Wednesday October 14, 2009 Charles Barasch

Theme: Them Bones - Two-word familiar phrases are playfully reinterpreted as related to the musical instrument trombones.

20A: Big Southwestern trombones?: TEXAS LONGHORNS. Cattle, and that's no bull. Or some football team. Or these guys.

37A: Refined trombones?: POLISHED BRASS. Decorative and utilitarian metal hardware. Or those who sound like Kai Winding - my idol as a kid.

54A: Continuously playing trombones?: SUSTAINED WINDS. The wind speed obtained by averaging the observed values over a one minute period. I'll bet you didn't know that. Opinions vary on proper trombone technique.

Hi, gang. Jazzbumpa here. Some things are so good, you just can't plan for them: like learning that honey is rich in B vitamins. Or that, on this, of all nights, the guest blogger would be your humble trombonist. Do I need to add how much I love this puzzle? Weird, no? Like, wow!

A fine pangram, all of the 26 letters are used at least once. Two Z's, one X/Q/J and several K's.

I worked this in Across Lite in 12:33, which is about my average for this time of the week. But I seldom have such a silly grin plastered on my embouchure (that's brass musician talk for chops.) while doing so. And once again, talk about it one day, it shows up the next. Buckeye just asked me about trombone playing. This is an omen Buck. Go for it!

Across:

1A Made a disapproving sound: TSKED

6A Witticism: JEST

10A Highlander: SCOT

14A Cop _______ : bargain in court: A PLEA

15A Healing plant: ALOE. SENNA is the healing medicinal shrub.

16A Oregon Treaty President: POLK. His middle name is KNOX, which appears in our puzzle from time to time.

17A Trembling: SHAKY

18A Having all one's marble: SANE

19A Word processing reversal: UNDO

23A Ending for ranch: ERO. I'm not in love with the either the clue or the fill, but having it snugger up against Texas helps. Tfrank - are you out there amigo?

24A Neither Rep nor Dem: IND (Independent). I'll stop now. No politics!

25A Thing: ENTITY

27A Madame in Madrid: SENORA. Or, more properly, señora, if you want to be persnickety. I never noticed the custom of alliteration in clues for foreign words until C.C. pointed it out.

30A Wide shoe size: EEE.

31A Geese flight pattern: VEE. It's time to start thinking about migration.

32A Actress Greer who received five consecutive Oscar nominations: GARSON. She won the Best Actress Oscar in 1942 for Mrs. Minver. A bit before my time. Bette Davis is another actress who received five consecutive Oscar nominations.

35A At the ready: ALERT. Bad JEST ALERT: Be A LERT - America needs more LERTS!

40A Made on a loom: WOVEN. Like Navajo rugs. If there is a flaw in this fill, I can't find it.

41A Imitation: ERSATZ. The word is imported from Germany. Here it usually means an inferior imitation.

42A Med or law lead in: PRE. The eponym for all prefixes.

43A Command ctrs.: HQS. Headquarters. Or hind quarters, depending on the quality of the commands. All things considered, I prefer DQS.

45A Musical Beat: RHYTHM. Or family planning for Catholic trombonists. Or a reporter's job covering Birdland in the 40's.

49A Well's "The Island of Dr. _______________": MOREAU. Never saw the movie. I read the book when I was about 12, and it scared the hell out of me. The good Dr. was a vivisectionist whose experiments transformed wild animals into sentient manimals. For a while. I still remember, "That is the law. Are we not men?" (Shudder.) And so close to bed time. (It is now 11:40 p.m.) Here is a better (and apparently not doctored) Moreau image.

51A Fill with wonder: AWE. Hold the shock.

53A Jr.'s son: III, Eye-yi-yi. Pretty lame.

58A Clenched weapon: FIST. A velvet fist in an iron glove. Or is it the other way around?

59A Mechanical memorization: ROTE. Or a quarterback from by-gone days for the Lions, Packers, and Chargers.

60A Remark to the audience: ASIDE. Or the song people wanted to hear. Perhaps that is B side the point.

61A To ________: perfectly: A TEE. Don't ask me. I gave up golf years ago, and experienced an immediate improvement in my quality of life. (I wouldn't TEES about something so serious.)

62A Sporty sunroof: T-TOP. For a car. Or on foot.

63A Baseball card brand: FLEER. Gone in 2007. Only Topps and Upper Deck are "Baseball card brands", Topps being the official MLB one. To double your pleasure, chewing gum.

64A Wall St's Big Board: NYSE. New York Stock Exchange.

65A Clownish: ZANY. Like a trombonist.

66A Shore birds: TERNS. Bad JEST ALERT. A very determined boy went to the shore to throw rocks at the birds. He was so thorough, he left no TERN unstoned.

Down:

1D Samples a bit of: TASTES.

2D Ball: SPHERE. A perfectly symmetric round object. Also, Thelonious Monk's middle name.

3D Loud auto honker of yore: KLAXON. The poor (pronounced pewer) man's trombone. Also, this nice march by Henry Fillmore. A favorite a Summer park concerts.

4D "______ mouse": EEK A. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get Mickey to fit. But it's a reggae guy. Who knew?

5D Weekly septet: DAYS. Or nights, depending on how you shift it. If I don't cut back on the link, I'll never get to bed.

6D Argonaut's leader: JASON. From Greek Mythology. Their ship is called Argo. Also a song that contains the words "manimals" and "buying knives."

7D Large antelope: ELAND. This guy, a savannah and plains antelope found in East and Southern Africa.

8D Tune: SONG. A melody, with words. They can be about the most unlikely subjects.

9D Dainty laugh: TEEHEE. Or a mini Minnie laugh.

10D Sudden gushing: SPURT. A drip under pressure.

11D Conspires with: CONNIVES. From the Latin for closing ones eyes. I'm getting sleepy.

12D Octogenarians, for example. OLDSTERS. My mom and M-I-L are octogenarians.

13D Boxing Ref's decision: TKO. Technical knock out. The referee stops the fight, judging that the bout is a mis-match or somebody is about to get hurt.

21D Whopper creators: LIARS. I wanted Burger King.

22D Lord's Prayer words following "Thy will be done.": ON EARTH, as it is in heaven. I'll stop now. No religion!

26D Thus far: YET. There was a story on the news about a woman who got shot last week and the bullet is in her YET. I skipped anatomy class the day we were supposed to learn where that is. Also forgot the bad JEST ALERT. Lo siento.

28D Eye unsubtly: OGLE. A crossword stalwart.

29D Drizzly day chapeau: RAIN HAT. An article of practical apparel.

30D Above in poems: O'ER. Contraction of over. Never in my poems. (It's Wednesday.)

33D Women: SHES. Sure. It's getting to late to argue.

36D Slow moving, as a river: LAZY From the song "Up a Lazy River."

37D Penetrable quality of skin: POROSITY. The fraction of a surface that is filled with holes. The unbearable lightness of not-being.

38D Makes a cliche of, say: OVERUSES. Pretty straight-forward.

39D Exposed: BARED. I'm done linking. Use your imagination.

40D Typist's stat.: WPM. Words per minute. Mine is in single digits (from typing with just one finger.)

44D Crystalline material: QUARTZ. Pretty much pure silica. Higher melting than glass.

46D More petite: TINIER. Like my little Em.

47D Like eggs in an Easter hunt: HIDDEN. Outa' sight, man!

48D Skinflints: MISERS. Penny pinching, greedy hoarders, like Ebenezer Scrooge.

50D Big name in Perfumery: ESTEE. Lauder, I presume.

51D Dramatist Chekhov: ANTON. Some Russian guy. Chekhov's "Three Sisters" (Olga, Masha, and Irina) pop into LA Times occasionally.

52D Tearful: WEEPY. Rhymes with sleepy.

55D Letter after Theta. IOTA. About how much I care, at this point. Knew it wasn't Alpha.

56D Drift, as an aroma. WAFT. What you can experience when walking past a bakery.

57D Shipwreck Site: ISLE. The Isle of Capri sounds romantic. Somehow, though, Goat Island doesn't.

58D Air move: FAN. Also, I'm a fan of this puzzle.

Over and out, kids. This took me three hours.

Cheers!

Answer grid.

Jazzbumpa

Tuesday October 13, 2009 Fred Jackson III

Theme: Gone Fishing - theme answers all end with names of fishing gear.

16A: Window treatment support: CURTAIN ROD. Fishing rod is the long and flexible tool used to extend the fishing line.

22A: Proceed cautiously: WALK A FINE LINE. Line is the sturdy string with the hook, sinker, float, etc.

46A: Sports show staple: HIGHLIGHT REEL. Reel is used to retrieve the fishing line.

56A: No longer in trouble: OFF THE HOOK. Hook is the curved and sharp device to snag the fish.

Martin here. Surprised? Me too. I think C.C. is letting me blog today provided that I don't make (or link to) any off colour jokes or add fuel to any fires. In other words, it's just like any day posting to this blog: we all have to second guess ourselves before we post.

Anyway, I didn't need perp help to get HIGHLIGHT REEL because I already had CURTAIN ROD and WALK A FINE LINE: the expression "ROD and REEL" came to mind and I expected to find REEL after getting ROD and LINE. If you solve a puzzle from starting at the bottom and working up then you probably had a different experience: HOOK and REEL would have made WALK A FINE LINE a gimme because you would be expecting HOOK to be followed by LINE and perhaps sinker.

A lot of straightforward clues today. Personally I think this is a good thing, a very good thing in fact, because not only did it mean I got to finish this in about twenty minutes without googling but, as I've said before, cryptic clues often tend to be a cheat designed to make the puzzle harder than it really needs be. I'll talk about this more as we go over the clues and fills.

Across:

1A: Magic amulet: MOJO. I originally wrote MORO which is a word that refers to the people of Mindinao. There's an old terrorist group in the Philippines that called themselves the Moro Islamic Liberation Front or MILF. They are now called the Abu Sayaf. Can't imagine why they'd want to change their name.

5A: With 13-Across "Lonely Boy" singer: PAUL. And ANKA (13A: See 5-Across). PAUL ANKA was born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. There's a Paul Anka Drive in the south-eastern part of the city, obviously named after him.

9A: UPS deliveries requiring payment: C.O.D.S. Cash on Delivery. UPS is United Postal Service (Correction. It's United Parcel Service). I'm surprised that it wasn't clued as a kind of fish.

14A: Ship to remember: MAINE. The USS MAINE exploded and sank on February 15, 1898 in an event that precipitated the Spanish–American War and also popularized the phrase "Remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain!". Again, the obvious clue "Fish producing state" was apparently deliberately avoided so as to not hint at the theme too early.

15A: Related: AKIN. Straightforward clue.

18A: Christmas trio: MAGI. The three wise men. As in the O Henry Christmas story "The Gift of the MAGI".

19A: "__ Beso (That Kiss!)": 5- & 13- Across hit: ESO. Spanish for "that". Sorry, no video.

20A: Prefix with China: INDO. Indochina. Straightforward clue.

21A: Lukewarm: TEPID. Straightforward clue.

26A: The flu, for one: ILLNESS. Straightforward clue. C.C. can correct me if I am wrong but my students tell me that the word for cold/flu in Chinese is 感冒 (gan3mao4) but there's also the word 流感 (liu3gan3) that means simply flu (as opposed to cold, I presume). This would seem to imply that Chinese people consider the flu to be a type of cold as opposed to a separate disease. Several years ago, the big scare here was SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) which was caused by a mutated coronavirus. Corona viruses along with rhinoviruses pretty much account for the common cold. Nowadays, people are worried about H1N1 or swine flu which is a form of influenza. The good news is that if you've been exposed to a specific virus in the past then you are less likely to get sick again: you'd be considered "immune". The bad news is that colds and flus can kill you. Good luck this winter, everybody. :)

28A: Dynamic start?: AERO. Aerodynamic. Also a delicious chocolate bar.

29A: God: DEITY. And HOLY (40D: Sanctified). Very straightforward clues.

34A: Looooong time: EON. Fairly straightforward clue. "Long time" could have been ERA.

35A: Blocker of offensive TV material: V-CHIP. Aren't people more concerned about internet porn than what appears on TV? Back in the late seventies people used to complain about Charlie's Angels.

37A: Penn & Teller, e.g.: DUO. Why not Batman & Robin?

38A: Put your John Hancock on this line: SIGN HERE. John Hancock was the first person to sign the Declaration of Independence, hence his signature is the largest (most stylish too). Now his name has become synonym for signature.

41A: Desert rest stops: OASES. Plural of OASIS.

43A: Chaplin's fourth wife: OONA. Eugene O'Neill's daughter.

44A: Weepy people: SOBBERS.

50A: Orderly display: ARRAY. Straightforward clue.

51A: Has a meal: EATS. Wonder what Fred's original clue for DIG IN (11D: "Let's eat!") is.

52A: Repair: FIX

55A: Reddish horse: ROAN. I knew ROAN was a horse colour but I didn't know it was also a breed of horse.

59A: Oklahoma city: ENID.

60A: Numerical relationship: RATIO. Fairly straightforward. My first thought was SERIES but it was too many letters.

61A: One-named Deco artist: ERTE. We've had this clue before.

62A: Personal dept. IDs: SSNS. Social Security NumberS. In Canada, we have SINS, Social Insurance NumberS.

63A: Greenish-yellow pear: BOSC. If you don't remember this fill from previous puzzles then you might have been stumped, but I imagine most of us here got this one.

64A: Treos and iPhones, briefly: PDA. Easy guess. In Taiwan, the most popular feature on one of these things is the ability to translate English to Chinese. That and games.

Down:

1D: Riot squad spray: MACE. I was surprised to learn that mace and pepper spray are not the same thing: the confusion arises because the Mace Security International company that used to supply tear gas to the police now manufactures pepper spray for personal protection.

2D: Weighty obligation: ONUS

3D: Harry Potter's creator: J. K. ROWLING. Great symmetry with its partner EDSEL FORD (31D: His name wound up on a lemon). Nice full names.

4D: Bit of granola: OAT. And 48D: Smidgen of sand: GRAIN.

5D: Bamboo-eating critters: PANDAS.

6D: ___ superiority: obvious confidence: AIR OF. When you go overseas to teach English it is very easy to assume an AIR OF superiority because you speak English and they don't. You have to keep in mind that you can't speak their language. Of course, once you do manage to learn their language that AIR OF superiority returns. :)

7D: Juan's one: UNO. Spanish for "one".

9D: King Arthur's realm: CAMELOT. A lot of the King Arthur legend may have been myth. The 2004 movie portrayed him as a Roman.

10D: Giraffe relative: OKAPI, with striped legs.

12D: Like a catty remark: SNIDE

14D: Expensive furs: MINKS. Straightforward clue.

17D: Dance company founder Alvin: AILEY. Founder of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

21D: La. on old U.S. maps: TERR. Territory.

23D: Bug in a colony: ANT. "Bug in a hive" would be BEE.

24D: "__ Said": Neil Diamond hit: I AM...I.: See this clip.

25D: Minimum-range tide: NEAP.

26D: March 15th, e.g.: IDES. In the Shakespeare play Julius Caesar, Caesar was told to "beware the ides of March". This foreshadowed his assassination by the senate.

27D: First of 13 Popes: LEO I. "Last of 13 Popes" would be LEO XIII.

30D: "___ Believes in Me": Kenny Rogers hit: SHE.

32D: Plaintiff: SUER. Fairly straightforward. In criminal law the plaintiff is the level government whose law you broke but in civil law the plaintiff is filing a lawsuit.

33D: Partner of turn: TOSS. You TOSS and turn when you can't sleep. I found the clues and fills starting to get a bit trickier at this point, which is fine.

35D: ___, vidi, vici: Caesar's boast: VENI. Another Julius Caesar reference. "I came, I saw, I conquered".

36D: Mountain goat's perch: CRAG.

39D: Words after Look, Ma: NO HANDS. Also, words before "Ow ow! My arm!"

41D: Way beyond pleasantly plump: OBESE. No comment.

42D: Prez on a penny: ABE. President Abraham Lincoln.

44D: Kind of electricity: STATIC. As opposed to electricity that flows in a current.

45D: Big name in garden care: ORTHO. Manufactured by the Scott's Miracle Gro Company. From the Greek word meaning "straight" or "correct".

46D: Rabbit look alikes: HARES. Rabbit. HARE. Frog. Toad. Turtle. Tortoise. Alligator. Crocodile.

47D: Smooths, as hair: IRONS. Also for getting wrinkles out of clothes.

49D: Tests by lifting: HEFTS. We've had that clue before.

53D: Greek "i": IOTA.

54D: Vintage jaguars: XKES.

56D: Planet: ORB. Poetically.

57D: Toy magnate ___ Schwarz: FAO. It's been a continuous tough struggle for this upscale toy store. Toys "R" Us just bought it a few months ago.

58D: Like cool cats: HEP.

Okay, so a lot of clues were fairly to very straightforward but, as far as I am concerned, that's a good thing. As a teacher, especially a teacher of English as a foreign language, I can't help but feel sympathetic to people non-native speakers of English, for example, who might find these clues hard enough to endure. I can pretty much guarantee that none of my students here would find this as easy as I did. Besides, there were words and names like ENID, OKAPI, AILEY, ORTHO and FAO that definitely needed perp help as well as words and names like ERTE, BOSC, NEAP and CRAG that are easy to us because we've seen them before in crossword puzzles. All in all then, I would consider this a fair test of one's Tuesday crossword puzzle solving ability.

Answer grid.

Martin

Monday, October 12, 2009 David W. Cromer

Theme: "With "in", where our summer weather is!" - theme answers all end with synonyms of exiting.

20A: Corporate-sponsored vacation: COMPANY RETREAT.

40A: Retirement account transaction that may incur a penalty: EARLY WITHDRAWAL.

59A: Local airline trip: COMMUTER FLIGHT.

Argyle blogging.

Shivering Santa here. We get our first freeze this morning. That should stop any zucchini that maybe left.

Straightforward puzzle today. Only wish TORO (39A: Matador's foe) were clued as a "Big name in lawn mowers" to pair up with DEERE (45A: Big name in tractors). TORO is based in Minnesota.

Across:

1A: A little batty: DAFT.

10A: Skips, as ads on a taped show: ZAPS. I'm not good with this clue.

14A: "Garfield" dog: ODIE.

15A: What an ump's protector protects: CHEST. To protect them from the jabbing fingers of managers.

16A: Approximately: OR SO.

23A: Ruhr valley city: ESSEN. 28A: Mediterranean island republic: CYPRUS. 31D: River through southern Russia: URAL. 53D: "Boot" country prefix: ITALO. All part of our European vacation.

33A: Place to retire to?: BED. Yes, it is (as soon as I get this blog done.)

36A: Tournament matches before finals, briefly: SEMIS.

44A: "Iliad" setting: TROY.

47A: Challenge a verdict in a higher court: APPEAL.

50A: Money you owe: DEBT.

55A: Love poetry Muse: ERATO.

64A: "A guy walks into a bar ..." may start one: JOKE.

65A: Christener: NAMER.

66A: Go-__: small racer: KART.

70A: Herbal brews: TEAS. What's your favorite herbal tea?

Down"

1D: "La __ Vita": DOLCE. Italian for "sweet".

2D: "Later, amigo": ADIOS.

3D: Law corporations, e.g.: FIRMS

4D: Conical abode: TEEPEE.

5D: CAT procedure: SCAN.

6D: Greeting at sea: AHOY.

7D: __ cotta: TERRA. Ah, Xi'An.

8D: Colorado's __ Park: ESTES.

9D: Unwanted radio noise: STATIC.

10D: No-fly __: ZONE.

13D: Brillo rival: SOS.

21D: Unable to sit still: ANTSY.

22D: Jamie Foxx biopic about singer Charles: RAY. Great movie. Foxx got a Oscar for his performance.

35D: Bit of medicine for the eye or ear: DROP.

37D: Suffix with meteor: ITE. Meteorite.

42D: Dr. of rap: DRE.

43D: Insurrectionist: REBEL.

51D: Tots' rides: TRIKES.

56D: Wide open: AGAPE.

57D: Crowd quota?: THREE. As in "Three's a crowd".

59D: Planetary center: CORE.

60D: Cajun vegetable: OKRA. Have you tried cooking with fresh OKRA? Quite tasty.

61D: Army meal: MESS.

62D: Actress Russo: RENE. She is in "Tin Cup", one of the best golf movies.

63D: Barney's Bedrock pal: FRED. Flintstone.

64D: "Jumbo" flier: JET.

Answer grid.

Argyle

Sunday October 11, 2009 Dan Naddor

Theme: Why, Yes! - punning on "Y, Yes!". Y sound is inserted in familiar phrases. (Please go to the Comments section and read the constructor's 11:18am post for more explanation.)

24A. Designer Christian doing a pirouette?: REVOLVING DIOR. Revolving Door. Christian Dior was a French fashion designer.

33A. Unadulterated moonshine?: PURE SPIRITS. Poor Spirits.

52A. "Actor Laurie goes after you"?: HUGH'S NEXT?. Who's Next? Hugh Laurie stars in in TV drama "House".

69A. Pool tool in the army rec room?: MILITARY CUE. Military Coup.

87A. Sign at a broken gas pump?: NO FUELING. No Fooling.

104A. Ongoing dispute about chemical use in farming?: ORGANIC FEUD. Organic Food.

115A. Former Vietnamese president's dining reservation?: TABLE FOR THIEU. Table for Two. Thieu (tyoo) was the Vietnamese president from 1967–75.

3D. Gorgeous newborns?: BABY BEAUTIES. Baby Booties.

5D. Speechless moments?: MUTE POINTS. Moot Points.

65D. Coastal Norse horse?: FJORD MUSTANG. Ford Mustang. Fjords are those long, narrow inlets with steep sides in Scandinavian countries.

77D. Late '70s Wimbledon headline? BJORN AGAIN. Born Again. Björn Borg won 5 consecutive Wimbledon singles: 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979 and 1980.

Not sure I understood the theme and theme title correctly. I am terrible at pronunciations and puns.

DIOR & Door does not really fit the oo to yoo pattern. And FJORD & BJORN feel a bit repetitive. Maybe Dan can explain to us his rationale at the Comments section.

Several clever clues in today's puzzle. My favorite is DEAR ABBY (86D. Support column?).

Across:

1. 1987 film about Ritchie Valens: LA BAMBA. And BIOPIC (123A. 1-Across, e.g.). Our crossword stalwart ESAI Morales was in this movie.

8. Birthplace of St. Francis: ASSISI. A town in central Italy.

14. Airheads: DUMBOS

20. Hurrying: IN A RUSH

21. Ahab or his craft: WHALER. His craft is Pequod.

22. Accustoms: ENURES. More used to INURES.

23. Lhasa native: TIBETAN. Lhasa is the capital of Tibet.

26. "Family Ties" mom: ELYSE. No idea. I only recognized Michael J. Fox.

27. __ disease: tick-borne illness: LYME. Kind of arthritis, isn't it?

30. Hip-hoppers Salt-N-__: PEPA. Easy guess. Have never heard of these girls before.

38. Hydrocarbon suffix: ANE

39. Praying figure: ORANT. Same root as oration. Look at this ORANT figure, with outstretched arms. I learned it from doing Xword.

41. John, Paul and John Paul: POPES. Nice clue.

42. Gusto: ELAN

44. Grazing ground: LEA

45. "What an exhausting day!": I'M BEAT

47. Like musically challenged ears?: TIN. Tin ear.

48. Ancient mystic: ESSENE (ESs-een). The Ancient Jewish ascetic. I simply forgot.

50. Radii neighbors: ULNAS. The plural can be ulnas too.

55. Clinch, with "up": SEW

56. Quarreling: AT IT. Here we go again.

57. Singer Lopez: TRINI

59. Pioneering electronic calculators: CASIOS. My first one is a CASIO.

61. Leaves port: SAILS

62. End of __: AN ERA

64. Martin/Tomlin comedy: ALL OF ME. No idea. I like neither of them, so no Netflix for me.

68. Long haul: TREK

73. In __: stuck: A JAM

74. Lives: RESIDES

76. Diner's decision: ORDER. Dan mentioned that the seed entry for his last GO puzzle is SOUTHEAST ASIAGO. He saw ASIAGO on a menu and was inspired by the ASIA GO combination.

77. N.L. career stolen base leader Lou: BROCK. Hall-of-Famer of course. I once pulled an authenticated autographed card of Lou BROCK. Rickey Henderson holds the MLB record.

78. Nobleman's address: MILORD. New word for me. Derived from "my lord".

81. Done to __: repeated too often: DEATH. New idiom to me as well. Like ad nauseam I suppose.

83. Creep: JERK

91. Ate too much, as chips: OD'ED ON. OD = Overdose.

93. Sgt., e.g.: NCO

94. State of mind: TEMPER

96. Unruly locks: MOP

100. Jack's fairy tale victim: GIANT. Not familiar with the fairy tale "Jack the GIANT Killer".

103. Old Mideast assn.: UAR (United Arab Republic). The former Egypt-Syria alliance (1958-61).

108. Talkative bird: MYNA

109. Cousin of calypso: SKA. Precursor to Reggae.

110. Invite for a nightcap: ASK IN

113. "The meek shall inherit the Earth, but not its mineral rights" speaker: GETTY (J. Paul). I was unaware of the origin of the quote.

120. How some stunts are done: ON A DARE. Love this fill.

122. Prepare to leave one's plane seat: UNBELT

124. Wheel adjuster: ALIGNER

125. Seaman's "Help!": MAYDAY

126. Declines: SAYS NO

127. Breaks a promise: RENEGES.

Down:

1. Hardly figurative: LITERAL. Such a straightforward clue.

2. Oily compound used in dyes: ANILINE. No idea. Only knew ANIL the indigo dye.

4. Son of Zeus: ARES. The Greek war god.

6. Troop gp.: BSA (Boy Scouts of America). I was thinking of military troops.

7. Philip of "Kung Fu": AHN. I just mentioned last time that the name AHN (Korean) = ANG in Chinese, as in ANG Lee.

8. Haywire: AWRY

9. Brother of Moe and Curly: SHEMP. Could only think of Larry, who was a friend of the Howard brothers. Wikipedia says the original "The Three Stooges" cast consisted of Moe, Shemp and Larry, and Shemp was later replaced by Curly.

10. Put aside: SAVE UP

11. UN workers' agcy.: ILO (International Labor Organization). Nobel Peace winner 1969. What a burden for Obama to be awarded Nobel so earlier in his presidency.

12. French seasoning: SEL. French for salt.

13. "Mr. Chicago" journalist Kupcinet: IRV

14. Teeth: Prefix: DENTI. What is "Tooth, prefix" then?

15. Felix the neatnik: UNGER. No idea. From "The Odd Couple".

16. Chocoholic desserts: MUD PIES. Want some?

17. Brush hairs: BRISTLES. Oh, the hairs of a brush. I thought the clue was asking for a verb.

18. War on Poverty org.: OEO (Office of Economic Opportunity). Unknown to me.

19. Lith., e.g., once: SSR (Soviet Socialist Republic)

25. AOL and MSN: ISPS

32. Blue Ribbon brewer: PABST. Have you tried Tsingtao beer?

34. "Portnoy's Complaint" author: ROTH (Philip). See the book cover.

35. Protestant denom.: EPISC. Episcopal I suppose.

36. Medicinal shrub: SENNA

37. On one's rocker?: SANE. Great clue. Off one's rocker = insane.

40. Sesame paste: TAHINI. Yummy, yummy.

43. Fresh: NEW

46. Set the radio dial on: TUNE TO

48. Banishment: EXILE

49. Small-strip aircraft acronym: STOL. No idea. It stands for Short Takeoff and Landing.

51. Rapper with the debut album "Hard Core": LIL' KIM. One of her most famous dresses.

53. Yankee manager Joe: GIRARDI. He replaced the other "Yankee manager Joe (Torre) last year. Here is a photo of them together. I don't believe in miracles when Twins face the Yankees, esp in Yankee Stadium, new or old.

54. Isaac's eldest: ESAU. Jacob's twin.

56. Bern's river: AARE. It joins the Rhine River at the Swiss-German border.

58. "Too Ra Loo Ra Loo __": Irish classic: RAL. Here is Bing Crosby's version.

60. Skyrocketed: SOARED. Wrote down SPIKED first.

61. Narrow waterway: Abbr.: STR (Strait)

63. Impassioned: ARDENT

66. Keystone Cops creator Sennett: MACK. How can I remember his name?

67. Mass. senator's monogram, 1962-2009: EMK (Edward Moore Kennedy). Man, I thought his middle initial is F, just like JFK and RFK.

70. __ use: avails: IS OF

71. Sound barrier breaker Chuck: YEAGER. Dennis loves to quote this guy.

72. PC component: CRT (Cathode-Ray Tube). Old PC component.

75. Bedrock pet: DINO. Bedrock threw me off. I am used to "The Flintstones" clue.

79. Written in mystical letters: RUNIC. Wrote down CODED first.

80. Cappuccino request: DECAF

84. Comfy footwear: MOC

85. Personal: Prefix: IDIO. As in idiosyncrasy.

90. Caught in the act: SEEN

92. Iditarod vehicle: DOG SLED

97. Strength symbol: OAK TREE

98. Mass communications?: PRAYERS. Another great clue.

100. NFL Hall of Famer Marchetti: GINO. One of the greatest defensive ends, too bad I've never heard of him.

101. Dutch export: TULIPS

105. Cub Scout leader: AKELA (uh-KEE-luh). Named after Akela the leader of the wolf pack in Kipling's "The Jungle Books". New to me also

106. Excellent: NIFTY

107. Expected to arrive: DUE IN

112. Osso __: BUCO. Stew with veal shank. Literally "bone hole" in Italian. Osso = bone. Buco = hole.

115. "Cats" cat Rum __ Tugger: TUM. Got the answer from crosses.

117. NFL ball carriers: RBS (Running Backs). Adrian Peterson is the RB for the Vikings.

118. __ Maria: liqueur: TIA. Coffee liqueur.

119. José 's "today": HOY. How to pronounce HOY?

120. Row: OAR. I was thinking of ADO.

121. Braves' div.: NLE (National League East)

Answer grid.

C.C.

Saturday October 10, 2009 Brad Wilber

Theme: None

Total blocks: 30

Total words: 72

The maximum word counts for a themeless puzzle is 72 (78 for a weekday 15*15).

As soon as I saw Brad Wilber's byline, I immediately knew "we're not in Kansas any more". His puzzles are just tough. I did fill in more blanks than I first thought. Then I peeked shamelessly at the answer sheet. Quite a few unknowns!

Can't imagine how I would have fared if the original clues remained unchanged. The grid actually does not look intimidating at all, just lots of 9-letter entries, total 14 if I counted correctly.

Across:

1. Pretax sums, e.g.: : SUBTOTALS. Didn't come to me readily. My husband handles all the tax/money stuff in our house.

10. Hero at the Battle of Cabra, 1079: EL CID. Knew this 11th century Spanish hero. Was unaware of the Battle of Cabra.

15. Blackmailer in "David Copperfield": URIAH HEEP. Stumper, though I've seen URIAH clued as "Heep in a Dickens novel" before.

16. Actress Téa: LEONI. She's married to David Duchovyn of "The X-Files".

17. They reach very large audiences: MASS MEDIA

18. Agreements: PACTS

19. Yucatán years: ANOS. Alliteration often happens with foreign words.

20. Wall Street down time?: BEAR MARKET. Great clue. "Wall Street up time" would be BULL MARKET.

22. Jailbird: CON

23. Trains overhead: ELS. In Chicago.

24. Prof's aides: TAS (Teaching Assistants)

26. "Love Don't Cost a Thing" singer, familiarly: J-LO. One of my favorite J-LO songs. I wonder if anyone tried TLC.

27. City south of Fort Worth: WACO. And EL PASO (10D West Texas city). The Texas oil city is ODESSA.

28. Former Ger. currency: DMS (Deutsche Marks). Is it a common abbreviation? RMB is Chinese currency. It stands for RenMinBi, literally "people's currency".

29. Football boot that takes unexpected bounces: SQUIB KICK. No idea. Football terms are definitely my blind spots.

32. Newsman Huntley: CHET. He co-anchored "The Huntley-Brinkley Report" with David Brinkley.

33. Grinch creator: SEUSS. "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!"

34. Bird Down Under: EMU. It's on Australian coat of arms.

37. Foliage-eating pest: GYPSY MOTH.

39. Lush's sound: HIC. An onomatopoeic word. An imitation of hiccup.

40. Chatters: GABS

41. Western alliance: Abbr.: OAS (Organization of American States). Since 1948.

42. Luther opponent Johann __: ECK (Ek). No idea. Wikipedia says he's a 16th-century German Roman Catholic theologian who opposed the reforms of Martin Luther.

43. NASDAQ debut: IPO (Initial Public Offering)

45. Closest pal, in texting shorthand: BFF (Best Friend Forever)

48. Product sold below cost to attract customers: LOSS LEADER. New phrase to me.

51. Jezebel's deity: BAAL. Hebrew for "lord"/"master". It's just clued as "False god" yesterday. Jezebel was the wife of Ahab, king of Israel. According to the Bible, she encouraged idolatry.

52. Flannel shirt pattern: PLAID

53. Booming voice quality: RESONANCE

55. __ Carlo: MONTE

56. "Cogito ergo sum" philosopher: DESCARTES (dey-KAHRT). René DESCARTES: "I think, therefore I am".

58. Shrub with fluffy grayish flower clusters: SMOKE BUSH.

Down:

1. "Poison" plant: SUMAC. Highly toxic.

2. Seventh planeta: URANO. Spanish for Uranus I gather.

3. Plains bovine: BISON

4. Soviet news agency: TASS. Now Itar-TASS.

5. Resistance unit: OHM. Named after the German physicist G. S. OHM. The reverse MOH is "unit of conductance".

6. Amoebalike movie alien: THE BLOB. Nope. Have never heard of the movie. Wikipedia says it's Steve McQueen's debut performance.

7. Dreaded mosquito: AEDES (ey-EE-deez). The yellow-fever mosquito. Another new word.

8. Darth's daughter: LEIA. From "Star Wars".

9. Title gladiator played by Kirk Douglas: SPARTACUS. I guessed.

11. Goneril's father: LEAR. King Lear. He has three daughters: Goneril (oldest, bad), Regan (middle one, bad too) and Cordelia (youngest, good).

12. Old military topper with a turned-up brim: COCKED HAT

13. Fit together: INTERMESH. I only knew ENMESH.

14. Repugnance: DISTASTE

21. Big truck name: MACK

23. Yale Bowl cheerers: ELIS. Yale Bowl is the stadium of Yale University football team (the Yale Bulldogs).

26. Equitable: JUST

27. Timid types: WIMPS

29. Long-sentence punctuation: SEMICOLONS. The answer just leaped itself.

30. Marsh hazard: QUICKSAND

31. Rows on pianos: KEYBOARDS.

32. CNBC interviewees: CEOS. Sometimes CFOS.

33. "... on my honor": SO HELP ME. God, I had SOH???PME sitting there forever. Stupid!

35. Fed who tracks down money launderers: T-MAN. From the Department of the Treasury.

37. Rubberneck: GAPE

38. Exuberant modern compliment: YOU ROCK. Yep, our Lois uses this compliment all the time.

40. Word before Age or cage: GILDED. Gilded cage is new to me. Dictionary says to be like “a bird in a gilded cage” is to live in luxury but without freedom. What can I say? I've been living under a rock.

44. Gypsum painting surface: GESSO (JES-oh). Stumped many last time when it appeared in our puzzle.

45. African language group: BANTU. Includes Swahili and Zulu.

46. Looks toward: FACES

47. It's pressed on the campaign trail, with "the": FLESH. "Press the FLESH" = shake hands. Another new idiom to me.

49. Place to build: SITE

51. Cutting remark: BARB. Hey, Barb B!

54. Highland refusal: NAE. What's Scottish for "yes" then?

Answer grid.

C.C.

Interview with Joe Krozel

How do you properly describe Joe Krozel's puzzles? Exciting!

Solving his puzzles is like watching Phil Mickelson pulling those incredible flop shots out of rough. You know he will take some risks, you know he will stun you, you know the ball will land inches away from the hole, if not in the hole.

Will Shortz, NY Times Crossword Editor, named Mr. Krozel's LIES puzzle as his favorite in 2008. The visual black squared L I E S and the lying theme clues are just awe-inspiring. My favorite is the baseball puzzle Mr. Krozel collaborated on with Peter Collins. What a beautiful and innovative diamond!

Like Patrick Berry, Mr. Krozel has never contributed to the LA Times. But he's such a prominent pioneering figure in the crossword world that I think we should know him. Enjoy the interview! I find his answers to be very informative and educational.

What is your background? How does it influence the imaginative and unconventional way you construct crosswords?

I have some experience with product research and development, but even before that I naturally questioned the validity of assumptions and conventional approaches to problems. I like taking software designed by other people and seeing what unusual things I can do with it. Some of my puzzles require me to use the crossword software and word list in unexpected ways. This will become even more apparent with my future puzzles. (All I want to add is that bloggers Ryan and Brian are starting to catch on to me when they note that my high-skill puzzles go hand in hand with my novelty puzzles).

Which is the most memorable puzzle you've made and why is it special to you?

All my puzzles have a great deal of meaning to me because they are so different from one another. (Well, mostly… I sometimes make two renditions of high-skill puzzles -- like the 19-block-count and the 58-word-count puzzles -- just to demonstrate that the first rendition wasn’t a fluke … and there will be more of that exposition forthcoming). But I hope the puzzles all get assembled together in published form one day. I think it’s more interesting to look at the entire set and think about the variety.

You've crafted 28 NY Times puzzle since you started in 2006. What has contributed to this productivity and where do you find your theme inspirations?

One thing that contributes to productivity is not being stifled. I don’t think I would have survived under a strict editor like Eugene Maleska; an editor’s risk-taking and receptiveness to ideas really fosters more of the same. I remember putting the LIES puzzle into the envelop to mail away and chuckling to my wife that it would never get accepted, but it was worth the postage just to show it to Will (Shortz). He published it, and it turned out to be one of his favorites – at least for 2008.

The sources of theme inspiration vary. Merl Reagle once remarked that he would be surprised to see any serious puzzle with 2-letter entries, so that inspired me to make both my state-postal-code puzzle and my compass puzzle. Also, one of Matt Ginsberg’s puzzles inspired me to produce something very similar. Even a solver’s description in the comment section of a blog inspired a new puzzle. (At least one of these last two puzzles will be published). Other times it’s just a matter of getting into the right mindset: The book “Bobby Fischer’s Outrageous Chess Moves” just gets my mind into that unconventional thinking mode.

What mistakes did you make when you first started constructing puzzles and what advice would you give to the budding constructors?

It took me a while to get up to speed because I was writing Excel spreadsheets to stack 15-letter entries when crossword software would have done it more efficiently. So, my advice to new constructors is to buy Crossword Compiler, subscribe to the Cruciverb website (and it’s database), and use the Cruciverb-L mail list to request a mentor – who will likely lend you a starter word list for you to adopt as your own; Focus on wordplay-based themes; Recognize that solvers like multi-word entries that are in-the-language; Use OneLook.com to help generate new entries.

Also, many beginners tend to use too many proper nouns in their construction (and clueing). It’s better to have a common word like PAPER rather than PAPAL in a puzzle. The former allows more wordplay type clues like: Rock beater. Solvers eventually figure out the wordplay, and they may actually enjoy being deceived for a short while.

Quite a few LA Times constructors mentioned in their interviews that they dislike cluing, how about you? What kind of resources/reference books do you use to ensure the accuracy/playfulness of your clues?

Clueing is really only a drag for the entries that allow very little playfulness… again proper nouns. So, I have to invent my own playfulness; I recently had trouble identifying a new famous person with the name DAN, so I punted and submitted the clue: Feyer of crossword solving fame. I pulled a similar stunt with CALEB (Young constructor Madison) and ORBACH (Tony of crossword constructing fame). Hopefully the editors find this sort of thing amusing … I don’t do it too often: I suppose there could be some serious repercussions if one of those clues accidentally made it into print.

What kind of puzzles do you solve every day and who are your favorite constructors?

I’m not a great solver because I have a terrible recall for [yet again] proper nouns, so I gravitate toward the late-week puzzles that have more of what I like in the clues: wordplay. I solved Sudoku for about a year until I completely figured it out and decided the realm of possibilities was finite. I occasionally play Minesweeper in my idle time because it involves reasoning mixed with pattern recognition; my best Expert level score is 73.3 seconds, though most days it’s closer to 90 seconds. But alas, I digress.

There are many amazing constructors out there, so I think I’d have to define “favorite” as those whose puzzles inspired my own. As you might guess, my frequent collaborator Pete Collins has inspired quite a bit of my work since we are in frequent contact. Pete once constructed a puzzle with a long bonus entry along the diagonal, and that inspired me to do the same in a subsequent collaboration. I like other constructors that produce novelty themes: Matt Ginsberg, John Farmer, Patrick Blindauer, Ashish Vengsarkar, Tim Wescott. (Also, Todd Gross constructed a FLIES puzzle as a spoof of my LIES puzzle). Those are more recent examples. I guess I’d add on all the constructors in “Will Shortz’s Favorite Crossword Puzzles” book.

Besides constructing crosswords, what are your other interests?

Let’s just stick with crosswords since I have more to say: Lately I’ve been digging into newspaper archives of the crossword craze of the mid-to-late 1920’s (thanks to some Cruciverb postings by Sergio Ximenes). I was fascinated by how the Brooklyn Daily Eagle invited readers to submit self-made crosswords from September 1924 through about June 1928, paid them $5 apiece, and printed their name below their puzzles. I love researching the way those puzzles evolved to the point where some constructors could produce 78-word puzzles in which the shortest entries were just three letters long; one constructor even produced a pangram. (Margaret [Petherbridge] Farrar was involved in crossword editing elsewhere at that time, but I don’t know that she ever kept any records about constructors from that era). It’s just too bad that the notion of including the constructor byline didn’t catch on permanently back then.

Fast forward to 2009: most puzzles now have the constructor and editor’s names on them, and I for one can’t stand solving any puzzle that doesn’t have that information on it. I just wish we could go back and identify the constructors of all the innovative puzzles of the past.

Note from C.C.: A special Thanks to Jim Horne of Wordplay for his wonderful database.