Thursday, 12/3/09

NYT 7:10
LAT 2:58
Tausig untimed
CS untimed

Matt Ginsberg and Pete Muller's New York Times crossword

Whoa, somebody forgot to issue a "Saturday comes two days early this week" warning about this puzzle's difficulty. If you struggled mightily with this one, you are not alone.

I test-solved an earlier version of this puzzle—I think that one had more of the "all roads lead to Rome action" than this one, and they might've been (semi-)famous roads rather than words that can preced "road." See the four diagonal roads leading to the ROME rebus square in the middle? LOGGING road, PRIVATE road, UNPAVED road, and WINDING road. Those make a solid foursome. The ROME is wedged into a DENVE{R OME}LETTE, or 37A: [Dish with ham], crossing 36D: [Cry from Juliet], O {ROME}O. I like the way the gimmick plays out here.

The single rebus square and the roads don't account for the brutality of this Thursday puzzle, though. No, that distinction belongs to the bottom middle. Good lord, EARBOB? What sort of 49D: [Bit of jewelry] is that? (Dictionary says it's chiefly a Southern U.S. term for "earring.") 70A: [Lot] is GOB but could be other words, like TON. 67A: [Base figure, for short] is an NCO, but there are other 3-letter military abbreviations out there. 54D: [Scammed] is STUNG. I looked up the definition of pizzicato to figure out 60D: [Not pizzicato], or ARCO (played violin with a bow vs. by picking the strings with the fingers). I was also stuck for a long time on 64A: [Michael Jackson genre]. URBAN POP? That's a music genre? When a gazillion MJ fans live in suburbs and small towns, and Jackson's lyrics weren't so heavy on "urban" themes? Hmph. I just Googled "urban pop" and among the first few hits are one for an Aussie mix master and one in which it's reported that Lindsay Lohan billed her upcoming (in '07) album as "urban pop." (For what it's worth, I'd love to see URBAN CONTEMPORARY in a Sunday-sized grid any time.) This zone killed me.

There are plenty of other unusual entries in the grid, but I managed to work through the other sections without so many hitches. Oddball answers:

• 17A. [Restricted zone] is NO-GO AREA.
• 22A. VOIT is a [Big brand in basketballs] and also the name of my grandma's dentist.
• 23A. MARY II is the [English monarch who shared the throne].
• 45A. For [Hare follower], I thought of fabulous tortoises instead of Hare KRISHNA.
• 53A. [Connection means, for short] sounds like it's looking for something more technical, more about wires and modems and whatnot, than ISPS.
• 61A. KONICA is a [Classic camera].
• 71A. ["Mi casa __ casa"] clues ES SU. "My house is your house." I messed myself up a bit with IS SU, which made A AND E, the 56D: [Cable choice], harder to tease out.
• 4D. [Howard the Duck prop] is a STOGY. I prefer the "stogie" spelling.
• 11D. ["Absolument!"] clues "OUI, OUI!" "This little agreeable piggy cried 'oui, oui, oui' all the way home."
• 13D. Roll-your-own word PETTER is clued as an [Attentive dog owner]. No "heavy petting" ramifications here.
• 18D. AGIO! My long-lost crosswordese friend! It's an [Exchange premium].
• 32D. [The "H" in Hanukkah] is called HETH.
• 40D. EOHIPPUS! I love that little old pre-horse. This prehistoric [Ancestor of the modern horse] was much smaller than today's equines and lived in the Eocene epoch.
• 45D. KRAKOW looks great in the grid, doesn't it? It was the [Polish capital, 1038-1596].

I fret that the EARBOB zone may overshadow the whole "all roads lead to {ROME}" gimmick, which is just sort of there for appreciation rather than something that had to be grappled with while solving. Agree or disagree?

Updted Thursday morning:

Sarah Keller's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "In the End"—Janie's review

In the end, what holds this puzzle together is that today's theme phrases end with words that rhyme with in. While there's nothing more that unifies the theme, the four phrases are definitely on the fresh side and there's some ear-appeal in saying them aloud as they're all (essentially) dactyls (three syllables with the stress on the first one). Today's guilty parties are:

• 20A. RECYCLE BIN [Curbside container]. And of course, this one (with four syllables...) is the exception. But I think of that first syllable as a pickup to the more metrical remainder of the word.
• 33A. SAFETY PIN [It may secure a cloth diaper]. Apparently Pampers and Huggies haven't completely put diaper service companies out of business. I'm glad to know that.
• 41A. MUFFIN TIN [Baking pan for cupcakes]. And a COFFEE TIN can be a baking container for date-nut bread. I saw the double Fs and TIN emerging and that's what I (smugly) entered. That's what I get for thumbin' my nose at the clues!
• 52A. BATHTUB GIN [Prohibition spirits]. Love this fill. For any DIYers out there, this one's for you. At your own risk. Don't want anyone out there becoming a [Sidewalk stumbler]/WINO...

The subject of alcoholic beverages is a nice segue to pointing out my favorite cross today. Note the repeated word in the clues (both nouns) and you'll see why I enjoyed seeing the juncture of BREWS [They may be found in coolers] and BRIG [Cooler at sea]. In another example of a repeated word in the clues, one is a verb [Board] for GET ON, and one is a noun following TOTE [ ___ board (track fixture)]. That first one took me a while to understand.

There isn't a lot of long fill in today's grid—though I did like seeing SNOWBALL [Winter missile]. And while the preponderance of the grid is made up of four- and five-letter words, note that there are only four three-letter words in the mix. Nice!

Barry Silk's Los Angeles Times crossword

The puzzle's got a straightforward theme type, but there's some juice in the theme entries:

• 17A. ["Imagination at work" company] is GENERAL ELECTRIC. GE is selling NBC to Comcast. What's going to happen to 30 Rock's "East Coast Television and Microwave Oven Programming" division when GE ceases to be a factor at NBC? (Alec Baldwin's JACK, a [Stranded motorist's aid], is the vice president of that division.)
• 26A. An ELEPHANT EAR is a [Fried-dough carnival treat].
• 43A. Ah, the Doors! "LIGHT MY FIRE" is [The Doors #1 hit covered by Jose Feliciano]. Say what? When did that happen? Totally missed it. I'm guessing it is best to keep the Doors rendition foremost in my head.
• 55A. It's a fairly easy puzzle, but this answer nudges the fill away from the early part of the wek: DAME MURIEL SPARK is ["The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" author].
• 63A. PLUG—[Ad, or the word that can follow the end of] the theme entries—generates an electric plug, ear plug, fire plug, and spark plug.

Did you know AUNT JEMIMA is a [Quaker Oats trademark]? I stay away from Aunt Jemima and Mrs. Butterworth and their ilk. Fake maple-flavored corn syrup smells like headaches to me, but real maple syrup? Yum. Speaking of sweet and sticky viscous substances, HONEY is a [Drambuie ingredient]. I believe the other ingredients are peat moss and haggis.

VIRTU ([Artistic merit]) is a good word to play in Scrabble because you can add an E or AL or OUS to it. I think one of my Lexulous (the Scrabble variant on Facebook) opponents played SKEG, a [Surfboard fin].

CLETE ([1950s-'60s Yankee Boyer]) reminds me of Cletus on The Simpsons—my son was just asking my husband what "yokel" meant, and the kid correctly tied the description to Cletus.

Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword, "...Or Not To Be"

Each theme answer loses two Bs:

• 17A. [Headline about the failing health of a former Velvet Underground member?] clues CALE ILL. (CAbLE bILL.)
• 18A. [Contest to see who can read "Cathy" fastest?] is an "ACK!" RACE. (bACK bRACE.)
• 27A. ["OK, tennis students, I want everyone to practice near the net with everyone else"?] clues EACH VOLLEY ALL. (bEACH VOLLEYbALL.)
• 47A. [Expose about the tawdry relations of a 16th-century theologian?] is CALVIN AND HOES. ("CALVIN AND HObbES.")
• 61A. [Ribald yoga mantra?] is DIRTY OM. (DIRTY bOMb.)
• 63A. [Have a flat bottom?] clues the verb phrase LACK ASS. (bLACK bASS.)

Highlights:

• The four corners with triple-stacked 7s.
• [Entomology class?] clues the class INSECTA.
• An ISOGRAM is a [Word with no repeating letters]. Did you know there was a name for that? There are a great many isograms out there. In English, anyway. English probably had a higher percentage of these than Hawaiian does, given our larger number of letters to build words from.
• A HEN is a [Mother clucker].

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Thursday, 11/26/09

NYT - 6:01 (JK - paper)
LAT - oops, clock wasn't on
CS - untimed
Tausig - 11:27 (JK -paper)

Hi everyone. Jeffrey here. Happy Thanksgiving to our American readers. Happy New Year’s Eve to our syndicated readers. Happy Thursday to everyone else.
Happy Birthday to Rex Parker who is now older than me. Check out the previous post for more on this milestone, including two related puzzles and a great cause that needs your support.

Despite holidays, birthdays and Thursdays, like the mail in Seinfeld, the crosswords never stop, so the blogging must go on! Amy is nowhere to be found so Team Orange is on duty to replace Her Fiendness. I must be Turkey Prime, as I get to go first. However, as a Canadian, I'm afraid there'll be no more mention of Thanksgiving.


Paula Gamache's New York Times Crossword

The theme is 51A: [What 20-, 31- and 40-Across were each introduced as by 47-Down] PARADE BALLOONS in the 47D- MACY’S Thanksgiving Day parade. Hey! Darn.
20A: [Introduction of 1977] – KERMIT THE FROG
31A: [Introduction of 1927] – FELIX THE CAT
40A: [Introduction of 1963] – ELSIE THE COW

14A: [First step in a series] – A TO B. There is no Atob.
17A: [Rabanne who was the costume designer for “Barbarella”] – PACO. What a lucky break! Today at work, someone asked me who the costume designer for “Barbarella” was. What are the odds (that any part of that is true)?
25A: [Thoreau’s “On Fields OER Which the Reaper’s Hand Has Pass’d”]. Land of the free, we miss you.
36A: [Head of the Egyptian god Thoth] – IBIS. Every part of that sounds weird.
38A: [A slowpoke may be asked to pick it up] – PACE. Pick up PACE, PACO. Jane Fonda is waiting. Somewhere, a lonely “the” sits alone.
56A: [RAREE] show. Can you say RAREE without show? I’ll have my steakee raree, please.
1D: [Sound on “Batman”] – ZAP! Hard one. Could have been BAM!, POW! Or if this was a rebus, SPLAT!
2D: [Letter after Z] – ETA. Z is pronounced “zed” today.
11D: [Marie Osmond’s ADORA Belle dolls]. Awwww. Isn’t that cuutttte.
12D: [“CAROL of the Bells” (holiday favourite)]. Wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without it.
30D: [Frozen drink brand] – ICEE. Perfect with that steakee.
35D:[Loser of 1948] – DEWEY. Lost to Truman, right? More American stuff.





"Prime Time Practice" by Ben Tausig.
The theme is revealed at 56A/71A [People whose names begin the starred entries] - SCREEN MDS, or "I'm not a doctor but I play one on TV". We have 4 TV doctors:

28A: [*Find the source of some corporate malfeasance, say] -PIERCE THE VEIL. Dr. Hawkeye Pierce (Alan Alda) from M*A*S*H.
48A: [*Holy place] - HOUSE OF PRAYER . Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie) from House.
62A: [*Mental material] - GREY MATTER - Dr. Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) from Grey's Anatomy.
17A/21A: [Long-running PBS concert series] - AUSTIN CITY LIMITS . Colonel Steve Austin (Lee Majors) from The Six Million Dollar Man. Never knew he was a doctor. Well, it could be Dr. Kate Austin (Christine Lahti) on Chicago Hope. A quick check with other members of Team Orange shows similar confusion.

Other stuff you might not know:

24A: [Text type] : SMS - Short Message Service, what you use for cellphone text messages.
27A: [Lee Myung-bak's country, for short] - ROK. Republic of Korea (South)
34A: [Plitvice Lakes National Park country] - CROATIA. Banff - Canada. Yosemite - USA. Plitvice Lakes - Croatia.
39A: [Time off, in mil. slang] - RNR - Rest "N" Relaxation. R&R is better.
51A: [MST 3K (cult show)] - Mystery Science Theater 3000
59A: [Lamas of "The Bachelor"] - SHAYNE. No idea. Related to Lorenzo Lamas? Yup, daughter.
66A: [Quadratic function subj.] - CALC. Calculus. joon, please explain the difference between integral and differential calculus.
68A: [Publisher whose second and third children were born 35 years apart] - HEF. Hugh Hefner.
7D: [Common occasion for leaving work early: Abbr.] - FRI. Memo to my staff: I'll need a bit more than "It's Friday. I'm leaving early."
10D: [Starting a tic-tac-toe game at one of the edges, say] - BAD MOVE. Edge being a non-corner and non-center square. It could work in Hollywood Squares. You fool! (Steve Austin reference in this link).
24D: [Tattoo, in a way] - SCARIFY. New word to me.
30D: [Celtics guard Rajon] - RONDO. Of the Boston Celtics.
31D: [Jamiroquai's "(Don't) Give HATE A Chance"] - Lots of unknown-to-me in this puzzle.
46D: [Pen name for "The Conning Tower" columnist] - F.P.A. Franklin Pierce Adams. PIERCE again. I should know this?
57D: [Grammy-winning blues musician Robert] - CRAY. Here with Eric Clapton.

Lila Cherry’s Los Angeles Times Crossword
The theme answers are all clued [Turkey] (the last with a “?”). Sigh.
17A: BIRD THAT GOBBLES.
27A: FRANK WAY TO TALK.
48A: THEATRICAL FLOP.
63A: FRIDAY’S SANDWICH. I think this is implying leftovers from Thursday feast.
3D: [Turkish currency] – LIRA
52A: [Lake surrounding Canada’s southernmost point] – ERIE. Trivia question – How many US states are at least partly north of Middle Island, Ontario? Answer – 27!
And in the downs, the World’s Most Eclectic Musical Set:
1D: [“Mamma Mia!” band] – ABBA.
26D: [‘60s song car with “three deuce and a four-speed and a 389”] - GTO
30D: [Greek New Age Keyboardist] – YANNI........oh, sorry, fell asleep for a minute.
32D: [Musical buzzer] – KAZOO.
54D: [Hendrix hairdo] – AFRO.
I leave you with 51D: [Slovenly] – FROWZY. Frowzy? Frowzy?


Patrick Blindauer's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Gobble, Gobble!"—Janie's review

Thanksgiving already—when Tom Turkey says "Gobble, gobble!" (translation: "Please have roast beef instead or maybe send out for some General TSO's chicken or, hey—maybe a nice BLT!!"), and so many of us will be with family or friends indulging ourselves as we enjoy (translation: "gobble down") our feasts (traditional or un-) and maybe even take a moment or three to think about what it is we're genuinely thankful for. For some, there'll be hours of watching football; for others, hours of prepping for the main event, since—as we're prompted at 71A.—the [Popular thing to do on Thanksgiving (and word that's hidden in 17-, 29-, 47- and 60-Across)] is EAT. And eat and eat and eat and eat as in:

• 17A. SURPRISE ATTACKS [Unexpected acts of hositility]. May our lives be from any more of these...
• 29A. DAVE ATTELL [Comic with the 2007 HBO special "Captain Miserable"]. Never heard of the guy—but then again, I don't subscribe to HBO, and to judge from these quotes, I may not want to. Then again, there's not a lot of stand-up that's funnier in print...
• 47A. SEA TURTLES [Crush and pals, in "Finding Nemo"]. Hmm. Never seen this either, but I have this sneaking suspicion it's more my speed...
• 60A. DEFENSE ATTORNEY [Johnnie Cochran, at the Simpson trial]. And may our lives be free from any need for one of these... I liked seeing this fill directly below ABA [Legal org.] and was thankful to see that the correct fill was not POET LAUREATE-related.

Some other highlights include:

• MAN/[Answer to the riddle of the Sphinx] (nice fresh clue here)
• MANIC [Frenzied] and MAD, clued as [Humor magazine since 1952]
• the side-by-side implement pair of PICK [Icebreaker] and RAKE [Tool for deciduous foliage]
• AMENITY/[Chocolate on a hotel pillow, e.g.] (I love the specificity of the clue)
• DRAPE/[Hang], and then farther down the row, EAVE/[Place for an icicle] (i.e., where an icicle might hang...)
• VENAL/[Easily bribed] (I've heard of venal sins [as in the seven deadly ones], and had seen the word in other contexts, but never knew its literal meaning, so I learned something new yet again. And the next word in my dictionary? Yesterday's vena cava...]
• STRAW/[Float accessory], so that would be this kind of float and not this kind of float... The latter, btw, was from the Rose Bowl Parade—not to be confused with ROSÉ [Wine choice]. You might enjoy that with your Thanksgiving dinner!

Hope it's a happy holiday for all!

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Thursday, 11/19/09

NYT 3:40
LAT 3:17
CS untimed
Tausig untimed

Tyler Hinman and Jeremy Horwitz's New York Times crossword

Here's how I envision this puzzle's development:

Tyler: "Let's make a themeless together."
Jeremy: "No, I want to do a themed puzzle. Something with trivia."
Great cacophony ensues as the chocolate hits the peanut butter, cruciverbally speaking.
Tyler: "Hey, you got a theme in my themeless!"
Jeremy: "What are you talking about? You got your themeless all over my themed puzzle!"
Light bulbs appear over both men's heads.
Together: "Omigod! We made a 70-word themeless puzzle packed with juicy fill and managed to fit three theme entries into it."

I know today's constructors are on the same pub trivia team, so I wonder if A SEED for this puzzle came about from a trivia quiz or if they hit on the trivia trio themselves. It's light as themes go—just 31 squares. But it's thematically solid, bringing together three directors of movies with one-letter titles:

• 17A. ["Z" director, 1969] is known as COSTA-GAVRAS.
• 32A. ["M" director, 1931] is FRITZ LANG.
• 51A. ["W" director, 2008] is OLIVER STONE.

I greatly enjoyed solving this puzzle, though usually I would grumble about a 70-worder that's clued easy enough to hit a Wednesday/Thursday level of difficulty. But I kept getting surprised by answers that were cool, and that was fun.

On the down side, the three UPs distracted me because (a) I hesitated to enter the second and third ones and (b) one of them felt iffy. That one is 8D: [Encircle with a belt] for GIRD UP. I see it in the dictionary entry for gird in the example "gird (up) one's loins," but I don't think that sort of "girding up" involves a belt. If you're belting your loins, I don't wanna hear about it. I wanted UPSIZE to be RESIZE (42D: [Enlarge]) because of 8D, and then UP TO PAR (35D: [Adequate for the job]) showed up and made me wish the other UPs had left this one alone.

Favorite clues and answers:

• 6A. [Symbol in a Riemann sum] is SIGMA. All I know is that SIGMA is used in math for sums of some sort. The clue looked a lot scarier than it turned out to be.
• 16A. MOO [___ juice (milk)]!
• 20A. Scrabbly KLEENEX, a [Kimberly-Clark brand]. KOTEX was too short. (HUGGIES and PULL-UPS would fit, though.)
• 26A. Slangy WHUP means to [Tan] someone's hide, figuratively.
• 31A. "WANT TO?" means ["Are you game?"].
• 34A. Scrabbly JUAREZ is an [El Paso neighbor]. (Hi, Monica!)
• 41A. [Cause of an awakening] sounds metaphysical, but it's the APNEA that might disrupt your sleep.
• 44A. STAR MAPS are [Some Beverly Hills tourist purchases]. There was a recent NYT story about a teenager who's gone into business selling Hamptons star maps.
• 50A. Didn't see this clue while solving: [Google had one in 2004: Abbr.] clues IPO. Tyler, your employer really doesn't need the extra publicity.
• 1D. I hope someone somewhere complains that clueing LUCKIER as [More Irish?] is derogatory to the Irish. And then I hope they're mocked.
• 3D. What is it about the word NOSEGAY that I find so charming? It's a small bouquet or [Posy].
• Anyone think that 6D and 7D would be my entrée into the grid? STAX and rap impresario IRV Gotti, you don't scare me.
• 10D. Oddest clue in the puzzle: [Hearers of Jonah's prophecy] are ASSYRIANS. This may be Biblical, but ASSYRIANS is not short enough to find its way into the puzzle often so it's not Biblical crosswordese.
• 13D. I read a little IONESCO in college—["Le Rhinoceros" playwright Eugene]. I read it in an English translation.
• 18D, 24D. More Scrabbleocity: GEE WHIZ and QUIZNO'S.
• 30D. CREAM SODA is an [A&W beverage] and my favorite Dum-Dum flavor.
• 36D. I like the pairing of [Cousins] and ANALOGS. As in "this is analogous to that/these things are cousins."
• 38D. A WASHOUT is a [Complete failure].

I hereby give my blessing to the cruciverbal union of these two constructors. Jeremy and Tyler, do you have more joint productions in the pipeline?

Updated Thursday morning:

Gail Grabowski's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Case Study"—Janie's review

We know this theme very well: the last word of the theme fill is one that combines with a word in the title. Today that word is "case." The good news is that the theme fill is fresh and the re-configured phrases are pretty lively, too. Today's offerings are:

• 17A. [Wimbledon feature] GRASS COURT → court case.
• 11D. [Delete, for one] COMPUTER KEY → key case.
• 25D. [Healthy all-occasion gift] FRUIT BASKET → basket case (someone who's mentally not-so-healthy. This pair is my fave).
• 63A. [It's said there's no cure for it] COMMON COLD → cold case (followed closely by this pair).

And there's some lively cluing and fill throughout that give this puzzle its [Pizazz] ELAN. I'm fond of the SW corner—the children's corner?—with "BE NICE" ["Don't fight, please"] right next to "ARE NOT!" [Childish denial]. Other exclamations are ["]MAMMA [mia!"] and "TADA!" [Cry of accomplishment]; and one that summons up a variation of "the actor's nightmare": "I'M ON!" for ["That's my cue!"].

Then there's:

• [Smart set] for MENSA;
• [It can cover a lot] for TAR (anyone else start with SOD—and thinking of that "lot" as something more exclusively along the lines of ONE ACRE [4,840 square yards]?);
• [Lasting impression] for SCAR;
• [Pay what's due] for PONY UP (love this expression, even with its apparently unknown etymology);
• [Sketcher's eraser] for ART GUM (because when was the last time I owned one or even thought about art gum?!);
• and in the "good, clean fun" department, [Washer batch] LOAD and COIN-OP [Like some laudromats].

Jack McInturff's Los Angeles Times crossword

Jack McInturff mentioned me in his Crossword Corner interview today:

"Orange" the puzzle commentator, once said of a puzzle I did "The fill seems old school." It's probably because I'm 79 years old and that's what I remember. It did give me a wake-up call, however, and I'm trying to be more current.

See? That's why crossword bloggers write about crosswords: We want crosswords to be as good and as entertaining as possible, so it's gratifying when we see evidence that a puzzle-maker or editor uses our critiques in a constructive manner to give solvers a better experience.

Today's L.A. Times theme involves phrases that end with sort of synonymous words, JERK, GOOSE, YO-YO, and DOPE. A thesaurus tells me JERK is a synonym for "fool," but I don't use it that way. I guess some people say "I felt like a complete jerk" to mean "doofus" rather than "heel," though. The theme:

• 20A. CLEAN AND JERK is a [Weightlifting event].
• 30A. The CANADA GOOSE (not "Canadian goose") is a [Golf course pest]. Last spring, I saw a goose perched atop a three-story building. Is that not bizarre? The very same week, my mother saw a rooftop goose for the first time in her life. Heads up, people: The geese have plans. Watch your back.
• 39A. A [Spinning toy manipulated with sticks] is a CHINESE YO-YO.
• 49A. The STRAIGHT DOPE is [Honest info]. You know Cecil Adams' "Straight Dope" column in alt-weekly papers? A couple times I have seen a lexicographer citing Cecil's answers. I think that means his research standards are considered good.

The #1 clue people will be Googling today is 32D: [British actor Robert, the original Colonel Pickering in "My Fair Lady"]. Robert COOTE? That doesn't ring a bell for me.

#2 is 5D: [Original primer used to paint the Golden Gate Bridge], or RED LEAD. No idea what RED LEAD is. Dictionary tells me it's a red form of lead oxide used in paint.

Favorite clues:

• The twin old Ford clues. [Early Ford success] is the MODEL A, while EDSEL was an [Ill-fated Ford].
• [Actors, often] are EMOTERS. Note that the clue does not say "overactors."
• [Some heroes] are called HOAGIES. Yes, I was thinking heroically rather than sandwichly.
• [Very big wind], 4 letters. The obvious choice is between GUST and GALE...but it's a TUBA. That's what my nephew plays. My sister has to listen to three horn players practicing at home, and no, she hasn't developed a case of hysterical deafness. (Speaking of HYSTERIA, that's a [Common crowd reaction in monster films].)

Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword, "A Few Words With You"

The puzzle's title should be interpreted as "A Few Words with 'U' Added to The End": [Yogi's house?] might be HINDU QUARTERS. [Cuddly pasta sauce freebie?] is RAGU DOLL. [Ambrosia and nectar selections?] are a MENU OF GOD. "SHAMU, WOW!" is a [Literal cry at Sea World?]. That one's my favorite because it builds on the silly infomercial product name, ShamWow, which in turn plays on chamois. And the last one is FONDU MEMORIES, or ["The melted cheddar...the kitschy pots...ah, youth"?]. Hooray for cheddar! I don't do Swiss.

Given how few English words there are that end with a U, and how few of those would lend themselves to this theme (familiar word/phrase begins with U-less part of -U word), I'm impressed with this theme. The answers had some decent "aha" action. Now, the fill includes BADU, SABU, TUTU, and APU. A.P.-meets-APU has some potential. King Tut doesn't really have familiar phrases that begin with "Tut," though.

Top answers in the fill: KOJAK meets JETSKIS; WASILLA's near another W*S*L word, WEASELS; CECILIA is opposite OPHELIA. I like BAGATELLE, but feel it would best be clued as [A mere ___]. Top three clues:

• KEN is clued as [Sugar's Daddy ___ (controversial new Mattel product)]. Have you seen this guy doll? Sugar is a teeny dog, and KEN is her "daddy." He's dressed ridiculously and his name evokes the non-Mattel term "Sugar Daddy."
• THA is clued as an [Article in Source magazine?]. Not a magazine article, a definite article.
• IRAQ is an [Emancipated Middle Eastern country with no more problems]. Honest!

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Thursday, 11/12/09

NYT 6:07
Tausig untimed
CS untimed (J)/3:27 (A)
LAT 2:59

Go here for Eric Berlin's specially commissioned crossword, made for Rex Parker, Patron of the Cruciverbal Arts via Eric's kickstarter.com project. It's Rex's 40th birthday this month.

Brendan Quigley's New York Times crossword

Maybe it's just my browser that does this; I don't know. If you use the applet, do you often have the rightmost characters of a clue cut off by the red scroll-bar ends? 3D: [Excited answer to "Who want / ...?"] is what I saw, with a line break after "want." Well, that's not right at all. I suppose it's just "wants," but I spent some time trying to approach it from different points in the clue list to see if I could move the clue out from behind the red bar...and then I remembered the clock was ticking away. Oh! Moving on.

After I finished the puzzle, I replaced the {DIAMOND} rebus squares (which I'd entered as a D) with asterisks that look ever so slightly like diamonds. Easier to make sense out of, no? So yes, the gimmick theme is a rebus, with five {DIAMOND}s, one in the central answer and four others in symmetrical spots in the top and bottom rows. The sparkling theme answers:

• 1A. [Tycoon who was reputedly the first person in New York City to own an automobile] is {DIAMOND} JIM BRADY. That is, of course, the man the Brady Law is named after. (Just kidding. Different Jim Brady.)
• 1D. [Union symbol?] is {DIAMOND} RING. Were you thinking of political unions? I was.
• 10A. {DIAMOND}HEAD is a [Hawaiian landmark].
• 10D. [Chase Field team] are the Arizona {DIAMOND}BACKS. Sometimes they're called the D-Backs, aren't they? So that one looked fine in my grid without the full rebus word.
• 36A. [Classic marketing tagline] is "A {DIAMOND} IS FOREVER." Did you see that Blood Diamond movie? Hard-hitting.
• 37D. {DIAMOND} LIL is a classic [Mae West role].
• 67D. The silliest song of the '80s, for my money, is NEIL {DIAMOND}'s "Heartlight." A song about E.T.'s glowing heart? "Let it make a happy glow for all the world to see"? Major cheese! ["Heartlight" singer, 1982] is the full clue.
• 44D. BLACK {DIAMOND} is the [Symbol for a difficult ski run]. I couldn't master the gently sloping hill by the ski resort parking lot, so I'm pretty sure the black diamond runs are beyond me.
• 68D. [Home setting] is a BASEBALL {DIAMOND}.
• 54D. The HOPE {DIAMOND} is the [Subject of a renowned curse]. THE CUBS wouldn't fit here.

I like the variety of diamond meanings here—two nicknames, a surname, three gems, two baseball references, a place name, and the shape as symbol.

Five other bullet points:

• 20A. [Like some fancy soap bubbles] clues TORIC. That's soap bubbles being blown all fancy, not bubbles from a fancy bar of soap.
• 40A. CURL is clued [Show signs of age, maybe]. Like the corner of a poster or a book page?
• Good gravy, so many other people's names clued by their works, and I had to rely on the crossings to get them. ["The Red Tent" author Diamant]—hey, Diamant is German for "diamond," isn't it?—is named ANITA, but I blanked on that. R. KELLY's the [Singer with the 2002 hit "Ignition"]. Thomas ARNE is clued with [His first opera was "Rosamund"]. And Andre GIDE is your ["Corydon" author].
• 32A. RECTO is clued as the right-sided page, a RECTO—[Chapter's starting point, usually]. This answer never, ever gets clued as a prefix for "vaginal."
• 17A. ISOLATIVE means [Tending to cut off] and is not a common word.

Updated Thursday morning:

Tyler Hinman's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Leeway"—Janie's review

Well, lookee here—a new constructor joins the CrosSynergy roster of all-stars. Welcome, Tyler—and congrats on a great start out of the gate. All of the fill today seems skewed to a slightly younger solving audience—or let me say it's more inclusive of several generations of solvers—and I take this as a good thing. Tyler would be a member of Gen Y, but he's included lots today for the [Gen-___ ] X-ER as well as Boomers and their parents.

All of the theme-fill focuses on celebs of the stage, screen and rock 'n' roll who go by their full names and whose middle name is Lee. Hence the title... And those folks'd be:

• 20A. JAMIE LEE CURTIS ["Halloween" actress].
• 33A. TOMMY LEE JONES [He went to Harvard with Al Gore] (where they were roommates for a time).
• 40A. JERRY LEE LEWIS ["Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" singer]. The AIRWAVEs [Transmission medium] could barely contain him!
• 51A. JONNY LEE MILLER [Title actor of "Eli Stone"]. Have never seen it, but Mr. Miller happens to be in New York City right now in the Broadway production of After Miss Julie, where his co-star is Sienna Miller (no relation). Have never seen "Entourage" either, but courtesy of the puzzles, do know that ARI is the name of the [...agent].

(The musical theatre has a shout out to Lee as a last name, in Sherman Edwards's jaunty "The Lees of Virginia" from 1776. Thank you for giving me the leeway to follow that tangent...)

The grid today is fresh indeed, with the three-stacks of sevens at center-top and -bottom, the five-square at center, the two six-columns in the NW and SE and the fabulous vertical 15s that flank them. And it's filled just beautifully, to boot. Those 15s are especially lively: HIS MASTER'S VOICE [Trademark associated with a dog and a gramophone] and WAXING NOSTALGIC [Remembering the good times] (which is something folks who grew up with gramophones probably enjoy doing).

It's a bit too soon to be waxing nostalgic about SIM CITY [Long-running computer game series], isn't it? Still, it does make for more fill of the contemporary sort. Ditto DRE [Eminem's mentor, popularly]. Now ["Africa" band] TOTO—well, that may be another story... Nice to see Toto clued in connection with the band and not The Wizard of Oz. (Also nice to see Toto in the same grid with TUTU [Arabesque attire].) There's another group from the same (basic, if slightly earlier) period: [1970s band] MOTT [the Hoople]. Plenty in today's puzzle for DJ'S [They spin in clubs] to choose from.

Other fill and/or clues I like: TOOL BOX [Handyman's carryall] (probably for that "X"); DAY JOB [One might be advised not to quit it]; the colorful [Confuzzled] for AT SEA (confused + puzzled...); ["Who wants ice cream?" response] for "I DO!"; [Optimist's word] for CAN; the presence of both (Abba) EBAN and JEW... the former clued as [2001 Israel Prize recipient], the latter as [Seder participant, usually]; and finally, did you know that MAY is [National Salad Month]? News to me, but it's that kind of nugget of info in a clue that keeps things interesting! IMHO ["As I see it..." in a chat room] (or on line...).

I was surprised to see that the title of Tyler's puzzle, "Leeway," included the LEE part in it. I thought that was verboten in titled puzzles. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the puzzle had an impressive ladder structure—each of the two vertical 15s intersect all four of the theme entries.

Kelsey Blakley's Los Angeles Times crossword

The DNA SEQUENCE theme includes five answers in which there's a hidden DNA:

• 17A. [All-big-gun battleship] is a DREADNAUGHT. It's also spelled dreadnought, which is what I first went with.
• 24A. A [Deeply ingrained habit] has become SECOND NATURE.
• 39A. [Shanghais] means KIDNAPS.
• 42A. OLD NAVY is a [Gap subsidiary].
• 53A. [Cuba or Puerto Rico, e.g.] clues ISLAND NATION, but Puerto Rico doesn't have autonomous nation status. There are a zillion other island nations, from Madagascar to Kiribati to Iceland to Grenada to Taiwan, so I'm not sure why this clue includes a non-nation.

Most mysterious answer: 61D: [Nestle cereal beverage], or ECCO. Ecco is also a brand of practical shoes that, it turns out, don't fit my feet well. The Google page for an Ecco search is filled with shoes. Nestlé Australia mentions ECCO, the drink. Ecco doesn't exist on the Nestlé USA website. Boo! Terrible clue! This should be a shoe clue. The crossing could plausibly be either I GET or I GOT, and since ECCO is clearly a shoe, I was tempted to try OCCO for the drink. Took a gamble that it was an unfamiliar ECCO and won.

I haven't got anything else of interest to say about this puzzle, so I'll move along to the next puzzle now.

Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword, "Union Agreement"

Ben's wedding is this weekend. To mark the occasion, he snuck an I DO into four familiar phrases, with the resulting made-up phrases clued without reference to the I DO:

• 18A. [Sources of odd teenage behavior?] are MAD LIBIDOS. Mad-Libs are those fill-in-the-blank books that can have zany results. My son enjoys Mad-Libs.
• 29A. The common (but not technically accurate) term "Bush Senior" feeds BUSHIDO SENIOR, or a [Gray-haired samurai?].
• 49A. "SEE YA, IDOLATER" could be [Words of farewell to an object-worshipper?]. "See ya later" is the base phrase.
• 62A. [Quick look at various melon liqueurs?] is MIDORI SCAN (MRI scan). I have never tried Midori and in fact seldom even see it in stores or bars. But I used to look at ads for it in Vanity Fair years ago, and the ads made it look like all the cool people drink it regularly.

I liked this theme a lot. When the base phrases are themselves entertaining fill, a theme has extra oomph. Highlights in the fill:

• Eddie VEDDER is the [Writer of the song "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town"]. My son has better hair than Eddie Vedder—true story.
• FREEGANS, rhymes with vegans, are [Certain anti-capitalist dumpster-divers].
• AUTO-TUNE is [The "A" in Jay-Z's "D.O.A."]. That's "death of Auto-Tune," yes?
• I just booked my February flights for the ACPT. I virtually possess an E-TICKET, or [Modern travel provision].
• I learned something from the clue for CRO: [___-Magnon man (outdated archaeological concept]. Outdated? Really? Tell me more.
• The RED SCARE was a [20th century witch hunt].

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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.

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Thursday, 11/5/09

NYT 3:41
LAT 2:58
Tausig untimed
CS untimed

Patrick Blindauer's New York Times crossword

I didn't read the Notepad entry for this puzzle, and it's just as well or I would have been sidetracked from the task of answering the clues. I finished the puzzle, then read this: "When this puzzle is completed, one letter of the alphabet will appear 22 times. Shade in its square everywhere it appears. The result will be an image suggested by 36-Across." 36A is INVISIBLE MAN, so there's a hidden drawing somewhere...and look, his torso is at 25D: SSSSSSS, the [1973 horror flick about a doctor who turns his assistant into a cobra]. I should've known SSSSSSS was there for a grander purpose! This now-visible man seems to have a freakishly long torse relative to his limbs. Poor guy. Must be impossible to find jackets that fit.

I'm tired and distracted, so let me resort to a scarcely annotated list:

• 16A. [Canine care grp.?] is ADA, canines being teeth and the ADA being the American Dental Association. I used to freelance for them, you know.
• 18A. ROSES ARE RED is the [Start of a lover's quatrain]. ...Irises are purple. If you're ill-bred, you call it a nurple. Is that how it goes? Looks like a theme entry because it's long, but no. All that's thematic are those symmetrical-in-the-grid Ss.
• 33A. Why isn't this clue [___ wazoo]? UP THE [___ ante] is boring.
• 34A. OSTIA, [Port of ancient Rome], crosswordese, an S where Patrick needed one for the drawing.
• 55A. MONKEES was the [#1 album for 13 weeks in 1966-67, with "The"]. I had BEATLES. Seriously.
• 60A. [Eliminates undesirable parts]...hmm...CIRCUMCISES fits. So does CLEANS HOUSE. "Parts" is a dangerous word.
• 64A. Are you kidding me? [Panties, old-style] were called STEP-INS? Never heard that term before. The Ss are the man's feet.
• 65A. LAE is the [Pacific port where Amelia Earhart was last seen]. I hear Amelia is a boring movie. LAE I know from Kevin Der's record-breaking grid, where it was perhaps the ugliest answer.
• 2D. Robert Randolph and the Family Band miss out here. RANDOLPH is clued as [Air Force base near San Antonio].
• 6D. [19th-century James] is vague. First name? No, last. JESSE James. He should've known better than to rob the Northfield, Minnesota, bank.
• 8D. [Filly] clues LASS. Gag me. "Filly"?
• 21D. RISHI is a [Hindu sage], and the S is the man's hand.
• 38D. ENATE means [Maternally related]. Hoary crosswordese.
• 45D. Showtime at the APOLLO! [New York theater on the National Register of Historic Places, with "the"].
• 51D. MENSA, [Indicator of brightness]. Is there a reason it's not clued [Indicator of social skills]? I don't get Mensa. I liked the newsletter when my mom was a member for a few years in the '70s, but since then? Nah.

Okay, so I lied. That was more than scarce annotation.

Good night!

Updated Thursday morning:

Raymond Hamel's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "For Your Protection"—Janie's review

For a puzzle that yields theme-fill of a highly industrial nature, this puppy sure has a lot to recommend it. Each of the five theme-phrases is clued identically: [It's worn for your protection]. The five theme-answers are:

•4D. WELDER'S MASK
•18A. HAZMAT SUIT
•25D. KNEE PAD
•27D. CRASH HELMET
•60A. FLAK JACKET

But look how nice and scrabbly the fill is. And there's a lovely assonance thing going when you say the words aloud: mask, hazmat, pad, crash, flak jacket. You can also hear it as well in such non-theme fill as CACKLE [Witch's outburst], AT LAW [Words on a shingle] and the cleverly clued CLARA [Bow on the screen] (so that's a long "o" in "Bow").

I think this may be the first time we've seen E-BOOK clued as a [Kindle download] in a CS puzzle. And it looks like this is the first time ROZ has been clued as [Cartoonist Chast] here. Love Roz Chast's observations on the details of everyday life.

Also love such lively fill as SCHNOZ (with it's lively [Honker] clue), which shares that "Z" with TABRIZ [City in Iran]. Tabriz is Iran's fourth largest city, and Iran sits right across the Persian Gulf from SAUDI Arabia (though today Saudi comes to us by way of the clue [Arabian leader]). Lotta desert land in that part of the world, so thank goodness for the OASES [Places for camels to drink].

Then there's VERDANT [Green] (to keep things fresh) and POOL TOY [Inflatable raft, say] (though I'm not sure a floating raft qualifies as a toy...). When you (or your raft) are [Drifting on the briny], you're ASEA, where "AVAST!" is a [Gob's stopper]. In addition to those two clues, I enjoyed [Not dis] for DAT, [Do a do] for PERM and [All you need, according to the Beatles] for LOVE. (And remember, they're the ones who declared "money can't buy me love!" For guys who sang that they "don't care too much for money," they sure managed to amass quite a bit of it. Ah, well, it was a dirty job and somebody had to do it...)

Xan Vongsathorn's Los Angeles Times crossword

Xan Vongsathorn's debut puzzle was in the New York Times, while his second puzzle (that I know of) comes to us from the West Coast. The theme hovers around four [Non-speaking line?]s, tied together by SILENCE IS GOLDEN, the [Apt adage for this puzzle]. The other four phrases are MY LIPS ARE SEALED, I'M ALL EARS, WORDS ESCAPE ME, and NO COMMENT. Now, they don't all mean exactly the same thing—I won't blab, I'm listening, I can't describe it, I refuse to answer—but they loosely fall under the SILENCE IS GOLDEN rubric. You'll note that although there's a MY, I'M, and ME, there are no repeated words in the theme answers.

TATTLE, or 21A: [Spill the beans], is practically the opposite of MY LIPS ARE SEALED. Any other talking answers in the fill? MEOW is a [Cat call], not a human word. "DUH" and "I'M GONE" are spoken language for people. And OBAMA is clued as [President with a Grammy], for his Spoken Word Book.

Ice cream! [Country where Haagen-Dazs H.Q. is] is, of course, the USA.

I guess we're still in the holding pattern waiting for Thursday L.A. Times puzzles to inch up in difficulty. Or maybe Thursdays will remain Tuesdays and only Friday and Saturday will be tougher? I'm not sure. I'm not finding much to talk about in this puzzle. Well, you know what they say—silence is golden.

Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword, "Silent Treatment"

Ben puts a different spin on silence, adding a silent letter to each of five phrases to change the meaning but not the pronunciation:

• 17A. [Totally sweet depth-checking gadget?] is a SUGAR PLUMB. Have any of you ever had a sugar plum? I have not.
• 26A. [Architectural piece in "Where the Wild Things Are"?] clues MONSTER JAMB. What is Monster Jam, you may wonder. Monster truck derbies. I always call such events "Truckasaurus" after The Simpsons.
• 39A. Freestyle rap yields FREESTYLE WRAP, or [Improvise with some ribbons and bows?].
• 52A. [Olfactory reward for leading a good life?] is HEAVEN SCENT.
• 62A. A latex dental dam becomes DENTAL DAMN, or [The curse of the orthodontist?].

Miscellaneous fill and clues:

• AREPAS are [Some Spanish small-plate items]. I've never had arepas, but Chowhound knows a few places I might try in Chicago. More South American than Spanish, apparently.
• You gotta know your political figures to nail all of Ben Tausig's puzzles. Don NICKLES of Oklahoma was the [Senate Majority Whip before Reid] and after Lott. How would he fare in a battle with Don Rickles?
• [Soul backing band named for their singer] is the JBS, after James Brown. I did not know this one.
• [Bygone TV award] is the CABLE ACE Award. Didn't people joke about those during the Emmys this fall?
• [Macedonian city where Mother Teresa was born] is SKOPJE, Macedonia's capital. It wasn't called Macedonia when she was born. Ben's original clue, [Mother Teresa's birthplace, today] was impossible for me, so if you got this one, you can thank me. I was guessing KOSOVO based on the old clue. Wikipedia tells me that when she was born, it was called Üsküb, Ottoman Empire. Her family was Albanian, and modern-day Albania and Macedonia share a border.
• [Discount travel agency for students] is called STA. I don't think this existed when I was a student.
• [Tries to look bigger than one is, in a way] clues BSS, short for "bullshits."
• [Due times cinquanta] is CENTI. I gather cinquanta is Italian for 50?

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Thursday, 10/29/09

NYT 4:36
LAT 3:01
Tausig untimed
CS untimed

Joe Krozel's New York Times crossword

The theme is either "four ways of spelling the 'air' sound, including 'air' and some longer words" or "four ways of spelling the 'aero' sound, only with two long O sounds and two schwas." Here are the theme entries:

• 18A. ARROWSMITH is the [Sinclair Lewis novel].
• 26A. A [Series of sorties] is an AIR OFFENSIVE. If the theme is words/phrases that start with the "aero" sound, this one doesn't work because OFFENSIVE begins with a schwa.
• 46A. EERO SAARINEN is the St. Louis [Gateway Arch designer]. Crosswordese EERO elevated to both full name and theme entry status.
• 57A. One meaning of [Bomb] is AEROSOL CAN, which also uses a schwa for the first O.

The grid reminds me of Byron Walden's Onion A.V. Club puzzle (blogged yesterday), with a lot of long answers in the fill. The word count here is 70, which is low enough to hit themeless requirements. Alas, 54A has the feel of a 9-letter partial: [Has been around since, with "to"] clues DATES BACK. It wouldn't feel that way if the clue omitted the "with 'to'" bit—and if a thing DATES BACK many years, the verb/adverb feels like more of a unit. I do not care for the plural GASOLINES (2D: [Refinery products]). And I don't know what the point is in clueing TALENTS as 43D: [Biblical money units]; you could skew clever/tricky with something like [They might be hidden] instead of going with a blechy old Biblical term. Speaking of blechy, the CORONERS clue is rather gross: 6D: [Ones examining bodies of evidence?].

Best clue: 10D: [They're out standing in their field] for the HOME TEAM. Runner-up: 21D: [Coin "swallower"] for SOFA. Honorable mention: the [Big do]/[Big ados] pair (AFRO, STIRS).

Best fill: The LOVE SCENE is 32D: [What's barely done in movies]. My favorite LOVE SCENE is less "barely done" than "intercut with smart repartee"—George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez in Out of Sight. I kinda like the homely little utilitarian SOUP SPOON, a 20A: table [Setting piece].

Worst answer: 4D: [Like some traffic] is STOP/GO. Who among you call it that? 'Round these parts, it is strictly "stop-and-go traffic."

Ten toughest clues:

• 5A. [Punts, e.g.] are flat-bottomed boats, and so are SCOWS.
• 23A. [Venetian feature] is a LAGOON. Not canals, boats, insane flooding, doges, or the slats of venetian blinds.
• 30A. [Tricolor pooch] clues BEAGLE. White and brown with black splotches, yes?
• 39A. [Set on the court] is an ASSIST in volleyball.
• 49A. [Made a switch in a game] clues CASTLED. Is this about chess?
• 62A. ["Doctor Who" villainess, with "the"] is RANI. No apparent connection to the rani that's a Hindu queen. Doctor Who fans can't account for even 5% of crossword solvers, can they?
• 12D. [Not natural, in a way, after "in"] clues VITRO. Too many "in"s in the clue. Why not use its Latin meaning, "glass"?
• 26D. [Goddess of breezes] is one way to clue AURA. Don't recall learning about this goddess before.
• 31D. [Kind of party] is one of those clues that's not really looking for a noun—it's just skirting the fill-in-the-blank formation. GOING-AWAY fits [___ party], but a GOING-AWAY is not a "kind of party" at all.
• 47D. [It doesn't end in 00] clues an ODD LOT, a stock purchase of something other than the usual round number of shares.

Updated Thursday morning:

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

Yep. It's that time of the year again. But, nope. This is not a baseball puzzle. Instead of a trip around the diamond, Randy has provided a trip around the solar system, with stops at various orbiting bodies. Most of these are still considered to be planets; one has been demoted. And that's just one of problems I have with the theme/theme fill... The non-theme fill? Some of the very best—so this was a very schizzy solve for me. Let's look at the theme fill:

• 20A. VENUS-MERCURY [Stuff in tennis star Williams's thermometer]. This has to be a hypenate, because VENUS'S MERCURY is too long and VENUS' MERCURY isn't the way the possessive is made for a name ending in "s" (and there's Williams's right there in the clue as a model). Regardless, the phrase feels forced to my ear.
•37A. PLUTO MARS SATURN [Disney dog scratches a Vue?]. There's our dwarf-planet designate. It can't be easy being knocked down a peg from full-planet status. Still, this phrase is kinda cute and works better for me than its preceding theme-mate.
•52A. JUPITER EARTH [Swampland in Florida]. Omma don' know... JUPITER is definitely a town in Florida, but isn't swampland marshy and oozy, and isn't earth considerably more solid? That's how I've always understood the difference. So I find the phrase confusing this time—as well as forced. Ideally (unless there's something very cryptic and witty going on), it shouldn't be a challenge to justify or explain the theme fill. But that's how it feels today. To this solver anyway. What's your take on it?

I was also puzzled by the conspicuous absence of Neptune and Uranus. Seems to me that while it's a clever idea to use the names of the planets as adjectives and verbs and nouns, it's best served as an all-or-nuthin' proposition.

"ZOUNDS!" ["Gadzooks!"], let me get on to this puzzle's real strength—and that would be its colorful and scrabbly non-theme material. That great interjection sits beside [United States Postal Service cartoon character] MR. ZIP. It's not often that you encounter an M-R-Z pattern in the grid, so that was surprising. Not only that, the Zs of both words are side-by-side, and are incorporated in the crossing word EMBEZZLE, with its superbly understated clue [Misappropriate].

It looks like there's an automotive mini-theme, too. [Drag race participant]? Well, that'd be HOT ROD. With all the money that goes into customizing some of these cars (which their owners generally don't wish to become REPOS [Seized vehicles]), one can only hope that it's outfitted with a working TAIL LIGHT [Something on the back of a Bronco?]. Or two... And that whether it's for a drag race or for more leisurely, less aggressive driving, the owner remembers to GAS UP [Get ready for a road trip]. Because nuthin' [Puts the brakes on]/CURBS one's ability to get up and go like an empty gas tank.

Other peppy fill/clues (almost all noteworthy for the attitude they convey):

• BIG CHEESE [Top dog];
• HEADCASE [Piece of work] (I have a special fondness for this combo...);
• HOOEY [Mumbo jumbo] and INANE [Goofy]—which are side-by-side in the grid;
• CAJUN [Zydeco player] and PROXY [Shareholder's substitute], for their contributions to the high-scorin' Scrabble letters; and
• "OH, MAN!" ["Give me a break!"]. This is but one way to clue it and is a good reminder of the power of inflection. Most of us have probably uttered the phrase or heard someone else use it to convey a reaction meaning anything from "I'm so sorry" to "That is fantastic—wow" or the exasperation in today's example. All of which supports the theory that it's not what ya say, but how ya say it!

Don Gagliardo's Los Angeles Times crossword

One downside of solving in Across Lite is that when there's a really long clue, you have to resize the window in order to read the whole clue. (That "mouse over it and the clue pops up" feature is Windows-only.) So while I did this puzzle last night, I hadn't grasped the full SHOEBOX oomph—not only are the four long answers phrases that end with categories of shoe, but the letters in SHOE are spelled out counterclockwise in four different rings/boxes in the corners of the grid, each time with the E in the very corner. This is a big SHOEBOX indeed, having room for pairs of CLOGS, HEELS, PUMPS, and FLATS:

• SINK CLOGS are [Kitchen backups]. Not wild about the phrase SINK CLOGS, as it's the sink's drain that is clogged.
• The [North Carolina team] are the TARHEELS.
• [Octane rating sites] are GAS PUMPS.
• The SALT FLATS are the [Bonneville Speedway feature].

So, it's the SHOE boxes that account for the "meh" fill in the grid. Both EONS and EOS, ESSO and ESSE, OTHO and SHO, OTOE and ESTES—those wouldn't be there if they weren't facilitating the four-square corners.

There's good fill in here, too. My favorites are CORN CHEX (which I should add to my shopping list!), a [General Mills cereal], and the UTNE READER, an [Eclectic bimonthly reader]. Nice to see the magazine in its entirety rather than just a bland clue for UTNE alone.

Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword, "Starting Something"

If you want to be starting something, you're spoiling for a fight. The theme entries are four famous people whose names begin with synonyms for "fight":

• There's a ROW in ROWAN ATKINSON, the ["Mr. Bean" portrayer].
• WARREN BEATTY, who [won an Oscar for playing Bugsy Siegel] but could not pull off playing Mr. Bean, begins with WAR.
• She was billed as Tiffani-Amber Thiessen when she was on Saved by the Bell but dropped the Amber by the time she was on Beverly Hills, 90210. So she's TIFFANI THIESSEN, and that starts with a TIFF.
• BOUTROS-GHALI is the last name of Boutros Boutros-Ghali, so this theme entry is not structurally consistent with the other theme entries. But both his first and last names begin with BOUT. (He's the [U.N. Secretary General succeeded by Annan].)
• FIGHTING WORDS at 54A ties everything together, and "fighting words" is a colorful phrase so it's an asset to the theme to be in the grid rather than the title field.

Selected clues:

• ["For reals!"] clues "NO LIE!"
• [Bratislavan currency] is nothing more exotic than the EURO.
• [Take care of one's canines?] clues FLOSS. This is about human teeth, not dogs and their teeth.
• [Moe who recorded Woody Guthrie and others] is Moe ASCH. Usually the crossword ASCH is novelist Sholem Asch.
• [Popular subway time-killers] are PSPS, or PlayStation Portable handheld game players.
• RSVP is clued as [Let people know if you're coming to their wedding], and [Plays at a wedding] clues the verb DJS. Can you guess that Ben Tausig's wedding is coming up soon? Did you RSVP already? What's that? You didn't get an invitation either? Well, let's all show up and surprise him.
• A bank [Balance problem?] is an OVERDRAFT.
• [Emulate Angelina Jolie and Madonna] clues ADOPT.
• [Put up a minor obstacle?] means "put up an obstacle to minors" here—the bouncer or bartender who iDED the kid kept her out of the bar.

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Thursday, 10/22/09

NYT 4:11
Gordon* 3:31
LAT 3:05
Tausig untimed
CS untimed

*Remember what Tuesday Sun crosswords were like? Sort of like Wednesday NYTs but with zingier clues? This summer, Peter Gordon ran into stand-up comic Lee Camp in a bookstore's puzzle section. Peter steered Lee towards one of his books, and in turn Lee gave Peter a disc featuring some of his stand-up. So Peter based a crossword, "Campy Humor," on one of Lee's jokes (that link is a JPEG of the puzzle). Enjoy!

Exciting afternoon in Chicago! I went to my local indie bookstore, Unabridged Bookstore, and saw my book, How to Conquer the New York Times Crossword Puzzle, there for the first time. Their crossword selection is so teeny, I despaired of their ever stocking my book. So I signed the one copy they had and the guy smacked an "Autographed Copy" sticker on it. I took a picture of it with my phone but I'm too lazy to download the photo right now.

Joel Fagliano's New York Times crossword

Kudos to Mr. Fagliano. Not only is this his NYT debut (and maybe his everywhere debut), but when I took the time to fully understand the theme, it knocked my socks off. (Figuratively.) Rarely does a theme elevate the black squares to a starring role, so it's fresh and interesting. Here's how it plays out:

• 27A, 52A. [Wild guess...or what the answer to each starred clue has?] is A SHOT IN / THE DARK. The DARK is the black square before or after the starred entries where the SHOT is hidden.
• 5A. [Jigger] is a shot GLASS.
• 17A. ["That's way off"] clues "NOT BY A LONG shot."
• 38A. This is the first of three "shot in the dark" entries in a single row. A [Photo] is a SNAPshot.
• 39A. A JELL-O shot is a [Colorful party drink]. Is this the first time the seamy little Jell-o shot has been featured in the NYT crossword?
• 40A. The same black square is called into action a second time. Shot DOWN means [Rejected].
• 62A. [Quick hitch-up] is a shotGUN WEDDING.
• 71A. A SLINGshot is a [Y-shaped item].
• 10D. [What "fore" may precede], in golf, is your TEE shot.
• 61D. The shot PUT is a [Track-and-field event].

Most of the theme answers would, with the inclusion of their "shot" part, make for lively crossword fill, and not a one of 'em is the slightest bit iffy.

Despite the wildly out-there 37D (NORVO, or [Red of early jazz]), the puzzle wasn't too tough at all. I would've had a Wednesday solving time if I'd bothered to read the clue for 23A when I filled in EMMITT instead of EMMETT for 11D: [Daniel Decatur ___, composer of "Dixie"]. I blame Emmitt Smith, of course.

Favorite clues:

• GUAM was a [Stop on Magellan's circumnavigation of the world].
• [Cuisine with sen yai noodles] is THAI. I had the Rama chicken tonight myself. What are sen yai noodles?
• [El numero de agosto] is OCHO, or eight. The other day, I caught part of a phone number on a Spanish-language radio commercial. "Uno ocho ocho ocho..."
• To SPOT is to [Give a handicap of]. Don't you think I should be SPOTted at least 50 points when I play Lexulous (the Scrabble variant on Facebook) against a lexicographer? I do.
• OK, this one's a favorite answer and not a clue. RUTABAGA! It's a [Vegetable that's peeled]. The word's from the Swedish dialect rotabagge. I also like KNURL, a [Small ridge on the edge of a button or dial].
• [Nick name?] is SANTA, or St. Nick.
• [Rat Island resident] sounds fictional, doesn't it? It's an ALEUT.

Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword, "Action!"

This one's got an elegant theme: Familiar phrases ingest an -ING that turns a word that's not a verb at all into a gerund, but in each case the -ING word has a context entirely different from the original context. This explanation seems not remotely clear to me. "Show, not tell":

• 18A. [Sport for people apt to wear their gloves upside down?] is IDIOT BOXING, building on the idiom "idiot box," meaning television.
• 24A. The computer spell-check morphs into Tori Spelling. SPELLING CHECK is a [Search for Tori on IMDB?].
• 39A. [Lingerie shopping assistants, at times?] might be STOCKING HOLDERS (stockholders).
• 51A. [November cooking school program?] is GRAVY TRAINING, getting set for Thanksgiving gravy. The gravy train is "used to refer to a situation in which someone can make a lot of money for very little effort," per the New Oxford American Dictionary folks. You know what? I don't like gravy.
• 61A. [Sign that Cuba is near?]...well, on my cruise last winter, it was big waves rocking the ship. But Ben's answer is GOODING OMEN, combining a good omen with Cuba Gooding.

I liked the inherent surprise in each theme entry, with the before and after versions having such different connotations.

1A is clued [Alternative to smoking]. You wanted NON, right? But instead, it's nicotine GUM, or any old GUM that satisfies the oral urge. At 20A, WEBMD is clued as a [Site that kept telling me I either had sunburn or cancer, when I had food poisoning]. I learned a little German when ACH was clued as 57A: ["Die Wurst ist ruiniert!"] ("the sausage is ruined"). How about 34D: [Power trio member?]—were you thinking of Rush, the Police, or Cream? The answer is the HOLY GHOST. YUGOS are 52D: [Reviled cars that ceased production last year]. If you haven't seen Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, you should rent it—Michael Cera's enormously appealing character drives a yellow Yugo that is practically a character in the movie.

Updated Thursday morning:

Randolph Ross's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Keep Your Shirt On"—Janie's review

When someone [Puts the pedal to the metal], s/he STEPS ON IT. This driver is in a hurry—and while the expression is often used to calm someone down before an argument ensues—we also say "Keep your shirt on!" when we mean "Slow down!" Not only on the road—but even sometimes as we solve, in order to appreciate the multitude of pleasures a well-made puzzle can provide. Like today's—where we have 70 letters of quality theme-fill in six phrases: two 15s with two nines (overlapping in their entirety), and two 11s. All of it top-notch. The last word of each of the phrases is a component part of a shirt and can also follow the word shirt. Here's how it all comes together:

•13A. HOT POCKET [Microwaveable turnover]. At your own risk...
•16A. ACE UP ONE'S SLEEVE [Secret advantage]. And one lively phrase, with its card-playin', Wild West conjurin' roots.
•28A. WHITE COLLAR [Kind of crime]. Think "Bernie Madoff"... A blue collar worker is a skilled laborer, and here are some "other collars of the rainbow" (not my locution—dang).
•37A. PANIC BUTTON [It's pushed under stress]. And its opposite number...
•53A. SPOKE OFF THE CUFF [Gave an extemporaneous speech]. Another very lively phrase.
•57A. DOVETAILS [Meshes]. More like this, which is related to this. As the OED defines the term dovetail joint (and shifting to the noun form), it's "a fastening or joint composed of tenons cut in the shape of an expanded dove's tail, fitting into mortises of corresponding shape."

Impressive, no? And the non-theme fill holds up its end of the bargain quite convincingly as well. Allow me to ADD TO [Expand upon] this by pointing out:

•COSMIC [Way out there], which is also a good way to describe the way Michael Richards portrayed COSMO [Kramer on "Seinfeld"];
•A cushy INNERSOLE [Podiatrist's recommendation] may make it more comfortable for "Leadfoot" to put that pedal-to-the-medal. Let's just hope that's not the way the [Prom night rental] LIMO is handled. Or the BMW [Audi alternative] or even any remaining OMNIS [Bygone Dodges];
•A PEEKER is [One who looks in advance]—though my first thought for this was (the too-long) SEERESS. Nice seeing peeker next to PEERESS [Lady in the House of Lords, e.g.];
•[Came through slowly] is SEEPED IN; HIE, on the other hand, carries with it the connotation of speed [Get going]. It's also a homophone for high, which is something you might get on LSD [Psychedelic drug]—and which overlaps hie;
•In the animated series based on the book, LILAC [Purple shade] is also the name of Harold's dog. He of the purple crayon. He was a COLORER [Child with a box of crayons] (or one that we know about anyway...) with a penchant for purple;
•BLITHE is a beautiful word, isn't it? And it's clued beautifully, too, [Like a carefree spirit]; finally, a question to ponder:
•What kind of shirt is worn under a G-SUIT [NASA gear]? (I'm thinking a t-shirt. With a v-neck...)

Dan Naddor's Los Angeles Times crossword

Alas, there's not a familiar phrase that ends with lewd, so the five rhyming spellings we get are UED, OOHED, EWED, UDE, and OOD:

• 17A. [Lost it] clues CAME UNGLUED.
• 25A. POOH-POOHED means [Dismissed out of hand].
• 37A. [Like Starbucks coffee, every 30 minutes] is FRESHLY BREWED. Rumor has it the coffee will still taste burned no matter how fresh it is.
• 48A. "BUMMER, DUDE" is clued with ["That's too bad, man"].
• 60A. TAKEOUT FOOD is an ["I don't feel like cooking" option].

With a half dozen 8-letter answers (plus a bunch of 6s and a couple 7s) in the fill, we don't have the same tired 4x4 chunks of grid. Highlights: the [Austin Powers catchphrase] "Oh, BEHAVE!"; SPANDEX, that [Stretchy fabric]; and FRÄULEIN, a [German miss]. Sound-wise, I also like IGLOO crossing UNGLUED.

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