Thursday December 3, 2009 Barry Silk

Theme: PLUG (63A. Ad, or word that can follow the end of 17-, 26-, 43- or 55-Across)

17A. "Imagination at work" company: GENERAL ELECTRIC. Electric Plug. Rare gimme theme entry for me. Still waiting for my GE stock to bounce back.

26A. Fried-dough carnival treat: ELEPHANT EAR. Earplug. Have never tasted Elephant Ear. I wanted CORN FRITTER, which has the same number of letters and ends in R too.

43A. The Doors #1 hit covered by José Feliciano: LIGHT MY FIRE. Fireplug. Here is the clip. I've never heard of José Feliciano. His constant nodding made me dizzy.

55A. "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" author: DAME MURIEL SPARK. Spark Plug. Both the book and the author (Scottish) were strangers to me.

I liked how PLUG ends the grid, good visual image.

Lots of D'oh clues in this puzzle. My favorites are DELI (6D. Sub station?) and RHYMES (38D. Stop and shop e.g.). Both reminded me of the "License to drill?" clue Barry had for DDS (Doctor of Dental Science) in his 2008 Phillies Championship Tribute puzzle. Very clever.

I struggled at the last theme answer. Tough crossing between TORI (59A. Doughnut shapes) and RTE (56D. Way to go: Abbr.) for me. Had a breeze freeze on both. "Way to go," Barry, you got me. I did recognize the torus shape when I googled. Had no idea that its plural form is tori.

Across:

1. Cheese town in the province of Noord-Holland: EDAM. Four-letter Dutch cheese town has to be Edam.

5. Cooper's tool: ADZE. Or adz.

9. Like some potatoes: RICED. How do you like your potatoes prepared? I like oven-baked potato wedges.

14. Snare __: DRUM

15. Powerful 19th century Virginia family: LEES. Of them, R.E Lee appears in our Xword very often.

16. Positive terminal, at times: ANODE. It could be negative terminal at times?

21. Sale condition: AS IS

22. Deceived: LIED TO. What Tiger probably did.

23. Stranded motorist's aid: JACK

25. Cambodian money: RIEL. Pronounced the same as "reel".

30. General on a Chinese menu: TSO. General Tso's Chicken.

33. Fiesta Bowl site: TEMPE. No idea. Arizona State (Sun Devils) is located there as well.

34. Work units: ERGS

35. Group including flower children's children, briefly: GEN X. Stumped me. Flower children refer to those hippies in the 1960's. I was picturing Lyndon Johnson's Daisy Flower Girl ad.

36. Pants fabric: TWILL

38. Actress Blakley: RONEE. No idea. Looks like she's a singer as well.

39. Je t'__: Parisian's "I love you": AIME. And MME (4D. Marseille Mrs.)

41. Drambuie ingredient: HONEY. I've never heard of Drambuie, a honey and herb flavored Scotch whisky.

42. Govt. ID issuer: SSA (Social Security Administration). They issue SSN.

46. Grant and Vanderbilt: AMYS

47. Spotted cat: OCELOT. Hi, buddy, what are you looking at?

50. Exceptional: RARE. Rara in Latin, as in Rara Avis, like Sade or our Kazie.

52. Subway alternative: BUS

58. Cream of the crop: ELITE

60. Merrie __ England: OLDE. And ETON (62A. School founded in 1440). I actually know this trivia.

61. Begat: SIRED

Down:

2. Stowe novel: DRED. Does this book have anything to do with Dred Scott the slave?

3. Quaker Oats trademark: AUNT JEMIMA. Awesome entry.

5. Mount McKinley's state: ALASKA

7. Puzzle center?: ZEES. Two letter Z's in the center of the word puzzle.

8. Subj. taught bilingually: ESL (English as a Second Language)

10. Spy's briefing contents, briefly: INTEL. Intelligence I suppose.

11. Firewood order: CORD. It's been a very mild winter here in Minnesota.

12. Correct, perhaps: EDIT

13. Empire State Building style: DECO

18. "Silent Spring" author Carson: RACHEL. Have heard of the book, not the author.

19. Inventor Howe: ELIAS. Sewing machine inventor.

24. Winesap, e.g.: APPLE. Nope, first encounter with winesap apples.

25. Contrition: REGRET

26. Singer James et al.: ETTAS

27. Explorer aided by Sacagawea: LEWIS. Or Clark.

28. Dogma-rejecting spiritual genre: NEW AGE. All I know about New Age is that Enya and Yanni are New Age musicians.

30. Court bouncer: TENNIS BALL. Oh, tennis court.

31. Show contempt: SNEER

32. Kind of daisy: OX-EYE. Hope this is the kind Jeannie likes.

40. Artistic merit: VIRTU (ver-TOO). Italian for virtue. New to me.

43. Came menacingly into view: LOOMED

44. Large game fish: MARLIN. Barry probably clued it as baseball related (Florida Marlins) originally. He's an avid baseball fan.

45. 1950s-'60s Yankee Boyer: CLETE. No idea. Clete Boyer played third base for the Yankees.

48. City SW of Bogotá: CALI. Maybe Chickie could tell us a bit about Cali, she lived there for two years.

49. Mideast bigwig: EMIR. Those emirs need to clean up the Dubai mess.

50. Scream: RIOT. Did not know riot can mean "scream". I wanted RANT.

51. Opening for dynamic: AERO. Aerodynamic.

53. Pakistani tongue: URDU. I just learned that Urdu is essentially identical to Hindi in its spoken form but in its literary form heavily influenced by Persian and Arabic and written in an Arabic alphabet.

54. Surfboard fin: SKEG. New word to me. Looks like each surfboard has two skegs.

57. How the weasel goes?: POP. Pop! Goes the Weasel. Excellent clue too.

Answer grid.

C.C.

Wednesday December 2, 2009 Ed Sessa

Theme: RAIN CATS AND DOGS (65A. Come down in buckets; also, when applied in sequence to the answers to starred clues, this puzzle's theme)

17A. *Nightly news show segment: WEATHER FORECAST. Rain.

27A. *Big Apple show: BROADWAY MUSICAL. "Cats", one of our Buckeye's favorite musicals. Clear Aye's too, I think.

49. *1955 Disney animated film featuring Darling Dear: LADY AND THE TRAMP. Both are dogs.

Very innovative theme, isn't it? I've never seen such type before. And all of the theme answers have grid-spanning 15 letters and intersect every Down entry.

Only letter X is missing, otherwise it would be a pangram. Quite a few nice clues in the grid. My favorites are I DO (23A. Veiled consent?) and YALE (60D. It's a lock). The latter is similar to "It's a wrap" for SAREE/SHAWL.

Across:

1. Square after Connecticut Avenue: JAIL. Monopoly property. Scrabbly start.

10. Wax remover: Q-TIP. Oh, earwax.

15. Israeli seaport: HAIFA. The only 5-letter Israeli port that I know.

16. Choice in a booth: VOTE. Have never voted in the US. Not a citizen. China does not allow dual citizenship.

20. Match starter: SERVE. And LOVE (62D. Tennis score). Both tennis terms.

36. Houston Aeros' org.: AHL (American Hockey League). Just realized that Houston Aeros is the affiliate of our Minnesota Wild. Sadly an unknown fact for me.

37. Brass or pewter: ALLOY. Wanted METAL.

38. Overplay a part: EMOTE

39. Breakfast corner: NOOK. What did you have for breakfast today? I've been loving mochi rice balls (with honey walnuts & chopped dates inside) lately.

41. Long Island __: SOUND. The answer revealed itself. I only knew Long Island Iced Tea.

43. Poker Flat chronicler Harte: BRET. Learned the name from doing Xword. Not familiar with his book "The Outcasts of Poker Flat".

44. To the point, in law: AD REM. AD = To. REM is accusative of RES (matter/thing). I can never remember this Latin phrase.

46. Author Nin: ANAIS. The famous diarist.

48. Evian, par exemple: EAU. French for "water".

53. Show about Capote: TRU

54. Candy in 12-piece dispensers: PEZ. Look at her pez collection. Some of the vintage no feet ones are worth hundreds of dollars.

57. Pisa place: ITALY

61. Two-time opponent of Ike: ADLAI (Stevenson)

68. Witty Bombeck: ERMA. Often confuse her with IRMA, The "Joy of Cooking" author Rombauer.

73. Doctor's advice: REST. Wrote down TEST first.

Down:

1. __ of Life: JAWS. Have never heard of this tool. Tiger's wife just used an iron. His sterling brand is now seriously endangered.

2. Not windward: ALEE. It's clued as "Dodging the draft?" in one of Paul's Clever Clue of the Month candidate list. Brilliant.

3. Construction beam: I-BAR

4. Baltic country: LATVIA. Capital is Riga.

5. One who'll be comin' round the mountain, in song: SHE. Easy guess. Was unaware of this folk song.

6. Bellyache: CARP

8. Get an __ effort: A FOR

9. Henner of "Taxi": MARILU. Got her name from Across fill.

10. Home shopping channel: QVC

11. Small hopper: TOAD. Brought to mind Arliss's horny toad in "Old Yeller".

13. Folk icon Seeger: PETE. Peter, Paul and Mary covered several of his songs.

18. Ibsen's "__ Gabler": HEDDA. Nope. See the book cover. Is it very famous?

19. Beethoven's "Für __": ELISE

24. Mice catchers: OWLS. Wanted CATS.

27. Clichéd: BANAL

28. Neighbor of Mary: RHODA. Another stumper. I had no idea that Mary here refers to Mary Tyler Moore.

29. Prayer starter: O LORD

30. Tons: A LOAD

31. Hall of Famer Robin of the Milwaukee Brewers: YOUNT. Gimme. Hall-of-Famer. Unfortunately his baseball cards are not worth much.

32. Mimicking bird: MYNAH

33. Chick of jazz: COREA. The favorite jazz musicians of Katherine, one of the earliest posters on this blog. She is now happily married to a drummer and does not do puzzles any more.

35. Ease off: LET UP

40. Piano's 88: KEYS

42. Reduction plan: DIET. Reduction of weight. "Losing plan" would be a great clue too.

45. Frenzied: MANIC

47. Valuable violin, for short: STRAD. Sometimes it's Amati.

50. Write, as music: NOTATE

51. Steering device: RUDDER

54. Co. VIP: PRES (President). We see EXEC more often.

56. Coors malt beverage: ZIMA. ZIMA means "winter" in Russian.

58. Razor brand: ATRA

59. Exam for an aspiring D.A.: LSAT

63. Important periods: AGES. Of course, I fell into the ERAS trap.

66. Afternoon break: NAP. Not TEA.

67. One of the Bobbsey twins: NAN. Bert's twin sister. Learned from doing Xword of course.

Answer grid.

C.C.