Title: Creative Proposition
Theme entries: two-word phrases redefined as though they were three words, the middle word being “pro,” related to a job or career

Examples:
31A, McEnroe antics?: NET PROFITS (net pro fits)
69D, Milker’s collection tube?: DAIRY PRODUCT (dairy pro duct)

Things I learned, with web links so you can learn them too:

18A, Diva Mitchell: LEONA
24A, Runner of myth: ATALANTA [note the connection to the Medea/Argo entry below]
35A, Actor Herbert: LOM
78A, Country’s McCoy: NEAL
96A, “Patterns” poet Lowell: AMY
101A, Teeny bit: SKOSH [I would have guessed Yiddish, not Japanese]
110A, Trattoria treat: TORTONI
123A, Waterloo fighter: PRUSSIAN [see, I always thought Wellington won that shit by himself; I’m sure people educated in continental Europe hear it differently]
1D, Ashcan School painter: SLOAN
10D, Scuttled WWII ship: GRAF SPEE
85D, Genteelness: POLITESSE
94D, Farquhar innkeeper: BONIFACE
100D, Jacques of deconstruction: DERRIDA
116D, Reasons to sue: TORTS [I’ve never known what this word actually meant]
118D, Medea rode in it: ARGO [I can never get interested enough into this story to retain its details or characters]

Overall:
I changed only one square (but I got two wrong) and looked up 15 things.

Title: The Gods Must Be Crazy
Theme entries: familiar phrases with words replaced with homonyms that are the names of gods and goddesses

Example:
16D, Egyptian goddess’s cool treats?: ITALIAN ISIS
74D, Roman goddess’s sports classic?: WORLD CERES

Things I learned, with web links so you can learn them too:

22A, It’s near Provo: OREM, UTAH
27A, Metz Mrs.: MME [the item here is that a city called Metz is in France, while a city called Cologne is in Germany.]
51A, First earl of Avon: EDEN [a sad story: Nicholas Eden, the second earl, died of AIDS in 1985, and the title died with him.]
58A, Denver university: REGIS
70A, Waters off Borneo: SULU SEA
79A, Clunky shoe: SABOT
102A, Banned pollutants: PCBs
109A, Cubist Fernand: LEGER
118A, Roman goddess’s “I don’t have to explain!”?: JUNO THE DRILL [I thought Juno was male for some reason; maybe confusion with Janus]
14D, Dickens’ Little ___: EM’LY
28D, “Rienzi” composer: WAGNER
35D, “East of Eden” girl: ABRA
44D, Peterson of jazz: OSCAR
45D, Fan-tan, by another name: SEVENS
48D, Bring out: EDUCE
67D, Bridget Riley‘s genre: OP ART [interesting! I like the sample pictures on the right side of that Wikipedia page very much.]
80D, French chalk user: TAILOR
102D, “Sing Sing Sing” penner: PRIMA [marching band MP3 here; of course I know the song, but I didn’t know what it was called]
114D, C&W’s McCann: LILA

Overall:
I changed 6 squares (still getting another five wrong) and looked up a billion 20 things. This puzzle apparently sucked. I have no energy left to do more (I have nine more waiting to be blogged), and I’m still six months behind.

Title: Commercial Air Lines
Theme entries: common pieces of boilerplate from commercials and infomercials

Example:
23A, Commercial air line?: FOR A LIMITED TIME
56A, Commercial air line?: BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE

Things I learned, with web links so you can learn them too:

6A, Colorado feeder: GILA
19A, Hersey town: ADANO [I thought that sounded familiar. I wrote the Wikipedia entry for the book.]
65A, Eos, to the Romans: AURORA
18D, Dame Edna giveaways, briefly: GLADS
33D, Debussy subject: MER
54D, Rhine feeder: AARE
67D, Pigeon drop, e.g.: SCAM
68D, Hit the sauce: TOPE

Overall:
I changed about 12 squares, got one wrong (it’s America’s Cup, not American, and “dog days units” are ACs) left one blank (fam. vs. Aare), and looked up 11 things.

Technorati Tags: crossword, puzzle

Title: Minding Their Businesses
Theme entries: phrases with a word replaced by a celebrity’s name that’s a homonym

Examples:
22A, “Bonanza” star’s hat business?: Greene Berets
80D, Fab Four member’s orienteering business?: Starr Maps

Things I learned, with web links so you can learn them too:

20A, Incus locale: EAR
4D, Lusterware feature: SHEEN
6D, Suffix with hex: ANE [I knew the word hexane but not what it is]
12D, Swift brute: YAHOO [I knew this was something from Gulliver’s Travels but didn’t know what a Yahoo was]
37D, Cross trigram: IHS [yes, I had EHS, thinking Lina Wertmuller was a Lena]
43D, “___ Crime?” (Styne tune): IS IT A
49D, MacArthur return site: LEYTE
105D, Old satellite launcher: AGENA

Overall:
I changed 8 squares, got one wrong, left two blank (though I realized what they were on a later look), and looked up 8 things.

Title: Scrambled Headlines
Theme entries: newspaper-style headlines where every word is an anagram of the same set of letters

Example:
22A, Actress looks out for a monster?: Bates Abets Beast
30A, Explorer harasses the barefooted?: Hudson Hounds Unshod
97A, Actor saved baseball team?: Spader Spared Padres

Brilliant. Seriously.

Things I learned, with web links so you can learn them too:

28A, “Life Goes On” Emmy winner: LOWE [I never watched that show and had no idea he was on it]
59A, Pained look: MOUE
104A, Banned spray: ALAR [ah, now I remember this]
117A, Ancient Persian: MEDE
120A, Exile of 1302: DANTE [honestly, an interesting read; I had no idea]
21D, Attorney Gerry: SPENCE
100D, Bel ___ cheese: PAESE [98D was “pease”]

Overall:
I changed no squares (finally) and looked up seven things.

Title: Just Do It
Theme entries: common phrases redefined as having to do with hairstyles

Examples:
23A: Spicy do?: cinnamon bun
48A, Stimulating cut?: caffeine buzz

Things I learned, with web links so you can learn them too:

63A, River through Myanmar: IRRAWADDY [dig the Burmese script]
77A, Sorceress of Colchis: MEDEA [all I knew about her was she was Jason’s wife and killed her children]
2D, Pelvic bones: ILIA
14D, Peter Gunn’s girl: EDIE [all I knew about him was his theme music]
62D, Cackleberry: EGG
69D, Banana oil et al.: ESTERS

Overall:
I changed only two squares, one of which was totally unfair, because IRE is a noun and IRK is a verb and I will never change my mind about that, and looked up only six things!

Title: Potluck
Theme entries: foods with names reminiscent of jobs or characters

Examples:
23A, What Zorro brought: SWORDFISH
111A, What the banker brought: DOUGHNUTS

Things I learned, with web links so you can learn them too:

20A, Book after Joel: AMOS
67A, One-seeded fruit: DRUPE [I just learned the awesome word drupelet]
3D, Operatic prince: IGOR
9D, Ancient Hebrew kingdom: SAMARIA
31D, ___ Bay, Philippines: SUBIC [now that I think about it, I’ve heard of that navy base]
39D, Philosopher Georg: HEGEL [yes, I had Hevel, because I mistook Riga for Riva]
74D, Aphrodite’s mother: DIONE
81D, Silent butler’s pickup: CRUMB [I always thought a silent butler was one of these, but apparently that’s called a valet.]
100D, Bow-toting god: AMOR
101D, Pelee output: LAVA [interesting how similar a name this is to Pele]

Overall:
I changed 6 squares, got one wrong, and looked up 10 things.

Title: Double-Headers
Theme entries: phrases that usually start with “two,” changed to start with two of whatever there’s two of

Examples:
39A, Suburban amenity?: car car garage
92A, Something that goes in either direction?: way way street

Things I learned, with web links so you can learn them too:

27A, “Great” pope: LEO
45A, Attar source: PETAL
51A, North Dakota city: MINOT
56A, New Look name: DIOR [that link is a quick and nifty read]
57A, Horned goddess: ISIS
58A, Many a gapper?: base base hit
84A, Kroft colleague: STAHL [Oh, that Kroft. Is it weird that I think of him as the young guy on “60 Minutes”?]
99A, ___ judicata: RES
14D, Hydrocarbon suffix: ANE
52D, Twits: TAUNTS
62D, Williamson of “Excalibur”: NICOL [Read that bio, as it is awesome. It also should be noted that I accidentally learned about William Nicol in looking him up!]
85D, It may be kapok-filled: MATTRESS [here’s the tree]
90D, Cuts out: RESECTS

Overall:
I changed 9 squares (though I cleverly changed SEVILLE to HAMELIN with only three visible changes, so really it’s only six) and looked up 13 things.

Title: Prez Clippings
Theme entries: presidential trivia

Examples:
22A, Carter was the first president ___: born in a hospital
3D, W.H. Harrison attended it: medical school

Things I learned, with web links so you can learn them too:

39A, Quince, e.g.: POME
2D, Coolidge translated it: Dante’s Inferno [this is noted on many websites, but I’m amused by the context on the one linked]
56D, Middle Eastern bigwig: AGHA
68D, Plum variety: GREENGAGE
85D, “Brat Farrar” author: TEY [I can never remember her]
91D, Marceau’s everyman: BIP
94D, Mesta superlative: MOSTEST
100D, Saint of Seville: ISIDORE
105D, Order from an 88 Across [tsar]: UKASE
117D, Casino game: FARO [This game is actually pretty fun. Play it here. Beautifully designed site, too.]

Overall:
I changed 3 squares and looked up 10 things.

Title: Way to Go
Theme entries: phrases that include a form of transportation [aside: “Well, a car could be blue!”] with another meaning

Example:
24A, Economical way to travel?: cheapSKATES
122A, Honeymooner’s way to travel?: bridal TRAIN

Things I learned, with web links so you can learn them too:

5A, Jokhang temple city: LHASA
21A, Fine fiddle: AMATI [This is a cool story; the first Amati designed the shape of the modern violin and was Stradivari’s teacher.]
28A, Word describing a quasar: STARLIKE
33A, Aleppo resident: SYRIAN
50A, Painter Andrea del ___: SARTO
52A, Dangerous way to travel?: FAULT PLANE [also a theme entry]
78A, Riis subject: SLUM
3D, Risky way to travel?: TRIAL BALLOON [also a theme entry]
13D, News twos: ITEMS [no idea. help!]
37D, Region of Spain: LEÓN
54D, Spiral shells: TRITONS
62D, “West Side Story” girl: ANITA
79D, Pouty look: MOUE
89D, Gimlet, e.g.: TOOL
95D, Cassandra, e.g.: SEER
110D, Heyward hero: PORGY
124D, Vichy, e.g.: SPA

Overall:
I changed 2 squares (so close!) and looked up 17 things (eek!).