Jonesin' 3:52
NYT 3:35 (paper)
CS 3:18
LAT 2:40
Wired magazine's modern-day etiquette columnist, Brendan Koerner, asked me what the rule is concerning finishing someone else's crossword puzzle. Is it OK? Not OK? Read my answer here.
What's not included are the details of my research into this thorny crossword etiquette question. When I ran it by them, both Tyler Hinman and Brendan Quigley went straight to intimations of violence. Ladies and gentlemen, if you should happen upon a puzzle that one of these fellows has not yet finished, I beseech you to keep your hands and pencil at bay. It's for your own protection. The other people I asked all had the same reply to the question, "Is it OK to finish someone else's puzzle?" They said "Without asking? No." Simple as that.
This issue (May 2009) also has a bunch of puzzles (not crosswords) by such luminaries as Will Shortz and Martin Gardner, and there's a "Mystery" theme to the magazine. Puzzles, cryptography, magic, and more, in an issue guest-edited by J.J. Abrams, creator of Lost. Check it out.
Ronald and Nancy Byron's New York Times crossword
You remember the old Tinker to Evers to Chance baseball play, when those Cubs pulled off a double play on the New York Giants? That's the theme here:
I've got a lot of reservations about this puzzle. First of all, baseball? Meh. Second, the name/position theme entries strike me as contrived. One of you baseball nuts will correct me if that's actually a standard way to refer to a player, but for now, it feels like there's a missing preposition in the middle of each. And then the unifying answer also sounds contrived to me. Why not DOUBLE PLAY GROUP? Is "double play combo" the lingo inside baseball?
What I liked best in this puzzle is BRAINIAC, clued as [2006 Ken Jennings book...or the author himself]. I enjoyed that book. This puzzle's a little brassy, too—there's SMART and PUSHY ([Rudely assertive]) and NERVE ([Chutzpah]) and DARE (clued another way, as [Virginia ___ (noted 1587 birth]). [Black-clad and white-clad Mad adversaries] are the SPIES in "Spy Vs. Spy." The plant VETCH, a [Climbing plant with pealike flowers], sounds like it should mean a combination of vex and itch, doesn't it? It sounds nettlesome. I do like crossword botany.
Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword, "Look Under the Cushions"
Matt puts some sofas and related furniture in the circled squares in the theme answers and supplements them with a few oddball answers that are things one might find when digging under the sofa cushions for lost treasures.
Joining the thematic party is some long-lost detritus. ["I found a ___, which blended into the beige. No way am I going to eat it."] clues a TAN M AND M. ["So that's where the ___ to this old pen went!"] is a pen CAP. ["I'm rich! No, just kidding. It's only a ___."] DIME. ["Ew...all I found were the stale remnants of a ___."] PRINGLE (chip).
There's some weird fill in here. There's a LEAD NAIL, or [Item used to fasten planks, in old shipbuilding]. And APHEX [___ Twin (alias of electronic musician Richard D. James)]. GAMIC is a [Suffix for anatomical reproductive organs]. [Lance Bass headline, on a 2006 cover of People] is "I'M GAY"; this one was a gimme. ACAI, the [Palm whose berries are now used in fruit juices]—acai stuff is all over the grocery store now. Does it taste good? Favorite clues: [It'll never get off the ground] for an EMU, and [Tends to priority number one?] for PEES.
Updated Tuesday morning:
Gail Grabowski's Los Angeles Times crossword
Three theme answers end with nouns that double as a trio of synonymous verbs:
A concrete stoop is drab, but AROUND THE BEND and DOESN'T KNOW SQUAT are beautifully colloquial phrases. Gail Grabowski is one of those constructors who specialize in easy puzzles that don't bore solvers. If it's Monday or Tuesday (or maybe Wednesday in Newsday) and you see her byline, you've probably got a decent puzzle in store.
Here's a smattering of two-word answers, which are straightforward enough for longtime NYT or LAT solvers but take some rejiggering of mental expectations for longtime TMS solvers who have switched to the LAT:
Sarah Keller's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Flavor to Taste"
Spicy theme today—
April 20, 2009
Tuesday, 4/21
June 15, 2008
Monday, 6/16
NYS 3:12
CS 2:57
LAT 2:45
NYT 2:42
Jonesin' —> see Tuesday post
Ronald and Nancy Byron's New York Times crossword marks the first time I've seen their byline. The simple theme includes three 15-letter [1960s weather song]s: BLOWIN' IN THE WIND, HERE COMES THE SUN, and RHYTHM OF THE RAIN. It's a fairly tight theme, as the titles all end with a weather-related word and they're all songs from the same decade. There are a couple old-school crosswordy answers—a STERE is a [Cubic meter] and STOATS are [Animals with brown summer fur] and white winter fur. The grid also makes room for fill like SHOWCASE (a [Cabinet for displaying wares]), EGO TRIPS, NITWIT, and ARCANA.
Alex Boisvert's New York Sun crossword, "Sayings of the Times," is a pop-culture extravaganza: Five theme entries are catchphrases from TV shows of the '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s, and '00s. "SOCK IT TO ME!" was the Nixonian line from Laugh-In. Hawaii Five-O featured "BOOK 'EM, DANNO." "ISN'T THAT SPECIAL?" was the disdainful remark from Dana Carvey's Church Lady on Saturday Night Live. Jerry was even more disdainful with Seinfeld's "HELLO, NEWMAN." And Donald Trump is wont to say "YOU'RE FIRED" on The Apprentice. Plenty of Scrabbly fill between the theme entries—three Xs, a Q, and a Z.
Updated:
My favorite clue in Donna Levin's LA Times crossword is [Montana's had a "16" on it]. JERSEY? What, two states? Oh! Joe Montana, football jersey. The theme is similar to one that appeared in another paper some weeks back—makeup. LINER NOTES begins with either eyeliner or lipliner. SHADOW OF A DOUBT has eye shadow. LIPSTICK JUNGLE, well, duh. And BLUSH WINES gives us blush. The previous makeup theme had included both ROUGE and BLUSH, hadn't it? And those are often the same thing. So bonus points to this puzzle for including four different kinds of cosmetics. (I won't mention how long it took me to recognize what the theme was here.)
I'm not completely clear about the theme in Mel Rosen's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Good Finishes." Most of theme entries appear to begin with words that can follow "good": NAME BRANDS and a "good name," WORD LADDER and "put in a good word," DAY CARE and "Good day!", BOOK REVIEW and "the good book." But what is JOE COLLEGE doing there? Does "good Joe" mean something? One might attend a "good college," but "good brands" and "my good ladder" don't seem like stand-alone phrases. Explanation, anyone?
