Reagle 7:47
BG 7:38
NYT 7:17
LAT 6:55
CS 4:27
If you haven't done Caleb Madison's Bard Bulletin crossword in Across Lite (posted at the Crossword Fiend forum), now you can also solve it online at the Bard High School Early College's student paper site.
Patrick Merrell's New York Times crossword, "Career Day Speaker Schedule"
Did you know that Patrick Merrell has two blogs? At Pat Tricks, where he writes on an occasional basis, his latest post features a cartoon in honor of Will Shortz's 16th anniversary as the New York Times crossword editor. (Congrats, Will! And no, we're not giving you a convertible for your sweet sixteen.) Pat writes more regularly at the NYT's Wordplay blog, where he alternates weeks with Jim Horne now. Hey, look! Patrick blogs his own puzzle today. He mentions that many of his past puzzles have been one-of-a-kind innovations, but that this one is more ordinary. Indeed it is. The theme didn't especially grab me, but there were some shining stars in the fill and clues.
First, the theme. The clues are playful redefinitions of various job titles. For example, a DRIVING INSTRUCTOR might be thought to be a good label for 38A: Career Day Speaker [#3: Golf pro?]. At 70A, the FILE CLERK is billed as a [#5: Manicurist?] on the Career Day schedule. 111A: [#8 Disc jockey?] is billed as a RECORD KEEPER. Who was responsible for all these misconstrued job titles? You might say that the 119A: [Career of the parent who typed up the Career Day schedule?] is a NOVEL WRITER, in that...he or she writes things in a novel manner? That doesn't feel quite as apt as I'd like a theme's capstone to be.
Here are the highlights in the clues and non-theme answers:
• 19A. [Literary work in which Paris is featured] is the ILIAD. Paris, the Trojan, not Paris, the city in France.
• 57A. [Suffix with pant or aunt] clues -IES. So help me, I laughed at this one. A good friend of mine and her sisters just became aunties for the first time this week when their little sister had a baby. (Rowan, a baby girl. As in Rowan Atkinson?)
• 68A. IRAN is the [First landfall north of Oman]. If you have a good sense of what the first landfalls are in various directions from various countries, try this Sporcle quiz.
• 90A. An author's PEN NAME is one sort of [Literary creation].
• 118A. BROWBEATS means [Bullies]. Is the bully beating you with her brow or beating your brow?
• 126A. A [Bay, for one] is a type of INLET. My son's been toiling all day, drawing pictures of geographical terms including bay and inlet (and dune, isthmus, glacier, coastal plain, marsh...38 terms in all). His picture dictionary is due Monday and it will damn near kill the entire household to get it finished by Sunday night. But it's a cool project, and one he's had three weeks to work on. Hmm, fondness for procrastination? I'm sure I couldn't tell you where he gets that from.
• 17D. GRUELS are [Meager bowlfuls]. Even a giant bowlful is meager, no?
• 30D. Fresh clue for EDSEL: [It debuted on "E Day"].
• 55D. ERST is boring crossword fill in English (archaic word, portion of "erstwhile), but if you know German, it's a common word: [First, in Frankfurt].
• 99D. ACTI, ACTII, ACTIII, ACTIV, and ACTV are entries that don't thrill me. ACT FIVE, however, seems cooler. Why is that? It's [When Juliet says "O happy dagger!"].
• 123D. The EAR is a [Human body part with vestigial muscles]. Holy anatomy, Batman! Can this be true? Wikipedia clarifies: They're the muscles that some people can use to wiggle their ears. I am a non-wiggler, but my son can do it.
• 124D. [Hosp. V.I.P.'s] clues R.N.'S. Yay! If hospitals didn't have nurses on staff, the patients would not do too well at all. This clue is a lovely nod to the nursing profession's importance.
Entries that aren't highlights, but that may be found at a fabric store: CIRE is a 29D: [Glazed fabric] and NACRES are 67A: [Button materials]. The latter is solid old crosswordese, but CIRE is markedly less familiar to me.
While the theme didn't wow me, I'm delighted by Patrick's return to the NYT puzzle page. His creativity and humor have led to many memorable puzzles over the years, and I look forward to seeing more of his twists on the conventions of crossword puzzles.
Merl Reagle's syndicated crossword, "Mr. H and Mr. L"
On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was killed. The same day, two famous writers also died: Aldous Huxley and C.S. Lewis. They are the Mr. H and Mr. L mentioned in the theme clues. I figured out who they were via two of the answers, but for the remaining theme entries I leaned heavily on the crossings. I'm surprised the puzzle didn't take me longer because of that—I suspect Merl made a point of keeping the clues for the themers' crossings as gettable as he could. Hang on a second—does every single Down answer cross at least one theme answer? I think so, and I think Merrell's NYT puzzle is the same. I swear I never noticed that many Sunday puzzles with all-Across themes are like that, too. Moving on, here's the Huxley/Lewis trivia theme:
• 20A. THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS is a ["Devilish" work by Mr. L]. Don't know it.
• 39A. BRAVE NEW WORLD, which I read in high-school English, is the [Classic work by Mr. H]. This was the only Mr. H clue that told me H = Huxley.
• 43A. [Space novel by Mr. L] is PERELANDRA. This is only very faintly familiar.
• 48A. [Mr. H co-wrote a few, including "Jane Eyre"] clues FILM SCRIPTS. Who knew?
• 65A. This one was my only L = Lewis clue. THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA is a [Seven-book series by Mr. L].
• 80A. SHADOWLANDS is a [Film starring Anthony Hopkins as Mr. L]. Really? Didn't know that. Haven't seen the movie.
• 89A. SGT. PEPPER'S is the [Classic album featuring Mr. H on its cover (and lots of other folks, too)].
• 92A. HEAVEN AND HELL is a [Philosophical work by Mr. H]. Don't know this one, either.
• 107A. The rationale for the theme is explained here. [Interesting factoid about Mr. H and Mr. L] is that BOTH DIED ON NOV. 22, 1963.
That last answer is insane, isn't it? With six numerals? They're numerals in the intersecting Down answers, too:
• 106D. [Rockets deployed in Germany's second wave of missile attacks in WWII] are V-2'S. I would not have guessed the 2 if not for the November 22 date that appears with the puzzle's title.
• 78D. GREASE 2 is the [1982 sequel to a high school musical]. Whatever happened to Maxwell Caulfield?
• 86D. APRIL 1ST is the [Fool's day].
• 111D. The [Three-digit number denoting a charge call (as for puzzle answers] is 900. Except that the zeroes are letter Os in 117A and 121A, so in Across Lite, 9OO works.
• 112D. [Time that's exactly halfway between midnight and noon] is 6 A.M.
• 113D. [Elementary school basics] are the 3 R'S.
Favorite clue: [They tell you how to fix things] for RECIPES. I'm planning to make pecan pie for Thanksgiving. Want the recipe? Follow the one on a bottle of Karo dark corn syrup, only use at least double the amount of pecans so you have pecans throughout the pie rather than floating atop goo. I haven't decided if I want to make a butter crust from scratch or buy frozen crust.
Weirdest answer: 29D is LARIATED, clued as [Lassoed]. Is lariat a verb, or just a noun? The Dictionary of American Regional English, or DARE, says it's also a verb.
I do prefer it when Merl's themes have a lot of humor built in, which this one does not. Next week's probably will, but I'm not sure when I'll get to it—the pies and I will be out of town, and an all-star team of guest bloggers will hold down the fort here.
Updated later Saturday night:
Ken Bessette's syndicated Los Angeles Times crossword, "Literal Translations"
Ooh, I loved this theme! It was heaps o' fun for my inner anagrammer. Each theme clue is an anagram of a word in its corresponding answer, and the answer explains how the anagramming was accomplished. At the same time, each theme answer is a familiar phrase. To wit:
• 23A. [TOG?] is GOT TURNED AROUND.
• 38A. [GLIBNESS?] is MIXED BLESSING. This entry reminds me of a 4/8/07 NYT puzzle by Byron Walden in which the entry BLESSING IN DISGUISE was linked to both GLIBNESS and B SINGLES.
• 51A. [FELT?] clues LEFT IN DISARRAY. LEFT could also be used to clue FELT CONFUSED.
• 66A. [GOES?] is ALTER EGOS. This one's a bit weaker because the word EGOS is alterED. With a different letter count, ALTERED STATE could be paired with TASTE.
• 69A. [RAGE?] is a GEAR SHIFT of a sort.
• 89A. An OUT-OF-ORDER SIGN is [SING?].
• 97A. [EARTH?] clues CHANGE OF HEART.
• 118A. [STOP?] evokes the POST-REFORMATION era.
Fun, isn't it? My favorite fill:
• 28A. An ARGONAUT is [One of Jason's men].
• 55A. "TAXMAN" is a [Song on the Beatles' "Revolver" album].
• 104A. The INNER EAR is a [Canal locale].
• 110A. "IS THAT SO?" sounds like a challenge, as does ["Says who?"].
• 2D. Hey! Not the usual ORONO clue. [Maine town named for a Penobscot chief].
• 16D. I misinterpreted [Curling gadget] as referring to the sport of curling and figured IRON was just a term I didn't know. Whoops. Curling IRON, used to curl hair.
• 91D. Leonardo DI CAPRIO is the ["Catch Me If You Can" star]. I meant to see that movie.
46D's clue is [Riding for ___: acting overconfidently], for A FALL. I feel as though "heading for a fall" is the more familiar phrase, but "ride for a fall"/"be riding for a fall" has more solid dictionary support.
Less desirable are 68D: REASCENT, or [Second time to the top], and 14D: REDRILL, or [Put through one's paces again]. (RESELL is A-OK, though.) Is it just me, or does New York have more than its share of 5-letter towns with 3 vowels? 73D: TIOGA is a [New York town on the Susquehanna], and then there's UTICA and...maybe there are just the two.
Who is this 114D: [Disney duck princess] named OONA? This cavewoman duck princess (yes, that's right: a cavewoman duck) is possibly not known to more than a teeny fraction of Americans: Wikipedia says "The adventures of Princess Oona have appeared in Disney publications in many countries including Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Hungary, Brazil, and Russia." Had you ever heard of Princess Oona?
Updated Sunday morning:
Tony Orbach's CrosSynergy/Washington Post "Sunday Challenge"
This is a terrific themeless crossword. Zesty fill, fun clues, minimal junk. Let's take a stroll through the grid.
Multi-word phrases:
• 1A is IN A FLASH, or [Pronto].
• 18A. There's also the BAD END [A villain might come to...].
• I like to say AS IT WERE (61A: [So to speak])
• 14D is AND SO ON, or [Et cetera].
• 34D, the [Words said with an exasperated flourish], clues "UP TO HERE." This one feels like an 8-letter partial, though, doesn't it? Does anyone say it in isolation, along the lines of a Honeymooners "Straight to the moon!"?
The freshest fill includes:
• The LETTER C—22A: [Embroidery on a Cubs cap, e.g.]. Go, Cubs! (Poor, woebegone Cubs.)
• 33A is [Quarterback Daunte] CULPEPPER of the Detroit Lions. (Poor, woebegone Lions.)
• 7D: SHAG CARPETS are [Lush, plush furnishings], which is not to say furniture.
• I like the zippy TABLE-HOPS at 9D, or [Makes the rounds at a restaurant].
• 10D is OVALTINE, the [Malt drink pitched by Joe Namath], and yes, I was thinking malt liquor. 'Tis the season to watch A Christmas Story and see the kid disgusted by the naked mercenariness of the Ovaltine people.
• 24D: JASPER JOHNS, the ["Numbers" abstract expressionist artist], works two Js in to the grid.
• 31D. I'm fond of PLEONASMS, which means [Redundancies], because it's a spoonerism of neoplasm. "Tuna fish" and "safe haven" are neoplasms—is there a tuna that's not a fish, or an unsafe haven?
Hottest clues:
• 59A. A [Termite's terminus?] might be the ANTEATER that scarfs it up.
• 5D. Good clue for LEERED: [Didn't make proper eye contact] but was instead most improper.
• 9A. TOYOTA is the [Tundra producer].
• 31A. [The time there might be five to ten] clues prison. Not "five minutes to 10," but "five to 10 years."
• 28D. [An addled brain might be likened to one] clues SIEVE.
Answer for which I needed all the crossings: 23D: [Producer of early multi-track recorders] is TEAC. I've seen the brand name before, but the clue wasn't summoning up that answer in my SIEVE of a mind.
Cute shout-out: 51A is MARTHA ["___ My Dear" (Beatles song)]. Three guesses what Tony's wife is named.
Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon's Boston Globe crossword, "Animal Quackery"
The theme is rough puns on health-care specialties with animal names affixed at the beginning. For example, RODENTISTRY is clued as a [Branch of medicine for gnawers?] (rodent + dentistry). BOAFEEDBACK is [Self-help for snakes?] (boa + biofeedback). SOCKEYEATRY is a [Fishy shrink's practice?] (sockeye salmon + psychiatry]. The puns are a mixed bag of added consonants, changed consonants, vowel changes, added syllables, etc. I wasn't crazy about this theme—pun themes straddle the fine line between "ha ha" and "uh-uh."
Favorite word in the grid: 89D: BOLLIX, or [Completely bungled]. OONA is here, but clued as [Mrs. Chaplin] rather than the cavewoman duck very few of us know.
I suspect the grid got changed along the way but an old clue remained in error. At 58A, the answer is STOOP, but the clue is [Dive like a hawk]. Now, that sounds exactly like a clue for SWOOP. But with those theme entries above and below, the W would've been O*W*P, which doesn't look feasible at all. Hmm. Is there a swooping-like-a-hawk usage of STOOP that I'm not aware of?
November 21, 2009
Sunday, 11/22/09
July 09, 2009
Friday, 7/10
BEQ 8:08
NYT 5:10
LAT 4:04
CHE 3:04
CS 6:05 (J—paper)
WSJ 7:40
Joe Krozel's New York Times crossword
Well, lookee here. The town where my best friend lived before she moved back to Chicagoland is featured in the Friday puzzle: CREVE / COEUR, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. 7/9A are clued as [Missouri city whose name means "broken heart"], and the grid's pattern is that of a broken heart. For those who are curious, I believe the locals pronounce it more like "creeve core" than the French would.
Outside of that answer combo and the diagramless-puzzle-style picture, it's largely a themeless crossword, isn't it? With 64 words (rather low word count), but a standard 38 black squares. My general rule of thumb is this: If it's a 64-worder or less and it's not by Patrick Berry, it probably has a lot of fill that underwhelms me. The rule stands. (See below.)
I was smoking this puzzle (well, not DanFeyeresquely or TylerHinmannishly) and clicked the "Done!" button with 3:57 on the clock...and then spent the remainder of my time trying to root out one errant square. Eventually I found it: I had HAIL in place of HEIL for 19A [Greeting with a salute]. Crikey, we're evoking the famous Hitler salute now, are we? And with no hint that the answer is German? That's weird. If I'd scanned the Down answers first, I'd have spotted SURGA PROTECTORS, but no, I started with the Acrosses. (Should be SURGE PROTECTORS, 6D [They may avert computer damage]). To go along with the unpleasantness of HEIL, we have CRUEL AND UNUSUAL clued as 1D [Torturous, perhaps], connected to TRUE CONFESSIONS, 44A [Story-filled magazine since 1922]. 44A would be utterly fantastic in a puzzle that wasn't seemingly linking torture and confessions. Waterboarding, anyone?
The 64-Word Rule is borne out by an awkward chunk in the upper right and a profusion of prefix action. The chunk is the abbreviation MOLS clued as 4D [Compound fractions: Abbr.]—trying to trick us into thinking about numbers like 4 1/2 when the answer is a chemistry abbreviation is mean. The M crossing, MRS, is clued as a 4A [Form check box option], which is a rather vague clue for a 3-letter abbreviation crossing two other abbreviations. 5D [Old bus maker] is REO, of Speed Wagon, Ransom Eli Olds fame.
I actually used the 64-Word Rule as a solving aid. 10D [Fix, as a shower stall]...hmm, RETILE, crossing another RE-word, REHIRE, or 24A [Bring back on board]. Towards the middle, PREVENTS and PREMARITAL party with RELATE and RELIEF. (Psst: RELATE is beneath PREMARITAL, which is clued with a form of that word, [Like some relations].) EMANANT is one of those words you might never hear uttered; it means 47A [Flowing forth]. Then there's the two-part answer ONE/-A-CAT, 45/41D, a [quaint sandlot game]. If you've done a ton of crosswords, you probably see this rendered as one-o-cat more than one-a-cat. Crosswordese crashes into same where ESSE, a 43D [Forum infinitive], meets ESTOP, or 43D [Bar].
48A would have been a gimme with a pop-culture clue like [Actress Dawson of "Rent"], but with [Argentine port on the Parana]. ROSARIO is Argentina's third largest city. When looking for my wrong square, I gave the stink eye to every answer crossing this unfamiliar city name.
Now, I do have to give props to Joe K. for the four swaths of open space in the grid, the interconnection of the three 15s, and these clues and answers:
• 11A. LAURELS are the [Composition of some crowns]. Thought of royalty and/or dentistry, didn't you?
• 17A. [The Monkeemobile, e.g.] was a GTO. Had no idea, but late-'60s 3-letter car clue usually means GTO.
• 50A. [Housekeeper player on "Benson"] is Inga SWENSON. With that crosswordesey first name, her last name is usually banished to the clues. I like the switcheroo.
• 2D. FERRET OUT is a great phrase. It means [Dig up].
• 3D. When I was a kid, a [Rubber] was an OVERSHOE. "When it rains, Daddy always wears rubbers." The Totes-brand rubbers seemed to fall out of fashion by the time I learned that rubber = condom, too.
• 19D. Geo-trivia: [It has departments named Nord, Sud and Ouest] clues HAITI. I didn't know that, and there are probably some 5-letter African countries with French colonial history, but the crossings led me to the right answer.
Updated Friday morning:
Martin Ashwood-Smith's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Mail Order"—Janie's review
"Wait, oh yeah, wait a minute, Mr. Postman! Wa-ai-ai-ait, Mr. Postman!. I'd think you'd really enjoy this easy, breezy made-to-order puzzle that celebrates those cancelled items you carry in your delivery bag!"
We don't get lots of theme fill today—only three phrases— but what we do get is "cherce," as is the non-theme fill with its many seven-, eight- and nine-letter words.
But first a look at the theme entries, the last word of which is mail-related:
Now, about those "many seven-, eight- and nine-letter words"—let's take a look at 'em. To [Fill with confidence] is to INSPIRE, and when one ATTAINS more self-confidence, one's STATURE [Eminence] may be bolstered as well. (This, of course, is the lesson of Jim, the Gentleman Caller in The Glass Menagerie.) The final seven, REPOSED [Slept], seems to be a CS first. Ditto both of the eights: HIGH-TECH [Advanced, in a way] (so we're lookin' for an adjective here and not a verb) and LAMPPOST [Part of a street light]. The four nines are HIROSHIMA [Enola Gay target of 1945] (it's not always that we get all of that information at once in the puzzles), the homier PIE CRUSTS [They should be flaky], and two more CS debuts: KNOW-IT-ALL with its sassy [Wisenheimer] clue, and LIP-READER with its original-to-Nancy Salomon-and-so-encore-worthy clue [One who can see what you're saying]. This is all really good fill. Imoo...
Other fill and/or clues that caught my fancy:
Ken Bessette's Los Angeles Times crossword
In discussing this week's CrosSynergy added-units-of-measure themes, constructor Patrick Blindauer said it's easier for solvers to pick up on add-letter themes than subtraction themes. Today's L.A. Times crossword made its subtraction fairly obvious, I thought, as RANGE BEDFELLOWS is clearly "strange bedfellows" minus the ST. "Bedfellows" gets little use in English without being paired with "strange."
Now, I was thinking the theme's purpose was booting the saints out of the grid, but 64A is STOUT, a [Heavy brew, and a clue to this puzzle's theme]. Take the ST OUT, and there's your theme description. Now, there's an interesting question from "imsdave" over at Rex's L.A. Crossword Confidential writeup today—"As a (very) novice constructor, and only for my own edification, is it OK to have STET/STENO/STOWS/STEWARDS/ATLAST in a puzzle with this theme?" Ideally, yes, there wouldn't be other STs left in the grid. I don't think it's a fatal error to include them, as the theme entries are considerably longer than everything else and their clues are all question-marked. But it's perhaps not as elegant as if the fill had meticulously avoided any STs aside from the STOUT entry.
Interesting incidental pairings popped out at me. First, there's Hitchcock's THE BIRDS, a 9D [1963 thriller set in Bodega Bay], and a CROAK isn't just for frogs and raspy voices, it's also 14A [Raven's sound]. Crows, ravens, and blackbirds creep me out. LANAI, clued as 19D [It's part of Maui County], evokes both the Hawaiian LUAU (59A [Outdoor feast]) and the 60% matchy SINAI (61A [Peninsula bordering Israel]). 31A is WAWA, or [Baba ___: Gilda Radner persona], and BAA BAA is a 22A [Sheepish response?]. And then there's the double hit of old-school crosswordese: the ETUI is a 50D [Sewing case] and an ADIT is 55D [Ore seeker's entrance] to a mine.
Michael Ashley's Chronicle of Higher Education crossword, "Old-Time Religion"
I had one of my fastest-ever CHE solves on this one, which is odd because really, a puzzle commemorating the quincentennial birthday of John Calvin isn't remotely in my wheelhouse. There must be a lot of easier clues and straightforward crossings here. CALVINISM anchors the grid and it's clued as the [Religious doctrine whose founder was born July 10, 1509. The HUGUENOTS practiced Calvinism. The BAPTISTS practice a modified version. PRESBYTERIANS (anagram of Britney Spears!) ply an elder-led version. And the PURITANS had their ascetic version. You can learn more about the Puritans in a lighter vein from Sarah Vowell's book, The Wordy Shipmates.
Brendan Quigley and Francis Heaney's Wall Street Journal crossword, "On the Waterfront>"
I spaced out on noticing the tightness of the theme while I was solving. I was moseying along, enjoying the homophone theme just fine without realizing that every homophone in the nine theme entries is "On the Waterfront" (PIER, QUAY, DAM) or a body of water itself (BAYOU, SEA, LOCH, STRAIT, river DELTA, BROOK). For example. COMBINATION LOCH (lock) is a [Scottish body of water that connects to another?]. SEA SECTION, playing on C-section, is clued as [The Bermuda Triangle, e.g.?]. And HOW'S BAYOU goes with the clue ["Where should we catch crawfish"? reply, perhaps?], playing on the intensely colloquial "How's by you?"
My favorites bits of fill include PECCADILLO, GOLDARN, BIG BANDS clued as [Groups of swingers?], the SIERRA CLUB, IRISH PUB ([Place to get stout]), ROMULANS, and the NEWARK/LATIFAH combo—100A NEWARK is [Aaron Burr's birthplace], while 80D is LATIFAH, [Queen born in 100-Across]. [Blue blood vessels?] is a cool clue for YACHTS, too.
Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Themeless Friday"
I can't assess this puzzle on its merits because the solving environment was making me cranky. The workers next door were dismantling some scaffolding and dropping big metal pipe structures into a truck bed. And the streetsweeper rolled by with its nonstop truck-in-reverse beeping. And my foot is throbbing. And I knew how fast other solvers on the leaderboard were, so I wanted to fly through it—but the distractions were totally getting in the way of that. As were the clues. Oy! I slowed myself down with Lucy's brother LINUS (whoops, needed RERUN) and Namath the NFLER (whoops, N.Y. JET). Someone on the internet was just talking about parsing PASYSTEM as "passy stem," and boy, I just couldn't grasp the P.A. SYSTEM clued as a [Rally rental]. I was looking for some sort of truck, and the PASY start killed me.
I liked LIVE ON clued as [Eat exclusively]. I could dispute that [Like someone who had a near-death experience] properly describes LUCKY. If you were lucky, wouldn't you avoid having the near-death experience in the first place? Speaking of death, I know that Jay-Z has a newish "Death of AUTO-TUNE" cut because I read The Assimilated Negro's blog, but I haven't actually clicked any of the links to have a listen. Is that bad? That I can answer [Oft-used computer plug-in used in modern music] without the slightest understanding of what Auto-Tune does?
January 30, 2009
Saturday, 1/31
LAT 5:29
NYT 4:50
Newsday (untimed, but longer than either of the other puzzles)
Ken Bessette's New York Times crossword has three answers I adore.
First, there's the KOOL-AID MAN, an [Ad pitcher who's really a pitcher]. I wonder how many people tried desperately to stretch former Baltimore Orioles pitcher Jim Palmer into 10 letters. The Kool-Aid Man was a giant glass pitcher that burst through walls, causing significant structural damage but bringing fruity refreshment. Crosswords like to clue the word HAM with its overacting connotation, and to use ham in clues for EMOTE. Bessette opts to change it up with HAM IT UP, or [Hot-dog]. (Fittingly, this answer crosses ON THE STAGE, or [Between wings].) [Stand-up routine?] sounds like it's looking for comedy, but it's THE WAVE that an arena full of people might stand up to create.
ADAPTATION is clued as an [Evolutionary process], but it's also a MOVIE TITLE ([Marquee name]). [Seek change?] couldn't be PANHANDLE because that's only got 9 letters; it's PASS THE HAT. I would've clued RAINMAKER with its business/law firm connotation rather than as an [Indian tribe V.I.P.]. The S AND P (S&P, or Standard and Poors 500 index) is one [Market yardstick, for short], while the DOW is clued [It has its ups and downs, with "the"]. I recently read that the Dow had 17 days with ±5% changes last year—and it took about 50 years to amass the previous 17 such days. Volatility! (Speaking of ups and downs, STEPS also [have their ups and downs].)
Crosswordy bits of language you ought to know if you're doing battle with Saturday puzzles:
Let's see, what else is in this puzzle? I don't recall running into IVA with this clue before: [___ Archer, with whom Sam Spade had an affair]. IVA Majoli the tennis player, yes. EARS are clued [They're near temples], and eyes are just as close. [Dawdling sorts] clues POKES, though I wouldn't call someone a "poke" without appending a "slow" to its front. Have you seen "poke" as a noun meaning a slowpoke? I wouldn't have guessed that TEAKS were [Trees of the verbena family]. The most mystifying clue for me was [Pita source] for AGAVE. That's not pita bread and it's not the abbreviation for "pain in the ass"; it's a Mexican fiber from the agave plant. You know what['s often planted] besides agave? A KISS, that's what. [Last name of father-and-son N.F.L. coaches] is MORA—they were both named Jim. There is also a Melvin Mora who plays for the Baltimore Orioles. SAABS is somewhat awkwardly clued as [Automotive debuts of 1949].
In closing, "Hey, Kool-Aid!" Here's the video of a '70s commercialfor you.
Updated:
Doug Peterson's LA Times crossword doesn't have a KOOL-AID MAN to woo my cruciverbal heart. Assorted clues and answers:
My favorite clue in Sandy Fein's Newsday "Saturday Stumper" (.pdf solution here) was [Where Easter precedes Lent]. I thought of a dictionary but...the answer is only 8 letters long. Eventually I had the first three squares filled in with WEB, which served only to confuse me. Is there some generic term for a Web-based dictionary? Finally the crossings filtered in and I saw that it was WEBSTER'S dictionary. Aha! I didn't know TAFFETA was an [Early hot-air balloon material]. I have never eaten [Hamburger ___ soup (German dish)]/EEL (ick!). Speaking of German things, OSKAR is ["The Tin Drum" protagonist], and speaking of foodstuffs, BASMATI rice is indeed a [Fragrant food].
June 30, 2008
Tuesday, 7/1
Onion 4:53
Tausig 4:53
NYS 4:28
NYT 3:43
CS 2:49
LAT 2:35
There's a new online crossword game called Crosswords Cubed, developed by Andy Harrison. Each puzzle plays out on all six sides of a cube (4x4 sides on weekdays, 6x6 on Sundays, I think), in standard crossword style. There's a long theme entry of sorts—two phrases—that wraps around the cube, and you complete that by working back and forth between the crossing answers and the partially completed phrases, a bit like when you're solving an acrostic. Does that make any sense? Give it a whirl and you'll see what I mean. Clicking the mouse will toggle you between Across and Down, and hitting the return key will jump you to the next clue.
Whoa. Ken Bessette's New York Times puzzle seems out of place on a Tuesday. There's definitely some Wednesday-plus fill—phrases, words, and abbreviations that strike me as beyond what we expect to see on a Tuesday. The three theme entries are phrases formed by zapping a double letter in the first word, changing arresting to A RESTING OFFICER ([Retired general?]), account to A COUNT PAST DUE ([Late nobleman?]), and appeal to A PEAL TO THE CROWD ([Carillon call?]). The trickier bits of fill include the following:
Will be back for the Sun puzzle after I tuck my son in.
And now, for the Sun:
Kevan Choset's New York Sun crossword, "One for All?", evokes The Three Musketeers' motto but puts an old-school Disney touch on it by featuring 3 MOUSEKETEERS in the theme. (Yes, the numeral 3, crossing 3COM [Park where the Giants used to play].) Three famous ex-Mouseketeers fill out the theme in this 15x16 grid: ANNETTE FUNICELLO starred in the original '50s version of the Mickey Mouse Club, while BRITNEY SPEARS and JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE launched their careers in the '90s version (along with Christina Aguilera, Ryan Gosling, Keri Russell, and JC Chasez). If you don't care for pop-culture trivia, then this was not the crossword for you! It also skews serious with TAMMANY Hall, DIES / IRAE, Dostoyevsky's heroine SONYA, TOSCA, and ELLA Grasso. MOMMY and DADDY anchor two corners of the grid, apparently just for the hell of it. Utterly unrelated wordplay fact: BRITNEY SPEARS anagrams to PRESBYTERIANS. (Justin Timberlake's anagrams are clunky phrases. And Annette Funicello = INTONE FLATULENCE.)
Updated Tuesday afternoon, quickly:
Brendan Emmett Quigley's Onion A.V. Club crossword inverts some W's and turns them into M's. Tiger Woods, for example, becomes TIGER MOODS, a [Zoo psychologist's concern?]. A policy wonk turns into an [Ascetic responsible for abbey rules?], or POLICY MONK. Brendan's showing off by including seven theme entries, three of them just 7 letters long (THE MIRE, MOE IS ME, and SEA MALL). Excellent theme and execution, and lively fill (SKYLAB and ZONK, a 9-letter PAPERCLIP and a PB AND J sandwich.
Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader puzzle, "Multiplicity," tacks an S onto the end of a word to alter its meaning. "Long story short" is an informal way of introducing a statement, whereas LONG STORY SHORTS are [Cutoffs with a complicated history?]. "Full of crap" means lousy, but FULL OF CRAPS could mean [Like some casinos?]. SLOTS CAR relates to gambling too, and there's some gambling in Goodfellas, the basis of GOODS FELLAS. The tour bus that turns into a French TOURS BUS could also transport folks to a casino, couldn't it? The shorts are the odd man out here. Favorite bits: [Yellow- and blue-haired family, with "the"] for SIMPSONS; and BFFS, or [Like, total bosom buddies 4 life] (it's short for "best friends forever," if you were wondering). Seeing that [Centers of intellectual activity] clues CEREBRA, it occurs to me that I would be drawn to a bra called the CereBra.
Gail Grabowski's LA Times crossword is easy-peasy compared with today's NYT. The theme entries are six commercial phrases that convey urgency—ONE DAY ONLY! ORDER NOW! LAST CHANCE! DON'T DELAY! GOING FAST! CLOSE-OUT! Suddenly I feel like making a purchase. I don't know what I'll buy, but I must buy something. Just waiting for the items I've already ordered seems inadequate.
Randall Hartman's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Listen Here...", talks it up with four loquacious people: the VERBAL KINT character, a CHATTY CATHY doll, evangelist ORAL ROBERTS, and movie cowboy GABBY HAYES. Cool theme! The Down fill includes some juicy long answers, like TERRA FIRMA and WELLESLEY. Among the shorter pieces of fill are some pairs that perhaps don't belong in the same puzzle—ANTON Chekhov and Cleopatra's ANTONY, the prefix IDEO- and IDEA. I do like the double "cooler" references in the clues—[The cooler] is the STIR, and there's actor ALEC [Baldwin of "The Cooler"].
April 14, 2008
Tuesday, 4/15
Tausig 4:15—print this one out before solving—or just ignore the theme clues
Onion 4:11
CS 4:09
NYS 3:34
LAT 2:40
NYT 2:35
Tax day! April 15th! Be sure to get your return filed if you haven't done so yet. (Canadians, Aussies, and other outlanders—pay no mind.) My returns were completed and the checks (alas) written a couple weeks ago...and they'll go out in the mail tomorrow.
Ken Bessette tightens up the theme in his New York Times crossword by having each theme entry begin with the same letter. The MIDTERM exam in the middle of the grid offers a hint to what the theme entries have in common besides that initial M—each has TERM ensconced in it, split between -TER and M- parts (e.g., METER MAIDS, MISTER MAGOO). I got off to a slow start with 1-Across, [Like a cold fish], crossing [Beggar's cry]. Erm, MOIST and MORE? No: ALOOF (a metaphorical cold fish) and ALMS, which, I must say, I have not heard from a panhandler. "Alms for the poor, ma'am" is maybe not so effective an approach these days. While I'm not sure that DEEP ENDS, the plural, is something people talk about (as opposed to the deep end, singular), I commend Mr. Bessette for the assortment of longish fill answers. The ZAMBEZI River atop SKIWEAR! RUTGERS University atop a GUMDROP! Mr. SANDMAN, bringing me a dream. Those who've paid attention to the entertainment business in the past decade probably got the two [Former Disney chief Michael] answers right off the bat—EISNER and OVITZ. Nice change-up to have these guys instead of the current Disney chief with a last name built for crosswords, Robert IGER.
Paula Gamache's New York Sun crossword, "Have a Good Time!", drops a DINGO in almost exactly the same spot one appeared in the NYT puzzle (clues: [Down Under dog], [Dog from Down Under]). Paula offers us five ways to have a good time—have a GREENHOUSE GAS in the conservatory, a NUCLEAR BLAST at the power plant, a PRISON RIOT in the slammer, a WRECKING BALL where cars are smashed, and a LABOR PARTY in the delivery room. (Amniotic fruit punch?) Favorite clue: [Love lover] for Kurt COBAIN. This one took me far too long to parse and understand—COB AIN? CO BAIN? Oh! Some other entries took a while to come together—IT'S WAR (the [Fighting words]); books sold ON TAPE (not ON-LINE); EAST LYME, Connecticut (Lyme and Old Lyme are where Lyme disease got its name); SCABBING, which I suspected was the answer but didn't realize was a verb.
Updated:
Today is April 15, and Rich Norris's CrosSynergy puzzle is taxing. There are six "Take-Home Pay" theme entries. AFTER TAX sums up the other theme entries, which are nonexistent entities made up from two words that follow "tax" in common phrases. (That nonexistence explains the relative difficulty of the puzzle.) No, there's no such thing as an EVASION FORM, but there are tax evasion and tax forms. There's no TIP HAVEN, but there are tax tips and tax havens. I had the final G filled in for [Online journal] and thought, "Here we go again with another so-called (or not really so-called) EMAG," and lo and behold, it turned out to be BLOG. Indeed! Spot on.
Ha! Guess what the last word I filled in on Gail Grabowski's LA Times crossword was. Within three minutes of slamming EMAG, here it is, [Online issue, for short]. I mean, I'd use it in fill if I had to, too, don't get me wrong. Here, it's connected to the G in GOOD USE, which crosses not one, but two theme entries. (We could replace that section with SING, OMOO, and LETO, but is it a good trade, on balance, to get OMOO and LETO? Probably not.) The theme entries rhyme with "oak," but spell the sound four different ways. (Yes, English is such a polyglot mutt of a language, it's a wonder anyone learns to spell the many thousands of words that spell the same sound in different ways.) There's a HOODED CLOAK, GOLF STROKE, GENTLEFOLK, and HIGH BAROQUE. I wonder if the constructor intentionally limited the theme entries to G and H beginnings.
Matt Gaffney's Onion A.V. Club crossword hits a lot of my mental sweet spots. The theme is obsolete technologies in phrases that persist, such as BE KIND, REWIND (Who rewinds VHS tapes any more? DVDs, baby. I just saw that movie, Be Kind Rewind, a couple weeks ago—the goofy stuff was funny, but the filmmakers snuck in a plot with heart and seriousness and I wasn't expecting that), "CAUGHT ON TAPE" (digital video now), RECORD STORES (which moved quickly past cassettes to CDs), and DRUNK DIALING (rotary dial phones?). The STASI are in the fill, which spurs me to recommend that you watch The Lives of Others, a terrific German movie that Ellen Ripstein rightly raved about a year or two ago. Favorite entries: RONALDO, the [AC Milan superstar] (he's almostReynaldo); MOON PIE; "SO WRONG." Favorite clues: [Privates field] for UROLOGY; ["Nice insult!"] for SNAP (my son has taken to saying "Oh, snap!" but using it instead as a replacement for the other S-word); [Goddess for whom a European capital is named] for ATHENA; [Late singer-bassist for the Cars Benjamin ___] for ORR; [X, Y, or Z] for GEN (generation, not gender); [Big ___ (body part)] for TOE; ["Gadzooks!"] for YEGODS; and [Good, long look] for GANDER.
Gotta run—Tausig puzzle in a few hours.
Updated anew:
All right, I've done Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword, "When the Levy Breaks." I don't yet know how the theme works because Across Lite doesn't wrap long clues—it just keeps running them across, and my 20" widescreen monitor just can't fit the grid and the longest clues at the same time. (Adding clue wrap is one of Jerry R's ideas for improving on Across Lite—if you've got a wish list of features and functions you wish a crossword-solving app offered, go leave a comment at Jerry's blog, Square Times. He might program a new application.) I wish I would've printed it out before I solved it. The crossings were reasonable enough that I finished the puzzle without paying attention to the gimmicked-up theme clues. The long clues instruct the solver to take a couple words (or parts of words) elsewhere in the puzzle and use them as clues for other answers. The [Add vertical line 13 (word 3) and vertical line 3 (word 1) together and enter the answer to the resulting clue on this line] approach is horribly convoluted, unnecessarily difficult and unclear, and prone to error. Hey, just like IRS forms! I guess that's one way to respond to the frustration of grappling with tax forms—make a crossword that pays homage to the IRS's finest obfuscation. The answer to 21-Across, SPRING BREAK, is clued as [Refund] after you do the work of removing the airport abbreviation (LAX) from the word at 74-Across and adding 33-Down after removing the letter that's also a magazine (O), but the clues for 74-Across and 33-Down require you to find them by answering still other clues and combining them. It's frightfully circular—much like the instructions for tax forms. I'm kinda glad I skipped the theme clues and solved around them (...like hiring an accountant to do my taxes). If you printed it out and faithfully tried to follow the instructions, was it a fun gimmick or a painfully convoluted, IRS-like experience?
March 09, 2008
Monday, 3/10
CS 3:19
LAT 2:39
NYS 2:30
NYT 2:28
Well, I still want to blog about Puzzle 7 and the ACPT finals puzzle, and maybe do some retroactive blogging about a couple Saturday puzzles I did during the tournament. But at least I'm back in the swing of the regular daily blogging.
The New York Times puzzle by Ken Bessette has a cute theme—OBEDIENCE SCHOOL is where you might teach a dog to SPEAK (OF THE DEVIL), SIT (ON THE FENCE), and STAY (THE COURSE). Pretty easy crossword with few places to get snagged. Okay, so I wanted [God, in Italy] to be DEO (Latin, yes?), until Donald Duck's nephew LOUIE fixed that. I love THIS SIDE UP as a non-thematic fill entry. [Knight time?] for YORE and [Freudian one] for EIN were perhaps supra-Monday-level clues, but the crossings tended to be easy.
The New York Sun puzzle by Mark Feldman is uncommonly easy for a Sun crossword. The "Four-Legged People" theme includes four animal phrases that describe people—three are felines (SCAREDY CAT, PAPER TIGER, LITERARY LION) and one is equine (CLOTHES HORSE). If only the cougar (e.g., Jenna on 30 Rock) had a two-word idiomatic phrase that is 12 letters long. Four Z's in a Monday puzzle makes for some zippy fill, but the Z-less fill is also crisp: SPINSTER (the fate a cougar seeks to avoid), SHEKEL, and Henri MATISSE.
Updated:
Cruciverb.com seems to be down this morning, so the Across Lite version of the LA Times puzzle is out of reach.
Paula Gamache's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Side Dish," has five theme entries with a unifying entry crossing the middle one. The first words of those five phrases can precede PLATE: boilerplate, fashion plate, home plate, silver-plate, and vanity plate (as in car license plates). Despite the relative beefiness of this Monday theme, the fill is ambitious—John TRAVOLTA, the THRILLA in Manila, an SOS PAD, THE FBI, MACABRE, both FIB and "caught IN A LIE," and au courant OTOH, short for "on the other hand." REG is clued as [Gas pump choice: Abbr.]; is that regular vs. unleaded, which hasn't been a choice for many years, or regular vs. silver or premium grade?
Updated again:
I forgot to mention that the New York Times puzzle clued EEG as [Brain scan, for short]. As numerous physicians pointed out the last time the NYT clued EEG thus, the electroencephalogram records a tracing or brain waves and is in no sense a "scan." The primary medical imaging modalities include X-ray, MRI (magnetic resonance imaging, CT (computed tomography), PET (positron emission tomography), and fMRI (function MRI). These "scans" all take a picture of the body in some fashion, as opposed to recording the zig-zag amplitude of electrical signals the way an EEG or ECG/EKG (electrocardiogram) does. (Doctors, forgive me if I mangled the concepts at all. I'm a layperson.)
Diane Baldwin's LA Times crossword has a tired, old theme I haven't seen before: both YESTERDAY'S NEWS and HISTORY REPEATED are the SAME OLD, SAME OLD.
February 10, 2008
Monday, 2/11
CS 4:15
NYS 3:14
LAT 2:50
NYT 2:34
Excellent example of a Monday crossword, the New York Times puzzle by Ken Bessette. The first four theme entries comprise an olio of phrases that begin with words that can also be "___ jobs." There's NOSE AROUND, the ODD COUPLE, PAINT THE TOWN RED, and SNOW WHITE—two phrases, two (or three) characters. They're tied together by JOB OPENING—and isn't it more elegant to have JOB OPENING in the grid, rather than JOB plus a clue that says "word that can follow the first word of the theme entries"? The fill sparkles, too—there's PAC-MAN eating MATZOH and CHILI (with FRITOs) and playing the ZITHER, longish DRAW UPON, and plenty of words that we don't see in every third crossword, such as WRITHE, WIFI, ABRUPT, CRANNY, and TALCUM. It's all CLUED ([Informed, with "in"]) at a solid Monday level, but the variety in the fill livens things up.
Updated:
I started reading the clues in the upper left corner of the CrosSynergy crossword, "It's OK!", and the answers were not coming readily to mind. What? It's a Monday! Ah, but the byline reads Bob Klahn, so there must be plenty of oblique Saturdayish clues to liven up this Monday. The theme is minimal—just 33 squares in three entries, each swapping in an OK where there was an IT (as in THAT'S A POKY, from that's a pity). I don't look to Klahn for theme action, though—it's those gnarly clues that draw me. For example: [Go out for a while] for SNOOZE; [Grease job?] for BRIBERY; [Make bacon?] for EARN; [Not the sharpest knife in the drawer] for OBTUSE; and [Bread holder?] for WALLET, to name just a few. Top-notch fill, too: X-RAY EYES, AARDVARK, 1 vs. 100's THE MOB, a BEARCLAW, and an ANTIHERO.
Diane Baldwin's LA Times crossword also includes OBTUSE, here straightforwardly clued as [Like angles between 90 and 180 degrees]. The theme is mimicry—FOLLOW THE LEADER, REPEAT AFTER ME, and SECOND THE MOTION. Lots of 6- and 7-letter answers in the fill (along with plenty of 3s).
Michael Blake's New York Sun crossword is called "B.C. Boast." It took me until I wrote that to see what the theme was, and now that I understand it, I love it! (Mind you, if I'd read the whole clue for 52-Across, it would have been obvious. But those long Sun clues and doing an Across Lite on a Mac...it's a hassle to find the end of those clues.) VENISON STEAK, VIDIAN ARTERY (the what?), and VICISSITUDES begin with JULIUS CAESAR's "Veni, vidi, vici" boast. I don't know that the vidian artery has a place in a Monday crossword, because this medical editor doesn't know it, but the crossings were easy.
September 16, 2007
Monday, 9/17
NYS 3:24
LAT 2:59
NYT 2:58
CS 2:37
One of the Sunday puzzles featured alphabetical foursomes in the theme entries. Gary Steinmehl serves up a variation on that with "Bespectacled," his New York Sun puzzle. Each of four theme entries contains the letter I (i) four times, and they're tied together by the sound-alike FOUR EYES. The clue for the first one, IF I DID IT, isn't quite right; it says [Unpublished O.J. Simpson book], but the book has been published by the Goldman family whom O.J. owes millions of dollars. The cover design emblazons I DID IT in big red letters, with a barely perceptible IF on the first letter, and the book's subtitle is "Confessions of the Killer." (Edited to add: Peter Gordon doesn't miss a beat, of course. He reports that he corrected the clue to [Controversial O.J. Simpson book], but the online guy didn't update the puzzle.) Favorite entries in the crossword: WELL I'LL BE, DIN-DIN, and RHEINGOLD beer.
Sarah Keller's New York Times crossword features four different [Bell ringer]s, one split into two 4-letter halves. Does anyone like it when 1-Across has a clue like [With 68-Across, a bell ringer]? On a Monday, I like to see an easy 1-Across that gives me the first letters for the first group of Down clues, and dang it, this puzzle fought me on that. Furthermore, it threw a not-so-well-known poet in at 2-Down, [Poet Lindsay] VACHEL. Who is she? Ha! Wikipedia tells me I have that backwards. It's VACHEL Lindsay, the "Prairie Troubador," known for his use of sound in "The Congo." All right, I forgive Sarah Keller for plunking that in an inopportune spot because Lindsay's story is an interesting one. The AVON / LADY is an obvious bell ringer, but CHURCH ___ drew a blank (CHURCH WARDEN), I don't commonly think of PERCUSSIONISTs and bell ringers in the same breath, and BICYCLE RIDER rings hollow (cyclist and bike rider sound more natural to me). Two great criss-crosses in the upper right and lower left corners: ROUND TRIP with YES DEAR and DREAMBOAT with OLD MAID.
Updated:
Today's LA Times puzzle is credited to Ken Bessette and Nancy Salomon, so I'm guessing Nancy worked with a new constructor on his debut publication. I liked the theme: three BASIC NEEDS, all clued without reference to their commonality. The clues are worded in parallel, though: [Swanson line], [Dockers line], and [Jagger/Richards line] refer to two product lines and a line of song lyrics, FROZEN FOOD, MEN'S CLOTHING, and GIMME SHELTER, with food, clothing, and shelter being BASIC NEEDS. The theme is executed with élan. My favorite clue/entry combo: [One who cleans up after the maid?] for NEAT FREAK. Highlights from the rest of the fill: the idiomatic RAG ON, YEA BIG, and ONE SEC; KAREEM Abdul-Jabbar and LADY DI; and MUMBLE. Well done!
Thomas Schier's CrosSynergy puzzle is selling "End Tables": a dressing table (SALAD DRESSSING), card table (SMART CARD), pool table (MOTOR POOL), and bridge table (COVERED BRIDGE).
