google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner

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Nov 25, 2008

Tuesday November 25, 2008 Norma Steinberg

Theme: Word of Mouth

17A: Stammering: TONGUE-TIED

60A: Performed like Milli Vanilli: LIP SYNCHED

10D: Ursine-shaped candies: GUMMY BEARS

30D: Five-year-old's money source: TOOTH FAIRY

A couple of things first:

1) Thank you for the nice words yesterday regarding the 1 million hit. What an interesting journey! Thank you for the company. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your generosity in sharing your knowledge and time with me and several thousands of solvers every day. I hope you continue to find this blog informative and worthy of your time. I also hope you find the comments from other solvers educating and entertaining.

2) I still can not access my Hotmail account from Firefox, and I don't like IE. So I decided to go back to my dormant Gmail account. If you have any question or comment on the blog, please email me at crosswordc@gmail.com from now on. What I don't understand is why Hotmail is suddenly blocked from Firefox. I've changed nothing for the setup.

Now back to the puzzle. I am not fond of GUM being embedded in GUMMY in 10D. Bubble gum, chewing gum are better GUM candidates.

I like how TOTO (37A: Dorothy's pet) crossing ASTA (29D: Cinema pooch). I also like how HIS (33D: That guy's) parallels HER (38D: That girl's), with HIS slightly above and on the right of HER, wonderful position.

The clue for COPRA (50D: Coconut meat) is incorrect. I cook with coconut meat and but I've never used COPRA, which is dried coconut meat and is used to extract coconut oil.

This is probably the easiest puzzle I've solved this month. Not much pause.

Across:

1A: Myers or Nesmith: MIKE. Only know MIKE Myers. Have never heard of Nesmith. What's he famous for?

5A: Elegant behavior: CLASS. I think the best CLASS clue I've seen is "Type of act". He has CLASS.

10A: Shoots the breezes: GABS. I thought of YAK first.

15A: Arthur Marx's stage name: HARPO. I did not know that his original name is Arthur.

19A: Gangster's girl: MOLL

39A: Verdi heroine: AIDA. Interesting, Wikipedia says AIDA is an "Arabic female name meaning "visitor" or "returning". And it means "reward" in Swahili.

45A: Little-hand indication: HOUR. $355 for this hand clock? Ridiculous!

52A: Norse God: THOR. God of Thunder. His hammer always returns to him magically after being thrown to a target. Most of the Norse myths come from the two Eddas I think: The Poetic Edda (the elder EDDA) or the The Prose Edda (the younger EDDA).

Down:

1D: First name in spies: MATA. Bond jumped into my my mind first. By the way, does anyone know who shot Dominic Greene in "Quantum of Solace"?

5D: Fidel's friend: CHE. If Guevara were still alive, he would have launched a revolutionary against our editor's stiff way to clue his name. I don't think he would be happy to be connected with Fidel Castro all the time.

12D: Chagall's "____ in Green": BELLA. I am not familiar with this painting. Looks like "BELLA in black" to me. BELLA is Chagall's first wife.

34D: __ Inch Nails: NINE. I guessed. This rock band is completely foreign to me. I don't like their Gothic look.

55D: Pasadena campus: UCLA. Doug Peterson, the constructor for yesterday's puzzle, is from Pasadena. Today's constructor Steinberg lives in San Francisco.

C.C.