NYT 5:35
LAT 4:49
NYS 4:46
CS 3:00
(post updated at 8:30 a.m. Thursday, and in the first paragraph at 10:40 a.m.)
Gilbert H. Ludwig's NYT crossword may be a quip puzzle—a type of puzzle I typically deplore—but I loved it anyway. I even liked the quip. It's a good play on the old saw, "A stitch in time saves nine," and it works as (bad) poetry—the two halves of the quip are each eight syllables, they end in rhymes, and they have similar meter (don't ask me to elaborate—I am no expert on scansion). The non-thematic fill is even groovier. There are 16 7-letter answers and two 9's, and a great set of clues. Favorite nuggets of fill and cluing: [Frenchman with a famous line] for MAGINOT, PRITHEE, [Country of Saroyan's heritage] for ARMENIA, [It keeps things going] for INERTIA, [Nasty stinger] for FIRE ANT, YAHTZEE crossing Steve WOZNIAK, the quaint trio of CHIGNON/AMPHORA/NOSTRUM, [Cádiz kinswoman] for TIA, [Beef producers] for GRIPERS (not great fill, but much improved by the clue), and [Katzenjammers] for HANGOVERS. (Edited to add this link to World Wide Words' write-up on the word katzenjammer, which comes from the German for "the wailing of cats" and meant "hangover" or "the willies" in America before the "Katzenjammer Kids" comic strip began.) Never heard of actress FAY Spain, but I'm making a note of her name for those late-week clues that need to be tougher than Fay Wray (read more about Ms. Spain here).
I also thoroughly enjoyed Seth Abel's Sun Themeless Thursday. It had pop culture I didn't know (ADAM WEST is on Family Guy, LL COOL J had a song called "Hey Lover") and some movie names I did know (Angelina JOLIE's Oscar for Girl, Interrupted, Peter LORRE in Casablanca, director George ROMERO, and, of course, [Cruciverbalist Reagle of Wordplay], MERL). Clues I liked: the hidden brand names in [Edge, for example] for GEL, and [Tribute creator] for MAZDA; [Important 5-year-old in 1715] for LOUIS XV; the collegiate pair of [Its motto is "Lux et veritas"] for YALE UNIVERSITY and [Penn neighbor] for DREXEL; [Telephone phrase] for PASS IT ON; [Boxer, e.g.: Abbr.] for DEM; [Product with the slogan, "Smart choice, great taste"] for OLEAN; [Shot following a break] for X-RAY; and [Tissue alternative for the uncouth] for SLEEVE. Extra bonus points for the cheesiest sportscar of my youth, the TRANS AM, complete with the firebird painted on the hood.
Updated:
Fred Jackson III's LA Times puzzle showcases Apollo, with four 15-letter theme entries that can all be clued as [Apollo]. The first of these is MYTHOLOGICAL GOD, which brings to mind Richard Dawkins' oft-quoted line from The God Delusion: "I have found it an amusing strategy, when asked whether I am an atheist, to point out that the questioner is also an atheist when considering Zeus, Apollo, Amon Ra, Mithras, Baal, Thor, Wotan, the Golden Calf and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I just go one god further." I would like to go on record stating that Thor is okay by me, because if he didn't exist, would we have Thursday crosswords?
Harvey Estes has made a ZIPpy CrosSynergy crossword, in which the first word of four theme entries (two 14's and two 8's) can be preceded by ZIP: the phrase "zip through," the USPS's ZIP code, the ZIP file format, and the ill-fated Iomega Zip Drive (named one of the 25 worst tech products ever by PC World magazine).
March 07, 2007
Thursday, 3/8
March 06, 2007
Wednesday, 3/7
Tausig 5:45
NYT 5:10
LAT 4:02
Onion 3:44
NYS 3:32
CS 3:15
(post updated at 10 a.m. Wednesday)
After Tuesday’s NYT by Paula Gamache had HOOHAS and one of her old Sun puzzles I solved in a book today had HOOHA, I looked everywhere in her Wednesday Sun puzzle for the word. The closest we get is UTERO.
Moving right along, Paula's puzzle is called "Doctor J," and in each theme entry, a J has been doctored into an H. Thus, the Bee Gees' Jive Talkin' is converted into the apian HIVE TALKIN', or [The buzz?]. The fill has a zillion highlights: MACHO crossing CHIC, KEANU crossing the thematic SPACE HUNK, SPLASH, the [Indian yogurt dish] RAITA, and brand names STROHS, NERF, LEICA, and ADVIL. I don't know what's up with the clue for ADVIL, though—[Nuprin rival]? I haven't seen the Nuprin brand in years. "Little. Yellow. Different." Gone.
What the…? I'm expected to know the lesser baseball parks and biblical twins…in the same theme entry? Even when I had figured out that the theme in Richard Silvestri's NYT puzzle involved swapping one famous twin for his brother, that ESAUS FIELD killed me. Jacobs Field is in Cleveland? Okay. It also took me a ridiculous amount of time to piece together SIXPACK for [Beer buy]. (Hey, I buy imports in 12-packs.) Decent theme, plus a smattering of Scrabbly letters.
Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader puzzle this week is called "Conventional Thinking," and it draws on things like GenCon (which I've heard of, but I have no idea what it is) to invent six other "cons" by swapping word halves. Poets might attend VERSECON (converse), while the spelunkers gather at CAVECON. Given that the theme entries all end with CON, you'd think the puzzle would fly, and yet it took me a long time. My first wrong turn was LINENS instead of LIQUOR cabinets, and I crashed and burned on the two of the bands—POSIES, not PIXIES, and SWV (Sisters With Voices). Clues I liked: [George or Bill] for CLINTON, [Common action movie effect] for FIREBALL, and [Records, slangily] for WAX. Oh, you know what else threw me a curveball? Having BHAT spelled like that rather than BAHT. That's a flat-out error, isn't it? Between BHAT and trying SLUDGE instead of STENCH for [Sewage treatment plant output], that corner fought me.
Deb Amlen's Onion A.V. Club crossword, "On My Nerves," uses a trio of nervousness-related words in puns like ROAD WORRIER ([Film where Mad Max frets about the gas shortage?]. Speaking of postapocalyptic movies, the clue for EDDY is the sound-alike [Water whirled?], and APES are [Cornelius and Dr. Zaius, e.g.]. Continuing with the postapocalyptic theme, there are many who would watch Michael Flatley (who's in the clue for the theme entry at 20-Across) only if hell froze over.
Updated:
Thomas Schier's CrosSynergy crossword, "Cartoonist Animators Extraordinaire," pays tribute to HANNA-BARBERA cartoons, with divided entries providing two two-word cartoon names plus two one-word cartoon names. I'm guessing Schier constructed this puzzle as an homage after Joseph BARBERA's death last December. Ah, cartoons of my childhood; ah, nostalgia-inducing output of the Hanna-Barbera studio. The Wikipedia link in this paragraph lists their many shows—the '60s shows are the ones I remember best. Magilla Gorilla! Banana Splits! Atom Ant! And also the four shows included in the crossword.
The key to the theme in Jack McInturff's LA Times puzzle is found at 67-Across—[Word that can precede the first word of] the five theme entries. The grid's a bit krunchy, with eight K's scattered throughout, and there are also nine entries with a double-E—a subliminal "Eek!" groove? Nice bit of synchronicity today—the NYT puzzle clued VEE as [Skein formation], and the LA Times puzzle clues SKEIN as [Flock in flight]. According to this listing, "a skein of geese" is the collective term for geese in general or geese in flight (in V formation, they're a wedge; on the water, a gaggle). A cauldron of raptors; a clamour of rooks; a parliament of owls.
"No crossword puzzles for a month, young man!"
My son and I are watching The Suite Life of Zack and Cody. In this episode, one of the twin brothers, Cody, is in the spelling bee, and his rival is the big bully who's threatening the other brother, Zack, for not repaying a debt. The bully is willing to forgive the debt if Zack can persuade Cody to deliberately lose the bee. Eventually, the parents all find out what the kids have been up to, and the bully's dad is outraged that his son would attempt to muddle the purity of a spelling bee. That calls for serious punishment, of course: "No crossword puzzles for a month, young man!" Oh, the horror, the horror.
March 05, 2007
Tuesday, 3/6
NYS 4:06
LAT 3:38
CS 3:07
NYT 2:45
Tausig tba
Onion tba
(post updated at 7:40 a.m. Tuesday)
The themes in both Paula Gamache's NYT crossword and Alan Arbesfeld's Sun puzzle eluded me for the longest time. Paula's puzzle had easy clues, at least, so I could finish it and then devote thought to figuring out the theme. The Sun crossword, "Liable to Change," was one of those where you kinda need to make sense out of the theme in order to proceed. Eventually I found my way to the bottom of the grid and figured out one theme entry, which helped a lot.
The NYT theme was summed up by IT'S A DEAL—the seven other theme entries, all 8 letters long, began with words that could be followed by DEAL (e.g., RAW ONION -> raw deal). I like the layout of the theme entries, eight 8-letter entries in criss-crossing pairs. After last week's discussions about the word hoo-ha in Eric Berlin's puzzle, it was hilarious that the answer to [Commotions] was HOO-HAS. I hereby move that women begin using synonyms of the euphemism in lieu of the anatomical term. "I've got an itchy commotion. I think it's yeast." "After that hootenanny in my to-do, I need a nap." "Much ado...about nothing." Who's with me?
The Sun's "Liable to Change" title means LI is able to change, and that letter pair is reversed to IL. (Illinois beats Long Island.) Thus, [Apple records?] are FRUIT FILES (changed from "fruit flies"). Kudos to the constructor and/or editor for bits like Ruth REICHL with her implausible-looking consonant string; BLOG clued as [Instapundit, e.g.]; two Z's in the opening corner; and POSH clued as [Wife of Becks].
Updated:
Timothy L. Meaker's LA Times puzzle features four paired anagrams of the same word, with workable clues. There are two other common-word anagrams—REAPS may well have been on reserve as a substitute for PARES in 17-Across if the fill demanded it, and the other word, RAPES, has no place in a crossword puzzle. I like this theme better than the kind in which only the last word in each theme entry gets involved in the anagram action. Better still are the ones where an entire phrase is jumbled up, though we wouldn't see that on a Tuesday, would we?
Wait, that's not the NYT crossword in my paper
Confused about why I'm writing about a New York Times crossword that's not the same one in your paper? In syndication, the Sunday NYT puzzle runs a week behind, and the dailies are six weeks behind. The puzzle number is the original publication date (e.g., 1122 = Nov. 22).
March 04, 2007
Monday, 3/5
Sunday WaPo 9:32
LAT 3:10
NYS 3:02
CS 2:51
NYT 2:41
(post updated at 11:10 a.m. and 4:45 p.m. Monday—Happy Casimir Pulaski Day, everyone!)
Fred Piscop's NYT crossword has plenty of names of entities both real and fictional, and I'm fond of names in crossword puzzles. But wow, talk about a mess, huh? This puzzle is filthy, what with the theme entries beginning with DIRT, GREASE, GRUNGE, and MUD. There's no telling what sort of muck PORKY, the DEER, and the STEED might EMIT, what ROTTEN matter might SEEP out of them and need to be shoveled up with the SPADE. Fortunately, this grid also DETERGES the mess with PRIDE. GRUNGE ROCKER and GREASE MONKEY make for a terrific pair of theme entries. I like the old-school golf club name, CLEEK; for a list of other old names for clubs, see here.
Updated:
Sunday's Washington Post puzzle wasn't available online yesterday, but the constructor, Dave Sullivan (a.k.a. "Evad") sent me his pre-edited copy of the puzzle to tide me over until the official version was posted (it's available via Puzzle Pointers now). The second time through the puzzle, I discovered that I still liked the "Kinda Sorta" theme—which can be summed up by the last theme entry, SEVERELY PUNISH, as in pun-ish. (The final clue is What Marx Brothers movies do?], but it was originally along the lines of [How someone having trouble with the puzzle might describe it?], which sort of defines the theme in a way the Marx clue doesn't.) [Kudos for a bathroom renovation?] is LAV-ISH PRAISE, and [Ruing the effects of 8 quarts of beer?] is FEELING PECK-ISH. But the final version lacks the zesty Dave flavor I appreciated in the original draft—LEMONY and GORILLA were clued with reference to pop culture's LEMONY Snicket and Magilla GORILLA rather than as [Like some sodas] and [Silverback, e.g.]. UNCLE SAM was originally clued as [One all Americans relate to?], but now is [Patriotic pointer]. So the comparison supports my running observation: I definitely prefer pop culture and question-marked clues and think they enhance a crossword's entertainment value (for me, anyway). I suppose they objectively increase the difficulty level of a puzzle, but then, my personal preference is for more difficult puzzles.
Re-update:
Okay, I'm back from a late lunch beneath the Bean with friends from out of town the continent and see that this week's Sun puzzles were posted while I was away. As Michael noted in the comments a few minutes ago (writing about the Monday Sun while I was solving it, as it happens), Kevan Choset and Perry Choset's "Non-Square Meal" was surprisingly easy for a Sun puzzle. Technically, an EVERYTHING BAGEL will include POPPY seed and SESAME seed, but that doesn't diminish the theme's tastiness. Lots of first names in the grid (plus TYLER, which doubles as both a first and last name). I like the currency of the clue for POSSE, [Entourage]. Most previous clues have referenced the Wild West, and a few others have cited rappers or NBA players. Good to see a clue that reflects the broader usage POSSE has now. (For example, I'm working on gathering a posse around me at Stamford.)
March 03, 2007
Sunday, 3/4
BG 8:45
LAT 8:30
NYT 8:11
CS 4:15
WaPo—file not found; anyone have this in Across Lite?
(post updated at 11 a.m. Sunday)
One of the most fun parts of working on the book (How irksome is it that the Amazon page still lists "New York Times" as the author instead of me? Moderately so.) was choosing 10 NYT crosswords I like for each day of the week (except for Friday and Saturday, five puzzles apiece) and writing a few solving tips for each. One of the Sunday puzzles I chose was Frank Longo's February 4, 2001, crossword, which has a theme strikingly similar to this Sunday's NYT by Randolph Ross. It is a good theme, and one with a slew of possibilities, so perhaps it isn't surprising to see a remake. (And it's gotta be better than, say, a remake of The Planet of the Apes.)
In both the Ross and Longo puzzles, the clue is just a word (preceded and followed by ellipses and asterisked in the Ross, in all caps in the Longo), and the answer relates to where the word is found in the dictionary, using mainly prepositional phrases such as UNDER OATH for [*...oatmeal...]. Ross used the RANDOM HOUSE UNABRIDGED, whereas Longo's puzzle bore the title, "Where in Webster's?" Aside from the theme, which is kinda fun, there's some lively fill: DAS BOOT crossing BRALESS; EAR-TO-EAR is [Broad, in a way], like a grin; LOU RAWLS (about whom [Sinatra said he had "the silkiest chops in the singing game]), and DOOFUS. I also like the sound of WIDGEON; did you know there was an airplane named after this duck? (Whoops—had an unfortunate adjacent-key typo there at first!)
If you enjoyed the theme and wish someone would make a game out of it, here are the theme clues and incomplete entries from the 2001 Longo crossword.
[Spaetzle] ON TOP OF ___ (9)
[House] AFTER ___ (5)
[Grouchy] ABOVE ___ (6)
[Ordinal] FOLLOWING ___ (6)
[Sealing wax] BELOW ___ (3,5)
[Disdain] UNDER ___ (10)
[Timbrel] AHEAD OF ___ (4)
[Lone wolf] BEFORE ___ (4)
[Mess] PRECEDING ___ (7)
Updated:
Henry Hook's Boston Globe puzzle, "A Cross To Bear," inserts an X into seven existing phrases to create new phrases. My favorite of these: [Result of a Rio Grande freeze?], ICED TEXAS. Tons of good 6- to 8-letter fill entries here, too. I liked the theme and spent some time coming up with my own cross-bearing phrases.
[Paroled officer?] (5,5)
[Repairman corps' motto?] (6,3)
[The best spinning toy?] (2-2,3)
[What predatory Santa Claus does?] (2,5,3,4,5,8)
In Lee Glickstein's LA Times–syndicated crossword, "Finishing Schools," a FISH is added to the end of eight phrases and then the FISH are all moved into 128-Across at the bottom of the grid. PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLYFISH is too long for a 21x21 grid, but the PBJ portion fits just fine. But [Seafood sandwich filling?], eww! [Treaty drafts] are PROJETS, apparently. (Henry Hook's Globe puzzle had '30s-'40s baseball player BOBO Newsom, who also may be new to me. Probably have seen that in other crosswords but blocked it out like many other baseball names.) I like the hidden greeting to me. Sure, the clue says [Like fertile soil], but I see a cheery 'Lo, Amy! there.
Rich Norris's themeless CrosSynergy puzzle's got four good 15-letter entries in it. (Hey, P.D.—your namesake river makes an appearance here, clued as [Carolina river that was Foster's original choice for "Way Down Upon the Swanee River"].)
200,000!
Not that a nice round number actually means anything that a random number doesn't, but this blog just had its 200,000 visitor. (If you've checked in twice a day every day for a year and a half, of course, you're a thousand visitors yourself.) Congratulations to the Verizon Internet Services subscriber from Mount Laurel, NJ! I have no idea who you are, but your computer told the tracking data that you use a Mac, and so do I, so you're probably cool.
"Tell him or her what he or she has won, Don!" Er, nothing but a "Hi and thanks for visiting!" (That goes for the rest of you, too.)
March 02, 2007
Saturday, 3/3
NYT 6:41
LAT 5:24
Newsday 5:05
CS 2:52
(post updated at 8:45 a.m. Saturday)
Another fun Karen Tracey Saturday NYT, though I'd fallen asleep before crossword launch time so I was off my peak while solving and I'm still yawn-prone. (Not the puzzle's fault.) Karen's last NYT puzzle provoked so much grumbling (not from me!) because of the density of names and pop culture; this one also has a fair number. Interestingly, several are first/last name combos: JIM MORRISON of the Doors fame and poetry semi-fame; IAN FLEMING (James Bond and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, a natural connection); NORAH JONES of the soporific hit, "Don't Know Why"; and cross-referenced DALE / EVANS (whom I left blank for far too long, thinking that I had no idea who'd written "Happy Trails"). Other people in the grid are rapper XZIBIT (who hosted the MTV car show, Pimp My Ride), physicist Enrico FERMI, author Margaret ATWOOD, actor Billy ZANE, crossword-fill notable Josephine TEY, and musician Gene KRUPA. Something for everyone!
Favorite non-human bits of fill: the rude MAKE ME crossing the conciliatory I'M GOOD; HONEYSUCKLE, clued as [Woodbine or twinberry], which gave me no help at all other than that it was a plant (the Wikipedia entry includes this trivia factoid: "During Victorian times, teenage girls were forbidden to bring honeysuckle home because it was thought to induce erotic dreams." Which reminds me—this blog got a couple hits via Google-type searches for anais nun!); REUNITED and it feels so good (who doesn't like random evocations of the Peaches and Herb hit song from the early '80s?); IHOPS several columns to the left of DELISH (I cannot explain why [Finger-lickin' good] initially prompted me to enter GREASY); and that 2x2 square of O's in the lower right corner of the grid.
The clues that stand out: [What some bars provide] for ENERGY (anyone who claims that energy bars taste good is probably lying or deeply confused); [Place for a flock] for NAVE (I was thinking sheep and COTE); [They make charts] for HITS (that GREASY mistake made that YITS, which gave me pause); [Start to date?] for ANTE (as in antedate); [What a lot may have a lot of] for USED CARS; [Freeboot] for MARAUD ("freebooter" comes to us from the Dutch); [Like the Danish language] for GERMANIC (Dutch and English are also in the Germanic family of languages); [Etymologist's concern] for ROOT, speaking of etymologies; and the sort of confusing [Showers of purchases] for STATEMENTS.
Updated:
The Newsday Saturday Stumper by "Anna Stiga" (anagram of Stan [Newman] again has plenty of lively fill and clues. Nothing overtly funny, but an entertaining crossword all the same.
Yay! Another Karen Tracey puzzle! Karen's also got today's themeless LA Times crossword. A bit of Scrabbly goodness, some interesting clues, some lively phrases in the grid. It's not Karen's best work, in my opinion (some iffy abbreviations), but I still like her style and enjoyed the puzzle.
Randall Hartman's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Corporate America," has a straightforward theme and pretty easy clues.
March 01, 2007
Friday, 3/2
NYS 6:05
NYT 4:58
2/16 CHE 4:48
LAT 3:58
CS 3:06
WSJ 9:50
Reagle (no new one in Across Lite this week)
(post updated at 9:15 a.m. Friday)
Eric Berlin's wavelength fought mightily against mine. Maybe my solving time doesn't make it obvious, but this one felt llike a struggle to me. I couldn't believe that I fell for the new oldest trick in the book with [Bug's midsection]. Six letters, it's got to be THORAX, right? No, the SHORT U sound. I usually manage to escape those traps, but not this time. Fill I admired: NO CENTS ([What two zeroes after a dot may mean]) atop its fellow monetary answer (composed of its letter bank, too), C-NOTES, both crossing the related ONES PLACE on the other side of the decimal point, and that crosses A DIME A DOZEN. Also the ORC/ORCAS combo; the sweet CINNAMON STICK crossing a cookie (though I've never encountered a BRANDY SNAP); the pop culture of Ozzy OSBOURNE and FALCON CREST ("Together again!"); and AH, BLISS. As for clues: the aforementioned SHORT U trap that presumably snared many of us; [Handy thing to know?: Abbr.] for ASL; [Blue prints?] for SMUT; [It divides people] for AISLE (though a bride and groom go down the aisle to unite); ["We know drama" sloganeer] for the TNT cable channel (I think it was TNT I was watching the other week, and there was an all-caps branding on the screen with the word DRAMA, but the D looked a little rounded and the R looked a little folded in, and I couldn't figure out why the movie was being linked to OBAMA. Maybe the mind sees what it wants to?); and [Must, say] for ODOR. (Another form of the word must has an unusual meaning.) By the way, the [Adaptable aircraft] STOL means short take-off and landing.
Will Nediger’s Weekend Warrior in the Sun has plenty of Scrabbly letters, particularly in the center where JAQ and ZAX cross. I recently learned from another crossword that ZAX is a character from a Dr. Seuss story I’d never read, but it’s also a tool. I tried like hell to find a picture of a zax for you, but I grow skeptical that anyone has actually seen this thing, a [Tool for cutting roof slates]. As for JAQ, the mice Gus and Jaq help Cinderella. That little intersection irked me. I liked the 10-letter entries that radiate out from those Scrabbly letters, though: In counterpoint to the mean Norman Mailer quote in the clue for BELLA ABZUG, she’s situated opposite SEXUALIZED. Some other Z entries are LAZYBONES and EMILE ZOLA. And indeed, SERBIA grows a lot of raspberries. Who knew?
Updated:
Wow. For an English major, I sure didn't learn much about Longfellow and I'm sure not into poetry. I can't say I was familiar with three or four of the five theme entries in Annemarie Brethauer's 2/16 Chronicle of Higher Ed crossword, "Regarding Henry"—all are titles of Longfellow (ed. note: Originally typed "Tennyson" both times, had to change to "Longfellow"; see?) poems. [WTO Director General Pascal] LAMY is in here, which amuses me because you know how kids are wont to tease others by finding embarrassing rhymes for their names? "Amy" didn't lend itself to much, but they still managed to come up with "lamy Amy." That, and Zeke the Flavor Freak (based on my last name at the time), the colorful zebra from Fruit Stripe gum. Isn't this a little sad? Give a woman a crossword with a scholarly, literary theme, and she reminisces about '70s chewing gum.
Brendan Emmett Quigley's Wall Street Journal crossword, "iTunes," gathers 10 song titles that begin with the word "I" and moves the "I" to the clue so you've got to work for every square. My favorite was (I) FALL TO PIECES, the [tune for Mr. Potato Head?], although every theme entry/clue pair was fun. Kind of a puzzle within the crossword—nearly always a good thing. The grid's got some tough words lurking in it, such as EXEDRA, which is both a semicircular half-domed recess and a [Semicircular bench]. Never heard of POT ALE, the dregs left over after distilling whiskey; it used to be dumped into rivers, but now can be processed into recycled grain for animal feed. (Good recycling or crappy agricultural practice? I don't know.) I was vaguely familiar with the [Adriatic wind] called BORA. Did you know the European version of the VW Jetta is called the Bora? One ended up in my neighborhood, somehow. Volkswagen is fond of winds, apparently—the Bora, the Scirocco, the Passat. (Good trivia question? "What automaker has named at least three cars after winds?") Maserati stole the Mistral, but perhaps Santa Ana, chinook, and föhn (et al.) are still up for grabs.
