Sunday October 19, 2008 Edgar Fontaine

Theme: Happy Anniversary!

29A: Apt 60th anniversary destination: DIAMOND HEAD

36A: Apt 3rd anniversary gift: LEATHER BELT

54A: Apt 12th anniversary gift: SILK STOCKINGS

72A: Apt 20th anniversary film (with "The"): CHINA SYNDROME

89A: Apt 35th anniversary destination: CORAL GABLES

94A: Apt 11th anniversary gift: STEEL GUITAR

3D: Apt 15th anniversary gift: CRYSTAL BALL

14D: Apt 5th anniversary gift: WOOD CARVING

62D: Apt 10th anniversary film: TIN PAN ALLEY

64D: Apt 55th anniversary destination: EMERALD ISLE

"Girl with a PEARL Earring" would be a perfect run-through 21-letter answer for a possible "Apt 30th anniversary film". "PEARL Harbor" is great too.

Such an ambitious theme, and so nicely executed. Some of "?" clues are quite good:

8D: Early morning riser?: SUN

29D: Semi-colon?: DOT

4D: Tempest's milieu?: TEA POT

28D: Get some air?: INHALE. I don't think "?" is needed here.

112A: Pierre's noodle: TETE. The "?" is needed here.

The clue for GABBLED (48A: Chattered) should be reworded because we have CHAT (56D: Make small talk) as an answer. The same with the IOWA clue (11D: Heart of the Corn Belt). I would like to see the constructor connects "Field of Dreams" with IOWA. So many nice lines from the movie:

"If you build it, he will come."

"Is this heaven?" "It's IOWA."

"Go the distance."

Did you notice letters E, S, T at the bottom row? Very often we have D, E, R & S. Stan Newman, the crossword editor for Newsday, name this high-occurency consonant quartet as REDS.

Across:

5A: Tends to a furnace: DAMPS. New definition to me. I've never tended our furnace.

14A: Coach who won three Super Bowls: WALSH (Bill). All with San Francisco 49ers. Which coach has the most Super Bowl wins in NFL?

20A: Yale of Yale: ELIHU. Harvard is named after John Harvard. Cornell founder is Ezra Cornell.

27A: Motivator: INSPIRER. Okey-dokey, if you say so.

32A: Awaiting: IN FOR

44A: Grain bristle: ARISTA. Latin for "beard of grain". I forgot again. AWN is clued as "Arista" last time.

46A: French wine city: RHONE

52A: "The Terrible" tsar: IVAN IV. I struggled with IV.

57A: Spanish island: ISLA. Have you been to Ibiza? Everything sounds so wild there.

58A: Brief investigation: LOOK- SEE

60A: Cheech's partner: CHONG (Tommy). "Dave is not here", so funny.

63A: French Open winner of 1989: CHANG (Michael). He was very popular in Asia in 1990s.

71A: Hebrew harvest festival: OMER. It was clued as "Hebrew harvest month" in our last puzzle.

75A: Downcast: DROOPY. He is DROOPY.

78A: Very short jackets: BOLEROS. All fur BOLEROS. BOLERO is also a slow Spanish dance, though Ravel's "BOLERO" gets unbearably sexier and quicker as the tension builds up.

80A: "Semper Fidelis" composer: SOUSA. That's an odd picture. I like this clip, very touching!

83A: Indiana pros: PACERS

98A:Gregor Mendel's field: GENETICS. Mendel is called the father of GENETICS. I did not know this.

104A: New Zealand Polynesian: MAORI. And their bird MOA (104D: Extinct bird).

106A: Tiny bit of time: abbr.: MSEC (Millisecond). I was thinking of nanosecond.

108A: Folk singer Burl: IVES. Here is his "Lavender Blue".

Down:

1D: South American monkey: TITI. I forgot. Here is the picture again.

5D: Backside: DERRIERE

6D: African lily: ALOE. I did not know that ALOE belongs to the lily family.

7D: Botanical bisectors: MIDRIBS. The central vein of the leaf.

13D: Phantom: EIDOLON. Rooted in "idol", which is further derived from Greek "Eidos", meaning "form". New to me also.

15D: Asian nursemaids: AMAHS. They are more often called AYAHS in India and AMAS in mainland China (before 1949).

33D: Meshy: NETLIKE. This answer looks more like a clue.

36D: Travels on foot: LEGS IT. I thought of "Hoof it".

41D: Black cuckoos: ANIS. This ANI is indeed totally black.

42D: O. T. book: LEV (Leviticus). I suppose that's the book defines "kosher" since it "contains laws relating to the priests and Levites and to the forms of Jewish ceremonial observance."

45D: __ en scene: MISE. No idea. I obtained the answer from across clues.

52D: Holy pictures: var. IKONS

58D: Wallace's 1968 running mate: LEMAY (Curtis). I googled his name.

65D: DNA code: GENOME. Gene + (chromos)ome. New to me also.

74D: Private sector assns.: NGOS (Non-Governmental Organizations. Yet another unknown.

76D: Mil. honor: DSC. It's an Army decoration, to be exact.

78D: __ Paese cheese: BEL. I've never had this cheese before.

81D: Acclaim: PLAUDIT

82D: Take over for: RELIEVE. Tampa Bay's reliever Grant Balfour used to be with the Twins. Time for Matt Garza to shine tonight.

84D: Ships' loads: CARGOES

90D: Image file format: BITMAP. No idea. I am technologically challenged.

95D: Barreled along: TORE. New meaning of "Barrel" to me.

97D: Transit-loss allowance: TRET. I never know what TRET and TARE mean exactly.

100D: Luck of the Irish: CESS. I forgot. See "Bad CESS" origin.

101D: Glaswegian: SCOT. I cannot recall any famous SCOT who is from Glasgow. Quite a few from Edinburgh, Sean Connery & Robert Louis Stevenson for example.

C.C.

Saturday October 18, 2008 Barry Silk

Theme: None

Total blocks: 26

ANNA NICOLE SMITH (39A: Playmate of the year) would have been very pleased with the attention she got from Barry Silk. Her named appeared on Barry's Sept 20 Saturday themeless as a run-through 8D answer.

Last time it's TELL HER NO, this time it's SUSPICIOUS MINDS (7D: Presley's hit). I think Barry was born in early 1950's.

Interesting to see ISHMAEL (27D: Abraham's eldest) and WHALER (44A: Queegueg, e.g.) in the same grid. I am curious to see Barry's original clue for ISHMAEL.

Across:

1A: Leader of the Huns: ATTILA. He is the "Scourge of God".

15A: Currency in Freetown: LEONES. I did not know where Freetown is. It's Sierra Leone's capital. Here is a 500 LEONES banknote.

16A: Like some runs: UNEARNED. I hope Tampa Bay can close the deal tonight. I sure don't want Red Sox repeat what they did in 2004.

17A: Grieve audibly: LAMENT

18A: Rousing to action: SPARKING

19A: Edwards or Andrews, e.g.: AFB (Air Force Base). This clue used to stump me. Not any more.

20A: Plains tribe: ARAPAHO. No idea. Wikipedia says they are "tribe of Native Americans historically living on the eastern plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe and loosely aligned with the Sioux."

28A: Bandleader Shaw: ARTIE. He must be very good at double tonguing.

30A: Strangles: SCRAGS. New definition to me. Always thought SCRAG as scrawny.

32A: Drank to excess: BOOZED

45A: Flip do-over: RETOSS. Another RE word is RESEALED (64A: Mended leaks).

49A: Pipe-stem end: TENON. Our editor likes to clue TENON as "Mortise's partner".

52A: City on the Irtysh River: OMSK. I forgot. I can never remember this city. Here is the map again.

54A: Director Wertmuller: LINA. Foreign to me. Wikipedia says LINA Wertmuller is the first woman ever to be nominated for an Oscar for directing with "Seven Beauties".

55A: Outer: pref.: EXO

56A: Desktop publishing acronym: WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get). Big stumper. I've got no idea what it is.

60A: Falling pollution: ACID RAIN

62A: Bob Marley's genre: REGGAE. "Could You Be Loved". Wonderful song.

65A: Practical trainee: INTERN. I wish I were in the US when Monica Lewinsky scandal broke. I can't imagine how Chris Matthews covered the story in his "Hardball". He is my favorite TV HOST (35A: Website job).

66A: Dark horses: SLEEPERS

Down:

1D: Nehru's birthplace: ALLAHABAD. Here is the map. I've never heard of this place before.

2D: Song from Led Zeppelin's "Presence": TEA FOR ONE. Agonizingly slow. I've never heard of song.

3D: Wyatt Earp's town: TOMBSTONE

5D: Jetson's dog: ASTRO. I am convinced that our editor does not like Houston Astros.

10D: Polynesian wraparound: SARONG. I like this color.

24D: Founder of Lima: PIZARRO (Francisco). No idea. How sad, he was assasinated. What kind of hat is that?.

33D: Intervening space: abbr.: DIST. Are you OK with this clue?

36D: Well worker: OIL RIGGER

37D: Discount store chain: STEIN MART. Unknown to me. I don't believe they have a store in MN.

40D: More fussy: CHOOSIER

46D: Absorb completely: ENWRAP. New definition to me also. Food network has a very interesting program called "Unwrapped".

49D: Waterworks: TEARS. I guessed. I did not know that "Waterworks" is a slang for TEARS.

53D: ___ eleison (Lord, have mercy): KYRIE. Was it a gimme to you? Lord is not going to show me any mercy.

58D: Generation after boomers: GEN X. I am a GEN Xer.

63D: Verizon, once: GTE

C.C.