Saturday, Jan 28th, 2017, Pawel Fludzinski

Theme: "hashtag"

Words: 70 (missing Q,W,X,Z)

Blocks: 32

HA~!!!  This one was looking bleak for the longest time, with a lot of proper names and vague clues, but I surprised myself by getting it done with nary a single cheat, Google, or red-letter peek.  And within my personal allotted time, as well.  The puzzle itself had to be a truly difficult one to construct, with triple spanners crossing triple climbers, in a "#"-like pattern.  Very clever.  I have to admire constructors who can pull this off without "meh" fill.  In retrospect there was a lot of 'crosswordese' which I have seen before, including a repeat of last week's 'keeping it real'.  The long fills;

20. Quantum mechanics symbol : SCHRODINGER'S CAT - I've posted a link to this before, and the more I try to understand it, the more my brain hurts.  I get it, but the more I read, the more I don't get it

37. Herbie and Christine : SELF-DRIVING CARS - one friendly, one no so friendly; Christine was one of the first 'adult' books I ever read, and as a result, the Buick Cutlass Supreme Brougham that I was driving at the time earned the name "Christine"; the new Dodge is "Daphne"

52. Game with a disc : ULTIMATE FRISBEE - my first thought was Frisbee, but the 'ultimate' part eluded me

4. Like the Toyota Prius : ENERGY EFFICIENT - a"repeat" from last week

7. Gadget affected by waves : SOUND LEVEL METER

10. Like some aquariums : CLOSED ECOSYSTEM

ACROSS:

1. Spent : JADED - there are days when I am definitely "jaded" at UPS

6. Wine city SSE of the Matterhorn : ASTI - looking back, I shoulda recognized this as merely Saturday cluing for a common crossword fill

10. Pasta alle vongole ingredient : CLAM - no clue; had two crossings, and the other two letters were WAGs

14. 1955 Dior innovation : A LINE - I remembered this from previous puzzles, too, but I needed two crossings to jog my memory

15. Create, in a way : COIN - one of the line supervisors claims to have "coined" the term DERP, which ended up being the route name of one of my UPS trucks - until the driver looked it up, and said he didn't like the name anymore; so we changed the name of the route to DOUG

16. Actress Loughlin : LORI - I thought it was SARA - and of course, I had the "R" in place

17. Plague : BESET - "beset" always reminds me of the Pulp Fiction scene where Jules recites Ezekiel 25:17 - with a little embellishment from Quentin, naturally

18. Vintage vessels : TUNS - dah~!  Not URNS nor TUGS

19. Silver sources : ORES

23. __ wire : GUY - the sound effects guys on Star Wars used one to create the sound of the lasers in the movie

24. "Piece of cake!" : "DEAD EASY~!"

25. Be true to oneself : STAY REAL - another 'repeat' from last week

29. Poor, as an excuse : SAD

30. Roast runner : EMCEE

31. Dramatic start? : MELO - melodramatic

33. Place with Sundance : ETTA - crafty - I did not know Etta Place was Sundance Kid's wife - the Wiki

40. Adequate, in texts : ENUF

41. Tablet operator : USER

42. Capital at the foot of Vitosha Mountain : SOFIA - Saturday cluing

43. Network with a lot of reruns : ION - they started running Burn Notice, which I got hooked on - glad I have a Firestick so I can watch the episodes in sequence now

Love the sunglasses

45. End of the line : LAST STOP

47. Shore scavenger : BEACH BUM - I was thinking "birds" for some reason

51. Crowbar, e.g. : PRY

57. Architect Mies van der __ : ROHE - knew it, just couldn't remember how to spell it

58. Big name in credit : CITI

59. It's quite a blast : N-TEST

60. Reinterpret : SPIN

61. "Ad Parnassum" painter : KLEE - again, no clue.  WAG

uh-huh....

62. Pass without flying colors : GET a C

63. __ dress : TENT - not as appealing as an A LINE dress, IMHO

64. Vassal : SERF  semi-clecho with; 53d. Vassal's venue : FIEF

65. Line drive, say : SMASH - baseball

DOWN:

1. Sharp criticisms : JABS

2. Smart guy? : ALEC - har-har

3. Bobby Flay creation : DISH - a blank WAG on my part, and clearly a good one

5. Avoided traffic, perhaps : DETOURED

6. When Valjean is released from prison : ACT I - I have learned how to interpret clues like this; fill in "ACT" and wait; it was most likely going to be "I".  From Les Misérables, which I know little about

8. Soupçon : TINGE

9. Like Halloween pumpkins : IN SEASON

11. "Oda a Salvador Dalí" poet García __ : LORCA - no clue again

12. Domains : AREAS

13. Indistinct : MISTY

21. Batik need : DYE

22. Dietary no. : RDA

25. Zaire's Mobutu __ Seko : SESE - got it because it's crosswordese again

26. Counterfeit cops? : T-MEN - Treasury agents

27. Scopes Trial gp. : ACLU

28. Nice friends : AMIs - Frawnche

32. Late Ottoman currency : LIRA - I first read this as "LIKE", not "LATE", so I didn't get it

34. Chief justice before Hughes : TAFT

35. Small club group : TRIO

36. "Pronto!" : ASAP

38. Football plays with special teams : RUNBACKS

39. D neighbors on most guitars : G-STRINGS - because the "other" G-string definition is unacceptable here

44. Bit of resistance : OHM - unit of measure for resistance

46. Easter time: Abbr. : SPRing

47. Star or cloud follower : BURST -Starburst, cloudburst; we had plenty of that here Tuesday

48. Cut out for a union? : ELOPE - ah, that kind of union

49. Walk __ line : A THIN

50. Handy : UTILE

54. Test release : BETA

55. Those, in Tenerife : ESAS

56. Permanently mark : ETCH - oops, not SCAR

Splynter