Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper, by Matthew Sewell, is a Stumper indeed. I typed my final letter — the first letter of 51-A, three letters, “Document placeholder” and 51-D, four letters, “Word on a birth ‘anuncio’” — with great confidence that it would be wrong, and it turned out to be correct. But after looking at a number of birth announcements in Spanish, I’m not persuaded that 51-D is a good answer. I may be wrong. But I got the right answer.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

7-D, six letters, “Paper from the Latin for ‘woven.’” Huh.

12-D, ten letters, “Coldly impersonal.” The first four letters might lead you in the wrong direction.

15-A, ten letters, “Preposterous!” For some reason, I like stodgily exclamatory clues and answers. Balderdash!

18-A, four letters, “More, for less?” Cute.

19-A, four letters, “‘Miss’ metaphor.” A fine example of a smart clue complicating an ordinary answer.

26-A, thirteen letters, “Where to see columns on the house.” Not where you might think.

27-D, ten letters, “Many a railroad relic, today.” My first thought was of repurposed raiload ties.

32-A, three letters, “What Indy Jones got from the Sorbonne.” I’m not going into the weeds about it, but this answer doesn’t fit. Perhaps in the fictive world it fits.

39-D, four letters, “‘Life’ lesson.” Been there, done that.

41-A, thirteen letters, “Where you meet we?” Clever.

52-D, four letters, “Whaler-turned-retailer.” Information retrieval! I don’t know how I know this factoid.

55-A, ten letters, “Special order for Qatar Airways (!)” The clue is supposed to be edgy, I suppose, but it’s really provincial. Qatar Airways serves a wide variety of special meals.

61-A, ten letters, “Rise preventers.” What?!

My favorite in this puzzle: 40-D, seven letters, “Best alternative.”

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.