Thursday, April 18, 2024, Hoang-Kim Vu, Jessica Zetzman

 Farmers' Market

Each Spring we can't wait for the Misty Valley truck farm to open, and we usually stop there on Sundays after church.  Their Eastern Shore Silver Queen corn is to die for and their cantaloupes are the sweetest!

And it looks like today's veteran constructors Hoang-Kim Vu and Jessica Zetzman do their shopping for themers at a local farmer's market, ever on the look out for fresh, tasty local puns. And depending on the venue you might hear  these quips [followed by unpunned explanations] ...

17. At the market, farmers often __: SWAP MEATS.  "I'll trade you a pound of this HAM for that T-BONE steak".   [per Merriam-Websters].

28. At the orchard, farmers are often __: WORKING IN PEARS.  "BOSC me no questions ANJOU'll get no lies".  [How small farmers can work together to improve their situation].

48. In the field, farmers often specialize in __: BEET GENERATION.  "If money is the ROOT of all evil -- give me some of the ROOT!".   [There was nothing prosaic about the beat poets].

65. At the state fair, farmers often __: SHOW THYME. "THYME Flies Like an Arrow; Fruit Flies Like a Banana".  Something like this phrase was used by Jazzbumpa in a recent review.  Quote Investigator reveals that its actual origin may have been in [an early experiment in automated language translation] *(see below for another one).

Here's the field after it's been plowed ...

Here's the rest ...

Across:

1. Page, in a way: PING.  A versatile word.  The clue implies sending a signal just to see if someone or something is there.  It could be an underwater object ...

... it could be an Internet utility used to see if a network device is reachable.  Of course the duffers on the Corner will know it as a brand of premium golf clubs.

5. Weary response to incessant cries of "Look at me, look at me!": I SAW.

9. Timesheet units: HOURS.  The HOURS have been a metaphor for life throughout the ages.  Here's the finale from the ballet The Dance of the Hours from Ponchielli's opera La Gioconda.

If you want something a little deeper here's the Act II trio from the The Hours based on the Virginia Woolf  novel Mrs. Dalloway.  The performers are Renée Fleming, Kelli O’Hara, and Joyce DiDonato, as Clarissa Vaughan, Laura Brown, and Virginia Woolf respectively ...

14. __ list: TO DO.  If you create one, be sure to lay in a supply of these ...

15. Wrestler John who has fulfilled more than 650 Make-A-Wish requests: CENA.   On September 27, 2022 John Cena set a new Guinness World record by granting 650 Make-A-Wish wishes.

John Cena

16. Alt, perhaps: INDIE.  Here are the Traveling Wilburys, an "INDIE" band who escaped fame to ride under the rock radar ...

17. [Theme clue]

19. Hurry along: SCOOT.

20. Broth in Japanese cuisine: DASHI.  UMAMI in a bottle.

21. Place where two sides come together: SEAM.

23. Unwelcome picnic guests: ANTS.

24. Red Muppet: ELMO.

26. Gear for a grip: BOOM.  What's a grip, a best boy grip and a key grip?  What's a BOOM?  They sound like different specialties to me: video and audio respectively.

28. [Theme clue]

34. Turf: SOD.

35. MiLB level: AAA.  Minor League Baseball.  Rookie 2nd Baseman Jackson Holliday recently came up from the Orioles AAA farm team and his first ML hit helped the O's beat the Brewers.

36. Bit at the bottom of a tub: KERNEL.  Not a bathtub.  This kind of tub ...

37. Sends sprawling: TRIPS.

40. Pres. whose library is in Austin, Texas: LBJ. Lyndon Baines Johnson August 27, 1908 – January 22, 1973) was the 36th President.  He was John F. Kennedy's Vice President and assumed the Presidency after the latter's assassination on November 22, 1963.

Lyndon Baines Johnson

42. Oyster layer: NACRE.  AKA Mother of Pearl.

43. In dreamland: ASLEEP.

45. "Don't __ me down!": LET.  From a rehearsal for the album Let it Be  ...

47. Ate: HAD.

48. [Theme clue]

52. Epic tale: SAGA.

53. Composer Jerome: KERN.  Here's Fred Astaire playing an old Jerome Kern standard ...

54. "Why not __?": BOTH.

57. U.S. Pacific island: GUAM.  Guam is an unincorporated territory of the United States in the North Pacific Ocean, the largest, most populous, and southernmost of the Mariana Islands. It lies about 5,800 miles west of San Francisco and 1,600 miles east of Manila.

59. Southern, for one: OCEAN.  AKA the Antarctic Ocean, it's about 6258 miles South of Guam.

63. Groupthink?: ETHOS.  I just wish there were more than two.  😒

65. [Theme clue]

67. Familiar plot device: TROPE.  This is not the correct clue for TROPE.  Somebody changed the original meaning of the word while we weren't looking (not the fault of the constructors or the editor).  Pay attention, this can get confusing ...!

68. Overhanging part of a roof: EAVE.

69. New York canal: ERIE.  It's EERIE just how often this word shows up in crosswords. 

70. Put up: HOUSE.

71. Still 43-Across: ABED.

72. Acorn, essentially: SEED.  SEEDS are how farmers markets get their start. 

Down:

1. Condition that may be treated with SSRIs: PTSD.  Selective serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) are a treatment for depression, including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

2. State that holds quadrennial caucuses: IOWA.

3. Confidentiality docs: NDAS. Confidential? Not a chance - "Information is like heat -- it always gets out!"

4. Garden tunneler: GOPHER.  We've never had GOPHERS in our garden, but I have had to deal with some pretty pesky GROUND HOGS.  Not a pretty story.

5. Freezer cubes: ICE.

6. Not always available: SEASONAL.  The foods available at farmers' markets are SEASONAL, which is why they taste so fresh.

7. Pre-deal payment: ANTE.

8. Pungent condiment: WASABI. AKA Japanese Dristan.   It's made from a Japanese horseradish and is the perfect excuse to eat sushi.  Most of the stuff you get in the restaurants is made from the dried, ground herb mixed into a paste.  We've only had fresh WASABI once, in the Omiza Restaurant on Main Street in landlocked Doylestown, PA.  It's like a completely different condiment ...

Wasabi japonica

9. Short hellos: HIS.

10. Recorded, say: ON CAMERA.  The editing of this review is ON CAMERA and will soon show up in suggestions by Google for new pages for me to view.

11. Noodle in Japanese cuisine: UDON.  A side dish for your WASABI.

12. Really great comedy act, e.g.: RIOT.  Between sumdaze and Hahtoolah, there's a RIOT on the Corner every Monday and Tuesday.

13. Hardens, in a way: SETS.

18. Cereal partner: MILK.

22. Part of an order, perhaps: MONK.  Clever clue.  There's a whole song cycle devoted to MONKS.  Here's the great Leontyne Price singing The Desire for Hermitage from Samuel Barber's Hermit Songs, accompanied by the composer ...

Lyrics

25. "Mamma __!": MIA.

27. Doing business: OPEN.

28. Inferior: WORSE.

29. "Swan Lake" role for Misty Copeland: ODILE.  Sorry, I couldn't find Misty doing ODILE (the Black Swan), so you'll have to settle for her ODETTE (the White Swan) ...

30. Overhanging part of a roof: GABLE.  What is the difference is between an EAVE and a GABLE end roof of a house?

31. Pepper used in mole sauce: ANCHO.  Some mole recipes.

32. Aired again: RERAN.

33. Iditarod vehicle: SLED.  The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, more commonly known as The Iditarod (/aɪˈdɪtərɒd/), is an annual long-distance sled dog race held in Alaska in early March. It travels from Anchorage to Nome. Mushers and a team of between 12 and 16 dogs, of which at least 5 must be on the towline at the finish line, cover the distance in 8–15 days or more. The Iditarod began in 1973 as an event to test the best sled dog mushers and teams but evolved into today's highly competitive race.

34. Attempt: STAB.

38. Rescue supply spots: PET SHOPS.  A CSO to PAT.

39. Genesis name: SEGA.  Who knew that EVE had triplets?  😀

41. "Really uncool, bro": JERK MOVE.  Not the first thing that entered my mind.

44. Simon of the "Mission: Impossible" film series: PEGG.  Simon John Pegg (né Beckingham; born 14 February 1970) is an English actor, comedian and screenwriter.  Pegg is one of the few performers to have achieved what has been called the "Holy Grail of Nerd-dom": playing popular supporting characters in Doctor Who, Star Trek, and Star Wars. He currently stars as Benji Dunn in the Mission: Impossible film series (2006–present).

Simon Pegg

46. __ kwon do: TAE.  Tae kwon do is a Korean martial art and combat sport involving punching and kicking techniques. The literal translation "kicking", "punching", and "the art or way of".  It sometimes involves the use of weapons.

Ouch!

49. Queasiness: NAUSEA.

50. Relaxed gait: TROT.

51. Crawls (along): INCHES.

54. "Little Women" woman: BETH.

55. "Al __ lado del río": Oscar-winning song by Jorge Drexler: OTRO.  Al otro lado del río (transl. "On the Other Side of the River") is a song by Uruguayan singer Jorge Drexler from the soundtrack album for the film The Motorcycle Diaries (2004).  It received the Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 77th Academy Awards, becoming the first Spanish language song, the second in a foreign language, to receive such an honor, and the first by a Uruguayan artist ...

56. Quaint pronoun: THOU.  Also slang for a GRAND.

58. Literary captain: AHAB.  The protagonist of the great American novel, Hermann Melville's Moby Dick.  You can buy this first edition for only US$ 87,771.81 ...

Moby Dick 1851
Hermann Melville

 60. Literary governess: EYRE.  Jane Eyre is a novel by the English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published under her pen name "Currer Bell" on 19 October 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. of London. The first American edition was published the following year by Harper & Brothers of New York. Jane Eyre is a bildungsroman that follows the experiences of its eponymous heroine, including her growth to adulthood and her love for Mr Rochester, the brooding master of Thornfield Hall.  A first edition of this work can set you back as much as US$ 100,000.  But this one is a steal for only US$ 65,000 ...

Jane Eyre 1847
Charlotte Brontë

Our constructors are very literary!

61. Dijon companion: AMIE.  Today's French lesson: Dijon is a city that serves as the prefecture of the Côte-d'Or department and of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in eastern France.  As of 2017 the commune had a population of 156,920.

62. "__ a lift?": NEED.

64. Date: SEE.  Before you can 66D you usually have to do this (unless you buy a mail-order spouse!)

66. Make it official, in a way: WED.  ELOPE was too long.

* My favorite automated language translation story goes something like this:  The inventors were showing off their new program to some dignitaries, one of whom suggested "Show us the translation of 'Out of sight, out of mind' into Chinese".  The inventors ran it through their program and out popped some Chinese.  Dignitaries: "But how do we know that it's correct?  Translate it back to English".  The program responded: "Invisible Idiot". 😁

Cheers,
Bill

And as always, thanks to Teri for proof reading and for her constructive criticism.

waseeley

Thursday, April 11, 2024,Rebecca Goldstein

 

 

ALMOST HEAVEN

 
After he retired my father built a small home on a mountain top in West Virginia.  We made many visits to it, then my mother had to sell it.  But one of sister's children bought it recently so it's back in the family.  And it was, and still is "Almost Heaven", a space where we can go and be at peace in a world with a starlit sky in the night, forests as far as the eye could see, meadows in the valleys, and a bucolic town with a yearly Apple Butter festival in the town below.

Today's constructor Rebecca Goldstein challenges us with 3 theme clues that re-imagine our world as a safe space where all people are free from bias, discrimination, and hatred -- a noble ideal ...

20. Mindset that may hinder growth: COMFORT ZONE.  A COMFORT ZONE is a familiar psychological state where people are at ease and (perceive they are) in control of their environment, experiencing low levels of anxiety and stress. But the clue hints that there is built-in tension -- that it can also hinder growth, and so it requires some careful navigation to maintain it ...

27. Mental image during meditation: HAPPY PLACE.  Here is the visual image of the sound OM used in some forms of meditation ...

35. Tabletop decor piece with raked sand: ZEN GARDEN.  More often a life-sized garden with raked sand.  Here's one at the Bon Secours Retreat Center in Marriottsville, MD.  They call theirs a Peace Garden, a safe space to meditate ...

Bon Secours Peace Garden

And the reveal ...

29. Bias-free environments, or what 20-Across and 27- and 35-Down are: SAFE SPACES.

Something we all wish for.  And each of us has a different path toward them. 

Here's the grid ...
 

Here's the rest ...

Across:

1. Data depiction: GRAPH. With the advent of low-cost graphics tools such as the PC, it became very easy to create GRAPHS tailored to specific needs.

6. Mouth piece?: JAW.  AKA the mandible -- the opposing piece is the maxilla ...

9. Slalom markers: GATES.

14. Diet that precludes grains and dairy: PALEO.

15. Charlottesville sch.: UVA.

16. Animal wearing red pajamas in Anna Dewdney kids books: LLAMA.  I guess that's a better clue than "Camelid who'll spit in your eye!" -- and they have a great after-market --

17. Hybrid wheat species: SPELT.  The ideal grain for Jinx, no matter how you spel it!

18. "A Life Outdoors Is a Life Well Lived" co.: REI.  Lately this co. has spent a lot of time living in crossword puzzles.

19. Get greasy: OIL UP.

20. [Theme clue].

23. Quick burn: SEAR.

24. "Me too": SAME.

25. Deep rift: SCHISM.  Not a  safe space for groups who experience one.

28. Plant used as an herbal medicine: HYSSOP.  A member of the mint family.  Here's what Britannica has to say about HYSSOP.  Here's what WebMD has to say about it. It's certainly a pretty plant ...

Anise Hyssop

32. Rollover subj.: IRA.

33. Getting a grip, maybe: SEIZING. 

Also an archaic nautical term referring to a length of rope.

37. "It's __-win situation": A NO.

38. Slip in judgment: LAPSE.

40. "Jeopardy!" host Jennings: KEN.  No not Barbie's BFF.

41. Getting hungry, probably: UNFED.  If prolonged it's not safe, especially for children -- see for example last Thursday's puzzle.

43. Uses a keyboard: TYPES.

44. Come to a close: END.

45. Slips through the cracks?: SEEPS.  Our basement laundry room SEEPS water and it looks like we'll have to hire a contractor to stop it.

46. Spanish "Hey!": OYE.

47. Field where things disappear?: MAGIC. 

49. NNW opposite: SSE.

50. European range: ALPS.

51. "August: __ County": Streep film: OSAGE.  August: Osage County is a 2013 American tragicomedy film starring Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Ewan McGregor, Chris Cooper, Abigail Breslin, Benedict Cumberbatch, Juliette Lewis, Margo Martindale, Dermot Mulroney, Julianne Nicholson, and Misty Upham as a dysfunctional family that reunites at the familial house when their patriarch (Sam Shepard) suddenly disappears.  Looks like a comedy in a dysfunctional sort of way...

52. Agile: SPRY.

54. Actress Gadot: GAL. Gal Gadot Varsano born 30 April 1985, is an Israeli actress, model and beauty pageant titleholder. She was crowned Miss Israel 2004 and represented her country at the Miss Universe 2004 pageant. She then served in the Israel Defense Forces for two years as a combat fitness instructor, after which she began studying drama, while building her modeling and acting careers.  Her first international film performance was as Gisele Yashar in Fast & Furious (2009), a part she reprised in several sequels. Gadot achieved global stardom for her portrayal of Wonder Woman in the DC Extended Universe films (2016–2023) and the mystery film Death on the Nile (2022).

Gal Gadot

55. Small part to play: BIT ROLE.  We hear BIT PART more often, but this fits too.

57. Skilled sort: ACE.

58. Let up: ABATE.

60. Pretty strange: ODD.  IMHO  all of "reality"is pretty ODD.

61. Chops in the kitchen: DICES.  As the family sous chef, I do a lot of this.

63. Likely to speak out: VOCAL.

64. "Say Yes to Heaven" singer Lana Del __: REY.  Good advice ...

65. Goddess of peace: IRENE.  Eirene or IRENE, is one of the Horae, the personification and goddess of peace in Greek mythology and ancient religion. She was depicted in art as a beautiful young woman carrying a cornucopia, sceptre, and a torch or rhyton. She is usually said to be the daughter of Zeus and Themisa. Her Roman equivalent is the goddess PAX.  She could almost be a fourth themer.  This also brings to mind a song by Huddie Ledbetter made popular by The Weavers ...

... although a careful listen to the lyrics tells us that Huddie and Irene didn't part very peacefully

66. Put forth: EXERT.

67. Chemistry suffix indicating a double bond: ENE.  In chemistry, a double bond is a covalent bond between two atoms involving four bonding electrons as opposed to two in a single bond. Double bonds occur most commonly between two carbon atoms, for example in ALKENES.  Double bonds can form between other elements and may not be designated with the ENE suffix ...

Chemical compounds with double bonds

The letters ENE are more likely to be clued in crosswords as "Opposite of WSW:"

68. Exams: TESTS.

Down:

1. Waze tech: GPS.  Waze Mobile Ltd, formerly FreeMap Israel, is a subsidiary company of Google that provides satellite navigation software on smartphones and other computers that support the Global Positioning System (GPS). In addition to turn-by-turn navigation, it incorporates user-submitted travel times and route details while downloading location-dependent information over a cellular network. Waze describes its application as a community-driven initiative that is free to download and use.

2. Future genre: RAP.

3. Smart __: ALEC.

4. Speaker emerita Nancy: PELOSI.   Nancy Patricia Pelosi (born in Baltimore on March 26, 1940) is an American politician who served as the 52nd speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 2007 to 2011 and again from 2019 to 2023.   She was the first woman elected as U.S. House Speaker and the first woman to lead a major political party in either chamber of Congress, leading the House Democrats from 2003 to 2023. A member of the House since 1987, Pelosi currently represents California's 11th congressional district, which includes most of San Francisco.

Nancy Pelosi

5. Complete disasters: HOT MESSES.  The opposite of SAFE SPACES.

6. Peer at a trial: JUROR.

7. State firmly: AVER.

8. Counts down the minutes, maybe: WAITS.

9. Member of the blue man group?: GLOOMY GUS.  Here's the poster child for the species from the Hundred Acre Wood ..

10. Dresses that twirl: A LINES.  This one was made from a tablecloth ...

11. Unbelievable story: TALE.

12. Outback bird: EMU.

13. Softy: SAP.

21. Notoriety: FAME.  All of the notorious are famous, but not all of the famous are notorious.

22. Investigative journalist Paula: ZAHN.  Paula Ann Zahn (born February 24, 1956) is an American journalist and newscaster who has been an anchor at ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, and CNN. She currently produces and hosts the true crime documentary series On the Case with Paula Zahn on the Investigation Discovery channel.

Paula Zahn

25. Delta deposit: SILT.  Sediment in rivers is deposited, sorted by particle size, as the river slows down. Larger, heavier particles like pebbles and sand are deposited first, whilst the lighter silt and clay only settle if the water is almost still.  Silt deposited at the mouths of rivers formed the basis for ancient deposits of "ball clays" in the US in Tennessee and Georgia.  These fine grain clays are prized by potters for their plasticity.  Newer alluvial plains that are still active can be vast, e.g. the Nile Delta as shown in this photograph from space ...

Nile River Delta

26. Container that may have a built-in sharpener: CRAYOLA BOX.  Beginning in 1958 the 64 color box came with a built-in sharpener, as does the 96 count box.

27. [Theme clue]

29. [Theme reveal].

30. Latte order specification: ONE PERCENT.

31. Dishwasher detergent units: PODS.   Kids do the darnedest things --  between 2012 and 2013, poison control centers reported over 7,000 cases of young children eating laundry pods, and ingestion of laundry pods produced by P&G had resulted in six deaths by 2017. In response to the dangers, P&G changed Tide Pod containers to an opaque design, introduced warning labels, and added a bitter-tasting chemical to the pod contents ...

Original Packaging
Aren't they colorful!

34. Retail outlet whose products often come with Allen wrenches: IKEA STORE.  Sorry I couldn't resist ... 😀

35. [Theme clue].

36. Need for some denim jeans: INDIGO DYE.  Indigo is a pigment extracted from the leaves of indigo-bearing plants and is the oldest natural source of blue dye in the world. Humans have used indigo to dye natural fibers for thousands of years, with traditions spanning continents and cultures.  GLOOMY GUS would love this stuff ...!

"Indigo vat" used for dyeing

39. Observes: SEES.

42. Loch with a legend: NESS.

47. "Me, mon ami?": MOI.  Some good advice to solvers from a famous Belgian solver ...

48. Animation still: CEL.   

50. Tequila plant: AGAVE.

53. Approvals: YESES.  OKAYS fit as well

55. Suspenders alternative: BELT. Probably the most famous belt in the Universe is in the constellation Orion:

Also a song by Sabrina Claudio ...

56. Exchange a few words, say: EDIT.  I exchanged a few words to create this review.

59. Roof sealant: TAR.

62. Fury: IRE.  From the Latin word for "wrath".  The DIES IRAE ("Day of Wrath") is a Latin hymn from the Requiem Mass for the Dead. The setting in Verdi's Requiem left us with the best expression of FURY that I know.  Here it is performed by the Metropolitan Opera on the 20th anniversary of 9/11 ...

Cheers,
Bill

And as always, thanks to Teri for proof reading and for her constructive criticism.

waseeley

Thursday, April 4, 2024, Rich Katz, Katy Steinmetz

 

 Food for Thought 

Food is a problem in America: too much, not enough, or not getting to the right people: but thanks to one of our regular solvers  there's at least a partial solution to that last one, as we'll see at the end of this theme explanation.  Today's constructors are veteran Rich Katz,  who has constructor chops, but is new to the Corner and Katy Steinmetz, a former journalist for Time Magazine.  This is also Katy's debut in the LA Times, but if she is anything like her namesake Charles, we can expect her puzzle to be brilliant.

Our constructors have stretched their foodie clues into in the language idioms (no circles, no stars, and no reveal -- these fills are the 4 longest phrases, so these must be the themers right? ...

17A. "Let's pass on the supersize": NOT A BIG DEAL.  I was afraid that this South Park clip would be NSFC ("Not Suitable For  Crosswords"), but was relieved to find that it's ok.  It's really a shame that some people think only of themselves ...

28A. "The chef made this as the plat du jour, right?": ISNT THAT SPECIAL.

47A. "I don't want my latte to be a venti": THATS A TALL ORDER.  Now here's some real FOOD FOR THOUGHT -- why can't we eliminate childhood hunger in America?  Why is THAT A TALL ORDER?  And a special CSO to PICARD for alerting us just last week to a much more important Jeff Bridges film than TRON -- A Place at the Table ...

Here's Picard's comment to last week's Thursday review and here is the link to No Kid Hungry: End Child Hunger in America, a campaign started by Jeff Bridges. And a CSO to Wendybird, who is already a monthly contributor.

61A. "We recommend takeout": ITS GOOD TO GO.  I'm full, so let's wrap this up and take the rest of it with us -- here's the grid ...

Across:

1. "You said it!": YEAH.  So you agree then?

5. 2,000 pounds: ONE TON. 

11. Question marks: IFS.

14. Vogue rival: ELLE.  Today's French lesson: SHE.  ELLE is a worldwide women's magazine of French origin that offers a mix of fashion and beauty content, and society and lifestyle. This month's "It girl" is Victoria Ceretti.  Rumor has it that SHE and LEO are an item.

15. __ press: small appliance: PANINI.  A panino (Italian: [paˈniːno], meaning 'small bread', 'bread roll') or panini (pl.) is a sandwich made with Italian bread (such as ciabatta and michetta), usually served warm after grilling (in a PANINI press no less) or toasting.  We're out of counter space for another gadget.  We just use a toaster oven.

16. Carnival locale: RIO.  Today's Portuguese lesson: "river" and  a mononym for the city in Brazil, which we visited just last week. 

17. [Theme clue].

19. "Parks and __": REC.  Parks and Recreation (also known as Parks and REC) is an American political satire mockumentary television series starring Amy Poehler as Leslie Knope, a perky, mid-level bureaucrat in the Parks Department of the fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana.  The series aired on NBC from April 9, 2009, to February 24, 2015, for 125 episodes, over seven seasons ...

20. [Wake me when it's over]: SNORE.  Hold in there folks, we've got a lot more clues to cover. 😀

21. Summer hrs. in St. Louis: CDT.

22. Burkina __: FASO.  Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa, bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the south, and Ivory Coast to the southwest. As of 2021, the country had an estimated population of 20,321,378. Previously called Republic of Upper Volta (1958–1984), it was renamed Burkina Faso by President Thomas Sankara. Its citizens are known as Burkinabè, and its capital and largest city is Ouagadougou.

23. Hot mess: SNAFU. An acronym which will remain undefined. 😁

26. "There just wasn't any alternative": I HAD TO.  "There's always an alternative" -- of course it may be wrong!

28. [Theme clue].

32. Fibs: LIES.

33. Dethrone: OUST.

34. Meadowland: LEA.

35. __ of attrition: LAW.  This article describes Law of Attrition as a phrase that defines the rate at which an object or person will wear out over time. It states that every system deteriorates eventually, at a rate based on the combined additive effects of many small causes. The Law of Attrition applies to everything, even mechanical objects like cars and machines. It sound a lot like an application of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, an important law of physics that states that  the entropy (disorder) of a system increases over time.

36. Loc. of the Met and the Mets: NYC.

37. Darts player's asset: AIM.  For an American, Ted Lasso turns out to have an unexpectedly good AIM (as Ted is quick to point out this scene contains a bit of ungentlemanly language) ...

39. A-one: TOP.

42. Take to court: SUE.  Or one who starts a fist fight (a tad ungentlemanly as well). 

44. Fades away: EBBS.

46. Formally turn over: CEDE.

47. [Theme clue]

51. Trained retrievers?: VALETS.  😀

52. Itsy-bitsy: TEENY.  This version of the old Brian Hyland classic is rated completely G and these kids are really enjoying themselves completely clothed ...

53. Blows away: AWES.  This is the verb form: "to AWE".  Here are some synonyms for the noun form ...

... which seem to have fallen out of fashion.

54. [Snicker]: HEH.

56. Channel that airs floor debates: CSPAN.  A great place to watch paint dry.

60. Score better than a bogey: PAR.  A CSO to all the duffers on the Corner.

61. [Theme clue]

64. Compost bin bit: PIT. 

65. "Door's open!": COME IN.

66. Made like: APED.

67. Bro kin: SIS.

68. Rings mournfully: KNELLS. 

"I go and it is done; the bell invites me.

Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell

That summons thee to heaven or to hell."

Macbeth - Act 2, Scene 1

Lady Macbeth has just rung a bell, the signal that it’s time for Macbeth to kill Duncan. A knell is the solemn ringing of a church bell to announce someone’s death.

69. What's more?: LESS.  This perped, but I had to look up what it meant.

Down:

1. Desires: YENS.

2. North Carolina college town: ELON.  Finally a better clue than you know who.  Seems like a nice town.

3. Palo __, California: ALTO. Today's Spanish lesson: "tall stick", and the name of a famous Redwood Tree.

4. Publishing family: HEARSTS. The family started with George Hearst (September 3, 1820 – February 28, 1891), who made his money in the mining business.  His son William Randolph Hearst Sr. (April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His flamboyant methods of yellow journalism influenced the nation's popular media by emphasizing sensationalism and human interest stories.

William Randolph Hearst
circa 1910

5. Maker of Infinite Shine nail polish: OPI.  A CSO to Lucina!  It lasts forever.  This one is called Makeout-side ...

6. Badger: NAG.

7. Most-cooked parts of a roast: END CUTS.

8. Drew a conclusion?: TIED.

9. How reporters might act: ON A TIP.  Beginning in June of 1972 a series of tips regarding the most famous political scandal in modern times were provided to Washington Post investigative reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, by a tipster known then only as Deep Throat.  Woodward and Bernstein eventually wrote a book about their investigations called All the President's Men, which was later made into a film ...

  10. Nada: NIL.

11. Exposed to ultraviolet light, say: IRRADIATED.  UV IRRADIATION can be used as a means of sterilizing surfaces, liquids, air, and rooms and was recommended by the EPA during the COVID19 pandemic.

12. Quinceañera, for one: FIESTA.  The honoree at the celebration of a young Latina's 15th birthday.  The celebration is a FIESTA, but the word  Quinceañera proper refers to the young lady.

Quinceañera at a fiesta in Santa Fe, NM

13. "Love it!": SO COOL.

18. Out of shape: BENT.  Also murder mystery slang for a corrupt cop.

22. Watch part: FACE.

24. "Hey, sailor!": AHOY.  I'm tempted to sail with this, but I won't. 😁

25. Spigot: FAUCET.

27. Bridge feature: HELM.  Also Levon HELM, the drummer and singer for Dylan's old backup group The Band (a CSO to CanadianEh!),  .  Here he sings The Weight, the enigmatic song  by Robbie Robertson from their debut album Music from Big Pink...

Some thoughts on the meaning of the lyrics

28. Feeling green, perhaps: ILL.

29. "Chandelier" singer: SIA.  Sia Kate Isobelle Furler (born 18 December 1975) is an Australian singer and songwriter. Born and raised in Adelaide, she started her career as a singer in the acid jazz band Crisp in the mid-1990s.  I found the Chandelier video to be a bit too acrobatic, but Snowman was kind of cute ...

30. Some phone messages: NEWS ALERTS. 

31. Where a groom may walk down the aisle: STABLE. 😀.

36. __ egg: NEST.

38. Beachy spot: ISLE.

40. "__ to My Family": 1994 hit for The Cranberries: ODE.  One of the rewards of reviewing crosswords is renewing old friends ...

41. Part of rpm: PER.

43. Four Corners people: UTES.  UTE are the indigenous, or Native American people, of the Ute tribe and culture among the Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin. They had lived in sovereignty in the regions of present-day Utah and Colorado.  In addition to their ancestral lands within Colorado and Utah, their historic hunting grounds extended into current-day Wyoming, Oklahoma, Arizona, and New Mexico. The tribe also had sacred grounds outside their home domain that were visited seasonally.  The contemporary number of UTE members is only about 3000, but they are still very active in businesses such as cattle raising, oil, and natural gas.

45. Body wash option: BATH GEL.

46. Chandelier glass: CRYSTAL.  A clecho to 29D?

47. Streaming options: TV APPS.  For people into really small screens.

48. State with two official languages: HAWAII.  English was the second, the first was  ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi,  (pronunciation.)  The latter was used in Hawaii's public education system starting in 1840, but was later banned after the overthrow of the Hawaii government by private interests in the United States in 1898.  Beginning in 1985, after the number of native speakers had dwindled to less than 3 dozen, efforts got underway to revive the speaking of ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi.  In 2010 the census reported that 24,000 households identified Hawaiian as their dominant language.

A family of ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi speakers

49. Actor Kutcher: ASHTON.  Christopher Ashton Kutcher (born February 7, 1978) is an American actor, producer and entrepreneur. Kutcher began his acting career portraying Michael Kelso in the Fox sitcom That '70s Show (1998–2006). He made his film debut in the romantic comedy Coming Soon (1999), followed by the comedy film Dude, Where's My Car? (2000), which was his first box office success.

Ashton Kutcher

50. Like most music, once: ON CD.  I have scads of these, mostly classical, but also in many other genres (except RAP). But I rarely listen to them, except during fund drives for WBJC.

55. Vampire played by Elizabeth Reaser in the "Twilight" films: ESME.  Vampire movies don't really cut it for me, but if you feast on this sort of stuff, this article on ESME in the Twilight Saga Wiki might keep you enthralled for several lifetimes!🧛

Esme Cullen
played by Elizabeth Reaser

57. The bishop of Rome: POPE.  A bishop is a spiritual descendant of one of original Apostles. The first Bishop of Rome was Saint Peter, although he wasn't called POPE (literally "Papa" in Latin) during his lifetime.  Including Peter there have been a total of 266 Popes, as listed in the Pontifical Yearbook.  The current holder of that position is Argentinian Jorge Mario Bergoglio,  the first Pope from South America and the first to take the name of Francis, after the founder of the Franciscan Order (although Bergoglio was in the Jesuit Order before his elevation to the Papacy)  ...

Pope Francis

58. Years and years: AGES.

59. Gestures of assent: NODS.

61. "Gross!": ICK.

62. Sesame __: OIL.  Sesame OIL is a key ingredient in the dish Pine Nut and  Corn Stir Fry, inspired by a picture in one of  C.C's reviews.  The sesame oil is used to sauté the pine nuts.

63. Switch positions: ONS. This review has officially switched OFF.

Cheers,
Bill

And as always, thanks to Teri for proof reading and for her constructive criticism.

waseeley