Tuesday, September 19, 2017

My time: 7:27, just 15 seconds too slow.

--

A very fun theme this Tuesday, with each themed answer having not one but two of the same silent letter (WRONG ANSWER, GENGHIS KHAN, and CAMPAIGN SIGNS), with the bonus link SILENT PARTER ("nonactive member of a firm... or," the theme link, etc).

GORSE (scientific name Ulex, but commonly and much more funly known as furze, hoth, espinillo, or whin) is a thorny yellow plant that grows in dry conditions.  The clue is "vegetation along a British golf course," which I didn't know was a thing, but I guess it is.

I am the single most clueless-about-sports American male, an ongoing series: "Org. for the Big East, Big South and Big 12" is NCAA.  I guessed this early, knowing basically what the NCAA is, but it turns out it's for all kinds of sports.  I thought until now that the NCAA was only about basketball.  I don't know why I thought this, but the Wikipedia article supports this misconception: "In 2014, the NCAA generated almost a billion dollars in revenue. 80 to 90% of this revenue was due to the Division I Men's Basketball Tournament."

I know Erik SATIE about as well as I know any European composer, but I wasn't aware that he was famous for his piano works, "The Gymnopédies."

Susan SONTAG was an author and political activist.  Her novel In America is a fictionalized account of a real Polish actress' rise to stardom.  And apparently she plagiarized a few passages!  Tsk.

ERIN Burnett is a quite famous new anchor on CNN with her own show, but I've never heard of her.  I don't watch much TV.

K.T. OSLIN is an '80s country singer, with hits such as "Clean Your Own Tables," "Younger Men (Are Startin' To Catch My Eye)," "80s Ladies," and "Money."  Not really my thing.

I wish DR. LAURA would at long last develop some sense of shame and just go crawl under a rock.

The MORGAN Library in New York City, founded, of course, by Pierpoint Morgan, has lots of art treasures and rare books.

"Boxster maker" puzzled me.  What the heck is a Boxster?  And why is it spelled so funny?  I realized I had some dim memory that it was a car, and the crossfill got me PORSCHE.

I answered "main ore of lead" quickly with GALENA because that answer appeared last week as a clue.

"Dickens girl" Little NELL is the main character of the The Old Curiosity Shop.  She is beatific and good and dies young. Whoops, spoiler alert.