Tuesday, June 21, 2022, Stella Zawistowski

Good morning.  Malodorous Manatee here.  Hahtoolah is still on vacation and, once again, I have the honor of filling in for her.

Today's puzzle setter is frequent contributor, Stella Zawistowski.  I always enjoy solving her puzzles.  Much has previously been written here on The Corner about Ms. Zawistowski so rather than repeat that let's join the festivities.  Party On, Cruciverbalists!

At three places within the grid, Stella has, at the end (or BACK) of a longer answer, placed synonyms for PARTY.  For our convenience, the themed answers are starred.  Two of these answers are fourteen letters long and two are twelve letters long.  Nice grid, Stella.

Here are the party-themed answers (and their respective clues):

20 ACROSS: *Broadcast quality determined by a car antenna: RADIO RECEPTION. Jumping right in, indeed:

26 ACROSS: *Sine or cosine, for short: TRIG FUNCTION. A TRIGonometry reference. It might have also been clued linguistically: Conjunction Junction . . .

. . . What's Your Function?

43 ACROSS: *Issue best kept within the clan: FAMILY AFFAIR.

The reveal comes after the three, party-themed answers and explains them to us:

52 ACROSS: Tongue-in-cheek description of a mullet, and of the answers to the starred clues: PARTY IN THE BACK. Hairstyles come and go. The mullet is, perhaps, best forgotten.

Here is how this all looks in the grid:

. . .  and here are the rest of the clues and answers:

Across:

1. Drains of energy: SAPS.

5. Prefix with sphere: ATMO. ATMOsphere

9. Jousting weapon: LANCE.

14. Drive-__ ATM: THRU.

15. Have to have: NEED.

16. Negatively charged particle: ANION. Positively charged, it is a:

18. Surrealist Salvador: DALI.

23. NFL six-pointers: TDS. TouchDownS

24. Beer barrel: KEG.

32. Mongolia's continent: ASIA.

35. Movement-sensing game console: WII. Nintendo WII

36. Get set, casually: PREP. PREPare

39. "You said the same thing as me!": JINX. Typically, after the coincidental voicing of the same content, the individuals compete to say the word JINX before the other person.

40. Go kaput: DIE.

41. Sheet music symbol: CLEF. NOTE or REST would have fit the space, too.

42. Really, really stinky: RANK. Interesting word, RANK, with other definitions than the one used here.

47. Cry inconsolably: SOB. A depressed French baker sobs bitterly into the dough . . . His life is pain.

48. "__ go time!": IT'S.

49. Boxer's stat: KOS. Knock OutS

57. Move rapidly toward: RUN AT. Alternatively,

58. Sweetie: BABE. Often clued with the movie pig. Used this way, BABE is preferable to the BAE we see so much of lately.

59. Double Stuf cookie: OREO. Cookie of a thousand clues.

60. Cosmetician Lauder: ESTEE. A frequent visitor.

61. "Yes, let's do it!": I'M IN. Or, a hacker's pronouncement.

62. Actor Sharif: OMAR.

65. Breathe hard: PANT.

Down:
1. Microwave button: START. Among others.

2. Coming up: AHEAD. What did one hat say to the other? "You stay here, I'll go on ahead."

3. Urges along: PRODS.

4. Gymnast Lee who won a gold medal at the 2020 Olympics: SUNI.

Suni Lee With Her Medal

5. Nobel Peace Prize winner Sakharov: ANDREI.

6. Hard-boiled Chinese snack: TEA EGG.

7. Sporty Spice of the Spice Girls: MEL C. MELanie Jayne Chisholm

8. Garfield's drooling frenemy: ODIE. That's ODIE on the right, er left.

9. Crisscross pie crust pattern: LATTICE.

10. Bless with oil: ANOINT.

11. Yucatán boy: NINO. One of today's Spanish lesson.

12. Last name of filmmakers Ethan and Joel: COEN. The "Best Of" clips are too long. So, let's just go with this Fargo trailer:

13. Come to a close: END.

21. Bhindi masala pod: OKRA. A Northern Indian curried dish featuring, you guessed it, OKRA. Thanks, perps.

22. Isn't yet decided: PENDS.

26. Felt-__ marker: TIP.

27. Material in a lint trap: FLUFF. Never has anyone that I know referred to lint as FLUFF.

28. Abu Dhabi's fed.: UAE. United Arab Emirates

29. "Victory is mine!": I WIN.

30. Pigpen grunt: OINK. What's the difference between bird flu and swine flu? If you have bird flu you get tweet-ment. If you have swine flu you need OINK-ment.

31. Put the kibosh on: NIX. Remember this bumper sticker?

32. "Eri tu," but not "Eres Tu": ARIA. "Eri tu" is an aria from a Verdi opera. "Eres Tu" (It's You) is a popular song. However, ere is a version of "Eres Tu" recorded with a symphony orchestra.

33. Look like: SEEM.

36. Many an email attachment: PDF. Portable Document Format

37. Low-altitude airplane pass: FLYBY. The pattern is full.

38. "Miss Saigon" Tony winner Salonga: LEA. Unknown. Perped.

39. Salsa container: JAR.

41. Formed clumps: CLOTTED.

42. Get out of bed: RISE.

44. Holy Land nation: ISRAEL. The term "Holy Land" usually refers to a territory roughly corresponding to the modern State of Israel, the Palestinian Territories, western Jordan, and parts of southern Lebanon and southwestern Syria. Jews, Christians and Muslims regard it as holy.

45. Step-counting device: FITBIT.

46. Capital of Greece: ATHENS.

49. Cosmic balance: KARMA. One person's take on this:

50. Salty expanse: OCEAN.

51. Hybrid garment: SKORT. A cross between a SKirt and shORTs.

52. Pull's opposite: PUSH.

53. Voting against: ANTI

54. Bird in Egyptian art: IBIS.

55. First line on a form, often: NAME.

56. "Touched your nose!" sound: BOOP. We have seen this clue/answer before. I prefer this take:

Betty Boop

57. TiVo remote button: REC. RECord.

Stella, you are invited to post anything you'd like to share about this puzzle, its evolution, the theme, or whatever in the Comments section.  We'd love to hear from you.

. . . . and now it is time to rest and recover from all of this partying.

_________________________________________________________

פרת ים

MM Out