Thursday, 1/11

NYT 5:44
NYS 4:57
LAT 3:11
CS 2:42

(post updated at 8:45 a.m. Thursday)

You ever find youself solving a crossword in which a theme entry plays on a phrase you don't know? That happened to me tonight with Lee Glickstein and Nancy Salomon's NYT puzzle, which I tackled when not fully awake, which had the magical effect of making me feel like their wavelength was located on another planet. Really, I suppose, their wavelength was right here while mine was off in the land of Nod. At least I felt a bit more alert when I turned to Adam Cohen's Themeless Thursday puzzle in the Sun afterwards.

What penetrated the fog best was the meaty chunks of 6- and 8-letter words in Lee and Nancy's creation. APOPLEXY should have delighted me, but instead I sat there gazing blankly at APO***** and trying to summon up the word from the dusty recesses. It's still a fun word to say—as is CAVORTED. Other good entries I am barely conscious enough to admire include IGUANA, BIVOUAC, NEAR BEER, and FORTY-TWO. I struggled a bit to get the last theme entry after I filled in the helper entry ADDICT, or ADD "ICT" (bonus points for cluing that as [Fiend]!)—on the off chance that I'm not the only one unfamiliar with SIMON-PURE, here's a link explaining its derivation. Somehow I feel like I didn't know LEAVEN was a noun, either. (Sigh.) Favorite clues: [Noted Australian sprinter] for EMU, [It's to the left of #] for OPER (raise your hand if you immediately looked at a keyboard rather than a phone keypad), and the verbish [Glimpse] for APERCU.

Highlights in Adam's Sun puzzle include the KWIK-E-MART where Apu works on The Simpsons (read that link for a ridiculous amount of information and speculation about Apu), the combo of V-E DAY and VIJAY, DIME NOVEL, and the two [Behind]s (IN TOW and REAR END). I also liked seeing MANE clued as [Locks in a cage, maybe]—there's an older woman on my block whose hair looks strikingly like a lion's mane. And Ben wants to focus on lions for his habitat diorama project (good gravy, first-grade science involves making kids design dioramas? I don't even have any empty shoeboxes in the house. I think I'm gonna have to buy myself some new shoes this weekend. For educational purposes!)

Updated:

Kelly Clark's LA Times puzzle contains the classical elements at the beginning of the ELEMENTARY theme entries. One of the entries spurs this question: What do Eartha Kitt and Marsha Mason have in common?