Joseph Knecht

  What's It All About? Corner favorite Jeffrey Wechsler tries to stump us with a real POSER today.  Since all three theme clues punt to the reveal we'll start with that ...  55A. Profound philosophical subject, as defined by the answers to 21-, 32-, and 42-Across?: THE MEANING OF LIFE .  As you might imagine illustrating this was a real toughie, causing me to ponder several alternatives ... Naturally the Monty Python film of the same name came to mind, but even the trailer was rated R .  I then considered the "The Secret of Life" (the structure of DNA was published 70 years ago this past April 25) and the "The Theory of Everything" (physicists are still working on it), but rejected both as a bit too arcane. I finally stumbled upon the incredible correspondence between the number for Jeffrey's third theme clue and this classic  revelation of  THE MEANING OF LIFE announced by the supercomputer Deep Thought in this trail...

    Today Jeffrey Wechsler invites us to step back a bit and look at the starred themers from a distance.  Each is a common word or phrase that when prefixed by the reveal words ( 70A & 71A ) " THE WHOLE " , takes on a whole (or slightly) different meaning: 1A. *Common delivery: PACKAGE .  I use UPS for my package delivery.  But if we're talking about the THE WHOLE PACKAGE , you can't have the GOOD , without some of the BAD ... From the film Before Midnight 8A. *Bagel partner: SCHMEAR .  A schmear is a generous slathering of cream cheese on a bagel . The word itself has Yiddish origins, derived from the root for spread or smear .  But here we're talking about THE WHOLE SCHMEAR , when EVERYTHING is just NOT ENOUGH   ... 21A. *Rolled Mexican dish: ENCHILADA ....

  Same Clue, Different Vibes The Flight of the Bumblebee Rimsky Korsakov  Jeffrey Wechsler visits us today with another reveal-less theme (but you can definitely hear it) based on acoustic signals we receive from different sources (see 61A for a film clip that touches on this theme as well).  The themers may look simple, but coming up with 4 grid spanners that all answered the same 4 letter clue could not have been simple. 17A. Buzz: NOISE MADE BY BEES .  The world may be on the cusp of the tragic answer to Shakespeare's eternal question, " To bee or not to bee ", but on the lighter side here are a lot of bad bee puns . Bee on clover 25A. Buzz: WORD ON THE STREET .   There's a song about this with the lyric, "What's the buzz, tell me what's happening", but I'll leave the googling to you. 44A. Buzz: ASTRONAUT ALDRIN .  Buzz Aldrin ; (born Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr. ; January 20, 1930) is an American former astronaut, engineer a...