PI 8:32
BG 8:10
NYT 7:26
LAT 6:22
CS 2:56
Hey, I'm closing in on 2,000 posts! This one is lucky #1,928.
My family spent the day in Evanston, shopping and walking and hanging out with friends. Would you believe we passed a store called Ort Resale? You don't see a ton of crosswordese in commercial use. Ollas "R" Us. Etuis, Etc. Oleo Olio Café.
Michael Ashley's New York Times crossword, "Closing Bell"
Hiding over at 43-Down is the NYSE, or New York Stock Exchange—a [Closing bell place: Abbr.]. Each of the seven longest answers has a "closing bell," or a DING tacked onto the end of a familiar phrase. My favorite of the theme entries is 88D: [Question from a campaign committee?], or "AIN'T WE GOT FUNDING?" Love it! Second favorite is the play on '60s TV bear Gentle Ben, which becomes GENTLE BENDING, or [Exercise for beginning yoga students]. In each theme answer, the +DING word is entirely unrelated to the original word, so you get a nice reorientation with each one.
It's late, so let me just round up a handful of favorite answers from the grid:
Were there a lot of people's names in this puzzle? I feel like they're jumping out at me now, but I do like names in a puzzle so I wasn't as conscious of them as I went through the grid as someone who loathes name-heavy crosswords would be.
Updated Sunday afternoon:
I was out all day and evening yesterday, and then this morning too. Am late! Will do quick blogging and outsource where possible.
Merl Reagle's Philadelphia Inquirer crossword, "School Days" (also the L.A. Calendar puzzle this week)
Cute theme, with assorted classroom-related puns. Nine theme entries occupy about 130 squares, which feels like a lot and may account for a few compromises in the fill (RESTOLE, BESTUD, and the I-think-it's-little-known LACOMBE, Lucien). Overall, it's par for the Merl course. For more, see PuzzleGirl's post at L.A. Crossword Confidential.
Bonnie Gentry and Vic Fleming's syndicated Los Angeles Times crossword, "Signs of Burnout"
Bonnie and Vic don't just co-construct the occasional crossword—they've also teamed up to edit the Random House Casual Crosswords series. Volume 7, the first under their leadership, just hit bookstores a few weeks ago. If you're fond of easy crosswords or need a gift for someone who does, check out Casual Crosswords.
So, Vic and Bonnie's L.A. Times puzzle is, like LATs of recent weeks, on the easy side. The theme is phrases with an embedded ASH joining two of the words in the phrase, which sounds like a really dry theme but the theme entries themselves have plenty of spark to them—in particular, TEXAS HOLD 'EM, HAVE A SHORT FUSE, BIG MOMMA'S HOUSE, MARIA SHRIVER, and HANG OUT A SHINGLE. Smooth fill overall. For more commentary on this crossword, I refer you to PuzzleGirl's post at our other blog.
Henry Hook's Boston Globe crossword, "Solvin' Time"
Happy (slightly belated) birthday to Henry Hook! (I didn't imagine that, right? Somebody commented on Friday that it was his birthday?)
The theme entries take phrases that end with an N sound and insert a schwa before the N to get an elided -in' verb ending. My favorite theme answer: John Wayne turns into JOHN WEIGHIN', or [Bathroom scale's purpose?].
A few oddball entries in the fill: DEPEW is a [Suburb of Buffalo] that I'd never heard of, UPDART ([Rise suddenly]) is unfamiliar, and I can't say I've thought about DEMIST ([Rid of condensation]) before. Favorite fill: CHIA PET ([The first one looked like a ram]); LA-Z-BOY ([Recliner name]); and ZILLION ([Ginormous amount]).
Martin Ashwood-Smith's CrosSynergy "Sunday Challenge"
Aw, come on! Is it just me, or has the Sunday Challenge been markedly easier in recent months than it used to be? And the Saturday L.A. Times puzzles have been eased up, plus the New York Sun ceased publication about a year ago. The universe of "themeless puzzles that put up a fight" seems to keep shrinking. If the themeless Sunday puzzle takes less time than the themed ones the rest of the week, why the heck is it still called "Sunday Challenge"? Just change the name to "Easy Themeless" and be done with it. Truth in advertising!
All righty, then. What's in this crossword? Two triple stacks of 15s with a staggered stack of 11s in the middle. Mostly solid stuff, not a load of sparkle. I like the middle 11s best.
September 19, 2009
Sunday, 9/20/09
July 09, 2009
Friday, 7/10
BEQ 8:08
NYT 5:10
LAT 4:04
CHE 3:04
CS 6:05 (J—paper)
WSJ 7:40
Joe Krozel's New York Times crossword
Well, lookee here. The town where my best friend lived before she moved back to Chicagoland is featured in the Friday puzzle: CREVE / COEUR, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. 7/9A are clued as [Missouri city whose name means "broken heart"], and the grid's pattern is that of a broken heart. For those who are curious, I believe the locals pronounce it more like "creeve core" than the French would.
Outside of that answer combo and the diagramless-puzzle-style picture, it's largely a themeless crossword, isn't it? With 64 words (rather low word count), but a standard 38 black squares. My general rule of thumb is this: If it's a 64-worder or less and it's not by Patrick Berry, it probably has a lot of fill that underwhelms me. The rule stands. (See below.)
I was smoking this puzzle (well, not DanFeyeresquely or TylerHinmannishly) and clicked the "Done!" button with 3:57 on the clock...and then spent the remainder of my time trying to root out one errant square. Eventually I found it: I had HAIL in place of HEIL for 19A [Greeting with a salute]. Crikey, we're evoking the famous Hitler salute now, are we? And with no hint that the answer is German? That's weird. If I'd scanned the Down answers first, I'd have spotted SURGA PROTECTORS, but no, I started with the Acrosses. (Should be SURGE PROTECTORS, 6D [They may avert computer damage]). To go along with the unpleasantness of HEIL, we have CRUEL AND UNUSUAL clued as 1D [Torturous, perhaps], connected to TRUE CONFESSIONS, 44A [Story-filled magazine since 1922]. 44A would be utterly fantastic in a puzzle that wasn't seemingly linking torture and confessions. Waterboarding, anyone?
The 64-Word Rule is borne out by an awkward chunk in the upper right and a profusion of prefix action. The chunk is the abbreviation MOLS clued as 4D [Compound fractions: Abbr.]—trying to trick us into thinking about numbers like 4 1/2 when the answer is a chemistry abbreviation is mean. The M crossing, MRS, is clued as a 4A [Form check box option], which is a rather vague clue for a 3-letter abbreviation crossing two other abbreviations. 5D [Old bus maker] is REO, of Speed Wagon, Ransom Eli Olds fame.
I actually used the 64-Word Rule as a solving aid. 10D [Fix, as a shower stall]...hmm, RETILE, crossing another RE-word, REHIRE, or 24A [Bring back on board]. Towards the middle, PREVENTS and PREMARITAL party with RELATE and RELIEF. (Psst: RELATE is beneath PREMARITAL, which is clued with a form of that word, [Like some relations].) EMANANT is one of those words you might never hear uttered; it means 47A [Flowing forth]. Then there's the two-part answer ONE/-A-CAT, 45/41D, a [quaint sandlot game]. If you've done a ton of crosswords, you probably see this rendered as one-o-cat more than one-a-cat. Crosswordese crashes into same where ESSE, a 43D [Forum infinitive], meets ESTOP, or 43D [Bar].
48A would have been a gimme with a pop-culture clue like [Actress Dawson of "Rent"], but with [Argentine port on the Parana]. ROSARIO is Argentina's third largest city. When looking for my wrong square, I gave the stink eye to every answer crossing this unfamiliar city name.
Now, I do have to give props to Joe K. for the four swaths of open space in the grid, the interconnection of the three 15s, and these clues and answers:
• 11A. LAURELS are the [Composition of some crowns]. Thought of royalty and/or dentistry, didn't you?
• 17A. [The Monkeemobile, e.g.] was a GTO. Had no idea, but late-'60s 3-letter car clue usually means GTO.
• 50A. [Housekeeper player on "Benson"] is Inga SWENSON. With that crosswordesey first name, her last name is usually banished to the clues. I like the switcheroo.
• 2D. FERRET OUT is a great phrase. It means [Dig up].
• 3D. When I was a kid, a [Rubber] was an OVERSHOE. "When it rains, Daddy always wears rubbers." The Totes-brand rubbers seemed to fall out of fashion by the time I learned that rubber = condom, too.
• 19D. Geo-trivia: [It has departments named Nord, Sud and Ouest] clues HAITI. I didn't know that, and there are probably some 5-letter African countries with French colonial history, but the crossings led me to the right answer.
Updated Friday morning:
Martin Ashwood-Smith's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Mail Order"—Janie's review
"Wait, oh yeah, wait a minute, Mr. Postman! Wa-ai-ai-ait, Mr. Postman!. I'd think you'd really enjoy this easy, breezy made-to-order puzzle that celebrates those cancelled items you carry in your delivery bag!"
We don't get lots of theme fill today—only three phrases— but what we do get is "cherce," as is the non-theme fill with its many seven-, eight- and nine-letter words.
But first a look at the theme entries, the last word of which is mail-related:
Now, about those "many seven-, eight- and nine-letter words"—let's take a look at 'em. To [Fill with confidence] is to INSPIRE, and when one ATTAINS more self-confidence, one's STATURE [Eminence] may be bolstered as well. (This, of course, is the lesson of Jim, the Gentleman Caller in The Glass Menagerie.) The final seven, REPOSED [Slept], seems to be a CS first. Ditto both of the eights: HIGH-TECH [Advanced, in a way] (so we're lookin' for an adjective here and not a verb) and LAMPPOST [Part of a street light]. The four nines are HIROSHIMA [Enola Gay target of 1945] (it's not always that we get all of that information at once in the puzzles), the homier PIE CRUSTS [They should be flaky], and two more CS debuts: KNOW-IT-ALL with its sassy [Wisenheimer] clue, and LIP-READER with its original-to-Nancy Salomon-and-so-encore-worthy clue [One who can see what you're saying]. This is all really good fill. Imoo...
Other fill and/or clues that caught my fancy:
Ken Bessette's Los Angeles Times crossword
In discussing this week's CrosSynergy added-units-of-measure themes, constructor Patrick Blindauer said it's easier for solvers to pick up on add-letter themes than subtraction themes. Today's L.A. Times crossword made its subtraction fairly obvious, I thought, as RANGE BEDFELLOWS is clearly "strange bedfellows" minus the ST. "Bedfellows" gets little use in English without being paired with "strange."
Now, I was thinking the theme's purpose was booting the saints out of the grid, but 64A is STOUT, a [Heavy brew, and a clue to this puzzle's theme]. Take the ST OUT, and there's your theme description. Now, there's an interesting question from "imsdave" over at Rex's L.A. Crossword Confidential writeup today—"As a (very) novice constructor, and only for my own edification, is it OK to have STET/STENO/STOWS/STEWARDS/ATLAST in a puzzle with this theme?" Ideally, yes, there wouldn't be other STs left in the grid. I don't think it's a fatal error to include them, as the theme entries are considerably longer than everything else and their clues are all question-marked. But it's perhaps not as elegant as if the fill had meticulously avoided any STs aside from the STOUT entry.
Interesting incidental pairings popped out at me. First, there's Hitchcock's THE BIRDS, a 9D [1963 thriller set in Bodega Bay], and a CROAK isn't just for frogs and raspy voices, it's also 14A [Raven's sound]. Crows, ravens, and blackbirds creep me out. LANAI, clued as 19D [It's part of Maui County], evokes both the Hawaiian LUAU (59A [Outdoor feast]) and the 60% matchy SINAI (61A [Peninsula bordering Israel]). 31A is WAWA, or [Baba ___: Gilda Radner persona], and BAA BAA is a 22A [Sheepish response?]. And then there's the double hit of old-school crosswordese: the ETUI is a 50D [Sewing case] and an ADIT is 55D [Ore seeker's entrance] to a mine.
Michael Ashley's Chronicle of Higher Education crossword, "Old-Time Religion"
I had one of my fastest-ever CHE solves on this one, which is odd because really, a puzzle commemorating the quincentennial birthday of John Calvin isn't remotely in my wheelhouse. There must be a lot of easier clues and straightforward crossings here. CALVINISM anchors the grid and it's clued as the [Religious doctrine whose founder was born July 10, 1509. The HUGUENOTS practiced Calvinism. The BAPTISTS practice a modified version. PRESBYTERIANS (anagram of Britney Spears!) ply an elder-led version. And the PURITANS had their ascetic version. You can learn more about the Puritans in a lighter vein from Sarah Vowell's book, The Wordy Shipmates.
Brendan Quigley and Francis Heaney's Wall Street Journal crossword, "On the Waterfront>"
I spaced out on noticing the tightness of the theme while I was solving. I was moseying along, enjoying the homophone theme just fine without realizing that every homophone in the nine theme entries is "On the Waterfront" (PIER, QUAY, DAM) or a body of water itself (BAYOU, SEA, LOCH, STRAIT, river DELTA, BROOK). For example. COMBINATION LOCH (lock) is a [Scottish body of water that connects to another?]. SEA SECTION, playing on C-section, is clued as [The Bermuda Triangle, e.g.?]. And HOW'S BAYOU goes with the clue ["Where should we catch crawfish"? reply, perhaps?], playing on the intensely colloquial "How's by you?"
My favorites bits of fill include PECCADILLO, GOLDARN, BIG BANDS clued as [Groups of swingers?], the SIERRA CLUB, IRISH PUB ([Place to get stout]), ROMULANS, and the NEWARK/LATIFAH combo—100A NEWARK is [Aaron Burr's birthplace], while 80D is LATIFAH, [Queen born in 100-Across]. [Blue blood vessels?] is a cool clue for YACHTS, too.
Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Themeless Friday"
I can't assess this puzzle on its merits because the solving environment was making me cranky. The workers next door were dismantling some scaffolding and dropping big metal pipe structures into a truck bed. And the streetsweeper rolled by with its nonstop truck-in-reverse beeping. And my foot is throbbing. And I knew how fast other solvers on the leaderboard were, so I wanted to fly through it—but the distractions were totally getting in the way of that. As were the clues. Oy! I slowed myself down with Lucy's brother LINUS (whoops, needed RERUN) and Namath the NFLER (whoops, N.Y. JET). Someone on the internet was just talking about parsing PASYSTEM as "passy stem," and boy, I just couldn't grasp the P.A. SYSTEM clued as a [Rally rental]. I was looking for some sort of truck, and the PASY start killed me.
I liked LIVE ON clued as [Eat exclusively]. I could dispute that [Like someone who had a near-death experience] properly describes LUCKY. If you were lucky, wouldn't you avoid having the near-death experience in the first place? Speaking of death, I know that Jay-Z has a newish "Death of AUTO-TUNE" cut because I read The Assimilated Negro's blog, but I haven't actually clicked any of the links to have a listen. Is that bad? That I can answer [Oft-used computer plug-in used in modern music] without the slightest understanding of what Auto-Tune does?
March 26, 2009
Friday, 3/27
NYT 6:32
BEQ 5:43
CHE 3:49
LAT 3:46
CS 3:05
WSJ 7:05
Paula Gamache's New York Times crossword
The centerpiece in Paula's puzzle is a [Certain sex scandal, in slang], or BIMBO ERUPTION. That's just one of 20-some multi-word entries in this puzzle—considerably more phrases than were in the last two Saturday NYTs. This is part of what gives the crossword its extra-fresh feeling. Among my favorite answers and clues, the puzzle boasts these:
And now for the tough stuff:
Overall, this is a smooth crossword, with relatively few 3-letter answers and short abbreviations, and no words I'd never seen. I'm prepared for a strange word in a Saturday puzzle, but when it's Friday, I'm not expecting any outré obscurities. (And ACUATE didn't feel obscure to me—I sort of thought it was a standard botanical word but perhaps not.)
Michael Ashley's Chronicle of Higher Education crossword
These CHE puzzles are edited by Patrick Berry, Crossword Maestro. There's now a Patrick Berry Facebook fan club with 33 members.
This week's CHE offering is "Ell-isions." At first, I was looking for deleted ELL's in the theme entries, but eventually I saw that all that's been removed from them is a single letter L. Each theme answer began life as a book title:
The clues I couldn't answer without the crossings were (1) [1995 Isabel Allende memoir] is PAULA; (2) [Pietro Mascagni opera] is IRIS; (3) [Author of the "Strangers and Brothers" novls] is C.P. SNOW; and (4) [Nom de guerre of Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar] is EL CID. My goodness, I'm feeling unliterate. At least I knew that ["Lolita" character ___ Darkbloom] is VIVIAN Darkbloom, an anagram of Vladimir Nabokov. Alas, [Showgirl's name in Barry Manilow's "Copacabana"] was an instant gimme for me.
Updated:
My son's off school today, so I slept in. Sleeping in is great, but when you eventually realize that you've got four crosswords to blog about in short order, it's a rude (belated) awakening. Onward!
I have been taken to task for not criticizing the use of BIMBO ERUPTION in the NYT crossword, owing to the phrase's innate sexism. No, the women in the noted Clintonian "bimbo eruptions" should not be cast as bimbos, not even if it was a female politico who coined the phrase. Yes, the American media and populace are unreasonably fixated on supposed moral transgressions that really were none of their business unless they were one of the people involved. But if anyone is going to be maligned in a scenario of adulterous goings-on, it's got to be the married individual who's violating a spouse's trust (provided that the relationship is not an "open" one) and not the single person. How often do we hear that a single woman is a "home wrecker" rather than blaming the man who disrespected his wife? Really. As in "bimbo eruption" scenarios, the blame is shifted from a man to a woman, and it's patently unfair and sexist. It's as if men are innocents with no control over their behavior, led astray by women who dare to have sex outside of marriage. It takes two to tango, and if only one of the tangoers is betraying someone, let the scorn fall squarely on the betrayer.
Spencer Corden's Los Angeles Times crossword
This is Spencer Corden's first puzzle—congratulations! He's inserted a PRE into four phrases to create the theme entries, which are made-up phrases with question-marked clues:
I had no idea that HIPPY was the missing word in [PBS's "The ___ Gourmet TV Show"]. Is this a current or old show? I learned a new plural today: a FINN from Finland is [One who used to spend markkaa]. Before the euro came along, I know the markka was Finland's unit of currency, but I'd never seen the double-A plural form. Whenever I see [Triathletes] referred to as IRONMEN or encounter the Ironman Triathlon, I grumble that the term completely overlooks the women who compete.
Brendan Emmett Quigley's blog crossword, "Jeesh"
Brendan's Friday puzzle takes some phrases with an SH in them, changes the sound to J, and adjusts the spelling as needed to end up with real words in the theme entries. [Cushioned door part?] is a PILLOW JAMB (pillow sham). [Cord to plug in one's receiver to a home stereo?] clues RADIO JACK (the Radio Shack store). Man, did I get mired with AUDIO JACK there. A puppet show turns into PUPPET JOE, or [Vice President Biden installed by the Shadow Government?]. A [Dark Humvee?] would be a BLACK JEEP of sorts (black sheep)—that was the first theme entry where I had the slightest understanding of how the theme worked. A roof shingle becomes ROOF JINGLE, or [Sound heard on Christmas Eve?].
Nobody's excited by variant prefixes (DEK-), letter runs (RST), directions (ESE), partials (IN AID), or old crosswordese (ECU), but there's plenty of good stuff to offset the cruciverbal detritus. The best entries are TULSA, OK; the QB SNEAK; "JAVA JIVE"; SUDOKU; and a DIMWIT. Good to see LUIS clued as [Actor Guzmán]—that guy steals every scene he's in. I was just mentioning soma in the CHE write-up, and here Brendan clues SOMA as ["Brave New World" drug]. I have no idea who TEK is—this [Boston Red Sox captain's nickname]. TEK should be Ted Kennedy's nickname.
Thomas Schier's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Body Language"
The theme entries here are four verb-ONE's-body-part phrases. I wish such crossword answers would routinely swap out the ONE'S and give us YOUR, but what constructor wants to cede the crossword-friendly letters of ONES and have to contend with trickier Y and U instead? If you [Show great interest], you CRANE ONE'S NECK. (Sigh. I want to use "you" but then I get backed into a nongrammatical corner and am forced to one it up.) If one wishes to [Show disinterest], one CLOSES ONE'S EYES. To SHAKE ONE'S HEAD is to [Show agreement or disagreement]. Wait, what? In America, we shake our head "no" and nod our head "yes." What's this agreeable head-shaking? To CLENCH ONE'S JAW is to [Show anger].
Trickiest clues:
There's a bit of the Klahnesque clue pairing going on here. ["How Great ___ Art"] (THOU) is followed by "Great" art, ["The Great Forest" painter Max] ERNST. There are two Peters in a row, [TV detective Peter] GUNN and the [1997 Peter Fonda title role] ULEE.
Lex Shue's Wall Street Journal crossword, "Mixed Company"
I suspect "Lex Shue" is a new pseudonym for WSJ puzzle editor Mike Shenk. Is it an anagram of something that makes sense? Each theme entry begins with the name of a company, followed by an anagram of that name. There's an INTEL INLET and some CHASE ACHES (clued without reference to the current woes of the banking system). [Digression from a newspaper company?] is a GANNETT TANGENT. My favorite theme entry is PEPSICO ICE POPS, or [Dessert-on-a-stick products from a soda giant?]. I hadn't noticed before that PEPSICO + L = POPSICLE, but I tried to wedge that POPSICLE in here even though it wouldn't fit—not thematically, not space-wise. STAPLES PASTELS are [Art supplies from an office supply store]. The hardest theme answer to puzzle out was the DIRECTV VERDICT, thanks to that mash-up of direct and TV. That clue is [Ruling in a broadcast satellite company's case?]. The last two entries in the theme are ADOBE ABODE and RYDER DRYER. I didn't run into any tough spots with obscure answers, so hooray for smooth fill.
February 05, 2009
Friday, 2/6
Sun 8:30—cool puzzle—don't miss it
NYT 5:53
BEQ 5:45
LAT 4:16
CHE 3:08
WSJ 6:58
(post last updated at 8:40 p.m. Friday with the Wall Street Journal puzzle)
Do you wish I talked more about me, me, me? If so, you're in luck! Jim Horne's interview is up at the Wordplay blog tonight.
Frederick Healy's New York Times crossword was moving along swiftly for me until I hit the skids in the lower right-hand corner. The answer to [Rally speaker's emphatic response to his own rhetorical question] seems a tad trumped up as crossword answers go: I SAY NO. Having [Modern home of ancient Ebla] crossing a [Site in ancient Thebes] in the same general area didn't help—those are SYRIA and KARNAK, respectively. KARNAK crosses ["Home Improvement" actor Richard] KARN, who went on to host Family Feud. See those K's? They have plenty of company, as there are eight K's in this kooky puzzle. What else did I notice about the clues and answers?
I accidentally did Joon Pahk's Sun crossword, "Transmutation," at the beginning of the week. Whoo, was this ever hard for a Monday! That explains why it's a Friday Sun puzzle. Joon's got five rebus squares distributed in the four longest Across answers, and each one demonstrates a little ALCHEMY by turning lead (Pb) into gold (Au). For example, [Raising support?] clues a PUSH-UP BRA, and the PB changes to AU in the crossing answer, TUSSAUDS ([Place to find lifeless celebs]) modeled in wax). Blow RASPBERRIES crosses an AUGEAN task. TOP BANANA intersects with a CO-AUTHOR, [Someone with whom you might share a spine] without being conjoined twins. The double-rebus answer is the [#1 hit of February 2003], "BUMP, BUMP, BUMP" (video here), which I have never even heard of. If it wasn't a song aimed at toddlers, I wasn't encountering it in 2003. The song title crosses JUNEAU and HAULS.
I loved the alchemical rebus transmutation, and also relished its challenge and the overall toughness of the puzzle's clues and fill. Plus PECAN is followed by KARO, which is followed by JIMS. My dad JIM'S recipe for PECAN pie is modified from the one on the KARO corn syrup bottle—just use two or three times as many pecans as the recipe calls for so that it's pecans all the way down to the crust.
Updated:
Todd McClary's LA Times crossword has some genius moments that entertained me. The four OUT OF AMMUNITION theme entries are out of ammo because they've lost the BB that was in the original phrase:
Here are my favorite parts of this crossword:
Brendan Emmett Quigley's crossword today is a themeless one called "Power Grid." In his accompanying post, he talks about crossword entries that some label "contrived":Superstar constructors like Byron Walden and Joe DiPietro pull this trick off all the time. Typically their work is so open or so filled with good stuff, they'll inevitably be forced to have to stretch the rules just enough to use completely plausible entires that are very colloquial, yet aren't in any dictionaries, and just barely in everyday speech. I think some solvers are on the fence about them; the case against is they're a little too contrived. Generally, I love those entries the best because, at the very least, they're completely original. And freshness is always going to win out over seeing the same old tired repeaters.
Brendan's got a few such answers in this puzzle, but he also has some incredibly zippy and fresh answers that aren't at all contrived—[Pocket game, perhaps] clues IPHONE APP. iPhone users love to load their phones with fun applications, but IPHONEAPP probably wasn't in any constructor's word database 'til now. Same with SEXTING, clued as [Modern-day booty call]. Who uses this term? I don't know. I don't. But I'm sure it's out there and I'm equally sure it's never appeared in the NYT crossword. MADMEN used to be just a word, but now it's gained currency as Mad Men, the award-winning TV series, so it looks hipper in the grid. CAF is here clued as [Half-___ (order to a barista)]. There might not be any other decent way to clue CAF, but it works perfectly and it's au courant.
I'm less fond of REDIGS and REMOLDS, and the set of "answers that may be considered contrived" includes WE MET, AMUSE ME, and I'M ALONE. Making their inclusion more tolerable is the presence of other lively answers like GAY ICON ([Cher or Madonna, e.g.]), SHEBANG ([Whole amount?]), ONCOMING traffic, the CERUMEN/OUTER EAR combo, and Mickey SPILLANE. ["Sex and the City" siren] really needed to be SAMANTHA, but only MIRANDA would fit the space.
Michael Ashley's Chronicle of Higher Education crossword, "Reading Lits," features four novels whose titles have been changed by transposing an ST into a TS. The resulting title is clued, with the author's name there to lead the way to the answer:
No sign of the Across Lite version of the Wall Street Journal crossword yet—Lloyd Mazer, who voluntarily does the work to get the puzzle converted into Across Lite and hosts the files on his server, has a brand new granddaughter (yay!), so perhaps he has been too busy cooing at a baby to post this puzzle. I can wait. Babies are cute.
Updated Friday evening:
Indeed, Lloyd Mazer was too busy with that grandbaby to post the Wall Street Journal crossword earlier. "Divine Inspiration" is the name of the game, and its author is Pancho Harrison. I was rather pleased with myself for figuring out the tie-in between title and theme well before reaching the explanatory answer at 132-Across, [Part of Bette Midler's nickname (and what the starred answers do)]—MISS M. Each of the nine theme answers has lost its initial M and the resulting new phrase is what's clued:
Drop-a-letter themes can easily fall flat, but I quite enjoyed this crossword. The theme entries had some fun little surprises, like Mark Twain minus the M and the aforementioned ASS MARKETING. I swear the WSJ puzzle has gotten easier lately. Do you think the editorial powers-that-be have instructed editor Mike Shenk to go easy on their readership in these recessionary times?
December 04, 2008
Friday, 12/5
NYT 7:35
LAT 5:14
Sun 4:25
CHE 3:48
CS 3:11
WSJ 8:18
(updated at 9:15 Friday morning)
Joe Krozel's got another New York Times crossword a week after his last one. This time it's a 72-word themeless in which just 20 of the words are 7 letters or longer. When the word count's 68 to 72, I like to see some crazy fill—really fresh phrases, a preponderance of Scrabbly letters, that sort of thing. This puzzle didn't go as far in that direction as I'd've hoped.
Here's the stuff I liked:
There's an emphasis on the first person here. I'M LATE ([Cry from the White Rabbit]), SO I ["___ hear"], I SEE NOW (["Oh, so that's it"]), and GOT ME (["I haven't the foggiest!"]).
Less obvious clues:
This is the second time that Peter Gordon has given us two days in a row of themeless Sun puzzles. Does this mean that more than 20% of the puzzles Peter had accepted before the New York Sun folded were themeless, and maybe we'll have some more 40% themeless weeks? I hope so!
Karen Tracey's "Weekend Warrior" is a 70-worder with two double-stacks of 15's bound together by SANDRA BULLOCK, who [played Harper Lee in "Infamous"]. The 15's include a GENEROUS MEASURE of FROZEN DAIQUIRIS, The THREE FACES OF EVE, and the ALASKAN KING CRAB the crab boats are catching on Deadliest Catch (it's a dangerous job, though far more of the fishing crews survive than the crabs). Highlights besides the long babies:
Michael Ashley's Chronicle of Higher Education crossword, "Heavenly Bodies," isn't about astronomy. It's about SATAN and his angels, written about in Paradise Lost by John MILTON. Next Tuesday is Milton's 400th BDAY (35-Down). I seem to recall taking a 5-week class devoted to Paradise Lost, but I'm not the most attentive reader because I got some of those angel names strictly from the crossings. They're MAMMON and MOLOCH, GABRIEL and URIEL, BELIAL and RAPHAEL, and the crowd favorite, BEELZEBUB. All of these theme entries are placed in symmetrical locations in the grid. My favorite clue: [Swiped item?] for ATM CARD.
Randolph Ross's Wall Street Journal crossword is called "Job De-Scriptions," and each theme entry is a made-up phrase in which a word that has to do with a particular job is placed into a DE___ED slot before the job name. Does that make sense? Here are some examples:
A reporter works as part of the press, so an [Unhappy newspaper worker?] is a DEPRESSED REPORTER. Is she depressed because she's been de-pressed?
[Hardworking candidate?] is a DEVOTED POLITICIAN. Is she devoted, or is she working hard to regain a seat she was de-voted from? (See N. CAR., [Sen. Dole's state], for instance!)
I don't quite know if the de___ing is intended to suggest negation of the ___ word. Because a DELIGHTED ARSONIST wouldn't be a [Pleased pyromaniac?], would he? If the light has been taken away, wouldn't the arsonist be frustrated? But "pleased" means DELIGHTED. So...I'm not quite sure how this theme works.
James Sajdak's LA Times crossword changes a U to an O in each theme entry:
I'm not sure why 6-Across is SAE, [MS. enclosure], rather than SHE. H-BOMB would be as sound as A-BOMB, clued as [Los Alamos project]. Other clues: A [Foretopman, e.g.] is a SAILOR; new word for me in the clue. The [English poet laureate, 1790-1813] was PYE; don't know him. [Musical motif, to Mascagni] is the Italian word TEMA.
Updated:
Patrick Blindauer's CrosSynergy crossword, "T for Two," has a very basic theme: two-word phrases with T.T. initials. There's no Ted Turner or taste test this time, but there are six other phrases:
Hostess HO HOS are an [Alternative to Twinkies], and the ingredients no longer include animal fat. Vegetarians take note: The Ho Hos I had last month were tiny and dry. Overall, the filling is quite smooth in this puzzle—less so in the snack cakes.
October 02, 2008
Friday, 10/3
NYT 6:26
Sun 5:13
LAT 4:53
CHE 4:28
CS 3:03
WSJ 7:23
Here's how my evening went: I solved the Sun puzzle and drafted the second part of this blog post. Then I started watching the debate around 8:40 (DVR-assisted), but had to rewind when my husband returned to the living room. Then it was NYT crossword time, and my husband wanted an explanation right then about the various metrics on screen on CNN. Dude! I'm trying to do a crossword here! I finished the puzzle and then spent the next two hours watching the debate and reading the early reactions. Now I have to review the crossword again to blog about it, but my mind's been filled with other stuff for the last two hours. One thing I learned in the interim: Bosniak or Bosniac is indeed a word. All sorts of pinheads on the internet are talking about that as if it's a gaffe, but Biden does know his foreign policy. That's my new word for the day.
The New York Times crossword by Harvey Estes features triple-stacked 15-letter entries at the top and bottom of the grid:
Tough stuff:
Favorite clues: To [Be in the red for black and tans] is to RUN A TAB at a bar. A PICNIC is a [Take-out meal?]. [Good day?: Abbr.] is FRI, as in Good Friday. KERNELS are what's meant in [They cover the ears]. [You might exchange words with them] refers to INITIALS, as in exchanging United States for U.S. [Head pieces] are JAWS—this one's kinda weird, but the maxilla and mandible are indeed parts in the plural. An ARIA is an [Unlikely number for a rock concert]. RENT-A-CAR is [National service] in that National is a car rental agency. And [One stripping on a kitchen counter] refers not to any scene in Fatal Attraction but rather, to a PARER of vegetables.
Karen Tracey's Sun crossword, a themeless "Weekend Warrior," posed a strange challenge. It had far more than the usual quotient of things I absolutely didn't know, and yet the crossings and some judicious guessing allowed me to complete the puzzle in a decent amount of time. Without further ado, the biggest mysteries to me:
Let's take a moment to talk about the construction itself. This puppy's got 70 words, which gives Karen some leeway to pack it with some cool entries. You see the black square above 15-Down, OPART, and its counterpart below 44-Down, PAINS? Many people in the business call those "cheaters" because if they were white squares, the puzzle would still have the same total word count (but the answers that intersect in those squares would each be a letter longer). Rich Norris, editor of the Los Angeles Times crossword, said he calls 'em "helpers": because that's what they do, they help the constructor devise a better fill for the puzzle. I like that reframing.
So, what's the cool stuff? There's the JOFFREY BALLET down the middle, clued a bit misleadingly as [Chicago company] as if it were part of the business community in the Windy City. The J is shared by JOLT COLA, whose C is also part of a SCHMEAR of cream cheese. French geography gets the COTE D'OR ([Department in France's Bourgogne region]). And my favorite answer is FAT ALBERT, clued as a [Friend of Dumb Donald]. I enjoyed the clues, my favorites being these:
A big thanks to Peter Gordon for committing to releasing online the backlog of Sun gems like this one.
Updated:
Donna Levin's LA Times crossword changes C__ words into CH__ words in the quintet of theme entries:
There's plenty of fill in the 6- to 8-letter range, and plenty of clues that left me wondering.
My favorite clue is the one for HIC: [Sound resulting from a synchronous diaphragm flutter]. SHEA gets a historical clue, [2000 World Series venue]. Now that the stadium's being replaced by Citifield, look for more past-tense SHEA clues. SPAM is the [Product with its own museum in Minnesota]—southern Minnesota's Austin, to be specific. My mother just vacationed in Austin.
Michael Ashley's Chronicle of Higher Education crossword, "Space Invaders," is a trivia crossword focusing on American space missions, in celebration of the 50th birthday of NASA (61-Across) this week. The eight theme entries are short but blanket the puzzle in symmetrical spots, as you can see from my solution grid (I added circles for the thematic parts). I'm sure NASA missions captivate many of you, but this theme didn't move me. Favorite clue: [Drew upon one's notes?] for DOODLED. I also liked the clue for MOP, [Their heads are generally kept down].The word LOANS is clued as [Subprime offerings]; this includes subprime credit cards as well as mortgages. I don't know if those sources of credit have dried up this fall.
Sarah Keller's CrosSynergy crossword, "The End of an Argument," was a good bit easier than the other Friday puzzles. 55-Down, or WORD, anchors the puzzle: [The last one ends an argument and can be attached to the last one of 21-, 31-, 40-, and 50-Across]. The clue's forced to be clunky to avoid using the word word in a clue for WORD. The first theme answer is IGNITION KEY, or [Car starter], which gives us a key word. FORWARD PASS, or [Quarterback's option], yields a password. The SAFETY CATCH, or [Secure bracelet clasp], produces a catchword. DOUBLE CROSS is an [Act of betrayal] and hey! this one gives us a crossword.
Myles Callum's Wall Street Journal puzzle is called "Liquid Assets" because the letters in the word ASSET appear in that order within each theme entry. Those theme entries are are all clued with [Liquid asset for ___] phrases, but the answers aren't all things that could be considered "liquid assets." [Liquid asset for what a burgler does], for example, is CASES THE JOINT. So the "liquid asset" part of the clue isn't meant to have a meaning aside from signaling the liquidity of the spaced-out ASSETs. My favorite clues were [It's no salt shaker] for a CALM SEA and [Baby berths?] for UTERI. Answers I liked best included TRAIPSE, MR. DEEDS and MR TOAD, THE BOSS, and ELIOT NESS. I thought the puzzle would've fallen faster than it did, given that I was able to enter the ASSET letters in all the theme entries early on, but maybe going ahead and entering those letters wasted time better spent answering the clues.
April 17, 2008
Friday, 4/18
NYS 5:31
NYT 4:59
LAT 4:13
CHE 3:53
Jonesin' 3:48
CS 3:11
WSJ 6:49
In Joe DiPietro's New York Times crossword, most of the longer answers and all of the 9s are phrases rather than words. I'm definitely a fan of phrasal crossword entries, though it felt like there were a lot of prepositions floating around. BUTTED OUT ([Quit meddling]) crossed EVEN OUT ([Become balanced]), PUT A BID ON ([Tried to buy]) sat atop ON THE MEND ([Improving]) across from ON LOW ([Simmering]), and other entries included AT (STOP AT, [Pay a visit to]) or UP (SLIP-UP, [Blunder]) or TO (WENT TO BED, [Retired]).
Favorite entries and clues:
Gnarly bits:
Karen Tracey's New York Sun "Weekend Warrior" does indeed have plenty of Scrabbly letters in it—notably in TOPAZ QUARTZ, DIZZY GILLESPIE, and TEXT MESSAGE—but it also had some crossings I didn't like, two involving technical mumbo-jumbo. First, there's the [Intel chip brand] crossing ["___ petit placidam sub libertate quietem" (motto of the Bay State)]. I guessed XEOS and ESSE, but it's XEON and ENSE. (Ouch.) Then there's the crossing between ["Fiddler" figure] and [Baseball Hall of Famer Combs]; I guessed YENTA and EARL A., but it's YENTE and EARLE. Never saw Fiddler on the Roof, and await a lesson on the differences between yenta and yente. New York baseball players who died before my parents were born and who aren't Babe Ruth? Also not a strong point for me. (These two crossings were where Across Lite told me my letters were wrong.) Last, we have [___.net (Microsoft's web application framework)]. Really? Ouch. It's ASP. That got mucked up because I was reading [Spark] as a verb, not a noun, and trying CATALYZE for CATALYST, and that E just wasn't leading anywhere. Favorite clues: [Fictional author of the short story "The Pension Grillparzer"] for GARP; [Source of paper profits?] for newspaper ADS; [Five-time Tour de France winner Indurain] for MIGUEL (a gimme); [Dvorak alternative] for a QWERTY keyboard; [Org. that campaigned unsuccessfull to change the name of Fishkill, New York] for PETA (the name means "fish creek" in Dutch—"creek," not "kill 'em all"); [On the ground, in ballet] for A TERRE (not a term I knew, but it makes sense with minimal knowledge of French); and last but not least, ["Yo, Hadrian!"] for AVE.
Updated:
Nope, the Illinois earthquake this morning didn't awaken me. Drat! Why'd it have to happen in the wee hours when I was sound asleep?
Patrick Jordan's CrosSynergy puzzle, "GQ," twists a common misspelling/typo—the intermingling of plaque and plague—into a theme. We get a PLAQUE OF LOCUSTS, QUILT COMPLEX, and QUEST OF HONOR, with Gs being replaced by Qs. The puzzle's a pangram, too—all 26 letters are used at least once in the grid.
I did Doug Peterson's LA Times puzzle right after the CrosSynergy—whaddaya know, another theme with Qs! In this one, each of four phrases gets a QUE (which means WHAT, 61-Down, in Spanish) inserted somewhere. My favorite was the conversion of St. Elsewhere into QUEST ELSEWHERE, or ["Do not seek the Grail in this place"?]. The other theme entries ended up with ANTIQUE, PARQUET, and BASQUE in them. There's another QUE word in the fill crossing the theme—PLAQUES! It's officially the award of the day in crosswordland. Also, if you were looking for "bust A GUT" in the NYT crossword and frustrated not to find it, it's right here at 6-Across. Favorite clue: [Tried to get hits] for GOOGLED.
Sheesh! Now I've done Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword, "A Greet Addition," and there's a LOCUST clued as [Insect in a plague], so I've circled back to the morning's first puzzle. I would now like a plaque depicting a locust. Three theme entries take a foreign-language greeting and add a letter to change the sense. BUENOS DIALS and GLUTEN TAG (my favorite one) pick up an L, and KONNICHI WAG adds a G—Spanish, German, and Italian. "Holla!" would have been a good alternate title for this crossword, no? Really fun puzzle—I enjoyed the fill and clues throughout.
Michael Ashley's Chronicle of Higher Education crossword, "Big Names," features a theme of presidential nicknames. Did you know Rutherford B. Hayes' nickname was OLD EIGHT TO SEVEN? I sure didn't. The other four theme entries were familiar, though. Cancer makes an appearance in ANTICANCER, [Powerful drug-treatment class]. Fresh but old clue for AGRA—[United Provinces of ___ and Oudh (former name of Uttar Pradesh)].
The Wall Street Journal puzzle credited to Colin Gale is really WSJ crossword editor Mike Shenk's work. In "Company Acquisitions," various company names adopt an extra letter and shift their focus. Starbucks, for example, becomes SITARBUCKS, [Company that pays Indian musicians?], and MetLife is MEATLIFE, [Company that promotes the nonvegetarian lifestyle?]. Overall the crossword was pretty easy, but the theme entry clued [Company that sets costs for masons?], T. ROWEL PRICE? I have a vague sense of rowel as something mechanical or tool-oriented. One dictionary says it's "A sharp-toothed wheel inserted into the end of the shank of a spur." What does that have to do with masons, who work with brick and stone? I have no idea, and Google didn't make it any clearer. Here are pictures—again, no sign of masonry.
January 24, 2008
Friday, 1/25
Jonesin' 5:45
NYS 5:36
NYT 5:17
CHE 4:34
LAT 4:25
CS 2:52
WSJ 6:39
The Friday New York Times puzzle by David Quarfoot wasn't one of those that lent itself to jumping right in. 1-Across, [War-torn Baghdad suburb], and 9-Across, [23-Across and others] linked to [Shade shade]. Whuzzah? Fortunately, my eye caught sight of [11 1/2" soldier], which had to be GI JOE, and that got me started. Eventually the crossings in the northwest corner pushed me towards SADR CITY, with its chunk of consonants in the middle. And 9-Across turned out to be BEIGES, linked to ECRU. Another cross-referenced pair is the musical A SHARP ([It's almost a B, scorewise]) with E MAJOR ([Key that doesn't include 58-Across].
My favorite clues and fill: [One and only] for TRUE LOVE; [Fleet runner of myth] for ATALANTA (the Free to Be You and Me version is far superior to the Greek myth); [Powerful piece] for a chess QUEEN; [Boarding spot] for SLOPE (think snowboarding); two baseball bits, YER OUT (great clue, [Call from home]) and MEL OTT's full name (he was the 1936 N.L. leader in slugging percentage]); AVENUE C, [Part of Manhattan's Alphabet City]; "DON'T LIE," "I SEE IT," and "YES, INDEED"; [Underhand?] for PEON (er, not PALM); [Pilot's place] for both a GAS RANGE and the SKY; [Apple application] for ITUNES; [Judge of films] for REINHOLD (cheesy pop culture! Would you believe Reinhold is 50?); ARTICLE VI, which [forbids religious tests for political office]; [Piehole] for TRAP; E.C. SEGAR ([Swee' Pea's creator]); CYRANO crossing CELICA most mellifluously; and uncommon plural DISCI for [Track-and-field equipment].
My most favoritest entry in this grid has got to be KIM JONG-IL, the North Korean [Head of state known to his people as "Dear Leader"]. For a look at the surreal experience that is being a Westerner in North Korea, check out Guy Delisle's graphic memoir, Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea. It's by turns funny, weird, and haunting. And what makes it easier to absorb lessons about unfamiliar cultures than a comic book? If you like travel books, insane dictators, and/or comic books, you will love Pyongyang. (Juche!)
Raise your hand if you know Mr. SOREN, [Archaeologist David who found the lost Roman city of Kourion]. He's much less Google-hot than Soren Kierkegaard and Tabitha Soren.
The 15x16 New York Sun crossword by Kelsey Blakley, "It's Elemental," hinges on expanding chemical symbols into elements' full names. Narrated expands Na to make SODIUM R-RATED. Automate expands Au to GOLD TO MATE. Fe is iron, so the femoral nerve turns into IRON MORAL NERVE. For sheer ridiculousness, you can't beat [Gathering celebrating cassiterite?], or TIN ORE FEST (Sn-orefest). Cu is copper, so the cured ham expands into COPPER-RED HAM. Lots of interesting fill, like the multi-word GO OFF, OD'S ON, and "SIR, NO SIR" ([Grunt's negative]).
Favorite clues: [Shaker mover and shaker?] for ANN LEE; [Ruin] for DAMN; MEAT [wagon (ambulance, in slang)]; [Amour-propre] for EGO; [Peaked] for ILL; [Christmas trees?] for PEARS (from "The Twelve Days of Christmas"); and [Butcher on "The Brady Bunch"] for SAM the butcher. The actor who played Sam the butcher, Allan Melvin, died a week ago. R.I.P.
Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword, "Vote Early," embeds the postal abbreviation for the six states with the earliest primaries or caucuses in existing phrases, warping them into something quite different. Dry dock picks up Iowa: DIARY DOCK. Che Guevara takes Wyoming: CHEWY GUEVARA (this one's my fave). The Showtime series The L Word visits New Hampshire for THE NHL WORD. Hong Kong and Michigan team up for HOMING KONG; Nevada invades a slow cooker for SLOW CONVOKER (meh); and pot pies in South Carolina become POT PISCES ([Stoner born in March, perhaps?]). Lotsa phrases in the fill, but it's the theme I enjoyed most here.
Updated:
The Wall Street Journal puzzle from Randolph Ross is called "Climate Change," and the eight theme entries swap weather-related terms to flip-flop the prevailing conditions. Cool Hand Luke becomes WARM HAND LUKE, Foggy Bottom becomes CLEAR BOTTOM, "warm and fuzzy" turns into COOL AND FUZZY like a refrigerated peach, and WET/DRY and HOT/COLD also trade places. Once one theme entry was in position, the rest became much easier.
Sarah Keller's CrosSynergy puzzle, "On-screen Illumination," bundles four movie titles that end with the words DAY, MOON, BACK, and FLASH, all of which can be followed by LIGHT (the central entry). Good, light (appropriately!) puzzle, with plenty of names in the grid—the names make it easy for me, but I know some people get bogged down by a crossword that has a preponderance of names (over a dozen here).
Michael Ashley's January 25 Chronicle of Higher Education crossword, "Carriage Trade," demands familiarity with the names of old carriages and a willingness to pun with them. The HANSOM DEVIL and CHAISE MANHATTAN (cf. Chase Bank's old name), sure. Piece of cake. BROUGHAM CLOSET and COACH POTATO, fine. But DELPHIC CURRICLE? Are curricles well-known enough in academic circles? I didn't know the word, but then, I never read Northanger Abbey. (Is this the same Michael Ashley whose acrostics I've been doing in Games magazine lo these many years?)
(Friday-morning breakfast test violation and pointless tangent: Keller's puzzle contains ORACLE and Ashley's plays on "Delphic oracle." Around these parts, we've taken to using "the Oracle of Sphincter" as a euphemism for certain unseen emissions. Is this Oracle's wisdom any less valid than that divined from an array of tea leaves in a cup? I think not. Listen and the secrets of life will be revealed to you.)
The theme in Donna Levin's LA Times crossword puns on Scottish words (with one pun also swapping in a cholesterol-lowering medication). In the fill, boring ol' RTES is updated with [MapQuest offerings: Abbr.] Really, is anyone under the age of 60 still getting their route recommendations from AAA? Sure, AAA's little Triptyk book of maps is handy, but it takes a lot less time to print out your maps from the internet. (GoogleMaps is better than MapQuest, if you ask me.) Factoid I learned: JEAN is a [Cotton textile named for an Italian city], Genoa. Now, I knew denim was derived from de Nimes, but how did I not know the jean/Genoa link?
