NYS 5:08
CS 4:19
NYT 3:46
LAT 3:30
I should get back to finishing up my Big Project With a Looming Deadline (and what good is a deadline if you don't use every last bit of it?), so I'll be brief.
The Wednesday NYT is by Manny Nosowsky, and not only are the theme entries a little resistant to solving, but plenty of other clues are on the tough side. For example, ["That just shouldn't happen"] is IT'S A SIN, [A chorus line] is ALTO, and ["Peace on earth," e.g.] is WISH. Super-cute to have [Napoleon's place] lead to both ELBA and BAKERY. The theme entries are all conversational filler that might be attributed to certain types of people; for example, FRANKLY SPEAKING is how a hot dog vendor might introduce a comment.
In the Sun, Tony Orbach and Patrick Blindauer team up for "TD Conversions," in which the theme entries convert T's in base phrases into D's. Thus, "height and weight" become HIDE AND WADE. Favorite clue: [Strange bedfellows might give them to you] for STDS—nice not to limit those letters to being an abbreviation for "standards." I suppose [Flies into the seats]/DINGERS has to do with baseball, but don't know exactly. ARM CANDY and NAME-DROP are the fill highlights.
December 26, 2006
Wednesday, 12/27
December 25, 2006
Tuesday, 12/26
NYS 3:36
LAT 2:52
NYT 2:34
CS untimed
Onion tba
Tausig tba
(no post updating today—book deadline looms!)
On Christmas Eve, my mother gave me a gag gift—a 1993 Kappa Books publication, Crossword Companion 4, containing 106 (no, not 100—a hundred and six!) unthemed 13x13 crosswords, complete with 2-letter entries. "We trust that you will find weeks and weeks of solving pleasure from the puzzles that follow," the introduction notes. (Weeks!) Printed right on the cover is a yellow starburst: WALMART SPECIAL PRICE 2/$1.00. Whoo-hoo!
A simple but surprisingly elegant NYT crossword by C.W. Stewart—while the theme entries are so basic that a kid could (given easier clues and the animal + homophone gimmick) figure them all out, the theme structure pulls together perfectly. All six have a noun preceded by a modifier, with half using the animal as the noun and half as the modifier. The animal names all appear in exactly symmetrical sets of squares—the MOOSE at the beginning of 19-Across is matched to the HORSE at the end of 58-Across. And then you've got those wide-open corners packed with 6-letter entries to freshen things up a bit. I think this might be an NYT debut for the constructor, too. If so, congratulations!
Monday, 12/25
LAT 3:20
NYT 3:18
CS 3:10
Merry Christmas and—for non-Christmas-celebrants—happy day off work! The Fiendlet relished all his gifts from Santa this morning, but was whining about being bored before noon. So it goes. His mother, however, is enjoying the solitaire version of the Blokus board game. More challenging than a crossword! Especially on Monday.
Adam G. Perl's NYT crossword includes three ALPHABET QUARTETs in the theme—entries containing ABCD, LMNO, and RSTU runs of letters. You know, my husband bought himself a plasma HD set. There was a Ghostbusters sequel on today, but I don't think it was in HD—otherwise, we could have an alphabet quintet with high-DEF GHosts. Any other semi-legit quintets out there?
Harvey Estes' CrosSynergy crossword, "A Word from Scrooge," includes BAH in five lively theme entries, beribboned with 8- and 9-letter fill entries.
In Arthur W. Farris's LA Times puzzle, guess what 14-letter word is defined as FEAR OF VISITING / SANTA. Oddly enough, I don't recall seeing that particular joke before. It's got to be an old chestnut, though, doesn't it?
December 23, 2006
Sunday, 12/24
LAT 9:10—"Gia Christian"/Rich Norris, "The Meaning of Christmas"
NYT 8:45—see below
WaPo 6:52—Frank Longo Xmas theme, easy
BG 7:03—Hex crossword, "New Start"
CS 4:48—Randolph Ross themeless, great pop-culture fill
Happy Christmas Eve! (Technically, I'm writing this on Christmas Eve Eve, but you get the idea.) May you either carve out a little time over the holidays for crossword puzzlin', or may you be having such a grand time that you don't even think about crosswords. (And please time-shift my generic "Happy Holidays!" wishes if you're celebrating Hanukkah, the solstice, Orthodox Christmas, and/or Kwanzaa, or just biding time until it's New Year's Eve/Day.)
Brendan Emmett Quigley's NYT crossword is called "Yule Laugh." Guess what? The theme is...Christmas-related puns. The eight theme entries warp their base phrases by swapping in a Christmas word that sounds the same or similar. For example, [Santa reindeer-turned-zombie?] is DONNER THE DEAD (playing on Dawn of the Dead); [Sunburnt Santa?] is LOBSTER CLAUS; the small PEE WEE WREATH lisps Pee Wee Reese. I've decided my favorite themer is PRESENTS OF MIND—[Gifts you only think about giving?]—hey, those are always the best gifts! In theory, anyway. The theme entries are supplemented with HOS ([Christmas laughs]), a little JESUS (which reminds me—if you like goofy comedy and you haven't seen Talladega Nights, watch the DVD. Will Ferrell's defense of praying to Baby Jesus, versus grown-man Jesus, when he says grace, complete with corporate sponsorships...I laughed. A far better movie than I expected.) Glancing back over the grid, I finally understood why [Like some chefs] was TRIBAL—because the word is "chiefs," not "chefs." Never heard of [Italian tragic poet Vittorio] ALFIERI. Fill I liked included BORSCHT, CHEM LAB, REMARKET (which doesn't have a big presence in dictionaries or Google, but haven't you heard the jargon plenty?), OUGHTN'T, and BERNIE Mac. This puzzle's also got Asimov's autobiography, I ASIMOV, which showed up in a Bob Peoples crossword last March. That time around, it was a Saturday NYT, with a tougher clue—a lot of people Googled their way to my blog post in search of that answer. (The current clue mentions "sci-fi writer," so that's more accessible.)
Movie puzzle
Jon Delfin posted this link on the Cruciverb mailing list—it's a British office-supply company's contest that's not open to American entrants, but you can still play along and try to decipher the 20 movies depicted by tableaux of office supplies. My husband and I figured out 17 of them, but we're stuck on #8 (five staple removers), #9 (highlighters and markers facing off in a road), and #14 (paperclip person run over by truck wheels of tape). Anyone have any subtle hints about those three? Or are there others you're stuck on?
December 22, 2006
Saturday, 12/23
Newsday 8:35
NYT 8:06
LAT 7:20
CS 3:02
(post updated at 1:15 p.m. Saturday)
The parade of themeless challenges continues with Myles Callum's Saturday NYT crossword. Strewn amid the dozen 10- and 11-letter entries are a few old crossword friends (and enemies) and some new business. Plenty of the clues chewed up little bits of my brain, too. First up, a clue I remembered every word of the [Argonaut who slew Castor] clue from the last time around—hundreds of people Googled their way to my post and one by that January puzzle's constructor, Eric Berlin, because who's ever heard of IDAS? (Yep, I forgot him by December.) Then there's CNN's REA Blakey, who sounds only vaguely familiar. I know a lot of plants, but not the [Dwarf plant of the eastern U.S.], the VIOLET IRIS. Didn't know DAILY DOZEN meant [Set of routine duties]. Didn't really know [France's West Point], Saint-CYR, but think I might've encountered it while reading up on Lili St. Cyr when she was in a puzzle.
Myles has a quartet of numbers in his grid: the Italian TRE and SEI, the Roman III ([Crowd in old Rome?]), and THREE. Three times three plus six equals 15, just perfect for a 15x15 grid. Moving from arithmetic to the arts, we have HENRY MOORE's sculpture; Foucault wrote "This Is Not A PIPE (click link for excellent cartoon!); COROT painted; and Sir Georg SOLTI has won a load of Grammys. (No, ADAM SANDLER doesn't quite make it into the arts sentence.) Moving to the cruciverbal arts, fabulous entries in WATER COOLER, NAME BRAND, RITE-AID, and WHOOSH.
The most devious clues included [Couple in the news in 1945] for ATOMIC BOMBS, [Locks up?] for SPIKED HAIR, [Hang out] for AIR-DRY, and [Sign that something's missing] for CARET. Fortunately, we also had the crossword staple ORIEL (look at the picture—might help you remember it if you know what it looks like, eh?), [Island staple] POI, our favorite pre-Borat Kazakh city, Alma-ATA, and Simpsons staple D'OH. Overall, simply an excellent puzzle. Kudos to Myles and Will Shortz!
Updated:
O bounteous Saturday! Meaty themeless challenges wherever I turn. Slightly quicker to solve than the NYT and the Newsday puzzle was Bob Mackey's LA Times puzzle, which I enjoyed thoroughly. Precious few gimmes—just CHI McBride and two crosswordesey words, ENOLS and TAL. Everything else, I had to work for. Favorite clues and entries include [Hopelessly ruined] for BELLY-UP, PHONE IN, HIM OR ME, HOT LIPS, [Alito or Scalia, e.g.] for ITALIAN-AMERICAN, and [Going concern?] for TIME OF DEPARTURE (so timely with all the holiday travel this weekend). And of course I always enjoy ISOPODS because that lets me link to the photo of the giant isopod (which I try not to think about when I encounter a wee roly-poly in the house).
In Merle Baker's Newsday Saturday Stumper, the clues did manage to stump me pretty well. I even knew what he was getting at with [Rice, for one], but couldn't think of an 8-letter word describing Condi. (DIPLOMAT!) Of all the shout-outs to George Clooney, alas, this one summons up the POMADED George of O Brother, Where Art Thou?. I move that we start using the word pomaded to describe those men who wear too much gel in their hair, even if gel's not technically the same as pomade. Good fill includes DRUTHERS, CON GAMES, and LEAVE IT TO ME. Most mystifying clue: [Judge missing since 1930]. It turned out to be CRATER; you can read about his mysterious disappearance here.
Raymond Hamel's CrosSynergy puzzle is gift-wrapped with the title, "Gnarled Christmas Tree: An Anagram Puzzle." Yup, that's exactly what it is. The stocking stuffers are the longer fill, like DAILY BUGLE, MEERKATS, and IRISH SEA.
December 21, 2006
Friday, 12/22
NYS 6:18
NYT 5:14
12/8 CHE 4:42
LAT 4:36
CS 3:09
WSJ 10:44
Reagle 7:42
(post updated at 10:10 a.m. Friday)
There's much to admire in the day's themeless crosswords—Mike Nothnagel's NYT and David Quarfoot's Sun Weekend Warrior. Looking first at the easier of the two puzzles, here's what I noticed in the NYT: Intersecting 13's through the middle of the grid, with their first and last pairs of letters hooked up to pairs of fantastic 8-letter entries (such as TO THE MAX, IT'S A DEAL, TV REMOTE). Those 13's cross at the letter O, which also starts 11 different entries. Other grand entries include SIM CITY (Wow, it dates back to 1989? My son enjoys the game now.), MY HERO, DEEJAY, TANKED, SNOOZED, QUINTS...not to mention everything with Scrabbly letters (four X's, plus some Q, Z, J, K action). Favorite clues: [Take the top off] for BEHEAD (!), [Show stopper?] for TV REMOTE, and [It can help you carry a tune] for IPOD.
Speaking of Scrabbly, the Quarfoot puzzle uses a Q outside the byline, along with some representatives of the Z, X, J, and K clan. Contemporary fill highlights include AL-ZARQAWI, ZIPCAR (those Zipcar and I-Go Car fleets are peppered all over Chicago's North Side now), XM RADIO, and the 2000 movie, SEXY BEAST. The Nothnagel puzzle serves up TWO EGGS, while Quarfoot cooks OMELETTES. Here there's an entry in two parts: I SEE DEAD/PEOPLE, Haley Joel Osment's memorable line from The Sixth Sense. Plus OUT COLD, OXYMORON, NET GAME, WINDEX—good stuff. Favorite/trickiest clues: the simple [Away] for ROAD (as in road games), [Have a cow] for CALVE, [Host country of the 2006 Asian Games] for QATAR (c'mon, how many other 5-letter countries went through your mind? Korea, Japan, India, Burma, Tibet, Nepal...), and [Turning aid] for SKI POLE (with four of the same letters, I first opted for SPINDLE).
Updated:
Craig Kasper's December 8 Chronicle of Higher Education crossword, "Poetry Readings," is one of those in which the brilliance of the puzzle lies in the clues. The four theme entries are types of poems—LIMERICK, CINQUAIN, RONDELET, and CLERIHEW. If you don't know how the various rhyme schemes, meter, syllable counts, and other conventions apply in these poetry forms, click the links on their names. The Down clues mentioned in the clues for these entries, while nonsensical as poetry, follow the rules for these forms. Thus, LIMERICK's associated clues, 45 through 51 Down, read, "Made use of to cover one's skin / She gave us original sin / They're held in high standing / Naproxen, by branding / Attack and completely hem in." Aside from the tour de force of clue structure, the fill's good, too. Congratulations on a well-executed and ambitious crossword, Craig.
Patrick Berry's Wall Street Journal crossword, "Carol Channeling," slightly mangles Christmas carol titles to apply to TV shows. Thus, the Baywatch song is O TAN AND BLOND. Kinda tough to tease out the reworked song titles—and I'm familiar with all the TV shows involved. If you're an anti-TV, anti–pop culture solver, you'll really have your work cut out for you. But me? I loved it!
Merl Reagle's Philadelphia Inquirer puzzle for this Sunday has a timely theme—see 64-, 65-, and 66-Across for the theme's core. Funniest clue: [It might be wireless], 3 letters. Non-technical!
The theme in Patti Fitzgerald's LA Times puzzle eluded me for some time. With LOOP HALL, I suspected a sound change from loophole, but it turned out to be a first-half-backwards thing. For consistency, all six of those first-half words are *OO* words.
The most straightforward of the themed puzzles I did today was Thomas Schier's CrosSynergy crossword, "Triple Double Figures"—the theme includes four people who have three sets of double letters in their names.
December 20, 2006
Thursday, 12/21
NYS 5:09
NYT 5:06
CS 3:15
LAT 3:12
(post updated at 8:45 a.m. Thursday)
Yum, yum! Two gnarly Thursday puzzles to chew on, an NYT creation by Lynn Lempel and a Sun crossword by Donna S. Levin. They both had themes that turned out to be fairly straightforward—after the aha dawned. Before then? Gnarly. (Gnarly = challenging in a good way.)
Lynn's NYT puzzle made me work the crossings to tease out the first two theme entries, and the clues were hard enough that the first theme entry I filled in all the way was the third of five, but that gave away the theme. EMBOSS TWEED looked quite obviously like EM + BOSS TWEED. The explanatory fifth one, BRING 'EM ON, finally told me what I needed to piece together the other three. Didn't quite understand DEMON KING until I realized that EM-less, it's the great Don King. [Visine?] is red rover + EM = RED REMOVER. The [Idaho symbol?] is a TATER TOTEM. The very last square I filled in was the juncture between the tricky [It has its ups and downs] and [Takes to heart?]. I had THEDO and ran through the alphabet until the letter W sat up and waved at me (THE DOW, WEDS). I know some people grumble about entries that start with THE, but in this case, "the Dow" is so completely in the language, and nobody calls it just plain "Dow." Other clues I liked include [Goth subjugator] for HUN ("Oh, is that what the kids are calling a jock these days?"), [Professor's workload] for PAPERS, [One with a mission] for DIPLOMAT, and [Taurotragus oryx] for ELAND (does that mean bull-goat-oryx?). Didn't know ELSIE Janis, old comic actress, or lyricist NED Washington. Also liked seeing STREP and STREEP in opposite corners of the grid. Terrific crossword! Good and hard.
"Sounds Like Back Talk" is the title of the Sun puzzle. The theme entries have a couple things going on—"A of B" is flipped to a "B of A" order, and the A and B words are homophones of the originals. Thus, "sense of sight" becomes SITE OF CENTS; "chance of rain," REIGN OF CHANTS; "worst of times," THYMES OF WURST; and "vale of tears," TIERS OF VAIL. I can't imagine how long it took to come up with a suitable set of theme entries—can you think of other possibilities? I found plenty of clues to be tricky. [Opposite of on] for AGO (as in "from this day on" vs. "a day ago"), [It doesn't operate on Yom Kippur] for EL AL, and [Circus tent pole] for STILT. Great fill—TWISTY crossing TOPIARY crossing VIS A VIS, GET A RAISE. And look how the crosswordese [Erne] has been promoted to a position in the clues (SEA EAGLE). Never heard hopscotch called POTSY, but apparently it's an NYC regionalism. As I said about the NYT puzzle, terrific crossword! Good and hard.
Updated:
Timothy Powell's LA Times puzzle puzzled me a bit—TAFT ERA seemed like a KINDA oddball answer. But then I realized that those 7-letter entries that cross in the center are theme entries, ERA being a DETERGENT. There hasn't been much filth in crosswords lately—two recent bar soap themes and now this laundry detergent theme.
Patrick Jordan packs his CrosSynergy grid with synonyms for suitcase, in a week when many people will be schlepping suitcases through airports.
December 19, 2006
Wednesday, 12/20
NYS 4:57
NYT 3:43
LAT 3:30
CS 3:29
It's Nancy Salomon day all over, with a solo byline in the NYT and a joint production with Brendan Emmett Quigley in the Sun. In the NYT puzzle, the theme is rude things that ill-mannered people say, such as NICE GOING, GENIUS. Puts me in mind of American Idol and its underlying mean streak—hey, the show's back with a new season in a couple weeks! Must set TiVo. Fantastic long non-theme entries, such as DUTY CALLS, and some old-school crossword terms like OGEE and APSE (crossing in today's crosswordese architecture intersection). Anyone know if truckers still use CB radios? Based on the scary movie, Joy Ride, I'll say yes, but CBs have lost that vibe of coolness they had in the '70s.
CBER makes an appearance in both the NYT and the Sun crossword. (Oh! APSE is in the Sun, too. Coincidences abound.) In the latter, the theme is "Iron Supplements," or phrases with supplemental FE. Four of the entries have one iron pill, while the middle one dances with three pills: CHAFE, CHAFE, CHAFE. Most surprising clue: [Douche spray] for EAU (douche being French for "shower"). Never heard of baseball player EMIL Brown, didn't recall that the Lost character named Desmond had the last name HUME, don't know [1918 Allied commander Ferdinand] FOCH, and I can't say I recall the [Early Internet search engine] HOTBOT.
December 18, 2006
Tuesday, 12/19
Tausig 5:00
NYS 4:21
LAT 3:46
Onion 3:37
CS 3:29
NYT 3:01
(post updated at 11:15 a.m. Tuesday)
I'm too tired to concoct a fascinating but spoiler-free introductory paragraph to lure in the reader. (You may ask, "And how does this differ from any other day?") So, on with the specifics:
I enjoyed Sarah Keller's NYT crossword, which toys with silent K by adding it to the front of four phrases that start with N (one of those N's is shared by a silent-G word, GNAW). [Feudal tribunal?], for example, is KNIGHT COURT. If you liked '60s and '70s TV and Mr. Magoo, check out Jim BACKUS's IMDb page. I read up a little on Lucretia Mott when she showed up in a couple crosswords recently, and now it's Carrie Chapman CATT's turn—she worked on women's suffrage and founded the League of Women Voters. I wonder...how many more deadly E COLI outbreaks before the bacterium's banned from crosswords?
Dave Tuller's Sun 15x16 puzzle is called "Working Animals," and it's got five professional-sounding beasties: the PILOT WHALE, NURSE SHARK, and SURGEONFISH (related to the blue tang, like Dory in Finding Nemo) all patrolling the waters and the CARPENTER ANT and gory BUTCHERBIRD plying their trade on land. A couple dozen 6-, 7-, and 8-letter words adorn the fill in this accomplished puzzle.
Updated:
Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword, "Way in Front," gathers phrases that start with BACK, LEFT, RIGHT, and FORWARD, all used as verbs rather than directions in the theme entries. A most edjumicational puzzle, as I learned several new words: a band from Montréal called ARCADE FIRE, the anime term SEME, and a basketball player's nickname (T-MAC is Tracy McGrady). Oh, and apparently VOX is a [Wah-wah pedal maker]. I like how the NE and SW corners each have three 7-letter entries stacked up alongside a theme entry—lotta white space for a themed puzzle.
Matt Jones goes RETRO with his Onion A.V. Club puzzle, "Go Ask Santa"—kids' Christmas wishes from a song, TV show, and movie. Good 8-letter entries in the fill—THAT MAY BE, IS IT SAFE, NO PICNIC, etc.
