NYT 6:33
LAT tba
CS 7:13 (J—paper)
BEQ tba
WSJ tba
Doug Peterson and Barry Silk's New York Times crossword
Yeah, so earlier on Thursday, I chided Rex Parker about his brain wanting to shut down at the sight of all the multiple cross-reference clues in the Gorski puzzle. And then I waded into Doug and Barry's themeless, and I'll be darned if those cross-reference clues weren't awfully vexing. Really, 4D and 15A intersect and both send you across the puzzle to other clues? Fie on that!
Then there's the utterly unfamiliar KENTUCKY COLONEL (with no reference to fried chicken!) at 8D, clued as the [Honorary title bestowed on Bill Clinton, Muhammad Ali and Mae West]. Beside it is the short ERTE with an unfamiliar clue: ["Manhattan Mary V" artist].
The cross-refs line up like so:
Favorite entries:
Boo on 6D, [Berry with juicy parts?] for actress HALLE. Have her acting parts really been all that juicy? Or are the fellas talking about her body parts? This clue had better be an overestimation of the roles she's gotten.
I had some trouble spots. I decided the PSAT had [180 is its max. score], which made the [Kind of door or window] into a POUVER—they're actually LSAT and LOUVER. I was willing to consider POUVER because I'd just done a 2007 Games 21x21 with eight completely unfamiliar answers. These were the wickets and mallets game ROQUE; LAKE SUCCESS, the UN headquarters in '46-'51; [Merengue singer Crespo] for ELVIS; IGY for [Jul. 1, 1957 to Dec. 31, 1958]; BANON, everyone's favorite [French goat cheese dipped in brandy]; SPLATS clued as [Chair pieces]; [Early American philanthropist Stephen] GIRARD; and my personal favorite (though it's hard to top IGY!), TELPHER, or [Cable car]. I am not making this up. (And the page before had legalese MESNE and CERAM, one of the Molucca Islands!)
Looking back at the NYT, a 43D [Crash site sight] is a TOW CAR? What is a TOW CAR? I know tow trucks. 60A LORAL is a [Big maker of communications satellites], and I should try to remember this one because it's been in crosswords before. COLD HARBOR sounds very Long Island/New England to me. Why is it the [Site of Robert E. Lee's last victory]? Am I thinking of Cold Spring Harbor? 3D [Hungarian writer Madach]...hmm, if you're looking for a Hungarian 4-letter name, try Bela, Erno, or IMRE. (IMRE Nagy is the usual crossword IMRE.) Ryan and Brian say Barry's puzzles always have at least two baseball references; I was stumped by one of 'em, 52D [Outfielder Francona], or TITO. I wouldn't call any of these things unfair, but I would say the puzzle's more Saturdayish than Fridayish. One can only hope this means there's a super-duper killer crossword in store for Saturday!
Updated Friday morning:
Raymond Hamel's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Birds of Prey"—Janie's review
This is a muscular, lean and terrific puzzle whose four theme-phrases all name different sharp-taloned, strongly hook-beaked, swooping flyers that feed on the weaker of their species—and other species as well... Today's birds of a feather are represented in the following:
For good measure, Ray disguises some bonus fill with the clue [Rent-a-car option] for AVIS—but let's not forget, that word is Latin for bird.
Elsewhere in the puzzle, Ray does lots to [Invigorate] PEP UP the solving experience. Did you have trouble coming up with the answer for [GPA booster]? I sure did. It's EASY A, but failure to come up with SWABS for [Cotton bunches] and the decision to enter PUTS IN instead of BUYS IN for [Joins a poker game] definitely threw me off the track. Ditto the RR start to "R" RATING for the teasingly suggestive [What nudity may lead to]. RR? Ohhhhh. Now I get it. (And back to BUYS IN for a second—notice the nice complement it has in ANTE [Build the pot].)
I do own an iMac, but not an IPOD [Apple product]. I do know, though, that the iPod runs on battery power and more specifically, the nickel-cadmium variety—or NICAD [Battery type]. Nice how IPOD and NICAD sit next to each other in the grid too.
A [High point] is a VERTEX—not to be confused with a VORTEX, which is another word for whirlpool. A [Thin pancake] is a CRÊPE, a food we get from France. And while we're over there, I was surprised to see LOUVRE clued as [Parisian art gallery, with "The"]. The Louvre is a "gallery"? Yes, it's a place where art is exhibited and in that sense a "gallery," but doesn't the word "gallery" kinda diminish the Louvre, which is one of the western world's consummate museums? Just sayin'...
The delicacy of that TUTU [Frilly little skirt] is offset not only by the theme creatures, but by the likes of such brawny fill as ALL-PRO [Like an excellent NFL player]; ODIN, Norse god of art, culture and war and [Father of Thor], god of thunder, war and strength; ORCA [Killer whale]; and [Formula] ONE [racing].
That [Kind of mirror] is REAR-VIEW; and I know that TREFOIL describes a [Clover shape]—but it's also one of a variety of Girl Scout cookies. I rather doubt that [Alice B.] TOKLAS [, companion of Gertrude Stein] enjoyed them. No, her non-liquid TONICS [Pick-me-ups] were more of the WEEDY sort...(and I'm not talkin' [Overgrown, as a garden]).
Finally, perhaps it was seeing [Killer whale] and ["Monty Python and the Holy ___"] GRAIL so close in the list of clues to [Wool from a rabbit] (for ANGORA), but really—all I could think of was that killer rabbit....
GROAN. And TGIF, all!
July 16, 2009
Friday, 7/17
July 15, 2009
Thursday, 7/16
NYT 4:47
LAT 3:28
CS 5:53 (J—paper)
Tausig untimed
Liz Gorski's New York Times crossword
I love the theme but I can't say I'm wild about the rest of the puzzle. The theme presents an ANAGRAM (35A [See 17- and 57-Across] of two arithmetic problems that total THIRTEEN (12D [Either 17- or 57-Across]. 17A is ELEVEN + TWO ([35-Across of 57-Across that equals 12-Down]) and 57A is TWELVE + ONE ([35-Across of 17-Across that equals 12-Down]). Huh! I don't recall learning that those two number pairs were anagrams of each other. Partnering with THIRTEEN in the opposite corner is IT ADDS UP, a 33A [Possible title for this puzzle]. Those two plus signs (rendered as P for "plus" in my answer grid) work in their crossings, too. 15D is a B+ AVERAGE, or [3.3. in a transcript, maybe?], and 46D is NON{PLUS}ED, or [Puzzled]. I guess really the plus signs are {PLUS} rebus squares, as the word PLUS works in all of them, and + does not work for NON+ED.
There's plenty of tough stuff here:
• 14A. [Ships whose rudders don't touch water] are the airships called DIRIGIBLES. Not being nautically inclined, I started out here with CATAMARANS.
• 19A. [Bobsled challenges] are ESSES, meaning S-curves in the bobsled chute. Bet you thought about bobsleds when you saw 23A's clue, [They travel through tubes]. Those are the OVA that traverse the Fallopian tubes. Bet you also pondered bobsleds at 44D, [Bob at the Olympics]. That's perky Mr. COSTAS.
• 29A. The big "Who??" clue is [French novelist Robert ___, upon whose work the 1973 thriller "The Day of the Dolphin" is based]. The usual crossword MERLEs are actress Merle Oberon and country singer Merle Haggard.
• 39A. [Container for folding scissors] is either a newish or very old clue for the good ol' ETUI. I have taken to calling the little zippered case inside my purse an ETUI. I don't have any sewing gear in it, but you can find a nail file and narcotics.
• 53A. DAMASCUS is the capital of Syria as well as the [Destination of Saul when he had his conversion, in the Bible].
• 60A. AT EYE LEVEL is clued as [Neither high nor low].
• 61A. What? The APSE isn't clued as a recess in a cathedral? Why, I hardly recognized it in [Half-dome construction].
• 2D. I don't care for anything labeled [Swiss cheese]. Does TILSIT taste like holey Swiss cheese?
• 11D. CASE FILE doesn't feel so familiar to me. It's a [Detective's work record].
• 36D. AERO gets a new clue, [Britain's Royal ___ Club, for plane enthusiasts]. Never heard of it, though the AERO part is rather inferrable.
• 54D. [100-lb. units] are hundredweights, abbreviated as CWTS. I know this strictly from crosswords. Not sure if the plural is kosher.
In the Department of Cute Clues, we've got these:
• 16A. The clue [Sounds heard in a bowl] has nothing to do with toilet bowls. They're the RAHS heard in a stadium/arena type of bowl.
• 13D, 55D. Well, if a [Snake's warning] is the hissing SSS, then a [Bear's warning] must be GRRR, right? Naw. It's SELL, as in a Wall Street bear.
• 41A. GAVEL is [Something a chair may hold]. I realize there are traditionalists who cannot abide "chair" being used to refer to a gender-neutral chairperson, but those traditionalists are probably best advised to get a grip.
• 3D. The magician's [Cry just before a rabbit appears?] is PRESTO.
• 4D. [Dwells in the past?] clues LIVETH.
• 8D. Honestly, I don't know anything about the [Red-spotted ___] NEWT, but it felt so right that it pushed CATAMARANS out of my grid. Look how cute!
• 52D. SPELT is a grain of some sort, isn't it? It's also the British past tense of "spell," so the clue is [Like L-O-N-D-O-N].
Updated Thursday morning:
Jack McInturff's Los Angeles Times crossword
The theme, which contains two 14s, two 10s, and a 15 (63 squares in all, a fairly substantial theme), is explained by 58A: WHAT'S THE SPREAD, or a [Bettor's question, and a hint to this puzzle's theme]. The other four themers begin with various edible spreads:
• 16A. MUSTARD PLASTER is an [Old-fashioned remedy for chest colds].
• 26A. [Rochester medical center] is the famous MAYO CLINIC. Did you read that recent(ish) New Yorker article about health care overspending in McAllen, Texas? Atul Gawande wrote about the fabulously efficient methods used for patient care at Mayo. The doctors have much less chance of making a fortune, but the quality of care is phenomenal and the costs are kept in line. More Mayo, please.
• 36A. JELLY ROLL MORTON was the '20s New Orleans Jazz musician clued as ["Black Bottom Stomp" jazz pianist].
• 43A. BUTTERBEAN is a [Lima variety]. I'm not one for lima beans, but I was eating buttered toast before sunrise this morning. Yum, butter.
Shiniest entry in the fill: PAGLIACCI, the [1892 Leoncavallo opera]. Funniest clue: [He "used to be the next president"], for Al GORE.
Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword, "Liquidity"
Ben's puzzle this week partners up well with today's LAT, as both puzzles have some messy stuff. In Ben's theme, phrases that contain solid substances are edited to include a liquid phase of that those substances:
• 17A, 21A. What's liquid rock? It's lava. So Rock, Paper, Scissors turns into LAVA, PAPER, / SCISSORS is a [totally unfair twist on a random selection game]. It mystifies me that there are Rock, Paper, Scissors tournaments. Why not have coin-toss tournaments? Or really, juice things up a bit with molten lava, which both combusts the paper and melts the scissors.
• 37A. Fat Tuesday, or Mardi Gras, melts into GREASE TUESDAY, a [Midweek occasion for catching a Broadway revival?].
• 56A, 61A. ["Verily shall Evian be here soon"?] clues THE WATER / MAN COMETH, with ice turning to water.
And now, the highlight reel. I loved the surprise of 28A. Seven letters, starting with M, [Late singer Jackson with multiple Grammys]...what else could it be but MICHAEL? Well, there's also MAHALIA Jackson. 47A CARL'S JR. is the odd name of a [West Coast burger chain] and a cool crossword answer. The clue for 3D, NEVAEH, is written with the words in the correct order, but with each word spelled backwards: [ybaB eman taht yltnecer emaceb yrev ralupop, yllaicepse htiw lacilegnave snaitsirhC], or Baby name that recently became very popular, especially with evangelical Christians. And no, Lleh has not caught on yet. Isn't it mean to give a kid a name that's the opposite of Heaven? [Like Beethoven and Rush Limbaugh] clues DEAF at 4D. The lively PUH-LEASE at 18D is clued ["You think I'm gonna swallow that?"]. 31D is a CASTRATO, or [Male singer for whom the Italians used to go nuts]. Actually, "for whom the nuts used to go missing" works too. 37D GOT THE AX is a solid phrase; [Was victim to some rightsizing] feels a little retro as a clue because these days, nobody's daring to call it "rightsizing," are they?
Paula Gamache's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Confidentially Speaking"—Janie's review
Come close because I have to say this very quietly: Paula has given us a perfectly wonderful puzzle, but it's filled with—sshh!—unmentionables. The first word of each of the four (lively) theme phrases relates to the idea of confidentiality, and all but the first phrase seem to be making their first appearances in a CS puzzle. Because I gotta, I'll now break the confidence and reveal the phrases in question:Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you—trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I has as lief the town-crier had spoke my lines.
I'm not sure if there was a CAMEO [Bit part for a big player] in that theatrical entertainment staged at Elsinore...
There's the European connection, from the [Twelve months in Toulouse] for ANNÉE, to [River through Florence] for ARNO, to [Neighbor of Montenegro] for SERBIA. And a (probably inadvertent) baseball connection in the crossing of HURL [What pitchers do] and ["Three strikes and you're out," e.g.] for RULE. (And what a polite clue for HURL, no? Also, it took me a while to realize that the pitchers in the clue were not ewers...) I also have to express my delight in seeing ["There's] NO 'I' [in team"] right next to [Bit of wisdom] ADAGE.
A few more mentions, and then I'm gone:
- ["Atonement" author McEwan] for IAN reminded me that, while I've not read this book (did see the film), I did read (and recommend) Saturday a slender volume about a harrowing day in the life of a London surgeon and his family. It sneaks up and packs a wallop.
- [Cut in a column] for EDIT. I had trouble with this one because I wouldn't let go of the idea of architectural columns.
- [Quiet moment for a nanny] for NAP-TIME. Love the clue, love the fill.
- [Michigan city mentioned in Paul Simon's "America"] for SAGINAW. For reasons I'll never know, that's the song that was going through my head for much of the last two days. Maybe because Paul Simon was on Jimmy Fallon's show recently? Anyway, I was glad to encounter it directly in the puzzle!
July 14, 2009
Wednesday, 7/15
BEQ 4:58
Onion 4:48
NYT 3:15
LAT 3:10
CS 6:38 (J—paper)
Joon Pahk's New York Times crossword
Joon interprets the concept IT MAY BE TAKEN OUT by listing four things that fit that categorization:
- 17A. A [Feeling of nonfulfillment] is FRUSTRATION. You don't take frustration out without taking it out on someone/-thing.
- 24A. [Frequent home acquisition] is a MORTGAGE. Hey, Joon, did you just take out a mortgage for your new abode?
- 49A. [Burgers and fries, often] constitute FAST FOOD. They're "take-out," yes, but I don't think of it as "taking out fast food."
- 59A. Take out a LIBRARY BOOK, an [Item that may have a date stamp].
Favorite clues: [It may be hand-picked- refers to a BANJO. MUM's ["The word"]. MRS. is clued with the Virginia Woolf book, ["___ Dalloway"]. The most important MELINDA in the world is Melinda Gates of the [Bill & ___ Gates Foundation], which does tremendously useful work in battling disease in Africa. [Whites or darks] make up a laundry LOAD. And OCT. is the [Mo. of Indigenous Peoples Day], offsetting Columbus Day.
I gotta dock Joon a few points for a couple dupes. IT MAY BE TAKEN OUT echoes MAY I, or [Polite request for permission]. And two cognates pop up: REX is a [Kingly title in Latin], and EL REY is a [Kingly title in Spanish].
edited to add: joon here with a couple of "behind the music" notes (but no actual musical notes). i wrote this one with thursday in mind, and as such there was a fairly mild theme gimmick: all four theme answers were clued merely as [See 38-across]. i liked the idea of putting the clue in the grid, the way mike nothnagel did in his IT GOES UP AND DOWN puzzle from last year, but in a somewhat easier way. the editorial change to clue the answers straightforwardly is a good decision given the wednesday context, although that MORTGAGE clue is rather non-specific, isn't it? it could as easily describe a DESK LAMP or NINTENDO WII. anyway, i must take responsibility for the mild awkwardness of FRUSTRATION not having its "on" attached, and the two unnoticed-by-me dupes. i could easily have changed the X at REX/HEX (to D, F, M, N, P, S, T, W). or just clued REX via harrison or stout. instead i went for the matching pair, and for some reason it didn't even occur to me that they were cognates. MAY I would have been harder to grid out, but it looks doable. most of my tricky clues were kept, but my favorite that didn't make the cut was [Not just] for UNFAIR. it's subtle, but just misleading enough... i thought. the similar [Another time] clue for AGAIN and [Not express] for LOCAL did make it, though, so that made me happy.
Updated Wednesday morning
Randolph Ross's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "U and Me"— Janie's review
The only thing that gently surprised me today was the title of the puzzle itself. Yes, the first word in each of the two-word theme phrases begins with U and the second with ME, but each of the first words also begins UN. Now nobody asked me, but I think there's more mileage to be had here with the title "U 'n' Me"... That said, nice goin', Randy, on giving us four 15-letter phrases, each of which appears to be making its major-puzzle debut. That's 60 squares of fresh theme-fill. Bravo! And those phrases are:
- 17A. UNIVERSITY MEDAL [College graduation award]. While the clue and the fill don't entirely match (is this a college honor, a university honor or is the "mixed metaphor" a cluing necessity?...), I never heard of this award. Did my small college confer this medal on a classmate? I don't remember. Still, I always like picking up new information through the puzzles.
- 28A. UNION MEMBERSHIP [Closed shop requirement]. Aha. As a card-carrying member of three performers unions, this one I know.
- 44A. UNITED METHODIST [Protestant church]. As a Jewess... Well, I'd be a pretty provincial kinda gal if I said I'd never heard of this Protestant sect. But I have, so I won't!
- 58A. UNCHAINED MELODY [Hit for the Righteous Brothers]. A hit for just about anyone who recorded it, starting in 1955. Today's version, though, was the "theme song" for my high school class's Senior Prom (well before Demi, Patrick and Ghost re-popularized it, yet again...).
- [Celtic rival] PACER and [Magic's teammate] KAREEM for basketball fans;
- [Three-time Masters winner Nick] FALDO (new to me...) and [Repair a fairway] RE-SOD for golf enthusiasts;
- IDEALLY [Just the way it should be] and EDEN [Idyllic place] for utopians...;
- ERIC (sometimes ERIK...) [___ the Red] and SWEDES [ABBA, e.g.] for lovers of all things Scandinavian; then
- [ABBA, e.g.] SWEDES and [Barry, Maurice, or Robin] GIBB for pop fans (sorry, no match for the TECHNO crowd); and saving the best for last, the pair that's also a crossing,
- [Guessing game question] WHO AM I? and "I'M AN [___ Old Cowhand"]. Sweet.
Finally, because they take some thought and/or bring a visual to mind, here are some fave clues: [Penn name] for SEAN (a pun on "pen name"); [Wise guy?] for SAGE (like Solomon the wise...); [Revolutionary time] for YEAR (since it takes the earth a year to revolve around the sun); [Do a double take?] for RE-FILM; and [Hustle to first base] for SPRINT.
George Fitzgerald's Los Angeles Times crossword
I've already written about this puzzle over at L.A. Crossword Confidential. In the interest of having plenty of time for medical editing or crossword cluing today, let me simply refer you there rather than writing about it here. In 25 words: Theme is "___ level" phrases, fill includes wildly unfamiliar BITT ([Ship's post that secures cables]). New constructor? Congrats! Like to see smoother fill in subsequent puzzles.Francis Heaney's Onion A.V. Club crossword
Francis includes two spelled-out letter names for the purpose of explaining the theme. ESS is the [First of a pair of letters swapped six times in this puzzle's theme entries], and TEE is the other. The six swaps appear in five answers:- 20A. THIS FOR BRAINS plays on "shit for brains" and is clued ["Here's what I'll give you if you'll feed my pet zombie"?]. The clue doesn't quite add up for me, but I like the play on the original phrase.
- 28A. [Description of a balloon race lost due to lack of wind?] is NO GUST, NO GLORY. Solid. ("No guts, no glory.)
- 36A. LAST TSAR-FIGHTER is a [Holdout against the Romanovs?]. One point off for the unswapped S and T in LAST. If only the L.A. Times were commonly called the L.A.T. and had a proud history of fighting Russian despotism. (The Last Starfighter was a cheesy '80s movie that my son would probably love.)
- 45A. Hah! DON'T SATE ME, BRO is clued ["Dude, I hate feeling full"]. Funny answer, funny clue, funny (but painful) original "Don't tase me, bro" line.
- 56A. [What high-priced strippers who cater to dweebs see a lot of?] clues TWITS AND THOUS, playing on "Twist and Shout."
Five favorite clues: (1) OLAF is clued as [Norwegian king who...oh, as if you know anything about Norwegian kings]. Gotta love a clue where the constructor breaks the fourth wall (in a TV show or movie, an ASIDE is a [Remark that breaks the fourth wall]) and talks to the solver. Crosscan tweeted about this clue last night, calling it "the clue of the year." (2) [Scandal-ridden preacher Haggard] is named TED. One of my Facebook friends thought of that TED when I posted this photo. (3) Mighty long clue for a 4-letter answer: [Country that recently certified its election results, thus forever ending any doubt about the legitimacy thereof, totally] is IRAN. (4) [Crabs, e.g.], hmm, crustaceans? Grumpy people? Complains? No, an STD. (5) UHS are [Sounds from someone not good with, you know, word things].Good fill, entertaining but mildly uneven theme, and terrific clues? Chalk this one up as a win for Francis.
Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Keeping It Short"
What he's "keeping short" is an I sound: the original phrases for the theme entries have a LONG I sound, and Brendan changes it to a short I, adjusting the spelling as needed.
A biker gang becomes the BICKER GANG, or [Quarrel crew]. (I'm skipping bullets because that dratted Safari 4 makes me add all sorts of other code to make the posts display properly for Safari 4 users, and then everything gets mucked up until I add still more extraneous bits of code, and it's driving me nuts.) That [Guy who exaggerates how much he can bench press?] is a MUSCLE FIBBER (muscle fiber). The [Grim Reaper's prop?] is a VICIOUS SICKLE indeed (vicious cycle). Brighton Beach turns into BRITAIN BEACH, or [Place where blokes and birds sun?]. And [Disease one gets from a watering hole?] is a DIPPER RASH (diaper rash). Cute theme, particularly the VICIOUS SICKLE.
Favorite clues/fill: (1) SNL is the [Show from which Adrien Brody and Martin Lawrence are banned for life]. (2) IGGY POP is the ["Lust for Life" singer]. (3) ZAGREB is the [Croatian capital] city.
Most-likely-to-vex-solvers clues: (1) [Cheap cigar, slangily] is EL ROPO. You know what? STOGIE is also 6 letters long. (2) [Bandleader Skinnay] ENNIS is someone I know about only from crosswords. (3) AIN is the [Department of Bourg, France]. (4) [Medallion makeup] is VEAL, not GOLD.
STLO!
Karen R. recently vacationed in France. She passed through Normandy, it appears, and sent this photo. The motorist's options here: stay on the highway and continue towards CAEN, or take the Cherbourg Saint-Lô (STLO!) exit. St. Lô, you may recall from recent crossword clues, is on the Vire River, which rarely shows up in crosswords despite having a 4-letter, 50%-vowels name. Nice bonus having Vire on the sign, too.
MGWCC #58
crossword 4:20
puzzle about 30 hours
hey everybody. the 58th episode of matt gaffney's weekly crossword contest, "A Couple Coupled Couples," was a fun little puzzle that plays on the fact that crossword answers have had their spaces removed. the theme answers each take an expression including a pair of two-letter words and fuse them into a four-letter word:
a nice little theme. there was a jonesin' some time ago that had the same theme, including DOOR DIE clued as [Yell directed at a much-hated portal?], and (my favorite) YOU HAD MEAT? HELLO? clued as [Vegetarian's "Duh!" response to why they hate their formerly vegan pal?]. but i enjoyed this one, too.
so... about that meta. the contest instructions were straightforward enough: This week's contest answer phrase consists of two symmetrically-placed grid entries that, taken together, form the clue for the theme answer at 38-across. what could clue DOOR DIE? well, right off the bat, 1a is JAMB, a [Deadbolt's resting place], which is part of a door. i should have had this one solved in 5 seconds. i checked the last across answer: CUBE, clued as [More than square] (great clue, btw). "nope, doesn't fit." i moved on. i looked at every pair of symmetrically-placed answers. twice. thrice. fice. backwards and forwards. acrosses and downs. even the theme answers. i found some compelling combinations:
and so forth. anyway, you all figured this out, right? a lot faster than me? the answer is indeed JAMB CUBE, using the sense of DIE as "one of a pair of dice." sigh. i eventually had to put the meta down and came back to it the next day. the very first thing i looked at, of course, was JAMB CUBE. it hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks. and it makes perfect sense—everything in the middle of the grid crosses (or is very close to) another theme answer, so the "bonus" theme answers would be easiest to place in the corners.
fill/clues i enjoyed:
OVER and out. or should i say, EXIT WEPT?
July 13, 2009
Tuesday, 7/14
Jonesin' 3:15
LAT 3:04
NYT 2:51
CS 7:15 (J—paper)
Donna Levin's New York Times crossword
"Allons enfants de la patrie-ee-ee..." Yes, it's a special Bastille Day mot croisé. Donna's theme entries celebrate the day like so:
- 18A. The [Dickens novel with the 56-Across as its backdrop] is A TALE OF TWO CITIES.
- 27A. Before the Revolution, there was that famous [Declaration attributed to Marie Antoinette just before the 56-Across]: LET THEM EAT CAKE.
- 43A. The French national anthem is LA MARSEILLAISE, the [Song of the 56-Across].
- 56A. And it's the FRENCH REVOLUTION that these other three entries refer to, an [Event that began in 1789].
This mot-croisé's difficulty level is keyed perfectly to a Tuesday, but if it took you a smidgen longer than you thought it would, that could be because the grid's 16 columns wide, not 15. Outside of the theme, the only French content I notice is Jacques CHIRAC, [Sarkozy's presidential predecessor].
I'm watching a TV show, so quickly, five other clues:
- 49D. The TROP, or Tropicana, is a [Classic Vegas hotel, with "the"].
- 15A. HAREM is a [Dwelling section whose name comes from the Arabic for "forbidden place"].
- 10A. [Leftovers from threshing] are CHAFF.
- 4D. [___ B or ___ C of the Spice Girls] clues MEL.
- 33A. The WALRUS is an [Oyster eater in a Lewis Carroll verse].
Patrick Jordan's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Why? Why?"—Janie's review
Another solid puzzle is ours to enjoy today. The theme entries are strong and the fill throughout benefits from this one's being a pangram. "Why? Why?" refers to the double-Ys that appear in each of the four theme answers. That makes for eight Ys there—and there are two more in the grid as well, for an impressive total of 10. "Why? Why?" "Why not?!" Additionally, three of the four theme phrases (all but 42A) appear to be making their major-puzzle debuts—which (in combination with the full range of high-scorin' Scrabble letters) adds to the overall fresh feeling here.
- 20A. CHERRY YOGURT [Fruity dairy treat]. Yum. One of my fave flavors anyway. Crankin' it up a notch: Cherry Garcia Frozen Yogurt.
- 31A. PAPPY YOKUM [Al Capp character]. Had MAMMY in there at first. Needless to say, the crosses told me otherwise. Here's a link to a site that will tell you all you want to know about who's who in the Yokum family and in Dogpatch, U.S.A.
- 42A. BY YOURSELF [Without assistance]. Or [Preferred way to solve the crossword puzzle, perhaps]
- 53A. CANARY YELLOW [Bright color]. This is a color immortalized by Oscar Hammerstein in South Pacific's "Cockeyed Optimist" which begins: "When the sky is a bright canary yellow..."
The bottom half of the puzzle seems to be crawling with insects: we've SLUGS [Garden creepers], a SCARAB [Egyptian beetle] and LARVA [Caterpillar...]. This array must be very pleasing to entomologist solvers (me, I'm lookin' for the Off!)!
Sunday's NYT clued TEXTS as [Tweets, e.g.] and today, Patrick clues TWEETS as [Twitter messages]. It's a new world...but I wonder long it'll take for these techno-speak entries to hit Matt Groening's "Forbidden Words" list.
It took me a while to dredge up (CS first-timer) BABY GAP, having first tried OSHKOSH and KIDS R US... And what a funny complement it is to TINY TIM. I'm so glad Victorian England didn't have this store as I don't believe Bob Cratchit's salary would have gone very far there and I'd have hated for the kids to feel they were missing something. And apropos of just about nothing—well, Cratchit domestic life, perhaps—just want to add that I liked seeing WASH DAYS in the puzzle. This seems to be a major-puzzle debut, too.
Finally, for the classicists, there's LEDA [Zeus seduced her as a swan] and AJAX [Trojan War hero]. Through the magic of the Internet, I found pictures (and an explanation) of the "Achilles and Ajax Amphora." On one side, as noted, Achilles and Ajax; on the other, Leda with Castor and Pollux. For your consideration.
Chuck Deodene's Los Angeles Times crossword
It feels like it's been a while since we last saw a vowel-progression theme. Deodene's theme contains five phrases that end with M*SS words and travel from A through E, I, O, and U:- 20A. MIDNIGHT MASS is a [Christmas service]. I went to a midnight mass back in the '80s. The priest intoned "...piece of Prince." Prince is only, like, 5'3", so a piece of him would be small indeed. (What's the term for a phrase in which two words are transposed? Like a spoonerism, only for whole words, not sounds.)
- 23A. Stacked below the beginning of 20A is our next theme entry, FINE MESS. [With "A," 1986 Ted Danson film]? I think I'd like this better as an 8-letter partial completing the Laurel and Hardy line, "Here's another ___ you've gotten us into!" Does anybody remember this '86 movie? Too bad the MOSS entry isn't 9 or 15 letters long to balance AFINEMESS or ANOTHERFINEMESS. The I'M A partial crossing this is clued ["___ bad boy!": Lou Costello catchphrase], so it would resonate to toss Laurel and Hardy in here.
- 38A. [The Rebels of the Southeastern Conference, familiarly] are OLE MISS. Hey, John Grisham went there. A crossword clue told me that recently.
- 52A. KATE MOSS is a [Waifish supermodel from Britain]. Helped popularize the "heroin chic" look.
- 54A. [Easy to use, in adspeak] clues NO FUSS, NO MUSS. I filled this in, before I saw how the theme worked, as NO MUSS, NO FUSS, which is how I say it. In adspeak.
At L.A. Crossword Confidential, PuzzleGirl has more on this crossword.
Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword, "Yes We Can: An international movement"
Matt takes familiar names, prefaces them with "yes" in other languages, and clues the resulting mashup phrases:• 17A. Eve Plumb of The Brady Bunch and the Spanish si create SIEVE PLUMB, a [Level draining device, to a Spanish yes-man?].
• 30A. [Selassie's NYC restaurant, to a Japanese yes-man?] is HAILE CIRQUE, building on Japanese hai and Le Cirque. I don't like that there's no good way to repurpose the CIRQUE part of Le Cirque—it's still a restaurant instead of becoming something entirely different.
• 44A. DATED KNIGHT comes from Russian da and Ted Knight of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. It's clued with [Went out with the chivalrous type, too a Russian yes-man?].
• 62A. [U.S. uncle's "Friday the 13th" character, to a German yes-man?] is JASON OF SAM. Double gruesomeness for fictional slasher Jason merged with serial killer Son of Sam. We...don't see a lot of gruesomeness and serial killers in the crosswords.
Old-school crosswordese INGLE is here, clued as [Fireplace spot]. I haven't seen DERIVATE before; it's a [Word that comes from another word]. I don't have time to check, but this puzzle's probably a pangram because the main rare letters, ZQXJK, are all represented.
Until tomorrow—
July 12, 2009
Monday, 7/13
BEQ 6:54
NYT 3:02 (click here for Jim Horne's link to unlocked Across Lite version)
LAT 2:26
CS 5:16 (J—paper)/2:27(A—Across Lite)
C.W. Stewart's New York Times crossword
I felt a little meandery when doing the NYT puzzle on the applet. Unfocused, distracted. Not really trying to move my fastest. Not really paying much attention to the puzzle. So let me focus my eyeballs here and see what we've got.
Ms. Stewart's theme is Monday-simple, sure, but ambitious—four noun phrases that illustrate 59A ALL TUCKED IN in that ALL is "tucked" inside each phrase, joining two words:
- 17A. MANUAL LABOR is clued as [Ditch digging, e.g.]. Nice touch having a HARD LIFE cross this, clued as [What a serf led].
- 24A. [Money borrowed from a friend, e.g.] is a PERSONAL LOAN.
- 37A. [The Dalai Lama, e.g.] is a SPIRITUAL LEADER. Hey! This was just in another NYT puzzle...
- 47a. [Slash symbol, e.g.] is a DIAGONAL LINE. This was probably the toughest one to clue, no?
Let's count the ways this 61-square theme is "tight," or consistent: (1) There are four noun phrases beginning with adjectives, (2) they split AL/L each time, and (3) the theme clues end with "e.g." It's not super-duper tight, because certainly there are other ___AL L__ phrases out there that might also have been used—sacrificial lamb, medical license, etc. But for a Monday, a smooth and uncomplicated theme that's both meaty and consistent is a good thing.
Other pluses:
- 11D, 12D. For [Clog-busting brand], I was thinking of clot-busting drugs. The answer was DRANO—plumbing, not cardiology. And then the very next clue was the AORTA, or [Main artery]. There's my cardiology.
- 24D, 40D. Two of Henry VIII's mostly ill-fated wives are included. PARR is the [Last name of Henry VIII's last], Catherine (one of three Catherines). ANNE is the [First name of Henry VIII's second], Anne Boleyn, and the fourth, Anne of Cleves. Henry VIII was rumored to have gout, and I'm a brand-new gouter myself. Foot pain's been distracting me from the puzzles for 10 days now.
- 43A, 26D. NITA! You could say that [Silent screen star Naldi] doesn't belong in a Monday puzzle, but she's gonna be back, so we might as well plunk her in a Monday puzzle with easy crossings to introduce her to the crossword newbies. Likewise, APSE. This [Cathedral recess] is a word to learn. To this day, I'm never quite sure if the cathedral part I'm looking for is APSE or NAVE.
- 8D. The ROBIN is a [Harbinger of spring]. Except the occasional robin decides to winter over in a cold climate. I saw a robin on my block this winter while there was snow.
- 45D. ZINC is the [Next-to-last element, alphabetically], before zirconium.
Sarah Keller's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Starting Ends"—Janie's review
Gee, I had fun solving this. It wasn't very difficult (so my time was pretty speedy—for me...), but more to the point, it's loaded with lively fill of both the thematic and non-thematic variety. Taking a look at the former, the title refers to words that can precede the word end; and these are the starting words of the four theme-phrases:
- 17A. DEAD CENTER [Smack dab in the middle]. The result yields something like this. My one complaint is that this appears to be the fourth time this same clue/fill combo been used in a CS puzzle. A little variety couldn't hurt...
- 28A. SPLIT SCREEN [Two images on one television]. Hmmm. Since some TVs give viewers the option of picture-in-picture, wouldn't it be more accurate to clue this as [Two images side-by-side on one television]? Regardless... Looking a great deal like a magnified image of an insect leg, here's the visual to demonstrate the result of the wordplay. Please: don't forget to use conditioner!!
- 43A. FRONT LOADER [Certain washing machine type]. While I suspect the intention was to summon up the front end of an automobile, there also a tractor that's a front end loader—so it looks like this (apparent major-puzzle first) fill also gives us a 2-for-1 proposition.
- 58A. DEEP FREEZE [Suspended animation]. How can this CS-debut clue/fill not summon up Walt Disney, the man who refined the art of cinematic animation—and all those stories of how he's being maintained cryogenically in a state of suspended animation? Clicking on the link should answer a lotta questions—though it does give a whole new meaning to Disney on Ice. Off the Deep End is Weird Al Yankovic's seventh album—in case Walt wasn't weird enough...
Unknown to me was AGENA [Rocket stage], so I was very glad to fill it in from the more accessible crosses.
There's a trio fit for the dining table: LASAGNES, STEW and its synonym, OLIO, clued today as the not-food-specific [Mélange]. And back in the 1960's Clairol did all it could to make women believe that they should answer the question "Is it true BLONDES have more fun?" Now, I DON'T KNOW about you, but this brunette was busy enough enjoying herself to ever feel the need to conduct personal research to find out.
Especially charming to me was the trio from the nursery: "IT'S A girl!" followed by (CS-debut) DIAPER, aptly clued as [It's changed on the bottom], followed by TUCK IN [Put to bed, as a child]. And in one of those cases of crossword synchronicity, today's NYT offers up ALL TUCKED IN, clued as [Comfily ready to sleep]. Cool.
James Sajdak's Los Angeles Times crossword
The theme nearly eluded me. What unifies:- 17A. SOCIAL BUTTERFLY, or [One who goes from party to party],
- 37A. SECURITY BLANKET, or [Comforting carry-along for kids], and
- 58A. NUMBER TWO PENCIL, or [Test taker's writing implement, often]?
Other perky bits: 9D is CITY HALL, clued by way of [You can't fight it, in a saying]. 26A is LABOR DAY, an [Early September observance]—we're already about half way from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Summer, slow down! 51A is SHOELESS, which would feel zingier clued with reference to Shoeless Joe Jackson; instead, it's [In one's bare feet]. For more on the puzzle, see Rex's L.A. Crossword Confidential post.
Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Themeless Monday"
Hah! Brendan takes Joe Krozel's asymmetrical broken-heart NYT grid from last Friday and makes it harder to fill by removing a bunch of black squares (from 38 down to 31) and lowering the word count from 64 to 62. The fill must be terrible, right? Actually, it isn't. There's no quasi-thematic fill, which Krozel's puzzle had but which hadn't done much for me.Highlights:
- 1D. [Highest-paid TV actress of all time] is JENNIFER ANISTON. I needed a lot of crossings for this one. Oy.
- 9D, 10D. for 9D [Ashura observers], I tried MOONIES. It didn't work with zip-A-DEE. And then I read the next clue, [Unification Church member, slangily]. Oh, hello, MOONIE! There you go.
- 7D. A [Show stopper?] is a STANDING OVATION.
- 32,33D, 47,49A. This corner's got four verb phrases interlocking, RIDE OUT, YEARN TO, ASKS OUT, and WAS ONTO. I like how the ones that ought to end with -S and -ED end with prepositions instead.
- 25D. My god, what a lovely pile-up of consonants TIM MCGRAW has in his name. He's the [Country and Western singer whose backup band is the Dancehall Doctors].
- 19A. Computer [Program option] is UNINSTALL. Looks like a horrible "roll your own" crappy prefixing, but it's a solidly in-the-vernacular bit of lingo we all use these days.
- 48A. [Squares in a sudoku, e.g.] clues ENNEADS. Yep, those are indeed in groups of nine. Excellent clue.
Usually a low-word-count themeless feels unpleasantly clunky to me. When I was doing this puzzle, I didn't notice that it was similar to Krozel's grid and I didn't notice the word count. I gave it a rating of 4 stars (out of 5)—and then read the blog comments that pointed out the similarity to the broken-heart grid. So now I'm more impressed with the caliber of fill Brendan was able to achieve. No, SADIES and AFTA and BROMATE ([Salt of element #35]—I tried BROMIDE first) aren't good fill. But the clunker quotient was low, so in recognition of the 62-word count, let me amend my rating (in Brendan's sidebar leaderboard) to 4.5 starts.
July 11, 2009
Sunday, 7/12
PI 8:26
LAT 7:00
NYT 6:02
BG untimed
CS 4:42
NYT diagramless untimed
Don't miss Douglas Quenqua's NYT article, "No Puzzle in the Paper? I’m Blank!". It was posted to the website on Saturday and appears in the Sunday Fashion & Style section. The piece is about puzzles getting the axe in print media—the New York Times Magazine won't always include the second Sunday puzzle, the New York Sun folded, the Washington Post dropped its acrostic, the Atlantic Monthly will no longer even publish the Hex cryptics online...please don't make me go on. I don't want to have to list still more puzzle demises. (Sigh.)
Alan Arbesfeld's New York Times crossword, "Links to the Past"
Wow, if you are a native speaker of Modern High Crosswordese, this puzzle can practically fill itself in. Maybe if the TV had been off and my family not talking, I'd have broken the 6-minute mark on this puzzle, and I don't think I've ever come so close on an NYT Sunday puzzle before. It felt like there were more than the usual allotment of such gimmes (which, of course, are probably not gimmes to those who've not dedicated years of study to Modern High Crosswordese), and while they didn't lend extra entertainment value to the puzzle, the "whoo, this crossword is tumbling like a house of cards" speed thrill has its charms. I'm talking about clues like [Indian tourist locale] AGRA, [Former Swedish P.M. Olof ___] PALME, [Pacific capital] APIA, NETTY [Like mesh], and that [Cousin of a raccoon], the COATI. Things that aren't exactly household words unless someone in the household does a boatload of crosswords.
The theme was not too hard to unravel without peeking at the Notepad. Each of the straightforwardly clued theme entries includes a "placement" word, and if you interpret each phrase hyper-literally (as you might in a cryptic crossword or in those tricky crossword clues for the spelled-out names of letters), you'll extract one letter from each one's key word. Those seven letters spell out HISTORY.
- 23A. The [Boondocks] are the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, and the middle of the word "nowhere" is H.
- 34A. [Ambulance destination] is a MEDICAL CENTER. The center of that first word is I.
- 50A. An [Imam or priest] is a SPIRITUAL LEADER, and the "leader" of that word is an S.
- 69A. The BEGINNING OF TIME—the letter T—is clued by way of [When the heavens and earth were created].
- 87A. [Deputy] is the SECOND IN COMMAND, and that second letter is O.
- 103A. [Week after Christmas] is the END OF DECEMBER. This is the least satisfactory of the theme entries, because "end of December" feels strikingly arbitrary as times of the year go. Here's the R.
- 118A. BROADWAY CLOSING, or [Lights out in New York City], is the letter Y.
I like how the cryptic-style locator signals are all different—two beginning, two middles, two ends, and one second letter.
On Cruciverb-L, there was a recent discussion about entries like CEE and ESS. The legendary Bob Klahn loves the tricky, hyper-literal clues that go with such answers, while the legendary Merl Reagle interjects that nobody ever uses these spelled-out versions so they oughtn't populate our crosswords. This puzzle's theme kinda splits the difference—the letters are themselves and not the little-used three-letter names for them, and we get the tricky clues, only these tricky clues are found in the grid for a change. It's not the meatiest theme around, but I like how it settles into a neutral ground between the Klahn and Reagle camps and lets us play with hyper-literalism without the "ESS? Really?" eye-rolling.
Without further ado, let's run through some clues:
- 35D. COED gets a perfect clue: [Like most dorms nowadays]. My husband and I met when we lived across the hall from each other at Carleton. COED is a perfectly fine adjective, but as a noun it's either (a) outdated or (b) used in porn.
- 5A. [Intelligent, creative sort, supposedly] clues a VIRGO, astrologically. You like the gentle hedging of the "supposedly" in the clue? A friend of mine has sworn off dating VIRGO men owing to their supposed moodiness and incompatibility with her Aquarian nature.
- 28A. Unusual clue for a VIOLET: [Symbol of modesty]. I approached the answer from the end and had no idea where to go with it. CORSET seemed altogether wrong, and nothing else came to mind. Violets are hardly modest, however—they grow wherever they want to and refuse to leave your garden when instructed.
- 37A. [Group of genetically related organisms] is a BIOTYPE. Didn't know this one, not even with **OTYPE in place.
- 48A. [Emulates AZ or T.I.] is RAPS. I've heard of T.I., so this clue was 50% helpful to me. AZ has an album and song called "Doe or Die", but it doesn't appear to be about Bambi.
- 58A. Man, did I need a lot of crossings to get HEIDI, the [Literary heroine whose best friend is a goatherd].
- 76A. The AFTON is the ["Sweet" stream in a Burns poem]. No idea how I knew that off **TO*.
- 80A. BEAN BAG is a great entry. It's a [Noisy but comfy chair].
- 94A. Ooh, cutting edge! [Tweets, e.g.] clues TEXTS. Most of my tweets are posted from the web, but when I'm out and about, I do text tweets from my phone.
- 95A. The awkward SRS is clued as [Grandfathers of III's]. I know a guy whose grandfather was not a Sr. but an XXI. The guy's baby son is XXIV. No kidding. A line of same-named descent stretching back a good five centuries!
- 112A. [Bathroom fixture] is a BIDET. I've never tried one. Do you recommend bidets?
- 1D. [A mechanic might see it a lot] refers to a real LEMON.
- 3D. MEDIA BLITZ is an interesting answer. Clued as [Publicity push].
- 11D. [Choler] is IRE. I'm unreasonably fond of the word "choler," and yet I seldom use it. Must remedy that.
- 36D. I definitely did not know ANNE [___ Page, woman in "The Merry Wives of Windsor"]. My Shakespeare comedy knowledge involves A Midsummer Night's Dream and maybe one or two others.
- 46D. [Pleonastic] means REDUNDANT, as in the phrase "ATM machine," where the M means machine.
- 67D. OFFENSE is [Something to play] when the other side's on defense.
- 72D. [They may be crunched]? Your ABS. Drop and do 25 crunches, now!
- 101D, 102D. Aw, OLEO is [Promise, for one], but GREASE doesn't get the same clue. It really could. Instead, it's [Payola, e.g.]. Not to be confused with Mazola.
- 121D. [Science writer Willy] LEY is not someone I've read, but I reckon I've encountered his name...in crosswords.
Updated Sunday morning:
David Levinson Wilk's syndicated Los Angeles Times Sunday crossword, "Take a Letter"
Alas, I would have enjoyed this theme a lot more if I hadn't just done essentially the same theme—but with an added twist—in the NYT. Here, the hyper-literal theme entries are clued with the letter the answer suggests, rather than the answers being clued straightforwardly and the letters being an add-on. Where Arbesfeld's batch of letters spelled out HISTORY, this one's letters spell out...SACPVEFD. I wish this puzzle had come out a week earlier so I could better appreciate the fun of figuring out these:- 23A. [S] is the HEAD OF STATE.
- 29A. [A] is END OF AN ERA.
- 34A. [C] is MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE.
- 58A. [P] is LEADER OF THE PACK.
- 66A. [V] is CENTER OF GRAVITY.
- 85A. [E] is FOREGONE CONCLUSION. This one is terrific—a great phrase to drop into a crossword, and not a tricky/cryptic clue I recall seeing before.
- 94A. [F] is FALSE START. I had a false start on this one because FALSE FRONT also fit perfectly.
- 104A. [D] is GRAND FINALE. Perfect to save GRAND FINALE for the last theme entry in the puzzle.
As with the Arbesfeld puzzle, there's a good assortment of positioning words here. Three beginnings (HEAD, LEADER, START), two middles (MIDDLE, CENTER), three ends (END, CONCLUSION, FINALE). None of the theme entries duplicate those in the NYT—there are a zillion such phrases to choose from, I suppose. And while I admired the NYT's extra level of theme action, I'll give the liveliness edge to Levinson Wilk's set of theme answers.
Another echo between these two puzzles: 107A here is [Energetic risk-taking type, so it's said] for ARIES. Hey, it's ZODIAC (31D [Collection of signs]) day!
As for the rest of the fill, PuzzleGirl singled out many of the same words I would've in her L.A. Crossword Confidential post. So read that, but know that I have been to the [Utah ski resort] ALTA so I knew that one.
Merl Reagle's Philadelphia Inquirer puzzle, "Hit It"
Sometimes I'm in the mood for Merl's trademark overcooked puns and sometimes I'm not. This time, I wasn't feelin' it, dawg. This weekend's batch of "Hit It" puns work various hitting utensils into familiar phrases:- 23A. ABSENCE OF MALLETS plays on Absence of Malice, a Paul Newman movie. I suppose it was a preexisting phrase before it was a movie title? The clue is [Reason the croquet game was called off?].
- 38A. An acoustic guitar, one of which resides in my living room, turns into A CUE STICK GUITAR, or [What the pool player started "playing" when his favorite song came on the radio?]. Merl, hon? Ow. This pun hurt.
- 54A. I had trouble figuring out what THE CLUB COMPARTMENT, or [Storage space in a golfer's car?], played on. The glove compartment.
- 76A. [Dolls for young tennis players?] are RACQUETY ANN AND ANDY. Ha! Okay, I like this one. It's completely nuts and I like it.
- 93A. ["___, but we won the game"] clues WE LOST THE PADDLE (battle). Could've avoided the WE dupe with ["___, but won the game"] without losing anything, I think. No question mark in this clue. Which paddle-related game do you suppose it is?
- 111A. [Messiest game at the Sara Lee company picnic?] is BAT-A-CAKE, BAT-A-CAKE, playing on "pat-a-cake." Oh, the carnage, Please do not pummel the desserts. Unless it's a lemon cake. Go ahead and pummel lemon desserts, but please give me first crack at the chocolate cake, and with a fork, not a bat.
Most unfamiliar word in the grid: 19D is WELTERED, or [Rolled about, as a pig in mud]. My Mac's dictionary tells me this verb means "lie steeped in blood with no help or care" or "move in a turbulent fashion," like a roiling stream. I like this muddy pig application better. 92D is the [Pink Floyd epic] THE WALL—terrific entry. Overall, though, the fill lacked Merl's usual sparkle. Next week will be more to my taste, I'm sure.
Henry Hook's Boston Globe crossword, "Double Ring Ceremony"
Hey, Hubsters—how many weeks back was this puzzle in the newspaper there? Am I still six weeks behind, or have the Across Lite ranks caught up with y'all?The theme entries are cooked-up two-word phrases in which each word contains RING. For example, 25A's clue is [Caters a fish dinner?] and the answer is BRINGS HERRING. 33D is clued [Outskirts, on "The Simpsons"?]. My kid saw that clue and asked if the answer was SHELBYVILLE. I explained that both words in SPRINGFIELD FRINGE contain a hidden RING. "Huh," he said. "That's confusing." I didn't find it especially confusing, but it also wasn't particularly rewarding. Two theme entries, 27A and 96A, not only are partly stacked with other theme entries, they also cross the Down themers.
Favorite parts: 44A is [Doesn't share], or BOGARTS. I have fond memories of a get-together in Prague at which some "don't bogart that joint, my friend, pass it on over to me" song was playing. Bogarting apparently applies specifically to marijuana cigarettes, but one can certainly request that someone else not bogart the potato chips. 71A's clue, [Some are nothing but air], points towards imaginary GUITARS. I have not witnessed an air guitar competition, but it sounds entertaining.
Weirdest answers: 39A EMESA is an [Ancient Syrian city]. 7D is CABMAN or [Hack], and not a term I ever use for a cabbie/cab driver/taxi driver. 81D is EPERGNE, or [Ornate centerpiece]; I learned this one via crosswords, but it doesn't come up often. At 59A, [Monozygotic] clues ONE-EGG, but I can't say I've seen one-egg used adjectivally at all.
Rich Norris's themeless CrosSynergy "Sunday Challenge"
It seemed like this one was a couple notches harder than the typical "Sunday Challenge" (though still easier than a Saturday NYT).Hot stuff:
- 1A. ["I enjoyed this"] clues IT'S BEEN FUN. Do you think there's an intentional mini-theme linking this with its opposite partner in the grid, 69A [Words of gratitude] for MANY THANKS? One might say both when leaving a party.
- 32A. I am fond of the weirdness of BELEAGUER as a word. This [Vex] synonym derives from a Dutch word, belegeren, meaning "camp around." I find it difficult to type beleagueured (see?) correctly. Beleaguerued. Nope, wrong again. Beleagurued. Wrong a third time. This is what happens when I let my hands type away blithely. 99% of words work out just fine, but this one? Not so much. Slowing down, let's go for beleaguered. There. It takes effort.
- 63A. APPOMATTOX is a [Historic Civil War town]. I like to pronounce this "uh-POM-uh-tocks" and say "Appomattox o' both your houses!" Yes, I realize that's odd.
- 32D. BAD APPLES are [Troublemakers], as in the bad apples that spoil the bunch.
- 34D. The clue, [Shooter's protection], pointed me in any number of directions, but not LENS COVER.
- 64D. [Pin cushion?] is a solid clue for a wrestling MAT. I've seen the clue before, but it's well worth recycling.
RTS and ACLU aren't clued together but could be—sometimes the ACLU is mentioned in clues for RTS, short for "rights."
At 27A, [Stop holding it in], 4 letters ending in T? Uh, the actual answer, VENT, wasn't my first thought here.
Updated again Sunday afternoon:
Jim Hyres' second Sunday NYT puzzle, a diagramless crossword
This one wasn't too hard to find my way through. I grabbed a piece of scratch paper and started jotting down the first few Across answers, working back and forth with the Down clues. By the fifth row, I hit a width of 17 squares and so could deduce that 1-Across began in the very first square. Ahh, it feels good to transfer answers over to the diagramless grid and know that they're going in the right place—it doesn't always work out so well.
When I filled in 36-Across in the middle of the grid—TONGUE TWISTER, or [It's hard to say]—I read the three longest answers aloud to myself and to my mother. What do YOU'LL BE SORRY (["Not a good idea!"]), LARGER THAN LIFE ([Very imposing]), and TONGUE TWISTER have in common?? Suddenly childhood smacked me in the forehead and I noticed the games at the ends of those phrases. Indeed, the remaining theme answers are STIRS UP TROUBLE ([Is a rabble-rouser]) and RUNNING A RISK ([Not playing it safe]). Trouble is the board game with the noisy Pop-o-matic die in the middle. Risk is the geopolitical board game. Twister...I fear I am now too old to be able to play Twister. Here at home, we have the SpongeBob edition of Life (excuse me, but why is Fry Cook the best-paying career??) and enjoy the turmoil of a round of Sorry. The final Across answer, 69A, is GAMES to tie everything together. Cute theme; the theme is probably much more accessible than the diagramless itself, though as NYT diagramlesses go, this one was pretty easy.
Assorted other clues I liked: 10A ["Uh-uh"] clues NO DICE. You can use dice to play many board games, but I don't think the answer's meant to be thematic here. 23A [Symbol of limpness] is a WET RAG, and I can't say that's an image I see used in Cialis and Viagra commercials. [All alternative] pulls double duty as laundry detergent ERA and as quantity SOME. 27D's clue is [You may need to step on it] and I first thought of the GAS pedal, but the answer's a ladder RUNG.
July 10, 2009
Saturday, 7/11
Newsday 7:34
NYT 5:31
LAT 4:01
CS 2:55
Karen Tracey's New York Times crossword
Unusual grid, isn't it? I mean, within the confines of standard crossword symmetry, it's not the usual layout we see for a themeless puzzle. Kind of like a sine wave of white space spanning the middle of the grid, and 9-, 10-, and 11-letter Down answers linking the midsection to the other six boxy areas.
Unsurprisingly, I find myself admiring Karen's fill for its balance of pop culture, geography, and Scrabbly action overlapping both of those areas. See what I mean?
- 17A. Handbag designer KATE SPADE is a [Big name in bags]. Those bags are cute, but if I'm dropping $200 on a purse, it had better have handy pockets and compartments inside. Kate, give us compartments!
- 19A. The dreaded TROLL is an [Internet forum menace]. I feel fortunate that the commentariat here is so congenial.
- 21A. [Major Cote d'Ivoire export] is CACAO. Yum, chocolate. I wonder how many people cleverly guessed IVORY.
- 29A. BUY is a small word with a great clue: [Act like a bull?]. Bad timing in that someone was killed by a bull at the running of the bulls in Spain today...but still a good clue.
- 33A. [They may call the shots] clues ANNOUNCERS, who do not "call the shots" the way that figure of speech usually means.
- 36A. JOHN LARROQUETTE is the [Winner of four consecutive Emmys for his sitcom role as a prosecutor]. Three things: (1) Scrabbly name, J + Q. (2) Why is there a double R in that name? It looks wrong from a French standpoint to me. (3) Wow, did I spend too much time looking to see it SAMWATERSTON or FREDTHOMPSON or STEVENHILL would fit there. Yes, I realize that Law & Order is not a sitcom.
- 39A. HANAUMA BAY is a [Snorkeling spot near Honolulu]. I canceled my trip to Maui in 1999 when I got pregnant. Maybe a Christmas trip this year? Why not?
- 54A. XHOSA is an African language with clicks. It's a [Zulu relative]. I got it off the A, which was one of the few letters I had
right in 41D. [Sounds like an old floorboard] clues GROANS, but I had CREAKS. You know what I just noticed this summer? The humidity quiets down my creaky floors. - 57A. New vocabulary word in a clue! [Pteridologist's specimen] is a FERN.
- 59A. I like the misinterpretable [Cashiers] as a clue for OUSTS.
- 61A. AMPS are clued as [Gear to help you hear]. That may be true for the people in the back of the top balcony at a concert, but in general, AMPS are gear to help kill your hearing. No joke.
- 1D. Always a sucker for geography, I even like BAKU, the [Transcaucasian capital] of Azerbaijan. Right next door (not on the map) is ULAN Bator or (also spelled Ulaanbataar), [Half an Asian capital?]. Technically, that's 4/9ths.
- 5D. CAPTAIN AHAB! "Hast seen the white whale?" That's [To whom Stubb and Flask answered, in literature].
- 11D. [Response to a ding-dong?] is "WHO CAN IT BE?" I like this because I'm hearing Men at Work's "Who Can It Be Now?" in my head. '80s earworm!
- 13D. Whoa, unfamiliar clue for a crosswordese place name. ST. LO is clued by way of [The Vire River flows through it]. Wow, V must be hostile to crossword constructors, or else we'd see the dang VIRE in our puzzles a lot.
- 18D. More geography with cute cluing: ST. PAUL is a [Minnesota twin?].
- 24D. [Three Mile Island is in it] clues the SUSQUEHANNA River. I was largely guessing here—Is there a Pennsylvania river with a Scrabbly name? Because that's what Karen would go for.
- 27D. Pop culture—IN HER SHOES is a [Jennifer Weiner best seller made into a 2005 film].
- 35D. "DEAR SANTA" is clued as [Words followed by a wish list].
Updated Saturday morning:
John Farmer's Los Angeles Times crossword
John's puzzle is a couple notches easier than Karen's NYT, but that doesn't mean it was boring. I did a lot of lauding over at L.A. Crossword Confidential, in fact, so I'll plagiarize myself here.This puzzle's got three real people's full names—all people whose first or last names pop up singly fairly often in crosswords, but John's classed up the joint by given these folks the full name treatment. There's 17A ["Night" writer], ELIE WIESEL, whose last name is usually consigned to the clues because that delicious 75%-vowels first name is so popular in crosswords. Then we have 14D [1922 physics Nobelist] NIELS BOHR, who also has a grid-friendly first name. And rounding out the trio is 10D ["Naughty Marietta" costar (1935)] NELSON EDDY. I feel like I know him mainly from crosswords, which seems weird because EDDY is a valid small-e noun in its own right.
Other highlights:
• 15A: Comic strip guy with an eye patch (BAZOOKA JOE). One Z, one K, one J? Super-Scrabbly phrase. Evocations of childhood bubblegum? Oh, yes. The sort of thing that we see in lots of crosswords? I wish.
• 32A: Marked by obscenities, say (RATED R). The multi-part answers in which one part is a single letter are tricky. Saturday + tricky = recipe for happiness (or extreme frustration, depending on your mood).
• 37A: "Don't change a thing!" ("I LOVE IT!"). Zippy spoken phrase, makes me think of those TV commercials they had promoting, if memory serves, L.A. tourism. All the people shouting "I love it!" or "We love it!"—remember those?
• 39A: "Composer" of "Fanfare for the Common Cold" (P.D.Q. BACH). Can't say I've ever had any interest in P.D.Q. Bach, but that is an awesome name to drop in a crossword, and the composition's title is funny.
• 60A: Battle fatigue? (RUN ON EMPTY). I kept reading the clue as a noun phrase, but it's the verb phrase. If you're battling fatigue, you're running on empty.
• 65A: Sign of possession (APOSTROPHE). Aaah! Love that clue. I was thinking of demonic possession, not grammatical.
• 12D: Fast-food combo order (VALUE MEAL). In these recessionary times, everyone loves the VALUE MEAL.
• 27D: Have a problem ordering sirloin steak? (LISP). That's a thirloin thteak, then. I'll path.
• 51D: Longstocking of kids' books (PIPPI). I loved the Pippi books and movie(s) when I was a kid. Bought a book for my son but he hasn't been reading much this summer. Not sure how I ended up with a kid who's a great (and fast) reader but who only reads when told to do so.
Off to the Newsday puzzle now—I hope it'll be as smooth and as fun as Karen and John's.
Sandy Fein's Newsday "Saturday Stumper"
(PDF solution here.)
Aw, I like themelesses to have cool long answers, and this one maxes out with four 8s and a slew of 7s. We've got four foreign lands: (1) LIBERIA is a [Land on the Atlantic] (that should be a Sporcle quiz—name all the countries that border a particular ocean). (2) NIGERIA is an [OPEC member] (that one is a Sporcle quiz). (3) SIBERIA is a [Faraway place, so to speak]. (4) AMNESIA is a great place to vacation sometimes. It's a [Soap-opera plot element].
Then we have the Old South—OLE MISS is the John [Grisham alma mater], and I let the *LEM*** point me errantly to CLEMSON. It crosses SELMA, Alabama, a [Cotton State city].
Two hits from The Simpsons—MONA is the name of [Homer Simpson's mom], and Kwik-E-Mart proprietor APU shares the name of a [Title character of a literary trilogy]. The Apu Trilogy is also available in film form.
Clue roundup:
• [Waterbury Clock, today] is called TIMEX.
• SIENA is a [City for whom a color was named]—sienna. Shouldn't that be [City for which a color was named]? A city is not a "who."
• AQUAVIT is [What Brits call French brandy]. "Water of life"? No, sillies, everyone knows that's Diet Coke.
• [Columbus discovery of 1498] is the ORINOCO River.
• [Coral-reef topper] clues CAY, which is funny because I'd tried to make CAY be the answer to the nearby [Low land] clue. That one turned out to be FEN.
Randall Hartman's CrosSynergy crossword, "Say 'Cheese'"
The theme's not about cheese, it's about saying "cheese" to smile for the camera:• 17A. BOOSTER SHOT is a [Follow-up vaccination].
• 31A. [Molasses cookie] is a GINGERSNAP. At Christmas time, my aunt and cousin make these addictive little gingersnaps the size of oyster crackers. Num, num.
• 47A. [Overall perspective] is the BIG PICTURE.
• 63A. [Close race (and a hint to 17-, 31-, and 47-Across] is PHOTO FINISH, as those other three words/phrases end with words meaning "photo.'
Doesn't IBEFOREE look like the name of a Florida swamp? That's the [Start of a spelling mnemonic], "I before E except after C..."
Nikola TESLA, the [Inventor dubbed "the patron saint of modern electricity"], just had a birthday, I hear. His fellow scientist Enrico FERMI, a [Manhattan Project scientist], joins the festivities because TESLA brought the STOLI ([Grey Goose rival, for short]).
July 09, 2009
Friday, 7/10
BEQ 8:08
NYT 5:10
LAT 4:04
CHE 3:04
CS 6:05 (J—paper)
WSJ 7:40
Joe Krozel's New York Times crossword
Well, lookee here. The town where my best friend lived before she moved back to Chicagoland is featured in the Friday puzzle: CREVE / COEUR, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. 7/9A are clued as [Missouri city whose name means "broken heart"], and the grid's pattern is that of a broken heart. For those who are curious, I believe the locals pronounce it more like "creeve core" than the French would.
Outside of that answer combo and the diagramless-puzzle-style picture, it's largely a themeless crossword, isn't it? With 64 words (rather low word count), but a standard 38 black squares. My general rule of thumb is this: If it's a 64-worder or less and it's not by Patrick Berry, it probably has a lot of fill that underwhelms me. The rule stands. (See below.)
I was smoking this puzzle (well, not DanFeyeresquely or TylerHinmannishly) and clicked the "Done!" button with 3:57 on the clock...and then spent the remainder of my time trying to root out one errant square. Eventually I found it: I had HAIL in place of HEIL for 19A [Greeting with a salute]. Crikey, we're evoking the famous Hitler salute now, are we? And with no hint that the answer is German? That's weird. If I'd scanned the Down answers first, I'd have spotted SURGA PROTECTORS, but no, I started with the Acrosses. (Should be SURGE PROTECTORS, 6D [They may avert computer damage]). To go along with the unpleasantness of HEIL, we have CRUEL AND UNUSUAL clued as 1D [Torturous, perhaps], connected to TRUE CONFESSIONS, 44A [Story-filled magazine since 1922]. 44A would be utterly fantastic in a puzzle that wasn't seemingly linking torture and confessions. Waterboarding, anyone?
The 64-Word Rule is borne out by an awkward chunk in the upper right and a profusion of prefix action. The chunk is the abbreviation MOLS clued as 4D [Compound fractions: Abbr.]—trying to trick us into thinking about numbers like 4 1/2 when the answer is a chemistry abbreviation is mean. The M crossing, MRS, is clued as a 4A [Form check box option], which is a rather vague clue for a 3-letter abbreviation crossing two other abbreviations. 5D [Old bus maker] is REO, of Speed Wagon, Ransom Eli Olds fame.
I actually used the 64-Word Rule as a solving aid. 10D [Fix, as a shower stall]...hmm, RETILE, crossing another RE-word, REHIRE, or 24A [Bring back on board]. Towards the middle, PREVENTS and PREMARITAL party with RELATE and RELIEF. (Psst: RELATE is beneath PREMARITAL, which is clued with a form of that word, [Like some relations].) EMANANT is one of those words you might never hear uttered; it means 47A [Flowing forth]. Then there's the two-part answer ONE/-A-CAT, 45/41D, a [quaint sandlot game]. If you've done a ton of crosswords, you probably see this rendered as one-o-cat more than one-a-cat. Crosswordese crashes into same where ESSE, a 43D [Forum infinitive], meets ESTOP, or 43D [Bar].
48A would have been a gimme with a pop-culture clue like [Actress Dawson of "Rent"], but with [Argentine port on the Parana]. ROSARIO is Argentina's third largest city. When looking for my wrong square, I gave the stink eye to every answer crossing this unfamiliar city name.
Now, I do have to give props to Joe K. for the four swaths of open space in the grid, the interconnection of the three 15s, and these clues and answers:
• 11A. LAURELS are the [Composition of some crowns]. Thought of royalty and/or dentistry, didn't you?
• 17A. [The Monkeemobile, e.g.] was a GTO. Had no idea, but late-'60s 3-letter car clue usually means GTO.
• 50A. [Housekeeper player on "Benson"] is Inga SWENSON. With that crosswordesey first name, her last name is usually banished to the clues. I like the switcheroo.
• 2D. FERRET OUT is a great phrase. It means [Dig up].
• 3D. When I was a kid, a [Rubber] was an OVERSHOE. "When it rains, Daddy always wears rubbers." The Totes-brand rubbers seemed to fall out of fashion by the time I learned that rubber = condom, too.
• 19D. Geo-trivia: [It has departments named Nord, Sud and Ouest] clues HAITI. I didn't know that, and there are probably some 5-letter African countries with French colonial history, but the crossings led me to the right answer.
Updated Friday morning:
Martin Ashwood-Smith's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Mail Order"—Janie's review
"Wait, oh yeah, wait a minute, Mr. Postman! Wa-ai-ai-ait, Mr. Postman!. I'd think you'd really enjoy this easy, breezy made-to-order puzzle that celebrates those cancelled items you carry in your delivery bag!"
We don't get lots of theme fill today—only three phrases— but what we do get is "cherce," as is the non-theme fill with its many seven-, eight- and nine-letter words.
But first a look at the theme entries, the last word of which is mail-related:
Now, about those "many seven-, eight- and nine-letter words"—let's take a look at 'em. To [Fill with confidence] is to INSPIRE, and when one ATTAINS more self-confidence, one's STATURE [Eminence] may be bolstered as well. (This, of course, is the lesson of Jim, the Gentleman Caller in The Glass Menagerie.) The final seven, REPOSED [Slept], seems to be a CS first. Ditto both of the eights: HIGH-TECH [Advanced, in a way] (so we're lookin' for an adjective here and not a verb) and LAMPPOST [Part of a street light]. The four nines are HIROSHIMA [Enola Gay target of 1945] (it's not always that we get all of that information at once in the puzzles), the homier PIE CRUSTS [They should be flaky], and two more CS debuts: KNOW-IT-ALL with its sassy [Wisenheimer] clue, and LIP-READER with its original-to-Nancy Salomon-and-so-encore-worthy clue [One who can see what you're saying]. This is all really good fill. Imoo...
Other fill and/or clues that caught my fancy:
Ken Bessette's Los Angeles Times crossword
In discussing this week's CrosSynergy added-units-of-measure themes, constructor Patrick Blindauer said it's easier for solvers to pick up on add-letter themes than subtraction themes. Today's L.A. Times crossword made its subtraction fairly obvious, I thought, as RANGE BEDFELLOWS is clearly "strange bedfellows" minus the ST. "Bedfellows" gets little use in English without being paired with "strange."
Now, I was thinking the theme's purpose was booting the saints out of the grid, but 64A is STOUT, a [Heavy brew, and a clue to this puzzle's theme]. Take the ST OUT, and there's your theme description. Now, there's an interesting question from "imsdave" over at Rex's L.A. Crossword Confidential writeup today—"As a (very) novice constructor, and only for my own edification, is it OK to have STET/STENO/STOWS/STEWARDS/ATLAST in a puzzle with this theme?" Ideally, yes, there wouldn't be other STs left in the grid. I don't think it's a fatal error to include them, as the theme entries are considerably longer than everything else and their clues are all question-marked. But it's perhaps not as elegant as if the fill had meticulously avoided any STs aside from the STOUT entry.
Interesting incidental pairings popped out at me. First, there's Hitchcock's THE BIRDS, a 9D [1963 thriller set in Bodega Bay], and a CROAK isn't just for frogs and raspy voices, it's also 14A [Raven's sound]. Crows, ravens, and blackbirds creep me out. LANAI, clued as 19D [It's part of Maui County], evokes both the Hawaiian LUAU (59A [Outdoor feast]) and the 60% matchy SINAI (61A [Peninsula bordering Israel]). 31A is WAWA, or [Baba ___: Gilda Radner persona], and BAA BAA is a 22A [Sheepish response?]. And then there's the double hit of old-school crosswordese: the ETUI is a 50D [Sewing case] and an ADIT is 55D [Ore seeker's entrance] to a mine.
Michael Ashley's Chronicle of Higher Education crossword, "Old-Time Religion"
I had one of my fastest-ever CHE solves on this one, which is odd because really, a puzzle commemorating the quincentennial birthday of John Calvin isn't remotely in my wheelhouse. There must be a lot of easier clues and straightforward crossings here. CALVINISM anchors the grid and it's clued as the [Religious doctrine whose founder was born July 10, 1509. The HUGUENOTS practiced Calvinism. The BAPTISTS practice a modified version. PRESBYTERIANS (anagram of Britney Spears!) ply an elder-led version. And the PURITANS had their ascetic version. You can learn more about the Puritans in a lighter vein from Sarah Vowell's book, The Wordy Shipmates.
Brendan Quigley and Francis Heaney's Wall Street Journal crossword, "On the Waterfront>"
I spaced out on noticing the tightness of the theme while I was solving. I was moseying along, enjoying the homophone theme just fine without realizing that every homophone in the nine theme entries is "On the Waterfront" (PIER, QUAY, DAM) or a body of water itself (BAYOU, SEA, LOCH, STRAIT, river DELTA, BROOK). For example. COMBINATION LOCH (lock) is a [Scottish body of water that connects to another?]. SEA SECTION, playing on C-section, is clued as [The Bermuda Triangle, e.g.?]. And HOW'S BAYOU goes with the clue ["Where should we catch crawfish"? reply, perhaps?], playing on the intensely colloquial "How's by you?"
My favorites bits of fill include PECCADILLO, GOLDARN, BIG BANDS clued as [Groups of swingers?], the SIERRA CLUB, IRISH PUB ([Place to get stout]), ROMULANS, and the NEWARK/LATIFAH combo—100A NEWARK is [Aaron Burr's birthplace], while 80D is LATIFAH, [Queen born in 100-Across]. [Blue blood vessels?] is a cool clue for YACHTS, too.
Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Themeless Friday"
I can't assess this puzzle on its merits because the solving environment was making me cranky. The workers next door were dismantling some scaffolding and dropping big metal pipe structures into a truck bed. And the streetsweeper rolled by with its nonstop truck-in-reverse beeping. And my foot is throbbing. And I knew how fast other solvers on the leaderboard were, so I wanted to fly through it—but the distractions were totally getting in the way of that. As were the clues. Oy! I slowed myself down with Lucy's brother LINUS (whoops, needed RERUN) and Namath the NFLER (whoops, N.Y. JET). Someone on the internet was just talking about parsing PASYSTEM as "passy stem," and boy, I just couldn't grasp the P.A. SYSTEM clued as a [Rally rental]. I was looking for some sort of truck, and the PASY start killed me.
I liked LIVE ON clued as [Eat exclusively]. I could dispute that [Like someone who had a near-death experience] properly describes LUCKY. If you were lucky, wouldn't you avoid having the near-death experience in the first place? Speaking of death, I know that Jay-Z has a newish "Death of AUTO-TUNE" cut because I read The Assimilated Negro's blog, but I haven't actually clicked any of the links to have a listen. Is that bad? That I can answer [Oft-used computer plug-in used in modern music] without the slightest understanding of what Auto-Tune does?
