NYT 10:18
LAT 8:50
BG 7:32
Reagle 6:51
CS 3:06*
Patrick Berry's New York Times crossword, "Double Break Point"
Theme: At the break point between two words, the first word's final letter gets doubled and scoots over to the second word. A few examples:
There are nine theme entries in all. That long central Down answer, LIBERAL-MINDED (29D: [Tolerant of other opinions]), is not part of the theme, though it does intersect three theme answers.
Weirdest (i.e., least familiar) answer: RAHAB, or 91A: [Prostitute who protected Israelite spies, in Joshua].
Notable clues and answers in the fill:
That's all for tonight. See you Sunday morning!
Updated Sunday morning:
Merl Reagle's syndicated crossword, "Fashion Plate"
Merl's theme this week is "food items that contain words that are related to clothing (items of apparel, fabrics, clothing fasteners, parts of clothing), clued with the word fashionable." For example:
This theme feels too sprawlingly loose to me. FRENCH SILK needs to be followed by the word "pie" to be a food. BLUEBONNET isn't food, it's a brand name of margarine. The vague "things you can wear/things that are used to make things you wear/things that are used as fasteners on things you wear/a pocket" concept doesn't have much punch.
No hitches in the fill. I did not know that 13D: ARBOGAST was the name of [The detective in "Psycho"], but the crossings were more familiar. I could see people getting snagged by the B, which crosses 23A: Victor BORGE, [Great Dane by the piano].
Weird ones: 117A: [999 follower, perhaps] is OOO (but really 000, with zeroes), if you're looking at a three-digit dial that's going to flip back to 000 after it reaches 999. 103D: E NOTE usually gets clued as the not-in-my-parlance "e-note," an electronic note. Here, it's [Part of a C major chord]. Do music people call the musical note E the "E note"?
Dan Naddor's syndicated Los Angeles Times crossword, "Subliminal Messages"
The theme is fake advertising slogans in which the name of an apt company is embedded"
The cross-referencing made the puzzle a little slower to unravel, I thought. There are some tough answers (obscure ARTEL, 21D: [Soviet cooperative]) and clues (80D: [Lesser of two evils, metaphorically] for FRYING PAN, as in "out of the frying pan and into the fire"), but no real trouble zones.
Interesting way to massage the "embedded word" gimmick into a sensible theme with a purpose. The idea of "subliminal advertising" ties the company names to appropriate slogans, so there's no randomness to the embeds. I did a little Googling afterwards to see if these were actual slogans—if ad agencies had actually persuaded corporations to go with the embedded-name approach—but the two I looked up weren't real slogans used by those firms.
Tyler Hinman's CrosSynergy/Washington Post "Sunday Challenge"
Yay! Tyler made this puzzle a couple years ago but Will Shortz wasn't keen on 1-Across. I liked the puzzle then (the * is because my solving time was assisted by the previous go-round) so I'm glad to see it's been published now. 1-Across had been completely unfamiliar to me, but I enjoyed learning it. [LSU cheer that includes a punny French spelling] is "GEAUX TIGERS," playing on "go." What's not to love about a bilingual sports pun? Kudos to the Louisianans who came up with that one.
The grid's chockablock with interesting fill. Such as:
Surprised to see the double A grades in EASY A'S and [An A often boosts it (abbr.)] as the clue for GPA. Never heard of AL RITZ, 3D: [Part of an old comedy trio, with his brothers Harry and Jimmy].
Gotta run now—hope to find time for the Boston Globe puzzle this afternoon.
Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon's Boston Globe crossword, "U and U Alone"
The theme entries—five grid-spanning 21-letter fake headlines—all contain no vowel other than U:
I like the intersecting Simpson clues. 86A: ITO is [Simpson judge] and 78D: [Sax-honking Simpson] is LISA. 65D goes with trivia, [World found by Herschel], to clue URANUS. My kid gets a kick out of inquiring, "How big is Uranus?" When I answer that it's surprisingly light considering that it's larger than Neptune (but less dense), he collapses into giggles.
December 05, 2009
Sunday, 12/6/09
November 28, 2009
Sunday, 11/29/09
NYT 23:39
BG 28:08
Reagle 19:31
LAT 20:58
CS 31:35
Team Orange weekend coverage continues. Now, from our Seattle bureau, here's Sam Donaldson.
Happy Sunday, everyone. Orange and her DSL-like solving times will reclaim the throne tomorrow, but today you get the analysis of a dial-up solver for the Sunday crosswords.
Will Nediger's New York Times Crossword, "Cued Up"
As a solver, I'm easy to please. I love wacky, envelope-pushing Krozel-esque puzzles as much as the next guy, but honestly, if you give me a simple theme and execute it really well, I'm just as happy. Today's NYT is a fine example: a simple letter-addition theme that is elegant and enjoyable. Nediger inserts a "QU" somewhere inside seven common phrases and then clues the wackiness that results. Behold the delights that unfold:
I have a feeling that QUEASY RIDER was the GERM [Starting point] for this puzzle, but there are so many other good ones here that I can't be sure. Engineering fresh fill around so many Qs is not easy, but Nediger's grid has lots of good stuff. And it appears we're only a "J" shy of a pangram in this grid, for those who care about such things. Highlights include: PLAN A, the [Primary stratagem]; MINI-GOLF, clued as [It may feature a windmill]; BEAVIS, the [TV character often seen in a Metallica T-shirt]; MIST OVER, or [Get fogged up]; UNDIES, clued somewhat deceptively as [Drawers, e.g.]; and BOB SAGET, the [Narrator of "How I Met Your Mother"] and a prominent figure in the movie, "The Aristocrats." Trust me, you'll never look at Bob Saget the same way again after you see that movie (or as much of it as you can stomach, anyway). I loved it, but I have a high tolerance for offensive material.
Those who, like me, enjoy proper names in their puzzles had more than Bob Saget and Beavis on which to feast. There was the Hindu god VISHNU (the clue tells us [Krishna is one of his avatars]), ["Tamerlane" dramatist Nicholas] ROWE, Tom SNYDER of "The Tomorrow Show," the poet James Whitcomb RILEY crossing Mets general manager OMAR Minaya, and Iranian supreme leader ALI Khamenei, among others.
I fell into a few traps, but few of them bogged me down for a long time. I tried NO-HITTER and PERFECT GAME for the [Pitcher's feat] until I came to ONE-HITTER. Then I tried AMOEBA for [One surrounded by cell walls] before tumbling to INMATE. The "A" at the insersection of Pierre de FERMAT, the [French mathematician who pioneered in the theory of probability], and ["Jour de Fete" star, director, and writer] Jacques TATI, was a total guess. Others may have had a hard time in that area too if they did not know CERT, the [Legal writ, in brief] that's short for certiorari. I also had a hard time with the clue for NOUN, [It may be declined]. Apparently, when you change a noun to distinguish the singular from the plural, you "decline" it. Huh, go figure.
Henry Hook's Boston Globe Crossword, "Address Book"
Hook subjects seven different terms commonly found in physical addresses to a little wordplay. Some of the results are stellar; others are a bit--get ready--pedestrian.
Check out how Hook manages to place one theme entry directly atop another in both the NW and SE! If a mere mortal attempted this, the fill would be compromised beyond belief. Hook is one of, what, a handful of constructors that can make this look easy? Sure, each of the corners features some less-than-stellar fill: a partial name (!) (LEE DE-Forest, the inventor of the vacuum tube), a partial chorus (the [Kiddie-song ending] EIO, the last 60% of Old McDonald's "E-I-E-I-O"), a strange French word (INCONNUS) clued as [Strangers, in Strasbourg], and LAFEU, the small-fries role of an [Old lord in "All's Well That Ends Well"], come readily to mind. But the rest of those corners were, I think, entirely legit.
There is much to love in this grid. [Scout master?] is a fun clue for TONTO (Scout:Tonto :: Silver:Lone Ranger). Other fun clues included [Some like it hot] for TEA, [First word of "Kokomo"] for ARUBA, and [Take a ride?] for HIJACK. Today's confession = I plunked down OH SHEILA, the [1985 Ready for the World hit song], without a single crossing to help. One need not be proud of everything buried in one's mind. Look for it on YouTube and you'll know my shame.
I struggled mostly in the far east section of the grid. I nearly got a migraine from IGRAINE, [King Arthur's mother], and it did not help to be unfamiliar with the [Lupin of whodunits], ARSENE. Any time I see the name "Lupin" I think of the Harry Potter novels. The [Pacific republic] of NAURU required every single crossing to get, and even then I was unsure whether I had it right. Below all of that, you had to grapple with four intersecting proper names, BARA, BELA, JEREZ, and JOLENE. I was lucky to know three of the four (only Jerez eluded me), but other solvers may have hit a wall here. The only other entry to stay hidden for a long time was PONIARD, the [Thin-bladed dagger].
Finally, if I had a vote, I would nominate the clue for MASON-DIXON, [Their line was in real estate], for a 2009 Oryx. That's just a thing of beauty. OK, so far Oryxes have only been given to entire crosswords and not to individual fill or clues, but if the Oscars can award supporting cast members separately and expand the Best Picture field from five to ten films, there should be some room to give special recognition to great clues that almost single-handedly make the solving experience a delight.
Merl Reagle's Syndicated Crossword, "The Furry Thought of You"
Reagle proves once again that when it comes to puns, he is the cat's meow. This puzzle offers seven purr-fect phrases with a feline touch. Okay, retract your claws--I'll leave the cat puns to the master.
Despite the relatively quick solving time (for me), there were some thorny entries that slowed me down. I don't think I have ever seen VIANDS, a supply of [Food], and it didn't help that it intersected with ODALISQUE, a [Harem girl]. Fortunately I was familiar enough with YAQUI, an [Indian of Sonora, Mex.]. If not, that corner might have become unsolvable. Nearby sit Nabisco's UNEEDA biscuits from 1898. Biscuits from 1898? Merl, seriously - uneeda clean out your pantry. Up in the north, INGLE, the [Brit's fireplace], didn't make me tingle, but all of the crossings were fair. In the SE, TOY SALES, the [Post-Christmas events], struck me as a little forced.
The hardest intersection for me was where PULI, the [Hungarian sheepdog], met [Actress Joanne] DRU. Part of the problem was that I was sure "POUNCING PAW" was supposed to be "BOUNCING PAW," and BULI seemed just as right to me as PULI. And for some reason, I wanted the [Cheery word?] to be TAH instead of RAH. I was thinking "Ta-Ta," as in "Cheerio, chap." Then I was sure it was AAH, since the second letter in Joanne's name just had to be a vowel. And c'mon, a cheery person would be inclined to say "aah," right? Now that I write this out, of course, I see how silly that is, but in the heat of the solve I can get pretty stubborn with myself.
Always happy to see MR. BILL, the [Victimized clay guy on "SNL" reruns], and ERNST, [007 foe's first name]. Blofeld, Ernst Blofeld. And how appropriate for this puzzle that Blofeld was often featured with a white cat in his arms. Even though I tend to prefer dogs to cats (I have a mild allergy to cat fur and I find most cats a little aloof), I had a good time with this puzzle. And it didn't make me itch.
WARNING: If you have not yet completed today's NYT puzzle, this part of the posting will make reference to that puzzle so STOP RIGHT NOW (or skip to the CrosSynergy discussion below).
Peter Wentz's Los Angeles Times Crossword, "Right on Cue"
Oh no! Two newspapers have come to the party in the same outfit! A constructor's second-worse nightmare! (The worst, I think, would be seeing a paper run the same theme just a few days before your puzzle is scheduled to appear in a different paper.) I feel badly for both Will and Peter. I can't help but compare the two puzzles, just as Us Weekly does with its "Who Wore It Best?" feature. The good news in all of this is that the two puzzles were sufficiently distinct that I enjoyed them both. Don't make me pick one, a la "Sophie's Choice." I can love them both equally.
In this puzzle, Wentz *ahem* adds a "QU" to the start of seven common phrases and then clues the wackiness that results. Unlike the Nediger puzzle, all of the "QU"s this time come at the front. In that regard, the theme entries here are a little tighter. Fortunately, only one of the theme entries in Wentz's puzzle overlaps with those from Nediger's puzzle:
So yes, the puzzles wore the same outfit, but they had different accessories, and that often makes all the difference. Some of my favorite entries in Wentz's version included ABOVE ZERO, BYZANTIUM, HOLD TIGHT, JAM UP, TEPIDNESS, BLOT OUT, QUICHES, DR. KATZ, SILK TIES, and, of course, FREE FALLIN', the classic [1989 Tom Petty hit]. Wentz scored a pangram with the fill, but some of it felt a bit strained. Google verifies that AGENDA BOOK is a valid enough term, I suppose, but it still kinda hurts my eyes and ears. NOT VALID, clued as [Like an expired license], also made me wince. I think most of us would say "invalid" instead of "not valid," and I'm not sure many solvers want a rather arbitrary "not" thrown in before most ADJS [Fast and furious, e.g.: Abbr.]. And UNLAX [Chill out, slangily]? Really? Chillax, sure, but unlax? I think that will bug me until I "untire" to bed tonight.
I would have thought that my second experience with the same theme would have resulted in a noticeably shorter solving time, but such was not the case (in my glacial world, two-and-a-half minutes ain't much faster). Despite the overlapping theme, the only noticeable overlap in the fill comes in the SW of both grids: 112D in Wentz's grid, QBS, is the same as 113D in Nediger's grid. The clue for HOLD TIGHT, [2008 Harlan Coben thriller], slowed me down more than would have a direct clue like [Clutch firmly]. I wanted BAJA for BAHA, [Island band The ___ Men], but I finally figured it out once the crossing [Old Testament prophet] HOSEA fell. Even that proved a little elusive since I had FEAT instead of GEST as the [Daring exploit]. I was also mired at the instersection of LA PLATA, the [City near Buenos Aires], and BRETON, the [Celtic language spoken in France]. Apparently I am not very cosmopolitan. It's true: I have never ventured outside of North America. I've seen much of Canada, the States, and Mexico, but nothing beyond. Even Sarah Palin has seen Russia, albeit from a distance. And yet I finished second to President Obama in voting for the Nobel Peace Prize (we had identical accomplishments, but he photographs better). (It's important to make offsetting political jokes whenever possible.)
Bob Klahn’s freestyle CrosSynergy “Sunday Challenge”
Go figure - my slowest time comes not with the 21x Sunday-sized puzzles but the innocuous little 15x freestyle offering from the master of deception, Bob Klahn. I felt like an IGNORAMUS [Ding-a-ling] throughout much of the solve, but I'm proud to have survived and I admire the construction a great deal. This 70-worder offers four triple-stacked 9s and a grid full of fun entries and knotty clues. In no particular order, here are my ten favorites:
A really terrific grid and clues that worked to mire me in the ooze of stuck for a long time. The SE was especially deadly. I have seen the SAMPAN before (it's a [Mat-roofed, flat-bottomed boat]) but it felt completely foreign to me during the solve. The clue for ADAGE, [Sampler sentence], still eludes me, so anyone who wants to help me out should please explain in the comments. I had never heard of Roger Ebert's book, "I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie," so the clue for HATED left me empty. And I couldn't figure out AMORY, ["The Proper Bostonians" writer Cleveland]. Even with the first three letters of these words in place from the crossing downs, I was befuddled for a long time. The NW corner also took a while, but once I figured out that the LLAMA was the [Animal on Peru's coat of arms], the rest fell fairly quickly.
Roger Ebert may have hated, hated, hated some movie, but I liked, liked, liked this puzzle even though it nearly defeated me. Thank you, Sir Klahn. May I have another?
My Trip to Atlanta
Before I hand the baton back to Orange, allow me to share a slightly off-topic anecdote that readers of this blog will appreciate. In my job I am lucky (?) enough to travel around the country a fair amount for various conferences. I am a slave to my frequent flyer miles, so I almost always fly on the same airline when I can (I won't mention the name of the airline, but it seems to have an awfully high number of flights to Anchorage, Juneau, and Fairbanks). Anyway, one of the first things I often do after taking my seat on a plane is to pull out the airline's magazine and see if it has crosswords. Sure enough, my frequent-flyer airline has a 23x puzzle every month, but I'm pretty sure the grid and the clues are computer-generated because it's never much fun and the clues violate many of the standard clue conventions.
But earlier this month I had to fly on a partner airline (and for reasons that will soon be apparent, I have no problem disclosing that this partner airline was Delta). When I checked the back of Delta's Sky Magazine, I discovered that they run an old NYT 15x crossword and a couple of Sudoku puzzles. I was pleased to see that Delta sprung for a good puzzle, so I pulled out my trusty solving pencil (aka The Death Wand) and set to work. When I read the clue for 1-Across, I actually dropped the Death Wand. It was my debut puzzle from October 2008! Sure enough, my name was printed alongside the grid near the fold. I have only had two puzzles in the NYT (so far - there are some in the queue), so the odds of this happening are, by my precise computations, remote. I was completely floored. For the first time ever, I took the magazine off the plane with me.
By the way, at one point I needed to stand during the flight and stretch my legs (it was a long flight to Atlanta). Rather than stay by my seat near the front, I decided to walk to the back of the cabin just so I could see whether anyone was working the puzzle. It has always been my white whale - I have never seen someone actually solving one of my puzzles (not that I have had many of them out there to see people solve, mind you, but still). I saw two people working the Sudoku puzzles and no one working the crossword. Sigh. But that's just a small hiccup in what was otherwise the coolest flight I have taken in years.
Well, that's the story. Again, I thought that if anyone would appreciate the thrill I had it would be this group. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
November 21, 2009
Sunday, 11/22/09
Reagle 7:47
BG 7:38
NYT 7:17
LAT 6:55
CS 4:27
If you haven't done Caleb Madison's Bard Bulletin crossword in Across Lite (posted at the Crossword Fiend forum), now you can also solve it online at the Bard High School Early College's student paper site.
Patrick Merrell's New York Times crossword, "Career Day Speaker Schedule"
Did you know that Patrick Merrell has two blogs? At Pat Tricks, where he writes on an occasional basis, his latest post features a cartoon in honor of Will Shortz's 16th anniversary as the New York Times crossword editor. (Congrats, Will! And no, we're not giving you a convertible for your sweet sixteen.) Pat writes more regularly at the NYT's Wordplay blog, where he alternates weeks with Jim Horne now. Hey, look! Patrick blogs his own puzzle today. He mentions that many of his past puzzles have been one-of-a-kind innovations, but that this one is more ordinary. Indeed it is. The theme didn't especially grab me, but there were some shining stars in the fill and clues.
First, the theme. The clues are playful redefinitions of various job titles. For example, a DRIVING INSTRUCTOR might be thought to be a good label for 38A: Career Day Speaker [#3: Golf pro?]. At 70A, the FILE CLERK is billed as a [#5: Manicurist?] on the Career Day schedule. 111A: [#8 Disc jockey?] is billed as a RECORD KEEPER. Who was responsible for all these misconstrued job titles? You might say that the 119A: [Career of the parent who typed up the Career Day schedule?] is a NOVEL WRITER, in that...he or she writes things in a novel manner? That doesn't feel quite as apt as I'd like a theme's capstone to be.
Here are the highlights in the clues and non-theme answers:
• 19A. [Literary work in which Paris is featured] is the ILIAD. Paris, the Trojan, not Paris, the city in France.
• 57A. [Suffix with pant or aunt] clues -IES. So help me, I laughed at this one. A good friend of mine and her sisters just became aunties for the first time this week when their little sister had a baby. (Rowan, a baby girl. As in Rowan Atkinson?)
• 68A. IRAN is the [First landfall north of Oman]. If you have a good sense of what the first landfalls are in various directions from various countries, try this Sporcle quiz.
• 90A. An author's PEN NAME is one sort of [Literary creation].
• 118A. BROWBEATS means [Bullies]. Is the bully beating you with her brow or beating your brow?
• 126A. A [Bay, for one] is a type of INLET. My son's been toiling all day, drawing pictures of geographical terms including bay and inlet (and dune, isthmus, glacier, coastal plain, marsh...38 terms in all). His picture dictionary is due Monday and it will damn near kill the entire household to get it finished by Sunday night. But it's a cool project, and one he's had three weeks to work on. Hmm, fondness for procrastination? I'm sure I couldn't tell you where he gets that from.
• 17D. GRUELS are [Meager bowlfuls]. Even a giant bowlful is meager, no?
• 30D. Fresh clue for EDSEL: [It debuted on "E Day"].
• 55D. ERST is boring crossword fill in English (archaic word, portion of "erstwhile), but if you know German, it's a common word: [First, in Frankfurt].
• 99D. ACTI, ACTII, ACTIII, ACTIV, and ACTV are entries that don't thrill me. ACT FIVE, however, seems cooler. Why is that? It's [When Juliet says "O happy dagger!"].
• 123D. The EAR is a [Human body part with vestigial muscles]. Holy anatomy, Batman! Can this be true? Wikipedia clarifies: They're the muscles that some people can use to wiggle their ears. I am a non-wiggler, but my son can do it.
• 124D. [Hosp. V.I.P.'s] clues R.N.'S. Yay! If hospitals didn't have nurses on staff, the patients would not do too well at all. This clue is a lovely nod to the nursing profession's importance.
Entries that aren't highlights, but that may be found at a fabric store: CIRE is a 29D: [Glazed fabric] and NACRES are 67A: [Button materials]. The latter is solid old crosswordese, but CIRE is markedly less familiar to me.
While the theme didn't wow me, I'm delighted by Patrick's return to the NYT puzzle page. His creativity and humor have led to many memorable puzzles over the years, and I look forward to seeing more of his twists on the conventions of crossword puzzles.
Merl Reagle's syndicated crossword, "Mr. H and Mr. L"
On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was killed. The same day, two famous writers also died: Aldous Huxley and C.S. Lewis. They are the Mr. H and Mr. L mentioned in the theme clues. I figured out who they were via two of the answers, but for the remaining theme entries I leaned heavily on the crossings. I'm surprised the puzzle didn't take me longer because of that—I suspect Merl made a point of keeping the clues for the themers' crossings as gettable as he could. Hang on a second—does every single Down answer cross at least one theme answer? I think so, and I think Merrell's NYT puzzle is the same. I swear I never noticed that many Sunday puzzles with all-Across themes are like that, too. Moving on, here's the Huxley/Lewis trivia theme:
• 20A. THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS is a ["Devilish" work by Mr. L]. Don't know it.
• 39A. BRAVE NEW WORLD, which I read in high-school English, is the [Classic work by Mr. H]. This was the only Mr. H clue that told me H = Huxley.
• 43A. [Space novel by Mr. L] is PERELANDRA. This is only very faintly familiar.
• 48A. [Mr. H co-wrote a few, including "Jane Eyre"] clues FILM SCRIPTS. Who knew?
• 65A. This one was my only L = Lewis clue. THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA is a [Seven-book series by Mr. L].
• 80A. SHADOWLANDS is a [Film starring Anthony Hopkins as Mr. L]. Really? Didn't know that. Haven't seen the movie.
• 89A. SGT. PEPPER'S is the [Classic album featuring Mr. H on its cover (and lots of other folks, too)].
• 92A. HEAVEN AND HELL is a [Philosophical work by Mr. H]. Don't know this one, either.
• 107A. The rationale for the theme is explained here. [Interesting factoid about Mr. H and Mr. L] is that BOTH DIED ON NOV. 22, 1963.
That last answer is insane, isn't it? With six numerals? They're numerals in the intersecting Down answers, too:
• 106D. [Rockets deployed in Germany's second wave of missile attacks in WWII] are V-2'S. I would not have guessed the 2 if not for the November 22 date that appears with the puzzle's title.
• 78D. GREASE 2 is the [1982 sequel to a high school musical]. Whatever happened to Maxwell Caulfield?
• 86D. APRIL 1ST is the [Fool's day].
• 111D. The [Three-digit number denoting a charge call (as for puzzle answers] is 900. Except that the zeroes are letter Os in 117A and 121A, so in Across Lite, 9OO works.
• 112D. [Time that's exactly halfway between midnight and noon] is 6 A.M.
• 113D. [Elementary school basics] are the 3 R'S.
Favorite clue: [They tell you how to fix things] for RECIPES. I'm planning to make pecan pie for Thanksgiving. Want the recipe? Follow the one on a bottle of Karo dark corn syrup, only use at least double the amount of pecans so you have pecans throughout the pie rather than floating atop goo. I haven't decided if I want to make a butter crust from scratch or buy frozen crust.
Weirdest answer: 29D is LARIATED, clued as [Lassoed]. Is lariat a verb, or just a noun? The Dictionary of American Regional English, or DARE, says it's also a verb.
I do prefer it when Merl's themes have a lot of humor built in, which this one does not. Next week's probably will, but I'm not sure when I'll get to it—the pies and I will be out of town, and an all-star team of guest bloggers will hold down the fort here.
Updated later Saturday night:
Ken Bessette's syndicated Los Angeles Times crossword, "Literal Translations"
Ooh, I loved this theme! It was heaps o' fun for my inner anagrammer. Each theme clue is an anagram of a word in its corresponding answer, and the answer explains how the anagramming was accomplished. At the same time, each theme answer is a familiar phrase. To wit:
• 23A. [TOG?] is GOT TURNED AROUND.
• 38A. [GLIBNESS?] is MIXED BLESSING. This entry reminds me of a 4/8/07 NYT puzzle by Byron Walden in which the entry BLESSING IN DISGUISE was linked to both GLIBNESS and B SINGLES.
• 51A. [FELT?] clues LEFT IN DISARRAY. LEFT could also be used to clue FELT CONFUSED.
• 66A. [GOES?] is ALTER EGOS. This one's a bit weaker because the word EGOS is alterED. With a different letter count, ALTERED STATE could be paired with TASTE.
• 69A. [RAGE?] is a GEAR SHIFT of a sort.
• 89A. An OUT-OF-ORDER SIGN is [SING?].
• 97A. [EARTH?] clues CHANGE OF HEART.
• 118A. [STOP?] evokes the POST-REFORMATION era.
Fun, isn't it? My favorite fill:
• 28A. An ARGONAUT is [One of Jason's men].
• 55A. "TAXMAN" is a [Song on the Beatles' "Revolver" album].
• 104A. The INNER EAR is a [Canal locale].
• 110A. "IS THAT SO?" sounds like a challenge, as does ["Says who?"].
• 2D. Hey! Not the usual ORONO clue. [Maine town named for a Penobscot chief].
• 16D. I misinterpreted [Curling gadget] as referring to the sport of curling and figured IRON was just a term I didn't know. Whoops. Curling IRON, used to curl hair.
• 91D. Leonardo DI CAPRIO is the ["Catch Me If You Can" star]. I meant to see that movie.
46D's clue is [Riding for ___: acting overconfidently], for A FALL. I feel as though "heading for a fall" is the more familiar phrase, but "ride for a fall"/"be riding for a fall" has more solid dictionary support.
Less desirable are 68D: REASCENT, or [Second time to the top], and 14D: REDRILL, or [Put through one's paces again]. (RESELL is A-OK, though.) Is it just me, or does New York have more than its share of 5-letter towns with 3 vowels? 73D: TIOGA is a [New York town on the Susquehanna], and then there's UTICA and...maybe there are just the two.
Who is this 114D: [Disney duck princess] named OONA? This cavewoman duck princess (yes, that's right: a cavewoman duck) is possibly not known to more than a teeny fraction of Americans: Wikipedia says "The adventures of Princess Oona have appeared in Disney publications in many countries including Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Hungary, Brazil, and Russia." Had you ever heard of Princess Oona?
Updated Sunday morning:
Tony Orbach's CrosSynergy/Washington Post "Sunday Challenge"
This is a terrific themeless crossword. Zesty fill, fun clues, minimal junk. Let's take a stroll through the grid.
Multi-word phrases:
• 1A is IN A FLASH, or [Pronto].
• 18A. There's also the BAD END [A villain might come to...].
• I like to say AS IT WERE (61A: [So to speak])
• 14D is AND SO ON, or [Et cetera].
• 34D, the [Words said with an exasperated flourish], clues "UP TO HERE." This one feels like an 8-letter partial, though, doesn't it? Does anyone say it in isolation, along the lines of a Honeymooners "Straight to the moon!"?
The freshest fill includes:
• The LETTER C—22A: [Embroidery on a Cubs cap, e.g.]. Go, Cubs! (Poor, woebegone Cubs.)
• 33A is [Quarterback Daunte] CULPEPPER of the Detroit Lions. (Poor, woebegone Lions.)
• 7D: SHAG CARPETS are [Lush, plush furnishings], which is not to say furniture.
• I like the zippy TABLE-HOPS at 9D, or [Makes the rounds at a restaurant].
• 10D is OVALTINE, the [Malt drink pitched by Joe Namath], and yes, I was thinking malt liquor. 'Tis the season to watch A Christmas Story and see the kid disgusted by the naked mercenariness of the Ovaltine people.
• 24D: JASPER JOHNS, the ["Numbers" abstract expressionist artist], works two Js in to the grid.
• 31D. I'm fond of PLEONASMS, which means [Redundancies], because it's a spoonerism of neoplasm. "Tuna fish" and "safe haven" are neoplasms—is there a tuna that's not a fish, or an unsafe haven?
Hottest clues:
• 59A. A [Termite's terminus?] might be the ANTEATER that scarfs it up.
• 5D. Good clue for LEERED: [Didn't make proper eye contact] but was instead most improper.
• 9A. TOYOTA is the [Tundra producer].
• 31A. [The time there might be five to ten] clues prison. Not "five minutes to 10," but "five to 10 years."
• 28D. [An addled brain might be likened to one] clues SIEVE.
Answer for which I needed all the crossings: 23D: [Producer of early multi-track recorders] is TEAC. I've seen the brand name before, but the clue wasn't summoning up that answer in my SIEVE of a mind.
Cute shout-out: 51A is MARTHA ["___ My Dear" (Beatles song)]. Three guesses what Tony's wife is named.
Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon's Boston Globe crossword, "Animal Quackery"
The theme is rough puns on health-care specialties with animal names affixed at the beginning. For example, RODENTISTRY is clued as a [Branch of medicine for gnawers?] (rodent + dentistry). BOAFEEDBACK is [Self-help for snakes?] (boa + biofeedback). SOCKEYEATRY is a [Fishy shrink's practice?] (sockeye salmon + psychiatry]. The puns are a mixed bag of added consonants, changed consonants, vowel changes, added syllables, etc. I wasn't crazy about this theme—pun themes straddle the fine line between "ha ha" and "uh-uh."
Favorite word in the grid: 89D: BOLLIX, or [Completely bungled]. OONA is here, but clued as [Mrs. Chaplin] rather than the cavewoman duck very few of us know.
I suspect the grid got changed along the way but an old clue remained in error. At 58A, the answer is STOOP, but the clue is [Dive like a hawk]. Now, that sounds exactly like a clue for SWOOP. But with those theme entries above and below, the W would've been O*W*P, which doesn't look feasible at all. Hmm. Is there a swooping-like-a-hawk usage of STOOP that I'm not aware of?
November 14, 2009
Sunday, 11/15/09
LAT 8:28
BG 7:40
Reagle 7:25
NYT 7:15
CS 3:42
NYT diagramless untimed
I'll be out at the movies and dinner at puzzle time tonight. Go ahead and chat amongst yourselves in the interim, and I'll see you late Saturday night. xoxoxo
—Back home by 10 p.m.!
Liz Gorski's New York Times crossword, "Man of Many Words"
All right, there's nothing at all wrong with this puzzle, but the theme couldn't be more perfectly designed to leave me unmoved. JOHNNY MERCER songs? Ten of them? Luckily, they were clued with other contexts, because most of the songs are not ones I've heard of. Those circled letters from A to N make a connect-the-dots picture of a, whaddayacallit, Wikipedia tells me it's a G-clef. It's a pretty symbol, but I have no idea if it's inextricably linked to these Mercer songs or what.
BEFOOL (39D: Hoodwink] looks kinda crazy. Haven't seen the word before—dictionary labels it "archaic."
Company calls—will return to the blog Sunday morning.
Updated Sunday morning, after sleeping in and having quality family time:
Henry Hook's Boston Globe crossword, "Decimation"
Well, I guess I don't really need to blog this puzzle since its constructor explained the theme in the comments before I'd done the puzzle. Spoiler! Spoiler! So, filling in the puzzle was just a rote process, no brain work to decipher the theme. The clues are words in all caps, and if you insert TEN, you get another word, and that word clues the theme answer in sort of a clue/answer reverse: [BAR(TEN)D?] = SERVE DRINKS, [CHAS(TEN)ER?] = ONE WHO PUNISHES, [HEAR(TEN)S?] = ENCOURAGES, [LA(TEN)CY?] = DORMANT STATE, [S(TEN)O?] = SHORTHAND WRITER, [SHOR(TEN)ING?] = LARD OR BUTTER, [AN(TEN)NA?] = RABBIT EARS, and [PAN(TEN)E] = BRAND OF SHAMPOO. You DIVIDE each clue word by TEN by inserting TEN into it.
I think I would've liked the theme a lot if I'd had to puzzle through it myself.
Merl Reagle's syndicated crossword, "Homophone Sylables"
I enjoyed this theme a ton. A sound-alike word replaces some syllables in a longer word, and the resulting portmanteau is clued accordingly:
• 21A. MISSILEANEOUS (miscellaneous) might be a [Category the Pentagon uses instead of "other"?].
• 32A. [Process of growing grass for cows?] could be called PASTUREIZATION (pasteurization).
• 41A. PROMISECUITY (promiscuity) is clued as [Habit of giving your word to everybody but never keeping it?]. Brilliant. We should adopt this as a useful term. The English language could use a single word to describe this concept.
• 50A. FUTILEISM (feudalism) is the [Social system under which nothing ever gets better?].
• 63A. CHORUSPONDENCE (correspondence) is [The fan mail that backup singers get?].
• 72A. [Organically grown herbal medicines?] are FARMACEUTICALS (pharmaceuticals).
• 83A. [Of an age when pork and mutton were pretty much all you ate?] is MEATYEVAL (medieval).
• 91A. [Having a sweet taste that kind of sneaks up on you?] is SYRUPTITIOUS (surreptitious). This one doesn't work as well for me as the others because I pronounce it "seer-ip," not "sir-ip." (Both pronunciations are listed in my dictionary.)
• 104A. MASSAGEYNISTIC (misogynistic) is clued [Contemptuous of rubdowns done by women?].
• 118A. FILL-IN-THROPIC (philanthropic) is [Pertaining to puzzle events that benefit charities?].
And now, a handful of non-theme clues:
• 27A. [Self-serving aims, often] are AGENDAS.
• 58A. [Knife for Nanook] is an ULU.
• 111A. PASSADO is a [Thrusting move, in fencing]. I don't recognize the word, even though we did some fencing in high school gym class.
• 112A. [Ludacris song, "___ Fool"] clues the two-word partial phrase ACT A. Nobody loves partials, but this is fresher than clueing the word ACTA.
• 1D. [Auctioneer's query] is "DO I HEAR [some random dollar amount]?"
• 10D. ["Well, you go ___ and I'll go mine" (Groucho)] clues URUGUAY, Groucho's pun on "your way."
• 20D. [Rubber hub] is rubber manufacturing city AKRON, Ohio.
• 28D. [P.M. whose jacket caught on] is NEHRU. The NEHRU jacket is, well, not a fashion I've ever worn, but it's had its day.
• 50D. Holy cats, really? FUSEL is today's out-there, uncommon answer. [Fermentation product, ___ oil] is not a clue that helped me get the answer. No clue would.
Mike Torch's syndicated Los Angeles Times crossword, "Ling-uistics"
For me, this is today's most challenging 21x21 crossword. The theme involves adding -LING to the end of a word to alter its meaning, and the results are pretty good. I like it when theme entries aren't completely obvious and you have a bunch of "aha" moments when you piece them together. The Gorski NYT's theme didn't offer me any of these "ahas," with the "aha" reserved for the connect-the-dots visual aspect. Hook's Globe puzzle would've given me a big "aha" with some oomph to it if I hadn't known the theme up front. And Reagle's puzzle, like Torch's, had a solid "aha"/amusement payoff for each theme answer.
Here's the "Ling-uistics" theme:
• 24A. STARLING TREK could be a [Migration of gregarious birds?].
• 50A. The Ox-Bow Incident is a novel and movie. OX BOWLING INCIDENT is a [Bovine argument at the lanes?]. This one made me laugh. There were no oxen present when I went bowling last week, luckily.
• 71A. [Game for lazy kids?] is IDLING TAG.
• 95A. Can I pick your brain? PICKLING YOUR BRAIN is [Drinking too much?].
• 122A. LEGAL FEELING is a [Courtroom intuition?].
• 3D. [Result of way too much praise?] is EGO TRIPLING.
• 31D. RED INKLING plays on red ink, and is clued as a Joseph [McCarthy suspicion?]. I like this one a lot too.
• 58D. This clue could've gone down the vomiting lane, but it didn't. BEN HURLING is [Affleck on the mound?"], hurling a baseball. It would've been really impressive if Torch had built the entire theme around movie titles + LING—24A and 50A join with this one in the movie category.
• 74D. The Fab Four become FABLING FOUR, a [Quartet of storytellers?].
Least familiar answer in the grid: 110D: TROON is a [Town on the Firth of Clyde]. Overall, the fill is pretty smooth. I'll dock it one point for having both UNO and UNI, but at least they're small and on opposite sides of the grid.
Doug Peterson's Washington Post/CrosSynergy "Sunday Challenge"
Do HAIRY CHEST ([Symbol of manliness]) and its opposite grid partner OPERA HOUSE ([Sydney Harbor landmark]) constitute a mini-theme? I like to think they do. (Of course, they do not.)
Highlights in this definitely-on-the-easy-side themeless:
• 15A. A BROMANCE is an [Intimate friendship between two guys, slangily]. Near the end of Superbad, which I watched again last night, there's a sweet moment between Michael Cera and Jonah Hill's characters, in the fine tradition of the bromance.
• 8D. "HERE GOES NOTHING" is clued with ["This probably won't work..."].
• 12D. ALGORITHMS is just a cool word, so different from the rest of the English language. They're [Step-by-step procedures].
• 27D. At the Crate & Barrel Outlet on Friday, I passed up the chance to buy a FLY SWATTER, or [Inexpensive extermination device].
• 46A. HATCHET MEN are [Enforcers for the mob], among other things.
Toughest clues:
• 16A. UVULAR means [Sounded from the back of the throat].
• 41A. TOMSK is a [Siberian city]. We see OMSK much more often in the puzzle than TOMSK.
• 2D. URDU is related to the Hindi language, so it's a [Hindi relative] but not a Hindi word for a family member.
• 21D. GALOPS are [Lively dances]. The word's related to "gallop."
Fred Piscop's second Sunday NYT puzzle, a diagramless crossword
It took a little longer than usual to figure out how the first rows were laid out. 1A SCHISM, 11A CRULLER, and 14A DEADLY SINS were stacked together, but was the 7A CLAM, 13A HAHA, 17A AVON stack to the right of the bigger stack (with 1A and 7A on the top line), or was it to the right (with a bunch of black squares to the left of 1A and above 7A)? Turns out to be the latter. I didn't piece it together until the end of 21A DAYS IN A WEEK, in the fifth row, hooked up with some Down answers and showed me the way.
The theme answers are all clued the same: [There are seven ...]. Four of the five were quite familiar, but that unfamiliar one was a killer. The famous septets are as follows:
• 14A. DEADLY SINS
• 21A. DAYS IN A WEEK
• 37A. WONDERS OF THE WORLD
• 58A. HILLS OF ROME
• 68A. LITTLE FOYS
It was LITTLE FOYS that killed me. The Seven Little Foys is a 1955 Bob Hope movie that was nominated for a screenplay Oscar, but I've not only never seen the movie, I've scarcely even heard of it. The O crossed a partial that I had trouble piecing together: 59A ["___ of You" (Hank Williams Jr. album)] clues I'M ONE of you. I pondered "I Mane of You," "Imene of You," "I, Mine, of You," and "Imune of You" for the vowels, and IMLNE and IMRNE for FRYS and FLYS. Gah.
I was slightly thrown by the dated word SLOVEN, 20A [Neatnik's opposite]. It's a dated word, much less familiar than "slovenly." I'm not telling my husband that this word, meaning "a person who is habitually messy or careless," exists.
November 07, 2009
Sunday, 11/8/09
Reagle 8:50
BG 8:32
NYT 10:50 (joon—paper)/7:19 (A—applet)
LAT 6:44
CS 3:45
Robert W. Harris's Sunday New York Times crossword, "Colonization"
hi folks. joon here, subbing in for amy, who's at her *cough*25th*cough* high school reunion. she'll be in later tonight and will be blogging the rest of the puzzles tomorrow, but here i am with the sunday NYT puzzle. it's a good one. it's a letter insertion theme involving ANT:
what else did i like about this puzzle? well, the fill was reasonably smooth. not much really jumped out at me as being particularly eye-catching, though i did enjoy the ZEBU [Indian bovine] sighting at 10d. we like to visit the ZEBU at the local zoo; it's got a crazy-looking hump/shield/shoulder thingy going for it. the notable exception to the smoothness of the fill was in the "midatlantic" region, which featured the following less-than-ideal fill:
a sunday NYT is usually good for at least two or three really great clues, but this one was fairly dry. the only tricky clue was [Cause of star wars?] for EGOS. oh, i guess [Part of a book ... or something to book] for PASSAGE had a nice "aha" moment. some others that i enjoyed, even if they weren't exactly uproarious:
two clues i could have done without: [Brand with a pyramid on the package] for CAMEL and [Back-room cigar smokers, say] for CRONIES. smoking = yuck. more humped beasts of burden, please.
that's all for me, at least until the MGWCC blog post on tuesday. i'll see you in the comment box.
Updated Sunday late morning, because whoo, did I ever sleep late today:
Merl Reagle's syndicated crossword, "Like, Totally Jazzed"
Merl riffs on various familiar phrases by punningly changing a word to one with jazz connotations:
• 23A. [Jazz guitarist's admission?] is IT'S ALL IN THE RIFFS ("it's all in the wrist").
• 40A. [What lifelong jazz musicians are?] is BORN TO BLUES ("born to lose").
• 56A. [Name for a jazz club?] is THE BASSMENT ("the basement").
• 69A. [Play clarinet?] is BLOW YOUR NOTES ("blow your nose").
• 84A. [Jazz crooner?] is NAT KING COOL ("Nat King Cole").
• 98A. [Where to buy jazz instruments?] is SAX FIFTH AVE. ("Saks Fifth Avenue").
• 118A. [Our jazziest president?] is not saxophone-playing Bill Clinton, it's GROOVER CLEVELAND ("Grover Cleveland").
• 16D. [Name for a jazz revue?] is SNAP, CRACKLE, BOP ("Snap, crackle, pop").
• 51D. [Like jazz movies?] is MELLOW-DRAMATIC ("melodramatic").
Favorite clue:
• 48D. [Fish made of vitamins?] is the not-so-well-known DACE. I used the crossings to pin down DACE after asking myself if there was a vitamin H for HAKE. Vitamins A, B, C, D, E, and K were the letter bank for the fish name.
Toughest clues:
• 65A. [Big name in skis and snowboards] is ELAN. I originally had EBAN crossing SNAPCRACKBEBOP.
• 80D. [WWI Treasury secretary William] MCADOO.
• 87A. [Large evergreen, ironically] clues RED FIR. Is it "ironic" if an evergreen has red in its name? I don't think that's irony.
James Sajdak's syndicated Los Angeles Times crossword, "What's Yours?"
I liked this one a little more than the first two Sunday puzzles. Fun theme, smooth fill. The theme is cocktails that sound occupationally appropriate:
• 25A. [The barber ordered a __] VODKA TONIC. Barbers slap some tonic on a man's face sometimes, right?
• 27A. [The heating contractor ordered a] BOILERMAKER. That's a whiskey shot with a beer chaser.
• 40A. [The farmer ordered a] PLANTER'S PUNCH. What's in that? Rum, lime juice, carbonated water, and sugar. Sounds good.
• 60A. [The popcorn producer ordered a] HOT BUTTERED RUM. If you buy microwave popcorn, go for brands that don't use diacetyl flavorings—those cause lung disease in the people working at the popcorn factory.
• 84A. [The orthopedist ordered a] SINGAPORE SLING. Gin and cherry brandy? That sounds gross.
• 102A. [The high roller ordered a] SEVEN AND SEVEN. Some sort of whiskey plus 7-Up, I think.
• 119A. [THe handyman ordered a] SCREWDRIVER. Vodka and OJ, for your vitamin C and potassium needs.
• 123A. [The citrus grower ordered a] FUZZY NAVEL. OJ (the "navel") with peach schapps (the "fuzzy").
Favorite clues/answrs:
• 66D. RIFFLES is [Mixes, as cards]. Less mixing than a full-bore shuffle, right?
• 112D. [Where to get down] is from an EIDER.
• 13D. ASK FOR IT means to [Invite trouble].
• 30A. A REF is a [Whistling zebra?].
• 75A. HANG-UPS are [Emotional problems].
Randolph Ross's CrosSynergy/Washington Post "Sunday Challenge"
I'm not sure why the CS team calls it a "Sunday Challenge" when its difficulty is often on a par with the weekday themed offerings. If it's clearly labeled as a challenge, why not toughen the clues up a notch?
Ten clues:
• 1A. [Informing secondarily, for short] is CCING.
• 16A. [Baked goods at an English Christmas] are MINCE PIES.
• 28A. [Top draft selection in the NBA, e.g.] is a LOTTERY PICK.
• 31A. [Small breakfast] clues ONE EGG. No, this answer does not rise to the level of an "in the language" unit of meaning.
• 52A. [Words before Olay or vitriol] are OIL OF. "Oil of vitriol"??
• 54A. [Truman, Clinton, Reagan, or Obama, e.g.] clues a LEFTY, or left-handed person.
• 1D. [Where to hear church music] is the CHOIR LOFT. But don't people hear the music from everywhere else in the church?
• 35D. [Second largest island in the world] is NEW GUINEA.
• 37D. [Put on a pedestal] clues IDEALIZE. I wanted IDOLIZE(D), but COTE D'AZUR's Z said no.
• 47D. [Cosmonaut Gherman or Vladimir] TITOV? Never heard of either one.
Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon's Boston Globe crossword, "Interior Hues"
I liked this kind of theme better when it's a little tighter, as when they had contrived phrases with hidden gemstones. Here, the first hidden-color entry is EPHEMERAL DOME, with a hidden EMERALD, and that one's good. But there's practically no limit on made-up phrases in which you could find a hidden RED, so VAMPIRE DEN did nothing for me. The embedded colors in the theme entries also include apricot, silver, orange, pink, indigo, green, peach, amber (another gem), and teal. It all feels kind of loose—the colors don't form a logical set (as the seven colors on the ROYGBIV spectrum would), and there's no particular logical order in which they're presented.
Favorite clue: [Bacon with links?] for "Six Degrees of KEVIN Bacon."
October 31, 2009
Sunday, 11/1/09
NYT 9:46
BG 9:37
Reagle 7:53
LAT 7:50
CS 4:09
Big thanks to Crosscan for stepping in to review the Wall Street Journal puzzle on Friday, in addition to his weekly Gaffney/Daily Beast gig. (I haven't had time to look at either puzzle yet. Moving on!) And big thanks to Joon, too, for writing about the Friday BEQ, in addition to his weekly MGWCC post.
I'll be out trick-or-treating with Jango Fett and his friends when the New York Times puzzle comes out, so that part of my post will be hours late and sugar-fueled. In the meantime, there are other puzzles available earlier on Saturday, including this one:
Merl Reagle's syndicated crossword, "Puzzle of the Month"
Given the title, it didn't take much work to notice that there's a NOV (November) hidden in that first theme entry, CONVECTION OVEN. "Oh, yay," I said to myself. "A boring trigram hidden in the theme answers." But then the further I got into the puzzle, the more and more of these theme entries I uncovered, and the theme grew on me. Look at all the NOVs in there! I circled 16 of 'em, and 12 of them appear as adjoining pairs. To fit in a whopping 16 themers (even if they're not terribly long) without marring the fill is an accomplishment. The whole puzzle has Merl's light touch, too. The only real "Huh?" answer I encountered was 30A: TANI, [Japanese actress Yoko or U.S. astronaut Daniel], but all its crossings were solid.
My list of favorites among the regular clues:
• 84D. [Words after home, not hone] clues IN ON. Yes! The phrase is "home in on."
• 62A. [Part of a closing act?] is a SUTURE.
• 2D. [Hi, in HI] is ALOHA.
• 69D. [Misers, in Milan] are AVARI. I absolutely did not know this Italian word, but I'm guessing it's closely related to avarice.
And now, the theme entries, clued straight except for the last two Across ones:
• 20A. TERRA NOVA is [Capt. Scott's ice ship that means "Newfoundland" in Latin]. Didn't know this one at all aside from putting together the Latin.
• 23A. [It really cooks] clues a CONVECTION OVEN. This one runs under the preceding answer.
• 42A. PORTO NOVO is [Benin's capital]. Geography!
• 53A. [Real-life don Vito] is mobster Vito GENOVESE. The end hooks up with the beginning of...
• 60A. CASANOVA, [Lover-boy], who is stacked together with...
• 63A. BORIS BADENOV, the cartoon [Spy from Pottsylvania].
• 75A. [Singer whose "I Just Wanna Stop" was a Top Ten hit in 1978] is GINO VANELLI. He's partnered with...
• 83A. KIM NOVAK, who was, among other things, a ["Picnic" co-star]. Her AK is atop the RE of...
• 88A. RENOVATE, or [Give a new face]. This answer, TERRA NOVA, and PORTO NOVO all use the NOV in the service of a word root meaning "new." This sort of duplication would normally not be kosher.
• 96A. DIME NOVEL is an [Early paperback]. If you're a buff of vintage paperbacks, you'll enjoy Rex Parker's "Pop Sensation" blog, spotlighting the lurid covers.
Moving along to the Downs before ending with Merl's grand finale pair:
• 16D. RHINOVIRUS is the common [Cold culprit]. Multiple Facebook/blog friends have reported that their kids are sick with H1N1 flu right now. It hasn't hit my son's school—yet. It's coming, isn't it? I'm waiting for vaccination to not entail standing in line for three hours. Hmm.
• 17D. Right beside RHINOVIRUS is NO VISITORS, a [Quarantine order]. Speaking of the flu...
• 72D. [Father Guido Sarducci of "SNL" reruns] is DON NOVELLO. He stands beside...
• 73D. JUDY CANOVA, a [1940s actress known for her yodeling hillbilly roles]. What a claim to fame. This takes us back to the bottom for the closing...
• 120A. [How I hope you don't feel right about now] is IN OVER YOUR HEAD. Hooray for YOUR instead of the standoffish ONE'S. I declare this to be the SethG Tribute Answer.
• 125A. [What I hope you don't need right about now] is NOVOCAINE.
No local anesthetic needed here! Fun puzzle with the discovery of an inordinately large number of theme answers. The theme also helped point me in the right direction a few times, since knowing there would be a NOV somewhere narrowed things down.
Updated Saturday night:
Matt Ginsberg and Pete Muller's New York Times crossword, "Compound Fractures"
All right, guys, now you're just showing off. Intricately wrought theme in which each pair of words overlap by 5 letters to form a fake portmanteau word and you came up with 12 of them and you have the two Down ones somehow intersecting with three Acrosses each? Good one.
I'm not sure if the slowness of the solve relates to theme difficulty or if the rest of the puzzle is also unusually hard. What say you? I had wine and candy for dinner while trick-or-treating, so I can't say.
Here's how the theme plays out:
• 22A. [Eyewear providing hindsight?] are RETROSPECTACLES. The overlapping letters are in bold. I do not need a pair of retrospectacles, as my hindsight is better than 20/20.
• 29A. This clue kept me pondering for a while. [Peanut-loving ghost?] clues an ELEPHANTOM. The pink ones are most common.
• 32A. [Intermittent revolutionary?] is a SPORADICAL. This word applies to plenty of people during their college years.
• 43A. [Rare mushroom?] might be a PSYCHEDELICACY. I was looking for the first component to be a mushroomy noun, but the clue's nouniness is embodied by the second component.
• 56A. [Give up smuggled goods?] clues CONTRABANDON.
• 71A. I bought myself all sorts of trouble by spelling 61D: [Mad man?] as Alfred E. NEWMAN rather than the correct NEUMAN. That impeded my ability to see that [High-school athletic star at a casino?] is ROULETTERMAN.
• 81A. The late, great Les Paul appears as [Noble Les Paul?], a GUITARISTOCRAT. If anyone's a guitaristocrat, this is.
• 99A. This one's almost poetic. PERHAPSODY is ["Maybe" music?].
• 101A. {Dreams that don't die?] are the lovely FOREVERIES.
• 108A. [Bug that never takes a ride?] is a CENTIPEDESTRIAN. This one feels a hair off because the only way to get 5 letters of overlap is to have the plural critters that vanish in the final combo clue.
• 21D. [Like online medical advice for kids?] is WIKIPEDIATRIC.
• 44D. [Vegetable that gives you an emotional release?] is the surreal CATHARTICHOKE.
There's only time and energy for five from the fill:
• 69A. [1989 Madonna hit] is "OH, FATHER" and I have never heard of it.
• 26A. [Game in which a player may be schneidered] clues SKAT, a card game which is now played primarily within crosswords. I know "schneidered" from sheepshead, a card game popular in Wisconsin (birthplace of Les Paul!).
• 16D. [Mettle or metal] clues STEEL, figuratively and literally.
• 90A. [Man's name meaning "young man"] is SVEN.
• 63D. [Opposite of plus] is PETITE in terms of women's apparel sizing. I would have been flummoxed by the clue but I've seen similar ones once or twice recently in other puzzles I've done. (Same with 36A: [Hearing aids, briefly] for PAS, meaning public address systems.)
Nice to see Martin YAN make an appearance. Did you watch 34A: ["___ Can Cook" (onetime PBS show)]? I'd think we'd see him in the puzzle more often, but no. YIN/YEN/YON hog the glory.
Updated Sunday morning:
Robert Harris's syndicated Los Angeles Times crossword, "That Hurts!"
The theme here involves inserting an OW to change the meaning of various words or phrases. For instance, [Rollerblading partner of movie camera pioneer Bell?] is HOWELL ON WHEELS, "hell on wheels" with an extra OW. (Is Bell & Howell really the go-to HOWELL? Not Thurston Howell III from Gilligan's Island?) [Borders for oval paintings?] clues BOWED FRAMES but lacks any real humor. The base phrase, "bed frame," is flat and so is the concept of a curved picture frame. There were no horrible crossings or anything like that, but nothing in this puzzle really captivated me, and a couple entries (e.g., SEEMER, or [Pretender]) were off-putting. I know for a fact that I'm not in a good mood so it might be more me than the puzzle.
The biggest surprise was at 1A: [Illinois-based brewery], 5 letters? What on earth could that be? Turns out to be PABST. The Wikipedia article about Pabst Brewing Company tells me that it's a holding company that has bought up a bunch of defunct brands and kept them going—Stroh, Schaefer, Schlitz, Lone Star, Old Style, and more. I had no idea.
Martin Ashwood-Smith's CrosSynergy/Washington Post "Sunday Challenge"
I solved this one upside down, not knowing what the three 15s at the top were from their clues. I tackled the middle and bottom and eventually remembered that I'd get the top 15s much more quickly if I used the crossing clues. Duh! Favorite 15s:
• 17A. JONATHAN WINTERS is great. He's 83 now so no, we don't see too much of him anymore. The clue, ["Viva Max!" actor], refers to a 1969 movie I'd never heard of.
• 36A. The Britney [Spears album of 2000], OOPS, I DID IT AGAIN, is a somewhat dated reference but it's such a goofy title that I think it will remain in the lexicon.
Other clues:
• 34D. [Millionths of a meter] clues MICRA. I thought the plural of micron was microns, but the dictionary accepts both. Scientists use micrometer, abbreviated µm, rather than micron.
• 28A. [Like Mitch Miller, e.g.] is GOATEED. Mitch is 98 years old now, and I'm surprised to learn that he's still alive. His heyday was before I was born, but the Grammy folks gave him a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. I needed a lot of crossings to get GOATEED.
• 58A. [Private meeting] clues ONE-ON-ONE SESSION. If that were a legitimate Scrabble entry, it would get you a mere 15 points.
• 44D. [Heads overseas?] aren't toilets, they're TETES, "heads" in France.
• 54D. [Spain's Victoria Eugenia, familiarly] was called ENA. This is often clued as Bambi's aunt.
Henry Hook's Boston Globe crossword, "Travel On"
Like the L.A. Times puzzle, this crossword has an add-2-letters theme—GO this time. Like Merl's puzzle, this one has some stacked pairs of theme entries. And like the other puzzles this morning, nothing grabbed me. Could be me and not the puzzle.
Favorite theme entry: SINGAPORE GOSLINGS, or [Not exactly Peking ducks?].
Less savory answers: OTARU, OSCAN, TWO-D, ABOHMS, U CANT, Heidi BOHAY.
Vocabulary word for the day: EDACITY is [Voraciousness].
Mystery question mark: The clue for MONTANE is [Range-dwelling?]. Because it's mountain ranges as opposed to wide-open ranges? Okay.
