Saturday July 11, 2009 John Farmer

Theme: None

Total blocks: 29

Total words: 72

A pangram, all 26 letters are used. Awesome.

Of all the long quality fills (lots of 10's, 9's & 8's), I love these three the most:

17A: "Night" writer: ELIE WIESEL

14D: 1922 physics Nobelist: NIELS BOHR

30D: Former dominion that included India, Pakistan and Bangladesh: BRITISH RAJ

We often see ELIE, NIELS or BOHR & RAJ alone, so it's good to see the full names. I was also happy to see TEA (42A: 49-Across product) and ASSAM (49A: State in northeast India) together.

Vigorous slog this morning. Quite a few unknowns to me.

Across:

1A: Tightens the screws: CLAMPS DOWN. Only 2 vowels. The first entry always has plenty of consonants.

11A: One of the Karamazovs: IVAN. From "The Brothers Karamazov". I guessed. Have never heard of the book. IVAN is Russian for John.

15A: Comic strip guy with an eye patch: BAZOOKA JOE. I wonder if today's BAZOOKA baseball card brand evolved from BAZOOKA Bubble Gum.

16A: Indonesian Island: BALI. Sometimes the answer is JAVA.

18A: Fashion issue: ELLE

19A: Awesome: RAD. Read this article about our fellow LAT solver Kathleen Wolf (WM). She is so talented.

20A: Uncle of Prince Wm.: EDW. Prince Edward.

21A: Kind of identity: SEXUAL. Should have got SEXUAL immediately after I filled in X from the intersecting "horny" IBEX (11D: Alpine goat).

23A: Curse: SWEAR

25A: Acrylic from DuPont: ORLON. ON is a suffix suggesting textile fiber. Same as NYLON, also coined by DuPont.

28A: Visitors from afar?: ETS. Nailed it immediately.

29A: Breathing heavily, perhaps: LABORING. I was picturing football players breathing heavily in the football field.

31A: __ rule: MOB. Mine was AS A.

32A: Marked by obscenities, say: RATED R

35A: Mariner's dir.: SSE. Had difficulty obtaining this dir.

36A: Cellar prefix: OENO. Prefix for wine. Oenophile refers to one who loves wine.

37A: "Don't change a thing!": I LOVE IT. I felt stupid struggling with this answer.

39A: "Composer" of "Fanfare for the Common Cold": P.D.Q. BACH. Sigh. He stumped me again, even with the Composer in quotation mark.

41A: Slalom feature: GATE

44A: Pistol-packing pacer: DUELER. Nice alliterative p p p clue.

45A: U.K. honor: OBE (Order of the British Empire)

46A: Suspicious looks: FISHEYES. New word to me.

48A: Skip: LAM. Verb?

50A: Fix, as a reed instrument: REPAD. No idea. Need KittyB/Jazzbumpa to explain.

54A: Sci-fi psychic: EMPATH. I only know empathy.

56A: "Anna and the King" actress Ling: BAI. Do you like her hair? BAI is "White" in Chinese.

58A: Workers' rights gp. since 1919: ILO (International Labor Organization)

59A: Mexican kin: TIOS

60A: Battle fatigue: RUN ON EMPTY. Had difficulty obtaining this answer also.

64A: Rumors: TALK. I was looking for a S ending word of course.

65A: Sign of possession: APOSTROPHE. What a simple yet tricky clue!

66A: Singles: ONES

67A: Cats' get-together: JAM SESSION. Oh, Jazz "Cats".

Down:

1D: Some radio users: CB'ERS

2D: TV drama whose title appeared on a California license plate: LA LAW. New to me. Susan Dey is all I know about LA LAW.

3D: Sodium __: salt used in airbag systems: AZIDE. Also new to me.

4D: Stooge with bangs: MOE. Larry, MOE and Curly.

5D: Coca-Cola quencher: POWERADE

7D: Korea automaker bought by GM: DAEWOO. Ha ha, I had no idea that GM owns DAEWOO. DAE is big, WOO is universe. I can tell the literal meaning by its Hanja characters.

8D: IHOP orders: OJS

9D: Trouble: WOE. Wrote down ADO first.

10D: "Naughty Marietta" costar (1935): NELSON EDDY. Stranger to me. Greta Garbo came to my mind when I read the movie title and the year of production. Jeanette MacDonald is the other costar.

12D: Fast-food combo order: VALUE MEAL

13D: Just like that: ALL AT ONCE. So simple in retrospect.

22D: College dept.: ENG

24D: Naproxen brand: ALEVE. Did not know the meaning of naproxen, though I often see ALEVE, Advil & Tylenol commercials on TV.

26D: Santa Fe et al.: Abbr.: RRS. Was this a gimme to you? I've never heard of Santa Fe Railroad.

27D: Have a problem ordering sirloin steak?: LISP. Clever clue.

32D: Verdi classic: RIGOLETTO. No, nope. AIDA is the only Verdi I know.

33D: Hank Aaron, by birth: ALABAMIAN. Stumper for me. Hank Aaron was born in Mobile, Alabama. He is Dennis' favorite player.

34D: Family tree?: TOTEM POLE

36D: Large and then some: OBESE

38D: Mystery novelist Gerritsen: TESS. Holy moley, a Chinese American novelist. Sorry, I don't know you.

40D: They want to know: QUERIERS. I like the clue, though querier sounds like a made-up word. I suppose you can ER every verb.

43D: Solution reaction: AHA. Nice one.

46D: Budgetary excess: FAT. New definition of FAT to me.

47D: Adorn in relief: EMBOSS

51D: Longstocking of kids' books: PIPPI. Faintly remember this character. I was brought up by my grandma who did not read or write. So my exposure to any kind of kids' books (even Chinese ones) was almost zero.

52D: Notwithstanding that, informally: ALTHO

53D: Elder statesman: DOYEN. I kept thinking Cato the Elder. Anyway, I was more familiar with doyenne. Helen Thomas is often called doyenne of the White House press corps.

55D: Names, as a price: ASKS. Wish I were brave enough to haggle for a better price at baseball card show or flea market.

57D: Chamber opening?: ANTE. Antechamber is new word to me.

61D: Put __ fight: UP A

62D: Pierre, e.g.: NOM. Pierre is just a French name.

63D: Perps' patterns: MOS. I know MO is modus operandi, but the plural of modus operandi is modi operandi.

Answer grid.

C.C.

Friday July 10, 2009 Ken Bessette

Theme: STOUT (64A: Heavy brew, and a clue to this puzzle's theme) - ST OUT (ST is cut out from the theme phrases)

17A: Ennis and Jack in "Brokeback Mountain"?: (ST)RANGE BEDFELLOWS

25A: Etchings?: (ST)ART FROM SCRATCH

42A: Gerontologists?: (ST)AGE TECHNICIANS

56A: Tried to get into Guinness by gobbling hot dogs?: (ST)ATE FOR THE RECORD

This puzzle is very similar in concept to Gareth Bain's NIXON puzzle, where ON is nixed in each theme entry.

I liked ART FROM SCRACH the most, very evocative. Watching the 4th of July hotdog gobbling contest made me sick. Horrifying scene. I always associate TECHNICIANS with mechanical stuff, so AGE TECHNICIANS for "Gerontologists?" came as a surprise to me. My husband does not allow me to netflix "The Brokeback Mountain".

Nice puzzle. Very creative tie-in STOUT. I actually got STOUT earlier on, unfortunately I could not parse it correctly. So it did not really help my solving at all.

Across:

1A: Helps a certain hacker, say: ABETS. North Korea just hacked into many US government websites.

6A: Map showing easements: PLAT. Easement is "A right, such as a right of way, afforded a person to make limited use of another's real property." Unfamiliar definition to me.

10A: "__ Baby": "Hair" song: ABIE. No idea. ABIE is often clued as "Irish Rose's lover".

14A: Raven's sound: CROAK. Ha ha, I thought only frogs CROAK.

15A: Doth own: HATH. Does own = HAS.

16A: Item in a belt: TOOL. I was picturing a buckle. OK, hopefully you can find AWLS (25D: Punching gadgets) in a TOOL belt.

20A: Inning trio?: ENS. Three N's in innings.

21A: Magic prop? WAND. Glinda the Good Witch of the North has one.

22A: Sheepish response?: BAA BAA. Cute clue.

23A: Plane starter?: AERO. Aeroplane. I did not know British call airplane aeroplane.

24A: "Sometimes __ a pleasure": Byron: SIN'S. Have never heard this line. Makes sense though.

31A: Baba __: Gilda Radner persona: WAWA. A spoof of Barbara Walters.

32A: NE New Jersey city: LODI. See this map. I only knew the LODI in California.

33A: Big ref.: OED (Oxford English Dictionary)

35A: Prevaricator: LIAR

36A: Puts away: STOWS. And SALT (49D: Store (away)). Is it correct to put two brackets at the right end?

38A: Magazine content: AMMO

40A: "Let it be": STET. To an editor.

41A: Pirate of fiction: SMEE. "Peter Pan".

47A: Landscaping shrubs: YEWS. Why are they used as shrubs when they are poisonous?

48A: Minnesota's St. __ College: OLAF. Marvelous. All Minnesota clues make me happy.

49A: Sister of Venus: SERENA. She just won Wimbledon.

52A: "The Witches of Eastwick" actress: CHER. Easy guess. Have never heard of the movie. Looks scary.

53A: Musician's degree: MFA

59A: Outdoor feast: LUAU. Literally "young taro tops", which were served at outdoor feasts. Taro cakes are very tasty.

60A: Old timepiece: DIAL

61A: Peninsula bordering Israel: SINAI. Belongs to Egypt.

62A: Ones place: TILL

63A: Short cut: SNIP. I sprinkle freshly snipped chives in everything I cook now. My green beans look very weak this year. Might have bought the wrong kind of seeds.

Down:

1D: Lot, sometimes: ACRE. I was not thinking of farmland "lot".

3D: Big times: EONS. Wrote down ERAS. To me, EONS are long long times.

4D: Phone __: TAG

5D: Barbecuing aid: SKEWER. Shrimps + pineapple + green onion. Delicious.

6D: Prodigy: PHENOM

7D: Fawcett's "Charlie's Angels" successor: LADD (Cheryl). No idea. She looks pretty.

8D: DOJ bureau: ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms). ATF belonged to Treasury Department before 2003.

9D: 1963 thriller set in Bodega Bay: THE BIRDS. I only saw the end of this movie. Terrifying.

10D: Words after a holdup: AT LAST. Struggled with the answer.

11D: Knucklehead: BOOB. I wonder if BOOBS has ever been directly clued as breasts in any major puzzle before.

12D: Major caucus site: IOWA. Ah, Tim Pawlenty 2012.

13D: Lanchester of "Bride of Frankenstein": ELSA. First encounter with this actress.

18D: Prefix with meter: BARO. Barometer.

19D: It's part of Maui county: LANAI. Dan Naddor just clued it as "Island where Bill and Melinda Gates were wed" 2 weeks ago.

23D: Yonder: AFAR. Could not jam in THERE.

24D: Tub: SCOW. Did not know the "old, slow, clumsy vessel" meaning of tub.

26D: Mrs. Gorbachev: RAISA. My goodness. I did not know RAISA is dead. Obama just met with Gorbachev a few days ago.

27D: Country sound: TWANG. D'oh, country music.

28D: Animal that sleeps upside down: SLOTH. No idea. I only knew BATS sleep upside down.

29D: One might appear many times in a long list: COMMA. I love Mickey Mantle, Harmon Killebrew, Tony Oliva, Kirby Puckett, Johan Santana and Justin Morneau. OK, that's plenty of commas.

30D: Studs: HE-MEN

34D: Stag mates: DOES

36D: Wine openers: STEWARDS. My favorite clue.

37D: Private eyes: TECS. Detectives. Like the Pinkerton guys.

38D: "That's not happening!": AS IF

40D: Pool worker: STENO. I was imagining a swimming pool.

43D: As much as one cares to see: EYEFUL. I just can't believe how lucky these girls are. Look at their waists. So tiny.

44D: Of little use: NO HELP

45D: Robert of "The Soprano": ILER. Gimme. Learned this name from Dennis's mistake. He tried to re-clue ILLER as ILER last time.

46D: Gentle touch: CARESS

50D: Sewing case: ETUI

51D: Unlike a figment: REAL

52D: Trendy tea: CHAI. Why "Trendy"? CHAI is rooted in "Cha", Chinese for tea.

53D: Like 45s: MONO. Monophonic?

54D: Lady of the Haus: FRAU. Haus is German for "house".

55D: Ore seeker's entrance: ADIT. This has become a gimme.

58D: Loc. __: CIT. The other footnote is IBID.

Answer grid.

C.C.