Saturday, 8/29/09

Newsday about 6 minutes
NYT 4:17
LAT 3:34
CS untimed (Across clues only)

Doug Peterson's New York Times crossword

See? Didn't I say yesterday that Shortz foozled the order of the puzzles? I found the Friday Quarfoot to be a Saturday challenge, while the Saturday Peterson is a mere Fridayish bagatelle.

The grid's sort of a double-decker Z, with stacked pairs of 15s at the top and bottom joined by two diagonal swaths. The highlights are high, even if the puzzle didn't put up as much of a fight as I hope for on a Saturday:

• 1A. Mike MUSSINA is the crossword-lovin' [2001-08 Yankees pitcher with seven Gold Gloves]. He was cute in Wordplay.
  
• 8. "J'ACCUSE!" That's a [Headline during the Dreyfus Affair]. Zola, right? Yeah. My husband and I like to say that with a dramatic pointing of the finger. Household blaming is so much more fun when done in Zolaesque fashion.
  
• 17A. My kid was just asking me about CELL PHONE TOWERS this afternoon. They're [Some coverage providers] that have nothing to do with insurance or clothing.
  
• 41A. [Otto follows it] is not about an old emperor or Bart Simpson's schoolbus driver. Nope, it's about the number 8 in Italian, which follows SETTE, or 7.
  
• 44A/45A. Good gravy, a pair of Peter and the Wolf clues? ["Peter and the Wolf" bird] is SASHA, and ["Peter and the Wolf" duck] is SONIA. Is SONIA the oboe? What's the other one?
  
• 46A. [Something shown off on a half-pipe] is a SKATEBOARD TRICK. I believe snowboarding also uses the half-pipe.
  
• 51A. HONESTY? [It can be brutal].
  
• 2D. [Butterflies, say], metaphorically, are a sense of UNEASE.
  
• 8D. Okay, this isn't a highlight so much as the most insane clue/answer combo all week. A [Bullying seabird] is a JAEGER? Hasn't tennis's Andrea Jaeger been out of the spotlight long enough to be a tough Saturday clue?
  
• 27D. [Pulitzer-winning cartoonist Feiffer] is named JULES. Do you all know his stuff? If not, Google it up. I love his style.
  
• 28D. Great clue for lying PRONE: [Back up?]. Back down is supine.
  
• 32D. PLUTARCH is clued as ["On the Malice of Herodotus" author]. Or, as Glenn Beck would spell it, PLUTARH.
  
• 34D. Isn't CATHAY the prettiest place name ever? It's an [Old Silk Road destination], the medieval Europeans' name for China. Wouldn't toxic plastic crap be so much nicer with a "Made in Cathay" label on it?

Fun with chemistry! Did you know URETHANE is a [Bowling ball material] or that [Like turbojet fuel] could clue ATOMIZED? I did not.

Overall, I liked this puzzle a heckuva lot. It's a good start to the weekend.

Updated Saturday morning:

Paula Gamache's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Outta Sight!"—Janie's review

Greetings, solvers—as Paula's puzzle puts us in a "peace, beads and granola" state of mind in this 40th year since Woodstock. Four theme-phrases begin with a slangy term of approval/admiration (like that of the title) and a fifth one is the song title that ties it all up. Here's how she does it:

• 20A. COOL CUSTOMER [Unflappable one]. And a phrase that looks to be making its major-puzzle debut to boot.
• 31A. SUPER BOWL [Football season finale].
• 38A. BOSS TWEED [Tammany Hall leader]. That's a link to a Thomas Nast cartoon of the man, btw.
• 49A. NEAT FREAK [Compulsive picker-upper]. This one appears to be a CS-first.
• 58A. "FEELIN' GROOVY" [Simon & Garfunkel refrain...and this puzzle's theme]. Another major-puzzle first-timer, too. If you need a little "picker-upper" of the non-compulsive variety, this is the tune to tune in.

A spate of lively sevens and eights add to the punch this puzzle packs: THE COPA [New York club, informally] where you certainly could have ordered MIMOSAS [Champagne-and-orange-juice concoctions], FAT-FREE [Words of appeal to a loser?], the no-nonsense "LEAVE IT!" ["We don't need that!"], LANYARD [Whistle holder], "FEAR NOT" [Encouraging words] (and it's nice to have encouraging words when there's also the Scottish "NAE," the German "NEIN" and the ENG. "OH, ME" to contend with), SOUTHPAW [Lefty] and SEES INTO [Knows beforehand, as the future].

But for a small portion of the SW, I really was able to solve this one using only the "across" clues. What messed me up? My insistence in holding onto FANFARE where FAT-FREE lives and not knowing CWT as the abbreviation for [100 lbs.]. A hundredweight=1/20th of a ton—and that "C" (like the Roman numeral) is from the Latin word for hundred, centum. This all makes sense of course, but because I'd not given it any thought before, it did feel a bit like new INFO to me.

There seems to be a SLY little French undercurrent today, too, with ISÈRE [River to the Rhone], ARRÊT [Stop, on the Rive Gauche] and SABOT [French peasant's shoe]. To which I say (with my best French pronunciation), "Impeccable!"

Michael Wiesenberg's Los Angeles Times crossword

As I was saying over at L.A. Crossword Confidential, I really liked the long answers (well, except for the lifeless BELT SANDER) and the clues for a few short ones, incuding these:

• 16A: Small program with a browser interface (JAVA APPLET). I love me a good JAVA APPLET, like the New York Times' proprietary crossword applet. I generally loathe the Flash interface, though, so I don't do the L.A. Times crossword on the paper's website; instead, I go to Cruciverb.com and fetch the Across Lite version.
  
• 18A: Long-distance messages? (SMOKE SIGNALS). Smoke Signals is also the title of a movie written by Sherman Alexie. Alexie (who likes crosswords!) has a young adult novel out called The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. It's a terrific read—I'm saving it for my son when he's a few years older.
  
• 25A: 1876 Twain hero (TOM SAWYER). Geddy Lee! I have no idea whether the Rush song has anything to do with the Twain book.
  
• 40A: Ice cream flavor (PISTACHIO). Me, I don't care for pistachios, but my husband and son like 'em.
  
• 46A: When Ovid's "Ars Amatoria" is believed to have been published isn't a dreaded Roman numeral clue after all. Surprise! It's ONE B.C. (Your Roman numeral R.D.A. for the day is provided instead by 3D: XXXI x V (CLV).
  
• 48A: Home of the NBA's Thunder (OKLAHOMA CITY). How many much bigger cities lack an NBA team and take the existence of the Oklahoma City Thunder (formerly the Seattle Supersonics) as a personal affront? (Yes, I do believe that cities can take things personally. Don't you?)
  
• 54A: Might achieve clues the four-word phrase HAS A SHOT AT. It looks goofy in the grid. HA! SASH O' TAT.
  
• I wish 59A: THIRTY-NINE had been clued as Jack Benny's forever age rather than 78 half. I suspect the clue was meant to mislead us into thinking of old 78 rpm records with A and B sides, but it ends up being a flat arithmetic problem of no import.
  
• 57D: Hot spot? is a spot of TEA.

Overall, this puzzle was almost sinfully easy. I miss the days of Saturday L.A. Times puzzles that were only a notch easier than the NYT ones.

Doug Peterson's Newsday "Saturday Stumper"

(PDF solution here.)

As Dan F. said in the comments, this is the same grid pattern Doug used in his NYT puzzle today. Me, I enjoyed the NYT version more. This one didn't seem to have any of those horrible dead spots that some Stumpers have, those seemingly insoluble clues that you don't have any helpful crossings for. And by "horrible dead spots," I mean "sometimes welcome challenges, but sometimes vexatious bothers." In other words, my progress through this puzzle was a smooth one with occasional missteps but no real snags or frustration.

Top 5 clues and answers:

• 1A. To OFFLOAD is to [Empty containers]. Bet you a dollar most people plugged in an S at the end, assuming they needed a plural noun.
  
• 49A. [Accessory for the Penguin] is a CIGARETTE HOLDER. See, kids? Smoking leads to trouble.
  
• 2D. I like the word FRENZY, as it is much cooler than the phrase [Extreme agitation].
  
• 31D. PAGO PAGO is as fun to say as Walla Walla, Bora Bora, or Kinnickinnic. It's most recognizable to crossword solvers as a city in American Samoa. Here, it gets an out-there literary trivia clue: [Setting of Maugham's "Rain"].
  
• 32D. HAY FEVER is a [Seasonal condition]. I can like that as an answer because I don't have allergies. Anyone else want to put HEAT WAVE here?

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Summary only...

Saturday, 6/20

Newsday 7:37
NYT 6:19
LAT 4:00
CS 6:55 (J—paper)

Before getting around to the Saturday NYT crossword, I did a few Vowelless Crosswords by Frank Longo. Man, I just flew through one of those puzzles! It only took me 8 minutes, or a third longer than the NYT. Then the next crsswrd took me 26 minutes. Ouch. I'm enjoying the format tremendously but you know what? The fun won't last. Before you know it, I'll have finished the entire book and then what? Then I have to wait until fall for Brendan Quigley's diagramless book, but I test-solved a bunch of the puzzles so those ones will be reruns for me.

Brilliant constructors, please make more tough puzzle books. Publishers, please publish said books. Thank you.

Brad Wilber's New York Times crossword

Tons of cool fill in this puppy, eh? This may be one of the most enjoyable Wilber creations to date. Let's run through some clues:

• 14A. ROGER EBERT is a [Writer on pictures]. I've been a huge admirer of Ebert's since I was a kid reading his reviews in the Chicago Sun-Times.
  
• 17A. If you are [Going bonkers for the British?], you have a touch of ANGLOMANIA.
  
• 20A. I was thinking of elbowing on a crowded sidewalk for the clue [Response to being elbowed, maybe]. "WAS I SNORING?" is the answer so no, not the sidewalk at all.
  
• 22A. ASOK is the ["Dilbert" character who was reincarnated as his own clone]. Does anyone still read "Dilbert"?
  
• 25A. [Kind of question] clues TRIVIA. This is a better "kind of ___" clue than the usual.
  
• 28A. I waited for the crossings to tell me if the [Companion for Pan] was one of Peter Pan's friends or a DRYAD from classical mythology. For more mythology, we have 15D's TANTALUS, [Victim of terrible teasing]—and the root of the word tantalize.
  
• 37A. [Kachina doll makers] are the ZUNI. Not the HOPI, which is what I initially had there.
  
• 38A. MACHISMO is a [Bruiser's display]. I could do without.
  
• 55A. Have I heard of a MERRY-ANDREW before? It's an archaic word in lowercase meaning [Clown].
  
• 64A. Uriah HEEP is your [Blackmailer in an 1850 novel].
  
• 2D. There are a few theater references today—an OBIE award, THEATRICAL, and ["The Bald Soprano" playwright, 1950], Eugene IONESCO.
  
• 8D. Good gravy, who are these guys? TENIERS is the [Surname of three generations of Flemish old masters]. The Flemish are from Belgium. So, they say, are Belgian waffles. And [Waffling] (32D) means HESITANT.
  
• 27D. FT. RILEY is a [Kansas mil. reservation with the U.S. Cavalry Museum].
  
• 38D. [Bigger than big] clues the adjective MAMMOTH, which is also an extinct Pleistocene furry elephant. Did mammoths coexist with the [Prehistoric stone tool] called an EOLITH (from the Greek for dawn + stone)?
  
• 45D. ["Drop City" novelist, 2003] is T.C. BOYLE. He started out with T. Coraghessan Boyle on his book covers. Why did he change it? I don't know. Apparently he was 17 when he changed his middle name to Coraghessan. Maybe he quit wanting to be who he wanted to be at age 17?

Michael Wiesenberg's Los Angeles Times crossword

I'm leaving town early in the morning (PuzzleGirl will be here to cover the Sunday puzzles in my absence), so let me excerpt what I've written up for L.A. Crossword Confidential.

Just like last Saturday's L.A. Times crossword, this puzzle felt like an easy Friday NYT puzzle—and I had a bottle of Stella Artois before I began the puzzle.

The grid is unusual—if it weren't for the black squares in each corner, this puzzle would have triple stacks of 15-letter answers at the top and bottom. Instead, it's got pairs of 15's with single 13's. I love that last Across answer, TEETER-TOTTERS (61A: They have their ups and downs). It's got the most boring letters in the English language, the sort of letters that often populate the bottom row of a crossword, but we don't see too many 13's in themeless puzzles, and TEETER-TOTTERS have that playground nostalgia cachet.

Clues? Answers? We got 'em:

• 14A: 1999 Winona Ryder movie (GIRL, INTERRUPTED). Sure, Winona had the lead role but it was Angelina Jolie who went home with a Best Supporting Actress Oscar.
  
• 19A: Partners may form one: Abbr. (LLC). That's a limited liability corporation.
  
• 27A: Catalog section (FOR HER). Ooh, I do not care for this answer at all. It might work better as a transgressive six-letter partial answer filling in the blank in the condom tag line, "ribbed ___ pleasure."
  
• 30A: RED is a Rare sign? as in a sign of rareness in a slab of beef. (Ick.)
  
• 34A: JACK FROST (Nose nipper in a Christmas song) is a terrific answer. The clue seems a little boring, but it's worlds better than cluing this name with reference to that dreadful Michael Keaton movie in which a creepy-looking snowman comes to life.
  
• 50A: Double drunk crosswordese! They're usually lit clues SOTS, and I never hear anyone use "lit" to mean drunk or call anyone a "sot."
  
• 54A: Kind of butter (APPLE). This is a common cluing convention, this "kind of ___" clue. But APPLE is not any kind of butter. Apple butter is a butter of a sort.There are those who would much rather see a straight-up fill-in-the-blank clue or an entirely different cluing direction than have yet another "kind of ___" clue. Among the old NYT crossword forum crowd, these are called "sea anemone" clues, inspired by SEA clued as "Kind of anemone."
  
• 60A: Source of much hard wood? is the PETRIFIED FOREST. Of course, it's not wood anymore. It's mineral deposits that have replaced the wood over the ages. Speaking of geological ages, can you guess 1D: the Epoch in which grazing mammals became widespread? Why, it's the MIOCENE, of course, or, as I like to call it, "that less familiar epoch you get through the crossings."
  
• 7D: Kabayaki fish is EEL. (Japanese + fish)/3 letters = EEL. Unless, of course, it's AHI tuna.
  
• 21D: Tanner of '70s-'80s tennis (ROSCOE). I can't keep him straight in my head because The Dukes of Hazzard's Rosco P. Coltrane occupies the same mental real estate.
  
• 22D: ORSK is a City on the Ural. I always start with OMSK, another Russian city that is four times the size of ORSK.
  
• 34D: Island in the Sulu Archipelago clues JOLO. Wow. I like geography and I've been doing crosswords for three decades, but I needed every single crossing to figure this one out. I was thinking Indonesia, but it's the Philippines. It's the site of much unrest, both volcanic and political.

Sandy Fein's Newsday "Saturday Stumper"

(PDF solution here.)

7:37? All right, not too much harder than the NYT puzzle today. I'll take it as a victory.

I like the mislead of [Early riser] as a clue for an UPSTART, and I like the word SWAGGER ([Bluster]). PIUS VII, the [Adversary of Napoleon], is a Roman-numeraled person I don't recall seeing in a crossword before. Bowling [Lane marks] are STRIKES, if you're lucky. Interesting clue for AVARICE: It's [One of Spinoza's "species of madness"]. In hockey, you might get a PENALTY and [It may be served in a box]; so can some lunches. The NEWBERY Medal is bestowed on authors of American literature for kids; the clue is [Medal won by Lofting], referring to (I had to look this up) Hugh Lofting, author of The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle.

Lotsa weird fill here. The GRAYLAG goose is a [European goose]. Seven-letter partial HENRI DE [___ Toulouse-Lautrec] pushes beyond the usual 5-letter limit but with no great payoff in amusement value or in facilitating great fill in its neighborhood. There are some odd-jobbers in the grid: a TWEEZER, a DWELLER, and some TILTERS ([Quixote wannabes]).

I suspected that [Name to make up with] had to do with making up stories, but ALIAS didn't work with the crossings. The answr turned out to be cosmetics brand ESTEE Lauder. But...you don't make up with the name. You make up with the makeup. Unfamiliar place name of the day: HALLE is [Handel's birthplace].

Updated Saturday morning:

Randall J. Hartman's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Fly Apart"—Janie's review

I'm beginning to thing that Randy is out to give lie to the notion that "breaking up is hard to do," for in today's puzzle we have yet another example of what happens when you choose a word—FLY, say—and break it up, or take it "apart," so that its letters bookend (and belong to) the theme fill. Last week we were happily "covered in MUD"; about a month ago the theme answers were found "in a NUT shell." Today the tried-and-true theme (a pun itself) plays out even more playfully than in puzzles past—and is especially well-met with its non-theme complement. Behold:

• 17A. FEEL SILLY [Turn red, perhaps]. While one might not aspire to being embarrassed, it can be fun to feel silly and let one's inner-child have his/her day. Hey, this puzzle features Dr. SEUSS [Creator of Sneetches]. I rest my case.
• 28A. FRED FRIENDLY [George Clooney role in "Good Night, and Good Luck"]. You haven't seen it?! Put it on your Netflix list now! For many years, Friendly was the president of CBS News and was an esteemed colleague/collaborator of radio- and tv-journalist Edward R. Murrow. But now my inner-child has to admit that the name "Fred Friendly" kinda makes me giggle and reminds me of the man who used to host Baltimore's local Our Gang program: "Officer Happy." Really. I feel silly saying it, but it's true.
• 49A. FULTON'S FOLLY [Steamboat of 1807]. That would be Robert Fulton's craft, The Clermont—which took a mere 30 hours to make its NYC-Albany journey. OMG. Love the alliteration here—and in the previous fill.
• 66A. FREE WILLY [1993 film about an orca]. And I can't help but noticing (and enjoying) how Willy rhymes with silly. For my money, the rhyming and alliteration go a long way not only in strengthening the theme-fill as a set, but also in creating an agreeable lightness to it. Nice.

There look to be a few sub-themes here today, too. Baseball for one. We get Mel OTT, ERNIE Banks, the METS, EARNED RUN average, and I'm even going to go out on a limb and include LEGGINGS. Was really thrown by [Giant nicknamed "Master Melvin"]. In vain I tried to think of some long-forgotten fairytale character... In other words, terrific clue.

"Things people say" would have to include YES'M ["Okay" for Tom Sawyer] and PAY UP [Shylock's threat]. Didn't help myself any by trying to make this PAY ME...

Then there's the television sub-theme, with hosts OPRAH Winfrey, Tom SNYDER, Jay LENO—and of course, the aforementioned FRED FRIENDLY. And a trio of working types: the ECOLOGIST, and the symmetrically placed odd-couple of PAINTERS and SOLDIERS. That last one can also be associated with NAM, then USAF, then A-TEST. (I'm afraid the more I see this one clued along the lines of [Big blast, briefly], the less amused by it I become.)

Our music today? DOOWOP. But the clue [Style of Randy and the Rainbows] was zero help. Turns out their claim to fame was "Denise," a song I do remember, and that this quintet included two sibling pairs—the Safutos and the Zeros (truly)—and a lone Arcipowski. (This clip is not of the original group, but does feature one Safuto and one Zero for some "doowop reunion" special...)

Finally—how SASSY is that HOT PANTS clue, ["Cheeky" style of clothing]? A fashion trend best suited for the long of limb and firm of flesh, I imagine that hot pants have long been a staple of the Glamour "Don't" list.

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Summary only...

Saturday, 5/16

Newsday 8:21
NYT 5:31
LAT 3:18
CS 7:30 (J—paper)

Tyler Hinman and Byron Walden's New York Times crossword

This is Tyler and Byron's first joint production, constructed after Tyler moved out to California last year. If you ask me, the puzzle's easier than most of Byron's solo Saturdays. Yes? No?

I learned from the constructors' notes at Jim Horne's Wordplay blog that they started with JAZZ HANDS at 1A, divvied up the fill, and split the clues (Acrosses, Byron; Downs, Tyler). My favorite clues and answers follow, mingled as they so often are with the more Google-prone clues:

• 1A. That JAZZ HANDS looks great atop the grid, doesn't it? [Exuberant gesture with splayed fingers] describes it well.
  
• 18A. [Something gays and straights have in common?] is the LONG A sound.
  
• 20A. TERWILLIGER was a gimme for me. That's [Sideshow Bob's last name on "The Simpsons"].
  
• 26A. [Like some gems and old movies] aptly clues RECUT.
  
• 30A. [Registers, with "in"] is SOAKS. As it happens, SINKS also fits and shares three letters.
  
• States! 32A. [Longfellow or Millay, by birth] was a MAINER. 44D NEBRASKA is the [Location of the 44-Down], which is the PLATTE River, or [River facetiously described as "a mile wide at the mouth, but only six inches deep"].
  
• 34A. The CATALPA is a [Tree with heart-shaped leaves]. Giant, yellow-green leaves at that. Catalpa's also the name of a street in Chicago's Andersonville neighborhood.
  
• 47A. It took me a while to understand why [One going steady?] is SHE. "Steady as she goes," goes the phrase.
  
• 56A. NED BEATTY gets the full-name treatment. His clue is ["Deliverance"' actor].
  
• 48A. [They may be fingered] and 59A [Something pulled out in church] both sound lewd, but they're both about music: CHORDS and an ORGAN STOP, respectively.
  
• 1D. JASPER is one [Traditional March birthstone]. My mom prefers the aquamarine.
  
• 6D. AW GEE is clued with ["You shouldn't have"], as in "Oh, that's much too generous. You didn't need to get me anything at all."
  
• 8D. I started with DOODLES for [Suffers through a boring meeting, maybe], though doodling isn't suffering. The answer's DROWSES.
  
• 11D. ELOI, H.G. Wells' Time Machine race who are constantly getting victimized in crosswords, takes a different tack here. ["My God," in Aramaic]. 
  
• 12D. [Bars for a cell?] isn't about the hoosegow—it's bars of music for a cellphone, or a RINGTONE.
  
• 14D. [Picker-uppers?] are LEARNERS.
  
• 21D. Remember yesterday when half of us wanted the animals with the black ear tufts to be LLAMAS and they weren't? In nearly the same part of the grid today, we get our LLAMAS together with an analogy clue: [Foals : horses :: crias : ___]. Who knew the name for a young llama was a cria? A non-crosswording friend of mine has a theory that Will Shortz secretly raises llamas in Pleasantville, but folks who've been to Will's house claim to have seen no Andean mammals there. Did you know the scientific name for the beast is Lama glama?
  
• 23D. [Preakness flowers, familiarly] are SUSANS. There are flowers called black-eyed susans. They give those instead of roses at the Preakness?
  
• 29D. [Baseball player known as Mr. White Sox] clues MINOSO. Minnie Miñoso is in his 80s now but, as befits an athlete, he looks mighty good for his age. I saw Mr. Miñoso through my cousin's dining room window last Thanksgiving as he walked his dog; he lives in her building. True story: Mr. White Sox lives a half mile from the Cubs' home, Wrigley Field. Mr. Cub (Ernie Banks) lives in California.
  
• 31D. [Extra in "Broken Arrow," 1950] is an APACHE. Later in the '50s, the movie turned into a TV series co-starring Michael Ansara as Cochise. ANSARA is half vowels, so he's been in crosswords—and looking up Ansara is the only reason I had any idea what the answer to this clue was.
  
• 33D. ["Votre toast," for one] is an ARIA. A paean to your toast? Multigrain toast with butter is often worth singing about.
  
• 34D. I may be a medical editor, but I can't say CAT SCANS was a gimme for [Radiodensity indicators].
  
• 36D. TAKE FIVE? Yes, please. It's always nice to [Rest] a bit.
  
• 37D. HARD EDGE is clued [Like a style of painting with sharply delineated forms]. You there—the one with the art knowledge—can you point me toward an example of this, please?
  
• 48D. [Item with a pegbox], 5 letters starting with CE? I plugged in CESTA, the jai alai basket. The CELLO is not my thing. Wikipedia tells me the peg box holds the tuning pegs.
  
• 49A. SABAN? Who? [Nick of college football who was twice A.P. Coach of the Year] does not ring a bell. He coaches the Alabama Crimson Tide and makes $4 million a year. Those university types always make the big bucks, don't they?

I liked this puzzle. No deadly crossings, nothing too obscure (except SABAN, who had easy crossings), and hardly any short answers. Did you notice that? Just six 3-letter answers and a dozen 4's. This helps a puzzle avoid that not-so-fresh feeling. So Byron and Tyler, keep working together on more themelesses for us.

Updated Saturday morning:

Randall J. Hartman's CrosSynergy puzzle, "In a Nut Shell"—Janie's review

"Sometimes you feel like a nut—sometimes you don't," or so say the makers of Peter Paul Almond Joy and Mounds. Thank you, Randall Hartman, for indulging my personal preference. The three themed entries in today's puzzle come to us, as described, in a NUT shell, in which the first two letters of the theme-phrase are NU and the last is T.

• We're off to an explosive start at 20A with NUCLEAR BLAST [Fallout cause], followed at
• 37A with NUMBERED ACCOUNT [Swiss bank offering], and ending at
• 52A with the descriptive NUISANCE SUIT and its equally depictive clue [Ambulance chaser's ploy]

A NICE tight theme with two debut entries (37A and 52A) and a CS debut for 20A.

Some of the usual suspects make an appearance: YMA, IRMA, CHE, Mao TSE-tung; but they're in the company of some very smart fill. And I do mean that in the literal sense: there's CANNY [Street-smart] and GUILE [Cunning] and ACUMEN [Sagacity].

We travel to the Middle East with MECCA [Muslim holy city], ARAB [Dubai denizen] and KABUL [Capital of Afghanistan]. And there's a nod to Middle and Western America, too, as KANSAS and UTE emerge from KABUL. (I'd forgotten just what a bargain the Louisiana Purchase was—and how much of the country's midsection it comprises. Yikes.)

Fill that fouled me up: [Fleur-de-] LYS? No, LIS. [Auction actions] BIDS? No, NODS. [Back problem] SPRAIN? No, STRAIN. I still struggle to keep straight those European rivers. I know the Rhine is German, but I never seem to remember that the RHONE isn't... And veteran character actor M. EMMET Walsh has a lengthy resume, but darned if any performance comes to mind.

Clues that made me think: [Someone in it is out of it] for COMA, and [Beginning of December?] for DEE. This kinda clue gets me almost every time. You'd think by now I'd be less easily duped, but noooooooooo! ;-)

Fave little grid bits: ICED over ACED, the cross of ICON and OCCUR.

And while I knew that GIS were [PX patrons], I'd forgotten what PX stood for. How about you?

Michael Wiesenberg's L.A. Times crossword

My longer write-up is at L.A. Crossword Confidential.

My goodness, it's been a while since I encountered a themeless puzzle that was this easy. Sure, there were a few things that weren't gimmes, but the give-and-take with the crossings made quick work of it all. My favorite fill:

• 20A. [Like some dads] (STAY-AT-HOME). Terrific, colloquial answer.
  
• 28A. [Nutritional regimen since the 1970s] (ATKINS DIET). See above.
  
• 31A. [Ich liebe dich : German :: ___ : Spanish] (TE AMO). A college classmate of mine made some sweet thing for his girlfriend that included that phrase. I was fluent in crosswordese and not Spanish, and regular solvers know the amo, amas, amat conjugation of "love"—so I assumed he was writing sweet nothings in Latin. Um, no.
  
• 32A. For [Prince classic], I contemplated Prince's greatest hits. "1999," "Little Red Corvette," "Lady Cab Driver," "Let's Go Crazy," "When Doves Cry," "I Would Die 4 U" (Prince was way ahead of texting-mad teens with that sort of shorthand)—and also "PURPLE RAIN," the only one of these that has 10 letters. Alas, you won't find Prince videos on YouTube.
  
• 40D. [2007 A.L. batting champ Magglio] (ORDONEZ). He's Venezuelan and I love his name.

Sandy Fein's Newsday "Saturday Stumper"

I'm feeling much smarter this weekend, having that fast L.A. Times time and finally getting back under the 10-minute mark for a Stumper. (Do yourself a favor and don't check Dan Feyer's times on these puzzles unless you want to feel inferior.)

(PDF solution here.)

My least favorite clue here is [One settling down] for ROOSTER. What the...? Nobody describes "one who roosts" as a "rooster." When ROOSTER is a perfectly good stand-alone word, why on earth would you want to clue it as a lousy "roll-your-own" word?This is not the first time we've seen that in the Stumper. When you already have a roll-your-own CRADLER here, why create another when you don't need to?

MAZATLAN is clued as [Literally, "place of the deer"]. Hmm, is that obscure trivia? Or is it reasonable to expect solvers to have a certain degree of fluency in the Nahuatl language? (Answers: Yes. And hell, no.) The Wikipedia article provides that etymology, but mentions deer nowhere else—so I'm guessing even people who've visited the city wouldn't think to associate it with deer. This clue is akin to the ones that hinge on the meaning of a first name. At least we're spared that sort of clue for DINAH, which instead gets a biblical clue, [Daughter of Jacob]. LOUIES isn't clued as a plural first name; rather, they're [Some officers], short for "lieutenants." The LOOIE and LOOEY spellings are the only ones listed in the Mac widget of the New Oxford American Dictionary.

[Psiloritis is its highest peak] clues CRETE. I wonder if the sun's rays atop Psiloritis are particularly good for psoriasis. Also from Europe: MINSK is the [CIS headquarters]. Speaking of the agglomeration of states that used to be Soviet republics, [Any SSR?] clues RED STATE, but that doesn't strike me as quite kosher. "Red state" doesn't mean communist state, so it's as if the clue concocts a jokey definition of a word. That would work if it were a theme entry, but it's not.

[Dairy designation] is GRADE A. We've probably all bought GRADE A eggs, but grade A milk looks to have zero relevance to the average person who's not a dairy farmer. Is the clue hinging on eggs being sold in the dairy section of some groceries? Because eggs are not dairy products.

I didn't dislike this puzzle while I was solving it, but going through it clue by clue while blogging, I found myself grumbling at several cluing choices. They mark a departure from the Stumper's previous style, and they don't hew to the other themeless styles I'm familiar with (Will Shortz, Peter Gordon, Rich Norris, the CrosSynergy team). A lot of folks are pleased to have an extra-tough puzzle to sink their teeth into on Saturdays, but I find myself wishing the Stumpers had more of a killer Klahn/Walden/Blackard NYT vibe.

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Saturday, 3/14

NYT 9:08
Newsday 8:28
LAT 4:12
CS 2:33

Hoo-boy! The family went out for dinner tonight at Chili Mac's 5-Way Chili and your faithful correspondent ordered the blue margarita. (What flavor is that? The consensus seems to be "blue.") The default size was 16 ounces. It's three hours later now, but I'm still feeling blue. It's astonishing that I made it through Barry Silk's New York Times crossword without any typos, I tell you. And my goodness, did this puzzle have a lot of things I just plain didn't know. Here are my "Huh?" answers:

• JFK PLAZA is a [Park near Philly's City Hall, site of the LOVE statue]. I have a vague recollection that Mr. Silk is from Philadelphia and had some sort of cheesesteak/Philly answer in a previous puzzle. I've never been there...
  
• The NIAGARA is a [River surrounding Navy Island]. I know about Niagara Falls, but don't really think about there being a river of that name, and I don't know Navy Island.
  
• I've heard of Hermann HESSE, but ["Das Glasperlenspiel" novelist] rang no bells at all.
  
• "COOL JERK" is a [1966 hit for the Capitols]. Before my time; never heard of it.
  
• [It was captured by British forces in 1917] clues JERUSALEM. I know the U.K. was bossing around the general Israel/Palestine area around 1940, but didn't know they were in the region in 1917.
  
• I've seen the name KIT CARSON but didn't know that it was the [Eponym of a national forest in New Mexico].
  
• [With 59-Down, Rudolph Valentino's "Blood and Sand" co-star] is LILA / LEE. I tried flipping the answers and making MAE / WEST work, but alas, it did not.
  
• [Dartmoor setting] is DEVON. I've heard of DEVON, but Dartmoor is not prominent in my memory.
  
• [Enclosed in a case, as seeds] clues CAPSULATE. Not remotely a gimme, but given enough letters (say...7 of 9), the rest of the word is gettable.
  
• I have heard tell of [Toning skin lotion], but can't say that FRESHENER is a word I've ever encountered.
  

Even without a margarita, I daresay these would have challenged me. Without further ado, here are the answers and clues I liked the best:

• The one-letter-off pair of I'M GONE (["Ciao!"]) and I'M DONE ([Confirmation to a busboy]).
  
• [John Wayne's L.A. alma mater] is USC. Hey! I knew this! I'm proofing Brendan Quigley's book of crosswords for USC football fans, and I just learned this factoid.
  
• [Sierra Club founder] is John MUIR. I've been to Muir Woods in California, which was so moist that moss was growing on all sides of the trees and not just on the north side—though I'd been taught that you could always find your way out of the woods with the help of knowing that moss grows on the north side.
  
• DEVILS is clued as a verb, [Prepares with hot seasoning]. I have never eated a deviled egg.
  
• EROTICA! It's [Bedtime stories?], heh heh.
  
• [Some pens] are SWANS. Pens are female swans, and cobs are males.
  
• I don't quite get why the AXILLA, or armpit, is clued as a [Secret area of anatomy?]. Oh! Wait! I get it. Secret brand antiperspirant.
  
• ZONKED is a great word. It means [Totally beat].
  
• I was thinking [Reúnion attendees] were going to be French relatives, but they turned out to be Spanish ones—TIOS, or uncles at la familia's reunion.
  
• The X-GAMES is clued with [Skateboarders compete in them].
  
• [One of Tennessee's state symbols] is its state flower, the IRIS. Do you know your state flowers? There's a quiz for that. Illinois's is the violet.
  
• [Passé video store offering] is the LASER DISK. My parents bought the less advanced video-disk player. That was around 1987—remember that technology? No?
  
• [It may follow convention] clues the word GOER, as in convention-goer. I like the goof on "following convention."
  
• [Dixieland group?] isn't a band playing the washboard—it's the useful pronoun Y'ALL.
  

Updated:

Sarah Keller's CrosSynergy crossword, "Shapely Figures," has a well-rounded theme:

• [Ovoid object used in the national sport of Wales] is a RUGBY BALL.
  
• [Ovoid tropical delicacy] is a PASSIONFRUIT.
  
• [Ovoid nursery rhyme character] is HUMPTY DUMPTY.
  
• [Ovoid sugarcoated candy] is a JELLY BEAN. Remember those gross Bertie Bott's All-Flavor jelly beans from Jelly Belly/Harry Potter? There's a new BeanBoozled flavor assortment out in which each bean color may be one of two flavors. White with yellow flecks—could be buttered popcorn, could be rotten egg. Orange with red flecks—could be peach, could be vomit. I am not enough of a risk taker to try this candy.
  

Good assortment of ovoid entities, no? Overall this puzzle's pretty easy. In the southwest corner, [Roger ___, founder of The Who] DALTREY crosses both GET FRESH ([Make an unwanted pass]) and DAY JOB (["The old grind" for many]). Nice!

When I see Sandy Fein's byline on the Newsday "Saturday Stumper" (solution here), I can't help but think of SpongeBob's squirrel friend, Sandy. The northwest quadrant of this puzzle took me the longest. Selected answers and clues from that corner:

• [Wrap-ups of a sort] are EPILOGS. Not SARONGS, no, ma'am.
  
• [Tar term] is the sailor's word APORT. Other nautically minded answers in this grid: 32D ASTROLABE is a [Navigation tool], and the SEXTANT is a [32 Down successor].
  
• [They may make rash decisions] loosely clues ALLERGISTS.
  
• [Sports scoop] is a jai alai CESTA.
  
• [Chained] is IN IRONS.
  
• [Completely] clues CAP-A-PIE, from the French for "head to foot."
  
• [Near-hip] doesn't mean "almost cool." It clues SCIATIC, as in the sciatic nerve.
  

Off to the right, ARAPAHO and APACHE cross each other. Their clues are [Cheyenne allies] and the rather-unhelpful [Arizona county], respectively. NAT is a ["Mona Lisa" name], I don't know why. Was there a Nat "King" Cole song by that name? Good to see Don CHEADLE, ["Hotel Rwanda" name], in the grid; his most recent movie is the kid-friendly Hotel for Dogs, which I like to pretend is a sequel to Hotel Rwanda.

Moving down to the southeast quadrant, SEA KALE, a [European coastal plant], seems lifeless, but SEEDERSS, or [Furrow fillers] is more so, and so is BATTLER ([He won't quit]). SHELLACKED is nice; [Routed] can mean trounced, walloped. In the southwest corner, TENTAGE, or [Camp gear], battles STANDEE, [One up], for the Dull Noun championship. QUINTET gets a classical music clue that did me no favors: [Schubert's Trout ___]; Wikipedia explains the name.

Today's LA Times crossword is by Michael Wiesenberg. My favorite crossing here is where BOLSHEVIKS ([Lenin et al.]) crash into a KNICK-KNACK, or [Trinket]. Other clues and answers:

• [Legendary track star], 10 letters? Easy: JESSE OWENS, right? Er, no. It's SEABISCUIT, the racehorse. 4-Down, [Track contests], crosses SEABISCUIT, and the answer is DERBIES. Once again, I had track and field on my mind and not horse racing.
  
• OVATE is [Like most tupelo leaves]. Photo here.
  
• From Wells' The Time Machine, we get the ELOI, [Weena's race, in an 1895 novel].
  
• GENE SET is [DNA research subject].
  
• [A cell phone user isn't one] clues DIALER, but you know what? I still call it dialing a number. Does anyone call it something else?
  
• [TVA sponsor George] NORRIS? Apparently he was a Nebraska senator who supported the New Deal, and Tennessee's TVA Norris Dam was named after him. Chuck Norris is more famous these days, but then, he's an ass and nobody's ever going to name a durable public works structure after him.
  
• FEEL AT EASE feels a little ill at ease in the grid. [Conquer one's nerves] is the clue.
  
• [Strip of equipment] is a verb phrase here, for UNRIG.
  
• LIVENER is an awkward word. (Awkword?) It's clued with [TV show warmup, for instance].
  
• KABUL, Afghanistan, is a [Mile-high Asian capital]. Don't confuse this with Lhasa, another 5-letter Asian capital (of Tibet). Lhasa is at 12,000 feet.
  
• [Repo men] clues SEIZERS. And if they're compact individuals, we could call them Little Seizers and send them out for pizza.
  
• [Adjusts, as a bathroom fixture] clues RESEATS. I believe reseating a toilet involves getting the whole shebang properly situated in its floor setting and not replacing the seat.
  

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Saturday, 1/3

Newsday 19:52
NYT 7:53
LAT 5:37
CS 3:19

(updated at 12:24 p.m. Saturday)

The Peter Wentz who constructed the Saturday New York Times crossword is probably not the same person as rocker Pete Wentz who married Ashlee Simpson and named a baby Bronx Mowgli—but I'm looking forward to the first crossword to include BRONXMOWGLI in the fill. (It wouldn't have been out of place in this puzzle, actually.) At this writing, the top solver on the NYT online applet is Byron Walden, and this makes perfect sense because he used 3-Down, the [1993 hit for the R&B duo Zhane], in a 2006 Sun crossword—it's HEY MR. D.J. I still don't know what the song sounds like, as I know it only from crosswords. Overall, I liked Wentz's puzzle a lot—it's chock-full of interesting answers and clues that made me think.

My favorite fill:

• [Brewer Joseph] SCHLITZ. Six consonants to one vowel, with a final Z? Good stuff.
  
• The tone of I HEAR YA is accurately conveyed by ["Comin' through loud and clear"].
  
• "YOU MIND?" is a [Curt comment to an ogler]. Technically, YA and YOU qualify as a semantic duplication, but I don't mind.
  
• What the hell is NEOJAZZ? It's [Hard bop, e.g.], and it has two final Z's.
  
• MAYAN and NAHUATL reverberate nicely—one is clued [Like the Topoxte archaeological site] and the other, [Language of central Mexico]. Head a little north for the MOJAVE Desert, a [Setting for Joshua trees].
  
• [Passed pleasantly] clues WHILED, as in "whiled away the hours."
  
• KIKI DEE, perhaps best known from her duet with Elton John, "Don't Go Breaking My Heart," is the [Singer of the 1974 hit, "I've Got the Music in Me"]. Back then, I assumed that Elton and Kiki were an item.
  
• AMY ADAMS was the [2005 Best Supporting Actress nominee for "Junebug"].
  
• The EVIL EYE is a [Supposed bringer of bad luck].
  
• I guessed LOSE HOPE for [Become despondent] with no letters in place—what else could it be? Maybe GIVE UP ON.
  
• ALL THAT is [Something great, informally]. Memo to my readers: My mom said a lasagna sauce was "the bomb" last night, so if you're still using that slang, it's time to drop it. It's in the senior citizen lingo now. No longer hip.
  
• With the Z's in this grid, of course there's also a Q in QUACKS—[They treat people badly].
  [With 41-Down, cheap fast food offerings] make up the VALUE / MENU.
  

And now, the clues that caught my eye:

• [Where things get checked] is the COATROOM.
  
• An ALLEY is [No place for a big rig]. That is the truth—the driveway/alley next to my building sometimes stymies truck drivers trying to squeeze between the buildings to make a delivery. 
  
• [Magellan visited it] clues VENUS, Magellan being a NASA craft and not the guy named Ferdinand.
  
• [People who may be removed] are COUSINS, as in "first cousin, once removed."
  
• [Ingredient in some chips] is OLESTRA, which is in FAT-FREE chips.
  
• SIKHISM [rejects the caste system and idolatry].
  
• [Counselor's area] is the LAW. Can you hear Robert De Niro's character calling, "Counselor!" to Nick Nolte in Cape Fear? Creepy.
  
• [Hard stuff] is both IRON and BOOZE.
  
• [Bouquet setting] is a WINE BAR.
  

Things I didn't know:

• CHEERIO is an [English toast]? I thought it was more of a farewell.
  
• [David who caught a key pass in the 2008 Super Bowl] is TYREE.
  
• [1986-93 war-themed Marvel Comics series, with "The"] is a pop-culture clue for NAM.
  
• ["Treasure Island" hero] is HAWKINS.
  
• ELO is the ["Eldorado" group]. How many groups have song titles that consist of letters inserted into the band name.
  
• EMF is an [Energy expressed in volts: Abbr.]. Electromagnetic frequency, I presume?
  

Other factoids:

• MORAVIA is a [Region south of Silesia].
  
• The [Greek goddess of youth] is HEBE.
  
• NELL was the [Mistress of Charles II].
  
• TSP, or one teaspoon, is [About 20 pinches: Abbr].
  
• Pia ZADORA was the ["Butterfly" star, 1981].
  
• '20s boxer Jack DEMPSEY was the ["Honey, I just forgot to duck" speaker]. When Ronald Reagan was shot, he borrowed the famous line, but left out the "just."
  
• LUKE is the [Patron saint of surgeons]. Hence the various St. Luke's Hospital names out there...
  

Updated:

Either Stanley Newman's Newsday "Saturday Stumper" clues were significantly more oblique than usual, or I'm a little off this morning. (Solution here.) Not only did it take me twice as long as the toughest NYT Saturday puzzles, but I also Googled one clue and had one incorrect square. The clue I Googled was [The story of Astorre Viola], which turns out to be Mario Puzo's 2000 novel OMERTA. I call foul, because I'm skeptical that this character is familiar enough to point the majority of us who've never read the book anywhere near the right answer; it's hardly got the degree of traction in the broader culture that, say, Harry Potter characters have. I figured the answer was likely to be an opera.

My wrong letter was a P in lieu of the C in CLEAT, or [Gangway securer]. Raise your hand if you didn't know that gangways and cleats had any interaction. I checked two dictionaries and see no support for this. Who likes a clue that requires you to pick up the unabridged dictionary (the third one I checked!) to find an uncommon usage for a common word? Boo! Hiss! Takes the fun out of a tough crossword. PUT IN isn't too far off for [Interrupt], though I guess CUT IN is a notch better.

There was plenty of good stuff in the puzzle, so it didn't all spur resentment. The [Only Welsh-born Batman] portrayer is Christian BALE; why did it take me so long to remember the most recent Dark Knight? I was all set to like the gender neutrality of [Repairperson], but then the answer was the very male HANDY ANDY. [Sports retiree of 2008] is Monica SELES—and here we all thought she'd retired years ago. Whatever comeback she might have had apparently didn't make much of a splash. GAINS ON is clued as [Tries to catch]. NEE is clued as a [Form of "naître"]; I like the French lesson. "OH, PLEASE" is an [Impatient plaint]. I kept thinking of domesticated animals for [It was domesticated in the Andes about 4,000 years ago]—the answer is the LIMA BEAN. [Do as the Romans do] is GO NATIVE. I'm fond of nutty little bits of trivia, like MACON being where the kazoo was invented.

I had a number of wrong turns that kept me mired in this puzzle. [Battery, for example] is a TORT, but I stuck with Battery PARK for too long. [Seven-Oscar nominee in the '80s] is ALIENS, but I put STREEP there. [Quacks] were POSERS instead of FAKERS. I kept those ones written into the grid even when not a single solid crossing emerged from them—whoops. I just plain didn't know this: [Most of it became a unit of Cal State] clues FT. ORD. Some of Fort Ord's space is now the home of California State University, Monterey Bay. The campus gets foggy.

I don't like STATINS for [Doctor's prescriptions] because it's too damned arbitrary; statins are merely one class of medication, and the clue lacks any specificity. ANAT., or anatomy, is the study of all the body's parts—[Organ study: Abbr.], yes, but also the skeleton, muscles, vascular system, nerves, etc. This clue's too specific.

Overall, Michael Wiesenberg's LA Times crossword was much more yielding than those other two themeless puzzles, but I still don't know why [Brewer of lore] is CRONE. I trust one of you readers can explain this to me? It took me a long time to figure out why [Crane part?] was HOGAN—construction cranes? birds?—but I finally remembered actor Bob Crane of Hogan's Heroes. A good "aha" moment after the fact! What else is in this puzzle? Lots of things:

• [Front end?] is CEASEFIRE, as in an end to hostilities at the battlefront.
  
• [Circles] of friends are COTERIES. Anyone else try to wedge ROTARIES in there?
  
• [Diamond figure] is ONE CARAT. Sometimes I don't like the arbitrariness of a number + unit of measure being used as crossword fill. But the convention of the one-carat diamond makes this one work.
  
• [Noted hit maker, with "the"] is the WHO. No, wait, it's the MOB. Crime, not music.
  
• GARGANTUA, the [Rabelaisian giant], is the source of the adjective gargantuan. How many fictional names have spun off adjectives? For place names, we have Lilliputian.
  
• [Ristorante dish] is OSSO BUCCO. It's also spelled osso buco.
  
• I like the aligned twin CATs in CAT'S EYE, the [Reflective gemstone], and CATALAN, [Like Dali or Miro].
  
• The MANTA can indeed be a [Reef denizen], but I didn't see any mantas from the tourist submarine off Grand Cayman last week. Fish, garden eels, and sea turtles, yes.
  

Patrick Blindauer pays a little tribute to Harry Houdini and the tools of his trade in his CrosSynergy crossword, "Houdini's Favorite..." Five things Houdini would supposedly prefer make up the theme:

• [Houdini's favorite vacation spot?] would be the FLORIDA KEYS, since Houdini was always locking himself up.
  
• His favorite [...place to shop?] would be a CHAIN STORE, what with Houdini's getting chained up.
  
• [...kind of circus performer?] would be a TUMBLER, since locks have tumblers aligned by keys.
  
• [...wrestling move?] is HAMMER LOCK, owing to the lock.
  
• [...basketball maneuver?] is PICK AND ROLL, for picking a lock, I guess. The theme entries don't all have the Houdini tie-in in the same place, so I'm not positive.
  

The fill includes a dozen 7-letter answers, giving the puzzle a smidgen of an easy themeless vibe. I filled in the southwest corner with the Down clues, so I didn't spot ORANGE in there right away. The clue for my screen name: [Its peel makes a good slug repellent]. Good to know!

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Saturday, 9/6

Newsday 13:06
LAT 6:14
NYT 5:48
CS 3:24

(updated at 10:15 a.m. Saturday)

Barry Silk's byline appears atop the Saturday New York Times crossword. That usually means there'll be plenty of Scrabbly letters and indeed, such is the case now. Namely:

• WHIZ KID is [Westinghouse/Intel award winner, e.g.]. I think that's a nationwide high school science fair sort of thing.
  
• MAJESTY is [Stateliness].
  
• KIXX is an [Aptly named Philadelphia indoor soccer team] I haven't heard of.
  
• A [Librarian, at times] is an INDEXER.
  
• X-RAY LAB doesn't resonate for me as a phrase. It's clued as [Where inside info is revealed?].
  
• One of the Q's joins QUASI, or [Seeming], and QATAR, a specific [Land on a peninsula].
  
• The other Q is in QUACKED, or [Sounded like a bufflehead] (I presume that's a duck), crossing the trade name QUAALUDE, clued with [It's a downer].
  
• UNZIPPED means [Open, as a jacket], and the crossing AZERA is the [Luxury Hyundai sedan]. I rarely see Azeras, but saw one this morning.
  
• Double-X XEROXED has a great clue: [Ran off, in a way]. It crosses CLIMAXED, or [Reached the peak] (...heh), and FLEXOR, or [Biceps, e.g.].
  

I feel compelled to point out the double use of hockey ice in intersecting answers—ICERS who are [Some players in penalty boxes] crossing HOME ICE, or [Place for a skating edge]. There are also intersecting eggs—OVI is the Latin prefix, or [Egg head?], while OOCYTE ([An egg develops from it]) uses the Greek prefix.

Mystery answer: RUFFS is clued as [Plays a trump card]. I'm not sure why the biblical-era EDOMITE, or [Ancient Negev dweller], was a gimme with just the first letter. Lots of crossword training, I guess! Answers and clues I liked:

• DARN IT, or ["Phooey!"].
  
• [They come out in the spring] means GEMINIS, not spring flowers! Though if you're born on June 21, you could be a summer Gemini, couldn't you?
  
• [Their feet don't walk] refers to POEMS.
  
• CUT-RATE means [Discounted].
  
• FOMENT means to [Stir up]. I just like the word.
  
• [Jobs in technology?] is STEVE Jobs of Apple, of course.
  

It's a pretty grid, ain't it?

Updated:

Randall Hartman's CrosSynergy puzzle, "In Like Flint," interjects a FLINT into three phrases or compound words, forming a new phrase with the FLINT joined to a new compound word:

• [Philanthropist Elihu's gun?] is YALE FLINTLOCK. Elihu Yale, Yale brand locks, and flintlock guns come into play here.
  
• [Salute Bedrock's first family?] is HAIL FLINTSTONES. Hailstones, the verb "hail," and the cartoon Flintstones all enter into this one.
  
• [Scrooge's noggin?] is SKINFLINT HEAD. Skinheads, a miserly skinflint like Scrooge, and a regular old head go into this answer.
  

Freshest fill: TONY HAWK, the [Big name in skateboarding].

Michael Wiesenberg's themeless LA Times crossword came together in backwards fashion—from right to left and from bottom to top. There are eight 15-letter entries (two sets of triple-stacked answers and two more 15s in the midsection), and not a single one of 'em was a gimme for me:

• [Atone for a hasty marriage, in an old saying] is REPENT AT LEISURE. I should've gotten this one sooner than "at the very end."
  
• To [Evangelize] is to PREACH THE GOSPEL.
  
• [City on the Clark Fork River] is...wait, what river? I don't know this river. It's MISSOULA, MONTANA.
  
• [Meg Cabot best-seller, with "The"] is PRINCESS DIARIES. Haven't read it, nor have I seen the movie.
  
• I don't know why [Rocker tools?] are KNITTING NEEDLES. Is it because knitters are deemed to be old ladies who sit in rocking chairs? Actually, if you Google bad-ass knitting, you get 164,000 hits, like this. There's a whole movement of young hipsters who knit.
  
• [Stock redemption calculation] is CONVERSION RATIO.
  
• [Sam Peckinpah's last film, with "The"] is OSTERMAN WEEKEND.
  
• [Like sad sacks] is WELL-INTENTIONED.
  

Trickiest clues: [Burns and more] are SCOTS, as in Scottish people. I can't tell you how long I clung to CHARS or SEARS. [Rec. measures] made no sense to me. RPMS? Then rec. must be short for record, as in a record album. I was thinking prepositionally and about physical location for [Not under], but it's AT LEAST, as in an amount.

The Newsday "Saturday Stumper" is by S.N. (Stan Newman). Sometimes his Stumpers have the Anna Stiga ("Stan again") byline, and I've heard that Stan reserves the S.N. byline for his toughest puzzles. It took me a good long while to grasp where Stan was going with the clues, but eventually everything fell together. Here's a substantial sampling of answers that eluded me for a time:

• [Latin American delicacy] is ABALONE. With ONE in place, I wanted TOSTONE, but that wasn't going to work with the crossings.
  
• [Where the "Staten Generaal" meets] is DEN HAAG, Dutch for "the Hague." I had the Hague in mind, but the Dutch wasn't coming to me.
  
• [Hollyhock and okra] are MALLOWS. I have the vague sense that the okra/mallow combination was in another puzzle I did recently, maybe an acrostic?
  
• [Old hat] means an old hat of a specific kind, not the adjective "old hat": BICORNE.
  
• [Midnight Poison and Fahrenheit 32] are DIORS in that they're Dior fragrances. Why do they sound like heavy metal bands?
  
• [Rejector of "isms"] is a RASTA. I don't know why.
  
• [Put together together] was perhaps the most mystifying clue. The answer is COEDITED. "The two coeditors worked together closely to put that book together."
  
• CASABA melon is a [Sweet dessert]? Blech. The only melon I like is watermelon.
  
• [Fancy dip] in dance is PLIE. Did you think of a fancy edible dip as I did?
  
• [Watch-window letters] are THU. Why? Probably because a teeny wristwatch window that shows the day of the week would display only a three-letter abbreviation for the day.
  
• [Batter's beginnings, perhaps] is CAKE MIX. Now that's a dessert I can stand behind.
  
• [Calliope kin] refers not to the musical instrument, but the Muses of Greek mythology. One of Calliope's sisters is EUTERPE.
  
• [Inverted omega, symbolically] is MHO. Is the right-side-up omega the ohm?
  
• [Service selection] is a POEM. If you're putting together a wedding or funeral service, you might be selecting a poem to be read aloud.
  
• [Name coined by Jonathan Swift] is VANESSA. Really? Yes, indeed! I never knew that. I had all his crazy names in mind, like Yahoos and Lilliputians, but they didn't fit the space available.
  
• [Cheese partner] is MAC, as in macaroni. This one looks so easy, and yet...
  
• I figured [It's rigid on trailer trucks] was looking for an obscure truck part. Nope, just a REAR AXLE.
  
• [Vodka cocktail] is an unusual clue for CAPE COD.
  
• [Shows dissatisfaction with one's shoes] mystified me for so long. It's REDYES.
  
• I didn't know the [Headquarters of LG Electronics] was SEOUL. I love my LG enV phone with its full QWERTY keyboard to make texting easy. (If only I could persuade all my friends to sign up for text messaging service...)
  

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Monday, 6/2

CS 2:55
LAT 2:50
NYT 2:42
NYS 2:28

Newsflash: The Jonesin' crossword will now be available in the user-friendly Across Lite format. You can download this week's puzzle at the Jonesin' Google Groups page rather than waiting until Thursday. Join the Google Group to receive each week's puzzle via e-mail, usually on Sunday or Monday. Starting next week, I plan to start blogging about the Jonesin' puzzle on Mondays. Hooray for something new to do on Mondays! (So click the link and sign up, will you?)

I think the New York Times crossword marks Barry Boone's constructing debut. Running the full height of the grid, 7-Down reads THE FOUR ELEMENTS. Those four elements appear at the beginning of the other four theme entries: FIREARM, or [Heater or repeater]); EARTH ORBIT, or [Revolutionary pattern of the moon]; WATERCOLOR, or [Non-oil painting method]; and AIRDATE, or [TV Guide info]. All four element theme entries intersect the long vertical theme entry, which is a nice touch. My favorite fill is the long stuff: DAN RATHER, [Predecessor of Katie Couric] at CBS News; ESCALATOR, or [Lazy person's stairs?]; LOST CAUSE, exemplified by [The Civil War, for the Confederacy]; and ROY ROGERS, a [Trigger man?] because his horse was named Trigger. My least favorite answer is VEAL, [Calves' meat]. Aww, poor calves. Completely unnecessary, given that HEAL/HATS, MEAL/MATS, NEAL/NATS, and PEAL/PATS could all have been used instead. It's not as if the V was needed to achieve a pangram—there's no Q and there is another V in the grid. JEEZ (19-Across!), if one is compelled to include VEAL in the grid, can we go with [___ scallopine] rather than evoking baby cows sent to slaughter? /soapbox

Michael Wiesenberg's New York Sun crossword is a rarity: an early-week Sun puzzle that's easier than the NYT puzzle of the same day. The "Feathered Friends" theme includes four names (two fictional, two real) in which the surname is a type of bird. No, not Clarice Starling, Caroline Rhea, Rita Dove, Frasier Crane, Jonathan Swift, Sheryl Crow, or Peter Finch. Here we have LAURIE PARTRIDGE, Susan Dey's character on The Partridge Family; comedian STEVE MARTIN; Captain JACK SPARROW, Johnny Depp's ubiquitous Caribbean pirate; and architect CHRISTOPHER WREN. Now, I'm wondering if there's something more to the theme, because Peter Gordon tends to insist on fresh, tight themes. Why these four names and not any of those others?

Updated:

Mel Rosen's CrosSynergy crossword, "Jazz Instruction," gives as a quip some instructions for a jazz musician: YOU PLAY ALL THE / RIGHT NOTES BUT IN / THE WRONG ORDER. Highlights in the fill: SLALOM crossing SALAAM; Springsteen's song BORN TO RUN; actress KATHY BATES; and GUN-SHY, or [Cautious, so to speak]. GUN-SHY crossed a couple unfamiliar, non-Mondayish answers: [Concerto ___ (Baroque musical form)] is completed by GROSSO, and [19th century Chief Justice Roger __] is TANEY. The R in GROSSO comes from another unfamiliar word, REE, as in [Mr. ___ (old board game similar to Clue)].

The LA Times crossword is by Nancy Salomon. The first two theme entries are [Unanimated] similes—DULL AS DISHWATER and STIFF AS A BOARD—while the third one ups the ante with [Unanimated, to the max], or DEAD AS A DOORNAIL. There's a legume undercurrent in the fill—PEA SOUP is a [Fog metaphor] while a BEANPOLE is a [Tall and thin person]. There are also a couple drinking-related entries: ADDICT is [One who can't get enough], and NOT SOBER is [Tipsy and then some]. I don't care for NOT SOBER as a fill entry—it doesn't feel qualitatively different from, say, NOT HUNGRY or NOT MAD.

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Saturday, 2/2

Newsday 11:18
NYT 6:10
LAT 5:48
CS 3:17

Young constructor Natan Last plays it a bit Scrabbly with his themeless Saturday New York Times crossword. The structure isn't the same old, same old—two 14-letter Across entries are linked by three long Down entries (a 15 bracketed by two 12s), with plenty of flow from one section to another. I didn't encounter any real trouble spots, other than having a typo in 3-Down and blanking on what the [1979 film with sequels II to VI] could be. I had the STAR part and couldn't get Star Wars out of my head. STAR TREK! ("Khan!!") The long answers included the double-Scrabble JE NE SAIS QUOI and the idiomatic LOST ONE'S COOL bracketing ON TOP OF THE WORLD, crossed by BRING TO JUSTICE and those [Seemingly silent types], VENTRILOQUISTS. AREOLA is clued as an [Interstice]; would you believe I saw one on the way to dinner tonight? Yeah. Surprising to say the least, though at least it was about 30 degrees outside and no longer subzero. [Having the most pizzazz] clued ZIPPIEST, and while I first entered ZESTIEST, I much prefer ZIPPIEST. (And who doesn't like the word pizazz? It's got as many Z's as [Zyzzyva], or BEETLE.) Heck, I use the word zippy here, and I like the zippy stuff in my crosswords. [Meter readers?] are POETS. Did anyone else think [Al-___] was going to be something Arabic? Al-Aqaba, Al-Jazeera? No, it was Al-ANON this time. The [Big bang creator] was merely an N-TEST and not something cosmic. The verb REFEREE was clued as [Enforce the rules]. I never knew that PASCHAL was an adjective (derived from Pasch, which somehow doubles as Easter and Passover). I didn't know the phrase coup d'OEIL or "survey made with a glance"; it's French from stroke + eye. I like RUN FOR IT and ["She's gonna blow!"]. Did you know that the EAR is [Where the utricle is]? I did. Ears! I like me some geography, so DJIBOUTI, the [Neighbor of Somalia], is good stuff. ESPRESSO is a brewed drink, not brewed the same way as beer. I don't think I've heard of [Two-time figure skating Olympic gold medalist Protopopov], first name OLEG—but I love that last name. Sounds like the prototype of a pop-off. I don't eat chicken wings—too much trouble, not enough payoff—so I needed crossings to inform me that an [Option for wings] is CAJUN. I knew TIRESIAS was blind, but I didn't recall how it came to pass that he lost his sight—serves him right for...accidentally seeing Athena naked? By accident? Aw, that's not fair. PAD THAI is a good entry, but I'm not an Asian noodle fan. If there are no typos in this rambling paragraph, I will be astonished. And if there are some, then I cast all blame on the wine over dinner.

Updated:

Well, I had typos and fixed them after Sherry and Nancy e-mailed me to tip me off. They and Patrick B2 are my most reliable typo-pointer-outers, and I'm grateful for their eagle eyes! (Do ernes have keen eagle eyes, too? Maybe these three have erne eyes.)

I woke up this morning with a sore throat and went back to sleep until 9:00. Now I've been up for two hours and I'm...growing tired. That's my excuse, anyway, for a deadly solving time on the Newsday "Saturday Stumper" by Stanley Newman, because a friend finished the same puzzle in just over half my time. Favorite entries: "OUI, MADAME," the [Sommelier's phrase]; MAGIC 8-BALL, [Mattel toy] (unadvertised numeral in the grid!); STAGE-MANAGE, or [Run sub rosa]; AQUA VELVA, [Brut alternative]; TWEEZER, or [Stamp collector's need]; DEMO TAPE, or [Musical intro]; and PTOLEMY I, the ["Savior" king], because of the PT start. Other favorite clues: [Washington group] for PRESS CORPS; ROMA TOMATO [Sauce source] crossing PREGO tomato sauce; [Parlor product, for short] for TAT; [Columbia offering] for PHD; and [Pressing needs] for DELTS (as in deltoid muscles).

Michael Wiesenberg's LA Times crossword seemed a little dry—in my head, I think I'm comparing it to Karen Tracey's Sun puzzle yesterday, with a bunch of names I found fun. Phrases like SEEN AT and IN ANSWER are a tad less vivacious, and one of the names here was unknown to me—LINA, [Soprano Cavalieri, a contemporary of Caruso]. Favorite clues: [Bavarian beef?] for ACH (there's also "GUTE Nacht," or "good night"); [Unholy rollers?] for DICE; and [Hill partner] for MCGRAW (as in the publisher, McGraw-Hill).

Leaving themeless country, we visit Lynn Lempel's Wednesday-level CrosSynergy puzzle, "You Gotta Have Heart." The theme entries start with words that can follow heart—BURN RUBBER yields heartburn, STRINGBEAN gives heartstring, and so on. This puzzle had a very fresh vibe to it, light fill, fun clues. And when I figured out the answer to [Drive back] was BEAT OFF, I laughed heartily because, well, you can see where Answers.com redirects you if you search for that term's definition. Racy! Changing subjects (honest!), there are the cute boys HUGH Grant and GREG Louganis, and a TRYST of a [Hot date]. Favorite clue: [Masters of spin?] for ice SKATERS.

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