Saturday March 28, 2009 Robert H. Wolfe

Theme: None (No?)

Total words: 74

Total blocks: 36

I am confused. I thought LA Times Saturday is always a themeless. But maximum word count for a themeless is 72. Today we have 74 words. Besides, all the three long entries have "No" in theme, maybe it's a themed puzzle, after all?

17A: "No need to get so excited": KEEP YOUR SHIRT ON

37A: "No way": DON'T MAKE ME LAUGH

59A: "No idea": I HAVEN'T GOT A CLUE

(Note: My bad, I made a mistake. There are only 72 words.)

Another struggle, but not as hard as I dreaded last night. I got more than half of the grid filled. Erased a few and then googled a few. Good enough for me. I'll call it a success and move on.

I am just so enamored with Rich Norris' "It .... clues", like yesterday's "It can pick up a plane" for RADAR and the other day's "It's twirled in a rodeo" for RIATA. I like the visual images the clues evoke.

Today it's a plain fact-based "It replaced the Slovak koruna on 1/1/2009" for EURO (8D). Nice trivia, isn't it? PromiseMe' research yesterday shows that Finland is the only Nordic country that has switched to EURO.

By the way, Rich Norris confirmed to me yesterday that there is no rebus puzzle in LA Times.

Across:

1A: According to design: AS PLANNED. Got it immediately.

10A: Attended: WAS AT. Struggled with this simple fill.

15A: Prolong: STRING OUT. Unknown to me. Only knew the phrase "string along". I wanted STRETCH something.

16A: Prefix with glyph: HIERO. Hieroglyph. I knew the word, but could not spell it properly. HIERO is a prefix meaning "Sacred' or "priestly". Here are some Egyptian hieroglyphs. Sun is easy to recognize, so are the last two birds. I won't be able to tell house, mountain, god or reed though.

19A: Triage sites, briefly: ERS

20A: River of Tuscany: ARNO. "River of Florence/Pisa/Italy", whatever, the answer is always ARNO.

21A: Short-tailed weasel: ERMINE. Turn around, buddy, I want to see if your tail is short.

22A: Geometric fig.: RECT. Rectangle. RECT/RECTI is a prefix for "right"/"straight". Remember last time RECTI was clued as "Belly muscles" in our old puzzle? The singular is rectus, meaning "straight muscle of ab, thigh, etc". Rectus is Latin for "straight". Dictionary says RECTO, the right-hand page is rooted in rectus too. So is rectum (plural is recta).

24A: Kiara's mother in "The Lion King": NALA. I wrote down ELSA, the "Born Free" lioness first.

25A: Letters on seconds: IRR. Why? What are "seconds"?

27A: "__ out?": IN OR. And NEED I (28D: "__ say more?"). Have to get used to the new cluing style.

29A: "Medium" network: NBC. Unknown to me. I hope they have high ratings. GE owns NBC. And I want my GE stocks to go back to where I first bought them. Stupid GE Capital. Bleeder.

32A: Breakthroughs in therapy, say: EYE OPENERS. I got the answer immediately. Did not quite understand the rationale though.

35A: Language teaching site: LAB. Oh. I've never been to a language LAB. Science LAB yes.

40A: "The Lord of the Rings" monster: ORC. Williams always clued it as "Tolkien baddie".

41A: Visibly embarrassed: RED AS A BEET. I misremebered the phrase as RED AS BEETS.

42A: Thin swimmer: EEL. It does not look thin to me. I really love unagi sushi rolls.

44A: Speaker in Cooperstown: TRIS. HOFer. I don't have any of his baseball cards. But I have this stamp. Just learned this morning that his nickname is Spoke. Very interesting. Reminds me of that repetitive actor name Rip Torn.

45A: Bit of treasure: GEM. "Bit" here means small?

46A: Fireworks reaction: OOHS. Lots of fireworks/accidents during Chinese Spring Festival eve.

48A: What a nyctophobe fears: DARK. Gimme. Learned I had mild nyctophobia when I linked this list long time ago. Nact/nacti/nacto is prefix for "night". I feel safe when the closet light is on in the evening.

51A: Gelatin candy: JUJUBE. Have never had the JUJUBE candy. To me, JUJUBE is just Chinese date. Not as sweet as the Middle East palm dates though.

54A: Composer Khachaturian: ARAM. No idea. Soviet-Armenian composer. Wikipedia says his works were very influenced by Armenia folk music. This coin looks like in mint condition. ARAM is quite close to ABRAM, often clued as "President Garfield's middle name".

62A: Crescent shapes: LUNES. Mine was MOONS.

63A: Floating point: WATER LINE. Unknown to me. What is "Floating point"?

65A: Hematite producers: IRON MINES. I did not know the meaning of "hematite", the principal ore of iron. Hemat/hemato is a prefix for "blood". I don't know how is it related to ore.

Down:

3D: Foreknowledge: PRESCIENCE. Reminds me of Frigg, wife of Odin. She is prophetic but she never tells others what she knows. Cassandra does tell others what she knows, but no one believes her.

5D: Novelist Seton: ANYA. Pure guess. Wikipedia says she wrote a book called "Foxfire" which was later made into a film. I wonder where Firefox the browser got its name then.

6D: "The Killing Fields" Oscar winner Haing S. __: NGOR. Foreign to me. He won Oscar Best Supporting Actor for his role in "The Killing Fields". He was born in Cambodia and his father was of Chinese descent. See how ridiculous Chinese languages are. His surname (吴) would be spelled NG in Cantonese and Wu in Mandarin. The most absurd to me is Chiang Kai-Shek. He is always Jiang Jie-Shi to us who grew up in Mainland China. Maddeningly different spellings. Mao Tse-Tung & Mao Ze-Dong is not that confusing though.

7D: Lions or tigers or bears: NOUN. Great clue.

9D: Rehab symptoms: DTS (Delirium Tremens)

10D: Eddy: WHIRL

11D: Pilot: AIRMAN. I wanted AVIATOR, but there is not enough space.

12D: "Contact" acronym: SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence). Big stumper. I've never heard of the movie "Contact".

18D: Limo leaders, at times: HEARSES

24D: Peggy Lee and Marilyn Monroe, at birth: NORMAS. Only knew Marilyn's original name is NORMA Jean (For you, Democrat). Peggy Lee was born NORMA Deloris Egstrom.

26D: Dashboard letters: RPM

27D: Comic book artists: INKER. Funny Crossword INKER.

30D: Atlantic game fish: BLUE MARLIN. I've never seen a BLUE MARLIN. Why BLUE? The hue on his belly?

31D: Zoo enclosure: CAGE. Of course. But my first reaction is LOGY, as in zoology.

32D: Shogun's capital: EDO. Japanese kanjin for Shogun (将軍) is exactly the same as Chinese character for "general". Many times I understand Japanese words due to this similarity. But I don't know how to pronounce.

34D: Like much pottery: EARTHEN. These Terra Cotta Warriors are EARTHEN too.

36D: Food preservative letters: BHT (Butylated HydroxyToluene). No idea. Dictionary says it's used to "retard rancidity in foods, pharmaceuticals, and other products containing fat or oil". I checked my cooking oil, luckily there is no BHT. It sounds as toxic as Obama/Geithner's "Toxic Assets" or whatever the new name is. AIG/AIU, you can put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig.

43D: Slatted window opening: LOUVER. British spell this word as LOUVRE. Like Mona Lisa's Louvre.

49D: Meet with the old gang: REUNE. Is this a real word? I've never seen it before.

51D: Leave abruptly, as a lover: JILT. Reminds me of Julia Roberts' "Runaway Bride".

53D: Doe to be identified: JANE

55D: __- Rooter: ROTO. Often clued as "Old newspaper section" in our TMS puzzle. I never really understand what section ROTO is.

56D: Fordham's hoops conf.: A-TEN. Stumper. Have heard of Atlantic 10 conference. Don't know its abbreviation. Not familar with Fordham either. Here is a list of notable alumni. See Vince Lombardi, Alan Alda, and Denzel Washington?

57D: School closing?: MARM. Learned schoolmarm from doing crossword.

60D: Prefix with light: TWI. Oh, twilight. Is there a prefix actually meaning "light"?

61D: One-third of CDLIII: CLI. 1/3 of 453=151.

Full Answer Grid.

C.C.

Friday March 27, 2009 Spencer Corden

Theme: PRE - eminent

20A: Undercover cop?: LEGAL PRETENDER (legal tender)

25A: Introduction to "SeinLanguage"?: FUNNY PREFACE (funny face)

47A: Words to rouse an oversleeping ecclesiastic?: GET UP PRELATE (get up late)

54A: Cannery worker's credo?: BORN TO PRESERVE (born to serve)

I was unaware of Jerry Seinfeld's "SeinLanguage". Kazie mentioned two days ago that SEIN is German for "To be", so I was thinking maybe "SeinLanguage" is a German dialact or something.

This puzzle is quite similar to yesterday's, only a few real unknown words. But I struggled once again. Might take me a couple of months to get into Rich Norris' wavelength. I am optimistic though. After all, he can only fool me once with "Little butter?". Shame on - shame on you. Fool me - I won't be fooled again.

I don't understand the apostrophe for clue CHI (44A: T'ai __). No need/reason for that. There is a apostrophe in my hometown name Xi'an because without that mark Xian will become a totally different word. Xi'an has two syllables, Xian has one.

I am so proud that I got AIDA (53A: Musical with the song "The Gods Love Nubia"). Lots of discussions on Nubia on blog Comments section last time when we have the "Nile region" clue.

MULCT stumped quite a few solvers yesterday. But it also appeared in TMS puzzle not long ago and there were some discussions between Mark in Buenos Aires & Kazie regarding the Spanish and Latin root words. Multa is Spanish for "fine".

Here is Kazie's original post: "A couple of additional ideas on MULCT. First, I looked it up in my OED, and the original root is Latin (mulcta), often with the "c" omitted. So it makes sense that the Spanish word Mark suggested earlier would be related. Secondly, I wonder if the slang expression "to milk something" might be related too, since in Latin one form of the verb to milk is "mulctum". Latin for "woman" is "muler"--maybe that's why they've been trying to milk us for all we're worth throughout history!"

Across:

1A: Place for storage: SHED. I was thinking of SILO.

9A: PBS's "The __ Gourmet TV Show": HIPPY. Totally unaware of this show. Used to watch Rachel Ray of Food Network. Unfortunately I can't stand her EVOO.

14A: Pamplona runner: TORO. Spanish for bull. TORO the lawnmower manufacturer is based here in Minnesota.

17A: Quaff: SWIG. Noun or verb here?

19A: Inspector on the telly: MORSE. Unknown to me. Cool name though. Wikipedia says his first name is Endeavor.

23A: Drama award: OBIE. Off-Broadway award. "Drama" made me think of TNT's "We Know Drama". So I thought of EMMY first. Was used to "Theater Award" for OBIE/TONY.

24A: Storytelling slave: REMUS. Uncle REMUS. Was always stumped by BR'ER clue before.

31A: Who, in Quebec: QUI. Add one letter, we have quid, quip, quit & quiz.

37A: Vue and Aura, in the auto world: SATURNS. No idea. Know nothing about car models/prices.

41A: Gp. with Bucks and Bobcats: NBA. Got it from down fills. Both Bucks and Bobcats are such general names, they can be the mascots for any team/sport.

45A: Weakened: WANED. I don't like this clue. 4 letter repetion. "Lost energy" is better.

60A: Mope: SULK. I like K, F ending words. Tell me what kind of bird is this.

61A: "60 quartet member: MAMA. MAMA Cass I suppose.

63A: It can pick up a plane: RADAR. Is there a special term for this kind of "It ..." clue? Yesterday RIATA was clued as "It's twirled in a rodeo".

64A: Catalina, e.g.: ISLE. The same as Catalina Island?

65A: Placekicker Jason: ELAM. Sigh. I forgot this guy's name again. Wikipedia says he won two Super Bowl rings with the Broncos. And he wrote a book called "Monday Night Jihad".

67A: Roe source: SHAD. Plural can be SHAD or SHADS.

66A: __ vu: DEJA. Remember our "Jamais vu" & "Presque vu" discussions a while ago? If you haven't, you should really click on Comments at the end of my blog entry. (beside the envelope mark). Lots of informative and entertaining discussions there.

Down:

1D: Elm et al: Abbr.: STS. I was thinking of Elm tree.

2D: React to a kneeslapper: HOWL. New "laugh" defintion to me. Only know wolves' HOWL.

3D: Part of a wet quintet: ERIE. Great clue. HOMES.

4D: Dad-blasted: DOGGONE. "Dad-blasted" is a new slang to me. I was picturing a woman who blasted her ex-husband because he failed to pay child support.

5D: A right may cause one: FAT LIP. I thought "right" might be a typo. "A fight may cause one" sounds plausible. Then I checked Dictionary and found out it's a boxing term, meaning "a blow delivered by the right hand".

6D: One skipping church?: ELOPER. Oh well, I skipped church, and I was not an ELOPER. Needs a "maybe". I was acturally thinking of ATHEIST.

8D: "Smooth Operator" singer: SADE. Ah, SADE, "The Sweetest Taboo". SADE's sister is a singer too.

9D: Domestic class, briefly: HOME EC. Home Economics?

10D: Triathletes: IRONMEN. I don't understand this one. They are not synonymous to me.

11D: Concealed: PERDU. The only time I've seen PERDU is Proust's "A La Recherche Du Temps PERDU" ("Remembrance of Things Past").

12D: Models: POSES. Verb.

13D: Belgian river: YSER. This has become a gimme.

21D: Deep chasm: ABYSS

22D: Bride follower: TRAIN. Of course. But AISLE came to me first. I don't know what I was thinking.

25D: One who used to spend markkaa: FINN. Easy guess. Here is a banknote. Finnish for mark.

27D: His__: big shot: NIBS. See the word origin. Brings back yesterday's TAI-Pan, Cantonese slang for "big shot".

29D: Pelt: FUR. Stumper for me. I was in the verb direction, thinking of HIT.

34D: "Yeah, right!": I BET. And ACT SO ("38D: "Don't ___ surprised"). Lots of colloquial expressions in Rich Norris' puzzle.

35D: Diminish: FADE

39D: Holy day.: abbr.: THU. Is it because Jesus was crucified on Thursday?

40D: Any ABBA singer: SWEDE. Oh by the way, the vegetable SWEDE (rutabaga) is often pickled in China.

46D: Protected, as a home: ALARMED. Surprising clue for me.

48D: Walks on stage: ENTERS. "Walks onto a stage", right?

49D: Spanish stewlike dish: PAELLA. Literally "frying pan" in Catalan, an official language in Spain, isn't it? Sounds like a crossing of Spanish and French.

50D: Put on the line: RISKED. I was thinking of FISHED.

55D: Greek letters: PSIS. PSI looks like this. Pronounced like "sigh".

56D: Compensate for oversleeping: RUSH. I've forgotten what "oversleeping" feels like. Have to get up early for the blog.

57D: Low-lying area: VALE. So many 4-letter "Low-lying areas": VALE, dale, glen, dell.

58D: Key with four sharps: Abbr.: E MAJ. Guessed. You know, I can never understand why musical education was considered bourgeois and forbidden during Chinese Cultural Revolution.

Complete Answer Grid.

C.C.