Jonesin' 3:41
NYT 2:50
LAT 2:50
CS 6:14 (J—paper)
Paula Gamache's New York Times crossword
At last! A woman in the NYT crossword byline!
Paula's puzzle has a bunch of PERPS ([Those "walking" through the answers to the starred clues]) doing a perp walk in the theme entries:
Yep, that's four 11's and a 13 plus the 5-letter PERPS to tie them together. Good job, Paula. Smooth and simple for a Tuesday, but with extra theme content and, just for the hell of it, a new record—this puzzle has 19 P's, while the old record was 17.
What else is in the puzzle? There's some hugging and kissing with BUSSING, or [Playful kissing], brushing up against CUDDLES, or [Nestles]. "IT'S YOU" is perfectly clued as a [Compliment heard in the dress department]. COMMAS get the weirdest little clue: [,,,,,]. That looks like a surreal emoticon there, doesn't it? Did you notice that there are 20 answers ranging from 6 to 8 letters long? That lends the venture an extra dollop or two of freshness.
P.S. I meant to mention something else when I first wrote about this puzzle, and that is the lack of movement of the walking PERPs. Patrick Blindauer has had one or two (or more?) crosswords in which an embedded word marches through the theme entries, progressing from the beginning of the word to the end. Along these lines: the words ANTENNA, PANTENE, PLANTER, PICANTE, and BLATANT have an ANT "walking through" them. Too bad this NYT puzzle didn't begin with PERPENDICULAR and walk the PERP to the right with each theme answer.
Updated Tuesday morning:
Patrick Blindauer's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "I Before E" —Janie's review
Serving up a pun-lover's delight, Patrick has altered the spelling of the "long e" sound in four words that can be found in familiar settings: a phrase, a frozen food product, an epithet for a late real estate magnate and tax-evader, and a band that has been together since the early '80s. Where once the sound was spelled "EA," now it's "I [before] E." In this way:
I know, not everyone loves a pun—no matter how low, no matter how high—but I find all of these to be exemplary and sussing them out made for a most enjoyable solve.
The remainder of the fill gives us many, many names: [Hoopster] NATE Archibald; the music world's CHAKA Khan (never remember if it's CHAKA or SHAKA...), Bobby DARIN, DION DiMucci, The Oak RIDGE Boys; [Pop star] ANDY [Warhol]; (tv and/or stage and/or) filmdom's Bert LAHR (who, with his clued costars, appeared in The Wizard of Oz), ESAI Morales (see how constructor Tony Orbach clues him in Orange's Bloggiversary Contest), TINA Fey, PAT Sajak, Kukla, Fran and OLLIE, ARTOO Detoo, Professor SNAPE (from the Harry Potter books/movies); mythology's ARES; the Bible's LEAH and LOT. As I said—a LOT of names!
Fill from south of the border gives us the crossing of SRAS [Married mujeres (abbr.)] and SIESTAS, cleverly clued as [Rest of the afternoon?]; techno-fill gives us PAYPAL [Big name in e-commerce], E-FILE [Submit paperless taxes] and USER [Cybercafe patron].
Finally, [Hammerlock or full nelson] for HOLD summoned up a tart Larry Hart lyric:I've a powerful anesthesia in my fist,
To enjoy the entire funny un-valentine, check out this site.
And the perfect wrist to give your neck a twist.
There are hammerlock holds,
I've mastered a few,
And ev'rything I've got belongs to you.
Updated again Tuesday afternoon:
Whoops, sorry about the delay here, folks. My kid woke me up at 9:05 this morning and wow, did I feel great waking up then. Bright-eyed and energetic, but with a 10:15 appointment downtown. Then I met my husband for lunch and did a little shopping and next thing you know, it's mid-afternoon and I'm feeling ready for a nap. Crosswords? Onward!
Betty Keller's Los Angeles Times crossword
Did you give up on me and head over to L.A. Crossword Confidential hours ago? Alrighty, the theme today is LUNCH things, and there's an HOURGLASS FIGURE (lunch hour), MONEY TO BURN (lunch money), ROOM FOR RENT (lunchroom), and BOX OF CHOCOLATES (lunchbox). That's as solid as a turkey sandwich, I tell you. Not a particularly exciting theme, but solid.
Doesn't the grid look crazy? The pattern of black squares looks more abstract than usual, but there's some good stuff in here, some lively resonances. The yummy BOX OF CHOCOLATES is echoed by CAROB, clued as [Poor substitute for 62-Across]. Yes! A lousy substitute. I always grumble when CAROB is clued as a chocolate substitute. As if. Then there's the Z zone, where ZINGS and GONZO cross but not at a Z. Another edible cross-reference pairing is ICE TEA (I prefer to call it ICED TEA but will take either wording when I'm thirsty...or doing a crossword) with LEMON. I prefer my iced tea plain, thanks. Fruit flavors a plus, but no sweeteners, please. Don't recall seeing ENERO, Spanish for January, clued this way before: [Año Nuevo month]. Happy New Year!
Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword, "They Were in That?"
Matt does pop culture themes well, and this puzzle's no exception. The theme is six popular actors (all male, hmph), clued with the trivia of what their debut movies were:
Hooray for cluing RAJ as the ["What's Happening!!" character]—and yes, the show did use twice as many exclamation points as Jeopardy! Also taking me back to my televisual childhood is RHODA, ["The Mary Tyler Moore Show" spinoff] (there were also Phyllis and Lou Grant). And FRED! [Mister Rogers] was awesome.
No, I did not know that NAJIB was the answer to [Malaysia's current prime minister ___ Tun Razak]. I got the J from A.J. Foyt but not the other person in the AJS clue, [Racecar driver Foyt and CNN host Hammer]. Hammer, don't hurt 'em. I got all the letters in BURJ from the crossings; that's the first word of [___ Dubai (world's tallest skyscraper, as of 2009)].
June 15, 2009
Tuesday, 6/16
March 08, 2009
Monday, 3/9
Jonesin' 4:07
BEQ 4:05
LAT 2:40
CS 2:38
NYT 2:31
Before the ACPT, I set up a few Google Alerts so that Google could do the legwork of tracking down websites or blogs that mentioned the tournament. (I also set up a Google Alert for my own name and "Crossword Fiend," so I can ego-surf with a minimum of effort.) This morning, an alert pointed me to Mark Murphy's entertaining write-up of his tournament weekend. (There are spoilers for the ACPT puzzles, so don't peek if you're waiting for puzzles by mail.) A sample from Murphy's Craw: "Seeing a puzzle by Byron Walden that turns out to be easy is a little like being James Bond and being taken to Dr. No's torture chamber and finding out that the only weapon the good doctor has on hand is his collection of favorite knock-knock jokes."
Betty Keller's New York Times crossword offers plenty of encouragement to the solver. ["Keep going!"] is the clue for all four theme entries: "TRY, TRY AGAIN." "NEVER SAY DIE." "HANG IN THERE!" And "DON'T STOP NOW." I needed the encouragement at 1-Across, I tell ya—[What skunks do], 5 letters, starting with S. Hmm...could be STINK, or SPRAY, or SMELL. Luckily, previous crosswords have taught me that [Bridge writer Culbertson] is named ELY, so that pointed me towards SMELL.
[Bibliophile] seemed like a weird clue for BOOKMAN (BOOK MAN?)—or rather, that was a weird answer. I know Bookman, the font, and Mr. Bookman, the Seinfeld character (the library detective cracking down on fine scofflaws).
TOILE, the [Decorative upholstery fabric], is one of those words that can be off-putting to some Monday solvers. Heck, it intimidates me, because I seldom remember the difference between TOILE (which is also "a translucent linen or cotton fabric, used for making clothes") and TULLE (the mesh-like fabric seen in veils and tutus). Gotta work the crossings with those every time.
What else is in this puzzle?
Updated:
Todd McClary slipped six theme entries into his LA Times crossword, with two shorter ones criss-crossing in the middle of the puzzle. Each one follows the ROPE-A-DOPE template: two rhyming words joined by an A.
I think I'd like the theme better without RUB-A-DUB, which is a little distracting because it's not as familiar (sans the extra "dub") as the other theme entries. Actor Jackie Earle Haley fell from fame for a couple decades, but he's winning raves for his roles in Little Children (he was heart-breaking there) and Watchmen (which I haven't seen). I think it's time for him to lay claim to the EARLE clues, replacing [Grammy-winning country star Steve]. I suspect far more people will see Watchmen than have ever bought a Steve Earle album. ROMA is clued as a [Pear-shaped tomato], but I think of Romas as being more egg-shaped, but with less taper. NASDAQ is the [Exchange where YHOO is traded]. DUE DATE is both a pregnant woman's and a [Book borrower's concern]. PEEVED is clued as [In a lather].
Martin Ashwood-Smith's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Cold-Hearted," features two 15-letter phrases and a 13 with a cold heart—the word ICE (32-Down) in the exact center of the answer. The phrases aren't particularly exciting, though:
There's some crosswordese lurking in the midst:
The coolest words in the grid are INVEIGLE, or [Sweet-talk], and HOOPLA, or [Big to-do].
Today's Brendan Emmett Quigley crossword is 'End of Newspapers: Emphasizing 'dead' tree editions." The theme answers are headlines you might see for an obituary for a newspaper:
Here are my favorite clues and answers from the rest of this puzzle:
This week's Jonesin' crossword by Matt Jones is called "Earning All A's." It took a while for me to figure out what was happening with the theme entries—each one takes a familiar phrase, changes all the vowels to A's, and clues the resulting nonsense phrase:
Two non-theme answers evoke the outdated womanhood of fairy tales—MAIDEN is clued with [She may be fair] amd DAMSELS are clued as [Distressed women?]. UMBRAS are [Dark parts of sunspots], and I needed a lot of crossings to figure that one out. [Cry on the set] isn't a verb—it's "ACTION," which comes after "Lights, camera...." [Scrapes from a motorcycle spill] or a bicycle crash are called ROAD RASH. [2000s caffeinated offshoot of 7 Up] is DNL. That name is 7 Up upside down—turn your head to see 7 Up in "dn L." [Prince who doubles as Wonder Woman] isn't a drag queen or cross-dressing royal—it's DIANA Prince.
February 01, 2009
Monday, 2/2
BEQ 5:37
Sun 3:14
NYT 2:48
LAT 2:45
Don't miss the 2008 Oryx Awards write-up. Last year, we were treated to a wealth of cruciverbal goodies, and Rex Parker and I have singled out some of our very favorites.
All righty, let me get my structural complaint out of the way first. In Damon Gulczynski's New York Times crossword, the theme entries are 11, 7, 7, and 11 letters long, but there are two more 10-letter Across answers in the mix that aren't part of the theme. It's a bit jarring for the solver's eyes to have these long answers sprawling across the grid but having nothing to do with the theme. The theme answers all end with the "wee" sound:
The long answers that draw the eye are MARIONETTE, clued as [Pinocchio, notably], and "SURE ENOUGH," or ["You're absolutely right"]. ENYA makes an appearance as the ["Only Time" singer, 2001] and is also referenced as a New AGER. There's a cuisine vibe in this puzzle, too—CAJUN is [Like Louisiana cuisine], which I'll be eating in New Orleans this April. CRAB is a [Maryland seafood specialty], and it crosses CREME [___ brulee]. Maybe one [Betty Crocker offering] is a crème brûlée RECIPE? Ignore the presence of ACRID/[Bitter] in that section and enjoy your dessert. If the creme brûlée is too rich, try an OREO, or [Cookie with a filling].
Later Sunday evening:
Imagine my delight when I went grocery shopping after doing the NYT crossword and encountered Stewarts' new line of flavored coffees, featuring Vanilla Créme Burlee.
P.S.:
Longtime solvers may remember a similar theme from Elizabeth Gorski back on 6/16/05, in a Thursday NYT—she included "WHERE WERE WE?," the WEE SMALL HOURS, "WHEE! THIS IS FUN," and MICHELLE WIE for her foursome.
Updated Monday morning:
I mistakenly opened Friday's Sun crossword instead of today's and found myself unable to summon up any answers for the longest time. Eventually I saw the 2/6 date atop the puzzle, muscled through it, and had Lee Glickstein's Monday crossword for dessert. "Cross-Sections" was easy enough to fill in, but it took me until just now to see what the theme was. Each theme entry ends with the name of a newspaper section:
The grid is held together by a quartet of 9-letter answers that spiral out from the center. Classic Monday Sun quality and flavor overall, plus MEL OTT's full name for a change.
Betty Keller's LA Times crossword runs the temperature gamut in the theme entries:
Lots of colorful fill in this crossword—SLIPSHOD means [Careless, as workmanship]; LOW-CUT can be [Backless]; a LAB RAT is a [Scurrier in a maze]; "LET'S SEE" is a [Ponderer's phrase]; a BAD EGG is a [Good-for-nothing]; and a CHAT ROOM is a [Place for online gab].
Today's Brendan Emmett Quigley puzzle is called "Before They Were Famous," and the theme clues give the original names of various bands. Wow, I didn't know a single one of these trivia factoids, but at least I know all the names that these groups settled on. What band was originally known as:
