Thursday, October 24, 2013, Marti DuGuay-Carpenter & Jerome Gunderson

Theme: Twist and Shout,  it is anagram time!

Well this Thursday offering from our new Titanic Twosome, had me twisting in the wind in places until I finally shouted Eureka! I used up my anagram last time I blogged this pairing, so you all are on your own. Anagram puzzles are different because either you see it or you do not, which would make it very hard even with the reveal, but remember words like, Change, Shake Up, or in this case SWITCH etc. tell you it is an anagram. Lemonade here pinch writing for our shy Thursday thumper, unraveling the product of two beautiful minds. I am still not used to the day, but this had some very nice intermediate fill, such as NUDISTS, PARASOL, PATROLS, PLOPPED, CATWOMAN and SEAFARER and a couple of real challenges. Let's take a walk on the wild side and see.

20A. *Garden display : FLOWER PETALS. (12).

34A. *Paper fastener : METAL STAPLE. (11).

41A. *Feature of some kilts : KNIFE PLEATS. (11). As the grandson of a Tailor, I am embarrassed to say I did not know this TERM.

51A. Electrician's covers, and a hint to the ends of the answers to starred clues : SWITCH PLATES. (12).

Time to flick to ON and get to work.

Across:

1. Like much Oscar-night attire : CHIC. Not an easy one for me to see and I was struggling with 1 down too; This is one of those puzzles where I could provide a link for almost every answer, but I will restrain myself so you can focus on their words.

5. Under-the-sink installation : P TRAP. Is there a hyphen? For all you DIY people.

10. Take a shine to? : BUFF. Okay, maybe a few.

14. Jazz singer Horne : LENA. 70 years ago. LISTEN. (5:05). A real treat.

15. Island near Curaçao : ARUBA. Two of the three Dutch ABC islands off of the Coast of Venezuela.

16. 1930s migrant to California : OKIE. A no no? 23A. Oklahoma tribe : OTOE.

17. Far __ : EAST.

18. River where Romulus and Remus were abandoned : TIBER. My son the archaeology major named his dog REMUS, but after the Harry Potter character!

19. Hot : SEXY. Equal time.

24. Sends regrets : SAYS NO.

28. Crazed Muppet drummer : ANIMAL. A man, a woman and now for you furries, HIT IT. (0:43).

31. Bright light : NEON.

33. Bamboozled : HAD. Tricky clue for a little answer.

36. Where Andy Capp 'angs 'is 'at : 'OME.

37. Noggin : BEAN. Mr. Bean would be at 'ome with Andy.

38. Go in haste : HIE. A Shakespeare word, how cool.

39. Stretch : SPAN.

40. Med. lab letters : LDL. Low-density lipoprotein The bad cholesterol. Lipo proteins often lead to liposuction.

45. Actor Wallach : ELI. He played the UGLY. (5:04).

46. Creatures of habit? : NUNS. Really fun example of the minds of our constructors.

47. Unfancy to the max? : LOATHE. Fancy meaning to like, not the adjective. Did it fool you?

48. Ready to be served : SEATED.

50. Three French horns, in a Prokofiev classic : WOLF. A true CLASSIC. (4:11).

57. Take a verbal shot at : ZING. Not to be confused with Bazzinga.

60. Small porch : STOOP. To me, it just means the steps in front of the porch.

61. Sitarist Shankar : RAVI. His famous daughter is Norah Jones, this is ANOUSHKA. (6:23).

62. Busy : AT IT.

63. Mel-Tones frontman : TORME. The velvet fog and muse for Night Court.

64. Place for the first 42-Down? : EDEN. Really cute cross-referential with 42D. Colony residents : NUDISTS. No ant colony for these two, and of course I have to add

65. Opens, as a car trunk : POPS. So many choices.

66. Sprinter's asset : SPEED.

67. Stinky : RANK. May be from our word RANCID?

Down:

1. Pitch indicator : CLEF. Man I need to go back to music class, when I was in school I was not only tone deaf, but pitch black.

2. Get back on one's feet : HEAL.

3. "You are __ much trouble!" : IN SO. a common sibling comment.

4. Supervillain with a whip : CATWOMAN, There have been so many beautiful women in that costume, who is your FAVORITE?

5. Pounds a beat : PATROLS.

6. Sheer nonsense : TRIPE. We know of the food made from entrails, so I guess it makes sense for the Slang definition: something, especially speech or writing, that is false or worthless; rubbish.

7. Hick : RUBE.  I guess there were a lot of Reubens in the country.

8. Disable the security system for, say : ABET. Complicated clue for a simple answer.

9. Lightweight umbrella : PARASOL. This is actually from the French to protect from the SOLEIL.

10. Domineering : BOSSY.

11. Maui strings : UKE. Where are all the the Hawaiians?

12. Tough spot : FIX.

13. Tina of "Date Night" : FEY. She is out of work and not happy, I hear.

21. Abbr. for the nameless? : ET AL.

22. Shipping route : LANE.

25. Patronize : SHOP AT.

26. Jet legend : NAMATH. Joe Willie, will the Jets ever have another hero?

27. Danish seaport : ODENSE. I am not really familiar with this city, though I can see the name coming from the Norse god, Odin and therefore a Jerome clue/fill. It looks like Aruba with the orange roofs.

28. Moseys : AMBLES.

29. Compass point? : NEEDLE. Another one, where you say, damn north, east, south, west are all too short.

30. Venezia's land : ITALIA. For marti our travelling saleswoman.

31. Innocents : NAIFS. The same stem as naive; there is a similar Yiddish word.

32. Foil kin : EPEE. Not tin or aluminum.

35. Deli slicing request : THIN. So why do we get it sliced thin and then out 6 pieces on the sammich?

39. Old salt : SEAFARER. Swabbie, sea dog, tar...or our missing marine?

41. More than suspected : KNEW.

43. Sat (down) ungracefully : PLOPPED. But did not fizz.

44. Hang out in the hammock : LOLL.

49. USAF E-6's : T-SGTS. "Technical Sergeant is the sixth enlisted rank (pay grade E-6) in the U.S. Air Force, just above staff sergeant and below master sergeant. " No longer a rank in the Army and not to be confused with 52D. 'Vette roof option : T-TOP. marti loves those 'letter-word' words.

50. Question before "Yeah, you!" : WHO ME?

53. Pear remnant : CORE. How cute, let's trick them and not use apple.

54. "Yay, me!" : TADA. Almost time.

55. Neck and neck : EVEN. I hope you are keeping up with me.

56. Hole on the green : SINK. Hole the verb, not the noun/ "Man, he holed a 50 footer!"

57. Static jolt : ZAP. Don't drag your feet on the carpet.

58. Skater Midori : ITO. I always link her for dear Clear Ayes, but this time I will pour a Midori sour.

so we can finish up with a

59. Swig : NIP.

What fun it is to toast these two, even with green liqueur on the rocks (sorry Tinbeni). A bit confusing for my Friday brain, but much fun. I leave you with some words from the divine one.

This is another puzzle that Jerome and I co-constructed. I love it that Rich published both in the same month! I was working on a theme idea with the unifier "SWITCH PLATE" that had anagrams of "plate" in it. When I got stuck trying to find good entries, I turned to the master of anagrams and asked for help. He suggested making PLATE plural, and came up with the theme entries.

Having only four entries, I told him I thought I could design a respectable grid, and he said: "I DON'T WANT TO BE PART OF ANYTHING RESPECTABLE!!" So that's how 42-Down got into the grid...

Note from C.C.:

Please click here to solve Marti's "Top Bananas" puzzle published at George Barany's website. Love that banana picture! Click here to see a cool picture of Marti and a funny bio. Who else on our blog can brag that he/she had a hole-in-one? Husker Gary's was a great mulligan.