LAST SUNDAY’S SOLUTION
The Medusa touch
ACROSS
1 Baldwin and Guinness 6 Pines’ cousins
10 Google Play buy
13 In recent times
19 A ton of, in Tijuana 20 All over
21 Outstanding examples on display
23 Hot and bubbling
24 All over
25 Adds a little dash to? 26 Ballpoint topper 28 Kind of tide 30 Nighttime light from a clear sky
31 Creole cooking pod 32 Actor Flynn
34 __ standstill
35 Writer Fleming 36 Doll’s call
38 Bean curd
40 Person with a mouth-related nervous habit
44 In a crowd of
45 Some breads and whiskeys
46 Equine beast
47 Blaze fighter’s helmet 51 Facilities for processing a paddy product 53 Pep rally yells
55 Big bay windows 56 Cope (with)
57 See 33-Down
59 Env. directive
61 Back of the neck 62 Revolutionary Guevara 64 Baking pans
66 Tall conifer of California
68 Revise copy
69 __ -Cola
71 This instant
72 __ Zedong
73 Grand __ wine 74 Clamors 75 Cyber-chuckles 76 French painter Manet 78 1996 running mate Jack
80 Once named
81 Rival of Hertz
82 Long period
83 Haiku, e.g.
85 Gavel noise 87 Low-status, as labor 89 Treatment tablet 91 Like fattening food 95 Be the chairperson 97 Plato’s “T” 98 Toward the mouth, to an anatomist
99 Bungee, e.g.
100 Large plant with fronds
102 Hershey’s toffee bar 103 Long periods
104 Turkey Day tuber
107 __ -mo
108 Slack-jawed
110 Actress Chaplin
112 Strangely beautiful quality
116 German for “genuine” 117 Quick-to-build house 120 Very strictly organized
122 Rx orders
124 World-weary
125 Navy aerobatic team 126 A Great Lake
127 Singer Goulding
128 Sloping
129 Decompose
130 Oct. preceder
131 Bob of folk
DOWN
1 “Do I need to draw you __?”
2 Garage job
3 Recession
4 Maine’s state bird, e.g. 5 Of the sun
6 Craze
7 By a single decisive action
8 “Get Shorty” actress 9 Cuss
10 Burnt residue
11 __ ed (gym class) 12 Flip-top’s relative 13 1995 war film with Danny Glover and Ray Liotta
14 Fish features
15 Emmy winner Remini 16 Second part of a play 17 Singer __ Marie
18 Ruhr Valley city 22 “Suppose …” 27 Ancestry via the father’s side
29 Event at which people enter frigid water
33 With 57-Across, singer with the 1994 #1 hit “Stay”
36 Tarnish
37 Pal, in Paris
39 Olive of comics 41 “Baloney!”
Libra (Sept.23-Oct. 23). Your needs may be at war with their independence.
Scorpio (Oct. 24-Nov. 21). The universe may test your resilience in the face of life’s major transitions.
Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 21). Victory at any cost! Your penchant to take risks is amplified. Charge ahead. 42 Goof up
43 Held in check
48 Likely to run into adversity
49 Of Swiss peaks 50 African fly
52 Wrestling pad
54 Wall Street fluctuation 58 Witty Bombeck 60 Lacerated 62 Letter-shaped vise 63 Vacuum cleaner brand 65 Lymph __
67 Dingbat
70 Help
77 Form a group
79 Golf norm
84 Planet’s livable zone 86 Overly modest type 88 Smog soils it 90 Actress __ Flynn Boyle 92 Philosopher __ -tzu 19). Your passions fuel your very core. Take responsibility for that inner fire.
Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 18). A statement you make may rattle a few cages.
Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20). Financial matters can trigger conflicts in partnerships today. Has the situation been sucking away your resources? 93 Investment option, in brief
94 Investment options, in brief
96 Trapping morays, say 101 Promote
104 California’s __ Buena Island
105 Skating leaps
106 Media bigwig
109 Peaks
111 Formed into a ball
113 “__ yellow ribbon …” 114 Somali supermodel 115 Prefix with drama
118 Laos’ home
119 “It’s __ real!”
121 June hrs.
123 Stage design
“Here’s the deal, my boy,” the Ethiopian King Cepheus told the young hero Perseus. “Make six spades in this deal and marry my daughter, the fair Andromeda. Fail and we feed you to that sea monster, Cetus, we’ve had problems with. You see, Queen Cassiopeia was vain enough to compare her beauty to the Nereid, and Poseidon got quite upset.
“West leads the eight of diamonds.” Perseus surveyed the layout. He saw 10 sure tricks: five trumps, three hearts and the minor-suit aces. No doubt the cards lay badly: the missing hearts didn’t break evenly, and both minorsuit kings were wrong.
Perseus took the ace of diamonds and ruffed a diamond with the ace of trumps, preparing to reverse the dummy. He led a trump to dummy’s eight, ruffed a diamond high and led a trump to the nine, relieved to see East-West follow suit. He ruffed the last diamond, returned to dummy with the queen of hearts and drew the missing trump with the jack.
Perseus next took the A-K of hearts. When West discarded, Perseus exited with his fourth heart, and East had to lead a club from his king, conceding the 12th trick. Other winning lines of play were possible – even if declarer just drew trumps, East would be in trouble for discards – but Perseus’s line was elegant.
“Not bad,” Cepheus admitted. “By the way, I forgot to mention that at the moment, Andromeda is chained to a rock down by the coast. The oracle said we must sacrifice her to Cetus to save the situation. So what’s your track record against sea monsters?”
South dealer
N-S vulnerable