Saturday, Jan19th, 2013, Steven J. St. John

Theme: None

Words: 68

Blocks: 30

   I do believe this is my first time blogging a puzzle from our SJSJ constructor~!  As I look, I see that this may be his first Saturday LAT.  Thick triple stacks/10-letter corners - one I got, one took way too long.  I did have to check ONE thing on Google (see below), but the rest of the grid did fill in slowly and steadily.  A crossing of a spanner and a climber;

35A. "Hold your horses!" : "ONE SECOND PLEASE"~!

8D. One-on-one strategy : MAN-TO-MAN DEFENSE - I see it's predominantly used in basketball and football; I am just happy that hockey is back; dad is watching with EddyB tomorrow....

3 and 4 word answers, and two more -

53. Loving way to walk : HAND-IN-HAND - oh, if only there were a hand for me....

11. Erect : STAND ON END - ummm, yeah, that too....

Sorry if this one turns out to be a little rough, Cruciverb was not available until 4am, and I usually stay up Friday to do the write up. 

onward

ACROSS:

1. World Series components : POKER GAMES - locked into baseball; night games wouldn't work with OMEGA, which I knew was right

11. Unleashes : SICS - and a semi-clecho  23D. Cut free : RELEASE - which was unLEASh at first

15. Better : AMELIORATE

16. Hardware item : T-NUT

17. What good debaters pounce on : WEAK POINTS

18. No longer tied up : ASEA

19. FBI employees : AGTs - Like Sculder and Mully, I mean Mulder and Scully - do you think he was "stand on end"?

20. Fills : SATES

21. Too curious : NOSY

22. Some grad students : TAs - ah - not EEs, AAs, BAs, MAs, but the Teaching 56A's

23. __-Tahoe Open: annual PGA Tour event : RENO

24. USCG VIP : ADMiral

25. File manager menu option : RENAME

27. Ancient Aegean region west of Lydia : IONIA

30. Sweet-talk : CAJOLE

33. Decking : ADORNING - total WAG for me; I was trying to get TimberTech to fit (it's what I used on the church ramp)

37. Ran out of clothes? : STREAKED - HAR-HAR~!!  Running across the baseball diamond 'sans skivvies', 'bare-ass naked'

38. Colors : TINCTS

39. Memorable swimsuit model Cheryl : TIEGS - she's 66 now

40. Put a new cover on, as a book : REBIND

42. Space shuttle astronaut Jemison : MAE - and another semi-clecho, 47D. Curiosity org. : NASA

43. It may be lost or saved : FACE

44. Learning ctr. : SCHool and a TRUE clecho, 28D. Learning ctr. : INSTitution, not UNIV

47. "Sunset Boulevard" genre : NOIR

49. Better : AMEND

51. TV's "__-Team" : THE "A"

52. Not much : A TAD

55. Hypotenuse, e.g. : SIDE - of a triangle

56. Helping people : ASSISTANTS

57. Gp. with common goals : ASSN

58. Least helpful, as a description : SKETCHIEST

DOWN:

1. Investigate, as a toy mouse : PAW AT - had NUDGE to start

2. Greek horseshoe? : OMEGA - sure looks that way ~!

3. "Beauty is truth, truth beauty" poet : KEATS

4. Big bucks : ELKS - ah, not the money kind, like THOU, or GEES

5. Let-'er ender : RIP - "Let 'er RIP~!"

6. Manipulable lamp : GOOSE-NECK - ARGH~! I knew what the word meant, but I just couldn't get my mind off "touch" something; this is what we're looking for

7. Richards of "Jurassic Park" : ARIANA - My mind was stuck [again] on Richard Attenborough (John Hammond), so I finally went to find out who the "other" Richard was - little Lex is all grown up ~!

9. Kitchen add-on : ETTE - Kitchenette

10. Court period: Abbr. : SESSion

12. Hardly a dreamer? : INSOMNIAC - I keep a journal of all my dreams, and I try to recall every detail I can.  Then I go online to see what certain imagery pertains to; once had a dream about a fish hook stuck in my neck -you can find out what it meant here

13. Sticks around the pool hall : CUES - the sticks that one shoots with

14. Vacation period : STAY

24. Delta, but not gamma : AIRLINE

25. Metaphorical dream world : ROSE GARDEN - I didn't promise you one....

26. Onetime Leno announcer Hall : EDD

29. Forever, it seems : AGES - ugh, not EONS

30. Pain from a sticker? : COST - Sticker shock, like on new cars

31. Foe : ANTI - meh

32. Lamentations : JEREMIADS - new word to me; more here

34. Anatomical blind spot site : OPTIC DISC - see more here - unless it's in your, well....

36. Poetic location word : O'ER

41. Oater baddie : BANDIT and, his 50D. 41-Down's accessory : MASK

44. "A man has to be what he is, Joey" speaker : SHANE

45. Single divisions : CENTS

46. Possessed, biblically : HADST

48. __ B. Driftwood, Groucho's "A Night at the Opera" role : OTIS

49. Cries of clarity : A-HAs

51. Pad __: stir-fried noodles : THAI

54. Degree in algebra? : NTH - just about every Saturday, it seems

Splynter

Saturday, Jan 12th, 2013, Barry C. Silk

Theme: Saturday Silkie

Words: 70

Blocks: 34

  Well, it certainly looked intimidating, and if it weren't for a few long answer WAGs, I think I would have never gotten a foothold; as it turned out, I still had to red-letter one cell in order to complete the grid, but still, a good mental workout from our regular Saturday constructor.  The big spanners:

29A. Study of change? : NUMISMATICS - the study of collectible coins, or "change"; also paper money and medals, according to the dictionary - might be a wheat penny in my pile....

35A. 1971 crime thriller with four sequels : DIRTY HARRY - "Well, do ya, punk~?" - and a clecho  8D. 35-Across, e.g.: Abbr. : DETective Harry Callahan

40A. Some annual victims : APRIL FOOLS - the best one on me was when someone, who will remain nameless, rubber-banded the sprayer on the faucet; I went to make coffee, and....

44A. Rookies : NEW RECRUITS

And two 10-letter climbers;

12D. Show with jumping : FLEA CIRCUS


28D. 1954 film based on the short story "It Had to Be Murder" : REAR WINDOW - Directed by Alfred Hitchcock; strangely, in looking up Farmer's Wife (see 11D.), that, too, was directed by Alfred Hitchcock, too, 1928

On~ward~!

ACROSS:

1. One who heads south for the winter : SNOWBIRD - there are a lot of snowbirds in my 12-step program; most of the ones I know are in Fla right now

9. Try to reach : AIM FOR - started with ATTAIN, then ASK FOR

15. 1959 Mystics song title word repeated before "Oh my darlin' don't you cry" : HUSHABYE - it really is repeated, but not nearly as much as the "oh"s at the beginning

16. Legendary Irish princess : ISOLDE - clued different from what you'd see mid-week

17. Modern means of connecting : ETHERNET - I threw in INTernet, and that was good enough to get going

18. Attach, in a way : GLUE ON - I tried GRAB on, until I got "fleas"

19. Job follow-up? : PSALMS - ( OK, I cheated, sort of; I have a list of Bible books, and I caught on to the misdirection "J-oh-B", not "J-ah-B", but can't remember one book from the 'next' - literally

20. Unvarying : SAME - Had SANE; well, it could be....

21. Pinkish yellow : PEACH

24. "Island in the Sun" novelist Waugh : ALEC

26. ATM initials : NCR

33. Steams : IRES

36. Defunct defense gp. : SEATO

38. Cultural prog. funder : NEA

39. Reduces to bits : RICES - not Dices

43. Romance novel emotion : LUST - what, not "LOVE"~?

46. P and Q, in D.C. : STs - Map, North of the White House

47. __-Z: collectible Camaro : IROC

48. Govt. issue : T-NOTE - not T-BOND

50. Last Stuart queen : ANNE

52. Full-bodied : ROBUST

56. United : WEDDED - not JOINed

59. Shimmer with color : OPALESCE

61. Get excited : AROUSE - been reading those "romance novels" again~???

62. Novelist Chinua Achebe, by birth : NIGERIAN

63. Southern legume : COWPEA - Learning moment

64. Rock from a sock : SEE STARS - Nice rhyme; took me a minute to grasp the idea of rocking from being socked by a punch

DOWN:

1. Old-time bandleader Fields : SHEP

2. "Dang!" : NUTS

3. Org. concerned with whistleblower laws : OSHA

4. Whippersnapper : WHELP

5. They mix well : BARMEN

6. 1930s-'50s Arabian monarch : IBN SAUD

7. Sourdough alternative : RYE

9. Bailed-out insurance co. : AIG - right after the '08 collapse, my investment club bought into these guys, and when they got their bail-out money, we benefited, too.

10. Easter, for one: Abbr. : ISLand - I knew this, but my ATTAIN was messing me up

11. Souvenir for the farmer's wife? : MOUSE TAIL - I did not know this - the Wiki

13. NBA forward Lamar __ : ODOM

14. Actress Russo : RENE

22. Key of Beethoven's Fifth : C MINOR - I didn't need "the rules" for this clue; I had -MIN-- to start; still had to wait on the "C", though

23. Work for a fee : HIRE OUT

24. March of fiction : AMY

25. "If I Were King of the Forest" singer : LAHR - The Wizard of Oz

26. Month after Adar : NISAN - Hebrew calendar

27. Party paper : CREPE

30. Yalta conferee : STALIN

31. Wave peak : CREST

32. Methods: Abbr. : SYSTemS

34. Agitated : STIRRED UP

37. Dairy case item : OLEO

41. TV monitor : FCC - Good misdirection; technically, TV is an abbreviation for TeleVision

42. Flash drive function : STORAGE

45. Wraps : STOLES

49. 1975 Pulitzer winner for criticism : EBERT - Roger, the "thumbs up" film critic; more learning for me

50. "Never Wave at __": 1953 film : A WAC - IMDb

51. Poppaea's husband : NERO

53. Former VOA overseer : USIA - United States Information Agency, and the Voice of America - more here

54. Lingering sign : SCAR

55. Second place? : TENS - as in 142,857

57. -speak : ESE

58. Traffic reporter?: Abbr. : DEA - Drug traffic, and the Drug Enforcement Agency - reminds me of this video, which tells a pretty good story

59. Switch positions : ONs

60. Bake-off entry : PIE

Splynter