Sun 3:47
LAT 3:14
CS 2:48
NYT 2:47
(post updated at 10:05 Monday morning)
December! What the...? How did that happen?
Vielen Dank to the Rätsel Mädchen, or Puzzle Girl. I just got home this evening and haven't had a chance to do any Sunday puzzles yet, so I haven't read her post about those crosswords. I'll bet it kicks ass, though.
The Monday New York Times crossword by Eric Platt is built around the phrase TURN ON A DIME. Inside my head, "stop on a dime" is the far more common phrase, but Google disagrees with me. In each of the other theme entries, a DIME turns around within. I'm not sure that "turn on a dime" is an apt description of "what the insides of 17-, 27- and 43-Across do"—the DIME turns, but the phrases sit there perfectly happy, DIME or no EMID. I like the mixed bag of theme answers: BETTE MIDLER, [The Divine Miss M]; a NURSE MIDWIFE, who is not just a [Birth mother's helper] but also a provider of routine gynecologic care in some jurisdictions (you wanted to know that, I'm sure); and an adjective, SEMI-DETACHED, or [Connected on only one side, as a town house].
I think this crossword may mark Mr. Platt's debut—nice work, as the fill includes some lively longer answers, such as RIGMAROLE and a LIFE-SIZED STERNUM.
Updated:
My favorite Monday puzzle this week is Martin Ashwood-Smith's CrosSynergy crossword, "Do the Twist." This one features three 15-letter theme entries, a fairly low word count for a themed puzzle (74 answers), six 9-letter answers stacked with or crossing the theme entries, and smooth fill with accessible, Monday-grade clues. The theme answers all end with a word that does a "twist": UP AROUND THE BEND is a [1970 Creedence Clearwater Revival hit] I don't think I know. [Forward-thinking] means AHEAD OF THE CURVE. And [Says something inappropriate] is SPEAKS OUT OF TURN. In the fill, STOMACHED is clued [Put up with] and might just as easily have been TOLERATED. [Ironman competition parts] are MARATHONS. And look at the non-crosswordese river in the grid—the EUPHRATES is a [Major Iraqi river] that doesn't get much play in crosswords.
Tony Orbach's Sun crossword, "Five of Twelve," expands to a 15x16 grid to accommodate a 6-letter theme entry in the center. Each of the five theme entries is a famous person whose first or last name is also a month. AUGUST WILSON, the [Pulitzer-winning "Fences" playwright], was my only gimme. I can't say that I've heard of LEE MAY, the [Baltimore Orioles player who led the A.L. in RBIs in 1976]. The three actors—FREDRIC MARCH, JANUARY JONES, and JUNE LOCKHART—made me work from the crossings more. Did you notice that the theme entries appear in calendar order, with JANUARY at the left and AUGUST on the right? Nice touch.
Robert Morris's LA Times crossword has four theme entries that begin with a kind of LANE (50-Down):
Favorite clues and answers: [Homer's wife] is MARGE Simpson, but I was thinking of Homer's character Odysseus's wife, Penelope. To [Put a previously tested system into operation] is to GO LIVE. FARM AID is an [Annual agricultural benefit concert]. The colloquial "I'M DEAD" is clued ["It's curtains for me"].
November 30, 2008
Monday, 12/1
November 29, 2008
Sunday, 11/30
CS 8:36
PI 27:00
LAT 22:12
NYT (gave up after 46:00)
BG (unavailable — if you know any different, please let me know in the comments!)
Hey, everybody, PuzzleGirl here with your post-turkey-coma puzzle commentary. Hope you all had a great holiday weekend and are ready to get back to the routine tomorrow. I am particularly looking forward to the part of my routine where I send my husband and kids off to the bus and enjoy some peace and quiet. But I'm sure that's just me. So. The puzzles!....
The theme in Merl Reagle's "Crossword Crossword" Philadelphia Inquirer puzzle is geared toward a fairly specific demographic that, I'm guessing, you belong to. That's right, it's all about people who know a little something about crossword puzzles. You'll find yourself in this puzzle whether you LOVE LETTERS and consider yourself a fan, or if you're a really slow solver who averages THREE SQUARES A DAY, or even if you're a BLACK ADDER (a puzzle artiste who uses way too many dark squares). (Frankly it's the black subtractors that cause me the most grief — you know who you are!) We've also got one answer that RUNS ACROSS and another that GOES DOWN. Other crossword-y theme answers:
Other stuff I liked:
I've also finally caught onto DRAY as a [sturdy cart]. I used to work with a guy whose last name was Dray. When he and his wife had their first child, they named him Ethan. Another co-worker of ours had a baby that year and named him Cole Reddington. At the time, I assumed that there had been some sort of law passed that all new parents were required to give their babies Soap Opera Names.
So, okay, just one more thing. I really can't say anything bad about a puzzle that includes ARTE Johnson, George JETSON, TANYA Tucker, and JETHRO from "The Beverly Hillbillies." But here's the one thing I want to say to all you constructors out there: Enough with the rivers already! I don't know them okay? I just don't! I have some sort of mental block when it comes to rivers and there's no way I will Ever get them except through crosses, so it's just not fair any more. I hope we don't have to have this conversation again.
Richard Silvestri's New York Times crossword, "Uh-Oh," beat me up and beat me up good. Some of the problems stemmed from my own reasonable mistakes, like no joke for NO JIVE. Some of it was stuff I once knew but forgot, like that ANENT means [With regard to]. But some of it was just unfair. MENHADEN crossing DEODATO? That seems unreasonably cruel. GNAR? Seriously? What is that? SHAVUOT next to LANARK? (I actually knew SHAVUOT but wasn't sure of the spelling, which I think is Totally Reasonable given the whole Chanukah/Hannukah/Hanukah thing. Although I'm not Jewish, I do know a little bit about Jewish holidays. The first two that came to my mind in this case were sukkot and pesach. I tell you this just to clarify that I'm not a complete DOLT, i.e., [dummkopf], just because I couldn't finish this puzzle.) Okay, you know what? I'm in Orange's house and she doesn't typically rant about the puzzles, so I'm going to stop now. Sorry about that. Judging by the posted scores on the applet, some of you didn't have Quite as much trouble as I did with this puzzle anyway. (Hi, Dan! Hi, Byron!)
So the theme consists of familiar phrases in which an UH sound is changed to an OH sound:
I spent some time today watching the NCAA National Champion University of Iowa Hawkeyes RASSLE today, so I was all over that. (Go, Hawks!) I'm a big fan of LOST [The story of the aftermath of Oceanic Flight 815] and occasionally wonder why it's not in the puzzle more often. Oh, and I had two incorrect first guesses that I thought were pretty good. I had piano instead of ATOLL for [Set of keys?]. And I didn't think of beth as a LETTER in the Arabic alphabet. No, to me, "Beth" (especially in six letters!) is and always will be, a ballad.
Updated Sunday at 11:00am:
Nora Pearlstone's LA Times crossword, "Medical Group," starts out with EM DASH [Punctuation that makes one pause] at 1 Across. That's all it took for me to fall in love with this puzzle immediately. If you know the difference between hyphens, em dashes, and en dashes; cringe when you see straight quotes instead of curly quotes; and feel actual, honest-to-God anger when you see a single open quotation mark where an apostrophe is supposed to be — well, then, you know what I'm talking about. Why, yes, people do refer to me as a dork occasionally, why do you ask? When posting on the web, I usually just use two hyphens instead of taking the time to make an em dash, but in honor of this answer I'm going to spend an extra minute or so on this post and make it, well, more easily readable to be sure. But ultimately? More beautiful. You're welcome.
Theme answers in this puzzle are familiar phrases with the letters DR added to them to create new phrases:
Too bad that last one needs a pronunciation change to make both phrases work. Also, is [Boomer who's actually a boomer] ESIASON showing up in puzzles a lot lately, or is it just me? I know you've all seen Palin and CLEESE's "dead parrot" sketch. Good stuff. I just had to find a picture of ANNA SUI's Secret Wish Magic Romance perfume and I was right — the bottle is hideous. I know someone has explained the difference between a [Tolkien menace] ORC and an ent, but I can't retain it. I'm guessing I'm the only one here who noticed this, but [Winnebago descendants] IOWAS is crossing [Big name in discount brokerage] SCHWAB, which could also be clued as National Champion University of Iowa assistant coach and Olympic wrestler Doug. Okay, I've been rambling too long about this puzzle, so I'll leave you with LYLE Lovett and be back in a little while with your CS write-up.
Updated Sunday at 11:30am:
Today's CrosSynergy crossword by Bruce Venzke and Stella Daily was a fun, quick romp for me. Exactly what I needed after the pressure of filling in for the irreplaceable Orange on a bunch of puzzles that took me a long time.
CAJOLE is a great word, isn't it? And I really didn't see it coming at all. Threw in the J for JET and thought, "Well, that can't be right!" For [Opera alternative?] I was thinking of the web browser and confidently entered Safari. I guess the question mark cued a misdirection on the word alternative instead of on the word opera. How is it possible that I knew SAILOR Moon off of just the S? I read [Porcine toon] as Porcine tooth and had no idea what was going on there with PETUNIA. NEPTUNE is now the [Furthest planet from the sun]. Poor Pluto. For [Arnold-esque?] I was thinking Tom? Roseanne? No, Benedict: TREASONOUS. Are TIE tacks fashionable now? I suppose I could ask PuzzleHusband who, inexplicably, went all Metrosexual on me sometime in the last few years. Not that I'm complaining. Okay, I'm complaining a little that his shoe collection is more impressive than mine, but other than that, it's all good.
Thanks for letting me hang with you guys. I think I'll be seeing you again at Christmastime, which is right around the corner. That's right, people — it's time to get out there and SHOP!
November 28, 2008
Saturday, 11/29
LAT 5:55
NYT 5:45 (the applet claims 5:58, but my browser froze for 13 seconds and I want the credit)
Newsday tba
CS tba
I'm not sure I'll get to all of the other Saturday puzzles on Saturday morning—we're heading up north for the weekend, and if I don't wake up early enough...
The charming and delightful PuzzleGirl will be your Dear Leader for the rest of the weekend, handling the Sunday crossword blogging duties. (Thanks, PG!)
Barry Silk's Saturday New York Times crossword has a terrific grid layout—each corner has four long answers (9 to 10 letters), giving it room for lots of interesting longer phrases and words. The shorter answers that cross them are pretty smooth (like Silk) and accessible, with no obscure abbreviations. And then! The middle! The middle of this puzzle with 90° symmetry has a 2x2 block of all Z's.
My favorites among the long answers:
The clues I liked best:
The ZZ zone contains RAZZ, or [Heckle]; PIZZA, or [Kind of oven]; OZZY, or ["The Osbournes" dad]; and DIZZY, or [Swimming].
Lesser-known items: ENESCO is the ["Oedipe" opera composer, 1936]. CHIOS is a [Greek island in the Aegean]. I'll betcha most solvers thought of Crete or Corfu] first. MASER is an [Electromagnetic wave enhancer]. GREER was a Sixer, [20-Across in the Hall of Fame]—and a basketball player I've never heard of. And AYER is a [Philosopher who promoted logical positivism]. ("Is that logical? I'm positive it is.")
Updated:
Yeah, I didn't wake up early, so I'll write up the LA Times puzzle and then hit the road.
Doug Peterson's LA Times crossword was a delight to solve. Plenty of tricky clues that put up a fight, but then yielded to obviousness. The only spot that was at all off-putting was EEGS clued as [Head shots, briefly?]—EEGs are tracings, zigzag lines, and not "shots" of any sort. (X-rays, MRIs, CTs—those are quasi-photographic shots. EEGs and EKGs aren't.) Everything else was good. My favorite clues:
November 27, 2008
Friday, 11/28
Sun 14:08
NYT 5:16
LAT 4:57
CHE 4:09
CS 3:22
WSJ 7:03
(post updated at 11:15 a.m. Friday)
Joe Krozel packs 10 15-letter answers into his New York Times crossword, but he spaces them out so it feels different from the sort of themeless puzzle with lots of 15's stacked together. Here are the long answers, every one of 'em a lively phrase:
Miscellaneous other clues:
Fraser Simpson's Sun puzzle is a cryptic crossword, and it's a good bit more challenging and involved than the NYT Second Sunday cryptics are. For a guide to solving cryptics, see Fraser's "How to Solve Cryptic Crosswords" tutorial. I wrote up my answers over at the Crossword Fiend forum before I noticed that there was already a PDF of the answers. In the PDF, "anag." means anagram; parentheses indicate letters inserted (CAPS) or deleted (lowercase); "hom." means homophone; "rev." means reversal. If you are hesitant about giving cryptics the old college try, read Fraser's tips and see if you get any of the clues in the puzzle. If you're stuck, peek at an answer or two—in my forum post, the answers are in white text, so you can peek at a single answer without having the rest of the puzzle spoiled. Often, having even just a single letter in place from a crossing will help you figure out what an answer is.
Updated:
It took me a while to suss out the theme in Donna Levin's LA Times crossword. Each theme entry makes a pun using a demonym or nationality that sounds like a common English word:
Highlights in the fill (which tended to the Scrabbly side): [Capo di tutti capi] is the KINGPIN. CHEEK gets a funny clue: [Half-moon?], as in a single butt cheek. MY GIRL was a [1965 #1 hit for The Temptations]. To NITPICK is to [Cavil]. The [2007 People magazine adjective for Matt Damon] was SEXIEST; Damon's response was funny.
Clues that got in the way of my finding the answers (as they're supposed to on a Friday):
Randy Ross's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Riddle Me Math," dispenses four riddles that hinge on math-oriented puns:
The fill includes 22 answers that are 6 or 7 letters long, which gives the puzzle added freshness. There's the [Persian poet] Omar KHAYYAM, for example, and MT. SINAI, a [NY hospital named after a biblical site]. My favorite clue was [Harry and Tara] for REIDS—one doesn't ordinarily think of the Senate Majority Leader and the largely discredited actress in the same moment.
Ed Sessa's Chronicle of Higher Education puzzle, "School of Victual Arts," is more playful than most CHE crosswords. The theme entries are five fields of academic study punned out with food. For example, ["You'll view the world as thin sheets of pastry in our ___ class"] clues PHYLLOSOPHY, based on philosophy and phyllo dough. LINGUINISTICS combines linguistics and linguini. Sociology becomes SUSHIOLOGY; economics, EGGONOMICS; and literature, LIQUORATURE. Interesting fill includes ALATEEN and DOGBANE, VESPUCCI and the Battle of MIDWAY. Did you look at your fingers to figure out [Second digit from the right]? The answer is the TENS digit next to the ones place.
Dan Fisher's Wall Street Journal crossword has a theme that combines two things I like: word manipulation (e.g., anagrams, reversals) and geography. In each "Global Recession" theme entry, the capital city (or maybe just a large city) points you to a country, the name of which appears in reverse (in highlighted squares) in the answer. The rest of the clue gives a more straightforward definition of the answer:
November 26, 2008
Thursday, 11/27
Sun 6:43
NYT 4:24
LAT 4:02
CS 3:54
Have a happy Thanksgiving! If you're cooking, may all your food be ready on schedule without being overdone. If you're traveling, I wish you smooth and safe journeys. If you're just eating, don't forget the Tums.
Patrick Berry's New York Times puzzle (a plus-sized grid, 15x16) brings together seven words or phrases in which the first and last half contain the same letters in different order:
That's a lot of theme packed into one puzzle. Assorted other clues and answers:
Now that editor Peter Gordon is calling his own shots, the Sun crossword can come out on holidays. (The New York Sun didn't publish an edition on holidays.) Peter Collins' Sun crossword, "Stuffing the Bird," must have been constructed after Peter G. made the decision to have holiday puzzles, because it's got a Thanksgiving theme. The title hints at a rebus gimmick, and sneaker brand [K-S]WISS broke this one open for me. Seeing KS in the upper right corner made me suspect that TH would appear in the upper left corner and AN between those two. Indeed, the rebus squares occupy the four corners and the middle square on each side, spelling out TH/AN/KS/GI/VI/NG TU/RK/EY. The presence in the fill of FEDERICO FELLINI, PERRY COMO, and EMPEROR HIROHITO appears to be incidental.
There were so many echoes between this puzzle's fill and the NYT—SLALOMED here and SKI there, BE[VI]ES here and BEVY there, OP-EDS here and op-ed ESSAYS there. Favorite entry: CONTROL-P. Favorite clues: [Top sellers] for TOY STORES, which are places you might buy a spinning top; and [Harvard proponent of higher education?] for Timothy LEARY. Least familiar answer: ITALO is the name of ["Confessions of Zeno" novelist Svevo]. Svevo?
Updated:
Barry Silk's LA Times crossword uses the term KICK-START as the impetus for a crossword theme. The first word in four phrases doubles as a ___ kick:
The fill has some trademark Silk Scrabbliness, with answers like RITZY, ZEN, MATZO, UNISEX, and JUG. [Year in which the Colosseum opened] is EIGHTY, not LXXX.
Bob Klahn's CrosSynergy crossword, "Iron Supplements," adds iron's chemical symbol, Fe, to four phrases. (If you're a fan of the periodic table, here's a quiz—how many can you list?) The theme entries are:
Non-thematic clues and answers:
A [Tempest in a teapot] is an ADO, and the [Teapot Dome material] is OIL.
["Bejabbers!"] clues EGAD.
["Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" guy] is a GIGOLO? I had no idea.
[Lime-laced libation] is a GIMLET. Do you think anyone's ever used gimlets instead of giblets in making Thanksgiving stuffing?
[Pies in the sky?] may be UFOS.
Your AVATAR is your on-screen representation of yourself, a [Virtual-reality pinch hitter] that has nothing to do with baseball.
The [Four-armed Hindu deity] is named VISHNU.
[Muppet with two tongues?] is the billingual ROSITA. F.A.O. Schwarz offers custom-designed-by-you Muppets, but you can't order one now because there was too much demand. Dang—I kinda wanted one. Maybe later...
November 25, 2008
Wednesday, 11/26
Tausig 6:15
Sun 3:57
Onion 3:53
LAT 3:20
NYT 3:07
CS 2:32
(updated at 5:25 p.m. Wednesday)
Harvey Estes' New York Times crossword hits the Wednesday sweet spot with an elegant theme, a low word count (72 answers = themeless grade), and colorful fill and clues. 57-Across is OLE, defined as [49-Across, in this puzzle]. 49-Across is THE LAST HURRAH, a [1958 Spencer Tracy film...and a hint to 20-, 30- and 39-Across]. Those three answers all end with a last hurrah, a final olé, and in each one the pronunciation is different:
Here's what I liked best outside of this finely wrought theme;
If you haven't been doing crosswords too long, you might not know that FALA was the name of the [F.D.R. dog], or that a SETA is a [Bristlelike part], such as on a caterpillar.
Alan Arbesfeld's Sun puzzle is called "Catching Some Rays" because each theme entry has some sort of ray or Ray hidden within it:
Did you ever think that NEO CON could possibly be the answer to ["Sweet ___" (2005 Rolling Stones song)]? This came as a complete surprise to me. The song's got a Wikipedia page devoted to it. (Lyrics here.)
Francis Heaney's Onion A.V. Club crossword combines an AEIOU vowel progression theme with an add-some-letters theme with interesting results:
Updated:
Robert Doll's LA Times crossword contains five theme phrases that mean [Vamoosed]: FLEW THE COOP, MADE TRACKS, GOT OUT OF DODGE, HIT THE ROAD, and TOOK A POWDER. All are idiomatically equivalent as well as making for colorful language. Clues that took some work to get:
[Lou "The ___" Groza, memorable NFL placekicker] is nicknamed The TOE. That's apt, but I'd never heard of him.
[Art from Pompeii?] wants you to return to ancient Pompeii, where Latin, not Italian, was spoken. The noun art in Latin is ARS, as in "ars longa, vita brevis."
[Horse variety?] is GIFT, as in "don't look a gift horse in the mouth."
[Providence athletes] are FRIARS? Really? Both the men's and women's teams are the Friars.
Tom Schier's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Interior Living Quarters," hides four different ABODEs (58-Across) inside the theme entries:
We see HOI in the grid with a "___ polloi" clue plenty, but having POLLOI clued as [Hoi ___ (the masses)] is unusual. Old crosswordese ANIL pops up from time to time; here it's clued as an [Indigo-producing shrub].
The Tausig puzzle will have to wait until after this morning's third grade spectacular at my son's school.
Updated again:
I confess it took me a long time to understand the theme in Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader puzzle at all. The title is "The Short List," and here are the theme entries:
So I guess the crossword's called "The Short List" because these phrases build off of five shortened names. I feel old and out of touch having zero familiarity with 40% of 'em.
In the fill, there's a slew of juicy answers. THE VIEW, a DOVE BAR, and STIR-FRY occupy one corner. TV STAR and ACT TWO each have a four-consonant pile-up. GODCAST, a [Neologism for a holy download], is new to me. My dictionary informs me that COMFIT is a dated word—it means [European fruit candy] or, according to that dictionary, a "candy consisting of a nut, seed, or other center coated in sugar." Seeds? Damn near killed me having that M crossing the unknown-to-me M. WARD. BAKR fills in the blank in [Abu ___ (Muslim leader after Muhammed)].
November 24, 2008
Tuesday, 11/25
Sun 4:35
Jonesin' 4:08
LAT 3:27
CS 3:10
NYT 2:53
Ah, kids these days! Teen constructor Caleb Madison's New York Times crossword packs in six theme entries and some sparkling fill. Each theme entry takes a two-syllable word and swaps its two vowels and clues the original and flipped words together as a phrase:
Favorite answers here:
[Heart beater in bridge bidding] is a SPADE. Do most Tuesday solvers know that? I don't know bridge at all, though in hindsight, it shouldn't have been too hard to guess that the answer was one of the suits in a deck of cards. The KEPI is a [Hat for a French soldier], and this is one of those words I know mainly from puzzles. I had an adjacent-key typo that messed with my solving time—no, the [Shout from Scrooge] is not BAJ. I meant to type BAH. Jonest.
Do you ever finish a crossword and find yourself staring at it, trying to figure out what on earth the theme is? I do, and I did tonight with Randall Hartman's Sun puzzle, "Spin Doctors." Eventually it dawned on me that a D and R (Dr., or doctor) that start and finish a word get "spun" so that the R now starts the word and the D ends it:
AL GORE is in the fill, clued as the ["While I strongly disagree with the court's decision, I accept it" speaker]. Wednesday morning, my son's third grade pod will be putting on a "Goin' Green" show inspired by Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. Speaking of cautionary documentaries on important topics, Patrick Creadon's Wordplay follow-up, I.O.U.S.A., made the short list for the Oscars—of the 15 docs on the short list, five will be nominated.
Longer fill includes PIKES PEAK in Colorado, the STATE PEN (terrific entry!), BUMS A RIDE, and MAIL IT IN, or [Do a perfunctory job]. Is "mailing it in" more half-assed or less half-assed than "phoning it in"?
Updated:
Gene Newman's LA Times crossword features three theme entries that add a silent W to change the meaning of a phrase:
The theme's pretty easy, but some other clues are tougher. [Ritchard who played Hook on Broadway] is CYRIL, and I've never heard of him. [Actress Berger], or SENTA, has the advantage of having a more crossword-friendly batch of letters, so I've seen her name before—though I haven't a clue what work she did and whether she was any good. An [Encircling ring of light] is an AUREOLE—not to be confused with an areola.
Will Johnston's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Wishy-Washy," is excellent. The theme entries are three things you might say as a [Wishy-washy resly to a proposal]: "I CAN'T SAY FOR SURE," "MAYBE YES, MAYBE NO," and "ASK ME AGAIN LATER." Mind you, if you're planning to propose to someone in a public place, you need to be 99.99% sure you won't be getting one of these responses. Some of the fill dances around this topic—one who is IN LOVE (or [Smitten]) and gets rebuffed will then cry DON'T GO (["Please stay!"]). There's also some lively longer fill: The N.Y. YANKEES are the [MLB team with the most ALCS wins]. BAGUETTES are a [Boulangerie basketful]. [Comprehensive victory] is a CLEAN SWEEP. "YOU DA MAN!" means ["Bravo, bro!"]. And my favorite entry is ARMS AKIMBO, a [Jaunty pose description].
Matt Jones's Jonesin' puzzle, "Hidden Strength," hides an OBAMA in each of six theme entries. [Superhero with the power to produce Japanese noodles?] is YAKISOBA MAN, for example. And [Hope/Crosby travel flick that takes place in Mali's capital?] is THE ROAD TO BAMAKO. Cute! Mind you, each theme entry is a preposterously made-up phrase, but that's half the fun right there—seeing how Matt's brain works. The surrounding fill is fun, as usual for Jonesin' crosswords. [Toy advertised with the slogan "but they don't fall down"]? Why, that's a WEEBLE, of course. It wobbles, but you can't knock it over. SPAZ is a [Like, totally uncool person]. And [Menage-a-many?] clues an ORGY.
November 23, 2008
Monday, 11/24
Sun 3:31
LAT 2:51
CS 2:33
NYT 2:30
Billie Truitt's New York Times crossword treads some familiar ground—I've seen at least two previous digital-themed puzzles before. This one proceeds through all five fingers on a hand, from thumb to pinky:
Now, in my heart, no fingers theme can top David Pringle's 4/23/07 NYT with PINKY TUSCADERO, but I do like the completeness of including the thumb. I liked seeing [Mr. ___ (Lucy's TV boss)], Mr. MOONEY, here; I don't know why. The [First of 12 popes with a religious-sounding name] is PIUS I. Hmm, we don't see a lot of Roman-numeraled pope names in Monday puzzles, do we?
Mark Feldman's Sun crossword, "Dressing Up in England," compiles a group of clothing items that have taken the name of places in England. All five are clued the same, [Part of an English outfit]. They include ETON JACKET, RUGBY SHIRT, NORFOLK COAT, OXFORD SHOE, and WINDSOR TIE. Wait, what's that one in the middle? The Norfolk coat or jacket is "a loose, belted, single-breasted jacket with box pleats on the back (and sometimes front), now with a belt or half-belt." Outside of the theme, the fill's a bit Scrabbly and two of the corners contain a 6x4 chunk of white space.
Updated:
Today's LA Times crossword comes from Andrea Carla Michaels and Myles Callum. Three theme entries are tied together by GIMME A KISS, a [Hopeful demand of 17-, 35- or 41-Across]:
Highlights in the fill include an EGG-TIMER, or [Board game gadget]; [Snoopy's foe], the RED BARON; SPLEEN clued as [Anatomical source of ill humor?]; and ST. PETER, [Heaven's gatekeeper]. I didn't know that MIRA meant ["Look!" to Luis]—it's one of those Spanish words I've heard on TV shows without being clear on the meaning. And yes, usually a [Bride's partner] is a GROOM, but sometimes it's another bride.
Randall Hartman's CrosSynergy puzzle, "It's Hot Outside!", has four theme entries with HOT outside—that is, the phrases start with HO and end with T.
The most frightening thing in this puzzle was the clue for CATHY: [Comic strip about modern women]. All the women I know are modern, and I don't think any of us can relate to Cathy. The character is not emblematic of our lives, our concerns. This essay explains why. Who doesn't appreciate an articulate evisceration of something lame?
Bonus points for including TOMMYROT and the FOUR TOPS in the fill—hey, that sounds like a group, doesn't it? Tommy Rot is the frontman. I love the oddball synonyms for [Nonsense]; besides TOMMYROT, we have balderdash, claptrap, poppycock, twaddle, hooey, and malarkey.
November 22, 2008
Sunday, 11/23
LAT 10:06
NYT 9:11
BG 8:15
PI 8:07
CS 4:17
Do you like huge time-wasters? Trip Payne mentioned quiz website sporcle.com on his blog. Can you name all the countries in Africa? Or in the world? How are you on the schools in six major Division I conferences? Can you name all the NBA teams? Identify dozens of Simpsons characters? Name all the U.S. presidents? There are quizzes for a whole bunch of topics like those. Better yet, when you're done, it'll tell you which answers were guessed the most or least often, so you can see if everyone else forgot the Comoros too.
The New York Times crossword by David Kahn is called "Picture This," and it's got a trivia theme—everything you ever wanted to know about a silly moment in art history. Here's how the story goes:
HENRI MATISSE, a FRENCH ARTIST who was the [Leader of the Fauvist movement], created a PAINTING called LE BATEAU using WATERMEDIA. At a MOMA EXHIBITION in 1961, that painting appeared UPSIDE-DOWN. And do you know how long LE BATEAU hung that way before being noticed and fixed? FORTY-SEVEN DAYS, that's how long. The circled squares tell you what the picture is of—a SAILBOAT REFLECTION. And if you connect the dots, you get a decent representation of what LE BATEAU looks like. This visual aspect of the puzzle makes it feel a tad Gorskian, doesn't it?
According to the Wikipedia article on the work, though, Le Bateau (if you look at it, it's easy to understand how it ended up upside-down) is a lithograph and not a painting. But the Matisse write-up calls it a gouache, and gouache is a type of watermedia used in painting.
Assorted clues and answers from the rest of the puzzle:
[Train stop?] is an ALTAR if a bride is wearing a gown with a train.
The WAX BEAN is a [Vegetable with yellow pods]. Green beans are better. They're green.
The odd plural ODIUMS is clued as [Intense aversions].
The odd word LOWISH is clued as [Somewhat reduced].
[Say "Final answer," say] is how you COMMIT on Who Wants To Be a Millionaire. Hey! Trip Payne was the third contestant on that show.
PITAS are [Double-layer breads]. That reminds me—it's time to have some hummus.
[What Ramona wore in a 1966 Chuck Berry song] was a TIGHT DRESS.
I like the use of Roman numerals in [Year Super Bowl XXXVII was played] and MMIII (2003).
[Al Kaline, in uniform] was the number SIX. Anyone else try to make him a SOX?
A billiards shot that's a [Cushion user?] is a BANK SHOT.
[Cupid, e.g.] is one of Santa's REINDEER.
A [Cleanup hitter, e.g.] is a real WALLOPER.
[Like the earliest Olympic festival] clues ELEAN. Say what? Didn't know this one at all. It's the adjectival form of Elis, where the first Olympics took place in 776 B.C.E.
One sort of [Animal oddity] is an ALBINO. Near Carleton College, there's an albino squirrel. It doesn't like to pose for pictures. Must be shy.
[Revolutionary 1930s bomber] is the B-10, which looks like BTEN spelled out in a crossword.
I don't know the [Kipling short story, with "The"] called MALTESE CAT.
[Unreasonable, pricewise] clues STIFF. Did you opt for STEEP first as I did?
Updated:
Well, I solved these next four crosswords late last night, but didn't make any notes for blogging purposes. So this'll be short.
This week's Washington Post Style Invitational contest is to come up with funny clues for answers in Paula Gamache's November 12 CrosSynergy puzzle. If you want to play along, you can download the Across Lite file at Will Johnston's Puzzle Pointers page.
Henry Hook's Boston Globe repeat in Across Lite is called "Green and Bear It." Each theme entry is clued [GREEN], and the answers are essentially clues for the word green: there are two adjectives, ENVIRONMENTALLY SOUND and INEXPERIENCED. There's the color, YELLOW MIXED WITH BLUE. And there are three nouns, SLANG FOR MONEY, traffic LIGHT TELLING YOU TO GO, and AREA WHERE GOLFERS PUTT. I like the stacks of longish answers in the NW and SE corners, but the 3-letter crossings are less appealing. Overall, in fact, the shorter fill was a little off—FPL, FOL, ALW, OCUL, ANSE? Hook usually spoils us with better fill than that. If you've ever grumbled at the word amerce being used in a crossword, Hook's got a new synonym for you: [Imposes fines] also means MULCTS.
Merl Reagle's Philadelphia Inquirer crossword, "At the Animal Salon," unfolds a tale with animal puns in a hair salon setting. It begins with "COME ON IN, DEER," deals with hairstyling issues, and reinforces the stereotype of massive gabbing about man trouble going on at hair salons. The GUY IN BUFFALO, SUCH A WEASEL, and YAKETY YAK YAK entries aren't puns, though, just phrases in Merl's narrative that include a kind of animal. I am compelled to iluminate "...TO TAPIR A BIT" by mentioning that at England's superb Chester Zoo, a tapir sprayed my family with pee last year. (Never trust a tapir with its back to you, folks.) The word PUISSANT, or [Powerful], is in the grid—I like that because if you omit the U, you get an entirely different word.
By the time I was solving Dan Naddor's syndicated Los Angeles Times Sunday crossword, I had grown rather sleepy and I kept catching myself with my eyes closed. It's not at all the fault of the puzzle—it was just late at night. The theme, "Not More of the Same," adds an -S (or -IES) to pluralize nine phrases that customarily are never used in the plural:
So, it's a good theme. It makes you think a little bit, it's executed consistently and well, and it yields a few smiles. The upper left corner of the grid got off to a slow start. 1-Across is an not-that-common abbreviation, SUPT or [Bldg. boss]. Here in Chicago, we have school superintendents but building managers, no supers. Below that, the [Swift Malay boat] is old-school crosswordese and used to show up in a lot more crosswords; it's a PROA. Right under the PROA is EBEN, ["___ Holden": 1900 Bacheller novel]. They all cross TANTARA, or [Trumpet blast], another of the words I learned in crosswords.
Other clues and answers:
Paula Gamache's CrosSynergy "Sunday Challenge" has an unusual-looking grid for a themeless puzzle. The puzzle is anchored by two 15-letter answers. FLAVOR OF THE WEEK is a [Passing fancy], and SAME-SEX MARRIAGE is clued, [It's legal in Massachusetts]. Crossing those answers are several other long ones:
All six of those are lively phrases. Other parts I liked:
I didn't even see this clue last night—a MABE is a [Hemospherical cultured pearl]. There's a YOTP (year of the pope) clue: [Year Pope John XVIII was anointed] is MIV. The [Dairy case designation] for eggs, AA LARGE, seems a tad off as crossword fill. LATEEN is a [Sunfish sail]; again, all things nautical are things I'm not too familiar with.
November 21, 2008
Saturday, 11/22
Newsday 7:06
NYT 6:14
LAT 4:48
CS 3:20
(updated at 10:30 Saturday morning)
Hooray! We just had a Sun puzzle co-constructed by Frank Longo—who has been keeping himself too busy with things other than newspaper themeless crosswords—and now the Saturday New York Times puzzle proudly sports the Longo byline. And good gravy, is that an insane-looking grid. Triple-stacked 15's at the top and bottom, and a midsection spanned by two more 15's. They're not such easy 15's, either—none of the usual-suspect 15-letter answers that get used over and over. Here are the big boys:
Toughest clues:
How did you survive this one? Did 36-, 37-, and 38-Down kill you? Me, I was just happy to have a too-rare Longo themeless to kick me around.
Updated:
Robert Wolfe's LA Times crossword has 70 answers, and about 20 of them are multi-word phrases—ranging from the very short (MR. T, ['80s Peppard costar]) to the long (I DON'T UNDERSTAND, or ["Huh?"]). Here's a selection of the other phrases:
And now, some single-word answers with interesting answers:
Three things I didn't know:
Two bits of standard old crosswordese are here. An ARIL is a [Seed protector]; one aril you may recognize is the little juicy ruby surrounding each pomegranate seed. The STOA [often bordered an agora].
Dan Stark's Newsday "Saturday Stumper" was the day's hardest themeless for me. (PDF solution here.) Favorite clues and answers:
Lynn Lempel's CrosSynergy crossword, "Le Puzzle," adds -LE to the end of four phrases that end with a CK to transform those phrases into something different. The results sound zingy:
I'm fond of PTOLEMY, the [Ancient Greek astronomer with an Earth-centered theory] and a silent P, not at all fond of NO PARKING signs, though NO PARKING makes for an excellent bit of crossword fill.
November 20, 2008
Friday, 11/21
Sun 5:52
LAT 4:51
NYT 4:47
CHE 3:37
CS 3:20
WSJ 8:01
I thought of Merl Reagle when I read this list of "worse than Quantum of Solace" titles, from Chicago Tribune writer Steve Johnson. My favorite was "Cardamom of Venice."
We're having patrickberry pie with patrickberry ice cream—both the NYT and Sun crosswords are by the same constructor.
Patrick Berry's New York Times crossword shows again that he is the primary exception to the rule that I don't much care for 62-word themelesses because they're racked with compromises in the fill. This 62-worder has an oddball grid, with most of its open space in the middle rather than the corners. The fill is Berryesque, which is to say that it's smooth and unforced and rather light on tacked-on word endings and prefixes. To wit:
The cluing is also top-notch, presumably a mash-up of good ideas from the Berry and Shortz ateliers. Some of the items in this listing are not exemplars of great cluing, but rather, facts people may be Googling. I'll bet you can tell the difference.
In its very own category in this crossword, we have a PANTY GIRDLE, or [Unmentionable]. I guess there are still things called panty girdles on the market, but back in 1965, doctors recognized their danger.
Berry's Sun "Weekend Warrior" was a little harder than the NYT. This one's a 66-worder with about 15 people's names in the grid. My favorite clues:
And my favorite answers:
Those four longest ones frame the black square in the middle of the grid, and they make a beautiful quartet of crossword answers.
Weirdest answer: SEABAG is a [Duffel with a drawstring]. I never knew sailors had a special name for their duffels.
Updated:
I won't have time for all four of the other Friday puzzles this morning because I came across a link to the Visual Thesaurus spelling bee, and I am powerless to resist its siren song. (I'm the Amy R. on the leaderboard. You add the aura of competition to something nerdy, and I get sucked right in.)
Don Gagliardo's LA Times crossword has a slew of tricky spots, and the theme didn't come readily to mind, either. 63-Across, the [Sound created by the four identical letters missing from] the other four theme entries, is AIR LEAKAGE, so each missing letter is an S (as in a hissing SSSS). It took forever to figure out where COMIC BEING, or [Batman or Robin?], originally had an S. I daresay "cosmic being" is not so familiar a phrase. [Used up the subs?] is RAN OUT OF TEAM (steam). [Biennial rash?] is THE EVEN-YEAR ITCH (seven)—hey, I like this one. [Supplier of deep-fried fare?] is a FAT FOOD CHAIN (fast).
Clues that made me work for the answers:
Updated midday Friday:
Patrick Blindauer's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Class Act," has a quote theme. The quote itself is fine (Aristotle: TEACHING IS THE / HIGHEST FORM OF/ UNDERSTANDING), but didn't at all enhance my solving experience. But I enjoyed the puzzle in spite of the quote theme. Those meaty corners with 7's crossing 6's helped, as did sparkling longer fill—the IROQUOIS include [Mohawks, e.g.], GOOD TIMES was the classic '70s [Esther Rolle sitcom], and WATERLOO goes beyond Abba and metaphor to be [Battle of ___ (1815 conflict)]. I liked the overall vibe of the puzzle, what with clues like these for wee little 3-letter answers: WHY is [Philosopher's question]. [Backseat driver] is one type of NAG. SUE is a [Boy in a Johnny Cash song]. ME A is clued ["Peel ___ grape"]. You'd think a quote puzzle with 34 3-letter words would just be horribly arid, and it didn't feel that way at all.
John Lampkin's Chronicle of Higher Education crossword, "Failure to Launch," plays around with terms from astronomy that can be misunderstood by those not in the know. The would-be ASTRONOMER thought a RED DWARF might be Snow White's compadre, Bashful, and that MICHAEL JORDAN must be a shooting star. Given all the wrong answers on the short-answer test, the prof labeled the student a SPACE CADET. All right, that's cute. This puzzle seemed lighter on the erudition scale than most CHE puzzles (this is not a complaint, just an observation). The only clue that held me up was [It holds a yard] for MAST—the nautical terms just aren't at the forefront of my brain.
"Colin Gale," a.k.a. Mike Shenk, has crafted an impressive Wall Street Journal crossword. In "Make Me an Offer," there's a TAKEOVER BID in seven places in the grid—that is, the letters TAKE appear over the letters BID seven times (see circles in solution grid). I had no idea what was going on in this puzzle until I reached the explanatory clue, but I had noticed a lot of TAKEs floating around. I'm guessing it was quite difficult to find a workable way to place the lists of "words and phrases containing TAKE or BID" into the grid, with solid crossings. Try it yourself! Mind you, Mike made it a little easier on himself by not insisting on symmetrical locations for the theme pairs. But still—an impressive construction.
November 19, 2008
Thursday, 11/20
Sun 15 minutes or so...I had to print out the puzzle in order to finish it
NYT 5:54
LAT 4:37
CS 3:42
Pete Muller's New York Times crossword features a quote theme, beginning with [Start of a quote by economist Allan Meltzer]: CAPITALISM / WITHOUT FAILURE / IS LIKE RELIGION / WITHOUT SIN. Well, that seems a little parochial. This write-up details various religions' views of sin, but surely there are some religions out there in which sin isn't a key concept. Capitalism and failure? Oh, sure. Those do go together—especially these days. Why, there's BEAR / STEARNS, which collapsed a few months ago. And ENRON, which also imploded. Ray KROC [who founded McDonald's] set up a company that has not failed (yet). An [I.R.A. option] that tanked less than stocks would be a T-NOTE.
Quote themes usually fail to entertain me, however, and the challenge of filling a long swath of blank squares with heavier-than-usual reliance on crossings isn't my cup of tea. I cost myself 2 minutes on the clock in the upper right corner of this grid. For 19-Across, [Come ___], I could see nothing but INTO, as in "come into some money." I briefly considered UNTO, but that made no sense. With that I, I decided *HIALS must be PHIALS, even though those couldn't possibly be [Bars of a sort]. And what sort of [Fish that can detect ultrasound] would the PHAD be? No sort. It's SHAD crossing sandbar-type SHOALS and come ON TO, as in hitting on someone in a bar. My eye didn't want to split up ONTO into two words. So that's my tale of solving woe.
What else is in this puzzle? Let's see. Pete is a musician as well as a capitalist, but I don't think he plays saxophone (piano and vocals, according to his website)—[Sound of a sax] is WAIL and [Kind of sax] is ALTO. [One who believes humans descended from extraterrestrials] is a RAELIAN; Raelians sound kooky. [Chinese dynasty a thousand years ago] is LIAO; Wei and Han also seem to get some play in crosswords. Asia also brings us PAKISTAN ([Commonwealth member beginning in 1947]); baseball [Pitcher Hideki] IRABU of Japan; and KABUKI, or [Tokyo theater performance]; Japanese [Director Kurosawa], or AKIRA; and RANI, or [Eastern queen] from India. [Winning coach of the first two Super Bowls] is Vince LOMBARDI of Green Bay Packers fame. A [Device also called a rectifier] is a DIODE; anyone know that one without a few crossings in place? And how about [Tribe speaking Chiwere]—did you know that was OTOE, or did you let the crossings guide you to that popular crossword tribe?
People have been raving for days about the Sun puzzle by Patrick Blindauer and Frank Longo. "Three-Ring Circus" has two theme clues labeled [Ring #1] and [Ring #3], for the FIRE-EATER and LION TAMER in the circus. Where's ring #2? you ask. It's in the middle of this 15x16 grid, sandwiched invisibly between the two 15-letter entries, that's where. The answers that cross those 15's are all one letter longer than their spaces would suggest, and the extra letter really goes between the 15's (though I rebused the extras into the bottom 15 for lack of a better solution). The star of ring #2 is the TIGHTROPE WALKER, spanning the treacherous wire between EDITORIAL STANCE and EXERCISE REGIMEN. Isn't that fancy? The extra letters walk that tightrope in the grid. I think this grid could have been expanded to a gimmick-free 15x17 with the TIGHTROPE WALKER occupying the center row of the grid, but what's the fun in that?
Other cool stuff in this crossword: [He worked with Cuba in 1996] clues TOM Cruise, who co-starred with Cuba Gooding, Jr., and did not (to my knowledge) work with Fidel Castro's regime. Terrific clue there. The puzzle's got four X's, four K's, and a pair of J's. Longer fill includes PIGEONHOLES, JALAPENOS, and "DON'T THANK ME," all crossing the tricked-out 15's in the center. [Band with the 1981 #1 album "Paradise Theater"] is STYX. Omigod, concept album! Complete with a record jacket with left and right flaps that opened out to reveal an old-time theater. This is now my all-time favorite clue for STYX. [Talaria wearer] refers to those winged sandals that have fallen out of favor, worn by HERMES, a.k.a. Mercury. Why does Manolo Blahnik refuse to market beautiful talaria?
Updated:
I've gotten into a bad habit lately with Across Lite solving—I type things in and don't look to make sure they look right. And so in Dan Naddor's LA Times crossword, I had AARNO instead of AARON for [Baseball's Hammerin' Hank], and thus that corner was the last part I finished. Mind you, if AARNO were someone's real name, it's be getting plenty of play in crosswords. Naddor's theme is rhyming puns:
There's no shortage of good fill in this puzzle. There's a RED ROOF INN and TV AUDIENCE (["American Idol" judges, ultimately], bypassing Simon, Paula, and Randy). PRETZELS and SAM NUNN, the [Defense secretary after Cheney]. GO GET 'EM is a [Spirited exhortation], all right. I'm not crazy about TINY TOT as fill; this [Stroller passenger] answer was in an NYT puzzle recently too. Are ALOES really [Medicinal creams]? I like the SOLDERED clue: [Put the metal to the metal?]. But does the plural TNTS ([They cause blowups]) work?
Raymond Hamel's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Twin Ends," has a subtle and probably pretty flexible theme, words that begin and end with a shared set of three letters:
As a wee bonus, there's a TSETSE fly with twin ends and no middle. I like how the TWO-LITER [Soda bottle size] crosses JOLT Cola—only JOLT is clued as [Shake up]. A [Sheet of connective tissue] is FASCIA; I know all about my plantar fascia, alas.
November 18, 2008
Wednesday, 11/19
Sun 5:12
Tausig 5:08
Onion 4:13
NYT 3:50
LAT 3:36
CS 3:22
Here is Merl Reagle's postgame recap of his experience being on The Simpsons and crafting the Sunday NYT crossword that was in the show. Interestingly (and I learned this elsewhere), though the main puzzles used in the show were Merl's work and the credits reflected that, some of the crosswords seen on screen were by Tyler Hinman, Kevan Choset, and Bob Peoples.
Peter Collins' New York Times crossword has a rather small anagram theme. Each theme entry is an anagram of a collegiate sports team name (in the singular), with the college mentioned in the clue:
Those five answers take up just 33 squares. Is there another level to the theme that I'm missing? I can tell that LAS VEGAS anagrams to SALVAGES, but that's not a secret hidden college athlete. Why are these five teams represented? Are they the only Division I teams that lent themselves to solid anagrams? Perhaps there was no other 6-letter option that could have appeared opposite BARGED in the grid, and no 10-letter option to balance ENUMERATION. Okay, so I've established that this may have been a hard theme to find candidate entries for—but with the small theme-square count, I'm not sure why the fill has some oddball answers (unless, as I said, I've missed something completely). Here are some of the gnarly spots:
Alan Arbesfeld's Sun puzzle, "E-Trade," takes five phrases and moves the letter E from one word to another, with interesting results:
PAUL O'NEILL is not just the former Secretary of the Treasury in the Bush administration—he's also a baseball player, a [Yank who was a Red]. Versatile guy!* Opposite that answer, there's another full name: LEANN RIMES was the [Youngest person to win a Grammy]. I probably had more to say about this crossword, but I got distracted watching Scare Tactics so it's gotten late and I'm sleepy.
*Yes, I know it's two different people.
Updated:
Gail Grabowski's LA Times puzzle has four theme entries framing a description of each one's first word: CSI CLUE. Here is the evidence: [Gift-wrapping material] is TISSUE PAPER. [Easily provoked] is HAIR-TRIGGER. [Handy PC key] is PRINT SCREEN, with the CSI CLUE being fingerprints. FIBER OPTICS is a [Modern communications science]. It's a solid Wednesday puzzle—nothing stuck out in either the "wow" or "meh" departments. Nothing wrong with being solid. And I might've been more enthusiastic about the theme if not for the NYT (57-Down, [Empire St. paper since 1851]) crossword pulling my thoughts away from a make-believe crime show to a real-life tragedy.
Tom Schier's CrosSynergy puzzle, "First Aid Candidates," won my heart with its first theme entry. All four theme answers begin with minor injuries:
Pass the Neosporin and Band-Aids, and get a kiss from mommy or daddy to make it all better. In the fill, there's an unusual 9-letter word: TETRAGRAM is [A word of four letters]. It pertains to the tetragrammaton, but is also a generic word meaning "four-letter word." So next time you're talking about the F-bomb or the SH-word, be sure to refer to it as a tetragram.
Matt Gaffney's Onion A.V. Club crossword skews juvenile/crude, as sometimes happens in the Onion. The theme entries all end with slang words meaning "penis," or DICK (65-Across, [Word each theme entry ends with a synonym for]). Now, this puzzle's not as ambitious as Byron Walden's double-penis Onion theme from last year, in which each theme entry contained two of 'em (e.g., ANDY RODDICK), but apparently the fellas like to make penis-themed crosswords. Here are Matt's theme answers:
The strangest answer is SAWAUFO, or SAW A UFO, clued as [Spotted little creatures, maybe]. With the J in place, I confidently jotted in GIJOE for [Bald badass], and then I remembered that he's not a bald doll and changed it to Theo KOJAK. (Edited to add: Commenter Jacob points out that the theme clues all refer to a particular DICK, Dick Cheney. D'oh! I knew Matt Gaffney recently moved after years in another city, so I convinced myself the JUNK clue was autobiographical.)
Updated again:
Ben Tausig's Chicago Reader/Ink Well crossword, "Taking the Wrong Way," begins each theme entry with a synonym for "steal":
Least familiar answer in the puzzle: The [Colorful flower genus] XYRIS. Favorite pieces: [All-purpose comeback] clues YO MAMA. BURNING MAN is the [Annual desert festival whose name describes its closing ceremony]. NO SEX is [What Lysistrata promised, as long as the war continued], and it's the repeated punchline in a story my in-laws' friends were telling so it makes me giggle. Is HOTBOX one word or two? It's clued [Smoke pot in a tight space, slangily]. ADAMS is clued [John, Douglas, or Sam]—early president, Hitchhiker's Guide author, and brewer. [Word repeated twice before "Look who's forty!"] is LORDY.
November 17, 2008
Tuesday, 11/18
Sun 4:15
CS 3:49
Jonesin' 3:36
LAT 3:04
NYT 2:57
You know how blog comments generally don't let you post a photo? The Crossword Fiend forum allows users to upload attachments. Why, I posted a picture of me. (Just try to keep pictures to a width of about 300 pixels so the forum doesn't become double-wide.)
Take a trek on the Richard Chisholm trail to the New York Times crossword. He's got six theme entries, five of which consist of TWO HOUSES (59-Across):
Fill I liked: If you're [A pretty capable person], you're NO SLOUCH; ZEKE was my college nickname as well as [The Cowardly Lion's Kansas counterpart]; and BARTEND, or [Pour drinks]. ETD gets its most straightforward and specific clue ever: [When a plane is due to take off: Abbr.]. Did you know that the TAFTS were an [Ohio political dynasty]? I just know of President Taft, and not his kinfolk.
Gary Steinmehl's Sun crossword ditches a TER from each theme entry's root phrase, hence the title, "Terminus" (minus TER). Here are the five theme entries:
I wonder if Peter Gordon already had POT clued as [Grass] when this puzzle was destined for newspaper publication, or if he zinged things up a bit when he went rogue. Truthfully, I've noticed little change in the puzzles since the New York Sun folded. Speaking of grass, ASTROTURF is in here, too. I didn't play Risk much as a kid (...or adult), so I didn't know that [Indonesia is part of it in the game Risk] could clue AUSTRALIA. Let's take a look...sure enough. But hey! The Philippines has sunk beneath the ocean's surface in Risk. What's up with that?
Ooh, Matt Jones's Jonesin' puzzle has a fun theme for sports fans, a themeless-grade grid (just 70 words), and five zones with lotsa white space. The theme entries in "Court Case" combine two NBA teams into mildly plausible phrases:
In the fill, 1-Across was a complete mystery to me; [Horrorcore hip-hop group whose fans are called Juggalos, for short] is ICP. I got the [Chinese name of Taoist philosopher Lao-Tzu] through the crossings without ever seeing the clue, which is good because I hadn't seen LIER before. I did know that CRANIUM was the [Board game with categories "Data Head" and "Word Worm"], and yes, I like to opt for Word Worm. STINK TO [___ high heaven (really reek)] was a fine 7-letter FITB partial for me. ["At Last" singer James and namesakes] are ETTAS; did you know there's an upcoming movie about Chess Records called Cadillac Ranch, starring Beyoncé as Etta James? The film opens in early December.
Updated:
Ed Sessa's LA Times crossword takes the subterranean train:
Having a small theme like this accommodates 16 answers that are 7 or 8 letters long.
Randolph Ross's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Pop Quiz," has four phrases linked by their P.O.P. initials, all with OF in the middle:
Just yesterday, I learned that Maria Bartiromo has company in the category of "cable news channel female financial reporters deemed conventionally attractive": ERIN [Burnett of CNBC's "Squawk on the Street"]. There was a magazine article about the two of them in this category (oy). I had the AC in place for [Hit hard], so of course I went with THWACK; alas, the answer was IMPACT. [Real first name of Roy Rogers] is LEONARD, Leonard Slye. How could anyone give up an awesome name like Slye?? [Provide relief for a bugged boxer?] seems a little too jokey for a verb that is of questionable generic validity, DEFLEA.
November 16, 2008
Monday, 11/17
Sun 3:18
LAT 3:05
CS 3:04
NYT 2:53
Here's Patrick Merrell's informative pop-up graphic about last night's Simpsons crossword episode.
One cool thing about Paula Gamache is that she's got a knack for making easy Monday crosswords, but she also makes lovely themeless puzzles. Her latest New York Times crossword is one of the former. The theme is all about beseeching, pleading:
In the fill, 18 of the answers have 6 or more letters, so it's not all about 3- to 5-letter words that appear in crosswords again and again. The best parts of the fill include the following: A GASBAG is a [Big talker]; OODLES are [Lots and lots]; PADDING that isn't physical cushioning is an [Expense account no-no]; A LITTLE is [Not too much], and I like the indefinite article here because it feels very "in the language." POINT A, or [Place to begin to connect the dots], was a trickier spot—not an answer that pops up much. SALSA DIP tastes wrong; this [Tortilla chip topper] really wants to be just plain salsa, no "dip." (Hmm, maybe I want to mix up some salsa and cream cheese and make myself a nice salsa dip this evening?) ABAFT is one of those words that non-sailors may know only from crosswords; it means [Rearward, at sea], or towards the aft.
Scott Atkinson's Sun crossword, "A Puzzle About Nothing," has nothing at all to do with the show about nothing, Seinfeld. No, instead, each theme entry begins with a synonym for the puzzle's topic:
[Dick Nixon's nonsweating debate opponent] was JACK KENNEDY.
[Letter number] is a ZIP CODE.
One [Calisthenics exercise] is the SQUAT THRUST.
A [Drink before going to bed?] is a LOVE POTION.
[Tevye portrayer in "Fiddler on the Roof"] is ZERO MOSTEL.
In each case, the "nothing" word stands alone before a second word, so the theme's fairly tight. The fill is mighty Scrabbly for a Monday—the theme entries account for two Z's, a Q, X, and J, and two K's, and outside of those there's another Z and a pair of X's. The Down fill includes two juicy 9-letter answers—swimmer IAN THORPE and some HOT PLATES. Craziest fill: IZZATSO, for ["Really? Sez who?"]. TED gets a current-events clue, [Alaska senator Stevens];it's too bad his whole felony/maybe-or-maybe-not-voted-out thing now overshadows what he used to be most famous for—describing the internet as a "series of tubes" rather than just a truck you dump things on.
Updated:
I'm too short on time for more than a cursory glance at the day's other two puzzles.
Kurt Mengel and Jan-Michele Gianette's LA Times crossword is another version of a theme we saw elsewhere a week or two ago, with theme entries starting with HOW, NOW, BROWN, COW:
There are 10 7- and 8-letter answers in the fill—nice touch.
Martin Ashwood-Smith constructed today's CrosSynergy crossword, "Get a Grip." The three theme entries begin with words that more or less mean "grip," and that have ONE'S in the middle of the phrase:
There are eight longish fill answers, 7 to 9 letters apiece—also a nice touch here.
November 15, 2008
Sunday, 11/16
NYT 8:29
LAT 8:25
PI 7:39
BG 6:48
CS 5:49
All righty, folks, this is the New York Times crossword that will be on The Simpsons Sunday night, when Lisa goes to a crossword tournament; Merl Reagle and Will Shortz are celebrity guest voices, right up there with the likes of Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. There is Homer's [Exclamation from a blockhead], D'OH, at 35-Across. And BART is clued as the public transit system, [Driving alternative in S.F.]. (For an actual Simpsons-themed puzzle, do Merl's Philadelphia Inquirer crossword.) The hidden message in the puzzle may be a spoiler for a plot point in the show, though it's more or less revealed in the synopsis for the episode (click and drag to see the white text: DUMB DAD SORRY FOR HIS BET runs along the diagonal.
Because of the tie-in message, there were certain constraints on the construction—hence, more black squares, short entries, and clunky answers than are typical for a Sunday NYT. The theme entries are all puns on famous people's names, as hinted at by the title, "Sounds Like Somebody I Know":
It's impressive that the first and last pairs of theme entries are stacked together—Merl does like to show off by stacking theme entries.
If ["Rats!"] clues OH, HELL, then INA shouldn't also be clued [Hell ___ handbasket]. One hell per crossword, dammit! That is The Hell Rule of Crosswords.
Tough, tricky, twisty, unusual, or obscure things:
Updated:
Merl Reagle's non-tie-in crossword this weekend is "Simply Simpsons" in the Philadelphia Inquirer. It doesn't tie in with tonight's episode, no, but the seven theme entries contain the names of members of the Simpson/Bouvier clan. LISA, BART, and Grandpa ABE occupy the upper left and lower right corners and the very center of the grid, while their relatives are here:
It was fun playing hide-and-seek with the Simpsons. It's not all cartoon fun here, though. There are some less familiar things here too. LEHI is the [Site of a Samson slaughter] and not grape soda pop brewed at Lehigh University. MAN-ELF is clued [Will Ferrell played one in a Christmas film]—easy enough if you've seen Elf, perhaps difficult if you haven't. [Dodsworth's wife] is FRAN, and I have no idea who they are. Merl's from the Tampa Bay Rays' area, so he knows that [Carlos of baseball] is PENA, but I have no idea who the player is; my favorite Peña is actress Elizabeth. [Veteran character actor Vito] is SCOTTI. Who? [Donny ___] crosses the ampersanded answer, so its answer is "& MARIE." [Trailing ___ (type of shrub)] is ARBUTUS.
At first glance, Bob Klahn's themeless CrosSynergy "Sunday Challenge" had nowhere I could get a toehold. I read clue after clue and drew blank after blank. Eventually I found a couple 4-letter answers that were gettable, and that got things rolling. There were some answers that resonated with other ones—LANDS ON ([Reaches, in Monopoly]) and PASS GO ([One way to earn $200]) are both from Monopoly. And the northeast corner had tons of music—LA BOHEME was the [First opera in which Pavarotti appeared]. Singer [Linda Ronstadt or Lynda Carter], the actress, is an ARIZONAN. [King Oliver group] is a JAZZ BAND. BIZET is the ["Toreador Song" composer], and OZZY Osbourne is a [Black Sabbath name]. (Elsewhere, more music: a BASS voice is the [Person responsible for the bottom line].) STADIA are [Sports spots] and an ARENA is an [Engagement ring?].
Favorite clues:
Jack McInturff's syndicated Los Angeles Times Sunday crossword is called "Double-barreled," and those barrels are filled with water. Each of nine theme entries is a two-word or two-part term in which WATER (100-Down) can precede each word. Here are several of them"
Among the tougher clues were these:
Liz Gorski's Boston Globe Sunday crossword rerun in Across Lite, "Extra Credit," adds an extra CR, or credit, to nine phrases to transform them into something completely different. Add-a-letter (or two letters) themes can be rather arid, but in capable hands they're entertaining—and Liz Gorski is nothing if not a capable constructor. My favorite theme answers:
Favorite fill and clues: The BOSS MAN is a [Guy leading a gang]. NO-FAT MAYO is a [Low-cal spread]. I like the southwest corner, where theme entry CRU-HAUL sits atop PICASSO and "SAY WHEN." [Player's club?] is a TWO-IRON and [Play girl?] is an ACTRESS. It's time to update SHEA clues, isn't it? It's clued as a [Queens stadium]. It's being dismantled and the big sign now calls it a TADIUM.
November 14, 2008
Saturday, 11/15
Newsday 20:22
NYT 4:29
LAT 4:08
CS 3:20
(updated at 2:30 Saturday afternoon)
If I ran the world, I think I'd start a crossword tournament in which all of the puzzles were themeless. Or I'd persuade Will Shortz to run a side tournament during the ACPT, an all-themeless alternative event. I think it'd be a ton of fun.
Karen Tracey's 68-word themeless New York Times crossword was easier for me than the Thursday Sun and the Friday NYT and Sun. The toughest answer to puzzle out was ALBA LONGA, [Romulus and Remus's legendary birthplace]. I didn't know that FARO was the [Game dealt by Doc Holliday], but it's an old-timey-sounding card game so it was a plausible guess. I never encountered the plural for caduceus, but having worked in medical publishing the symbol was a familiar one—[Medical emblems] in the plural are CADUCEI.
Why am I almost always inordinately fond of Karen's crosswords? Because of fill like this:
Here are some other bits that might be problematic:
Updated:
Sigh. I bet today's Newsday "Saturday Stumper" by Doug Peterson isn't actually the year's toughest newspaper crossword. I bet it was just me. My family fractured my mojo by embarking on a homework spat just as I settled into the crossword, and then I hit a dead stop in the southeast corner. I was totally willing to Google my way out of the morass, but the clues weren't Googleable. (Full solution here.) It is fitting that IRRITATING and AGGRAVATED are in this puzzle, because I wasn't having any fun with it. (And usually I enjoy Doug's crosswords!) So, tell me: Was this a garden-variety tough Stumper for you, or a crazy-hard puzzle?
Here are some of the clues that gave me the most trouble outside of that Corner of Darkness:
And from the Corner of Darkness:
Barry Silk's LA Times crossword has a very low word count. Not freakishly low in the 50s, but still, just 62 words. It's a beautiful grid—four identical corner sections with 44 7-letter words, eight 6's, and 10 3's. Like most low-word-count grids, though, it has a lot of prefixes and word endings tacked on—a RETASTE is a [Postseason sampling?], as in sampling the food after adding seasoning, and RETRACE is [Walk over]. -ED words include UNTAMED ([Not under control], SPEARED ([Skewered]), PLEATED ([Like many a tuxedo shirt]), ERUPTED ([Blew]), and SEDATED ([Put under]). There's an -ER (STEERER, or [One driving]) and some NEEDERS ([Underprivileged ones]. And there are also a bunch of plurals.
Favorite clues: the vague [Pitch] for the noun INCLINE; [They can't be beaten] for NEMESES; [Dovekie] for AUK, just because dovekie is a cool-looking word; [Bond report?] for DOSSIER; and [Is routed by, say] for LOSES TO, because I was thinking of routing things by sending them somewhere. [Vigil site] is a rather sad clue for BEDSIDE, though—better to go with the easy [___ manner] or [Doctor's place] than to evoke hospice scenes.
Patrick Jordan (Ponca City, Oklahoma's sole crossword luminary) constructed today's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Heroic Beginnings." This year's most prominent superheroes come into play, with each theme entry starting with whatever word fills in the ___ Man blank.
I'm pretty sure there was another superhero theme along these lines in the last few months, but I forget the details. This puzzle's a pangram, meaning it includes all 26 letters in the grid. There are single instances of X, Q, Z, and J, and two or more K's, V's, and Y's.
Fill-in-the-blank partials: How long?
The specifications for many of the leading crossword venues say that fill-in-the-blank (FITB) partial entries—answers that consist of two or more words that can't stand alone—are acceptable fill, but only if they don't exceed 5 letters. Merl Reagle syndicates his own Sunday puzzles, so he's not subject to any crossword editor's policy on FITB partials. Here are some 6- and 7-letter FITB partials from the last couple months' worth of Merl's puzzles:
- ASK AND ["___ ye shall receive"]
- AND ABEL ["___ was a keeper of sheep"]
- ["That ain't the way ___ it"] I HEARD
- [On ___ (under tight control)] A LEASH
- ["Now I'm not ___"] SO SURE
- [1783's Treaty ___] OF PARIS
- A GHOST [___ of a chance]
- ["I'd like to buy ___"] A VOWEL
- No FITB partials at all; they shouldn't appear in crosswords.
- FITB partials are OK so long as they don't exceed 5 letters.
- Occasional 6- and 7-letter FITB partials are fine.
- Why stop there? There should be no size limit on FITBs partials.
November 13, 2008
Friday, 11/14
WSJ 7:45
NYT 5:33
Sun 4:30
LAT 4:23
CHE 4:03
CS 3:03
(updated at 10:40 Friday morning)
O happy day! Even though the Sun crossword has customarily provided just one themeless puzzle a week (alternating between Thursdays and Fridays), yesterday's "Themeless Thursday" is chased by a "Weekend Warrior." Tack onto that the usual two NYT themelesses (Friday and Saturday), the LA Times and Newsday Saturday themelesses, and the themeless CrosSynergy puzzle on Sunday, and you can see why I like the second half of the week best.
Friday's New York Times puzzle is by Brad Wilber. I'm feeling lackadaisical about blogging tonight, so here's a list of what I liked best:
And some knottier stuff:
Doug Peterson's Sun "Weekend Warrior" was easier for me than yesterday's "Themeless Thursday." Was that your experience, too, or was I channeling Doug? Here are the parts I liked best in this fun themeless:
Updated:
Donna Levin's LA Times crossword tricked me. When I completed the first theme entry—CALLING GAUL CARS, or [APB words in old France and environs]—I assumed the theme would feature intrusive hard G sounds landing where they don't belong, as in "Long Guyland." But it turns out that the game is puns involving former names for various countries:
My eye keeps misreading the BEARDED clue as [Like both of Jesus' faces, usually]. The clue is [Like both of Janus' faces, usually]. Jesus is popularly represented as having just the one bearded face. Here's a smattering of other clues:
Myles Callum's Wall Street Journal crossword, "CD Collection," gathers up a group of phrases with C.D. initials:
Highlights in the fill include EAT MY DUST, or ["Try and catch me!"]; TAR BEACH, or [Sunbather's slang for a tenement roof]; SLAP SHOTS for [Lightning strikes?], that being a hockey term and the Lightning being Tampa Bay's NHL team; [Golf's cousin] is another Volkswagen, the JETTA, and not a sport; CHIP CLIPS, those [Snack bag closers] are so very handy; and a CASH BAR is a [Feature of some receptions].
Thomas Schier's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Half a Loaf," starts the four theme entries with kinds of bread:
BEAR HUG is clued as a [Wrestler's maneuver]. Aw, wrestlers cuddle? That's sweet. CAYUGA is the [Longest of the Finger Lakes]. Curious about how the skinny lakes were formed? Read up on the geology. Speaking of geology, BASALT is the [Tectonic plate material].
Sharon Petersen's Chronicle of Higher Education crossword demands plenty of erudition and familiarity with opera. The "Opera Lovers" theme features three title pairs, all with a different language for the conjunction between the names. ROMEO ET JULIETTE are the French [Gounod opera lovers?]. DIDO AND AENEAS are the [Purcell opera lovers?]. And [Gluck opera lovers?] are ORFEO ED EURIDICE. All right, I cry uncle. In what language is "and" rendered as ed? Other high-end clues that gave me pause: EVE is a [Massenet oratorio]; [Island in the Moluccas] is AMBON, and the A crosses [Brazilian novelist Jorge] AMADO; [Zeno's followers] were the STOICS (OK, this one was a gimme, but not the others); ["To the end," to Salieri] is AL FINE; and ICE-NINE is clued as [Fictional polymorph is Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle"] (polymorph!).
November 12, 2008
Thursday, 11/13
LAT 5:23
Sun 5:20
NYT 5:06
CS 3:31
(updated at 9 a.m. Thursday)
While solving Allan Parrish's New York Times crossword, inside my head I exclaimed "Dude!" several times, aimed at both the constructor and Will Shortz. There's SPERM in its non-cetacean, fully spermatozoic sense, clued as [Kind of bank]. And then JOHN is [One caught in a police sting] in the act of hiring a prostitute. ["Hogan's Heroes" figure] is a sitcom NAZI. What the heck—if you're going to go there, why not change ON AN into one word, Onan, and reference "seed-spilling"? Break as many crossword-fill taboos as you can in a single puzzle, eh?
The three theme answers are clued [See circled letters], and there are three circles containing an X. The first theme entry is TIC-TAC-TOE WINNER...but those circled X's aren't in a row! You lose. XXX is a [Poison warning], but a bottle of moonshine that falls short of being classified as poison may also be labeled XXX. The final XXX is not hardcore porn, as you might have suspected based on the transgressive fill, but THIRTY IN OLD ROME.
There's a wealth of good fill in this crossword. From the Acrosses, I like MCLEAN, the [Virginia locale where the C.I.A. is headquartered], for its mashup of consonants, and SPLISH, a [Sound in a Bobby Darin song title] ("Splish Splash"). Most of the cool stuff's in the Downs: CINNAMON [Gum choice]; the UNDERDOG who's the [Victor of an upset]; the DEAR SIR that [may follow a name and address] (though really, is anyone still writing the gender-specific "Dear Sir" these days?); PAMPHLET, or [Flier], which I wanted to be ELEPHANT based on the PH and T but very few elephants fly; and the vowelless RHYTHM, or [Cadence]. I do like the wide-open corners filled with 6's, 7's, and 8's.
Tough clues: [Round person?] is someone who fights a bout measured in rounds, a BOXER. The last name of [Richard ___, director of "Help!" and "A Hard Day's Night"] is LESTER; this name wasn't remotely familiar to me. I was caught off guard by [P.M. known as the Iron Lady] being too short to be Margaret Thatcher; Golda MEIR was just one of a group of women leaders the term has been applied to. This next clue wasn't hard; it was just surprising to see EMOTES clued as [Conveys feelings] instead of [Overacts]. Yay! EMOTES gets to branch out.
Frederick Healy's "Themeless Thursday" Sun crossword has 66 words, and plenty of 'em are colorful:
Favorite clues: [Extraneous statistics] for NOISE; [Boomer born in 1961] for Boomer ESIASON, not a generic Baby Boomer; and [Sieben seventh] for EINS (eins is German for "one," and one is one seventh of SIEBEN, or "seven").
Updated:
Dan Naddor's LA Times crossword is not the usual Thursday fare. First off, it's got a themeless-style grid—just 68 answers, 26 of them 7 letters or longer. Next, it's got plenty of Friday- or Saturday-tough clues. And then there's the big dollar sign drawn by the black squares in the grid. There are four long starred theme answers and a defining answer, though, to moor this puzzle firmly in the weekday themed puzzle harbor. The theme entries all begin with words that can precede DOLLAR (46-Down):
Here are some clues that slowed me down:
Randall Hartman's CrosSynergy crossword, "Bundle of Joy," gets its title from the theme entries, which start with JO and end with Y, making each one a bundle with joy on the outside:
Favorite clues:
Including two 10-letter movie titles in the fill is a nice touch. We've got REAR WINDOW and MY FAIR LADY.
November 11, 2008
Wednesday, 11/12
Onion 5:12
Sun 4:40
Tausig 4:05
CS 3:55
LAT 3:44
NYT 3:25
(updated at 7:30 Wednesday evening)
It's a marker of my generation that when I reached the final unifying theme entry in Peter Collins' New York Times crossword, I was perplexed as to how THE BRAT PACK would fit into 10 squares. No, this puzzle isn't hiding '80s stars like Judd Nelson in it—rather, it's THE RAT PACK:
I'm not sure that IT'S A BET, or ["You're on!"], quite qualifies as a piece of crossword fill, but I might say the same about I'M NOT HERE, an evasive [Call to someone answering a phone, maybe], but I like the vibe it evokes. What else is here? Anyone who watched Rikki-Tikki-Tavi in the '70s knows that the [Enemy of a mongoose] is a COBRA. [Patriots' Day time] is APRIL; is this the holiday that the Boston Marathon's tied to? [Mule team?] is the ARMY because the Army team's mascot is a mule (I think). [Something the U.S. government keeps an eye on] is the GREAT SEAL—the reverse side of the Great Seal is where you'll find the unfinished pyramid with the eye on top. [Miraculous Medal figure] is MARY; this medal does not have an eyeball pyramid on its reverse. [Lead-in to pipe or pit] is CESS, and this may violate some people's breakfast tests. [Federal Reserve chief Bernanke] clues BEN.
The theme in Jonathan Gersch's Sun puzzle, "Numerical Rhymes," managed to elude me because I had cryptic crosswords on the brain. I misinterpreted [1988 Joe Keenan novel (2,7)] as dictating an answer consisting of a 2-letter and a 7-letter word, which, duh, wouldn't work for a 10-letter entry. Those numbers are to be pronounced, and the answer words rhyme with the number names: two-seven, BLUE HEAVEN. Here are the other theme entries, all phrases that rhyme with a pair of numbers:
The [Fed head] pops up in the fill here, too, only with his last name, BERNANKE. The Peter Gordon fondness for unusual clues gives us [Aulos relative] for OBOE. Aulos turns out to be an ancient Greek instrument that figures into mythology; read up on it at that Wikipedia link. The fill in this puzzle isn't particularly Scrabbly or fancy, but it's ridiculously smooth and junk-free.
Updated:
Scott Atkinson's LA Times crossword reimagines assorted spoken phrases as having specific applications in football:
OBAMA is in the grid at 1-Across, clued as ["The Audacity of Hope" author]. I would've gone with Dreams From My Father here, as HOPE appears in the grid with a non-Obama clue, [Clinton's birthplace]. Other geography clues include [Fertile Crescent waterway] for the TIGRIS River; [City on the Ruhr] for ESSEN; [Bluesy Memphis Street] for BEALE; [Florida's ___ Beach] is VERO; [Lebanon's ___ Valley] is BEKAA; and [Grenoble's river] is the YSERE. The [Epitome of hardness] is NAILS—hey, wait a minute, that's not in the Mohs scale! SINATRA gets more crossword attention today, being clued as [Rat Pack leader]. STA takes a break from abbreviating train stations and serves as Spiro T. Agnew's initials; he was a [VP from Md.].
Paula Gamache's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Diversion," creates a "di" version of several phrases by adding a DI to the beginning of one word:
Favorite fill: NOOGIE, or [Knuckle rub]. BEALE Street is in this puzzle too, clued as [W.C. Handy's "___ Street Blues"], and the [Rocky peak] called a TOR was also in the LA Times crossword.
I won't get a chance to do the Onion and Tausig puzzles until later today.
Updated Wednesday evening:
Ben Tausig's Chicago Reader/Ink Well crossword, "Soundproof Toilet Humor," actually has nothing to do with potty humor. Rather, the theme entries are based on phrases that include words with a silent P. "Silent P" sounds like "silent pee," which would result from a soundproof toilet. Each silent-P word is replaced by a homophone that lacks the P:
XYZ is clued ["Your fly is open"]. Say what? I think maybe girls don't learn this in grade school the way boys do. Here's a Wikipedia article all about ways to tell someone their fly is open. Interesting morsels in the fill and cluing:
Matt Jones's Onion A.V. Club crossword invites solvers to inaugurate our 44th president into the theme answers—not by inserting OBAMA into them but by adding XLIV (66-Across), which is 44 in Roman numerals.
Lest you think this puzzle is biased in its focus on 44, there's also IRAN clued with the McCain quote ["Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb ___"]. Two entries I don't think I've seen in crosswords before (but have seen in everyday life) are RATED T, or [Suited for high schoolers, on video game packaging], and TAMPAX, a [Stayfree competitor]. Two completely unfamiliar answers intersected in the grid: [Noted Scottish DJ duo, or their home club] is OPTIMO, and IPEX is a [Victoria's Secret wireless bra brand]. (Ladies, don't buy your bras at Victoria's Secret. You can do better somewhere like Nordstrom.)
November 10, 2008
Tuesday, 11/11
LAT 3:12
Sun 3:02
NYT 2:53
CS 2:52
(updated at 9:15 Tuesday morning)
Nancy Salomon and Larry Shearer teamed up to make a New York Times crossword that goes off in a decidedly non-Tuesdayish direction—two directions, actually. In addition to the 15-letter theme entry at 7-Down, HEADING DUE SOUTH or [Going straight to Antarctica, say], there are two diagonal 15's spanning the grid. Heading southeast from the 1 square, we have SLIP-SLIDING AWAY to remind me of this Paul Simon song. Traveling southwest from the 12 square is RUNNING DOWNHILL. The fill consists of ordinary Tuesday-grade answers, which was probably hard to achieve given the extra "checking" of some answers. Both YOU I (completing [Fats Domino's "It's ___ Love"]) and IGGY ([Pop's ___ Pop]) cross four Down answers, one of which is a theme answer, as well as intersecting both of the diagonal theme answers. That middle section probably didn't have too many alternative fills, eh? The constructing duo even managed to work two 9-letter answers, the WINDY CITY and a HONEYMOON, into the grid.
Jack McInturff's Sun crossword, "Alter Natives," is in the running for an Oryx award for Best Repurposing of Crosswordese. (Remember the year-end American Crossword Critics Association awards Rex and I compiled last year? Professional namer (and constructor) Andrea Michaels suggested calling them the Oryx awards, combining the Orange and Rex alter egos.) The "alter native" in question is OTOE, an [Oklahoma Indian (and a three-word description of this puzzle's theme)]—in other words, change an O TO E in each theme entry:
Updated:
For today's LA Times crossword, editor Rich Norris, writing as "Lila Cherry," dug up four 14- or 15-letter phrases that contain the letters in VETERAN in order, spaced out by the other letters in the phrase. I've circled the those squares in my answer grid. Now, how on earth did Rich devise this list of theme entries? With the aid of a computer program, or just in his head?
It's Veterans Day today, so this VETERANS ([This puzzle's honorees, one of which is spread out in each of the four longest answers]) puzzle is a timely tribute—and that unifying theme word crosses two of the theme entries. Highlights in the fill: HOME BREW is [Personal suds]; VEEJAY and DWEEBS reside near each other in the grid; MR. ROARKE was [Tattoo's boss on "Fantasy Island"]; OLEG Cassini and Calvin KLEIN are both fashion designers. I was confused as to why U2 lead singer BONO was clued [His epitaph reads "And the beat goes on"], so I Googled that. Ah! The late Sonny BONO, not the U2 guy. Overall, the fill's quite Scrabbly, with V's that aren't in the theme entries, J's, K's, and X's.
Sarah Keller's CrosSynergy puzzle is also a "Veterans Day Tribute." The theme answers are four famous men who served in the four branches of the service:
The PENTAGON, or [United States Department of Defense headquarters], is a bonus entry related to the theme.
November 09, 2008
Monday, 11/10
Jonesin' 4:35
CS 3:56
Sun 3:13
LAT 2:40
NYT 2:30
(updated at 9:45 Monday morning)
Gail Grabowski constructs quite a few themed crosswords for Newsday, so she's got a knack for making easy crosswords. (This is, the experts say, difficult to pull off.) Her New York Times puzzle presents a TACO TOPPING bar, with CHEESECLOTH ([Open-textured cotton fabric]), ONION DOME (a [Russian church feature]), and SALSA CLUB ([Jazzy Latin dance site]) available. Highlights in this puzzle: SWING SET is a [Backyard apparatus for kids]. YES, SIR is a [Polite affirmation]. This positive puzzle also has SI, SI, or [Senor's "Positively!"]. The verb WOLFS is clued [Scarfs (down)]. And a SNEEZE is an [Allergic reaction].
Sometimes on a Monday, I like to point out all the answers in the fill that beginning solvers need to pay heed to, the sorts of words that appear far more often in crosswords than in life. Guess what? There's very little of that in this puzzle, and that's an impressive feat. We have NIA, which is clued as [Actress Peeples] but can also be actress Long or Vardalos, too. There's an ANODE, or [Battery terminal]. [Completely, after "from"] is the three-word A TO Z, which my cousin complained about the other day—she'd like those multi-word answers to be signaled in the clue. An [F.B.I. agent] is a G-MAN, or government man. And that's pretty much it for anything that can be considered "crosswordese" at all.
Jeremy Horwitz's Sun crossword, "Season Tickets," buys movie tickets to four "season" movies:
This time around, SNEEZE is clued as ["Gesundheit" elicitor]. [Basic ingredient?] refers to the cigarette brand Basic, so the answer is TOBACCO. The excellent entry HARD-NOSED is clued [Stubborn]. I forgot what the [TV network formerly known as Pax] is called now—it's ION.
Updated:
Pancho Harrison's LA Times crossword contains five Across theme entries that make the cut:
One of the 10-letter Down answers sort of looked like a theme entry—GRINDSTONE, or [Sharpening wheel]—but it's paired with the obviously non-thematic EASY STREET, and grinding is a different action than the more abrupt verbs featured in the theme answers.
There are a couple answers that seem to be used more in crosswords than in conversation. AGUE, a [Flulike symptom], means fever and shivering, and it's a word I learned from crosswords. [Former fast jet, for short] clues SST, or supersonic transport. When the Concordes stopped their transatlantic flights, all the SST clues had to move into the past tense. Didn't we mostly refer to the plane as the Concorde rather than as an SST?
In Bruce Venzke and Stella Daily's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Extra Measures," the theme is a [Quip about entitled people]. I like that the clue sets up a little context for the quip rather than just being a blank [Start of quip] non-hint. The theme entries spell out GIVE 'EM AN INCH / AND ALL OF A / SUDDEN / THEY THINK / THEY'RE RULERS. That 6-letter answer in the middle is made possible by the grid being widened to 15x16—with an odd number of letters across, a centered answer would have to contain an odd number of letters. I giggled to see STELLA clued as [Stanley Kowalski's cry], because I know Ms. Daily is no fan of hearing that famed cry directed at her. There are 14 fill answers that are 7 to 9 letters long; I like the LITIGANT/ATTORNEY crossing, a SWAN DIVE ([Elegant way to enter a pool]), DR. SEUSS, COUGH DROP, and EGG ROLL.
Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword, "My Heart Belongs to You," has five heart-related theme entries, six 8-letter answers in the fill, and two corners with wide-open white space. The theme entries place their cardiac words in various places, and they're all about music:
Assorted clues and answers: [Capital city near the Pacific] is LIMA, PERU. [Groups with fringe benefits?] are CULTS. [Meat cooked in its own fat, to a chef] is CONFIT; I didn't know that's what the word meant. I never heard of ULTIMA [___ Online (long-running MMORPG)] since I'm not a gamer. [Oscar the Grouch's original color] was ORANGE? I did not know that. [Reznor and Lott, for two] clues TRENTS; I like the dissonance between the two. [Hip name for baby boys] is KADEN; wow, with that sort of clue, the universe of "acceptable crossword answers" expands vastly. I'd complain, but I like Matt's ambitious corners of white space. [Some VCR models] clues SANYOS; I just read that Panasonic and Sanyo are merging, and I really hope they create a portmanteau name like Panasanyo, Sanyosonic, or Panyo.
November 08, 2008
Sunday, 11/9
NYT 9:12
PI 8:18
BG 7:48
LAT 6:58
CS 4:12
(Updated at 1:15 Sunday afternoon)
Set your TiVo, DVR, VCR, or calendar for next Sunday, Nov. 16, for The Simpsons, at 8 p.m. (7 Central). This episode marks the cartoon-character debut of Will Shortz and Merl Reagle, and the storyline involves Lisa competing in a crossword tournament. Be sure to set your machine to record for more than a half hour—the football game that precedes The Simpsons might run long.
Paula Gamache's New York Times crossword, "Sounds Like It's Cold in Here," makes me want to say "bra humbug," except that sounds negative and I have only positive feelings towards Paula's puzzle. The theme entries take various words that start with B and turns them into BR words, drastically altering the sense of each phrase. Alas, it took me a while to cotton on to how the theme worked.
There's a duplication between the fill and a theme entry, with an EYE that's the [Symbol on the back of a dollar bill] as well as the middle of the 21-letter answer. I did like the crossing between the English EYE and French OEIL, though, so I forgive the duplication. My favorite clue is [Lice and mice, e.g.] for PLURALS. I also like [Butt abutters] for SEATS; when we sit down, our butts abut the seats. TPS doesn't look like much in the grid, but the clue is [Festoons with Charmin, informally].
Mystery answers: I'm not familiar with cribbage, so PEG OUT was a mystery for [Score the winning point in cribbage]. SHENZI is ["The Lion King" character voiced by Whoopi Goldberg]; I believe she's a hyena, but I had no idea what the character was named. THRACE is the [Homeland of Orpheus]—another answer pieced together thanks to the crossings. NICAEA was the [Site of two ecumenical councils]; this is where we got the Nicene creed. LANIER completes [Georgia's Lake ___, behind the Buford Dam].
Other stuff: The [18th-century Venetian fresco painter] TIEPOLO has probably seen his name in a few cryptic crosswords (tie + polo). It took me a while to extract S'POSE from the clue, [What if, informally]. Let me know if you learned anywhere other than crosswords that [Fancy shooting marbles] are called TAWS; for me, it's strictly cruciverbal knowledge. The three-word BY THE BY is a great answer; the clue is [Incidentally]. [Hero of New Orleans] is the POORBOY sandwich; make mine catfish. [Play with machines] means a play with machines, robots in particular—Karel Capek's R.U.R. [Periods between Winter and Summer Olympics] are BIENNIA. A [Stand for things] is an ETAGERE. The Volkswagen BEETLE is the [Automotive comeback of 1998].
Merl Reagle's Philadelphia Inquirer crossword, "Government Issue," embodies the separation of church and state by making state names avoid touching the word CHURCH. Each CHURCH in the grid has a blank square in it, which is also a blank square interrupting seven states. (To get the Across Lite happy pencil, enter a B for "blank" in each blank square.) Here are the theme entries:
Interesting visual representation of a concept, isn't it? There are some unfamiliar words in this grid. EPHAH is a [Dry measure in the Bible], and its A crosses a not-so-specifically clued abbreviation—[Flight watcher: abbr.] is ATC, short for air traffic controller. DARNEL is a [Weedy rye grass]. For BATU, Merl falls back on his practice of including an anagram in the clue for a particularly obscure answer: [Genghis Khan's grandson (anagram of TUBA)]. The word ICHOR, or [Blood of the gods], is included in the word petrichor, the word for that aroma you smell when it starts raining after a dry spell.
Updated Saturday evening:
Henry Hook's Boston Globe crossword in Across Lite, "To the Letter," reworks nine phrases that begin with stand-alone letters by converting those letters into sound-alike words and writing clues to define the resulting phrases. The middle of the grid contains a staggered stack of three shorter theme entries.
Trouble spots: The Latin word for [Keel] is CARINA. ["Giants in the Earth" author Ole]'s last name is ROLVAAG. BLARNEYER, or [Smooth-talking type], crosses both of those answers, and it refused to become obvious until I had nearly all the letters. And KIMPO, the [Seoul airport], was a skosh peskier than I'd like, with the K crossing a small [Arizona city], KINGMAN. (I love Wikipedia for its serendipitous connections—Kingman is where cowboy sidekick Andy Devine, known to me only via crosswords, grew up.)
Updated Sunday morning:
The syndicated Los Angeles Times Sunday crossword by Pancho Harrison gives an example of the theme in its title, "Plastered Cast." Each theme entry takes a familiar phrase, tacks an -ED or -D onto the first word, and winds up with that first word being a synonym for "drunk" or "plastered":
It's a pretty smooth Sunday puzzle, not too difficult.
Rich Norris's themeless CrosSynergy "Sunday Challenge" is a couple notches easier than yesterday's themeless crosswords. Excellent fill abounds in the fill:
November 07, 2008
Saturday, 11/8
Newsday 5:42
NYT 5:33
LAT 5:01
CS 3:33
(updated at 9:10 a.m. Saturday)
If you ask me, Byron Walden's Saturday New York Times crossword didn't fight much harder than a Friday puzzle, but there were still plenty of gnarly bits to stumble on.
These cool answers weren't so obvious:
Some people populated the grid:
Three adjective + noun combos raised an eyebrow:
This being a Saturday puzzle, we have to expect some not-so-familiar pieces:
Clues to chew on:
Updated:
Okay, maybe I retract the part where I likened Byron's Saturday puzzle to a Friday puzzle. The people have spoken, and they say it's eminently Saturday-worthy.
Brad Wilber's themeless LA Times crossword sparkles with its COSMO QUIZ at 59-Across, clued with ["What Kind of Sexy Are You?" is one], and the bottom half of the puzzle is fairly Scrabbly fare. I'm also fond of BAOBABS, [Trees seen on safari], especially at the right side of the grid where those letters are the ends of seven other answers. COSMO QUIZ is stacked atop two full names:
There are other people whose names weren't gimmes, either. [Soprano Mitchell] is LEONA. The [Portuguese prime minister, 1932-68] is SALAZAR. '80s marathoner Alberto Salazar is more familiar to me. OFFENBACH is the ["Les Contes d'Hoffman" composer].
Tough clues and answers, interesting clues and answers—we've got 'em all here:
Randolph Ross's CrosSynergy crossword feels a smidgen untimely, appearing after the baseball postseason has ended and we've moved on to other sports. Of course, baseball themes appear year-round in this country. In "The Umpire Got It Wrong," three phrases are changed by swapping out a word that's an ump's call for another apt ump's call.
Excellent theme—it plays on the popular perception that umpires make plenty of bad calls, and the three theme entries all involve familiar dichotomies.
The Newsday "Saturday Stumper" by Dan Stark wasn't too intransigent. (PDF solution here.) My favorite clue taught me some etymology: [Word from the Latin for "bite again"] is REMORSE. A morsel, then, is a small bite of something, and mordant wit is bitingly sarcastic. Premorse doesn't mean "to feel remorse in advance of doing something you know is wrong," but it should. [Italy's toe] is CALABRIA, which doesn't have any major tourist cities. Maya ANGELOU is the [Lincoln Medal recipient of 2008]. What's the Lincoln Medal? It's an award given by Ford's Theatre and it doesn't seem to have a very high profile as awards go. [Bismarck predecessor] pretends it's looking for another leader's name, but it's just the VON in "von Bismarck."
November 06, 2008
Friday, 11/7
NYT 5:51
Sun 5:14
LAT 4:23
CS 4:23
CHE 4:22
WSJ 6:23
(updated at 3:50 p.m. Friday)
Kevin Der's 70-word New York Times crossword bears the hallmarks of his shtick. Yes, I know he's only had a few puzzles published, but they tend to have some fill that says "person who's too young to remember a time before the ubiquity of tech gadgets." He's got INSTANT MESSAGES ([E-mail alternatives]) crossing KARAOKE MACHINES ([Self-contained music equipment]). The icky word ETAIL is [What PayPal facilitates]; don't get me started on PayPal, which is holding my personal information hostage in an unpleasantly bossy way.
I just have a minute to convey a few highlights before I tuck my son in and probably fall fast asleep myself:
I don't care for BRAVE MAN, or [Medal of Honor recipient, say]. If that passes muster as a crossword entry, then so should WEAK MAN, BRASH WOMAN, or STALWART INDIVIDUAL. It's basically just adjective + noun.
contains one.
Doug Peterson's "Weekend Warrior" Sun crossword has clashing 15-letter entries that collide in the middle. SUPER BOWL SUNDAY is one thing, but Celine Dion's "MY HEART WILL GO ON" is even more bombastic. I like how the song looks in a crossword grid, with the word spaces removed: "My Heart Will Goon." "My Hear Twill Goon." Goons make anything more interesting. Shiny things:
PAYNE is clued as ["Major ___" (1995 Damon Wayans film)]. A more current clue would be ["Max ___" (2008 Mark Wahlberg film)]. I call a moratorium on any more "___ Payne" movies, at least until such time as the Trip Payne biopic begins production.
Patrick Berry's Chronicle of Higher Education crossword, "Switching Parties," goes seasonal with a political gimmick. In each of six theme entries, a D and an R switch places to change a phrase:
Updated:
Dan Naddor's LA Times crossword reworks five phrases by changing a P sound to a B sound and adjusting the spelling as needed:
I was misinterpreting [NBA one-pointers] as two-point field goals rather than free throws, or FGS intead of FTS. That made [High-___: dignified] look like it might be GONAD. Whoops. It's TONED. The longest non-theme answers are BOX SCORES, or [Sports summaries], and DISSOLUTE, or [Rakish]. We should use dissolute more often. [Prefix for a cab collector] turned out to be OENO, and the cabs being collected are the red wines called cabernets; tough clue. I had no idea that ECOL. (ecology) is a [Sci. founded by Danish botanist Eugen Warming]. Wait, is he the guy global warming is named after? Another tough clue was [Event at which multiple repeats are common]—a spelling BEE. [Where kwanzas are spent: Abbr.] is ANG., or Angola. The [Piscine symbol of overcrowdedness] is a SARDINE. [There are two in Beethoven's Fifth] is an awfully numeric clue for OBOISTS.
Today's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Zone Blitz," has an odd sort of theme. Bob Klahn fills five rows of the grid with a dozen kinds of zones. The two 15-letter theme entries have three terms that modify zone squashed together—TOWAWAY, WAR, NO-FLY and CANAL, END, COMFORT. Two 12-letter enries each contain two zones—STRIKE, DANGER and SCHOOL, SAFETY. And two 7-letter zones in the middle are single zone types—LOADING and NEUTRAL. Other clues: [Deco designer de Tirtoff] provides the real last name of ERTE. [The cat in "Peter and the Wolf"] is portrayed by a CLARINET. ["Have I got moos for you!" utterer] is a COW. Is this a famous cow line, or just something Klahn imagines a cow would say? [WWII's Uncle Joe] is STALIN; I daresay I didn't know Stalin was called Uncle Joe. That would be one scary-ass uncle. [Lock, stock, and barrel?] make up a RIFLE. [Enoch, Eve, or Elizabeth] are famous real or fictional people surnamed ARDEN. And one [Color on the Irish flag] is, of course, ORANGE.
The Wall Street Journal crossword isn't posted in Across Lite yet. I hope to get to it later today when it's up, but my son's off school from now 'til next Thursday, so I'll be getting pulled away from blogging.
Updated Friday afternoon:
Again? Another easier-than-usual Wall Street Journal crossword that tumbled faster than most past WSJ or NYT Sunday-sized puzzles. I'm always pleased if I can break the 8:00 mark in a 21x21 crossword, but dipping below 7:00 cries "easy." In Randolph Ross's "What's My Line?" crossword, the theme entries are phrases that end with words that can mean "career" or "job":
Did you realize that the plural of arboretum is ARBORETA? These [Sylvan showplaces] can also be pluralized with a simple -S. Favorite entries: FLAG DAY, which is [June 14] and my cousin Mike's birthday; BOWL GAME, one of many events for [January sports viewing]; UNCLE SAM, the [Finger-pointing character]; and LINE ONE, an [Office phone button] as in "call on line one."
November 05, 2008
Thursday, 11/6
NYT 9:something, maybe
Sun 5:40
LAT 3:26
CS 3:08
(updated at 9:50 a.m. Thursday)
Hoo-wee, am I sleepy! And it's not even time for the NYT crossword yet. Could be the wine over dinner, could be the latish night watching election returns last night, could be a nascent case of narcolepsy. Time will tell.
The Sun crossword by Patrick Blindauer is called "OO7," with two letter O's rather than two zeroes. Each theme entry is a phrase with an O in which that O gets doubled to change the sense—and there are seven of these answers.
I've been dozing off while writing about the Sun, and starting to type things from my dreaming brain. So I'd better sign off on the Sun now, and think about caffeine.
Well, it's about 45 minutes later, and I didn't manage to wake myself up. Man! It is challenging to work through a New York Times puzzle with rebus action when your eyes insist on closing. Somewhere in Jeremy Newton's puzzle, either I have an error or I didn't hit on the right character to fill a rebus square and make the applet happy. So I give up. I'm too tired.
The gimmick is rebus squares containing numbers and words that represent the standard playing cards, from 2 through 10 and then JACK, QUEEN, KING, and ACE. Alas, in the NYT applet, the JACK square isn't circled. Here are the theme entries:
I'm heading to bed now. If you spot my error in the grid, please leave it in comments, Thank you, and good night.
Updated:
Joy Frank's LA Times crossword negates the theme entries by appending an UN to the beginnings of actual terms:
Cute theme. My favorite clue here is [You might enter one for money]. A raffle? A lottery? A strip club? A bank vault? Nope—a PIN, as in the personal identification number you key in at the ATM. Great clue!
Ray Hamel's CrosSynergy puzzle, "That's the Ticket," ends five theme entries with words that can precede ticket:
This is LATOYA Jackson's biggest day ever in crosswords. She's a theme entry in the NYT and 10-Down in this puzzle? I hope she knows people in cities where these puzzles are published, because what else has her career brought her lately? Elsewhere in the fill, a REEFER is a [Coat similar to a pea jacket] and not a marijuana joint. It could've been clued [1936 exploitation film "___ Madness"], too.
November 04, 2008
Wednesday, 11/5
Sun 5:43
Tausig 5:30
Onion 4:08
NYT 3:30
CS 2:54
LAT 2:47
(updated at noon Wednesday)
All righty, the election returns are starting to come in, so tonight's crossword blogging will be spotty and stray from the usual order of things.
First up, Tony Orbach's Sun puzzle, "Being There." It's not a tribute to the Peter Sellers movie. Rather, each of three theme entries takes on a conjugated form of the verb "to be":
Much to admire in the fill—HEDONISM, GIULIANI STANK, V-SIXES, two good U words (URBAN and UPTOWN). Lots of clues that pushed me around—for example, [There's only one in Maine] for SYLLABLE. And [Bukhara had one until 1920] for crossword regular EMIR. Not to mention Barbara EDEN, the [Actress famously known for hitting the bottle?].
Deb Amlen's Onion A.V. Club crossword provides a reminder that no matter how the election winds up, one result is indisputable: NO W. 1-Across is clued [Immediately; today; November 5th, 2008], which is essentially now and the day that George W. Bush's successor is chosen, ushering in a no-W era. The four theme entries have dropped a W; for example, mustache wax becomes MUSTACHE AX, or [Mountain man's shaver?]. Least familiar answer in the grid: ROSTI, or [Potato pancake from Bern]. I'm not up on Swiss cuisine aside from tasty, tasty chocolate. My favorite part of solving this puzzle was the "aha" moment that hit me when I realized that now doubled as the explanatory no W.
10:30 p.m. entry:
Doug Peterson, like Tony and Deb, is one of those constructors whose work is consistently good, consistently entertaining. His New York Times crossword has a theme that doesn't involve much guessing, as the first three theme entries are clued factually:
Those phrases all begin with LON, LO, or L and end with G, NG, or ONG, divided by other letters: LONG DIVISION ties them together. In the fill, there are plenty of Scrabbly answers I like: ZOWIE, BIJOU, KAZOO, VJ DAY, VIRAGOS, and THE VIEW. Good job, Doug. Keep 'em coming. (Paragraph edited Wednesday morning after I read at Rex's that the LONG DIVISIONs were split three different ways, not just two. I may have been a little inattentive last night. Oh, plus, my solving time should've been a little better, but my husband was exclaiming over the monstrous appearance of Tony Curtis on a TV commercial, and I had to look away from the puzzle for a bit. Tony Curtis apparently has a scary plastic surgeon.)
It's just about time for my senator to greet his supporters in my excited city and acknowledge that he is our new president. Whew! I should be in Grant Park right now!
Updated Wednesday morning:
Not to skew all political here, but I'm so disappointed that California, Florida, and Arizona appear to have supported bans on same-sex marriage and that Arkansans voted against allowing gays and lesbians to adopt or be foster parents. LGBT crossword fans, we'll try to do better next time.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled crosswords. Patrick Jordan's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Turning Points," is easier than the other crosswords on tap today, even though the theme entries all did their best to lie low until their crossings flushed them out. All four theme entries are clued [Item with a crank]: There's an ANTIQUE PHONE, HURDY GURDY, MODEL T FORD, and a JACK-IN-THE-BOX. Non-thematic highlights: CORNDOGS, DRATTED, GO DUTCH, [Comic strip populated by birds] for SHOE, and ["End of story!"] cluing PERIOD. SHOE and PERIOD could have been terribly flat with plainer clues, but these clues liven them up. Oh, and look who's in the bottom corner of the puzzle—OBAMA, [Surname on a 2008 ballot]. DOLE is clued as [Surname on a 1996 ballot], but it was also a name on the 2008 ballot in North Carolina (Elizabeth D. lost her Senate seat yesterday.)
Well, lookie here—Jack McInturff's LA Times puzzle is a notch easier than the CrosSynergy. STICK WITH IT is the linchpin of this theme. Add a STICK before the first words of the other theme entries, and you get valid phrases or words:
I didn't know [Tolkien's Cirdan, for one] was an ELF, nor that OAKMONT is a [Country club that has hosted eight U.S. Opens]. I did know that CASSIAS are the [Trees from whose bark cinnamon is made], but I needed a couple letters to remind me.
Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword, "So It Is Written," knocks out the prepositions in some titles, using the placement of the other words to represent the preposition's meaning:
So we get words appearing in, after, and before, but no vertical over or under titles. Highlights in the fill include all sorts of standard Tausig fill—SNAZZY, Spike JONZE, QUESTS, SKYY, and SIN TAX providing Scrabbly goodness; au courant trade names like LIVEJOURNAL, GAS-X, and the Sharp AQUOS; MTV-era PUNK'D; slang like KREW, or [Hip-hop posse]; and the [Best-selling diet tract] SKINNY BITCH with a 5-letter 4-letter word in it. Among the tougher clues for me: [Rolls for dinner, perhaps] for SUSHI, and [Underground rapper ___ Rock] for AESOP. Aesop!
November 03, 2008
Tuesday, 11/4
Sun untimed (whoops)—If you haven't subscribed to the Sun puzzle yet, head to Cruciverb.com to subscribe because otherwise you're going to miss out on the Tuesday puzzle, and I daresay it's one of my favorite puzzles of 2008. So what are you waiting for?
Jonesin' 3:43
LAT 3:35
CS 3:16
NYT 3:05
(updated at 9 a.m. Tuesday)
What I said up there about ponying up the $12.50 for the Sun crossword—I'm serious. Do it. The puzzles are always good, and occasionally transcendent.
The Election Day New York Times crossword was constructed by an all-star duo of Peter Collins and Joe Krozel. The three longest answers have a timely theme to them:
Peter, Joe, and editor Will Shortz have worked a bunch of political/presidential bits into the fill throughout this puzzle, too. There's ACROSS [the aisle (bipartisanly)]. William Howard Taft was FAT, the heaviest U.S. president. ABES are President Lincoln et al. Teri POLO and Rob LOWE both acted on The West Wing, a White House–set TV drama. The VICTOR is the [Inaugural ball holder]. VACATES means [Leaves early, as an office]. AGE is clued with [35 is the minimum one to be U.S. president]. ODDEST, or [Most likely to raise eyebrows], refers to current candidate...never mind. TELSTAR was a President [Kennedy-era launch]. There's the [President pro] TEM of the Senate. "DON'T Stop" by Fleetwood Mac was the [Bill Clinton theme song)], and the MCVIES were half of Fleetwood Mac. (Edited to add: KarmaSartre e-mailed me to point out that they were two fifths of the group, not half. Can't I round up?) And a BOO is a [Bad sound at a campaign rally]. My favorite non-theme clue is [Baby buggy?] for LARVA, and I liked having 16 7-letter answers in the fill here.
So, once again I failed to notice that the Across Lite timer was turned off when I started Kevin Wald's Sun puzzle, "Numerological Prediction." Now, when I solve a crossword in Across Lite, I'm a little surprised when Mr. Happy Pencil doesn't present himself. I figure I must've had a typo, so I use the "Check all letters" function to find the problem square. I wasn't expecting Across Lite to tell me I had eight squares wrong! Turns out this is an update of Jeremiah Farrell's legendary 1996 CLINTON/BOBDOLE gimmick. This time, the key answer is clued [What you will see on the news on Election Day]. {Somebody} IS IN. Who? Well, if you spell out OBAMA IS IN, then you will also fill in FOUR at 38-Across, the [Number of squares in this puzzle that contain a word meaning "elected"] because there are four [IN] rebus squares in the grid. If you opt for MCCAI[IN] IS IN, you've added another rebus square, so 38-Across is FIVE. There are the Down crossings for the affected areas:
Three of the crossings for 38-Across, FOUR or FIVE, can vary:
The two longest Across answers and two other short Across answers all contain a rebus square holding the letters IN, and those clues are politically oriented. There's some cool fill too, but between the time change and a long day, I am nodding off here. Feel free to single out for attention whatever you noticed in this (or other) crosswordsl
Updated:
I'm short on time this morning (and I voted two weeks ago, so it's not that), so shorter blogging today.
Martin Ashwood-Smith's CrosSynergy puzzle also has an election theme. The theme entries in "Decisions, Decisions" are:
The constructor duped me with the 8-letter [Cadillac model] starting with E. ESCALADE, right? Nope, it's EL DORADO. Cool grid with those four wide-open corners.
Don Gagliardo's LA Times crossword doesn't go topical today. Instead, we get a vowel-progression theme:
Some interesting words in the fill: IPOD CASE, SIGNS OFF ON, the BLOB/BLAH crossing, TWO-BIT, and my personal favorite, TUG OF WAR clued as a ["Battle of the Network Stars" contest]. I loved that show! The current show Wipeout should do a celebrity episode to recapture the Battle of the Network Stars magic.
Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword is called "'Tis the Seaon," and it's not election season or holiday season he has in mind but rather, flu season. Each theme entry's a phrase with a FLU infecting it. There's a 15-letter theme entry across the middle, and the other two pairs of theme entries are partly stacked together.
Favorite clues: [It really gets boring] refers to an AUGER. [Dog show partner?] is PONY, as in "dog and pony show" (though maybe someone should clue DOG as [Pony show partner?] instead). Favorite fill answers: MAGIC WAND and OFF THE MAP.
November 02, 2008
Monday, 11/3
Sun 3:18
CS 3:04
LAT 2:53
NYT 2:46
(updated at 7:40 Monday morning)
'Tis the season for snarky political crosswords, and over at the Sadly, No! blog, Dave Macleod has posted a crossword called "Pull No Political Punches." (You can download a PDF there.) As Dave explains in a comment there, "The intent was to get as many Republican-bashing words and clues as possible without pushing it and getting stupid." Fun puzzle, Dave!
The New York Times crossword by Susan Gelfand has a fresh and fun theme. Four famous people whose last names double as verbs (and triple as nouns) take an S on the end to make grammatically correct two-word sentences:
I think this is Ms. Gelfand's newspaper crossword debut, and I hope she's been cooking up more themes for us. I like the theme here, plus the fill is a bit Scrabbly (three X's, some K's) and includes some interesting longer words. To SKYDIVE is to [Jump from a plane]. A [Bobbysoxer's hangout] was the MALT SHOP (with the terminal HOP, I wanted this to be a SOCK HOP, but that wasn't fitting. TASMANIA is [One of the six states of Australia]; I think I can name three others. (Left out South Australia and Western Australia.)
Alan Arbesfeld's Sun crossword, "Breezy Tunes," is elegantly built around an album I've never heard of. [1990 Roscoe Mitchell album (and this puzzle's theme)] is SONGS IN THE WIND. Roscoe Mitchell is an avant garde jazz saxophonist. There are also some songs whose titles end with the words "in the Wind," and these figure into the other three theme entries:
This puzzle seemed to have a little more pedestrian fill than most Sun crosswords. ATILT and ASTIR, ESAU and EDAMS? It's also got MR. CHIPS, though, and some BAGELS; and MILO is clued as [___ Bloom (character in "Bloom County")]. If it's possible to have a crush on a comic strip character, I just might've had a teenage crush on young MILO Bloom.
Updated:
Boy, I had no idea what the theme was in Tracey Snyder's LA Times crossword until the last theme answer explained it all. What do TWO-WHEELER ([Bike, e.g.]), THREE-PIECE ([Like suits with vests]), and TWELVE-STEP ([Like some rehab programs]) have in common? What unifies 2, 3, and 12? Turns out they're CRAPS LOSERS ([What the start of 17-, 32- or 38-Across is on your first roll]). I'll bet John McCain knows that, but I've never played craps.
This puzzle's got some answer words that appear more often in crosswords than in American life. There's the [Long poem] called an EPOS. ECLAT is [Brilliant success]. ESSE is [To be, in old Rome] (meaning in Latin). There's Scottish "no," NAE, clued as ["Sorry, laddie"]. Then we have the ever-popular (in crosswords and the Summer Olympics) EPEES, [Fencing swords]. If these ones gave you trouble, study up—you'll be seeing them again in your puzzles.
Tom Schier's CrosSynergy crossword, "Gridiron Scores," presents four phrases with T.D. initials. TD'S (20-Across), of course, are touchdowns in football. There's the TITANIC DISASTER (aww), a TARGET DATE, TAXI DRIVER clued as merely a [Cabby] and not as the movie, and a TONGUE DEPRESSOR. SINGLE MOM ([Parent's status, perhaps]) is excellent fill.
Like today's LA Times crossword, this one's got some crosswordy words that it behooves a beginning solver to learn. ESAU, the [Twin in Genesis], is one of the most common Biblical names appearing in crosswords. Why? Three vowels plus an S. ENOS, clued here as [Nephew of Abel], is also a frequent visitor. OREM is clued as [Utah's fourth-largest city]; there's also a Russian city called OREL to keep straight in your head, and both pop up from time to time in puzzles. IN REM is a [Legal phrase]; there's an entire vocabulary of Latin words and legal terms that appear in crosswords, though this particular one isn't that common. An ALB is a [Vestry vestment], something a priest might wear. If it's a 3-letter ecclesiastical garment, always try ALB first. ASTI, the [Fizzy wine, familiarly], is Asti spumante from Italy; Asti is a place name. EROSE means [Jagged] rather than just eroded; ERODE is also a popular crossword answer. [Elevator pioneer Elisha] OTIS is a regular around these parts ("these parts" being in the white squares).
November 01, 2008
Sunday, 11/2
NYT diagramless 11:21
NYT 9:53
PI 8:41
BG 8:00
syndicated LAT 7:25
CS 3:13
(updated at noon Sunday)
Liz Gorski graces the New York Times crossword page with another of her patented graphic creations. This time, the theme in "Web Master" is Spider-Man. The graphic element is the spiderweb dangling down the middle of the grid at 25-Down ([Visual representation of what gave 115-Across special powers]), with the [SPIDER] rebus square at the bottom (represented in my solution grid as just the S in 115-Across, THE AMAZING [S]-MAN). The web's made out of a vertical string of I's. Here are the other theme entries:
24-Across. [Where you might see 115-Across] is a COMIC BOOK COVER.
38-Across. [Pumpkin bomb-throwing enemy of 115-Across, with "the"] is GREEN GOBLIN.
100-Across. [Film star who played 38-Across], the Green Goblin, is WILLEM DAFOE, in the first and second Spider-Man movies.
12-Down. [115-Across's day job] is newspaper PHOTOGRAPHER.
26-Down. [Tentacled enemy of 115-Across] is Doc Ock, full name OTTO OCTAVIUS.
47-Down. [Film star who played 26-Down], Doc Ock, is ALFRED MOLINA.
64-Down. [Film star who played 115-Across], Peter Parker and Spider-Man, is TOBEY MAGUIRE.
I've seen all three movies, so I'm not sure why it took me a while to untangle the theme. I filled in the web made out of I's fairly early on, but I had completely forgotten Doc Ock's full name and which villain Willem Dafoe played. It didn't help that THE AMAZING **** looked an awful lot like it wanted to be THE AMAZING RACE.
Aside from the nine theme entries and visual punch, this crossword also offers a few sections with plenty of white space—the upper and middle left, the middle and lower right—so there was even more to like. Among the more interesting answers in the Across dimension:
Moving along to the Downs:
Oddly enough, this puzzle seems to have been tougher than most Sunday puzzles for most solvers, except Byron Walden's on the APPLET ([Small program]) with a time of 7:27, suggesting that this crossword is easier than most Sunday NYT's. Except...it's not. I swear it isn't.
Updated Saturday evening:
I guess the Times forgot to print the starting-square hint in the Magazine section for this weekend's second Sunday puzzle, Patrick Blindauer's diagramless. So to remedy things, they added a big, bold-face hint on the Premium Crosswords page—where anyone who wished to download the diagramless sans hint couldn't help but see a big, bold-face spoiler. Mind you, I had been warned at the NYT forum, and even downloaded the puzzle from a spoiler-free link at the forum—and then I went to the puzzle page and boom. Spoiler. So I got off to a speedy start, with none of the usual jotting chunks of fill in the margins until I figure out where the first answer fits. 1-Across wasn't obvious to me, but 2- and 3-Down were gimmes, and soon the NW corner showed that the [Subject of this puzzle] began with {the rest of the paragraph's in white text—to view it, click and drag over it with your mouse} PINO. The other theme clues made it clear that 19-Across was a character, so PINOCCHIO came to mind. Pet goldfish CLEO, check. His father, GEPPETTO. Plus WISH UPON A STAR, MONSTRO the whale, and JIMINY / CRICKET—having a familiar theme helps those big swaths get filled in. When the whole puzzle was done, I couldn't tell what the diagram's pattern was, so I darkened the black squares with a pen. Oh! It's a little blocky wooden Pinocchio, complete with an elongated nose. Cute! I'm partial to diagramless crosswords that create a picture of something.
Here's the complete solution grid, in text. Again, the letters are white—if you haven't done this puzzle because you're leery of diagramless crosswords and think you haven't got the skills for them, I want you to give it a try anyway. If you're an NYT crossword subscriber, the link at the top of this post will let you download the Across Lite file without seeing that spoiler.
Z I N G * D A M P * E C L A T * *
I D O L * U S E R * T O E L E S S
P I N O C C H I O * O N T A R I O
* * * V A T * R A P * J I M I N Y
C A W E D * * * M E R * T O Y * *
L U I S * * * * * Z O A * * A X E
E T S * * * * * * * C R I C K E T
O O H S * * * * * V O L T A I R E
* P U P * * * * * I C E I N * * *
Y I P E * * * * * M O N S T R O *
A L O E * * * * * * * * * * E M I
P O N D* * * * * A R A C H N I D
S T A B * * * * * G E P P E T T O
* * S U M O * W H I T E S E A * *
B A T M A N * C O L U M N * C U B
E L A P S E * S T E R E O * A K A
G A R B * * * * * * N N W * R E D
Merl Reagle's Philadelphia Inquirer crossword, "Wall Street's Week," takes as its inspiration the sorts of phrases the business section uses to avoid saying "rose" and "declined" in every single stock headline. For example:
In the fill, I thought the two most challenging spots were near the top: ["Hurry up," to Tarzan] is UNGAWA; and [Wroclaw's German name] is BRESLAU. And then there's GORT in the middle—[The robot's name in "The Day the Earth Stood Still"]. I chose the wrong language for the [Gaza greetings] and tried SHALOMS instead of the correct SALAAMS; hey, the Arabic and Hebrew words are cognates, so I wasn't that far off.
Liz Gorski's on deck again for this weekend's Across Lite edition of the Boston Globe crossword, filling in for Cox and Rathvon. This theme, too, was a delight. In "Shifty Characters," one letter—always an R— shifts to somewhere else in a phrase, thereby doing a number on the phrase's meaning. I like the consistency of always moving the same letter, and I like the results:
The non-thematic answers I liked best included WOODSY, or [Sylvan]; KOALA BEAR, or [Qantas mascot] (and yes, we all know that the koala and the panda are not bears); HOSPITAL clued as a [Soap setting]; "YOUR MOVE," or ["Make a play"]; EAST ASIAN, or [Like Vietnamese food]; VOCAB, or [Short word list?]; KITSCHY, [Like plastic pink flamingos]; and JEEZ, or ["Gosh..."].
Updated Sunday morning:
Stella Daily and Bruce Venzke's CrosSynergy "Sunday Challenge" was super-easy as themeless puzzles go. Not every word or phrase in the grid was a familiar one, but the crossings seemed to grease the wheels. Most of the answers are made of common letters (e.g., ITERANT, LOOSEST, NELLIE). Here's an olio of clues and their answers:
Bonnie Gentry constructed today's syndicated Los Angeles Times crossword (which doesn't appear in the LA Times itself). The "Computer Connections" title ties to the embedded letters in each theme entry, DSL:
Famous people wander about the grid. There's ASHLEE [Simpson with the 2005 album "I Am Me"], YMA [Sumac from Peru], and [Ann of "Private Secretary"], actress Ann SOTHERN. ["Sentimental Journey" co-composer] LES BROWN provides bonus points for constructor Bonnie Gentry since his full name appears. From sports, we have [Golfer Isao] AOKI; Larry [Bird, for one] was an NBA STAR; the [1975 Wimbledon champ] was Arthur ASHE; and skater Midori ITO was the [Nagano Olympic cauldron lighter]. [John who married Priscilla Mullins] was John ALDEN. The fictional Dana [Scully's partner] in The X-Files is Fox MULDER. [Scientology's Hubbard] is L. RON. Is Robt. E. LEE the only person whose middle initial and last name appear together in crosswords? I've seen JFOX (Michael J. Fox), but can't think of others. [Loser to Clinton] was Bob DOLE. ["Stay" singer Lisa]'s last name is LOEB; she's the singer with the horn-rimmed glasses. [Elsa raiser] is Joy ADAMSON; Elsa was the lioness in Born Free. [Britney's ex] is sometimes called K-FED; that's Kevin Federline's stage name. [Hip-hop Dr.] DRE remains a big figure in rap.
