's Kitchen"

20. Pros with schedules : CPAs - Certified Public Accountants

22. Assemblage : BODY

26. Pillow stuff : FOAM - Not Down (the other down is further down, uh, lower)

27. Fab : BOFFO

32. 1840s-'50s antislavery party : FREE SOIL - The WIki, I do not recall discussing this in American History

34. Symbol of Middle America : PEORIA -

37. Like Schoenberg's "Moses und Aron" : ATONAL - Well now, we just talked about this yesterday - and another link - Egad ~!!!

38. Enjoying the mall, say : ON A SPREE - SHOPPING fit, too, but then I knew one "E" was right, so I WAGed this, and ha ~!

39. Wyoming's __ Range : TETON - Again, one of those "oh~! I know this...."

40. Pride of the pumped-up : PECtoralS - and another for the ladies

41. Wagnerian title? : HERR - German title

42. Indiana senator who retired in 2011 : BAYH

43. Do something about : ACT UPON - Funny, this my first thought, and yet I didn't try it

48. Island classic : ALOHA 'OE - Total and undeserved WAG, I stuck the "O" & "E" at the end because I had no clue otherwise

58. Move sneakily : SIDLE - Not SLINK

59. Revealing : TELL-TALE

DOWN:

1. Some museum pieces : URNS - Why not?  The "U" of which I was fairly certain

2. Its atomic number is 10 : NEON - Again, the "N" was good, what else could it be~?

3. Turn about : SLUE - OK, now my SLINGS is starting to work....

4. Glowing, as coals : LIVE - Ah, but then again, I could not think of an "L" word that meant 'hot' or 'afire' - LIVE is good, but....

5. Eisner's Disney successor : IGER - Don't know this guy

6. Livingstone explored it : NILE

7. Crown in the Henry VIII era, e.g. : GOLD COIN - Crown as in money

8. Only non-rhyming ghost in Ms. Pac-Man : SUE - Blinky, Pinky, Inky and "Mr." Pac-Man's fourth, do you know~? I do, I do ~!

9. Dos into doce : SEIS - Well my foreign math is completely OFF - I was very proud I got 10 ÷ 2 = 5, and that's CINC, no, SEIS - HA~! I SO know my Italian ~!!!! (Spanish, 12/2=6)

10. __ Robles, California : PASO - Map

11. Drop a line, maybe : EDIT - I had OMIT, and in a play, this is totally reasonable

12. Advanced : LENT

13. Big name in 34-Down : TREO - Have to admit, this cyclic clue actually HELPED me today - I had --EO, and --AS, and I threw in TREO, and the light bulb gave me 34D. Some email receivers : PDAs - Personal Data Assistants, which I think I had last Saturday, too

15. "Bug off!" : SCRAM

16. Aparicio of Cooperstown : LUIS - as always, I defer to our most highly appreciated host

21. Musical based on an O'Hara novel : PAL JOEY

22. Key of the last Brandenburg concerto : B FLAT - don't be flat, be positive~! - no that's blood type - oh well, if you knew that you would be "A SHARP" person....

23. Declaim : ORATE - nah, I wanted STATE here

24. Stop on a line : DEPOT - a Clecho of 11D, this 'line' is a railroad; took me a while

25. Not open-ended, as a question : YES/NO

26. Flexible weapon : FOIL - the recently in hiding "EPEE" of crossword fame

27. Appeals : BEGS

28. Brio : OOMPH

29. Nice sibling : FRÈRE - Earworm ~!

30. More luxuriant : FINER

31. Film that often includes drawings : OATER - ugh ~! Drawing, as six-shooters at high noon in a gun-slinging (hey~!) western

33. Dramatist O'Casey : SEAN

36. Opposite of 47-Down : UNCHASTE  & 47D. Immaculate : PURE

40. Clipper airlines : PAN AM

42. Pro follower : BONO - Legal Lemonade

43. Casino conveniences : ATMs - an alteration on our CW staple - Casinos love 'em~!

44. Indian tea : CHAI

45. Look after : TEND

46. QB Jim Kelly was its 1984 MVP : USFL - Yeah, I remember this, but at first I thought BOWL, but knew it was an abbr.

49. Use the hammock : LOLL

50. Like some traditions : ORAL

51. Trace : HINT

52. 1930s-'40s mystery film scene stealer : ASTA

53. Part of le visage : OEIL - meh, French

54. To be, to Tiberius : ESSE - I took Latin for four years - helps my English and crossword skills

56. GPS determination : LATitiude

AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR (earworm)

(OK, one for the guys before the end of the year....)

Splynter

Saturday, Dec 24th, Jack McInturff

Theme: None

Words: 72

Blocks: 33

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to all ~!! This is not Jack FROST nipping at your nose, but Jack McInturff nipping at your noggin - or is that egg-nog doing that???

  I just checked to see when we last saw Jack McInturff, and he gave us our Thanksgiving Eve puzzle, too - now he is here with our Christmas Eve puzzle, and I do believe it is his first Saturday puzzle, tho he has given us Sundays before.   I have to admit, this was the first time I went to Google to find an answer because I got stuck in the NE corner, and it was due to my mistake of thinking SGTS was the E-7 rank; more at 10D....

   Anyway, This one was tough, and I cheated, but what can I say....triple 9's and 8's in a pinwheel fashion, with those frustrating one word clues, and some deception as well. I do like the early morning brain battle.

Onward ~!

Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen ~!

Comet, Cupid, Donder, and Blitzen ~!


ACROSS:

1. Totally : STONE COLD

10. Rigs on the road : SEMIs

15. Annual All-American Soap Box Derby site : AKRON, OHIO - I knew this answer, but couldn't recall the city, so I put in OHIO, and waited....

16. Old French capital? : FRANC - how funny is this??? I was stuck on SOU and ECU for so long from doing crosswords, that FRANC totally eluded me until I changed my 10D answer

17. One may be marching : BRASS BAND

18. Keyboardist who founded Return to Forever : COREA - did not know this; I am sure JazzB was "HIP" to him; a little clip for you

19. Rembrandt van __ : RYN - I WAGed at RIN, should have known it was a "Y"; also 32A. Rug with a long pile : RYA - standard in crosswordese

20. Certain protests : SIT-INs - or bed-ins, as done by our last clue/answer

22. "Friends" actress, familiarly : JENnifer Aniston, my personal fave from a show I did NOT watch

23. Spread __ : EAGLE

26. Pmt.-lowering option : RE-FInance

27. Lacking a partner : ODD - as in socks, not people....ah.

28. Blessed event? : SNEEZE - by not reading this as Bless -ED, I was able to nail it

30. Italy's Como, per esempio : LAGO - Italian for Lake

33. Fancy layer : GILT - UGH ~! This one stumped me, and had to go letter cycling before the "G" made sense in both across and down....

35. "__ out!" : YER - not GET, which also has the central "E"

36. Giant in a 2000 merger : AOL - America On Line, did not know this

37. 1980s Screen Actors Guild president : ED ASNER - boy this guy gets around in crosswords, doesn't he!?!? Such user/solver-friendly letters, and his 'full' name

40. "The Complaint of Peace" essayist, 1521 : ERASMUS

42. Eastern Med. country : LEBanon

43. Ophelia's niece, in "Uncle Tom's Cabin" : EVA

44. TV Stone Age pet : DINO - the Flintstones "dog", so to speak

45. Court figs. : D.A.s - District Attorneys, part of the LAW side of LAW & ORDER, a favorite TV show of mine

46. Lacking : SANS - French, 'without'

48. Town across the Connecticut River from Springfield, Mass. : AGAWAM - map

52. Ring support : OLE - AH ~!! The cry from the crowd ~!! The ring being the bullfight

53. Baker's meas. : TSPs

55. Puck's eatery : SPAGO - not in my wheelhouse - this place

56. Veep before LBJ : RMN - A WAG, tho I knew he was in politics for a long time, Richard Milhous Nixon

57. Candy heart phrase : BE MINE - I tried being cute with "I LOVE U"

59. Gnarly : RAD - Helps to have a teenager in one's life for this kind of language - in my case it was my generation that typically found "cool" things to be Gnarly, and RAD - but I never said either word unless I was trying to be sarcastic - think Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure

60. Big name in insurance : AETNA

62. One of two in a historic 1869 Utah meeting : IRON HORSE - Dah ~!!!  I knew it was the two trains meeting at Promontory Summit, but STEAM TRAIN didn't fit, nor LOCOMOTIVE

65. "Sharky's Machine" author : DIEHL - this guy; WAGed the "H"

66. Classroom concern : TARDINESS

67. Wee hr. : ONE A.M. - I am DONE at UPS as of 9am this morning - spent all week getting up at 12 midnight for a ONE A.M. shift, getting out at 9-10am.  How about you Dennis?  Are you 0 & 1 w/u now?

68. Deliberate : SLEEP ON IT - De-li-BER-ate, as in a jury, not De-LIB'rate, as in an intentional act

DOWN:

1. Buffalo skaters : SABRES - Hockey Hockey Hockey ~!!  My Rangers beat their Winter Classic rivals the Philadelphia Flyers, once again, this time 4-2.  The outdoor game is a week from Monday, and New Year's Eve is an alumni (there's some CW for you) game of the retired types - should be a lot of fun, yes eddyB ~?

2. "Tumbleweeds" cartoonist : T.K. RYAN - good way to get a four-consonant word in the grid, with T-K-R-Y - this guy and his strip

3. Fruit in a knock-knock joke : ORANGE - OK, OK, I wanted Banana, and you get 'em both~!

4. Negatives : Nos

5. Cannes duo : ENS - ah, not the French number, but the two "N"s in the word caNNes

6. Picnic trash : COBS - Corn centers, leftover

7. 2011 Canadian Open champ Sean : O'HAIR - golf, this guy

8. Architectural support : LINTEL - A steel L-bar that spans a masonry opening over a window or door, e.g., and carries the weight of the load above; also decorative, as in this instance

9. "Chariots of Fire" executive producer : DODI FAYED - more famous for his romantic link and death with Princess Diana

10. E-7 Army personnel : SFCs - the killer for me, a Sergeant First Class - my friend Jim is in the Army, has about 6 years left, and the last I heard, he was an E-6, and deployed to Afghanistan; I wonder if he got holiday leave....

11. Ranch closing? : ERO - Ranchero

12. Mint family herb : MARJORAM

13. "Help me" : I NEED YOU - too long to fit on a candy heart ???

14. Checkout counter newspaper fodder : SCANDALS - Aww,  I wanted UFO IS GOD, or something much more investigative - I was looking for that scene from MiB where they "check the hot sheets", the supermarket tabloids

21. Gulf of Guinea country : NIGERIA

24. Staying power : LEGS - ah, yes to say "it has legs" means it (or they) will last - all I want for Christmas is these two hot legs

25. Web issues : EZINES - hey, I don't mind the E- or A- words, but I am getting tired of all the I- things you can buy these days; I am getting rid of my i P.O.S. for Christmas

29. Raise : ELEVATE

31. Asian swingers : ORANGs - Primates, but I thought they didn't do much in the trees

34. Sends : TRANSMITS

37. Poe poem written at the time of the California Gold Rush : EL DORADO - here

38. Cardplayer's request : DEAL ME IN

39. Type of ballot : ABSENTEE

41. Suds source : SOAP - not FOAM, and not BEER

47. Cochlea shape : SPIRAL

49. Underground home : WARREN


50. Two-time U.S. Open champ : AGASSI - tennis

51. Unassuming : MODEST

54. Nighttime disturbance, at times : SNORE

57. Healer : BALM

58. Cologne conclusion : ENDE - more French,  I believe

61. New Deal home loan gp. : NHA - Here's a great site that lists all of them, I think

63. Trendy : HIP

64. "Double Fantasy" artist : ONO - not a fan

I have one last 2-hour shift at UPS at 7am today, sorting overnight Air packages, and then I am back to my regular schedule on Tuesday

- yea ~~!!!!

Splynter