The New York Times crossword puzzle
Across
1 Skunk’s defense
5 High school exam, for short
9 Reddish-purple salad ingredient
13 Apple TV+ alternative
14 Shakespeare villain who says “I am not what I am”
15 Literature Nobelist Alice
16 They’re long for an underdog
17 Steffi with seven Wimbledon titles
18 Church choir accompaniment
19 Temp job?
22 ___/her pronouns
24 Prevailed
25 Necklace that can be made with kukui nuts
26 Prefix with liberal or conservative
27 Union job?
31 Ones potentially contacted in “first contact”
32 Vowel sound at the end of
15- and 26-Across
33 “La Vie en Rose” singer Edith
34 End of a hairy limb
35 Watery or papery
39 Yiddish “Yikes!”
42 Have ambitions (to)
44 Flex job?
47 It sells, it’s said
48 MSNBC competitor
49 Chaired
50 Like the opening of Mahler’s Symphony No. 9
51 Dream job?
55 It travels at nearly 300 million meters per second
56 Apple Store offerings
57 Story of one’s life?
60 “Music is powered by ___”: Yo-Yo Ma
61 Olympian’s sword
62 Fuzzy bit of car décor
63 Literature Nobelist Morrison
64 Some lab liquids
65 Like Scotch
Down
1 “Well, well, well!”
2 Fizzling firework
3 Encyclopedia volumes vis-àvis Wikipedia, e.g.
4 Deceptive trick
5 Old-fashioned message carriers
6 South Asian wrap
7 Petri dish filler 8 Coming up next
9 Small town
10 Driving force?
11 One might take off a few marks
12 Spanish for “foolish”
15 What may be heard in a herd
20 Exact lookalike
21 Slim and trim
22 Give this for that
23 Lead-in to pad
28 Clear up, as ski goggles
29 Works in a theater
30 Likely to offend, in brief
34 George Eliot and George Orwell, for two
36 Really prosper
37 ___ Man, one of the Avengers
38 Wonkish sort
40 America’s Cup vessels
41 Bottleful in un ristorante
42 It was once the world’s fourth-largest lake
43 Sch. system with campuses in Buffalo and Binghamton
44 Affirmative reply to “Understand?”
45 Earth’s most abundant element
46 Bullet with a trail
47 Bad break in bowling
52 Spiced tea
53 Scruff of the neck
54 Many a cocktail mixer
58 “Rocks” in a cocktail
59 Big name in online talks