Friday, 10/9/09

NYT 4:52
CHE 3:38
LAT 3:24
BEQ 5:12 when I gave up on 2 squares, which eventually came to me
CS untimed
WSJ 8:24

David Quarfoot's New York Times crossword

Yay! A new David Quarfoot puzzle! If you know his work, you got what you were expecting: A crossword filled with lively phrases and names, with plenty of Scrabbly letters in the mix. There's so much juicy stuff here. To wit:

• 1A. [Composer of a famous ring cycle] is J.R.R. TOLKIEN of The Lord of the Rings. Not Wagner's musical Ring Cycle. Is it fair to use "composer" to mean writer?
  
• 15A. COUNT BASIE—full name counter stands at 2. He was the [Musician with the 1939 hit "Jumpin' at the Woodside"].
  
• 17A. [Drugs, say] are CONTRABAND. Glad this isn't the verb.
  
• 28A. Fresh clue for SARIS. I didn't know [They're usually worn over petticoats].
  
• 30A. MR. OCTOBER is Reggie Jackson, the [All-time strikeout leader's nickname].
  
• 44A. SPEEDO isn't just a skimpy little brief—it's also the [Maker of the LZR Racer suit] seen in the Olympics.
  
• 46A. I think we've seen DEAR SANTA in the puzzle before, but aww, what a sad clue: [Letter greeting never read by its intended recipient].
  
• 55A. PASEOS are [Scenic walks]. If you've been a San Antonio tourist, you've probably strolled the Paseo del Rio, or River Walk.
  
• 61A. PETE SEEGER, the [Musician called America's Tuning Fork], was a childhood favorite of mine. My sister and I loved this kiddie folk album. (Actually, it was an old record with about half of those songs on it.) If you've got preschoolers in the house, pick up this album. (Full name counter moves to 3.)
  
• 67A. MASS EXODUS is a great phrase, but I wouldn't want to be in one. It's the [Result of a hurricane warning, maybe].
  
• 1D. JC CHASEZ used to be an ['N Sync member], but the group disbanded in 2002. Is he still somebody, or a has-been? (Full name #4.)
  
• 2D. Terrific clue for ROOMMATE: a [Joint letter?]. A different kind of letter's in the SPAM clue, 56D: [Unwelcome letters].
  
• 7D. KABOOM! That's a [Big blast].
  
• 8D. ISADORA Duncan is the [1968 Vanessa Redgrave title role]. No last name in the grid, alas. Same with 33D, ELLA Fitzgerald, [Self-titled album of 1969].
  
• 11D. "IT'S A BOY!" are [Words on some blue balloons].
  
• 12D. [Hit makers?] clues THE MOB. I wasn't expecting the definite article and had the mystifying TH*M*S for a bit.
  
• 22D. Who doesn't love WETNAPS? They're [Messy meal handouts].
  
• 31D. [Cooler fill] clues CONS because convicts fill the "cooler," or prison. I wonder how many people had CANS here.
  
• 42D. DR. SEUSS counts as a full name (#5!) because that was his byline. ["Oh Say Can You Say?" author] is the clue. I'll tell you this, squeezing five full names into a freestyle crossword is not common.
  
• 43D. Hah! ST. KITTS is the [Island with the capital city Basseterre]. Wish I'd known that yesterday when I did the Sporcle quiz for North American capitals (including Central America and the Caribbean islands).
  
• 46D. The [Blue Demons' home], of course, is Chicago's DEPAUL University. My parents met there, and I grew up watching DePaul basketball.
  

I had a big "huh?" moment with 27A. Were you hoping for a fresh clue for EBOLI, like ["Don Carlos" princess]? Or were you hoping not to see that answer at all?

This one settled in at the usual Friday level of toughness for me. How about you?

Cathy Allis's Chronicle of Higher Education crossword, "Roman Numerals"

Oh! Another Cathy Allis crossword. Seeing her name in the byline spurred me to go print out the last couple GeoPuzzles from National Geographic. (October's puzzle is about the Sahara and September's is orchids.)

The theme's got nothing to do with I, V, X, L, C, D, M Roman numerals—instead, it's the numbers used in modern Rome, in the service of puns:

• 17A. SERVING TRE (3) is [Waiting on a group at a Roman trattoria, perhaps?]. Pun on "serving tray."
  
• 28A. [What a double chorus could sing in a Roman church?] is OTTO (8) PARTS. Four members in each chorus, times 2. Pun on "auto parts." If you know a man named Otto, please do not think about his PARTS.
  
• 46A. [They might be found in a Roman hotel suite?] clues DUE (2) BIBLES. "Douay Bibles" is something. It's a "translation of the Bible from the Latin Vulgate into English."
  
• 60A. "Has one's say" turns into HAS ONE'S SEI (6), or [Equally shares a dozen Roman doughnuts?]. If I'm going to have my six doughnuts, it's going to take a concerted effort to eat them all.
  

Rome came into play elsewhere, too. LATIN is 52A: [Source of much legalese], ET TU is 23D: [Ides rebuke], ERAT is 23A: [Part of QED], and the TOGA is 50A: [Forum wrap]. Scooch over to France for ADIEU, or 26D: [Farewell], and to partially Francophone Canada for 45D: [Former Canadian Prime Minister Lester] PEARSON. Head back to Europe for ODESSA, a 33A: [Ukraine port], and the TSAR, or 55D: [Ruler's title derived from "Caesar"]. Then head down to the Middle East—EL AL is 13D: [Matmid Frequent Flyer Club airline], the RIYAL is 30D: [Saudi coin], and everybody's near Turkey. I wasn't sure which IRA* country I needed for 14A: [Neighbor of Turkey]—IRAQ or IRAN? It's IRAN here, but down at 59A, the other [Neighbor of Turkey] calls for IRAQ.

Dan Naddor's Los Angeles Times crossword

I love this "GO crazy" theme. There are five familiar phrases to which you can append a GO and completely change the gist of the phrase:

• 16A. [Tropical fruit that grows underground?] clues CAVE MANGO (caveman).
  
• 21A. [Church game played with cans and bottles?] is not a churchy variant of "Spin the Bottle" but rather, RECYCLE BINGO.
  
• 37A. SOUTHEAST ASIAGO is clued as an [Italian cheese from the Florida Keys?]. Who knew Southeast Asia and GO could combine so pungently?
  
• 44A. [Fled what was once Zaire?] is ESCAPED CONGO. This answer's not kidding around. If you'd like to help some of the many victims of the conflicts in the Democratic (!) Republic of Congo, considerWomen for Women International.
  
• 57A. MAYA LINGO is clued as [Jargon of ancient Yucatan?]. I hope architect Maya Lin, designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, gets tipped off that she's famous enough not only to be in a crossword, but to have a theme entry riff on her name.
  

I went to onelook.com to find other ___go words that could lend themselves to this sort of theme. Sheepish grin(go). Clown car(go). "Hola, chica"(go). Deafening din(go). Duran(go) Duran(go), with lead singer Simon Le(go) Bon(go). A Bridge Too Far(go). "Ain't we got fun"(go). "Bain de Soleil for the St. Tropez tan"(go). So Dan didn't exhaust all the possibilities, no, but he did come up with a fun way to build a theme and created some surprising combos. The mental whiplash from Asia turning into ASIAGO and Maya Lin becoming MAYAN LINGO was terrific, just what I like in a late-week themed puzzle. Ideally, the non-theme clues would be tougher, but it was still a satisfying solve.

Highlights in the fill: DENNY'S restaurant, the TOP BRASS, ANN ARBOR, WHISPERS (clued well as [Library volumes?]), and T.S. GARP ([Fictional author of "The World According to Bensenhaver"] in the John Irving novel The World According to Garp).

Updated Friday morning:

Martin Ashwood-Smith's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Just Visiting"—Janie's review

That is one beautiful, open grid. Don't let it frighten you! Yes, the word count is a low-end 72 (low-end for a themed puzzle), but don't let this frighten you either! In fact, any words of advice I can give you as you approach this puzzle can be paraphrased by incorporating today's theme-fill (if not the theme) itself. The theme sketches out the three phases of a visit with three little words in long and lively phrases. And they are:

• 16A. COME TO THE RESCUE [Engage in heroism]. When you see a puzzle with lots of long "across" fill, the "down" clues come to the rescue. They're your friends as you try to crack the longer fill.
• 34A. STAY THE COURSE [Remain focused]. Don't give up the ship. Just keep at it and you're likely to make your way to solving this one in its entirety.
• 53A. GO OFF THE DEEP END [Lose it]. Of course, for the purposes of constructive words of support, I'd amend this one to say: no need to go off the deep end! Solving is meant to be fun. Do your best to 34A it and you should be fine!

While perhaps not imbued with the immortality of "veni, vidi, vici," the tri-part "come, stay, go" will resonate with anyone who's been a house guest or been host to one—and the one-two (-three) punch made me laugh out loud. It also made me think of (what sounds to me like) the verse to "Hooray for Captain Spaulding" from the Marx brothers' Animal Crackers, which begins with Groucho's singing "Hello, I must be going." (This lyric is also the title of a Groucho biography). If you're unfamiliar with the song or would like a reminder of what zany is all about, this link's for you.

When a composer's or [Musical arranger's work]—a SCORE—has been performed particularly well or is particularly crowd-pleasing, the audience may register their enthusiasm by shouting "ENCORE!" in their quest for ["More!"]. Stage actors sometimes hear this after a performance. I imagine (Sir) LAURENCE [Actor Olivier] heard it more than once in his long and illustrious career.

While most of the cluing is pretty straightforward today, I'll just list some of the other fill that helped give this puzzle its oomph—namely, COCONUTS ([with "The"], the title of another Marx brothers movie in fact), TAPESTRIES, ANIMOSITY, JUICE and JOTTING, and TIME BOMB, of course. Some serious "oomph" there!

Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Progressive Thinking—Flute solos optional"

The subtitle reminded me that Brendan was crowd-sourcing prog rock bands via Twitter and Facebook this week. So he wasn't looking for iTunes recommendations, he was looking for theme fodder. I ponied up with "ELO?" and was pleased to see it made the cut—repurposed as the chess term ELO RATING (36A: [Gary Kasparov's was 2853]). The other theme entries:

• 19A. ["Sonic the Hedgehog" and "Golden Axe"] are/were Sega GENESIS GAMES. I'm more familiar with Phil Collins–era Genesis; I know Peter Gabriel mostly as a solo artist. I had his 1992 album, but had no recollection of the cut "Steam" when the video played at a fairly gay bar Wednesday night. Is this somehow a classic gay bar video?
  
• 27A. TRAFFIC COP is a [Ticket issuer]. I confess I don't really know Traffic's oeuvre.
  
• 47A. Omigod, this clue and the crossings for the first two letters brought me to a dead halt. [Yankees broadcaster], (something) NETWORK? How the hell should I know what the Yankees broadcaster is called? 47D: [Montana has 40,551: Abbr.] killed me. I was thinking of the state (RDS.?) but that was wrong. 48D: [It's the same as an F], (something) SHARP, gotta be in A through G, but I don't know which letter is right because musical notation is so far out of my wheelhouse, I don't even know the way to that wheelhouse. RGS NETWORK? Er, no. I stopped the clock and went to Brendan's Facebook post to see what bands people suggested, looking for 3-letter names other than ELO. Still didn't see the answer. Eventually it dawned on me that Montana = quarterback Joe, that 40,551 would be too high a number for TDS, and the answer was YDS. Y*S, duh, YES NETWORK. Which I still don't know anything about. Why would I know that? Hmph.
  
• 53A. With RU in place, I figured RUSH (something) before I even read the clue. [Radio personality who s...]—LIMBAUGH. No need to read the rest of the clue.
  

My favorite word in the fill: 44D: OROGENY, or [Mountain-making process, in geology]. Orogeny recapitulates...no, that's not right. Someday I'll make a science nerd puzzle with OROGENOUS ZONES in it.

Harvey Estes' Wall Street Journal crossword, "Come Together"

The grid's got left/right symmetry instead of the standard rotational crossword symmetry, and the theme entries don't occupy much real estate. That means there's more room for lively fill, and Harvey's also loaded up on great clues. The drop-a-letter theme has a grander purpose—the letters dropped from each song title, in order, spell out something apt. Here's how the theme unfurls:

• 26A. [Song centered on a rooster?] drops an L from "Rock Around the Clock" to become ROCK AROUND THE COCK. When I got that answer and looked back at the puzzle's title, my eyebrow shot up.
  
• 42A. PIECE OF MY HART (Heart – E) is a [Song about a venison serving?].
  
• 61A. BAD ON THE RUN (Band – N) is a [Song about evil in retreat?].
  
• 80A. [Song about a jabberin' parent?] is RAMBLIN' MA (Man – N).
  
• 95A. [Song about a divine earthquake?] is GOD VIBRATIONS (Good – O). I hadn't figured this one out until after filling in the unifying LENNON at 125A, Had been thinking the song was "Gold (something)," so understanding the theme helped a bit.
  
• 113A. DOW-TOWN (Downtown – N) is a [Song about New York City and its investors?].
  
• 125A. John LENNON is clued [Letters dropped from six answers "come together" here], aptly using the Beatles song "Come Together" as part of the overall theme concept. Nice!
  

Among the zippier fill were words and phrases like GET BENT, DINGBAT, SHEBANG, and SOAPBOX, along with these ones with clues I enjoyed:

• 12D. [What happened?] HISTORY is what happened.
  
• 7D. POTATOES are [Shoestring material]. Oh, how I loved crunchy shoestring potatoes when I was a kid. If you were at the ACPT luncheon this year, TV chef Robert Irvine's "on a shoestring" potatoes were yummy. (And poor Andrea Carla Michaels had to peel potatoes on KP duty.)
  
• 68D. [Someone on the board] is SURFER. No board of directors here.
  
• 99D. [Medium alternative] in the psychic energy department is a OUIJA board.
  
• 105D. [Indian, e.g.] clues OCEAN. How many people went with ASIAN first?
  
• 90D. [One who has a guest for dinner?] is a CANNIBAL. This one definitely violates the dinner table test.
  
• 16D. Among constellations, PISCES is a [Star fish].
  
• 20A. [Its coat of arms features a bear, a deer and a moose] clues ONTARIO. Who knew? Do Canadians know this?
  

Overall, I'll give this puzzle a solid A for excellence.

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Friday, 7/24

NYT 5:11
BEQ 4:17
LAT 3:38
CS 8:57 (J—paper)
WSJ 8:51
CHE tba — apparently not posted online yet in site redesign (*grumble*)


Will Shortz has been answering reader questions since July 20 here. Friday's the last day, so I expect there'll be more Qs&As added to the four pages' worth that are there now. It's an engaging read.

Patrick Berry's New York Times crossword

Isn't this a pretty crossword? I almost didn't want to sully it with any letters, but when the byline reads "Patrick Berry," I sullied it right up.

Eleven of the 15 Across rows contain a long (9 to 15 letters) answer, which looks crazy. One of the 15s is SPIRAL STAIRCASE (43A: [It gets you up and around])—which is sort of, a little bit, what the grid looks like.

If you'll pardon me, I've got to tuck my son in now, but I'll publish this much of the post for the nonce. Back soon.

And here I am again. You know what my favorite answers and clues were in this 62-worder? Well, there's NO SUCH THING (1A: [It doesn't exist]), for one. And also these:

• 16A. [Bloomer after whom bloomers are named] is AMELIA. I've known this particular eponym since I was a kid. Did we all learn that one when we were little?
  
• 19A. For [Toy from China], I was thinking of the KITE, but it's a toy dog, the Pekingese, or PEKE.
  
• 24A. [You might grind it out] clues a cigarette BUTT. At first I thought this was some sort of carpentry/workshop thing, or possibly about doing a bump and grind on the dance floor.
  
• 25A. [Fast hits] are LINE DRIVES. Yeah, it's baseball, but if you're gonna make me have a baseball answer, at least make it be a long phrase and not the last name of 1956's leading shortstop or a 2004 Padre.
  
• 30A. BRANDON LEE was the [Actor who debuted in "Kung Fu: The Movie"]. He died before The Crow was finished, which is a shame because Bruce Lee's son had a ton of potential.
  
• 35A. SLAM DANCES are [Activities at punk rock concerts]. Is it proper to pluralize "slam dance"? And what about GARBS (14A: [Outfits])?
  
• 39A. I love the word BARMY, which means [Foolish, in British slang].
  
• 48A. "SEE YOU IN COURT" are [Words from one who won't settle].
  
• 1D. [Whim-wham] is a crazy clue for NOVELTY. Dictionary says: archaic "a quaint and decorative object; a trinket." I gotta work "whim-wham" into my vocabulary.
  
• 2D. [It might contain a filling] could be many things. This time, it's an OMELET.
  
• 10D. NOSEDIVE is a [Calamitous decline].
  
• 15D. What's this? A factoid I didn't know about EELS? They are [Fish that can move equally well forward and backward].
  
• 21D. KEEBLER, the cookie people, is a [Company with a tree in its logo]. Ernie is the head elf, you know.
  
• 30D. [Nullifies, as an oath?] clues BLEEPS. Good clue.
  
• 42D. A PICA is [1/6 of an inch]. Who doesn't love printing terminology? Me, I like it so much more than the nautical and poker clues.

Mildly vexing spots:

• 28A. HASHED OVER is the answer to [Discussed at length]. I would prefer HASHED OUT, which has better support in at least one dictionary. You talk things over when you hash them out.
  
• 18A. RELET, or [Rent to another], is the sort of blah answer we rarely see in a Berrystravaganza. I suppose we have to allow Berry to use an utterly lifeless word once or twice a year, eh? He's earned the forgiveness.
  
• 29A. [Musical direction that means "lyrical" in Italian] is CANTABILE. Note the cognates, chant and cantor and incantations. Much of what I know about "musical directions" I learned from crosswords.
  
• 42A. [Folk singer Tom with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award] is PAXTON. I guess I follow folk singers even less than I thought, because I've never heard of him. It's a shiny new Grammy from 2009.
  
• 3D. SPRIT is a [Diagonally set spar]. Nautical terminology = meh.
  
• 13D. I wonder if Tom PAXTON knows [Pulitzer-winning historian Frederick Jackson ___] TURNER. Nope—TURNER died five years before Paxton was born.
  
• 34D. [Max of video game fame] is Max PAYNE. I learned this from crosswords, I swear.
  
• 35D. SYMS is an East Coast menswear chain, isn't it? It's also part of ["___ by Sinatra" (1982 collaborative jazz album)]. Big question mark for me on this one.

Updated Friday morning:

Randolph Ross's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Material for Dessert Recipes"—Janie's review

Foodie (and foodies), take heed: this one's for you! Randy is serving up a cruciverbal confection with a power of suggestion that is bound to please—or possibly send you into the kitchen, or out to the nearest bakery. The trick, though, is that each of the theme desserts contains the name of a kind of fabric. The "material" in the title is material, not ingredients (though you will find plenty of those in the links...). Because there's always room for dessert, today we're offered:

• 18A. LACE COOKIES [Delicate, crumbly dessert]. More about this fill later;
  
• 25A. RED VELVET CAKE [Colorful, layered dessert]. A great, traditional cake from the South;
  
• 46A. FRENCH SILK PIE [Chilled, crusty chocolate dessert]. Though they've long been seen on dessert carts, both this filling fill and its predecessor look to be appearing in a major puzzle for the first time. And finally:
  
• 59A. COTTON CANDY [Sweet, sticky dessert]. This is the only one I had trouble with...as a dessert. At the dinner table. With (CS-first) SILVERWARE. Okay, ya don't need silverware for cookies either, but you know what I mean. I can see cotton candy as a treat at a baseball game, or a carnival or a fair—maybe after a "main course" of a corn dog and fried cheese curd, and in lieu of the deep-fried oreo... But after chicken KIEV and green beans au gratin, off-the-paper-cone or out-of-the-bag? That doesn't really sound like a dessert to me. What does, though, is cotton candy ice-cream or cotton candy cupcakes. With an insulin chaser, of course...

Statistcially speaking, lace cookies looks to be a major-puzzle first and cotton candy a CS-first. But lace cookie appears in another of Randy's puzzles—as does cotton candy. It's an LA Times puzzle called "At the Dress Dinner" and the theme fill is made up of... "foods that include clothing or dress material." As fill, cotton candy has appeared in some seven puzzles, apparently as theme fill on each occasion; four of those occasions being puzzles with a food 'n' fabric theme. All of which is to say, where puzzle themes are concerned, be prepared for "everything old is new again." "Déjà vu all over again" may not the preferred choice, but it does go with the territory.

I was about to say that elsewhere in the puzzle Randy had given us a lot to chew on and then mention I'M ALIVE [Cry from an avalanche survivor] and how this first-time puzzle fill reminded me (as clued) of Alive, the gripping Piers Paul Reid account of the survivors of an air disaster in the Andes. But that would be in very bad taste... (TSK, Jane. Had enough? ME, TOO...) I will add that "I'm Alive" is one of the great numbers in Tony-winners Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey's gripping rock musical Next to Normal—about a woman with bi-polar disorder and its effect on her family. Not for the faint of heart.

Because I play so much of it at work, loved seeing PHONE TAG in the grid; and CS first-timer SKY CAM [It provides video from above], which is already passé in the sense that we take it for granted now, the same way we became inured to the miracle of telephone communication. And how nice to see an [Apple product] that's actually the product of an apple: CIDER.

Before I SKIDDOO (oh, if only there'd been a 23D this coulda be attached to...), I do want to point out that sans "material," there is yet another dessert within. The [Chic Young creation] BLONDIE ain't just a comic strip!

David Cromer's Los Angeles Times crossword

Each theme entry picks up an -IC that alters one word into something completely unrelated:

• 18A. [Break from soldiers' training?] is BASIC RELIEF, vs. bas-relief.
  
• 24A. [Clown settlement?] clues an ANTIC COLONY. Aaaah! Clowns! I just saw Bruce Nauman's video exhibit, Clown Torture, at the Art Institute's new Modern Wing. I pity the security guards who have to spend more than one minute within earshot of that exhibit. And no, they can't turn the volume down. (I asked.) I much preferred Sue Williams' painting, It's a New Age (NSFW). I am also fond of Christopher Wool's painting, Trouble—it's vowelless, like that Frank Longo crossword book! Here comes TRBL.
  
• 38A. [International affair?] is a TOPIC OF THE WORLD.
  
• 49A. [O. Henry stories?] are IRONIC WORKS. That's perfect, absolutely perfect.
  
• 60A. [Copperfield's limo?] (MAGIC WHEELS). Magician David Copperfield, not Dickens' David Copperfield. (Each time I typed that name, it came out "Copperfiend.")

I've been listening to a soundtrack of chainsaws and a woodchipper while doing this puzzle and writing about it, and I swear it's giving me a headache. So for details on non-theme fill and clues (and a good idea for a grand unifying entry for the theme), I'll send you to Rex's L.A. Crossword Confidential post.

Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Just My Type"

I thought I had enough desktop publishing experience to dig a font theme, but no. The fonts in Brendan's theme aren't all familiar to me, and there's nothing innately entertaining or meaningful about the font names. Okay, so there's a font called Franklin that I don't use. There was a president named FRANKLIN PIERCE. And [Font penetration?] could clue that, except that pierce is a verb, not a noun, and Google shows me that the Franklin font isn't especially pointy, so there's no logical or amusing link to PIERCE. See what I mean? I'm just not feelin' it, dawg. Minor typographical nerd bonus points for the [Font suitcase?] clue for COURIER BAG. Back in the day, I handled font suitcases.

In Wednesday's L.A. Times crossword, SAT was clued as [Met] and this gave some people fits as they could just not accept that the words' equivalency was valid, no matter how many examples and dictionary definitions they saw. So thanks to Brendan for cluing SIT as [Be in session]. Yes! The sit/meet connection is not a sham!

I don't like [Crude object] as a clue for ORE—ore is a material and not a discrete object. I'll bet there's some ore buried within mountains, and Brendan did have some good mountain action here. The [Beatles album whose working title was "Everest"] is ABBEY ROAD, and the second-tallest mountain after Everest is K2 or, in crossword language, K-TWO. K-TWO is clued as ["The savage mountain"], which makes it sound volcanic and my first guess for any 4-letter volcano is ETNA. Whoops; not this time.

FIJI is the [Nation where golfer Vijay Singh is from]. It's a mystery to me: Why isn't "Fiji Vijay" his nickname?

Cathy Allis's Wall Street Journal crossword, "To Open: The Complete Instruction"

Cathy's second National Geographic Geopuzzle crossword is available in PDF form. This month's theme relates to the "Vanishing Venice" article.

The WSJ theme's a good bit more whimsical than any of the finance-related themes that sometimes appear in that paper. Cathy reinterprets packaging opening instructions by adding words onto the end of them. My favorite is 117A: [Cracker box: "Slide finger under flap and loosen gently"...] SO AS TO ENSURE A PAPER CUT. Ouch! I also like 65A: [Individual string cheese: "Safety first! Open with hands, not teeth"...] because SCISSORS ARE FOR WIMPS. I used to work with a woman who tore a neck muscle opening a pack of Twizzlers with her teeth. I am not making this up.

Solid puzzle with a few bits of crosswordese (57A: [Basketry willow] is OSIER and 12D: [Architectural pilaster] is ANTA, for example], nothing too crazy, and overall medium-tough cluing. Favorite clue: 32D: [They improve your balance] refers to CREDITS in your bank or credit card account.

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More crosswords!

Cathy Allis (who used to use the Millhauser name) has a new gig at National Geographic. Her first "Geopuzzle," for the July 2009 issue, is right here (you can print out a PDF). I haven't done the puzzle yet—the theme entries relate to a NatGeo article about telescopes but I don't get the magazine, so I'll be working the crossings big time. (Or I could read the article online.) Cathy is known for her light touch, so it should be a fun puzzle—and I'm delighted we'll be seeing her byline on a monthly basis. Cathy and the crossword feature are introduced at this National Geographic blog; feel free to share your reactions to the puzzle with the NatGeo folks.

Todd McClary has posted a new puzzle here. I just did the one called "Minitheme 1," and it's themeless-with-a-minitheme. (That means two long entries form a minitheme, but don't take up enough real estate to count as a full theme.) This puppy took me 7:19, so I'd call it Saturday-NYT/Stumper-tough. I'd never heard of the song in the minitheme clues, and the northwest corner took me the longest to unravel. Great fill, great clues, good balance between erudition and pop-culture fun. Keep 'em coming, Todd.

Starting in July, Trip Payne and Patrick Berry will take turns constructing crosswords with politics/current affairs/history themes for the new digital magazine put out by the U.S. News and World Report folks. You'll have to subscribe to U.S. News Weekly ($19.95 a year—or free if you subscribe to the print magazine) to get the puzzles. If you're a news junkie, these puzzles'll probably be right up your alley, and for twice the cost of a book of crosswords, you'll get a year of news too.

Trip also has free* puzzles at Triple Play Puzzles. (*You're welcome to donate via his PayPal link. But don't get me started on PayPal, which I loathe with the heat of a thousand suns.)

And speaking of Patrick Berry, I just got an interview request from an Athens, Georgia, journalism student who's writing an article on Patrick for a local arts paper. Hmm, I think I can come up with a few salient things to say about him.

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Friday, 5/22

NYT 6:00
BEQ 5:31
CHE 3:58
LAT 3:06
CS 6:29 (J/paper)
WSJ 6:41

Who knew a kid could have strep in the absence of a sore throat? Yep. Fever, cough, and headache are the manifestations of the strep that's making the rounds in Chicago. I wrote up the CHE puzzle earlier this evening, but I promised to check on my son, who's having trouble getting to sleep, so I'll have only an abbreviated write-up of the New York Times puzzle.

Manny Nosowsky's New York Times crossword

Yay! A Manny Friday! Such a puzzle always promises to be deftly constructed and enjoyable, but not disappointingly easy. Without further ado, clues and answers of particular note:

• Right in the middle of the grid, we have the number SIXTY-NINE, clued as 20A [Cardinal that looks the same when viewed upside down]. Wow, I kinda thought the answer would be someone named Urban or Pius, something like that. My mind doesn't go straight to math.
  
• 1A. [Magazine since 1850] is HARPERS. It took me far too long to confirm that guess with the crossings.
  
• 16A. "NOW WHAT?" is a [Cry upon reaching an impasse].
  
• 18A. [Lens-grinding Dutch philosopher] was SPINOZA.
  
• Soccer legend PELE is a [Goal-oriented superstar?] and a COSTAR is a [Bill sharer], as in sharing top billing. The star/STAR duplication is not optimal, but I do like that PELE clue.
  
• 33A. I CAN'T SAY AS I HAVE is clued ["Not in my experience"]. Have you ever seen that answer in a crossword? See 33-Across. Perfectly in-the-language, that. IT'S A LULU is perhaps less so—that one's clued ["Wait'll you see this!"].
  
• 37A. NORMA is a [Celestial neighbor of Scorpius]. If only Norma were one of the zodiac signs. "Norma, meet Leo."
  
• 45A. ELON is clued [Its sports teams are called the Phoenix]. Raise your hand if you had just enough crossings to try ETON.
  
• 46A. [Accolade for a great play] is a TONY award.
  
• 58A. [Selling point for some lights] is LESS TAR. Mind you, cigarettes with less tar will still wreak havoc on your lungs, cardiovascular system, and gums. (Can I get an "ick," Ellen?)
  
• 1D. I thought [Old swing digger] would be some sort of tool or construction equipment rather than a HEP CAT.
  
• 4D. PILTDOWN MAN! The classic hoax. [Its teeth were actually a chimpanzee's].
  
• 10D. FWIW, or "for what it's worth," is an [E-mail disclaimer].
  
• 12D. RHODESIA [was NE of Bechuanaland].
  
• 13D. MAZEL TOV! That's [Literally, "good luck"].
  
• 23D. [Ocean, in Mongolian] is DALAI. Is this related to the Tibetan term Dalai Lama? Ocean priest?
  
• 40D. [Stand-in for unnamed others] is ET ALIA. Am I alone in never filling in that last letter without the crossing telling me if it's an A or I?
  
• 42D. URBANA, Illinois, [has a twin city in the Midwest]. St. Paul also has 6 letters.
  
• 54D. MRS. is a [Questionnaire check box option]. I always check the Ms. box.
  
• 55D. The last clue in this 68-worder is [100ths of a krona], for ORE. Definitely not a Monday clue for that common answer.

Cathy Allis's Chronicle of Higher Education crossword, "Mystery Guest"

I've never read any Sherlock Holmes stories, nor seen any film adaptations. But I can still appreciate the Mystery Guest theme that Cathy Allis (the artist formerly known as Cathy Millhauser) has wrought in this 15x16 tribute puzzle. There are four theme entries and a smattering of circled squares. The theme entries are:

• 17A. [Hint to the Mystery Guest's identity] is DOCTOR AND WRITER.
  
• 26A. The second [Hint to the Mystery Guest's identity] is SPIRITUALIST.
  
• 50A. The third [Hint to the Mystery Guest's identity] is KNIGHTED SCOT. I was pretty sure that Sean Connery doesn't qualify as a doctor or a writer.
  
• 64A. [Age that the Mystery Guest would turn on May 22, 2009] is ONE HUNDRED FIFTY. (Though apparently people on his side of the Atlantic would use "and" between "hundred" and "fifty," according to Language Log.)

The circled squares, read in a zigzag from top to bottom, spell out ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE. And I certainly had no idea that was the hidden name, not based on the theme answers. Is the capitalized "Mystery Guest" another clue that it's Doyle?

Look how loose the grid is—there are two diagonal swaths of fill that traverse three quarters of the grid, easing your path through the grid. There are plenty of routes in and out of each section of the puzzle. And the fill doesn't feel constrained by the requirement that a specific letter must appear somewhere within each row (though there's some flexibility as to where the letter goes).

Hey, Cathy, let's see some more of your puzzles soon!

Updated Friday Morning:

Patrick Blindauer's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Double Time"—Janie's review

In other words, it's time to double something—and today that would be the central consonant of a five-letter noun or adjective, and then pair it with the resulting six-letter noun to create a two-word (kinda whimsical, alliterative) adjectival phrase. Get it? If that doesn't make sense, perhaps this will:

• 17A: [Marvelous meal?] SUPER SUPPER. (Got it?) I like how this ties into 29D's [Devour]. What else would you do with this kind of fare but EAT UP!
  
• 28A: [Big bottles beside the highway?] LITER LITTER.
  
• 44A: [Finale of a heist?] CAPER CAPPER.
  
• 58A: [More adorable film editor?] CUTER CUTTER. This one's my fave.

This was a fairly easy puzzle for me, probably because there was a lot of "sweet spot" fill. Fill-um stars NEESON and MR. T (who has a real name—Laurence Tureaud!); and the JOADS of Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.

But let's not forget that "Double time" is also a musical term—and there was lots of musical fill here: DO-RE-MI, ["I] AM THE [Walrus"], ["I] HEAR A [Symphony"], ARLO Guthrie, Paul ANKA, AIMEE Grant, TITOS Puente and Jackson, ERNO Dohnányi, not to mention the well-clued [A flat's equivalent] G SHARP. (I also had to smile when sound-alike SHARPEI ["sharp A?"] showed up in the same NW territory.)

The longest of the non-theme fill is also rich: PASTE IN, MOUSETRAP (smartly clued as [Danger for Stuart Little]), FLAPJACKS (making its CS debut) and BEERCAN. This last one, clued as [Coors container], is well-paired with [Keep in a barrel, perhaps] for AGE. Wine and hard-liquor, I learned, are not the only alcoholic beverages to be barrel-aged. Yep, it's also a process for some mighty pricey beer these days. Yikes.

There's a fine pairing, too, of POGO [stick] and then [Stick with a blade, a loom, and a handle]. That latter one is a fancy way of getting to OAR. Here's a diagram that'll show ya what's what. (Full disclosure: this one uses the word "grip" instead of "handle"... The diagram that pointed out the "blade" and the "handle" made no mention of the "loom," which was a new term to me.)

And there's another lively pair of related clues/fill: SMUSH for [Compress] and RAZE for [Flatten]. Love SMUSH especially—though I did start out with SMASH...

BEEPER for [Cell phone predecessor] conjured up the first season of The Wire, and TRIO for [The Fates] sent me looking for more details. I was reminded that these dames are not unique to Greek mythology, but have their counterparts in Roman and Norse/Germanic mythology as well—possibly including even Macbeth's witches.

To re-address the theme before closing—you know what? There are a lot of six-letter words with a repeated consonant in the middle. But there really aren't lots and lots to choose from when you're trying to come up with phrases that sound like they could be "in the language." Bravo, Patrick. You came up with four good ones, giving us two with a repeated "T" and two with a repeated "P." That, too, keeps the theme-fill tight and consistent within itself. No mean FEAT, that!

Mike Peluso's Los Angeles Times crossword

The theme here is familiar phrases in which the first word adopts a -LER'S ending. The new words are completely unrelated etymologically in three of the four cases:

• 20A. [Social butterfly's flower pot?] is a MINGLER'S VASE.
  
• 36A. [Breakfast for a cuddly person?] is a NESTLER'S EGG. Nestle is derived from nest. I might've gone with a breakfast-in-bed slant for the clue.
  
• [Adam's tavern?] is SANDLER'S BAR. Who doesn't like a sandbar? I think sandbars are less polarizing than Adam Sandler.
  
• 57A. [Old West outlaw's accessory?] is a cattle RUSTLER'S BELT. Whenever I see "accessory" in a crossword clue, I expect there to be an OBI in the grid.

New clues (which may not actually be new, but they felt fresh to me):

• [Gadgets used in drivers' education?] are golf TEES.
  
• [Matmid Frequent Flyer Club airline] is Israel's EL AL.
  
• [One in a black suit] is a SPADE, as opposed to black clubs, red hearts, and red diamonds.
  
• [Southernmost Ivy League sch.] is UPENN. Does anyone call it that? Isn't it just called Penn?
  
• [Little star] is the typographical ASTERISK.
  
• [Do to do] is the SCALE, running from do through re, mi, and friends all the way back to do. Speaking of that, Trip Payne recently wrote of realizing that there's a pun at the end of the Sound of Music song's line, "Ti/tea, a drink with jam and bread, that will bring us back to do." Bread dough = do. This epiphany gobsmacked him and his blog readers. Was that always obvious to you, or did you also never see the link between bread and "do"?

More on the puzzle from Rex at L.A. Crossword Confidential.

Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Themeless Friday"

Those of you who've been perplexed by intriguing titles for Brendan's themelesses can rest easy today—"Themeless Friday" is indeed themeless. I'm glad Brendan sometimes writes about the genesis and crafting of his puzzles, because I always find that interesting. (Open invitation to constructors: If you're particularly pleased with how your puzzle came out and want somewhere to talk about the process of creating it, you're welcome to do that here. Either in the comments or via an e-mail from which I can copy and paste your story.) Among the freshest fill and clues in today's puzzle is this stuff:

• The first and last Across entries frame the puzzle in au courant lingo. [Gamer's confident exclamation] is FOR THE WIN, often shortened to FTW. (Yes, it looks like "WTF" backwards, but only the "the" is the same.) FTW has spilled out beyond gaming—I see it in blog comments when someone's lauding another's cleverness. At the bottom is Brendan's seed entry, DRUNK TEXT—this is the updated version of the drunk dial. Why leave a drunk voicemail when you can so easily text an [Embarrassing message you might hear about the next day]?
  
• SLIDE RULES are old-school, for sure. The clue, [They took care of roots], refers to square roots, not hair roots.
  
• FARRAGO is one of those lovely old words that means [Hodgepodge].
  
• HATE MAIL [may begin: "Dear Fuckface"].
  
• THNEEDS are [Odd-looking but versatile garments the Once-ler manufactures in Dr. Seuss's "The Lorax"]. I'd hereby like to declare a moratorium on Seuss neologisms in the crossword.
  
• [Narrator rescued by the Rachel at the novel's end] is ISHMAEL. I don't remember this from Moby-Dick, but I do like the conceit of someone being rescued by Jennifer Aniston's Friends hairstyle.
  
• EVEREST is the [Mountain natives call Sagarmatha].

Cathy Allis's Wall Street Journal crossword, "It's Not the Economy"

Yay! Another puzzle from Cathy! I really thought I'd have to wait more than a day before I saw another of her creations. The theme entries are familiar phrases with financial implications, but Cathy reimagines them and the clues suggest that "It's Not the Economy" that these phrases are about at all:

• [Doesn't bother to return the turpentine, say?] clues JUST KEEPS SOLVENT. This one's actually my favorite theme entry. What does that say about me?
  
• LIVES ON A DIME means [Is immortalized like Franklin Roosevelt?].
  
• [Dips fingers into snuff or salt] clues FEELS THE PINCH.
  
• [Is tied up by "the Man in Black"] first had me thinking of Men in Black thanks to inattentive reading. GETS STRAPPED FOR CASH, Johnny Cash, paints a kinky picture. The "for" makes it sound like voluntary bondage.
  
• [Works on getting some football players introduced to each other?] is TRIES TO MAKE ENDS MEET. I love this one as much as the turpentine one. I picture a crowded party and a flustered host trying to get her burly guests to quit hanging out with their friends and come mingle with their fellow ends.
  
• BARELY MANAGES is clued with [Runs a nudist colony?]. Writing business plans is, I think, best done in the nude.
  
• [Starts carving some ham?] leads you to GOES INTO HOCK, ham hock, with a knife.
  
• [Brings a boxing punch under control?] clues TIGHTENS ONE'S BELT. I have no idea if "tightening" of punches is in the pugilistic parlance at all.

Fun theme! I like the Reaglesque partial stacking of the top and bottom pairs of theme entries, too. Highlights in the fill: DOO DAH is a ["Camptown Races" bit]. POST-IT is a [Brand of note]. EGOISTE is that [Chanel fragrance for men] that had those ludicrous TV commercials about a decade ago. Remember that one? All the windows being thrown open and various European women shouting "Egoiste!" into the rue before closing the windows again?

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