Theme: EATHER (I am sorry for the mistake earlier. I did not know that the phrase I put earlier was a slang).
17A: Prop for Al Roker: WEATHER MAP
29A: Recliner perhaps: LEATHER CHAIR
43A: Tommy Roe hit: HEATHER HONEY
59A: Stripper's accessory: FEATHER BOA
Wow, only one letter (Q) away from being a Pangrammatic Grid (Have all the 26 letters at least once).
Yesterday I was Barbaro at the Preakness, shattered my momentum a few blanks from the starting gate. This morning, I was Smarty Jones at the Belmont Stakes. I came, I saw, and I almost conquered the whole field.
I had a crush on NETANYAHU several years ago, so I penned in his name authoritatively. ENYA, AOKI, Shania TWAIN, BORK, BONAPARTE are all gimmes. Thus, the whole grid was opened up to me, and I was able to infer quite a few unknowns.
I spent about 35 minutes on this puzzle, including several short google visits and dictionary checking.
Here we go:
1A: Pipe down! HUSH
5A: Ghana's capital: ACCRA. Ex-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is from Ghana. Got the wrong idea that Mali musician Ali Farka was born in ACCRA. Wrong.
10A: 21st-century MS product: XBOX
14A: City on the Aker River: OSLO. Is Aker river the same as Akerselva river?
15A: Rights org.: NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People)
16A: Actor Calhoun: RORY. Did not know him. Got his name from down clues.
19A: 1998 animated movie: ANTZ. Celebrity voice-studded (Woody Allen, Sharon Stone, etc.) animation film. From DreamWorks.
20A: Tanning device: SUN LAMPS
21A: Celtic New Age Singer: ENYA. This is my favorite picture of Enya. Beautiful!
25A: Flap lips: GAB. Ben Allfleck, so gifted at gab. never ceases to overawe me with his nuanced take on American politics. He is going to run for the Senate seat in MA, someday, trust me!
26A: Low mil. letters: PFC (Private First Class)
32A: Actor Sal: MINEO. Enough said about him.
35A: Extra NHL periods: OTS (Overtimes)
36A: Kathryn of "Law & Order: Criminal Intent": ERBE. Have never watched any Law & Order spinoff, so I had no idea who she was.
38A: Dickens moniker: BOZ. Vaguely remember it.
39A: Bill of Microsoft: GATES. He probably bribed the constructor to put his XBOX in this puzzle.
40A: Parks oneself: SITS. Wow, I've never parked myself this way.
41A: __ cit.: LOC. What is this?? (Update: Answer from drdad: "I googled the meaning of loc. cit. and it is used like "ibid." as a footnote. The difference is that ibid. refers to the same book reference while loc. cit. refers to the same book and page reference.)
42A: In plain sight: OVERT
48A: Put to: ASK. The dictionary says that "Put to" means "to overburden with work, blame; or take advantage of, cheat". How is it related to ASK?
50A: False face: ACT
55A: Money on the move?: CASH FLOW. I like this clue.
57A: Comet rivel: AJAX. Or Trojan hero.
61A: Eyelid makeup: KOHL. Never knew this. The only Kohl I know is German's Helmut Kohl.
63A: Isao of golf: AOKI. He was inducted into the Golf Hall of Fame in 2004, together with Tom Kite. I do not remember ever seeing AOKI in PGA or Senior PGA tour.
64A: Flu-like feeling: AGUE
66A: Fed. agents: GMEN. Sometimes it's TMEN (Treasury investigator, like Eliot Ness)
Down entries:
1D: Tell me the reason: HOW SO. Hope you guys are not tired of my HOW SO questions.
3D: Particular bias: SLANT. Bias, whether real or imagined, hurts!
4D: Lear sitcom, "___ Baltimore": HOT L. Nope, never heard of it. Here is Dennis' explanation "Hot L Baltimore was a short-lived TV show; opening frames showed a neon sign with the "e" in Hotel burned out, hence the name."
5D: Blood disorder: ANEMIA. Months of bleak economic growth anemia ahead! I am just so worried about this stupid recession that I don't care whether Hillary was in the White House when Bill and Monica trysted. I have absolutely no interest to peek at those newly released paper.
11D: Napoleons' last name: BONAPARTE
13D: Alphabet trio: XYZ. I can not think of a way to clue Exam Your Zipper, can you?
25D: Stan of Jazz: GETZ. He is another crossword stalwart.
27D: Tissue makeup: FIBER
32D: Dayan or Arens: MOSHE. Knew neither of them. Got it from across clues.
34D: Benjamin of Israel: NETANYAHU. Bibi. He graduated from MIT. He is now the Likud leader. He was/still is adamantly against the Gaza Disengagement Plan. He was so eloquent and persuasive that I bought almost all the ideas he was peddling in 2005.
38D: Supreme Court also-run: BORK (Robert). I really like the verbalized usage of bork. Mark Penn is an expert at borking, and barking.
39D: "Faust" poet: GOETHE
41D: Healthful-food claim: LESS FAT. Nothing tastes as good as full fat. So, eat full fat, just eat less.
45D: Spoke grandly: ORATED. Oh the Reagan oratory charm! My favorite: "We will never forget them in this morning as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God?" (Challenger Disaster speech)
46D: Snacks: NOSHES
50D: "Tuesday with Morrie" writer : ALBOM (Mitch). Unfamiliar to me. Have never heard of the author nor the book/TV.
51D: TV host Alistair: COOKE. No, not a familiar name. Interesting, Wikipedia said that he was only yards away when RFK was assassinated.
52D: Singer Shania: TWAIN. "Man, I feel like a woman!" I actually hate this song.
54D: Hod-rod rod: AXLE. Typo here. Should be Hot-rod rod.
55D: Wag: CARD. According to Dennis, "'card' and 'wag' are rather archaic terms used to describe a jokester.
56D: Kill with a grenade: FRAG
57D: Rap-sheet letters: AKA.
58D: Training run: JOG
I choked on a piece of grape skin earlier this morning while reading yesterday's new comments. Pricelessly entertaining! Oh, by the way, here is what Orange told me about her method in tackling a crossword:
"My own strategy varies depending on the puzzle's difficulty. An easy puzzle, I'll start at 1-A and wind through the grid without stopping. A Saturday NYT, I may be reading a lot of clues, desperately searching for a route into the puzzle (and then trying to build off the entries I've put in the grid by tackling the crossings)."
C.C.
17A: Prop for Al Roker: WEATHER MAP
29A: Recliner perhaps: LEATHER CHAIR
43A: Tommy Roe hit: HEATHER HONEY
59A: Stripper's accessory: FEATHER BOA
Wow, only one letter (Q) away from being a Pangrammatic Grid (Have all the 26 letters at least once).
Yesterday I was Barbaro at the Preakness, shattered my momentum a few blanks from the starting gate. This morning, I was Smarty Jones at the Belmont Stakes. I came, I saw, and I almost conquered the whole field.
I had a crush on NETANYAHU several years ago, so I penned in his name authoritatively. ENYA, AOKI, Shania TWAIN, BORK, BONAPARTE are all gimmes. Thus, the whole grid was opened up to me, and I was able to infer quite a few unknowns.
I spent about 35 minutes on this puzzle, including several short google visits and dictionary checking.
Here we go:
1A: Pipe down! HUSH
5A: Ghana's capital: ACCRA. Ex-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is from Ghana. Got the wrong idea that Mali musician Ali Farka was born in ACCRA. Wrong.
10A: 21st-century MS product: XBOX
14A: City on the Aker River: OSLO. Is Aker river the same as Akerselva river?
15A: Rights org.: NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People)
16A: Actor Calhoun: RORY. Did not know him. Got his name from down clues.
19A: 1998 animated movie: ANTZ. Celebrity voice-studded (Woody Allen, Sharon Stone, etc.) animation film. From DreamWorks.
20A: Tanning device: SUN LAMPS
21A: Celtic New Age Singer: ENYA. This is my favorite picture of Enya. Beautiful!
25A: Flap lips: GAB. Ben Allfleck, so gifted at gab. never ceases to overawe me with his nuanced take on American politics. He is going to run for the Senate seat in MA, someday, trust me!
26A: Low mil. letters: PFC (Private First Class)
32A: Actor Sal: MINEO. Enough said about him.
35A: Extra NHL periods: OTS (Overtimes)
36A: Kathryn of "Law & Order: Criminal Intent": ERBE. Have never watched any Law & Order spinoff, so I had no idea who she was.
38A: Dickens moniker: BOZ. Vaguely remember it.
39A: Bill of Microsoft: GATES. He probably bribed the constructor to put his XBOX in this puzzle.
40A: Parks oneself: SITS. Wow, I've never parked myself this way.
41A: __ cit.: LOC. What is this?? (Update: Answer from drdad: "I googled the meaning of loc. cit. and it is used like "ibid." as a footnote. The difference is that ibid. refers to the same book reference while loc. cit. refers to the same book and page reference.)
42A: In plain sight: OVERT
48A: Put to: ASK. The dictionary says that "Put to" means "to overburden with work, blame; or take advantage of, cheat". How is it related to ASK?
50A: False face: ACT
55A: Money on the move?: CASH FLOW. I like this clue.
57A: Comet rivel: AJAX. Or Trojan hero.
61A: Eyelid makeup: KOHL. Never knew this. The only Kohl I know is German's Helmut Kohl.
63A: Isao of golf: AOKI. He was inducted into the Golf Hall of Fame in 2004, together with Tom Kite. I do not remember ever seeing AOKI in PGA or Senior PGA tour.
64A: Flu-like feeling: AGUE
66A: Fed. agents: GMEN. Sometimes it's TMEN (Treasury investigator, like Eliot Ness)
Down entries:
1D: Tell me the reason: HOW SO. Hope you guys are not tired of my HOW SO questions.
3D: Particular bias: SLANT. Bias, whether real or imagined, hurts!
4D: Lear sitcom, "___ Baltimore": HOT L. Nope, never heard of it. Here is Dennis' explanation "Hot L Baltimore was a short-lived TV show; opening frames showed a neon sign with the "e" in Hotel burned out, hence the name."
5D: Blood disorder: ANEMIA. Months of bleak economic growth anemia ahead! I am just so worried about this stupid recession that I don't care whether Hillary was in the White House when Bill and Monica trysted. I have absolutely no interest to peek at those newly released paper.
11D: Napoleons' last name: BONAPARTE
13D: Alphabet trio: XYZ. I can not think of a way to clue Exam Your Zipper, can you?
25D: Stan of Jazz: GETZ. He is another crossword stalwart.
27D: Tissue makeup: FIBER
32D: Dayan or Arens: MOSHE. Knew neither of them. Got it from across clues.
34D: Benjamin of Israel: NETANYAHU. Bibi. He graduated from MIT. He is now the Likud leader. He was/still is adamantly against the Gaza Disengagement Plan. He was so eloquent and persuasive that I bought almost all the ideas he was peddling in 2005.
38D: Supreme Court also-run: BORK (Robert). I really like the verbalized usage of bork. Mark Penn is an expert at borking, and barking.
39D: "Faust" poet: GOETHE
41D: Healthful-food claim: LESS FAT. Nothing tastes as good as full fat. So, eat full fat, just eat less.
45D: Spoke grandly: ORATED. Oh the Reagan oratory charm! My favorite: "We will never forget them in this morning as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God?" (Challenger Disaster speech)
46D: Snacks: NOSHES
50D: "Tuesday with Morrie" writer : ALBOM (Mitch). Unfamiliar to me. Have never heard of the author nor the book/TV.
51D: TV host Alistair: COOKE. No, not a familiar name. Interesting, Wikipedia said that he was only yards away when RFK was assassinated.
52D: Singer Shania: TWAIN. "Man, I feel like a woman!" I actually hate this song.
54D: Hod-rod rod: AXLE. Typo here. Should be Hot-rod rod.
55D: Wag: CARD. According to Dennis, "'card' and 'wag' are rather archaic terms used to describe a jokester.
56D: Kill with a grenade: FRAG
57D: Rap-sheet letters: AKA.
58D: Training run: JOG
I choked on a piece of grape skin earlier this morning while reading yesterday's new comments. Pricelessly entertaining! Oh, by the way, here is what Orange told me about her method in tackling a crossword:
"My own strategy varies depending on the puzzle's difficulty. An easy puzzle, I'll start at 1-A and wind through the grid without stopping. A Saturday NYT, I may be reading a lot of clues, desperately searching for a route into the puzzle (and then trying to build off the entries I've put in the grid by tackling the crossings)."
C.C.
