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
November 26, 2009
Friday, 11/27/09
NYT (PG)
LAT (PG)
CS (Janie)
WSJ (Sam, separate post)
CHE 4:14 (joon, paper)
BEQ 5:33 (joon, across lite)
Hi, everybody! PuzzleGirl here continuing the Thanksgiving Weekend Potluck here at the Crossword Fiend. Amy is off somewhere without internet access which, seriously. I don't even like to talk about it. It must be what hell is like. Our electricity was out yesterday for about three hours and all I can say is Thank God For My iPhone. Not sure I would have survived without it.
Ed Sessa's New York Times crossword puzzle
So what do we have going on today? Well, this week's Friday themeless NYT is pretty fun. I finished it in a little over half an hour, but just knew there was something wrong up there in the NE corner. The doctor's name [DENTON] was somewhere waaaay back in my brain, but when it made it all the way up to the front of my brain it was spelled Dennon. Which made 11D look like it was going to be SNAP-something for [Fasten with a click], right? Perfectly reasonable! But then ... it didn't work. So I tried enable, because an E in that spot seemed okay even though it gave me an artist named Libpi, who is, unfortunately, equally as known to me as Fra Filippo LIPPI. So 11D went from SNAP ON to ENABLE to the finally correct STAPLE. What else did I have trouble with up there? IDA seemed like a good name for a county in Idaho and since there was nothing resembling ARISTOS at 8A [British V.I.P.'s, to Brits], the I seemed perfectly fine to me.
More trouble spots for me include the NW where I had DOGS instead of BOGS for [Things near Baskerville Hall]. Obviously, thinking "The Hound of the Baskervilles," right? And I can never remember how to spell [1950s-'60s NBC host] Jack PAAR's name. I've convinced myself that it's the more "normal" Parr, so I get it wrong every time. I have the same problem with Ryan O'Neal and Tatum O'Neal. I know how Shaquille O'Neal spells his name so every time I'm faced with Ryan or Tatum, I can never remember whether it's the same as Shaq or different. (The only reason I got it right this time is that I looked it up.)
I like all three of the long answers: A WING AND A PRAYER for [Hope born of desperation] is awesome. A LEG TO STAND ON for [Justifiable basis for one's position] is typically only referred to in the negative, right? As in "He doesn't have a leg to stand on." And TURKEY LEFTOVERS for [Post-Thanksgiving fare]? Let's just say I'm totally looking forward to those tomorrow!
Also enjoyed seeing LOW MAN as a figurative figure on a totem pole, and colloquial phrases like LET 'ER RIP ["O.K. ... go!"] are always welcome.
Dan Naddor's syndicated Los Angeles Times crossword
Ya know, there have been times when I've thought to myself "This puzzle has an old-timey feel to it." Well, today is definitely one of those times. This one is chock full of puns on things from, well, centuries ago! Looks like Dan finally decided to go medieval on us!
- 17A: Medieval commuter between Dover and Calais? (CHANNEL SERF [surf]).
- 22A: Medieval castle owner's view? (BARON [barren] LANDSCAPE).
- 34A: Manages medieval real estate holdings? (MINDS ONE'S MANORS [manners]).
- 46A: Medieval lord's efforts? (FEUDAL [futile] ATTEMPTS).
- 53A: Weapons for medieval warriors? (KNIGHT [night] CLUBS).
Not a lot really jumped out at me on this one, but that's probably because I'm in a turkey coma and it's late. So I'll just mention a few things and then get my butt to bed.
- I've never heard of Jack OAKIE [Jack of "The Great Dictator"] and am going to guess that's age-related.
- KENYA is a [Country known for its distance runners]. Have any of you read the new book about the Indian tribe in Mexico that runs barefoot? I think it's called Born to Run. Ah yes, here it is. I haven't read it yet, but it looks pretty interesting. One of the main points the book makes is that the worst thing a runner can do is buy expensive, overly engineered running shoes. If you're interested in running, check it out.
- I know how much people love to see rappers in the grid, and today we get two! NAS ["Thugz Mansion" rapper] and DIDDY [Bad Boy Records founder, as he's now known]. I will never — ne-Ever — understand why he wants to be known as DIDDY. Just doesn't make sense to me.
- And, finally, I'll leave you with this musical interlude. Hope you enjoy it. [Cereal bit] = FLAKE.
Tyler Hinman's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Internal Dialogue"—Janie's review
Taking the cruciverbal baton from Patrick, Tyler continues with another puzzle that has the puzzle's key concept word embedded in the theme phrases. Yesterday we had multiple opportunities to eat; today, as we learn at 37A., we have several ways to SPEAK [A synonym for it can be found inside this puzzle's four longest entries]. By way of an "internal" word for "dialogue," we can chat, talk, jaw or yak. And here's how it's done:• 17A. PITCH A TENT [Set up camp]. I like the way chat spans the three words of the phrase.
• 23A. "MORTAL KOMBAT" [Violent video game franchise that debuted in 1992]. Wanna guess what I've never played?... This game is available, btw, through SEGA [Company that released the unsuccessful Saturn and Dreamcast consoles]. Gamers probably knew this, but it was news to me that not only is there a "Superman" video game, but there's also "'Mortal Kombat' vs. DC Universe" in which Superman is a featured player—which I mention because of the [Comics character with a secret identity]/CLARK KENT combo that's also in the puzzle. I do like the skillful way Tyler uses fill skewed to younger solvers within well-tried theme ideas. Same goes for:
• 46A. NINJA WARRIOR [Japanese TV import involving obstacle courses]. If you say so. It is for real (you can even watch full episodes on line), the base phrase is solid, of course, and at least I have heard of "The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles."
• 57A. "GO FLY A KITE!" ["Buzz off!"]. See 17A. for why this one also appeals.
Though it's not in infinitive form, as I read it, we also get a bonus with SEZ [Utters, informally], first person singular of say...
I was surprised to see SOWN clued as [Placed, as seeds]. When I think of something being "placed," I see it being done in an orderly way—and often seeds are "placed" very carefully in the ground or in containers. But when they're sown, they're scattered or strewn, no?
And I have to wonder if there's an "anger management" issue being hinted at as a sub-theme. After all, the grid presents us with TIRADE [Angry outburst] which crosses RIOT ACT [It's read to a misbehaving child] (please, oh please read the kid a fairy tale instead!). Additionally, there's [Gets in a lather] for RILES and [Battling] for AT IT. (I was actually relieved to see EAT AT clued not in connection with annoyance but quite directly as [Go to, as a restaurant].) What's the source of the anger? Sometimes we direct it at ourselves when we [Mess up], or ERR; sometimes it's directed at others, like the pitcher who [Messes up on the mound], or BALKS.
My suggestion? "Breathe in green; breathe out blue." Listen to music that soothes you, like maybe an OPERA [Diva's setting] or a single ARIA [Diva's highlight]; make like a tourist and visit a museum. MoMA, perhaps? Yes, it's an [N.Y.C. attraction...] but it's not only [...for aesthetes] (thinking here of the negative connotation of the word).
Oh—and thanks for (the) MEMORY/[Something's that's banked?]. Some days mine seems to be double-locked in a seriously subterranean vault.
Did you know CINC? It's clued as [Prez] and I needed to look this one up. It's an acronym not unlike POTUS (President of the United States). Except this time the letters stand for Commander in Chief. Oh—and on the topic of acronyms, I smiled to see FIAT [Italian carmaker that recently partnered with Chrysler]. Seems those letters have come to stand for Fix It Again, Tony...
Ed Sessa's Chronicle of Higher Education puzzle, "Natural Progression
happy day after thanksgiving, everyone. joon here with the lowdown on two more puzzles today. we get a double dose of ed sessa today, as he pairs his clever subtly-themed NYT with a nice CHE puzzle whose theme is a "natural progression" given by the puzzle's seven circled three-letter answers. it's a word latter from APE (14a, [Beginning of a natural progression]) to MAN (70a, [End of the natural progression]). the word ladder goes APE -> APT -> AFT -> OFT -> OAT -> MAT -> MAN, but the five words in the middle are all embedded in longer entries:
- to [Change with the times] is ADAPT.
- [Glider's booster] is an UPDRAFT.
- a [Marshmallow], metaphorically, is a SOFTY. i like this word, but i think i'd normally spell it SOFTIE.
- [Thick breakfast] is OATMEAL. this is the only one where the embedded word is etymologically related to the longer entry. i didn't really mind, though.
- my favorite of the theme clues was [Stick in a book] for MATCH. great misdirection there! not only does it sound like a verb, but you don't normally think "matchbook" when you see "book."
brendan goes asymmetric with this 64-word themeless, resulting in very smooth fill for such a low word count. i liked CALLED IT, ["As I predicted"], best, but overall the fill was more notable for lack of crap than for brendan's usual pizzazz. there were some pained inflections, of which my least favorite was REMELT, and a couple of abbreviations i didn't like (NAV for navy being the worst), but it's really quite clean for a grid this demanding. clue of the year nominee: [Pass the bar, perhaps] for TEETOTAL. loved it! i also liked how the miami HEAT, clued as [2006 NBA champs], are opposite in the grid from WADES, or [Gets cold feet?]. anybody who watched the 2006 NBA finals knows that dwyane WADE (we really need to get his crazy first name into more puzzles) carried the HEAT to the title that year with an insanely dominant postseason.
November 25, 2009
Thursday, 11/26/09
NYT - 6:01 (JK - paper)
LAT - oops, clock wasn't on
CS - untimed
Tausig - 11:27 (JK -paper)
Hi everyone. Jeffrey here. Happy Thanksgiving to our American readers. Happy New Year’s Eve to our syndicated readers. Happy Thursday to everyone else.
Happy Birthday to Rex Parker who is now older than me. Check out the previous post for more on this milestone, including two related puzzles and a great cause that needs your support.
Despite holidays, birthdays and Thursdays, like the mail in Seinfeld, the crosswords never stop, so the blogging must go on! Amy is nowhere to be found so Team Orange is on duty to replace Her Fiendness. I must be Turkey Prime, as I get to go first. However, as a Canadian, I'm afraid there'll be no more mention of Thanksgiving.
Paula Gamache's New York Times Crossword 
The theme is 51A: [What 20-, 31- and 40-Across were each introduced as by 47-Down] PARADE BALLOONS in the 47D- MACY’S Thanksgiving Day parade. Hey! Darn.
20A: [Introduction of 1977] – KERMIT THE FROG
31A: [Introduction of 1927] – FELIX THE CAT
40A: [Introduction of 1963] – ELSIE THE COW
14A: [First step in a series] – A TO B. There is no Atob.
17A: [Rabanne who was the costume designer for “Barbarella”] – PACO. What a lucky break! Today at work, someone asked me who the costume designer for “Barbarella” was. What are the odds (that any part of that is true)?
25A: [Thoreau’s “On Fields OER Which the Reaper’s Hand Has Pass’d”]. Land of the free, we miss you.
36A: [Head of the Egyptian god Thoth] – IBIS. Every part of that sounds weird.
38A: [A slowpoke may be asked to pick it up] – PACE. Pick up PACE, PACO. Jane Fonda is waiting. Somewhere, a lonely “the” sits alone.
56A: [RAREE] show. Can you say RAREE without show? I’ll have my steakee raree, please.
1D: [Sound on “Batman”] – ZAP! Hard one. Could have been BAM!, POW! Or if this was a rebus, SPLAT!
2D: [Letter after Z] – ETA. Z is pronounced “zed” today.
11D: [Marie Osmond’s ADORA Belle dolls]. Awwww. Isn’t that cuutttte.
12D: [“CAROL of the Bells” (holiday favourite)]. Wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without it.
30D: [Frozen drink brand] – ICEE. Perfect with that steakee.
35D:[Loser of 1948] – DEWEY. Lost to Truman, right? More American stuff.
"Prime Time Practice" by Ben Tausig.
The theme is revealed at 56A/71A [People whose names begin the starred entries] - SCREEN MDS, or "I'm not a doctor but I play one on TV". We have 4 TV doctors:
28A: [*Find the source of some corporate malfeasance, say] -PIERCE THE VEIL. Dr. Hawkeye Pierce (Alan Alda) from M*A*S*H.
48A: [*Holy place] - HOUSE OF PRAYER . Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie) from House.
62A: [*Mental material] - GREY MATTER - Dr. Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) from Grey's Anatomy.
17A/21A: [Long-running PBS concert series] - AUSTIN CITY LIMITS . Colonel Steve Austin (Lee Majors) from The Six Million Dollar Man. Never knew he was a doctor. Well, it could be Dr. Kate Austin (Christine Lahti) on Chicago Hope. A quick check with other members of Team Orange shows similar confusion.
Other stuff you might not know:
24A: [Text type] : SMS - Short Message Service, what you use for cellphone text messages.
27A: [Lee Myung-bak's country, for short] - ROK. Republic of Korea (South)
34A: [Plitvice Lakes National Park country] - CROATIA. Banff - Canada. Yosemite - USA. Plitvice Lakes - Croatia.
39A: [Time off, in mil. slang] - RNR - Rest "N" Relaxation. R&R is better.
51A: [MST 3K (cult show)] - Mystery Science Theater 3000
59A: [Lamas of "The Bachelor"] - SHAYNE. No idea. Related to Lorenzo Lamas? Yup, daughter.
66A: [Quadratic function subj.] - CALC. Calculus. joon, please explain the difference between integral and differential calculus.
68A: [Publisher whose second and third children were born 35 years apart] - HEF. Hugh Hefner.
7D: [Common occasion for leaving work early: Abbr.] - FRI. Memo to my staff: I'll need a bit more than "It's Friday. I'm leaving early."
10D: [Starting a tic-tac-toe game at one of the edges, say] - BAD MOVE. Edge being a non-corner and non-center square. It could work in Hollywood Squares. You fool! (Steve Austin reference in this link).
24D: [Tattoo, in a way] - SCARIFY. New word to me.
30D: [Celtics guard Rajon] - RONDO. Of the Boston Celtics.
31D: [Jamiroquai's "(Don't) Give HATE A Chance"] - Lots of unknown-to-me in this puzzle.
46D: [Pen name for "The Conning Tower" columnist] - F.P.A. Franklin Pierce Adams. PIERCE again. I should know this?
57D: [Grammy-winning blues musician Robert] - CRAY. Here with Eric Clapton.
Lila Cherry’s Los Angeles Times Crossword
The theme answers are all clued [Turkey] (the last with a “?”). Sigh.
17A: BIRD THAT GOBBLES.
27A: FRANK WAY TO TALK.
48A: THEATRICAL FLOP.
63A: FRIDAY’S SANDWICH. I think this is implying leftovers from Thursday feast.
3D: [Turkish currency] – LIRA
52A: [Lake surrounding Canada’s southernmost point] – ERIE. Trivia question – How many US states are at least partly north of Middle Island, Ontario? Answer – 27!
And in the downs, the World’s Most Eclectic Musical Set:
1D: [“Mamma Mia!” band] – ABBA.
26D: [‘60s song car with “three deuce and a four-speed and a 389”] - GTO
30D: [Greek New Age Keyboardist] – YANNI........oh, sorry, fell asleep for a minute.
32D: [Musical buzzer] – KAZOO.
54D: [Hendrix hairdo] – AFRO.
I leave you with 51D: [Slovenly] – FROWZY. Frowzy? Frowzy?
Patrick Blindauer's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Gobble, Gobble!"—Janie's review
Thanksgiving already—when Tom Turkey says "Gobble, gobble!" (translation: "Please have roast beef instead or maybe send out for some General TSO's chicken or, hey—maybe a nice BLT!!"), and so many of us will be with family or friends indulging ourselves as we enjoy (translation: "gobble down") our feasts (traditional or un-) and maybe even take a moment or three to think about what it is we're genuinely thankful for. For some, there'll be hours of watching football; for others, hours of prepping for the main event, since—as we're prompted at 71A.—the [Popular thing to do on Thanksgiving (and word that's hidden in 17-, 29-, 47- and 60-Across)] is EAT. And eat and eat and eat and eat as in:
• 17A. SURPRISE ATTACKS [Unexpected acts of hositility]. May our lives be from any more of these...
• 29A. DAVE ATTELL [Comic with the 2007 HBO special "Captain Miserable"]. Never heard of the guy—but then again, I don't subscribe to HBO, and to judge from these quotes, I may not want to. Then again, there's not a lot of stand-up that's funnier in print...
• 47A. SEA TURTLES [Crush and pals, in "Finding Nemo"]. Hmm. Never seen this either, but I have this sneaking suspicion it's more my speed...
• 60A. DEFENSE ATTORNEY [Johnnie Cochran, at the Simpson trial]. And may our lives be free from any need for one of these... I liked seeing this fill directly below ABA [Legal org.] and was thankful to see that the correct fill was not POET LAUREATE-related.
Some other highlights include:
• MAN/[Answer to the riddle of the Sphinx] (nice fresh clue here)
• MANIC [Frenzied] and MAD, clued as [Humor magazine since 1952]
• the side-by-side implement pair of PICK [Icebreaker] and RAKE [Tool for deciduous foliage]
• AMENITY/[Chocolate on a hotel pillow, e.g.] (I love the specificity of the clue)
• DRAPE/[Hang], and then farther down the row, EAVE/[Place for an icicle] (i.e., where an icicle might hang...)
• VENAL/[Easily bribed] (I've heard of venal sins [as in the seven deadly ones], and had seen the word in other contexts, but never knew its literal meaning, so I learned something new yet again. And the next word in my dictionary? Yesterday's vena cava...]
• STRAW/[Float accessory], so that would be this kind of float and not this kind of float... The latter, btw, was from the Rose Bowl Parade—not to be confused with ROSÉ [Wine choice]. You might enjoy that with your Thanksgiving dinner!
Hope it's a happy holiday for all!
November 13, 2009
Saturday, 11/14/09
Newsday 6:17
NYT 6:15
LAT 3:22
CS untimed (J)/3:01 (A)
Joe Krozel's New York Times crossword
Have we seen quadruple-stacked 15s before? I feel like I've seen it in a Frank Longo puzzle, maybe in a book rather than the NYT. Yes? No? Jim Horne suggests that this is a first, but I have some vague Longo deja vu.
Having a central quad-stack requires an even number of rows (this puzzle is 15x16). The 15s are:
• 32A. INCOME STATEMENT is an [Overhead shower] that shows what your overhead expenses are.
• 37A. I actually saw MOON OVER PARADOR, the [1988 comedy starring Richard Dreyfuss and Raul Julia]. The fake country name appears to be a portmanteau of Paraguay and Ecuador. Who's making this up—George Lucas?
• 38A. "ARRIVEDERCI, ROMA" is the [Song with the lyric "City of a million warm embraces"]. We had this answer in a themed L.A. Times puzzle by Lee Glickstein a month ago, grouped with other A__A phrases that ended with place names.
• 39A. MANDARIN ORANGES are, like other citrus fruits, [Pomelo relatives]. My nephew once asked my mom for some "oranges 'n' mander."
Favorite clues/answers:
• 8D. [Charging giant, informally] is AMEX, short for American Express. Surely I'm not the only one who built off the X by putting T. REX here?
• Burrowing animal alert! PRAIRIE DOG is a [Natural tunnel creator] (11D) while MOLE is an [Uninvited rooter] (42A).
• 25D. [Not to be persuaded] means UNMOVABLE.
• 26D. To GET ACROSS is to [Convey] your point.
• 30D. [Item sometimes planted in a garden], sort of, but not planted beneath the soil, not unless you're lucky that your neighbors don't want to be tacky, is a GNOME. (See also ELVES, [Noted workshop workers].)
• 34D. I don't eat CORNED BEEF, but it is indeed [Something to make a hash of].
• 49D. SKID is clued by way of [A screech may accompany it].
What I didn't much care for:
• 10A. SPAN is [6-Across, for one], and 6A is YEAR. SPAN partners up better with GET ACROSS, if you ask me. Or should just stand alone. None of this year business.
• 43A. DELS., short for delegates, are [Pol. convention attendees]. Don't recall seeing that abbreviation before.
• 45A. MESS ROOM is [Where things are bolted down on base]. Anyone not want this to be MESS HALL?
• 60A. [Etym. followers, often] clues DEFS., short for definitions. Most of my dictionaries (two out of three!) put the definitions first, followed by the etymology. Only my Merriam-Webster's Collegiate puts etyma first.
• 61A. [Tenor Cura] clues JOSE. Really? That's your go-to José? I Googled him: opera singer, born 1962. Is it bad that Ezio Pinza is so much more familiar to me than this guy?
• 2D. NEALE is clued as [Former Canucks coach Harry]. I cannot name a single hockey coach, not even for the Blackhawks.
• 6D. "YOU PASSED IT!" ["That was the turnoff!"]. I'd say "You missed the exit."
• 21D. ALOE VERAS in the plural, as [Alternative medicine treatments]? Aloe vera is a scientific name. Can those take a plural?
• 35D. [One way around Spain] is by TREN, which is not among the Spanish words most likely to be known by non-Spanish-speakers.
• 47D. The clue for crosswordese ORIEL, [Large bay], looks calculated to mislead. Does anyone like it when the payoff for a tricky clue is crosswordese? (It's a large bay window.)
Overall, the fill was smoother than we've seen in a number of other Krozel kreations, so I'll give it a modest thumbs-up. The crossings for the quad-stack are a good bit better (save TREN) than you might expect, given the sort of muck that often intersects triple-stacks, and they're mostly on the long side. So we can say that one advantage of a quad-stack is that it cannot have any crappy 3-letter abbreviations crossing it. Another plus is the Scrabbly fill—a Q, two Zs, an X, K, and J. Notably, none of those Scrabbly letters is to be found amid the 15s and their crossings.
Updated Saturday morning:
Patrick Blindauer's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "AV Club"—Janie's review
No—not a shout-out to the kids with the plastic pocket-liners who set up the sound and projection equipment for school events. Patrick instead takes the letters that begin A(udio)-V(isual) and interpolates them into four well-known phrases—with some very fine results, namely:
• 20A. BEAVER BELLIES [Abdomens of some dam builders?], which began life as beer bellies. This one really sparkles. It's easy to imagine those industrious beavers knocking back a few after a long day of gnawing, and eventually having to deal with their expanding waistlines. Time to build more damn dams!
• 36A. BRAVER FOX [More courageous vixen] takes its lead from Joel Chandler Harris's Br'er Fox, one of Br'er Rabbit's classic foils in his Uncle Remus stories. This is the only one of the four in which the meaning of the new phrase is not all that different from the meaning of the base phrase—and I'm afraid it suffers some as a result.
• 42A. WAVING TIP [Hint on how to greet from afar]. Ooh, this is good, as it creates its own picture and is so far away from its equally lively base phrase, wing tip.
• 56A. CAVITY COUNCIL [The American Dental Association, e.g.], which also comes up strong. It starts with city council, but that additional "AV" takes it in a whole new direction—one that takes us back to 20A, in fact. Anyone remember Bucky Beaver, Ipana toothpaste spokes-mascot?
There are several other clue/fill combos that kept me on my toes and that keep this puzzle lively:
• [It may be purple]/PROSE. Purple prose, as in Edward Bulwer-Lytton ("It was a dark and stormy night," etc...).
• [Staffs]/MANS. Staffs is a verb...
• [Number that's its own square]/ONE. This is a "do the math" clue and not a reference to a square in the grid.
• [Long-time Moore costar]/ASNER. Should be easy enough, right? But not when your thought process says, "Demi Moore? No, no long-time costar there. Oh, Dudley Moore. So the answer must be Peter COOKE... No, wait. Mary Tyler Moore! Right—Dick VAN DY... never mind..."
• [Eyes guys, e.g.]/OGLES and in the "turn-about is fair play" department, [Eyes thighs, e.g.]/LEERS. Gotta love the specificity. Gotta love the rhymes.
• [Hot shot?]/LOVE SCENE. So that's a camera shot.
• [Long lunches]/HEROS. Submarines, hoagies, grinders. Whatever they're call in your neck o' the woods, we're still talkin' about the sandwiches here.
• [It's worn on the bridal path]/VEIL. And guess what? It's worn along the bridle path, too. Check out these Victorian riding hats!
• ["Houston, we've had a problem..."]/"UH-OH"—and what a fine example of understatement that is!
Two sorta flag-raisers in the mix as well. I was unfamiliar with the term SPOOLED for [Prepared to send, as data to a printer], but it certainly makes sense to me; and then there was UKE defined as [Tiny Tim's strummer]. Is the instrument a strummer (something that gets strummed) or is Tiny Tim the strummer (the one who does the strumming)? And if the latter, does that mean this should have been clued [Tiny Tim's strum-ee]? I know. I'm in the land of overthink, but I'm afraid it goes with the territory...
Oh—and the one link you must check out is the one that goes a long way towards explaining ["An] ENOLA [Gay Christmas" (Off-Broadway show)]. Seems our multi-talented constructor was otherwise engaged in 2003. I'm only sorry I missed it. Any chance of a revival, Patrick?
Adam Cohen's Newsday "Saturday Stumper"
(PDF solution here.)
The fill in this 72-worder is a bit drier than I had expected. The letters are mostly the common ones, and there's no showy marquee answer. The 15-letter entry across the middle, THE THREE SISTERS ([Literary characters surnamed Prozorov]), is filled with letters like E, R, S, and T. The only question-marked clue is [Dodging the draft?] for ALEE, "on the side of a ship that is sheltered from the wind." I like there to be more payoff for question-marking than a drab 4-letter word like ALEE.
A dozen clues:
• 12D. [County on the Firth of Clyde] is AYRSHIRE.
• 17A. ["Oliver!" director] is CAROL REED. I like full names in the puzzle, but it helps if the names are really famous or packed with crazy letters. Sir Reed died nearly 40 years ago and doesn't have anywhere near the name recognition of Frank Capra, Orson Welles, or John Ford.
• 26D. [With 34 Across, source of the samara fruit] is the ASH / TREE. It's the flying seed thing, not an edible fruit. Samara is also the name for maple trees' "helicopters."
• 26A. Paul ANKA is [Canada's Walk of Fame inductee]. Why, I've heard of more than half of the inductees!
• 53A. AS SEEN ON TV is a good entry, but the clue, [Common come-on], is less zippy.
• 63A. [Carnival ride] clues SEA CRUISE. Does anyone call it a "sea cruise," or just a cruise? (Carnival is a major cruise line company.)
• 6D. TERI Polo is not quite famous enough to be clued as [Polo, e.g.]. Again, as with ALEE, I want more of a payoff for a clue striving to mislead.
• 14D. I had hoped [Upright ones] would be some sort of pianos. Nope: STANDEES.
• 35D. THESAURI are [Places where land may be close to home].
• 36D. [Paramedic device] clues HEMOSTAT. It compresses a blood vessel to stanch the bleeding.
• 43D. EMEERS are [Some dynasts]. The primary spelling in English is EMIR. Secondarily, there's AMIR. EMEER is an unwelcome variant that has fallen out of fashion in most crosswords. It should be used only to facilitate better fill in its crossings, but EMEERS here crosses RAVER and UTILE, which are pretty flat.
• 57D. ["Pagliacci" part] wants you to think it's a role, but VOCE is Italian for "voice."
Frederick Healy's Los Angeles Times crossword
Excerpts from my L.A. Crossword Confidential post:
This one's back down to the easier level we've seen in recent months. I like to be expected to work hard on a Saturday puzzle—harder than I have to work on Wednesdays. Ah, well.
I was disappointed to find the first person singular pronoun lurking in five answers:
• 15A: ["Land sakes alive!"] clues "I DO DECLARE!"
• 22A: ["__ no idea!"] is completed by I HAD.
• 23A: [Cooperative after-dinner offer] is I'LL DRY.
• 29A: [Player's lament] clues I LOST.
• 41D: ["Out of the question"] clues "I CAN'T."
I can overlook a second use, but not a third, fourth, and fifth. Too much!
Highlights:
• 30A: [Voice of Mr. Magoo] (JIM BACKUS). Also the millionaire Thurston Howell III on Gilligan's Island. Now that's the kind of full-name answer I like in a crossword—someone whose name is familiar, plus it's got a J and K in it.
• 36A: [French capital?] (DES MOINES). Friend visiting from out of town works in Des Moines a lot. Like the answer, but frowned at the clue.
• 50A: ["High Voltage" rock band] (AC/DC). I only know "Dirty Deeds in a Dundle Jeep," as my best friend in 7th grade called it. Cute to clue the band's name with an electrical song title.
• 54A: [Shaq, 15 times] (NBA ALLSTAR). That's one more time than Michael Jordan, who interrupted his hoops career with his baseball interlude. Is 15 the record, or have others been at the top of the game for longer?
• 22D: [Revival meeting shout] (IT'S A MIRACLE). Dang it, the offical Culture Club video of the song by that name cannot be embedded. It's also the title of a Barry Manilow song.
November 04, 2009
Thursday, 11/5/09
NYT 3:41
LAT 2:58
Tausig untimed
CS untimed
Patrick Blindauer's New York Times crossword
I didn't read the Notepad entry for this puzzle, and it's just as well or I would have been sidetracked from the task of answering the clues. I finished the puzzle, then read this: "When this puzzle is completed, one letter of the alphabet will appear 22 times. Shade in its square everywhere it appears. The result will be an image suggested by 36-Across." 36A is INVISIBLE MAN, so there's a hidden drawing somewhere...and look, his torso is at 25D: SSSSSSS, the [1973 horror flick about a doctor who turns his assistant into a cobra]. I should've known SSSSSSS was there for a grander purpose! This now-visible man seems to have a freakishly long torse relative to his limbs. Poor guy. Must be impossible to find jackets that fit.
I'm tired and distracted, so let me resort to a scarcely annotated list:
• 16A. [Canine care grp.?] is ADA, canines being teeth and the ADA being the American Dental Association. I used to freelance for them, you know.
• 18A. ROSES ARE RED is the [Start of a lover's quatrain]. ...Irises are purple. If you're ill-bred, you call it a nurple. Is that how it goes? Looks like a theme entry because it's long, but no. All that's thematic are those symmetrical-in-the-grid Ss.
• 33A. Why isn't this clue [___ wazoo]? UP THE [___ ante] is boring.
• 34A. OSTIA, [Port of ancient Rome], crosswordese, an S where Patrick needed one for the drawing.
• 55A. MONKEES was the [#1 album for 13 weeks in 1966-67, with "The"]. I had BEATLES. Seriously.
• 60A. [Eliminates undesirable parts]...hmm...CIRCUMCISES fits. So does CLEANS HOUSE. "Parts" is a dangerous word.
• 64A. Are you kidding me? [Panties, old-style] were called STEP-INS? Never heard that term before. The Ss are the man's feet.
• 65A. LAE is the [Pacific port where Amelia Earhart was last seen]. I hear Amelia is a boring movie. LAE I know from Kevin Der's record-breaking grid, where it was perhaps the ugliest answer.
• 2D. Robert Randolph and the Family Band miss out here. RANDOLPH is clued as [Air Force base near San Antonio].
• 6D. [19th-century James] is vague. First name? No, last. JESSE James. He should've known better than to rob the Northfield, Minnesota, bank.
• 8D. [Filly] clues LASS. Gag me. "Filly"?
• 21D. RISHI is a [Hindu sage], and the S is the man's hand.
• 38D. ENATE means [Maternally related]. Hoary crosswordese.
• 45D. Showtime at the APOLLO! [New York theater on the National Register of Historic Places, with "the"].
• 51D. MENSA, [Indicator of brightness]. Is there a reason it's not clued [Indicator of social skills]? I don't get Mensa. I liked the newsletter when my mom was a member for a few years in the '70s, but since then? Nah.
Okay, so I lied. That was more than scarce annotation.
Good night!
Updated Thursday morning:
Raymond Hamel's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "For Your Protection"—Janie's review
For a puzzle that yields theme-fill of a highly industrial nature, this puppy sure has a lot to recommend it. Each of the five theme-phrases is clued identically: [It's worn for your protection]. The five theme-answers are:
•4D. WELDER'S MASK
•18A. HAZMAT SUIT
•25D. KNEE PAD
•27D. CRASH HELMET
•60A. FLAK JACKET
But look how nice and scrabbly the fill is. And there's a lovely assonance thing going when you say the words aloud: mask, hazmat, pad, crash, flak jacket. You can also hear it as well in such non-theme fill as CACKLE [Witch's outburst], AT LAW [Words on a shingle] and the cleverly clued CLARA [Bow on the screen] (so that's a long "o" in "Bow").
I think this may be the first time we've seen E-BOOK clued as a [Kindle download] in a CS puzzle. And it looks like this is the first time ROZ has been clued as [Cartoonist Chast] here. Love Roz Chast's observations on the details of everyday life.
Also love such lively fill as SCHNOZ (with it's lively [Honker] clue), which shares that "Z" with TABRIZ [City in Iran]. Tabriz is Iran's fourth largest city, and Iran sits right across the Persian Gulf from SAUDI Arabia (though today Saudi comes to us by way of the clue [Arabian leader]). Lotta desert land in that part of the world, so thank goodness for the OASES [Places for camels to drink].
Then there's VERDANT [Green] (to keep things fresh) and POOL TOY [Inflatable raft, say] (though I'm not sure a floating raft qualifies as a toy...). When you (or your raft) are [Drifting on the briny], you're ASEA, where "AVAST!" is a [Gob's stopper]. In addition to those two clues, I enjoyed [Not dis] for DAT, [Do a do] for PERM and [All you need, according to the Beatles] for LOVE. (And remember, they're the ones who declared "money can't buy me love!" For guys who sang that they "don't care too much for money," they sure managed to amass quite a bit of it. Ah, well, it was a dirty job and somebody had to do it...)
Xan Vongsathorn's Los Angeles Times crossword
Xan Vongsathorn's debut puzzle was in the New York Times, while his second puzzle (that I know of) comes to us from the West Coast. The theme hovers around four [Non-speaking line?]s, tied together by SILENCE IS GOLDEN, the [Apt adage for this puzzle]. The other four phrases are MY LIPS ARE SEALED, I'M ALL EARS, WORDS ESCAPE ME, and NO COMMENT. Now, they don't all mean exactly the same thing—I won't blab, I'm listening, I can't describe it, I refuse to answer—but they loosely fall under the SILENCE IS GOLDEN rubric. You'll note that although there's a MY, I'M, and ME, there are no repeated words in the theme answers.
TATTLE, or 21A: [Spill the beans], is practically the opposite of MY LIPS ARE SEALED. Any other talking answers in the fill? MEOW is a [Cat call], not a human word. "DUH" and "I'M GONE" are spoken language for people. And OBAMA is clued as [President with a Grammy], for his Spoken Word Book.
Ice cream! [Country where Haagen-Dazs H.Q. is] is, of course, the USA.
I guess we're still in the holding pattern waiting for Thursday L.A. Times puzzles to inch up in difficulty. Or maybe Thursdays will remain Tuesdays and only Friday and Saturday will be tougher? I'm not sure. I'm not finding much to talk about in this puzzle. Well, you know what they say—silence is golden.
Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword, "Silent Treatment"
Ben puts a different spin on silence, adding a silent letter to each of five phrases to change the meaning but not the pronunciation:
• 17A. [Totally sweet depth-checking gadget?] is a SUGAR PLUMB. Have any of you ever had a sugar plum? I have not.
• 26A. [Architectural piece in "Where the Wild Things Are"?] clues MONSTER JAMB. What is Monster Jam, you may wonder. Monster truck derbies. I always call such events "Truckasaurus" after The Simpsons.
• 39A. Freestyle rap yields FREESTYLE WRAP, or [Improvise with some ribbons and bows?].
• 52A. [Olfactory reward for leading a good life?] is HEAVEN SCENT.
• 62A. A latex dental dam becomes DENTAL DAMN, or [The curse of the orthodontist?].
Miscellaneous fill and clues:
• AREPAS are [Some Spanish small-plate items]. I've never had arepas, but Chowhound knows a few places I might try in Chicago. More South American than Spanish, apparently.
• You gotta know your political figures to nail all of Ben Tausig's puzzles. Don NICKLES of Oklahoma was the [Senate Majority Whip before Reid] and after Lott. How would he fare in a battle with Don Rickles?
• [Soul backing band named for their singer] is the JBS, after James Brown. I did not know this one.
• [Bygone TV award] is the CABLE ACE Award. Didn't people joke about those during the Emmys this fall?
• [Macedonian city where Mother Teresa was born] is SKOPJE, Macedonia's capital. It wasn't called Macedonia when she was born. Ben's original clue, [Mother Teresa's birthplace, today] was impossible for me, so if you got this one, you can thank me. I was guessing KOSOVO based on the old clue. Wikipedia tells me that when she was born, it was called Üsküb, Ottoman Empire. Her family was Albanian, and modern-day Albania and Macedonia share a border.
• [Discount travel agency for students] is called STA. I don't think this existed when I was a student.
• [Tries to look bigger than one is, in a way] clues BSS, short for "bullshits."
• [Due times cinquanta] is CENTI. I gather cinquanta is Italian for 50?
October 25, 2009
Monday, 10/26/09
BEQ 5:43
NYT 2:54
CS untimed (J)/2:54 (A)
LAT 2:36
Mike Nothnagel's New York Times crossword
I feel like I'm missing the point of this puzzle. Four men—two real, two fictional—whose 3-letter first names end with an X are unified weirdly by the X FACTOR, a [Mystery quality...or what 18- and 55-Across and 3- and 32-Down have?]. But these guys don't have the X factor. They just have names with an X in them, don't they? The fellas are as follows:
• FOX MULDER, [Dana Scully's sci-fi partner] on The X-Files. Hey, another X.
• MAX YASGUR is the [Owner of the farm where Woodstock took place]. Is he Monday puzzle material? Shouldn't Woodstock be Woodstox to ramp up his X FACTOR?
• LEX LUTHOR is the main ["Superman" villain]. Too bad he doesn't wear a costume with a big X on his chest.
• TEX RITTER is the [Cowboy who sang the title song from "High Noon"] and actor John Ritter's father. High noon on a clock with Roman numerals has an X: XII.
Lots of 6-, 7-, and 8-letter answers in the fill, not par for the course on a Monday. But everything's clued at maybe a Tuesday level, and the fill is pretty accessible. The toughest answer may be 10D: [House style with a long pitched roof in back], or SALTBOX. Also on the more difficult end of the spectrum:
• NEMEA is the [Ancient Greek city with a mythical lion].
• LAPP is a [Northern Scandinavian]. These indigenous people prefer to be called Sami rather than Lapps.
• OSIERS are willow [Twigs for baskets]. Classic crosswordese: commit to memory.
• [John of colonial Jamestown] is John ROLFE. I get the Johns Rolfe and Alden mixed up.
• [Learn secondhand] clues the phrase HEAR OF.
• EASY ON is apparently the [Start of a billboard catchphrase meaning "close to the highway"]. Easy Off is an oven cleaner, and I don't think I've seen billboards promising "easy on..." and whatever else the billboard is supposed to say.
• Don't like AS FAT ([Equally plump]) as a crossword answer.
• [Coat named for an Irish province] is an ULSTER. I think I may have learned of the little-U ulster from crosswords.
• Bible trivia I didn't know: [Esther 8:9 is the longest one in the Bible] clues VERSE.
Updated Monday morning:
Patrick Blindauer's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "What's Eating U?"—Janie's review
Learning how to read the titles of the CS puzzles is half the fun sometimes. Today's is a little bit cryptic and a little bit text-y and in its cryptic/text-y way alerts us to the fact that—almost as if it'd been eaten up—the letter "U" has been dropped from four well-known names and phrases to create the fresh 'n' funny theme fill. That's how:
•17A. Gingerbread house → GINGERBREAD HOSE [Cookie conduit?]. A visual and very funny concept.
•30A. Jelly donuts → JELLY DON'TS [No-nos for a sweet spread?]. "Don't lick the spoon that goes in the jelly jar," "don't spread jelly on your hamburger," "don't put the jelly in your sister's hair," etc.
•48A. Lady Capulet → LADY CAPLET [Pill for women?]. Um, guess that'd be something like this...
•63A. "Popular Mechanics" → POPLAR MECHANICS [Those who repair aspens?]. I suppose tree surgeons are mechanics of a sort.
What I particularly like about the way Patrick's filled the grid is his success in excluding the letter "U" altogether—which explains in part why we're seeing U-less fill like E-I-E-I-O (yet) again and (pick-any-number) CLI (Roman 151). The crossing of ESQS. and IRAQ is a great example of how to use "Q" sans "U."
The puzzle is filled to the brim with cultural and entertainment-industry fill of the higher and lower varieties, such as:
•LA BOHÈME [1896 Puccini premiere] (the opera that was also a Broadway offering in the 2002-03 season playing the Broadway Theatre, as did) EVITA [1980 Tony-winning musical];
•musicians and vocalists (all of whom produced their share of SOLI [Songs for a single performer] and well more than one B-SIDE [Half of a 45]) EDIE Brickell, the great BO DIDDLEY ["Have Guitar Will Travel" performer], ["Mama" Cass] ELLIOT, (one-time voice of Chevy) Dinah SHORE, and AMY(S) [...and Grant];
•cinema's DENNIS Quaid, Pam GRIER, Barbara EDEN [Hagman's co-star], glam sisters EVA and ZSA [Twice a Gabor], CHICO MARX, and IDA(S) [Lupino and...];
•the written word's: IDA(S) [...and Wells], AMY(S) [Tan and...], Pulitzer-winning [Columnist Herb] CAEN, (Thomas) [Hardy girl] TESS, and of course, Shakespeare's Lady CapUlet...
There's also a tip o' the hat to the boob tube with AIRS [Shows on TV] (verb, not noun) and HSN [Buying channel on TV]. Unless (yet) another award category is created, this show is (mercifully) not likely to win an EMMY [TV trophy].
If you do "See the USA in Your Chevrolet" (see 38 ACR), you might pass through MOAB [Utah city near Arches National Park] or TENN. [Chattanooga's home (abbr.)]. Like that [Word before cheese or eagle], they're all-AMERICAN.
And that, folks, is my SPIN [Interpretation] of today's puzzle!
Hi, it's Amy again. Patrick, what a delightful crossword! Funny theme (particularly LADY CAPLET and POPLAR MECHANICS), kickass fill (BO DIDDLEY and CHICO MARX, together again!). A great way to start the week.
Jerome Gunderson's Los Angeles Times crossword
The theme is Ahnuld Schwarzenegger's famous line, "I'll be back," from The TERMINATOR, which was released 25 years ago today. Whoo, does that make you feel old or what? The other three theme entries are phrases that begin with the words in that catchphrase"
• I'LL FLY AWAY is a [Hymn whose title follows the line "When I die, Hallelujah, by and by"]. I don't know this song at all, but I think there was a TV show by that name. Yep, early '90s, with Regina Taylor and Sam Waterston, before Sam began his Law & Order run.
• BE PREPARED is the Boy [Scout's motto].
• BACK TO BACK is [How duelists begin]. Minus one point for having BACK in there twice, slightly muddying the theme consistency.
Highlights in the fill include KID ROCK ([Duettist with Sheryl Crow in the song "Picture"]), POP-TART ([Kellogg's toaster pastry]), T.S. ELIOT (["Cats" poet]—you know you've been doing crosswords too long when you see TSE and automatically fill in TSETSES before reading the clue), RUGRATS ([Toon babies of '90s-'00s TV], and an actual word aside from the cartoon), and a GERBIL ([Rodent kept as a house pet]). Summertime bonus points for clueing JUICY as [Like ripe peaches].
Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Themeless Monday"
If you don't follow today's pop culture, you might have had a tough time with the letter in square 3. I sure as hell never heard of ZAP MAMA, [Belgian singer with the 2009 album "ReCreation"], and I've never watched TMZ ON TV ([Syndicated trashy gossip show]) but I know TMZ is the trashy gossip website with a TV show spinoff. It's quite possible that nobody anywhere has ever put either of those answers into a crossword before. Other slappably fresh stuff:
• QB RATING is a [Sports metric where a perfect score is 158.3]. Football fans probably got that a lot faster than I did. I wasn't sure if it would be QADDAFI at 8A, or KADDAFI, or GADDAFI. And I know nothing about how the QB RATING works so the clue wasn't helping me much.
• PAY CZAR is [Kenneth Feinberg's title]. Ripped from the headlines + a Z = natural fit for a BEQ puzzle.
• THE HUMP—is that a 7-letter partial or an entity unto itself? This [Most difficult moment, in a phrase] is what you have to get over.
• ZETA PSI? Really? I had the Z from JAZZ BAND so the ZETA part was obvious, but I needed the crossings to figure out the second Greek letter in the [Fraternity to which Alfred Kinsey and Benjamin Spock belonged].
I gotta Google this clue for A RAT now. ["___ in the house may eat the ice cream" (spelling mnemonic)] is not remotely familiar to me. The answer is in an an exterminator's page, but his A.R.I.T.H.M.E.T.I.C. teacher used "Tom" in place of "the." I was always a good speller so maybe that's why I missed this one. Or maybe my teachers never needed us to be able to spell "arithmetic" because really, when does a kid need to do that?
October 15, 2009
Friday, 10/16/09
BEQ 4:45
NYT 4:33
CHE 3:16
CS untimed
LAT 2:56
WSJ 8:20
For another sort of puzzle, see "Go Away" in the post below this one.
Karen Tracey's New York Times crossword
Another Friday, another freestyle Karen Tracey creation to love. Let's run through the cool, the challenging, and the classically Karenical, shall we?
First, you're going to grapple with some names of people and places:
• 14A. LIVY is the [Writer of the history "Ab Urbe Condita"]. It's a history of ancient Rome.
• 15A. The fictional SETHE is Toni Morrison's ["Beloved" heroine].
• 30A. Geography! [Lusatian ___ (German/Polish border river)] is the NEISSE.
• 44A. Who? RAUL is clued as [1980s Argentine president ___ Alfonsin].
• 53A. Eric UTNE is a [Reader's digest founder of 1984]. Note the lowercase d.
• 58A. RAFE is clued as the [Male protagonist in William Inge's "Good Luck, Miss Wyckoff"]. I've heard of Inge, but that's as far as I got with this one. Yay for crossings.
• 1A. [Film composer Clausen and others] clues ALFS. He's best known for composing The Simpsons theme. Hey, PuzzleGirl—he grew up in North Dakota.
• 36D. TENERIFE is the [Largest of the Canary Islands].
• 39D. HANA is the [Easternmost town on Maui, on one end of 52 miles of twisty highway].
• 43D. Fake geography! NARNIA is the [Setting for C.S. Lewis's "The Last Battle"].
Usually Karen provides tons of Scrabbly action in her grids. This one's got TUXEDO JUNCTION (23A: ["Where people go to dance the night away," in song]), but not much else. Here are the answers and clues I liked best:
• 20A. The SILENT T is [Part of Christmas].
• 26A. "Limnological" is a pretty word. [Limnological study] clues LAKE.
• 38A. [What you probably have a head for] is the the SHOWER fixture in your bathroom.
• 47A. BEARNAISE SAUCE is a [Chateaubriand accompaniment, often]. How's BEARNAISE on FLANK STEAK (17A: [London broil, often])?
• 50A. Are the Little Rascals synonymous with OUR GANG? Same kids, different era? I honestly don't know. They're [Kids in funny shorts], as in short films. Tricky having a plural clue for an answer ending with G.
• 6D. GET TO KNOW means [More than merely meet].
• 9D. You can think of a few possibilities for [Toy developed in China], can't you? Such as kites? Think instead of toy dogs, like the PEKINESE.
• 10A. A [Set for a reading] is a TAROT DECK. Really fresh answer, that.
• 11D. [Emperor's relative] is ADELIE. Both are types of penguin.
• 24D. "JEEPERS!" means ["Golly!"]. See also DRAT, or 59A: ["Nuts!"], for another old-timey slang exclamation.
• 40D. [Fractional bit?] is the SLASH punctuation mark you see in "1/3."
Let me grumble a moment over the nearly neighboring USENET (45D: [Early online discussion setting]) and USERS (49D: [Detox population]). At least the USERS aren't clued as computer users. There aren't a ton of other options for 49D, with the U*E** fixed by long answers and an 8-letter answer running alongside it.
Jack McInturff's Chronicle of Higher Education crossword, "Capital Gains"
Who doesn't love games based on world capitals? I relished McInturff's theme, in which the second half of various capital cities sounds like the beginning of another word or phrase. The city and phrase are hooked together à la Wheel of Fortune "Before and After" puzzles, and the resulting answer is clued as if it's about the city:
• 19A. [Building material from Sudan?] is KHARTOUM STONE (tombstone). The tomb aspect is dropped from the clue.
• 26A. [Beverage from Lebanon?] is BEIRUT BEER (root beer). Both beer and root beer are beverages.
• 33A. [Sandwich shop in India?] clues NEW DELHI COUNTER (deli counter). "Counter" sans "deli" doesn't much signal "sandwich shop," so the answer hinges on both Delhi and deli.
• 42A. [Soil in Taiwan?] is TAIPEI DIRT (pay dirt). As with 19A, the pay aspect of the base phrase disappears.
• 52A. [Correspondents form Cambodia?] are PHNOM PENH PALS. Again, as with 33A, the clue hints at the second base phrase.
I sort of wish the theme had been more consistent with the inclusion or exclusion of the "after" phrases' meanings, but I'd still give this one a B+ because the theme entertained me, the word count's low (72), and the fill's pretty solid, with high points like NAPOLEON and TOOK A BOW. Why not an A? It ought to be a more challenging puzzle, and nobody's delighted by TAW, RETE, ESAU, ELIA, DEUT., and "IS IT I." (Why the letter grade? Hey, the puzzle's in a publication for professors.)
Updated Friday morning:
Nancy Salomon's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Missing the Point,"—Janie's review
This is lookin' a bit like a three-peat to me. For the third time this week, we have a puzzle with a "take away" gimmick and once again the stakes have been raised. Paula's puzzle on Tuesday dropped one letter from each base phrase (J); Tony's yesterday dropped two (LL); and today, Nancy drops three. = Those letters, as spelled out at 71A [Compass dir. (and point missing from 18-, 30-, 47-, and 61-Across)], are NNE. Pretty nifty actually. In a former life, the phrase:
• 18A. CAD LAUGHTER [Nasty snickering?] was canned laughter (which can also be pretty nasty, come to think of it...).
• 30A. STAR-SPANGLED BAR [Celebs' watering hole?] was our own national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner."
• 47A. UNREPENTANT SIRS [Gentlemen without remorse?] was unrepentant sinners. I wonder if these guys gave Nancy the idea for cad laughter. Or vice-versa...
• 61A. BAD IN BOSTON [What Bean Town felons have been?] was banned in Boston. If you're not familiar with this phrase and its Puritan ties, this would be a good time to check it out. Love the "bean"/"been" wordplay in the clue, too. And... I wonder if those unrepentant sirs had anything to do with inspiring this entry. Or vice-versa...
Besides that unrepentant-bad-cad sub-theme, the puzzle also boasts a Japanese-inspired mini-theme. There's HAI [Yes, in Yokohama] (yesterday it was [OK, in Okinawa]), OBI [Sapporo sashes] and AKITAS [Curly-tailed Japanese dogs]—which look to be both an adorable and beautiful breed.
If you're a carnivore, you probably have a more vested interest in seeing that juicy PRIME RIB [Pricey beef lover's entrée] in the grid. Need a complement of carbs to go with? UNCLE BEN [Big name in rice] might fill the bill nicely. The [Starchy food made from tubers], SALEP, was completely new to me. Am I alone? It does look to have a fascinating history however, and appears to be something that is prepared as a beverage. Also as an aphrodisiac. Which, come to think of it, means it might be just right for a MOONLIT occasion [Like some romantic evenings].
Did you notice that the grid includes both ORAL [By word of mouth] and OREL [Sportscaster Hershiser]? The former shares the final L with EBERSOL [Longtime sports executive Dick], but better still (because of the sports tie-in) is the way the ...REL of the latter sits atop the EBE... of his professional colleague.
SIREN has been clued as [Warning wail], but a siren is also a temptress. Whether or not either of these alliteratively clued femmes intended to be one, DAISY MAE [Dogpatch damsel] and LOLITA [Nabokov nymphet], both have their siren-like ways. And in her own way, I suppose the same can be said of the equally iconic ROSIE [Archetypical 1940s riveter]. (For a study in the-same-only-different, check out all three links!)
Tony Orbach and Patrick Blindauer's Wall Street Journal crossword, "Cooking 100"
Tony and Patrick's theme interprets "Cooking 100" as an academic course of study, with the theme entries all clued as cooking classes. The title also uses "100" as the Arabic equivalent of Roman numeral C, which is the letter added to the start of a word in each theme entry. My favorites among these C+ cooking classes are:
• 68A. LET'S GET READY TO CRUMBLE, or [Course on preparing coffeecake topping?].
• 97A. [Course on a taboo ham seasoning?] is FORBIDDEN CLOVE. I like the unexpected vowel shift from "love" to CLOVE.
As you'd expect from either of these constructors, there's plenty of lively fill—there's KATE MOSS, who could walk on EGGSHELLS, plus a GHOST SHIP and RABELAIS. And the clues sparkle, too. I was partial to [Oblivious beneficiaries] for INGRATES; hockey's St. Louis [Blues scores] for GOALS; [Bldg. that's not well-attended?] for HOSP., which is attended by the unwell; ["A waking dream," according to Aristotle] for HOPE; and [Common or Juvenile] for RAPPER. Two coin answers work together: U.S. MINT is clued with [It makes cents] and SPECIE means [Coined money]. I never think of the LENTIL as a [Soup seed] but rather as a bean, though I guess the clue is botanically sound.
I'm surprised to see both EATS (27A: [Has wings, say]—a terrific clue even if you don't like hot wings) and ATE IT (123A: [Suffered defeat, slangily]) in the same grid.
The two answers most in need of a lot of crossing answers were ATLI and CAMISE. The latter is a [Loose-fitting shirt]—I just saw BLOUSE clued that way quite recently, and while I know chemise and camisole, CAMISE was not in my vocabulary. ATLI is an old-school crossword answer, but the clue, [Brynhildr's brother, in myth], wasn't helping me one bit.
Dan Naddor's Los Angeles Times crossword
Ven I vas doing zis puzzle, I started talking in my head mit a German accent. The theme changes initial W sounds to Vs in familiar phrases or vords:
• 18A. Wheelchair becomes VEAL CHAIR, or [Seat for eating scaloppine?].
• 23A. [Tool for a dueling snake?] is a VIPRE BLADE (wiper blade).
• 36A. [What Tarzan becomes after years of swinging?] is a VINE (wine) CONNOISSEUR. The trickiest part of that one is remembering how to spell CONNOISSEUR, isn't it? Better than having a VINE TASTING.
• 49A. VAIN NEWTON joins Isaac Newton to Wayne Newton. The clue's [Egotistical describer of laws of motion?].
• 55A. [Paleontologist's ski resort discoveries?] are VAIL BONES. Whalebones are those stiff stays in corsets.
Smooth and easy, a perfect Tuesday puzzle. The grid is gussied up with long fill like NEON TETRA, SLOWPOKE, CELLPHONE, and LAKE ERIE. Not a lot else to say about it.
Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Dirty Words"
Quick review here.
Theme = GROUCHO quote, WOMEN SHOULD / BE OBSCENE / AND NOT HEARD. Short quote, leaves room in the puzzle for good stuff.
Good fill = The late Captain LOU ALBANO (I knew him from the Cyndi Lauper video), THE STICKS (same length and last 3 letters as BOONDOCKS, whoops), ED HARRIS, Fred WILLARD and FREDDIE Mercury. Not sure if Saddam HUSSEIN in the Idi Amin slot is gutsy fill or terrible. I like LESBIAN as fill, but could do without the male-centric clue, [She's just not that into you (maybe)].
Favorite clues = [Prefix with cache] stumped me until crossings gave me GEO, as in the trendy geocaching. STATUES? [They may be busts]. Not crazy about LAW CASE as an answer, but the clue, [Mason's job], had me thinking of stonemasons and not Perry Mason. [Miller of note] is STEVE Miller, '70s AM radio mainstay; I guess the "of note" hints at his music but I was thinking of more traditionally notable people and getting nowhere. [Robin hood?] is the TREE its nest is in. Oh! And this one: [They're from Mars] clues M AND M'S. Cute.
