Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper is by Steve Mossberg, and it’s ultra-difficult. I made a good start with 33-D, six letters, “Tighten up, perhaps,” whose last letter gave me a good guess for 32-A, thirteen letters, “Sidewalk café patron, perhaps.” The stickiest parts of this puzzle: the northeast and southwest corners. I had to plug in four or five letters to get the southwest corner. Marone!

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

1-A, five letters, “Nothing to worry about.” Just pleasingly clever.

4-D, nine letters, “Small sums.” Not a plural you see very often.

6-D, ten letters, “French fashion.” I had the answer, though I’d long forgotten what it means.

28-A, thirteen letters, “High-tech plants.” The first in a stepped stack of thirteen-letter answers. 32-A is the second.

24-A, thirteen letters, “Rigid reminder.” The third in that stack.

24-D, ten letters, “24th century teakettle.” I’m sure that this clue is meant as a giveaway, but I thought it must have to do with ancient China.

30-D, nine letters, “Racing vehicles.” Only mildly misdirective.

43-D, four letters, “Sphere sliced for snacking.” Not an OREO, though that’s one way to eat them.

47-A, seven letters, “Touch technology.” I just like the word.

55-A, five letters, “Literary heavens.” Why do crossword clues so often make the literary or poetic synonymous with archaisms and stilted contractions? EEN, OER, ORB, &c.

Ugliest row of answers in the puzzle: 36-A, three letters, “The Chesapeake, to geologists”; 37-A, four letters, “Botanical branches”; 38-A, three letters, “Union returnee, Jun. 1868.” (That silly “Jun.” — because there has to be an abbreviation.)

My favorite in this puzzle: 18-D, eight letters, “Encouraging words.” In the American grain.

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.