Theme: Aye-aye sir. Various ways to answer in the affirmative appear at the starts of the answers to starred clues Tip off in the clue for 66A. Parliamentary votes : YEAS.
1. *Hip-hopper who married Beyoncé (German): JAY-Z.
20. *Old stories (English): YESTERDAY'S NEWS.
28. *Inferred cosmic substance (Russian): DARK MATTER. Matter that cannot be detected directly, but "must" exist because "something" massive is interacting with the observed gravitational behavior of the matter that can be detected.
44. *Séance device (French): OUIJA BOARD. Actually, the trademarked name comes from combining two "yes" words, OUI and JA. That makes this answer stand out a bit from the others.
51. *Fatal problem in Genesis (Spanish): SIBLING RIVALRY. Cain v. Abel.
Al here.
A fairly "agreeable" puzzle today, no? Kind of slow starting, but once it got going, it filled in faster for me than yesterday's. More than a few obscure names and places make this a Thursday puzzle, though.
ACROSS:
5. Sturdy fabric: DENIM. From French serge de Nîmes, cloth from a town in southern France.
10. Delhi wrap: SARI. Women's wear in India. Also has an alternate of spelling saree. A seemingly infinite variety of styles.
14. Movie apiarist: ULEE. Peter Fonda's character in Ulee's Gold was a beekeeper.
15. Like sandalwood leaves: OVATE.
16. Green Zone site: IRAQ. A heavily fortified central portion of Baghdad that contained several palaces of Saddam Husein. The International Zone. Also a recent movie about the same starring Matt Damon.
17. Gets into: DONS. Puts on clothing.
18. Brewers' kilns: OASTS.
19. Things you saw while out?: LOGS. Sawing logs, slang for snoring.
23. "Paris, je t'__": 2006 film: AIME. (Paris, I love you) a film made up of 18 short stories, and had 22 directors.
24. Charged particle: ION.
25. Nashville awards gp.: CMA. Country Music Awards.
33. Mythological ride: CARPET. Close your eyes, girl, or if you prefer, don't you dare close your eyes.
35. Derisive cry: YAH. If you say so, I guess.
36. Pivotal part: CRUX. Latin for "cross".
38. Bug, perhaps: ERROR. Latin errare, wander, go astray.
39. Hottie: FOX. Obligatory pic. Just don't google images for her with the word "thumbs"...
40. Easternmost state: MAINE. Ayuh is another way to say yes.
41. "Don't touch that __!": DIAL.
42. Body art, in slang: TAT.
43. High-speed raptor: FALCON. Raptor (Latin) and rapid are related words. To call a raptor high-speed is sort of redundant.
47. Former World No. 1 tennis player Ivanovic: ANA. What is it that draws attractive women to tennis?
48. With 6-Down, one in fear of an audit: TAX. and 6. See 48-Across: EVADER.
49. "Dagnabit!": RATS. Charlie Brown's second-favorite interjection, especially at Halloween. "Rats, another rock."
58. Colombia neighbor: PERU.
59. Funnel-shaped: CONED.
60. Architect Mies van der __: ROHE. Father of "modern" architecture. i.e. big square buildings with lots of glass. Also tubular steel furniture.
61. Animal shelter: LAIR. Related to "lie", as in lie down.
62. Gather: AMASS.
63. Intuited: KNEW. Not quite the same? My sense of the word is to perceive or guess immediately without thinking, but without knowing beforehand. Maybe I'm wrong.
64. About: OR SO.
65. Greet respectfully: BOW TO.
DOWN:
1. Kids' author Blume: JUDY.
2. Succulent plant: ALOE.
3. Dieters may fight them: YENS.
4. Keebler cracker: ZESTA. Saltines competition.
5. Pushover: DOORMAT.
7. Org. with rovers: NASA. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Rover as a remote exploration vehicle, not a dog. SPCA for first thoughts anyone?
8. __-bitty: ITTY.
9. Handel bars?: MESSIAH. Cute musical pun, bars of music, Handle's Messiah. (famously, the Hallelujah chorus)
10. '20s White House nickname: SILENT CAL. Coolidge. 30th president. A possibly apocryphal story has it that Dorothy Parker, seated next to him at a dinner, said to him, "Mr. Coolidge, I've made a bet against a fellow who said it was impossible to get more than two words out of you." His famous reply: "You lose."
11. ... ducks in __: A ROW. Explanations from decorative plaster ducks on the mantle in the 70's, to shooting galleries, are everywhere, but the likely origin is much simpler, think of the image of a mother duck leading her ducklings across a pond, which could have been observed ever since there were ducks.
12. Poverty, in metaphor: RAGS. From rags to riches.
13. Brightness nos.: IQS. I wanted something to do with lumens, or other light sources.
21. Down source: EIDER. Harvested from nests after the ducklings mature and leave it.
22. "Kidding!": NOT! Popularized by Wayne's World skits and movies (from SNL).
25. Included in the e-mail chain: CCED. Carbon Copied, a holdover from business snail mail. You can still buy carbon paper, but why?
26. Video game plumber: MARIO. Nintendo's go-to guy has appeared in over 200 games since 1981 where he was "jumpman" in the Donkey Kong arcade game.
27. Pianist Claudio: ARRAU. From Chile, which also neighbors 58A.Peru. Moonlight Sonata.
29. Honshu city: KYOTO. The Koyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emission reduction (the US has reused to participate) was first adopted there. And 45D. Airline to 29-Down: JAL.
30. Top limit: MAX.
31. Actress Durance who plays Lois on "Smallville": ERICA. On the one hand it wasn't clued with (Erica) Jong. On the other, hand, if you're not into comic book heroes made into TV shows, you're unlikely to have heard of her. This year is the last season for Smallville, which has been somewhat more soapy than super. We don't know yet if Ms. Durance has a fear of flying yet, as the red and blue blur has not figured out how to do it yet in this alternate Superman story line.
32. Bad sentence: RUN ON.
34. Former Kremlin policymaker: POLITBURO.
37. TV princess: XENA. Lucy Lawless.
39. Terrif: FAB.
40. Former sketch comedy that used Don Martin cartoons: MAD TV.
42. Hailed ride: TAXICAB.
43. "I wish 'twere otherwise": 'FRAID SO.
46. Slap the cuffs on: ARREST.
50. Like a biting remark, in British slang: SARKY. Sarcastic.
51. Burn slightly: SEAR.
52. Novelist Murdoch: IRIS. Apparently one of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945. Sorry to say her work is completely unknown to me.
53. Pitcher Hideo: NOMO. First Japanese major leaguer to relocate to US MLB (Dodgers).
54. Chew: GNAW. Sort of an onomatopoetic word.
55. Unaccompanied: LONE. Had SOLO at first.
56. Flightless bird: RHEA. Finally. Something other than EMU. Not new to crosswords, though.
57. Trees used to make longbows: YEWS. Foliage is poisonous, especially to horses. Rare to poison humans, unless you're like Ewell Gibbons and eat everything in the forest. (Actually, that's not true. Ewell died of a complications due to a genetic disorder, not from eating pine trees.)
58. Abbas's gp.: PLO. Palestine Liberation Organization. Mahmoud Abbas succeeded Yasser Arafat.
Answer Grid
Al
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