Monday, 9/14/09

BEQ 3:59
NYT 3:29
LAT 2:35
CS untimed

Psst: Constructors who like making Monday puzzles, send some of 'em to Rich Norris for the L.A. Times. He's been short on solid Monday contributions lately.

Bernice Gordon's New York Times crossword

The Notepad above the crossword says that this week is "Half-Century Puzzlemakers' Week":

All the daily crosswords this week, Monday through Saturday, are by puzzlemakers who have been contributing to The Times for more than 50 years. Bernice Gordon, 95, of Philadelphia, had her first Sunday crossword published on January 23, 1955. Her first weekday puzzle appeared three years earlier. She is the oldest known puzzlemaker in the newspaper's history.

Can you imagine any 95-year-olds you've known constructing crosswords at that age? That's phenomenal.

The theme shifts the S at the beginning of four people's surnames to an apostrophe-S at the end of their first names:

• 17A. Oliver Stone becomes OLIVER'S TONE, or [Film director's sound?].
  
• 26A. Margaret Sanger has her controversial aspects, but you gotta love anyone who brings the Pill to the people. [Birth control advocate's fury?] is MARGARET'S ANGER.
  
• 43A. [Jazz pianist's court appearance?] clues GEORGE'S HEARING, and I have not heard of George Shearing. Wikipedia tells me he is five years younger than Bernice Gordon, he's been active in jazz as long as she's been active in crosswords, he's mentioned in Kerouac's On the Road, his albums have charted as recently as the 1990s, he's blind, and he was knighted recently. Okay, then!
  
• 57A. In the Heather Has Two Mommies category, we have TOM'S MOTHERS, clued as [Comedian's parents]. I like to call him Tommy Smothers.
  

I'm going to blame that glass of wine for the typographical impairment that (together with George Shearing) nudged me into a Wednesday-level solving time. I know a couple other people who landed in Wednesday World on this one. How about you? Was this a Monday puzzle?

Trickier bits for Monday solvers:

• 20A. A stealth two-word answer with an abbreviation: ST. TERESA was the [Nun from Avila].
  
• 33A. ELIEL is one [Architect Saarinen]; his son Eero shows up even more often in crosswords. Let us all give thanks that Eero's parents did not give him a 5-letter name or we'd be stuck checking all the crossings whenever a Saarinen clue popped up.
  
• 35A. C.O.D. is clued as [How some mail-order packages arrive, for short]. Does anyone still ship things out C.O.D. (cash on delivery)? I'm pretty sure Amazon insists on being paid up fron.
  
• 60A. Actress LIV [Ullmann from Norway] might be tough for younger solvers. I like to call her "54."
  
• 62A. ROANS are [Horses with speckled coats].
  
• 1D. I love the word [Foofaraws] and a number of its colorful synonyms (e.g., hullabaloo, brouhaha, hubbub). ADOS is more the un-colorful crosswordese black sheep of that family of words.
  
• 10D. CREMONA is the [Onetime center of Italian violin manufacture]. Other Italian violin words you may see in puzzles include AMATI and STRAD(ivarius).
  
• 24D. [Venomous, as a snake] clues ASPISH. Cleopatra was killed by the bite of an asp, or venomous snake.
  
• 26D. [Ancient Persian] is a MEDE.
  
• 30D. [Dabbling ducks] are TEALS. In the rest of the world, teal is a color. In crosswords (and, uh, ponds), it's a type of duck.
  
• 39D. SURE SHOT is clued [It's guaranteed to hit the mark]. "Sure Shot" is also a Beastie Boys song, and then there's the Canon SureShot line of cameras. Not sure I'm familiar with the phrase in a shooting context.
  
• 44D. [Antiquated] clues OLD—which will describe many of this week's constructors! (The youngest began working with Margaret Farrar at age 13 and may still qualify as middle-aged.)
  
• 45A. EZIO is [Basso Pinza]. He left opera in 1949 and moved on to Broadway, where he starred in South Pacific. (That may come up in a clue someday.) Wikipedia tells me he died in Stamford, Connecticut, erstwhile home of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.
  
• 54D. ORNE is a [French department], French departments being something like states or counties. Old-school crosswordese, that.
  

Updated Monday morning:

Martin Ashwood-Smith's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "No Standing"—Janie's review

is a traffic sign directed at motorists that used to baffle me. "No Idling" might be closer to the truth; or "No Standing Still"... No problem where today's puzzle is concerned, as Martin has given us three places to park it. Not your car, however—your butt. The last word in each of the three, colloquial 15-letter theme-phrases (all in gerund form) names a place where you can "put 'er down":

• 17A. TAKING A BACK SEAT [Letting others have the responsibility].
• 41A. PULLING UP A CHAIR [Joining the group].
• 66A. WARMING THE BENCH [Not playing].

I love seeing 15-letter phrases in a grid, although I'm A TAD iffy on the "success" of the theme overall. That back seat is far more figurative in its meaning than the chair or the bench... Someone late to a gathering is asked to "pull up a chair"; the kid on the sidelines (or even the pro) does sit on the bench and therefore is known for "warming the bench." Still, the phrases themselves are lively—and look at the great, phrase-y 9- and 10-letter fill we get as well: MAKE A PILE [Get rich], TALK SENSE [Be reasonable], NIGHTLIGHT [Small bulb in the bedroom] and NEAT AS A PIN [Free of clutter]. A tidy collection indeed.

Also nice are those pairs of sevens stacked in the corners. In combination with the 15s at 17A and 66A, they do their part in giving this grid a lovely open feel at top and bottom. I especially like the four at the top: A.A. MILNE, STARE AT, NET LOSS and the poetic ESSENCE.

I'd love to see this puzzle with some twistier cluing. It's quite straightforward today, perhaps as a trade off for the healthy amount of longer fill—but it couldn't hurt. Something like [Result of a crash, perhaps?] would work for NET LOSS. I know it's a question of balance. Still, the pleasure of solving a puzzle with lots of stronger, longer fill (like this one) is only improved with a complement of edgier clues. Imoo...

Had never before heard of the spicy Spanish stew known as OLLA [___ podrida]. ¡Caramba!
Los Angeles Times crossword by Lila Cherry, or "really Rich" Norris

The theme here is a vowel progression theme with phrases that start with T*T. The vowel sounds that replace the asterisk are all long:

• 17A. TATE GALLERY is the [London art museum, as it was formerly known]. It's now a group of four museums collectively called the Tate: Tate Britain and Tate Modern in London, Tate Liverpool (I visited in '07—all modern art), and Tate St. Ives in Cornwall.
  
• 25A. [Its seat is Jackson, Wyoming] clues TETON COUNTY. I figured it had to end in COUNTY and then gambled on TETON and a vowel progression theme..
  
• 35A. The TITLE PAGE? [It shows a book's name, author, publisher, etc.].
  
• 52A. TOTAL RECALL is a Schwarzenegger movie as well as [Photographic memory].
  
• 59A. One [Multi-flavored ice cream] variety is TUTTI FRUTTI.
  

Highlights among the triple-stacked 7s in the corners:

• 46D. An AIR KISS is a [Smooch that even misses the cheek].
  
• 13D. I'D SAY SO is another way of saying ["Sounds about right to me"].
  
• 41D. NITROUS [___ oxide (laughing gas)] is a boon to those of you with dental anxiety. If you avoid the dentist, make an appointment and let them know that you're terrified and ask what they can do for you. They've got a whole bag of tricks to alleviate pain and anxiety. /public service announcement
  
• 40D, 45D. The North American folks in uniform are out in full force. A [State cop] is a TROOPER and a [Canadian cop] is a MOUNTIE.
  

Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Themeless Monday"

Ahh, I love a themeless puzzle spicing up my Monday morning.

Top six entries:

• 17A. The IKEA CATALOG is a [Periodical where you can find a Jerker desk or Fartfull workbench]. We're partial to the Poäng chair and ottoman. Fun to say, fun to sit in.
  
• 33A. SHEENA ["___ Is a Punk Rocker" (1977 The Ramones single)] is much better than going with Sheena Easton. My dad had a thing for her in the early '80s. It was creepy.
  
• 39A. DR. ROMANO was [Paul McCrane's "ER" role]. Remember how we all hated him and then his arm got chopped off by a helicopter blade and we still didn't like him?
  
• 67A. The MADDEN CURSE is the [So-called explanation for an athlete's off-year after appearing on a video game cover].
  
• 22D. PEARL JAM is the [Band with the 2009 album "Backspacer"]. My son has Eddie Vedder hair, only with a little more curl and a little less length now.
  
• 39D. I've never heard of DJ QBERT, but that was easy enough to put together with the crossing Q from QATAR and the clue, [Turntablist Richard Quitevis who took his stage name from a video game].
  

Favorite clue: The reality TV–inflected [Survivors?] for TRIBE.

I didn't know the CATALPA tree was also called the 12D: [Indian bean tree]. Those long pods are something else.

2D is "LIKE, HUH?" clued as ["Howzzat again?"]. Can't say I've ever heard anyone say that.

The entries that scored highest on the Meh-o-meter are AMERCER ([One who fines in a court]), OSIERED ([Made of certain twigs]), and the plural ANAS ([Literary miscellanea]).

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Sunday, 7/26

NYT 99:59

LAT 99:59

PI 99:59

[updated to include:]

CS 99:59

BG 99:59

by guest blogger Dean Olsher

Amy always has something to teach me, and therefore I’m sure it’s no coincidence that I’m making my debut in her chair on a Sunday. She is no doubt teaching me a lesson for writing, in FROM SQUARE ONE, that I haven’t done a Sunday crossword in years, because it feels more like work than fun. (Of course I made an exception when Amy made her debut as a constructor three Sundays ago, with Tony Orbach, and I’m not brown-nosing when I say that it was a fun puzzle.)

In any event, this was a good excuse to reacquaint myself with other editing styles and challenge my belief that the New York Times puzzle really is superior. (It’s like my preference in dogs. I would like to identify with something edgy and unusual, but the sad truth is that I love Golden Retrievers, the most vanilla of breeds. I wish I could claim something more obscure, but there you have it.)

Kevin G. Der’s New York Times Sunday crossword, “Story Circle”

There’s a moment that occurs when solving a rebus puzzle that satisfies in its own way. You think to yourself, “Wait a minute, something is not right.... Saaaaay! I know what’s going on here.” The rebus in question is SIR, which goes in five circled squares slightly north of center. The theme is rounded out with the titles of six films and one book inspired by the story of King Arthur and his Round Table. There are circles for five knights here, leading to left-right symmetry rather than the usual 90-degree sort. I’m not sure of the thinking behind five circles. According to various tellings of the legend, there were at least twenty-five knights, if not more. I feel I must be missing something, and if I am, I’m sure someone will point it out.

Among the theme answers, the 1889 Twain novel that makes up both 4D and and its symmetrically located 12D is A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR’S COURT. Wow, that was exhilarating! Wow!

Another twofer takes place at both 14D and 76D: 1953 Ava Gardner film ... as depicted elsewhere in this puzzle? The answer is KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE. Also wow! Something about taking up a whole line, interrupted, seems virtuosic.

Less wow among the theme clues:

• The 1981 film in which Helen Mirren plays a sorcress is EXCALIBUR (2D).
• Seventeen years later, you get the 1998 animated film featuring the voice of Pierce Brosnan, QUEST FOR CAMELOT (143A).
• 71D, MISTS OF AVALON is clued as 2001 Anjelica Huston miniseries, with “The.” I don’t love the The (or the missing hyphen in miniseries; spelled this way, as the writer Sarah Thyre has rightly pointed out, you’re left with “such small sad little things”).
• 137A, SWORD IN THE STONE is clued as a 1963 animated film with the song “Higitus Figitus,” with “The.” Again with the The! Not a lovely clue.

Lots to love:

• 10D, Subtlety = NUANCE, which is just a good word, plain and simple.
• SYNOD (39D, Bishop’s group) is a great word, especially when it’s so close to 62A, Blissful: BEATIFIC.
• 62D, Winnie ____ Pu yields ILLE. That’s the title of A.A. Milne’s beloved children’s tale translated into Living Latin, which is exactly the kind of quixotic endeavor that wins my undying admiration.
• 103A, Prefix with sphere for IONO was not meant as a shout-out to radio, but I’ll take it as one anyway.
• 81D, Soap box? TVSET. Nice.
• Drilling grp. appears twice. At 44D, I thought it was going to be OPEC, but it turned out to be ROTC. Then at 86D, it’s ADA. (My father was a dentist in the army when I was born. He didn’t go through ROTC but he did undergo basic training. On the day they made everyone crawl under live machine-gun fire, he lost his lunch, which consisted of chili. He has never eaten it since.)

Et alii, so as not to gush too much.

• Boo on them: 19D, Red alert. FIRE SIREN? Nah.
• Boo on me: I got impatient (see above, “more work than fun”) and tried to look up 78D, Supreme Egyptian deity (spelled here as AMEN RA) by typing in crosswordfiend.blogspot.com. Oops.

I think of myself as post-ideological, but there are a couple of areas in which I maintain a hard line. For example, I hope to remain forever closed-minded in my opposition to puppy mills. And although people tell me they can still appreciate a crossword’s literary qualities while solving it as fast as they can, Lord, I do not want to be in that number. As Will Shortz wrote in the most recent Talk to the Times (which, he says, received more questions than any previous installment of this feature), “Rushing to solve a crossword is like stuffing a fine four-course meal down your throat as fast as you can.” I share all of this to explain my solving times, which are posted in solidarity with the yet-to-be-formed Crossword Fiends’ Auxiliary Chapter of the Slow Food movement.

Paula Gamache’s CrosSynergy “Sunday Challenge”

I am in solidarity with our usual host here: I always look forward to a Paula Gamache puzzle in the New York Times. Gamache is super smart and witty and I wish more puzzles were like hers. In fact, I wish this puzzle were more like hers. It lacked her special touch. Surely all the sparkle in her New York Times offerings can’t be due exclusively to Will Shortz’s editing of the clues. Did CrosSynergy dumb her down?

25D is a good ’un: They may stand for something is the clue for LATECOMERS. But 34A, Sheep shelter (COTE) is - meh.

44A, Auto service department offerings are LOANERS. I remember this as a common practice from childhood, but does anyone still do that?

Many of the folks I met while losing 15% of myself might quibble with 27D, Not a sore loser for DIETER. The people who went to my meetings complained bitterly.

I was Greeted, as a villain this week (49A, HISSED AT) when I gave the first performance of FROM SQUARE ONE: THE LIVE SHOW. I was asking for it. What prompted the hissing was this: “Brooklyn always felt like the Chicago of New York: parochial, boosterish, oddly proud to be the second city within the city.” It may have had something to do with the fact that I delivered this line steps from the epicenter of the Bobo universe. And of course this now has to get past a gatekeeper who loves living in Chicago. I hope the brown-nosing worked.

I couldn’t help but notice that Juicy fruit appears as a clue not only in this puzzle (56A, BERRY) but also Merl Reagle’s (35D, MELON). Now that's crossynergy.

Which brings us to:

Merl Reagle's Philadelphia Inquirer crossword, “A Tense-Sounding Situation”

I used to do Merl’s puzzle every week when I was a reader of the New York Observer, which I gave up because his crossword was the one good thing about it. Now that they’re under new management I should check them out again. In any event, I was glad for the reminder of what makes him so great.

Right away, with 1A, he initiates what appears to be an unintentional subtheme with “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” author LOOS. (Five years ago America passed up an opportunity to obsess over Rebecca Loos - no relation, as far as anyone has pointed out - who was alleged to have caused David Beckham to stray from Posh Spice.) He then proceeds to include a trio of Movie Stars I Have Had Crushes On: “In the Bedroom” actress (56D, SPACEK); Diana of “The Avengers” (80A, RIGG); and Nora, opposite Nick (15D, MYRNA). I wish to offer this list as Exhibit A to everyone who, when trying to fix me up on blind dates, has disbelieved me when I say I don’t have a “type.” (Although, considering how much I wish Claudette Colbert and Carole Lombard would make it into puzzles more often, maybe I do have a type. Colbert was said to be mean to Clark Gable, but he was madly in love with Lombard. And now that I think of how young she was when she was killed in a plane crash and made him a widower, I’m glad it didn’t work out with me after all.) Don’t need a Facebook quiz to know that the 1940s would have been my decade.

Sadly, I am a child of the seventies, which is why 73A, He leaked the Pentagon papers got me to ELLSBERG in no time. Maybe because I'm Generation Jones, this tickled my “Gee!” spot.

I am on record as saying there is no difference between a good pun and a bad pun. That doesn’t mean I can't give props to Merl Reagle for his mastery of paronomasia, which forms the basis of his intended theme. And in fact the puzzle does demonstrate that some puns are more equal than others. As an example of a tired pun, we have 81A, Redundant library sign? for NO TALKING ALOUD. We know that one. But then, by contrast, there’s 25A, New batch of chicks? for FRESH BROOD, which pushes us to hear the language anew. Even better than the AHA MOMENT (Gamache, 1A: Instant when the light goes on) is the Ah! moment, and Merl’s always good for a bunch of them.

The rest of his theme clues:

• 23A, Result of an Oreck-Bissell summit? = VACUUM PACT
• 25A, Vestal virgins? = CHASTE WOMEN
• 38A, Q: “What were you doing at the lumber yard, Tarzan?” A: “_____” = GETTING BOARD
• 50A, Customer-service reps for a certain condiment? = MUSTARD SUPPORT
• 65A, Soft and smooth on top? = BALD LIKE A BABY
• 93A, Get a little sloppy with the stickum? = PASTE ONESELF
• 103A, Beach-access route? = ROAD TO SHORE
• 109A, Headline about escaped lions? = PRIDE LOOSE
• 112A, Where the teetotaler walked? = PAST THE BAR

Merl’s puzzle did not change my mind about puns (for a lovely sorting-through of what I find so distasteful about them, read this op-ed piece). Still, solving it was a satisfying way to spend 99 minutes and 59 seconds.

Some obscurities are boring (89D, Butter dye = ANNATTO) while others (48D, Cross = ROOD) make me curious to find out more. And then there’s the nifty BEADLE (67D, English church official) which really doesn’t deserve to be in crosswords more than it is, but its appearance today made me smile for some reason.

I do quibble with 64A, Many mag pages for ADS. In fact lately there have been not so many, which is why at least one longtime mainstay of American culture may vanish in the weeks ahead. You heard it here first.

Our little daisy chain continues. BPOE appears both here (91D, Lodge letters) and also in the Los Angeles Times Sunday crossword (30A), clued as Fraternal org.

Allemande left and promenade!

Nora Pearlstone’s Los Angeles Times Sunday crossword, “Midafternoons”

[The blogger-in-chief suggests I point out that “Nora Pearlstone” is an anagram of not a real person and is the puzzle-making alter ego of editor Rich Norris.]

The theme is PM: two-word answers, the first word ending in P, the second word beginning with M. This yields the following theme clues:

• 23A, Temporary solution = STOPGAP MEASURE
• 54A, Controversial excavation method = STRIP MINING
• 94A, Key equivalent to B-flat = A-SHARP MAJOR
• 130A, It can help you organize windows and wallpaper = DESKTOP MANAGER
• 17D, Startling Stories, e.g. = PULP MAGAZINE
• 66D, Maker of Marlboro = PHILIP MORRIS

Ho hum. Time for a mid-afternoon nap.

It was interesting to see 25A, APOLLO, clued as Harlem theater. Maybe the editors were sick of all the 40th-anniversary hoo ha surrounding the moon landing. Or maybe it’s how they’re responding to pressure from newspapers to make the L.A. Times puzzle more national.

Regarding NACRES (Mollusk shell materials): plural? Really, right there at the top? If I were to be forced to include a tortured pluralization of an uncountable noun I’d want to hide it somewhere other than 1A.

A rare sports clue pops up at 64A: apparently, an Old Boston Garden nickname is ESPO. I can’t be bothered to find out who or why.

Boston, come in, please!

Boston Globe Sunday crossword

Hello, Boston, you’re on the air!

[Dead air.]

While we’re waiting for the Globe puzzle to come online, I want to say that I’m no Alice Hoffman. I can take criticism. While poking around online for the endangered newspaper’s crossword I stumbled upon this review of my book by Amanda Heller, who seems to have to have neither liked it nor read it. To set the record straight, the crossword in FROM SQUARE ONE is not of my devising. Readers of the book, and now Ms. Heller, know that all credit goes to the multitalented Francis Heaney. I’m sure stuff like this has nothing to do with the fact that the paper is going under. [SNAP!]

[This just in: still no Boston Globe crossword. But Cox and Rathvon are quoted, as am I, in this article that appears today in the Harrisburg Patriot-News, which is bucking the trend by adding puzzles to the paper. Now the bad news: the puzzles they’re adding are sudoku and KenKen®.]

Stand by, please.

It’s confirmed. The Eagle has landed.

Henry Hook’s Boston Globe Sunday crossword, “Take My Word For It”

A nicely made puzzle, worth waiting for. His theme is truth, illustrated as follows:

• 22A, Oath opening = I DO SOLEMNLY SWEAR
• 33A, Oddities column = BELIEVE IT OR NOT
• 63A and 71A, “It’s gotta be true” = YOU CANT MAKE THIS STUFF UP
• 95A, Rerun in the GSN lineup = TO TELL THE TRUTH
• 111A, Friday’s request = JUST THE FACTS MAAM
• 15D, George’s affirmation = I CANNOT TELL A LIE
• 43D, Old Coke slogan = ITS THE REAL THING

with a Lagniappe at 96D, the Lionel Richie hit TRULY.

Once again a secondary theme emerges. Hook is going to Lahaina in his mind with:

• 115A, 50th state bird = NENE (someday I hope to see their state fish in a crossword)
• 116a, Pacific greetings = ALOHAS
• 98D, Guitar’s kin = UKE

In case 47D, the Suzanne Vega hit LUKA turns out to be so catchy that you just can’t get it out of your head, we here at the Diary wish to offer this earworm replacement service. You may want to consider, instead, TROIKA (56A, Three-horse carriage) or maybe even MOOCHER (85D, Sponge).

More pleasure:

• 9A, Old war story? is ILIAD, and then, in the opposite corner (119A) you have Jason’s ship, the ARGO.
• 26A, My brothel’s keeper is MADAM. Nice!

Not so nice:

• 45A, Bleating sound is MAA?
• 58D, Illicit affair for AMOUR. Illicit? Always?
• 64D, Homesteads, in Hampshire appear to be TOFTS. Filing that one away.
• I had to look up 34D, Greg of “B.J. and the Bear,” which turns out to be EVIGAN. I didn’t feel too bad about it, since I got no help from 39A, Kin of (alt. sp.) for VAR. Huh? Still have no idea what that’s all about. Anyone? Anyone?

16D, Strands for MAROONS reminds me of a recent conversation with my NYU colleague, Adam Penenberg, who I admire very much (and not just because Steve Zahn played him in the movie Shattered Glass). Adam told me his all-time favorite Eugene Maleska clue was, “After a blue ship collides with a red ship. Answer: Marooned.” This gave me an idea as I develop FROM SQUARE ONE: THE LIVE SHOW. Send me your favorite clues, and tell me why they’re your favorites, and offer any interesting stories behind them, over at my blog. And when I say “interesting” I do not mean fabricated.

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Sunday, 7/12

PI 8:26
LAT 7:00
NYT 6:02
BG untimed
CS 4:42
NYT diagramless untimed

Don't miss Douglas Quenqua's NYT article, "No Puzzle in the Paper? I’m Blank!". It was posted to the website on Saturday and appears in the Sunday Fashion & Style section. The piece is about puzzles getting the axe in print media—the New York Times Magazine won't always include the second Sunday puzzle, the New York Sun folded, the Washington Post dropped its acrostic, the Atlantic Monthly will no longer even publish the Hex cryptics online...please don't make me go on. I don't want to have to list still more puzzle demises. (Sigh.)

Alan Arbesfeld's New York Times crossword, "Links to the Past"

Wow, if you are a native speaker of Modern High Crosswordese, this puzzle can practically fill itself in. Maybe if the TV had been off and my family not talking, I'd have broken the 6-minute mark on this puzzle, and I don't think I've ever come so close on an NYT Sunday puzzle before. It felt like there were more than the usual allotment of such gimmes (which, of course, are probably not gimmes to those who've not dedicated years of study to Modern High Crosswordese), and while they didn't lend extra entertainment value to the puzzle, the "whoo, this crossword is tumbling like a house of cards" speed thrill has its charms. I'm talking about clues like [Indian tourist locale] AGRA, [Former Swedish P.M. Olof ___] PALME, [Pacific capital] APIA, NETTY [Like mesh], and that [Cousin of a raccoon], the COATI. Things that aren't exactly household words unless someone in the household does a boatload of crosswords.

The theme was not too hard to unravel without peeking at the Notepad. Each of the straightforwardly clued theme entries includes a "placement" word, and if you interpret each phrase hyper-literally (as you might in a cryptic crossword or in those tricky crossword clues for the spelled-out names of letters), you'll extract one letter from each one's key word. Those seven letters spell out HISTORY.

• 23A. The [Boondocks] are the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, and the middle of the word "nowhere" is H.
  
• 34A. [Ambulance destination] is a MEDICAL CENTER. The center of that first word is I.
  
• 50A. An [Imam or priest] is a SPIRITUAL LEADER, and the "leader" of that word is an S.
  
• 69A. The BEGINNING OF TIME—the letter T—is clued by way of [When the heavens and earth were created].
  
• 87A. [Deputy] is the SECOND IN COMMAND, and that second letter is O.
  
• 103A. [Week after Christmas] is the END OF DECEMBER. This is the least satisfactory of the theme entries, because "end of December" feels strikingly arbitrary as times of the year go. Here's the R.
  
• 118A. BROADWAY CLOSING, or [Lights out in New York City], is the letter Y.

I like how the cryptic-style locator signals are all different—two beginning, two middles, two ends, and one second letter.

On Cruciverb-L, there was a recent discussion about entries like CEE and ESS. The legendary Bob Klahn loves the tricky, hyper-literal clues that go with such answers, while the legendary Merl Reagle interjects that nobody ever uses these spelled-out versions so they oughtn't populate our crosswords. This puzzle's theme kinda splits the difference—the letters are themselves and not the little-used three-letter names for them, and we get the tricky clues, only these tricky clues are found in the grid for a change. It's not the meatiest theme around, but I like how it settles into a neutral ground between the Klahn and Reagle camps and lets us play with hyper-literalism without the "ESS? Really?" eye-rolling.

Without further ado, let's run through some clues:

• 35D. COED gets a perfect clue: [Like most dorms nowadays]. My husband and I met when we lived across the hall from each other at Carleton. COED is a perfectly fine adjective, but as a noun it's either (a) outdated or (b) used in porn.
  
• 5A. [Intelligent, creative sort, supposedly] clues a VIRGO, astrologically. You like the gentle hedging of the "supposedly" in the clue? A friend of mine has sworn off dating VIRGO men owing to their supposed moodiness and incompatibility with her Aquarian nature.
  
• 28A. Unusual clue for a VIOLET: [Symbol of modesty]. I approached the answer from the end and had no idea where to go with it. CORSET seemed altogether wrong, and nothing else came to mind. Violets are hardly modest, however—they grow wherever they want to and refuse to leave your garden when instructed.
  
• 37A. [Group of genetically related organisms] is a BIOTYPE. Didn't know this one, not even with **OTYPE in place.
  
• 48A. [Emulates AZ or T.I.] is RAPS. I've heard of T.I., so this clue was 50% helpful to me. AZ has an album and song called "Doe or Die", but it doesn't appear to be about Bambi.
  
• 58A. Man, did I need a lot of crossings to get HEIDI, the [Literary heroine whose best friend is a goatherd].
  
• 76A. The AFTON is the ["Sweet" stream in a Burns poem]. No idea how I knew that off **TO*.
  
• 80A. BEAN BAG is a great entry. It's a [Noisy but comfy chair].
  
• 94A. Ooh, cutting edge! [Tweets, e.g.] clues TEXTS. Most of my tweets are posted from the web, but when I'm out and about, I do text tweets from my phone.
  
• 95A. The awkward SRS is clued as [Grandfathers of III's]. I know a guy whose grandfather was not a Sr. but an XXI. The guy's baby son is XXIV. No kidding. A line of same-named descent stretching back a good five centuries!
  
• 112A. [Bathroom fixture] is a BIDET. I've never tried one. Do you recommend bidets?
  
• 1D. [A mechanic might see it a lot] refers to a real LEMON.
  
• 3D. MEDIA BLITZ is an interesting answer. Clued as [Publicity push].
  
• 11D. [Choler] is IRE. I'm unreasonably fond of the word "choler," and yet I seldom use it. Must remedy that.
  
• 36D. I definitely did not know ANNE [___ Page, woman in "The Merry Wives of Windsor"]. My Shakespeare comedy knowledge involves A Midsummer Night's Dream and maybe one or two others.
  
• 46D. [Pleonastic] means REDUNDANT, as in the phrase "ATM machine," where the M means machine.
  
• 67D. OFFENSE is [Something to play] when the other side's on defense.
  
• 72D. [They may be crunched]? Your ABS. Drop and do 25 crunches, now!
  
• 101D, 102D. Aw, OLEO is [Promise, for one], but GREASE doesn't get the same clue. It really could. Instead, it's [Payola, e.g.]. Not to be confused with Mazola.
  
• 121D. [Science writer Willy] LEY is not someone I've read, but I reckon I've encountered his name...in crosswords.

Updated Sunday morning:

David Levinson Wilk's syndicated Los Angeles Times Sunday crossword, "Take a Letter"

Alas, I would have enjoyed this theme a lot more if I hadn't just done essentially the same theme—but with an added twist—in the NYT. Here, the hyper-literal theme entries are clued with the letter the answer suggests, rather than the answers being clued straightforwardly and the letters being an add-on. Where Arbesfeld's batch of letters spelled out HISTORY, this one's letters spell out...SACPVEFD. I wish this puzzle had come out a week earlier so I could better appreciate the fun of figuring out these:

• 23A. [S] is the HEAD OF STATE.
  
• 29A. [A] is END OF AN ERA.
  
• 34A. [C] is MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE.
  
• 58A. [P] is LEADER OF THE PACK.
  
• 66A. [V] is CENTER OF GRAVITY.
  
• 85A. [E] is FOREGONE CONCLUSION. This one is terrific—a great phrase to drop into a crossword, and not a tricky/cryptic clue I recall seeing before.
  
• 94A. [F] is FALSE START. I had a false start on this one because FALSE FRONT also fit perfectly.
  
• 104A. [D] is GRAND FINALE. Perfect to save GRAND FINALE for the last theme entry in the puzzle.
  

As with the Arbesfeld puzzle, there's a good assortment of positioning words here. Three beginnings (HEAD, LEADER, START), two middles (MIDDLE, CENTER), three ends (END, CONCLUSION, FINALE). None of the theme entries duplicate those in the NYT—there are a zillion such phrases to choose from, I suppose. And while I admired the NYT's extra level of theme action, I'll give the liveliness edge to Levinson Wilk's set of theme answers.

Another echo between these two puzzles: 107A here is [Energetic risk-taking type, so it's said] for ARIES. Hey, it's ZODIAC (31D [Collection of signs]) day!

As for the rest of the fill, PuzzleGirl singled out many of the same words I would've in her L.A. Crossword Confidential post. So read that, but know that I have been to the [Utah ski resort] ALTA so I knew that one.

Merl Reagle's Philadelphia Inquirer puzzle, "Hit It"

Sometimes I'm in the mood for Merl's trademark overcooked puns and sometimes I'm not. This time, I wasn't feelin' it, dawg. This weekend's batch of "Hit It" puns work various hitting utensils into familiar phrases:

• 23A. ABSENCE OF MALLETS plays on Absence of Malice, a Paul Newman movie. I suppose it was a preexisting phrase before it was a movie title? The clue is [Reason the croquet game was called off?].
  
• 38A. An acoustic guitar, one of which resides in my living room, turns into A CUE STICK GUITAR, or [What the pool player started "playing" when his favorite song came on the radio?]. Merl, hon? Ow. This pun hurt.
  
• 54A. I had trouble figuring out what THE CLUB COMPARTMENT, or [Storage space in a golfer's car?], played on. The glove compartment.
  
• 76A. [Dolls for young tennis players?] are RACQUETY ANN AND ANDY. Ha! Okay, I like this one. It's completely nuts and I like it.
  
• 93A. ["___, but we won the game"] clues WE LOST THE PADDLE (battle). Could've avoided the WE dupe with ["___, but won the game"] without losing anything, I think. No question mark in this clue. Which paddle-related game do you suppose it is?
  
• 111A. [Messiest game at the Sara Lee company picnic?] is BAT-A-CAKE, BAT-A-CAKE, playing on "pat-a-cake." Oh, the carnage, Please do not pummel the desserts. Unless it's a lemon cake. Go ahead and pummel lemon desserts, but please give me first crack at the chocolate cake, and with a fork, not a bat.
  

Most unfamiliar word in the grid: 19D is WELTERED, or [Rolled about, as a pig in mud]. My Mac's dictionary tells me this verb means "lie steeped in blood with no help or care" or "move in a turbulent fashion," like a roiling stream. I like this muddy pig application better. 92D is the [Pink Floyd epic] THE WALL—terrific entry. Overall, though, the fill lacked Merl's usual sparkle. Next week will be more to my taste, I'm sure.

Henry Hook's Boston Globe crossword, "Double Ring Ceremony"

Hey, Hubsters—how many weeks back was this puzzle in the newspaper there? Am I still six weeks behind, or have the Across Lite ranks caught up with y'all?

The theme entries are cooked-up two-word phrases in which each word contains RING. For example, 25A's clue is [Caters a fish dinner?] and the answer is BRINGS HERRING. 33D is clued [Outskirts, on "The Simpsons"?]. My kid saw that clue and asked if the answer was SHELBYVILLE. I explained that both words in SPRINGFIELD FRINGE contain a hidden RING. "Huh," he said. "That's confusing." I didn't find it especially confusing, but it also wasn't particularly rewarding. Two theme entries, 27A and 96A, not only are partly stacked with other theme entries, they also cross the Down themers.

Favorite parts: 44A is [Doesn't share], or BOGARTS. I have fond memories of a get-together in Prague at which some "don't bogart that joint, my friend, pass it on over to me" song was playing. Bogarting apparently applies specifically to marijuana cigarettes, but one can certainly request that someone else not bogart the potato chips. 71A's clue, [Some are nothing but air], points towards imaginary GUITARS. I have not witnessed an air guitar competition, but it sounds entertaining.

Weirdest answers: 39A EMESA is an [Ancient Syrian city]. 7D is CABMAN or [Hack], and not a term I ever use for a cabbie/cab driver/taxi driver. 81D is EPERGNE, or [Ornate centerpiece]; I learned this one via crosswords, but it doesn't come up often. At 59A, [Monozygotic] clues ONE-EGG, but I can't say I've seen one-egg used adjectivally at all.

Rich Norris's themeless CrosSynergy "Sunday Challenge"

It seemed like this one was a couple notches harder than the typical "Sunday Challenge" (though still easier than a Saturday NYT).

Hot stuff:

• 1A. ["I enjoyed this"] clues IT'S BEEN FUN. Do you think there's an intentional mini-theme linking this with its opposite partner in the grid, 69A [Words of gratitude] for MANY THANKS? One might say both when leaving a party.
  
• 32A. I am fond of the weirdness of BELEAGUER as a word. This [Vex] synonym derives from a Dutch word, belegeren, meaning "camp around." I find it difficult to type beleagueured (see?) correctly. Beleaguerued. Nope, wrong again. Beleagurued. Wrong a third time. This is what happens when I let my hands type away blithely. 99% of words work out just fine, but this one? Not so much. Slowing down, let's go for beleaguered. There. It takes effort.
  
• 63A. APPOMATTOX is a [Historic Civil War town]. I like to pronounce this "uh-POM-uh-tocks" and say "Appomattox o' both your houses!" Yes, I realize that's odd.
  
• 32D. BAD APPLES are [Troublemakers], as in the bad apples that spoil the bunch.
  
• 34D. The clue, [Shooter's protection], pointed me in any number of directions, but not LENS COVER.
  
• 64D. [Pin cushion?] is a solid clue for a wrestling MAT. I've seen the clue before, but it's well worth recycling.
  

RTS and ACLU aren't clued together but could be—sometimes the ACLU is mentioned in clues for RTS, short for "rights."

At 27A, [Stop holding it in], 4 letters ending in T? Uh, the actual answer, VENT, wasn't my first thought here.

Updated again Sunday afternoon:

Jim Hyres' second Sunday NYT puzzle, a diagramless crossword

This one wasn't too hard to find my way through. I grabbed a piece of scratch paper and started jotting down the first few Across answers, working back and forth with the Down clues. By the fifth row, I hit a width of 17 squares and so could deduce that 1-Across began in the very first square. Ahh, it feels good to transfer answers over to the diagramless grid and know that they're going in the right place—it doesn't always work out so well.

When I filled in 36-Across in the middle of the grid—TONGUE TWISTER, or [It's hard to say]—I read the three longest answers aloud to myself and to my mother. What do YOU'LL BE SORRY (["Not a good idea!"]), LARGER THAN LIFE ([Very imposing]), and TONGUE TWISTER have in common?? Suddenly childhood smacked me in the forehead and I noticed the games at the ends of those phrases. Indeed, the remaining theme answers are STIRS UP TROUBLE ([Is a rabble-rouser]) and RUNNING A RISK ([Not playing it safe]). Trouble is the board game with the noisy Pop-o-matic die in the middle. Risk is the geopolitical board game. Twister...I fear I am now too old to be able to play Twister. Here at home, we have the SpongeBob edition of Life (excuse me, but why is Fry Cook the best-paying career??) and enjoy the turmoil of a round of Sorry. The final Across answer, 69A, is GAMES to tie everything together. Cute theme; the theme is probably much more accessible than the diagramless itself, though as NYT diagramlesses go, this one was pretty easy.

Assorted other clues I liked: 10A ["Uh-uh"] clues NO DICE. You can use dice to play many board games, but I don't think the answer's meant to be thematic here. 23A [Symbol of limpness] is a WET RAG, and I can't say that's an image I see used in Cialis and Viagra commercials. [All alternative] pulls double duty as laundry detergent ERA and as quantity SOME. 27D's clue is [You may need to step on it] and I first thought of the GAS pedal, but the answer's a ladder RUNG.

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Thursday, 6/25

LAT 4:14
NYT 3:57
CS 8:54 (J―paper)
Tausig untimed

I dipped into Frank Longo's Vowelless Crosswords again tonight. Puzzle #11 took easily twice as long as those that preceded it. Anyone else tracking how long these puzzles are taking them? I had a dickens of a time figuring out a bunch of answers. And I was sleepy, which surely wasn't helping matters.

Bill Zais's New York Times crossword

Wow, this is a cool theme—unlike any I've seen before. The five theme vertical entries are actually much longer than what shows up in the grid, as the clue number would be the beginning of the answer:

• 3D. [<--- Plastered] clues three SHEETS TO THE WIND.
• 5D. [<--- Gambling game] is five CARD STUD.
• 7D. [<--- Sherlock Holmes novel, with "The"] clues The Seven PERCENT SOLUTION.
  
• 20D. [<--- One starting a career, perhaps] is a twenty-SOMETHING.
• 40D. [<--- Work period] is the forty-HOUR WEEK.

Let's walk through some clues and answers, shall we? 13A [Some arts and crafts] clues POTTERY, but I had trouble finding that thanks to trying ONE A.M. instead of TWO A.M. for the [Wee hour]. ["Follow me"] clues "DO AS I DO," which I can't help noticing is do-si-do with an A inserted into it. Our [Apple pie companion] is not ice cream, but MOM. (C'est très américain.) DIPTYCH, or [Hinged pair of pictures], rhymes nicely with dipstick. [Start of a Chinese game] is the dangling fragment MAH, as in mah-jongg. HAWAII is [Where "wikiwiki" means "to hurry"]. [Philemon, e.g.] is an EPISTLE in the Bible; any connection to the Philemon of Greek mythology? Or make that GRECIAN—[Like the Trojan horse]. For [Race before a race], I could only think of prelims in track and field—whoops, that's a PRIMARY election we want here.

Crosswordese classics! An [Archaeological find] is a STELE. An ARETE is a [Craggy crest]. That [Crumb] of food is my personal favorite, an ORT.

The constructor had little wiggle room for moving the theme entries around—he needed a symmetrical batch of theme entries that began with specific numbers. The upshot is that the innovative theme is swimming in clunky little answers. There are abbreviations (ASSOC, SRTA, STE, NNE, ORD, STA, SYSTS, OED, OTB, OTS, CPI), prefixes and suffixes (ETTES, ULE, TRI), and fragments (MAH, HOO, HEE) up the wazoo.

How did the balance work for you? A vexing slog, an enticing challenge? A "wow" or a "meh"? I'm clocking in at 75% wow, 25% meh, so I liked it.

Updated Thursday morning:

Rich Norris's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Two-Car Garage―Janie's review

Thank goodness for television and print ads extolling the virtues of various makes of automobiles. Otherwise I'd probably have spent twice as much time solving this puzzle which felt at times like a [Knock-down...] DRAG-OUT. But a fair and fun one? Oh, yes, saith the non-car-owning city-dweller. And how does this puzzle work? Each theme-phrase is comprised of the names of two car-models. The joy is that each sounds like it could be an in-the-language phrase.

• 17A. NAVIGATOR LEGACY [Inheritance from one on a ship's bridge?]. This is a Lincoln-Subaru combo.
• 24A. RABBIT ACCORD [Treaty with Bugs?]. The pair, VW-Honda; the fill―funny!
• 42A. MUSTANG QUEST [Search for a horse?]. Here we have a Ford-Nissan duo.
• 55A. SUBURBAN ECLIPSE [Astronomical phenomenon seen outside the city?]. And thank you, Chevrolet-Mitsubishi.

D'ya suppose Detroit will venture into some of these pairings? D'ya think it'd help?... (Btw, if today's theme seemed familiar, Rich published a similar CS puzzle on 2/25/03.)

Making its bow today in a major puzzle is SLUGGISH [Lacking energy]. This word would also describe my time (okay, my times...). What took me so long? Model-names aside, one reason I didn't speed right through was because there was some fill I simply didn't know. ASGARD? [Where Valhalla is, in myth]. D'oh. And I recently spent some 17 hours at the Met soaking in The Ring Cycle...

CS-debut MOP-UPS for [Post-invasion military procedures]? Got me again. The crossing didn't help either, because I balked with that [Skewered meal]: KABOB (yes) or kabab (no)? Something I wouldn't care for on either, thank-you-very-much, is EMU, clued in a way that left me clueless―[Low-fat meat choice]. Well, now we know.

[Lose on purpose] took me quite a while to sort out. It's THROW―as in the Black Sox Scandal of 1919 and "Say it ain't so, Joe." I had the same parsing/sense problem with [Put the tiara on] for CROWN. This kind of cluing makes for a more challenging puzzle and I enjoy that. I REPEAT, this is a good thing.

So, those are some of low-lights in my solving process. Highlights? We got those, too. There's the presence of VOICE BOX and ELLA [First name in scat] Fitzgerald―who had one of the great ones, whether performing a jazz standard or BE-BOP, a [Style that evolved from swing]. There's Italy's scenic TUSCANY clued as [Chianti's region]; if you choose to order some north of the Alps in Paris, you'll have to summon the GARÇON. There's POISE [Grace under fire]; FANATIC, the [Wild-eyed type] who lacks it; and RAJA, humorously clued as [Big Indian].

Speaking of humor, I was seriously amused by the [Swine swill] [Antacid dose...] sequence. Nothin' better than a BROMO after too much SLOP, right?

We're also lookin' at a pangram today, so here's a special thank you to JINX and KISSY (with its [___-face...] clue) and EQUAL and AVION and ZEST.

Finally, we get a lot in the way of bonus fill. Should any one of the theme-fill vehicles break down, the garage also holds ATVS, a LORRY, a MIATA and, hey―even a [Rolls's partner] ROYCE. Not too shabby. I'll also confess, I thought there might be yet another theme-realted answer in [Got ready to drive], but no. That's our golf pal: TEED.

John Lampkin's Los Angeles Times crossword

This seven-piece theme takes up a good bit of real estate in the grid. Given that it launches at 1-Across with a clue you can't get without first knowing some of the long answers, and given that the second long theme answer is not easy, and given the inclusion of two pairs of cross-referenced clues in the fill, this puzzle wasn't easy. There were also some unfamiliar answers lurking to further turn the puzzle into a veritable TAR PIT ([La Brea attraction]). Alrighty, here's the theme:

• 1A. [With 71-Across, extracurricular group concerned with the starts of the answers to starred clues] clues the two-part SWIM / TEAM.
  
• 18A. The SIDEWINDER is a [Dangerous snake of the Southwest]. You can swim sidestroke, and the beginning of each theme answer is also a swimming stroke.
  
• 24A. [Fortification about four feet high] clues the word BREASTWORK, which is not in my daily vernacular. Poultry BREAST MEAT would have been easier.
  
• 39A. The BUTTERFLY EFFECT is a [Chaos theory principle]. I was just talking about this the other day. If Sammy Sosa had not used performance-enhancing drugs in '03, maybe the Cubs wouldn't have made the playoffs and the game in which Steve Bartman caught that ball would never have taken place, so Bartman's life would not have taken a detour. When a steroid-pumped butterfly flaps its ridiculously bulked-up wings...
  
• 53A. The [Road less traveled] is not just an M. Scott Peck book, it's also a BACKSTREET. Who uses that term? I know "back roads," but never realized the Backstreet Boys used a dictionary word in their name.
  
• 61A. [Area where electricians can't stand to work?] is a CRAWL SPACE. Ceiling's too low to stand there. My sister keeps some space clear in her crawl space as a tornado shelter. I've been living near Chicago's lakefront for 19 years, and I've yet to hear a tornado siren here.

Raise your hand if you've never heard of ["Riverdance" fiddler Eileen] IVERS. Keep your hand up. Now raise your hand if you weren't aware that [Altair, for one] is an A-STAR. If you have any hands down, raise one if you didn't know ['80s-'90s Toronto pitcher Dave] STIEB. And raise another hand if your [Fairy tale meany] instinct was OGRE rather than WOLF. I have four hands raised now, and it's making it hard to type this post. I wonder if the constructor was shooting for a pangram (which he achieved) and it was getting those JQKXZ answers in place that led to the pesky abbreviations (ETO crossing REO, DBA beside JUN) and whatnot, the gnarly little bits.

Did you notice the "split" clues? To [Split up] is to END IT. To [Split (up)] is to DIVVY up. And further down in the puzzle, [Split] clues FLEE. Nice! I don't love building an entire theme around "things that mean ___," but having such a trio dropped into the puzzle as a bonus is sweet.

Updated Thursday evening:

Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword. "Status Symbols"

Whoa, where did the day go? Without further ado, let's explain the theme. In the IM world, one sets one's status. I'm not a big user of instant messaging, so the theme entries came to me thanks to their straight clues, not based on any keen familiarity with IM status designations.

• [Imaginative child's companion, perhaps] is an INVISIBLE FRIEND. I prefer "imaginary friend," but if you set your IM status to "imaginary," I'm not sure anyone could contact you.
  
• In sports, an AWAY GAME is an [Occasion for facing a hostile crowd].
  
• The [Devil's tools, it's said] are IDLE HANDS.
  
• [Reshining the pencils, e.g.] would indeed be BUSYWORK, which is defined as "work that keeps a person busy but has little value in itself." Hmm, shining pencils again does indeed have little value.
  
• AVAILABLE CREDIT is the [Amount left on a card].

Nice corners in this grid—look at all those 6's, 7's, and 8's. Two popular websites are in the puzzle: FLICKR is the photo site, a [Picasa alternative], and TWITTER is the [Site with the tagline "What are you doing?"]. I'm OrangeXW on Twitter. Very rarely do my tweets actually say what I'm doing at that moment. I think people like Maureen Dowd who disdain Twitter tend to think that's all it is—that people are giving pointless and dull rundowns of their daily routine. But no. There's sharing of links and information, wiseacre observations, interesting musings and epiphanies. It's not at all an "I had oatmeal this morning" thing.

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