Joseph Knecht

    You have to dial your Wayback Machine to  September 16, 2013 to find veteran Jerry Edelstein's first LA Times puzzle, blogged by the inimitable Argyle .  This marks Jerry's 39th appearance here, and today he schools us in a little business management with a lesson about The C Team As there are no circles, no stars, and no question marks you have to put your ear to the ground and listen very closely to hear the 4 homophonic themers: 20A. C's: MEDIOCRE GRADES .  Hand up if you never got one of these in college (I got some even worse).  Don't be shy ... 33A. Seas: GLOBAL SEPTET .   Our GLOBE is girt with Seven Oceans , traditionally called "The Seven Seas", but some sources cite others : The Seven Seas 43A. Sees: GETS THE POINT . 58A. Seize: CAPTURE BY FORCE .  "Well it seemed like a good idea at the time." - V. Puti...

  Today's puzzle was constructed by LA Times Crossword veteran Jerry Edelstein , whose last appearance here was on August 18, 2021 .  Today he appears in a MASTER 's TOURNEY , turning the last word of each themer into the first half of the reveal.  Here are the seeds:   20A. Retiree's investment goal: INCOME STREAM .  A CSO to JzB . 34A. Performers in cages: LION TAMERS .  Marcus Loewe, Samuel Goldwyn, and Louis Mayer generated quite an INCOME STREAM by TAMING this LION :   42. Cornell's "Far Above Cayuga's Waters" and others: ALMA MATERS .  A CSO to any of our Cornell alums on the Corner.  Hands up please!   And the reveal:   54A. "Mona Lisa" and "Guernica" ... and, in a different way, the last words of 20-, 34- and 42-Across: MASTER PIECES , all the themers being acronyms of the first two syllables.  I found the contrasts between these two masterpieces to be intriguingly ...