Friday July 23, 2010 Donna S. Levin

Theme: Hat Pun - The first word of each two-word familiar phrase is replaced by a type of hat, and the resulting phrase is humorously clued.

20A. Opportunity to examine some headwear? : CLOCHE ENCOUNTER. The base phrase is "close encounter". Cloche hat is bell-shaped & close-fitting, worn by those flappers in 1920s. Last consonant sound change.

33A. Call-in broadcasting for chefs? : TOQUE RADIO. Talk radio. Chefs wear toque. Vowel & last consonant changes.

40A. Northerners who dress with Scottish flair? : TAM YANKEES. "Damn Yankees" the musical. First consonant change.

47A. Hats that are soft and angular? : BOWLER OPPOSITES. Polar opposites. First consonant change also.

Minor inconsistencies. Tough to come up a focused set of theme entries with consistent sound change.

Still a fun theme theme. Wish clues were more consistent though: the first & last theme clues have a direct reference to hat, not the middle two.

Other than one Q, no other expensive letters (J/V/X/Z) today. And plenty of 4-letter words (total 36) in the grid, which always makes the puzzle accessible, to me any way. FYI, the average word length in this puzzle is under 4.97, shorter than our average Fridays.

Across:

1. Stage routines : ACTS. Rare to gain an immediate toehold on Fridays.

5. Full of spunk : SASSY

10. Shenanigan pullers : IMPS

14. Multilayer farm site? : COOP. Hens lays eggs again and again, hence "multilayer"?

15. Twaddle : TRIPE. Twaddle suggests silly talk. Tripe is just rubbish. No equation to my ears.

16. "Ta ta!" : CIAO

17. It's entered and processed : DATA

18. Needle bearers : PINES. Pine needles.

19. Pachacuti, for one : INCA. Have never heard of Pachacuti (literally meant "earth-shaker"), Inca Empire builder.

23. Grub : EATS

24. Recycled T-shirt? : RAG. Not the cryptic signal "recycle".

25. Carol beginning : ADESTE. "Adeste Fideles".

28. Proactiv target : ACNE

30. One of a cup's 48: Abbr. : TSP (Teaspoon). I bet Jazzbumpa saw "... A Cup's...". He's been concerned about the deflation effect on bra size in crossword.

35. Pampas weapon : BOLA

36. "Seinfeld" actress Julia __-Dreyfus : LOUIS. Elaine Benes.

37. Posed : SAT

38. Idol whose fans are known as Claymates : AIKEN

39. Gray area?: Abbr. : ANAT. Gray's Anatomy.

42. Condiment for pommes frites : SEL. French for "salt".

43. Livens (up) : PEPS

44. Delicate : DAINTY

45. Mendicant title : FRA

46. God attended by Valkyries : ODIN. We just had AESIR yesterday.

55. Plant used for first aid : ALOE

56. More than 70% of Earth's surface : OCEAN

57. Stretched just short of the breaking point : TAUT

58. Tidings : NEWS

59. Sudden movement : START. Thought of JERK.

60. Gumbo ingredient : OKRA

61. "Gee willikers!" : GOSH

62. Keep an __ the ground : EAR TO

63. McJob performer : PEON. Did you think of TEMP also?

Down:

1. Versatile, electronically : AC/DC. Didn't emerge easily.

2. Historic Newcastle resource : COAL. Don't know where Newcastle is. Not familiar with the idiom "selling coal to Newcastle" either, a foolhardy or pointless action, a la Wikipedia.

3. Miss Gulch's bête-noire, somewhat literally : TOTO. " The Wizard of Oz" dog, which appears in many of Donna's puzzles.

4. Garb for Apollo : SPACE SUIT. Pictured the Greek god Apollo, not that I know what garb he's wearing.

5. Religious guardian : ST. PETER. For heaven. No abbr. hint in the clue.

6. Astrological ovine : ARIES. Ram sign.

7. __ Fein : SINN

8. Blueprint item, briefly : SPEC

9. "Just give me an answer already!" : YES OR NO. Nice answer/clue.

10. Hockey infraction : ICING. No idea. Don't follow hockey.

11. After-dinner item : MINT

12. Step : PACE

13. Look down on the clouds, perhaps : SOAR. Dudley our pilot guy would love this clue.

21. Can't take : HATES

22. Seven sheikdoms fed. : UAE (United Arab Emirates)

25. Rand's shrugger : ATLAS. "Atlas Shrugged".

26. Shortbread cookie surname : DOONE. Got me. Have never had "Lorna Doone".

27. Peer : EQUAL

28. Apple or ale lead-in : ADAMS. Adam's ale = water.

29. Pierre, e.g. : CITY. I've got to think of South Dakota next time Pierre comes up.

30. Perfunctory : TOKEN

31. Wintry woe : SLEET

32. Flower name derived from the French for "thought" : PANSY. New trivia to me. Pencer is French verb for "to think". Sounds similar. (Correction: It's penser. Thanks, Kazie!)

34. PDQ cousin : ASAP

35. Halter, perhaps : BIKINI TOP. In a way, yes.

38. "Henry & June" role : ANAIS. Stumper. Returned my Netflix on this movie. Could not warm myself to it.

40. Lady Hillingdon is a cultivar of one : TEA ROSE. Yellow and has a tea fragrance. See here.

41. Enlarge, as a house : ADD ONTO

43. Ante- equivalent : PRE

45. Meat : FLESH

46. Victor Vasarely's genre : OP-ART. Victor Vasarely was a Hungarian French artist whose work is generally seen aligned with Op-Art, says Wiki. Total stranger to me.

47. Explosion : BANG

48. It's found in tubs : OLEO. Not bathtub.

49. Awes : WOWS

50. Tetra- times two : OCTA. Prefix for "eight". Tetra, "four".

51. Fruit with a "check the neck" ripeness test : PEAR

52. Steal : TAKE

53. Slovenia capital : EURO. "Capital" always refers to "currency" in late week puzzles.

54. Ollie's sidekick : STAN

Answer grid.

In the next few Fridays, I am going to show a recent photo of our regular blogging contributors. We start today with Darling Santa Argyle. He said: "My cousin took a picture of me saying a prayer before his son attacks my hair and beard. I'm not gonna showing the "after" picture." Argyle's nicknames: Scott, Scotty, Cid/Sid, Skid, Skidney, El Cid and "Hey, you".

C.C.

Thursday July 22, 2010 Pete Muller

Theme: RECYCLED PLASTIC (60A: Useful waste, what's literally hidden in 17-, 25- and 46-Across). - The letters of the word PLASTIC are anagrammed and recycled into a portion of the other three theme answers. In Cryptic crossword, recycled/shuffled signal anagram gimmick.

17A. State of the Union, say: POLITICAL SPEECH. Is this truly informational, or was it ever? Or just another chance to listen to party claims and rhetoric from both sides? As a kid, these always irked me. There were only three channels back then and all of them preempted their regular shows for this. And then just when you thought it was over, the other side got equal air time to rebut. Of course now, with all the cable channel choices, you can just watch something else rather than doing something good, like reading a book instead.

25A. Military tradition: HOSPITAL CORNERS. Tightly tucked sheets for a neat appearance. These make me claustrophobic. I have to have my feet free to move. How about you? Do you prefer being tucked in tight?

46A. Looney Tunes genre: SLAPSTICK COMEDY. Also animation. I guess I always associated slapstick only with live actors, so this threw answer me for awhile.

Al here.

It's kind of a tricky theme, so that's why it is spelled out as one of the answers, you wouldn't get it otherwise. Well, maybe Jerome might... This is the kind of clue you would get for an English Crossword answer, an instruction to rearrange letters. Knowing the theme didn't help me at all, because all the letters I needed were the other ones that weren't part of the word plastic. The last to fall for me today was the middle east, and I had two black marks there. The rest was pretty tough too, more like a Friday, I thought. The jump from Wednesday to Thursday seems to me to be more steep than the one from Thursday to Friday.

Across:

1. NASDAQ debuts: IPOS. Stock market Initial Public Offerings, the first time a stock can be bought.

5. Silly: APISH. The word silly has roots in German: selig "blessed, happy, blissful". It moved from "blessed" to "pious," to "innocent", to "harmless," to "pitiable", to "weak", to "feeble in mind, lacking in reason, foolish". Here it just means acting like a monkey.

10. '60s-'70s pitcher nicknamed Blue Moon: ODOM. John. Supposedly given to him by a schoolmate because his face was so round.

14. Attic-dweller of '70s-'80s TV: MORK. Robin Williams role, a spin-off show from a Happy Days appearance.

15. Home of a mythical lion: NEMEA. A beast eventually killed by Heracles (Hercules). It could not be killed in a usual fashion because its golden fur was impervious to attack. It could only be killed by shooting it or stabbing it in the mouth.

16. Admonition to Nanette?: NO NO. A musical comedy, made into films in 1930 and again in 1940, No No Nanette contains the song Tea for Two, which we just recently had as a puzzle answer.

20. Miniature surveillance gadget: SPYCAM.

21. Rear ends of a sort: CABOOSES. From M.Du. kambuis "ship's galley," from Low Ger. kabhuse "wooden cabin on ship's deck;" probably a compound word whose elements correspond to English cabin and house.

22. What there oughta be: A LAW.

24. Skirmish: ROW. the "ow" here is pronounced like the "ou" in ouch. Of uncertain origin, but perhaps related to rousel "drinking bout", a shortened form of carousal.

33. Sch. with a Narragansett Bay campus: URI. University of Rhode Island.

34. Odin's group: AESIR. Norse gods.

35. Tuned to: SET AT. As with a radio station.

36. Word with mala or bona: FIDE. In bad or good faith.

38. Works in a Catalonian museum: DALIS. Salvadore.

40. Classico competitor: RAGU. Spaghetti sauces.

41. Element 100 eponym: FERMI. Enrico Fermi, who worked on the development of the nuclear reactor, had Fermium named after him. Fermium was discovered in the aftermath dust of the first hydrogen bomb test.

43. Betty Crocker salad topping: BAC-OS.

45. Crosswalk sign word: PED. No abbreviation clue due to common use? Or because that is the way it literally appears, perhaps.

49. Eastern tongue: LAO. Official language of Laos. Also called Laotian or Isan.

50. It might be a close call: SAFE. Baseball.

51. Japanese golfer in the World Golf Hall of Fame: ISAO AOKI. So many vowels...

56. Make a connection (with): LIAISE. Back formation from French liaison (union, binding together). Said to be a coinage of British military men in World War I.

62. Leafy veggie: KALE. Has powerful antioxidant properties, high in beta carotene, vitamin K, vitamin C, lutein, zeaxanthin, and reasonably rich in calcium, kale is considered to be anti-inflammatory. Also contains sulforaphane, a chemical believed to have potent anti-cancer properties. Supposed to taste better after the first frost.

63. Merge: UNITE.

64. Scot's vacation site: LOCH.

65. Insult: SLUR.

66. Try to persuade, with "with": PLEAD.

67. Sean's mom: YOKO. Sean Lennon, Yoko Ono.

Down:

1. Troublemakers: IMPS.

2. Info: POOP. Military slang. The rich fertile result of the brass passing down their wisdom through to the lower echelons.

3. French touchdown site: ORLY. Airport

4. Alpine wear: SKI CAP.

5. Like many short films: ANIMATED.

6. Workout target: PEC. Pectoral muscles. For the ladies.

7. Jobs creation?: IMAC. Steve Jobs, Apple computer.

8. "The Fugitive" actress Ward: SELA.

9. Easy-Bake Oven maker: HASBRO.

10. Used car selling point: ONE OWNER.

11. Performs: DOES.

12. Singly: ONCE.

13. Mineralogist Friedrich: MOHS. Namesake of the Mohs scale, to compare mineral hardness (scratching one with another).

18. Two-time Oscar nominee Shire: TALIA. Adriannn! from Rocky and Connie Corleone in the Godfather.

19. Standard partner: POORS. You rarely see the names for the S&P index spelled out like this.

23. Horseradish relative: WASABI. It's green and hot, a Japanese condiment. A lot of products here that claim to be Wasabi are actually just dyed horseradish. Real wasabi is difficult and expensive to grow and harvest.

25. Blows: HUFFS. And puffs. I wonder why the big bad wolf never enlisted the kool-aid man

26. Cantilevered window: ORIEL.

27. Libya's Gulf of __: SIDRA.

28. Not a deep purple: LILAC. This is Deep Purple.

29. Pains in the neck: CRICKS. I really wanted a different leading consonant here...

30. Bivouac: ETAPE. A military encampment where a day's stores are kept.

31. Wreaked havoc, as a battle: RAGED. In the manner of a Berserker.

32. Prepare, in a way: STUDY. For a test.

37. Strike target: EMPLOYER. Unions, not baseball.

39. Of questionable repute: SO-CALLED.

42. First name in sci-fi: ISAAC. Asimov. Prolific writer, more than 200 books in his lifetime, also wrote mysteries, fantasy, and non-fiction in the form of popular science. Also was a professor of biochemistry at Boston University.

44. Balkan capital: SOFIA. Bulgaria.

47. Install needed equipment: TOOL UP.

48. Like five per cent, to a server: MEASLY. An "insulting" tip amount.

51. Nettles: IRKS.

52. Sea World clapper: SEAL.

53. First Amendment advocacy gp.: ACLU. American Civil Liberties Union.

54. __ Ration: KEN-L. Dog food brand.

55. Romeo's last words: I DIE. O true apothecary! Thy drugs are quick. — Thus with a kiss I die.

57. "Am __ late?": I TOO. Yes, Juliet. Yes you are too late. And now you're late, too.

58. Twisted: SICK.

59. Comeback: ECHO.

61. Harper Valley org.: PTA. Song written by Tom T Hall, performed first by Jeannie C Riley. Made into a movie, and then a TV series starring Barbara Eden, after she lost her magical genie (I dream of Jeannie) powers.

Answer grid.

Al