Sunday August 22, 2010 Pamela Amick Klawitter

Theme: An Earlier Flight - The bygone SST is hidden and spans across two words in each familiar phrase.

23A. Military overstock seller : ARMY SURPLUS STORE. We had one close to our home. My dad served in the Chinese army.

33A. 21-Across are taken on it : WITNESS STAND. And OATHS (21. Formal promises).

38A. Nickname at the Derby : BLUE GRASS STATE. Kentucky Derby.

65A. "No verdict yet" : THE JURY IS STILL OUT. Just an awesome entry.

92A. Applying to all : ACROSS THE BOARD. The only one with SS & T pattern. All the others are S & ST.

101A. Exerts influence : PULLS STRINGS. The only 2-word theme answer.

116A. 1952 Jane Russell film : THE LAS VEGAS STORY. Unknown film to me. Jane Russell is famous for her big boobs, right?

118D. Earlier flight hidden in the seven longest puzzle answers : SST

Very clever spin on our crossword staple SST. Nice long theme phrases. Great effort from Pamela Amick Klawitter, who seems to relish constructing Sunday puzzles.

A pangram. All 26 letters are used at least once. The special theme resulted in a total of 51 Ss, outnumbering any vowel (E/A, 48 each) count. Several clue echos also. Very John Lampkin like. I've highlighted them in green.

Today's clues (esp those with question marks) are just "outstanding", Dummy Dennis would say. Look at these "it" in Down section alone:

13D. It's elegant when turned : PHRASE. Idiom: a turn of phrase.

61D. You might have a hand in it : MITT

67D. It's over for Hans : UBER. "Over" in German.

70D. A choir may sing in it : UNISON

113D. It often precedes technicalities : MERE. Mere technicalities.

Across:

1. Ed of "Lou Grant" : ASNER. And EDIE (6. Lou Grant's ex). On "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" . Unknown to me.

10. Cuts the crop : REAPS

15. Even start? : EQUI. Prefix meaning "even", as in equilateral.

19. Dutch big wheel? : GOUDA. Say "Cheese".

20. Falana of "Golden Boy" : LOLA. No idea. I like her dress. Very figure hugging.

22. Arrivals at home, perhaps : RUNS. "Home" refers to the home plate in baseball. We also have NINTHS (44. Often critical innings).

26. "Sorry, can't" : NOPE

27. Stonewall Jackson et al. : REBS. Did not know who Stonewall Jackson was a Confederate commander during Civil War.

28. Sales chart metaphors : PIES

29. R&B singer __ Marie : TEENA. What's her most famous song?

30. Sean of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy : ASTIN

31. Jun. grads : SRS

32. Corp. moneymen : CFOS. Or the obscure TRS.

35. Yoo-__: beverage : HOO. What kind of beverage?

36. 50-Across wrong? : AIN'T. And ISN'T (50. 36-Across right?). I don't like cross-referenced clues when in fact nothing is given.

37. Deli array : MEAT

49. Turner on the screen : LANA

51. Pro foe : ANTI

53. New Balance competitor : AVIA. Latin for "fly".

54. All worked up : IN A LATHER. Solid phrase.

56. List of rounds : BAR TAB. And ALES (86. Draft choices). Of course I was thinking of sports draft.

58. Stock holder? : BARN. Farm stock. Windhover might nail this one.

59. Skins : PELTS

60. Chair designer Charles : EAMES. Can never remember his name, despite Hahtool's link(s).

62. Reason for a court replay : LET. Tennis court.

64. Born : NEE

71. "Ginger __": 1952 Newbery Medal-winning book : PYE. Nope. Not familiar with the book.

73. Big rig compartment : CAB

74. Pitch-related : TONAL

75. "A Paper Life" autobiographer : O'NEAL (Tatum). I suppose the paper refers to her movie "Paper Moon".

78. Spanish bread : EURO. "Bread" = Currency.

80. Places under siege : BESETS

83. San Bernardino suburb : LOMA LINDA. I peeked at the answer sheet.

87. A TV Maverick : BRET. Another unknown.

88. Notice : ESPY

89. Go off the deep end : SNAP

90. Play the siren : SEDUCE

97. Ray Stevens's "Ahab the __" : ARAB. Have never heard of the song.

99. Skin soother : ALOE

100. River to the Rhone : AIN. Too obscure for me.

106. Bribes, with "off" : PAYS

108. Pepper, e.g.: Abbr. : SGT. Beatle's Sgt Pepper. Could not jam in SPICE.

111. Novelist Nin : ANAIS

112. Engineer Nikola : TESLA. Eternal fame in Xword.

113. Ball role : MAME. Lucille Ball.

114. Restaurateur Toots : SHOR. His name escaped me also.

115. Devils' playground? : RINK. NHL's New Jersey Devils. Got me also.

119. Old Venetian elder : DOGE

120. Brings down the house? : RAZES. Nice play on the idiom "bring the house down".

121. Start of an Andy Capp toast : 'ERE'S. Here's. H is dropped in Cockney accent.

122. Backs up : SAVES

123. Tens neighbor : ONES. In Dennis' cash box.

124. Controversial explosion : A-TEST

125. Unschooled signers : X'ERS. Didn't come to me readily.

126. Lott of Mississippi : TRENT. Just mentioned his name yesterday on the STROM clue.

Down:

1. Ice cream thickeners : AGARS And EDY'S (4. Slow Churned ice cream brand).

2. More put out : SORER

3. Uses an icepack on : NUMBS

5. Dorm bosses, briefly : RAS. RA = Residential Adviser.

6. Ventura County town who name means "the river" : EL RIO. Makes sense.

7. Chowderheads : DOPES

8. Afflictions : ILLS

9. Mer filler : EAU

10. Nile home of an historic stone : ROSETTA. Hence Rosetta Stone.

11. Moth tail? : EATEN. Tail to the word "moth-eaten".

12. Satisfaction of a sort : ATONEMENT. Was thinking of vengeance, Sweeney Todd style.

14. Opposite of NNW : SSE

15. Arp contemporary : ERNST (Max)

16. Limit of a kind : QUOTA

17. Let down, as hair : UNPIN

18. "Children, Go Where __ Thee": spiritual : I SEND. No idea.

24. Raring to go : UP FOR IT. Had trouble parsing the answer.

25. Hitch : STINT. Two-year hitch/stint in the Army, e.g.

30. Italian wine city : ASTI

32. ___ railway : COG. Not familiar with the term.

33. Badger's st. : WIS. We had quite a few solvers from Wisconsin.

34. Florida resort island : SANIBEL. Have you been there?

35. A "4-H" H : HEALTH

36. Bad way to be led : ASTRAY. Led astray.

38. Radar signal : BLIP

39. Spot for a strike : LANE. Bowling lane, thanks, June!

40. The same as always : UNALTERED. The clue/answer does not click for me.

41. Reminder of an old flame? : ASH. I am just in awe of the clue, Pamela. Are you reading our blog?

42. Disdainful glance : SNEER

43. Road topper : TAR

45. Collar : NAB

46. Dish alternative : TV ANTENNA. Always have trouble spelling antenna.

47. Bring aboard : HIRE

48. Having no screws loose? : SANE. I'd have had all screws loose if I were Lois. What a brave gal! And so sweet.

52. Like a hard-to-fill order : TALL. Tall order.

55. "Hang on __" : A SEC

56. Córdoba kisses : BESOS. Spanish for "kisses'.

57. AAA part: Abbr. : ASSN

63. Shop item : TOOL

66. Goes on and on : JABBERS

68. "Unto the Sons" novelist : TALESE (Gay). More famous for his "Honor Thy Father".

69. Postgame recap? : I LOST. Great clue.

71. Pod fillers : PEAS

72. Time for carols : YULE. Bet it brought a smile to Carol.

76. Purim's month : ADAR

77. "Dragnet" gp. : LAPD

79. The Beavers of the Pac-10 : OSU (Oregon State University)

81. Boardwalk cooler : SEA BREEZE. Cool fill for Bill G.

82. More of the same, briefly : ETC. Etc, etc, etc.

84. NASCAR stat : MPH

85. Madagascan lemurs : AYEAYES. Stumped. Oh, dear, kind of scary looking.

91. Mama of pop : CASS

93. Didn't outrace anyone : RAN LAST

94. Gymnast Korbut et al. : OLGAS

95. "Mamma Mia" number : S.O.S.

96. Grafton's "__ for Burglar" : B IS

98. In addition : AT THAT

101. "SNL" announcer : PARDO (Don). Can you believe that I've never watched "SNL"?

102. Group for people in labor? : UNION. Labor Union.

103. "Tootsie" role winner : LANGE (Jessica)

104. eHarmony category : LIKES. Have never visited eHarmony. For eLove I suppose.

105. Archipelago units : ISLES

106. Sales rep's gadget : PAGER

107. Get a load of : AMASS. Read the clue as "Get a load off".

108. Sail, with "off" : SHOVE.

109. Bridge immortal : GOREN (Charles). No idea. He wrote "Winning Bridge Made Easy".

110. Risky rendezvous : TRYST

114. Bronze __ : STAR.

116. Part of a chorus line? : TRA. Tra la la.

117. Bug : VEX

Answer grid.

C.C.

Saturday August 21, 2010 Robert H. Wolfe

Theme: None

Total word: 72 / Total block: 34

Average word length: 5.31

Ha ha, a typical Robert H. Wolfe themeless Saturday. If you read my interview with him, you'd know that three colloquial grid-spanners are the hallmark of his Saturday puzzles:

17A. "I'll do it" : LET ME HANDLE THIS. Just awesome. I bet Bob is constantly counting on the number of letters in colloquial phrases.

38A. Words of disbelief : YOU'RE NOT SERIOUS. Nice one also.

58A. Words after thanks : I APPRECIATE THAT. My favorite.

Remarkable grid. Besides the three spanners, Bob also gives us ten 9s. As the norm with Saturday puzzles, some of the clues are very unambiguous but correct. Remember, clues are just clues, they don't need to be exact. They are not dictionary definitions.

Normally I dread the names in puzzles, but today I am very pleased to see:

19A. Joan of "The Last Emperor" : CHEN. Very beautiful. Hugely popular when I grew up. She was born and grew up in Shanghai. Chen (Mandarin) = Chan (Cantonese), as in Jackie/Charlie Chan.

40A. Hall of Fame Vikings lineman Carl : ELLER. Drug/alcohol plagues him. Our local newspaper reports on his every mishap. Their obsession with Brett Favre drive me nuts.

Across:

1. "Banded" arid-area reptile : SAND SNAKE. Well, I bet it's a gimme for Gunghy and Husker Gary. I've never heard of this reptile before.

10. Hitting sound : SPLAT

15. Body fat compound : OLEIC ACID. We often see OLEIC clued as partial, clued as "__ acid".

16. Bait : TEASE

20. WWII soldier in Africa : DESERT RAT. Not a familiar term to me.

21. Application datum : SEX. Well, I am not as DF as Dennis. I wanted AGE.

23. At least one : ANY

24. Chem class abbr. : AT WT (Atomic Weight)

27. Gave (out) : METED

31. Half a laugh : HEH

34. Film with a lot of reports : SHOOT 'EM UP. The Western movies. I just learned a few months ago that "reports" can mean "gun shots".

36. Coast : SHORE

41. Acted : TOOK STEPS. Didn't jump to me quickly.

42. Former British Poet Laureate Hughes : TED. Sylvia Plath's husband. Cold and aloof.

43. Fogg's creator : VERNE (Jules). No idea. Fogg is a character in his "Around the World in Eighty Day".

44. Computer unit : BYTE

45. Telepathy term : PSI. Stumped. Dictionary defines it as "any purported psychic phenomenon, as psychokinesis, telepathy, clairvoyance, or the like".

47. Cone lead-in : SNO. Sno cone.

49. Healthful desserts : FRUIT CUPS. With sprinkled toasted coconut flakes, yummy!

55. "Let's call __ evening" : IT AN

61. Early MTV staple : VIDEO

62. Fashionable partygoer? : LATE COMER. Nice clue.

63. Poet's superlative : ENORM. Enormous.

64. 1986 Blake Edwards comedy flop (aptly named, as it turned out) : A FINE MESS. No idea, though the poster looks familiar. I must have linked it before.

Down:

1. Longest note? : SOL. Oh, I get it. It's longest because all the other musical notes only have 2 letters: do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti.

2. Smart one? : ALEC. Smart alec.

3. 2010 FIFA World Cup finalist : NETH (Netherlands). And UCLA (52. 2010 College World Series runner-up). Too obscure clues for me, since I don't follow either.

4. See 49-Down : DIME STORE. And FIVE (49. With "and" and 59-Down, 4-Down) and TEN ( 59. See 49-Down). Five - and - Ten = Dime Store. I normally like cross-references, but got headache over this one.

5. View : SCENE

6. "Forget it" : NAH

7. USMA part: Abbr. : ACAD. USMA = United States Military Academy.

8. Biblical grazers : KINE. Cows. Maybe Windhover knows. He has profound knowledge on Bible.

9. Actor Byrnes and baseball Hall of Famer Roush : EDDS

10. Hard : STERN

11. Narrow : PETTY. Can you give an example on how they equate?

12. Actor who was born a Leo, as it happens : LAHR (Bert). The Cowardly Lion in "The Wizard of Oz". Interesting trivia.

13. Large land mass : ASIA

14. Check : TEST

18. Chair, say : LEAD. Verb, to chair a committee. I was thinking of furniture.

22. Cyclops and Beast, e.g. : X-MEN. Blind spots for me. Cyclops is just ugly.

24. So far : AS YET

25. Oar fulcrum : THOLE. Learned from doing Xword.

26. If only : WOULD

28. Hardly be stoical : EMOTE. "Be hardly stoical" is better, isn't it?

29. Oxford employee : TUTOR. Dictionary says tutor (esp in Oxford and Cambridge), means "a university officer, usually a fellow, responsible for teaching and supervising a number of undergraduates". Well, I hope Vidwan nailed it. He has British style education. I was baffled.

30. Printing pioneer : EPSON. Oh, really?

31. Rot : HOOEY

32. Blow : ERUPT

33. "Demian" author : HESSE (Hermann). I bet Kazie knows the book.

35. Dutch painter Gerard __ Borch : TER. No idea. Is "ter" like "van"/"de"?

36. H.S. VIPs : SRS. And SAT I (54. H.S. reasoning exam, formerly). Unknown to me also. Wish I had come to the US earlier. I presume Math and writing are SAT II and SAT III?

37. Crash and burn : HIT BOTTOM. Great clue/answer.

39. Gets by, with "out" : EKES. Ennui!

43. Annual resolution target : VICE. Oh, New Year resolutions.

45. Pepper picker : PIPER. Peter Piper, the pickled pepper picker.

46. Lindsey's predecessor in the Senate : STROM (Thurmond). I remember the Trent Lott incident during Thurmond's 100th birthday party.

48. Caroline, to Bobby : NIECE. Caroline/Bob Kennedy.

50. Noah's concern : RAIN

51. Style with pins : UPDO

53. "La Vie en Rose" singer : PIAF (Edith)

56. "Alas!" : AH ME

57. Nairn negatives : NAES. Nairn is a county in N. Scotland.

60. Some corp. officers : TRS. Boomer is the treasurer for our Townhouse Association. But he's not familiar with the abbr.

Answer grid.

Here is a set of five cute animal pictures forwarded to me from a faithful lurker code-named "B".

C.C.