Thursday June 24 John Lampkin

Theme: Life-less - The word LIFE is missing from the end of four "classic" song titles.

17A. Beatles classic: A DAY IN THE.

24A. Stevie Wonder classic: FOR ONCE IN MY.

37A. "Annie" classic: ITS THE HARD KNOCK.

46A. "Dirty Dancing" classic: THE TIME OF MY.

58A. Sinatra classic, and hint to what's missing from this puzzle's other classics: THAT'S LIFE.

So, how was this for you? The last part to fall for me was the center.

Several clue echos in the grid. John's hallmark. Best clues:

32D. James's creator: IAN. Ian Fleming, James Bond.

48D. Bond creator: EPOXY. Chemical bond.

Al here, and we're off to the races.

Across:

1. Chain of hills: RIDGE. From Old English hrycg, meaning the back of a man or beast. Appearing like the lumps of your backbone in a narrow line. That makes calling the ridgeback breed of dog sort of redundant, although I think that is just extra hair...

6. Top rating: TEN.

9. Startle: SCARE.

14. Stay a step ahead of: ONE-UP.

15. Tribe that fought the Navajo: UTE. Didn't like Mormons much, either...

16. Soaked: HOSED.

19. China's Zhou __: EN LAI.

20. Covers: LIDS.

21. Very long time: EON.

22. Woofer's output?: ARF ARF. Wanted something to do with a sound system bass speaker at first, not a dog.

23. Code word: DAH. The sound of the long pulse in Morse code, written as a dash. DIT is the sound for the short pulse, written as a period (or dot).

26. Thor's father: ODIN. Also called Wodan, wod being Old English for mad or frenzied. Odin was not known for being a happy Norse God.

28. Hot: IRED. Like Odin.

29. What peddlers peddle: WARES. Said Simple Simon to the pie man, let me taste your wares.

31. Bank leader?: CITI. Leader to the word Citibank, one of the first to introduce ATMs, way back in the 70's.

33. Genesis twin: ESAU. First-born, Jacob was the other twin.

40. Celebratory feeling: GLEE.

41. Bit of naughtiness: NONO.

42. Sharp: ACUTE. With an angle less than 90 degrees.

43. Dover domestic: CHAR. An English servant, or chore-woman. Dover, in England faces France across the narrowest part of the English Channel. Also in the grid 31D. Regular duty: CHORE.

45. WWII gun: STEN.

51. Coming-out party?: DEB. Party here refers to the person, a debutant, not a celebration, as in "party of the first part".

54. American elk: WAPITI. A single male elk can produce 22 to 25 lbs of antler velvet annually and on ranches in the United States, Canada and New Zealand, this velvet is collected and sold to markets in east Asia, where it is used in medicine.

55. Robert Morse title role: TRU. Truman Capote.

56. Efficient: ABLE.

57. Two little words?: I LOVE. The phrase "Three little words" have been used in song and movies, and movies about song. Here you only get two out of three. It's not about you. I wanted "pull my finger".

60. Snazzes (up): SEXES.

61. A-line line: HEM. Sewing appearing in a skirt.

62. Offer, as one's two cents: PUT IN. I usually hear it used derisively: Who asked you to put in your two cents worth? A nominal fee to be allowed to offer your opinion, not usually collected.

63. Hot meeting?: TRYST. From Old French tristre, an appointed station in hunting.

64. Source of iron: ORE. Too short to fit spinach in there.

65. Church closings: AMENS. I was trying to come up with something along the lines of a special purpose door or such-like.

Down:

1. "Fantastic Mr Fox" author Dahl: ROALD. Author for several children's books, although they can still hold an adult's interest as well.. Usually somewhat dark, with clearly defined good/bad characters and morality lessons built in.

2. Home to more than a billion: INDIA.

3. Beating one won't get you anywhere: DEAD HORSE.

4. Half a 1950 musical: GUYS. and Dolls.

5. Center opening?: EPI. An epicenter is the point on the earth's surface directly above the origin of an earthquake or underground explosion. Also a prefix-indication clue, along with 7D: Centric opening: ETHNO.

6. Teach privately: TUTOR.

8. At birth: NEE.

9. Actress North, once touted as "the new Marilyn Monroe": SHEREE. As Advertised.

10. Kind of man or game: CONFIDENCE. From the many scams in which the victim is induced to hand over money as a token of confidence: "con men". Also Congress. Not picking a side here, politics in general is something we could do with less of from both sides. That word comes from poly, meaning many, and tics, meaning blood-sucking parasites.

11. Narnia lion: ASLAN. Created by author C.S. Lewis.

12. Fix, as a slot machine?: REARM. Slot machine = one armed bandit.

13. Uplift: EDIFY. From Latin, to build or construct, as an edifice. Late Latin meaning: to improve spiritually or instruct.

18. Night light: NEON. Red is the only color actual neon gas produces. There are now more than 150 colors possible; almost every color other than red is produced using argon, mercury and phosphor. Neon tubes actually refer to all positive-column discharge lamps, regardless of the gas filling. The colors in order of discovery were blue (Mercury), white (Co2), gold (Helium), red (Neon), and then different colors from phosphor-coated tubes. The mercury spectrum is rich in ultraviolet light which in turn excites a phosphor coating on the inside of the tube to glow. Be very careful disposing of "neon" tubes, which are most probably mercury vapor instead.

22. Astringent: ACRID. Sharp, bitter, fierce. Related word: acrimony. I wouldn't have thought of acrid meaning quite the same as astringent, but I'm seeing more than one related pair in this puzzle (56D. Astringent compound: ALUM.), so that's probably why it was clued that way.

24. Bass or drum: FISH. Bass can be largemouth or smallmouth. Drumfish.

25. Blast cause, briefly: NITRO. Nitroglycerin. Also the N in TNT (Tri-Nitro-Toluene).

27. Some cops: DETECTIVES. Monk, Moto, Chan, even Wojo.

29. Rug: WIG. Hairpiece. Construction of a wig is similar to the process of making a rug: using a hook to attach tufts of hair to a piece of base material. Apparently the term started in the theater industry where many actors needed wigs to play their roles.

30. Ga. airport: ATL. Atlanta, Georgia.

34. News promo: SOUNDBITE. "The Eagle has landed" "Elvis has left the building".

35. Take the stage: ACT. Did anyone try to take the stagecoach?

36. Mandolin kin: UKE. Both are small plucked strings. The abbreviation is in the language, like rhino, so an indicator wasn't necessary.

38. As a friend, to Fifi: EN AMI. French phrase.

39. "High Noon" actress Jurado: KATY. 1952 movie starring Gary Cooper.

44. Regular alternative, informally: HI TEST. Only necessary if you have a high-performance (high-compression) engine to prevent knocking. In a regular engine, you don't get any benefit for the extra cost.

45. X-rated stuff: SMUT.

46. Unexpected climax: TWIST. I can't believe the proximity of the answer above was a complete accident...

47. In better health: HALER. Hale means whole, in the sense of wellness.

49. "... O, be some __ name": Juliet: OTHER. What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. (Ref 57A above, "pull my finger")

50. Bowler's division: FRAME. Ten per game.

52. Puckish: ELFIN. Puck is a mischievous fairy in "A Midsummer Night's Dream". A second Shakespeare clue/answer.

53. Has-__: BEENS.

58. Nevertheless, briefly: THO. Although.

59. Baths: SPA. Spa is actually a municipality in Belgium, and is the site of many healing hot springs. Agatha Christie's fictional detective (27D) Hercule Poirot was born in Spa.

Answer grid.

Pictures of the Day: Say Hello to Cameron, who was born on June 21, 2010. Look how happy Grandma JD is. Here is a another look at the handsome guy.

Al

Wednesday June 23, 2010 Dan Naddor

Theme: ESSES - The second word of each two-word phrase contains a pair of consecutive letter S.

20A. Confident: SELF- POSSESSED. Or maybe when a Demon invades his own body?

26A. Second-counter's opening: ONE MISSISSIPPI. My first thought was wondering who was the first counter.

41A. Evaluation by co-workers: PEER ASSESSMENT.

47A. Professional hitter?: HIRED ASSASSIN. Did anyone go for baseball? I thought of the wonderful series of books about Keller a hit man created by Lawrence Block, who has many series characters, all of which are quite flawed, but the books are fun.

And the unifier:

61A. Each of the four longest puzzle answers has two pairs of them: ESSES.

And as a little bonus, a half answer, 16A. Essence: SOUL.

Lemonade here, and getting to blog a Dan Naddor, I was so excited, but I found this to be an unusually easy puzzle from Dan, with flashes of brilliance but it went too quickly…well, let’s get right to work.

Across:

1A. "Stay" singer Lisa: LOEB Reality Bites she met Ethan Hawke, and gave him a demo, he then played the song for Ben Stiller, who was directing the film, and it ended up playing during the credits, and becoming a #1 hit, without ever being released anywhere else.

5A. DeMille with an Oscar: CECIL B., the original movie mogul.

10A. Short pans?: UGHS. This is classic Dan Naddor, not only do you have to recognize the pun (PANS – PANTS) but you have interpret PAN to mean to be critical of, then you can get the answer.

14A. The Dixie Chicks, e.g.: TRIO. There were three of them, but I think they broke up.

15A. Wet, in a way: RAINY.

17A. Bell sound: DONG. Well the bell is rung, and I bet this inspires our DF ladies to read this puzzle more carefully.

18A. Make a delivery?: ORATE.

19A. Salinger title girl: ESME. This is our fifth visit from this character this year.

23A. "In a sec": NOT YET. This took some perp work.

25A. Sierra Club founder John et al.: MUIRS. I guess this is better than the Ghost and Mrs._______.

31A. Inventor Howe: ELIAS. My grandfather was a tailor, so I had this one sewed up.

32A. Bonehead: IDIOT. This word is a favorite of baseball announcers when describing poor decisions by players.

33A. Fontanne of Broadway: LYNN. Along with her husband Alfred Lun she was a dominating force on Broadway for many years, still working into the 70’s.

34A. Mix: BLEND. My fist thought was TOM.

35A. High-quality cotton: PIMA. There, now you know everything.

39A. Son of Sarah: ISAAC. We had the discussion of ISHMAEL, and ISAAC, ABRAHAM’s first two sons.

40A. Cream dispensers: TUBES. I thought of coffee.

45A. Cut into slices: CARVE. Made me think of peanuts.

46A. Materialize: APPEAR.

52A. Ahmadinejad's land: IRAN. Not a nice man.

53A. Nut-yielding tree: BEECH. Ah the memories, Beech Nut.

54A. Perlman of "Cheers": RHEA. Married to Danny DeVito for many years.

57A. Telescope part: LENS.

58A. Carpenter's machine: LATHE.

59A. Rows: OARS. OAR, OAR your boat, gently down the stream…

60A. "__ Anything": "Oliver!" song: I’D DO. I like this one better.

62A. Fargo's st.: N. Dak.. To balance or SDAK.

Yay, let’s get down tonight, I did some work for KC in the 80’s.

Down:

1D. Inc., in London: LTD. Abbreviation for Limited, popular in many countries.

2D. What Pizarro sought: ORO. Gee, we just saw OAR; anyway, a double dipper, you have to know the explorer, that he sought gold, and the Spanish word for gold. This is not the old White Sox left hander, Juan Pizarro.

3D. Brain: EINSTEIN.

4D. Under-the-bed hider: BOGEY MAN. What plagued Tiger and Phil down the stretch at the Open.

5D. Partner of Seals: CROFTS. We had a beautiful Summer Breeze by my place tonight.

6D. Tombstone lawman: EARP. They were still in Kansas, Toto.

7D. "Later!": CIAO. Rhymes with HAO NAO BRAON CAO.

8D. QB's misthrows: INTS. Since QB is abbreviated, so is the answer.

9D. Cleaning compounds: LYES. You do not buy them in packs.

10D. Exhausts: USES UP. I thought of fumes.

11D. Dirt: GOSSIP. Makes sense when you are reading the Enquirer while you wait in line at the grocery store.

12D. Scapulae-to-ulnae bones: HUMERI. There must be punch line here somewhere.

13D. Mushers' vehicles: SLEDS.

21D. Luau souvenirs: LEIS. Ah, the good old days when we had a Hawaiian contingent.

22D. Discharge: EMIT. Honey, DISCHARGE on the VISA is way too much.

23D. Christmas air: NOEL. Air?

24D. Without siblings: ONLY. How many of our midst are only children? I am the third of three boys.

27D. Marner of fiction: SILAS, where were the Spark Notes in my day? A book by a woman named George; I was confused. He was a nasty miser, but he wasn’t, geeze.

28D. Think tank output: IDEAS.

29D. Subsequently: SINCE.

30D. Landscaper's supply: SOD. I love the British use, SOD ALL…

34D. Jamboree gp.: BSA. Boy Scouts of America.

35D. Lift weights: PUMPING IRON . I wonder what Arnold will do now.

36D. Sting victim's wail: I BEEN HAD. Sounds kinda Arabic.

37D. Actress Suvari: MENA. Cute, what did you all think of American Beauty?

38D. Galileo's sci.: ASTR. Astronomy.

39D. Burned up: IRED. I get the concept, of IRE, but I cannot find it in a dictionary.

40D. Recipe amts.: TSPS. Always this or TBSP.

41D. Like socks, hopefully: PAIRED.

42D. Trip to the bank, say: ERRAND.

43D. Nonetheless: EVEN SO.

44D. Pane holders: SASHES. Windows, the old kind you look through.

45D. Common cook-off dish: CHILI. CHILI today, Hot TAMALE.

48D. Skilled: ABLE.

49D. Neptune's realm: SEAS.

50D. Match makers?: SETS. very tricky, in honor of the Wimbledon Fortnight, Tennis matches.

51D. Hurt: ACHE.

55D. Procter & Gamble detergent: ERA. Well, at least it avoids any political discussion of equal rights.

56D. "Shoot!": ASK.

Answer grid.

That’s all folks. I wish you each a very happy and hurricane free summer.

Lemonade714