Monday, March 25, 2013 David Steinberg

Theme: Flippers - Eight, count 'em, eight two word entries that make sense no matter which word comes first.

13A. Borscht vegetable : RED BEET. There are other colored beets with a slightly different taste.

15A. Aromatic hybrid blossom : TEA ROSE. So named for their tea scent.

19A. Original M&M's filling : MILK CHOCOLATE. Now with a variety of fillings, including dark chocolate, crisped rice, mint chocolate, peanuts, almonds, orange chocolate, coconut, pretzel, wild cherry, cinnamon, raspberry, and peanut butter. Get them for Easter.

35A. Product of boiled sap : MAPLE SUGAR. A timely entry.

41A. Tree with brilliant foliage : SUGAR MAPLE

54A. Brown cow product? : CHOCOLATE MILK. Old joke: Where does chocolate milk come from? Brown cows!

63A. Beverage blend using buds : ROSE TEA. I prefer rose hips(or a different bud). Ya' dig?

64A. The color of embarrassment : BEET RED. Beet white never caught on.

Argyle here. If you missed it, check out our young constructor's interview. (side bar) Since it was such an easy solve on the theme(you had two chances to get each one), it's only fair you might find a couple of harder clues in there. A sweet start to the week.

Across:

1. Playtex purchase : BRA

4. Org. with a "Most Wanted" list : FBI

7. Bygone fast flier, briefly : SST. But it will never be gone from crossword memory.

10. Salsa or guacamole : DIP

17. Corroded : ATE INTO. Found this hard to parse, sitting in the grid.

18. Having material that "may not be suitable for children," per the MPAA : RATED PG

21. Very wide shoe size : EEEE

22. Downs' opposites : UPS'

23. Suffix with web or nanny : CAM

26. Considers really cool : DIGS. I'm hip, Daddy-o.

29. South American pack animal : LLAMA

31. Vegas rollers : DICE

38. Monogram component : INITIAL

40. Buffalo nickel or Mercury dime : OLD COIN

43. Feminine ending : ENNE

44. Orange container : CRATE

45. Tickle Me __ : ELMO

47. Above, to Shelley : O'ER

48. "__ had enough!" : I'VE

50. "This is __ test" : NOT A. I'm lucky I've never had to hear this warning.

60. Helter-skelter : CHAOTIC. Might be the scene after hearing the preceding.

62. Surround with troops : BESIEGE

65. Haven't yet paid : OWE

66. Sphere : ORB

67. Mandela's org. : ANC. (African National Congress)

68. Some SAT takers : SR's

Down:

1. Author Stoker : BRAM. His novel? "Dracula"

2. Fix, as shoelaces : RETIE. What Moms do before knot-tying lessons.

3. One-named singer of "Skyfall" : ADELE

4. Used an épée, say : FENCED

5. "Little Women" woman : BETH

6. "Was __ harsh?" : I TOO

7. Razor sharpener : STROP. A flexible strip of leather used to maintain the blade of a straight razor. I better add a picture.

8. Flippered fish eaters : SEALS

9. "Hasta la vista!" : "TA-TA!"

10. Twelve-sided figure : DODECAGON. (doh-dek-uh-gon)

11. Way to the www : ISP

12. ... square __ in a round hole : PEG. or even a dodecagon hole.

14. Mountain wheels : BIKE. Bike riders, what are your wheels?

16. No longer working: Abbr. : RET.

20. Tip of a crescent : CUSP

24. With all one's strength : AMAIN. Does ever crossword puzzle need an 'a'-word?

25. Strategic WWI French river : MARNE. During a quieter time.
 

27. Muslim official : IMAM

28. Elaborate celebration : GALA

29. '60s psychedelic drug : LSD

30. Fortune magazine founder : LUCE.  Henry Luce.

31. Bee Gees genre : DISCO

32. Get used (to) : INURE

33. Holder of Cubans : CIGAR CASE
 

34. State, to Jacques : ÉTAT

36. Laze : LOLL

37. Grades K-6: Abbr. : ELEM.

39. Wrath : IRE

42. Banana throwaway : PEEL

46. "Be right there!" : "ONE SEC!"

48. More slippery, as roads : ICIER

49. Eng. lesson with synonyms : VOCAB. ulary

51. Neglect to mention : OMIT

52. Wedding cake layers : TIERS

53. Author Horatio : ALGER

55. Tough row to __ : HOE

56. Director Preminger : OTTO

57. "Mamma Mia!" quartet : ABBA. (palindrome section)

58. New driver, typically : TEEN

59. Sneakers brand : KEDS. Taylor Swift wears them.

60. __-Magnon : CRO. did not wear them.

61. By what means : HOW

Argyle

Sunday March 24, 2013 Michael Blake & Myles Callum

Theme: "If Ever I Would Leave You" - I is removed from each theme entry.

23A. CliffsNotes bio of a civil rights leader? : CONDENSED MLK. Condensed milk.

36A. Junk-rated salad? : BBB LETTUCE. Bibb lettuce.

64A. Popular cosmetic surgery? : NOSE ABATEMENT. Noise abatement.

92A. Winnebago-driving elder? : OLD MAN RVER.  Old Man River.

111A. Prison? : CON COLLECTOR. Coin collector.

17D. Art teacher's tip for drawing a lion? : REMEMBER THE MANE. Remember the Maine.

42D. What the team's goat mascot did? : SWALLOWED THE BAT. Swallowed the bait.

Noticed there are no extra I's in the theme entry at all? Nice touch. Sometimes we see letters removed from the key words, but not completely from all theme answers.

Of course, there are still 21 I's in non-theme entries. Hard to completely avoid a common letter when there are 375 empty squares to fill.

This grid only has 138 words & 66 black squares. Fairly low compared with the 144 & 78 norm we get on Sundays.

Across:

1. Term attributed to architect Le Corbusier : ART DECO. New trivia to me. More familiar with our Xword stalwart Erté.

8. Black cloud : anger :: light bulb : __ : IDEA

12. Amazon checkout option : GIFT-WRAP

20. Everest climbers : SHERPAs

21. Brits' outerwear : MACs

22. "Who would refuse that?!" : I'D LOVE TO. 8D. "That's about it" : I'M DONE. 35. "My turn" : I'M NEXT. All nice entries.

25. Shoebox creations : DIORAMAS

26. Worshipped : ADORED

27. Five-star : A-ONE

28. "Awakenings" drug : L-DOPA

29. Biblical suffix : ETH

30. Curtail : PARE

31. It can be spun two ways : YARN

33. Author Potok : CHAIM. "My Name is Asher Lev".

35. Hungary's Nagy : IMRE. Learned from doing Xwords.

38. Stereotypical Monroe roles : BIMBOS. Poor Marilyn.

40. TV funded by "Viewers Like You" : PBS

43. Arctic explorer John : RAE

44. Gretzky, once : OILER. Edmonton Oilers.

45. TV reporter Peter : ARNETT. Been out of news for quite some time.

46. Oregon Coast Aquarium city : NEWPORT. Only know the one in RI.

48. "Sesame Street" crank : OSCAR

49. Garson of Hollywood : GREER

50. Some 6-Downs : CLARKS. And 6D. Snack stand array : CANDY BARS

51. NYU, for one : SCH

52. Edinburgh native : SCOT

54. Bonus, in adspeak : XTRA. Love the Xtra serum (left) I got yesterday. Smells divine. Eager to try the shampoo/conditioner after I'm done with this write-up.

57. Beat : PULSE

58. Monkeyshines : ANTICS

61. "Give Peace a Chance" co-songwriter : ONO

62. Crossword solver's ref. book : THES. OK, thesaurus.

63. Lip-reading alternative: Abbr. : ASL

68. Terrestrial newt : EFT

69. Frat jacket P's : RHOS

71. Title for Connery : SIR

72. Online persona : AVATAR. Turn blue! It's very simple.

73. One about to shoot : AIMER

75. Small flightless bird : KIWI

76. Sticks on : ADDS

78. Miguel's "more" : MAS. No mas!

79. Mena of "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh" : SUVARI. Never saw the movie. But "Mena" is enough. She's Kevin Spacey's daughter in "American Beauty". (Correction: Spacey's daughter is played by Thora Birch.)

80. Story in la maison : ETAGE

82. Pros' foes : ANTIS

85. Approached dusk : LATENED. Spell check does not like this word.

86. Title for Dickens's Defarge : MADAME

88. Liquid fat : OLEIN

89. It may be tapped : ALE

90. Rare shoe width : EEE

91. Team with a star in its logo : ASTROS. American League now.

95. Slangy negatives : NAHS

96. Getting warm : CLOSE

97. "Uh, excuse me ..." : AHEM

98. Pet pad : CAGE

102. Pavarotti's trio : TRE

103. Not in any way : NO HOW

105. Kindle read : ZINE

107. Colonel Klink's clink : STALAG. Never saw "Hogan's Heroes". Wiki says Stalag is a contraction of Stammlager, "base camp". Stamm = Base, same as our Stem then. Lager = Camp.

109. Applied during a massage : RUBBED IN. Melissa knows her oils.

113. Causing worry : ALARMING

114. Film adventurer, informally : INDY. I only know the films are Indie films. (Argyle: Indiana Jones.)

115. Lose freshness : GO STALE. And 49D. Toast, with "a" : GONER. Minor dupe. GO/GONE. Tough to spot when constructing.

116. '70s fad items shipped in boxes with air holes : PET ROCKS

117. Most '90s Prizms : GEOS

118. Parched : ATHIRST. Kind of like AREEL, ALOP, yes?

Down:

1. Tin Pan Alley gp. : ASCAP

2. Tenant in Carlton the Doorman's building : RHODA. Stumper for me. But Valerie Harper is one brave woman.

3. Voice above baritone : TENOR

4. Snoop Dogg's discoverer : DR. DRE.  Learned this trivia from cluing DRE.

5. Sport with feinting : EPEE

7. William Donovan's WWII org. : OSS. Donovan created OSS and was considered the father of CIA.

9. Rhett's last word : DAMN

10. Varied : ECLECTIC

11. Use the reference desk : ASK

12. More flighty : GIDDIER

13. Down in the dumps, say : IDIOM. Nice clue.

14. Dud : FLOP

15. __ Bora: Afghan mountain area : TORA

16. Harpers Ferry's st. : WVA. Yellowrocks might have visited Harpers Ferry.  She really has an encyclopedic mind.

18. Semi-quickly : AT A TROT

19. Most swanky : POSHEST

24. Title for Devereux : EARL. Earl of Essex.

28. Moms, before knot-tying lessons : LACERS

32. Act as accomplice to : ABET

34. Symbolic dance : HULA

36. On the blink : BROKEN

37. Japanese TV pioneer : TOSHIBA. The TO part stands for Tokyo.

38. MacLane who played General Peterson on "I Dream of Jeannie" : BARTON. Never heard of him. Was it a gimme to you?

39. Spleen : IRE

40. Pirates' home : PNC PARK. Twins play at Target Field. Corporate names!

41. Jim of "According to Jim" : BELUSHI

47. Common string that omits Q : PRS.  Phone. 7.

48. Twice tetra- : OCTA

51. Bergen dummy : SNERD

53. Unconscious states : COMAS

55. Ring figure : REFEREE

56. In the saddle of, traditionally : ASTRIDE

58. Thespian's whisper : ASIDE

59. Ohio cager, briefly : CAV. Can't picture LeBron James returning there.

60. Triathlete's need : STAMINA

65. Siouan speakers : OSAGES

66. Updated midflight nos. : ETAs

67. More high-strung : TAUTER

70. Long-necked strings : SITARs

74. Bobby Rydell's "__ Got Bonnie" : I'VE

77. Sickly-looking : SALLOW

79. King novel with two apostrophes in the title : 'SALEM'S LOT. From Wiki: The story involves a writer named Ben Mears who returns to the town where he lived as a boy between the ages of 9 through 13 (Jerusalem's Lot, or 'Salem's Lot for short) in Maine to discover that the residents are all becoming vampires.

81. Latin lover's word : AMO.

83. Sparks and Beatty : NEDs

84. Mountain, e.g. : TIME ZONE. Art of cluing. "Mountain or Pacific" will give the answer away. 

85. Cleanse : LAVE

86. Seductress : MANTRAP. Hmmm, let me guess what Barry will say: I really wanted MAN EATER. I don't think I've ever seen a woman referred to as a MAN TRAP before.

87. Generally speaking : AS A RULE

88. Chinese teas : OOLONGs

93. Kwan and Kerrigan : NANCYS. "The World of Suzie Wong" is a popular seller at Hong Kong Airport.

94. Prefix with stat : RHEO

96. Armor problem : CHINK. Alright!

98. Sonoran flora : CACTI

99. A train may be headed for it : ALTAR. Great clue.

100. Plymouth pokies : GAOLs. The beauty salon I visited in Guangzhou is next to a police station. I heard beating and crying all the times and thought nothing of human rights or whatever. I just thought those bad guys deserved the punishment. No surprise I'm for waterboarding.

101. Wetlands wader : EGRET

103. 2013 Northeast superstorm : NEMO. The blizzard.

104. Like Pindar's poetry : ODIC

106. Chinese intro : INDO. Indochina. The real intro is "Ni hao" ("Hello!"). Ni = You. Hao = Good. Sounds very ungrammatical, doesn't it? "You're very beautiful" in Chinese is "Ni Hen Piao Liang", literally "You very beautiful".  Ungrammatical too. Ni = You. Hen = Very. Piao Liang = Beautiful. No "are" in this case.

108. "Intelligence for Your Life" radio host : TESH (John)

110. Cold comment : BRR

111. Short pack item : CIG

112. Flushing Bay airport letters : LGA

C.C.