Joseph Knecht

Today Tim D'Alfonso makes his LA Times Crossword puzzle debut just as the Summer season approaches, and he greets us with a real scorcher ... "Bad Girls" is one of the twists on today's theme that Tim doesn't broach, but here are the ones he does ...   18A. Author's dream: BEST SELLER .  This dream was answered for these authors . For another author, see themer 67A below. 26A. It's rated 10+ on the Scoville Scale: GHOST PEPPER .  Don't let Tim's rating fool you.  According to " Cayenne Diane " the Ghost Pepper is actually rated at 1,041,427 SHU's ( Scoville Heat Units ).  The nursery I bought plants at today was carrying some,  but after reading this , I passed them by ... 56A. Haul, in a bad way: STOLEN GOODS .   67A. "Fifty Shades of Grey," for one: EROTIC FILM .  In the obscenity case of Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964 ) Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, writing for the Court, said that for the material to be obscene, i

  Woodin' you know it that our constructor Steve Mossberg has gifted us today with a small forest of trees bracketing four themers : 18. Words of deferential obedience: A S YOU WI SH .  Whatever. The tree in this clue is the ASH ,  popular for creating the baseball bats known as Louisville Sluggers .  Our neighborhood was planted with these beautiful trees along the road when it was founded back in the early 20th century.  We had one in our front yard, but sadly they were all felled by a lowly insect called the Emerald Ash Borer .  These images don't begin to capture the beauty and grandeur of these trees: 24. Trendy coffee additive: OA T MIL K .  The OAK .  Another magnificent tree, but hardier than the Ash.  There are many varieties of OAK : E.g. WHITE, RED, BLACK, CHESTNUT, and PIN.  The tree in the lower left is a WHITE OAK and I'm pretty certain it is the WYE OAK that stood on Maryland's Eastern Shore fo