Saturday, 10/3/09

Newsday 10:11
NYT 5:24
LAT 3:00
CS untimed (double-Doug!)
NYT diagramless tba

Doug Peterson's New York Times crossword

Did you know that COMEDIAN fits perfectly into the space for 15A: [Stand-up guy]? And yet the answer is FUNNYMAN, but I had the last letter in place so I promptly filled in COMEDIAN. Thank goodness for psychopaths behaving AMORALLY or it would've taken me longer to see the error in my ways. And thank goodness for the NYT's difficulty level remaining intact as an American treasure—I did the Saturday LAT puzzle just before this one, and it's a travesty how easy it was.

Lots of good stuff and hardly any junk in this grid. What's good? This:

• 9A. [Rey Juan Carlos's home] is ESPAÑA. Yes, "home" is in English, but "rey" is Spanish ("king") to signal the Spanish answer. What better word to display in Spanish than Spain?
  
• 16A. [It holds its liquor] clues a FLAGON. Gotta love words that have been with us since the late Middle English days.
  
• 17A. OLD-GROWTH FOREST constitutes [Much of Redwood National Forest]. New growth is lovely, but there's no replacement for old-growth unless you've got a couple hundred years to wait.
  
• 27A. "PLEASE," [When repeated, start of a Beatles title]—that's "Please Please Me." You dallied with Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da in your head, didn't you?
  
• 31A. [Sandwich, Edam, or Champagne] is a TOPONYM, or place name. The sammich, cheese, and swill take their names, directly or not, from those places.
  
• 40A. MR. MOTO is the [Secret agent created by a 1938 Pulitzer winner], John P. Marquand. The answer makes me think of "Mr. Roboto." I can't help it. I came of age in the '80s.
  
• 46A. CAEN was the [Setting of William the Conqueror's castle], which (a) I did not know and (b) tells me Caen is old.
  
• 48A. ERIK Estrada has been passed over yet again, this time for [Finnish composer Bergman]. Hey, that name is not Finnish. He should be Eriikk Berggamakko.
  
• 51A. [Fixation] clues BEE IN ONE'S BONNET, which takes me straight to the They Might Be Giants song
  "Birdhouse in Your Soul".
  
• 1D. [It keeps you grounded] isn't about electricity or humility but rather, gravity: G-FORCE. Thank god the clue isn't about that small rodent Disney movie my kid didn't want to see this summer.
  
• 4D. Who knew ANGST was an [Existential topic for Heidegger]?
  
• 5D. Wait-wait-wait. TYRE is [Home to a Shakespearean prince]? Which one? Pericles, Prince of Tyre, written at least in part by Shakespeare, they say.
  
• 11D. [3, 4 or 5, but rarely 6] is a good clue for PAR in golf.
  
• 27D. PEÑA is clued as [Elizabeth of "Lone Star," 1996]. If you've never seen the movie, get it from Netflix. It's excellent.
  
• 30D. Wow, did I get stuck on [Source of a body piercing?]. It's TORO, as in a bull in Spain that might gore someone. Friend of mine works as a body piercer so I got distracted by thinking of him.
  
• 31D. [Where to get croquetas] is at a TAPAS BAR. Yum.
  
• 42D. I had the beginning letter of the [Leader called "the Great"] so I filled in POMPEY. It's czar PETER I.
  
• 48D. Gotta love a mislead like ["And Winter Came..." artist]. "Artist"? Singer. ENYA. D'oh!
  
• 53D. SEI, Italian for "six," is the [Number of legs on un insetto]. Cute!
  

You know, I thought this puzzle rolled in on the easier end of the Saturday spectrum, but I'm seeing longer-than-expected times on the applet and the widget in my sidebar. Deadly crossings? Tough clues? Traps? What gives?

Updated Saturday morning:

Doug Peterson's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Concealed Weapons"—Janie's review

You may recall that Monday's puzzle was "C & W" (by Paula Gamache), in which the words of the theme-phrases began with the title letters, and in which one of those theme-phrases was CONCEALED WEAPON. This last puzzle of the week goes one better by literally embedding the word arm, as in 57A. THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS [Constitutional guarantee...] in three more 15-letter phrases. And they just happen to be:

• 17A. BRONZE STAR METAL [Military decoration for valor]. Not only do I like this phrase, but there's some truth in the advertising here. People in the military do carry arms. Which are sometimes concealed. The phrase stands in striking contrast to the next place where a concealed weapon apparently may be found:
• 26A. ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT [Organized campaign for peace]. Yikes. How's that for irony? Is there something Doug knows that we don't? The final phrase isn't associated with the military or its opponents, but brings back the advertising phrase we've all come to know:
• 43A. CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? [Cell phone user's query]. (Using arms against the person who came up with this phrase is not an option...)

One "K" shy of a pangram, this puzzle is filled with lively, Scrabbly fill. Some of my faves include:

• SIZE TWO/[Runway model's specification, perhaps]. Too thin!!!
• The crossing of the eminently listenable [Jason with the 2008 hit "I'm Yours"]/ MRAZ (whom I'd never heard of [living under a rock as I sometimes do...]) with ZEALOTS, and of AZTEC with ZORRO
• YAPHET/[Actor Kotto of "Alien"] and also Homicide: Life on the Streets
• JIU-JITSU/[Japanese martial art]
• And for those "V"s, even AVAIL, ALIVE and VASSAR—where the female student body may run the gamut from VAMP/[Coquette] to the young woman who's described as PRIM/[Rigidly formal]. No matter where the student lies on the spectrum, she'll still have to find the time to PORE OVER her books. Ditto her male classmates.

Was amused to see SUES right next to ARTE in the grid. While the former has been clued as [Brings actions against] and the latter as ["Laugh-In" regular Johnson], I was reminded that Alan Sues was also one of the regular (if perhaps less memorable) Laugh-In cast members.

Also smiled at the sequential, echoing clues [Newsman Newman]/EDWIN and [New, to Juan]/NUEVO.

Before I "AM-SCRAY!" (I do enjoy the slangy, ig-pay atin-Lay imperative), let me point out that ["Gunsmoke" star James] ARNESS always carried a weapon (if not necessarily a concealed one), and whether at the card table (where he would [Take from the deck]) or on the streets of Dodge City, might have uttered another imperative: "DRAW!"

Orange here. Imagine my surprise when it was nearly 9:30 when I woke up. That set the lackadaisical pace for my morning, in which I've made breakfast and downloaded a couple software updates but done no crosswords or blogging yet. I did the L.A. Times puzzle last night, so I'll start with that before moving on to the Newsday "Stumper" and Patrick Blindauer's NYT diagramless.

Bruce Venzke and Stella Daily's Los Angeles Times crossword

I can't help wondering if themeless (or, as Matt Gaffney wants to call 'em, "freestyle") crossword constructors are going to be hesitant to submit their creations to the L.A. Times knowing that the clues are likely to be gutted to Tuesday difficulty. I had complained last year when some Newsday "Saturday Stumpers" were hitting the 4-minute range and not stumping me at all—and now the L.A. Times themelesses are closer to the 3-minute mark. I just e-mailed a vague Tribune e-mail address (consumerservices@tribune.com) this morning to ask TMS to provide L.A. Times crosswords that appeal to solvers at all skill levels again, and not just easy puzzles.

Here's some of what I said in my L.A. Crossword Confidential post:

It's loaded with 15-letter answers—a triple-stack in the middle embraced by pairs of 15s above and below. They're all clued straightforwardly, as are the shorter answers. Not a single question-marked clue in the bunch! (And it's almost certain that Stella and Bruce originally wrote tougher clues for the puzzle.) Here are the big entries:

• 14A: "This can't be true!" ("YOU'RE NOT SERIOUS!"). I prefer the McEnroesque "You cannot be serious!"
  
• 17A: 25-Across's WWII command (EUROPEAN THEATER). Who is 25A? DDE, or WWII general who became pres.—Dwight D. Eisenhower.
  
• 31A: Scorned notion (HARE-BRAINED IDEA). The Hare and Rabbit Anti-Defamation League prefers the term bird-brained.
  
• 37A: Oil and vinegar concoction (ITALIAN DRESSING). Make the vinegar balsamic, please. My kid, he'll eat anything if there's balsamic vinegar on it.
  
• 38A: "Back off!" ("DON'T GET TOO CLOSE!").
  
• 55A: Title guy asked to "play a song for me," in a Byrds hit (MR. TAMBOURINE MAN). I...honestly don't think I know this song. Really.
  
• 57A: Cause of many traveling delays (AIRPORT SECURITY). The TSA line is excellent for training people to be obedient sheep who dare not question authority, isn't it?
  

In the fill, there was a karate BROWN BELT with a clue that worked OK for BLACK BELT. Despite putting in that half-wrong answer early on, I still finished this puzzle in 3 minutes flat. That ain't right!

Stan Newman's alter ego Anna Stiga's Newsday "Saturday Stumper"

(PDF solution here.)

I may have spent half of my solving time trying to make sense out of the upper left corner of this puzzle. I hated it. It was patently unfair. I was tempted to Google the [Musical with Billy Joel songs] or [Sugar ___ (Monroe in "Some Like It Hot")], both of which I was blanking on. And then I figured out that [Pay back] was AVENGE and that [Yellow] must be GUTLESS (in another part of the puzzle, it's CRAVEN) and eventually everything fell into place (MOVIN' OUT, Sugar KANE). I kept thinking that 1A: [They go up in a plane] had something to do with airplanes (blame the [Fighter heroes], AVIATORS and AIR ACES, for that), but a plane is also a wood-shop tool that scrapes up SHAVINGS. Other clues in that corner that held me back but finally yielded: [Reveals, with "out"] is SMOKES, [Something paid] is HOMAGE, [Gave extra info on] is NOTATED. I ended up liking this quadrant of the puzzle best—lots of mental stretching and bending required to get to the intended meanings of the clues.

Time to put the blog away and play a geography board game with my kid. I may or may not get to the diagramless before tomorrow.

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Saturday, 9/5/09

NYT 4:29 the second time around, untimed the first time
LAT untimed, but it fell smoothly
Newsday untimed, with some snarls
CS untimed (J)

Mike Nothnagel's New York Times crossword

Mike's puzzle was originally the finals puzzle at the Lollapuzzoola tournament a couple weeks ago. I test-solved it aboard an airplane, untimed because my only watch is my cell phone and phones must be turned off during flight. Brian Cimmet, the cohost of Lollapuzzoola, was looking for a tough finals puzzle, so I suggested a few spots that might need toughening up. Aw, I'm disappointed that the genus and species of brine shrimp (Artemia salina) didn't make it into the SEA MONKEY clue, per my suggestion. (15D: [Pet for which you can buy an Aqua-Leash] is harder than the original, at least.) I haven't compared the Lolla final version with the NYT version, so I don't know if there were (m)any changes.

I wouldn't have used the "play against the clock" option on the applet if I'd remembered that the puzzle was one I'd seen before, but the margaritas, they kept me from remembering. Ah, well. Still, Mike's fill and clues were worth another go-round.

Favorite clues and answers:

• 16A. G.I. JANE is the [1997 Demi Moore movie with the tagline "Failure is not an option"]. Further pop cultural yumminess is embodied in Stephen King's THE STAND and Oscar-winning rapper EMINEM. Oh, and EDNA Garrett of The Facts of Life, [Housemother to Tootie, Natalie, Blair and Jo]. Which Facts of Life girl did you most identify with? I kinda wanted to be a Jo.
  
• 42A. ["The press," for "reporters," e.g.] is a METONYM. So is "the crown" when used in lieu of "the queen."
  
• 2D. EVIL TWINS are [Bad copies?]. The host of the erstwhile game show Merv Griffin's Crosswords, Ty Treadway, previously portrayed an evil twin and his less-evil brother on One Life to Live.
  
• 11D. ["Gigantic (___ of Two Johns)," 2002 documentary about They Might Be Giants] clues A TALE. If you like goofball wordplay but aren't familiar with They Might Be Giants' music, wander around the the two Johns' website and have a listen. And if you have young kids, get the album No!"—it's delightful for the whole wordy family.
  
• 37D. "NO MATTER" is clued as ["Whatever"].
  
• 44D. GARLIC is the [Food used as an antiseptic during World War I]. Crazy trivia! My late grandma attributed a major drop in her cholesterol level to her habit of drinking warm milk at bedtime—with a sliced clove of garlic in it. True story. I've yet to meet anyone willing to try out the garlic milk.

Updated Saturday morning:

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

Randy may complain of fatigue, and even though the first words of each of the three theme-phrases begin with a synonym for that condition—really, to judge from the fill today, there's little evidence of it at all. Take a look:

• 20A. SPENT CARTRIDGE [Firing range remnant]. Didja notice that this combo seems to set up a mini-theme all of its own? There's also GUN [Saturday night special], AMMO [Arsenal supply] and even ARMS. Okay, I know, that's been slyly clued as [Half of all fours?]—but you get my drift. I was even taken in by [Reasons for shootouts in the NHL]. Wow. I mean I know hockey has a reputation for stirring up belligerent feelings among the players, but shootouts? On the rink? Nevermind. The answer relates to scores, or more specifically, games that are TIES.
• 37A. TIRED EXPRESSION [Cliché]. Hmm. Would that be anything like ["What goes up must come down," e.g.]? Today those words represent an AXIOM. But let's face it—many's the time those axioms are cliché, so the answer appears to be "yes."
• 48A. BEAT GENERATION [Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and others]. This is my fave of the theme fill. If you're not familiar with the writers of this '50s cultural movement, do take a moment to fill yourself in some. As the article points out, it was the Beat Generation and beatniks who paved the way for the hippie counterculture of the '60s. And who was one of the great singer-songwriters of that generation? Jimi Hendrix, who gets a double shout-out today with fill-in-the-blank clues for "Purple HAZE" and (one of my all time faves) "All ALONG the Watchtower." Seriously cool stuff.

Lotta names in the mix today. The gents are: (H.) ROSS Perot, Nicola TESLA, RON Howard, Don IMUS, PETER Ueberroth, Ernest or Julio GALLO and Patrick EWING; the ladies: EDIE Falco, ANNE Hathaway, AMY Adams and ["Cheers" barmaid], the snarky and super CARLA Tortelli.

Other strong fill would include: RANCOR; TAPIRS, those unusual-looking [South American mammals] (that are darned cute in the baby-stage); EXUDE and OXIDE; CURFEW and CUT MAN [Figure in a boxing ring]. That last one conjures up Clint Eastwood ("the best cut man in the business"), Morgan Freeman and Hillary Swank in the rip-yer-heart-out Million Dollar Baby.

Places where I needed the crosses to keep me on track bring me back to our friend AXIOM, where my first thought was adage; [Stratagem]—that's plan, right? Nupe, more like the wily WILE; [Copies] are CLONES today and not mimics; and those [..."knock-knock" jokes]? They're PUNNY, not corny. (Well, they're corny, too—but that's another story!)

Doug Peterson's Los Angeles Times crossword

Fun puzzle, but definitely on the easy side for a Saturday. The morning is racing on without me, so let me do a quick copy-and-paste excerpt from L.A. Crossword Confidential with the crossword's highlights:

• I enjoy conversational phrases dropped into a crossword grid. Doug gives us two, both super informal: 23A: "Care to make it interesting?" ("WANNA BET?") and 56A: "See ya!" ("I'M OUTA HERE!"). I prefer the two-T outta spelling, but my dictionary lists both spellings.
• I'm a fan or the first/last name combo in crosswords, too. Usually AMIS is clued by way of author Kingsley Amis or his son Martin Amis, but MARTIN AMIS (60A: "London Fields" novelist) looks cooler. I haven't read either Amis.
• 3D: Successor to the mini (IPOD NANO)—boy, crossword makers lucked out when Apple chose the iPod name. Alternating vowels and consonants, plus it's livelier than the other I*O* options, like IRON, IROC, IDOL, ICON, or IPOS.
• I'm a bit of a geography nerd, so I appreciate fill like 34D: Horn of Africa country (DJIBOUTI). Plus: That country, which is near Ethiopia and Somalia, practically rhymes with "shake your booty."
• 53D: Movers, but hopefully not shakers (VANS). You don't want a moving VAN to shake your boxes of fine china.
• Hey, I never knew this: 48D: Italian for "frozen" is GELATO. Gelid is a high-end vocabulary word meaning "icy" that's related. Opera fans may recognize the La Boheme aria "Che gelida manina," which is about Mimi's cold hands. (Why has no one written a song about my cold hands?) Despite GELATO and gelatin looking so similar, apparently the latter derives from a Latin word for "jelly."

Newsday "Saturday Stumper" by "Anna Stiga," aka Stan Newman

(PDF solution here.)

If you like to compare your solving times with mine, boy, you're fresh out of luck today. Maybe tomorrow!

The last corner I was able to work through was the northwest one. The three toughest clues for me in that quadrant were [Powerless people of fiction] for MUGGLES, the non-wizard people in the Harry Potter universe); [Knighted actor] Peter USTINOV, who does not have a very British Isles surname, so he was a surprise there; and [Name meaning "I am faithful"], which brought people name FIDEL to mind but not dog name FIDO, the answer.

The upper right corner is topped by QADHAFI, the [African Union chairman elected in 2009], the guy whose name can be transliterated in about 10 different spellings. He's above "YA THINK?"—a [Jocular "Really?"]. Moving towards the puzzle's midsection, we hit BOO BIRD, or [No fan of the home team]. Who uses that term?

Dropping down to the lower left, LEN is a [Spy novelist's prename]. Len...Len...Deighton? Yeah, that's the guy. I started with IAN Fleming. I didn't know that it was the YEW TREE that was [Wordsworth's "pride of Lorton Vale"]. Oak, elm, ash...so many trees to choose from.

In the final quadrant, I started with FATCATS instead of TOMCATS for [Garfield et al.]. [Like moles] uses the two-syllable mole, the MEXICAN sauce made with chocolate. P.W. BOTHA, that unsavory [ANC opponent] who ruled South Africa as a staunch proponent of apartheid, balances QADHAFI's North Africa geographically.

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Saturday, 8/1

Newsday just under 11 minutes
NYT 6:30
LAT 4:11
CS 12:27 (J—paper)/3:47 (A—Across Lite)

Martin Ashwood-Smith's New York Times crossword

Remember Roberto Duran's famous plea, "¡No mas!"? Based on the early returns (i.e., the applet times posted thus far), I suspect more than a few people have been feeling rather "¡No mas, M.A.S.!" about this puzzle. Interesting and tough fill, a hearty batch of challenging clues, several easy traps to fall into, and some crazy crossings? That's a recipe for an arduous solving experience. What a great-looking grid, though, eh? Look at that diagonal swath of white space sprawling across the middle of the puzzle.

First up, the Tar Pits of Traps and Tricky Crossings:

• Square 41. Where 41D: [Stately old court dance] meets 41A: [Tank type]. I started out with one of those dances I know from crosswords, the GAVOT, which made GUNNER seem plausible. But no. The dance is a different 5-letter dance with an AV in it, the PAVAN, crossing a PANZER tank.
  
• 26A. [Sentences may end with them], P*R***S. Oh, that's an easy tricky clue! It's not PERIODS at all, no sir. It's PAROLES. Whoops, no, it's PARDONS. I wasn't getting much help with that from 9-10-11D. 9D is JAMES DEAN, the ["Being an actor is the loneliest thing in the world" speaker]. (Aw, sad.) 10D is EVICTORS, clued with [They remove letters], as in renters. And 11D is SICKENS, which, yes, means [Repulses].
  
• Stacked people you may or may not know—I knew 22A: ["Far From Heaven" director Todd] HAYNES. Great melodrama in the style of Douglas Sirk, I think they said; stars Julianne Moore, who's married to Haynes. Right below is 25A: [Patron saint of hermits], or GILES. Hmm, had no idea about that one. Crossings all the way. Douglas Sirk is not to be confused, mind you, with 38A: [British Columbia's ___ Mountains], or SELKIRK. Yeah, I'll bet Crosscan got that one right away. Oh, wait—you know what crosses HAYNES/GILES? Good lord, Martin and Will. [Satirist Ward] is named NED? Who is satirist Ned Ward? Oh, for pete's sake: he was doing his satirizing three centuries ago.

That was some hardcore Saturday stickiness, wasn't it?

Moving along to regular ol' tough Saturday clues without, perhaps, that extra touch of evil the aforementioned bits had, we have these:

• 16A. [Demonstrate banking skill] is about banking planes: AVIATE. I thought of finance and then of a banked car or bike racetrack.
  
• 18A. Hang on, this is right below 16A. Maybe these ones belong in the Tar Pits discussion, too. The [Distance light travels in 3.3. femtoseconds] is one MICRON. That's a millionth of a meter, or "a very teeny length" in technical terms.
  
• 15A. [Hole that's not filled] is an OPEN DATE. The phrase feels not-so-familiar to me. Open dates on a calendar, yes?
  
• Royalty confusion! 24A: [Queens or soldiers] are a CASTE of ants, while 13D: [Royal educator] is ETON, the school of princes.
  
• 29A. This one's' super-easy, right? Everyone loves "Calvin & Hobbes" and knows how to spell Bill WATTERSON's name? He's the [Creator of a comic strip named after a theologian and a philosopher].
  
• 32A. [Desert rodents] are JERBOAS. I hope you didn't let the ERB part take to to GERBILS.
  
• 37A. [So, in Salerno] is COSI. I'm sure one of you will translate "Cosi fan tutte" for me, and perhaps also explain why Cosi is the name of a sandwich chain.
  
• 3D. [Big name in slapstick] could be so many people, couldn't it? With the J in place, my first thought was JACKIE CHAN, but it's JERRY LEWIS.
  
• 27D. [1947 western serial film] is...not very specific. What's the series? Who knows? Answer is SON OF ZORRO. NOSFERATU, the 30D: [Title vampire of film], is a much more familiar title to me.
  
• 34D. [Diphthong dividers] are diaereses or, the crosswords seem to prefer, DIERESES. Those are the umlauty things you sometimes see in "naïve" or "coöperate" (I'm not sure which O takes the dots there, actually). Here's another accented character option I just found on the character map, and it looks like an emoticon: ȫ
  
• 42D. [Get the best of] clues CULL. When you snag the best of what's available, you CULL it. Sort of.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention a few other things I liked:

• PARTOOK! It's fun to say and it starts to look utterly foreign the more you look at it. It's clued as 21D: [Had some].
  
• 39A. ["Class Reunion" novelist, 1979] is Rona JAFFE. I read this when I was about 14. Thank you, Rona JAFFE, for being a gimme. I needed the help today.
  
• 1A. TAJ MAHAL gets a longer clue than usual: [Final resting place built in the 17th century]. And a SARI is 12D: [Attire around the 1-Across]. Maybe Christo could wrap the Taj Mahal itself in a sari.
  
• 1D. TOUGH GUY! A real [Bruiser], eh?
  
• How about the double K in WEAK-KNEED, or 29D: [Cowardly]? It's k-k-kool.

You know, looking back at this grid, I see that the northwest and southeast corners don't have much interplay with the rest of the puzzle. If you aren't hitting a couple quick gimmes in each corner, that could make it an arduous task to work your way into those sections. I didn't personally feel attacked by that, but I recognize that it's the sort of grid that can frustrate too many people. But it's still pretty...

Updated Saturday morning:

Bob Klahn's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Cool Bin"—Janie's review

If you don't enjoy a good pun (or three), this puzzle is not for you. On the other hand, if you're like me and take high pleasure in this low form of humor, this one's for you! Bob has given us three phrases, each containing a word that has the letter sequence "oa" in it, and changed it to a word with the "oo" phoneme in its place. The "cool bin" in the title, was once a "coal bin." Get it? Good. Then get a load of the great clue/fill combos we get with:

• 20A. [Device that makes ghosts not quite as scary?] BOO CONSTRICTOR. In its pre-pun life, this was a boa constrictor. This particular fill is the only one where the "oa" of the word that gets altered is sounded in two syllables. Not a hundred percent sure how I feel about that inconsistency, but am quite sure about how much I like the result.
  
• 36A. [Bird that few are crazy about?] Why that would be the rare LOW-INTEREST LOON. Take a bow, low-interest loan—the joke's on you.
  
• 55A. [Longing to see Italy again?] Yes, I am. So as I look at it on the map, it can be said that I'm MISSING THE BOOT. The only time I visited (omg, 22 years ago...), I flew over, so wasn't faced with the prospect (literally or figuratively) of missing the boat.

How else did I love this puzzle? Let me count some of the more outstanding ways. For starters, there's the particular range of names, including: actors JOHN HURT, Robin WILLIAMS, Christina RICCI, and Lash LA RUE; conductor Seiji OZAWA; author ENID Blyton; athletes OLGA Korbut, OTTO Graham and Jim THORPE; Old and New Testament reps ISAIAH and JUDAS; distiller HIRAM Walker; and Emperor HIROHITO.

One of my favorite crosses is HIROHITO with MOJITO [Rum-and-mint cocktail...]. Because it's an almond-flavored liqueur, I'd always thought AMARETTO meant "almond." In fact the word for "almond" in Italian is mandoria (which gets me thinking of mandelbrot...), though Amaretto may be distilled from bitter almonds—whence the clue [Liqueur that's Italian for "rather bitter"]. All of which is a PROLIX [Long-winded] way of getting to my point, which is that I also love seeing potable AMARETTO by HIROHITO's side also being crossed by potable MOJITO.

And since I've mentioned it, let me add that the SE column made by PROLIX, APOGEE and PETARD is a beauty. Nice, too, the way ARMY sits atop BASE in the SW—and the way that crossing herpetological pair SNAKY and SLITHERY falls in between.

Some fave clues include:

• The triple-rhyming [Speedy steed breed] for ARAB;
  
• [Height of fashion?] for HEM (the link will take you to an article about hemlines, hair-dos and the economy);
  
• the wordplay-rich [Source of a drop in the bucket, perhaps] for LEAK;
  
• [Grant and Grant's foe] for LEES (i.e., Lee Grant and Robert E. Lee);
  
• [Being shot] for ON CAMERA; and that anatomical duo,
  
• the almost too graphic (and very funny) [Butt out?] for MOON and [Nose lengtheners] for LIES (think Pinocchio, folks).

No doubt, I've excluded your fave(s). SUNLIT, anyone? In that case, do speak up. I think we can agree, though, that once again, Bob has made something EPIC of this compact 15x15 form.

Newsday "Saturday Stumper" by Anna Stiga, a.k.a. "Stan again," a.k.a. Stanley Newman

(PDF solution here.)

Nothing too deadly, but nothing too delightful either. I didn't push to go as fast as I could this time. Here are some answers that did not come quite as readily as the others:

• 15A. [Home of Georgian Technical University] is TBILISI. Can you name another city in Georgia? At the moment, I can't. I like to think the school has sports teams nicknamed "the Rambling Wreck."
  
• 16A. [City on the Reuss River] is LUCERNE, Switzerland. Could've easily been German or Austrian, too. The 52A: [Sight from 16 Across] is the ALPS.
  
• 26A. [Make an appointment] clues HIRE, as in appointing someone to a paid position. Tricky clue; I liked it.
  
• 32A. [100 cents may equal one] 4-letter unit of currency. EURO? No, RAND.
  
• 38A. I didn't know FRAPPE was [Literally, "iced"], but words like frio and frigid made that a little more gettable.
  
• 43A. ABE is [Daisy Mae's boy], and I'm not sure where Daisy Mae is from. Al Capp?
  
• 51A. I let the crossings give me CXC for [Multiple of XXXVIII] and then did the math to check. 38 times 5 = 190.
  
• 61A. The TERMITE is [One on a high-fiber diet].
  
• 3D. VITAMIN B COMPLEX is an [Important group in cell metabolism].
  
• 5D. [E, as in Western Union] clues DIT, which is Morse code-ese for "dot," and the letter E is a dot in Morse code.
  
• 9D. OUR GANG isn't just the Little Rascals, it's also a [Philip Roth novel].
  
• 11D. RED SHIRT is a [Garibaldi follower]. His followers wore red shirts, which are also called garibaldis.

Barry Silk's Los Angeles Times crossword

My full writeup, including a LEIF Garrett video, is over at L.A. Crossword Confidential.

I don't know about this puzzle. Usually I enjoy Barry's puzzles quite a bit, but this one didn't do it for me. Maybe I was just tired yesterday when I did it. Or maybe it's that crosswords with this sort of grid—tons of seven-letter answers but not much in the Really Cool Long Answers department—seldom delight me. When Saturday rolls around, dang it, I want Really Cool Long Answers. I want a JOE BAZOOKA more than BETTERS, PETTIER, and AIRIEST, y'know? The fill was pretty Scrabbly (a pangram to boot), but outside of REYKJAVIK and SPECIAL K, the Scrabbly letters weren't put to splashy use. A Z and an X in close proximity sounds awesome, but the TAX-FREE CZARINA? Eh.

I will almost certainly like Barry's next creation much more. He's got the chops to do cool stuff, but this wasn't among my Silken favorites.

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Saturday, 7/4

NYT 5:20
LAT 4:00
Newsday untimed
CS 7:20 (J―paper)

Happy Fourth of July!

Peter A. Collins and Joe Krozel's New York Times crossword

When a holiday lands on a Saturday, every now and then we get a commemorative themed Saturday puzzle. Peter and Joe's puzzle is anchored by INDEPENDENCE DAY running down at 7D, clued as the [Highest-grossing film of 1996], crossed by three related 15s: THE UNITED STATES is not just a country but also the [Fastest ocean liner ever in a transatlantic crossing (3 days, 12 hours, 12 minutes)]. The STARS AND STRIPES is what we call the U.S. flag and the name of a military newspaper, clued as [Private reading?], as in the newspaper read by privates in the Army. [Patriotic display] is the RED, WHITE, AND BLUE—and I didn't need the clue to fill that one in with a few crossings in place. The word count's just 70, so with unrelated 15s, this could be a themeless grid. I enjoyed this puzzle quite a bit.

Seven highlights before I hit the sack:

• 15A. MONGO is the [Planet ruled by Ming the Merciless in "Flash Gordon"]. I half watched the movie with my son last year. Ridiculously cheesy!
• 33A. [Copy cats?] is a verb phrase. If you imitate kitties, you might PURR.
• 49A. To [Bellyache] is to KVETCH. You know what the kvetchers cry, don't you? They cry "oy vey.'
• 58A. ROD STEIGER looks great in the puzzle. [Oscar-winning portrayer of Police Chief Bill Gillespie, 1967] is his clue. In the Heat of the Night opposite Sidney Poitier, no?
• 31D. [Star of India and others] are SAPPHIRES.
• 34D. [It may make people jump to a conclusion] clues a SACK RACE.
• 35D. [Broke a court rule] in basketball is TRAVELED.

Updated Saturday morning:

Randolph Ross's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Space Exploration"―Janie's review

While we don't have "Stars and Stripes Forever" on this Independence Day, Randy has provided a celestial array (with one star anyway). The beginning of each of the five theme-related phrases (in 61 letters of theme-fill) names a heavenly body.

• 17A. SUN MICROSYSTEMS [Computer company based in California]. That'd be the company that uses this logo.
  
• 29A. MOON MULLINS [1923-1991 comic strip character]. This link will take you to a page with panels from a few decades. The last one, from the early '70s is telling for the way it addresses the era of peace,beads and love. This fill, btw, is the only one of the five that seems not to be appearing for the first time in one of the puzzles covered by the Cruciverb database. Impressive.
  
• 36A. STAR JONES [Former controversial cohost of "The View"]. And her real first name isn't Star either. It's Starlet... The article will fill you in on the "controversial" part in case you need to know...
  
• 47A. MILKY WAY BAR [Chocolate and chewy candy]. I'm not a serious chocoholic and generally favor a Snickers Bar. But still―yum!
  
• 60A. PLANET HOLLYWOOD [Movie theme restaurant]. Really telling here is the number of locations closed. Yikes.

The remainder of the fill is very solid, with twelve 7-letter words. Faves of mine among those include: the elegant ELEGANT, EXURBIA, ANEROID [Barometer type], and the APOSTLE who may ABSTAIN. Or not...

I've not yet seen the movie (it's on my library dvd-list), but (the trailer of) Fight Club came to mind when I saw ACTS OUT beside RULE ONE [Most important guideline] (both of which appear to be CS debuts). Remember? "Welcome to Fight Club. The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is: you DO NOT talk about Fight Club!" That's one rule one ya wanna take very seriously!

Oh―and I'm wondering how many times NICOLAS [Cage on film] appears in the same puzzle as his aunt TALIA [Shire in show business]. Anyway, it's nice to see them paired here.

The cluing throughout was fairly straightforward, but not without some highpoints. I liked seeing familiar ASEA clued as [Between ports] which gives me a strong visual. Also liked ESTS for [Ballpark figs.]. Nice misdirection there, as often-as-not the fill is MGRS. So we're in the metaphorical ballpark today with an abbreviation for estimates and not in [your favorite stadium here] with the team's managers.

I felt there was something off in the cluing of ARMBAND. While there's precedent for [Symbol worn on a sleeve] as a crossword clue, darned if I could find support for it in the dictionary. Looking through most of the Onelook.com listings, I consistently came up with some variation of "band/piece of cloth worn around the arm for decoration/as identification or to indicate mourning/protest." The clue suggested emblem to me―which is one letter shy of course―the sort that folks in the military display. Or Scouts for that matter.

Before parting, will add that I enjoyed seeing the meeting of MA'AM and MESSRS in the northeast corner. Enjoy a happy, safe and glorious Fourth, all!

Dan Naddor's Los Angeles Times crossword

There's much to admire in this themed, 15x16, 73-word holiday crossword. Tons of good fill, clever clues, the works. See what I had to say over at L.A. Crossword Confidential. Between a foot injury, a nascent cold, and sleeping in this morning, I find I lack the pep to blog this puzzle a second time. But it's a good puzzle! If you haven't done it, you ought to make time for it.

Updated Saturday afternoon:

"Anna Stiga" or Stan Newman's Newsday "Saturday Stumper"

(PDF solution here.)

I did this one a quadrant at a time, starting with the lower right corner, moving up to the upper right, filling in the lower left, and trudging through the upper right last. While the only famous [Jan. honoree] is Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., it took forever to figure out what combination of his name and titles would fit together there. I call foul on DR. M. L. KING, JR., which looks cool in the grid with its 90% consonants, but doesn't at all sound like a common way to refer to King. It Googles OK but...meh.

JOB LOT isn't so familiar to me. It's a [Large quantity] and a solid in-the-dictionary term. I had the J for a long time before coming up with RAGTOPS (not HUBCAPS!) for [Auto parts] helped jostle things loose in that section.

Favorite clues and answers:

• [His fiction inspired "Airplane!"] clues Arthur HAILEY, who wrote Airport, which spawned several '70s disaster movies, which Airplane! then spoofed.
• IRA LEVIN, author of Rosemary's Baby, gets this clue: [Stephen King called him "the Swiss watchmaker"].
• A plain ol' LENS is [One of your contacts].
• When I had ODI* for [He wears a yellow coat and pants], I paused to question whether this was cartoon dog ODIE (yes) or Norse god ODIN (no).
• [Something Spooner might have "flung out"]...hmm, it's probably a spoonerism involving "hung out," so what's something that starts with FL that can be hung out and that becomes another word when the FL turns into an H? Flag —> HAG.
• JUDGE JUDY! Great answer. She's a [Non-nonsense arbiter] on TV.
• Trivia! [His "Time" cover featured seven syringes] kept me guessing for a long time. Turns out it's polio vaccine developer Jonas SALK. With S***, I briefly contemplated SOSA.

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Saturday, 6/6

NYT 5:00
LAT 4:57
Newsday endless
CS 6:55 (J—paper)

Doug Peterson's New York Times crossword

Oho! Doug Peterson is busting out all over—you'll be seeing his byline on the L.A. Times puzzle too, and I warmly recommend both of these themelesses. The NYT one is s 72-worder with three and a half fantastic 15-letter answers. I gotta dock half a fantasticness unit for the colorful baseball term I've never heard of, but the other three 15's are beauts:

• 15A. [This and Sputnik 1 were launched on the same day]...hmm, did the U.S. space program get rolling at the same time as the Soviet Union's? Nope. What launched was the TV show LEAVE IT TO BEAVER. Great answer, great clue. Quite possibly my favorite clue this year.
  
• 17A. SEEING EYE SINGLE is a [Soft ground ball that finds its way between infielders]. Not a phrase I've encountered before.
  
• 59A. The [Nitty-gritty] is the MEAT AND POTATOES of something. The MEAT AND POTATOES of this puzzle is rock-solid fill, cool long answers (like this one), some fun clues, and a soupçon of Scrabbly action.
  
• 63A. [Determined one in a kid's song] is the ITSY-BITSY SPIDER, who climbs up the waterspout, is washed out, and climbs back up in a cheerful version of Sisyphean hell.

Let us take a gander at the Scrabbly pieces of this puzzle. The Q answres double-dip in the Scrabble pond—POP QUIZ is a [Classroom groan elicitor], while QUIXOTIC means [Not at all practical]. The QUIZ's Z is also in DOZY, which is clued as [On the way out?], and QUIXOTIC's X is shared by [Swim cap material] LATEX. There's another Z in ZLOTYS, which has an awesome clue: [Poles work for them]. Did you think of magnets here? Me, too. PENZANCE is a [Cornwall resort port], home of fictional pirates if not real ones.

Did you know that CCI, or 201, was the [Year the emperor Decius was born]? Me, too! (Just kidding.) My favorite clues and answers in the rest of this puzzle include these ones:

• 1A. AL CAPP was the [Creator of Stupefyin' Jones], which would be a great baby name. Stupefyin' Reynaldo! Does that sound like a offensive lineman or what? You'd be TROUNCED ([Mopped the floor with]) by him.
  
• 21A. [Sticker by a hospital bed?] is not a medical instrument but the NURSE who wields the needle. The nurse might also use STYLETS, which have medical applications as well as being [Nematodes' piercing mouthparts]. Bleah.
  
• 41A. I had no idea that a HADRON was a [Subatomic particle in a collider]. What of this Hadron Collider? I figured Hadron was a person or place it was being named after. D'oh.
  
• 65A. PECANS are one sort of [Ice cream shop supply]. Yum, pecans.
  
• 2D. LEER is a [Satyric expression], as in the expression of a lecherous satyr and not as in satire.
  
• 5D and 11D are two-word phrases that feel quite natural but don't show up in crosswords much. PENT UP means [Kept inside], as in feelings or demand. To [Wish to join] is to WANT IN.
  
• 29D. CHUGS means [Downs without a break]. When I was a kid, I could chug 16 oz. of water without stopping. Turned out that was good practice for college.
  
• 37D. I've seen the Isthmus of Kra in a couple recent puzzles, and I rather thought it was Malaysian but THAI fit for [Resident near the Isthmus of Kra], 4 letters. I like world geography learning more when it doesn't hinge on 4-letter rivers or little-known ports.
  
• 50D. [Main call] is AHOY, as in a call aboard a ship sailing on the bounding main.
  
• 54D. [Cutting-edge set]...ooh, I know, must be a word for a brand of knives. Guess again! It's an HDTV set. I'm glad to know my 1.5-year-old TV remains on the cutting edge.
  
• 62D. [Shortening in recipes] isn't about vegetable shortening, it's about abbreviations. Specifically TSP, short for teaspoon.

Tougher stuff, for me:

• 32A. [Killer ___ (green-skinned "Batman" villain)] is Killer CROC. Surely the inspiration for those woeful rubber shoes called Crocs.
  
• 40A. [Rice-Eccles Stadium athlete] is a UTE. Thinking of Rice University, I tried OWL here first.
  
• 1D. [Therewithal] is an archaic word meaning "besides; together with that." It clues ALSO.
  
• 26D. I wanted an English place name for [Edward IV's birthplace], but he came from ROUEN.

Updated Saturday morning:

Randolph Ross's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Boston Accent"—Janie's review

Before I knew exactly how the theme of yesterday's "Across Beantown" puzzle was going to play out, I thought it might have to do with the city for which "Beantown" is the nickname: Boston. Today we really do get Boston—or rather, we get the sound of the city, as in "I pocked my cah in the Hahvahd Yahd." Like other constructors before him who have used this gimmick (and no doubt like many who will follow...), Randy has created a puzzle with phrases and names that swap out one telling sound for another—in this case, "ark" for "ock"—with some highly successful (and highly amusing) results. In this way:

• "Mark Twain" becomes MOCK TWAIN at 17A, and the twist is that the new phrase now means [Make fun of Shania].
• "Loan shark"? Now LOAN SHOCK, 25A for [Bad reaction to a very high interest rate?] Going to a loan shark? Then be prepared for...
• "Afraid of the dark" goes in a new direction now as AFRAID OF THE DOCK, 38A [Scared to go fishing off a pier?] Silly and funny—and probably something any supplier to these guys should not be.
• "Spark plug" gets a completely new life as SPOCK PLUG, 50A [Promo by the author of "Baby and Child Care"?] That's Dr. Benjamin Spock and not this guy—although it did amuse me to see ["Star TREK"] in such close proximity to SPOCK PLUG in the grid.
• "Clark Kent" brilliantly turns on himself to CLOCK KENT, 61A [Knock out Superman?]. I mean really—picture it!

As I mentioned, "Boston Accent" puzzles have been appearing for years. Under those circumstances it's even more impressive that four of the five theme phrases are appearing for the first time in a major puzzle and AFRAID OF THE DOCK is making its first CS showing.

Elsewhere in the puzzle, I love how (CS debut) ROCK OPERA cuts a swath through TORI, IROC and MOCK...; and how we get a mini-math theme (overlapping and) running from top to bottom with ONE-THIRD [Ratio of a foot to a yard] and (CS debut) COTANGENT [Adjacent-over-opposite in right angles].

We also get a quintet of famed (if not all equally talented or deservedly famous...) females by way of their first names: ISAK (Dinesen), SONIA (Braga), TAMA (Janowitz), ENYA (yes-she-has-a-last-name Brennan), and TORI ([Spelling in Hollywood]).

Fave non-theme clue: [Site of many Spanish hangings] for EL PRADO. I let myself get completely misdirected by this one and was trying to come up with something Inquisition-related. Wrong.

And some words that I simply loved seeing in the grid—for their own sakes: DORIC, SWANK, PATIO, ICKIER, WOWS. And FOIST. Maybe we'll see this clued as [Initial ordinal] in a puzzle called "Brooklyn Accent"...

TADA!

Doug Peterson's Los Angeles Times crossword

Well, I slept in until 9 this morning and need to get on with my day, so I will mostly plagiarize from L.A. Crossword Confidential post. I really enjoyed this puzzle, which took me three seconds less time than Doug's NYT puzzle. The two triple-stacks of 15's were terrific, and 8 of each stack's 15 crossings were 6- to 8-letter words. That makes for a much livelier solve than having a tremendous expanse of 3's and 4's, doesn't it? The fill was smooth, workable, and familiar, except for those three "huh?" answers in the southwest corner, where I had to work, work, work the crossings to assemble those answers:

• 30D. [Highest rank in sumo] IS YOKOZUNA. Do you know this word? I sure didn't.
  
• 31D. ["The __ of Confucius"] clues ANALECTS. Hmm? Analects (or analecta) are "a collection of short literary or philosophical extracts." Is it too late to call this blog "Analects About the L.A. Times Crossword Puzzle"?
  
• 33D. [Patron saint of astronomers] is DOMINIC. I know there was a Dominic West on The Wire, and Dominic Monaghan played Charlie on Lost and Meriadoc Brandybuck in Lord of the Rings. Turns out this St. DOMINIC is the one the Dominican order is named after.

And here are the six terrific 15's:

• 1A. [Winner of 49 Pulitzer Prizes] is the ASSOCIATED PRESS. Did you notice that THENEWYORKTIMES is also 15 letters long?
  
• 16A. [Diner order] is a SPANISH OMELETTE. Does anyone prepare Spanish or Denver omelets (the spelling I prefer) at home. or do you just order them at restaurants?
  
• 17A. [200-mph swooper] is the PEREGRINE FALCON. I know darn well that trains do not swoop, but I still wanted this to be some sort of bullet train, like the ones in Europe and Japan. Wow! A 200-mph bird? If you are a mouse hoping to avoid being the falcon's next meal, I'm sorry, but you don't stand a chance.
  
• 46A. [Two-generation groups] clues NUCLEAR FAMILIES. Some of them tend to have atomic interpersonal relationships, but that has nothing to do with the phrase's origin, I'm sure.
  
• 50A. [State collections] make up INTERNAL REVENUE. I just got my IRS refund this week. That money could buy a lot of crossword books...if only I weren't still trying to work through a backlog of puzzle publications.
  
• 51A. [Some decks] are CASSETTE PLAYERS. Tape decks! Not boat decks.

Thanks for the double-dip cruciverbal treat, Doug!

S.N./Stan Newman's Newsday "Saturday Stumper"

Most constructors are happiest when solvers may have to struggle with their puzzles, but can eventually finish. Stan Newman, it is rumored, lives to frustrate solvers and is happiest when someone can't finish his puzzle. Well, congrats, Stan, you got me on this one. But I'll explain why I didn't like the experience and we'll call it even. (Here's the solution.)

First problem: The grid's pretty much lopped into two separate puzzles. Only squares 24 and 44 connect the two halves of the grid, so all you're getting to lead you into the other half is a single D or S. Second problem: The southwest corner is anchored by [Steel product], which clues DROP SAFE. Say what? Apparently a drop safe is a safe that a business can drop money into and avoid having said money stolen throughout the day. Never heard of it—I think many convenience stores use these, but their "employees can't open safe" signs don't call 'em "drop safes." Then there are all sorts of vague clues. [Line of descent] is that SIDE of your family, ["Macbeth" excerpt] is apparently an opera ARIA (there's an opera by that name?), [Bauhaus course] is OP ART (didn't know Bauhaus and op art were connected, nor that there are classes in op art), and [Back online] is REPAIRED (but could easily be RESTORED, REBOOTED, or RE-other things-ED. Third problem: I'm simply too young for this puzzle. ["Divided We Fail" org.] is the AARP? I didn't know that. ["The Guns of Navarone" setting] is GREECE? Never saw it. A POLTROON is a [Big baby], a.k.a. a coward, in archaic language, and yet the clue is quite contemporary—alas, I was born after archaic language had already become archaic. Sure, 50D CAFE is a [Meeting place], but saying that the way one [Works at a 50 Down, perhaps] is that one SURFS is clunky. Nobody says they're "surfing the net" to work anymore. That usage is now archaic.

The northeast corner is where POLTROON held court with ANNO [___ Hegirae (Moslem reckoning)]. [At or I] is a HALOGEN element, but the atomic symbols are essentially abbreviations and HALOGEN is not abbreviated. Erik SATIE gets clued as a Jean [Cocteau collaborator]. The flower the DAHLIA is clued as an [Aztec food staple], which seems to be minor piece of trivia. Likewise, EDWARD VIII is the [Bahamas' wartime governor, previously].

Favorite clues/fill:

• KINDA SORTA is [More or less].
  
• [It's a little bigger than Alaska] clues LIBYA. I was thinking CHINA or INDIA first, but (a) they're too big and (b) India's mentioned in a crossing clue.
  
• ["Chopin of the North"] clues Edvard GRIEG. Chopin was Polish, so my first thought was a Finnish composer north of Poland. Couldn't think of a 5-letter name that fit there, so I moved on to Norway and Sweden and came up with GRIEG.
  
• Did you know DR. SEUSS was a [Devotee of anapestic tetrameter]?
  
• At the Cru Crossword Fiend forum, folks were just talking about cyan, colors, and the differences between the color blends made by pigments vs. colored lights. So I was prepared to believe that
• [Cyan + magenta] made ORANGE if lights were involved, but it turned out to be INDIGO, basically blue with a touch of violet.
  
• [Flight-safety instrument] is a stairway RAILING. Ha! Good one. Perfect mislead.
  
• I didn't recall that KERMIT the Frog was a [TV character with 3,265 siblings], but I love Kermit so I was happy when the crossings delivered him to me.

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Saturday, 5/2

Newsday 12:19
LAT 4:36
NYT 4:10
CS 10:14 (J -- paper)

Peter Collins' New York Times crossword

Aw, man! What a rip-off. I count on my two themeless NYT crosswords on Friday and Saturday. This weekend, the Saturday puzzle got bumped up to Friday, and what's on tap for calendrical Saturday is...a Thursday puzzle? Just a themed puzzle, appearing now because it's Kentucky Derby day. And you know how I know it's a Thursday puzzle running on Saturday? Because the solving time is right on target for Thursday, and because there's a little extra oomph to it—you see the KENTUCKY DERBY running diagonally between those corner black squares? There's your Thursday gimmick.

Now, on the plus side, I liked the "aha" moment after I finished the puzzle and said "hey, wait a minute, where's the Kentucky Derby?" and reread the TRIPLE CROWN clue: [It comprises the 10-Down, 34-Across, and a third part found elsewhere in the grid]. The BELMONT Stakes and PREAKNESS are the other two legs (prongs?) of the Triple Crown. [One that bets are on] is 48A: THE FAVORITE. And [One with a stake in 48-Across, say] is a horse BREEDER.

On the other hand, horseracing themes never delight me. Horseracing is of no interest to me.

So what else is in this puzzle?

• OKRA is a [Vegetable sometimes grown as a flower]. Who knew?
  
• [Walrus-skin boats] are UMIAKS. A gimme! Yes, I have been doing crosswords too long.
  
• [Spain's Victoria Eugenia, familiarly] clues ENA. Hey, is this the Spanish queen ENA of crosswordese fame? Did I finally learn her full name?
  
• [Bad bill collector?] is a Treasury agent, or T-MAN, catching counterfeiters.
  
• MOO SHU is not a [Kind of pork]. It's a dish that contains pork. Every now and then, I like to speak out on behalf of those who absolutely loathe the "kind of" clues that would more correctly be fill-in-the-blank clues.
  
• [Best Actress winner for "The Great Ziegfeld," 1936] is Luise RAINER. I believe her first name shows up much more often in crosswords.
  
• SKIMP ON is clued as [Not provide fully]. That K begins the diagonal answer.
  
• SUBARU is [One of two cars besides a Cadillac named in Springsteen's "Pink Cadillac"].
  
• [Ruling] is a noun and a gerund, and it can be used to describe the party that is IN POWER.
  
• CANONRY is clued as a [Church office]. Don't recall seeing this word before. More religion: [The Little Flower of Jesus] is THERESA.
  
• If it's CUT-RATE, the price is [Marked down].
  
• OPHELIA's always welcome in the crossword. Her quote clue: ["O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!" speaker, in Shakespeare].
  
• The [Nintendo product] called the GAMEBOY is a good crossword entry.
  
• [Family in Upton Sinclair's "Oil!"] are the ROSSES. Didn't read it; didn't see No Blood for Oil. No, wait, that's not the movie title. Like Oil for Chocolate? No Country for Oilmen? Ah, There Will Be Blood, right?
  
• I sure didn't know that the D TRAIN is [Public transportation to New York's Yankee Stadium], but luckily the D's crossing was solid.

Updated Saturday morning:

Bob Klahn's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Bond Issues"—Janie's review

So yesterday, in "Up for Debate," Doug Peterson gave us STOCK ISSUE. And today, Bob Klahn gives us "Bond Issues." No -- I don't take this to be the start of Wall Street trend in CS puzzles, as the "Bond" at issue here is Ian Fleming's Bond. James Bond. Or in this case, the singers of five Bond-movie theme-songs. To wit:

• 17A: SHERYL CROW ["Tomorrow Never Dies" theme singer]
  
• 28A: SHEENA EASTON ["For Your Eyes Only" theme singer] -- I really like the way this one looks in the grid, especially the vowelly EENAEA part.
  
• 39A: MADONNA ["Die Another Day" theme singer]
  
• 47A: NANCY SINATRA ["You Only Live Twice" theme singer]
  
• 63A: CARLY SIMON ["The Spy Who Loved Me" theme singer] -- name that tune! (Spoiler below)
  

Now this is a pretty straightforward kind of theme with pretty straightforward cluing and fill. And one evocative jukebox. Click here for some terrific trivia about these and the other Bond-movie theme songs.

Is that all there is? Folks. We've got Klahn here. Bob Klahn. It's the tip o' the iceberg. There's more than the theme to unify this one. And it comes primarily from the finely wrought cluing.

There are the alliterative, repeating and/or rhyme-y clues: [Jolts with volts], [Pertaining to a pigmented peeper part], [Porter order], [Boozing or babbling binge], [Surname separator], [Steinbeck surname], [Pickings or Pickens], [Minute or mile], [Minute bit], [Ship slip], [Central point], [Central line], [Needing kneading?], [Dot-com datum], [Cornell founder Cornell], [Light, in a way], [Light yellow], [Roast rotator], [Intense suspense, e.g.], ["There is no try" Jedi], [Highland headland], [Globular goblet], [Pivotal point] -- holy moly!

There's a quadruple, too: [What a kid'll eat, in song], [Kanga's kid], [Kid], [Kidder]. Btw -- if you didn't understand the first of these, you may never have heard/heard of Mairzy Doats -- a novelty song from the '40s.

Animal clues? Gottem: [What a kid'll eat...], [Kanga's kid], [Bee flat?] (loved that!), [Fox or turkey chaser?], [Hog wild?].
And then, in the fill -- to complement all the KIDding in the clues -- he gives us: JOSH, TEASE and CARD.

Not to mention the slew of scrabbly letters: 4 Z's, 3 J's, 2 X's. And the elegant [Central point] crossing of NEXUS and CRUX.

The only crossing that gave me pause was BAIZE and ZORI. Just wasn't certain of that common Z. Kept thinking BAIZE was a color. But no -- it's a fabric. Was I maybe thinking of MAIZE?......

To wrap it all up, will only add that where this kind of solid cluing/puzzle-making is concerned, um, "Nobody does it better"!

Alan Olschwang's L.A. Times crossword

I'm looking forward to a return to Saturday toughness for the themeless L.A. Times puzzle. Not this week—maybe next week. I like themelesses that make me work for 6 to 7 minutes, as 4½ is just too short. I want it 50% more difficult.

Lots of good fill here—there are three widely spaced 15's going Across, held together by another vertical 15. An eight-pack of 9's provide the rest of the long fill, and my favorites among them are A LOT TO ASK, GONE TO POT, and the cool MAELSTROM. Today at Casa Fiend, there's a science fair project to oversee, so here I'll simply refer you to my L.A. Crossword Confidential postif you're looking for more detail.

Stan Newman's Newsday "Saturday Stumper"

(Solution here.)

I was thisclose to conceding a few squares in the southwest corner when I realized that 37D: [Seat] was INSTATE and not INSTALL. Once again, I find the "original meaning of a first name" clue to be an irritant. 56A: [Name meaning "old city"] is ELTON, presumably an elision of eld + town. I have never, ever heard of ITALO-disco, an '80s European music genre.

I fell into the OKRA trap for 38A: [Gumbo ingredient]. The answer is ROUX, and that crosses a few other toughies. 27D: [Square meal] is CHEX, but it's not the meal that's square, it's a cereal piece. 33D: [Type of rail] is a COOT; both are aquatic bird names. 38D: [Ball playing?] is Lucy RICARDO; since when is a role or character a "playing"?

The most misleading clue is 10D: [Film set in colonial New York]—ANTZ. I knew that took place in an animated ant colony, but who remembers that it was in New York? Second most misleading: 31A: [What element 108 was named for]. If you happen to know that element 108 is called hassium, it might not be obvious that it was named after the German state of HESSE, which is "hassia" in Latin.

I'm not sure why 12D: HOODIES is clued as ['90s fashion statements]—I see no shortage of hoodies in my 'hood in 2009.

I had a couple wrong turns in the grid. 2D: [Spa offerings], ending with UBS? Surely HOT TUBS, right? Nope—OIL RUBS. Do spas call that service an "oil rub"? Because that sounds more like something a mechanic does, not a relaxing spa offering. 45A: [Adidas alternative] is FILA, but I started with AVIA and also considered PUMA.

A couple spots had interesting letter collisions. 42A: [Save or Print] clues MENU OPTION, and that UO looked so impossibly wrong. In the southeast quadrant, the long Acrosses have consonant pile-ups. DR. DEMENTO is a [Comedy Music Hall of Fame charter member]. 57A: [Long-time telethon cohost] is ED MCMAHON. And 59A: [Teen idols] are ROCK STARS.

Random trivia: 30D: ["Rigoletto" inspiration] is Victor HUGO, and 52D: [About 8.8 liters] is a PECK, 8 quarts.

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Saturday, 12/6

Newsday 7:34
LAT 7:26
NYT 6:03
CS 2:57

(updated at 9:40 Saturday morning)

Ashish Vengsarkar has teamed up with Narayan Venkatasubramanyan to craft the New York Times crossword. It's a themed puzzle, and a themed Saturday NYT seems to pop up only once or twice a year. I love themeless puzzles, I do, but twisty and tough themed puzzles definitely scratch an itch too. The gimmick's explained in the clue for TENORS, or TEN OR'S: [Choir section...or what are missing from the starred clues]. Few crosswords plant the trick in the clues rather than the grid—fun to change it up, no? Here are the theme clues and the +OR words that make them add up:

• [*Panama] + OR = panorama, which is a VIEW.
  
• [*Popular rest area] + OR = popular resort area, or ASPEN.
  
• [*Bat portrayer] + OR = Borat portrayer, or SACHA BARON COHEN.
  
• [*Sty for youngsters] + OR = story for youngsters, or THREE LITTLE PIGS. Bonus points for the sty/PIGS connection.
  
• [*Deal] + OR = ordeal, or TRIAL.
  
• [*Cal ___] + OR = coral ___, or REEF.
  
• [*Male booster] + OR = morale booster, or SHOT IN THE ARM. Let us not discuss "male booster."
  
• [*Words that come from clams] + OR = ...clamors, or ONOMATOPOEIA. Nice tie-in with Matt Ginsberg's Tuesday onomatopoeia puzzle.
  
• [*Aid in tailing] + OR = aid in tailoring, or NEEDLE.
  
• [*Famous son] + OR = famous Orson, or WELLES.
  

The theme answers are placed symmetrically and...I think this theme just might be a perfect one. Interesting long answers, and a twist that requires an extra level of thinking while solving.

Hey, Ashish and Narayan: Tell us how you developed this theme. I want to learn about the "making of."

More on the non-theme fill in a bit.

...The kid's asleep, I've had some kettle corn, Letterman's on (a rerun, but with Obama), and I'm back.

A friend e-mailed me that it was a shame each theme clue was marked by an asterisk, as that greatly simplified the task of finding the ten OR's. Mind you, it comes in at roughly a Saturday difficulty with the asterisks, so I suspect there'd have been much wailing and gnashing of teeth without 'em. (The puzzle would've made a terrific Friday Sun puzzle sans asterisks.)

All righty. Other stuff in the puzzle that I liked:

• The ESCAPE KEY is an [Aid in an emergency], if you're willing to define down "emergency." Lovely entry.
  
• [Skin smoother] is a SHAVE. Raise your hand if you tried SALVE here.
  
• Crosswordese ORTS answers [Stuff for the disposal]. I don't love to eat leftovers, but am quite fond of the word ORTS.
  
• [Red or white nuts?] clues WINOS. This combo almost makes fun of both alcoholism and substance abuse, doesn't it?
  
• I like the Dutch digraph ij in [Town on the IJsselmeer]. EDAM is not just for cheesy breakfast anymore—it's also a town.
  
• [New old man?] is your STEPDAD. Great entry.
  
• SCHEDULE A is a [Common 1040 attachment].
  
• [Grp. concerned with royalty] is ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. They're concerned with royalty payments to artists, not with royal families.
  
• I adore ["Poppycock!"], but don't know that PAH is a great equivalent. It indicates disgust or irritation, but saying "Nonsense!" has a somewhat different vibe. Close enough for crosswords, anyway.
  
• [Proof, say] is the verb. You may REREAD something to proofread it.
  
• CATCALL means [Jeer], and it's a great entry.
  

Proper nouns abound, some tougher than others:

• I learned about the [Russian car make] LADA in Prague. Small and junky, as I recall.
  
• [Writer of the five-volume biography "Henry James"] is Leon EDEL. That's a name made for crosswords—if you haven't seen EDEL before, not to worry. He'll be back.
  
• [Chair designer Aarnio] is another EERO, competing with architect Saarinen.
  
• [Its liners have stars on them] clues EL AL—jetliners, the Star of David.
  
• THALES was a [Pre-Socratic philosopher], and I've never heard of him.
  

Updated:

Things I learned from elsewhere in the blogosphere this morning: The grid is 15x16 to accommodate the centering of the 6-letter TENORS. I hadn't noticed this (d'oh!), but Ryan and Brian did. R&B also linked to Jim Horne's interview with Ashish Vengsarkar. Turns out Ashish and Narayan were school friends in India in the '80s and reunited to make a puzzle together. Ashish details the development of their crossword in the interview. Interesting tidbit:

This puzzle was rejected twice and both times I sent it back to Will with more explanations and pleas that he take a second (and third) look at it! It is finally being published with some clue changes nearly two years after it was first submitted.

I'm so glad Ashish was persistent! Memo to Will Shortz: We like puzzles with clever ideas or impressive structure. Only if the rest of the fill is smooth (i.e., isn't blighted by clunky abbreviations, obscurities, or heavily prefixed/suffixed words) do our feelings turn to love. I love this puzzle. More like this, please!

Sarah Keller's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Money, Money, Money," has three theme entries that begin with "___ money" words, just as the title suggests. [Tailor's accessory] is a PIN CUSHION, and "pin money" is one of those retro phrases that I've never once uttered. POCKET BILLIARDS is a [Game with a cue ball]; pocket money is always good. [Documentation that often uncovers fraud] is a PAPER TRAIL; paper money is a little drier than the other two phrases. Erle Stanley Gardner is left out of this puzzle, but his first name appears in two answers: MERLE [Haggard or Oberon] and EDERLE, the [Gertrude who swam the English Channel]. Whoever the first man to swim the Channel was, I don't know—but the first woman has such a crossword-friendly name that her fame lives on.

I made one reasonable wrong turn on a 3-letter answer in Timothy Meaker's themeless LA Times crossword, and it got me mired in the northeast corner for what felt like an eon. For [ISP option], I went with MSN because of the S in the middle. Alas, the answer is DSL, which meant I tried to make [Zip] be STEAM instead of SPEED. The same corner also had some clues that I couldn't parse correctly for the longest time—

• [Hairy, in a way] is MANED.
  
• [Like some sticks?] is RURAL.
  
• [Headmasters?] are SHRINKS. 
  

Here are some tricky clues from other areas:

• [They're meant to go over your head] refers to LOBS, as in tennis shots. I started with BIBS here.
  
• [Like the Atlantic bluefin tuna] is BICOASTAL. Did you think you'd need a word referring to fish anatomy?
  
• [Result of a bad pitch?] is NO SALE.
  
• [Where to find a bowler] is a HATBOX.
  
• [___-d'Armor, department of NW France] is COTES.
  
• [Many a grade: Abbr.] is a LTR., or letter. As in A. B, C, D, or F.
  
• [Not consider] clues PASS OVER, as in being passed over for a promotion.
  
• AIR CASTLE is a [Place for pipe dreams?]. I know "castles in the air," but not "air castle."
  
• ELLA answers [She played Maggie in "Pete Kelly's Blues" (1955)]. That's the inimitable ELLA Fitzgerald, playing a role that was filled by a white actress in the radio series that preceded the movie.
  
• Crosswords' favorite willow basketry word, OSIER, is the answer to [Wattle fence wood].
  

Today's Newsday "Saturday Stumper" is by Stanley Newman, using his "S.N." byline. (PDF solution here.) Byron Walden said this one took him about 3 minutes less than it took me, so it might not be the day's hardest themeless. (Which was the toughest one for you?) The NE and SW corners of the grid look great, with the stacks of four 8's. The place I got bogged down was in the middle left. [Getty Oil once controlled it], ES**? Must be ESSO, of course. But no! It's ESPN. [Put another way] must be RESTATED, right? No? How about REPEATED or ITERATED? No, it's REROUTED. [Minks, to weasels] are a SUBSET and not cousins, friends, or mortal enemies. [They're sort of pointless] clues EPEES; the clue is spot-on, as the epee has a point, but it's been blunted. To [Ice] something is to SEW it UP, but [Ice] can mean many other things; so can [Clear], which clues the verb ERASE but is also an adjective with a variety of senses. [Dig into] is PROBE, but I wanted DELVE there. [Ancient mariners] is a plural, but the answer doesn't end in S; it's the NORSE.

I wasn't crazy about TEN STONE as an answer; clued as [It's almost 150 pounds in England], this 140-lb. measure seems arbitrary as a crossword entry. If TEN STONE is OK, that opens the door to FIVEPOUNDS, THREETONS, SIXOUNCES, TWOTABLESPOONS...

HOTFOOT IT is a much better entry. It's clued simply as [Run]. MEAT AND POTATOES are [Roast needs], but as an alternative [..."For the Real Meat Lover in the Family!"], may I suggest ALPO? Oh, wait—[Roast needs] are EMCEES. MEAT AND POTATOES means [Not fancy]. ["Raton" chaser] is el GATO, Spanish for "cat"; I'm sure the clue tricked a few people into writing the Raton preceder BOCA. ESSEN, Germany, will be the [European Capital of Culture for 2010]; how much do you wanna bet we'll see this factoid in other clues over the next couple years? A [Short-range missile] is a ROTTEN EGG. Duck!

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Saturday, 11/1

NYT 6:10
Newsday 5:48
LAT 4:24
CS 3:18

(updated at 11:11:11 Saturday morning)

Wow, talk about your weird Halloween experiences. We were driving home from the friends' neighborhood where we went trick-or-treating (and adult trick-or-treaters could tap the keg at one house), and found ourselves in ridiculously heavy traffic—the sort of traffic that turns a 10-minute trip into a half-hour one. The kid needed some protein after an evening of candy snacking, so we were heading towards the local McDonald's—which is the one in the heart of Wrigleyville. Holy cow, are there a lot of Halloween revelers bar-hopping tonight. I had no idea it was such mayhem. So anyway, the McDonald's drive-through was taking forever. Just when the line finally scooched forwards, a young red-haired man in a Ronald McDonald costume (of sorts) roller-skated up to our car and handed over a hamburger. Turns out no, he doesn't work there; he just wanted to complete his costume by ordering 50 burgers to go. You know what happens when one customer orders 50 burgers? All the other customers kinda have to wait. But with a free burger to eat while waiting...not so terrible any more.

But you didn't come here to hear about bizarre Halloween disbursements of hamburgers. Crosswords! This week's Thursday NYT was just a regular themed puzzle of medium difficulty, and the Halloween puzzle was just a regular Friday themeless. The gimmick was stored up for the Saturday New York Times puzzle by Donald Willing. In the middle of the puzzle, we have TWO-WAY STREETS spelled backwards, as STEERTSYAWOWT: [Many thoroughfares...or what this puzzle's Across answers consist of?] Every other row of Acrosses runs from right to left, as if the traffic is going back and forth from one side of the puzzle to the other as it travels down through the grid. It took me a long time to notice that every answer in a given Across row ran backwards, and that the backwards action occupied every other row. Two kinds of fun! I loved the twist on convention here.

There are two more theme entries, both running in the standard direction: [Detours] are ALTERNATE ROUTES and a [Possible result of an appeal] is a REVERSE DECISION. My favorite backwards business:

• Pepsi backwards is ISPEP; [Its slogan was once "More bounce to the ounce"].
  
• An [Aid in avoiding the draft?] around your neck is a scarf, or FRACS in reverse.
  
• [Mass communication?] is in Latin, or NITAL.
  
• [Cousin of a hyacinth] is a tulip, or PILUT.
  
• Omigod, crosswordese rivers running upstream! The [Rhone feeder] is the Isere, or ERESI backwards.
  
• Both adopt ([Take on]) and adept ([Crackerjack]) travel in reverse, and TPODA and TPEDA look bizarre in the grid.
  

And here's the forward stuff I liked best:

• [It's often laid on someone else] refers to BLAME.
  
• [Infernal], as in hellish, means NETHER, as in the netherworld.
  
• [Start of many rappers' stage names] is LIL. Lil' Kim, Lil' Jon, Lil' C-Style, Lil' Eazy-E, Lil' ½-Dead, Lil' iROCC Williams, Lil' Keke, Lil' Mama, Lil' O, Lil' Romeo, Lil' Abner...shall I go on? (Most of them I hadn't heard of—found them in Wikipedia.)
  
• [Like Venus vis-a-vis Mercury] is HOTTER. 
  
• [Cranes constructing homes, e.g.] aren't construction equipment—they're birds who are NESTERS.
  
• [Unable to hit pitches?] is TONE-DEAF. Hey, that's me!
  
• [Total alternative] made me think of laundry detergent, but I was probably thinking of All. Total's a breakfast cereal, and so are WHEATIES.
  
• I don't recall seeing [Stanzaic salute] as a clue for ODE before. Stanzaic is a word? It is indeed.
  

Updated:

A few years ago someone told me that Stan Newman's "S.N." byline was reserved for the very toughest Newsday "Saturday Stumper" crosswords, so there was some trepidation as I printed out the puzzle. As it happened, though, the puzzle was on the easy to medium side of the Stumper spectrum. (PDF solution here.) There were some knotty crossings:

• [Police Academy study] is TEN-CODE. I didn't know there were any "10-__" options besides 10-4, but there are more than a hundred of them. Actually, that one didn't really give me trouble with the crossings. I was reading the ['30s employer of the Marxes] clue (MGM) when I needed the [Top club] one (ACE in a deck of cards).
  
• Steve KROFT of 60 Minutes was a [Lifetime Achievement Emmy recipient of '03]. I had drama and comedy in mind, not news, so I was stumped with the KRO in place. Crosser 49-Down was a dreaded "name that note" clue, [Tough key for pianists]. Something-SHARP, but if you don't know music well, you've got seven letters to choose among. It's F-SHARP here, and 50-Down is TEENER, clued as [Youth]. Nobody calls 'em "teeners," of course.
  

I learned that SRI is a [Title that means "wealth"]. I already knew that PEZ was a [Name derived from the German for "peppermint"]—Pfefferminz. Two other trivia bits: ["Beauty superhuman" in a 17th-century novel] is DULCINEA; ZAPATA was the [Oil company founded by George H.W. Bush]. I love the word NONESUCH, or [Paragon].

Robert Wolfe's LA Times crossword feels like it has a theme, since all three 15-letter answers are spoken phrases.

• SEE ME AFTER CLASS is a [Teacher's request]. Much better than the shorter SEE ME that pops up in more crosswords.
  
• THAT'S MORE LIKE IT is clued with ["Now you're talking!"].
  
• YOU'RE NOT KIDDING is ["How true!"].
  

But the phrases are unrelated, so they're just the zest in this themeless. Clues of note, cool answers, etc.:

• [Beethoven's Fifth, e.g.] is a WAR HORSE. A real horse? No; this page says the symphony's performed so often it's a war horse.
  
• [Colombian carrier] is AIRES? That's a new one for me.
  
• [Bush Cabinet member] is CHENEY. Wait, the V.P. counts as a Cabinet member? According to this, Cheney, the White House Chief of Staff, and four others have cabinet-level rank, but the Cabinet proper consists of all the Secretaries of ___ and the Attorney General.
  
• I like the phrase RUE THE DAY, clued here as [Wish one hadn't].
  
• [Muse emanation?] was making no sense to me until the crossings filled in "HMM..."
  
• [Face extraction] is ORE, not a ZIT, thankfully.
  
• ["Wonder Woman" regular ___ Candy] is ETTA. Yet another ETTA to store away in the memory banks for future crosswords.
  
• [Linen tape used in trimming] is INKLE. I've seen ISTLE and INGLE in crosswords before, but never INKLE.
  
• FELT FAINT feels non-crossword-ready as a phrase, as if FELT could be followed by any of hundreds of adjectives. The clue's [Reacted to bad news, in a way].
  
• I hope people know TOM CONTI's last name ([1979 Tony winner for "Whose Life Is It Anyway?"]), because otherwise the intersecting Roman numeral could make for a knotty crossing. [Year in the reign of St. Gregory I] is DCI.
  

The theme in Paula Gamache's CrosSynergy crossword, "RV Park," is phrases with R.V. initials:

• RICE VINEGAR is a [Condiment used in Chinese salads].
  
• RESIDUAL VALUE is [What remains at the end of an object's useful life].
  
• [The ultimate decider] is a REGISTERED VOTER. I can't believe the powers that be didn't introduce widespread early voting before this year. Genius! So much more workable than one set day—if you can't get time away from work, if the weather is horrible, if you get the flu or break your foot, the first Tuesday in November might not work for you.
  
• A [Tasty tuber] is a ROOT VEGETABLE.
  
• [Its past tense is formed by adding -ed] refers to a REGULAR VERB. Irregular verbs are so much more fun, unless you're a kid or second-language learner wrestling with all those English oddities. 
  

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