The new york times
Soft Options | Byron Walden
ACROSS
1 Hearten
7 “... and it flopped” 11 Attack with
snowballs, say 15 Graceful bird 19 Crossword header 20 Clearer in
hindsight?
22 ____ Winans, 12-time Grammywinning gospel singer
23 Apollo 11 landing
spot
25 Eligible receiver? 26 Quickly maturing
security, for short 27 Helps
28 Flying terrors of
myth
29 With 42-Down, Oscars category
from 1963 to 2019 30 Misfortunes 31 Semicircular recess 32 Items used by barkeepers, barbecuers and blacksmiths 34 Wackadoodle 35 Enhanced tape format released in 1987
37 Beat poet Cassady 38 Spewed forcefully 40 Take off the board 43 À la ____ (spitroasted)
47 Spree
48 Black-____
albatross 49 Knee-jerk
response
50 Remove cargo from 53 Describing the
32-Down’s image 55 Milk source 56 Impends 57 Inscribed with
some ancient characters 58 Whirling toon,
familiarly
59 Order, in a way 60 Nonfiction films,
informally 61 Metaphor from an
hourglass
64 “Come ____!” 65 This: Sp.
66 Sitcom planet of
the ‘70s and ‘80s 67 Animal life 68 Pondered
69 It’s probably over
your head
70 One star, typically 73 Relentless
go-getters
74 Carl XVI ____
(king of Sweden beginning in 1973) 76 Little bump
77 Eve’s third son 78 Soccer chant 79 ____ 3000, half of the hip-hop duo Outkast
80 Persuade with
patter
84 A majority 86 Offensive football
positions
88 Ruby of “The Jackie
Robinson Story” 89 Edgar Rice Burroughs novel, with “The”
94 Talk Like a Pirate
Day outbursts 95 Dormer section 96 Turn aside 97 Actress Amanda 98 Taking a bow at the
symphony?
99 Waif
100 “A warehouse of facts, with poet and ____ in joint ownership” (“The Devil’s Dictionary” definition for “imagination”)
101 Its motto is “Agriculture and Commerce”
104 Opposite of exo105 Woe for a speeder 106 ____ Blinken, Biden’s secretary of state
107 Bit of “kit chat” 108 1974 spoof with the
tagline “Would you buy a used secret
from these men?” 109 Bits of machinery 110 Latin phrase meaning “based on forecasts”
DOWN
1 Having legs
2 Cool shade 3 Weakness
4 Sledge, wedge, etc. 5 Sports org. with the Pittsburgh Maulers and Philadelphia Stars
6 SFO setting: Abbr. 7 Sang hosannas to 8 Car part the Brits
call a “wing” 9 Heading for commonly sought info
10 Capote nickname 11 ____ light 12 Sweeping works 13 Reveals
14 Don’t give up 15 Intellectual
movement
16 Tyke
17 Performing well on 18 Candy with two
flavors in one box 21 Flexible cutters 24 Kid Cudi or Lil Baby,
e.g.
29 Fixed look 31 Enveloping
atmospheres 32 Pope Pius XII called it “a holy thing perhaps like nothing else” 33 Odor-fighting spray
brand
35 Parts of some
brackets
36 “Yankee Doodle”
has 16 of them 39 Entertainers
with bright futures
41 Partner of poivre 42 See 29-Across 44 Juice regimen 45 Like épées vis-à-vis
foils
46 Stretches out 48 Curve
50 Experience
51 Music genre for
Erykah Badu and D’Angelo
52 Many people find it
intolerable
53 About 98% of the
human genome 54 Word meaning
“desire” in a classic Sanskrit text 57 ____ avis
61 Big tear-jerker 62 Went under
63 Word with fine or
signature
68 Hands, in slang 71 1980s White House
nickname
72 Dilute something, in
a way
73 Battery parts?
75 Up in the air 77 Maker of the Ring in “The Lord of the Rings”
80 Surgical instrument
with thumbholes 81 Joy who wrote
“Born Free” 82 Forgiving
83 Talent for
discernment 85 Mic-check noise 87 Cattle-ranch
identifier
89 “The Crucible”
setting
90 Sheepish? 91 “Swell!”
92 “I can do this. Hit
me.”
93 Some 10-pointers in
Greek Scrabble 95 Dish made from
durum, say
98 Prefix with futurism
99 Kids of boomers
101 Grads-to-be: Abbr. 102 Not prescription, in
brief
103 Scottish negative