Thursday July 9, 2009 Dan Naddor

Theme: The Real (e)State

17A: Realtor's "lavish landscaping"? Frankly, there are ___: WEEDS EVERYWHERE

24A: Realtor's "charming"? Actually, it's __: REALLY TINY

35A: Realtor's "expansive backyard"? Honesty, there's __: NO POOL OR SPA

45A: Realtor's "needs TLC"? Candidly, __: IT'S A PIGSTY

53A: Realtor's "quiet setting"? Truthfully, it's __: OUT IN THE BOONIES

I discovered this morning that "realtor" was coined by a guy named Charles N. Chadbourn from Minneapolis. He sold the rights to the word to the National Association of Real Estate Boards for only one dollar.

Amazing. I wonder how much Jack Dorsey is willing to part with his Twitter. I bet Rupert Murdock is salivating.

Dan Naddor probably constructed this puzzle when the current housing bubble just started to burst. Nice puzzle. Amusing theme, Merl Reagle style.

Across:

4A: Not for most teens: RATED R

10A: Gambling game: FARO. Named after the Egyptian king Pharaoh.

15A: "Same here": I DO TOO.

16A: "The X-Files" extras: G-MEN. FBI Agents.

20A: Hi-tech eye surgery: LASIK. Tiger Woods had LASIK surgery.

22A: German pronoun: SIE. German "you". I wrote down ICH, thinking of JFK's "Ich bin ein Berliner".

28A: Opposite of FF: REW

29A: Student's buy: TEXT. Short for textbook I suppose. Really wish I had attended some school when I first came to the US.

30A: Stood: ROSE

31A: Toaster treat: POP-TART. Kellogg dropped Michael Phelps after his pot-smoking photo.

34A: Blown away: AWED

37A: Eisner's successor at Disney: IGER (Robert). Sigh. I could picture his face, but his name escaped me. He used to appear on CNBC often, before he succeeded Michael Eisner in 2005.

39A: Ad staples: SLOGANS

40A: Speaker before Dennis: NEWT (Gingrich). Speaker of the House from 1995 to 1999. He is going to run for the presidency in 2012 I think.

41A: Arroyo __: Southern California watershed: SECO. Literally "dry creek".

42A: Mass vestment: ALB. See, this L is pronounced. But the L in alms/salmon is silent. I do not pronounce the L in almond either.

49A: Diction problem: SLUR. Sylvester Stallone has a SLUR problem.

50A: Homer consequence: RBI (Run Batted In). I like this new clue.

51A: Anecdotal collection: ANA. The Old Norse literary collection is EDDA.

52A: Deadly snake: COBRA. The "Dried coconut meat" is COPRA.

58A: Tiny time pd.: NSEC (Nanosecond)

59A: Barrel cleaner: RAMROD. I know nothing about gun.

60A: Robertson of CNN: NIC. I find NIC Robertson to be very attractive, don't you?

61A: Northeast clothing chain: SYMS. No idea. Wikipedia says it's founded by Sy SYMS in 1959.

62A: Recorded: ON TAPE

63A: "Starpeace" album maker, 1985: ONO. "Starpeace" is a statement against Reagan's "Star Wars".

Down:

1D: Loud crier: BAWLER. The "Mythical crier" is NIOBE, and the "Irish folklore crier" is BANSHEE.

4D: Reward seeker's concern: RISK

5D: Gator chaser?: ADE. Gatorade. Nice clue.

6D: Good, in Hebrew: TOV. As in "Mazel TOV!" (Good fortune, Congratulations)

7D: Hot time in Paris: ETE. Quite an ordinary "summer" clue.

8D: Florida's "Blue Monster" golf course: DORAL. The previous DORAL Open was played at the "Blue Monster".

9D: King or queen: ROYAL. Thought of RULER first.

10D: E followers: FGH. Alphabetically.

11D: City north of Des Moines: AMES, IOWA. The clue seems to be asking for a 8-letter city name.

12D: Perform a shampooing step: RERINSE. I actually do RERINSE.

13D: Like two jacks: ONE-EYED. The Jack of Spades and Jack of Hearts.

18D: CCLI doubled: DII. 251 X 2 = 502.

24D: Deadbeats's autos, eventually: REPOS. Hmm, where is Realtor's "RELO" when you need it?

25D: Praise: EXTOL

26D: Baffled: AT A LOSS

27D: Corners: TRAPS. Verb.

29D: Preeminent: TOP. I still can't believe tops is an adjective.

31D: Potty opening?: PORTA. PORTA-potty. Just saw someone selling his old outhouse at the Flea Market the other day. He wanted $1,500.

32D: Man of many words: ROGET. Ah, ROGER's Thesaurus. He was also a doctor.

33D: Frequent leading man for Hepburn: TRACY (Spencer). He always demanded the top billing, in all the movies they made together. I often wonder if Spencer TRACY really loved Hepburn. Too much surprising sacrifice on her part. I like their "Woman of the Year" the best.

35D: The "this" in "This just in": NEWS ITEM

36D: __-Cat: SNO

37D: Shackled: IN IRONS

38D: Order to a slacker: GET BUSY

42D: White rat, e.g.: ALBINO

43D: Entice: LURE IN

44D: FBI undercover agent Donnie, title subject of a 1997 film: BRASCO. "Donnie BRASCO" is a great movie.

46D: Put down in writing? PAN. Put down here means to "criticize". Great clue.

47D: Opening words: INTRO. Kept thinking DEAR SIR.

48D: Cartoonist Wilson: GAHAN. A complete stranger to me. GAHAN is Hindu for "deep/complex".

52D: UPC part: CODE. UPC is Universal Product CODE.

54D: Suffix with robot: ICS. Dictionary says robotics is coined by Isaac Asimov.

56D: Support provider: BRA. Wacoal is my favorite brand.

57D: Alley __: OOP. Alley OOP is derived from French "Allez, hop!" (Let's go).

Answer grid.

C.C.

Wednesday July 8, 2009 Don Gagliardo

Theme: HUSH HUSH MEETING (41A: Secret get-together, or what occurs literally in each of this puzzle's circled squares) - All the circled letters where two words meet are silent.

5A: Clever move: COUP

8D: Prefix with science: PSEUDO

9A: Bad-mouth: KNOCK

9D: Hillock: KNOLL

28A: Organ numbers: HYMNS

4D: Newspaper feature: COLUMN

48A: Like Letterman lines: WRY

48D: Eerie apparition: WRAITH

54A: Omen: SIGN

40D: Oppose: REPUGN

64A: Like a question that isn't a question: RHETORICAL

57D: Prefix with stat: RHEO

73A: Oversimplify: DUMB

63D: Blockbuster, e.g.: BOMBBox office disaster

My goodness, P, K, N, W, G, H & B, only L is missing (almond). "Hard G" Don Gagliardo did it again.

The theme entries are not symmetrical in this grid, but the grid itself is. I counted total 70 theme squares.

I knew repugnant, REPUGN is new to me. Was also unaware of the criticism meaning of KNOCK. Did not know the Blockbuster BOMB either. Wikipedia says it's used in WWII by the Royal Air Force (RAF). Also called cookie.

Across:

1A: Like a dotted note, in mus.: STAC. Short for staccato, opposite legato, which is never shortened as leg, to my surprise.

14A: Cancún green: PESO. Money. I was thinking of the color green. VERDE in Spanish.

15A: Browser drop-down list, briefly: URLS. Those addresses starting http://.

16A: Film that involves a lot of taking off: NUDIE. I was in the plane take-off direction.

17A: Stem-to-branch angle: AXIL. Like this.

18A: Good: BENEVOLENT

20A: Peak in Jap.: MT. FUJI. It's FUJI San in Japanese. San is mountain.

22A: "The Clan of the Cave Bear" writer: AUEL (Jean). It's pronounced like "owl". She lives in Oregon.

23A: 7-5, e.g. in tennis: SET. We are lucky to witness both Roger Federer and Tiger Woods at their very best.

24A: Truck name: MACK. Not a familiar name to me. Wikipedia says it belongs to the Volvo Group. Volvo is literally "I roll" in Latin.

26A: Where to find heros: DELIS. Hero sandwichs. My mind wandered off to the battleground. Too bad McNamara's career is defined by Vietnam War. He was so successful before and after that.

31A: UN Workers' group: ILO (International Labor Organization)

33A: Vena __: heart vessel: CAVA. Vena = Vein. CAVA = Hollow. Latin.

36A: Pencil game winner: OOO. Use pencil for tic-tac-toe?

37A: Cell: suffix: CYTE. No idea. Dictionary gives leukocyte (white blood cell) as an example. Then it says CYTO is a "cell" prefix, as in cytoplasm.

39A: Favor: PREFER

44A: Bony: OSTEAL. Literal "Bony". You don't call Kate Moss as OSTEAL, do you? I thought of SKINNY, which has 6-letter also.

45A: Srs. lobbying gp.: AARP

46A: Gehrig of baseball: LOU. The "luckiest man on the face of earth". And the "Say Hey Kid" MAYS (43D: Giant Willie), who is quite aloof and unapproachable to fans.

47A: Actress Ward: SELA

49A: 1972 Bill Withers hit: USE ME. No idea. Here is the clip. What a strange song title.

51A: Not as healthy: ILLER. Made-up word.

58A: Country where Baha'i was founded: IRAN. Wikipedia says Baha'i is derived from the Arabic Bahá, meaning "glory" or "splendour". I think they have an annual Ramadan-style fast period too.

60A: "CSI" workplace: DNA LAB

67A: Accolade: KUDO. Always see this word in plural form.

68A: Fruit in balls: MELON. Thai fruit carving is an art. This rabbit is really cute.

70A: Jack of "Rio Lobo": ELAM. Lobo is Spanish for "wolf". Oso is "bear". I've never heard of the movie.

72A: '60s musical: HAIR

Down:

2D: Send a high-tech message to: TEXT

5D: Part of cc.: CUBIC. CUBIC centimeter. I was thinking of carbon copy.

6D: Tram contents: ORE

10D: Nada, to Noël: NUL. French for nil/zero.

11D: With "The", 1972 Frederick Forsyth novel: ODESSA FILE. No idea. Hmm, "Compulsively readable ..."

12D: Film: CINE. Short for cinema.

13D: Etta of old comics: KETT. Learned her name from doing Xword. Nice line: I've been saving myself for you.

21D: Violinist Heifetz: JASCHA. Completely unknown to me. It's pronounced like YAH Shuh, Russian form of Jacob or James.

25D: First-aid aids: KITS

27D: Gangsta rap pioneer: ICE-T. Oh, I did not know he pioneered gangsta rap. Thought it might be Dr. DRE.

28D: Hostess snack cakes: HO HOS. Both HO HOS & Drake's YODELS are Xword cakes to me.

29D: Brooklyn pronoun: YOUSE. No idea. It's plural of you.

30D: Probably: MOST LIKELY

32D: "The Merry Widow" operettist: LEHAR (Franz). He died in 1948. Somehow I thought he was a 19th century composer.

34D: Fang output, at times: VENOM. Cantonese eat everything, including snakes.

35D: Get contentious: ARGUE

38D: Brynner who played a king: YUL. "The King and I".

50D: Unclogged, as a pipe: SNAKED. I know plumber's snake. Was unaware that SNAKE can be a verb also.

52D: Motor City team: LIONS. Detroit LIONS. 0-16 last season. NFL record.

55D: Lazy type: IDLER

56D: It "marches on its stomach": Napoleon: ARMY. Nice fresh clue. Napoleon is 5'2''. I was surprised to read Dennis's FF yesterday that Stalin was only 5' 4''. He looked big.

59D: Sweet Sixteen initials: NCAA. March Madness.

62D: Cain raiser: ADAM. Raising Cain.

Answer grid.

C.C.