Saturday, 2/7

Newsday 12ish, while watching TV and talking with family
LAT 8:45
NYT 5:06

Have we seen a themeless crossword by Pete Muller before? He seems like one of those twisty-theme specialists to me, so maybe this New York Times crossword is his first published themeless. And maybe it isn't. As I traveled through this puzzle I had a few missteps. [Idols, often] are SEX OBJECTS, but I started out with SEX SYMBOLS. I had to change that when [Rambler's lack] was going to be a 7-letter noun starting with a Y, which just looked implausible. For [Drink with a bite], I decided the lemon drink was a cocktail called a LEMON SOUR. Hmm, what would that be? Googling suggests that's a cocktail ingredient. The actual answer here is LEMON SODA, which is not sold in most groceries as far as I can tell.

Favorite answers and clues:

• SMART DRUGS are [Enhancers of cognitive abilities]. My first thought was SMART FOODS, but that didn't wish to cooperate with any crossings.
  
• Lucy [Lawless vehicle] is XENA, Warrior Princess. That show was awesomely good cheese.
  
• The [Rambler's lack] is BREVITY.
  
• FRANK means [Open], while [Somewhat open] clues AJAR. Don't you want to tell someone who's only opening up a bit to you that they're ajar?
  
• LIVE-IN MAID is an [Upper-class luxury]. Just how much was Mike Brady earning as an architect that the Brady Bunch could afford shoes and clothes for six kids and Alice, the live-in housekeeper?
  
• A [Spot to show off alpine plants] is a ROCK GARDEN.
  
• [Icing] isn't just sugary frosting—it's also DOING IN, as in assassinating.
  
• MIMES are [Those whose actions speak louder than words?], and TALKING is the [Activity avoided by 24-Down].
  
• [Pyrexia] means FEVER. Do not treat this with Pyrex.
  
• I got the answer to a football clue! [Choice for third and short] is a SNEAK. Is that a quarterback sneak?
  

Stuff I didn't know:

• ["Grease" co-writer Jim] JACOBS is not known to me. Nor is FIFI, [Maggie's dog in "Bringing Up Father"].
  
• [The Louvre's Salles des ___]...hmm, looking for a French word. Why is it ETATS? Will someone who's been there tell me?
  
• CIRE is a [Glazed, waxy fabric finish]. I've seen this word once or twice before in crosswords but needed all the crossings to remember it.
  
• [Solitaire game of matching pairs of cards] is MONTE CARLO.
  
• RICO is the name of [First baseman Brogna].
  

Updated Saturday morning:

Tom Heilman's themeless LA Times crossword is perhaps the hardest LA Times puzzle in a year. I got through the northeast and southwest quadrants okay, but the southeast put up a fight and the northwest tried to kill me. There were some answers that were flat-out unfamiliar to me:

• [Rm.-and-meals systems] are APS. I don't have the foggiest idea what this abbreviation stands for.
  
• BLACK MASS is a [Parodic ceremony]. Who's doing the parodying?
  
• [Tribe originally from Carolina] is TUSCARORA.
  
• Now, those two longer ones were stacked together in the northwest, and the crossing answers tended to have tough clues.
  
• [Capital of Iran's East Azerbaijan Province] is TABRIZ. The specificity of the clue might help if you're Googling or looking at a map, but otherwise? No. Very few American crossword solvers keep tabs on the various provinces of Iran.
  
• [Get ready to take off]—like a plane? like someone leaving? like clothes? No, like shoes: UNLACE.
  
• [Presidential briefing?] is a clue I don't like. The answer is CIC, as in "commander-in-chief." "Briefing" is not a standard way of pointing us towards an abbreviation, is it?
  

I didn't have fun with that corner—it just annoyed me. Maybe I shouldn't have had cake for breakfast. Is that a smart food?

I do like the inclusion of a mini-theme (sort of) in the middle answers: The [Pedestrian right-of-way] is sometimes called a ZEBRA CROSSING, and the pedestrian may be waiting a while in RUSH-HOUR TRAFFIC ([Cause of many a clogged artery]). Other tough clues or bright spots:

• SOCCER MOM is a [Suburban stereotype].
  
• [E-mail letters] clues AOL. I wish AOL didn't have those two vowels, because those make it show up in far too many crosswords. The clues tend to accord AOL the importance it had a decade ago, but now Comcast and AT&T have many more customers than AOL. AOL needs to go away...
  
• [Silicate minerals] are MICAS. I've done enough crosswords (too many?) that this was a total gimme with the M in place.
  
• I didn't know [Naomi Campbell, e.g.] was AFRO-ASIAN (via a Chinese Jamaican grandparent). I also didn't know that there are about 70,000 Chinese Jamaicans in Jamaica.
  
• The religious holiday/feast/what-have-you of Epiphany was the same day as my grandma's birthday, January 6. [When Epifania del Senor is celebrated] is ENERO, or January in Spanish.
  
• Pants INSEAMS are clued [They end at the ankle].
  
• LAO TSE is [Literally, "old master"].
  
• ZEROES IN means [Focuses]. Good answer.
  
• SPYWARE consists of [Invasive programs]. Another good answer.
  

Dan Stark's Newsday "Saturday Stumper" has not a single hard answer. Every answer is straightforward and familiar. The clues, alas, were not easy—but at least you could tell if anything was wrong because the crossings didn't make sense. (Solution here.) Case in point: for 60-Down, [Indonesian export], 3-letter word starting with T, I plugged in TEA. That completely obstructed the appearance of any reasonable words in 62- and 64-Across. Eventually I erased the EA and discovered [Got to go] could be ENLISTED and [Corrects one's words, perhaps] could be REENTERS, making the export TIN. An easier clue for TIN would have knocked minutes off my solving time here. Favorite clues: [Rats' relative] is the interjection DARN. I had DAMN, which made [Walt's brother] MOY instead of ROY Disney. [#1 preceder] is WE'RE, as in "We're #1!" [It has new tails in 2009] clues CENT—I guess the penny will get some non-Lincoln Memorial obverses this year, but I haven't seen any new pennies yet.

1-Across had a little trick to it. The answer to [Signifies] doesn't end with an S, it ends with a TO. So I wrote an S before T, thinking of something like POINTS TO. Eventually I worked through the rest of that corner and discovered it was ADDS UP TO, with tha P starting PITA, a [Mediterranean staple]. Did you know that a [Surname shared by at least eight related sports pros] is UNSER? I thought of the three Alous and ran out of ideas. [Rig devices] means devices in truckers' rigs: CB'S. That crosses CREATE for the verb [Institute], BARTER for a [Kind of commerce] (with the ARTE in place, my mind only saw CARTEL), and photographers' SPEEDS.

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Saturday, 1/10

NYT 7:58
LAT 6:36
Newsday 6:35
CS 3:21
Going Too Far 5:51
yesterday's WSJ 7:46

(updated at 2:30 p.m. Saturday)

New flash! If you didn't get a chance to see Wordplay filmmaker Patrick Creadon's follow-up project, I.O.U.S.A., you can catch it on CNN this weekend:

The two-hour program will feature an exclusive televised version of the nonpartisan film I.O.U.S.A., which examines the U.S. government’'s fiscal landscape and the consequences for the national economy. This exclusive televised event will air on CNN/U.S. on Saturday, January 10 at 2:00 p.m. EST and on Sunday, January 11 at 3:00 p.m. EST.

I saw the movie last summer and found it quite well-done—reminiscent of Wordplay in its graphics, which were sorely needed to illustrate the fiscal policy and national deficit data—and funny at times, but also more than a little terrifying. The landscape has changed since the movie debuted at Sundance a year ago—now President-elect Obama cautions that the deficit will have to balloon in order to stimulate the economy. CNN will incorporate a panel discussion to relate the film's issues to more current events.

(Thanks to Andrea Michaels for the heads-up.)

Here in the Fiend's cozy living room, we just finished watching The Dark Knight and the special features. So cool to see how the insane stunts were done, right here in Chicago in 2007. Commissioner Gordon's house is in my neighborhood, and the SWAT truck passed my husband's office building as it descended to Lower Wacker Drive. The Joker was absolutely magnetic in every one of his scenes; Heath Ledger, rest in peace.

Now, watching a movie like that is perfect mental preparation for a Bob Klahn Saturday New York Times crossword, isn't it? Some trucks are gonna need to be flipped inside your head, and you could really use Batman's utility belt to grapple with the challenge. The utility belt, alas, did not cause me to type PATRRA for [Nero's homeland], nor was it responsible for my failing to notice that bad R when trying to figure out the crossing.

I will come back and list the sorts of answers and clues that make people shake their fists and say "Kla-a-ahn!" but right now, there is a boy who needs to be tucked in. Go ahead and peek at that answer grid if the mood strikes. It's okay. I won't be watching.
..............
OK, I'm back, and in the interim I received some correspondence relating to the unholy union of TANKA, the [Poem of 31 syllables in five lines], and MARACAIBO, the [Oil-rich South American basin]. I didn't know TANKA, so I dug up some examples. I recognize the name MARACAIBO and remembered the spelling, but I couldn't have told you it was an "oil-rich basin." It's also a Venezuela's second largest city, located on the channel that links the Gulf of Venezuela (they have one?) with Lake Maracaibo. The lake is in the middle of the sedimentary basin.

Other trademark tough Klahn fill includes these:

• PETERMEN are [Safecrackers, slangily]. Have you ever seen this term before? Yegg I know, but not a peterman. My dictionary says the derivation is peter, slang for "safe," plus man. That ain't the only thing peter is slang for.
  
• Shoe trees? I know those. The [Foot-long stretchers] that are BOOT TREES? I have none.
  
• [Cotton Club standout of the '30s] is Wordplay blogger Jim HORNE. No, actually, it's Lena HORNE, and this is the first time I recall her last name showing up in the grid instead of her first name.
  
• PIU ["___ che penso" (Handel aria)] is Italian for "P.U.! I Think (Somebody Farted)," perhaps. Or perhaps not. 
  
• [Rigel, for one] is a something-STAR—pick a letter. This one is B-STAR and I think very few non-astronomer/non-physicist types know which stars are which types.
  
• [Area between forest and prairie, e.g.] is ECOTONE, a transitional zone between two ecosystems.
  
• BARONIAL isn't a crazily obscure word, but its clue is [Style of envelope for greeting cards]. Is there a stationer in the house?
  
• The PEEDEE River has more than four letters, so it doesn't get much crossword love. The clue is [River with an alphabetical-sounding name].
  [Early South Carolina senator Thomas] SUMTER—I reckon the fort is named after him, but I don't know of [him.
  

The challenge with a Klahn themeless doesn't arise solely from the answers. No, there are also the twisty clues to contend with:

• [Main engagement?] is a SEA WAR, since the bounding main is the sea.
  
• [Best in one's position] is ALL-PRO used as an adjective. I was reading the "best" part as pointing toward a noun.
  
• AMBROSIA is a [Food carried by doves]? I had no idea. I never see doves carrying anything. The local ones must be lazy.
  
• [Irreparably cracked] clues INSANE, not something like "shattered."
  
• I've seen that ADAM'S ALE/[Water] equivalency before in crosswords, but have never heard someone actually refer to water that way.
  
• [Piece of pie, often] is an OCTANT.
  
• STEGOSAUR means [Literally, "roof lizard"]? I did not know that.
  
• An ARM is a [Magazine article] in that an arm, or gun, is an article into which you can insert a magazine of ammo.
  
• [Member of the first state to adopt Christianity as its religion] is an ARMENIAN. Trivia! Also on the trivia front, [Hank Williams or Nat King Cole] is an ALABAMAN.
  
• [Asian language with 14+ million speakers] could be a lot of things, couldn't it? There must be more than 50 Asian languages to choose from. This one's NEPALI.
  
• [Morgiana's storied master] is ALI BABA. I wouldn't mind if crossword clues and answers never bothered me with the names of horses.
  
• If it's ON SALE, it's [Ready to move].
  
• A [Land rover] of a sort is a NOMAD.
  
• How about [It's under a top]? That's a BRA, of course. Add an M sound and you get BROM [__ Bones of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"].
  

What else has this puzzle got that I wanted to mention? Plenty. There's a PECTORAL [Kind of fin on a fish] up above the MAHI MAHI, or [Brilliantly colored food fish that changes hues when removed from the water]. Shouldn't that be the DORSAL fin if it's on top? I love the word MIASMA, clued as a [Corrupting influence]. The [Dyslexic TV host with a college degree in speech therapy] is Jay LENO; good to know he's got a steady career he can fall back on. TUNS are [252-gallon measures], typically of beer or wine. TERA- means 10 to the 12th power or the [Computer prefix meaning 2 to the 40th power]; I'm afraid I don't want to know anything about this clue. Can you HACK IT? If so, you can [Manage]. I like WISE UP TO, clued with [See through at last]. [Studs] usually seem to relate to earrings in crosswords, but not this time—they're STALLIONS. [No-names] aren't just people; they're also GENERICS if they're medications or grocery products. PERSIA was [One side in the Battle of Marathon].

Updated:

So, that Klahn puzzle was kinda fun, wasn't it? He's one of those constructors I sometimes have a mind-meld with, such that I read the clues and know what he's asking for, but there's a contrast with many other solvers who hit a wall with those same clues. I tend to hit that wall with the Newsday "Saturday Stumper" and its more oblique cluing—it's hard to be a mind-reader with a one-word clue that has multiple meanings. I haven't yet heard of anyone claiming a mind-meld with the Stan Newman/Stumper style of clues—if you fall into an easy groove with the Stumpers, I'd love to hear about it.

Frederick Healy's LA Times crossword tricked me into a frightening confusion of Hollywood history. Who was the [2004 Best Actor Oscar winner], 9 letters? I couldn't remember. I put IDLES for [Runs slowly] and figured the X had to be wrong in XKES, [Classic Jaguars], so I changed that to SLES. (I think I made that up.) With the M in MINOS the [Labyrinth-building king], that made me enter TOM CRUISE, which is just wrong. His last lead nomination was in 1997. 2004's star was JAMIE FOXX, and IDLES became OOZES—and Foxx co-starred with Cruise in Collateralin 2004 and was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in 2005. Double-win!

The two-X actor is balanced by XEROX COPY, clued as [Redundant office term], in the opposite corner. I was thinking of redundant as in "no longer needed" and considered retro technologies like telexes; nope. Speaking of that sort of redundancy, [Combo unit] is a TV/VCR, but it's getting to be time to mention the outdatedness of the device—VHS tapes are losing distribution and you can pick up a VCR at the pawn shop for $9.99.

In phraseland, we see UP IN SMOKE clued without reference to the estimable Cheech and Chong: [How some plans go]. That duo needs a new agent handling their crossword appearances. [Court insults] aren't in the courtroom, they're on the basketball court (or volleyball, I'm sure]: TRASH TALK. I wouldn't have thought of calling VICE VERSA a [Transposition indicator], but that works.

Some names of non-Oscar winners: Jacob RIIS was the [Teddy Roosevelt biographer]. I've never heard of [British mystery novelist Peter] TURNBULL, as I haven't read a British mystery since the '80s.

In the category "things I know from crosswords": SEPOY is a [Onetime Indian soldier]. The [Rich-textured rug] called a RYA is Scandinavian. Does Ikea sell these? KNARS are tree [Trunk bulges] seen occasionally in crosswords, and also in nature. Here's a photo of one.

Trade names used to be verboten in crosswords, didn't they? Here, we have SALADA TEA as a [Company that offers bon mots on its label back]. Are these better than the Starbucks cup quotes? And MOUSETRAP! We didn't have this game when I was a kid, but coveted it. It's a [Board game with cheese-shaped tokens]. Were you trying to figure out how to fit TRIVIALPURSUIT into nine squares?

With the invasion of three new don't-miss Brendan Quigley puzzles each week, it's getting tough to make time to blog all these crosswords. I'm thinking of putting the CrosSynergy puzzle on Newsday standing—just writing about the themeless puzzle each weekend. I was about to instate this today when I saw that Thomas Schier's puzzle, "Family Ties," was another one in which each 15-letter theme entry was three words listed in a row, but I quickly realized it was famous people's names this time, and I'm a sucker for names in my crossword. Here are the theme entries:

• [Three Lees] are SPIKE, ANG, MICHELE. Lee is one of my favorite American last names because any Mr. or Ms. Lee might be Asian or Asian-American, African-American, or Anglo-Saxon. If I ever write a screenplay, I know what I want my lead character's last name to be.
  
• [Three Moores] are DUDLEY, ROGER, DEMI. Did they ever attend the same Hollywood parties?
  
• [Three Joneses] are SHIRLEY, GRACE, TOM. I can't keep up with these people.
  
• [Three Davises] are OSSIE, GEENA, MILES.
  

All 12 of these people are from the worlds of movies and music, so that's a healthy chunk of pop culture for you.

Hey! Look at that—the Newsday "Saturday Stumper" by Dan Stark is the day's easiest themeless for me. (Answers here.) Two clues made me grumbly even though I got them with the crossings. EDNA is clued as [Name meaning "delight"] rather than with reference to a famous person with that name. And OMNI could be the prefix, the hotel, the old magazine—I'm not sure that anyone who's not Mormon appreciates a [Book of Mormon book] clue. I was all set to be bored by [Most people] cluing ASIANS yet again, but delighted when that answer turned out to be wrong—it's ADULTS this time. The crossings were leading me to answer [Talking beast in a 1917 novel] with TORO, and I envisioned Hemingway writing dialogue for a Spanish bull. Er, no. It's TOTO from The Wizard of Oz. [One of a number of things taken to the cellar] is a STEP in the staircase—lovely clue.

This weekend's second Sunday puzzle is "Going Too Far" by Eric Berlin. The twist here is that the black squares are gray, and there's no space between answers—every gray square will be filled with a letter from an adjacent answer that is Going Too Far. That's a cool gimmick in and of itself, but the letters in the gray squares also spell out a quote.

The top row of answers here contains MAGES at 1-Across, INSIDE pitch at 6-Across starting in the gray square to the left, and FOGS at 11-Across, also starting to the left. The gray squares at the inner end of those "legs" of gray squares extending in from the edge are the trickiest because they've got three neighboring answers that are all candidates for the overflow square. Today's Tom Robbins quote is a good one: "If little else, the brain is an educational toy." It's true: kids always enjoy playing with brains.

Friday's Wall Street Journal crossword was Dan Fisher's "Welcoming '09." Each theme entry's a phrase whose meaning has been altered by the addition of IX, the Roman numeral equivalent of '09. I liked this theme a lot. Favorite theme answers:

• BOLLIX WEEVILS is clued [Throw plant pests into disorder?].
  
• [Sprite who's mischievous yet meek?] is a HUMBLE PIXIE.
  
• [Your usual standard romantic idealist?] is STOCK QUIXOTE. Extra Scrabbly!
  

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Saturday, 12/13

Newsday 7:23
LAT 4:47
NYT 4:42
CS 3:35

Next weekend, I leave for a week's vacation in the Caribbean—on a cruise where wireless access would cost $20 an hour so I'm leaving the laptop and crossword addiction at home. Starting next Thursday night, this blog will be in the capable hands of Puzzle Girl. Isn't she swell?

Frank Longo follows up his Friday Sun with the Saturday New York Times crossword. It seems that Will Shortz swapped Friday and Saturday this week, as Frank's puzzle is a good bit easier than yesterday's chewy Nothnagel. This 66-worder has a triple stack of 15's in the middle and two more 15's above and below. Those long puppies are rather factual:

• ACCRUED INTEREST is a [Payback factor].
  
• PATRIOT MISSILES were [Desert Storm defenses].
  
• [Bathroom buzzers] are ELECTRIC SHAVERS. Did you ponder bathroom versions of joy buzzers?
  
• [When many people are off] is a NATIONAL HOLIDAY.
  
• A [Verifiable claim] is a STATEMENT OF FACT.
  

Two 11-letter answers connect the triple stacks to the other 15's: Something [Shrill] is EAR-PIERCING and [Many quiz show fans] are TRIVIA BUFFS.
These ones are my favorite answers and clues:

• [What I may become] is the ROYAL WE. This one amused us.
  
• "I'LL PASS" means ["No thanks"].
  
• HAN SOLO was the [Killer of Greedo in a sci-fi film]. For my money, George Lucas is the worst namer in the business.
  
• [Biker's wear] is LYCRA. Not a Harley Davidson biker—more like a Tour de France biker.
  
• [The planets, e.g.] make up an OCTAD. Poor Pluto, evicted from the nonet.
  
• [Year in which Middle English began, by tradition] is MCL, or 1150. I don't recall learning this when I took Anne Montgomery's class on Old and Middle English lit.
  
• [1990s president of the Philippines] was Fidel RAMOS. I liked this one because I knew it.
  

Quibbles, unknowns, and little-knowns:

• COMPUSA is clued as an [Alternative to Best Buy or Circuit City], and I'm wondering how long ago this crossword was constructed. CompUSA is down to a teeny 23 stores, vs. about 700 Circuit City outlets (they're closing a lot) and over 1,000 Best Buys.
  
• [Between green and black, say] is RIPE. When your fruit turns black, no, that's not good. I didn't see where the clue was going.
  
• [Fort Worth's ___ Carter Museum] clues AMON. Amon the supreme god of the Egyptians demands obeisance.
  
• [Thimblerig thing] is a PEA in that thimblerig means "shell game."
  
• [Pulsar, e.g.] is a RADIO SOURCE. Not on the tip of my tongue.
  
• UNE ["__ Grosse Legume" (Orson Welles novel)] is not remotely familiar to me. I'm sure it's a gripping tale. We need more stories about big beans.
  
• [Tenor Schipa] is named TITO. If only he and Tito Jackson could record together. Who needs The Three Tenors when you can have The Two Titos?
  
• [Sitting Bull's tongue] is TETON. I would've guessed Sioux, but every crossing ruled that out.
  
• [Cancun kinswoman] is TIA, Spanish for "aunt." There was another recent clue like this, and I was surprised by how much Googling it spurred.
  
• [Marsh bird] is a SORA. This, like the erne and nene, is one of those birds I know more from crosswords than from bird books. (The cedar waxwing, on the other hand, never shows up in crosswords.)
  

Updated:

Grr! I was a moment away from republishing this post with the LA Times puzzle section added when the browser hung up, so I'll have to recreate what I had. Barry Silk's LA Times crossword has some of his trademark Scrabbliness—BAZOOKAS are [Big guns], JIMMIE FOXX was the [First right-handed batter to reach 500 home runs], [Old times] are ANTIQUITY, and some [Brass band members] are SAXHORNS. (There are eight members of the saxhorn family. Who knew?) There are two 15's, less Scrabbly—the BETSY ROSS BRIDGE is a [Delaware span] I've never heard of, and HEARTBREAK HOTEL was [Elvis's first #1 hit].

Favorite clues:

• AVERAGES are the [Subject of a familiar law].
  
• Yo-Yo [Ma and others] are CELLISTS.
  
• [Botanist's workplace] is in the HOTHOUSE.
  
• [Colt, e.g.] is neither a gun nor an NFL player—it's a young EQUINE.
  

Things I didn't know:

• WYSE is the last name of [Longtime Good Housekeeping columnist Lois].
  
• ["The $64,000 Question" host March] was named HAL.
  
• The [Role first awarded to British actress Elizabeth Shepherd], who I've never heard of, was EMMA PEEL. Arcane trivia about decades-old pop culture? Oy.
  
• [Bitty, in Banff] is Scottish SMA, or "small." I knew there was a Canadian Banff, but not that it's a Scottish place name too.
  

Dan Stark's Newsday "Saturday Stumper" has, like most Stark themelesses, mostly single words rather than phrases. (Solution here.) Longo's NYT has about 14 multi-word answers, vs. just 3 in the Stumper. The fill tends towards the dry side, with some word endings and beginnings:

• Verbs with -ING: [Tailor's job] is TAPERING. [Efficacious] is AVAILING. Meh.
  
• Verbs with -ED: [Started back] is SHIED. [Hardened] is INURED. [Caused squinting] is GLARED.
  
• Comparatives with -ER or -EST: [Less dense] is AIRIER. [Sparkling less] is TAMER. [Guarded to the max] is LEERIEST. [Least slanted] is FAIREST.
  
• Nouns made by adding -ER: [Camera hog] is a MUGGER. [Mechanic's offer] is a LOANER. [Orb] is a PEEPER. [Gardener's device] is MISTER. 
  
• Prefixes to modify verbs: [Forwarded] is RESENT. [Prepare to take off] is UNBUTTON. [Disentangle] is UNPILE.
  

My favorite clue was [Its flag has an Osage shield] for OKLAHOMA. Here's what it looks like. [Asian titles] usually seems to clue emirs, ranis, rajas, amirs, shahs...something along those lines. This time it's KHANS, as in Genghis and friends. [Where Birmingham is] is ENGLAND; the trap is that Alabama also has 7 letters and a city called Birmingham.

Lynn Lempel's CrosSynergy crossword, "Hit Bottom," has four vertical theme entries with HIT at the bottom as part of longer words:

• ["You gotta face this"] is DEAL WITH IT.
  
• [Took care of the tab, maybe] is SIGNED A CHIT. Sometimes a CHIT is clued as an IOU, which sits beside the word in today's grid and is clued as [Creditor's holding].
  
• [Head of a hard-up Dickens family] is BOB CRATCHIT.
  
• [Zilch] is NOT ONE WHIT. [Zilch, in Zacatecas] is NADA.
  

STINK BUGS are [Insects with an olfactory weapon]. I misinterpreted [Writer's fixer-upper] as meaning the first draft in need of fixing, like a fixer-upper of a house; instead, it's the EDITOR who fixes up the writer's work. HOT WEATHER is a [Typical forecast in the tropics]—hey! I'll be there soon.

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Saturday, 11/22

Newsday 7:06
NYT 6:14
LAT 4:48
CS 3:20

(updated at 10:30 Saturday morning)

Hooray! We just had a Sun puzzle co-constructed by Frank Longo—who has been keeping himself too busy with things other than newspaper themeless crosswords—and now the Saturday New York Times puzzle proudly sports the Longo byline. And good gravy, is that an insane-looking grid. Triple-stacked 15's at the top and bottom, and a midsection spanned by two more 15's. They're not such easy 15's, either—none of the usual-suspect 15-letter answers that get used over and over. Here are the big boys:

• COMPARED AGAINST is [Vis-a-vis], kicking off the top triple-stack.
  
• [Age-old retaliation] is A TOOTH FOR A TOOTH. I wanted EYE instead of TOOTH, but that was too short.
  
• TRUE TO THE LETTER is not a familiar phrase to me. It's clued as [Having no inaccuracy whatsoever].
  
• To [Fix things] is to SOLVE THE PROBLEM. Then there's an INTERLUDE, or [Dramatic break], in the center of the puzzle dividing the PROBLEM from IMMEDIATE DANGER, clued with [A firefighter at work may be in it]. (I will not link to firefighter calendars again so soon.)
  
• Beginning the lower triple-stack, we see AMERICAN TABLOID, the [James Ellroy novel that Time magazine named best fiction book of 1995]. If you don't know this answer, the letter combos look kinda nutty when you don't have all the squares for TABLOID.
  
• [Suitable for all] means rated G for a GENERAL AUDIENCE.
  
• [Idolizes] clues SETS ON A PEDESTAL.
  

Toughest clues:

• [Automated, often malicious PC apps] are BOTNETS. Not a term I know at all.
  
• [First suit?] means the topmost exec, a CEO.
  
• [Compete for, in a way] is BID ON, as in the eBay setting.
  
• [Fast-food restaurant packets] wasn't so hard—it's CATSUPS. A few weeks ago, I had 15 ketchup packets. I gave them to Ben and his buddy and they rolled a log over them. Omigod! It almost sounded like fireworks. That ketchup flew pretty far too. There were laundry ramifications.
  
• The [Italian port with ruins of an imposing Aragonese castle] is a town whose name I learned from crosswords. If Toronto and Oneonta won't quite fit and you need Italy, go for OTRANTO.
  
• [Longtime Arizona congressman who ran for president in 1976] is MO UDALL. The clue doesn't warn you that you need a first and last name, so I reckon some people were trying to puzzle out who Rep. Moudall was.
  
• [Amenhotep IV's god] was just in the puzzle the other day. He's ATEN, but can be spelled other ways (Aton) too.
  
• [Time for an emergency phone call?] is THREE A.M. President Obama, the phone's for you.
  
• HOT TIPS [may break open cases] that the cops are having a rough time solving.
  
• MERIMEE, the [Writer whose novella "Carmen" is the basis of Bizet's opera], is not a household name. He's right next to MORDENT, a [Musical ornament using two quickly alternating tones]. Wow, two gnarly words butting up against one another. I think there will be complaints even though the crossings aren't insane.
  
• ["La Traviata" lover Alfredo ___] makes for the third Down answer in a row that was utterly unfamiliar to me. The answer's GERMONT—but again, the crossings felt fair to me.
  

How did you survive this one? Did 36-, 37-, and 38-Down kill you? Me, I was just happy to have a too-rare Longo themeless to kick me around.

Updated:

Robert Wolfe's LA Times crossword has 70 answers, and about 20 of them are multi-word phrases—ranging from the very short (MR. T, ['80s Peppard costar]) to the long (I DON'T UNDERSTAND, or ["Huh?"]). Here's a selection of the other phrases:

• [Create trouble (for oneself)] is DIG A HOLE.
  
• ["Cool it!"] is KEEP YOUR SHIRT ON.
  
• ["Who knows?"] is YOU CAN NEVER TELL.
  
• [Kaput] is DONE FOR.
  
• [Pleading words] are I BEG OF YOU.
  
• [Villain whose first name is Julius] is DR. NO.
  
• [Hit home?] is SIDE A, as in the home of a hit song on a record.
  
• [Share in] is PARTAKE OF.
  

And now, some single-word answers with interesting answers:

• [It often involves competitive drawing] clues an OATER, or movie Western.
  
• [Green prefix] isn't about eco- or enviro-anything—it's CHLORO-, as in chlorophyll.
  
• [Water line?] is a WAKE, the lines/waves that trail behind a moving boat.
  
• [End beginning?] is THE, as in "the end."
  

Three things I didn't know:

• [Like Betty Boop] clues OX-EYED. She has eyes like an ox?
  
• NOUS, or "us," completes [___-memes: French "ourselves"]. The [Spanish pronoun] is ELLO.
  
• LACEY is the name of [Henry Ford biographer Robert].
  

Two bits of standard old crosswordese are here. An ARIL is a [Seed protector]; one aril you may recognize is the little juicy ruby surrounding each pomegranate seed. The STOA [often bordered an agora].

Dan Stark's Newsday "Saturday Stumper" was the day's hardest themeless for me. (PDF solution here.) Favorite clues and answers:

• [Pumapard's parent] must be a puma or a leopard, right? Somehow, it's a COUGAR.
  
• KUNG-FU looks great sitting atop the grid. It's clued as a [Fluid-movement skill]. I have no kung-fu skills, but my Google-fu is not too shabby.
  
• ELI ([Samuel Morse, circa 1808]) isn't a favorite answer, but that reminds me—constructors and editors, you can quit using the ABC series Eli Stone in clues for ELI now because the show's being cancelled after the episodes in the can have been aired.
  
• The verb SHRIMPS is clued [Works on a boat, perhaps].
  
• ROMAINE is a [Healthful food for goldfish]? I had no idea.
  
• [Plants, for instance] are a KINGDOM.
  
• Barbara [Boxer's title] is SENATOR.
  
• An [Anomalous rise] is a BLIP on the graph.
  

Lynn Lempel's CrosSynergy crossword, "Le Puzzle," adds -LE to the end of four phrases that end with a CK to transform those phrases into something different. The results sound zingy:

• Writer Pearl Buck becomes PEARL BUCKLE, a [Fancy fastener?].
  
• A dirty trick turns into DIRTY TRICKLE, a [Slow leak of yucky liquid?].
  
• Radio Shack feeds RADIO SHACKLE, a [Drastic means of restraining a shock jock?].
  
• A league draft pick gives us the [NBA wannabe's predicament?], a DRAFT PICKLE.
  

I'm fond of PTOLEMY, the [Ancient Greek astronomer with an Earth-centered theory] and a silent P, not at all fond of NO PARKING signs, though NO PARKING makes for an excellent bit of crossword fill.

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Saturday, 11/8

Newsday 5:42
NYT 5:33
LAT 5:01
CS 3:33

(updated at 9:10 a.m. Saturday)

If you ask me, Byron Walden's Saturday New York Times crossword didn't fight much harder than a Friday puzzle, but there were still plenty of gnarly bits to stumble on.

These cool answers weren't so obvious:

• CLOSED-CIRCUIT TV is clued as a [Feeding tube?].
  
• POOL CUES are [Sticks you need to break].
  
• TECH-SAVVY is clued as [Like computer programmers].
  
• [With 50-Down, like the children in "A Visit From St. Nicholas"] clues ALL and SNUG. Aw, cozy.
  
• DON'T LAUGH is clued ["No, really"].
  
• [Bliss] means RHAPSODY.
  

Some people populated the grid:

• ALAN LADD is that ["This Gun for Hire" star].
  
• URBAN V was the [Predecessor of Gregory XI].
  
• EDWARD II is the puzzle's second Roman numeral person, clued as a [Christopher Marlowe play] not in my ken.
  
• [Missouri senator Claire] MCCASKILL has been in the Senate for two years. She's kinda famous.
  

Three adjective + noun combos raised an eyebrow:

• [Tearjerkers] is fine, but SAD TALES sounds a bit arbitrary as a phrase.
  
• [Standards, e.g.] are OLD MUSIC. See above.
  
• [Stretch in the salt mines] clues a HARD DAY. See above.
  

This being a Saturday puzzle, we have to expect some not-so-familiar pieces:

• MASTIC is a [Tree that yields a chewable resin]. I considered ACACIA and CHICLE here.
  
• Ostrava is a Czech city, so [Ostrava tongue] is CZECH.
  
• [Jaculates] means HURLS. So, to hurl something on the internet would be to e-jaculate? This clue word is pretty obscure, though it helps that it's a cognate of a more familiar verb.
  
• Who the heck eats PEA SALAD as a [Side dish popular at New Year's]? Is this a Southern thing?
  
• SHIP AHOY is a [1942 Eleanor Powell musical set at sea].
  
• [Bumps on trunks] are KNARS. That's a word I learned in crosswords.
  
• [Relative of a chuckwalla] is an IGUANA, and I don't think I knew that's what a chuckwalla was. It sounds too reminiscent of chinchillas.
  
• RYE BEERS are nothing I've ever tasted. They're [Beverages similar to kvass].
  
• ["Politics ___ beanbag" (Mr. Dooley maxim)] clues AIN'T. Here's some background info. A conservative writer has used the phrase.
  
• ILE LONGUE is a [Base off the coast of Brest for France's nuclear submarines]. You don't say.
  
• [Many a Carl Czerny composition] is an ETUDE. Familiar-enough musical term, but I don't know this Czerny.
  

Clues to chew on:

• [Saw in the dark?] clues DREAMT OF.
  
• A [Gimcrack] is a TRIFLE. I half thought a gimcrack was a gadget or gizmo, but it's a "cheap and showy ornament; a knickknack."
  
• [Innovation of the Paleolithic period] is the AXE. Were there any Paleolithic people who scoffed at that newfangled tool and said it'd never catch on?
  
• [Used a thurible on] clues CENSED. I don't know why, but I'm fond of the word thurible.
  
• [Soap, for example] is a DRAMA if you mean a soap opera.
  
• [Like a cob] means MALE in that a cob is a male swan.
  
• [Writing of Publius] is a FEDERALIST PAPER. Can that be used in the singular?
  
• I wanted [Presenter of bills] to be a POL, or maybe a SEN or REP. It's an ATM, of course.
  
• [With brass], figuratively, is SAUCILY.
  
• Meshed or Mashhad is an Iranian city, so a [Meshed person] clues IRANI. But it may well be that Iranis are an entirely different group of people from Iranians, who are people from Iran. Just because there are Pakistanis and Omanis doesn't mean every other __an country tacks on an I to make a person. (See also Afghans.)

Updated:

Okay, maybe I retract the part where I likened Byron's Saturday puzzle to a Friday puzzle. The people have spoken, and they say it's eminently Saturday-worthy.

Brad Wilber's themeless LA Times crossword sparkles with its COSMO QUIZ at 59-Across, clued with ["What Kind of Sexy Are You?" is one], and the bottom half of the puzzle is fairly Scrabbly fare. I'm also fond of BAOBABS, [Trees seen on safari], especially at the right side of the grid where those letters are the ends of seven other answers. COSMO QUIZ is stacked atop two full names:

• EZIO PINZA is the [1950 Tony winner born in Rome].
  
• LES BAXTER is the [Bandleader who had a hit with "Unchained Melody" in 1955]. Have I heard of him?
  

There are other people whose names weren't gimmes, either. [Soprano Mitchell] is LEONA. The [Portuguese prime minister, 1932-68] is SALAZAR. '80s marathoner Alberto Salazar is more familiar to me. OFFENBACH is the ["Les Contes d'Hoffman" composer].

Tough clues and answers, interesting clues and answers—we've got 'em all here:

• The [Number-calling game] isn't BINGO but BEANO. Beano is perhaps better known as the anti-gas supplement that may violate the crossword breakfast test.
  
• The KOTO is a [Japanese relative of the zither].
  
• [Award honoring literature that features women's stories set in the West] is the WILLA Literary Award, named after Willa Cather. This puzzle's other award is the NAVY CROSS, an [Award with a caravel on it]. I will take my award with a caramel on it, if it's not too much trouble.
  
• [Change direction] clues REFRACT, as in light rays being refracted. I started out with DEFLECT, which shares four letters, and then REFLECT.
  
• [Shy type] clues EFFACER. Is this a word anyone uses? Well, it's the name of this recording artist, whose EP is described thus: "This mix of ambient drones and abstract sounds explore conversations of music with sonic sculpture." Ouch.
  
• [1942 Philippine battle site] is BATAAN. The battle was followed by the Bataan Death March, which is a huge downer of an evocation in a crossword puzzle.
  
• [Strip at an automaker] is not a verb, but the noun CHROME. How many automakers have strips of chrome on hand in the assembly plant?
  
• [You might miss your bus if you hit it too often] refers to the SNOOZE button on an alarm clock.
  
• DEMOB is a [Discharged British soldier], one who has been demobilized.
  

Randolph Ross's CrosSynergy crossword feels a smidgen untimely, appearing after the baseball postseason has ended and we've moved on to other sports. Of course, baseball themes appear year-round in this country. In "The Umpire Got It Wrong," three phrases are changed by swapping out a word that's an ump's call for another apt ump's call.

• [Dressed warmly enough to avoid frostbite?] clues SAFE IN THE COLD. If the baserunner isn't safe, he's out, and we all know the phrase "out in the cold."
  
• FOUL AND BALANCED is clued as [Equally vulgar to all?]. The ump makes the call as to whether a ball is fair or foul.
  
• When batter meets pitcher, the pitch may be a strike or a ball. BALL UP THE BAND is clued as [Cause confusion while conducting?].
  

Excellent theme—it plays on the popular perception that umpires make plenty of bad calls, and the three theme entries all involve familiar dichotomies.

The Newsday "Saturday Stumper" by Dan Stark wasn't too intransigent. (PDF solution here.) My favorite clue taught me some etymology: [Word from the Latin for "bite again"] is REMORSE. A morsel, then, is a small bite of something, and mordant wit is bitingly sarcastic. Premorse doesn't mean "to feel remorse in advance of doing something you know is wrong," but it should. [Italy's toe] is CALABRIA, which doesn't have any major tourist cities. Maya ANGELOU is the [Lincoln Medal recipient of 2008]. What's the Lincoln Medal? It's an award given by Ford's Theatre and it doesn't seem to have a very high profile as awards go. [Bismarck predecessor] pretends it's looking for another leader's name, but it's just the VON in "von Bismarck."

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Saturday, 10/25

NYT 6:54
LAT 5:17
Newsday 4:37
CS 3:30

Yay! Another themeless crossword from Karen Tracey, this time in the New York Times. Like many of Karen's confections, this one contains a lot of Scrabbly letters (three J's, a Q, three K's), pop culture, people's names, and a little geography. Let's start with my favorite entries:

• JACKANAPES is a [Whippersnipper]. Let's give this word some currency, shall we? Who's with me?
  
• CHE GUEVARA was the ["Guerrilla Warfare" author, 1961].
  
• An unfamiliar-to-me word, EARTHSHINE, is clued as [Faint illumination of the moon's dark side]. What a lovely astronomy word!
  
• JAMES JOYCE was, among other things, [Writer of the 1918 play "Exiles"]. Wow, I haven't heard of that work.
  
• JELLYSTONE! That's the [Park in Ranger Smith's charge] in the old Yogi Bear cartoons.
  
• IRAQ WAR provides a Q, and is clued with [Tony Blair advocated it].
  
• I do not like SQUIRREL, the animal, but as a crossword entry, it's golden. The clue is rather icky, though: [Brunswick stew ingredient].
  

There were lots of other people and characters in the grid:

• Fictional JABBA the Hutt was the [Captor of Han Solo] in some Star Wars movie.
  
• Fictional IRENE ADLER is the [Opera singer created by Arthur Conan Doyle]. This one I learned strictly from crosswords.
  
• Actress TARA REID! She's blown her career for the most part, but she was the [Player of Danni Sullivan on "Scrubs"]. The character was bit of a trainwreck.
  
• Fictional ILIA is a [Princess in Mozart's "Idomeneo"], apparently. (The pelvic bones and ice skater Ilia Kulik are other ILIA options.)
  
• [Jazzman ___ Allison] is named MOSE.
  
• Fictional SHE-RA is [He-Man's twin sister].
  
• ["Gilmore Girls" co-star Alexis] BLEDEL has also been in those Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants movies.
  
• BEN is my son's name, and also that of the giant clock bell in London, [Big ___] BEN.
  
• TUPAC Shakur is the [First name in rap].
  
• Actress ESSIE [Davis who played Maggie in two "Matrix" movies] should get a bigger role in something so she can appear in more crosswords.
  
• ["Six Feet Under" star Peter] KRAUSE was also in Sports Night, Aaron Sorkin's first TV series.
  
• [Sherlock's French counterpart] is ARSENE Lupin.
  
• Fictional LIAT was [Joe's love interest in "South Pacific"]. Liat was also the name of one of these paper dolls we had when I was a kid—as seen in this video. Anyone else have those paper dolls from around the world?
  
• RONA Barrett was once the [First name in Hollywood gossip].
  

I know a lot of people grumble when a crossword contains a slew of names, but I'm glad Will Shortz is willing to strike a balance and publish this sort of puzzle on occasion to delight those of us who love it.

Other favorite clues and answers I want to mention:

• SAN ANTONIO was hiding from me even with a handful of letters already filled in. It's the [Home of Our Lady of the Lake University], apparently. It's a cute town, but don't try to go to the art museum without a car.
  
• [Like some lava] clues BASALTIC. Geology rocks.
  
• AFICIONADO is clued with the could-mean-a-lot-of-things [Buff].
  
• YERBA BUENA is a [Trailing evergreen related to savory]. At first, I didn't know why this wasn't given an easier clue relating to Richard Nixon, and then I realized that's Yorba Linda I was thinking of.
  
• ORGANIST is clued with [One may play at a ballpark]. Alas, none of the good teams are still playing ball these days, unless you can summon up some excitement for the Phillies or Rays.
  
• One [Measure of support?] is C-CUP. This may be the best clue I've seen for a bra size crossword answer.
  

[Bill Clinton and Arnold Schwarzenegger, to the stars?] are LEOS, astrologically. Hey, me too!

Updated:

Doug Peterson's themeless LA Times puzzle duped me with that [Type of trail] fitting a *AP*R pattern. A PAPER trail, right? Nope, it's a VAPOR trail. Another trouble spot was [Taken out, as refrigerators], which made no sense to me. UNCRATED = taken out of a crate? Yeah, that works. [Products of hydrocarbon combustion] are OXIDES, but rust is an oxide and I don't think combustion is involved in rusting. Chemistry's not my strong suit, so I'm not familiar with all the ways of making oxides.

Favorite clues and answers:

• [Group that includes TV's "Friends"] is GEN X. I had no idea what the answer was until the X was in the grid.
  
• [Groom on the cover of Life's 3/31/52] issue was ABNER. Whoa, really? Apparently Li'l Abner had avoided marrying Daisy Mae for 18 years, so the comic strip characters' wedding was big news. Ah, simple times.
  
• [It may be part of a round] is ALE, if someone's buying a round of drinks.
  
• One type of [Legal challenge] is the BAR EXAM—this was my favorite clue because the answer's so simple but I thought I needed to summon up some obscure legal term.
  
• X-RAY VISION! It's a [Fictional threat to privacy]. I was thinking BIG BROTHER at first.
  
• [Scoop, perhaps] is one kind of NECKLINE.
  
• ALI MACGRAW gets the full-name treatment. She's clued as ["The Getaway" actress].
  
• My favorite answer is SIR, NO SIR, an [Emphatic military answer].
  

For me, today's easiest themeless was Dan Stark's Newsday "Saturday Stumper." (Solution PDF here). The clue that took me off guard was [Temperaments, so to speak] for KIDNEYS. Say what? Who speaks that way? It's in the dictonary, but I've never encountered that usage before. I wonder if it dates back to when people talked about their humors (blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile) as if they affected personality traits.

Favorite and/or gnarliest clues:

• [Up a lot] is a verb phrase cluing DOUBLE.
  
• [Tie-wearing toon] is YOGI BEAR. What a coincidence, having JELLYSTONE in the NYT puzzle on the same day.
  
• [National Capital Territory of Asia] is DELHI. I have no idea what the clue refers to.
  
• ERIK is ["The Flying Dutchman" role]? Mr. Estrada wishes he could get some love here.
  
• BEARDS are [Sun blocks]. Why? Because they block the sun from a chin? Is there another level here?
  
• [It's larger than Australia] clues the SAHARA Desert. My, that is big. All that sand, wasted because it's not in beach form.
  
• [Part of a date] is a STONE. I surmise that the pit or seed in the fruit called a date is termed a STONE.
  

Thomas Schier's CrosSynergy crossword is a "Paul Newman Tribute." The legendary actor Paul Newman died about four weeks ago, and his passing definitely merits a crossword made in tribute to him. The theme entries are three 15-letter movies for which Newman was nominated for an Oscar. Newman was in many other notable movies of varying letter counts: Hud (3), Cars (4), Blaze (5), Exodus (6), The Sting and Slap Shot (8), The Verdictand The Hustler (10), Nobody's Fool (11), Cool Hand Luke (12), and some longer titles. That's a lot of material, though mostly not bunched in same-length pairs—I wonder if anyone's been working on a Sunday-sized tribute to Paul Newman's career.

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Saturday, 10/11

Newsday 7:10
NYT 5:25
LAT 4:57
CS 3:54

Pete Mitchell's 70-word New York Times crossword is loaded up with juicy entries. What links WAYNE GRETZKY, the [Winner of eight consecutive M.V.P. awards], with JOAN JETT, who is [One of only two women on Rolling Stone's list of "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time"], and ENRIQUE IGLESIAS, the [Singer with the 2000 #1 hit "Be With You"]? Why, that would be EROTICISM, or [Steaminess], of course, along with their fondness for letters that score big in Scrabble. Other groovy entries:

• SHTICKS is clued as [Routines], and my head was stuck in the "rut" sort of routine for far too long.
  
• MAE WEST isn't too unusual as a first-and-last-name crossword answer, but I like the clue this time: [Who said "A man's kiss is his signature"].
  
• NAIROBI gets an interesting geography clue: [The Green City in the Sun]. There's more African geography: ERITREA is [Where Arabic and Tigrinya are spoken]. And [It's north of Libya] wanders out of Africa and into the Mediterranean—it's MALTA.
  
• That [Active Ecuadorean volcano] COTOPAXI is something I picked up a few weeks ago in a Sun puzzle.
  
• SHRIMP SCAMPI is a [Garlicky dish], all right. I don't like shrimp.
  
• STARDATE is [Detail in a captain's log], as in Star Trek.
  
• JELLO is clued grossly as [It may still be moving when you eat it]. If only the MANTIS ([Cousin of a cockroach]) had used the same clue.
  

This grid has lots of shorter answers in it, but that doesn't make it much easier because there are still some tough clues.

• ESSES, as in S's, are the [Outsides of sandwiches?].
  
• Who knew WACO was the [Dr Pepper Museum locale]?
  
• LAOS is [Where you might be among the Hmong]. What other place name ends with AOS? TAOS, a [Southwestern resort community].
  
• KIDS are the [Swing-set set].
  
• [Ballet dancer Bruhn and others] are ERIKS. Messrs. Estrada and Satie wish to inform you that they are those "others."
  
• [Person in a tree, briefly] is a SIB on your family tree. I started out with REL. here.
  
• NITS are [Small carps] of the non-piscine variety.
  
• [First three-letter White House monogram] was JQA, for John Quincy Adams.
  
• Old car alert! An REO is a [Runabout or Royale]. Can I get a Royale with cheese?
  
• MR. LEE is a [1957 hit for the Bobbettes]. [Stagger] clues AMAZE. Stagger Lee does not enter into either of these answers.
  
• SARA is clued as [Old-time actress Haden], and I can't say I remember seeing her name before. Not even in crosswords.
  

Updated:

Leonard Williams' 68-word themeless LA Times crossword included a few names I needed every crossing for:

• MAHAN is clued as the [Pre-WWI naval historian Alfred Thayer ___], and boy, I sure don't know any more contemporary Mahans.
  
• WONG is clued as a [1960 title role for Kwan]. This refers to The World of Suzie Wong, but the Kwan/WONG connection wasn't one I knew.
  
• LEHI is a [City NW of Provo]. Usually the 4-letter Utah city is OREM, but not this time.
  

There were other names and titles that came together more easily, but not because I actually knew the answer based on the clue. For example: ["Funny Face" stars, 1927] are ASTAIRES in the plural. WILD ONE is the [1960 hit with the line "I'm-a gonna tame you down"]. It was also a 1958 song, a 1964 song, and a 1993 song.

I did know that ESTELLE [Harris of "Seinfeld"] played George Costanza's mother, and that [Jack who played "the Man" in "Chico and the Man"] was Jack ALBERTSON. Turning off the sitcoms, RACINE was the ["Phedre" playwright], and I might have read that in translation. RUTH Bader Ginsburg was the Supreme Court [Justice appointed after Clarence]. ANNABEL LEE is the name of an Edgar Allan Poe [1849 love poem].

My favorite answer here was GINORMOUS, or [Totally big]. I liked the etymology in the clue for BALSA, [Spanish word for "raft"]—balsa wood does indeed float like a raft. A few of the compound or multi-word answers might snag some solvers: SKI RESORT is a [Gondola setting, perhaps]. Anyone else trying to think what sort of Venetian canals might begin with SKIRE? No? Just me? [Part of a credo] is a CORE BELIEF. [Very cold] clues LIKE ICE. I'm not sure this one rises to the level of "in the language," crossword-worthy fill. Same with RAGGED EDGE, which is clued with [Tear evidence].

The answer to Daniel Stark's 72-word Newsday "Saturday Stumper" is here. Some of the clues:

• [County east of Ashtabula] is ERIE. Ohio place name, 4 letters? ERIE is often a safe bet.
  
• [One of a human dozen] is a MOLAR, unless you've had your wisdom teeth removed and have only eight.
  
• One of the footwear clues is misleading. [Winter footwear] = BOOTS, fine. But [Summer footwear] = a WATERSKI. Just one ski? You don't want a pair of them?
  
• [Viewing aid] is a LOUPE that magnifies tiny things, not a scope that magnifies far-away things.
  
• [Scotland Yard div.] clues CID. I don't read the British mysteries that might have taught me that.
  
• "RIGHT ON!" is clued as [Hippie encouragement].
  
• [Bubble-gum shapes] can be CIGARS. Yes, they still sell 'em.
  
• [Caddy job] is a LUBE because a caddy on the golf course lubes his or her boss with whisky. No, not really—it's Caddy as in a Cadillac. 
  

Will Johnston's CrosSynergy crossword is "Steps on Broadway: A Jerome Robbins Birthday Celebration." Wow! A theme custom-made to delight you musical theater lovers, but that will leave me piecing the theme answers together with the aid of crossings. I swear I haven't even heard of TWO'S COMPANY, the [1952 revue with lyrics by Ogden Nash, featuring Bette Davis in song-and-dance routines]. I do know of THE KING AND I, but Across Lite cut off the clue in the clue list and made the letters teeny in the single clue box, so I worked the crossings for that one instead of getting it from the clue (but I would've gotten it from the clue if I'd read the full clue). I've also heard of MISS LIBERTY, GYPSY, and CALL ME MADAM, but the year, stars, and shows' writers didn't point me in the right direction at all. (Robbins did the choreography for the shows.)

I see in Robbins' Wiki write-up that HUAC, clued here as [Anti-Red gp.], figures into his biography: he named names and betrayed some friends, but later felt bad about it. Hmph! Highlights in the fill: the 10-letter STAR-GAZING and MASQUERADE; PYGMY echoing GYPSY as a two-Y, no-vowel word; THE TUBE, [London's underground, informally]; POTBELLY, or [Beer gut]; SHLEMIEL, or [Unlucky one]; and a CHILI DOG, clued kinda grossly as [Sausage topped by stew].

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Saturday, 9/27

Newsday 5:35
NYT 5:02
LAT 4:38
CS 2:39

(updated at 8:40 a.m. Saturday)

We're watching the presidential debate on DVR delay, so even though it has concluded, it's not over in our house yet. But the kid's bedtime allows for a brief blogging break. So—

Karen Tracey's Saturday New York Times crossword fits into the "Karen Tracey Scrabbly themeless" mold quite nicely. The centerpiece is DON QUIXOTE, clued with [Whence the expression "mum's the word"]. Hmm, I don't know about that. Yes, it's right there in Wikiquote, but Don Quixote was written in Spanish, and I don't think "mum" is a Spanish word. Perhaps Zulema or another reader familiar with the original Spanish work can tell us what Cervantes' wording was. Though the clue feels off to me, I do like the Q/X action in the answer itself. Other items of note in the Across direction:

• [Third Servile War leader] is SPARTACUS. Wow, I have never heard of the Third Servile War. My favorite Spartacus reference in Hank Azaria's character in The Birdcage, Agador Spartacus (as seen in this video).
  
• A golfer's [Driving ambition?] is to get a HOLE IN ONE.
  
• In New Orleans, a [Hero] sandwich is a poorboy or POBOY. Make mine catfish, please.
  
• The [Gaming debut of 1985, briefly] is NES, or Nintendo Entertainment System. Thus, the cross-referenced 14-Down is SYST.
  
• [Jam] clues CLOG UP, which is a perfectly natural phrase that looks bizarre in the grid. CLO GUP, anyone?
  
• NAZI gets very little play in crosswords. Here it's clued as a ["Hogan's Heroes" figure].
  
• [Med. supplier?] is an IV TUBE. 
  
• [Chocoholic's dessert] could be a lot of things, no? Here, it's a MUD PIE. That reminds me—I want to snack on those dark chocolate chunks I bought a bag of at Whole Foods today. Bagged chocolate chips aren't just for baking, you know.
  
• [Assuaging agents] yields the odd-job answer, EASERS. That word would look better with an extra R, making ERASERS. Same thing lower down—INTESTATE, clued with [Not willful?], could be more accessible with an added R, making INTERSTATE.
  
• In the [Courage] zone, STOUTNESS is followed by Bella ABZUG, the [Former congresswoman nicknamed Mother Courage].
  
• EARL HINES was [Louis Armstrong's "Weather Bird" collaborator].
  
• I couldn't believe how long it took me to piece together DOYLE for [David who played Bosley on TV's "Charlie's Angels"]. Thirty years ago, that would've been a total gimme for me.
  

Moving along to the Downs now:

• [Den delivery] is a TIGER CUB. Sure, they're cute, but don't mess with 'em.
  
• [Part of a pinball machine] is the COIN BOX. Are they still called that when the machine only takes tokens?
  
• [Ancestors from long, long ago] are APEMEN. Grandpa! Is that you?
  
• ["The Silence of the Hams" director Greggio] is named EZIO. Who? What? The movie is a horror-movie parody that preceded Scary Movie. It's in English, but also has an Italian title: Il Silenzio dei Prosciutti. It's nice to have a more contemporary EZIO for crossword clues. Mr. Pinza needs to take a break.
  
• A river [Bank manager?] is a DIKE. Or not for rivers? Do other bodies of water have banks?
  
• A [Supply of arrows] is a QUIVERFUL.
  
• Anyone else drop in OKIE for the [Great Depression figure]? The answer is HOBO. A friend's husband launched his academic career with a well-received dissertation on Midwestern hoboes, available as a book. Hobo studies!
  

When the Friday and Saturday puzzles seem to have been switched—Friday's was harder than this one for me—I always wonder how that comes to pass. Did the test-solvers find this puzzle harder than yesterday's? How much of a difference is there in the difficulty level Will Shortz is targeting for Friday vs. Saturday clues? Do some puzzles just look like they belong on Friday or on Saturday? I'm genuinely curious.

Updated:

Dan Stark's Newsday "Saturday Stumper" is a 72-worder, but despite the flexibility granted by not chasing a low word count, the fill is rather dry and overly reliant on common word endings. Perhaps the inclusion of 36 7-letter words (vs. 18 7+ words in Karen's puzzle) is a huge restraint? (Themeless constructors, please weigh in.) The -ED past tenses include AROUSED, STORMED, COVETED (clued as an adjective, [In demand]), SPEEDED, CHINNED, ENSURED, and STEAMED. The plurals and -S verbs roll call features CREASES, PESTERS, ENROLLS, GIRDERS, STAMENS, TRIOS, CELTICS (with a Larry Bird clue that could be misinterpreted as being about birds), AURAS, ISMS, PLATS, HELMETS, GENDERS, SOARS, and EDIBLES. Despite the usual Stumper short clues, this puzzle was easier than many Stumpers, perhaps because all the -ED and -S endings provided many toeholds.

Maybe it is Stark's grid that compels the sort of fill associated with low-word-count puzzles. Frederick Healy's LA Times crossword has 14 7+ answers, and jazzier fill. For example, JAZZ IT UP, or [Add oomph to something]. That crosses JACKAL, but not at the J, so that section's got two neighboring J's. And EMBEZZLE, or [Take wrong?], adds another double Z. LARRY Bird makes an appearance in a second puzzle today, clued as [Bird good at shooting?]. The last square I filled in was the P where PILES, or [Foundation parts], meets PIKER, or [Closefisted type]. Anyone else try to get MISER to work there? Regrettably, I must issue a nerd alert. I think the clue for ENTS is wrong. [Literary tree dwellers]? No. Tolkien's ents are "tree-like creatures" and not creatures who live in actual trees.

Favorite answers and clues:

• VLADIMIR [waited for Godot with Estragon].
  
• VOICES are a [Bad thing to hear?]. Are voices a "thing" in the singular?
  
• [Natterjacks] would look great in the grid, wouldn't it? It clues TOADS, and I knew the answer only because natterjack has been in crosswords before.
  
• STU could be clued as an [Alphabet run], but it's more fun if it's ["The Simpsons" disco guy].
  
• [Jenny's mate] is JACKASS. This is, of course, a reference to Love Story.
  
• The [Mississippi river to the Mississippi River] is the YAZOO, which is one of the best river names out there. Way zippier than the Elbe or Oder.
  
• [Sister or mother] is a NUN and probably not a member of your family.
  

Randall Hartman's easy CrosSynergy crossword is called "Ham Sandwich" because each theme entry contains the letter string HAM sandwiched inside a longer phrase, such as the FOURTH AMENDMENT or an ALPHA MALE. I think this is the first puzzle I've done since McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate in which PALIN was an answer—and it's clued [Monty Python member Michael]. Perhaps the puzzle was put to bed a month ago when Sarah was a far more obscure PALIN. Slangiest crossing: Where "HEY, MAN" (clued as ["Yo, dude!"] meets RATFINK ([Stool pigeon]). Weirdest-looking answer: theme entry MOCHA MINT, or [Starbucks order]. Maybe that should be mint mocha, hold the HAM.

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Saturday, 9/13

NYT 6:37
Newsday 6:10
LAT 4:10
CS 3:02

(updated at 11:30 Saturday morning)

Anyone interested in doing a little guest-blogging next weekend? I've got someone in mind (the quirky Janie) for the Sunday NYT writeup, but that leaves the four Saturday puzzles (NYT, LAT, Newsday, CrosSynergy) and four Sundays (Merl Reagle, Boston Globe, LAT, themeless CrosSynergy). Shoot me an e-mail (orangexw with a gmail.com domain) if you'd like to throw your hat in the ring. Thanks!

Will Nediger closes out Teen Week with a themeless New York Times crossword. Let me get my foremost grumble out of the way. No fair cluing the next James Bond movie with no reference to the fact that it doesn't open for another two months! [Film in which Olga Kurylenko plays the Bond girl] is the upcoming QUANTUM OF SOLACE—bonus points for the Q, demerits for the incomprehensible-sounding title. And now, here are the clues that are likely to stymie the most people:

• [Electrum and others] are ALLOYS.
  
• [Little show-off's cry] is LOOK, MA. (I got mired in LOOKIT. You?)
  
• [World Wind developer] is NASA. The what? A virtual globe. Looks cool—but I can't try it out on my Mac. How much did Microsoft pay NASA for this to be usable only on Windows PCs?
  
• [Chicago-based magazine with one-million-plus circulation] isn't Oprah's O, it's EBONY. I could kick myself for not getting this without a bunch of crossings.
  
• [Girl's name that sounds like two letters of the French alphabet] for ESTEE. I kinda like this cluing approach.
  
• A [Resting place] for a boat, perhaps, is a BERTH. Not your final resting place!
  
• [Cat calls] are MIAOWS if you don't like the "meows" spelling.
  
• [Peanut butter quantity] is a JARFUL. "Meh," I say.
  
• ["___ was!" (German exclamation)] is completed by ACH. I never learned that particular exclamation. Reader Jan is so sweet—she just sent me a German crossword puzzle magazine she brought back from Europe. Wow, there's a lot of German I never knew or have forgotten! Lots of cool varieties of puzzles, though.
  
• [Long Island's ___ Hill National Historic Site] is, I think, not well known to those outside the region. It's SAGAMORE.
  
• [Result of a long exposure, often] is a BLUR in photography and not a sunburn or frostbite.
  
• [Italian writer Pavese] is CESARE.
  
• [The late Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, familiarly] is the QUEEN MUM. Great entry.
  
• [Ship with a memorial in New York City's Central Park] is the U.S.S. MAINE, another great entry.
  

What else did I like in the fill? I love the word FEY, or [Elflike]. A JUICE BAR is a [Place to buy a smoothie]. ANNE RICE gets a good trivia clue, [Author born Howard Allen O'Brien]. What were her parents thinking? [You shouldn't go through with it] is easy to misinterpret; you shouldn't go through the intersection with a RED LIGHT. MENTOS, the Freshmaker! That's a [Candy brand. YEAR ZERO gave me fits trying to figure it out; the clue is [Beginning of time?] and it all seems so clear now. YMA SUMAC occasionally gets full-name status; she's that crosswordy [Singer famous for her wide vocal range. [Main route?] refers to the German place name, Main, so it's the AUTOBAHN. ["You're doing it all wrong!"] is a perfect clue for NO, NO, NO!

Updated:

If you're in the Houston area, you probably aren't reading this on Saturday because your power is out. Hope you're all safe and weathering Ike as well as can be expected.

I liked Barry Silk's LA Times crossword today. I have to laugh at FO' SHIZZLE (or [Certainly, to Snoop Dogg]) showing up in the crossword. Is that phrase played out yet? Apparently Snoop Dogg said he was through with it in 2004, but then he used it in a car commercial the following year. And it's gone mainstream, so it's out of Snoop's hands now. Three 15-letter answers provide the structure for this puzzle: LASER EYE SURGERY [might eliminate the need for specs]. ALL SKIN AND BONES means [Really thin]. And [Title words following "don't say you're sorry, 'cause I'm just not concerned," in 1966-'67 hit] are TELL IT TO THE RAIN, which I don't know at all. I'm not convinced that [Eng. driver's concern] is KPH. Meaning driving speed, a metric version of MPH? I think the English use "km/h" when they speed metrically.

Favorite fill:

• MANERO, or [Tony ___, "Saturday Night Fever" hero].
  
• WIZARD OF OZ, or [Oscar Zoroaster Diggs of early 1900s fiction, with "The"]. Wow, I've never encountered that name before.
  
• USA is clued as [About 6.5% of the Earth's land]. Nice geography clue.
  
• SAGE ADVICE means [Words to heed]. If you're thinking about learning to construct crosswords, Cruciverb's collection of Sage Advice essays is a must-read.
  
• OFF-BASE means [Wrong].
  
• LEMON LAW is a [Car buyer's protection].
  
• DREI, or German for "three," is clued [Cologne crowd?].
  
• [Tribute creator] is automaker MAZDA. Were you also trying to think of odists and elegists?
  
• UNINSTALL is a [Program option]. There are other randomly prefixed words that are lousy crossword fill, but "uninstall" is a common bit of computerese.
  

Tougher stuff:

• [Checkers but not chess] seems a little misleading as a clue for DISKS. (Maybe even OFF-BASE.) It's like comparing apples and end tables, as checkers are disks but chessmen are not disks. But then, it's Saturday, and the clue does pull the solver to thoughts of the games rather than the gamepieces.
  
• [Co-panelist with Bennett and Dorothy] is ARLENE. They were on What's My Line? in the '50s and '60s, with Arlene Francis continuing until 1975.
  
• [Seat of New York's Putnam County] is the rather obscure CARMEL. The more famous Carmel in California has fewer people, but is scenic.
  
• [Actor William and '50s boy singer Jimmy] are BOYDS. Right now, I'm thinking they were actually birds but somebody in Archie Bunker's Queens is talking about them.
  
• [Grieg's "___ Death"] is a crosswordese gimme if you've seen it a million times before in puzzles, but probably pretty obscure otherwise. It's ASE'S. Same with ABELES, or [White poplars].
  
• I've heard of Mark Isham, but not ["It Had to Be You" composer Jones], or ISHAM Jones.
  

The Newsday "Saturday Stumper" by Dan Stark isn't too tough this weekend. I counted 44 clues that contain 10 or fewer letters, so a lot of one's progress through a Stumper must rely on lucking into thinking of the right interpretation for a short, opaque clue with multiple meanings. Today, I was not so unlucky, but the southeast corner of the grid is where I ran into the most trouble. [Get on] could mean "get along" as well as the physical BOARD. A [Being] could be a MORTAL, person, or entity as well as the verb. [High-strung] evokes a number of specific adjectives other than EMOTIONAL. [Observes] has plenty of synonyms, including TAKES NOTE. [Made more attractive] can be literal or, as it is here, metaphorical, as in "SWEETENED the deal." [One way to travel] is TOURIST class and not a means of travel, while [One way to go] is the semi-awkward phrase RIDE AWAY. [Piggies' protection] is a baby BOOTEE. I had SPEED for [Go fast] initially, but it's the slangy SMOKE. [Opened] in cards, perhaps, is LED, but there are other senses of the word. Elsewhere in the fill, my favorite bits were MISMANAGE, or [Run badly], and PAMPHLETS, or [Waiting-room reading], with that jumble of consonants in the middle. I'm guessing that ["Camarade"] is French for "comrade" or "buddy," as the answer is AMI. Camaraderie is utterly familiar, but I haven't seen camarade before.

Stella Daily and Bruce Venzke's CrosSynergy crossword theme seems familiar, but familiarity need not breed contempt. (Familiarity does, however, breed solving speed.) The theme in "This One's a TTTT" involves words that sound like plurals of letter names:
[Travel on an ocean liner, alphabetically?] is SAIL THE OPEN CCCC, with CCCC standing in for "seas."
[Baby food, alphabetically?] is STRAINED PPPP, or peas.
[Wordy contests, alphabetically?] are SPELLING BBBB, or bees.
[1993 World Series winners, alphabetically?] are the TORONTO BLUE JJJJ, or Jays.
Geeze (or GGGG?), what sort of word can run beneath four J's? It's going to need four consecutive vowels or a p for JPEG, isn't it? How about five vowels instead? AEIOU, or [Alphabetic quintet], it is. Timely answer: PRECIP or [Rain, snow, or sleet, for short]. The northern part of the Chicago area is to accumulate a good 6" of rain this weekend, and then there's Hurricane Ike traversing Texas and heading north.

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Saturday, 8/23

Newsday 6:52
NYT 5:52
LAT 4:45
CS 3:25

(post updated at noon Saturday; Thursday post also updated late with Patrick Blindauer's CrosSynergy puzzle)

A Saturday New York Times puzzle, constructed by Natan Last, with 70 words and 30 black squares—this puppy breaks no records at all. But a handful of the entries were straight-up fun to uncover, and MR. MIYAGI brought a smile to my face. (His clue: [Film character who says "I promise teach karate. That my part. You promise learn"].) A sweet little hit of '80s pop culture will generally give me the warm fuzzies towards a crossword. There were other terrific entries, and the clues amused me too. My favorite ingredients:

• Two successive [Thanksgiving dishes], YAMS and china gravy BOATS, put turkey on my mind. So [Turkey tender?] had to have something to do with Thanksgiving, right? Wrong. That's LIRAS, the legal tender in the country, Turkey.
  
• [Do or die] happens to clue VERB here. But you can attend a fancy do and you can roll or cast a die, so NOUN would also fit the space. I've seen enough of these Saturday "___ or ___" clues that want you to identify the part of speech rather than treating the clue as an actual phrase, so I didn't think about what "do or die" means.
  
• [Hiiumaa Island belongs to it] clues ESTONIA. Crazy geography! Estonia and Finland have stolen many of the vowels missing from Czech, Polish, and other Slavic words.
  
• Albus DUMBLEDORE is J.K. Rowling's [Headmaster of literature]. As far as made-up character names go, this one's lovely.
  
• A [Minor modification] is a TWEAK. Fun word to say; might be clued in a drug context in an Onion, Tausig, or Jonesin' puzzle.
  
• The ol' SWITCHEROO is an [Underhanded change, slangily]. Has anyone ever pulled the ol' switcheroo at a HOOTENANNY, or [Folkies' do]?
  
• In an odd change-up, the partial IN A is clued with a cross-reference to three different entries—it can be a [Preceder of 46-, 59- or 61-Across], which are a JAM, RAGE, and SNIT.
  
• [Play an ace?] means to AVIATE, playing at being an air ace. This one's not cross-referenced to [Her idea may be taking off], cluing an AIRWOMAN. It appears that the Brits use this term, but the U.S. Air Force uses Airman as a unisex term.
  
• IVY is [What often grows attached]. I rip it off the bricks when it climbs towards my windows.
  
• QB SNEAKS looks great in the puzzle. They're [Plays after some snaps, in brief]. I have no idea if people call 'em QB sneaks vs. quarterback sneaks.
  
• [Average guy?] is DOW, as in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
  
• AUTOMATA is a plural of automaton. [They work by themselves].
  
• THE WHO! My husband's all-time favorite band, coincidentally heard on a Nissan commercial at the very moment I was asking my husband who his favorite band was. Clued as [Preceder of Jefferson Airplane at Woodstock].
  
• MOSEYS? I love to mosey. Clued as [Moves with no urgency]. Indeed!
  
• Lindsey LOHAN was the [Star of "Herbie: Fully Loaded," 2005]. I saw it on TV with my kid. This may have been the last movie she shot before becoming a serial rehabber.
  
• One who sings a few [Bars without other people?] sings SOLOS.
  

I needed a lot of crossings to figure out the [Oil-based paste mentioned in the lyrics to "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds"]. I knew it was something-INE, but not that it was PLASTICINE. The lyric is given as "Plasticine porters with looking glass ties." What? Ties? Not eyes? Sighs. Another answer that sort of rhymes with PLASTICINE is JOLENE, a [#1 country hit for Dolly Parton]—for this one, I needed all the crossings. The [Existential musing] "WHY AM I HERE?" asks the self-referential question. Why is that phrase there? Is this an "in-the-language" phrase that's perfect crossword fodder, or a contrived phrase? I rather think it's the former.

In sum: Fun puzzle with a lively pop-culture vibe. I think Will Shortz got his days mixed up, though, because yesterday's Kevin Der record-breaker felt a good bit tougher than this one.

Updated:

Brad Wilber's themeless LA Times crossword has many cool entries:

• A.A. Milne's NOW WE ARE SIX, with that double W, is clued as [Book including the poems "Binker" and "Pinkle Purr"].
  
• TIPTOED looks weird when it's partially filled in—how many words include all or part of the PTOE letter sequence? Clued as [Went quietly].
  
• With no space between the words in the grid, TV ANTENNA, looks like some sort of Russian name. It's a [Reception aid].
  
• [One might wait in front of a church] clues STRETCH LIMO.
  
• SOBA NOODLES are [Traditional Japanese New Year's Eve fare].
  
• ANIMAL HOUSE was [Kevin Bacon's film debut].
  
• The phrase "I'M OVER IT" is [Words of acceptance, ostensibly].
  

Is it just me, or was this one a good bit easier than most of Wilber's themeless puzzles?

Dan Stark's Newsday "Saturday Stumper" is again a bit tougher than the day's other themelesses. Is it just me, or has Stan Newman stepped up the difficulty level in the Stumper? It's been a while since I had cause to blog about the disconnect between the "Stumper" name and an easy puzzle. In this one, the last quadrant I filled in was the upper left. It all looks so reasonable now, sure, but mid-solve, these answers were hiding from me:

• [Adding-machine inventor] was PASCAL. I half-considered EDISON before his TAE initials showed up as [Inventive initials].
  
• [Inhospitable place] is SIBERIA. I was thinking much smaller, like a sauna (I don't much enjoy the heat), rather than a place that's 5.1 million square miles. I like that SIBERIA works less literally, too.
  
• For [Bill padding], I was stuck on a restaurant or service bill rather than a legislative one, so I was thinking along the lines of FEES instead of PORK.
  
• [Metallic joint], ending in W? SCREW, of course! Er, no. ELBOW joint. A screw joins things together, but not as a joint.
  
• [Flask flaw] is a PINHOLE. I had nowhere I was trying to go with this one. I had glass flasks in mind, not metal ones that might get pinholes in them.
  
• [Takes in] is ABSORBS. I started with FOSTERS, as in taking in a foster child. So wrong.
  

Did you know the [World's most common place name] is SAN JOSE? I recall a bar trivia question along these lines, and my team figured it had to be something reflecting the old British Empire, like Victoria. I don't remember if San José was given as the correct answer—they had some crazy wrongnesses sometimes.

Patrick Jordan's CrosSynergy puzzle is called "Where's the Fire?" because the four theme entries end with words that can follow the word fire:

• [Structure for spawning salmon] is a FISH LADDER, and there's such a thing as a fire ladder.
  
• [Sacks] means GIVES THE AX; fire ax.
  
• [Stockings that compress the legs] are SUPPORT HOSE; fire hose.
  
• [Kills time on-line] is SURFS THE NET; fire net.
  

In the fill, [Goes from tavern to tavern] is BARHOPS. Did you ever notice that barhop and carhop are just one letter off?

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