Wednesday, 2/18

BEQ 4:53
Onion 4:50
LAT 3:36
Sun 3:25
NYT 3:14
Tausig —> will be in Thursday post

(post updated at 9:40 Wed. morning)

Susan Gelfand skews automotive in her Wednesday New York Times crossword. The four longest answers are phrases that begin with the P-R-N-D gears in a car:

• PARK CITY, UTAH is [Home of the Sundance Film Festival]. Been there, love it as a crossword answer.
  
• REVERSE SPLIT is a [Corporate action that increases the par value of its stock]. Not a familiar phrase to me, really, but the split part was gettable and the reverse part belongs to the theme.
  
• NEUTRAL SHADE is clued as [Bone, for one]. Eh, I'd have preferred NEUTRAL COLOR, perhaps.
  
• DRIVE ME CRAZY is a familiar phrase, but the clue did me no favors: it's a [1999 Melissa Joan Hart movie].
  

The northeast and southwest corners of the grid tie these together as [a possible title for this puzzle]: SHIFT / GEARS.

I launched this puzzle with a wrong answer at 1-Down, trying ZILCH instead of ZIPPO. With ADLAI Stevenson, the [First name in 1950s politics], in place, the ZILCH quickly proved its wrongness. Interesting bits:

• TECUMSEH was a [Shawnee chief at the Battle of Tippecanoe].
  
• [From Sucre, say] clues BOLIVIAN. Any 8-letter answers constructors can work in that are zippier than, say, REASSESS are welcome.
  
• ROGET of thesaurus fame was a [Physician/synonymist]. I think this clue's going to spur a lot of Googling. Speaking of a [Wordsmith's reference], we also have the OED here.
  
• [Off-season offerings] on TV are RERUNS. I'd like the sports off-season to include live, play-for-play reenactments of games from the past season.
  
• COOTIE! I loved that [Bug-building game] when I was a kid. 
  
• [Awfully small] clues DINKY, but all sorts of other words might work there too. Like TEENY, which I had, or BITTY.
  

Andrea Carla Michaels and Patrick Blindauer teamed up for Wednesday's Sun crossword, another Oscar-week special. Their last shared byline was on the January 2 Wall Street Journal puzzle, the one with ant farm tunnels snaking through the grid. Today's puzzle is called "Screenwriting Can Be a Drag," and the theme is "movies that won Best Screenplay Oscars and feature characters in drag." Tootsie and Mrs. Doubtfire don't make the grade, but THE CRYING GAME, VICTOR/VICTORIA, and SOME LIKE IT HOT all do. This 16-square-high grid makes room for long answers like STEP-BY-STEP, MIRACLE GRO, a CRACKPOT, and DOMINEER—along with not one but two [Old Olds] cars, the ALERO and CIERA. (Fie on both!) NINE P.M. gets a 24-hour-time clue, [2100].

Updated:

Jack McInturff's LA Times crossword has five theme entries bound together by WIND (70-Across), the [Word that can precede the first word of the answers to starred clues]:

• BURN UP THE ROAD is clued [Drive like the dickens].
  
• BAG OF BONES is a [1998 Stephen King novel]. I prefer gasbag to windbag, personally.
  
• To FALL ON HARD TIMES is to [Have serious financial setbacks].
  
• "SOCK IT TO ME" is the classic ["Laugh-In" catch phrase].
  
• To [Burglarize] is to BREAK AND ENTER, though that phrase is usually seen with an -ing on each verb.
  

In the fill, we have ["SNL" alum Nora] DUNN not cross-referenced to SNL, the [NBC weekend show]. The two most interesting words in this puzzle are KRAALS, or [South African villages]—no relation to jazz singer Diana Krall—and MAENAD, or [Frenzied woman]. In Greek mythology, the Maenads were Bacchanalian female followers of Dionysus (Bacchus being the Roman equivalent of Dionysus). They were said to get into a frenzy and rip raw flesh from living creaturese to devour. You have to wonder what sort of fears the guys who wrote these myths had.

Tyler Hinman's Onion A.V. Club crossword follows up Valentine's Day with five suggestions for the unpartnered. Various options for seeking a date include SPEED DATING, a PERSONAL AD, MATCH DOT COM, a SINGLES BAR, or getting a FIX-UP from a friend. There's also the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, but you tend to meet people who live thousands of miles away from you. (I've heard of at least one or two married couples who first met at the ACPT.)

Among the trickier clues are these:

• ["I need you to remember this!"] for "THINK!"
  
• A [Resident of Dhofar or Musandam] is an OMANI. Never heard of either burg. No, wait—they're not burgs. Dhofar is a region within Oman and Musandam is an exclave separated from the bulk of Oman.
  
• [Kris Kross' final single] was "DA BOMB."
  
• [Nicole's adopted father] is LIONEL Richie.
  
• OAHU is the [Island nicknamed "The Gathering Place"].
  
• [Larry Flynt's home state] is OHIO.
  
• CARR completes [Baker vs. ___ (landmark Supreme Court redistricting case)].
  
• [Roman numeral representations, often] are ANNI, plural of the Latin for "year."
  

Brendan Emmett Quigley's puzzle today is called "Stretching Out: Go bust or get busy." The bust/busy pairing explains the theme—in eight phrases, a Y is turned into a T and the resulting new phrase is clued:

• [Affliction for someone with too many deerstalkers and fedoras?] is HAT FEVER (hay fever).
  
• [Not allow to get to first base?] is HOLD AT BAT (hold at bay). I started out with KEEP AT BAT here.
  
• ["Where'd ya hang 'Water Lilies' in this museum?"] clues SHOW ME THE MONET.
  
• IT DON'T COME EAST is [Observation as to why a Kansas-based company has to relocate to San Francisco instead of Boston?]. I'm not sure, but I think what's going on here is that a fictional company in the heartland goes west because its I.T. department won't go east. Is it I.T., information technology, or IT, the pronoun? (It don't come easy.)
  
• [Gumshoe's pamphlet?] is DICK TRACT (Dick Tracy). Dick and gumshoe are both slang for "detective," and how mature of Brendan to eschew the penis here.
  
• STRAT CAT (stray cat) is clued [Jazz guitarist?]. Jazz is loaded with hepcats, bien sur, and a Fender Stratocaster is a guitar.
  

I can't say I'm familiar with SAVARIN, a [Folgers alternative]. I like PARKS IT, or [Sits, slangily], as a crossword answer. My first guess for the [Shoulderless shirt] was TANK TOP, but that does have straps over the shoulders, whereas a TUBE TOP does not. METH is clued as [One of the Wu-Tang Clan rappers, for short]; that's Method Man. I could've done without TONGUE being clued as [Kebab meat]; never seen tongue kebabs and hope never to see 'em. [Stamp, as a document] clues the obscure, blah word ENSEAL. I wanted TACTILE for [Touch-related], but the less common TACTUAL insisted on showing up. SWAGGER is a great word; it means [Bravado] and apparently the word has been with us for about 500 years.

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Monday, 12/15

Sun 3:12
LAT 2:53
CS 2:45
NYT 2:19

(updated at 10 a.m. Monday)

See that yellow box to the right? If you click there, it'll take you to suncrossword.com. If you like crosswords that eschew the same ol' junk that's been in crosswords since the dawn of time (i.e., the 1920s), shell out a few bucks ($12.50, to be exact) to subscribe to the Sun crossword online. Many of the finest crossword constructors in the business make Sun puzzles, so you'll get your money's worth. The Sun's especially tempting for those of us who hanker for tough puzzles—they're often a couple notches harder than the NYT crossword. Click on the yellow box to learn more.

Susan Gelfand's New York Times puzzle dishes out authorial meats and desserts—with desserts first, as is my preference.

• POUND CAKES are [Poet Ezra's favorite desserts?]. Pound cake in the singular would fit the theme better, but I cannot possibly object to the idea of having a butter pound cake, a marble pound cake, and a lemon pound cake on the table.
  
• [Writer Anne's favorite dessert?] is RICE PUDDING.
  
• [Writer Jack's favorite entree?] is LONDON BROIL.
  
• [Essayist Charles's favorite entree?] is LAMB SHANKS. How often does this guy make it into a crossword with his actual name? Usually it's his weird pseudonym ELIA instead.
  

I like the echoes between some of the fill answers. You can take a SUNBATH (of course, you'd call it sunbathing and not taking a sunbath, unless you talk funny) beneath an AZURE sky. SERBIA, the land from which Rod Blagojevich is descended, sits atop OILY, clued in a non-political manner ([Opposite of dry, as hair] does not describe Blago's Lego-style hair). SNUG and SMUG are just a letter off. Randy and Dennis QUAID are BROS. A tart LIME might make you PUCKER. DOODAD and PSHAW are both fun words—and TUSSLE, too.

Jim Hyres' Sun crossword, "Table Talk," wasn't hard to solve, but I had to reread the completed theme answers a few times to see what the theme was. It's a poker table or something along those lines, as the theme entries begin with words you might hear around the card table—FOLD THE LAUNDRY, CALL WAITING, RAISE A STINK, and ALL IN THE FAMILY. That last one's particularly nice, with the first two words of the classic sitcom's title playing a role in the theme. Favorite fill entry: ALARM CLOCK, 10 letters, crossing two theme answers and piling up four consonants in a row in the middle. Favorite clue: [Teapot contents?] for a TEMPEST in a teapot.

Updated:

Martin Ashwood-Smith's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Top Level," begins its three 15-letter entries with sort-of-synonymous words:

• GREAT WHITE SHARK is an [Ocean menace].
  
• MAJOR LEAGUE TEAM is clued as the [New York Yankees, for one].
  
• [Important documents] clues VITAL STATISTICS. I don't think of vital statistics as printed documents so much as the data that appears in key printed documents.
  

This 74-word grid has stacked pairs of 7-letter grids attached to the 15's at the top and bottom, and ITALIAN LIRA ([Former currency unit in Rome]) connects the three 15's. How many other 11-letter answers start with an I, end with an A, and have an A in the middle? Maybe IMNOTAZEBRA? Yeah, that's not showing up as a standard crossword entry.

Timothy Meaker's LA Times crossword plants a MARSHAL in the middle of the grid to accompany the first words of the four longer theme entries:

• [Contest winner's reward] is the GRAND PRIZE. Parades traditionally have grand marshals, though I don't know why.
  
• [Blaze arrival] is a FIRE ENGINE. Fire marshal means different things in various locales.
  
• [Discus or shot put] is a FIELD EVENT. A field marshal is an officer of the highest rank in the British army.
  
• [Chicago's Sears Tower, for one] is a SKYSCRAPER. I call sky marshals "air marshals." 
  

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Monday, 11/3

Sun 3:18
CS 3:04
LAT 2:53
NYT 2:46

(updated at 7:40 Monday morning)

'Tis the season for snarky political crosswords, and over at the Sadly, No! blog, Dave Macleod has posted a crossword called "Pull No Political Punches." (You can download a PDF there.) As Dave explains in a comment there, "The intent was to get as many Republican-bashing words and clues as possible without pushing it and getting stupid." Fun puzzle, Dave!

The New York Times crossword by Susan Gelfand has a fresh and fun theme. Four famous people whose last names double as verbs (and triple as nouns) take an S on the end to make grammatically correct two-word sentences:

• EMILY POSTS corresponds to the clue, [Etiquette expert writes messages online?].
  
• [Singer speculates?] clues STEVIE WONDERS.
  
• WINSLOW HOMERS is the sports headline that means [Artist clears the bases?].
  
• [Actress searches?] clues HELEN HUNTS.
  

I think this is Ms. Gelfand's newspaper crossword debut, and I hope she's been cooking up more themes for us. I like the theme here, plus the fill is a bit Scrabbly (three X's, some K's) and includes some interesting longer words. To SKYDIVE is to [Jump from a plane]. A [Bobbysoxer's hangout] was the MALT SHOP (with the terminal HOP, I wanted this to be a SOCK HOP, but that wasn't fitting. TASMANIA is [One of the six states of Australia]; I think I can name three others. (Left out South Australia and Western Australia.)

Alan Arbesfeld's Sun crossword, "Breezy Tunes," is elegantly built around an album I've never heard of. [1990 Roscoe Mitchell album (and this puzzle's theme)] is SONGS IN THE WIND. Roscoe Mitchell is an avant garde jazz saxophonist. There are also some songs whose titles end with the words "in the Wind," and these figure into the other three theme entries:

• BLOWIN' YOUR MIND, the [1967 Van Morrison album with the hit "Brown Eyed Girl"], suggests Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind."
  
• The [Weapon in the game Clue], the CANDLESTICK, prefigures "Candle in the Wind," the Elton John song about Marilyn Monroe (later reworked to honor Princess Diana).
  
• Brand-name [Cordless cleaners] that vacuum small areas are DUSTBUSTERS. Kansas had a hit with "Dust in the Wind." Who doesn't have a soft spot for rock ballads?
  

This puzzle seemed to have a little more pedestrian fill than most Sun crosswords. ATILT and ASTIR, ESAU and EDAMS? It's also got MR. CHIPS, though, and some BAGELS; and MILO is clued as [___ Bloom (character in "Bloom County")]. If it's possible to have a crush on a comic strip character, I just might've had a teenage crush on young MILO Bloom.

Updated:

Boy, I had no idea what the theme was in Tracey Snyder's LA Times crossword until the last theme answer explained it all. What do TWO-WHEELER ([Bike, e.g.]), THREE-PIECE ([Like suits with vests]), and TWELVE-STEP ([Like some rehab programs]) have in common? What unifies 2, 3, and 12? Turns out they're CRAPS LOSERS ([What the start of 17-, 32- or 38-Across is on your first roll]). I'll bet John McCain knows that, but I've never played craps.

This puzzle's got some answer words that appear more often in crosswords than in American life. There's the [Long poem] called an EPOS. ECLAT is [Brilliant success]. ESSE is [To be, in old Rome] (meaning in Latin). There's Scottish "no," NAE, clued as ["Sorry, laddie"]. Then we have the ever-popular (in crosswords and the Summer Olympics) EPEES, [Fencing swords]. If these ones gave you trouble, study up—you'll be seeing them again in your puzzles.

Tom Schier's CrosSynergy crossword, "Gridiron Scores," presents four phrases with T.D. initials. TD'S (20-Across), of course, are touchdowns in football. There's the TITANIC DISASTER (aww), a TARGET DATE, TAXI DRIVER clued as merely a [Cabby] and not as the movie, and a TONGUE DEPRESSOR. SINGLE MOM ([Parent's status, perhaps]) is excellent fill.

Like today's LA Times crossword, this one's got some crosswordy words that it behooves a beginning solver to learn. ESAU, the [Twin in Genesis], is one of the most common Biblical names appearing in crosswords. Why? Three vowels plus an S. ENOS, clued here as [Nephew of Abel], is also a frequent visitor. OREM is clued as [Utah's fourth-largest city]; there's also a Russian city called OREL to keep straight in your head, and both pop up from time to time in puzzles. IN REM is a [Legal phrase]; there's an entire vocabulary of Latin words and legal terms that appear in crosswords, though this particular one isn't that common. An ALB is a [Vestry vestment], something a priest might wear. If it's a 3-letter ecclesiastical garment, always try ALB first. ASTI, the [Fizzy wine, familiarly], is Asti spumante from Italy; Asti is a place name. EROSE means [Jagged] rather than just eroded; ERODE is also a popular crossword answer. [Elevator pioneer Elisha] OTIS is a regular around these parts ("these parts" being in the white squares).

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