Monday February 2, 2009 Tom Pruce

Theme: Feeling Blue

20A: Without warning: OUT OF THE BLUE

60A: Jamaican peak: BLUE MOUNTAIN

10D: Something to scream: BLUE MURDER

30D: Miles Davis classic: KIND OF BLUE

I was only familiar with the phrase OUT OF THE BLUE. But the other three entries were very easy to suss out once I figured out the theme. Do you know where the BLUE MOUNTAIN got its name?

A perfect puzzle for Michael Phelps. He must be feeling very blue this morning. What a disappointment. Why did he need marijuana to get high? Kind of tarnished his ONCE IN A BLUE MOON eight gold medal Olympic record.

So jarring to see RED (15A: Scarlet, e.g.) and RED-HOT (6D: Fiery) intersects one another. Also, is the clue for NSA (59A: Govt. advisory grp.) correct? I wanted NSC (National Security Council). NSA is so damned secretive that I don't know to whom they give advice to.

Across:

8A: Greyhound pacer: RABBIT. I got the answer, but have no idea how RABBIT is connected with "Greyhound pacer".

14A: Gymnast Korbut: OLGA. This is incredible. She got four gold Olympics medals.

16A: Actress Dahl: ARLENE. Can never remember this actress, mother of Lorenzo Lamas. Wikipedia says she had a relationship with JFK as well.

24A: Spinoff of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show": RHODA. Learned from doing Xword. It's often clued as "Valerie Harper sitcom". Which kind of TV program do you watch now?

25A: Samms and Lazarus: EMMAS. Have never heard of EMMA Samms before. That's a very daring dress. Nice pair of ... earrings. She is a British TV actress.

29A: City on Baranof Island: SITKA. Nailed it this time. Still can't believe it's the largest city in the US by area.

34A: Driving nails obliquely: TOEING. Learned this carpentry term last time.

38A: Inter-campus sports grp.: NCAA. Can you believe NCAA was founded in 1906 and has an annual budget of $5.64 billion? By contract, NASA annual budget is $17.3 billion.

51A: Munch Museum city: OSLO. Have never heard of Munch Museum before. It's named after the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch, best known for his angst-filled "Scream".

63A: Low tracts: SWALES. The ditch on the right I presume? This word always gives me trouble.

70A: Swan genus: OLOR. No idea. Latin for swan. Too exotic a name for me to remember.

72A: French some: DES. And FRANC (21D: Old French bread?), which is also the currency for Switzerland.

Down:

2D: Chilean-born pianist Arrau: CLAUDIO. Got his name from across fills. Here is a clip. I wonder why the clue is "Chilean-born" rather than "Chilean". He must have changed his nationality later on then.

4D: Tropical root: TARO. I miss those Cantonese fried TARO cakes.

7D: Made sense: ADDED UP

26D: Med. procedure: MRI. How does MRI differ from X-ray?

27D: Gone by: AGO. "A long long time AGO... the day the music died...". It's been 50 years.

43D: NASA partner: ESA. Very tiresome clue. ESA is "That" in Spanish, right?

48D: Acquire by trickery: FINAGLE. Made me think of Merrill Lynch's John Thain and his outrageous way of using government bailout money to pay his employees bonus. I am glad he is gone.

49D: Greek letter: UPSILON. EPSILON and OMICRON also have 7 letters.

50D: Some thrown horseshoes: LEANERS. Struggled with this one. Last time I was also stumped when LEANER is clued as "Almost a ringer". It's "a thrown horseshoe that leans against the stake."

63D: Sellout theaters: SRO. No abbreviation hint in the clue. I would prefer "Sellout letters".

64D: Sebaceous cyst: WEN. This clue is getting stale too. Not sure if everyone knows, but the current Chinese Premier is named WEN Jiabao.

C.C.

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.