SUNDAY, Feb. 24, 2008 - Nancy Nicholson Joline (N.F.L. GUARD CHRIS)

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: "Winners Circles," or THE OSCAR (1A: Theme of this puzzle) - 8 theme answers are Oscar winners that have the names of other Oscar winners embedded inside them (in the circled squares)

I would say that this puzzle provided a welcome relief from the brutalization I had to endure on Friday and Saturday, except I actually completed Friday's and Saturday's puzzles with no errors. The same cannot be said for today's. I @#$#d this one up. A single letter, where mysterious fish meets character played by Hot British actress. A vowel (of course - it's always an innocuous-seeming vowel).

• 33A: Fish in fish and chips (plaice)
• 13D: Detective superintendent Jane of TV's "Prime Suspect" (Tennison)

His LORDSHIP (84D: Term of respect abroad) Alfred Lord Tennyson wants to know what the bloody hell you've done to his name, Jane!? As for PLAICE - I wanted COD (98A: Mail order option, for short). And wasn't there a mystery fish in yesterday's puzzle. Yes! TAI, which was a kind of "bream," which is a bottom-feeding river fish of which I'd never heard. If only I were an ichthyologist. (True story: at summer camp in 1983 I had a counselor named ... well, I don't know what his actual name was, but everyone called him "Icky" because he was majoring in Ichthyology ... which sounds made-up. Can you major in that?).

The theme is quite elegantly expressed, and all the Oscar winners are very well known, especially the non-embedded answers (you know, the long ones, the full ones ... sometimes the themes make it hard to get my language precise). None of the theme answers caused any problems and I was even able to get a few of them with no help from crosses.

Theme answers:

• 23A: Film (1954), actress (2003) ("ON THE WATERFRONT")
• 37A: Director (2003), actor (1962) (PETER JACKSON)
• 61A: Film (1992), actor (1958) ("UNFORGIVEN")
• 71A: Actor (1934), actor (1995) (CLARK GABLE)
• 94A: Actress (1986), director (1962) (MARLEE MATLIN)
• 112A: Actress (1983), supporting actor (1999) (SHIRLEY MACLAINE)
• 17D: Film (1993), actress (1987) ("SCHINDLER'S LIST)
• 46D: Song (1942), supporting actress (1994) ("WHITE CHRISTMAS")

Lots of sounds in the puzzle today, with OOF (10D: Response to "pow!" in cartoons), OOHS (4D: Reactions to fireworks), and the weird-feeling AWS (27A: Comments around cute babies) all right near each other up there in the NNW. I briefly wondered why people would be saying "OW" around a cute baby. A cute baby crocodile, maybe. Here's something I just noticed and don't like: ENC (48A: Abbr. at the bottom of a letter) and ENCRE (22A: French pen filler) in the same puzzle. Perhaps I should like this. You could write "ENC" at the bottom of your letter in ENCRE, though if you were using ENCRE, then you'd be in a French-speaking setting and they likely have a different abbreviation for "ENC." At any rate ... wife was not happy at having "language I don't know (ENCRE) over language I don't know (NIHIL - 25A: Nothing, to Nero)". Those are the two languages I actually do know reasonably well, so I did not share her pain. As repetitions go, I guess ENC and ENCRE are not as bad as OYL (78A: Olive _____) and OIL (91A: Venezuelan export).

Here are some things I didn't know:

• 15A: Is afflicted with sigmatism (lisps) - like many of you (probably), I read this as "stigmatism" and wanted something to do with eyes.
• 35A: Isabel Allende's "_____ of My Soul" ("Inés") - Pretty. Also, my grandmother's name (Inez).
• 53A: Granny, in Gelsenkirchen (oma) - ...? My ignorance of all things German continues to plague me.
• 89A: Lead role in "La Cage aux Folles" (Renato)
• 5D: N.F.L. guard Chris (Snee) - I imagine that his teammate and rival guard is named SNICK and the coach has to decide which one to play.
• 68A: "The Age of Anxiety" author (Auden) - see, I know this, and yet when I see this title all I can think is "Self-Help Book."
• 70A: Philosopher Kung Fu-_____ (Tse) - needed all the crosses for this one.
• 111A: Soil improver (humus) - I like it with pita bread or on a nice falafel.
• 44D: Basutoland, today (Lesotho) - gettable from crosses, but Basutoland was unheard of by me before today.
• 47D: Capital known as the Venice of the East (Bangkok) - are there canals there? Is that it? Yes, it appears so:

• 86D: "... as old as yonder _____": James Joyce ("elm") - is this quotation famous? My ignorance of Joyce goes nicely with me semi-ignorance of Auden, above.
• 109D: Girl in Tennessee Williams's "Summer and Smoke" (Alma) - A literary ignorance trifecta. Beautiful. Ironic and beautiful.

Good stuff / bad stuff (mostly good):

• 20A: Emphatic refusal ("No no no no") - whaddya think? Good or bad? (A: so bad it's good)
• 55A: China's largest ethnic group (Han) - this is only good because I knew it. Nice to have friends who are Chinese scholars.
• 57A: Nineveh's kingdom (Assyria) - JONAH (see Friday's puzzle) got sent here. He did not want to go.
• 64A: Follower of weekend news, briefly (SNL) - they are currently looking for someone who can do a convincing Barack Obama imitation. It's either that, or poor Kenan Thompson's gonna have to lose 60 pounds.
• 113D: 109-Across's old radio partner (Lum) - ABNER & LUM - I know them Only from crosswords.
• 104A: Kwik-E-Mart owner on "The Simpsons" (Apu) - they need better ways to clue him. How about [Father of octuplets on "The Simpsons"]?
• 33D: Villa in Mexico (Pancho) - this one had me tricked for a while, as I looked for a Spanish word for ... well, VILLA.
• 50D: Informal eating place (dinette) - reminds me of game show prizes circa 1978.
• 71D: Reunion gatherers (clan) - no final "s" for the plural. Tricky. Mildly.
• 121A: Forensic experts (debaters) - again, tricky. I wanted ... I don't know, whatever that guy on "C.S.I." does. Or that chick on "Bones." Remember "Bones?" Of course you don't.
• 98D: Tibetan or Afghan (canine) - get it? They're dogs. Not Asians. Nice. Back-to-back days for "Afghan" in the clues. Good for it.

A final shout-out to the crossword stalwarts Milo O'SHEA (82A: Milo of "Ulysses"), the oddly-clued EWER (24D: Household item with a neck), and the always lovely NENE (29D: One flying over Hawaii)

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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FRIDAY, Jun. 15, 2007 - Nancy Joline

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none

Objections:

66A: Angels (messengers)

This is like Dogs (shedders), in that the answer is appropriate only for some dogs, some of the time. Angels are other things besides MESSENGERS, so there's just not enough synonymity here for me to assent to this answer.

61A: One who deals in futures (horoscoper)

I refuse to believe that that is a word. ASTROLOGER, I would buy. This, I don't. And please don't dictionary me to death on this one. It's a bad "word" and you know it.

27A: Certain campus Greeks (Delts)

Aren't they usually some kind of DELTS, like TRI-DELTS or PHI DELTS or something? DELTS are muscles, as far as I'm concerned.

40D: Singer with the 1975 #1 hit "Lady Marmalade" (LaBelle)

While Patti LABELLE was indeed the lead vocalist on the song, LABELLE was a group, so technically they had the "#1 hit" in question. "LaBelle" with capital "B" = singer's last name. "Labelle" with lower-case "b" = group.

6D: Object of a miracle of Jesus (leper)

You can be sure that Jesus wouldn't have called him an "object."

OK, so my major complaints are out of the way. Much of the rest of this puzzle, I liked. I am especially happy at some of the great guesses I made, including:

19A: 1899 gold rush site (Nome) - with just the "E" in place. I guess not that many cities of note are four letters ending in "E," but still, I'm mildly proud of the guess.

34A: Political payoff, perhaps (sinecure) - a great word. Had the -URE and sifted through some more ordinary words before SINECURE sprang out at me. Tenure can be a kind of SINECURE. In fact, there appears to be an acrimonious debate out there on just this topic.

24A: Machu Picchu, for one (ruin) - Not terribly hard, but still, got it with no crosses, so it makes me happy.

45D: Highlands relative of an elk (red deer) - OK, so I had ROE BUCK, and then ROE DEER, but still, I was on the right track, in a way, so I am going to count this as a great guess, even though the initial guess was pretty wide of the mark.

Unknown to me were:

16A: Self-styled world salsa capital (Cali)

49D: Some hogs (Durocs) - thought this might be a brand of motorcycle, but no: pigs. Very cute pigs (when they're young, anyway)

53D: Villa _____ (D'Este) - I have heard of this, but don't know what it is. Now I do.

38A: _____ P. Halliburton, founder of the Halliburton company (Erle) - somebody scoured the globe to find an ERLE who wasn't also a STANLEY GARDNER. Good job.

50A: 1994 Peace Nobelist (Peres) - Shimon PERES? Yes. Alright, then I did know this one. Nevermind.

I got lucky on VANUATU (12D: "Survivor" setting, 2004), because I have a "Survivor"-addicted wife, and EOCENE (26D: Dawn-of-mammals epoch), because I've seen it in the puzzle before. I misspelled it here as EOCINE at first, possibly confusing it with EOSINE, which has also been in the puzzle. Maybe EOCENE hasn't been in the puzzle, but some other -CENE has. Anyway, I feel as if I've seen it before. I got thrown by 11A: Troy Aikman, John Elway and others, in brief (MVPS) because, like many of you (probably) I thought the answer had to do with their being quarterbacks ... only QBS was a letter short and I'd never heard of quarterbacks being abbreviated any other way (though I did entertain QBKS for a few seconds). Lastly, I'd like to commend the stack of three 10-letter words in the NW, all of them good:

• 1A: Energy source (granola bar)
• 15A: Home of the National Automobile Museum (Reno, Nevada)
• 17A: First lady who was once a prominent radio actress (Evita Peron) - I think "lady" should be capitalized, shouldn't it? It's a title. My favorite part about this clue is my initial (wrong) answer: BESS TRUMAN.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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FRIDAY, Oct. 6, 2006 - Nancy Joline

Solving time: UNKNOWN (but too long)

THEME: none

I did the puzzle on the couch today, with ESPN recounting the Tigers' glorious (and perhaps only) posteason victory over the Yankees, so I was (happily) distracted. How distracted? I couldn't figure out how "safe" made any sense as an answer for 1A George Orwell, e.g., until, after what must have been several minutes, I realized that "safe" was the answer for 11A, not 1A (and made a perfectly good answer to 11A: Hotel room amenity). But the Tigers won and Zumaya struck out Jeter, Giambi, and K-Rod, in order, so puzzle shmuzzle.

19A: Coil (hank)

Something about this answer grosses me out, and I can't quite put my finger on it. I think "hank" sounds like something you do to the phlegm in your throat when you want it to come out. Maybe because it sounds like the first syllable of the "handkerchief" into which you might spit said phlegm. "Hank" is a great, versatile word, though, as well as a great baseball name (belonging to two of the greatest players of all time: Hall-of-Famers Aaron and Greenberg). "Hank" is one letter off from "hack" - another phlegm-related word that is also a great baseball name: Hack Wilson still holds the Major League record for RBI in a single season, with 191.

47A: Modern site of ancient Thebes (Luxor)

There are two ancient Thebeseseses, so this clue is tricky. I was familiar only with the Greek Thebes (where all the Oedipus stuff went down) but there's one in Egypt, too, also ancient, and mentioned by Homer (Greek!) in the Iliad. "Luxor" sounds like a super-villain, a hotel, or a brand of bath soap.

61A: Animals that are nearly invisible to infrared detectors (polar bears)

This clue is hot and conjures up an image from what I imagine would be a great horror movie about rampaging polar bears (like, uh, Jurassic Park, but with polar bears). Two intrepid explorers are trying to pick up signs of life on the pure white, icy horizon, while hunkered down in a make-shift bunker. We see what they are seeing through their infrared detector goggles: nothing. Joe Icepick breathes a small sigh of relief, puts down the infrareds, and turns to his companion, only to reveal: A GIANT POLAR BEAR STANDING RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM!Gore ensues.

5D: Univ. dept. (Eng.)

I plugged in a lot of potential answers (mentally) before I figured out the correct one. This is odd only because the answer is the only university department of which I actually happen to be a member.

9D: Crescent (meniscus)

Pardon me while I look this up, as the answer sounds like the Latin name for a body part of some kind, not a synonym for a dinner roll... OK, it is a Latin name for a body part of some kind. From leadingmd.com:

• The two menisci of the knee are crescent-shaped wedges that fill the gap between the tibia and femur. The menisci provide joint stability by creating a cup for the femur to sit in. The outer edges are fairly thick while the inner surfaces are thin. If the menisci were missing, the curved femur would move on the flat tibia.

Coincidentally, I now believe that my nagging (though slowly improving) knee trouble is related to a problem with my medial meniscus. I wish I were kidding.

14D: They're small and may be golden (eaglets)

I thought I was so smart when, seeing that the word ended "-glets," I filled in spaces to make it "aiglets," which Totally works, as the definition of "aiglet" is as follows:

• a metal tag or sheath at the end of a lace used for tying, as of a shoelace.

SMALL and GOLDEN (well, metal ... gold's a metal). So my whole NE corner (now called "Bangor") was a disaster for a while as I was sure "aiglets" was correct. This problem was simultaneous with the whole George Orwell snafu (see intro paragraph, above). Throw in the distraction of baseball highlights, and you can see why I didn't bother to continue timing myself.

45D: Holiday spot in el Mediterráneo (Menorca)

I was sure this was "Majorca" - I should stop being sure about things. Turns out Majorca (or Mallorca) and Menorca are neighboring islands off the eastern coast of Spain. Both are part of the Balearic Island chain, or Islas Balearas! Geography!

60D: Pained replies (ows)
63A: Scotland Yard discovery (clew)

I love the British, for the most part. I study and teach British literature. And yet, jingoistically, I find these quaint little spelling differences archaic and annoying. For a long time I, like any red-blooded American, had "clue" written in - resulting in only non-sensical possible results for 60D: "ees?" "mes?" Then finally, I got a clew, gov'nuh, and then I sent the culprit to gaol.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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