NYT 5:37
CS 5:24
NYS 4:43
LAT 4:16
Two top-notch puzzles for Thursday: Todd McClary's NYT and Jeffrey Harris's Sun Themeless Thursday. In the Sun crossword, which I did first, Jeffrey (a.k.a. Jangler) interlocked a slew of great entries in his puzzle, and the clues (presumably a mix of Jeffrey's work and Peter Gordon's, because we know Peter is hands-on) are mighty fresh. Well done, Jeffrey. (I'd give it high scores if I were rating it.) Looking to the specifics, I didn't care for the word forms of SERENER and SNARING (though they're certainly valid crossword fill), but liked pretty much everything else. WIKIPEDIA plus BRAZIL NUT, KLUGMAN and SINE WAVES, clues like "Prior work" for POEM (ah, the obscured uppercase trick), "Shady fellow?" for ROY G BIV, "Continental conjecture" for ETA (obscured uppercase again), and "Newspaper piece" for PAGE.
Todd (a.k.a. Tmcay) threw a bunch of shoes in the bottom of the closet and out came a Times crossword—each theme entry pairs two kinds of shoes with a made-to-fit clue. The fill around the theme has a themeless vibe to it, with HO SCALE, LEARJET, M AND M'S (though technically the candy uses an ampersand, and I wish they'd bring back the tan ones), SEASICK, FESS UP, and MADE SURE. I also liked the retro shout-out to Marilyn MCCOO. Trickier clues (for me, anyway) included "Pop star?" for NOVA (not DIVA!), "Two-player activity" for DUET, and "Where lines may cross" for DEPOT. So that's two good showings by two NPLers in one day.
Updated:
Bob Klahn's CrosSynergy puzzle has the sort of poker theme that doesn't grab me because your solving is enhanced if you know that there's a poker variety called LIARS. There was some good stuff in this puzzle, but the highlight for me was the inclusion of ARIKARAS (clued as "Dakota Indians"). A couple months ago in Dean Olsher's blog, a commenter told the story of an endless mystery clue/answer circle made up of Ree and Arikara. Who knew the Arikaras (and hence Rees) were Dakota Indians? See, we learned something today.
Vic Fleming's LA Times puzzle is FEVERed. I got the theme after seeing the defining clue (word that can follow the ends of the theme entries) and HIT THE HAY—HAY/FEVER season, I just heard, is about to pounce on those of you with ragweed allergies. I wasn't quite sure about GOLD/FEVER; Wikipedia sends you directly to the Gold rush page, so that explains that.
August 09, 2006
Thursday
August 08, 2006
Wednesday
NYS 4:25
LAT 4:25
CS 4:09
Tausig 4:06
NYT 3:37
All right, I'll be giving short shrift to Wednesday's puzzles because I'm short on time. Anyone ever have the NYT applet go partway crazy on them and hide the numbers in the grid within whatever entry's space you click on? The numbers do come back, but it's a pesky little bug, that.
Maxwell H.D. Johnson Jr.'s NYT puzzle is solid with its five theme entries. But I couldn't help trying to find noted cinematic BATON WIELDER Ellen Ripstein in the grid. (She's not there, alas.)
Patrick Blindauer's Sun puzzle, "Aw, Shucks," converts the "ah" sound to "aw" in the themers. It took plenty of talking in my head to sound them out. (Patrick, was the inspiration just random sound change, or do you know someone who talks like this?) My progress was impeded by deciding that ED**** had to be ED AMES rather than ED WYNN—d'oh...
Both of these puzzles had a dental twist—Patrick included DENTIST ("One who might get to the root of the problem?") and the NYT puzzle had ENAMEL ("Plaque collector?"). Given how common dental anxiety is, perhaps it's wise for the clues to be playful?
Updated:
Lynn Lempel pops up again with today's LA Times puzzle. The theme is fairly straightforward—five phrases/words that end with different spellings of the "urd" sound. The fill's good and the theme works, but it's Lynn's clue-writing that makes me a regular customer.
In Ben Tausig's Chicago Reader puzzle, "All That and a Bag of Chips," he contrives punny definitions for sandwich names, such as "Backup point guard?" for SIX FOOT SUB. Good fill and clues, including ZEITGEIST, "One who stops at first base" for PRUDE, MUBARAK (rather than the more common entry HOSNI), and "Can't touch this" for THIRD RAIL.
Mel Rosen's CrosSynergy puzzle has a quip and, sandwiched between two rows of theme entries, the name Robert COOTE. "Who?" I asked myself. "Is this someone I should know?" Turns out he was in a lot of old movies I never saw and appears in crosswords about once every five years. He thus rates a half-assed inclusion in my memory banks.
August 07, 2006
Tuesday
NYS 3:28
NYT 3:27
LAT 3:18
CS 3:04
Ed Early's contribution this week is another NYT puzzle with left-right symmetry rather than 180° rotational symmetry. The theme in Van Vandiver's Sun puzzle promised to alienate me, but it turned out to be right up my alley. The NYT puzzle features a dreaded quip. Not that the quip itself is bad—I just generally feel cheated out of a theme by any quote puzzle. One vague clue for about 45 squares, with an answer you can't divine using your standard crossword-solving skills. Constructors keep making quip puzzles and editors keep publishing them, so presumably somebody likes the format—but it's not me.
The Sun puzzle, "Hold'em Holdings," has a poker theme—nicknames of starting hands in hold'em. I enjoy poker themes about as much as quote puzzles, but this particular iteration is wonderful. The poker hands have names cleverly derived from the two cards they include. The queen and jack are tagged OEDIPUS REX; 9-5, DOLLY PARTON; 7-7, SUNSET STRIP; and 5-5 is SPEED LIMIT. I never even knew that poker hands bore names like these, but the names connect to the cards so perfectly that it makes a helluva crossword theme. Then Van Vandiver wraps the theme with fill like LUCA BRASI, XANAX, and NONUNION, and I'm a happy camper.
August 06, 2006
Monday's puzzles are fair of face
NYS 3:28
NYT 3:12 (plus another 1:41 finding that typo)
CS 3:00
LAT 2:49
My favorite Monday constructor, Lynn Lempel, did a nice job with her NYT puzzle theme, and I liked Kelsey Blakley's Sun puzzle, too. In Lynn's puzzle, she tracks the development of a plant from SEED to SHOOT to STEM to LEAF to BUD to FLOWER, and fills the the grid with fragrant blossoms like PLAY MONEY and PUNCH IN. Hmm, I haven't got much more to say about the puzzle—hey, it's a Monday. My typo was PTT for OTT, and the typo eluded me for far too long since TAP's as plausible as TAO (though it absolutely doesn't fit the clue).
The Sun's title is "The French Connection," and the theme entries were all phrases derived from French. Surely I'm not the only one who slows down while remembering the order of the vowels in words like HORS DOEUVRE and COEUR D'ALENE?
August 05, 2006
Sunday
WaPo 8:54
NYT 8:49
LAT 8:40
BG 7:14
CS 5:02
Great theme in Mark Feldman's NYT, "Switching Sides"—the PROs go CON and the CONs turn PRO so that you end up with things like ABSENT-MINDED CONFESSOR and CONTESTANT WORK ETHIC. Sure, a 3-Down (NITPICKER) could carp that the PROs and CONs aren't evenly balanced, but whatever. Nice blend of fill, with ICE POP, SORE SPOT, MUSIC CITY, ON MEDS, and CARDIO. (Mark Feldman published a [FACE] rebus puzzle in the NYT about a year ago, on Sunday, July 31.) (Parenthetical remark #2: The NYT applet zapped out on me partway through solving when I activated the secret mystery Bad Mouse Button while the cursor was over the Bad Juju Square of the puzzle, apparently. Anyway, I finished up in Across Lite and my posted solving time is accurate. Yup, Trip's puzzle took me longer than the Sunday puzzle!)
The puzzles formerly available from LA Weekly—the ones that alternated between Henry Hook and Emily Cox/Henry Rathvon—are now linked up with their marquee paper, the Boston Globe. This week's Across Lite offering (which isn't necessarily this weekend's Globe puzzle) is Cox/Rathvon's "Puzzle Movies." I don't know how they cooked up this batch of movie titles that could be misconstrued as being about puzzles—but cluing SORRY WRONG NUMBER with a sudoku reference is precious.
August 04, 2006
Saturday
Newsday 9:44
NYT 8:54
LAT 3:46
CS 3:46
Tough Saturday NYT puzzle from Trip Payne, no? The right side of the grid filled itself in without much of a fight, but I got bogged down on the left side (top and bottom...and the left side of the midsection, too). Damn Trip and his crazy Q fixation—"Q-Tip, for example" is a RAPPER (I knew RAPIER didn't make sense, but...). The clues on the left side stymied me for so long, but the answers seem so natural once they're filled in. AGAPE for "Hardly poker-faced"? Sure. GONE FLAT for "Fizzled out"? Not as patently obvious as "Lost fizz," but it makes sense. An actor's name (AL PACINO) tied to a show I didn't know he was in shouldn't be a tremendous stretch. IN PEN for "Hard to change" should be a gimme for any crossword solver! (And elsewhere, "Completely filled, say" = SOLVED.) The 3-letter words in the upper left section had elusive cluing, though, as did many of the 3's and 4's in this puzzle—don't you rely on having a few easy ones to serve as a nutcracker? The stack of longish phrases at the bottom had relatively vague clues—ALL THE RAGE is simply "Hot," MOVE ALONG is a straight-up "Don't stop," EVER SINCE is "From then on," and RED STATER is "Many a conservative." Enough rambling for now. Did the rest of you find the left side of Trip's puzzle much harder than the right?
Updated:
If you felt that Trip's puzzle didn't work your brain hard enough, try Stan Newman's Newsday Saturday Stumper. The fill is nothing exotic, but the clues will work you over. "Pinch," 3 letters; "Edge," 8 letters; "Joining," 8 letters; "Send," 10 letters; "Support," 3 letters, next to "Didn't support," 5 letters; "___ road," 4 letters. Your first guess for many of these is likely to be wrong, because there are so many ways to answer short, vague, elliptical clues like these. Good workout for the synapses.
Bruce Venzke and Stella Daily's themeless LA Times puzzle is easy (filled with plenty of old cruciverbal chestnuts) but features five separated (unstacked) 15-letter entries going across, bonded by three 15s going down.
August 03, 2006
Calling all Bostonians with a cruciverbal orientation
Eric Helmuth's setting up a local gathering of crossword folks (constructors and solvers alike) in the Boston area. If you're interested in learning more, head over to Eric's Google Groups page.
Friday
NYS 7:18
LAT 5:46
NYT 5:19
CS 3:17
Reagle 9:20
WSJ 8:30
Greetings, dear deadbeats. (Yes, you.) Light blogging tonight on account of feeling lightheaded, which is not the optimal mode for writing sensibly.
The NYT's timed applet has gone kerflooey for the evening, it appears, so I did the puzzle in Across Lite, which sometimes steals my mojo (or maybe it was knowing that my finishing time was a full two minutes slower than Byron's—mojo thief!). Loved most of Manny Nosowsky's multi-word entries (even if I was duped into trying WHOA NELLY before hitting on WHOA THERE). WHOA THERE! WHAT SAY, OLD GOAT? Fantastic clues, like "Place to get a date?" = OASIS (I was on the right track, first thinking of PALMS) and "Bed occupant" for OYSTER.
Doug Peterson's Weekend Warrior took me longer, despite the long gimme down the middle of the grid (LADY AND THE TRAMP). I especially liked the bottom right corner, with the stack of ARTICLE I ("Where to find the elastic clause," which I confess I'd never heard of), MNEMONIC clued as "Role for Reeves," and PERP WALK (clued as "Turnkey trot?"—which on first glance looks like "turkey trot"); the three were bound together by the oddly clued IMP ("Horny half-pint"? O-o-okay...). Why did I like that section? I respect a puzzle more the morning after if it makes me work harder.
Updated:
Okay, clearly I'm missing something. Would somebody who's done Sarah Keller's CrosSynergy puzzle ("How High Can You Go?") explain the theme?
The Chronicle of Higher Education puzzle available each Friday on the Cruciverb site is from three weeks earlier. Would y'all prefer me to follow that schedule, or do them (and write about them) closer to real time, when they're usually available via Puzzle Pointers?
Loved the theme in Pat Merrell's Wall Street Journal puzzle, "Opposite Ends," liked Merl Reagle's "Avian 'Role Call'" theme.
August 02, 2006
Thursday
NYT 6:58
NYS 4:42
LAT 3:45
CS 3:18
Well! How about Nancy Salomon's NYT puzzle? It's gone all topsy-turvy with a double Thursday twist: both an [UP] rebus (trickily, the eight rebus squares aren't placed symmetrically and aren't limited to the long entries), and any down entry containing [UP] is an up entry instead, even if it's one of those short ones (like [UP]DOS and ONE[UP]S). There are four long theme entries containing the word [UP] once or twice, and those are in symmetrical locations. I thought this was a wonderful double gimmick, even if I echoed some of the fill (OH CRUD and D'OH) when I espied my finishing time. Best clue, for me: "Giant successes, briefly" for TDS.
Alan Olschwang's "Runs Both Ways" features alphabetical runs in both directions—OVERSTUFFED CHAIR having two runs and the other theme entries containing a UTSR (BOUTS-RIMES, which are "poems composed from given line-ending words" in a parlor game, as in this contest and these examples) or CDEF (STRATEGIC DEFENSE)—though here it's just the letter runs that flip over, not the entries themselves. The clue "Boss's address?" kept me guessing (E STREET), and I appreciated the high-quality fill (THE NHL, ZEBRAS, ZIONIST, TOP THIS—although "top that" sounds more typical to me).
Turning my thoughts to language, and the recent Inuit-or-"Eskimo" flap (in which we learned that up in Canada, the Inuit find that other word offensive), and a several-years-old NYT crossword my husband just did that contained the word GOOK (clued as "icky stuff" or something like that). In my blog browsing, I came across an apt take on the topic from Angry Black Bitch, down in the comments; talking about the phrase tar baby, she writes, I like to think of it like this...if you have a fantabulous apple and you accidently drop the apple in a shit filled toilet, you may still have an apple but it's just not the same anymore. Some folks like to think that you can wash that apple off and still eat it...but a bitch favors tossing it in the compost file of history as a reminder of how language/fruit can be corrupted. Not the most delicate phrasing, but I generally agree.
August 01, 2006
Wednesday
NYS 4:34
NYT 4:22
LAT 3:37
CS 3:04
My husband continues his induction into the world of crosswords, encountering our old friends like LEA, ICER (you actually can find a job as an icer—here's a want ad and you can always operate the icing machine), and EIDER. He's been doing the Chicago Tribune's puzzle, and it's breaking his spirit. Today's had no theme and clues/fill like "Multiply-curved wheel"/CAM, "Vessels for washing tableware"/DISHPANS, and "Place for briars"/PIPE RACK. He had a lot more fun when I handed him a Gorski Tuesday NYT from a few years ago. I'll make a puzzle snob out of him yet!
Moving along to the Wednesday puzzles, I frittered away 10 or 20 seconds on Harvey Estes' NYT, thanks to a mindless typo. (CHEER IP? No.) But the theme was cute, and the left/right symmetry gave the puzzle a different vibe. Wasn't I just saying that "Likker" was a better clue for HOOCH than for BOOZE the other day? (If I didn't say it, I thought it. And now here it is, because my brain waves can control the universe. It's true.) I go back and forth on whether "bonus" entries that relate to a theme improve or detract from a puzzle—how did you feel about PEARL crossing the first half of THE WORLD IS/YOUR OYSTER?
David Kahn's "Film Composers" theme in the Sun changes a word (or two) of a movie title into a sound-alike composers name, and all four 15-letter entries are rock-solid. (Any other candidates come to mind?) I do wish those gigantic clues that won't fit in the Across Lite interface were shorter; fortunately, "Player who tried to catch the ball that Cubs fan Steve Bartm..." was sufficient for me to get the answer (ALOU)—you know, I know someone who was at that ill-fated game. I saw her on TV, clutching her face in dismay, like everyone around her. Cubs have sucked ever since that day, haven't they?
