Theme: Salon Terms (Play on Words)
20A: Salon discounts?: Red Dye Specials (Red Eye Special)
41A: Adversarial salon treatment: Hostile Makeover (Hostile Takeover)
60A: Long-lasting lock at the salon: Permanent Tress (Permanent Press)
Tomorrow I am going to start the puzzle from the upper middle section. I have formed this upper-left-corner phobia. Stumped immediately by TITO. That put me in a very negative frame of mind.
I was also mad at myself for not remembering the Eastern German police STASI. The movie "The Lives of Others"made such a big splash in 2007. (update: It won Oscar for Best Foreign Film last year)and I remember I was so intrigued by those Eastern German spies (STASI) and the stunning amount of files they kept. I remember I looked into the dictionary several times for the meaning of STASI. My memory is failing me, all the time now.
There are quite a few foreign words in this puzzle: Latin, German, French, Greek.
Here are the across entires:
1A: Mambo king Puente: TITO. I am sure he was big, otherwise he wouldn't be called Mambo king. But still, he is unknown to me. The only Titos I knew are Yugoslavia's Tito and the Jackson 5 Tito. I just could not get the tune of Mambo #5 out of my mind now.
5A: Low tract of land: SWALE. It's a "low place in a tract of land, usually moister and often having ranker vegetation than the adjacent higher land."
10A: Swedish car: SAAB. What do you call Volvo? A Swedish car or an American car (as it's now owned by Ford)?
14A: Tan shade: ECRU
16A: Jason's vessel: ARGO. Jason and the Argonauts. Greek mythology. Never read it. Not sure if they found the Golden Fleece in the end. Jason's wife is Medea.
17A: Nair competitor: NEET. Depilatory cream. Another name is Veet.
23A: _ polloi: HOI. The many (Greek). Hoi is "the", interesting to see people still write "the hoi polli", so redundant.
25A: Bowler's button: RESET. Tired of this clue.
26A: Juarez gold: ORO. Spanish for gold.
28A: 2 on the phone: ABC
30A: Vitamin fig.: RDA (Recommended Dietary Allowance)
34A: Coach Parseghian: ARA. You've worn out your welcome too.
36A: Another name for ethylene: ETHENE
44A: Oban daggers: SKEANS. Did not know. I only knew "SNEE" and "Dirk". Oban is in Scotland.
46A: Biblical miracle site: CANA. Jesus changed water into wine, his first miracle.
47A: "___ Kapital": DAS. Karl Marx's work. Das means "the" in German. I wonder why the English title for it is "Capital", rather than "the Capital."
52A: East German secret police: STASI. German abbreviation of Staatssicherheit (State Security). Secret police of Eastern German.
68A: Seed cover: ARIL. Another repeat offender.
70A: Auberjonois of "Boston Legal": RENÉ. Got it from down clue. Never heard of him.
71A: Movie critic Pauline: KAEL. Unknown. She was the film critic for The New Yorker from from 1968 to 1991. Our local Star Tribune has a brilliant film critic named Colin Covert.
73A: Belgian river: YSER. It flows into North Sea.
Down entries:
2D: Champagne bucket: ICER. Has anyone read French Women Don't Get Fat? Well, according to the author, you should drink wine or champagne with your meals.
3D: Bird's nest?: TREEHOUSE
4D: Best: OUTDO. Good job, Hillary, when No. 1 guy outdoes you, you offer him the No. 2 spot.
6D: Smart aleck: WISEACRE. I wish Alex Trebeck would shut up more so that all the Jeopardy questions can be answered.
7D: Preferred invitees: A LIST. Not any more, Eliot Spitzer.
8D: Bounder: LEAPER. Technically yes, but I hated it. Oh, by the way, bounder also means "An ill-bred, unscrupulous man".
9D: Medieval serf: ESNE. Learned from doing crossword.
10D: "Gymnopedies" composer: SATIE (Erik). I am so happy that I got him this time.
11D: Tapestry in "Hamlet": ARRAS. Wall hanging. Saw it clued as Gertrude's tapestry before.
13D: Upward push: BOOST. That's what the Bernanke's rescue package did to the stock market yesterday. It just needs to be sustained.
21D: Meas. across: DIA (Diameter). Last time I made a mistake saying it's diagonal, luckily some reader pointed it out. See, I learned.
26D: Phil of folk: OCHS. He was clued as Protest-singer Phil on Sunday's puzzle. Ex-owner of NY Times is named Ochs.
29D: Aromatic fir: BALSA. Is BALSA the same as Balsam?
31D: Fake-out moves: DEKES. Never heard of this word. Only knew decoy. For a moment, I thought maybe decoy's plural form is still decoy, but the letter e from the across APE forced me to dismiss the idea.
35D: Docs' group: AMA. Or HMO sometimes.
37D: Ad _ committee: HOC. I suppose "ad" means "to" in Latin? US Senate seems to have quite a few Ad Hoc committee. I never knew what they are doing.
38D: Dissipates: EVANESCES. Latin origin ( évānéscere), meaning "fade away".
40D: Part of Q. E. D.: ERAT. Another Latin, Quod Erat Demonstrandum, which was to be demonstrated. I gather ERAT is a past tense for "is"?
43D: Natural talent: APTITUDE. That's what Tyler Hinman has for crossword. Incredible.
53D: __ incognita: TERRA. Unknown Land. Latin. Terra Firma, Terra Cotta.
54D: Palmer, casually: ARNIE. He has an "Army". I respect Jack Nicklaus (the Bear), but I love Arnold Palmer. I respect Tiger Woods, but I love Phil Mickelson. Somehow Tiger and Jack have put some distances between themselves and us.
57D: Broadway backer: ANGEL. I did not connect "Angle" with money until Dennis mentioned it in the Comments. Here is more explanation I lifted from an article on Angel Investment: "The term "angel" has a long history, originating in the entertainment industry. An "angel" was the financial backer of a Broadway show. For instance, the owner of the Boston Red Sox who traded Babe Ruth to the Yankees to raise money to back a Broadway show was an angel, although not to generations of Red Sox fans."
59D: Fatigued: WEARY. The Iraq War, the Fatigue Syndrome.
61D: Fragrant ointment: NARD. I put SARD put, I don't know why.
62D: "___ of the d'Urbervilles": TESS. The only Hardy book that I acturally read.
63D: Trig. function: SINE
67D: German article: DER. According to Dennis, this is the masculine form of 'the" in German, "Das" is the neuter form, and "die" is the feminine form.
I hope you guys will read the Comments section (and add your voice too). There are gems of information and pearls of wisdom to be gleaned there.
C. C.
20A: Salon discounts?: Red Dye Specials (Red Eye Special)
41A: Adversarial salon treatment: Hostile Makeover (Hostile Takeover)
60A: Long-lasting lock at the salon: Permanent Tress (Permanent Press)
Tomorrow I am going to start the puzzle from the upper middle section. I have formed this upper-left-corner phobia. Stumped immediately by TITO. That put me in a very negative frame of mind.
I was also mad at myself for not remembering the Eastern German police STASI. The movie "The Lives of Others"made such a big splash in 2007. (update: It won Oscar for Best Foreign Film last year)and I remember I was so intrigued by those Eastern German spies (STASI) and the stunning amount of files they kept. I remember I looked into the dictionary several times for the meaning of STASI. My memory is failing me, all the time now.
There are quite a few foreign words in this puzzle: Latin, German, French, Greek.
Here are the across entires:
1A: Mambo king Puente: TITO. I am sure he was big, otherwise he wouldn't be called Mambo king. But still, he is unknown to me. The only Titos I knew are Yugoslavia's Tito and the Jackson 5 Tito. I just could not get the tune of Mambo #5 out of my mind now.
5A: Low tract of land: SWALE. It's a "low place in a tract of land, usually moister and often having ranker vegetation than the adjacent higher land."
10A: Swedish car: SAAB. What do you call Volvo? A Swedish car or an American car (as it's now owned by Ford)?
14A: Tan shade: ECRU
16A: Jason's vessel: ARGO. Jason and the Argonauts. Greek mythology. Never read it. Not sure if they found the Golden Fleece in the end. Jason's wife is Medea.
17A: Nair competitor: NEET. Depilatory cream. Another name is Veet.
23A: _ polloi: HOI. The many (Greek). Hoi is "the", interesting to see people still write "the hoi polli", so redundant.
25A: Bowler's button: RESET. Tired of this clue.
26A: Juarez gold: ORO. Spanish for gold.
28A: 2 on the phone: ABC
30A: Vitamin fig.: RDA (Recommended Dietary Allowance)
34A: Coach Parseghian: ARA. You've worn out your welcome too.
36A: Another name for ethylene: ETHENE
44A: Oban daggers: SKEANS. Did not know. I only knew "SNEE" and "Dirk". Oban is in Scotland.
46A: Biblical miracle site: CANA. Jesus changed water into wine, his first miracle.
47A: "___ Kapital": DAS. Karl Marx's work. Das means "the" in German. I wonder why the English title for it is "Capital", rather than "the Capital."
52A: East German secret police: STASI. German abbreviation of Staatssicherheit (State Security). Secret police of Eastern German.
68A: Seed cover: ARIL. Another repeat offender.
70A: Auberjonois of "Boston Legal": RENÉ. Got it from down clue. Never heard of him.
71A: Movie critic Pauline: KAEL. Unknown. She was the film critic for The New Yorker from from 1968 to 1991. Our local Star Tribune has a brilliant film critic named Colin Covert.
73A: Belgian river: YSER. It flows into North Sea.
Down entries:
2D: Champagne bucket: ICER. Has anyone read French Women Don't Get Fat? Well, according to the author, you should drink wine or champagne with your meals.
3D: Bird's nest?: TREEHOUSE
4D: Best: OUTDO. Good job, Hillary, when No. 1 guy outdoes you, you offer him the No. 2 spot.
6D: Smart aleck: WISEACRE. I wish Alex Trebeck would shut up more so that all the Jeopardy questions can be answered.
7D: Preferred invitees: A LIST. Not any more, Eliot Spitzer.
8D: Bounder: LEAPER. Technically yes, but I hated it. Oh, by the way, bounder also means "An ill-bred, unscrupulous man".
9D: Medieval serf: ESNE. Learned from doing crossword.
10D: "Gymnopedies" composer: SATIE (Erik). I am so happy that I got him this time.
11D: Tapestry in "Hamlet": ARRAS. Wall hanging. Saw it clued as Gertrude's tapestry before.
13D: Upward push: BOOST. That's what the Bernanke's rescue package did to the stock market yesterday. It just needs to be sustained.
21D: Meas. across: DIA (Diameter). Last time I made a mistake saying it's diagonal, luckily some reader pointed it out. See, I learned.
26D: Phil of folk: OCHS. He was clued as Protest-singer Phil on Sunday's puzzle. Ex-owner of NY Times is named Ochs.
29D: Aromatic fir: BALSA. Is BALSA the same as Balsam?
31D: Fake-out moves: DEKES. Never heard of this word. Only knew decoy. For a moment, I thought maybe decoy's plural form is still decoy, but the letter e from the across APE forced me to dismiss the idea.
35D: Docs' group: AMA. Or HMO sometimes.
37D: Ad _ committee: HOC. I suppose "ad" means "to" in Latin? US Senate seems to have quite a few Ad Hoc committee. I never knew what they are doing.
38D: Dissipates: EVANESCES. Latin origin ( évānéscere), meaning "fade away".
40D: Part of Q. E. D.: ERAT. Another Latin, Quod Erat Demonstrandum, which was to be demonstrated. I gather ERAT is a past tense for "is"?
43D: Natural talent: APTITUDE. That's what Tyler Hinman has for crossword. Incredible.
53D: __ incognita: TERRA. Unknown Land. Latin. Terra Firma, Terra Cotta.
54D: Palmer, casually: ARNIE. He has an "Army". I respect Jack Nicklaus (the Bear), but I love Arnold Palmer. I respect Tiger Woods, but I love Phil Mickelson. Somehow Tiger and Jack have put some distances between themselves and us.
57D: Broadway backer: ANGEL. I did not connect "Angle" with money until Dennis mentioned it in the Comments. Here is more explanation I lifted from an article on Angel Investment: "The term "angel" has a long history, originating in the entertainment industry. An "angel" was the financial backer of a Broadway show. For instance, the owner of the Boston Red Sox who traded Babe Ruth to the Yankees to raise money to back a Broadway show was an angel, although not to generations of Red Sox fans."
59D: Fatigued: WEARY. The Iraq War, the Fatigue Syndrome.
61D: Fragrant ointment: NARD. I put SARD put, I don't know why.
62D: "___ of the d'Urbervilles": TESS. The only Hardy book that I acturally read.
63D: Trig. function: SINE
67D: German article: DER. According to Dennis, this is the masculine form of 'the" in German, "Das" is the neuter form, and "die" is the feminine form.
I hope you guys will read the Comments section (and add your voice too). There are gems of information and pearls of wisdom to be gleaned there.
C. C.
