Crossword Edited by Will Shortz
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 countryand-western 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?