Friday, March 4, 2011, Matt Matera

Theme: Playing with your food again? Four common phrases have one word replaced with a breakfast food item, to create an amusing sound alike phrase, clued in a witty fashion. No unifier today; a day to work hard for our solutions.

20A. Halloween breakfast pastry?: CREEPY CRULLER. CREEPY CRAWLER is the base phrase, a toy from Mattel, I think, where you make cute worms.

33A. Lone breakfast pastry?: CRUMPET SOLO. TRUMPET SOLO; I am sure JzB wishes there were more Trombone solos.

42A. Cherished breakfast pastry?: THE BUN I LOVE. Maybe you remember this song, THE ONE I LOVE my favorite theme answer.

56A. Ones hooked on breakfast pastry? : THE SCONEHEADS. The SNL creation with Dan Ackroyd and Larraine Newman, the Coneheads. I am on a big scone eating kick these days, mostly orange cranberry; I think it is because I am reading too many British mysteries and need my elevenses.

Lemonade here.

This was a fun Friday, with some very hard parts, from a fairly new constructor, who had his solo debut here in October,  He is a friend of Joon Pahk, another young gun. I thought the theme was amusing, and it being a 4 pronged mini-clecho added to the challenge. Let us see what else Matt had up his number 2 pencil, which made me work very hard.

Across:

1. The word?: MUM. Once you see the answer and picture the phrase, "Mum's the word," this is easy, but there are so many words. Shakespeare said in Henry VI, part II, "Seal up your lips and give no words but mum."

4. You might need to watch yours: STEP. Wow, another idiomatic phrase, this could be a long night.

8. Like some Disneyland passes: TWO DAY. I have only been to Disneyland once, and it was quite small. I moved to Florida just before they opened Disney-world, so I was spoiled. How many have been to both? No more E tickets anyway.

14. Downed: ATE. I may have to eat my words if this does not get easier.

15. __ bene: NOTA. Oh goody, Latin and a common legal term; this phrase, usually abbreviated (NB) means pay special attention to this area. Literally to note well.

16. It may involve an exaggerated age: FAKE ID. Another legal (okay illegal) concept. The greatest one being this ID .

17. With 19-Across, serious warnings: RED. 19. See 17-Across: ALERTS. The highest level; Homeland Security advises we are at Yellow alert today.

18. Not much: A BIT. Another idiom in the first ten clues.

23. 1938 "The War of the Worlds" broadcast, for one: HOAX. Do you think Orson Wells could pull off this in modern times?

24. Keystone enforcer: KOP. Mack Sennet's bumbling bobbys appeared with another crossword favorite Mable Normand.

25. Blazing: AFIRE. Oh, the obligatory A word.

28. Go-aheads: ASSENTS.

32. __'acte: ENTR. My French lesson of the day, ENTRE means between, but French loves elision, so the last E is removed to make one sound for the phrase meaning intermission, or between the act(s).

37. Garden product word: GRO. Scott's bought Sterns Miracle-Gro Products, Inc for their very successful Miracle Gro line of fertilizers. They work, though some say with side effects.

38. Attacks: RUNS AT. Another phrase, but not such a popular one.

39. Igloos and yurts: ABODES. Most of us are familiar with the Igloo, but not a YURT .

41. Sch. attendance notation: ABS. No ladies, not an excuse to show some guy with great abdominal muscles, an abbreviation for ABSENT.

46. End of a boast: VICI. More Latin, just to appease me; VENI, VIDI (I came, I saw) before I conquered.

48. Got for nothing: SPONGED. Well I know sponging off people means getting for nothing, but the tenses made this difficult, especially as the perps were not gimmes.

49. Make official: ENACT. Make into law.

51. Newspaper supply: INK. Don't you just hate the ink all over your hands when you finish reading the paper? Why do I hear Andy Rooney saying that in my head?

52. Islamic leader: IMAM. There is a tremendous variance between Sunni Imam and the Shi'a Imam, with the Sunni, it is more leadership like a Rabbi, and more religious with the Shi'a.

60. Type of sauce served with falafel: TAHINI. This wonderful, creamy garlicky sauce uses the sesame paste as its central ingredient, but many other flavors are mixed in to blend with chicken and other bland food.

62. Gaucho's weapon: BOLA. As kids, my brothers and I tried to make our own BOLAS but we did not have any tall animals, except each other, on whom to practice.

63. Homework amount?: TON. Aww, mom I have a TON of homework!

64. Puck's king: OBERON. More Shakespeare, Midsummers Night Dream, and the Queen was...?

65. "Dulce et Decorum est" poet Wilfred __: OWEN. A much respected but not widely known poet from WWI, who died 7 days before Armistice Day, but did have his thoughts on war preserved and published. Here is more information on him in this LINK .

66. Flow out: EBB. Our Crosswordese 101.

67. Henry VIII et al.: TUDORS. The Welsh family which ruled great Britain until they died out when Elizabeth I had no children, and her cousin, James the VI of Scotland became the King, and the first in the house of Stuart. The Showtime series is interesting, though quite explicit.

68. Hitch: SNAG. Another tricky one, as the dictionary has seven meanings for the noun HITCH, plus more for the verbs.

69. Wall St. monitor: SEC. Securities and Exchange Commission.

I would not have been able to finish if it were not for the downs, so we better get going.

Down:

1. Orderly movement: MARCH. I hope these memories are all happy ones Dennis, it is time for MUSIC .

2. Nirvana #1 album "In __": UTERO. And more MUSIC ; I never go into this.

3. Scorned lover of Jason: MEDEA. But I surely love my namesake appearing, even if it is a reminder of the Biatch Medea murdering my poor children in a jealous rage. hey, boys must be boys.

4. Lose it: SNAP. You could say Medea just snapped.

5. Michael's nemesis on "The Office": TOBY. Never have watched the OFFICE .

6. Boarding pass generator: ETICKET. And now our obligatory E word.

7. Sponsors: PATRONS. This was a more meaningful clue when rich people were the Patrons who sponsored artists and musicians, so they could concentrate on their art and not have to worry about working.

8. Brand of nonstick cookware: TFAL.Also known as TEFAL; you think the TE comes from TEFLON?

9. Half a city: WALLA. WALLA WALLA, Washington is where the tribe of native Americans known as the Walla Walla lived before the Whitman family arrived.

10. Michael of "Caddyshack":O'KEEFE. As a young man, he played the caddy who defeated Ted Knight for the club championship in the movie. However, he recently played Wally Wandell in Brothers & Sisters which sounds like Walla Walla. Coincidence?

11. Gallantry: DERRING DO. I wonder if the history of the word relates to DERRINGER or perhaps DERRIERE, both of which can be quite dangerous in the wrong hands?

12. River island: AIT. An ait (or eyot) is a small island. It is especially used to refer to islands found on the River Thames and its tributaries in England. The words "ait" and "eyot" are not common in modern English, although a few famous writers have used it, including J. R. R. Tolkien in his Lord of the Rings books, and Charles Dickens in Bleak House. It is also used by Thackeray in Vanity Fair. or so says Wiki. I never would have gotten this, but for perps.

13. NFL stat: YDS. Yards.

21. Show-what-you-know chances: EXAMS. I started with TESTS, but eventually worked my way out.

22. Machinating: UP TO. Another perfectly common word, used in a tense that was confusing. His machinations are deceptive.

26. Prelate's title: Abbr.: RT REV. we had a nice long discussion of Right Reverent some time ago.

27. Unevenly worn: EROSE. Oh, like the AIT which can disappear in the river.

29. Cross words: SPAT. Oh how very punny!

30. Actors Rogen and Green: SETHS. Both started out as child actors, Rogen in Freaks and Geeks and Green in a million guest parts. Rogen appeared in SUPERBAD which I linked above.

31. Big gun or big cheese: SLANG. Completely fooled me for a while, especially another food clue.

33. Desire and then some: CRAVE. Like my wanting some breakfast pastry NOW!

34. Clinton Treasury secretary: RUBIN. Robert Rubin; do we care? How about now, I will give you a hint, his initials are T G.

35. In one piece: UNSCATHED. I love this word, but I did not make it through this puzzle unscathed.

36. Award with a Sustained Achievement category: OBIE. The off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway Awards; a show that makes it up as it goes along; a product of the Village Voicenewspaper.

40. "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini," for one: OLDIE. An oldie but a goodie.

43. Broad: EPIC. Huh? I have known some wonderful women, but EPIC?

44. Endangered great apes: BONOBOS. Am I the only one who completely missed out this entire species of CHIMPANZEE .J. Fred Muggs, help me!

45. x, at times: UNKNOWN. In all forms of mathematics, a symbol for the unknown.

47. Baseball star who reportedly said, "I think there's a sexiness in infield hits": ICHIRO. Mr. Suzuki, who came to the US after 9 years of professional baseball in Japan, has had at least 200 hits in each of his 10 seasons, a record, and had 262 one year, another record.

50. Caruso, for one: TENOR. Enrico the singer, not David the whiner.

53. A couple: MATES. Why does that word always make me hear in Australian? Kazie?

54. Acrobat developer: ADOBE. Which is an anagram of ABODE. See above.

55. Rachel Maddow's station: MSNBC. I have never watched this NEWSPERSON .

57. Serious lapses: SINS. Now we are talking, that is all it was, a little lapse on my part.

58. Zeno's home: ELEA.Zeno of Elea was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher of southern Italy and a member of the Eleatic School founded by Parmenides. Aristotle called him the inventor of the dialectic. He is best known for his paradoxes. Paradoxically, I have never heard of him either.

59. Dangle: HANG. How they dangling just does not have the same ring to it.

60. Tater __: TOT. Finally, a food gimme for ORE-IDA.

61. __ Simbel, site of Ramses II temples: ABU. Can you believe they moved these TEMPLES to make room for the Asswan Dam?

Answer grid.

This was a difficult puzzle for me, maybe my eyes failing gives me an excuse, but it is mostly stuff I did not know and had to sneak up on, and make logical guesses. I hope you enjoy March.

Lemonade

Thursday, March 3, 2011 Don Gagliardo

Theme: Revealed in 36 Across: One of six in this puzzle: ANAGRAM CROSSING.

1A. SPOUTS crosses 5D. TOSSUP

18A. MANATEES crosses 10D. EMANATES

28A. PASTA crosses 24D. TAPAS

48A. TOTEM crosses 35D. MOTET

61A. PEAR TREE crosses 37D. REPARTEE

68A. MENTAL crosses 49D. MANTLE

Al here. I eliminated the clues in the above, hopefully to make the theme answers and their relationships clearer, but included them down in the rest of the write-up. One of those puzzles where the theme really didn't come into play for me. Just as with Dan's puzzle yesterday, this "solved" like a themeless puzzle. Even once I knew they were supposed to be there, I had to look for places where the across and down were the same length, and of course the symmetric positions, after I was done solving. Very heavy theme count, 13 answers, 79 squares. Lots of tricky cluing as well, so a fun solve, but not a walk in the park by any means.  I made a colored picture showing the theme layout, but there are so many crossings with other answers, I'm not sure it helps all that much. At the bottom there are notes from Don about constructing something like this.

ACROSS:

1. Orates: SPOUTS. As in a fountain spouting, comes from a root word meaning to spit. It was also the slang term for the lift in a pawnbroker's shop, up which articles were taken for storage, hence fig. phrase up the spout "lost, hopeless, gone beyond recall"

7. Hourly wage, e.g.: BASE RATE.

15. Refuses to: CANNOT. This one took me a long time to agree with, so I held off filling it in at first, but when someone says "I cannot help you", it does usually mean they won't, not that they are unable to.

16. Astronomy measurements: AZIMUTHS. The definition is just confusing: Distance of a star from the north or south point of the meridian. A picture works better.

17. Engrave: INCISE. Cutting into.

18. Sea cows: MANATEES. Dugongs are in the same family.

19. Brief needlework?: TATS. Tatting is making knotted lace. (Correction, as several regulars pointed out, and I originally missed, this is short for tattoos)

20. Megan's "Will & Grace" role: KAREN. Megan Mullaly, Karen Walker. Grace's secretary, who doesn't really need to work because she married into money several times.

21. Label for some Glenn Frey hits: MCA. Music Corporation of America.

22. Physicist with a law: OHM. I was taught this as V=IR (voltage = amperage times resistance)

23. Acting teacher Hagen: UTA.

25. "It __ far, far better thing...": Dickens: IS A. From Tale of Two Cities, It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest I go to than I have ever known.

26. Wages: PAY. Can't argue with that...or else you'll get canned.

27. Get: SEE. I get it, see?

28. Noodles, say: PASTA.

30. The Simpsons, e.g.: TOONS.

32. Wedding dance: HORA. The chair dance, right?

34. Fabled mattress lump: PEA.

35. Mal de __: MER. Sea sickness. Also once meant scurvy.

42. Some tech sch. grads: EES. Electrical Engineers.

43. Top ten item: HIT.

44. Sign: OMEN.

45. Pricey: STEEP.

48. Pole symbol: TOTEM.

50. Wall St. exec's degree: MBA. Master of Business Administration.

51. Collar: NAB. Variant of nap "to grab or seize" as in kidnap.

52. "Aladdin" monkey: ABU. The Disney version.

54. Frat letter: ETA. College Greeks.

55. Food scrap: ORT.

56. Geneva-based workers' gp.: ILO. International Labour Organization.

57. Babe and Baby: RUTHS. A candy bar and a baseball great shaped like one.

59. Gijon goose egg: NADA. Spanish for nothing. A numeric zero on a scoreboard looks like a big fat goose egg.

61. Orchard grower: PEAR TREE.

63. An iamb's second half gets it: STRESS.

65. Noteworthy: ESTEEMED. As in estimated, from ais-temos "one who cuts copper," i.e. mints money.

66. Mount McKinley's home: ALASKA. Did Mrs. McKinley ever visit? I dunno, I'll ask her.

67. Relax: REST EASY.

68. Word with health or illness: MENTAL. I was disappointed when this show was canceled. I should go work for the networks, I think. If I like a show, they'll know not to even bother making it and save a lot of money. Firefly, New Amsterdam, John Doe, all too short-lived. The networks are all Mental.

DOWN:

1. __-fi: SCI. An "old" abbrev for Science Fiction. SF writers prefer it to be called SF these days, but that's too short for a crossword answer.

2. Temple of the gods: PANTHEON.

3. Being filmed: ON CAMERA.

4. Platoon, for one: UNIT.

5. Anybody's guess: TOSSUP.

6. Chateau __ Michelle winery: STE. A new and different way to clue a French abbrev for a female saint.

7. The Tide: BAMA. They call Alabama the crimson tide. Deacon Blues.

8. Hank who voices many 30-Across: AZARIA. Also played three roles in the "Night at the Smithsonian" movies: Kahmunrah/The Thinker/Abe Lincoln.

9. Cosecant reciprocals: SINES. A graph showing the relationship.

10. Arises: EMANATES. Directly from Latin emanare "flow out, arise, proceed,"

11. Groove: RUT. Sure, they mean the same thing, except when they don't idiomatically. If I'm "in the groove", I'm certainly not "in a rut".

12. At the original speed, in music: A TEMPO.

13. Jail, in slang: THE CAN. If you played kick the can, someone had to go to jail. I wonder if one is related to the other.

14. Tests that are hard to guess on: ESSAYS.

20. Deejay Casey: KASEM.

22. Dept. of Labor agency: OSHA. Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

24. Spanish appetizers: TAPAS. Lots of different kinds.

29. Speed: Pref.: TACHO. Straight from the Greek.

31. Meeting time qualifier: OR SO.

33. One-time Time critic James: AGEE.

35. Sacred choral piece: MOTET.

37. Comeback: REPARTEE.

38. Solemn acts: RITES.

39. Bold: IMMODEST.

40. Big 12 school soon to be in the Big Ten: NEBRASKA.

41. No-see-um, say: GNAT.

45. Hard-to-see shooter: SNIPER.

46. "Thy Neighbor's Wife" author: TALESE. About "free love", i.e. a marriage-less society.

47. WWII torpedo launchers: E-BOATS. The "E" is thought to mean Enemy, but could be from Eilboot (hurry boat). They were called Schnellboots by the German navy.

48. Some learners: TUTEES.

49. It's beneath the crust: MANTLE. Layers of the earth, crust, mantle, core. (OK, two mantles and two cores if you're picky).

53. Siam neighbor: BURMA. Today's geography lesson.

58. Actress Lamarr: HEDY. Along with being quite the looker, she co-invented an early technique for spread spectrum communications, a key to many forms of wireless communication from the pre-computer age to the present day.

60. Sweater style named for Irish islands: ARAN.

62. Like some mil. officers: RET. Military, retired.

63. Yosemite __: SAM. The rootinest tootinest shootinest bob tailed wild cat in the west.

64. ESPN reporter Paolantonio: SAL. Not in my sphere of awareness.

Answer Grid.

Al

Here are some thoughts from Don about today's puzzle:

"Anagram Crossing:

Sometimes a theme shows up while one is constructing another puzzle. In this case, I noticed two words in a grid crossing each other that were anagrams of each other. I thought that was interesting, and started to play with the possibilities. One needs a unifier in this case, and ANAGRAM CROSSING was a lucky choice, being exactly 15-letters long. That meant that it had to be in the center, because anywhere else would require another 15-letter word to reflect it, and that would disrupt the theme pattern. I thought that I could get six anagram crossings, and it ended up that I could barely do that. The central 15-letter answer makes it a great challenge. On the plus side, there are many anagrams to choose from. On the down side, they have to cross in my scheme, and possibly cross the central answer, and I wanted to enter them symmetrically in the grid and cross at the same places. I don’t know why. It just looks prettier that way. So I just kept hunting, and eventually worked it out. On my first submission, Rich thought that I shouldn’t have a brand name entry, so I had to change things. I think I ended up with five different grids, if that is an indication of how difficult it is to change something like this. I don’t think I’ll try that again!"