Tuesday August 26, 2008 Alan P. Olschwang

Theme: VICTORY (40A: Sign found in 18A, 24A, 50A and 61A)

19A: "Guitar Town" singer: STEVE EARLE

24A: Carry out: GIVE EFFECT TO

50A: Certain lineman: DEFENSIVE END

61A: Renewable power source: WAVE ENERGY

This puzzle brought to my mind Churchill's VICTORY quote: "Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival."

It's an OK puzzle, not very exciting but much better than a lazy Quip. I liked the position of VICTORY in the grid. Lots of 4-letter words. I suppose it's mainly due to the length of the theme answers.

Other **VEE** words I've got are: VEEP, LEVEE, VEER, HUMVEE, the French word ELEVEE and the song "I Only Have Eyes for You". What other words can you think of?

Across:

5A: Woven net: MESH. Mariah Carey looks gorgeous in this MESH tank top.

16A: Nora's pooch: ASTA. From "The Thin Man".

22A: Colorful mount: ROAN. We need to have a discussion today about what exactly colors a ROAN horse exhibits.

28A: MacDonald's refrain: EIEIO. Inaccurate. It should be "Old MacDonald" refrain.

33A: Dweeb: NERD. Remember TWIRP/TWERP the other day?

35A: Wear away: FRAY. What's the difference between "Become raveled" and "Become unraveled"?

43A: Astronomer Tycho: BRAHE. I got his name from down fills. Yipes, look at his mustache.

59A: "Painting" painter: MIRO. I don't like this clue at all. "Painting" is not that well-known. This is his "Dog Barking at the Moon".

60A: Follow logically: ENSUE. Hmm, looks like our editor lacked the courage to clue ENSUE as "Come next" again. Martin sure had fun last time. Here is Beatles' "Come Together", for you.

70A: Mountain lake: TARN. I can never remember this word. WP says TARN is "derived from Old Norse word tjörn, meaning pond". This is TARN Hows in England.

Down:

1D: Scrawny one: SCRAG. Know SCRAGGY. Have heard of SCRAG.

2D: Maiden in Koranic paradise: HOURI. Their "virginity is renewable at pleasure", what a dream! It's so hard for me to picture HOURI & PERI (Persian fallen angels) as the same level as other beautiful creatures like Venus, Aphrodite, Apollo & Adonis.

3D: Bogey: ONE OVER PAR. I wonder why Humphrey Bogart was called "Bogey/Bogie". Did he play lots of golf?

4D: Famous meteor shower member: PERSEID. New to me. Have barely heard of constellation Perseus. PERSEID is defined as " one of a shower of meteors that appears to originate in the vicinity of the constellation Perseus during the second week of August."

7D: Cubic meter: STERE. I only learned this morning that STERE is from Greek "stereós" meaning solid.

8D: Total confusion: HAVOC

9D: Distinct personality: IDENTITY. Are they really synonymous? I thought of INDIVIDUALITY for "Distinct personality".

12D: Place for cargo: HOLD. CARGO was clued as "Hold contents" yesterday.

25D: Stereotypical poodle: FIFI. How come it's never clued as the annual FiFi Award?

30D: Magical command: OPEN SESAME

33D: Mount of Moses: NEBO. This is where Moses died I suppose. And 2 more Biblical mounts: SINAI ("Ten Commandments") & ARARAT (Noah's Ark).

40D: Impassioned: VEHEMENT

46D: Lettering aid: STENCIL

49D: "___ Got You Under My Skin": I'VE. Not a familiar song to me. I just heard it and I liked it. Beautiful song. Frank Sinatra had such an colorful life, so involved in American politics, JFK & Reagan adm. in particular.

51D: Half a tenner: FIN. Or "Half a sawbuck".

53D: Water wheel: NORIA. Unknown to me. It's "a device consisting of a series of buckets on a wheel, used in Spain and the Orient for raising water". See this picture.

54D: Techno-rock artist Gary: NUMAN. Pieced his name together from the across fills. Katherine, do you know this Gary?

63D: Long-snouted fish: GAR. Huge GAR. Is it edible?

64D: Over there, briefly: YON. I don't understand this Robert Burns' "O Were My Love YON Lilac Fair. But it looks beautiful, with "purple blossom" and "red rose". What does "I'd feast on beauty a' the night" mean?

C.C.

Monday August 25, 2008 Josiah Breward

Theme: (Which) Way to GO

17A: Imagined: THOUGHT UP

58A: Duck product: EIDER DOWN

11D: Without guilt: RIGHTEOUS

33D: Soup ingredients, perhaps: LEFTOVERS

Good puzzle. I like the positon of UP, DOWN, LEFT & RIGHT, very well placed. But I just feel that something is missing at the heart of the grid. I want HERE or ICI (Vous êtes ICI) as an anchor.

I dislike how ELITE (16A: Privileged few) due to FEWER (51D: Not so many), visually very jarring. Tell me how you would clue ELITE.

Had some trouble at the lower right corner. Had to google Philosopher Mach (52D: ERNST).

Across:

1A: Not so much: LESS. And FEWER (51D: Not so many)

5A: Trigger-happy: EDGY. This reminds me of Barry's TENTER (cloth stretcher) &"On tenter hooks" connection explanation last month.

9A: Branchlet: SPRIG. "Branchlet" is a new word to me.

15A: Novelist Morrison: TONI. Nobel Literature winner in 1993. I know her only because of her "our first Black President" comment on Clinton. I've never read her books.

19A: Basketball player: CAGER. My favorite CAGER (KG).

21A: I haven't a clue: SEARCH ME. New phrase to me. I've never heard anyone use SEARCH ME to mean "I haven't a clue".

26A: Lizard with sticky feet: GECKO. Here is GEICO's GECHO.

28A: Still: AT REST

31A: Where van Gogh painted like mad: ARLES. Yes, this is the place where he madly painted all those blooming (and withering) sunflowers, and the beautiful "Starry Night Over the Rhone", and of course, the gorgeous "Bedroom at ARLES". Are you happy with the clue?

34A: Dawson or Gide: ANDRE. Hmm, another Nobel Literature winner (Gide). Do you think ANDRE Dawson will make HOF next year?

38A: Poppy extract: OPIUM. I am addicted to OPIUM.

39A: Sushi choice: TUNA. Delicious! Hot, hot wasabi!

41A: Zest: SPICE. Which one, Dennis?

45A: Group psyche: ETHOS. And 5D: Cultural: ETHNIC

47A: Parts of ranges: OVENS. I was in the mountain range direction.

49A: Western state capital: SANTA FE. I've never been to New Mexico. Do you like Georgia O'Keeffe?

53A: Turns back: REVERSES

56A: Pipe cleaner: REAMER. No idea. Always associate REAMER with citrus juice.

60A: Hold contents: CARGO. Ha, the nautical "Hold" got me again. I kept wanting "Hold" to be a verb.

62A: King toppers: ACES. I was thinking of this King and his wig.

63A: Middle of a tassel?: ESSES

65A: Do a postal job: SORT. Of course, I penned in MAIL first.

Down:

1D: Stop gripping: LET GO

2D" "___ Frome": ETHAN. Learned it from doing Xword. Have never touched any of Edith Wharton's books.

3D: Audible expression of contempt: SNORT. I wrote down SNEER first.

7D: Wildebeests: GNUS

8D: Holy cow!: YIPES. Sometimes this kind of simple exclamation stumps me. YIPES, Yipee, Holy mackerel! Have you ever used "Man alive"?

9D: Hide away: SECRETE

10D: Glacial deposit: PLACER. New to me. It's a "surficial mineral deposit formed by the concentration of small particles of heavy minerals, as gold, rutile, or platinum, in gravel or small sands."

18D: Wounds with a tusk: GORES. What, not us?

22D: Cause anxiety: ALARM

24D: Giraffe relative: OKAPI. I would not have got this one without the across fills. Barb B likes the pantaloons.

27D: Preserved for later: ON ICE. Is this also a hockey term?

32D: Sports zebras: REFS. Hmm, some kind of "striped" under-theme in this puzzle.

39D: Tex-Mex menu items: TOSTADAS. Yummy.

42D: Goofy error: BONER. I should really use this word instead of abusing "faux pas" & "screw-up" all the time.

44D: Even the score: AVENGE

46D: Islamic women's quarters: HAREMS. I was wondering if men really are not allowed to enter HAREMS. Will they be punished if they do?

50D: BP merger partner: AMOCO. They merged in 1998.

52D: Philosopher Mach: ERNST. So the the Mach in "Mach topper" (SST) refers to him?

53D: Chop into small pieces: RICE. Really, not DICE?

C.C.