google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Sunday, September 28, 2008 Arlan and Linda Bushman

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Sep 28, 2008

Sunday, September 28, 2008 Arlan and Linda Bushman

Theme: Chem Lingo

23A: Einstein with no more einsteinium in stock, e.g.?: OUT OF ONE'S ELEMENT

36A: Incipient chemical concoction? INFANT FORMULA

54A: Caustic chemical couriers?: BASE RUNNERS

78A: Caustic remark about a litmus test result?: ACID COMMENT

97A: Report concerning chemical ions?: CHARGE ACCOUNT

112A: Attention given to a chemical mixture? COMPOUND INTEREST

16D: Where one buys chemical supplies?: MASS MARKET

71D: Neither black nor white chemical stuff?: GRAY MATTER

Where is ORGANIC/INORGANIC?

I really liked this puzzle, so well constructed. I had expected something complicated after I saw the titled theme, so I was elated when I got most of the themed entries without encountering too much resistance.

Wasted a long time on SNORE (73D: Saw wood in bed). I had actually heard of the idiom "saw wood" before, but I could not remember the exact meaning. I just kept wanting a past tense word and SLEPT sounded perfect.

I thought "Dorothy's surname" would be a better clue for GALE (22A: Whitecap weather) since we have AUNT EM (49D: Dorothy's guardian) in the grid.

It warmed my heart to see THAMES clued as "Flower by Big Ben" (35A), so comforting after my repeated pleas for a "flow-er" clue last week. But there should definitely be a "?" in the clue. Otherwise, it's too startling and senseless for a unsuspecting solver. I thought "Spanish flower?" would be a great clue for (48D: River of Spain) too.

There are so many things that flow: river, cash, air, hot lava, champagne, thought, information, idea, words, sweat, love and tears. But a broken heart is indeed like a river that won't flow.

I've been enjoying the real flowers and music in this Ravel Bolero clip. I hope you like it too.

Across:

1A: Natural fountain: SPRING. This flows too. What's the real difference between SPRING water and mineral water?

20A: Unbroken view: PANORAMAS. For those who only solve Sunday's crossword puzzle, enjoy this Outer Space flash movie Sallie linked yesterday. Beautiful!

27A: West coat seagull: MEW. Here is a picture. New to me.

40A: Ranch name in "Giant": REATA. I forgot. Saw this clue long time ago on a TMS puzzle. Have you seen "Giant" before? So many people collect James Dean memorabilia.

47A: Roskalnikov's refusals: NYETS. Is Roskalnikov from Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment"? Or is it just a popular Russian name? I had never heard of it before.

67A: Mr. Peanut's spiffy legwear: SPATS. New to me also. Is it the same as gaiter? SPATS was clued as "Rhubarbs" earlier this week.

68A: Kevin Klein movie: DAVE. It's a pretty good movie.

84A: Niels or Aage of physics: BOHR. Both of them won Nobel prize in physics.

92A: Pers. with a handle?: CBER

96A: "All Men Are Whores" dramatist: MAMET (David). I've never heard of his name before. But what a terrible play title. I dislike so much the word "whore".

105A: Canvas colors?: OILS. What do you think about this clue?

111A: Dated leader?: ANTE. A nice change from "Feed the kitty' clue.

119A: Combo bet: EXACTA. And trifecta. What else?

Down:

4D: Forge output: IRON BAR

5D: Letters on a rubber check: NSF. I did not know that a bounced check is also called a rubber check.

6D: Euclid's province: GEOMETRY. I also did not know that province also means "a department or branch of learning or activity".

18D: Loudly laments: KEENS. And 80D: Poetic lament: ELEGY

33D: Trivial stuff: DROSS. New to me also. I always thought of DROSS as "discarded waste matter".

38D: Old French bread?: FRANC. It's the "Stale Swiss bread" too.

39D: Series of eight: OCTAD. Basically there is no difference between OCTAD and OCTET, right?

50D: Bearded grazers: GNUS. I only remembered his horns, had never paid attention to his beard .

58D: Goalie's feat: SAVE. A closer can achieve this feat too.

61D: Robin Cook thriller: COMA. Learned this from doing Xword. Have you read this book?

65D: Novi Sad resident: SERB. Novi Sad is Serbia's second largest city, after Belgrade. New to me also.

68D: Moral obligation: DUTY. I vodka Dennis so much. He has done such a great job fulfilling his morel moral obligation for this country.

72D: Polecat defense: ODOR. Did not know that skunk is also called polecat.

75D: "As You Liked it" forest: ARDEN. I just learned that Shakespeare's mother's name is Mary ARDEN.

76D: Cereal box fig.: NET WT. Ha, I always thought it's NT WT.

91D: Big-billed bird: PELICAN. Gimme for Chris I am sure. It's their state bird. I really liked Denzel Washington's role in "The PELIAN Brief".

92D: Pause in conversation: CAESURA. Completely foreign to me. What exactly is a CAESURA?

98D: Spartan drudge: HELOT. I forgot. All I could think of was SERF. Have difficulty remembering any Spartan/Laconian stuff.

108D: Orlop or poop: DECK. I've never heard of poop deck before. What a strange name!

109D: Italian noble family: ESTE. I forgot how they are related to Ferrara.

115D: Joanne of films: DRU. I googled her name, and found out that she did quite a few movies with John Wayne.

116D: Outer: pref.: EXO. The opposite prefix is ENDO.

C.C.

31 comments:

  1. Good Morning, C.C.

    I won't have anything for you from my local puzzles this week. The Chronicle had a Rosanne Barr quote and The Post-Star has "three nouns with red", "four nouns with black", "three nouns with yellow", "four nouns with blue", and "three nouns with white". I'll probably pick at it off and on; if anything interesting develops, I'll let you know.

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  2. Good Morning CC and all
    I, too panicked when I saw the theme title. Jeanne & science not a good mix. I instantly thought of drdad having great success today. However, it turned out well for me too. I get my Sunday puzzle on Saturday p.m. so I started it then and finished it this a.m. You must be up really early C.C. to get this puzzle completed so readily.

    Had difficulty with flower by Big Ben. I finally had an aha moment and I think it should have had a ?. Must look up Caesura; never heard of that before. I liked Denzel Washington in "The Great Debaters". Wonderful movie about an awful time in our history.

    Another cloudy, rainy day in eastern PA. Tomorrow the sun will shine. Have a wonderful Sunday. About 2 wks. away from being a first-time grandmother. Can't wait.

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  3. hiya, C.C.
    Panic set in as soon as I saw the title of this puzzle. Found if I put it down and got another cup of coffee some words fell into place. Except caesura, it still looks wrong. Thanks for putting in the "outer space pics" again. WOW.

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  4. Good morning.
    A puzzle that set my little chemist's heart beating with joy! No googling today and only a cup of coffee to solve.

    Never saw "Giant" but I did see and like the animated "The Iron Giant." Liked how at the end he chose who he wanted to be - "Superman" (the answer for 73A).

    Euclid (math) and Bohr (physics) in the same puzzle with chemistry.

    Oils for canvas colors is okay. Could be watercolor, acrylics, tempera, etc.

    No real difference for octet and octad except that with regard to computers, an octet can now refer to 8 bits = 1 byte.

    Coma was made into a movie starring Geneviève Bujold, Michael Douglas, Elizabeth Ashley, Richard Widmark, and Rip Torn.

    Yes, a skunk is sometimes called a polecat.

    Today is National Good Neighbor Day and Ask A Stupid Question Day.

    Have a great Sunday.

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  5. Just read yesterday's blog and saw where Dennis mentioned the death of Paul Newman. Didn't know that. What a loss. RIP, Butch.

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  6. loved the puzzle this week. Thanks tothe Bushman(Arlan and Linda). I am not sure that I could construct a puzzle with my spouse. I did do one for my Sunday School lesson. The theme was about the topic of the lesson. Most on my class id the puzzle while i talked.
    Neve heard of caesura or Mamet,, but great Sunday morning exercise

    abogato from Alabama ( roll tide)

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  7. Today is also Confucius' birthday.

    Martin

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  8. I'm not commenting on the puzzle today. (I couldn't get a newspaper because we had a typhoon.) I just wanted to see if the picture of me and my son shows up. I'm here in Taiwan so the instructions for uploading my profile were in Chinese. No kidding! It took me a while to figure out what all the questions meant.

    Martin

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  9. Thanks C.C. for the Ravel Bolero. Beautiful!

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  10. Mark - Buenos Aires

    c.c.

    Sorry, I forgot to put the number of letters:

    "first man to hoard literature all about woman"
    7 letters

    clue is female name

    have a good day everybody

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  11. Good morning everyone! No Sunday puzzle, but must visit to see what's going on in C.C. land.

    @martin Very interesting post to end yesterday. Your picture comes up nice.

    The Ravel and flowers was very nice. Thank you.

    Have a great Sunday!

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  12. I get this puzzle in the Chicago Tribune and think the typesetter made a mistake. Instead of te words "Chem Lingo" to give the theme, it read "Crossword Hed Here" (perhaps indicating that that was where the theme headline should go?) Made solving it much more difficult.

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  13. I had to make four calls to the Tribune company and finally go out and purchase a newspaper in order to get today’s puzzle. But I am glad I did, as this was a delightful puzzle. I completed it easily. The only new word for me was CAESURA.

    I loved the “Flower by Big Ben” clue. Here are Flowers by Big Ben for contrast!

    David Mamet is a Chicago dramatist. My favorite of his oeuvre are two of his “con” movies House of Cards and The Spanish Prisoner. I just noticed on Wikipedia that he also wrote the screen play for Wag the Dog, a funny but cynical view of political elections.

    I saw The Giant when it first came out in 1956. I remember liking the film, though now I do not recall much about it now except for Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor and a funny Earl Holliman. I guess I was too young to appreciate “pretty boy” James Dean.

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  14. Argyle,
    Are The Chronicle & The Post-Star Xwords syndication also? Who are the authors/editors? Is there any DF meaning behind Zwitter's lyric "I can send myself roses every day"? Is that you on the photo?

    Martin,
    I enjoyed very much reading your posts on grammar/language evolution last night.

    Bellensav,
    You can find TMS puzzle on Chicago Tribune's website.

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  15. Doesitinink,
    I could not find "The Stranger" movie. But I did find "The Passenger". Are you sure there is existentialism in "The Passenger"? Not sure if you read my post yesterday, but Happy Birthday again.

    Clear Ayes,
    How are those giant pumpkins? I don't understand the second stanza of "Success Is Counted Sweetest": Not one of all the purple Host/Who took the Flag to-day/Can tell the definition/So clear, of Victory. Who is the purple host? What does the "Flag" refer to here?

    KittyB,
    I think yesterday's "Outer Space" instrument might be Celtic Pan-flute.

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  16. Dr. Dad,
    Interesting observation on Euclid & Bohr in the same puzzle with chemistry. Last time you wrote: Harry Chapin: "And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon, Little boy blue and the man on the moon". What does it mean? I don't grok it at all.

    Barb B,
    Some of the Lladro Figurines are breathtaking, esp the ones with the flowers. I had never heard of Vangelis before. But I just sampled some of his works. Sounded great. Thank you.

    Lois,
    Can you explain to me more about "lie, lay or leave"?

    Mark
    Thank you. I will think it hard tonight.

    Jeanne et al,
    Hey!

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  17. Good afternoon Cc, DFs and DFettes. Nice puzzle today even though I did get a late start. Breezed right along and was able to get all of the fills until I got to the SE corner. I did not know 92D and don't know if I have ever heard of CAESURA aand this caused some problems with 97A and 112A. I had trouble in this corner until I got 85A LOYAL and 110A EXECTA and then I could fill the remainder of the corner.

    CC thanks for the link to Ravel Bolero as that has always been one of my favorite pieces. Also thanks for posting Sally's link as I missed it before.

    I hope your week end has been a good one and like the others I will miss Paul Newman.

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  18. I had myself a good laugh when I googled "incpient chemical concoction" and I found your site. This was a fun puzzle. I try to get as many as I can on my own and then I "cheat" - I love the internet after I've exhausted my paper dictionary. Thanks for the infant formula.

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  19. c.c., On the Harry Chapin song, he's lamenting the passing of childhood, little boy blue, the man in the moon and cat's in the cradle are from nursery rhymes. Later he talks of how his kid grows up and has no time to visit with him--just like he was for the boy when he was little--"we'll get together, I just don't know when".

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  20. cc: My bad...yes, I meant The Passenger. And yes, the movie is very much about one's existential identity. The opening scene in which Jack Nicholson, his vehicle stuck in sand, alone, looks out over the desert and views at a distance a solitary Arab riding a camel is very much about the existential feeling of being alone in the world. There is another very memorable scene in which Jack Nicholson and Maria Schneider are driving down a road lined with trees. Maria Schneider asks him what he is running away from. In reply he tells her to turn around a look behind them. What he was running away from...leaving behind...was his past, his own identity. I saw this film when it first came out in 1975, and it had a tremendous impact on me. For more...you might read this from from Slant or this more scholarly piece.

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  21. I just went back to read yesterday's thing by Martin on language evolution--obviously something that interests me. He's right--that's why dictionaries are constantly updated.

    At the same time it can be very grating on the nerves to an educated person to hear/see obviously incorrect usage such as the its/it's thing sallie (I think it was her) mentioned yesterday, especially if it's a journalist who ought to do better!

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  22. CC: just checked in to read the comments.
    'Lie, lay, or leave' are all talking about the ball position for the next stroke or shot in a game of golf or pool or maybe even basketball, 'lay up'. In the DF sense, lie (say sweet nothings), lay (down), or leave (scram). Hope this helps.

    Anon: that is so funny..incipient chemical concoction...some truth to that. The chemistry here is phenomenal!

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  23. kazie, couldn't agree more on the its/it's misuse -- that's always been my pet peeve.

    And I'm so surprised that it's Lois commenting on the lie/lay/leave issue; hard to believe.

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  24. The problem goes beyond it's / its. There's a whole category of such mistakes:

    there's / theirs

    who's / whose

    you're / your

    they're / their

    On the left we have pronoun/verb contractions and on the right we have possessives (either pronouns or adjectives). The problem is that they are all hononyms. (I don't think I've ever seen people confuse we're and were because they are pronunced differently.) I make the point to students that "They're in their car over there" wouldn't make sense if "They're", "their" and "there" were all spelt the same way.

    Mind you, I also get upset by simplified Chinese. :)

    Martin

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  25. Good Evening All, We just settled in at home after a wonderful visit with my sister and her family.

    Our newest family member Jack, The Giant Pumpkin is quite a big guy. The estimate is 800 pounds now. My brother-in-law won't be moving it (with the help of his younger son's high school football team) for about two weeks. He is hoping for another 100 to 150 more pounds.

    Doesitinink, I think the David Mamet movie you are thinking of is "House of Games" with Joe Mantegna and Lindsay Crouse. It is a favorite movie of mine too. Mamet writes such interesting dialogue. Another of his movies I really enjoyed was "Things Change". It starred Joe Mantegna and Don Ameche.

    C.C. "the second stanza of "Success Is Counted Sweetest": Not one of all the purple Host/Who took the Flag to-day/Can tell the definition/So clear, of Victory. Who is the purple host? What does the "Flag" refer to here?"

    The "purple Host" refers to the victorious legions of ancient Rome, who represented the Roman emperors. The emperors robes were traditionally dyed purple. In war, it was common for the victors to take "The Flag" or banner of the defeated and display it as their emblem of victory.

    Sorry I missed the puzzle reference to James Dean. When G.A.H. and I travel to Southern California, we often stop for lunch at a small restaurant on Highway 41 that is just a few hundred yards from where James Dean was fatally injured in an automobile accident. There is a marble monument and plaque a short distance from the parking lot.

    It is interesting, according to Wikipedia, that James Dean and Paul Newman appeared in a screen test for the movie "East of Eden". James Dean got the part of Cal, but Paul Newman was passed over for the role of Aron.

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  26. Greetings C.C. and all -

    Martin - believe it or not I have seen we're and were used for one another. I know I'm not the best at grammar but when I see or hear some of the most obvious words (some of the ones in your comments and comments of others) it's just like a shrieking piece of chalk on a blackboard to me. I just cringe. However, that is my problem. I think we have come so fast into "new" technology that a lot of words get misused. That is not the only thing that causes bad word usage. Some people are just lazy or ignorant of the proper word to use. This is a very fast paced world we live in now compared to when I was in school. And some people just don't take the time to look up a word for proper spelling or usage and think "Oh, they'll know what I mean."

    The most confusing words for me are "affect" and "effect." Does anyone have a simple explanation or example of when these two words should be used??

    I cringed a couple of days ago when I caught an error in one of the messages I posted. I misspelled doesn't. And I previewed it before I hit "Publish Your Comment." How sad is that???

    BTW - I realize that most of us use some words that have evolved from using the computer and quick messaging like:

    "kinda"
    "sorta"
    "gotta", etc. just to mention a few. I use them too when I'm in the mood.

    I'll get off my soapbox now and try to do better with my proofing.

    Have a great one and keep on puzzling!

    Night Owl
    (Hoot!)

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  27. effect is a noun
    affect is a verb

    compare:

    choice is a noun
    choose is a verb

    Martin

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  28. Dennis: Surprised? Funny guy. It's my philosophy of life. I play any game w/balls, strokes and shots. As for 'hard to believe', being such a morel fellow, I'm not surprised about anything that is 'hard' in relation to you.

    Hope you fared well thru the storm.

    Martin: in psychology, 'affect' is a noun referring to emotion. Flat affect is one symptom of schizophrenia meaning no emotion. English is so confusing.

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  29. Good Morning, c.c., 24 hours later.

    The Chronicle puzzle is a United Features Syndicate and has the answers printed(upside down) with it. The Glens Falls Post-Star puzzle is a Tribune Media Services and you won't get the answers until the following Sunday. The Chronicle has the auther's name and it changes week to week. The Post-Star only gives the editors names, Linda and Charles Preston. The Post-Star online has the PDF version but nothing interactive.

    My picture is from the yearbook of my senior year.

    Is there any DF meaning behind Zwitter's lyric "I can send myself roses every day"?
    Well, if you are one person but you are both male and female(not that there is anything wrong with that), then it wouldn't be DF to court your self. At least, you could be sure what flowers to send.

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  30. 67A Are spats the same as gaiters?
    It appears that spats are formal and worn under the bottom of the pant legs while gaiters are more utilitarian and go over the bottom of the pant legs.

    Combo bets: daily double, perfecta

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  31. Once again, I'm old, I remeber men wearing spats! I get the puzzle from the Chicago Tribune too, and they mess up the printing a lot. I think the ink fumes are going to their heds:) It made solving very difficult. The other day they printed the answers right under the puzzle, and before that they printed the answers, but left the grid blank. OOPs.

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