Thursday, 5/22

NYS 5:13
LAT 3:58
CS 3:57
NYT 3:40

Richard Silvestri's theme in the New York Times crossword is a little oblique—OMEN at 38-Down can also be parsed as "O men," and the six 9-letter theme entries are names of famous men that include no vowel other than O. There's BJORN BORG, the [Five-time Wimbledon winner]; ROB MORROW, the ["Numb3rs" star] and star of Quiz Show and Northern Exposure; JOHN BROWN, [Harper's Ferry raider]; TOM POSTON, ["Newhart" actor] and husband of Suzanne Pleshette; [Famed restaurateur] of crossword notoriety, TOOTS SHOR; and [Co-star of "The Andy Griffith Show"] and portrayer of Mr. Furley on Three's Company, DON KNOTTS. Thursdayish clues: [Misbehaves] for CUTS UP (not ACTS UP); [Stretches] for AREAS; [Be deceitful] for PALTER; [Catfish Row denizen] for BESS; [Perfect pitch] for a STRIKE in baseball; [Region of Israel: Var.] for NEGEB (hmm, that's a new one on me); [Vesta, Pallas or Hygiea] (which I want to be spelled Hygieia or Hygeia) for ASTEROID; [Orly : Paris :: Gardermoen : ___] for OSLO (airport names : cities); [Athletes on horses] for GYMNASTS, their kind of horse being a stationary piece of equipment; ["Sun Valley Serenade" sar, 1941] for Sonja HENIE; [Classic spy plane] for U-TWO (which, I presume, the military never spells out thus); [Yclept] for NAMED; and [Female whales] for COWS. Old-school fill includes "Dies IRAE," ["Socrate" composer] Erik SATIE, the [Priests' garb] called ALBS, and AROAR ([Bellowing]). (Edited to add: Also TUN, the [252-gallon unit], another word I learned via crosswords.)

Another late addition about the NYT: At the NYT's "Today's Puzzle" forum, native Spanish speaker Zulema wrote this about 2-Down, [Red, as a Spanish wine]:

I'll just begin by saying that before this puzzle goes further into print, the clue has to change. You need to find a subject (or object) that is of feminine gender as ROJA is, and definitely not wine, which beside being a masculine noun, is not ever called ROJO in Spanish but TINTO. Within reds there are CLARETES also, if one wants to get more particular.

How about the color of a torero's cape or a brightly colored rose in Spain, maybe? Notice I did not use the word WRONG, but oh is it!

Tom Heilman made the New York Sun "Themeless Thursday." I am far too sleepy to do it justice tonight. Lots of nice entries peppered with Scrabbly letters. The [President of the American League before Lee MacPhail] drew a complete blank from me—JOE CRONIN is the answer, but I've never heard of either guy and don't know when they served. More in the morning, perhaps—

Updated:

Here's one other remark about the New York Sun puzzle: [Atomic ___ (Crayola color formerly called Chartreuse)] can't possibly be right. Atomic TANGERINE is a vivid orange, while chartreuse (which I don't remember as a Crayola color—perhaps it launched after my childhood but was replaced before my son's) is a yellow-green color. Crayola might've had atomic tangerine replace chartreuse, but it couldn't have been a new name for the same color. ...And now that I've said all that, I Googled chartreuse crayola and find a Wikipedia claim that Crayola had misnamed an orange-red crayon "chartreuse" between 1972 and 1989. Does anyone remember this? My peak crayon years were in that span, and I sure don't remember that at all. Okay, this link specifies that chartreuse was part of the fluorescent octad, and those ones weren't, I don't think, in the box of 64. What, was Crayola stupid?

Elsewhere in the Sun puzzle, I like the TACO SALAD and Maxwell Smart's SHOE PHONE (my kid's looking forward to the Steve Carell movie remake—and wait, why does my son know the name "Steve Carell"?); the tennis TOPSPIN that is Billie Jean [King's English?], I presume; NIM clued as [___ Chimpsky (chimp in a language experiment)], in the news recently when that talking bird died; [Chalazia] as the plural of chalazion, or STYES (I have a fontanel for medical terminology); [Jettisons] for DEEP-SIXES; CRYING JAG; and [Twist request] for MORE (Oliver Twist's request, not a bar order). Boy, ["The Voice of Bugle ___" (1936 Lionel Barrymore film)] sure is a bizarre clue for ANN, ain't it?

Moving on!

Ray Hamel's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Playing with the Detroit Lions: An Anagram Puzzle," is exactly as billed: The theme entries are anagrams of DETROITLIONS. ["Taxi Driver" star flipped?] is DENIRO LOST IT; [Tested some skin products?] is TRIED LOTIONS; [Dig up a treasure chest?] is DISINTER LOOT; and a [Soggy chip?] is a SILENT DORITO (eww...). (The PRINGLES in the grid have not been made soggy.) A few hits from the crossword past: ZEBU! A [Humped bovine]. SERE! [Like the desert]. Its anagram ERSE! An [Old World language]. OONA! [Geraldine Chaplin's mother]. And TRET! A [Weigh station factor] not to be confused with TARE; I think TRET is more truck-oriented. These were all pretty much gimmes for me—how about you?

Gary Whitehead's LA Times crossword kept me wondering until I reached the southeast corner of the grid and the explanatory entry WINE, or [Cellar supply, judged by the ends of 17-, 31-, 38- and 54-Across]. Those four theme phrases are GUEST APPEARANCE ([Talk show gig]), CROOKED NOSE ([One reason for rhinoplasty]), CLEFT PALATE ([Doc Holliday was born with one]), and SEMI-GLOSS FINISH ([Painter's option]). 1-Across, opposite WINE, is NAPA, an [Apt region for this puzzle]. Not crazy about LATIN I, [Introductory language course], or some of the other fill, but ZEALOTRY looks a lot better in the crossword grid than in the real world.