24A: Hi, kids! The EDSEL was a car made by the Ford Motor Co. for the model years 1958-60, after which it was discontinued. It didn’t do very well for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was that the front grille reminded car buyers of a vagina, which was not the style at the time.

58D/62D: Nice twin clue. “ Spiritual energy” is the clue for both AURA and CHI.

Today’s Theme

I’ve been sitting here for a while now, trying to figure out how to explain Mr. Eaton-Salners’s theme clearly. It’s not easy, but this is why I get paid the medium-sized bucks, so here we go.

Each theme clue is looking for a word that can be formed by thinking of two other words, one longer than the actual answer and one shorter. The theme clues take the form “More than an X, but less than a Y.” Our job is to take the average, sort of, and come up with a completely different word.

Let’s break it down. At 1A, the clue is “More than a bird, but less than a facial expression.” We have a four-letter slot. I had LARDERS at 4D and guessed that the bird would be an OWL. The clue wants it to be “more than” that, though, and we still have that first square to contend with, so here’s what we are going to do: We are going to put OWL in the last three squares and think of facial expressions that end in -OWL.

That would be a SCOWL, right? “Too many letters, Deb,” I hear you saying.

O.K., it has to be “less than a facial expression” anyway, so let’s just lop off the S. That leaves us with COWL, which is the correct answer.