Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Title: "Not You!"
Author: Lee Glickstein
Theme: "You" sound is replaced by "oo" sound in various phrases

• 17a: Pious Milne character? (CHURCH POOH). pew.


• 66a: Reunion spread? (FAMILY FOOD). feud. this one was my favorite.


• 10d: Baby boutique? (BOOTEE SHOP). beauty. to be honest, BOOTEE SHOP seems just as plausible. as the father of an 11 month old, i can tell you: babies have a lot of stuff.


• 30d: Lousy pastries? (COOTIE PIES). cutie.

i did one of lee's wordplay themes last time i guest-blogged. although i guess now i'm no longer a guest, but a regular. ("waiter, i'll have the usual.") anyway, this one was fine, i suppose. easy enough for a tuesday, but i wasn't too excited about any of the theme answers.

Sunny Spots:

• 50a: 2006 documentary directed by Patrick Creadon (WORDPLAY). a winner, both as a movie and as a crossword entry. it's not a stretch to say that wordplay was the catalyst for my current crossword obsession.


• 31d: All-Pro cornerback with three Super Bowl rings (TY LAW). boy, this guy was good. he, and not tom brady, should have been the MVP of super bowl XXXVI.

Sundries:

• 1a: Dutch painter Hieronymous (BOSCH). a nice gimme for me to start things off. that's his the garden of earthly delights (central panel of a triptych). there's a lot going on in that picture, so here's a bigger view.


• 10a: ___ Men ("Who Let the Dogs Out?" band) (BAHA). god, this song was annoying. why do i associate it with shea stadium?


• 16a: Clumsy fellows (OXES). speaking of clumsy, i'm not wild about this word. i never understood why it should take a different plural form just because OX is being used metaphorically instead of literally.


• 23a: Emeril's shout (BAM). not to be confused with john madden's shout, BOOM.


• 25a: Southernmost New Jersey county (CAPE MAY).


• 27a: Solitaire weight, perhaps (ONE CARAT). a diamond solitaire, naturally. i only recently became familiar with this term.


• 32a: "Norma ___" (RAE). i don't even remember who/what this is, but i've filled it into a crossword so many times it no longer matters. this time it's not charlotte. (actor stephen is REA--that much i remember.)


• 34a: Chalcedony variety (ONYX). i like the word "chalcedony," hitherto unknown to me. i assume it means some kind of rock. it reminds me of the 5th-century council of chalcedon.


• 36a: It covers the Hill (C-SPAN). later in the week, we might have gotten [Hill coverer] or something sneakier like that. here, with the capital H, there was no deception.


• 43a: Good lighting? (HALO). HALO seems to be one of those words that inspires ? clues (ATM, ELOPE, ADAM/EVE/EDEN, EAT/ATE ... any others come to mind?). this one was okay.


• 52a: Fortune seller (TIME, INC.). now this one was tricky. i liked it, but i always get tripped up by the fact that magazine titles don't have to be in quotes. well, unless the answer is RENEW--somehow i always sniff that one out.


• 60a: Letter before mu (LAMBDA). gotta love this one. for once, it's not ETA, RHO, PSI, PHI, CHI, or TAU (or even worse, one of the awkward plurals like XIS or NUS). plus, LAMBDA is just cool--it has that mysterious B in the middle, and it's used for all kinds of fun things in physics and math.


• 69a: Center for the Nets? (IZOD). this refers to the IZOD center, where the new jersey nets play their home games. not to the actual center for the nets, whoever that may be. i think they drafted one of the lopez twins from stanford--brook, maybe? (by the way, which is a girlier name for a 7-foot NBA center, brook or robin?)


• 70a: Watts of "Funny Games" (NAOMI). never heard of this movie, but she was very good in king kong and 21 grams.


• 72a: Lawless part (XENA). "lawless" is almost-but-not-quite a common enough english word to have misdirection value in a crossword clue. (but yes, it's always XENA.)


• 2d: Where Barack Obama was born (OAHU). more liberal bias! (i kid, of course.)


• 5d: Priam's wife (HECUBA). the queen of troy, in the iliad. a memorable name, because of the player's monologue and hamlet's soliloquizing thereon in act II. "what's hecuba to him, or he to hecuba?"


• 9d: 1987 Dustin Hoffman film (ISHTAR). directed by the apparently-very-famous ELAINE MAY. now i know. but still, i'd prefer a babylonian mythology clue any day of the week.


• 12d: Hägar nagger (HELGA). umlaut alert!


• 24d: "___ Monday" (#2 Bangles hit of 1986) (MANIC). only #2? wikipedia tells me it was behind prince's "kiss." not only that, but it was also originally written by prince! i did not know that. anyway, as candy pop goes, i actually rather like this song.



• 29d: Anarchist Goldman (EMMA). cool, i like seeing her. on my first pass through this section i misread this as "architect Goldman."


• 37d: Gloomy shadow (PALL). i like this word.


• 38d: Burstyn's "Same Time, Next Year" costar (ALDA). alan, presumably.


• 51d: Johnson of "Get Smart" (DWAYNE). aka "the rock." i had no idea he was in this movie.


• 52d: Setting of Steinbrenner field (TAMPA). nice clue, since that's where king george lives and where the yankees play their spring training home games. also, kudos to peter for not perpetuating the common erroneous clue here. hey, speaking of the rays, they advanced to the ALCS today along with the red sox. that should be fun. now explain to me again why both teams have three days off?


• 53d: Neighbor of Slovenia (ITALY). ack, it's mysterious eastern european geography... oh wait, no. i know where ITALY is.



• 54d: Pep (MOXIE).


• 62d: Garden sounds, sometimes (BOOS). i suppose that's madison square garden, although i wonder if the puzzle's ostensible NYC bias will fade with the memory of the NYS.


• 64d: Score after a deuce ace (AD IN). now that is a terrific clue: both precise (as opposed to the usual [Deuce follower, sometimes]) and lively, evoking a card game instead of tennis.

Suns of Bitches:

nope, not today.

was it just me, or was there a lot of sports in this one? maybe that's why i solved it so fast. hey, i'm not complaining!

see you next time.

- joon