Saturday February 6, 2010 Barry Silk

Theme: None

Total words: 68

Total blocks: 30

Terrific pair of grid-spanning 15-letter Down entries:

3D. "You may be asking too much": THAT'S A TALL ORDER. Me finish a Barry Silk themeless sans cheating? That's a tall order!

12D. Leader played by Rod Steiger in the 1981 Libyan film "Lion of the Desert": BENITO MUSSOLINI. Nickname Il Duce ('The Leader"), which appears as a crossword fill sometimes. But never his full name. Refreshing! I've never seen the movie. But Libya was an Italian colony during WWII.

Both of them intersect with what I think the seed entry of this puzzle: WAXING GIBBOUS (36A. Phase in which the moon's right half is mostly visible in the Northern Hemisphere). See this sequential order.

Except the lower left corner, the triple stacks of 7s in other three quadrants all posed various troubles for me. As the norm with Barry Silk puzzle, there are always new words/names for me to learn. And the clues. Tricky clues. I've now fully realized how it's the cluing that makes a puzzle more difficult. Misdirections aplenty.

Across:

1. Where some colonies are studied: ANT FARM. Ant colonies. I was thinking of the political colonies.

8. Milky Way cousin: MARS BAR. The chocolate bar. Of course, I fell into the Milky Way galaxy trap.

15. "Ditto": SO HAVE I. One letter too short for MOI AUSSI.

16. Eisenhower library site: ABILENE (AB-uh-leen). In central Texas. Where Eisenhower attended high school. Stumper for me. (Corrected later: It's Abilene, Kansas. Thanks, Windhover).

17. Turkish travel shelters: IMARETS (i-MAHR-et). No idea. It's Turkish for "building".

18. Año's 52: SEMANAS. Spanish for "weeks". New word to me also.

19. Final touch on a letter?: DOT. This letter refers to i, right?

20. Stretched: CRANED. Stretched the neck.

22. Weaken: WILT

23. While beginning: ERST. Erstwhile.

25. River to the Baltic: ODER. The German/Polish border river.

26. TV host Pennington et al.: TYS. Host of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition". Unknown figure to me.

27. Mail-order pioneer: SEARS

29. "Sands of Iwo Jima" director Allan: DWAN. I wanted ALDA.

31. Creep: BOZO. "Creep" has a pervert meaning to me. Not bozo though.

32. Word with bar or god: TIKI. Funny clue.

34. Carnegie associates: STEELMEN

38. "Franny and Zooey" author: SALINGER. Timely entry. So many curses in "Catcher in the Rye".

39. Scraps: ROWS. Put down ORTS.

40. Energy company founder Halliburton: ERLE. Who knows? OK, Dick Cheney!

41. Initial step, metaphorically: A TO B

43. Passover month: NISAN. The Seder month.

46. Old Eastern capital: EDO. Tokyo, before 1868. Why is Eastern capitalized?

47. Genre of the 1963 hit "Wipe Out": SURF. Here is a clip. Barry loves "The Beach Boys".

49. Extent of damage: TOLL

50. Hair line?: PART. The clue works well without the question mark too.

52. Auto debut of 1958: IMPALA. And MASERATI (8D. Luxury car with a trident emblem). The latter is alien to me. Owned by Fiat.

54. Practiced profession: LAW. Alliteration.

55. Pyrenees republic: ANDORRA. The tiny Tiny country between France and Spain.

57. Cold War link: HOT LINE. "13 Days" is a great movie about Cuban Missile Crisis. The hot line worked!

59. Emblem of power: SCEPTER

60. "Honey, I Blew Up the Kid" star: MORANIS (Rick). Nope. His face does looks familiar though.

61. Most clipped: TERSEST

62. T.E. Lawrence, for one: ARABIST. A specialist in Arabic culture. T.E. Lawrence is of "Lawrence of Arabia" fame. I confused him with D. H. Lawrence.

Down:

1. Spoken thoughts, in a way: ASIDES. I don't quite get the clue.

2. "Enough!": NO MORE

4. Successful way to go?: FAR. "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far."

5. Paris preposition: AVEC. Voulez-vous coucher avec moi (ce soir)?

6. In again: RETRO. Like baseball jerseys.

7. Get a wrong number: MIS-ADD. Not telephone number!

9. Retired: ABED. Retired to bed! Man, sure need to have a different mind to solve a Saturday.

10. Volcano part: RIM. Clueless. All I know about volcano is the Holy Hotwick hot flow-er lava.

11. Potluck dish: SLAW

13. Breaks down: ANALYZES

14. Leans against, perhaps: RESTS ON

21. Usenet message repository: NEWSGROUP. Usernet newsgroup.

24. "The Honeymooners" role: TRIXIE. Could only think of Ralph/Alice.

28. Pelt: SKIN

30. First st. to join the Union after the end of the Civil War": NEBR. New trivia to me.

31. Mess up: BLOW IT. I did, with this puzzle. However, there's some greatness in my wrongness.

33. Co-worker of Igor and Frau Blücher in "Young Frankenstein": INGA. No idea. Played by Teri Garr.

35. Dark, in verse: EBON. Black, poetically.

36. Pre-combat ritual: WAR DANCE

37. 2008 Steve Carell film based on a '60s sitcom: GET SMART. Nailed it. Silly movie.

38. Overlook, as a fault: SEE PAST

42. Hindu god of creation: BRAHMA. The Hindu "Creator". Vishnu is the Preserver and Shiva the Destroyer.

44. Self-titled 1991 debut album: ALANIS. From Alanis Morissette.

45. Padres' div.: NL WEST. National League West. Always prepared to have a baseball or Philadelphia reference in Barry's puzzle.

48. Stun: FLOOR

51. Lids: TOPS

52. Gets hot: IRES. Ire is always a noun to me.

53. Popular blade: ATRA. The Gillette razor.

58. Research facility: LAB. A rare "honest" and straightforward clue.

Answer grid.

C.C.

Friday February 5, 2010 Gary Cee

Theme: BE ON THE BALL (38A. Demonstrate effectiveness, and a literal hint to the puzzle theme found in the answers to starred clues) - The embedded word BE in each theme answer is placed directly above/on the embedded BALL in the grid. See the circled illustration.

14A. *First family member: ABEL. The middle son of Adam and Eve. Biblical "First family".

17A. *Old street corner singer: BALLADEER

21A. *Arthur in a dress: BEA. I know Bea Arthur. But why "in a dress"?

25A. *Receptacle for choice slips: BALLBALLOT BOX

47A. *Brit. award: OBE (Order of the British Empire)

55A. *Danseur noble's partner: BALLERINA. Danseur noble is male ballet dancer.

62A. *Ball honorees: BELLES. Ball should not be in the clue as it's part of the theme answers.

65A. *Southwestern horseman: CABALLERO. New word to me. Hey, Chuck of the West!

A solid CEE, Gary! It would be utterly cool if all the embedded BEs in the grid followed the same pattern. The "starred clues" in the unifying theme answer did not prevent me from noticing the BEs in OBESE (70. Extra large?) or BENT (25. Inclination). They went rogue.

I'll still shout an OLE (6D. 65-Across's "Bravo!") for the creative theme concept and for including our unofficial blog mushroom MOREL (8D. Provençal cuisine delicacies) in the grid. Don't know why they are "Provençal cuisine delicacies". Morel are prized every where, with the delicate flavor and high prices. Maybe because the French put morels in coq au vin?

You might have noticed that not all the theme answers are symmetrical, unlike the Will Nediger "Watch the Birdie" puzzle we had last June. Birdie is ONE UNDER PAR in golf. And Will put ONE under PAR in 10 different places, all symmetrically. Just perfect. Like today's explanatory answer BE ON THE BALL, Will's ONE UNDER PAR is also positioned in the very heart of the grid.

An easier Friday for me. Thee/four letter fill aplenty. My favorite clue today is PICABO ( 11D. Street going downhill?). Picabo Street was a skier. Her name is pronounced like "Peekaboo".

Across:

1. __ St Ives: Cornwall museum: TATE. I only knew the two Tate galleries in London (Tate Britain and Tate Modern). Wikipedia says the Tate also has a museum in Liverpool.

5. Drift: ROAM

9. Caught on video: TAPED. Poor John Edwards.

15. Muppet who testified before Congress: ELMO. In 2002. For increased funding in music education. Nice to learn this trivia.

16. Spry: AGILE

19. Director De Mille: CECIL. His last film is "The Ten Commandments".

20. Keys: ISLETS

23. Orkan sign-off word: NANU. Mork always signs off with "Nanu-nanu" ("goodbye"). From "Mink & Mindy". Learned from doing crossword.

27. Publisher often seen in PJs: HEF. Hugh Hefner. Publisher of the "Playboy".

28. Park, in NYC: AVE. Park Ave.

30. Cpl.'s superior: SGT

31. Valuable rock: ORE. Wrote down GEM first.

32. Mine entrance: ADIT. Like this.

34. Cover letter letters: ENC (Enclosed/Enclosure)

36. Diamond stat: ERA

42. Farm dweller: ANT. Ant Farm. Got the intersecting A from TEA (33. Drink from a bag) quickly, so I did not think of EWE or anybody else.

43. Musical ability: EAR

44. D.C. fundraisers: PACS (Political Action Committees)

52. Eastern principle: TAO. Literally "way" in Cantonese. Mandarin Chinese is DAO. Japanese is do, as in Judo ("gentle way").

54. "Murder, __ Wrote": SHE

58. Eucharist plate: PATEN. To put bread on. I simply forgot.

60. Culinary author Rombauer: IRMA. Author of the "Joy of Cooking". I tend to mix her up with Erma Bombeck the humorist.

61. 63-Across hdg.: ENE. And STORM (63A. Besiege)

67. Musher's wear: PARKA

68. Abbr. that shortens text: ET AL

69. Gossip columnist Cassini: IGOR. Brother of OLEG, the only Cassini I know of.

71. Con: SHAM. So is SCAM first.

72. Three-part nos.: SSNS. Social Security Numbers.

Down:

1. "Bewitched" role: TABITHA. No idea. I've only heard of ENDORA.

2. Hangdog: ABASHED. See unabashed more often.

3. Lie: TELL A FIB.

4. Actress Barkin: ELLEN. Somehow I don't think she is Dennis's type.

5. Ruby and others: REDS. My first reaction was DEES.

7. Microscopic organism: AMEBA

9. Middle x: TAC. "Middle x" in the game of Tic- Tac-toe. And ALGEBRA (22D. Course with x's). Nice x echo.

10. One taking a little off the top?: AGENT. Delicious clue!

12. Emma's "Sense and Sensibility" role: ELINOR. Played by Emma Thompson.

13. Ritzy: DELUXE

18. Aleutian island: ATKA. Or ATTU.

26. Other, in Spain: OTRA. Sometimes it's OTRO.

29. Risky undertaking: VENTURE

35. Fidel's friend: CHE (Guevara). Fidel Castro. Not dog.

37. Finsteraarhorn, e.g.: ALP. Finsteraarhorn unknown to me. The highest peak of the Bernese Alps. Located in S central Switzerland.

39. Start of many a story: ONCE. Once upon a time.

40. "Do I dare to __ peach?": Eliot: EAT A. I know what's going on in your mind, Argyle!

41. Near-exhaustion metaphor: LAST LEGS. Idiom: on one's last legs.

45. Root for: CHEER ON

46. Radar guns, e.g.: SENSORS

47. San Luis __, California: OBISPO. Literally "bishop" in Spanish.

48. Bill for shots: BAR TAB. Drink "shots".

49. Author Leonard: ELMORE. He once said "Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip."

51. Chops finely: MINCES

53. European auto: OPEL. Still belonged to GM, after the turmoil.

56. Carefree diversions: LARKS

57. Bard's "below": 'NEATH

59. "__ forgiven": ALL IS

64. West who said "To err is human, but it feels divine": MAE. Lois is the Mae West of our blog.

66. Repeated nursery rhyme opener: BAA. "Baa, Baa, black sheep...". No nursery rhyme in my childhood. Brought up by my grandma who was completely illiterate.

Thank you for the nice comments on my husband's blogging yesterday. He had fun reading them last night.

And to those who still google the old "Star Tribune Crossword Corner" blog title or the current "LA Times Crossword Corner" to find us every day, why not come to the Comments section and let your voice be heard? Here is detailed instruction on how to get your profile and turn blue. Come join us for the fun!

Answer grid.

C.C.