Saturday August 14, 2010 Barry Silk

Theme: None

Total word: 72 / Total block: 30

Average word length: 5.42

This puzzle is framed by triple stacks of horizontal 11s in the top and bottom sections:

4A. Versatile crafts item : PIPE CLEANER. Only know the cleaning pipe cleaner. Not aware of the craft type.

16A. Decisive stroke : COUP DE GRACE. Literally "stroke of mercy".

18A. Eagle, notably : LUNAR MODULE. Was thinking of the band Eagles. This might be Barry's seed entry.

50A. "Mr. Television" : MILTON BERLE. Always nice to see a full name.

55A. Error result, often : UNEARNED RUN. Did you think of baseball immediately?

57A. Region of the North 30-Across : SARGASSO SEA. And ATLANTIC (30. It covers about 20% of the Earth's surface). These two do not consist a mini-theme as they are not symmetrically placed. Just a simple cross-reference.

Barry seems to be fond of clue cross-references now, esp in his themeless puzzles. Also, no more expected pangram. I think he's focused more on clean & smooth fill rather than scrabbliness. He also debuted quite a few new entries in this grid.

Total eleven 7-letter answers, all of them are in Downs, mostly placed in each corner paralleling one another.

Across:

1. Year in Pope Innocent III's reign : MCC. 1200. His reign: 1198-1216. Who knows? Why is he called "Innocent"?

15. "Memories __ Made Of This": 1956 chart-topper : ARE. Easy guess.

17. Sweetie : HON

19. Fills in for : ACTS AS

21. Much cybercommunication, briefly : IMS

22. One of the fam : SIB

23. Beat : THROB. Only one vowel.

24. Bean named for the Italian word for "bean" : FAVA. Good to know.

26. Default consequence, for short : REPO. Oh, auto payment default.

27. "Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies" author : MEAD (Margaret). Her name escaped me.

28. See 51-Down : SALE. And TAG ( 51D. With 28-Across, bargain hunters' mecca). Tag sale.

29. "Find out" : GO ASK

32. 1970s New York mayor : BEAME (Abe). From 1974-1977. He's in my memory shelf now.

33. Dessert shaper : JELLO MOLD. Did not come to me easily. I don't eat jello.

35. Have an outstanding loan from : OWE TO

37. Lengthen : PROTRACT. I like this entry too.

41. Damage indications : SCARS. What damage?

42. They aren't behind you : FOES. Tricky clue.

43. Under the decks : ALOW. As opposed to "aloft". Stumped me last time.

44. "Listen!" : HARK

45. Swell and dandy : FOPS. Swell and dandy here are nouns rather than adjectives.

46. Not a good thing to make in a restaurant : SCENE. Great clue.

47. Wall St. hedger : ARB (Arbitrager)

48. Salyut successor : MIR. Russian for "peace". De-orb-ed in 2001.

49. Vehement : FIERCE

54. Toon, familiarly, who debuted in "Devil May Hare" (1954) : TAZ. No idea. The Tasmanian Devil.

56. Threshold : EVE

58. German article : DER. German "the".

Down:

1. Sanskrit for "great soul" : MAHATMA. Tagore gave Gandhi this title.

2. Work with hooks : CROCHET. Literally "small hook".

3. Main : CENTRAL. Wouldn't be nice to see this entry in the very center of the grid?

4. Techie training site : PC LAB

5. Markers : IOUS. Don't know this slang meaning of "marker".

6. "I'd like to study philosophy, but I just Kant," e.g. : PUN. Buckeye's style of pun.

7. AQI calculator : EPA. Barry used AQI (Air Quality Index) in his grid before. Twice I think.

8. Windows disk designation : C DRIVE. My recovery is D Drive. I don't really understand why.

9. Auxiliary proposition : LEMMA. Need your help. I don't grok the clue and the answer means nothing to me

10. Strong ones may clash : EGOS. An echo from our hidden EGO on Thursday.

11. Dull ending? : ARD. Ending to the word dullard. Also drunkard. No other way to clue ARD.

12. Ad follower : NAUSEAM. Ad nauseam.

13. Surpass : ECLIPSE

14. Adidas subsidiary : REEBOK

20. Counterworker? : SODA JERK. Why question mark?

24. Tank : FAIL

25. Portmanteau drink : ALCOPOP. Portmanteau of alco(hol) and pop. Barry used this entry in his March 6, 2010 puzzle.

26. It might be a drag : ROAD RACE. Windhover would have nailed this one.

28. Battleground of 1944 : ST. LO. Or CAEN. They are close.

29. Moolah : GELT. Hanukkah moolah.

31. Prudential Center team : NETS. NBA.

32. Ballpark chorus : BOOS

34. G.I. fare : MRES

35. Tin whistle relative : OCARINA. Literally "little goose" in Italian. Oca = Goose.

36. Canary, at times : WARBLER

38. Tipped off : ALERTED

39. Like band shells : CONCAVE. Had to google "band shells" image to see what they are.

40. Grooming tool : TWEEZER. Love my teezer.

41. Detective, in slang : SHAMUS. New slang to me.

42. Business issue since 1917 : FORBES. Wow, such a long history.

45. Espoo natives : FINNS. Espoo is Finland's second largest city. At the bottom. Quite close to Helsinki.

46. City S of Florence : SIENA. In Tuscany.

48. New Mexico county or its seat : MORA. Too obscure for my taste. Three geography clues in a row!

49. Drawing device : FLUE. I sure was not thinking of chimney, Santa!

52. Shogun's capital : EDO. Shogun is derived from Chinese "Jiangyun" (general).

53. Where to see some sleepers: Abbr. : RRS. Railroad "sleepers".

Answer grid.

Blogger's new Spam Filter feature continues to spam comments with blue links in them, regardless of who the posters are. It seems that those linked posts appear immediately once published, but then disappear into the Spam Box until Argyle and I un-spam them. Please have patience. Thanks. Things are fine with normal text-only/link-less posts.

Updated @9:43am: Blogger seems to have ironed out the link problem. Everything is OK now.

C.C.

Friday August 13, 2010 Julian Lim

Theme: Film at the Animal Farm - Part of five theme entries (including four movies) is punnily substituted by the sound the corresponding animal make, and the clues and answers together form a funny animal "what film to watch" decision-making story.

17A. The animals were bored, and the cows suggested a __ : MOO-VIE NIGHT. The base phrase is Movie Night. Cows moo.

20A. "Great idea!" said the goats. "Let's watch '__'" : MAA-S ATTACKS. Mars Attack!. Directed by Tim Burton. Goats maa. The first two and the last two theme answers have an impressive 7-letter overlap.

35A. "How lowbrow!" said the cats. "We much prefer '__'" : THE COLOR PURR-PLE. The Color Purple. Not a familiar movie to me. Cats purr. The only entry where the pun is on the last word instead of the first. I'd prefer the central entry puns on Prince's "Purr-ple Rain", so the sound would be consistent with the other theme entries. The resulting phrase has 11 letters, nice but not ideal for the central entry. Constructors prefer a central 15-letter grid spanner as it's easier to work around.

50A. "Too serious!" said the pigeons. "Why don't we go with '__'?" : COO HAND LUKE. Cool Hand Luke. Starring the great Paul Newman. Pigeons coo.

55A. But in the end, the sheep had their way, and they all watched "__" : BAA-BAA-RELLA. Barbarella. Jane Fonda movie. Sheep baa.

Fun theme. Reminds me of John Lampkin's "Pet Food" puzzle, in which part of a common food/beverage is substituted with the sound the animal make.

The cluing is fun too. Patrick Berry uses this style in some of Chronicle of Higher Education puzzles. John Lampkin also employs this clue/answer combination story in his "The Clothier's Apprentice".

The clue for ELENA (45A. Supreme Court nominee Kagan) is obviously not updated, since she just became our Supreme Court justice last Saturday. Rich Norris edits all the puzzles a month in advance, hence the error.

Across:

1. Weenie : TWERP. Was thinking of hot dog.

6. Certain alien : LEGAL. "Alien" always refers to "foreigner" rather than "extraterrestrial being" in late week puzzle.

11. With 58-Down, "Taking Woodstock" director : ANG. And LEE (58D. See 11-Across). New Ang Lee reference to me.

14. Many an IM user : AOLER. All of its letter components can be the first & second letter of any word, very construction friendly. So, you keep seeing it again and again.

15. "But I don't want to go among mad people" speaker : ALICE. "Alice in Wonderland". Was ignorant of the quote.

16. Co. in Cannes : CIE. Kazie explained this before.

19. False pretense : ACT

22. One may have an undulating floor : FUNHOUSE. I've never been to one.

26. Viti Levu is its largest island : FIJI. Stumper. I don't know where Viti Levu is. Fiji's capital Suva is in this island and the majority of Fijians live here, a la Wikipedia.

27. Salt's salutations : AHOYS. Alliteration. Salt = Sailor.

28. Nouveau riche : UPSTART

31. Piece conclusion : CODA. Did you think of "musical piece" immediately?

32. Software for creating bibliographies : ENDNOTE. Not aware of this software.

40. Check for flaws : INSPECT

41. Give __ up: assist : A LEG

42. Cry at a faith healing : I CAN SEE. Nice multi-word.

46. Abolitionist Lucretia : MOTT. No idea. She's a Quaker.

47. 1949 Gatsby portrayer : ALAN LADD. I only know Robert Redford's "The Great Gatsby".

54. Sanctioned : OK'D

60. Jar head : LID. Of course I fell the trap of reading the clue as one word Marine "Jarhead" and thinking of Dennis & Argyle.

61. "Bye!" : ADIEU

62. Say "Hi!" to : GREET. I like the consecutive "Bye" and "Hi".

63. L'École __ Roches: French private school : DES. I suppose you can deduce if you know French, since "des" = de + les. Too much for me.

64. Support pieces : BASES

65. Produce some cliff notes? : YODEL. Because there are lots of cliff and mountains in the Swiss Alps?

Down:

1. Highlander's cap : TAM

2. Seek support from : WOO. Or seek affection.

3. Jeff Lynne's band : ELO. Easy guess.

4. MLK's title : REV

5. Piano duet parts : PRIMOS. Not a familiar "primo" definition to me.

6. Turner and Wood : LANAS. Lana Wood is the sister of Natalia Wood.

7. Beethoven title name : ELISE. "Für Elise".

8. Inverse of nano- : GIGA. Nono= one billionth. Giga = billion.

9. Eight, in Aachen : ACHT. Well, gimme for Kazie/Spitzboov I am sure. It escaped me again.

10. Lithuanian's neighbor : LETT. Latvian.

11. Whistling thorn, e.g. : ACACIA. First encounter with whisteling thorn.

12. Channel for little kids : NICK JR. Total unknown to me. Owned by Viacom.

13. Laughs at a joke : GETS IT

18. Perrier, e.g. : EAU. Quite expensive bottled water.

21. Nevertheless : AFTER ALL

22. Trivia buff's fodder : FACT

23. "Here comes trouble!" : UH OH

24. Anatomical knot : NODE

25. Plant with colorful flower clusters : HYACINTH. Named after the Greek mythological figure who was loved and accidentally killed by Apollo.

28. Gender-biased, briefly : UNPC. PC = Politically Correct.

29. Sulk : POUT

30. Violas' sect. : STR (String)

32. More : ELSE

33. Informal turndown : NOPE

34. "Forgot About __": hip-hop hit : DRE. No idea. By Dre, obviously.

36. Walk-__: bit parts : ONS

37. Fervent request : PLEA

38. Give conditionally : LEND

39. Quaint "Yowza!" : EGAD. Lucina uses "Yowza!" often.

42. "Turn up the heat!" : I'M COLD. Finally it's going to cool off a bit here in MN. So hot and humid in the past few weeks.

43. Lunchbox snack : COOKIE

44. Like bitter rivals : AT ODDS. Had difficulty parsing the answer.

45. Verve : ENERGY

47. "The Zoo Story" playwright : ALBEE (Edward). Have never heard of the play.

48. Events where the dessert haupia is served : LUAUS. What is haupia?

49. Dossier abbr. : A.K.A. Oh, police dossier.

51. Rhyme scheme in many sonnets : ABAB. Wish Clear Ayes were here.

52. Bupkis, in Barcelona : NADA. Bupkis is Yiddish for nothing. Another unknown to me.

53. Address site : DAIS

56. Ranch closing? : ERO. Closing for the word ranchero. Gimme, Lois?

57. Spearheaded : LED

59. Part of NATO: Abbr. : ATL

Answer grid.

Here is a recent photo of our quick-witted trombonist Jazzbumpa, who's been on vacation with his talented grand-kids the past few days, thus the sparse appearances. All the fill symmetries have been feeling ignored, Jazzbumpa!

Finally, I'd like to say a special "Thank you" to Spitzboov for a beautiful Annin US flag (3'X5") he surprised me yesterday. When Boomer opened the package and told me the story, I was AGOG and could not stop saying "Oh, my God, oh, my God..". Boomer later showed me how to fold the flag properly.

I then discovered that the Marines raised an Annin flag in Iwo Jima, and the NASA Apollo 11 moon flag is an Annin also. I wonder if those flags draping the coffins of our fallen soldiers are Annin.

I just cast my first vote as a US citizen in the primary on Tuesday, and this flag, made in the US and sent from a former Navy "salt", means a lot to me. Xie Xie, Spitzboov! I'll never take my privileges & rights as a citizen for granted.

C.C.