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 25, 2009
Thursday, 11/26/09
November 17, 2009
Wednesday, 11/18/09
BEQ 6:58
NYT 4:35
Onion 4:29
CS untimed (J)/3:44 (A)
LAT 3:14
Paula Gamache's New York Times crossword
This keeps happening—my kid has a hard time falling asleep, and in the effort to set a good example for him, I get so dang sleepy that when I rouse myself to do the NYT crossword, I'm not at full speed. The wheels did not spin at their usual clip, and stray typos find their way into the grid more easily than they find their way out. I had "CAN O?" ([Childish plea], CAN I) crossing OCHABOD ([Washington Irving's Crane], ICHABOD), and didn't see it until the grid was filled. Then when I fixed that, my grid was still wrong—BOY TOT/RET instead of BOY TOY ([Young stud])/REY ([Palacio resident]). Adjacent-key typos, my nemesis today.
The theme hinges on a poker phrase, which is something I often find alienating. The [Five-card draw variation] and hint to the theme answers is JACKS TO OPEN, but man, I was stuck on the last letter. (See? Tired.) "JACK STOOPER?" I asked myself. The other four theme entries begin with words that can follow an opening JACK:
• 17A. HAMMER THROW is an [Olympic track-and-field event]. Jackhammer.
• 30A. FROST/NIXON is a [Play and film about a noted 1977 series of interviews]. Jack Frost, nose-nipper. FROST/NIXON is a great-looking answer, isn't it?
• 36A. [Loosely woven cotton fabric] is CHEESECLOTH. Monterey Jack cheese is often called Jack cheese.
• 44A. [Indoor dipole antenna, colloquially] clues RABBIT EARS. Jackrabbit. If you're like me, you always see "rabbi tears" (and "superb owl" for that NFL game).
Ten quick clues:
• 27A. ROTI means [Roasted, in Rouen].
• 35A. DEICE a plane to [Make ready for winter flight].
• 57A. NOOSES are [Causes of some untimely ends]. That's dark.
• 2D. HIALEAH, Florida, is a [Historic racetrack site]. Is it no longer so?
• 3D. ARMAGNAC is an [Eau de vie from Gascony].
• 11D. MAALOX completes ["___ moment" (ad catchphrase)]. Oprah does not lay claim to the Maalox moment.
• 22D. An ARIETTA is a [Short opera piece].
• 25A. Ford MODEL A'S were [1903-04 cars sold only in red].
• 39D. HOUSE PET is a [Collar wearer, often]. Kinda wanted this to be PRIEST.
•42D, 63D. [Roll call response] is PRESENT in, perhaps, a classroom, and NAY in a legislature.
Updated Wednesday morning:
Bob Klahn's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Go Ahead, Shoot!"—Janie's review
I'm happy to say today's title has nothing to do with firearms, in case that's what you were thinking. That imperative is also something you might say when you want you listener to tell you something. Or ask you something. Today it's the latter, and the colorful theme phrases all start with a word that also describes a particular kind of query. The phrases are unified, too, by the clue and fill at 63A., [Objection elicitor, and what the first words of 17-, 26-, and 47-Across could be doing]—and that would be LEADING QUESTION, and LEADING "QUESTION." The additional questions in question are:
• 17A. Trick question, by way of TRICK OF THE TRADE [Professional's shortcut].
• 26A. Burning question, from BURNING RUBBER [Peeling out].
• 47A. Loaded question, which comes to us from the great phrase LOADED FOR BEAR [Livid]. Never heard the expression before and love making its acquaintance. It sure has a lotta character.
So, too, does the cluing, which keeps the play in "wordplay." F'rinstance, the sequential linked-pair [Absent animation] for the lovely LANGUID and [Animation still] for the oft-seen noun CEL. Not only do we get the repeated word in the clues, but something that's "still" is also "absent animation." So we get some double-play action here.
Then we get both [Coiled choker] right next to [Coiled coif], or a BOA beside a BUN. With vocabulary that shows up as often in puzzles as these words, it really is refreshing to have cluing that shortchanges the solving process. Like [Undying dying words] for ET TU, or [Promise at the table] for OLEO (where "Promise" is the brand-name noun and not a verb), or [Net sales?] for E-TAIL (where "net" is short for "internet" and not the opposite of "gross"), or the lengthy but lyrical [Where to house cows once they browse] for BARN.
Other combos that appealed (by no means exhaustive): [Short pants?] for TROU (think about it...), [The same partner] for ONE (ditto), and [Concluding letters for proof reader] for Q.E.D. That's the reader of a mathematical proof and the letters stand for quod erat demonstrandum meaning "which was to be demonstrated."
Fave crossing today: SCHWA [Stress-free sound symbol] (ə) and "SH-H!" [The sound of "Silence!"]. If I omitted your faves, by all means: speak up! ([Ladies in wooly cotes] EWES, anyone?)
Dan Naddor's Los Angeles Times crossword
As usual on Wednesdays and Saturdays, this writeup is drawn from my L.A. Crossword Confidential post.
The theme could be called "Barflies"—Six famous people's last names form new phrases or compound words with BAR. Here are the theme answers:
• 18A: [*"Seven Year Ache" country singer] (ROSANNE CASH). My high-school reunion had a cash bar.
• 20A: [*"All I Wanna Do" singer] (SHERYL CROW). Crowbar. I just reviewed (for work) another puzzle with a theme of female vocalists that included both CASH and CROW, so I couldn't help expecting the other theme entries to follow suit. Nope! In that other puzzle, I changed the clue to include this song instead of some other song I'd never heard of. Good call, right?
• 32A: [*Longtime "American Bandstand" host] (DICK CLARK). The Clark Bar is, well...is it as good as a Butterfinger? I do like me a Butterfinger bar, and I ate all the minis my kid got for Halloween.
• 45A: [*Notable member of The Second City improv group] (JOHN CANDY). The Clark Bar is a candy bar. Rex Parker feels it's redundant to have both generic CANDY BAR and specific CLARK BAR in this theme. My feeling is that you can never have too much chocolate, and that Rex's suggestion (in the comments at L.A.C.C.) that Barbara Hershey and the fictional Veronica Mars could have joined Dick Clark is a good one (if only the word lengths matched up—and if only there were a famous person with the surname Snickers).
• 59A: [*French writer who befriended Chopin] (GEORGE SAND). Don't ground your boat on a sandbar. This is the only theme person who's more high culture than pop culture.
• 63A: [*"The Mark of Zorro" star (1940)] (TYRONE POWER). A Power Bar is one of those horrible things I never eat. I hear people like them.
• 65A: [Happy hour site, and word that can follow each last name in the answers to starred clues] (BAR).
With 63 theme squares, you expect to tolerate a few "blah" entries in the fill. I dunno. This one felt a little heavier on "blah" than usual for a Dan Naddor puzzle: L-DOPA, UTA, L.I.U., ENID, ADE, ADJ., K.P.H., the weird ANC. (Short for "ancient"? Not the much more famous African National Congress?), MAU, SEP., and TRAC are the sort of answers a constructor isn't striving to use, just ends up using to make the fill work.
Highlights:
• 42A: [Bette's "Divine" nickname] (MISS M).
• 50A: [Time-share units] (CONDOS). Hey! Plenty of us city-dwellers live in condos year-round. Are the suburbanites unaware of this? Is it the New Yorkers who ruin everything, by "buying apartments" rather than "renting apartments"/"buying condos"?
• 10D: [Bach work] (TOCCATA). I don't know classical music much, but this answer always makes me think of veal. (Piccata.) Which I don't eat.
• 21D: Gibraltar landmark (ROCK). This gave me a chance to include a photo of Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson in my L.A.C.C. post. He sure was cute in that Disney movie, Game Plan.
• 30D: [King Arthur's meeting spot] (ROUND TABLE). This is where King Arthur hung out with Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley, at the Algonquin.
• 43D: [Chat idly: Var.] (SHMOOZE). I prefer the schmooze spelling.
• 46D: [Official emergency status] (CODE RED). My kitchen was at code red last week. It's down to the standard code orange now.
Tyler Hinman's Onion A.V. Club crossword
Tyler's theme is "potentially disastrous neighbor"s, #1 through #5: Your MOTHER-IN-LAW (I'd be fine with mine living nearby, honest), a smelly RENDERING PLANT (I would move), a SEX-CRAZED COUPLE (I highly recommend hearing loss so you won't hear them), a CRYSTAL METH LAB (eek), and PUNK ROCKERS (hey, it's fine so long as they're not rehearsing at home).
Favorite clues/answers:
• 6A. KITES are [Some quadrilaterals].
• 14A. I like the German in the clue [Unterwasser vessel], but it makes me want the answer to be U-BOOT instead of U-BOAT.
• 56A. COLD gets clued in a sporting sense: [Not shooting well]. Basketball, not guns, right?
• 2D. The ABO blood grouping system is a [System that helps you determine if someone's your type].
• 13D. [Animal that hisses], 5 letters, ends with E...SNAKE? Try a GOOSE.
• 27D. [Back], adverbially, clues IN REPLY. "In reply," of course, is the adverbial form of the adjective "in rep."
• 42A. Hey! Fresh ELBA clue: [Porto Azzurro's place].
• 60D. The NFL is [Ochocinco's org.]. His number, of course, is 85. What would your Spanish number name be?
I thought [Iranian city, or its river] would be QOM rather than QUM, but there's no unterwasser O-BOAT. Did you know the city—a holy city and a center of learning for Shiites—can also be spelled KUM?
Updated Wednesday evening:
Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Letter Rip"
The theme involves ripping a letter into two, but it's hard to visualize this in Across Lite or if you print your answers in capital letters. The breakage involves lowercase letter strokes:
• 18A. [Huge scissors?] are the BIG clIPPER. See how a lowercase cl, when squished together, looks like a lowercase d? The Big Dipper is the original, pre-ripping phrase.
• 20A. Double Dutch is a jump-rope game. DOUBLE clUTCH is clued as [Extremely reliable under pressure?]. Not too familiar with clutch as an adjective. Is that a sports usage?
• 38A. [Cornfield bunched together?] is CROP clUSTER (crop duster).
• 55A. [Starting up a digital stopwatch?] is LOADING clOCK (loading dock).
• 59A. [Muhammad Ali?] is BOXING clAY. Excellent combination of the Boxing Day holiday that people in other countries may celebrate after Christmas and boxer Muhammad Ali's birth name, Cassius Clay. I didn't love the rest of the theme, but I'm glad it built up to this one. If this one had come first, the rest would've felt like a letdown.
Brendan labeled this one medium difficulty, but it smacked me like a hard puzzle. Toughest spots for me:
• [Snatch beneficiary] is a DELT, or deltoid muscle.
• TEN CC is the British rock band at 39D. Boo! It's 10cc, just as U2 is not spelled U-TWO. I don't recall "I'm Not in Love" at all, but "The Things We Do for Love"? Oh, yeah.
• My Star Wars-fu is down. The scoundrel in 21A is LANDO Calrissian. I barely remember the movie he was most prominent in, so I tried JANGO Fett first.
• That 1D-2D-3D group of two-word phrases that we don't see much of in crossword grids.
• At 56A, wanted [Athlete's handlers: Abbr.] to be MGRS or MGMT instead of AGTS. Abbreviations that only save one or two letters are dumb. (See also Jun., Jul.)
• The answer for [Knocker holder] is incorrect. It should be DDCUP, not DCUP.
October 27, 2009
Wednesday, 10/28/09
Onion 4:12
BEQ 3:52
NYT 3:50
LAT 3:05
CS 2:50 (A), untimed (J)
Mike Torch's New York Times crossword
I don't know about you, but it felt like it took me forever to find the theme while solving this puppy. I had the KNIGHT at the end of 38A (LADY OF THE KNIGHT, or [Guinevere, to Lancelot]), and Lancelot being a knight, I suspected no wordplay at that end. And in the upper left corner, I wasn't thinking that [What a king may win] is a TRICK (in what card game? war? bridge?), so I was missing the essential K in KNEW TESTAMENT, or 21A: [Was well-versed in a will?]. Oy! The rest of the theme plays out like this:
• 15A. [Retired Big Apple basketball player?] is an OLD KNICK. NYC-centric answer, NYC newspaper. Playing on Old Nick, which is the Devil's nickname but sounds like Santa's. I wasn't expecting any 8-letter theme entries.
• 48A. KNOT FOR PROFIT is a [Macrame company's goal?]. If you're over the age of 40, the odds are pretty good that you tried your hand at macramé in the '70s. Gotta love wall hangings.
• 64A. To [Select a sweater?] is to KNIT-PICK. Make mine cashmere, please.
There are some suboptimal answers in the fill, like ILLER, GOR on a Wednesday ([Brit's oath]), plural ROTCS, and assorted TLAs (three-letter abbreviations). But I'll give props to CTA, the [Windy City transportation org.], as infinitely superior to NYC's MTA. Not because of service—just because I'm a Chicagoan with a CTA card in my wallet. Other answers/clues I liked:
• PITCHY is [Slightly sharp or flat, as a voice]. Most Americans associate this word with Randy Jackson of American Idol. "I wasn't feelin' it, dawg. It was pitchy."
• 7A is CICADAS clued as [Insects in swarms]. Oh god! No swarms! Please. A single cicada is plenty loud. A swarm sounds deadly in its volume.
• [Theme song from "American Gigolo"] is Blondie's "CALL ME." I know you want to hear that song now: here's the video.
• 1D is PISA, and dang, yet another clue that keeps me wondering. I need to start suspecting PISA for any Italian 4-letter place name. [Torre Pendente city]...torre = tower, and pendente = ...leaning? Pendants don't lean. Is the Leaning Tower's Italian name "Hanging Tower"?
• [List preceder] is a COLON in that you can use a colon like this: for explanations, for lists, for whatever.
• I do like "NO, WAIT!"—"Uh, hold on! That's wrong!"
• SEPT, French for "seven," is the [Number of dwarfs with Blanche Neige], or Snow White.
Constructors, please do not make a puzzle in which a theme entry is OSMIC JOKE, cosmic joke with a C lopped off. That would be no good. OSMIC means [Of element #76], or relating to osmium.
Updated Wednesday morning:
Barry Silk's Los Angeles Times crossword
From my L.A. Crossword Confidential post—I didn't grasp the theme after I had the first two theme entries, but once GRANNY reared her head, I knew the puzzle had a knack for knots.
Theme answers:
• 17A: [Life insurance clause] (DOUBLE INDEMNITY). Is a double knot an official sailing/scouting/knot-tying sort of knot? Wait, it's the shoelace double bow I'm thinking of. Yes! There is probably a double knot. As for Double Indemnity, I've never seen the movie.
• 25A: [Hoedown activity] (SQUARE DANCE). The square knot is, the dictionary tells me, a particular kind of double knot. But "double knot" is not an entry in that dictionary. You know what you might find at a hoedown or SQUARE DANCE? Bales of hay for decoration. PuzzleGirl knows a woman from her school committee who knows where to go to find hay bales, but she's not gonna do it. There was a memo to that effect. As Joan Crawford is to wire hangers, that committee member is to hay bales.
• 43A: [Apple variety] (GRANNY SMITH). I used to love those apples but then I remembered that sweet is better than sour. A granny knot is a square knot that's gone awry so the rope may slip.
• 54A: [Inadvertent remark] (SLIP OF THE TONGUE). The slip knot can be undone by pulling on it. Don't use this to tie up your horse or your boat or your child, or you may lose them.
• 62D: [17-, 25-, 43- and 54-Across begin with a kind of one] (KNOT). Exactly where we like to find the Grand Unifying Answer, in the slot for the very last Across answer.
Making this puzzle a pangram are assorted Scrabbly words: XENO brings the X, and then there's QUARK, RITZY, and ST. JOE rounding up the Q, X, J, and K.
Byron Walden's Onion A.V. Club crossword
Byron pays tribute to the late WILLIAM SAFIRE, the [Former "On Language" New York Times columnist who died on 9/27/09], with a quote theme. The [summary by 42-Across of the thrust of an anti-nudity law in a Supreme Court case] is "IT AIN'T THE TEAT, / IT'S THE TUMIDITY."Excellent T-for-H swap pun, no? With only three theme entries in a svelte 14x15 grid, there's room for tons of interesting fill, and Byron's always been one of my favorite cluers. So let's peek at my top 10:
• 30A. [Wax location] isn't a waxing salon, car wash, or record store, but your EAR CANAL.
• 37A. If you MOON OVER someone, you [Regard (them) with goofy affection]
• 1D. AYDS was the [Weight-loss candy of the '70s and '80s that couldn't overcome its unfortunate homophone].
• 5D. I think Byron might've used this clue before, or borrowed it from someone. [They'll bring out the kid in you] clues OB-GYNS.
• Really? 8D: "DO NO HARM" is an [Exhortation that, in fact, is not in the Hippocratic Oath].
• 23D. It took a while to parse the clue right. THE TEAM is [Whom one is taken for?]. As in "take one for the team."
• 32D. [Contra position?] is NICARAGUA. Remember the '80s, Contras vs. Sandinistas, Reagan's Iran-Contra scandal?
• 33D. [As prompted, on voicemail] is AT THE BEEP. I think this phrase is fully "in the language" now, no?
• 45D. Apparently this show's run has ended, and I never watched it. But I like the unusual "Wait, what starts with an LW? That can't be right" L-WORD. [With "The," TV series whose relationships were mapped by "The Chart"].
• The last item on my list is TEA URNS. No, it isn't. Always like to see a full name in the grid. EVE ARDEN is the 36D: [Principal McGee portrayer in "Grease"]. That doesn't ring a bell for me.
So, just how many longish answers does this 65-word, 30-block puzzle have? Four 6s, two 7s, four 8s, and a half dozen 9s. My, that is a lot. Nice job capitalizing on the possibilities presented by a small theme, Byron.
Paula Gamache's CrosSynergy/Washington Post crossword, "He's No Gentleman"
Paula's theme is tied together by the heartless CAD at 57D. C.A.D. are the initials of each theme answer:
• 18A. CUT AND DRIED means [According to formula].
• 29A. CLOAK AND DAGGER is clued as [Like undercover operations].
• 46A. "CEASE AND DESIST" is a [Judge's order to halt]. The judges and lawyers doing this puzzle probably considered 4D: [Confiscate, legally] to be a gimme, but ESCHEAT is not in my daily parlance.
• 57A. CHIPS AND DIP are [Informal party fare]. No-salt Jays potato chips, French onion dip—they're in my kitchen right now.
I wanted the 44D: [Pitiful person] to be a CRYBABY, thanks to the B in the fourth slot, but it's a NEBBISH. That's one of 24 6- and 7-letter answers in the fill today. Another is REINS IN, or 41D: [Restrains]. This one activated the cryptic crossword corner of my brain—see the backwards ARTS inside REINS in [Restrains]?
Thank you, Orange, and please excuse Jane's lateness, one and all, as (later, still, Wednesday morning) she finally posts:
Paula Gamache's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "He's No Gentleman"—Janie's review
57A. tells the tale. It asks for the three-letter word that describes the [Non-gentleman formed by the initial letters of each word within 18-, 29-, 46-, and 57-Across]. That word is CAD and all I can say is I wanna know what's goin' on over there in CS-land. Ten days ago in Nancy Salomon's "Missing the Point," we encountered cad laughter and unrepentant sirs. Today, Paula seems to build on the concept, using four peppy phrases that spell out (initially):
• 18A. CUT AND DRIED [According to formula].
• 29A. CLOAK AND DAGGER [Like undercover operations].
• 46A. CEASE AND DESIST [Judge's order to halt].
• 57A. CHIPS AND DIP [Informal party fare].
And not only that, but she's given us some bonus fill as well, with BAGMEN [Mob collectors] (probably not the nicest guys in the world...) and SLAP [Stinging response to an insult] (that may have been delivered by a cad...). Paula (and Nancy): Helen Reddy sang it and this one's for you!
There's colorful fill indeed today as represented by BLUE SKY [Impractical, as ideas] (this phrase was entirely new to me and I like it a lot), RED MEAT [Carnivore's fodder], and even TARTANS [Highland plaids]. See what I mean? Oh, yes—and [Fourth rock from the sun] MARS, too, since it's also known as "the red planet"...
As exemplified by NEBBISH, even the opposite of colorful is colorful. By definition a nebbish is a [Pitiful person] (also an insignificant one; a nonentity). In the '50s, "The Nebbishes" was a cartoon craze/fad created by artist-turned-playwright (A Thousand Clowns) Herb Gardner. This article/obit is also a superb backgrounder on the man who made the words "next week we'll just have to get organized" a household phrase for a while.
In the "things-aren't-always-what-they-seem" department: the [Opposite of WSW], of course, is ENE. NSW, however, does not stand for North-South-West, but for New South Wales [Sydney's state (abbr.)]. In Australia. ASHY is defined nicely with [Like a fireplace grate]; but a [Burning sensation?] refers to IRE, not fire... That [Grumpy colleague?] isn't CRANKY, but the only one of Snow White's dwarfs with a one-syllable, three-letter name: DOC. The crossing at 1D and 1A of JONAH and JOB is not a biblical pairing. The former (with a long "O") does refer to [One with a whale tale?], but the latter (with a short "O") is the [Object of a graduate's quest].
50¢ word of the day: ESCHEAT [Confiscate legally]. I'm willing to bet I'll never remember this...
And with Halloween right around the corner, let's hear it for the DEMONS [Little devils] and the cluing of CROSSES as [Vampire repellents]!
Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Cheat Sheet"
I like the theme but much of the fill left me cold. The theme takes words that start with CH and changes 'em to SH-sound words:
• Chief of staff becomes SHEAF OF STAFF, or [Employee's wheat bundle?]. That's just a weird phrase. Do you ever have "meeting of staff"?
• Beach chair turns into BEACH SHARE, a [Co-owned house on sand?].
• [Bit of magic from Dolly?] the cloned sheep (not Dolly the Parton) is a SHEEP TRICK (cheap trick).
• The best of the bunch is RIGHT TO SHOES, playing on the right to choose. It's a [Privilege wanted by all fashionistas?].
While I do like YOUTUBE, Larry CSONKA's crazy spelling, JOSTLE, and "...THE HELL?", I was distracted by RANEE, SAME AS (6-letter partial?), ETNAS and an OAST, and EEE. Favorite clue: [Brendan Emmitt Quigley, e.g.] is the football-inflected TYPO Peter King had in his Sports Illustrated column.
October 23, 2009
Saturday, 10/24/09
Newsday 6:32
NYT 5:54
LAT 4:12
CS untimed
Paula Gamache's New York Times crossword
Last Sunday's NYT puzzle by Liz Gorski is my favorite 21x21 this month, and I think Paula's is the 15x15 I liked best. There's all sorts of awesomeness in this puzzle. The fill is zippy and the clues are the answers' equal. Here's what I'm talking about.
We've got people's names, often with the fancypants first/last name combo, and more women than usual:
• 15A. TINA TURNER is the kickass [Singer born Anna Mae Bullock].
• 17A. EDDIE MONEY, the ["Baby Hold On" hitmaker, 1978], was not as big on '80s MTV as TINA TURNER, but he was there.
• 30A. [Singer Aguilera, self-referentially] is XTINA, for Christina. If you don't know this name, you were probably casting a baleful glare at all of its crossings.
• 33A. James SPADER is ["The Practice" and "Boston Legal" Emmy winner].
• 48A. SHE-RA! [Her alter ego is Princess Adora]. I never partook of any She-Ra action, but it's the sort of fun pop culture I enjoy seeing in the crossword.
• 54A. ["Life of Pi" author ___ Martel] has the unusual name of YANN.
• 61A. The legendary PETE SEEGER is clued as the ["Turn! Turn! Turn!" songwriter]. Car horns should play that song when the person in front of you waiting to turn left is lollygagging.
• 49D. [Chrissie of the Pretenders] is the great Chrissie HYNDE:
Things that didn't exist 10 years ago:
• 1A. BLU-RAY DISC is a [High-definition storage medium].
• 23D. EARBUDS are [iPod attachments]. Not their first time in the crossword, but still about 85 times better than an answer like EARLAPS.
• 32A. Palm TREOS are [Alternatives to iPhones].
Other hot answers and clues:
• 18A. [Item of the past] is a couple who are now EXES. Singular clue! Tricky.
• 37A. BERSERK means [Wild].
• 42A. A boring old hunk of SOD? [It may thicken the plot] of land.
• 56A. "I'VE BEEN HAD" is a [Dupe's exclamation].
• 59A. The SELL-BY DATE is the [Time to pull a product] or, if you're an unscrupulous storekeeper, your cue to relabel the product.
• 3D. UNDIES! They're [Brief briefs?] in that the word's short for "underwear."
• 13D. A comedian's [Routine delivery] might be a ONE-LINER.
• 14D. To POSTMARK a letter is to [Prepare for delivery]. My cousin just had a baby yesterday so I was not reading these two clues right at all.
• 31D. Omigod! A TASS clue I don't recognize! [Soviet agency created from Rosta].
• 34D. The JOB CORPS is a great answer. It was a [Creation of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964].
• 35D. Dang, this clue led me down the wrong path completely. [Hangs up after agitating?] clues AIR-DRIES, as laundry that's been machine-washed.
• 44D. Anyone else try GAELIC for [Irish]? Or maybe CELTIC? It's DANDER, as in "get your Irish up."
• 47D. [Like new ones] refers to paper money: CRISP.
• 53D. [Lee side] isn't about ships and wind at all. It's the Robert E. Lee side, the REBS.
Updated Saturday morning:
Doug Peterson's Newsday "Saturday Stumper"
The Stumpers are being edited and clued to a remarkably consistent difficulty level now, aren't they? Not as many much-harder outliers, and pretty much nothing that's surprisingly easy for a Stumper. Well done.
(PDF solution here.)
Doug once again demonstrates why he's my current favorite among the Newsday themeless makers. That LET IT ALL HANG OUT down the middle ([Hold nothing back]) crosses the similarly colloquial TO THE MAX ([Totally]). There's a BOOK DEAL ([Goal for some agents]), a BASEBALL DIAMOND ([Pirates' milieu]—not nautical or digital piracy but the Pittsburgh ball club), and a COSMONAUT with an etymology clue, [Literally, "universe sailor"].
You know that euphemism, "I gotta see a man about a horse"? SEE ABOUT ([Look into]) sits astride HOSS ([Mount, informally]).
Favorite clues:
• [Clinton or Obama] is a LAWYER.
• I don't know the order of presidents in the 19th century, nor do I know who the Tennessee Tailor was, but [Prez before the Tennessee Tailor], 3 letters? Gotta be ABE. The Internet tells me Andrew Johnson followed Lincoln.
• [Activity after a run], RES**CKING? All I could think of was a marathoner doing some re-snacking. And before I had those letters, I thought of Epsom salt baths, stretching, resting, and all sorts of things that weren't 10 letters long. RESTOCKING! After a run on a particular item at the store.
• The PANDA is an [Image on Chinese commemorative coins].
Thomas Heilman's Los Angeles Times crossword
From my L.A. Crossword Confidential post, some blogular material—
ZOMG! This is merely an easyish Saturday puzzle rather than a shockingly easy themeless. This one landed at Thursday NYT level for me—though I can't be sure, as I write this Friday evening, that the Negra Modelo didn't slow me down a tad. Though I generally find that a drink or two does not impair my crossword solving skills. In fact, I'm contemplating organizing an informal Tipsy Crossword Tournament at the next ACPT. Maybe in the hotel bar.
I haven't seen Thomas Heilman's byline in over a year, and I don't think he's done a ton of themelesses so I didn't know what to expect. The grid features triple-stacked 15s at the top and bottom. Like most triple stacks, these are mostly crossed by short answers—but there are also some kick-ass 8s and 11s intersecting them. Here are those answers:
Patrick Jordan's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Growth Chart"—Janie's review
What a fitting conclusion this peppy puzzle is in a week that has given us puzzles titled "Baby Talk" and "Evolution of Man." Today's grid (a pangram at that) is a jukebox of song titles whose first or last word (there are two of each) describes a stage of human development. Fire up the speakers for:
• 20A. "BORN TO BE MY BABY" [1989 Bon Jovi #3 song]
• 28A. "LOVE CHILD" [1968 The Supremes #2 song]. I'd forgotten what an anthem for no-sex-without-contraception this song is. Though it doesn't say it in so many words. The pill was around in '68, but was not yet widely/easily available across all segments of the female population.
• 46A. "TEEN ANGEL" [1960 Mark Dinning #1 song]. One of the iconic pop music "story" songs of its day. And seriously gory, too. You don't wanna think too hard about the details.
• 53A. "ADULT EDUCATION" [1984 Hall & Oates #9 song]. From the underworld look of it, I keep thinking Orange's logo would be right at home in this video...
Two fave non-theme items still relate to the theme: STEM CELLS [Biological building blocks], which come into existence in the embryonic stage of development, and which are still with us as adults; and SPONGE BOB [Resident of kidvid's Bikini Bottom], whose target audience is the 2-11 year-old, but whose appeal spans the generations.
Then, there are a couple more song titles to mention. [CPR class site, often] tells us it's not clued as such, but YMCA would otherwise qualify; "STARDUST," [Hoagy Carmichael classic] is, however, and does. It also has the distinction of being on NPR's list of "The 100 Most Important American Musical Works of the 20th Century." That list, btw, includes music of a wide, wide variety of genres, including many that have been honored by the CMA [Gp. concerned with western tunes] (Country Music Association).
For the media- and stage-struck we have ["America's Got Talent segments] for ACTS and SKITS [Short sketches]. For those whose interests run more to sports, there's the ever-controversial (former) outfielder and designated hitter JOSÉ ["Juiced" author Canseco] and the Cincinnati REDS [Great American Ball Park team], who look to have one of the country's most picturesquely situated STADIUMS [Places with diamonds and gridirons].
I'm not a great fan of either of these two products, but I do like the progression (by the added letters) of the one to the other in the grid—and I'm referring to [Starchy tropical plant] TARO and TAR OIL [Coal product]. Finally, while Algeria is a member of the Arab League (and not the [United] ARAB [Emirate]), the CASBAH is an [Algiers section].
October 12, 2009
Tuesday, 10/13/09
Jonesin' 3:46
NYT 3:29
LAT 2:50
CS untimed
Sharon Delorme's New York Times crossword
Ha! This is a fun theme. I hardly paid any attention to it as I hopscotched my way through the grid, which I think actually slowed me down today because I didn't finish filling in LITTLE JOHN (17A: [Member of Sherwood Forest's "Merry Band"]) until nearly the end, and sort of had it in my head that HEIR TO THE THRONE (35A: [Prince Charles, beginning in 1952]) was a king in a deck of cards, tying to the ROYAL FLUSH at 58A ([Poker player's dream, yadda yadda]). But it's flush toilets we need, not poker: LITTLE JOHN, LETTERHEAD (25A: [Company stationery]), HEIR TO THE THRONE, and SARDINE CAN (50A: [Cramped spot, slangily]) all end with slang terms for the potty. Does this theme pass the breakfast test? Sure! I bet a lot of people start the crossword over breakfast and cart it along to the loo when the urge strikes. I'm feeling uncomfortable that the word "cramped" is in one of the theme clues, though.
You know why else this felt like a Wednesday puzzle to me? All the wrong turns I took. I blanked on 26D: ["Hamlet" soliloquy starter] when the space had 7 letters, but I was looking at the space for 15D. Then I had NOTHING instead of NOT A BIT for 28D: [Opposite of everything], and that erroneous H made 41A: [Blackmailer's evidence] look like PHOTO rather than TAPES. And then there were two wrong answers for 54A: [Fire up]—in lieu of EXCITE, I went through IGNITE and INCITE.
Favorite things:
• 65A. [Woad and anil, for two] are DYES. Woad is a word that dates back to Old English; it's the blue dye seen on the Scots warriors in Braveheart, anachronistically. First learned about woad from my medievalist English prof at Carleton.
• 20A. Sports trivia: The Houston ASTROS were the [First pro team to play on artificial turf]. They don't call it Astroturf for nothing.
• 64A. [Elzie ___, Popeye's creator] SEGAR was better known as E.C. Segar. I just blogged about him last week in the L.A. Crossword Confidential "Crosswordese 101" lesson.
• 5D. SALT is clued as a [Margarita go-with]. Me, I've got a sweet tooth so I like a strawberry margarita better than a lime one. In the last year, I've been asked multiple times if I want salt on the rim of that strawberry margarita. That is all kinds of wrongness there. It's sugar or nothing. Salt? With berries?
• 6D. G.I. JOES is a good answer, but [Action figures for boys] is a kinda sexist clue, isn't it? Either call it a doll mostly used by boys or an action figure for no specified audience.
• 7D. A POST is clued as [Words after "deaf as" or "dumb as"]. That reminds me—if you'd like to sponsor me in the Walk4Hearing, benefiting the Hearing Loss Association of America, see here. (Thanks for listening!)
• 9D. [Cattail's locale] is a MARSH. That takes me back to childhood family outings to the marsh.
• 47D. A CANARY is [One who sings to the cops]. Good old-timey slang.
• 51D. [Pranks] are DIDOS. The other day, someone left a "Dido" comment on my cousin's Facebook note. I realized the person meant "ditto." I told my husband about it and he said, "So that's what they meant!" He's been seeing that in work e-mails and it hadn't occurred to him that "ditto" was so hard to spell. Dido!
Thanks, Ms. Delorme, for the unexpected fun of a potty-mouthed theme.
Updated Tuesday morning:
Paula Gamache's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Jay Walking"—Janie's review
This puzzle is neither a shout-out to Leno nor is it in any way associated with the traffic violation that may get you a ticket in Los Angeles. Instead, in the hands of our witty constructor, the letter "J" was last seen walking away from four familiar phrases, leaving us with four familiar sounding yet definitely altered phrases that also happen to be very funny.
• 17A. The phrase "cheek by jowl" means "very close together." The phrase CHEEK BY OWL means [Back talk from a hooter?]. This is my fave (and the others are hardly shabby!). It just conjures up a whole new meaning for "wise as an owl," more along the lines of "wise-cracking as an owl."
• 27A. I've never made a "parachute jump," but were I ever to do so, competitively, I suspect there'd be a PARACHUTE UMP [Skydiving referee] on hand. Or there'd better be! (Not to mention a paramedic.)
• 46A. and 61A. Certainly you've heard the Christmas/Holiday songs "Joy to the World" and "Jingle Bells." Paula's even thrown in an ELF, a [Seasonal helper]. But take away the "J" and whattya get? OY TO THE WORLD, the brilliantly clued [Global cry of dismay?] and INGLE BELLS, the more cheerful [Fireplace ringers?].
For all its good humor, there's a cranky undertone to this one. Someone's IRKED [Peeved]; someone has a SNIT [Hissy fit] and utters [Butler's famous last word] "DAMN." The one who's the EDGIEST [Most nervous] may be the one who really GOES APE and LOSES IT, both clued as [Flips out]. (Nice, btw, the way those last two stack up vertically.)
The [Garden buzzer] is the HONEY BEE, which produces a golden product. Said golden-product producer shares a grid line with [King with a golden touch] MIDAS.
[Spread liberally] is a past tense clue, so the correct fill is SMEARED and not SMEAR ON. And it looks like Paula just can't let go of her 9/28 puzzle, for look what we have today: C AND W [Brad Paisley's music genre, briefly]. Guess it is true that [Old] HABITS [die hard...].
And ["There it is!"], friends. "VOILÀ!"
Fred Jackson's Los Angeles Times crossword
In this fishing-themed puzzle, the four longest Across answers end with an angler's equipment, in phrases that have almost nothing to do with fishing (OFF THE HOOK does derive from fishing). The ROD is useless without the LINE, which is fed out by the REEL and has a HOOK at the end.
My favorite parts of this crossword include the long Downs, J.K. ROWLING and EDSEL FORD (together again!) and the crossing of [Dance company founder Alvin] AILEY with an ILLNESS ([The flu, for one]), or ailment.
For more on this puzzle, including a Crosswordese 101 lesson on PAUL / ANKA and "ESO Beso," see PuzzleGirl's L.A. Crossword Confidential post.
Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword, "What Are the Odds?"
The theme entries are clued with your odds of doing various things, but I don't know that the statistics used are comparable from item to item. ASTEROID IMPACT? Your [Odds of dying because of it: 1 in anywhere from 200,000 to 500,000]. Does that mean 1/200,000 people on the earth would die if an asteroid landed here, or that the odds are 1/200,000 that an asteroid impact will happen and kill us all? The FOUR-LEAF CLOVER and SLOT MACHINE odds seem solid. I dunno about this WATER allergy afflicting 1 in 230,000,000 people—Wikipedia to the rescue! It's a skin reaction to water; I was thinking of food allergies. Then there's MILLIONAIRE: [Odds of being one: 1 in 83] doesn't specify the population in which that is true. In the U.S.? On the household level? Including home equity in net worth? You can be sure that 1 in 83 people in Africa, Asia, and South America are not dollar millionaires.
Moving along to the fill, I misread [When some studiers cram] as [When some soldiers cram], so I left it blank while waiting for the crossings to give me this military slang for mealtime. What? "Studiers"? Oh, they cram ALL NIGHT. Coolest entries: WIIMOTES, or [Nintendo controllers designed for motion], and "HOT DAMN!" (["Hoo boy, that's exciting!"]). Favorite clue: CAFFEINE is the [Cause of a crash, perhaps]; with the CA in place, I figured it had to be CAR-something.
September 28, 2009
Tuesday, 9/29/09
NYT 3:02
LAT 2:52
Jonesin' 4:15
CS untimed
Paula Gamache's New York Times crossword
Would you look at that? I learned something from a Tuesday crossword's theme. All five starred theme entries are phrases that have traveled far beyond their nautical roots.
The British site Phrase Finder lists other nautical phrases. Among the most charming or useful: batten down the hatches, broad in the beam, give a wide berth, high and dry, know the ropes, shake a leg, three sheets to the wind, and the cut of your jib. Now, that's the sort of nautical language I like to see in a crossword. The nouns for random sailing gear? Not so much.
10D: "NO, NO, NO" is a rather goofy answer, but I kinda like it. Its clue is ["That is completely the wrong way!"].
Also good: 4D: AD-SPEAK, or [Marketers' "language"]. Ooh! Don't miss the documentary, Consuming Kids, about the insidious ways marketers have targeted children since the 1980s. You can watch it here, in a series of YouTube segments; it's about an hour long.
Most-likely-to-be-Googled clue: 8D: [War aid program passed by Congress in 1941] for LEND-LEASE. Under the program, the U.S. gave war material to its allies, who repaid the U.S. in various ways. The U.K. made its last installment payment in 2006.
Dan Naddor's Los Angeles Times crossword
Dan Naddor brings the food for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a night at the game in four 15-letter "___ and ___" phrases:
Lots of people in the puzzle today. NEIL Armstrong and ALAN Greenspan, RAUL Julia and Dan MARINO, Ho Chi MINH and Wernher von BRAUN, two IANS and that horrible Bob SAGET, CYD Charisse and DEION Sanders, and the fictional Mr. MOTO and ETHAN Frome. Lucky for me, names in a crossword don't make me SKITTISH ([Apt to shy, as a horse]).
Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword, "Chance Collisions" (themeless)
A few times a year, Matt's Jonesin' puzzle is themeless, but the difficulty level is usually not far off from what it is for his themed puzzles. Coolest answers:
Less familiar terms: TAIL SKIDS are [Supports at the end of planes]. [Like a lot of European cathedral architecture in the 16th century] clues LATE GOTHIC. PETTICOATED is indeed an adjective (who knew?) meaning [Wearing an underskirt]. CLINOMETER is a [Tool in forestry to measure slope, vertical angles and tree heights]; it's not related to words like incline and recline, which have Latin roots as opposed to CLINOMETER's Greek root.
Updated Tuesday morning:
Sarah Keller's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Odd Fellows"—Janie's review
No, not the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the fraternal organization that's been around since the 18th century in the U.S. (and the 17th in England), but four well-known phrases ending in a word that can also be a man's name. With the first word now describing a person rather than a thing, Sarah introduces us to another side of a wide variety of celebrity-types, namely:
Other fill (and clues) that caught my fancy today includes:
September 27, 2009
Monday, 9/28/09
BEQ 6:53
LAT 2:43
NYT 2:24
CS untimed
Lynn Lempel's New York Times crossword
What a lovely Monday puzzle. It's filled with fantastic answers that are there just because, and the theme entries are the sort of lively terms I like to see in a themeless crossword. Now, the puzzle hits the easy/Monday bullseye, so it's eminently possible to complete the puzzle (as I did) without taking note of the theme. The theme is a big stinkin' failure, which is to say it successfully includes five phrases that end with synonyms for "failure":
The Scrabbliest highlight in the non-theme fill is ZAMBEZI, [Africa's fourth-longest river and site of Victoria Falls]. There are two more Zs in the grid. One's in GEEZER, or [Old, crotchety guy], and the other's in AZALEA, or [Relative of a rhododendron]. Other bright spots: JOSHES means [Teases playfully]. BATS IN is [Brings home for a score] (and no, that's not about dating). RAMADAN is a [Month-long Islamic observance], which ended with the Eid holiday last week (belated "Eid Mubarak" greetings to those of you who celebrated). A [Close-fitting sleeveless shirt] is a TANK TOP. FLIES is an ordinary word, but the clue's fun: [Gets around like Superman]. And look, we've got [One of the Redgrave sisters], LYNN. That's probably as close as Ms. Lempel will get to including her name in the grid. Hah! I just noticed a word I had filled in via the crossings and never looked at—CRAP is a [Losing roll in a casino].
Thanks, LYNN, for a fresh and entertaining Monday puzzle.
Updated Monday morning:
Paula Gamache's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "C & W"—Janie's review
A shout-out to a musical genre (Country & Western)? A shout-out to a puzzle genre (crossword)? I think Vic Fleming took care of both at the 2005 ACPT with "If You Don't Come Across (I'm Gonna be Down")—but leave it to Paula to find a third way to apply those letters. Today she presents four two-word phrases (two 15s, two 11s) whose first word begins with C and whose second begins with W. And the guilty parties are:
There's a lot of strong non-theme fill here, too. I'll start by pointing out the symmetrically placed phrases "WHO'S NEXT?" with its vivid, story-telling clue [Reigning champion's question to challengers] and SWINGS IT, clued not in conjunction with Benny Goodman's musical style, but as [Manages to succeed]. I also liked the GAS PEDAL/[You can step on it] combo, and the adjacent proximity of [Rampaging]/ARIOT to MANOLETE [Noted matador]. One of the greatest bullfighters of the mid 20th century, Manolete met his death at age 30, gouged by a bull running ariot.
[Joe with no jolt] is DECAF, "joe" being slang for "coffee" (and which you might have as a TALL [Starbuck's size]). Remember, though when Joltin' Joe DiMaggio was the spokesman for Mr. Coffee?
DAME [British title] is poised atop EDAM [Red-rinded cheese]. Dame is also an anagram of Edam. Or wait—is it the other way around?
And hello, HUGH [Jackman of film]. Let's not forget he won a [Tony...] AWARD for his portrayal of Peter Allen in The Boy from Oz and is currently starring on Broadway with Daniel Craig in A Steady Rain. The gents fairly embody the word "boffo": they are the essence of box office certainty!
Fred Jackson's Los Angeles Times crossword
Wow, this puzzle was scarcely any easier than the last Saturday LAT crossword! Which is to say that the whole week of L.A. Times crosswords are hitting the Monday/Tuesday difficulty level, thereby removing intriguing clues to talk about. If your local paper runs this puzzle (syndicated by Tribune Media Services), please send a letter/e-mail decrying the loss of the graduated difficulty curve and the more challenging Friday and Saturday puzzles.
The theme entries begin with related words:
Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Themeless Monday"
Hooray! Themeless Monday! A puzzle that takes longer than the usual Monday puzzle! This one was labeled as "medium" difficulty but I dunno, I thought it was on the hard side.
There are a few highlights, but this 70-worder had more fill that underwhelmed me. The good stuff: CULT STATUS, the CN TOWER, AFRO PICK, SHEBANG. My son's 4th-grade teacher is a man, which occasioned my sister to tell him that her 4th-grade teacher had been not only a man, but a man who sported a pick in his Afro in the classroom. Ah, 1970s! How we loved you. Favorite clues: [Holy figure?] for a holy TERROR, and the noun phrase [Play uncle] for Chekhov's Uncle VANYA.
There's a surprising amount of lackluster fill given that this is a 70-worder. MISTAKABLE without an un-? The [Short cloak] called a MANTELET? AREOLE, ENLISTEE, and SETS OUT? Then there are the little words: STS, ASTA, INRE, ENOS, LER, OLEO, CLE.
ESURIENT isn't too familiar; it means [Very hungry]. The dictionary tells me it's an archaic word (boo) that means "hungry or greedy."
September 12, 2009
Sunday, 9/13/09
NYT 11:33
PI 7:16
LAT 5:45
CS 3:20
BG tba—file not found
Congratulations to Eric Maddy, champion of Saturday's Bay Area Crossword Puzzle Tournament. I haven't heard any other details, such as who the finalists were and whether Tyler Hinman's Sunday-sized tournament puzzle will be published in a newspaper or online. I'll share what I learn.
Todd Gross's New York Times crossword, "Let's Play Bingo"
I've seen a few of Todd Gross's unpublished (or not yet published) puzzles, so I know he's drawn to gimmicks. Gimmicks can be highly polarizing, but I had fun with this one. The bingo gimmick is that a dozen interlocking entries are unclued, and you have to piece them together with the crossings and check to see which letter/number combos on the bingo card in the middle of the grid will fit in those spaces. When you fill in, say, B-SEVEN, you circle B-7 on the bingo card (the clue says Mark your card! for each). Play the crossbingo game right, and you'll get bingo. The last bingo number I filled in in the crossword was N-FORTY at 124-Across, and that won bingo for me. Congrats on your debut, Todd.
The bingo entries lack any sort of wordplay, of course, as you're looking at the bingo card to see what those answers could be. They are:
Suddenly I feel like I'm blogging about sudoku...but I did enjoy teasing out the bingo entries. Plus, I got bingo, so I assume the New York Times will be sending me my prize money shortly.
Returning to crosswordland, the least familiar word in the whole puzzle was in the 119A clue: [What an aurilave cleans]. That is a dreadfully obscure word! But the auri- root shouts EAR, and -lave covers the washing part of the word. Also on the unfamiliar side is 33A: [Third year in 31-Across's reign]. Cross-referenced Roman numeral clue? Good gravy! The year is LVI, for NERO, the 31A: [Emperor who married his stepsister]. (Ick.) Then there's 44A: [Manfred ___, 1967 Chemistry Nobelist] EIGEN. And I'm not sure I've seen NET TV used; that's 50A: [Hulu, e.g.], a website on which you can watch TV shows and clips. DARE ME as a 13D: [Statement of self-confidence] sounds weird, too. Moreover, I hadn't heard of either of the early 20th-century pop culture bits—94D: [Popular 1940s radio show "___ Alley"] is ALLEN'S, and then there's 100D: ELSIE [___ Janis, star of Broadway's "Puzzles of 1925"].
This could be a horrible class of clues, but I dig genealogy and geography so I liked 26D: [Second-most common Vietnamese family name, after Nguyen] for TRAN. If you're curious about the most common surnames in various countries, Wikipedia has a compilation.
Ooh, U.S. Open play has resumed after lengthy rain delays. Must go!
Updated Sunday morning:
My husband offered to pay me a dollar if I'd take his turn putting the kid to bed so he could watch tennis. I fell asleep before the kid and missed the dramatic end to the S. Williams/Clijsters match. Oh, well. I still think Serena is a phenomenal athlete.
Merl Reagle's Philadelphia Inquirer crossword, "See You in September"
It's September, and the "See You" of the title can be read as "C.U."—the letters that begin the words in each two-word phrase in this theme. Although the entertainment oomph of such initials themes can be lacking, most of the phrases here qualify as lively fill. Merl being Merl, the top and bottom pairs of theme entries are stacked.
I did this puzzle last night, so it's not fresh in my head and I can't think of anything else to say about it. Onward to other crosswords!
Pamela Amick Klawitter's syndicated Los Angeles Times crossword, "Rainbow Connection"
Whoa, nelly—the only Sunday puzzles I've finished this fast are Frank Longo's Premier King crossword and the Newsday puzzles. The sixth clue I read was for RED HERRING, and with the title, I skipped to the next long answer and filled in the ORANGE through INDIGO theme entries right away. Didn't see the VIOLET one and couldn't have filled that in with no crossings, but it made a huge difference to have the theme entries anchoring large swaths of the grid. Here are the theme answers:
Not all of the fill was so easy (particularly the lesser-known names in the grid), but the color spectrum theme was a romp in a way very few themes are. It's kinda fun (sometimes, not all the time) to have a puzzle that's markedly easier than the norm, isn't it?
Paula Gamache's themeless CrosSynergy "Sunday Challenge"
This grid's anchored by the four 14-letter answers that criss-cross around the center square. (Do you see the spirit of Paul Lynde in that black square?) Today, though, let's focus on the entries that evoke other languages.
![the AMOROUS [Lovey-dovey] pair](http://www.qualityartcentral.com/Gallery%20Pictures/POPEYE%20AND%20OLIVE%20Oil.jpg){kind=link}
