BEQ 7:48
Onion 4:48
LAT 3:05
NYT 3:03
CS untimed
Allan Parrish's New York Times crossword
You know how it goes when you finish a puzzle without having any idea what unites the theme entries? Yeah, that was my story tonight. "Radial, dual, shower...pirate? No. Tire, exhaust—aha!—drain, flag. Synonyms!" The theme answers are all noun phrases that end with words that double as synonymous verbs:
• 17A. [Goodyear offering] is a RADIAL TIRE.
• 61A. [Blackbeard flew on] clues a PIRATE FLAG.
• 10D. [Feature of many muscle cars] is DUAL EXHAUST. Is it just me, or does the combo of RADIAL TIRE and DUAL EXHAUST bore you, too?
• 24D. The SHOWER DRAIN is [Where lost hair may accumulate]. Eww! Gross!
To purge that image, let us consider some other clues:
• 15A. Crosswordese alert! Old-school AMAH is an [Eastern domestic].
• 21A. The SUN is a [Weather map symbol] that does not get much use in the Midwest in November.
• 24A. SEMITE refers to an [Israeli or Palestinian] or, in fact, any Arab. Anti-Semitism is prejudice against Jews, not against Semites in general. I don't know why that is. See also 29D: ARAB, or [One with an "al-" in his name, often].
• 30A. [Pro- or con-] is a PREFIX. Were you thinking of debate sides?
• 54A. Mount EVEREST is the [Mountain previously named Peak XV]. Didn't know that.
• 13D. HOMEY is clued as [Warm and comfy], but the word always makes me think of Homey the Clown from In Living Color and his sock full of pennies. *Whap!*
• 25D. Maple TREE SAP is the [Syrup source]. Did you see the article in Tuesday's NYT about Chuck Schumer's goal of making New York State the world's leading producer of maple syrup? Hey, he may be a goofball, but I am in favor of anything that means more real maple syrup and maybe less of those maple-flavored corn syrup concoctions. (Edited to acknowledge that this answer, found in the center of the grid, is a fifth theme entry. Thanks, Alex!)
• 62D. ["M*A*S*H" extra]...uh-oh, is this going to be NURSE? Nope! It's a ROK, or Republic of Korea soldier.
Updated Wednesday morning
Donna S. Levin's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Swish!"—Janie's review
Late in April of '10 Broadway will welcome a revival of Promises, Promises a musicalization of the film The Apartment. Why do I bring this up? Because in the show, our hero learns that the object of his affection—a co-worker who is only politely aware of him—shares his affinity for basketball and he can barely contain himself when he makes this discovery. "She Likes Basketball" he sings with exuberance (and the "he" in the link is Jerry Orbach [father of constructor Tony] who garnered himself one of the show's two TONYS [Broadway honors] back in 1969).
Judging from today's puzzle theme, Donna likes basketball, too. Each of the four theme phrases contains a word that's part of the process of getting the ball from the players into the net. The base phrases are not related to the game, of course. That's the fun of it. What's nice, too, is that the point-making sequence is just right: dribble, pass, shoot and score. Regard:
• 20A. DRIBBLE GLASS [Classic gag gift]. Did you know this was invented by Søren Adam Sørensen a/k/a "Sam" Adams—who also gave us the joy buzzer? The words "laff riot" come to mind. Sorta...
• 28A. BOARDING PASS [Ticket to fly]. Not a literal ticket—although these days, with e-ticketing, I suppose it does double as a boarding pass sometimes. I tell ya, it's a new world out there.
• 43A. SHOOT THE MOON [Obtain the optimal result on a hand, in hearts]. That's the card game of hearts that Donna's referring to. This is the only example where the key word in the phrase is the same part of speech (a verb) as the basketball descriptor. And I can see where this was difficult to avoid. In BAMBOO SHOOT, for instance, shoot is a noun, but the phrase is one letter shy of its would-be puzzlemates, and unbalances the fill by having the basketball word at the end of the phrase. Far better is the solution we get in the puzzle with two phrases where it's the first word, two where it's the last. Such are the challenges that constructors are up against, however.
• 52A. EVEN THE SCORE [Get retribution].
I enjoyed solving this one not only for the theme fill, but because the cluing and non-theme fill made me think—and reflect. I recalled being in elementary school, in the library and having the school's librarian asking us third-graders if we knew what the oldest book in the world was. Because I knew only that it had been written in the century before the one we were living in and because I liked the high-spirited Jo March, I proffered Little Women... The patient librarian took all of our suggestions (I'm sure Aesop's Fables and Grimm's Fairy Tales were in there as well, though probably not anything by O'HENRY [Author known for his surprise endings]) and then let us down easy: THE BIBLE, which, it stands to reason is why it's also the [#1 best-selling book of all time].
How did you do with VENA CAVA [Cardiologist's concern]? I had to depend on the crosses to make this one happen and wasn't sure either whether [Tirana's country] was going to turn out to be ALBANIA (yes) or perhaps ALGERIA (not). I was familiar with the British "bangers and mash", so SAUSAGE for [Brit's banger] was not problematic.
If basketball isn't your thing, there's a lot in here for culture-vultures, too, including: author James AGEE, opera's SEVILLE-based barber, composer Gustav MAHLER, deco artist ERTÉ, choreographer AGNES de Mille. And have we seen John Paul STEVENS [Senior-most Justice of the Supreme Court] here at CS before? The Cruciverb database would say no. That was a nice change of pace.
Gareth Bain's Los Angeles Times crossword
(Post excerpted from my post at L.A. Crossword Confidential.)
I finished this puzzle with no idea what the theme was—I knew that 43D/EDSELS had something to do with it, but in Across Lite, long clues are truncated in the clue list and in teeny print above the puzzle so I hadn't read the complete clue: Named for a car model, group who sang the 1961 hit formed by the ends of 17-, 26-, 41- and 52-Across. Aha! The long Down answers, MACHINE GUN and ANGORA GOAT, are not involved in the theme. The puzzle seemed sort of weird, but when "RAMA LAMA DING DONG" popped out, I was delighted.
Theme answers:
• 17A: [360-degree artwork] (CYCLORAMA). This term is not at all familiar to me. The Wikipedia article is informative, and covers Bulgaria, the Netherlands, the U.S. Civil War, and...Disney's EPCOT Center.
• 26A: [Former resident of Lhasa's Potala Palace] (DALAI LAMA).
• 41A: [Wildly exciting, in slang] (RING-A-DING). This...is not the sort of slang I use.
• 52A: [Long-time Chinese leader] (MAO ZEDONG). The Mao Tse-tung spelling fits neither the space in the grid nor the theme's spelling requirements.
• 43D: [Named for a car model, group who sang the 1961 hit formed by the ends of 17-, 26-, 41- and 52-Across] (EDSELS).
OMOO meets OMAHA! How's that for (o)omph? For the grid's highlights, an EDSELS video, and a little Chaka Khan, click over to L.A. Crossword Confidential.
Brendan Quigley's Onion A.V. Club crossword
Did you get the theme right away? I didn't. "Are crowns, kimonos, and Trojans or princes, houses, and horses part of LIFESTYLES OF THE RICH AND FAMOUS?" I wondered. Eventually TROJAN and LIFESTYLES suggested condom brands, and I Googled crown kimono to see if the Google hits were condom-related. Indeed they were. I've never seen Crown or Kimono condoms. This is not your father's crossword theme, but it might include his old brand of condoms. The theme:
• 18A. CROWN PRINCE is the [Heir apparent].
• 30A. [1974 cult classic album by Sparks] is KIMONO MY HOUSE. Don't know the album or the artist.
• 35A/44A. The [original title of a Robin Leach series] is LIFESTYLES OF THE RICH AND FAMOUS.
• 57A. TROJAN HORSE is a [Destructive computer virus] as well as the ancient Greek ruse.
Answers and clues least likely to be seen in a daily newspaper's crossword:
• 1D. "I SUCK" is a [Perennial loser's comment].
• 49D. [Device that might work to your satisfaction] is a SEX TOY.
• 66A. [Certain hydroponic plant, slangily] is WEED.
• 54D. [One of Marlo's henchmen on "The Wire"] is named SNOOP.
Boring entries with more interesting clues than usual:
• 6D. EGO is clued with [Robbie Williams' "The ___ Has Landed"].
• 9D. INRI is clued as [Literally, "King of the Jews"] rather than the usual [Cross letters].
Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Looks Good Enough To Eat"
The theme is a quip from Arnold SCHWARZENEGGER: "I LOVE THANKSGIVING / TURKEY. IT'S / THE ONLY / TIME IN LOS / ANGELES THAT YOU / SEE NATURAL BREASTS." That's not technically true—the amount of breast meat on a typical factory-farmed turkey sold in grocery stores is hardly a natural development.
This 17x17 puzzle took me as long as a typical 21x21 Sunday puzzle. Where did the challenge arise? (1) The quote isn't crossed by a bunch of answers with easy clues, it's crossed by BEQesque fill with BEQesque clues. (2) The quote's broken into chunks that don't parse as natural units of meaning. "Turkey it's"? "Time in Los"? (3) Pop culture clues for things I didn't always know—Jet lead singer NIC Cester, a Mad Men character, Blackalicious's debut album NIA?
Minus 5 points for including CURED in the grid when the terrific THE CURE is already there. An easy fix: changing 82D ESC to ESL crossing LURED. Here's the "Friday I'm In Love" video if you're in a Cure mood.
November 24, 2009
Wednesday, 11/25/09
November 10, 2009
Wednesday, 11/11/09
Onion 5:18
BEQ 5:05
NYT 3:21
LAT 3:07
CS untimed
My son will be home with me tomorrow—Veterans Day. Thanks to war veterans old and new for their service. I wish you all peace.
Kelsey Blakley compiles a set of phrases that contain four different letters, which are used ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR times apiece:
• 17A. [User of barley malt] is a BEER BREWER. One W, two Bs, three Rs, four Es.
• 30A. [Emphatic boast of responsibility] clues I DID INDEED. I dunno, feels more like a boast of accomplishment than responsibility.
• 46A. [One way to be armed] is TO THE TEETH.
• 64A. This jingle/slogan meant nothing to me, but the crossings told me ROTO-ROOTER is the ["And away go troubles..." company].
My solving experience was par for the Wednesday course, judging by my solving time, but it felt a little rougher. Here are...let's call it ten. Ten clues:
• 15A. [McGwire's friendly home-run rival] is Sammy SOSA. Have you seen the latest pictures in which his "rejuvenated" skin looks freakishly pale?
• 19A. [Stick in the mud] is the verb MIRE.
• 37A. A street GANG is a [Turf group].
• 38A. [Slo-___ fuse] clues BLO. I can think only of Rainblo gumballs.
• 51A. Never heard of this ORB, the [Marvel Comics villain with an eyeball-like helmet].
• 68A. NORMS? [They're par for the course].
• 9D. [Unbending] clues HARD-LINE. Are you HARD-LINE when it comes to crossword puzzle quality?
• 'Tis the season. 26A: ["Punkin" cover] is FROST and 47D: [Like a jack-o'-lantern] is HOLLOW.
• 32D. [Key shade] is vowel-consonant-O-consonant-Y. EBONY this time; could be IVORY.
Allan Parrish's Los Angeles Times crossword
This theme falls squarely out of my wheelhouse. I listened to top-40 radio in high school (early '80s with an emphasis on new wave) and then went to college, land of R.E.M. and Violent Femmes and college bands. By graduation in '88, I was completely out of touch with the poppiest pop music. So a theme with the titles of one rap cut from 2002 and two pop songs from 1989? Crossings! Easy crossings. The theme:
• 20A. [2002 #1 hit for rapper Ja Rule] is ALWAYS ON TIME.
• 36A. [1989 #1 hit for Paula Abdul] is FOREVER YOUR GIRL.
• 56A. [1989 #1 hit for the Bangles] is ETERNAL FLAME.
I'd never heard of any of these songs, so I took a gander at them on YouTube. I discovered 20A is laced with profanity and not a very feminist cut at all. 36A was poppy with a too-long instrumental portion near the beginning (dance! keep dancing!) and not my style. The only Bangles song I know is...wait, am I thinking of Katrina & the Waves? "Walk Like an Egyptian" is Bangles, "Walking on Sunshine" is Katrina. Yes? The live performance of 56A I watched on YouTube suggests I like the Bangles OK, but I really do not know their oeuvre.
I'm sorry, nobody asked about my musical history. Anyway—I liked a lot of the fill in this puzzle. Check out L.A. Crossword Confidential Wednesday morning for more details.
Ben Tausig's Onion A.V. Club crossword
Either this puzzle's a notch or two harder than usual or I'm a notch sleepier. The nuptial theme celebrates Ben's upcoming (this very weekend!) wedding. 17A/58A BREAKING / THE GLASS is clued as [a Jewish wedding tradition...and the theme of this puzzle]. The three longest answers have a broken GLASS interspersed among their letters.
The toughest spots for me were 7D: [Spanish province]/SEGIA (never heard of it) and 29A: [Sport spun off from James Naismith's game]/NETBALL (never heard of it). The dictionary entry tells me netball is a mostly British game with seven-player teams and a requirement to stand still when in possession of the ball. That must be weird for a basketball fan to watch. Also, down at 43D: ["Orlando Furioso" poet] is ARIOSTO. Why did I need all seven crossings?
Favorite five:
• ESTELLE Getty [was actually a year younger than Bea, despite playing her mother on TV]'s Golden Girls.
• [Oft-knocked-off thing] is a HANDBAG. That's "knocked off" in terms of being counterfeited.
• [Emulates the chicken] clues CROSSES, as in "Why did the chicken cross the road?"
• BABYGAP is a [Clothing store with models who weigh A LOT less than Ralph Lauren's]. Ha!
• LOCA is the [Word rhymed with "mocha," in a 1999 Ricky Martin hit]. I may have stopped listening to most pop music a decade before "La Vida Loca," but some songs are simply inescapable.
Updated Wednesday morning:
Sarah Keller's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Proudly They Served"—Janie's review
Perhaps not at first glance, but this is a really lovely puzzle. Not only does it pay Veteran's Day tribute to four U.S. presidents who (as younger men) served in the armed forces during wartime, but the grid is clued in a lively manner that boosts its "oomph." See if you don't agree. The theme fill is pretty straightforward—although you do have to use some "process of elimination" thinking (and/or the crosses...) to zero in on the correct fill. All of the clues name a "war" veteran and end with the phrase [...who served as a U.S president]. In case you didn't know:
• 20A. [World War II veteran...] LYNDON JOHNSON. Also Ike, JFK, Nixon, Ford, GWH Bush. Carter was still at Annapolis; Reagan served in the military but his eyesight kept him from active duty (and full "veteran" status)... Here's the skinny.
• 28A. [World War I veteran...] HARRY TRUMAN (the only U.S. president with that distinction, btw).
• 46A. [Revolutionary War veteran...] JAMES MONROE (ditto Andrew Jackson and some guy named George Washington...). There's a bonus with this war and its heroes by way of [American Revolutionary soldier Nathan] HALE, he of "I regret that I have but one life to lose for my country" fame. Do they make 'em like that any more?
• 57A. [Civil War veteran...] CHESTER ARTHUR (likewise Andrew Johnson, Ulysses Grant, Rutherford Hayes, James Garfield, Benjamin Harrison and William McKinley).
In addition to this little history lesson, we get a lotta lively clues and clue/fill combos to keep things peppy. There's:
• [To-do] for FLAP;
• [Do to do] for OCTAVE—so here, do is pronounced "doe," as in "...a deer, a female deer...";
• ["Zip-] A-DEE [-Doo-Dah"]. An example of do to do in "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah": that first "Zip-" is do and the final "Doo-" is the do that's an octave higher;
• [Usher's creator] for POE. As in the short story from 1839, "The Fall of the House of Usher" and not Usher the entertainer... Never read the story? Want to re-read it? Here'a a link. (Public domain and the internet. A heady combination, no?);
• [Zaire's Mobutu] SESE [Seko], a bad leader with a great crossword puzzle name whose regime had the dubious distinction of being synonymous with the concept of kleptocracy;
• ["Dagnabbit!] for "NERTS!";
• [It's good to make them meet] for ENDS;
• [Not a cutting edge blade?] for EPEE; and my fave
• [It's more in an adage] for LESS, as in architect Mies van der Rohe's minimalist observation: "Less is more."
I only wish the long but clinical INANIMATE and GERMICIDE, clued as [Lifeless] and [Disinfectant] respectively could have been given the same clever treatment as these shorter entries; ditto KNEECAP [Triangular leg bone]. Better is ARMOIRE with the visual [Where shirts and ties may be kept] or the active [Dangled a carrot in front of] for TEMPTED.
As for not only our leaders, but all of our men and women who have served in the armed forces and seen active duty—our most profound respect and appreciation is yours. And not only on Veterans Day.
Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Themeless Wednesday"
All right, I gotta feed my kid breakfast and oversee some homework, so let me head straight to the list of favorites.
Favorite word: TRENCHANT, or [Sharp-edged]. I need to use this word more often.
Favorite clue: [People mover?] for a NEWSSTAND that moves a lot of issues of People.
Favorite fill: MAO JACKET atop AQUA VELVA, goofy YACHT ROCK, KLIBAN the ["Cat" cartoonist].
Other clues I liked: [Thelonious Monk supporter] is his PIANO STOOL. Gloria STEINEM is the [Feminist who wrote "Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions]. [Mythical realm on one end of the rainbow bridge Bifrost] is ASGARD; I don't know a ton of Norse mythology but it's so appealing.
August 10, 2009
Tuesday, 8/11
Jonesin' 3:52
LAT 3:25
NYT 3:08 (if you can't access the Across Lite version, you can solve online via applet but can't print from there)
CS 6:17 (J—paper)
Oliver Hill's New York Times crossword
There's a lot I like in this puzzle and a couple things that made me go all frowny. I don't like it when crosswords make me go all frowny. First the theme, then the good stuff, then the frownogenic stuff. The theme is FRENCH (52-Down) things at the beginning of the four longest answers:
The good stuff includes SO SUE ME (the snide ["Well, sorr-r-r-y!"]); the [Source of an oil used in aromatherapy], TEA TREE*; crazy CRIBBAGE, clued mystifyingly as a [Game to 31]; LET SLIP, or [Blurt out, say]; TOP DOG, or [Head honcho]; and SCOTSMAN, or [Tartan wearer]. On Saturday, I got together with Jenni, whom I met via crosswords, when she was in town for a conference. A crazy old man in a tartan kilt and tam was striding briskly around Millennium Park, approaching people and saluting. Is random saluting a Scottish thing?
The frownogenic stuff began with AGRIN. Or A-GRIN? It's clued as [Beaming] but...is this a word? Wikipedia says it is: "Agrin is a large proteoglycan whose best characterised role is in the development of the neuromuscular junction during embryogenesis." There is an unspoken limit of using only one of the OTO/OTOE/UTE category per puzzle, and this one's got both OTO/[Oklahoma Indian] and UTES/[Salt Lake City team]. I know from crosswords that [Crow cousins] are DAWS, but that seems a tad crosswordesey for a Tuesday puzzle; the crossings, at least, are straightforward. As for the [Letter before gee], Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary backs up what a constructor friend once told me: the letter name is ef, not EFF. EFF is the euphemistic substitute for fuck, as in "eff off."
*Public service announcement: If you get pimples and your skin is too old to tolerate the drying of benzoyl peroxide or salicylic acid, try Desert Essence's Tea Tree Oil Blemish Touch Stick. It's a little roll-on with a pleasant enough herbal aroma, and you can find it at Whole Foods or Amazon. It's handy for bug bites and other minor skin irritations, too. Stings like hell on irritated skin, so try not to pick at things before applying it.
Updated Tuesday morning:
Paula Gamache's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Sneak Attack"—Janie's review
This is one cunning creation indeed. There are only three theme-phrases, but each one is a double-header. Beginning with a synonym for "sneak" (in the adjectival sense of "surprise"), this word combines with a noun to make a whimsical, if not a quite in-the-language, "new phrase." Then, if you keep only the first syllable of the adjective and combine it with that same noun, you get an honest-to-goodness in-the-language phrase. "Two! Two! Two fills in one!" And they are:
The triple 6-columns in the NW and SE ain't too shabby neither. They BEEF UP those corners quite nicely, thank you. I'm especially partial to [Bring into harmony] for ATTUNE up there in the NW. It's the perfect complement to F-HOLE [Violin feature] in the SW. I also like seeing ADDLED clued as [In a fog] and TORSOS as [Bodies of art?] in the SE. If the NEEDLE on my applause meter were accurate, I could find out how you felt about these entries as well.
CHARISMA contributes to the lively feel of the fill and so do the colloquial phrases I'LL PAY and NO TIPS. From the Old Testament, we have not only ARARAT, a [Genesis peak], but also PLAGUE, a [Biblical torment]. You might want to check out Exodus for that...
A [Pound piece] is not a unit of currency, but a POEM. So's Ernest Thayer's "Casey at the Bat." The town where the slugger earned his immortality (while suffering his great humiliation) was MUDVILLE. If he was not destined to become an AL'ER, I still like to think that the "mighty Casey" recovered himself and later took the "Mudville nine" to unrecounted heights.
Allan Parrish's Los Angeles Times crossword
The theme entries end with theatrical things: a CAST acts out a PLAY on a SET constructed on the STAGE.
For more on this puzzle, check out PuzzleGirl's L.A. Crossword Confidential post. The first two commenters over there grumbled that the clue for SQUEEZE PLAY includes the word "play": [Baseball play that may be "suicide"]. Sports fans and cluing experts, is there a synonym for "baseball play" that doesn't include "play"? How would you get around this duplication?
The theme is on the subtle/nonobvious side, isn't it? I first pondered whether the first words of SQUEEZE PLAY, CRYSTAL SET ([Homemade radio] from back in the day), PLASTER CAST ([Common autograph site]), and FINAL STAGE ([Last part]) were the theme stars, but no. Hey, is FINAL STAGE a discrete "thing"?
Two crosswordese birds fly around the grid—SMEWS are [Diving ducks] and ERNS are [Seashore fliers]. KEYE is [Actor ___ Luke who played Chan's Number One Son in old films], and I needed all four crossings for that one. Is it just me, or is this whole enterprise distinctly Wednesday/Thursdayish by LAT standards?
Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword, "No Ham for Me, Thanks"
These kosher theme entries have had their HAM deleted:
I could do without the ICE duplication between ICED OVER and ICEMAN, but it is a steamy August and maybe Matt made this puzzle a week or two ago when it was 105° in Portland. (There's also the English/German duplication of ENE, or east-northeast, and OST, "east" in German, clued as [Leipzig-to-Dusseldorf direction]—but I like the trickiness of a 3-letter answer to a direction clue that isn't in the SSE/ENE/NNW family.)
I didn't know O FORTUNA, the [Section of "Carmina Burana" used in "battle to the death" movie trailers]. "O, for tuna." Is this an ode to tuna fish? Lots of nice fill in this puzzle—something like 23 of the non-theme entries are 6+ letters long, and two corners have satiny smooth stacks of 7- and 8-letter answers.
July 26, 2009
Monday, 7/27
BEQ 5:03
NYT 3:34
LAT 2:35
CS 7:09 (J—paper)
Warm thanks to Dean Olsher for filling in on the Sunday puzzles. I like Dean's writing (have you read From Square One? It's unlike any other crossword nonfiction book you've read—thoughtful divagations plus interviews plus memoir, all in all an engaging read) and his turn here at Crossword Fiend was funny.
Over at his own blog, Dean wants to hear about your favorite crossword clues now. Go pay him a visit and tell him why you love that particular clue.
Here's what I did instead of blogging yesterday: I went on a Wendella boat tour up the Chicago River and out through the locks into Lake Michigan on a perfect afternoon, the warm July sun and cool lake breeze hitting the sweet spot. Then the local relatives, out-of-town relatives, my son, and I walked up the Magnificent Mile to the Hancock building. We spent three hours on the observation level, the 94th floor, enjoying the views as the sun dropped lower in the sky. The sun did one of those West Coast/oceanside things, a red ball dipping below the horizon. The city lights twinkle after dark, and usually I get to see that for only as long as it takes a jet to descend to the tarmac. And then! Yesterday was Chicago's annual Venetian Night, when a parade of lighted boats heads across a stretch of Lake Michigan before the fireworks show. Have you seen fireworks from above? It's cool.
Allan Parrish's New York Times crossword
Hey! Spoiler in the byline! That's kinda funny, that Allan Parrish made a PERISH/PARRISH/PARISH theme. It took me a Wednesday amount of time to piece this puzzle together, as my clue reading comprehension plummeted. The [Highly collectible illustrator] MAXFIELD PARRISH is familiar to me only from crossworder Nancy Shack's tale of recognizing a Parrish picture that had been donated to a white elephant shop; the hospital sold it outside of the shop for thousands of dollars. Alas, in my head, the clue was looking for a kind of illustration that's highly collectible, or the collector herself. See? Not reading properly. I skipped right past the [College professor's mantra] so I ended up getting PUBLISH OR PERISH after MAXFIELD. And [Lafayette or Orleans] is a LOUISIANA PARISH, or county, but I blanked on needing anything other than a 6-letter word for "city." I did a little better reading the non-theme clues, but sheesh. My first thought for [One of the Wise Men] was NESTOR from Greek mythology rather than the Biblical CASPAR, whom I wanted to be GASPAR.
Things that seemed to be supra-Monday to me:
Updated Monday morning:
Patrick Jordan's CrosSynergy/Washington Post Puzzle, "Seating for Eating"—Janie's review
At the CAFÉS [Informal restaurants] you frequent (bonus-fill), what's your seating preference? At a table? In a booth? On a stool at the counter? You can't fully appreciate it in this picture, but NYC's Café Edison a/k/a the Polish Tea Room, offers you all three. Come on down to West 47th Street and give it a try! If you're not in the area, you can appreciate your options as Patrick presents them in today's theme fill:
If the Cruciverb Database is correct, today is the ninth time stool pigeon has appeared in a mainstream-newspaper puzzle. And the fifth time in connection with a "seating" theme—but a first for a CS theme. EVEN SO, there was nothing OLD HAT about the solving experience. There's fine fill in CS first-timer HELIPORT, the ominous MIASMAS [Foreboding atmospheres], MÉNAGE [Household to Henri] , and the shout out to IRON MAN [2008 Robert Downey Jr. hit] (a movie I had great fun watching). JOINING UP is now joining databases. Let's hear a "RAH!" [Quaint cheer].
Ramblings:
Oh—and I'll take a booth, please!
Updated Monday afternoon:
Samuel Donaldson's Los Angeles Times crossword
I slept too late to do the puzzles this morning, and went straight from taking my kid to day camp, to seeing one of those 69A: [Salon colorists] (DYERS), to snarfing down a quick lunch and heading to the gym. TCB! That's 25A: [Getting the job done, briefly], or "taking care of business." More B remains to be T C of, so I'd best be quick with the blogging.
The theme goes halfsies, dropping by half with each step:
Highlights beyond the theme: (1) Down at 46-Down, CATNAP is clued as [Forty winks]. Half of forty, of course, is twenty, where today's theme began. (2) Compound words and phrases in the grid include DOG FOOD, the SLOW LANE, the OPEN SEA, EYELASH, and "ETC., ETC." They liven things up, don't they? On the "meh" side, it felt like there were a lot of partials (A SLIP, IN A, ERE I) and clunky abbrevs/plurals (APBS, OOFS, NEGS, ONS).
Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Themeless Monday"
The last word I filled in was 38D. [It'll keep you up] is not, I don't think, a medically sound clue for APNEA. The clue probably works fine for anyone who isn't, say, a doctor or medical editor who's familiar with sleep medicine. Grr. The crossings were nutty, too: CAMASH? A [Lily plant with edible bulbs]? Never heard of it. [1968 Turtles hit] ELENORE?
Loved CHILLAX, which is clued as [Calm down], but my friends and I use it more along the lines of "What are you doing this weekend?" "Oh, just chillaxing."
Loved the up-to-the-minute clue for White Sox pitcher MARK BUEHRLE, who threw a perfect game last Thursday. I'm not a Sox fan, and this morning by son told me he'd dreamt that a baboon was attacking him because he was a Cubs fan while the baboon liked the Sox. But there were other non-attacking baboons who were Cubs fans.
Loved GHIRARDELLI chocolate. Oh, I can spell that all right. And I can eat it. Num.
Loved TIME SINK—[Overly engaging websites with little value, say] are collectively a huge TIME SINK. You ever lose an hour of your day looking at LOLcats or Go Fug Yourself? Yeah. I'm not sure if Facebook counts as a TIME SINK. Does social networking have more than "little value"?
I like Brendan's Themeless Monday puzzles. They always seem to be labeled "hard," but often take me less time than the "medium" themed puzzles. I do so enjoy a good themeless crossword.
March 30, 2009
Tuesday, 3/31
Jonesin' 4:28
CS 3:16
NYT 2:43
LAT 2:41
Allan Parrish's New York Times crossword
Parrish's puzzle features an anagram theme—the four theme answers begin or end with anagrams of BAER. Hey, if this crossword had a title, it could be "Baer on the Ropes." The theme entries are:
There's a ton of good fill here. DId you notice that? The SOLE of your shoe leaves the next answer, a SCUFF. SASHAYS, or [Steps nonchalantly], bounces off IMPETUS ([Driving force]) and BOREDOM ([Yawn inducer]). Nobody wants to eat the DREGS ([Bottom-of-the-barrel stuff]) of the RIGATONI ([Tubular pasta]). Yes, indeed, I have a PENCHANT ([Strong liking]) for these answers.
If you're newer to crosswords, here are some answers that you'll see again and again:
Take a minute to commit these to memory, and I promise you, it'll pay dividends. Not cash dividends, mind you, but crossword-answering dividends.
Updated Tuesday morning:
Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword, "Go Digital: Turning over a new page in technology"
Isn't a Thursdayish gimmick puzzle a welcome sight this early in the week? Matt's puzzle ends the clues for the theme entries with the phrase "after the digital conversion?" and that "turning over" in the title's blurb is key to interpreting that. You take the number in the answer and turn the digits upside down—and then spell out the number in the grid. The longest answer, 17- and 52-Across, is SIXTY-SIX BOTTLES / OF BEER ON THE WALL (that [song for long road trips, after the digital conversion?]); 66 is 99 upside down. Here are the other theme entries:
Matt packs 71 theme squares into this puzzle, which is an awful lot. That's facilitated by the inclusion of fill that works for the alt-weekly audience but would cause grumbling in an older newspaper crowd. WASD is clued [Letter presets used in place of arrows in keyboard-based computer games]; the W, A, S, and D keys can be accessed easily by the left hand and are in the same basic layout as my keyboard's four arrow keys. (I pieced the answer together with the crossings and didn't understand it until I looked at my keyboard.) ROLLA is clued as [Rockn ___ (2008 U.K. movie)]; it's also a college town in Missouri. Jack Black's [Tenacious D bandmate Kyle] GASS and [Grateful Dead bass guitarist Phil] LESH have 4-letter last names that are tough to clue any other way. Reality TV accounts for MIRNA, [Charla's taller racing partner, on "The Amazing Race: All-Stars"]; Charla's a little person and Mirna is her cousin. AIBOS are those [Sony robotic pets], robo-dogs. GOT BUSY means [Started in on lovemaking]. And ASSY is ["___ McGee" (2006 animated series about a detective with no head, torso or arms]. These not-ready-for-NYT answers are joined by more standard crosswordese like OONA, ERLE, ILIE, ALAI, and ETO. There's also a rather (to me) obscure answer, IBLIS—[Satan's equivalent, in Islam]. I am considerably more familiar with DIG'EM, the frog [Mascot of Kellogg's Honey Smacks].
Steve Dobis's Los Angeles Times crossword
I suspect this is Steve Dobis's newspaper crossword debut. Congrats!
The theme was laying itself out nicely from top to bottom, with phrases starting with assorted male terms of nobility. That doesn't sound so fancy, but then the theme's tied together by THE KINGSMEN, ["Louie Louie" singers, and this puzzle's theme]. Nice touch, eh? The king's men are:
Highlights in the fill:
I'm having trouble making the clue for 1-Down work. AS FACT is clued as [To be the truth]. Let's see..."I take your story to be the truth" = "I take your story as fact"? It feels a little clunky, but its neighbors, VOODOO and EXODUS, rock.
For more on this puzzle, don't miss PuzzleGirl's post at L.A. Crossword Confidential.
Randy Ross's CrosSynergy puzzle, "What's in Your Wallet?"
The theme is money, money, money. Actually, there are six words for money at the end of the theme answers:
This is one of those rare themes in which the answers would make great entries in a themeless crossword. And they all end with slang terms for money? Well done. The theme would've been less fun with, say, ROEBUCKS, GAS BILLS, and PETTY CASH—the phrases Randy Ross chose are much livelier.
November 12, 2008
Thursday, 11/13
LAT 5:23
Sun 5:20
NYT 5:06
CS 3:31
(updated at 9 a.m. Thursday)
While solving Allan Parrish's New York Times crossword, inside my head I exclaimed "Dude!" several times, aimed at both the constructor and Will Shortz. There's SPERM in its non-cetacean, fully spermatozoic sense, clued as [Kind of bank]. And then JOHN is [One caught in a police sting] in the act of hiring a prostitute. ["Hogan's Heroes" figure] is a sitcom NAZI. What the heck—if you're going to go there, why not change ON AN into one word, Onan, and reference "seed-spilling"? Break as many crossword-fill taboos as you can in a single puzzle, eh?
The three theme answers are clued [See circled letters], and there are three circles containing an X. The first theme entry is TIC-TAC-TOE WINNER...but those circled X's aren't in a row! You lose. XXX is a [Poison warning], but a bottle of moonshine that falls short of being classified as poison may also be labeled XXX. The final XXX is not hardcore porn, as you might have suspected based on the transgressive fill, but THIRTY IN OLD ROME.
There's a wealth of good fill in this crossword. From the Acrosses, I like MCLEAN, the [Virginia locale where the C.I.A. is headquartered], for its mashup of consonants, and SPLISH, a [Sound in a Bobby Darin song title] ("Splish Splash"). Most of the cool stuff's in the Downs: CINNAMON [Gum choice]; the UNDERDOG who's the [Victor of an upset]; the DEAR SIR that [may follow a name and address] (though really, is anyone still writing the gender-specific "Dear Sir" these days?); PAMPHLET, or [Flier], which I wanted to be ELEPHANT based on the PH and T but very few elephants fly; and the vowelless RHYTHM, or [Cadence]. I do like the wide-open corners filled with 6's, 7's, and 8's.
Tough clues: [Round person?] is someone who fights a bout measured in rounds, a BOXER. The last name of [Richard ___, director of "Help!" and "A Hard Day's Night"] is LESTER; this name wasn't remotely familiar to me. I was caught off guard by [P.M. known as the Iron Lady] being too short to be Margaret Thatcher; Golda MEIR was just one of a group of women leaders the term has been applied to. This next clue wasn't hard; it was just surprising to see EMOTES clued as [Conveys feelings] instead of [Overacts]. Yay! EMOTES gets to branch out.
Frederick Healy's "Themeless Thursday" Sun crossword has 66 words, and plenty of 'em are colorful:
Favorite clues: [Extraneous statistics] for NOISE; [Boomer born in 1961] for Boomer ESIASON, not a generic Baby Boomer; and [Sieben seventh] for EINS (eins is German for "one," and one is one seventh of SIEBEN, or "seven").
Updated:
Dan Naddor's LA Times crossword is not the usual Thursday fare. First off, it's got a themeless-style grid—just 68 answers, 26 of them 7 letters or longer. Next, it's got plenty of Friday- or Saturday-tough clues. And then there's the big dollar sign drawn by the black squares in the grid. There are four long starred theme answers and a defining answer, though, to moor this puzzle firmly in the weekday themed puzzle harbor. The theme entries all begin with words that can precede DOLLAR (46-Down):
Here are some clues that slowed me down:
Randall Hartman's CrosSynergy crossword, "Bundle of Joy," gets its title from the theme entries, which start with JO and end with Y, making each one a bundle with joy on the outside:
Favorite clues:
Including two 10-letter movie titles in the fill is a nice touch. We've got REAR WINDOW and MY FAIR LADY.
October 27, 2008
Tuesday, 10/28
Sun 3:55
CS 3:15
NYT 3:06
LAT 2:54
(updated at 9:20 a.m. Tuesday)
Allan Parrish's New York Times crossword sports a retro theme of DANCING in the '60s. Well, I didn't make it to kindergarten until the '70s, so '60s dance crazes are not my strong suit. Here are the theme entries:
This theme is custom-made for those of you who are, say, 50 to 65 years old. The northeast and southwest corners of the puzzle are custom-made for fans of wide-open grids, with triple-stacked 9-letter answers. My favorites there are TOM SNYDER, who was ["The Tomorrow Show" host] some years back, and a TOTEM POLE, or [Indian carving]. Yesterday, I wrote that ET TU was sometimes clued as [Rebuke from Caesar], and sure enough, today it's here as [Caesarean rebuke]. Other crossword regulars that newer solvers should store away in the memory banks:
The Sun puzzle by Tony Orbach has one of those themes that I paid no mind to while solving. I surmise that it's called "Making Out" because each theme entry begins with a way of making an out in baseball. There are six ways? The phrases are mostly lively, and I like their clues:
My favorite answer in the fill: that [Hershey's product] called the KIT-KAT. Solvers outside the U.S. may know it as a Nestlé candy bar. I bought a bag of 55 snack-size Kit-Kats for my kid's school Halloween party a couple weeks ago. There are only 18 left. We're fond of Kit-Kats around here.
Updated:
Janet Bender's LA Times crossword features a simple theme: two-word phrases with T.T. initials. "So what?" you ask. Well, all five phrases come from the world of sports, so phrases like taste test, Tommy Tune, tuna tartare, and Tiny Toons don't make the team. A [Race against the clock] in cycling (if not other sports) is a TIME TRIAL. TABLE TENNIS has been an [Olympic sport since 1988]. The TENNESSEE TITANS [were the Oilers before 1999]. They played in the Monday Night Football matchup last night, and I was quite taken by their baby blue uniforms. [Hall of Fame pitcher Seaver's nickname] is TOM TERRIFIC. TRASH TALK is a [Taunting exchange during the game]. Other sports-related content in the puzzle includes IVIED, [Like Wrigley Field's walls]—once again lying dormant in October. The INDY 500 is a [Big May race, familiarly]. And Sean PENN could have been clued as PENN State, whose football team is doing well this season.
Patrick Blindauer recently had an NYT puzzle with ANTs on the march in the shortish theme entries. Today, his CrosSynergy crossword, "Moving Violation," offers another version of this theme. This time, it's a SIN (clued as [Violation, and word that "moves" within the six starred clues]) that moves one letter back with each step. It's at the beginning of the first 8-letter entry, SINISTER, and makes its way to the end of the sixth 8-letter answer:
SINISTER means [Ominous].
TSINGTAO is a [Popular Chinese beer brand]
ELSINORE is the ["Hamlet" setting].
BASSINET is a [Baby's bed].
DEPOSING is [Writing one's sworn testimony].
ASSASSIN is [One with a contract, say].
From the non-theme fill, here are my favorite clues: ARSENIC is clued as [One of two elements that ends with the letter C]. I love this sort of clue—can you name the other element? [Classical gas?] clues not music but an old gas company, ESSO. [Short pants] are GASPS and not something like knickers or capris. [It may come out of the closet] refers to LINEN. [Sources of world views?] are GLOBES.
September 29, 2008
Tuesday, 9/30
Tausig 5:43
Onion 4:40
NYS 3:50
CS 3:12
NYT 2:45
LAT 2:45
(updated at 9:15 p.m. Tuesday)
The big news in the crossword biz is that the New York Sun is ceasing publication after tomorrow. So the Tuesday Sun puzzle will be the last published under that paper's auspices. The good news is that Peter Gordon had already accepted about 5½ months' worth of crosswords, and we'll be able to access them for a nominal fee. Stay tuned for details about where to get the crosswords and how to pay your pittance for the privilege. I'll continue blogging about the puzzles.
I forgot to notice the theme in Allan Parrish's New York Times puzzle until after I finished it. The theme is diner seating options, the counter, a booth, or a table:
Me, I like a booth. I also like how much longer fill there is in this puzzle—with just three theme answers, there's space for interesting stuff outside the theme. HYDE PARK is, among other things, [Franklin D. Roosevelt's birthplace]. AMARETTO is that [Almond-flavored liqueur] that comes to mind whenever I see the word amoretto. The upper left and lower right corners of the grid are pretty wide-open, with those theme entries intersecting a trio of 6's and a 9-letter answer. I'd say more, but I'm watching Heroes and it's awfully distracting.
Matt Ginsberg's New York Sun swan song is called "Eight Is Enough" because the answers in it contain only eight of the 26 letters, those in the word notaries. (These letters are sometimes held to be the most commonly used in the English language.) The theme is explained in the clue for 15-Across, NINE, or [One more than the number of different letters in this puzzle]. Well, the fill isn't at all Scrabbly, that's for sure. Working by hand, I imagine this puzzle would be mighty challenging to construct—but Matt has some sort of intricate database of crossword entries, and I would guess he had a computer do much of the heavy lifting. Matt, would you care to tell us how it played out?
Updated:
Once I figured out the theme in Jennifer Nutt's LA Times crossword, I really liked it—it evokes a LONG WEEKEND. Mind you, the clue for that entry spells out the theme clearly, but in an easy puzzle, I don't always read every clue, especially a long one: [Break suggested by the first three letters of 18-, 23-, 51- and 57-Across]. Those four answers are:
There's one clue that has become factually inaccurate in recent days. Is WAMU still a [BofA competitor]? Poor WaMu.
Bruce Venzke and Stella Daily's CrosSynergy crossword, "Talking a Good Game," centers on an "observation": AFTER ALL IS SAID / AND DONE, A LOT MORE / IS SAID THAN DONE. True enough, that. I rather like the entry GOES BOOM, clued as [Explodes, to a kid]. I also like the potato pair: a COUCH is a [Place for a potato?], while IDAHO is a [Place for potatoes?] in the plural.
Updated again:
Byron Walden's Onion A.V. Club crossword for this week is horribly rude (...not that there's anything so wrong with that), as each theme entry tells you where you can get off—at least, those imprecations are found at the beginning of each of those phrases.
In the fill, there are eight 8- and 9-letter answers, including slangy SCHMOOZES (clued as [Shoots the shit]) beside SKEEZIEST ([Superlative for a flasher], and no, I don't wish to contemplate the very skeeziest of the flashers). Two full names that are likely brand-new as crossword answers are BOB NEY, the [Former Ohio congressman released from prison in August 2008], and MACK BROWN, the [Coach of the 2005 NCAA football champion Texas Longhorns]. Guess which one of the two I've heard of?
Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword, "Covered in Spots," is covered in advertising spots. That is, each theme entry has an AD added to it, changing the gist:
Favorite clues and answers aside from the theme: NBA JAM, the [arcade basketball game that failed to include Michael Jordan]; [Place with millions of inhabitants at the time of its "discovery"] for AMERICA; AUDRA, or [Actress Lindley of "Three's Company"] for a '70s TV nostalgia hit (she played Mrs. Roper, of course); and stale ol' STYE with a non-eye clue, [Sebaceous gland problem], that pointed right towards ACNE (hey, when's the last time a STYE clue wasn't a gimme?).
August 19, 2008
Wednesday, 8/20
NYS 4:20
NYT 4:15
CS 3:30
LAT 3:02
(post updated at 11 a.m. Wednesday)
This crossword blogging when the Olympics are on—it's hard work. My attention keeps being yoinked away by feats of athleticism.
The New York Times crossword by Allan Parrish wonders if you know JACK (55-Down). Rather than cluing five theme entries with [Jack], this puzzle goes with [See 55-Down] and makes you get through the far corner of the grid before it all makes sense. The five kinds of jack (all lowercase nouns rather than people named Jack) are:
Tougher bits in this puzzle that made it feel like it should be beyond a Wednesday:
Okay, now there's the Olympics and a fire engine trying to make a three-point turn outside my window. Is there actually a fire in the midrise across the street? I don't know. Distractions! ...No, no fire. But when two fire trucks enter a one-way street from opposite directions, somebody's gotta turn around.
BUS DEPOT is a [Commuters' terminus]. CMI is an [Early 10th-century year]. [Gobi greenery] clues OASES. A HIFI is a [Rec room item of old]. Wow, I bet that clue makes 60-year-olds feel ancient.
Lee Glickstein's New York Sun puzzle, "Mixed Emotions," anagrams assorted emotions that appear at the end of common phrases:
The theme entries don't strike me as particularly entertaining, but there's other stuff to admire:
Updated:
Evad e-mailed me this morning. First we snarked about the potential lewdness of PLUG INSERT. (If you don't understand why it's lewd, don't ask.) (And I've been thinking: A jack cannot be inserted into a plug, as the plug and jack are both things that get inserted into outlets or ports. If you're inserting a jack into a plug, you're doing it wrong.) Then Evad confessed:You know what I put in for the Next station? PBS. How sad is that? (I was thinking of Jim Lehrer's show, that I think is now hosted by David Brancaccio?)
Before I had a chance to reply, another note arrived:Now I see that that's "Now," not "Next"...I was close!
And then this:And it was Bill Moyers, not Jim Lehrer. I should just stop now (or next).
I love conversations where one person does all the work.
Jason Keller's LA Times crossword has five disparate theme entries that have RED in their exact middles. "So what?" you ask. 69-Across is RARE, a [Steak order with a center like that of 17-, 24-, 38-, 48- and 61-Across]. The theme entries are:
This puzzle's the second one I've seen this week that clued PELE as [Athlete dubbed "O Rei do Futebol"]. I don't think I'd seen that clue prior to this week. Entries I like: SET A DATE, or [Make initial wedding plans]; DAN ROWAN, ["Laugh-In" co-host]; and the intersecting daughters of Archie Bunker and Jawaharlal Nehru, GLORIA and INDIRA ([Bunker daughter] and [Jawaharlal's daughter], respectively).
Bruce Venzke and Stella Daily's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Wild Pitches," is built around a quip theme: I'D BRING IN A LOT OF / DOUGH SELLING / "NO SOLICITING" / SIGNS DOOR TO DOOR. My grandma had a "no solicitors" decal on the front door when I was a kid, and I didn't quite understand it. When I heard the word soliciting used in reference to prostitution, that didn't clear things up at all. Speaking of things from my grandma's generation, RAID is clued as [Foray into the girls' dorm, maybe]. Has anyone heard of a panty raid or other organized raid on women's dorm rooms being perpetrated in the last 25 years? I bet not. SHIH is clued as [___ Tzu], which obligates me to post this picture:
