Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Matthew Sewell, was a pleasure to solve. I started with 6-D, six letters, “Stop making excuses,” filling in an answer that just seemed right. It gave me 23-A, four letters, “Highly quarrelsome,” which in turn gave me 24-D, eleven letters, “Flips,” and so on. I filled in a few unconnected answers here and there, but solving the puzzle hinged, for me, on 6-D. It’s always a good idea to stop making excuses.

Clues I especially liked: 2-D, seven letters, “Warm-up circuit.” (Nothing to do with old radios or televisions.) 53-A, seven letters, “Iniciador de conversación.” 58-A, eleven letters, “Austere calling.” 60-D, “Booker, for short.” And the aforementioned 24-D. And the strange-sounding 32-D, six letters, “What a rear window may go up with.” ALFRED, as in Hitchcock?

No spoilers: the answers are in the comments.