Wednesday February 25, 2009 Annabel Michaels

Theme: "Pulp" Art

17A: Accordion: SQUEEZE BOX

26A: Broadway moneymaker: SMASH HIT

32A: 1977-79 Broncos' nickname: ORANGE CRUSH

41A: Crash protection space: CRUMPLE ZONE

50A: Whiskey ingredient: SOUR MASH

61A: When push comes to shove: CRUNCH TIME

I think we've done two similar themed puzzles before, though neither contained so many theme answers.

What exactly is SOUR MASH? I got the answer from down fills. ORANGE CRUSH was an easy guess. I don't even know why Vikings were called "Purple People Eaters" in 1970's. Who cares! They want to move to Los Angeles anyway.

There should be a "briefly" with the clue for TKOS (60A: Fight stoppers). Otherwise, no twisty clues. Solvable if you are not PRESSed for time.

Across:

1A: Tessie or Milo: O'SHEA. Not familiar with Welsh actress/singer Tessie O'SHEA. She sounds like genuinely funny. Wikipedia says she was on "The Ed Sullivan Show" the same day when the Beatles made their first appearance.

10A: Sphere starter?: ATMO. Atmosphere.

15A: Corduroy rib: WALE. Faintly remembered the term corduroy WALE.

22A: French floor: ETAGE. The bric-a-brac shelf ETAGERE is rooted in ETAGE.

28AL Czech Republic region: MORAVIA. No idea. I could only think of Bohemia. Here is the map. Madeleine Albright is probably the most famous Czech American. She could, if she would, have become Czech's President in 2002.

31A: Balanced conditions: STASES. Singular is STASIS. Can you make a sentence for me? I've never used this word before. Equilibriums, yes.

35A: Wall upright: STUD. Very unfamiliar definition to me. Dictionary explains STUD as "an upright post in the framework of a wall for supporting sheets of lath, wallboard, or similar material."

36A: Moon car, briefly: LEM. To an untrained eye, this Apollo 11 Eagle looks ugly and junky. Who is that astronaut?

45A: Greek letters: THETAS. The 8th of Greek alphabet (total 24). Consonant. Interesting how Egyptian hieroglyph has 24 glyphes, but no vowel. I like that "tongue" (mdw).

49A: Wise king: SOLOMON. OK, the first paragraph here: "I've been staring at this Academy Award ballot for the past 20 minutes. The decisions! Now I know how SOLOMON felt." What does "The decisions! Now I know how SOLOMON felt" mean?

66A: "Bellefleur" writer: OATES. Probably our editor's favorite OATES book. He keeps using the same clue. Have you read Sylvia Plath's "The Bell Jar"? Joyce Carol OATES said it's a "near perfect work of art".

67A: Unfledged bird: EYAS. Uh-uh, nope, this is an imagined word.

69A: City on the Adige: TRENT. Called TRENTO in Italy. Adige River seems to be a branch of that unnamed river that runs through Trento, doesn't it?

Down:

2D: Roman acronym: SPQR. Senatus Populusque Romanus (the Senate and the people of Rome). I can only remember "pigs". Maria mentioned last time that Italians call SPQR "Sono Porci Questi Romani", loosely translated as "These Romans are Pigs".

3D: Soccer mom in Munich?: HAUSFRAU. It's just German for "housewife", right, Kazie? I don't know what's so fun about this clue.

5D: Peer Gynt's mother: ASE. I can never remember this lady's name. Nor can I commit the African bushy-tailed fox ASSE into my memory. Can anyone who has read this Ibsen play give us a short summary of what "Peer Gynt" is about?

6D: Bedside pitcher: EWER. No EWER on my bedside table. Never. What's on your bedside? EWER?

9D: Put forth flowers: BLOOM. "Put forth" sounds so laborious. Most flowers "Burst through". The clue reminded me of this Anais Nin quote: And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

11D: Synagogue scrolls: TORAHS. Does synagogue allow non-Jewish people in?

12D: Actress Smith: MAGGIE. She is so old. Time to clue MAGGIE Q, the hottest MAGGIE on earth.

18D: Yikes!: ZOWIE. I need to use this word often.

34D: Pitch callers: UMPS. Cute, so cute. Can't find an UMP bobblehead. Has to be 1960's & Made in Japan to be valuable.

37D: Black Sea arm: AZOV. I was unaware of Sea of AZOV.

45D: Pestilent fly: TSETSE. Have you heard of blow-fly? Wikipedia says it belongs to the same family as TSETSE fly does.

47D: Satellite of Jupiter: EUROPA. Galileo must be very versed in Greek mythology. Otherwise, he would not have named this moon as EUROPA.

52D: Noon and midnight, e.g.: HOURS. Boy, I felt dense. This did not come to me readily at all.

61D: 905: CMV

C.C.

Tuesday February 24, 2009 Willy A. Wiseman

Theme: Double O

17A: Kenny Loggins hit: FOOT LOOSE

22A: Handyman's space: TOOL ROOM

33A: Alternative to a T-top: MOON ROOF

40A: Chef's reading: COOKBOOK

49A: Make light of: POOH-POOH

59A: Handsomeness: GOOD LOOK

11D: Cereal brand: FROOT LOOPS

27D: Expectorant source: BLOODROOTS

I have never heard of BLOODROOTS before. They look so clean and innocent. I think I am more of a "Double O" CHOO-CHOO solver rather than a BLOODROOTS one. The clue "Expectorant" is too sophisticated for me to understand.

Too bad GOODEN (45D: Former Mets pitcher), the rotational partner for BOOBOO (5D: Child's injury), is not called GOO GOO, otherwise, We would have one more pair of theme answers.

Dwight GOODEN ruined his career with drug abuse. His rookie season is 1985, the same as Kirby Puckett's and Roger Clemens'. Now Kirby is dead, Clemens is implicated in steroid scandal.

Structurally this is an outstanding puzzle, with total 38 Os in the grid, easily smashed NY Time's 34 Os record created on Dec 16, 1993.

Also, there are 68 theme squares, that's about 35% of the total fills (Total: 191. And 34 blocks). I think that's the most I've encountered in a TMS puzzle.

But I was not excited about this puzzle at all. Too many Os confused me. I like daily puzzles with no more than 5 theme entries.

Across:

5A: A/C figures: BTUS (British Thermal Units). Memorized from doing the Xword. I don't really know what the heck BTU measures.

9A: To the most extreme degree: BY FAR. Really? I've never used "BY FAR" this way. Maybe I confuse BY FAR with SO FAR.

15A: Birthplace of Camembert: ORNE. No idea. ORNE is a department in the northwest of France, named named after the ORNE River. Every time I see Camembert, Dali's "Melting Clock"("The Persistence of Memory") pops into my head. He was inspired by the leftover Camembert cheese dissolving on a hot summer's day.

19A: Feel rapture: SWOON. Its rotational symmetrical partner is BROOD (58A: Hatch eggs). I would prefer BROOD clued as "Feel moody" to contrast "Feel rapture".

20A: Deprive of strength: ENFEEBLE. Thought of ENERVATE, which has 8 letters also.

21A: Fit in: BELONG. Embien, why "You BELONG with me" instead of "You BELONG to me"?

25A: Queen of the fairies: MAB. Coined by Shakespeare. MAB is supposedly "a tiny fairy who comes to people when they sleep. Then she haunts their dreams by making the person dream of what they want and cannot have." Sounds very cruel, doesn't it? Reminds me of Odin's wife Frigg. She has the prophecy power yet she never reveals to others what she knows.

37A: Le Mans lasses: abbr.: MLLES. Got the answer. Did not know where Le Mans is. Quite close to Paris. Host to the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans car race, whatever it is. Know nothing about Grand Prix or Formula One racing. Doubt I will ever be interested. What a mess! You, sir, should have resigned a year ago.

42A: Newton's fruit?: APPLE. Good clue. Could be FIG too.

47A: Shortened bk: ABR (Abridged)

52A: Freetown moola: LEONES. See these banknotes. Had no idea that Freetown is the capital of Sierra Leone. Now, there is word describing a Middle East sheik or some big potatoe. It spells similiar to moola. What is that word? This is really bothering me. It's not moula.

54A: Formal written defense: APOLOGIA. New word to me. Any famous one in history?

60A: MetLife rival: AETNA. Named after the Sicilian vocano I suppose.

63A: Stuffy-sounding: NASAL

Down:

2D: Carolina university: ELON. See this Phoenix Rising statue at ELON University. Their sports teams are called the Phoenix. Learned from doing Xword.

4D: Church coral work: MOTET. I forgot this word. It's "a composition based on a sacred text and usually sung without accompaniment". Rooted in French word "mot".

6D: Ogre associates: TROLLS. I once had a beautifully ugly Norwegian TROLL similar to this one. The real deal.

7D: Family of Indy winners: UNSER

9D: First, second or third infielder: BASEMAN. My favorite BASEMAN.

10D: Mournful wail: YOWL. In Chinese countryside, those villagers really YOWL at the funerals, as if the loudness of their YOWL is the measurement of their love for the deceased.

12D: Egyptian symbols: ATONS. Or ATENS. I am used to the "Egyptian sun god" clue. I have a question JD: If the Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs contained only consonants and involved no vowels, why did the moderan interpreation become ATON/ATEN instead of ATIN/ATUN?

18D: Spinks and Ames: LEONS. Bill mentioned the boxer LEON Spinks last time, but I forgot. I also did not know the actor LEON Ames.

21D: Julius or Guy of golf: BOROS. Julius is in Golf HOF. Nothing extraordinary about his son Guy. I've never heard of their names before. Too obscure.

25D: 1700 in letters: MDCC

26D: Saab model: AERO. More often see AERO clued as "Prefix for dynamics".

41D: Two-footed: BIPEDAL. Only know BIPED.

44D: Place side by side: APPOSE. How is it different from juxtapose?

47D: Composer Berg: ALBAN. Why do keep I forgetting this Austrian composer?

48D: Suburb of Cleveland: BEREA. Bloody blue murder! No idea. What's so special about this suburb?

50D: Hawaiian word for foreign: HAOLE. Just learned this word a few days ago. It actually only refers to white people.

53D: Nine: pref.: NONA. As in nonagon. New to me. I only know NONET, the composition for group of nine. Our editor clued ENNEA as "Nine: pref: " before.

55D: Wound from a bullfight: GORE. Come on, this is really "The Assault on Reason", Mr. Editor. Why "Wound" when you have a Nobel Peace/Oscar winner as clue?

C.C.