DEBlog

Prom 2013

This is the best picture of the bunch, I think: Rebecca and Nick.

Front Flip [NYT Sunday crossword]

Behold, the theme-related clues and answers to this week's puzzle:

 

ACROSS

24 Tammany Hall corruption, e.g.?

EVIL FROM NEW YORK

34 Try to see what you're getting for Christmas?

PEEK UNDER WRAPS

45 Academy for criminals?

PERP SCHOOL

51 Journey from the nest to the kitchen, say?

RAT'S TREK

64 Hidden drug habit, maybe?

POT SECRET

76 Drink greedily?

GULP IT IN

81 Playground apparatus of the Apocalypse?

DOOM SWINGS

91 Be a lenient judge?

DIAL DOWN THE LAW

105 Maligned merchandise?

REVILED THE GOODS

Mutilating Herms in the London Review of Books

I was delighted to discover yesterday that Peter Green, an eminent ancient historian and Emeritus Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, has reviewed my little self-published book The Mutilation of the Herms: Unpacking an Ancient Mystery in the London Review of Books.

I'm not sure that "review" is the right term here, actually. Really he mentions my book only in the first paragraph and uses it as a springboard for a rather lengthy essay about the incident I discuss in the book, the vandalism of a bunch of statues in Athens one night in 415 B.C. The statues were called herms. As I put it in my book: "They were statues of the Greek god Hermes, his bearded head perched atop a stone pillar with an erect phallus poking out the front." (The crime may look small to us moderns but, in the context of the day, it was enormously important and led to a number of executions and exiles.)

At any rate, I'm particularly astonished that the book received this kind of attention given that I self-published it on Amazon.

"My Treat" [NYT Sunday crossword]

Here are the theme-related clues and answers to the puzzle. All clues are Down.

3. 1984 "educational" Van Halen song
HOT FOR TEACHER

5. 1998 Grammy-nominated song by the Verve
BITTERSWEET SYMPHONY

10. Setting of Barbara Kingsolover's "The Poisonwood Bible"
BELGIAN CONGO

14. 2012 film starring Johnny Depp as a bloodsucker
DARK SHADOWS

26 Classic novel subtitled "Advertures in a Desert Island," with "The"
SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON

59 Kiss alternative...or a hint to the starts of 3-, 5-, 10-, 14-, 26-, 64- and 68-Down
CHOCOLATE DROP

64 Light, fruity aocoholic drink
WHITE SANGRIA

68 Flowering plant used to treat liver ailments
MINT THISTLE 

Fitting Rearrangements [NYT Sunday crossword]

Here are the theme-related clues and answers to this Sunday's puzzle:

24 A: College student's place
DORMITORY
116 A: Apt anagram of 24-Across
DIRTY ROOM

31 A: Procrastinators' enablers
SNOOZE ALARMS
3 D: Apt anagram of 31-Across
ALAS NO MORE Z'S

42 A: Visa offering
DEBIT CARD
94 A: Apt anagram for 42-Across
BAD CREDIT

55 A: "Decision Points" author
GEORGE BUSH
30 D: Apt anagram for 55-Across
HE BUGS GORE

79 A: Galileo, for one
ASTRONOMER
54 D: Apt anagram for 79-Across
MOON STARER

103 A: "Great" 1666 conflagration
FIRE OF LONDON
63 D: Apt anagram for 103-Across
INFERNO OF OLD