Friday January 23, 2009 Willy A. Wiseman

Theme: Heady Stuff

20A: Calming look?: TRANQUIL EYES (Tranquilize)

39A: Organs purchased on the sly?: BLACKMARKET EARS (Blackmarketeers)

55A: Kenny Loggins' rhinoplasty?: SOMEBODY NOSE (Somebody Knows)

"Blackmarketeer" is a new verb to me. I also have never heard of the song "Somebody Knows", so the PUN (63D: Play on words") for SOMEBODY NOSE did not come to me readily.

I was going to complain that EYES and EARS are plural while NOSE is singular, then it dawned on me that I only have one NOSE on my face.

Very bad clue for LUG (61D: Earlike part), as EARS are part of the theme entries. A simple "Pull/Drag" would be just fine. Is the brown colored section LUG? I have never heard of it before.

Across:

15A: Samoan port: APIA

19A: Toss about, as ideas: BANDY. Learned this word a couple of months ago.

23A: Taiwan currency: YUAN. I thought it's called 台幣 (Taiwan dollar) there. YUAN is the currency in Mainland China. Literally, "round".

24A: Florida raptor: OSPREY. Ah, the fish hawk.

28A: Boxer's stats: KOS (Knockouts)

38A: Small barracuda: SPET. New fish to me. I did not know the meaning of "barracuda" either. Looks menacing.

40A: Slick: OILY. I though of WILY first.

44A: Chemical suffix: INE. Could be ANE and ENE too. Williams likes to clue INE as "Serpent ending".

45A: Beethoven dedicatee: ELISE. "Fur ELISE".

46A: PAT value: ONE. No idea. Why? What is PAT?

47A: Perk up: ANIMATE. Intransitive?

50A: Silver or Leibman: RON. Learned RON Silver's name from doing Xword. Have never heard of RON Leibman. He looks familiar. I must have seen him somewhere before.

51A: Noble Italian family: MEDICI. Absolutely no idea. I only know ESTE (of Ferrara). Wikipedia says the MEDICI family were "a powerful and influential Florentine family from the 13th to 17th century. The family produced three popes (Leo X, Clement VII and Leo XI)."

53A: Chinese secret society: TONG. Not true. "Chinatown's secret society", yes.

64A: Actress Washbourne: MONA. Alien to me. The only MONA I know is her (or she?). Wikipedia says MONA Washbourne played Higgins' housekeeper Mrs. Pearce in "My Fair Lady" (1964). Oh, I forgot. I also know MONA Charen, the Neocon columnist.

67A: Any part of EAP: INIT. It took me a while to realize EAP is Edgar Allen Poe.

69A: Tierney and Tunney: GENES. Is GENE Tunney very famous? I've never heard of him.

Down:

2D: Professional golfers' circuit: TOUR. Meet Ryo Ishikawa, the sensational Japanese golfer, the youngest ever (born in 1991) to reach the top 100 of the Official World Golf Rankings. He was invited to play at 2009 Masters.

4D: Wet out: RAINY. "Wet out"? Isn't it a verbal phrase? "Wet" is enough for me.

5D: New Guinea language: PAPUAN

6D: Man-Lion figure: SPHINX. How an Egyptian figure became part of Greek mythology is beyond me.

7D: Continental crust: SIAL. Obtained the answer from across fills. Do not know what SIAL is.

8D: Grain-field weed: TARE. The Biblical weed? I am more familiar with the "Truck weight allowance" clue.

9D: Convent head: ABBESS. I only know ABBOT, the "Monastery head".

22D: "__ Got Mail": YOU'VE. Very romantic. Meg Ryan's "Courage Under Fire" is very confusing to me though. I still don't know who is telling the truth and who is lying.

27D: China's Sun__: YAT-SEN. "Father of Modern China". He was Chiang Kai Shek brother-in-law. His name is spelled as Sun Zhong-Shan in Mandarin Chinese.

32D: Legal phrase: IN REM. Latin for "In a thing". Here is the explanation. Unknown to me. But isn't "thing" RES in Latin?

33D: __ Ridge Boys: OAK. No idea. Easy guess though. Here is a clip.

38D: Poivre companion: SEL. French for "salt". Poivre is "pepper".

40D: Small portion: MINIM. Another new word to me. Dictionary says MINIM is roughly one drop of liquid. "Small portion" indeed then.

41D: Colonial blackbird: ANI. Here is the picture again. Why "Colonial"?

48D: Not accented: ATONIC. Was this a gimme to you? This is my first meeting with ATONIC.

52D: Val d'___, Fr.: ISERE. The ski resort in France. Our editor clued ISERE as "Grenoble's river" last time.

58D: Hautboy: OBOE. "Hautboy"/hautbois is French for OBOE.

59D: Very dry: SERE. Probably the same word origin as the verb SEAR.

C.C.

Thursday January 22, 2009 Alan P. Olschwang

Theme: RUN ON (50D: Talk and talk)

20A: Start of a quip: A MAN IS NEVER

33A: Part 2 of quip: TOO BUSY TO

41A: Part 3 of quip: TALK ABOUT

52A: End of quip: HOW BUSY HE IS

I don't believe "Talk and Talk" is Olschwang's original clue for RUN ON. He is too professional and experienced to make this kind of clue/answer duplication mistake. His original might be "Gab and gab".

I also don't think LEAD (32A: Blaze the trail) and LED (51A: Set the pace) belong to the same grid. They are just one word in different form, which should not be allowed in crossword construction. Would be alright if LEAD was clued as "Component in recalled toys" or something metal related.

I hope you enjoy this Inauguration Tribute ("Air and Simple Gifts"). I really love the clarinet solo part. What a stellar quartet: a Jewish violinist, an Asian cellist, a Black-American clarinetist and a female Latino pianist. Isn't America beautiful? In fact, Chinese characters for America "Beautiful Country".

Across:

14A: Numskull: IDIOT. "Numskull" is a new word to me. The adjective is "Numskulled". Does the stupid "ding-a-ling" have an adjective form?

17A: "West Side Story" heroine: MARIA. Also the heroine of "The Sound of Music". Very nice clip. I have not heard/seen "Raindrops on roses..." for almost 3 months.

43A: Manitoba tribe: CREE. The answer is invariably CREE for any "Canadian tribe" clue.

44A: Gray and Moran: ERINS. Memorized this name from doing crossword. I know either of them. I suppose both of them are of Irish ancestry?

50A: Long, narrow inlets: RIAS. See this photo.

59A: Publishing grp.: ABA (American Booksellers Association). New abbreviation to me. I am used to seeing ABA clued as "Lawyers' org.".

6!A: City on Baranof Island: SITKA. I guessed. Had no idea where Baranof Island is. Wikipedia says SITKA is the largest city in the US by area.

64A: Range of the Rockies: TETON. Hmm, The Grand TETON. I think TETON (French), TITTEN (German) and TIT (English) might all derive from one word. What word is it then?

67A: Borneo ape, briefly: ORANG. I got the answer. Did not know where "Borneo" is. Dictionary says it's "an island in the Malay Archipelago, politically divided among Indonesia, Malaysia, and the British-protected sultanate of Brunei".

Down:

2D: First grandfather: ADAM. "First father", "First husband", "First" of all. "Second offender" though. Look at how happy this future "First grandma" (Marian Robinson) looks.

10D: Honorable retirement title: EMERITUS. It's a title for those retired professors, right?

12D: Eagle's nest: AERIE

25D: Draft org.: SSS. Here is the SSS classification. ONE A appears in our puzzle almost every week. I don't know where I got the idea that SSS does not exist any more.

27D: Queen of Olympus: HERA. Wife/sister of Zeus. This lady is constantly jealous of and extremely vindictive of her husband's lovers.

28D: Justice Warren: EARL. Surprised to see Chief Justice John Roberts stumbled at Obama's swearing-in. Obama did vote NO at Robert's confirmation though.

33: Disney sci-fi flick: TRON. I just can't remember this film name.

34D: Mongol's tent: YURT. The Great Wall of China was built during Qin Dynasty (Xi'An is its capital city) to prevent the Mongol intrusion.

36D: Persons: ONES. I have never seen plural ONES referred to as "Persons". Only familiar with the singular ONE. Can you make a sentence with ONES for me?

38D: Western lawmen: MARSHALS

46D: Stops in open water: LAYS TO. New nautical term to me. Dictionary defines LAY TO as "To put (a ship) in a dock or other place of safety".

47D: Above it all: BLASE. I got the answer, but I did not quite understand "Above it all". Is it a slang?

48D: Picture puzzle: REBUS. Here is a NY Times' Valentine's Day REBUS puzzle. A big heart will emerge once you connect all those embedded small "heart". Very creative, isn't it? Our editor has never offered us a REBUS puzzle. I think we are smart enough to handle one.

C.C.