BEQ 4:04
LAT 3:08
NYT 2:37
CS 6:51 (J—paper)
Peter A. Collins' New York Times crossword
The recession has hit the crossword and we must now make do with 7% fewer squares, as we've lost one column and have a 14x15 grid to contend with. On the bright side, your solving time should be 7% faster. On the other hand, you're getting 7% less entertainment value out of the puzzle. Can we refinance and get a 16x15?
The theme is spelled out clearly in the clue for 64A: [Thing hidden in each of the movie names in this puzzle]. The three circled squares in each theme entry contain short TREE names split between words:
I slowed myself down a bit by not bothering to refer to the cross-referenced clue when I was in the lower left corner. 51D says [See 46-Across], but 46A's clue wasn't on my screen at the moment so I just worked the crossings. Seeing [With 51-Down, John Ashcroft's predecessor as attorney general] would've made it a gimme, so I should have taken the two seconds to click on that clue. Then I had the wrong bottom half for [Hip-hop wear], opting for BAGGY PANTS in lieu of the more specific BAGGY JEANS. Up top, I had no idea what the [Classic John Lee Hooker song of 1962 was] until I had enough crossings to see BOOM BOOM emerging. I also paused at [Shots taken by some athletes], pondering shot puts and free throws until the crossings pointed towards STEROIDS.
The rest of the clues put up less of a fight. Or no fight. A handful of clues:
Updated Monday morning:
Patrick Jordan's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Hopper Toppers"—Janie's review
This puzzle is built on an equation we know and love—especially when it's been executed thoughtfully, mirthfully; and this one has been. Today it reads: familiar phrase/name/title + ROO ["hopper"] at the front of it ["topper"]=new whimsical phrase. Or, as the clue at 63D says: [Aussie critter at the fronts of 20-, 28-, 47-, and 56-Across]. Let's take a look:
Now I realize I'm skewing the cluing with this cluster of fill, but MONSIGNOR triggered a bunch of clerical/religious connections. MACE for one, isn't only a [Thief-thwarting spray]; The New Testament has the book of ACTS and I PETER (okay—I know this is an inversion of PETER I...); there's also a HALO, perhaps belonging to St. PAUL?.......And I just noticed there's even, um, A MASS. MY HEAVENS, indeed!
A pair of playful grid-bits: the crossing of OVER and DRIVE; and the crossing of [Robert De ____] NIRO with DINERO.
Why do I cite these examples? Because truth be told, I'm not in love with the debut fill LOOKERSON or even the oft-seen MISDO. Amid the more sparkling fill, they kinda SPLAT. The connections, fanciful and/or tenuous and/or genuine as they are, help keep me focused on the puzzle's real strengths—its SINEW so to speak. Like the fact that in the theme fill, the two words ending in -ING, ROOSTING and ROOTING, are sandwiched between ROOMY and ROOTED. This is a fine way to keep tight the presentation of the theme. Finally, Patrick has given us one splendid bonus clued in connection to the ROO's home: [Australia's national gem]? OPAL. I always love picking up bits of information like that!
Los Angeles Times crossword by Gia Christian, a.k.a. Rich Norris
This is the second Monday LAT this month with a Rich Norris pen name byline, so he must not be getting enough great Monday submissions. They say good Mondays are harder to make than more difficult puzzles are—and Rich has the skills to craft Mondays that are as smooth as his themelesses are impressive. In this puzzle, the six theme entries begin with a baseball umpire's calls. As [Oedipus ___] REX points out at L.A. Crossword Confidential, the calls are paired as binary options. A baserunner can be OUT or SAFE, a pitcher can throw a STRIKE or a BALL, and the hit ball can be FAIR or FOUL. The calls are in these phrases:
I forgot my Melville when I read the clue [Moby Dick, notably]—I was tempted to fill in SEA CAPTAIN or WHALER-something, thinking of Captain Ahab. Moby Dick's the name of the WHITE WHALE. My English prof who taught Moby-Dick had a friend who'd paddle down the river and call out to others, "Hast seen the white whale?" Literary hilarity, I tell ya.
Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Boys Club"
This one's a rerun from Time Out New York, but as a non-New Yorker, I hadn't seen the puzzle before. The theme entries are made by inserting XY into a familiar phrase to give it male chromosomes:
Scrabbly fill overall, with the four X's of the theme joined by another X and a Z, Q, J, and K. It wouldn't be kosher to clue the base phrases with an XY slant when the answers have different connotations, but it could have been fun to have clues like [Big ball for men?], [Will Cather novel?], [Supporting reproductive rights for men?], and [Football and baseball star becomes all man?].
May 24, 2009
Monday, 5/25
May 23, 2009
Sunday, 5/24
NYT 6:22
PI about 8 minutes (paper)
LAT 8:04
BG about 9 minutes (paper)
CS about 4 minutes (paper)
Liz Gorski's New York Times crossword, "Perpetual Motion"
I don't know about you, but I'd never heard of the guy at 29D, who was clued only with [See note]. The notepad (which worked perfectly in the applet) says that he invented the figure you outline when you play connext-the-dots with the circled squares, and that the other five theme entries (all starred) give a hint:
Without end, forever, eternal, everlasting, and always suggest infinity, and the circled letters spell out SYMBOL OF INFINITY when you trace the shape of the infinity symbol—which was devised by JOHN WALLIS at 29D.
Good things about this puzzle: (1) The visual oomph. (2) The well-executed and elegantly thought-out theme concept. (3) The overall smoothness of the fill and clues—I didn't hit any icy patches. Bad things: Is zero the opposity of infinity?
Clue roundup:
Is it just me, or was this puzzle easier than you were expecting, too?
Updated Saturday night:
Merl Reagle's Philadelphia Inquirer crossword, "Celebrity Anagrams"
What a fun theme! I do like anagrams, especially when they're apt and entertaining. Here, Merl takes 11 (!) famous people's names and anagrams them into words that are part of the clue. ["A) I TEND TO SCOWL, and b) I do it less when I direct"] clues squinty auteur CLINT EASTWOOD. [His slogan could be "JEST, NOT WAR"] refers to JON STEWART (whose fondness for crosswords goes unremarked in this puzzle). KATIE HOLMES is an anagram of the beginning of [SHE LIKE-A TOM (and Tom like-a her)]. Ouch! The LIKE-A bit strains things a bit. Poor TONY BLAIR—["I used to be in charge, but now you could say I'm ONLY A BRIT"]. CHRISTINA APPLEGATE is the [Actress (and crossword fan) known for her APPEALING THEATRICS; she outed herself in a comment at Rex's blog when her too-long-for-crosswordese name was in an NYT puzzle, and has talked about crosswords in Entertainment Weekly and on Letterman. [He'll help you ENJOY L.A.] clues JAY LENO, though I don't know how he'd help me enjoy L.A.—maybe by leaving it? I hadn't seen this short theme entry when I was working through the theme clues without any crossings, but I like to think it would've been a gimme too. [AH, I SPEAK A SWELL RIME (and I write okay, too)] perfectly captures WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE's writing style, doesn't it? JOE NAMATH is clued, [OH MAN, A JET is what I used to be"]. I couldn't figure out [Acting may be the HAMMIEST GIG, but not when she does it]—the GIG part planted GIGI firmly in my head, so I needed some crossings for MAGGIE SMITH to emerge. Same with TIM RUSSERT, clued with [His interviewing motto could have been "TRUST ME, SIR"]. MARY MAGDALENE was easier to tease out of [LEGENDARY MAMA in "The Da Vinci Code" (an anagram not mentioned in the original book)].
If you have an aptitude for anagramming, I'll bet you savored this puzzle's theme. If you can't anagram your way out of A PEP GRAB, I hope you had fun pondering the clues and teasing the answers out of the crossings.
Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon's non-current Boston Globe crossword, "State Pairs"
The portmanteaued constructing duo Hex form portmanteau names of two states in the theme clues, and the answers are the nickname that would result from combining the two states. For example, Delaware is called the First State and Georgia's the Peach State, so "Delaworgia" is the FIRST PEACH state. The pairings don't always make much sense—Nevatah (Nevada + Utah) is the SILVER BEEHIVE state, and, well, beehives aren't made of metal, nor are they silver-hued. Call me crazy, but I would have adored this theme if the clues and answers hade been swapped. Having to figure out which states to blend and how to blend them would've been fun, even if the "correct" spelling might seem arbitrary. Imagine if NEW JERK (New Jersey + New York) and ARKACHUSETTS (Arkansas + Massachusetts) had been answers in the grid! And actually, these eight theme entries used up only 18 state nicknames, so there are 32 more that are ripe for the mashing—and the states in this puzzle could be recombined in novel ways. Oklafornia, for example. So, come on, someone make that puzzle!
Updated Sunday afternoon:
Kevin Donovan's syndicated Los Angeles Times Sunday crossword, "Keeping an Eye Out"
Hey, it's almost time for the Monday NYT puzzle to come out online, so in lieu of writing about this puzzle now, let me instead refer you to PuzzleGirl's L.A. Crossword Confidential post. I did this crossword this morning, but I barely remember it—the intervening hours of my kid's homework drama have purged my brain of sentient thought. The puzzle...no, no. That won't work. I'm empty.
Randolph Ross's themeless CrosSynergy "Sunday Challenge"
Fairly easy puzzle, as themelesses go. Liked SEE YA LATER, TCHOTCHKE, THE REDS ([Ohio players], not to be confused with the Ohio Players of '70s funk), and fancy HETERODOXY ([Non-traditional beliefs]). Less thrilled with roll-your-own REPACKED, LAI and FRISCH surnames, N.A.R. initials, and plural brand name ATRAS.
May 22, 2009
Saturday, 5/23
Newsday 6:29
NYT 6:11
LAT 3:56
CS 6:36 (J—paper)
Dave Tuller's New York Times crossword
Whoa. When I clicked "done" on the NYT applet, I had one typo and one non-typo wrong square, but managed to figure out what was needed in short order. And what was needed was the [Language spoken in Assam, India], KHASI (32A)—which I've never heard of. The K crossed [Game played with a sack called a goose], and when I had *HASO (GESTATOON: cartoon about pregnancy?), LHASO crossing LENO seemed workable. Yes, KENO is a game I know only from crosswords, and I sure don't recall seeing clues about sacks and geese before. It would have been kinder to have a stale and more gettable clue for KENO, no?
My favorite fill:
And the clues I liked best:
And the toughest stuff:
Overall impressions: KHASI is wildly unfamiliar and there's no shortage of tough clues. (It is indeed Saturday.) But so much of the longer fill sparkles—SPONGEBOB and ABE VIGODA meet BLACK BEAUTY, and the IGUANODON crosses both ANTIPASTO and AT AN IMPASSE. Dave Tuller, please get cracking on some more themelesses, will you?
Updated Saturday morning:
Raymond Hamel's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Cattle Crossings"—Janie's review
Here we have three grid-spanning phrases, the last word of which may be preceded by the the word "cattle." Two of the three yield familiar phrases; the third is an odd variation on the theme. As I read it anyway. You be the judge:
While I may have some doubts about the overall success of the theme, I sure don't for the overall success of the cluing and non-theme fill. Feeling INTL? For starters, there's a [Russian ruler...] TSAR and a [Turkish bigwig] PASHA. We also get ARAB, the Czech river ELBE, the ISLES of Skye and Man. More locally, there's the Bay AREA, and the crossing of those lovely 9s TEXARKANA and (CS debut) KALAMAZOO.
There are two kinds of containers here (which also cross): for your baseball cards, SHOEBOXES (making its first major-puzzle appearance) and for your grains (to feed those cattle—or possibly your BISON), BINS.
[King of the Empire State Building?] KONG, of course. [Thief who stole the Queen of Hearts' tarts]? KNAVE. And just look how the USPS has immortalized the good Queen. As the song says, "All ya need is love"! Enjoyed seeing TANG clued as, ahem, [Tart spiciness] and see a complement in [Add punch to, as punch] for LACE.
(More) random ramblings: It occurs to me that that MIDDLE-AGE SPREAD may be the result of too much TIVO. Let's hope it's not also due to viewing too much of the adjacent [Blue stuff] or SMUT. And we even get two (crossing) references to yesterday's puzzle: SMUSH (uh, once again clued as [Compress]) and [Tito Puente's genre] MAMBO.
Finally, one more example of the way familiar fill can be dressed up to delight. These sorta sound-alikes run next to each other in the grid: OATS and ODES—and their clues? [Feedbag fill] and [Keats feats] respectively. Nice!
Barry Silk's Los Angeles Times crossword
I did this puzzle early (full write-up at L.A. Crossword Confidential), so I had the surprising gimme in the NYT, not here. I had to work the crossings to see that [Sch. in Athens] was OHIO U., not a familiar bit of fill—and then the same answer showed up in the NYT! If only every unknown answer would be repeated in another puzzle soon after—the repetition would be an excellent learning tool.
What I liked in this puzzle were the RATSO RIZZO/NOZZLE crossing double-Z's, the mostly-'70s pop culture names that I knew, and the colloquial language—"What is this, a MASH NOTE?" "HUMOR ME, DARLIN'?" "I DOUBT IT." I'd have loved to have harder clues, sure—my ideal Saturday LAT solving time is 6:00 to 6:30, and they haven't been that hard since the Tribune dropped its own puzzle and promoted the LAT crossword in its place.
Merle Baker's Newsday "Saturday Stumper"
(Solution here.)
Unusual grid, with four 15-letter answers forming a frame of sorts—and some of those entries have the feel of a rough mini-theme. If you PUT THE SQUEEZE ON ([Press]) someone, they might GET INTO HOT WATER ([Need an out]), and what's a better out than an EJECTION CAPSULE ([Emergency device])? But really, I think a mini-theme is NOT IN THE PICTURE here ([Excluded]).
The difficulty level is commensurate with the Stumpers of 2008, not the Stumpers of early 2009, but it's still a good bit tougher than the L.A. Times puzzles have been lately. Among the more elusive clues:
May 21, 2009
Friday, 5/22
NYT 6:00
BEQ 5:31
CHE 3:58
LAT 3:06
CS 6:29 (J/paper)
WSJ 6:41
Who knew a kid could have strep in the absence of a sore throat? Yep. Fever, cough, and headache are the manifestations of the strep that's making the rounds in Chicago. I wrote up the CHE puzzle earlier this evening, but I promised to check on my son, who's having trouble getting to sleep, so I'll have only an abbreviated write-up of the New York Times puzzle.
Manny Nosowsky's New York Times crossword
Yay! A Manny Friday! Such a puzzle always promises to be deftly constructed and enjoyable, but not disappointingly easy. Without further ado, clues and answers of particular note:
Cathy Allis's Chronicle of Higher Education crossword, "Mystery Guest"
I've never read any Sherlock Holmes stories, nor seen any film adaptations. But I can still appreciate the Mystery Guest theme that Cathy Allis (the artist formerly known as Cathy Millhauser) has wrought in this 15x16 tribute puzzle. There are four theme entries and a smattering of circled squares. The theme entries are:
The circled squares, read in a zigzag from top to bottom, spell out ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE. And I certainly had no idea that was the hidden name, not based on the theme answers. Is the capitalized "Mystery Guest" another clue that it's Doyle?
Look how loose the grid is—there are two diagonal swaths of fill that traverse three quarters of the grid, easing your path through the grid. There are plenty of routes in and out of each section of the puzzle. And the fill doesn't feel constrained by the requirement that a specific letter must appear somewhere within each row (though there's some flexibility as to where the letter goes).
Hey, Cathy, let's see some more of your puzzles soon!
Updated Friday Morning:
Patrick Blindauer's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Double Time"—Janie's review
In other words, it's time to double something—and today that would be the central consonant of a five-letter noun or adjective, and then pair it with the resulting six-letter noun to create a two-word (kinda whimsical, alliterative) adjectival phrase. Get it? If that doesn't make sense, perhaps this will:
This was a fairly easy puzzle for me, probably because there was a lot of "sweet spot" fill. Fill-um stars NEESON and MR. T (who has a real name—Laurence Tureaud!); and the JOADS of Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.
But let's not forget that "Double time" is also a musical term—and there was lots of musical fill here: DO-RE-MI, ["I] AM THE [Walrus"], ["I] HEAR A [Symphony"], ARLO Guthrie, Paul ANKA, AIMEE Grant, TITOS Puente and Jackson, ERNO Dohnányi, not to mention the well-clued [A flat's equivalent] G SHARP. (I also had to smile when sound-alike SHARPEI ["sharp A?"] showed up in the same NW territory.)
The longest of the non-theme fill is also rich: PASTE IN, MOUSETRAP (smartly clued as [Danger for Stuart Little]), FLAPJACKS (making its CS debut) and BEERCAN. This last one, clued as [Coors container], is well-paired with [Keep in a barrel, perhaps] for AGE. Wine and hard-liquor, I learned, are not the only alcoholic beverages to be barrel-aged. Yep, it's also a process for some mighty pricey beer these days. Yikes.
There's a fine pairing, too, of POGO [stick] and then [Stick with a blade, a loom, and a handle]. That latter one is a fancy way of getting to OAR. Here's a diagram that'll show ya what's what. (Full disclosure: this one uses the word "grip" instead of "handle"... The diagram that pointed out the "blade" and the "handle" made no mention of the "loom," which was a new term to me.)
And there's another lively pair of related clues/fill: SMUSH for [Compress] and RAZE for [Flatten]. Love SMUSH especially—though I did start out with SMASH...
BEEPER for [Cell phone predecessor] conjured up the first season of The Wire, and TRIO for [The Fates] sent me looking for more details. I was reminded that these dames are not unique to Greek mythology, but have their counterparts in Roman and Norse/Germanic mythology as well—possibly including even Macbeth's witches.
To re-address the theme before closing—you know what? There are a lot of six-letter words with a repeated consonant in the middle. But there really aren't lots and lots to choose from when you're trying to come up with phrases that sound like they could be "in the language." Bravo, Patrick. You came up with four good ones, giving us two with a repeated "T" and two with a repeated "P." That, too, keeps the theme-fill tight and consistent within itself. No mean FEAT, that!
Mike Peluso's Los Angeles Times crossword
The theme here is familiar phrases in which the first word adopts a -LER'S ending. The new words are completely unrelated etymologically in three of the four cases:
New clues (which may not actually be new, but they felt fresh to me):
More on the puzzle from Rex at L.A. Crossword Confidential.
Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Themeless Friday"
Those of you who've been perplexed by intriguing titles for Brendan's themelesses can rest easy today—"Themeless Friday" is indeed themeless. I'm glad Brendan sometimes writes about the genesis and crafting of his puzzles, because I always find that interesting. (Open invitation to constructors: If you're particularly pleased with how your puzzle came out and want somewhere to talk about the process of creating it, you're welcome to do that here. Either in the comments or via an e-mail from which I can copy and paste your story.) Among the freshest fill and clues in today's puzzle is this stuff:
Cathy Allis's Wall Street Journal crossword, "It's Not the Economy"
Yay! Another puzzle from Cathy! I really thought I'd have to wait more than a day before I saw another of her creations. The theme entries are familiar phrases with financial implications, but Cathy reimagines them and the clues suggest that "It's Not the Economy" that these phrases are about at all:
Fun theme! I like the Reaglesque partial stacking of the top and bottom pairs of theme entries, too. Highlights in the fill: DOO DAH is a ["Camptown Races" bit]. POST-IT is a [Brand of note]. EGOISTE is that [Chanel fragrance for men] that had those ludicrous TV commercials about a decade ago. Remember that one? All the windows being thrown open and various European women shouting "Egoiste!" into the rue before closing the windows again?
May 20, 2009
Thursday, 5/21
NYT 3:55
LAT 3:20
Tausig untimed
CS 7:12 (J—paper)
Newsflash! Did you know that this weekend is Memorial Day weekend? This came as no small surprise to me last night.
Patrick Blindauer's New York Times crossword
Yesterday's puzzle seemed a little harder than the usual Wednesday, and this one's easier than the usual Thursday. Perhaps there's a new two-day period called Thednesday or Wursday with this intermediate difficulty level?
This theme doesn't lend itself to a concise description. The theme entries are phrases that end with assorted 4-letter words, and the last 2 letters are transposed to alter the meaning, but there doesn't seem to be anything else that unifies them. The transpositions are FE to EF (changed pronunciation), NE to EN (changed pronunciation), EK to KE (same sound), ET to TE (changed pronunciation), another NE to EN (slight or no change in pronunciation, I dunno), and another NE to EN (changed pronunciation). The original and changed phrases don't appear to share any other commonality. Am I missing something (which may be the case, given Patrick B2's propensity for elaborately wrought themes), or is this simply a transposition theme with a moving E?
Here are the theme entries:
Assorted clues: [What a loose thread might be is] is a CLUE. [Rio crosser] is PUENTE, Spanish for "bridge" as well as Tito's last name (but not the Tito from the Jackson 5, whose 1970 hit was "ABC"). [Nest egg protectors] are HENS, silly, and not IRAS. [Slurs, in music] are ARCS; man, musical notation is not my forte. [Like words?] are SIMILES, which liken one thing to another. [Alchemic knowledge] clues ARCANA. I was torn with ["Money, Money, Money" band]—4 letters starting with A, is it ACDC or ABBA? (It's the latter.) I wouldn't call the [Hot dog coating at a county fair] CORNBREAD, but then, I have no idea what difference there may be between corndog batter and cornbread batter. LE ROI means "the king" in French, and [Choisy-___ (Paris suburb)] is Choisy-LE-ROI—are we supposed to know this? Weird cluing direction. [Pawnbroker, in slang] is apparently called UNCLE, and I daresay this is new information for me. [Meadow voles] clues FIELD MICE. A [White-cap wearer] is a NURSE in some countries but not this one. I think this clue is a refugee from the Margaret Farrar era.
Updated Thursday morning:
Lynn Lempel's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Don't Get Me Started"—Janie's review
Okay, I'll say it and say it with conviction: I love a good quip or quote puzzle. I also love a good step-quote. The former, when witty, gives me something pithy to mull over; the latter, delivers that and a feat of construction as well. I know these puzzles have their detractors, but you won't find me in their number! Especially not when Ms. Lempel's name is attached.
Our four-part "tip" is doled out in two 14s and two 15s, and the word to the wise for "speechifiers" is:
This puzzle is teeming with clever cluing and fill:
I'm rather pleased, too, that we're reminded that NIKE is the [Shoe brand named for a goddess]. And while SNAP is a common enough fastener, did you know "Onesie"?
This puzzle has a lot of 3-letter fill (about a third), so it stands to reason we're gonna see a lot of familiar friends—and we do: AYN, ALI, SAL; MAE; TET; ITT; OSS; STE; NEO, etc. But we also get the very fresh ROSEBUD and BABUSHKA, both of which are making their CS debuts. A quibble about the cluing for the latter, however [Scarf for a Moscow matron], which seems to come from the "Department of Redundancy" Department. BABUSHKA is the Russian word for "grandmother" or "old lady." It's only in English that it's come to mean "head scarf."
[Depilatory maker] starting with N? Gotta be NAIR or NEET. Today it's NAIR. 4-letter [Bean variety]? If it isn't LIMA, it's probably MUNG. And it is. [Leaves out]? Not OMITS, but SKIPS. [Move to a new country]? Not the generic RELOCATE but the specific EMIGRATE. [Aware of]? Not ON TO, but IN ON. Oh, the multiple choices we have to run through to make everything mesh. But that's the fun of it.
The poetic TWILIGHT in the SE and its opposite in the NW, the fully-named CISCO KID, make for a lively grid-pairing, with the latter in its second major-puzzle appearance (more often than not we get only CISCO) and its CS first. In the NE, there's the colorful KITSCHY. (Sometimes it's just so hard not to be judgmental where kitsch is concerned...)
I couldn't find a source for the quip, so I'm gonna guess "Anon." has struck again—or perhaps this is an aphorism of Lynn's own making. Regardless, it sure works fer me. Though, as the song says, "knowing when to leave" is part of the art as well. Or as a mentor of mine was famous for saying, "Quit while you're behind." And so—ciao, ciao!
Sefton Boyars' L.A. Times crossword
This puzzle's theme is sheep-related puns, with the wordplay progressing from the beginning of a phrase to the middle and then the end:
There's more on this puzzle at L.A. Crossword Confidential (post by PuzzleGirl today). I'm distracted by my son's fever and cough and haven't got anything scintillating to say.
Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword, "First Graders"
The theme isn't six-year-olds, it's letter grades appearing first in the theme entries to change their meaning:
Answers I needed plenty of crossings to figure out included the names of people and bands. [Musician Meg on Drag City records] is BAIRD. [Thomas who invented the modern notion of paradigms] is KUHN. [Les Savy ___] is completed by FAV. SWV is a [New Jack Swing trio]. In the non-name category, there were other slow spots for me. [Good bud] clues KINE; both are marijuana slang. [Breaking a tie, for short] is IN OT, or in overtime. [Fancy occupational suffix] is ISTE, as in artiste or cruciverbiste.
Favorite clues and answers: [Shamed, with a dental click] clues TSKED. OSCAR NIGHT is a [Big annual moment for E!]. There's ALTA [___ Vista (search engine that still exists, for whatever reason)]—the smart folks insisted on using Alta Vista back in around 1995. [McCarthy bogeymen] are the REDS from the Red Scare. I thought ["Drag Race" host] was going to be some guy I never heard of from the Speed channel, but the show's more drag than race—the host is RUPAUL.
May 19, 2009
Wednesday, 5/20
Onion 4:16
BEQ 3:56
NYT 3:45
LAT 3:02
CS 10:41 (J—paper)
I'll be later than usual with the morning updates for the other crosswords. The director of the indie kids' movie Labou will be making puppets with my son's class, and I have been conscripted to help out. I shall return after my Hollywood adventure.
Ashish Vengsarkar's New York Times crossword
Ashish's theme entries and fill sprawl all over the place—it takes a 16x15 grid to accommodate a 15/13/14/13/15 theme (that's a whopping 70 squares there), and while you're at it, why not let fly with a couple 12's in the fill? The theme entries are phrases that begin with academic years, joined together by COLLEGE STATION, a [Texas city...and a hint to the starts of] the other four theme answers:
Favorite clues and fill:
It's only Wednesday, but there's some tough stuff:
Updated Wednesday morning:
Rich Norris's CrosSynergy puzzle, "P & L Statement"—Janie's review
You may have known right off the bat that the statement in the title is a document of "Profit & Loss," but that was one of the first things I had to look up after I'd solved this one. It should come as no surprise that Rich does not mean to be literal in his title, merely to hint at today's gimmick. And it's another good one. Four familiar phrases whose second word begins with "L" are amusingly adjusted, as those "L" words profit from the up-front addition of the letter "P." In the process, we get a healthy 56 blocks of theme-fill, in two 15s and two 13s:
- 17A: Instead of "seasoned lumber," we get SEASONED PLUMBER [Pipe fixer who's seen it all]. Cute. Especially nice that the pronunciation of the new word doesn't rhyme with the base word. This puts a whole new spin on the phrase.
- 25A: Not "runnng late," but RUNNING PLATE [Spoon's nursery rhyme cohort, essentially?]. Why "essentially"? Because as we all know, "the dish ran away with the spoon." But any way ya look at it, "plate" is another word for "dish," so even if it's a stretch, it does work.
- 48A: Here we eschew "passing lane" for PASSING PLANE [Jet that's gone out of style?] Not the strongest entry, but it'll fly...
- 64A: This is where "down on one's luck" cedes to DOWN ON ONE'S PLUCK [Feeling less resolute lately?] A fine way to tie things up—and ties into [Moxie] (for GUTS), too.
There are two excellent 10-letter words in the grid: EGOCENTRIC and (making its CS debut) the piquant ORANGE ZEST. BLUE LAW adds to the puzzle's overall vividness as well.
Elsewhere in the fill, we get a trio of actors: TAYE Diggs (who not only appeared in both the stage and screen versions of Rent and helped Stella "get her groove back," but has also appeared in three episodes of GREY'S); UMA Thurman; and JOANN Pflug, who played Lt. Maria "Dish" Schneider in MASH (1970). Oh—there's the "dish"!
Fill that takes us globe-trotting: RIGA, LIDO; IRANI; RIEL [Cambodian cash]; ÉTAT, MERCI. A word about the indirect way RIGA was clued, [Capital where Lettish is spoken]. I had to break this one down in order to solve it: Who speaks Lettish? Latvians. What's the capital of Latvia? RIGA. And I also had to think about [South Dakota, to Pierre]. Pierre's the capital of South Dakota, right? But Pierre is also a man's name in French, and in French, South Dakota (a state) is an ÉTAT. Oh, he's tricky, that Rich!
We also get an automotive trio in the fill: the NISSAN Z, a [Japanese sports car], which cleverly crosses [Rodeo producer] ISUZU (Japanese as well, but a mid-size SUV); and ENZO [Automaker Ferrari]. Italian! I think I'm more automotively challenged than any other area of everyday knowledge. Thank goodness for the crosses!
Some clues that caught my attention:
- [Tears for fears, maybe?] Not these guys, but a dandy clue for TYPO. We've seen this before and we'll see it again. Trust me on this.
- [League or degree] for UNIT. Yet again I was grateful for the crosses. I think this is a tough clue.
- [Big brass] for TUBA, the misdirection of which just makes me smile. No GENERAL or ADMIRAL (too long by three letters anyway...), but the orchestra's oft-neglected TUBA, most certainly a big brass instrument.
Though every part of this puzzle is a GEM, my favorite area of the grid is at south-center, where ENZO, ZOOM, ENNE and SEEN (going down) are crossed by ...NONE..., ZONE and OMEN.
Rumor has it that Mr. Norris may be curtailing his CS activities. If that's so, it looks like the L.A Times will profit even more by CS's loss... Still better a curtailed Norris than no Norris at all!
Bonnie Gentry's L.A. Times crossword
I liked this puzzle a lot. The theme consists of three phrases that contain the hidden word UP, broken in half across words, unified by a fourth BREAKING UP theme entry. As I said over at L.A. Crossword Confidential—and it's not plagiarism if you wrote the words you copied and identified their source—There've been plenty of crossword themes involving hidden words split among the words in a phrase, but how many of them mandate phrases that include words ending in U? Not so many. And how often is the first square in the puzzle filled with a V? Not much of the time, so crossing VALID (1A: Still in force) with VAMP (1D: Seductress) felt fresh. The theme contains just two 10's and two 13's, leaving wiggle room for Bonnie to include a cool dozen 7- and 8-letter answers in the fill.Updated Wednesday afternoon:
Brendan Quigley's blog puzzle, "Eff This"
You know that TV commercial where the guy says "Dude" to his roommate with many different intonations, thereby communicating awe, disappointment, anger, etc.? (Is it a successful advertisement if I love it but don't know what product is being marketed? I suspect it's one of the mass-produced domestic beers I tend not to drink.) The clues for all five of Brendan's theme entries include the F-bomb, and the exact wording and punctuation suggest the meaning. For instance, ["The fuck?"] can convey ARE YOU KIDDING ME, and ["Fuuuuuuck"] is the hopeless WE'RE ALL SCREWED. There are those who think use of the F-word reflects laziness and inelegance in communication but really, it can be an eloquent word.Crikey, 30 3-letter words in this grid? They're not terrible as 3's go, but there sure are a lot of 'em. The three X's and a Q offset that a bit. Also in the fill: The PINE TAR GAME is the [Infamous 1983 Royals/Yankees contest where a George Brett home run was nullified]. Never heard of it. Sam RAIMI apparently was also ["Drag Me to Hell" director]—never heard of the movie.
Francis Heaney's Onion A.V. Club Crossword
Each theme entry's got an added SCH at the start, radically changing the meaning of the phrase. My favorites were the ones that you'd never see in the NYT crossword. Long Beach is a place in California, but SCHLONG BEACH is an [All-male nude seaside resort?]. Muckraking is one thing, but SCHMUCK RAKING is an [Asshat doing an autumn chore?]. The theme's rounded out with two other answers, including a SCHLOCK OF HAIR, or [Cheesiness experienced at a revived James Rado musical?]—boy, it would have been helpful if I recognized that name. Is this the "Age of Aquarius" musical? That would have pointed me towards Hair. The fourth theme entry is SCHTICK BITES, or [Headline about a comedian's awful routine?]. Very few newspapers are likely to use that form of "bites" in a headline.Never heard of KLF, or ["What Time Is Love?" band, with "the"], or the FIERY [___ Furnaces, "I'm Going Away" band]. Alas, DON HO was a gimme.
MGWCC #50
crossword 5:18
meta 0:20
hey, we've been doing this for 50 weeks? i guess so. oh, we're on? we're on. hello, friends, and welcome to the 50th episode spectacular of matt gaffney's weekly crossword contest, "One Down." i found this week's puzzle slightly easier than last, both in terms of the crossword and the meta. but before we get into all that, what was the puzzle about? let's have a look at the theme answers:
those theme answers, and the contest title, suggest that there is some letter substitution going on. and indeed, it looks like the first letters have been shifted "one down" from existing in-the-language phrases: BRASS BALLS, RALLY ROUND, FINGER FOOD, and LOVER'S LANE. so what's the contest answer? well, let's take a look at the instructions: This week's contest answer phrase is a famous person from American history whose first and last names total seven letters. To figure this person's name out, take two grid entries and reverse the gimmick used in the puzzle's theme. okay then. seven letters, so it's a 3 plus a 4. reversing the gimmick in the theme means shifting the first letters "up" towards the beginning of the alphabet. was there anything in there that looked like it was one letter from being a common name? why yes: here's COB at 18d, which is one letter down from BOB. but there's no CARR in the grid, and anyway, BOB BARR isn't really from american "history." so that's a dead end.
oh, but lookie here at 22d: [1998 Chemistry Nobelist Walter] KOHN? really? yes, really. that's gotta be JOHN. looking around for a 3-letter K entry, we have 53d: [Mary] KAY. there we go: JOHN JAY was a co-author of the federalist paper and the first united states chief justice, and he's the answer to the puzzle. it's a good thing i correctly guessed the K at the intersection of KOHN and [Rumored Obama Supreme Court nominee Elena] KAGAN, because otherwise i would have had to solve the meta first in order to complete the grid.
so, other than this guy KOHN whom i've never heard of, what else was in this grid that gave me trouble?
despite all that, this was a relatively easy solve. lots of things i liked: PEACE OUT, DEJA VU, HERSTORY, yummy SKOR, and GO ON TOUR, which looks a lot like GOON TOUR in the grid. a couple of chess clues: [Chess grandmaster Bondarevsky or Novikov] is IGOR, and [Rook's inferior, usually] is a KNIGHT. (that's a clever turnaround of a clue from last week, but really, how often do you see KNIGHT in a crossword, with its five consonants including a K?)
there was other good stuff, but there isn't enough room in this margin for me to transcribe my wonderful proof of it, so you'll have to remind me about it in the comment box. see you next week!
May 18, 2009
Tuesday, 5/19
Jonesin' 5:02
NYT 3:06
LAT 2:32
CS 6:29 (J—paper)
Attention, Peter Gordon fans! There's a long interview with him at the Wordplay blog today.
Damon Gulczynski's New York Times crossword
If I'd noticed the word duplication sooner, I think this puzzle would've gone faster for me than it did. I clocked in a little slow for a Tuesday. But when I filled in 9D FOOTPRINT ([Evidence washed away by the tide]), I juggled TAIL and FOOT in my head as parts of a body-part theme. Whoops, the theme's all Acrosses, with each theme entry's second component becoming the first component in the next theme answer. And for added fun, it comes full circle with the word COCK, so one might consider this puzzle to have a "COCK ring" theme. Gray Lady! You're branching out these days. /juvenileidiocy
The theme:
Assorted clues:
Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword, "Movin' On Up"
It took me even longer to peg the theme in this week's Jonesin' puzzle. In each of five vertical theme answers, Matt has moved ON up to a deluxe apartment at the top of the grid:
Tough stuff:
That [1980s home computer] called the AMIGA is everywhere today!
Updated Tuesday morning:
Gail Grabowski's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Separated Couples"—Janie's review
Okay, I'll admit it. I'm an idiot. I wrote this post almost in its entirety not understanding how the puzzle worked. And then...the lightbulb finally went off. Which pleases me to no end since this appears to be Gail's CrosSynergy debut puzzle and I'd been writing from a kind of cranky place... A most talented "early-week" constructor, Gail has been published extensively in the L.A. Times and is building up a nice publication record in the NYT as well. So it's great to see her on the CS roster of regulars. Welcome!!
The title "Separated Couples" is echoed in the clue/fill at 60D: [Word separated in this puzzle's six longest answers] TWO—or T WO... And the six longest answers are:
Until I actually put the space between the words in the phrases, I saw only the word TWO embedded in six separate phrases, which of necessity, were in separate places in the grid. But I didn't see what I'd been expecting—the letters T, W and O doled out separately, as in THE WALTONS. (Okay, that's not the best example, because of the repeated T—but I'm gonna guess you know what I'm getting at.) Imagine me banging my head on the desk, because that's what I was doing a lot of once I figgered this out!! ;-)
I really enjoyed the almost name-free fill and took particular pleasure in the trio of "canine" entries: SIC 'EM for [Command to a guard dog], BOW-WOW for [Barked remark], and AWAG for [Like a happy dog's tail]. We also get two technology-related combos: PDAS for [Palms and BlackBerries (abbr.)] (or Personal Digital AssistantS), and EDU, the [College website letters]. [Works on icy streets] aren't SNOWMEN or SCULPTURES, but SALTS, since "works" is a verb here. If it's "colorful fill" you want, you've got RED ROSES and, ahem, ORANGE.
And speaking of ORANGE, her "discussion point" yesterday had to do with recurring clues, and I'm in the camp that likes to see a tricky clue repeated—in different publications. So I was a bit let down to see that the last time RED ROSES appeared in a major puzzle, not only was it a CS puzzle but it was clued exactly as we saw it today, [Valentine's Day dozen]. I wish there'd been a different take on this one—it could only improve the freshness of the piece as a whole.
I know this will sound contradictory, coming from Ms. Thank-you-for-the-minimal-name-count, but once again, in the name of freshness... ABETS has appeared in 19 other CS puzzles, ALOE in 145. Why not use ABUTS (4) and ALOU (62)? This is a rhetorical question really, as I'm well-aware of the complexity of making decisions about fill.
And one final grid-bit—the happy crossing of INGOT and IGOR. Where's INGA when ya need 'er?
Again—welcome, Gail, and brava. We'll all look forward to seeing your name more often!
David Cromer's L.A. Times crossword
In this SHOW ME THE MONEY theme, the other three theme answers end with words that can also mean "money." At 20A, the MILWAUKEE BUCKS are the [NBA team that drafted Lew Alcindor (Kareem) in 1969]. My husband grew up in Milwaukee, so I knew that. But somehow I drew a blank on the team's name, getting the town's baseball team (now the Brewers but once the Braves) mired in my head and thinking the Bucks were called something else in '69. Plus I sat there as 5 seconds ticked away before I started the puzzle. So this wasn't my fastest solve ever, but others are exulting that they flew through this one in record time. And really, who's expecting that on a Tuesday? On the down side, when you set a personal best on a Tuesday puzzle, you may think your brain jumped a level, quantumly, but then you learn that other people had the same experience so it was simply an easier-than-usual puzzle. It's not that every single clue was a gimme, but the crosssings cleared up any questions.
JOHNNY CASH and BREAK BREAD are the other theme answers. Hey, do you look at partially filled answers and try to guess what answer will fit there before you read the clue? I do. So I saw *LEE*** at 44-Down and thought it might be SLEEVES. Then I read the clue, [Sniffler's need], and I'll be damned if SLEEVES wouldn't work there, grossly. But this puzzle is not for grade-schoolers, so the answer is KLEENEX.
