The New York Times Crossword
Answers below
ACROSS
1 Reality checks?
9 Raze
16 Austin Powers catchphrase
17 Family tree
18 Highway crossing
19 Fail
20 N.B.A. impossibility 21 Perp alert
23 Mob man
24 Sequentially arranged 28 Explains in detail 32 Container weight allowances
33 Clever quip
35 LAX scanners (but not lax ones, one hopes) 36 Unit of cellphone reception
37 Uncle Sam’s land, informally
40 Dating axiom … or a hint to interpreting four pairs of answers in this puzzle
46 “Natural” at the craps table
47 “Unbelievable!,” in internet shorthand 48 Hypothetical degree 49 Road runners?
52 Jazz great Shaw
54 Like an impromptu remark
56 Keep wearing
58 Name for two Spice Girls
59 Well-seasoned
61 Mobile ___
62 Rehearsed to perfection
66 Excite, as a crowd 71 Conforming to accepted values
72 Some desert dwellers 73 Eerie
74 Many country-andwestern dances
DOWN
1 Admit (to)
2 “Now I remember who sang ‘Take On Me’!” 3 “Washington Week” airer
4 One being quizzed 5 Conductors may conduct them
6 “Never ___ ever ...” 7 Boston’s Mass. ___ 8 Lab liquids
9 It goes viral in winter 10 Director Justin of the “Fast & Furious” franchise
11 “Wait, there’s more …” 12 Prop used for kickoffs 13 Entering after the bell 14 Food items originally called Froffles
15 It may glow in the dark 22 Luau side dish
24 Title role for Tom Hanks in 2022
25 Scraping tools
26 Arrange loosely 27 Without ice or mixer 29 “Agreed!”
30 Where trailers wind up
31 Spanish love
34 Start to fix?
36 “You got it!”
38 Colorful Coke brand 39 End of Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible”
41 Place to put the dough 42 Email function depicted with a paper plane icon 43 Brasilia-to-rio dir. 44 Playground retort 45 “America” pronoun 50 “I wish!”
51 Jets pass in it, for short
52 Lead dogs
53 Split hairs again? 54 Where Lear exclaims “Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!”
55 Despite the fact that, informally
57 ___ cheese
58 Video format
60 Tidy up, in a way 63 Bad-mouth
64 L.G.B.T. History Mo. 65 Mart start
67 Dog on a cat? 68 Emmy-nominated Issa 69 Economic fig.
70 End of days?