Theme: I, for one, welcome our new bird overlords. All the theme answers start with a type of bird that, except for the center, when taken in full are not actually about birds per se. The clues are all indicated with a "?" to indicate a wacky interpretation.
18. Bird bonnet?: ROBIN HOOD. Speculation on his "realness" mostly debunked, a few shreds of speculative coincidence for two different men named Robert Hood.
24. Bird boo-boo?: CARDINAL SIN. The final seven: wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony.
34. Bird brain?: CHICKEN NOODLE. Soup or flavored pasta, it still contains chicken.
50. Bird backpackers?: EAGLE SCOUTS. Gerald Ford was the only US President to ever be one.
56. Bird bottoms?: KITE TAILS. A kite is a raptor in the same family as hawks, eagles and other birds of prey.
Al here.
Did you notice a lot of artist references, or is it just me? Composers, painters, Actors, directors, poets, writers, performers. Or, maybe that's just another way to say there were a lot of proper names in the puzzle. Even so, most of the cluing didn't seem all that tricky. I didn't need any helper squares, and finished it faster than Dan's puzzle yesterday.
ACROSS:
1. Bouillabaisse base: BROTH. Fish stew. The broth is made using olive oil, onions, garlic, celery, bay leaf, pepper, thyme, fish bones, water and wine. Alliterative clue and answer.
6. "Coffee Cantata" composer: BACH. A small excerpt.
10. "Once I had ... love and it was __": Blondie lyric: A GAS. Heart of Glass. This clip contains the original PITA phrase that they had to clean up to perform on TV. Most wouldn't give it a second thought today.
14. So out it's in: RETRO. Latin prefix meaning: backwards, behind.
15. In unison, musically: A DUE.
16. Caffeine source: COLA. Kola nuts. And 30D. 16-Across, e.g.: SODA.
17. One of Israel's 12 tribes: ASHER. I'm pretty sure this refers to the 12 sons of Jacob who became tribal patriarchs: 1-Reuben 2-Simeon 3-Levi 4-Judah 5-Dan 6-Naphtali 7-Gad 8-Asher 9-Issachar 10-Zebulun 11-Joseph (and his amazing technicolor dreamcoat) 12-Benjamin.
20. Shows scorn: SNEERS.
22. Director Wertmüller: LINA. The original "Swept Away" movie before the, perhaps, not so great Madonna remake.
23. Hound over a debt: DUN."to insist on payment of debt," 1620s, perhaps related to dunnen "to sound, resound, make a din", or shortened from dunkirk "privateer," a private vessel licensed to attack enemy ships during wartime, from Dunkirk, French port from which they sailed. The oldest theory traces it to a Joe Dun, supposedly a London bailiff famous for catching defaulters.
26. Ruby of "A Raisin in the Sun": DEE. With Sidney Poitier.
27. Favorable times, as for pics: OPS. Photo ops.
28. Marshland: FEN.
29. Afternoon services: TEA SETS.
31. Mazda MX-5, familiarly: MIATA. Zoom Zoom.
33. Granola grains: OATS.
39. Author Silverstein: SHEL. Cartoonist, poet, and songwriter. Along with his children's books, he also wrote "The Unicorn Song" which was a big hit for the Irish Rovers.
40. First first name in Olympic gymnastic tens: NADIA. Comăneci. She grew up...
41. Cardinal Cooke: TERENCE. Later Archbishop of New York.
45. 1,000 G's: MIL. Million, one megabuck.
46. Free TV ad: PSA. Public Service Announcement. No longer a mandate that stations must air them for free.
49. Suffix with expert: ISE.
53. Cubs, on scoreboards: CHI. One of two Chicago baseball teams.
54. Morlock haters: ELOI. The Time Machine races.
55. Clawed: TORE AT.
59. "Tootsie" Oscar winner: LANGE. Jessica. Best Supporting Actress.
60. Ireland, to poets: ERIN. Always need to wait for perps to distinguish from EIRE.
61. Cuba, to Castro: ISLA. Spanish for island.
62. Polecat relative: OTTER. Interesting factoid. Another: fishermen in southern Bangladesh have bred otters and trained them to chase fish into their nets.
63. Something to take lying down: REST.
64. It helps you get up: STEP. I liked the proximity of this clue with the previous clue, both a little tricky, too.
65. Orchestra section: REEDS.
DOWN:
1. 1997 Depp title role: BRASCO. Joseph Dominick Pistone, alias Donnie Brasco, is a former FBI agent who worked undercover for six years infiltrating two of the Five Families of the Mafia in New York City. He wrote the book Donnie Brasco, which became the movie. Not to be confused with "Donnie Darko", which was an entirely different Mad World.
2. Close again, as a change purse: RE-SNAP. I don't know if this should be hyphenated or not. Funny word, the "re" is kind of unnecessary.
3. Unlisted ones: OTHERS. Et al.
4. Cornered, in a way: TREED.
5. Frightful: HORRIFIC. Literally: hair-raising.
6. Milky Way, e.g.: BAR. Galaxy didn't fit.
7. "Be __": "Help me out": A DOLL. This seems like an old movie line, but I can't quite place it... If you try a search like I did, be careful what you click on, the word doll seems to return lots of "interesting" results.
8. Georges Braque, for one: CUBIST. Picasso is another. In cubist artworks, objects are broken up, analyzed, and re-assembled in an abstracted form—instead of depicting objects from one viewpoint, the artist depicts the subject from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in a greater context. Often the surfaces intersect at seemingly random angles, removing a coherent sense of depth.
9. Bum: HEINIE. Prat. Fanny (US). Arse (UK).
10. Oberhausen "Oh!": ACH. German.
11. Considerable amount: GOOD DEAL.
12. Traditional song with the line "Je te plumerai": ALOUETTE. Anyone else have to sing this as a round back when they were in school?
13. Blue state: SADNESS. No politics, please...
19. Zola novel: NANA. Emile Zola. What a cheerful book. A story of a prostitute who destroys every man who pursues her. Several are ruined financially, others commit suicide, one with scissors, another burns himself to death in his barn. In the end, she dies of smallpox described in graphic detail. Critically acclaimed, of course.
21. Furtive type: SNEAK. Root words for sneak and snake are related.
25. Get in the game: ANTE. From Latin: before. Paying to play (cards).
31. Miss's equal?: MILE. idiom: "A miss is as good as a mile." Close only counts in horseshoes. Close but no cigar.
32. Landers with advice: ANN. As well as her sister Abigail Van Buren. (Dear Abby)
34. Wonderland cat: CHESHIRE. Grinning like one actually pre-dates Lewis Carrol. John Wolcot (Peter Pindar) used it in his satire, but the phrase was probably common before being written down. One interesting possible guess is that some influential family in Cheshire, with a lion rampant as its crest, employed some sign painter to paint the crest on the signboards of many of the inns. The painter was none too sure of the appearance of a lion and the final result looked, to the country folk, like an attempt to depict a grinning cat.
35. Finder's cry: HERE IT IS.
36. Title: NAME.
37. Keats or Shelley: ODIST. I'll leave poetry to the experts...
38. Artist's choice: OIL COLOR.
39. Price that's rarely paid: STICKER.
42. Depilatory brand: NEET. Name has been changed to Veet.
43. French city near a Chunnel terminus: CALAIS.
44. Diva, stereotypically: EGOIST. At least they have a sense of humor about themselves...
46. Mambo bandleader Tito: PUENTE.
47. Faked, as a fight: STAGED.
48. Autumn blooms: ASTERS. From a Greek word meaning star.
51. Former French textile city: LILLE. L'Isle, the island, in a mostly marshy area. So named for the castle of the counts of Flanders built on dry land in the middle of the marsh.
52. Use the soapbox: ORATE.
57. Tolkien's Treebeard is one: ENT. Tolkien borrowed "Ent" from the (same) Anglo-Saxon word meaning "giant".
58. Doofus: SAP. Probably from earlier sapskull, from sap as a shortened form of sapwood "soft wood between the inner bark and the heartwood, that is to say, "soft in the head".
Answer Grid
Al
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