Saturday February 28, 2009 Tom Pruce

Theme: None

Total blocks: 28

Total words: 70

Noticed how this puzzle differs from Matthew Higgins' themeless? The sparse and prudent use suffixes. Two ED and several S, which are very common in any Saturday grid. I simply can't stand puzzles with oodles of affixes like ER, RE, ING, ED and EST.

Lots of 10-letter words. 12, to be exact. That results in plenty of 4-letter words, most of which are clued pretty straighforwardedly.

The clue for NEWSSTANDS (1A: Place for papers) should be in plural form. I understand the constructor's alliteration purpose in cluing MISSEND (50A) as "Mail by mistake". I just dislike the letter duplication. "Mail by error" sounds OK to me.

I am lost on ANTECEDENT (14D: Cause). What's the rationale here?

For those regulars who don't have TMS Sunday puzzle, click "Over and Over". I will publish Argyle's blog post here tomorrow morning.

Across:

11A: Caesar's partner: COCA. Stumped immediately. I need "Caesar's TV partner" to think of the Imogene COCA. I thought of Caesar salad.

15A: Pharmacist: APOTHECARY. Recognize this word when I see it. But I can't spell it out.

16A: Son of Judah: ONAN. The guy who spilled his seeds on the ground. Onanism is easier to remember than the Latin "coitus interruptus". "Can I ...?"

17A: Ballet turns: PIROUETTES

18A: Flat fee?: RENT. Nice clue.

19A: Get a whiff of: SCENT. I wrote SMELL first.

21A: Summon to court: CITE. Would have come to me immediately if the clue were "Quote".

22A: Sicilian volcano: ETNA. The insurance giant AETNA is named after this volcano. Greek for "I burn". My surname Burn-ikel has no burning desire at all. It simply means "Don't kill the child" in Viking talks.

27A: Chandler novel, with "The": BIG SLEEP. Easy guess. I've never read this book.

31A: Team spirit: MORALE. I bet those Afghan warlords' MORALE is very high now, with CIA's supply of our friendship blue pills. Viagra is a potent weapon in war on terror, correct?

36A: Abbr. on folk music: TRAD. Add a prefix S, you suddenly have Joshua Bell's expensive STRAD.

46A: Black sea port: ODESSA. Still remember AZOV the "Black sea arm"? It's quite close to ODESSA.

46A: Unskilled: INEXPERT. Only know EXPERT.

56A: Of the kidney: RENAL. And OTIC (60A: Of the ear). What is "Of love"?

65A: Facial features: LINEAMENTS. You won't believe it, but I really have never heard of this word before.

67A: Took the first step: STARTED OUT

Down:

2D: Heroic in scope: EPIC. Are you a fan of "The Lord of the Rings"? Somehow I've never developed an interest in those fantasy novels.

5D: Airport connector: SHUTTLE

11D: Washington D.C. art gallery: CORCORAN. No idea. What is their most precious collection?

12D: Body of water near Syracuse: ONEIDA LAKE. It's the largest lake entirely within NY State. I just learned this morning that the name ONEIDA literally means "Erected stone".

13D: Type of bridge: CANTILEVER. Like this one? According to Dictionary, only one end of the CANTILEVER bridge is fixed. That picture does not seem to fit the definition.

24D: Sponsorship: AEGIS. See Athena's AEGIS shield. The center is Medusa's head. Poor Medusa. She used to be pretty. But then she made love to Poseidon in Athena's temple. Bam! Athena turned her into a monster! Her ugly face could turn any onlooker into stone, maybe an "Erected stone".

26D: Hang in loose folds: LOP. Not a familiar definition to me. "Chop off" is more common.

28D: Casts light on: IRRADIATES

29D: Jefferson Airplane singer: GRACE SLICK. Easy guess. In Chinese culture, that's a very rude gesture.

37D: Examines in minute detail: DISSECTS

44D: Off the charts: EXTREME. "Off the chart" is a new phrase to me.

51D: Shipboard crane: DAVIT. Is it mainly used to lift boat?

55D: Gershon of "Bound": GINA. Don't know "Bound". Only saw GINA Gershon in "Showgirls". She was rumored to have affair with Bill Clinton last year.

57D: One-billionth: pref.: NANO

58D: Westernmost of the Aleutian Islands: ATTU. Also the westernmost of the US.

C.C.

Friday February 27, 2009 Jo Vita

Theme: Go a-head

17A: Deceived: HOODWINKED

34A: Eat quickly: SCARF DOWN

45A: Hockey feats: HAT-TRICKS

66A: Collectible toy tot: BEANIE BABY

11D: North African city: FEZ, MOROCCO

29D: Financial investor: CAPITALIST

I am not hip into the hockey term HAT-TRICK. Is it equivalent to baseball's grand slam?

This puzzle held my interest. Great to see FEZ, MOROCCO in the grid. What a brilliant theme entry! Bonnet is missing. So is bowler hat. What else can you think of?

Why "Wild again" for FERAL (12D)? Isn't "Wild" sufficient? I would have clued SMEAR (72A: Smudge) as "Campaign tactic" due to my averseness to letter duplication. SLOTH (24D: Unau or ai) made me think of our constructor John Underwood. His old website is called SLOTH2toed. Our editor used to clue UNAU as "Two-toed sloth". AI is a just 3-toed sloth that lives in who knows where.

Across:

1A: Booty: SWAG. I forgot this slang. It's clued as "Thief's haul" last time.

15A: Artist Matisse: HENRI. Without Gertrude/Leo Stein, I doubt Matisse would have achieved what he later achieved.

19A: Stone or Pound: EZRA. In 10 years' time, EZRA probably will be clued as "Pundit Klein". He is the current liberal darling.

20A: Touchdown vessel: LANDER. Like LEM?

23A: Puppy barks: YIPS. Have yet to see YIPS clued as golf-related.

27A: NRC preceder: AEC. Existed from 1946 to 1975.

32A: Czech physicist Beckmann: PETR. Zowie! Look at the book he is holding, "The Health Hazards of Not Going Nuclear". I wonder if his theories have been challenged. Anyway, I forgot all about him. He also wrote "The History of Pi." I think his mom forgot to put an vowel at the end of his name.

38A: Corsican patriot: PAOLI. Had to get reacquainted with this fellow again. Could only think of Napoléon, as he was born in Corsica. Why is he considered a patriot?

41A: Natural starter?: SUPER. Supernatural. Good clue.

44A: Artless: NAIVE

50A: Explorer Johnson: OSA. Are those eggs? Her name escaped me once again. OSA, OSA, she-bear. Won't forget you next time.

51A: Andes tuber: OCA. Learned these tubers the way I learned about UGLI, from doing crossword.

56A: Ayres and Wallace: LEWS. I wanted ELIS again, confusing the "Ben-Hur" author LEW Wallace with ELI Wallach. Wikipedia says the actor LEW Ayres was married to Ginger Rogers from 1934 until 1940. And Jane Wyman fell in love with him while filing "Johnny Belinda" and left her husband Ronald Reagan for him, "albeit unsuccessfully".

61A: Kevin of "SNL": NEALON. I googled his name. Hard to find a perfect Granny Smith at this time of the year.

68A: Unless, in law: NISI. Decree NISI. Learned from doing crossword. You can't get married if you have received "Decree NISI" but not "Decree absolute". Maybe Paul McCartney has secretly married to her girlfriend, who received her "Decree absolute" from the court a while ago.

69A: Eccentric: OUTRE. I wrote down WEIRD first.

70A: Ends of small intestines: ILEA. Singular is ileum. (Note: Sorry about the mistake earlier. I mixed it up with the hipbones ILIA (singular Ilium).

71A: 1994 pact: GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trades). Gimme. GATT was mentioned so often in China around the time when I graduated from college. It was replaced by WTO in 1994. Tough entering process for China.

73A: DEA Operative: NARC. DEA is often clued as "Narc's agcy."

Down:

3D: Egyptian god: AMON. Or AMEN/AMUN. No AMIN, since there is no "I" in modern interpretation of those Egyptian heiroglyphs. See this AMON-Ra on relief.

4D: Lee of Rush: GEDDY. No idea. Not familiar with the Canadian rock band Rush or the lead singer Geddy Lee, the guy in the middle.

7D: Egyptian cross: ANKH. I tend to confuse this word with the Hindu SIKH.

18D: Chinese dynasty: WEI. There are two WEI Dynasties in Chinese history. Here is a great list of all major dynasties. Click on Three Kingdoms or Southern and Northern Dynasties, you will find detailed information on the two WEIs that you don't really need to know.

28D: S. Amer. nation: ECUA. Capital: Quito. Currency: Sucre. Sucre has nothing to do with sugar. It's named after a South American independence leader named Antonio Jose de Sucre.

33D: Hirsch sitcom: TAXI. Easy guess. I've never heard of the actor Judd Hirsch. He is the guy with big nose. I was thinking of Emile Hirsch, the actor in "Into the Wild". Are they somehow related?

35D: Dream in Rheims: REVE. French for "Dream". Got the answer. Had no idea where exactly Rheims is. No painting is more erotic and DF than Picasso's "Le REVE".

36D: Soft-drink brand: FRESCA. Only Pepsi products in our house.

39D: Bird's display area: LEKS. I forgot. Saw this clue before. It's basically bird's mating arena. LEK is also Albanian currency.

48D: Some sports cars: TURBOS. Don't know anything about sports cars.

52D: Compound in ceramics: CERIA. Completely unknown to me. Some kind of white powder to polish ceramics or glass.

54D: Lung: pref: PNEUM. This prefix stumps me all the time.

57D: Polio vaccine developer: SABIN. He developed oral, "live virus" vaccine. Salk developed "killed virus" injection vaccine.

62D: Los Angeles land?: LA-LA

63D: German head waiter: OBER. Alien to me. I only know Über, German for "over".

64D: Central park S. landmark: NYAC (New York Athletic Club). Blue murder! I can never remember this building or its abbreviation.

Is anyone going to attend the ACPT this weekend? Barry Silk will be there.

C.C.