Ripley's love / Sat 8-27-11 / What Faroe Islands granted 1948 / Oblong temptation / Camels' resting places

Constructor: Ashton Anderson



Relative difficulty: Easy





THEME: None

Word of the Day: ORLOP (16A: Lowest deck on a ship) —

The orlop is the lowest deck in a ship (except for very old ships). It is the deck or part of a deck where the cables are stowed, usually below the water line. It has been suggested the name originates from "overlooping" of the cables.



It has also been suggested that the name is a corruption of "overlap", referring to an overlapping, balcony-like half deck occupying a portion of the ship's lowest deck space. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word descends from Dutch overloop from the verb overlopen, "to run (over); extend".

From Wikipedia (natch)

• • •

I’m Wade, and I’ll be your blogger today. (Fresh ground sarcasm, sir? Zest of buffoonery, madam?)



We’ll tune in to the regularly scheduled puzzle write-up in a moment. But first:



I got a charge yesterday out of Seth’s friend’s Kickstarter video. I don’t know the guy from Adam Rich, but I’m generally eager to sign onto any cause or crusade I only vaguely understand (which is how I wound up babysitting a howler monkey one Easter weekend. Man, those things are loud! And real territorial and belligerent when it comes to hidden eggs), so I want to continue the plug here. Filmmaker Whit Scott has until next Saturday to meet the final $7,871 of his $30,000 goal for the making of Rolled: Thirty-Two Years of Toilet-Papered Houses. If he falls short of the $30,000, he gets none of the money. It’s like Who Wants to be a Millionaire except that that irritating music doesn’t play constantly.



Let’s get him there, crossword people! We’re the phone-a-friend lifeline! Some of y’all

sound pretty rich, what with your talk of artisanal cheeses and private islands on the moon, so fork over! I ponied up yesterday after determining that the kids’ shoes could hold out another couple of months if I just lopped off the end caps with my Old Timer. Yeah, there are plenty of other worthy projects, I know—-Millions of them! It’s staggering!--but you could sit around and die on a big pile of money before you figured out the perfect allocation of all your resources, so why not just give this guy $20 now? Or $50? I sold some blood and gave him a hundred bucks. (Not my blood, of course.)



This is the way

stuff works now, the way stuff gets done. We got what we said we wanted—-we banished the gatekeepers and got internet democracy out the wazoo—-but instead of free ice cream for everybody all the time we get an unlimited supply of YouTube clips that serve up every single precious moment of Pink Lady and Jeff.

You satisfied?



Hell, no, you’re not!



That’s where filmmaker Whit Scott comes in. He’s going to make some new stuff.



About today! Well, about a weirdly well-organized toilet-papering commando unit with institutionalized membership going back 32 years. Suburban anthropology sounds to me like! Will it be any good? Beats the hell out of me. But it will probably be better than Pink Lady and Jeff. (I hope he uses that as a blurb on the DVD case: “Better than Pink Lady and Jeff! Maybe!”—-some guy on internet.) And it’ll be new and about right now or at least about what 32 years ago looks like right now to one guy, which is close enough. Can’t have everything!



I know what some of you are saying: “What’s so wrong with Pink Lady and Jeff?” You aren’t the people I’m talking to. I’m talking to the skeptics with their arms crossed who are grumbling something about hmmph hmmph hmmph why can’t he make it in the marketplace hmmph hmmph hmmph.



This is the marketplace! That’s my point! This is the marketplace! We broke the old one! The one everybody was a part of. It gave us great things (Andy Griffith Show and The Red Headed Stranger) and it gave us not so great things (Pink Lady, but everybody calls it Pink Lady and Jeff for some reason.) Whatever, we didn’t like it so we threw the whole thing out, and now this is what we got: (a) an apparently talented and driven guy over there (say hello to Whit Scott) who has something he wants to make for us but not all the money the various vendors and governmental entities require in order to enable him to make the thing he wants to make for us, and (b) some people over here (that’d be us) with nothing but Pink Lady to watch while we munch on our Grey-Poupon-covered artisanal cheeses in our teak-decked moon houses.



That’s the marketplace. We’re it.



Send Whit Scott some money for his movie.



Send me some money too while you’re at it.



And Rex!



***



I flew through this one in pretty top Saturday time for me: 19:00 flat, and I was screwing around making some notes now and then, though I doubt that added much to the time. I wound up with one wrong letter through not checking the grid: I had OSS/TASS instead of OAS/TAPS (42A: W.W.II Agency and 34D: It causes lights to go out). Anything under twenty minutes on Saturday rates an easy from me. (“That's what she said!”)



I got footholds throughout the grid on the first pass: PAT (19A: Bit of consolation); NABORS (24A: “Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C." Star); CLAN (44A: Group sharing a coat of arms); ADUE (53A: Not apart, in scores); SSNS (56A: ID figures); RAP STAR (44D: The Notorious B.I.G., e.g., plus various partials like 60D (Like Beethoven's sixth),which experience hath taught me would be IN something (IN F in this case.)



Early missteps included SHY for COY (4D: Far from forward); LENIN for PALIN (6A: Author of “America by Heart” [I'm sort of kidding, but I did think of that with the IN in place]); GOV for DMV (58A: ID issuer); KEEL for HULL (43A: Bottom of the ocean)[What's a keel then?]; the afore-alluded OSS for OAS; and (best trap of the puzzle) EROTIC for XRATED (3D: Beyond suggestive). I feel like I've fallen into that trap before. In other puzzles, I mean.



All of that adds up to a puzzle that turned out easier than I would have liked for a Saturday (but it means I won't be up til 2:00 a.m., unlike most times I've subbed on a Saturday), but I can't really fault anything about the puzzle. I don't think I've seen IT'S GO TIME before (60A: “Let's roll!”), which in the context of the puzzle sounds like somebody's uncle trying to be hip. I don't think I've seen GLAMROCK in a puzzle before (12D: 1970s music genre.)

Bullets:

• 10A: Times up? (HIGHS). Damn right question mark. Hardest clue for me to parse at the end of the puzzle.
• 20A: Google rival (BING). Is anybody using Bing? Or anything other than Google? Why do we need more than one search engine? Dogpile still exists, I just found out. Do people still ask Jeeves stuff? These are not rhetorical questions despite my not really caring about the answers.
• 21A: Scriveners (PENMEN). I don't buy this at all.
• 40A: Black-and-white (SQUAD CAR). I like this one. Wasn't thinking cop car at all. “Kojak with a Kodak” would have also been good. I heard that one on Smokey and the Bandit the other day. (Whit, make your movie!)
• 50A: Offensive time? (TET). Damn right question mark! What does that mean?
• 2D: Oblong temptation (ECLAIR). This puzzle is really trying to be dirty up there in the NW, isn't it?
• 13D: What the Faroe Islands were granted in 1948 (HOMERULE). I'm guessing that wasn't real controversial. Whoever granted them homerule probably forgot they even ruled them. (“The Faroe Islands? What? Want homerule? What are the Faroe Islands? Oh. Way the hell up there? Sure, tell 'em to knock themselves out. Homerule away.”) I married a Scot and we had our pre-marriage honeymoon in Orkney, where the map is actual size (“one mile = one mile”), and Orkney is way up there. North of that are the Shetlands. North of the Shetlands, and it's a long way north, are the Faroes. North of that and you're going south.
• 35A: Camels' resting places (ASHTRAYS). This one didn't fool me for a second. That's probably why the puzzle was as easy as it was. It's a down answer giving the first letter in eight across answers.
• 47D: Ripley's love (ODDITY). I had a wrong letter in there and didn't see ODDITY for awhile so was thinking of Sigourney Weaver's character in Alien.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• 52D: Fireplace (INGLE) and 55D: Shoulder (BERM) are simply unpalatable words. They sound like the names of Swedish muppets.

If Whit Scott makes his goal and at least some appreciable portion of it came from Rex's readers I will have my son take a video of me singing "Bennie and the Jets" with the uncorrected lyrics I've misheard for the past 35 years. Or not do that. Your choice.

P.S. Hey, it's Rex here, coming to you from the rough streets of Minneapolis (actually, it's one of the most beautiful, livable places I've ever spent a significant amount of time in, and very much on our short list of "Places We Might Move Once the Girl Goes to College"). Two things: One, I love this grid. Freshness abounds, and the addition of ACROBATIC into the whole SEXCAPADE / X-RATED nexus is worthy of special commendation. Two, for those of you who haven't already been bombarded by my announcements on Twitter and Facebook, Huffington Post Books is now featuring a slideshow of some of the more interesting / salacious / ridiculous covers from my vintage paperback blog, "Pop Sensation" (view slideshow here). Enjoy, tell a friend, and I'll see you back here on Monday (barring hurricane-related complications). ~RP

Meiji prime minister / FRI 5-27-11 / Player stoic crew member / Currency dropped during French Revolution / Trump jack e.g. / Bygone European capital

Constructor: Ashton Anderson

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none


Word of the Day: Carlo PONTI (14A: "Doctor Zhivago" producer) —

Carlo Ponti (11 December 1912 – 10 January 2007) was an Italian film producer with over 140 production credits, and the husband of Italian movie star Sophia Loren. [...] Ponti accepted an offer from Lux Film in Rome in 1941, where he produced a series of commercially successful films featuring the comedian Totò. In 1954 he had his greatest artistic success with the production of Federico Fellini's La strada. However, Fellini denied Ponti's role in its success and said that "La Strada was made in spite of Ponti and De Laurentiis". He produced Visconti's Boccaccio '70 in 1962, Marriage Italian Style in 1964, and Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow in 1965. He produced his most popular and financially successful film, David Lean's Doctor Zhivago in 1965. He subsequently produced three notable films with Michelangelo Antonioni, Blowup in 1966, Zabriskie Point in 1970 and The Passenger in 1974. (wikipedia)

• • •

Very fast solve today, well under what it took me to complete yesterday's puzzle. I have nothing particularly bad or particularly good to say about this one. It's a bit "plain vanilla" (a phrase I saw in the NYT today and wondered about ... felt redundant). I don't really understand what the inspiration for this grid was. In a themeless puzzle, I expect to see at least a few "wow" answers, ones that the grid was clearly built around. I don't know what those are today. QUICK STUDY (27D: Fast learner) crossing AL QAEDA (25A: Fundamentalist group) is about the only part that stands out. I like SPOONERISM OK, but I'm not sure I like it as a marquee answer. The fill is reasonable, and nothing stands out as glaringly bad or even mildly annoying. But better to have greatness and badness side-by-side than to settle for mediocrity. Bonus points for interesting grid shape. In the end, though, mostly forgettable.

Got off to a quick start with 1D: Religious recession? (APSE), which was fooling no one. Flat-out gimme. One of the least tricky "?" clues I've ever seen. Slower up there than I'd like to have been because I didn't know PONTI (before my time), but I got ENDLESS easily (20A: Never wrapping up), and that made the whole NW fall rather quickly. "-AE-A" pattern clued me in pretty quickly to AL QAEDA, and the Q gave me QUICK STUDY almost instantly. Puzzled over SOUS v. ECUS for a bit (54A: Currency dropped during the French Revolution), but otherwise that corner wasn't too tough. Rode TATTLE TALE (55A: Scorned kid brother, maybe) across and then encountered my greatest challenge of the day, moving back up the east side of the grid from there. Damn Curious George people were the DEYS? BEYS? Urgh! (53D: Curious George's creators=>REYS). Between that issue and having EMINENT for EXIGENT (42D: Pressing), I couldn't see REGULAR for a while (50A: Bar fixture—nice clue). But after some stumbling I finally got up out of there. Thought "malapropism" before SPOONERISM, but that mistake didn't last (11D: Trump the jack, e.g.). Last real challenge was getting RSVP, which I had (reasonably, I thought) as ASAP at first (10A: Decision-prompting request). Calvin PEETE was a gimme (13D: Most successful U.S. black golfer before Woods), which made finishing up the puzzle a snap.

Bullets:

• 34A: Meiji prime minister (ITO) — did not know this. Guessed ETO, which I think I got to by going Japan—WWII—ETO (nevermind that the "E" in ETO stands for "European"). I might also have been thinking of EDO, the ancient name for Tokyo.
  
• 59A: Player of a stoic crew member (NIMOY) — Mr. Spock!
  
• 2D: Bygone European capital (BONN) — you never know which direction the clue's going in with a clue word like "capital." Guessed BONN off the final "N," though I did have to consider and rule out BERN first (I always got those two confused in 7th grade Geography).
  
• 18D: Obiter dictum (ASIDE) — soooo annoyed to have "learned" this word in a recent crossword and then promptly forgotten it. Boo, me.
  
• 25D: Hostile to, in the hills (AGIN) — Ha ha, "the hills." Not just any hills; just them that are teemin' with billies. AGIN' is also a nice way of describin' Baby Boomers (or any livin' thing, I guess).

• 36D: Instrument for Cannonball Adderley (ALTO SAX) — completely blanked on who this guy was. Not til I go the "X" did I piece the instrument together. Speaking of instruments, tonight was my daughter's spring concert and in jazz band she got to do the first solo (flute). Improvised solo! You have not lived til you've heard fifth-graders improvise! It's pure awesome. Always the best part of these concerts (which can be kind of staid and tepid at times). Anyway, daughter did great. The ALTO SAX kid (an adorable giant) was pretty great too.

• 37D: Opposite of spring, tidewise (NEAP) — before today, I did not know "tidewise" could be a word.
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Singer/songwriter MacColl / FRI 4-22-11 / 1930 tariff act co-sponsor / 1989 one-man show / Blini go-with / Plant once considered source courage

Constructor: Ashton Anderson

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none


Word of the Day: Sylvia SYMS (68A: "I Could Have Danced All Night" singer, 1956) —

Sylvia Syms (December 2, 1917 - May 10, 1992) was an American jazz singer. // She was born Sylvia Blagman in Brooklyn, New York. As a child, she had polio. As a teenager, she went to jazz-oriented nightclubs on New York's 52nd Street, and received informal training from Billie Holiday. In 1941 she made her debut at a club called 'Billy's Stable'. // In 1948, performing at the Cinderella Club in Greenwich Village, she was seen by Mae West, who gave her a part in a show she was doing. Among others who observed her in nightclubs was Frank Sinatra who considered her the "world's greatest saloon singer." Sinatra subsequently conducted her 1982 album, Syms by Sinatra. // She was signed to a recording contract by Decca Records, having her major success with a recording of "I Could Have Danced All Night" in 1956. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. Syms made regular appearances at the Carlyle in Manhattan. At times, impromptu, while enjoying a cocktail in the bar of the Carlyle, she would walk on stage and perform with the cabaret's other regular, Bobby Short. // She died on stage at the Algonquin Hotel in New York from a heart attack, aged 74. (wikipedia)

• • •

In short: liked it. Long stuff is wonderful, and short stuff is solid enough to keep me from squawking. Much. INTERNEE made me wince (42A: John McCain, e.g., for over five years), and shoving two not-terribly-famous singers (SYMS and EWAN somebody ... 62A: Singer/songwriter MacColl) into one little corner seemed kind of cruel, but that was all more than offset by the SUPEREGO TIRADES (35A: Id checker + 41A: Nail-spitting sessions) and the poetic trinary: "MISTRESS ON THE WAY ... STAY CALM!" (37D: Many a tryst participant + 38D: Not yet born + "Nobody panic") Nice to see another muse besides CLIO and ERATO in the puzzle (43D: Sister of Clio => EUTERPE, muse of music).



For some reason the IN in "IN REAL TIME" seemed superfluous to me, as "REAL-TIME" is a perfectly good (and common) adjectival phrase that fits the clue just fine (63A: Like instant messaging).

I could think only of QUINCY at 28A: Jazzy Jones. Then, when I got NORAH, I thought, "Oh, right, she's his daughter." Only she isn't. Her father is indeed a famous musician—but it's (crossword stalwart) RAVI Shankar. But then, I thought, who's the pretty, talented, not-clearly-African-American woman whose father is Quincy Jones? And then I remembered that that's RASHIDA Jones, whom I had just watched (only one hour earlier) in an episode of "Parks & Recreation" (my favorite show on all of television at the moment). So that is the story of my brain's escapade through the magical world of JONESES. I hope you enjoyed it.

Started this one in the NW and got Nowhere Fast. Considered WORLD ATLAS and WASHER at 1A: Setting for many legends (HALL OF FAME) and 1D: One erasing marks (HIT MAN), but then MME (19A: M.'s counterpart) threw a wrench in those (perfectly good) plans. Fumbled around until I saw the Bee Gees clue, and though I don't know the song, the clue seemed to demand the phrase "HE'S A" (11A: The Bee Gees' "___ Liar") — that, or LIAR, which seemed highly unlikely, though I actually saw that clue / answer combo in a (terrrrrible) puzzle just last week. Confirmed that answer right away with HASPS (11D: Features of some diaries), and then took off, tearing that corner down like it was a Tuesday. Ended up backing into the NW via ANONYMS (which I did not know was a word) (8D: Unidentified people) and ETNA (10D: Blower of giant smoke rings). This was enough to trigger (the great) "I KID YOU NOT" (15A: "Seriously!"), and then I figured out what the deal was with Superman's arms (2D: Like Superman's arms, often => AKIMBO) and sailed smoothly from there.


Hardest part for me (aside from just getting started) was the TAE / HAIR GEL / GENUS section. Man doing light work? is a great clue for EDISON, but (with "abbr.") I don't like it so much for his monogram, which is always an unwelcome bit of fill, the cruddiness is highlighted by the difficult clue. ENNE could've been ENNA, and was, for a bit. The distance from [Do glue?] to HAIR GEL is enormous (though clue is cute — in case you're wondering, you have to understand "Do" as a noun). And GENUS ... well, that was easy enough (46A: Begonia, Geranium or Magnolia), but confusion over other stuff kept it hidden for a bit. But I worked it all out. Hey, aren't GENE (40D: Family hand-me-down?) and GENUS related, etymologically? Through Latin back to Greek? [interlude: Whoa, I just opened my Webster's 3rd Int'l dictionary open to find "Gen-" and the first page I came to had "HORNY CORAL" bold in the upper left corner. The secret lives of coral ... who knew?] Dictionary lists GENE as G. and GENUS as L., but I gotta believe that it's not a coincidence that both end up in words about biological classification. Anyway, I don't think crossing them was a great idea. Just make GENE Hackman.

Mistakes: LUMET for LUCAS (48A: "THX 1138" director, 1971), despite knowing *perfectly well* that "THX 1138" involved "that 'Star Wars' guy" ... brain somehow forgot 'Star Wars' guy's name, and then convinced me that 'Star Wars' guy merely wrote it, while LUMET directed. Wanted RECOIL for RECALL (57A: Defect effect). Made sense at the time, i.e. if your face or personality or smell is defective, it will make me RECOIL. No other serious trips. Oh, wanted EBON for ONYX (25A: Black), but thought that clue for EBON would've been too easy for a Friday. I was right.

Bullets:

• 30A: 1930 tariff act co-sponsor (SMOOT) — weird (to me) that this name, and the name of the tariff act's other co-sponsor, live in my brain. Sadly, they live there as SWOOT-HARTLEY instead of the correct SMOOT-HAWLEY, but ... whatever. Minor details.
  
• 52A: Plant once considered a source of courage (THYME) — then that general fed it to his troops and they still ran screaming from the battlefield, so scientists were like "Hmm, maybe not."
• 4D: Its HQ are in Temple Square (LDS) — Latter Day Saints. I was thinking maybe KAOS or SMERSH, but no.
  
• 49D: Blini go-with (CAVIAR) — so *that's* what blini go with? I keep seeing BLINI in the puzzle and thinking "pancakes? like with syrup? what do Russians put on their pancakes?" And now I know. Fancy.
  
• 51D: First African-American Republican National Committee chairman (STEELE) — yeah, that didn't last. They put a white guy in there earlier in the year, and despite his ridiculous name (REINCE PRIEBUS!), he hasn't been heard from since (unlike STEELE, who was deemed "controversial" from the get-go, despite overseeing the Great Republican Resurgence of 2010). Mainly I just miss STEELE's appearances on "The Daily Show".

Michael Steele Plays the Race Card
- Watch more Politics Videos at Vodpod.

• 65D: 1989 one-man show ("TRU") — shows in three letters are pretty hard to hide. This clue has three give-aways: 1989, one-man, and the fact that it's three letters. "TRU" is like the "R.U.R." of the '80s.
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]
[Follow Rex Parker on Tumblr]

Squawk Box airer / FRI 2-4-11 / Poem referencing darker brother / Puncher's nickname / Name in old German duchies / Relative of Manx

Constructor: Ashton Anderson

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none


Word of the Day: BRONZE STAR (12D: Award won by Henry Fonda) —

The Bronze Star Medal (or BSM) is a United States Armed Forces individual military decoration that may be awarded for bravery, acts of merit, or meritorious service. When awarded for bravery, it is the fourth-highest combat award of the U.S. Armed Forces and the ninth highest military award (including both combat and non-combat awards) in the order of precedence of U.S. military decorations. Officers from the other federal uniformed services are also eligible to receive the award if they are militarized or detailed to serve with a service branch of the armed forces. (wikipedia)

• • •

Easy and clean—a very nice Friday. Seems like Fridays in recent weeks have felt much harder and somewhat more tortured, fill-wise. The fill on this one is so clean that there wasn't even a particularly strange word or name to single out for Word of the Day. Doesn't mean it was boring (though this one lacked a wicked punch / killer answer). Phrases were mostly lively, and solidly in-the-language. The weirdest thing about this grid is its structure—specifically, those super-narrow passages connecting top and bottom halves. I did the top part in ... well, it couldn't have been more than 2 or 3 minutes. But getting into the bottom (...) was tougher. The "E" at the end of NUDE was no help (37D: As one entered the world — do Not like the clue; your baby is not "NUDE"; it's naked), and though I dropped MEDE (22D: Member of an extensive empire of the seventh century B.C.) down pretty easily, the "EDE" gave me absolutely no purchase, so essentially this puzzle was two puzzles. I like greater connectivity in my grids, but that's about all that bugged me about this puzzle. Took me a while to get a toehold down south, but once I did, I was off and running again. Bottom took me twice as long as the top, but I still had a very good time.

Got the ball rolling with AHEM / MRES, the latter of which turned out to be wrong (it's MESS) (19A: Sustenance for a fatigued person?), but I corrected it pretty quickly. Went through the top like wildfire. Wasn't sure about the FRENZY part of MEDIA FRENZY (and don't quite get what's funny / cute about the "rubbing elbows" part of that clue) (22A: Event at which reporters rub elbows?), so briefly thought the NE might be tough to get into, but the top Across (CNBC) was a gimme, and that gave me CHILE (10D: Its flag is red, white and blue), and that was all I needed to tear through the rest of the top half. In the south, I had to wander lonely as a cloud for a while, testing and yanking answers—some right (INTER, RUIN), some wrong (WEE instead of SMA, 42A: Like a Scottish young 'un). Finally hit 60A: Volunteer's place: Abbr., which I figured *had* to be TENN. It was. It gave me TENON, which confirmed INTER and RUIN, and I caught fire again. Last letter in the grid was the "S" in AEGIS, which means I started in the far NW and ended in the far SE—a true corner-to-corner solve, which almost never happens.

Bullets:

• 16A: Ring even after exchanging rings (HORA) — brain really wanted this to be boxing-related, but that "exchanging rings" had something undeniably weddingy about it. So "ring," four letters, wedding — HORA.
  
• 20A: Name in old German duchies (SAXE) — crossword muscle. Got it off the "S." SAXE is one of those only-seen-it-in-crosswords names.
  
• 32A: Puncher's nickname (TEX) — one of the hardest clues for me to get today. My cowpoke lingo is kind of anemic.
  
• 30A: Like "10," but not "9" (RATED R) — knew right away this was movie-related, but had no idea how. What was "9" rated? PG-13? Yes, but it turns out I was thinking of "Nine" (a 2009 film version of the Broadway musical), not "9" (a 2009 computer-animated fantasy film most people never saw).

• 38A: "Fusses" is a form of it (ÊTRE) — aargh, what is that? The subjunctive? Passé simple?! Oh, man, it's second-person (informal) imperfect subjunctive. Clearly my French is très rusty.
  
• 51A: Sister co. of Applebee's (IHOP) — No, really? That makes me not want to eat there. Oh, who am I kidding; I want to eat there (IHOP, not Applebee's, for god's sake; I'm not an animal).
  
• 2D: Paneling material (PINE) — Had PANE, briefly. Which is stupid, when you think about it.
  
• 52D: Watergate-era White House chief of staff (HAIG) — he enters my consciousness only with the Reagan assassination attempt, when he claimed to be "in charge." I think he had a tattoo of the Princeton tiger on his ass. Why would I know that? Oh, whoops. I'm confusing him with another member of Reagan's cabinet: Secretary of State George Schulz.
  
• 53D: Westin relative (OMNI) — I'm guessing this is hotel-related. Thankfully, I never saw the clue.
  
• 58A: Poem referencing "the darker brother" ("I, TOO") — Here you go:

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--

I, too, am America.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]