Sunday, 10/26

PI 9:58
BG 8:54
LAT 8:15
NYT 7:33
CS 4:05

Next Saturday is All Saints' Day, so Daniel Bryant's "All Saints' Day" New York Times crossword appears the Sunday before. The abbreviation for Saint, ST, gets added to the beginning of a word in eight phrases:

• EXCHANGE OF STRINGS is [Switch in an orchestra section?].
  
• HOLY STROLLER is a [Pilgrim?].
  
• STONE-ARMED BANDITS are clued as [Neolithic outlaws?]. This one feels a bit off, as people in the Stone Age were not themselves made of stone.
  
• ULTRAVIOLET STRAYS are [Invisible lost dogs?]. I might've gone with lost dogs working at a tanning salon.
  
• GOES ALL STOUT is clued as [Gets fat?].
  
• WHERE THE BOYS STARE is a [Go-go club?]. What, not Fire Island?
  
• PUT ON STAIRS is [Add new connections between floors?].
  
• STARCH ENEMY is a [Dieter?].
  

The trickiest crossing for me was in square 125, where the [Old Indian V.I.P.] meets the [Key of Bach's best-known Mass]. As far as I know, there are seven letters that could work for the music clue (A through G), and NAWAB is better known in the corrupted form, nabob. Do musically inclined people remember things like "Oh, yeah, Bach's Mass is in B MINOR"?

Here are some clues I think people might be Googling this weekend:

Names!

• [African nation founder Jomo ___] KENYATTA founded Kenya.
  
• [Franz who composed "You Are My Heart's Delight"] is LEHAR. Raise your hand if you wanted Franz L. to be LISZT.
  
• [Curly conker] is MOE of the Three Stooges. Earlier today, I'd been reminded of a [Curly poker] clue for MOE, highlighted as Crosswordese.com's Clever Clue of the Month.
  
• [Costume designer Danilo ___] is DONATI.
  
• Full-name ALDO RAY is ["The Naked and the Dead" star, 1958].
  
• [American suffragist honored with a 1995 stamp] is ALICE PAUL.
  
• [Cowboy actor Calhoun]'s first name is RORY.
  
• [Explorer Tasman of Tasmania fame] is ABEL.
  
• [Genesis creator] is video game company SEGA. Did you get duped into thinking this was a biblical clue? I sure did.

Verbs!

• To [Be Circe-like] is to ENTICE.
  
• To [Do some tune-up work on] is to REOIL.
  

Places! (Sort of.)

• 28-Across, [Union member since 1896], is UTAH, and [Another name for 28-Across] is DESERET.
  
• [Kipling's "Follow Me ___"] is completed by 'OME.
  
• [Rabbit's home, maybe] is the BRIER patch.
  
• [Leman and others] are LACS. I just learned the other day that Lac Leman is the French name for Switzerland's (but not Wisconsin's) Lake Geneva.
  

And the catch-all, miscellaneous:

• [Negative north of England] is the Scottish NAE. The clue had me seeing "negative north" as an entity.
  
• [Traditional symbol of friendship] is TOPAZ. Really? I had no idea.
  
• [Whistler's whistle, maybe] is a TUNE. I don't quite follow. Whistle as a noun refers to the tune one is whistling?
  
• [PX users] are NCOS, or noncommissioned officers.
  
• [Loaded with fat] clues LARDY. Lardy, lardy! Goodness gracious me!
  
• I wanted [Force in the ocean] to be EL NINO, but it's ARMADA. [El ___] NINO appears elsewhere in the puzzle.
  
• One kind of [Anatomical cavity] is an ANTRUM. A sinus is another.
  
• For [Needing a lift?], I almost filled in CAR-LESS. Turns out it's BRA-LESS.
  
• A Spartan [Serf] is a HELOT. One-word clue? Tough to Google this puppy if you don't know the answer already.
  
• [Thrice, in Rx's] is TER. Except that nobody seems to know any doctors who are using that particular Latin abbreviation in their prescriptions.
  

Updated Saturday night:

Merl Reagle's Philadelphia Inquirer crossword, "Halloween Party Checklist," has another of Merl's punpalooza themes. Before I get into the theme, though, I must single out this clue: [Colon opening] is the clue for a 4-letter answer. Could it be...ANUS? No, Merl wouldn't do that. It's the prefix SEMI, as in semicolon. This one's my pick for gutsiest clue of the month.

There are 13 theme entries, with two pairs of Down answers running right next to one another.

• ["Let's see...this is the tennis player's kid..."] clues RAY'S A RACKET (playing on the phrase raise a racket).
  
• ["This is the mechanic's kid..."], VIC'S A TIRE. I don't know what this is a pun on. Fix a tire?
  
• ["This is the caterer's kid..."], MEG'S A SANDWICH (makes a sandwich).
  
• ["This is the soldier's kid..."], TY'S A YELLOW RIBBON (ties).
  
• ["This is the Olympic star's kid..."], CARRIE'S A TORCH (carries). At last, a girl name.
  
• ["This is the clam digger's kid..."], LUKE'S A LITTLE PAIL (looks a little pale).
  
• ["This is the traffic cop's kid..."], RON'S A STOP SIGN (runs).
  
• ["This is the Italian-restaurant owner's kid..."], PETE'S A PIE (pizza pie). My son likes the William Steig story, Pete's a Pizza.
  
• ["This is the crossword guy's kid..."], SOL'S A PUZZLE (solves a puzzle, I think).
  
• ["This is the pet-store owner's kid..."], PAT'S A PUPPY (pats a puppy). 
  
• ["This is the dentist's kid..."], CHIP'S A TOOTH (chips).
  
• ["This is the tailor's kid..."], LEW'S A BUTTON (lose).
  
• ["This is the farmer's kid..."], SKIP'S A BEET (skips a beat).
  

My favorites are the PAIL and BEET ones, where the last word is changed to a homophone. Unfamiliar answer alert: DECRI is [Disrepute, to Depardieu]. Right next to that is HOBS, the [Pegs used in quoits]. (Anyone here ever play quoits?) ETERNO, presumably meaning "eternal" in Italian, is clued [Everlasting, to Enrico]. Its E crosses LEAL, which is an archaic Scottish word meaning [Faithful, old style]. For my generation, SHAZAM is forever enshrined as the Captain Marvel word, but my husband (betrayer of the generation!) also knows it as a [Mayberry exclamation] from Barney Fife.

Henry Hook's Boston Globe crossword in Across Lite was originally published some weeks back. The Across Lite edition shows up the same week that Lynn Lempel used the same theme idea in her Tuesday CrosSynergy puzzle, and both puzzles have the title, "Popinjays," as the constructors have popped in a J. Hook has eight theme entries, some of which intersect other themers. My favorites:

• BARBARY JAPE is clued as [Mockery in northern Africa?]. I like the word jape almost as much as jackanapes.
  
• [Member of a swing-dance group?] is a JIVY LEAGUER, playing on Ivy Leaguer.
  
• Loved ones add a J to become LOVED JONES, or [What many Monkees fans did?]. Who doesn't like Davy Jones? Or the movie Love Jones, which is also one letter off from this theme entry.
  
• [Jack's relaxed partner?] is JILL AT EASE. (Seth, this one's for you. Don't worry about that Jack guy.)
  
• SIX-PACK JABS are [Punches in the gut?].
  

Oddities in the fill include NICHEVO, or [Nikita's "never mind"]; ASOR, a [Bible-era lyre]; FASCIATED, or [Malformed, as plant stems]; and ILIESCU, the [1990s Romanian president]. And then there's the insane crossing between a [Small nautical rope] called a CABLET (which I'm guessing is based on the word cable) and actor [Brad of "General Hospital"], MAULE (he played Tony Jones, a character I'm familiar with, but boy, did I not know who played him). The crossing was an L, but I tried some other random letters there first. There's also some primo fill: B-COMPLEX vitamins, the song "GET A JOB," a JALAPENO pepper, DERRIERE, Rhett Butler's GIVE A DAMN, and some potent GANJA.

Updated on Sunday morning:

On Halloween last year, the holiday-themed LA Times crossword was credited to Ada Honeywell. This year, the pre-Halloween syndicated Sunday Los Angeles Times crossword is another Honeywell puzzle with a timely theme. In "Scared You!", each theme entry is made by adding BOO to an existing phrase:

• BOOMING DYNASTY is a [Really loud regime?]. BOO + Ming dynasty is a good combo.
  
• WEAPONS BABOON is a [Monkey in charge of the armory?].
  
• BOOSTING OPERATION is a [Ring of shoplifters?]. I like that this one's built off of sting operation.
  
• KICKING BOOTEE is clued as a [Bit of equipment for nursery football games?].
  
• ATTACHE CABOOSE is the [Part of the train where briefcases are kept?].
  
• The two Down theme answers both take phrases that begin with stand-alone letters and add the BOO. BOOK RATION is [Allotted reading?], expanding off a K-ration. And B movies turn into BOOB MOVIES, such as ["Dumb and Dumber" et al.?].
  

Seven theme entries is on the low side for a Sunday puzzle, and the result is that there's space for yummy fill:

• ARGY-BARGY is a [Heated dispute in Halifax] or across the Atlantic. It's also (sans hyphen) the title of a Squeeze album.
  
• OUT-AND-OUT means [Total].
  
• "SO IT GOES" is clued with its French counterpart, ["C'est la vie!"].
  
• EOHIPPUS takes me back to high-school biology. It's the [Dog-sized creature thought to be the horse's earliest ancestor]. Eo = early, hippus = horse.
  
• MR. MAGOO is, apparently, [Waldo's uncle, in toons]. He had a nephew named Waldo? MR. SULU is a [Sci-fi character named for a Philippines sea]. Don't you dare complain that the MR. component is duplicated in this puzzle. These entries are terrific, and I like the juxtaposition. Imagine if they had swapped places. Old myope on the Enterprise's bridge? The starship surely would have crashed. And Mr. Magoo's Asian houseboy might have been treated more respectfully if the show's lead had been Mr. Sulu.
  
• IN LIMBO means [Left hanging], and an ODDBALL is a [Weirdo].
  

I do wonder, when I see a constructor's work only in the LA Times and I like the puzzles (as I do this one), if the byline contains another pen name for editor Rich Norris or if it's just a constructor who isn't particularly prolific.

It's my impression that among the CrosSynergy team of constructors, the one whose themeless "Sunday Challenge" puzzles are most likely to contain triple-stacked 15-letter answers is Martin Ashwood-Smith. He's got another one today, with triple stacks at the top and bottom. Favorite clues/answers:

• [11/5/08 headlines] are ELECTION RESULTS. For a moment, I thought the answer would be more specific and wondered who Ashwood-Smith picked to win the presidency.
  
• Two consecutive "swing" clues are [Swing site], the PORCH, and [Swing players], or BIG BANDS.
  
• Three things you don't want to be called wander aimlessly about the grid. DODO is clued as [Old fogy], CRETIN as [Hardly a brainiac], and NUTS as [Ding-a-lings]. There's also a NERD, clued as an [Unpopular sort], but true nerds don't care if they're not popular among the CRETIN jock crowd. The people who matter to them are fond of them.
  
• BONGS! In the crossword! Water pipes for smoking dope? Uh, no. Just [Big bell sounds]. My favorite brunch place is right across the street from Cafe Bong.
  

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Sunday, 4/6

Second Sunday diagramless 20:45
NYT 10:16
PI 7:49
BG 7:35
LAT 7:28
CS 3:18

...And then there were five. No more Sunday Washington Post puzzle to enjoy—Washingtonians will now be getting Merl Reagle's crossword, which I (and you, if you like fun crosswords) already solve in its Philadelphia Inquirer incarnation.

Apparently not understanding a crossword's theme for too long can really interfere with speedy solving—even after I'd filled in MAY DOUBT A WILL in Daniel Bryant's New York Times puzzle, even after seeing the "Sound Moves," title, I couldn't parse the phrase that answer was based on. (Edited to add: Ashish reports that the title in the printed newspaper is "Could You Reword That, Please?") Much later, I figured out it was made out a will, which would seem out of place as a crossword entry in its unaltered form. So, each theme entry moves a sound from the end of the first word to the beginning of the second, which necessitates changing the spelling of those words. My favorite was the [Drab Oriental fabric?], GRAY TOILE OF CHINA (Great Wall). I hit another speedbump thanks to Chicago pronunciation, as KEY PAWN (MOVING) and keep on don't have the same vowel sound, and neither to DRAW PIN (CENTERS) and drop-in (I hear the vowels in paw vs. pot).


Moving along to the clues, did anyone else find themselves at 113-Across, [Word before or after "on"], with H**D filled in, and wonder what "on hard" meant? And then "on head"? (It's HOLD.) Favorite clues: [Greek discord goddess] for ERIS (my role model!); [Motor levers] for TAPPETS (I saw this word a few weeks ago in another puzzle, and considered it solely because of Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers); [Architect whose epitaph says "Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you"] for Christopher WREN (here's a picture—the epitaph's in Latin, in London's St. Paul's Cathedral, which was closed when I tried to visit); [Tribe originally from the Deep South] for CHOCTAW (because the tribe name sounds like it just might be chocolate plus TAWS, which are clued as [Choice marbles]); [1910s='20s Dutch art movement] for DE STIJL (Mondrian exemplifies the movement's style); [What people are saying, briefly] for VOX POP; [Prime minister raised in Milwaukee] for Golda MEIR; [Twaddle] for BOSH, both Brit-inflected; [Friday, for one] for COP (trapped between the Sgt. in my head and th CO* space, I wanted to move Joe into the military and make him Col. Friday); and [Steakhouse shunner] for VEGAN (hey, steakhouses are no fun even you eat dairy, eggs, poultry, and fish, lemme tell you). Most obscure answer, for me: SIMNEL, a [British fruitcake]. That, and ILLEGIT, clued as [Crooked]; is this a real word? It seemed like the puzzle had a lot of short answers that lacked flavor, such as APOS and OAST, ESTS and ETDS.

Update #1:

The Across Lite Boston Globe puzzle by Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon, "Mother's Helpers," runs AU PAIRS down the middle as [This puzzle's theme]; the seven theme entries are words, names, or phrases that contain a pair of AUs. The AU PAIRS tie-in lets this make sense to me, whereas that recent Merl Reagle puzzle in which each theme entry had a pair of OUs left me cool. I like the multilingual vibe espoused by the theme entries—CLAUDE LEVI-STRAUSS has a French first name and half-Teutonic last name, which echoes the two German answers (SAUERKRAUT and HAUSFRAUEN) and two French-inflected answers (BEAUJOLAIS NOUVEAU and the LAURENTIAN PLATEAU. Then throw in PAUL AUSTER from Brooklyn and CHAUTAUQUA, a New York town with a Seneca name, to round things out (or raund them aut, maybe). Good fill—LOVE GAME, ON PURPOSE, SANGRIA, TOGGLE, an ART FAIR, and John HERSEY (hooray for Hersey graduating from only being in clues for ADANO!). There's also a double-hit of oval geometry—an ELLIPSE is an [Elongated O], while [Like a flattened O] is OBLATE.

Update #2:

Paula Gamache's Second Sunday puzzle, a diagramless crossword, had me erasing a ton in the top third of the grid. The good news is that I figured it all out, and I didn't even use the starting-square hint. The first big misstep was filling in THE CHOSEN PEOPLE, who picked fights with the nearby Down entries because they needed to narrow themselves down to THE CHOSEN FEW. It wasn't until I filled in the first three long answers that I gleaned any commonality—the letters ECHO. The final long answer explains the theme "in a way"—the phrases containing that letter string are ECHO CHAMBERS. (Interestingly, ECHOLOCATION could have served the same purpose with a minor clue edit.)

Merl Reagle's Philadelphia Inquirer puzzle, "Greeks and Romans I'd Like to Meet," reminds me a bit of History of the World, Part I—here, the theme entries are English words that sound as if they could be the names of ancient Greek or Roman figures. Do you know there are 15 theme answers? Yeah. That's quite a lot. My favorites were ["You're getting warmer"], HUMIDITIES; ["You don't look so good"], NAUSEA; and ["Interesting flavor...what's your secret"], CORIANDER. Outside of the theme, there's a brilliant clue: [Remove from power?] for UNPLUG.

Update #3:

The CrosSynergy themeless "Sunday Challenge" this week is by Raymond Hamel. Now, I hadn't noticed the YDS/YARDSTICK duplication in yesterday's NYT, but I did notice the UNI- prefix across from UNILATERAL here. Usually I don't notice such dupes, and when I do, it doesn't make me erase one of the answers because it's got to be against the rules. (Fight the power!) Lots of favorite entries in this puzzle—I just wish the clues had been harder so I'd have to work for all these great answers. The ACTION HERO is resting beneath the FASHION MAG, and in the opposite corner, the fill evokes a PREHOMINID crossword AFICIONADO. The Nielsen families in SIOUX FALLS may be WATCHING TV. The [Moonshine mug] is a MASON JAR. Retro childhood fun and games come out with a POTATO RACE and X-RAY VISION promised by a comic book ad. Favorite clues: [It may follow Kuwait or Quebec] for CITY; [Dr. Kimble's pursuer] for GERARD (from The Fugitive); and [Ruff stuff] for the LACE in an Elizabethan ruff collar. The most obscure clue was [Braided grass] for SENNIT; fortunately, the crossings were all pretty gettable.

Gail Grabowski's syndicated LA Times crossword, "It's On Order," has nine theme entries that begin with words that can precede order—for example, BACK FORTY and NEW POTATOES give us back order and New Order. I feel that COURT FAVOR is a little iffy—is it a blending of "curry favor" and "pay court to"?

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Friday, 2/15

NYS 10:10
NYT 4:52
LAT 4:25
CHE 4:08
Jonesin' 4:04
CS 2:58

WSJ 7:25

Happy Half Birthday to me! To celebrate, themeless crosswords from Patrick Berry and Byron Walden—o frabjous day!

Omigod, guess who's on public television right this minute? It's Etta James! Of crossword fame! Now I know what she looks like.

All righty, Byron Walden's latest New York Sun "Weekend Warrior" is in the running for the year's toughest puzzle. The year's young, so surely there could be sterner challenges ahead, but this is the one to top now. It could be that I did it late in the evening the other day, or it could be a wicked crossword. This 70-worder is anchored by a brace of 15-letter entries: "WHAT'D YOU SAY TO ME?" (clued as [Slight reaction?]) and ALGEBRA PROBLEMS ([XYZ affairs?] toying with French/U.S. history).

There's much to like here, starting at 1-Across. Usually [Play starter] is ACTI, but here, it's a football SNAP for a change. I don't know why a [Shoe insert] is a DECK; anyone? (Edited to add: It's a casino thing.) I like the slanginess of BAG IT ([Abandon one's efforts, slangily]), NO CHANCE (["When hell freezes over!"]), WHALED ON ([Beat badly]), and quaint NEATO (['50s "Radical!"]). I always like it when a crosswordese-named person gets promoted to first-and-last-name status—here, it's POLA NEGRI. DRACO is [Thuban's constellation], and I'll assume that Thuban is a star. Credit goes to http://www.ket.org/cgi-bin/tvschedules/episode.pl?nola=MSTR++001625&cd=1&&framed=1&layout=popup for teaching me that Troglodytes is a small bird's genus, so I could guess WREN for [Creature with the scientific name Troglodytes Troglodytes]. Science also gives us [Thermophilic habitats] like GEYSERS. [Money pitch?] is a STORY IDEA given to one's editor at Money magazine. There are two people with an unusual AO in their names: the [Red giant] MAO ZE DONG and the [New York Times film critic who succeeded Janet Maslin], A.O. SCOTT. [Trick parts?] are KNEES.

Looking at the Downs, now—I have a kid, but had no idea such an entity as KIDS WB. Apparently the [Home to "Tom and Jerry Tales"] is a Saturday morning lineup only, and not one my kid watches. (Though he does have a fine appreciation of "Tom and Jerry.") BDAY doesn't show up much in crosswords or, I presume, dictionaries—but people say it all the time, and here it is, as a [Card type, for short]. I like the clue for nod: [Bean dip?]. [Some SAT takers] is spot-on for JRS—hey, I took the SAT my junior year. [Mae West's swan song] apparently was SEXTETTE (it was a 1978 movie). Oh! The most horrifying clue of all! [Thrust in one's briefs?] I'll let you muse on that for a while, and think of everything that could possibly be. It's nothing more than a lawyer's ARGUMENT, the thrust of his case. [Günter Grass's birthplace, today] is GDANSK, Poland (formerly Danzig, Germany). The noun phrase [Display innovation?] is PLASMA, as in the TV that I love so.

I thought Patrick Berry's New York Times puzzle was a damn sight easier than the Sun. How did the two comparefor you, difficulty-wise? This 64-worder has two stacked pairs of 15s: ARTURO TOSCANINI ([He conducted the premiere performances of "Pagliacci" and "La Boheme"]) with CLERICAL COLLARS (clued cleverly as [Bands of holy men]) on top, and IN THE NEAR FUTURE atop a ROCK AND ROLL STAR at the bottom.

Favorite Across clues: [Maker of Coolpix cameras] for NIKON (because I have one); ["Field of Dreams" actress Amy] for MADIGAN (because she's a Chicagoan); [1979 #1 hit for Robert John] for "SAD EYES" (because I loved that song in junior high); [Yielding ground] for MUD (I had the right idea, but first thought of BOG); and [Compliant] for TRACTABLE (seems like intractable is far more common). The Down clues I like best: [Jelly seen on buffet tables] for STERNO (don't eat it!); [Boxy Toyota product] for SCION (though technically, only the Scion XB—which would be a great crossword entry—is boxy); [First African-born Literature Nobelist] for Albert CAMUS; [Titular mouse in a classic Daniel Keyes novel] for ALGERNON; [1600 to 1800, on a boat] for DOGWATCH; [Big hit] for SOCKEROO (wait a minute...has anyone ever actually used that word? Its Google presence is mighty slim, but it's such a tempting word to use in blogging, and it sounds like it should mean "even better than socko"); and [Roughly a third of the earth's surface] for DESERT. UTA HAGEN, like POLA NEGRI in the other puzzle, gets the full-name treatment. (Has her name been clued cryptically with UTAHN + AGE or UTAHAN + GE?). Never heard of HANNO, [Carthaginian statesman who opposed war with Rome].

SURGE is clued [Kind of protector], and usually I brush off the "kind of" clues without a thought, but this one sticks in the craw. There is such a thing as a surge protector, yes, but a surge is no kind of protector at all. The surge is what's being protected against.

Updated:

So, Etta James on TV last night? She was cool. I will look on the inevitable [Singer James] clues more fondly now.

This week's Jonesin' puzzle by Matt Jones is a themeless. Yay! Another themeless puzzle today! I think Matt puts out a themeless once every few months. This one's called "12:11" because it has a dozen 11-letter entries. Favorite entries: HOT AND HEAVY, TRICERATOPS, SYNESTHESIA ([The ability to hear colors, say]), "I WANT TO LIVE!", and "OF COURSE NOT." I didn't know that BENTLEY was a [British automaker now owned by Volkswagen]. The Bentley Continental GT is one of the most gorgeous cars out there, and I see one around the neighborhood from time to time. I like the consonant pack in Youssou N'DOUR's name, and of course I'm delighted with the partial entry I CAN (["___ Has Cheezburger?"], because LOLcats amuse me:

moar humorous pics

(Speaking of themeless puzzles, the Ornery Crossword in the new issue of Games magazine is by Harvey Estes, and it contains no 3-letter entries—everything is 4+. A 25x25 grid, a set of hard clues, and all themeless? That's always a treat for me. The constructorial feat of eschewing 3-letter words is just icing on the cake.)

The LA Times puzzle by Jack McInturff sort of felt like a Chronicle of Higher Education crossword—the theme involved puns on authors' names. Now, this Midwesterner definitely does not pronounce BIDDING WAUGH and bidding war the same. I liked SOCCER MAUGHAM (mom) and UNDER A CHEEVER (achiever) best. A pair of terrific long fill answers: WILD GUESS and PROM QUEEN.


The actual Chronicle of Higher Education puzzle by Daniel C. Bryant ("Four of Hearts") has a huge "aha" moment that just hit me. The central entry, ROBERT INDIANA, is clued [Pop artist who created a famous verbal image in 1964 (reproduced four times in this grid]. That's LO above VE spelling out LOVE. In each corner of the grid, there's a down answer containing LV next to one with OE, spelling out LO/VE in a 2x2 square. (And those 2x2s are in exactly symmetrical spots.) Cool! But that gimmick isn't the extent of the theme—there's also VALENTINE'S DAY, CARA MIA, JE T'AIME, ROMANTIC, and GO STEADY. All righty, I'm nominating this puzzle for best gimmick of the year. The only down side is that someone who doesn't read the whole clue for ROBERT INDIANA might miss the gimmick altogether.

I like everything about Randolph Ross's easy CrosSynergy puzzle, "SAT Exam," except for COEDS not being clued as the retro crap it is. In case you need a reminder, Googling "coeds" these days will get you a ton of porn and nothing that pertains to the average woman's college experience. Just [Sorority sisters]? No. When the majority of college students are female, it makes no sense to have a noun that sets them apart as not-the-norm—heck, let's clue it as [Fraternity brothers]. I'd welcome the word if the clue referenced the 1950s—are there any old books or movies featuring "coeds"? The theme entries could be initialized as S.A.T.—there's SURF AND TURF and SICK AND TIRED, for example. 100% solid theme phrases, and nice fill like MACADAMIA, IDYLLIC, DOUGHNUT, a ROADIE, and L.L. BEAN.

Liz Gorski's Wall Street Journal puzzle, "Lincoln Center," embeds ABE Lincoln within nine theme entries (including two shorter ones, EDNA BEST and "WANNA BET?"). Favorite entries: WE DELIVER, HIT THE CEILING, MARISKA Hargitay, and WALLEYE. Favorite clues: [It's full of leaves] for TEABALL; [Chance to catch bugs] for BETA TEST; and [Banking device] for the avionic AILERON.

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Thursday, 9/6

NYS 5:19
NYT 4:37
LAT 4:04
CS 2:53


Two captivating crosswords from the Sun and Times for Thursday.

Daniel Bryant's New York Times puzzle has a theme of IT'S REVERSED, with IT reversed to TI in the theme entries. of the trio, I liked LANDING STIES the least and thought to myself, "Landing sites? How often do people actually use that term?" So I Googled landing site and got 31 million hits—and I'd like to change the clue from [Where porcine pilots arrive?] to [Where porcine astronauts arrive?]. [Wardrobe malfunction?] is a great clue for UNTIED FRONT, and I also liked MARTIAL BLISS, the highly elusive [Mood after a military victory?]. There are all sorts of excellent fill entries sitting in this grid, from the 7- and 9-letter words between the middle two theme entries (ENDEAVORS, INHUMAN) to the longer verticals (THANK YOUS, ANTONIONI, CINEPLEX, AGNOSTIC) to BABBLE and late political cartoonist Bill MAULDIN. (There are also plenty of blah shorter entries.)

Favorite clues: [Camel's end?] for ASH (cigarettes, ick); [Tries] for ENDEAVORS; [Nut just threaten] for SUE; [Threats to World War shipping] for U-BOATS (I just learned the other week at the expanded U-505 exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry that the German U-boats had sunk an awful lot of American and British merchant ships); the crazy [Over near] for OUT BY (as in "I think I left it out by the lawn chair"), even though the fill may be specious; [Artist Frank ___, pioneer in Minimalism] for painter Frank STELLA; [It has many pictures] for CINEPLEX; and [Certain notes] for the non-musical, non-currency THANK YOUS.

In the New York Sun, Patrick Blindauer's puzzle ("Hop To It!") is a tribute to the old video game, FROGGER. The theme entries are unrelated other than that they include (in the circled/shaded squares) the frog's obstacles, a CROC(odile), LOG, CAR, and TRUCK. (I think the Across Lite file's supposed to show TRUCK, not TRUC, in circles.) There are five evenly spaced squares in the top row of the grid that reflect the safe havens the frog can reach.

After you fill in the crossword, you're to take your invisible frog through the Frogger grid from the circled E at the bottom, moving upwards and left and right as needed through the letters contained in FROGGER, dodging the hazardous car and log and whatnot, to reach one of the safe havens. I got him to the R; same for you?

Two clues reminded my of my recent Florida vacation: [Merman's milieu] for SEA, though my husband plied his merman moves in a swimming pool; and [First name of the TV deputy of Hazzard County] for ENOS, because the guy who played Enos will be the celebrity guest at the Cooter Festival one town over from my in-laws'. Favorite clues: [Creature feature] for FUR; the vaguely misleading [Appropriate] for USURP; [Bolted down nuts, maybe] for ATE; and [Cubist of note] for ERNO RUBIK, getting promoted from crosswordese first name to his full name. DOLOMITE, the [Common translucent mineral], is not quite the same as the movie DOLEMITE, but picks up some cool vibes from it anyway.

Updated:

David Kahn's LA Times crossword features a batch of NFL MERGERS joining two football teams into a single phrase starting with a possessive. [Corporate leader's flying fleet?] = CHIEF'S JETS, [Mogul's fancy cars?] = TITAN'S JAGUARS, [Cleric's golfing successes] = CARDINAL'S EAGLES, and [Plastic user's accumulation?] = CHARGER'S BILLS. The only mildly sour spot in the theme is that the Jets' name relates to jets used the same way, whereas the other teams aren't named after cars, golf coups, or credit card statements. But that's a minor, minor detraction from the theme's cohesiveness. Outside of the theme, eh, nothing so special. I wouldn't mind seeing another crossword someday that plays with combinations of team names, though—it's a fun game.

Randolph Ross's CrosSynergy puzzle's got a fairly straightforward theme that has a fresh feel nonetheless. The six theme entries in "Going to Seed" start with edible seeds (well, some people do eat APPLE seeds by eating the core—I knew a woman who ate apples that way and it always freaked me out a bit), so the seed for each theme entry's a seed. Ten bonus points for launching the theme with the '80s horror movie, PUMPKINHEAD, which sounds silly, not scary. Quaint old POPPYCOCK and MUSTARD PLASTER join the fun, along with potent APPLEJACK, the SUNFLOWER STATE, and the kiddie theme park, SESAME PLACE.

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Tuesday, 5/29

NYS 4:15
NYT 3:18
LAT 3:17
CS 2:53
Tausig tba
Onion tba

(updated at 8:15 a.m. Tuesday)

All righty, I'm back home after a weekend in Wisconsin and a Memorial Day in the 'burbs. I'd almost been ready to put away the finally emptied suitcases a few days ago when it was time to reload one for the weekend trip—so now I'm back where I was a week ago, with luggage to unpack and laundry to do. (Sigh. Will refuse to sleep anywhere but my own bed for at least a month.)

It's possible I've seen a similar theme before, but I still liked Jim Hyres' theme in Tuesday's NYT. The six longest entries, a rather lively batch (I'm fondest of HOPSCOTCH with its paltry two vowels), all begin with words or syllables that can be preceded by BAR (38-Across, right in the center). The products of the recombinations include (BAR)HOP and (BAR)KEEP, a (BAR)BELL, the dry (BAR)CODE and (BAR) CHART, and the phrasal (BAR) NONE. MUD BATH is a nice bit of fill, but the tight layout—with four across entries, two downs, and the central BAR—limits the flexibility for most of the fill, so some of the shorter words are a bit blah.

The Sun puzzle for Tuesday comes from Patrick Berry. In the "En Zone," -NDS ends of words become -NS endings, and those Ds are scarcely pronounced anyway, so the resulting phrases sound a lot like the originals. "Rubber bands" become RUBBER BANS, or restrictions on galoshes. Zones of woe: 1-Across is a baseball player I've never heard of, an AARON Heilman who played with the Mets last season. (New York, Shmoo York...) I haven't heard a TV's picture tube called an IMAGE TUBE, and I don't think our plasma screen's got a tube anyway. And I still haven't read "The Lorax," so I blanked on the THNEEDS. Liked [Chew toy coater] for SLOBBER (no shortage of dog slobber at my sister's house this afternoon, but I was trying to think of what substance chew toys were made of); BOOTLEG concert recordings; and the clue [Something that isn't taken lying down?] for SHOWER.

Updated:

Daniel Bryant's LA Times crossword has a homophone theme (e.g., BORED BOHR'S BOARS), but oddly, HOMO and PHONE appear in two separate entries tying the theme together. The theme is Monday-easy. Okay, so it's Tuesday now, but it feels like a Monday owing to yesterday's holiday. Some Scrabbly entries and otherwise good fill: QUIZZES with its three crossings at the Q and Zs, another Q elsewhere, VIRTUOSO, THE ONE.

Martin Ashwood-Smith spends "Three Bucks" in his CrosSynergy puzzle, with three phrases that mean "buck," as in "buck the system." As with the LA Times puzzle, plenty of Scrabbly letters (three Xs, a pair of Zs and Ks, and a Q and a J) lurking in the midst. Also liked the 9-letter entries, JUAN PERON and METER MAID, but must take exception to [Addams Family lion] as the clue for KITKAT. The American rendition of the KitKat is one of my favorite candy bars, though it is nutritionally abysmal. The creamy filling between the crisp wafers is essentially saturated fat blended with sugar. It's tasty, but I kinda wish Hershey would upgrade to a nonsaturated fat. My also-beloved Snickers Almond has that good nut-based fat in it, so I guess I just ought to eat more of those.

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