Friday, 10/10

NYT 6:22
NYS 5:52 with one Google
LAT 4:38
CHE 3:14
CS 2:46
WSJ 8:04

Do you like chicken satay, but find yourself put off by the bothersome bamboo skewer that keeps the chicken out of your mouth? If you live in Chicago, there's a restaurant that can help you. Sura, a Thai tapas restaurant, serves a "lettuce wrap" appetizer that's essentially chicken satay bits with peanut sauce in a little crispy cup lined with lettuce. So yummy! Sura adds a little crossword-geek chic by having a couple Eero Aarnio bubble chairs. It was just a month ago that Karen Tracey's Sun crossword included EERO Aarnio, and those bubble chairs of his are surprisingly comfy.

Kyle Mahowald's themeless 70-word New York Times crossword has some colorfully colloquial answers in it: NO PAIN, NO GAIN is clued as a [Macho credo], though I daresay the credo is unisex. You don't think Mia HAMM, [Scorer of a record 158 goals] in soccer, was wont to muscle through the pain? (Raise your hand if you also considered PELE at 5-Across.) SIR, NO SIR could be an [Emphatic response during a drill]. I can always get a laugh out of my husband or son by putting on my raspy "thank you, sir, may I please have another" military voice. "Sir, yes sir." STRIP POKER is clued as a [Game in which players barely bet?]. When they begin betting, they're not bare yet.

Clues of note:

• I think of [Makeshift] as just an adjective, but it's also a noun, a QUICK FIX.
  
• One [Horizon happening] is a MOONSET.
  
• [Club ___] really wanted to be Club MED again, and not the club PRO in golf or tennis.
  
• [Rope fiber source] is AGAVE. You know you've done too many crosswords when you also consider SISAL and ISTLE (which is also spelled ixtle and comes from AGAVE plants).
  
• [Having a headline?] clues PARTED, as in a part in one's hair.
  
• NEILS are [Pulitzer-winning writer Sheehan and others]. That Neil wrote A Bright Shining Lie, among other titles.
  
• [Came up with an invention] is the clue for LIED.
  
• [Torch site] is the DIME. Check out the change in your wallet and that one'll be obvious. ("That one"!)
  
• [School concerned with classes?] is the school of thought called MARXISM.
  
• MRI is clued [Hand pic, perhaps]. There's a whole book on the topic.
  
• [Like apples and oranges] asked me if it could be UNLIKE, but I said no. You have to be PLURAL.
  
• The clue [Salome, to Herod Antipas] meant zilch to me—she's his NIECE, apparently.
  
• SAINT DENIS is a [Burial site for many French kings].
  
• SERENADE is clued as a [Fraternity activity]. Okay, Tyler Hinman or anyone else with frat experience, explain this one.
  
• I've never heard of [Pop singer DeSario], named TERI. Who? According to Wikipedia entry, she went from folk to disco to gospel, all the while escaping my notice completely. Anyone heard of her?
  

I came to a screeching halt in the southeast corner of Patrick Blindauer's Sun puzzle, "Big Ten." The title refers to the big X (which is the Roman numeral meaning 10) that traverses the grid. It's mostly black squares along the diagonals, with space for two X's in the line in each quadrant. The middle four white squares are unchecked thanks to the black squares' pattern, but those four squares are all filled with an X. Where did I run into trouble? At the perfect storm where four Across answers meet two Down answers:

• I Googled 46-Across, [New York City Marathon founder Fred]. Who? Madam Google whispered to me, "Fred LEBOW."
  
• 50-Across had an oblique clue. [Twist pioneer many years after Chubby?] has nothing to do with dance or music. The answer's another first name, ERNO, as in Erno Rubik, creator of the Rubik's Cube, which...people...twist.
  
• I somehow correctly guessed [NBA point guard Nick] VAN EXEL at 57-Across.
  
• [Crystalline overgrowth] clues EPITAXY at 60-Across. Ouch.
  
• Crossing those four Across answers, we see ABRAXAS at 40-Down. Whuzzah? An [Amulet word used as the title of a 1970 #1 album for Santana]. Here it is, and no, it doesn't ring a bell at all.
  
• 42-Down is clued [Like some tissues], and with just the T and L in place, I was mystified. Like some anatomical tissues? Nope, like Puffs or Kleenex—TWO-PLY. Ouch. I should've gotten that one, and it would have helped immeasurably with getting through the rest of that corner.
  

I like the X gimmick just fine, but that corner seemed borderline unfair. Maybe I'm the only one not up on my Santana albums and the names of marathon founders? The 12 X's in the grid were included in some cool answers:

• MAX GAIL was a ['70s TV costar of Abe Vigoda and Jack Soo] on Barney Miller. He played Wojo, or Detective Wojeciehowicz. When I was 12, I had a crush on him.
  
• MR. FIX-IT is a [Handyman].
  
• The IMP from a recent NYT puzzle shows up here, clued as ["The Bottle ___" (short story by Robert Louis Stevenson)] for a change. You can read the short story here. Yeah, I know this one lacks an X.
  
• [Johnson, e.g.] is clued as SEXPERT; [Masters, e.g.] would also work.
  

Updated:

Don Gagliardo's LA Times crossword changes -ence and -ance words at the ends of the theme entries into plural -ents and -ants words:

• [Harbor groups of strikers?] is PUT UP RESISTANTS. I checked three dictionaries to see if resistant was also a noun, and finally the third tome, an unabridged dictionary, said yes.
  
• [Bouquets for the diva?] might be STAGE PRESENTS.
  
• [Trailer for an old movie festival?] is MINUTE OF SILENTS.
  
• [Leaders in a race?] are the FRONT ENTRANTS.
  
• [Hypochondriacs?] clues EXTREME PATIENTS.
  

Did you know [Uncle Scrooge, for one] was a SCOT? I didn't. UXOR is a [Wife, in legalese]. I remember the ["Airplane!" heroine] ELAINE, played by Julie Hagerty. I didn't know that a [Nasty "Pearls Before Swine" character] was RAT; is that a rat, or a character named Rat? REDFERN is clued as a [Sydney suburb], but I daresay the "Doonesbury" character Rick Redfern is more familiar to American solvers. [Subject of a parental caution] is STRANGERS here. I had a tough time settling into the constructor and editor's wavelength in the clues—did you have that experience?

Tony Orbach and Patrick Blindauer's Wall Street Journal crossword, "Doubled Down," might offer a welcome respite to Wall Streeters. Except...ALAN Greenspan, the FDIC, NYSE, and the ENRON bankruptcy are in the grid as reminders of economic crisis, and while the word UP appears in three phrases (REST UP, END UP AT, and ICED UP)—it's always going down. The theme entries are all Downs with double-D's inserted into them to change a phrase's meaning:

• [Hoedown hutch?] is a FIDDLING CABINET (filing cabinet).
  
• [Loco locomotive?] is a MUDDLE TRAIN (mule train).
  
• [Bureau for hot mixed drinks?] is a TODDY CHEST (toy chest).
  
• [Sheets vis-a-vis straw?] are HUMAN BEDDING (human being).
  
• [Story of a Ping-Ping champ's retirement years?] is BEYOND THE PADDLE (beyond the pale). This one's my favorite.
  
• [Schwinn seat in storage?] is a GARAGE SADDLE (garage sale).
  
• [Pop with punch?] is BOXING DADDY (Boxing Day).
  
• [Where to get calls in a flooded field?] is a PADDY PHONE (pay phone).
  

My favorite non-thematic answers were PLATYPI ([Egg-laying mammals]), DODO BIRDS ([Pigeons' extinct kin]), LAGUARDIA ([Mayor nicknamed "the Little Flower"] owing to his first name, Fiorello), RIP TORN (["Men in Black" actor]), and DARNED IF I DO ([First half of a lose-lose comment]).

Nancy Salomon's CrosSynergy crossword offers more of an escape from worldly cares. In "Plentiful Plots," the theme entries are all places where fruit grows, always clued [Fruitful land]. There's a STRAWBERRY FIELD, an APPLE ORCHARD, a CRANBERRY BOG, and a WATERMELON PATCH. Yum! But wait: No ORANGE GROVE as a sop to my online pseudonym? Fine, fine—it doesn't always have to be about me. The fill includes spoken language like PARDON ME, MY STARS, NO CAN DO, and HON; TUBE TOPS, and I wish there were a way to cross-reference that to the AHAB clue; and MOJO, clued as [Voodoo spell].

Pancho Harrison's Chronicle of Higher Education puzzle, "Avon Calling," features five phrases the English language picked up from William Shakespeare, the Bard of Avon:

• SALAD DAYS are [What we call youthfully innocent times, thanks to Shakespeare].
  
• BATED BREATH is [What we call tense anticipation, thanks to Shakespeare].
  
• HOUSEHOLD WORD is [What we call a term everyone knows, thanks to Shakespeare].
  
• SHORT SHRIFT is [What we call little consideration, thanks to Shakespeare].
  
• FANCY-FREE is [What we call having no emotional ties, thanks to Shakespeare].
  

HOUSEHOLD WORD is especially apt, as that term describes plenty of words and phrases that are household words only because Shakespeare gave them a platform to become broadly known. My favorite answer here is WHAT HO, [Bertie Wooster's greeting]. I use that greeting myself sometimes, but didn't know where I picked it up. (My "What what?" comes from the movie, The Madness of King George.)

Read More...

Summary only...

Thursday, 10/9

LAT 4:20
NYT 4:11
Sun 3:57
CS 2:53

(updated at 10 a.m. Thursday)

It's Thursday (or is about to be), so it's only fitting that Doug Peterson's New York Times crossword features a rebus theme. As the clue for 52-Across's LITTLE DEVILS—[Mischief-makers (you'll find seven of them in the answer grid)]—promises, there are troublesome IMPs hiding all over this puzzle. Symmetry? Not for these IMPs. There's one in the middle, and the other six are split half on top, half on the bottom; half on the left and half on the right—but not in predictable spots. The IMPs are lurking here:

• MISSION [IMP]OSSIBLE, a [TV series that's now a film franchise], crosses WRITING [IMP]LEMENTS, or [Quills, sometimes].
  
• [Curious George, for one] is a CH[IMP], and he crosses P[IMP]LY, or [Broken out, in a way]. The latter answer's kinda icky.
  
• LONG-TERM [IMP]ACT, or [Effects seen down the road], crosses BL]IMP]S, which are [Sights at many football games].
  
• To SK[IMP] ON is to [Be stingy with], and a [Deadlock] is an [IMP]ASSE.
  
• To [Call into question] is to [IMP]EACH, and to [Drive forward] is to [IMP]EL.
  
• Maybe if you're PIMPLY, you can [IMP]ALE or [Spear] that zit. The IMP doubles up here in GL[IMP]SE, or [See for a second].
  
• The final IMP shows up in TIGER SHR[IMP], a [Seafood cocktail ingredient], and [IMP]ROV, or [Spontaneous skits].
  

Too bad the classic TV imp, Bart Simpson, didn't make it into this puzzle; nor did the show he's in. I liked how IMPROV and LONG-TERM IMPACT both had deceptively plural clues; by Thursday, it's time for such trickery to be ushered into the cluing.

In the fill, I wasn't hip to [Russian Literature Nobelist Ivan] BUNIN. Have you ever had MUNG BEAN–filled cookies? They're tasty, and the MUNG BEAN isn't just a [Legume used to produce sprouts]. LYRA is the [Constellation with a music-related name]. My favorite snake name is the KRAIT; this [Banded snake] is quite venomous, so it's not the personality I like, just the look of the word. The pretty CEYLONESE is the old-school way of saying Sri Lankan; it's clued as [Like some black tea].

Mark Feldman's Sun crossword is a "Themeless Thursday" that I kept imputing a theme to. First there was 1-Down, [Moves slowly], which I answered with CREEPS. Nope, that one's CRAWLS—CREEPS appears down below as a [Feeling of disgust, with "the"]. So I got it in my head that the other corners of the grid were going to have creepy-crawly answers too, but this puzzle's themeless so of course they don't. There is, however, a mini-theme: WHITE LIGHTNING was a [1973 Burt Reynolds movie] I don't recall, and ROLLING THUNDER is a [1977 Tommy Lee Jones movie]. '70s movies with thunder and lightning in their titles? Cool beans (mung!).

Favorite entries and clues:

• [Chopsticks, e.g.] is a WALTZ? I...have never danced to Chopsticks.
  
• American Idol emcee Ryan SEACREST is the ["American Top 40" host]. Seacrest out.
  
• [It always has mayo] refers to the Spanish month of May, and AÑO is Spanish for "year." Without the tilde, however, ANO means "anus," and with mayo in the clue...eek.
  
• GOOGOLS are [Very large numbers]—to be specific, 1 followed by 100 zeroes.
  
• [Bliss, e.g.] is a FORT, an Army post in Texas. I froze when I encountered F*RT in the grid with that clue.
  

Was this themeless puzzle among the easier ones you've seen recently, or was I just in the groove tonight?

Updated:

Ray Hamel's CrosSynergy crossword, "It's Your Time," features "___ of the [unit of time]" phrases.

• I'd never heard of OFFICER OF THE DAY, a [Rotating military position].
  
• The MOVIE OF THE WEEK was an [Old TV offering], but not that old, obviously, because I remember those movies, and I'm still young, dammit.
  
• The BOOK OF THE MONTH is the famed [Literary club] for book buyers.
  
• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR is the [Eddie Gottlieb Trophy winner]. I'll guess this refers to hockey because I've never heard of it. Nope, it's the NBA.
  

The now-annual Storm of the Century is feeling left out.

Gendered language alert: SHREWS is clued as [Nags]. Here's one dictionary's entry for shrew: (1) Any of various small, chiefly insectivorous mammals of the family Soricidae, resembling a mouse but having a long pointed snout and small eyes and ears. Also called shrewmouse. (2) A woman with a violent, scolding, or nagging temperament; a scold. Nag, on the other hand, is a gender-neutral One who nags. I'd much rather have SHREWS clued as the world's tiniest mammals.

Bruce Venzke and Stella Daily's LA Times crossword features a quip: "KIDS HAVE A MIDDLE / NAME SO THEY CAN / TELL IF THEY ARE / REALLY IN TROUBLE." In the fill, WILEY is clued as the ["Non Sequitur" cartoonist]—so I just spent a few minutes reading all the "Non Sequitur" strips from the past month. I like them all, including this one. BAD BOYS is clued as this [1983 film set in a juvenile prison], but the 1995 action comedy by the same name is better known. YEARLY is clued as [Resolution frequency], and what was in my head for that clue was technical stuff like image resolution and megahertz frequency measures. Oh! New Year's resolutions, once a year! That's different. [Spam producer] refers to the capital-S Spam, and it's meatpacker HORMEL. The existence of the Comic Sans typeface led me astray in parsing the clue, [Pic Sans Nom, par exemple]—I decided it was a TYPE rather than an ALPE, French for "Alp." "Peak without name"? 1-Down in this puzzle is LOKI, the [Mischievous god] in Norse mythology. I kinda wanted LOKI to put in an appearance in the impish NYT crossword.

Read More...

Summary only...

Wednesday, 10/8

Tausig 4:47
Onion 4:17
Sun 4:00
NYT 4:00 (minus 10 seconds)
LAT 3:52
CS 3:01

(updated at 10:40 a.m. Wednesday)

Upcoming event alerts:

On October 23 at 6:30 p.m., the Japan Society is hosting a discussion, "Puzzling the World: Sudoku & Crosswords." NPR's Liane Hansen will moderate the chat between Will Shortz and Maki Kaji, described as "the godfather of sudoku." Kaji is the president of Nikoli, a puzzle company that publishes a lot of logic puzzles. Details here. ($10 admission, $5 for seniors and students.)

Also, this Saturday, October 11, the Boston Cru is having a "Saturday Solve" event featuring two crosswords by Pete Mitchell. Details here.

And now, the puzzles:

I'm starting my presidential debate viewing an hour late, and if I don't want to be up 'til midnight, I'll need to curtail tonight's write-up.

Peter Collins' New York Times crossword opts to SHUFFLE (40-Across) THE DECK (42-Across). Each of the other theme entries includes in its midst the letters in the word DECK, scrambled:

• [Library copy of a book, commonly] is a HARDBACK EDITION.
  
• [Prepared some desserts] clues BAKED CAKES.
  
• DUCK DECOYS are [Hunting aids]. The circled DECK letters could have been shifted one letter to the right, but then the scrambled DECK would be the same as the following one.
  
• The BUICK DEALERSHIP was a [Place to get an Electra, once]. 
  

There are some gnarly bits in this crossword. SPADS are [W.W. I French fighter planes]. ELISA is a [Girl in a "Paint Your Wagon" song], and me, I'm not well-versed in musicals. [Rail site] kept me wondering for too long—it's the STAIR. (Really a whole staircase and not just a single stair, but sometimes stair is used to mean a group of steps.) ON POT is an odd-looking answer; it's clued [High, in a way]. Drugs! FIRPO was [Dempsey's 1923 opponent].

Fun stuff: TOO-TALL is the [Nickname for former N.F.L.'er Ed Jones]. (The Times has gotta ditch that period style. NFLer doesn't want to have four pieces of punctuation in it.) "PLAY BALL!" is an [Umpire's shout]. LEE strays away from Ang and Robert E., getting the clue [Rock's Tommy, ex-husband of Pamela Anderson].

The Sun puzzle was constructed by editor Peter Gordon's alter ego, the anagrammatic Ogden Porter. The "I/O Device" in the title reflects the six theme entries beautifully arrayed around the edge of the grid, two-part terms that have an I in the first half replaced by an O in the second half. All six follow the __IP-__OP mold. There's GNIP-GNOP (that's ping-pong with the words reversed), a noisy [1970s Parker Brothers game] I liked when I was a kid; TIP-TOP across from HIP-HOP; a political FLIP-FLOP; a horsey CLIP-CLOP; and the less familiar SLIP-SLOP, clued as [Trifling talk]. Favorite clue: [Split personalities?] for CROATS, as in people from Split, Croatia. The O crosses another geographic term, DJIBOUTI, [Neighbor of Eritrea]. If Djibouti gets earthquakes, someone should release a K.C. and the Sunshine Band cover of "Shake Your Booty," changing it to "Shake Djibouti."

Updated:

The LA Times crossword by Dan and Mike Naddor has a theme that managed to elude me until just before I reached the explanatory entry, MAN, at 57-Down: [It forms a superhero when added to the start of the answer to each starred clue]. The grid is crowded with seven superheroes, and I must say I don't know who would come out on top in a seven-way battle royal. The supers include the big three, Batman (BAT MITZVAH, [Occasion to say "mazel tov"]), Superman (SUPERVISOR, [Boss]), and Spider-Man (SPIDER VEINS, [Vascular surgery target]). There are also four others: I don't know Iceman (ICE CUBES, [Rocks in buckets]). I know only a little about Aquaman (AQUA VELVA, [Classic aftershave]). I'm not sure who Sandman (SAND TRAP, [Common term that doesn't appear in the Official Rules of Golf]) is. Oh! That guy from the latest Spider-Man movie.) And then there's Iron Man (IRONSIDES, [Old ___: Cromwell's nickname]), ably played by Robert Downey, Jr., in this summer's blockbuster movie. I'm not a comic-book geek at all, but I think this crossword's theme is terrific. Super, even. BAT MITZVAH, AQUA VELVA...RIGATONI? That's a great sequence there.

Randall Hartman's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Poker Face," has some synergy with yesterday's NYT crossword. [Food often cut into eighths] is PIZZA. Me, I like to ask for an octant of a smaller pizza, but a large is best cut into squares. Hartman's theme is varieties of poker: video, strip, stud, and draw. Those words begin the theme entries:

• VIDEO JOURNALISM is [News on the tube]. Who calls it that? I'm more familiar with the general "broadcast journalism," or "TV news."
  
• STRIPTEASE is a [1996 Demi Moore movie].
  
• A [Hottie] is a STUDMUFFIN. (See Robert Downey, Jr. link above.)
  
• To DRAW A CONCLUSION is to [Determine based on evidence].
  

My favorite part of this puzzle: AW SHUCKS at 37-Down, clued as [Twarn't nuthin'!"].

Matt Gaffney's Onion A.V. Club crossword is packed with lies—white lies reliant on technology to get you out of trouble. [Lie told to someone you forgot to send an important file to] is THE E-MAIL BOUNCED. Sometimes that happens, but not if you never sent the e-mail in the first place. With a digital camera, MY BATTERY'S DEAD is plausible. With cell phones, I LOST RECEPTION. (I LOST THE SIGNAL is also 14 letters. That's what I say, and I swear it's the truth.) The last lie, another e-mail one, is MY NEW SPAM FILTER / ATE IT.

Favorite clues and answers: [You might draw one before getting naked] refers to a BATH. I thought [Tiger's target] was using some cougaresque slang I didn't know, but it's just Tiger Woods and a HOLE on the golf course. [Member of the Tribe, so to speak] is a JEW. And here I thought it had to do with a baseball team.

There are some "only in the Onion (or Tausig or Jonesin') crossword" answers: BOFFS means [Has a quickie with]. SUCKS means [Fails to rock, say]. And to FREEBALL is to [Go commando, as it were], or eschew underwear. LYNN is fine, but here it's clued as [Porn star Ginger]. OBIE ditches the theater awards and is clued as [Rapper ___ Trice].

Ben Tausig's Ink Well, Chicago Reader crossword is called "Tea for Two" because the letter T appears two times instead of one in certain parts of the theme entries. For example, [Elite puppies?] are the LITTERATI, playing on literati. [What to do when your ball is two inches from the hole?] is SIMPLY PUTT (simply put). Favorite clues and answers:

• [Single's opposite] is a B-SIDE of a record. I wonder how many people will try to get BRIDE to work there.
  
• [Very, very] is UBER, in slang.
  
• [Contents of a leak] is PEE, the sort of clue/answer combo found in the alt-weekly newspapers rather than the daily paper.
  
• [Bill O'Reilly episodes?] are RANTS. Here's one of his early pre-Fox rants; don't watch it if you don't care for the F-word.
  
• MR. T is the [Badass who turns 57 next year].
  

Tricky crossing for those who do not speak crosswordese as a native language—[The "I" in I.M. Pei] is IEOH, crossing DAH, a [Morse syllable].

Read More...

Summary only...

Bonus puzzle

Head to the Crossword Fiend Forum to download a bonus puzzle co-constructed by Michael Sharp and Angela Halsted. You may know them as Rex Parker and Fiend guest blogger PuzzleGirl. They asked me to edit their creation, which is called "Don't Blink."

My link has the Across Lite version; if you'd prefer a PDF, visit the Rex Parker blog.

Read More...

Summary only...

Tuesday, 10/7

Sun 3:36
CS 3:07
NYT 3:04
LAT 2:57
Onion tba
Tausig tba

The New York Times puzzle is a solid effort from Kevin Der. The theme entries are a fresh assortment of phrases that end with a solid shape:

• WAFFLE CONE is a tasty [Ice cream holder].
  
• Over the weekend, my kid was reviewing the FOOD PYRAMID, or [Diagram of nutritional needs], in his science textbook—for fun.
  
• This here BLOGOSPHERE is the [Community of Web journals].
  
• RUBIK'S CUBE is a [Six-colored puzzle].
  

The crossword fill sparkles overall, with a smattering of Scrabbly letters and whizbang answers like these:

• The DOTCOM BOOM was a [Short-lived economic expansion of the late 1990s]. Maybe clues about economic bubbles that have burst are about to fail the breakfast test, as they may now cause dyspepsia.
  
• 11-Down, [Occasions to cry "Eureka!"], looked like something-MENTS, some word ending with that noun ending. Can you imagine the "aha" moment I had when the crossings led me to AHA MOMENTS?
  
• SHOW BIZ involves [Movies, TV, Broadway, etc.]. That Z crosses DOZEN, a [Baker's 13], and there are two other Z's in the grid.
  
• Lots of verb action—BAWL, YANK, SMOTE, LEARN OF, JAB (clued as a noun here), NAG AT, SNORED, BOBS UP, FLEW BY, EARN, and...DEFAT.
  

Clues of note:

• [Telly watcher] is a BRIT. Why this wasn't obvious to me right off the bat, I don't know.
  
• ["Then what happened?"] clues AND.
  
• [Many pizza slices, geometrically] are OCTANTS. An eighth of a pie is easier to hold than, say, a half.
  
• Mount ETNA gets a clue I haven't seen (or remembered): [Volcano in Verne's "Journey to the Center of the Earth"].
  
• [Upscale autos], 4 letters—why did I reflexively want to enter REOS? The answer is BMWS.
  
• [Part of EGBDF] is BOY, as in the music mnemonic "every good boy deserves fudge."
  
• I'm not sure that [For dieters] is the best clue for NO-CAL. Let's see, what has no calories? Water. And diet pop. These things are also for a lot of people who aren't dieters.
  
• NO OIL, or [Cause of a blown engine], may not be a truly crossword-worthy phrase. I like the fill around it, though.
  
• EONS is [How long it takes canyons to form]. True enough.
  

Lee Glickstein's Sun crossword exhorts "Not You!" because the solver is to jettison a "U" sound (you/yew) and replace it with an "OO" sound.

• Church pew turns into CHURCH POOH, a [Pious Milne character?]. Wow, this one could've gone in a whole 'nother direction.
  
• The game show Family Feud becomes FAMILY FOOD, a [Reunion spread?].
  
• A beauty shop changes into a BOOTEE SHOP, or [Baby boutique?]. What, no BOOTY SHOP? That'd be the wrong length to balance out CHURCH POO, so neither transgressive entry made the puzzle.
  
• Cutie-pies is transformed into COOTIE PIES, or [Lousy pastries?] filled with lice. Icky!
  

Answers and clues I want to comment on:

• WORDPLAY is the [2006 documentary directed by Patrick Creadon]. Patrick's 2008 documentary is called I.O.U.S.A., and that would also make a lovely crossword answer; the movie is about the national debt, or IOU + USA.
  
• [Dutch painter Hieronymus] BOSCH has one of the coolest names in art history. They didn't have LSD 500 years ago, but looking at his trippy artwork, one wonders if his consciousness was altered.
  
• [Fortune seller] isn't the company that makes fortune cookies, it's TIME INC., publisher of Fortune magazine.
  
• I like the play on the adjective lawless the solver may be tricked into with [Lawless part]. XENA the Warrior Princess was a part played by Lucy Lawless.
  
• I've never heard of TY LAW, an [All-Pro cornerback with three Super Bowl rings]. I don't know why TAMPA is the [Setting of Steinbrenner Field]. I did learn recently that the New Jersey Nets' arena is the IZOD Center, so [Center for the Nets?] wasn't as hard as it would have been for me a month ago. And BOOS are [Garden sounds, sometimes], if you're talking about Madison Square Garden, home of sporting events.
  

Updated:

Billie Truitt's LA Times crossword could give Fred Durst a thirst for attention—each of the five theme entries rhymes with those words.

• PATTY HEARST was a [1974 kidnap victim].
  
• BELLE OF AMHERST is a [Play about Emily Dickinson, with "The"]. I don't know this play at all.
  
• "ME FIRST!" means ["I'm going before everyone else!"].
  
• FEARED THE WORST is clued [Took a pessimistic view].
  
• And a GROUND BURST is a [Surface-level bomb detonation]. Such violence first thing in the morning! If only it had been CLOUDBURST paired with another 10-letter answer.
  

The four-word phrase FITS TO A T (meaning [Needs no alterations]) looks odd in the grid. Alternate clue: [Toned weasel]. Frequent crossword denizen TERI GARR graduates to full-name status here, and she's clued as a ["Tootsie" Oscar nominee]. She spoke my favorite line in that movie, to Dustin Hoffman's character: "No, we are not friends. I don't take this shit from friends. Only lovers."

I like pop culture themes, and some of Patrick Jordan's theme entries in today's CrosSynergy puzzle double up on the pop culture. "Look! Celebrities!" plays with the interjection "Lo!" by adding LO to the beginning of a phrase and transforming the first word into a celebrity's name.

• LORING OUT is an [Alibi for soap star Gloria?]. Gloria Loring is probably the least well-known of the names in this theme. Ring out is what church bells do, for example.
  
• LOPEZ DISPENSER is a [Store that sells pop diva Jennifer's CDs?]. Jennifer Lopez is a superstar, and Pez dispenser is a terrific phrase to build on.
  
• LOREN AND STIMPY could be a [Cartoon show featuring film legend Sophia?]. Sophia Loren is also a superstar, and I was a big fan of Ren and Stimpy in my 20s.
  
• LOHAN SOLO is clued as [Song by actress Lindsay?]. Lindsay Lohan made herself into a tabloid magnet, but has demonstrated plenty of acting talent. Han Solo, of course, is Harrison Ford's Star Wars character.
  

LORING OUT doesn't do much for me, but those other three! A delightful theme indeed.

Read More...

Summary only...

Monday, 10/6

Jonesin' 4:16
NYT 3:10 (but about 30 seconds of that were eaten up by discovering I needed the Enlarge Grid option)
Sun 2:57
CS 2:57
LAT 2:56

My, my, that's not a square grid at all, that New York Times crossword by Patrick Blindauer. The grid is 24 squares wide and 9 squares high, about the size of American currency, and has left/right symmetry. The theme entries all have to do with the DOLLAR (8-Across), or the [Source of all the tender words in this puzzle?]. I could do without that little bit of "legal tender" wordplay, but I suppose the added hint is appropriate for a Monday puzzle. In each corner, there are three circled squares, and ONE is spelled out there. The other theme entries are phrases or images found on a DOLLAR bill:

• 26-Across, THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, is [8-Across issuer].
  
• 35-Across is IN GOD WE TRUST, the [Motto of 26-Across found on the 8-Across].
  
• 53-Across is one [Symbol of 26-Across found on the 8-Across], the GREAT SEAL.
  
• 58-Across is another symbol of 26-Across found on the 8-Across], a BALD EAGLE. The currency I have handy is a 2003 $2 bill, which lacks an eagle. Let's see...okay, there's the eagle on the right side of the back of the $1 bill.
  

Hey, guess what?

The circled ONEs and all the other theme components aside from the descriptive DOLLAR appear in the grid in pretty much the same relative positions as on the actual dollar bill. Isn't that nifty? Good execution of a cute idea, Patrick.

To get the new Sun crossword, visit Will Johnston's calendar page. We're awaiting word on the mechanism to subscribe, so if you're not planning to pay $12 or so for a half year of Sun crosswords, I don't want you to download the Monday puzzle. Or if you do download it, I want you to feel bad about yourself and atone by subscribing after all. The puzzle is by Donna Levin, and the title is "Orange Zest." (Hello!) There are four theme entries that start or end with a variety of orange:

• A [Hematologist's test] is a BLOOD COUNT, and blood oranges have deep red flesh.
  
• That [Rossini opera, with "The"] is BARBER OF SEVILLE. The Seville orange is also called the sour orange, bitter orange, or bigarade. It's good for marmalade.
  
• MANDARIN COLLARS are [Features of Dr. Evil's apparel]. Dr. Evil is one of Mike Myers' characters in the Austin Powers movies, and I loved canned mandarin oranges as a kid.
  
• The FUZZY NAVEL is a [Peachy cocktail], and navel oranges are probably a staple in your local grocery store.
  

The grid is crisscrossed with a lot of 8-letter answers just for the heck of it. FIRE ANTS are [Stinging insects]. FAD DIETS are [Trendy weight-loss plans]. [Boy toys?] are KEN DOLLS. My favorite entry, though, is HELL NO, the [Emphatic denial]. There are a couple X's in the fill, including one in STYX. That one's clued as the ["Mr. Roboto" rock band], and I gotta tell you, that video is unwatchable.

Sun update: Peter Gordon reports: "This week is free so everyone can find it. No need to feel guilty. Subscriptions start 10/13 (assuming we get it all worked out before then)."

Updated:

Martin Ashwood-Smith's CrosSynergy crossword, "Apple Cores," places a MAC in the middle of the grid (31-Down, [Core of this puzzle]) and in the exact middle of the three theme entries:

• [Fictional H.G. Wells device] is a TIME MACHINE.
  
• HAROLD MACMILLAN was the [British Prime Minister 1957-1963].
  
• The PANAMA CANAL is an [Important shipping route opened in 1914].
  

The tightest version of this theme would have all three embedded MACs starting a word or all three split across two words. The version we have splits one and keeps two intact. If you are a solver and not a constructor, is that sort of inconsistency something you notice? If you do notice it, does that inconsistency lower your opinion of the theme? My guess is that the vast majority of solvers don't notice and wouldn't mind the variance if they did notice it.

I like the southwest and northeast corners of the grid, with the 8/9/10 stack. ELEMENTAL PAKISTAN POLE VAULTS sound like they could be something, but then I'm no sports expert.

Jack McInturff's LA Times crossword could be entitled "P.R. Firm," as each theme entry is a phrase consisting of two words both starting with PR, and they have a business vibe to them: [Lots with ocean views, usually] are PRIME PROPERTY. [Self-employment, as for a doctor or lawyer] is PRIVATE PRACTICE. And a PRINTING PRESS was a [Gutenberg creation]. That middle theme entry is chained to the top and bottom ones by 8- and 9-letter answers, so there's some structural challenge to this construction.

Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword this week is a themeless puzzle called "No Theme For You!" I hadn't heard of actor Hakeem KAE-Kazim of Hotel Rwanda, but I got the crossings and never even saw that clue. In the lower left corner, there was one crossing that made me eyes cross: [One of the four players in "Gauntlet"] is an ELF, and I have no idea what that reference is all about. The E appears in Tim BERNERS-LEE, [British scientist Tim credited with inventing the World Wide Web]. Hmm, I missed hearing about him. The grid's unusual, with that 1/2/3/4-Across chunk consisting of an 7/7/11/3 layout. But look at the interlock of the longer answers: CHICKEN VINDALOO ([Spicy non-vegetarian Indian dish]) crosses two 10-letter triple-stacks and that 11 in the middle, and the left and right sides have staggered 11-letter answers brushing up against one another. Favorite entries: I FEEL SO OLD, TV cooking guy ALTON BROWN, an indoor-playground BALL PIT, and Atlanta's TURNER FIELD.

Read More...

Summary only...

Sunday, 10/5

NYT 10:53
PI 9:34
LAT 7:12
BG 6:21
CS 4:14

WIJ's answers to Silvestri's NYT Second Sunday cryptic crossword are here.

Well, I didn't get around to the Newsday "Saturday Stumper" before I left for the day (accompanying someone on her kitten adoption outing—four-month-old tortoiseshell cat who was an excellent car passenger). I got home mid-afternoon, but just when I was ready to settle in with the crossword, a friend called and we spent three hours on the phone. And now it's time to move on to the Sunday puzzles before I go in reverse to finish up Saturday.

The Sunday New York Times crosswordis a jumbo (23x23 vs. the usual 21x21) puzzle by Byron Walden. The title is "Fault-Finding," which makes it sound custom-made for nitpickers. (But I don't think it is.) 117-Down is TYPO, [What each starred clue — and its answer — contains]. I could identify the typos in the clues, but when I finished the puzzle, the theme answers still looked kosher. "Where are the typos?" I wondered. Finally they jumped out at me:

• TWENTY-POUND NOTE, like the other starred answers, contains the letters TYPO within it. Its clue, [Common Guernsey bull], has its typo near the end; the note is a common bill in British currency.
  
• PRETTY POISON is a [1968 firm featuring a murderous cheerleader], with firm standing in for film.
  
• CITY POLICE are clued as an [Urban farce] but are an urban force.
  
• CELEBRITY POKER is clued as [Where stars can be seen fluffing and folding]. I love the clue because it sounds like the answer should be LAUNDROMAT OF THE RICH AND FAMOUS, but change fluffing to bluffing and it all makes sense.
  
• DIRTY POOL isn't really [What theaters play], but rather, what cheaters play. I didn't figure out this clue typo until blogging it just now.
  
• A dean is typoed into a [Bean, e.g.], cluing a UNIVERSITY POST.
  
• TREATY PORT is clued [Onetime regal status of Shanghai or Canton]. I think the clue typo is regal for legal.
  
• [Get blankets] clues those wet blankets, PARTY POOPERS.
  
• A [Novice in an ad campaign] is a PUBLICITY POSTER. Hmm...must be novice for notice?
  
• Terrible drivers rack up penalty points on their insurance, so PENALTY POINTS is clued [Bad drivers back them up].
  

I like the theme concept of having a typo in each clue that changes the clue's meaning. Having a hidden TYPO embedded in each theme entry elevates the puzzle's coolness. In the fill, there are 36 answers that are 7 to 9 letters long, so it's a bit like having a themeless Byron puzzle gift-wrapped in a themed Sunday puzzle. My favorites among the non-thematic answers:

• PRO FORMA means [Perfunctory].
  
• I like SECONDO, or [Lower part of a duet], because that was the name of Stanley Tucci's character in Big Night. (Tony Shalhoub played his brother Primo.) Speaking of musical terms I know little about, my third-grader just learned about allegro, presto, and largo and now understands more about music than his mother.
  
• KETCHUP is a [Whopper topper].
  
• The speaker of a very recent crossword quote, Albert EINSTEIN, appears at 56-Across cross-referenced to 47-Down, as he was a PATENT examiner.
  
• SNOG is British slang for "make out," so it's clued [Kensington kiss].
  
• I didn't know that the [Region including Texarkana] was called the RICE BELT.
  
• U.S. TROOPS makes a nice entry. They're clued as [G.I.'s], though I think the term also includes the Navy, Air Force, and Marines who aren't, I don't think, called G.I.'s.
  
• BEHOOVE! I know Byron likes tennis, so [Serve well] made me think of tennis rather than behooving.
  
• I like [Pulitzer-winning journalist Seymour] HERSH, whose name doesn't show up in crosswords much.
  
• STOP YELLING is clued ["Pipe down!"]. Maybe it's not a classical sort of crossword entry, but if you have a kid in the house, you probably find this phrase to be a natural, "in the language" phrase.
  
• SPATLESE! Yum, make mine a Riesling. Spätlese is a [German wine made from the late harvest].
  
• IN CLOVER means [On easy street]. Am I the only one who thought of "sittin' in butter" first? What movie or TV show taught me that one?
  
• I don't recall seeing the verb phrase SERVE OUT in a crossword before. [Complete, as a Senate term] is the clue.
  
• Oh! Here's BUSTA RHYMES, clued as the ["Pass the Courvoisier" rapper]. Best entry in the puzzle, unless you hate contemporary pop culture references in your crosswords.
  
• DUE EAST is clued [How the Great Sphinx looks]. That clue made me think in all sorts of wrong directions.
  
• I always like OGPU, the [Forerunner of the K.G.B.], because OGPU just looks and sounds so silly.
  
• THE CELL was that bizarre [2000 Jennifer Lopez thriller] in which she's a psychologist or psychiatrist who taps into the hallucinogenic dreams of a deranged killer. It's also what people call Cellular Field, where the Chicago White Sox play. I'm not sure if there are bars on The Cell.
  

I don't like PRERINSE ([Make ready for the dishwasher]), because what we're doing is rinsing those dishes. (The answer crosses two theme entries.) SCAREY is clued [Chilling: Var.], and that spelling variant doesn't appear in my Random House Webster's Unabridged. It does cross three theme entries so I won't give Byron too much guff for that.

Byron excels at writing clues, if you ask me. Among my favorites:

• [Socrates or Pythagoras, e.g.] clue the noun ANCIENT.
  
• [What "matar" means on an Indian menu] is PEAS. For example, aloo matar (spellings vary) is potatoes and peas in yummy spices.
  
• U NU is a [Bygone P.M. with a palindromic name]. How can you not love a palindromic leader?
  
• [Old car with the slogan "We are driven"] was DATSUN. Why did I have Mazda in mind?
  
• [Sunroof and spoilers, e.g.] are OPTIONS on a new car.
  
• Two clothing terms are practically neighbors: [Short jackets for boys] and [Short jackets for women] are ETONS and BOLEROS, respectively. [Jacket material?] is a BLURB on a book jacket, though.
  
• [Snaps back] means HIKES if you're talking about what happens to a football.
  
• [The fifth element] on the periodic table is BORON. Have you seen the movie, The Fifth Element? I liked it.
  
• [Weekly with 30+ million circulation] is PARADE magazine. Mind you, that's not 30 million readers. Some people probably toss it with the other parts of the newspaper they don't read. If Parade's Marilyn vos Savant irks you, read this.
  
• [1977 flick with the tagline "Terror just beneath the surface"] is ORCA. I saw it in the CINEMA ([Showing concern?]) and I think it was bad.
  

Some of the tougher clues:

• [West Flanders site of three W.W. I battles] is YPRES. That's one of those European war place names that pops up periodically in crosswords.
  
• [Stainless steel, for one] is an IRON ALLOY.
  
• PETIT GRIS is a [Snail variety whose name means "small gray"]. I'm not up on my snail nomenclature, but the French isn't too hard.
  
• [Pizzeria chain, familiarly] is UNO'S. UNoS is the United Network for Organ Sharing. Don't mix up your .com and your .org, or you may end up with a deep dish pepperoni when what you needed was a new kidney.
  
• [Fixed motor parts] are STATORS. Nope, I don't know what they do.
  
• [Sport for rikishi] is SUMO. 
  
• [Strongly green] is VIRID. Not a common word, but if you've taken an oil painting class you probably remember viridian as a vivid green color.
  
• A [Terse order] might be "DO IT."
  
• TOMTITS are [Small birds, in British lingo].
  

Updated:

Gail Grabowski's syndicated Los Angeles Times Sunday crossword is called "Bad Guys in Hiding" and appropriately, a bunch of PERPs are hiding in the theme entries:

• PEPPER POT is a [Highly seasoned stew].
  
• SUPERPOWER is what [The United States, e.g.] is.
  
• A [Search and rescue squad member] is a CHOPPER PILOT.
  
• COPPER PIPING might be a [Plumber's order].
  
• BUMPER POOL is a [Game with five red and five white balls]. When I was a kid, we used to play bumper pool in my grandparents' basement.
  
• A DIAPER PIN is [not needed with Huggies].
  
• An [Unrealized gain] is a PAPER PROFIT.
  
• [Like Tylenol capsules] means TAMPER-PROOF.
  

Tying these all together is 101-Down, PERP. I'm not used to seeing SOUTHPAW used to describe athletes other than baseball players, but here the clue is [Jimmy Connors or John McEnroe]. Favorite answer: PLAY DUMB, or [Keep the surprise party a secret].

Merl Reagle's Philadelphia Inquirer crossword, "Pun Clearance," came with a Notepad annotation: "Puns kind of accumulate around my house, so I have to clear them out every so often." So the theme is unrelated puns that Merl hasn't been able to group with related puns. My favorite of the puns is MALLARDJUSTED, clued with ["I'm not a bad duck; I'm just ___"]. It's just goofy enough to work. The others are as follows:

• [What even Paris's dad became when Helen of Troy was kidnapped?] was A PRIAM SUSPECT, playing on "a prime suspect."
  
• REMEMBER THE A LA MODE (Alamo) could be a [Sign on an ice cream shop?].
  
• "YOU OWE ME ONE, KENOBI" puns on you + Obi-Wan Kenobi. The clue is [Comment to a "Star Wars" character after getting him out of a jam?].
  
• [What Nostradamus always said during roll call (to the constant irritation of his teachers)?] was PRESCIENT AND / ACCOUNTED FOR.
  
• "Graft and corruption" becomes GRAFTON CORRUPTION, or [What goes on in Sue's books?].
  
• THE FORD EXTRADITION plays on the Ford Expedition SUV and is clued as a [Vehicle of choice for transporting suspects?].
  

There's plenty of good fill in this puzzle—an ODD SENSATION, a MARIACHI, NEUROSCIENCE, P DIDDY, a HOMONYM, and GERONIMO. There was one answer I got completely from the crossings—["Ben-Hur" co-star Stephen et al.] clues BOYDS.

Liz Gorski stands in for Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon this weekend in the time-delayed Across Lite version of the Boston Globe crossword. The theme is described by the title, "They're Playing Our Song." Each theme entry is a song title clued as if it were a wedding song for a fictional character. For example, [Mr. Potato Head's wedding song?] could be I ONLY HAVE EYES FOR YOU, and [Humpty Dumpty's wedding song?] is I FALL TO PIECES. Was this puzzle surprisingly easy for others, or was I just tuned into Liz's wavelength? I believe we'll see one or two more Gorskis in the Globe, probably alternating with Henry Hook puzzles, before the Cox/Rathvon puzzles return. Is it selfish to hope that the others are tougher?

Randolph Ross's themeless CrosSynergy "Sunday Challenge" was about as difficult as the Sunday CrosSynergy puzzle usually is. There's just one word in it that I had to piece together from all the crossings—RIMOSELY is clued as [In a way that causes cracks and crevices]. All the Google hits on the first three pages were dictionary entries or word lists and not pages showing the word being used in writing. Eventually there were some scientific references with such phrases as "Thallus crustose, rimosely to verrucosely areolate" and "may be somewhat squamulose becoming rimosely cracked." So it's not a crossword-friendly word, but the crossings include a triple-stack of 9's and a 15-letter answer. My favorite answers and clues: A PROBOSCIS is a [Schnoz]. [King of pop music] is CAROLE King, with that concealed capital K in the clue. A [Title role played by Tommy Lee Jones] is a U.S. MARSHAL. First I racked my brain trying to think of Jones movies with a character's name in the title, not the character's job. [Cocktail with a kick] is the inedible and explosive MOLOTOV cocktail.

Read More...

Summary only...

Saturday, 10/4

Newsday 7:48
NYT 6:34
LAT 4:20
CS 3:15

(updated at 10:30 p.m. Saturday)

Would you look at that? Matt Ginsberg's New York Times crossword is a 68-word puzzle, so it must be themeless—except that three 13-letter answers spell out [an Einstein quote that holds true when solving clever crosswords]. That quote splits up into these three chunks: IMAGINATION IS / MORE IMPORTANT / THAN KNOWLEDGE. I've never heard the quote, and my typing was all bollixed up tonight, and I took the wrong road for 32-Down, so this puzzle didn't feel very easy. I had the R from STRESS ([Type A problem]), so I figured [One might refuse to shake hands] meant a variant spelling, GERMPHOBE. That's not a word, turns out. The answer is a SORE LOSER.

There are some fun clue pairs here. [Rover's watcher] is NASA, while [Rover's reward] is a doggie TREAT. Two answers share the clue [Burning]: RED HOT and URGENT. (I made a wrong turn with ARDENT there.) [R.S.V.P., e.g.: Abbr.] is an ANS. (answer), while [R.S.V.P. facilitator: Abbr.] is an SAE (self-addressed envelope).

The clues I liked best are these:

• [Europe's third-largest island] is EIRE. Greenland and Iceland are bigger.
  
• [Far Eastern capital] is YEN, Japan's currency, and not a capital city.
  
• ERASMUS is the [Originator of the phrase "Pandora's box"]. Did I know this?
  
• [Trix alternative?] isn't breakfast cereal, it's a suffix. If you're one to call a female aviator an aviatrix, you might call a female comedian a comedienne, and the answer here is ENNE.
  
• The clue for BALD is inaccurate. Not all bald men are [Unable to part?] their hair. Sometimes they just happen to part it above the ear to make a combover.
  
• [Pool openings] are BREAKS in that you "break" to start a game of pool.
  
• [Esquire's plea?] is to RENEW the magazine. Did you think of lawyers first?
  

Other answers I was fond of are NARCISSUS, a specific [Self-absorbed individual]; chicken NUGGETS; and ON PATROL, or [Making the rounds], because I so enjoyed the SpongeBob episode in which he sings "I'm on patro-o-ol." Things I hadn't known:

• That there's a team called the [North Dakota Fighting __] SIOUX.
  
• That Golda MEIR was a [Head of state who resigned in 1974]. She resigned? I never saw the movie of her life, and I wasn't following international news when I was eight.
  
• That boxer Gene TUNNEY was the [Writer of "A Man Must Fight," 1932].
  
• That YMA Sumac was a [Singer who appeared with Charlton in "Secret of the Incas"].
  

Updated:

Robert Wolfe's themeless LA Times crossword puzzle was a bit easier than other recent Saturday LA Times offerings. Here's some of what it contained:

• CLEAN UP YOUR ROOM is an [Order-producing order].
  
• To [Get happy] is to BREAK INTO A SMILE.
  
• WHO'S GONNA MAKE ME? is a [Bully's challenge].
  
• ST. PETER was a [Witness to the Transfiguration of Jesus] in the Bible.
  
• [Does, e.g.] are DEER. I wonder how many people read that as the third person singular form of the verb do.
  
• IRONS are [Restraining rings] in a dungeon, as in leg irons.
  
• OSTER is the [Blend-N-Go Cup maker].
  
• ANKARA, Turkey, is the [Atakule Tower city].
  
• To be [Stuck at Buffalo Niagara Airport, perhaps] is to be SNOWED IN.
  
• [School with a Panama City campus] is FSU, or Florida State.
  
• OSHA is a [Group concerned with asbestos stds.].
  
• [Eucharist plate] is a PATEN. This one I learned from crosswords.
  
• [Bon Jovi bassist ___ John Such] is named ALEC. 
  
• I'm not sure why [Revolution victim] is an EMIGRE. There was a revolution and their side came out on the bottom, so they emigrated?
  
• [Treaty of Berlin (1899) subject] was SAMOA.
  
• [Places for criers: Abbr.] is TNS. What is that, an abbreviation for towns? Apparently so.
  

Tom Schier's CrosSynergy crossword, "Directional Humor," spells out a quip with zero Google hits, so I suspect the quip's of Schier's own devising. The [Comedian's quip] is "A STRAIGHT LINE IS / THE / SHORTEST / DISTANCE / BETWEEN TWO JOKES." That THE segment breaks the symmetry of the theme layout, but that's remedied by placing GAG, or [Comedian's offering, such as this puzzle's quip], opposite THE in the grid. The first three answers I filled in, 1- and 2-Down and 1-Across, were SPAS, WASP, and SWAPS, so for a moment I envisioned a puzzle filled in with only the letters found in those answers—but no. That wouldn't work. Who knew an INGATE was a [Molten metal channel]? Not I. The [Long-armed ape] or ORANG appears in both this puzzle and today's LAT.

Updated Saturday night:

Stan Newman's alter ego, Anna Stiga, constructed this week's Newsday "Saturday Stumper." It's got 72 words, the max for a themeless puzzle, so it's got pretty smooth fill. The difficulty arises in the clues, not the answers. (Complete solution grid is here in PDF form.) It's late, so allow me to intermingle my favorite clues and answers with some tough stuff:

• [Black diamonds] are ANTHRACITE coal, not just challenging ski slopes.
  
• [It might be a lot] clues an ACRE.
  
• PAPER PLATES are a [Party purchase]. If there's a potluck and you sign up to bring PAPER PLATES, you are lazy and you stole the offering I wanted to sign up for.
  
• GNAT is clued ["Gnorm ___" (Jim Davis strip before "Garfield"]. I'll bet it was not good.
  
• [Extraordinarily] is an AWFUL misleading clue for that answer.
  
• I should use the word DASTARD more often. It's a [Sniveling sneak].
  
• [One or two] is an INTEGER.
  
• [Fire sign] is ashes if you're talking about campfires, or ARIES if you're talking about the zodiac. Leo and Sagittarius are also fire signs. Am I dynamic and ingenious? Do I view life as a competition?Hmm.
  
• PRESTOS are [Fast movements] in music. My 8-year-old was just informing me about this and other tempos.
  
• A [GPS ancestor] is a SEXTANT. I want a GPS doohickey for Christmas this year, because the sextant just isn't cutting it on those suburban roads.
  
• PICCOLO means [Little, literally]. Makes sense.
  

Read More...

Summary only...

Friday, 10/3

NYT 6:26
Sun 5:13
LAT 4:53
CHE 4:28
CS 3:03
WSJ 7:23

Here's how my evening went: I solved the Sun puzzle and drafted the second part of this blog post. Then I started watching the debate around 8:40 (DVR-assisted), but had to rewind when my husband returned to the living room. Then it was NYT crossword time, and my husband wanted an explanation right then about the various metrics on screen on CNN. Dude! I'm trying to do a crossword here! I finished the puzzle and then spent the next two hours watching the debate and reading the early reactions. Now I have to review the crossword again to blog about it, but my mind's been filled with other stuff for the last two hours. One thing I learned in the interim: Bosniak or Bosniac is indeed a word. All sorts of pinheads on the internet are talking about that as if it's a gaffe, but Biden does know his foreign policy. That's my new word for the day.

The New York Times crossword by Harvey Estes features triple-stacked 15-letter entries at the top and bottom of the grid:

• An [Unforgettable edible] is a DISH FIT FOR A KING. Man, it took me too long to piece that one together.
  
• [Concern of a certain federal commissioner] is INTERNAL REVENUE.
  
• [Fission boat?] clues an ATOMIC SUBMARINE.
  
• [On account (of)] equates to IN CONSIDERATION (of).
  
• TO A LESSER EXTENT means [Not so much].
  
• STREET ADDRESSES are [usually even on one side].
  

Tough stuff:

• [Capital on the Rimac River] is LIMA. Also in the category of geography, PISA is a [City noted for its campanile]. Also in the category of PI*A words is PINA, a [Tropical fruit, in Toledo]. Not Toledo, Ohio (and not Lima, Ohio)—Toledo, Spain, where piña means "pineapple."
  
• [Opium product] is CODEINE, but I started with COCAINE there.
  
• With a couple crossings, [His chariot was drawn by four fire-breathing horses] gets a lot easier. It's ARES. (Without the crossings? Oy.)
  
• [Of blood] clues HEMATIC. That word doesn't get a lot of play. Hematologic gets much more use.
  
• [Drawing device] is a FLUE.
  
• [N.F.L. cornerback Starks] is named DUANE. Never heard of him.
  
• [Longtime "Days of Our Lives" actress Jones] is named RENEE. Don't know her. But guess what? Ty Treadway, erstwhile Merv Griffin's Crosswords host, is once again playing Colin McIver on One Life to Live. According to that issue recap, "Colin" appears as a game-show host in another character's deathbed dream.
  

Favorite clues: To [Be in the red for black and tans] is to RUN A TAB at a bar. A PICNIC is a [Take-out meal?]. [Good day?: Abbr.] is FRI, as in Good Friday. KERNELS are what's meant in [They cover the ears]. [You might exchange words with them] refers to INITIALS, as in exchanging United States for U.S. [Head pieces] are JAWS—this one's kinda weird, but the maxilla and mandible are indeed parts in the plural. An ARIA is an [Unlikely number for a rock concert]. RENT-A-CAR is [National service] in that National is a car rental agency. And [One stripping on a kitchen counter] refers not to any scene in Fatal Attraction but rather, to a PARER of vegetables.

Karen Tracey's Sun crossword, a themeless "Weekend Warrior," posed a strange challenge. It had far more than the usual quotient of things I absolutely didn't know, and yet the crossings and some judicious guessing allowed me to complete the puzzle in a decent amount of time. Without further ado, the biggest mysteries to me:

• An [Aztec god of the sun and war] is HUITZILOPOCHTLI. That's 15 letters of unknowingness!
  
• A [Fancy indoor headpiece for a woman] is a MOB CAP. A what? One of these quaint old colonial things, or a modern OR cap.
  
• I know there's a bassoon and a bass sax, but the BASS OBOE? That's a [Low wind] I wasn't hip to.
  
• I knew [Joseph Ratzinger, today] was the current pope, but not his Roman numeral. ("When in Rome...") He's POPE BENEDICT XVI.
  
• [Salmon roe, at a sushi restaurant] is called IKURA. I don't do sushi or roe, and this word hasn't been in as many crosswords as, say, UNAGI. I dredged Alexei KOSYGIN out of a dusty corner of the noggin to get the K in IKURA.
  
• [Engine driver in a Who song] is IVOR. Wha...? Five seconds into the YouTube video of "The Quick One, While He's Away," my husband came into the room, already reciting the opening words with Pete and Roger. He's a big Who fan, but I've never even heard of this song.
  

Let's take a moment to talk about the construction itself. This puppy's got 70 words, which gives Karen some leeway to pack it with some cool entries. You see the black square above 15-Down, OPART, and its counterpart below 44-Down, PAINS? Many people in the business call those "cheaters" because if they were white squares, the puzzle would still have the same total word count (but the answers that intersect in those squares would each be a letter longer). Rich Norris, editor of the Los Angeles Times crossword, said he calls 'em "helpers": because that's what they do, they help the constructor devise a better fill for the puzzle. I like that reframing.

So, what's the cool stuff? There's the JOFFREY BALLET down the middle, clued a bit misleadingly as [Chicago company] as if it were part of the business community in the Windy City. The J is shared by JOLT COLA, whose C is also part of a SCHMEAR of cream cheese. French geography gets the COTE D'OR ([Department in France's Bourgogne region]). And my favorite answer is FAT ALBERT, clued as a [Friend of Dumb Donald]. I enjoyed the clues, my favorites being these:

• [Relative of Wednesday] is Uncle FESTER of The Addams Family.
  
• [Literally, "first generation"] is the Japanese term ISSEI. Nisei is "second generation," and sansei is "third generation," used to refer to North Americans with Japanese-born grandparents.
  
• OPUS from Bloom County is the [Penguin of the comics]. There's also a Sunday-only strip called Opus.
  
• [Rite performed on the eighth day of life] is the BRIS. I went to my first and probably only bris a few years ago.
  
• [Salmon tail?] is ELLA, as in Salmonella. My grandparents were friends with a couple named Sam and Della. I always thought they sounded pathogenic.
  
• [Child's gadget] is a RICER if the Child in question is Julia.
  

A big thanks to Peter Gordon for committing to releasing online the backlog of Sun gems like this one.

Updated:

Donna Levin's LA Times crossword changes C__ words into CH__ words in the quintet of theme entries:

• [Conversation between King Mongkut and Tuptim?] is a SIAMESE CHAT.
  
• [Picking, peeling or polishing?] is an APPLE CHORE.
  
• [Jean Valjean's plea to Javert?] might have been GET OFF MY CHASE.
  
• [Payroll officer?] is a SALARY CHAP. Well, when the payroll officer is male, I suppose.
  
• [Muhammad Ali's coach?] is an AIDE-DE-CHAMP. If you're looking for champs, Ali's the go-to guy, isn't he?
  

There's plenty of fill in the 6- to 8-letter range, and plenty of clues that left me wondering.

• [Early L.A. Times bigwig Harrison Gray ___] is OTIS. I knew that Otis Chandler was one of the LA Times family bigwigs, but didn't know his first name was a family name.
  
• [Nevada's largest county] shares a name with the Science Guy on PBS: NYE.
  
• [Joe Sixpack] has been bandied about in politics of late. Why did it take so long for me to tease out EVERYMAN?
  
• [Blake who played Aunt Harriet on TV's "Batman"] is MADGE. The only Madges I know are the '70s-'80s Palmolive commercial one and the Madonna nickname.
  
• [Toon with a cat named Bowser] is Mister MAGOO.
  
• ["Ready" signal of a kind] is a DIAL TONE.
  
• [State treasury] clues FISC. Huh? Is that a regional thing, calling the state treasury FISC? The clue doesn't hint at an abbreviation.
  
• What's a [Fleche]? It's a STEEPLE. I had no idea.
  

My favorite clue is the one for HIC: [Sound resulting from a synchronous diaphragm flutter]. SHEA gets a historical clue, [2000 World Series venue]. Now that the stadium's being replaced by Citifield, look for more past-tense SHEA clues. SPAM is the [Product with its own museum in Minnesota]—southern Minnesota's Austin, to be specific. My mother just vacationed in Austin.

Michael Ashley's Chronicle of Higher Education crossword, "Space Invaders," is a trivia crossword focusing on American space missions, in celebration of the 50th birthday of NASA (61-Across) this week. The eight theme entries are short but blanket the puzzle in symmetrical spots, as you can see from my solution grid (I added circles for the thematic parts). I'm sure NASA missions captivate many of you, but this theme didn't move me. Favorite clue: [Drew upon one's notes?] for DOODLED. I also liked the clue for MOP, [Their heads are generally kept down].The word LOANS is clued as [Subprime offerings]; this includes subprime credit cards as well as mortgages. I don't know if those sources of credit have dried up this fall.

Sarah Keller's CrosSynergy crossword, "The End of an Argument," was a good bit easier than the other Friday puzzles. 55-Down, or WORD, anchors the puzzle: [The last one ends an argument and can be attached to the last one of 21-, 31-, 40-, and 50-Across]. The clue's forced to be clunky to avoid using the word word in a clue for WORD. The first theme answer is IGNITION KEY, or [Car starter], which gives us a key word. FORWARD PASS, or [Quarterback's option], yields a password. The SAFETY CATCH, or [Secure bracelet clasp], produces a catchword. DOUBLE CROSS is an [Act of betrayal] and hey! this one gives us a crossword.

Myles Callum's Wall Street Journal puzzle is called "Liquid Assets" because the letters in the word ASSET appear in that order within each theme entry. Those theme entries are are all clued with [Liquid asset for ___] phrases, but the answers aren't all things that could be considered "liquid assets." [Liquid asset for what a burgler does], for example, is CASES THE JOINT. So the "liquid asset" part of the clue isn't meant to have a meaning aside from signaling the liquidity of the spaced-out ASSETs. My favorite clues were [It's no salt shaker] for a CALM SEA and [Baby berths?] for UTERI. Answers I liked best included TRAIPSE, MR. DEEDS and MR TOAD, THE BOSS, and ELIOT NESS. I thought the puzzle would've fallen faster than it did, given that I was able to enter the ASSET letters in all the theme entries early on, but maybe going ahead and entering those letters wasted time better spent answering the clues.

Read More...

Summary only...

Thursday, 10/2

Sun 4:58
NYT 4:34
LAT 3:49
CS 3:15

The New York Times crossword is credited to one Samuel A. Donaldson. Is it that Sam Donaldson? Wikipedia says the ABC News legend's middle name is Andrew so...it could be. The famous Sam Donaldson was depicted in one of my favorite Emily Cureton crossword drawings. Or it could be a different Samuel Donaldson. Either way, it's a good puzzle with a solid theme and deftly triple-stacked 9-letter answers in the fill. The theme's unified by the [Two-time Time Man of the Year], Richard NIXON, and each of four theme entries nixes an ON at the end of a word:

• BAT TWIRLER (playing on baton twirler) is an [Anxious baseball player at the plate?]. 
  
• PICK YOUR POIS (poison) might be a [Sign above a luau buffet?]. Outside of Hawaii, I suspect poi gets more play in crosswords than in conversation—and I like it when a bit of quasi-crosswordese gets promoted to a theme entry.
  
• YUK TERRITORY (Yukon) is a [Land of laughs?].
  
• BRAIN SURGE (surgeon) is a [Flood of ideas?].
  

Those corners packed with long answers serve up goodies like AWAY GAMES, or [Road trip events], and SNAKE EYES, a [Loser at the dice table]. Sure, it's taking the easy way out to facilitate the southwest corner with SSSS at 60-Across, but I like the results. I must cavil a bit at the clue for SATURDAYS, [Popular dates for dates]; the 12th is a date, but Saturday is a day. ['80s craze starter] could've been a lot of things (Madonna, MTV, Flashdance...) but here it's Erno RUBIK, the cube guy. This crossword includes two of the A- words I'm fond of, APACE ([Quickly]) and AWRY ([Out of whack]). KEROUAC looks handsome in the grid, too—he's the ["Big Sur" writer, 1962]. I had zero interest in seeing the movie, so ANNA, [Actress Popplewell of "The Chronicles of Narnia"], was new to me. VAS is split into two words, V AS [__ in victory], rather than being kept intact in the VAS [__ deferens].

Tony Orbach's Sun crossword, "Sleeping In," is super-Scrabbly since the theme entries doze off with the insertion of double-Z's:

• [What you might do if you get a dent from someone who slaps your car's hood while crossing the street?] is BLAME IT ON RIZZO. This combines the gross movie Blame it on Rio (50-year-old Michael Caine with a teenage girl? Ick) with the famous Ratso Rizzo scene in Midnight Cowboy (short clip here). "I'm walkin' here!" An inspiration to pedestrians crossing the street everywhere.
  
• JAZZY WALKING is a cool [Cat's means of getting around?]. This one crosses jaywalking with hepcats in the jazz milieu.
  
• A [Vertiginous network?] on cable might be the DIZZY NETWORK, playing on the DIY network and dizziness.
  
• Remember "freedom fries" from back when jingoists in Congress wanted to express their umbrage at France by lashing out at a snack created in Belgium? Add some frizzy hair and you get FREEDOM FRIZZES, or [Curly hairstyles that aren't oppressed].
  

Tony worked in some more Z's, plus a Q, two X's, a J, and some K's. Among the Scrabblier non-theme answers are KRAZY KAT, the [George Herriman comic strip]; a SGT. MAJ., or [High-ranking NCO] with only one elitist vowel; and KAZOOS with an incomprehensible-to-me clue, [Mirlitons].

Updated:

The theme in Paula Gamache's CrosSynergy crossword, "Different Strokes," isn't golf or swimming strokes, but generic tactile stroking:

• A [Square on a piece of toast] is a BUTTER PAT.
  
• The [Classroom favorite] is the TEACHER'S PET.
  
• [It's found to the left on a sink] clues the HOT WATER TAP.
  
• [One who falls for sob stories] is a SOFT TOUCH.
  

Favorite entries: MR. ROGERS, who was a [Gentleman in a PBS neighborhood], and OH HENRY, a [Candy bar once promoted to honor "Hank" Aaron]. I'm not sure I get the gist of [Addition to a board, say] for NEW BLOOD. A corporate board?

I came across a link that says today's LA Times crossword is Jonathan Seff's second published puzzle, but I don't recall a previous one. If you're interested in reviews of crossword applications for the iPhone, Google the constructor's name and you'll find plenty. His theme in this puzzle is phrases that can be clued with [Mark], in sort of an inverse way—the theme answers wouldn't customarily make the cut as crossword fill, so it's a clue/answer flip-flop. Each of these four phrases wouldn't be out of place as a clue for MARK: a CLASSROOM RATING, OLYMPIAN SPITZ, a STRIKE OR SPARE on a bowling scorecard, and a SWINDLER'S VICTIM. In the fill, TO ERR gets a clue that isn't ["___ is human..."]—instead, it's ["Better ___ with Pope, than shine with Pye": Byron]. That line is from this loooong satirical poem. Ah, the long lost art of lengthy satirical poetry...

Read More...

Summary only...