NYT 4:59
LAT 4:32
CS 3:43
NYS 3:42
Happy Valentine's Day! I received an early valentine from my son today—cut-out construction paper hearts glued to a white paper, with orangey-brown crayon lettering: "happy Valentime's day." I like it better because of the M.
David Kahn and Justin Smith also celebrate the holiday with an M—a bunch of them, in fact, along with plenty of other letters. Kahn has the New York Times crossword, a Thursday rebus puzzle with eight [HEART] rebus squares that form a connect-the-dots heart:
(You can connect the dots yourself.) The [HEART] usually appears as itself, as in [HEART] OF DIXIE, but a few times, its letters are just letters, as in NOW [HEAR T]HIS and [HEART]HS. I do have a medical-editor question: RED EAR is an [Inflammatory ailment]? First off, I've never heard of this, and I've managed both otolaryngology and dermatology publications. Second, a bit of Googling suggests it has to do with pain and nerves and not inflammation. But the dot-to-dot heart is cute, I'll grant you that.
Justin Smith's New York Sun puzzle skews Valentiny in a somewhat more subtle way: "Pucker Up" is all about the kiss, with five theme entries ending with words that mean "kiss." The middle of the grid has the old-time song, "A BUSHEL AND A PECK." The [Pilgrim's weapon] is a BLUNDERBUSS, and there are also TALKING SMACK and a HERSHEY'S KISS and GENERATION X. Fun fill and fun clues throughout—VODKA is [Tartar sauce?]; [Activity with a downward-facing dog] is YOGA; [Bob McKenzie's "Great White North" brother] is DOUG (eh, ya hoser!); oddball [Unguinous] is OILY; [Taradiddles] are FIBS; and a KNEE is [One of all fours?].
Updated:
Ray Hamel's CrosSynergy crossword, "Heart Strings," has four 15-letter entries clued the same way: [HEART]. It's a VALENTINE SYMBOL, yes, but also an ARTICHOKE BOTTOM. There are a couple romance-related words dotting the fill, too—COO and LOVER.
OXIDE is clued as [Nitrous ___], which launches me onto a soapbox: If you're one of the millions of people with dental anxiety that deters you from visiting the dentist regularly, (1) tell the dentist's office that you have anxiety and need to be babied, (2) ask the dentist not to berate you for your absence, lest you never return, (3) use a dentist who can give you nitrous oxide when you're having any stressful procedures, and (4) find a new dentist if the one you have doesn't try to alleviate your anxiety. Honest: Dentists want you to come see them. They don't want to scare you off. And the nitrous can make a huge difference. (This has been a public service announcement from a one-time dental editor.)
The LA Times crossword by Linda Tay Stevens includes four theme entries that contain a little Latin love (51-Down, AMOR) within them. There's noted architect JULIA MORGAN, who designed Hearst Castle, along with three other phrases. Favorite clue: [Whom Tony and Rico fought over in "Copacabana"] for LOLA ("She was a showgirl"). The fill skewed old-timey, with MALTS, RIN Tin Tin, Davy Crockett's rifle Old BETSY, the adjective SOCKO, RKOS, and UNIX tied to the '60s.
February 13, 2008
Thursday, 2/14
Brooklyn Bridge Marriott sold out
The host hotel for the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, the Marriott by the Brooklyn Bridge, is completely booked for the Saturday night of the tournament. If you're planning to go but hadn't reserved a room yet, don't freak out. Sit tight. The ACPT organizers are working on lining up an overflow hotel.
This doesn't mean registrations have skyrocketed. They're predicting a slightly smaller crowd than last year, based on registrations to date vs. registrations 2 1/2 weeks pre-tournament last year.
And no, you can't share my room!
February 12, 2008
Wednesday, 2/13
NYS 4:23
NYT 3:50
LAT 3:04
CS 2:57
Whizzing through Liz Gorski's New York Times puzzle, I didn't piece together the theme, but once I finished, my eyes scanned the grid and nodded their approval. (What, your eyeballs don't nod?) (And before you think, "Pfft! Speed-solving is for the birds! She didn't even see how the theme hung together until after she finished the puzzle," let me say that I don't think it much matters when that "aha" moment hits—it's good during, and it's good after.) 62-Across tells you there's a WORD ladder involved, and the seven starred clues, 4 letters apiece, compose a word ladder in which one letter is changed in each step: SOUP to COUP to COOP to COOS to COTS to CUTS to NUTS. And what does the phrase from soup to nuts mean? 38-Across, THE WHOLE SHEBANG. The other longish entries are just there to hold the grid together (they're not thematic)—there's a STRING TRIO containing a [Violin, viola, and cello] (Liz plays the viola, I believe) and OPERA ROLES (shorter music: ALTOS and excerpts from three songs); CORN SALAD (this recipe for zucchini, corn, and tomato salad looks tasty) might be prepped with a POWER SAW; and the DESK CLERK surely is not qualified to operate a BETATRON ([Particle accelerator]). I like the JESSES [James and Jackson]; PISCES; the Joe Jackson song, "IS SHE Really Going Out With Him?"; [Sprites in bottles?] for SODAS; [Chicago's Dan ___ Expressway] for RYAN (out-of-staters call it 90/94; we call it the Ryan); "OH, HI" (["I didn't think you'd be here..."]); and [They might be high in Manhattan] for RENTS. I had no idea that [Charles Laughton's role in "The Sign of the Cross"] was NERO, nor that there was ever such a movie, nor what Charles Laughton looks like. Nor that the [highest point in the Pennine Alps] is Monte ROSA.
The New York Sun crossword by Robert Wolfe is called "End to End," and I'm not sure why. Z is at one end of the alphabet, but what's the other end in the title? The five theme entries in this 15x16 grid change a final S to a Z, where the Z word is entirely different. Undershorts means one thing, but UNDER SHORTZ is altogether different; same with bar bets/BAR BETZ, spot ads/SPOT ADZ, counterplots/COUNTER PLOTZ, and contact lens/CONTACT LENZ. (The people in three of theme entries are enigmatologist Will Shortz, former tennis star Pauline Betz, and actress Kay Lenz; guess whose Wikipedia entry is the longest.) I'm fond of the letter Z, so this puzzle's got plenty of zingy fill crossing the theme entries: J.C. CHASEZ of 'N Sync, the Polish ZLOTY, postal MR. ZIP, SNOOZED, and BOOZED. Favorite clues: [What you might do when looking at the bright side?] for SQUINT; ["Father of the Italian language"] for DANTE; ["Fight Club" character Durden] for TYLER; and [Fashion designer Marc who bought Barry Bonds's 756th home run ball and let the public vote to brand it with an asterisk] for ECKO.
Updated:
Russell Brown's LA Times puzzle returns us to early childhood with its evocation of KNICK-KNACK PADDY-WHACK, GIVE A DOG A BONE. The KNICK, KNACK, PADDY, and WHACK begin other phrases—the KNICKERBOCKER of the NBA, meaty KNACKWURST, the [Rice field frequenter better known as the Java sparrow] also called the PADDY BIRD (it's...small but edible), and WHACK-A-MOLE (clued in an unfamiliar computery way—[Computer term, based on an arcade game, regarding the annoyance of fending off recurring spammers]). Great theme! Fill highlights: the [2001 Spacey film] K-PAX, FT DIX, RANKLES, CHRONICLE, and VENERABLE. DRIVE-IN is clued as [Popular '50s-'60s date spot] (someone was just asking me if drive-in movie theaters still existed—any near you?), and I remember [Former U.S. soccer team captain Claudio] REYNA—though his last name could really use three more letters. By the way, the [Medicinal herb] SENNA? It's a laxative.
The theme in Martin Ashwood-Smith's CrosSynergy crossword, "Cerealization," is Rice Krispies sounds: SNAP, CRACKLE, and POP begin the theme entries. Question about the clue for SEGA: Does [Nintendo alternative] sound like it means "rival in the video game market," or "rival to the Nintendo game consoles"? Sega hasn't sold game consoles for seven years, but "alternative" rather than "rival" makes it sound like one could comparison-shop for a Sega or Nintendo.
February 11, 2008
Tuesday, 2/12
Tausig 5:18
Onion 4:45
NYS 4:38
LAT 3:08
CS 3:05
NYT 2:56
Why, happy Lincoln's Birthday, everyone! Is this a holiday observed by your local governmental agencies or school districts, or is that more a Land of Lincoln thing?
Deb Amlen's got a zippy New York Times crossword that has nothing to do with Lincoln. Or does it? Let's see. LUAU? Er, no. MARACAS? Hmm, probably not. The theme is cool—four phrases have RE- tacked onto their beginnings, changing the first word of each into REMEMBER or something synonymous. A member profile, collect dust, call waiting, and count calories all become markedly different entities with the RE- changing the beginning. I like the fill, too—US MAGAZINE is a fantastic entry, and you could have some OATMEAL while reading it. A GORILLA stands alongside EMERIL, who says BAM. The clues strike the right light touch, too—["I'll take that as ___"] A NO; IT'LL ["___ be a cold day in hell..."]; SWEET [Like dessert wines} (yum!); [Kvetching sort] for CRAB; [Like a blue state] for DEMOCRATIC.
Patrick "Bebe" Berry constructed the New York Sun crossword, "One-Two Threes." As far as I know, nobody calls him Bebe, but adding that makes him fit in with his theme: six phrases that contain a two-letter chunk that repeats three times in a row. There are three ANs in yummy BANANA NUT BREAD and three TOs in "TOTO TOO." I love the fill—there's some delicious pop culture in Journey's "OPEN ARMS." Football great Larry CSONKA, with his non-English letter combo. A cold DUNGEON in which things may (ick) CONGEAL. DIG OUT after a snowstorm—holy cow, we've had enough snow in Chicago that my building's snow-shoveling guy says they money's not worth it any more, and we'll need to find someone else to DIG OUT next winter. The AMC car called the GREMLIN (which was about as silly-looking as its sister car, the Pacer). And who doesn't enjoy BEDLAM every now and again?
Updated:
It took me a while to unravel the upper left corner of Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader puzzle. (An aside: Every week or two, it seems someone asks where I found this puzzle or the Onion puzzle. The answer: Via Ben's Google Group. Sign up and you'll get both puzzles—in Across Lite and printable MS Word—via e-mail, usually on Tuesday mornings. Why hop from site to site looking for these puzzles when they can be delivered to your in box?) The theme in "Duh!" is the turned into DE, turning a "the ___" phrase into a DE___ word (sometimes with altered spelling. Puts the seat down becomes PUTS DECEIT DOWN (my favorite), and the face of a killer becomes DEFACE OF A KILLER (um, deface isn't a noun). Fill highlights: Pablo PICASSO, MOZILLA Firefox, Patrick DEMPSEY, the MSRP sticker on a car, and GZA, the [Wu-Tang member with a noted chess obsession] (I didn't know if it was RZA or GZA, but both entertained me in one of the more engaging sequences in Coffee and Cigarettes).
It's not yet springtime—at least it isn't in the Great Lakes states—and yet a young constructor's thoughts turn to booty. The theme in Tyler Hinman's Onion A.V. Club puzzle is GETting...intimate. Phrases like LUCKY STRIKE and SOME TIME AGO begin with words that can follow GET: "get some," "get lucky," "get laid," "get busy." Highlights in the non-theme fill: Mrs. MALAPROP, SAPPORO beer, DRY WINES crossing a SLACKER alongside Patrick SWAYZE ([Patrick who was voted "Sexiest Man Live" in 1991]), and OAXACA, Mexico. Favorite clues: [Hot bed] for...COALS; [Everything] for A TO Z; ANA "'___ Ng" (They Might Be Giants' first song on the US charts)] (great song); and[ [Pillar of the Msulim community?] for MINARET.
Paula Gamache's CrosSynergy crossword, "On the Ball," marks the onset (later this month) of MLB spring training with baseballs FAST, FOUL, FLY, and FAIR introducing the phrases in the theme entries. Lively fill abounds—GO TO JAIL in Monopoly, RED-SHIRT a college athlete, use some COP-OUTS, and "make love, NOT WAR."
Brian Callahan's LA Times crossword commemorates Abraham Lincoln's birthday by including three [Lincoln]s: the CITY IN NEBRASKA, PORTRAIT ON A FIVE, and FORD AUTOMOBILE. I thought small for the middle one, first trying PENNY and then considering A CENT. D'oh!
February 10, 2008
Monday, 2/11
CS 4:15
NYS 3:14
LAT 2:50
NYT 2:34
Excellent example of a Monday crossword, the New York Times puzzle by Ken Bessette. The first four theme entries comprise an olio of phrases that begin with words that can also be "___ jobs." There's NOSE AROUND, the ODD COUPLE, PAINT THE TOWN RED, and SNOW WHITE—two phrases, two (or three) characters. They're tied together by JOB OPENING—and isn't it more elegant to have JOB OPENING in the grid, rather than JOB plus a clue that says "word that can follow the first word of the theme entries"? The fill sparkles, too—there's PAC-MAN eating MATZOH and CHILI (with FRITOs) and playing the ZITHER, longish DRAW UPON, and plenty of words that we don't see in every third crossword, such as WRITHE, WIFI, ABRUPT, CRANNY, and TALCUM. It's all CLUED ([Informed, with "in"]) at a solid Monday level, but the variety in the fill livens things up.
Updated:
I started reading the clues in the upper left corner of the CrosSynergy crossword, "It's OK!", and the answers were not coming readily to mind. What? It's a Monday! Ah, but the byline reads Bob Klahn, so there must be plenty of oblique Saturdayish clues to liven up this Monday. The theme is minimal—just 33 squares in three entries, each swapping in an OK where there was an IT (as in THAT'S A POKY, from that's a pity). I don't look to Klahn for theme action, though—it's those gnarly clues that draw me. For example: [Go out for a while] for SNOOZE; [Grease job?] for BRIBERY; [Make bacon?] for EARN; [Not the sharpest knife in the drawer] for OBTUSE; and [Bread holder?] for WALLET, to name just a few. Top-notch fill, too: X-RAY EYES, AARDVARK, 1 vs. 100's THE MOB, a BEARCLAW, and an ANTIHERO.
Diane Baldwin's LA Times crossword also includes OBTUSE, here straightforwardly clued as [Like angles between 90 and 180 degrees]. The theme is mimicry—FOLLOW THE LEADER, REPEAT AFTER ME, and SECOND THE MOTION. Lots of 6- and 7-letter answers in the fill (along with plenty of 3s).
Michael Blake's New York Sun crossword is called "B.C. Boast." It took me until I wrote that to see what the theme was, and now that I understand it, I love it! (Mind you, if I'd read the whole clue for 52-Across, it would have been obvious. But those long Sun clues and doing an Across Lite on a Mac...it's a hassle to find the end of those clues.) VENISON STEAK, VIDIAN ARTERY (the what?), and VICISSITUDES begin with JULIUS CAESAR's "Veni, vidi, vici" boast. I don't know that the vidian artery has a place in a Monday crossword, because this medical editor doesn't know it, but the crossings were easy.
3-D Word Hunt
I've enjoyed the previous 3-D word hunts (this is the third one in the NYT, isn't it?), and the challenge is the same here: meander from letter to letter via the connectors and spell out 5-letter words. Forget about the 4-letter words, forget about the 6+ ones. The 5-letter word is king (or queen) here.
The rules say that there are "50 relatively familiar words and 15 unusual or not-so-common ones — all from Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th edition." I think I've found 51 common(ish) words and a couple that might not make the cut. And I've got zero interest in plowing through the letter matrix to identify the oddball uncommon words that are lurking within, but if you're in the mood for that, have at it.
My word list appears below, after the jump, invisible unless you highlight text with your mouse. Feel free to add to the list in the comments, and we'll see if we can't come up with the same list Will Shortz publishes next weekend—or a longer list. If you think any of my words are surely not on the "relatively familiar" list, let me know,
Top level:
E
event
enact
V
venal
vital
vivid
N
noose
novel
O
(none)
T
toots
Middle:
L
liven
laird
lilac
level
livid
lento
litre (Br. spelling OK?)
lacto (can it stand alone, or is it strictly a prefix?)
I
(none)
A
atone
atria
airer
alack
atrip
anent
T
tonal
trike
trial
total
C
canto
canal
S
scant
stack
strip
stria
stile
stale
scale
scalp
stove
stone
scats
soots
Bottom level:
P
pikes
piker
piano
plena
plant
plane
plats
plata (Spanish only?)
D
divot
I
(none)
R
riant
rests
riata
K
(none)
E
(none)
And the winner of the crosswordese poetry contest is...
Frances!
Frances used plenty of frequent crossword answers as themselves, but repurposed "et tu" as "ate two":
Atta girl
Emoted Erle--
But IOU the ante from last eve's ado.
Here's an olla of oreos, but I already et tu
Click below to read on:
I loved the other two entries Frances submitted, too, featuring architecture and Civil War–meets–Hawaii:
Ilsa alit with eclat as she tried to estop
Eero from marring the apse with an IHOP
The lei was alee
As it lay on the lea.
It implied an "aloha" from Robert E Lee
Frances, please e-mail me to let me know where to send your Russell Brown crossword earrings. If you'll be attending the crossword tournament in a few weeks, I could also deliver them in person then.
Honorable Mentions
Wendy included plenty of Drama in Surreal Life:
Anka's ankh
Overboard on the Yser
The erne yearns
Leo II and Ehud
Slathered oleo on the X-Men
SOS!
PhillySolver joined Wendy with this surreal tableau:
Set to buy an IMac
on Ebay, Igor
crossed an asp
Penny specialized in tragedies writ small. I especially liked this one:
An American Tragedy
Arlo ogled Ella.
Ella got gat.
1-Down.
Pat the ex-lurker went thematic with Irish music and E words:
An Irish Haiku (Haiku de Eireann)
Ere I saw Enya,
Erato sang e'er to me,
Teaching me Erse tunes.
Speaking of Enya, Barry F. offered the best repurposing of the Irish New Ager's name:
Nsultryu (old form, three syllables, always insulting):
Enya face
Janie showed signs of a waggishly addictive personality, submitting about 30 entries. These three were my favorite Janieisms—one introducing an Archie Bunker accent, one addressing the issue of E-prefixed words seen more in crosswords than on the web, and one with combining mountain geography and crosswordese yodeling:
Fora face that glows,
Stet using the real dele:
Erle of ole!
Enote, etail, ecard, et al.
Enow for an eon.
Time for an Eban!!
The yodel doth Eco
From tor to tarn:
"Alou-ELee-Ulee-alee!!"
Congratulations to Frances and the runners-up, and thanks to all who participated in the fun!
February 09, 2008
Sunday, 2/10
PI 8:05
BG 7:55
WaPo 7:19
NYT 7:14
LAT 7:14
CS 3:32
Hmm, I need to go splash around in the pool of crosswordese poetry and choose a winner tonight. I anticipate that it'll be tough to choose just one winner, so there'll probably be multiple honorable mentions.
The Sunday New York Times crossword by Bill Zais is called "Reverse English," and he's packed a dozen theme entries (9 to 11 letters apiece) into the grid, occupying six full rows. Each theme entry follows the "[word]'s [opposite of word]" structure. For example, [Comeback of a Japanese game] is GO'S RETURN, [Privilege of liberals?] is LEFT'S RIGHT, and [The real scoop about lipids?] is FAT'S SKINNY. (Those three were my favorites.) I think the gettability of that structure made the theme entries mighty easy to figure out, and then the overall fill and clues weren't as tough as usual, either.
The fill contains some good longer entries: there's UTOPIANISM, clued nonintuitively as [Communist's belief], and SWEETIE PIE ([Darlin']), and the [Child-raiser's cry?] for UPSY DAISY. I'd have preferred a non-question-marked clue for UPSY-DAISY, given its length and the question-marking of all the theme clues, just for maximum clarity, but I'm glad to have UPSY-DAISY in the puzzle.
Favorite clues: [Puzzle page favorite] for REBUS; [Portion of a drag queen's wardrobe] for feather BOAS (all right, fess up—how many of you went straight for BRAS?); [Bumptious] for PUSHY and [Rambunctious] for ROWDY; [Missy Elliott's "___ What I'm Talkin' About"] for DAT'S (and what's the "dat" in question? Hot sex); ["Our Gang" affirmative] for OTAY; [Moliere's Harpagon, e.g.] for MISER; [Patriot Putnam of the American Revolution] for RUFUS (because I think I blogged about a similar clue a couple years ago, when I'd never heard of the guy, and because I dig the name Rufus—what, no love for Rufus Sewell of Cold Comfort Farm?); [Literally, "fish tooth"] for PIRANHA (etymology: "via Portuguese from Tupi"); ["Happy Days" character] for Ralph MALPH ('70s pop culture fun!); [It's pitched] for WOO; [Sully] for SMIRCH; [Perfecto, e.g.] for CIGAR (it's a cigar with a particular shape, fat in the middle and tapered at the ends); and ["The Lay of the Host of ___" (old Russian epic poem)] for IGOR (wow, that's a long way to travel for good ol' IGOR).
Updated:
Merl Reagle's Philadelphia Inquirer puzzle, "The Doctor Is In," puns with 10 different real or fictional or commercial doctors (spanning 11 entries). I suspect it was almost as easy as the NYT crossword, but I did the NYT with my old keyboard (which I'm having trouble letting go of) and Merl's with the wireless keyboard (which I'm still not used to—see first part of sentence—and have to look down at much more often while typing). Anyway, it's a classic Merl puzzle—lots of theme entries, heavy-duty punning action, and bold stacking of some theme entries (we see relatively little stacking of theme entries—constructors who can pull that off are perhaps the most adroit ones).
Henry Hook's online Boston Globe crossword is called "Happy Holidays!" and it's not curmudgeonly at all. The theme entries are all things associated with holidays—a HEART-SHAPED BOX OF CANDY, FIREWORKS DISPLAY, MACY'S PARADE, etc. Aw, happy times!
Okay, maybe I'm getting accustomed to this keyboard right this very morning, because the second and third crosswords have gone faster than Merl's. Randall Hartman's Washington Post puzzle, "All About Eve," splits EVE into E and VE in eight theme entries, such as EDDIE VEDDER and Edward Lear's NONSENSE VERSE. Fairly easy puzzle with no real trouble spots.
I think I enjoyed Randolph Ross's syndicated LA Times crossword, "Thinking Inside the Box," the most of today's Sunday-sized puzzles. (I haven't done the themeless CrosSynergy puzzle yet—will tend to it after delivering the fellas to the Chicago Auto Show.) Each of eight theme entries has an embedded IDEA, which isn't a particularly fun theme or anything, but I liked the puzzle's gestalt. I didn't care for the clue for ATOI—instead of going French, it's [First nine in a series], as in the letters from A TO I. Plenty of lively fill—ALAN LADD, PLATEAUS, NATIVE SON, I LOVE LA.
Updated again:
Will Johnston's themeless CrosSynergy "Sunday Challenge" is super-easy, not so much because the clues are simple but because the answers tended to be clear-cut with a couple crossings. Even if [Luxor's land] doesn't instantly shout EGYPT to you, what other lands start with EG? The fill was fresh and light—GOOGLE and TRAIL MIX, FRISBEES and LIBERACE, NOOGIE and TIE-DYE, SERENDIP ([Old name for Sri Lanka]—older than Ceylon or just Persian?) and "OLÉ, OLÉ."
February 08, 2008
Saturday, 2/9
NYT 9:08
LAT 7:42
Newsday 4:14
CS 3:01
A lovely friend who shall remain nameless owing to copyright issues has put my Crosswords episode on YouTube (sans the first round, which I wasn't in): Part 1 and Part 2.
The Saturday New York Times crossword byline reads Shannon Burns. Hmm, not a familiar name. A newcomer? Perhaps not: The Cruciverb database shows a number of 1997-98 NYT publications by Shannon Burns. Whatever the case, I wandered through the grid, searching for the constructor's wavelength, and found it a rather eely entity. Is it the rhinovirus? The beer? The boy who hasn't gone to bed yet? Sure! All three torpedoed my focus. A few Scrabbly hits in the fill, with SAN JOSE ([Latin American capital] of Costa Rica) beside AQUAMAN ([Founding member of the Justice League]), ETIQUETTE (Emily [Post codes?]) beside URBANIZED ([Built up]), and IWO JIMA ([Where Mt. Suribachi is]).
Favorite fill: The single-vowel SCHMALTZ ([Mush], both words being used figuratively); SCROOGE ([Pinchpenny] beside The THIN MAN (the [Classic 1934 novel set in Prohibition-era New York City]); and the teeny [Hanna-Barbera character] ATOM ANT crossing GIGANTISM ([Growing problem?]).
Clues that took me too long to suss out: [It can really bite] for SARCASM; the cross-referenced [sites for some coral], SALTWATER / AQUARIA (I had real ocean settings on my mind); [Home of Clarke College] for DUBUQUE; [One of the losers in the War of the Pacific] for PERU (the combatants also included Chile and Bolivia); [Pick-up and drop-off point: Abbr.] for STA (station); [It doesn't help much when it's cold] for cold COMFORT; [Middle third of a famous motto] for EGALITE (damn you, "Veni, vidi, vici!"); [Cicero, e.g.] for SENATOR; [Dish describer] for MENU (yeah, I thought of a different kind of dish and tried to make SEXY or BEAU work—no dice); [Come together] for GEL (oh, how long I let WED sit there mucking things up); 
Clues I enjoyed: [Asked too much?] for PRIED; [Key word] for ENTER; [It covers six time zones] for CANADA; [The moon has one] for FAR SIDE; ["Paradise Lost" illustrator] for Gustave DORE (that's his Satan to the right); and [State with the lowest high point (345 feet): Abbr.] for FLA (yeah, Walt Disney World is less than 100 ft. above sea level).
Toughest words: [Nothingness] is the clue for the jargony NULLITY. [Set right again] clued the roll-your-own prefixed word REMEND; aw, why couldn't it be REMAND crossing Bambi's aunt ENA? JAE is the first name of [Former major-league pitcher ___ Seo]; dang, I don't even see him in the first three pages of Google hits for Jae (Journal of African Economies, anyone?). ELIE is a semi-reasonable Frenchman's name, but [French mathematician Cartan] is not the sort of mathematician one learns about unless one is pursuing a degree in math. Holy cow, KAFIR is a [Grain sorghum with stout, leafy stalks]? (Also spelled with two Fs.) TREN is, let's see, is that clue in Italian? [It's pulled by una locomotora] means it's a locomotive train. Ah, it's Spanish. I did not know that. CAL is a [Title robot in an Isaac Asimov short story] that I haven't heard of. Wikipedia tells me that Cal the robot wants to be a writer. That story sounds kinda funny!
Updated:
Doug Peterson's LA Times puzzle enchanted me at first, with fill like SNIDELY WHIPLASH an an au courant HANDS-FREE DEVICE, and then it progressed to leaving me stymied in the lower half. [Ham and eggs eschewer] killed me—I was trying to think of the name of Sam I Am's target in Green Eggs and Ham, but the answer I needed was LACTOVEGETARIAN. D'oh! I liked the puzzle and found all the clues eminently fair—I just couldn't make sense out of them as quickly as I like.
Dan Stark's Newsday "Saturday Stumper" looks positive, what with the three black-square plus signs in the grid. It's good to see a few more phrasal answers in the fill—I do find the fill zingier with answers like "BEAT IT!" balancing something plainer, like RESTED. Favorite clues: [Deduction user] for TAXPAYER; [Root word] for OLE (as in a word you say while rooting for your fútbol team); [Appointments] for DECOR; [Claims] for DIBS; and [Member of the nightshade family] for TOMATO.
Sarah Keller's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Lofty Goals," bundles five phrases that begin with "lofty" words, such as TOP BANANA and PEAK PERFORMANCE. PRO-RATES is excited to make it into the fill, since it's more often confined to fill-in-the-blank ennui in the [Pro ___]/RATA guise. SUGAR-COAT is always good, especially when it's something edible.
Can this marriage be saved?
My husband's got a new hobby—doing the NYT crossword on his iPod touch. He's getting close to finishing a Monday puzzle, and he insists that he likes doing it his way and has no need to read my book, How to Conquer the New York Times Crossword Puzzle. I think he might learn something if he read it. What say you? Should he continue slogging through the puzzles, learning at his own pace, or should he concede that his wife has knowledge that might benefit him?
