Thursday March 19, 2009 Willy A. Wiseman

Theme: None or a Farewell Message?

Well, I was expecting a coup de grâce quip/quote today. Did not expect such a short two line "parting words" from our editor Wayne R. Williams (aka Willy A. Wiseman/Josiah Breward).

A themed puzzle should have at least three entries, but I only found two:

31A: Start of parting words: SEE YOU IN THE

40A: End of parting words: FUNNY PAPERS

So, technically this is a themeless. I've never heard of the above idiom before. Does it really carry an air of "mild contempt"?

The clue for NOUVEAU (5D: Word with riche or cuisine) is simply wrong. Cuisine is a feminine noun, so the adjective is nouvelle, not NOUVEAU. Haute cuisine, not "haut" cuisine. "Word with riche or art" would be OK.

Across:

1A: Novice reporter: CUB. Surprised that Wiseman did not use "Chicago pro" clue in his last puzzle to pay tribute to his major audience, the Chicago Tribune solvers.

4A: Preserved for later: ON ICE

15A: Musical wrap-ups: CODAS

18A: City on the Arkansas: TULSA. See this map. I got the answer from down fills. Wikipedia says "For most of the 20th century, the city held the nickname "Oil Capital of the World". Which city holds the title now? Riyadh (Saudi Arabia)?

23A: Stuck around: WAITED

26A: Nobleman: EARLS. Thought of PEERS first, then LORDS, then EARLS.

28A: Established in office: INSTATED. One more blank, the answer would be INSTALLED.

44A: Powers of "Hart to Hart": STEFANIE. New actress to me. Often see girls named Stephanie. Wikipedia says "Hart to Hart" was created by Sidney Sheldon. I like his "Rage of Angels".

46A: New Haven alum: ELI. How many of our presidents graduated from Yale? I only know Bush 41, Clinton & Bush 43.

47A: Artifact: RELIC. This word always reminds me of Agatha Christie. She left the comfort of England and accompanied her archaeologist husband to the extremely tough-to-live Iraq exploring those digs. Yet he still cheated on her. Why are most men unfaithful?

48A: Theater section: BALCONY. The answer is often LOGE.

57A: Above it all: ALOOF. I like this quote: "Anger, ego, jealousy are the biggest diseases. Keep yourself ALOOF from these three diseases".

61A: Miller's product: FLOUR. "Milliner's product" will be HAT. I can never understand the rage about that hat.

63A: Clay or Frick: HENRY. No idea. According to Wiki, HENRY Clay was more than any other individual responsible for the War of 1812. And he was greatly admired by Lincoln and JFK. Henry Clay Frick was an industrialist and art patron, once known as "America's most hated man". Why was he hated so much?

64A: Rhythm of activity: TEMPO

Down:

2D: Detach: UNFIX

9D: Fertility goddess: ASTARTE. I forgot. Could only think of the "Egyptian goddess of fertility" ISIS. ASTARTE is the ancient Semitic goddess, worshiped by both Phonicians and cannanites.

10D: Australian lass: SHEILA. Kazie says this is an outdated Aussi slang.

11D: Ohio school: KENT STATE. Lou Holtz' alma mater. Here is their Golden Flashes logo.

13D: Scott of a famous case: DRED. I blanked again. Could only think of Scott Peterson.

21D: Nymph chaser: SATYR. See this picture. Very ugly libertine. Part-man, part-horse. The Roman equivalent is Fauns.

23D: Dry streambed: WASH. Have never heard of Dry WASH before.

26D: Portal: ENTRY

28D: Vacuous: INANE

31D: Black and White: SEAS. I've heard of White SEA, but I forgot where it's located. Do those purple colored areas all belong to Norway?

33D: Duck product: EIDERDOWN

34D: Type of Greek column: IONIC. This is quite tricky, as DORIC almost fits in too. See this D.I.C picture (Thanks, Kazie). I don't believe we had Corinthian in our puzzle before.

38D: Pizazz: SPICE. Pizazz, pizzaz, pizzazz. So many different spellings.

40D: In error: FALSELY

41D: Detachment: UNIT. Why? I was thinking of aloofness.

42D: London fog: PEA SOUP. Have never been to London. Does the fog really look like PEA SOUP?

45D: Tributary: FEEDER

49D: "La Boheme" or "The Girl of the Golden West": OPERA. Both by Puccini. I am not familiar with "The Girl of the Golden West".

50D: Peter and Franco: NEROS. Peter NERO is an American pianist. He appeared in our puzzle before. Franco NERO is an Italian actor, husband of Vanessa Redgrave (the girl on his left). Redgrave is the mother of Natasha Richardson, who died last night after suffering a head injury from a skiing accident. Natasha is the wife of Liam Neeson ("Schindler's List"). He is going to play Abe Lincoln in Spielberg's biopic. Too much information?

51D: "The Shadowy Waters" poet: YEATS. Got the answer. Have never heard of the poem. Does not look interesting to me. YEATS won Nobel in 1923.

54D: Cosmo competition: ELLE. The girl on this ELLE China is Zhang Ziyi, probably the most influential Chinese actress right now. She played Sayuri in "Memoirs of a Geisha", a role should have been given to a Japanese actress in my opinion.

C.C.

Wednesday March 18, 2009 Adele Mann

Theme: Natural Elevations

17A: Ancient: AS OLD AS THE HILLS

29A: Candy bar, formally: PETER PAUL MOUNDS

47A: Pennsylvania destination: POCONO MOUNTAINS

60A: Wales: CORDUROY'S RIDGES

Refreshing to see "Wales" as a clue today. Our editor likes to clue WALE as "Corduroy ridge". It's the only gimme theme answer to me. Does the apostrophe bother you?

I've never heard of PETER PAUL MOUNDS. Thought the candy bar might be called Peter, Paul & Mary or something. It seems that both AS OLD AS THE HILLS and "As old as Methuselah" are from the Bible.

I really like the theme entries today. Very consistent. All of them are at the end of the phrases and all in plural forms.

Some of the fills strike me as very obscure. The intersection of CLUJ & JEHU was utterly impossible for me.

Across:

1A: Strasbourg's region: ALSACE. Between France & Germany. ALSACE -Lorraine was annexed by Germany in 1871 after the Franco-Prussian War and returned to France by the Treaty of Versailles (1919).

7A: City in Transylvania: CLUJ. Only till 1974. It's now called CLUJ-Napoca, the third largest city in Romania. Aburdly hard!

11A: Govt. med. grp.: HRA. Health Reimbursement Account/Arrangement. Was this a gimme to you? I really have problem remembering this program.

16A: Greek Aurora: EOS. Goddess of dawn. Sister of Helios (God of sun). Jimmy in S Carolina posted a great poem named "Rosaline" on the blog Comments section last night. Some of the lines are very sensual: "... Her cheeks are like the blushing cloud /That beautifies Aurora's face... Her paps are centres of delight /Her breasts are ORBS of heavenly frame...". Beautiful poem.

25A: Chapel Hill inst.: UNC. Mia Hamm's alma mater. The Tar Heels.

28A: Hubbubs: DINS. Instinctively wrote down ADOS.

34A: Defoe character: CRUSOE. Interesting, Wikipedia says "Robinson CRUSOE" is sometimes regarded as the first novel in English. It's published in 1719.

37A: Star Wars letters: SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative). Reagan's program. Have you read anything by Patti Davis? I kind of like her style. Simple & elegant.

39A: Old Turkish title: AGA

43A: Saxophonist Mulligan: GERRY. No idea. Was he the guy who spoke?

54A: Waiting to bat: ON DECK. I mis-read the clue as "Waiting to bait".

66A: Serpent tail?: INE. Serpentine. "Hero tail?" too. The new editor might use the IN E approach.

67A: Paddock papa: SIRE. Don't google, tell me who SIRED War Admiral?

68A: Turkish inn: IMARET. Sigh. How can I remember this word. MARE between IT?

71A: Diarist Pepys: SAMUEL. Often see PEPYS clued as "Diarist Samuel". Anyway, Pepys is pronounced the same as "peeps". He recorded the 1666 London fire in his diary. 1666 is often called Annus Mirabilis (Year of Miracles). I really hope the stock market has reached its bottom and this year will not become an Annus Horribilis for us.

Down:

2D: "__ Girs": LES. See this poster. Got it this time.

4D: Dahl and Francis: ARLENES

5D: USN rank: CMDR. Who does CMDR report to and who reports to him?

7D: Component of some TV: CRT

9D: Shoshones: UTES. They live in Utah and W Colorado. The University of Utah's sports team is called Utah UTES. What are those white stuff on the left of letter U? Feathers? This picture is clearer.

10D: King of Israel (842-815 B.C.): JEHU. No idea, the year range means nothing to me. What was he famous for? Wikipedia says "The speed of Jehu" was once a common idiom in America. Very fast? Very slow? Just right?

11D: Kept back: HELD IN

12D: Dancer Petit: ROLAND. Nope. Don't know this French guy. His lips are so thin, must be a glib talker.

18D: Predatory shorebird: SKUA. Always thought SKUAS live in Arctic. Turns out you can find them in Antarctic too.

19D: Kashmir river: INDUS. Unknown to me. See this map. The River is on the east side of Kashmir. It originated in Tibet, China and flows into the Arabian Sea.

22D: Pet protection grp.: SPCA

26D: Crux: NUB. NUB, nib & neb often confuse me.

27D: Book of "The Alexandria Quartet": CLEA. Gimme for Ink I am sure. She's been reading this Quartet. My answer was COMA.

30D: Al of the '50s Indians: ROSEN. Ah, gimme. Another great old time Jewish baseball player is Dodgers' Sandy Koufax, who refused to pitch for Game 1 of the 1965 World Series (against the Twins) because it fell on Yom Kippur.

31D: Pitcher Martinez: PEDRO. Another gimme. He has won Cy Young. He sucked every time I watched him pitch. Don't know which team he wants to go this year. Indians?

32D: Actress Follows: MEGAN. Got her name from across fills. Have never never heard of this Canadian actress. Interesting "Follows". Is there anyone surnamed Leads?

33D: Pictures of illusions: OP ART. Thought of MIRAGES.

40D: 20% of CCLXV: LIII. Roman 53.

41D: Ms. Rowlands: GENA. I forgot. Which movie is she famous for again?

43D: Hooked by a horn: GORED. Ouch! I really like Borked. If GORED became a real word, what would be your definition?

44D: Mirror image?: YOU. Depends on who is looking at the mirror at the moment.

46D: Layered pavement: MACADAM. This is another word I keep remembering then keep forgetting. It's named after the Scottish engineer John Loudon McAdam who invented this crused stone pavement method. Wonder why they added an extra letter A. Easy to prounounce?

47D: Oracle of Delphi region: PHOCIS. First encounter with this region. Here is the map. It's on the upper right corner. Wikipedia mentions that this region is mainly pastroral, neither rich in material resources nor well placed for commercial enterprise. No large cities grew up within its territory, and its chief places were mainly of strategic importance.

48D: Wife of Paris: OENONE. I could only think of Helen. OENONE is an Oread (mountain nymph). This lady must drink lots of wine, since OENO is the Greek prefix for wine (Vino in Roman).

55D: Crescent end: CUSP. Not familiar with this astrology definition.

58D: "Topaz" author: URIS. See this bookcover. I just realized this morning that some of Leon URIS books have very scrabbly titles: "Exodus", "The Haj" and "QB VIII".

63D: Soviet mil. intelligence: GRU (Glavnoe Razvedyvatel'noe Upravlenie, Russian for (Chief Intelligence Directorate). It appeared in our puzzle before. Wikipedia shows that GRU still exists. And it's Russia's largest intelligence agency. So the clue is not accurate.

C.C.