google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Sunday November 2, 2008 Alan P. Olschwang

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Nov 2, 2008

Sunday November 2, 2008 Alan P. Olschwang

Theme: Fooled Again

23A: Start of Groucho Marx quip: IN AMERICA YOU CAN

38A: Part 2 of quip: GO ON THE AIR AND

56A: Part 3 of quip: KID THE POLITICIANS,

78A: Part 4 of quip: AND THE POLITICIANS

94A: Part 5 of quip: CAN GO THE AIR

114A: End of quip: AND KID THE PEOPLE

Oh boy, solving a crossword puzzle definitely needs total focus. I felt very distracted earlier and went through hell trying to fill in all the blanks.

Normally I don't have so many problems getting into Olschwang's wavelength, After all, I've solved 43 of his puzzles since I started blogging. But there seems to be an inordinate amount of proper nouns in today's grid. Several corners presented a Sisyphean challenge to me. I thought I had pushed the damned rock to the hilltop. But it kept rolling back. Now I have in front of me an ugly puzzle full of wite-out marks.

I do like the following clues:

36A: Piper's first name?: PIED

9D: Publicity stunt, of a sort: PHOTO OP

43D: Listens without hearing?: LIP READS

The "Lat." clue for ID EST (40D: That is: Lat.) should not be abbreviated.

Across:

5A: Peacock constellation: PAVO. Latin for "Peacock". Here is the map. Unknown to me.

19A: Okinawa port: NAHA. Another unknown. See this map. It's also Okinawa's capital.

20A: Ludwig or Jannings: EMIL. Jannings is the first winner of Oscar for Best Actor ("The Way of All Flesh"). Ludwig is a German author known for his biographies of Goethe, Napoléon, etc. I knew neither of them.

21A: Egypt's Mubarak: HOSNI. He succeeded Anwar Sadat.

22A: Conductor Georg: SOLTI. Another unknown. Wikipedia says he won 31 Grammys in his life time. He spent over 20 years with the Chicago Symphony. He looks so engaged.

27A: Like a lamb sauce: MINTY. Odd clue to me. Chinese people do not use any mint sauce for lamb dish or for any dish. Toothpaste is MINTY.

28A: Old French dance: GAVOTTE. Well, I am not Marie Antoinette, how am I supposed to know this old french dance?

29A: Maj. Barbara's creator: GBS (George Bernard Shaw). Toughie. I've never heard of "Major Barbara" before. Only knew his "Pygmalion".

31A: Dam-building grp.: CVA (Columbia Valley Authority). I only knew TVA.

32A: City west of Detroit: ANN ARBOR. It's home to the University of Michigan (Wolverines).

34A: Hawaiian acacia: KOA. See this picture. KOA wood is valued for furniture and musical instruments. New to me also.

35A: Calculator key abbr.: CLR (Clear). I dislike this clue.

37A: Swarm member: TEEMER. What a strained answer!

41A: Class for U.S. immigrants: ESL

47A: Restrain: INHIBIT. And RASHEST (93D: Most impulsive).

64A: Norway evergreen: RED PINE. It's our state tree.

65A: Arrived at: GOT UP TO. Mine was "TOT UP TO" for a long long time.

67A: Medley or Tilden: BILL. Had no idea that Bill Medley is the half of The Righteous Brothers. Great "Unchanged Melody". Was Bill Tilden a gimme to you? I was not familiar with him at all.

70A: Resembling: suff: OID. Since ISH does not fit. Android for example.

72A: Waldorf-__ Hotel: ASTORIA. This Waldorf salad looks good. I like the walnuts to be toasted and honeyed.

90A: First name in mysteries: ERLE. Did you know that Halliburton's founder is also named ERLE?

91A: Bygone map abbr.: S.S.R.

99A: New Hampshire city: NASHUA. See this map. I don't even know who are NH's senators.

107A: Narrow inlet: RIA

109A: Fall into obscurity: ECLIPSE

111A: Change shape: MORPH

112A: Square one: GET-GO

121A: "The Flying Dutchman" girl: SENTA. I googled. SENTA was clued as "Actress Berger" before.

122A: Comic actor Arnold: STANG. Another google.

123A: Door hardware: HASP. My first thought was JAMB.

124A: Spanish muralist Jose: SERT. See his murals at the Rockefeller Center. I am not familiar with his name.

Down:

1D: Give life to: ANIMATE

2D: Bicuspids' neighbors: CANINES. I did not know the meaning of "Bicuspids".

3D: Bed of a river: CHANNEL. I always thought CHANNEL is just a waterway.

4D: Type of gong: TAM-TAM. No idea. See this picture. Sounds so close to tom-tom drum.

7D: "The __ of Wakefield": VICAR. New book to me also. It's written by Oliver Goldsmith.

8D: Norwegian saint: OLAV

10D: Cassock: SOUTANE. Sigh... another new word to me. What do you call the band Pope Benedict wears around his waist?

11D: Last of coal?: ESCE. Coalesce. It's the "Last of opal" too.

12D: Actress O'Connor: UNA. Got her name from across fills. Have never heard of her before. Which famous movie(s) is she in?

13D: Town in Country Kerry: DINGLE. Here is the map. It's a ridiculously difficult for me. I had DIN??E for eons.

15D: Panama proposition: POR

30D: Highlands hillside: BRAE

33D: Astronomer Tycho: BRAHE. Hmm, this moustache picture looks familiar. I must have searched for him before.

35D: Colette novel: CHERI. The new movie starring Michelle Pfeiffer will be out next year. Colette also wrote "Gigi".

38D: Trade association: GUILD

39D: Jiffy: TRICE

44D: Hautboys: OBOES. Hautboy is French for OBOE.

48D: Brit. medical syst.: NHS (National Health Service). This has become a gimme to me.

49D: Step cautiously: TIPTOE

51D: Plane bisecting the body: SAGITTAL. All right, this is a great picture to show you those bisecting planes. Somehow I just could not get the letter G.

53D: Serengeti bounder: IMPALA. They look so skinny.

55D: Netlike caps: SNOODS

56D: Mystical teachings: var. KABALA. Cabala is more common of course.

57D: Part of eyes: IRISES. I am still waiting for van Gogh's IRISES clue.

60D: Lead-ins: INTROS

68D: Vietnam Memorial artist: LIN (Maya). She does have "A Strong, Clear Vision".

70D: Basketry willow: OSIER. Wow, look at these red OSIER dogwood. Kind of like cotton plants after all the cottons are picked.

88D: Writer H. L. __: MENCKEN. Yet another google. He is known as "The Sage of Baltimore". And he is "regarded as one of the most influential American writers and prose stylists of the first half of the 20th century."

91D: Card cheat: SHARPIE. New SHARPIE definition to me.

98D: Rainbow: pref.: IRID. As iridescent. I would not have obtained the word without the across fills.

101D: Sailing ships: SLOOPS. It looks like a boat rather than a ship.

109D: Icelandic epic: EDDA. Elder EDDA is the "Poetic EDDA". Younger EDDA is the "Prose EDDA". Both written between 8th to 13th century.

110D: God of Memphis: PTAH. I always think of ELVIS when I see this clue. PTAH is an Egyptian god. Wikipedia says "In art, he is portrayed as a bearded mummified man, often wearing a skull cap, with his hands holding an ankh, was, djed, the symbols of life, power and stability, respectively." Interesting WAS. I wonder if any constructor thought of cluing DJED as "Egyptian symbol of stability" rather than "spun record" (DJ-ed).

113D: Hood's heater: GAT. I thought ROD first.

116D: Explode: POP. "Explode"? I have problem accepting this clue.

C.C.

26 comments:

  1. Ouch.

    First thing I did after I had a few of the down fills was go to wikiquote and get the quote. Then I filled in most of the centre by myself but I had to google everywhere else. I wanted SHOW OFF for PHOTO OP, SHIFT for MORPH, KNOB for HASP and MEATY for MINTY. I googled to get FINUGE for 13d and couldn't find DINGLE. Oh and my first instincts were SINES for AREAS and MERIT for ASSET. I couldn't get PSEUD because I had S??UF. It's because of puzzles like this that I don't normally do Sunday puzzles.

    Oh, POP is okay for "explode". POP here means "burst" as in "pop a balloon".

    Martin

    ReplyDelete
  2. Martin,
    It comforts me to get an "Ouch" reaction from you. This puzzle was insanely hard for me. I had no problem getting PSEUD because it has appeared several times in our puzzle before.

    Argyle,
    Pittsburgh Post Gazette also carries the Sunday TMS puzzle. Thanks for "Mr. Lonely". Who are your favorite singers?

    Clear Ayes,
    The reason I asked you about Fanny is because I felt that you are a lady who was pampered by loving letters/poems during a certain time in your youth. Keats' March 1820 "Sweetest Fanny" letter is one of my favorites, so passionate. Thanks for the follow-up on the flyweight/featherweight.

    Kazie,
    Oh, now I understand "only the Unterbacher donkey doesn't come". You are incredible. Someone remarked on Halloween that "Can we drive a stake through the Duseldorf's donkey's heart for good?" I was lost, and I am still lost.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Martin,
    I think it's a serious cheating if go to Wikiquote first for a quip/quote themed puzzle. What language do you speak at home?

    Thejvn,
    OK, I think I might have misused LONELINESS yesterday. But don't you think many beautiful songs/poems are written by people who feel lonely and sad?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ouch again.

    I speak English at home but, really, I didn't have enough of the quote to be able to guess it without going to wikiquote.

    Martin (Does it count as two if I answer a question you asked?)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Martin,
    No, your last comment does not count. NONE of the posts that answer mine or others' crossword related questions should be counted. Sorry for the restrictions. I don't know where I got the idea that you speak French at home.

    Kazie et al,
    I hope I've made myself clear. Please feel free to jump in when you see a question that needs to be addressed.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Actually, C.C., the restrictions regarding how many posts we can make won't really affect me so much because I plan to go to bed soon. (I have classes tomorrow, both a few I teach and one class I take.) Kind of sad that I'll be going to bed and most people haven't checked in yet, eh? I guess they're still working on the puzzle. I really think wikiquote was the way to go this week.

    By the way, I'm actually flattered that you think I speak French at home: I barely use it since I left Canada but it remains one of the half dozen or so languages that I have more than a passing familiarity with.

    Martin

    ReplyDelete
  7. Todays' puzzle was just tough. There were a lot of proper names.
    I would like to pose a question about how people work the puzzle. Normally i work each block with a cross check on the scross or down. Or sometimes, the first part is too hard, so i dropped to the bottom. It seems to work better with using the clue as both the answer and the check.
    Olschwang does prepare a tough puzzle. I wonder if he read this blog

    Alabama is now 8 and 0, and may be number one with the Teas loss. Do you think that Sabin is worth four million dollars.

    abogato in Alabama

    ReplyDelete
  8. c.c.,
    Whoever said that either knows something we don't, or were they just tired of you talking about it?

    ReplyDelete
  9. regarding 28A, is this really the dance Carly Simon refers to in"You're So Vain"? Of course her family was operatically trained....

    ReplyDelete
  10. Good morning CC, DFs and DFettes...Wow what a puzzle today. I needed quite a bit of outside help and still spent about two hours trying to figure out this hammer. There were too many proper names to solve even with the crosses.

    CC I agree the picture of the sailing ship looks more like a boat. The difference being that you can put a boat on a ship but you cannot put a ship on a boat.

    I could not understand why I got awake so early this morning and then my bride explained that the clocks were set back last night.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Good Morning All, Oh, how I wish I could work on the Sunday crossword! C.C.'s links and questions always make me interested in finding out more.

    It cheered me up (I woke up too early) to see a Groucho Marx quote. I think he was one of the great American humorists. Apropos of the upcoming election, another of his quotes was "All people are born alike - except Republicans and Democrats." Let's hope by Wednesday, that quote won't be so spot on.

    BTW, where is Buckeye, another Groucho aficionado?

    C.C. There haven't been many love letters or poems for me. I did have a gentleman friend, before I met my husband, who knew I enjoyed poetry and gave me a collection of Eugene Field poems. My father was a great poetry lover and used to recite snippets whenever the spirit moved him...which was often. I think he was the one who was most responsible for my love of poetry.

    I have to say, in defense of the less articulate lover, sometimes there is nothing more appreciated than a heartfelt "Oohh, Baby!"

    About yesterday's discussion of loneliness....

    oh yes

    there are worse things than
    being alone
    but it often takes decades
    to realize this
    and most often
    when you do
    it's too late
    and there's nothing worse
    than
    too late.

    - Charles Bukowski

    Charles Bukowski was a mid-20th Century poet and novelist. He was somewhat of a counter-culture icon and was known as "The Skid Row Poet". I read somewhere that the character "Claude Bukowski" in the musical "Hair" was named after him.

    G.A.H. and I are on our way to a Sunday morning brunch. I'll check in later to see what is going on here.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I found the same quote attributed to Edward Morgan Forster. Did anyone get 18D? (I can't figure out the third letter) I had 26A as "tries" but it doesn't fit with 15D which I had as "los"
    Would appreciate any advice. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Yael,

    Tries is correct. 15D is por, 18D is misadd.

    I have a bit of an advantage here because the "Sunday" crossword comes out in the Saturday Globe and Mail - not that I get it done any quicker.

    Lots of small gaps this week like Una, Solti and Stang - but got most of it, including the quote, without resorting to Google. "Teemer" is indeed stretghing it, as is sharpie.

    Ken W., Alberta

    ReplyDelete
  14. Kazie,
    D'oh! It turns out that John Lampkin was talking about the clue for ESEL, which has been clued as "Düsseldorf donkey" in the past.

    He explained to me that "No editor likes that entry because it is crosswordese. No sane English speaking native would ever use the word in conversation. It exists only in Germany and in crossword puzzles. Peter Gordon singled it out as a word to avoid in his now defunct NY Sun guidelines. I used it as a synechdoche, representing all such words to be avoided."

    ReplyDelete
  15. Anonymous @ 9:02am,
    I checked the song lyrics. You are right, there is a line "Your scarf it was apricot/You had one eye in the mirror/As you watched yourself GAVOTTE..." Thanks.

    Dick,
    And I am not prepared to ask the ship/boat question to a sailor again.

    Clear Ayes,
    Thanks for the simple yet thought-provoking poem. OK, so you are not someone's Fanny, are you someone's George Sand then? I am thinking of the love & inspiration Sand offered to Chopin during his productive years.

    Yael & Ken,
    Welcome! Hope to see you guys next Sunday.

    ReplyDelete
  16. c.c.,
    Well, I'm glad to have that clarified! Thanks for the compliment earlier too! It was just the challenge of trying to make sense of it that drove me to unravel all that terrible un-English on Wiki!

    ReplyDelete
  17. C.C. LOL, Of course I would like to think that there are many men for whom I have been an inspiration and muse. Too bad, but I don't think that there has been a Chopin in my life. Maybe that is because I am no George Sand.

    I'm pretty sure being an inspiration to a genius just might be more work that I would want to take on. From what I've seen and read, the "genius personality" is often very selfish and demanding.

    I think Meredith Wilson's musical The Music Man My White Knight came pretty close to my sentiments. This is Kristin Chenowith's version.

    Since it is "slow Sunday", here's another poem about being alone, in the most basic sense. It comes from the unexpected source of Ogden Nash, who is best know for his short witty poems.

    Listen

    There is a knocking in the skull,
    An endless silent shout
    Of something beating on a wall,
    And crying, “Let me out!”

    That solitary prisoner
    Will never hear reply.
    No comrade in eternity
    Can hear the frantic cry.

    No heart can share the terror
    That haunts his monstrous dark.
    The light that filters through the chinks
    No other eye can mark.

    When flesh is linked with eager flesh,
    And words run warm and full,
    I think that he is loneliest then,
    The captive in the skull.

    Caught in a mesh of living veins,
    In cell of padded bone,
    He loneliest is when he pretends
    That he is not alone.

    We’d free the incarcerate race of man
    That such a doom endures
    Could only you unlock my skull,
    Or I creep into yours.

    - Ogden Nash

    ReplyDelete
  18. Here's Georges Moustaki on the subject of solitude:
    Ma Solitude

    Here are the lyrics:
    Pour avoir si souvent dormi avec ma solitude
    Je m'en suis fait presque une amie une douce habitude
    Elle ne me quitte pas d'un pas fidèle comme une ombre
    Elle m'a suivi çà et là aux quatre coins du monde
    Non je ne suis jamais seul avec ma solitude
    Quand elle est au creux de mon lit elle prend toute la place
    Et nous passons de longues nuits tous les deux face à face
    Je ne sais vraiment pas jusqu’où ira cette complice
    Faudra-t-il que j'y prenne goût ou que je réagisse
    Non je ne suis jamais seul avec ma solitude
    Par elle j'ai autant appris que j'ai versé de larmes
    Si parfois je la répudie jamais elle ne désarme
    Et si je préfère l'amour d'une autre courtisane
    Elle sera à mon dernier jour ma dernière compagne
    Non je ne suis jamais seul avec ma solitude
    Non je ne suis jamais seul avec ma solitude

    Those who know enough French should enjoy it, others will like the sound anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  19. This was definitely a challenging puzzle, but after banging my head against a brick wall for a bit, I did manage to complete it UNaided and with only five incorrect squares.

    PSEUD? I have never heard it used as anything but a prefix, so I had some difficulties where PSEUD crossed SOUTANE and UNA. I know the word SOUTANE but could not pull it out of my memory. Of course, it didn't help that I misspelled HOSNI as Hasni. Most of the other proper names I was able to get from the crosses, except for Arnold STANG.

    Like you, cc, I had heard of the TVA but not the CVA. Some years ago I biked around the DINGLE peninsula, so that was easy. And I knew Sir George SOLTI because he was the director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1969 to 1991.

    May Sarton wrote a wonderful book entitled Journal of a Solitude, subtitled "the intimate diary of a year in the life of a creative woman".

    And sadly on Friday Studs Terkel died. He was the Pulitzer Prize winning author of books such as Working, The Good War and Hard Times that gave voice to ordinary people. He will be missed.

    ReplyDelete
  20. To C.C. --

    Most certainly, many great works have come from loneliness -- Beethoven's deafness, and his dealing with it, leaps to mind.

    Re-reading your Saturday post:
    "LONELINESS can be beautiful and inspiring, esp if you are comfortable being alone."

    I probably over-reacted to the clue's word "cheerlessness" and your use of "comfortable". After 45 years of a great marriage, I am now alone, but am not lonely; I am in solitude. All my memories are happy tonight.

    ReplyDelete
  21. I worked this puzzle off and on for an hour or two then watched the Bears game hoping to come back to it with fresh eyes. Did'nt work. Groucho is one of my all time favorite wits and I'm sorry that I didn't get this.
    So, one of my favorite Groucho-isms,"We were so hungry when we got to Moscow, soviet".
    Thanks again for the company!!

    ReplyDelete
  22. It sounds like I missed some interesting discussions this weekend. I started the puzzle late this afternoon, and got about two-thirds of it filled in before I decided to set it down and come to read what you all had to say. I was mostly on track with the exception of 10D. For some unexplainable reason, I read 'Cassock' as 'hassock' and entered OTTOMAN. Obviously I couldn't get anything to work around that and the grid was still blank when I called it quits.

    I love Groucho quotes, but a good deal of this one escaped me. The music clues were easy. TEEMER was awful for an answer!

    I'm going to go read the archives to see what I missed while I was away. See you tomorrow!

    ReplyDelete
  23. It sounds like I missed some interesting discussions this weekend. I started the puzzle late this afternoon, and got about two-thirds of it filled in before I decided to set it down and come to read what you all had to say. I was mostly on track with the exception of 10D. For some unexplainable reason, I read 'Cassock' as 'hassock' and entered OTTOMAN. Obviously I couldn't get anything to work around that and the grid was still blank when I called it quits.

    I love Groucho quotes, but a good deal of this one escaped me. The music clues were easy. TEEMER was awful for an answer!

    I'm going to go read the archives to see what I missed while I was away. See you tomorrow!

    ReplyDelete
  24. C.C. said..@6:36 AM
    Who are your favorite singers?

    And Argyle said...16 1/2 hours later...females, Carly Simon, Stevie Nicks, and Linda Ronstadt.
    Males, Roy Orbison, Gene Pitney, and Nat King Cole.

    ReplyDelete
  25. In re: the pope's "belt" -- The white watered silk fascia, with the appropriate coat of arms on the ends, is worn by the Pope.
    I believe it can also be called a cincture.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Doesitinink, Sorry to hear about Studs Terkel. He was a very interesting man and an excellent writer.

    Argyle, Excellent taste in singers!

    It's rather late for the "back east" crowd. I just got home from a girls' night out with my daughter. We went to dinner and to see Kenny Loggins in concert. I was amazed. He's not the soft rock acoustic balladeer that he once was. He sang some of his old hits, but he has a fantastic band and they really rocked out. They had everybody in the venue standing and clapping for almost two hours. Yes, he sang "Footloose", but it was definitely a high octane version.

    Busy day tomorrow, but will try to get the puzzle early and check in to say "Hi".

    ReplyDelete

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