Saturday, Jun 9th, 2012, Michael Wiesenberg

Theme: None

Words: 70

Blocks: 26

Hi there~! Hope your morning solve was a tough, but enjoyable one - this is my first time analyzing a Mr. Wiesenberg construction in the year I have been here at the blog, and I either knew his answers, or I was completely lost - and no 51D. was going to help. Triple stacks of 11- and 10-letters in a classic pinwheel frame, most of which came easy with a few letters; it was the middle "stairs" that did me in - yes, I cheated today. oh well.... ONWARD with some of the longer strings -

17A. Western Hemisphere group : THE AMERICAS - we'll start with a map - one that everyone should be familiar with....so I went with an "ALT" (q.v. 45A) light pollution version

53A. Skinny : ECTOMORPHIC - I thought this guy was an "Ectomorph", and he ain't skinny

14D. Opalescent gems : MOONSTONES - sounds cool, like they came from the moon, but they're found right here on Earth

25D. Snooze : GRAB SOME Z'S - just great fill here - I got it from the crossing "ZEE"

I already said it, my Orthorunican friends~!!!

ACROSS:

1. "See ya!" : I'M OUTTA HERE - nice start, since I was not going anywhere until I was finished; I did have to wait until I had some downs filled first. Reminds me of Dennis Miller's sign off on SNL, 4 rows down here

12. Part of an org. : MEMber

15. Overprotective governments : NANNY STATES

16. Simpson judge : ITO

18. HBO alternative : SHO - Showtime TV - their website is www.sho.com

19. Ruman of Marx Brothers films : SIG

20. Wing: Pref. : PTER - as in Pterodactyl - this fella

21. Good sense : REASON

23. Place for a Valentine's Day gift : VASE - "Aww, you brought that tall man some flowers..." - OK, what movie, huh? huh?

24. Puts (in) conditionally : PENCILS - as in "he pencils in a tentative lunch time"

25. "Brighton Rock" author : GREENE - actually, the whole middle section was Proper names, and I knew none of them

28. Guinevere's lover : LANCELOT - well, OK, I know this one, but had to wait for some perps

29. "Conjuring" author James : RANDI

30. Siesta time : TARDE - OK, total unknown for me - I tried ONE PM, since I thought the clue was asking for a specific moment; I am guessing this means "late"~??? A little help here, with my language barrier (Added late: It's "afternoon".)

31. Trip taker of a kind : EGO

32. "__ boy!" : ATTA

33. Fur sources : MINKS

34. Not backin' : AGIN'

35. Short life story? : BIO

36. "South Pacific" Tony winner : PINZA (Ezio) - Unknown to me

37. Jaded : BLASÉ

38. What Balboa called the Pacific : SOUTH SEA - 36A. Pacific clecho, too

40. Lures : TEMPTS

41. Some entrées : ON-RAMPS - now, I figured this out early, because I am familiar with on-ramps and cloverleafs, but I figured since it was "French" in needed to be "On Rampe", or some "ALT" spelling....

42. Hardly a sign of support : HISS; and 54A. Puff adder's warning : SSS - some snake clecho

43. Lorin __, who succeeded Szell as the Cleveland Orchestra's music director : MAAZEL - well, now, I just linked this guy whose CD I "promoted" last week with "1812" - which by the way, was the year we had a war, 200 years ago

44. Cabinet div. : DEPT

45. Alt's opposite : NEU - completely lost on this clue: at first I was looking for the "ALTernative" to ALTitude, but nothing was coming to me; I call it brain-lock when you hit a "Sticking Point" (that is not a "TINE") and you refuse to give up - I am guessing it's German for Old and New - I found this link to a synagogue

48. Taina of "Les Girls" : ELG - Another unknown for me

49. Longtime separatist Sri Lankan group : TAMIL TIGERS - tried PAPER tigers, but I know what a paper tiger is, and it has nothing to do with Sri Lanka

52. Omega counterpart : ZEE - last letter in two alphabets

55. Having another look at : REASSESSING - Great bottom edge fill, with two "E"s, and four "S"s

DOWN:

1. QBs' stats : INTerceptionS - one stat a QB wants to keep really low....

2. When doubled, a fish : MAHI-mahi

3. NASA acceleration unit : ONE G - a measure of the force of Earth's gravity

4. Actress Merkel : UNA

5. Kettledrums: Var. : TYMPANI

6. Safari threat : TSETSE

7. Up __ : A TREE

8. 2009 Broadway revival : HAIR- other 4-letter plays; CATS, RENT

9. Inclusive abbr. : ETC - Et Cetera, and other things from Latin

10. Hits after a screech, probably : REAR-ENDS

11. Core : ESSENCE

12. Perceived Cold War weapons disparity : MISSILE GAP - the space between dart throws, when playing for beer....

13. One studying animals' behavior in their natural habitats : ETHOLOGIST

22. Poker plus, usually : ACE

23. Hindu sacred text : VEDA

24. Cold wear : PARKA

26. Bases : RATIONALE

27. Followings : ENTOURAGES - love the show, too

28. "The Great Caruso" star : LANZA - the movie, here

30. Sticking points : TINES - nice mis-direction for me - I was looking for "bones", or something that holds up a contract negotiation - nope~! Just these

33. Lose : MISPLACE

34. Charity : ALMS

36. Acidity-measuring device : pH METER - I was fairly certain of the "pH" part, but I tried TESTS, then PAPER - but it crossed my other WAG at PAPER (49A.)

37. Rouses to action : BESTIRS

39. Toon whirlwind from Australia, familiarly : TAZ

40. Sneak : TIPTOE - I had " - - - -OE", and thought nah, that's not going to...oh, wait~!

42. Big wheels at sea : HELMS - DAH~!! I was trying to get LINERS and OILERS here - and we were looking for the actual BIG wheel....

44. De Soto's deity : DIOS

45. Classic fruit-flavored drink : NEHI - Crossword favorite, new(ish) clue

46. Ireland, poetically : ERIN

and three closing initialisms -

47. SOS responder : USCG - The United States Coast Guard

50. Common commuting letters : MTA - e.g., Metro Transit Authority

51. Help for lost drivers, for short : GPS - Global Positioning System - once a piece of expensive military equipment, most cars and smart phones now come with one, and I think it's a good idea - so why do I always end up lagging behind some Cidiot (C.C.: I'm such a City idiot. I had to google to see what Splynter means!) lost on his way out to "Wine Country" at the end of Long Island ~????

Answer grid.

Splynter

Notes from C.C.:

1) Happy Birthday to Annette. Hope all's well.

2) Here is Part Four of Kazie's Spain Travel. Great to see the railway station where she and her husband first met.

Friday, June 8, 2012, Peter Koetters

Theme: AX me no questions and I will tell you no lies. Each of the three theme answers is a familiar phrase with one of the words chopped open and AX is inserted creating an entirely new phrase and visual image. No J's but a very fun Friday and our first 2012 puzzle from a constructor whose May 2011 debut, I had the pleasure of writing up where he replaced DDs with ZZs. He is the LA based pediatrician who stopped by to visit with us. The unifier here is also a visual clue, so lets see what we have today.

19A. What the Easter Bunny has to report to the IRS? : TAXABLE HOPPING. Table hopping morphs into a confrontation between two powerful institutions.

29A. Sitcom about a family of Dresden residents raised by a single parent? : MY THREE SAXONS. An easy one if you recall this STATE in Germany and the old Fred MacMurray TV series.

38A. Bison spa service during bikini season : BUFFALO WAXING. What a visual! Miss Bison laying back to smooth those lines. Peter, all that from a little chicken wing dipped in hot sauce. What an imagination! And the unifier:

51A. Make peace, and a hint to how 19-, 29- and 38-Across were formed : BURY THE HATCHET. Again, you see the hatchet (AX) being buried in each answer. A tight theme, not as extensive as some but I found them all well done. On with the rest....

Across:

1. Ignition charge? : ARSON. Not car starting, but illegal fires, very tricky way to begin the day.

6. Yahoo : BOOR. Okay, we are doing a Friday and nothing is easy. Not the company, but the company you do not want to keep.

10. Set-designing initials? : RCA. Okay Peter, now we have a hidden reference to TV sets; we may be here a while.

13. Sierra ___ : LEONE. Our GEOGRAPHY lesson. It had to be this or Madre.

14. Bouncer in an empty bar? : ECHO. Another great clue and we just started, not some big out of luck football player, but sound.

15. Canvas : POLL. Our political question for this election year.

16. "Eight Elvises" artist : ANDY WARHOL. Where did he get his titles?

18. Wind among the reeds : OBOE.

21. Attendee : GOER.

22. Maid's aid : DUSTER. Feather?

23. Entertained : HOSTED.

27. Loaded candy : PEZ. We can dispense with any comments to this clue.

28. Run through : USE. Do not worry, I will never run through all the bad puns in my head.

33. Bit of a loaded conversation? : SLUR. Oh my, the man is on fire; you see the speaker is loaded, and is therefore slurring. More visuals.

34. Purse : BAG. He slipped in an actual easy one.

35. Those, in Badajoz : ESOS. Spanish, from a province in Spain. Colorful.

43. Dribbler's protection : BIB. Also good for our friend from 33A.

45. Of the people : LAY. Not of the clergy. Nothing DF here.

46. Shakespearean playground retort? : ART NOT. Amst too! Wonderful twist on an old clue.

47. Infielder's claim : I GOT IT. My father taught us to say that so we would not run into each other, but one day when I was about 7 and the ball was very high and I yelled "I got it, I think I got it." he and my Uncle rolled on the ground.

49. Gumbo ingredient : OKRA.

56. Track assignment : LANE.

57. "Lawrence of Arabia" Oscar nominee : OMAR SHARIF. Wonderful MOVIE. (4:42)

59. Blowups: Abbr. : ENLS. Enlargements.

60. "Check it out, José" : MIRA. More Spanish, I think it means "see."

61. "The Beauty Myth" author Wolf : NAOMI. No comment as she is quite RADICAL.

62. Utter : SAY.

63. H, R or E, e.g. : STAT. istic. Hits Runs Errors, some baseball for our leader.

64. Newark's county : ESSEX. The New jersey version, home to the Devils who staved off elimination in the Stanley Cup finals.

Down:

1. Cookbook words : A LA. Mode or carte?

2. Lease stipulation : RENT. Tricky, but one must pay rent.

3. Fountain order : SODA. So simple it was hard.

4. Stone seen in Mammoth Cave National Park : ONYX. The world's largest cave system in Kentucky. Hey Windhover, how are the babies? Ewe okay?

5. Deepak Chopra follower, perhaps : NEW AGER. WE have recently discussed this speaker, but do you like this answer next to the next clue?

6. Golden Age TV star : BERLE. Uncle MILTIE. (3:58 ) The old comedian who loved to wear dresses but was famous for his morel.

7. Pigment used in cave paintings : OCHER. An old pigment still popular in painting, I think.

8. We're in for it now!" : OH OH. My LINK.

9. Place to find contacts : ROLODEX. Are they still in use?

10. Pfizer cough medicine : ROBITUSSIN. My cough medicine.

11. Imitations : CLONES. But I buy the CVS knock off.

12. Cheerful, in Chihuahua : ALEGRE. More Spanish but do not say she is a "una mujer de vida alegre."

15. Boston ___ : POPS. How many of you recall the conductor from a few months ago?

17. Digs, so to speak : ABODE.

20. "The Sicilian" author : PUZO. Mario of Godfather fame.

23. Lord Nelson's ___ Victory : HMS. His SHIP.

24. Olive with hardly any fat : OYL. Popeye's eye candy.

25. With unbending will : STUBBORNLY.

26. Road sign shortening : THRU. Not the road, the word.

27. When doubled, a Polynesian capital : PAGO. Capital of American Samoa, pronounced Pongo Pongo.

30. Bidding site : EBAY.

31. Bando of the '60s-'70s Athletics : SAL. Third baseman.

32. Proximate : NEXT.

36. Beatle lover : ONO. Notice it is not plural; she did not love the band.

37. U.S. Army E-5 : SGT. This SGT? (0:52) How fitting.

39. Move like a dragonfly : FLIT. used to be a pejorative term.

40. Grasps : FATHOMS. Good word for doing puzzles, for all the deep thinkers.

41. Unattractive aspects : WARTS. We all have them.

42. Weaver of myth : ARACHNE. She messed with Athena and ended up as the MOTHER of all arachnids.

43. Swearer's stack : BIBLES.

44. Dewlapped lizard : IGUANA. We had one on the tree by my office this afternoon. The 86 year old neighbor of mine hates them, and wants me to "kill them summanbishes."

48. Nautical ropes : TYES. I never saw this one, and I am glad because I do not know it.

49. "Sir, you are no gentleman" speaker : O'HARA. SCARLETT

50. What "k" may stand for : KARAT. 24k gold.

52. Give out : EMIT.

53. Golfer Jay : HAAS. He won last week end's Champion's tour event. His son Bill won the FedEx Cup.

54. Winged god : EROS. More mythology.

55. Stretch : TIME. Well my time this week is almost done.

58. Attach : FIX. A less common definition of attached, unless you get fixated on it.

Answer grid.

Well, I am fixin' to leave for another week. have a great day and week end. I did go back and read the May, 2011 blog and it is amazing how people come and go. As I said then, a word once in a while to let us know you are still out there would be nice. I was pleased to see some quiet corners appear for C.C.s solo debut. Hope you all are well, and maybe we will see you soon.

Lemonade

Notes from C.C.:

1) Here is Part III of Kazie's trip to Spain. I wonder why they thought of building mushrooms above an underground museum.

2) Mystery revealed! Here is the 11 rings dear Irish Miss wears on her 8 fingers. Click on the picture, you'll see a clearer view. The one on her left middle finger fascinates me a lot.

3) Inspired by Irish Miss, Boomer wanted to show his ring collection. See here. The first four are all 300 rings from different years. The fifth one (blue color) is a 299 ring. The next one is another 300 ring. Next to it is an 800 Series ring. The last one is 1987 Twins World Series replica ring. He never wears any ring in daily life, by the way.

Thursday, June 7, 2012 Donna S. Levin

Theme: Shock and Awe (overwhelming power and spectacular displays of force...)

16A. Four-legged comfort giver : THERAPY DOG. Golden Retrievers are great dogs for this job. SHOCK THERAPY. Nurse Ratched, revisited entry? (I believe the link is Jack Nicholson in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)

23A. Budget-friendly fast food offering : VALUE MEAL. A McDonalds offering is one of the main causes of obesity in this country. Now also a huge concern in Europe. SHOCK VALUE: How to provoke a reaction of disgust. (You can provide your own link here...)

37A. Coming trend : WAVE OF THE FUTURE. And we have an atomic SHOCK WAVE.

49A. Locker room laundry item : JOCKSTRAP. The one theme entry that is a compound word. Visions of dirty jockstraps..."Eeew". SHOCK JOCK like (warning: offensive language!!) this guy.

60A. Seismic phenomenon, and where you might find the starts of 16-, 23-, 37- and 49-Across : AFTERSHOCK. So the first words of the theme entries can follow (come "after") the word "shock".

Marti here, so let's see what else we have on the plate today...

Across:

1. Play the court clown? : JEST

5. "Mad Men" subject, familiarly : AD BIZ

10. Rapper ___ Def, now known as Yasiin Bey : MOS. Why do rappers feel they have to change their names all the time? Born Dante Terrell Smith...

13. Use copperplate, perhaps : ETCH

14. Mountain, on Hawaii : MAUNA. Loa, Kea, Lani, Lai...

15. Four-sided fig. : RECT.angle.

18. The "merry" part of a "merry game" : ALAI. From the Basque for "jai" = Celebration, and "Alai" = merry. My uncle was doing some genealogy research and found that grandfather's ancestors came from the Basque country in France. He was excited to discover this, and wrote to my mother "I never knew we were all basquards!"

19. Domingo et al. : TENORS

20. Old-time desk accessory : INKWELL

22. "Spartacus" setting : ARENA

25. Low spirits : GLOOM

27. Inventing initials : TAE. Thomas Alva Edison.

28. Compete : VIE

31. "Heidi" setting : ALPS

33. Pertaining to birth : NATAL

41. Empty-headed Mortimer : SNERD

42. "And ___ bed" : SO, TO. From Samuel Pepys Diary?

43. "Today" rival, briefly : GMA. Good Morning America.

44. Cheer syllable : SIS...boom...baa!

46. Out in the sticks : RURAL

53. Retro beer : PABST. Retro? I think it is still sold in stores, right?

57. Indian spiced drink : CHAI TEA

58. Sell out : BETRAY

59. Gift from the god Jupiter Pluvius : RAIN. From the Latin "pluvia", meaning rain.

63. Sea eagle : ERNE

64. Half of a classic comedy team : MEARA. Other half was Stiller, in the '60s-'70s.

65. Raison d'___ : ETRE. "Reason for being". Mine is to do this write-up every Thursday...

66. Itsy-bitsy : WEE

67. Overseas misses: Abbr. : SRTAS. Spanish señoritas.

68. "100" symbols, in Greek numerals : RHOS. Link to Rho.  Derived from the Phonecian "Res" which looks like this:







Down:

1. Beetle relative : JETTA. Volkswagen model. And 28-down: 1-Downs, for short : VWS

2. Out-of-use anesthetic : ETHER

3. Big fuss : SCENE

4. Big crowd : THRONG

5. Tour Bus cargo : AMPS. Rock star tour bus, that is. Not to be confused with these.

6. Light interval : DAY

7. Pal : BUD. Not to be confused with this.

8. How anchovies are packed : IN OIL

9. Hershey's peanut butter bar : ZAGNUT. Never had one.

10. Brawl : MELEE

11. City on I-75 : OCALA. Florida. Map.

12. Moonshiner's apparatus : STILL

15. Steak tartare, primarily : RAW MEAT. My ultimate surf and turf: tartare and raw sushi tuna!!

17. Shrinking sea : ARAL. But it is growing again, thanks to conservation efforts.

21. He played Kevin in "The Devil's Advocate" : KEANU. Reeves.

23. Battery count : VOLTS

24. Two-handled Greek vase : AMPHORA. These would be called "amphorae".

26. Lummox : OAF

29. First name of the swimmer dubbed the "Thorpedo" : IAN. Thorpe. Australian.

30. Night to party, maybe : EVE

32. Frame : SETUP

34. Harbor helper : TUG

35. "Long" legal weapon? : ARM. Like the long arm of the law?

36. Pasture : LEA

38. "Tobacco Road" writer Caldwell : ERSKINE

39. One writing to things, perhaps : ODIST

40. Pro : FOR

45. Gently unwrinkles : STEAMS

47. Sci-fi planet inhabitants : APES

48. Agitated state : LATHER. "Don't get all in a lather."

49. L.L. Bean competitor : J CREW

50. Midway alternative : O'HARE. Chicago airports.

51. Queeg's command : CAINE

52. '50s-'60s decathlete Johnson : RAFER. Rafer Johnson. Hands up for those who remembered him, without perps?

54. Challenge for a surplus of cooks? : BROTH. "Too many cooks spoil the broth."

55. Prefix with iliac : SACRO

56. Moppets : TYKES

58. '60s bonfire burnings : BRAS. OK gals, 'fess up: did you ever burn one?

61. Make lace : TAT

62. Diamond stat : ERA. Earned Run Average: I learned from C.C.'s puzzles!

Answer grid.

That's all for this week: "And SO, TO bed..."

Hugs,
Marti

From C.C.:

Here is Part II of Kazie's travel to Spain. The last one reminded me of my hometown Xi'An, another walled city.