SUNDAY, Dec. 3, 2006 - Patrick Merrell

Solving time: 36:41 (applet)

THEME: Prefix Remix - common words are clued as if they were two-word answers, with the prefix as the first word, e.g. 76A: Amounts owed at a diner? (counter balance)

Blogger is screwing with me again, so today I'm not going to give it enough time to trip me up. In and out. No fuss, no muss.

Loved the theme, which was easy and difficult in equal measure. Helped me a lot in the lower half of the, held me back a little bit up top. The big challenge of the puzzle for me was the NE and NNE, where I guessed (correctly) at a cross of two words I didn't know. I was actually a little surprised when I clicked "Done!" and the computer accepted my grid. Pretty lucky, considering the guess and the fact that I hadn't double-checked my grid at all.

28A (THEME): Graffiti on a jail wall? (con-notations)

This was the clue that held much of the NE hostage until the bitter end, when stormtroopers seized the building in a cloud of tear gas and hail of gunfire. Luckily, all the answers got out alive. It is clear to me why I couldn't get CONNOTATIONS. I knew that the prefix was CON-, but assumed wrongly that the next letter must be an "S" or "T" or "V," anything but yet another "N." You can't hear the prefixiness of the CON- in CONNOTATIONS because the second "N" is elided, so ... buttons. Took me forever, though the answer is obvious when you see it, just sitting there mocking you (me). Perhaps I would have got it from crosses sooner if the crosses were known to me. Let's look at the little far NE segment.

22A: Do followers (re mi)
26A: Destructive 1995 hurricane (Opal)

The first of these made me Angry (at myself, for not understanding the gist of the clue sooner). The second made me ... shrug. I had IVAN written there for a good long while, IVAN being the the only recent 4-letter hurricane I could think of (besides Rita, whose year I knew). These two sat atop one another, and with one blank and the other wrong, I was going nowhere fast. At first, in this whole NE corner, I had just two sad little words written in, the validity of which I doubted over and over again, though they ended up being right: 15A: Junket (trip) and its "I" cross 17D: "Somehow everything gets done" ("I manage") (love that one). Besides IMANAGE, the other Downs, the ones that crossed the then-unsolved CONNOTATIONS, were not helping me out.

15D: Counselor on "Star Trek: T.N.G. (Troi)
16D: Fix, as brickwork (repoint)
18D: Footed glass (pilsner)

OK, to a certain brand of mainstream nerd (not this brand, but a brand), that first one is a gimme . With that spelling, I'm surprised I haven't seen Counselor TROI more. But those other two ... I could not have told you what a PILSNER glass looked like before today. For most of the puzzle I though "footed" meant ... something done to glass, or some technical term for paned glass; never occurred to me to think drinking glass. REPOINT is still mysterious. Seems a rather technical masonic term: "repair the joints of bricks; 'point a chimney'" (thefreedictionary.com). Once I figured out that 43A: Like some penguin feet was ORANGE (an answer that makes me go "ewwww" for some reason - would have liked "Blogger Reynaldo's handle" better) and guessed that Actor Charleson of "Chariots of Fire" was IAN ("three letters, probably British ... IAN. Why not?"), then the NE Downs eventually fell. The NNE was another story entirely.

21A: Dark region of the moon (mare)
12D: Pitch-raising guitar device (capo)

These little answers cross at the "A," which was the Very Last Letter I (desperately) entered in the grid. I have never heard of either term. Need a vowel. CAPO is something I've heard of, usually in relation to whacking people, not playing guitar, but when in doubt, enter something that you at least know is an actual word. MARE also is a word I know, though in relation to horses, not the moon. From the fruitily named enchantedlearning.com

Mare (plural maria) means "sea," but maria on the moon are plains on the moon. They are called maria because very early astronomers thought that these areas on the moon were great seas. The first moon landing was in the Mare Tranquillitatis (the Sea of Tranquility). Maria are concentrated on the side of the moon that faces the Earth; the far side has very few of these plains. Scientists don't know why this is so.

Here is a picture of the Mare Nectaris:I began this little segment of the puzzle with 11A: Easily passed (aced). "Mmmm, the ironing is delicious."

I'm off for a walk in the woods. Part II later in the day. . .

And I'm back, full of lunch and fresh off of both Listener (NZ) crosswords, the cryptic and the regular (well, British regular, that is, with all those non-intersecting squares, ugh). So, where was I? Ah yes. The rest of the puzzle.

71A: Refrigerator brand (Amana)
39A: Poplar tree (abele)
33D: Extra capsule in a pill bottle (desiccant)

The first of these: "Hey, that's my refrigerator brand. Gimme gimme gimme." The second: "....?" It might have helped if I'd read the clue properly (I only just this second, literally, noticed that the word in the clue was "poplar" and not "popular"). On second thought, no, that wouldn't have helped. I know tree names like I know, let's say, dark parts of the moon. Both of those 5-letter "A" answers intersected the long down DESICCANT, which I could not see forEver, and whose validity I hereby dispute. Or at least question. "Extra capsule" implies that it is like the others in shape and size. I would not even call most DESICCANTS I've seen "capsules." They are little pouches, where a capsule is, well ... a capsule. Need visuals!

CAPSULE:
DESICCANT:One last fact: Google Image search of [DESICCANT capsule] gets you 20 hits; same search of [DESICCANT pouch] = 83,400. Prosecution rests.

[late addendum: I have no idea where I got that last Google Image search number from, as it is wrong. The actual number is ... 44. And "capsules" are, in fact, the name given to certain kinds of DESICCANTs commonly found in bottles of capsule medication. I am told that DESICCANT pouches are not found in medicine bottles, which I dispute as I am certain I've seen a pouch or two in a medicine bottle in my time. But in retrospect, all my complaints in this entry are pretty ill-founded. Not sure what got me so worked up.

75A: Director Gus Van _____ (Sant)
79A: "CHiPs" star of 1970's-80's TV (Estrada)

Really, did you need "of 1970's-80's TV" in that clue? "Oh, that 'CHiPs.'" ESTRADA was a big hunk of beefcake when I was a kid. I'll take "CHiPs" over "CSI" or "Law & Order" any day of the week. Fast, fun, cheesy, sunny - everything modern crime dramas are not, and without the hicksville heavy-handed morality and round-house kickery of "Walker, Texas Ranger." ESTRADA was having a good time, and you could come along for the ride. Or not. He didn't care. He seemed to understand his pop culture niche, and he embraced it rather than trying to escape it. Big hit on Spanish-language soap operas. He's done voice-over work in recent years on both "King of the Hill" and "Sealab 2021." His official website features a blurb from Cindy Williams of "Laverne & Shirley" fame. Long live good-time ESTRADA. May he work forever. Oh, maybe I should say something about Gus Van SANT, since I bothered mentioning him and all. Uh ... My Own Private Idaho was pretty good. To Die For was Great. The 1998 "shot-for-shot" remake of Psycho, however, was an abomination. That's enough about Mr. Van SANT.

91A: Draft org. (NBA)

Wow, nice trap. Got me. I of course had SSS (and SSN and SSA, since I wasn't rightly sure of the proper abbreviation). I like how the puzzle brings up the draft - during war time, with a bill on reinstating the draft about to be put forth in the Congress - and then pulls a little fake-out, bringing us back to the happy land of professional sports, where everything is right with the world.

A few last thoughts:

Two new answers are making a play for Pantheon status: 66A: "The Matrix" hero (Neo) and 124D: Rob Roy's refusal ("Nae!"). Please note that if NAE really wants into the Pantheon, we are going to require that he start being clued by way of reference to Groundskeeper Willie, e.g. "Groundskeeper Willie's refusal." How hard was that? What are you saving the ink for, Christmas? Liven the clue up a bit!

87D: "Woe _____" (humorous grammar book) [is I] is a very fine book, probably the best of its kind (that is, for a general audience). I have used it in my courses with some success, though lately I've gone totally Old School and unleashed Strunk & White's Elements of Style (a finer book on writing has never been written, I assure you). Side note: I read the first fistful of pages of that Eats, Shoots & Leaves book and immediately got that violent feeling that sometimes comes over me when I see pedantic people on their haughty high-horses. I'm all for modeling correct usage, but to advocate that people become "sticklers" and actually start correcting people, people they don't even know ... if you try that bull@#$@ out in the real world and get the @#$#@ kicked out of you, do not come crying to me because I will not care.

Security Council member 89D: Sport with arm-waving (epée) is hereby acknowledged, in accordance with Pantheon by-law 0004 ("All Security Council members must receive public acknowledgment each time they appear in puzzles"). With no disrespect to EPÉE, I wanted the answer here to be HULA.

119A (THEME): Where we be? (dis-location) is by far the hottest of the theme entries, in that it made me laugh out loud mid-solve, which, believe me, is a rare event. The Eugene T. Maleska "Out of the Past" award this week goes to 13D: Verdi aria ("Eri Tu"), which I hadn't seen in so long that I'd completely forgotten it and written in my default five-letter E---U word, ELIHU.

Lastly, a little something for one of my most faithful readers, who knows who he is: 32D: "Take _____" ("Congratulations!") [a bow]. Next time, Mr. Shortz, you might try upping the difficulty level a little by turning the clue in this direction:
Just a friendly suggestion.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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MONDAY, Nov. 27, 2006 - Marlon R. Howell

Solving time: 5:28 (applet)

THEME: "Quote by Bertrand Russell relevant to crossword solvers" - THE TIME YOU ENJOY / WASTING / IS NOT WASTED TIME

This is pretty average Monday solving time for me, but I'm a little frustrated because I really felt like I was going quickly, and yet ... didn't even break 5. Two problems. 1. Still working on my applet agility, and 2. block quotes, UGH. The real hang-up came on the middle part, WASTING. I had WASTIN- and I thought it was not one word but two: WAS TIN-, which made me really question the "N" - since the TIME in the first part of the quote somewhat suggested that it might be referred to again (THE TIME YOU ENJOY / WAS TIME...), though if you stop to think about it (not that possible at high speeds) my imagined phrasing makes no sense grammatically. Still I was thinking WAS TINY? WAS TINT? Ugh! I had to snake my way over to that part of the puzzle by another route before the horrid, never-actually-used GELID provided the final "G" in WASTING. I like that I WASTED time figuring that damned part out. I'm also proud that I'm at the point where a time over 5 on a Monday is disappointing to me. Good for me.

My mother foisted Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not A Christian on me as a teenager, which says a lot about my mom (most of it quite good, actually). My mom is not a ... fan of organized religion. Right-wing politics are only part of the problem: the Catholics who swarmed our neighborhood every Sunday of my youth (we lived next door to a church) could not drive worth a damn and made our weekly expeditions to IHOP more harrowing than she could accept without exclaiming some kind of profanity. To this day, one of my favorite mom quotes is "god-damned Catholics" (this must be muttered, not yelled, preferably while driving). Ironically, my mom is one of the most Christian women I know (not in the church-going sense, but in the sense that she's actually read the Gospels, multiple times, and lives a life that's mostly in keeping with their core principles - but don't tell her that; it might freak her out).

Back to work today, ugh. I have a turkey-birthday hangover, as I consumed something like my body weight over the four-day weekend. Back to dietary basics, starting ... now.

11D: Old Japanese assassin (ninja)

This word has so much contemporary currency - at least one kid I know was a ninja for Halloween - that I was surprised to see it clued as "Old." That's all I have to say about that. Here is a so-called "Ninja Turtle."

34D: _____ - Coburg (part of historic Germany) [Saxe])
66A: Pivots (slews)

Two words I did not know ... in a Monday puzzle. Humiliating - or would have been if I hadn't been able to piece them together from crosses. What does "historic Germany" mean? Is there a part of the country that has been cordoned off? What part of Germany isn't "historic" in some way? Does the clue refer to a no-longer-current name for a region in Germany? I'm assuming SAXE is etymologically related to SAXONS somehow. The Angles and the Saxons either "invaded" or "migrated to" what is now England in the 5th c. CE. The English language developed from the Germanic languages spoken by these Anglo-Saxon "invaders." Where am I going with this? I have no idea. Slipped into lecture mode for a second. Sorry. SLEWS is even rougher than SAXE for a Monday puzzle because, as far as I can tell in one minute's Google research, which I did just now, SLEW is a variant of SLUE, with the following definitions (from the Am. Herit. Dict.):

slue1 also slew (sl)
v. slued, also slewed slu·ing, slew·ing slues, slews
v. tr.

1. To turn (something) on an axis; rotate: slued the swivel chair around; sluing the boom of a crane.
2. To turn sharply; veer: braked and slued the car around.


v. intr.

1. To turn about an axis; pivot.
2. To turn or slide sideways or off course; skid.


n.

1. The act of sluing.
2. The position to which something has slued.

I can't complain, because if the answer had been SLUES I still wouldn't ever have heard of it.

63A: Hayseed (yokel)

"Some folks'll never eat a skunk / But then again, some folk'll / Like Cletus, the Slack-Jawed YOKEL!"
I like that YOKEL intersects 55D: Drink with sushi (sake) at the "K." Mmmm, incongruity. There are actually 3 K's, an X, a couple of V's, and many many Y's in this puzzle. Pretty good for a Monday.

28D: Vladimir of the Kremlin (Putin)

Soon this answer will be clued "Dictator Vladimir" or "Despot Vladimir" or "Guy who has journalists killed with radioactive material Vladimir." Russia apparently has gotten tired of being an also-ran country and is making a play to get back into the world tyranny game in a big way. Remember when we won the Cold War? Ah, good times.

64A: Capone fighter Eliot _____ (Ness)

Somewhere in a loch in Scotland, a certain giant amphibious creature I know is getting very angry at being snubbed in puzzle after puzzle in favor of this alleged crime-fighter guy. Can't the world's stealthiest dinosaur get a little love? "Home of Scottish monster" - how hard is that? You could even add "allegedly" if you felt you had to. You've got CLAN (1A) in the northwest of the puzzle - you could bring a little of that Scottishness to the far southeast. Viva Scotland. Cue Willie!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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TUESDAY, Nov. 21, 2006 - Stella Daily and Bruce Venzke

Solving time: 8-ish (on Across Lite)

THEME: "Orchestra" - final words of three long theme entries are BRASS, STRINGS, and WINDS, with the theme ORCHESTRA (58A) also in the grid

First, a correction: at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, competitors solve on paper, not the computer. I misunderstood someone's comment at another site. So sorry for yesterday's misinformation.

Second, I have said before, many times, maybe here, certainly elsewhere, that the non-Jerry "Seinfeld" actors are Not funny. I used to have to point to the string of horrid and / or failed vanity sitcom projects to make my point. Now I can just point to this.

Third, I have a question about the phrase "the fourth of never," which I used last night for some reason, to the surprise of my wife who had just heard the phrase used earlier in the day by one of her students. I don't think it's something I've ever said before, and in fact I'm not sure that the proper phrase isn't "fifth of never" or "twelfth of never." Oh, there's a song called "The Twelfth of Never" by, it looks like, Johnny Mathis, and possibly Keith Urban. Maybe Nina Simone sang it too. Oh ick, here's an online Casio keyboard version of some kind. It's actually written by Paul Francis Weber and Jerry Livingstone. It's pretty sappy. OK, back to puzzle. [late addendum: how's this for irony?: I've barely heard of the song "The Twelfth of Never," and yet Two of my favorite musical artists and biggest celebrity crushes have recorded it - why was I not informed? I prefer Dolly Parton's version to Olivia Newton-John's, but it's a pretty close call. The very best version (from what I could gather from the 30-second snippets @ iTunes) is by Nina Simone, yet Another one of my idols. The song just isn't that strong, but if these women are singing, I'm listening. Seriously, I'm downloading the songs right now.]

Today's theme was very clever, neat, tidy, musical. Nice. Couldn't ask for more from a Tuesday puzzle. I especially like that 20A (THEME): Generals and such (military brass) is crossed at the "Y" by 9D: Certain well-traveled child (army brat). Must move even more quickly today, as I'm on Sahra-patrol (she's out of school for the T-giving week, and she and I are due at Denny's to eat breakfast with mommy's students in about a 1/2 hour!).

4D: Morales of "NYPD Blue" (Esai)
41A: Architect Saarinen (Eero)
63A: Pitcher (ewer)

Gimme an "E"! Who opened the "E" pen at Krosswordese Korner? Pantheon stalwarts are running amok. In addition to these "E" words, we have EDER (15A), ERE (2D), EGO (34D), and EX-MET (43A) (that last one -> ouch). I don't know if I'm annoyed by all the conventional fill or amused by the "E" party. It's a close call. There's an abundance of tired fill that doesn't start with "E" - NTWT (55D), AREA (56D), ARIA (53D) [seriously, AREA and ARIA... and in the same neck of the puzzle woods? OK], ODEA (7D) and the old-school, Maleska-era throwback ABIE (19D). This fairly unimaginative short fill is, I'm happy to say, more than made up for by generous interesting longer fill, including ORGIES (22D) and PENMANSHIP (30D), which are two great tastes that taste great together.

6D: Sonnet part (sestet)

Mmmm, sonnet parts. I like the dark meat! Seriously, I do like that SESTET not only means a SIX-line chunk of poetry, but it has SIX letters in it, AND is positioned here at SIX-Down. 6-6-6. Symmetry! And evil...

The Petrarchan sonnet is typically described as having two parts: the octet and the sestet (first eight and last six lines, respectively). Rhyme scheme would usually change at the octet/sestet break. Here is a sonnet by Sir Philip Sidney, the first sonnet from his sonnet sequence Astrophil & Stella. Spelling is modernized, for your pleasure.

Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,
That she (dear She) might take some pleasure of my pain:
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain;
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe,
Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain:
Oft turning others' leaves, to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sun-burned brain.
But words came halting forth, wanting Invention's stay,
Invention, Nature's child, fled step-dame Study's blows,
And others' feet still seemed but strangers in my way.
Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite--
"Fool," said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart and write."

I love this poem (as Renaissance poems go), mainly for the line "I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe," but also for the weird, urgent pace of the end, which has a crazy masochistic birthing metaphor going on before it settles into the very simple last line. ANYway...

31D: German chancellor Merkel (Angela)

Again. Damn, she gets a lot of puzzle action for a six-letter answer.

49A: One working on the margin, briefly? (Arb)

I am not sure I know what this is short for. Isn't this what Arby's employees proudly call themselves? No, "anonymous" says it's "arbitrager." If it involves money or business in any way, then I am useless. I do not even like managing my own money (much). I have a guy who handles that. Seriously.

51A: Not, to a Scot (Nae!)
45D: Scottish hillside (Brae!)

As in, "NAE! I wilnae go o'er yon BRAE, ye daft wee bairn!" Cue the requisite shot of Willie!:
49D: Playwright Fugard (Athol)

Best name, because it sounds like a lisping guy is shouting profanity. In this picture, we see that ATHOL has a certain unfortunate Manson-ish quality. I know one thing about Athol Fugard. OK, two. One, he is (was?... no, is) South African. Two, he wrote a play called Master Harold and the Boys, which I think was on Broadway starring Matthew Broderick at some point, and which I know I saw at the Ashland, Oregon Shakespeare festival when my entire H.S. English class went on a week-long field-trip there in 1986 (or maybe 1987 - we went both years). It was ... good? I don't remember. I think it's about white guilt over Apartheid. I remember Shakespeare better.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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TUESDAY, Nov. 7, 2006 - Bruce P. Douglas

Solving time: 8:39 (details below)

THEME: Red State / Blue State - 6 theme answers, 3 clued "Red state," 3 clued "Blue state"

Before I begin my response to today's election-day, election-themed puzzle, I'd like to take some time to answer Viewer Mail. Our first letter comes from "Catherine" at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. After lavishing much-deserved praise on yours truly, she writes:

As both a crossword nerd and a plant nerd, I feel that I have to point out an error [in the Sunday, Nov. 5 puzzle commentary]. The picture of a “pawpaw” you have on your Sunday entry is actually a papaya. Although people in other countries call papayas pawpaws, the American use of the word applies to the native tree species Asimina triloba. The clue in the puzzle refers to an old children’s song believed to be written in Kentucky.

I am grateful for the correction, and I want to apologize to the many readers I quite unintentionally misled. But I mean, come on. Can you blame me? Believe me, if you were doing a Google Image search of "pawpaw" and you were lucky enough to get THIS picture as a hit:you would not ask questions. You would just take the picture and run with it, because that picture is money. Sadly, though, it's misleading, and so I'm forced to correct myself and, as part of my atonement, show you this perfectly accurate but far less entertaining picture of the American pawpaw (the one actually referred to in the crossword clue in question):
PS, I am happy to be corrected, but only by professionals. As many of you know, I don't take correction easy, and often enjoy persisting in my wrongness; but when the Brooklyn Botanic Garden says you're wrong about a plant, you'd probably better listen.

PPS seriously, though, if you see an obvious typo, help me out ASAP with a gentle private email nudge. Thanks.

Solved this puzzle on the Applet (is that what you call it? when you play against the clock at the NYT site and then your time is posted against everyone else's?) for the first time last night, and it was a bit ugly. There's only one answer on the entire grid that was unknown to me, and yet I was still slow. I type very fast, but this is actually a drawback for someone like me whose mouse-keyboard dexterity is not yet refined, because if my cursor is in the wrong place, or I'm oriented Across instead of Down or vice versa, I can $#@$ up a lot of grid in a split second. Blog-wise, doing the puzzle on the Applet is not convenient, as I can't print the puzzle out in its scanner-friendly completeness (and I can't see where I had wrong answers - those are usually half the fodder for my commentary!). Today, after I'd finished the puzzle on-line, I just printed out a clean grid and filled it in, which is a joyless experience, let me tell you...

...Unlike the puzzle itself, which is actually quite nice, if a bit theme-crazy ("election" language is all over the grid and clues, more like an occupying army than a theme). In addition to the six Red state / Blue state clues, there are, let me count, six clues that directly reference elections, and then a handful of others that are explicitly or implicitly political. Now they say that the NY Times has a liberal bias, and while I generally discount such suggestions as just so much conspiracy-theory nonsense, this puzzle makes me wonder. On the day after Daniel Ortega (apparently) gets elected in Nicaragua, the puzzle just happens to have LEFTS (5A) and COMMUNISM (34D) as answers, while Uncle SAM (46A), the paragon of American patriotism, is dragged through the mud, defiled by close contact with not only COMMUNISM but PIGS (32D)! Of course the puzzle's also got GORE standing shoulder-to-shoulder with EVIL in the SW corner, but that's probably just because the pinkos at the Times are trying to exorcise Gore's bloated political corpse because they know he's a liability and they don't want him #$$%-ing up today's election. The puzzle seems to want to stir OUTRAGE (24D) against the DESPOTS (23A) - liberals' histrionic word for the current administration - but I think proper outrage should be reserved for the real liberal agenda hiding in this puzzle: BAWDINESS and rap music (RHYMERS) and GANGS and ... let's see, is there anything gay in here? ... SPAS? OK, yeah, those are almost like bathhouses. Anyway, I can't prove any of this. I'm just sayin'... oh, and they even trot out Christopher REEVE (65A) to try to play on your heartstrings and get you to support the "science" of stem-cell research (another ungodly, liberal pet project). I'm telling you, this is the best puzzle-related evidence of liberal bias in the Times since the infamous 1996 puzzle that installed Clinton as president before all the votes had been cast and counted.

[Taking a break to walk down the street to the local middle school, where I vote].

I'm back. I just voted for a Republican for office for what I believe is the first time in my life. So did my wife. Of course we voted for a Socialist and a Green Party candidate too. We like to mix it up.

22A: Intentionally vague statement (hedge)

I harangue my students on a regular basis for HEDGING in their papers. Commit to your ideas. If you believe in something, sell it! Don't be afraid of your own authority, you cowards! (OK, I don't call them "cowards"). Another good way to clue HEDGE would have been by way of reference to the recent movie Over the HEDGE, which Sahra saw many times this past summer, once with me in tow. It's supposed to be a parody of America's mindless consumption of material goods. That, or a warning that the furry animals of the world are on the verge of hatching a violent plot to interfere with our God-given way of life. Because they hate Freedom. To its credit, the movie had a great Ben Folds soundtrack, on which he redoes his song "Rockin' the Suburbs," minus the profanity. I almost want to buy it. I can claim it's for Sahra. Yes. That will make a good Xmas present. For her.

45A: Nasty vipers (asps)

Jeez, the ASPS are like Norm on Cheers. They practically live here. "Ssss, don't tread on us! Hey, you guys seen ASTA anywhere?"

43A: Former Saudi king (Faisal)

This one is new to me. Holy crap, he looks scary. Is FAISAL here to remind us of the importance of having a reasonably stable democratic process and peaceful transition of power? Because his story is pretty gruesome. In 1973, he withdrew Saudi oil from the world market, quadrupling the price of gas and helping cause the massive "energy crisis" of 1974. Gas lines like we haven't seen since (post-Katrina Louisiana excepted). He was assassinated shortly thereafter. Here are the details, from Wikipedia:

On March 25, 1975, Faisal was shot point blank and killed by his half brother's son Faisal bin Musad, who had just come back from the United States. The murder occurred at a Majlis, an event where the king or leader opens up his residence to the citizens to enter and ask him questions.

Prince Faisal Bin Musad was captured directly after the attack and declared officially insane. He was later found guilty of regicide and in June 1975 he was beheaded in the public square in Riyadh.

Mmm, you can almost taste the Justice. Just whetting your appetite for the coming Saddam execution.

61A: "Metamorphoses" author (Ovid)

If I had to be any author, this is who I'd be. He's like my best friend (uh, when regular people and my dog aren't around). I learned Latin largely by immersing myself in his Amores and Ars amatoria, which are beautiful, hilarious, tongue-in-cheek (mostly) treatises on how to score with women. The opening of Amores is one of the cleverest openings in literary history: Ovid states that he set out to write an epic (in the dactylic hexameter proper to epics), but then Cupid came down and stole a foot from the second line, turning his poetry from noble dactylic hexameter to the lesser elegiac couplets more proper to love poetry. So it begins with aspirations to grandeur, which are then immediately deflated. Ovid likes to make fun of himself. And others. Sometimes powerful others. Did I mention he died in exile on the Black Sea? Not clear why, but it seems to have involved "a song and a crime" (carmen et crimen) of a sexual nature. Lesson: Don't #$@# with female relatives of the Emperor.

6D: Rob Roy and kin (Scotsmen)

I have nothing to say here. I just wanted occasion to put up a picture of my favorite Scotsman:
44D: Chicago-based food giant (Sara Lee)

Growing up, I always thought that the jingle went "Nobody does it like Sara Lee!" But apparently it's the more grammatically tortured "Nobody doesn't like Sara Lee!" Which makes me (guess what) NOT LIKE SARA LEE. Their prepackaged treats are too sweet and full of preservatives anyway (he said, fresh off an excursion to Dunkin' Donuts). Apparently I'm not the only one to mishear the jingle. Sara Lee even addresses this ... controversy? ... in its website's FAQ (who is checking that!? I mean, besides me).

62D: "_____ Doubtfire" (Mrs.)

If you doubted the liberal agenda of this puzzle in the beginning, I give you this (horrifying) answer as final proof. As I understand it, this movie is about a complete loser who decides to become a drag queen in order to pose as a nanny and thereby violate the restraining order against him. The Democrats want you to buy into their cross-dressing, child-stalking agenda. Democrats: Soft on Queers, Soft on Crime. They also apparently don't want you to laugh. Ever.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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