WSJ, 11/27/09

WSJ 28:55 (Sam, paper)

Todd McClary's Wall Street Journal Crossword, "Unreal Estate"


McClary combines some well-known landmarks with some common business terms to unleash some groaners involving an unscrupulous hypothetical realtor. In this case, the solver finds the correct business term to complete each pun. Observe:

• [The crooked realty agent tried to sell some sucker the Golden Gate by offering a...] BRIDGE LOAN. All you need is the first one to get the idea of how the theme will work. I like that.
  
• [He tried to sell the National Mall, describing it as...] CAPITAL PROPERTY. This one hurt my ears a little. I have heard of capital assets and capital expenditures, but not "capital property." Granted, I'm a recovering tax attorney, so maybe this is a common enough term in other, considerably less hip-and-happening business circles. But "capital property" just seems repetitive and redundant.
  
• [He tried to sell the Great Lakes, claiming they were...] LIQUID ASSETS. Badum-ching! (It's times like this when one could use a personal drummer to deliver the rimshot right after the answer.)
  
• [He tried to sell Alcatraz, even drafting a contract with a...] LOCK-IN CLAUSE.
  
• [He tried to sell the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade route, even arranging for...] BALLOON PAYMENTS. This was my favorite of the bunch, maybe because it comes fresh on the heels of the parade. I hear the Pillsbury Dough Boy was reintroduced to this year's parade. I would have been happier if the Geico gecko has gotten the call instead. Is a nearly all-white balloon that difficult to create?
  
• [He tried to sell the Crystal Cathedral, fabricating a...] CLEAR TITLE. I figured this one out in due course, but I don't think I have ever heard of "a clear title" before. I always thought one simply has (or lacks) "clear title." So to me, replacing "fabricating a" in the clue with "claiming to have" would have been better.
  
• [He tried selling the Brandenburg Gate, offering to take care of...] CLOSING COSTS. I was unaware of the Brandenburg Gate until I Googled it just now and realized that I had seen it before but never knew its name.
  
• We get one more international property to conclude: [He tried to sell the Tower of Pisa, passing himself off as a...] LISTING AGENT. Hmm. If the theme answer contains "agent," then I suppose the first theme clue should have referred to a "realtor" instead of a "realty agent." But I didn't notice that until writing this entry, so I can't say this interfered with my enjoyment at all. Did you notice it while solving? If so, did it bother you?

I like that all of the domestic landmarks occupied the across slots while the two European landmarks were in the down slots. I'm not sure whether that was intentional or serendipitous, but either way it's cool.

Usually when solving the WSJ, I have to use the fill-in-the-blank clues to gain entry into the grid. This time, I got lucky at 1A, quickly deducing IKEA as the [Seller of Bjursta tables and Bertil chairs]. But then trouble soon followed, as the [Japanese writing form] KATAKANA was a stumper for me, and it took me way too long to realize EVA PERON was the woman [...given the title "Spiritual Leader of the Nation"]. I also got stuck trying to parse out WEBELOS as the [Badge-earning level after Bobcat, Tiger Cub, Wolf, and Bear] for Cub Scouts. (My brother was an Eagle Scout but I never got into it.) Despite these stalls, I managed to finish within my typical range of "3-4 Oranges" (three- to four-times as long as it takes Orange).

I liked several of the clues in this one: [Feeling discomfort in waves] for SEASICK; [Yao Ming teammate, to fans] for T-MAC (that's Tracy McGrady of the NBA's Houston Rockets, for those who aren't CAGERS [Court figures]); [Muppet singer of "Doin' the Pigeon"] for Ernie's old buddy, BERT; and [Regular setting?] for BARSTOOL. I also found the fill in this grid to be quite elegant and smooth. The triple-8s in the NW and SE corners were nice, and the stairstep progression of 4-letter across and down entries from the SW to the NE helped the mid-section fall relatively quickly. Some might quibble with dual ONS (ON AUTO and STARTS ON), but I didn't notice it until after I was done. So despite some misgivings about some of the theme entries and their clues, this puzzle was a welcome Friday diversion.

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Sunday, 10/4/09

BG 8:37
Reagle 8:20
NYT 8:00
LAT 6:40
NYT diagramless untimed
CS 3:29

Todd McClary's New York Times crossword, "Initial Offerings"

Terrific theme! The way I progressed through the grid, I got the gist with SAMUEL ADAMS ESSAY, worked out DON KING DECAY, and moved down the grid, filling in the ends of the other theme entries first. I loved getting just enough letters at the end to figure out the sounds-like-initials word and then eyeballing the clue and trying to think of a famous person with the right initials who fit the description. It makes for an entertaining word game, doesn't it? Here are the theme entries:

• 23A. [Article written by an early American patriot?] is SAMUEL ADAMS ESSAY (S.A.).
  
• 39A. [Dental problem for a boxing promoter?] is DON KING DECAY (D.K.).
  
• 47A. [Desire to be more like an actress of Greek descent?] is NIA VARDALOS ENVY (N.V.).
  
• 66A. Spanning the full width of the puzzle is QUENTIN TARANTINO CUTIE, or [Adorable child of an edgy filmmaker?] (W.T.). Don't people refer to him as "QT" sometimes? I wonder if this one's the seed entry for the theme.
  
• 88A. [Tent used by a Latin musician?] is a TITO PUENTE TEPEE.
  
• 94A. [Television award given to a Surrealist?] is a MAX ERNST EMMY (M.E.).
  
• 115A. [Rodent named for a 20th-century novelist?] is the KURT VONNEGUT CAVY. Cavies and guinea pigs are close cousins.
  

So, we've established that I'm a big fan of Todd's theme. I also liked the chunks of fill at the top and bottom of the grid—the stacked 8s, 7s, and 6s. A few highlights in the fill:

• 1A. MORT SAHL is the [Political comedian with the 1973 album "Sing a Song of Watergate"].
  
• 27A. HOT WARS are [Active military conflicts].
  
• 57A. [One rewarded for good behavior, perhaps] is a good clue for PAROLEE. Not to be confused with 56A: GAMERA, the [Godzilla contemporary that was a giant flying turtle].
  
• 7D. [Cause of congestion] is a lousy HEAD COLD.
  
• 10D. My, [Intestinal opening?] is a vivid image, isn't it? It's merely the prefix GASTRO-. Gotta salvage a prefix answer somehow, right? Well played, McClary (or Shortz). Well played.
  
• 16D. PEPE LE PEW! The icky [Looney Tunes lothario].
  
• 19D. [Dish setting for watching satellite programs?] is the TV TRAY you put your plate on while watching TV shows via satellite. Cute!
  
• 33D. CHIA PET is a great answer. It's an [Animal that leaves when it's cared for?], meaning it sprouts leaves.
  
• The liking trio is good. 43A: [Begin liking] is WARM TO, 11D: GREW ON is [Slowly started pleasing], and 45D: [Like] is A LA.
  
• 78D. NAMESAKES is clued [III, IV and V, maybe].
  
• 79D. I misunderstood [Shower need] as being about bathing or plumbing. Nope—a GIFT for a baby shower.
  

I had a typo for a while, making 59A: [Saturate] a vaguely plausible EMBUE, crossing the nonsensical MOVEEN. Guess what? While imbed/embed and inure/enure and insure/ensure are valid word pairs, EMBUE is nothing. IMBUE crossing MOVE IN, or [Get closer]? Yeah, that's much better. Also had a misstep at 40D, where I put I HAD for ["If only ___ known..."] instead of the correct and double-apostrophed I'D'VE.

I hope you enjoyed this puzzle as much as I did. It's possibly my favorite Sunday-sized puzzle in the last month or two.

Patrick Blindauer's second Sunday New York Times diagramless crossword

Usually the NYT diagramlesses are limited to the 17x17 size, but this puppy's 19x17. It's not too hard to figure out that if there are 19 squares across and the first two Across answers are each 9 letters long, they both span the top row with a central black square separating them. The Downs dangling from SPACE CAMP (1A: [Getaway for future astronauts]) and "NO COMMENT" (10A: [Response to an investigative reporter, sometimes]) weren't all easy, but with a few in place, it was easier to piece together the other 9-letter answers stacked beautifully below 1A and 10A.

The theme entries are linked by 25D: [Science fiction device...or a chronometer?], or TIME MACHINE. Sure, you wouldn't really call a METRONOME (21A: [25-Down on a piano]) a "time machine," but it's a doodad that keeps time. 22A: [25-Down on a court] is a basketball SHOT CLOCK. Down at 58A, [25-Down on "60 Minutes"] is a STOPWATCH (tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick). And the piece de resistance is 62A, an HOURGLASS, or the [25-Down in this puzzle]. The grid's pattern looks like an hourglass, with a wide top and bottom tapering to a wee 3-letter entry in the midsection.

I do like the diagramlesses that draw a picture—if you do too, pick up a copy of Brendan Quigley's Diagramless Crosswords book. It's coming out this Tuesday. (Also buy it if you like diagramlesses that don't make a picture—Brendan has plenty of both in the book.)

Updated later Saturday evening:

Henry Hook's Boston Globe crossword (in Across Lite), "The Ing Crowd"

Henry takes nine phrases that end with -ER words and turns them into -ING words that are scarcely, if at all, related. A left fielder in baseball becomes the verb phrase LEFT FIELDING, with novelist Henry Fielding ([Abandoned the author of "Tom Jones"]). "Look no farther" turns into "LOOK, NO FARTHING," which is clued with ["The British coin has disappeared!"]. My favorite one is "SCREW DRIVING!"—["I'm gonna walk to work from now on!"].

It's a nice Boston touch to have a KENNEDY in the center; the clue is [Half profile?], referring to the face on the half-dollar coin. Never heard of SAITEK, the [PC-game company]—their site shows that they sell video game hardware (joysticks, controllers, etc.) rather than games. Overall, the fill is on the tough side, but only the JUDAEA/SAITEK crossing really gave me pause.

Favorite clue: [Carousel riders?] for LUGGAGE.

Merl Reagle's syndicated crossword, "One More Letter To Write"

Merl's theme is an "add a letter" theme, but rather than adding the same letter each time, or having some underlying rationale for those particular letters being added, Merl adds whatever letter he needs to generate an entertaining wacky phrase:

• 21A. [What today's conifer class will be?] is ON PINES AND NEEDLES.
  
• 33A. My, this one's rather alarming. "DIE, AGNOSTICS!" is a [Sentiment toward doubters that's a bit extreme?].
  
• 48A. [What the bankrupt organ grinder decided to do?] is TAKE THE MONKEY AND RUN. Heh. I like it.
  
• 69A. [Serenaded a famous tenor?] clues SANG TO DOMINGO. Santo Domingo is the capital of the Dominican Republic.
  
• 87A. BRIDGE AHEAD, PAY TROLL is clued as a [Sign in an updated version of "Three Billy Goats Gruff"?]. Love it!
  
• 105A. BROOKS ON TAPE would be [Mel reading his own bio?].
  
• 119A. [Baby picture of a well-known actress?] is REESE WITH HER SPOON.
  

If you enjoy Merl's sense of humor (as I do), you probably liked this puzzle. Let's run through five clues:

• 4D. [It precedes "of A"] confused me for the longest time and I needed four of five letters before I could figure it out: THE U.S., as in "the U.S. of A."
  
• 60D. [Boarish comment] is OINK. Not to be confused with a boorish comment.
  
• 15D. [Tell others how to act] is DIRECT, as in a movie or play director.
  
• 84D. ["Huh!?"] clues 'WHAT THE...!?" When my kid said that in kindergarten and first grade his classmates ratted him out for saying the bad word their minds filled in.
  
• 100A. [Word that aptly finishes "ni___"] is TWITS. The dictionary tells me that twit and nitwit are etymologically unrelated but roughly synonymous. I don't care for this nonstandard clue, though.
  

Updated Sunday morning:

Robert Wolfe's syndicated Los Angeles Times crossword, "Surprise Endings"

Cute anagram theme—the last word of seven movie titles is anagrammed to change what the movie's about. My favorites were TENDER IS THE THING (Night), a [Film about a soft-hearted creature?]; A FAREWELL TO RAMS (Arms), or [Film about Los Angeles losing its NFL team?]; and LORD OF THE FILES (Flies), [Film about a computer supervisor?]. The fill's pretty smooth, and the clues must be on the easy side because this puzzle was a couple notches lower on the difficulty scale than the other three 21x21s were.

For more on this puzzle, see PuzzleGirl's L.A. Crossword Confidential post.

All right, now it's Sunday afternoon:

Tony Orbach's themeless (freestyle!) CrosSynergy/Washington Post "Sunday Challenge"

The clues in this one weren't all that tough, but they had a lot of zip and cleverness, and the fill's got some oomph too. Highlights:

• Favorite clue: [Attempt at the straight and narrow?] leads to a NOSE JOB. My second favorite clue is right beside NOSE JOB: A LA MODE is clued as [Having gotten the scoop?].
  
• The dumbo intersection: STUPID, or [A few bricks shy of a load], meets PINHEAD, or [Nimrod].
  
• [They might be hung in public] sounds dire, but it's just about SALAMIS.
  
• [Acer's competition] might make you think, "oh, geeze, now that non-word 'acer' is making its way into clues!" But it's capital-A Acer, the PC brand, which competes with DELL.
  
• Lively BEANBALL is a [Pitch thrown at the head].
  
• The JACKALOPE is an [Antlered creature of lore].
  
• Ah, the SEMICOLON, a [Mark of a long sentence, perhaps]. Did you know you can get a t-shirt from the Semicolon Appreciation Society? You can; it's true.
  
• FAKE IT is clued [Smile though your heart is aching, e.g.].
  
• [Sharp-looking footwear?] are pointy-heeled STILETTOS.
  
• Goofball trivia: Lawrence WELK was the [Bandleader who's license plate read "A1ANA2"]. Attention, CrosSynergy: that should be "whose."
  
• Fun clue for KOREAN; [Seoul brother, for one].

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Thursday, 8/20

NYT 4:23
LAT 3:33
CS untimed (downs only)
Tausig untimed

Elizabeth Gorski's New York Times crossword

If only the word PARALLELOGRAM—[What's revealed by connecting the special squares in this puzzle in order]—weren't so long, it would fit inside the connect-the-dots parallelogram formed by joining the numbered rebus squares. Yes, that's right: Liz has once again crafted a smooth puzzle with a visual kick. (Edited to add: Those numbers in my grid? I put 'em in after the fact. The NYT applet doesn't accept numerals. I used the first letters of the numbers, O, T, T, F, and F to get the applet to accept my solution.) The entries containing those number rebuses are as follows:

• 1. To DR{ONE} is to [Be an utter bore?]—as in "bore people with your every utterance by droning." This crosses a {ONE}SIE, or [Toddler's attire]. The number goes where 15D meets 20A.
  
• 2. Move right to the end of that row for 2 in Clint EAS{TWO}OD, the [Best Director of 1992 and 2004], and AGE {TWO}, a [Time for potty training, maybe]. The {ONE}SIE needs to go once the kid needs to drop trou quickly.
  
• 3. Head down on a diagonal to the BIG {THREE}, [G.M., Ford and Chrysler], and those [School basics], the {THREE} R'S.
  
• 4. Straight over to the left you'll find IN {FOUR}THS, [How mini-pizzas are usually cut], and a [Nice kind of workweek], the {FOUR}-DAY week.
  
• 5. Moving diagonally back towards the 1, TAKES {FIVE} means [Rests] and {FIVE}FOLD is [Like the symmetry of a starfish]. Marine biology nerds will tell you it's a sea star, but I still call it a starfish. So sue me.

The number rebus bits usually refer to the number; only in EAS{TWO}OD and DR{ONE} are they used as non-numeric chunks of letters. Remember the Eastwood flick, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly? Here, I'll present The Good, The Weird, and The Unfamiliar.

The Good: [The fool in "A fool and his money are soon parted"] is the ANTECEDENT, grammatically speaking. [Tube top] clues CAP, as in a toothpaste tube. You don't need the number in the clue [Eight producers?]—those are ICE SKATERS making figure eights. [Hawaiian strings?] with a question mark aren't UKES, they're LEIS. INVITE plays the part of a noun today: [You might get one before a party]. Frank LANGELLA is the [Tony-winning "Frost/Nixon" actor]. [P.D.Q. Bach's "Sanka Cantata" and such] are PARODIES; leave it to violist Gorski to go with classical PARODIES rather than Weird Al Yankovic. Lots of showy longer answers in this puzzle—I like that.

The Weird: "I DON'T DRIVE" is an odd phrase to see in a crossword; it's clued as an [Excuse given for asking for a ride]. Also odd: "BE ORIGINAL," [Advice for essay writers]. These are weird entries, but I like having stacked pairs of 10-letter answers. [Free of charge] clues AS A GIFT, which is much less in-the-language than a phrase like "as a rule" or "as an example."

The Unfamiliar: IRENA [___ Szewinska, Olympic sprinting gold medalist of 1964, 1968 and 1976]. Who? Never heard of her. But look what a rock star she is: She medaled seven times in four consecutive Olympiads (and also competed in a fifth Games) and in five different events, and during her career she broke six world records. Good gravy, crosswords should be including this notable IRENA all the time!

I also didn't know NED [Washington in the Songwriters Hall of Fame]. He wrote the lyrics for "Rawhide", the theme to the EAS{TWO}OD TV series. [Constellation] clues ASTERISM, which I've seen before but very seldom. SARANAC is a [Beer from upstate New York]; I recognize Saranac as a geographic name but still had to wait for crossings to finish the word. The [Final words of Numbers 5:22] are AMEN, AMEN, they say. I know ABBIE Hoffman and newish actress ABBIE Cornish, but not the [Old comic strip "___ an' Slats"] sort of ABBIE.

Updated Thursday morning:

Sarah Keller's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Paper Trails"—Janie's review

I'm gonna say this at the start and get it over with: I didn't ADORE this puzzle. I didn't hate it or find it anything short of professional—the theme fill has some fine rewards for the solver—but on the whole, I felt it lacked some needed TANG.

What dragged it down? Now this may be the biggest challenge of constructing "easy" puzzles, but most of the cluing was of the most straight-forward variety: [Pecan or cashew] for NUT, [Unit of land area] for ACRE, [Foal's mother] for MARE, e.g.; and clinical/technical fill like UTERI, MACRO and NACRE, and old-school crosswordese like ATTAR, ERRS, NEBS and AGUE.

What did ELATE me? The more lively BOUNCES and KARAT, the colloquial "NO WAY!," and a clue like [Digs in Derby] for FLAT; the almost word-ladder result of finding A NET, NEBS, NUBS and NUTS in the grid. Ditto NARC, NACRE and MACRO (yes, even with that less-than felicitous fill...).

I also liked the theme fill, which is comprised of four phrases (two grid-spanning 15s and two 11s) whose last word can follow ("trail"...) the word "paper." And the guilty parties are:

• 17A. THROW IN THE TOWEL [Give up], which gives us paper towel. This is a great phrase, with its prize-fighting origins. Although it's not clued that way, I smile, too, to see how A ROLL (what paper towels come on...) crosses ...TOWEL.
• 26A. BENGAL TIGER [Big cat of India], for paper tiger. This is a person or an idea that looks formidable "on paper" but is, in fact, highly limited in power to be effectual.
• 42A. AMERICA'S CUP [Yachting prize] yields paper cup. Remember this "groovy" Jimmy Webb/Fifth Dimension song? Psychedelic!
• 55A. THE COLOR OF MONEY [1986 Newman/Cruise film] produces paper money. That movie was released 23 years ago?! Where, oh, where does the time go?!

I really was able to solve this one on the basis of the "downs" only—but not without a dopey mistake. For reasons simply not worth investigating deeply, I'd entered CUSP where BUSY lives. This gave me CARB for BARB and GORP of GORY. I couldn't find BUSY in my brain, and all of the letters interlocked to make actual words. But ya know, sometimes that's just not enough!

Todd McClary's Los Angeles Times crossword

In this MIDDLE EARTH themed puzzle, four other theme entries contain EARTH in their midsections, broken among two words in the three longer ones but not in the 7-letter 26-Down. BEATRICE ARTHUR! Who doesn't love the late great ["Maude" actress]? CLEAR THE AIR and I DIDN'T HEAR THAT also have a middle EARTH, as does the central down entry, 26D: DEARTHS, or [Scarcities]. I think I'd like the theme better without DEARTHS' interruption of the theme's consistency; let's leave DEARTHS (or HEARTHS) as the answer to a word puzzle about which word contains just two other letters wrapping the name of a planet. You know some people's lips would start moving as they pondered whether SMERCURYX and MURANUSE were words.

Favorite clue: [Sound quality?] for SANITY. Love it!

For more on this crossword, see PuzzleGirl's L.A. Crossword Confidential post.

Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword, "Really Too Bad"

Fun theme! What's "Really Too Bad" includes the worst movie, TROLL 2, crossing 2 AM, which is [When bars close, in most U.S. cities]. There's a bar in Chicago, Carol's Pub, that's open 'til 5 a.m. on weekends. I bet some people opted for TROLL 3/3 AM here. The worst TV show of all time, some say, is THE JERRY / SPRINGER SHOW. Taped in Chicago! [The worst song of all time, according to Blender], is Starship's "WE BUILT THIS CITY"; I cannot disagree. MOOSE MURDERS is such a woeful Broadway play, I'd never heard of it before this crossword; what's the worst long-running Broadway play? And is CARRIE indeed the worst musical ever? Teen vampire novel TWILIGHT is [The worst book of all time, according to GoodReads.com readers]. "Worst of" lists are always fun, so I liked this theme.

I like the trio of German filmmakers' first names: UWE [Bolll whose films are so badly reviewed that he challenged his most severe critics to a boxing match]; WIM, or ["Buena Vista Social Club" director Wenders] (he also made the memorable Paris, Texas and Wings of Desire); and LENI, ["Triumph of the Will" filmmaker Riefenstahl]. There aren't many good ways to clue UWE, WIM, or LENI aside from these three people, are there?

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More crosswords!

Cathy Allis (who used to use the Millhauser name) has a new gig at National Geographic. Her first "Geopuzzle," for the July 2009 issue, is right here (you can print out a PDF). I haven't done the puzzle yet—the theme entries relate to a NatGeo article about telescopes but I don't get the magazine, so I'll be working the crossings big time. (Or I could read the article online.) Cathy is known for her light touch, so it should be a fun puzzle—and I'm delighted we'll be seeing her byline on a monthly basis. Cathy and the crossword feature are introduced at this National Geographic blog; feel free to share your reactions to the puzzle with the NatGeo folks.

Todd McClary has posted a new puzzle here. I just did the one called "Minitheme 1," and it's themeless-with-a-minitheme. (That means two long entries form a minitheme, but don't take up enough real estate to count as a full theme.) This puppy took me 7:19, so I'd call it Saturday-NYT/Stumper-tough. I'd never heard of the song in the minitheme clues, and the northwest corner took me the longest to unravel. Great fill, great clues, good balance between erudition and pop-culture fun. Keep 'em coming, Todd.

Starting in July, Trip Payne and Patrick Berry will take turns constructing crosswords with politics/current affairs/history themes for the new digital magazine put out by the U.S. News and World Report folks. You'll have to subscribe to U.S. News Weekly ($19.95 a year—or free if you subscribe to the print magazine) to get the puzzles. If you're a news junkie, these puzzles'll probably be right up your alley, and for twice the cost of a book of crosswords, you'll get a year of news too.

Trip also has free* puzzles at Triple Play Puzzles. (*You're welcome to donate via his PayPal link. But don't get me started on PayPal, which I loathe with the heat of a thousand suns.)

And speaking of Patrick Berry, I just got an interview request from an Athens, Georgia, journalism student who's writing an article on Patrick for a local arts paper. Hmm, I think I can come up with a few salient things to say about him.

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Friday, 5/15

CHE 5:10
BEQ 4:51
NYT 4:04
LAT 3:40
CS 10:34 (J—paper)
WSJ 8:34

Xan Vongsathorn's New York Times crossword

You don't see a lot of constructors whose names would look terrific in the grid, but newcomer Xan Vongsathorn has that unusual initial X. His debut features a mini-theme:

• 17A. TEMPORARY TATTOO is a [Fun application].
  
• 56A. DISAPPEARING INK is a [Means of secret writing...or a description of a 17-Across].

I believe puzzles with a mini-theme are still termed "themeless" but perhaps they should be called "mini-themed" instead. The rest of the puzzle takes the standard themeless form, with four corners and a middle with lots of white space, some interesting fill, and a smidgen of iffiness. Overall, it felt easier than the usual Friday puzzle—the clock was at 3:59 when I went to click the "Done" button, and I don't break 4:00 on Fridays too often. The highlights as I see 'em, mingled with the tough stuff and the iffies:

• [Confederate general Early] was named JUBAL, which I think is a hilarious name. Should've named my son Jubal Reynaldo.
  
• [Concern for a checker] is a FACT. Did you read John McPhee's article about New Yorker fact checkers? Those folks earn their keep.
  
• PREOP is clued with [Before making the cut?]—clever clue.
  
• The constructor is about to graduate from Pomona College, and colleges are dope-smoking hotbeds. There are two pot clues: [High, in a way] clues ON POT (which feels like iffy crossword fill to me) and [Pot cover] clues a TEA COZY, which is that padded cover that goes over a teapot. A teapot was neither the first nor second kind of "pot" that came to mind. If the water is ASIMMER, or [Barely boiling], you may pour it into your teapot.
  
• [Ann of "Rebel Without a Cause"] is DORAN. I'd heard of Jubal Early, but not Ann Doran.
  
• The single most insane answer here is MDCLXVI, or 1666, [The annus in Dryden's "Annus Mirabilis"]. When do you ever have a 7-letter Roman numeral in a crossword? This one also happens to have each Roman numeral once, in descending order.
  
• ALTER EGO is clued as [Captain Marvel, to Billy Batson]. "Shazam!" Ah, '70s Saturday morning TV, how I loved thee.
  
• [Three-___] PEAT is more fun than a PEAT bog.
  
• SIT PAT feels unfamiliar in its wording. The clue is [Be content with where one is]. Do you sit or stand pat? If you're overwhelmingly content, might you lie pat?
  
• [Canopus or Polaris] is an F-STAR. Luckily, a FACT checker was more plausible than a PACT or TACT checker, so you needn't bring any astronomy knowledge to the puzzle.
  
• ANTI-NUKE is a great answer. [Protesting the pro-testers?] is the clue.
  
• LYNXES are [Largish animals with black ear tufts]. Does Andy Rooney have those too?
  
• The controversial SALSA DIP splashes into the grid again. That's Spanglish for "sauce dip," is it not? This [Party dishful] is usually just called salsa but constructors keep serving us SALSA DIP.
  
• A [Stripped-down story] is boiled down to just the PLOT LINE.
  
• Is ALL AT SEA "in the language" or not? It's clued as [Hopelessly confuddled]. Don't check your dictionary for "confuddle"—it's a slangy portmanteau of "confuse" and "befuddle."
  
• [Late comedian Mac] is BERNIE Mac. I liked him and was sad to see him go at such a young age.
  
• [Stock figure] is a nice, vague clue for a BROKER.
  

For more on the genesis of this puzzle, see Jim Horne's interview with Vongsathorn at the Wordplay blog.

Updated Friday morning:

Randolph Ross's CrosSynergy puzzle, "School Supplies"—Janie's review

Remember the board game "Go to the Head of the Class"? With my solving time today, clearly that's not where I'm headed, but as the school year winds down, this puzzle does leave me well-equipped for (remedial...) classwork. What's in my backpack? Randolph Ross has made sure I've got these five items:

• 17A: SPELLBINDER [Enthralling orator, e.g.]
• 28A: HOLDING PEN [Place for prisoners awaiting trial]
• 35A: GENETIC MARKER [Known DNA sequence]
• 44A: WORLD RULER [Summit attendee]
• 61A: BACHELOR PAD [Apartment for a single guy]

And for the record, all but the last are making their first appearance in major puzzledom. The last is, though, making its CS debut. That's four out of five brand-newbies and that makes for some mighty fresh theme fill.

Why was I so draggy in solving this? For starters, apparently I was over-thinking 1A's [Make up (for)] and didn't enter ATONE until very late in the game. I saw the -AGE of 1D and decided that with the clue [Soothe], the fill had to be MASSAGE... So the entire NW was pretty much bollixed up, TOPPLING last. (TOPPLING, btw, along with RENOVATE and SAME DAY in the NE corner, are all making their first CS appearances.) YIKES for YIPES didn't help much either... Had never heard of coach John Wooden (at 57D) and had to give the area around it some thought, but when I see a 4-letter [Sch.] ending in "A," dollars to donuts it's gonna be UCLA, and that was exactly the case today.

Neat grid-bits include the way the [Justice Dept.'s crack team?] DEA sits atop the PERP or [Cop's collar]. (Those are two terrific clues, too.) Then there's the crossing of LOCA with LOCAL; and the REDHEADS that grace the the grid at 66A and 67A. I especially like the three sixes that run down in the NE corner: IN DEEP, CHERIE and SLAP ON. That feels like an especially lively corner to me.

A few more standout clues: [Splash and dash] for ECLAT, [Ripple tippler] for WINO, [Babe from Hollywood, e.g.] for PIG, [Symbolic kisses] for XES, and [Words set in stones] for EPITAPHS.

I was a bit let down by seeing both WASHER and AWASH in the same puzzle, since A-TEST or APISH could have replaced the latter without wildly skewing the level of the puzzle. I'm sure there's a reason why the duplication occurred (and I suspect it was a deliberate choice), but I'm not sure that it'll ever be shared. (RR: this is your cue to chime in! )

Hmmm. Any references to my hometown today? Well, whaddaya know: birthplace of Parker POSEY? Yup. The "Big 'B'" it is!

Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, the themeless "Word Processing"

Brendan confuses some solvers by giving a variety of titles to his themeless puzzles. How about changing the subtitle to "a themeless crossword," Brendan? This particular puzzle's got 68 words, (1) some terrific fill, (2) some weird stuff (PEASECOD is a [Type of pod]? I have no idea what this means), (3) some traps, and (4) some fresh clues.

Example of category 4 ALGER strays from Alger Hiss and Horatio Alger and is instead clued as [Fanny ___ (purported first wife for Mormonism founder Joseph Smith, Jr.]. AWW can mean ["Is that you as a baby?"]. LEAR is clued as an [Aribert Reimann opera], which I've no familiarity with (not the opera, not the composer—but I can guess at the story line).

I fell into one category 3 trap: a 7-letter [Lager alternative] starting with P? Must be PILSNER. Nope, it's a PALE ALE. Which Brendan was just expressing his fondness for in a previous post, so I should have known. If you're just doing the BEQ puzzles but not reading his blog, you're missing some cues that can help you with his puzzles.

More oddball category 2 answers: Let's see...hmm, NOTER is mildly awkward. That's an [Observer]. That's about it other than that PEASECOD thing. There's also OTARU, the [Hokkaido port], but I've seen that one enough by now that it's become a gimme. SMALL AD is a little clunky, and the [Tiny plug] clue didn't make it go in any more easily. Wait, there's also the unusual [Philosopher Chu ___] HSI, which seldom appears in crosswords.

And saving the best for last, the goodies in category 1: the AIDS QUILT at the bottom was Brendan's seed entry, and who deliberately puts a Q and U in the bottom row? That's where words like SETTEES and REASSESSED normally live. SPINAL TAP and LISA LISA provide the musical vibe. Have some CHIANTI ([It comes in a straw basket]) with your PAD THAI. Peek out the FRENCH DOORS and get serenaded by a cheeseball whose best line begins, "ROSES ARE RED."

The [Ancient Italian city founded by Ascanius], ALBALONGA, makes me wonder if particularly nerdy fans of Jessica Alba say "Alba longa, vita brevis."

Doug Peterson's L.A. Times crossword

Doug's theme tacks on a COM at the beginning of familiar phrases:

• 20A. [Soothe Geronimo's people?] clues COMFORT APACHE. The answer feels a little stilted to me—wouldn't there be a "the" or a plural "s" if you were talking about soothing those particular people?
  
• 28A. [Sherman tank, for one?] might be called a COMBAT-MOBILE. The Batmobile is welcome in any puzzle.
  
• 43A. ["If Tarzan's bothering you, speak up!"?] clues COMPLAIN, JANE.
  
• 52A. [Speak highly of enclosures] is COMMEND FENCES. This one feels a little flatter than the others. Nobody gets excited about fences, do they? I guess I'll find out on Monday when we have a condo meeting to choose a new fence. Heck, I might even commend a fencing option.

The theme entries are bracketed together in pairs by the longer Down fill—ATOMIC AGE ([Era that began with a blast?]) and a COAL MINE ([Montana resource site] is a weird clue, as the coal mines I've heard of are everywhere but Montana) on one side, and COLERIDGE (["Kubla Khan" poet]) with MS. PACMAN on the other. There are 6's and 7's binding those theme entries together, too. [Either of two notable jumpers] is Evel KNIEVEL or his son, for example, and up top there's a HOT TUB rhyming (halfway) with THE HUB.

For more on this puzzle, see Rex's post at L.A. Crossword Confidential. The blog's especially useful for newer solvers, as we strive to be educational. For example, here's an informative tidbit from Rex: 50D: "Thin Ice" star, 1937 (Henie) - the "ice" part was the giveaway. HENIE is 60% vowels and thus crossword gold. He started doing crosswords much more recently than I did, so he's more attuned to such crosswordese. I've been seeing the HENIE/ice skating combo for 30 years, so sometimes I forget that such things aren't necessarily familiar to people who haven't been doing crosswords long and aren't old enough to have seen Sonja Henie movies. (She had three Olympic gold medals, too.)

Todd McClary's Chronicle of Higher Education crossword, "I After E Except After C"

Todd upends the spelling mnemonic "I before E except after C" by gathering together four two-word phrases in which both words run contrary to the rule:

• 17A. FOREIGN POLICIES are [State Department matters].
  
• 25A. An [Alternate name for the Ivy League] is the ANCIENT EIGHT. I've never heard that one, but I know a little bit about the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.
  
• 44A. WEIRD SCIENCE is a [1985 John Hughes comedy].
  
• 57A. HACIENDA HEIGHTS is a [Los Angeles suburb].

I'm guessing the constructor and editor Patrick Berry noodled around with a lot of possibilities for this theme. Who knew you could find a foursome of phrases that fit this theme and were of proper lengths for a symmetrical crossword? I haven't got all that much to say about the puzzle other than that I love this theme. It combines trivia ("Name an '80s teen comedy that violates the 'I before E except after C' rule twice") with enjoying the craziness of the English language. You'll note that the two vowel digrams can be pronounced in a multitude of ways. EI is a schwa, a long A, sort of an E sound before an R (sorry, I don't know the linguist lingo), and a long I. IE is a long E, schwa, long I, and long E/short E combo. It's a wonder anyone's a good speller, I tell you.

Peter Gordon's Wall Street Journal crossword, "Who Let the Dog Out?"

Wow, I haven't seen a 21x21 puzzle by Peter Gordon since I did his book of the NYT puzzles he constructed from 1993 to 2003. (NYT crossword subscribers can get all those puzzles for free via the NYT but it's nice to have them in book form, especially when the book's from Sterling.)

It felt like it took forever to grasp the theme, but the light dawned when I reached my fourth theme entry—the OBAMA (118A) family's pet dog BO has been "let out" from each theme answer. Here's where the BO's were extracted: 25A boDICE RIPPER; 43A PRO boWLERS' TOUR; 67A boUGHS OF HOLLY; 87A BoXER REBELLION; 109A MADAME BoVARY; 5D PICAbo STREET; 50D BABY boOM; 60D CROSSboW; 74D COLORING boOK. I found there were plenty of "aha" moments to be had among these nine theme entries. Smooth, lively fill—you've got your BRONX ZOO and your arts-and-craftsy GLUE GUNS, SET A DATE, and so on. Rock-solid clues to boot.

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Monday, 3/9

Jonesin' 4:07
BEQ 4:05
LAT 2:40
CS 2:38
NYT 2:31

Before the ACPT, I set up a few Google Alerts so that Google could do the legwork of tracking down websites or blogs that mentioned the tournament. (I also set up a Google Alert for my own name and "Crossword Fiend," so I can ego-surf with a minimum of effort.) This morning, an alert pointed me to Mark Murphy's entertaining write-up of his tournament weekend. (There are spoilers for the ACPT puzzles, so don't peek if you're waiting for puzzles by mail.) A sample from Murphy's Craw: "Seeing a puzzle by Byron Walden that turns out to be easy is a little like being James Bond and being taken to Dr. No's torture chamber and finding out that the only weapon the good doctor has on hand is his collection of favorite knock-knock jokes."

Betty Keller's New York Times crossword offers plenty of encouragement to the solver. ["Keep going!"] is the clue for all four theme entries: "TRY, TRY AGAIN." "NEVER SAY DIE." "HANG IN THERE!" And "DON'T STOP NOW." I needed the encouragement at 1-Across, I tell ya—[What skunks do], 5 letters, starting with S. Hmm...could be STINK, or SPRAY, or SMELL. Luckily, previous crosswords have taught me that [Bridge writer Culbertson] is named ELY, so that pointed me towards SMELL.

[Bibliophile] seemed like a weird clue for BOOKMAN (BOOK MAN?)—or rather, that was a weird answer. I know Bookman, the font, and Mr. Bookman, the Seinfeld character (the library detective cracking down on fine scofflaws).

TOILE, the [Decorative upholstery fabric], is one of those words that can be off-putting to some Monday solvers. Heck, it intimidates me, because I seldom remember the difference between TOILE (which is also "a translucent linen or cotton fabric, used for making clothes") and TULLE (the mesh-like fabric seen in veils and tutus). Gotta work the crossings with those every time.

What else is in this puzzle?

• An ARMENIAN is a [Neighbor of an Azerbaijani].
  
• TIA MARIA is a [Coffee liqueur brand]. Blech, I don't like the flavor of coffee at all. Nor that of ANISE, the [Licorice-tasting seed].
  
• [Playful puppies] may nip at one another or at people, making them NIPPERS. Mind you, "nippers" isn't a word you're likely to encounter elsewhere any time soon.
  
• LAND LINES is a great answer; it's clued as [Noncellular phones].
  
• "YMCA" is the now-timeless [Village People hit whose title completes the line "It's fun to stay at the..."].
  
• A [Small flock] of birds, particularly partridges, is a COVEY.
  
• I wasn't sure what METER [might go from 0 to 60 minutes]—but it was obvious to my husband that this referred to a parking meter.
  
• I wish to dispute the wording of the clue for LIGAMENTS: [Easily torn bands of tissue]? A strip of toilet paper is an easily torn band of tissue. Ligaments may tear more readily than muscles, but crikey, don't most of us live our entire lives without tearing any ligaments?
  
• Kudos for the straightforward Roman numeral clue in this Monday puzzle; [7, to Caesar]; so much better than, say, [Year of the Illyrians' revolt against Roman rule].
  

Updated:

Todd McClary slipped six theme entries into his LA Times crossword, with two shorter ones criss-crossing in the middle of the puzzle. Each one follows the ROPE-A-DOPE template: two rhyming words joined by an A.

• ROPE-A-DOPE is the Muhammad [Ali boxing style].
  
• RUB-A-DUB may be a [Drumming noise]. The Wikipedia article on "Rub-a-dub-dub" says nothing about drumming. It does, however, cite a version of the nursery rhyme that goes like this: "Rub-a-dub-dub / Three men in a tub, / ...wait, what?"
  
• The [Richard Simmons diet system with color-coded cards] is called DEAL-A-MEAL.
  
• CHOCKABLOCK means [Tightly packed].
  
• RAT-A-TAT is a [Machine gun sound].
  
• And last but not least, ETCH-A-SKETCH is the classic [Artistic kid's toy].
  

I think I'd like the theme better without RUB-A-DUB, which is a little distracting because it's not as familiar (sans the extra "dub") as the other theme entries. Actor Jackie Earle Haley fell from fame for a couple decades, but he's winning raves for his roles in Little Children (he was heart-breaking there) and Watchmen (which I haven't seen). I think it's time for him to lay claim to the EARLE clues, replacing [Grammy-winning country star Steve]. I suspect far more people will see Watchmen than have ever bought a Steve Earle album. ROMA is clued as a [Pear-shaped tomato], but I think of Romas as being more egg-shaped, but with less taper. NASDAQ is the [Exchange where YHOO is traded]. DUE DATE is both a pregnant woman's and a [Book borrower's concern]. PEEVED is clued as [In a lather].

Martin Ashwood-Smith's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Cold-Hearted," features two 15-letter phrases and a 13 with a cold heart—the word ICE (32-Down) in the exact center of the answer. The phrases aren't particularly exciting, though:

• The DOMESTIC ECONOMY is [What the gross national product is based on].
  
• [Bodies in motion possess it] refers to KINETIC ENERGY.
  
• [Ginger Rogers movie of 1946] is MAGNIFICENT DOLL. I've never encountered this movie title before. This theme entry strays from the way the other two break the ICE between two words.
  

There's some crosswordese lurking in the midst:

• STERES are [Cordwood measures]. It's a unit of volume equivalent to one cubic meter. Did that really need a name other than "cubic meter"? Crossword constructors are glad the word exists, but it seems pointless.
  
• PELOTA is the name for a [Jai alai ball]. The cesta is the basket used to catch and throw the pelota.
  
• The EN_ characters are here in force: ENA is [Bambi's aunt] and ENOS is right next to her, clued as [Son of Seth]. Enya is feeling left out today.
  
• OPE means to [Unlock, poetically]. I'm thinking contemporary poets do not use the word, but crossword constructors prefer to call things "poetic" rather than "archaic."
  
• The Roman number CVI, or [Caesar's 106], is here. Again, I appreciate the Monday-friendly practice of cluing Roman numeral entries with their Arabic numeral equivalents.
  
• ESTERS are [Fragrant compounds].
  

The coolest words in the grid are INVEIGLE, or [Sweet-talk], and HOOPLA, or [Big to-do].

Today's Brendan Emmett Quigley crossword is 'End of Newspapers: Emphasizing 'dead' tree editions." The theme answers are headlines you might see for an obituary for a newspaper:

• [Obit for a Washington paper?] might be POST MORTEM.
  
• [Obit for a Wichita newspaper, with "The"?] clues EAGLE HAS LANDED.
  
• [Obit for a Los Angeles paper?] is TIMES UP, playing on "time's up."
  
• [Obit for a Baltimore paper?] is SUN SETS. The New York Sun actually did set last September, but the theme here is hypothetical newspaper deaths, not real ones.
  
• Blackjack gets a shout-out in THE DEALER BUSTS, an [Obit for a Cleveland paper?]. The Cleveland paper is called the Plain Dealer, so this entry fudges facts a little.
  
• [Obit for an Indianapolis newspaper?] is STAR STRUCK.
  

Here are my favorite clues and answers from the rest of this puzzle:

• ST. PATRICK is a [March figure]. Good to see the full name in a crossword—the curtailed ST. PAT gets more appearances in the grid, but I don't know anyone who says "St. Pat" unless they're talking about Old St. Pat's church in Chicago.
  
• I wanted [Gizmo] to be DOOHICKEY, but the answer was THINGUMMY.
  
• MASSASOIT was the [Chief who negotiated peace with the Pilgrims]. Sarah Vowell's book, The Wordy Shipmates, is a good read about that era in American history.
  
• UMLAUTS are [Features of Mötley Crüe]'s name. That band is the only metal band with the fearsome double-umlaut in this graphical look at heavy metal band names. They say the triple-umlaut is physically impossible. 
  

This week's Jonesin' crossword by Matt Jones is called "Earning All A's." It took a while for me to figure out what was happening with the theme entries—each one takes a familiar phrase, changes all the vowels to A's, and clues the resulting nonsense phrase:

• [Like the coolest celebrity chemist in the world?] clues RAD AS A LAB STAR. This one's based on "red as a lobster."
  
• [Greens used for bra-stuffing?] make up SALAD AS A RACK (solid as a rock). Hey, did you see last weekend's S.N.L. skit with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as a Hulk-like The Rock Obama? You can watch in on Hulu.com (unless you're in a country that can't access Hulu).
  
• ["Equus" character Alan transforms to become useful to a lumberjack?] clues STRANG AS AN AX (strong as an ox). Alan Strang is the character portrayed by Daniel Radcliffe (best known as Harry Potter) on the stage, the sometimes-naked character.
  
• [Boozed it up with skeezy intentions?] clues DRANK AS A SKANK (drunk as a skunk).
  

Two non-theme answers evoke the outdated womanhood of fairy tales—MAIDEN is clued with [She may be fair] amd DAMSELS are clued as [Distressed women?]. UMBRAS are [Dark parts of sunspots], and I needed a lot of crossings to figure that one out. [Cry on the set] isn't a verb—it's "ACTION," which comes after "Lights, camera...." [Scrapes from a motorcycle spill] or a bicycle crash are called ROAD RASH. [2000s caffeinated offshoot of 7 Up] is DNL. That name is 7 Up upside down—turn your head to see 7 Up in "dn L." [Prince who doubles as Wonder Woman] isn't a drag queen or cross-dressing royal—it's DIANA Prince.

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Friday, 2/6

Sun 8:30—cool puzzle—don't miss it
NYT 5:53
BEQ 5:45
LAT 4:16
CHE 3:08
WSJ 6:58

(post last updated at 8:40 p.m. Friday with the Wall Street Journal puzzle)

Do you wish I talked more about me, me, me? If so, you're in luck! Jim Horne's interview is up at the Wordplay blog tonight.

Frederick Healy's New York Times crossword was moving along swiftly for me until I hit the skids in the lower right-hand corner. The answer to [Rally speaker's emphatic response to his own rhetorical question] seems a tad trumped up as crossword answers go: I SAY NO. Having [Modern home of ancient Ebla] crossing a [Site in ancient Thebes] in the same general area didn't help—those are SYRIA and KARNAK, respectively. KARNAK crosses ["Home Improvement" actor Richard] KARN, who went on to host Family Feud. See those K's? They have plenty of company, as there are eight K's in this kooky puzzle. What else did I notice about the clues and answers?

• Poor JANE FONDA, her acting career overlooked in favor of being called a [Big name in exercise]. According to Wikipedia, she's "credited with popularizing the phrase 'go for the burn.'"
  
• [Dessert skipper's declaration] is I'M ON A DIET. This one seems more natural than the aforementioned ISAYNO.
  
• [Sofia, por ejemplo] is (was?) a REINA, or queen in Spanish. [18-Across's partner] is a king, or REY.
  
• "I AM A ROCK" is a great Simon & Garfunkel song, a [1966 hit from the album "Sounds of Silence"].
  
• [Like pigs] could mean porcine or GREEDY.
  
• I had no idea the [Sci-fi hero whose home planet is Corellia] is HAN SOLO. Really, only the first couple of words of that clue helped me out.
  
• Kentucky [Derby attire] is SILKS, worn by the jockeys. [Kentucky Derby time] is MAY.
  
• [They might be in stitches] clues GASHES.
  
• A [Yakut, e.g.] is a SIBERIAN. Geography! Also in Russia: OREL, a [City founded by Ivan IV].
  
• YOUR HONOR is a [Term of address used during an argument] in court. Best wishes to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who just had cancer surgery.
  
• OKEY-DOKEY! That means ["Sure"], and I like it.
  
• EWER tries to dress itself up with a riddle clue: [It has a lip and a mouth but never speaks].
  
• The [Epoch when the landmasses of North and South America joined] was the PLIOCENE. Geology!
  
• [A call used to go out for this] refers to the TEN CENTS a pay-phone call cost. My clear memory goes back to calls costing a quarter and then jacking up to 35¢.
  
• [Star viewed at night] is Jay LENO. Letterman is better. Did you catch his show with Blagojevich the other night?
  
• [Where Manhattan is: Abbr.] is KANS., as in the town of Manhattan, Kansas.
  
• SCHNOOK is clued as [Blockhead].
  
• [Cross] clues SNARLY. I should use that word more often—such as when it describes my mood.
  
• [Armagnac article] is UNE. Am I the only one who always waits to see if it's going to go the direct or indirect route? LES vs. UNE?
  

I accidentally did Joon Pahk's Sun crossword, "Transmutation," at the beginning of the week. Whoo, was this ever hard for a Monday! That explains why it's a Friday Sun puzzle. Joon's got five rebus squares distributed in the four longest Across answers, and each one demonstrates a little ALCHEMY by turning lead (Pb) into gold (Au). For example, [Raising support?] clues a PUSH-UP BRA, and the PB changes to AU in the crossing answer, TUSSAUDS ([Place to find lifeless celebs]) modeled in wax). Blow RASPBERRIES crosses an AUGEAN task. TOP BANANA intersects with a CO-AUTHOR, [Someone with whom you might share a spine] without being conjoined twins. The double-rebus answer is the [#1 hit of February 2003], "BUMP, BUMP, BUMP" (video here), which I have never even heard of. If it wasn't a song aimed at toddlers, I wasn't encountering it in 2003. The song title crosses JUNEAU and HAULS.

I loved the alchemical rebus transmutation, and also relished its challenge and the overall toughness of the puzzle's clues and fill. Plus PECAN is followed by KARO, which is followed by JIMS. My dad JIM'S recipe for PECAN pie is modified from the one on the KARO corn syrup bottle—just use two or three times as many pecans as the recipe calls for so that it's pecans all the way down to the crust.

Updated:

Todd McClary's LA Times crossword has some genius moments that entertained me. The four OUT OF AMMUNITION theme entries are out of ammo because they've lost the BB that was in the original phrase:

• [Purple dinosaur's reign?] is BARNEY RULE, based on Fred Flintstone's buddy Barney RuBBle. Perfect combination of pop-culture touchstones here.
  
• [Soccer star's resort?] is PELE BEACH, changed from golf course Pebble Beach.
  
• [Gem for Natalie?] is a COLE STONE (cobblestone).
  
• [Seat at a Juan Atkins barn concert?] presupposes some familiarity with Juan Atkins, and I have none. The answer is technobabble – BB, or TECHNO BALE. OK, Juan Atkins is the originator of techno music.
  

Here are my favorite parts of this crossword:

• [Org. with Lynx and Mercury] made me think of the Mercury Lynx car, but the answer is the WNBA.
  
• [Colorful butterfly, e.g.] is an ICON, in this case for MSN.
  
• [Police captain?] vexed me for the longest time, even after the crossings gave me STING. Oh! That Sting, né Gordon Sumner, whose 2007–08 Police reunion concert I saw twice. Gotcha. I loved the clue once it made sense.
  
• [Its two halves usually aren't the same length] refers to a baseball INNING. Well, then we shouldn't call them "halves," should we? Bottom and top it is.
  
• AARGH is a [Frustrated cry]. How many people doing this puzzle will have said that before they're through with it?
  
• [Had a date?] clues ATE, a date being that small, dry fruit.
  

Brendan Emmett Quigley's crossword today is a themeless one called "Power Grid." In his accompanying post, he talks about crossword entries that some label "contrived":

Superstar constructors like Byron Walden and Joe DiPietro pull this trick off all the time. Typically their work is so open or so filled with good stuff, they'll inevitably be forced to have to stretch the rules just enough to use completely plausible entires that are very colloquial, yet aren't in any dictionaries, and just barely in everyday speech. I think some solvers are on the fence about them; the case against is they're a little too contrived. Generally, I love those entries the best because, at the very least, they're completely original. And freshness is always going to win out over seeing the same old tired repeaters.

Brendan's got a few such answers in this puzzle, but he also has some incredibly zippy and fresh answers that aren't at all contrived—[Pocket game, perhaps] clues IPHONE APP. iPhone users love to load their phones with fun applications, but IPHONEAPP probably wasn't in any constructor's word database 'til now. Same with SEXTING, clued as [Modern-day booty call]. Who uses this term? I don't know. I don't. But I'm sure it's out there and I'm equally sure it's never appeared in the NYT crossword. MADMEN used to be just a word, but now it's gained currency as Mad Men, the award-winning TV series, so it looks hipper in the grid. CAF is here clued as [Half-___ (order to a barista)]. There might not be any other decent way to clue CAF, but it works perfectly and it's au courant.

I'm less fond of REDIGS and REMOLDS, and the set of "answers that may be considered contrived" includes WE MET, AMUSE ME, and I'M ALONE. Making their inclusion more tolerable is the presence of other lively answers like GAY ICON ([Cher or Madonna, e.g.]), SHEBANG ([Whole amount?]), ONCOMING traffic, the CERUMEN/OUTER EAR combo, and Mickey SPILLANE. ["Sex and the City" siren] really needed to be SAMANTHA, but only MIRANDA would fit the space.

Michael Ashley's Chronicle of Higher Education crossword, "Reading Lits," features four novels whose titles have been changed by transposing an ST into a TS. The resulting title is clued, with the author's name there to lead the way to the answer:

• [David Foster Wallace novel about the Air Force's wish list?] is INFINITE JETS. Wallace's book is Infinite Jest.
  
• [John Steinbeck novel about forbidden fruit?] is EATS OF EDEN (East of Eden).
  
• [Proust novel that waxes nostalgic about Mr. Boone's belongings?] is REMEMBRANCE OF / THINGS PAT'S (...Past).
  
• [Toni Morrison novel about a flower's center?] is THE BLUET'S EYE (...Bluest...). Bluets are wildflowers. 
  

No sign of the Across Lite version of the Wall Street Journal crossword yet—Lloyd Mazer, who voluntarily does the work to get the puzzle converted into Across Lite and hosts the files on his server, has a brand new granddaughter (yay!), so perhaps he has been too busy cooing at a baby to post this puzzle. I can wait. Babies are cute.

Updated Friday evening:

Indeed, Lloyd Mazer was too busy with that grandbaby to post the Wall Street Journal crossword earlier. "Divine Inspiration" is the name of the game, and its author is Pancho Harrison. I was rather pleased with myself for figuring out the tie-in between title and theme well before reaching the explanatory answer at 132-Across, [Part of Bette Midler's nickname (and what the starred answers do)]—MISS M. Each of the nine theme answers has lost its initial M and the resulting new phrase is what's clued:

• [Borough bailout?] is AID IN MANHATTAN. Maid in Manhattan was that J-Lo/Ra-Fi movie.
  
• [Trimming back fall flowers?] is ASTER CONTROL. I'm not sure what "master control" means, exactly.
  
• To ARM A DUKE is to [Prepare for nobel dueling?]. Marmaduke is a comic strip about a Great Dane.
  
• [One with a Bass bias?] is an ALE CHAUVINIST.
  
• [Any of the pairs traveling with Noah?] is an ARK TWAIN.
  
• [Commercials for donkeys?] are ASS MARKETING. In an Onion or blog-published crossword setting, this clue might have had nothing to do with equines.
  
• [Contract for a speaking engagement?] is an ORAL OBLIGATION. In an Onion or blog-published crossword setting, this clue might have had nothing to do with speaking.
  
• [Record company in financial difficulty?] would be an AILING LABEL.
  
• ARCHING BAND is [Any color in a rainbow?].
  

Drop-a-letter themes can easily fall flat, but I quite enjoyed this crossword. The theme entries had some fun little surprises, like Mark Twain minus the M and the aforementioned ASS MARKETING. I swear the WSJ puzzle has gotten easier lately. Do you think the editorial powers-that-be have instructed editor Mike Shenk to go easy on their readership in these recessionary times?

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Tuesday, 1/20

Jonesin' 4:55
Sun 4:40
NYT 3:42
LAT 2:55

There are also some timely bonus puzzles awaiting you at the Crossword Fiend forum:

• Ashish Vengsarkar's "Almost a Pangram"
  
• Vic Fleming's "A Man, His Plan, and..."
  

Many thanks to Puzzle Girl for filling in on short notice. I got trounced by a nasty bug and spent 36 hours ailing on the couch, too beat to do crosswords. Here's how sick I've been: I didn't even do the Monday puzzles. I just went ahead and read PG's post, spoilers and all. Moving along to Tuesday!

Tim Wescott's New York Times crossword commemorates (wait...can you commemorate something that hasn't happened yet?) the inauguration of PRESIDENT OBAMA. Man, will I be a wreck tomorrow. Will need to have a box of Puffs at the ready because hell, I teared up seeing the Obamas walk down the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on the TV news, and that was nothing. Now, where was I? Oh, yes. The crossword. PRESIDENT OBAMA is balanced by another 14, The AUDACITY OF HOPE. Starting tomorrow, that book's author will become the LEADER OF AMERICA, which isn't a naturally crossword-friendly phrase, but it'll do. CAMPAIGN RIVALRY gives a nod to McCain. Assorted shorter answers tie in, too—my favorite being ILL., the [Home state of 52-Across: Abbr.]. And then there are the circled letters that appear in a larger circle in the grid to spell out the Obama campaign's slogan, YES WE CAN. EBOLA sits in the grid, clued as a [Nasty virus], to remind me that the bug I had was really not so nasty in comparison. There's some great fill—BEEHIVES, OVERPAID, JOE crossing BIDEN—but also some quasi-iffy 8's. [Cry just before leaving] is TIME TO GO, which maybe isn't so crossword-kosher, or maybe it is—I guess I have said that routinely to my kid. HALF-SEEN is clued as [Not fully noticed], and I can't say I've used that phrase.

Updated:

All righty, the inauguration is over, and I have left the couch to get lunch (a small cup of Jell-O—no seafood stew here, please).

Todd McClary's LA Times crossword has a vowel-progression theme, with the consistency of the first words all being 3 letters long:

• FAR AFIELD means [Quite a distance from home].
  
• FER DE LANCE is a scary [Tropical viper].
  
• FIR TREE is a [Holiday evergreen].
  
• FOR DUMMIES is a [Black-and-yellow instructional book series]. Patrick Berry's Crossword Puzzle Challenges for Dummies is not for dummies, it's for budding crossword constructors, and it's got great puzzles in it.
  
• FUR TRADER is clued as [Astor, notably].
  

I like the pop-culture fizz of MINI-ME, the [Diminutive "Austin Powers" character] played by Verne Troyer. Question: is a SAFARI a [Jungle adventure] or more of a savanna adventure?

The TV is still distracting me and all this sitting up is tiring, I tell you. I don't think Patrick Blindauer's Sun puzzle was really all that hard, but it took me a while anyway. The "Attention to Details" theme involves adding a "D tail" to the end of various phrases. My favorite theme entry is TEST BAND, a [Group that plays during finals week?]. My favorite clue—because it took me so long to understand it—is [What some people do to enter united states?], for ELOPE. I first went with SHIFT, as in the key you use to type capital letters. Ah! United = just an adjective; states = manners of being.

Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword, "Signal Ahead," takes the meaning of traffic signals and shuffles them:

• ["Try to chew your food a little more--don't scarf it" phrase?] is "SLOW DOWN, HUNGRY." "Go hungry" is a familiar phrase.
  
• [Beat a NYC college athletic team?] is STOP THE PACE. Pace University, "slow down the pace." That yellow light turned red.
  
• [Whiz only on footprint indentations?] is GO IN YOUR TRACKS. "Stop in your tracks" is an established phrase. After the red light comes green for GO, which cycles us back to the base phrase in the first theme entry.
  

In the fill, we have THROWS UP clued as [Loses what was originally put down?]. Mm-hmm, I know about that. Favorite pieces: QUAGGAS is a great word, and they're [Extinct African mammals related to zebras]. I didn't know they were extinct. STANDING O is [given after a great performance]. The [Plains Native American tribe that becomes a state if you drop the first letter] is KIOWA, and if you enjoy that sort of word game, don't miss Will Shortz's Inauguration Puzzle from this past weekend. Will's puzzle plays similar games with a group of U.S. presidents' last names, and it's a smooth challenge.

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Friday, 12/12

NYT 6:05
LAT 5:17
Sun 4:45
CHE 4:39
CS 4:12
WSJ 7:52

What a treat—themeless crosswords from a long established master of the form, Frank Longo, and a newer hotshot, Mike Nothnagel.

Mike's puzzle is the New York Times one, and he's loaded it with some delightful fill. There's some knotty stuff, as you expect for a late-week puzzle, but nothing beyond the pale. Here are the incandescent answers:

• "BATTER UP" is a [Call after which someone fills a box]. 
  
• To [Be way off] is to MISS BY A MILE.
  
• ESPRESSO BAR [employees get a lot of perks], as in percolating coffee. 
  
• An IRS FORM and TAXPAYER are cross-referenced in the clues. One alone would be all right, but the pairing is better.
  
• My favorite crossword answer this week is LUCY VAN PELT of Peanuts. She's the [Fictional manager of a "psychiatric help" booth]. Five cents, cheap! She's completely unlicensed as a mental health professional, of course.
  
• LAKE ONTARIO splashes in the bottom of the grid, clued as the never-heard-of-it [Setting of Main Duck Island].
  
• VISHNU is the Hindu [God commonly depicted with four arms].
  
• RUBS RAW means [Chafes]. The sequence of letters looks wrong, doesn't it?
  
• An EMOTICON is a [Face sideways?].
  
• The Shirley MacLaine special is PAST LIVES, or [Pre-reincarnation periods].
  

Things I did not know:

• LOTHAR is [Mandrake the Magician's sidekick].
  
• [Billy Graham's "___ the Hills"] is finished by UNTO. It's a devotional book.
  
• [Home of the ancient Olympics] is ELIS. We recently had the adjectival form of this (Elean) in another puzzle, and that struck me as so obscure, I blotted the second vowel in ELIS from my memory.
  
• [Bell Centre team member, familiarly] is HAB. Say what? I Googled this post-solve. The Montreal Canadiens are called the Habs, as in les habitants.
  
• [NPR's "Only ___"] is A GAME. I'm guessing this is a sports show, and I wasn't aware that NPR had such a thing.
  
• [Carpenter's scoring tool] is a SCRIBER.
  

Favorite clues:

• [Thing on a string] is a TEABAG. Give yourself a cookie if you strongly considered TAMPON here.
  
• [Where le nez is] is la TETE, or head. I tried to think of a 4-letter French word meaning "face."
  
• [Where rushing strategies are often discussed] isn't a football huddle but FRAT ROW. I needed all the crossings to see where this was going.
  
• [Course that has its limits, briefly] is CALC, or calculus. Math pun, ha! The math teachers seem to love those.
  
• [Piece of silver] ware is a SPOON. Were you trying to summon up a 5-letter name for a silver coin?
  
• [One who's often with child?] is MADONNA, as in both the Madonna-and-child Renaissance paintings and Madonna Ciccone with her three kids.
  
• [Picked a ticket] clues VOTED. When I was 19, I had a cop tell me to "pick a ticket." Wasn't that sweet? I could choose speeding or running a stop sign, and he wasn't going to dispense both tickets.
  

Yeah, I liked this crossword a lot. LUCY VAN PELT! She lights up the grid, she does. I'd actually just been wondering the other day why we hadn't seen a Mikey N. creation for a while, and here 'tis.

I've got to be quick about blogging Frank's Sun crossword, a "Weekend Warrior" (yay! two themeless Suns in a row this week!), because two DVRed TV shows are waiting for me and they're getting impatient. This grid contains two completely unfamiliar answers—CATAMARCA, the [Argentine province or its capital], and CALMA, clued with ["Ridente la ___" (Mozart song)]. The second C in CATAMARCA crossed the [Jailer in Beethoven's "Fidelio"], ROCCO—I think he was in another crossword in the last year, also with a crazy crossing, and some people had opted for ROSCO instead.

Favorite clues and answers:

• [Very bad], [Very sad], and [Very mad] are the first three clues in the puzzle. They point towards AWFUL, DEPRESSED, and IRATE. (This puzzle is a bummer.)
  
• The SUEZ CANAL [was closed during the Six-Day War].
  
• HAVE A BONE TO PICK means [Feel like doing some complaining].
  
• [Trivia, to the Greeks] is HECATE. Is this etymology, or is there a Roman goddess named Trivia? I am sure one of you knows the answer.
  
• AD NAUSEAM means [Way too much]. Spelling hint: it's nauseam and not nauseum because nausea ends with an A, not a U. Nauseum would be, like, a museum of gastric upset.
  
• [Yard alternative] is a PINT GLASS. How many ounces of ale are there in a yard of ale?
  
• PANTS? [They may be charmed off of you].
  
• [House party] is the DEMOCRATS.
  

Updated:

Once again, I had trouble tuning into the Friday LA Times crossword's wavelength. I didn't get the feeling that Gail Grabowski's clues were really hard, and the fill is all straightforward—it was a quasi-"Saturday Stumper"-esque experience of missing the point of the clues. (Sigh.)

The theme entries insert an O to change a phrase's meaning:

• [Constant computer glitches?] are a REPAIR OMEN (repairmen).
  
• [Tournament for cryptologists?] is a DECODER OPEN (decoder pen). "Decoder pen" is not in my parlance.
  
• [Popeye's gal in mortal danger?] is OLIVE BY THE SWORD (live by the sword).
  
• [Work to reduce a cause of air pollution?] is COMBAT OZONE (combat zone).
  
• [How one might read a sad newspaper section?] is OBIT BY OBIT (bit by bit, plus two O's).
  

Bob Klahn's CrosSynergy puzzle, "It's Just a Phase," starts each theme entry with a phase of the MOON (67-Across). NEW ENGLAND is [Where Patriots are revered]. CRESCENT ROLL is a sort of [Bent bread]. The QUARTERHORSE is an [Animal raised to run 1,320 feet] on a racetrack. [Back to the start] means FULL CIRCLE, and the phases of the moon—from new to crescent, quarter, ("waxing gibbous" omitted from the theme), and finally full go full circle. Or they do when they pass through waning gibbous to the other quarter and crescent before returning to a new moon. Favorite clue: [Work on a wall?] for ART mounted on a wall.

Todd McClary's Chronicle of Higher Education crossword, "Polymath," has a cool theme. Familiar phrases that start with numbers and share the same noun are paired and subjected to arithmetic operations, and the theme answer is the result:

• [(Women's college group) – (Chekhov play)] = Seven Sisters – Three Sisters = FOUR SISTERS.
  
• [(Parlor game) ÷ (seder ritual)] = Twenty Questions ÷ Four Questions = FIVE QUESTIONS.
  
• [(Alfred Hitchcock film, with "The") + (recovery program)] = The 39 Steps + 12 Steps = FIFTY-ONE STEPS.
  
• [(Woodrow Wilson speech topic) ÷ (slam dunk score)] = Fourteen Points ÷ 2 points = SEVEN POINTS.
  

Isn't that a fun game?

Mike Shenk constructed this week's Wall Street Journal crossword under the pen name Judith Seretto. The title is "Small Investments" because the word WEE is invested in each theme entry. For example, CB radio is short for Citizens' Band, which takes on a WEE to read CITIZENS BAN WEED, or [Headline about an antipot referendum?]. The Dark Knight becomes THE DARK WEEKNIGHT, or [Moonless Monday, perhaps?]. This one's the best of all the theme entries, if you ask me. Plenty of interesting clues and fill here, too.

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