Wednesday, 5/28

Onion 6:10
Tausig 5:26
NYT 5:01
NYS 4:23
LAT 3:57
CS 3:53

The good news is: We won the six-week trivia contest and the $600 top prize. (Favorite question, the rare multiple-choice: Are bonobos asexual, homosexual, heterosexual, or bisexual? Tyler's big gimme: How many sides does an icosahedron have? Somehow we were the only team that knew the latter.) The bad news is: It's late, I'm tired, I've had a few drinks, the applet refused to load so 33 seconds were gone on the applet's clock by the time I saw the puzzle, my friend's recent Jethro Tull blog post did not tell me the answer to 51-Down, and I mistyped 67-Across and then couldn't grasp the crossings—so the New York Times crossword by C.W. Stewart kicked my butt. The theme is...let's take a look back and see. Ah, yes. The theme is BALLS. Each of the following six theme entries begins with a word that can be followed by BALLS:
BLACK-TIE = [Fund-raiser wear, perhaps] (blackballs)
BUTTERCUP = [Yellow flower] (butterballs)
GUM ERASER = [Artist's smudge remover] (gumballs)
HIGH NOON = [1952 Gary Cooper western] (highballs)
MEATHEAD = ["All in the Family" nickname] (meatballs)
SOFT-SOAP = [Cajole] (softballs)
It would be a little smoother to have the tie-together entry be the singular BALL, I think, but a word with an even number of letters would have to move from the center of the grid. The SW and NE corners are pretty wide open for a Wednesday puzzle. Where I got mangled up, mainly, was in the lower center section. [Aqualung, e.g., in the 1971 Jethro Tull album] was a LECHER? I had no idea. Flute + prog rock was as far as I got in understanding their oeuvre. I mistyped APES instead of APSE for [Vaulted area, often] and failed to notice the problem the first, oh, three times I read the 51- and 65-Down clues that crossed the wrong squares. [Put up with] is BEAR, sure, but with the mangling above, it just wasn't working out. (Sigh.)

I probably won't have time to get to the other five crosswords before lunchtime Wednesday. (Sigh.)

Updated:

Randall Hartman's New York Sun puzzle, "Bury the Hatchet," buries an AX in five phrases to generate the theme entries. [Command to the promiscuous widow in "The Night of the Iguana"] is "STRIP, MAXINE" (strip mine); I know Maxine Waters from Congress and '70s singer Maxine Nightingale better than this fictional one. Favorite son begets FAVORITE SAXON, [Pet German of yore?]. My favorite theme entry's CHICKEN WAXING, or [Process of taking hair off a fraidy-cat?].

Rich Norris's CrosSynergy crossword, "E-tail Losses," repurposes too-frequent crossword fill ETAIL by using it in the theme concept—an E at the tail of a word in each theme entry is lost. Thus, [Really valuable hair gels?] are GOLDEN GOOS (golden goose); [What a sitting jury has 12 of?] are LAPS IN JUDGMENT (...but the laps aren't in judgment, are they?); [Lions, bears, etc.?] are DENS' POPULATION; and [Knockouts-to-be?] are FUTURE TENS. There are two 9-letter names in the fill: ANNIE HALL, the [1977 Oscar-winning film], and JOSE GRECO, an [Italian-born flamenco dancer] whose name somehow came to me, and I really don't know why.

The clues in Mark Sherwood's LA Times crossword kept eluding me and my wavelength. The theme entries all begin with related words: HOLY SMOKES is a [Surprised cry], the HALLOWED HALLS are [Academic environs, reverentially], BLESSED EVENTS are [Births], and SACRED COWS are [Certain untouchables]. Wouldn't you rather say "Sacred smokes!" and back off from the holy cows? One film clue was a little misleading: [Julia of film] is RAUL Julia and not Julia Somebody. And then the [Big name in film] clue surely wanted a cinema legend, right? Nope—FUJI film, as in camera film.

I know I'm a day later than usual on the two Ben Tausig puzzles—his regular Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword and this week's Onion puzzle. But if I start those now I'll be late going to the gym, and we certainly can't have that.

Updated again:

Am I just overtired or is Ben Tausig's Onion A.V. Club puzzle tougher than usual? The theme entries rework some vowel sounds THE LONG WAY. Men's short E goes long in MEAN AT WORK. Car's short A goes long to make CARE WASH. A bat (pronounced "bot") mitzvah becomes BOAT MITZVAH; muddy, MOODY WATERS; and bit, BITE PART. I got all tangled up by the [Dangerous ray], which is supposed to be a GAMMA ray and not a manta. Favorite clues: [Use acid for creative purposes] for ETCH; [Body image, briefly?] for TAT (tattoo). A MONSOON was an [Indian summer occurrence] not because of "Indian summer" (warm weather in autumn) but rather, summertime in India. [Hall of Fame football coach Ewbank]'s first name is WEEB. The [___ Rebellion (1739 slave uprising)] is STONO; if you don't know this piece of history either, read up and learn. [___ bomb] is completed with SAKE; a sake bomb is a shot of sake dropped into a pint of beer, causing mad fizzing. And I think this may mark WET SPOT's debut in a newspaper crossword.

Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader puzzle, "The Theme Theme," translates TV or movie theme music into written syllables. Wow, I am not good at making sense out of those. My mind's ear heard the Rockford Files theme for most of 'em, or Sanford and Son—and those weren't included here. 18-Across represents the "Final Jeopardy" music from Jeopardy!. 29-Across, with the *snap* *snap* bits, had to be ADDAMS FAMILY. 49-Across hits the GHOSTBUSTERS theme song sung by Ray Parker, Jr. 62-Across brings Superman. The Raiders and Star Warsthemes composed by John Williams could also have worked—or at least, the tunes are distinctive and memorable. (Wow, this theme made me spend a lot of time digging around YouTube for all those clips.) The last entry I completed was the [Slangy address] "YO, SON." Aside from that one, I liked the fill.