Wednesday

Myles Callum's NYT is a quip puzzle (meh) but has a few notable entries. There's the unknown-to-me MR TAMBO—is that a generic name for "end man in a minstrel troupe"? What's an "end man," anyway? Or is it from Babes on Broadway? Then there's HOBO BAG—they're not just for hoboes anymore.

After doing the NYT puzzle, I spent an hour and a half on the phone getting sleepy—I'll hold off on the Sun puzzle until the morning.

Ben Tausig's Chicago Reader crossword for the week is "That's an Order." Good puzzle, but I'm too tired to review it at the moment...

Updated:

Paula Gamache's Sun crossword, "Group Hug," tacks on a hug (O) to excellent effect. SKINNY DIPSO? That's perfect. And it crosses STREAKS, the close cousin of skinny-dips. I appreciated the multilingual H2O clues (for AGUA and EAU). Another mark of this puzzle's quality is the bottom row—with QUAKE, DOMO, and PSST, Paula didn't take the easy way out (words heavy on common letters like S, E, T, R, and D) in filling the grid.

Tausig 5:44
NYS 3:50
CS 3:31
NYT 3:26
LAT 3:23