Wednesday, 10/7/09

Onion 5:29
BEQ 4:42
NYT 3:27
LAT 2:29
CS untimed

Timothy Wescott's New York Times crossword

America's pastime! Glorious baseball! It's that time of year, when the excitement grows to a fever pitch!

Yeah, I don't really care about baseball, so the "wow!" factor of this puzzle drops down a notch for me though I expect others will ooh and aah over the pictorial representation of their beloved BASEBALL DIAMOND (57A), where a WORLD SERIES GAME (20A) will necessarily be played. At the appropriate places, there's a MOUND (42A: [Center of a 57-Across]) and then all four bases (HOME, FIRST, SECOND, THIRD) rounding the corners in V-shaped segments of circled squares. The fill is surprisingly decent given the constraints of three-way checking and those two 15-letter theme entries locking things down. Plus! The first and last letters of SECOND base appear in symmetrical points within 20A.

Favorite answers and clues:

• 10D. SPYGLASS is a [Hand-held telescope]. We have a brass corporate swag SPYGLASS but never remember to spy on the neighbors with it.
  
• 4D. BEDLAM is [Pandemonium]. Both words are perennial favorites of mine. (As are vex, jettison, and flotsam.)
  
• 5A. EMMAS, a plural first name answer, is saved by the literary trivia quiz of [Austen and Flaubert heroines]. Austen's Emma, Flaubert's Madame (Emma) Bovary.
  
• Football corner! SACK, PRAY, and YELL sit atop the GAME in 20A. And then the Chicago [Bear's landing place?] is 26D: O'HARE Airport.
  
• 45A. [When repeated, statement after an explosion is "TEMPER, temper."
  
• 9D. [Pen filler] clues SHEEP. It's frustrating when the wool gunks up the ink, isn't it?
  
• 41D. SEE BELOW is just goofy enough as a crossword answer to be good. It's a [Referral for further information].
  
• 49D. Oh, ROB! I didn't even see [Laura's 1960s sitcom hubby] when working this puzzle.
  

Nominee for people's least favorite crossing: The X where AXON, or 58D: [Dendrite's counterpart], meets AXIL, or 64D: [Botanical angle]. The existence of a botanical ARIL (seed covering) threw me for a moment.

No, wait. Maybe it should be where people meet, not scientific terms. 54D: [Actress Kruger and others]? Well, there's Diane Kruger, but that won't fit. ALMAS? Who is Alma Kruger? Is she new? No, she was born in 1868. Her first letter crosses 54A: [Finnish architect Alvar ___] AALTO. I know my vowel-rich crosswordese architect names (Ieoh M. Pei, Eero and Eliel Saarinen, Alvar Aalto), so Alma could not hurt me.

Updated Wednesday morning:

Raymond Hamel's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Bridge Keepers"—Janie's review

No. Not like the troll in "Three Billy Goats Gruff." Instead, each of today's two-word theme-phrases contains (keeps) a word that can be followed by bridge. The results of the first three entries are related as they each describe something that spans two points; the last... takes a different approach. Taking it from the top:

• 20A. [Migration vehicle] COVERED WAGON → covered bridge. Here's a really scenic one in New Hampshire's Franconia Notch State Park—probably getting close to looking just the way it does in this picture.
• 27A. [Claim jumper] LAND-GRABBER → land bridge. Think of Alaska and Russia and the Bering land bridge, which is believed to be the way peoples from Asia made their way over to North America in the days before there were ocean-worthy "migration vehicles."
• 43A. [Waxed string] DENTAL FLOSS → dental bridge. This one may be a tad too clinical, but... mod'ren dentistry can do some amazing things. You won't be able to use dental floss between your dental bridge teeth, but don't neglect the rest of your pearly-whites! (While it's clued as [Surface decoration]—and it is—INLAY is also a dental term referring to a cavity-filling process. Here's a link for [probably more than you want to know about] crowns, inlays and bridges.)
  
• 50A. [Place to do one's bidding] AUCTION HOUSE → auction bridge. This is the only non-physical bridge in the lot and is instead a variation on the standard bridge card-game—although, if I understand correctly, auction bridge is a bridge itself of sorts, between standard and contract bridge. Works for me.

What else works for me? Well, it seems Ray has this barnyard mini-theme going. Going sequentially from [Farm sound] to [Farming song refrain], we have the pig's OINK and E-I-E-I-O. It's not impossible that Old McDonald also had a BRANT, a [Small dark goose] running around, or collected STUD FEES [Thoroughbred breeding costs] on the side. (He might've had a thing for racing—ya never know...) We know he had chicks, whose parents certainly made use of the ROOST (the cleverly clued) [Night stick?] come sundown. And sheep—and perhaps a CORGI [Welsh canine] to assist with the herding the sheep or, yes, the chickens. (TIM ["Wild Hogs" costar Allen] was not in a movie about four-leggeds, btw, but about motorcycle enthusiasts. From what I've heard, this movie is for cyclying fans only...)

[Serious drinkers] SOTS are followed by [Serious ceremonies] RITES. Seems to me there are many not-so-serious drinking rituals. Here's something that should help to ELUCIDATE—an illustrated list of 21 drinking rituals from around the world. Is it my imagination or does more than one of these resemble an ORGY [Wild party]?

Lee Glickstein's Los Angeles Times crossword

(Taken from my L.A. Crossword Confidential post.) Last Wednesday was mustaches; today we have an unusual collection of 15-letter answers (all rock-solid) that start and end with A. The Wednesday puzzles are still skewing easier than one might have expected (solidly Mondayish in difficulty), but maybe the Wednesday themes are a bit more inventive than the Monday and Tuesdays? Thursday and Friday L.A. Times puzzles just irk me because I want them to be markedly more challenging, the way they used to be. And then I cry on Saturday when a themeless puzzle rolls in at Monday difficulty. But Wednesday! It's not a grievous assault on nature for Wednesdays to be this easy.

Theme answers:

• 17A: [49th state's largest city] (ANCHORAGE, ALASKA). Can you see Russia from there? Maybe from the rooftop?
• 27A: [E.M. Forster classic set in fictional Chandrapore] (A PASSAGE TO INDIA).
• 47A: [Classic Italian "farewell" song] (ARRIVEDERCI, ROMA). '50s movie musicals are not remotely in my wheelhouse, but the title is eminently familiar. I think I thought it was a song title, not also a movie. Here's the title tune.
• 63A: [Two-part drama that won two Best Play Tonys and a Best Miniseries Emmy] (ANGELS IN AMERICA). Incredible play—I saw the HBO adaptation. Here's the scene where James Cromwell as an M.D. gives Al Pacino as Roy Cohn his AIDS diagnosis (adult language warning):
• 39A: [Houses with sharply angled roofs, and what this puzzle's four longest answers literally have in common] (A-FRAMES). Now, one could argue that this clue could have dispensed with everything after the comma, requiring the solver to ponder what the four long answers have in common, lay eyeballs on A-FRAMES, and have an epiphany about what the theme entailed—but for a puzzle that's now shooting at Monday easiness, the solver's asked to do less thinking.

Brendan Quigley's Onion A.V. Club crossword

Each theme entry takes two NBA players and smushes them together into one new phrase:

• 17A. [John McCain, after not shaving for a few days?] is a GRIZZLY MAVERICK.
  
• 23A. The SUN KING is not only an established phrase, it's [Louis XIV's nickname], hence no question mark in the clue. There's some inconsistency here because this one not a newly concocted phrase.
  
• 34A. WIZARD MAGIC is [Merlin's expertise?]. What is one member of the Orlando Magic called? Is he a Magic the way a Washington, DC, player is a WIZARD?
  
• 50A. NET BUCK is clued as [Busker's take-home after paying for a street performance license, say?]. Would anyone ever claim to have "a net buck"? Feels stilted.
  
• 56A. [Albert Ayler, e.g.?] is a JAZZ TRAILBLAZER beyond my ken. He was, apparently, an OHIOAN (61A). As with 34A, I question the combination of JAZZ + singular TRAILBLAZER—but the phrase is lovely and laden with Zs. (Plus GRIZZLY and WIZARD also bring Zs to the game.)
  

Hot word of the day: QUIDNUNC, or 10D: [Busybody]. It's an archaic noun I've never had cause to use, from the Latin for "what now?" Last answer I figured out—and that only after I had it filled in and stared at it: WHITE ZIN, or 34D: [Pink blush] wine. I was parsing it as one word, as makeup or skin tone. The last square was the T in 49A: [Dis opposite], or DAT. I was thinking of dis, the verb, not this wid a D sound.

For me, this one was on the challenging side for an Onion puzzle. How about you?

Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Rotation—Make that sideways"

Put this in the category of "puzzle titles you should pay attention to": the answers to the five question-marked theme clues are familiar phrases in which the Ns have been rotated 90° to become Zs. PAT BOOZE, or [Alcohol that's exactly right?], plays on straight-arrow Pat Boone. A crane operator on a construction site turns into CRAZE OPERATOR, or [Fad runner?]. [What the bearded lady has?] is a FUZZY FACE (funny face). The L.A. Times crossword had both NIT and ZIT, and this puzzle converts one into the other with HAS A ZIT TO PICK, or [Sporting a whitehead?]. Ick. The alliterative [Vermin's verve?] clues RAT'S ZEST (nest). It took me a while to see what was going on in the theme entries, what with paying no mind to the title, but when I saw boozy Pat Boone in the puzzle, the payoff was good. Seven Zs in this puzzle, six in BEQ's Onion puzzle.

Please don't grumble that PAT BOOZE and basketball's Carlos BOOZER cross. They're not the same word. BOOZER clued as a sot would be a duplication; this isn't.

Favorite clues: [Overnight] shipping is NEXT-DAY. [Court do-over] is a RETRIAL, as this is not a tennis court we're talking about.

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Wednesday, 7/29

Onion 4:55
BEQ 4:11
NYT 3:40
LAT 3:17
CS 7:44 (J—paper)

Tim Wescott's New York Times crossword

Themes with circled letters aren't too tough to figure out. This time, the circled letters spell out various MLB team members. And despite the constraints of having (1) six theme entries (2) occupying 70 squares (3) with each Down theme entry intersecting two Across theme answers, the fill's pretty smooth. Here's the theme:

• 17A. To MAKE A STRONG CASE is to [Argue forcibly]. The Astros play in Houston.
  
• 28A. The Tampa Bay Rays figure into the [Pesticide spreader, e.g.], or CROP SPRAYER.
  
• 48A. SHORT-WINDED is clued as [Terse]. My dictionary says "short-winded" means out of breath or apt to be out of breath rather than being the opposite of a long-winded speaker. Does anyone really love the Minnesota Twins?
  
• 61A. Okay, NORWEGIAN THRONE doesn't feel so "in the language" to me. Then again, I've never been Norwegian. It's [Where Olaf I or Olaf II sat]. San Francisco Giants play baseball, New York Giants prefer football, Andre the Giant liked wrestling.
  
• 11D. ORANGE RINDS are [Juicer remnants]. Hey, look! A bonus baseball reference in the clue! See also 10A: SOSA, [Baseball star in Senate steroid hearings]. I often forget the Texas Rangers exist.
  
• 24D. To COME TO TERMS is to [Shake hands] and agree. There's a New York Met in the phrase's midst.

I gotta dock Mr. Wescott a couple points for one of the six theme players (RAY) being embedded inside a single word when the other five are split between two words. The only other baseball reference I noticed was 71A: [Like Yogi Berra, physically] for SQUAT. SHORT and STOUT were my first two guesses. Oh, wait, there's also 22A: SAC [___ fly (run producer)].

Football interjects itself. Talk about your manly-man sports-nut puzzles, eh? There's an ONSIDE kick, a Denver BRONCO (...clued as the horse, [It's most useful when it's broken]), and SCHULZ, the [Charles who created Peppermint Patty], who was fond of Charlie Brown, who could never quite manage to kick the football. There's also a DEKE fakeout from hockey.

Assorted crosswordese repeaters rear their ungainly heads here. The ERNE, or [Fish-eating raptor], crosses EIRE and NÉE. NORA of The Thin Man meets IRMA la Douce. Better are the longer fill answers, such as ONE-SIDED [Like a Mobius strip] and a slew of 6s. Does ONE-SIDED duplicate ONSIDE too much? I know that tie the knot is 100% "in the language, but to literally take a rope or shoelace and [Finish lacing up] by deciding to TIE A KNOT...I'm not sure TIE A KNOT is a lexical entity unto itself.

Updated Wednesday morning:

Sarah Keller's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Direct Overhead"—Janie's review

"Direct overhead" is a business term that refers to the "expense directly associated with the production of goods of services," such as the cost of electricity, maintenance or rent. As a kid, I had no idea what it meant, but I think I first became aware of the word "overhead" in the commercials that used to run for Robert Hall clothing stores:

When the values go up, up, up
And the prices go down, down, down.
Robert Hall this season
Will show you the reason
Low overhead! Low overhead!

Sarah Keller's "direct overhead," however, has no association with matters financial, though (broadly speaking) there is a sartorial connection. Here we're dealing literally with items that go on (or in one case, over) your head. I like the way none of the cluing tips Sarah's thematic hand and the fill itself is quite nice. In this way:

• 17A. [Palace display] gives us CROWN JEWELS; and
  
• 27A. [Jaguar on a Jaguar, e.g.] yields HOOD ORNAMENT. Credit for this particular combo probably belongs to Paula Gamache, who used it years ago in a similarly themed puzzle (for another publication). But a great clue is a great clue is a great clue and this seems to be the only other time the fill has made a puzzle appearance.
  
• 46A. [Stuffed animals that were a '90s fad] renders BEANIE BABIES. Yesterday it was Furbies, Beanie Babies today. Both have earned a rightful place in The Bad Fads Museum.
  
• 61A. [Mine that Bird, in 2009] produces DERBY WINNER . This fill, too, is making its CS debut.

I don't have lots and lots to add today. The remainder of the fill is perfectly fine, mind you, just not particularly sparkly. There's nothing wrong with PETER OUT, NADIR, LESSENS, RESIDUE, and ABSENCE individually—but seeing all of them in one puzzle weights it down some.

We do get an array of names: AGNES [Choreographer de Mille] (niece of Cecil B., too!); AMOS ["Famous" cookie maven]; ELSAS [Martinelli and Lanchester] (the former was a model before enjoying a small screen career, the latter a first-rate character actress); EMIL ["The Last Command" Oscar winner Jannings] (and Marlene Dietrich's co-star in "The Blue Angel"); and CLARA [Barton or Bow]. But AMOS aside, there's something dated in the feel here that, once again, grounds the fill.

Where we do get some lovely leavening is in the cluing: [Good, in the 'hood] for BAD; [Musical firsts] for DO'S; [Left on a map] for WEST. Now that's more like it!

Jerome Gunderson's Los Angeles Times crossword

My longer L.A. Crossword Confidential writeup is over there. The theme, in 25 words or less: Synonyms for "tease" are embedded at the start of four phrases, within longer words. JOSH, RAZZ, RIB, KID. Highlight: RAZZLE-DAZZLE!

Brendan Quigley's Onion A.V. Club crossword

Brendan's muse this week is the abbreviated phrase, "WTF?" That's clued as ["Huh?"...and the theme of this puzzle]. The five theme entries do not include the standard WTF with the F-bomb in it, but rather, are phrases with W.T.F. initials:

• 21A. [1997 classic rap double album] is WU TANG FOREVER.
  
• 29A. "WHAT'S THIS FOR?" is a common [Question on encountering an unfamiliar object].
  
• 39A. If you [Made fun of someone's mother, say], you probably WENT TOO FAR.
  
• 52A. [Defends with zeal] clues WAVES THE FLAG. I don't quite get this one. Is flag-waving about defense or about rah-rah jingoism?
  
• 59A. "All right, buddy, WHERE'S THE FIRE?" is a [Question to a speeder].

Too bad 11D isn't clued as the singer/poet JEWEL (rather than [Ring binder?], which doesn't quite work for me—the ring binds the jewel, the jewel doesn't bind the ring). Then the upper right corner could be filled wall to wall with famous people in the Down direction. OLIVIER! COLETTE! KID ROCK! Is this KID ROCK's crossword debut? Certainly it must be WIIWARE's debut—that's a [Nintendo download service].

I hear the A.V. Club constructors peer-edit their puzzles. Wouldn't you think that with eight smart people checking over this puzzle, JOCK wouldn't be clued as [High school type with cache, often]? A one-syllable cache is a stash. The two-syllable cachet is the word that connotes prestige.

Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Themeless Wednesday"

Yay! Themeless Monday is followed by Themeless Wednesday! This one's got 20 long answers (7 to 15 letters), including five 15s. HENRY LOUIS GATES, sans the "Jr.," is a perfect 15. He's clued as the [Educator who once famously compared the lyrics of 2 Live Crew to Shakespeare's (sic) "O my luve's like a red, red rose"].

INFOMANIA is clued as a [Continual and excessive quest for knowledge]. This has got to be a shout-out to Brendan's demi-celeb fan, Sarah Haskins. She's a comedian who makes incisive and funny videos about the crap the media and advertisers put out there for women. Click that link for access to Haskins' "Target Women" videos as well as a bunch of InfoMania videos that...I never watch. But do watch the "Target Women" clips. My personal favorite is the one about the sexification of cleaning product commercials.

Least familiar answers: URIM is clued [___ and Thummin (Judaic objects)]. [Longtime Beatles "road manager" Evans] was named MAL. CARA is the [Oldest daughter on "Jon & Kate Plus 8"]. I know about A-1 steak sauce, sure, but AONES clued as [Some steak sauces] had an unfamiliar feel to it. [___ prole (without offspring)] clues SINE.

Today's "Ask a Medical Editor" science lesson: BACILLI are rod-shaped bacteria. Viruses are not bacteria at all. Thus, [Virologist's subject] is not a good clue for BACILLI. [Antibiotic targets, sometimes], sure. [Troublesome rods], sure. But [Virologist's subject], 7 letters, wants to be VACCINE.

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Wednesday, 7/8

Onion 4:28
BEQ 4:08
LAT 3:40
NYT 3:30
CS 8:40 (J―paper)

Tim Wescott's New York Times crossword

So, Rex Parker, PuzzleGirl, and I were corresponding tonight, trying to piece together the "unusual feature that appears nine times" in this crossword. Eventually I gave up and consulted Wordplay, where I learned there are nine word squares and that the constructor probably won't be surprised to see my grumbles: "I also realize that the puzzles that are a challenge to construct are not necessarily the same as the puzzles that a lot of people like to solve, as I’ve seen some complaints about these kinds of puzzles elsewhere on the Web." Yeah, I saw a lot of word segments that intersected with their clones, but in 3 1/2 minutes, I did not notice the word squares. So that wasn't an aid in solving. And so many repeated chunks of letters didn't enhance the solving experience for me.

Those word squares are as follows:

ROB CUD WES ROE
OPE USE EVA ONE
BEE DEN SAL EEN

BING CRAM CHAS RUMP
IDEA RUDE HASH UBER
NEWT ADIT ASHE MEGA
GATE METS SHED PRAY

HEART
EMBER
ABOVE
REVUE
TREES

The 5x5 is pretty fancy, but if you don't appreciate it in the midst of doing the puzzle...well...this is a gimmick for the leisurely solver to be blown away by. And I'm sure there are speed solvers in awe of the construction, too. I'm predicting about a 60/40 split between the "Wow!" and "meh" contingents, in favor of the "Wow!" side.

A few clues and answers:

• 3D. BEER GARDEN is as [Place for a pilsner].
• 38A. CAB-OVER is a [Style of truck with a vertical front].
• 31D. WEST MONROE is a [Louisiana city named for the fifth U.S. president].
• 32D. EVAN-PICONE is a [Big name in women's apparel since 1949]. Hooray for the clue not suggesting that there's ever been a person in fashion named Evan Picone.
• 55A. RUM PUNCH is a [Bacardi concoction, perhaps]. Crossword constructors use the term unch as shorthand for "unchecked letter." No idea what a RUMP UNCH might be.
• 22A. EMMETS are [Ants, archaically]. If you know a guy named Emmet, please call him Ant.
• 20A. To IRRIGATE is to [Make arable, perhaps].

Updated Wednesday morning:

Patrick Blindauer's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "They'll Take a Mile"―Janie's review

Today we have the titular companion piece (and thematic cousin) to yesterday's Doug Peterson, "Give 'Em an Inch..." And what a lively companion piece it is. The abbreviation for mile is mi.; the four theme phrases take that abbreviation and affix it to the beginning to create a new phrase. Each is also the beneficiary of some mighty crafty cluing.

• 17A. mi + stingray = MISTING RAY [Culinary Rachel using an atomizer?]
  
• 27A. mi + stress test = MISTRESS TEST [Check one's husband's collar for lipstick, e.g.?]. Of course, as Connie Francis reminds us, girlfriends may employ this technique, too...
  
• 49A. mi + me and my gal = MIME AND MY GAL [Story about a fellow's gesturing lady love?] This is really very funny. Yes, it's the only one of the theme entries in which the mi doesn't precede a phrase that starts with the letter s―and as you may have already guessed, I don't love that. But boy is this a great clue/fill combo. So to spare you all, I'll EASE UP this time and just enjoy it for all it's worth.
  
• 66A. mi + sled dogs = MISLED DOGS [Took a canine team off-roading?]. Another goodie, and one that suggests another kind of theme―the kind in which there's a repeated syllable. The fill that comes to mind is misled sled dogs. Okay, just three to go...

Today's mystery product was SO BE, the [Drink company with a lizard logo] as opposed to Geico, the insurance company with a gecko logo, I suppose. Boutique beverages aren't much my thing, but clearly there's a market for 'em. But really―only in America does the South Beach Beverage Company become established in Norwalk CT on an inlet of the Long Island Sound and then get purchased up by PepsiCo. Talk about yer sweet deals...

There's a lot of strong cluing today. I like the alliteration of [Lamp-lugging lad of literature] for ALADDIN, and the ambiguity of [Bars] for SALOONS and [Drops from the sky] for RAIN. In neither case is the clue to be understood as a verb―yet that's what I thought of first. Neither are [Clogs and pumps] to be understood in relation to plumbing issues. They're SHOES.

And how about the [pedal] pair: [Put the pedal to the medal] for FLOORED IT (in what looks to be a CS debut) and [Instrument for pedal pushers?] for ORGAN. Or the matched set of terms of endearment: ["Cutie pie" or "sweetie"] for PET NAME and [Darlin'] for HON.

Among the non-theme fill, gotta give a shout-out to CS-debut OXYMORONS, those figures of speech that pair opposites to ironic effect, as the clue [Deafening silence and bittersweet] demonstrates. You probably have your favorites, but here's a snippet of George Carlin going through a few of his.

A fave cross: ASEA and SEE; and a seriously smile-worthy pair: [iPod...] NANO and NANU (-nanu) [Either half of a classic sitcom sign-off]. Finally, given the tie-in this puzzle had with yesterday's, had a moment of GLEE seeing SKEW once again. (I know, yesterday it was SKEWS, but it's close enuf for jazz in my book!)

Don Gagliardo's Los Angeles Times crossword

I did this puzzle shortly before doing the NYT puzzle last night, and it made me cranky in similar ways. Tour de force construction? Check. (81 theme squares is huge.) Uninteresting fill and clues? Check. There are many who greatly admire a tour de force and focus on the constructor's achievement in building such a puzzle, but I tend to be solidly in the "I want it to be fun and interesting" camp.

It's past 10 a.m. and I have two more puzzles to blog before getting to work on a puzzle consulting gig, so allow me to copy and paste from the theme writeup from my L.A. Crossword Confidential post:

• 41A: Secret get-together, or what occurs literally in each of this puzzle's circled squares (HUSH-HUSH MEETING). The circled letters are hush-hush meetings of two words.
• 5A, 8D: Clever move (COUP)/Prefix with science (PSEUDO-). Silent P from French and Greek.
• 9A, 9D: Bad-mouth (KNOCK)/Hillock (KNOLL). Two words from Old English with now-silent Ks.
• 4D, 28A: Newspaper feature (COLUMN)/Organ numbers (HYMNS). Classical roots for both of these M+silent N words.
• 48A, 48D: Like Letterman lines (WRY)/Eerie apparition (WRAITH). Silent W before an R; one Old English root, one Scots/unknown.
• 40D, 54A: Oppose (REPUGN)/Omen (SIGN). Silent G in a GN combo. Both words are from Middle English by way of Old French taken from Latin. Begging your pardon: REPUGN? I know an awful lot of words, but I haven't run across this one before. Repugnant, sure. Impugn, of course. But not this word.
• 57D, 64A: Prefix with stat (RHEO-)/Like a question that isn't a question (RHETORICAL). Silent H after an R, presumably a Greek rho being transliterated as RH rather than R. It's a bit of a cheat to throw in a prefix here, but RHYME is too long for this spot and havign 81 theme squares gives little flexibility.
• 63D, 73A: Blockbuster, e.g. (BOMB)/Oversimplify, with "down" (DUMB). BOMB has a promiscuous etymology—English from French via Italian, probably from Latin, before that from Greek, "of imitative origin." In other words, everyone agrees it bomb/bombe/bomba/bombus/bombos sounds like "boom." DUMB's a good Old English word of Germanic origin.

I had more fun looking these words up in the dictionary than doing the crossword, honestly. The fill squeezed in around the massive dose of theme was mostly uninspired, hitting a nadir with ILLER (technically legit but nothing I'd say) and a not-a-real-word singular KUDO (which would be OK if the clue acknowledged the joke by playing with "praise" sounding like a plural or something). Does ILLER have hip hop usage? Is it in Nas's Illmatic lyrics anywhere?

Byron Walden's Onion A.V. Club crossword

We are overdue for some more Byron themelesses, aren't we? That was one of the biggest losses when the New York Sun folded—one top-notch themeless puzzle every week, from talents like Byron, Karen Tracey, and Patrick Berry. Seriously, what is wrong with the masses of people who have not signed up to subscribe if the Sun Crossword relaunches? The incredibly innovative tough Friday themes are just as missed as the sparkling themelesses. So if you fancy yourself a lover of the finest crosswords and you rather wish there were more tough puzzles available, sign up!

Now, where were we? Oh, yes. The Onion puzzle. Blogger is in a mood and won't let me upload the grid image, so I'll just tell you about the theme and lay out some clues. The first theme entry began TURNOFFPH- and I couldn't get a "turn off phones" instruction out of my mind, which got in the way of understanding the theme. It's "___ of ___" phrases in which the "of" becomes "off":

★ 20A. TURN-OFF PHRASE is a [Pickup line that backfires badly?].
★ 26A. The jack of clubs becomes JACK-OFF CLUBS, or [Bars for total assholes?]. Don't go there. You won't like the crowd.
★ 40A. I love the "walk of shame" as the basis for a theme entry. WALK-OFF SHAME is a baseball-pitchin' [Reliever's feeling after giving up a game-ending homerun?].
★ 48A. PLAYOFF COLORS are [Jersey options for the postseason?].

Fill highlights include EMILY POST, NBA OWNERS ([The Mavs' Mark Cuban and the Nets' Jay-Z, e.g.]), FANFIC ([Writing genre for creative devotees, briefly]), and aren't-you-glad-you-read-the-NYT [New York Times science reporter Gina] KOLATA.

Favorite clues: Crossword-friendly country OMAN gets the fun-to-say [Country whose sultan is Qaboos bin Said al Said]. The DELETE KEY [can make mean men, but can't make men mean]. NOLTE is clued as [Nick who was People's Sexiest Man Alive in 1992]; his subsequent drunken mug shot made a mockery of that. (What? The Sexiest Man Alive designation is not mockable except in extenuating circumstances like Nolte's.) James T. KIRK is a [Captain based in part on Horatio Hornblower]. KEEP LEFT is a [Progressive's favorite road sign?].

Brendan Quigley's blog puzzle, "Support System"

The theme is STAND BY ME, and the four long answers that include the letter sequence STAND are abutted by something with a ME above or below the STAND. For example, TWIST AND SHOUT has a ME in MENLO PARK above it. Now, it's a little muddled here because the ME of STAND BY ME is underneath TWIST AND SHOUT's STAND, so it appears that the puzzle's ME has a split personality. STAND BY ME's STAND has a ME below it, too.

Juvenile highlights: [Stooge's laugh syllable] is NYUK and [Gas] is FART.

I need to get to work here. Am all crossworded out for the day! Too bad the work that's waiting is...crosswords.

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Tuesday, 1/20

Jonesin' 4:55
Sun 4:40
NYT 3:42
LAT 2:55

There are also some timely bonus puzzles awaiting you at the Crossword Fiend forum:

• Ashish Vengsarkar's "Almost a Pangram"
  
• Vic Fleming's "A Man, His Plan, and..."
  

Many thanks to Puzzle Girl for filling in on short notice. I got trounced by a nasty bug and spent 36 hours ailing on the couch, too beat to do crosswords. Here's how sick I've been: I didn't even do the Monday puzzles. I just went ahead and read PG's post, spoilers and all. Moving along to Tuesday!

Tim Wescott's New York Times crossword commemorates (wait...can you commemorate something that hasn't happened yet?) the inauguration of PRESIDENT OBAMA. Man, will I be a wreck tomorrow. Will need to have a box of Puffs at the ready because hell, I teared up seeing the Obamas walk down the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on the TV news, and that was nothing. Now, where was I? Oh, yes. The crossword. PRESIDENT OBAMA is balanced by another 14, The AUDACITY OF HOPE. Starting tomorrow, that book's author will become the LEADER OF AMERICA, which isn't a naturally crossword-friendly phrase, but it'll do. CAMPAIGN RIVALRY gives a nod to McCain. Assorted shorter answers tie in, too—my favorite being ILL., the [Home state of 52-Across: Abbr.]. And then there are the circled letters that appear in a larger circle in the grid to spell out the Obama campaign's slogan, YES WE CAN. EBOLA sits in the grid, clued as a [Nasty virus], to remind me that the bug I had was really not so nasty in comparison. There's some great fill—BEEHIVES, OVERPAID, JOE crossing BIDEN—but also some quasi-iffy 8's. [Cry just before leaving] is TIME TO GO, which maybe isn't so crossword-kosher, or maybe it is—I guess I have said that routinely to my kid. HALF-SEEN is clued as [Not fully noticed], and I can't say I've used that phrase.

Updated:

All righty, the inauguration is over, and I have left the couch to get lunch (a small cup of Jell-O—no seafood stew here, please).

Todd McClary's LA Times crossword has a vowel-progression theme, with the consistency of the first words all being 3 letters long:

• FAR AFIELD means [Quite a distance from home].
  
• FER DE LANCE is a scary [Tropical viper].
  
• FIR TREE is a [Holiday evergreen].
  
• FOR DUMMIES is a [Black-and-yellow instructional book series]. Patrick Berry's Crossword Puzzle Challenges for Dummies is not for dummies, it's for budding crossword constructors, and it's got great puzzles in it.
  
• FUR TRADER is clued as [Astor, notably].
  

I like the pop-culture fizz of MINI-ME, the [Diminutive "Austin Powers" character] played by Verne Troyer. Question: is a SAFARI a [Jungle adventure] or more of a savanna adventure?

The TV is still distracting me and all this sitting up is tiring, I tell you. I don't think Patrick Blindauer's Sun puzzle was really all that hard, but it took me a while anyway. The "Attention to Details" theme involves adding a "D tail" to the end of various phrases. My favorite theme entry is TEST BAND, a [Group that plays during finals week?]. My favorite clue—because it took me so long to understand it—is [What some people do to enter united states?], for ELOPE. I first went with SHIFT, as in the key you use to type capital letters. Ah! United = just an adjective; states = manners of being.

Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword, "Signal Ahead," takes the meaning of traffic signals and shuffles them:

• ["Try to chew your food a little more--don't scarf it" phrase?] is "SLOW DOWN, HUNGRY." "Go hungry" is a familiar phrase.
  
• [Beat a NYC college athletic team?] is STOP THE PACE. Pace University, "slow down the pace." That yellow light turned red.
  
• [Whiz only on footprint indentations?] is GO IN YOUR TRACKS. "Stop in your tracks" is an established phrase. After the red light comes green for GO, which cycles us back to the base phrase in the first theme entry.
  

In the fill, we have THROWS UP clued as [Loses what was originally put down?]. Mm-hmm, I know about that. Favorite pieces: QUAGGAS is a great word, and they're [Extinct African mammals related to zebras]. I didn't know they were extinct. STANDING O is [given after a great performance]. The [Plains Native American tribe that becomes a state if you drop the first letter] is KIOWA, and if you enjoy that sort of word game, don't miss Will Shortz's Inauguration Puzzle from this past weekend. Will's puzzle plays similar games with a group of U.S. presidents' last names, and it's a smooth challenge.

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Wednesday, 12/31

Tausig 4:30
LAT 4:10
NYT 4:06 by the time I found the typo
Sun 3:59
Onion 3:35
CS 3:15

(updated at 10:30 Wednesday morning)

Hey! I just reserved my room at the Brooklyn Bridge Marriott and booked my flight for the 2009 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. The Friday evening program includes a panel about crossword blogging. Listen, don't ask me hard questions if you want me to look smart, okay? (Ridiculously hard questions for the other folks are fine, of course.) Thanks. I hope to see many of you in Brooklyn!

Tim Wescott's New York Times crossword has a foursome of 15-letter entries, but those aren't exactly the theme answers—rather, the theme lies within the first letter of each and a trio of letters in the middle. The center of the grid has a WWW, [Letters after two slashes]. The first letters of the four 15's spell out HTTP, or hypertext transfer protocol. The circled letters within each 15 are a web domain:

• [Feel like quarreling about something] clues HAVE A BONE TO PICK.
  
• [No halfway effort] is TOTAL COMMITMENT. This phrase seems like a weird choice for a crossword answer.
  
• [Basis of a false arrest, perhaps] is a TRUMPED-UP CHARGE.
  
• [Going past the fourth quarter, say] clues PLAYING OVERTIME. "In overtime" is what I'd say, not "playing overtime."
  

I like the visual twist of the theme, but would be happier if the 15's were more unimpeachable as crossword fill and if the 3-letter domains were all split across answer words.

I blew a half minute or so in the applet by typing DUKE instead of [Dick Van ___] DYKE. Dang those adjacent-key typos that yield plausible words in one direction! Toughest answer in the grid: YAKUT, or [Native of NE Siberia]. Those Yakut folks are thousands of miles from the URALS, a [Range extending south from the Kara Sea]. Biggest duplication: ONE P.M. is a [Common lunch hr.], while U.S. ONE is an [Auto route from Me. to Fla.]. Tastiest answer: GUMBO, clued as [Okra stew]; my husband just polished off the last of Sunday's carryout gumbo from Heaven on Seven. Favorite answers: SKORTS are [Women's hybrid clothing], the spork of fashion; and SCREWY means [Off the wall].

Do you know how many 4-letter words there are for your rear end? In Patrick Blindauer's Sun crossword, "Rear Ends," he's taken six 4-letter rears and split them in half, putting 2 letters at each end of a longer phrase:

• [Belmont Park statue subject] is the horse SECRETARIAT, which is embraced by a SE AT.
  
• [Farm laborer] clues HIRED HAND, with a HIND.
  
• TUNA FISH is a [Melt ingredient] and is bracketed by a TUSH.
  
• DUSTS OFF means [Takes out for use after a period of inactivity]. DUFF is also the beer brand on The Simpsons.
  
• Lou Costello's ["Pardon My Sarong" costar] is BUD ABBOTT, who lives inside a BUTT.
  
• To RUBBERSTAMP is to [Endorse without question], clasped by RUMP.
  

The British prat and arse are left out, as are the assorted 3-, 5-, 6-, and 7-letter synonyms. Twenty points to Patrick for working in six theme entries without forcing untoward compromises in fill. A bonus of 5 points for BUMPPO, or [Natty of literature]. I don't know what James Fenimore Cooper was thinking when he came up with that character name for The Last of the Mohicans. (You're picturing Daniel Day-Lewis in his flowing locks promising "I will find you!" now, aren't you?)

This is the week for butt themes, apparently, because Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword, "Bum Deal," is also fixated on the hindquarters. The term ASS BACKWARDS holds the key here: The other three theme answers contain synonyms for your rear end (or maybe somebody else's) backwards. To wit:

• [Rocker's plectrum] hits us up with some guitar vocabulary—that's a GUITAR PICK. The word PRAT appears backwards within it.
  
• Comedian DANA CARVEY is Wayne's World's [Garth Algar, in real life]. He's got a CAN facing the wrong way.
  
• Turn around a TEST-TUBE BABY, or [Conception breakthrough of the 1970s], to find a BUTT.
  

ASS BACKWARDS is definitely "in the language" these days, but would be verboten in your standard daily crossword puzzle. I'm glad we have these other indie xwords opening up new angles in puzzling. (Whoops, that's last week's puzzle, and Angela blogged it last week, and I did actually read that post.)

Highlights in the clues and fill:

• SPIRO is clued as [Agnew whose name has at least two famous anagrams]. Hmm, I had to Google this. They're "grow a spine" and "grow a penis."
  
• [Cambodian tongue] is KHMER. That mash-up of consonants looks wrong until you figure out the answer.
  
• [Southern rapper Young ___] JEEZY doesn't get much play on the crossword page. Definitely a better name than Natty Bumppo.
  
• The MINK is a [Muskrat eater]? Who knew? The Captain and Tennille's "Muskrat Love" didn't warn of the mink menace, did it?
  
• I didn't know YAHTZEE was a [Yahoo! Games staple]. Are there any other double-Yah__ combos out there?
  
• BEAVIS, of Beavis & Butthead fame, is the [Cornholio alter ego].
  

Deb Amlen celebrates New Year's Eve in her Onion A.V. Club crossword. Deb groups four staples of the evening, pairs them with various beginning words, and gives them holiday clues. You have a toast at a party, the Waterford ball drops in Times Square, and people make resolutions for the coming year:

• [New Year's hair-of-the-dog breakfast?] is CHAMPAGNE TOAST. The original NYE thing is a champagne toast, so this theme entry feels a bit off to me. Is this TOAST toasted bread at breakfast?
  
• [New Year's soiree that brings in the bucks?] is a STAG PARTY. Stags are male deer, or bucks. Most NYE parties are not stag parties—maybe in Boystown they are.
  
• [New Year's item "'dropped" in a brothel?] is a BEN WA BALL. If you don't know what that means, I will leave the Googling to you. Be forewarned, it's a sex thing and highly unlikely to be mentioned in the New York Times.
  
• [New Year's promise made to one's self while stoned?] is a HIGH RESOLUTION. High-resolution images are crisp and clear. Usage question: Shouldn't that be "oneself"?
  

Favorite clues:

• ["Schyah!"] means the exclamation AS IF.
  
• BEAKER is [Dr. Bunsen Honeydew's assistant at Muppet Labs].
  
• "ZING!" is a [Possibly sarcastic joke response].
  
• Captain AHAB is that ["Grand, ungodly, godlike man" of fiction]. Who doesn't like a non-Omoo Melville reference? 
  

Updated:

Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader puzzle for this week is called "Chasing Out the Rats." 2008 was the Year of the Rat, and 2009 will be the YEAR OF THE OX. That joins six other theme entries that end with OX:

• MAGNAVOX is a [Blu-ray player maker]. Our new Sony PlayStation 3 also plays Blu-ray disks.
  
• SLYLOCK FOX is a [Mysatery-solving comic strip character]. Who? I haven't seen this before.
  
• The PENALTY BOX is [Where one goes after slashing].
  
• DEWEY COX is John C. Reilly's ["Walk Hard" protagonist]. Is that movie worth seeing?
  
• The RED SOX are a [Team owned by the New York Times, oddly]. How did I not know that? Hmm, could be my complete lack of interest in the Red Sox.
  
• FT. KNOX is a [U.S. city with tons of expensive bars] of gold.
  

Other good stuff:

• MYSPACE is a [Notoriously busy-looking site]. Facebook is much crisper, less appalling to grown-ups.
  
• I like that BULL drops into the OX crossword, though it's clued as a [Vatican decree].
  
• UNISEX is clued with [Like the name Blake]. Yep, that works.
  
• This week's "music clue I didn't know at all" is [Johnny Rotten's post-Sex Pistols project, for short]. The answer is PIL. That's Public Image Ltd., or PiL. I think this was in another indie crossword in recent months, so I should remember it.
  
• BOK CHOY looks tasty in the grid; it's a [Stir fry ingredient].
  
• ["When is this thing over?"] clues a bored YAWN.
  

Pamela Amick Klawitter's LA Times crossword has APB'S, or [Emer. broadcasts (and this puzzle's hidden theme)] parked within the four theme entries. I was led astray by the theme answers all starting with S, though SNAP, SOAP, SCRAP, and SAP don't rhyme and have varying letter counts, so I was confused. The theme entries are:

• SNAP BEANS, or [Casserole legumes]. I have never called green beans "snap beans." Nor have I eaten green bean casserole.
  
• SOAP BOX DERBY is an [Annual world championship competition held in Akron].
  
• SCRAPBOOKING is the [Subject of the how-to book "Keeping Memories Alive." I prefer to store the memories in my brain. Much less hassle that way.
  
• SAP BUCKET is a [Sugar shack vessel]. I think this is maple sap and a sugar shack's where syrup gets its start. Mmm, maple syrup.
  

Who doesn't love those [Mythological vengeance deities] known as the FURIES? The [Rodent yielding the fur nutria] is, as luck would have it, called the nutria. It is also called the COYPU. The scientific name of this "large semiaquatic beaverlike rodent" is Myocaster coypus. The word coypu is from the Araucanian (an Indian language family from Chile and Argentina). [Hawaii's "Gathering Place"] is OAHU.

Randolph Ross's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Count Me In," counts in a ME to change each theme entry's base phrase into something new:

• [Contests in which little energy is expended?] are INERT GAMES. We see INERT gases used as dull fill often enough—it's good to extract more value from it by playing around with it.
  
• [Milne's marsupial lover?] is KANGAROMEO. Kangaroo + ME = Roo's mom Kanga + Romeo. Good play.
  
• [Get-together of Mr. Universe contestants?] is a HE-MEN PARTY. Nice expansion of hen party.
  
• [Scarsdale and South Beach?] are FAMED DIETS and also fad diets, with or without the ME.
  

This theme type isn't an innovative one, no, but I admire the deft execution of a standard theme variety. The crossword is improved further by lots of longist fill—a NERF BALL crossing SELF-HELP, DODDERS crossing Lou DOBBS, a TANGRAM [Puzzle with geometric shapes], and a STOGIE, for instance. I'm also partial to the [German name for Cologne], KOLN (Köln, actually). I appreciate it when those high-school German classes come in handy.

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Wednesday, 7/9

NYS 4:55
NYT 4:03
LAT 3:22
CS 3:02

Both the New York Times and New York Sun crosswords have themes that take some work to explain. Feel free to offer clarifications in the comments if you feel I've missed or mangled something.

Tim Wescott's New York Times puzzle obliquely signals the theme in the clue for HINT at 65-Across: ["The first word of the answer to each of the six starred clues describes the number of that clue," e.g.]. The first word in each of these starred clues is a mathematical term describing certain kinds of numbers, and the clue numbers themselves are examples of those kinds of numbers. Like so:

• 4-Down is [Balance in personality], or EVEN TENOR, and 4 is an EVEN number. 
  
• 6-Down is [Pitcher's dream], or PERFECT GAME, and 6 is a PERFECT number. No, I don't know what that means. Rather than look it up, I will wait for a math professor to explain it in lay terms.
  
• 11-Down is clued [They don't belong], or ODD MEN OUT, and 11 is an ODD number.
  
• 25-Down is [Basic Scout ties], or SQUARE KNOTS, and 25 is 5 SQUAREd.
  
• 33-Down is clued [It's no fake], or REAL MCCOY, and 33 is a REAL number. Wait, aren't all the numbers in this grid real numbers? Granted, there are multiple odd, even, and square numbers in the grid, so I guess it's consistent. 
  
• 37-Down says [It follows the evening news], or PRIME TIME, and 37 is a PRIME number.
  

Favorite non-theme stuff: ["Rhoda" and "Frasier"] for television SPINOFFS; SYSTOLE, or [Part of a heartbeat], diastole being the other part (yay, medical terminology!); [Jawbone of ___ (biblical weapon)] for AN ASS (the "jawbone of an ass" concept is a winner); and [Side by side?] for the geometrical formula for AREA (more math!). POMACE, or [Crushed pulp], is a rather fancy word for a mid-week crossword. The [Old German duchy name] SAXE used to be carried by the English royal family, who were the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha before wartime anti-Teutonic sentiment made them switch to the House of Windsor.

The New York Sun puzzle was constructed by Lee Glickstein. Before I solved this one, I had gotten an e-mail from Sun xword blogger Pete Mitchell. Pete was temporarily at a loss, not seeing the theme, but figured it out before I ever saw the puzzle. Then I solved the puzzle and found myself e-mailing Pete! I did figure out the theme after a bit, but it's hard to explain it. The five theme entries include paired long E, I, O, U, and A sounds, and if you advance each vowel one notch higher in the alphabetically ordered list of vowels, you find a more sensible batch of phrases lurking behind the theme entries, provided that you sound them out and pay no mind to retaining the spelling. To wit:

• PEA GREED is [Vegetarian's sin?]. Change the long E to a long A and you get pay grade.
  
• CLINE SWIPE is [Criticism of the singer of "Crazy"?], or Patsy Cline. Change the long I to long E: clean sweep.
  
• HOE-TOED is [Like Edward Scissorfeet?]. Long O to long I: high tide.
  
• HOOP FLUTES, or [Encircle champagne glasses?], long U to long O: Hope Floats, a Sandra Bullock movie.
  
• HAY NEIGH, or [Barn sound that means "I'm hungry"?], coming full circle to change long A to long U: who knew?
  

Favorite non-theme stuff: [Small contraction?] for LI'L; [Crime perpetrators, in police slang] for DOERS; [Munch kin city?] for OSLO (Edvard Munch was Norwegian, and this has nothing to do with Oz and munchkins outside of my head); SMITHERS from The Simpsons, or a [Cartoon character whose first name is Waylon]; YOGI BEAR, another toon and [Ranger Smith's nemesis]; [One walking down the aisle?] for a SHOPPER; and [High caste member in "Brave New World"] for ALPHA. I didn't know [Shortstop Dark who was the 1948 Rookie of the Year], ALVIN.

Dan Naddor's Wednesday LA Times crossword was somehow available a day early via Cruciverb.com, so I solved it and blogged about it on Tuesday. Here's what I had to say about it earlier: This puzzle has the same kind of theme as the Tuesday NYT: phrases that begin with homophones. It's a lovely puzzle, with five multicultural theme entries and a bunch of 7- and 9-letter answers in the fill. THAI CUISINE [usually includes a fish sauce called nam pla]. TY PENNINGTON is the oft-sleeveless ["Extreme Makeover" Home Edition" host]. TAE KWON DO is the [National sport of South Korea], though a less specific clue would have been good since KOREA is in the fill. TAI BABILONIA was a [Five-time U.S. Figure Skating Championships gold medalist]. And as the men's Wimbledon final demonstrated, [Some sets end in them] means TIE-BREAKERS. Four of the theme entries are laid out in stacked pairs, which is impressive. For my age cohort, the [Veep between Harry and Dick] is not too familiar: ALBEN Barkley was Truman's V.P. FMy favorite fill: the anachronistic SPEED-DIAL (there's no rotary dialing happening there); ESPIONAGE with a tricky clue (James [Bond activity?]); RATIONS clued as [Restricted fare?]; and the song "GET A JOB." I appreciated other clues, too: [White-collar worker?] for CLERIC; [Instant success?] for SANKA instant coffee; and [One in need of a lift] for SKIER.

Updated:

In Mel Rosen's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Swap Meet," he swaps the words that appear on either side of "of the" in various phrases. Coin of the realm becomes REALM OF THE COIN, or [Mint?]. King of the jungle is JUNGLE OF THE KING, or [Monarch's private safari setting?]. The lady of the house turns into HOUSE OF THE LADY, or [Countess's castle?]. What ties these three things together is a royal slant—the king, the lady, the realm—though those three words don't all appear on the same side of the "of the." (How many other people have had a legitimate reason to write of the "of the" without that representing mangled grammar or lost clauses?)

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