Wednesday February 11, 2009 Josiah Breward

Theme: The Scarlet Letters

17A: John Cougar Mellencamp hit: CHERRY BOMB

26A: Hit by the Psychedelic Furs: PRETTY IN PINK

43A: Hit by Chris DeBurgh: THE LADY IN RED

58A: Hit by Sting: DESERT ROSE

Why not "Hit by John Cougar Mellencamp" for 17A? It would be more consistent with the other three clues.

An odyssey for me this morning. The center grid where NUBIA/OMBRE/PRAIA intersects one another is very hard. As for the theme entries, I've heard of LADY IN RED and DESERT ROSE. Have forgotten all about CHERRY BOMB, I think someone linked that song before. PRETTY IN PINK is new to me. What a weird band name: The Psychedelic Furs.

There should be a "var." mark with the clue for TABU (9D:Prohibited). I have zero familiarity with SENSORIA (39D: Human CPUs), but "CPUs" should not be part of the clue, as it indicates an abbreviated answer.

Across:

1A: Collier's access: ADIT. Often clued as "Mine entrance". Coal + ier = Collier (coal miner)

15A: Snorer's peril: APNEA. What caused this sleep order?

19A: U.S. weather grp.: NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). New to me.

20A: Diarist Pepys: SAMUEL. Pepys has the same pronunciation as "peeps". His diary recorded the Great Fire of London (1666). Funny how that year is called "Annus Mirablis". It's a perfect "Annus Horribilis". Why do all those Latin words end in letter s?

34A: Women's Lib opponent, perhaps: MCP (Male Chauvinist Pig). Know the phrase, but the abbreviation did not come to me readily.

38A: Three-player card game: OMBRE. Or OMBER. From Spanish hombre (man). It's "a card game popular in the 17th and 18th centuries and played, usually by three persons, with 40 cards." Completely unknown to me.

41A: Cape Verde capital: PRAIA. No idea. See this map. Does it belong to Africa then? Wikipedia says Cape Verde was a Portuguese colony until 1975. About 71% of the population is Creole of mixed black African and Portuguese descent. And more than 85 percent of the population is Roman Catholic. Most of the Africans are Muslims, right?

53A: Ancient region in Asia Minor: AEOLIS. Or Aeolia. Another unknown to me. All I could think of is Ionia. Well, look at here, I was not that far off. I don't understand this part. How is Odysseus' Aeolus island connect with AEOLIS? Are they the same?

60A: Artist Mondrian: PIET. The Dutch painter famous for his "Composition with Yellow, Blue and Red". Also see this PIET Mondrian inspired Nike shoe.

61A: Anaheim player: ANGEL. Awkward Los Angels Angels of Anaheim. Yesterday's Rod Carew (7-time A.L batting champ) finished his career with the Angels.

Down:

4D: Maneuvering rocket: THRUSTER. I don't know. Like this?

10D: "Where the Wild Things Are" writer: SENDAK. I googled this author. Not familiar with the book.

11D: To have: Fr.: AVOIR. Santa, Je veux AVOIR this for Christmas.

18D: Right-hand page: RECTO. Reminds me of Barry G's outburst over RECTI (clued as "Belly muscles"). The singular form is rectus. RECTI is the same as abs, aren't they?

27D: Apple choice: ROME. Here is a clip for those who love the real ROMA.

29D: Nile region: NUBIA. No idea. Here is a map. Wikipedia says "most of NUBIA is situated in Sudan with a quarter of its terriory in Egypt. And in ancient times it was an independent kingdom." Why does this word sound so DF to me?

36D: Cowboy's chum: PARD. Short for Parter. Is it a common slang? I've never heard of it before.

46D: Sun: pref: HELIO

56D: Meeting: abbr.: SESS. This S-laden word is often found either at the bottom or the rightmost edge of the grid.

C.C.

Tuesday February 10, 2009 Jo Vita

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.