Saturday, 12/5/09

Newsday 9:51
NYT 5:26
LAT 3:51
CS untimed

Bonus puzzle: Caleb Madison's Bard Bulletin crossword, "A Swift Response." It's a 19x19 to accommodate the theme, and if you've been plugged into pop culture this fall, you'll dig it. (Link is for a Java applet; here's an Across Lite link.)

Brad Wilber's New York Times crossword

Would you look at all the cool answers in here? Tyler Hinman was just saying on Twitter that "68 is the sweet spot for themelesses" because "68 is where you start to get the eye-pop factor without resorting to obscurities." Brad's 72-word grid may not have so much in the way of eye-pop, but the fill's highlights (and the twistiest clues) do offer brain-pop. To wit:

• 1A. [Modern campaign element] is the ROBOCALL. If only robocalls were limited to political candidates.
• 30A. The SHVG in the middle of BUSH V. GORE looks bizarre. This is, of course, the [2000 Supreme Court case hinging on the 14th Amendment].
  
• 42A. GROUP HUG! Clued gruesomely as [Corporate retreat closer, perhaps].
  
• 56D. [They work to maintain their faculties] clues college DEANS.
  
• 65A. I always love to see the word AKIMBO, which is [One way to stand], with your hands on your hips.
• 68A. [Producer of a piercing look], fictionally speaking, is X-RAY EYES.
• 1D. REST UP, or [Recharge], is a solid phrase. Kinda looks like RE-STUP since multi-word crossword answers lack word spaces.
• 7D. LET IT BE is a [1970 hit documentary] and the Beatles hit song.
• 8D. The late, very great LES PAUL is clued as the ["Vaya Con Dios" hitmaker, 1953]. You know a guitarist is serious about his art if he shatters his arm in a car crash and, when the doctors say the elbow will be fixed in one position after surgery, instructs them to give him a permanent guitar-playing angle to his arm.
• 9D. TORI, plural of "torus," was just clued in relation to doughnuts, I think in the LAT crossword. Here they're [Bagels, e.g.].
• 32D. Great mislead in the clue. The [Model featured in "Little Miss Sunshine"] is the VW BUS the family drove, not a fashion model.
• 34D. BART is a simple little answer. The trivia clue is [TV character who says "I didn't think it was physically possible, but this both sucks and blows"]. I am of the generation that uses "suck" as a synonym for "stink" without regard for any oral sex connotations the slangy usage may have had earlier.
• 37D. OKEY-DOKE! ["You got it"].
• 38D. DECREPIT's clued with [Condemnable?] because a decrepit building might be condemned.
• 44D. The UV INDEX is another terrific entry, [It drops to 0 after sundown].

If you know your Greek roots/medical terminology, you can piece together what achromotrichia is even if you've never seen the word before (as I had not). 49D: [Start developing achromotrichia] clues GO GRAY, as in hair.

I wasn't as pleased with the EX-YANKEE and OXHIDE (though I like the Scrabbly letters). Crosswordese EELY ENE AGAR, meh. The Italian word GLI is not so well-known, I think—61A: [Los : Spanish :: ___ : Italian]. Speaking of Italy, MODENA is the [Maserati headquarters city] and where that yummy balsamic vinegar comes from, SBARRO is a poor [Alternative to Uno Chicago Grill], and LIRA is the [Old capital of 36-Across] (meaning the old unit of currency used in Modena).

Overall, good stuff. I do like a 72-worder if it's packed with goodies the way this puzzle is.

Updated Saturday morning:

Stella Daily & Bruce Venzke's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Getting Active"—Janie's review

Apparently, yesterday's sloth machines yield to today's exercise regimen. In a four-step process to shake off the lethargy and get movin', we:

•17A. SIT FOR A PORTRAIT [Have one's picture painted].

•26A. STAND ON CEREMONY [Follow protocol to the letter].

•48A. WALK ON EGGSHELLS [Proceed gingerly]. This one's my fave clue/fill combo.

•63A. RUN INTERFERENCE [One way to block defenders, in football].

There is nothing BLAH [Ho-hum] about that fill. It's fresh, lively and long–four 15s for a generous 60 squares of theme fill.

While, on the whole, the "straight-forward" school of cluing prevails, there's some nice non-theme fill as well. You can almost hear that BRAZEN GUFFAW clued as [Full of chutzpah] and [Hearty chuckle] respectively; or the person who SCREAMS [Hits the high note, in a way]–though one might also associate screams (the noun) with the sounds heard in the INFERNO [Dante's and Virgil's destination in literature]; or that "CLANG!" [Sound in "The Trolley Song"].

Progressive references to time can be seen in YEARS [What birthday candles represent] and LIFE [Birth to death] and EON (which I'd not thought of as such but which can refer to a) [Geologic time unit]. If you fervently created objects with ROPE [Macramé medium] at some time in your life, chances are you're of a certain age. Or if you baked your own granola, or rolled your own...candles...

[Stick in one's ___ ] CRAW is an almost quaint phrase these days, but I like it still. The craw is the stomach (of an animal) and the phrase is used to describe the way it feels when you just can't easily dismiss something that's bothering you; it causes resentment; it rankles. That would be an exaggeration of how I felt on encountering crosswordese SNEE, SPEE and TRON all in the same puzzle–but I also took pleasure in the way the first two rhyme with ONE G, TREE and NO TV. Cluing RNS as [They work with MDs] did not go unnoticed, btw. Or unappreciated.

Kyle Dolan's Los Angeles Times crossword

I suspect this is the constructor's major newspaper crossword debut. If so, congratulations!

The puzzle's got an unusual grid, with two vertical 15s constituting a mini-theme: 6D, 9D: The mini-theme includes 6D: GREEN-COLLAR JOBS, or [Work in the environmental sector], and 9D: CARBON FOOTPRINT, or [Environmental impact factor]. Timely, since the international summit on climate change is coming up in Copenhagen this month.

Things that caught my eye:

• 13A. [Wild Asian equine] (ONAGER). Bonus points because this is an anagram of Orange.
• 14A. ISABELLA is, among other things, a ["Measure for Measure" heroine]. Speaking of Shakespeare plays, I just received an e-mail newsletter alerting me to a community theater production, Comedy of Error. (Just one? Sure, in these recessionary times, who can afford more?)
• 17A. ["Receiving poorly," to a CBer[ (TEN-ONE). I know "10-4, good buddy," but not "10-1." Remember the '70s, when a song about CB radios could be a runaway hit?
• How about some deep-sea diving? 35D: [Sea named for its seaweed] (SARGASSO) crosses 39A: [Watery expanse] (SEA). (Not many people love cross-referenced clues, but SARGASSO's clue could've referenced 39A rather than including the word "sea.") What's in the sea? 20A: [Shockers in the deep] (EELS).
• Favorite fill, narrative style: The CLASS CLOWN got into trouble for throwing his PB AND J at the NINJAS, who fought back throwing stars crafted from BASMATI. The clown was sent to the principal, who declared him a LOST SOUL.
• 31A: [What it takes?] is TWO. To do what? To tango, to fight over the remote control, or move a sofa upstairs.
• 1D: [Possible source of unwanted feedback, for short] (HOT MIC). Short for "hot microphone." This answer, in combination with the name in the byline, leads me to suspect today's construct is under age 35.
• 3D: [Trattoria order?] (MANGIA). "MANGIA" is Italian for the imperative, "Eat!"
• 33D: [Big name in oil filters] (FRAM). Lame answer on its own merits, but it made me think of an Ella Fitzgerald/Louis Armstrong duet on "The Frim Fram Sauce," and that makes me happy.

Merle Baker's Newsday "Saturday Stumper"

(PDF solution here.)

This one seemed a little more obliquely clued than the other recent Stumpers I've done. Among the clues I struggled with were these:

• 1A. [One of Maryland's state symbols] is the CALICO CAT. I was thinking state flower, tree, bird, gem, and seafood. Maryland has too many state symbols. The state sport is jousting. Apparently they like the calico because its colors—orange, black, and white—are shared by the Baltimore oriole and the state butterfly.
• 17A. [Unlikely Phi Betes] are B STUDENTS. Straight As will get you into Phi Beta Kappa more easily.
• 19A. BEES, not ANTS, are the [Symbols of industry].
• 27A. [Bonding agents?] are PARENTS. Eh, that clue reaches too far.
• 35A. [Fruit favored by Jefferson] is the GHERKIN. Who doesn't love gherkin pie?
• 39A. STAGERS are [Home-sale aides].
• 58A. [Party snacks] clues EDAMS. Really? Pfft. Next party I host, I'm putting out a bowl of Edam cheese wheels. Potato chips and Edams, that's it.
• 1D. [Sort of driver] is a CABBY. I prefer the "cabbie" spelling.
• 5D. Took a while to remember a 3-letter first name for a female dancer of yore. CYD Charisse is [Fred's partner in "Silk Stockings"].
• 7D. [Food processors] are the CANNERS who put your gherkins into jars.
• 9D. [It's often spoken into microphones] clues "TESTING...testing...one, two three."
• 12D. WATER SKIS are [Skimming gear].
• 33D. [Frequent fast-food giveaways] are...GLASSWARE? Wait, didn't that pretty much stop in the '70s? I was just talking about this last weekend with my husband, but thought it was more of a gas station giveaway, the drinking glasses with cartoon characters or sports team logos on them. Have you seen a fast-food joint giving out glasses in the last 10 or 20 years?
• 44D. [Upgrade one's alarm] clues REWIRE. If you say so.
• 52A. TARES, the verb: [Computes net weight].

Read More...

Summary only...

Saturday, 10/10/09

Newsday 6:06
NYT 5:51
LAT 3:26
CS untimed

I just signed up for the Walk4Hearing event on October 18, raising money for the Hearing Loss Association of America's efforts in hearing loss prevention and education. Sponsors welcome, and much appreciated! My donation page is here. Thanks.

Natan Last's New York Times crossword

I wasn't loving this puzzle when the clues for 2- and 3-Down weren't getting me anywhere. But eventually I landed on the coolest entries, and warmed up to the crossword:

• 38A. "LAY IT ON ME" is clued ["I'm listening, bro"]. Love the answer, loathe the clue. What is that? What Frasier Crane says to Niles in a moment of whimsy? I'd go with ["All right, let's hear it"]. No, wait, that's got an "it" in it. Maybe ["All right, I'm listening"]. No "bro."
  
• 7D. The OOMPA-LOOMPAS! They're [Willy Wonka's work force]. Do you prefer the little people in the first movie adaptation, or the digital duplication of Deep Roy in the Johnny Depp movie?
  
• 6D. [Ones who are too big for their britches] are WHIPPERSNAPPERS. Great word.
  
• 23A. MEA CULPA is an [Admission of sorts].
  
• 6A. And who doesn't love a WORD GAME? The clue, [Ghost, e.g.], wasn't helping me much. I don't think I've played Ghost.
  
• 46A. SPAMALOT! That's the [Tony winner between "Avenue Q" and "Jersey Boys"].
  
• 16A. HOOLIGAN! That's a [Tough]. Great word. Is somebody's great-grandparent inside this puzzle casting aspersions on the HOOLIGANs and WHIPPERSNAPPERS who are leaving [Graffiti, say] (MARKS) on public property?
  

There were also some clues to savor:

• 31A. PIROUETTE is a [Revolutionary dance move?] in that you revolve on your toes.
  
• 35A. [Services aces?] leaves the realm of tennis and moseys into church services and PARSONS.
  
• 42A. The hair SALON is [Where locks are changed?].
  
• 2D. This one! *shaking fist* [Like Japan's national diet], straight-up, no question mark, has nothing to do with food intake. It's the legislature, the Diet of Japan, that is BICAMERAL (two-chambered, like the U.S. Congress).
  
• 3D. [Dark matter?] clues ESOTERICA. I'm not quite sure how the clue relates to the answer, but I think I like it anyway. Arcana and the occult are dark, but ESOTERICA is just highly specialized. What am I missing here?
  

There's an assortment of tough clues, too, as you'd expect for a Saturday puzzle. 49D: [Noel Coward title woman "from Argentina"] is NINA; musicals are not my thing. 17A: [Kind of statue or status] clues ICONIC; clue feels nonspecific to me. The [Bust of Pallas, to Poe's raven] is its 27A: PERCH; just wasn't putting the words together right here. 30A: ["___ the Viking," 1989 film starring Tim Robbins] is ERIK. Really? I have zero recollection of that. 9D: [Sixth-century year], bleh, DLI or 551. (Could also have been DII, DIV, DVI, DIX, DXI, DXV, DXX, DLV, DLX, DXC...) 12D: [Reeve's charge] is MANOR; Chaucer's Reeve was "manager of a large estate." Do you know your Spanish? 13D: [Between, to Batista] is ENTRE, same as in French. 26D: [Ending for a record] is the superlative suffix -EST; the puzzle's docked 10 points for having both this and SUREST in the grid.

Updated Saturday morning:

Lynn Lempel's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "That Is..."—Janie's review

Forgive me if I'm repeating myself, but I confess it: I love puzzles that add (or delete) letters from a well-known phrase to create something new, possibly whimsical, maybe even groan-worthy, and almost always smile-worthy. That is... I love the puzzle Lynn has given us to day, which gets a lot of mileage out of the addition of IE to the base fill. (For them what needs remindin', those are the letters that abbreviate the Latin phrase id est [translation: that is], which is used after one statement and preceding a clarifying statement.) In this way:

• 17A. Bankbook + ie = BANK BOOKIE [Person taking bets on financial institutions?]. Do banks still issue bankbooks (a/k/a passbooks) these days? I think I last had a passbook sometime in the early 80s. Is the bankbook something else that has become a "quaint" reminder (or relic...) of the way we did things "in the old days"?
• 28A. Bean counter + ie = BEANIE COUNTER [Where some hats are sold?]. Wow. I was surprised to seen that bean counter has been an "in the language" phrase only since 1975. Or that's what Merriam-Webster says.
• 47A. Arch support + ie = ARCHIE SUPPORT [What Veronica supplies?]. While I always felt that Betty could be counted on to offer more reliable support, it was Veronica who had his heart. These forever-young teens have been around since 1941. Do see what they've been up to lately, with story-lines that include weddings and babies and Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken." No kidding.
• 64A. Short cut +ie = SHORT CUTIE [Munchkin?]. While the OED tells us that a munchkin is "a small and endearing person; esp. a child. Also used as a term of endearment," the term first appeared in 1900 in L. Frank Baum's classic, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Happy 70th Anniversary to the movie!

There's more good fill of the non-theme variety, too. I like :

• INKS IN, clued as [Writes, as a signature]. For some folks this could be clued [Solves, as a crossword puzzle]. Uh, that would not be me...
• GUITAR SOLO [Flamenco piece, perhaps]. Or classical, or blues, or rock or jazz or any number of genres. Here's a list of some of the great guitar soloists in several styles. In folk groups you'll often hear not only guitar solos, but also BANJO solos. The banjo, of course, is the [Instrument for Pete Seeger]. If you've never seen The Power of Song, a 2007 documentary about Seeger, it's really worth a look-see.
• BONOBO ["Pygmy chimpanzee found only in the Democratic Republic of the Congo"]. That's the only place in the world where you'll find these long-legged chimps (with their oh-so humanoid physical traits) living in the wild.

Two terrific clues for two tiny words are [Frequent joiner] for AND, and [Lousy in Eng. class] for ADJ. (i.e., in a discussion of "parts of speech," the word lousy is an adjective...).

Finally, in a puzzle whose theme is inspired by one everyday Latin abbreviation, thank you, Madame Constructor, for the bonus entry—another everyday Latin abbreviation: ETC. [Writer's list topper]. (That one's short for et cetera...)

Brad Wilber's Los Angeles Times crossword

I like Brad's puzzles, but of course I'd prefer a Saturday puzzle clued harder than the Wednesday level. As I said over at L.A. Crossword Confidential, SQUIB KICK (29A: [Football boot that takes unexpected bounces]) was my big "Wha??" answer: Never heard of it! My son's been playing the Madden NFL '08 video game on Wii, though, and he's learned a lot about football from it. More than I know, actually. Shouldn't "squib kick" be used more broadly, in situations where life takes unexpected bounces?

These are a few of my favorite answers:

• 15A: [Blackmailer in "David Copperfield"] (URIAH HEEP). You'd be crooked too if your parents named you that. This is also the name of an old British rock band.
  
• Great entry, but depressing. 20A: [Wall Street down time?] (BEAR MARKET).
  
• 37A: [Foliage-eating pest] (GYPSY MOTH). With the PS in place, I blithely filled in SAPSUCKER, but that's a bird and sap ≠ foliage. Whoops.
  
• I fear I am too old for this one: 45A: [Closest pal, in texting shorthand] (BFF). Short for "best friend forever." My kid? He's nine. He's the right age group to use "BFF." If you are over 18, please do not use this abbreviation. Ever.
  
• Botany! 58A: [Shrub with fluffy grayish flower clusters], the SMOKE BUSH, is also called the smoke tree, and the flowers aren't always gray. It's closely related to 1D: ["Poison" plant] (SUMAC).
  
• Oh, no! Look out! It's THE BLOB! (6D: [Amoebalike movie alien]). I kinda want to switch the clues for 6D and 9D, so that the [Title gladiator played by Kirk Douglas] is THE BLOB and the amoeba monster is SPARTACUS. My favorite Spartacus is Hank Azaria's Agador Spartacus in Birdcage, but my favorite character in that movie is Nathan Lane, particularly when he tries to butch up but wears bright pink socks with a suit because "one wants a hint of color." Words to live by.
  
• 38A: [Exuberant modern compliment] ("YOU ROCK!"). Love it! I actually use this phrase, and it's possible that I shouldn't.
  

Not all the fill was as entertaining as those answers. INTERMESH and pretax SUBTOTALS and an oddly COCKED HAT didn't do much for me (though the dictionary tells me a COCKED HAT is a thing, a "brimless triangular hat pointed at the front, back, and top," is it a hat any of us have heard of?). The short stuff also seemed heavy. Five entire Across rows and three Downs containing nothing but three- to five-letter words? ANOS, TAS, DMS, OAS, ECK, IPO, Spanish URANO (2D: [Seventh planeta]), the old crosswordese 7D: Dreaded mosquito, AEDES? Meh.

Barry Silk's Newsday "Saturday Stumper"

(PDF solution here.)

I wasn't quite sure my solution was correct until I checked the PDF. 37D: [End neighbor] clues PGDN. That's the "page down" key on a computer keyboard. On my Apple keyboard, do you know what that key says? It's labeled "page down." My husband's Windows laptop has "Page dn." Does anyone have PG DN?

Since when are 1A: [Burger and fries] COMFORT FOOD? The clue should read [Grilled cheese and tomato soup], obviously.

Favorite bits:

• 21A. [Cracker sandwiches] are S'MORES. Yum! I just bought all the fixings to make these—except I just realized that my Peapod grocery delivery did not inclulde the chocolate bars I thought I ordered. The system was haywire and a bunch of things I wanted vanished from my virtual cart. Chocolate! Must buy some today.
  
• 55A. [She's not talking] clues a MIME. Three cheers for a clue that doesn't use a male default.
  
• 62A. AHMAD RASHAD's name was not coming to me, and any TV name starting with AH was looking unlikely. He's the [Former "Celebrity Mole" host]. I halfway wanted to squeeze Anderson Cooper in there. What did he host in his pre-CNN days, non-celebrity The Mole?
  
• Ahmad's sitting on top of another 5/6-letter full name: LORNE GREENE was the [Prosecutor portrayer in "Peyton Place"], which (a) was before my time and (b) is a clue with too many Ps.
  

I didn't know AUTO-REVERSE a week or so ago when it was in another puzzle but now? It was my #1 guess for [Cassette-player feature].

Too bad [Holy ___] clues only SEE (65D) and not also MACKEREL (24D, [Salt-cured sushi]).

Did you know MR. T is now a [Tormenting voice on some GPS devices]? Poor guy, always typecast. Why wasn't he cast opposite Jack Nicholson in The Bucket List? Where is his romantic comedy career?

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Summary only...

Friday, 10/2/09

NYT 5:10
CHE 4:46
LAT 3:17
CS untimed
BEQ it's a long story
WSJ 6:44

Check out the previous post for a link to Patrick Blindauer's new crossword project (and a free puzzle of Fridayish difficulty).

Brad Wilber's New York Times crossword

Brad WIlber's back with a six-pack of 11s and a six-pack of 10s in a smooth crossword. The highlights...in a bit. A thunderstorm's worrying my son at the moment. Back soon.

Okay, then. Favorite fill and clues:

• 17A. PENN STATION [Its clock was featured in the 1945 film "The Clock"].
  
• 27A. J.M. BARRIE was a [Best-selling children's author who became a baronet].
  
• 35A. One [Diagnosis facilitator] is an MRI SCAN. Feels like we say "CT scan" and "CAT scan" but just "MRI," no scan, doesn't it?
  
• 37A. PRISONS are [Where people do stretches], not a YOGA MAT. "In stir" means "in prison," but CAUSED A STIR (1A: [Rabble-roused]) is unrelated.
  
• 48A. TREPAN is a [Mine shaft drill], sure, if you say so. It's also a hole saw used to cut a hole in the skull back in the day. Surgeons used to treat various ailments with trephination. "I need this like I need a hole in the head" probably had different connotations a couple hundred years ago.
  
• 51A, 16A. Star Wars geek alert: ANI (Anakin Skywalker) is a [Boyhood nickname in "The Phantom Menace"], while OOLA was Princess Leia's ["Return of the Jedi" dancing girl] alter ego in the movie that demonstrated that George Lucas panders to young men.
  
• 61A. I dunno about this clue: EMPIRE WAIST is a [Dress style that appears to lengthen the body]? Sure, but it also makes a lot of women look suspiciously pregnant.
  
• 63A. Did you know that DAMN YANKEES was a [Modern retelling of the Faust legend]? I did not. Musical theater and I have little common ground.
  
• 12D. [Actress Katharine Ross's actor-husband] is SAM ELLIOTT. I could picture the giant mustache, but blanked on his last name and started out with SAM HOUSTON.
  
• 27D. My favorite entry today is JUMP THE GUN, or [Be too hasty].
  
• 29D. BLIND ALLEY is also excellent. [It leads nowhere].
  
• 36D, 39A. If you gotta have a couple Star Wars clues, you'd better have some wine. [Chardonnay alternative] is SOAVE, and it crosses PINOT, a [Wine option] that comes in black and gray options (pinot noir, the red, and pinot grigio or gris, the white).
  
• 59D. [Be undefeated against, in sports lingo] is OWN. PWN is a closely related concept.
  

Less familiar things in this puzzle:

• 15A. AUTO-REVERSE is a [Tape deck convenience]. It's called that? Is that when the tape player flips from the A side to the B side without making you pop the tape out, or is that auto-rewinding when it reaches the end?
  
• 22A. [Ones maturing quickly, for short] is T-BILLS. I was thinking of fruit and adolescents.
  
• 4D. ["Tempest," for one] is a SONATA. No idea whose SONATA it might be. Google tells me it's Beethoven. Do you know where he was born? If you know your composers' birthplaces (countries), try this Sporcle.com quiz.
  
• 6D. [Comerica Park team, on scoreboards] is DET (roit). I don't even know what business Comerica is in.
  
• 7D. I've only seen an episode or two of Nip/Tuck, so I didn't know AVA was ["Nip/Tuck" character Moore].
  
• 10D. [A couple of words after the race] clues IS ON, as in "the race is on." This answer/clue combo kinda stinks, doesn't it?
  
• 11D. I just figured out what this clue meant. [People may ask you to do this] means People magazine. I got RENEW as the answer, but without realizing it was People, not small-p people.
  
• 28D. [1941 Jimmy Dorsey chart-topper] is MARIA ELENA.
  

Pretty much a standard Friday level of difficulty, no? Just enough challenge without being too easy or too hard.

Updated Friday morning:

Stella Daily & Bruce Venzke's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle,"Hello Kitty"—Janie's review

I confess. That image at the left is the "Hello Kitty" I was secretly hoping for. Still, Stella and Bruce do a fine job giving us four phrases and one name whose first word can follow "kitty," thus producing a whole new phrase. And there's lots of fine non-theme as well to keep this puzzle lively. First things first:

• 17A. Kitty + LITTERBUGS [Careless trash-tossers] → kitty litter. A good thing to have (in quantity...) if there's a kitty or a full-grown cat in the house.
• 28A. Kitty + HAWK ONE'S WARES [Sell aggressively] → Kitty Hawk. This would be the site of the Wright brothers' first "controlled powered" airplane flights in 1903.
• 47A. Kitty + CORNER GROCERY [Mom-and-pop business, often] → kitty-corner. Or cater-corner. Regardless, it means "in a diagonal position."
• 64A. Kitty + CAT STEVENS [Singer now called Yusuf Islam] → kitty cat. This is the adorable creature that will necessitate the purchase of kitty litter (see 17A).

In the non-theme department, as promised, there are some real beauts, most notably those symmetrical tens: LOVERS' LANE [Place for makeout sessions] and WISECRACKS [Wit-filled words]. It seems to me that another [Place for makeout sessions] might be that divine DIVAN [Place to recline]. And although RED has been clued as [Visibly embarrassed], I was taken with the "D" it shares with DIVAN, and keep seeing the fill as RED DIVAN.

That DIVAN really is a multifunctional piece, too. For anyone who TIRES [Runs out of gas], what could be better? Hopefully SLEEP [Ambien user's goal] will come easily, but if not, well, "better living through chemistry" is a phrase that comes to mind...

Back to WISECRACKS. I usually think of these as being more flip than "wit-filled"—but sometimes flip remarks can also be witty. Someone who cracks wise or even [Delivers a sassy retort] is someone who ZINGS. Cyrano de Bergerac would be a classic example of someone who could deliver the wittiest of zingers. Some of these quotes may serve to illustrate.

On the topic of language, there's also [Colorful language, sometimes] for SLANG (e.g., that [Total bore]/SNOOZE combo)—preceded by its complementary clue [Colorful card game] for UNO and the reminder of its bright, primary(-ish) color-wheel playing cards. Then there's the tricky language we find in some of the cluing: [Plies the needle]? That's SEWS. [Creates a chair, perhaps]? ENDOWS. Clever. I think my favorite clues, though, are [Bride's handful] for NOSEGAY (anyone else first think IN-LAWS?) and the almost redundant sounding [Tiny time unit, for short] for NSEC. Don't ask why, I just find that one "cute."

Janie, NSEC isn't "cute"! It's insistently "meh," in fact.

Jack McInturff's Los Angeles Times crossword

The theme entries change second words that start with R- into CR- words. The first one I filled in was 27A: PUNK CROCK, or [Small-time hood's pottery?], where "punk rock" and "punk crock" sound quite similar, so I figured the others would also have first words ending with the "k" sound. 'Twas not to be. The others are 20A: MILITARY CRANK ([Grouch in the army?]—I prefer my grouches in trash cans on Sesame Street), 36A: HEAT CRASH ([Accident in a qualifying race?]), 47A: HEAD CREST ([Family insignia for designer Edith?]), and 54A: EXCHANGE CRATE ([Jalopy used as a trade-in?]). I love "jalopy."

An olio of other stuff:

• 39D. [Refinery gases] are ETHENES, which crosses the EDER (64A: River near Kassel, Germany]). Both entries are entirely lacking in zip.
  
• 12D. You can pluralize that? IRONIES are [Many O. Henry endings].
  
• 4D. UNLINK is [Separate, as chain parts]. Would've been good to change that to a satellite UPLINK crossing A POP crossing MAG, though I do like 1D: MUG ([Morning container]).
  
• 6D. Least appealing clue: [Congeal, as blood] for CLOT.

Gary Steinmehl's Chronicle of Higher Education crossword, "Round Table"

Yay! The CHE puzzle bearing today's date is on the Chronicle's website today! (Link at top of post.) Get this: A themed Friday puzzle that made me think. With the New York Sun's disappearance a year ago and the easing up of the L.A. Times crossword, Steinmehl's puzzle was a welcome Friday-morning find.

The theme features people from the Algonquin Round Table—Dorothy PARKER, Robert BENCHLEY, Edna FERBER, and Robert SHERWOOD sit around the edges of the big circle of circled squares, which aptly spell out THE VICIOUS CIRCLE.

Tough fill abounds. HETAERA is a [Courtesan of ancient Greece]. HENAN is the [Chinese province that was the center of the Shang dynasty]. Poet James THOMSON is clued as ["Rule Brittania" lyricist James], but the title is flubbed in the clue—it's punctuated and spelled like this: Rule, Britannia! (That's the work, of course, composed by crosswordese composer ARNE.) Spanish missionary, old-time actress VERNA Bloom, [Sea-lily appendages] with the cloud name CIRRI—there's plenty of challenging fill and clues in this puzzle.

Randolph Ross's Wall Street Journal crossword, "Puzzle 5.O"

Each theme entry has five Os in it (and no other vowels, save Y), but some of them aren't "in the language" phrases that merit their appearance in a crossword grid. HOOK OR CROOK? Without the "by" before each noun, what is this? BOWL OF DOG FOOD? NOT FOOLPROOF? GO ON TOO LONG? I say "no, no, no, no, no" to those four. Much better are SHOOP SHOOP SONG, VOODOO DOLL, DOOR TO DOOR, and the BOOK OF MORMON. I'm torn on "BOY, OH BOY, OH BOY" and "BLOODY GOOD SHOW." The latter Googles up OK, but it makes me think of bloody show and mucus plugs.

The solving experience was further dampened by fill like REWEAR, SHOERS and a FLAYER, NO ONE'S, SNEERY, NON-PROS, and assorted abbreviations. I just didn't find the entertainment I was hoping for. Oh, well.

Updated Friday afternoon:

Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Sorry, Wrong Number: Nope, not nouns"

Okay, I've gotta quit trying Brendan's easy puzzles with Down clues only. The combination of fill that isn't the same ol', same ol' and twisty clues means that holy cats, the puzzle is no fun with just the Downs. I ended up using some Acrosses to iron things out. If you don't know JA RULE's oeuvre and MCQ and STIED and WOWIE don't come readily to mind as possibilities, you're probably not going to be happy working off of half the clues.

Yesterday, Brendan gathered theme material via Twitter and Facebook crowdsourcing, asking people to think of verbs that look like violations of irregular plurals. E.g., loaves of bread vs. the verb loafs. But...the theme entries are clued as straightforward verb phrases, so the ties that bind the theme are largely absent from the puzzle itself. The puzzle's subtitle is "Nope, not nouns," but the theme clues have absolutely nothing to do with the nouns. So what we have here is a "huh, these words all share a halfway interesting trait, that they could double as incorrect plurals, except that they're used correctly as verbs so that's beside the point" theme.

Who is this [Feminist Russell] named DORA? Dora Black married Bertrand Russell. She supported birth control back in the 1920s, was polyamorous, and was a peace activist. Good to know.

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Summary only...

Saturday, 7/25

NYT 5:59
Newsday 5:23
LAT 4:00—fantastic themeless, don't miss it (Across Lite at Cruciverb.com, applet at latimes.com)
CS 7:16 (J—paper)

Guess what? When there's an outdated crossword clue about nurses, they notice. And they don't like it. Must reading for crossword constructors and editors.

Edited to add: Writer Dean Olsher (his book, From Square One, is in bookstores now) will be blogging the Sunday puzzles for us.

Vic Fleming's New York Times crossword

Vic's puzzle is anchored by a 15-letter answer running down the middle and criss-crossed by three more 15s as well as two 11s and four 10s. It's an unusual grid layout. The fill isn't very Scrabbly, perhaps because of the constraints of this layout. Overall, the cluing was more lively than the fill, I thought. Highlights:

• 15A. [Cover-up during a shower] is the TARP on a ballfield. Anyone else let that P talk them into SOAP here?
  
• 17A. [Inquire about a union contract?] clues PROPOSE MARRIAGE. I suspected the answer would have something to do with prenuptial agreements, but PROPOSE MARRIAGE is much sweeter.
  
• 28A. [Trumpeter with a prominent neck] is, of course, the most popular trumpet player in crosswords, Al HIRT. He is known for his fabulously prominent neck, which is the secret of his musical success. No, actually, the answer is a SWAN, such as a trumpeter swan.
  
• 35A. [Quarter master?] is sort of a weird clue for NUMISMATIST because I don't know that a coin collector/expert would consider herself a "master." But the clue definitely did its job in getting me to think of entirely different possible meanings for "quarter master."
  
• 46A, 50A. I'll excuse a pesky [Kind of ___] clue if it's part of something bigger. Here, [Certain joe] is DECAF and [Kind of joe] is SLOPPY. Really, 50A should be [___ joe], but then nobody would be misled into thinking about coffee.
  
• 63A. [Something often written under] is a deadline more than, say, the table. But the puzzle's looking for NOM DE PLUME this time.
  
• 7D. The anchor 15 kept me guessing for far too long, because those two razor-aisle clues made me think of peach fuzz whiskers. And then I thought of eluding the police. But no. [Losing the fuzz?] clues COMING INTO FOCUS. Amazing how long it took for that answer to come into focus.
  
• 18D. OFTENER. I don't think I've ever used that word. It's clued as [Not so rarely]. It looks like it's missing an introductor FABRIC S-.
  
• 29D. WISC.! "On, Wisconsin!" The state is clued as [Superior setting: Abbr.] because Superior is a Wisconsin town way up yonder next to Duluth, Minnesota.
  
• 30D. [Hairy clue-sniffer] clues the whodunit dog, ASTA. My god, what a horrid clue! It's grotesque. Hairy + sniffer? Rhymes with "glue-sniffer"? It's almost surreal. And then the answer is just our stalwart detective dog ASTA. When's the last time an ASTA clue made you laugh? +10 points!
  
• 47D. [One working on the side?] is an EATER still working on that side dish. Icky odd-job answer, sure, but the clue and the initial E lured me into entering EXTRA, working on the...side...of a movie set? Yeah, that doesn't make much sense. So sue me.
  
• 49D. Crosswordese ARILS come to life when clued as [Edible pomegranate parts]. Most of us know what ARILS look like if we get a colorful example like this.

What I don't quite get or didn't much care for:

• 39A. VESTED INTERESTS is clued [They benefit personally]. Say what? "Personally" suggests that this is about people who benefit, but people have VESTED INTERESTS rather than being VESTED INTERESTS. Can somebody explain this one to me?
  
• 54A. [Seek change?] clues BEG. Hmm, can we not be jokey about the destitute? Beg pardon, beg for forgiveness, teach a dog to beg—those connotations would be better.
  
• 57A. [Father of Eleazar, in the Bible]? Ouch. It's AARON. He's Moses's brother, right? Can we expect MOSES to be clued as [Eleazar's uncle}? Meh.
  
• 38D. AREOLAS has such handy vowels, so it keeps showing up in crosswords. "Oh! Excuse me! Your dress is so low-cut, I fear your [Biological interstices] are peeking out!" But the word never gets clued with reference to what everyone thinks of when they hear it. The nipples and environs get no love in the crossword puzzle.

Updated Saturday morning:

Randall J. Hartman's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Ow, Ow—That Hurts!"—Janie's review

Nuthin' like a fine array of percussive sounds to generate a headache, is there? BANG! BOOM! KNOCK!—and what's the upshot? "Ow!" Double the cacophony and "Ow, ow!" Randy plays with these sounds in today's puzzle, but I don't imagine you'll need to take two aspirin once you've solved it. Additionally, he's given us three grid-spanning theme fills of the very fresh variety: the first two appear to be major-publication firsts, the third a CS debut:

• 20A. BANG-BANG CHICKEN [Szechuan dish]. Looks veeeery tasty. And unless you use one to prep the chicken itself, it looks like this dish can be made without a WOK [Chinese cooker].
  
• 41A. BOOM BOOM MANCINI [Lightweight boxing champ of the '80s]. Boy, does that fill look good in the grid! The consonant combos make it a little tricky to parse. (And I love that the puzzle includes BOO [Halloween holler] as well, like sort of boom partial...). While I'm not much of a boxing fan, somewhere I knew that as a younger fighter, Mancini, who delivered his share of KO'S [Some boxing victories, briefly] in his day, played a title bout that ultimately resulted in his opponent's death. This was in the days of 14-round title-bouts. Wisely, the tragedy led to the boxing organizations' decisions to reduce by two the number of rounds in a title bout.
  
• 56A. KNOCK-KNOCK JOKES [Gags that usually involve puns]. I know what a p. in the a. the links here are. They don't bring you back to what you've been reading. But please, when you're finished reading, go back for this one. It's an excellent time-capsule look at the form. A more current one can be found by listening to Garrison Keillor's annual "joke show" that's part of A Prairie Home Companion. Segment 3 contains the "Knock-knock Song." Not known so much for punning, but for his well-observed complaints about daily life, ALAN KING did once say of an early Catskills gig that he was fired because he opened by saying: “When you work for Gradus, you work for gratis!” [Rimshot.]

In the STAT department, I loved seeing today's one J, two Vs, three Zs and six Ks. Back to comedy... I'm reminded that in Neil Simon's The Sunshine Boys, funny-man Willy Clark ZINGS:

"Fifty-seven years in this business, you learn a few things. You know what words are funny and which words are not funny. Alka Seltzer is funny. You say "Alka Seltzer" you get a laugh . . . Words with "k" in them are funny. Casey Stengel, that's a funny name. Robert Taylor is not funny. Cupcake is funny. Tomato is not funny. Cookie is funny. Cucumber is funny. Car keys. Cleveland . . . Cleveland is funny. Maryland is not funny. Then, there's chicken. Chicken is funny. Pickle is funny."

We get two references today to the changes we've seen in automobile manufacture over the years: OLDS [Automaker until 2004] and NASH [Bygone auto]. The last of these rolled off the Kenosha, WI line in 1969. [It's a gas] is neither a way of describing a particularly funny experience nor something along the lines of neon or nitrous oxide. No, ARCO is a brand of gasoline to put into your auto of choice. Glad it's summer in the Northern Hemisphere, where there's little chance that a leisurely Sunday spin will lead to an encounter with BLACK ICE [Winter driving hazard].

The [First name in mausoleums] is TAJ and two crossword-friendly last names (because of their constructor-friendly vowel sequence] are CAAN and KAEL. (And funny, too!) There's some fine slang in the fill GONZO, here clued as [Eccentric] (but which I think of more often as meaning extreme as in the gonzo journalism of Hunter S. Thompson); and SHAG, here clued as [Catch fungoes]. "Fungoes" (great word in itself!) are fly balls "hit for fielding practice by a player who tosses the ball up and hits it on its way down with a long, thin, light bat," so in sports jargon, SHAG=catch. In BritSpeak, SHAG=have sex with.

Yesterday, BLONDIE appeared in the puzzle as a [Chic Young creation]. Today, the wife of her husband Dagwood's boss (Mr. Withers) joins the party. Hello, CORA. You're in excellent company with RAVI [Sitarist Shankar] OLEG and IVAN. Glad to see this last one clued in reference to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's ["One Day in the Life of ___ Denisovich"]. It woulda been really easy to clue him as [Tennis great Lendl], partnering him with ILIE [Tennis bad boy Nastase].

Brad Wilber's Los Angeles Times crossword

This one's been short-listed for the annual Oryx honors for the awards panel's favorite themeless crossword. It's got an abundance of fresh fill that really crackles with liveliness, plus Scrabbly letters up the wazoo. Holy frijoles, did I ever like this puzzle. Here's what I like best in a themeless puzzle:

• Lots of long answers, especially in the 9- to 11-letter range and all stacked together like intellectual Oreos.
  
• Surprising phrases, titles, names, and words—things that are decidedly not a dime a dozen in crosswords.
  
• Uncommon letters, which I like to call "Scrabbly" because they earn a lot of points in Scrabble.
  

The edges of Brad's crossword feature a dozen long answers, stacked three deep in each corner. There are all sorts of nutty entries I've never seen in a crossword before. And once I got MALT LIQUOR at 1-Across (clued with a brand of malt liquor, Colt 45, e.g.), I began to suspect there'd be all sorts of Scrabbly goodness lurking throughout.

Favorite answers and clues: I'll pick and choose and leave out some of my favorites, because dangit, there are just too many today.

• 17A: Emmy-winning 1972 TV concert film (LIZA WITH A Z). Wow, this one took me a long time to piece together. I had L*Z*WIT*AZ and was mystified. Two Zs! Total pop culture—but pop culture that is likely familiar to people from a wide range of ages. For a long moment, I wondered who this "A.Z." person was who was in concert with Liza.
  
• 28A: Brief turndown ('FRAID NOT). 100% colloquial spoken English, 100% familiar, less than 1% likely to appear in a crossword. My dad liked to tell the old joke about the piece of string who kept getting thrown out of a bar. He tied himself in a knot and roughed up his ends on the sidewalk and tried ordering a drink again. "Say, aren't you the piece of string I just threw out of here?" asked the bartender. "No, I'm a frayed knot," the string replied.
  
• 37A: Bismarck's realm (PRUSSIA). I think some of my ancestors came to America from what was then labeled Prussia on the map. I should start telling people I'm part Prussian.
  
• 44A: Military brass? (BUGLES). Usually "military brass" means the generals in charge; here it means the brass instruments used to play "Taps."
  
• 61A: Prescription that might give you shakes? (LIQUID DIET). As in the milkshakes, the protein shakes, etc.
  
• 64A: Head turner, at times (REIN). Usually "head turner" means "good-looking person," but here it refers to the REINs that turn a horse's head. Excellent mislead—the sort of misleading clue that's right at home in a Saturday crossword.
  
• 65A: 1988 winner of seven Olympic swimming medals (MATT BIONDI). I'm a sucker for first/last name combos as crossword fill. Poor Matt Biondi, eclipsed by Ian Thorpe and especially Michael Phelps. Speaking of full names, we also have LEW AYRES (5D: "Johnny Belinda" Oscar nominee).
  
• 6D: Where a pupil sits? (IRIS). I'll bet a lot of you wanted to put DESK here, didn't you? Saturday clues like to mess with our heads. Pupil = student, pupil = the black spot in your eye.
  
• 32D: You'll need one for your flat (SPARE TIRE). The clue wants you to think of English apartments and be misled, doesn't it?
  
• 34D: North American Francophone (QUEBECOIS). I like geographical names and I like the letter Q.
  
• 40D: Kipling's "limpin' lump o' brick-dust" (GUNGA DIN). I didn't know the colorful quote, but there aren't many Kipling characters' names that (a) I know and (b) are 8 letters long.
  
• 63D: Semi-colon? (DOT). A colon has two dots (:) so half a colon is one DOT.
  

Overall, this crossword really wasn't too tough, not as themeless Saturday puzzles go. There were a couple short answers that kept me waiting for crossings, though. There's 2D: Hypothetical particle (AXION), which I've never heard of. (Physics is not my forte.) And the abbreviation DAU. was kinda painful; it's clued as 31A: Abbr. in a genealogy volume, so I surmise that it's short for "daughter." You really have to expect to see some things you simply have no way of knowing in a Saturday puzzle, so you really can't call foul on these. And their crossings were rock-solid—it's not as if we had to guess a letter in DAU that crossed an Armenian river, you know? This puzzle is eminently fair in addition to being a sparkly marvel of yumminess.

(Writeup adapted from my post at L.A. Crossword Confidential.)

Adam Cohen's Newsday "Saturday Stumper"

(PDF solution here.)

I think Adam Cohen's new to Stumper constructing, though his work has been published in the NYT every day from Monday through Saturday. This Stumper was decidedly non-stumpogenic as Stumpers go—I finished in a Friday to easy Saturday NYT amount of time. He's a promising addition to the Saturday Newsday crew.

Things that made me go "ooh":

• 1A. [Piquant hodgepodge] clues JAMBALAYA. First thought was POTPOURRI, but 2D: [Fictional talking lion] had to be ASLAN so POTPOURRI was out.
  
• 17A. PLAYED OUT is a great, colloquial phrase. It means [Exhausted], in a way. "The word ESNE is played out in crosswords."
  
• 43A. [Poorer than poor] clues BAD. We're not talking destitution, we're talking quality.
  
• 50A, 55A. Stacked trade names: AIR CANADA is the [Publisher of "enRoute"] and CLEARASIL was/is an ["American Bandstand" sponsor]
  
• 57A. KANYE WEST is clued as the [2009 Grammy winner for "Swagga Like Us"]. Chicago, represent!
  
• 8D. "YOU'RE ON!" is indeed an [Enthusiastic assent].
  
• 11D. The ROAD is a [Place setting for forks]. Great clue.
  
• 24A. A cathedral APSE is clued as [Where icons may be seen], but crossword clues much more often refer to icons on your computer's screen so it felt like a Saturday-grade mislead.
  
• 40D. BARACK is a [Name from the Swahili for "blessed"]. I looked askance at the clue until I had enough crossings and remembered reading this. Definitely a few cuts above the typical [Name that means "___"] clue because it's been in the news.
  

Things that made me go "huh?" or "meh":

• 9D. ARTELS were [Communal collectives] in prerevolutionary Russia, and it's the second time I've seen this word in a puzzle this week. It is officially PLAYED OUT.
  
• 12D. Is there a doctor or biologist in the house? Can an ANTITOXIN properly be described as a [Germ fighter]? This feels wrong to me. I know some bacteria produce toxins, but is an antitoxin prescribed for that?
  
• 13D. [Careless] clues UNHEEDING. Raise your hand if you have never spoken, written, or heard that word. "Heedless," sure. (Siegfried Sassoon fans, sit down.)
  
• 34D. SARA is clued as ["CSI" character]. Uh, that character left the show a couple years ago. Is there really no zippier way to clue SARA today?

Read More...

Summary only...

Saturday, 6/20

Newsday 7:37
NYT 6:19
LAT 4:00
CS 6:55 (J—paper)

Before getting around to the Saturday NYT crossword, I did a few Vowelless Crosswords by Frank Longo. Man, I just flew through one of those puzzles! It only took me 8 minutes, or a third longer than the NYT. Then the next crsswrd took me 26 minutes. Ouch. I'm enjoying the format tremendously but you know what? The fun won't last. Before you know it, I'll have finished the entire book and then what? Then I have to wait until fall for Brendan Quigley's diagramless book, but I test-solved a bunch of the puzzles so those ones will be reruns for me.

Brilliant constructors, please make more tough puzzle books. Publishers, please publish said books. Thank you.

Brad Wilber's New York Times crossword

Tons of cool fill in this puppy, eh? This may be one of the most enjoyable Wilber creations to date. Let's run through some clues:

• 14A. ROGER EBERT is a [Writer on pictures]. I've been a huge admirer of Ebert's since I was a kid reading his reviews in the Chicago Sun-Times.
  
• 17A. If you are [Going bonkers for the British?], you have a touch of ANGLOMANIA.
  
• 20A. I was thinking of elbowing on a crowded sidewalk for the clue [Response to being elbowed, maybe]. "WAS I SNORING?" is the answer so no, not the sidewalk at all.
  
• 22A. ASOK is the ["Dilbert" character who was reincarnated as his own clone]. Does anyone still read "Dilbert"?
  
• 25A. [Kind of question] clues TRIVIA. This is a better "kind of ___" clue than the usual.
  
• 28A. I waited for the crossings to tell me if the [Companion for Pan] was one of Peter Pan's friends or a DRYAD from classical mythology. For more mythology, we have 15D's TANTALUS, [Victim of terrible teasing]—and the root of the word tantalize.
  
• 37A. [Kachina doll makers] are the ZUNI. Not the HOPI, which is what I initially had there.
  
• 38A. MACHISMO is a [Bruiser's display]. I could do without.
  
• 55A. Have I heard of a MERRY-ANDREW before? It's an archaic word in lowercase meaning [Clown].
  
• 64A. Uriah HEEP is your [Blackmailer in an 1850 novel].
  
• 2D. There are a few theater references today—an OBIE award, THEATRICAL, and ["The Bald Soprano" playwright, 1950], Eugene IONESCO.
  
• 8D. Good gravy, who are these guys? TENIERS is the [Surname of three generations of Flemish old masters]. The Flemish are from Belgium. So, they say, are Belgian waffles. And [Waffling] (32D) means HESITANT.
  
• 27D. FT. RILEY is a [Kansas mil. reservation with the U.S. Cavalry Museum].
  
• 38D. [Bigger than big] clues the adjective MAMMOTH, which is also an extinct Pleistocene furry elephant. Did mammoths coexist with the [Prehistoric stone tool] called an EOLITH (from the Greek for dawn + stone)?
  
• 45D. ["Drop City" novelist, 2003] is T.C. BOYLE. He started out with T. Coraghessan Boyle on his book covers. Why did he change it? I don't know. Apparently he was 17 when he changed his middle name to Coraghessan. Maybe he quit wanting to be who he wanted to be at age 17?

Michael Wiesenberg's Los Angeles Times crossword

I'm leaving town early in the morning (PuzzleGirl will be here to cover the Sunday puzzles in my absence), so let me excerpt what I've written up for L.A. Crossword Confidential.

Just like last Saturday's L.A. Times crossword, this puzzle felt like an easy Friday NYT puzzle—and I had a bottle of Stella Artois before I began the puzzle.

The grid is unusual—if it weren't for the black squares in each corner, this puzzle would have triple stacks of 15-letter answers at the top and bottom. Instead, it's got pairs of 15's with single 13's. I love that last Across answer, TEETER-TOTTERS (61A: They have their ups and downs). It's got the most boring letters in the English language, the sort of letters that often populate the bottom row of a crossword, but we don't see too many 13's in themeless puzzles, and TEETER-TOTTERS have that playground nostalgia cachet.

Clues? Answers? We got 'em:

• 14A: 1999 Winona Ryder movie (GIRL, INTERRUPTED). Sure, Winona had the lead role but it was Angelina Jolie who went home with a Best Supporting Actress Oscar.
  
• 19A: Partners may form one: Abbr. (LLC). That's a limited liability corporation.
  
• 27A: Catalog section (FOR HER). Ooh, I do not care for this answer at all. It might work better as a transgressive six-letter partial answer filling in the blank in the condom tag line, "ribbed ___ pleasure."
  
• 30A: RED is a Rare sign? as in a sign of rareness in a slab of beef. (Ick.)
  
• 34A: JACK FROST (Nose nipper in a Christmas song) is a terrific answer. The clue seems a little boring, but it's worlds better than cluing this name with reference to that dreadful Michael Keaton movie in which a creepy-looking snowman comes to life.
  
• 50A: Double drunk crosswordese! They're usually lit clues SOTS, and I never hear anyone use "lit" to mean drunk or call anyone a "sot."
  
• 54A: Kind of butter (APPLE). This is a common cluing convention, this "kind of ___" clue. But APPLE is not any kind of butter. Apple butter is a butter of a sort.There are those who would much rather see a straight-up fill-in-the-blank clue or an entirely different cluing direction than have yet another "kind of ___" clue. Among the old NYT crossword forum crowd, these are called "sea anemone" clues, inspired by SEA clued as "Kind of anemone."
  
• 60A: Source of much hard wood? is the PETRIFIED FOREST. Of course, it's not wood anymore. It's mineral deposits that have replaced the wood over the ages. Speaking of geological ages, can you guess 1D: the Epoch in which grazing mammals became widespread? Why, it's the MIOCENE, of course, or, as I like to call it, "that less familiar epoch you get through the crossings."
  
• 7D: Kabayaki fish is EEL. (Japanese + fish)/3 letters = EEL. Unless, of course, it's AHI tuna.
  
• 21D: Tanner of '70s-'80s tennis (ROSCOE). I can't keep him straight in my head because The Dukes of Hazzard's Rosco P. Coltrane occupies the same mental real estate.
  
• 22D: ORSK is a City on the Ural. I always start with OMSK, another Russian city that is four times the size of ORSK.
  
• 34D: Island in the Sulu Archipelago clues JOLO. Wow. I like geography and I've been doing crosswords for three decades, but I needed every single crossing to figure this one out. I was thinking Indonesia, but it's the Philippines. It's the site of much unrest, both volcanic and political.

Sandy Fein's Newsday "Saturday Stumper"

(PDF solution here.)

7:37? All right, not too much harder than the NYT puzzle today. I'll take it as a victory.

I like the mislead of [Early riser] as a clue for an UPSTART, and I like the word SWAGGER ([Bluster]). PIUS VII, the [Adversary of Napoleon], is a Roman-numeraled person I don't recall seeing in a crossword before. Bowling [Lane marks] are STRIKES, if you're lucky. Interesting clue for AVARICE: It's [One of Spinoza's "species of madness"]. In hockey, you might get a PENALTY and [It may be served in a box]; so can some lunches. The NEWBERY Medal is bestowed on authors of American literature for kids; the clue is [Medal won by Lofting], referring to (I had to look this up) Hugh Lofting, author of The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle.

Lotsa weird fill here. The GRAYLAG goose is a [European goose]. Seven-letter partial HENRI DE [___ Toulouse-Lautrec] pushes beyond the usual 5-letter limit but with no great payoff in amusement value or in facilitating great fill in its neighborhood. There are some odd-jobbers in the grid: a TWEEZER, a DWELLER, and some TILTERS ([Quixote wannabes]).

I suspected that [Name to make up with] had to do with making up stories, but ALIAS didn't work with the crossings. The answr turned out to be cosmetics brand ESTEE Lauder. But...you don't make up with the name. You make up with the makeup. Unfamiliar place name of the day: HALLE is [Handel's birthplace].

Updated Saturday morning:

Randall J. Hartman's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Fly Apart"—Janie's review

I'm beginning to thing that Randy is out to give lie to the notion that "breaking up is hard to do," for in today's puzzle we have yet another example of what happens when you choose a word—FLY, say—and break it up, or take it "apart," so that its letters bookend (and belong to) the theme fill. Last week we were happily "covered in MUD"; about a month ago the theme answers were found "in a NUT shell." Today the tried-and-true theme (a pun itself) plays out even more playfully than in puzzles past—and is especially well-met with its non-theme complement. Behold:

• 17A. FEEL SILLY [Turn red, perhaps]. While one might not aspire to being embarrassed, it can be fun to feel silly and let one's inner-child have his/her day. Hey, this puzzle features Dr. SEUSS [Creator of Sneetches]. I rest my case.
• 28A. FRED FRIENDLY [George Clooney role in "Good Night, and Good Luck"]. You haven't seen it?! Put it on your Netflix list now! For many years, Friendly was the president of CBS News and was an esteemed colleague/collaborator of radio- and tv-journalist Edward R. Murrow. But now my inner-child has to admit that the name "Fred Friendly" kinda makes me giggle and reminds me of the man who used to host Baltimore's local Our Gang program: "Officer Happy." Really. I feel silly saying it, but it's true.
• 49A. FULTON'S FOLLY [Steamboat of 1807]. That would be Robert Fulton's craft, The Clermont—which took a mere 30 hours to make its NYC-Albany journey. OMG. Love the alliteration here—and in the previous fill.
• 66A. FREE WILLY [1993 film about an orca]. And I can't help but noticing (and enjoying) how Willy rhymes with silly. For my money, the rhyming and alliteration go a long way not only in strengthening the theme-fill as a set, but also in creating an agreeable lightness to it. Nice.

There look to be a few sub-themes here today, too. Baseball for one. We get Mel OTT, ERNIE Banks, the METS, EARNED RUN average, and I'm even going to go out on a limb and include LEGGINGS. Was really thrown by [Giant nicknamed "Master Melvin"]. In vain I tried to think of some long-forgotten fairytale character... In other words, terrific clue.

"Things people say" would have to include YES'M ["Okay" for Tom Sawyer] and PAY UP [Shylock's threat]. Didn't help myself any by trying to make this PAY ME...

Then there's the television sub-theme, with hosts OPRAH Winfrey, Tom SNYDER, Jay LENO—and of course, the aforementioned FRED FRIENDLY. And a trio of working types: the ECOLOGIST, and the symmetrically placed odd-couple of PAINTERS and SOLDIERS. That last one can also be associated with NAM, then USAF, then A-TEST. (I'm afraid the more I see this one clued along the lines of [Big blast, briefly], the less amused by it I become.)

Our music today? DOOWOP. But the clue [Style of Randy and the Rainbows] was zero help. Turns out their claim to fame was "Denise," a song I do remember, and that this quintet included two sibling pairs—the Safutos and the Zeros (truly)—and a lone Arcipowski. (This clip is not of the original group, but does feature one Safuto and one Zero for some "doowop reunion" special...)

Finally—how SASSY is that HOT PANTS clue, ["Cheeky" style of clothing]? A fashion trend best suited for the long of limb and firm of flesh, I imagine that hot pants have long been a staple of the Glamour "Don't" list.

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Saturday, 6/13

Newsday 6:14
NYT 5:44
LAT 4:03
CS 2:57

Don't miss the Crossword Fiend Fourth Bloggiversary dreadful-theme contest! (That's the post right below this one.)

Barry Silk's New York Times crossword

You know what I like about this puzzle? I mean, aside from the interesting answers with Q's and Z's in them. And the central 15's. And the stacks of 8's and 9's in the four corners. I like the overall geographic slant to the crossword. Look at all the places:

• 15A. LITHUANIA is the [Neighbor of Kaliningrad], Kaliningrad being that little land-island of Russia that's cut off from the rest of Russia. I'm an eighth Lithuanian, so I'm pleased to see the country in the crossword.
  
• 22A. [Abyssinian language?] sounds like it's geographical, but it's the Abyssinian cat's MEW.
  
• 23A. KHMER is clued [Like the Angkor ruins].
  
• 35A. The MAGNETIC EQUATOR is the [Line on which a dip needle is horizontal]. What's a dip line, people?
  
• 43A. NEV., or Nevada, is the [36th of 50: Abbr.]
  
• 57A. The Hague is Den HAAG in Dutch, so HAAG is a [City name part that's Dutch for "hedge"]. If only we Anglophone types called it "The Hedge."
  
• 9D. LAE is the [Papuan port in W.W. II fighting] that was also in Kevin Der's record-breaking 8/22/08 NYT puzzle, the one with only 18 black squares. LAE! That's "lame" without the M. Thank you, Kevin, for including that answer. I thought it stunk then, but now I'm glad that I learned it. Isn't that how it always goes? "Horrible, terrible answer. So obscure. ...Oh, hey, here's that answer again!"
  
• 35D. MANASSAS was a [Civil War battlefield].
  
• 48D. The BRAZOS is a [River to the Gulf of Mexico].

If these answers stumped you, well, then you ought to learn more geography, oughtn't you?

These ones were my favorite answers and clues:

• 1A. The PEACH BOWL sounds like a yummy dessert rather than a college football game. [Louisiana State won the first one in 1968].
  
• 28A. [Indy Jones and others] are PROFS. The "Indy" shortening of Indiana signals the shortening of professors. Speaking of that—SHORT FOR is clued as [A contraction of].
  
• 33A. SHAQ O'Neal is clued as [Wilt Chamberneezy, more familiarly]. Dang, that's a nutty clue if you've never, ever heard that long nickname for Shaquille O'Neal. The next answer is another athlete, [Olympic sprinter ___ Boldon], or ATO—a cooler entry than the two-word partial A TO.
  
• 46A. The [Male stereotype] of RAMBO probably shouldn't have "male" in the clue, but it's a nice contrast with the [Countertenor], or MALE ALTO, above it. Anyone else try FALSETTO there?
  
• 52A. Cartoons! I'll bet Joe Cabrera and Dave Mackey knew instantly that [Splinter, to Woody Woodpecker] was NIECE, but I needed the crossings.
  
• 59A. I think we've seen EZIO PINZA's full name in the puzzle before. Two Z's! This crosswordese fella was the [1950 Tony winner for Best Actor in a Musical], South Pacific, I think.
  
• 4D. [Bond analysts' field?: Abbr.] is CHEM. Bonds between atoms forming molecules in chemistry, yo.
  
• 8D. WIENERSCHNITZEL! Now that's a 15 for you. It happens to be a [Dish akin to cotoletta alla milanese]. Cotoletta looks to be an Italian cognate of "cutlet." I didn't know the answer based on the clue, but with the first couple letters from crossings and a familiarity with Barry Silk's fondness for Scrabbly letters (and the ability to spell German words), WIENERSCHNITZEL came together.
  
• 10D. The MAGIC SQUARE is a [Recreational mathematics construct]. All the rows, columns, and diagonals add up to the same total.
  
• 23D. A [Good one] is a real KNEE-SLAPPER when one = joke.
  
• 32D. Say it with me: PTUI is a [Spittoon sound]. Not to be confused with pfui.
  
• 37D. [Person in a mansion] is the GOVERNOR. Wow, I couldn't figure this one out until I had a bunch of the letters filled in. Seems so obvious in retrospect.
  
• 38D. [Recycle bin, for one] is a computer ICON.

A special shout-out to 49D. [Much-needed donations] are ORGANS. Yes! Sign the organ donor line on your driver's license, and let your family know that you want to be an organ donor. My Facebook friends include a woman who recently received her second life-saving kidney transplant (and in exchange, her husband donated a kidney to someone else via a matching program), as well as a man who donated one of his kidneys. Live kidney donors are even more heroic than those of us who are willing to donate as cadavers. Three cheers for live donors! And hooray for Barry and Will Shortz for a socially beneficial clue for ORGANS.

Updated Saturday morning:

I'm woefully short on time this morning because I'm meeting my mother at the Apple Store to help buy her first computer. She sets great store by Consumer Reports, and they always rave about the Mac's superior reliability and customer service. Gotta get in before the crowds show up for the new iPhone, right?

Brad Wilber's Los Angeles Times crossword

This puppy's got some colorful fill in every corner, plus RED SONJA (["She-devil with a sword" of comics]) and DOS EQUIS cerveza ([Mexican beer with XX on its label]) in the middle. For the rest of what I've got to say about this puzzle, please divert your attention to L.A. Crossword Confidential. Trust me, I was much perkier when writing that post last night than I am this morning after five hours of sleep.

Paula Gamache's CrosSynergy puzzle, "It's a Gift"

Once a month, our Janie heads to her beloved Baltimore and I return to blogging about the Saturday CS crossword. Paula's theme is FREE, [Like a gift, and word that can precede the last parts of 17- and 57-Across and 11- and 25-Down]. [Statement of means to the end?] is a LIVING WILL (free will). Public service announcement: You should have a living will. I don't, no, but I should. POWER LUNCH is a [Meal for wheelers and dealers]. Who doesn't love a free lunch? STUMP SPEECH is clued as [Campaigner's delivery]. Free speech is good too, but less filling than a free lunch. FLOOR SAMPLE is a [Showroom sale item]; free samples are as beloved as free lunches. The theme is none too thrilling, but the fill includes "I GUESS SO" and "YEAH, MAN," SHOT UP clued as [Grew like crazy], OB-GYNS ([Docs who deliver]), and an ODD JOB ([Task for a handyman]). Geography brings us ZAMBIAN, or [Neighbor of a Tanzanian] (I defy anyone to say they filled this one in with no crossings at all), and old crosswordese AINU, a [Japanese aborigine].

Updated Saturday afternoon:

Doug Peterson's Newsday "Saturday Stumper"

Once again, Doug Peterson demonstrates why he has become my favorite Stumper-maker. Now, last week's Stumper had its charms—I heard through the grapevine that Dan and Ellen finished Stan Newman's killer puzzle in the range of 9 to 10 minutes, another top solver took 17 minutes, and several other top solvers just plain didn't finish or finished with more than one wrong square. The Stumper is like a Gumpian box of chocolates—you never know what you're gonna get. Maybe a solid semisweet chocolate piece, not a wishy-washy milk chocolate one; that's today's puzzle by Doug. Maybe a chocolate with a hard nut inside; that'd be a puzzle that takes maybe 40% more effort than this one. Then there's the one with the cyanide in it, and depending on your personal constitution it may or may not be survivable; that was last weekend's.

Here's the solution grid for today's offering. Stuff I was fond of:

• 1A. [Boarder's need] is BUSFARE. Yes, indeed. I also contemplated room and board and snowboarding.
  
• 28A. EEYORE is the [Pessimist of kiddie lit]. Total gimme.
  
• 32A. YEARLY is clued [Like a world revolution]. The world revolves around the sun YEARLY.
  
• 35A. ["Slumdog Millionaire," e.g.] is a CINDERELLA STORY. Fantastic answer, that.
  
• 39A/13D. [Famous last words] are AU REVOIR and [Another way to say] that is ADIOS.
  
• 51A. ["Cave," in ancient Rome] is BEWARE, as in cave canem or "beware of dog."
  
• 63A. [Ring things] is a vague clue for CAR KEYS, which I had trouble parsing when it was filled in. NO, CARKEYS isn't one word.
  
• 35D. [Bores] is one of those classically oblique Stumper clues. Drills a hole? Is dreadfully dull? Dull people? It's CALIBERS, as in the diameter of the hollow part inside a gun barrel.

Did you know a CUTLER is a [Grindstone user]? Did you know that CUTLER was a word? Cutlery, I know, but CUTLER was new to me. I don't know [Novelist Amelia] BARR. Looking at her Wikipedia write-up...no, nope, none of those book titles ring a bell. I didn't know the [Name in the Cartoon Hall of Fame] based on the clue, but the crossings gave me DIK Browne of "Hägar the Horrible" and "Hi and Lois" fame.

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Saturday, 5/9

Newsday 13:27
NYT 8:37
CS 5:00
LAT 4:25

Brad Wilber's New York Times crossword

You know what's not a great combo? Doing a Saturday NYT puzzle an hour closer to bedtime and clues pertaining to Broadway shows and horse racing—and an Egyptian pharaoh for good measure. Or bad measure. Slow measure, anyway. Lots of cool stuff in this puzzle, plus a small smattering of the "bleh" type stuff. Here's what I liked the most in this challenging puzzle:

• 1A: [No backbreaker] means a CUSHY JOB. In the language, fresh, lively—a great way to start at 1-Across.
  
• 15A: [Add to marginally?] clues ANNOTATE. I got this one right away, but it didn't bother revealing 1-, 3-, and 4-Down for me.
  
• 17A: [One running through town] is the MAIN DRAG. Is that a "one" in any sense of the word "one"? With the middle letters in place, I briefly contemplated BLIND RAT. Not wild about the clue wording, but love the answer.
  
• 20A: Juan GRIS was the [Cubist who painted "Violin and Glass"].
  
• 29A: [Preach] is short for "preacher" in the way that REV is short for "reverend" as a nickname.
  
• 34A: I just had Indian food for dinner, so the clue [Indian currency] didn't shout SACAGAWEA DOLLAR to me. Good entry, tricky clue.
  
• 42A: GORDY was ["The Mary Tyler Moore Show" weatherman]. I love that show.
  
• 43A: PETTING ZOO is another terrific answer. It's a [Place where kids may feed kids]. I just hope it's the children feeding the goats and not vice versa.
  
• 52A: "IKO IKO" is a [Mardi Gras song that was a 1965 hit for the Dixie Cups]. Hey! I knew this one! We'd seen a road sign that said "FEE NAH NAY" on it when we visited New Orleans a month ago. We Googled the phrase and wound up on this Wikipedia page. No idea what the song sounds like, but the crossword did not ask me to hum a few bars.
  
• 56A: [Good place to look when you're sole-searching?] is the SEABED. Sole fish, not bottom-of-the-foot sole.
  
• 8D: A 15-letter answer is nice when you've heard of it. I think I learned of BEGIN THE BEGUINE, a [Song standard from Broadway's "Jubilee," 1935] via a '70s game show when I was a kid. Does the song pronounce it "be-gyne" or "be-geen"?
  
• 10D: [Nation] is a vague yet apt clue for PEOPLE. See also 44D: TRIBE, or [Reservation holder].
  
• 21A: [Strech marks, e.g.] are STRIAE.
  
• 25D: LIAR'S POKER is a great entry. It's a [Bluffing bar game].
  
• 32D: SWOUND is clued [Faint, to Shakespeare]. Weird but lovely.
  
• 36D: Crosswords' favorite Melville novel OMOO gets a new clue: [Classic novel whose title means "rover"]. Captain AHAB is here too, but he's clued as a [Wicked king of Israel].
  
• 41D: [Steamship employee] is a STOKER. The boiler maintenance company we use is called Williams Stoker & Heating because they've been around since the coal-stoking days.
  
• 42D: GO LONG! In footballese, that's [Get ready for a bomb].
  
• 45D: ZEROG...is that an old king of Albania? No, that's Zog. ZERO G is zero gravity, a [Free-falling phenomenon].
  

And then there's the more elusive stuff. Come Saturday, you have to expect a lot of this:

• 18A: [Exclamation near a runway] is OO LA LA. That, of course, is what the airport workers who stand on the tarmac and signal the pilots always say. "You there—go ahead and taxi towards runway 16B now. Oo la la!" (I have heard that the French say "oh la la," not "oo" or "ooh." Is this TRUE ([Not tall], as in not a tall tale)?
  
• 19A: ESTE is a [City in Veneto]. Crosswordese Italian place, but not clued obviously. Grr.
  
• 22A: I just played PIPIT in Lexulous (Facebook Scrabble knockoff). I did not know that it's a [Bird notable for walking rather than hopping]. And it has such a hoppy name...
  
• 23A: COUNT FLEET was the [Triple Crown winner between Whirlaway and Assault]. I hope it was named after the enema maker.
  
• 39A: Anne MEARA is the [Tony award nominee for "Anna Christie," 1993]. Broadway, how I do not know thee.
  
• 46A: MORRO is the answer to [New Mexico's El ___ National Monument].
  
• 2D: UNAS was the [Last pharaoh of Egypt's Fifth Dynasty]. The Fifth Dynasty, you say? I wanted PTAH here because I've seen that in two old crosswords, but Ptah is an Egyptian god.
  
• 4D: [It'll give you an edge] clues HONE. Yes, HONE is also a noun. No, I hadn't seen it used that way.
  
• 7D: OTARU! That's a [Port on the Sea of Japan]. It's my go-to obscure 5-letter Japanese city. Not to be confused with the OTARY, which is an eared seal, if memory serves.
  
• 11D: ["Show Boat" girl who sings "Life Upon the Wicked Stage"] is ELLIE. Three Broadway clues is two too many.
  
• 26D: ESCAPE ROAD is an [Emergency racetrack turnoff]. I don't like car racing any better than horse racing or Broadway musicals.
  
• 30D: Does anyone know VERA, [Tennis star Zvonareva]? I don't.
  
• 48D: EWER is clued as [One whose mouth and lip may be painted]. Again with the "one" referring to something inanimate. It grates.
  

Bruce Venzke's L.A. Times crossword

See my L.A. Crossword Confidential post after the wee hours of Saturday morning. I'm trying to wrap up the Saturday blogging too late on Friday night, I'm sleepy, and I'm leaving for Mother's Day weekend in the morning.








Updated Saturday morning:

Bob Klahn's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Sign Up!"

The theme here is phrases in which the word SIGN appears upwards. DOWN is [Not the way to look if you need help with this puzzle's theme], and these phrases split NG IS across two words:

• BURNING ISSUE is a [Hot topic].
  
• LONG ISLAND SOUND is [Connecticut River outlet].
  
• SPRING IS HERE might be some [March words], unless you live in a place where winter keeps poking you until you're firmly into April.
  

A few cool clues or answers:

• PHONE TAG! It's a [Problem connecting].
  
• Two guitar legends in a row—[Guitar great Montgomery] is named WES and [Guitar great Paul]'s first name is LES.
  
• There are two anniversary clues in a row, another of the patented Klahn clue-doubling moves. [40th anniversary gift] is RUBY and [Anniversary units (abbr.)] are YDS, as in yards on a football field. No? Okay. They're YRS, or years. But when I see "units" in the clue and the answer is Y*S, my default answer is YDS.
  

Four "Huh?" clues:

• MOIRE is a [Watered fabric].
  
• Old-school crosswordese INGLE means [Fireplace].
  
• An [Over-the-hill horse] is called a PLUG, apparently.
  
• [Card game favored by Ramses?] might be FARO, which sounds like pharaoh, which is what Ramses was.
  

Doug Peterson's Newsday "Saturday Stumper"

(Solution here.)

Hey! Look at that. I finished without resorting to Google, with only about 10 flat-out wrong answers that I had to rework along the way. (There were many more answers that I couldn't come up with a single workable answer for, in addition to those wrong entries.) A handful of tough clues, extracted from the list of almost-all-tough clues:

• [Orange teller of bad jokes] is the Muppet FOZZIE BEAR. Is it bad that I wanted to fit CARROT TOP here?
  
• LIME WATER is a [Tannery solution]. Sounds refreshing! I'll take mine on ice.
  
• [Where a pivot may be performed] is in a baseball DOUBLE PLAY.
  
• SALT BAGELS are a [Deli delivery]. Don't some bagels make the bagels themselves rather than having them delivered?
  
• [You and me] are GREAT APES.
  
• [Cuts from Blades] means SALSA MUSIC—Ruben Blades.
  
• [Pocket protectors?] are SKINFLINTS, protecting the money in their pockets.
  
• [Provides with handles] is HAFTS, as in knife or sword handles. Yes, I went with NAMES here first.
  
• [Rhineland, in the '20s] was a DMZ, or demilitarized zone.
  
• A debt [Collector's items] are DEBTS.
  
• I need to grumble about ["Heroes" role] for ELLE. ELLE was killed off last season. HIRO, on the other hand, is alive and semi-well this season, and there aren't many famous HIROs who could be used in a crossword clue.
  
• ESSEN, Germany's top crosswordese town, is the [Museum Folkwang locale]. I would think that this was the museum of the people's wang, but Volk, not Folk, is German for "people."
  

There's a good chance that the Oryx recognition of this year's toughest crossword will have to go to the Saturday Stumpers as a group. They've had their easy and medium years, but now they're in a mad-tough year.

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