Friday, October 17, 2008 Michael T. Williams

Theme: Three Bigs

17A: Three Bigs: BANG CHEESE HEART

39A: Three bigs: IDEA BROTHER BEND

63A: Three bigs: WIG PICTURE APPLE

3D: Three bigs: BEN VALLEY LEAGUE

7D: Three bigs: TOE COUNTRY HOUSE

11D: Three bigs: DEAL WHEEL DIPPER

Does Big VALLEY refer to the TV series? I've never heard of it before.

The clue for HUBERT (49D: V.P. Humphrey) should not have been abbreviated. But I am so happy to see his name in the puzzle. He is Minnesota's favorite son. There is a certain enigma about him, so idealistic yet realistic. He was so right when he said "Asia is rich in people, rich in culture and rich in resources. It is also rich in trouble."

Some of you might not like this kind of 3- thing theme concept, but I really like this puzzle. It only has 32 blocks, compared with 38 we get often. Besides, there are 6 run through 15-letter theme answers. That's 81 white squares, 36% of the grid. Most of the time we get somewhere between 45 and 55 I think. I've never counted it before though. There are 50 white squares themed entries in yesterday's quip puzzle.

I wonder if Michael T. Williams thought of the real "Big Three" Churchill, Roosevelt & Stalin when he constructed his puzzle.

Across:

1A: Watch pockets: FOBS. I was surprised that "watch chain" is not the #1 definition of FOB.

10A: Norse Zeus: ODIN. He only has one eye. The God of Thunder THOR is his oldest son.

15A: "Christ Stopped at ___": EBOLI. It's written by Carlo Levi. I learned the book title from doing Xword. The spelling is so close to ECOLI.

25A: Stu of early TV: ERWIN. Nope, he is a stranger to me. I wonder if ERWIN is variation of IRWIN.

28A: Jodie Foster film: NELL. Have you seen the movie? It does not look interesting to me.

30A: Celtic worshipper: DRUID. No idea. Dictionary says DRUID is rooted in DRU, Celtic for tree (esp oak tree). So DRUIDS worshipped trees then? It's animisim, isn't it?

43A: Napoleon's commander at Waterloo: NEY (Michel). The "Bravest of the Brave". Wikipedia says that NEY is also an "end-blown flute" in the middle east. What is an "end-blown flute"? Is there any flute called "front-blown"?

44A: "It's a Wonderful Life" director: CAPRA (Frank). I also like his "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." Too bad, our politicians today promise so much and deliver so little.

45A: Impresario Hurok: SOL. No idea. Very impressive career.

48A: __ out (intimidate): PSYCH. One letter away from PSYCHE, the beautiful girl Cupid (Eros) loves. I just learned this morning that they have a daughter named Voluptas, the goddess of "sensual pleasures. " Wikipedia says "the first known mention of Voluptas was made by the Roman author Lucius Apuleius in his book "The Golden Ass" - the only Latin novel to survivie in its entirety."

58A: Painter Modigliani: AMEDEO. Not familiar with his name. I do remember seeing "Girl in Pigtail" somewhere before.

71A: Before, before: ERST. Or "Formerly, formerly"; "Once, once".

Down:

1D: Teen idol of the fifties: FABIAN. I've never heard of FABIAN before. That's an odd looking swimwear. What's that white stuff on his waist?

8D: Lohengrin's love: ELSA. I can never remember this Wagner heroine name. Can anyone give me a brief recap of what the story is about?

10D: Mark of the PGA: O'MEARA. Gimme for me. He is one of Tiger Woods' best buddies. He won both the Masters and British Open in 1998.

26D: Somali supermodel: IMAN. She is married to David Bowie. So close to IMAM in spelling.

31D: Cornell's town: ITHACA. Beautifully done. Barb B should like the background music.

40D: Novelist Koontz: DEAN. Not me?

42D: Scary word?: BOO. Ha ha, this reminds of BOOER (Raspberry blower) we had in early Sept.

59D: 651: DCLI. I actually like some math calculations in the clue.

56D: Poetic meadow: LEA. Ewe would love this clue. I am bored.

C.C.

Thursday October 16, 2008 Alan P. Olschwang

Theme: Be Brief

17A: Start of quip: I DON'T CARE

26A: Part 2 of quip: HOW MUCH A

33A: Part 3 of quip: MAN TALKS

46A: Part 4 of quip: IF ONLY HE

52A: Part 5 of quip: SAYS IT IN

66A: End of quip: A FEW WORDS

Yes indeed, brevity is the soul of wit after all. But don't be so brief that your comment is incomprehensible to others.

It's a Josh Billings quip. He also said: "Common sense is the knack of seeing things as they are, and doing things as they ought to be done." It reminds me of Bill Clinton's eulogy for Jackie: "God gave her very great gifts and imposed upon her great burdens. She bore them all with dignity and grace and uncommon common sense."

I don't understand this quote though: "The wheel that squeaks the loudest is the one that gets the grease. " Does he think that complaining is a good thing?

The clue for ABC (5D: Opening letters) is very jarring to my eyes. LETTER is the answer for 36A: Epistle. So many ways to clue ABC. In China, we call American-born Chinese as ABC.

Across:

5A: Takes steps: ACTS. I like verbs in a puzzle. A noun "Play parts" bores me.

9A: Donna lead-in: PRIMA. PRIMA Donna is the same as "Diva", isn't it?

15A: Record spoiler: BLOT

20A: Remove the rime: DE-ICE. And ICINESS (45D: Frigidity).

21A: Break down, as a sentence: PARSE. I don't understand the grammatical structure of the italicized part: "Who could Jenny be talking to that was worth appropriating moments set aside for a date with me? Some musical wonk?” ("Love Story")

32A: Reclined: LAIN. Lie's past tense LAY and past participle LAIN often confuse me.

40A: Isinglass: MICA

44A: White-collar worker?: CLERIC

56A: Long or hot finish?: SHOT. Nice clue. My instinctive thought was "Double eagle", which is actually long AND hot.

68A: Tapestry in "Hamlet": ARRAS. The Scandinavian rug rug RYA seems to be on exile now.

73A: Those, to Jose: ESAS. And BANCO (4D: Barcelona bank).

Down:

2D: Boggs of baseball: WADE. Nice HOF induction photo. The guy on the left is RYNE Sandberg, who often appears in our puzzle. WADE Boggs spent most of his career with the Red Sox. But I think he will root for the Rays tonight. I really like Matt Garza.

3D: Shunning: AVOIDANCE. I am not fond of the ING clue. "Dodger's goal" is better. Sorry about your loss last night, Carl V and all your Dodgers fans, but Phillies are a better team.

6D: Sound of thunder: CLAP. I thought of PEAL.

7D: Pentateuch: TORAH. "Pentateuch" is a new word to me.

8D: Unsaturated alcohol: STEROL. No idea.

9D: Early neonate: PREEMIE. New word to me also.

18D: Colorful tropical fish: TETRA. It's also prefix for four.

22D: Ingests: SWALLOWS. I don't quite grok this Plautus quote: "To blow and swallow at the same moment is not easy." Blow what?

25D: Pilgrimage destination: HOLY CITY

34D: "___ Bulba": TARAS. I forgot. I actually linked this TARAS Bulba clip last time when we had COSSACK ("Russian horseman") in our puzzle. Taras Bulba is an Urkraine COSSACK.

35D: Snow runner: SKI. So many Polish name end with SKI. White Sox's A. J. Pierzynski is of Polish descent.

39D: Dawn Chong and Carruth: RAES. We had Charlotte RAE before.

47D: Not by any means: NO HOW. Is it a slang? I've never heard of this before.

54D: ___ for the taking: YOURS. "... You are mine and I'm YOURS for the taking ... Lay Your Hands on Me..."

57D: Milton of Uganda: OBOTE. Unknown to me. I only knew Idi Amin. OBOTE is both Amin's predecessor and successor.

65D: Gun in old slang: GAT. Have not seen GAM for a long time. Alessandra has very long legs. She is my favorite Victoria's Secret model.

C.C.