Theme: Quip
20A: Start of the Evan Esar quip: TO THE NIGHT OWL
37A: Part 2 of quip: IT'S ALWAYS BETTER
57A: End of a quip: LATE THAN NEVER
Technically, Esar quipped "To a night owl, it's always better than never". It seems a bit arbitrary and capricious for a constructor to alter someone's original quip at his own convenience to construct a crossword grid, don't you think so? My nerve is a bit chafed by this granular unevenness in an otherwise very pleasing, smooth & Monday-like puzzle.
If not for the upper left corner AREOLE snag, I would have reached the Emerald city and seen the great Wizard of Oz unaided! I found my yellow brick roads very early on, after 37A revealed itself to me. I easily hoed patches and patches of the loose fields, and I did not really find any hard clumps of dirts, all easily crushable.
On a non-crossword related issue, I think I tend to bristle at things that might not raise your ire at all. Take Clinton's explanation for her Bosnia sniper fire faux pas for example, she said: "I say a lot of things - millions of words a day - so if I misspoke, that was a just a misstatement." Many pundits and reporters pounced on her faulty memory blips.
I actually believe that people do misspeak for things that they may not have experienced. I know I would not even consider venturing to Bosnia under that risky situation. I am, however, bothered by her "millions of words a day". How could that be? At what speed? Faster than an auctioneer?
Someone actually counts the amount of word an auctioneer speaks per minute, and it will take Hillary 40 hours talking non-stop to reach a million word. Is she so privileged that her day is consisted of more than 24 hours? I tend to take the meaning of words very literally due to my lamentable lack of understanding of American idioms and slangs and the habitual exaggeration of certain stuff in American culture.
Now back to today's puzzle, the Grid structure is : 15*15
187 filled squares, 38 blank squares, total words 76 (Across 35, Down 41). Maximum word account for Monday-Friday puzzle is 78 in case you have not paid attention to it.
Here we go:
1A: Valise: BAG. La valise, the suitcase.
4A: Earthquake: SEISM
9A: Car lifts: JACKS
15A: Banks of baseball: ERNIE. Or Els of PGA (or South African golfer Els, Big Easy Els, etc)
16A: Square: UNHIP
17A: Salton or Sargasso: SEA
18A: Face the day: RISES
19A: Saturn or Mercury: DEITY. Both Roman Gods.
23A: Jumble: OLIO. This is a typical Crosswordese (words that only appear in Crosswords). ORT, ETUI, ALEE are of the same ilk.
24A: Turns right: GEES. Enough left and right turns (HAWS)! Try something else. Please jump into the Comment section and share with us if you have a better clue for GEE/GEES.
28A: Cowboy movie: WESTERN
31A: Lay waste to: DESPOIL. Learned this word in 2003 when the rampant looting took place in Iraq and some of the museum pieces were despoiled. But to borrow a line from Rumsfeld: "Stuff happens, democracy is messy, freedom is untidy."
34A: The best __ plans...: LAID
36A: Designer Ashley: LAURA. Never heard of her, a pure guess.
43A: Actress Witherspoon: REESE. I like her "Walk the Line" & "Sweet Home Alabama" only.
48A: Comebacks: RETORTS. I was on the wrong train, putting RETURNS first.
53A: Seine: NET. Got it this time.
54A: Unsolicited ms. encl. SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope).
56A: Viral lump: WART
62A: Bloodsucker: LEECH
64A: Transmitter: RADIO
65A: Drs.' group: AMA (American Medical Association). I am very impressed by the extensive work DWB (Doctors Without Border) has done so far, very far reaching.
69A: Overbearing: BOSSY
70A: Bubbly: PERKY. Want the old effervescent Katie Couric back.
71A: Big Band, for one: ERAS
Down entries:
1D: Confer: BESTOW
2D: Interstice of a leaf: AREOLE. I think I saw this word in TMS puzzle before. Maybe it's AREOLA. Not sure.
3D: Free of charge: GRATIS
4D: Desiccated: SERE
5D: Poetic name for Ireland: ERIN. Good to see ERIN and EIRE (26D: Emerald Isle) in the same puzzle.
6D: Badge of honor: INSIGNIA
7D: Blockade: SIEGE
8D: Interlocked: MESHED
9D: Self-defense system: JUDO. Putin's favorite sport. He is a black belt.
11D: Cool it!: CHILL OUT
12D: Set of a part: KIT
13D: Mata Hari, for one: SPY. A femme fatale.
21D: Steaming: HOT. I kind of like the almost intersection of HOT and NIGHT.
27D: Winged: ALAR. Wing parts are ALAE. Ala is Latin for wing.
29D: Actress Barkin: ELLEN. Not impressed by her role in Ocean's 13.
38D: Beret filler: TETE. Tired of this clue too. Let me see... Port City in Mozambique, no, I don't like it. Don't like French head either. I can not think of anything else.
38D: Resident of a new region: SETTLERS
39D: Tempe sch.: ASU (Arizona State University).
41D: Spatula: SPREADER
47D: Petty dictator: SATRAP. Identical clue on Feb 27 puzzle.
50D: Devastate: RAVAGE
51D: Nervous vibration: TREMOR
52D: Horizontal layers: STRATA
55D: Sedimentary rock: SHALE. Filled in from the down clues. It's "a rock of fissile or laminated structure formed by the consolidation of clay or argillaceous material."
60D: Small notch: NICK
C.C.
20A: Start of the Evan Esar quip: TO THE NIGHT OWL
37A: Part 2 of quip: IT'S ALWAYS BETTER
57A: End of a quip: LATE THAN NEVER
Technically, Esar quipped "To a night owl, it's always better than never". It seems a bit arbitrary and capricious for a constructor to alter someone's original quip at his own convenience to construct a crossword grid, don't you think so? My nerve is a bit chafed by this granular unevenness in an otherwise very pleasing, smooth & Monday-like puzzle.
If not for the upper left corner AREOLE snag, I would have reached the Emerald city and seen the great Wizard of Oz unaided! I found my yellow brick roads very early on, after 37A revealed itself to me. I easily hoed patches and patches of the loose fields, and I did not really find any hard clumps of dirts, all easily crushable.
On a non-crossword related issue, I think I tend to bristle at things that might not raise your ire at all. Take Clinton's explanation for her Bosnia sniper fire faux pas for example, she said: "I say a lot of things - millions of words a day - so if I misspoke, that was a just a misstatement." Many pundits and reporters pounced on her faulty memory blips.
I actually believe that people do misspeak for things that they may not have experienced. I know I would not even consider venturing to Bosnia under that risky situation. I am, however, bothered by her "millions of words a day". How could that be? At what speed? Faster than an auctioneer?
Someone actually counts the amount of word an auctioneer speaks per minute, and it will take Hillary 40 hours talking non-stop to reach a million word. Is she so privileged that her day is consisted of more than 24 hours? I tend to take the meaning of words very literally due to my lamentable lack of understanding of American idioms and slangs and the habitual exaggeration of certain stuff in American culture.
Now back to today's puzzle, the Grid structure is : 15*15
187 filled squares, 38 blank squares, total words 76 (Across 35, Down 41). Maximum word account for Monday-Friday puzzle is 78 in case you have not paid attention to it.
Here we go:
1A: Valise: BAG. La valise, the suitcase.
4A: Earthquake: SEISM
9A: Car lifts: JACKS
15A: Banks of baseball: ERNIE. Or Els of PGA (or South African golfer Els, Big Easy Els, etc)
16A: Square: UNHIP
17A: Salton or Sargasso: SEA
18A: Face the day: RISES
19A: Saturn or Mercury: DEITY. Both Roman Gods.
23A: Jumble: OLIO. This is a typical Crosswordese (words that only appear in Crosswords). ORT, ETUI, ALEE are of the same ilk.
24A: Turns right: GEES. Enough left and right turns (HAWS)! Try something else. Please jump into the Comment section and share with us if you have a better clue for GEE/GEES.
28A: Cowboy movie: WESTERN
31A: Lay waste to: DESPOIL. Learned this word in 2003 when the rampant looting took place in Iraq and some of the museum pieces were despoiled. But to borrow a line from Rumsfeld: "Stuff happens, democracy is messy, freedom is untidy."
34A: The best __ plans...: LAID
36A: Designer Ashley: LAURA. Never heard of her, a pure guess.
43A: Actress Witherspoon: REESE. I like her "Walk the Line" & "Sweet Home Alabama" only.
48A: Comebacks: RETORTS. I was on the wrong train, putting RETURNS first.
53A: Seine: NET. Got it this time.
54A: Unsolicited ms. encl. SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope).
56A: Viral lump: WART
62A: Bloodsucker: LEECH
64A: Transmitter: RADIO
65A: Drs.' group: AMA (American Medical Association). I am very impressed by the extensive work DWB (Doctors Without Border) has done so far, very far reaching.
69A: Overbearing: BOSSY
70A: Bubbly: PERKY. Want the old effervescent Katie Couric back.
71A: Big Band, for one: ERAS
Down entries:
1D: Confer: BESTOW
2D: Interstice of a leaf: AREOLE. I think I saw this word in TMS puzzle before. Maybe it's AREOLA. Not sure.
3D: Free of charge: GRATIS
4D: Desiccated: SERE
5D: Poetic name for Ireland: ERIN. Good to see ERIN and EIRE (26D: Emerald Isle) in the same puzzle.
6D: Badge of honor: INSIGNIA
7D: Blockade: SIEGE
8D: Interlocked: MESHED
9D: Self-defense system: JUDO. Putin's favorite sport. He is a black belt.
11D: Cool it!: CHILL OUT
12D: Set of a part: KIT
13D: Mata Hari, for one: SPY. A femme fatale.
21D: Steaming: HOT. I kind of like the almost intersection of HOT and NIGHT.
27D: Winged: ALAR. Wing parts are ALAE. Ala is Latin for wing.
29D: Actress Barkin: ELLEN. Not impressed by her role in Ocean's 13.
38D: Beret filler: TETE. Tired of this clue too. Let me see... Port City in Mozambique, no, I don't like it. Don't like French head either. I can not think of anything else.
38D: Resident of a new region: SETTLERS
39D: Tempe sch.: ASU (Arizona State University).
41D: Spatula: SPREADER
47D: Petty dictator: SATRAP. Identical clue on Feb 27 puzzle.
50D: Devastate: RAVAGE
51D: Nervous vibration: TREMOR
52D: Horizontal layers: STRATA
55D: Sedimentary rock: SHALE. Filled in from the down clues. It's "a rock of fissile or laminated structure formed by the consolidation of clay or argillaceous material."
60D: Small notch: NICK
C.C.
