CHE 5:51
NYT 4:17
BEQ 4:15
LAT 3:58
CS untimed
WSJ 7:30
The Oregon/Oregon State football game is on TV right now. Jacquizz Rodgers just had a 14-yard rush. Husband reports that Rodgers is only about 5'8" so he might not make it to the NFL. But I want him to be famous enough to appear in a Karen Tracey crossword!
Martin Ashwood-Smith's New York Times crossword
Martin Ashwood-Smith, a pioneer in triple-stacking 15-letter entries, returns with a smooth sextet of 15s. (Minus two points for having ONE'S in the middle of two answers.) Here are the long ones:
• 1A. AS OLD AS THE HILLS means [Antediluvian].
• 16A. [It's served in parts] clues a THREE-COURSE MEAL.
• 17A. OUT OF ONE'S LEAGUE means [Completely unqualified for competition]. Terrific, in-the-language phrase.
• 50A. [Framing need] isn't about picture frames—it's a TRUMPED-UP CHARGE. I have a slight preference for the plural of this, but the standard crossword isn't 16 squares wide so this will do. Why plural? If you're taking the trouble to frame someone, surely you can come up with multiple trumped-up charges.
• 55A. WATERLOO STATION in London is a [Railway terminus with the Victory Arch].
• 56A. OPENED ONE'S HEART is clued as [Became emotionally receptive].
None of these entries is on the list of the most common 15-letter NYT answers, so the whole triple-stack enterprise feels fresh.
Mystery people! I had three of 'em tonight. 27A: ROSA is ["The Accumulation of Capital" author Luxemburg]. She was a "was a Polish-Jewish-German theorist, philosopher, and activist" who cofounded the Spartacist League in Germany in 1914. 40A: JOSH WHITE is [Singer of the 1940s blues hit "One Meat Ball"]. I have to say, that's one meatball too many for me. 48D: IGOR is [Real-estate tycoon Olenicoff]. He's still a billionaire despite losing a couple hundred million bucks.
Comments on other answers and clues:
• Not crazy about the short two-worders. 29A: "DO IT!" is clued with ["Get cracking!"]. 1D: [Rafts] clues A TON. And 3D: ["... ___ go?"]—what is that, Morse code? The ellipsis replaces "for here" and the blank's filled with the partial OR TO.
• 35A. TASTE BUDS! [They may be excited by dinner]. Lively answer.
• 11D. [Laugh syllable] is HEE. (And 31D: HAHAS is [Music to a comic's ears].) If you are typing "he" as a laugh syllable, I must insist that you stop immediately. "Hee hee" and "ha ha" are laughs, "heh heh" has a less jocular air. "He he" or "hehe"? That's no laugh—that's a pronoun for a gay male couple.
• 15D. SLEETIER is clued as [More like a cold shower?]. I Googled the word and the first 60 hits gave the impression that this is not a word anyone actually uses, but on the seventh page, lo and behold, we find that the word appears in a Ted Hughes poem, "Tractor". I will use the word in a sentence that contains another phrase in the poem: "Sleet is SLEETIER than cast-iron cow-shit."
• 29D. I wanted the [Perilous place] to be AT DEATH'S DOOR, but that doesn't fit. It's a DEATHTRAP.
• 30D. Medieval! [Competition among mail carriers?] is a JOUST—mail as in chain mail.
• 32D. [The second part] is STAGE TWO. That feels arbitrary.
• 37D. Excellent use of the definite article in THE SHAH, a [Leader exiled in 1979].
My nomination for trickiest crossing is the M where 46A and 46D meet. ["___ Fate" (Andre Malraux novel)] crosses an [Unstable particle]. MAN'S and MUON, but if you're thinking the Malraux title will include a proper name or a common noun and you're not up on your atomic particles, DAN'S, FAN'S, JAN'S, and NAN'S don't look completely implausible. Heck, the author's got a French name, so why not "SANS Fate"? (Thank you, puzzles I have done previously, for teaching me the word MUON.)
John Lampkin's Chronicle of Higher Education crossword, "Baroque Embellishments"
Boy, pun themes are hard when you're not that familiar with all the words in the answers, when the base phrases are more oblique, and when the sound changes are a mixed bag. I gather than the theme entries end with two baroque dances and two forms of baroque music:
• 17A. [Baroque dance full of hostility?] is BITTER ALLEMANDE. I think this is a play on "bitter almond," with an added vowel syllable.
• 27A. [Eco-friendly baroque dance?] clues GREEN BOURRÉE. Bourrée? This is not a regular part of my vocabulary. Lovely sound play on "Green Beret," though. The first vowel in the dance shifts from "beret."
• 46A. [Baroque song that's less than a masterpiece?] is THE O.K. CHORALE (the O.K. Corral). Okay, that's kinda funny. Great sound-alike play.
• 61A. [Offering at the Baroque Music Hotel?] is A ROOM WITH A FUGUE. Wait! FUGUE and "view" have markedly different pronunciations. This one doesn't feel close enough for solid punning, especially not with 27A and 46A's closer sounds.
Gotta love a puzzle that includes the [Burp]/ERUCT combo, though. (Still holding out for BORBORYGMUS to make an appearance somewhere.)
Trickiest clue for me: [One that goes to school regularly] for BUS. "That" was a tip-off that we're not looking for a person, which would be "who," but I contemplated fish here.
Updated Friday morning:
Doug Peterson's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Goth Milk?"—Janie's review
Wow. The last time we had a Peterson puzzle was just over a month ago, but I have to say: it was worth the wait. Doug's given us an "add a letter" theme, which we're familiar with. But in contriving an "add an 'H' to a word ending in 'T'" approach, he's managed to come up not only with a very humorous title but also a great variation on this familiar trope. Look what happens as:
• 17A. Vampire bat + h → VAMPIRE BATH [Tub shaped like a coffin]. The visual leap from beginning to end is what gives this one its punch. (And that is one scary lookin' creature—yowzuh.)
• 27A. Slot machines + h → SLOTH MACHINES [Exercise equipment for lazy people]. The perfect complement to "lose weight while you sleep" pills...
• 44A. Wrestling mat + h → WRESTLING MATH [Subject covered in "Geometry for Grapplers"?]. Or: Jane vis à vis higher numbers...
• 59A. Boot polish + h → BOOTH POLISH [Diner owner's spiffer-upper]. Anyone else grow up in a home where every two weeks, for purposes of spiffing up, the furniture got a going over with Jubilee Polish?... Seems it's no longer available, but that's the recollection this clue and fill brought to mind.
Other goodies in the grid:
• [Mad scientist's milieu] LABORATORY and (speaking of mad scientists) ["Young Frankenstein" assistant] IGOR.
• [Its color indicates rank] KARATE BELT.
• Phrases TAGS UP [Touches a base on a fly ball] (oh, great—only four months til opening day...) and "TRY ONE!" ["Have a sample!"].
• THUMP clued as [Soundly defeat] (with the emphasis on sound, no?).
• The colloquial contexts for "UNFAIR!" ["You cheated!"], "I CAN'T!" [Defeatist's cry] and "HEY!" ["What's the big idea?"].
• The group of "heads of state" types: SHAH [Former Iranian monarch], EMPEROR [Nero, for one] and TSAR [Erstwhile Russian sovereign]. (Each was part of a DYNASTY of sorts, though not the [Joan Collins TV series]). I'm guessing that only the tsar (as a child anyway...) may have had a head-covering with an [EAR-FLAP] detail. It gets pretty nippy in Mother Russia—and that can be a nice [Winter cap feature]!
Jack McInturff's Los Angeles Times crossword
My son's friend is coming over for a play date (no school today) any moment, so only cursory blogging this a.m. Theme entries have a CK inserted into them. E.g., [Take down by Tinker Bell?] is a FAIRY TACKLE. The theme answers tended to feel a tad strained to me, though, and the little hitches in the fill (SFC, not SGT, for [Army E-7: Abbr.] and CLK for [Court recordkeeper: Abbr.]) were found mainly among the 29 3-letter answers in this grid. Offsetting the 3s are the pairs of 9-letter answers that intersect two of the five theme answers—that's a lot of real estate occupied by the nine longest entries. Favorite clue: [Former pen pal?] for EX-CON.
Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Tiger Trap"
As I said in a comment at Brendan's blog, this week's easy BEQ puzzles all require an obsessive attention to tabloid-ready names that aren't remotely inferrable if you haven't been following the stories closely. I knew 20A/ELIN NORDEGREN, but the other women? They have weirdly spelled first names and/or uncommon last names (like Wednesday's couple, Michaele and Tar...eq? Salihi). This gives today's puzzle the air of a quote puzzle in which the quote's half in Hungarian. I didn't know if 28A should be parsed as KALI KAMOQUIN (no) or KALIKA MOQUIN (yes). JAIMEE GRUBBS or JAIME E.? RACHEL UCHITEL? Uchitel? Sounds like a Japanese hotel chain.
B'NAI BRITH and QUINTUPLE are lovely, but there weren't enough such entries to grab me today. Thematic SCANDAL is balanced by nonthematic E.B. WHITE, and thematic LIE by nonthematic MIN. With 26 3-letter answers (NEA! KEA! MEA! UBI UZI!) and old crosswordese ISTLE ([Agave fiber]), I say boo to this puzzle. I'm sure I'd have loved it if I were closely following the Tiger Woods scandal, but I'm not, so...half-Hungarian quote puzzle.
Looking forward to a "Themeless Monday"!
Patrick Blindauer's Wall Street Journal crossword, "Scrambled TV Signals"
Hey, this is a fun puzzle. All of the theme entries are TV show titles in which one word's been anagrammed, changing the gist of the show. For example, Arrested Development becomes SERRATED DEVELOPMENT, or [TV show about a breakthrough in knife research]. I had part of DEVELOPMENT and set to work pondering anagrams of ARRESTED that could relate to knives. The game show Deal or No Deal becomes LEAD OR NO LEAD, a [TV show about a filling station choice]. Retro clue—didn't leaded gasoline disappear in the '70s? Also retro: cluing SSR as [Moldova, e.g.: Abbr.]. Moldova hasn't been an SSR since '91.
Favorite clues, answers, and combinations:
• 73A. [Possible reading of a Brannock Device] is EEE. Clue sounds medical, but the Brannock is the metal shoe-size doodad in the shoe store. I like how EEE crosses EERIE.
• 43A/44D. [Foe of Popeye] SEA HAG meets HAGEN, [Golf legend Walter].
• 24A/14D. CLARITIN crosses CLARETS—[Allergy medicine brand] and [Some red wines].
• 83A. A [Cel body] is a TOON, or cartoon character.
• 36A. DO SHOTS! That's to [Toss back some Stoli, say].
• 96A. CHALUPA! A [Taco Bell offering] I've never tried.
• Longer fill that shines includes SOFT SELL, RIFFRAFF, DAME EDNA, and LOSE SLEEP. (Should've clued SLOTHS as something other than [Arboreal sleepers], though.)
• 121A. Au courant clue for TBS: [Home of George Lopez's talk show]. I should watch that.
• 77D. [Ball-bearing creatures] are trained SEALS balancing a rubber ball on their snouts.
• 103D. YELLS is clued as [Makes a long-distance call].
December 03, 2009
Friday, 12/4/09
December 01, 2009
Wednesday, 12/2/09
NYT 4:38
BEQ 4:04
Onion 3:57
LAT 2:59
CS untimed
Jack McInturff's New York Times crossword
I've noted before that Jack McInturff's fill tends to run old-school, and this puzzle is in that vein. The theme involves a letter change from H to W, as in HASTE MAKES WASTE ([Advice to the rash, and a hint to this puzzle's theme]). In the other theme entries, an H in a familiar phrase becomes a W:
• 17A. PICTURE OF WEALTH is clued as [Bill Gates snapshot?]. Base phrase is "picture of health."
• 28A. [Banshees' boast?] is SO PROUDLY WE WAIL. So Proudly We Hail is a 1943 movie, and part of a lyric from "The Star-Spangled Banner.'
• 39A. BASE WIT, playing on base hit, is a [Comedic soldier during training?].
• 47A. [Words to estate attorneys?] is HEAD FOR THE WILLS. "Head for the hills" is familiar, but legal documents are a weird thing to "head for," aren't they?
Among the fill that's reminiscent of '80s crosswords are these words: AGHA, or [Turkish V.I.P.]; N-TEST, or [Mushroom producer, for short]; ARLENE [Francis of "What's My Line?"]; ENOS, [Son of Seth]; OAKIE, or [Jack of "The Great Dictator"]; LADES, or [Does dock work]; ILEA, or [Sections of digestive tracts] ("Let's all put our ILEA together and see if we can't come up with a solution that works for all of us"); RAJA, or [Big Indian]; [Mata ___] HARI; SKAT, the [Game with 32 cards]; and ESSO, the [Old Sinclair rival]. Two or three of these are plenty for any 15x15 crossword. The biggest blast from the past is ASE, [Mother of Peer Gynt]. She says, "You may remember me from such crossword clues as ['___ Death']." Pop culture tidbit from Wikipedia: Extracts from "Åse's Death" are played in a Simpsons while Norwegian workers are leaving their town. This may mark the first time this blog has wielded an Å.
I'm not familiar with O'SHEAS Casino, the [Irish-themed Vegas casino]. Apparently it targets gamblers in their 20s and 30s and features a heavy metal star's tattoo parlor. I'm guessing Celine Dion doesn't sing there and that there's no fancy art gallery. Don't recall seeing [Pikake garland] as a LEI clue, though the only other common 3-letter garland is the boa.
There are two women with Ys in place of Is. LYNDA, [Actress Carter who was once Miss World USA], is best known for portraying Wonder Woman. SYD, usually clued as Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett, is clued as the [Lead role on "Providence"]. Remember that show? Ran from '99 to '02? Her dad was played by B.J. Hunnicutt.
Deb Amlen's Onion A.V. Club crossword
In Deb's theme, phrases that begin or end with double-E words turn into double-O words:
• 21A. [Golfer?] is a WOOD WHACKER (weed whacker). Let us not speak of Tiger Woods, whose Escalade whacked a tree.
• 26A. [Stress of being strapped?] is POOR PRESSURE (peer pressure). Topical!
• 43A. [Jerky doctor's office combo?] might be SHOT AND A BOOR (shot and a beer).
• 50A. [Prize for the ultimate sulk?] is BEST IN BROOD (best in breed).
Oniony highlights:
• [Teeny problem?] is ACNE, a problem for teens (among others). A unit of ACNE is a ZIT. Watch out for the kilozit.
• [Buck passers?] clues ATMS. Is this a new clue? It stumped me, so I feel as though it is.
• [His middle name was Milhous] refers to Richard NIXON, not Milhouse Van Houten.
• "YEAH, SURE" is a terrific entry. The clue is ["I bet!"].
• BRAS are [Support systems, of a sort].
• "I'M ON FIRE" is the [Springsteen song that starts, "Hey, little girl, is your daddy home?"]. The "little girl" part sounds creepy.
• Unfamiliar OHIO clue: [Kent State tragedy song].
• The F-BOMB! Another great answer. Clued thus: [One might get dropped, to everyone's shock].
You know, Deb's got a humor book coming out next June: It's Not PMS, It's You.
Updated Wednesday morning:
Martin Ashwood-Smith's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "In Position"—Janie's review
Ya gotta think very literally with this one as the first word of each of the theme phrases corresponds to its position in the grid. In today's case, that also mean that those terrific theme phrases are all oriented vertically. And they are:
• 4D. LEFT HEMISPHERE [Brain area]. Yes, this map of the human brain is sexist and wrong but it still makes me laugh. This map is more to the point.
• 7D. MIDDLE-AGE SPREAD [Weight gain, of a sort]. Not a pretty subject, but the fodder for lotso "humor"...
• 16A. RIGHT VENTRICLE [Heart part]. Here's a cutaway view.
As you probably know, I tend to take a lot of enjoyment in (what I perceive to be) mini-themes and connections within the grid—and today's puzzle delivers nicely. Two of the theme fill are anatomical (referencing the brain and the heart), but look: there're also optical allusions with CORNEA [Pupil's cover] and EYED [Gave the once over]; and [Win by ___ ] A NOSE. That's nothin' to sniff about!
There are ethno-geographic connections, too, as the grid contains ASIA [ ___ Minor]; and from Southeast Asia, HANOI [Vietnam's capital] and [Vietnam's] NGO [Dinh Diem] (who was assassinated in 1963). (Have you ever wondered about Asia Major? While it's not a term we ordinarily use, it's east of Turkey and Asia Minor, and refers to the "heartland of the Persian Empire.") From Europe, there's FLORENCE [Italian city on the Arno]; and from Mexico, AZTECS [Montezuma's people]
Another set of connected fill contains exhortations: the JEERS (and not MEOWS) for [Catcalls], the NOES [Refusals] and "EGADS!" the [Edwardian outburst] ("Edwardian" standing in for "quaint"...).
And in "sacred" territory, there's DIES IRAE [Solemn hymn], MITER [Bishop's hat] and even betrayer-Apostle [Judas ___ ] ISCARIOT.
When I saw SAFE SIDE [Cautious people try to stay on it], my first thought was that it was more theme fill. SNOW TIRE [Winter traction provider] proved not to be a symmetrical match, however, so let's chalk up the former to "bonus fill." To be on the safe side, let's also hope that as the inclement weather driving-season approaches, your snow tires have lotso good tread on 'em—especially for any STOP-GO driving you may have to do!
Ed Sessa's Los Angeles Times crossword
Especially in the Monday-to-Wednesday stretch, there are so few crossword themes that feel new, so this one's a delight. The phrase RAIN CATS AND DOGS can be parsed another way in the punctuation-free zone of the crossword grid: as if it's three entities, RAIN, CATS, AND DOGS. Those three entities are clued by the other three theme answers, which are clued straightforwardly. Kind of the multi-level marketing scheme of crosswords.
• 17A: [*Nightly news show segment] is the WEATHER FORECAST. In Seattle, the forecast often includes rain.
• 27A: [*Big Apple show] clues BROADWAY MUSICAL. One musical I've never seen is Cats.
• 49A: [*1955 Disney animated film featuring Darling Dear] is LADY AND THE TRAMP. Lady and Tramp are both dogs.
• 65A: [Come down in buckets; also, when applied in sequence to the answers to starred clues, this puzzle's theme] clues RAIN CATS AND DOGS. RAIN in the forecast, CATS on Broadway, AND DOGS in the cartoon.
For fill highlights and videos featuring the legendary Pete Seeger, Frank Sinatra, and Ella Fitzgerald, please hop over to my L.A. Crossword Confidential post.
Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "The In Crowd"
In Brendan's post, he says his test solvers thought this puzzle was super-easy, suitable for solving Downs-only to avoid having the puzzle be merely a speed test. I would have been in a total snit if I'd read and followed the "go Downs only" advice because it wasn't all that easy. Maybe other people are finding this a Monday-level venture, but it hit Thursday medium for me.
Perhaps I'm just slow today, because the 35A clue says "two show up in this grid unannounced," but the only DINNER CRASHERs I can find (TAREQ and MICHAELE) are clearly announced as being 35-Acrosses. Are there other hidden answers the 35A clue is referring to? WHOLESALE PRICES and FAIRBANKS, ALASKA don't seem to contain "dinner crashers." What am I missing? (Edited to add: Brendan explains that the crashers' last name, SALAHI, is hidden in stacked halves in WHOLESALE/WAHINE and FAIRBANKS ALASKA/TAHITIAN. What, we're supposed to know the spelling of their first names and what their last name is? Boo!)
I like the GLAMOR/ENAMOR combo, but not the OKED/I'M OKAY pair. Hey, where are the quotation marks of sarcasms in the FEMA clue? [Hurricane Katrina helpers]? Really? Unless the implication is that the agency helped the hurricane carry out its mission. That would be the Army Corps of Engineers, though.
Plenty of Polynesian action today. The Hawaiian word KAHUNA is clued with [Big ___ Burger (fictional chain of "Pulp Fiction"]. WAHINE is a [Female surfer] or a Polynesian woman/wife (esp. in Hawaii and New Zealand). And TAHITIAN is the [Language that gave us the word "tattoo"].
November 22, 2009
Monday, 11/23/09
NYT 3:41
BEQ 3:34
LAT 2:50
Payne's Squeezeboxes #1, harder version untimed (easier option with enumerations also available)
CS untimed
If you use the NYT's applet, as I do, you rarely have difficulty loading the puzzle at the promised time. Somewhat more frequently, however, the NYT's link to the Across Lite version gets shanghaied at puzzle time. When the puzzle's not where you expect it to be, visit Jim Horne's Across Lite Links to Recent NYT Puzzles page. At the bottom of the page, there's a perpetual link to the latest second Sunday puzzle in PDF (not Across Lite) form—as those links go haywire sometimes too.
Ben Pall's New York Times crossword
Today's constructor is 14 years old, I hear. What sort of crosswords could you make when you were 14? If your name isn't, say, Will Shortz, Henry Hook, or Merl Reagle, probably the answer's "Well, nothing like this one." The BEATLES are celebrated via the four lads' first names being circled in non-Beatles-related phrases and assorted Beatles-related short fill scattered throughout the grid.
The four lads are here:
• In 18A, PAUL McCartney is in the circled letters in POLE VAULTER, or [Athlete trying to pass the bar?].
• GEORGE Harrison dwells in 59A, AGENT ORANGE, the [Toxic herbicide]. Yay, Orange! Boo, toxic herbicide! Sorry you're in there, George.
• To JOIN THE NAVY is to [Head out to sea, say], and 3D is where JOHN Lennon is hiding.
• RINGO Starr is found in 26D, READING ROOM, or [Library area].
It would be cool if the phrases the Beatles were embedded within had something to do with the band, but alas, they do not. The stray Beatles bits include the following:
• At 9A/46A, ABBEY / ROAD is infelicitously clued thus: [With 46-Down, 1969 album by the 38-Across].
• 14A: [Yoko ___] ONO.
• 16A. ["We're more popular than Jesus now," famously] is a QUOTE.
• 30A. MAN completes ["Nowhere ___" (1966 hit)].
• 47A. RAVI, [Sitarist Shankar], father of Norah Jones, is the Indian musician who turned George Harrison on to the sitar.
• 48A. TRY fills in the blank in ["Gonna ___ with a little help from my friends"].
• 13D. YER ["___ Blues" (song on the White Album)].
From the non-Beatles fill, five clues:
• 55A. An EARPLUG is a [Silencer?]. Generally, earplugs will knock off about 30 decibels, which is not quite silencing.
• 10D. [Like eyes seemingly about to pop out] clues BULGING. I will not link to the video of that woman who can pop her eyeballs out of the sockets at will. (You're welcome.)
• 24D. [Commoner, for short] is PLEB, short for plebeian. Is this Monday-grade fill?
• 68A. A SNORT is a [Sound akin to "Harrumph!"].
• 67A. Looks like LORES in the grid, but it's LO-RES, short for low-resolution. [Like a fuzzy computer image, informally].
Nice debut, Ben. Can you do me a favor, Ben, and try to get some girls your age interested in constructing crosswords? We keep having bright young men entering the field of crossword construction, and it would be great to get some young women involved, too. Mentors are standing by!
Trip Payne's Squeezeboxes #1
If you haven't poked around Triple Play Puzzles yet, go have a look. If you have Thanksgiving travel or down-time ahead and you'd like some puzzles to occupy you, you'll find a trove of goodies at Trip's site. All the puzzles are Trip's own work, and they include regular crosswords (including jumbo themelesses, my favorite), cryptics, variety crosswords, variety cryptics, and more.
If you've seen Frank Longo's "One, Two, Three" puzzles in the Games publications, you get the basic concept of a Squeezeboxes puzzle—except instead of putting 1, 2, or 3 letters in each box, Trip has squeezed in 2 to 6 letters. Most of this crossword tumbled for me, except the zone around 25D (an [Actress on Silver Spoons]? Help! Uncle!), 15D, 24A, and 29A. I finally caved and Googled 25D, and the others fell into place soon after. 29A vexed me because the first part was not either of the two words that came to my mind, and I was blanking on what else could go there. The 24A clue, [Green coin?], completely stymied me for so long.
Trip, what was the construction process like for this puzzle? Just a lot of trial and error, noodling around in the grid? Where does one start to build a puzzle like this?
Updated later Sunday night:
Joan Buell's Los Angeles Times crossword
Easy puzzle, as expected on a Monday. Now, you probably think the NYT crossword was just as easy as this one, and you're probably right. I have no idea where all that extra time went when I was doing the NYT. Even though I had an errant body part in the LAT puzzle, I still got out in less than 3 minutes, so...
The theme is wearable items whose names begin with various lower-extremity terms. ANKLE BOOTS are clued as [Beatles footwear]—that went in the grid early and made me wonder if today is some significant date in Beatles history, for two puzzles to be devoted to them in a single day. But no, the other theme entries included HIP-HUGGERS, or [Pants with a low waistline] (mind you, in recent years, low-rise pants are everywhere but no longer called hip-huggers as far as I know); LEGWARMERS, or [Stockinglike workout wear], which seems off as a description of legwarmers but I'm not sure how else I'd clue 'em; and SHIN GUARDS, or a [Goalie's protective pair]. My misfire was putting KNEE GUARDS there. Hmm? Yes, I know. It's crazy. SHIN GUARDS are utterly Monday-obvious here, and yet I was expecting something KNEE and went with it.
Favorite entries:
• HANGMAN is a [Word game involving a stick figure]. You know who would be a tough Hangman opponent? A lexicographer, that's who.
• The [Spanish wine punch] is SANGRIA. Who doesn't welcome teeny diced-up fruit bits in their booze?
• DIII is [503, in old Rome]. My kid has been grooving on Scholastic 2010 Almanac For Kids this week (the Scholastic book fair was on Wednesday), and he was quizzing me on the Roman numerals over dinner. Also quizzing his parents on state capitals. Mind you, we were at a restaurant. He read from the book during the walk there, too.
Updated Monday morning:
Martin Ashwood-Smith's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Art House"—Janie's review
20A. PABLO PICASSO ["Three Musicians" artist]. From Wikipedia: "Picasso was exceptionally prolific throughout his long lifetime. The total number of artworks he produced has been estimated at 50,000, comprising 1,885 paintings; 1,228 sculptures; 2,880 ceramics, roughly 12,000 drawings, many thousands of prints, and numerous tapestries and rugs."
So it's no exaggeration when the two-part quip Martin builds his puzzle on has the master himself boasting:
• 36A. GIVE ME A MUSEUM
• 53A. AND I'LL FILL IT.
(A slacker he wasn't.)
Corollary: Give a constructor a grid and s/he'll fill it! Martin's done so in a lively way, too, with colloquial phrases like ACES IT for [Gets 100% on an exam] and "NOT ON A BET!" for ["Forget it!"]. There's also the Jack Benny-conjuring ["Now cut that out!"] for "STOP IT!" (If you use the link to this clip of Jack with Johnny Carson from 1955, you can hear him say it.)
He also gives us a couple of mini-themes. First there's the nautical one, as the puzzle begins at 1A. with [Captain of the Pequod] AHAB, followed shortly by "AHOY!" [Sailor's cry]—and "sailorman" [Popeye's favorite food] SPINACH. (GARP may have been the [Robin Williams title role of 1982] but Popeye was his title role of 1980.) [Dinghy or dory] clues BOAT, and finally there's RINGO STARR in response to ["Yellow Submarine" singer].
Then, there's the apparent tale of an AMOUR [Love affair] that's gone south, complete with a JILTER ["Dear John" letter writer], the ADIEUS [Parting words] and THE EX [Former spouse, informally] because there's more than one marriage that's also been a serious "love affair." Where affairs of the heart are concerned, do read up on Picasso.
Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "All Caps"
The [Buffoon in modern-day slang], ASSHAT, is hidden in five places covering 10 Across answers—the ASS part is in the five longest Across answers and the HAT appears right below ASS. Now, if you're wearing your ass as a hat because your head's so far up it, shouldn't it be a HEAD that the ASS is on rather than HAT? Just a thought.
The OBI is clued as a [Martial arts sash]. Good gravy, if obis are worn in martial arts (e.g., the black belt), why is this the first time (or close to it) that I've seen martial arts mentioned in an OBI clue? I vote that OBI should get a martial arts clue more often.
GRAPHS are clued as [Calculus homework]. Is that why I got a C in calculus? Because I don't remember there being any graphs? Maybe graphs would have gotten me an A.
OAT is a [Bagel ingredient]? Not usually, I don't think.
Excellent clue for PHAT: ["Cool," to those who think they're cool using rap slang].
No idea what ISOS might be short for. Anyone up on their [Instant replay cameras, for short]?
November 12, 2009
Friday, 11/13/09
NYT 5:57
BEQ 5:37
LAT 4:14
CHE 3:50
CS untimed
WSJ 8:07
Dana Motley's New York Times crossword
It's been a couple years since the last Dana Motley puzzle. You know what her themelesses are notable for? Rather than going with grids with longish stacked answers, triple-stacked 15s, or corner blocks filled with 7s, she spreads her long fill all around. Rumor has it such a grid is easier to fill than the stack-heavy ones are. One good thing about them from a solving standpoint is that the longer answers serve as bridges between the puzzle's various zones, so you can extend some footholds if you get a few long entries early on.
That said, there are some insanely tough clues here. For example, 1D: [Port near Ogre]. Ogre, it turns out, is a Latvian town of 26,000 that is ridiculously new for a European city, dating back only to 1928. And "Ogre" doesn't shout "must be Latvian" to most of us. The answer is RIGA, but that's a roundabout way to approach it. Speaking of place names that start with O, OSHKOSH is the 39A: [Seat of Winnebago County], Wisconsin—but there are counties by that name in Illinois and Iowa, too. OHIO is clued by way of being 59A: [Title locale in a Leonard Bernstein song where "life was so cozy"]. I relied on the crossings for all three of these. The other geo answer, ANGOLA (48D: [Cabinda is an exclave of it]), is the only place name the clue helped me to get.
Highlights in the fill:
• 17A. [Big wheels, often] clues GAS GUZZLER. Crossword clues more often use "big wheel" to mean a boss, so I like the change.
• 26A. Okay, this clue didn't help me much at all. [Funshine, Grumpy or Love-a-lot] is a CARE BEAR. Good answer, goofball clue that I am the wrong age to know.
• 60A. ACROPHOBIA is the [Source of high anxiety?]. Fear of heights, of course.
• 3D. [She's identified with a cause] clues POSTER GIRL.
• 18D. ZYDECO is a [Grammy category starting in 2007]. I saw Queen Ida and the Bon Temps Zydeco Band in college.
• 22D. WELCHERS, another spelling of welshers, are [Debt disregarders, slangily]. My dictionary says the word's origin is unknown, so don't get your knickers in a twist defending the morality of the Welsh people.
• 24D. ABSINTHE is the [Potent stuff called "the green fairy"]. I knew ABSINTHE was green, but not that it had this nickname.
• 30D. BOOSTER BOX is an [Item-concealing shoplifting aid]. Never heard of this one.
Other favorite clues:
• 10A. [Top or bottom, in baseball] clues a HALF of an inning. Here's why the clue makes me laugh.
• 38D. [1/768 gallon] is a TEASPOON. Remind me to tell this one to my kid.
• 50D. [One may give facts about acts] clues EMCEE. I was thinking of acts that are passed by Congress rather than entertainment acts introduced by an EMCEE.
Quibbles:
• 16A. [Stick out in a restaurant?] clues OLEO. Out where? On the table? I have never seen a stick of margarine on a restaurant table. Out in the restaurant kitchen? Boo to the clue.
• 21A. [American goldfinch] clues YELLOWBIRD or YELLOW BIRD. It is a small yellow bird. Wikipedia redirects yellowbird to the yellow warbler. Is this answer meant to be a specific bird name or just the description of a bird of a certain color? Because as a generic phrase, it's not good fill. It needs to be a specific term for something.
• 44A. [Opposite of me, in Munich] is SIE, which means "she," "they," or (when capitalized) the formal "you." I'd argue that "me" does not have an opposite, per se, and surely not an opposite with three distinct meanings. Ulrich or Zulema, back me up here.
• 53D. [Worrier's words] are "OH, ME"? Who says that? Anyone you know? "Oh, me, oh, my," sure. "Oh, my," of course. But not OH ME or AH ME, which keep showing up in crosswords. I have just consulted my husband about the utility of OH ME and AH ME and he said "no [bleep]ing way." It's fill like this that turns off newbies, isn't it? More so than OLEO? Maybe it's a tie.
Clues that may stymie:
• 6A. [Watch things, briefly] are LCDS. Meh.
• 29A. A spherical GLOBE of the earth is a [Meridian shower] in that it shows the location of the meridian and the equator.
• 47A. [Was an accountant?] clues NARRATED, as in "gave an accounting of a tale." Not wild about this clue.
• 56A. [NFL'er Olsen or Toler] clues GREG. Who? Husband tells me G. Olsen plays for the Bears.
• 67A. [They're applied to some backs] clues WAXES. As in the wax that's used to strip out body hair?
• 5D. [Sch. whose sports teams are the Violets] is NYU. Really? Did not know that. I like it. Violets are closely related to pansies. Pretty flowers.
• 7D. [Kale kin] is COLLARD, as in collard greens. Looks weird without "greens" appended to it.
• 27D. ["Dawson's Creek" role] is PACEY. Except that here, we need ANDIE. Who? Not one of the core four characters, ANDIE was played by Meredith Monroe, who played a 16-year-old when she was 30. Now, that's just silly. Andie MacDowell wants her clue back.
• 28D. [Chloe in "Uncle Tom's Cabin," e.g.] is an AUNT.
• 43D. [Dog for logs] is an ANDIRON. Not familiar with this use of "dog."
• 57D. EINE is a basic German word, one of the ways of saying "a." ["Nosferatu, ___ Symphonie des Grauens"] is missing its EINE.
Overall, I think this was harder than the usual Friday puzzle. And you?
Dan Naddor's Los Angeles Times crossword
The theme is "add an R to words that end with GE":
• RADAR RANGER is a [Park official who tickets speeding bears?]. Radar range is not familiar to me, but the Amana Radarange is.
• [Smallest allowable bet?] might be the MINIMUM WAGER. Minimum wage is certainly familiar.
• [Steals a plumbing supply?] clues TAKES THE PLUNGER. I'd clue that as [Steals a plumber's helper?] or [Steals a bathroom tool?] or something—I think of "plumbing supply" as being pipes and valves.
• [San Fernando creator of fake van Goghs?] could be a VALLEY FORGER. Speaking Valleyspeak, no doubt. "Grody to the max!"
• [Burrowing creature cited for excellence?] is MERIT BADGER. Brendan Quigley just had MERIT BADGE in a recent cigarette-themed puzzle.
Weirdest long fill: [Stereotypical pratfall cause] clues BANANA SKIN. SKIN?!? Not BANANA PEEL? Who calls it a BANANA SKIN? Not me.
James Sajdak's Chronicle of Higher Education crossword, "Produce Literature"
This week's CHE theme is works of literature with fruit in their titles. To accommodate two 15s and and two 16s, the grid's stretched a little taller. The books are THE CHERRY ORCHARD, A RAISIN IN THE SUN, THE GOLDEN APPLES, and THE GRAPES OF WRATH.
Favorite clues/answers:
• LARRUP means [Thrash].
• RICE CHEX is an [Ingredient in a certain party mix]. Would someone remind me to buy Rice Chex?
• ALLAH is a [Word spoken when reciting the shahada]. What's that? It's this, the ritual declaration of belief in Islam. (See also SALAAMS, [Respectful greetings].
• [Audacity] and MOXIE are more or less synonymous.
• [One with a heart of stone?] is a DRUPE. Apt for a puzzle with this theme—DRUPEs are stone fruit, like peaches, plums, and cherries. (See also: PEAR, [Popular compote fruit].
• DOORMAT is an [Overly unassertive person]. Not to be confused with a doorman (which differs by one letter).
• [Trooper on the highway, e.g.] is an ISUZU, as in the Isuzu Trooper SUV.
• Indy [500 letters?] are STP.
Who is this? [Field of White?] clues STYLE, but I can't think of a relevant person in fashion/style named White.
Updated Friday morning:
Martin Ashwood-Smith's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle,"Inland Seas"—Janie's review
In the world of cryptic puzzles, they're known as "hidden answers." These are the words that can be found by looking at the last letters of one word and joining them with the first letters of the next one. Today Martin's theme fill gives us two such examples and one in which the word in question (see title...) falls within another in its entirety. The beauty of this particular construction is that in each case, the "inland sea" occupies the seventh, eighth and ninth squares of the row it appears in. And there's a little bonus fill as well. The three places you'll find those hidden bodies of water are within:
• 17A. IS THIS SEAT TAKEN? [Moviegoer's question].
• 35A. PROPOSE A TOAST [Raise one's glass].
• 54A. JAPANESE ANEMONE [Showy garden plant of the buttercup family]. Attractive to members of the APHID [Garden pest] family, too, I fear. Today's IRISES are not clued botanically, but anatomically as [Pigmented eye parts]. Durn!
And bonus fill:
• 33D. SEA [Word in the center of all three long entries]. This one's intentional. Just in case the key element ELUDED [Gave the slip to] you... This one (I suspect), sitting right next to it, is not:
• 31D. SEAMS [Clothes lines?] Hmmm. Sure wish there'd been a way to avoid using this word...
Elsewhere, there's a healthy amount of longer fill, clued in a very straightforward way, so it's not too difficult to complete the grid—even with the likes of ROAST PIG [Luau food], MOUTHWASH [Listerine, for one] and ANACONDAS [Jungle crushers]. If they're on the loose, you might want to set out some SNARES [Game keepers?]. Ouch.
There's a little computer mini-theme going on in the Texas portion of the grid with EXE [Computer file suffix] adjacent to USER [Computer operator], which shares its "U" with
URL [Web browser entry].
But my fave combo today? No, not NESTLÉ [Crunch maker] or ORIOLE [Baltimore player], but TWO for [Tango requirement]. Sing out, Dean. Nowhere in this clip, however will you see a tango... Here you definitely will!
Elizabeth Gorski's Wall Street Journal crossword, "For Your Inner Child"
Wow, really? New York City has a PULASKI DAY PARADE? I had no idea. It's a government and school holiday here in Chicago, but I didn't know NYC celebrated Casimir Pulaski at all.
That and the other theme entries contain an "inner child," or KID. I'm not crazy about the theme answers, which don't feel all that natural to me. KHAKI DRESS? KABUKI DANCE, not drama? CHICKEN TERIYAKI DINNER, not steak and not lunch? What I like better is the long non-theme fill:
• 46A. SEX ORGANS are [Features of anatomically correct dolls]. People have 'em, too.
• 80A. WHACK JOBS are [Nutters].
• 92A. SAY PLEASE is a [Reminder from Mom]. I'm more circumspect than that. I say "Psst, did you tell her..." and then my KID says "please" or "thank you."
• 126A. [They may be dusted] clues CRIMES SCENES. Not, you'll note, my bookshelves and furniture.
• 4D. I like the SCULPTURE clue: [It might be a bust]. Indeed.
• 82D. Full name! JOHN DEREK [was married to Ursula Andress and Linda Evans]. Also, notably, to Bo Derek, but that would kinda give the answer away.
Most unusual fill: 30D: TUK, [Barbados musical style]. That one's new to me. I have seen FELLAH (54A: [Egyptian peasant]) before, but quite seldom.
Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "The Final Four"
The theme is the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, right? SUDDEN DEATH, FEAST OR FAMINE, ENOS SLAUGHTER, and THE ART OF WAR? Apparently not: They're Conquest, War, Famine, and Death, no Slaughter. So it's just four things that can be "final" in terms of your life?
I didn't care for I'M BAD, the [Little devil's observation], right at 1-Across. Had no idea an IN-RUN was a [Ski-jump feature]. Thought the commonest phrase was PUB CRAWLS, not BAR CRAWLS—haven't seen the latter. Grumbled at the clue [Last year that was a palindrome, in Roman numerals] for MMII, Roman for the Arabic number 2002. Does the word palindrome really apply to numbers? And oh, crap, now we're expected to know the names of Mad Men characters even though a vast majority of Americans do not watch the show?
I had some crazy typing today, so GRITH (GIRTH!) put an R in a Roman numeral, and MICS (MISC!) put the S in OFF-SCREEN (OFF-CAMERA!). D'oh. It's one of those mornings.
Highlights:
• AL LEWIS, Grandpa Munster, is the gubernatorial candidate at 25D.
• [Shock preventer: Abbr.] clues EMT. Took a while to make sense out of this: paramedics try to prevent you from going into shock.
• [Epic ___] FAIL.
• [Puzzler Trip] PAYNE! Howdy, Trip of Triple Play Puzzles fame.
October 31, 2009
Sunday, 11/1/09
NYT 9:46
BG 9:37
Reagle 7:53
LAT 7:50
CS 4:09
Big thanks to Crosscan for stepping in to review the Wall Street Journal puzzle on Friday, in addition to his weekly Gaffney/Daily Beast gig. (I haven't had time to look at either puzzle yet. Moving on!) And big thanks to Joon, too, for writing about the Friday BEQ, in addition to his weekly MGWCC post.
I'll be out trick-or-treating with Jango Fett and his friends when the New York Times puzzle comes out, so that part of my post will be hours late and sugar-fueled. In the meantime, there are other puzzles available earlier on Saturday, including this one:
Merl Reagle's syndicated crossword, "Puzzle of the Month"
Given the title, it didn't take much work to notice that there's a NOV (November) hidden in that first theme entry, CONVECTION OVEN. "Oh, yay," I said to myself. "A boring trigram hidden in the theme answers." But then the further I got into the puzzle, the more and more of these theme entries I uncovered, and the theme grew on me. Look at all the NOVs in there! I circled 16 of 'em, and 12 of them appear as adjoining pairs. To fit in a whopping 16 themers (even if they're not terribly long) without marring the fill is an accomplishment. The whole puzzle has Merl's light touch, too. The only real "Huh?" answer I encountered was 30A: TANI, [Japanese actress Yoko or U.S. astronaut Daniel], but all its crossings were solid.
My list of favorites among the regular clues:
• 84D. [Words after home, not hone] clues IN ON. Yes! The phrase is "home in on."
• 62A. [Part of a closing act?] is a SUTURE.
• 2D. [Hi, in HI] is ALOHA.
• 69D. [Misers, in Milan] are AVARI. I absolutely did not know this Italian word, but I'm guessing it's closely related to avarice.
And now, the theme entries, clued straight except for the last two Across ones:
• 20A. TERRA NOVA is [Capt. Scott's ice ship that means "Newfoundland" in Latin]. Didn't know this one at all aside from putting together the Latin.
• 23A. [It really cooks] clues a CONVECTION OVEN. This one runs under the preceding answer.
• 42A. PORTO NOVO is [Benin's capital]. Geography!
• 53A. [Real-life don Vito] is mobster Vito GENOVESE. The end hooks up with the beginning of...
• 60A. CASANOVA, [Lover-boy], who is stacked together with...
• 63A. BORIS BADENOV, the cartoon [Spy from Pottsylvania].
• 75A. [Singer whose "I Just Wanna Stop" was a Top Ten hit in 1978] is GINO VANELLI. He's partnered with...
• 83A. KIM NOVAK, who was, among other things, a ["Picnic" co-star]. Her AK is atop the RE of...
• 88A. RENOVATE, or [Give a new face]. This answer, TERRA NOVA, and PORTO NOVO all use the NOV in the service of a word root meaning "new." This sort of duplication would normally not be kosher.
• 96A. DIME NOVEL is an [Early paperback]. If you're a buff of vintage paperbacks, you'll enjoy Rex Parker's "Pop Sensation" blog, spotlighting the lurid covers.
Moving along to the Downs before ending with Merl's grand finale pair:
• 16D. RHINOVIRUS is the common [Cold culprit]. Multiple Facebook/blog friends have reported that their kids are sick with H1N1 flu right now. It hasn't hit my son's school—yet. It's coming, isn't it? I'm waiting for vaccination to not entail standing in line for three hours. Hmm.
• 17D. Right beside RHINOVIRUS is NO VISITORS, a [Quarantine order]. Speaking of the flu...
• 72D. [Father Guido Sarducci of "SNL" reruns] is DON NOVELLO. He stands beside...
• 73D. JUDY CANOVA, a [1940s actress known for her yodeling hillbilly roles]. What a claim to fame. This takes us back to the bottom for the closing...
• 120A. [How I hope you don't feel right about now] is IN OVER YOUR HEAD. Hooray for YOUR instead of the standoffish ONE'S. I declare this to be the SethG Tribute Answer.
• 125A. [What I hope you don't need right about now] is NOVOCAINE.
No local anesthetic needed here! Fun puzzle with the discovery of an inordinately large number of theme answers. The theme also helped point me in the right direction a few times, since knowing there would be a NOV somewhere narrowed things down.
Updated Saturday night:
Matt Ginsberg and Pete Muller's New York Times crossword, "Compound Fractures"
All right, guys, now you're just showing off. Intricately wrought theme in which each pair of words overlap by 5 letters to form a fake portmanteau word and you came up with 12 of them and you have the two Down ones somehow intersecting with three Acrosses each? Good one.
I'm not sure if the slowness of the solve relates to theme difficulty or if the rest of the puzzle is also unusually hard. What say you? I had wine and candy for dinner while trick-or-treating, so I can't say.
Here's how the theme plays out:
• 22A. [Eyewear providing hindsight?] are RETROSPECTACLES. The overlapping letters are in bold. I do not need a pair of retrospectacles, as my hindsight is better than 20/20.
• 29A. This clue kept me pondering for a while. [Peanut-loving ghost?] clues an ELEPHANTOM. The pink ones are most common.
• 32A. [Intermittent revolutionary?] is a SPORADICAL. This word applies to plenty of people during their college years.
• 43A. [Rare mushroom?] might be a PSYCHEDELICACY. I was looking for the first component to be a mushroomy noun, but the clue's nouniness is embodied by the second component.
• 56A. [Give up smuggled goods?] clues CONTRABANDON.
• 71A. I bought myself all sorts of trouble by spelling 61D: [Mad man?] as Alfred E. NEWMAN rather than the correct NEUMAN. That impeded my ability to see that [High-school athletic star at a casino?] is ROULETTERMAN.
• 81A. The late, great Les Paul appears as [Noble Les Paul?], a GUITARISTOCRAT. If anyone's a guitaristocrat, this is.
• 99A. This one's almost poetic. PERHAPSODY is ["Maybe" music?].
• 101A. {Dreams that don't die?] are the lovely FOREVERIES.
• 108A. [Bug that never takes a ride?] is a CENTIPEDESTRIAN. This one feels a hair off because the only way to get 5 letters of overlap is to have the plural critters that vanish in the final combo clue.
• 21D. [Like online medical advice for kids?] is WIKIPEDIATRIC.
• 44D. [Vegetable that gives you an emotional release?] is the surreal CATHARTICHOKE.
There's only time and energy for five from the fill:
• 69A. [1989 Madonna hit] is "OH, FATHER" and I have never heard of it.
• 26A. [Game in which a player may be schneidered] clues SKAT, a card game which is now played primarily within crosswords. I know "schneidered" from sheepshead, a card game popular in Wisconsin (birthplace of Les Paul!).
• 16D. [Mettle or metal] clues STEEL, figuratively and literally.
• 90A. [Man's name meaning "young man"] is SVEN.
• 63D. [Opposite of plus] is PETITE in terms of women's apparel sizing. I would have been flummoxed by the clue but I've seen similar ones once or twice recently in other puzzles I've done. (Same with 36A: [Hearing aids, briefly] for PAS, meaning public address systems.)
Nice to see Martin YAN make an appearance. Did you watch 34A: ["___ Can Cook" (onetime PBS show)]? I'd think we'd see him in the puzzle more often, but no. YIN/YEN/YON hog the glory.
Updated Sunday morning:
Robert Harris's syndicated Los Angeles Times crossword, "That Hurts!"
The theme here involves inserting an OW to change the meaning of various words or phrases. For instance, [Rollerblading partner of movie camera pioneer Bell?] is HOWELL ON WHEELS, "hell on wheels" with an extra OW. (Is Bell & Howell really the go-to HOWELL? Not Thurston Howell III from Gilligan's Island?) [Borders for oval paintings?] clues BOWED FRAMES but lacks any real humor. The base phrase, "bed frame," is flat and so is the concept of a curved picture frame. There were no horrible crossings or anything like that, but nothing in this puzzle really captivated me, and a couple entries (e.g., SEEMER, or [Pretender]) were off-putting. I know for a fact that I'm not in a good mood so it might be more me than the puzzle.
The biggest surprise was at 1A: [Illinois-based brewery], 5 letters? What on earth could that be? Turns out to be PABST. The Wikipedia article about Pabst Brewing Company tells me that it's a holding company that has bought up a bunch of defunct brands and kept them going—Stroh, Schaefer, Schlitz, Lone Star, Old Style, and more. I had no idea.
Martin Ashwood-Smith's CrosSynergy/Washington Post "Sunday Challenge"
I solved this one upside down, not knowing what the three 15s at the top were from their clues. I tackled the middle and bottom and eventually remembered that I'd get the top 15s much more quickly if I used the crossing clues. Duh! Favorite 15s:
• 17A. JONATHAN WINTERS is great. He's 83 now so no, we don't see too much of him anymore. The clue, ["Viva Max!" actor], refers to a 1969 movie I'd never heard of.
• 36A. The Britney [Spears album of 2000], OOPS, I DID IT AGAIN, is a somewhat dated reference but it's such a goofy title that I think it will remain in the lexicon.
Other clues:
• 34D. [Millionths of a meter] clues MICRA. I thought the plural of micron was microns, but the dictionary accepts both. Scientists use micrometer, abbreviated µm, rather than micron.
• 28A. [Like Mitch Miller, e.g.] is GOATEED. Mitch is 98 years old now, and I'm surprised to learn that he's still alive. His heyday was before I was born, but the Grammy folks gave him a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. I needed a lot of crossings to get GOATEED.
• 58A. [Private meeting] clues ONE-ON-ONE SESSION. If that were a legitimate Scrabble entry, it would get you a mere 15 points.
• 44D. [Heads overseas?] aren't toilets, they're TETES, "heads" in France.
• 54D. [Spain's Victoria Eugenia, familiarly] was called ENA. This is often clued as Bambi's aunt.
Henry Hook's Boston Globe crossword, "Travel On"
Like the L.A. Times puzzle, this crossword has an add-2-letters theme—GO this time. Like Merl's puzzle, this one has some stacked pairs of theme entries. And like the other puzzles this morning, nothing grabbed me. Could be me and not the puzzle.
Favorite theme entry: SINGAPORE GOSLINGS, or [Not exactly Peking ducks?].
Less savory answers: OTARU, OSCAN, TWO-D, ABOHMS, U CANT, Heidi BOHAY.
Vocabulary word for the day: EDACITY is [Voraciousness].
Mystery question mark: The clue for MONTANE is [Range-dwelling?]. Because it's mountain ranges as opposed to wide-open ranges? Okay.
October 19, 2009
Tuesday, 10/20/09
Jonesin' 5:46
NYT 2:57
LAT 2:36
CS untimed
Gary Cee's New York Times crossword
Wouldn't it be great if some of Gary Cee's relatives became wildly famous? Finally, constructors could clue CEE as something other than the pretty-much-only-in-crosswords spelled-out form of the letter C. Then we need to work on finding the Ess family and spurring them to greatness.
The theme is explained by SHIFT GEARS: In each of the other four theme entries, the letters of GEARS are scrambled up into non-words that are buried within longer phrases. SHIFTing GEARS could also mean that each letter would shift over one space, but that's not what happens here. The [View from the Oval Office] is the ROSE GARDEN. Hey, look! It's Popeye creator E.C. Segar, lurking on the White House lawn! CHIVAS REGAL (in which the final A could be circled instead of the other A) is a [Premium Scotch whiskey] brand. OLD-TIMERS GAME is an [Event featuring sports stars of yesteryear]; I'll take the puzzle's word for it that this is an actual thing. The final scramble is in SAUSAGE ROLL, or [Pastry sold at pizzerias].
What I liked:
• 50D. TOFFEE gets a weird clue: [Chewy coating for an apple]. Naw, that's caramel. TOFFEE is delightful, but I haven't ever seen a toffee apple. If I did, mind you, I would pay good money for it. Num. Toffeeeee.
• 15A. [Dame who's a hoot] is Dame EDNA Everage. The most hoot-associated of all the EDNAs who show up in crosswords, for sure.
• The combination of the CAT ([Litter box visitor]) and FETAL ([Like an unborn baby's position]) reminds me of these little fetuses made of polyfleece and stuffed with catnip.
• 12D. Nobody loves a plural first name answer, but CARLAS goes au courant when clued as [France's Bruni-Sarkozy and others].
• 22D. The ORANGE is a [Tropicana fruit]. Technically, I'm more of a Copacabana girl.
I wasn't so fond of the abbreviations (ORIG. DEPS., Athens airport code ATH, ASST. D.A., LT. GEN.) and partials (A BITE, A PAR, ARE UP) but overall, a solid Tuesday presentation.
Updated Tuesday morning:
Martin Ashwood-Smith's CrosSynergy/Washington Post Puzzle, "Foodies"—Janie's review
Well this was one surprisingly odd solve. And I'm not sure I mean that in the kindest possible way. Martin's finely crafted puzzles ordinarily delight me; today's left me confounded. The theme is very straight-forward: food last-names of four high-profile types from different walks of life. They are:
• 17A. CONDOLEEZZA RICE [She preceded Hillary Clinton]. A great and scrabbly name, to be sure—15 letters, too. But she appeared as theme fill just less than two weeks ago (also clued in connection with H.C.), which kinda diminishes the impact of her appearance today. Sorry, Condi...
• 24A. KEVIN BACON ["Loverboy" star]. Star and director. A project the whole family looks to have been involved with. Until today, never heard of it...
• 46A. HALLE BERRY ["Catwoman" star].
• 59A. "MEADOWLARK" LEMON [Basketball's "Clown Prince"]. He was new to me, too, but not the Harlem Globetrotters, whom he played for.
"What's her problem? What's wrong with the theme?" Everybody's reasonably well-known; and yes, all of the surnames are foods—but not in any way that adds coherence to the theme as a whole. Or in any combination that sounds palatable. I kept hoping for something that would tie these disparate ingredients together, and did have a modicum of success finding recipes combining rice and bacon, e.g., or rice and lemon, or wheatberry, rice and lemon. But it shouldn't take a scavenger hunt to try to synthesize the elements of the theme. So that's my problem.
That said, I did appreciate the amount of (what I see as) theme-related bonus fill. In a puzzle about food, we get [Twinge], which takes us to PANG, which leads me to think of "hunger pang." What does a hungry person do to attend to that pang? In an ideal world, s/he [Chows down]/EATS. Perhaps some BRIE [French cheese]—and shares with an AMIE [French friend]. [Then there's MAPLE clued as [Syrup flavor], conjuring up blueberry pancakes topped with maple syrup. Meadowlark Lemon comes into play once again, this time as a [Drink garnish], or PEEL. And how is all of this served up? Why, it's [Easy ___ ] AS PIE (not to be confused with AS PER [In accordance with]).
I think I'd have preferred seeing "THE SWAN" (a tv show I'd never heard of...) clued in connection with mythology's Leda or the Molnar play rather than the poorly-rated [Fox reality TV series of 2004], which one viewer described as "a shrieking abomination of a show." Well, I suppose the pairing does have some kitsch value...
Several clue/fill combos I did like include: [Winter coat?]/SNOW (for the wordplay), [Poise]/APLOMB (because aplomb is a great word, being tied in as it is with plummet and plumb line), and [Brought forth, as a memory]/EVOKED (this combo has a nice, poetic feel). The puzzle isn't without its merits. The theme as executed today, however, simply isn't not one of them. Imoo, of course.
Bruce Venzke's Los Angeles Times crossword
Did you ever notice that the entry **TSUP can be completed with two permutations of the same pair of letters? I filled in CATSUP before seeing the clue, [Acts bratty], indicating ACTS UP.
The theme entries are clued with [Suffering writer's block]: If you are COMING UP EMPTY, FRESH OUT OF IDEAS, and DRAWING A BLANK, your creative endeavors may not be progressing well. These woes can strike crossword bloggers, too. A few highlights:
• ARMY MULE is a [Military mascot]. Like its fellow lively 8s TOP-NOTCH and EATS DIRT (and the less exciting INDEBTED), ARMY MULE hooks two theme entries together.
• 10-Down PASTA is a [Carbo-loader's choice] and Dr. ATKINS was the [Diet guru who wouldn't have recommended 10-Down]. Mmm, carbs.
Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword, "Mixed Reviews"
Was this puzzle uncommonly tough for a Jonesin' or was I just sleepy last night when I solved it? I was too tired to blog the crossword by the time I finished it. The theme is movie titles clued by their anagrams, in the guise of what a reviewer might've said. I'm fond of anagrams, but when the answers aren't familiar and the clues don't give much away (other than which letters are in the answer, in some order), it's tough. I've heard of 2.5 out of the five movies:
• 17A. I know there've been a few Madea movies by Tyler Perry, but MADEA GOES TO JAIL? Not ringing a bell. The clue is [Review #1: "I, a male? A good jest."]. The MADEA part was signaled by the clue (Madea is Tyler Perry in drag), but the JAIL portion? I had no idea.
• 23A. [Review #2: "Filmy ennui, sir."] clues MY LIFE IN RUINS. No idea what this movie is.
• 36A. [Review #3: "O, burn!"] clues BRUNO, this year's Sacha Baron Cohen movie.
• 43A. ["Review #4: 'Dat the 'S.N.L.' fool?"] points towards the Will Ferrell (ex-SNLer) movie, LAND OF THE LOST
• 53A. [Review #5: "Re-perks, eyes mist"] relays zero information about the movie. Lemme look up MY SISTER'S KEEPER. Oh, it's that one. Tearjerker about a girl conceived to serve as a tissue donor for her ill sister. OK, the clue does provide salient information. The title made me think it was a horror movie for some reason.
I see a couple dictionaries telling me that blowsy and blowzy work for 39D: [Unkempt], but BLOUSY...isn't that a casual word describing anything that blouses out like a blouse?
I knew 27D: [___-1 ("Ghostbusters" vehicle)] right off the bat—my son plays the Ghostbusters video game and tells me about ECTO-1.
Not a fan of the answer Y KEY. 24D is clued [You can't type "you" without it]. The Y KEY? Boo! I don't want to see 25 other _KEY answers popping up in crosswords.
Took me a while to summon up CLORETS, the 40D: [Breath mints brand since 1951]. No wonder: Wikipedia tells me "It is widely available in South America, the Middle East and South East Asia. The largest markets for Clorets are in Mexico, Thailand, Egypt and Japan." I haven't seen CLORETS in years.
October 08, 2009
Friday, 10/9/09
NYT 4:52
CHE 3:38
LAT 3:24
BEQ 5:12 when I gave up on 2 squares, which eventually came to me
CS untimed
WSJ 8:24
David Quarfoot's New York Times crossword
Yay! A new David Quarfoot puzzle! If you know his work, you got what you were expecting: A crossword filled with lively phrases and names, with plenty of Scrabbly letters in the mix. There's so much juicy stuff here. To wit:
I had a big "huh?" moment with 27A. Were you hoping for a fresh clue for EBOLI, like ["Don Carlos" princess]? Or were you hoping not to see that answer at all?
This one settled in at the usual Friday level of toughness for me. How about you?
Cathy Allis's Chronicle of Higher Education crossword, "Roman Numerals"
Oh! Another Cathy Allis crossword. Seeing her name in the byline spurred me to go print out the last couple GeoPuzzles from National Geographic. (October's puzzle is about the Sahara and September's is orchids.)
The theme's got nothing to do with I, V, X, L, C, D, M Roman numerals—instead, it's the numbers used in modern Rome, in the service of puns:
Rome came into play elsewhere, too. LATIN is 52A: [Source of much legalese], ET TU is 23D: [Ides rebuke], ERAT is 23A: [Part of QED], and the TOGA is 50A: [Forum wrap]. Scooch over to France for ADIEU, or 26D: [Farewell], and to partially Francophone Canada for 45D: [Former Canadian Prime Minister Lester] PEARSON. Head back to Europe for ODESSA, a 33A: [Ukraine port], and the TSAR, or 55D: [Ruler's title derived from "Caesar"]. Then head down to the Middle East—EL AL is 13D: [Matmid Frequent Flyer Club airline], the RIYAL is 30D: [Saudi coin], and everybody's near Turkey. I wasn't sure which IRA* country I needed for 14A: [Neighbor of Turkey]—IRAQ or IRAN? It's IRAN here, but down at 59A, the other [Neighbor of Turkey] calls for IRAQ.
Dan Naddor's Los Angeles Times crossword
I love this "GO crazy" theme. There are five familiar phrases to which you can append a GO and completely change the gist of the phrase:
I went to onelook.com to find other ___go words that could lend themselves to this sort of theme. Sheepish grin(go). Clown car(go). "Hola, chica"(go). Deafening din(go). Duran(go) Duran(go), with lead singer Simon Le(go) Bon(go). A Bridge Too Far(go). "Ain't we got fun"(go). "Bain de Soleil for the St. Tropez tan"(go). So Dan didn't exhaust all the possibilities, no, but he did come up with a fun way to build a theme and created some surprising combos. The mental whiplash from Asia turning into ASIAGO and Maya Lin becoming MAYAN LINGO was terrific, just what I like in a late-week themed puzzle. Ideally, the non-theme clues would be tougher, but it was still a satisfying solve.
Highlights in the fill: DENNY'S restaurant, the TOP BRASS, ANN ARBOR, WHISPERS (clued well as [Library volumes?]), and T.S. GARP ([Fictional author of "The World According to Bensenhaver"] in the John Irving novel The World According to Garp).
Updated Friday morning:
Martin Ashwood-Smith's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Just Visiting"—Janie's review
That is one beautiful, open grid. Don't let it frighten you! Yes, the word count is a low-end 72 (low-end for a themed puzzle), but don't let this frighten you either! In fact, any words of advice I can give you as you approach this puzzle can be paraphrased by incorporating today's theme-fill (if not the theme) itself. The theme sketches out the three phases of a visit with three little words in long and lively phrases. And they are:
While perhaps not imbued with the immortality of "veni, vidi, vici," the tri-part "come, stay, go" will resonate with anyone who's been a house guest or been host to one—and the one-two (-three) punch made me laugh out loud. It also made me think of (what sounds to me like) the verse to "Hooray for Captain Spaulding" from the Marx brothers' Animal Crackers, which begins with Groucho's singing "Hello, I must be going." (This lyric is also the title of a Groucho biography). If you're unfamiliar with the song or would like a reminder of what zany is all about, this link's for you.
When a composer's or [Musical arranger's work]—a SCORE—has been performed particularly well or is particularly crowd-pleasing, the audience may register their enthusiasm by shouting "ENCORE!" in their quest for ["More!"]. Stage actors sometimes hear this after a performance. I imagine (Sir) LAURENCE [Actor Olivier] heard it more than once in his long and illustrious career.
While most of the cluing is pretty straightforward today, I'll just list some of the other fill that helped give this puzzle its oomph—namely, COCONUTS ([with "The"], the title of another Marx brothers movie in fact), TAPESTRIES, ANIMOSITY, JUICE and JOTTING, and TIME BOMB, of course. Some serious "oomph" there!
Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Progressive Thinking—Flute solos optional"
The subtitle reminded me that Brendan was crowd-sourcing prog rock bands via Twitter and Facebook this week. So he wasn't looking for iTunes recommendations, he was looking for theme fodder. I ponied up with "ELO?" and was pleased to see it made the cut—repurposed as the chess term ELO RATING (36A: [Gary Kasparov's was 2853]). The other theme entries:
My favorite word in the fill: 44D: OROGENY, or [Mountain-making process, in geology]. Orogeny recapitulates...no, that's not right. Someday I'll make a science nerd puzzle with OROGENOUS ZONES in it.
Harvey Estes' Wall Street Journal crossword, "Come Together"
The grid's got left/right symmetry instead of the standard rotational crossword symmetry, and the theme entries don't occupy much real estate. That means there's more room for lively fill, and Harvey's also loaded up on great clues. The drop-a-letter theme has a grander purpose—the letters dropped from each song title, in order, spell out something apt. Here's how the theme unfurls:
Among the zippier fill were words and phrases like GET BENT, DINGBAT, SHEBANG, and SOAPBOX, along with these ones with clues I enjoyed:
Overall, I'll give this puzzle a solid A for excellence.
