google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Sunday February 8, 2009 Linda and Charles Preston

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Feb 15, 2009

Sunday February 8, 2009 Linda and Charles Preston

Note: This post is blogged by Argyle. It's a TMS Sunday syndication, different from our normal TMS Daily puzzle Sunday edition.

Theme: Valentine Dream

23A: Timely verse, pt. 1: I DEARLY LOVE A VALENTINE.

46A: Timely verse, pt. 2: I AM A SENTIMENTAL FEMALE.

79A: Timely verse, pt. 3: IT NEEDN'T BE SO BIG OR FINE.

107A: End of verse: I HOPE I GET ONE IN MY EMAIL.

Be My Valentine. I'll give you a piece of my HEART.

The verse may be timely but the tempo seems a little ragged but fitting it into the constraint of a crossword grid, I'd have to say, it is very good. Thank you, anonymous constructor.

Across:

21A: Tenor Franco ___: CORELLI. Franco CORELLI, Prince of Tenors, (1921 – 2003) was an Italian tenor active in opera from 1951 to 1976. Associated in particular with the big spinto and dramatic tenor roles of the Italian repertory, he was celebrated internationally for his handsome stage presence and thrilling upper register. Sound Clips.

22A: Operating: IN USE. I do not care for this clue. 'Occupied' would have worked.

26A: Greens, in a French menu: SALADES.

27A: Sink scourer Bon: AMI. "Hasn't Scratched Yet".

28A: Egypt's president, 1956-58: NASSER. Gamal Abdel-NASSER, 1918 - 1970. Strange clue because, while it is true he was president during 1956-58, he stay in the presidency untill his death in 1970 and was succeeded by Anwar Sadat. Syria and Egypt united under his presidency, forming the United Arab Republic in 1958, but the union broke up in 1961.

31A: E-I connection: FGH. Alphabetically.

36A: George and Eric's muse Pattie: BOYD. George Harrison's wife, Eric Clapton's Layla Pic / Song.

37A: Insignifiant amount: SOU. "not worth a SOU marquee", a colloquialism meaning of little value. The term is derived from the French sou, an old copper coin.

38A: WWII landing ships: LSTS. I have been confused by this clue. The LST is a big ship. What I have been thinking of is the much smaller LCVP (Landing Craft Vehicle/People), the ones you see hitting the beach in the movies.

43A: Hearty soup: PEA. A nice simple bowl of soup.

45A: eat ___: relish: IT UP. To enjoy something completely. Relish used as a verb (with object) to take pleasure in; like; enjoy.

53A: "___ was saying...": AS I.

54A: Choices at a 19 Across: ALES.

55A: Brings up: REARS. Child REARing

56A: Travis or Oberon: MERLE. I have a cousin MERLE.

57A: Playing marble: STEELIE. Players should first decide if they want to play with 'STEELIEs', which will usually damage the target marbles.

59A: Bargain in a petty way: HAGGLE.

61A: Showed mercy toward: SPARED.

62A: Took the lead: STARRED. Theatrically

64A: Peppered, as with buckshot: RIDDLED. Did you think of Dick Cheney? I did.

66A: Potatoes au ___: GRATIN. A nice simple bowl of cheesy potatoes.

69A: Nova Soctia,(sic) formerly: ACADIA. Map with the French names.

71A: Krypton. e.g.: RARE GAS. An inert, nontoxic gas used in insulating windows to reduce heat transfer.

75A: 1953 AL MVP Al ___: ROSEN. Cleveland Indians third baseman and right-handed slugger.

76A: Harden: INURE.

77A: Peacock constellation: PAVO. I guess we have to start learning the constellations of the Southern Hemisphere.

78A: Genetic letters: RNA.

84A: Eliot effort: POEM. Thomas Stearns (TS) Eliot, 1888 – 1965, was a poet, dramatist, and literary critic.

85A: Old Greek theaters: ODEA. Thanks to Dick for pointing out ODEA root in Nickelodeon. Singular is odeum.

86A: Tyrannosaurus ___: REX. Every kid knows this one.

87A: Infamous Idi: AMIN.

89A: Valentine hue: RED.

90A: Tolled: RANG. Hark, hear the bells.

92A: Looks well on: BECOMES. Some other colored sash would be more BECOMING.

95A: ___ appeal: SEX.

96A: Short letter: MEMO.

98A: Quick picker-upper: VACUMM. Not Vivarin?!

102A: News sorce letters: UPI. United Press International.

103A: Mischief-makers: RASCALS. Flatts.

116A: Extremely silly: LOONY.

117A: Alpine country: AUSTRIA. They DO have some mountains!

118A: Noted Chinese family: SOONGS. The famous SOONG Sisters. One of them married to Chiang Kai-Shek, one of them married Sun Yat-sen.

We are headed down now; hold on.

Down:

1D: Baseball stat: RBI.

2D: "CSI" hunk George: EADS. Fort Worth native George EADS plays Nick Stokes, a specialist in hair and fiber analysis in the Las Vegas crime lab.

3D: La ___ tar pits, Los Angeles: BREA. I don't think the Los Angeles is necessary; can there be another La ___ tar pits?

4D: Russia's ___ Mountains: URAL. The dividing line between Europe and Asia are the URAL Mountains.

5D: Synagogue scrolls: TORAHS. The parchment scrolls on which the Jewish laws or instructions are written and the laws or instructions themselves are collectively called the Torah.

6D: Were bought for: SOLD AT. The other side of a transaction?

7D: Author Umberto: ECO. An Italian medievalist, semiotician, philosopher, literary critic and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose. It was made into a movie, a murder mystery set in an Italian monastery in the year 1327 starring Sean Connery.

8D: Turkey mo.: NOV.. Thanksgiving month

9D: Kyoto Protocol: TREATY. An international agreement that aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and the presence of greenhouse gases.

10D: Cleaned, as a pipe: REAMED

11D: "Love Me Tender" crooner: ELVIS.

12D: ___ carte: A LA.

13D: "Wait ___ the Sun Shines, Nellie": 'TIL. Bing Crosby and Mary Martin sing. Look for the Buddy Holly version while you're there.

14D: "Blues Queen" Washington: DINAH. DINAH Washington, 1924 – 1963, was a blues, R&B and jazz singer whose hits included, Mad About the Boy, Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby, and September in the Rain.

15D: Small colonists: ANTS. They live in colonies.

16D: Baseball Hall of Famer Aparicio: LUIS. Shortstop for the Chicago White Sox, the Baltimore Orioles, and Boston Red Sox, "Little Looey" won nine Gold Gloves and was the most feared base stealer in the American League during the late 1950s and early 1960s.

17D: Feudal fieldhand: ESNE.

18D: Crystal gazer: SEER.

20D: Shrek's voice: MYERS. Mike MYERS also portrayed Austin Powers Yeah, Baby!

31D: Stable newborns: FOALS.

33D: Swelter: ROAST.

34D: Fiber-yielding plant: RAMIE. This jacket appears to have stylized RAMIE leaves on it.

35D: Bambi's aunt: ENA.

36D: Chinese poet Dao: BEI. BEI Dao is the pseudonym of Chinese poet Zhao Zhenkai. Bei Dao is the most notable representative of the Misty Poets, a group of Chinese poets who reacted against the restrictions of the Cultural Revolution.

37D: Intimidated, with down: STARED.

38D: Citrus drink: LIMEADE.

39D: Ringo of rock: STARR.

40D: Tutu material: TULLE. A lightweight, very fine netting, which is often starched. It can be made of various fibers, including silk, nylon, and rayon. Tulle is most commonly used for veils, gowns (particularly wedding gowns), and ballet tutus.

41D: Hastiness: SPEED.

43D: Liquid Meas.: PTS..

44D: Livorno locale: ITALIA. Map.

48D: Cuban newsmaker Gonzalez: ELIÁN. If you don't remember, he was the young boy who lost his mother when they tried to get to America in a small aluminum boat. His great-uncle was given custody of him but his father, who was still in Cuba and hadn't known what his wife was going to do, demanded that his son be returned to him. Attorney General Janet Reno enforced a judge's order that Elián be returned to his father. It was in all the papers.

51D: Vamp Pola: NEGRI. Pola NEGRI, 1897 - 1987, was a Polish film actress who achieved notoriety as a femme fatale in silent films between 1910s and 1930s.

59D: Wife of Priam: HECUBA. She was the wife of Priam, King of Troy therefore she was the queen in Greek Mythology. Priam and Hecuba had nineteen children. Nadya Suleman hasn't caught up with her...yet.

60D: On ___ : if challenged: A DARE.

61D: Of serbs and Croats: prefix: SLAVO.

65D: Schlep: DRAG.

66D: Beef: GRIPE.

73D: Sharpshooter Oakley: ANNIE. A short bio. She was the real deal.

74D: Composer Saint-___: SAËNS. Charles-Camille Saint-SAËNS, 1835 – 1921, was a French composer, organist, conductor, and pianist, known especially for The Carnival of the Animals and Danse Macabre.

80D: Song from "The Sound of Music": DO RE MI.

83D: ___ Schwarz: FAO. Upscale specialty toy retailer headquartered in New York City.

91D: Key of Mahler's Symphony No. 6: A MINOR.

94D: Roman orator-philosopher: CICERO. He was widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators but he stll met with an unfortunate demise.

95: Like some bird food: SUETY. But not just for birds!

97D: Prince Valiant's son: ARN. Prince Valiant began as a comic strip created by Hal Foster in 1937. It is an epic adventure that has told a continuous story for its entire history. He has also been in movies, TV series, and comic books. (In the TV series, Arn is a different character, not Prince Valiant's son.) Arn was born in North America.

98D: Glass container: VIAL.

99D: I see, facetiously: AH SO.

100D: Chanel of fashion: COCO. For me? Why, thank you.

101D: At the time of: UPON.

104D: "But I ___ more I": Lorca: AM NO. “But I AM NO more I, nor is my home now my home.” from Somnambule Ballad by Fredrico Garcia Lorca. Lorca, 1898 – 1936, was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. Somnambulism is sleepwalking so a somnambule is someone walking in their sleep or they feel like they are sleepwalking.

105D: Placed: LAIN.

108D: Scholastic meas.: GPA.

109D: Water at Perigueux: EAU. Perigueux, Aquitaine, France

110D: Inventor Whitney: ELI. Cotton gin inventor.

111D: This ___ test: IS A.

112D: Grid positions: LGS. Grid is short for gridiron. Gridiron = football field. LGS is short for left guards. If you have a better idea, let us know.

Argyle

24 comments:

Zhouqin (C.C.) Burnikel said...

Argyle,
Superb write-up. My nickle's worth:

1) The verse does not make any sense to me.

2) 14A: Valleys. Right now my answer is DELLS, but the intersecting 17D is ESNE. Where was I wrong?

3) As for NASSAR, the UAR was indeed split in 1961, but Wikipedia says Egypt continued to be known officially as the "United Arab Republic" until 1971. And NASSAR was the President of the United Arab Republic from 1958 to 1970.

3)SEX clue is quite sparkling. I am tired of the "Gender" clue.

4) Great Ballet Tutus link.

5) Is Bon AMI still in use? I've never seen this product before.

More later.

Col_Gopinath said...

Hi CC & Argyle good evening from India,
14A is DALES. Got through the CW with reasonable ease, took me a while to figure out the last line of the verse as I had nver heard of SUETY, anyway I did not have to google too much, just a couple of names.
AH SO of 99D reminds me of the Japanese character in the British Comedy serial 'Mind your language' have any of you seen it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_Your_Language
Cheerio

kazie said...

c.c.,
I still have some Bon Ami somewhere--but then I never throw things out, so it may not be on the supermarket shelves any more.

Argyle,
I agree--a great XW analysis!

I had a problem with 14A for a while too--I had VALES, and then DINAH hit me. It needs the A and E for the perps.

I had no idea about 3D: BREA, 36D: BEI, 83D: FAO, 104D: AM NO, or 112D: LGS, but they appeared from the crosses. I had to g'spot 75A: ROSEN, and 21A: CORELLI, because I forgot 7D ECO again!

Otherwise an enjoyable puzzle. I'm going to have to do these closer to when they are blogged, otherwise I can't remember my processing for the clues. This time I did it as soon as it was available, so had to re-acquaint myself with it all over again.

Argyle said...

Good Morning CC,

17D is right. your 15D should be ANTS making 14A: DALES.

"Over hill, over DALE,
we will hit the dusty trail"

So 28A: Eygpt's president, 1956-58: was a sneaky clue but correct.

Bon Ami in the modern can. I think it is still on the shelves.

Argyle said...

Col_Gopinath said..@ 7:16 AM
AH SO of 99D reminds me of the Japanese character in the British Comedy serial 'Mind your language' have any of you seen it?


No but I bet I would like it, a guilty pleasure but so not Politically Correct.

Zhouqin (C.C.) Burnikel said...

Col G & Kazie,
Ugh. I was convinced 14A is either GLEN or DELL. DALE/VALE never crossed my mind. Charlie Chan often commented "Ah so".

Argyle,
Is MERLE an unisex name? Why "Or no" for YES? I don't get it. By the way, Nickelodeon is rooted in odeon, not odeum. Those two must be related I think. Is Vivarin a prescription drug? I like Chanel Allure. Try it, Santa.

Zhouqin (C.C.) Burnikel said...

Argyle,
Where is the origin for "Over hill, over DALE, we will hit the dusty trail"?

Dennis said...

Argyle, just an outstanding job! You'd think you'd been doing this for years; very impressive.

C.C., 'over hill, over dale' is from the Caisson song, the official song of the U.S. Army.

kazie said...

c.c. is right about odeon, which is Greek--odium is Latin for hatred, and my little school dictionary does not list odeum. Latin theater is theatrum, and interestingly, theatrical is scaenicus, a root for our "scene".

I have heard Merle used unisexily (?!).

Argyle's Bon Ami looks just like my can too.

Argyle said...

CC said...By the way, Nickelodeon is rooted in odeon, not odeum.

I should have checked my source better. I got it from 4D: Old music halls: ODEA. Singular is odeum. Is there any modern music halls/theaters called odeum?

Does that sound familiar? It's from Star Tribune Crossword Corner"Sunday February 1, 2009 Robert H. Wolfe" The appropriate theme that day was: "Eat My Words"
;~)

Argyle said...

Why "Or no" for YES?

Watch any courtroom drama and somewhere the witness will be asked to answer a question "Just YES or no",

JD said...

Hi Arglye,

What a great job, much appreciated! I liked being able to work on it for a few days so I could do a little here 'n there.Couldn't finish the 3rd line of the verse. Is 114A pateols???

Clear Ayes said...

Good Morning All, Congratulations Argyle on another great crossword blog. I am definitely impressed with any man who is familiar with the manufacture and uses of TULLE!

I had a couple of sticky places with this one. I didn't know 36D BEI and I had LTS (liters) for 43D, so I had a tough time coming up with a three letter "hearty soup" beginning with L. I finally "lightbulbed" with PEA, but it was the next to last fill.

I also had HECATE for 59D. That messed up the acrosses and particularly 85A, since that one was totally unknown. Several erasures later, I got HECUBA and ODEA fell into place.

BTW, There is a chain of over 100 Cineplex Odeon movie theatres (Canadian spelling) in Canada.

The area that gave me the most problem was the south-west. I first had VASE for 98D, but figured out that couldn't be correct. 116A could have been GOONY, GOOFY, LOOPY and finally, my last choice (of course) was LOONY.

All the other unknowns, like RAMIE, RARE GAS and SOONGS were helped with the perps.

No googling to solve, but I did some post-puzzle checking and learning.

Argyle said...

90D is_____R
__________E
__________P
__________O
114A is PATROL
__________T

WM said...

Argyle...Absolutely terrific job. I had almost forgotten this, so glad I kept it on top of the printer. This was another "joint" effort as my husband snagged it first and I helped fill in the rest. Really only got hung up on SOONGS and G'd it to see if we were correct.

ECO was easy as I had read the book, seen the movie and just recently ordered a DVD from Amazon.uk for my friend in Scotland.

Thank you for the TUTU link...LOL

Crockett1947 said...

Way to go Argyle. Nice blog and nice links.

Have a great Sunday.

JD said...

Thanks Argyle. I had note instead of memo for a bit, and didn't fill in the center,TON, of the 3rd line of the verse.Should have rechecked before asking. Never filled in vacuum either; thought it might be some "meds" I wasn't aware of.
Clear ayes, I had inane for looney until I filled in Coco.

Argyle said...

My Goodness, can't trust anyone. Both odeon and odeum are right.

odeum
"concert hall," 1603, from L. odeum, from Gk. odeion, the name of a public building in Athens designed for musical performances, from oide "song" (see ode).


Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
and 3 other dictionaries.

Anonymous said...

I see that you use the term "perps" throughout the blog. What does that mean?

Thanks

kazie said...

tic,
perps = perpendicular fills = downs

Argyle,
Thanks for the extra research on odeum. One more word mystery cleared up!

Argyle said...

The term "perps", what does that mean?

I use it to mean any word that is at a right angle(perpendicular) to your target word. After you "get" it, your target word, then it may become a "perp" to another word.

And that's the way we dance around the grid.

DoesItinInk said...

This was not a difficult puzzle. I finished it with few hesitations, no errors and no Google. The few unknowns such as BEI and SOONGS were obtainable from the crosses.

Good job, Argyle! I did not realize that STEELIES were just that…steel balls! Here are instructions on how to play marbles.

Dick said...

Hello Argyle, I'm a little late in congratulating you on a job well done. I thought the puzzle was challenging but doable. I did not know "Soongs" and had trouble getting it because I had laid for 105D. Anyway Argyle I thought you did a great job.

Just curious as to how long it took you to do this effort.

Argyle said...

Dick, I didn't have the blog finished and posted until Saturday afternoon. Even then, I had to do some editing. My link for the bowl of potatoes-au-gratin had morphed into the bowl of pea soup?!

Anyhow, I've figured out how to get the puzzle into a Word document now; that cuts out a lot of time typing, which is good because I'm a hunt and peck typist.