NYT 23:39
BG 28:08
Reagle 19:31
LAT 20:58
CS 31:35
Team Orange weekend coverage continues. Now, from our Seattle bureau, here's Sam Donaldson.
Happy Sunday, everyone. Orange and her DSL-like solving times will reclaim the throne tomorrow, but today you get the analysis of a dial-up solver for the Sunday crosswords.
Will Nediger's New York Times Crossword, "Cued Up"
As a solver, I'm easy to please. I love wacky, envelope-pushing Krozel-esque puzzles as much as the next guy, but honestly, if you give me a simple theme and execute it really well, I'm just as happy. Today's NYT is a fine example: a simple letter-addition theme that is elegant and enjoyable. Nediger inserts a "QU" somewhere inside seven common phrases and then clues the wackiness that results. Behold the delights that unfold:
I have a feeling that QUEASY RIDER was the GERM [Starting point] for this puzzle, but there are so many other good ones here that I can't be sure. Engineering fresh fill around so many Qs is not easy, but Nediger's grid has lots of good stuff. And it appears we're only a "J" shy of a pangram in this grid, for those who care about such things. Highlights include: PLAN A, the [Primary stratagem]; MINI-GOLF, clued as [It may feature a windmill]; BEAVIS, the [TV character often seen in a Metallica T-shirt]; MIST OVER, or [Get fogged up]; UNDIES, clued somewhat deceptively as [Drawers, e.g.]; and BOB SAGET, the [Narrator of "How I Met Your Mother"] and a prominent figure in the movie, "The Aristocrats." Trust me, you'll never look at Bob Saget the same way again after you see that movie (or as much of it as you can stomach, anyway). I loved it, but I have a high tolerance for offensive material.
Those who, like me, enjoy proper names in their puzzles had more than Bob Saget and Beavis on which to feast. There was the Hindu god VISHNU (the clue tells us [Krishna is one of his avatars]), ["Tamerlane" dramatist Nicholas] ROWE, Tom SNYDER of "The Tomorrow Show," the poet James Whitcomb RILEY crossing Mets general manager OMAR Minaya, and Iranian supreme leader ALI Khamenei, among others.
I fell into a few traps, but few of them bogged me down for a long time. I tried NO-HITTER and PERFECT GAME for the [Pitcher's feat] until I came to ONE-HITTER. Then I tried AMOEBA for [One surrounded by cell walls] before tumbling to INMATE. The "A" at the insersection of Pierre de FERMAT, the [French mathematician who pioneered in the theory of probability], and ["Jour de Fete" star, director, and writer] Jacques TATI, was a total guess. Others may have had a hard time in that area too if they did not know CERT, the [Legal writ, in brief] that's short for certiorari. I also had a hard time with the clue for NOUN, [It may be declined]. Apparently, when you change a noun to distinguish the singular from the plural, you "decline" it. Huh, go figure.
Henry Hook's Boston Globe Crossword, "Address Book"
Hook subjects seven different terms commonly found in physical addresses to a little wordplay. Some of the results are stellar; others are a bit--get ready--pedestrian.
Check out how Hook manages to place one theme entry directly atop another in both the NW and SE! If a mere mortal attempted this, the fill would be compromised beyond belief. Hook is one of, what, a handful of constructors that can make this look easy? Sure, each of the corners features some less-than-stellar fill: a partial name (!) (LEE DE-Forest, the inventor of the vacuum tube), a partial chorus (the [Kiddie-song ending] EIO, the last 60% of Old McDonald's "E-I-E-I-O"), a strange French word (INCONNUS) clued as [Strangers, in Strasbourg], and LAFEU, the small-fries role of an [Old lord in "All's Well That Ends Well"], come readily to mind. But the rest of those corners were, I think, entirely legit.
There is much to love in this grid. [Scout master?] is a fun clue for TONTO (Scout:Tonto :: Silver:Lone Ranger). Other fun clues included [Some like it hot] for TEA, [First word of "Kokomo"] for ARUBA, and [Take a ride?] for HIJACK. Today's confession = I plunked down OH SHEILA, the [1985 Ready for the World hit song], without a single crossing to help. One need not be proud of everything buried in one's mind. Look for it on YouTube and you'll know my shame.
I struggled mostly in the far east section of the grid. I nearly got a migraine from IGRAINE, [King Arthur's mother], and it did not help to be unfamiliar with the [Lupin of whodunits], ARSENE. Any time I see the name "Lupin" I think of the Harry Potter novels. The [Pacific republic] of NAURU required every single crossing to get, and even then I was unsure whether I had it right. Below all of that, you had to grapple with four intersecting proper names, BARA, BELA, JEREZ, and JOLENE. I was lucky to know three of the four (only Jerez eluded me), but other solvers may have hit a wall here. The only other entry to stay hidden for a long time was PONIARD, the [Thin-bladed dagger].
Finally, if I had a vote, I would nominate the clue for MASON-DIXON, [Their line was in real estate], for a 2009 Oryx. That's just a thing of beauty. OK, so far Oryxes have only been given to entire crosswords and not to individual fill or clues, but if the Oscars can award supporting cast members separately and expand the Best Picture field from five to ten films, there should be some room to give special recognition to great clues that almost single-handedly make the solving experience a delight.
Merl Reagle's Syndicated Crossword, "The Furry Thought of You"
Reagle proves once again that when it comes to puns, he is the cat's meow. This puzzle offers seven purr-fect phrases with a feline touch. Okay, retract your claws--I'll leave the cat puns to the master.
Despite the relatively quick solving time (for me), there were some thorny entries that slowed me down. I don't think I have ever seen VIANDS, a supply of [Food], and it didn't help that it intersected with ODALISQUE, a [Harem girl]. Fortunately I was familiar enough with YAQUI, an [Indian of Sonora, Mex.]. If not, that corner might have become unsolvable. Nearby sit Nabisco's UNEEDA biscuits from 1898. Biscuits from 1898? Merl, seriously - uneeda clean out your pantry. Up in the north, INGLE, the [Brit's fireplace], didn't make me tingle, but all of the crossings were fair. In the SE, TOY SALES, the [Post-Christmas events], struck me as a little forced.
The hardest intersection for me was where PULI, the [Hungarian sheepdog], met [Actress Joanne] DRU. Part of the problem was that I was sure "POUNCING PAW" was supposed to be "BOUNCING PAW," and BULI seemed just as right to me as PULI. And for some reason, I wanted the [Cheery word?] to be TAH instead of RAH. I was thinking "Ta-Ta," as in "Cheerio, chap." Then I was sure it was AAH, since the second letter in Joanne's name just had to be a vowel. And c'mon, a cheery person would be inclined to say "aah," right? Now that I write this out, of course, I see how silly that is, but in the heat of the solve I can get pretty stubborn with myself.
Always happy to see MR. BILL, the [Victimized clay guy on "SNL" reruns], and ERNST, [007 foe's first name]. Blofeld, Ernst Blofeld. And how appropriate for this puzzle that Blofeld was often featured with a white cat in his arms. Even though I tend to prefer dogs to cats (I have a mild allergy to cat fur and I find most cats a little aloof), I had a good time with this puzzle. And it didn't make me itch.
WARNING: If you have not yet completed today's NYT puzzle, this part of the posting will make reference to that puzzle so STOP RIGHT NOW (or skip to the CrosSynergy discussion below).
Peter Wentz's Los Angeles Times Crossword, "Right on Cue"
Oh no! Two newspapers have come to the party in the same outfit! A constructor's second-worse nightmare! (The worst, I think, would be seeing a paper run the same theme just a few days before your puzzle is scheduled to appear in a different paper.) I feel badly for both Will and Peter. I can't help but compare the two puzzles, just as Us Weekly does with its "Who Wore It Best?" feature. The good news in all of this is that the two puzzles were sufficiently distinct that I enjoyed them both. Don't make me pick one, a la "Sophie's Choice." I can love them both equally.
In this puzzle, Wentz *ahem* adds a "QU" to the start of seven common phrases and then clues the wackiness that results. Unlike the Nediger puzzle, all of the "QU"s this time come at the front. In that regard, the theme entries here are a little tighter. Fortunately, only one of the theme entries in Wentz's puzzle overlaps with those from Nediger's puzzle:
So yes, the puzzles wore the same outfit, but they had different accessories, and that often makes all the difference. Some of my favorite entries in Wentz's version included ABOVE ZERO, BYZANTIUM, HOLD TIGHT, JAM UP, TEPIDNESS, BLOT OUT, QUICHES, DR. KATZ, SILK TIES, and, of course, FREE FALLIN', the classic [1989 Tom Petty hit]. Wentz scored a pangram with the fill, but some of it felt a bit strained. Google verifies that AGENDA BOOK is a valid enough term, I suppose, but it still kinda hurts my eyes and ears. NOT VALID, clued as [Like an expired license], also made me wince. I think most of us would say "invalid" instead of "not valid," and I'm not sure many solvers want a rather arbitrary "not" thrown in before most ADJS [Fast and furious, e.g.: Abbr.]. And UNLAX [Chill out, slangily]? Really? Chillax, sure, but unlax? I think that will bug me until I "untire" to bed tonight.
I would have thought that my second experience with the same theme would have resulted in a noticeably shorter solving time, but such was not the case (in my glacial world, two-and-a-half minutes ain't much faster). Despite the overlapping theme, the only noticeable overlap in the fill comes in the SW of both grids: 112D in Wentz's grid, QBS, is the same as 113D in Nediger's grid. The clue for HOLD TIGHT, [2008 Harlan Coben thriller], slowed me down more than would have a direct clue like [Clutch firmly]. I wanted BAJA for BAHA, [Island band The ___ Men], but I finally figured it out once the crossing [Old Testament prophet] HOSEA fell. Even that proved a little elusive since I had FEAT instead of GEST as the [Daring exploit]. I was also mired at the instersection of LA PLATA, the [City near Buenos Aires], and BRETON, the [Celtic language spoken in France]. Apparently I am not very cosmopolitan. It's true: I have never ventured outside of North America. I've seen much of Canada, the States, and Mexico, but nothing beyond. Even Sarah Palin has seen Russia, albeit from a distance. And yet I finished second to President Obama in voting for the Nobel Peace Prize (we had identical accomplishments, but he photographs better). (It's important to make offsetting political jokes whenever possible.)
Bob Klahn’s freestyle CrosSynergy “Sunday Challenge”
Go figure - my slowest time comes not with the 21x Sunday-sized puzzles but the innocuous little 15x freestyle offering from the master of deception, Bob Klahn. I felt like an IGNORAMUS [Ding-a-ling] throughout much of the solve, but I'm proud to have survived and I admire the construction a great deal. This 70-worder offers four triple-stacked 9s and a grid full of fun entries and knotty clues. In no particular order, here are my ten favorites:
A really terrific grid and clues that worked to mire me in the ooze of stuck for a long time. The SE was especially deadly. I have seen the SAMPAN before (it's a [Mat-roofed, flat-bottomed boat]) but it felt completely foreign to me during the solve. The clue for ADAGE, [Sampler sentence], still eludes me, so anyone who wants to help me out should please explain in the comments. I had never heard of Roger Ebert's book, "I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie," so the clue for HATED left me empty. And I couldn't figure out AMORY, ["The Proper Bostonians" writer Cleveland]. Even with the first three letters of these words in place from the crossing downs, I was befuddled for a long time. The NW corner also took a while, but once I figured out that the LLAMA was the [Animal on Peru's coat of arms], the rest fell fairly quickly.
Roger Ebert may have hated, hated, hated some movie, but I liked, liked, liked this puzzle even though it nearly defeated me. Thank you, Sir Klahn. May I have another?
My Trip to Atlanta
Before I hand the baton back to Orange, allow me to share a slightly off-topic anecdote that readers of this blog will appreciate. In my job I am lucky (?) enough to travel around the country a fair amount for various conferences. I am a slave to my frequent flyer miles, so I almost always fly on the same airline when I can (I won't mention the name of the airline, but it seems to have an awfully high number of flights to Anchorage, Juneau, and Fairbanks). Anyway, one of the first things I often do after taking my seat on a plane is to pull out the airline's magazine and see if it has crosswords. Sure enough, my frequent-flyer airline has a 23x puzzle every month, but I'm pretty sure the grid and the clues are computer-generated because it's never much fun and the clues violate many of the standard clue conventions.
But earlier this month I had to fly on a partner airline (and for reasons that will soon be apparent, I have no problem disclosing that this partner airline was Delta). When I checked the back of Delta's Sky Magazine, I discovered that they run an old NYT 15x crossword and a couple of Sudoku puzzles. I was pleased to see that Delta sprung for a good puzzle, so I pulled out my trusty solving pencil (aka The Death Wand) and set to work. When I read the clue for 1-Across, I actually dropped the Death Wand. It was my debut puzzle from October 2008! Sure enough, my name was printed alongside the grid near the fold. I have only had two puzzles in the NYT (so far - there are some in the queue), so the odds of this happening are, by my precise computations, remote. I was completely floored. For the first time ever, I took the magazine off the plane with me.
By the way, at one point I needed to stand during the flight and stretch my legs (it was a long flight to Atlanta). Rather than stay by my seat near the front, I decided to walk to the back of the cabin just so I could see whether anyone was working the puzzle. It has always been my white whale - I have never seen someone actually solving one of my puzzles (not that I have had many of them out there to see people solve, mind you, but still). I saw two people working the Sudoku puzzles and no one working the crossword. Sigh. But that's just a small hiccup in what was otherwise the coolest flight I have taken in years.
Well, that's the story. Again, I thought that if anyone would appreciate the thrill I had it would be this group. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
November 28, 2009
Sunday, 11/29/09
June 13, 2009
Sunday, 6/14
NYT 8:12
Reagle LAT Calendar 8:02
LAT 7:48
Reagle 6/7 Philadelphia Inquirer 7:17
Reagle 6/14 Philadelphia Inquirer 7:00
BG whoops, forgot to note my time; 7:something, I think
CS 4:04
NYT cryptic 13:42
Brendan Quigley's New York Times crossword, "D-Plus"
Pop quiz: Among the NYT crosswords published from June 1 to June 14, how many were constructed by women? The answer—can I get a drum roll, please?—is zero. That's right. We are now on day 14 of Female Constructor Obliteration Watch.
No aspersions on Brendan, of course, as his puzzle today is a fine specimen. I grade the "D-Plus" theme as considerably better than a D+. Each theme entry begins with a familiar phrase; Brendan adds a D sound, which compels a spelling change to result in an actual word. The trumped-up phrase is then clued more or less plausibly, and I like how most of the theme played out:
The least familiar fill, if you ask me, is MAOTAI, or this [Strong Chinese liquor], and KAKA, or [One-named Brazilian soccer star in the 2008 Time 100]. Both of these answers are in the same section of the grid, and MAOTAI's crossing with NARA, [Japan's first capital], might prove a gnarly spot for some solvers.
The best fill begins right off the bat with 1-Across: [1982 best seller subtitled "And Other Discoveries About Human Sexuality," with "The"] clues the G-SPOT. I have no problem with that as crossword fill. Among the other clues and answers I liked, we have [Many keys]/IVORIES and KOOL-AID/[Drink made from a mix]. And the NARTHEX! That's a [Way to the nave] but not, I guess, to the apse. ("I'll take Cathedral Parts for $800, please, Alex." Speaking of cathedrals, apparently the [Curved high-back bench] called an EXEDRA is etymologically related to "cathedral," with hedra meaning "seat.") PAPER LOSS is an [Unrealized hit taken on an investment. [One of the Planeten] is ERDE; that's German for "planets" and "Earth." DOTS is a [Classic pencil-and-paper game] that I ought to teach my kid. DOTH is an [Obsolete auxiliary] word; the primary auxiliaries, the dictionary tells me, are be, do, and have, while the modal auxiliaries include can, could, may, might, must, should, shall, will, and would. [How cringe-making humor might go] is TOO FAR; with the last four letters in place, I was expecting a SHOFAR clue here. Love the word APERÇU, or [Quick look]. ALGER HISS, the [Suspected spy in a celebrated 1949 trial], gets the full-name treatment. Interesting clue for ROAD SIGNS: [They often start with "No"].
Daniel Raymon's NYT second Sunday puzzle, a cryptic crossword
I think Raymon is new to the ranks of NYT cryptic setters, and I felt like I had a harder time than usual sussing out the clues. Or maybe I'm coming down with a bug—I have that foreboding. Does the common cold interfere with anagramming capabilities? Is there research on this? Or did you find the various anagram clues to be less obvious than usual?
Anyway, big thanks go to Will Johnston, who has posted his parsed solution online. Not that I relied on it to finish the puzzle, but hey, I like to encourage you all to do cryptics, and having a thorough explanation of how each clue yields its answer is a good way to learn the ropes. Saves me the trouble of writing it all down!
As Will notes, 16D is a good find in the anagram category. 22A is an anagram that took me forever to figure out, thanks to some unusual letter combos in the answer. Among the two 15-letter answers, 2D is terrific, but I could do without dull words like 7D. That's one thing I like about Harvey Estes' cryptics in Games/Games World of Puzzles—really lively and entertaining phrases in the answer grid.
CHOCOLATE!
Yeah, it's time for a chocolate break from crosswords. We were at Water Tower Place today and the Lindt store is going out of business. 50% off! We probably bought 4 or 5 lbs. of Swiss chocolate, and for only $26. Yum. If you live in Chicago and like Lindt, head on over before the candy's all gone.
Merl Reagle's 6/7 Philadelphia Inquirer crossword, "I Haven't the Vegas Idea"
I just got word from Lloyd Mazer that the Merl Reagle puzzles last Sunday and this Sunday in the L.A. Times Calendar section (filling in during Sylvia Bursztyn's hiatus) are puzzles specifically for that publication, even though they bear the "PI" filenames via the Puzzle Pointers and Cruciverb links. The crosswords Merl published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Washington Post, and other papers for June 7 and June 14 are different. You can find today's PI/WaPo puzzle at Merl's website, Sunday Crosswords.
The theme, as you might guess from the title and Merl's propensity for punning, is Vegas/gambling-related puns:
A couple unusual answers in the fill—S. NEV., short for Southern Nevada, is [Where Vegas is, in gazetteer shorthand]. Wow, "gazetteer shorthand"! I don't think I need that much. This answer crosses NEAME, or [Ronald who directed "The Poseidon Adventure" and "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie"]—never heard of the guy.
Oh, dang. I meant to do the 6/14 PI puzzle and blog it, skipping last week's—and here I did the 6/7 puzzle. I think the 6/14 isn't posted at Merl's blog yet and I assumed it was this weekend's; I was using Lloyd's Across Lite file. Got to add another puzzle to my to-do list...
Updated Sunday morning:
Will Nediger's syndicated Los Angeles Times Sunday crossword,"Watch the Birdie"
In golf, a birdie is ONE UNDER PAR, and that's the unifying answer at 69-Across. In 10 precisely symmetrical spots in the grid (I circled those squares for clarity and was astonished to see the perfect symmetry), ONE appears right under PAR. The coolest part of this is ONE UNDER PAR itself, with a PAR (in PARD) above the ONE and a ONE (in IONE) below the PAR. Often, the explanatory answer describing the theme doesn't exemplify the rule it sets forth, but this one does—twice.
You'd think the fill with PAR and ONE in it would lead to some tortured fill, but some of my favorite entries are in the ONE-under-PAR sections. There's J.R. EWING, the [TV shooting victim on 3/21/1980]; MR. PEANUT, the [Monocled food mascot]; APOLLO IX, or [Lunar Module test mission]; and a BEANPOLE who is, physiologically speaking, an [Ectomorph]. Right beside the PAR/ONE chunks are a bunch of great longish multi-word answers, including IT'S A BOY, or [Delivery notice?]; LEFT HOME, or [Moved out]; a SKI MASK, or [Holdup cover-up; OPENED UP, or [Bared one's soul]; and LIBEL LAW, or [Attorney's specialty]. And PALINDROMIC is a great word to put in the exact middle of a puzzle with heightened symmetry; it means [The same either way].
Favorite clue: TAN is [One of two Crayola colors with the shortest name]; the other is red. ZISSOU, BENELUX, CZECHS, and PLAIN JANE add to the Scrabble score here.
Much more on the puzzle from L.A. Crossword Confidential's PuzzleGirl, who absolutely loved this theme. (It inspired the use of many exclamation points, in fact.)
Merl Reagle's L.A. Times Calendar puzzle, "This Bud's for You"
I think this is the puzzle that's appearing in the L.A. Times Calendar section today. Let me know if it's not.
The theme answers are all flower puns, and I like flowers so this theme was right up my alley. Merl has a whopping 12 theme entries spelling out 11 puns:
A few other clues and answers:
Merl Reagle's June 14 Philadelphia Inquirer puzzle, "Tri-V-ial Pursuit"
Each theme entry has some tri-V trivia, where the answer phrase contains the letter V three times. With nine theme answers, that's 27 V's in the puzzle.
My goodness, I've been blogging a lot of puzzles. It's almost time for an IHOP pancake break. But first, the tri-V-ia theme includes these answers:
Five assorted clues: [What RNA has that DNA lacks] is URACIL. Ivan PAVLOV was a noted [Dog studier] (6D). Why is 48D SKID ROW [No place to be somebody]? Is that from a song? To [Yield to desire] is 54D INDULGE, as in "indulge yourself with some Lindt dark chocolate/raspberry truffles." 79A/80A are the two-part answer AIR BALL, [With 80 Across, a court gaffe].
Updated Sunday afternoon:
Aw, pancake break was cancelled.
Henry Hook's Boston Globe puzzle in Across Lite, "Essay Questions"
This puzzle had a lot of "meh" fill around the entertaining theme (in which SA, which sounds like "essay," is added to phrases to alter their meaning), but I'll give Henry props for the gutsiness of stacking all the theme entries. Really, who does that? The eight theme entries appear in stacked pairs in each corner of the grid:
What did I mean about "meh" fill? Things like prefix ANEMO, AMAIN, STOA, EMAG, TIU (that's a [Germanic war god] who seldom appears in crosswords), and an unfamiliar MOORHEN. The clue for NETH. is given as [Du. land] and boy, I've never seen "Dutch" abbreviated that way. Maybe in the etymology note in a dictionary definition or something. I'd have gone with [Dutch land: Abbr.], personally. Fancier fill: KEY WEST, the "VOLSUNGA Saga" of Icelandic legend, documentarian Morgan SPURLOCK (whom a bunch of us met at Sundance), Beatrix Potter's squirrel NUTKIN, and ACADIAN clued as the [Word that gave us "Cajun"].
Will Johnston's CrosSynergy "Sunday Challenge"
Crazy-looking grid, isn't it? I don't remember ever seeing one like this. Between the triple stacks at the top and bottom is a roiling midsection that zigs and zags. The difficulty level seemed about usual for a themeless CrosSynergy puzzle, didn't it? Some clues and answers of note:
April 18, 2009
Sunday, 4/19
NYT 9:18
LAT 7:17
PI (untimed)
CS (untimed)
NYT diagramless (untimed)
BG (skipping this one—I'm not doing a Christmas theme in April)
The first Marbles Amateur Crossword Tournament was a ton of fun! It wasn't a big event—just 20 competitors, plus some spectators (!)—but everyone had a good time and I loved having a puzzle event right here in Chicago for a change. Bob Petitto and I were the judges. The results: On puzzle #1, the Monday NYT puzzle, the first finisher, '08 and '09 ACPT speed demon Anne Erdmann, had a careless error (oh! how well I know the "careless error on an easy puzzle" grief), so Ben Bass, the first correct finisher, earned a spot in the finals. Anne then zipped through puzzle #2 to make the finals. On puzzle #3, Anne was again the first finisher (no surprise there), but the first not-already-a-finalist finisher was Jonathon Brown, who became the third finalist (and is a regular commenter here).
The three finalists raced the clock and one another on next Thursday's NYT crossword. Anne took first place, finishing in 4:15. Ben, whom I met at his first ACPT this year, swooped into second with a clean puzzle despite finishing third on the clock. Third place went to Jonathon, who finished second timewise but had three incorrect squares, proving the value of the Ellen Ripstein Axiom: Check all the crossing clues. The other eight contestants who completed puzzle #3 (next Wednesday's NYT puzzle) correctly within the time limit also got to choose a smaller prize from the prize table, as did Best Handwriting winner Wailin Wang. The latter had already been advised by friends in the know to shoot for the Best Handwriting prize at the ACPT, and I tell you, her puzzle looked like she had printed it out after solving online.
Special thanks to Bob Petitto for judging—with almost 20 years of ACPT experience, he knew what to do and kept everything running efficiently. And an honorable mention to Kent Brody, who would have been in the finals if not for Anne's puzzle #1 error—and sitting in the finals audience, he finished the puzzle fast enough for 2nd place.
I did my best Will Shortz imitation at the start of the finals, intoning "Begin." You can hear it, can't you?
Nothing specific about the crosswords themselves here, as you'll see them this Monday through Thursday.
I am so crossworded out after this afternoon that I am having trouble summoning the will to blog about the Sunday puzzles. But blog I must:
Will Nediger's New York Times crossword, "Extra! Extra!"
In sports, "Extra!" time is called overtime, or OT for short. Each theme entry has an extra OT changing the meaning of a phrase:
Highlights among the fill and clues:
Tough nuggets:
What I didn't like: SPREE is clued as a [Word with shooting or shopping]. There have been too many tragic shooting sprees in the U.S. lately for this clue to pass the breakfast test.
Updated Sunday afternoon:
Sorry to leave you hanging on the other crosswords—m. henry had the hotcakes with whipped chocolate cream and warm sour cherries topped with chocolate ganache only for weekend brunch, and then there was long division homework to oversee. I did some crosswords on paper, untimed, during Divisionpalooza, and that erasable pen died on me after the diagramless so I did Merl's puzzle and the themeless CrosSynergy in regular pen. Hmm, Merl's puzzle must be pretty easy because I didn't scribble over any squares. And Martin Ashwood-Smith's CrosSynergy puzzle has six over-written squares, so maybe it was less easy. It certainly had enough clues I drew a blank on.
Patrick Blindauer's second Sunday NYT puzzle, a diagramless crossword
I'm guessing this one was easier than most diagramlesses because I filled it all in without writing any numbers in the squares, and I'd never done that before. I was operating under a minor spoiler, since someone mentioned that the likeness was clearer in Across Lite's show-diagram function than on a printout in which the blank squares hadn't been blacked in. So I knew it wasn't going to have standard crossword symmetry. Getting 8D: [Birthplace of 71-Across] as LOG CABIN made me suspect ABE Lincoln was the subject, and THE CIVIL WAR, ILLINOIS, and the GETTYSBURG ADDRESS confirmed that. I killed the Pilot Frixion erasable gel pen, which a pen addict's blog commenters confirm doesn't contain enough ink to last long, but it is a more pleasing pen than the gunky Erasermate. Anyway—I grabbed a fresh pen and blackened in the black squares in the middle of the grid, and my son correctly identified it as a picture of Abraham Lincoln. Cool work, Patrick! And it's not hitting around February 12, when we all had Lincoln crossword fatigue, so the not-timely publication works for me. Highlights in the fill: REMBRANDT, the game MOTHER MAY I, and a PINA COLADA.
Martin Ashwood-Smith's CrosSynergy "Sunday Challenge"
Martin's the king of the triple stack, and this one's got a triple stack of 15-letter answers across the middle. [They're not strictly accurate] clues INEXACT SCIENCES, but I'm feeling iffy about the plural here. ENEMY AT THE GATES is a [WWII action film of 2001]; has anyone seen it? VANESSA REDGRAVE is the ["Isadora" star], but I haven't seen that one either. And then elsewhere in the puzzle, there's ["Dark Passage" star], which turns out to be BACALL but I know nothing about that movie. Hmm, I'm sensing a theme here in this themeless puzzle: Movies Amy hasn't seen.
Did you notice the midsection of this puzzle? The triple stack intersects two 9's and three 7's, which is not an easy feat to pull off. What else did I want to mention? This:
Merl Reagle's Philadelphia Inquirer crossword, "TV Shows I'd Like to See"
This is another of Merl's classic pun themes, with puns on the titles of various TV shows. One of them is [TV comedy about a guy who keeps losing his patients?], DENTIST THE MENACE. Whoa, retro flashback! The live-action version of the "Dennis the Menace" comic strip ran from 1959 to '63. The next oldest show in the theme is Mork and Mindy, turned into MORTGAGE AND MINDY, or [TV comedy about being in foreclosure?]. The Law & Order expands into SLAW AND ORDERS, a [TV drama set in a deli?]. SpongeBob SquarePants is now a 10-year-old show, and I do love it so. That inspires Merl's SLUMDOG SQUAREPANTS, or [TV cartoon about a guy who's poor and not much of a dresser?]. Then there's Desperate Hosuewives spinning off DESPERATE, HOUSE-WISE, a [TV reality show about owners willing to do anything to sell their domiciles]. My favorite theme entry wins for its sheer silliness, converting Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? into ARE YOU SMARTER THAN / A CHEESE GRATER?—this is a [TV game show that requires no knowledge whatsoever?].
Merl syndicates his crosswords himself, so he doesn't submit his puzzles to an editor who enforces the standard rules of crossword construction. 80D: [In ___ (spiraling downward)] clues the 9-letter partial entry, A TAILSPIN. But you know what? TAILSPIN is a welcome inclusion in the puzzle, even with the indefinite article that makes it violate a standard rule.
Dan Naddor's syndicated Sunday Los Angeles Times crossword, "Put a Lid on It!"
See my L.A. Crossword Confidential post for solution and discussion.
February 04, 2009
Thursday, 2/5
Sun 6:06—one of the year's best themeless puzzles
LAT 3:49
NYT 3:23
Dean Olsher, whose book From Square One: A Meditation, with Digressions, on Crosswords is due out this June, is from the same generation as President Obama—younger than the bulk of the Baby Boomers, older than the Gen Xers. Apparently the name for the '54–'65 cohort is Generation Jones, and Dean wants to gather a list of generational markers like "I couldn't care less about where you were when JFK was assassinated." Go add your own at Dean's blog.
Jim Horne's interviewing his fellow ACPT crossword-blogging panelists, beginning with Ryan Hecht and Brian Cimmet. Still to come: Michael Sharp and his alter ego, Rex Parker, and yours truly.
David Kahn's New York Times puzzle is an impressive piece of construction. There's a 15-letter entry running down the middle, intersected by five theme entries, and the two corners not involved in those six answers get two more theme entries. It's Black History Month (...in the shortest month of the year, as we all know) and next week is the 2009 NAACP IMAGE AWARDs ([Annual entertainment honor]) show. (It's a "multi-culture awards show, from an African-American point of view.") Seven past winners are featured here:
I love to see the crossword breaking out of its "entertainment for aging white people" box, and Kahn takes it there in style with 71 theme squares and a whopping eight theme entries. It might've been nice to have actual Thursday-grade clues to match the publication date, but what we have seems to have landed in the Tuesday-to-Wednesday range (at least for people who have paid any attention to pop culture over the last decade).
Miscellaneous clues and answers:
My favorite themeless puzzle in a while is Will Nediger's Sun "Themeless Thursday." Swish! That was the sound of this puzzle landing in my 2009 Favorite Crosswords folder. Tons of fresh fill, aimed right at my pop-culture sweet spot. There are two clues that reference The Simpsons—Cletus the SLACK-JAWED YOKEL and D'OH, the [Cry a channel surfer might hear a few minutes after the final ticks of "60 Minutes"]. There's Mr. Big, a.k.a. JOHN, of Sex and the City (first name revealed only in the post-series movie, if I recall). ARISTOTLE is clued as "The Big ___," Shaq's nickname. There's idiomatic and colloquial language—"IT'S JUST ME" as a big improvement on more frequent crossword answers ITISI, ITSI, and ITSME, and ONE TOO MANY at the bar. BAKED ZITI evokes another Sun themeless from a few years ago in which Byron Walden paired the answer with baseball's BARRY ZITO; here the pasta/baseball combo uses MIKE PIAZZA. I got duped by [Sources of moving music] and entered IPODNANOS; the answer turned out to be CAR RADIOS so only two letters were right there. More pop-cult goodies: the WU-TANG CLAN and a TEENAGE WEREWOLF.
If you never got around to subscribing to the Sun crosswords for October '08 through February '09 but you love great crosswords...then I don't know what to do with you. (Picture me shaking my head sadly here.) The run of puzzles ends this month because editor Peter Gordon only had 600 subscribers, and he'd need a good 1,000 or 2,000 to continue as a viable enterprise. (And by "viable" I mean: one that brings in enough money to fairly compensate some of the best constructors in the business and their able editor.) Peter says "I will start up again if I can get enough people to pledge to pay 20 cents per puzzle (for example, that's $50 per year if I publish Monday to Friday and skip holidays, or $31.20 per year if I decide to do three days a week)." When Peter adds a link at suncrossword.com for joining the hopeful waiting list, I'll share it here (and exhort you all to sign up).
Updated:
When I woke up today I thought it was Friday. I'm only now realizing it's only Thursday. (Damn!)
Jim Horne's interview with Michael Sharp is up now.
Jack McInturff's LA Times crossword gets UP in your business, inserting UP into the middle of compound words or phrases to alter the meaning. In each case, the UP affixes itself to the first word:
McInturff fills the grid with a lot of 6- and 7-letter answers. A [Malicious rumor] is a CANARD; more specifically, a canard is an untrue rumor. To [Court] someone is to ROMANCE them. An [Extra number] performed at the end of a concert is the ENCORE. The [1998 All-Star Gam MVP] is ALOMAR. Sandy or Roberto? It's Roberto ALOMAR. In the category of shorter fill, ORONO's clue gets more geographic specificity than usual: [College town on Maine's Stillwater River]. [Whisperer's target] is someone's EAR. And [I follower?] clues HOP, as in IHOP pancake restaurants. Corn cake pancakes, R.I.P.
October 29, 2008
Thursday, 10/30
Sun 4:54
NYT 4:37
CS 3:53
LAT 3:41
Chuck Hamilton's New York Times crossword has a solid theme, nothing gimmicky or wild about it:
So, the theme doesn't shout "It's Thursday!" but the fill and clues let you know that the first half of the week is over. To wit:
Will Nediger's Sun "Themeless Thursday" was not too fearsome. My favorite answers and clues:
Oddball answers and clues:
Updated:
Dan Naddor drops nine (!) theme entries into his LA Times crossword. RR XINGS (railroad crossings) are exemplified in eight answers—two-word phrases (and one three-worder) in which adjacent R's end one word and begin the following one. The eight answers are placed in criss-crossing pairs that meet at the R's (I've added circles to highlight these)—so the RR entries are crossing, hence the RR XINGS in the middle of the puzzle. Two of the theme answers intersect with RR XINGS, so theme entries are traipsing all over this grid.
I'm not double-checking my arithmetic, but I think that makes for a total of 77 theme squares. That's quite a lot. The surrounding fill doesn't fill me with awe (very few puzzles do that), but it's all solid stuff with no woeful obscurities or clunky abbreviations. Perhaps the worst entry, for my taste, is HEC ["__ Ramsey": '70s TV Western], but plenty of other crosswords have used HEC before. So the high theme-square count didn't force uncomfortable compromises in quality. Yay!
Two favorite parts of the fill actually introduce a clue/fill duplication, which I didn't notice while solving: [Congressional leader?] is a HARD C sound, and colorful BOOZE is clued as [Hard stuff]. I also liked it that [Peter or Paul but not Mary] didn't clue POPE this time—now it's APOSTLE. Have we seen that clue/answer combo before?
Today's CrosSynergy puzzle is by Bob Klahn, so you know it'll have more challenging clues than most CrosSynergy offerings. In the "Getting Approval" theme, three phrases ingest an OK and take on new meaning:
The clues that stood out for me are these:
October 16, 2008
Friday, 10/17
NYT 11:05
Sun 6:14
CHE 4:54
LAT 3:53
CS 2:56
WSJ 9:18
(updated at 5 p.m. Friday)
Friday's two themeless puzzles offer about as much contrast as two very good themeless crosswords can. Patrick Berry's New York Times puzzle contains a super-low word count of 54; there has been just one 52-worder and three other 54-worders in the NYT. David Quarfoot's Sun crossword, a "Weekend Warrior," has the highest allowable word count for a themeless, 72. The Quarfoot puzzle has six 10-letter answers plus an assortment of 3- to 8-letter answers. The Berry has two 12's, one 11, mostly 6- to 8-letter answers, and just one 3 and a pair of 5's. Quarfoot's puzzle has colorful phrases and surprising letter sequences where Berry's has mostly single words containing lots of common letters (including plurals with S and -EST superlatives). Berry's 54-worder was undoubtedly much more challenging to make, and I found it much harder to solve—but that experience wasn't universal.
What gave me such difficulty in solving Berry's New York Times crossword? I got mired in a few spots in the northeast quadrant of the grid. I'd never encountered the term PAST MASTERS, clued straightforwardly as [People of much experience]. Having no organic chemistry knowledge, [Organic compounds used as solvents] stumped me too—the answer is ETHERS, which could have been clued in a way that made it easier for a non-scientist to tease out. I should've gotten TATTIEST for [Showing the most wear and tear]. [Sherlock Holmes story not by Conan Doyle, e.g.] clued PASTICHE, and that clue just wasn't pointing me there. Other trouble spots in this corner were GASPER, or [Coffin nail], meaning a cigarette in chiefly British slang; TESTATE, or having a will, clued as [Ready to go, you might say] (with a neighbor on his deathbed, I don't like this clue one bit). The friendlier parts of this corner were STARKERS, or [In the buff]; the Green Bay PACKERS; and GESTALT, or [Integration that exceeds the sum of its parts].
The northwest quadrant was far less vexing though it had a capital city I didn't know: MALABO is [Equatorial Guinea's capital]. (I just learned that an old friend is living in the capital of Turkmenistan, Ashgabat—another capital city that had eluded my notice.) MORALE is [What boosters boost]; I wanted that one to be a plural for a while, which impeded the discovery of EASELED, or [Like paintings in progress]. [Curacao flavoring] is ORANGE. (Holla!) [Delivery professionals?] are ORATORS. Joining the two upper corners is SPEEDOMETERS, clued with [They offer rates for automobiles]. The middle of the puzzle contains the one 3-letter answer, PAS, clued as [Things that talk in sch.?]—P.A.'s, or public address systems.
The southwest corner contains one of my favorite words, MORDANT, or [Bitingly sarcastic]. [Skin soother] tricked me into entering ALOEVERA, the crossword world's favorite skin soother, in lieu of the correct CALAMINE. RAIMENT is clued with the plural [Closet hangings]. A [Special announcer] announcing the day's specials can be a WAITRESS. MALAYA, the second MALA** geographic answer in this puzzle, is clued [Singapore lies just off its tip].
The southeast corner was also more pliant than the quadrant above it. This was the easiest corner for me, as the clues tended to be simpler. ELEANOR [of Aquitaine, Henry II's wife] was a big gimme. [Nickname for a cheater in the Oklahoma land rush of 1889] provides the background for the word SOONER. MALLOW is a [Plant family that includes the hibiscus], and ONSIDE, or [Not behind the defenders], is the opposite of offside in soccer and hockey. The long answer connecting the two lower quadrants is SPARES THE ROD ([Isn't strict enough, say])—I'll bet someone somewhere has put that in a cryptic crossword with the clue evoking sparest + Herod.
David Quarfoot's Sun crossword kicks off 1-Across with goofy pop culture: [Certain pet's refrain] is CH-CH-CH-CHIA, from the Chia Pet commercials. Those H's all needed vowels below them, but the C's could be followed by H's and L's (or R's), so 15-Across didn't need to begin with eight vowels in a row: "HI-LILI, HI-LO" is a [Song in a 1953 movie musical], Lili. I like the opposite corner even better, with YOU ARE HERE [Words by an arrow] stacked atop Gollum's classic line, "MY PRECIOUS," stacked atop SLEEP APNEA, or [Diagnosis from a polysomnogram].
Other clues and answers of note:
Updated:
I'm short on time today, having just gotten back from breakfast and awaiting the arrival of an out-of-town friend so I can go to second breakfast.
Jack McInturff's LA Times crossword lops off a W from the beginning of five phrases:
Patrick Blindauer's CrosSynergy puzzle was a breeze for me (for a Friday, anyway). All four theme entries in "Have You Herd?" are people's names that contain a hidden ELK. There were plenty of other names in the fill, so the puzzle had a contemporary pop culture feel to it. The themers:
What's this SO BAD that was a [1984 Paul McCartney hit]? Why don't I remember that song at all?
I didn't get a chance to do the Wall Street Journal and Chronicle of Higher Ed crosswords yet. Maybe later...
Updated again:
Will Nediger's Chronicle of Higher Education crossword, "Puzzle 4.0," has a perfect 4.0 GPA in that the letter string GPA appears in four rebus squares. For extra elegance points, the rebus squares are in exactly symmetrical locations. I'm guessing there weren't all that many theme-entry phrase candidates that contain an embedded GPA at a specific point—how many other phrases could replace MOVIN[G PA]RT as 10-letter phrases with GPA in spots 6, 7, and 8, for example?
Some of the GPA phrases are terrifically fresh—BEG PARDON crosses DOG-PADDLES, and [Formulator of the exclusion principle] WOLFGANG PAULI (who??) goes to a STAG PARTY. The SWING PATH, LONG PANTS, and DRAG PARACHUTE are a bit drier. Favorite clues and fill: [Climate gaugers, in a way] are POLLS. I went with the physical climate and the earth's POLES—so close, and yet so far! HORRID, or [Absolutely atrocious], is a woefully underused word (as is TREACLY). DELETE crosses STETS in a corner that's not sure what the proofreader should be doing. I appreciate goofball vocabulary like [What a peccatophobe is afraid to do] as the clue for SIN.
Mike Shenk's alias, Maryanne Lemot, dwells in the byline of this week's Wall Street Journal crossword, "Convenient Cash." Each theme entry has a convenient ATM inserted into its midst. My favorites among the theme entries are as follows: Flapdoodle + ATM is a FLAT MAP DOODLE, or [Cartographer's sketch, but not for a globe?]. A combover + ATM is a COMBAT MOVER, or [Tank?]; this one I like because of the combover action. Honeybee + ATM is "HONEY, BEAT ME," a [Masochist's request to his sweetheart?]—a tad outré for a business-oriented newspaper, not that I'm judging anyone. Most troublesome clue for me: QUIBBLE is [Small grouse]. If you think of grousing as complaining, it makes perfect sense, but if all you can think of is a bird, QUIBBLE makes no sense—and it wasn't until after I finished the puzzle and began blogging that I realized a QUIBBLE wasn't a little-known cousin of the quail.
