Theme: KNOT (69A: Tie tie)
20A: Green apple: GRANNY SMITH
31A: Step down: BOW OUT
37A: British royal residence: WINDSOR CASTLE
43A: Get it wrong: SLIP UP
57A: Geometric choreography?: SQUARE DANCE
I was not familiar with either GRANNY KNOT or SQUARE KNOT. So I had difficulty tying, or rather untying, the constructor's knotty knots. Took me a long time to figure out what his theme is.
Always thought the "British royal residence" is Windsor Palace.
Nice, scrabbly puzzle, with expensive letters like X, Q and J. As NCAA is the answer for 35D: Final Four letters, so the clue for ATH (56A: NCAA word) should definitely be changed into "Sports fig." or something else. Come visit the Comments section and tell us how you would clue ATH.
Across:
1A: Cloth belt: SASH. Here is a SASH KNOT.
5A: Man with ladder: JACOB. Faintly remember JACOB's LADDER story. Do you know if Job's Tears have any Biblical reference? They are supposed to be good for your skin. Too insipid for my taste though.
10A: Rue the aerobics: ACHE. Nice change from the old "Sore spot" or "Masseuse's target".
15A: Sunshine State city: OCALA. Is it really the "Horse Capital of the World"? Not Lexington, KY?
19A: Director Gus Van __: SANT. Liked "Good Will Hunting", did not know Gus Van SANT was the director. His recent film is "Milk", which nabbed 8 Oscar nominatons this year, including Best Picture.
23A: Baseball scoreboard trio: RHE. Runs, Hits & Errors.
27A: C.I.A. forerunner: OSS. I mentioned yesterday about my confusion over Michael Hayden still being Obama's CIA Director. Had forgotten all about Leon Panetta until someone emailed me about his Senate confirmation hearing yesterday. Strange to have a guy without any intelligence background as CIA head. Tough guy though. Monica Lewinsky hated him.
31A: Step down: BOW OUT. Brought to mind Tom Daschle's sudden withdrawal of his nomination as Secretary of Health and Human Services. Jaw-dropping amount of "consulting" income.
41A: Interferometer instrument: AERI. Got the answer from down fills. Have never heard of Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer. It measures "the absolute infrared spectral radiance (watts per square meter per steradian per wavenumber) of the sky directly above the instrument". Too abstract for me. I doubt this is Underwood's original clue.
46A: Part of R.S.A.: AFR. RSA is Republic of South Africa.
47A: Govt. bookkeepers: GAO. Oh, I always thought it stands for General Accounting Office. Turns out that the name was changed into Government Accountability Office in 2004.
65A: Pathogenic bacteria: ECOLI. The "Deadly African virus" is EBOLA. And Carlo Levi's book is titled "Christ Stopped at EBOLI".
Down:
2D: Oldsmobile models: ALERO. Why did they name the model ALERO? Is it a Greek/Roman god or something?
5D: Young kangaroo: JOEY. Have seen this clue too many times to be stumped.
8D: Acid in soap: OLEIC. Wikipedia says "OLEIC acid makes up 55-80% of olive oil".
11D: Shade of gray: CHARCOAL. Young girls probably like the frayed hem in this CHARCOAL mini-skirt.
38D: Dublin dudes: IRISHMEN. Nice alliteration. And EIRE (66A: Dublin's land). Now our blog needs a Scottish solver. We already have an Irish, a British and a Welsh.
40D: Valuable fiddle: STRAD. OK, here again is Joshua Bell's famous DC Metro rush hour incognito experiment. He and $3.5 million STRAD collected a total of $32 from over 1,000 passers-by.
48D: Famed jockey Eddie: ARCARO. The only guy to have won Triple Crown twice. Amazing. That's a strange photo. According to this list, he was not the jockey of Assault. He rode Whirlaway and Citation.
55D: "R.U.R."playwright: CAPEK (Karel). The inventor of the word "robot" (1921). Often see RUR clued as "Capek play".
C.C.
20A: Green apple: GRANNY SMITH
31A: Step down: BOW OUT
37A: British royal residence: WINDSOR CASTLE
43A: Get it wrong: SLIP UP
57A: Geometric choreography?: SQUARE DANCE
I was not familiar with either GRANNY KNOT or SQUARE KNOT. So I had difficulty tying, or rather untying, the constructor's knotty knots. Took me a long time to figure out what his theme is.
Always thought the "British royal residence" is Windsor Palace.
Nice, scrabbly puzzle, with expensive letters like X, Q and J. As NCAA is the answer for 35D: Final Four letters, so the clue for ATH (56A: NCAA word) should definitely be changed into "Sports fig." or something else. Come visit the Comments section and tell us how you would clue ATH.
Across:
1A: Cloth belt: SASH. Here is a SASH KNOT.
5A: Man with ladder: JACOB. Faintly remember JACOB's LADDER story. Do you know if Job's Tears have any Biblical reference? They are supposed to be good for your skin. Too insipid for my taste though.
10A: Rue the aerobics: ACHE. Nice change from the old "Sore spot" or "Masseuse's target".
15A: Sunshine State city: OCALA. Is it really the "Horse Capital of the World"? Not Lexington, KY?
19A: Director Gus Van __: SANT. Liked "Good Will Hunting", did not know Gus Van SANT was the director. His recent film is "Milk", which nabbed 8 Oscar nominatons this year, including Best Picture.
23A: Baseball scoreboard trio: RHE. Runs, Hits & Errors.
27A: C.I.A. forerunner: OSS. I mentioned yesterday about my confusion over Michael Hayden still being Obama's CIA Director. Had forgotten all about Leon Panetta until someone emailed me about his Senate confirmation hearing yesterday. Strange to have a guy without any intelligence background as CIA head. Tough guy though. Monica Lewinsky hated him.
31A: Step down: BOW OUT. Brought to mind Tom Daschle's sudden withdrawal of his nomination as Secretary of Health and Human Services. Jaw-dropping amount of "consulting" income.
41A: Interferometer instrument: AERI. Got the answer from down fills. Have never heard of Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer. It measures "the absolute infrared spectral radiance (watts per square meter per steradian per wavenumber) of the sky directly above the instrument". Too abstract for me. I doubt this is Underwood's original clue.
46A: Part of R.S.A.: AFR. RSA is Republic of South Africa.
47A: Govt. bookkeepers: GAO. Oh, I always thought it stands for General Accounting Office. Turns out that the name was changed into Government Accountability Office in 2004.
65A: Pathogenic bacteria: ECOLI. The "Deadly African virus" is EBOLA. And Carlo Levi's book is titled "Christ Stopped at EBOLI".
Down:
2D: Oldsmobile models: ALERO. Why did they name the model ALERO? Is it a Greek/Roman god or something?
5D: Young kangaroo: JOEY. Have seen this clue too many times to be stumped.
8D: Acid in soap: OLEIC. Wikipedia says "OLEIC acid makes up 55-80% of olive oil".
11D: Shade of gray: CHARCOAL. Young girls probably like the frayed hem in this CHARCOAL mini-skirt.
38D: Dublin dudes: IRISHMEN. Nice alliteration. And EIRE (66A: Dublin's land). Now our blog needs a Scottish solver. We already have an Irish, a British and a Welsh.
40D: Valuable fiddle: STRAD. OK, here again is Joshua Bell's famous DC Metro rush hour incognito experiment. He and $3.5 million STRAD collected a total of $32 from over 1,000 passers-by.
48D: Famed jockey Eddie: ARCARO. The only guy to have won Triple Crown twice. Amazing. That's a strange photo. According to this list, he was not the jockey of Assault. He rode Whirlaway and Citation.
55D: "R.U.R."playwright: CAPEK (Karel). The inventor of the word "robot" (1921). Often see RUR clued as "Capek play".
C.C.
