NYT 4:38
BEQ 4:04
Onion 3:57
LAT 2:59
CS untimed
Jack McInturff's New York Times crossword
I've noted before that Jack McInturff's fill tends to run old-school, and this puzzle is in that vein. The theme involves a letter change from H to W, as in HASTE MAKES WASTE ([Advice to the rash, and a hint to this puzzle's theme]). In the other theme entries, an H in a familiar phrase becomes a W:
• 17A. PICTURE OF WEALTH is clued as [Bill Gates snapshot?]. Base phrase is "picture of health."
• 28A. [Banshees' boast?] is SO PROUDLY WE WAIL. So Proudly We Hail is a 1943 movie, and part of a lyric from "The Star-Spangled Banner.'
• 39A. BASE WIT, playing on base hit, is a [Comedic soldier during training?].
• 47A. [Words to estate attorneys?] is HEAD FOR THE WILLS. "Head for the hills" is familiar, but legal documents are a weird thing to "head for," aren't they?
Among the fill that's reminiscent of '80s crosswords are these words: AGHA, or [Turkish V.I.P.]; N-TEST, or [Mushroom producer, for short]; ARLENE [Francis of "What's My Line?"]; ENOS, [Son of Seth]; OAKIE, or [Jack of "The Great Dictator"]; LADES, or [Does dock work]; ILEA, or [Sections of digestive tracts] ("Let's all put our ILEA together and see if we can't come up with a solution that works for all of us"); RAJA, or [Big Indian]; [Mata ___] HARI; SKAT, the [Game with 32 cards]; and ESSO, the [Old Sinclair rival]. Two or three of these are plenty for any 15x15 crossword. The biggest blast from the past is ASE, [Mother of Peer Gynt]. She says, "You may remember me from such crossword clues as ['___ Death']." Pop culture tidbit from Wikipedia: Extracts from "Åse's Death" are played in a Simpsons while Norwegian workers are leaving their town. This may mark the first time this blog has wielded an Å.
I'm not familiar with O'SHEAS Casino, the [Irish-themed Vegas casino]. Apparently it targets gamblers in their 20s and 30s and features a heavy metal star's tattoo parlor. I'm guessing Celine Dion doesn't sing there and that there's no fancy art gallery. Don't recall seeing [Pikake garland] as a LEI clue, though the only other common 3-letter garland is the boa.
There are two women with Ys in place of Is. LYNDA, [Actress Carter who was once Miss World USA], is best known for portraying Wonder Woman. SYD, usually clued as Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett, is clued as the [Lead role on "Providence"]. Remember that show? Ran from '99 to '02? Her dad was played by B.J. Hunnicutt.
Deb Amlen's Onion A.V. Club crossword
In Deb's theme, phrases that begin or end with double-E words turn into double-O words:
• 21A. [Golfer?] is a WOOD WHACKER (weed whacker). Let us not speak of Tiger Woods, whose Escalade whacked a tree.
• 26A. [Stress of being strapped?] is POOR PRESSURE (peer pressure). Topical!
• 43A. [Jerky doctor's office combo?] might be SHOT AND A BOOR (shot and a beer).
• 50A. [Prize for the ultimate sulk?] is BEST IN BROOD (best in breed).
Oniony highlights:
• [Teeny problem?] is ACNE, a problem for teens (among others). A unit of ACNE is a ZIT. Watch out for the kilozit.
• [Buck passers?] clues ATMS. Is this a new clue? It stumped me, so I feel as though it is.
• [His middle name was Milhous] refers to Richard NIXON, not Milhouse Van Houten.
• "YEAH, SURE" is a terrific entry. The clue is ["I bet!"].
• BRAS are [Support systems, of a sort].
• "I'M ON FIRE" is the [Springsteen song that starts, "Hey, little girl, is your daddy home?"]. The "little girl" part sounds creepy.
• Unfamiliar OHIO clue: [Kent State tragedy song].
• The F-BOMB! Another great answer. Clued thus: [One might get dropped, to everyone's shock].
You know, Deb's got a humor book coming out next June: It's Not PMS, It's You.
Updated Wednesday morning:
Martin Ashwood-Smith's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "In Position"—Janie's review
Ya gotta think very literally with this one as the first word of each of the theme phrases corresponds to its position in the grid. In today's case, that also mean that those terrific theme phrases are all oriented vertically. And they are:
• 4D. LEFT HEMISPHERE [Brain area]. Yes, this map of the human brain is sexist and wrong but it still makes me laugh. This map is more to the point.
• 7D. MIDDLE-AGE SPREAD [Weight gain, of a sort]. Not a pretty subject, but the fodder for lotso "humor"...
• 16A. RIGHT VENTRICLE [Heart part]. Here's a cutaway view.
As you probably know, I tend to take a lot of enjoyment in (what I perceive to be) mini-themes and connections within the grid—and today's puzzle delivers nicely. Two of the theme fill are anatomical (referencing the brain and the heart), but look: there're also optical allusions with CORNEA [Pupil's cover] and EYED [Gave the once over]; and [Win by ___ ] A NOSE. That's nothin' to sniff about!
There are ethno-geographic connections, too, as the grid contains ASIA [ ___ Minor]; and from Southeast Asia, HANOI [Vietnam's capital] and [Vietnam's] NGO [Dinh Diem] (who was assassinated in 1963). (Have you ever wondered about Asia Major? While it's not a term we ordinarily use, it's east of Turkey and Asia Minor, and refers to the "heartland of the Persian Empire.") From Europe, there's FLORENCE [Italian city on the Arno]; and from Mexico, AZTECS [Montezuma's people]
Another set of connected fill contains exhortations: the JEERS (and not MEOWS) for [Catcalls], the NOES [Refusals] and "EGADS!" the [Edwardian outburst] ("Edwardian" standing in for "quaint"...).
And in "sacred" territory, there's DIES IRAE [Solemn hymn], MITER [Bishop's hat] and even betrayer-Apostle [Judas ___ ] ISCARIOT.
When I saw SAFE SIDE [Cautious people try to stay on it], my first thought was that it was more theme fill. SNOW TIRE [Winter traction provider] proved not to be a symmetrical match, however, so let's chalk up the former to "bonus fill." To be on the safe side, let's also hope that as the inclement weather driving-season approaches, your snow tires have lotso good tread on 'em—especially for any STOP-GO driving you may have to do!
Ed Sessa's Los Angeles Times crossword
Especially in the Monday-to-Wednesday stretch, there are so few crossword themes that feel new, so this one's a delight. The phrase RAIN CATS AND DOGS can be parsed another way in the punctuation-free zone of the crossword grid: as if it's three entities, RAIN, CATS, AND DOGS. Those three entities are clued by the other three theme answers, which are clued straightforwardly. Kind of the multi-level marketing scheme of crosswords.
• 17A: [*Nightly news show segment] is the WEATHER FORECAST. In Seattle, the forecast often includes rain.
• 27A: [*Big Apple show] clues BROADWAY MUSICAL. One musical I've never seen is Cats.
• 49A: [*1955 Disney animated film featuring Darling Dear] is LADY AND THE TRAMP. Lady and Tramp are both dogs.
• 65A: [Come down in buckets; also, when applied in sequence to the answers to starred clues, this puzzle's theme] clues RAIN CATS AND DOGS. RAIN in the forecast, CATS on Broadway, AND DOGS in the cartoon.
For fill highlights and videos featuring the legendary Pete Seeger, Frank Sinatra, and Ella Fitzgerald, please hop over to my L.A. Crossword Confidential post.
Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "The In Crowd"
In Brendan's post, he says his test solvers thought this puzzle was super-easy, suitable for solving Downs-only to avoid having the puzzle be merely a speed test. I would have been in a total snit if I'd read and followed the "go Downs only" advice because it wasn't all that easy. Maybe other people are finding this a Monday-level venture, but it hit Thursday medium for me.
Perhaps I'm just slow today, because the 35A clue says "two show up in this grid unannounced," but the only DINNER CRASHERs I can find (TAREQ and MICHAELE) are clearly announced as being 35-Acrosses. Are there other hidden answers the 35A clue is referring to? WHOLESALE PRICES and FAIRBANKS, ALASKA don't seem to contain "dinner crashers." What am I missing? (Edited to add: Brendan explains that the crashers' last name, SALAHI, is hidden in stacked halves in WHOLESALE/WAHINE and FAIRBANKS ALASKA/TAHITIAN. What, we're supposed to know the spelling of their first names and what their last name is? Boo!)
I like the GLAMOR/ENAMOR combo, but not the OKED/I'M OKAY pair. Hey, where are the quotation marks of sarcasms in the FEMA clue? [Hurricane Katrina helpers]? Really? Unless the implication is that the agency helped the hurricane carry out its mission. That would be the Army Corps of Engineers, though.
Plenty of Polynesian action today. The Hawaiian word KAHUNA is clued with [Big ___ Burger (fictional chain of "Pulp Fiction"]. WAHINE is a [Female surfer] or a Polynesian woman/wife (esp. in Hawaii and New Zealand). And TAHITIAN is the [Language that gave us the word "tattoo"].
December 01, 2009
Wednesday, 12/2/09
November 26, 2009
Friday, 11/27/09
NYT (PG)
LAT (PG)
CS (Janie)
WSJ (Sam, separate post)
CHE 4:14 (joon, paper)
BEQ 5:33 (joon, across lite)
Hi, everybody! PuzzleGirl here continuing the Thanksgiving Weekend Potluck here at the Crossword Fiend. Amy is off somewhere without internet access which, seriously. I don't even like to talk about it. It must be what hell is like. Our electricity was out yesterday for about three hours and all I can say is Thank God For My iPhone. Not sure I would have survived without it.
Ed Sessa's New York Times crossword puzzle
So what do we have going on today? Well, this week's Friday themeless NYT is pretty fun. I finished it in a little over half an hour, but just knew there was something wrong up there in the NE corner. The doctor's name [DENTON] was somewhere waaaay back in my brain, but when it made it all the way up to the front of my brain it was spelled Dennon. Which made 11D look like it was going to be SNAP-something for [Fasten with a click], right? Perfectly reasonable! But then ... it didn't work. So I tried enable, because an E in that spot seemed okay even though it gave me an artist named Libpi, who is, unfortunately, equally as known to me as Fra Filippo LIPPI. So 11D went from SNAP ON to ENABLE to the finally correct STAPLE. What else did I have trouble with up there? IDA seemed like a good name for a county in Idaho and since there was nothing resembling ARISTOS at 8A [British V.I.P.'s, to Brits], the I seemed perfectly fine to me.
More trouble spots for me include the NW where I had DOGS instead of BOGS for [Things near Baskerville Hall]. Obviously, thinking "The Hound of the Baskervilles," right? And I can never remember how to spell [1950s-'60s NBC host] Jack PAAR's name. I've convinced myself that it's the more "normal" Parr, so I get it wrong every time. I have the same problem with Ryan O'Neal and Tatum O'Neal. I know how Shaquille O'Neal spells his name so every time I'm faced with Ryan or Tatum, I can never remember whether it's the same as Shaq or different. (The only reason I got it right this time is that I looked it up.)
I like all three of the long answers: A WING AND A PRAYER for [Hope born of desperation] is awesome. A LEG TO STAND ON for [Justifiable basis for one's position] is typically only referred to in the negative, right? As in "He doesn't have a leg to stand on." And TURKEY LEFTOVERS for [Post-Thanksgiving fare]? Let's just say I'm totally looking forward to those tomorrow!
Also enjoyed seeing LOW MAN as a figurative figure on a totem pole, and colloquial phrases like LET 'ER RIP ["O.K. ... go!"] are always welcome.
Dan Naddor's syndicated Los Angeles Times crossword
Ya know, there have been times when I've thought to myself "This puzzle has an old-timey feel to it." Well, today is definitely one of those times. This one is chock full of puns on things from, well, centuries ago! Looks like Dan finally decided to go medieval on us!
- 17A: Medieval commuter between Dover and Calais? (CHANNEL SERF [surf]).
- 22A: Medieval castle owner's view? (BARON [barren] LANDSCAPE).
- 34A: Manages medieval real estate holdings? (MINDS ONE'S MANORS [manners]).
- 46A: Medieval lord's efforts? (FEUDAL [futile] ATTEMPTS).
- 53A: Weapons for medieval warriors? (KNIGHT [night] CLUBS).
Not a lot really jumped out at me on this one, but that's probably because I'm in a turkey coma and it's late. So I'll just mention a few things and then get my butt to bed.
- I've never heard of Jack OAKIE [Jack of "The Great Dictator"] and am going to guess that's age-related.
- KENYA is a [Country known for its distance runners]. Have any of you read the new book about the Indian tribe in Mexico that runs barefoot? I think it's called Born to Run. Ah yes, here it is. I haven't read it yet, but it looks pretty interesting. One of the main points the book makes is that the worst thing a runner can do is buy expensive, overly engineered running shoes. If you're interested in running, check it out.
- I know how much people love to see rappers in the grid, and today we get two! NAS ["Thugz Mansion" rapper] and DIDDY [Bad Boy Records founder, as he's now known]. I will never — ne-Ever — understand why he wants to be known as DIDDY. Just doesn't make sense to me.
- And, finally, I'll leave you with this musical interlude. Hope you enjoy it. [Cereal bit] = FLAKE.
Tyler Hinman's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Internal Dialogue"—Janie's review
Taking the cruciverbal baton from Patrick, Tyler continues with another puzzle that has the puzzle's key concept word embedded in the theme phrases. Yesterday we had multiple opportunities to eat; today, as we learn at 37A., we have several ways to SPEAK [A synonym for it can be found inside this puzzle's four longest entries]. By way of an "internal" word for "dialogue," we can chat, talk, jaw or yak. And here's how it's done:• 17A. PITCH A TENT [Set up camp]. I like the way chat spans the three words of the phrase.
• 23A. "MORTAL KOMBAT" [Violent video game franchise that debuted in 1992]. Wanna guess what I've never played?... This game is available, btw, through SEGA [Company that released the unsuccessful Saturn and Dreamcast consoles]. Gamers probably knew this, but it was news to me that not only is there a "Superman" video game, but there's also "'Mortal Kombat' vs. DC Universe" in which Superman is a featured player—which I mention because of the [Comics character with a secret identity]/CLARK KENT combo that's also in the puzzle. I do like the skillful way Tyler uses fill skewed to younger solvers within well-tried theme ideas. Same goes for:
• 46A. NINJA WARRIOR [Japanese TV import involving obstacle courses]. If you say so. It is for real (you can even watch full episodes on line), the base phrase is solid, of course, and at least I have heard of "The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles."
• 57A. "GO FLY A KITE!" ["Buzz off!"]. See 17A. for why this one also appeals.
Though it's not in infinitive form, as I read it, we also get a bonus with SEZ [Utters, informally], first person singular of say...
I was surprised to see SOWN clued as [Placed, as seeds]. When I think of something being "placed," I see it being done in an orderly way—and often seeds are "placed" very carefully in the ground or in containers. But when they're sown, they're scattered or strewn, no?
And I have to wonder if there's an "anger management" issue being hinted at as a sub-theme. After all, the grid presents us with TIRADE [Angry outburst] which crosses RIOT ACT [It's read to a misbehaving child] (please, oh please read the kid a fairy tale instead!). Additionally, there's [Gets in a lather] for RILES and [Battling] for AT IT. (I was actually relieved to see EAT AT clued not in connection with annoyance but quite directly as [Go to, as a restaurant].) What's the source of the anger? Sometimes we direct it at ourselves when we [Mess up], or ERR; sometimes it's directed at others, like the pitcher who [Messes up on the mound], or BALKS.
My suggestion? "Breathe in green; breathe out blue." Listen to music that soothes you, like maybe an OPERA [Diva's setting] or a single ARIA [Diva's highlight]; make like a tourist and visit a museum. MoMA, perhaps? Yes, it's an [N.Y.C. attraction...] but it's not only [...for aesthetes] (thinking here of the negative connotation of the word).
Oh—and thanks for (the) MEMORY/[Something's that's banked?]. Some days mine seems to be double-locked in a seriously subterranean vault.
Did you know CINC? It's clued as [Prez] and I needed to look this one up. It's an acronym not unlike POTUS (President of the United States). Except this time the letters stand for Commander in Chief. Oh—and on the topic of acronyms, I smiled to see FIAT [Italian carmaker that recently partnered with Chrysler]. Seems those letters have come to stand for Fix It Again, Tony...
Ed Sessa's Chronicle of Higher Education puzzle, "Natural Progression
happy day after thanksgiving, everyone. joon here with the lowdown on two more puzzles today. we get a double dose of ed sessa today, as he pairs his clever subtly-themed NYT with a nice CHE puzzle whose theme is a "natural progression" given by the puzzle's seven circled three-letter answers. it's a word latter from APE (14a, [Beginning of a natural progression]) to MAN (70a, [End of the natural progression]). the word ladder goes APE -> APT -> AFT -> OFT -> OAT -> MAT -> MAN, but the five words in the middle are all embedded in longer entries:
- to [Change with the times] is ADAPT.
- [Glider's booster] is an UPDRAFT.
- a [Marshmallow], metaphorically, is a SOFTY. i like this word, but i think i'd normally spell it SOFTIE.
- [Thick breakfast] is OATMEAL. this is the only one where the embedded word is etymologically related to the longer entry. i didn't really mind, though.
- my favorite of the theme clues was [Stick in a book] for MATCH. great misdirection there! not only does it sound like a verb, but you don't normally think "matchbook" when you see "book."
brendan goes asymmetric with this 64-word themeless, resulting in very smooth fill for such a low word count. i liked CALLED IT, ["As I predicted"], best, but overall the fill was more notable for lack of crap than for brendan's usual pizzazz. there were some pained inflections, of which my least favorite was REMELT, and a couple of abbreviations i didn't like (NAV for navy being the worst), but it's really quite clean for a grid this demanding. clue of the year nominee: [Pass the bar, perhaps] for TEETOTAL. loved it! i also liked how the miami HEAT, clued as [2006 NBA champs], are opposite in the grid from WADES, or [Gets cold feet?]. anybody who watched the 2006 NBA finals knows that dwyane WADE (we really need to get his crazy first name into more puzzles) carried the HEAT to the title that year with an insanely dominant postseason.
June 11, 2009
Friday, 6/12
BEQ 4:55
CHE 4:07
Tausig (untimed)
NYT 3:42
LAT 3:24
CS 6:25 (J—paper)
WSJ 7:44
Patrick Berry's New York Times crossword
Just before doing this puzzle, I did two Berry puzzles from an '06 Games World of Puzzles—my goodness, how did I leave both a Rows Garden and a Ringside puzzle unfilled?!? Berry's variety grids are always terrific—if you like challenging crosswords and you're not wedded to themes, buy his Puzzle Masterpieces book immediately. And don't be put off by the introduction's claim that the book's puzzles are of Wednesday difficulty—only the snake-grid ones are easyish, and some are beyond Saturday-level. My favorite variety might be Some Assembly Required, which work the jigsaw and crossword parts of your brain in tandem, and the Rows Gardens, in which Across answers intersect with answers that travel hexagonally. The book's an attractive hardcover, which may make you hesitate to write in it—but go ahead and do it. Once the book is in your hands, your pencil will not be able to resist its pull. Shall I give it an Amazon-style rating? Yes: ★★★★★. Crossword books don't get any better than this.
Berry is, of course, also a master at the wide-open themeless grid. His Friday NYT crossword has just 64 words, and holy cow, would you look at that midsection? That fat swath of 7's and 8's marching up the stairs from left to right? That's impressive. I suppose there's some advantage to the easier cluing—why not make such a grid more accessible to a broader cross-section of solvers? But you know me, I like the gnarly clues best. Here are the answers and clues that were right up my alley:
Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword, "If I Could Turn Back Time"
In the six theme entries, Ben has turned back time by flipping an AM or PM into MA or MP:
My favorite clues and fill include [Adjective for some past-their-prime musicians] for BLOATED; the [Fighting words] "oh, IT'S ON"; [Golfer Ernie with his own wine company] provides a bit of trivia for Mr. ELS; [Mark of wit] clues writer TWAIN; [They're usually No. 2's] clues PENCILS, not vice presidents; and [Alexander the Grape, e.g.] is an example of a PUN. This week's Ink Well mystery word is RATINE, or [Rough, loose fabric]. Wow, I don't even recall that one from the heyday of Eugene Maleska. [Banned MLB substance] is the general abbreviation PED, or performance-enhancing drug, rather than a specific steroid or hormone. I didn't know that abbreviation before doing this puzzle.
Ed Sessa's Chronicle of Higher Education puzzle,"Storied Institutions"
Greetings, academics! Last week, there wasn't a CHE crossword and this week, there is. What's the deal with the Chronicle's summer publishing schedule? Is it every other week and then a few weeks off in August, something like that? Ah, here's the scoop from chronicle.com: "The Chronicle appears weekly in print except for every other week during June, July, and August, and the last three weeks in December (a total of 42 issues a year)."
The theme this week is fictional schools, and wow, I sure haven't read many of these books set in fictional schools:
In the fill, PECK is clued as [What a bird in the hand might do?]. I beseech you: guard your eyes. [Makes a botch of] clues BLOOPS; while "blooper" is common and there's a baseball usage of this word, I can't say BLOOPS came to me easily. I like the echo between AT BAT and KEPT AT BAY—that T and Y are right next to each other on the keyboard, so it'd be easy to mangle these two. Did you know that the STAR FRUIT, or carambola, is an [Edible Malaysian export]?
Updated Friday morning:
Randall J. Hartman's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Covered with Mud"—Janie's review
Back in May, Randy brought us a puzzle whose theme fill was literally to be found "in a NUT shell," where the first two letters of the theme-phrase were NU and the last was T. Today, we're "covered with MUD," as MU and D surround ("cover") the letters of the theme-phrase. As anyone who enjoys being pampered on occasion can tell you, MUD treatments are not only relaxing, they're refreshing. Ditto this puzzle. Behold:
This puzzle is but one letter shy of a pangram ("J"), and it was really nice to encounter the scrabbly end of the alphabet in its entirety in such lively (and in some cases "street-smart") fill as: BAD VIBES, MEOW clued as [Copy cats?], EXERT, YOU DA MAN (YIKES!), and ZIPPO (which I filled in first with ZILCH).
Other fine fill and/or clues:
Got myself off on the wrong foot by confidently entering SANTA for SATAN (hello again...). Now I know that [OLD NICK] and Beelzebub are one and the same. Ditto the Deuce, the Dickens, Old Harry, Old Ned, Old Scratch, Old Horny, Old Poker, the Old Gentleman and a slew of others. Thus spake Roget.
The reminder of iconic newsman Chet HUNTLEY and the HUNTLEY-Brinkley Report stirred memories of a time when getting the nightly news from unimpeachable sources still mattered (also memories of their classic "Goodnight, Chet," "Goodnight, David," sign-off). And while we're looking at journalism, the puzzle also makes a nod to the dead-tree sort with OP-ED.
One little grid-bit and then ('til Monday) I'm history: the crossing of IRMA and FIRMA.
Happy weekend!
Robin Stears' Los Angeles Times crossword
A constructing debut for Stears? I think so. Congratulations! I loved unraveling the theme and I admire the theme's execution. Each theme entry has TRY tacked onto the end to completely change the gist of a phrase, and since it's a Friday puzzle, there's no give-away hint anywhere that explains it all. Here are the fun theme answers:
In the fill, I like the French vowel trifecta combo of EAU (51A [__-de-vie: brandy]) and BEAUT (36A [Doozy]). Geography brings us TONGA—5A [Kingdom called the Friendly Islands]—and both ELON and ASHE from North Carolina. The people in the puzzle are mostly familiar to regular solvers, except for 23A [1990s speed skating gold medalist], somebody named KOSS. No relation to the headphones company, I presume, Wikipedia tells me that "Johann Olav Koss (born 29 October 1968) is a former speed skater from Norway, considered to be one of the best in history." There's also an oddball fictional character whose name I learned from crosswords: GORT is clued as 8D ["The Day the Earth Stood Still" robot].
Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Getting Extra C-R-E-D-I-T: Let me spell it all out"
Brendan's added a new feature, a difficulty-meter for the puzzle. This one's rated hard, and I'd say it's at least Friday-level but with a theme that might take Saturday effort to glom onto. The theme entries sort of sound like familiar phrases, and HARD ICHOR looked like "hard liquor" without the L. But what's going on here is that each of the six theme entries has a letter added to a phrase, and the spelling's changed to make a real word out of the word that adopts the extra letter. Those extra letters are, in order, C, R, E, D, I, T. Straightforward enough, right? This is an instance of a puzzle where the title really helps pull the theme together and make it more fun for the solver, less mystifying. The theme:
Favorite clue: Maple SYRUP is a [Silver dollar covering] if you're talking about silver dollar pancakes. Mmm, pancakes... Second favorite: [Goes from prenatal to parental, e.g.] clues ANAGRAMS.
That's all the time I have right now, as it's just about time to pick up my kid from school. In Chicago, they get out at 9:30 a.m. on the last day! Will be back later on with the Wall Street Journal puzzle.
Updated again Friday evening:
Wall Street Journal crossword, "Speaker Boxes," by Mike Shenk a.k.a. "Alice Long"
Mike Shenk is known in the puzzle business for being an innovator, for devising cool new types of puzzles. Mike can even bring innovation to the fusty concept of the quote theme: here, the words in the quote are hidden within longer phrases or words, which are clued straightforwardly. So the hideousness of the standard quote theme—the "sure hope you can get the Downs because you're not getting much help with the long Across entries" thing—is eliminated. You're not getting a ton of thematic material, it's true, but you do get a 21x21 with 29 answers of at least 7 letters, and you're getting Shenk-grade fill. The Matthew Prior quote that's spelled out in the circled squares, one word per long answer, is THEY TALK MOST WHO HAVE THE LEAST TO SAY. Hey, that's only 32 letters of quote in a Sunday-sized puzzle. This I find much more palatable than a 50-letter quote in a 15x15 grid.
Highlights in the fill include a COON'S AGE (which is a more familiar phrase than the DOG'S AGE that was in another recent puzzle), LIP BALM, a PANAMA HAT, a comfy OLD SHOE, NO-DOZ, RENT-A-COP, STEPMOM, and some of the entries hiding the quote words—THE YANKEES, MORTAL KOMBAT, FIFTH AVENUE, and crossword-ready ADELE ASTAIRE graduating to full-name status.
March 17, 2009
Wednesday, 3/18
Onion 4:31
BEQ 3:49
LAT 3:03
NYT 2:51
CS untimed
Tuesday's puzzle had a theme centered on the 1940s to '60s. Robert Doll's Wednesday New York Times crossword doesn't have a theme that skews old, but much of the fill transported me to the crosswords of 30 years ago. The theme takes two-word phrases that begin with a GR- word and remove the initial G. If this puzzle had a title, it could be "A Case of Gout."
I thought the puzzle was mighty easy for a Wednesday NYT, but I was also struck by a preponderance of fill that used to be seen more often than it is nowadays. I've done puzzles long enough that those answers were gimmes, but I could see a lot of newer solvers getting a case of the grumbles with these:
With [Orange feature] cluing NAVEL, my eyes started seeing NAVELs everywhere in this grid. INANE ([Cockamamie]) looks sort of like INNIE, IN-LAW ([Acquired relative]) had the first two letters, and INNER ([Word before city or child]) was also close.
Favorite clues:
Updated:
Ed Sessa's LA Times crossword includes a title as the last theme entry, 63-Across GOON SQUAD. Who's part of the goon squad? The punk, mug, hood, and tough at the end of these theme answers:
Good riff on the phrase GOON SQUAD. Did ALDO Ray play goons? For a change, a clue for ALDO gives me some information that's of interest. [Actor ___ Ray known for macho roles]? Hey! Now I know some context for Aldo Ray other than being given the title of an old movie I'll never see. Other clues:
When I open a puzzle in Across Lite, usually the timer starts going automatically. I didn't notice that it sat quiescent when I opened Nancy Salomon's CrosSynergy crossword, "Space Invaders," so I have no solving time to report. Probably a smidge below 3:00, if I had to guess. The theme hinges on calling sentient entities (...not quite anagrams, those two words) from outer space ALIENs, CREATUREs, and BEINGs:
As with the Doll NYT puzzle, some of this crossword had a retro feel. The trusty old ADITS are [Mine entrances]. There's a mineral/rock store called Open Adit; the site takes pains to provide a definition for the term. ADIT used to show up in many more crosswords than it does these days. STYE, or [Eyelid ailment] was in plenty of old crosswords, and alas, it is still in plenty of current crosswords. ESSO often gets clued as an outdated or non-U.S. brand, but here it's the [Tiger-in-your-tank brand], no hint of anachronism; the phrase still bubbles up in various ways. [Supreme Diana] and [Karl of "The Streets of San Francisco] appear one after the other, as 42- and 43-Down; Ms. ROSS left the Supremes in 1970 and KARL's show aired from 1972 to '77. [South Yemen port] is ADEN; this is one of those ageless crossword answers that I've known forever and will probably see in the last crossword I do in the old-age home some decades hence. The bottom row dispenses three more classic crossword answers: EPEE, a [Fencer's blade], along with ERTES, or [Some Art Deco pieces], and ESSEN, a [City on the Ruhr].
The quartet of 9-letter answers in the fill are good. TAILGATED means [Followed too closely on the highway]. LET IT SNOW is [One third of a winter refrain]. ORATORIOS are [Handel's "Messiah," et al.]. And the PAST TENSE is clued with [History is written in it]. I also like SKEETERS, or [Bloodsuckers, colloquially]. Did you know that South Africans and Australians and their ilk call mosquitoes "mozzies"?
This week's Onion A.V. Club crossword was constructed by Ben Tausig. The theme entries take words that end with a Z sound and change the pronunciation to an S sound, forcing a variety of spelling changes. The new phrases are clued with question marks:
The theme idea's a good one, but I only liked the first two entries. Here are 10 other clues and answers:
Pop culture rules the day in Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Hand Jive: Five songs to help you get a grip." Brendan used a book of lists about music as the seed for this puzzle, with five song titles that fit into symmetrical spots of the grid and are all about masturbation:
The rest of the puzzle has some good stuff—there's a small corner with GAWKS and RITZY stuffed into it. There are longish answers like GIRL TALK and HAT TRICK, BY CHANCE and SO SORRY. And two corners with three-abreast 7-letter answers, marred only by the inclusion of the woeful ENSTEEL, or [Strengthen]. Wait, is that word thematic (for the theme entries other than the Divinyls song)?
November 27, 2008
Friday, 11/28
Sun 14:08
NYT 5:16
LAT 4:57
CHE 4:09
CS 3:22
WSJ 7:03
(post updated at 11:15 a.m. Friday)
Joe Krozel packs 10 15-letter answers into his New York Times crossword, but he spaces them out so it feels different from the sort of themeless puzzle with lots of 15's stacked together. Here are the long answers, every one of 'em a lively phrase:
Miscellaneous other clues:
Fraser Simpson's Sun puzzle is a cryptic crossword, and it's a good bit more challenging and involved than the NYT Second Sunday cryptics are. For a guide to solving cryptics, see Fraser's "How to Solve Cryptic Crosswords" tutorial. I wrote up my answers over at the Crossword Fiend forum before I noticed that there was already a PDF of the answers. In the PDF, "anag." means anagram; parentheses indicate letters inserted (CAPS) or deleted (lowercase); "hom." means homophone; "rev." means reversal. If you are hesitant about giving cryptics the old college try, read Fraser's tips and see if you get any of the clues in the puzzle. If you're stuck, peek at an answer or two—in my forum post, the answers are in white text, so you can peek at a single answer without having the rest of the puzzle spoiled. Often, having even just a single letter in place from a crossing will help you figure out what an answer is.
Updated:
It took me a while to suss out the theme in Donna Levin's LA Times crossword. Each theme entry makes a pun using a demonym or nationality that sounds like a common English word:
Highlights in the fill (which tended to the Scrabbly side): [Capo di tutti capi] is the KINGPIN. CHEEK gets a funny clue: [Half-moon?], as in a single butt cheek. MY GIRL was a [1965 #1 hit for The Temptations]. To NITPICK is to [Cavil]. The [2007 People magazine adjective for Matt Damon] was SEXIEST; Damon's response was funny.
Clues that got in the way of my finding the answers (as they're supposed to on a Friday):
Randy Ross's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Riddle Me Math," dispenses four riddles that hinge on math-oriented puns:
The fill includes 22 answers that are 6 or 7 letters long, which gives the puzzle added freshness. There's the [Persian poet] Omar KHAYYAM, for example, and MT. SINAI, a [NY hospital named after a biblical site]. My favorite clue was [Harry and Tara] for REIDS—one doesn't ordinarily think of the Senate Majority Leader and the largely discredited actress in the same moment.
Ed Sessa's Chronicle of Higher Education puzzle, "School of Victual Arts," is more playful than most CHE crosswords. The theme entries are five fields of academic study punned out with food. For example, ["You'll view the world as thin sheets of pastry in our ___ class"] clues PHYLLOSOPHY, based on philosophy and phyllo dough. LINGUINISTICS combines linguistics and linguini. Sociology becomes SUSHIOLOGY; economics, EGGONOMICS; and literature, LIQUORATURE. Interesting fill includes ALATEEN and DOGBANE, VESPUCCI and the Battle of MIDWAY. Did you look at your fingers to figure out [Second digit from the right]? The answer is the TENS digit next to the ones place.
Dan Fisher's Wall Street Journal crossword has a theme that combines two things I like: word manipulation (e.g., anagrams, reversals) and geography. In each "Global Recession" theme entry, the capital city (or maybe just a large city) points you to a country, the name of which appears in reverse (in highlighted squares) in the answer. The rest of the clue gives a more straightforward definition of the answer:
November 17, 2008
Tuesday, 11/18
Sun 4:15
CS 3:49
Jonesin' 3:36
LAT 3:04
NYT 2:57
You know how blog comments generally don't let you post a photo? The Crossword Fiend forum allows users to upload attachments. Why, I posted a picture of me. (Just try to keep pictures to a width of about 300 pixels so the forum doesn't become double-wide.)
Take a trek on the Richard Chisholm trail to the New York Times crossword. He's got six theme entries, five of which consist of TWO HOUSES (59-Across):
Fill I liked: If you're [A pretty capable person], you're NO SLOUCH; ZEKE was my college nickname as well as [The Cowardly Lion's Kansas counterpart]; and BARTEND, or [Pour drinks]. ETD gets its most straightforward and specific clue ever: [When a plane is due to take off: Abbr.]. Did you know that the TAFTS were an [Ohio political dynasty]? I just know of President Taft, and not his kinfolk.
Gary Steinmehl's Sun crossword ditches a TER from each theme entry's root phrase, hence the title, "Terminus" (minus TER). Here are the five theme entries:
I wonder if Peter Gordon already had POT clued as [Grass] when this puzzle was destined for newspaper publication, or if he zinged things up a bit when he went rogue. Truthfully, I've noticed little change in the puzzles since the New York Sun folded. Speaking of grass, ASTROTURF is in here, too. I didn't play Risk much as a kid (...or adult), so I didn't know that [Indonesia is part of it in the game Risk] could clue AUSTRALIA. Let's take a look...sure enough. But hey! The Philippines has sunk beneath the ocean's surface in Risk. What's up with that?
Ooh, Matt Jones's Jonesin' puzzle has a fun theme for sports fans, a themeless-grade grid (just 70 words), and five zones with lotsa white space. The theme entries in "Court Case" combine two NBA teams into mildly plausible phrases:
In the fill, 1-Across was a complete mystery to me; [Horrorcore hip-hop group whose fans are called Juggalos, for short] is ICP. I got the [Chinese name of Taoist philosopher Lao-Tzu] through the crossings without ever seeing the clue, which is good because I hadn't seen LIER before. I did know that CRANIUM was the [Board game with categories "Data Head" and "Word Worm"], and yes, I like to opt for Word Worm. STINK TO [___ high heaven (really reek)] was a fine 7-letter FITB partial for me. ["At Last" singer James and namesakes] are ETTAS; did you know there's an upcoming movie about Chess Records called Cadillac Ranch, starring Beyoncé as Etta James? The film opens in early December.
Updated:
Ed Sessa's LA Times crossword takes the subterranean train:
Having a small theme like this accommodates 16 answers that are 7 or 8 letters long.
Randolph Ross's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Pop Quiz," has four phrases linked by their P.O.P. initials, all with OF in the middle:
Just yesterday, I learned that Maria Bartiromo has company in the category of "cable news channel female financial reporters deemed conventionally attractive": ERIN [Burnett of CNBC's "Squawk on the Street"]. There was a magazine article about the two of them in this category (oy). I had the AC in place for [Hit hard], so of course I went with THWACK; alas, the answer was IMPACT. [Real first name of Roy Rogers] is LEONARD, Leonard Slye. How could anyone give up an awesome name like Slye?? [Provide relief for a bugged boxer?] seems a little too jokey for a verb that is of questionable generic validity, DEFLEA.
April 10, 2008
Friday, 4/11
NYT 7:27
LAT 5:40
CHE 5:14
Jonesin' 4:57
NYS 4:01
CS 3:37
WSJ 8:27
Manny Nosowsky left us a lot of white space to fill in the New York Times puzzle. Triple-stacked sets of 15s at the top and bottom, with plenty of longish Down answers crossing them to facilitate your progress through the grid—provided that you can interpret his clues. My favorites of the 15s are HAS A LOT GOING FOR, or [Is blessed with many assets, before "him" or "her"] (Does this qualify as a 15-letter partial or not? Why?); IMPROVE ON NATURE, or [Have cosmetic surgery, for example] (anyone else notice that GO UNDER THE KNIFE also fits? yeah, that didn't help me one bit); and the TRADITIONAL IRAS, [Some bank offerings]. We have [Old Turkish title] and [Turkish title], non-old variety—BEY and AGHA, respectively. Favorite clues: [Connector in a song] for HIPBONE; [Something that shouldn't be left open] for FLY; [Tops] for TERRIFIC; [Like an "eh," maybe] for NASAL; [Sensitivity] for ESTHESIA; [One of the Jackson 5] for MARLON; [It's negative] for ANION; [Heads of a tribe?] for TOTEM; [Fired pitcher?] for CERAMIC (nominee for favorite clue of the year); [Titles for Italian 31-Down], SIGNORI, referencing MEN; [Examine, in Exeter] for ANALYSE (British spelling); [Alternative to pasta] for POLENTA; [Put in a bibliography, e.g.] for CATALOG; and [Carry out] for FULFILL. I don't care for [Studies under a microscope] for AMOEBAS, nor for past clues like [Sleep lab study] for APNEA. Study ≠ the thing being studied, at least not in the American Heritage dictionary. It clanged rather than PURRED ([Sounded smooth]).
Least obvious, to me:
"Ogden Porter" (Peter Gordon) created the New York Sun crossword, "Adaptees." The theme is musicals adapted from movies, plays, or operas, with five answers occupying six spaces in the grid. It felt about Tuesday-Sun level in difficulty, so no need to bang your head against the wall with this one. Favorite entries: the book WOE IS I, the song "MY HUMPS" (good gravy, that song won a Grammy? I much prefer Alanis Morisette's downbeat cover version), the Barney Miller character WOJO (my second favorite character on that show when I was a kid—guess my favorite), and DR. PHIL. Least familiar answer: ZEILE, [Former Mets infielder Todd]. Cutest clue: [Pop idol?] for MOM.
Updated:
Short shrift for all the puzzles—let's just say this is not my day.
Paula Gamache's CrosSynergy puzzle, "The Color Purple," has four theme entries that begin with words that can follow "purple." I like the rockin' ones best—Jimi Hendrix's Purple HAZE and Prince's Purple RAIN.
Robert Wolfe's LA Times puzzle takes scientific units of measure as its punny theme. I rather like OHM-SCHOOLED.
Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword's theme this week is famous twins. Two of the four theme entries, I didn't know were twins. Tons of fun clues and answers throughout.
Ed Sessa's Chronicle of Higher Education crossword, "Silence!", is GOLDEN. There are no theme entries per se—until you hit 59-Across, which instructs you to circle the UNHEARD letter in each of six answers in the grid. LASAGNA's G, I would argue, isn't exactly silent, because it signals you to change the N's sound (we don't pronounce it "lazonna," after all). LEOPARD's O, LINCOLN's second L, HANDSOMER's D, HEARKEN's first E, and CONDEMN's final N are all silent, and when you take the silent letters together, silence is GOLDEN. Quite gentle as crossword gimmicks go—you don't have to use the gimmick to finish filling in the grid.
Tyler Hinman's Wall Street Journal crossword, "Bad Trading Day," adds a DOWN to each theme entry, changing one word of an existing phrase into a word or phrase that contains DOWN. For instance, snowed under encloses a DOWN to become SNOWED DOWN UNDER, or [Hoodwinked in Hobart?], or snowed in Tasmania/Australia. Aptly, all seven theme entries run DOWNward in the grid. Among the highlights in the fill is WALT DISNEY, the namesake of my kid's school; I didn't know he was a [Winner of 26 Oscars]; that is quite a lot.
October 11, 2007
Friday, 10/12
NYS 12:05
NYT 6:30
LAT 5:27
CHE 4:33 (download here—I loved this puzzle)
Jonesin' 4:15
CS 2:41
WSJ 8:45
Yeesh. Talk about your mixed feelings. Dave Sullivan's New York Sun puzzle, "Endnotes," is one of those tough Friday Sun puzzles packed with unusual fill and clues that offer a good mental workout. Those are good things. Alas, the theme is one of those musical themes custom-made to vex me because I don't know jack about notes and whatnot. I know what Tortilla Flat is, and the crossing entries morphed that into TORTILLGSHARP, so I presume that A flat and G sharp are equivalent. The central theme entry is THFFLAT, with a clue that says, [Film with a bat named Wonderboy]. After finishing the puzzle, I Googled "the sharp" wonderboy because I haven't a clue what F flat is also called. (Robert Redford, The Natural. Oh.) The third theme entry killed me because I had no idea who was the [Singer of the 1962 hit "Mashed Potato Time"]—I even broke down and Googled while solving, which I only resort to about once a year. I have only the vaguest sense that a natural means something musically, so it still took a while to flesh out DEEDEFN into DEEDEFNATURAL. Gah!
That lower right corner fought me tooth and nail, too. Didn't know the last letter of the [Spanish digraph] ELL* (ELLE, it turns out), or the rest of AC***, the [Old "Precision crafted performance" sloganeer] (ACURA), and couldn't guess the 7-letter VW without a starting letter (EUROVAN), and the Perry Como title (PAPA), nada, and the Irish county (there are seven of them with 5-letter names—here, it's CLARE), and the [Patient of Dr. Zook] (HAGAR—from the comic strip?), nada, and the vague Down clues of [Big] (POPULAR) and [Fair] (AVERAGE), nada. I mean, eventually it all came together, but ouch. The journey left me bruised.
Favorite clues: [Aquarium favorite] for SEA LIONS (not for your household aquarium); [Rank] for NASTY; [Flower bud?] for BAMBI (Bambi's skunk friend was named Flower); [Start of an annual request] for DEAR SANTA; [Start of a few choice words?] for EENY; [Alexandra, once] for CZARINA (with crosswords usually defaulting to the less common spelling TSAR just because those four letters are all common ones, I'm always pleased to see czar action); [Subject of some searches] for TALENT; [Operating expenses] for NUT (Who says that??); [Powers, e.g.] for SPY, as in Austin Powers, I presume; [Bush succeeded him] for MONDALE; ["Ghosts Can't Do It" actress] for BO DEREK (terrific crossword entry, but what on earth is that movie? Sounds awful!); [Like the newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat] for PAN-ARAB; and [Pair that might elicit a "Nice rack!"] for ANTLERS (forehead smack!).
On the bright side, a smackdown like that (and if you know your musical terminology, perhaps you thought Dave's Sun puzzle was a breeze rather than a smackdown) makes Mike Nothnagel's Friday New York Times seem much more pliable. One particularly fresh-as-a-daisy entry is SCOUT'S HONOR ([Swear words?]). The many I spots hang together—ICICLE ([Totally unemotional]), ICARUS ([He died soon after escaping from Crete]), IRS AUDIT ([Tax burden?]), I BEFORE E ([Rule broken in leisure?]), and the butterfly's EYESPOT. Other faves: ["Not possible"] for CAN'T BE and the [Informal demurral] NOPE; [It might go off during a 30-Across], or STORM, for CAR ALARM; the horribly misleading [2000 Olympics host] COSTAS (Bob Costas the TV host, not a host city); X words like PIXIES and X COORDINATE; [Further out of the woods?] for SAFER; the TREE FORT; CRIMES SCENES as the place [Where many prints may be found] (anyone else thinking of art galleries?); OFTTIMES with that implausible FTT string; the cross-referenced NCAA with ACC, and RC COLA (["Great taste since 1905" sloganeer]) with SODAPOP; and [Flying predators of cold sease] for SKUAS (there was a penguin-menacing skua in the cartoon Happy Feet. An enjoyable crossword...and one that did not rob me of my sense of crossword mastery!
Updated:
I loved Ed Sessa's 9/28 Chronicle of Higher Education crossword, "Haven't You Heard?" The theme entries are examples of ONOMATOPOEIA, and if you think that's tricky to spell, you should try Jonathan Swift's race of horses from Gulliver's Travels. Another of the onomatopoeic entries is a bird whose name imitates the sound it makes—my kid has a book with recordings of bird songs, including this one's. Some of my favorite clues/answers: [Grown-up doodlebug] for ANTLION; [King of O] for GAYLE (Oprah's friend Gayle King); lowbrow PAT from Saturday Night Live crossing canonical Anna KARENINA; and the delightfully little-known MOREEN, an [Upholstery fabric] (you can see it used to restore an antique chair here).
The LA Times puzzle by Dan Naddor is also a hoot. The theme entries are presented in such a way that a word is deleted and instead represented, picture-puzzle style, by the placement of the entries. Wow, that explanation isn't clear at all, is it? An example will help: 20-Across says [With 18-Across, be unsportsmanlike, literally]. The answer is "hit below the belt," so 18-Across is THE BELT and 20-Across, parked right below, is HIT. The foursome includes representations of above, below, over, and under, and the words in the grid appear in symmetrical spots. Fun gimmick/game!
Matt Jones's Jonesin' puzzle this week is an unthemed crossword. Yay! I love a surprise themeless attack. Lots of fresh language, like SONICS FANS and a [Short distance in the city], HALF A BLOCK (that is how far I live from Lake Shore Drive, so it definitely is an "in the language" unit of measure for me!). Funniest clue: [Make the carpet match the drapes, say] for COORDINATE.
Randall Hartman's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Jailhouse Bloc," presents a trio of theme entries ending with words that can also mean "jail." Very easy crossword. Seeing the Joan Collins character ALEXIS in the grid reminds me—yesterday I volunteered in Ben's second-grade classroom, helping the kids with their writing projects. One girl's name is Alexxsys, and I hope she someday becomes famous because I would love to see that name in a crossword!
Moving to the Sunday-sized Wall Street Journal crossword, "A Chorus Line," Liz Gorski ponies up 21 rebus squares in a row, straight across the center row. (She's done this before, with ANTs marching across a crossword in a Simon & Schuster book.) Not satisfied by having 21 crossing answers containing the 2-letter rebus, Liz also includes four thematic answers near the top and bottom of the grid (two 8s, two 12s). Well done!
