Friday, 11/6/09

NYT 6:01
BEQ 4:32
CHE 3:42
LAT 3:24
CS untimed
WSJ 8:05

Doug Peterson's New York Times crossword

Aargh! Don't you hate it when you click "done" with 4:46 on the clock but you have a typo in a Down answer and begin scanning all the Across answers so it takes a good long while to see JULEETTE BINOCHE sitting in reproach? Hell, for all I knew, 19A: ["The Ballad of ___," 1967 comedy western] was spelled JOSEE rather than JOSIE because hey, there's The Outlaw Josey Wales. Wales was a '76 movie, whereas The Ballad of Josie "attempted to humorously tackle 1960s themes of feminism in a traditional western setting." The plot: "A young woman living in fictional Arapahoe County, Wyoming accidentally kills her very abusive husband. She is put on trial but acquitted. She then incurs the annoyance of her male neighbors by farming sheep instead of cattle and setting up a woman's suffrage movement." Anyone ever hear of this Doris Day flick?

Okay, the puzzle: 68 words. Two 15s, four 10s, eight 9s, some intermediate-length answers, and only six 3s, which is nice. The highlights:

• Why not cross ALPHA MALE with UN-P.C.? It's a natural pairing. 16A: [Leader of the pack], 3D: [Sexist, say]. Right beside that is OGLE, or [Regard impolitely].
• 1A. I filled in MOUNT FUJI via the crossings, as I was thinking I needed an East Asian equivalent of Mecca for the [Far Eastern pilgrimage destination]. Another mountain: 28A: PIZ [___ Bernina (highest peak in the Eastern Alps]. I like to say PIZ.
• 14A. Love the word IGNORAMUS. [Dull type] doesn't begin to capture it.
• 36A. The title doesn't ring a bell, but [Subject of the 2005 biography "iCon"] is STEVE JOBS. Is that "ooh, he's an icon" or "he'll con you with his iWhatnots"? I'm reading the title as a hatchet-job "I Con."
• 37A. If you [Spotted] me $40, you LENT it to me. Thanks. I'll totally pay you back.
• 46A. [Hamburger's acknowledgment] is DANKE, a Hamburger being someone from Hamburg, Germany.
• 52A. I, CLAUDIUS is a great entry. [John Hurt played Caligula in it].
• 57A. The SERENGETI is [Where some buffalo roam]. Water buffalo?
• 1D. M.I.A.'S are clued with [They're officially honored on the third Friday in Sept. Veterans Day is next Wednesday, Nov. 11—my kid's off school then...and tomorrow too.
• 8D. JULIETTE BINOCHE, ["The English Patient" Oscar winner]. See? Sometimes I can type the right letters.
• 12D. [It often has controls] refers to an EXPERIMENT. I was in a medical study once—I think I was in the control group and man, did that stink. (Though it turns out the active-treatment group didn't fare much better.)
• 25D. [Its bulb is small]—my little Book Owl LED light? That too. But GREEN ONION is what Doug was going for here.
• 29D, 40A. ZESTY, meet CRUSTY. Is this about saltine crackers? Wait, those are crispy Zestas. [Vivacious], [Gruff].
• 31D. [Baseball nickname that's a portmanteau] is A-ROD, short for Alex Rodriguez. No baseball talk here, please. Not 'til opening day, 2010.
• 32D. [Fibula neighbor] down below is the TALUS, the big ankle bone. Did you want it to be TIBIA, 5 letters, starts with T?

OK, I like question-marked clues usually, but [Cabinet member?] for 48D: FILE doesn't do it for me. Your files are in no way "members" of your file cabinet.

Arcane factoids I am likely to forget by morning: PAUL V was the [Pope who met with Galileo], and ACETIC ACID is a [Wood distillation product].

Patrick Berry's Chronicle of Higher Education crossword, "Koined Terms"

From my Mac's widget dictionary: koine means "the common language of the Greeks from the close of the classical period to the Byzantine era; a common language shared by various peoples; a lingua franca." Our "Koined Terms" here begin with adjectives based on Greek names and are phrases of varying familiarity:

• HIPPOCRATIC OATH, check. [What doctors are expected to follow].
• SOCRATIC METHOD, check. [Teaching technique that involves asking questions].
• PYRRHIC VICTORY, check. [Win that wasn't worth it].
• HOMERIC LAUGHTER—huh? [What hilarious jokes induce] but also very bad news, medically: "Uncontrolled spasmodic laughter induced by mirthless stimuli, a symptom of organic brain disease that indicates a poor prognosis; HL may be seen in multiple sclerosis, pseudobulbar palsy, epilepsy, intracranial hemorrhage, frontal lobotomy, and kuru, which causes 'laughing death.'" My goodness.

I like the inclusion of Greek mythology's Athena (in a clue for MINERVA) and THESEUS, the MOHS/OHM'S echo, the SCUM clue ([Dirty film]—no, not that kind of film), and learning a new word in the CELTIC clue ([Like the festival of Beltane]). Beltane ushers in the summery half of the year on May 1 and Samhain closes it out on November 1. Have I seen the name HAUER before, or is [Austrian composer Josef Matthias ___] new to me? I think he's new to me. A 20th-century composer.

Sharon Petersen's Los Angeles Times crossword

The theme centers on words that sound like plurals of letter names:

• 17A. [Nursery rhyme dish?] with a question mark is PP PORRIDGE, with PP pronounced as two "Ps" standing in for "pease."
• 25A. CC THE DAY represents "seize the day," the ["Time is fleeting" philosophy?].
• 38A. "Whys and wherefores" becomes YY AND WHEREFORES, or [Reasons?].
• 49A. ["Good grief!"?] has got too much punctuation. GG LOUISE represents "jeez Louise."
• 61A. Remember that [1999 Kidman/Cruise film?] before she married Keith Urban and he married Katie Holmes? Eyes Wide Shut gives us II WIDE SHUT.

Favorite clues and answers:

• [Brest milk]! Ha! LAIT is milk in French, and Brest is a French city.
• ROSEY [Grier of the Fearsome Foursome] once sang a song, "It's All Right to Cry." He's right, you know.
• DAPPER DAN is a [Well-groomed guy].
• A [Website that users can edit] is a WIKI. If you've never fixed a typo in Wikipedia, you should try it sometime.
• [Verminophobe's fear] is GERMS. Yeesh! Maybe I'll be all better come Monday and can get the H1N1 vaccine with my kid.

Updated Friday morning:

Patrick Jordan's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Natural Defenses"—Janie's review

Yesterday, Ray Hamel's puzzle gave us five man-made items that are worn "for your protection," or man-made defenses. Today, Patrick gives us four of nature's own defenses, each of which appears as the first word of a well-known phrase having nothing to do with defenses—man-made or natural. You may want to don some protection, however, if you find yourself anywhere near these sometimes lethal weapons:

•17A. STINGER COCKTAIL [Brandy concoction]. I suppose drinking too many of these could be mighty dangerous, too, but the defense in question here is the stinger of the apian sort. On the subject of bee stings, all I can say is "Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!!"
•26A. SCALE MODEL [Proportionate reproduction]. Fish, reptiles, even butterflies have scales. They're not likely to harm you (in the way a stinger might), but they do help keep the species safe from their predators.
•48A. CLAW HAMMER [Carpentry staple] and, depending who's wielding it in a non-functional way..., quite capable of doing a lot of damage/providing a lot of protection. But let's focus instead on the claw component of the avian and ursine variety. Again: OUCH!!! (I feel certain you know this but the claws of the former may also be called "talons.")
•61A. POISON-PEN LETTER [Malicious message]. And you'll find poison everywhere: in spiders, snakes, fruit, plants, mushrooms. What can I tell you? Mother Nature looks out for her own, so be very careful!

If this puzzle isn't a knock-out, a solver could still WARM TO [Grow fond of] it. There's some fun in the cluing: [Result of baby's first spaghetti dinner] for MESS is particularly vivid; ditto [Cluelessness gesture] for SHRUG. Yesterday, we saw verdant and schnoz as fill. Today, [Became verdant] clues GREENED and [Jimmy known as "The Schnoz"] clues DURANTE, whose proboscis was famously immortalized in Cole Porter's "You're the Top":

You're a rose,
You're Inferno's Dante*,
You're the nose
On the great Durante.
I'm just in the way,
As the French would say, "de trop."
But if, baby, I'm the bottom,
You're the top!

*Also in yesterday's puzzle. Patrick, were you and Ray in communication when you were constructing these puzzles?

[Beetle Bailey's outfit] is not his UNIFORM but THE ARMY (his meta-outfit, so to speak). Did you know: "Beetle Bailey" was introduced by Mort Walker in 1950, and Walker is still producing the comic strip? Or that Lois, of Walker's "Hi and Lois," is Beetle's sister? I'm just wondering if Otto, Sarge's anthropomorphic dog, has ever said "ARF!" [Comic strip bark].

Myles Callum's Wall Street Journal crossword, "I'm a PC"

For my money, "I'm a PC" is among the more annoying, jejune commerical catchphrases out there. You may use a Windows machine, but it doesn't mean you are one. That's just insipid. The theme phrases have P.C. initials, but they're livened up via the clueing. Each clue defines the P.C. phrase in two ways, one straight and one jokey. For example, PRINCE CHARMING is [Fairy tale guys? Hexing a pop musician? Whatever! I'm a PC], and the really-not-so-familiar phrase PRIVY COUNCILS is clued as [Royal advisers? Outhouse committees? Whatever! I'm a PC]. If you have to do a "phrases with the same initials" theme, you're best off having some fun with the clues to add some pep to the puzzle.

A couple relative obscurities in the fill—CRESSETS are [Metal baskets for burning oil]. I know PONIARD, or [Slim dagger], but it's an old word. I was also stumped, weirdly, by 4D: ["Major Dundee" star] is HESTON, but I started out with the [Hormel product] being SPAM rather than HASH and thinking I needed the name of the Crocodile Dundee star, which I'm still blanking on.

Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Circular Reasoning"

Am I missing something here? The circled letters spell out IT IS ALL COMING BACK TO ME NOW. (Wouldn't "it's" sound more natural?) One of the long answers is WEDDING BAND, which is a circle, but the other is the WAITING GAME of vultures, which touches on the circle of life tangentially. There's an ORBITER in the middle of the grid. The three-way checking of squares nudges the constructor towards some compromises in fill—TLAs, partials, foreign words (Latin IN REM, French ANNEE), REMOP, not much in the way of juicy answers. Is there a theme beyond "look, the circled letters spell out something"?

Hmm. I'll probably like Monday's BEQ better.

Gotta run—busy day!

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Tuesday, 9/1/09

Jonesin' 3:32
NYT 3:12
LAT 2:42
CS untimed (J—Downs. Mostly...)

I'm late to the puzzle and the blog tonight—my kid and I did the reverse commute in rush hour and met my husband downtown at the Willis Tower (You know, the Sears Tower under its new name.) There are these new SkyLedges that telescope out from the west side of the building. They're glass boxes somewhere in the neighborhood of 4x8 feet, and the view below your feet is straight down about 1,350 feet. I didn't get the slightest bit woozy, so I pronounce the SkyLedges to be a terrific innovation in SkyDeck design. We stuck around to watch the sunset, which...looked exactly like the sunset I saw a month ago from the Hancock building's 94th floor.

Steven Ginzburg's New York Times crossword

The theme is embodied by 37A: [How 18-, 24-, 47- and 56-Across may be defined] is BY HOOK OR BY CROOK, meaning that those four answers can be defined by the wordhook or the word crook. In fact, there are two hooks—18A is a SHARP TURN and 47A is a SWINGING PUNCH—and two crooks—24A is a SHEPHERD'S CANE (though I think of canes as being shorter, more like hip-high, and a shepherd's crook/staff as being head-high) and 56A is a RACKETEER.

You gotta watch out for mis-parsing multi-word answers in the grid. 5D is SAYS HI TO ([Greets informally]), but the eye sees a certain 4-letter word in the midst. "Say 'shit-O'"?

I'm sleepy and not seeing anything to single out in the "wow," "meh," tough, or ICKY ([Gross, in kidspeak]) departments, so I'll sign off now and see you again in the morning.

Updated Tuesday morning:

Randolph Ross's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "I'm Outta Here"—Janie's review

No, Randy's not bidding us farewell, but he has taken the paired "IM" outta five in-the-language phrases and given us five almost-in-the-language phrases that have a colorful meaning all their own. I love this kind of theme and the puzzle Randy created today. [In all likelihood] ODDS ARE if you enjoy this kind of wordplay as well, you'll derive the same pleasure I did in solving it.

• 16A. When AJAX [Cleanser with the motto "Stronger than dirt!] introduced its laundry detergent in the 1960s, I imagine their advertising department wanted to compare it to other products out there by saying, "It's new and improved!" Starting with this classic ad-speak enticement, we now get the clue [Slogan about a just discovered math theorem?] and the "no-IM" twist that produces "IT'S NEW AND PROVED!" Can't argue with that!
• 26A. One of the great features of our justice system is the panel of citizens who make decisions of innocence or guilt in civil and criminal cases. Trial lawyers strive hard to find a prejudice-free, impartial jury—six people for civil cases, twelve for criminal. Much effort is put into making certain they're all there and accounted for, too. Nothing worse than an [Incomplete peer group?] or a PARTIAL JURY...
• 34A. Department stores almost always sell items like cosmetics and candy close to the cash registers on the first floor. Why? Because marketers know that, when they get THE URGE, these are the kinds of items that consumers will pick up on sudden impulse. An EMT, however, responding to a call for assistance, is more likely to be pleased by picking up a [Quick heartbeat?] or SUDDEN PULSE in an otherwise non-responsive patient.
• 46A. Sometimes, despite our best efforts to keep ’em, we'll lose a tooth or two—permanently... That's when it may be time for a dental implant. If you're also a candidate for some even more specialized care (and if your practitioner has a botanical bent...), you might encounter [A periodontist's petunia?] or DENTAL PLANT. (Some of the humor today is soooo corny—and no doubt, that's why I like it!)
• 57A. The efforts of someone who's worked late at the office night after night to finish up an important memo or campaign probably impressed one's boss. If, on the other hand, the same worker then [Kept arguing for a salary increase, e.g.?] s/he'd be said to have PRESSED ONE'S BOSS.

Other clues and/or fill that stand out today include:

• The superhero-type combo of XENA [Lucy Lawless role] followed by SEAGAL [Action movie actor Steven]. Each has played the moment when s/he SAVES THE DAY [Becomes a hero].
• Then there the real pugilists ALI ["The Louisville Lip] and DURAN [Ring champion Roberto]. Not to mention [Larry slapper] MOE (as in The Three Stooges: Larry, Moe and Curly...).
• The [Chain of evidence?] refers to DNA; and that [Eur. political entity once led by Charlemagne] is the HRE or Holy Roman Empire, which—as I remember being taught—was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire...
• A [Corner former] (i.e., something that forms a corner) is a CROSS-STREET. And doesn't that string of consonants look great in the grid?

Solved this one almost entirely with the downs, but did have some trouble in the SW—even when I looked at the clue foe 49A [Brought home]. My first entry of EARNED was in the right area, but was the wrong word—which NETTED me some more questions, rather than answers I'm afraid.

Sharon Petersen's Los Angeles Times crossword

The theme is solid Tuesday fare and the overall cluing is at a solid Tuesday level of easiness. But what makes this puzzle stand out is the liveliness of the fill, including the theme entries. Each theme entry's first word can follow WILD (68-Across) to make a new compound word, and the phrases themselves fit right in with the other more colorful fill:

• 17A. CAT BURGLAR is a [Stealthy felon]. Wasn't Cary Grant a cat burglar in To Catch a Thief?
  
• 61A. The FIRE ESCAPE is an [Apartment building emergency exit].
  
• 11D. The FLOWER GIRL is a [Wedding party tyke], typically.
  
• 28D. One key [Boating safety feature] is a LIFE JACKET.
  

Among the zippier fill, we have "GET REAL" (["Oh, be serious!"]), CASH COW ([Constant moneymaker]), the [Photographer's request] of "SAY CHEESE," and those [Art pieces that hang from the ceiling], MOBILES. I spent a few minutes appreciating Alexander Calder's Universe in the Sears Tower lobby—this photo shows about two thirds of this giant, multi-piece moving sculpture.

Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword, "You Sound Like L"

Each theme entry takes a familiar phrase and inserts an L into the verb-based word to form something new and a tad surprising. It's a good thing when you get those little surprised "ahas" when you're working out a theme, isn't it?

• 20A. If you're [Hip to sounds from Rice Krispies?], you're CRACKLING WISE (cracking wise).
  
• 31A. Growing concern + L = GROWLING CONCERN, or [Getting the right pitch and volume, for a lion?].
  
• 39A. [Leftovers from sticking doughy lumps in a coffee percolator?] are DUMPLING GROUNDS. Way to ruin dumplings for us, Matt! "Doughy lumps" and coffee grounds make dumplings seem so unsavory.
  
• 55A. Add an L to "starting over" and you get STARTLING OVER, or [Scaring yet again?].

My favorite part of this puzzle is all the 7-letter answers in the fill. The word count isn't low thanks to all those 3s, but I'm less likely to notice a slew of 3s if my eyes have been bedazzled by 7s.

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Monday, 9/15

NYS 3:18
CS 2:48
NYT 2:43 (...would have been faster but for a typo)
LAT 2:23
Jonesin' tba

Sharon Petersen's New York Times crossword was constructed by a woman, but the theme's packed with animal machismo. BUCK-NAKED means [Completely nude] and begins with a word for a male deer (or rabbit, ferret, kangaroo, or rat). We should have more BUCK-NAKED in the crossword—it's a colorful phrase. STAG PARTY is an [All-male gathering], like this theme. A stag is a male deer (but not those other animals). Is there an implication here of a buck-naked stag party? No? A [Bygone Dodge S.U.V.] is the RAM CHARGER. No, wait, Ramcharger is one word. Anyway, a ram is defined as an "uncastrated male sheep." (This site tells you a castrated one is a wether or a hogget.) BULL MARKET is ["Buy buy buy" time on Wall Street]. My, this is a virile theme, as bulls are also uncastrated (it's the steer who has gotten a bum steer).

My favorite fill: VALJEAN, the ["Les Miserables" fugitive]; SACHET clued with [It makes good scents] (make mine lavender, please); slangy ALL WET, or [Completely wrong]; and POP STAR, clued with the clashing [Elton John or Britney Spears]. There are plenty of common crossword answers here that beginning solvers would do well to remember:

• A TAD means [Slightly]. Two words, half vowels, common letters? You'll see this one a lot.
  
• [TV opera "___ and the Night Visitors"] is completed by AMAHL. The clue usually has either that partial title or a mention of composer Gian Carlo Menotti.
  
• APU, ["The Simpsons" shopkeeper], is a regular in crosswords now. MOE'S tavern also comes up a lot.
  
• A [Rocky peak], 3 letters, is a TOR. Commit the word to memory. Most of us learned this one from crosswords.
  
• [90 degree pipe joints] are ELLS. Anything that sounds L-shaped might be an ELL, along with a building addition. 
  
• ANA is also a crossword-heavy word when used to mean [Literary olio] or collection. (Remember olio, too.)
  
• LEAS are [Meadows] in crosswords. 
  
• [Jai ___] is jai ALAI, the sport. More popular in crosswords than in life, unless you're in certain parts of Florida.
  
• [Maiden name preceder] NEE is née, French for the female form of "born." 
  
• ["The Thin Man" pooch] is ASTA, the fictional Nick and Nora Charles's dog.
  
• [Kazakhstan's ___ Sea] is the ARAL Sea. The sea is shrinking, but its frequency in crosswords seems to be holding strong.
  

Are these Monday write-ups with the lowdown for new solvers useful for anyone? I hope so.

Peter Gordon, a.k.a. Ogden Porter, crafted a New York Sun crossword with a simple theme. In "Totally Slick, It," there are just three theme entries, each with a three-syllable word ending with an E sound, only the first syllable stressed, followed by a word that rhymes with "picket." A foggy description, but here are the answers, which sound good together:

• JIMINY CRICKET is a [Character in "Pinocchio"].
  
• LOTTERY TICKET is an [Unlikely source of wealth].
  
• LEMONY SNICKET is the [Pseudonymous author of "A Series of Unfortunate Events"].
  

The size of the theme leaves plenty of space for sparkling fill. We get the Bee Gees' "JIVE TALKIN'," "The Pirates of PENZANCE," BACARDI rum, and an ACT OF MERCY. This is the second puzzle in recent days in which a musical key was clued, so I filled in *MINOR because what are the odds there'll be a J there? Yeah, both times it was *MAJOR, E MAJOR here. The O part was easy, as were "Thelma & LOUISE" and KERMIT the Frog—so I never saw OSI or its clue, [Giants defensive end Umenyiora]. As usual, the Monday Sun crossword hits at a Tuesday or Wednesday NYT difficulty level.

Updated:

The Jonesin' puzzle won't be sent out until late today, so I might end up blogging about that one Tuesday instead.

Mike Peluso's LA Times puzzle was nearly Monday-Newsday easy. (The Monday Newsday crossword is the exemplar of an easy puzzle—that's the one Al Sanders almost broke two minutes on in Wordplay, and subsequently has solved in less than two minutes. And Tyler Hinman has done a Monday Newsday online in 70 seconds, I believe.) I liked the anagram theme—65-Across, CARES, is anagrammed into four other words that appear in assorted phrases. GREEN ACRES was the [Park Avenue-to-Hooterville sitcom]. SACRE BLEU is clued as [Poirot's epithet], although an epithet is a name you call someone, either disdainful or merely descriptive, and not just any swear word. A [Cornfield "guard"] is a SCARECROW. And HORSE RACES are what make up the [Triple Crown trio]. Highlights in the fill: RUN D.M.C., the ["Walk This Way" rap trio], crossing RODNEY Dangerfield and RICE CHEX cereal.

Martin Ashwood-Smith's CrosSynergy puzzle takes a thematic approach I'd like to discuss. Some themes are "tighter"—more specific and more complete—than others. The LA Times theme omitted the anagram SERAC, which is (a) fairly obscure and (b) not found in any common phrases. So it's fairly complete, but it's not super-tight because phrases like SACK RACES and and SCARE TACTIC are out there. Martin's "Definite Maybe" theme groups three oxymorons, all noun phrases, together. They're not related by subject area, and it's nowhere near an exhaustive list of oxymorons. By not squeezing in more oxymorons and by having the latitude to swap out one phrase for an alternate if the fill wasn't working out, there's room in the grid for some interesting longer fill. For example, the upper right and lower left corners have pairs of 9-letter entries stacked atop or below theme entries, and each pair of 9's is crossed by a vertical 9 that binds the middle theme entry to the top and bottom ones. There's a CROCODILE, a LILAC TREE (I never knew lilacs also had a tree form), PRAGMATIC, and "WHERE AM I?" (I'm not wild about ALL HANDS, which feels to me like strictly an 8-letter partial entry missing its "on deck.")

The three theme entries in the CrosSynergy crossword are LIVE RECORDING, or [Concert taping, e.g.]; WORKING VACATION, or [Busman's holiday]; and RESIDENT ALIEN, or [Landed immigrant, e.g.].

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