French novelist Pierre / FRI 3-12-11 / Columbarium object / Daughter in Cherry Orchard / Children's author Eleanor

Constructor: Martin Ashwood-Smith

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none


Word of the Day: Eleanor ESTES (14D: Children's author Eleanor) —

Eleanor Estes (May 9, 1906 – July 15, 1988) was an American children's author. [...] Estes's book Ginger Pye (1951) won the Newbery Medal, and three of her other books (The Middle Moffat, Rufus M., and The Hundred Dresses) were chosen as Newbery Honor books. She also received the Certificate of Award for Outstanding Contribution to Children’s Literature and was nominated for the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award. By the time of her death at age 82, Estes had written 19 children's books and one novel for adults. (wikipedia)

• • •

Just fine. Not MA-S's best work, by a long shot, but very competent for a themeless puzzle with stacked 15s running across the center. Here's the thing—stacked 15s are hard to pull off, so you have to admire the feat on some level, and yet ... it's Been Done, many times, so there's no longer any novelty in it. Unless you get some Fantastic answers in there, the feat seems a little meaningless at this point. I'm not sure any of the 15s qualify as Fantastic, though I like SOUND THE RETREAT best of all. Can we please retires A LOT ON ONE'S PLATE? That's at least three times I've seen that particular 15 in recent months. Otherwise, there's very little in the way of groany stuff (only CORMS (32D: Bulblike bases of stems), LOTI (31D: French novelist Pierre), NEI (54A: Verdi's "___ giardin del bello"), CITER, and DORSA rubbed me the wrong way). Good work, but without any particular sizzle, I won't remember it in a few hours, let alone tomorrow.

Biggest problem area for me was, not surprisingly, that vast white middle. Top and bottom were pretty cinchy, but I didn't know there was a SINAI DESERT, and I thought "etiolate" mean something like "taper" or "deteriorate" (not WHITEN), so I had trouble getting into the middle at first. At first pass, only OLIN, DRESS FASTENERS, ELDEST, AT 'EM, and SESS fell in. Those last three eventually allowed me to see A LOT ON ONE'S PLATE, and I made good headway from there. Once I got into the bottom, the SW threatened to be pretty recalcitrant, mostly because ARCADE was really hard to turn up (43A: Game keeper), but it all fell into place. SE played like a Wednesday. The End.

Bullets:

• 1A: Cosmonaut's craft (SOYUZ) — learned the name from crosswords. Picked it up from the helpful gimme ZED (5D: Letter in the Globe and Mail)
  
• 19A: Cabinet dept. since 1965 (HUD) — Housing and Urban Development. I had HHS at first.
  
• 1D: What the narrator "threw up" in "The Night Before Christmas" (SASH) — Loved this one, as it reminded me of my mom, who read me this poem a lot when I was very little. It may be the first poem I ever knew by heart. You'll have to ask her.
  
• 2D: Baseball's Lefty (GROVE) — well, it should've been GROVE, anyway...

• 4D: Columbarium object (URN) — Who can forget Keats's "Ode on a Columbarium Object?" Beauty is truth, truth beauty. I have no idea what "Columbarium" is (wikipedia says it's "a place for the respectful and usually public storage of cinerary urns."
• 10D: Onetime owner of Sheraton Hotels (ITT) — I thought maybe OTT. Then thought, "Cousin ITT? Really?"
• 33D: Daughter in "The Cherry Orchard" (ANYA) — went for ANNA then thought "nah, needs to be more Russiany." That "Y" helped me finally get the oddly clued LITERARY STUDIES (how is that a concentration for an English major????? Virtually any course an English major takes is LITERARY STUDIES. You'd concentrate, maybe, in a period or genre or something like that. I mean, do math majors have concentrations in "number studies?" (please don't answer that)
  
• 53D: Tom T. Hall's "Mama Bake ___" ("A PIE") — got it easily without knowing the song or even who Tom T. Hall is (sounds familiar, but ...). Let's see ... ooh, he's a "country balladeer," says wiki. Let's listen.

Now compare with ... [profanity warning]


Discuss.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

P.S. puzzle by me and Angela Halsted over at Brendan Emmett Quigley's website today. Check it out.

It's a brand new day & I'm feeling good.

Skirt & tee-shirt : Mango, vest : Super Polygone.

Brand new day - Demi Lovato.

Skirt : ? ( little shop ), top : New Look.

On est Jeudi & je n'ai toujours pas commencé mes révisions pour le Bac Blanc. Ce n'est pas comme si c'était dans 3 jours & que j'avais tout le Français, les Math's, la S.V.T. & la Physique-Chimie à apprendre. Ahah, je suis dans la mer ... Je suis embêtée :).

Mais je fais vraiment des choses supers chouettes à la place, si si. 

Genre, je fais des photos, je cuisine, je regarde la télévision ( ça devait faire des mois & des mois que je ne m'étais pas posé devant la télé' plus d'une demie-heure ! ), je range ma chambre ( c'était le deal passé avec mon Papa pour pouvoir aller au concert de Rihanna à Paris en Octobre, dfskjfdskljfsl ), je fais du karaoké toute seule pendant des heures, j'embête ma Maman, je sors profiter du beau temps de ces derniers jours, & pleins d'autres choses. Franchement, le Bac, j'aurais bien le temps de stresser durant la semaine prochaine ! ( & De m'en vouloir à mort à mort à mort de ne rien avoir foutu pendant ces vacances ). 

 We're on Thursday & I haven't start the revisions for my big exams, next week. & It's not like it's in 3 day, yeah ? Okay, I admit, I suck. BTW, I do super cool stuffs instead :D. 

Like, taking photos, cooking, watching TV, tidying my bedroom ( I made a deal with my dad : I tidy my room & he buys me tickets for the concert of Rihanna in Paris, next October ! ), doing karaoke alone during hours, driving my mym crazy, going out & enjoy the sun of the last days, & so oooon. Well, my big exams can wait I guess, I'll have enough time to stress during the whole next week.

Bref ! Tout ça pour en venir au fait que, quand même, je suis allée au coiffeur.

Peut-être que vous avez suivi l'affaire Facebook ou sur ma chaîne YouTube, peut-être que vous n'avez jamais eu vent de mes projets de coiffeur.

Il faut que je vous dise, quand même. Je ne suis allée qu'une seule fois de ma vie au coiffeur. Je devais avoir à peu près 12 ans, j'en suis ressortie avec un carré & j'ai pleuré pendant deux jours. & C'est depuis ce triste & sombre jour que j'ai été traumatisée à mort des coiffeurs. Genre, A MORT. 

Mais je voulais un peu de changement, & une amie devait aller au coiffeur, du coup elle a prit un rendez-vous pour nous deux dans un salon qu'une amie commune nous avait conseillé. 

Mon amie a crue bon de prévenir les coiffeurs que c'était pour ainsi dire la première fois que j'allais au coiffeur ( j'ai de supers amis ). Au final, même si j'ai dû être toute rouge pendant 2 minutes, ça a fait rire tout le monde dans la pièce & puis en plus la coiffeuse qui s'est occupé de moi à fait hyper gaffe.

& J'en suis ressortie super contente & plus du tout traumatisée du coiffeur, si c'est pas beau ça ! 

Donc au final, une frange très légère que je peux mettre sur les cotés, & qui me plaît beaucoup. 

Maintenant, j'attends vos avis ♥.

Anyway. The main subject of that post is ... My new haircut. 

I went to the hairdresser last Tuesday & I was really, really afraid. Like REALLY. 

Actually, I have to say that I went to the hairdresser once in my life, when I was about 12. The haircut was horrible & I cried for 2 days. So it was a big deal for me. One of my friend had to go to the hairdresser so I decided to go with her. 

I'm really happy about my new haircut, I was so scared but everything went good. The hairdresser was awesome with me ( my friend told that it was almost the first time that I was going to cut my hair in a salon ....... ). Finally I now have a sort of fringe & I like it. 

I'm waiting for your opinions ♥.
 

Dress : New Look.

Un autre article probablement en fin de semaine ;'D. 

Probably another article in the end the week ;'D.

LOVE YA ♥.

Du tourisme à Milan

Quelques photos prises à Milan, dans le centre de la ville principalement.

Ma mère m'a traînée partout : le Monde à l'envers !

En bonne râleuse que je suis, je me plaignais "J'ai mal aux pieds" "J'ai un coup de barre"... En revanche je ne rechignais pas quand il s'agissait d'aller nous rassasier.

J'ai retenu deux astuces pour de délicieuses pâtes.

Le coup du filet de vinaigre balsamique pour une touche sucrée mais le meilleur plat que j'ai pu déguster était sans aucun doute les gnocchis à la crème de Gorgonzola + copeaux de noisettes.

Ah, et chose que je ne savais pas : le chocolat chaud est divin. Partout où vous en commandez, on vous le servira bien épais, à l'ancienne.

N'oubliez pas, rendez-vous à 19h30 en cliquant là pour assister en live au concert de Cocoon !

French department in Pyrenees / THU 3-10-11 / Country US goes to war Wag Dog / 1973 nonfiction best seller about woman with multiple personalities

Constructor: Matt Ginsberg

Relative difficulty: Medium


THEME: WORDS PRONOUNCED / DIFFERENTLY / WHEN CAPITALIZED (16A: With 36- and 58-Across, what the answers to the starred clues are) — four theme answers fit the bill:

• READING (1A: *Poet's performance)
• RAINIER (65A: *Like Seattle vis-à-vis Phoenix)
• MOBILE (22D: *Not fixed)
• POLISH (31D: *Shine)
• [Update: when originally submitted, the puzzle had an asterisk on the clue for DIFFERENTLY as well ...]
  

Word of the Day: ARIÈGE (45D: French department in the Pyrenees) —

Ariège (French pronunciation: [aʁjɛʒ]; Occitan: Arièja) is a department in southwestern France named after the Ariège River. // Ariège is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4th, 1790. It was created from the counties of Foix and Couserans. // Foix is the administrative capital of the Ariège. It is an ancient medieval town with a fortress Chateau de Foix perched on a hill overlooking it. The fortress has been attacked many times without capture, including an attempt by Simon de Montfort. It has also been used as a prison, and the names of English Prisoners of War can still be seen on the cell walls. Another famous chateau in the Ariège is Montségur, located on a rocky outcrop at a height of 1200 metres (3,900 ft). During the Albigensian Crusade and siege of 1244 AD the chateau was largely destroyed, with more than two hundred Cathar priests burnt at the stake as heretics. The chateau was gradually rebuilt by Royalists over a period of the next three hundred years.

• • •

Early morning tomorrow, so short write-up, which is good, because the only thing of substance that I have to say is fairly succinct. I tend not to like puzzles where instructions or explanations of the theme are a dominant part of the fill. This was especially true today, where 41 squares are used to explain to me what's happening with just 26 other squares. The proportions just feel off. Having only four *real* theme answers hardly seems to warrant the amount of space taken up by the explanation—and yet because the explanation takes up that amount of space, you have a puzzle with a fairly dense 67 total squares of theme material. Normally I'd praise theme density, especially when the rest of the fill holds up pretty well (as it does here, with the long arcane name DEMAREST (36D: William who played Uncle Charley on "My Three Sons") and the whatthewherethe geographical oddity ARIÈGE being the only notable negatives). But long instructions/explanations in my grid just leave me cold. Idea here is clever, but in practice, the whole puzzle feels out of balance, and none of the theme answers have a pop or an aha quality to them. I didn't need the theme and didn't use knowledge of the theme to get any of the four relevant words. Matt's a super-talented constructor, but this one just wasn't for me (that's three in a row now ... hoping the streak breaks tomorrow).

Bullets:

• 14A: Country with which the U.S. goes to war in "Wag the Dog" (ALBANIA) — I'd completely forgotten this. Took a while to see, as I had THE BAY instead of the correct RAW BAR at 1D: Seafood lover's hangout for a while.
  
• 19A: 1973 nonfiction best seller about a woman with multiple personalities (SYBIL) — "SYBIL" was a term to be defined on the midterm I just gave. Not this SYBIL.
  
• 40A: Figures on the ceiling of la Cappella Sistina (ANGELI) — didn't take the time to notice that this was in Italian, so had ANGELS to start with...
  
• 54A: Bette's "Divine" stage persona (MISS M) — Gimme. A nice five-letter answer.

• 2D: Nancy Drew's aunt (ELOISE) — uh ... OK. Guessed it from the -ISE. Figured it wasn't Gary SINISE ... although I guess both DENISE and LOUISE were more plausible possibilities.
  
• 12D: Flower that shares its name with a tentacled sea creature (ANEMONE) — used this word in a puzzle once and have never forgotten it. My daughter asked me about a sea creature today. Specifically, her question was: "What's a Kraken?"

• 34D: Burglar in detective stories (YEGG) — one of the all-time great bits of olde-timey crime slang.
• 15A: Who "saved my life tonight" in a 1975 Elton John hit ("SOMEONE") — I love this clue, and this song. "Sugarbeeeaaaar"

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Role in Bizet's Pearl Fishers / WED 3-9-11 / Massey of old movies / Selective high-school org. / Hall-of-Fame hoopster Dan

Constructor: Peter A. Collins

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: TAILING OFF (59A: Waning ... or a hint to what is found by circling all the Ts in the completed puzzle) — circles spell out and form the outline of a KITE; circling the Ts in the grid provides the KITE's "tail"...


Word of the Day: Dan ISSEL (39D: Hall-of-Fame hoopster Dan) —

Daniel (Dan) Paul Issel (born October 25, 1948 in Batavia, Illinois) is a retired American Hall of Fame professional basketball player and coach. [...] Issel accumulated over 27,000 points in his combined ABA and NBA career. At the time of his retirement the only professional basketball players to have scored more points than Issel were Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain and Julius Erving. He currently ranks #8 on the all time combined ABA/NBA scoring list.

• • •

Circles! Four of them. Well, nine if you actually circle the Ts ... which are "OFF" how? I didn't quite see how TAILING OFF was a "hint." I mean, I get the TAIL part, but the "OFF," not so much. Is the expression "TAILING OFF" related to a kite's tail? I thought, briefly, that the "OFF" was related to the fact that the *circles* had been left "OFF." Whatever, the reveal works well enough, I suppose. Not a very satisfying puzzle for me, but after yesterday's, it looks almost solid. Biggest issue was the center, where I took a long, long time to drop the "G" from "BLOWING" to get "BLOWIN IN THE WIND" (38A: Bob Dylan song ... or a hint to the object found by connecting the four circled letters in a diamond). I thought briefly that it was "BLOWING 'N THE WIND." Downs in there weren't immediately clear to me either—I'm talking about DRIEST (Least sweet, as wine) and HYATTS (25D: Some hotels), and especially NHS (36D: Selective high-school org.), which I only just now figured out—it must stand for National Honor Society. I have never seen that abbrev. in a puzzle. Ever. Appears to be a first-ever NYT appearance. Sometimes "fresh" is terrible. Rest of puzzle is mediocre, but nothing's terribly objectionable. Maybe a few too many crosswordy names like LEILA (26A: Role in Bizet's Pearl Fishers) and ILONA and HEDDA and NALA and RAE and SELA, and weird geographical partials like YORBA and ILE DE.

FLYING HIGH (17A: On cloud nine) has got "CLOUD NINE" stuck in my head, which is not so terrible.


The album "KITE" (1987) by the late, great Kirsty MacColl, is one of my favorite albums of all time. Should be much, much better known. Wall-to-wall awesome.


Not much else to say. Moving on.

Bullets:

• 21A: Commercially prized ducks (EIDERS) — I had no idea. I didn't know the down was rare enough to be "prized."
  
• 51A: Discontinued Chevrolet model (COBALT) — so COBALT goes the way of the ALERO ... I don't expect its afterlife to be as pronounced.
  
• 4D: Anti-honking ordinance, e.g. (NOISE LAW) — just had exchange with another puzzle blogger who didn't like this one. Seemed fine to me, but that may just be because the last two mornings, our (uh ... let's say "OCD") neighbor has been up before 5am, snow-BLOWING. The best part was when I looked outside and the snow blower was idling (loudly) while he cleared off his car. Nuts. So nuts that we don't even get mad anymore. His need to CONTROL his ENVIRONMENT is like a disease. Oh, and he Hates us, but that's another story. Anyway, we're pretty sure that running your snow BLOWer before 5am is against local NOISE LAWs, but we weren't about to call Code on him (as he has on us, multiple times, for stuff like ... chipped paint near a side attic window that No One but he can see; but, as I say, that's another story...).
  
• 52D: Letter before Peter in an old phonetic alphabet (OBOE) — alphabet used by U.S. forces in WWII, apparently. In "Peter and the Wolf," the OBOE is ... the duck, right? Yes! Memory!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Du Milan, du Cocoon.

Ce petit week-end à Milan était vraiment agréable.

Il a fait beau, contrairement à ce que prévoyait la météo et comme j'ai été prévenue que les Italiennes, ou plutôt les Milanaises, étaient le symbole même du "chic", pour la première journée, j'ai décidé de porter une jupe + bottines à talons, histoire de faussement rivaliser.

Enorme connerie !

Je savais pourtant que j'allais cavaler partout et je n'ai même pas eu la présence d'esprit d'emporter une paire de baskets.

Pose pourrie de touriste devant la Cathédrale (Duomo) de Milan, sourire Colgate genre "je suis au top", sauf qu'en réalité, j'avais les pieds en feu.

Jupe - Asos
Ceinture - Asos
Pull - Chloé
Pendentif - IKKS
Manteau - Zara
Echarpe - GAP
Boots - Jonak

Je vous envoie de la photo de toutous d'ici deux jours max !
En attendant, joignez-vous à moi pour une petite sauterie...

Youpi, je suis invitée le 10 mars à me rendre au concert privé de Cocoon !

Et ça tombe bien car il se trouve que les deux membres du groupe sont des amis de Martin ! Alors en plus d'aimer leur musique...

C'est SFR music qui orchestre !

Je devais rencontrer les responsables, Aurélie Sohier- et Mathieu Dubois -SFR Music / SFR Live Concert- et Bénédicte Rouet -Direction de la marque SFR- mais étant à Milan je n'ai pas pu.

J'ai souvent entendu parler des SFR Live concert mais je n'ai jamais eu l'occasion de m'y rendre.
Ce sont en fait des concerts privés au Studio SFR, qui organise un à deux concerts par mois, qui sont rediffusés sur plusieurs plateformes : Internet, le mobile grâce à l'application SFR Music (tiens, je ne savais même pas que cette appli existait, je m’empresse de l’installer !) et la chaîne 80 de la Neufbox).

En gros, vous ne ratez rien, plutôt cool !

Bien sûr, les places sont distribuées en priorité aux client SFR, ou sur Facebook via des jeux-concours.

Pour ceux qui n'ont pas la chance d'être les heureux élus, (malin !) le concert est retransmis sur internet. On y découvre des vidéos des artistes, un journaliste commente en direct en coulisses et on peut revoir le concert jusqu'à trois semaines en streaming.

Pour toutes les infos, sur les évènements et pour retrouver les concerts en direct ça se passe là :
http://www.live-concert.sfr.fr

Bon tout ça pour vous dire que je vous retrouve ici-même le jeudi 10 mars à 19h30, pour le live du concert de Cocoon, retransmis sur le blog :