Thursday March 18, 2021 Joe Deeney

 

Today's puzzle by Joe Deeney invites us to ideate on 4 theme clues and not accept the first thought that they invoke, but to go further and expand our minds a bit.  The MIND is a mysterious domain, IMHO not well-understood by modern science, and it has many ways to grasp REALITY and UNREALITY. Each clue tips us off that we are about to TRIP into Joe's world with the lead-in "No, no,[there's more] ...":

16. "No, no, more user-friendly than DOS. __!": PICTURE WINDOWS.  Not difficult to do.  MS WINDOWS revolutionized personal computing by creating a "user friendly" operating system.  The only problem is that the user interface (UI) has become an end in itself, with a stable of millionaire programmers who make a plethora of changes to every new release, whether they are needed or not.  END OF RANT.

25. "No, no, flatter than sharks. __!": FIGURE SKATES.  Fascinating fish.  If you're ever in Baltimore, be sure and go see the NATIONAL AQUARIUM.  The centerpiece is a 2,200,000 gallon POOL that can be observed from above and through glass below, and it's filled with SKATES, Black Tip reef sharks, many varieties of tropical fishes, and wet-suited HUMANS who are constantly feeding all of the above at eye level.

40. "No, no, bigger than Humvees. __!": THINK TANKS. Speaking of pools, these groups pool the MINDS of EXPERTS.  However some of these pools are just puddles actually.  I knew a Professor of Microbiology at the University of Maryland Medical School, whose business card simply said "Merrill Snyder, PhD - EXPERT".  Merrill defined an EXPERT as a "Drip under pressure!".

52. "No, no, scarier than iguanas. __!": IMAGINE DRAGONS.  Imagine this one ...
 

Wouldn't want to run into him in a dark jungle!  Run away!  Run away!  Oh and BTW, a KOMODO DRAGON's bite is poisonous and they climb trees!
 
Across:

1. Winnipeg NHLer: JET.  Okay sports fans. Here's their schedule for the remainder of the year.  Last Sunday the clue and the answer were reversed.

4. Dwellings: ABODES.  ADOBES fit, but don't perp; but they're still dwellings.  Magnificent dwellings.
 

10. Retirement outfit?: PJS.  Cute clue.  Actually some non-retired  ZOOMERS wear them to work.

13. Tailless primate: APE.

14. Low-ranked British peers: BARONS.

15. "La Bamba" star __ Diamond Phillips: LOU.  I haven't seen this film, but Phillips had a major role in the long running modern western crime series Longmire, which I believe is still streaming on NETFLIX.  Phillips played Henry Standing Bear.  Great series, which I highly recommend.

19. Make the same point as: ECHO.

20. Ran: BLED.

21. Hogwarts letter carriers: OWLS.  Everything I know about Harry Potter, I've learned from CWDs (not very much).

22. Throws a bomb, in football: GOES LONG.

29. Some Strads: CELLI.  A word on one of the greatest craftsmen of all time.

30. Hosiery hue: TAUPE.

32. "The Great" pope between Sixtus III and Hilarius: ST LEO I.   Pope Leo the Great is probably best known for riding out from Rome to meet Attila the Hun in 452 and dissuading him from sacking Rome.  Just what he said to convince Attila to turn back is not recorded.  There is a monument to St. Leo the Great in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome:
 

34. "Peanuts" character spelled with a hyphen until 1981: PIGPEN.  Pigpen first appeared in Peanuts almost 67 years ago, in a strip published on July 13, 1954. Charles Schulz may have been initially inspired to create Pigpen after visiting a friend’s home in the early 1950s. One of the kids in the family came into the house looking very disheveled after a day of playing outside, and the parent’s first reaction was to call the child a “pigpen.” From his introduction in the strip to his final appearance in 1999, Pigpen, the boy with his own perpetual cloud of dust, has proven to be one of the most beloved characters in the comic strip’s history.  Here's his debut ...
 

35. __ chi: TAI.  My BIL is named Chi, but he practices KARATE.

36. At home with: USED TO.  There are a lot of people at home these days and it can be hard to get USED TO.

39. Also mention: ADD.

43. Former Cubs exec Epstein: THEO.

45. Hardy heroine: TESS.  Tess of the D'urbervilles, a tragedy by Thomas Hardy.

46. Watchdog gp. created under Nixon: OSHA.  Who'da thunk it?

49. Traffic signals?: HORNS.  Leave it to George Gershwin to use them as instruments in An American in Paris:
 

51. Two cents: INPUT.

57. Bottom line: NET.

58. Polite refusal: NO MAAM.

59. Numbered hwy.: RTE.

60. Asian honorific: SRI.  Shri (/ʃriː/; Devanagari: श्री, ISO: Śrī, Sanskrit pronunciation: [ʃriː], Non-Sanskrit pronunciation: [sriː]), also transliterated as Shree, Sri, or Sree, is a South Asian word denoting a title of respect used before the name, primarily as an honorific:
 

61. Leaves befuddled: STUMPS.  I was AT SEA, in a HAZE as to what to do with this.  But then this came to me:

62. Org. created in response to 9/11: TSA.

Down:

1. Mocking remark: JAPE.

2. Really cool: EPIC.  Like AWESOME, man.  Like this old story about the IRE OF ACHILLES.

3. Georgia __: TECH.

4. Disney monkey: ABU.  I remember ALADDIN (from grade school?),  but not ABU.

5. Mop manager?: BARBER.  Formerly a much more important role at court:
 

6. Promise of dire consequences: OR ELSE.

7. IKEA kit pieces: DOWELS.  PEGS wouldn't cut it.

8. City about 250 miles NNW of Dallas, TX: ENID OK.  Nobody said it was actually in TEXAS😊.

9. Govt. ID: SSN.

10. Clear of snow: PLOW.  My other BIL and I finally got to use our snow blower this winter  But they don't do so well with SLEET, which we get a lot of as we're on Maryland's FALL LINE.  In addition to being a geological feature, it is also the line along which cold Northern moisture laden air streaming down the Piedmont Plateau, meets the warmer air on the coastal plain, resulting in slushy wet snows:
 

The Fall Line

11. Fleshy fold: JOWL.

12. Puzzle (out): SUSS.  I hope you enigmatologist SUSSERS are enjoying yourselves!.

17. Alt-tab function: TOGGLE.  TOGGLE what?  Not sure this worked for me.

18. GI ID: DOG TAG.

23. Yves' eager assent: OUI OUI.  Today's French lesson.

24. Turkey, for one: NATION.  As I got the first 4 letters with perps and as turkey's are NATIVE to North America, this clue gobbled up some of my time.

25. Brine-cured Greek cheese: FETA.

26. Uneducated group: ILLITERATI.  As opposed to the LITERATI, like us 'uns.

27. Travel authorization for citizens of a 27-mem. union: EU PASSPORT.  Prior to BREXIT it would have been 28-mem.

28. Zoomed: SPED.

29. Winter hrs. in IL: CST. 

31. Terminate: END.   Wait, don't go!  There are 16 more clues left.  I think you'll like the rest, especially the last one!

33. Wasn't present?: ISN'T.  Well it could have become PRESENT between THEN and NOW.

34. Education support gps.: PTAS.

37. Stretch (out): EKE.  A usage of this word I'd not seen before.

38. RB stoppers: DTS.  Some other clues for this aren't PC anymore.

41. With 42-Down, city on the Pearl River Delta: HONG.  I knew this because GUANGZHOU is on the Northern end of this delta.  We had to take our adopted grandson Ray there to clear him through the American Consulate.

42. See 41-Down: KONG.  KONG is on it too.  Stopped over in both places at once on a puddle jump from GUANGZHOU and had a WRAP in the airport.

43. Starts to disperse, as a crowd: THINS. 

44. Round-tripper: HOMER.  See 2D for an EPIC by this author.

47. Looks (for): HUNTS.  As a kid, whenever we lost a baseball in the grass, the Catholics on the team would start praying to St. Anthony.  And he always came through, as long as we HUNTED long enough.

48. Befuddled: AT SEA.  See 61A.

50. Serious violations: SINS.  Well not all SINS are serious, but I won't go into that here.

51. Brand with a paw print on its logo: IAMS. 

53. Punctuating word indicating sarcasm: NOT.  IS TOO!

54. Long-legged runner: EMU.  A CSO to BOOMER, as BOOMING and DRUMMING are some of the EMU's characteristic behaviors.  Unlike the Ostrich, I learned from this article that they are ENDEMIC to Australia.

55. Lake Mead creator: DAM.  This is a really cool website about an EPIC National Recreation Area.  Be sure and run the video.

56. Genre for Master P or Heavy D: RAP.  I don't know these artists.  The only rapper I've ever seen rap was this one (all you constructors, perk up your ears!):
 

Here's the grid:

 

Here's hoping that Joe will stop by and update us on his new daughter, who I believe will have her first birthday this April.  I'll bet she's crawling all over the place by now!  Perhaps he could also chime in on the theme - the depths of the mind being what they are, there may be a hidden level that I've missed.

waseeley

Cheers,
Bill