Tuesday December 23, 2008 John Underwood

Theme: Hollywood Actor Brothers

20A: Brothers Jeff and Beau: BRIDGES

22A: Brothers John and James: BELUSHI

39A: Brothers River and Joaquin: PHOENIX

56A: Brothers Ben and Casey: AFFLECK

59A: Brothers Alec, William et al.: BALDWIN

25D: Brothers Emilio and Carlos, a.k.a. Charles Sheen: ESTEVEZ

I am a bit confused by the clues. If it's "Brothers Ben and Casey", shouldn't the answer be plural form AFFLECKS?

I had absolutely zero familarity with the name PHOENIX. I watched and enjoyed Coen brother's "The Big Lebowski", but I did not know that Jeff BRIDGES was the guy who played "the Dude".

When you highlight all the six theme answers of this puzzle, the grid looks quite pretty, with ESTEVEZ crossing PHOENIX.

Why is the clue for "ONE L" (36D: S. Turow book) abbreviated? It's the original title of Scott Turow's book. If it were clued as "First year law student" related, then there should be an abbreviation hint.

Did you like the clue for AIMER (54D: Target sighter)? I would prefer a nice and romantic "To Love, in Paris" clue. It's so cold everywhere, hope this hot & sexy "Je t'aime... moi no plus" warm you up.

Across:

1A: Lead balloons: BOMBS

6A: NYC theatrical award: OBIE. No hesitation between TONY and OBIE this morning as I got the intersecting ODDS (6D: Track figures) immediately.

14A: To pieces: APART. Alright then, I love you APART. Hmm, it does not make sense. I guess I love you only "To pieces".

17A: Anatomical networks: RETIA. I only knew the singular form RETE.

24A: Birth-control pioneer: SANGER (Margaret). See here for more information. New name to me also.

28A: Writer Greene: GRAHAM. Knew his name. Have never read his books.

35A: Roman orator: CATO. "The Elder" ("The Censor") or "The Younger"? Wikipedia says The CATO Institute is named after CATO the Younger.

37A: Prince Valiant's wife: ALETA. See this list of all the characters. "Prince Valiant's son" is ARN. Both appeared in our puzzle before.

44A: Cinematographer Nykvist: SVEN. Unknown to me. I do like "The Unbearable Lightness of Being", but I've never paid attention to who the cinematographer is. Wikipedia says he "worked on over 120 films, but is known especially for his work with director Ingmar Bergman". He won 2 Oscars.

50A: Polish coin: GROSZ. No idea. GROSZ is 100th of a ZLOTY, which appeared in our puzzle a few days ago.

61A: Dublin's land: EIRE

63A: "Battlestar Galactica" role: ADAMA. Unknown to me. ADAMA is derived from ancient Greek "adamas" meaning "invincible".

64A: Rugged rock: CRAG. Looks too steep to climb.

Down:

2D: Puccini work: OPERA. "Tosca" doesn't fit. But it has 5-letter too.

3D: Metz morning: MATIN. Beautiful "Chanson de MATIN" clip.

4D: Female Fonda: BRIDGET. Is "Female" a wordplay on her movie "Single White Female"?

8D: Pitcher Hideki: IRABU. Former pitcher to be exact. His card is not worth much. Interesting, I did not know that Yankees fans called him "I rob you". That's a great play on his name I RAB U.

9D: Sportscaster Dick: ENBERG. "Oh My!". I do live under the rock. Have never heard of this guy before.

21D: Writer Segal: ERICH. I can never remember this author's name. How to pronounce ERICH? Like Eric? "Love Story" is so moving.

23D: Dr. Seuss book (with "The"): LORAX. No idea. What does "The LORAX" mean? Another whimisically made-up word?

32D: Newtons' filler: FIGS. Good clue.

39D: Chaplain: PADRE. It's "Military chaplain", isn't it?

43D: Angled fairways: DOGLEGS. OK, this hole doglegs to the left. I bet there are waters on the left so hookers will have trouble finding their balls. Most of my friends are slicers. I wish I knew how to fade/draw.

45D: Singer Mercury: FREDDIE. Foreign to me. I googled his name and found out that he wrote "We Are the Champions". I seem to remember that Josh Groban covered that song also, but I couldn't find it in the YouTube. Anyway, I love, love "You Raise Me Up", so good.

47D: Mammalian epoch: EOCENE. Would not have got it had I not cheated on the crossing GROSZ. Boy, my memory really sucks. We just had this word a week ago.

49D: Mercedes-Benz model: E-CLASS. E stands for "Einspritzung", German for "fuel injection", says Wikipedia. I've never heard of it before.

53D: Bob Hope film, "Call me__": BWANA. Learned this film from doing crossword. Swahili for "our father".

59D: __ noire: BETE. What, a kind of cake also? Doesn't sound appealing, does it? I would try it if it were called BELLA noire.

C.C.

Monday December 22, 2008 Josiah Breward

Theme: Sleigh Ride

17A: New York prison: SING SING

28A: Drake's snack cake: RING DING

46A: Getting a one-base hit: SINGLING

62A: Circus owner Charles: RINGLING

11D: Crazy person: DING-A-LING

35D: Delaying departure: LINGERING

Did I catch the right theme? I was getting dizzy with those *ING words. For a moment, I thought DOING (29D: In the act of) might be the tie-in theme answer. It's located in the very center of the grid. But I could not make much sense of it.

I have never heard of RING DING snack cake before. Thought DING-A-LING refers to male organ when you guys brought "My DING-A-LING" A few days ago. Now it's "Crazy person"?

Was stumped by a few proper names. Had to google. I rather like today's clues: short, succinct and straightfoward. Only wish KENYA (40D: Mau Mau country) were clued as "Obama's ancestral home".

Across:

1A: Daiquiri need: RUM. "Tom and Jerry need" for us during this time of the year.

4A: Yves' evening: SOIR. No hesitation between SOIR (Bon) and NUIT (Bonne) this time due to the intersecting SES (4D: His: Fr.). Also EAU (66A: Agua, to Fifi) and ETRE (68A: French 101 verb).

6A: Painter Modigliani: AMEDEO. His name escaped me completely. I really like this "Girl in Pigtail" painting.

14A: Actress O'Connor: UNA. She is in "The Invisible Man". New to me. Our editor used to clue UNA as "Actress Merkel".

16A: Actress Mercouri: MELINA. I googled her name. Wikipedia says she was nominated for Oscar for the Greek film "Never on Sunday". She looks stunning.

20A: Loudness unit: SONE. 40 decibles. PHON is also "Loudness unit". I forgot the difference between the two.

21A: Willingly, old-style: LIEF. Another archaic "Willingly" is FAIN.

23A: Uneasy feeling: ANGST. A rare consonant-laden short word.

24A: Non-stop: ON AND ON. Did anyone fill in ON A ROLL first?

30A: Mormon ltrs: LDS. Do you think Mitt Romney will run for president again? I think our governor Tim Pawlenty will.

33A: Membrane of grasses: PALEA. See this diagram. I would not have got it without the neighboring fills. I was thinking of PALEO, you know, the paleolithic diet, hunter/gather style: no grain/legume, lots of meat, veggie and fruits.

37A: NYC subway line: IRT. Opened in 1904 already? That's amazing.

43A: Fall garden?: EDEN. This clue is getting stale.

44A: Specialized lingo: ARGOT. I've never used this word in daily conversation. Jargon, yes.

51A: Setting free: UNTYING. One more *ING word.

55A: Part of ROK: KOREA. The current UN Chief Ban Ki-moon is from ROK (South Korea).

57A: "__ Sanctorum": ACTA. Quotaton mark? It has to refer to these books then. ACTA is a plural form of Latin "actus", meaning "official records, as of acts, deeds, proceedings, transactions, or the like".

59A: Half of CXIV: LVII. Roman for 57. Do you know what CCLD is?

60A: Journalist Fallaci: ORIANA. Sigh, another google. I just can't remember this lady's name. She wrote "The Force of Reason".

64A: Presidential also-ran Alf: LANDON. He lost to FDR in 1936.

67A: Heavenly creatures: ANGELS. And MANNA (3D: Heavenly food).

Down:

5D: Lithographer Redon: ODILON. Here is "The Spider". Musée d'Orsay has a nice collecton of his drawings.

6D: Six-out segment: INNING

9D: Hodgepodge: MELANGE

12D: Tolkien's trees: ENTS

13D: Hops kiln: OAST

22D: Michigan city: FLINT. A little trivia for you: FLINT is "the largest city in the United States with a one-syllable name". I did not know that. Also, GM was founded in FLINT in 1908.

25D: Dist. across: DIA (Diameter)

27D: Andes autocrat: INCA. Why "autocrat"?

31D: Bond picture: DR. NO. The first Bond movie.

32D: Let it stand: STET. Oppositeof DELE.

39D: Mine entrance: ADIT

41D: Former Scottish county: ARGYLL. See this map. Why did Scotland abolish all its counties in 1975?

47D: Old instrument plucker: LUTIST. "Old"? How so?

50D: Gettysburg victor: MEADE (George). I got his name after cheating on ORIANA. He looks very tall.

53D: Foch and Simone: NINAS. Here is NINA Simone's "My Baby Just Cares for Me". I was not familiar with actress NINA Foch.

54D: Lively dance: GIGUE. See this clip. I've never heard of this dance before. The GIGUE dance starts at 1:42 I suppose?

55D: Beverage nut: KOLA. Wow, lots of nuts in this pod. How many do you have to chew to get excited?

56D: Algerian port: ORAN. Camus was born here. So was designer Yves Saint-Laurent.

63D: Test for srs.: GRE. GMAT too, isn't it? For those who want to obtain MBA degree.

C.C.