Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper is by “Anna Stiga,” Stan Again, Stan Newman, the puzzle’s editor. I often find his Stumpers veddy, veddy difficult (I’m on a Fats Waller kick). Forty-eight minutes for this one. I started dumb: 27-A, three letters, “Cutting board brand” and 23-D, five letters, “Are around.” And then I wandered around. The toughest sector: the southwest, where 31-D, nine letters, “Tropical tree with purple flowers” finally broke things open. How did I see that tree?

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

2-D, five letters, “Wilt Chamberneezy.” Wut? Oh, okay.

6-D, four letters, “Contemporary of Ava, Rita, and Bette.” Of course.

9-D, three letters, “Manhattan must.” NYT?

14-D, nine letters, “Thomas Edison and Woodrow Wilson, heading south of Delaware.” A wonderfully strange clue.

17-A, nine letters, “Any Federal Reserve note.” Misleadingly specific.

31-A, seven letters, “Liquid sold by the liter.” I couldn’t get a grip on the first three letters until I got 31-D.

32-D, nine letters, “Loud lamentation.” Could it be? Yes, it could.

33-D, nine letters, “Honoree of a Postal Service 500th Anniversary stamp (1952).” I didn’t know the Postal Service had been around that long.

39-A, seven letters and 61-A, five letters, “Uncle’s kin.” Paired clues always delight me.

58-A, three letters, “What all BMWs must carry.” The clue has more of a point than I first realized.

59-D, four letters, “Despot in throne rooms.” Don’t bother me — I’m reading!

My favorite in this puzzle: 67-A, nine letters, “Reproduction redundancy.” You can say that again.

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.