Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper is by Matthew Sewell. I’d say it’s half as tough as his last Stumper — for me, that meant fifteen minutes instead of thirty.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

1-A, six letters, “One making service calls.” I thought of plumbers and tennis umpires.

1-D, four letters, “Key missing ON & O.” Kinda obvious, but deeply defamiliarizing, at least for me. When I see key, my first thought is music.

26-D, ten letters, “Alchemist’s ‘little person’ statue.” I can’t recall when I last saw this answer. Long, long ago.

36-D, nine letters, “Highly hoppy refreshment.” I have enjoyed hoppy refreshment, but I had no idea there is such a thing. It seems to me to be a marketing gimmick.

40-A, eight letters, “Ultra-extreme.” Nicely colloquial, though it makes me think of political nutjobs.

41-A, six letters, “What you must provide for a kid’s cable car kit.” I got the answer and thought What?  It turns out that you can make a cable car from a kit. But I think you’d be providing something else, even if 41-A is in the name of said kit.

52-D, “Body language?” A bit of a stretch. More than a bit. A great big stretch in the interest of Stumpery.

58-D, three letters, “Audible crack.” Ha.

My favorite clues in this puzzle, both exceptionally clever:

12-D, ten letters, “One in a recital trio.”

28-A, four letters, “What may precede a Q & A.”

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.