Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper, by Matthew Sewell, is a tough one. That is, a good one. I got my start in the southwest, where 42-D, five letters, “Part of many racetrack names” and 48-D, four letters, “Merger partner of Mayer” cracked things open. The northeast was a struggle, for reasons that will become apparent.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

2-D, five letters, “One announcing an interjection.” AHEMER doesn’t fit.

4-D, nine letters, “About two dozen nanometers.” I’ll believe it when I see it.

8-D, three letters, “Certain course, for short.” An arbitrary way to clue a bit of crosswordese. My first thought was APP.

10-D, five letters, “Railway pricing adjective.” From the northeast. It’s a word? It’s a word.

15-A, nine letters, “Short podcasts.” From the northeast. I listen to many podcasts, long and short, but I have never heard or read this word.

19-A, seven letters, “Her first film (1981) was director George Cukor’s last.” A slightly startling factoid. Cukor began directing in 1930.

27-A, four letters, “Starter home?” Clever clueing.

33-A, nine letters, “Think too much of.” I was trying to come up with a synonym for hero worship.

35-A, fifteen letters, “Protégé’s request.” I don’t think so. The answer is a venerable bit of speech, but protégé doesn’t fit.

49-A, seven letters, “Unsurprising conclusions of whodunits.” A surprising clue.

My least favorite in this puzzle is from the northeast: 11-D, four letters, “Seattle school, familiarly.” Familiarly for whom? Pretty ridic, I say.

My favorite: 16-D, fourteen letters, “Getaways that go without saying.” I took “without saying” the wrong way, which deepens my admiration for the clueing.

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.