Ooky Spooky

Follow the bouncing ball:

They're creepy and they're cooky

Mysterious and spooky

They're altogether ooky

The Addams Family

Why am I starting off with the theme song from "The Addams Family?" That's because today's crossword by Richard Silvestri is called "Altogether Ooky":

20A: Stocking-cap site? (TOQUE POSITION)
36A: Peer on the sofa? (SITTING DUKE)
52A: Sunday school lesson? (BEGINNERS' LUKE)

I got stumped on 39A: Shampoo directions. Initially, I had RINSE (you know, lather, rinse, repeat), but the answer was actually SHAKE. Also, I was incorrect for 50D: Anxious feeling. At first , I wrote ANGST, but the answer is actually AGITA.

Alphabet soup:

14A: Doc bloc (AMA)
5D: Denny's alternative  (IHOP). Never had the pleasure in eating at one.
13D: Names, as names (IDS)
64A: Summer setting for MA and PA (EDT)

Richard Silvestri is a math professor at Nassau Community College (aka Turnpike Tech). He regularly write crypic crossword for the New York Times.

For once the cryptoquote is not about brevity and simplicity in writing. This one is by the writer Toni Morrison (b. 1931), and much easier than yesterday's.

It is sheer good fortune to miss somebody long before they leave you.

Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison is best known for her novels Sula, Song of Solomon, and Beloved. She was educated at Howard and Cornell, and later became a professor at a number of schools, including Texas Southern University, SUNY, and Rutgers. She has also collaborated with her son on several children's books.

Later, she wrote that Bill Clinton was mistreated during his impeachment because of his "blackness" in this quote from New Yorker:

Years ago, in the middle of the Whitewater investigation, one heard the first murmurs: white skin notwithstanding, this is our first black President. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald’s-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas.

We end the work week with a JUMBLE that takes place on the playground. A little boy tripped on his shoelaces and his mom is teaching him to tie them. Witnesses are praising her skills, and the caption reads: "The fact that she was a good mom was ______.

Word list:

MURPT = TRUMP
DUNEU = UNDUE
SORPEN = PERSON
TULCAA = ACTUAL

Scrambled solution : TPNEPRAA
Solution: APPARENT

There was a major derailment on the subway where I live. I hope I'll be able to get home tonight.

Till tomorrow. . . .

Signing off,
The Puzzlechick