Saturday, 11/28/09

NYT (PG)
LAT (PG)
CS (Janie)
Newsday 5:20 (joon—paper)

PuzzleGirl here with you again. Whenever I sit in for Orange on late-week puzzles, I have a little panic attack about the fact that I might not be able to solve the puzzle. I mean, that's just a fact. I've improved a lot over the past couple years, but it's not a given that I can finish a Friday or Saturday New York Times puzzle. And let's just say there's a really good reason that I don't volunteer for the Saturday Stumper. How did I do this week? Find out after the jump.

Oh, but before we get started, I understand there was some discussion over here a while back about the various PGs in CrossWorld and how they (we) should be ranked. I believe I ended up as PG2 behind Paula Gamache. Which is fine. There's no way I'm dumb enough to think I belong in front of Paula on the list. But it occurred to me that I wouldn't even be in the second spot if you guys had remembered Peter Gordon. So. I decided that as long as I'm going to end up a ways down the list anyway, I would prefer to be PG-13. I think that should work for everybody.

But enough about me. Let's see what I think about the puzzles.

Karen M. Tracey's New York Times crossword puzzle

So, what do you think? Did I finish this one? With no mistakes? Why, yes. Yes, I did. Yay me! I struggled a bit, especially in the NW, but I stopped the clock just barely past 30 minutes, which is a few minutes faster than my average Saturday time. It's actually making me feel a little cocky about this year's Puzzle Five, but I'm sure I'll regret that.

Where did I stumble? I had the SSION in place for [What a student might not go without?] and wanted the answer to be some sort of EXAM instead of PERMISSION SLIP. (Actually, my first thought was LAPTOP or IPHONE or something, but ... that's totally inappropriate.) EXAM led me to believe "Pooh-Bah" came from THE MASONS, which seems reasonable. I mean, since FLINTSTONES and HAPPY DAYS wouldn't fit. (Correct answer: THE MIKADO.) Entering TOLL BOOTH for TOLL PLAZA didn't help things down there. But it all eventually worked itself out.

RIKKI TIKKI TAVI showed itself pretty early. What with all those Ks in place, it could hardly be anything else. But I could hear ANNIE LENNOX singing "Talk to me / Like lovers do ...." Turns out that's a whole different song than STEVIE NICKS's "Talk to Me." I also had ELUDE for EVADE and ALLER for AVOIR down in the SW for a while. And since [Pathology pioneer Sir James] PAGET and [18-season Mariner EDGAR Martinez] were total guesses, I'm actually kind of surprised that corner pulled itself together.

There's obviously a lot more we can talk about with this puzzle, but there is a slice of pumpkin pie in the kitchen calling my name so let me get the L.A. Times puzzle out of the way and I'll see you back here tomorrow.

Alan Olschwang's L.A. Times crossword puzzle

I thought we might have a theme going with the two double-Z answers: MEZZO-SOPRANO and JACUZZI (22A: Carmen, for one / 38A: Maker of many jets). But no. Then when I saw more Scrabbly letters, and thought we might have a pangram on our hands. But no again. All it needs is an effin' F. Bummer.

Stuff I did not know:

• 19A: Zen enlightenment (SATORI). Sometimes considered the first step toward Nirvana.
• 10D: Belgium winter hrs. (CET). Whoa, what? That would be Central European Time.
• 13D: Former Tennessee Titans tight end Kinney (ERRON). Insert your own err-on-the-side-of-caution joke here.
• 24D: Sprites of Persian mythology (PERIS). Apparently they rank between angels and evil spirits. Kinda like humans, I guess.
• 50D: "The Hustler" author Walter (TEVIS). I didn't know "The Hustler" was originally a novel.
• 62D: Knotted pile carpet (RYA). It's a traditional Scandinavian rug. If you do a Google image search, you see a wide variety of colors and designs, so I'm not sure what it is that makes these rugs their own category. Something about the wool or the knots I think.

Other stuff I noticed:

• 33A: Inexpensive kids' toy (PAPER DOLL). I'm pretty sure toy makers have discovered a way to make paper dolls expensive.
  
• 47A: Classic Jag (XKE). I always want there to be a J in this answer. And there never is.
• 4D: Derby town (EPSOM). Epsom, Essex, Sussex ... they're all the same to me unfortunately.
• 34D: Dallas Mavericks owner before Cuban (PEROT). Kept reading this as "Dallas Mavericks owner Cuban" and couldn't figure out why Mark wouldn't fit.
• 39D: Golfer Babe who was a six-time AP Female Athlete of the Year (ZAHARIAS). So, yes, I know her name was Babe, but "Golfer Babe"? That doesn't seem right somehow.

Patrick Jordan's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Backup Plan"—Janie's review

As the Congreve saying goes, "Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast," and this puzzle—which takes lively, everyday phrases and re-purposes them with a musical twist—hath its charms as well. Lotta smile factor in this one as Patrick gives a shout-out to both classic rock 'n' roll and classic Motown with:

• 20A. MIRACLE WORKER [Member of Smokey Robinson's group, while performing?]. Pick a tune, any tune.
• 27A. CRICKET MATCH [Sports contest for a member of Buddy Holly's group?]. Oh, I loved Buddy Holly and the Crickets as a kid. Still do. Here's why.
• 43A. SUPREME COURT [Legal venue for a member of Diana Ross's group?] Let's hear it for the girls!
• 51A. COMET CLEANSER [Soap for a member of Bill Haley's group?]. Bill Haley and the Comets were just about the first folks to get the ball rollin'. And popular music was never quite the same.

The four groups that Patrick singled out provide more than a trip down memory lane. Each one made a real difference to the genre; each is still listened to today—and not only by the boomer generation. I'm so grateful for radio shows like Felix Hernandez's "Rhythm Review" on WBGO that spin soul's and rhythm 'n' blues' best. It's worth checking out on line if you don't live in the New York area.

I wish the cluing in this puzzle were as much fun as the rangy fill. Here are some of the words and phrases I liked best:

• PALM PILOT [Hand-held organizer brand];
• FAT CAT [Major campaign contributer]. Oh—and on the subject of campaigns, I liked seeing TED ["Liberal Lion" Kennedy] and KERRY [2004 ballot surname] in the grid;
• TAP WATER [Fluid from a faucet]. New York's is mighty good;
• HEARTH [Fireplace floor];
• TYPECAST [Given similar roles repeatedly]. It beat not being cast at all, but also speaks to some lack of imagination. And not only among the casting directors...
• ICE SHOW [Skating exhibition] (where you might enjoy some SNO [___-Caps...]);and finally—how often do we see this:
• "ET TU, BRUTE?" [Famed Shakespearean last words]. It's the phrase in its entirety. Be still, my heart!

Barry C. Silk's Newsday "Saturday Stumper"—joon's review

this is, by a fair amount, the easiest stumper i've ever done. i started by knowing 1a (EMMA watson, who plays [Hermione in the "Harry Potter" films]) and proceeded through the puzzle, never really getting hung up anywhere. most unusual for a stumper. i liked several of the answers a lot, especially AIR GUITAR, WHIFFLE BALL, and DOMO ARIGATO. i think there were fewer tricky clues than usual. a few that i enjoyed:

• [It takes weeks to complete] is not any particular task, but merely a MONTH.
  
• [One held for questioning] is not a person, but a TEST. we held a test last week to "question" our students on physics, i guess.
  
• [Tag line] is the AS IS that might appear on a tag at a yard sale or flea market.
  
• a few outright traps: [___ reader], four letters? nope, not UTNE this time (note the lowercase r): it's MIND reader. [Unrefined], CR___? i put in CRUDE, but it's CRASS, meaning unrefined socially rather than chemically.
  
• [Augustan-era poet] is not a poet from the augustan era of english literature like pope or swift, but VIRGIL, who wrote during the reign of augustus caesar. but i almost feel like you had to be overeducated to fall into this trap.
  
• a couple of unnecessarily stuffy clues: why [Elusive one] for DODGER? nobody uses DODGER to mean one who dodges, unless they're talking specifically about a draft dodger. there's no real alternative for a word like RESHUT, but DODGER is perfectly cluable via the baseball team. and [High-frequency sound] for TWEET seems hopelessly out of touch, given that 99% of the time TWEET now means twitter posting.
  

clue i still don't get: [Safe to crack] for PETE. huh? is this an adjective or a noun? a person (pete safe)? no idea.

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Tuesday, 11/17/09

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

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

John Farmer's New York Times crossword

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Freshest answers in the fill:

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

Updated Tuesday morning:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bruce Venzke's Los Angeles Times crossword

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

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

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Friday, 11/6/09

NYT 6:01
BEQ 4:32
CHE 3:42
LAT 3:24
CS untimed
WSJ 8:05

Doug Peterson's New York Times crossword

Aargh! Don't you hate it when you click "done" with 4:46 on the clock but you have a typo in a Down answer and begin scanning all the Across answers so it takes a good long while to see JULEETTE BINOCHE sitting in reproach? Hell, for all I knew, 19A: ["The Ballad of ___," 1967 comedy western] was spelled JOSEE rather than JOSIE because hey, there's The Outlaw Josey Wales. Wales was a '76 movie, whereas The Ballad of Josie "attempted to humorously tackle 1960s themes of feminism in a traditional western setting." The plot: "A young woman living in fictional Arapahoe County, Wyoming accidentally kills her very abusive husband. She is put on trial but acquitted. She then incurs the annoyance of her male neighbors by farming sheep instead of cattle and setting up a woman's suffrage movement." Anyone ever hear of this Doris Day flick?

Okay, the puzzle: 68 words. Two 15s, four 10s, eight 9s, some intermediate-length answers, and only six 3s, which is nice. The highlights:

• Why not cross ALPHA MALE with UN-P.C.? It's a natural pairing. 16A: [Leader of the pack], 3D: [Sexist, say]. Right beside that is OGLE, or [Regard impolitely].
• 1A. I filled in MOUNT FUJI via the crossings, as I was thinking I needed an East Asian equivalent of Mecca for the [Far Eastern pilgrimage destination]. Another mountain: 28A: PIZ [___ Bernina (highest peak in the Eastern Alps]. I like to say PIZ.
• 14A. Love the word IGNORAMUS. [Dull type] doesn't begin to capture it.
• 36A. The title doesn't ring a bell, but [Subject of the 2005 biography "iCon"] is STEVE JOBS. Is that "ooh, he's an icon" or "he'll con you with his iWhatnots"? I'm reading the title as a hatchet-job "I Con."
• 37A. If you [Spotted] me $40, you LENT it to me. Thanks. I'll totally pay you back.
• 46A. [Hamburger's acknowledgment] is DANKE, a Hamburger being someone from Hamburg, Germany.
• 52A. I, CLAUDIUS is a great entry. [John Hurt played Caligula in it].
• 57A. The SERENGETI is [Where some buffalo roam]. Water buffalo?
• 1D. M.I.A.'S are clued with [They're officially honored on the third Friday in Sept. Veterans Day is next Wednesday, Nov. 11—my kid's off school then...and tomorrow too.
• 8D. JULIETTE BINOCHE, ["The English Patient" Oscar winner]. See? Sometimes I can type the right letters.
• 12D. [It often has controls] refers to an EXPERIMENT. I was in a medical study once—I think I was in the control group and man, did that stink. (Though it turns out the active-treatment group didn't fare much better.)
• 25D. [Its bulb is small]—my little Book Owl LED light? That too. But GREEN ONION is what Doug was going for here.
• 29D, 40A. ZESTY, meet CRUSTY. Is this about saltine crackers? Wait, those are crispy Zestas. [Vivacious], [Gruff].
• 31D. [Baseball nickname that's a portmanteau] is A-ROD, short for Alex Rodriguez. No baseball talk here, please. Not 'til opening day, 2010.
• 32D. [Fibula neighbor] down below is the TALUS, the big ankle bone. Did you want it to be TIBIA, 5 letters, starts with T?

OK, I like question-marked clues usually, but [Cabinet member?] for 48D: FILE doesn't do it for me. Your files are in no way "members" of your file cabinet.

Arcane factoids I am likely to forget by morning: PAUL V was the [Pope who met with Galileo], and ACETIC ACID is a [Wood distillation product].

Patrick Berry's Chronicle of Higher Education crossword, "Koined Terms"

From my Mac's widget dictionary: koine means "the common language of the Greeks from the close of the classical period to the Byzantine era; a common language shared by various peoples; a lingua franca." Our "Koined Terms" here begin with adjectives based on Greek names and are phrases of varying familiarity:

• HIPPOCRATIC OATH, check. [What doctors are expected to follow].
• SOCRATIC METHOD, check. [Teaching technique that involves asking questions].
• PYRRHIC VICTORY, check. [Win that wasn't worth it].
• HOMERIC LAUGHTER—huh? [What hilarious jokes induce] but also very bad news, medically: "Uncontrolled spasmodic laughter induced by mirthless stimuli, a symptom of organic brain disease that indicates a poor prognosis; HL may be seen in multiple sclerosis, pseudobulbar palsy, epilepsy, intracranial hemorrhage, frontal lobotomy, and kuru, which causes 'laughing death.'" My goodness.

I like the inclusion of Greek mythology's Athena (in a clue for MINERVA) and THESEUS, the MOHS/OHM'S echo, the SCUM clue ([Dirty film]—no, not that kind of film), and learning a new word in the CELTIC clue ([Like the festival of Beltane]). Beltane ushers in the summery half of the year on May 1 and Samhain closes it out on November 1. Have I seen the name HAUER before, or is [Austrian composer Josef Matthias ___] new to me? I think he's new to me. A 20th-century composer.

Sharon Petersen's Los Angeles Times crossword

The theme centers on words that sound like plurals of letter names:

• 17A. [Nursery rhyme dish?] with a question mark is PP PORRIDGE, with PP pronounced as two "Ps" standing in for "pease."
• 25A. CC THE DAY represents "seize the day," the ["Time is fleeting" philosophy?].
• 38A. "Whys and wherefores" becomes YY AND WHEREFORES, or [Reasons?].
• 49A. ["Good grief!"?] has got too much punctuation. GG LOUISE represents "jeez Louise."
• 61A. Remember that [1999 Kidman/Cruise film?] before she married Keith Urban and he married Katie Holmes? Eyes Wide Shut gives us II WIDE SHUT.

Favorite clues and answers:

• [Brest milk]! Ha! LAIT is milk in French, and Brest is a French city.
• ROSEY [Grier of the Fearsome Foursome] once sang a song, "It's All Right to Cry." He's right, you know.
• DAPPER DAN is a [Well-groomed guy].
• A [Website that users can edit] is a WIKI. If you've never fixed a typo in Wikipedia, you should try it sometime.
• [Verminophobe's fear] is GERMS. Yeesh! Maybe I'll be all better come Monday and can get the H1N1 vaccine with my kid.

Updated Friday morning:

Patrick Jordan's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Natural Defenses"—Janie's review

Yesterday, Ray Hamel's puzzle gave us five man-made items that are worn "for your protection," or man-made defenses. Today, Patrick gives us four of nature's own defenses, each of which appears as the first word of a well-known phrase having nothing to do with defenses—man-made or natural. You may want to don some protection, however, if you find yourself anywhere near these sometimes lethal weapons:

•17A. STINGER COCKTAIL [Brandy concoction]. I suppose drinking too many of these could be mighty dangerous, too, but the defense in question here is the stinger of the apian sort. On the subject of bee stings, all I can say is "Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!!"
•26A. SCALE MODEL [Proportionate reproduction]. Fish, reptiles, even butterflies have scales. They're not likely to harm you (in the way a stinger might), but they do help keep the species safe from their predators.
•48A. CLAW HAMMER [Carpentry staple] and, depending who's wielding it in a non-functional way..., quite capable of doing a lot of damage/providing a lot of protection. But let's focus instead on the claw component of the avian and ursine variety. Again: OUCH!!! (I feel certain you know this but the claws of the former may also be called "talons.")
•61A. POISON-PEN LETTER [Malicious message]. And you'll find poison everywhere: in spiders, snakes, fruit, plants, mushrooms. What can I tell you? Mother Nature looks out for her own, so be very careful!

If this puzzle isn't a knock-out, a solver could still WARM TO [Grow fond of] it. There's some fun in the cluing: [Result of baby's first spaghetti dinner] for MESS is particularly vivid; ditto [Cluelessness gesture] for SHRUG. Yesterday, we saw verdant and schnoz as fill. Today, [Became verdant] clues GREENED and [Jimmy known as "The Schnoz"] clues DURANTE, whose proboscis was famously immortalized in Cole Porter's "You're the Top":

You're a rose,
You're Inferno's Dante*,
You're the nose
On the great Durante.
I'm just in the way,
As the French would say, "de trop."
But if, baby, I'm the bottom,
You're the top!

*Also in yesterday's puzzle. Patrick, were you and Ray in communication when you were constructing these puzzles?

[Beetle Bailey's outfit] is not his UNIFORM but THE ARMY (his meta-outfit, so to speak). Did you know: "Beetle Bailey" was introduced by Mort Walker in 1950, and Walker is still producing the comic strip? Or that Lois, of Walker's "Hi and Lois," is Beetle's sister? I'm just wondering if Otto, Sarge's anthropomorphic dog, has ever said "ARF!" [Comic strip bark].

Myles Callum's Wall Street Journal crossword, "I'm a PC"

For my money, "I'm a PC" is among the more annoying, jejune commerical catchphrases out there. You may use a Windows machine, but it doesn't mean you are one. That's just insipid. The theme phrases have P.C. initials, but they're livened up via the clueing. Each clue defines the P.C. phrase in two ways, one straight and one jokey. For example, PRINCE CHARMING is [Fairy tale guys? Hexing a pop musician? Whatever! I'm a PC], and the really-not-so-familiar phrase PRIVY COUNCILS is clued as [Royal advisers? Outhouse committees? Whatever! I'm a PC]. If you have to do a "phrases with the same initials" theme, you're best off having some fun with the clues to add some pep to the puzzle.

A couple relative obscurities in the fill—CRESSETS are [Metal baskets for burning oil]. I know PONIARD, or [Slim dagger], but it's an old word. I was also stumped, weirdly, by 4D: ["Major Dundee" star] is HESTON, but I started out with the [Hormel product] being SPAM rather than HASH and thinking I needed the name of the Crocodile Dundee star, which I'm still blanking on.

Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Circular Reasoning"

Am I missing something here? The circled letters spell out IT IS ALL COMING BACK TO ME NOW. (Wouldn't "it's" sound more natural?) One of the long answers is WEDDING BAND, which is a circle, but the other is the WAITING GAME of vultures, which touches on the circle of life tangentially. There's an ORBITER in the middle of the grid. The three-way checking of squares nudges the constructor towards some compromises in fill—TLAs, partials, foreign words (Latin IN REM, French ANNEE), REMOP, not much in the way of juicy answers. Is there a theme beyond "look, the circled letters spell out something"?

Hmm. I'll probably like Monday's BEQ better.

Gotta run—busy day!

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Monday, 10/12/09

BEQ 4:38
NYT 2:38
LAT 2:24
CS untimed

Did you notice the new Diary of a Crossword Fiend mascot in the sidebar? My husband drew her for me.

Richard Chisholm's New York Times crossword

This vowel-progression theme runs the gamut from A to U in phrase-ending B*N words:

Ⓐ 18A. SWIMMING BAN is the [Likely result of pollution along a beach]. In Chicago, swimming bans generally mean sewage overflowed into Lake Michigan because of a rainstorm or the seagull poop has jacked up bacterial counts. Breakfast test! Are SWIMMING BANs in the vernacular for people who don't live near beaches?
Ⓔ 23A. GENTLE BEN is the [Title bear of 1960s TV]. I've only seen the show dubbed into German, never in English.
Ⓘ 41A. USED CLOTHING BIN just doesn't feel like a solidly in-the-language phrase to me. It's a [Receptacle for some donations].
Ⓞ 54A. "C'EST SI BON" means ["It's so good," in Paris]. That's a lotta French to throw at solvers who never studied French, isn't it?
Ⓤ 62A. HOT CROSS BUN is a [Lenten treat].

The fill's got a lot of multi-word entries, some of them partials and some complete entities. I like EVEN UP (8A: [Make equal, as the score]), MODEL T (44A: [1910s-'20s flivver]—three cheers for crazy old word flivver), and GO SOLO (4D: [Leave the band and strike out on one's own]). I'm neutral on AT SEA (59A: [Bewildered]), LED TO (36D: [Caused]), and I GET IT (40D: "Aha!"]).

I could do without the partials and more lackluster (lacklusterer?) phrases. AS A (48A: [Center of a simile]) is fairly common fill. ARE SO (20A: ["You ___ wrong!"]) and BY NO (25D: [___ means (not at all)]) are a little jarring. IS OUT (35D: [Has left the office]) practically looks like the opposite of IS INTO (51D: [Really digs]). As for N.Y. MET (58D: [Citi Field player, for short])—how often is the singular "N.Y. Met" used? Is this a mainstay of New York conversation?

My favorite entries are the two 8-letter Downs. 9D: [Abigail of "Dear Abby"] clues VAN BUREN and CLAPTRAP is a great word meaning 42D: [Nonsense].

Updated Sunday night:

David Cromer's Los Angeles Times crossword

In the surrender/backtrack theme in this easy puzzle, the three longest answers end with synonymous words:

• 20A. COMPANY RETREAT is a [Corporate-sponsored vacation].
• 40A. The dry clue [Retirement account transaction that may incur a penalty] goes with EARLY WITHDRAWAL.
• 59A. a [Local airline trip] is a COMMUTER FLIGHT.

Let's spotlight three other clues, shall we? (1) ESTES, clued by way of 8D: [Colorado's ___ Park], is a an old stalwart. There's also the Estes Kefauver who was Adlai E. Stevenson's running mate in the AES-vs.-DDE race, and crossword constructor Harvey Estes, who was the ESTES in a Matt Gaffney contest crossword in August, not to mention actor Rob Estes who was on the original Melrose Place series.

(2) KART is 66A: [Go-___: small racer]. That can also be spelled go-cart, but not a single one of the 77 CARTs in the Cruciverb database gets a fill-in-the-blank [Go-___] clue. Why? Because CART can be clued better in other ways. KART usually gets the go-___ treatment or a clue like [Miniature racer] (plus one [Mario ___, Nintendo racing game]).

(3) CYPRUS is a 28A: [Mediterranean island republic]. Don't forget Cyprus and Malta when you're doing the Sporcle.com quiz on European countries.

Updated Monday morning>

Patrick Jordan's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Fluid Dynamics"—Janie's review

Breaking it up into four easy pieces, Patrick poses the immortal question:

• 17A. IF A PRUNE IS
• 31A. A DRIED PLUM,
• 41A. HOW DO WE GET
• 59A. PRUNE JUICE?

This one'll keep ya goin', huh?... At any rate, if this is the sort of query that keeps you up at night, Cornell University's "Uncle Ezra" has the poop. So to speak. (Oh, grow up, Jane!)

Patrick "Pangram" Jordan has left his mark once again and is to be LAUDED once again for his alphabet-inclusive grid. I liked the topographical pairing of MESA [Steep-walled elevation] and CRAG [Rugged cliffs]. And among the better clues: [Only state with homonyms] for MAINE (mane, main and mein [as in chow...]); [Londoner's line] for QUEUE (and not anything like the too long BLIMEY or CHEERIO); and [Rarities on the links] for ACES, which holes-in-one—which was news to me.

Oh—and we get some bonus fruit to go with those prunes: FIGS [Pear-shaped fruits], delicious fresh or dried!

Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Quick, Call the Enquirer!"

Brendan's taking the day off, so this puzzle's a Time Out New York repeat rather than "Themeless Monday." "Themeless Wednesday" is promised, though.

I like the ELVIS SIGHTINGS theme, with three other Elvises (movie CRITIC MITCHELL, ICE SKATER STOJKO, and POP STAR COSTELLO), and was surprised at how long it took me to cotton on to it. Some of the fill is terrific—the SPHINX meets GAS-X with its "that can't be right" SX ending, SPECIAL K, DO SHOTS—but overall the fill was less Quigleyesque than we are accustomed to. Nobody's excited by ESTOP, ODE TO and A COP (those two should be combined), GRES, prefixes/suffixes (-DERM, ETHNO-), and AXER.

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Wednesday, 9/30/09

BEQ 4:17
Onion 4:05
NYT 3:52
LAT 2:43
CS untimed

Kevin Der's New York Times crossword

My in-house technical maven is busy troubleshooting a new backup drive on my desktop Mac, and my excuse for a slower-than-usual Wednesday time is that I'm not as accustomed to the smaller laptop keyboard.

Kevin's theme shot me straight back to that American lit class in my freshman year of college. We plowed through portions of the Norton Anthology of American Literature, including those Transcendentalists and the other authors writing from CONCORD, MA. That's the place spelled out by the circled letters in this puzzle, and the authors' names are split up hither and yon (but symmetrically):

• 1A, 6A, 22A. RALPH WALDO EMERSON is one [noted 19th-century writer]. He wrote essays the content of which I have not retained.
  
• 24A, 53A. The dark romantic writer NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE wrote memorable short stories including "Rappaccini's Daughter" as well as The Scarlet Letter. Some of his other book titles I am mainly familiar with from the Authors card game I loved as a kid. The new version Amazon sells includes traditional card suits and numbers in addition to the 13 authors and their four books apiece. I'm ordering it anyway.
  
• 39A. The 15-letter LOUISA MAY ALCOTT fits in one long entry. Little Women is her best known novel.
  
• 70A, 71A, 55A. HENRY DAVID THOREAU has the same letter counts for his three names as RWE, so he appears in the grid with THOREAU above the HENRY and DAVID. On Walden Pond, Transcendentalism...I think I read an excerpt and retained nothing.
  

So, the theme occupies 67 squares with the author names, plus a few more CONCORD, MA squares that don't coincide with the author answers. The other fill, sandwiched as it must be around nine theme entries, is a bit more prosaic. Nothing beyond the pale, but not much sparkle, either. I'm content with the blast-from-the-American-lit-past and the elegance of the Concord unifying element. I have never been to Concord, but I have eaten of the grapes and the grape jelly.

What's your favorite part of this crossword?

Updated Wednesday morning:

Patrick Jordan's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Cake Toppers"—Janie's review

If you're thinkin' the theme-fill will be along the lines of CHOCOLATE ICING, COCONUT or CANDLES, you have another think comin'. While they're all of the decidedly non-edible variety, the theme-fill today is instead made up of two-word phrases whose first word also names a kind of cake. This give us some very tasty results, and here's the sampling of what Patrick has given us to [Snack on] EAT:

• Pound cake by way of 17A. POUND SIGN [Symbol on a cell phone];
• Sponge cake courtesy of 28A. SPONGE RUBBER [Latex-based padding material]. Never heard of sponge rubber, but the dictionary tells me that it's an "expanded rubber having a cellular structure; usually has interconnecting cells; used as resilient padding and as thermal insulation";
• Marble cake from 47A. MARBLE STATUE [Michaelangelo's "David," e.g.]. (Hmm. Seems to me many folks do find him good enough to eat...); and
• Coffee cake via 63A. COFFEE MUG [Vessel in a break room]. Always nice to have a mug o' coffee with one's coffee cake.

A DEB, as we all know, is a [Coming-out party honoree], and a coming-out party is a BIG DO [Significant event]. Lots of dancing at these dos, where, I suspect, the young men are still the ones who LEAD [Guide one's dance partner]. But I've never been to one, so I couldn't say for sure. I'm also thinking that a lot of [Titled ladies] DAMES may have had their "introduction to society" as debutantes. And that a lot of untitled ladies are pretty swell dames themselves!

The real icing on the cake, of course, is that Patrick has created yet another pangram. The ingredients of a pangram? All 26 letters of the alphabet. You can check. By virtue of such fill as JUNE BUG [Large brown beetle], the elegantly clued FLICKERS [Shimmers like a lit candle], EQUAL [Identical in value], OXIDE [Nitrous ___ (laughing gas)] (shades of Little Shop of Horrors), SLYNESS [Foxy quality] and LIZA [Judy's eldest daughter], they're all in there.

EGAD. I nearly forgot to mention that I enjoyed seeing GAME SHOW in the grid, and in the "who knew?" department, liked learning that U-HAUL has been a [Rental business since 1945]. Who knew?!

Chuck Deodene's Los Angeles Times crossword

Facial hair is the name of the game, and five types of mustaches appear in the grid, clued as the nouns the styles are named after. For photos, see my L.A. Crossword Confidential post.

• 64A: [Each answer to a starred clue is a type of this] clues the Grand Unifying MUSTACHE.
  
• 17A: [Evil Asian doctor in Sax Rohmer novels] is FU MANCHU. The Fu Manchu 'stache differs from the horseshoe in that the trailing ends extend beyond the chin.
  
• 11D: [Scooter feature] is a HANDLEBAR. You don't see many of these today. Ballplayer Rollie Fingers is a notable handlebar sporter of recent years. The handlebar mustache is patently ridiculous, is it not?
  
• 22D: [Tusked mammal] is a WALRUS).. Popularly recognized as the Wilford Brimley 'stache, this one was also observed on former U.N. ambassador John Bolton. It seems like such an odd match for a serious person, the walrus mustache. Does anybody want to kiss a man whose mustache covers his upper lip?
  
• 35D: [Trotter's footwear item] is a HORSESHOE. "Trotter" also means an edible pig's foot. (Feh.) The horseshoe mustache is among my least favorite varieties of facial hair, right up there with muttonchops and a mustache-free full beard. The horseshoe seems to be au courant among the country/Southern fellas.
  
• 36D: [Eyebrow cosmetic applicator] is one sort of PENCIL. This is a rather creepy-looking little mustache. John Waters has been sporting a pencil for decades. Wouldn't you think he'd grow tired of it at some point?
  

Today's Crosswordese 101 lesson (a daily feature at L.A. Crossword Confidential) focused on TRA, which also popped up in the NYT puzzle. It's part of the longer "tra-la" or "tra-la-la." TRA clues are generally along the lines of "musical syllable," "song syllable," "refrain syllable," "___ la la," or "la preceder." That's one of the things that makes TRA such lame crossword fill: Not only is it not something we say, not only is it a dangling fragment, but it's also something that does not lend itself to interesting clueing options. And yet we see it again and again.

Ben Tausig's Onion A.V. Club crossword

Even when I read the clue for the unifying answer, INK—59D: [Body art, colloquially, and this puzzle's theme]—I was still confused for a bit before the "aha" moment arrived. The five theme answers begin with tattoo types:

• 17A. [Comprehensive spa treatment] is a FULL BODY MASSAGE, and a full body tattoo is...one way to go.
  
• 22A. [Material inside a jewel case] clues a CD's SLEEVE NOTES. Is that what liner notes are called these days? A sleeve tattoo covers the arm.
  
• 35A. TEMPORARY WORKER is a [Distressingly common staff member]. Temporary tattoos! I am not at all afraid of getting those.
  
• 51A. PRISON BREAK is a [Fox drama], and a prison tattoo is the sort that's applied with whatever materials are at hand. Prison tattoos identify which prison gang the wearer belongs to.
  
• 57A. MILITARY HISTORY is the [Study of conflict]. "Military tattoo" has entirely un-INK-related meaning, but plenty of people in the armed forces get tattoos to reflect their experience. My grandpa got tattoos when he was in the Navy around 1919, but they were of a dragon and a lady. Those don't count, do they?
  

Is MOOTER a word? It's clued as 44D: [More debatable], but I feel its legitimacy is debatable.

Favorite clue: 53D: [Ben and Jen do it with each other] for RHYME.

Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Fireplaces"

Sometimes a fireplace is a HOT CORNER in the room, and a HOT CORNER is also the [Third baseman's domain, and a hint to this puzzle's theme]. The corners of the grid hold a {HOT} rebus, which appears as the word HOT in one direction and just the three letters HOT in the other. No, wait, {HOT}HOUSE and {HOT} POTATO both relate to heat. Then there's a cinnamon RED {HOT} candy crossing a {HOT}EL ROOM, "MAKE IT {HOT}" crossing a LONG S{HOT}, and MR. BIG S{HOT} crossing {HOT} POT. Highlights in the fill: BRUCE LEE, "IT'S A GIRL," HEXAGON, BRNO (what can I say? I'm a sucker for Czech place names that are vowel-deprived), EX-LAX (the [Dump assistant?]!), and many of the theme entries. No so fond of ENURING, the dangling NOT ONLY, and much of the 3- and 4-letter fill.

All righty, I've got to get some work done before my lunch date today. Later!

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Friday, 9/18/09

BEQ 6:22
NYT 4:20
LAT 3:02
CS untimed
CHE (?) tba
WSJ 7:30

I just got back from a lovely dinner with a few crosswordy friends—Gary Krist, his wife Elizabeth (a recent convert to the Monday NYT puzzle!), and Marty Howard. We ate at the Park Grill in Millennium Park, beneath the Bean—great location, excellent food. I enjoyed a quartino (250 ml) of Grüner Veltliner and arrived home ready for the Friday NYT crossword.

Charles Gersch's New York Times crossword

In this 72-word themeless, the three 15-letter entries all begin with IN-, which ties things together nicely. Not that themeless crosswords need to be wrapped with a bow like that, but it's a nice touch. This is the second-to-last day of Half-Century Puzzlemaker's Week, and Gersch demonstrates that he hasn't lost a step in the 65 (!!) years he's been constructing crosswords. The Notepad tells us he "had his first crossword published on February 21, 1944, when he was 13, in the New York Herald Tribune. He made his Times debut in 1951." The Monday to Thursday puzzles this week all had clear signs that the constructors hailed from an earlier era, but this baby? It was pretty smooth.

Clues and answers of note:

• 14A. HAPPY TALK is a ["South Pacific" song that asks "If you don't have a dream, / How you gonna have a dream come true?"]. This is a title I know only from crossword clues.
  
• 16A. An INSURANCE POLCY is [Something that may cover a house] besides shingles.
  
• 21A. ESS is clued as a suffix, [Count concluder?]. Meh.
  
• 22A. FIDELIO is the [Opera that includes the "Prisoners' Chorus"]. Who doesn't love performing prisoners? The Filipino prisoners in orange jumpsuits doing the "Thriller" dance en masse is terrific.
  
• 34A. Trivia! [Its maiden flight carried its country's president home] clues EL AL.
  
• 35A. A [Pitcher's ploy] is an INTENTIONAL WALK.
  
• 52A. DIANE [Chambers in a bar] was Shelley Long's character in Cheers. "Chambers" is a surname here, not a regular noun.
  
• 55A. Does anyone like INSPECTOR JAVERT? He's Hugo's [Literary character played in film by Charles Laughton, Anthony Perkins and Geoffrey Rush].
  
• 1D. [1962 World Cup host], 5 letters? Gotta be ITALY, right? Sure, except that the answer's CHILE.
  
• 5D. TYRE is an [Ancient city whose name means "rock." It's in Lebanon.
  
• 7D. Don't recall seeing SANK IN in the grid before. If it [Registered] in your mind, it SANK IN.
  
• 17D. To POLE VAULT is to [Try to clear the bar]. The pole vault is insane.
  
• 24D. [Disc holder] is not a SLEEVE, no, sir. It's a STEREO. Whoops.
  

So, this is my favorite NYT puzzle so far this week. I wonder who's in store for us tomorrow.

Updated Friday morningL

Patrick Jordan's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Hoax Folks"—Janie's review

GROANS. They're not only [Haunted house noises]. They're the sound of solvers everywhere in the presence of PUNS [Many Groucho Marx quips]. The day before yesterday, Randy Ross clued pun as [Something that may not be intended]. Patrick's theme fill today has four of 'em, and I can safely say every one was definitely intended. He's taken the first name of each of four celebs and adapted it to his purpose, changing said name into a synonym for "hoax." Besides the shameless constructor (whose AWEsome grid puts PUNS and GROANS in the same column), the guilty parties are:

• 17A. SHAM NEILL [Deceptive "Jurassic Park" star?] Sam Neill celebrated a birthday this past Monday. (Because inquiring minds need to know, right?) What kind of WILE [Foxy maneuver] has he pulled off recently? Hmm. Just noticed how Sam/Sham reminds me of "Wooly Bully" singers Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs...
  
• 26A. TRICK MORANIS [Deceptive "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" star?]. That Rick Moranis—he's a sneaky one all right. I like how COY [Slyly shy]—which might describe "Trick"—sits right below his new name.
• 44A. FRAUD SERLING [Deceptive "The Twilight Zone" host?]. A clever play on the name Rod, Serling was famous for bringing us eerie stories (more than one featured a UFO [Sci-fi saucer]) that stretched the realm of possibility—though I wouldn't go so far as to call them fraudulent per se.
• 59A. RUSE MARIE [Deceptive "The Dick Van Dyke Show" actress?] Here's the WRY [cleverly ironic] Rose Marie, everybody's favorite indispensable gal-Friday (on The DVD Show) with co-star Morey Amsterdam. And (in those pre-GEL days) that trademark bow in her hair. (A [Respectful bow], on the other hand, is a SALAAM...)

Did you know that a flock of QUAILs is a [...covey]? I didn't. But James (Inside the Actors' Studio) Lipton years ago wrote a book that has just such information. An Exaltation of Larks looks to be a word-lover's delight.

Although I'd read D'Artagnan in high school, I did not remember ATHOS as the [Oldest Musketeer]. But given that Porthos and Aramis have too many letters in their names anyway, it was not too difficult to figure this one out!

And another bit of new information for me was that GAFF is the word for a [Handled hook] such as fishermen use to land large fish, or telephone and electric line workers use as a climbing aid.

With all that I didn't know today, being able suss out such fill as LICENSES [Items in hunters' wallets], BIOLOGIC [Natural medical product, such a s serum] and SQUADRON [Military flight formation], and to make use of such gimmes as STYX [Hades river] or EACH [Every's partner] were [Beneficial surprises] GODSENDS for this solver.

And apropos of nothing else, when you [Make a meal of] something you FEED ON it. If you adhere to a [Vegetarian credo], however, you say "NO MEAT!"

Just got back from the gym and second breakfast (IHOP!), so it's late and there are many puzzles. Forgive the brevity.

Jack McInturff's Los Angeles Times crossword

Let me refer you to Rex's L.A. Crossword Confidential post for a deeper look at today's puzzle. Here's what I said over there in the comments:

I liked the theme better than Rex did. Yep, it was no more than Wednesday difficulty, tops. Liked the intersection of ATHEIST (though I rebut the accuracy of the saying referenced in the clue) of DEISM. Kinda dug the overall European vibe, with German GRAF crossing GRAZ; Italian San REMO and ROME (anagrams!), a Roman road ITER (though ROME + [Roman road] shouldn't be in the same puzzle), and Il DUCE; Ukraine KIEV; and French PIAF.

There was an ALLIS-Chalmers plant a couple miles from where I grew up; my friend's dad worked there 'til he got laid off in the trendy Destruction of American Manufacturing Capacity that picked up speed in the '80s.

Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Themeless Friday"

Yay! A double-themeless week from Brendan! As he notes in his blog post, he broke the rule that limits themelesses to 72 words because an extra pair of black squares provided better fill. Hey, I'm OK with that. A boring themeless with 74 words is not worth it, but this one was pretty good. Favorite answer: TEACHABLE MOMENT, or [Skip Gates incident, e.g.]. Terrific entry, that. Plus JIM PALMER of underwear fame crossing the Beatles' LET IT BE, an exclamatory "YOU WHAT?!?", the WAZOO clued as [Anus] (slangily!), KLEENEX—the runners-up to TEACHABLE MOMENT.

Also nice: The satiny-smooth triple-stacked 15s in the middle are crossed by seven answers of 7 to 9 letters for some lovely interlock.

Upper right corner damn near killed me. I couldn't get anything in it for the longest time and then things finally started to emerge and boom, it's done, and there wasn't anything in it that was unfair. I do like a crossword that makes me feel like I really used my brain.

Daniel Rowe's Wall Street Journal crossword, "Queue & A"

I thought this might be a debut puzzle so I Googled Daniel Rowe's name and found via his Twitter feed that (a) this is indeed his debut and (b) today is his birthday. So, happy birthday and congrats!

The theme takes eight two-word phrases in which the first word can also be synonymous with "series" or "queue," inserts OF between the words, and clues the resulting phrases by way of the series of [second word] things. Like so: 56A is [Kidney, jelly, coffee], a STRING OF BEANS, and string beans is a familiar term. List servers handle those e-mail subscription discussion groups, and a LIST OF SERVERS is [Acolyte, tennis player, waiter]. I kinda like the all-names BLOCK OF BUSTERS, [Brown, Crabbe, Keaton]. And so it goes.

In the fill, highlights include GYM RAT, GROUCHO, LUNCHTIME, and RUNNER-UP. Favorite clue: [Language that gave us "berserk"] for NORSE. That one's my favorite because, well, etymology rocks, plus there's a cashier at my local Walgreens who is overly chatty with customers and once told me he was a berserker.

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Sunday, 8/30/09

NYT 9:39
PI 7:27
LAT 7:16
BG 7:03
CS 4:13

Ashish Vengsarkar and Narayan Venkatasubramanyan's New York Times crossword, "Literally So"

Whoa. I'm not sure I understand how all the theme entries work here. Let's walk through them one by one:

• 23A. [-IRC-MS-ANCES] is the clue for OUT OF CONTEXT. The missing letters in CIRCUMSTANCES spell CUT, and if you CUT something out of its circumstances, you take it OUT OF CONTEXT. That's a little awkward, because circumstances and context don't feel quite synonymous enough to me.
  
• 36A. [ANTI--VERNMENT UN--ST] is ANTIGOVERNMENT UNREST without GORE, and we're not talking about Al Gore—we're talking about a BLOODLESS REVOLUTION.
  
• 52A. [AR--CL-] is ARTICLE without TIE, cluing THE MISSING LINK. Oh! I get it now. The word "the" is a definite article, grammatically speaking, and it's missing a tie, and a tie is a link, which gives us a THE that's MISSING a LINK.
  
• 70A. [P---ARY CARE PHY-ICIANS] are PRIMARY CARE PHYSICIANS without RIMS, or the well-known NGO called DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS. This is my favorite of the theme entries.
  
• 86A. A SPARE tire with NO EXPENSE is a [FI-TH WH--L] with no FEE.
  
• 98A. This one also didn't quite add up for me. Let's see: [WHAT A -ANDA DOES IN -EIS-RELY FA-HION] is EATS SHOOTS AND LEAVES without PLAY(S)ing. This feels awkward to me because what's more leisurely than playing? This leisurely panda is eating and leaving but decidedly not playing. (Edited to add: It's PLUS, not PLAYS, that LEAVES here. Thanks to commenter Barry G. for the clarification.)
  
• 121A. First, let me say that I don't care for lemon desserts. There's such a thing as LEMON DROP COOKIES? I didn't know. The clue is [W--THL-SS R-AD-TER], which expands to WORTHLESS ROADSTER without OREOS, a LEMON that has DROPped its COOKIES. This one is a little clunky even if you like lemon cookies because "worthless roadster" is not remotely an established phrase, jalopyjournal.com's usage notwithstanding.

So, the theme can be described as (mostly) familiar phrases from which a word has been excised, and the concept of that X-less Y then clues the theme answer you write in the boxes. Does that sound about right? I didn't love every part of the theme, but I appreciated the mental exertion required to wrap my head around each theme entry. I also like the way the theme answers wield seven different ways of phrasing the concept of omission: OUT OF, -LESS, MISSING, WITHOUT, NO, LEAVES, and DROPS.

There is some insanely tough fill in this puzzle. "What are you talking about, Amy? This was a breeze," you say. Oh, yeah? Here are the things that slowed me down:

• 107A. [Hawaiian massage] is LOMILOMI, which I've never heard of. I just read a little about it, so...now I've heard of LOMILOMI.
  
• 84A. EAGAN is clued not as the non-Edina Minneapolis suburb (which would've been a gimme) but as [1991 Tony winner Daisy]. Broadway's not in my wheelhouse, as many of you know.
  
• 29A. DIES IRAE was gettable as an 8-letter hymn name, but the OLAFy clue, [Hymn whose second line is "Solvet saeclum in favilla"], didn't help one whit. I believe, based on painfully little knowledge of Latin, that this translates to "I solved it in seclusion in my favilla, whatever that is." I may well be wrong.
  
• 5D. Yes, this is incredibly basic, but I was thinking that [Us] was cluing one longer word rather than three little ones, YOU AND ME.
  
• 8D: [Alternative to satellite] radio is AM/FM.
  
• 36D. BONITO is a [Mackerellike fish], and I gotta say, "mackerellike" is one ungainly adjective.
  
• 92D. ALEATORY is a high-end vocabulary word. It's clued as [Dependent on chance], and I got it without having all the crossings in place but I'm not sure how. I just had an ALEATORY feeling.
  
• 66D. Oddball trivia! Who knew that THOM MCAN is the [Shoe brand reputedly named after a Scottish golfer]?
  
• 61A. ROOTS are a tree's [Underground network]. SEWER is also 5 letters, as is MAFIA. Traps galore!
  
• [Bygone flier] pulls double duty as SST (30D) and TWA (64D). I kinda wanted SST the second time but knew that wouldn't fly.
  
• 76A. [Currency union since 1999] is called the EURO AREA? I'm not familiar with that term.

There are a couple cute wordplay clues. 34D: AVIS is clued as a [Company name that becomes another company name if you move its first letter to the end], Visa. This is the Unkind Donuts trick in reverse, of course. It's hard to come up with a clue for 103D: ARLO that is entertaining, but this one is [Man's name that's an anagram of 108-Down], which is the ORAL [Exam format].

This was a pretty tough Sunday puzzle, wasn't it? At this writing, one person in the NYT applet standings trounced me by two minutes (hi, Barry!), so I figure there'll be others who claim it wasn't so hard at all. But I know the truth.

Updated Sunday morning

Dan Naddor's syndicated Los Angeles Times crossword, "Organ Transplants"

This puzzle has a theme similar to another one I recently did; that one had a "transfer" theme that was fresh in my head so I knew how the theme was going to work once I had FELT CONDOLENCES filled in (24A: [Pool hall "Better luck next time"?]). An assortment of body parts are resected from one phrase and transplanted into another, with the phrases clued to reflect their changed wording. Organ donor theme entries 1, 2, 3, and 4 partner with organ recipients 8, 7, 6, and 5, their symmetrical partners.

In each case, the organ is cut out of a compound word/phrase and is then compounded with another word in its new home (heartfelt/heartbreak, Buckeyes/eyelashes, brainstorming/brainchild, ear-splitting/dog-ear). This looks like ironclad thematic consistency to me—elegant. (PuzzleGirl calls it "elegant" too.) Here's how the transplants were performed:

• FELT CONDOLENCES (24A) lost its opening HEART, which moved to the middle of jailbreaks to make JAIL HEARTBREAKS in the opposite spot in the grid (102A: [Sorrows behind bars?]).
  
• The EAR leaves ear-SPLITTING NOISE (30A: [Sound of a breakup?]) and is transplanted into DOG-EAR TRAINING (91A: [Place-marking lessons for readers?]).
  
• The OSU Buckeyes become some money, OHIO STATE BUCKS (43A: [Columbus college funds?]). The EYE moves into FORTY EYELASHES (80A: [Minimum for a Maybelline ad shoot?]). I was feeling more punitive and started with FIFTY eyeLASHES.
  
• STORMING SESSION (52A: [Temper tantrum?]) drops its initial BRAIN, which relocates inside a grandchild to become GRAND BRAINCHILD (73A: [Steinway's idea for a large piano?]).
  

The original with- and without-organ phrases the theme entries are based on are all very much in-the-language entities. A Google search suggests that both 40 and 50 lashes are common counts (and that too many countries still use this barbaric punishment). FELT CONDOLENCES is perhaps the weakest of the eight theme answers, because we don't much refer to pool halls with a metonymic "felt," I don't think. But everything else is so smooth I'm willing to take one B- answer amid the solid A's.

In the fill, I didn't hit any potholes—nothing too stretchy or obscure. The highlights are the longer answers:

• 16D. The PANIC BUTTON? [It's pressed in distress].
  
• 69D, 75D. MILITIAMAN, or [Revolutionary soldier], rests beside HELEN HUNT, the ["Twister" actress].
  
• 61D. CHINA SEAS looks weird, right? It's clued as a [Segment of the western Pacific]. It is probably a better entry than the singular CHINA SEA, which does not exist but was in another puzzle not long ago. The CHINA SEAS consist of the South China Sea, East China Sea (nope, no North or West), and Yellow Sea.
  
• 62D. I don't like POTATO SALAD, but you are welcome to have it as a [Picnic side] if you want to. Knock yourself out.
  
• 27D. ATROCIOUS means [Just plain awful]. In seventh grade, I told a classmate that she had "atrocious grammatical errors." She replied, "You are one, too." Amazing, isn't it, that I didn't get beat up?
  
• 12A. [Concert dancing areas] are MOSH PITS, sometimes.
  
• 107A. An IRS AUDIT is a [Taxpayer's headache]. I've never been audited, but last year the IRS came after us for some stock options that hadn't been included on our return. Luckily, the taxes had been taken off the top, so we ended up writing checks for $3 and $4 to the IRS and the state. It was a rather stressful $7, though.

Merl Reagle's Sunday crossword, "Gosh!" (Philadelphia Inquirer et al.)

The term 4G refers to the fourth generation of wireless cell phone technology, the theme entries in "Gosh!" gush with at least four G's. There's not much inherent humor in the theme aside from some of the phrases being fun to say aloud:

• 21A. HUGGER-MUGGER is an old word meaning [Every which way].
  
• 26A. A GAGGLE OF GEESE are often a [Honking assemblage].
  
• 42A. The waffle ad catchphrase "LEGGO MY EGGO" is clued as [Words said while fighting over food].
  
• 57A. [Being amazed, in a way] clues GAZING GOGGLE-EYED. Meh: While you can indeed gaze in a goggle-eyed fashion, I wouldn't say that the phrase is a discrete unit of meaning.
  
• 68A. HIGGLEDY PIGGLEDY means [In disorder]. This pairs nicely with its fellow rhyme at 21A.
  
• 82A. [Symbolic Bible nations] are GOG AND MAGOG.
  
• 103A. A famous [1950s wrestler] was called GORGEOUS GEORGE.
  
• 110A. GLUG, GLUG, GLUG is clued as [Guzzling sounds]. That reminds me: I received a note yesterday from a reader who was drinking bourbon and asked me to mention that 69D, LEO G. ([Actor Carroll]) should not appear under 5A, a BARREL ([Crude container]), because anyone who's seen 1955's Tarantula knows that the line is "I knew Leo G. Carroll was over a barrel when Tarantula took to the hills."
  
• 3D. Like 57A, GIGGLING GIRLS doesn't feel like an in-the-language phrase to me. The clue is [Tee-hee sources].
  
• 54D. Ditto for FEELING GROGGY. "Feeling Groovy" has Simon and Garfunkel cred, but FEELING GROGGY is just verb + adjective. Good clue for it, though: [Suffering from a long fight or a long flight, perhaps].
  

Toughest word in the fill: 56D: STADES, or [Straight tracks for footraces].

Most insidery clue/answer: 41D: [The other Will who was New York Times crossword editor] was Will WENG. He's the editor Will Shortz is quoting when he says, "It's your puzzle. Solve it any way you want." (With references/Google or without. Alone or with a friend. In pen or pencil or glue stick or online. Slow or fast. With morning coffee or evening bourbon.)

I like AQUILA, the 18A: [Constellation that means "eagle"]; someone with an aquiline nose has a beak that's curved or hooked like an eagle's beak.

All right, how many of you found 11D: [Savonarola's first name] to be a gimme? I think I've seen this one before, but I still needed an awful lot of crossings to get to GIROLAMO. Various baby name websites tell me it means "sacred name" and is essentially the same as Jerome and Hieronymus.

Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon's Boston Globe crossword, "All Wet"

Anyone know if the Across Lite Globe puzzle has caught up to the Sunday paper? Bostonians, is this puzzle over a month old, or is it this weekend's?

The theme is embedded bodies of water (which I've spotlighted with circled squares) split among the words in various concocted phrases. BROOK sits in CUB ROOKIES, which almost sounds in-the-language but isn't ("Cubs rookie" is the commoner formation). The other theme entries don't even have the pretense of being in-the-language phrases. For example, CAPON DANCE, clued as [The Funky Chicken?], is just silly. Then there's OSLO CHA-CHA, or [Steps in a Norwegian ballroom?], the goofiest answer in the puzzle. Aww, too bad the rest of the theme couldn't be about dancing, too, or at least be assertively silly. The FAST REAMER drill just isn't silly.

Least familiar word in the answers: ZOUAVE, or 89A: [French soldier from Algeria].

Patrick Jordan's themeless CrosSynergy "Sunday Challenge"

JOHN LEGUIZAMO stars in the middle of the grid. He is, among other things, a ["Carlito's Way" actor]. I like him. Something about his face reminds me of Gilbert Gottfried, only Leguizamo is a talented actor and not incessantly annoying.

Hey, look! It's AQUILINE! I was just telling you about this word, clued as [Adjective for some noses].

Ten other clues/answers:

• Cowboy time! The HERDSMAN is a [Cattle drive figure], and the MUSTANGS are a [University Park, Texas team].
  
• ["Permission has been granted"] clues "IT'S A GO."
  
• EDAM is clued as a [Spherical Dutch export]. Can I get a ruling from a geometrician? Balls of EDAM cheese are typically flattened and can't really be called spheres, can they?
  
• I'd like Britney Spears to have another kid as a single mom and name him DILL SPEARS ([Tart pickle wedges]).
  
• The Palestinian group HAMAS is a [Muslim Brotherhood offshoot].
  
• Geographic trivia! INDONESIA is a [Nation with nearly 23,000 miles of coastline]. That's a whole lotta islands.
  
• [It experiences a hot flash] clues a FAD. What's more faddish than menopause, I ask you?
  
• [Carol Kane's "Taxi" role] is SIMKA. I started out with the Alaskan town SITKA. SIMKA was partnered with Andy Kaufman's nutty Latka Gravas.
  
• TESTY is clued as [Fractious]. I was always a little impressed with '80s stars Men at Work (of "Down Under" fame) because one of the non-hits on their hit album included the line "But he just smiled, said I was a fractious child." Yes, I owned the album. Vinyl!

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Tuesday, 8/18

Jonesin' 3:39
LAT 2:59
NYT 2:56
CS untimed (J)

Have you been fretting about the trend of puzzles disappearing from various publications? Lewis Grossberger is on the case and suspects an international conspiracy. His blog post made me laugh...and get nervous. (Thanks to Deb Amlen for the link.)

Tony Orbach's New York Times crossword

This delightful crossword from Tony features five sweet comestibles whose names begin with a fruit, and of course he saved the best (ORANGE! CRUSH) for last:

• 17A. BANANA SPLIT is a [Fountain treat]. Yum.
  
• 27A. [Tangy pie filler] is LEMON CREAM. Meh. I don't like lemon in my desserts.
  
• 37A. APPLE CRUMBLE is a [Relative of a certain cobbler]. APPLE STRUDEL would be a more familiar answer—I don't see many ___ crumbles on the menus 'round these parts.
  
• 51A. CHERRY MASH is some sort of [Candy bar with maraschinos] that I've never heard of.
  
• 59A. What a horrid little clue [Popular Fanta-like soda] is! The Fanta people must be ecstatic at the validation this clue gives them for their lame advertising attempts in recent years. Does anyone select Fanta by name? ORANGE CRUSH has much more name recognition and brand identity.

Among the best parts of the fill are more food items. The BROWN COW is a [Root beer float with chocolate ice cream]; with vanilla, it's a black cow. T-BONE STEAKS are [Ribeye alternatives]. Fig Newtons are evoked by ISAAC NEWTON, the [Scientist who experienced a great fall?]. PONIES UP ([Pays what's due]) appears opposite BROWN COW but...that's not edible in the American diet.

Other tasty inedible answers: KOWTOW is [Show deep respect (to)]. The [Robert Ludlum hero searching for his identity] is Jason BOURNE. Work done IN HOUSE is [Not farmed out]. SEA SALT's a [Natural seasoning]. Daedalus's son ICARUS, well, [He flew too close to the sun, in myth]. "MY WORD!" means ["Dear me!"]. Favorite clue: [Things with cups and hooks] sounded mechanical or golf-ish, but it's a BRA.

Updated Tuesday morning:

Patrick Jordan's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Class Act"—Janie's review

This was one of those puzzles whose theme did not become clear to me until I'd finished solving altogether. It's not the flashiest, but it's solid and allows for the inclusion of some fine fill—both themed and un-. Each of the theme phrases begins with a word that is synonymous with the word "class"—as in "ilk." Go to the head of the class—as in "school room"—if you filled in:

• 17A. TYPE A LETTER for [Prepare some business correspondence].
• 11D. SORT THE MAIL for [Do an office chore]. TOGETHER with 17A, this one had me thinking there was some sort of "workplace" component to the theme. Not.
• 25D. "KIND OF A DRAG" for [1967 hit by The Buckinghams]. Loved this song. Back in the day...
• 53A. VARIETY SHOW for [Carol Burnett hosted one for 11 years]. And it still remains a classic in its class. Another classic in its class (sit-coms this time)—The Honeymooners, in which Ed NORTON was Ralph [Kramden's crony].

Other clues and/or fill I particularly liked or that caught my attention include:

• SEALEGS for [Ability to walk on deck]. If you've ever taken an ocean voyage, you'll really understand. What I hadn't been prepared for (after a 7-day jaunt by ocean-liner to Bermuda), was how long it would take me to "lose" my sealegs once I was back on terra firma.
• [Tantrum-throwing tykes] are BRATS. Exhausted after a good SOB- [Blubber] session, another kind of youngster, the [Tired toddler...] might make a [...request] and say, "CARRY ME." Aaw.
• BRECK for [Shampoo brand]. Wow. Breck Shampoo is still available. I grew up in a period when the pastel "Breck Girl," with her perfect coif—a page-boy style, often as not—and serene, demure expression was the model of femininity that was held up for tweens and adolescents to emulate. Before she was "Kim Basinger, star of the silver-screen," Kim Basinger was a "Breck Girl."
• We get both EVOKE [Cause to appear] and EVINCE [Display clearly]. No, they're not synonymous, but (depending on the context) they're not entirely unrelated either. Regardless, they do live close to each other in the dictionary.
• There's a beauty of a cross at the "Q" of the grid-center QATAR with QUATRAIN, and some other beautiful fill in [Star-related] ASTRAL and CALICO, today clued as a [Mottled cat]. And RED SOX, too—my next fave team in the AL after my beloved if beleaugered Birds...

With a "Class Act" comprised of type, sort, kind and variety, the bonus fill would have to be ROGET, the [Surname that synonymous with synonyms]. OHO!

Gail Grabowski's Los Angeles Times crossword

The theme is BABY stuff, and SIT TIGHT, or [Take no action], points to babysit. Which is what I'm doing right now—my son's best friend is here for the day. So in lieu of blogging about this puzzle, I'll point you towards PuzzleGirl's L.A. Crossword Confidential post, which touches on the bowling-related baby split, which is not a phrase I'd ever encountered before. Wait, one thing: I like the ]Must-miss movie rating] NO STARS. I love Anthony Lane's savage movie reviews in the New Yorker, but he doesn't give star ratings. Roger Ebert does, and his reviews of dreadful movies are also entertaining. Ebert's 0- to 1.5-star reviews of recent movies are gathered at the Your Movie Sucks© files. Excerpt from his trashing of this summer's Transformers movie: "If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together."

Updated Tuesday afternoon:

Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword, "From A to B"

Matt's theme this week involves changing one A in each of four phrases into a B:

• 19A. "Rob a stagecoach" turns into a Charles ROBB STAGECOACH, or [Western carriage for a former Virginia governor?]. Having two unchanged A's is less thbn idebl.
  
• 31A. "I smell a rat" becomes I SMELL BRAT, or ["Wow, it stinks like a spoiled kid in here"]. A great many of the "brats" one encounters in public places are kids who are simply overtired or hungry.
  
• 36A. [Device that takes pictures of poetic metric units?] is an IAMB CAMERA (I Am a Camera). Can you take pictures of things you hear?
  
• 47A. "Sleeps like a log" is changed into SLEEPS LIKE BLOG, or [Snoozes, online journal-style, to Tonto?]. Uh, blogs don't sleep. You can sleep like my monitor or my computer, but the blog never sleeps.

Gotta get some work done now before my son's sleepover begins—ciao!

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