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.
December 07, 2008
Monday, 12/8
September 29, 2008
Tuesday, 9/30
Tausig 5:43
Onion 4:40
NYS 3:50
CS 3:12
NYT 2:45
LAT 2:45
(updated at 9:15 p.m. Tuesday)
The big news in the crossword biz is that the New York Sun is ceasing publication after tomorrow. So the Tuesday Sun puzzle will be the last published under that paper's auspices. The good news is that Peter Gordon had already accepted about 5½ months' worth of crosswords, and we'll be able to access them for a nominal fee. Stay tuned for details about where to get the crosswords and how to pay your pittance for the privilege. I'll continue blogging about the puzzles.
I forgot to notice the theme in Allan Parrish's New York Times puzzle until after I finished it. The theme is diner seating options, the counter, a booth, or a table:
Me, I like a booth. I also like how much longer fill there is in this puzzle—with just three theme answers, there's space for interesting stuff outside the theme. HYDE PARK is, among other things, [Franklin D. Roosevelt's birthplace]. AMARETTO is that [Almond-flavored liqueur] that comes to mind whenever I see the word amoretto. The upper left and lower right corners of the grid are pretty wide-open, with those theme entries intersecting a trio of 6's and a 9-letter answer. I'd say more, but I'm watching Heroes and it's awfully distracting.
Matt Ginsberg's New York Sun swan song is called "Eight Is Enough" because the answers in it contain only eight of the 26 letters, those in the word notaries. (These letters are sometimes held to be the most commonly used in the English language.) The theme is explained in the clue for 15-Across, NINE, or [One more than the number of different letters in this puzzle]. Well, the fill isn't at all Scrabbly, that's for sure. Working by hand, I imagine this puzzle would be mighty challenging to construct—but Matt has some sort of intricate database of crossword entries, and I would guess he had a computer do much of the heavy lifting. Matt, would you care to tell us how it played out?
Updated:
Once I figured out the theme in Jennifer Nutt's LA Times crossword, I really liked it—it evokes a LONG WEEKEND. Mind you, the clue for that entry spells out the theme clearly, but in an easy puzzle, I don't always read every clue, especially a long one: [Break suggested by the first three letters of 18-, 23-, 51- and 57-Across]. Those four answers are:
There's one clue that has become factually inaccurate in recent days. Is WAMU still a [BofA competitor]? Poor WaMu.
Bruce Venzke and Stella Daily's CrosSynergy crossword, "Talking a Good Game," centers on an "observation": AFTER ALL IS SAID / AND DONE, A LOT MORE / IS SAID THAN DONE. True enough, that. I rather like the entry GOES BOOM, clued as [Explodes, to a kid]. I also like the potato pair: a COUCH is a [Place for a potato?], while IDAHO is a [Place for potatoes?] in the plural.
Updated again:
Byron Walden's Onion A.V. Club crossword for this week is horribly rude (...not that there's anything so wrong with that), as each theme entry tells you where you can get off—at least, those imprecations are found at the beginning of each of those phrases.
In the fill, there are eight 8- and 9-letter answers, including slangy SCHMOOZES (clued as [Shoots the shit]) beside SKEEZIEST ([Superlative for a flasher], and no, I don't wish to contemplate the very skeeziest of the flashers). Two full names that are likely brand-new as crossword answers are BOB NEY, the [Former Ohio congressman released from prison in August 2008], and MACK BROWN, the [Coach of the 2005 NCAA football champion Texas Longhorns]. Guess which one of the two I've heard of?
Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword, "Covered in Spots," is covered in advertising spots. That is, each theme entry has an AD added to it, changing the gist:
Favorite clues and answers aside from the theme: NBA JAM, the [arcade basketball game that failed to include Michael Jordan]; [Place with millions of inhabitants at the time of its "discovery"] for AMERICA; AUDRA, or [Actress Lindley of "Three's Company"] for a '70s TV nostalgia hit (she played Mrs. Roper, of course); and stale ol' STYE with a non-eye clue, [Sebaceous gland problem], that pointed right towards ACNE (hey, when's the last time a STYE clue wasn't a gimme?).
August 18, 2008
Tuesday, 8/19
Tausig 4:19
Onion 3:47
NYS 3:23
CS 3:15
LAT 3:00
NYT 2:52
(post updated at 9 a.m. Tuesday)
Harriet Clifton's New York Times crossword spells out a star-crossed cell phone conversation: "YOU'RE BREAKING UP." "CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?" No, "I DIDN'T CATCH THAT." Okay, "I'LL TRY REDIALING." Only the last one feels off to me—more stilted than, say, "I'm hanging up—I'll call you back." I like the three longish two-word answers in the fill:
I briefly had a typo where the [Cherry variety] and [1950s-'70s Yugoslav leader] intersected, and was surprised to see a BONG in the grid. Whoops, that's BING and TITO. Too bad the [Chicken part that's good for soup] isn't the SOUL (it's the NECK)—then those Chicken Soup for the Soul books could be reworked into cookbooks with a different preposition in the title.
In the New York Sun, Patrick Berry's "Final Pairings" has five theme entries that end with two sets of doubled letters. In each case, there's a 3-letter word that follows a longer word.
Favorite non-theme entries: WANGLE, or [Underhandedly obtain]; CITROEN, or [Car company whose name adorned the Eiffel Tower from 1925 to 1934]; DAREDEVIL, the [Marvel Comics superhero who's blind]; RAIN DELAY, a [Good time to buy some peanuts and Cracker Jack] during a baseball game; and WAS, simply because of the clue, ["And She ___" (Talking Heads song)]. Here's the video for that song.
Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader puzzle, "Reinventing the Wheel," has five parts of a wheel at the starts of the theme entries:
Favorite entries: T.J. MAXX, THE STAND, OXYMORON, MR. BILL, PEE WEE Herman, and a TB TEST.
Updated:
Deb Amlen's Onion A.V. Club crossword has an entertaining treatment of today's economic doldrums, plus plenty of fun fill and clues. Reasons "to chill at home this summer" include IRS CHECK IS SPENT, GAS PRICES ARE UP, and AIR TRAVEL BLOWS. You may want to just TAKE A STAYCATION instead of traveling. Non-stodgy fill includes PDA, or public display of affection; the SHINS, clued as a [Band that will change your life, according to Natalie Portman in "Garden State"]; ZAC Efron of High School Musical; SPERM aptly clued as [Fertilizer, of a sort]; and a TWIX candy bar (excuse me, cookie bar) with a pop-culture reference to Seinfeld. And LOIS! Anyone who sees this Family Guy clip will never forget her name, nor how annoying toddlers can be. One quibble: LSW isn't a [Mental health service provider's deg.] The MSW, or masters in social work, is the degree. LSW means licensed social worker, and it's a license. [Spirit of Salzburg] is SCHNAPS, which for reasons unknown to me is spelled Schnapps in the U.S. even though it's a German word with one P. I didn't know this, but Wikipedia told me.
Jennifer Nutt's LA Times crossword has a theme I didn't notice while solving, as it's easy enough to be finished without figuring out the theme first. Let's take a look back and see what it is... Okay, the first and last answers are TICK and TOCK, which are sounds a clock makes. The word clock can precede the end of each theme entry:
My favorite answer in the fill is CROP CIRCLE, or [Pattern in a wheat field, perhaps]. My son's hair is a shaggy mane now (and he wants to take all that hair to school in September), but a few months ago when he considered cutting it really short, he wanted to have crop circles shaved into his hair. It's just as well he grew it out instead. My dentist said she wishes she had his hair.
Sarah Keller's CrosSynergy puzzle didn't grab me today. "Material Guys" features four MEN OF THE CLOTH, with puns on men's names that can include a fabric if you change a vowel pronunciation. (Actor Joseph Cotten is sad that his pun is more direct.) Kevin Neelon turns into KEVIN NYLON. Jonas Salk becomes JONAS SILK; John Lennon, JOHN LINEN; and George Will, GEORGE WOOL. The fill skewed old-school, with such fill as ERWIN the [Field Marshal Rommel]; ENOLA [Gay (WWII plane)]; RERIG, or [Hoist again, as a sail]; and ELVERS, or [Young eels].
March 31, 2008
Tuesday, 4/1
NYS 4:19
NYT 3:42
CS 3:05
LAT 2:54
Tausig tba
Onion—delayed 'til Thursday
Happy April Fools' Day! You know what that means—that's right. Crosswords with holiday themes of some sort. Trip Payne's annual "Wacky Weekend Warrior" puzzle in the Sun is, like all "Weekend Warriors," a Friday puzzle, coming out three days after April Fools' Day. (P.S. If you have a trip coming up, you'll be interested to know that you can download all the Suns through April 18.
I just got a used book from an Amazon-linked seller in the mail today—Stan Kurzban and Mel Rosen's The Compleat Cruciverbalist. Not that I feel the need to begin constructing crosswords with the book's help any time soon—but I'd recently ordered a used copy of an out-of-print childhood favorite, and it smells mildewy. So when I saw that a mint-condition first edition of The Compleat Cruciverbalist was on the market, I figured it would be a good addition to my library. Now I fear I will never read it because it looks so pristine in its plastic jacket. Maybe if I don white cotton gloves and promise to be very careful, I'll let myself leaf through the book. (My husband says I should order a beaten-up copy to actually read.)
The New York Times crossword is by Manny Nosowsky, and the problem with April Fools' Day falling on a Tuesday is that the crossings were so easy, I paid precious little attention to the theme and blithely entered APRIL FOOL in place of APRIL FEEL and NOBODY'S FOOL instead of NOBODY'S FEEL, having not noticed that the FEEL LIKE A FOOL theme interchanged the FEELs and the FOOLs. [Nitwit's swoon?] is FOOL FAINT (changed from feel faint), and [Doing okay as a magician] is FOOLING OKAY. The top and bottom Across theme entries are connected to the central theme entry by pairs of lively 8-letter entries (SWORE OFF and TOOK NOTE, OVERSELL and LIVE WELL), and the longer Down theme entries feed into 5x6 corner sections. Anyone get fooled by [Kind of eyes] and go for GOOGLY instead of GOOGOO? I did. Among my favorite clues was a bit of actual medical/pharmacy terminology, [Four times a day, on an Rx] for QID. Bid = twice a day; tid = three times a day; qd = once a day; and ter = supposed prescription frequency term found only in crosswords. Dr. Nosowsky also includes the ATRIA ([Places in the heart]), the [Belly part] that is the NAVEL (along with its INNIE variety—if there are medical terms for innies and outies, I don't know 'em), and the [Painkiller since ancient times], OPIUM. MIASMA, or [Bad atmosphere], is no longer blamed for diseases like cholera—that theory was so mid-19th century. Another clue I liked is [Red River city], 5 letters...did you say HANOI? No, this time it's FARGO, North Dakota, where I have in fact strolled beside the Red River of the North.
Patrick Blindauer's New York Sun crossword includes 60 letters of instructions (four 15-letter entries) telling the solver that THE FINAL LETTERS / OF ALL TEN NAMES IN / THIS PUZZLE'S NOTE / SPELL OUT A PHRASE. In Across Lite, the note appears in the Notepad: "This crossword is dedicated to my close personal friends Twyla Tharp, Jennifer Capriati, Michael Chertoff, Yoko Ono, and Bill Gates." Twyla and Tharp end with A and P, and the rest of the names complete the phrase APRIL FOOLS. I feel like I've been fooled, because I was expecting some sort of gimmicky play happening within the grid, as is Patrick's wont. (Just to make sure I wasn't missing something, I asked Patrick, who confirmed that there's no other hidden layer to the puzzle. It's only Tuesday, so alas or fortunately, the dirty tricks must wait.) Favorite clues: [Sandwich that's definitely not glatt] for BLT (bacon isn't kosher, and glatt...well, it has to do with kosher rules, something about smoothness of lungs, and nobody's checking the smoothness of a pig's lungs to check whether it's any kind of kosher since pork is never kosher—unless it's in Chinese food, or so I've heard—so maybe I don't love the clue after all); the cross-referenced [Partner of 2-Down] and [...3-Across] pair, OOH and AAH; [One doing a waggle dance] for BEE; and [Word with France, Jordan, or America] for AIR (I just saw a similar clue a few weeks ago, and still like it). Good to see ROALD DAHL's full name in the grid. I knew that [Jewish holiday in Adar] was PURIM because I'd read SethG's guest post at Jim H's blog—all you need to know about Jewish holidays for crosswords, plus spelling variations in words transliterated from Hebrew.
Updated:
Jennifer Nutt's LA Times crossword plays JACKS, with four theme entries ending with "___ jacks" words (e.g. SAFE CRACKER -> crackerjacks, SKI JUMPING -> jumping jacks). I think it's been a while since I've seen SPAM clued as [Hormel meat product] rather than as junk e-mail (did you read the article about the epidemiologic mystery at a pork processing plant next door to Hormel?). Is it unfair to feel disappointed that this was a regular theme and not an April Fools special?
Patrick Blindauer's other puzzle for the day, the CrosSynergy crossword called "F*O*O*L-Headed," has an April 1–pertinent theme sans twist. Each theme entry has a letter added at the beginning—F to the first, O's to the second and third, and L to the last. The Etch-a-Sketch toy becomes FETCH A SKETCH for SNL, and live ammunition takes an O to head to a Greek food fight with OLIVE AMMUNITION (you can picture it, can't you?). The [Proofreader's duty?] is OMISSION CONTROL (better than adding an E...), and LOVER LOOKING is the point of the dating site match.com. Favorite clues/answers: [Flotsam's counterpart] for JETSAM (I am also fond of the verb jettison); the letter PEE sneaking in as [Capital of Poland?]; and two actresses from Scream—NEVE Campbell and Courteney COX, the latter clued by way of Friends instead.
Updated:
This week's Onion A.V. Club puzzle wasn't sent out with Ben Tausig's weekly crossword. Why? Because...you'll see why after the puzzle is e-mailed out on Thursday. Hmm. Intriguing. Ben says "Congrats to Francis Heaney for his brilliant effort." Again, hmm.
Ben's Chicago Reader/Ink Well crossword, "Game On," also marks the opening of the baseball season (like several other puzzles this week) with four theme entries. I think. Two 14-letter and two 9-letter answers obviously contain baseball terms (BALLPARK FIGURE, GET TO FIRST BASE, STRIKE OUT, OFF THE BAT), but there are two other 9-letter Acrosses, SUGARCOAT and "I'M ONTO YOU," that can't possibly be thematic...can they? The Cubs played their home opener yesterday, amid thick fog and off-and-on rain. They lost, but their new player from Japan, Kosuke Fukudome, was 3-for-3 yesterday. (And he's hot.) Now, where was I? Oh, yes. The crossword. Great fill, with CRACKPOT crossing the aforementioned SUGARCOAT, and FOIBLE and ABSOLUT vodka crossing the aforementioned I'M ONTO YOU, which I love and was clued [Words uttered with a wagging finger and narrowed eyes]. Ben plays around a bit with crosswordese, cluing AAR as [Swiss river, and a homonym for 43-Across] but cluing 43-Across merely with [See 40-Across]. That's right—knowing your Great Rivers of Crosswordylvania is your most direct path to getting ARE.
June 25, 2007
Tuesday, 6/26
CS 4:42
NYS 3:59
LAT 2:59
NYT 2:43
Tausig tba
Onion tba
(updated at 8:45 a.m. Tuesday—and if you like Bob Klahn's tough clues, don't miss his CrosSynergy puzzle today)
My new mantra is "Give me crosswords that make me laugh." The Tuesday New York Sun puzzle, Matt Ginsberg's "How Many ___ Does It Take to Change a Light Bulb?", fulfills that. You can probably guess more or less how the theme works based on the title, but the funny parts are in the clues and theme answers. If you like your crosswords to amuse you but usually solve only the New York Times puzzle, check out this Sun crossword.
Turning away from the day's crosswords for a moment, there's an intriguing statement on page 99 of Stan Newman's book, Cruciverbalism. "I can't put a number on it, but a healthy portion of crossword puzzles published in American are created by constructors who are 'guests of the state,' as the saying goes." I know a bunch of constructors, and have seen others in public at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. There are some who haven't gone to the tournament in recent years, but they may occasionally pop up at various blogs or LiveJournals, on the Cruciverb-L constructors' mailing list, or at the NYT crossword forum. Still others never seem to show up anywhere. So maybe they're shy and not prone to communicating online...or maybe they're in prison. Who knows? (Only the editors who send them their paychecks.)
Back to the puzzles: Matt Ginsberg's Sun crossword gives you the punchline to seven light bulb jokes (none of them offensive) in the clues, and the answers fill in the blank in the title of the puzzle. I was delighted to see that several of the jokes were new to me, upping the entertainment level. Kudos to Ginsberg for getting plenty of great fill into a grid with seven theme answers. Crosswords usually spell the LYCHEE as "LITCHI," despite most Chinese restaurants opting for the LYCHEE spelling—and LYCHEE's the version in this puzzle. O. HENRY abuts MR. ZIP in one delicious corner, and then there are the Xs in LOUIS XI and XENA. My favorite clue, aside from the theme entries: [Take credit?] for OWE.
Ray Fontenot's NYT crossword gives us a batch of time-of-day movies: TEQUILA SUNRISE, RED SKY AT MORNING, DOG DAY AFTERNOON, and AFTER THE SUNSET. Too bad a central 8-letter entry won't work in a grid with an odd number of rows, because HIGH NOON would have been a terrific addition. (Yes, it includes the same NOON as AFTERNOON, but AFTER THE SUNSET's in there, so not a problem.) Between this being a typical easy Tuesday puzzle without a ton to discuss, enjoying a plate of Indian food, and getting drawn into the reality show Science of Love,, I'll sign off for the evening now.
Updated:
Today's CrosSynergy crossword is by Bob Klahn. "Boxxxing Match" has theme entries that begin with the letters TIC, TAC, and TOE (hence the three Xs in the puzzle's title). I reckon there were about 20 clues that required mental flexibility to interpret, and numerous pairs of linked clues that used the same word or similar phrasing. For example, [Dada daddy] (meaning ARP) next to [Beefy baby] (CALF). And [Snake in the sea grass] for EEL followed by [Tiny stake in the grass?] for TEE. I like Klahn's way of toughening up even the shortest and commonest words.
Easy LA Times puzzle from Jennifer Nutt, with a theme of three types of people (e.g., SPACE CADET) who need to PAY ATTENTION. I think this is one of the first times I've seen DIY in the fill of a crossword, and maybe the first in a mainstream newspaper. The clue is [Tinkerer's initials] and it stands for "do it yourself." I had a discussion with someone a few months ago about whether the entry was acceptable for mainstream crosswords—there's a cable TV DIY channel among other uses of the shorthand term, so I think it's become broad enough to be fair game for a daily puzzle. Agree or not?
April 16, 2007
Tuesday, 4/17
Tausig 7:07
Onion 6:11
NYS 4:32
NYT 3:40
CS 3:13
LAT 3:10
(updated at 11 a.m. Tuesday)
Is this constructor Jennifer Nutt's debut in the NYT (and/or elsewhere)? If so, congrats! I like the theme and its execution. Like Patrick Blindauer's Sun crossword, there are about 60 theme squares, which is on the meaty side. The NYT theme is FISHTAILS, with five other entries that end with ___fish: SCAREDY-CAT(fish), GRAPE JELLY(fish), etc. Yes, technically STARfish are supposed to be called "sea stars," but if it's good enough for SpongeBob, it's good enough for me. Surely I'm not the only one who has drei German writers occupying the same spot of mental real estate> ["Die Lorelei" poet] is HEINE, but HESSE and RILKE came to mind first. I'd rather have seen a clue like [Lead the meeting] for CHAIR—[Drastic sentence, with "the"] is particularly gruesome.
The theme (also well executed) in Patrick's Sun puzzle, "Take Five," is what's missing: the five vowels (in order) yoinked out of ROCKET L(a)UNCH, CURIOUS G(e)ORGE, ELECTRONIC F(i)LING, FREEZING P(o)INT, and SHOWER FA(u)CET. The studio of Peter Gordon was out-Gordoned with the fresh clue for OREO, [Source of the title material in "Weird Al" Yankovic's "The White Stuff"], since Henry Hook used that clue approach earlier this month for the Boston Globe. If I needed to express [Words of horror], I'm not sure OH NO would cut it. LUKE is clued with reference to General Hospital's Luke and Laura, which hark back to my junior-high soap-opera addiction; much better than a New Testament clue!
Updated:
David Cromer's LA Times crossword uses [Man of steel?] as a clue for ROBOT; the same clue in Monday's NYT crossword hinted at CARNEGIE! The clue for AHEAD OF ONE'S TIME is [Visionary, and a hint to what each word in 18- and 55-Across and 3- and 33-Down is]: thus, DOUBLE DOWN signals both double time and downtime. Turns out that the theme in last week's Onion A.V. Club puzzle by Matt Gaffney also worked on both words in each theme entry, too (e.g., LUXURY FLAT —> both luxury tax and flat tax(. The clues didn't spell out the involvement of both words in each theme entry, and I dimly failed to notice, thinking the added TAXES applied to only the first word. Anyone else totally miss the double aspect in Matt's puzzle? (Thanks to commenter chiwhistler for pointing out my error last week.)
Ben Tausig's Onion A.V. Club puzzle for this week took me a while because I am old and out of touch (sigh) and was slow to grasp that the theme was based on Friendster.com. The theme entries are phrases in which a -STER is split off from the word it belongs to, as in SEAMONSTER, [Social networking site for Jamaican sailors?]: "seaman" with the stereotypical Jamaican accent would be "seamon," tack on a -STER, and you've got a SEA MONSTER with a different word break. (Nice touch to have REGGAETON abutting this entry.) Favorite clues and entries: GIRL POWER (anyone else slow themselves down by putting in GRRL POWER first? And let's keep the Spice Girls out of girl power discussions.); [Bloody, to some] for DIRTY WORD; [Corp. VIPs] leading to CFOS rather than the usual CEOS; PIL for a post-Clash, post–Sex Pistols band I should've known (it parses asPiL, or Public Image Ltd.); and ["Whenever..."] for NO RUSH and ["Whatevs..."] for I DON'T CARE and YEH ("Yeh"?).
Ben Tausig's Chicago Reader/Ink Well crossword seemed even tougher than his Onion puzzle. The theme was elusive; if you "see" ___, where the blank's filled by certain entries in this puzzle, that becomes the clue for another entry, misleadingly designed to look like standard cross-reference clues. Thus, [It may be checkered] is PAST; [See 54-Across] means [See past], which is OVERLOOK. (Who constructed that NYT or Sun puzzle with a similarly vexatious theme a few months ago?) More music clues here: ["The Genius" alias] is GZA (who's a week younger than me!); [Rotten band, initially?] is PIL, which I wouldn't have known if I hadn't just Googled it after doing the puzzle blogged about in the previous paragraph). AGING is clued as [Cheese process]; as luck would have it, earlier this morning I heard about cheddarvision.tv, where you can watch cheddar age. Tough clues, Scrabbly and fresh fill; I'm out of time for blogging now.
