Thursday, 10/8/09

NYT 4:26
LAT 2:42
CS untimed
Tausig untimed

Scott Atkinson's New York Times crossword

Do you know how many words can precede time to make a compound word or a phrase? A whole lotta. Why, this TIME AFTER TIME theme has four pairs of "___ time" concepts, and those pairs are themselves established phrases:

• 18A. DOUBLE PLAY is a [Baseball feat]. (More baseball in an NYT crossword theme! Snzzzzzz.) Double time is quick, playtime is fun.
  
• 24A. [Physics period] is HALF-LIFE. Halftime is for football and basketball (not baseball!). Talking Heads had that song, "Once in a Lifetime," that I'm listening to right now.
  
• 48A. You don't exactly put on a [Brave front] when you put on your GAME FACE. You put on your...game face. Determined. Brooking no nonsense. Ready to win. It's not about bravery. Game time is, uh, when the game happens. Face time is what telecommuters don't put in much of at the office.
  
• 52A. [Asthmatic's concern] is AIR QUALITY. Airtime is when a program is aired or when a cell phone's in use. Quality time is engaged in a battle royal against quantity time.
  

You know what "time" didn't make it into this theme? "Hammer time!" I can't think of a word that partners with hammer that can also precede time.

I had a hard time getting into this puzzle, as the clues in the upper left corner just weren't so yielding. Assorted clues I didn't get right away:

• 1A. [___ salad (dish with ground beef)] clues TACO. I get mine with chicken.
  
• 14A. ["Get ___," 1967 hit for the Esquires] clues ON UP. Aw, no "Movin' On Up"?
  
• 3D. [Basilica feature] is CUPOLA.
  
• 4D. An OPEN FLAME poses a [Hazard around an aerosol can].
  
• 6D. [Many Mel Brooks films] clues SPOOFS. Not FARCES, no.
  
• 26D. THORIUM is a [Metal that's an effective radiation shield].
  
• 33D. TIBERIUS isn't just Captain Kirk's middle name; it's also [Caligula's predecessor as emperor].
  
• 45D. [Russian playwright Andreyev]'s first name is LEONID.
  

Favorite clues: 32A: To [Not just turn down] the volume is to MUTE it. 41A: [Palm product] is palm OIL, not a Palm Pre smartphone. The 13A: [Leading lady] in a field is a DOYENNE. 47D: [-like] clues ESQUE, as in Zolaesque.

The rhyming words NATTER and RATTER stick out. One's a [Vermin hunter] and the other's a verb meaning [Flap one's gums] like a nabob of negativism.

And before I go, let me refer you to the video of the Cyndi Lauper song "Time After Time". I've always liked that one.

Donna Levin's Los Angeles Times crossword

Donna's theme is COVERT OPS, or [Hush-hush activities]. Never noticed before that it looks like "cover tops" if you slide the word space over. The other four theme entries contain a covert OPS spanning two words in a multi-word phrase. To STOP SHORT is to [Jam on the brakes]; in tennis, a DROP SHOT is a [Soft court stroke]; [Small family businesses] are MOM-AND-POP STORES; and CHOP SUEY is a [Stir-fried dish]. There's a singular covert OP that's not part of the theme in COP A PLEA; surely it's our undercover double agent who's been nailed and is now copping a plea.

Not sure why AMOCO/[Big name in gas] isn't clued with a "one-time." Are there still Amoco stations? They've all been converted to BPs around here.

The top half of the grid's got some great fill—JAY-Z meets JIHADS beside SQUIRT crossing PAISLEY. Lower down, though, I'm less happy. PPPS is a post-post-postscript, or [Third afterthought, in a ltr.]. There's a blast from the distant past with the Southeastern pile-up or SEATO, the [1954-1977 defense gp.]; ERGOT, the [Grain disease]; EPODES, or [Lyric poems]; and Britishly spelled OCHRE, or [Yellowish earth tone]. Add in the partial ERR ON and plural DOUGS, and you've got yourself a "meh" corner.

Updated Thursday morning:

Randolph Ross's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Seven EZ Pieces"—Janie's review

I'm not a [Huge fan] of the word ADORER, but if that's the definition, then I'm definitely an adorer of this puzzle. Could I compose a PAEAN [Joyous song] to it, I would. My words will have to suffice. Let's ASSAY [Examine] this creation to see what gives it its decided EDGE [Advantage].

The title tells the tale. There are seven lively theme-answers, and the E-Z pairing makes an appearance in each one. In fact, in six of the seven we get EE-Z; in the seventh (at center), we're treated to EE-ZZ. So there are a lotta Zs today.

Then, and most impressively, these seven theme-answers fill 67 squares. More than that, they all interlock and/or overlap at least one other theme-answer. Holy moly. That's a serious feat of construction and does tend to AMAZE me. And the non-theme fill does not suffer as a result, but holds its own very nicely.

So here we go. There's:

• 16A. OLD GEEZER [Eccentric senior]. The last two letters here sit atop the first two of
• 20A. "PUH-LEEZE!" ["You can't be serious!"]. (Nice, too, how this clue follows [Very serious] for SOLEMN.) Running through this is
• 10D. CHEEZ WHIZ [Kraft concoction]. That is, its relationship to "food" is tenuous... Still, it's terrific fill, so to speak, and intersects at the letter "I" with the grid-spanning centerpiece
• 39A. CONDOLEEZZA RICE [Hillary Clinton followed her]. Sharing the letter "N,"
• 33D. SNEEZED AT [Thought of as inconsequential] crosses Ms. Rice and is itself crossed by
• 57A. FREEZE UP [Get stage fright]. A small digression here as we look at some of the non-theme fill that's part of a theatrical mini-theme. This includes APRON [Front of the stage], DRAMA [Broadway fare] and SCENE I [Broadway opening?]. Let's hope the actor-in-question gets over that stage fright lest it become fodder for LIZ [Gossiper Smith]! (I doubt it would have been the late BEA [Arthur who won a Tony and two Emmys].) That said, note how UP sits above the first two letters of the refreshing
• 63A. SEA BREEZE [Boardwalk attraction]. Aaah. Lovely.

In addition to that legitimate stage mini-theme, Randy also gives a nod to the film industry with both ACAD. [Pt. of AMPAS] and [MPAA issuances] PGS. The former is the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, who hand out the Oscars; the latter, the Motion Picture Association of America, who hand out the ratings...

Just because they also enliven the puzzle, let me also note some other good pairings, like:

• SCHMO/[Knucklehead];
• GIZMO/[Thingamajig];
• SALTS/[Popeye's pals] and not [Adds NaCl]...;
• LIEGE (and not THE FEUDAL SYSTEM)/[Subject of the Middle Ages]; and the inverse bonus fill
• DOZED/[Took a nap], where we get Z-E. How do you like that?!

Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword, "Out on a Limb

Right at 1-Across, there's a SPIDER, an [Animal that has something in common with this week's puzzle]. Boy, my husband was watching a show on the Discovery channel last night about arthropod combat. Lots of large, venomous spiders, plus insects and scorpions. (Luckily, nothing in the centipede department, because those critters freak me out.) Word to the wise: If you are a bug, steer clear of the praying mantis because it will mess you up. So, anyway, there were ample opportunities to note that spiders indeed have eight LEGs, like the fill in this puzzle. The four longest answers and the four 7s in the corners each have a LEG hidden within.

Clues of note:

• 13A. [Pretty intense way to refer to an undocumented worker, when you think about it] is ILLEGAL. I remember several years ago when Ben's puzzle was new to the Village Voice (which later unceremoniously nixed the crossword because the paper's owners were know-nothing philistines), I recommended it to a crossword acquaintance. He did one puzzle, encountered a political clue that skewed liberal, and declared that he'd never do that puzzle again. If you missed the early years of the Tausig puzzles, you can fill in the blanks with the 2007 collection, Gonzo Crosswords.
  
• 39A. [Ten-warhead ICBMs] are MXS. I don't suppose the X connotes Roman numeral 10? Nope, it's from missile experimental.
  
• 42A. [Cutesy-___] is perhaps the most innocuous way possible to clue POO.
  
• 70A. COLLEGE is a [Time for experimentation, often]. Yes! Because of the science labs. Right?
  
• 2D. PLAT, short for platinum, is [Beter than gold, in hip-hop slang].
  
• 10D. EEK! ["A cockroach!"] Have you seen this video?
  
  
  
  
• 46D. [Big ___ ("South Park" character)] is Big GAY AL. He runs the Big Gay Animal Sanctuary.

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Tuesday, 7/28

Jonesin' 4:18
July 24 CHE 4:02 (available here)
NYT 3:51
LAT 3:09
CS 7:44 (J—paper)

Tony Orbach's New York Times crossword

I was zipping through this puzzle, feeling frightfully clever, when I hit the skids in the Balkans corner of the grid. I put GAPERS instead of OGLERS for 48D: [Gawking sorts], which made NEAR perfect for 52A: [Close by]—but that was supposed to be NIGH. My second straight day of having a Wednesday experience on a pre-Wednesday puzzle. Um, I'm tired. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Now that I've got my whinging out of the way—This crossword really has remarkably smooth fill for a puzzle with 75 theme squares. Those five 15-letter entries are locked into that order, too—the phrases progress from the greatest to the lowest probability. Like so:

• 17A. ["Sure thing"] clues WITHOUT QUESTION. Definitely yes.
  
• 28A. IN ALL LIKELIHOOD means ["Chances are good"]. Probably yes.
  
• 35A. ["It could go either way"] is the utterly equivocal MAYBE YES, MAYBE NO.
  
• 43A. ["Doubtful"] clues NOT LOOKING SO HOT. Probably not.
  
• 56A. ["Forget it!"] means AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN. Plain and simple, no.

There's a slight evocation of the Magic 8-Ball, but more direct.

Yeah, the fill has a lot of short answers that aren't particularly exciting. But there are high points. I like the one-two punch of 1D and 3D, MOWGLI and MOTHRA—["The Jungle Book" hero] and [Insect monster of Japanese film]. Favorite clues: 8A: [Seven-up and crazy eights] are GAMES; 21A: [Word before sheet or music] is RAP; 41A: [Like dessert wines] means SWEET (yum!); 54A: [Counselor's clients, perhaps] is a plural clue for COUPLE; 66A: [Had a bawl] clues WEPT; and ["Stat!"] clues three answers, 7D: PDQ crossing 4A: ASAP and also 60D: NOW. Two neighboring answers transported me to my salad days. There's 46D: ["Movin' ___" ("The Jeffersons" theme)] for ON UP beside 47D: [Cheech or Chong persona] for HIPPIE. Mind you, STONER is also 6 letters long.

Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword, "Flip It"

The theme entries take 5-letter words, split 'em into two parts that can be words, and make a cockamamie sentence or phrase with the full and split words:

• 17A. GOT IN INGOT is clued as [Boarded a gold bar-shaped vehicle?].
  
• 58A. [Bans all alcoves?] is OKS NO NOOKS. A one-syllable word turns into two one-syllable words.
  
• 11D. [Really tiny amt. of a form of oxygen?] is ONE OZ. OZONE.
  
• 29D. SUE IS ISSUE is a complete sentence provided that you don't mind leaving out an article. [The debate topic: Grafton, the author?] is the clue.

JIM CROCE (38D: ["Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" singer]) is a good first/last name combo. I loved that song when I was a kid. You know why? Because we said "damn" when we sang along. It was a hit the summer I turned 7.

I especially liked CAYMAN, or 10D: [___ Islands (British territory near Cuba)] because earlier this evening I found a Cayman Islands nickel on the floor by my desk. Why don't I remember getting any Cayman cash during the cruise stopover last December? The dime-sized nickel surprised me.

9D: [Flat, messy do on a hot day, perhaps] is HAT HAIR. Around these parts, HAT HAIR is a much bigger issue in the winter.

At 47A, QUINOA ("keen-wa") is a ["Supergrain" used in some gluten-free recipes]. Try it if you haven't; it's tasty.

Updated Tuesday morning:

Lynn Lempel's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Just Getting By"—Janie's review

Imitation, it's said, is the sincerest form of flattery. In which case, fellow CSer Bob Klahn should feel mightly flattered indeed. He published CS a puzzle titled "Getting By" with the exact same gimmick (adding "BY" to well-known names and phrases) in November of 2003. Borrowing one of Bob's theme phrases, Lynn has made this rendition all her own and for me, the smile-factor ran high. It's hard to resist theme fill the likes of:

• 17A. TABBY HUNTER [One looking for a lost pet?]. Though for years he was closeted in Hollywood, Tab Hunter (born Andrew Arthur Kelm...) managed to get a lot of hearts beating more rapidly, carve out a more than decent career for himself, even to out himself proudly—and keep on working. (Sometimes confused with the late Troy Donahue.)
  
• 27A. AIRLINE HUBBY [Spouse of a Delta or United worker?] The spouse or the worker himself? Or is the male spouse an airline hubby in the way that come Superbowl Sunday, many a woman is said to be a "football widow"? Regardless... did you know that while Atlanta is still the busiest passenger hub, Dubai is looking to become the world's busiest hub? Anywhere?
  
• 44A. PERSIAN RUGBY [Sport played in Iran?]. This is the one example of repeat fill, but Lynn's provided an entirely different clue.
  
• 58A. FURBY TRADER [Merchant dealing in an old toy?]. Another winner. The Furby first appeared in 1998, and by 2005, this electronic toy had been programmed with voice recognition capability. Its native tongue is, uh, Furbish..., but the more you interact with it, the more English it uses in response. Really.

If you're more attracted to reading than to playing with Furbies, you're in luck. Lynn has given us two high-profile characters from different ends of the "classic" spectrum: GLINDA [Good Witch of Oz] and AENEAS [Virgil's hero]. We also get two classic-type authors: J.M. BARRIE ["Peter Pan" penner] and Edgar Allen POE ["The Tell-Tale Heart" writer].

Two opera heroines find their way into the puzzle as well: AIDA from the [Opera featuring a captured princess] and GRETEL [Girl enticed by an edible house]. No, Gretel isn't clued in relation to the opera, but Humperdinck made her a star in seasonal favorite Hänsel und Gretel. Even if you hate opera, I'm going to bet you're familiar with (and like...) the "Evening Prayer" from H&G (starts at about 4:20).

In the fresh-fill department, DAY-SHIFT and its opposite in the grid, our friend J.M BARRIE, both look to be making CS debuts, and PARTY BOSS and ANGRY LOOK (also grid opposites) major-publication debuts. CAN IT BE? Yes, it can (in another CS first). I love the word GENERIC in this mix, and will close out with a look at what seems to be a very first-timer: CRABBER, that [Net wielder on the Chesapeake, maybe]. The life of a Chesapeake waterman is rich in lore, but oh, by no means is it an easy one!

Scott Atkinson's Los Angeles Times crossword

The theme is "things you might say after WAIT" (49D: [Bide one's time, and a word that may precede the answers to starred clues]). Here are those expressions:

• 17A. IT ISN'T OVER yet. ["We aren't finished here"].
  
• 53A. I'M NOT READY! ["Give me another sec!"]
  
• 11D. Like the public radio quiz show, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me says, wait, DON'T TELL ME. ["It's on the tip of my tongue"].
  
• 28D. But wait, THERE'S MORE! ["I haven't told you everything yet!"] Not only do you get the ShamWow, we'll throw in four mini-ShamWows at no extra charge. But that's not all. You also get the handy Ginsu knife.

Highlights in the fill include GO SOUTH ([Deteriorate, slangily]), LUMP IN ([Group together]), [Puerto Rico's capital] SAN JUAN, and BEATNIKS ([Bongo-playing '50s-'60s stereotypes]).

Is it just me, or did this one feel more like a Wednesday puzzle too? Maybe I'm in the summer crossword-solving doldrums this week.

Joon Pahk's July 24 Chronicle of Higher Education crossword, "Mythaphorically Speaking"

The Chronicle's crossword didn't make it onto the publication's redesigned website last week but there was, in fact, a CHE crossword. It's par for the CHE course, with a literary-minded theme and plenty of literary and artsy clues in the fill. The fill answers with clues from literature, music, and theater include UDAY, LISA, IAN, RACE, ART SONG, EDDA, ADANO, KYD, LESSON, OJIBWA, CLAIR, LES, ADA, SON, STANDS, EDGARS, and KEY—that's 17 answers. The five theme entries are metaphors derived from Greek (all Greek, yes?) mythology:

• 18A. PANDORA'S BOX is the [Source of many troubles].
  
• 23A. A [Small cause of a major conflict] is the APPLE OF DISCORD. Eris, the goddess of discord, caused all sorts of trouble with that golden apple.
  
• 38A. The SWORD OF DAMOCLES hanging over your head is [Disaster waiting to happen].
  
• 54A. The PROCRUSTEAN BED is an [Arbitrary standard that everyone must conform to]. Hmm, I don't think I knew this phrase. Sounds like the No Child Left Behind–mandated standardized testing to me.
  
• 61A. A [Seemingly insoluble conundrum] is a GORDIAN KNOT. Gordius, the king of Gordium, tied an intricate knot and said whoever could untie it would become the ruler of Asia. Alexander the Great apparently had little patience for knotwork and slashed the knot with a sword. That's totally cheating, man.

What I liked: Including both LARVAL, or [Premetamorphic], and PUPAE, or [Chrysalides]. The AFL-CIO, a [Gp. created by a 1955 merger]. More mythology: [Mars's Olympus Mons, for one] is a VOLCANO. Oh, wait. That's astronomy and not myth, isn't it? The first name that came to mind when I saw the ****P* pattern for [Beijing Games superstar] was pre-Beijing swimming star Ian THORPE; did you notice that PHELPS shares the H and P in the same spots?

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Saturday, 4/18

Newsday 15:52
NYT 6:28
LAT 4:06
CS 2:49

Byron Walden's New York Times crossword

The Saturday Times puzzle is noteworthy for three reasons: (1) 15-letter wildlife, (2) heavy preposition action, and (3) fun clues. For the first category, [Marmots and prairie dogs] are GROUND SQUIRRELS and SCARLET TANAGERS are now thought to be close [Cardinal relatives]. These animals with big names are joined by a CAMEL, the surprising [Source of Caravane cheese]—a cheese I've never heard of (shades of PIAVE, Byron's ACPT puzzle #5 cheese from a couple years ago), but then, the name looks like "caravan," which camels travel in, so the clue offered more of a hint than it seemed to at first.

The preposition explosion appears in a bunch of the multi-word answers:

• IN TOO DEEP means [Unable to get out of a bad situation].
  
• [Gets acquainted with something good] clues TURNS ON TO. I can't quite summon up a sentence without an object between "turns" and "on to," but a phrasal verb in a crossword doesn't have to have an object.
  
• If you [Squared] your account, you SETTLED UP your debts.
  
• A [Mechanical trade] is swapping TIT FOR TAT. (And right above that entry, BREST, or [French naval base in heavy W.W. II fighting].) Were you duped into thinking of mechanical tradespeople?
  
• [Corrupt, in a way] clues ON THE TAKE. We Chicagoans don't know nothin' about that sort of thing, nope.
  
• [Shows contempt for] is SPITS AT.
  
• To [Herald] the new year, why don't you USHER IN the thing?
  
• PULLS AT can mean [Tries to loosen]. I'm picturing Rodney Dangerfield yanking at his necktie here.
  
• AT TWO o'clock is [When four bells ring on the middle watch].
  

Here are my favorite clues:

• [They lack private parts] refers to FISHBOWLS. Celebrities living in metaphorical fishbowls, for example, have little privacy. I wasn't thinking of privacy at first, but rather, of the military. At least I was not tricked into thinking of reproductive organs.
  
• [Part of a capital's name meaning "flower"] clues ABABA, part of Ethiopia's Addis Ababa. Much more interesting (and fair) than the recent [Capital starter] clue for ADDIS in a Newsday puzzle.
  
• [The 1965 William Shatner film "Incubus" is in it] clues the language ESPERANTO. Hilarious! Has anyone seen this movie? Was it subtitled? Does Esperanto sound anything like Klingon?
  
• The great early physician GALEN was an [Early advocate of bloodletting]. Anyone know any modern advocates?
  
• [Its symbol is a globe composed of jigsaw puzzles pieces]...hey, wait, I know this. WIKIPEDIA! In which an ARTICLE is a [57-Across offering].
  
• [World War I period] is the decade called the TEENS. Especially in a ONE-PARENT family, the teen years likely resemble wartime, too.
  
• [Ant-Man, Iron Man, Wasp or Thor, in Marvel Comics] clues an AVENGER. I don't see Byron or Will Shortz as big comic fans, so I wonder whose clue this is.
  
• I wanted [San ___] to clue FRAN, but it's San JUAN. FRAN popped up later, though, as the [Memorable 1996 hurricane along the Eastern Seaboard].
  
• [It may give you a buzz] clues PAGER. Does anyone outside of health care still carry a pager?
  

There are other difficult clues lurking about here, too. Here are eight of 'em: (1) [Spot announcement?] is a dog's GRR growl. Spot is not among the top 50 dog names, according to a Sporcle.com quiz. (2) Have you heard of EDA LeShan? Sure, if you do a lot of crosswords. How about [Coloratura Christiane ___-Pierre] for EDA? Is that ringing any bells? My bells were unrung. (3) SARIS are in the puzzle a lot, but not as [They may be thrown over the shoulder]. (4) [Jesus cursed one in Matthew 21] clues a FIG TREE. I don't know the background, so I'm guessing he stubbed his toe on the tree. Whether he took his own name in vain, I can't say. Maybe he said "HELLS bells?" HELLS is [Oregon and Idaho's ___ Canyon]. (5) [Where M.S.T. and P.S.T. can be found] is the unusual entry WESTERN U.S. They're the Mountain and Pacific time zones. (6) [Home of la Sorbonne] isn't simply PARIS or FRANCE, it's LE QUARTIER LATIN. I needed a lot of crossings to see where that was heading. (7) [Country singer Collin ___] RAYE is less well-known to me than Martha Raye. He had some success as a country singer in the '90s. (8) [Little ___, island in the Bering Strait] clues DIOMEDE. Again, lots of crossings needed to find this answer.

Updated Saturday morning:

Scott Atkinson's Los Angeles Times crossword

I'm short on time this morning because I'm heading downtown soon(ish) for the Marbles Amateur Crossword Tournament, so I'll reroute you to my L.A. Crossword Confidential write-up. Today's "Crosswordese 101" lesson isn't about a repeater answer in this crossword—though SSGT, or [U.S. Marine Corps E-6] is practically begging to be dissected with the other military abbreviations that we see in crosswords. Nope, this time it's the solving tips I prepared for the Marbles crowd. So check that out.

Sandy Fein's Newsday "Saturday Stumper"

This puzzle (solution here) was wickedly hard, but not in a fun way. There were a few spots that entertained me, but mostly it was a not-pleasant solving experience. Here are some of the things that irked me:

• [Diamond] standing in for an adjective before "anniversary" signals SIXTIETH. Is it really legit to use "diamond" as an adjective this way, and not to mean "diamond-shaped"?
• [Richardson Highway terminus] is VALDEZ, Alaska. I really doubt that Alaskan highways are well-known enough in the lower 48 to be anything we should reasonably be expected to know, and Valdez has a population of 4,020. Obscure clue + obscure answer + zero humor = Maleska!
  
• [Mayor's concern] is TRANSIT. Well, sometimes. Does the mayor of Valdez concern him- or herself with transit?
  
• Nonspecificity can be annoying, too. NEPALI is indeed an [Asian language], but it'd be nice to make the clue more interesting and specific. How about [Language from which we get "panda"]? It's still a tough clue, but it you learn something cool and surprising.
  
• [Prepare to drive, perhaps] is usually TEE UP (a golf ball) or GAS UP (a car). This time it's DEICE. You know what? I have scraped ice off the car windows and I have defrosted the inside of the windows, but I have never once referred to this as "deicing." Planes get deiced, but one doesn't really "drive" a plane.
  
• [Crime scene] clues VENUE. Who calls a crime scene a VENUE? I've never picked that up from NYPD Blue or Law & Order.
  

And now, some clues that were tough but fair:

• Surprisingly, a DREDGER does not involve dredging chicken through flour. The DREDGER (a [Fried-chicken device]) is a shaker for shaking flour onto the chicken. Dull answer, dull clue.
  
• QATAR is a [Country with no income tax]—I'll bet many Middle Eastern, oil-rich countries also fit that description and they don't all have 5 letters, which narrows the search down a bit. The crossings did the rest of the work of identifying which one fits here.
  
• [Small character in "Scheherezade"] clues the letter ZEE, which appears in lowercase in that title.
  
• [Author of a 65+-million-selling novel] is SALINGER. It took me a while to guess this, even after suspecting it had to be a book that's assigned in high-school English classes.
  
• [It's in the air] clues NEON, which is one of those gases that's in the mix of the air we breathe. Apparently.
  
• [Lent effort] sounds like a verb, but it's a noun—ATONING is an effort one might make during Lent.
  
• Did you know HELMSMAN was a [Mao epithet]? I didn't.
  

Doug Peterson's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Say What?"

Hey, speak of the devil! I was just saying in the comments that I have taken to dreading the Stumpers unless they have Doug's byline (not dreading because I fear I'm not equal to the task—dreading because I'm not going to enjoy myself), and here he is again, with an easy themed crossword. The theme entries begin with words that can also mean "say," and they're clued as if they do mean "say" in those phrases:

• [Say "bomb"] is UTTER FAILURE, as in "utter the word 'failure.'"
  
• [Say "bureau"] clues STATE DEPARTMENT.
  
• [Say "coach"] is EXPRESS TRAIN.
  

Some of the fill is the standard stuff that excites no one (NNE, AS OF, ATILT, COTES), but so much more of it lends a fun vibe to the crossword. MIFF crosses MOP UP. The QUEEN MUM ([King George VI's widow, familiarly]), is aptly mirrored by TASTEFUL across the grid. There's a NECTARINE, hopefully not an UNRIPE FRUIT. OLD SALT is an answer rather than a clue for a stale TAR. Take an AISLE SEAT when you fly to the RIVIERA. OSCAR the Grouch ACTS OUT. See? Lively stuff.

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Wednesday, 2/25

BEQ 4:41—don't miss this one
Sun 3:59
Onion 3:35
NYT 3:03
LAT 2:57

Good news! This blog will not get rusty while I am away at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament because Joon will be here to take care of business. Now, he might not have a chance to get to all of the puzzles by morning every day, but I know you'll be appreciative of however much he's able to squeeze into his own weekend plans—because even if he blogs just one newspaper crossword all weekend, that'll be more than I'd be able to do. Thanks a googol, Joon!

Newcomer Kelly Browder's New York Times crossword is perfectly pegged to Wednesday difficulty, with a theme that makes you think harder than a Monday or Tuesday puzzle, and with some answers that might be out of reach for a Monday-only solver. The theme entries are all things that might be SPIKED (48-Down):

• NEWS STORIES make up some [Pulitzer Prize entries]. I'm not sure how news stories are spiked. Monica K., can you explain from a journalist's perspective?
  
• VOLLEYBALLS [may be served at the beach]. Spike the ball over the net—kapow!
  
• IRON FENCES are [Some ornamental barriers]. Those spikes can be dangerous. If it's icy out or you're intoxicated, be careful not to fall on an iron spike with your mouth open. Seriously. The rescuers will need to use a blowtorch to cut off the fence segment and take you to the OR with an iron fence on you.
  
• [Party servers] are PUNCH BOWLS. The bowl's not spiked, but the punch in it may be spiked with booze.
  

Among the tougher stuff in the fill we find these:

• An ARAWAK is an [Indian encountered by Columbus]. Other Caribbean natives include the Taino and Carib.
  
• ["___ Republic"], 6 letters? Why is the store Banana Republic in quotes? It's not. It's PLATO'S Republic.
  
• [Fruits de ___ (menu heading)] is MER. "Fruits of the sea" ≠ sea vegetables like kelp—they're seafood from the animal kingdom.
  
• [___ Zion Church] brings back A.M.E., which was in another NYT puzzle just last week. African Methodist Episcopal.
  
• Do you know your German. STILLE means "silent" and completes ["___ Nacht" (German carol)].
  
• A board-game SPINNER is a [Randomizing device].
  
• NO FEAR is a [Brand of clothing or energy drink]. I needed all the crossings for this one.
  
• FERULE is a [Schoolmaster's rod] used in corporal punishment. Not to be confused with the metal sleeve that holds an eraser on a pencil—that's a two-R ferrule.
  
• LST is a [W.W. II transport: Abbr.]. It's short for Landing Ship, Tank.
  
• [Place for a thimble] is an ETUI, the sewing case much beloved by generations of crossworders.
  

Peter Collins' Sun crossword is called "That's Unreal!" It's got one of those mathy themes calculated to thrill the mathy types. The two longest answers spell out THE SQUARE ROOT / OF NEGATIVE ONE, but those two entries are clued with nothing more than [See 73-Across]. 73-Across is SHADE, with a long clue telling you to shade what's suggested by 71-Across, hurricane EYES. SHADE in the squares with the "EYES," or each letter I (I used the Across Lite circles rather than drawing on my monitor). They're in the middle column and make a lowercase i, which stands for imaginary unit (hence the "unreal" in the puzzle's title) and is THE SQUARE ROOT / OF NEGATIVE ONE. There are no other uses of the letter I in the grid, and it's elegant to make a big i out of four I's.

Highlights in the fill include Winnie the Pooh's pot of HUNNY, MOD SQUAD, HOOVERED, BARCELONA, GASBAG, and KAZOO. Can you work those all into a single sentence? I know I can.

Deb Amlen's Onion A.V. Club crossword pays homage to MOTOWN RECORDS, the [Musical legend celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2009]. BERRY GORDY, JR., was its founder, and the "hallowed ground" of Motown's studio is/was called HITSVILLE U.S.A. Those three answers are clearly theme entries in this puzzle, but there are a number of shorter answers that may relate to Motown:

• DIANA Ross at 9-Across was a Motown star.
  
• WONDER is clued with ["Blind eyes could look at me and see the truth/___ if Steve do?" (Weezy lyric in reference to another 35-Across star)].
  
• ["Santa Baby" singer Kitt] is EARTHA KITT. Was she Motown? Nope.
  
• [Bribe to a DJ, say] is PAYOLA. Was Motown guilty of this? Depends who you ask.
  

I think the rest of the puzzle's completely unrelated to Motown. I'm not sure I know the joke in question for [Subject of a Grecian joke], or URN; is this the "What's Greek urn? Oh, about $45,000 a year" joke? The last [Wonka candy] I ate was NERDS from Valentine's Day. I'm just the sort of nerd who appreciates old Turkish honorifics, so I dig the combination of PASHAS, or [Old Ottoman VIPs], and AGA, or [Palindromic title]. [Intercourse, formally] is COITUS; that means traditional etiquette rules govern how you are introduced to coitus, right? Or formalwear is required? [Barely make it across the field?] clues STREAK, as in run naked. [Barack Obama, to Frasier and Marian Robinson] is/was their SON-IN-LAW (was for the late Frasier, is for Marian).

Updated:

Scott Atkinson's easy LA Times crossword has eight theme entries that are compound words or two-word phrases, and they're all tied together by LINE, or [Queue, and word that can follow both words in the answers to starred clues]:

• [Maupassant forte] is the SHORT STORY. Short Line railroad, storyline.
  
• [Series of missed calls] is PHONE TAG. Phone line, tag line.
  
• [Fan of a "Grateful" band] is a DEADHEAD. Deadline, headline—both important in newspapering.
  
• [Sissy] is PANTYWAIST. The dreaded panty line, waistline.
  
• [Aristocrat] is a BLUEBLOOD. Blue line (my dictionary says it's a hockey term), blood line.
  
• [Highly anticipated appointment] is a HOT DATE. Hotline, dateline.
  
• [Source of branches] is TREE TRUNK. Tree line (same as the timberline on a mountain), trunk line (main line of a railroad, phone system, or other network).
  
• [Barely batted ball] is a FOUL TIP. The foul line, a police tip line.
  

I didn't remember that Jeb Bush's nickname comes from his initials; JEB is [John Ellis Bush, familiarly]. HELENA, Montana, is a state [Capital near the Great Divide]. [Words of worry] are "OH, ME," which I don't think anyone says. Crosswords also like to have AH, ME, which is about as implausible. ["This is too much!"] clues "I'VE HAD IT." [Sporty Toyotas] are SOLARAS. I thought those had been discontinued but it appears that Toyota is still making them.

Today's Brendan Emmett Quigley crossword, "Following Directions," has a diagonal line of circled squares running between the NW and SE corners of the grid, with no clue given to explain it. The four longest Across and Down answers all refer to themselves, so no trivia knowledge is needed to answer their clues. 18-Across RUNS ACROSS. 56-Across is HORIZONTAL. 27-Down runs SOUTHWARDS (if you posit that the bottom of the puzzle = south), and 11-Down appears NWODEDISPU, or an upside down "upside down." I always like it when crossword answers are entered backwards or upside down. The diagonal spells out BACK TO SQUARE ONE, and indeed, it starts at the lower right corner and returns to square 1. I didn't know if ["Look out..."] would be UH-OH or OH-OH (crossing UBER or OBER?), and I didn't know what the [Expressway that passes through Williamsburg] was (wasn't thinking of HQS for [Command posts: Abbr.]), so I did use the QU of SQUARE to finish that section. Hooray for three-way checked squares!

Outside the positional theme, here's what I liked best:

• A SCHMEAR of cream cheese is a [Bagel topping].
  
• AFRICA is clued as the [Song that knocked "Down Under" out of the #1 spot], and JOSHUA is the ["WarGames" computer]. Hooray! It's 1983 again!
  
• PHARAOH and MOSES are clued in reference to each other, with [He fought (clue number) in the Bible].
  
• [One of Hamlet's courtiers] is OSRIC. Putting that English degree to good use!
  
• [X, e.g.] isn't about math. It's MALCOLM.
  

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Wednesday, 1/21

NYT 4:00
Sun 3:40
LAT 3:20
BEQ tba
Onion, Tausig — will be in Thursday post

More puzzle fun:

• Tyler Hinman interview and crossword in Wired
  
• A new themeless crossword from Trip Payne's Triple Play Puzzles
  
• A timely crossword from Pete Muller
  

I enjoyed the inauguration earlier today. That benediction by Dr. Joseph Lowery, the part at the end with the rhymes? That was inspired by an old song, Big Bill Broonzy's "Black, Brown and White Blues." Lowery added in the "yellow" and red" parts for greater inclusiveness, I guess. But then it reminded me of a scene in that short-lived Fox sitcom with Jay Mohr, Action—Mohr's character, a venal movie producer, loses financing for his current project so he gathers the crew together and exhorts them to save money. The craft services table is going bare-bones. To save on the water bill, "If it's brown, flush it down. If it's yellow, let it mellow." And then a helicopter arrives to whisk the producer away to a resort, of course. I tell ya, rhymes can leave indelible marks in one's brain.

If you look at the online solving applet for the New York Times crossword, it may tell you that it took me longer than 4:00 to finish Fred Piscop's puzzle. I think I accidentally clicked on the "enlarge grid" button as soon as the clock started rolling, and then it took 38 seconds to get the grid back on screen. Oy! So I was already confuzzled when I began the puzzle, and then I forgot how to type, and then I mishmashed the first theme answer, which is supposed to be MONGREL EMPIRE, as MONGOL MONGREL or vice versa. The theme is "puns that replace a word or syllable with a word that means mixed-breed dog." Great, another Obama theme. (I kid! Why, my own kid is a mongrel.) Although CUR means an aggressive dog, not specifically a non-purebred canine. Can a cur have a pedigree, or decidedly not? The theme entries are:

• MONGREL EMPIRE, clued as [Genghis Khan's non-pedigree domain?], plays on the Mongol Empire.
  
• CUR CURRICULUM, clued as [Non-pedigree essential courses?], is based on core curriculum.
  
• MUTTVILLE NINE, clued as [Casey's non-pedigree team?], plays on the Mudville nine from "Casey at the Bat."
  

So the puns are rather loose—one addition of an R sound, one change in vowel sound, one D-to-T sound change. I don't know if it's the theme or the applet (or both) that's making me cranky. I don't understand why those particular names are in [Words from Alphonse or Gaston]: AFTER YOU. Nobody named Alphonse or Gaston has ever said "after you" to me.

I have a second-hand nit to pick. ULTIMATE is clued as a [Frisbee game involving body contact]. My friend Seth G happens to play for the national champion masters ultimate team, and he wrote to me and Rex the moment he finished this puzzle to rebut the clue:

As defined by the national governing body for the sport, the Ultimate Players Association, the sport is a "Player defined and controlled non-contact team sport played with a flying disc on a playing surface with end zones in which all actions are governed by the 'Spirit of the Game.'" The Official Rules of Ultimate, 11th Edition, concurs: "Ultimate is a non-contact disc sport played by two teams of seven players."

Other clues:

• [Elizabethan ballad player, maybe] is a LUTIST.
  
• I initially thought [Polo of TV] was a bad clue for actress TERI, but it looks like her Meet the Parents/Meet the Fockers movie roles may well be outweighed by her TV roles. Why, she was just in a cheesy-sounding Hallmark Channel movie this month.
  
• [Buggy place?] for a dune buggy is a DUNE. No insects required.
  
• [Place for reeds] isn't just in certain musical instruments—they might also be found in a marsh or FEN.
  
• [Burgers on the hoof] clues STEER. Aw, poor steer. They don't know what fate awaits them.
  
• [Items in some illicit trade] are RELICS, as in looted antiquities.
  
• REC is clued [Nonacademic school activities, informally]. Hmm, at what schools? This isn't ringing a bell. We had a Parks and Recreation Department in town. Day camp has rec leaders.
  
• BANANA is a rich [Potassium source]. So is hummus. And nuts, chocolate, dairy, oranges, peaches, dried fruit, legumes of all sorts.
  
• [Baby bottle?] clues VIAL because a vial is a wee little baby of a bottle. No jeroboam, that.
  

Updated:

Scott Atkinson's Sun crossword, "Where Have All the Vowels Gone?," has four theme entries that contain SEVEN CONSONANTS in a row. I didn't know basketball coach BRANCH MCCRACKEN, adore The Office's DWIGHT SCHRUTE, have seen BTFSPLK in other crosswords but needed nearly all the crossings, and pieced together TWELFTH STREET despite misreading the clue as being about Pee Wee Herman. I liked the puzzle, I did, but have nothing else to say about it because I've got a lot of work to do today and an overarching drive to lie down and rest my eyes.

Don Gagliardo's LA Times crossword mimics VENDING MACHINES, which are [Places to find answers to starred clues]. The starred clues' answers are all things you might buy from a vending machine, and they're not only in symmetrical spots in the grid, they also run vertically to match their upright presentation in a vending machine. There's POP and GUM, COOKIES and PEANUTS, CRACKERS and a SANDWICH (though vending-machine sandwiches scare me), CANDY and CHIPS—all clued in ways that don't reference food at all. As a bonus, the [Horn & Hardart eateries] called AUTOMATS are also in the grid. Automats were vending-machine cafeterias back in the day, and what finer dining experience could there be?

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Monday, 11/17

Sun 3:18
LAT 3:05
CS 3:04
NYT 2:53

Here's Patrick Merrell's informative pop-up graphic about last night's Simpsons crossword episode.

One cool thing about Paula Gamache is that she's got a knack for making easy Monday crosswords, but she also makes lovely themeless puzzles. Her latest New York Times crossword is one of the former. The theme is all about beseeching, pleading:

• [Demand legal restitution after injury] is SUE FOR DAMAGES.
  
• [Seek compassionate treatment] is BEG FOR MERCY.
  
• [What drought victims might do]—or Southern Californians battling wildfires—is PRAY FOR RAIN.
  
• [Take unnecessary risks] is ASK FOR TROUBLE. I like that this last one strays from the position of need and heads straight to heedlessness.
  

In the fill, 18 of the answers have 6 or more letters, so it's not all about 3- to 5-letter words that appear in crosswords again and again. The best parts of the fill include the following: A GASBAG is a [Big talker]; OODLES are [Lots and lots]; PADDING that isn't physical cushioning is an [Expense account no-no]; A LITTLE is [Not too much], and I like the indefinite article here because it feels very "in the language." POINT A, or [Place to begin to connect the dots], was a trickier spot—not an answer that pops up much. SALSA DIP tastes wrong; this [Tortilla chip topper] really wants to be just plain salsa, no "dip." (Hmm, maybe I want to mix up some salsa and cream cheese and make myself a nice salsa dip this evening?) ABAFT is one of those words that non-sailors may know only from crosswords; it means [Rearward, at sea], or towards the aft.

Scott Atkinson's Sun crossword, "A Puzzle About Nothing," has nothing at all to do with the show about nothing, Seinfeld. No, instead, each theme entry begins with a synonym for the puzzle's topic:
[Dick Nixon's nonsweating debate opponent] was JACK KENNEDY.
[Letter number] is a ZIP CODE.
One [Calisthenics exercise] is the SQUAT THRUST.
A [Drink before going to bed?] is a LOVE POTION.
[Tevye portrayer in "Fiddler on the Roof"] is ZERO MOSTEL.
In each case, the "nothing" word stands alone before a second word, so the theme's fairly tight. The fill is mighty Scrabbly for a Monday—the theme entries account for two Z's, a Q, X, and J, and two K's, and outside of those there's another Z and a pair of X's. The Down fill includes two juicy 9-letter answers—swimmer IAN THORPE and some HOT PLATES. Craziest fill: IZZATSO, for ["Really? Sez who?"]. TED gets a current-events clue, [Alaska senator Stevens];it's too bad his whole felony/maybe-or-maybe-not-voted-out thing now overshadows what he used to be most famous for—describing the internet as a "series of tubes" rather than just a truck you dump things on.

Updated:

I'm too short on time for more than a cursory glance at the day's other two puzzles.

Kurt Mengel and Jan-Michele Gianette's LA Times crossword is another version of a theme we saw elsewhere a week or two ago, with theme entries starting with HOW, NOW, BROWN, COW:

• HOW DO YOU DO is clued as [Formal greeting].
  
• NOW AND AGAIN is [Once in a while].
  
• BROWN-BAGGED is [Brought a sandwich to work]—though I would append an "it" to the end of the answer phrase.
  
• COW-PUNCHER is [One who's at home on the range].
  

There are 10 7- and 8-letter answers in the fill—nice touch.

Martin Ashwood-Smith constructed today's CrosSynergy crossword, "Get a Grip." The three theme entries begin with words that more or less mean "grip," and that have ONE'S in the middle of the phrase:

• HOLD ONE'S HORSES is [Remain calm].
  
• CATCH ONE'S BREATH is [Rest].
  
• KEEP ONE'S CHIN UP is [Be optimistic].
  

There are eight longish fill answers, 7 to 9 letters apiece—also a nice touch here.

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Wednesday, 11/12

Onion 5:12
Sun 4:40
Tausig 4:05
CS 3:55
LAT 3:44
NYT 3:25

(updated at 7:30 Wednesday evening)

It's a marker of my generation that when I reached the final unifying theme entry in Peter Collins' New York Times crossword, I was perplexed as to how THE BRAT PACK would fit into 10 squares. No, this puzzle isn't hiding '80s stars like Judd Nelson in it—rather, it's THE RAT PACK:

• PAID A VISIT, or [Stopped by], embeds Sammy DAVIS Jr.'s last name in it.
  
• SMART INVESTOR, or [Market-savvy sort], hides Dean MARTIN.
  
• And Frank SINATRA, Ol' Blue Eyes himself, lurks within PUTS IN A TRANCE, or [Hypnotizes]. That's a particularly nice find, isn't it?
  

I'm not sure that IT'S A BET, or ["You're on!"], quite qualifies as a piece of crossword fill, but I might say the same about I'M NOT HERE, an evasive [Call to someone answering a phone, maybe], but I like the vibe it evokes. What else is here? Anyone who watched Rikki-Tikki-Tavi in the '70s knows that the [Enemy of a mongoose] is a COBRA. [Patriots' Day time] is APRIL; is this the holiday that the Boston Marathon's tied to? [Mule team?] is the ARMY because the Army team's mascot is a mule (I think). [Something the U.S. government keeps an eye on] is the GREAT SEAL—the reverse side of the Great Seal is where you'll find the unfinished pyramid with the eye on top. [Miraculous Medal figure] is MARY; this medal does not have an eyeball pyramid on its reverse. [Lead-in to pipe or pit] is CESS, and this may violate some people's breakfast tests. [Federal Reserve chief Bernanke] clues BEN.

The theme in Jonathan Gersch's Sun puzzle, "Numerical Rhymes," managed to elude me because I had cryptic crosswords on the brain. I misinterpreted [1988 Joe Keenan novel (2,7)] as dictating an answer consisting of a 2-letter and a 7-letter word, which, duh, wouldn't work for a 10-letter entry. Those numbers are to be pronounced, and the answer words rhyme with the number names: two-seven, BLUE HEAVEN. Here are the other theme entries, all phrases that rhyme with a pair of numbers:

• [Unethical campaign practices (30,6)] are thirty-six DIRTY TRICKS.
  
• [Explore the ocean with one's breath held (3,5)] is three-five FREE DIVE.
  
• [He played an economics teacher in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" (10,9)] clues ten-nine BEN STEIN.
  
• [Lead a law-abiding life as a former criminal, in British slang (1,8)] is one-eight RUN STRAIGHT.
  
• [Enough for seconds all around (20,4)] is twenty-four PLENTY MORE.
  

The [Fed head] pops up in the fill here, too, only with his last name, BERNANKE. The Peter Gordon fondness for unusual clues gives us [Aulos relative] for OBOE. Aulos turns out to be an ancient Greek instrument that figures into mythology; read up on it at that Wikipedia link. The fill in this puzzle isn't particularly Scrabbly or fancy, but it's ridiculously smooth and junk-free.

Updated:

Scott Atkinson's LA Times crossword reimagines assorted spoken phrases as having specific applications in football:

• [Quarterback's thought on third down and 10?] is I'LL HAVE TO PASS, as in needing to throw a pass.
  
• [Quarterback's encouragement to his backup?] is a non-dismissive GO TAKE A HIKE, as the player will take the next ball that's hiked.
  
• [Quarterback's query about his starting offensive team?] is WHAT'S MY LINE? There are offensive and defensive lines of players.
  
• [Quarterback's question to blitzing defenders?] is WHY THE BIG RUSH, as what those players are doing is called rushing.
  

OBAMA is in the grid at 1-Across, clued as ["The Audacity of Hope" author]. I would've gone with Dreams From My Father here, as HOPE appears in the grid with a non-Obama clue, [Clinton's birthplace]. Other geography clues include [Fertile Crescent waterway] for the TIGRIS River; [City on the Ruhr] for ESSEN; [Bluesy Memphis Street] for BEALE; [Florida's ___ Beach] is VERO; [Lebanon's ___ Valley] is BEKAA; and [Grenoble's river] is the YSERE. The [Epitome of hardness] is NAILS—hey, wait a minute, that's not in the Mohs scale! SINATRA gets more crossword attention today, being clued as [Rat Pack leader]. STA takes a break from abbreviating train stations and serves as Spiro T. Agnew's initials; he was a [VP from Md.].

Paula Gamache's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Diversion," creates a "di" version of several phrases by adding a DI to the beginning of one word:

• Color vision becomes COLOR DIVISION, or [Sports network employees responsible for anecdotes?].
  
• [Gallows humor?] takes a stress crack (stress cracks are to walls what stress fractures are to bones) and makes it a DISTRESS CRACK.
  
• DELIVERY DIVAN, or [Birthing room amenity?], builds on a delivery van.
  
• [Stinger that sends picnickers running?] is a DISPELLING BEE (spelling bee).
  

Favorite fill: NOOGIE, or [Knuckle rub]. BEALE Street is in this puzzle too, clued as [W.C. Handy's "___ Street Blues"], and the [Rocky peak] called a TOR was also in the LA Times crossword.

I won't get a chance to do the Onion and Tausig puzzles until later today.

Updated Wednesday evening:

Ben Tausig's Chicago Reader/Ink Well crossword, "Soundproof Toilet Humor," actually has nothing to do with potty humor. Rather, the theme entries are based on phrases that include words with a silent P. "Silent P" sounds like "silent pee," which would result from a soundproof toilet. Each silent-P word is replaced by a homophone that lacks the P:

• [Essence of an apple?] is ESPRIT DE CORE (corps).
  
• [Sweet talk that may be subjected too a "don't ask, don't tell" policy?] is MILITARY COO (coup).
  
• [Terse pair of instructions to a stray usher who has work to do?] is RETURN, RESEAT (return receipt).
  

XYZ is clued ["Your fly is open"]. Say what? I think maybe girls don't learn this in grade school the way boys do. Here's a Wikipedia article all about ways to tell someone their fly is open. Interesting morsels in the fill and cluing:

• UNICORNS are [Creatures often depicted near rainbows]. Have you seen the Charlie the Unicorn cartoon? I love a surprise ending.
  
• D CUP is clued as a [Swimsuit spec]. Most swimsuits don't specify a cup size, but they really should.
  
• [Something to help you move your body] is not music with a driving beat but a HEARSE.
  
• CHOO is clued as a [Syllable on a Valentine's Day card from Ralph Wiggum]. I believe the "I choo-choo choose you" Valentine was given to Ralphie by Lisa, but the line is inextricably linked to him because he gushed, "You choo-choo choose me?!?"
  
• ['60s sitcom character whose handlers stuffed nylon in his mouth] is Colonel Klink from Hogan's Heroes. No, wait. My mistake. It's MR. ED, the talking horse.
  

Matt Jones's Onion A.V. Club crossword invites solvers to inaugurate our 44th president into the theme answers—not by inserting OBAMA into them but by adding XLIV (66-Across), which is 44 in Roman numerals.

• Maid service + XLIV = MAX LIVID SERVICE, or [Stint with the military that makes someone the angriest?].
  
• Author Anne Tyler + XLIV = ANNEX LIV TYLER, or [Add a building wing to a "Lord of the Rings" actress?].
  
• See stars + XLIV = SEX LIVES STARS, or {People who sell a lot of amateur home videos [wink, wink]?}
  
• Mini Coopers + XLIV = MIX LIVNI COOPERS, or [Get Israeli PM hopeful Tzipi's barrel makers all out of place?]. Coopers are barrel makers, and Tzipi Livni is the acting prime minister of Israel. She's also the minister of foreign affairs. No, she's probably not well-known enough to anchor an American crossword theme entry, but how many other phrases can you make by adding an XLIV?
  

Lest you think this puzzle is biased in its focus on 44, there's also IRAN clued with the McCain quote ["Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb ___"]. Two entries I don't think I've seen in crosswords before (but have seen in everyday life) are RATED T, or [Suited for high schoolers, on video game packaging], and TAMPAX, a [Stayfree competitor]. Two completely unfamiliar answers intersected in the grid: [Noted Scottish DJ duo, or their home club] is OPTIMO, and IPEX is a [Victoria's Secret wireless bra brand]. (Ladies, don't buy your bras at Victoria's Secret. You can do better somewhere like Nordstrom.)

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Thursday, 9/25

NYS 5:19
NYT 4:33
LAT 4:27
CS 2:47

(updated at 9:30 a.m. Thursday)

Vic Fleming's New York Times crossword contains eight theme entries, all with the same clue, [Draws]. The theme answers are short, but they criss-cross in pairs in all four quadrants.

• In the northwest corner, 17-Across is RECEIPTS and 4-Down is TIE GAMES. I'm not sure I understand how RECEIPTS goes with [Draws]. Who will elucidate?
  
• Moving to the northeast, 26-Across is GETS CARDS, which sounds more like a clue phrase than a crossword answer. It intersects with 11-Down, INFERS, as in draws a conclusion.
  
• In the southwest quadrant, [Draws] means PULLS A GUN at 49-Across and CLOSES, as in the drapes, at 46-Down.
  
• The southeast gives us SKETCHES at 58-Across and ATTRACTS at 37-Down.
  

Wow, I drew a blank on the [Tony player on "NYPD Blue"], and all I could think of was Jimmy Smits and his Bobby Simone character. Eventually ESAI Morales percolated up to the surface. Knowing that there's a Clearwater, Florida, I almost put FLA for [Home of the Clearwater Mtns.], which of course are not in the very flat Sunshine State—they're in IDA., or Idaho. I don't quite feel that a HEEL is a [Sole support]; doesn't a shoe's heel support, well, the heel? I had zero idea who the [Female companion in "Doctor Who"] was—LEELA is also the name of one of the main character's in Futurama. [Board with a couple seats] isn't a corporate board—it's a SEESAW. Although any investment bank's board probably feels like a seesaw right about now—or maybe a precipitously steep corkscrew slide. Favorite answer, on account of its sheer weirdness: SPURGE, or [Poinsettia's family].

The "Themeless Thursday" puzzle in the New York Sun is by Jeffrey Harris. Medium difficulty as these things go, no? Favorite answers and clues:

• DISCO BALL! Clued as a [Go-go gadget?].
  
• For the ink to [Go off the edge of the page] is for it to BLEED. Who doesn't like printing technology?
  
• The [British logician famous for his diagrams] is VENN. Have you all seen Jessica Hagy's blog, Indexed? She draws Venn diagrams on index cards and posts them. The latest one shows that Henry Paulson exists in the intersection between Marx and Engels.
  
• [Taiwan's setting] kept wanting to be EAST ASIA, but [Asia, e.g.] is a BAND and that clue steals ASIA out of the grid. Taiwan's situated in the CHINA SEA. Possible cryptic crossword clue: Leno sailing along the coast of Taiwan (5,3).
  
• LIBIDOS are [Drives in the back seat of a car?] if your standards for comfort are low.
  
• Louise LASSER was the ["Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" star] in the '70s. I wonder how that show bears up over time. 
  

Updated:

Scott Atkinson's LA Times crossword walks us through the dramatic solving process of an overconfident crossword solver:

• ["Today's crossword? Piece of cake!"] clues the early boast, THIS IS SIMPLE. I would go with "this is so easy," personally.
  
• Getting into the puzzle with ["No mistakes so far!"], the solver asks WHO NEEDS ERASERS? I would say "Who needs an eraser?" in the singular.
  
• The solver thinks ["Hmm...maybe not so easy after all"], and says UH-OH, I'M IN TROUBLE.
  
• Utterly stymied, our hapless solver grumbles ["%$^#!"], or STUPID PUZZLE.
  

In defense of crosswords, I must point out that the puzzles I blog about will almost never fall in the category of "stupid puzzle." There are crappy puzzles out there with mistakes, terrible fill, or bad clues that will irk even the aptest solver, but they're not the ones I blog about. If solvers find themselves grumbling, "Stupid puzzle," they're usually just mad that their skills weren't up to the challenge. But those skills are definitely amenable to improvement. (By reading my book, following the blogs, looking up unfamiliar answers and clues, and making a point of remembering those short words that are so crossword-friendly.)

In the fill, I got slowed down by [Catalogued compositions]. The word opus was already in the OCTETS clue, [Mendelssohn's Opus 20 and others], so it couldn't be OPUSES...except that it was. Having done a quick test-solve/edit of PhillySolver's puzzle that's posted at the Fiend forum, I learned that I wasn't at all attuned to catching that kind of duplication between clue and fill words. D'oh!

Patrick Blindauer's CrosSynergy crossword, "Splitting Airs," hides the word SONG (67-Across) inside each of the four otherwise disparate theme entries:

• [Alcatraz worker, once] is a PRISON GUARD.
  
• [2000 American League MVP] is JASON GIAMBI.
  
• [Idealized American women of the 1890s] were GIBSON GIRLS.
  
• [Diphosgene and radon, e.g.] are POISON GASES.
  

Favorite fill and clues:

• The [NCAA tetrad] is the FINAL FOUR in the spring basketball tournament.
  
• [Frosty's pipe tipe] is CORNCOB.
  
• Remember GERI [Jewell of "The Facts of Life"]? This actress and comedian is one of the few famous people with cerebral palsy.
  
• [Gets a "five-finger discount"] means SHOPLIFTS. I shoplifted just once, and it truly was an accident.
  

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Monday, 7/21

Jonesin' 4:07
NYS 2:58
NYT 2:51
LAT 2:50
CS 2:38

(post updated at 10:30 a.m. Monday)


Gilbert Ludwig's New York Times crossword bundles together three movie titles that follow the format of "The [synonym for "happy"] [term for a woman defined in relation to a man]." In 1934, Ginger Rogers starred in THE GAY DIVORCEE and Jeanette MacDonald played THE MERRY WIDOW. More recently (in 1975), Lynn Redgrave portrayed THE HAPPY HOOKER. Let's see—what seems out of kilter for a Monday puzzle? I wonder what degree of fame journalist ADELA Rogers St. Johns possesses outside of crosswords. I know her only from crosswords. Writer Zora NEALE Hurston is, I hope, widely renowned. Their Eyes Were Watching God is a terrific read. YMA Sumac is a crossword regular—doesn't she make so much more sense perched atop the YMCA? Overall, pretty darned Mondayish fill, I'd say. Did anyone else read the [Stinky stream] clue, see that the space had five squares, and think of URINE? The [Placid vacation vista] clue for LAKE VIEW is one way to go; [The neighborhood beside Orange's] would be another (94,000 people! City neighborhoods are big, yo.). Lots of non-Mondayish cross-referencing in this puzzle—TURKS live in ANKARA, and actress Saint's first and middle names are EVA and MARIE (or hyphenated first name, if that's how it is).

The New York Sun puzzle by Sarah Keller, "Street Closings," has a Gothamite theme. The five long answers end with words that are also street names in NYC: BRICK WALL and ROOT CANAL, sure. I presume that the bold words in ECHO CHAMBERS, THE RITE OF SPRING, and CONCERT GRAND are also New York streets, but they sound only faintly familiar. The [Tour de France competitor] is CYCLER, but that sounds off to me; cyclist or biker, sure, but I don't think the bike-racing crowd uses "cycler" much. The two 8-letter answers in the fill, ICE CREAM and ONION DIP, clash horribly. Yes, they're both dairy products, but now I'm thinking of onion ice cream and it's making me sad. Almost as sad as that ice cream they used to stock in the college cafeteria—licorice chip. It was charcoal gray with black bits.

Updated:

The LA Times crossword appears to be Scott Atkinson's debut. (Congrats, Scott!) He partnered with Nancy Salomon. The puzzle's got a heckuva lot of theme squares for a debut, and they're all over the grid. BOX at 65-Down ties them all together, as the theme phrases start with words that can follow BOX. [Auto-care brand with a reptilian name] is TURTLE WAX, and box turtles are a kind of turtle. SEAT OF THE PANTS means [Instinctive], and box seats offer premium seating.

Martin Ashwood-Smith's CrosSynergy puzzle, "First Names in the Funnies," kicks it old-school with Jughead and Midge's pals from the Archie comics. The first names in the theme entries are all Archie characters—ARCHIE MANNING is a [Noted Saints quarterback of the '70s], BETTY CROCKER is a [Big name in baking], VERONICA LAKE was the ["This Gun for Hire" actress], and REGGIE JACKSON is [Baseball's "Mr. October"]. I wasn't sure about Archie Manning's last name, but the rest of the theme practically filled itself in. Yep, I read some Betty & Veronica comics when I was a kid. Cute theme, and perfect for a Monday.

Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword is called "Bizarro World," and all the theme entries become opposites by getting an ANTI added to the beginning. For example, [Street where tires never slip?] is ANTISKID ROW, playing on Skid Row, and a thesis paper is turned into ANTITHESIS PAPER, [What opposites are written down on?]. I do not have a pad of antithesis paper, but I could use one. My favorite theme entry rebutted Gen X-ers, with ANTIGEN XERS being [People who cross out a substance that causes an immune response?]. Overlong clue, but the answer looks good in the grid.

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