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ACROSS
1 Composer’s material: one supporting Annan even halfway (6,9)
9 Care of flower: It can protect a tabletop (7)
10 Coors brew involves irrational sign (7)
11 River travel disrupted by Baroque organ (3,6)
12 Virtual assistant overthrowing goddess (4)
14 Guys get older with a riot’s wild threesome (6,1,5)
18 Hop, skip, or jump during quiet period when cutting tangled ties—that’s a magical solution (6,6)
23 Measure someone with a pain in the ear (4)
24 San Francisco limiting current with body of water that is supposedly unique (9)
27 Fruit train interrupting dance (7)
28 Second fall trip (7)
29 Draftee won’t help changing musical work that provides a guide to the definitions in five of this puzzle’s clues (5,3,3,4)
DOWN
1 Copper stored in dry safe (6)
2 Argue about a male descendent (6)
3 Key snippet of code missing from core (5)
4 Looking up, I see part of an epitaph in which there’s a pole for fish (7)
5 Blue childbirth? (7)
6 Duck out before obscuring everyone’s faces (4)
7 Little devil reportedly got high in jail (8)
8 Boy tossed oil into French wines (7)
13 Pigpen close to home is an eyesore? (4)
15 Pitcher almost married again, but turned back (4)
16 Antelope understood broadcast (3)
17 Doctor can’t rile cat (8)
18 Begin to deposit pests in an elevator (5,2)
19 Fool is in favor with grandfather (7)
20 Raised request to break up instrument making watches (5,2)
21 Sounds of impact and disapproval for woody grass (6)
22 The woman’s enemy points toward the top belonging to this… (6)
25 …glass bird (5)
26 Eldest child, perhaps, with outspoken manner (4)
SOLUTION TO PUZZLE NO. 3413
ACROSS 1 anag. 9 anag. 10 S-WARM 11 TEN + E.T. 12 S(CALL + O)PED 13 hidden 14 anag. 18 LOVERS (anag.) + LANE 20 C + HOP 23 anag. 25 VIS(T)A& 26 V(OIL)A 27 GO(BET + WE)EN (gone anag.) 28 letter bank
DOWN 2 ALU(MN)US (usual anag.)& 3 U + PD + ATE 4 A + DAM’S 5 anag.& 6 RESO (anag.) + LUTE 7 S(NAP + P)EA& 8 AM + I + D 9 PI(TFA)LL (fat anag.)& 15 TAL(KING)TO (total anag.) 16 anag.& 17 AR[e] + RIVALS 19 VAR[y] + MINT& 21 anag. 22 AVA + TAR 23 phonetic hidden& 24 rev.
Joshua Kosman and Henri PicciottoJoshua Kosman and Henri Picciotto are The Nation’s puzzlers. To read more about Kosman, click here. To read more about Picciotto, click here. Kosman and Picciotto explain what they’re up to in “Solving The Nation’s Cryptic Crosswords” (also available as a PDF). Check out The Nation’s Current Issue page each week for the latest puzzle.