NYT 9:28
WaPo 9:00ish
PI 8:42
LAT 8:39
BG 7:09
CS 5:25
Wow, I'm tired. Let's do the math: 2 hours in the car + 2 hours at a kid party + 4 hours in a house full of kids + 2 more hours in the car = zonked out.
In the Sunday New York Times puzzle, "Process of Elimination," Patrick Berry compiles a set of words and phrases that contain each of their letters twice, except for one stand-alone letter. Somehow, he found a set that could fit into symmetrical spots in the grid while still allowing the stand-alone letters to form an apt word when read from top to bottom. SORE LOSER at 25-Across loses the duplicated S, O, R, and E, and starts the mystery word with its L. Then ANTIPERSPIRANTS retains a solitary E, HATCHET FACE an F, HARD-HEARTED a T, IF THE SHOE FITS an O, DRIVER'S SIDE a V, SHE'S ALL THAT another E, HIPPOCRATIC OATH an R, and NO OFFENSE an S: LEFTOVERS. Well now, that couldn't fit together any more perfectly, could it? The process of elimination is explained in the clue for TWICE at 127-Across.
Moving past the stellar theme, I traveled slowly. I hadn't made sense of the theme until after I finished solving (and untied the part of my brain that interpreted the instructions as "cross out any letter that appears twice in each clue," so when I came across the clue that read [Their priority is number one], well, I had elimination processes in mind and that didn't help in the slightest. (EGOTISTS, not WHIZZERS, say). I also got mired at the beginning, where I opted for MOROSE over MOPISH and tried STOOP in lieu of STUPE to see if that would help, and ignoring the "on" in the clue [Put the touch on], I wanted HIT ON in place of HIT UP. And before that, I cast Claire DANES in the Kirsten DUNST part in Marie Antionette, and you can't tell me you've never mixed them up. It's time now for my obligatory condemnation of "coeds" used as a noun. [Former coeds, maybe] for ALUMNAE? Boo, hiss! If you're putting the "maybe" in the clue, just call 'em [Former collegians, maybe] and let the solver decide if they're male ALUMNI, gender-neutral ALUMNI, or—what do you know, the only one that fits—ALUMNAE. It's trickier that way and it doesn't piss off feminist-minded individuals. I would like to be a DAB HAND at crosswords, but if we're talking about English cryptics to accompany the British usage, then I am no dab hand. (This book I picked up in London is kicking my ass.)
Updated:
Bob Klahn's on deck for today's themeless CrosSynergy puzzle. Yay! The puzzle's of middling difficulty but has some first-rate fill and clues. When 1-Across kicks in with DEF LEPPARD, a crossword rocks. (A friend of mine just saw the band in concert—with Styx and Foreigner, ach!—and reports that yes, Def Leppard still has the one-armed drummer banging the skins. Though I still must deplore the insane spelling.) The Faulkner character many of us recognize only from crosswords gets promoted to first/last name treatment: EULA VARNER sits beneath DEF LEPPARD. A grill skewer is a BROCHETTE. [Debris in a swell place?] is FLOTSAM (who doesn't love the words flotsam and jetsam?). The only redeeming facet of the movie Footloose, in my book, is the DENIECE Williams song, "Let's Hear It for the Boy," in which "maybe he's no Romeo" is rhymed with "he's my lovin' one-man show." Why do I have a soft spot for that song? It's inexplicable. Throw in a MADE MAN, MAENADS ([Dionysian attendants]), the HAMBONE (watch hoops coach Bo Ryan demonstrate a rather restrained hambone for you), and [John Huston's final film], THE DEAD (based on the James Joyce story), and that's some mighty fine fill. Other clues I liked: [Twaddle] for ROT; [Distinctive] for RARE; the verb phrase [Better clues?] for EDIT; [Southern California basket maker] is a LAKER, not a Native American; [Get into a habit, say] for DRESS; [Kind of warrior] for WEEKEND (hmm, another "kind of" clue that ought to be converted into a fill-in-the-blank clue, though that'd make it easy, not clever); and the judicial/basketball trio of [Before the bar] for ON TRIAL, [Court position] for GUARD, and [Court petition] for PLEA. Out-of-left-field word: DEBOUCH, meaning [March out into the open].
Jack McInturff's syndicated LA Times puzzle, "Si Si," has eight two-word theme entries with C.C. initials. Two great misleads in the clues: [Chest protectors] for BIBS, not RIBS, and [Old timer] for SUNDIAL. There's some zip with [Fonzie's cousin] CHACHI and ANTIMONY (clued as [Element that can harden lead], which is tied with tungsten for the best element name and seems like a better word for "alimony" than alimony itself. The zip's offset by LEY = [Kind of pewter] (the kind mixed with too much lead to be safe for dishes) in a section with BLEARED and BEMIRE, HAO = [Vietnamese coin] in a section where PHOEBES are [Small flycatchers], and EMALL = [Where surfers shop]—E-ow.
Henry Hook's Boston Globe puzzle, "It's D-Lightful," adds a D sound to the end of some phrases to alter their meaning. My favorite of the examples: [Wagnerian robot?], SIEGFRIED ANDROID, playing on Siegfried and Roy, of course. One theme entry made no sense: TATTLETALE GRADE. What's with this tattletale gray? It means "white tinged with gray; grayish white." As in hair? Where does the tattling come into play?
Frances Burton's Washington Post puzzle, "Home Builder's Whodunit," lets a tale unfold quasi-Tom-Swiftishly through the theme entries, playing with idiomatic phrases that tangentially relate to home-building trades. E.g., [The plumber's alibi] HELD WATER, and [They suspected the cement mason but had] NOTHING CONCRETE. In the fill of this puzzle, UNLOOSEN looked completely wrong for the clue [Set free]. Isn't something tightened when it's unloosened? But apparently this is an established word, however ill-advised. (This reminds me of boxes that are "still unpacked," as the Language Loggers have discussed before.)
Speaking of the Washington Post, the paper is pinching pennies and will discontinue its own Sunday crossword next spring. The Post will instead run Merl Reagle's puzzle, so one crossword editor, Fred Piscop, is out of a gig. Constructors are losing an outlet for selling Sunday-sized puzzles, and losing the chance to work with Fred—one constructor once told me working with Fred was "a hoot." Inveterate solvers are gaining back some time on Sundays, but losing a fun source of crosswords. Boo, hiss to the Washington Post! Don't they know crosswords are hot right now? Why, Merv's Griffins Crosswords starts airing on Monday! (And I'll be getting that DVR on Friday morning, so I'll only miss the first four days' worth.)
Merl Reagle's Philadelphia Inquirer puzzle bundles together 11 people whose names include the letters MORE or LESS. They're all clued as being unsatisfied. What, no Goldilocks finding something that's just right, only a bunch of whiners who want more or less?
I want to do the diagramless, this weekend's NYT Second Sunday puzzle, but it's not printing out for some reason. Bah.
September 08, 2007
Sunday, 9/9
September 07, 2007
Saturday, 9/8
NYT 6:18
Newsday 3:59
LAT 3:43
CS 2:24
Brendan Emmett Quigley constructed a three-in-one puzzle for the Saturday New York Times: the grid's basically three short, wide puzzles stacked up, with END-ZONE SEAT alone joining them together. It's got a mighty low word count—just 62 answers, only 19 of 'em in the Across orientation, and seven of those 19 are 15 letters long. I wasn't besotted with the long entries, but then it's not a grid that can easily accommodate much Scrabbliness.
I didn't find too many gimmes in this one, but it didn't flummox me like last weekend's themeless NYT crosswords did. I had no idea what the [African city with famed botanical gardens] was, but here are the ENTEBBE Botanical Gardens; when I hear the city's name, I always think of the 1977 TV movie. The [Riddle ender] is WHAT AM I; the answer, of course, is chopped liver. [Yosemite setting] is SIERRAS, though Wyoming tempted me with its 7 letters. If, like me, you don't know what a TENNESSEE WALKER ([It has a fast, easy gait]) looks like, cast your jaundiced orbs on this video; those horses look silly, if you ask me. Perhaps the best clue in this puzzle is [Marxist quality?] for ZANINESS, as in those zany Marx Brothers. The vague [Dish with tomato sauce] is a SPANISH OMELETTE. I took a guess on the first letter in [Like Dacron]; CREASE-RESISTANT could have had to do with grease, but I figured the Spanish [Dry, in Durango] would be akin to the French sec so SECO made more sense than sego. (More Spanish: ESTAR is a [Spanish 101 verb]; SERT was a Spanish architect; ESAI Morales who [played Bob in "La Bamba," 1987], is of Puerto Rican descent; and the trio ZZ Top had a record called "TRES Hombres.") I wanted chin straps to be the [Football helmet features], but they're EAR HOLES (speaking of ear holes, behold!). The question mark in [One working for a flat fee?] tips us off to the flat = apartment trick, and it's a REAL ESTATE AGENT. Where is SAO TOME? It's an [Island just north of the Equator] that's nestled in the armpit of Western Africa, by which I mean the continental contour that looks like an underarm, casting no aspersions.
Moving along to the Down side, raise your hand if you leapt at TUXES for [Wedding rentals] instead of the correct TENTS, reasoning that BEQ likes to use the letter X. Here's ERNIE [Davis, first African-American to win the Heisman Trophy] in 1961; never heard of him. After far too many ALLA/[___ breve] appearances, it's nice to see BREVE take the lead; it's a double whole note. My friend Kristin would've known instantly that the [PBS station behind Charlie Rose] was WNET; I did not. [Square in a steam room] is TILE rather than AWKWARD NAKED GUY. [Reverse movement of a sort] is PURL, the movement being in knitting rather than sports. ATOMS are [Things hypothesized by Democritus]; all right, I'll take your word for it. [Canine line] tried to trick me into thinking dentally, but the answer is LEASH.
Crossword chestnuts in this puzzle: ESSIE from Ah, Wilderness!; NEHI, clued afresh as a [Cadbury Schweppes brand]; a new ETTA, [Editorial cartoonist Hulme] (link shows one of her creations this week); STEN, an antique answer clued as [Antique gun]. With the clue [Some moldings], could the answer have been anything but OGEES? If you've worked up to doing the Saturday crossword, you ought to know all of these names (though this ETTA's a new one—usually we get Etta James or Etta Place).
I know hotshot constructors like to challenge themselves and see how far they can push the format, but as I've said before, I really do prefer a less ambitious grid with more surprising answers and tortuous clues.
Updated:
Frederick Healy's 72-word LA Times puzzle is, like the Newsday puzzle below, fairly easy for a themeless. Lively fill includes the childhood game MOTHER MAY I, the Scrabbly XEROX COPY and MINT JELLY, SAYS UNCLE, and the combo of the GINSU knife and AS SEEN ON TV. Favorite clues: [Playing games, so to speak] for DEVIOUS; [10th inning counterparts, briefly] for OTS; [Legendary swimmer] for SEA MONSTER (Mark Spitz and Gertrude Ederle were the wrong length); [Role-playing game] pulling Dungeons & Dragons nerds outside to play MOTHER MAY I; and the simple [Lay] for UNORDAINED. I think of NAN as Indian food, but Wikipedia says it's also eaten in Iran, which qualifies it as [Mideast bread]. I'd never heard of Swedish actress ESSY Persson; apparently she starred in some softcore Swedish porn in the '60s.
Daniel Stark's Newsday Saturday Stumper was mighty easy for a Saturday themeless. It's got 72 words, and a Starkesque grid that's heavy on the 7-letter answers. Favorite clues: [Plum relative] for MAGENTA the color, not APRICOT the fruit; [Pick a ticket] for VOTE (when I was home from college back in the day and drove my friend home at 2 in the morning, I rolled through a stop sign and was speeding on account of there being no other traffic around...except for that cop who pulled me over. "Pick a ticket," he said. Speeding or running the stop sign, my choice. That was my last moving violation.); [Pretentious talk] for BOMBAST (great word); and [It began as AuctionWeb in '95] for EBAY (did not know that!). I might have preferred tangier clues for words like WEDGIE (here, [Shoe style]—why not [Locker-room torment]?), REAR-ENDS (here, [Rams, perhaps]—why not the vague [Seats] leading to a small "hee hee" moment of juvenile glee?), ROUTINE (here, [Unremarkable]—why not [Gymnastics sequence], say?), and ARTICLE (here, [Item]—why not [Tabloid feature] or [Magazine part]?).
Paula Gamache's CrosSynergy puzzle has zip to it (A flying WALLENDA! The KAMA Sutra! OPIUM and PTOLEMY! Audi QUATTROS!) but reminded me of early-week Newsday puzzles of the kind we saw Al Sanders whipping through in Wordplay (coming to PBS October 16): easy as can be, with a straightforward theme. The theme in this case is ___ coats, where the theme entries begin with the ___ words. It is kinda fun to fly through a crossword without hitting any slow spots.
September 06, 2007
Asymmetrical crosswords
As you noted if you checked out Frank Longo's themeless "Weekend Warrior" in the New York Sun, the grid strays from the conventional crossword rule of rotational symmetry. It doesn't have left-right symmetry, either. Nope. It's asymmetrical. (Picture of the blank grid after the cut.)
Crossword symmetry has its ardent upholders who defend it on the basis of elegance, aesthetics, and the way that the symmetry requirement helps keep out the untalented riffraff who might otherwise flood crossword editors with their subpar efforts.
Being flexible about loosening these strictures also has proponents. Among the flexible types is Peter Gordon, editor of the Sun crosswords and puzzle editor for Sterling Publishing, which released Longo's second book of "cranium crushers". In that book of themeless puzzles, half the crosswords were symmetrical and half weren't. (I think Peter does still insist on symmetry in themed puzzles, though he's published at least one or two asymmetrical themers in the Sun. One had all 12 signs of the zodiac, and they make a great grouping but not one that lends itself to crossword symmetry.)
While I can certainly appreciate the accomplishment represented by constructing a perfectly symmetrical themeless puzzle, I have also heard of constructors filling an incredible half of a grid with sparking entries that lend themselves to mind-bendingly clever clues—but finding it impossible to fill the rest of that grid. Why should those really yummy possibilities end up in the trash for the sake of preserving a particular layout of black squares? Why not move those black squares around if needed, and pack the puzzle even more densely with excellent fill? Wouldn't the resulting puzzle be more fun than one with a lot of compromise entries (e.g., a blah "roll your own" word like RESTRESS) needed to make things fit?
I also respect the aesthetic sensibility that makes people love symmetry and the artistic elegance it facilitates. However, there's another art argument for the other side. As Christine Anderson eloquently stated via e-mail a few weeks ago:
Although I've never made a puzzle, I would think that much of the joy of it would be in the free creativity, which would take you who knows where when you let it flow.
Not only am I reminded of the Academy/Impressionist controversy, but of the growth of music from the classical era (when symmetry was king) through the romantic era, when symmetry was, if not entirely rejected, much more loosely applied—used less as a rule and more as a form or seed from which to blossom.
Beethoven's first three symphonies—including the crossword-famed Eroica (3rd)—are highly classical in form. But then he branches out and his genius culminates in the amazing 9th. What would music be like if he'd felt constrained to stick to a rigid classical format? Horrifying thought.
For that matter, even Mozart's later work was much wider-ranging and tending toward romantic era freedom than his earlier work. Genius will be genius, regardless of constraints, regardless of the outcome.
Let the innovation run rampant, run riot! Who knows what amazing things will happen? Suppression of new forms seems so—Spanish Inquisition.
So, how do you feel about bending the symmetry rules when a puzzle calls for it? Do you have differing symmetry preferences for themed and vs. themeless puzzles?
Friday, 9/7
NYT 6:18
Jonesin' 5:01
NYS 4:48
LAT 4:19
CS 3:32
WSJ 8:01
Well, the New York Times puzzle is on the tough side for a Friday, but much less tough than last Friday's! Barry Silk has packed his 70-word grid with a slew of Scrabbly entries. For starters, that pack of Zs in the middle involves three double-Z answers and two single-Z ones—we've got the UTAH JAZZ and FRIZZLE ([Curl tightly]) crossing FUZZY MATH, the [Approach to arithmetic that emphasizes underlying ideas rather than calculations]—wha? QUARTZ (which is [Tiger's-eye, essentially]) reaches upwards from the Z circus to cross QUI VIVE, the [French sentry's cry]. Elsewhere there's GORE-TEX and TWINKIE, and FJORD partying with the JAZZ.
Favorite and/or interesting clues and/or entries: the colloquial I REPEAT and BE GENTLE; [Purely physical] for BRUTE, as in strength; [Court] for SUE; the German [When Holle freezes over] for NIE, meaning never; [Fat cat] for MONEYBAGS; [Make tracks] for the verb RECORD; [Concavo-convex lens] for MENISCUS in this sense, though the word also means some knee cartilage that my brother-in-law had surgery on; [Memphis's locale] for the NILE in Egypt; [One raised on a farm] for BARN (who doesn't love a good barn raising?); [Schwarzenegger title role] for CONAN, giving Conan O'Brien the day off; [Hides from the enemy, say] for ENCODES; SHIATSU massage ending with a U; [Old sticker] for the old, old SNEE (what I wouldn't give for an OLEO clue that came right out and called it an old word); [Helped someone get a seat] for VOTED (not USHED, which I tried first); [Abbr. before many state names] for USS, as in the U.S.S. Maine and other ships; CRANKED up; [One beaten by a beatnik] for BONGO; [Not split] for STAY; and [No. of People?] for CIRC, as in magazine circulation. I tried to do a little fuzzy math on 45-Across, [If it's regular, each of its angles is 144 degrees]; hmm, it's more than 90 degrees, so it's beyond a square and has got to be a something-GON—DECAGON, it turns out. Oh! Remember the other weekend when I didn't much care for the verb BLARNEYED in the hidden-head puzzle with the EARs and EYEs and whatnot? [Blarneyed] pops up here as a clue for COAXED.
Frank Longo's Weekend Warrior is the first of three planned asymmetrical themeless puzzles the New York Sun is publishing this fall. The top and left sides of the grid have triple-stacked 15-letter entries (making that upper left corner a tour de force in crossword construction), the right side has double-stacked 15s, and the bottom has black squares cutting the space into shorter answers. It turned out to be a little on the easy side for a Weekend Warrior.
I started with a lucky guess that SULTANATE OF ____ would work for 2-Down (OF OMAN, it turns out), got AFLAC to cross it, and the rest unrolled from there. The 15s include fresh phrases I don't recall seeing lurking in previous triple-stacks—AS I UNDERSTAND IT, "A BUSHEL AND A PECK," IT TAKES A VILLAGE (great clue: [One of Clinton's titles]), DOESN'T MAKE SENSE, and IMMEDIATE DANGER.
My favorite clues: [Circle's lack] for ENDS; [Nurses, e.g.] for FEEDS; [Failed to abstain] for USED (as in "He thought he could quit the sudoku, but he's still using"); [It lobbied for MLK Day to become a national holiday] for the NEA, presumably meaning the National Education Association rather than the National Endowment for the Arts; and [Barcelona busts, e.g.] for ARTE. [Part of UT] was the clue for UNIVERSAL; perhaps it refers to Universal Time? I don't know anything about Universal Time, but who's not fond of Hammer Time? I quaked to think of what sort of Google hits I'd get for a bearded tit search, but just this bird, the [Bearded ___ (reedling)]. DOIS was clued as [Number between um and três]; here, you can quiz yourself on your knowledge of Portuguese numbers. I'd never heard of [Sports journalist Hammond of the Golf Channel], INGA. Worst entry: CO-LED, clued as [Chaired jointly]; it seems awfully jargony, but I suppose this is the price to pay for having only three black squares interrupting the highway of white squares zooming around the grid's periphery. I like clever clues, but I don't care for clues that posit a particular bit of dogma, as in [Big race's starting point?] for EDEN. I am not a Biblical literalist, and crossword clues that dis Lucy are pesky.
This puzzle's asymmetry did not in any way impede my enjoyment of the puzzle. There'll be more on symmetry and the lack thereof in the next post.
Matt Jones's Jonesin' puzzle, "Whackronyms: familiar phrases, incidental initials" expands one abbreviation I've seen (PITA as a short form for PAIN IN THE ASS) and two I haven't (NOT UP TO SNUFF and TALK OUT OF TURN). I don't think any of these entries are intended to represent phrases that actually do get abbreviated, but that PITA is handy sometimes. Favorite clues: [Book that makes you look] for WHERE'S WALDO; [Smack ___ the head] for UPSIDE; and the cross-referenced French and German opposites clues for OUI and NEIN. Newer-generation fill: HOTTIE and PRICK.
Updated:
The title of Patrick Jordan's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Behest Behavior," might make you think there's an EH or HE added to each theme entry, but as it happens, they're all straightforwardly clued phrases that end with words that mean "behest." Knowing the constructor's propensity for making pangrams (puzzles that contain every letter of the alphabet at least once) and having already used Q and X, I was on the lookout for a Z in the last corner I was working on—but Patrick skipped the pangram chase this time. (Which is fine! Totally fine!) I take issue with [Ineffectual types] being clued as NERDS. What, do nerds make ineffectual engineers and writers? Call them socially ineffectual if you must cast aspersions, but ineffectual in general? I think not.
I just looked up ineffectual in the Mac OS X Dashboard widget that combines a dictionary and thesaurus. I asked lexicographer Erin McKean what online thesaurus she recommended, and she said she used this one and, in fact, had worked on it. I tested it out by looking up terrific and boring, and it disgorged two to three times as many synonyms as Roget's II online. So OS X users, rejoice! (Alas, it's not a website so I can neither copy and paste the text nor provide a link to it. But when I'm writing, boom, it's right here.)
The LA Times puzzle by Stella Daily and Bruce Venzke offers this quip: IF YOU GAVE / HIM A PENNY FOR / HIS / THOUGHTS, YOU'D / GET CHANGE. Favorite and/or notable clues and/or answers: [Auto repair company since 1971] is CAR-X—that X looked wrong after an R. [Teamster's pair] means OXEN—Teamster is mainly used to mean a unionized truck driver these days. (Another antiquated term with an updated meaning is livery—originally it had to do with a stable of horses used to pull carriages and whatnot, and now the word seems to apply mainly to limousine service.) Speaking of unions, there's [Union jack?] for DUES—clever! [They're stereotypically green] means ETS, or extraterrestrials. [Make malteds, e.g.] is JERK—as in soda jerk. [Short turns?] are REVS—short for "revolutions," as in revolutions per minute, or rpm. [Plain] is usually an adjective, but here it's the noun SAVANNA. [Fish dish] is SUSHI—anyone else try to think of a 5-letter cooked fish dish? I had to Google afterwards to understand [Beavers, perhaps] as a clue for hats. Beaver fur hats? Nope: felted beaver fur, popular before silk hats took over. [It's not good to be left in it] means the LURCH.
Randolph Ross's Wall Street Journal puzzle is called "Double-Crossed" because a double-T gets inserted into each theme entry's base phrase. [Eskimo parkas and the like?] are FRIGID ATTIRE, [Lewinsky works out a lawsuit] is MONICA SETTLES, and there are six other theme answers. Good crossword! [Two-cup container] is BRA—so how come nobody ever calls a bra a pint? I'd say more about other clues and answers I liked, but I promised myself I'd finish solving and blogging by 9:00, and it's 9:03 already so I've got to run. (Or not run so much as edit.)
Addictive link
In my ill-fated Googling attempt to find a movie tagline for my Thursday post, I serendipitously came across a blog called Away With Words, by Nancy Friedman. She writes about brand names—where they came from, what exactly makes them ridiculous, ill-advised, or clever—and I could read this stuff for hours. In fact, it's easy to do that if you use the link to the entire 15-month run of posts rather than having to dig through the archives to read more.
September 05, 2007
Thursday, 9/6
NYS 5:19
NYT 4:37
LAT 4:04
CS 2:53
Two captivating crosswords from the Sun and Times for Thursday.
Daniel Bryant's New York Times puzzle has a theme of IT'S REVERSED, with IT reversed to TI in the theme entries. of the trio, I liked LANDING STIES the least and thought to myself, "Landing sites? How often do people actually use that term?" So I Googled landing site and got 31 million hits—and I'd like to change the clue from [Where porcine pilots arrive?] to [Where porcine astronauts arrive?]. [Wardrobe malfunction?] is a great clue for UNTIED FRONT, and I also liked MARTIAL BLISS, the highly elusive [Mood after a military victory?]. There are all sorts of excellent fill entries sitting in this grid, from the 7- and 9-letter words between the middle two theme entries (ENDEAVORS, INHUMAN) to the longer verticals (THANK YOUS, ANTONIONI, CINEPLEX, AGNOSTIC) to BABBLE and late political cartoonist Bill MAULDIN. (There are also plenty of blah shorter entries.)
Favorite clues: [Camel's end?] for ASH (cigarettes, ick); [Tries] for ENDEAVORS; [Nut just threaten] for SUE; [Threats to World War shipping] for U-BOATS (I just learned the other week at the expanded U-505 exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry that the German U-boats had sunk an awful lot of American and British merchant ships); the crazy [Over near] for OUT BY (as in "I think I left it out by the lawn chair"), even though the fill may be specious; [Artist Frank ___, pioneer in Minimalism] for painter Frank STELLA; [It has many pictures] for CINEPLEX; and [Certain notes] for the non-musical, non-currency THANK YOUS.
In the New York Sun, Patrick Blindauer's puzzle ("Hop To It!") is a tribute to the old video game, FROGGER. The theme entries are unrelated other than that they include (in the circled/shaded squares) the frog's obstacles, a CROC(odile), LOG, CAR, and TRUCK. (I think the Across Lite file's supposed to show TRUCK, not TRUC, in circles.) There are five evenly spaced squares in the top row of the grid that reflect the safe havens the frog can reach.
After you fill in the crossword, you're to take your invisible frog through the Frogger grid from the circled E at the bottom, moving upwards and left and right as needed through the letters contained in FROGGER, dodging the hazardous car and log and whatnot, to reach one of the safe havens. I got him to the R; same for you?
Two clues reminded my of my recent Florida vacation: [Merman's milieu] for SEA, though my husband plied his merman moves in a swimming pool; and [First name of the TV deputy of Hazzard County] for ENOS, because the guy who played Enos will be the celebrity guest at the Cooter Festival one town over from my in-laws'. Favorite clues: [Creature feature] for FUR; the vaguely misleading [Appropriate] for USURP; [Bolted down nuts, maybe] for ATE; and [Cubist of note] for ERNO RUBIK, getting promoted from crosswordese first name to his full name. DOLOMITE, the [Common translucent mineral], is not quite the same as the movie DOLEMITE, but picks up some cool vibes from it anyway.
Updated:
David Kahn's LA Times crossword features a batch of NFL MERGERS joining two football teams into a single phrase starting with a possessive. [Corporate leader's flying fleet?] = CHIEF'S JETS, [Mogul's fancy cars?] = TITAN'S JAGUARS, [Cleric's golfing successes] = CARDINAL'S EAGLES, and [Plastic user's accumulation?] = CHARGER'S BILLS. The only mildly sour spot in the theme is that the Jets' name relates to jets used the same way, whereas the other teams aren't named after cars, golf coups, or credit card statements. But that's a minor, minor detraction from the theme's cohesiveness. Outside of the theme, eh, nothing so special. I wouldn't mind seeing another crossword someday that plays with combinations of team names, though—it's a fun game.
Randolph Ross's CrosSynergy puzzle's got a fairly straightforward theme that has a fresh feel nonetheless. The six theme entries in "Going to Seed" start with edible seeds (well, some people do eat APPLE seeds by eating the core—I knew a woman who ate apples that way and it always freaked me out a bit), so the seed for each theme entry's a seed. Ten bonus points for launching the theme with the '80s horror movie, PUMPKINHEAD, which sounds silly, not scary. Quaint old POPPYCOCK and MUSTARD PLASTER join the fun, along with potent APPLEJACK, the SUNFLOWER STATE, and the kiddie theme park, SESAME PLACE.
September 04, 2007
Wednesday, 9/5
LAT 4:17
NYS 4:06
NYT 3:38
CS 3:30
Hey, can anyone recommend a good online thesaurus? I have this old book, The Synonym Finder, and love it—but it's old. (It's got all these kooky, great words marked as slang or informal. For example, under "terrific," we get words like splendid and smashing along with the Australian bonzer, the unusual superexcellent, and the slang marvy.) I also own Random House Webster's Word Menu, but it's categorized rather than alphabetical, and there's nothing like the alphabet for homing in quickly on the word you need. I have been underwhelmed by any online offerings of synonyms I've seen, but there must be something out there on the internet that's nearly as good as Rodale's Synonym Finder.
The New York Sun puzzle by Patrick Berry is, well, superexcellent. Not every single word in the grid is wonderful, but the "Reinitializing the Program" theme entries are spot on. If you scrupulously avoid watching TV, you might not enjoy the theme, but the rest of us will. Each theme entry's a TV show whose title includes a 2- or 3-letter abbreviation, in which the final letter of the abbreviation has been changed to drastically alter the show's concept. Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker had their show, The PTL Club; here, THE PTA CLUB is a [Program hosted by a televangelist who's raising money for a school play?]. Tom Selleck's P.I. becomes a gym teacher in MAGNUM PE. That forensics show set in South Florida picks up Civil War reenactors and becomes CSA MIAMI. Don Rickles' Navy guy gives financial advice on CPA SHARKEY. There are two more theme entries running vertically: DATELINE NBA with [investigative journalists who can dunk?] and MAYBERRY RFK going all civil-rightsy. Six theme entries, six solid "aha" moments, six rewards for appreciating pop culture. Based on the theme, this puppy's going into my "great puzzles" folder.
Outside of the theme, I also got a charge out of the fill and clues. PIA ZADORA and LORI PETTY, usually consigned to [___ Zadora] or [___ Petty] clues, get the full name treatment. There were other long entries, too, such as the lovely EPHEMERAL and a BETE NOIRE. My favorite clues: [It beats rock] for PAPER (Rock, Paper, Scissors); [Gray area?] for DIXIE and [Enemies of the men in blue?] for REBS (gray = South, blue = North, and both tie to CSA MIAMI); [Sharp-set] for EAGER; the unknown-to-me [Chaudfroid glaze] for ASPIC (here's a gross-sounding recipe); and [Case worker?] for GUMSHOE (evoking Magnum P.I.). I even like having good ol' SOU in the puzzle, clued as [Paltry sum]; anyone else tempted to work "not worth a sou" into conversation?
You know that list of "humorous" observations that your relatives over the age of 55 like to forward via e-mail? (And always with a zillion >>>>>>>forwarding marks, and an embedded "Read these they are funny!" from several forwardings ago?) The theme in Richard Silvestri's New York Times puzzle is a quip from that list: IF VEGETARIANS EAT / VEGETABLES, WHAT DO / HUMANITARIANS EAT? Please, constructors: Do not scroll through the list counting the number of letters in all the other observations. On Sunday, I did another Silvestri puzzle, this one from the American Airlines in-flight magazine. The "Actual Labels" theme was ridiculous warnings from actual product labels, and that theme was (1) hilarious and (2) not included in the forwarded e-mails my aunts and uncles like to send along. My husband and son enjoyed the "Actual Labels" theme entries, too. My husband even worked his own copy of the puzzle, though he normally doesn't do crosswords much. He tried to finish before landing; I always strive to finish before takeoff.
Updated:
Stella Daily and Bruce Venzke pay homage to the late HEAD COACH of the NINERS, BILL WALSH, in their CrosSynergy puzzle. In the fill, AUSTERE was clued as [Like Spartan living]—I can't help but envision a magazine called Spartan Living. Printed on newsprint in black and white. Going far beyond Real Simple in its focus on the simple life. Cover stories: "Build Your New Hut in a Single Day." "Indoor Plumbing: Necessity or Wasteful Extravagance?"
Joy Frank's LA Times crossword includes four phrases that start with WHEEL types: SPINNING CLASS, spinning wheel; PADDLE TENNIS, paddlewheel; POTTER'S FIELD, potter's wheel; and FERRIS BUELLER, [1986 movie truant], Ferris wheel. At first I thought Ferris Bueller and Harry Potter were involved here, but no. 6-Down was [Licorice-flavored liqueur], so I filledin PASTIS. Alas, I needed PERNOD. But look! The libation called Pernod is a brand of pastis. I will never, ever knowingly eat or drink anything that's licorice-flavored, so I need to keep up with the drinks on my no-fly list.
September 03, 2007
Tuesday, 9/4
NYS (not really timed, but not so easy)
Onion 4:53
Tausig 4:37
CS 3:35
NYT 3:30
LAT 2:56
Themeless expert Manny Nosowsky pops up with the Tuesday New York Times puzzle, which has a theme that mystifies me. The vertical 15-letter entry, A LOT ON ONE'S PLATE, ties together one TENDERLOIN STEAK, two EGGS SUNNY SIDE UP, and three PEACHES AND CREAM. I'm confused because I wasn't aware that peaches and cream is measured in terms of the number of peaches. And while these foods would crowd one's plate, would they ever be served on a single plate? Why, Denny's sells a breakfast item that includes a 13-ounce steak and two eggs, but in lieu of fruit, the sides are hashbrowns or grits plus toast. Don't get me wrong—I love peaches, but I don't mentally group them with steak and eggs. What I liked: [Helpless?] for SOLO; LOATH (around this house, we like to say what we are loath to do and what is our wont); SODAPOPS; [Tut's kin?] for TSKS; the rhyming ISSEI and ASSAY; [It goes for a buck] for DOE; and the interlocking of the 15-letter entries. I'm not so sure about GO LAME clued as [Start limping]; the eminent Dr. Google suggests that it's used mainly about horses (and also waterfowl). Does anyone say horses start limping? Maybe they do. I don't travel in horsy circles.
I solved Tony Orbach's New York Sun puzzle the other day, on vacation, while talking to my kid, so I more or less ignored the Across Lite timer. The "Snaky Movements" theme entails moving the S from the tail end of a phrase to the beginning. Thus, "lick one's chops" becomes the kinda icky SLICK ONE'S CHOP (of veal). "Pork and beans" is transformed into SPORK AND BEAN, [What a dieter who was planning to order either a soup or salad might pack for lunch]—although why said dieter would pack the bean is not clear to me. [Leg of lamb à la Chef Shakespeare] is SHANK WILLIAM, riffing on Hank Williams. "Take your lumps" becomes STAKE YOUR LUMP. My favorite clues: [Its role is often as a cameo] for the black ONYX; [1982 Flock of Seagulls hit subtitled "So Far Away"] for I RAN (if you're feeling nostalgic for '80s New Wave music, here's the video); [Poseidon's realm] for THE SEA; and [Do business?] for SALON (hairdo place of business). I also liked seeing ANG LEE with his full name, the word QUIPSTER,
SEXED up and GOOSED in the rear; and VLASIC brand pickles.
Updated:
Byron Walden's Onion A.V. Club crossword marks the return to school with a subtle theme of cognition: GROUPTHINK, THE EDGE OF REASON, SOFT FOCUS, FROM CONCENTRATE, and UNDERSTUDY. The word count (70 answers) is low enough for a themeless, so this is a meaty grid with plenty of long answers outside the theme. The fill is fairly Scrabbly, with four Xs (lurking in words like BETAMAX, MISS X, and the cheesy band STYX) and a WWW that starts three 7-letter phrases that extend down from it. The clues entertained me. My favorites: [Musical astronaut Lance] for BASS (the former N'Syncer trained to go up in a Russian rocket); [Doesn't check?] for XES (meaning "writes an X instead of a check mark"—this one confused me); [What Barbra Streisand uses to have herself shot] for SOFT FOCUS; [Cheated with one's neighbor, say] for COPIED (raise your hand if you thought of the Ten Commandments rather than the classroom and put down SINNER); [They give drag queens a lift] for HEELS (not EDDIE MURPHY); the combo of UGG boots at 5-Down and FREEBOOTS for [Plunder...or a ridiculously good deal from 5-Down]; [Took a leek] for ATE; [Chopped liver entrée?] for WHAT AM I (my son uses sign language of his own devising to tell me when I'm chopped liver—he points to the side of his ribs and then does a "chop, chop" move); and [It's a fare question] for WHERE TO. The clue that kept me intrigued the longest was [Assless chaps?] for STICK MEN—perfect! Fresh fill: the movie SAW II; slang PRESH (short for precious, I presume); LOW COMEDY from Benny Hill; and the NO TURNS traffic sign. Whoops, I almost forgot this one: [Outburst from Ren] for YOU IDIOT. Here's the "Happy Happy, Joy Joy" clip from Ren and Stimpy, though it lacks Ren's trademark "You eeeee-diot!"
Ben Tausig's Chicago Reader/Ink Well puzzle, "Let's Make a Deal," hides card games—BULLSHIT, BRIDGE, HEARTS, GIN, and WAR—at the end of the theme entries. Anyone else get stopped cold by ARTI*****HEARTS? ARTIFICIAL wouldn't fit and made no sense with the [They may be quartered and marinated] clue, but I wanted it to work somehow. Good use of the small book, ON BULLSHIT, to embed the game BULLSHIT. Scrabbly, with four Zs, an X, and a Q. Fill I liked: the ARAFAT/GAZA twofer; the QDOBA restaurant chain; the fairly obscure word PELAGE for [Fur coat]; BEET RED and NEPALI—and look over here, some old crosswordese regulars, the ARNO River, OONA Chaplin, and the AEDES mosquito. Toughest clue, for me: [(A) ways] for HIKE, as in "it's a hike from here/it's a ways off."
Norma Johnson's LA Times crossword was a lot of fun, with a theme featuring the anatomy of a pickup: IS THIS SEAT TAKEN? Say, HAVEN'T WE MET? Hmm. ARE YOU ALONE? And finally, YOUR PLACE OR MINE? What else did I like? The top corner with OUI crossing OUIJA—which should be a no-no of a dupe since OUIJA can be split into OUI and JA (French and German, "yes"), but I liked it anyway. And the Russian "no" (NYETS, in plural) sits on the other side of the grid for balance. STITCHES in your side, a ONE-HORSE town, [Altar ayes] for I DOS, "ACT NOW" and "OH RATS," and [Makeup of a heavy balloon?] for LEAD. Missed opportunity: 10-Down is [Bikini part] or BRA, and what are AAS? [Small batteries], not [Small 10-Down sizes].
Thomas Schier's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Sound Alikes," had a grade-school theme: phrases made of sound-alike _ail/_ale words, such as MAIL MALE and TAIL TALE. I might've liked the theme better if all six theme entries didn't include those same six letters in the same spots—too basic and aha-limiting. One dreadful clue/answer combo: [Sorority gals] for COEDS. I've previously expressed my distaste for coed as a noun—it implies that the basic term college student is male and a female college student is a coed, just as plenty of people say doctor and woman doctor but seldom man doctor. And really, in this day and age when the majority of college students at coeducational institutions are female, this dinosaur of a sexist word (in the noun form) needs to go. And gal in the clue sounds mighty passé, too.
September 02, 2007
Monday, 9/3
CS 3:19
LAT 3:09
NYT 2:55
Happy Labor Day! I caught my mother-in-law calling the day Memorial Day—which is exactly what I've been doing for weeks. It comes out right in "Ben starts school right after Labor Day," but most other uses, I find myself saying Memorial Day. Really, they're the same holiday. One end of the summer barbecuing season, a Monday, and an official observance that's largely ignored by all the people enjoying a long weekend.
Sarah Keller's New York Times crossword goes the anagram route for a theme: five phrases that begin with words made out of the letters AELST. She leaves out setal, which is a legitimate word but would ruin the puzzle, instead including SALES, LEAST, STALE, SLATE, and TALES. Oh! TESLA COIL could have been an electrifying 9-letter entry to replace SLATE ROOF. 4-Down here is the [Legendary sunken island], ATLANTIS. Who remembers the late-'70s TV show, Man from Atlantis? A pre-Dallas Patrick Duffy with webbed digits and the ability to swim like a merman. My husband spent our Florida trip swimming underwater like the Man from Atlantis, to great acclaim (from me).
Reminder: There's no NY Sun crossword for the day since the Sun doesn't publish on holidays.
Updated:
Well, I'm late getting back to the crosswords. I had to clean out the fridge—how many half-empty jars of mustard does one man need? The answer turns out to be zero. There was one jar of something or other that expired August 26...of 1999. Holy crap, when's the last time I purged the fridge? At least eight years ago? Remind me not to let so much time lapse before the next go-round. I should be ready by about 2011. After fridge cleaning came shoe shopping—a boy embarking on second grade needs splendid new shoes. And then a little grilling.
Speaking of "Back to School" issues, that's the title of Rich Norris's CrosSynergy crossword, with school ___ phrases tied to the theme entries, such as HOUSE ARREST and ROOM SERVICE. Fll highlights: every parent's mantra, I SAID NO; CHEEZIT crackers; OEUVRES and GEYSERS with their unusual letter sequences.
I also liked Timothy Meaker's LA Times puzzle with FIRST, ORIGINAL, MAIDEN, and INITIAL ____ theme entries. A fresh feeling to the clues and fill—HALLE Berry and AVRIL Lavigne from movies and music; Cesar ROMERO from the old Batman series and TV financial show talker Suze ORMAN; [It doesn't feel good to be green around them] for GILLS.
September 01, 2007
Sunday, 9/2
LAT 9:40
PI 8:52
NYT 8:23
WaPo 7:57
BG 7:12
CS 3:06
I might not get a chance to track down the other Sunday puzzles before the time comes to pack up and head to the airport, so this may be a one-puzzle entry.
At last! My ego, bruised by Friday's Paula Gamache crossword and bludgeoned by Karen Tracey's puzzle on Saturday, has been salved by Lee Glickstein and Nancy Salomon's Sunday New York Times crossword, "Put It in Writing." The theme entries were accessible—each phrase is a book/story/other written entity with an IT dropped into it, so the gripping Randy Shilts book, And the Band Played On, becomes AND THE BANDIT PLAYED ON. The most awesomest book/record/TV special of my childhood, Free To Be You and Me, goes vampirical with FREE TO BITE YOU AND ME. (Nostalgics, did you know you can get the Marlo Thomas extravaganza on DVD now? Holy jumping catfish, was Harry Belafonte ever a fine-looking man back in the '70s. And Michael Jackson, such a cute kid.)
Things I liked: TABASCO clued a little harder as [Mexican state east of Veracruz]; [Crumb catchers, often] for BEARDS (ewww!); [Warning signal, once] for ALARUM (what is it about ALARUM that I find so charming? It's got, what, a little Monty Burns vibe to it?); [Triangular kerchief] for FICHU (because it's one of those silly archaic clothing accessories known to two groups: romance novel fans and regular crossword solvers; and because it sounds like both a sneeze and something to catch a sneeze in); ["Just because"] for "NO REASON"; [Money maker] for MINT ("Shake your money maker!" "What, this here device for pressing coins?"); [Mexican Indians] for OTOMIS (because it was one of those deadly obscure answers in a Saturday puzzle a couple years ago, but now it has a hint of familiarity about it); [Piddling] for PICAYUNE (a word I should work into conversation more often); the extra hint in [Saucy dance] for SALSA; [Copycat] for EPIGONE (here's a great Kundera quote using the word); [Goes downhill] for WORSENS (not slaloms); [One way to live transsexually] for AS A MAN; [Peevish] for TETCHY (another word I should use more: "The Saturday puzzle let me feeling a mite tetchy"); [Japanese band] for OBI; [Putting all the poker chips in the pot, maybe] for BLUFF; [United places] for TERMINALS; [Hunter of literature] for Hunter S. THOMPSON; [One whose work may suit you] for CLOTHIER; and [Study in multiplication and division] for AMOEBA.
Things I wasn't crazy about: ORAL LAW ([Some unwritten rules]); the return of OLEO, which I think has been blissfully absent from the Times and Sun puzzles for weeks now; and the applet glitch that rendered the clue for TELL-ALL as [Expos?] rather than [Exposé]. As to the latter, I did leave a note for applet master Peter Ritmeester at the Times' Play Against the Clock forum asking for a fix.
The summary for this puzzle: 35-Across, [Kind of boost]: EGO. Although obviously the ego is not a kind of boost, just as a sea is not a kind of anemone (that's the classic example used at the NYT Today's Puzzle forum). Does anyone have an explanation for why the [Kind of...] clues aren't all switched to fill-in-the-blank clues to eliminate this particular inelegance? [___ boost] would be a perfectly fine clue for EGO.
Updated:
Cox and Rathvon's Boston Globe puzzle, "New Word Order," was pretty easy—once you had a portion of a theme entry, you could often fill in the rest of it. My favorite of the flip-flopped splits was GOON RAN RANGOON. The theme offers just a hint of cryptic-crossword wordplay.
Feels like it's been a while since we've seen Will Johnston's byline atop a CrosSynergy puzzle. His themeless "Sunday Challenge" was perhaps the easiest themeless I've ever done—the seven long entries were clued pretty accessibly, and once you fill in those, the puzzle's half done. Favorite clue: [Use just one setting?] for EAT ALONE.
I'm falling asleep on the syndicated LA Times crossword by Robert Doll. Long day, traveling, a seat beside a jet engine—it's time for bed. More puzzles/blogging tomorrow!
Updated again:
Okay, I finished that LA Times puzzle, "Job Transfers." Solving moves a lot more swiftly when one is well-rested! The theme entries include homophones within job titles—KNIGHT WATCHMAN, MAIL MODEL at the post office, etc.
Pamela Amick Klawitter's Washington Post puzzle, "Breakfast Club," breaks FAST apart and fills it with other letters: FALCON CREST, for example.
Updated finally on Monday night:
Merl Reagle's Philadelphia Inquirer offering, "Puzzle with a Twist," starts the theme clearly with BOB LEMON and HARRY LIME and goes on to include a whopping 14 more theme entries (including SLIMEBALL and LITTLE MONSTERS) that contain the letter sequences LEMON or LIME. Straightforward enough, if a little tart. And zesty. One name I'd never seen before: the L. Frank Baum character Queen ZIXI of Ix.
