Tuesday March 17, 2009 Ed Voile

Theme: The Davey Family

17A: Renowned jazz pianist: DAVE BRUBECK

24A: "Curb Your Enthusiasm" star: LARRY DAVID

48A: "Die Hard" co-star: ROBERT DAVI

57A: English LPGA golfer: LAURA DAVIES

11D: 1997 PGA champion: DAVIS LOVE

32D: Monkees singer: DAVY JONES

Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone! Go to solve LA Times Daily puzzle if you have time. It has a very proper theme for today.

Both DAVIS LOVE and LAURA DAVIES were gimmes to me. I remember vividly the miraculous rainbow at Winged Foot and how emotional DAVIS LOVE was. It's his first and only major. Who else but LAURA DAVIES (next to John Daly) can you fill for "English LPGA golfer"? She is the face of the British/European LPGA.

I was not familiar with the other four theme answers. But I figured out the theme earlier on. So I was able to fill in some blanks with creative guesses.

Must be a headache day for those who have trouble with Roman numerals:

11A: 605: DCV

19A: Sundial seven: VII

30A: 1405: MCDV

30D: Twice DLXXV: MCL

Some of the clues could be reworded to avoid the heaviness in abbreviated answers today. For example. BAS (21A: Some U. degs"), why not just "__ - relif"? Also, I've never liked "SSS word" for SEL (29D). Last time "Poivre companion" stumped lots of people (Poivre is French for "pepper"), but a simple "Salt in France" should be fine. I am still waiting for someone to try "Sand's seasoning?".

Across:

1A: Perpetual traveler: NOMAD. Anyone thought of GYPSY first?

6A: "Le __ du printemps": SACRE. "The Rite of Spring". Ballet by Igor Stravinsky. Unknown to me. All I could think of is the Printemps department store. Printemps is "Spring" in French.

14A: Threatened layer: OZONE

28A: Equal-sided figure: ISOGON. Like square.

29A: Part of a wd.: SYL. Why do I always think of letters instead of syllables?

37A: One-horse carriages: CHAISES. New defintion to me. CHAISE is a kind of carriage with a hood. One-horse and two-wheeled.

41A: Morse unit: DIT. What's difference between DIT and DOT again? (Answer from Barry G: DIT and DOT are synonymous. It's just that DIT is paired with dah, whereas DOT is paired with dash. DIT and dah represent the sound made by typing the characters "." and "-" with a telegraph, whereas DOT and dash represent the names of the characters.)

42A: Med. readings: EEGS. Saw a very clever clue the other day. "Head lines?"

44A: Servile: MENIAL

46A: Goya's "The Naked __": MAJA. Hey, Williams is getting DF. He could have clued MAJA as "The Clothed MAJA". But "The Naked MAJA" does look better. I wish I had her waist, so tiny!

60A: Enzyme: suff.: ASE. And ANE (4D: Chemical suffix). I am curious to see how our new editor Rich Norris clues ANE. I like the separate AN E approach.

61A: Felix or Luther: ADLER. Got it because yesterday's "Felix and Polly" clue. Have never heard of actor Luther ADLER. Barry G's Irene ADLER clue sounds equally obscure to me. And I've never heard of any of the ADLER in Ink's list. It seems that Alfred ADLER is most well-known one. Wikipedia says he coined this concept "Inferiority Complex".

Down:

1D: Of a junction: NODAL

2D: Conductor Seiji: OZAWA. His name escapes me constantly. I could only picture his face. He was actually born in Shenyang, China when it was under Japanese occupation.

5D: Boone and others: DEBBYS. Thought of DANIELS first. Here is DEBBY Boone's "You Light Up My Life".

6D: Wursts: SAUSAGES. Interesting comments from Kazie yesterday: "My son has been experimenting with sausage making recipes, and he specially ordered the intestine casings because he says when the meat dries out, the natural casings shrink with it and there are no air pockets to cause spoilage like with the synthetic casings that won't shrink."

7D: Fugitive letters: APB. I like Harrison Ford's "The Fugitive".

8D: Simpleton: CRETIN. New to me. CRETIN does not look like a stupid word.

9D: Sieved into pellets: RICED. Don't have a ricer in our kitchen.

18D: Protective hemispheres for antennas: RADOMES. Contraction of RA (dar) + DOME. Another new word to me. How can antennas work when they are domed?

23D: Beaver Cleaver's hometown: MAYFIELD. Got it from across fills.

25D: Classic Buicks: RIVIERAS. Also got from across fills.

36D: Ed.'s work pile: MSS. I'd rather the clue be "Editor's work pile, abbr."

38D: His: Fr.: SES. Or her/its.

39D: Mary Roberts of mysteries: RINEHART. I googled her name. Wikipedia says she is often called American Agatha Christie. Is it true?

41D: Cotillion gal: DEB. I did not know the meaning of "Cotillion". It's a formal ball given for debutantes.

44D: Sofa section: MODULE. New to me. Which section is MODULE?

46D: Jim or Gardner: McKAY. Did not know actor/artist Gardner McKAY. He must be very famous to grace a Life Magazine cover. Jim McKAY was the first sportscaster to win an Emmy (He won a total of 12 Emmy Awards).

48D: "The Cloister and the Hearth" writer: READE (Charles). One more google. Interesting bookcover. Is it a good read from READE?

49D: Concorde, e.g.: AVION. "Plane" in French.

C.C.

Monday March 16, 2009 Jo Vita

Theme: Colorful Places

29A: Southernmost city in Texas: BROWNSVILLE

58A: Town on Great Slave Lake: YELLOWKNIFE

11D: Virginia Tech location: BLACKSBURG

28D: Neighbor of Winston-Salem: GREENSBORO

BLACKSBURG brought back the horrifying scenes of the Virginia Tech shooting. It's the only theme answer I've heard of.

Why would someone name a town YELLOWKNIFE? Sounds haunted and dangerous to live. Is GREENSBORO a shortened word for Greensborough? BROWNSVILLE was very easy to obtain. Wikipedia says Kris Kristofferson was born there.

I had trouble with the intersection of NORMA and ADLERS. Otherwise, an OK grid, our last TMS Daily Monday puzzle. By the way, here is a picture of Rich Norris, the editor for LA Times Daily puzzle. He looks very serious, doesn't he? On the other hand, Barry Silk looks so relaxed and morally MOREL.

Across:

1A: Diet beers: LITES. I don't eat or drink anything LITE or no-fat. Have to eat real food.

9A: Native Israeli: SABRA. Dictionary says it means "prickly pear" in Hebrew. A person who immigrates to Israel is called OLEH (masculine) or OLAH (feminine). I suppose SABRA can be either a man or a woman?

14A: Stern or Babel: ISAAC. I did not know ISAAC Babel, the Russian Jewish writer. He was shot to death by Stalin's secret police.

17A: Very large in scale: MACRO. I think my diet mirrors that of Macrobiotics, except that I don't eat brown rice.

19A: National symbols: FLAGS. This is Chinese National flag, with 5 stars. The colors and designs kind of resembles the old Soviet Union flag.

24A: Glacial epoch: ICE AGES

26A: Skeans and dirks: DAGGERS. Skean is a new DAGGER to me. It's formerly used in Ireland and in the Scottish Highlands.

29A: Arlene and Roald: DAHLS. Someone mentioned last time that DAHL means "valley" in Norwegian language. Related to DALE I suppose.

31A: "Over There" cont.: EUR. Guessed. Why "Over There"? Old movie title?

42A: Verdun's river: MEUSE. No idea. I did not know where Verdun is. See this map. It flows from NE France through E Belgium and S Netherlands into the North Sea. Last time I linked the same map when ARGONNE was clued as "WWI battle site".

43A: Spanish dish: PAELLA. Literally "frying pan" in Catalan. Saffron is probably the most expensive spice in the world.

48A: Bellini opera: NORMA. Unknown to me. Wikipedia says it's first produced at La Scala in 1831 and it is generally regarded as an example of the supreme height of the Bel canto tradition, whatever that is. This is the only NORMA I know.

53A: Engaged: BUSY. I wanted RAPT.

57A: Poetic peeper: ORB. Maybe you can find me a poem where the poet wrote "Oh, how lovely thine ORBS are".

62A: Mythical weeper: NIOBE. Can you believe this is a gimme for me? Lots of solvers found me last year when they searched this word. Anyway, NIOBE had 14 kids, and she she bragged of her superiority to LETO, who only had two kids (the Twins Apollo & Artemis, fathered by Zeus). Then all her kids were slewn by Apollo and Artemis. And NIOBE herself was turned into stone by Zeus while weeping her loss.

66A: Stuffed __ (kishke): DERMA. Nope. Have never heard of kishke either. Looks just like sausage. I hope it's sweet and not garlicky.

68A: Jamaican cultist: RASTA. Ah, Bob Marley. Here is his "No Woman No Cry", to comfort our "Mythical weeper" NIOBE.

Down:

2D: Munich's river: ISAR

4D: Solicit persistently: EARWIG. New word to me. This insect shows up when I googled EARWIG.

5D: Wall bracket: SCONCE. Mine was SOCKET.

6D: Glacial chasm: CREVASSE. Same as crevice?

7D: 1953 Jane Wyman movie: SO BIG. The answer presented itself to me. The original novel won a Pulitzer for Edna Ferber in 1925.

12D: Moore or Mudd: ROGER. Not familiar with the journalist ROGER Mudd.

21D: Evening in Venezia: SERA. Italian for evening. I did not know Venezia is Italian for Venice.

26D: Star of "Sleepy Hollow": DEPP (Johnny). Have never seen this movie. "Heads will roll" sounds scary.

27D: Intangible quality: AURA. "Intangible" indeed.

35D: Aoki of golf: ISAO. Golf HOFer. He belongs to history. Now all eyes are on Ryo Ishikawa. Sensational. We will see him at the Masters this year.

44D: Henri's girl: AMIE. How to say "girlfriend" in Spanish? By the way, I've had enough Bernard-Henri Levy and his narcissistic unbuttoned white shirt.

46D: Garbage boat: SCOW. Barge popped into my mind. It's also a garbage boat, isn't it?

49D: Felix and Polly: ADLERS. No idea. Polly ADLER was a Russia-born brothel madam. Three Felix ADLERS here. I don't know which one the constructor was thinking.

54D: One archangel: URIEL

56D: Aluminum company: ALCOA. Oh my God, I just found out this morning that ALCOA is traded at $5.73/share. Unbelievable.

59D: Singer Delange: ILSE. I forgot. She is a Dutch country singer.

63D: NYC subway line: BMT (Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit). Can never remember this initial.

C.C.