Reagle 7:47
BG 7:38
NYT 7:17
LAT 6:55
CS 4:27
If you haven't done Caleb Madison's Bard Bulletin crossword in Across Lite (posted at the Crossword Fiend forum), now you can also solve it online at the Bard High School Early College's student paper site.
Patrick Merrell's New York Times crossword, "Career Day Speaker Schedule"
Did you know that Patrick Merrell has two blogs? At Pat Tricks, where he writes on an occasional basis, his latest post features a cartoon in honor of Will Shortz's 16th anniversary as the New York Times crossword editor. (Congrats, Will! And no, we're not giving you a convertible for your sweet sixteen.) Pat writes more regularly at the NYT's Wordplay blog, where he alternates weeks with Jim Horne now. Hey, look! Patrick blogs his own puzzle today. He mentions that many of his past puzzles have been one-of-a-kind innovations, but that this one is more ordinary. Indeed it is. The theme didn't especially grab me, but there were some shining stars in the fill and clues.
First, the theme. The clues are playful redefinitions of various job titles. For example, a DRIVING INSTRUCTOR might be thought to be a good label for 38A: Career Day Speaker [#3: Golf pro?]. At 70A, the FILE CLERK is billed as a [#5: Manicurist?] on the Career Day schedule. 111A: [#8 Disc jockey?] is billed as a RECORD KEEPER. Who was responsible for all these misconstrued job titles? You might say that the 119A: [Career of the parent who typed up the Career Day schedule?] is a NOVEL WRITER, in that...he or she writes things in a novel manner? That doesn't feel quite as apt as I'd like a theme's capstone to be.
Here are the highlights in the clues and non-theme answers:
• 19A. [Literary work in which Paris is featured] is the ILIAD. Paris, the Trojan, not Paris, the city in France.
• 57A. [Suffix with pant or aunt] clues -IES. So help me, I laughed at this one. A good friend of mine and her sisters just became aunties for the first time this week when their little sister had a baby. (Rowan, a baby girl. As in Rowan Atkinson?)
• 68A. IRAN is the [First landfall north of Oman]. If you have a good sense of what the first landfalls are in various directions from various countries, try this Sporcle quiz.
• 90A. An author's PEN NAME is one sort of [Literary creation].
• 118A. BROWBEATS means [Bullies]. Is the bully beating you with her brow or beating your brow?
• 126A. A [Bay, for one] is a type of INLET. My son's been toiling all day, drawing pictures of geographical terms including bay and inlet (and dune, isthmus, glacier, coastal plain, marsh...38 terms in all). His picture dictionary is due Monday and it will damn near kill the entire household to get it finished by Sunday night. But it's a cool project, and one he's had three weeks to work on. Hmm, fondness for procrastination? I'm sure I couldn't tell you where he gets that from.
• 17D. GRUELS are [Meager bowlfuls]. Even a giant bowlful is meager, no?
• 30D. Fresh clue for EDSEL: [It debuted on "E Day"].
• 55D. ERST is boring crossword fill in English (archaic word, portion of "erstwhile), but if you know German, it's a common word: [First, in Frankfurt].
• 99D. ACTI, ACTII, ACTIII, ACTIV, and ACTV are entries that don't thrill me. ACT FIVE, however, seems cooler. Why is that? It's [When Juliet says "O happy dagger!"].
• 123D. The EAR is a [Human body part with vestigial muscles]. Holy anatomy, Batman! Can this be true? Wikipedia clarifies: They're the muscles that some people can use to wiggle their ears. I am a non-wiggler, but my son can do it.
• 124D. [Hosp. V.I.P.'s] clues R.N.'S. Yay! If hospitals didn't have nurses on staff, the patients would not do too well at all. This clue is a lovely nod to the nursing profession's importance.
Entries that aren't highlights, but that may be found at a fabric store: CIRE is a 29D: [Glazed fabric] and NACRES are 67A: [Button materials]. The latter is solid old crosswordese, but CIRE is markedly less familiar to me.
While the theme didn't wow me, I'm delighted by Patrick's return to the NYT puzzle page. His creativity and humor have led to many memorable puzzles over the years, and I look forward to seeing more of his twists on the conventions of crossword puzzles.
Merl Reagle's syndicated crossword, "Mr. H and Mr. L"
On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was killed. The same day, two famous writers also died: Aldous Huxley and C.S. Lewis. They are the Mr. H and Mr. L mentioned in the theme clues. I figured out who they were via two of the answers, but for the remaining theme entries I leaned heavily on the crossings. I'm surprised the puzzle didn't take me longer because of that—I suspect Merl made a point of keeping the clues for the themers' crossings as gettable as he could. Hang on a second—does every single Down answer cross at least one theme answer? I think so, and I think Merrell's NYT puzzle is the same. I swear I never noticed that many Sunday puzzles with all-Across themes are like that, too. Moving on, here's the Huxley/Lewis trivia theme:
• 20A. THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS is a ["Devilish" work by Mr. L]. Don't know it.
• 39A. BRAVE NEW WORLD, which I read in high-school English, is the [Classic work by Mr. H]. This was the only Mr. H clue that told me H = Huxley.
• 43A. [Space novel by Mr. L] is PERELANDRA. This is only very faintly familiar.
• 48A. [Mr. H co-wrote a few, including "Jane Eyre"] clues FILM SCRIPTS. Who knew?
• 65A. This one was my only L = Lewis clue. THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA is a [Seven-book series by Mr. L].
• 80A. SHADOWLANDS is a [Film starring Anthony Hopkins as Mr. L]. Really? Didn't know that. Haven't seen the movie.
• 89A. SGT. PEPPER'S is the [Classic album featuring Mr. H on its cover (and lots of other folks, too)].
• 92A. HEAVEN AND HELL is a [Philosophical work by Mr. H]. Don't know this one, either.
• 107A. The rationale for the theme is explained here. [Interesting factoid about Mr. H and Mr. L] is that BOTH DIED ON NOV. 22, 1963.
That last answer is insane, isn't it? With six numerals? They're numerals in the intersecting Down answers, too:
• 106D. [Rockets deployed in Germany's second wave of missile attacks in WWII] are V-2'S. I would not have guessed the 2 if not for the November 22 date that appears with the puzzle's title.
• 78D. GREASE 2 is the [1982 sequel to a high school musical]. Whatever happened to Maxwell Caulfield?
• 86D. APRIL 1ST is the [Fool's day].
• 111D. The [Three-digit number denoting a charge call (as for puzzle answers] is 900. Except that the zeroes are letter Os in 117A and 121A, so in Across Lite, 9OO works.
• 112D. [Time that's exactly halfway between midnight and noon] is 6 A.M.
• 113D. [Elementary school basics] are the 3 R'S.
Favorite clue: [They tell you how to fix things] for RECIPES. I'm planning to make pecan pie for Thanksgiving. Want the recipe? Follow the one on a bottle of Karo dark corn syrup, only use at least double the amount of pecans so you have pecans throughout the pie rather than floating atop goo. I haven't decided if I want to make a butter crust from scratch or buy frozen crust.
Weirdest answer: 29D is LARIATED, clued as [Lassoed]. Is lariat a verb, or just a noun? The Dictionary of American Regional English, or DARE, says it's also a verb.
I do prefer it when Merl's themes have a lot of humor built in, which this one does not. Next week's probably will, but I'm not sure when I'll get to it—the pies and I will be out of town, and an all-star team of guest bloggers will hold down the fort here.
Updated later Saturday night:
Ken Bessette's syndicated Los Angeles Times crossword, "Literal Translations"
Ooh, I loved this theme! It was heaps o' fun for my inner anagrammer. Each theme clue is an anagram of a word in its corresponding answer, and the answer explains how the anagramming was accomplished. At the same time, each theme answer is a familiar phrase. To wit:
• 23A. [TOG?] is GOT TURNED AROUND.
• 38A. [GLIBNESS?] is MIXED BLESSING. This entry reminds me of a 4/8/07 NYT puzzle by Byron Walden in which the entry BLESSING IN DISGUISE was linked to both GLIBNESS and B SINGLES.
• 51A. [FELT?] clues LEFT IN DISARRAY. LEFT could also be used to clue FELT CONFUSED.
• 66A. [GOES?] is ALTER EGOS. This one's a bit weaker because the word EGOS is alterED. With a different letter count, ALTERED STATE could be paired with TASTE.
• 69A. [RAGE?] is a GEAR SHIFT of a sort.
• 89A. An OUT-OF-ORDER SIGN is [SING?].
• 97A. [EARTH?] clues CHANGE OF HEART.
• 118A. [STOP?] evokes the POST-REFORMATION era.
Fun, isn't it? My favorite fill:
• 28A. An ARGONAUT is [One of Jason's men].
• 55A. "TAXMAN" is a [Song on the Beatles' "Revolver" album].
• 104A. The INNER EAR is a [Canal locale].
• 110A. "IS THAT SO?" sounds like a challenge, as does ["Says who?"].
• 2D. Hey! Not the usual ORONO clue. [Maine town named for a Penobscot chief].
• 16D. I misinterpreted [Curling gadget] as referring to the sport of curling and figured IRON was just a term I didn't know. Whoops. Curling IRON, used to curl hair.
• 91D. Leonardo DI CAPRIO is the ["Catch Me If You Can" star]. I meant to see that movie.
46D's clue is [Riding for ___: acting overconfidently], for A FALL. I feel as though "heading for a fall" is the more familiar phrase, but "ride for a fall"/"be riding for a fall" has more solid dictionary support.
Less desirable are 68D: REASCENT, or [Second time to the top], and 14D: REDRILL, or [Put through one's paces again]. (RESELL is A-OK, though.) Is it just me, or does New York have more than its share of 5-letter towns with 3 vowels? 73D: TIOGA is a [New York town on the Susquehanna], and then there's UTICA and...maybe there are just the two.
Who is this 114D: [Disney duck princess] named OONA? This cavewoman duck princess (yes, that's right: a cavewoman duck) is possibly not known to more than a teeny fraction of Americans: Wikipedia says "The adventures of Princess Oona have appeared in Disney publications in many countries including Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Hungary, Brazil, and Russia." Had you ever heard of Princess Oona?
Updated Sunday morning:
Tony Orbach's CrosSynergy/Washington Post "Sunday Challenge"
This is a terrific themeless crossword. Zesty fill, fun clues, minimal junk. Let's take a stroll through the grid.
Multi-word phrases:
• 1A is IN A FLASH, or [Pronto].
• 18A. There's also the BAD END [A villain might come to...].
• I like to say AS IT WERE (61A: [So to speak])
• 14D is AND SO ON, or [Et cetera].
• 34D, the [Words said with an exasperated flourish], clues "UP TO HERE." This one feels like an 8-letter partial, though, doesn't it? Does anyone say it in isolation, along the lines of a Honeymooners "Straight to the moon!"?
The freshest fill includes:
• The LETTER C—22A: [Embroidery on a Cubs cap, e.g.]. Go, Cubs! (Poor, woebegone Cubs.)
• 33A is [Quarterback Daunte] CULPEPPER of the Detroit Lions. (Poor, woebegone Lions.)
• 7D: SHAG CARPETS are [Lush, plush furnishings], which is not to say furniture.
• I like the zippy TABLE-HOPS at 9D, or [Makes the rounds at a restaurant].
• 10D is OVALTINE, the [Malt drink pitched by Joe Namath], and yes, I was thinking malt liquor. 'Tis the season to watch A Christmas Story and see the kid disgusted by the naked mercenariness of the Ovaltine people.
• 24D: JASPER JOHNS, the ["Numbers" abstract expressionist artist], works two Js in to the grid.
• 31D. I'm fond of PLEONASMS, which means [Redundancies], because it's a spoonerism of neoplasm. "Tuna fish" and "safe haven" are neoplasms—is there a tuna that's not a fish, or an unsafe haven?
Hottest clues:
• 59A. A [Termite's terminus?] might be the ANTEATER that scarfs it up.
• 5D. Good clue for LEERED: [Didn't make proper eye contact] but was instead most improper.
• 9A. TOYOTA is the [Tundra producer].
• 31A. [The time there might be five to ten] clues prison. Not "five minutes to 10," but "five to 10 years."
• 28D. [An addled brain might be likened to one] clues SIEVE.
Answer for which I needed all the crossings: 23D: [Producer of early multi-track recorders] is TEAC. I've seen the brand name before, but the clue wasn't summoning up that answer in my SIEVE of a mind.
Cute shout-out: 51A is MARTHA ["___ My Dear" (Beatles song)]. Three guesses what Tony's wife is named.
Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon's Boston Globe crossword, "Animal Quackery"
The theme is rough puns on health-care specialties with animal names affixed at the beginning. For example, RODENTISTRY is clued as a [Branch of medicine for gnawers?] (rodent + dentistry). BOAFEEDBACK is [Self-help for snakes?] (boa + biofeedback). SOCKEYEATRY is a [Fishy shrink's practice?] (sockeye salmon + psychiatry]. The puns are a mixed bag of added consonants, changed consonants, vowel changes, added syllables, etc. I wasn't crazy about this theme—pun themes straddle the fine line between "ha ha" and "uh-uh."
Favorite word in the grid: 89D: BOLLIX, or [Completely bungled]. OONA is here, but clued as [Mrs. Chaplin] rather than the cavewoman duck very few of us know.
I suspect the grid got changed along the way but an old clue remained in error. At 58A, the answer is STOOP, but the clue is [Dive like a hawk]. Now, that sounds exactly like a clue for SWOOP. But with those theme entries above and below, the W would've been O*W*P, which doesn't look feasible at all. Hmm. Is there a swooping-like-a-hawk usage of STOOP that I'm not aware of?
November 21, 2009
Sunday, 11/22/09
October 04, 2009
Monday, 10/5/09
BEQ 5:27
NYT 2:44
LAT 2:24
CS untimed
Plus, new crossword links!
This afternoon I had a chance to try out puzzles from a few new online sources. You can find links in the sidebar ("Crossword Links") henceforth.
First up, Matt Gaffney's weekly 21x21 puzzle at the Daily Beast. I did this weekend's "Octoberfest" in 8:00, so it's right there in Sunday NYT difficulty land and meets the Gaffney standard of excellence. (No spoilers—don't want to get in the way of your fun, folks!) I appreciate that Matt was able to add an Across Lite download, too.
T Campbell is publishing a crossword every weekday at Ubercross, with PDF and Java applet options. The fill tends towards the Onion/BEQesque or beyond. In the "Heroic Origins" puzzle, for instance, the late DJ AM is an answer, and the answer to ["Tough ___"] is TITTY. If that doesn't scare you off, check it out. For me, "Heroic Origins" took 5:20, so it's at a Thursday/Friday NYT level of difficulty. The constructor reports "Next week's puzzles will celebrate seven-letter words, a certain punctuation mark, an astronomical discovery, a set of upcoming TV nuptials, and a city with a lot to celebrate."
Teen constructor Caleb Madison is making a monthly online crossword for his school newspaper, the Bard Bulletin. The first two are posted already, and they're not school-specific so anyone can solve them.
Mark Feldman's New York Times crossword
The theme is a tad outdated. RIGHT ON THE MONEY is [Exactly...or where to find 17-, 25-, 43- and 57-Across?]. The other theme entries are the names of the men shown on large denominations of U.S. currency. These bills haven't been printed in years but, lending currency (!) to the theme, Wikipedia tells us "as of May 30, 2009, there were only 336 of the $10,000 bills in circulation; 342 remaining $5,000 bills; and 165,372 $1,000 bills still being used." Where's mine??
WILLIAM MCKINLEY is on the 17A: [$500], JAMES MADISON on the 25A: [$5,000], my beloved SALMON P. CHASE on the 43A: [$10,000], and GROVER CLEVELAND on the 57A: [$1,000].
I've got one quibble about a clue/fill duplication: SNORE is clued as 49D: [Cause unrest?], while NO REST is 45D [What the weary get, it's said]. In the crosswordese category, we're shooting 1D: [Fancy marbles] with our TAWS. Do those of you who sail use UNRIG, or is that more of a ship word? The clue is 48D: [Strip, as a ship]. Then there's the variant spelling of 4D: [Ice house: Var.], or UGLI. I mean, IGLU. Igloo comes from the Inuit word iglu, so if English had any sense at all, IGLU would be the standard spelling and igloo would be the goofy-looking variant.
Things I like: 5D: [Stocky] clues THICK-SET, which amuses me because one of my Facebook acquaintances was described thus in writing (and he's not thick-set). 14A: [Cry of exasperation] is AARGH, which is in fact the dictionary-approved spelling of the exclamation. And who doesn't love the MACARENA, that 38D: [Dance craze of the '90s]? Here's the video you may remember. You know what's wrong with that video? Zero hot men. A bunch of women in spandex and two men in baggy dark suits? Feh.
If you find the usual batch of easy Monday puzzles aren't keeping you occupied, try out the puzzle sites linked above, and remember that Brendan Quigley's blog usually has "Themeless Monday."
Updated Monday morning:
Bob Klahn's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Vowel Play"—Janie's review
No foul play in this "Vowel Play," but a healthy amount wordplay, in both the theme fill (and clues) and in the non-theme fill (and clues). Bob gives us five theme-entries, each of which begins "B*G"—with that asterisk standing in for A, E, I, O or U. Not only does he cycle through these vowels in sequence, but he's gone beyond the initial three-letters to make certain they appear in words of five letters and longer. "WHEE!" ["This ride is a joy!"] and gives us:
There are several wittily crafted, sequential clue pairs that are worthy of attention. I point them out because they demonstrate what can be done to enliven the solving experience. The fill itself isn't the most sparkling. But the presentation sure is and that (as I've no doubt said before...) goes a long way in my book. See for yourself:
Then there are the clues and fill that give us neat nuggets of information, like the fact that GRAHAM was the first name of [Whole-wheat cracker creator Sylvester]. Did you know that? News to me. Ditto the E-BOAT, a [WWII German torpedo craft]. Nor did I know anything about the BEE and its being the [Waggle dance performer]. (I wonder if Fred and Ginger ever tried to emulate nature on the dance floor like that...) And it's been some time indeed since I gave any thought to GUMMO, [The fifth Marx brother]—but at least I'd heard of him! Real name, Milton.
Two nice misdirects come to us via [Like lots of unplanned-for plants] for WEEDY, where "lots" may be substituted with "acres" (for example) but not with "tons" (because then the correct fill, referring to "plants," would have to be WEEDS); and [Refrain from singing about farm animals?] for "E-I-E-I-O!" where "refrain" is a noun and not a verb.
"ONE TO GO!"/["Nearly done!"] ties in nicely with "HANG ON..."/["Wait a minute..."]; and simply adding to the beauty of the [Eclectic mix] OLIO that is today's non-theme fill, here's a shout-out, too, to EGGHEAD [Walking encyclopedia] and LION CUB [Diminutive den denizen]. Awww.
Billie Truitt's Los Angeles Times crossword
A simple theme, easy clues, accessible fill—exactly what you expect on a Monday. The theme entries are all "S__ AND S__" phrases: SUGAR AND SPICE, [What little girls are made of, so it's said]; SAFE AND SOUND, [Out of harm's way]; SOUP AND SALAD, a [Light lunch]; and SHORT AND SWEET, [Pleasantly concise].
37-Down is annoying: [Phone caller's "Bet you don't recognize my voice!"] is GUESS WHO. It's not that the clue or answer is annoying—it's that anyone who calls you and makes you guess who they are is a real PAIN (["Royal" nuisance].
Is this write-up "pleasantly concise"? I hope so.
Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Themeless Monday"
I can't believe I still couldn't pin down 44A: [2001 John Goodman/Billy Crystal film] even when I had MONSTER in place. MONSTERS, INC.! Of course. Used to watch that a lot with my kid, and yet I could only think of Monsters Ball, Coen brothers movies, and Throw Momma From the Train.
What else?
September 10, 2009
Friday, 9/11/09
BEQ 5:30
NYT 4:22
LAT 3:49
CS untimed (J)
WSJ 7:41
Caleb Madison's New York Times crossword
I am about to fall asleep here, so let me just share my five favorite parts and the 10 toughest clues.
Favorites:
Toughies:
Updated Friday morning:
Lynn Lempel's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Final Say"—Janie's review
Where puzzle titles are concerned, Lynn's is the perfect complement to yesterday's "Final Answer" by Tony Orbach. But where Tony's theme-names and -phrases ended with -yes, Lynn's end with words that are synonymous with the verb say, but are not used in that context. And these fine phrases are:
Elsewhere in the puzzle there are some wonderful clue/fill combos and tie-ins:
Dan Naddor's Los Angeles Times crossword
Cool theme—Dan takes the phrase TWO FOR ONE (61A: [Restaurant special, and a hint to this puzzle's theme]) as justification for swapping out four one-related words for their doubled versions:
I like the 9-letter stacks in the corners even though a third of those answers are theme entries and the others are of the same length. The SLEPT LATE/EARLY BIRD cross-reference is lovely ([Proverbial worm catcher]/[Hardly emulated the 16-Across]). My sister's given name is LAUREL and we were fond of Laurel and Hardy shorts, so I'm partial to the [Hardy partner] aspect of LAUREL.
I didn't know that C MAJOR was the [Key in which "Chopsticks" is usually played]. When I filled that in, it wasn't yet obvious to me that NUMERO DOS was a theme entry, so with C MAJOR crossing the NAPOLEON DUET for piano, I was prepared to loathe a music theme. (Yes, I know, it's not likely that a 6-letter Down answer would be part of a theme.) Hooray for a solid wordplay theme instead.
Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "I'll Have the Number Two"
Brendan's juvenile theme is "words that mean 'poop' used in food puns." Are you working up an appetite for REESE'S FECES, a DING-DUNG, the POO-POO PLATTER, a CRAP CAKE, or the SURF AND TURD? I'm now in the mood for some Reese's Pieces, actually.
The theme echoes the NUMERO DOS and DEUCE... answers in the L.A. Times puzzle, doesn't it?
I couldn't rate this better than 3 stars out of 5 at Brendan's blog. Why? Because of REDOSE ([Up the medication]) and the upper right corner. I didn't know that [Nirvana's record label] was called DGC. I didn't know that Stephen REA was a ["Fever Pitch" actor, 1997], having not seen the movie. The crossing [Rotten egg] is CAD, but I think DUD could've worked too. And then there's 11-Down, [Newborn attendant], with nothing in the clue saying "this is an archaic term." DRY NURSE? Really? Dictionary says archaic: "a woman who looks after a baby but does not breastfeed it". I've heard of wet nurse, nurse, baby nurse—never DRY NURSE.
I did like the crossing of an EST(imate), clued as [Rough amt.] rather than [Ballpark fig.?], with the ORGANIST who is a [Ballpark figure]. I did not care for the [Jack-of-all-trades at times, perhaps] clue for SOLDERER...or for that answer. [Like a jack-of-all-trades] is fine for DEFT, though.
This is a 72-worder. I wonder if I'd have liked the fill better if Brendan had gone with an easier grid, say, a 76-worder.
Liz Gorski's Wall Street Journal crossword, "Hear, Hear!"
The SURROUND SOUND theme includes six other phrases whose beginnings and ends make an surrounding SOUND. For example, [Compared prices] clues SHOPPED AROUND.
Highlights:
There were some unfamiliar things lurking in this puzzle. Like RAHU, the [Sun-swallowing demon of Hindu myth]—completely new to me. And my dictionary tells me that theme entry SLEUTH-HOUND, or [Detective with a nose for crime fighting], is a dated term for bloodhound or an informal word for an eager investigator. I thought the [Creole entree] was going to be a two-word phrase for some reason, but it's CATFISH; I needed that C for the unfamiliar CESS, or [Luck, in Ireland].
June 22, 2009
Tuesday, 6/23
Jonesin' 3:32
NYT 3:11
LAT 3:04
CS 7:16 (J―paper)
At long last, we have reached the time of year when "cooler near the lake" is a splendid thing. Hot, muggy days are much improved by a lake breeze knocking off 10° from the temperature. I hope you Northeasterners who've had the same overlong wet, cool spring as Chicago are now getting some genuine June weather too.
I did some proofreading on six (!) different books today (Brendan Quigley's NFL-team word searches). Is it just me, or is looking at word search puzzles more exhausting than, say, medical editing?
Caleb Madison's New York Times crossword
Caleb's theme contains four phrases that begin with synonyms for "wallop":
Where this puzzle shines is in the longer Down answers. Why, here's GROUCHO MARX—[He said, "Here's to our wives and girlfriends...may they never meet!"]. Ah, adulterous deception is always a reliable source of hilarity. (Maybe the retro ADMEN, [Some Madison Ave. workers], are living the Groucho lifestyle.) One type of [Magazine staffer] is the FACT-CHECKER. STAN LEE is perhaps one of the more common 7-letter first-and-last-name people in crosswords; he's [Co-creator of the Fantastic Four]. REAL LIFE probably gets discussed more now than ever, thanks to how much time people spend in the virtual world discussing [Actuality]. Also nice: the Scrabblicious ZZ TOP, the ["Sharp Dressed Man" band], and an ELIXIR, a [Drink said to prolong life]. Is Diet Coke an elixir? I say yes. Favorite clue: [da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM] presents examples of IAMBS.
Updated Tuesday morning:
Donna S. Levin's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Early Bird's Reward"—Janie's review
The "early bird's reward" is of course the WORM, double-clued here as [Computer malady (and what can follow the starts of the four longest puzzle answers)]. May all of our computers be free of that first kind of worm―but what great fill Donna has provided in those four longest answers to clue the other kinds:
This is all top-notch fill in its own right that does double duty as it livens up a tried-(sometimes "tired-")and-true crossword theme.
Other terrific fill includes three CS-firsts: the poetically clued LOST LOVE [Theme of Poe's "Annabel Lee"], the colorful RED-NOSED [Like Rudolph, in a song title], and NTH POWER [Ultimate degree]. These phrases are well-met with IN RESERVE [Set aside] and SNEAK INTO [Crash]. Did you have trouble with either of these? I sure did. A little nosing around the Cruciverb database, however, reveals that both of these phrases with these exact clues have appeared in puzzles by Rich Norris―and in both cases, in Saturday NY Times puzzles. Aha―so that explains it. Glad I finally GOT WISE [Woke up and smelled the coffee] (another great combo)!
Knew PRESLEY [Graceland name] but was at a complete loss for WEIR [Bob ____ (Grateful Dead co-founder). Today is first time this name has been clued in conjunction with the Dead. More often than not it's clued in association with director Peter or as a "small dam."
All of which comes down to this: congrats to Donna for breathing so much fresh air into the cluing and the fill today!
Gary Lowe and Nancy Salomon's Los Angeles Times crossword
Newcomer Gary Lowe, a regular (and often hilarious) commenter over at L.A. Crossword Confidential, partnered up with constructing mentor extraordinaire Nancy Salomon for today's L.A. Times puzzle. The theme is things you COUNT (54D, [Tally, and what to do with the last word of 18-, 26-, 45- or 60-Across]:
Highlights in the fill: ADVICE GURU, MOLIERE, SLUMDOG Millionaire (though it remains to be seen whether "Slumdog" still resonates a few years from now), and EN MASSE.
I answered a question about 2D via Twitter today. Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn tweeted that he didn't understand how [Totaled] and RAN TO fit together. Totaled, as a restaurant bill, not totaled, as a car. Most of my tweets aren't about crosswords, but you're welcome to follow OrangeXW anyway.
Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword,"We've Got a Monopoly"
Cute theme—in each of the six theme entries, Matt changes a single letter in the name of a Monopoly space, giving it a new spin:
WORK WITH ME is stone-cold terrific, in-the-language fill. Its clue is ["C'mon, I need your help here, so stop resisting"]. FORD SUV is...is that terrific or contrived? I'm not sure. That's a [Bronco, Explorer, or Excursion, e.g.]. A trickier clue would've included only the Excursion and the Expedition.
I'm out of time for the morning, so I'll sign off here. Toodles!
May 02, 2009
Sunday, 5/3
NYT 8:12
PI 7:53
LAT 7:30
BG 7:09
CS 3:55
Head over to Roy Leban's Puzzazz.com for this month's crossword, "High-Tech Mergers." (You can solve online, in Across Lite, or on a PDF printout.) As the title suggests, it's got a tech theme, but you need not be an IT professional to crack this puzzle. Roy calls it Monday-Tuesday difficulty, but it took me 4:52 to finish and that's beyond Tuesday level for me. Could just be that it was late and I was tired when I tackled it...
Caleb Madison's New York Times crossword, "A Stately Garden"
A few weeks back, I killed some time at the illustrated Wikipedia article depicting the various state flowers. So that helped me as I ventured through the theme entries in Caleb's puzzle, and I entered some of the flowers in the circled squares before I had the complete answer.
I love the state flowers aspect of the theme, but I'm mildly put out that two of the flowers' names are incomplete and that the violet clue omits two states that honor that flower.
All right, what else is in this puzzle that I want to talk about?
Updated Sunday morning:
Gail Grabowski's syndicated Los Angeles Times crossword, "Torn Fabric"
My full write-up is at L.A. Crossword Confidential. The theme is hidden fabrics "torn" across two words in assorted phrases:
Merl Reagle's Philadelphia Inquirer crossword, "Testing Your Forty-tude"
This "do the math" theme is a lot of fun: Take two familiar numbers and perform an arithmetic operation to end up with 40. Like so:
Overall, the fill was quite smooth—no trouble spots to sandbag the solver.
Henry Hook's 6(ish)-week-old Boston Globe crossword, "Triple Sixes"
The theme entries are six three-word phrases in which all the words are 6 letters long. PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND was a [1534 Cartier discovery]. HELENA BONHAM CARTER was a ["Howards End" cast member]. [The Simpsons' dog] is named SANTA'S LITTLE HELPER. [1993 movie sequel] is ADDAMS FAMILY VALUES. "LIGHTS! CAMERA! ACTION!" is the [Director's call]. JACKIE JOYNER KERSEE is an Olympic [Heptathlon great]. Another famous 666er, Ronald Wilson Reagan, sat this one out.
Favorite clue: [Stocking-up device?] is a GARTER.
Least favorite: [Physics Nobelist Emilio] SEGRE is unfamiliar to me. In Merl's puzzle, SERGE appears in almost the exact same place in the grid, and is much more solver-friendly. There's also [Old Roman coins], or DENARII. I've seen this one a couple times and have not been wild about it.
Martin Ashwood-Smith's themeless CrosSynergy "Sunday Challenge"
The master of the triple-stack provides top and bottom triple-stacked 15's:
Politics and the media take center stage in this puzzle. In addition to the top triple-stack, there are these related answers:
Assorted other clues: NISI is [Decree ___ (non-absolute court ruling)]. [Range topper] is a STETSON hat worn out on the range. SAXES are [Instruments for Clarence Clemons] (the clue misspells it as "Instruments for Clarence Clemens"). Saxes are not involved in a Marilyn [Horne solo], or ARIA.
March 10, 2009
Wednesday, 3/11
BEQ 4:56
Onion 3:59
NYT 3:37
LAT 3:21
CS 2:53
Tausig not timed
I didn't glance at the byline of the Wednesday New York Times crossword until I'd completed it—turns out the puzzle's by 16-year-old Caleb Madison, who was at my table at the ACPT Sunday lunch. Nice kid—and one with plenty of cultural literacy, because the theme is liquor and surely that's something he's only heard about. 58-Down, a BAR, is clued with [Judging by their names, where the answers to the four starred clues might be found]. Seeing the middle two theme entries first made the theme more obvious than it would've been if I'd filled in the first and fourth ones earlier:
Now, there are some answers in the fill that make you say "Oh, yeah, you can tell this is a young constructor," and others that suggest his parents or grandma had a hand in it.
There's a literary bent to the puzzle, with three poets skulking about. W.B. YEATS is a kickass crossword entry; he's ["The Second Coming" poet]. ELIOT is in the grid without his initials, as the [Poet who wrote "This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper"]. Edgar Allan POE is ["The Bells" writer]. Possibly the least poetic word for [Kiss] is OSCULATE. ["No doubt!"] means ABSOLUTELY. (That's not a starred entry, despite the presence of a vodka brand in its midst.) Did anyone know the [Ohio town called the Bicycle Capital of the Midwest] without the crossings? I didn't. It's XENIA.
Matt Gaffney's Onion A.V. Club crossword repeats itself a lot:
Did you know the [1992 champs at the Cricket World Cup] were PAKISTAN? Luckily, not all that many countries play cricket, so it wasn't hard to narrow it down with just the PA in place. Favorite clues: On the internet, a MEME is a [Viral phenomenon]. All the Facebook folks writing their "25 Random Things About Me"? They're hopping on a meme. The OVEN is a [Gestation place, euphemistically], and what's being gestated, of course, is a bun. Two 6-letter answers differ by just one letter: ["Ghost World" cartoonist Daniel] CLOWES and CLOWNS, or [Fools]. CANCER rarely makes it into the NYT crossword, even clued astrologically, but it's kosher for the Onion—the clue is [One of the three water signs, in astrology].
Updated:
The theme in David Cromer's LA Times crossword is in the homophone clues:
The theme answers are essentially clues for the answers contained in the clues, one of which (Q) is too short to be an actual crossword answer.
Assorted other clues and answers: ASSAM is [One of India's Seven Sister States]. Those are the small states in India's northeast extension, nearly cut off from the rest of India by the impingement of Bangladesh and Nepal. The Johnny [Mathis classic] is "MISTY." The [UAW H.Q.] is Detroit, abbreviated as DET. [Like fine cuisine] clues the word SAPID, which doesn't get much use because it's an ugly-sounding word rather than a delicious-sounding one. [Bronx third baseman, to fans] is the Yankees' A-ROD, who is having hip surgery soon. He has used steroids and—I didn't know this—is from the Dominican Republic.
The Wednesday Brendan Quigley crossword takes CHARLES DARWIN as its inspiration, with [55-Down's successor], MAN, paired with [54-Down's ancestor], APE. Each of the theme entries has MAN succeeding APE:
My, I did get off on a tangent there, didn't I? There were some tough clues today. [Hawaiian honeycreeper] is MAMO, crossing those cross-referenced MAN and APE. [Ancient warrior from Amphipolis] is XENA the Warrior Princess. [License giver: Abbr.] is the FCC, which gives out broadcasting licenses, no? O'HARE Airport is [just south of Des Plaines]. That one wasn't hard for me, but I'm from Chicago. What's a [Mandrel]? It's not Barbara Mandrell or the blue-butted baboon called a mandrill, it's an AXLE of sorts. I accidentally typed PLAN P instead of PLAN B for [Backup], which made it hard to see BREWFEST as the [Drinker's party]; it looked like PRE-something, which led exactly nowhere. [Orange throwaway] is the RIND. (It's true. I do throw out the rind.) The [Birthplace of hip hop] is THE BRONX, with a well-wielded definite article.
Patrick Blindauer tries to rescue the SST (60-Down) from crossword ignominy by elevating it to the core of a theme in his CrosSynergy crossword, "Jet Set." (Sure, the Concordes were taken out of service, but the SST lives on in crosswords.) Each theme entry has SST spanning two words:
I kept misreading [Bygone hangout] as a [Bygone handout], so the MALT SHOP was elusive. So were the CRABS that are [Shore sidlers]. I love CORN BREAD, a [Southern starch], and now I want to bake some now. [Spade player] has nothing to do with card games—Humphrey BOGART played Sam Spade.
Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword for this week is called "F Bombs." The theme answers have a PH replacing an F, changing the meaning of the frase:
The inclusion of just three theme entries leaves room for more 6- to 9-letter answers than usual. [747 in California, e.g.] is an AREA CODE. The DAILY SHOW is a [Satirical program originally hosted by Craig Kilborn]. Two spoken phrases intersect: "I'M AMAZED" means ["Wow!"] and "AM I RIGHT?" equates to ["Eh?"].
There's a Spanish word I didn't know: NIETA is [Guatemala grandchild]. Ben's original clue didn't specify what sort of relative it was, and I would've guessed that NIETA meant "niece." I like it when a crossword teaches me something new. [Largest island in the Bahamas] is ANDROS. I had the ABACOS in there first. [Leaves before dinner?] is a noun, not a verb phrase: SALAD. Great clue.
There's a slew of names, mostly from contemporary pop culture, in this puzzle: The Sopranos actor Robert ILER, Solaris director ANDREI Tarkovsky, Poe's Arthur Gordon PYM, Disco STU from The Simpsons, D-lister LOU Diamond Phillips, C-lister Gary SINISE, Dawson's friend PACEY from Dawson's Creek, skier Phil MAHRE, Seinfeld's fictional ex ELAINE, the kid's show NED'S Declassified School Survival Guide (which is no more), HAL the [Computer of cinema[, and SPYRO the [PlayStation dragon].
December 07, 2008
Monday, 12/8
CS 3:25
Sun 2:58
LAT 2:40
NYT 2:34
(updated at 9 Monday morning)
Sarah Keller's New York Times crossword has a piece of JEWELRY (40-Across) at the beginning of each theme entry:
In the fill, why is ACHOO clued as [Possible reaction from getting a cold shoulder?]? If the implication is that getting chilled causes viral disease, I must demur. (Also? Wet hair poses no health risk. Germ theory!) Beautiful X crossing of two words that probably don't see much use in Monday crosswords—SIOUX is clued as [Sitting Bull or Crazy Horse] and XANADU is [Citizen Kane's estate]. There was one answer that was a complete mystery to me. [Swimmer Debbie who won three golds at the 1968 Olympics]. Who? Debbie MEYER? I've never heard of her. The Meyers I know are the legendary DePaul basketball coach Ray, campy sexploitation moviemaker Russ, actress Dina of Starship Troopers, and actor Breckin whose career avoids really taking off. All are less famous than Oscar Mayer and Mike Myers.
"The Measure of a Man" in Caleb Madison's Sun crossword is the unit of measure hidden inside the man's name. HAROLD RAMIS has a dram, or 0.75 teaspoons. PETER GABRIEL's got an erg, which is equivalent to 0.0000001 joules. AHMET ERTEGUN carries within him one meter, or about 39 1/2 inches. WILLIAM PENN has an amp, or 1 coulomb per second.
The puzzle's got a fairly ambitious structure outside of the theme—14 6-letter answers, 8 7's, and 4 8's look like a lot on a Monday. Much of the fill is lively, too. The highlights: MAMMA MIA, a BEER RUN and BARHOP and STROHS (which, ahem, teenaged Caleb surely knows about only from books and movies), a DAYGLO COWPIE, a BALDING AMOEBA. The fill also has lots of people in it, which I enjoy.
Updated:
Randolph Ross's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Fruit Salad," replaces a word or part of a word with a sound-alike fruit:
Other food in the puzzle includes CHEESE DIP, a [Serving with tortilla chips]; ACORN squash; lemonADE; bagels with LOX; [Brown bread] or TOAST with [Brown beverage] or COLA (not so appetizing when described thus!); ALE and MEATS—all for EATERS. (Note to the CrosSynergy team: Might want to change [Newly hatched insects] to the singular for subsequent printings, as LARVA is singular.)
Jennifer Nutt's LA Times crossword is about CARDS—a [Bridge player's need, and hint to this puzzle's theme]. The theme entries end with words that relate to playing cards:
In the fill, I like the sound echoes at the top—WADS of cash, or [Rolled-up bunches of money], cross WADDLE, or [Walk like 7-Down], which are DUCKS. And a LAP or [Length of a pool] meets LA PAZ, the [Bolivian capital that translates to "the peace"]. [Zapping with an electroshock weapon] clues TASING. Technically, this verb may not be dictionarified yet, but this back-formation from the trade name Taser is already in use.
November 24, 2008
Tuesday, 11/25
Sun 4:35
Jonesin' 4:08
LAT 3:27
CS 3:10
NYT 2:53
Ah, kids these days! Teen constructor Caleb Madison's New York Times crossword packs in six theme entries and some sparkling fill. Each theme entry takes a two-syllable word and swaps its two vowels and clues the original and flipped words together as a phrase:
Favorite answers here:
[Heart beater in bridge bidding] is a SPADE. Do most Tuesday solvers know that? I don't know bridge at all, though in hindsight, it shouldn't have been too hard to guess that the answer was one of the suits in a deck of cards. The KEPI is a [Hat for a French soldier], and this is one of those words I know mainly from puzzles. I had an adjacent-key typo that messed with my solving time—no, the [Shout from Scrooge] is not BAJ. I meant to type BAH. Jonest.
Do you ever finish a crossword and find yourself staring at it, trying to figure out what on earth the theme is? I do, and I did tonight with Randall Hartman's Sun puzzle, "Spin Doctors." Eventually it dawned on me that a D and R (Dr., or doctor) that start and finish a word get "spun" so that the R now starts the word and the D ends it:
AL GORE is in the fill, clued as the ["While I strongly disagree with the court's decision, I accept it" speaker]. Wednesday morning, my son's third grade pod will be putting on a "Goin' Green" show inspired by Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. Speaking of cautionary documentaries on important topics, Patrick Creadon's Wordplay follow-up, I.O.U.S.A., made the short list for the Oscars—of the 15 docs on the short list, five will be nominated.
Longer fill includes PIKES PEAK in Colorado, the STATE PEN (terrific entry!), BUMS A RIDE, and MAIL IT IN, or [Do a perfunctory job]. Is "mailing it in" more half-assed or less half-assed than "phoning it in"?
Updated:
Gene Newman's LA Times crossword features three theme entries that add a silent W to change the meaning of a phrase:
The theme's pretty easy, but some other clues are tougher. [Ritchard who played Hook on Broadway] is CYRIL, and I've never heard of him. [Actress Berger], or SENTA, has the advantage of having a more crossword-friendly batch of letters, so I've seen her name before—though I haven't a clue what work she did and whether she was any good. An [Encircling ring of light] is an AUREOLE—not to be confused with an areola.
Will Johnston's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Wishy-Washy," is excellent. The theme entries are three things you might say as a [Wishy-washy resly to a proposal]: "I CAN'T SAY FOR SURE," "MAYBE YES, MAYBE NO," and "ASK ME AGAIN LATER." Mind you, if you're planning to propose to someone in a public place, you need to be 99.99% sure you won't be getting one of these responses. Some of the fill dances around this topic—one who is IN LOVE (or [Smitten]) and gets rebuffed will then cry DON'T GO (["Please stay!"]). There's also some lively longer fill: The N.Y. YANKEES are the [MLB team with the most ALCS wins]. BAGUETTES are a [Boulangerie basketful]. [Comprehensive victory] is a CLEAN SWEEP. "YOU DA MAN!" means ["Bravo, bro!"]. And my favorite entry is ARMS AKIMBO, a [Jaunty pose description].
Matt Jones's Jonesin' puzzle, "Hidden Strength," hides an OBAMA in each of six theme entries. [Superhero with the power to produce Japanese noodles?] is YAKISOBA MAN, for example. And [Hope/Crosby travel flick that takes place in Mali's capital?] is THE ROAD TO BAMAKO. Cute! Mind you, each theme entry is a preposterously made-up phrase, but that's half the fun right there—seeing how Matt's brain works. The surrounding fill is fun, as usual for Jonesin' crosswords. [Toy advertised with the slogan "but they don't fall down"]? Why, that's a WEEBLE, of course. It wobbles, but you can't knock it over. SPAZ is a [Like, totally uncool person]. And [Menage-a-many?] clues an ORGY.
