Tuesday, 11/17/09

Jonesin' 3:59
NYT 3:40
LAT 2:35
CS untimed

Caleb Madison's newest Bard Bulletin crossword is available now in Across Lite, at the Crossword Fiend forum's "Island of Lost Puzzles." It'll be online in Java applet form later this week. Enjoy!

John Farmer's New York Times crossword

Structurally, this is an unusual puzzle. The theme entries are 10 (or 14)-letter doubled entities criss-crossing in two 5 (or 7)-letter halves that intersect in the middle, and these are found in the four corners and in the middle of the grid. The letters in those central intersections spell out RINGO. Here's how it plays out:

• 16A. [WIth 2-Down, group with the only James Bond theme to hit #1] is DURAN DURAN.
• 18A. [WIth 10-Down, flashy jewelry] is BLING-BLING.
• 39A. "TWINKLE, TWINKLE" is [With 25-Down, start of a nighttime nursery rhyme]. It's not just the start of the rhyme/song as a partial entry—we often call it "Twinkle, Twinkle" without adding the "Little Star" part, don't we?
• 61A. [With 60-Down, #1 hit of 1969] is "SUGAR, SUGAR." The Archies?
• 64A. [With 54-Down, intro to a joke] is "KNOCK, KNOCK."
• 52D. RINGO Starr is the [Rock star whose name is spelled out by the middle letters of 16-, 18-, 39-, 61- and 64-Across].

Okay, John: Please fill us in. What drew you to playing with crossword conventions in this way? Was there a compelling thematic reason to have the middle letters spell out RINGO, or could you have just as easily gone with another 5-letter word? How many iterations did you go through while working on this puzzle?

Okay, fellow solvers: Is it just me, or was this puzzle of Wednesday difficulty for you, too? Here are the tougher spots:

• WIGAN?!? 40D: [City near Manchester]—Wiggin' out about that one? Me, too. If you didn't know that RIGEL is the name of that 46A: [Bright double star in Orion], you were sunk here.
• 53A. The SKUA is an [Arctic seabird]. Remember this one with the AUK, ERN(E), and TERN.
• 12A. OCULI are [Eyelike windows]. I prefer auriculi, the ear-shaped windows.
• 21A. [International alliance] didn't shout ENTENTE to me, so I worked the crossings instead.
• 34A. I kinda wanted the [A.P. transmission] to be a WIRE STORY, but it's a WIRE PHOTO. On Twitter, you can follow the APStyleBook or, for a more irreverent take on writing and editing, there's Fake AP Stylebook. Sample: "Avoid using 'gadzooks,' lest your monocle pop out and land in your jar of mustache wax."
• 47A. [Japanese prime minister Taro] ASO puts me in mind of taro chips.
• 59A. The weird "I MEAN NO" is clued as an [Emphatic refusal].

Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword, "You Want Fries With That?"

This week's Jonesin' theme is unusual French fry toppings or dips, beyond ketchup and malt vinegar and my son's preference, barbecue sauce. Me, I want a dash of sea salt flakes and a little ketchup. Other options:

• 17A. [Garnish that some upscale fries at Chicago restaurant mk are served with] is TRUFFLE CREAM.
• 26A. [Ingredient served with fries and brown gravy in the Canadian dish poutine] clues CHEESE CURDS. The gravy ruins poutine for me. Not a gravy fan. As for CHEESE CURDS, I like 'em breaded and deep-fried, à la the Upper Midwest. Mmm, hot cheddar goodness.
• 40A. MAYONNAISE is the [Condiment most often used by the Dutch with their fries]. Mac, is this true?
• 56A. I don't quite understand how this one works. CHICKEN SOUP is a [Seasoning option for fries at the Japanese fast food restaurant First Kitchen]. Wet or powdered soup?
• 67A. WENDY'S FROSTY is the [Fast food dessert that some kids insist on dipping their fries in].

Freshest answers in the fill:

• The FAR LEFT is an [Ultraliberal's place on the political spectrum].
• The GEEK SQUAD is the [Tech support subsidiary of Best Buy].
• Good gravy (a nonsequitur for me)! Crosswordese ARLO gives way to his last name for a change. GUTHRIE is clued as ["Alice's Restaurant" singer Arlo].
• The F-TEST is an [Analysis named after statistician Sir Ronald Fisher]. I've heard of Fisher's exact test, too. Someone else named the F-test after Fisher.
• GLAM ROCK is the [Genre for Gary Glitter].
• SIA is clued as ["The Girl You Lost to Cocaine" singer]. Who? Sia Furler is an Australian pop singer.
• [MSNBC anchor Monica] NOVOTNY is not anyone I'd heard of. I'm not a big consumer of cable news. What I see from across the health club once a week is pretty much it.

Updated Tuesday morning:

Patrick Jordan's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Cart Game"—Janie's review

This "cart" game deals out three fresh phrases and one familiar name whose first word can be followed not by cart but by its synonym WAGON, as is made clear at 69A. [Word that can follow the starts of...]:

• 20A. STATION BREAK [Spot for a commercial] → station wagon. Here's a Hudson classic from the '40s. Are station wagons even made today or is it all-SUV-all-the-time? (Remember, this question comes from someone who lives in Manhattan and doesn't own a car. And the last time I did, it was a VW Beetle... that got great mileage!)
• 35A. CHUCK NORRIS ["The Delta Force" star] → chuckwagon. Here's an interesting backgrounder on this mobile food wagon that first came into being in the American West, in the mid-1860s. And here's a picture of one from the 1920s.
• 42A. COVERED DISH [Potluck dinner contribution] → covered wagon, the 19th century version of a station wagon? If you were crossing the Great Plains, your belongings were likely to be packed inside.
• 59A. WELCOME SIGHT [Glimpse of something pleasing] → Welcome Wagon. You and your covered wagon would not have been greeted by one on your arrival in, say, Oregon, but Wiki tells us that "the company was founded in 1928, by Thomas Briggs in Memphis, Tennessee. At that time, Welcome Wagon 'hostesses' would visit new homeowners with a gift basket containing samples, coupons, and advertising from contributing businesses. These home visits continued for over 50 years until 1998, when changing demographics meant few homeowners would be at home when representatives called." I never realized there was an actual company with this name—that that's where the phrase (apparently) came from. And it's still around—on the internet, these days.

There's a lot of good fill and cluing throughout to make this a solid kind of puzzle. For instance, there's a mid-Eastern mini-theme by way of [Palestinian leader Yasir] ARAFAT, ARABS [Jordanian majority], OMANI [Muscat resident] and KURD [Certain Turk or Syrian].

There are also a pair of hirsute creatures—one diminutive, the other... probably not. The former is the EWOK [Forest-dwelling Jedi ally]; the latter, the YETI [Hairy Himalayan humanoid]. Oh—and I nearly forgot a reference to a third creature (a certifiably real one this time) with [Cat's coat] and FUR.

About to be late? You might not be if you [Hotfooted it] RAN. If someone were doing a play-by-play, she might even say, "There he is, and he RACES IN [Enters hurriedly]!"

Other TREATS (they're not only [Halloween handouts]) include SPLOTCH [Irregular stain], because it's a great word to get your mouth around; TABASCO [McIlhenny Company sauce], because it's hot stuff; VAN clued as [Part of Mayflower's fleet], because that's a fleet of moving vans and not ocean-going ships bearing Pilgrims...; BOTOX [Wrinkle-reducing treatment], because I just like that "X"; THREE for its thought-inducing clue [Line count of a haiku]; and the homophonic crossing of SITE MAP [Table of contents on the Internet] with WELCOME SIGHT.

Finally, whether by design or chance, there's that whole assonant SE corner. Look at it: STEEP [Like a canyon's sides], DEEP [Low-bottomed] (like that canyon, no doubt) and THREE. Plus the eye-rhyme that EPEE [Olympics rapier] lends, and the true rhyme of the bottom-central PEEP [Hatchery sound]. Nice touch!

Bruce Venzke's Los Angeles Times crossword

The four theme entries end with words that can substitute for BUNCH: a VACANT LOT, SEATTLE SLEW, IMPERIAL TON, and RIVER RAFT. Two of the theme answers have 9 letters, so it was a little distracting to have an 8-letter non-theme answer, NO BIGGIE, also end with a word connoting largeness.

The theme square count is 45, which is not small but also not too dense. So I was surprised by the amount of answers that can fit the category of crosswordese (words seen more often in crosswords than in the wild). Consider BRAE, IRANI, SMOTE crossing EMOTE, the OAS, AGER and APED, ANON, E'EN, MOUE, APSE, and G-MAN. Plus a prefix (ACRO), abbreviations (APR, ABA, NET WT, TMI), partials (ALL OR, A CHIP, a single NANU, PRIORI), and a bizarre plural (MA'AMS). These outweighed the theme and the zip of MR. FIX-IT for me.

Read More...

Summary only...

Saturday, 7/11

Newsday 7:34
NYT 5:31
LAT 4:01
CS 2:55

Karen Tracey's New York Times crossword

Unusual grid, isn't it? I mean, within the confines of standard crossword symmetry, it's not the usual layout we see for a themeless puzzle. Kind of like a sine wave of white space spanning the middle of the grid, and 9-, 10-, and 11-letter Down answers linking the midsection to the other six boxy areas.

Unsurprisingly, I find myself admiring Karen's fill for its balance of pop culture, geography, and Scrabbly action overlapping both of those areas. See what I mean?

• 17A. Handbag designer KATE SPADE is a [Big name in bags]. Those bags are cute, but if I'm dropping $200 on a purse, it had better have handy pockets and compartments inside. Kate, give us compartments!
  
• 19A. The dreaded TROLL is an [Internet forum menace]. I feel fortunate that the commentariat here is so congenial.
  
• 21A. [Major Cote d'Ivoire export] is CACAO. Yum, chocolate. I wonder how many people cleverly guessed IVORY.
  
• 29A. BUY is a small word with a great clue: [Act like a bull?]. Bad timing in that someone was killed by a bull at the running of the bulls in Spain today...but still a good clue.
  
• 33A. [They may call the shots] clues ANNOUNCERS, who do not "call the shots" the way that figure of speech usually means.
  
• 36A. JOHN LARROQUETTE is the [Winner of four consecutive Emmys for his sitcom role as a prosecutor]. Three things: (1) Scrabbly name, J + Q. (2) Why is there a double R in that name? It looks wrong from a French standpoint to me. (3) Wow, did I spend too much time looking to see it SAMWATERSTON or FREDTHOMPSON or STEVENHILL would fit there. Yes, I realize that Law & Order is not a sitcom.
  
• 39A. HANAUMA BAY is a [Snorkeling spot near Honolulu]. I canceled my trip to Maui in 1999 when I got pregnant. Maybe a Christmas trip this year? Why not?
  
• 54A. XHOSA is an African language with clicks. It's a [Zulu relative]. I got it off the A, which was one of the few letters I had
  right in 41D. [Sounds like an old floorboard] clues GROANS, but I had CREAKS. You know what I just noticed this summer? The humidity quiets down my creaky floors.
  
• 57A. New vocabulary word in a clue! [Pteridologist's specimen] is a FERN.
  
• 59A. I like the misinterpretable [Cashiers] as a clue for OUSTS.
  
• 61A. AMPS are clued as [Gear to help you hear]. That may be true for the people in the back of the top balcony at a concert, but in general, AMPS are gear to help kill your hearing. No joke.
  
• 1D. Always a sucker for geography, I even like BAKU, the [Transcaucasian capital] of Azerbaijan. Right next door (not on the map) is ULAN Bator or (also spelled Ulaanbataar), [Half an Asian capital?]. Technically, that's 4/9ths.
  
• 5D. CAPTAIN AHAB! "Hast seen the white whale?" That's [To whom Stubb and Flask answered, in literature].
  
• 11D. [Response to a ding-dong?] is "WHO CAN IT BE?" I like this because I'm hearing Men at Work's "Who Can It Be Now?" in my head. '80s earworm!
  
• 13D. Whoa, unfamiliar clue for a crosswordese place name. ST. LO is clued by way of [The Vire River flows through it]. Wow, V must be hostile to crossword constructors, or else we'd see the dang VIRE in our puzzles a lot.
  
• 18D. More geography with cute cluing: ST. PAUL is a [Minnesota twin?].
  
• 24D. [Three Mile Island is in it] clues the SUSQUEHANNA River. I was largely guessing here—Is there a Pennsylvania river with a Scrabbly name? Because that's what Karen would go for.
  
• 27D. Pop culture—IN HER SHOES is a [Jennifer Weiner best seller made into a 2005 film].
  
• 35D. "DEAR SANTA" is clued as [Words followed by a wish list].

It's noteworthy that this 68-word puzzle has only six 3-letter entries in it, and five of those are regular words (only SER., for sermon, is an abbreviation). The crossword's remarkably devoid of crap, too. I can take some repeaters like ERN, ADEE, and ALAR when overall the fill has oomph and no patently unfair crossings.

Updated Saturday morning:

John Farmer's Los Angeles Times crossword

John's puzzle is a couple notches easier than Karen's NYT, but that doesn't mean it was boring. I did a lot of lauding over at L.A. Crossword Confidential, in fact, so I'll plagiarize myself here.

This puzzle's got three real people's full names—all people whose first or last names pop up singly fairly often in crosswords, but John's classed up the joint by given these folks the full name treatment. There's 17A ["Night" writer], ELIE WIESEL, whose last name is usually consigned to the clues because that delicious 75%-vowels first name is so popular in crosswords. Then we have 14D [1922 physics Nobelist] NIELS BOHR, who also has a grid-friendly first name. And rounding out the trio is 10D ["Naughty Marietta" costar (1935)] NELSON EDDY. I feel like I know him mainly from crosswords, which seems weird because EDDY is a valid small-e noun in its own right.

Other highlights:

• 15A: Comic strip guy with an eye patch (BAZOOKA JOE). One Z, one K, one J? Super-Scrabbly phrase. Evocations of childhood bubblegum? Oh, yes. The sort of thing that we see in lots of crosswords? I wish.
• 32A: Marked by obscenities, say (RATED R). The multi-part answers in which one part is a single letter are tricky. Saturday + tricky = recipe for happiness (or extreme frustration, depending on your mood).
• 37A: "Don't change a thing!" ("I LOVE IT!"). Zippy spoken phrase, makes me think of those TV commercials they had promoting, if memory serves, L.A. tourism. All the people shouting "I love it!" or "We love it!"—remember those?
• 39A: "Composer" of "Fanfare for the Common Cold" (P.D.Q. BACH). Can't say I've ever had any interest in P.D.Q. Bach, but that is an awesome name to drop in a crossword, and the composition's title is funny.
• 60A: Battle fatigue? (RUN ON EMPTY). I kept reading the clue as a noun phrase, but it's the verb phrase. If you're battling fatigue, you're running on empty.
• 65A: Sign of possession (APOSTROPHE). Aaah! Love that clue. I was thinking of demonic possession, not grammatical.
• 12D: Fast-food combo order (VALUE MEAL). In these recessionary times, everyone loves the VALUE MEAL.
• 27D: Have a problem ordering sirloin steak? (LISP). That's a thirloin thteak, then. I'll path.
• 51D: Longstocking of kids' books (PIPPI). I loved the Pippi books and movie(s) when I was a kid. Bought a book for my son but he hasn't been reading much this summer. Not sure how I ended up with a kid who's a great (and fast) reader but who only reads when told to do so.

Off to the Newsday puzzle now—I hope it'll be as smooth and as fun as Karen and John's.

Sandy Fein's Newsday "Saturday Stumper"

(PDF solution here.)

Aw, I like themelesses to have cool long answers, and this one maxes out with four 8s and a slew of 7s. We've got four foreign lands: (1) LIBERIA is a [Land on the Atlantic] (that should be a Sporcle quiz—name all the countries that border a particular ocean). (2) NIGERIA is an [OPEC member] (that one is a Sporcle quiz). (3) SIBERIA is a [Faraway place, so to speak]. (4) AMNESIA is a great place to vacation sometimes. It's a [Soap-opera plot element].

Then we have the Old South—OLE MISS is the John [Grisham alma mater], and I let the *LEM*** point me errantly to CLEMSON. It crosses SELMA, Alabama, a [Cotton State city].

Two hits from The Simpsons—MONA is the name of [Homer Simpson's mom], and Kwik-E-Mart proprietor APU shares the name of a [Title character of a literary trilogy]. The Apu Trilogy is also available in film form.

Clue roundup:

• [Waterbury Clock, today] is called TIMEX.
• SIENA is a [City for whom a color was named]—sienna. Shouldn't that be [City for which a color was named]? A city is not a "who."
• AQUAVIT is [What Brits call French brandy]. "Water of life"? No, sillies, everyone knows that's Diet Coke.
• [Columbus discovery of 1498] is the ORINOCO River.
• [Coral-reef topper] clues CAY, which is funny because I'd tried to make CAY be the answer to the nearby [Low land] clue. That one turned out to be FEN.

Randall Hartman's CrosSynergy crossword, "Say 'Cheese'"

The theme's not about cheese, it's about saying "cheese" to smile for the camera:

• 17A. BOOSTER SHOT is a [Follow-up vaccination].
• 31A. [Molasses cookie] is a GINGERSNAP. At Christmas time, my aunt and cousin make these addictive little gingersnaps the size of oyster crackers. Num, num.
• 47A. [Overall perspective] is the BIG PICTURE.
• 63A. [Close race (and a hint to 17-, 31-, and 47-Across] is PHOTO FINISH, as those other three words/phrases end with words meaning "photo.'

Doesn't IBEFOREE look like the name of a Florida swamp? That's the [Start of a spelling mnemonic], "I before E except after C..."

Nikola TESLA, the [Inventor dubbed "the patron saint of modern electricity"], just had a birthday, I hear. His fellow scientist Enrico FERMI, a [Manhattan Project scientist], joins the festivities because TESLA brought the STOLI ([Grey Goose rival, for short]).

Read More...

Summary only...

Monday, 6/1

BEQ 3:51
NYT 3:08
CS 6:59 (J—paper)/3:00 (A—Across Lite)
LAT 2:42

John Farmer's New York Times crossword

John's crafted a perfect and timely theme, filling 66 symmetrically placed squares to honor the hosts of THE / TONIGHT SHOW on the occasion of CONAN O'BRIEN taking over the show. Since 1-Across and 6-Across's clues tipped the puzzle's hand, I knew early on where the puzzle was going. I just couldn't get my cold fingers (brr! c'mon, meteorological summer is starting!), keyboard, and mouse to work together to get through this puzzle in a Monday amount of time.

Heeeere's the theme!:

• 58A, 59A. THE / TONIGHT SHOW is the [TV home for this puzzle's five featured TV personalities]. Maybe we don't need "TV" in the clue twice, eh?
  
• 17A. [Fifth in a series of five TV personalities (starting June 1, 2009)] is CONAN O'BRIEN, whom I adore. It'll be nice to see his show without staying up so late. But I'm torn! I like Dave Letterman too, but I suspect Conan will pull me away.
  
• 19A, 22A. Stacked short answers spell out JAY / LENO. He's the [fourth in a series of five TV personalities (1992-2009)]. Not gonna miss him, though his attention to hilarious typos and elucidation of the average American's ignorance of current affairs were appreciated.
  
• 34A, 35A. [Third in a series of five TV personalities (1962-92)] is JOHNNY / CARSON. Three decades! I wonder if Conan will last as long. Probably not, given broadcast TV trends.
  
• 6A, 65A. JACK / PAAR is [second in a series of five TV personalities (1957-62)]. That was before my time.
  
• 1A, 66A. STEVE / ALLEN was [first in a series of five TV personalities (1954-57)], getting the show off to a good start. He's even further before my time.
  
• 53A. Filling out the spot opposite LENO is the unifying answer HOST, a [Desk job at 58 & 59-Across?]. Cute clue.

Remarks on assorted clues and fill:

• 21A. The two-word IN AGES is clued [Since way back when]. As in "I haven't lived in Minnesota in ages/I haven't lived in Minnesota since way back when."
  
• 24A. The AESIR are a [Norse race of gods]. Apparently some crossword dictionaries will send solvers to VANIR, which were another Norse race of gods, not all the famous ones.
  
• 30A. [Free from worry] is an adjective here, not a verb: AT PEACE. I was thisclose to trying to make APPEASE work with the crossings.
  
• Hats! 40A [Scot's cap] is a TAM, while a BEANIE is 11D [Close-fitting cap].
  
• 50A. The answer to [Taunt] is a verb phrase, GIBE AT, and not a noun. In the grid, I'm reading that as GI Beat, a military version of Tiger Beat magazine.
  
• 63A. Again, a two-word answer has a clue that can be more than one part of speech. Unusually tricky for a Monday puzzle, no? [Prompt] is the adjective ON TIME, not a verb or noun.
  
• 3D. Crosswordese! [Sea eagles] are ERNS, sometimes spelled ernes.
  
• 22D. A [Good place to have a cow?] is in the LEA, or meadow.
  
• 29D. This one's tough: INCE is [Early film director Thomas H.].

Updated Monday morning:

Tony Orbach's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Chalk It Up"—Janie's review

What a great way to start the week. This puzzle is loaded with lively fill and clues, and from beginning to end was simply fun to solve. The theme? As hinted at by the title (and revealed at 66A), POOL. The last word of each of the theme phrases is an object related to that [Game played in a hall]. Brilliant device? Nah. We see it all the time. But look at the fill. This is terrific stuff and contributes to the way this puzzle "pops." Each theme phrase makes a strong showing—and each is appearing for the first time in major puzzle.

• 17A. [Hint from the band] MUSICAL CUE. The CUE, of course, is the stick used in the game (and also the name of the white round thing [tba] that's used to get the game goin'). Nice, too, the way COPA [Club of song] emerges from the C in MUSICAL.
  
• 28A. [Handy periodical holder] MAGAZINE RACK. This is that wooden (or plastic) triangle that's used to contain/arrange the objects of the CUE's strikes.
  
• 48A. [Fundraiser for a local brigade] FIREMAN'S BALL. Finally, the object(s) in question! Love this clue/fill pair. Do any of you live in places where this is still a tradition? I tried to find info on the Internet, but pickin's were slim—though not for this Milos Forman classic.
  
• 64A. [Middle Eastern sandwich bread] PITA POCKET. Ya pick your CUE, RACK the BALLs, then do your best to get each BALL into a POCKET. And that's POOL. All of which kinda makes me wanna see The Hustler again!

I think the only non-theme fill that raised a flag for me was (CS debut) BAKE PAN—which is not a phrase I'm accustomed to using. Especially for meatloaf. Then I use a loaf pan... Otherwise I call that "vessel" a "baking pan." In the strictly for-what-it's-worth column, BAKE PAN gets 1,480,000 Google hits; "baking pan," 4,970,000.

And since we're in the kitchen...toques off to EMERIL, fried RICE and carne ASADA—which was new to me. Looks good!

The shout-out to sports comes by way of SKI, CFL [...org. north of the border] (Canadian Football League), NHLER [Ranger or Duck for short] (National Hockey LeaguER), TAMPA [Buccaneers' home], SUMO (playfully clued as [Big sport in Japan]), and golf [...links] term MAKE PAR (another CS first).

We get a PAIR of movie stars, too: the adorable Alan ARKIN and the controversial (the-less-said-the-better, SHO 'nuff...) Mel GIBSON.

Other happy-making examples:

• SEALEGS, in its CS debut;
  
• TINKERBELL (I mean, who doesn't love Tink?!)
  
• PEZ
  
• IN A TUB (and its clue: [Place for a nursery rhyme trio]). My first thought on this was "Wynken, Blinken and Nod"—but no way was WOODEN SHOE, with or without the IN A, gonna fly. And yes, yet another CS debut.
  
• GOOP and its clue [Gunk].

Cluing (not previously mentioned...) that caught my attention: 38A [Words of agreement] for AMENS followed by 40A [Sign of agreement] for NOD; [Come to] for EQUAL (I was thinking AWAKE...); [First name in moonwalking] for NEIL (and not MICHAEL); and [Hit with a low blow] for KNEE. Ouch.

Because I know almost nothing about photography, ASA clued as [Film speed letters] was completely new (not merely NEWISH) news; and ["The Whole] NINE [Yards"] put me in mind of this whole etymological conundrum. Discuss amongst yourselves!

Orange here again. Following up what Janie said, "bake pan" in quotes gets just 66,000 Google hits, vs. nearly a million (surprisingly low, if you ask me) for "baking pan." "Loaf pan" (which is what I call the thing) garners 460,000.

Now can we get an air hockey theme? Or will someone give me an air hockey table of my own? My hand-eye coordination stinks for POOL, but I like air hockey.

Gary Steinmehl's Los Angeles Times crossword

Gary Steinmehl's theme feels a little bit hit-or-miss, but overall smooth and entertaining. The theme clues are all commands involving the word hand:

• 20A. ["Hands up!"] clues REACH FOR THE SKY, which is a wonderfully colorful phrase. Isn't that one of Woody's pull-my-string lines in Toy Story?
  
• 39A. ["Hands down!"] is what a teacher might say in lieu of saying NO MORE QUESTIONS. This clue/answer combo sounds contrived to me.
  
• 55A. ["Hands off!"] is equivalent to LEAVE THAT ALONE, and that answer also feels contrived.

The iffiness of those theme entries is offset by the long Down answers in the fill and the pop culture material. I love EMILY [___Litella: Gilda Radner's "Never mind!" character]. There's NESTEA echoing the playful clue for ICE-T: [Refreshing rapper/actor?]. Jimmy Durante's "INKA Dinka Doo," Christopher REEVE, a TALKIE, [Old-time drummer Gene] KRUPA, Bobby FLAY from the Food Network, John LOCKE from Lost (oh, wait, it's clued as [English philosopher John]), and Jay LENO. Two answers in the top row are young animals, a FAWN and a CALF. And those long answers—the CAFETERIA is a [Food fight site], DOUGHNUTS are [Dunked snacks], a VIDEO GAME is a [Purchase for your Xbox], and [Years on the job] are one kind of LONGEVITY.

Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Themeless Monday"

Yay! Themeless Monday! Brendan was shooting for easier clues, and he did pull that off. So if you're afraid of Friday and Saturday NYT puzzles, try this themeless.

The fill's mighty splashy. Who's that at the bottom? Sonia SOTOMAYOR, crossing emo boy eyeliner, or GUYLINER. There's an IPHONE APP, GAPKIDS and a HANGOVER (clued as a [Morning sickness?]), AL D'AMATO near SADR CITY, L'CHAIM crossing UNITARIAN in ecumenical corner, MEGADETH and JUVENILE, and a pair of verbs that go well together, BELABOR and DEIGN TO.

I didn't know IAMBUSES was a word—these [Metrical feet] are also called iambs or iambi. And STORIETTE, a [Brief tale], is not a word we used in our college lit classes.

Read More...

Summary only...

Friday, 5/8

BEQ 4:55
CHE 4:51
NYT 4:43
LAT 4:16
CS 6:18 (J—paper)
WSJ 8:54

John Farmer's New York Times crossword

Not many NYT crosswords begin with a blacked-out square in the upper left, much less with a chunk of six black squares there. John's puzzle has a cute grid with four black corners bracketing a ring of 9-, 11-, and 13-letter answers. Those long ones are as follows:

• 1A: BOOT CAMPS are [Military trials?]. Perfect clue.
  
• 10A: ["From hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee" speaker] is CAPTAIN AHAB from Moby-Dick.
  
• 12A: QUIET ON THE SET is the spoken [Order given before shooting starts] on a film set.
  
• 44A: The PERIODIC TABLE is a [Science class decoration].
  
• 49A: Seattle's SPACE NEEDLE is the [Landmark in Elvis Presley's "It Happened at the World's Fair"].
  
• 50A: ISINGLASS is a name for [Common mica]. Esthetically, I think that's a beautiful word, even if I probably did learn it via old crossword clues for MICA. Too bad its etymology is gross.
  
• 14D: [Visionary] is an adjective, not just a noun: PRESCIENT.
  
• 12D: An [Abrupt change] is a QUANTUM LEAP. Fantastic answer, but a goofy TV series.
  
• 10D: CUT YOUR LOSSES is [Advice in a bear market, maybe]. Hey! It's YOUR! Not ONE'S! So much more in-the-language that way.
  
• 11D: The BEAUFORT SCALE is the scale for categorizing winds as fresh breezes, gales, etc. [The higher this goes, the more it blows].
  
• 13D: THE FUGITIVE was a movie and a [TV drama featuring Dr. Richard Kimble] vs. the One-Armed Man.
  
• 17D: [Magnolia or pecan] is a STATE TREE. Illlinois's is the white oak. Remember that state flower theme last Sunday? Maybe you should brush up on your state trees.
  

Overall, this lovely puzzle has mighty smooth fill, even with all those 3's and 4's that had the potential to feel like compromises. It's a pangram, so there's an interesting assortment of Scrabbly words. And none of the clues or answers jumped out at me as being iffy. Keep 'em coming, Farmer John! Put on your constructin' overalls, park the tractor, and get to work.

Selected clues from the rest of the puzzle:

• In golf, a [Six-footer, maybe] is a PUTT that's six feet from the cup.
  
• RAY is clued as [Glimmer], as in a ray of light or hope.
  
• Okay, so I could do without SUET, the [Steamed pudding ingredient]. Remind me never to order anything called "steamed pudding."
  
• Brian ENO is the [Creator of the "Microsoft sound" played when Windows 95 starts]. Raise your hand if you're still using Windows 95. Anyone?
  
• JAFFA has been a [Mediterranean port since ancient times].
  
• To MAX OUT is to [Go to the limit]. I never MAX OUT my credit card, but you know what happened this morning? I updated my credit card info with NYT Digital so they can automatically renew my Premium Crosswords subscription this winter. And in order to make sure my card was valid, they charged me $1.35. I spent 24 minutes on the phone with the NYT trying to get that uncharged, and all I got was an "I'll give this information to my boss" run-around. One might presume the charge would be reversed at some point, but nobody at the NYT seemed to think there was any reason to do that. Hmph!
  
• FABERGE is a famous decorative [Egg maker]. Wouldn't that be a great name for a hen?
  
• [Used butter on, maybe] clues COAXED. Is this literal or figurative butter? Is this about "buttering up"?
  
• BRRR is a [Comment from the chattering class?] with teeth chattering from the cold. The three-R spelling feels a tad iffy to me.
  
• CINCHES is clued [They're duck soup]. So "it's duck soup" means "it's easy"? I don't know that I've ever heard that.
  
• [Pollen bearer in a flower] is the ANTHER. Raise your hand if you went straight for STAMEN first.
  
• The airline SAS is a [Lander at Arlanda]. No, I don't know what Arlanda is, either. The Internet tells me it's the name of Stockholm's airport.
  
• [Drew a cross response?] clued JABBED—as in boxing blows.
  
• Who knew BORDEN was a [Cremora brand]? Borden used to be a big name.
  
• [Some spreads] are ADS, as in a two-page spread in a magazine.
  

John Lampkin's Chronicle of Higher Education crossword, "Work, Work, Work"

The title relates to the six trilogies in the theme. There's Tolkien's LORD OF / THE RINGS and Dos Passos's USA trilogy—the only two of the trilogies here that I could name straight off. Willa Cather's trilogy, 7 letters starting with a P? Hmm, PRAIRIE? Yes. Paul Auster has his NEW YORK trilogy, which sounds faintly familiar to me. I didn't know that Robertson Davies had a DEPTFORD trilogy, nor that Cormac McCarthy's books make up the BORDER trilogy.

There is a plethora of out-there tough clues and answers. To wit:

• PAPAGO is an [Uto-Aztecan tribe].
  
• [Newspaper-editor Charles Anderson ___] DANA is arguably less well known than Dana Scully, the X-Files character.
  
• OIL PALM is a [Tropical tree important to soap making]. I am guessing this is the tree that gives us palm oil.
  
• Good gravy, two erstwhile Oldsmobile models, the CIERA and ALERO? To accompany them, we have the [Paleontological spans], ERAS and EONS. In each case, one is plenty.
  
• POROUS is clued as [Like intestinal walls]. Or, say, a sponge. Also from anatomy: the LIMBUS is an [Anatomical border].
  
• [Muse of heroic poetry] is CALLIOPE. ERATO, of course, is much more familiar to crossworders.
  
• [Heavy] is the noun meaning "bad guy," or BADDY. Or baddie.
  
• ADAM is, among other things, [Orlando's servant in "As You Like It"].
  
• The BREN is a [Gas-powered submachine gun]. STEN is the more familiar 4-letter crosswordese gun ending in -EN.
  

Updated Friday morning:


Randall J. Hartman's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Cheese Heads"—Janie's review

This Friday puzzle can be described with three words: easy, breezy and cheesy. And when I say "cheesy," I'm speaking literally here. The first word in each of the four two-word theme phrases (the "head" of the phrase) names a type of cheese. Actually that's not entirely accurate, but I'll get to that a little later.

• 17A: [Home-based business] COTTAGE INDUSTRY (which gives us cottage cheese)
• 36A: [Cocoa brand] SWISS MISS (and Swiss cheese)
• 46A: [Dr. Brown's drink] CREAM SODA (yes, cream cheese; and a confession: for reasons I'm not quite sure of, I didn't look at the title of the puzzle until the end, so I was never sure of what the theme was while I was solving. I saw "Dr. Brown's," the "C" was in place, and so my first response to this was to enter CELERY but I couldn't come up with enough letters to make it work. Not to mention that where the name of this drink is concerned, its CEL-RAY... oops.)
• 65A: [David Mamet play] AMERICAN BUFFALO (American cheese, right? But wait: this is the "not entirely accurate" thing I was referring to. Even though it's not the "head" of the phrase, buffalo cheese is yet another variety. Or perhaps just a bonus entry!)

One of the reasons many of us solve puzzles is for the entertainment value, and this one is loaded with references (directly or in-) to the entertainment we enjoy on stage and screen. There's AGNES Moorehead of Citizen Kane fame (perhaps best known to boomers and Nick at Niters as Endora in Bewitched); ELSA Lanchester (whose name nicely crosses ELSE); LIZA Minnelli (whose name nicely crosses ZIMA at the "I"); Klinger portrayer Jamie FARR; the movie ORCA (which does appear to be a "must miss"); De Niro film A BRONX TALE (written by and now being performed as a one-man play by Chazz Palminteri); Broadway musical MAN OF La Mancha (also a [not-very-good] movie); the thematic AMERICAN BUFFALO (which put expletive-loving playwright David Mamet on the map); and finally, Joe Green's AIDA (I know, I know: Giuseppe Verdi!).

Fill I love: COOT for [Geezer], QUACK for [Snake oil salesman], SNAFU for [Major miscue]. (Where that last one is concerned, am also fond of its corollary, FUBAR...) Nice to see the two Xs, two Zs and that Q, too.

What I learned: the COBRA is an [Army helicopter].

While I'm usually delighted by repeated clues, something doesn't sit quite right with the twin [Pigs] at 26D and 28D surrounding 27D's [Koran religion]. And in the grid, ISLAM and SWINE run side by side. Perhaps I'm being overly PC/humorless, but given Islam's dietary laws, this pairing doesn't feel, well, particularly "kosher." So to speak. I guess I'm wondering if this was something that went under the radar of the CS team or whether it was included to test the waters. Puzzle construction being the complex task that it is I suspect there's no easy answer.

That said, I had a fine time solving this, and was happier still (once I'd read the title and fully appreciated the theme) that this celebrated "cheese heads" and not "head cheese"!!

Dan Naddor's L.A. Times crossword

Now Dan's just showing off. A 70-worder that somehow found room for five theme entries? Impressive. He takes five phrases that end with -KEY and lops off the EY:

• 18A: [One shivering atop Mount Ararat?] is a COLD TURK. Here, Mustafa and Büşra—put on your jackets.
  
• 19A: [Tool in a Belfast bakery?] is an IRISH WHISK.
  
• 33A: A FIELD HOCK might be a [Desperate farmer's transaction?] at the pawn shop.
  
• 49A: [Abbey resident in a rock-'n'-roll musical?] is a GREASE MONK. I'd like to see both Grease and West Side Story performed by friars.
  
• 53A: [Serious Frisbee thrower?] is a DISC JOCK. Oh, hi, Seth! SethG's team were the national champions in the masters level last year.
  

The grid looks like a themeless one, with those four open corners and the parade of 7's (and a 9) stairstepping through the middle. A lot of these answers would score low in Scrabble (well, unless the player managed to lay down all 7 letters in one play). Consider EERIEST, IRON ORES, TRUSTEE, USELESS, E STREET, ARLENES, EELER, and ASIANS. SEXINESS, or [Allure], gets a boost from its X but is otherwise exactly the sort of answer you're likely to see holding up the bottom of the grid. Mind you, even if these answers mostly lack crazy letters, they still make for fresher fill than a slew of 3- to 5-letter repeaters would. Even the dullest 7 is going to be less stale than a puzzle filled with ERIEs and UTAs.

Least familiar clue: It's a two-way tie! [Glazunov wrote a 1934 concerto for one] refers to the ALTO SAX. [Pou ___: vantage point] clues STO. I have never heard of Glazunov—music is not my bag—but at least ALTO SAX was gettable as a musical instrument. Pou sto is a Greek phrase I've never encountered before. I do know that STO means one hundred in many Slavic languages.

Clue with the strongest parade associations: [Red fez wearer] is a SHRINER. Weirdest-looking answer: ALE KEG, or [Pub container].

Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Think Thick"

Can you imagine how awesome this grid would be without those single black squares to the left of 26A and 43A? I wonder if Frank Longo, Patrick Berry, or anyone else could fill that grid.

Like some of Brendan's test solvers, I had an error where 3D meets 28A. The [Small toucan with a yellow breast] is the ARACARI, not the ARACARA. And [You usually find them up against the wall] clues light SWITCHES, not paint SWATCHES. I wonder if people who don't know Brendan just bought a condo made the same mistake—the bird is not a well-known one, but is it natural to jump to SWATCHES in the absence of suspecting autobiographical content?

[Interruption of thought indicator] is the EM DASH. I love me a good em dash (see the preceding paragraph).

I have inexplicably and quite suddenly fallen out of the mood to write about crosswords, so I'll just say that if Brendan were to decide to make three themelesses a week, that would be fine by me. They're always enjoyable.

Liz Gorski's Wall Street Journal crossword, "Life Is a Merry-Go-Round"

Sometimes folks grumble when a chunk of letters in a rebus square are used to mean the literal word that comprises those letters. In this case, all six HORSE rebus squares use the HORSE as a horse, of course, as the HORSEs are arrayed in a CAROUSEL-style circle. The merry-go-round rebus (which, by the way, is perfectly symmetrical—when has Liz ever made a visual puzzle that doesn't layer on still more symmetry?) is a tribute to RODGERS AND HAMMERSTEIN, who partnered up on many MUSICALS including CAROUSEL.

Favorite clues/answers: [Boxer, for one] for SENATOR Barbara Boxer, and the [Elizabethan pronoun?] ROYAL WE. I hereby bestow the title of Queen Elizabeth on Liz Gorski and encourage her to begin using the royal "we" at every opportunity.

Read More...

Summary only...

Friday, 4/3

NYT 5:44
BEQ 4:06
LAT 3:57
CS 3:40
CHE 3:34
WSJ 7:43

John Farmer's New York Times crossword

John Farmer's themeless crossword looks a little weird before you fill it in—this 70-worder has sort of a haphazard look to the grid, doesn't it? But once you get into it, it's got plenty of interesting and lively fill. The longest answers are 10 and 12 letters long:

• To [Own responsibility] is to BEAR THE BLAME.
  
• "JUST THIS ONCE" is appended to an entreaty to say ["I won't ask again"]. If you're a parent, you've probably heard this a zillion times and recognize it as a falsehood.
  
• ELI WALLACH gets the first-and-last-name VIP treatment. He's the [Hollywood star whose memoir was titled "The Good, the Bad and Me"].
  
• [Caterer's setup for a hot buffet] is a STEAM TABLE.
  
• SOUP DU JOUR is a [Restaurant special]. I'll pass. No soup for me.
  
• The Montessori method is based on the ideas of [Education pioneer Maria] MONTESSORI.
  

Another 15 answers are 7 or 8 letters long. Highlights among these:

• A cop who is [Looking for trouble?] is ON PATROL. Great clue.
  
• Last year, Patrick Berry had FAUXHAWK in a Sun puzzle. Now John's got it again with a similar clue: [Hairstyle popularized by David Beckham].
  
• ["Falling Man" novelist Don] DELILLO has a delicious name.
  
• CABARETS are [Subjects of some Toulouse-Lautrec paintings].
  
• [Ringing response?] when the phone's ringing is I'LL GET IT.
  
• LETTUCE is a [Head on a plate?]. So is John the Baptist, but he's not as good with a nice vinaigrette.
  
• SPIT TAKE! That's a [Surprise shower?] in that you're showing surprise when you do a spit take.
  

Things I somehow knew, at least with the help of some crossings:

• SAHEL is the [Savanna region stretching from Senegal to Chad].
  
• UCLA is [Peace Nobelist Ralph Bunche's alma mater].
  
• CRAVATS are [Attire worn with frock coats]. I dunno—aren't ties, cravats, ascots, and their ilk merely accessories and not full-fledged attire?
  
• [Walpurgis Night vis-a-vis May Day] is EVE. What are you doing to celebrate this April 30?
  

Cute stuff:

• [Syllable repeated after "hot"] is CHA. As in "Hot cha cha cha!"
  
• ATLAS is clued by way of [World view?].
  
• [Something most fish lack] is an EYELID. They have two eyes, so they lack eyelids in the plural, really.
  

Mystery items:

• [It has energy in reserve] clues OIL BELT. Google isn't being too revealing in explaining this one to me. A specific place? One of many such places? A device? 
  
• [1961 Anthony Quinn title role] is BARABBAS. I wondered how to fit ZORBATHEGREEK into eight squares.
  
• [Old Spanish swords] are TOLEDOS. Who knew? Not I.
  
• [Jim's partner of "Adam 12"] was PETE. I watched the show some when I was a kid, but remember nothing of it.
  

Trip Payne's Chronicle of Higher Education crossword, "Versical Takeoffs"

The title of Trip's puzzle plays on "vertical takeoffs," an aviation term, and takes the game in a poetic direction. The theme clues imitate the characteristic style of certain poets and provide some identifying information; the answers are the poets' names. Like so:

• 17A: [His Quatrains speak of Food and Love and Wine / And how our Lives may Fit some Grand Design / Put into Words in English some Years hence / Now Edward shares the Credit for each Line.] This one's OMAR KHAYYAM. The Edward in question is Edward FitzGerald, whose English translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam became a classic.
  
• 22A: [There once was an author from Britain / Who laughed at the poems he'd written / "Five lines to a verse / Is so very terse / I can finish 'em up in one sittin'."] clues Edward Lear with a limerick, aptly enough.
  
• 35A: [Of Caunterbury som tales dide he tellen / Ne spelling noght as now we wolden spellen.] GEOFFREY CHAUCER!
  
• 50A: E.E. CUMMINGS, or e e cummings, is clued by way of [Poet / wholikedto / write / l / i / k /ethi / s].
  
• 58A: Scottish poet ROBERT BURNS is evoked in [O, 'tis true, he's taught in English classes / This bard o' braes an' Luve an' bonny lasses.].
  

This crossword should be required solving for senior English majors everywhere. I found the theme concept and clues to be delightfully clever. The cleverest non-theme clue here is [Hit the end?], for SPANK.

If you enjoyed Trip's cruciverbal parody of recognizable literary styles, you'll love Francis Heaney's Holy Tango of Literature. In this tremendously entertaining book, Francis parodies various poets' and other writers' styles after first anagramming the writer's name and using said anagram as the title of the parody. For example. T.S. Eliot can be anagrammed into "Toilets," the name of Francis's poem that captures the rhythms of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" but is set in a restroom.

Updated Friday morning:

Jack McInturff's L.A. Times crossword

The theme entries here transpose an IR into an RI four times. "You're fired" becomes YOU'RE FRIED, or [Words to a drunk?]. [2000s Senate leader's turndown?] is FRIST REFUSAL, playing on the right of first refusal. I feel like "first refusal" isn't a stand-alone phrase without its preceding "right of." The third theme answer is PARIS SKATING, or [Hilton on the ice?], playing on pairs figure skating. The last one is [What you never see after strikes?] in bowling: SPARE TRIES (spare tires).

[Finland's second largest city] is called ESPOO. "Is that a chocolate bar I see?" "No, ESPOO." This is my favorite crosswordese town. It doesn't show up more than once a year, I don't think, but it's good for a laugh when it does. (No offense to the Finns.)

Miscellaneous other clues:

• "WHAT ELSE?" means ["Is there more?"] I went to YouTube to look for a funny clip in which some old woman demands to know "What else?" over and over, but got distracted by this clever European coffee commercial with George Clooney. What else? There is nothing else.
  
• [Creedal holding] is a TENET. "Creedal" is a word? Yes, as is the "credal" spelling.
  
• Your ADENOIDS are [Pharyngeal tissue].
  
• [Years during Nero's reign] are ANNI and not Roman numerals.
  
• I didn't know a [Motorboat's wake] was called a ROOSTER TAIL.
  
• One [Eggs order] is SUNNY SIDE UP. Great-looking answer there.
  
• ["Lady Jane Grey" dramatist] is ROWE, and no, my English degree didn't teach me this.
  
• The MARNE is one of those 5-letter French rivers (see also Seine, Saone, Isere). It was a [Strategic WWI river].
  
• The [Kmart founder] was named KRESGE. I'm not sure why there were also Kresge's dime stores when I was a kid. They had lunch counters! 
  

Brendan Emmett Quigley's blog crossword, "Toxic Assets"

Brendan channels both Merl Reagle (tortured puns) and the Wall Street Journal crossword (finance as a theme) in "Toxic Assets." The theme entries pun on certain types of assets, turning one word into another that evokes toxicity, sort of:

• Slush funds become SLUDGE FUNDS, or [Toxic assets that pay for engine buildup?]. Engines have sludge.
  
• Junk bonds, already a toxic-sounding name, transform into GUNK BONDS, or [Toxic assets that pay for cleaning out sinks?]. Sink drains get gunk.
  
• [Down-at-the-heel toxic assets?] are SEEDY ACCOUNTS, playing on CD accounts.
  
• Roth IRAs become ROUGH IRAS, or [Unrefined toxic assets?]. I don't think of "rough" as being toxic at all. I suppose there are rough ores that, when mined, yield all sorts of toxic runoff, but it seems a stretch.
  
• DRECK STOCKS are [Toxic assets invested in worthless merchandise]. I...don't know what the base phrase is here. Must be tech stocks.
  

Let's see...what else? [The Beetles] are V.W. BUGS—great-looking answer in the grid. A [Flexible strip of wood] is a SPLINE—meh. [Big name in wireless] is HELIO—who?

Bruce Venzke and Stella Daily's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Transformers"

The four 15-letter theme entries spanning the grid are akin to Wheel of Fortune ""Before and After" phrases, but all begin with an actor or actress's name:

• Phrases transforming [From a star in "Murder in the First" to a breakfast sizzler?] create KEVIN BACON STRIP. Did anyone see that movie? When I see the name Kevin Bacon, I think Footloose first and foremost.
  
• [From a star on "The Golden Girls" to a Pennsylvania Avenue abode?] clues BETTY WHITE HOUSE. Who doesn't love Betty White?
  
• [From a star in "A Guide for the Married Man" to a telegrapher's language?] is ROBERT MORSE CODE. I've never heard of that movie/TV show/play, whatever it is. I know Robert Morse best from his many appearances in crossword clues for TRU (he played Capote in the play, Tru).
  
• [From a star on "The Flying Nun" to a small, outdoor vole?] is SALLY FIELD MOUSE.
  

ELAM is clued as [Ancient civilization in what is now Iran]; I think actor Jack ELAM gets more play in crosswords. I wanted [Tender protein source] to be TOFU that's not of the extra-firm variety, but it's VEAL (insert sad "moo" here).

Gabriel Stone's Wall Street Journal crossword, "Figure Heads"

Gabriel Stone is either a constructor whose name is unfamiliar to me or another pseudonym for editor Mike Shenk. Let's see if it anagrams to something likely. Belgian store? Real sot binge? I blest Orange?

The theme here is that there's a hidden CPA (109-Down) in each of the seven longest answers. CPAs work with numbers, a.k.a. "figures," ergo they are "figure heads" here.

I found myself vexed by numerous clues for phrasal answers. I'm surprised the puzzle didn't take me a lot longer, because it wasn't feeling fun or fast while I was doing it. I ran afoul of some uncommon answers: CAVATINA is a [Short aria]. ROSE BAY is a [Hardy rhododendron shrub]. VISCONTI is the ["Death in Venice" director]. Then there were the phrases that did their best to hide from me: [Outraged] clues UP IN ARMS. RAN A RISK means one [Wasn't cautious]. [Live] means IN PERSON.

Cooler stuff: SHA NA NA in its entirety, clued as the [Group that played "At the Hop" at Woodstock]. BORSCHT has only one vowel in it; [It's often served with sour cream]. APATHY is a [Challenge for rabble-rousers]. [Milky Way feature] is CARAMEL; I was thinking astronomy rather than candy bars. "I'M SCARED" is a [Chicken call?].

Read More...

Summary only...

Thursday, 2/19

Sun 4:55
NYT 4:19
LAT 2:48
Tausig (not timed)

Kevin Der's New York Times crossword cries "EXTRA! EXTRA! Read all about it!" Indeed, there's an extra EXTRA in this grid, with each of its five letters added to the beginning of a phrase to change its meaning:

• [What might have the heading "Collectibles" or "Toys & Hobbies"?] is an EBAY WINDOW.
  
• [Optimistic scan at the dentist's?] is an X-RAY OF HOPE. Only these first two pronounce the added letter by name.
  
• The [Story of Ali Baba?] might be considered a TURBAN LEGEND.
  
• [Transmits a message to Pancho and pals?] clues RADIOS AMIGOS. This one changes the pronunciation the most, from Spanish "adios" to English "radios."
  
• [Amazes a horror film director?] leads us to AWES CRAVEN.
  

Lots of Scrabbly vocabulary floating around in this one, starting with TJ MAXX, the [Marshalls competitor]. The puzzle's also a foreign-language quiz. [It's good for Juan] clues BUENO and HABLA means [Speak in Spanish]; there's also Penelope CRUZ, the ["Volver" actress, 2006]. NEINS are [Dortmund denials], German "noes." Speaking medicalese helps to know that AVULSE means [Tear off forcefully]—if you have an avulsion, I sure hope you're heading to the ER or OR. EYE is clued as a [Socket filler]—and yes, the eyeball can be avulsed.

Plenty of pop culture:

• [Disney's "___ and the Detectives"] is EMIL.
  
• JERI [Ryan of "Star Trek: Voyager"]. She was a National Merit Scholar and graduated from Northwestern. Also from the Star Trek universe: Leonard NIMOY, ["I Am Spock" autobiographer].
  
• YODA's the [Film character who says "Named must your fear be before banish it you can"].
  
• [Org. in the Bourne series] is the CIA. I wonder if more people know Jason Bourne from the movies or the books.
  
• DRAX was the [Bond villain in "Moonraker"]. Raise your hand if this name wasn't remotely familiar.
  
• [President Bartlet on "The West Wing"] was named JED.
  
• ["Wedding Album" recording artist] is Yoko ONO. Other answers with a Japanese connection: OBIS ([They have bows]) and OZAWA ([Conductor noted for wearing turtlenecks].
  
• EMO is a [Rock genre]. Speaking of artistic genres, DADA was the [Precursor to Surrealism]. 
  

John Farmer's Sun crossword, "It's an Honor To Be Nominated...Again," features performers who've been Oscar-nominated twice for the same role. FAST EDDIE FELSON was Paul Newman's pool shark, Bing Crosby played FATHER O'MALLEY, Al Pacino mobbed it up as MICHAEL CORLEONE, and Cate Blanchett and Peter O'Toole went the royalty route as QUEEN ELIZABETH I and KING HENRY II. Nifty trivia theme—and this particular batch of trivia isn't anything I've read before.

Among the liveliest entries are these:

• "OH CAROL" was a [Top 10 hit for Neil Sedaka].
  
• PODCAST is a [Modern radio show format].
  
• ROYALTY—no relation to Elizabeth and Henry, it's a [Payment to an author, perhaps].
  
• Door KNOCKERS are be [Brass rings, maybe].
  
• [No Nonsense rival] in drugstore pantyhose is L'EGGS.
  
• PRELIM is an [Undercard fight, for short].
  

Updated:

Bruce Venzke and Stella Daily built today's LA Times crossword around a familiar DOLLY / PARTON quote, "YOU'D BE SURPRISED / HOW MUCH / IT COSTS / TO LOOK THIS CHEAP." I've heard the quote and I've seen it in a 2005 Sun puzzle. So the punchline payoff was nil for me—no surprise lying in store since I knew the ending already. YOU'D BE SURPRISED how many old-school crossword answers found their way into this puzzle:

• ASTA is a [Movie clue sniffer], the dog in Thin Man detective movies.
  
• ENATE means [Related on mom's side]; agnate means related on your dad's side.
  
• MOUE means [Pout], the noun.
  
• ASSAI means [Very, in scores]. As a resolute nonmusician, I see this word only in crosswords.
  
• The OHM is an [Electrical unit]. Does that get any play in high-school physics? I don't recall.
  
• ETTE is a [Feminizing ending] that, if you ask me, has zero utility. It's not strictly used to genderize language, either. Is a kitchenette a ladylike kitchen? Is a cigarette a girlish cigar?
  
• The immortal TSAR will be in crosswords forever. Yes, it has three consonants, but such handy ones. [Peter the Great, e.g.] is the clue this time. 
  
• POI! I need to visit Hawaii so this [Luau fare] moves out of the realm of crosswordese in my head.
  
• [Restaurateur Toots] SHOR is one of those people I know from crosswords.
  

Let me put in a plug here for more specific clues for quote themes. [Start of a quote] provides no context at all, but some quote puzzles have theme clues that give a hint about what's to come. Can you think of a way to clue this quote without mentioning Dolly Parton by name, since her name appears in the grid?

Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword, "Plantings," plants a tree in each theme entry:

• 17A/11D are clued [generous pronouncement from the lead partner regarding employee birthday parties?]: LET THE FIRM EAT CAKE. That's Marie Antoinette's famous line with a FIR tree planted in it.
  
• [Wacky Olympic skiing event?] is WEIRD ALPINE, combining Weird Al Yankovic and a PINE tree. Minus one point for planting the tree at the end of the phrase.
  
• BIG MELMAC is a [Loose collection of influential corporations from Alf's home planet?]. Alf was from Melmac, and the theme answer is a Big Mac with an ELM tree in it.
  
• An ASH tree and flypaper yield FLASHY PAPER, a [News source with bells and whistles?].
  
• 40D and 59A combine to read IMPEACH EVERY WOMAN, or [misogynist politician's suggestion?]. That's "I'm Every Woman" with a PEACH tree. Minus one point for including a tree whose name is far better known as the fruit it bears. Plus 10 points for having the five theme entries fill up seven entries, as 65 theme squares is quite a lot.
  

In the non-theme fill, I give Ben 20 points for this clue: [It may be shaken but not stirred] for a HAND. That's in the running for the year's best clues. I also like the answers AP TESTS, or [Smart HS student's challenges]; BUTTS IN, or [Offers unsolicited advice, say]; and MUPPETS, or [Animal and Scooter, e.g.].

Read More...

Summary only...

Wednesday, 12/17

Tausig 4:12
Onion 4:10
Sun 3:55
LAT 3:15
CS 3:08
NYT 3:02

(updated at 10:23 a.m. Wednesday)

John Farmer works a mnemonic into his New York Times crossword, but he does a good job of hiding it. There are five circled squares, the ones that begin the longest Across answers and the central Across answer. All of those letters—E, G, B, D, and F reading downwards—are NOTES, or [Staff members, and what the circled letters in this puzzle represent] at 65-Across. The five EGBDF answers start with words that are used in a common mnemonic for remembering the order of those notes: EVERY GOOD BOY DOES FINE. Now, the way I learned it, every good boy deserves fudge, and I'm feeling a little ripped off that Farmer didn't bring the fudge. (I kid!)

• EVERY SO OFTEN is [On occasion].
  
• GOOD OLD DAYS are [Yesteryear, nostalgically].
  
• BOY SCOUTS are, mystifyingly, [Order of the Arrow members]. Order of the Arrow? Never heard of it.
  
• DOES WONDERS is clued as [Makes something better in a big way]. As in "Shea butter does wonders for dry winter skin."
  
• FINE AND DANDY means [Ducky]. I miss fudge.
  

John Farmer likes to do it up fancy, so the first and last theme answers are accompanied by stacked pairs of 9-letter answers and crossed by triple-stacked 7's to boot. The fill is rather Scrabbly as well. My favorite parts:

• [Entrance] looks like the noun, a place of entry, but it's the verb meaning to MESMERIZE.
  
• Dental X-RAYS [may have a view of a bridge].
  
• I just read a sound bite in Entertainment Weekly this morning. Somebody (I forget who) hates MACADAMIA nuts because you think you're getting white chocolate in the cookie and...you're not.
  
• RAJIV is clued casually as [One of the Gandhis].
  
• Aimee MANN is cross-referenced with TIL Tuesday, her band.
  
• [Game show host Treadway and others] are TYS. (Another famous Ty: Pennington of that Extreme Makeover: Home Edition TV cryfest.) I wonder if Merv Griffin's Crosswords will resume production or not.
  
• [House Judiciary Committee chairman John] CONYERS sure doesn't get his name in many crosswords. I hope someone tells him.
  
• ALAN-A-DALE was the [Sherwood Forest minstrel] from Robin Hood.
  

Now, this puzzle's not all fudgy goodness. Abbreviations and quasi-crosswordese answers include RGS, or [Some football linemen: Abbr.]; EZIO, [Opera singer Pinza]; DSL, the [Alternative to dial-up] (I like this abbreviation, though); the FAA, or ["Black box" regulator: Abbr.]; OMY or "o' My," clued as ["Peg ___ Heart"]; DJ'S and BB'S and CD's; the [U.K. honor] known as the OBE; the [Onetime Mideast letters] UAR, or United Arab Republic; AOL and DNA; DAWS, or [Crow cousins] (as in jackdaws); and AZO [___ dye].

The Wednesday Sun crossword constructor is Stephen Kennedy, an unfamiliar name. Perhaps "Bawdy Parts" marks his debut, and it's a good puzzle. The theme entries end with words that sound like body parts.

• ["Spamalot" group that demands a shrubbery] is the KNIGHTS WHO SAY "NI." That entry is trés cool! NI sounds like "knee."
  
• The [1996 grammar book] WOE IS I ends with an "eye."
  
• The SKI TOW, a [Ride up the slope], has a "toe."
  
• MAD AS A MARCH HARE means [Crazy], and it's got "hair."
  
• NO ONE KNOWS sounds like it's got a "nose," and it's a [1958 Dion and the Belmonts hit].
  
• LORENZ HART ("heart") was the [Partner of Richard Rodgers].
  

Two corners of the grid are wide open. In one of those corners, ["Casablanca" director Michael] CURTIZ appears. Why is that name so unfamiliar? (No, it's not his original name.) This puzzle seems to have quite a bit in the way of X's, Z's, and K's. There's also Erik ESTRADA, who is on my TV screen right now. He's playing a cop (a California highway cop, as luck would have it) on the kid show, Drake and Josh. (He looks the same, but with a bit of a paunch.)

Updated:

The first theme entry in Bill Ballard's LA Times crossword is COME AS YOU ARE, clued with ["It's a party! Informal, so ___..."].Great, a whole theme of Nirvana songs! I'm playing the song as I write this, but no, the rest of the theme entries were not Nirvana songs but party invitation phrases: NO GIFTS, PLEASE. KEEP IT A SECRET. And BRING YOUR OWN bottle. There are some pop culture references in the puzzle, though. FLIX is clued as [Net attachment?], as in Netflix. [Paul's "Exodus" role] was ARI (that's Paul Newman). Sam COOKE was the ["You Send Me" singer]. [Spike TV, formerly] was called TNN. SNL is the [TV show that had recurring "Killer Bees" sketches]. James ARNESS was the main ["Gunsmoke" star]. And Garfield's housemate ODIE is the [Slobbering comics dog] in question. There's one answer I've never seen before: ASSUROR is clued as an [Underwriter].

Tom Schier's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Who's Who," gathers a party of people with the initials W.W.:

• [Who said "Today's gossip is tomorrow's headline?"] It was WALTER WINCHELL.
  
• [Who was Orville's brother in flight?] WILBUR WRIGHT, of course.
  
• [Who directed "Mrs. Miniver"?] That was WILLIAM WYLER.
  
• [Who ran against Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1940?] WENDELL WILLKIE, whose last name looks like it has one L too many.
  

I didn't know the [Driver in the most favorable position at the start of the race] was called a POLE SITTER; I know about pole position and the old flagpole sitting craze, though. Favorite entry: WET BLANKET, or [Enthusiasm dampener]. Knit your own wet blanket with [Balls of yarn] called CLEWS. There are a few place names mapped out on the grid. ATTU is the [Farthest of the Near Islands]. [Fort ___ (U.S. gold storage facility)] is Ft. KNOX. LANAI is a [Neighbor of Maui], and the Pacific has many a [Coral island], or ATOLL. ALGIERS was a [Former Barbary State in Africa]; from the 16th to 19th centuries, Algiers, Tunis, Morocco, and Tripolitania (Tripoli) were the Barbary coast divisions. AKRON is the [Rubber hub in Ohio].

Brendan Emmett Quigley (who's got a new blog where he dispenses crosswords on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays) constructed this week's Onion A.V. Club puzzle. It's a quote theme, but the quote is a famous Bushism, so it was easier than usual to fill in the quote without needing crossings. The quote begins with the clue, [Start of an ironic quote from a certain Yale graduate]: RARELY IS / THE QUESTION ASKED: IS / OUR CHILDREN / LEARNING? Two more answers relate to the theme: LEFT / BEHIND is clued [With 63-Across, how those among 54-Across who speak like their President might end up].

Favorite answers and clues:

• [Greek isle whose name might make kids giggle] is LESBOS.
  
• DR. ROMANO was [Paul Crane's late "ER" character].
  
• One kind of [Indian bread] is NAN (yum), and [Polish bread] you can spend are ZLOTYS.
  
• THE BBC is the [Original "Life on Mars" channel]. I don't know the show at all.
  
• [Summer residents of Italy's Castel Gandolfo] are POPES. Just a hunch but...I think there's only one of those summering there each year.
  
• GUESS SO runs three S's in a row, in the bottom row of the grid where such letters really come in handy. It's clued as ["Seems that way"].
  
• [Buck who was the first African-American coach in the MLB] spells his surname O'NEIL. Not to be confused with the O'Neal dynasty (Ryan, Tatum, Shaquille) or the O'Neills (all the other famous people with the last name, plus my grandma).
  
• HOWDAHS are those [Enclosed carriages atop elephants]. 
  
• [Convicted Scooter] is Lewis "Scooter" LIBBY.
  
• ["___ Declassified School Survival Guide" (former Nickelodeon sitcom)] was a gimme for me because my son liked the show. It's NED'S Declassified.
  

Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword, ""Holding Water," holds some H₂O in each theme entry:

• [Time that might be spent at one's desk] is LUNCH HOUR, with two H's followed by an O.
  
• [Simchat Torah, e.g.] is a JEWISH HOLIDAY, and not one of the ones the goyim tend to know about. It's the culmination of Sukkot.
  
• Snow White's housemates' [Dwarf refrain] is HEIGH HO.
  
• [Substance used by some in baseball's Mitchell Report] is GROWTH HORMONE.
  
• [Gay pickup spot, in some cases] is a BATHHOUSE. My closest gay bathhouse is a mile from home. Do you know where yours is?
  

Among the more interesting clues and answers are these:

• [Something to notify one's partner abut: Abbr.] is an STD.
  
• GOA is not just an Indian state, it's also an [Electronic genre developed in India].
  
• [Amused Twitter term] is LOLZ. I do not use that one myself. That Z crosses SAWZALL, a [Multipurpose blade, commercially].
  
• AIOLI is indeed a [Vowel-laden French sauce]. Is it more concentrated in garlic flavor or vowels?
  
• KING JAMES is a [Sobriquet for Lebron] James.
  
• [Porn stars' specs] are GIRTHS.
  
• [1995 TV mega-event, repeated more quietly in 2008] clues OJ TRIAL.
  
• [Into anyone, potentially] is PANSEXUAL.
  
• [One may get laid on the farm] clues an EGG, of course.
  
• [Some coasters, before being scratched] are CDS. Do you have any old CDs you're using as coasters?
  

That's a lot of good stuff there. Tougher words: [Spinning round?] is a DJ SET. [Ottoman dynasty founder] is OSMAN. [Hip parts] are ILIA, plural of ilium. [2002 Literature Nobelist Kertesz] is IMRE Kertesz. [Belligerent Chinese dynasty until 1125] is LIAO.

Read More...

Summary only...

Friday, 7/25

NYS 6:46
LAT 5:00
NYT 4:53
CHE 4:39
CS 3:19

WSJ 6:06

(post updated at 2:35 p.m. Friday)

Wow, it is tough to concentrate on crosswords when a member of the household insists on watching a TiVoed episode of Wipeout at the same time. I had to pause the Across Lite timer multiple times during the Sun puzzle when my husband was pointing out particularly hilarious tumbles on the part of the contestants. (They end up in mud or water if they don't safely complete each step of the obstacle course, and there's a lot of bouncing off giant balls.) I'm just lucky he didn't turn the show on until after I'd finished the NYT puzzle, as the applet offers no pause option.

John Farmer's New York Times crossword has some really impressive quadrants. Look at those corners with triple-stacked 9-letter entries crossed by a six-pack of 6's! That's some good-lookin' white space in this 66-worder. The marquee entry is JUMPIN' JACK FLASH, the [Rolling Stones hit just before "Honky Tonk Women"]. Did the Stones do HASHEESH ([Weed])? My favorite entries and clues are:

• UP A CREEK is clued with an equivalent idiom, [In Dutch].
  
• A [Turkey's dewlap] is a WATTLE. Dewlap and wattle are both great words, and came to mind when I saw Michael Douglas on TV yesterday.
  
• BOS are [Baseball's Belinsky and Jackson]. Remember the "Bo knows" commercials? If not for those, I'd have been lost here.
  
• Plenty of *IS entries get "[letter] Is for [word starting with letter]" references in the clue. Here, the Sue Grafton title trick is flipped—[Sue Grafton's "N"] is for NOOSE.
  
• MOE is the ["Calvin and Hobbes" bully]. All of his dialogue is written in messy printing to reflect his bullying dimness.
  
• RICE-A-RONI is now a [Quaker Oats product]. Nice to get the product's full name in here, rather than [Rice-___].
  
• The [Ill-fated NASA effort] was APOLLO ONE. Anyone else looking for a three-space Roman numeral?
  
• I know the [Five-time Horse of the Year, 1960-64] strictly because the name has been in enough crosswords. KELSO is also the name of the character pretty Ashton Kutcher played on That '70s Show, and the last name of the fusty, evil chief of staff on Scrubs.
  
• [Some court contests] are ONE-ON-ONES in basketball.
  
• The verb [Intimate] is to SUGGEST.
  
• I'm oddly fond of PLINTH, an architectural [Base of support]. Does anything rhyme with that? There's hyacinth.
  

I also want to mention these:

• [Got by] is the non-ED past tense, DID OK. Who doesn't love those late-week non-ED past tenses and non-S plurals?
  
• [Bank of America Stadium] team is CAROLINA. The Carolina Panthers? I don't know. I miss the days when stadiums weren't corporate trollops.
  
• Are [Attire] and ENROBE both the same kind of verb? I'm having trouble finding a satisfactory equivalence.
  
• Scotland gets two shout-outs, the [Celtic canines] called SKYES (Skye terriers) and ROB ROY, the [Legendary MacGregror].
  

Unfavorite answers (but I can forgive 'em all, because I like the stuff that surrounds them):

• MENDER, clued as [Cobbler, at times]. I don't think of shoes as being mended.
  
• TRIM WAIST is a [Goal of middle management?], but does anyone actually say they're striving for a "trim waist"?
  
• SOBERNESS is a [Dry state], but sobriety is a much more commonly used word. Yeah, soberness is an inflected form listed in the dictionary, but it sounds off to me.
  

Moving along to the New York Sun "Weekend Warrior," we have a joint production from Doug Peterson and Barry Silk. The grid's anchored by a pair of intersecting 15s, the CHICAGO WHITE SOX and a NUMBER TWO PENCIL. The SOX clue was [Team with the 1980s mascots Ribbie and Roobarb], and neither my husband nor I remembered this one. Which is fine—we live in Cubs territory. Speaking of baseball, 1-Across is [Turns up], and "turns" is a noun there—they're AT-BATS. Lots of short 'n' slangy clues right off the bat—[Bunk], [Heaps], and [Nuts] sounds like a breakfast cereal, but they're CLAPTRAP (a fun word), CRATES, and MADMEN (non-S plural—hello, Friday!). My favorite clue is at 2-Down: [What this clue have] are BAD GRAMMAR.

Other favorite clues:

• A [Second, e.g.] is a UNIT of time. It took me a long time to understand how the clue and answer went together.
  
• [Pinched the cheek of] is GOOSED—and the cheek in question is a buttcheek.
  
• A political party's [Ticket's target] is the VOTER. This clue also took me forever to parse properly.
  
• [Did a line, say] is SNORTED, as cocaine. !!
  
• [Made up, maybe] in the adjectival sense means NOT SO. It'd be easy to misled into thinking of one-word adjectives like PHONY or past-tense verbs, wouldn't it?
  

Assorted minutiae:

• I don't have a clue what Steak-UMM is, but there's a website.
  
• ["Labor omnia vincit" is its motto: Abbr.] refers to OKLA. How nice is it to not have to cobble together the right Latin word missing from a state motto? So nice.
  
• I've read some Henry James, haven't I? And I majored in English. I still needed a zillion crossings to find out that the [1890 Henry James novel, with "The"] was TRAGIC MUSE.
  

Robert Doll's LA Times puzzle changes a J into an H, sort of as if the J's needed to be pronounced the Spanish way. ["You Can Heal Your Life" author Louise on a constitutional?] is HAY WALKING (jaywalking), but I don't know that Louise Hay is well-known enough to anchor a theme entry. Wikipedia informs me that her publishing company published Deepak Chopra. [Assembly of radio operators?] is a HAM SESSION (jam session). [Camel rider's attire?] is a HUMP SUIT (jumpsuit). HOLLY ROGER, HACK CHEESE ([Cabbie's snack?]), and HUNK BOND round out the sizeable theme. Several clues really made me work for the answers:

• [Coram nobis et al.] are WRITS.
  
• [It may be partly set on a stage] is an OATER, or Western, which may take place partly in a stagecoach.
  
• [Reaction to a big library volume?] refers to noise, not tomes—it's SHH.
  

Updated:

Randolph Ross's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Sounds Simple to Me," features five phrases in which the first word contains a series of letters pronounced like the word "easy," spelled five different way. There's a CHEESY JOKE, or [Bad attempt at humor] (what is it about cheese and corn that allowed them to be redefined as good-natured badness?). BREEZY WEATHER makes for [Good conditions for kiting]. An [Unscrupulous person] is a SLEAZY CHARACTER. [Seasickness] is a QUEASY FEELING (Sing it with me: "I've got a peaceful, queasy feeling..."). And the EZ-PASS LANE is the [Fast way through a toll plaza in some states; Illinois uses the I-Pass instead. Favorite entries: ZOHAN, Adam Sandler's title character this summer (Nobody Messes With the Zohan); the CYRILLIC alphabet; and ["Right Place, Wrong Time" singer] DR. JOHN.

Sharon Peterson's Chronicle of Higher Education puzzle, "Home Finance," has a quote theme that isn't new to me, but I had a rough time piecing it together thanks to the Down clues crossing the quote. For example, [Macgillicuddy's ___ (Irish mountain range)]—with *E*K* in place, it sure looked like PEAKS. Nope, it's Macgillicuddy's REEKS. For [One of three virtues mentioned in Corinthians], I entered LOVE instead of HOPE, which mucked up the top middle for a bit. I was at a loss for [You might get one to spare?] for far too long—bowling, yes, but TENPIN wasn't coming to mind. Favorite clue: [It's on the school board?] for CHALK. More erudite entries include words from classics—HESIOD, ["Theogony" poet]; geography—KARST, [Area likely to have sinkholes]; and lit—["Lord Jim" ship], PATNA. The quote spelled out in the theme is "THE TIME TO / REPAIR / THE ROOF IS WHEN / THE SUN / IS SHINING," spoken by JFK (33-Down, right in the center of the grid).

Last update:

Sorry for the delay in posting about Pancho Harrison's Wall Street Journal crossword, "Union Perks." I went to the gym and then out to lunch, where the waitress opted to give us a leisurely paced European experience. But hey, at least we were sitting on the restaurant's patio on a beautiful day. Anyway—in the comments, Dan mentioned a lightning-speed solving time for this puzzle, which indicated that it was going to be unusually easy for a WSJ puzzle. It was (though I haven't yet cracked the 5:00 mark on an easy Sunday-sized crossword). The theme provided little help in solving—I mean, I noticed the precious materials included in the theme entries, but had no idea why there were parenthetical numbers after the theme clues or why the title was "Union Perks." Oh! ANNIVERSARY GIFT, of course, the years associated with the gift given in parentheses. I'm just now realizing that each theme phrase is actually a famous person's name, which explains why the paper anniversary is omitted—and the name aspect makes the theme nice and tight. I'm partial to RUBE GOLDBERG and SHEL SILVERSTEIN, with their gifts embedded in their last names rather than standing alone (as in BILLY CRYSTAL, MINNIE PEARL, ELIJAH WOOD, JAMES IVORY, and NEIL DIAMOND). Favorite entries: SCOT-FREE ([Totally unscathed]); the villainous ["Les Miserables" inspector] JAVERT; Uncle Scrooge MCDUCK; and BLUEBEARD.

Read More...

Summary only...