Monday October 20, 2008 Michael T. Williams

Theme: Watered Down

17A: Heading for England: CROSSING THE POND

38A: Get outta here: GO JUMP IN A LAKE

56A: Very small amount: A DROP IN THE OCEAN

Will "Take Me to the RIVER" fit the above theme pattern?

This puzzle is weird. Most of the time the longest theme answer is in the middle. The grammatical structure of the above three entries felt very loose too.

I had to check the dictionary for BONESET (27D: Thoroughwort). I did not understand the meaning of "Thorougwort", thinking it's kind of disease, or something like wart. Had no idea that "wort" is a suffix for "plant".

I also forgot TARPON (31A: Florida fish). I wonder why the clue is "Florida fish"? Can't you find TARPON anywhere else? By the way, congratulations to Night Owl and other Tempa Bay fans. Matt Garza was awesome!

Across:

14A: Clarinetist Shaw: ARTIE. It's clued as "Bandleader Shaw" last Saturday. Kittyb linked Benny Goodman and Woody Herman and mentioned that they are all clarinetists and bandleaders.

20A: Plainsong feature: MONOTONE. This reminds me of Ben Stein.

21A: Carried by wind: EOLIAN. Or AEOLIAN. From Aeolus, ruler of wind in Greek mythology. New to me.

25A: North of Paris: NORD. "South of Paris" would be SUD.

37A: Ducks' relatives: LOONS. LOON is Minnesota's state bird.

41A: Rams and bucks: MALES. No alliteration any more? How about "Bucks and Boars"?

47A: "Star Trek" star: SHATNER. Captain Kirk.

54A: Of the kitchen: CULINARY. Funny how I always associate CULINARY with cooking but not kitchen.

Down:

1D: U.S. Defense group: SAC (Strategic Air Command). I got it from the across fills.

5D: Fawning subordinate: YES-MAN

7D: Inert gas: ARGON

18D: Isotope of thorium: IONIUM. No idea. Its atomic number is 90, and atomic weight 230. ION is charged article, IUM is a suffix for metallic element.

19D: Ultimate conclusion: END-ALL

22D: Paper folding: ORIGAMI. Amazing ORIGAMI flowers.

23D: Lotion additive: LANOLIN. Also called wool fat. I could only think of ALOE.

26D: Washington city: SPOKANE. Unknown to me also. Wikipedia says 1974 World Fair was held in SPOKANE and Bing Crosby grew up there.

41D: NYC arena: MSG. Are you a NY Rangers fan?

51D: "Rebel Without a Cause" co-star: MINEO (Sal). See the movie trailer.

61D: Writer Hentoff: NAT. I don't think I've read anything he has written.

C.C.

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.