The New York Times Crossword

ACROSS

1 Deciding contest

7 Musical whose preshow warning about cellphone use says that knights “may drag you onstage and impale you”

15 God on a mission?

16 Cry after a

windfall

17 What might keep you on pins and needles?

18 Bit of gear for

gliding

19 Personal struggles

personified

21 ___ Carter, mostrecorded jazz bassist in history

22 Critics’ picks,

informally

23 Eldest daughter of Oceanus and mother of Nike

25 Source of milk for

Manchego cheese

28 Comme ci, comme

ça

30 European airline that was nationalized from 1944 to 2001

34 Boston Harbor

detritus, once

36 Cartoonist

Groening

38 Hands and feet

39 Trancelike state during a monotonous drive 42 Northern

hemisphere?

43 Antivenoms, e.g.

44 World’s rarest

goose

45 Symbol found in Pac-man and on slot machines

47 Going ___

49 Rode the bench

50 First, and so far only, chimpanzee to orbit Earth

52 Its tributaries have colorful names

54 Cry from Homer

57 “I want to, but really I shouldn’t ...”

62 [Violin emoji]

64 Stand-up person?

65 “You did great!”

66 Moving company?

67 Suboptimal

ending

68 Name on an

envelope

DOWN

1 Sitarist Shankar

2 Informed of

3 Time to draw?

4 “Getting ___ is no problem. You just have to live long enough”: Groucho Marx

5 Jardín contents

6 Post-thanksgiving meal drowsiness, familiarly

Edited by Will Shortz No. 0216

7 Compete in a

freestyle, e.g.

8 Cowboy Bill

9 Coy response to a

compliment

10 Casually chic

updo

11 Original tablet

holder

12 Makeup artist?

13 Prefix with

-genarian

14 Storyteller’s

transition

20 Bacon bits

24 Noble gas used in propelling ion thrusters

25 Code of conduct

26 Carefully consider

27 Boston College

athlete

29 Check box in a

survey

31 Stands

32 1986 rock

autobiography

33 Selling point

35 Prop (up)

37 Cruel ruler

40 Spent

41 Ones in a waiting

room

46 Drink brand that sounds like a shout

48 Novelist Leonard

51 Act bullish?

53 Printer brand

54 Slips into

55 Where Life Savers and pop-top cans were both invented

56 Howard or

Spelman: Abbr.

58 Hit, in a way

59 Fall sound

60 Brood

61 It’s got a big

mouth

63 “Jingle Bells”

contraction