Monday, January 17, 2011 Donna S. Levin

Theme: Game, Set, Match - The first four theme entries end in a term used in the sport that will give you the ailment in the fifth entry.

17A. Does some Web browsing: SURFS THE NET

24A. Coming-out gala: DEBUTANTE BALL

37A. Demand accompanied by a banging gavel: "ORDER IN THE COURT"

47. Illegal lottery : NUMBERS RACKET

58A. Lateral epicondylitis (and a possible injury hinted at by the ends of 17-, 24-, 37- and 47-Across): TENNIS ELBOW

Argyle here.

I did not start in the NW corner. 'Nuff said. Although the long entries were relatively easy, overall, this was one of the harder Mondays. But did you notice...the theme words (NET, BALL COURT & RACKET) were progressive in their length. Not a coincident, I'm thinking. Right, Donna?

Across:

1. Finalize, as a deal : SEW UP. I put in SHAKE and was slow to take it out.

6. "Let __!": "Start the ball rolling!" : IT RIP. I couldn't find a definitive meaning of the phrase but it relates to doing things quickly. It is much like how you can tear a fabric easily in one direction or if you are sawing lumber, ripping, or sawing with the grain, is much faster the cutting across the grain.

11. Sleep attire, briefly : PJs. Pajamas Adult Onesies.

14. Honolulu hello : ALOHA

15. NFL's winningest coach Don : SHULA. Now has a chain of steak houses.

16. Below-the-belt : LOW

19. "The Kids __ All Right": 2010 film : ARE. A book, a film, and a song(3:01).

20. Building wing : ELL

21. Photographed : SHOT

22. Brownish-green eye color : HAZEL. National Geographic.

28. Forever and ever : ALWAYS

30. Rolled grain : OATS

31. Clark's love : LOIS. And 12D. Superman's birth father : JOR-EL

32. "Me, too!" : "SO AM I!"

34. NFL six-pointers : TDs. Touchdowns

41. Casual shirt : TEE

42. La Virginie et la Caroline du Sud : ÉTATS. French for states (Virginia and S. Carolina)

43. La __ Tar Pits : BREA

44. Karate blow : CHOP

45. Restrain : REIN IN

52. Tibetan capital : LHASA

53. Bedouin, ethnically : ARAB

54. Eyjafjallajökull residue : ASH. Glad the Icelandic volcano is the clue and not the answer; it wouldn't fit anyway.

57. Get stuck for, as a cost : EAT

62. Regret : RUE

63. Furry "Star Wars" creatures : EWOKs

64. Track event : RELAY

65. Family Stone frontman : SLY

66. Thick : DENSE

67. Nerdy types : GEEKS

Down:

1. Submission encl. : SASE. Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope.

2. 12th Hebrew month : ELUL. The twelfth month of the Jewish civil year and the sixth month of the ecclesiastical year. (I could use a little help here.)

3. Global : WORLDWIDE

4. 300 to 3,000 MHz : UHF. The channels are 14 through 83. Remember when you had an antenna on the roof?

5. Elapse : PASS BY

6. Enjoys faddish popularity : IS HOT

7. It precedes iota : THETA. It's Greek to me.

8. Pantyhose woe : RUN

9. Sight in the Seine : ÎLE. French alliteration.

10. Pitiful : PATHETIC

11. Eloise's hotel, with "the" : PLAZA. From a series of children's books written by Kay Thompson

13. Peachy : SWELL

18. Ergo : THUS

23. Crunch targets : ABs

25. Relax, as restrictions : EASE

26. __ Ark : NOAH'S

27. Like most pets : TAME

28. Scads : A LOT

29. Wisdom of the elders : LORE

32. Clothes fasteners : SNAPS

33. Baseball great Mel : OTT

34. Phonograph component : TURNTABLE

35. Eins und zwei : DREI. German 1 + 2 = 3

36. Ollie's partner : STAN. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.

38. Readied the leftovers, say : REHEATED

39. "... believe __ not!" : IT OR

40. Big Apple theater award : OBIE. Off Broadway.

44. "Survivor" network : CBS

45. Some TVs : RCAs

46. Anita of "La Dolce Vita" : EKBERG. Image.

47. Cards and Phils : NLers. Baseball.

48. Amateur mover's rental : U-HAUL

49. Sailor's sobriquet : MATEY

50. Military levels : RANKS

51. Get up : ARISE

55. Hose down for a while : SOAK

56. Major rtes. : HWYs. In general, the interstates are even numbers for the east-west highways, increasing from south to north, and the odd numbers are north-south highways, increasing from west to east.

59. Woolly farm female : EWE

60. Rouen refusal : "NON". Rouen is the historic capital city of Normandy, in northern France.

61. Important name in Virginia history : LEE. La Virginie.

Answer grid.

Argyle

Sunday January 16, 2011 Jonathan Black

Theme: Put Me In, Coach - ME is inserted in each familiar name/phrase/word, and the resulting phrase is then humorously clued.

23A. King of workouts? : HENRY THE FIR(ME)ST. Henry the First.

45A. Belittle Short? : DE(ME)AN MARTIN. Dean Martin. Martin Short.

96A. Rogaine-induced reverie? : DREA(ME)D LOCKS. Dreadlocks. I've never heard of Rogaine. Drug for hair loss.

119A. Institution for Shrek and Fiona? : HO(ME)LY MATRIMONY. Holy matrimony.

15D. Footballers who draw flags? : DIRTY LINE(ME)N. Dirty Linen.

48D. Purloined sirloin? : (ME)AT HEIST. Atheist.

51D. Zoo area for dromedaries? : CA(ME)L ZONE. Calzone. Have yet to taste it.

64D. Silent cowboy flick? : MI(ME)D WESTERN. Midwestern.

Nice set of 8 theme answers. Half of them have one-word base phrases. No easy task to comb through **ME** words & come up with cluable answers.

I also like the intersection of 4 theme answers. Always impressive. The theme title is rather self-revealing though. I bet many of you grokked the gimmick quickly.

Could be Jonathan Black's debut. If so, congratulations.

Across:

1. Toward the ship's rear : ABAFT. Nailed it.

6. It may be rolled out : TARP. Was picturing red carpet.

10. Sandler of "Big Daddy" : ADAM

14. Really dig : ADORE

19. Man of La Mancha : SENOR. Nice play on the film "Man of La Mancha".

20. Asian nurse : AMAH. Lots of Filipinos working as nannies in Hongkong.

21. Steam (up) : RILE

22. River to the Tyrrhenian Sea : TIBER. Through Rome.

26. Cache : TROVE. Ah, now Argyle and I fully understood how important those cached files are.

27. Jam time : SESSION

28. Balaam's mount : ASS. Biblical mount.

29. Upscale groups : ELITEs

31. Swore : ATTESTED

34. By far : EASILY. Easily the best.

36. Seed protector : ARIL. Like the tiny white stuff covering the pomegranate seeds.

39. Isolate, in a way : ENISLE

41. Green sides : SALADS. Took me a minute.

50. __ Victor : RCA

52. Country where Baha'i was founded : IRAN. Their calendar consists of 19 months of 19 days.

53. Lab subject : DNA

54. Bully : COERCE

55. Hip bones : ILIA

57. Milky Way phenomenon believed to occur almost weekly : NOVA

58. Delay : LAG

59. Bullet that leaves a trail : TRACER. New to me.

60. Wordsworth works : POEMS

62. Commander, in Arabic : EMIR

63. Fragrant resin : ELEMI. Learned from doing Xword.

65. "My mama done __ me ...": song lyric : TOL'. Grammatically incomprehensible.

66. One paying a flat fee : LESSEE

67. Earned : MADE

68. Creep : INCH. Needs "along" in the clue, no?

70. Good in the 'hood : BAD

71. Bowler's assignment : LANE

73. Cup part : BRIM

76. Parting shot, say : RETORT. I don't get this clue. Why "parting"?

79. La __ : PAZ. Bolivia. Paz = "Peace"

81. Chimborazo's range : ANDES

85. Bank deposit : LODE. River bank. Awesome clue.

86. Beauty pageant prize : TIARA

87. Pounds : THROBS. What did you want, Dennis?

89. "__ fallen ..." : I'VE

90. Word most often heard around midnight : AULD. On New Year's Eve.

91. Talk with one's hands : SIGN. Sign language?

92. A lot of thinking is done in them : CRANIA. I feel the left side of my skull is bigger than the right side.

93. Truck capacity unit : TON

94. Hasenpfeffer, e.g. : STEW. I've never heard of this German rabbit stew, Kazie. Hase = Rabbit. Pfeffer = Pepper, a la Wiki.

95. Antitrust law enforcer: Abbr. : FTC

99. Mezzo Berganza : TERESA. No idea. She's Spanish.

101. They have reservations : HOTELS. Thought of Indians.

103. Quaker's pronoun : THEE. I confuse Quakers with Shakers.

104. Confined : SHUT IN

106. Most austere : BLEAKEST

111. Compound used to stabilize perfume : KETONE. Learning moment.

113. Charlotte-to-Raleigh dir. : ENE. I trust the constructor gets it right.

115. Self-playing instrument : PIANOLA

118. Like some floors : TILED

124. Bestow : AWARD

125. "-zoic" things : ERAS. I like this clue.

126. Cork's home : EIRE. Cork county, Ireland.

127. Bistro bill of fare : CARTE

128. Fool : NINNY

129. Coastal raptors : ERNS

130. Artistic impressions, briefly? : TATS (Tattoos).

131. See 2-Down : KNEES. And 2D. With 131-Across, greatest thing : BEES. Bee's knees.

Down:

1. Lenten symbol : ASH

3. Writer Tyler : ANNE. She is from Minnesota.

4. On eBay, e.g. : FOR SALE. I just buy.

5. Assignation : TRYST

6. California border lake : TAHOE

7. Words of agreement : AMENs

8. Churchill's "so few": Abbr. : RAF. Was unaware the "so few" in "Never was so much owed by so many to so few"refers to the Royal Air Force.

9. Key letter : PHI. Fraternity/Sorority key. Got me. (Correction: KEY here refers to the PHI Beta Kappa symbol. Thanks, Lemonade.)

10. Guns : ARMS

11. Semi filler : DIESEL

12. Capone and Capp : ALs. Then we have 114D. Capone harasser : NESS (Eliot). Capone echos.

13. Allots, with "out" : METES

14. Fifth-century scourge : ATTILA. Attila the Hun, Scourge of God.

16. O, in old radio lingo : OBOE. No idea.

17. Guns : REVS

18. "... __ he drove out of sight" : ERE

24. Little bird : TIT. Made me TEHEE (105. Giggle).

25. Pie cuts, essentially : RADII

30. Dr. Cuddy on "House" : LISA. Got via crosses.

32. 1970s-'90s Toyota : TERCEL. Wiki said "Tercel" derives from Latin meaning "one third" as the Tercel was slightly smaller than the Corolla.

33. Come in : ENTER

35. Mountain homes : AERIES. For the eagles.

36. Discombobulate : ADDLE. Fun word, discombobulate.

37. Kidney-related : RENAL

38. Candidate's concern : IMAGE

40. Threw barbs : SNIPED

42. Pizzeria attraction : AROMA

43. Longtime Seinfeld collaborator : DAVID (Larry)

44. Catch : SNARE

46. Join the cast of : ACT IN

47. "__ any drop to drink": Coleridge : NOR

49. "Giovanna d'__": Verdi opera : ARCO. Know nothing about operas.

56. __ Altos, California : LOS

61. Caribbean, e.g. : SEA

66. Delt neighbor : LAT

69. PC component : CRT

70. German chancellor, 1969-'74 : BRANDT (Willy). First encounter with this guy. He won Nobel Peace in 1971.

72. Like Willie Nelson's voice : NASAL. Boomer loves his songs.

73. Great time : BLAST

74. Beat : ROUTE

75. Dynamo's antithesis : IDLER

77. Discipline involving slow movement : TAI CHI. Very slow. Mostly practiced by old people in China.

78. Web address ending : ORG

79. "Wheel of Fortune" category : PHRASE

80. Saroyan's "My Name Is __" : ARAM. I've never heard of the book.

82. Abandon : DITCH

83. Arouse : EVOKE

84. Taste, e.g. : SENSE

87. Immune response component : T CELL

88. Nod, maybe : BID

95. Man-goat deity : FAUN. Satyr is a faun, right?

97. Mutiny : REBEL

98. It can help you relax : OTTOMAN. Sofa.

100. Poorly made : SHODDY

102. Like some bands : ONE-MAN

107. Like soldiers and their families, usually : APART. Poignant clue.

108. Toys with tails : KITES

109. Ring bearer? : EAR. Earrings?

110. Small cut : SNICK

111. Smallest ratite bird : KIWI

112. Brio : ELAN

116. Traditional wisdom : LORE

117. A chip, maybe : ANTE

118. "The Joy Luck Club" author : TAN (Amy). Very authentic portrayal of Chinese-American immigrants.

120. "Catch-22" pilot : ORR. Wow, no idea, Bobby!

121. "Are we there __?" : YET

122. "Mamma __!" : MIA

123. "Absolutely!" : YES

Answer grid.

C.C.