Sunday February 1, 2009 Robert H. Wolfe

Theme: Eat My Words

23A: Junk carrying fruit?: SLOE (Slow) BOAT TO CHINA

37A: Freeing a pungent plant? SPRINGING A LEEK (Leak)

49A: Force exerted by a fruit?: PEAR (Peer) PRESSURE

66A: Herb's organic processes?: BASIL (Basal) METABOLISM

88A: Mushroom stem?: MOREL (Moral) SUPPORT

98A: Veggies' contemporaries?: BEET (Beat) GENERATION

118A: Herb from the distant past?: THYME (Time) IMMEMORIAL

PEAR PRESSURE seems to be strained. PEAR and Peer sound very different to me. MOREL SUPPORT made me laugh, given our wild MOREL discussion last summer.

I wonder if any constructor thought of building a "Moral" rebus puzzle. Moral Ground, Moral Standard, Moral Code, Moral Principle, Moral Philosophy, Moral Decline, Moral Lesson, Moral Victory, Moral Obligation, Moral Conduct, Moral Fiber, etc. Lots of "Moral Issue" words to grid.

Very nice puzzle. Excellent theme. Quite challenging for me though. Had to seek Google for help. Definitely more rewarding than last week's simple "Face It". The only minor quibble I have is the clue for HIT (53A: SRO indication). SRO indicates an abbreviated answer, but HIT is not.

Across:

8A: Character on "The A-Team": MR. T. This guy often wears too much gold.

14A: Brother of Rebecca: LABAN. I forgot his name completely. He is the father of Leah and Rachel, Jacob's father-in-law. Who is his wife then?

19A: Do little or nothing: LIE DOWN

22A: Beatles song from "The White Album": I WILL. Here is the clip.

25A: Paroxysm: THROE. I did not know the meaning of "Paroxysm". "oxy" meaning sharp, as in oxymoron.

26A: "Lohengrin" heroine": ELSA. I can never remember this Wagner opera. The girl looks scared. What is the story about?

27A: Joyce Kilmer classic: TREES. "I think I shall never see /A poem lovely as a tree..."

33A: Fatality faker: POSSUM

48A: Light starter?: TWI. Twilight.

52A: French possessive: A MOI. How do you say "Wish you were mine" in French? I suppose French has real and unreal conditional sentences too.

56A: Barry Levinson movie: DINER. No idea. Have never heard of this movie.

64A: AEC word: ENERGY. AEC was replaced by NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission).

75A: Under the most negative circumstances: AT WORST. I hope we've hit the bottom and the worst is now behind us. So depressing and chilling to read those massive layoff announcements.

80A: Winged: ALATE. Like Pegaus. Sometimes the answer is ALAR. Ala is "wing".

87A: Few: pref: OLIG. As in oligarchy. Here are some examples. I suppose you can call Putin's Russia oligarchy too.

94A: Erect, temporarily: RIG UP. Why "temporarily"?

97A: Brain box: NOODLE. "Brain box" is a new slang to me. I think my "Brain box" is full. I can't seem to absorb and digest the new information I get from reading others' comments.

101A: Incursions: FORAYS

111A: Rutger of "Blade Runner": HAUER. Googled his name. Three consecutive vowels. Perfect for crossword.

123A: Cyst: VESICLE. New to me. What causes these VESICLES? Looks like cigarette burns.

124A: Shoelace tip: AGLET. Derived from French word "aiguille" meaning "needle'".

Down:

4D: Old music halls: ODEA. Singular is odeum. Is there any modern music halls/theaters called odeum?

14D: Well-read elite: LITERATI. Digerati is a portmanteau of "digital" and "LITERATI".

18D: Dodger, in MLB jargon: NLER (National Leaguer). Both ALER and NLER exist in crossword world only.

32D: Put that out of your mind: IGNORE IT

34D: Last of Socrates?: OMEGA. The last letter of Greek alphabet.

35D: Pitcher Warren: SPAHN. Ah,"Spahn and Sain and Pray for Rain", Hall of Famer. The winningest southpaw in Major-League history.

57D: Incoming, as a train (abbr.): INB. Inbound?

62D: Trellis: ESPALIER. Another new word to me. Very pretty. Is that an apple tree? Some of the fruits look like pomegranates.

70D: "I remember Mama" character: LARS. Got it from across clues. Have never heard of this movie before.

81D: Wood: pref.: LIGN. First encounter with this prefix. Dictionary gives an example of "lignite", dark brown coal with a woodlike texture.

82D: Three from Berlin: DREI. Eins, zwei, DREI.

84D: Corundum relative: ALUNDUM. No idea. The clue means nothing to me. Both end in "undum". I suppose you can call them relatives.

90D: Lacking in development: UNFORMED. This clue does not feel natural to me.

92D: Panama preposition: POR. Good alliteration.

100D: Wind: pref.: ANEMO. As in anemometer, the instrument to measure the speed of wind. Saw this clue somewhere before.

106D: Hindu deity: SIVA. I don't know which one is more common, SIVA or Shiva. Here is a statue. How does Hinduism differ from Buddhism? Some of the meditating statues look quite similar.

119D: NASA partner: ESA (European Space Agency)

C.C.

Saturday January 31, 2009 Tom Pruce

Theme: None

Total blocks: 30

Total words: 70

This grid looks pretty to me. So open at four different corners, with those stacks of 7-letter words. I wonder what is the first word the constructor filled in for his grid. My guess is HEM AND HAW (21D: Procrastinate). But are they really interchangable?

I don't like the clue for LIT (10D: Lang. course). I think abbreviation should only be used when no other options are available. So many ways to clue LIT. "Set afire" is boring but works nicely in this grid. I just learned the other day that LIT is also a slang for "Intoxicated". Maybe you can tell me how you would clue LIT. I really enjoyed the non-tea LIPTON discussion the other day.

Had to google. Without a theme as my sherpa, I was daunted and lost. Did not know any of the two poets' name which intersects each other. Wanted Jennifer (Lopez) for 39D: One of Mark Antony's wives (OCTAVIA), confusing Marc Anthony with Mark Anthony. Anyway, Mark Anthony has five wives: Fadia, Antonia, Fulvia, OCTAVIA and Cleopatra. Looks like he liked women with a-ending names.

Across:

1A: Silent signal: GESTURE. Most of the people talk when they GESTURE.

8A: Mayflower passenger: PILGRIM. Vaguely remember there was a baby born EN ROUTE (2D: Along the way) to Plymouth.

15A: Brightest star in Scorpius: ANTARES. Literally rival of ARES (Mars for the Romans) due to the "similarity of its reddish hue to the appearance of the planet Mars". Interesting root. I have never heard of this red supergiant star before.

17A: Vaccaro and Lee: BRENDAS. BRENDA Vaccaro is an actress. BRENDA LEE is a singer. Neither was a familiar name to me.

20A: Ogden resident: UTAHAN. I used to imagine Poet Ogden Nash was born in Ogden, Utah. He was actually born in Rye, New York.

22A: Ancient ointment: NARD. Ah, I did remember this story. Just forgot who was the girl who washed Jesus' feet with NARD. Another Mary.

26A: Latvian chess master: TAL. The 1960-61 world chess champ. Wikipedia says Mikhail TAL is also called "The Magician from Riga".

32A: Group of seven: SEPTET. Sometimes the answer is HEPTAD.

36A: City near San Diego: OCEANSIDE. Here is the map. Easy guess. I did not know there is a city named OCEANSIDE, not to mention its exact location.

38A: Social Security pioneer: TOWNSEND (Francis). Another guess. Here is a picture of him giving a speech about his plan during 1939 New York World's Fair. I wonder what inspired him to think of this grand idea. What a mess we are facing today.

55A: "Animal Farm" author: ORWELL. See the book cover. We get the phrase "Big Brother" and "Orwellian" from his book "Nineteen Eighty-Four".

63A: Period of peace: DETENTE. I was thinking of Pax Romana. To me, DETENTE implies a "relaxing of tension" during JFK's cold war era.

64A: Poet Siegfried: SASSOON. This is Clear Ayes's summary of him: "SASSOON was an early 20th century poet, who was a decorated officer in WWI. He was nicknamed "Mad Jack" by his men for his near-suicidal exploits. He eventually became a vocal anti-war activist. He is memorialized in Westminster Abbey's Poet's Corner. The inscription reads, "My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity." I completely forgot his name. Had to google. SASSOON is "joy" in Hebrew.

65A: Loud speaker: STENTOR. He was a herald of the Greek forces during the Trojan War. And his voice was "as powerful as fifty voices of other men", according to Homer. I have never hear of this guy before. My answer was STENTER, as I wrongly guessed ERNESTE instead of ERNESTO for 43D: Che Guevara's first name.

Down:

1D: Jabbers: GABBLES. A gaggle of Geese GABBLE.

5D: Pakistani tongue: URDU. Dictionary says URDU is "essentially identical to Hindi in its spoken form but in its literary form heavily influenced by Persian and Arabic and written in an Arabic alphabet". It's one of the official languages in India too.

6D: "Giant" ranch: REATA. Learned from doing crossword. Have never seen "Giant".

8D: Umbrella cousins: PARASOLS. Here is Monet's Lady with a Parasol (facing right) once again.

12D: Drumming sound: RAT-A-TAT. Like the drum-banging at Oakland A's ballpark? So annoying!

24D: Climber's spikes: PITONS. This guy is pounding on a PITON. Rock climbing looks very dangerous.

37D: Ancient Greek poet: ANACREON. I forgot. It appeared in our puzzle last Nov. Here is what I wrote last time: "Wikipedia says he is a "lyrical poet" and notable for his "drinking songs and hymns". And his songs often celebrated "women, wine, and entertaining, and today can be considered eroticism". Very interesting information: Francis Scott Key modified Stafford Smith's melody of "To ANACREON in Heaven" for "The Star-Spangled Banner".

38D: Parts of rocker arms: TAPPETS. Here is a diagram. Does not look like "Parts of rocker arms". Whatever. Too technical for me to understand.

54D: "Boola Boola" singers: ELIS. Oh, I did not know "Boola Boola" is Yale's fight song. What's Harvard's then?

56D: Past due: LATE. I really liked "Past Due?" clue for TRE. Very clever. Uno, due, TRE.

61D: X: TEN. The wild receiver for Arizona Cardinals Larry Fitzgerald is from Minnesota. I guess we will all root for the Cardinals in Super Bowl XLIII.

C.C.