BEQ 8:20
NYT 3:02
LAT 2:26
CS untimed
Holy schnauzer! I see that this is post #2,028 here at Diary of a Crossword Fiend. I meant to mark #2,000 but it snuck by me. Coming soon: A blog contest! Inspired by Brendan Quigley's list of "Ten Bullsh*t Themes," the prizes will include Brendan's new book, Diagramless Crosswords, along with Simon & Schuster Mega Crosswords.
Also coming soon: A new home and a new look for this blog. Thanks to the tireless efforts of Dave Sullivan over this long weekend while I was lolling in Wisconsin and enjoying family time, the new site is almost ready to be unveiled. You can hardly wait, I know.
You know who else slaved away over a hot blogstove all weekend? Crosscan, Joon, PuzzleGirl, Sam, and Janie, that's who. Beaucoup thanks to all of them!
Oliver Hill's New York Times crossword
Quickly, because this puzzle came out hours ago and post-getaway laundry won't dry itself—
The theme is ___ TRAPs: LIGHT SPEED, AS QUIET AS A MOUSE, BLUE-FOOTED BOOBY, and GEORGE SAND suggest speed trap, mousetrap, booby-trap, and sandtrap. Gotta love the BLUE-FOOTED BOOBY—friend of mine took a trip to the Galapagos and took great pix of the boobies with variously colored feet. I'm not sure how the theory of evolution accounts for dull-feathered birds with bright blue or red feet.
Kudos to the editor and/or constructor for cluing NURSED as [Breast-fed]. Man, I hope no bluenoses write offended letters to the Times complaining that breast-feeding violates the breakfast test. Kudos, too, for the PLAYMATE being a [Child's friend] rather than the subject of a Playboy pictorial.
Favorite fill: QUIT IT; the AL DENTE / ZIT line; ROD CAREW's full name; the three-in-a-row Down answers LOO, DOO, and ZOO; and DADDY-O. BIC is clued as an [Inexpensive pen]; anyone else see the magazine ads promoting Bic pens, lighters, and disposable razors with a single cents-off coupon? Less fond of TRAYFUL, E-BONDS, and the doubling up on UPDATE/UPMOST.
Updated Monday morning:
Raymond Hamel's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Knot Now"—Janie's review
Anyone out there read Annie Proulx's The Shipping News? One of the many things I liked about the book were the illustrations of knots that were part of almost every chapter. They were taken from The Ashley Book of Knots which, it just so happens, is available as a free e-book. Today, each of Ray's fresh theme phrases begins with a word that also describes a particular kind of knot. And those'd be:
• 20A. WINDSOR CASTLE [Queen Elizabeth's weekend getaway]. Here's a "how to" in, um, seven easy steps...
• 37A. GRANNY SMITH [Green apple variety]. Here's one kind of granny knot.
• 44A. SQUARE DANCE [Where callers are heard]. Loved this one, because I really didn't understand the clue until the fill became clear. Also, the square knot is just about the only knot I know how to tie: left over right and right over left. Or the opposite.
• 59A. OVERHAND PITCH [It was legalized in baseball in 1884]. Nice little factoid, no? And here's yer basic overhand knot, which bears a striking resemblance to a pretzel. Yeah. I can do this one, too.
While the theme may have been "knotty," the puzzle as a whole was easily and enjoyably solved. Little Jack Horner of English nursery rhyme fame got his day in EL SOL [The sun, in Seville] with not one, but two clue/fill combos: ["...and pulled out] A PLUM" and ["...and said, 'What a good boy] AM I!'" While we're in the nursery, let me not forget to mention CHOO, which has been clued as [Half a toy train?]. Let's just hope that when the child with but half a toy train starts to read, he or she gets an entire primer. Cut-backs are one thing, but Dick without JANE? Next thing ya know that [Double Dutch need] (and knot-tying need...) ROPE will be for—well, is there such a thing as "Single Dutch"? I think not. But look, the National Double Dutch competition is coming up. This may be worth looking into!
In the legal world, the [Burden of proof] ONUS is on the prosecutor, who pleads his or her case before the judge or judges. When the robed ones are hearing a case, they are said to be sitting en BANC. So they're the ones who have a [Seat at the court]. In the world where the "higher law" must be answered to, someone who's been very, very good might be recognizable by his or her HALO [Heavenly ring] (or HARP, perhaps). And a [Heavenly aquarium addition?]? Why, that'd be an ANGEL FISH, of course. (Ray also gives us the WAHOO, a [Dark blue food fish]. This was new to me, and is a nice change from ["Yippee!"].)
Other fill that kept the puzzle lively: CHI-CHI [Hoity-toity] (I like that clue, too) and TOP DOG [One of the highest authority]. We've seen fat cat a couple times in the past few weeks, so I was glad to see a little balance among the species.
Pancho Harrison's Los Angeles Times crossword
Aw, look at 1-Across: [Vikings quarterback Brett] FAVRE. FAVRE turned 40 last month, and would you look at the season he's having with his erstwhile NFC Central/North rivals? My son was OK with his Bears losing yesterday because the Vikings are his second favorite team. If only FAVRE had come to the Bears instead of Jay "Interceptions and Fumbles" Cutler.
The theme is either flawed or fresh: The three longest entries start with synonyms, but one of the synonyms is two words while the others are single words. Is it a nice twist or an unexpected hitch to have TAKE OFF, not TAKE, match up with SPLIT and LEAVE? I'm OK with it. TAKE OFF WEIGHT is clued as [Shed some pounds]; SPLIT THE PROFITS is [Divide earnings equally]; and to LEAVE A MESSAGE is to [Talk to the answering machine].
In the fill, the stars are OLD YELLER (which I haven't seen...I don't want to cry) and AUSTRALIA. Not fond of AGERS and APER. The iBOOK is now dated fill, but it's easier to fit into a puzzle than the MacBook Pro or the AirBook.
Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Themeless Monday"
This puzzle kicked my ass. Chess fans may appreciate 1-Across—ZUGZWANG, or [Unpleasant obligation to move, in chess]—but those who've never encountered the term must rely heavily on the crossings. And 1-Down wasn't helping—["Hannah Montana," e.g.] is a teen sitcom but also, apparently, a ZITCOM. Now, my kid watches some of the Disney Channel's sitcoms for tweens and I read Entertainment Weekly religiously, but ZITCOM was not coming to the fore of my brain. Gah.
How are NITS [Small prevarications]? I've never seen the word used to mean lies. I had FIBS there for too long. Plenty of other wrong turns, too. GAINS instead of EARNS and THETAN instead of THEBAN because I was originally thinking CRETAN mucked up the race horse BARBARO, who was looking like TARBUIO or TARBAIO (the A-vs.-U was JANE, [Alec's twin sister in "Twilight"], and I guess Brendan is more caught up in Twilight-mania than I am. Brendan, you didn't seem the type. I also figured [Acting together] would be ***ING UP rather than IN LEAGUE.
["Eek!"] clues DEAR ME, which is goofy but worlds better than OH ME and AH ME, which I suggest nobody has uttered in a century, if ever. Until now! I have begun using AH ME and OH ME, but so far have had no luck getting my husband to join in. Won't you help popularize these words of regret and despair? It's either that, or we have to insist that constructors stop using these entries altogether. Do any of you have an in with Stephenie Meyer or the writers of Hannah Montana? That could break OH/AH ME wide open. I'd tell you I was saying "Oh, me!" in my head while working on this crossword, but that would be a small prevarication.
November 29, 2009
Monday, 11/30/09
November 01, 2009
Monday, 11/2/09
NYT 2:59
LAT 2:54
CS untimed
BEQ tba
Blogging will be inattentive and possibly typo-laden—some sort of virus has taken up residence here, and it may not be the flu but it's more than a cold. Now, who will bring me some cocoa and a blanket?
Andrea Carla Michaels and Kent Clayton's New York Times crossword
Monday maven Andrea has partnered up with a newbie, Kent Clayton, for a crossword I can't show my son. As far as I know, he hasn't yet given up belief in the EASTER BUNNY, TOOTH FAIRY, and SANTA CLAUS. He does, however, enjoy those Ripley's BELIEVE IT OR NOT books. Cute theme.
I like the fill too. FLOTSAM and KARACHI and an ACQUITTAL are fancy for Monday, but I don't think they're too hard for Monday. (If you complain that KARACHI is obscure, then I will complain that you ought to spend some more time spinning a globe.) FROTH is a [Possible sign of rabies]—whew! I haven't got that in my constellation of signs and symptoms. [Gobsmack] is a great clue for STUN, isn't it?
All righty, it's back to the couch for me now.
Updated Monday morning:
Randolph Ross's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "String Quintet"—Janie's review
This puzzle is music to my eyes. Not only is the theme fill most satisfying for lovers of wordplay (almost picking up where Tony's Saturday puzzle left off), but once again, Randy has given us a lot of it: 67 squares in two 15s, which overlap two 12s, and a 13 at the center of it all. Concertmaster, an "A," please, as we tune up and tune in:
•17A. [String instruments made in the U.S.A.?]. There's a pun in the fill here, and it conjures up Emily Litella speaking out in impassioned tones to defend "violins on television." The base phrase here is domestic violence; the theme fill, DOMESTIC VIOLINS—all of which sits atop
•20A. [What a cool rapper might listen to in heaven?]. Not hip-hop music, but its vividly punny relative HIP HARP MUSIC. I bet this would pique the interest of a lot of heaven's denizens—from all segments of the population.
•35A. [Beyoncé song about a lovely string instrument?]. Homophone time here as "Beautiful Liar" becomes (harp relative) "Beautiful Lyre."
•53A. [Movie about how an Indian string instrument is made]. Thank you, Randy, for the flat out groaner as A Star is Born gains an "I" and a syllable to become A SITAR IS BORN. Starring Ravi Shankar, no doubt. The sitar, btw, is not traditionally found in Western orchestration, but pieces for sitar and orchestra do exist—and the Beatles' George Harrison was, um, instrumental in bringing its sound to pop music in such songs as "Within You and Without You." And this fill sits atop
•57A. [How to keep some string instruments from being damaged by rain]. Here we have another homophone, as the good idea when trying to hedge one's bets, to cover one's bases, becomes COVER ONE'S BASSES.
If this fill isn't colorful enough for you, Randy has also provided [Cool and colorful summer treat] SNO-CONES—not to mention RED [Stop signal], YELLOW [Coward's color] and PINKY... just kidding. That's been clued as [Place for a ring]. While my dad wore an understated one almost all of his married life (an anniversary gift from my mom), I confess I now tend to associate pinky rings with people who might be involved in some kind of RACKET [Shady business], or someone involved in CASING ("the joint") [Reconnaissance activity for a criminal]. Call it the "Don Corleone/Tony Soprano Effect"...
Other fill that kept things lively include: the adverbial phrase TO DEATH [Words following bored or scared], SINS for [Deadly septad], RAISIN (and not BANANA) for [Cereal fruit], LUSHLY for [In an opulent manner], ASTUTE for [Sharp], UNIVAC for (one very astute [if large...]) [Early computer], CONSUL for [State Department employee], and—a character I'd not thought about in years—PETUNIA [Porky's girlfriend].
While I question WIT—which I associate with the likes of Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw—as the [Talent of Leno or Letterman], the presence of Ms. Petunia in combination with all of this puzzle's highlights, gave me a good TEE-HEE [Chuckle].
And if you aren't familiar with Mozart's string quintets, here's a sample of some music to my ears!
Ten hours of sleep helped. Looks to be a garden-variety bug rather than the flu. I am relieved to be merely coughing and achy.
Pancho Harrison's Los Angeles Times crossword
I filled 71-Across via the Downs (hey, look, the RABBI and ISLAM are coexisting peacefully at the CARD TABLE) so I had to look for TIME's unifying clue after I was all done. The long theme entries are phrases in which both words can follow TIME:
• SLOT MACHINE gets you a time slot and a time machine.
• CARD TABLE gives you a timecard and timetable.
• OFF LIMITS gives you some restorative time off within some time limits.
• PERIOD PIECE (which I would have clued with reference to movies rather than novels) provides a certain time period and a timepiece.
Liveliest answer: MRS. PEEL, ["The Avengers" heroine, to Steed]. Least current clue: SNL is the [NBC show with Baba Wawa skits]. I'm sure a lot of people under the age of 40 have never seen those classic skits, since Gilda Radner left SNL in 1980.
Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Horsing Around"
The theme's famous horses of fiction and non-. I only remembered about three and a half of the eight horses in the grid:
• [Buddha's horse] was KANTAKA. Buddha had a horse? In his leaner days, maybe?
• MARENGO was [Napoleon's horse]. Byron Walden and I once considered a theme with horrifying recipes like MARE MARENGO, using chicken Marengo's sauce on horsemeat. (Also in the theme: YAK YAKITORI and BEAR BEARNAISE. Yum!)
• [Alexander the Great's horse] was BUCEPHALUS. Briefly wanted this to be BOCEPHALUS.
• In fiction, [Don Quixote's horse] is ROSINANTE or Rocinante.
• [Gandalf's horse] is SHADOWFAX, which is also the name of some '80s New Age music I listened to in my Windham Hill phase in college. No, I'm not proud of it.
• COPENHAGEN was [Wellington's horse]. He had a horse? Oh, yeah, it's in the statue.
• [Xerxes' horse] was STRYMON. Never heard of this one.
• [Chief Sitting Bull's horse] was BLACKIE. Never heard of this one, either.
Rapper to remember for future puzzles: EDAN is the ["Echo Party" rapper]. He must not be too famous or he'd be in more puzzles thanks to those common letters in his name.
September 05, 2009
Sunday, 9/6/09
NYT 9:54
PI 7:52
BG 7:45
LAT 7:07
CS 3:30
NYT cryptic crossword 9:20
Robert Wolfe's New York Times crossword, "The Argonne"
The theme's not about the Argonne wood of WWI fame. Rather, each theme entry has an "R gone" from the last word. I found the theme somewhat vexing on account of the presence of undeleted Rs in earlier words in some theme answers and several unfamiliar base phrases. Here's how the theme plays out:
There were some oddities in the fill. TUTORAGE isn't a common word at all, is it? It's clued as 4D: [Educational work after school], but that's more often called tutoring. The tall flower I know is the gladiolus, but apparently GLADIOLA is an "also:" spelling; here it's clued as 92D: [Relative of an iris]. The 13D: [Metrical accent] called an ICTUS is known to me only as a medical word for a seizure; I had no idea it had a literary application (I much preferred studying prose). TENTH DAY, or 90D: [Part of Christmas when lords a-leaping are given], felt contrived.
Favorite things:
Clues I think people will be a-Googling:
Updated late Saturday night:
Merl Reagle's Philadelphia Inquirer (et al.) crossword, "Designers' Holiday"
The first theme entry in Merl's puzzle made me laugh because my husband can't get through a department store clothing department without saying "Ask Tommy; HILFIGER IT OUT." Merl's got that at 22A, with the clue [Confident words about a designer doing this puzzle?]. The remaining theme answers didn't entertain me as much as that first one. They are:
Tough nuts are scattered throughout the fill:
Pancho Harrison's syndicated Los Angeles Times Sunday crossword, "Great Direction"
This one's a centenary tribute puzzle to director ELIA KAZAN (123A: [Born 9/7/1909, he directed the answers to starred clues]). It's too bad that what is perhaps his most famous film, On the Waterfront, didn't find a home in this grid. I hadn't realized Kazan was a theatrical director as well as a movie director, but many of the theme entries are plays. Plays include ALL MY SONS, the 23A: [1947 Tony-winning Arthur Miller play]; two-entry DEATH OF A / SALESMAN, or 28A/113A: [1949 Tony-winning play starring Lee J. Cobb]; and A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, the 68A: [1947 Tennessee Williams play]. His films include 42A/45A: [1945 film based on a Betty Smith novel], A TREE GROWS / IN BROOKLYN; 94A: EAST OF EDEN, the [1955 film based on a Steinbeck novel]; 97A: VIVA ZAPATA, the [1952 biopic starring Marlon Brando]; 103A: CATWOMAN, the [2004 movie starring Halle Berry as a sinuous comics villain]; and 115A: MAVERICK, the [1994 Western starring Gibson and Foster]. Okay, I lied. The last two aren't theme entries, and the clue for MAVERICK reads simply [Loner].
I think I haven't seen any of Kazan's work, actually. Huh. On the plus side, I also skipped Catwoman and Maverick.
What I liked most in the fill, besides those non-Kazan movie titles with non-movie clues, were these answers:
Henry Hook's Boston Globe crossword, "College Knowledge"
I'm going to make this quick because I'm getting sleepy—but I want to get all the Sunday-sized puzzles out of the way tonight because I'm going out for a birthday breakfast with a friend. Yes, my birthday was three weeks ago, and no, there's no reason it can't be a month-long celebration of moi.
I enjoyed the theme, in which college names are paired with rhyming nouns. Some are easy/obvious, like DENISON VENISON, but more fun are the ones with crazy spelling variations for the rhyming sounds. For example, RICE GNEISS, FISK BISQUE, and DUKE SPOOK. The shortest four theme entries travel Down and are stacked beside each other in pairs—that's a Hook/Reagle trademark, that sort of theme stacking. Good stuff.
Updated Sunday morning:
Doug Peterson's themeless CrosSynergy "Sunday Challenge"
Plenty of easy clues plus no obscure fill to get in the way of working the crossings make for a quicker-than-most-themelesses experience. Easy doesn't mean lifeless, though. There's a slew of good stuff here. The highlights:
Mystery name for me: 37D: [Country singer McCoy] is named NEAL. Wikipedia tells me this:Hubert Neal McGaughey, Jr. (born July 30, 1958 in Jacksonville, Texas) is an American country music singer of mixed Irish and Filipino descent. Known professionally as Neal McCoy, he has released ten studio albums on various labels, and has released thirty-four singles to country radio.
What, "Hubert McGaughey, Jr." wasn't zingy enough for the music industry?
Bob Stigger's New York Times second Sunday puzzle, a cryptic crossword
I like Bob Stigger's cryptics in Games and/or World of Puzzles, so I was glad to see his byline here. I've got to run now, so I'm out of time to talk about the toughest clues to unravel or my favorite answers. The Across Lite file is locked, so I can't swear that my solution's 100% correct, but everything made sense to me.
July 19, 2009
Monday, 7/20
BEQ 4:13
LAT 2:43
NYT 2:29
CS 7:22 (J―paper)
Two extra puzzly bits from the New York Times:
(1) Will Shortz will be answering reader questions through July 24. Send your questions to askthetimes@nytimes.com. I wonder how one's odds of getting accepted to Harvard or Yale compare to one's chance of getting a crossword published in the Times. Given that each top high-schooler can't take more than one admission spot and a good number of crosswords are created by repeat offenders, I'll bet the yield is lower for a crossword newbie than an Ivy wannabe.
(2) The Puzzability team (Robert Leighton, Amy Goldstein, and Mike Shenk) has crafted another thematic suite of puzzles for the NYT's op-ed section. This one commemorates the 40th anniversary of the moon landing. The individual puzzles range from easy to extra easy, and I completely skipped the one logic puzzle and had no trouble getting to the final answer. (Hey, Times tech people: You should consider posting a link to a 7-page PDF rather than a bunch of 1-page PDFs so that printing the puzzles out is easier for those of us who support the paper via online page clicks.)
Pancho Harrison's New York Times crossword
Ha! I can't believe Pancho put PANCHO in his puzzle (48A: [Mexican revolutionary ___ Villa]). I recall some grumbling when Frank Longo once put a LONG O sound into one of his crosswords, but I don't quite see the point of the complaint. I'm waiting for a famous-enough REYNALDO to get my last name in the puzzle, and in the meantime say thanks to 13D: ["The Joy Luck Club" writer Tan] for giving AMY continuing literary cred.
A request to our crossword constructors and editors: Can we limit 15x15 puzzles to a maximum of two baseball references? This one's got 32D: [Hall-of-Famer Mel] OTT, 31A: [Ninth-inning pitcher] for CLOSER, and 9D: [Seventh-inning ritual] for STRETCH. Why, that's 50% more baseball content than I want!
Today's theme is tied together by 57A: PLANT MANAGERS, or [Factory supervisors...or a hint to the starts of 20-, 36- and 42-Across]. I'm confused, because those other three answers begin with parts of plants, but I don't get what the MANAGERS part has to do with it. The plant parts begin these phrases:
Highlights:
Monday Crosswordese Roundup: Now, if you're new to crosswords, this puzzle's got some crosswordese you'll want to learn if it was unfamiliar to you. 17A: [Sicilian spewer] is Mount ETNA—pretty much any mention of a volcano in Europe or spewing in Italy takes us straight to ETNA. 24A: [RR depot] is STA. here, but occasionally it's going to be STN. instead; the abbreviated "RR" for "railroad" is your hint that the answer is an abbreviation for "station." 71A is ESSO, the old ["Put a tiger in your tank" brand] of gasoline; the answer to most gasoline-related clues is ESSO (while NEON accounts for most gaseous references). There's a musical term in the fill-in-the-blank clue 6D: [___ breve (2/2 time in music)] is missing its ALLA. 7D is RIAL, clued as [Iranian money]; Middle Eastern currency clues typically call for RIAL, RIYAL, or DINAR. 22D is a [Low-lying area], or VALE; the word's related to "valley" and starts with the same first three letters but sometimes the answer you need is GLEN.
Updated Monday morning:
William I. Johnston's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Extinguishing Features"—Janie's review
When I saw the title of today's puzzle, I felt for sure this would be one in which letters were dropped from one well-known phrase to create a new one. But no. This is really about the measures you should take to protect yourself in the event of fire: Stop, Drop and Roll, the last of which actually appeared yesterday (in this context) in the Venzke/Daily "Sunday Challenge." Now don't SNIFF if this doesn't sound like the merriest idea for a theme. Will has woven the warning into three active phrases and pulled everything together in the final one. In this way we're instructed to:
The person who pulls it all together and who doesn't want you to take your chances—metaphorically or otherwise—is the:
Will appears to have given us two theme-related words in ARSON [Torch job] and CHAR [Burn]. Hey—when yer hot, yer hot, right?
Now, it's not that I don't take the warning seriously, but I do have to share two images I found for the same message. One is an album cover for the (wild 'n' crazy lookin') Foxboro Hot Tubs...; and the other a poster, to all intents and purposes the kind a teacher might place in the classroom—but for one tiny change in the wording: "Stop, Drop and Roll... Will Not Work in HELL"! (And on the subject of Hell... do check out Ian Frazier's amusing piece in last week's New Yorker, "The Temperature of Hell: A Colloquium", featuring Al Gore, Satan and others on the subject of climate-change...)
Both TAILGATES [Joins the pregame party] and GUERRILLA [Tag for low-budget marketing techniques] also appear to be CS firsts. I particularly like that clue for the latter. Ordinarily I think of the word in connection with CHE [Comrade of Fidel], so I find it refreshing to see it as it's clued today—in a way that forces me to think about the range of its meaning/usage.
Looking at some clue/fill combos, I also liked the avian references—one in the clue [Pigeon, to a con artist] for the snappy EASY MARK, the other in the fill CAPON, punnily clued as [Fixed chicken]. (Poor rooster!) Got myself IN A JAM by trying to make IN A RUT work for [Stuck], and was amused to see DRESS emerge in response to [Slip cover?]. And as for that [City with the world's tallest man-made structure], have you seen pix of DUBAI lately??
Haven't seen the remake of ["Taking of] PELHAM [1 2 3..."], but did watch the original a few weeks ago. It has a taut, edgy screenplay by the late Peter Stone and a great jazzy score by David Shire to match. A genre flick, to be sure, but it sure delivers. And if the tension is all too much, you can always chill out with the Four Preps, who immortalized in song Santa CATALINA [Island off California]. It really doesn't get much mellower than that!
Robert Harris's Los Angeles Times crossword
Wouldn't you have expected a splashy Sunday crossword yesterday paying homage to today's 40th anniversary of NASA's moon landing? Instead, we get the celebration in a perfectly timely Monday puzzle. When the first theme clue was [57-Across, 12-Down or 24-Down], it seemed like a mean way to kick off a Monday theme—but it quickly became apparent what the theme was and after the weekend's mentions of the anniversary, it all came together in short order. That first theme answer, 16A, is ASTRONAUT. The rest of the theme plays out like this:
Sometimes the eye and mind play tricks on the solver. For 10D: ABACUS, I misread the clue as [Bearded calculator]. Beaded! Not bearded.
Does anyone here have a SETTEE as [Part of a living room set]? No? It's just one of those words that live mainly in crosswords that you have to learn if you want to do crosswords regularly.
Updated midday Monday:
Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Themeless Monday"
Brendan billed this one as a hard puzzle but I thought it was easy for a themeless. Because I blew the morning at a retaurant (called Orange!) that neglected to cook our food for an inordinately long amount of time (and the food, when it finally came 45 minutes into our visit, was delicious, but I could really have done without the defensive waitress who didn't do a damned thing to stick up for her hungry customers), I'll move right along to the highlights list:
June 05, 2009
Friday, 6/5
NYT 8:33
BEQ "Anything Goes" 8:08
LAT 4:17
CS 6:42 (J—paper)
WSJ 7:20
Martin Ashwood-Smith's New York Times crossword
Well, it's midnight and I was out for margaritas this evening, so I'm delighted to have finished Martin Ashwood-Smith's crossword without errors. And I need to get to bed, so if I have a lick of sense in my head, I'll keep the blogging short.
This 66-word puzzle is fairly low on the word count scale, but lacks MAS's trademark triple stacks. Instead, the center of this all-the-way-symmetrical grid features 15's bracketing 9's criss-crossing in a big blotch of white space. ("Blotch of white space" = good.) Let's take a look at some of the answers and clues:
Hey, it's only 12:22. That was quick. Good night, all!
Updated Friday morning:
Raymond Hamel's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Across Beantown"―Janie's review
Ray Hamel is one highly accomplished and prolific constructor, who has been dazzling us with his puzzles for years. I'm a relatively new crossword addict who loves just about any puzzle that comes her way and who's not overly sensitive to issues of "quality of fill" per se. But I've come to understand that a first-rate puzzle needs a theme that delivers in a consistent, all-of-a-kind way. Given Ray's expertise, I have to say that the obvious inconsistencies in today's theme left me scratching my head. A lot.
"Across Beantown" gives us five phrases, the first word of which is also the name of a kind of bean. The premise is just fine. Here are the five:
So we have COFFEE bean, SNAP bean, STRING bean, NAVY bean, and GREEN bean. But... unlike its theme-mates, I've yet to enjoy steamed or baked COFFEE beans as a side dish to an entrée. How did this one make the cut? Additionally (but not critically in the right context), it seems that, botanically speaking, the COFFEE bean isn't a bean at all...
This leave us with SNAP bean, STRING bean, NAVY bean, and GREEN bean. Leaving "NAVY bean" alone (the sole legume here), the remaining three are all names for the same exact vegetable. If the goal as stated was to take us "Across Beantown," why not really mix it up, not only by keeping STRING ORCHESTRA and NAVY PIER and COFFEE SHOP, but also by giving us, say, JELLY FISH or MISTER AMERICA or VANILLA SKY? But however you decide, please, please stay consistent within the theme. If my expectations are high, it's that I've been spoiled with the good stuff, so to encounter this less-than-air-tight theme really was a let down.
What wasn't a let down and should also be noted is the way the theme fill overlaps in the grid—both 20 and 25A, and 52 and 59A—to create "split-level," grid-spanning theme fill (in addition to the 15 at 40A).
In the non-theme fill, I also liked (a lot) UNDERDOG (a CS debut) with its [Cinderella team] clue, and IN MY ROOM (in its major-puzzle debut)—and even CS-debut HANGNAIL, because it surprised me so.
There are several nice clue pairs: [Where to see stars] for ONTV and then "CATCH [a Falling Star"...]; [Deeply asleep] for OUT, followed by [Listening to Muzak, perhaps] for ON HOLD (since I tend to equate the mind-numbing effect of "listening to Muzak" to being "deeply asleep"...); and that bi-polar pairing, in the list and in the grid, of [Hysterical] for MANIC with [Cheerless] for BLEAK.
Completely new to me and therefore [Not a walk in the park] HARD were the Indy 500's Bobby RAHAL, Pulitzer poet MONA Van Duyn, and, um, the [Org. that listens for alien signals] SETI. Where have I been?!
Gareth Bain's Los Angeles Times crossword
Gareth's placed six theme entries into his grid, with 19- and 58-Across intersecting the Down theme entries and partly stacked with the other Across ones. I was thinking the theme would be described as "et cetera" or "et alii," but then I came upon 59-Down, ET TU: [Famous last words (and homophonically, a hint to this puzzle's theme)]. Each theme phrase as an "ET too" as ET has been added to the end of the first syllable to change the meaning:
I misled myself at 12D, [Davis of "The Little Foxes"]. First I went with OSSIE, who must be the most common Davis in crosswords. Then I conflated this movie with Little Darlings and wondered if a younger GEENA Davis had been in that. Then I thought about Tatum O'Neal being in that movie—and oh, look, there she is, incognito in 17A as [Jazz great Art] TATUM in the next section I turned to in the puzzle.
A few clues:
Rex's post at L.A. Crossword Confidential will be up shortly for more on this puzzle.
Pancho Harrison's Wall Street Journal crossword, "Capital Gains"
The title evoked a disappointed sigh: Another theme involving finance vocabulary? Oh. But then I got into the puzzle and discovered a fun and well-crafted theme in which world capitals precede a common word or phrase, and the city's last syllable partners with the first syllable of the second part to create another familiar phrase/word. That middle part is a lovely solving bonus, as the clues only point the way to the capital and its partner. Here's how the theme answers play out:
It felt like a lot of theme even though there are only six theme entries—probably because they're long and multifaceted and entertaining. The fill's good too, with answers like NEIL SIMON, POSEIDON, The BIG SLEEP, INSIGHTS, and an AFTERLIFE. NICE GOING, Pancho!
Least familiar answer: The KIANG, or [Donkey's Asian cousin]. This cutie is the world's largest wild ass, and it's native to the Tibetan Plateau.
Brendan Quigley's blog puzzle, a wacky "Anything Goes" crossword
What fun! I always enjoyed Trip Payne's "Wacky Weekend Warrior" N.Y. Sun puzzles around April Fools Day, and now Brendan has tried his hand at the format. This 60-word grid with 18 black squares is well nigh unfillable with the sort of entries that pass muster in a standard crossword, but here, the expanses of white space can be filled by such answers as CURDS AND WHEY FLU, QUISLING SCUFFLE, B.M. SPECS, the NAFTA OPEN, CLASSIC U.N., I, BLEDSOE, and an APT SARI. Yes, many of the short answers are standard crossword fill, but there's still room in a 3 for insanity: GEV, which is VEG backwards, is clued [Tuo llihc], and YULE loses its first letter and becomes an [Og to burn on Christmas]—ah, yes, the traditional ule og. Brendan managed to include three Q's, a Z, and an X in the puzzle, too. Fun stuff, all of it!
May 28, 2009
Friday, 5/29
BEQ 6:46
NYT 6:12
LAT 5:12
CHE 4:37
CS 14:18 (J—paper)/4:36 (A—Across Lite)
Tausig untimed
WSJ 8:30
Randolph Ross's New York Times crossword
The applet timer read 5:39 when I went to click "done!" and wouldn't you know it? Typo! No, [From this moment on] doesn't mean ANYLLNGER, it means ANY LONGER. Figures the typo was in the bottom row when I started scanning my answers at the top. That ANY LONGER—that goes with the negative, right? "I'm not doing that any longer?" I like "anymore" to stay in the negative too, but people've been using that non-negatively of late.
This 66-worder has some killer answers, some surprises, and a handful of entries with word endings that stretch things a bit (though truthfully, I didn't mind SPARERS and SLATING today). There are also several apt pairings:
One answer I got strictly through its crossings surprised me when I saw it in the finished grid. Another EERO: 14D [Finnish pentathlete Lehtonen]. Hey, we need all the famous EEROs we can get. Among my favorite answers and clues were these:
Then there are these three clues, which were not gimmes for me. I wonder how many solvers will have been stumped by these:
Updated Friday morning:
Bob Klahn's CrosSynergy Puzzle, "Mixed Green Salad"—Janie's review
Anyone who solves cryptic puzzles can tell you: the word "mixed" in the clue is the tip-off that the solution involves an anagram. And the "mixed" in the title of today's puzzle is no exception. Take the ten letters of "GREEN SALAD," toss 'em up and whaddaya get?
Not only do we get this anagram quartet, we also get the centrally-located and unifying ANAGRAM, [What each of this grid's ten-letter entries is] at 38A.
And to balance the word-playful theme fill, there're two 9-letter major puzzle debuts: the perfectly idiomatic I'M ON TO YOU ["You can't fool me, buster!"] and the precise CLOCKED IN [Began the shift]. TEND BAR, B-MOVIE (in a CS debut), THE RAVEN, BOGUS, HOYLE, YAYAS—all of these add to the overall quality of the fill.
Then, there a couple of "mini-theme" clusters: PUMA, (CS first) SHE-BEARS and KOALA are all mammals. (And how about the cunning way that last one is clued—[Fetching furry folivore]. "Folivore"?! Well, of course—foliage eater!) The other little grouping includes A-BOMB, NUKE and ACID—all explosive (in their own way) and all of which can be "dropped."
Before taking a look at a few of the many-splendored clues, here's one grid-bit: the happy crossing of SHEBA with SHE-BEARS.
And now, to focus on some of those quintessentially-Klahn clues:
If I omitted your fave(s), by all means: speak up!
Dan Naddor's Los Angeles Times crossword
Wow, is it just me or was today's LAT tougher than any Friday LAT of recent vintage? As denizens of the L.A. Crossword Confidential comments know, some of the newspapers that picked up the LAT crossword after the demise of the Tribune daily crossword are getting noisy complaints from people who want a more Maleskan experience, a crossword that's amenable to crossword-dictionary solving. I'm assertively post-Maleskan and prefer clues with wordplay, clues that require flexible thinking, and interesting phrases in the grid. Today's was tougher than I was expecting, but tough = good in my book.
This puzzle's theme passes the buck and says it's not I, it's U—each theme entry changes a familiar phrase's I to a U, thereby reworking the meaning:
What were my hitches? EBRO instead of ARNO for 3D [Florentine flower?], TELL US instead of CALL US for 5D ["We want to hear from you"], YET instead of BUT for 12D ["Despite what I just said..."], all in the same area. (Ouch!) And then at 48D, with U*SET, I went with the not-at-all-the-same-thing UNSET for [Discomfit] instead of the now-obvious UPSET, even though ONART was patently wrong and 52A [Off-the-wall piece on the wall?] clues OP ART. It didn't help matters that I wanted PLODS or PLOPS instead of the correct POURS for 47D [Falls heavily]. I usually have far fewer wrong turns in a themed L.A. Times crossword.
There's a bit of a French vibe here. 13D [Cafe cup] is a TASSE and 42A [Silk, in St.-Etienne] is SOIE. And the YSER, a mostly Belgian [River to the North Sea], originates in France.
The interlock of the vertical 10-letter answers with the long Across theme answers suggests to me that Dan Naddor should be making themeless puzzles—but he oughtn't stop the themed puzzles because he comes up with so many new angles that he's one of the people keeping me interested in themed puzzles. MY LEFT FOOT is the [1989 Daniel Day-Lewis film] about an artist/writer with cerebral palsy. [It's hoisted on the ice annually] clues the super-timely STANLEY CUP; alas, the Chicago Blackhawks will not be vying for the Cup. I'm familiar with the "swords into plowshares" phrase, but had not realized that PLOWSHARES were [Cutting-edge farm parts], a plow's main cutting blades. The "shares" part is related to "shears," which makes perfect sense.
Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Themeless Friday"
I always read Brendan's post about the puzzle after I've solved it, and whaddaya know? He says he's had this one in his file for a while, perhaps not sold elsewhere as a result of the answers he singles out—most of which I did indeed have to hammer away at via the crossings. LIMOUSIN is a [Hardy cattle breed named for a region of France]? I'll take Brendan's word for it. QBERT'S QUBES was a [1983 arcade game sequel]? Never heard of it. A [Customs document] is a CARNET? Dictionary says it's a customs permit for taking a vehicle across the border. I also didn't know ARKY, [Baseball Hall of Famer Vaughn], having only the faintest sense of recognition.
Highlights:
Pancho Harrison's Chronicle of Higher Education puzzle, "Travel Gear"
I slowed myself down in a few spots by mistyping things and failing to notice the errors for a while. ENSERD in lieu of ENSERF ([Make a slave of]) blocked FIGURE ([Illustration in a set of instructions], which was looking incomprehensibly like DIGURE. And then I inverted the vowel pair in ANTOINE into ANTIONE (the fingers, they are familiar with -TION, are they not?), which mangled its crossings too.
Theme? Oh, theme! Yes. The titular "Travel Gear" is five things that start with words/names that are also the names of noted explorers. Marco POLO SHIRTS are [Clothing to wear while exploring the Orient?]. PIKESTAFF is the wooden shaft of a pike, and the guy Pike's Peak is named after might use a PIKE STAFF as a [Walking stick for exploring the Colorado mountains?]. [Drying cloths to use while exploring the Antarctic?] are SCOTT TOWELS, also a brand of paper towels. COOK STOVE might be a [Piece of caping gear for exploring Newfoundland?]. And Stanley, the "Mr. Livingstone, I presume" guy, has a [Drinking vessel to use while exploring deepest Africa?], hockey's STANLEY CUP.
Favorite non-theme clue" [Contractors, e.g.] for MUSCLES.
Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword, "Internal Medicine"
As I mentioned a couple days ago, when I test-solved this puzzle, it had no circles in the grid, and I only noticed half of the theme answers, the ones in the longest four entries. Each of the eight themers is a two-word phrase with the words joined by a two-letter abbreviation for a worker in the medical field: MDs are doctors, RNs are registered nurses, PAs are physician assistants, and NPs are nurse practitioners. So these "medicine" folks are "internal" to their entries. Do you think you would have seen them all in the absence of circled letters or, say, asterisked theme clues?
Highlights: Theme answer WHOOP-ASS is clued as [Can's contents, in belligerent slang]. IRS is [R.E.M.'s label, once]—much more entertaining than the Internal Revenue Service. Theme entry DENVER NUGGETS are a [2009 Western Conference Finals team]; my kid was rooting for the yellow team (Lakers) until I told him that the blue team was the one his auntie Pia likes, and he switched allegiances straightaway. [Playing the ___ (improvised verbal contest)] is the DOZENS. Another lively hidden-professional answer is SPERM DONOR, [Person paid by the bank to make deposits]. I like that GENDER-NEUTRAL ([Like some PC toys]) clue for SPERM DONOR. [Abraham or Homer] sounds a little Old Testament and classical Greece, but they're SIMPSONs. Three Star Wars references: LANDO Calrissian, HAN Solo, and Reagan's SDI.
Tony Orbach's Wall Street Journal crossword, "Technobabble"
It wasn't until I pieced together the hey-that's-not-a-real-thing VIRTUAL UV TRIAL ([Simulated sun exposure study?]) that I discovered this was an anagram theme. Unlike the Klahn CrosSynergy puzzle, these anagram answers don't all have the same letters—rather, each theme entry begins with a 6- or 7-letter tech term followed by a one- or two-word anagram of that term. The most impressive find is the wireless HOTSPOT POTSHOT, or [Stab at a wireless connection?]. I'm also fond of the E-TAILER ATELIER, or [Online merchant's workshop?], just because I love the word ATELIER. I am pleased to report that despite the many hours I log at my blogs, I have not developed WEBLOG BOW LEG, a [Deformity caused by excessive posting?].
A few highlights:
April 26, 2009
Monday, 4/27
CS 2:59
NYT 2:43
LAT 2:40
BEQ tba
Whew! Long day. Loud day. We took the kid to see the new Harry Potter exhibition at the Museum of Science and Industry this afternoon. (Who knew museums could be so noisy?) And then this evening we had Ben's birthday at Pump It Up—16 kids bouncing around, clambering a rock-climbing wall, and getting jacked up on sugar. (Also noisy.) At last, quiet time and crosswords.
Joe Krozel's New York Times crossword
Now, Barry Silk was just remarking the other day that he'd asked Will Shortz about running a crossword tribute to the World Series champion Phillies, but Will "said that puzzles must have a 'shelf life' of at least 5 years." I don't know that JOE THE PLUMBER, a [2008 campaign personality], fills that bill. Frankly, that feels like a dated reference already—I would have liked that theme answer better last December.
The other theme entries—name + occupation—are DORA THE EXPLORER, the [Animated TV character whose best friend is Boots], and ROSIE THE RIVETER, [Norman Rockwell painting subject of W.W. II]. These two are rock-solid, more enduring than Joe the Plumber/Journalist's moment in the sun. Answers I liked:
Concerns:
Pancho Harrison's L.A. Times crossword
Pancho's theme is phrases that sound like they're violent but aren't—except for that one that still is:
If things don't turn out well for that BUSHWHACKER, he might end up in BOOT HILL, the [Gunfighters' graveyard]. The crossword answer ON RYE shows up not infrequently; this time we get RYE BREAD, clued with [Corned beef is usually ordered on it]. [Andre the Giant, e.g.] was an actor in The Princess Bride after being a professional WRESTLER. [Fozzie Bear, e.g.] is a MUPPET from The Muppet Show.
Updated on a busy Monday morning:
Depending on when Brendan Quigley's blog crossword is posted, I may or may not have time to review it today. But don't let that stop you from talking about it in the comments.
Lynn Lempel's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Blockheads"
This is one of those Monday puzzles that one might plow through without needing to understand the theme—and in fact, I finished it before beginning to ponder how "Blockheads" related to the theme answers. The first word in each of five theme entries can precede the word block:
The two 10-letter Down answers are unrelated to the theme. A RAT-CATCHER is a [Certain pest control worker], but "rat block" isn't a thing. Neither is "near block," so NEAR AT HAND, or [Close by], is also not a theme answer.
