Theme: "No" Songs For You
17A: 1986 hit by Heart: NOTHIN' AT ALL
41A: 1963 hit by the Orlons: NOT ME
65A: 1984 hit by Berlin: NO MORE WORDS
11D: 1966 hit by the Beatles: NOWHERE MAN
30D: 1981 hit by Elton John: NOBODY WINS
I have never heard of The Orlons or the Heart bands. And the only Berlin song I am familiar is "Take My Breath Away". Nevertheless, all the theme answers are very easy to obtain.
Excellent theme. I also love Annie Lennox's No More "I Love You's". The video is a bit weird, but the song is beautiful.
I think this is the 4th or 5th time I saw WEN in a TMS puzzle. Every time it's clued as "Sebaceous cyst". Where is the creativity? The WEN Ho Lee nuclear espionage scandal is well known, right? I heard of it when I still lived in China.
I just mentioned two days ago that I wanted WEN clued as "Chinese Premier __ Jiabao". And yesterday someone threw a shoe at him when he was delivering a speech in Cambridge. That despicable protester is completely ignorant of China and the democracy movement there. He has no idea what kind of positive role WEN played during Tiananmen Square Incident. He has no knowledge of how WEN handled the Sichuan earthquake disaster. WEN is the most well respected Chinese leader inside and outside China, among us Chinese.
Across:
1A: Spill the beans: BLAB. Reminds of yesterday's ONAN (Judah's son). He "spills his seeds" on the ground. Might be a waste, but sure not a sin to me. Just learned Onanism from Barry G /Lemonade yesterday.
5A: Japanese entertainer: GEISHA. Here is a modern day GEISHA. The same article says there are now only 1,000 GEISHA left in Japan (compared with 80,000 in 1928) and they are not allowed to marry. “Memoirs of a GEISHA" is a fascinating read.
39A: River of Hamburg: ELBE. Literally "river". Wikipedia says "ELBE was recorded by Ptolemy as Albis, Germanic for "river". Here is the map again. It originates in Czech and flows northwest across German to the North Sea.
44A: Infamous Helmsley: LEONA. The "Queen of Mean". She left millions of trust fund for her dog Trouble when she died. The Helmsley Foundation is the No. 1 charitable giver in 2008 though. Total $5.2 billion commitment. Mayor Bloomberg is the biggest living doner. Strange that the Gates did not make the list.
56A: Legendary archer: TELL. Or "Spill the beans" again.
68A: Barnyard layer: HEN. It's also "Female lobster/octopus/salmon".
70A: Brightest star in Lyra: VEGA. Here is the diagram. Wikipedia says "VEGA was the first star, other than the Sun, to have its photograph taken and the first to have its spectrum photographed" (1850).
Down:
6D: Hurler's stat: ERA. Louis mentioned several days ago about Cleveland's saying "If a Feller has a Lemon He-gan Waynn". I thought that's a great line. Bob Lemon, Jim Hegan or Early Wynn were obscure to me. But Bob Feller is a big potato, HOFer. I thought his name "Feller" could be a great misleading clue. "Feller's start" for ERA sounds good to me.
37D: Pianist Thelonious: MONK. His middle name is Sphere, one of the most influential jazz greats of the 50's and 60's, according to Seattle John.
45D: Fact book: ALMANAC. I wonder how much this original book costs in this condition. Does anyone collect first edition books? I traded my first edition "Godfather" (1969) for some baseball cards several years ago.
50D: City near Rawalpindi: LAHORE. Here is the map. LAHORE is the second-largest city in Pakistan after Karachi. I got the answer, but did not really know where Rawalpindi is. Wikipedia says it's the military headquarters of the Pakistan Armed Forces and and also served as the nation's capital while Islamabad (10th largest city in Pakistan) was being constructed in the 1960s.
55D: Geneva's lake: LEMAN. Here is the name origin. LPGA holds its Evian Masters every year on the southern shore of Lac LEMAN. The golf course looks breathtaking on TV. Big purse, second only to US Open I think.
61D: Three-spot: TREY. No idea. It's always clued as "Low card".
Boomer bowled a 300 last night, his 5th perfect game.
C.C.
17A: 1986 hit by Heart: NOTHIN' AT ALL
41A: 1963 hit by the Orlons: NOT ME
65A: 1984 hit by Berlin: NO MORE WORDS
11D: 1966 hit by the Beatles: NOWHERE MAN
30D: 1981 hit by Elton John: NOBODY WINS
I have never heard of The Orlons or the Heart bands. And the only Berlin song I am familiar is "Take My Breath Away". Nevertheless, all the theme answers are very easy to obtain.
Excellent theme. I also love Annie Lennox's No More "I Love You's". The video is a bit weird, but the song is beautiful.
I think this is the 4th or 5th time I saw WEN in a TMS puzzle. Every time it's clued as "Sebaceous cyst". Where is the creativity? The WEN Ho Lee nuclear espionage scandal is well known, right? I heard of it when I still lived in China.
I just mentioned two days ago that I wanted WEN clued as "Chinese Premier __ Jiabao". And yesterday someone threw a shoe at him when he was delivering a speech in Cambridge. That despicable protester is completely ignorant of China and the democracy movement there. He has no idea what kind of positive role WEN played during Tiananmen Square Incident. He has no knowledge of how WEN handled the Sichuan earthquake disaster. WEN is the most well respected Chinese leader inside and outside China, among us Chinese.
Across:
1A: Spill the beans: BLAB. Reminds of yesterday's ONAN (Judah's son). He "spills his seeds" on the ground. Might be a waste, but sure not a sin to me. Just learned Onanism from Barry G /Lemonade yesterday.
5A: Japanese entertainer: GEISHA. Here is a modern day GEISHA. The same article says there are now only 1,000 GEISHA left in Japan (compared with 80,000 in 1928) and they are not allowed to marry. “Memoirs of a GEISHA" is a fascinating read.
39A: River of Hamburg: ELBE. Literally "river". Wikipedia says "ELBE was recorded by Ptolemy as Albis, Germanic for "river". Here is the map again. It originates in Czech and flows northwest across German to the North Sea.
44A: Infamous Helmsley: LEONA. The "Queen of Mean". She left millions of trust fund for her dog Trouble when she died. The Helmsley Foundation is the No. 1 charitable giver in 2008 though. Total $5.2 billion commitment. Mayor Bloomberg is the biggest living doner. Strange that the Gates did not make the list.
56A: Legendary archer: TELL. Or "Spill the beans" again.
68A: Barnyard layer: HEN. It's also "Female lobster/octopus/salmon".
70A: Brightest star in Lyra: VEGA. Here is the diagram. Wikipedia says "VEGA was the first star, other than the Sun, to have its photograph taken and the first to have its spectrum photographed" (1850).
Down:
6D: Hurler's stat: ERA. Louis mentioned several days ago about Cleveland's saying "If a Feller has a Lemon He-gan Waynn". I thought that's a great line. Bob Lemon, Jim Hegan or Early Wynn were obscure to me. But Bob Feller is a big potato, HOFer. I thought his name "Feller" could be a great misleading clue. "Feller's start" for ERA sounds good to me.
37D: Pianist Thelonious: MONK. His middle name is Sphere, one of the most influential jazz greats of the 50's and 60's, according to Seattle John.
45D: Fact book: ALMANAC. I wonder how much this original book costs in this condition. Does anyone collect first edition books? I traded my first edition "Godfather" (1969) for some baseball cards several years ago.
50D: City near Rawalpindi: LAHORE. Here is the map. LAHORE is the second-largest city in Pakistan after Karachi. I got the answer, but did not really know where Rawalpindi is. Wikipedia says it's the military headquarters of the Pakistan Armed Forces and and also served as the nation's capital while Islamabad (10th largest city in Pakistan) was being constructed in the 1960s.
55D: Geneva's lake: LEMAN. Here is the name origin. LPGA holds its Evian Masters every year on the southern shore of Lac LEMAN. The golf course looks breathtaking on TV. Big purse, second only to US Open I think.
61D: Three-spot: TREY. No idea. It's always clued as "Low card".
Boomer bowled a 300 last night, his 5th perfect game.
C.C.
