NYT 3:08
LAT 2:37
CS 5:57 (J—paper)
Jonesin' (untimed on paper...with hardly any printer toner in the second clue column)
Patrick Blindauer's New York Times crossword
Patrick inches over the usual limit of 38 black squares (there are 40), but that facilitated the inclusion of seven theme entries and eight mostly excellent 7-letter answers in the non-theme fill and two corners that are quite wide-open for a Tuesday puzzle. The theme reinterprets SNL, short for Saturday Night Live (the [TV staple for over 30 years]), as S 'n' L, and the six other theme entries are two-word phrases with S. and L. initials:
Where's the good stuff in the fill? All over. Does Bette Midler, a.k.a. the Divine MISS M (["Divine" showbiz nickname]), sing IN KEY, or is that phrase just next to her in the grid? I love Scandinavian names like INGEMAR, the [Former heavyweight champion Johansson]. Male MALLARD ducks have lovely coloring. Europe is home to ROMANIA, the [Birthplace of Elie Wiesel], and POMPEII, the volcanic [Italian archaeological locale]. [Jesse James and gang] refers to the OUTLAWS of the 19th century and not to the motorcycle guy who's Mr. Sandra Bullock. Speaking of Ms. Bullock, what ever happened to that movie in which she plays a crossword constructor? It was supposed to come out in March but has been moved back to this September. Does that mean it's terrible, or are they just pushing it closer to Oscar season? (Hah!)
A 76-word puzzle is going to have plenty of short answers. Here, there are three partials (AND A, IN A, I DID) and I know they're supposed to be low-grade entries, but honestly they don't bother me if they're gettable and not part of a puzzle with crappy fill. Suffix IAL, prefix IDEO, abbrevs MSGS and APR and NATO, and Latin "Dies IRAE" are nothing to write home about, but the other 30-some 3's and 4's are solid and not packed with the usual suspects. So all in all, a winner of a Tuesday puzzle.
Updated Tuesday morning:
Sarah Keller's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Broken Records"—Janie's review
Two weeks ago, Gail Grabowski gave us a puzzle called "Separated Couples" in which the word TWO was separated between the two words of the theme fill (with "T" belonging to the end of the first word and "WO" to the beginning of the second). Today's puzzle works along the same lines. The [Records that are broken...] are LPS and they come to us in four solid phrases:
All but FOCAL POINT (which is making its CS debut) are appearing in a major puzzle for the first time. Interestingly, FOCAL POINT has appeared twice before—and both times in puzzles with this same theme. They were both Sunday puzzles, however. One appeared in the Washington Post and was constructed by Rich Norris; the other in the LA Times and was constructed by, well, Rich Norris (under his "Lila Cherry" pseudonym). Is this some kind of crossword crime? Hardly. Sarah's fill stands on its own, thank you very much. And the truth of it is, while constructors are always coming up with new and seemingly unexplored themes/gimmicks, like the question of just how many plots exist in English literature, there still aren't really that many. So re-examine away!
Love that we have [Intense craving] cluing LUST and [Craving] for URGE. Seems like a fitting pair of clues for the healthy scoop of OREO ice cream (thickened perhaps with AGAR?).
Other colorful clues that stand out include:
Some fave non-theme fill: ARCTIC clued as [Bitter cold], NUANCE, TURNS INTO, and PLAN C aptly defined as [Last resort, perhaps].
And BERM [Road shoulder]! Now I can't say this was a "fave," but who knew BERM? It appears to be a word that has more of a life in crosswords than in everyday conversation, but really—what good're the puzzles if ya can't learn somethin' from 'em?!
Orange here again. I want to point you towards a new and evolving resource at L.A. Crossword Confidential. Each day, PuzzleGirl, Rex, or I write a "Crosswordese 101" lesson focusing on a word in that day's LAT crossword. PuzzleGirl compiled an alphabetical list of the words we've discussed, with links to those discussions. If you're looking to polish your crossword skills, skim that list and read up on anything that's not already firmly implanted in your solving brain. You can access it via the "CW101" button atop the L.A.C.C. homepage, or right here.
Joy Frank's Los Angeles Times crossword
I'm short on time this morning, so let me sum up the theme and refer you to PuzzleGirl's L.A. Crossword Confidential post for more on this puzzle. The theme entries transform "triple ___" phrases into "___ ___ ___" representations:
Matt Jones's Jonesin' puzzle, "Clean Cinema"
I really need to put that new toner cartridge into my laser printer. Sure, I can get two clear pages each time I shake up the nearly empty cartridge, but I always end up printing a third page with an illegible stripe down it. So I did this puzzle with sketchy remnants of the clues for 62D through 8A. Luckily, the crossings got me past the mangled clues.
I approached this puzzle exactly right, as it turns out, for maximum "aha" factor. I had the four longest theme answers filled in and was thinking the theme didn't quite add up. Why is WAX part of the "Clean Cinema" theme? Oh, because hiding in the middle is CAR WASH, the [1976 movie that parts of the other four movie titles describe from start to finish]. Yes, SOAPDISH, FULLER BRUSH MAN, AMERICAN HOT WAX, and DRY CYCLE do take you through the process of a car wash. Here's a video of the theme song with clips from the movie—enjoy.
Never heard of DRY CYCLE, the [2003 straight-to-video Ione Skye romcom that starts at a laundromat]. Or The FULLER BRUSH MAN, [With "The," 1948 Red Skelton movie about door-to-door sales], but do know about the Fuller Brush products being sold door to door. AMERICAN HOT WAX...hmm, can't say I know anything about this [1978 biopic about DJ Alan Freed] either. I saw CAR WASH at age 10 but not the Freed picture two years later. I remember SOAPDISH, the [1991 comedy with a behind-the-scenes look at a daytime drama], but never saw it. So yeah, the theme underwhelmed me right up until the moment it all crystallized into a tribute to Car Wash, and then I was happy.
June 01, 2009
Tuesday, 6/2
April 27, 2009
Tuesday, 4/28
Jonesin' 5:18
NYT 3:17
CS 2:36
LAT 2:32
People, I am swamped. You know how we're seeing more puzzles from Brendan Quigley each week (three, at his blog) than anyone else? Those represent but a teeny fraction of his constructing these days. On my plate: Second pass on the page proofs for two BEQ books. Almost half done with the first round of solving/proofing for a third book of BEQ puzzles. Have not yet begun the fourth, which landed in my in box today. Sure, I didn't get a chance to blog about Brendan's Monday puzzle, but rest assured, he is keeping me busy elsewhere. Then there's that medical paper I'm editing, too... Why should you care? I'm excusing myself from all but the most cursory blogging for a few days.
Matt Ginsberg's New York Times crossword
Matt must get bored with the standard sort of theme because he specializes in nutty themes. Here he's got 18 SIMILES in which the first word appears in the grid—and not in symmetrical spots, either—and the "as a blah-blah" part is in the clue. Of course, you can't fit 19 theme answers (including the explanatory SIMILES) into a 15x15 grid without making 'em short, so they're 4 to 7 letters apiece. Fun twist on the norm—and a surprise to see an oddball theme on a Tuesday.
A handful of clues to note:
Matt Jones's themeless Jonesin' crossword, "Center Piece"
Matt's crafted a plus-sized (16x16) themeless puzzle for us this week. The center zone is the centerpiece of the puzzle: a 6x8 chunk of uninterrupted white space, with 6- to 10-letter answers intersecting it vertically and 8- to 10-letter entries running across. Swirling out from the middle are four corners with three or four long answers stacked together. Many of the answers are stone-cold awesome, while some others rate high on the "meh" scale. Here's a small group of both, just from the Acrosses:
Beautiful grid, isn't it? Now I am hankering for more plus-sized themeless grids with a skosh more room for insane blocks of white space.
Updated Tuesday morning:
Joy Frank's L.A. Times crossword
Today's offering is on the easy side, unlike its Wednesdayish counterpart at the NYT. The theme is things we do to animals, metaphorically speaking:
Crossings I liked:
Paula Gamache's CrosSynergy crossword, "Joint Account"
Paula's quartet of theme entries begin with joints in the body:
The first two theme entries I had were the KN ones, and having paid no mind to the puzzle's title, I figured the theme would be all KN phrases. Er, no.
14A, ROUX, could have been clued as [53-Down thickener] to avoid having SAUCE both in the grid and a clue. [Type of yogurt] clues NO-FAT. I'm never keen on that answer, because hardly anybody uses that. Nonfat, yes. Low-fat, yes. Not NO-FAT.
[Rasta's messiah Haile] SELASSIE is timely for me. Rastafarianism is largely a Jamaican thing, and today my son will be dyeing his first-ever tie-dye shirt—using the colors of the Jamaican flag. His school is studying the Olympics and the nations that compete in it, what with Chicago's bid for the 2016 Summer Games. Having the Games here would be both a hassle and awesome. A proposed tennis site would be about three blocks from my house, and bringing the Olympics here would probably mean that a promise to fill all those potholes within 7 years. If the Games go elsewhere...then there is no hope for the roads.
November 05, 2008
Thursday, 11/6
NYT 9:something, maybe
Sun 5:40
LAT 3:26
CS 3:08
(updated at 9:50 a.m. Thursday)
Hoo-wee, am I sleepy! And it's not even time for the NYT crossword yet. Could be the wine over dinner, could be the latish night watching election returns last night, could be a nascent case of narcolepsy. Time will tell.
The Sun crossword by Patrick Blindauer is called "OO7," with two letter O's rather than two zeroes. Each theme entry is a phrase with an O in which that O gets doubled to change the sense—and there are seven of these answers.
I've been dozing off while writing about the Sun, and starting to type things from my dreaming brain. So I'd better sign off on the Sun now, and think about caffeine.
Well, it's about 45 minutes later, and I didn't manage to wake myself up. Man! It is challenging to work through a New York Times puzzle with rebus action when your eyes insist on closing. Somewhere in Jeremy Newton's puzzle, either I have an error or I didn't hit on the right character to fill a rebus square and make the applet happy. So I give up. I'm too tired.
The gimmick is rebus squares containing numbers and words that represent the standard playing cards, from 2 through 10 and then JACK, QUEEN, KING, and ACE. Alas, in the NYT applet, the JACK square isn't circled. Here are the theme entries:
I'm heading to bed now. If you spot my error in the grid, please leave it in comments, Thank you, and good night.
Updated:
Joy Frank's LA Times crossword negates the theme entries by appending an UN to the beginnings of actual terms:
Cute theme. My favorite clue here is [You might enter one for money]. A raffle? A lottery? A strip club? A bank vault? Nope—a PIN, as in the personal identification number you key in at the ATM. Great clue!
Ray Hamel's CrosSynergy puzzle, "That's the Ticket," ends five theme entries with words that can precede ticket:
This is LATOYA Jackson's biggest day ever in crosswords. She's a theme entry in the NYT and 10-Down in this puzzle? I hope she knows people in cities where these puzzles are published, because what else has her career brought her lately? Elsewhere in the fill, a REEFER is a [Coat similar to a pea jacket] and not a marijuana joint. It could've been clued [1936 exploitation film "___ Madness"], too.
August 09, 2008
Sunday, 8/10
PI 8:35
BG 7:15
LAT 6:58
NYT 6:39
CS 3:50
second Sunday puzzle, a Patrick Blindauer diagramless—untimed
(post updated at 11 Sunday morning)
Will Nediger's New York Times crossword has an "Inside Jokes" theme, but the inside jokes don't happen to be funny. Rather, embedded within each theme entry are some consecutive circled letters that spell out words roughly synonymous with "joke." (In the applet, the bottom theme entry, 109-Across, is missing its circles where PUN appears.) This sort of theme lacks any sort of trick to figuring out the theme entries, which are clued straightforwardly. Five of the theme entries split the circled word among two words, while the other three hide the "inside jokes" within a single word.
This puzzle, perhaps owing to the literalness of the theme clues, is one of the easiest Sunday Times puzzles I've ever done. (Stella Daily and Howard Barkin have clocked in faster than 6 minutes on this one; yup, it's easy.) Spots that might be a bit more troublesome than others include:
Updated:
First up, my favorite puzzle today, Patrick Blindauer's New York Times diagramless crossword. If you haven't done it but enjoy a good diagramless, go get it. Why do I like this puzzle? The completed grid makes a cute picture, but it's not too tough to figure out because it's still got left/right symmetry. The theme is quite accessible. There are 8- and 9-letter Down answers that make it easier to keep figuring out where the Across answers fit. And the bottom of the grid is packed with 6-letter answers. I'll hide the specifics in white text because I want more of you to solve this puzzle more or less spoiler-free: The theme is E.T.: The Extraterrestrial, with STEVEN SPIELBERG, DREW BARRYMORE, "E.T. PHONE HOME," and REESE'S / PIECES in the grid. The completed grid forms a portrait of E.T., too, and it's hard to draw recognizable pictures using the black squares in a crossword grid. There are 13 or so people's names in the grid, which makes it easier for me but not, I hear, for everyone. IRA and SHORE could have been clued as non-people nouns. And did I mention the cuteness factor of the E.T. picture? Love it!
Mel Rosen's themeless CrosSynergy "Sunday Challenge" has only 62 answers, 44 of them being 7-letter words or phrases. There are eight 6-letter entries, ten 3-letter words, and no 4- or 5-letter words. Those chunky corners dense with interlocked 7's surely are tough to construct, so there's little space for Scrabbly letters to take hold. That's not to say the grid lacks liveliness—I am fond of the SOS PADS ([Kitchen cleaners]) and HOBBITS ([Tolkien creatures])—but the fill is mostly common words. Hey! You know what that means? Mel didn't turn to obscurities in desperation to fill the grid. I needed the crossings for ALCESTE, the [Gluck opera of 1767], but the other names in the grid include Nelson MANDELA, ORESTES, PADUCAH, Kentucky, ANATOLE France, and the BO'S Derek and Diddley. The least familiar words in the grid are perhaps BIREMES ([Some galleys], as in boats), TISANE ([Herbal brew]), and HALYARD ([Sail hoister]), and those are not akin to, say, the Bolivian river in Friday's USA Today puzzle or the Indian food it crossed (mind you, I like Indian food, but sure as heck didn't recognize what that crossword wanted). Returning focus to the CrosSynergy puzzle, the [Sullivan Award org.] is the AAU, which I also needed crossings for; that's the Amateur Athletic Union. Most of the puzzle, though, is filled with quite ordinary and accessible language, like POP STAR and ENDURED, DUSTMOP and OYSTERS. With more oblique clues, it could've been a lot harder, but the clues were mostly pretty straightforward.
Joy Frank's syndicated Los Angeles Times Sunday puzzle, "Emergency Room Arrivals," adds an ER to each theme entry to alter it:
For me, only one answer was a mystery requiring many crossings—BOW OAR, or [Front rower]. Perhaps this term will be bandied about in coverage of Olympic rowing events. I don't recall seeing XWORD in a crossword before; it's clued as [Brief puzzle?], and there are a couple of crossword blogs that use the shortened term in their titles.
Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon's Boston Globe rerun looks like it may have originally been printed on Father's Day, as the "Dad's Day" theme includes 10 phrases with the DAD string of letters used as something other than "father." The Himalayan peak NANDA DEVI, for example. CANADA DRY ginger ale. The song "DA DOO RON RON." SKEDADDLING and DADE County, a famous TRINIDADIAN, a RED ADMIRAL butterfly, SOUND ADVICE, the BAGHDAD HOTEL, and...a NADA DAIQUIRI with no liquor, or [Virgin cocktail]. That NADA phrase is new to me—local menus just call 'em virgin daiquiris.
Merl Reagle's Philadelphia Inquirer puzzle, "Minor Modifi-K-tions," changes a C to a CK in a dozen words to make fake words with new meanings. [Really tired of crime-lab shows?], for instance, is FORENSICK. [How birds think?] is DEDUCKTIVELY. [Thinker famous for slugging people who didn't agree with him?] is SOCKRATES. Me, I would've gone with the philosophy of hosiery angle. Lurking in the fill are some of the usual crossword suspects, along with some unfamiliar ones. [Ms. Hagen] is UTA and [Actress Balin] is INA. [Mr. Khachaturian] is ARAM and [Actor Morales] is ESAI. You should be familiar with all of these names, along with the [Nicholas Gage book] ELENI and ISAK, or [Writer Dinesen]. I didn't recognize [Silents star Markey], or ENID, and I don't know that I've ever seen the [Philip K. Dick book] UBIK in a bookstore or a crossword.
July 01, 2008
Wednesday, 7/2
NYS 5:22
LAT 4:00
NYT 3:20
CS 2:53
How nifty is Daniel Kantor's theme in the New York Times crossword? I give the theme four stars for its cleverness. 
The [1986 Newman/Cruise film] is THE COLOR OF MONEY. What color is money? Green (in the U.S.). One [Ritzy delicacy] is BELUGA CAVIAR. What's caviar? Fish eggs. A [Showboating type] is a GRANDSTANDER. What's another word for such a person? A ham. What's the fourth theme entry? GREEN EGGS AND HAM, a [Dr. Seuss book ... or a description of the answers to the three starred clues]. From the non-thematic clues, I learned that the BOSC pear is ["The aristocrat of pears"]. Kendo is a Japanese form of fencing, so a [Kendo motion] is a LUNGE. BRAT (bratwurst) is the preferred [Grill option, for short] for many Wisconsinites. [Symbols of industry] can be both industrious ANTS and corporate LOGOS.
James Sajdak's New York Sun crossword is called "Last Gasps," and the final word in each theme entry is re-spelled to represent some sort of gasp. The Wizard of Oz turns into THE WIZARD OF AHS, a [Throat doctor's nickname?]. Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze" becomes PURPLE HEYS. A short fuse is transformed into SHORT PHEWS, or [Quick breaths of relief]. The primordial ooze is recycled into PRIMORDIAL OOHS. Highlights in the fill include DC COMICS, a bunch of Scrabbly words (ALTO SAX, QUIT, ZIGS, ZAP, WHISKS), AU JUS, and PANACHE—not to mention FIENDS clued as [Buffs]. Indeed! ["The Quest for ___" (John le Carre trilogy)] was a new one on me—the answer's KARLA.
Updated:
Randolph Ross's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Re Assessments," has four kinds of educational assessment tools for specific occupational categories, and while the theme description may be clunky, the theme itself is fun:
Joy Frank's LA Times crossword hinges on slangy words for thievery. Thieves might be said to lift, steal, take, or pinch their quarry, and the theme entries are standard phrases clued as if they were terms for thieves. A [Piggy bank thief?] might be a PENNY PINCHER, for example, and a [Theater thief?] a SCENE STEALER. I like those two and [Gym thief?], or WEIGHT LIFTER, but MESSAGE TAKER ([Office thief?]) seems less natural a phrase. Is it substantively different from a phrase such as "phone answerer"?
May 14, 2008
Thursday, 5/15
NYS 7:41
NYT 4:26
CS 3:51
LAT 3:16
Liz Gorski's New York Times crossword combines a word ladder with a standard crossword. Now, it would have been considerably more challenging had the word-ladder rungs not been clued, but I'm running behind schedule here so I'll take the clues. The [Classic Broadway show tune, or a hint to the word ladder revealed by the eight starred clues] is "SUNRISE, SUNSET." The word ladder progresses from DAWN to DUSK, appropriately enough, making stops at DARN, BARN, BURN, TURN, TURK, and TUSK on the way. (Click to enlarge the grid image if you solved online and would like to see how pretty the ladder layout is.)
Stepping back from the theme, I'm impressed to see that there are only a handful of 3-letter entries, 3x8 and 4x6 corners, and assorted other 7- and 8-letter entries. This puzzle's got a low enough word count (72) to be themeless, and yet Liz plunked 45 theme squares in there. Nobody's excited by [Year of Pope Sabinian's death] (DCVI, or 606 A.D.—and there was a pope named Sabinian??), but I did appreciate these entries and clues: MAC USER, or [Apple picker?]; the WACO/TEXAS U. crossing, located a little further east than is geographically accurate; WINONA Ryder, [Angelina's "Girl, Interrupted" co-star]; DODI, [Film producer Al-Fayed] and the late Princess Diana's late beau; "WANNA BET?" or [Follow-up to "Oh, yeah?"]; UNCOUPLE, or [Separate]; NEUTRALS, though I would have clued it with reference to clothing and accessory colors rather than the Swiss; [Throws out] for SUGGESTS (as in "Let me just throw this out there..."); RAGTAG, or [Not homogeneous]
I'm not sure that Lee Glickstein's New York Sun puzzle, "Six Degrees of Separation," is as hard as my comparative solving times suggest. I started it after 11 p.m., which is not my peak alertness time. Each of the six theme entries' base phrases gets separated by an academic degree. Mod Squad + B.A. = MOB AD SQUAD. Harmful + M.A. = HAM ARMFUL. Cohost + M.B.A. = COMB A HOST. Monday + M.F.A. = MOM FAN DAY. Mutates + M.S. = MUM STATES. And curtains + B.S. = CURB STAINS. Favorite clues and answers: ["Yo, Ho!"] for ALOHA; "CHANCES ARE," the [Johnny Mathis hit]; Noam CHOMSKY; HACEK, the [Mark whose name means "little hook" in Czech] (in that hockey player's name, I believe the hacek over the R adds a Z sound after the R, and the hacek over the S gives the letter an SH sound); CHEECH Marin and EEYORE the morose donkey, together again; [Alissa Rosenbaum's assumed first name] for AYN (Rand, I presume); and [Thing that might be contracted by unions?: Abbr.] for STD (unions as in acts of sexual congress, STD as in sexually transmitted disease). I couldn't grasp [Puff pieces?] for the longest time—EFS, or the plural of the letter F.
Updated:
Randolph Ross's CrosSynergy crossword, "Band on the Pun," is just what it sounds like—a crossword with band puns. The middle two theme entries end with instruments while the outer pair start with them. [Dessert enjoyed by the string section?] is CELLO PUDDING. [Guitar played in the flyboy band?] is AIR FORCE BASS—the combination of "__boy band," BASS, and the existence of Lance Bass rendered it difficult for me to grasp the pun here (yet another way that boy bands contribute to the coarsening of human existence). A STATUS CYMBAL is an [Instrument that makes a drummer feel important?]. And [Lessons for a certain band member?] is SAX EDUCATION.
Joy Frank's LA Times crossword plays a "before and after" game in which the before part begins with OFF. Off-center + centerfold = OFF-CENTER FOLD, or [Origami mistake?]. [Figurehead making casual remarks?] is an OFFHAND PUPPET (hand puppet). A Broadway [Angel without Web access?] is an OFF-LINE BACKER (linebacker). And a [Salty watchman?] is an OFF-COLOR GUARD (color guard). Favorite clue: [Whistleblower's moment?] for NOONTIME.
March 30, 2008
Monday, 3/31
LAT 3:13
CS 2:54
NYS 2:51
NYT 2:40 (the applet didn't load until 23 seconds had ticked away)
The New York Times puzzle by Jeff Armstrong is jam-packed with theme entries—eight 8- to 10-letter phrases in which each word can separately follow AIR (36-Across). For example, BASEBALL splits off to make an air base and an air ball, and SHOWTIME yields an air show and airtime. The fill is excellent given the limitations posed by including 69 squares of thematic content—SPLASH, HOLY COW, and DOTCOM are fairly lively, and there are no ugly or awkward spots, no overreliance on proper names or abbreviations, no ARIA, ALOE, ERIE, ERA, OLEO, ERE, OREO, ANTE, or ORE. Was anyone else tempted to AIR out the 7-letter fill answers, TEE SHOT and HOLY COW? I don't know what an air cow would be, exactly, but I'm intrigued. (P.S. Congrats on your NYT debut, Jeff!)
The baseball season is kicking off (so to speak), and Alan Arbesfeld's New York Sun crossword, "Getting to Second Base," offers a primer in baseball terminology. Actually, it doesn't educate so much as assume you know the terms—which I don't, but that didn't get in the way of solving. It just made me not grasp all of the theme. LEADING ROLES is a theme entry because of the take a lead sense of the word, I think. And tagging isn't just about getting tagged out (who knew?). SLIDING (SCALE), STEALING (AWAY), WALK, and SAFE were much more familiar to me. Favorite answers/clues: Britney's ex K-FED (Kevin Federline), ANAGRAM clued as [Trenchcoats, to technocrats], and BAGGIES.
Updated:
Four daft synonyms take center stage in Randall Hartman's CrosSynergy crossword, "Mad About You," with the Across theme entries ending with BATS and NUTS and the Downs beginning with CRAZY and CUCKOO. In the fill, the PREAMBLE is clued as ["We the people" site]; here's the Schoolhouse Rock song that has taught so many 8th graders what they needed to know for their civics test. Plenty of short geography answers today—the Philippine island of LUZON beside the Indonesian island BALI; the African country TOGO and the Caribbean nation HAITI; two cities, LIMA, Peru, and ORAN, Algeria; and UNION clued as a word in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Shall we change the puzzle's title to "Mad About World Geography"?
Joy Frank's LA Times crossword has a "clever" theme—each theme entry begins with a synonym of that word (e.g. SHARP CURVE, QUICK BREAD). Just for kicks, the fill includes RED SQUARE, and I'm trying to think of a theme that would include RED SQUARE among other colored shapes. BLUE CROSS, YELLOW STAR, and...ORANGE RHOMBUS? No, that's too long, and too nonexistent.
October 28, 2007
Sunday, 10/28
NYT 9:43
WaPo 9:38
PI 8:36
LAT 6:57
BG untimed
CS 5:02
The Sunday New York Times crossword, "Talking Heads," is a good one. Ben Tausig is one of the most reliably prolific (or prolifically reliable) constructors working today—he's got a themed 15x15 every single week (the Chicago Reader/Ink Well puzzle he self-syndicates), he writes an Onion A.V. Club puzzle about every eight weeks, and every so often he graces us with an NYT crossword. I am rarely semi-disappointed by one of Ben's creations. In this Sunday-sized puzzle, the puns on "pundit" with PUNNED IT (84-Down) and the seven theme entries, each containing the name of a TV or radio political mouth. For the left, there's (Al) FRANKEN SENSE (a pun on frankincense) and (Phil) DONAHUE DARE ("don't you dare"). For the right, there's DO THE LIMBAUGH (Rush, limbo), YOU'RE GETTING COULTER (Ann, colder), and LIFE OF O'REILLY (life of Riley, Bill). WHY PAY MAHER (Bill, more) and [Don's parting words?], IMUS BE OFF NOW (Don, I must). Clever theme, finely wrought. Favorite fill: good ol' UTA HAGEN in full-named splendor; CALLER ID; the NAKED EYE; FOR SHAME; BINOCULAR vision; and the NORMAN / EMPIRE. Least favorite fill: FASCES. What is this [Roman symbol of power]? Read all about it here. Far-out clues: [Pedicab alternative] for CYCLO; [Mushroom with an umbrella cap] for AGARIC; [What Astrophysics and Advanced Calculus probably aren't] for EASY A'S. I'm too sleepy to think any more—those paragraphs down below? I wrote those segments last night.
Lynn Lempel's Washington Post puzzle's called "Extended Forecasts," and it extends two-word weather forecasts by tacking on another component that goes with the second word. Is that at all clear? No? It's cloudy? An example will help. A hot spell might be forecast, and a bit of [Stolen software] might be a HOT SPELL-CHECKER. Heavy snow + snowbird = [Rotund Florida visitor?], or HEAVY SNOWBIRD. (Hey, my in-laws have become snowbirds. That means we've got a place to visit in Florida all winter long!) I'd like to spotlight some terrific fill—LADY GODIVA (puts me in mind of imported chocolate...mmm, Godiva), I TOLD YOU SO, LIP-READS, PARSLEY, and an ALOHA SHIRT. The [Soap ingredient] is POTASH, and here's a little etymology I recently picked up—the word potash is a mashup of pot and ash, with the compound having been discovered in wood ash. The element potassium comes out of potash, both physically and etymologically. I don't know if my grandma was aware of the chemical and wordy link, but she always did mispronounce is "potashyum."
The Boston Globe crossword that's available in Across Lite this weekend is the one I wrote about roughly a month ago—it contained a marriage proposal theme in the service of an actual marriage proposal! Any oddball names you see in the puzzle are likely to be names of significance to the now-affianced couple.
Merl Reagle's Philadelphia Inquirer puzzle, "Horrors!", suggests screen names for local TV station horror-movie hosts. (Here in Chicago, I grew up with Son of Svengoolie. He predated Elvira.) As with last Sunday's Reagle crossword, I must issue a Heavy-Duty Puns alert: we are at code red.
Updated:
Ooh, a lovely themeless CrosSynergy puzzle from Rich Norris! It's not too Scrabbly (a Q and five Ks) and the clues aren't too tough and the fill isn't aggressively showy, but there's much to admire here. Among my favorite clues and answers: [Catcher's position] for CROUCH (crouch is a kinda funny word); the vague [Give] for the idiomatic CRY UNCLE; [Buyer without warranty?] for EMPTOR (that's the emptor we're caveating in "let the buyer beware"); [Author honored in a Prague museum] for KAFKA (I thought of Karel Čapek first; I don't know if this museum was in Prague yet when I was there in '97); [Gloaming followers] for E'ENS; [Top of the Grampians] for TAM (the Grampians are mountains in Scotland, and their tops could be mountain tors or the hats that might be worn by Scottish visitors there); NO WONDER (["That explains it"]); the OSCARS; CHEAP SEATS; PILE IT ON; [Hollywood ending?] for THAT'S A WRAP; [It's an act] for a SKIT; and last but not least, the combo of a SEMICOLON clued with [It may be part of a long sentence] and the SPACE BAR, which [may be used often in a long sentence]. A smooth puzzle from start to finish!
Joy Frank's LA Times-syndicated puzzle, "Job Descriptions," splits out the meaning of a word or word fragment at the beginning of a job title to change the meaning. A psychotherapist is one thing, but a [Healer with issues?] might be a PSYCHO THERAPIST (still a therapist as before, but a psycho one). A used car salesman sells cars, but if she's an [Exploited dealership employee?], she may be a USED CAR SALESMAN whom everybody uses as a doormat. Cute theme, solid fill, and easyish clues.
October 01, 2007
Tuesday, 10/2
Tausig 5:08 (print this one out for best results)
Onion 4:42
NYS 4:19
CS 2:52
LAT 2:47
NYT 2:38
Oliver Hill's New York Times crossword (a glittering debut?) is mighty easy, but (or and) an impressive construction. The MIND YOUR P'S AND Q'S theme groups three P.Q. phrases: PERSONALITY QUIZ (Scrabbly bonus: a Z), PRO QUARTERBACK, and PATCHWORK QUILT. For a theme with four Q's to dwell in a crossword that also finds room for an X and some lively phrases (WENT SOLO, AT ODDS, SAM I AM, EVEN UP), and words like SQUEAL, KAISER, and CAPRI pants—well, it's fresh and fun. Favorite clues: [It can be silly] for Silly PUTTY; [Overall feel] for AURA; [Relative of a mole] for SHREW (we had some shrews in our backyard when I was a teen); [Queen of the hill?] for ANT; [Malfeasant, often] for SUED; and [Red-bordered magazine] for TIME.
Edited to add Will Shortz's comment from the NYT forum: "Tuesday's crossword is a debut by Oliver Hill, 17, who's a high school senior from my hometown of Pleasantville, N.Y. He lives around the corner from me and drops off his puzzles in person! Oliver is the 10th constructor under 20 to be published in the Times since I became editor in 1993." Congratulations, Oliver!
In the New York Sun, Alan Olschwang gives us a "Horse of a Different Color." Alas, the charming movie, The Secret of Roan Inish, has too long a title to join the horse party here. The theme entries are phrases that end with horse colors. I like WOOD SORREL, with its delicate, tart leaves and its willingness to prosper where the landscaper raked up our ground cover. And my aunt just got a 12-year old copper-colored sorrel horse. Nice Scrabbly fill throughout, with words like JAVA, ZOLA, COAXES, Q-TIPS, and DJED.
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Ben Tausig double-dips this week, constructing both the Onion A.V. Club puzzle and the Ink Well/Chicago Reader puzzle. Up first, the Onion. Ben takes phrases that start with a stand-alone letter and triples that letter, radically changing the meaning. For example, [People in the market for white sheets?] are KKK-MART SHOPPERS. Favorite clues: the slangy [Mack] for PLAYBOY; ["The Shining" weapon] for AXE ("Red rum! Red rum!"); [Rock star who offered his help to Nixon in combating "the hippie elements"] for PRESLEY (there are two more Nixon-related clues for good measure); [Garden creeper] for SNAIL; [Nissan sedan] for ALTIMA because the Altima's now available in a coupe that is hot:
It looks even sexier in person—there was one parked on my block this morning, but I swear I didn't touch it. Ahem, where was I? Clues I liked from the Onion puzzle: [Dominates, as in World of Warcraft] for PWNS; [Groove on a power ballad] for SWAY (might want to hold your lighter aloft while you sway); [Beach danger] for UV RAYS (though in Chicago, we also accept E. coli as an answer); and ["I don't appreciate your ___, young missy!"] for TONE. Musical names I didn't know: MOE, a [Jam band from Buffalo], and KRS[-One, a Bronx MC].
Moving along to Ben's Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword, "Second Life": I should just print out Across Lite puzzles that have gigantically long theme clues, because those clues are so hard to view in the Across Lite window. Even with the window stretched out to fill my 19-inch screen, I couldn't see the end of one clue. That distracted me from seeing that the capitalized words in each theme clue were to be anagrammed for the nonsensical answers...like recycling your OLD MAGAZINES into a SAND-ALE GIZMO. The clues I enjoyed most: [Illegal hit] for TOKE (not sports!); [Talk show host who received on-air liposuction] for GERALDO (I forgot about that!); [Blushing prose] for ODE (using the word informally, as in "Matt Gaffney's book is an ode to crosswords and the people who make them."); and [Arouses one's partner in bed?] for SNORES. VELVEETA is so cheesy, and not in an aged-dairy-product way. You know how people from certain countries tend to pronounce V's as B's? I like to think of them talking about Belbeeta and belbet Elbis ("Biba Las Begas!") paintings. (Let us leave aside the bulba here.) Other most favored entries: OUTCLASS, A ZILLION, I WANT IT, XANAX, and EXCELLED.
Randall Hartman's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Beer Bust Belles," includes three (semi-)famous real women's names and one fictional girl's name that start and end with BE and ER. Ignoring the title, at first I thought the theme was "women whose last names are quaint professions," with BECKY THATCHER and BEATRIX POTTER. Never heard of BETSY PALMER of I've Got a Secret, but she also played evil Jason's mother in Friday the 13th. Best crossing of names in the fill: EUBIE BLAKE meets DUBYA.
Joy Frank's LA Times crossword surfs the crest of phrases ending with SWELL, ROLLER, and WAVE to exult, COWABUNGA, DUDE! I thought that was more Bart Simpsonesque than surfer lingo, but what do I know? (Wait, does Bart even say that? Or just "Don't have a cow, man" and "Ay, caramba"?) My favorite BAY CITY ROLLER was Derek, the blond one, but...meh. Never passed up a chance to read about the lads in Tiger Beat or Teen Beat. Favorite nonthematic fill here: GLOP ([Unsavory serving]) and PEEWEE Herman.
September 04, 2007
Wednesday, 9/5
LAT 4:17
NYS 4:06
NYT 3:38
CS 3:30
Hey, can anyone recommend a good online thesaurus? I have this old book, The Synonym Finder, and love it—but it's old. (It's got all these kooky, great words marked as slang or informal. For example, under "terrific," we get words like splendid and smashing along with the Australian bonzer, the unusual superexcellent, and the slang marvy.) I also own Random House Webster's Word Menu, but it's categorized rather than alphabetical, and there's nothing like the alphabet for homing in quickly on the word you need. I have been underwhelmed by any online offerings of synonyms I've seen, but there must be something out there on the internet that's nearly as good as Rodale's Synonym Finder.
The New York Sun puzzle by Patrick Berry is, well, superexcellent. Not every single word in the grid is wonderful, but the "Reinitializing the Program" theme entries are spot on. If you scrupulously avoid watching TV, you might not enjoy the theme, but the rest of us will. Each theme entry's a TV show whose title includes a 2- or 3-letter abbreviation, in which the final letter of the abbreviation has been changed to drastically alter the show's concept. Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker had their show, The PTL Club; here, THE PTA CLUB is a [Program hosted by a televangelist who's raising money for a school play?]. Tom Selleck's P.I. becomes a gym teacher in MAGNUM PE. That forensics show set in South Florida picks up Civil War reenactors and becomes CSA MIAMI. Don Rickles' Navy guy gives financial advice on CPA SHARKEY. There are two more theme entries running vertically: DATELINE NBA with [investigative journalists who can dunk?] and MAYBERRY RFK going all civil-rightsy. Six theme entries, six solid "aha" moments, six rewards for appreciating pop culture. Based on the theme, this puppy's going into my "great puzzles" folder.
Outside of the theme, I also got a charge out of the fill and clues. PIA ZADORA and LORI PETTY, usually consigned to [___ Zadora] or [___ Petty] clues, get the full name treatment. There were other long entries, too, such as the lovely EPHEMERAL and a BETE NOIRE. My favorite clues: [It beats rock] for PAPER (Rock, Paper, Scissors); [Gray area?] for DIXIE and [Enemies of the men in blue?] for REBS (gray = South, blue = North, and both tie to CSA MIAMI); [Sharp-set] for EAGER; the unknown-to-me [Chaudfroid glaze] for ASPIC (here's a gross-sounding recipe); and [Case worker?] for GUMSHOE (evoking Magnum P.I.). I even like having good ol' SOU in the puzzle, clued as [Paltry sum]; anyone else tempted to work "not worth a sou" into conversation?
You know that list of "humorous" observations that your relatives over the age of 55 like to forward via e-mail? (And always with a zillion >>>>>>>forwarding marks, and an embedded "Read these they are funny!" from several forwardings ago?) The theme in Richard Silvestri's New York Times puzzle is a quip from that list: IF VEGETARIANS EAT / VEGETABLES, WHAT DO / HUMANITARIANS EAT? Please, constructors: Do not scroll through the list counting the number of letters in all the other observations. On Sunday, I did another Silvestri puzzle, this one from the American Airlines in-flight magazine. The "Actual Labels" theme was ridiculous warnings from actual product labels, and that theme was (1) hilarious and (2) not included in the forwarded e-mails my aunts and uncles like to send along. My husband and son enjoyed the "Actual Labels" theme entries, too. My husband even worked his own copy of the puzzle, though he normally doesn't do crosswords much. He tried to finish before landing; I always strive to finish before takeoff.
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Stella Daily and Bruce Venzke pay homage to the late HEAD COACH of the NINERS, BILL WALSH, in their CrosSynergy puzzle. In the fill, AUSTERE was clued as [Like Spartan living]—I can't help but envision a magazine called Spartan Living. Printed on newsprint in black and white. Going far beyond Real Simple in its focus on the simple life. Cover stories: "Build Your New Hut in a Single Day." "Indoor Plumbing: Necessity or Wasteful Extravagance?"
Joy Frank's LA Times crossword includes four phrases that start with WHEEL types: SPINNING CLASS, spinning wheel; PADDLE TENNIS, paddlewheel; POTTER'S FIELD, potter's wheel; and FERRIS BUELLER, [1986 movie truant], Ferris wheel. At first I thought Ferris Bueller and Harry Potter were involved here, but no. 6-Down was [Licorice-flavored liqueur], so I filledin PASTIS. Alas, I needed PERNOD. But look! The libation called Pernod is a brand of pastis. I will never, ever knowingly eat or drink anything that's licorice-flavored, so I need to keep up with the drinks on my no-fly list.
June 17, 2007
Monday, 6/18
NYS 3:32
LAT 2:52
CS 2:49
NYT 2:41
(updated at 9 a.m. Monday)
We celebrated Father's Day by lunching at La Creperie (poulet au curry crepes, yum!) before seeing a revival showing of Labyrinth, the 1986 Jim Henson fantasy movie starring a teenage Jennifer Connelly and David Bowie as the Goblin King. Ben enjoyed it, as did his parents. You know what, though? I was famished when we were getting ready to leave the house for lunch. I was ridiculously hangry. (Honest!)
A few days ago, Curtis Yee's NYT crossword included the CHICAGO "L" as a theme entry, and a number of people questioned whether it was kosher to call the train the "L" rather than the El. I prefer the El, but there's a new book I'm thinking of buying for my son called The Chicago "L"—so "L" is definitely a legitimate variant.
And now, the main event: The Monday puzzles. Randall Hartman's NYT crossword has three theme entries that follow an [entity] OF THE [body of water] format, as in LADY OF THE LAKE and CHICKEN OF THE SEA. What's this GEM OF THE OCEAN business? It's clued as [Columbia, in an old patriotic song]. I Googled it up just now and learned that the lyrics are dreadful. Might have been co-written by Yoda. How many of you thought, "Oh, of course, GEM OF THE OCEAN," and how many of you (like me) said, "Wha?" I got off to a perplexed start with 1-Across, [#1 number two who became the #2 number one] for President John ADAMS. I liked the foursome of 8-letter fill entries: HEAD CASE, SWAYBACK, crawfish ETOUFFEE, and SNEEZE AT.
Mark Feldman's Sun crossword, "Apparel of the Past," gives us a batch of past-tense phrasal verbs that have clothing homonyms. For SCARFED DOWN, unlike the other four theme entries, the etymologies of the noun and verb differ. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, the apparel is from [French dialectal escarpe, sash, sling, from Old North French, variant of Old French escherpe, pilgrim's bag hung from the neck, from Frankish *skirpja, small rush, from Latin scirpus, rush]; the eating sense is a variant of scoff (meaning 2), itself an alteration of the obsolete scaff; there's a third carpentry meaning with a third root, [Middle English skarf, as in scarfnail, probably from Old Norse skarfr, end piece of a board cut off on the bias]. I like that this crossword sent me off on a learning expedition, and also the 7-letter highlight, BUSHISM.
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Joy C. Frank's LA Times crossword plays that funky music with theme entries ending with DISC, RECORD, ALBUM, and PLATTER. Adding to the musical slant are alt-country's Steve EARLE and a pair of RAPPERs, [Nelly or Nas, e.g.].
I like Mel Rosen's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Crossing Over." First, because it amuses me to be reminded of the charlatan John Edward and his "psychic" TV show, Crossing Over. Second, because the theme is hopping—the three phrases "cross over" a black square between the words. We have QUANTUM and LEAP, SPRING and LOADED, and JUMP and STARTED.
February 19, 2007
Tuesday, 2/20
Onion 5:01
Tausig 4:07
NYS 3:22
NYT 3:20
CS 3:10
LAT 3:03
(post updated at 9:15 a.m. and 5:45 p.m. Tuesday)
The Tuesday NYT crossword by Jonathan Gersch (any relation to constructor Charles Gersch? And is this his debut?) (Yes, it's his NYT debut—though he's previously been published in the NY Sun—and he's Charles's son.) boasts 79 symmetrical theme squares, plus 9-Down (without a mate across the grid) adds another 4 squares. Like yesterday's NYT, it's also got more than the usual number of black squares (44 here), and I think the math works out so that 45% of the white squares are thematic. That sounds like a lot to me. The theme is an 80th birthday tribute to SIDNEY POITIER, with entries including the title of his first autobiographical book (it's his new second autobiography that's the latest Oprah Book Club selection), three notable movies and a Broadway play he starred in, plus his childhood home of CAT Island in the Bahamas, his SAG award, and his work for UNESCO. If that's not impressive enough, check out the Wikipedia article about him. Speaking of impressive, I liked this puzzle because of the theme density and the elegance of the theme's execution and its subject, plus fill like NEOCON, MURMUR, and hoity-TOITY.
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There are plenty of pop-culture clues in Harvey Estes' CrosSynergy puzzle, which I like. Alas, some of them are from the '50s and '60s, which is before my time—those are the names I learned from crosswords. The more recent pop culture adds more of a curry zing—and granted, not everyone likes curry, but I do.
I love the theme in Joy C. Frank's LA Times puzzle! [Disappointing dig finds?] are MODERN ARTICLES, [Beantown frozen treats?] are BOSTON POPSICLES, and [Work spaces for inventor Erno?] are RUBIK'S CUBICLES. Can you picture an office laid out in Rubik's cubicle fashion?
Patrick Berry's Sun puzzle is also dense with pop-culture clues, given that the nifty theme features seven thespians with a particular distinction, plus 7- and 9-letter answers that tie them together. Favorite clues: [Big-screen computer?] for HAL, [Cracker brand] for both RY-KRISP (wow, did that partial answer look strange when it was RYK****) and HI-HO, [Key mistake?] for TYPO (is that question mark crucial?), and [Saying what you don't mean, possibly] for SARCASM. I also love the word SKITTERS.
Second update:
Ben Tausig is this week's constructor for the Onion A.V. Club puzzle, which seemed to be clued a little on the hard side as far as Onion puzzles go. The theme completely escaped me. If it escapes you, too, try putting them in this order: 65-Across, 23-Across, 17-Across, 41-Across, and 52-Across. If that doesn't help, click here.
Ben's Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword, "Measure for Measure," focuses on pronounced-sorta-like puns on units of measure. Three of the five are connected by TOM ARNOLD, naturally enough, because his acting has always demonstrated a measured approach. [/sarcasm] At last, I have found a practical use for my dad's having introduced me to firearms: [German arms maker] is MAUSER. I may have even fired a Mauser in my youth.
February 04, 2007
Monday, 2/5
NYS 3:17
CS 2:59
LAT 2:58
NYT 2:41
Joy C. Frank's Times crossword boasts an especially lively trio of theme entries and some sparkling fill. The theme phrases start with METRO, UNDERGROUND, and SUBWAY, all of which mean, er, "subway." The [Modern fashion-conscious guys] are METROSEXUALS, naturally (or not naturally, if they color their hair). The best bits of fill included the movie THE STING, NO-HASSLE financing, and PSEUDO. STIR is clued [Use a swizzle stick], and the party subtext continues with the OPEN BAR and the KEG. So long as nobody overimbibes or gets some bad SUSHI, they won't end up needing the PAILS. There're a couple moderately clunky words (UNPOT, REWASH), but the zippiness of the theme entries more than compensates.
Jack McInturff's Sun puzzle, "Big Raise," pays homage to some folks whose last names are common in crosswords—CHARLOTTE RAE, MARTHA RAYE, RACHAEL RAY of the Food Network, and CAROLINE RHEA. (Stephen Rea's agent, of course, wants to know why he wasn't in this puzzle.) Good fill includes MR ZIP (my local post office had a wooden cutout Mr. Zip that was taller than me), a bunch of X and Z words (including the Dr. Seuss short story, "The ZAX"), PHYS ED, and RHUBARBS.
