JW features one of his favorite and difficult "add a three or four letter word" themes. He makes it especially Friday hard by including two very hard fill to parse. Then he generously gives us a reveal if we get lost. You need a wide variety of knowledge to get through this one. The First 2 themers add HAM to the first word in a phrase. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. The next 2? Well despite commentary to the contrary - that is what makes it a puzzle.
As always Jeffrey gives us some fun fill - IN TEARS, ONE PUTT, OVERUSE, RAT-A-TAT, STOOLIE, STRAP ON and TRUSSES, but mostly it is the theme that drives this wagon.
So with further ado....
16A. Early sustenance for Bruce Wayne? : GOTHAM MILK (10). GOT MILK is modified by the fictional name of Batman's New York City.
22A. Handing a St. Louis team an embarrassing loss? : SHAMING THE BLUES (15). SING THE BLUES (not the Cards) works as well.
33A. Tribal VIP's family? : SHAMAN KIN (10). SAN KIN? Huh? Of course, SANK IN.
49A. Easy out in rodent baseball? : POPUP TO A HAMSTER (15). And my favorite - POPUP TOASTER.
57A. Went all out on stage ... or a hint to the four other longest puzzle answers : HAMMED IT UP (10). That is it.
Across:
1. Kind of rain or rock: ACID.
5. Affect profoundly: AWE. Aww.
8. Often-converted residence: LOFT.
12. Like the "funny bone" nerve: ULNAR. Ulna and Radius.
14. Poet Silverstein: SHEL. I met Shel's work reading Playboy in the 60s. LINK. Hef outlived him by 18 years.
15. Declare firmly: AVER.
18. Country where Quechua is spoken: PERU. It is now an official language in three countries. In 1975 Peru became the first country to recognize Quechua as one of its official languages. Ecuador conferred official status on the language in its 2006 constitution, and in 2009, Bolivia adopted a new constitution that recognized Quechua and several other indigenous languages as official languages of the country. Wiki.
19. Great Plains native: UTE.
20. Pluto quintet: MOONS. LINK
21. Gets on the wrong train, say: ERRS.
26. Mother with a Nobel prize: TERESA. She shares her date of birth with Lyndon Johnson and Hannibal Hamlin, among others.
27. Fight in the backwoods: RASSLE.
28. Vacation fill-in: Abbr. : ASST. Temp? WTH?
29. Message often included in its response: EMAIL. Have any of you turned off the automatic inclusion?
32. Central Dallas? : ELS.
37. Elastic wood: ASH. I am sure you want to know more about this WOOD.
40. Sister magazine of Jet: EBONY.
41. God with a quiver: EROS. And a bow made out of ash?
45. Where the groom may walk down the aisle: STABLE. Really inventive and cute clue/fill. JW at his best.
47. Soi-__: self-styled: DISANT. JW, really? This is a very obscure term. DEFINE.
53. Components of 56-Across : HOPS. Not necessarily, ...strictly speaking ale can be made from simply malt, water and yeast. It is extremely unusual not to use hops. Home-brew handbook. 56A. Malt creations : ALES.
54. Quartet member : VIOLA. The four instruments in a string quartet are almost always 2 violins, 1 viola and 1 cello. Various.
55. Org. with Jungians : APA. American Psychological Association. Many of them are old.
59. Ticket booth sight : LINE.
60. Protected, in a way : ALEE.
61. Sister of Thalia : ERATO. The Nine Muses in Greek mythology have been an inspiration to artists since antiquity. They are (in alphabetical order): Calliope, Clio, Erato, Euterpe, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia, and Urania. (Owlcation- do not go to this website, you may never escape).
62. Hardy heroine : TESS. I just had her in a puzzle recently.
63. Perception-changing drug : LSD. I just had some in a puzzle.
64. Letter heading abbr. : ATTN.
DOWN:
1. Masters course : AUGUSTA. Bobby Jones and the dream course. Take a TOUR
2. Fabled emperor's lack: CLOTHES. Did you know the STORY was written by Hans Christian Andersen? Andersen's fairy tales (of which there are no less than 3381 works !) have been translated into more than 125 languages... his most famous fairy tales include "The Emperor's New Clothes", "The Little Mermaid", "The Nightingale", "The Snow Queen", "The Ugly Duckling", "Thumbelina", and many others. Various.
3. Emotionally overwhelmed : IN TEARS.
4. Morse "T": DAH.
5. "Can't you take __?" : A HINT.
6. Like Roald Dahl, by birth: WELSH. The wonderful author - LINK.
7. Yellowstone grazer: ELK.
8. Settings for small American flags: LAPELS.
9. Do to death: OVERUSE.
10. Voice of President Business in "The Lego Movie": FERRELL. SNL grad Will.
11. Bridge supports: TRUSSES.
13. "Ghostbusters" actor : RAMIS. He died this year.
14. Air quality issue: SMOG. I believe this was my first known portmanteau (Smoke-Fog)
17. Lisa's title: MONA. Mona in Italian is a polite form of address originating as "ma donna" – similar to "Ma’am", "Madam." Wiki and others.
23. Team whose mascot's head is a baseball: METS. He got fired for giving the one finger
salute to a brewers fan. With only three to work with, which one is the bad one?
24. Viking history VIP: ERIK. No Minnesota players named Erik?
25. Island near Java: BALI.
29. Confessional music genre: EMO.
30. Anthropologist's subject: MAN.
31. Whichever: ANY.
34. Give a hand : HELP.
35. Assist badly? : ABET. Why not, "Give a hand, badly?"
36. Storied loch: NESS.
37. It might be on the road for years: ASPHALT.
38. Cop's info source: STOOLIE. Derived from stool pigeons - carvings used to trap hawks.
39. Stumbles (upon): HAPPENS.
42. Snare drum sound: RAT-A-TAT.
43. Feature of many a birdie: ONE PUTT. Bubba Watson had 11(18) ONE PUTT greens when he won his second masters title.
44. Secure, as a knapsack: STRAP ON. This is the second clue fill of the puzzle I have had to muzzle myself while writing.
46. Smooches: BUSSES.
47. Glen relative: DALE. Who is Dale Campbell? Oh, is that Chip's real name?
48. "__ these wars for Egypt": Antony: I MADE. A fun Friday Will Shakespeare quote.
"I made these wars for Egypt, and the Queen,
Whose heart I thought I had, for she had mine—
Which whilst it was mine had annexed unto ’t
A million more, now lost—she, Eros, has
Packed cards with Caesar and false-played my glory
Unto an enemy’s triumph."
50. Shapes formed by angled spotlights: OVALS.
51. Zeroed in: AIMED.
52. Telecommuter's workplace: HOME. Yeah me and the once mighty Barry G. You are missed.
57. Clarke computer: HAL.
58. Nest egg acronym: IRA. Individual Retirement Account.
Wowzer, here we are in middle of fall with shorter days and longer nights and so many birthdays - those cold January nights - but nothing slows JW (or C.C. and her minions) down. I had fun, enjoy the weekend. Lemonade out.
