NYS 6:45
LAT 5:32
NYT 5:16
Jonesin' 4:15
CHE 4:32
CS 3:59
WSJ 8:16
Whoo! Nothing like a four-hour-plus power outage to make one appreciate electricity and all the nifty machines that run on it. Chicago and environs got smacked with some ferocious winds this afternoon—70 mph, I heard, and I believe it. Never have I seen so many trees broken or wholly uprooted. Alas, the mulberry tree on my block, a summertime snacking favorite, was yanked out of the earth. At least that one didn't end up in the street like plenty of other trees. A nearby highrise lost the roof over its (roughly) twentieth-floor swimming pool. The roof paid a visit to Lake Shore Drive, which mucked up traffic before and during rush hour. That highrise is next door to Ben's school, which saw two locust trees uprooted in one of its playgrounds. And a small picture window from the ninth floor of the building across the street from me somehow was yoinked out of its frame and dashed to the ground (fortunately missing people and property below). I am astonished that ComEd was able to restore electricity to my neighborhood so soon, given the widespread nature of downed trees and electrical lines.
Patrick Berry's New York Times puzzle is a themeless one with 68 answers. Lots of long phrases and a few long single-word answers (fairly low on the "roll your own" word quotient—UNCONSOLED and INARTISTIC are crafted with prefix action), a meaty chunk of white space in the middle of the grid with long answers radiating out from it, ambitious interlocking of long answers—and good clues for both long and short answers. Two IS_C guys in the grid: ISAAC HAYES, the [Soul singer who is also a coronated king of Ghana], and ISOCRATES, [One of the "10 Attic orators"]. (Quick! Name the other nine!).
Favorite clues: [Drop a few positions, maybe] for AUTOMATE, as in automating grocery store checkout and dropping employees; [Red line?] for ARTERY; [Overprotect] for COSSET, a word I should use more often (along with BEASTLY, clued here as [Very disagreeable]); [It was good for Sartre] is the French BON; [Bad time for a tropical vacation] is RAINY SEASON, though Hawaii, the Caribbean islands, and Mexico all remind us that hurricane season isn't so great for tourism either; the basketballish [Pass under the basket, maybe] for ASSIST; [It may be bid] for ADIEU; [Stocking stuffer] for SANTA
[Mystery author Dexter] is COLIN Dexter, author of the Inspector Morse mysteries, which I've heard of even though I didn't recall the author's name. Did you know [What stare decisis upholds the validity of]? It's CASE LAW. What [Dog in Disney's "Cinderella"] is BRUNO? I don't remember a dog. So, TOP GUN was the [Highest-grossing film of 1986]? That's a shame (never did see the movie); here are the movies it beat out. Two bits of educational trivia: TWEED is a [Fabric with the same name as a Scottish river], and BRIE is a [French district that lent its name to a foodstuff]. I'm not crazy about [Near the bottom of the drawers?] for INARTISTIC, though—it seems to overreach.
Other entries I liked: EAST GERMANY; the phrases HAS NO IDEA and RECONCILED TO; COMPANY MEN who don't necessarily work for SNAPPLE; CHERIE Blair. Not much Scrabbly vocabulary in this grid—as you'll see below, the other Patrick B. hogged up all the uncommon letters.
Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword, "The Dr. Is In," plays with that guy whose name is quite crossword-friendly: Dr. Dre. (Anyone else see that '93 movie, Who's the Man? Denis Leary's character, a cop, rags on Dre for calling himself a doctor without having gone to medical school, which...he's got a point. What are Dr. Pepper's credentials, anyway?) The theme entries incorporate an extra DRE, so the S.S. Minnow from Gilligan's Island becomes a DRESS MINNOW, a [Fish to wear to formal events?]. (Cute extra: Another small fish, a GUPPY, is right beneath that entry.) CLASSIFIED DREAD is clued as [Systematically categorized one's anxieties?], and [What people had to repeat to Freud?] is I DREAM, I SAID (playing on a Neil Diamond song.
Two corners contain bricks of 8-letter entries, such as CHIPOTLE, the LOG CABIN Republicans, AL CAPONE, and a SOREHEAD. Favorite clues: [Guy who cuts you off in traffic, e.g.] for A-HOLE; [Big wheels] for SEDAN (though a sedan isn't always big—Ford Focus, anyone?); [Crab in a can?] for OSCAR the Grouch from Sesame Street (the muppet I always identified with the most); [In need of relief, in a way] for GASSY; ["Your fly is open" noise] for AHEM; and [Word repeated after "here"] for KITTY. [Wireless carrier formed in 2005] is HELIO, which I've seen a magazine ad for but know nothing about. I didn't know that Kalpen MODI was Kal Penn's real name; he was one of the stars of Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. (Sequel due out next year!) ALAS is clued as ["___, Babylon" (1959 post-apocalyptic novel)]; hey, I read the 1979 edition of that book during my adolescent sci-fi dalliance.
Patrick Blindauer's New York Sun crossword offers anagrams of playing cards in a royal flush, ergo the title, "Shuffled Cards." You don't need to have a clue that anagrams are involved to finish the puzzle, though. ONE-STEP FADS comes from ten of spades; SAFE JOCK PADS, jack of spades; FED OPAQUENESS, queen of spades; FAKES DOPINGS, king of spades; and ESCAPED SOFA, ace of spades. If any of you figured out the anagram angle, do you feel that it sped your journey through the grid? Because while the theme entries are gettable based on the clues and the crossings, they're not remotely "in the language" phrases.
Lots of Scrabbly words in this puzzle (bonus points for that), but I'll have to dock Patrick 10 points for using one of those Xs in a Roman numeral. The construction, in which pairs of theme entries are mostly stacked together (staggered by a few letters), earns back a few bonus points. But then a few points are taken away for the abundance of 3-letter answers.
The only AMOS OZ (1-Down) novel I remember is the dismal epistolary novel, Black Box. I completely missed the existence of grunge band TAD (11-Down).
Favorite clues: [One out of 10?] for ZERO; [You might jump for it] for JOY (with the Y filled in, I first thought SKY...though really, who jumps for the sky? Reach for the sky, jump for the stars?); [Drop back?] for LET (as in droplet); [Noted trio member] for EGO (with id and superego); and [Also, archaically] for EKE (this may be etymologically related to the German auch, meaning "also").
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It took me a while to figure out what Gary Steinmehl had done with the theme entries in his LA Times crossword. The hint at 1-Down was HAIR LOSS, but the theme entries didn't appear to be formed by zapping a HAIR from them. The first theme entry, though, loses an H (Broadway show becomes BROADWAY SOW, a [Performer in the stage version of "Babe"
?]), the second loses an A (weight gain becomes WEIGHT GIN), the third loses an I (street riot, STREET ROT), and the fourth, R (business trip, BUSINESS TIP). Good clues in this one. What's an [Osiris feature]? He's been depicted with a crazy BEARD. I've heard of bluesman Keb' Mo' and rapper Lil' Kim, but didn't know [Hip hop's ___ Mo], LIL' Mo (née Cynthia Loving). I also hadn't heard of the Maui tourist attraction, IAO Valley. Other clues I liked: A [Calculating endeavor] is ADDING; [Ideal enumeration] is WISH LIST (I can't believe nobody cleaned out my Amazon wish list for my birthday!); [Zig instead of zag?] is ERR; the [Kind of binding that allows a book to open flat] is WIRE EDGE, and it appears to be a handcrafting thing rather than an option commercial bookbinders use; [Unlike a picnic?] means HARD; and a [Hospital closing?] is a SUTURE.
In the August 10 Chronicle of Higher Education crossword, "Conference Program," Leonard Williams plays around with alternate meanings of words in meeting phrases, so an [Arthroplasty conference?], about joint surgery, could be a JOINT DISCUSSION. Classical Greece gets a lot of play in the fill, with ILIAD, the island CHIOS, and ARGUS. ANDROS looks Greek too, but that's an the [Largest island in the Bahamas].
Lynn Lempel's CrosSynergy puzzle ("What a Hoot!") embeds an OWL (70-Across) in each of the five theme entries. Plenty of 7-letter answers in the fill, too.
Tracey Snyder's Wall Street Journal crossword, "Pluses and Minuses," pairs red (debt) and black (in the plus column) entities. Two movies, RED DRAGON and MEN IN BLACK; two bands, the BLACK CROWES and SIMPLY RED; two equine books, Steinbeck's THE RED PONY
and BLACK BEAUTY; and two ways to be treated, RED CARPET and BLACKBALL. TRIP UP, or [Expose in a blunder], is a nice entry, isn't it? The last square I filled in here was the A where MACLE, or [Twinned crystal], and DALASI, or [Gambia's unit of currency], crossed. Favorite clues: [Ride in the space shuttle] for SALLY; [Once-popular diet] for ATKINS (It's no longer popular? Good: I don't like people talking smack about my beloved carbs.); [Dish setting, maybe] for HOUSETOP (yesterday I saw one of those DirecTV satellite dishes on the ground—probably used to be atop a house or affixed to a side wall somewhere); [General delivery?] for ORDER; [Cat hangouts] for LAPS (though I do not want a cat on my lap, ever); [Maker of night flights] for BAT (if you'd like to have bats flying safely around you, visit the Twilight Zone at England's Chester Zoo).
August 23, 2007
Friday, 8/24
August 22, 2007
Thursday, 8/23
NYS 5:50
NYT 5:17
LAT 4:44
CS 3:00
Here's a crossword comedy interlude for you. This guy oughta write a how-to book!
The New York Times crossword by Joe Krozel looks markedly different in the online forms vs. the Thursday paper. The Across Lite Notepad—alluded to in the applet but inaccessible there—says "The clues in the print version of this puzzle appear in a single list, combining Across and Down. Where two answers share a number, the unclued Down answer is a homophone of the corresponding Across answer." In the online versions, the clues are split into standard Across and Down lists, with dashes in lieu of clues for those number-sharing northwest corners of the various grid sections. As a bonus, all of the affected word pairs start with the same letter.
The thematic pairs are (1) BOULDER/BOLDER, (8) BARRED/BARD, (24) BASED/BASTE, (27) BODE/BOWED, (37) BALE/BAIL, (38) BORDER/BOARDER, (54) BEAT/BEET, and (56) BEAR/BARE. They're not laid out symmetrically by virtue of the inherent northwest-cornerocity of the theme/gimmick. I suspect other Western languages couldn't be used to assemble a list of eight pairs of homophonic words starting with one letter—English's orthographical oddities mean the same sounds can be spelled many different ways and, let me tell you, kids just learning to write really don't appreciate that.
Favorite clues: [Party of the first part and party of the second part, e.g.] for LEGALESE; [Tailors] for SEWERS ("ones who sew," as opposed to the storm sewers? C'mon, sewers filled with rainwater pass the Sunday morning breakfast test, don't they?), not far from ALTERS with a misleading tailoring clue, [Lowers the cuffs on, maybe]; and [Country named for its location on the globe] for ECUADOR. I don't care for [Point to] as the clue for BODE; given that each theme clue has to pull double duty, a clearer clue would have helped here. That was the last square I filled in, after contemplating the other options (CODE, MODE, RODE...) that might fit there. And OVA as [Donations at some clinics]—well, that clue makes egg donation sound so much simpler than it really is.
It's been a while since I've seen Frank Longo's byline in a newspaper puzzle, but he constructed the 68-word "Themeless Thursday" in the New York Sun. Pop culture stuff I enjoyed: MURTAUGH, Danny Glover's character in the Lethal Weapon franchise; the fairly entertaining Brad Pitt/Julia Roberts movie, THE MEXICAN; the penguin cartoon, HAPPY FEET; and the comic strip ARLO AND JANIS. I liked the corner where, in an I/T/L party, TITTLE and TRITT cross A LITTLE BIT and a TITLE TRACK, the latter clued as [Biggest cut, often]. [You definitely don't want them to drop by your house] is a creepily surreal clue for ATOM BOMBS; I don't like it. While GLAD-HANDS is a verb I've used, have you ever heard of it used as a noun, as in [Warm welcomes]? WIRE RODS is rather dull, as are ESSENE and EVENER and AGER. I hadn't heard of NO-GO AREAS. I do like BIPARTITE, clued here as [Joint], because I have bipartite sesamoid bones, which is really hard to say out loud without it turning into a tongue twister that mangles the -oid and -ite endings. (If you can say it, my hat is off to you.) Also good: CHEESINESS, which is mostly boring letters but a great word nonetheless; the phrase SWEAR BY; and that glut of consonants in the middle of the TUNGSTEN LAMP.
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Sarah Keller's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Front Flips," inverts the short first names of the four theme people. [Show no respect to "Show of Shows" star?] is DIS CAESAR (Sid Caesar), for example. Easy enough. The clues had some zip to them—favorites include [Fabulous writer?] for AESOP; [Abba's roots] for SWEDEN (crosswords have trained me to think of Abba Eban from Israel, another 6-letter country); [Hook, line, and sinker?] for GEAR; [Stop sign?] for RED (as in red light); and [Cutting class?] for BIOLOGY (ew, dissection).
The duo of Stella Daily and Bruce Venzke constructed today's LA Times crossword. The theme entries are all clued [DOWN]: DRINK QUICKLY (with CHUG in the same corner), FEELING BLUE (crossing BLAH), SOUTH ON A MAP (below [East ender?], ERN), and FOOTBALL PLAY (well...I don't see anything quasi-related to that, but OPERA and OPRY do intersect elsewhere). Favorite clues: [Respond to cuteness] for MELT; [Not-so-friendly look] for LEER (it's not often enough that clues for OGLE and LEER highlight unwelcomeness rather than lasciviousness); and [It covers all the bases] for TARP.
August 21, 2007
Wednesday, 8/22
NYS 4:42
LAT 3:50
NYT 3:22
CS 2:57
Before moving along to the Wednesday crosswords, let me direct your attention to the sidebar. Under "Amazon links," you'll find a list of book titles. I've added four puzzle books besides How to Conquer [etc.]—we have the Terribly Twisted book by Henry Hook that I recently reviewed; two wee coffee cup–shaped Sit/Sip & Solve books of hard crosswords, one by Byron Walden that I enjoyed thoroughly and reviewed ages ago and one by Matt Gaffney that I'm in the midst of and having fun with; and Carnal Knowledge, an etymology/trivia book about the words for the parts of the human body by Charles Hodgson, the guy with the podictionary.com etymological podcast site. If you like Fridayish and Saturdayish challenging puzzles, check out those puzzle books, and if you get a kick out of etymology, try the last book.
The first theme entry I got in Alan Arbesfeld's New York Sun puzzle, "Greetings From the Front," was HAIKU WAIT, or HAI KUWAIT, which sounds like, "Hi, Kuwait." (The "hai" part puts me in mind of LOLcats who say "oh hai," and that makes me happy.) The other theme entries cleaved into two pieces and squished the first piece up against another "hi" homophone to make a new two-syllable entity. Jack Lord giveth the HIJACK LORD; permissive, a HYPER MISSIVE; a HoJo, HEIGH-HO, JO; ball club, HIGHBALL CLUB; and Denmark, Eric HEIDEN MARK. Hey, I like this theme. Well executed! In the fill, I couldn't place ["Magnet and Steel" singer Walter] EGAN for a while—and then I remembered how much I liked the song (How handy is YouTube? You get to hear the song and see the au courant satin jacket) back in '78. Other favorite clues: [Banks, familiarly] for Ernie Banks, a.k.a. MR CUB; [Companion of a certain fat cat] for ODIE, because the clue tried to keep me from thinking of that odious Garfield as long as it could; and [Light up?] for HALO. Can someone explain how the clue for ALIBI works? I understand the "out" portion of [Stand out?] but not the "stand" bit.
The New York Times crossword's by Patrick Blindauer. The theme is PICK-UP LINES, but not the way you think of them ("Hey, good-lookin', what you got cookin'?"). The fictional cop who's picked up the bad guys says "BOOK 'EM, DANNO." The driver picking up a hitchhiker asks, "NEED A LIFT?" Whoever picked up the phone first hollers, "IT'S FOR YOU." Those abysmal Chevy pickup truck commercials used that abysmal Bob Seger song, "LIKE A ROCK." The fill's livened up by a wealth of 6- and 7-letter answers. Favorite clues: [Father figure?] for PRIEST; [Bugs on a highway] for VWS (not "smudges on the windshield"); and [Hardly a celebrity] for UNKNOWN. I learned that the British have the slang term SLAP-UP, meaning [Top-notch, to a Brit]. That's a bang-up piece of information, isn't it? And have you been wondering what TINA [Yothers of "Family Ties"] has been up to lately? Reality TV and shows like The View, that's what.
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Randolph Ross's CrosSynergy crossword, "Yes, Deer," has a quartet of theme entries that start, end, or start and end with words that mean "deer" in other contexts: the TV show HART TO HART, STAG PARTIES, MEET JOHN DOE, and FIFTY BUCKS.
The LA Times puzzle by David Cromer has a theme of the ELEMENTS OF STYLE, redefining "style" from its usage connotations to high style, with accoutrements like a STRETCH LIMO and PRIVATE JET.
August 20, 2007
Tuesday, 8/21
Tausig 4:36
NYS 3:57
Onion 3:50
LAT 3:50
CS 3:07
NYT 2:52
The New York Times crossword's by Tom Heilman, and I suspect this is another constructing debut. The theme entries are the BEES knees, with two phrases starting and two ending with apian words. THE AFRICAN QUEEN and the very colloquial GIVE ME A BUZZ offer those sweet-as-honey Zs and a Q, and STING OPERATIONS and HONEY, I'M HOME (which is also a famous line from The Shining, as seen in this speeded-up clip set to "Yakety Sax"). The clue [Private stash] (for CACHE) put me in mind of this Saturday Night Live skit, "You Put Your Weed in It"—and lo and behold, WEED shows up lower down in this crossword (clued as [Work in the garden]).
The New York Sun puzzle is "Final Offer," by Joe Bower. The theme is TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT, so two phrases take on an extra IT and two others lose IT: THE BIG BANDIT ERA and PULPIT FICTION ([Falsehoods from the preacher?]) vs. CENTER OF GRAVY (ha!) and UNEXPECTED VISOR. Joe's from South Dakota, and there are two clues related to that: [Neighbor of S. Dak.] is NEB (Nebraska), and [Part of S. Dak. is in it] is CST. The other half is in the Mountain time zone. "What? Mountains in South Dakota?" you ask. Yes, indeed. My sister's family just vacationed in the state and visited the Black Hills, home of the tallest peaks east of the Rockies (apparently the Appalachians and Adirondacks are no competition). The clue [Singh rival] stumped me until Ernie ELS revealed himself—ah, golfer Vijay Singh.
This week's Onion A.V. Club puzzle is by Deb Amlen. [A possible title for this puzzle] is ANGER MANAGEMENT, but fortunately the Adam Sandler connection ends there. (For some abysmal writing, see the Wikipedia plot summary of the movie.) The other theme entries contain the letter sequence ANGER embedded within them, as in RANGE ROVER and ORANGE RIND. Tons of pop culture, which makes me happy.
Ben Tausig's latest Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword's called "Jam Session," and the theme is a sweet one: four kinds of BERRY, such as STRAW MAN and BLUE MONDAY (the latter being a song title that I know without knowing why). With answers like JUKEBOX, XEROX, and VIOXX, this puzzle's got tons of Scrabbly freshness. Excellent pop culture tidbits, like cluing R. KELLY as [Indicted musician who said: "Osama Bin Laden is the only one who knows what I'm going through"] and SIX as [Blossom's pal]. The Tausigean sass comes from such clues as [One might be erotic] for CAKE (don't follow that link at work) and [Sponge alternative] for the female condom called the FEMIDOM. I hadn't heard of SHAY Haley, [N*E*R*D*'s Haley] or RARA, the [Haitian party music]). Favorite clues: [Field of flowers?] for BOTANY; [Tasty pockets] for RAVIOLI (tonight's dinner!); ["Get ___, you two!"] for A ROOM; [Weight-loss celebrity, familiarly] for JARED from Subway; [Warped Tour sponsor] for VANS (Vans canvas shoes are available for your puzzling pleasure in crossword and maze prints); and [Marlene Dietrich und Angela Merkel] für FRAUEN. Look! Here's the trusty [Aquatic crustacean], the ISOPOD; isopods can be smallish, land-based like the roly-poly, or giant.
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The LA Times crossword by John Halverson is about...what is the theme? Let's see. Ah, I see it now. (Took a while.) SEIZE THE DAY, COLLAR STUDS, BUST OF HOMER, and CATCH A FEW Z'S all begin with synonyms for "arrest." My favorite entry: OH ME, OH MY, clued as ["Goodness!"].
Randall Hartman's CrosSynergy puzzle has a pun theme. In "The Sty's the Limit," four famous people's first or last names get turned into porcine words. What would it sound like if a pig combined an oink with a pun-induced groan?
MP3 of of Will Shortz on the radio
Nancy Shack recorded the long Will Shortz segment of last night's Nick Digilio Show on Chicago's WGN Radio, and her husband Bill converted it into an MP3 format you can listen to. Thanks, Nancy and Bill!
August 19, 2007
Monday, 8/20
NYS 3:33
CS 3:23
LAT 2:32
NYT 2:28
All righty! I was gone most of the day, but in my absence trusty Crossword Fiend webmaster Dave Sullivan toiled away on my behalf. He upgraded the Blogger template, installed the expandable posts hack suggested by Alex Boisvert, and got HaloScan comments incorporated again after Blogger ate them. Sorry that the Blogger comments were a hassle when they were all that was available—I do like HaloScan.
Anyway, the expandable posts should work like magic. Click the "read more" link and boom, the post expands within this window. Click again to shrink it back to "summary" form and the post magically zips back to smallness. The blog archives are now organized better, with an expandable outline format and the latest stuff listed first, not last. After today, I expect that the summary will consist of the newspaper abbreviations and solving times, with all the paragraphs of text available if and when (and only if and when) you want to see 'em.
It's been a while since Lynn Lempel had a Monday New York Times puzzle, and I'm always glad to see her byline early in the week. She's got five famous trios, with the two vertical ones crossing the three BILLY GOATS GRUFF. (I used to read to Ben from this board book edition of the story. It was the first book he could fake-read by reciting from memory.) The other trios are the three LITTLE PIGS, FRENCH HENS, BLIND MICE, and MEN IN A TUB. Not that many 3-letter words, which is a plus. And some interesting longer answers: MALARKEY, which is a wonderful word; the DON'T WALK sign; South America's Lake TITICACA, beloved by '80s fans of Trivial Pursuit; and GLITCHES, another great word. What's its etymology? Let's look it up: possibly Yiddish, possibly from the space program?
Curtis Yee's New York Sun puzzle is called "Slice of Hamlet." Four theme entries that begin with words that can precede play are crossed in the grid by the Hamlet quote, THE PLAY'S / THE THING. POWER BASE gives us power play; HORSERACING, horseplay; SCREENSAVER. screenplay; and WORDSMITH, Wordplay. Like Lynn Lempel, Curtis has packed the grid with interesting longer entries (PRINGLES, the Upper EAST SIDE, SPLATS) and not many 3-letter words.
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Last night I listened to the Nick Digilio show on Chicago's WGN Radio. The host had Will Shortz on for almost an hour, and they talked about Cheap Trick, crosswords, sudoku, the Jumble (tip from Will: If you're having trouble unscrambling or anagramming some letters, try writing them down in bowling pin/pyramid form, such as 1 letter above 2 letters above 3 letters. Somehow that helps your brain shuffle the letters into a new order more easily. This could come in handy when you're working on a cryptic and know what letters need to be anagrammed, but can't see the answer.), the tournament, self-designed majors. I went to college with a guy who majored in hermeneutics, which is a good deal more arcane than enigmatology. In case you wonder what sort of job that course of study might lead to, it turns out to be president of an artisanal sake importer. Anyway, Nick said my name and the title, How to Conquer the New York Times Crossword Puzzle, approximately a zillion times, which so fun! Nick also said he plans to have me and Tyler Hinman on the show soon—which Tyler and I learned via the radio. I'm thinking Nancy Shack should be our publicist and arrange all this, because she seems to have a knack for it.
Martin Ashwood-Smith's CrosSynergy puzzle features a quote (bleah). From the comic strip cat, GARFIELD (double bleah). I haven't understood the enduring success of Garfield since I was about 12 and discovered it wasn't funny. Who's still buying the Garfield merchandise and books? I did once come across an X-rated spoof of the strip online, in which the relationship between Jon and his cat took an intimate turn.
In the LA Times puzzle by Don Gagliardo, the theme entries appear to be nothing more than "phrases that start with DW, in alphabetical order." DWEEB, alas, did not make an appearance here. The puzzle's spruced up by the presence of great long fill (e.g., BLOODY MARY and SHENANIGAN). Extra bonus points for keeping the Urals out of the grid but using them to clue both EUROPEAN and ASIA.
August 18, 2007
Sunday, 8/19
NYT 9:46
PI 8:48
LAT 8:33
WaPo 7:58
BG 7:08
CS 4:52
The Chicago Air and Water Show did not disappoint. This afternoon, we watched planes swoop about for an hour and a half in the rain. The rain didn't let up at all, though it may have let down, so we packed up and hopped on a bus. During the one-mile bus ride home, of course, the rain quit, and we stood at the end of our block watching the Air Force Thunderbirds perform their aerobatic marvels. A couple times, one of the jets swooped over our block, which was kinda cool. And when the show ended, why, look! We're just steps from home. Couldn't have planned it better.
In other Chicago news, apparently Will Shortz will be chatting with Nick Digilio on WGN Radio Sunday night at 11:00. (Thanks to Nancy Shack for the tip.)
Usually the nobody on the NYT “Today’s Puzzle” forum talks about the Times puzzle before it launches online. But this afternoon, a print newspaper subscriber (locals get the Magazine with Saturday's paper) raved about this Sunday's New York Times crossword by Liz Gorski. What's the big deal? Well, Liz has a knack for visually arresting gimmicks. In this puzzle with left/right symmetry, the "Buried Treasure" theme involves a rebus. There are 10 squares that contain [AU], the chemical symbol for gold, and if you play connect-the-dots, you get a heart of AU—as in the song BY NEIL YOUNG called HEART OF GOLD. The lyric that's included here is I'VE BEEN A MINER FOR A / HEART OF GOLD—I tried squeezing "keep me searching" in there, but instead, sadly, there's an accidental reminder of the Utah coal mine tragedy. Balancing BY NEIL YOUNG on the other side of the grid is gold's atomic number, SEVENTY-NINE. If you did the puzzle on the applet and you'd like to see where those [AU]s are, see below for an Across Lite screen capture (no guarantee that the rest of the grid's correct—I didn't check my work.)
Before venturing into the nitty-gritty of clues and fill, let me mention that the NYT applet keeps mangling letters with diacritical marks. At least some online solvers saw this: [___ Tom?], 3 letters, S_O. Seo Tom? Soo Tom? No! SAO Tomé. This technical glitch ought to be ironed out by now—it can be vexing.
There are some tough words in this puzzle. Here were my blind spots: 10-Down, [Bill who created the comic strip "Smokey Stover"] (crossing that [___ Tom?] spot, alas). He's Bill HOLMAN, apparently. The ["Baptism of Christ" painter ___ della Francesca] is PIERO. A [1954 Jean Simmons movie] is DESIREE. And who knew that [Mme. Tussaud]'s name was MARIE? BIENNIA, meaning [Two-year periods], was gettable with a few crossings, but it's not a familiar word. I've seen ISTLE, the [Basketry fiber], in other crosswords; but it's pretty darned obscure. Same with the [French department in Picardy], AISNE.
Favorite clues: [Music unlikely to be played at a party] for DIRGE; [Strands in a diner] for SPAGHETTI; [One who keeps a beat?] for PATROLMAN; [Victorians, e.g.] for [AU]SSIES (Victoria being a state in Australia); [It's often proud] for SPONSOR; [Jalapeño feature] for TILDE; [Facilitates] for GREASES; and [Mountain climbers?] for chair LIFTS. I also like the [March of ___] DIMES and IDES [___ of March] flip-flop, and the [Complete flip-flop] clue for U-TURN. And the video game ASTEROIDS: totally old-school! And the [Deep black garnets], MELANITES, which I've never seen but are indeed deep black, as the linked pictures show. (Surely I'm not the only one who loved books about minerals and gems when they were young?)
I like the 10 pairs of words that intersect at the [AU] rebus squares. TABLE[AU] and FR[AU], the writers [AU]STEN and [AU]DEN, the Bahamas capital NASS[AU], DE G[AU]LLE airport.
And? I've always liked that song. Here's a video of Neil Young in concert back in 1971, singing "Heart of Gold."
Updated:
Okay, I went to the gym and the grocery store, and Dave Sullivan's been toiling away at upgrading my Blogger template, and it's taking a little work to get the HaloScan comments back in working order. So the Blogger comments are there now, and I don't like 'em. Don't get used to them. But they may be there until tonight (or longer) because I've got to go to a family party today. Given the time crunch, I'll be doing the crosswords before I go but giving the blogging short shrift.
The Boston Globe puzzle by Emily Cox/Henry Rathvon, "Flower-Filled Phrases"—loved it! I like flower themes, and this one was tasty. Short fill, a 4-letter word, [Like ___ on hot bricks], ending with T. Only one 4-letter word ending with T came to mind, and it was...a four-letter word. That'll be our new meaningless saying around the house. (The answer turned out to be A CAT, which does not make a phrase I know.)
Rich Norris made the themeless CrosSynergy puzzle. Interesting phrases, interesting clues, not too challenging but not too easy either. Hidden secret message: Rich Norris has NORRIS in the grid, as in Chuck Norris, directly opposite...DR RUTH.
James Sajdak's Washington Post puzzle, "Found Money," lists places you might hide your cash stash. Theme's okay, liked the fill and clues.
Liz Gorski's also got the syndicated LA Times crossword, "The Mercury Is Rising," with a summer/heat theme. It would be timely but for the cold and rainy spell we're having here. Hasn't even cracked the 70° mark this weekend! A few tricky crossings (BARR/ASTANA, CASSIE/CARA), but a good puzzle.
Merl Reagle's Philadelphia Inquirer puzzle tells a story of a vacation through "The Great Outdoors," in which a family experiences things that sound like the great outdoors but aren't (like the movie GRAND CANYON). Punchline: [But what fun is a trip across America if we have to ___?] GET OUT OF THE SUV?
August 17, 2007
Saturday, 8/18
NYT 5:15
LAT 5:14
Newsday 5:03
CS 3:25
(updated at 9:15 a.m. Saturday)
Last night, my husband and I watched Hot Fuzz, the British cop action/comedy starring the guys who were in Shaun of the Dead, the British zombie action/comedy. It was indeed quite funny. One bit towards the movie's beginning centers on a cryptic crossword. The star cop, Nicholas Angel, has been transferred to a small village. He's checking into a quaint hotel, and the proprietor behind the counter suddenly spits out, "Fascist!" Angel's taken aback, but she explains that it's the answer to 7-Across (or Down?) in the crossword she's doing. He corrects her, that the clue's looking for FASCISM with an M. They continue the check-in transaction, and then he bites out a "Hag!" What? He explains that's the answer she needs for 12-Down. It's a captivating exchange, of course.
Across the Atlantic we have our American crosswords, including Jim Page's New York Times puzzle. This themeless creation has a relatively low 64 words, so we can expect a few "roll your own" words that are seldom used, crafted by tacking on a prefix or suffix. For example, PRECOLOR, PERTER, RECARVE, and the plurals LEIFS and BORONS. This particular puzzle also has an editorial vibe to it, with EDITS, clued as [Applies polish to?]; DELETES, hiding behind the wonderfully easy-to-misinterpret [Strikes]; and STET (raise your hand if you suspected that [Galley countermand] had something to do with oars). And GRAF could have been clued in its newspaper-editing sense rather than [1988 tennis Grand Slam winner] Steffi.
Today's Magical Mystery Answers (i.e., things I didn't know): [Actress Pataky] is ELSA Pataky, the Spanish actress who was in Snakes on a Plane, which nobody I know saw. [Conductor Segerstam and novelist Enger] are LEIFS (hm, I only know Leif Garrett and Leif Ericson). [Some bygone roadsters] smacks of the Roaring Twenties, but the cars in question are just DATSUNS. [Face with stone] is REVET (you can read up on revetments here). [Waite ___, Hall-of-Fame Yankees pitcher] is HOYT; was Waite Hoyt ever white-hot? Why on earth is ALOE clued as a [Fragrant heartwood]? Because of the agarwood tree, also known as aloe wood or, in the Old Testament, aloes. The [Old washday choice] DUZ was before my time.
Favorite clues: [Who's a critic?] for EVERYONE; [Thighs may be displayed in it] for both EROTICA and the icky MEAT CASE; [It rises in the Black Forest] for DANUBE (mmm, Black Forest cake...); [Less like a yo-yo] for SANER; [Writ introduction?] for HABEAS; plain ol' [Out] for OBSOLETE; and the "Huh?" clue of [So as to avoid being shot] for OFF CAMERA. An AEROBAT is a [Blue Angels member], and this weekend is Chicago's big Air and Water Show, featuring the Air Force Thunderbirds (really, is there any difference between the two groups?). I'd like to thank the zillion crosswords of yore that clued MATA or HARI with reference to the Greta Garbo role, since it made the 8-letter [1932 Garbo title role] come to mind quickly. Other answers I liked: CRUSTACEA ([Water fleas, barnacles, etc.]), SAMISEN ([Banjolike Japanese instrument]), Dirty Harry CALLAHAN ([Eastwood played him in five films]). Wait, did someone say CRUSTACEA? That's my cue to provide a giant isopod link. Why? Why not?
Updated:
Bob Peoples made today's themeless LA Times crossword. Plenty of goodies in here. [Banquet offering] is a brand-name TV DINNER, and [Square fare] is RAVIOLI. Speaking of brand names, there's also SUE Bee, a [Big name in honey], the [Hyundai model] ELANTRA, and CONICAL, clued as [Like Hershey's Kisses]. A SLED is a [Follower of dogs], which are also alluded to in [Regulation involving boxers] (LEASH LAW). Educational geography: the ZUIDER ZEE is [Literally, Dutch for "southern sea"]. LIMEADE is clued as [Tart quaff], while [Tart] clues MORDANT; isn't a mordant quaff refreshing? [Minor party candidate, often] is SPOILER (Nader!). [Charm] is about the most innocuous clue possible for FETISH. Who is ["Before You Sleep" novelist Ullmann]? LINN Ullmann is Liv Ullmann and Ingmar Bergman's daughter; she turned out to be a terrible actress so she went into journalism and eventually fiction writing. Favorite entries: THE BLOB, [Film whose tagline ends "Nothing can stop it!"]; DEA AGENT, [Crack operative?]; and IMCLONE, [Drug company whose stock was the subject of Martha Stewart's conviction].
Merle Baker's 68-word themeless puzzle in Newsday wasn't too hard, wasn't too easy. Favorite clues and/or answers: [1 in 21] for UNITS DIGIT; the [Parish officer] called a BEADLE, because it's a silly-sounding title; [They're on stage at the Grammys] for STATUETTES; [Sound sound] (verb + adjective) for TALK SENSE; the verb [Contests] for LITIGATES; HOT SEATS and HOME RUN. [Play up] is the clue for UNDERSCORE. If you play something down, are you overscoring it? Speaking of overscoring, there's a neighborhood restaurant near me that has a front window packed with hand-lettered signs, one of which actually overscores a word for emphasis. (I think it's also painted in italics.) That sign's almost as awe-inspiring as the place that offers a "2 hot dog's with frie's" meal.
Mel Rosen's CrosSynergy crossword hides three SEAs with short names (RED, DEAD, ARAL) within the trio of theme entries. The puzzle contains a lot of names: ATLI, King of the Huns; Elvis ARON Presley; ALDEN and MURINE and HALAS and NAST and STEEN. ATLI, I think, is a name I learned via crosswords. I wasn't familiar with one of the theme entries: [Recipient's name and delivery details, on a business letter] is INSIDE ADDRESS? Ah, it's merely the address above "Dear ___" and below your own address or masthead. Never knew that had an official name!
Experiment in posting
I knew a few people wouldn't read this blog if it didn't have the jump cuts hiding spoilers from plain view. If you're a few days behind on the puzzles, it's nice to be able to scroll down to the writeup you want without seeing answers from crosswords you haven't done yet.
However, Google seems to have forgotten how to scan the text that's hidden, which makes it considerably harder for new readers to find their way here. (And this is patently ridiculous, because who owns Blogger and blogspot? That's right: Google.)
I dearly love my regular readers, I do, but it'd be wonderful to have new people join this community, too, wouldn't it?
So I'm going to try eliminating the jump cut and see if it helps. Apologies to those of you who appreciate the jump cut (and please let me know who you are—I don't know if it's five people or a hundred).
August 16, 2007
Friday, 8/17
NYT 5:15
NYS 4:59
Jonesin' 4:17
LAT 3:59
CHE 3:34
CS 3:28
WSJ 8:16
Karen Tracey's on tap for this week's Sun Weekend Warrior, and Roger Barkan's name appears atop the Friday Times puzzle. I thoroughly enjoyed both of their crosswords.
Karen's themeless 70-worder in the New York Sun bears many of the hallmarks I like so much in Karen's puzzles. The marquée entries featuring uncommon letters? Check: JOAQUIN PHOENIX and CZECHOSLOVAKIA rack up a Q, X, Z, J, and K.
Geography? Check: That Scrabbly ex-country, SSRS that have joined the EU, the [Aztec language] NAHUATL, with its unexpected TL ending, and FARSI clued as [Cousin of Kurdish].
Pop culture? Check: That actor, plus ERIC BANA's full name (usually he shows up in the grid as the last name of [Eric of "Munich"], [The second word of "Candle in the Wind"] (NORMA Jean), NORA DUNN from S.N.L., ANN MILLER from Sugar Babies, and ILSA from Casablanca.
Idiomatic or colloquial language? Check: "FLOOR IT," "HOME, JAMES," EL CHEAPO, CRIES WOLF, LOW BLOW.
There's also a little Florida politics, with VERN Buchanan (who replaced Katherine Harris), a hanging CHAD, and voting machine maker [Diebold competitor], NCR. And two fragrances, TABU and ARAMIS (achoo).
My favorite clues: the verb [Stiff] for CHEAT; [Dilettante] for ESTHETE; [GUI piece?] for USER (graphical user interface, pronounced "gooey"—I have a friend with cats named GUI and SCSI); [Addition to a letter] for CEDILLA; [What plomo is transformed into in alquimia] for ORO (gold, made from lead in alchemy); [Bunny bits?] for DUST (as in dust bunnies—did you know there's a guy who collects dust bunnies? It's true!); [Bulb unit] for CLOVE of garlic; and [Encouraging start?] for ATTA (as in "Attagirl!").
Who is ARIE Selinger? He's a 70-year-old who's coached Olympic volleyball. Who is RONA Berg? She wrote a book with 1,000 makeup tips for women. Okay, no woman on this planet needs a thousand "fixes." Why, that's just...insulting.
The New York Times puzzle has 66 answers, and tons of 'em are great (and the grid's groovy, too). Barkan includes geography that resonates for me: the [Caribbean cruise port of call] is CHARLOTTE AMALIE in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and we landed there en route to our honeymoon. APPLETON, Wisconsin, is the [Home of Lawrence University]; we traveled there for my sister-in-law's graduation. Did we drive through [Utah's ___ Mountains], the UINTA Mountains? Possibly. (Did not go to OREM, however.) And I picked up a lot of Indian place names and language names, including the [Language of India with a palindromic name], MALAYALAM, from that college class on Indian history.
However, it's pop culture, not academia, that taught me that [Diwali revelers] are HINDUS, in a cringe-inducing yet funny episode of The Office (American version). More from movies and TV: the TELEVISION PILOT, DOC from Back to the Future, old-time movie actress ZASU Pitts (pronounced ZAY-sue—who knew?), Jean-Claude Van DAMME (so help me, I enjoyed Universal Soldier), and the X-MEN.
The most mystifying partially filled-in answer was 1-Down, [Star performer's reward]. SAN DIEGO with an extra letter stuck in it? A something-INGO? Ah, a STANDING O (vation)! Terrific entry in the way it fought not to be recognized until suddenly, it was.
The absolute best clue here was [Leaves alone, sometimes] for SALAD. Brilliant! Other Down clues I liked: [Got together] for HERDED (I was reading it as an intransitive verb); 9[100, say] for A-PLUS; [Accessories for a secretary] leading you to think plural when the answer's DESK SET; and [Wickiup, for one] means HUT, or wigwam. In the Across direction, [You can sink your feet into them] means SHAG CARPETS; the [Bus line?] is the driver's command, STEP TO THE REAR; EN GARDE is a [Pointed warning?]; and we get a little medical terminology with URIC ACID as a [Major component of kidney stones].
Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword this week is called "Let's Have Dessert Outside." The theme entries have other letters filling the CAKE, as in CLAMBAKE and CALLED STRIKE. Newfangledest entries: LAME-ASS, FOOSBALL, and the [Start of some monster B-movie titles], IT CAME. Nice Chinese double-take, with mega-sized YAO Ming and megalomaniac MAO. Two communications clues: [Get hold of, in a way] for EMAIL, and [Phony prefix?] for TELE. I did not at all understand the relationship between [Weed event] and CLAMBAKE; apparently it's drug slang meaning "sitting inside a car or other small, enclosed space and smoking marijuana." Live and learn, eh?
Updated:
The August 3 Chronicle of Higher Education puzzle by Annemarie Brethauer is called "Standing Innovations." The theme entries are those crazy structures—such as the UNISPHERE and the SPACE NEEDLE—built for the WORLD'S FAIR in various years and cities. The puzzle seemed to be fairly easy, but there are plenty of clues that call on broad knowledge. Peru has mountains called the Cordillera BLANCA? Fanny HILL is a John Cleland heroine? ESTO is here as [Word in Idaho's state motto].
Which reminds me: In How to Conquer the New York Times Crossword Puzzle, each crossword has three paragraphs of "Hints and Tips." I think these were originally envisioned as Dummies-style callouts on the puzzle pages, but given th 6x9 trim size, the Hints and Tips moved to the end of the book. But there's a wealth of information there, particularly for the newer solver. One of those quasi-crosswordese words may launch a discussion of related words. For one puzzle with ORO clued as part of Montana's state motto, I wrote this:
Clues for ORO sometimes reference Montana’s motto, “Oro y plata.” Other state mottoes that get play in crosswords include “Ad ASTRA per ASPERA” (Kansas), “ESSE quam videri” (North Carolina, “ENSE petit placidam sub libertate quietem” (Massachusetts), “ESTO perpetua” (Idaho), “Salus populi suprema lex ESTO” (Missouri), “Live free OR DIE” (New Hampshire), “ALIS volat propriis” (Oregon), and “L’étoile du NORD” (Minnesota). MGM’s motto is “Ars gratia artis,” while the Prince of Wales says “Ich dien.”
It took some doing to assemble the theme in Harvey Estes' CrosSynergy crossword, "The West of the Story." It's got an exchange between MAE West and George RAFT, in which he said "GOODNESS / WHAT BEAUTIFUL / DIAMONDS," and she replied, "GOODNESS / HAD NOTHING / TO DO WITH IT." Interesting to have 22-Across's GOODNESS pulling double duty here. Oddly, I encountered 11-Down, [Response to a sneeze], about 10 seconds after I sneezed. Harvey says BLESS YOU; I stick with "Gesundhheit!"
Dan Naddor's LA Times crossword is a tribute to ELMER FUDD, who had twubble saying his Rs. Four phwases have TR or CR words that get twisted into QU or TW words: FALCON QUEST, for example. In the fill, I learned that there's a band called DAMONE, and apparently I might know them if I played video games. Some great fill: FLOTILLA, the [Exclamation from Poirot] "MON DIEU," LAST STOP on the line, a CUE STICK, BLUE LAW, and SUNDRY (which is a word I like).
Stella Daily and Bruce Venzke co-constructed the Wall Street Journal puzzle, playing with the sort of phrases that pop up in "Market Speak." What might happen with guillotine stock? It WENT DOWN SHARPLY. That was my favorite theme entry. And miniskirts GOT SOLD SHORT. There are seven other theme entries, some of them shorter 7-, 8-, or 9-letter words/phrases, but those two were the ones I liked best.
