BEQ 6:48
Onion 3:46
NYT 3:20
CS untimed (J)/2:58 (A)
LAT 2:58
Richard Silvestri's New York Times crossword
My, that's an unusual theme. The central entry, 36A: PUBLIC EDUCATION, is [What this puzzle's four missing clues spell, in order]. The phrase splits up as follows:
• PUB is 20A: BRITISH ALE HOUSE.
• LICE are 25A: COOTIES.
• DUCAT is 46A: OLD COIN.
• And ION is 52A: CHARGED PARTICLE.
Three quarters of those are the sorts of not exactly "in the language" terms you'd expect to see in a clue, not the grid. That sort of theme tends to get on my nerves. Did you like the surprise of having the theme come together at the end, or was the payoff not quite worth it?
Hey, look! Here's DIDO again, this time in the singular: 33D: [Founder and first queen of Carthage]. In the category of "fill that doesn't make the highlights reel," we have these:
• 9A. MESTA is clued as [Perle who inspired "Call Me Madam"]. Old-school crosswordese, Proper Nouns Department.
• 15A. A curvy ESS is a [Slalom section]. Any skiers call it that in the three-letter version?
• 61A. ENROL, or [Sign up], is the nonstandard British spelling for "enroll." Some dictionary somewhere must include this as a kosher American spelling, or there'd be a geographical tag in the clue.
• 2D. ALAR the [Banned apple spray] may have vanished from the headlines years ago, but I guess this is deemed a better clue than the old crosswordese [Wing-shaped].
• 22D. Sure, computers are crucial in the modern world. But [Univac's predecessor] ENIAC—how many non-crossworders know that one?
• 29D. [Italian diminutive ending] clues INI. I'd rather have a pasta-suffix clue because INA is also an Italian diminutive ending.
• 32D. Ah, the ADZ(e), our favorite [Wood-smoothing tool].
• 46D. An ONAGER is a [Wild ass]. Bonus point for being an anagram of Orange.
• 51D. APACE means fast or [On the double]. I actually use this word in speech because I am that much of a crossword geek.
The process of filling in the theme answers was heavily reliant on the crossings, which, luckily, had nothing particularly tough, provided that you've been doing crosswords enough to know most of those answers. Also, hooray for PUBLIC EDUCATION! My son just asked me today why people have to pay taxes. Free public education was one of the things I mentioned.
Updated Wednesday morning:
Patrick Blindauer's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Special K"—Janie's review
This is a very "special K" indeed. This is the "K" that is added to the last word of a familiar phrase, following its final "R" sound. As a f'rinstance, if the last word were poor—or even pour or pore—the new word would be pork. Patrick gets a lot of (s)mileage out of his choices, and I sure do love the way:
• The Fab Four, as the Beatles were long-ago dubbed, becomes THE FAB FORK at 16A [A marvy utensil?].
• Grocery store turns into GROCERY STORK at 27A [Bird that brings baby broccoli?]. This is truly inspired silliness and I can't say enough good about it. I mean, think about it!
• The Way We Were cunningly morphs into THE WAY WE WORK at 46A [Name of a news special on labor policy?]. This one is especially cagey because of the way that first "e" in were changes to an "o" while the sound stays the same. This one is only an eye-rhyme with its theme-mates. The other three are true rhymes.
• Garage door ends up as GARAGE DORK at 62A [Body shop loser]. I mean this as a compliment when I say that the concept here is yet another LULU [Wowser]. (Oh, and look—the dork's cousins get representation today, too: the OAFS [Chowderheads].)
Happily, there's lots of fine fill and cluing throughout the puzzle as well. The high spots for me include:
• A [Show interrupter] is a TV AD. Another word for ad is spot. So it's most fitting that the very next clue is [Spot announcement]. Only this time Spot names a dog, so the correct fill is "ARF!"
• The pair of "O"s in [Designer Chanel] COCO at the West is nicely balanced by those in SOLO [Millennium Falcon pilot in "Star Wars"] in the East. I also like the way LULU, down in the SW is balanced in the SE by GIGI [Best Picture of 1958].
• In the pre-Tony Awards year of 1938, Thornton Wilder's OUR TOWN [Play narrated by a stage manager] won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. In 2008, Tracy Letts's ["August] OSAGE [County"...] was honored also with the Pulitzer—as well as many Tony Awards, including the one for Best Play. Among other themes, both pieces dramatize family dynamics. You'd have to go pretty far to find two more disparate pictures, the former being a model of temperance and (hang-on-to-your-hankies) harmony, the latter one of discord and (hang-on-to-your-hats) dysfunction. [Old enough], btw, is OF AGE, and not OFAGE.
• CRIES WOLF [Gives a false alarm] livens up the grid, though while it packs a cerebral punch, does not elicit an "OUCH!" [Punch response].
• Finally, I like the way [Bollywood film outfit] refers not to the group of people making a movie, but to an article of clothing from the costume department—a SARI.
Charles Barasch's Los Angeles Times crossword
(Post adapted from my L.A. Crossword Confidential post.) The theme can be described as "76 Trombones – 73 Trombones = 3 Trombones"—Three phrases that have nothing to do with musical instruments are clued as if they do. It's a little arbitrary to make the clues all about trombones rather than other instruments, but that provides some thematic unity—plus, my husband was a trombonist in high school.
Theme answers:
• 20A: [Big Southwestern trombones?] a could be TEXAS LONGHORNS. The Longhorns are both a Texas college sports team and a breed of cattle (and beetles!). I was going to include a photo of the Asian long-horned beetles that pose a threat to American trees, but they were too creepy-looking and gave me the willies.
• 37A: [Refined trombones?] are POLISHED BRASS. Horns are brass instruments, which, like anything brass, likes a good polishing. I'm thinking this answer isn't quite an in-the-language phrase like the crisp TEXAS LONGHORNS is.
• 54A: [Continuously-playing trombones?] are SUSTAINED WINDS. You could argue that this isn't an in-the-language term either, but you would be shouted down by Weather Channel junkies who like to watch hurricane coverage. Hurricane season's almost over—hooray for fewer bad storms than in recent years. But the Weather Channel's been more boring this summer.
So, just three theme entries today. Luckily, the constructor capitalized on that by including some fun words, 20 answers in the 6- to 8-letter range, and only a couple clunkers. I'll put the 7-letter partial phrase ON EARTH (22D: Lord's Prayer words following "Thy will be done") in the latter category, along with the seldom seen partial 4D: EEK A "__ mouse!". Oh, and SHES, clued as 33D: Women. Any of you ever use the plural SHES? No? I thought not.
And now for the good stuff:
• 41A: [Imitation] is synonymous with ERSATZ). It's got a Z and it's fun to say.
• 45A: [Musical beat] is RHYTHM. It took me years to learn how to spell this right. Gotta love a word with a Y and five consonants.
• 3D: [Loud auto honker of yore] is a KLAXON. Ai-OOO-gah! This "electric horn or a similar loud warning device" takes its name from the company that manufactured it in the early 20th century. Cool word.
• 36D: LAZY IS [Slow-moving, as a river]. That's a lovely clue for LAZY.
• 44D: QUARTZ is a [Crystalline mineral]. I like this because (1) I like me a little geology, (2) it comes in pretty colors, and (3) a Q! and a Z! And now I'm thinking about quarts of milk, which took me to that Simpsons episode where mosbter Fat Tony has been selling rat milk to the schools and Mayor Quimby declares, "You promised me dog or better." That line? It never gets old.
Matt Jones's Onion A.V. Club crossword
Standard newspaper crosswords shy away from cluing STD in its "sexually transmitted disease" sense. They also don't go with the Doctor of Sacred Theology degree or "subscriber trunk dialing" (a British term), since the innocuous "std." is the abbreviation for "standard." The alt-weekly puzzles do go with the VD type of STD, except not in this puzzle. Here, STD ties together the entire theme (phrases with S.T.D. initials), but its clue is 1: [What each of the starred clues has, in a way]. Across the middle of this grid with left/right symmetry, we have "SHAKE THIS DISEASE," a [Hit Depeche Mode single of 1985] that does not ring a bell at all for me. The other three theme entries intersect this one. 21D is STACK THE DECK, 26D is SAVE THE DATE, and 23D is SCARE TO DEATH—all very much in the language.
I'm not particularly fond of the theme, except for its including of those three solid, familiar phrases. Better are the 18 fill answers ranging from 6 to 11 letters in length. Among my favorites is [Kmart founder S.S.] KRESGE because shopping at Kresge's and having a grilled cheese at the lunch counter was part of my childhood. B-DAYS are [Times to blow out candles, slangily]. ETHIOPIA is a [Horn of Africa nation]. GRAHAM FLOUR is a fairly dry answer, but we've been having s'mores every day at my house; yum! MISSED gets a solid and contemporary clue: [Like some calls that go to voicemail].
Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Themeless Wednesday"
My three favorite answers are the ones Brendan says were the seed entries: MOM JEANS, BIG BOX STORE, and CAPTCHA. I use CAPTCHA to leave comments at Brendan's blog and elsewhere, and I shop at some BIG BOX STOREs, but I do not wear MOM JEANS. No, ma'am. No high waists here.
I got MAJOR ARCANA pretty easily, but was otherwise completely stymied in the lower left corner. Finally I gave up and Googled Odin's second son [...who was killed with a piece of mistletoe] to get the first two letters of BALDUR, and then everything else fell. Not a fan of SEA-GIRT, NOL {[___-pros (legal discontinuation)]}, and ACTS SAD. My god, Montreal is an island?!? Did not know that. And who is designer TRINA Turk? She doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. She designs some jumpsuits, which are the #1 fugly fashion sign of the apocalypse.
Overall, the good stuff far outweighed the bad, so I gave this a rating of 4 stars (out of 5) on Brendan's leaderboard.
October 13, 2009
Wednesday, 10/14/09
July 05, 2009
Sunday, 7/5—the non-NYT crosswords
BG 7:37
LAT 7:10
PI 6:30
CS 4:29
Sunday, July 5, New York Times crossword post below
Richard Silvestri's syndicated Los Angeles Times Sunday crossword, "Heard Down Under"
This puzzle's got a sound-change theme in which phrases with long A sounds in American English are pronounced Australianically, turning our long A zone into long I land. Spellings are changed to make real words:
✦ 23A. [Cookie made with Chianti instead of figs?] is a WINE NEWTON, playing on singer Wayne Newton.
✦ 25A. [Wood for sashes?] clues WINDOW PINE rather than pane.
✦ 34A. Prince's Purple Rain turns into the [Blue Danube relative?] PURPLE RHINE. This answer crosses the RHONE, a [River through the Lake of Geneva].
✦ 50A. [Discovery of the mother lode?] is a MINE EVENT (main event). Pet peeve: when people write "mother load."
✦ 76A. If you [Put an "X" where you want to cut the cord?, you MARK TWINE. To better reflect Australian pronunciation, should this be MOCK or MACK TWINE? (I know, the theme is strictly the one vowel change.)
✦ 90A. [Female chiropractor?] is LADY OF SPINE (Lady of Spain). She's offset by two male worker terms, ADMEN ([Commercial developers]) and MAN-HOUR ([Unit of work]).
✦ 105A. [Squall at sea?] clues BRINE STORM (brainstorm). This is my least favorite theme entry. Maybe a pickle-related clue or a different brain/BRINE idea would've worked better.
✦ 107A. ["I never forget a face," e.g.?] is a MEMORY LINE (memory lane).
There's plenty of good fill here. 29D is LLEYTON, or [2001 U.S. Open champ Hewitt], lost to Andy Roddick at Wimbledon, no? Poor Roddick. He's now being fed to the Federer lions. He can't beat Federer, can he? Also in the arena of sports is 82D RCA DOME, or [Colts' home before Lucas Oil Stadium]. Wait, what? The new stadium has a retractable roof, and the RCA DOME was razed last December. Okay, so RCA DOME is becoming less useful as a crossword answer.
27A is [Like some pens]—ERASABLE. Do not attempt a crossword tournament with a non-erasable pen. The Pilot Frixion gel pen is nicer than goopy Eraser-mate ballpoints.
26D [God for whom Wednesday was named] is WODEN. I like to pronounce it "Woden's Day" on occasion.
Least familiar answer: 71D. [Basso Cesari], or SIEPI. Crossing two theme entries at the I's! Runner-up honors go to 34D PALMA, or [Balearic Islands capital].
Merl Reagle's Philadelphia Inquirer crossword, "The Forts of July"
You can zip right through this puzzle as if it were an easy unthemed crossword, but then you're missing the hidden theme. Per the note accompanying the puzzle, there are 11 famous fort names hidden in the grid, sometimes spanning black squares. It took me just as long to find the forts as it did to solve the crossword. The last one I found was little Fort DIX, hiding in the APPENDIX as 24A ([Back-of-the-book section]). Here are the other forts (which I've circled in my completed grid):
✦ Fort Bliss in 22A STATE OF BLISS, or [Very happy "place"].
✦ Fort Lauderdale occupies 27A/29A, [Cosmetics name] LAUDER and ["Brenda Starr" creator Messick], or DALE.
✦ Fort Sumter joins 34A PLAY POSSUM ([Fake it, in a way]) to 38A TERMINAL ([Grand Central, e.g.].
✦ Fort Lee, N.J., is the middle name of 56A TOMMY LEE JONES, [Harvard roommate of Al Gore].
✦ Fort McHenry crosses two black squares, joining three answers: 66A USMC is [Jarhead's org.], 67A HEN is clued with [She might fly the coop], and 68A RYAN is [Matt Damon's private] in Saving Private Ryan.
✦ Another middle name gives us Fort Knox—83A JAMES KNOX POLK, [Tyler-Taylor go-between] in the procession of U.S. presidents.
✦ Fort Ticonderoga is a great hidden fort, isn't it? 98A EMOTICON is clued by way of [:-) is an example of one] and 101A DEROGATORY means [Belittling].
✦ Fort Apache's in 107A PAPA, or [Bear in a tale], and 110A CHEKOV, or [Captain Kirk colleague].
✦ Fort Bragg occupies 118A BRAGGART, or [Blowhard].
✦ Fort Worth, Texas, is inside 120A WORTH THE WAIT, [Like great shows].
I wonder whether it was emoTICON/DEROGAtory or LAUDER/DALE that nudged Merl into crafting this unusual theme. I just realized that the theme entries are placed symmetrically! The fort names aren't all the same lengths, but one at the end of a phrase is balanced by a fort at the beginning of a phrase on the opposite side of the grid. The two middle names are in an opposing pair of entries. MC/HEN/RY is smack dab in the center of the grid. The four forts that span single black squares are plunked down around symmetrical pairs of black squares. Cool.
Updated Sunday afternoon, after the epic Wimbledon men's final:
Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon's Boston Globe crossword, "Tacked-on Endings"
Ten theme entries have a letter tacked on at the end, changing the phrase's meaning. Patrick Blindauer's Third of July Wall Street Journal puzzle added the letters of LIBERTY to the theme entries, so I took a look at the added letters in the Hex puzzle. ORGTREPUOI...hmm, that anagrams to POI GROUTER? PIG OR ROUTE? I think it's just 10 random letters.
Most surprising answer: BONG clued as [Pot holder?]. Drugs! Illicit ones!
Favorite theme entries: BATHING SUITE is clued as a [Many-chambered shower room?], and GARBAGE MENU represents [Dumpster-diver's choices?].
Least timely: In tennis, [Six games to none] is a LOVE SET. The Wimbledon match had none of those. I'd never seen a 16-14 set before. That was insane, wasn't it? Roddick absolutely made Federer earn his plaudits today (and I wish Roddick had won, because what a Cinderella story that would be).
Lynn Lempel's themeless CrosSynergy "Sunday Challenge"
This puzzle flirts with having its 15s constitute a mini-theme. There's DIAMOND JIM BRADY, the [Gilded Age philanthropist known for his jewels and huge appetite], and then there's ORDER IN THE COURT, a [Call from a bench]. Baseball diamond, basketball or tennis court? Maybe? No?
Toughest clues: 16A [According to church doctrine] clues CANONIC, which looks odd without an AL on the end. 39A [It keeps you from going gray] is BALDNESS, which technically does not prevent grayng unless it is absolute BALDNESS that removes all traces of hair before any of them go gray. 1D FADDISH is clued with [In one year and out the other]—year, not ear. 7D [Put down roots, in a way] clues SODDED, which doesn't feel like a common past-tense verb. Speaking of unusual past-tense verbs, 14D SCYTHED is clued as [Cut down in the field]. 30D. [Atlas holders] are missile SILOS holding Atlas missiles.
9D is [LBJ albatross], and I wanted the answer to be HIM or HER. But Johnson's pets were beagles, not albatrosses, so the albatross is metaphorical: Viet NAM.
Favorite clue: 45D [Reason for a rash response?] for ALLERGY.
June 09, 2009
Wednesday, 6/10
BEQ 5:14
Onion 4:49
LAT 3:24
NYT 3:16
CS 6:01 (J—paper)/2:47 (A—Across Lite)
A link to J. Zou's "Ode to Shortz" arrived yesterday in Sergio Ximenes' cruciverb-L post. J. Zou, do not despair! We can help you! Try reading How to Conquer the New York Times Crossword Puzzle. (P.S. Sunday's really not so scary—it's like a Thursday on steroids. But have you looked at Saturday?)
Richard Silvestri's New York Times crossword
Isn't it a shame that in a puzzle with a FORTY-FOUR theme, 44-Across is the nonmellifluous TEABAG ([Earl Grey holder])? FORTY-FOUR is at 55-Across (were it at 44-Across, the theme clues would all contain spoilers), and it relates to the other four theme answers:
Answers I liked:
What didn't quite sit right with me:
Updated Wednesday morning:
Martin Ashwood-Smith's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Time Pieces"—Janie's review
This well-made puzzle does not deal with hour- glasses or wrist-watches or sundials, but with what those solid objects measure: time itself. The three theme phrases each contain a unit of time. The first two phrases are making their CS debuts, the third is appearing for the third time and, for the third time, in a puzzle of Martin's own making. Without wasting any more time, those theme phrases are:
Primarily because of the cluing, this was a far more straightforward solve than yesterday's, but no less enjoyable. Once again the tight theme fill is complemented by a fine array of non-theme entries.
Let's start with the musical mini-theme which gives us the brilliant and controversial [Conductor Herbert von] KARAJAN (appearing for the first time ever in a major puzzle]; ["William Tell" composer] Gioacchino ROSSINI; [TAJ] MAHAL (well, there's nothing in the clue to say it couldn't be...); and [John Lennon's lady] and wife and collaborator YOKO ONO—appearing with her whole name, thank-you-very-much, and doesn't it look great in the grid?
UP ANCHOR [Prepare to set sail] also looks good in the grid, but took me a while to parse. I had trouble seeing that the correct answer was a phrase and not a single word with PANCHO as its core...
Whether by plan or pure chance, PETTIEST [Most small-minded] and MOODIEST [Most temperamental] mirror each other in the grid—and both are CS firsts. Talk about two ways no one would aspire to be described... Still—fun to see 'em both in the puzzle. Also fun to see the pairing of [Boxer Mike] TYSON and FISTS [Boxers' weapons]—though I prefer not to have a close encounter with either! (Anyone see The Hangover? Iron Mike is almost adorable in his plot-critical cameo.)
Other colorful fill: SPECTRA [Rainbows], which is the plural of "spectrum" (of color); KERMIT; ANNOTATE; MUSTANGS, clued as [Sporty Ford models]. (Am reading Sue Grafton's T is for Trespass and detective Kinsey Milhone's current set of wheels is a 1970 Mustang.)
[Take the wrong way?] has nothing to do with misperception, but does remind us that it's not a good idea to STEAL; and [One with a supporting role?] is a less-than-direct way to clue LEG.
The one word I'd be happy never to encounter again in a puzzle is GREATEN [Become more important]. It's an archaic word also meaning to "increase the size of," and not a word we encounter in contemporary/everyday usage. Writing months after the Great Fire of London, Samuel Pepys recorded in his diary: "14 June 1667, Every thing concurred to greaten the fire." But that was then, and this is now.
Still, in a puzzle this good, this is also small potatoes!
And here's Orange again. Janie's right—nobody uses the word GREATEN any more. "Embiggen" is a far more cromulent word. How odd, though, to have a 70-word themed puzzle that falls in a Mondayish amount of time. All those 7's and 8's looked fearsome, but had easy CrosSynergy clues.
Donna Levin's Los Angeles Times crossword
My longer write-up of this puzzle is over at L.A. Crossword Confidential. A while back, Jim Horne of Wordplay asked what I thought about an e-mail he'd received from a woman who wanted more stereotypically female content in the NYT puzzle and bristled at the sports and automotive content that she felt was anathema to her. I hope she's also doing the L.A. Times crossword, because today's knitting theme would be right up her alley.
I'll agree that there's too damn much baseball in crosswords, but I don't know that knitting and other handicrafts are the solution—my XX chromosomes do not include a handicrafts gene.
Here's the theme:
Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Bag Lunch"
Today's quip theme relays a joke: EVERY TIME YOU EAT / A STEAK, A / HIPPIE'S / HACKYSACK / GOES IN THE GUTTER. It's from comedian PATTON / OSWALT.
Assorted not-so-easy clues:
Tyler Hinman's Onion A.V. Club crossword
Smooth puzzle, Tyler. 1-Across is a cross-referenced theme answer—[Things at the beginning of 20-, 36-, and 54-Across]—so it looked like a rough start but then it wasn't. 20A is a [Setting for "The Real Housewives"], and I just read the Entertainment Weekly article about the best and worst reality shows. ORANGE COUNTY fit, while New Jersey, New York City, and Atlanta didn't. So 1-Across is...FRUITS or COLORS? CROSSWORD BLOGGERS won't fit there. Then 36A is [Electoral battleground, in modern parlance], or a PURPLE STATE. COLORS it is! I still needed lots of crossings for 54A, [Show on which Alfonso Ribeiro played Alfonso Spears]. He was on something before Fresh Prince? Yeah, it was SILVER SPOONS, which I never watched. Big deal, three COLORS—but wait, there's more! 67A is clued [What the first words of 20-, 36-, and 54-Across lack], and that's RHYMES. Lovely theme with a little surprise lurking at the bottom of the puzzle.
And now, 10 clues:
February 10, 2009
Wednesday, 2/11
Sun 4:54
BEQ 4:15
NYT 3:33
LAT 3:12
You know why it helps to pay attention in grade-school science class? So you don't read a clue like [Comment at the reptile exhibition?] and write in WHAT'S NEWT as your answer. Here's what that was supposed to be:
Trickier bits in the grid: ANAPEST is a [Bit of a limerick]. (If you like writing goofy poems, don't miss the Crossword Fiend contest! Deadline is Thursday at noon.) There's also KEMAL [Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey]—along the lines of "Attagirl!" I want to say "Atta Turk!" [Non-vector] clues SCALAR. [Ruby's victim] made me wonder what sort of mayhem Ruby Dee had been up to; turns out to be Jack Ruby, killer of Lee Harvey OSWALD. And look! That ties in with SLAYS, or [Does in], for a mini-theme of grimness. Haven't seen [U follower] THANT, as in the Burmese former U.N. Secretary General U Thant. For the scenic tour, you can take in Mount ETNA, a [Sight from Taormina], and look at a SWALE, or [Low-lying wetland].
Tom Heilman's Sun crossword, "Showing Some Muscle," puts some muscle into each theme entry's original word:
Speaking of quadrants, all four of this puzzle's contain trios of 7-letter answers going Down, intersected by another 7 and a theme entry. The clues I liked best in those corners include these: [Plant on the back of Arizona's state quarter] is the SAGUARO cactus. KNISHES are [Street vendor snacks] in New York, but Chicago is woefully low on street vendors who sell food. ERITREA is [Where Tigrinya is spoken]. Sounds a little like a Star Trek language to me. Also from the geography sphere: CROATIA is [called Hrvatska by natives].
Updated:
In Donna Levin's LA Times crossword, once I had both FRENCH KISS (the [Ryan/Kline comedy]) and MELBA MOORE ([Singer/actress who made her Broadway debut in "Hair" (1968)] in place, I knew there'd be TOAST in the corner—and there it is at 66-Across, clued as [Diner "raft," and theme of this puzzle]. French toast, melba toast...hmm, what other famous toasts are there? These two:
Other clues:
Brendan Emmett Quigley's crossword today is titled "Funny Gesture" and it's got a quote theme featuring an [amusing question by Zach Galifianakis]: I WONDER IF DEAF / PEOPLE HAVE A SIGN/ FOR / "TALK TO THE HAND." It's a decent punchline, as quote themes go, and this puzzle has a low enough word count (70 entries) to pass muster as a themeless puzzle. That means lots of longer answers and because this is Brendan we're talking about, low word count = interesting fill and good clues to boot:
December 08, 2008
Tuesday, 12/9
Sun 4:01
LAT 3:48
Jonesin' 3:45
CS 3:41
NYT 2:49
(updated at 9:24 Tuesday morning)
Matt Gaffney's got his weekly crossword contest, and Trip Payne has his Triple Play Puzzles with assorted types of crosswords. Now Brendan Emmett Quigley joins the ranks of talented constructors providing puzzles online. Brendan will be dispensing a crossword every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday—the first one, "Whipping Posts," looks to be on the tough side, and...I'm at a loss to explain the theme. (So no spoilers!) The content of the fill is along the lines of the Jonesin' and Onion puzzles, contemporary hipster pop culture, video games, tech stuff, etc. The clues for 9-Down and 42-Across had tasty misleads. Anyway, I'll probably start blogging about the BEQs after the holidays.
The New York Times crossword by C.W. Stewart packs in 72 theme squares—the board game CLUE and six phrases that begin with the tokens' colorful names:
The theme felt either familiar or too tempting not to have been done before. My hard-working staff dug up two priors, the Sunday 5/3/98 NYT by BEQ (with three of the same answers) and the Friday 9/24/04 NY Sun by Jonathan Cass (two duplicates) with a 15x16 grid. So Stewart fit everything into a 15x15, and she and Will Shortz keyed the clues to an easy Tuesday level—it's a different slant on the theme.
In the fill, LADIES is clued as a [Word that can precede or follow "first"] (first ladies in the White House, "ladies first" as in this Free To Be...You and Me video), while NIPPLES are [Parts of baby bottles]. Nope, no clue cross-referencing here. It's a great LADIES clue, isn't it?
Richard Silvestri's Sun crossword, "New Dimensions," takes one- or two-dimensional shapes and beefs them up into two- or three-dimensional shapes. Haymarket Square becomes HAYMARKET CUBE, or [3' x 3' x 3' bale for sale?]. The clue's numbers had me thinking YARD rather than CUBE, and my first word association for Haymarket is riot, not Square. [One way to keep something level?] is to LAY IT ON THE PLANE (line), and [Orb of punk rocker Sid?] is VICIOUS SPHERE (Sid Vicious, vicious circle). ZIPCAR, the [Auto-sharing company], makes for a great entry. The fill's on the Scrabbly side, with a pair of Z's, a pair of X's, and a Q.
Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword, "Circular Logic," turns TURN through a circle, moving one letter to the end with each step of the theme:
If you move the N to the end, you'll return to TURN. In the fill, there are stacked pairs of 9-letter answers shoring up some theme answers, and a chunky block of 7's in the middle connecting the other theme entries—plus a few other 8's and 9's here and there. Highlights: AMETHYST, ALAN ARKIN ([He played the grandfather in "Little Miss Sunshine"]), BRITNEY ([Sean Preston's mother]—and I wanted to fit YOKO ONO there. Wrong Sean), RAISE CAIN, '70s sitcom GOOD TIMES ([TV title sung after "Ain't we lucky we got 'em"]), and a TENDER AGE. Not to mention CILANTRO and a MASOCHIST ([One who doesn't mind feeling the pinch]). In the clues, I enjoyed the ["Cheers" exclamation] NORM. Unfamiliar fill: [Zapp Brannigan's assistant, on "Futurama"] is KIF; [Mazda Raceway Laguna ___ (Monterey racetrack in operation since 1957)] is SECA.
Updated:
Don Gagliardo's LA Times crossword has 15 W's in it, and WWW isn't even used as an entry anywhere. The NYT record is 14 W's, so 15 is noteworthy. The theme is summed up by COMPOUND W, ["The wart stops here" product, and a hint to the theme]. The eight theme entries have compound W's—that is, double W's—and they're further compounded by the theme answers crossing in pairs. Interestingly enough, one of the pairs crosses at an O rather than a WW. Here are the octet:
I like that the wart medicine COMPOUND W could inspire a crossword theme. (Preparation H must be next.)
Tom Schier's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Hole Out," is another in which each theme entry is a series of words run together. I wouldn't mind not seeing this type of theme again—maybe one in which the words in the theme entry overlap, something with more inherent interest and challenge, would be more fun. What do you think?
The theme is ___ holes. I was filling in 17-Across by answering a bunch of Down clues in sequence. After 8-Down, I was presented with the following for 17-Across: CUBBYBUTT******. Omigod! Butthole makes its crossword debut! But no...the next two letters were ON. Buttonhole. Oh. That's different.
November 29, 2008
Sunday, 11/30
CS 8:36
PI 27:00
LAT 22:12
NYT (gave up after 46:00)
BG (unavailable — if you know any different, please let me know in the comments!)
Hey, everybody, PuzzleGirl here with your post-turkey-coma puzzle commentary. Hope you all had a great holiday weekend and are ready to get back to the routine tomorrow. I am particularly looking forward to the part of my routine where I send my husband and kids off to the bus and enjoy some peace and quiet. But I'm sure that's just me. So. The puzzles!....
The theme in Merl Reagle's "Crossword Crossword" Philadelphia Inquirer puzzle is geared toward a fairly specific demographic that, I'm guessing, you belong to. That's right, it's all about people who know a little something about crossword puzzles. You'll find yourself in this puzzle whether you LOVE LETTERS and consider yourself a fan, or if you're a really slow solver who averages THREE SQUARES A DAY, or even if you're a BLACK ADDER (a puzzle artiste who uses way too many dark squares). (Frankly it's the black subtractors that cause me the most grief — you know who you are!) We've also got one answer that RUNS ACROSS and another that GOES DOWN. Other crossword-y theme answers:
Other stuff I liked:
I've also finally caught onto DRAY as a [sturdy cart]. I used to work with a guy whose last name was Dray. When he and his wife had their first child, they named him Ethan. Another co-worker of ours had a baby that year and named him Cole Reddington. At the time, I assumed that there had been some sort of law passed that all new parents were required to give their babies Soap Opera Names.
So, okay, just one more thing. I really can't say anything bad about a puzzle that includes ARTE Johnson, George JETSON, TANYA Tucker, and JETHRO from "The Beverly Hillbillies." But here's the one thing I want to say to all you constructors out there: Enough with the rivers already! I don't know them okay? I just don't! I have some sort of mental block when it comes to rivers and there's no way I will Ever get them except through crosses, so it's just not fair any more. I hope we don't have to have this conversation again.
Richard Silvestri's New York Times crossword, "Uh-Oh," beat me up and beat me up good. Some of the problems stemmed from my own reasonable mistakes, like no joke for NO JIVE. Some of it was stuff I once knew but forgot, like that ANENT means [With regard to]. But some of it was just unfair. MENHADEN crossing DEODATO? That seems unreasonably cruel. GNAR? Seriously? What is that? SHAVUOT next to LANARK? (I actually knew SHAVUOT but wasn't sure of the spelling, which I think is Totally Reasonable given the whole Chanukah/Hannukah/Hanukah thing. Although I'm not Jewish, I do know a little bit about Jewish holidays. The first two that came to my mind in this case were sukkot and pesach. I tell you this just to clarify that I'm not a complete DOLT, i.e., [dummkopf], just because I couldn't finish this puzzle.) Okay, you know what? I'm in Orange's house and she doesn't typically rant about the puzzles, so I'm going to stop now. Sorry about that. Judging by the posted scores on the applet, some of you didn't have Quite as much trouble as I did with this puzzle anyway. (Hi, Dan! Hi, Byron!)
So the theme consists of familiar phrases in which an UH sound is changed to an OH sound:
I spent some time today watching the NCAA National Champion University of Iowa Hawkeyes RASSLE today, so I was all over that. (Go, Hawks!) I'm a big fan of LOST [The story of the aftermath of Oceanic Flight 815] and occasionally wonder why it's not in the puzzle more often. Oh, and I had two incorrect first guesses that I thought were pretty good. I had piano instead of ATOLL for [Set of keys?]. And I didn't think of beth as a LETTER in the Arabic alphabet. No, to me, "Beth" (especially in six letters!) is and always will be, a ballad.
Updated Sunday at 11:00am:
Nora Pearlstone's LA Times crossword, "Medical Group," starts out with EM DASH [Punctuation that makes one pause] at 1 Across. That's all it took for me to fall in love with this puzzle immediately. If you know the difference between hyphens, em dashes, and en dashes; cringe when you see straight quotes instead of curly quotes; and feel actual, honest-to-God anger when you see a single open quotation mark where an apostrophe is supposed to be — well, then, you know what I'm talking about. Why, yes, people do refer to me as a dork occasionally, why do you ask? When posting on the web, I usually just use two hyphens instead of taking the time to make an em dash, but in honor of this answer I'm going to spend an extra minute or so on this post and make it, well, more easily readable to be sure. But ultimately? More beautiful. You're welcome.
Theme answers in this puzzle are familiar phrases with the letters DR added to them to create new phrases:
Too bad that last one needs a pronunciation change to make both phrases work. Also, is [Boomer who's actually a boomer] ESIASON showing up in puzzles a lot lately, or is it just me? I know you've all seen Palin and CLEESE's "dead parrot" sketch. Good stuff. I just had to find a picture of ANNA SUI's Secret Wish Magic Romance perfume and I was right — the bottle is hideous. I know someone has explained the difference between a [Tolkien menace] ORC and an ent, but I can't retain it. I'm guessing I'm the only one here who noticed this, but [Winnebago descendants] IOWAS is crossing [Big name in discount brokerage] SCHWAB, which could also be clued as National Champion University of Iowa assistant coach and Olympic wrestler Doug. Okay, I've been rambling too long about this puzzle, so I'll leave you with LYLE Lovett and be back in a little while with your CS write-up.
Updated Sunday at 11:30am:
Today's CrosSynergy crossword by Bruce Venzke and Stella Daily was a fun, quick romp for me. Exactly what I needed after the pressure of filling in for the irreplaceable Orange on a bunch of puzzles that took me a long time.
CAJOLE is a great word, isn't it? And I really didn't see it coming at all. Threw in the J for JET and thought, "Well, that can't be right!" For [Opera alternative?] I was thinking of the web browser and confidently entered Safari. I guess the question mark cued a misdirection on the word alternative instead of on the word opera. How is it possible that I knew SAILOR Moon off of just the S? I read [Porcine toon] as Porcine tooth and had no idea what was going on there with PETUNIA. NEPTUNE is now the [Furthest planet from the sun]. Poor Pluto. For [Arnold-esque?] I was thinking Tom? Roseanne? No, Benedict: TREASONOUS. Are TIE tacks fashionable now? I suppose I could ask PuzzleHusband who, inexplicably, went all Metrosexual on me sometime in the last few years. Not that I'm complaining. Okay, I'm complaining a little that his shoe collection is more impressive than mine, but other than that, it's all good.
Thanks for letting me hang with you guys. I think I'll be seeing you again at Christmastime, which is right around the corner. That's right, people — it's time to get out there and SHOP!
May 21, 2008
Thursday, 5/22
NYS 5:13
LAT 3:58
CS 3:57
NYT 3:40
Richard Silvestri's theme in the New York Times crossword is a little oblique—OMEN at 38-Down can also be parsed as "O men," and the six 9-letter theme entries are names of famous men that include no vowel other than O. There's BJORN BORG, the [Five-time Wimbledon winner]; ROB MORROW, the ["Numb3rs" star] and star of Quiz Show and Northern Exposure; JOHN BROWN, [Harper's Ferry raider]; TOM POSTON, ["Newhart" actor] and husband of Suzanne Pleshette; [Famed restaurateur] of crossword notoriety, TOOTS SHOR; and [Co-star of "The Andy Griffith Show"] and portrayer of Mr. Furley on Three's Company, DON KNOTTS. Thursdayish clues: [Misbehaves] for CUTS UP (not ACTS UP); [Stretches] for AREAS; [Be deceitful] for PALTER; [Catfish Row denizen] for BESS; [Perfect pitch] for a STRIKE in baseball; [Region of Israel: Var.] for NEGEB (hmm, that's a new one on me); [Vesta, Pallas or Hygiea] (which I want to be spelled Hygieia or Hygeia) for ASTEROID; [Orly : Paris :: Gardermoen : ___] for OSLO (airport names : cities); [Athletes on horses] for GYMNASTS, their kind of horse being a stationary piece of equipment; ["Sun Valley Serenade" sar, 1941] for Sonja HENIE; [Classic spy plane] for U-TWO (which, I presume, the military never spells out thus); [Yclept] for NAMED; and [Female whales] for COWS. Old-school fill includes "Dies IRAE," ["Socrate" composer] Erik SATIE, the [Priests' garb] called ALBS, and AROAR ([Bellowing]). (Edited to add: Also TUN, the [252-gallon unit], another word I learned via crosswords.)
Another late addition about the NYT: At the NYT's "Today's Puzzle" forum, native Spanish speaker Zulema wrote this about 2-Down, [Red, as a Spanish wine]:I'll just begin by saying that before this puzzle goes further into print, the clue has to change. You need to find a subject (or object) that is of feminine gender as ROJA is, and definitely not wine, which beside being a masculine noun, is not ever called ROJO in Spanish but TINTO. Within reds there are CLARETES also, if one wants to get more particular.
How about the color of a torero's cape or a brightly colored rose in Spain, maybe? Notice I did not use the word WRONG, but oh is it!
Tom Heilman made the New York Sun "Themeless Thursday." I am far too sleepy to do it justice tonight. Lots of nice entries peppered with Scrabbly letters. The [President of the American League before Lee MacPhail] drew a complete blank from me—JOE CRONIN is the answer, but I've never heard of either guy and don't know when they served. More in the morning, perhaps—
Updated:
Here's one other remark about the New York Sun puzzle: [Atomic ___ (Crayola color formerly called Chartreuse)] can't possibly be right. Atomic TANGERINE is a vivid orange, while chartreuse (which I don't remember as a Crayola color—perhaps it launched after my childhood but was replaced before my son's) is a yellow-green color. Crayola might've had atomic tangerine replace chartreuse, but it couldn't have been a new name for the same color. ...And now that I've said all that, I Googled chartreuse crayola and find a Wikipedia claim that Crayola had misnamed an orange-red crayon "chartreuse" between 1972 and 1989. Does anyone remember this? My peak crayon years were in that span, and I sure don't remember that at all. Okay, this link specifies that chartreuse was part of the fluorescent octad, and those ones weren't, I don't think, in the box of 64. What, was Crayola stupid?
Elsewhere in the Sun puzzle, I like the TACO SALAD and Maxwell Smart's SHOE PHONE (my kid's looking forward to the Steve Carell movie remake—and wait, why does my son know the name "Steve Carell"?); the tennis TOPSPIN that is Billie Jean [King's English?], I presume; NIM clued as [___ Chimpsky (chimp in a language experiment)], in the news recently when that talking bird died; [Chalazia] as the plural of chalazion, or STYES (I have a fontanel for medical terminology); [Jettisons] for DEEP-SIXES; CRYING JAG; and [Twist request] for MORE (Oliver Twist's request, not a bar order). Boy, ["The Voice of Bugle ___" (1936 Lionel Barrymore film)] sure is a bizarre clue for ANN, ain't it?
Moving on!
Ray Hamel's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Playing with the Detroit Lions: An Anagram Puzzle," is exactly as billed: The theme entries are anagrams of DETROITLIONS. ["Taxi Driver" star flipped?] is DENIRO LOST IT; [Tested some skin products?] is TRIED LOTIONS; [Dig up a treasure chest?] is DISINTER LOOT; and a [Soggy chip?] is a SILENT DORITO (eww...). (The PRINGLES in the grid have not been made soggy.) A few hits from the crossword past: ZEBU! A [Humped bovine]. SERE! [Like the desert]. Its anagram ERSE! An [Old World language]. OONA! [Geraldine Chaplin's mother]. And TRET! A [Weigh station factor] not to be confused with TARE; I think TRET is more truck-oriented. These were all pretty much gimmes for me—how about you?
Gary Whitehead's LA Times crossword kept me wondering until I reached the southeast corner of the grid and the explanatory entry WINE, or [Cellar supply, judged by the ends of 17-, 31-, 38- and 54-Across]. Those four theme phrases are GUEST APPEARANCE ([Talk show gig]), CROOKED NOSE ([One reason for rhinoplasty]), CLEFT PALATE ([Doc Holliday was born with one]), and SEMI-GLOSS FINISH ([Painter's option]). 1-Across, opposite WINE, is NAPA, an [Apt region for this puzzle]. Not crazy about LATIN I, [Introductory language course], or some of the other fill, but ZEALOTRY looks a lot better in the crossword grid than in the real world.
May 06, 2008
Wednesday, 5/7
NYS 5:32
Tausig 5:18
Onion 5:17
CS 4:07
NYT 4:03
LAT 3:58
The Onion and Tausig puzzles just landed in my in-box a few minutes ago, but I'm far too sleepy to tend to those tonight. I'll blog 'em here in the Wednesday post come morning.
I am also too sleepy to do the New York Sun puzzle tonight. As for pub trivia...don't ask.
The New York Times crossword by Richard Silvestri is reminiscent of Tuesday's Sun puzzle in that it repurposes professional sports team names. This time, I think they all reference baseball teams, though there are also football Cardinals and Giants. The theme entries are phrases that start with words that are also team names. [Musial's 6 and Gibson's 45?] are CARDINAL NUMBERS (I tried to find a photo of Gibson wearing a Cardinals jersey, but only found pictures with lesser-known teams, maybe all Negro League outfits). [Pregame practice in Cincinnati?] is RED PEPPER. Cincinnati Reds, yes, but PEPPER? I don't get it. Do baseball teams "pep"? [AT&T Park standout?] is a GIANT STAR. And the best of the theme entries, MET EXPECTATIONS, is clued with [Prospects for a New York pennant?]. Favorite clues and answers: [Big jerk] for SPASM; [One of TV's "Two and a Half Men"] for ALAN (Jon Cryer's character, and not Alan Alda!); [Inspiration for "Rent"] for LA BOHEME; [Man of Principle?] for PETER; and [I might signify this] for Roman numeral ONE. Least favorite: [Go too far onstage] for EMOTE. Apparently Will Shortz remains fond of the overacting clues for EMOTE no matter how many times I complain about it. Dullest: [City in central Missouri], or SEDALIA. By the way, I lost a half a minute meandering through the grid in search of my typo—I had TUDT for TUFT, [Clump of grass].
Updated:
Pardon the delay in posting the other five puzzles—I awoke today achy and feverish.
"Tucked In" is the name of Tony Orbach's fun New York Sun crossword puzzle, and each theme entry has tucked one word into BED. Lend a hand, Ann Curry, last chance, egg white, and oil change are the roots of the theme. I liked BANNED CURRY, or [Made a harsh restaurant decree in India?], the best. (Curry, yum.) [Disinfected coins] presents a good visual: BOILED CHANGE. (Given how germy money is, I'd wager that someone somewhere has literally boiled their change.) The fill has an informal spoken language vibe to it, with NO DUH, TUSHIE, GASBAG, and WALLOP. I've never seen the UVULA referred to as [Throat "punching bag"], but it's certainly apt. Favorite clues: [Chow line?] for LEASH; [Surname of literary characters Noah, Tom, Al, Rosasharn, Ruthie, and Winfield] for JOAD (never read Grapes of Wrath, so the crossings helped me here); and [Duvall film role of 1980] for OYL (raise your hand if you had Robert, not Shelley, in mind).
Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword, "Going Green," instructs us to USE LESS and to have less USE in the theme entries. Favorite theme entries: "WAFFLE, HO!" (Waffle House), or ["Avast, prepare the syrup!"?] and PREGNANT PA (pause), or [Biologically confusing situation down on the farm?]. Most sparkling fill: GAPKIDS, GO-TO GUY, and KILLJOY. Favorite clues: [Deceleratrix (a la Mr. Burns)] for BRAKE; [Bum] for BOTTOM; ["Juiced" author Canseco] for JOSE (he sounds like a loon); [Gay feeling?] for PRIDE; [Editor's insert] for EM DASH—and I do like a judicious em dash—and [Sprinter Owens who embarrassed Hitler] for JESSE. I don't know how often A-CUP is a girl's [First bra, perhaps]; I believe a great many of us began with the AA or AAA kid stuff.
Brendan Emmett Quigley's Onion A.V. Club puzzle looks to have just two theme entries crossing in the middle: BLACKBERRY JAM ([Smartphone signal problem?]) and PALM TREE JUSTICE ([What one achieves by smashing one's malfunctioning smartphone against a branch?]), both playing on names of PDAs. The phrase PALM TREE JUSTICE managed to escape my notice completely until today—is this something everyone but me is familiar with? Funniest clue: [Presidential also-ran who last logged into his MySpace on January 4, 2008] for JOE BIDEN. Toughest clues: [Harlem Renaissance figure Locke] for ALAIN; [Hair loss] for ALOPECIA, perhaps, for those of you not up on medical terminology; [Like infants and beers] for NURSABLE (though I can't imagine anyone describing either with that word); [Tommy Pickles' little brother on "Rugrats"] for DIL (I actually remembered the answer this time, but it has bitten me before); [Marauders] for BANDITTI; [Direction toward which the wind blows] for LEESHORE; ["Dancing with the Stars" judge Goodman] for LEN (who?); and [Shoes once associated with MC Hammer and Public Enemy, briefly] for BKS; [Like the most daring trapeze stunts] for NETLESS (like NURSABLE, not a word that seems natural). I loved the "Pee-Wee's Playhouse" character Miss YVONNE. Three album or song titles in the grid may have been gimmes to people who listen to more post-1990 music than I do: GISH, AMNESIAC, and IN DA CLUB.
Ray Hamel (who, by the way, has a giant website linking crosswords from around the world, and I'm not sure why I've never linked to this in the sidebar—must remedy that!) has today's CrosSynergy crossword, "We Are the Champions." The theme entries are three 15-letter things all clued as [CHAMPION]: GENE AUTRY'S HORSE, a KIRK DOUGLAS FILM, and a STUDEBAKER MODEL. This theme makes me feel frightfully young. That lyric from the titular song, "no time for losers," does happen to have 15 letters, but this crossword isn't a tribute to Queen and Freddie Mercury.
David Cromer's LA Times crossword has four theme entries that end with types of ENGINES: READY TO FIRE, HEAD OF STEAM, NEW YORK JET, and STAR SEARCH. Speaking of search engines, guess who just landed a job at Google? One Tyler Hinman. Google sounds like a phenomenal company to work for, and it's such a good opportunity for Tyler that I won't even hassle him for abandoning our trivia team. Back to the puzzle: My favorite clue, of course, was [Infernal types] for FIENDS. Personally, I find that fiendishness matches up well with BLISS ([Cloud-nine feeling]) and PEACE ([Tranquility]).
May 03, 2008
Sunday, 5/4
NYT 9:01
PI 8:35
LAT 8:07
BG 7:15
CS 4:00
NYT Second Sunday "Split Decisions" 4 minutes or so
The New York Times' second Sunday offering is another "Split Decisions" puzzle by George Bredehorn. The link above is for the PDF that Will Johnston prepared, which should print out better than the JPEG the NYT site posted. No spoilers or answers here, and this kind of puzzle has no clues to discuss. All I've got to say is: This was one of the easiest "Split Decisions" puzzles I've seen. Usually there's a knotty spot or two that take a while to unravel, but this one? I zipped through it at bedtime, which is normally a time that I can't finish puzzles before I begin to doze off. So if you haven't tried one of these critters before, try this one! (But don't expect the next one some months hence to be this easy.)
You know how many of us grumble if we encounter unfamiliar crossword entries? It's particularly true when we deem the shortcoming not to be one of our own inadequacy—a regrettable lacuna in our knowledge—but rather, one of the puzzle itself. "Who the hell knows a word like that?!? Nobody!" someone may grouse. And more seasoned solvers will pooh-pooh that: "What, you don't know EROSE? That one's been in crosswords for ages. Total gimme." There are some crosswords out there, though, that would irk even the best solver. Case in point: Today's Tribune Media Services crossword. Blogger C.C. gives the lowdown. How would you describe a daily newspaper crossword that included the following answers: CYCADS, NIPA, INTI, CRUZEIRO, AZAN, ANAEMIA without a [Brit.] tag, SGD as an abbreviation for "signed," TIFT County (it's in Georgia), GALIPOT (an impure resin of turpentine—do not confuse this with those pure resins of turpentine, my friends!), LER, IRO, and POMOS (a California tribe). Might the word abomination come to mind? I'd be all right with LER (a Celtic god; have seen it in crosswords on rare occasion) or POMOS with reasonable crossings in a hard puzzle. But most of these words would be edited out by the crossword editor, or be just cause for rejecting the puzzle—particularly if the whole grid was riddled with them. (P.S. No, I don't solve the TMS puzzle, and no, I won't be blogging about it.)
The regular New York Times crossword does not contain AZAN or INTI. You may not be familiar with every word in the grid, but they're pretty much all words that have appeared in good-quality crosswords a number of times. They're fair game. Richard Silvestri's theme is "Poplar Music," or song titles modified in punny fashion to include a kind of tree. I've heard of all the trees (though the classics like the oak and maple are absent), but two of the song titles are ones I've never heard of. I suspect it's an age thing—the [1964 Bobby Goldsboro song for tree fanciers?], CEDAR FUNNY LITTLE CLOWN, was before my time. Google tells me the real title is "See the Funny Little Clown." The other song I don't know is the [1959 Chuck Berry song for tree fanciers?], ELMOST GROWN, which presumably puns on "Almost Grown." I don't get why ELMOST is kosher here, given that it's not a word, just a longer word with a short tree name spliced into it—the other theme entries use the tree name separate from other words. The trees replace all sorts of different parts of speech—verb, preposition, repeated adjective, two words ("see the," "balls of," "I love"), and half of "almost." Ultimately not a very satisfying theme for this solver.
Unusual fill and tough answers/clues:
Clues/answers I liked:
Updated:
Paula Gamache's themeless CrosSynergy "Sunday Challenge" echoes the NYT crossword with TIMBAL, or [Kettledrum]. Tito Puente played Cuban timbales, while the TIMBAL appears to be a Brazilian drum of a different shape. My favorite clue here is [After all?] for DEAD LAST. I also appreciated the duplicity of [Businessmen can be vested in them] for THREE-PIECE SUITS—vesting in stock options was the first thing I thought of. There are three Shakespearean characters in the grid: IAGO, the [Villain who said "I am not what I am"] in Othello (in contradistinction to Popeye the Sailor Man, who was wont to say "I yam what I yam"); OPHELIA, [Daughter of Polonius] in Hamlet; and CASCA, though [He was the first to strike Caesar] in history as well as in Julius Caesar. ELG is clued as ["Les Girls" actress Taina]; that was a 1957 movie and she is Finnish by birth. I don't recall seeing the name before, though it would appear that her first or last name could bail a constructor out of a tight spot.
I loved Merl Reagle's Philadelphia Inquirer puzzle today. "It's Not What It Looks Like" is a twist on his "If I Wrote the Dictionary" themes—this one is what meanings are not correct, even though they may sound that way. The theme clues and answers are just plain fun, if you ask me. Merl had me at "hello," with ALBUMEN being clued [It's not German for "long-playing records"]. My other favorite theme entries: [He's not "the father of electricity"] for VOLTAIRE; [It doesn't mean "subtracted"] for NONPLUSSED; [It's not a fraction of a penny] for MILLICENT; [It's not a type of ore] for REIGNITE (rhymes with lignite!); and [It's not French for "husband-to-be"] for LEGROOM. The nonthematic action was fun, too. Favorite morsels: ["Sister Ree," really] for ARETHA Franklin; [Red river?] for LAVA; [B.B. King's thing] for the BLUES; and—best of all—[Mid-Atlantic state?] for seasick NAUSEA. (Editor's note: Lloyd Mazer, who converts Merl's crosswords into Across Lite for us, extracts them from the LA Times online magazine. What's in print in the Philadelphia Inquirer and Washington Post, however, is a puzzle called "The Secret Forest." So it's better to go by the puzzle title than the newspaper name for Merl's puzzles when the publications get out of sync. In any event, I loved the one we had today!)
Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon's Across Lite Boston Globe puzzle (as a reminder, what's available to us in Across Lite—and we are grateful for that!—is a few weeks old, so Bostonians will have seen this crossword weeks ago) is called "A Matter of Time," and the theme entries are phrases that include units of time, in ascending order from IN A SPLIT SECOND to the THIRTY YEARS WAR. The intervening steps are Bannister's FOUR-MINUTE MILE, CANONICAL HOURS, the Beatles' EIGHT DAYS A WEEK (covering two units of time, in order!), and BOOK OF THE MONTH. They've clued CHIMERA as the [Lion-headed monster] with a capital C, whereas Merl Reagle used little-C chimera in his crossword today ([Foolish fancy]).
Ray Hamel's syndicated LA Times crossword, "Horseheads," bundles together a bunch of phrases that begin with "___ horse" words. The card game CRAZY EIGHTS, for example, ponies up Crazy Horse. The TROJAN WAR gives the closely allied Trojan horse. CHARLEY WEAVER, charley horse (ow!)—and also phrases with HIGH, DARK, QUARTER, HOBBY, SAW (7-letter SAWDUST is in the middle at 51-Down), and ROCKING. The theme entries aren't highlighted by asterisks or anything, so the puzzle sort of unspooled like a plus-sized themeless crossword—which is a pleasant thing in my book. (Figuratively speaking.) One complete mystery entry for me: KAPP is [The Searchers' record label]. I know nothing about that, but like to think that it has to do with an epic Western...
September 04, 2007
Wednesday, 9/5
LAT 4:17
NYS 4:06
NYT 3:38
CS 3:30
Hey, can anyone recommend a good online thesaurus? I have this old book, The Synonym Finder, and love it—but it's old. (It's got all these kooky, great words marked as slang or informal. For example, under "terrific," we get words like splendid and smashing along with the Australian bonzer, the unusual superexcellent, and the slang marvy.) I also own Random House Webster's Word Menu, but it's categorized rather than alphabetical, and there's nothing like the alphabet for homing in quickly on the word you need. I have been underwhelmed by any online offerings of synonyms I've seen, but there must be something out there on the internet that's nearly as good as Rodale's Synonym Finder.
The New York Sun puzzle by Patrick Berry is, well, superexcellent. Not every single word in the grid is wonderful, but the "Reinitializing the Program" theme entries are spot on. If you scrupulously avoid watching TV, you might not enjoy the theme, but the rest of us will. Each theme entry's a TV show whose title includes a 2- or 3-letter abbreviation, in which the final letter of the abbreviation has been changed to drastically alter the show's concept. Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker had their show, The PTL Club; here, THE PTA CLUB is a [Program hosted by a televangelist who's raising money for a school play?]. Tom Selleck's P.I. becomes a gym teacher in MAGNUM PE. That forensics show set in South Florida picks up Civil War reenactors and becomes CSA MIAMI. Don Rickles' Navy guy gives financial advice on CPA SHARKEY. There are two more theme entries running vertically: DATELINE NBA with [investigative journalists who can dunk?] and MAYBERRY RFK going all civil-rightsy. Six theme entries, six solid "aha" moments, six rewards for appreciating pop culture. Based on the theme, this puppy's going into my "great puzzles" folder.
Outside of the theme, I also got a charge out of the fill and clues. PIA ZADORA and LORI PETTY, usually consigned to [___ Zadora] or [___ Petty] clues, get the full name treatment. There were other long entries, too, such as the lovely EPHEMERAL and a BETE NOIRE. My favorite clues: [It beats rock] for PAPER (Rock, Paper, Scissors); [Gray area?] for DIXIE and [Enemies of the men in blue?] for REBS (gray = South, blue = North, and both tie to CSA MIAMI); [Sharp-set] for EAGER; the unknown-to-me [Chaudfroid glaze] for ASPIC (here's a gross-sounding recipe); and [Case worker?] for GUMSHOE (evoking Magnum P.I.). I even like having good ol' SOU in the puzzle, clued as [Paltry sum]; anyone else tempted to work "not worth a sou" into conversation?
You know that list of "humorous" observations that your relatives over the age of 55 like to forward via e-mail? (And always with a zillion >>>>>>>forwarding marks, and an embedded "Read these they are funny!" from several forwardings ago?) The theme in Richard Silvestri's New York Times puzzle is a quip from that list: IF VEGETARIANS EAT / VEGETABLES, WHAT DO / HUMANITARIANS EAT? Please, constructors: Do not scroll through the list counting the number of letters in all the other observations. On Sunday, I did another Silvestri puzzle, this one from the American Airlines in-flight magazine. The "Actual Labels" theme was ridiculous warnings from actual product labels, and that theme was (1) hilarious and (2) not included in the forwarded e-mails my aunts and uncles like to send along. My husband and son enjoyed the "Actual Labels" theme entries, too. My husband even worked his own copy of the puzzle, though he normally doesn't do crosswords much. He tried to finish before landing; I always strive to finish before takeoff.
Updated:
Stella Daily and Bruce Venzke pay homage to the late HEAD COACH of the NINERS, BILL WALSH, in their CrosSynergy puzzle. In the fill, AUSTERE was clued as [Like Spartan living]—I can't help but envision a magazine called Spartan Living. Printed on newsprint in black and white. Going far beyond Real Simple in its focus on the simple life. Cover stories: "Build Your New Hut in a Single Day." "Indoor Plumbing: Necessity or Wasteful Extravagance?"
Joy Frank's LA Times crossword includes four phrases that start with WHEEL types: SPINNING CLASS, spinning wheel; PADDLE TENNIS, paddlewheel; POTTER'S FIELD, potter's wheel; and FERRIS BUELLER, [1986 movie truant], Ferris wheel. At first I thought Ferris Bueller and Harry Potter were involved here, but no. 6-Down was [Licorice-flavored liqueur], so I filledin PASTIS. Alas, I needed PERNOD. But look! The libation called Pernod is a brand of pastis. I will never, ever knowingly eat or drink anything that's licorice-flavored, so I need to keep up with the drinks on my no-fly list.
