Friday September 26, 2008 Michael T. Williams

Theme: The Long and The Short of It

17A: Three longs: DIVISION FACE BOW

57A: Three longs: SHOT ISLAND RANGE

3D: Three shorts: WAVE COMING STORY

7D: Three shorts: HAND CIRCUIT CAKE

11D: Three shorts: RIB TEMPER CHANGE

I like this theme, not the grid structure. Somehow the middle part felt very cramped and I had difficulty breathing. I turned the puzzle 90 degrees and I still did not like the shape. I did not know why those broken blocks bothered me.

There are quite a few unfamiliar clues & answers for me in this puzzle. And I struggled hard for letter T between the intersection of INIT (55D: 1st letter) and CHETS (66A: Huntley and Atkins"). I think I vaguely heard of CHET Huntley before, but I could not dredge his name out of my brain. Had a big V8 moment with INIT (Initial).

The clue for ATF (8D: Booze, butts, and bullets bureau) should have an abbreviated "bureau "or simply "org."

Across:

10A: Linkletter and Carney: ARTS. Pure guess. Not familiar with either of them.

23A: Hush-hush: SECRET. Beautiful red rose, such mysterious folded structure. No wonder rose (anagram of Eros) is the symbol of SECRECY, love, perfection and femininity. Dante's Paradise.

25A: Sweet-talk: COAX

32A: Arabic Mac: IBN. But BIN is more popular, isn't it? Both refer to "Son of". Abu is "father of". Al is "the", as in Al - Qaida. Here is a photo of FDR with IBN Saud, former king of Saudi Arabia.

36A: Guitar ridge: FRET. No idea. I got it from across fills.

40A: Phoenix of Egyptian gods: BENU. Or BENNU. See this picture. I've never heard of it before.

43A: Highland plant: GORSE. Also spelled as furze, furse, whin. An evergreen shrub. Unknown to me. Wikipedia says "Common GORSE flowers most strongly in spring, though it bears some flowers year round, hence the old country phrase: "When GORSE is out of blossom, kissing's out of fashion." The flowers have a very distinctive strong coconut scent."

44A: Stops a stealer: TAGS. Very creative baseball TAG. Hmm, this is great, so is this one, this one, this one and this one. I don't under this Colgroup tag, what does it mean? Other baseball references are OTT (22A: Mel of the Giants) and ATL (61D: Braves in box scores).

46A: Like-minded voters: BLOC

69A: Bacon amount: RASHER. Don't laugh at me, but really I have never heard of RASHER. Always thought it's called slice or strip. I've never developed a taste for bacon or hotdog. I do love apple pie.

52A: Place for three men?: TUB. Learned this rhyme from a comment Carol made sometime ago. I like this picture.

63A: Funny Jack of Hollywood: OAKIE

64A: End-of-week cry: TGIF. We seem to get a TGIF every Friday now.

Down:

5D: Robberies: HEISTS. Have you seen HEIST?

12D: Boxing letters: TKO

19D: Courteney or Wally: COX. Only know Courteney COX (Monica in "Friends").

24D: Indian cash: RUPEES

29D: Composer Saint - ___: SAENS. He composed "Danse Macabre". DANSE was clued as Saint-Saëns' "___ Macabre" in our puzzle before.

30D: Provide with a trait: ENDUE. New word to me. I was thinking of ENDOW.

33D: Forbidden acts: TABOOS. "... You give me the Sweetest TABOO, that's why I am in love with you...."

34D: Greek letter: DELTA. Xchefwalt probably wants DELTA to be clued as "Flower's end?" I really like this tricky flow-er clue, you know, you can clue NILE "The longest flower in the word?"

36D: Calf-length skirt: MIDI. Do you call this one as MIDI? "Après __ " might be too obvious. "Nice noon?" sounds great, don't you think so?

43D: Egg white: GLAIR. New word to me.

46D: Dracula's conquest: BRIDES

50D: Baylor of basketball: ELGIN. No, not a familar name to me. ELGIN was clued as "City in Scotland or Illinois" in an April puzzle.

C.C.

Thursday September 25, 2008 Alan P. Olschwang

Theme: Catch Me if You Can

20A: Start of a quip: HE WHO COURTS THEN

40A: Part 2 of a quip: RUNS AWAY, LIVES TO

54A: End of quip: COURT ANOTHER DAY

The original quote from Evan Esar is "He who courts and runs away, lives to court another day".

As usual, I don't fully grasp this quip. Why would he "LIVES TO COURT ANOTHER DAY" if he "RUNS AWAY"? What if "He is Just Not That into You" in the first place?

Very interesting to see RELAID (36A: Installed again, as tiles) so early in the morning. I hope the tiles are installed properly this time. I would change the clue for ANCHOR (4D: Relay finisher" into "Brian Williams, e.g." I often check his "Nightly News" just to see what tie he is wearing that night. I would also change the VEIN (13D: Layer of ore) into "The way to Brian Williams' heart?"

Wish the clue for SILLS (30D: Window bases) were "Soprano Beverly" to pair up with OPERA (21D: Massenet work), and I would reword the clue for OUIS (55D: Arles assents) into "Arles Législature votes" to match YEAS (71A: Affirmative votes). I also think there should be an abbreviation mark for VETTE (42D: Sporty Chevy).

Easy sailing this morning. Had to google EST (47D: Erhard's program) though. I was stumped by ESS (51A: 19th of a certain series).

Across:

1A: Madame Bovary: EMMA. The only Flaubert novel I've read. Poor little thing, she should have known that the sea of adultery is very stormy and unpredictable.

10A: Prison knife: SHIV. Slang for switchblade. I forgot. Did watch "In Cold Blood" and vaguely remembered the character made such a weapon out of a toilet brush.

18A: Skylit courtyards: ATRIA. I often confuse ATRIA with ALTRIA (Philip Morris). Kraft has a very formidble presence in China.

19A: Wrinkled citrus fruit: UGLI. I've never had this "Exotic tangelo from Jamaica".

44A: Change with time: EVOLVE

49A: Scottish feudal lord: THANE. New to me. Shakespeare's Macbeth's is THANE of Cawdor & THANE of Glamititle.

64A: Kind of trail: VAPOR. What caused this VAPOR trail?

67A: Immature seed: OVULE

Down:

7D: Ashram member: GURU. ASHRAM was clued as "GURU's community" last time.

9D: Rhubarbs: SPATS. I did not know the slang meaning of "Rhubarb". That's a huge RHUBARB.

10D: Golden table wine: SAUTERNE. Clear Ayes probably knows a lot about this semisweet white wine.

25D: Add to the heap?: SCRAP. What's the origins of "Deep-six" and "Eighty-six"? Faintly remember someone explained them to me before. But I crossed the River Lethe.

28D: One possessed?: SLAVE. Nice clue. Here is Britney's "I am a SLAVE 4 U".

32D: ___ del Sol: COSTA. Got it from the across clues. Would have been a gimme were it clued as COSTA Rica.

33D: Sean of "The Lord of the Rings". Learned his name from doing Xword.

37D: Cote resident: EWE. I always thought cote is for bird.

38D: Fourth of MMXVI: DIV. Roman 504.

41D: Cheap ocean passage: STEERAGE. Jack won his STEERAGE passage in a poker game in "Titanic".

54D: Edible first prize: CAKE. Razzberry, do you like this flourless chocolate CAKE?

56D: Samovars: URNS

58D: Artistic work: OPUS. OK, Kittyb, this Paderewski piece is for you.

59D: Lacquered metalware: TOLE. Nice flower tray.

62D: Poisonous evergreens: YEWS. I suppose YEW wood is not poisonous, otherwise, how could archery bows be made of YEWS?

C.C.