Sunday August 24, 2008 Edgar Fontaine

Theme: Chick Flicks

24A: Diane Keaton title role: ANNIE HALL

46A: Dorothy Dandridge title role: CARMEN JONES

69A: Kirsten Dunst title role: MARIE ANTOINETTE

95A: Barbara Stanwyck title role: ANNIE OAKLEY

118A: Ingrid Bergman title role: ANASTASIA

3D: Rosalind Russell tittle role: AUNTIE MAMA

9D: Cate Blanchett title role: ELIZABETH

15D: Shirley MacLaine title role: IRMA LA DOUCE

69D: Julie Andres title role: MARY POPPINS

78D: Greer Garson title role: MRS. MINIVER

84D: Ingrid Bergman title role: JOAN OF ARC

I like the theme, very ambitious. All the theme entries except ANASTASIA (118A: Ingrid Bergman title role) look great to me.

I am annoyed at ANASTASIA not only because because we already have one Bergman movie (84D), but the crossing of ANASTASIA with RALE (112D: Last breath) corner is extremely irksome. 4 RALE/RALES in one week? Unbelievable!

This is where the editorial creativity is sorely needed, as I am sure the constructor was not aware of the RALE(S) binge we've had. After reading the news clip on Madonna's "Sticky and Sweet" tour this morning, I thought of her title role EVITA, but it's too short. And QUEEN VICTORIA (Judi Dench in "Mrs. Brown") is not a title role, and it's too long. What movie title can you think of? It has to be a 9-letter word.

Crossword constructing is so hard. I really have huge respect for those guys, even if I often criticize their work. But my complaints are "For Love of the Game".

Lots of entertainment names in the grid, fitting the theme nicely. I had fun googling, no time to fully digest what I had read/linked though.

Across:

14A: Zodiac sign: LIBRA. Mine is Cancer. How about your?

19A: Comic Anderson: LOUIE. No, I've never heard of him or his game show "Family Feud".

22A: Bottom deck: ORLOP. I forgot why Clear Ayes mentioned this ORLOP last week.

26A: Stomachs of ruminants: OMASA. Singular is OMASUM. New to me. It's "the third division of the stomach of a ruminant animal". How many stomachs does a ruminant animal have? Three?

30A: Precision machinist: DIE MAKER. Boy, I had DOE MAKER for a long time. I wrote down SOLO instead of SOLI for the intersecting 13D: Arias for one.

40A: Fall off the wagon: IMBIBE

42A: Amin's birthplace: UGANDA. Ha, I already forgot where the capital of UGANDA is. Kampala, Kampala, Kampala.

54A: South Carolina river: SANTEE. It's named after the SANTEE tribe. Here is the map. New river to me.

57A: Womanizer: TOMCAT. I just learned that TOMCAT can be a verb too.

60A: Mother of Apollo: LETO. And the "Swan lover" is LEDA (or the "Mythical queen of Sparta").

64A: Louis and Carrie: NYES. I know neither of them, though I do remember "a NYE/NIDE of peasants".

73A: Fire opal: GIRASOL. New to me.

93A: Intermittently windy: GUSTY. Really? "Intermittenly"? I thought "GUSTY" was continuously blowing hard (This sentence feels weird, correct me if I am wrong).

94A: Ninny: SIMP. So many different words to describe an airhead.

98A: Fed: G-MAN. The FBI guy. Fed can also be T-MAN, the IRS guy.

99A: Egg receptacle: OVISAC. Another new word. It's "a sac or capsule containing an ovum or ova". What a solid made-up word! Reminds me of cruciverbalist.

103A: Patagonia plains: PAMPAS. Look, this lone gaucho seems to enjoy his life on PAMPAS.

114A: Coast of Morocco: RIF. I crossed the River Lethe again on this word. Here is the map. Argyle said "Er RIF" comes from the Berber word arif (The RIF, Er-RIF in Arabic).

115A: Composer Shostakovich: DMITRI. Can you believe I forgot his name again? This is the third time he appeared in our puzzle. Was it a gimmie to you? Do you like his music?

117A: Computer language std.: ASCII. Know the word. Can never remember what the acronym stands for.

124A: Redbone and Russell: LEONS. Interesting. "Stranger on a Stranger's Land". I don't grok what he is singing.

125A: Ancient Chinese poet: LI PO. "Li Bai" in Mandarin Chinese. From the Tang Dynasty (with capital in Xi'An). Here are some lines from his well-known "Drinking Alone by Moonlight": A cup of wine, under the flowering trees; I drink alone, for no friend is near. Raising my cup I beckon the bright moon. For her, with my shadow, will make three men....."

131A: Saint of letters: CYRIL. I've never heard of this saint. Have vaguely heard of the Cyrillic alphabet though.

Down:

4D: Time of Nick?: NITE. "Nick at NITE". I've never seen it.

6D: Kiddie spoilers?: GRANDMAS

8D: Dog's first name: RIN. RIN Tin Tin.

17D: Al of the '50s Indians: ROSEN. Couldn't tell whether this card is a real card or a reprint.

25D: Mammalian epoch: EOCENE. I could not believe this is a real word. It looks so wrong. OK, Eos is Greek goddess of dawn. "cene is " means "new", like "recent" I suppose. ECOCENE is "an epoch in which mammals dominant (50 million years ago)."

28D: Like lofty poetry: ODIC. Very interesting how adjectives are formed. For Pindar, it's Pindaric; For Keats, it's Keatsian, not Keatsic.

31D: German Dadaist: ERNST (Max). A surrealist as well. Here is The Elephant Celebes. I am looking forward to seeing ERNST's buddy Paul KLEE next week.

32D: Papeete's location: TAHITI. Got it from the across fills. I had no idea where Papeete is. FYI, Gauguin painted his "Two Women on the Beach" in TAHITI also.

33D: "A Perfect Peace" author: AMOS OZ. Gimme. He knows "How to Cure a Fanatic".

39D: Central Park S. Landmark: NYAC (New York Athletic Club). No idea. I've never been to NY.

41D: Brown in fat: BRAISE. I don't think this clue is wholly accurate. The process of braising needs some liquid for simmering.

44D: Organisms requiring oxygen: AEROBES. AER(O) is air, Obe is from Microbe. Good to learn this stuff.

53D: Multi-deck game: CANASTA . Not a familiar card game to me. I've never play rummy.

56D: Wild pig: WARTHOG. I forgot. So ugly.

79D: Thick soup: POTAGE. I did not know that some POTAGES are made of thickened liquid with mashed FLOWERS/fruit. Sounds so sweet.

80D: Fred of "The Munsters": GWYNNE. I would not have got his name without the crossing fills. It's so hard for me to grasp the popularity of this show and the wide-range (often expensive) collectibles.

83D: Water-to-wine site: CANA. You can find The Wedding at CANA at Louvre.

91D: Share a book project: CO-EDIT

92D: "The Listeners" writer Walter: DE LA MARE. "Is there anybody there...." This is the first time I heard of this poet.

97D: K2 creature?: YETI. I had no idea that K2 is a mountain peak (Karakoram Range in northern Kashmir). And it's the 2nd highest in the world. I am just so used to the "Abominable Snowman" clue.

100D: Traveling bag: VALISE. This Civil War VALISE is so well preserved.

105D: Georgia city: MACON. I forgot. Dennis mentioned this name when we had the MOON PIE long time ago. MACON is nicknamed "Heart of Georgia". Lovely cherry blossom.

107D: Incendiarism: ARSON

115D: Dist. across: DIAM (Diameter). I don't like this clue. "Dist. across" what? A square? Definitely needs a "circle" in the clue.

116D: Somewhat blue: RACY. Van Gogh' somewhat blue (literally) "Starry Night Over the Rhone popped into my mind immediately. He is such a brilliant yet tragic figure. I really like his various paintings on sunflowers, esp those in full bloom. I am so touched by his bold & daring strokes of yellow color, breathtaking. Indeed, Theo, "The sunflower is mine in a way..."

123D: Lowly NCO: CPL. PFC is the lowest NCO, right?

C.C.