Theme: "You have to find the key" to unlock this puzzle. The reveal entry was no help: 50D. Clue for 20-, 32-, 39- and 48-Across: LOCK.
20. See 50-Down: CERTAIN WINNER. "It's a lock." A Dutch book is a set of odds and bets which guarantees a profit to the bookmaker no matter what happens in the contest.
32. See 50-Down: HAIR CLUSTER. A tress, curl or ringlet. A common superstition is to keep a lock of hair from a baby's first haircut, for luck.
39. See 50-Down: CANAL DEVICE. Lock, in the sense of a barrier or an enclosure on a waterway.
48. See 50-Down: WRESTLING HOLD. Headlock, hammerlock, etc.
Al here.
This was tough, and a catch-22 at that. You needed the clue to get the theme, but you needed to solve the theme answers to figure out the clue. I think I spent close to 40 minutes on this one picking away a few letters at a time, some guesses, then looking away and seeing how to make words out of the few perps I could manage. The last letter to fall was the C at the cross of Cozened and Canal device. Imagine how that across word looked with the beginning letter missing... The three and four letter answers were outnumbered today: only 33, compared to 39 answers of five letters or longer.
ACROSS:
1. Home of Brigham Young University: PROVO. Utah.
6. __ Mahal: TAJ.
9. Fat substitute brand in some potato chips: OLEAN. A brand name for olestra, a fat substitute, infamous for its unpleasant side-effects, such as reduced digestive absorption of fat-soluble vitamins, and steatorrhea (I leave looking up this word to you). Although, to be fair, it can also bind with dioxins, the same as normal fat, and so might be useful someday to treat victims of dioxin poisoning.
14. Not loaded: SOBER. Misdirected to think of firearms and ammunition, so EMPTY came to mind.
15. Ambient music pioneer: ENO. Such works as "Music for Airports". It might make you sleepy and miss your flight...
16. Swindler with a scheme named for him: PONZI. A fraudulent scheme of paying investors a little from what is collected from continuous new investors. Bernie Madoff ran the largest one in history.
17. Hemlock, for one: EVERGREEN. An interesting choice for a clue. They do belong to the family of evergreens, but hemlock needles turn yellow and fall off just like deciduous trees, so they are not always green year-round.
19. Grain disease: ERGOT. Mainly affecting the rye family of grains, alkaloids are produced that if eaten can cause convulsions and even gangrene.
22. Covet: ENVY.
23. Battery, bond or baseball club designation: AAA. An AAA bond rating means the company issuing it is extremely credit-worthy, i.e. prime. BBB or lower are considered "junk" bonds. They go down to D or "in default". AAA minor league players can be invited up to play in the majors.
24. Belgrade's land: SERBIA. A portion of what was formerly Yugoslavia.
27. Libel and slander disputes are part of it: CIVIL LAW. A legal system inspired by Roman law, the primary feature of which is that laws are written into a collection, codified, and not (as in common law) determined by judges.
34. Brit. record co.: EMI. Electric & Music Industries, Ltd.
35. Spanish pronoun: ESTA.
36. Restful resort: SPA. Name taken from a mineral springs resort in Belgium. Waloon for spring, fountain.
37. Prayer opener: O GOD.
38. Old-fashioned get-together: BEE. As in the sense of social insects working busily together in a common cause.
43. "Beanz meanz Heinz," e.g.: AD SLOGAN. From Gaelic sluagh-ghairm, a battle cry used by Scottish Highland or Irish clans," from sluagh "army, host, slew" + gairm "a cry".
45. Truck capacity: ONE TON. Guessed at the TON ending, but had to wait for at least one perp for the rest.
46. AIDS-fighting drug: AZT. Azidothymidine.
47. __ dire: juror examination: VOIR. From O.Fr. voir “true” + dire “to say.”
54. Foreign: ALIEN. Xenophobia is the irrational fear of foreigners.
56. "The Dick Van Dyke Show" regular: ROSE MARIE. Her role was a comedy writer, Sally Rogers along with Buddy Sorrell, played by Morie Amsterdam.
57. __ Nast: CONDE. Worldwide publisher of such magazines as Vogue, Allure, Golf Digest, Wired, many others.
58. Winter hazard: ICE. Can't argue with that. Although, I wouldn't want to be out in this hailstorm in Georgia, and that's nothing to do with winter. If you click it, watch for at least 25 seconds.
59. Family nickname: AUNTY. Hubby? Wifey? Sissy?
60. Tolerated: STOOD. "That's all I can stands, I can't stands no more." ala Popeye the sailor.
61. Gives the go-ahead: OKS. A long explanation and debunking of other explanations: oll korrect, a deliberate misspelling.
62. Tart fruit: SLOES. They do look like little plums.
DOWN:
1. Minute segment of a min.: PSEC. Picosecond. That is one trillionth, or 0.000 000 000 001 seconds. A picosecond is to one second as one second is to 31,700 years.
2. Wander: ROVE.
3. Upper, in Ulm: OBER. German city, word for over, as in above.
4. Spinal column component: VERTEBRA.
5. Like some farming: ORGANIC.
6. Minute: TEENY.
7. Fresh way to start: ANEW.
8. "Help Me" vocalist Mitchell: JONI.
9. Alfresco: OPEN AIR. Confusingly, al fresco also means "painted on plaster that is still wet".
10. Maker of EverPure shampoo: LOREAL.
11. Former Caltech sr., perhaps: ENGR. Senior in college, Engineer abbrevs.
12. __ dye: chemical coloring: AZO. JZB just explained this the other day.
13. Little thing to pick: NIT. I always wonder why this has a bad connotation. Seems like a useful service. I wouldn't to leave them on me.
18. Competitor: RIVAL. Latin rivalis originally, "one who uses the same stream" (or "one on the opposite side of the stream"), from rivus "brook" The notion is of the competitiveness of neighbors.
21. Basilica section: NAVE. The main portion of a church, connected with naval from Latin navis "ship" based on some vague resemblance.
24. Ancient queendom: SHEBA.
25. Let up: EASED.
26. Customary ceremonies: RITES.
27. It covers the Hill: C-SPAN. Live TV coverage of the House of Representatives. C-Span2 covers the Senate. If Brian Eno's ambient music was being played on either station, you'd never wake up...
28. Da Vinci's lang.: ITAL.ian
29. On the up and up: LEGIT.
30. It started as Standard Oil of Indiana: AMOCO. American Oil Co, now merged with British Petroleum.
31. Expand: WIDEN.
33. John McCain's alma mater: Abbr.: USNA. United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD.
37. Revamp: OVERHAUL. Originally nautical, "pull rigging apart for examination," which was done by slackening the rope by pulling in the opposite direction to that in which it is pulled in hoisting.
39. Hoodwinked: COZENED. Uncertain origin, but perhaps from French cousiner "cheat on pretext of being a cousin;" or from Middle English cosyn "fraud, trickery"
40. "The X-Files" extras: Abbr.: AGTS. FBI agents and extra terrestrials. What's not to love? The truth is out there.
41. Ridd's love, in a Blackmore romance: DOONE. Lorna.
42. They're hard to figure out: ENIGMAS. Riddles. Same length, too.
44. Rio Grande city: LAREDO. Texas.
47. Workshop gadgets: VISES.
48. Skid row figure: WINO.
49. Charlie's Angels, e.g.: TRIO. Tricky, since there were six of them, just not all at the same time.
51. "Deal __ Deal": OR NO. Howie Mandel's game show. Wishful thinking. For the money, of course; what did you think I meant?
52. Lo-cal: LITE.
53. Bygone Tunisian rulers: DEYS. "Title of a military commander in Muslim north Africa," from Turk. dai "maternal uncle," a friendly title used of older men, especially by the Janissaries of Algiers of their commanding officers.
54. Summer coolers, briefly: ACS. Air conditioners.
55. Used car site: LOT.
Answer Grid
Al
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