Joseph Knecht

    Today's puzzle was constructed by Bruce Haight .  As an ophthalmologist, Bruce spends a lot of time staring intently into the faces of his patients.  He experiences them FACE TO FACE , the theme of this puzzle.  Like his experiences with his patients, this puzzle's themers are multi-layered: he first asks us to look at 4 common-place objects and phrases and then to take a closer look.  We then see that these objects are word pairs consisting of 4 pairs of  "FACE types".  Let's take a look at each of the theme clues and answers and peel off some of their "makeup".  It turns out there's a lot more here than meets the EYE : 17. Circuitous: ROUND ABOUT .  ROUND ABOUTS are used to speed-up the flow of traffic at intersections, especially in major cities.  Here is Washington State's illustrated MANUAL of rules for traversing ROUNDABOUTS (whatever happened to STOP on RED and GO on GREEN ?).  ROUND ABOUTS

  Today we welcome back David Alfred Bywaters, for a tour around his KITCHEN . It's filled with simple things, nothing you wouldn't find in the Victorian Era (a love of David's): The themers in this puzzle are MATCHING bookends consisting of things you might discover there, each pair bracketing one of the four long answers.  The reveal is a thing needed by anyone with an old-fashioned GAS STOVE (unless you have one with a fancy electric starter, like Dw's grill): 55. Pilot lighter, and a hint to the four other longest puzzle answers: KITCHEN MATCH .  Shown are boxes of SAFETY MATCHES , which can only be lit by striking on the box, as opposed to PHOSPHORUS-TIPPED STRIKE ANYWHERE MATCHES .  The latter are considered a FIRE HAZARD . Here are the utensils and such: 20. "Even dialogue wouldn't have saved that show," e.g.?: PAN TOMIME PA N .  [ Ouch! ] 29. Alpo holder?: CAN INE CAN .  Well, a toy

Today's puzzler is brought to us by Jeffrey Wechsler, and I assure you that it's a real gas.   In fact it's full of gas!  The following themers are inflated with a different gas at different points in the answer.  Per the usual Xwd convention they each span 2 or more words: 18. Red River city: F ARGO N ORTH DAKOTA .  The setting for a 1996 Cohen Brothers crime dramedy starring Francis McDormand, who won an Oscar for best actress in it.  It also spun off a highly successful 4 season TV series. This answer is inflated with Element #18 ARGON . 30. Words of urgency: NOW MOR E THAN E VER   it's VERY URGENT that you don't strike a match!  This answer is inflated with ETHANE , a highly volatile hydrocarbon gas: 47. Intro suggesting uncertainty: SOMEO NE ON CE SAID .  Element #10 NEON .  Very illuminating.  59. Pre-road trip detail ... and a hint to what certain parts of three long answers were doing as you solved them: FILLING UP WITH GAS .  It's interesting that the