Onion 5:37 with one wrong square
BEQ 5:37 with one wrong square
NYT 3:12
LAT 2:30
CS untimed
Happy birthday to constructor Kevin Der! Caleb Madison and Michael Sharp's present is a crossword for Kevin, posted at the Crossword Fiend forum, and you can do the puzzle too. (Available in Across Lite and printable PDF.)
Maura Jacobson's New York Times crossword
Today's Notepad says, in part:Maura Jacobson, of Hartsdale, N.Y., published her first crossword in the Sunday Times on March 6, 1955. Her popular weekly series of puzzles for New York magazine began in 1978.
Maura has also been the traditional constructor of puzzle #6 at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, and she's made an ACPT crossword for something like 31 straight years.
Today's offering riffs on the title of a movie which which I have no familiarity, making it part of an arithmetic story:
Where do Americans usually bathe? IN A TUB ([Place for three men of verse]) IN THE U.S.A. ([Where Springsteen was born]), that's where. Would you label both of those partial entries, or just the latter?
Answers that might be unfamiliar to newer solvers, but that old hands probably know by now:
Michael Blake's Los Angeles Times crossword
The "five things that mean the same thing" theme can play out as uninspired, but I like the idiomatic zing of 80% of this theme. [Really exhausted] clues these five answers:
Like Monday's L.A. Times puzzle, this one is pretty easy and has a bundle of 7-letter answers in the corners. Is it really Wednesday?
BULWARK! That's a cool word. It means 41D: [Defensive wall]. I haven't got much else to say about this puzzle, but I did like the colorful theme entries. Also? I wasn't kidding about feeling all TUCKERED OUT. See you tomorrow!
Updated Wednesday morning:
Randall Ross's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Play Me a Couple of Bars"—Janie's review
This is a very ambitious puzzle which, while it does offer us a SERENADE, has little to do with bars of music. Instead, each word of the two-word theme phrases can be followed by the word bar (or bars) as in something you can hold on to or a counter where you can order food or drinks or... Well—there's a lot of theme fill and a wide variety of bars, so lets take a look at:
Why did I call Randy's effort ambitious? Because at times I feel the reach of the theme exceeds its grasp. Handle cash has the sound of a contrived phrase. To my ear—which says that handle the cash is the idiomatic phrase. Then there's that clue for side salad: [Small order of veggies]. A "small order of veggies" could be broccoli, or half an ear of corn or a YAM. Why not something like [Small order of leafy greens] since lettuce equates with salad more naturally than, say, cauliflower...
And then we come to 40D [Raymond Burr detective role]... which is IRONSIDE. Now the first thing I noticed here was -SIDE—which repeats the theme fill at 18A. This gives us two side bars. And what's this? Now we have IRON BARS as well. Additionally, this "bonus" crosses two "official" theme-fill entries. I may be in the minority here, but I wish Randy had resisted the temptation to include this quasi-bonus theme fill. For my money, it's a pretender and with that repeated -side especially, muddies the impact of this theme-rich puzzle. How do you feel about this?
Other items in the plus column (and there are several):
Deb Amlen's Onion A.V. Club crossword
A few weeks ago, Deb reported on Facebook that she was stuck on a final theme entry for a puzzle, so we IMed and brainstormed until I thought of what became 42-Across and she liked it (after pooh-poohing, rightfully, the other things I came up with). My first time having my words published in the Onion! Would you believe that's not my favorite theme answer, though? True story. Here's the theme:
With two 15s, two 14s, and a pair of 5s, this is a hefty theme. Sixty-eight squares? That is what accounts for a few more unfamiliarities than usual. 6A: ["There is no Dana. Only ___!"] is...well, it's not from The X-Files, that much I know. I don't know where ZOOL is from. Google tells me it's Ghostbusters, which I just watched a couple weeks ago, but it's spelled Zuul. (Whatever the spelling, I wouldn't have gotten it unless you asked me right after I saw that movie.) The second O begins OLF, or 8D: [Odor emission unit]. It's derived from "olfactus" so it makes sense but it was completely unknown to me. I guessed right there, but had a rougher time where 32A: [Brand of aseptically packaged tomatoes and sauces]/POMI met the last letter of 19D: [Rastafarian phrase expressing oneness between God and humanity]/I AND I. Both are new to me.
Most embarrassing wrong idea: For 4D: ["Love is the only force capable of turning an enemy into a friend" speaker, familiarly], M**, my first thought was MR T. Er, no. 'Twas MLK.
I like 27D: [Beginning, slangily]/GIT-GO. Did you know 6D: ZEROTH is a word? It's an [Ordinal that kind of seems fake but isn't].
Updated Wednesday afternoon:
Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Something for Nothing"
In a weird parallel, this puzzle took me exactly as long as the Onion puzzle, I had one wrong square in both, and I knew one entry in advance. I wouldn't have known that [Press and hold the Play/Pause and Menu buttons on an iPod, e.g.] meant RESET without that foreknowledge. The wrong square was where NAS meets NANS. I read the "moms" in [Mom's moms for short] as the urban singular, as in "my moms" referring to one parent. NANS? What the hell is that? Who calls their nana "nan"? Yes, I've heard of NAS, but figured [Member of the hip hop supergroup The Firm] could just as well be an unfamiliar NAA. *grumble*
WHOMSO, the dictionary tells me, is an archaic word. The clue, [Someone, objectively], doesn't hint at the word's archaic nature. *grumble*
The theme is a JOHN CAGE quote, IF SOMEONE SAYS / "CAN'T," THAT / SHOWS YOU / WHAT TO DO. The layout and the awkward split (CAN'T and THAT want to be split up thanks to the comma) and the very quoteness of the theme? *grumble*
Love the word JEJUNE, which is clued as [Kinda blah]. How many TVs these days still have a HOR(izontal) control? That's the old [TV measurement]. Couldn't think of what the [Company with the five-pointed crown logo] was until the crossings gave me the ROL and then it was so obvious: ROLEX. "FERNANDO" is [ABBA's biggest-selling single of all time]? That seems wrong. I'd choose "Knowing Me, Knowing You" or "Dancing Queen."
September 15, 2009
Wednesday, 9/16/09
December 02, 2008
Wednesday, 12/3
Onion 5:30
Tausig 4:02
LAT 3:50
Sun 3:44
NYT 3:23
CS 3:09
(updated at 9:20 Wednesday morning)
I enjoyed both the Sun and NYT crosswords I just solved. Michael Blake's New York Times puzzle has a FOUR-WAY STOP tying together the other four theme entries, in each of which an initial S becomes a P (an S-to-P change, four ways):
In the fill, there are plenty of names. COUNT BASIE, the ["Jumpin' at the Woodside" composer/bandleader], is the showiest, but he's keeping company with Pia ZADORA (since when is Pia in the clue and ZADORA in the grid?), the late YMA Sumac, Muhammad ALI, KRIS Kringle, Tiny TIM, RICKI Lake, Francis LAI, IRMA Rombauer, URIAH Heep, ANG Lee, DARYL [Hall of fame] (great clue!), [Winner of 2008] Barack OBAMA, ELSIE the [Borden cow], and ERIK, the [Edgar-winning writer Larson] (he wrote The Devil in the White City). TOM'S is clued as [___ of Maine toothpaste], a natural brand (not to be confused with Tom of Finland beefcake photography). Carrot Top is a person, while CARROT CAKE [often has cream cheese frosting]. [Floride, e.g.] looks like a misspelled word from chemistry, but it's un ETAT, the state of Florida in French. The [2006 Nintendo debut] is the WII game console.
Vic Fleming's Sun crossword, "Breaking the Fourth Wall," isn't about TV characters talking straight to the camera—it's about crossword answers breaking through that 15x15 wall that usually pens them in. Three answers go one square too far beyond each wall (the long one in the center breaks two walls):
Definitely a cool gimmick, and not such a hard one to figure out if you've seen other crosswords that play with the format in similar ways.
I don't think the clue for ANEMIA is on target. It says [What a deficiency of folic acid causes]. What's commonly called anemia is a hemoglobin deficiency. (Remember Evonne Goolagong and her '70s vitamin commercials with talk of "iron-poor blood" in an Australian accent?) Folate deficiency can cause, Wikipedia tells me, macrocytic/megaloblastic anemia, and that is treated with tons of vitamin B-12 and folic acid rather than with iron. Is there a doctor in the house? Does the clue work for you?
The Sun puzzle's fill is pretty Scrabbly, with a HAJJ and a QUIZ, EXEMPT and a TV SET, UNTUCKED and a PB AND J sandwich.
The Onion A.V. Club crossword by Byron Walden has a whimsical political theme. The theme answers in this 16x15 extra-wide puzzle occupy pairs of 8's, 9's, and 16's, and they spell out assorted "White House items bequeathed from 43 (Bush) to 44 (Obama):
Other presidential content: [W., e.g.] is an INITIAL. [Like 43 but not 44] clues ODD (as in odd numbers, not odd men). Campaign SIGNS are [Yard objects, at election time].
Favorite clues: [Defense establishment?] is an ALIBI. Your [Duff] is your REAR, while Hilary [Duff rival, once] was Lindsay LOHAN. GIRD is clued [You can do this to your loins]. [You can believe it's not butter] clues OLEO; damn straight.
Oniony stuff: A [Cougar, perhaps] may be a MILF. Your BFF, or best friend forever, is a [Chum, in modern shorthand]. ["Keep it in your ___"] clues PANTS. [Dick caught while urinating outdoors] is ANDY Dick. [Vomits] is used to clue SPEWS.
Tough stuff: [Rover's irritant] is a FLEABITE. [Dharma teacher] is a LAMA. The [Absurdist genre associated with Jasper Johns] is NEO-DADA. TOP UP means to [Fill to the brim, in a pub], and is also the phrase my Volkswagen uses when I'm low on wiper fluid: "Top up wash fluid," it says. ACCUTANE is the [Brand name for the acne drug isotretinoin].
The fill's got six chunky zones of themeless-style white space, lots of Waldenesque long answers interlocking.
Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader puzzle, "Bear With Me," echoes Tuesday business headlines with 58-Across. DOW DROPS answers the clue [All-too-frequent headline these days, and the inspiration for this puzzle]. Each of the other four theme entries drops a DOW from a familiar phrase:
My favorite answers: BRAND-NEW, "NO CAN DO," DAWDLE, Judge WAPNER, DONE FOR, and GARBANZO beans. And look! It's [Tennis star Goolagong], or EVONNE. I hadn't seen this puzzle yet when I mentioned her earlier in this post. Zestiest clues: ["The Dead ___ Scrolls: The Lost Teachings of Hip-Hop"] is missing EMCEE. I'd never heard of the Saul Williams book of poetry before, but the title is great. IRONIC is clued as [Like none of the scenarios in a certain Alanis Morissette hit]; the song is called "Ironic." [Israeli coinage] is SHEKELS, actual coins, and not coined words.
Updated:
Dan Naddor's LA Times crossword describes things by where they fall in a list of similar entities:
I don't recall seeing a theme like this before. In the fill, ASIAN is clued as [Afghani, for one]. "Afghan" is the predominant word used to refer to a person from Afghanistan, and [Afghan, for one] would have been a much trickier clue—some solvers would have thought of blankets and Afghan hounds rather than people. (Missed opportunity in cluing mayhem.)
Ray Hamel calls his CrosSynergy puzzle "Fodder Time" because each theme entry ends with some farm animal fodder. The first two are verb phrases and the second pair are nouns:
Have you seen a crossword answer that's got six vowels and no consonants before? ["Absolutely, monsieur!"] clues OUI, OUI.
December 01, 2008
Tuesday, 12/2
Jonesin' 4:51
CS 3:46
NYT 3:23
Sun 3:20
LAT 2:54
Matt Ginsberg is one of those constructors who enjoy playing around with the crossword rules to see how far the format will bend. In his New York Times crossword, the goal is to toss in a surfeit of short theme answers while dispensing with the expectation of strict theme symmetry. The theme entries all combine to make a terrible DIN (41-Across) of onomatopoeia. The five longest ones are placed symmetrically:
The shorter sounds are:
10A. BOOM from an explosion.
15A. A thunder CLAP.
18A. HUSH from [...a mother with noisy kids]. Hey, dads can shush their children too, you know.
32 and 45A. PING and PONG make up the table tennis sounds.
42A. SWISH goes the ball through the hoop.
50A. A knock on the door is a RAP.
65A. OINK goes the pig.
1D. CLINK goes the champagne glass.
6D. ACH says [...a surprised German]. Is this one onomatopoeic?
7D. The hen CLUCKs.
11D. OOOH goes [...a circusgoer] with an arbitrary number of O's.
31D. [...a doorbell] goes DONG. Yes, it also means "penis." No, the Cruciverb database doesn't show the word being clued with that sense.
32D. PSST says [...a cheater in class] or anyone else trying to get someone's attention surreptitiously.
56D. PLOP emits from [...a person sitting down].
There are 21 theme entries including the 3's, 4's, and 5's. You can count the theme squares if you want to—I will take a pass on that.
In the quieter fill, we have some old-school crossword answers: INGLE is clued as [Fireplace], NACRES are [Mother-of-pearls], and ETAPE is a [Day's march]. [Prefix with dactyl] is PTERO. HOME base is clued [It follows first, second and third]; good clue. [Ham-and-___ (incompetent sort)] for EGGER—that's a new one on me. A [Boar] is a WILD PIG, while a [Little ham?] is a SHOAT. [Fond ___, Wis.] clues DU LAC; it's an ugly entry, but I passed the exit for Fond du Lac last weekend. [Get-up-and-go] clues OOMPH, not part of the theme. IOWA is a [Place name before and after City] when you mention Iowa City, Iowa.
In his Sun puzzle, "Central Heating," Michael Blake assembles a group of two-word phrases that can take some heating—FIRE, at 71-Across—in their centers to form two new phrases:
This is a nice twist on the "unifying word can follow both parts of the phrase" sort of theme—and it would make a good brainteaser, listing the four theme answers and asking the solver to figure out what they have in common.
The title of Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword echoes the grammar purist's lament: "Come On, Get It Right!" The theme entries in this ungainly-looking (but not ungainly-solving) puzzle offer plausible definitions for mangled phrases:
Favorite answers and clues:
Tough stuff: AFRIT is a [Powerful demon, in Arabic mythology] and no, I hadn't heard of this either. [Separate by cutting off] clues ABSCISE, which I also hadn't seen before; it's akin to abscissa. OGS are original gangstas, or [Old-school hardcore rappers, for short].
Updated:
Hey! Look at that. Jack McInturff's LA Times puzzle actually settles in right at the Tuesday level, a good bit easier than the NYT and Sun. The theme is anagrams, as five answers end with anagrams of the same letters. They're all clued straightforwardly:
The fill is notable for two things: (1) a ton of 7-letter words, and (2) a lot of crosswordese-type answers that less experienced solvers should make a mental note of. In the latter group, we have EKE, or [Barely manage, with "out"]. EOS is the [Dawn deity], the goddess of dawn. Brian ENO produced several U2 and David Byrne albums, I think, as well as being an "ambient music" composer. IOLA is a Kansas City with no other good way to clue it (not to be confused with the Scottish island, IONA). EIRE is [Cork's home], the Irish name for Ireland; if the clue hints at poetry and Ireland, the answer is ERIN. ENOS is [Eve's grandson] and about as popular in the grid as ESAU. An ANA is an [Anecdotal collection]. ASTRA means "stars" in Latin; the word is part of the Kansas state motto, Ad astra per aspera. [Pilate's "Behold!"] is ECCE and the [Westernmost Aleutian island] is ATTU; together, these evoke ET TU, Julius Caesar's rebuke. ALER and NLER show up in crosswords but not, I hear, in the sports pages; they're American and National League baseball players. [Columnist Barrett] is one RONA; author Jaffe is another. CREE is clued [Hudson Bay native]; any 4-letter answer that refers to a tribe in Canada is invariably CREE.
Bob Klahn's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Head of Steam," has three theme entries whose first words can follow "steam": IRON CURTAIN, HEAT OF THE MOMENT, and ROLLER DERBY. The Across 9's and 10's aren't part of the theme. I rather like A WHOLE LOT, clued as [Bunches and bunches]; PLOPPED, or [Sat without ceremony]; FATHOM clued as [Six feet under?]; and [Sauce whose name is Italian for "pounded"] for PESTO. I sort of rolled an eye when I saw HAREM in the grid, clued as [Confines for concubines]—and when I encountered WENCH clued as [Working girl], I mentally filed the puzzle away in the dustbin of sexist terminology.
October 26, 2008
Monday, 10/27
Jonesin' 4:44
Sun 3:11
NYT 2:31
CS 2:45
LAT 2:42
Andrea Carla Michaels and Michael Blake have teamed up again for a Monday New York Times crossword puzzle. The theme is 55-Down, SPIN—they've put an SP at the beginning of three 13-letter phrases to convert them into 15-letter phrases:
I have the sense that most themes involving question-marked clues for nonexistent phrases don't manage to have such simple clues. This trio is short and sweet, with two-word clues conveying all the sense they need to. There are a number of answers that new solvers need to commit to memory if they don't already know them:
The Sun crossword is called "The Old College Try" and it was constructed by Joon Pahk. Three theme entries end with IVY LEAGUERS. The band KING CRIMSON corresponds to the Harvard team, the Crimson. HEY BULLDOG is a [Song on the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine" album], but I've never heard of it. You know how Yale students are in the crossword all the time as ELIS or YALIEs? Their official nickname is the Bulldogs. The Princeton Tigers show up in PAPER TIGER. It's a little distracting to have another team name in the grid—Whittier College's bad-ass POETS, not of the Ivy League. I like how the '80s band ERASURE sits beneath KING CRIMSON. (Wikipedia tells me Erasure is still recording and touring. Who knew?) Favorite clue: [Strong suit?] for ARMOR.
Updated:
Matt Jones has crafted a puzzle with an unusual gimmick in it. This week's Jonesin' crossword, "Early and Often," includes a ballot of sorts, and instructions to MARK AN X for whichever one YOU PICK. Each "candidate" entry is 14 letters long—FIRST CANDIDATE, ANOTHER NOMINEE, and THE THIRD OPTION—but appears with a blank 15th square (those 15th squares are supposed to be circled, but the circles were missing when I downloaded the Across Lite version of the puzzle). If you X in one of those squares, you change the crossing word, but the answer will be correct with or without the X:
Sarah Keller's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Have a Good Time!", has five different "good times" at the start of the theme entries. One [Pome variety], and a tasty one at that, is a GALA APPLE. SOCIAL WORK is a [Profession intent on improving living conditions. One [Joint type] is BALL AND SOCKET, as in your hip and shoulder. A RAVE REVIEW is a [Pan's opposite]. And a PARTY LINE is a [Tie-in to another telephone customer, as well as a tie-in to this puzzle's theme]. I wonder if anyone younger than me has first-hand experience with party lines—when I was a kid, my grandparents had a party line, and they gave out their phone number prefix as HEmlock-7 rather than 437. Old school!
Updated Monday night:
Well, the LA Times crossword hadn't been posted as of lunchtime today, and after it was posted, I didn't get a chance to solve it before late evening. Robert Morris's theme is PAPER, which precedes the first word of each of the four theme entries:
One of the 8-letter answers in the fill was unfamiliar. RANGE WAR is clued as a [Big beef over big beef?]. Wikipedia explains that range wars can also involve sheep herding and water rights.
August 24, 2008
Monday, 8/25
Jonesin' 4:45
CS 3:13
NYS 2:52
NYT 2:30
LAT 2:25
(updated at 2:20 p.m. Monday)
The Monday New York Times crossword hits the Monday sweet spot—nice and easy, with an accessible letter-progression theme of phrases that sound great together (the P and K sounds are inherently entertaining). Andrea Carla Michaels and Michael Blake teamed up to give us:
All this makes me want to say "Peter Piper packed a punch when picking a peck of puckered-up peppers. Then he purchased a pack of Pocky Sticks." My favorite fill mostly revisits the P and K: STUNK and SKIMPY, a PONZI scheme ([Kind of scheme that's fraudulent]), POPS and PUTTS.
Mark Feldman's New York Sun crossword, "Military Medicine," has an elegant but still easy theme: phrases that begin with a military rank and describe something related to medical care.
Favorite entries: POP-UP AD, Christopher MELONI (only because it gives me a chance to call him a Fanelli boy), BELARUS and NEBULAS sharing six of their letters, and gaping MAWS.
Updated:
Paula Gamache packs her CrosSynergy puzzle, "E-ZPass," with five theme entries (each containing EZ welding together two words) and a slew of 7-letter answers in the fill. The STRIKE ZONE is a [Pitcher's target]. WOWIE ZOWIE is an [Expression of glee]. EMILE ZOLA, whose writing is stark and richly detailed, is clued as the ["J'accuse" author]. The [Traditional marmalade ingredient] is ORANGE ZEST; I'm partial to this answer. [1960s group who sang "She's Not There"] is THE ZOMBIES. WOWIE ZOWIE and THE ZOMBIES make this a fun theme, don't they?
I liked a lot of the clues and fill here (and it's only Monday!). My favorites:
David Cromer's LA Times crossword was so easy, I filled in all four theme answers immediately after filling in 5- to 8-Down. The theme entries are plural nouns that begin with a man's nickname:
I wonder if I could have finished the puzzle even faster if I'd gone back to the top after entering the theme answers, rather than navigating my way up from the bottom. Is top-down solving markedly more efficient?
Updated again:
Matt Jones's newest Jonesin' crossword, "Flippin' Sweet," has three theme entries of different lengths, so the grid has left/right symmetry. It took me a while with my head flipped over to understand the theme clues:
Sweet! If you didn't notice, the three theme entries all describe the reversal aspect. Can you imagine if the clues and answers had been swapped? Would you ever come up with Je9ns or sa>le) as an answer for a straightforward-looking clue? The theme's complemented by zippy fill—YUPPIE, SQUAWK, YAKUZA, ELWOOD from Blues Brothers—and clues. My favorite, for its '80s musical nostalgia, is [They're pulled from the shell, in a Squeeze song title] for MUSSELS.
April 28, 2008
Tuesday, 4/29
Onion 4:41
Tausig 4:31
NYS 3:15
NYT 3:05
CS 2:59
LAT 2:43
The Tuesday New York Times crossword is sort of an insane hybrid between a Tuesday puzzle (based on about...eight straightforward clues for easy words) and a Friday puzzle (lots of high-end vocabulary and a theme that's subtle while you're working the puzzle). The theme is "A to Z," with five entries that begin with A and end with Z. As someone who grew up with the initials A.Z., I'm partial to this. There's the [Semiautobiographical Bob Fosse movie] ALL THAT JAZZ ("It's showtime, folks!" *cue jazzhands*), ALEX RODRIGUEZ, the [1970s joint U.S./Soviet space project] APOLLO SOYUZ, ALCATRAZ (clued as [The Rock]—my first impulse was to squeeze Dwayne Johnson in there), and [Namesake of a branch of Judaism], ASHKENAZ. Now, I know that "Ashkenazi Jews" is a well-established phrase, but I'd never ever heard of a Biblical personage named Ashkenaz.
ASHKENAZ is of a piece with much of the fill, which is far afield from what one expects to see on a Tuesday. 1-Across is a SKI BUM, [No stranger to the slopes], crossing a SHASTA daisy and MOAB, [Ancient land along the Dead Sea]. Not shouting "easy-peasy Tuesday," really. Alongside ASHKENAZ is JACOBITE, [Supporter of the House of Stuart], and they cross NEW LINE, the ["Lord of the Rings" studio] that is being assimilated by Time-Warner. The SEINE is the [River along the Quai d'Orsay]; there are surely more Tuesday-friendly ways to clue that. Have you heard of MCGUIRE, [New Jersey's ___ Air Force Base]? Speaking of the military, how many correct answers could there be for [Certain NCO]? Here, it's SFC, sergeant first class; apparently American NCOs are mainly sergeants and corporals, but that still embraces SGT, SFC, SSGT, and CPL as possibilities. Did you know that RUPAUL is a [Drag performer with a wax likeness in New York's Madame Tussauds]? Hell, I didn't know New York had a Tussauds. (But I do like RuPaul.) Did you know that the [Arizona birthplace of Cesar Chavez] is YUMA? I want to know if he ever took a 3:10 train there. [It's a piece of work] is somewhat askew for TASK; usually that sort of clue points slyly at a crosswordy ERG. There's also a PYX, or [Eucharist vessel], which came to my mind quickly only because I read a blog comment thread today in which people were punning on transept, nave, apse, and pyx. (No lie!) The most insane swath of this crossword, of course, is the alignment of SYZYGY, or [Alignment of the sun, earth, and moon], and FERULE, or [Punishing rod]. I think I last heard about syzygy when we had that lunar eclipse one bitterly cold evening this past winter. FERULE is defined as a cane or stick used to punish children. Isn't that lovely! It's especially for kids. It's not to be confused with a ferrule, a word with an entirely different etymology; a familiar example of the two-R ferrule is the metal tip that secures a pencil eraser (that link goes to a review of the pencil I buy for my son—he destroys non–Dixon Ticonderoga pencils, but these ones hold up.
The New York Sun puzzle is a joint effort from Kevin George and Bonnie Gentry. The "To the Nth Degree" theme involves adding an N to the end of existing phrases. Thus, we get WONDER BRAN, [Awe-inspiring source of dietary fiber?], for instance, and a KLONDIKE BARN, [Item raised on a Yukon farm?]. (Wait, is a barn properly called an "item"?)
Favorite clues: [Gillian Anderson TV series, with "The"] for X-FILES (new X-Files movie coming this summer!); [Pea jackets?] for PODS; [Tailless feline] for MANX CAT; [Rather formally?] for DANIEL; and [Nutcracker suite?] for NEST (that's a nutcracker in the bird photo).
Updated:
Those of you who have already made generous donations for the fundraising walk I'm participating in this weekend, many thanks! Those of you who haven't seen the post before this one, please take a look. It's not just a plea for donations—there's also information about ovarian cancer that could help save a life.
New in the world of blogs is Pete Mitchell's site devoted to the New York Sun crossword. It's not even a week old, this nascent blog, but if you've been hankering for more focus on the Sun, here's your place.
The LA Times crossword by Michael Blake and Andrea Carla Michaels is a peachy gender-bending delight. Three old movies with Man, Mr., and Sir in the title get their male leads feminized in the clues and their titles reworked in the answers. [1970 Dustina Hoffman saga?] is LITTLE BIG WOMAN; [1939 Roberta Donat film?] is GOODBYE, MRS. CHIPS; and [1967 Cindy Poitier film?] is TO MA'AM WITH LOVE. (I would've gone with Sydney in the clue; it's a very girly name these days, Mr. Greenstreet be damned.) Favorite clues: [Cold explosion?] for ACHOO; ["The Genteel Style in Writing" essayist] for ELIA (in all these years, I don't recall seeing another ELIA clue that gave any details about his essays); and ["Cut it out"] with and without an exclamation point for "DON'T" and "STOP THAT!" The partial I CAME looks odd in the grid; y'know, it could've been clued as a non-partial phrase in the Onion.
Thomas Schier's CrosSynergy crossword, "Comparable Critters," harks back to another recent puzzle in which one of the first answers in the grid was an exemplar of happiness; I think larks seem happier than clams, because what on earth has a clam got to feel happy about? They sit in the muck filtering dirty water, and sometimes someone breaks their shell open and eats them; not to mention, nobody wants to be described as "clammy." Where is the joy for the clam? Anyway, this crossword has HAPPY AS A CLAM and three other similes that use animals. There's also a LARK, but it's clued as [Carefree escapade]. I know it wouldn't fit the "Comparable Critters" theme, but all this focus on similes reminds me of the line used often on Happy Days in the '70s: "funny as a crutch" (meaning not funny). Is there a word for an ironic/backwards simile like that?
Updated again:
Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader puzzle, "Straight A's," spells the long-A sound in a non-English way: EI without a trailing GH. The United Way turns into the verb phrase UNITED WEI, or [Brought an ancient Chinese dynasty together?]. [Device for having an I.M. conversation?] is the most devious clue in the entire puzzle—that's I.M. Pei and not instant messaging, so it's a PEI PHONE (pay phone). "Lousy lay" turns into a LOUSY LEI, or [Flower wreath with rotten petals, say?]. And ["A half dozen eggs, per favore"?] branches out to Italian for SEI PLEASE (say please). I didn't know LEHI was [Where Samson slew the Philistines], but the crossings helped me out. THE POPE is [Noted Iraq War critic who recently visited the White House]. OUI is the old porn [Magazine in which Arnold Schwarzenegger discussed having an orgy with other bodybuilders]. And KAL PENN is [John Cho's co-star in "Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay"]; I liked the first movie and hear this one's funny, too. [Consumes conspicuously?] is SLURPS. BOXY is [Like some modern concept cars]. Overall, a fresh theme that had four good payoffs, fun fill, and interesting clues.
Matt Jones's Onion A.V. Club crossword features five phrases that are IN THE NUDE in that the word NUDE brackets other letters in the phrases. For example, NURSE'S AIDE and NO WAY, DUDE. Just one entry completely mystified me here—ASL isn't clued as American Sign Language but rather, [Chat room inquiry abbreviation]; I have no idea what it's short for. Favorite clues: [Eat like an animal?] for RUMINATE, and its neighbor, [Actor seen in credits stuffing his hand down his pants] for ED O'NEILL (from Married With Children).
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.
January 27, 2008
Monday, 1/28
CS 3:05
NYS 2:51
LAT 2:35
NYT 2:32
Michael Blake's New York Times crossword is both delightful and dreadful. Delightful because it's got a fresh theme (no sign of THE CHIPMUNKS in the Cruciverb.com database) with names not often seen in a Monday puzzle; a fair number of 6- and 7-letter fill answers; and non-boring fill like I MIGHT, STREP, LAMAZE, STIFFS, and TO WIT. Dreadful because, well, it's THE CHIPMUNKS, who are so annoying I've patently refused to take my kid to see the recent live-action movie. But at least the squeaky-voiced rodents have been swapped out for the far more august trio of ALVIN TOFFLER, the ["Future Shock" author], SIMON WIESENTHAL, the [Late hunter of Nazi war criminals], and THEODORE DREISER, the ["Sister Carrie" author]. I believe congratulations are in order for Mr. Blake—his name's not in the Cruciverb database, so I think this is his newspaper crossword debut.
James Sajdak's New York Sun crossword, "Buff Buffet," has three theme clues that refer to 58-Across, so I checked that clue. The only William S. Burroughs novel I know is NAKED LUNCH (never read it, but I saw the movie, and boy do those images stick with you. Wonder if the book's images are as sticky in the memory?), and that fit the space. The other theme entries are what you might order at the naked lunch—a STRIP STEAK, SALAD (NO DRESSING), and GODIVA CHOCOLATE. Fairly Scrabbly fill for a Monday, with BOZO the Clown, UNIX, and IBIZA. Favorite clues: [Ones with a Bunker mentality?] for BIGOTS; [When Central Park closes] for ONE A.M. (did not know that; will avoid heading there after one during the crossword tournament); [Half of a "Sesame Street" duo] for both BERT and ERNIE; and [Mudder fodder] for OATS.
Updated:
Randolph Ross's CrosSynergy crossword ("Who RU?") evokes Ashish Vengsarkar's great "Spellcheck" puzzle of a year ago with a soupçon of CDB? action. Here, the first names in the theme entries are represented by sound-alike letter sequences: K T COURIC, L N DEGENERES, the obstetrical O B WAN KENOBI, and three others. My cousin's toddler girl is named Elsie, and L C THE COW (the Borden spokescow) remains the first Google hit for Elsie. Here's hoping the average second grader six years hence will not have heard of Elsie the Cow!
David Cromer's LA Times crossword plays a different sort of name game, here transposing the first and last names and reinterpreting the last names as verbs. Who wouldn't wish to TRUMP DONALD? Although it would be uncalled for to SHORT MARTIN some money, and just plain cruel to CAGE NICOLAS or HURT WILLIAM. When I was a teenager, I had a huge crush on William Hurt. (Just look at the fabulous career he had in the '80s.) I think the crush ended when the good parts disappeared.
