Monday, 8/24

LAT 3:08
NYT 2:35
CS 8:22 (J—paper)
BEQ 10:something the first time around, under 5:00 the second time

Anthony Salvia's New York Times crossword

What does "DQ" mean to you? Sports fans think of "disqualified," I think, but those letters put me in mind of DAIRY QUEEN. This puzzle adds three other DQs to that in a rather Scrabbly theme:

• 17A. DON QUIXOTE is the famed [Tilter at windmills].
  
• 49A. DAIRY QUEEN is the [Place to order a Blizzard].
  
• 11D. DENNIS QUAID is the [Star of "The Rookie," 2002].
  
• 25D. And then there's DOCTOR QUINN, the [Medicine woman of 1990s TV].

The theme's four Q's and an X are joined by another X and a Z in the fill. With 16 non-theme answers that are 6 to 8 letters long, there's a fresh feeling throughout.

Highlights:

• 21A. ["Dee-fense! Dee-fense!" and others] are football fan CHANTS.
  
• 28A. [One of golf's four majors] is the U.S. OPEN.
  
• 40A. [Cranium contents] sounds plural, but it's just the one BRAIN in there.
  
• 44A/45A. I like consecutive clues that are related. A [Plaza] is a SQUARE and [Plaza displays] can be PARADES.
  
• 47A. ZERO is the [Number of calories in water].
  
• 9D. EXECRATE means [Detest], loathe, hate. Not sure I've ever actually heard someone say the word aloud. I like execrable more.
  
• 40D. BAROQUE is [Like the works of Handel and Bach].

Basic crosswordese for Monday solvers to remember, a.k.a. Five Words Starting With E:

• 19A. ENID is a [City NNW of Oklahoma City]. Crossworddom's main Oklahoma towns are ENID and ADA.
  
• 60A. [___ Gay (W.W. II plane] is the ENOLA Gay, which dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan. It's a depressing reference, but the vowel/consonant/vowel/consonant/vowel pattern makes ENOLA helpful to crossword constructors so you'll see it plenty.
  
• 26D. An EPEE is a [Fencing sword]. So's a saber, but EPEE's three E's make it crossword gold.
  
• 58A/37D. EDNA and ERMA! ERMA is Bombeck, clued here as [Bombeck who wrote "The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank"], and today's EDNA is [Writer ___ St. Vincent Millay]. Writer ENID Blyton sometimes gets in on the "4-letter women's names starting with E" action. Plus ELLA Fitzgerald and ETTA James.

Updated Monday morning:

Doug Peterson's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "UN Intervention"—Janie's review

No, this is not a puzzle about international relations or the deployment of U.N. peace-keeping troops into some war-torn country. Instead—and to great effect—DOUG (Peterson this time and not [Quarterback Flutie]) has added the letters "UN" to four well-known phrases, yielding two 15s and two 12s. That's how:

• The Dating Game (that "classic" game show...) becomes 17A's THE DAUNTING GAME [Quiz show requiring exceptional courage?], in one glorious example of going from the ridiculous to the sublime. (Those You Tube clips remind me that appearing on that show certainly did require exceptional courage...)
• Fishing rod turns into 29A's FISHING ROUND [Part of a bass tournament?]. Took me a while to realize the answer here was neither FISH IN GROUND nor FISHIN' GROUND...
• No nonsense is transformed into 44A's NOUN NONSENSE [Strict grammarian's bugaboo?].
• Passing the hat morphs into 58A's PASSING THE HAUNT [Not stopping at one's regular hangout?]. This is my next fave after The Daunting Game. I think that's because in both examples, the "after" phrase has gone a greater distance and is more unexpected and somehow fresher.

But the make-up of the puzzle-as-a-whole has a fresh, lively feel to it (yes—this is what we BEG FOR) and much in it AMUSES—like the tie-in that can be made between LEER [Wolfish look] and LEWD [Obscene]. Ya don't suppose that's because the puzzle more than ALLUDES TO [Hints at] the NUDITY [Bare existence?] that's on display, do ya? We've also got two degrees of being peeved: something may IRK you [Rub the wrong way] or, more aggressively, EAT AT you [Really annoy]; and two side-by-side sorta "sound-alikes" in ICEE [Frozen drink brand] and ASEA [On the briny]. Btw, those [Easter purchases], EGGS, are likely to be [Given a new hue] DYED. But once you've done that, please don't [Bleach] WHITEN 'em!

Completely new to me was ["Romeo Must Die" star] JET LI—and does that name ever look good in the grid. So (for the reminder of cooler weather it evokes) does the word SNOWY on a hot and humid "dog day." [Beverage cart locale] clues AISLE and on that cart you may find your favorite SODA [Soft drink]—in a CAN perhaps (though not in a [Paint container] I should hope...).

Have a preference for [Genteel lunch spots]? Lovely. You may want to investigate intimate TEA HOUSES (or tea rooms) in your city. For less refined needs, there's nothing like a gooey serving of NACHOS, clued punnily as [Cheesy ballpark snack]. And, d'oh, I'm a little slow on the uptake sometimes but I just caught the Eastern connection in this puzzle with DOJO [Judo studio], tea houses, Jet Li, and ANG ["Brokeback Mountain" director Lee]...

Norfleet Pruden's Los Angeles Times crossword

The theme here is four "blank and blank" phrases that are the [Scope of a thorough search]: HIGH AND LOW, INSIDE AND OUT, HITHER AND YON, and FAR AND WIDE. The fill is suitable for a Monday puzzle, but somehow it felt like a Wednesday puzzle to me. Maybe I'm not quite awake yet, because other people are on the board with easy-Monday solving times. Congrats to the constructor on his debut!

I like the way the [Mythical city of gold], EL DORADO], balances FEMINIST ([Gloria Steinem, notably]). Remember how the Equal Rights Amendment just couldn't gain traction in the United States because equal rights for women are just so radical? If you want to be both encouraged and depressed about the state of womankind worldwide, don't miss the Hillary Clinton interview in the New York Times.

I just learned from Bob Klahn interview that Bob is Rich Norris's clue checker for the L.A. Times crosswords. (Hey! That's the sort of freelance gig I should have.) So now I wonder if Bob caught the dig/DUG duplication and Rich didn't mind it, or if neither of them noticed it. 7D: [Digger's creation] is a HOLE, and straight below that answer is 28D: DUG IN, or [Made trenches].

Updated Monday afternoon

Brendan Quigley's blog/Lollapuzzoola crossword, "Stranded"

Dang, where did the day go? Short-form blogging: Theme is TRANSFER RNA, with RNA being transferred out of two theme entries (tornado cellars became TO-DO: CELLARS and internal combustion became INTEL COMBUSTION) and into two others (the unusual "squirrel cage" became SQUIRREL CARNAGE and baby doll turned into the hilarious BARNABY DOLL, a doll of Buddy Ebsen's '70s detective Barnaby Jones). I test-solved this puppy in advance of the tournament and it was a killer. I haven't compared the clues to see what changes might've been made from the first version to the final one—but for the sake of all the tournament attendees, I hope there were plenty of changes! It was a killer, like I said.

Over and out.

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Friday, 3/20

BEQ 5:05
NYT 4:29
CHE 4:15
LAT 4:00
CS 2:55
WSJ 7:20

I tell ya, I kept trying to write the word BONE at the end of a phrase in David Levinson Wilk's New York Times crossword, and the first two times it was wrong. Third time's the charm! In this magnificent puzzle, there are 10 15-letter answers criss-crossing all over the place. Most of them cluster in the two triple-stacks in the middle of the grid—and that, my friends, is a difficult feat to pull off. Mr. Levinson Wilk doesn't stop there, though—oh, no. He further frames the puzzle with another 15 near each edge, which intersect the triple-stacks. These 10 long phrases are all marvels, too—not a dry noun with a boring clue in the lot:

• 17A. [Their parts are usually unusual] clues CHARACTER ACTORS.
  
• 32A. [Not merely having wet clothes] means SOAKED TO THE SKIN. At first I had SOAKED TO THE BONE here. No...
  
• 39A. [Later] clues AT SOME OTHER TIME. This is probably the worst of the long answers, and it's really not bad.
  
• 40A. To FILL IN THE BLANKS is to [Provide what's missing]—or complete a crossword puzzle. Perfect answer to find in a crossword.
  
• 56A. To [Just know] something is to FEEL IN ONE'S BONES. The BONE I wanted in 32A and 6D finally found its rightful home.
  
• 3D. [They include amaretto and sloe gin] clues the mixed drinks called ALABAMA SLAMMERS. My god, those sound painfully syrupy.
  
• 6D. ROTTEN TO THE CORE (not ___ TO THE BONE, as I first thought) means [As bad as can be].
  
• 7D. To [Get all dapper] is to DRESS TO THE NINES.
  
• 8D. [Very close, in a way] clues ACROSS THE STREET. This is maybe a tad arbitrary as phrases that are kosher for crosswords go—it's not quite an established phrase the way "across the board" or "on the streets" are.
  
• 11D. This one was a gimme that helped fill in the Across triple-stack: STOP MAKING SENSE is the seminal [1984 Talking Heads concert film and hit album].
  

The rest of the puzzle consists of the 3-, 4-, and 5-letter words that cement the 15's into place. Here are the more unusual ones and the ones with the tough clues.

• 5A. ["___ Warning" ("Das Rheingold" aria)] clues ERDA'S.
  
• 16A. We've seen the UTNE Reader in plenty of puzzles, but not the [___ Independent Press Awards].
  
• 20A. [Hero, to some] is a PO'BOY sandwich. Yum. I'm going to have po'boys at least twice in New Orleans over spring break in April.
  
• 24-25A. [Surreal beginning?] and [Surreal ending?] are the letter ESS and the suffix ISM, respectively. The constructor credits Will Shortz for those clues.
  
• 44A. [Series standout, briefly] is an MVP, as during the World Series.
  
• 60A. FREER is clued as [Less formal]. Boy, the -ER part of that answer was easy, but I was stuck on the rest.
  
• 62A. SASS is a [Reason for parental scolding]. Oh, yes indeed, it sure is.
  
• 4D. [The Emperor, The Empress or The High Priest] meant nothing to me, but with the final T in place, I wagered it was TAROT.
  
• 5D. [Condensation indication] must be DEW, right? Nope. It's ETC., which indicates that a listing is being condensed.
  
• 27D. TOTIN' is clued in just about the only way it could be: [Gun-___ (like Yosemite Sam)].
  
• 30D. You up on your 25-year-old pop culture trivia? [Carol Kane's role on "Taxi"] was SIMKA. She was Andy Kaufman's character Latka's wife or girlfriend.
  
• 34D. I really hope some solvers misinterpreted [Virgin's parent] and didn't think first of the record label. EMI is the answer.
  

And how about the look of the empty grid? You know how a comic strip character looks alarmed? With short lines radiating outward from their head? The two-square dashes at the outer edges make the grid look surprised—as well they should, because it is a surprising grid to behold. It also looks a little like that wooden labyrinth game, only without a hole in the middle for the marble to drop into. Well done, Mr. Levinson Wilk. More soon, please.

This week's Chronicle of Higher Education crossword by Joon Pahk plays a game with famous paintings. In "Talking Pictures," the theme answers are made-up phrases that sound like the names of paintings, but are spelled differently:

• Botticelli's Birth of Venus becomes THE BERTH OF VENUS, or a [Painting that depicts a divine sleeper car].
  
• Monet's Water Lilies is transformed into "WHAT ARE LILIES?" I'm one of those who says water with an "aw" sound and what with a schwa, though apparently the "ah" sound works for both words too. The clue is [Painting that depicts the answer to a horticultural "Jeopardy!" question?]—though the game show lingo would have that say it depicts the question for an answer. (And the game show lingo is goofy.)
  
• [Painting of Don Quixote?] is THE STARRY KNIGHT, playing on Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night. Now, Quixote is indeed starry-eyed, but I'm not sure that starry without the -eyed means the same thing.
  

Joon's filled out the grid with an assortment of 7-, 8-, and 9-letter answers. [Horrifically unpleasant] clues BEASTLY, but GHASTLY fits most of the crossings too. CARACALLA was a [Nefarious 3rd-century Roman emperor]. I need to work on honing my nefariousness. My favorite spot is where a WORMHOLE, or [Hypothetical space-time shortcut], butts up against the HOOSEGOW, or [Slammer]. Favorite clue: [Proceed on foot?] with a question mark means to HOP on one foot; without the question mark, you're merely walking on two feet.

Updated:

I'm reading the galley proof of Dean Olsher's upcoming book, From Square One: A Meditation, with Digressions, on Crosswords. (Available for preorder.) In one digression, Dean delves into the differences between Will Shortz and Peter Gordon's editing choices, as demonstrated in two versions of a puzzle by Anthony Salvia that were inadvertently accepted for publication by more than one paper. The NYT version came second and appeared online briefly before it was replaced by a different puzzle—but the mix-up allows for an interesting dissection of the two editors' styles. (Which you'll have to buy the book to read—my blog only touched on it briefly.)

I mention this because Anthony Salvia's name popped up in the byline of today's colorful LA Times crossword. The two Across theme entries at the top and bottom are clued in parallel with each other, one red and one blue, as are the two loner Down theme entries at the sides. The middle theme entry combines [Red and blue states?] into PURPLES. The unmingled color clues are as follows:

• 18A. BANKRUPTCY could be called a [Red state?].
  
• 60A. Melancholy is a [Blue state?].
  
• 4D. [In a red state?] clues EMBARRASSED.
  
• 27D. [In a blue state?] is FROZEN SOLID. I started out with FROZEN STIFF.
  

Red states and blue states, of course, more commonly refer to states that vote Republican and Democratic, respectively. I often find myself seeing red a little bit when it comes to the Friday LAT puzzle—I have trouble parsing the clues but not in an enjoyable way (vs. usually liking the toughest clues in a Saturday NYT). But not today—the puzzle took about as long as most Friday LATs, but the clues were more my style. For example:

• [Catch lots of rays?] clues BAKE. Perhaps BASKing involves a smaller number of UV rays than getting BAKEd?
  
• AHEM is clued with ["May I say something?"].
  
• The ALTAR is a [Site for a union meeting?].
  
• [They're tightened during hard times] clues BELTS. Apparently I neglected to read the entire clue because I had BOLTS at first.
  
• [It might be heard from one going to court] clues SERENADE. Here, "court" is the wooing verb, not the noun. Great mislead.
  
• [Language suffix?] is SPEAK. As in doublespeak, valspeak.
  
• [South American carrier] isn't the airline VARIG, it's a LLAMA.
  
• The ORYX is a [Desert antelope]. It's also an award given to memorable crosswords.
  
• An OLIVE is a [Pimiento container, possibly].
  
• If you're NOSY, you are [Inappropriately involved].
  
• NUDNIK is a great word. It's clued as an [Annoying type].
  

There's also a bit of crosswordese here, too. OSIER is a [Basket maker's supply]. It took me many years to remember that the basketry willow is OSIER while the ORIEL is a projecting bay window. I used to plug in the three vowels and wait for the crossings to point me towards the correct word.

Patrick Jordan's CrosSynergy crossword, "Mail Call," is really easy. I solved this one in Across Lite by filling in Down entries in sequence. I skipped over theme entry 10D, [Sitting Bull was on his show], and wasn't sure what to do with 48D, ["Speak up!"], but everything else was filled in quickly, with glances at some of the Across clues along the way. BUFFALO BILL required two Across clues for the B and U before I figured out what the answer would be. And SAY IT demanded a look at all five crossings. The theme is things that come in the mail, which are found at the end of the four longest answers. There's the bill to pay in BUFFALO BILL, along with these three:

• [It can get swiped by its owner] refers to a CREDIT CARD, and you get greeting cards in the mail.
  
• The RADIO FLYER is a [Classic wagon] for kids. Various advertising flyers clutter our mailboxes.
  
• A [Sans-serif character] may be a BLOCK LETTER, and alas, most of the letters I get in the mail are form letters and not personal correspondence.
  

Brendan Quigley's puzzle is called "Look Again: Nope, keep looking" because looking—or seeing—is at the heart of the theme. The three longest answers are clued with nothing but cross-references to other shorter answers, but in order to make sense out of this, you need to mentally insert see before the shorter answer. The resulting "see ___" phrase serves as a proper clue for the long answer. To wit:

• The 17A clue is [See 69-Across]. That clue is [Deeply blushing], or RED. To "see red" is to BECOME TICKED OFF.
  
• The 38A clue is [See 26-Down], whose clue is [Completed], or THROUGH. To "see through" someone is to NOT BE FOOLED BY them.
  
• 62A instructs you to [See 49-Across], which is STARS, or [Hollywood Walk of Fame sights]. To "see stars" is to HAVE A CONCUSSION. 
  

The theme answers don't meet the usual criteria for crossword fill, as they're not smoothly worded stand-alone phrases. But they're examples of a clue/answer reversal theme, where the theme answers could pass for clues for the shorter phrases lurking in the clues—only in this case, the shorter phrase has been split in two and plunked into the grid without the SEE part. Does that make sense as I've explained it? I hope so.

Highlights: The JOB JAR is a [Democratic way of assigning chores]. To BELLYACHE means to [Whine]. One sort of [Development area] is a PHOTO LAB. Brendan makes use of a new clue alternative for JAI: ["___ Ho" (2009 Best Original Song)] refers to the Oscar-winning song from Slumdog Millionaire. There's still no zippy clue for ALAI, but at least JAI has a workable option besides [___ alai] now. Interesting quote: ART ["___ is never finished, only abandoned": Leonardo da Vinci]. DOTS is clued as the [Classic pencil-and-paper game]—I gotta remember to teach this one to my son.

Lowlights: The junky little words that glue the better stuff into place include AGAR, RELET, the E.T.O., SOO clued as ["And your point being...?"] (rather than Jack Soo or the Soo Canals, which are mighty boring). Also CRUSHER clued as the [Final blow]—nobody says that in my circle, but there are junkyard crushers and crusher hats.

Harvey Estes constructed this week's Wall Street Journal crossword, "English Muffing." In this entertaining theme, various English phrases are muffed by the addition of a G to the end:

• 26A. [Orange-flavored stout drink?] is a BLACK AND TANG. A Black and Tan combines a stout like Guinness and an ale or lager like Bass or Harp. Tang was my favorite reconstituted powdered beverage when I was a kid. Way more astronaut cachet than Kool-aid.
  
• 46A. [Mild yet firm oath?] clues STEELY DANG. Steely Dan is most often seen in crosswords when their album AJA is in the fill.
  
• 60A. [Monarch with intimates?] is KITH AND KING.
  
• 80A. A [Cookie jar?] might be a WAFER THING.
  
• 102A. [What a remorseful torturer thinks about?] is the RACK AND RUING.
  
• 16D. [Promotion that isn't deserved?] is an UNEARNED RUNG on the career ladder.
  
• 56D. [Arizona Diamondback's weapon?] is a BASEBALL FANG. The Diamondbacks are an MLB team and diamondbacks are rattlesnakes with fangs.
  

This puzzle has four cool sections of stacked 7-letter answers. In one such segment, the Filipino [Language that gave us "boondocks"], TAGALOG, crosses TAG ALONG, or [Come too]. Back before I knew anyone who spoke Tagalog, I was fond of the language simply because I thought of it whenever I snacked on those Girl Scout cookies called Tagalongs. (Crunchy cookie, peanut butter creme, and chocolate coating? I want some now!)

Favorite clues:
[High-level conflict] is a DOGFIGHT fought high in the air among planes.
[They have high crowns] clues TOP HATS.
An ANECDOTE is a [Short story].
[Breathless?] is DEAD, and the very next clue is [Leave breathless], or AWE.
SNOW is a [Wet blanket].
[Relief pitcher's goal] is to get the SAVE. Right below it in the grid is SALE, clued as a [Pitcher's goal].
[They show what they've got] clues FLASHERS. Flashers are icky and should be procecuted to the fullest.
HERCULES is a [Labor leader?].
[It's a wrap] clues a DIAPER.
The decennial CENSUS is indeed a [Big count].

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Tuesday, 10/14

CS 4:11
Jonesin' 3:33
Sun 3:30
LAT 3:00
NYT 2:41

Sun update: The Sun crossword subscription mechanism is now in place at Cruciverb. When submitting your PayPal payment, be sure to use the e-mail address you use for Cruciverb, or you won't be able to access the puzzle without contacting Kevin McCann at Cruciverb. (D'oh. No puzzle for me yet.) The cost is $12.50, or $20 for the "patron amount." Note: You need to be registered as a Cruciverb member (for free) before you subscribe to the Sun puzzles.

Barnes & Noble has a new video magazine series, Barnes & Noble Tagged. This week's short episode focuses on puzzle books and Will Shortz, and Will chats with host Molly Pesce. (You get a brief glimpse of Patrick Blindauer and Frank Longo, too.) One of the interview topics is KenKen puzzles, which I've done some version of in a Games publication. Unlike sudoku but like kakuro, there's arithmetic involved. I'll buy one of the kids' books for my son when it comes out in December.

Lucy Gardner Anderson's New York Times crossword pays tribute to a highway, INTERSTATE / NINETY-FIVE to be specific. I didn't know if I'd ever been on I-95, so I followed its route using Google Maps. Hey! The highway you take to get from LaGuardia Airport to Stamford, Connecticut is I-95, so I have been on it. This road takes you from Maine (ME) down to Florida (FL), passing through 13 other states on the way. All 15 states' 2-letter postal abbreviations are circled in the grid, and there's one in each row in proper north-to-south order. Cool, eh? Mind you, it wasn't so hard to finish the puzzle with zero idea where I-95 went.

Favorite answers and clues: a BON MOT is a [Bit of wit]. [Rolling Stones drummer Charlie] WATTS always seemed like the sanest Stone to me. [Nancy Drew author Carolyn] KEENE summons to mind the YouTube video I saw today, "There's No One As Irish As Barack O'Bama," because the song was written by Hardy Drew and the Nancy Boys. LENNY is clued as [Bruce or Kravitz]; hey, Lenny Kravitz's daughter has a pro-Obama video out there. DEFINE is defined as [Do lexicographical work]. A [User-edited online reference] is a WIKI. You know my objection to PORK, that [Much-criticized Congressional spending]? It is neither kosher nor halal. (You can have your PORK and your OFFAL, or [Butcher's byproducts]. Please. Take my share, too.) Move over, Cheryl Tiegs; Cheryl LADD of the '70s TV show Charlie's Angelsl has given you the boot.

Old-school crossword stuff: ANENT means [Concerning]. STEROL is an [Unsaturated alcohol] and another word I think used to get more play in crosswords. SMITTY was an [Old Walter Berndt comic strip about a teen]. It ran from 1922 to 1973, which explains why I don't recall it.


Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword, "You're Out!", compiles a group of things "dropped from the world of sports and games in 2008":

• This one's news to me. The [Seattle team that became the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2008] is the SUPERSONICS. They moved already? I didn't know that was a done deal.
  
• SCRABULOUS was a [Popular Facebook word game removed due to copyright violations]. Sigh. I liked Scrabulous. Then there was Scrabulous.com for a while, and I liked playing that via e-mail, but now that's gone too.
  
• SEVEN GOLD MEDALS used to be the [Record for an individual athlete at a single Olympic Games that remained unbroken until 2008]. This one sticks out a little for me—a record isn't "dropped," it's broken. (Spitz had seven, Phelps won eight this summer.)
  
• The FIFTY-FIFTY was a [Lifeline removed from the latest season of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire"]. I hadn't heard.
  
• THE LEAD PIPE is [What's missing (and likely retired) from 2008's version of Clue]. One of the new weapons added in its stead is reality-TV humiliation. Not really. But in the new version, Professor Plum is no longer an academic but rather, a video game designer. There's a spa. And the wrench and revolver are out, with poison, a trophy, and a dumbbell in as weapons.
  

Did you know [Richie Rich's metallic, robotic maid] was called IRONA? I sure didn't. This must not be very well-known because I've never seen this in a crossword, not even with those three juicy vowels.

Updated:

Merle Baker's LA Times crossword presents a vowel change theme. Each theme entry ends with a P*NS word, and A, E, I, O, and U fill in the blank in sequence:

• MUFFIN PANS are [Bakery cookware].
  
• BULLPENS are [Warmup places for pitchers] in baseball.
  
• LINCHPINS are clued with the description [They secure wheels on axles].
  
• LILY PONS was a [Longtime Met coloratura].
  
• VISUAL PUNS are [Typical frames from "The Far Side"] comic. 
  

There are a dozen 7-letter answers in the fill to move the puzzle beyond standard Tuesday fill. I like the Polish intersection between LODZ, [Poland's second-largest city], and the ZLOTY, a [Polish coin].

As usual, Bob Klahn's CrosSynergy puzzle has clues that are tougher than the usual Tuesday crossword. The theme is straightforward—"Canned Pears" alludes to the PEAR "canned" within each theme entry. For example, to WAKE UP EARLY is to [Anticipate the alarm], and an ESCAPE ARTIST is [One who gets out a lot]. Toughest clues:

• [978-1-4027-6507-0, e.g.] is a new 13-digit ISBN that identifies a book. Which book? I don't know.
  
• [Serpentine nickname] is NESSIE. Do serpents have limbs? Is the Loch Ness monster thought to have legs or flippers?
  
• [Copper-colored cask contents] alliterates all the way to ALE.
  
• A book's [Spine line] is the TITLE.
  
• [Nearly nada] is UNO, or one, just one more than nothing/zero/nada.
  
• [One of Jack's many?] is a TRADE, as in "Jack of all trades."
  
• [Agate or elite] is a size of TYPE.
  
• ["What died?" elicitor] is an ODOR.
  
• [Like some deserts] is JUST rather than arid or sere.
  

Updated again:

Tuesdays and Fridays are generally the days when anything I don't get to by 9 a.m. will have to wait until evening. And so it is that I'm only solving the Sun puzzle at 6 p.m. I think I'll relocate the Jonesin' puzzle to Tuesdays, since it comes out sometime on Monday, and boot the Onion and Tausig puzzles to Wednesdays, because those usually come out during the day on Tuesday when I'm away.

Anthony Salvia's got a busy byline week, with his NYT puzzle yesterday and the Tuesday Sun crossword, "Sword Swallowers." I do always appreciate the inside-joke aspect of contemporary crosswordese reworked into theme entries, and here the EPEE and three other swords are "swallowed" by longer phrases:

• [Curacao flavorers] are ORANGE PEELS.
  
• BROWN AS A BERRY means [Quite suntanned]. Personally, I'd never use this phrase. I prefer berries that are not brown. Somehow the phrase connotes an unseemly anatomicalness in my mind.
  
• BARBARA PIERCE [married George Bush in 1945]. (No comment.)
  
• [It merged with Socal in 1984 to form Chevron] clues GULF OIL CORP. 
  

There are some supra-Tuesday clues here. [Cervid horn] asks you to remember that "cervid" has to do with deer, so the horn's an ANTLER. (Anyone else fond of those animal adjectives like cervine, bovine, ovine, ursine, corvine, and lupine?) [Jaguar rival] isn't automotive but NFLish, with a Houston TEXAN being a division rival of the Jacksonville Jaguars.

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Monday, 10/13

LAT 2:59
NYT 2:51
Sun 2:48—via "Today" link at Puzzle Pointers
CS 2:32

Ginormous thanks to PuzzleGirl for giving me a whole day off. Yesterday I met up with a crosswordy friend (Dean Olsher—look for his book, From Square One: A Meditation, with Digressions, on Crosswords, in the spring), and my mother was spending the night at my house. This morning, my husband and I went downtown for the Chicago marathon with our "Ovation Pavilion" tickets. Breakfast and lunch buffets! Limited-access bleachers and portapotties! Respite from the sun in a tent with TVs! Not a bad way to partake of a sporting event (though we also watched the lead packs at mile 13.) During this time, was I writing about crosswords? Not at all. So thanks again, PuzzleGirl, for the rejuvenating break.

The Sun crossword's new subscription dealio doesn't appear to be in place as of Sunday night. I know there's a Monday Sun puzzle out there waiting for me, but I can't get to it until I subscribe. I shall be patient, because the Sun's worth waiting for, isn't it?

I like to think that Anthony Salvia's New York Times crossword is a tribute to Kenny Mayne: Each of the theme entries ends with a homophone of "Mayne."

• The SPANISH MAIN is a [Caribbean area where pirates plundered].
  
• THE LION'S MANE is clued as a [Sherlock Holmes adventure, in brief. (The title is The Adventure of the Lion's Mane.)
  
• [Faux Chinese dish] is BEEF CHOW MEIN. This could be any variety of chow mein, I suppose, but BEEF fit the theme length constrictions.
  
• BANGOR, MAINE is a [City on the Penobscot River].
  

Among the livelier fill in this crossword, we have a QUADRATIC [Kind of equation graphed as a parabola] (shout-out here to those who cannot abide the "kind of ___" clues in which the answer is not itself a kind of the thing in question. You'd better hit the books, because ROLE MODEL and STUDY FOR are sitting right next to each other in the grid, not too far from SCHOOL. Don't just hit the sauce—there's hard CIDER, or [Fermented apple juice] (nonalcoholic cider's not fermented), along with a MIMOSA. There's some music in this crossword, too—TINA Turner's "We Don't Need Another Hero" and the Police's "EVERY Breath You Take."

Updated:

I enjoyed the theme in Mike Peluso's LA Times crossword. You know how a clue like [Queens stadium] could be either ASHE (tennis) or SHEA (baseball)? Shea's being razed and replaced with something called Citi Field (which is "citified" with an L added to it), so present-tense stadium clues can't be for SHEA any more. Anyway, ASHE and SHEA are anagrams, so [Two Queens stadiums] are ASHE AND SHEA. The other three theme entries are related word pairs that are also anagrams:

• [Two kinds of footwear] are SHOE AND HOSE.
  
• [Two ways to remove excess] are DIET AND EDIT.
  
• [Two pro sports teams] are CUBS AND BUCS.
  

Tom Schier's CrosSynergy crossword, "Coming to America," marks COLUMBUS DAY—[October 13, 2008 celebration]— with a holiday theme. That holiday accounts for this morning's inattention to my blog, as my son is off school and his grandmother is visiting us. Anyway, the remainder of the theme entries are:

• The ATLANTIC OCEAN, an [Expanse traversed by today's honoree].
  
• CHRISTOPHER, the [First name of today's honoree].
  
• QUEEN ISABELLA, the [Sponsor of voyages of today's honoree].
  

When I try to access the Sun crossword via Will Johnston's Puzzle Pointers page or Cruciverb.com, I get this error message: Whoops, you've tried to access the Sun Crossword using the new URL format. The cruciverb.com site is undergoing construction in order to support the Sun puzzle. We hope to have the puzzle available very soon. If you managed to download the puzzle, would you please share the link that worked for you? Updated: The "Today" link at Puzzle Pointers works, but apparently not the links in the "2008 new" calendar page.

The Sun puzzle by Ogden Porter, a.k.a. Peter Gordon, is called "Human Pretzels" because that's what you turn into when you play TWISTER. The theme entries begin or end with things found on the spinner in the game of Twister—the spinner has left and right hand and left and right foot quadrants, each with red, yellow, green, and blue sections. Depending on what you spin, you've got to place that extremity on a spot of a particular color, and you end up entwined with the other people playing. MY LEFT FOOT was the [Best Picture nominee of 1989], starring Daniel Day-Lewis. SOYLENT GREEN was the [1973 Charlton Heston movie set in Manhattan in 2022] in which the titular foodstuff turns out (spoiler alert!) to be made from people. RIGHT-HAND MAN is a needlessly gendered term for an [Indispensable assistant]. RED LOBSTER is the [Restaurant chain "for the seafood lover in you"], and boy, do I hate that ad jingle. Too bad the RIGHT HAND and RED bits aren't also parts of movie titles here.

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