Wednesday October 22, 2008 Barry Silk

Theme: J & J

18A: Denim item: JEANS JACKET

61A: Party punch: JUNGLE JUICE

3D: Jumpin' hot spot: JUKE JOINT

34D: Portly planes?: JUMBO JET

And more J words to intersect the above theme entries:

1A: M. Houlihan's rank: MAJ. "M*A*S*H".

24A: Horizontal beams: JOISTS

34A: Lively dance: JIG

58A: H-M connection: IJKL

4D: __ Mahal: TAJ

19D: King's comic: JESTER. I don't understand the clue and the answer.

49D: Prized trinket: BIJOU. New word to me.

57D: Member of the "Love Train" soul group: O'JAY. Unknown to me also. Here is "Love Train".

So many famous JJ names: Janis Joplin, Joan Jett and Jesse Jackson. Oh, don't forget Shoeless Joe (Joe Jackson). He deserves to be in HOF. If you build it, he will come.

I hope you enjoyed solving this puzzle as much as I did. It's a great construction. There are quite a few unfamiliar names, but most of them are inferable from crossing fills. I still had to resort to Google though.

The clue for SERER (47A: Senegalese language) made me laugh. How obscure! Barry must be very excited to find this language. Otherwise, he would have to clue it as "more dry", which might irk some solvers.

Across:

4A: Puccini opera: TOSCA. Does anyone know the meaning of "TOSCA la ha" (Emperor Gene Nelson sign-off line)?

15A: Turkish bigwigs: AGHAS. PASHAS are also "Turkish bigwigs".

17A: Shatner novel: "__ War": TEK. Got it this time.

20A: Skater's jump: AXEL. Can you believe the first AXEL jump was performed in 1882?

26A: Lymphoid organ: SPLEEN

28A: Geological period: AZOIC. No idea. Dictionary defines it as "noting or pertaining to the Precambrian Era, esp. that part formerly believed to precede the first appearance of life". Rooted in Greek ázō(os) meaning "lifeless".

33A: Insertion symbol: CARET

52A: San Luis __: OBISPO. Here is the map. I've never heard of it before. Wikipedia says Loren Roberts was born and raised there. He has such an enviable putting stroke, so smooth and unhurried. OBISPO is Spanish for "Bishop".

55A: Japanese sci-fi film: RODAN. See the movie trailer. So horrifying.

69A: Like some questions: YES-NO

Down:

2D: NYSE rival: AMEX. NASDAQ is very scrabbly too.

5D: S-shaped moldings: OGEES. Can anyone explain to me what exactly is OGEE? I cannot see any S-shape in this OGEE clock frame.

7D: Game with four jokers: CANASTA. Did you know that CANASTA originally came from Uruguay?

12D: "Guys and Dolls" song: SUE ME. I got it from the across clue. See the clip.

13D: Mythical giant: TITAN. ATLAS is a TITAN.

21D: Lane in Metropolis: LOIS. I like this clue. Much more interesting than "Superman's girlfriend Lane".

25D: Like navigable northern waterways: ICE-FREE

28D: Actress Baxter: ANNE. I guessed. Wikipedia says she won Oscar for best supporting role in "The Razor's Edge", which stars GENE Tiernery also (see 36D: Tierney of films).

33D: G. P. A. slangily: CUME (Cumulative). New slang to me. I wish I had attended some kind of school here in the US.

39D: "No Exit" playwright: SARTRE. I think his "Being and Nothingness" & "Nausea" are more famous. Speaking of existentialism, do you like Milan Kundera's "The Unbreable Lightness of Being"?

46D: Arizona tribe: HOPI. Does anyone collect HOPI Kachina dolls?

63D: Paul Anka's "__ Beso": His voice sounds so warm.

C.C.

Tuesday October 21, 2008 Verna Suit

Theme: The Man, The Myth, The Legend

17A: Scene of 38A's 63A: BEIJING OLYMPICS

38A: World's best swimmer: MICHAEL PHELPS

63A: 38A's take: EIGHT GOLD MEDALS

Do you know that his nickname is "Baltimore Bullet"?

Sensational! MICHAEL PHELPS had the audacity to dream and audacity to realize his dreams.

I believe this puzzle was created immediately after he broke the record, but our editor was not flexible enough to publish the puzzle earlier. Guess he has plenty of puzzles in his pipeline.

Great puzzle, isn't it? I really like the WELT clue (33D: Mark of Zorro?), very clever, though I always associate rapier rather than whip with Zorro.

Nice to see GOA (64D) clued as "Indian tourist haven". I never liked the "Himalayan gazelle" clue before. Without Argyle, I would not have found any picture of that mysterious gazelle.

I don't understand the PODS clue though (41D: Movable classrooms). How so? If PODS refer to "Schools of whales", then the clue need a question mark.

Across:

1A: Office clerk: FILER. None of the companies I've worked has a FILER. Secretaries do the filing job. I like the TERM clue (71A: In-Office time).

10A: Koi: CARP. Look at this huge CARP.

15A: Sound defeat: ROUT And UPSET (21A: Underdog victory).

20A: Black sea port: ODESSA. I had no idea that it belongs to Ukrain.

22A: Court figure: LAWYER. I was thinking of tennis court.

27A: Tokyo, once: EDO. Kyoto was the capital city during EDO period (1603-1867). Nobel author Kawabata wrote a book called "The Old Capital".

32A: Major bore: YAWNER. Have you seen Leslie Caron's "Gigi"? "It's a bore"!

36A: Nebraska river: PLATTE. I forgot. Saw PLATTE river as a clue somewhere before. It flows into Missouri.

46A: Sucker on a shark: REMORA. New word to me. I've heard of sucker fish though. Dictionary says REMORA can "attach itself to sharks, whales, sea turtles, or the hulls of ships." So ugly.

49A: Source of archery bows: YEWS. Can you make bows out of these YEW? They don't look good to me.

69A: Yorkshire river: OUSE. This river used to stump me. Not any more.

Down:

1D: Word for the Beatles: FAB. Do you collect FAB Four items? Here is George Harrison's "When We Were FAB".

4D: Relish: ENJOY. I was thinking of the hot dog relish.

5D: Commando: RAIDER. I always thought RAIDER is a person who RAIDS and seizes counterfeid products.

8D: Solzhenitsyn setting: GULAG. I got the answer, but I did not understand the clue. I've never heard of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn before. He won Nobel Literature in 1970.

10D: Dogpatch creator: CAPP (Al). Li'l Abner comic strip.

12D: Move like a hairline: RECEDE

19D: Undergo genetic change: MUTATE

24D: Dry riverbed: WADI. No idea. How is it different from arroyo/gully?

39D: Pest from a nest: HORNET

42D: Overcharge: SOAK. I was not aware of the slangy meaning of SOAK.

46D: Surgically remove: RESECT. New word to me.

47D: Complete: ENTIRE. I wanted INTACT.

48D: Hardly sufficient: MEAGER

55D: Smoke mass: CLOUD. See, The Rolling Stones used "Off of" in their song "Get Off of My Cloud".

59D: Oates novel: THEM. No. Have never heard of this novel before. Our editor likes to clue OATES as "Bellefleur" writer.

C.C.