Theme: Moo, Moo, Good!
20A: Dairy exercise?: CHEESE CURLS
51A: Dairy pests?: BUTTER FLIES
11D: Dairy winds?: CREAM PUFFS
29D: Dairy DTS?: MILK SHAKES
A couple of things first:
1) I missed two important theme answers in John Underwood's Feb 6 "KNOT" puzzle. I failed to pick up BOW OUT and SLIP UP. Both are so short that I just did not think they are part of the theme. In his original submission, he has * marked in front of all the theme clues, and his clue for KNOT is "Theme clue, when added to the first word of * entries". The obscure "Interferometer instrument" for AERI is our editor's creation. Underwood's clue is simply "Atmosheric prefix". As for ATH, his original submission is "Olympic VIP". The clue we were given is "NCAA word", which is erroneous since ATH is not a word.
2) For those who don't get the TMS Daily Sunday puzzle, here is a special "Valentine Dream" from a different TMS syndication. Argyle plans to blog it next Sunday. Post-Star only keeps a one-week archive. So, please get it printed immediately.
Back to the puzzle. I really liked those theme answers, so vivid and evocative. I might have done too many puzzles. Now whenever I see BUTTER, I see ram (butt-er). "Hard butter?" for RAM is one of the cleverest clue I've ever seen.
Without the "Dairy..?" clues, I might have had difficulty finding the theme, as the fills for 33A, 40A, 4D and 26D are all very long and deceptively theme-answer looking.
Across:
5A: Payt. option: C.O.D
8A: Violinist Elman: MISCHA. First encounter with this Kiev-born violinist. MISCHA is just a Russian nickname for either Mikhail (dancer MISHA Baryshnikov) or Michelle (actress MISCHA Barton).
14A: Colombian city: CALI. Great nightlife in CALI I suppose, given its title as "Salsa Capital of the World".
16A: Egyptian judge of the dead: OSIRIS. I only knew him as the husband/brother of Isis, the Egyptian goddess of fertility. Wikipedia says OSIRIS is usually depicted as a green-skinned because green was the color of rebirth. I was thinking he might be a very jealous husband. What's his Greek counterpart then? Hades?
17A: 1/4 of MXX: CCLV. Roman numeral 255. It intersects 1D: L x XVI: DCCC. Roman 800. Not a great corner there.
27A: Lincoln and Zumwalt: ELMOS. No idea. ELMO Lincoln was the first Tarzan. ELMO Zumwalt modernized the US Navy. And he was the youngest man to serve as Chief of Navy Operations. Interesting quote from him: "There is no black Navy, no white Navy -- just one Navy -- the United States Navy.'' Reminded me of Obama's keynote speech at 2004 Democratic National Convention: ".... there's not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America".
44A: Celtic Neptune: LER Or Lir. Celtic god of sea. The Greek counterpart is Poseidon, brother of Zeus/Hades/Hera.
46A: Old English letters: EDHS. Sometimes the answer is ETHS. I don't know the difference between the two.
56A: Tarsal bangle: ANKLET. This one is pretty. This one is too much.
58A: Presidential nickname: IKE. I wrote down ABE first.
60A: Conceive: IDEATE. Mine was CREATE.
61A: "The Daughter of Time" author: TEY. Not familiar with this Scottish mystery writer. Oh, the book cover looks quite interesting. Wikipedia says the title of the novel is taken from Bertolt Brecht's play "Life of Galileo", in which the eponymous hero observes: "Truth is the Daughter of Time, not of authority."
62A: German coal region: SAAR. Lower left. New to me. I kept thinking Ruhr, which is a coal region too, isn't it?
63A: Antiseptic surgery founder: LISTER (Joseph). Listerine is named after him.
Down:
5D: 7-time A.L. batting champ: CAREW (Rod). Gimme for any Twins fan. HOFer of course. Shocking to hear A-Rod took steroids. Time for Roger Clemens to come clean has passed. Have to admire Jason Giambi for his honesty.
7D: Remove sweetness: DESUGAR. Not a word to me.
8D: Shed feathers, in England: MOULT. Only knew MOLT.
12D: U. S. Grant's first name: HIRAM. I forgot. Hebrew for "Noble".
30D: Tidal area: MUDFLAT. New word to me. Looks very muddy.
31D: Easy as __: ABC. I wrote down PIE first.
34D: Swiss river: AAR. Or AARE. Here is the map. It flows into to the Rhine at the Swiss/German borner.
38D: Brit. quartermaster: RSO. Steve said this last time: "A quartermaster is a supply sergeant or officer in the American military. So RSO must mean Regimental Supply Officer."
41D: Meteorite remains: TEKTITE. Completely alien to me. Dictionary explains TEKTITE as "any of numerous generally small, rounded, dark brown to green glassy objects that are composed of silicate glass and are thought to have been formed by the impact of a meteorite with the earth's surface".
47D: Old comic-strip boy: DONDI. Another unknown. Wikipedia explains that "DONDI's original backstory describes him as a five year old, World War II war orphan of Italian descent. A soldier who was to be his future adoptive father (and who knew no Italian) found the child wandering in a war-torn village repeating the word "Donde" ("where") as he was looking for his slain parents."
49D: Two toppers: TREYS. I wanted THREE. This word stumps me way too often. Shouldn't the clue be "Deuce toppers"?
52D: Lived day to day: EKED. Needs an additional "with "out" I think.
54D: The same: Fr.: EGAL. The noun is egalité. As in the French motto: Liberté, Egalité and Fraternité. The last three lines are Italian, right? What do they mean, Maria?
55D: Carolina rail: SORA. See this picture. Why is it called "Carolina rail"?
C.C.
20A: Dairy exercise?: CHEESE CURLS
51A: Dairy pests?: BUTTER FLIES
11D: Dairy winds?: CREAM PUFFS
29D: Dairy DTS?: MILK SHAKES
A couple of things first:
1) I missed two important theme answers in John Underwood's Feb 6 "KNOT" puzzle. I failed to pick up BOW OUT and SLIP UP. Both are so short that I just did not think they are part of the theme. In his original submission, he has * marked in front of all the theme clues, and his clue for KNOT is "Theme clue, when added to the first word of * entries". The obscure "Interferometer instrument" for AERI is our editor's creation. Underwood's clue is simply "Atmosheric prefix". As for ATH, his original submission is "Olympic VIP". The clue we were given is "NCAA word", which is erroneous since ATH is not a word.
2) For those who don't get the TMS Daily Sunday puzzle, here is a special "Valentine Dream" from a different TMS syndication. Argyle plans to blog it next Sunday. Post-Star only keeps a one-week archive. So, please get it printed immediately.
Back to the puzzle. I really liked those theme answers, so vivid and evocative. I might have done too many puzzles. Now whenever I see BUTTER, I see ram (butt-er). "Hard butter?" for RAM is one of the cleverest clue I've ever seen.
Without the "Dairy..?" clues, I might have had difficulty finding the theme, as the fills for 33A, 40A, 4D and 26D are all very long and deceptively theme-answer looking.
Across:
5A: Payt. option: C.O.D
8A: Violinist Elman: MISCHA. First encounter with this Kiev-born violinist. MISCHA is just a Russian nickname for either Mikhail (dancer MISHA Baryshnikov) or Michelle (actress MISCHA Barton).
14A: Colombian city: CALI. Great nightlife in CALI I suppose, given its title as "Salsa Capital of the World".
16A: Egyptian judge of the dead: OSIRIS. I only knew him as the husband/brother of Isis, the Egyptian goddess of fertility. Wikipedia says OSIRIS is usually depicted as a green-skinned because green was the color of rebirth. I was thinking he might be a very jealous husband. What's his Greek counterpart then? Hades?
17A: 1/4 of MXX: CCLV. Roman numeral 255. It intersects 1D: L x XVI: DCCC. Roman 800. Not a great corner there.
27A: Lincoln and Zumwalt: ELMOS. No idea. ELMO Lincoln was the first Tarzan. ELMO Zumwalt modernized the US Navy. And he was the youngest man to serve as Chief of Navy Operations. Interesting quote from him: "There is no black Navy, no white Navy -- just one Navy -- the United States Navy.'' Reminded me of Obama's keynote speech at 2004 Democratic National Convention: ".... there's not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America".
44A: Celtic Neptune: LER Or Lir. Celtic god of sea. The Greek counterpart is Poseidon, brother of Zeus/Hades/Hera.
46A: Old English letters: EDHS. Sometimes the answer is ETHS. I don't know the difference between the two.
56A: Tarsal bangle: ANKLET. This one is pretty. This one is too much.
58A: Presidential nickname: IKE. I wrote down ABE first.
60A: Conceive: IDEATE. Mine was CREATE.
61A: "The Daughter of Time" author: TEY. Not familiar with this Scottish mystery writer. Oh, the book cover looks quite interesting. Wikipedia says the title of the novel is taken from Bertolt Brecht's play "Life of Galileo", in which the eponymous hero observes: "Truth is the Daughter of Time, not of authority."
62A: German coal region: SAAR. Lower left. New to me. I kept thinking Ruhr, which is a coal region too, isn't it?
63A: Antiseptic surgery founder: LISTER (Joseph). Listerine is named after him.
Down:
5D: 7-time A.L. batting champ: CAREW (Rod). Gimme for any Twins fan. HOFer of course. Shocking to hear A-Rod took steroids. Time for Roger Clemens to come clean has passed. Have to admire Jason Giambi for his honesty.
7D: Remove sweetness: DESUGAR. Not a word to me.
8D: Shed feathers, in England: MOULT. Only knew MOLT.
12D: U. S. Grant's first name: HIRAM. I forgot. Hebrew for "Noble".
30D: Tidal area: MUDFLAT. New word to me. Looks very muddy.
31D: Easy as __: ABC. I wrote down PIE first.
34D: Swiss river: AAR. Or AARE. Here is the map. It flows into to the Rhine at the Swiss/German borner.
38D: Brit. quartermaster: RSO. Steve said this last time: "A quartermaster is a supply sergeant or officer in the American military. So RSO must mean Regimental Supply Officer."
41D: Meteorite remains: TEKTITE. Completely alien to me. Dictionary explains TEKTITE as "any of numerous generally small, rounded, dark brown to green glassy objects that are composed of silicate glass and are thought to have been formed by the impact of a meteorite with the earth's surface".
47D: Old comic-strip boy: DONDI. Another unknown. Wikipedia explains that "DONDI's original backstory describes him as a five year old, World War II war orphan of Italian descent. A soldier who was to be his future adoptive father (and who knew no Italian) found the child wandering in a war-torn village repeating the word "Donde" ("where") as he was looking for his slain parents."
49D: Two toppers: TREYS. I wanted THREE. This word stumps me way too often. Shouldn't the clue be "Deuce toppers"?
52D: Lived day to day: EKED. Needs an additional "with "out" I think.
54D: The same: Fr.: EGAL. The noun is egalité. As in the French motto: Liberté, Egalité and Fraternité. The last three lines are Italian, right? What do they mean, Maria?
55D: Carolina rail: SORA. See this picture. Why is it called "Carolina rail"?
C.C.
