Wednesday, 7/23

CS 4:38
NYS 4:20
LAT 4:12
NYT 3:55

(post updated at 10:20 a.m. Wednesday)

The theme in the New York Times crossword is an unusual one. Newcomer Henry Quillen stair-steps 11 words that start with A/end with Z or start with Z/end with A along both diagonals in the grid, with A TO Z TO A filling a space in the middle: ZIMA, a [Coors product], meets ARROZ, [Ingrediente en paella], which hooks up with the [Keebler cracker brand] ZESTA, which intersects ARIZONA, [Flagstaff's place], and that state meets up with the AD BIZ, the traditional [Madison Ave. trade], linked to [Ethan Frome's wife] ZEENA, who has nothing to do with ANTZ, the [Animated film hit of 1998]. Running across the other diagonal are Lucille [Ball's comic partner] Desi ARNAZ, [The Rock] called ALCATRAZ, the aforementioned A TO Z TO A, a cubic ZIRCONIA gem, and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Frank ZAPPA. The theme includes seven Z's, which could mean lots of compromises in the rest of the fill but doesn't at all. Clues and answers of note:

• The [Child in a 1980s custody case] was BABY M, whose surrogate mother didn't want to cede custody. 
  
• iCHAT is the [Apple instant-messaging program]. I rarely use IM. I should use it more.
  
• GOURMANDS can be [Lovers of fine fare], but they tend to eat more of it than the gourmets do.
  
• Anyone else think of John Madden with the [Madden, and how] clue for INCENSE? The noun kind of incense is stinky; it incenses me.
  
• My ANONYM or [Assumed name] is Orange. There's no real reason why, in case you were wondering.
  
• EDW. seems like an awkward abbreviation. That's [One of eight Eng. kings]. Speaking of English royalty, we also have Queen HENRIETTA Maria, mother of England's Charles II and James II.
  
• "YOU'LL [regret it!"] crosses "OH, YOU!" Call me an egotist, but that's too much about YOU and not enough about me. There is Sinatra's "MY WAY," but that echoes BWAY (short for Broadway, [N.Y.C. theater area]) rather than I, me, mine. Oh, but that crosses Sammy Davis Jr.'s YES I Can, and Langston Hughes' "I TOO" is also there. I feel better.
  
• MUNICH is the [Birthplace of composer Richard Strauss]. Did you know Zurich has four of the same letters, and that the Germans call Munich München?
  
• The [Unit of loudness] called a PHON is, I think, not so widely known. [Onetime "Concentration" host Jack] NARZ is in that category for me. If you clued PHON as [Cambodian seaport] and NARZ as [German textile center], say, I'd be none the wiser.
  
• There's plenty of longish fill in this puzzle, including BRASS HAT, WENT TO POT, an OIL BARON, the LINEAR A [Ancient Cretan writing system], 
  
• My favorite clue is [N.Y.C. country club?] for THE U.N.
  
• Two European rivers meander through this puzzle—the EDER is a [German river to the Fulda] and the RHONE is a [River flowing into and out of Lake Geneva].
  

Pancho Harrison's New York Sun puzzle, "Well, Um...", is a treat too. A quartet of theme entries are modified by the addition of ER (a speech disfluency filler like "um"), which changes the preceding short vowel to a long one. [Burglary under cover of darkness?] is a NIGHT CAPER (nightcap). [Captain of the Yankees after gaining a lot of weight?] is JUMBO JETER (jumbo jet). [Drunk flamingo?] is a TIGHT WADER (tightwad). And to [Cheat a sot?] is to SCREW TOPER (screw-top). The last one is a mite jarring, as the other three are all nouns rather than verb phrases. The Across theme entries are stacked with 9-letter answers and those short stacks cross 8's: Curly the TRAIL BOSS from City Slickers (this is Jack Palance's character) crosses a NO-HITTER, and SYMBOLISM meets ODORLESS (which in turn crosses MEL TORME's full name). Consonant pileups are found in the MCRIB sandwich, NSYNC, MRS C. from Happy Days, the HGTV cable channel, and the Village People song "YMCA." INGA is clued with [Congo River's ___ Falls] rather than a woman of Scandinavian descent—I'm making a mental note for future crossword reference.

Updated:


Dan Naddor's LA Times crossword contains four 16-letter theme entries (the puzzle's one column wider than usual—thanks for the correction, Bob!), each beginning with a verb that doubles as something that grows from an animal's skin. Reptile scales, turtle shells, bird feathers, and rhinoceros horns are all made of keratin, as fingernails and hair are. The theme entries are:

• SCALES NEW HEIGHTS, or [Achieves greater goals]
  
• SHELLS OUT A BUNDLE, or [Pays plenty]
  
• FEATHERS ONE'S NEST, or [Lives well on the company's nickel]
  
• HORNS IN ON THE DEAL, or [Gets a share by pushy means]
  

I'm not familiar with [Lat strengtheners] being called CHINS—chin-ups, yes. Chins, no. The [Willows used in basketry], OSIERS, are solid crosswordese—if you didn't know this word, make a mental note of it. You're likely to see it again in other crosswords.

I don't know why I had such trouble making sense out of the clues in Mel Rosen's CrosSynergy crossword, "Clueless Crooner." Was this puzzle harder than today's other offerings for you too, or is it just me? The theme is a riddle, meaning that the theme entries didn't offer much help with maneuvering through the rest of the puzzle. WHY DID THE BAD / SINGER BREAK / INTO / SONG? HE WAS UNABLE / TO FIND THE KEY. A bunch of the the fill answers were two-word phrases, which I think made those 7's a bit tougher. The FAR WEST is the [Great Plains-to-Pacific Ocean area]. ALOHA OE is clued with ["Farewell to Thee" is its translated title]. A TIDY SUM is [Hardly chicken feed]. To [Set lofty goals] is to AIM HIGH. The COAL BIN is a [Fuel storage area]. [0-0] is NO SCORE. And AWAKE TO is [Become conscious of].

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Tuesday, 7/22

Tausig 6:00
Onion 3:57
CS 3:53
NYS 3:45
NYT 3:19
LAT 3:00

(post updated at 2 p.m. Tuesday)

Lynn Lempel classes up her Tuesday New York Times crossword by including plenty of 6- and 7-letter answers in the fill. Each theme entry adopts an N that changes the phrase's meaning:

• A sack race turns into SNACK RACE, or [Competitive noshers' event?]. Warning sign of the apocalypse: There's a show on cable called Hurl in which contestants overeat before being physically discombobulated (lots of spinning around)—the last contestant to puke wins a whole thousand dollars. Suddenly Merv Griffin's Crosswords looks a lot better, doesn't it?
  
• A sore loser becomes a SNORE LOSER, or [One cured of a sleep disorder?].
  
• Sideline becomes SNIDE LINE, or [Sarcastic comment?]. I'm afraid we have to dock this one 50 points for including another N that's there in the original phrase. I had the end of this one filled in first and contemplated "___ lie" as the original phrase.
  
• [Brushoff from the Ottomans?] is a TURKEY SNUB, playing on a turkey sub sandwich.
  
• Babysits is transformed into BABY SNITS, or [Terrible-twos tantrums?].
  

I don't know that I've seen RUSHEE before. It's clued as a [Fraternity recruit], but it sounds like a drunkard is trying to pronounce Salman Rushdie's name. I would have preferred the SCALPED clue to reference only tickets, and not tickets plus "Western pioneers." (According to this article, American frontiersmen, the ancient Scythians, and the Visigoths also engaged in scalping.)

Chuck Deodene's New York Sun puzzle, "Woof!", crafts a trio of three-word phrases in which each word can modify dog. [Beset by a feathered swarm?] is UNDER BIRD ATTACK, and underdog, bird dog, and attack dog are all familiar. The [#1 grasslands tour leader?] might be a TOP PRAIRIE GUIDE (top dog, prairie dog, guide dog). And [On a quest for a certain spicy food?] is HUNTING HOT CHILI (hunting dog, hot dog, chili dog). That made me confront my unfamiliarity with the etymology of "hot dog"; it may be that no one knows where the term came from. Joining these three concocted theme phrases is the phrase DOG RUNS—each is a run of three "dogs." Favorite entries in the fill: FLAMBE, DUBYA, KATMANDU, and ECSTATIC.

Updated:

Bob Klahn's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Regular Exercise," puts regular GAS (65-Down) into three theme entries. Actually, the GAS is already inside those phrases—SARATOGA SPRINGS is an [Upstate New York spa], for example, and ALL KIDDING ASIDE and AS STRONG AS STEEL also break GAS between two words. Favorite clues: [Basic ones are over seven] for PHS (pH's); [Clunky dory] for TUB, a shoddy boat; [Sound of one hand clapping?] for SILENCE (so that answers that question...); [Joke or choke] for the noun and verb GAG; [It's breath-taking and inspiring] for a LUNG; [A color purple] for PUCE; [Song sung singly] for SOLO, singly being one less than doubly; [Capital in the middle of Czechoslovakia?] for OSLO; and assorted paired clues (genres, dawn, sesame, float, cold). As so often happens with a Klahn themed puzzle, the fun is in the many askew clues much more than in the theme.

Klahn rhymes with Kahn, as in David Kahn, constructor of today's LA Times crossword. The theme's tied together by [Hip-hop mogul] JAY-Z, and the five (!) theme entries are people's full names that start with J and end with Z. JON LOVITZ was a [1985-'90 49-Across regular] on SNL. JENNIFER LOPEZ is clued as ["Angel Eyes" star], though her best acting work may have been in Out of Sight. Yugoslavia's [Marshal Tito, at birth] was named JOSIP BROZ. JOAN BAEZ was a [Woodstock folk singer, 1969]. And JIM NANTZ is still a [Longtime CBS Sports announcer]. The theme's mostly pop culture, making it a good match for the LA Times (and a good match for my personal preferences). Excellent fill throughout, too, despite the limited options available owing to the six J's and six Z's mandated by the theme. There are even two more Z's and another J (beginning the word puzzles called JUMBLES), for good measure.

Matt Jones's Onion A.V. Club puzzle follows up the British Open with a doubly golf-inflected theme. Four golf terms are divided (or preceded) by the insertion of FORE, another golf term, and the resulting phrase—which involves a compound word starting with fore—is clued with reference to both the original golf phrase and the theme answer. Jack Nicklaus was called the Golden Bear, so GOLDEN FOREBEAR is a [Shining ancestor, or a golf legend's nickname interrupted?]. FORESKINS GAME is [Circumcision diversion, or a type of golf competition interrupted?]. MATCH FOREPLAY stems from match play and is clued as [How amorous firestarters might start the fire, or a golf scoring system interrupted?]. Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, has plenty of golf resorts. HILTON FOREHEAD is [What Paris's bangs cover, or a noted golf course interrupted?]. Favorite fill entries/clues: [Fred Flintstone's boss] MR. SLATE; LORENA Bobbitt, who [cut John Wayne from an important part]; [Subject of Falco's biggest hit] for AMADEUS; and the Japanese WASABI and ARIGATO.

Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader puzzle is the week's toughest so far. The theme provided me with no solving help, as I couldn't make sense out of the theme until after I'd finished the crossword. The title, "Produce Results," really includes the noun produce, not the verb—each theme entry is two kinds of produce, fruits or vegetables, changed to their homophones and clued with reference to the resulting words. Chard and maize give us CHARRED MAZE, or a [Labyrinth, after a blaze?]. A pea and a leek become PEE LEAK, or [Revelation of a public urination charge?]. WRY PAIR, or [Ironic couple?], plays on a pear and...the grain rye? Currants and beets yield CURRENT BEAT, or [Trendy drumming?]. Favorite and/or freshest fill and clues: BEER PONG, or [Popular collegiate "sport" played with balls and cups]; MANHOLE, or [Common gay bar name]; ["WALL-E" love interest] for EVE; DESTRO, the [G.I. Joe villain] I've never heard of; both LL COOL J and RUN DMC; EVEREADY brand batteries; "NO CAN DO"; LON NOL's full palindromic name; the Anti-Defamation League or ADL ([B'nai B'rith rights org.]) opposing NAZISM; and two unfamiliar answers, JALAPA, or [Capital of Veracruz: Var.], and ESG, or ["A South Bronx Story" band].

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Boston Globe backlog, part 1

6/22 BG 9:30
6/29 BG 8:34


Henry Hook's "Identity Theft," dated June 22, jettisons an ID from various phrases to generate the eight theme entries. Joan of Arc's epithet, Maid of Orleans, becomes MA OF ORLEANS, or [Mere?]. My eyeballs wanted MAO FOR something. An [Exciting dance?] is a MERRY WOW (Widow) WALTZ. The final theme entry, [1979 Super Bowl?], contains numerals: FRAY (Friday) THE 13TH. That 1 is an I in the crossing, while the 3 is part of BOWL A 3OO, where the zeroes are portrayed by the letter O. I like surprises in a crossword, but that's a bit much in the way of 1/I, 0/O confusion. I enjoyed seeing TOONCES, [SNL's "Driving Cat"], in the fill. Less fun were these three entries: NIZER, or [Attorney Louis]; LT COM, or [Coast Guard rank (abbr.)] (the Coast Guard seems to prefer the abbreviation LCDR, and I'm not clear on where LT COM came from); and MOLNAR, or ["Liliom" playwright]—I leaned heavily on the crossings for all three.

Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon's "Logic Problem," dated June 29, adapts a proof by Raymond SMULLYAN (51-Across), from the book WHAT IS THE NAME OF / THIS BOOK. Two parts are repeated in the quip: (1) NOTHING AT ALL IS BETTER (2) THAN ETERNAL HAPPINESS. (3) A HAM SANDWICH IS BETTER (4) THAN NOTHING. THEREFORE (5) A HAM SANDWICH IS BETTER (6) THAN ETERNAL HAPPINESS. I disagree. Make it a peanut butter sandwich and I could go for that. I'm not wild about quip and quote themes in general, but the name-heavy fill helped redeem this one. SOLEDAD O'Brien, SHAQ O'Neal, SOREN Kierkegaard, LONI Anderson, LBJ, TITIAN, ELIJAH Wood, SALADIN, Henry MOORE, Devon AOKI, OMAR Vizquel, Floyd LANDIS, Lindsay LOHAN, the OSMONDS, Sammy SOSA, OSCAR Madison, NOAH Webster, MOBY, Meriwether LEWIS, and Jim THOME—that is kind of a lot of names, isn't it? It's not many more than in Hook's 6/22 Globe puzzle, but quite a bit more than yesterday's NYT.

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Monday, 7/21

Jonesin' 4:07
NYS 2:58
NYT 2:51
LAT 2:50
CS 2:38

(post updated at 10:30 a.m. Monday)


Gilbert Ludwig's New York Times crossword bundles together three movie titles that follow the format of "The [synonym for "happy"] [term for a woman defined in relation to a man]." In 1934, Ginger Rogers starred in THE GAY DIVORCEE and Jeanette MacDonald played THE MERRY WIDOW. More recently (in 1975), Lynn Redgrave portrayed THE HAPPY HOOKER. Let's see—what seems out of kilter for a Monday puzzle? I wonder what degree of fame journalist ADELA Rogers St. Johns possesses outside of crosswords. I know her only from crosswords. Writer Zora NEALE Hurston is, I hope, widely renowned. Their Eyes Were Watching God is a terrific read. YMA Sumac is a crossword regular—doesn't she make so much more sense perched atop the YMCA? Overall, pretty darned Mondayish fill, I'd say. Did anyone else read the [Stinky stream] clue, see that the space had five squares, and think of URINE? The [Placid vacation vista] clue for LAKE VIEW is one way to go; [The neighborhood beside Orange's] would be another (94,000 people! City neighborhoods are big, yo.). Lots of non-Mondayish cross-referencing in this puzzle—TURKS live in ANKARA, and actress Saint's first and middle names are EVA and MARIE (or hyphenated first name, if that's how it is).

The New York Sun puzzle by Sarah Keller, "Street Closings," has a Gothamite theme. The five long answers end with words that are also street names in NYC: BRICK WALL and ROOT CANAL, sure. I presume that the bold words in ECHO CHAMBERS, THE RITE OF SPRING, and CONCERT GRAND are also New York streets, but they sound only faintly familiar. The [Tour de France competitor] is CYCLER, but that sounds off to me; cyclist or biker, sure, but I don't think the bike-racing crowd uses "cycler" much. The two 8-letter answers in the fill, ICE CREAM and ONION DIP, clash horribly. Yes, they're both dairy products, but now I'm thinking of onion ice cream and it's making me sad. Almost as sad as that ice cream they used to stock in the college cafeteria—licorice chip. It was charcoal gray with black bits.

Updated:

The LA Times crossword appears to be Scott Atkinson's debut. (Congrats, Scott!) He partnered with Nancy Salomon. The puzzle's got a heckuva lot of theme squares for a debut, and they're all over the grid. BOX at 65-Down ties them all together, as the theme phrases start with words that can follow BOX. [Auto-care brand with a reptilian name] is TURTLE WAX, and box turtles are a kind of turtle. SEAT OF THE PANTS means [Instinctive], and box seats offer premium seating.

Martin Ashwood-Smith's CrosSynergy puzzle, "First Names in the Funnies," kicks it old-school with Jughead and Midge's pals from the Archie comics. The first names in the theme entries are all Archie characters—ARCHIE MANNING is a [Noted Saints quarterback of the '70s], BETTY CROCKER is a [Big name in baking], VERONICA LAKE was the ["This Gun for Hire" actress], and REGGIE JACKSON is [Baseball's "Mr. October"]. I wasn't sure about Archie Manning's last name, but the rest of the theme practically filled itself in. Yep, I read some Betty & Veronica comics when I was a kid. Cute theme, and perfect for a Monday.

Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword is called "Bizarro World," and all the theme entries become opposites by getting an ANTI added to the beginning. For example, [Street where tires never slip?] is ANTISKID ROW, playing on Skid Row, and a thesis paper is turned into ANTITHESIS PAPER, [What opposites are written down on?]. I do not have a pad of antithesis paper, but I could use one. My favorite theme entry rebutted Gen X-ers, with ANTIGEN XERS being [People who cross out a substance that causes an immune response?]. Overlong clue, but the answer looks good in the grid.

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Sunday, 7/20

NYT 9:58
PI 7:58
BG 7:31
CS 4:04
LAT untimed

I may or may not be able to get to the other Sunday puzzles. I'm at my in-laws' using Dad's PC, and it seems like it would be rude to download Across Lite onto someone else's machine. I've got AL on my laptop, but there's no wireless in the house and I'd have to go around the corner to the lounge at the gas station. (Curses! Should've pre-loaded Across Lite files on the laptop before I left home.) If Ben and his cousins resume shrieking like particularly energetic banshees like they were while I was solving the NYT crossword, though, I just might run away from home and go to the BP.

If anyone else feels like stepping in and writing at length about the other crosswords in the comments, please don't hesitate! Kick off that conversation if you'd like to.

Barry Silk's Sunday New York Times crossword is called "Across the Board" and the board in question is a chessboard. There are circled squares in the theme entries, and those circled squares spell out the KING, QUEEN, PAWN, KNIGHT, ROOK, and BISHOP as well as CHESS, the game that features these pieces. Listen, I'm used to having two visible windows open, one with the blogging screen and one with the puzzle. I don't know the ins and outs of Windows machines so I have no idea how to get a screen capture of my solution grid. And I printed out the applet page, but that lacks a full list of clues, and the screen's not big enough to show me two windows at once. (Grumble, mumble.) Moving on: The full theme entries are unrelated--they're just here to contain the chess words. Was there a clue somewhere that wrapped them all up in a bow? If so, I missed it during the banshee recital.

Interesting entries and those that might be a tad obscure:

• SKIRR is to [Go rapidly]. I'm not sure in what setting.
  
• DUANE EDDY with the full-name treatment. He's the ["Forty Miles of Bad Road" guitarist].
  
• OTWAY is the ["Venice Preserved" dramatist Thomas]. Hmm, my college curriculum didn't include this. I have no idea what era it's from.
  
• OBOLS are [Ancient Greek coins]. Am I the only one who puts OBOLI when a crossword is looking for OBELI, just because years of doing crosswords have plunked the obol firmly in some part of the brain? This answer crosses SMEWS, or [Eurasian ducks]--a word I've known from crosswords as long as I've known the OBOL. SMEWS crosses SNEES, [Bygone blades] or old-timey daggers--still another crossword stalwart we don't see as often these days.
  
• OPERE [___citato] is a Latin phrase that means something along the lines of "work cited." In bibliographies, it's abbreviated as op. cit., isn't it? Specific explanation welcome in comments.
  
• TOE TO TOE means [In direct opposition]. I pondered MAN TO MAN before the toes wiggled themselves.
  
• CHINESE MUSTARD is one of the theme entries (with CHESS spaced out within its letters). It's clued as [Egg roll topping, perhaps]. Without reading the clue but having a lot of crossings, I made it CHINESE CUSTARD, which probably would not much enhance an egg roll.
  
• SUMOS is clued as ["Super Duper ___" (anime series)]. I've got zero familiarity with this show.
  
• OBVERT is a weird-looking word. It's clued [Flip over], as in "flip over a coin to see the obverse." You can also flip over something you really like, so there's a hint of mislead to the clue.
  
• PASHA remains my favorite of the Mideastern honorifics. It's clued as a ["Doctor Zhivago" role], and I don't know whether it's a Turkish sort of pasha or a Russian named Pasha.
  
• LIMAOHIO looks like a dreadful internet abbreviation. "Laughing in my ass off hilariously in opinion"? Actually, it's LIMA, OHIO, a [City 70 miles SSW of Toledo].
  

My favorite clue is [Flies over the Equator] for TSETSES. Lame ol' answer, salvaged by a tricky clue--I always appreciate that approach. It's too much of a hassle to toggle back and forth between windows to find other good clues, so that's all I've got tonight. (Windows and Explorer, grr.) Feel free to give a shout-out to your favorites in the comments, though.

Updated late Sunday night:

Many thanks to Tony Orbach for stepping up to comment-blog about Rich Norris's CrosSynergy "Sunday Challenge." Lots of good fill and fun clues, as Tony said. No point repeating what Tony said, is there? Yep, it's all there in the comments.

Thanks to Joon, too, for comment-blogging the syndicated LA Times Sunday crossword by Ray Hamel. I solved this one in the Milwaukee newspaper, so I don't have a screen-grab for you. I guess the constructor needed another 10, so the MORSE entry wasn't Samuel, telegraph inventor, or Robert, star of "Tru" on stage, but BARRY MORSE, whose name was completely unknown to me. I dunno—this sort of theme, the "last word can precede the word ___ in established phrases" thing, is a little arid on a Monday. I don't know that it's got enough zip to carry a Sunday puzzle. SNICKERS BAR is terrific, but most of the other "___ code"-based theme entries left me uninspired.

Merl Reagle's Philadelphia Inquirer puzzle this week is called "Q and A, Sort Of." The theme entries all complete various sarcastic questions, such as "What are you waiting for, AN INVITATION?" and "What are you, AN EXPERT ALL OF A SUDDEN?" Rows 3 and 4 and rows 18 and 19 of this puzzle are filled with stacked theme entries, which is cool. Overall, the fill didn't do much for me, but I enjoyed some of the clues a lot—[Waits onstage?] is singer TOM Waits, ["Happy colon" dishes] are SALADS (blowing the breakfast test out of the water), and [Run out of clothes?] for STREAK. The last square I filled in was the intersection between the [Flagstaff sch.] and [Point]. NAU, I'm guessing, is short for Northern Arizona University, and point and USE are equivalent in the "What's the point/use?" sense. Sure, guessing a U for the end of an abbreviated school is often a safe bet, but the I was blanking on the [Point]. [Actress Lee] is RUTA? She has a website, but I still don't recognize her. Apparently she used to be a regular on some game shows.


Henry Hook's Boston Globe rerun crossword in Across Lite, "A Case of the DTs," changes a word's final D sound to a T sound. "Wide-open spaces" become a crossword's WHITE OPEN SPACES, for example. Plenty of interesting fill in this grid—the verb ATTRIT, clued as [Reduce the enemy's numbers]; JIM BOB Walton; SLOVAK; Robert BROWNING, a reporter's FIVE W'S, the KLIBAN cats. There was one word that jumped out as an oddity—GRUE, or [Shudder, to Scots]. That word may be obsolete, but it lives on in gruesome.

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Saturday, 7/19

NYT 7:41
LAT 5:53
Newsday 5:25
CS 3:29

Argh! You know when you have a tentative answer in place, and then you change one letter because you get one of the crossing words, and you leave the rest of the letters there, even though MNEA is clearly not a word? (I tagged the [Selective service registrant] as a ONE-A for some reason, but it's a MALE.) I made a few other wrong turns on Todd McClary's New York Times crossword, but managed to erase all the wrong letters when the time came. Like making the [Trattoria offering] into a meatball instead of OSSO BUCO, and [Menacing], that was sadistic instead of SINISTER, and [Exposed] was overt instead of OUTED. I liked the loser mini-theme, YOU CAN'T WIN 'EM ALL and MET ONE'S WATERLOO. But there was an overall vibe of "boy's club" that I found off-putting or, at the very least, not in my wheelhouse:

• BB GUN is a [Plinking weapon].
  
• MS PACMAN was an [Arcade star of the '80s]. A unisex classic, to be sure, but I'm not a fan of video games.
  
• RAMPS are [Some pinball targets]. I like pinball all right, but it fits the "pubescent boy's leisure time" theme.
  
• RANDA is a baseball player I've never heard of—[Joe ___, ex-Royals third baseman known as the Joker]. Having just seen Dark Knight this afternoon, I have an entirely different and much creepier Joker in my thoughts. I assume Joe Randa's less creepy than Heath Ledger's character, but since I know nothing about him I can't say for sure.
  
• BIKINI TOP is technically not a [Cause of some tan lines]. The sun's ultraviolet rays bear the blame for that. No, boys don't generally wear bikini tops, but in the setting of all that other fill, it seemed a little Beavis and Butthead to have it here.
  
• T-STOPS are [Braking maneuvers for skaters]. Sure, girls and women skate too, but I had no idea what this answer was going to be.
  
• [Recording studio sound shields] are GOBOS? The hell? Never seen the word in my life. I Googled it, and everything I saw suggested it's a lighting thing and not at all a sound thing. Perhaps someone can explain a way the clue's valid? Oh, here we go—definition 1 is a light shield, def 2 is a microphone shield.
  
• The teenage boy featured in this puzzle may also be on the debate team (knowing that OPEN FLOOR is a [Debate format]) and enjoy playing STRATEGO ([Game with 40 pieces per side]).
  

The crossings let me solve everything correctly, but it's not a good feeling to have two nouns and a name that are 100% unfamiliar to me. Are T-STOPS, GOBOS, and RANDA quite gettable for you, or were you also wondering what these random letter sequences were doing in place of actual words?

Favorite clues:

• [Hero/giant created by Rabelais] for GARGANTUA—yay, literary reference!
  
• [Sugarhouse stuff] is SAP, as in maple sap used to make tasty, tasty maple syrup. I never saw the word sugarhouse before, but I'd like to move in if that's all right with you.
  
• [Its logo features a globe on a table] for MENSA. Mensa is Latin for "table," my high-school German teacher taught us. He was a creep who married a former student, but he taught us more about diagramming sentences than our English teachers ever did.
  
• [Snowy locale of song] is OLD SMOKEY. I prefer the "On Top of Spaghetti" parody.
  
• [Navigation figure] is LATITUDE, figure meaning a number rather than a person here.
  
• [Quarter image] is a BALD EAGLE, obviously. And yet...I had a hard time thinking beyond George Washington and all the state quarters.
  
• [Drug store?] is a STASH of drugs.
  
• Thomas NAST, famed political caricaturist of yore, was the [Creator of 1867's "Grand Caricaturama"].
  
• [Had an uneventful day] is SAT. Although...in the NYT crossword forum today, a poster boasted that she'd finally been able to sit up after four weeks flat on her fractured back. Sometimes sitting makes for a most eventful day!
  

Slow spots:

• [Noah's grandson] is MAGOG. Is that Gog's brother or what?
  
• [Operatic tenor Vickers] is named JON. 
  
• [Language group including Hebrew] is CANAANITE.
  
• [Rosa damascena product] is ATTAR, of course! Never saw the term in the clue before, but **TA* + something about roses = ATTAR.
  
• What makes [Lies along the waterfront?] YARNS? I'm thinking that sort of lie is more a fish tale.
  

Updated:

Yikes! I need to get moving here—am going to Wisconsin for the weekend, leaving later this morning, and I haven't packed at all. Must use blogular brevity!

In Patrick Blindauer's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Getting Quiet," the theme entries' original phrases take on a "SH." Thus, a roller rink becomes a ROLLER SHRINK, or [Skating psychiatrist?]. That was my favorite theme entry, with the SHRED ALERT (["Quick! Rip up the documents!"]) a close second. [Pre-flood ancestor of Jaws?] is NOAH'S SHARK, and [Bailiff's cry?] is SHOUT OF ORDER.

Barry Silk's themeless LA Times crossword was pretty smooth, but put up a fight in spots. Things I didn't exactly know:

• [August commemoration that's a R.I. state holiday] for V.J. DAY.
  
• [Arrives at home, e.g.] is SCORES. I started out with SLIDES, so I was on the right basepath.
  
• [Route through Brooklyn and Queens] is the BELT PARKWAY.
  
• [Letters on some three-pt. vocal music] is SAB. Soprano, alto bass?
  
• [Princess Juliana Intl. Airport site] is the island of ST. MARTIN.
  
• [Particle that causes secondary ionization] is DELTA RAY. Meh.
  
• [Soprano Marton] is EVA. Hey, maybe she knows about SAB.
  

Favorite clues: [Took in a poor boy?] for ATE a sandwich; [Sierra Nevada unit] for a BEER BOTTLE; [There's a lot of junk in it] is SNAIL MAIL; [They're paid for services] for SALARIES; and [Penn and others] are IVIES, as in Ivy League schools.

Merle Baker's Newsday "Saturday Stumper" is the easiest Stumper in weeks, thanks to a more workable batch of crossings for the answers I wasn't going to get based on their clues. The tougher bits included:

• [Oregon, since 1992] for BLUE STATE.
  
• [Revokes, as a legacy] for ADEEMS. I don't think I've seen this one in any recent puzzles, but it's a word I know from crosswords.
  
• [Rossini works] are ARIETTE. I first guessed that Italian plural was an I, but it's not.
  
• [Cowboy's NFL Hall of Famer] is RENFRO. The late actor Brad Renfro's the only Renfro in my memory banks.
  
• [Spot without over-the-air TV service] is a WHITE AREA. The term's new to me. Any of you live in a white area? Where are these white areas?
  
• [One charged] a fee or fine is an ASSESSEE. One charged with a crime is something else.
  
• The verb [House] can mean to STOW something.
  
• [Baloney] is TRUMPERY. Coincidentally, many of Donald Trump's non-business remarks qualify as trumpery.
  
• [Geologist's tool] is the geologic TIME SCALE, which is not a scale on which they weigh things.
  
• [1950, in other words] is TEN TO, 1950 being equivalent to 7:50 p.m.
  
• [Singer Adams] is OLETA. Who?
  

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Friday, 7/18

NYS 7:33
NYT 5:31
CHE 4:16
CS 3:39
LAT tba—I can't get Cruciverb.com to load today, so no LAT in Across Lite yet

WSJ 9:42

I have a headache, which does not put me in a blogging frame of mind. Also, if you happen to have solved the Sun and Times crosswords without a headache and you were faster than me, please remember that my brain is aching. (Preemptive excuse-making! I excel at that.)

Up first, Mike Nothnagel's New York Times crossword. I liked it a lot. A crossword that works GAY-FRIENDLY into the mix (clued as [Inclusive, as some resorts]) gives me the warm fuzzies. I've edited plenty of sleep medicine papers, so I liked the combination of CIRCADIAN RHYTHM ([It helps you sleep at night] rather than in the daytime) at 17-Across and JETLAG, which is a potent [17-Across disrupter] (so is shift work).

The nastiest bits, the ones that demanded attention to their crossings, included:

• IXIA, a [Showy flower of the iris family]. I'm usually pretty good at the botany clues, but not this one. Rumor has it ixias are native to South Africa and are also called corn lilies.
  
• The [Chorus "instrument" in Verdi's "Il Trovatore"] is an ANVIL. Blacksmiths, Wile E. Coyote, a bone in the ear—those are the anvil connections in my ken.
  
• I had ACH for the [Glaswegian "Gee!"], but it's OCH.
  
• Hockey is not my thing, so I had no idea the [Section of a hockey rink in front of the goal] was called a SLOT.
  
• The [Force commanded by the Duke of Medina Sidonia]? The clue meant scarcely anything at all, but a few crossings pointed towards ARMADA, and it fit with everything else. Medina-Sidonia is a city in Spain.
  
• ["Just a Closer Walk With Thee" and others] are DIRGES. Would you believe I don't own a single mixtape of dirges?
  
• I've heard of EROS, sure, but I drew a blank on the [Offspring of Chaos, to Hesiod] clue.
  

Interesting or unusual answers:

• [Music lovers flip for it] means SIDE TWO of an album. In vinyl. Kicking it old school!
  
• MUCH TO MY CHAGRIN is roughly equivalent to ["Unfortunately..."].
  
• [Denied] means SAID NO TO. Past tense, no -ED at the end—heck, no -ED in the middle, either.
  
• ENTRY-LEVEL is [Like many low-paying jobs]. I started in publishing and made $16,250 a year in my entry-level job. I wonder what editorial assistants start at now...
  
• The FIRE MARSHAL is a [Person with burning resentment?] because he's so darned mad about those fires that need investigation, I guess. The clue seems like it fits an ARSON INVESTIGATOR better, but that won't fit here.
  
• KEVIN BACON was a ["Diner" co-star, 1982], along with Ellen Barkin, pre-plastic surgery Mickey Rourke, and Daniel Stern.
  
• EARLDOM is one kind of [English jurisdiction] but boy, that word didn't come easily for me.
  

Assorted other things I feel like mentioning, but no longer have the will to organize:

• In old ROME (13-Down), people spoke Latin, so [Hard to find] was RARA, meaning "rare." Nice cross-referenced combo, Mike and Will.
  
• People! DIRK Benedict was in The A-Team. The late Molly IVINS could indeed say that. TRAJAN was an emperor. Antoinette PERRY is the Tony Awards' namesake. Mary was the [Sister of Lazarus, in the Bible]. LITA Ford is a rock guitarist. Generic people include a RAJA, a GURU, some AGAS, a Cabinet SECY., and a PAL.
  
• If you turn down the corner of a page, that [Turndown?] is a DOGEAR. With the errant ACH, I was looking at DAGE-something for way too long.
  
• Oh! Fun clue: [Presidential portrait site?] is your WALLET, provided you've got some paper currency.
  
• MONISM is the [Belief that all things are made of a single substance]. Can that substance be chocolate? Or crunchy toffee?
  
• Usually it's deca- but sometimes that [Prefix meaning "10": Var.] is spelled DEKA. This is one of those times.
  
• Can you use AWASH IN ([Completely overrun by]) in a sentence? "This crossword is awash in good, meaty stuff."
  
• I've done enough crosswords that a clue like [Biotite and lepidolite] had me thinking MICAS right off the bat.
  
• I like TMI, or "too much information" (["I didn't need to know that," informally]. If you don't care that I have a headache, you might've thought "TMI" at the start of this post.
  

Joe DiPietro's New York Sun puzzle is called "Shuffle the Deck," so I figured the theme would have something to do with playing cards. Indeed, we are treated to SPOONERISMs of four cards. After swapping the initial consonant sounds (or lack thereof), the eight of hearts becomes HATE OF ARTS, a [Philistine's characteristic?]. The ace of spades is SPACE OF AIDES. The [Movie river's senior member gets better?] was hard to parse. Rivers have members? The queen of diamonds turns into a brief tale in which the DEAN OF KWAI MENDS. That one's tortured so far, it's almost genius. Six of clubs is CLICKS OF SUBS.

The clues and answers I admired the most:

• DONDI! The [Orphan of old comics] with the vacant stare.
  
• SAO TOME, [Gulf of Guinea island]. Full name! More often, it's a fill-in-the-blank with just one of the two words in the grid.
  
• MR. T, the [B.A. Baracus portrayer on TV], was in The A-Team. Boy, seems like that show is everywhere.
  
• The explicit HBO documentary/magazine series REAL / SEX gets split among two entries. I like that they're clued in unison.
  
• [What kids to when it counts?] is HIDE, in hide-and-seek. It means the player who's "it."
  
• FRAM is an [Oil filter brand], apparently. I believe it's used to make the frim fram sauce, two parts frim to one part fram. Here's a clip where you can enjoy Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong's duet on "The Frim Fram Sauce." "I don't want pork chops, baby"—truer words were never sung.
  
• I blanked on OMAR MINAYA's last name, piecing it together with the crossings. I always like a full name parked in the crossword grid.
  

Updated:

Harvey Estes constructed this week's Wall Street Journal crossword, "Boarding Requests." The boarding in question has a Star Trek bent to it—together, 65- and 67-Across spell out BEAM / ME UP. Those ME's are beamed up from the four theme entries in the grid's bottom half, where they've been removed from phrases that are reclued accordingly, and teleported smack-dab into the four theme entries up top, also clued accordingly. [Brand-name desserts in a food fight?], for example, are SARA MELEE CAKES. The [Plain grazer?] is a HOMELY COW. The [Guilt-ridden doo-wop group?] is SHAME NA NA. After the ME's were beamed up, what was left at the bottom included 'TIS SQUARE (Times Square), or [Comment about something that's ne'er been hip], and LEAD A CHARD LIFE (charmed), or [Be a vegetarian]. Good theme, tons of good fill and clues. One of my pet peeves is crosswords that pretend that "coeds" isn't a sexist term for "female college students." So props to Harvey and/or editor Mike Shenk for [Connecticut coeds] as a clue for ELIS—maybe the Yale students in question are thought to be female, but ELIS is a gender-neutral term for Yale students. I have never once used MELON to mean [Financial windfall]. Which kind of melon is it? I prefer watermelon. Favorite clues: [Appealing, maybe] for IN COURT; [Place for some drawers] for ART CLASS; [Evidence from a hairsplitter?] for DNA; and [Area between the shoulders] for the ROAD.

I quickly caught onto the theme in Larry Shearer's Chronicle of Higher Education puzzle, "Copy Writers." [Difficulties in writing "Common Sense"?] are Thomas PAINE'S PAINS, and all the theme entries follow that structure, author's name in the possessive + a homophone of that possessive. Dario FO'S FOES are [Those who opposed the writing of "Accidental Death of an Anarchist"?]. That writer a great many of us know strictly from his appearances in crosswords, Charles Reade, figures into READE'S READS, or [Texts that influenced the writing of "The Cloister and the Hearth"?]. Edgar Allan POE'S POSE is the [Stance assumed while writing "The Purloined Letter"?]. [Libations enjoyed while writing "War Trash"?] are JIN'S GINS, and I had to look that one up. It's a recent novel by Ha Jin and it won the National Book Award. The most insane entry in the puzzle was [Local assembly of czarist Russia], or ZEMSTVO. The Wikipedia article tells me this mode of local government allowed the peasants a wee smidgen of involvement, though the nobles hogged most of the slots for themselves.


Ray Hamel's CrosSynergy crossword is called "Plus-Fours," and it's got nothing to do with those crazy-looking short pants that may well be in evidence at the British Open golf tournament this weekend. Instead, the theme entries add four to the number in various phrases. You know the story of the Three Little Pigs—add four and you get SEVEN LITTLE PIGS, [A full litter?]. [A very lucky find?] might be an EIGHT-LEAF CLOVER (though I'd worry about mutagens in the local environment if I saw one...). The [Extended Beatles song?] is TWELVE DAYS A WEEK, which would be a lot of days in the week to be loving someone.

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Thursday, 7/17

NYS 5:14
NYT 4:07
LAT 3:53
CS 3:15

Patrick Berry's New York Sun "Themeless Thursday," by the numbers:

• Degrees of symmetry: 360. You can spin it around like a pinwheel and the black squares' pattern remains the same no matter which side is up. So pleasing to the eye!
  
• 10- and 11-letter answers: Ten of 'em, intricately enlaced in the center of the grid. Sure, they're staggered, but you still have quintuple-stacked long answers crossing another quintuple stack. If you've seen a more impressive swath of white space in a crossword, please refresh my memory so I can be impressed with yet another seminal achievement of construction.
  
• 3-letter answers: Just 8 of those.
  
• Total word count: Just 62. The fill is low on the Scrabble-o-Meter, with a single Z and two K's, but the Crapola Quotient is quite low. Very few "roll-your-own" words—FERTILENESS looks like one, but is a legit inflected form; fertility far outstrips it in usage. There are a few plurals and one crossing pair of -ED words. I.e., this puppy is smooooth.
  
• People's names in the grid: 7. ERIC Karros was only vaguely familiar to me. 49ers quarterback John BRODIE was a total unknown (to me). I knew LORENZ Hart, Anais NIN, Peter CETERA (the "spent years in Chicago" clue references his time in the band named Chicago), DION, and the COEN brothers.
  
• Place names in the grid: 6. CAPE ANN, the COMOROS, CONWAY, N.H., Nunavut is a TERR., and PAKISTANIS. Not to mention the fictional (...or is it?) ATLANTIS.
  

Favorite clues:

• [Cod pieces?] for FISHSTICKS. 50 points for this one! (Minus one point for the word duplication in the SEA clue, [It's very fishy].)
  
• [Dead giveaway?] for an ESTATE. +25
  
• [Greyhound boarding spot] for a dog KENNEL, not a bus station. +25
  
• [Alcohol needed for driving?] for ANTIFREEZE. +20
  
• [Body with many arms: Abbr.] for the NRA. +15
  
• [Stick of gum?] for an artgum ERASER. +5
  
• [Save, as one's sole] for COBBLE. +5
  
• [Famous last gasp] for ET TU. +5
  
• [Sharp] for PENETRATING. Nice and vague.
  
• [Swale's sire] meant nothing to me, but the crossings pointed towards SEATTLE SLEW. That's an anagram of "settle Swale," so I am picturing a daddy horse cuddling his foal and laying him down to sleep.
  
• [Virusoid's makeup] for RNA—I'm glad I had crossings. I like having medicalese in the puzzle, even just in the clues.
  

Elizabeth Long's New York Times crossword was easier for me than yesterday's. How about you? The theme is described by 42-Down, SHAPES UP, clued as [Quits misbehaving...or a literal hint to 4-, 9-, 13-, 49- and 57-Down]. Those six answers are all shapes, written up rather than down in the grid. The [Percussion instrument in an orchestra] is the triangle, or ELGNIART. [Coterie] is circle, or ELCRIC. [Headliner] is star, or RATS. An [Unhip person] is a square, or ERAUQS. And a [Racetrack] is typically an oval, or LAVO. Cute gimmick, and one with a justification—the phrase SHAPES UP. Just a bunch of shapes spelled backwards would seem a bit arbitrary, but that phrase elevates the theme.

The longest fill is just that—fill, not thematic. WHIRLIGIG is clued as a [Colorful lawn or garden fixture], and an ARTICHOKE is [Something you might want to get to the heart of?]. Trickier clues: [Hebrews, for example] for EPISTLE; [They cross here] for the WORDS in this crossword; ["___ This Last" (series of John Ruskin essays] for UNTO; [One of TV's Rugrats] is LIL (if you're like me, you've been burned by that other Rugrat, DIL, in crosswords before and were proud of yourself for quickly entering that at 7-Down here...but it's wrong); [Small hill] for both KNOLL and RISE; [Mobile home?: Abbr.] for ALA (as in Mobile, Alabama); [Bird with speckled eggs] is a WREN; and [Avant-garde filmmaker Brakhage] for STAN.

Updated:

Doug Peterson's LA Times crossword can be summed up by the last theme entry, TIRE ROTATION ([Mechanic's job, literally illustrated in this puzzle]). In the other theme entries, the letters in the word TIRE are rotated in stepwise fashion. Move the E to the beginning and get ETIR, embedded in GET IRRITATED ([Start to steam]). Cycle the R to the beginning of that to get RETI, which is in ONE MORE TIME. Now slide the I over for IRET, within WIRETAPPING ([Surveillance technique]). That leaves T to complete the rotation back to the front for TIRE in TIRE ROTATION. As with the NYT gimmick, it's the common phrase that provides the justification for the gimmick—a random 4-letter word going through the rotation could feel kinda arbitrary. The long Down entries are unrelated to the theme, but isn't it nice to see CHICHEN ITZA, the [Mayan tourist site], in the grid?

Favorite clues:

• [In a glass by itself] for NEAT (with no ice). Kudos to Doug and Rich Norris for leaving the clue un-question-marked.
  
• [Hershey's toffee bar] for SKOR, merely because I love toffee. Matt Ginsburg can attest to that—I almost mugged him for his wife's homemade almond roca at the ACPT. It was delicious.
  
• [Ric of the Cars] for OCASEK, because I just learned this week that his surname was shortened from Otcasek, just as bandmate Benjamin Orr's last name used to be Orzechowski. My husband and I are sad that the Cars weren't instead called The Otcasek/Orzechowski Project.
  
• [Tiger's turf] for the golf LINKS.
  
• [South side?] for GRITS.
  
• [Many a European decimal point] for COMMA.
  
• [Lawn gnomes, e.g.] for KITSCH.
  

The CrosSynergy puzzle called "Null and Void" is by Paula Gamache. The five theme entries are phrases that end with words that have a "null and void" sense: HOBBIT HOLE is ["The Fellowship of the Ring" residence]. GIMME A BREAK means ["Do you think I'm that stupid?"]. To DRAW A BLANK is to [Get lucky at Scrabble, maybe]. GENERATION GAP and DOUBLE-SPACE round out the theme. [Nit-picker's nit] in literal terms is the egg of a COOTIE, or louse. Coincidentally, there's a Language Log post today about "cooties" and other schoolyard lingo.

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Wednesday, 7/16

NYT 5:39
NYS 4:44
CS 4:36
LAT 3:45

(post updated at 10:20 a.m. Wednesday)

The last four Boston Globe Sunday puzzles—the always-on-syndication-delay Across Lite versions, which were further delayed by litzer Nancy Shack's travels, are now posted. The ones you're looking for are June 22 through July 13. I haven't done these puzzles yet and probably will not retro-blog them.

In other puzzle news, bloggers Ryan and Brian are puttin' on a hootenanny! They call it Lollapuzzoola '08, it's a mini crossword tournament, and it'll be in Queens on August 23. Registration is $10, and there'll be puzzles by Mike Nothnagel and Doug Peterson. (Details here.)

Patrick Blindauer's New York Sun puzzle, "Movin' On Up," has 15 H's in it, and they're all stacked up to make a rickety ladder. (It wouldn't be as rickety if I'd solved the puzzle on paper and drawn really wide, tall H's.) 7-Down's clue is [Visual representation of an item associated with the answers to the asterisked clues in this puzzle]. This is sort of a rule-breaker, as that "visual representation" can't really pass as a word—but then, rebus puzzles sometimes break that same rule. That 15-H ladder goes with a TREEHOUSE ([Backyard club locale]), CROW'S / NEST ([With 59-Down, lookout's place]), and FIRE / TRUCK ([With 57-Down, red vehicle]). By now, you probably all know that Patrick enjoys finding inventive ways of playing with crosswords and adding a visual or spatial or diagonal layer to the grid—so here, he's done it again. I'm partial to the wide-open corners of the grid, packed with 6- and 7-letter fill. My favorite clues:

• [Chilling, so to speak] for RELAXED. Is "so to speak" the Sun's version of the NYT's "slangily"?
  
• [Steered vehicles?] for OXCARTS, which are steered by steer.
  
• [Hard wear?] for ARMOR.
  
• [Level spot?] for SHOP. This one took me the longest to understand—I believe it's the tool called a level, which may be found in the wood shop.
  

Joe Krozel's New York Times crossword also breaks a rule: It's got eight answers that are only 2 letters long, whereas the standard crossword convention is that all answers must be at least 3 letters long. The note in the title field on the NYT's applet is incomplete: It reads only "The two-letter answers are state postal abbreviations." In the Across Lite version, a longer note is provided (oddly, in the title bar in teeny print rather than in the Notepad) that provides the state nicknames for the eight abbreviated states included. These are as follows:

• Beaver State = OR at 62-Down
  
• Beehive State = UT at 56-Across
  
• Big Sky Country = MT at 20-Across
  
• Heart of Dixie = AL at 11-Down
  
• Pine Tree State = ME at 63-Down
  
• Show Me State = MO at 6-Down
  
• Sunflower State = KS at 47-Across
  
• Volunteer State = TN at 27-Across
  

So, is this a 16-letter theme, or a themeless puzzle with a state gimmick? The word count (72 entries) is low enough for themeless status, and I can't detect any sort of theme in the longer answers. Those longer answers are groovy, though—four pairs of stacked 15's framing the grid. That layout of long answers wouldn't work unless 2-letter answers were allowed; otherwise, they'd be triple-stacked 15s framing the grid, and that may well be impossible to pull off—though I'd love to see such a crossword! The long answers are:

• THREE MEN IN A BOAT, an [1889 Jerome K. Jerome comedy novel] I'm not familiar with.
  
• HORNS OF A DILEMMA are [Undesirable alternatives].
  
• CHOCOLATE MOUSSE is a [Dessert not for the calorie-conscious].
  
• HONORARY DEGREES are [Some awards for accomplishment].
  
• THUMBNAIL SKETCH is an [Outline].
  
• Dr. Seuss's HORTON HEARS A WHO is [Whence the line "A person's a person, no matter how small"].
  
• A MATTER OF COURSE is [Something customary]. Raise your hand if you mucked things up by discovering that PAR FOR THE COURSE would fit perfectly. (Thank you, Carlo PONTI who married Sophia Loren, for helping to rescue me.)
  
• TAKING LIBERTIES is one way of [Pushing beyond proper limits]. Does this crossword take liberties with the form?
  

Other clues and answers of note: [Bear, in old Rome] is URSUS; [Put into office: Var.] is ENSTATE; ["You mean me?"] is a faux-innocent "MOI?"; [Something with this is not neat] refers to ICE in a drink; [Beautiful woman of paradise] is an old word, HOURI; RRS or railroads are the [Purview of the I.C.C.]; [Swing alternative] is BEBOP music; [Superior canal locale] is in the INNER EAR; [Forward] is the awkward REMAIL; STILETTO is a [Heel style] I've never worn; a plant [Shoot in a swamp] is a REED.

Updated:

Wow, I really like the clues in Mike Peluso's LA Times crossword. The theme is SAWS at 69-Across—the six long theme entries begin with kinds of saws. There's no great phrase I can think of that starts with JIG (other than jigsaw puzzle, but that's got the saw right in it) or HACK (hack to bits is a tad violent), but Mike grouped these six saws together for his theme:

• BANDSTAND, or [Outdoor concert venue]
• BUZZ ALDRIN, or [Apollo 11 astronaut]
• COPING WITH, or [Handling]
• BACKSIDES, or [Posteriors]
• SABERTOOTH, or [Cenozoic big cat]
• HAND TOWELS, or [Kitchen driers]

My favorite clues were many: [Thicker on the page, maybe] for a BOLD font; [Animal, vegetable, and mineral] for NOUNS; [Cup's 48: Abbr.] for TSPS (teaspoons); [Incredulous dying words] for Caesar's ET TU; ["Aaay!" sayer of '70s-'80s TV] for the FONZ; and [It's neither here nor there] for LIMBO. A lotta theme, a lotta good clues, a solid puzzle.

Bob Klahn's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Cut and Paste," has a relatively blah quip: WALLPAPERING IS / EASY ONCE YOU / GET THE HANG OF IT. There were a couple things in the fill I simply didn't know. [Cat's-paw] is a SAP, with the term coming from a fable about a monkey who duped a cat and used the cat's paw to reach into the fire. I momentarily blanked on *ECKEL pears, the crossing for the first letter; they're Seckel pears. POTEEN is [Irish moonshine] and it's also spelled poitín. The crossings were fair, though.

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Links of interest

Via Nancy Friedman, I learned of the Survey of American Jewish Language. It'll take you about 10 minutes if you're not Jewish, 20 if you are (and get more detailed questions). The researchers are particularly keen on surveying more non-Jewish folks, so whether you are or aren't Jewish, go take the survey. What, you have something better to do? You're so busy? It won't kill you to take the survey.

I received an e-mail today from Blogged.com, whatever that is. Their tagline is "Find better blogs," and the site's editors assess blogs' "Frequency of Updates, Relevance of Content, Site Design, and Writing Style" in order to assign a score. Diary of a Crossword Fiend clocks in at 8.2, or "Great." Hey, I'll take it! Most of the blogs listed under the "crossword" tag aren't crossword commentary blogs at all. These are the other still-active daily crossword commentary blogs I'm aware of (most of them not yet rated, some not listed on that page at all):

• Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle—rated "Very Good," 7.8; discusses the New York Times crossword
  
• The Jim H Crossword Blog—discusses the New York Times crossword and integrates his NYT crossword database
  
• Ryan and Brian Do Xwords Blog—two guys discuss the New York Times crossword; they used to mention other puzzles too, but haven't lately; they also do a podcast, which I haven't heard (not much of a podcast person)
  
• Square Times—discusses the New York Times crossword
  
• The New York Times Crossword in Gothic— discusses the New York Times crossword
  
• Sun Blocks—discusses the New York Sun crossword
  
• Star Tribune Crossword Corner—discusses the Tribune Media Services crossword
  

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