Thursday 9-13-07

Well, I won't be complaining about the theme of today's New York Sun puzzle because it's Themeless Thursday. And nobody can complain that there are no interesting letters because it's by Karen M. Tracey and that means it's got plenty of those Scrabbly letters that lesser constructors find difficult to work into puzzles -- including 4 Z's and 3 K's, 2 V's a J and an X. No Q, but that's the only one she left out.

The two longest entries are at 16A: Do-it-all device which might should have been clued as "Do-it-all device for do-nothings" since UNIVERSAL REMOTE will satisfy all the needs of no one but couch potatoes, and 59A: Where Mirabelle Buttersfield sells gloves in the movie "Shopgirl". I have neither seen the movie (though I might now that I've become a fan of Claire Danes after she was so good in the movie "Stardust") nor read the Steve Martin novel (though I know that in the book she worked at Neiman Marcus), but this wasn't hard to figure out once the crossing letters started to fall into place. It had to be somewhere upscale since Wal-Mart might sell gloves but they don't employ gloves salespeople.

Speaking of Steve Martin, he shows up again at 27A: Steve Martin title role of 1996 (BILKO).

Another long -- and Scrabbly -- entry is at 15D: Famed student of Leopold Auer (JASCHA HEIFETZ). If you want to hear -- and see -- some heckuva violin playing, watch Jascha playing Mozart.

I don't live in New York but I got 57D: NYC sports radio station with an apt call sign (WFAN) because I listen to the Mets games on XM satellite radio.

Speaking of XM, this past weekend on the 60's station they played all the hit songs with girls' names in the title, which helped me to get 5D: 1968 hit by the Turtles (ELENORE) even though I originally thought this title included the young lady's last initial and filled in ELINOR G.

Well, in my defense, I don't think I've ever seen the song's title written out before and the chorus -- which contains absolutely the laziest piece of song-writing in the history of music -- goes like this:

"Elenore, gee I think you're swell

And you really do me well,

You're my pride and joy, et cetera."

See what I mena about lazy? Come on, "Swell" and "Do me well' ain't exactly Shakespeare, but then the Turtles just give up and tell Elenore to fill in the blanks herself -- although they do redeem themselves slightly by rhyming "et cetera" with "love me better" by the end of the chorus.

Having ELINOR G by the way made it difficult for me to get 34A:Sharing one's feelings (EMPATHIZING) because I couldn't think og anything that started with the letters GMPA.

7A: Relief pitcher Armando (BENITEZ) He's horrible. Your arthritic granny can pitch better than him. I've had him on my a couple of my fantasy baseball teams and he's never failed to lose me points.

8D: Third of eight (EARTH) This is always gonna be hard for me. I had the planets and their order in the Solar System drilled into my head in elementary school. The NINE planets. MVEMJSUNP. May's Violet Eyes Make John Sit Up Nice. Period. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto.

51D: One of Donald Duck's nephews (LOUIE) Ahh, useless knowledge, my specialty. Do you know how to tell these triplets apart? Huey wears a red hat, Dewey blue, and Louie green. Did you know that Donald's girlfriend Daisy Duck has three lookalike nieces? Do you know their names? April, May and June.

That's all for today. But come back tomorrow, all right? I've been looking for just the right words to express my gratitude and affection to those of you who spend a little time here at Green Genius and I think I've finally found them -- Y'all are my pride and joy, et cetera.