LAT 8:30
PI 7:55
NYT 7:47
BG 7:12
CS 3:50
Split Decisions, Second Sunday NYT puzzle 9:27
(updated at 9:25 a.m. Sunday)
I only saw half of the theme in Joe DiPietro's New York Times crossword, "Perjury." I saw the hidden OATH tucked inside all the long entries, but it wasn't until I reached 112-Across that I learned of the other half: [Perjure oneself ... or what can be found six times in this puzzle] clues LIE UNDER OATH, and below each of those five hidden OATHs, the word LIE appears.
CAN'T DO A THING, or [Is completely hamstrung], sits above LIE OVER, or [Completely cover]. The LIE portion is under OATH.
The visual rebus aspect of the theme is cool—"lie under oath" is represented by LIE beneath the word OATH, making it a far more intricate theme than one with just an embedded word.
Here's today's assortment of answers and clues:
Updated:
This weekend's second Sunday puzzle in the New York Times is another "Split Decisions" by George Bredehorn. I found the upper right corner to be kinda tough, and the lower left corner to be much knottier than the opposite side. From top to bottom, left to right, here are my answer pairs (use your mouse to highlight the white text to see the answers):
Across: THUS/TOSS, CHAPEAU/CHAPELS, CANTATA/CANASTA, STRAINER/STRANGER, RACKETS/RACISTS, ANVIL/ANGEL, DISASTER/DISPUTER, ISOBARS/ISOMERS, CADMIUM/CALCIUM, INSOMNIA/INSIGNIA, SCANT/SPENT, BASSOON/BALLOON, HEADLESS/HELPLESS, LEISURE/LECTURE, HONESTY/AMNESTY, RAPT/RIOT
Down: GRIDDLE/TWIDDLE, UPS/BUS, SUITORS/EDITORS, BURST/FIRST, HUMANLY/UNMANLY, FOLKS/FOCUS, SCRAWNY/SCRAWLS, BLATHER/FEATHER, LATCH/LYNCH, CARDIAC/CARDING, SWEPT/SWELL, ANCHORS/ANCHOVY, SPA/SAW, TRANSIT/TRANSOM
This kind of puzzle's good training for looking at spaces in a crossword and thinking about what words could fit there, narrowing down the list of options as you read the clue.
Merl Reagle's Philadelphia Inquirer crossword, "The NASA Gift Shop," marks the 50th birthday of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration with a batch of NASA-related puns. The ones I liked best were GEMINI CRICKET, the [NASA doll that sings "When You Wish Upon a Star"], playing on Jiminy Cricket, and ORBITAL REDENBACHER'S, [NASA's special-edition popcorn?], citing Orville Redenbacher. I liked the puzzle just fine, but find myself having nothing much to say about it. (This coughing, sneezing, and sniffling business is distracting.)
Pamela Amick Klawitter's syndicated Los Angeles Times Sunday crossword, "All Is Lost," dumps an ALL from eight phrases to change the meaning. The most amusing theme entries were:
My favorite bit of fill here is CAMP IT UP, clued as [Act in an amusingly affected way].
Liz Gorski's Boston Globe crossword in Across Lite, "I'll Pencil U In," inserts a U into eight phrases to change the meaning. I had a little trouble with one crossing, where a ["TV Guide" acronym] that's really an abbreviation (acronyms are pronounceable words) crosses a [Baroque dance]. There are four time zones in the U.S., but apparently the one TV Guide mentions is Central, or CST (the other time zones' TV shows are scheduled an hour off from when they air in the Midwest, where prime-time shows run from 7 to 10 p.m.). The dance is CHACONNE, and I'll bet not many people know that word. I'd have clued CST more specifically to unknot that square. My favorite theme entries are CARPENTER AUNT (ant), or [Kin seen sawing?], and LOBSTER FRAU DIABLO (Fra), or [Mrs. Freud's spicy seafood recipe?]. That last one's just plain nuts, but it goes for broke so I like it. Highlights in the fill include GLASNOST, THINK BIG, LAKE ONTARIO, USER'S MANUAL, and SPY RING.
Patrick Jordan's themeless CrosSynergy "Sunday Challenge" is the week's easiest themeless puzzle. Patrick is perhaps more drawn to pangrams than any other constructor, and he did manage to get all 26 letters of the alphabet into this grid without having any horrid abbreviations or woebegone obscurities. He did trick me with [Pina colada ingredient], 3 letters—not rum but ICE. [Engages in logrolling] is BIRLS—this lumberjack sport is sometimes called roleo, which is another word that seems to pop up more in crosswords than in day-to-day living.
October 18, 2008
Sunday, 10/19
October 17, 2008
Saturday, 10/18
NYT 7:08
LAT 4:38
Newsday 4:24
CS 2:50
Aw, not again? One of the 15-letter answers in Brad Wilber's New York Times crossword is a showy one, no doubt about it, but when an answer as memorable as that appears in multiple crosswords, it loses its surprise. Yes, GONZO JOURNALISM ([Writing that mixes reportage and fiction]) has that Hunter S. Thompson vibe and good Scrabble letters, but it's been done before. Here, it's stacked atop LOCAL ANESTHESIA, which has the great clue [It's not a total knockout]—technically, local anesthesia isn't any kind of knockout, but given that general anesthesia does totally knock one out, the clue's spot on. That pair of 15s crosses SKIRT THE ISSUE ([Equivocate]), which links to another pair of stacked 15s. The top stack consists of an OPEN AND SHUT CASE, clued as a [Court slam dunk] as in a trial court, not a basketball court, and GO TO RACK AND RUIN, or [Seriously deteriorate].
Favorite clues and answers:
Things that were less obvious:
Updated:
Doug Peterson's Newsday "Saturday Stumper" (PDF solution grid here) struck me as much less of a stumper than most recent offerings. It helped that I was recently stumped by the [Soccer Hall of Fame city] in another crossword, because that experience scarred ONEONTA into my brain. An INSIDE JOB is a [Kind of crime]—and hey, this "kind of ___" clue actually has a noun for its answer, rather than having, say, SEA as a [Kind of anemone], when a sea is no kind of anemone at all. NITROGEN is a [Product of star fusion]? I know nothing about star fusion. I don't care for [Thoughts on paper] as the clue for an EEG, because electrical activity in the brain is not the same as thoughts. I do like [Be sedimental] for SETTLE; sounds like "be sentimental" spoken by someone with a stuffy nose.
Holy cow! Look at the theme entries in Paula Gamache's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Pre-tense." Why couldn't this puzzle have run a few days ago? Then I would have heard of PAST MASTERS before the word stumped me in the Friday NYT. The theme entries are phrases that begin with grammatical tenses, so of course PLUPERFECT JONES anchors the puzzle. No, wait, I made that up. The first theme entry is PAST MASTERS, clued as [Rembrandt and Picasso, to the art world], which doesn't quite convey the same meaning as in the NYT puzzle. The second one's the PRESENT MOMENT, or the [Here and now]. The third is FUTURE SHOCK, the [Result of "too much change in too short a period of time" (Alvin Toffler)].
Updated Saturday evening:
Barry Silk's themeless LA Times crossword seemed about as difficult (i.e., not very) as the Newsday puzzle today. It's late, so I'll just mention some of my favorite parts of this puzzle:
In the "unfamiliar clues" category, we have [Cerussite or wolfenite], referring to LEAD ORE, and a quote: ["The even mead, that ___ brought sweetly forth / The freckled cowslip": "Henry V"] clues ERST. I originally had EXHALING instead of EXHALANT for the crossing, and thought I was contending with an E**G word. Eek!
October 16, 2008
Friday, 10/17
NYT 11:05
Sun 6:14
CHE 4:54
LAT 3:53
CS 2:56
WSJ 9:18
(updated at 5 p.m. Friday)
Friday's two themeless puzzles offer about as much contrast as two very good themeless crosswords can. Patrick Berry's New York Times puzzle contains a super-low word count of 54; there has been just one 52-worder and three other 54-worders in the NYT. David Quarfoot's Sun crossword, a "Weekend Warrior," has the highest allowable word count for a themeless, 72. The Quarfoot puzzle has six 10-letter answers plus an assortment of 3- to 8-letter answers. The Berry has two 12's, one 11, mostly 6- to 8-letter answers, and just one 3 and a pair of 5's. Quarfoot's puzzle has colorful phrases and surprising letter sequences where Berry's has mostly single words containing lots of common letters (including plurals with S and -EST superlatives). Berry's 54-worder was undoubtedly much more challenging to make, and I found it much harder to solve—but that experience wasn't universal.
What gave me such difficulty in solving Berry's New York Times crossword? I got mired in a few spots in the northeast quadrant of the grid. I'd never encountered the term PAST MASTERS, clued straightforwardly as [People of much experience]. Having no organic chemistry knowledge, [Organic compounds used as solvents] stumped me too—the answer is ETHERS, which could have been clued in a way that made it easier for a non-scientist to tease out. I should've gotten TATTIEST for [Showing the most wear and tear]. [Sherlock Holmes story not by Conan Doyle, e.g.] clued PASTICHE, and that clue just wasn't pointing me there. Other trouble spots in this corner were GASPER, or [Coffin nail], meaning a cigarette in chiefly British slang; TESTATE, or having a will, clued as [Ready to go, you might say] (with a neighbor on his deathbed, I don't like this clue one bit). The friendlier parts of this corner were STARKERS, or [In the buff]; the Green Bay PACKERS; and GESTALT, or [Integration that exceeds the sum of its parts].
The northwest quadrant was far less vexing though it had a capital city I didn't know: MALABO is [Equatorial Guinea's capital]. (I just learned that an old friend is living in the capital of Turkmenistan, Ashgabat—another capital city that had eluded my notice.) MORALE is [What boosters boost]; I wanted that one to be a plural for a while, which impeded the discovery of EASELED, or [Like paintings in progress]. [Curacao flavoring] is ORANGE. (Holla!) [Delivery professionals?] are ORATORS. Joining the two upper corners is SPEEDOMETERS, clued with [They offer rates for automobiles]. The middle of the puzzle contains the one 3-letter answer, PAS, clued as [Things that talk in sch.?]—P.A.'s, or public address systems.
The southwest corner contains one of my favorite words, MORDANT, or [Bitingly sarcastic]. [Skin soother] tricked me into entering ALOEVERA, the crossword world's favorite skin soother, in lieu of the correct CALAMINE. RAIMENT is clued with the plural [Closet hangings]. A [Special announcer] announcing the day's specials can be a WAITRESS. MALAYA, the second MALA** geographic answer in this puzzle, is clued [Singapore lies just off its tip].
The southeast corner was also more pliant than the quadrant above it. This was the easiest corner for me, as the clues tended to be simpler. ELEANOR [of Aquitaine, Henry II's wife] was a big gimme. [Nickname for a cheater in the Oklahoma land rush of 1889] provides the background for the word SOONER. MALLOW is a [Plant family that includes the hibiscus], and ONSIDE, or [Not behind the defenders], is the opposite of offside in soccer and hockey. The long answer connecting the two lower quadrants is SPARES THE ROD ([Isn't strict enough, say])—I'll bet someone somewhere has put that in a cryptic crossword with the clue evoking sparest + Herod.
David Quarfoot's Sun crossword kicks off 1-Across with goofy pop culture: [Certain pet's refrain] is CH-CH-CH-CHIA, from the Chia Pet commercials. Those H's all needed vowels below them, but the C's could be followed by H's and L's (or R's), so 15-Across didn't need to begin with eight vowels in a row: "HI-LILI, HI-LO" is a [Song in a 1953 movie musical], Lili. I like the opposite corner even better, with YOU ARE HERE [Words by an arrow] stacked atop Gollum's classic line, "MY PRECIOUS," stacked atop SLEEP APNEA, or [Diagnosis from a polysomnogram].
Other clues and answers of note:
Updated:
I'm short on time today, having just gotten back from breakfast and awaiting the arrival of an out-of-town friend so I can go to second breakfast.
Jack McInturff's LA Times crossword lops off a W from the beginning of five phrases:
Patrick Blindauer's CrosSynergy puzzle was a breeze for me (for a Friday, anyway). All four theme entries in "Have You Herd?" are people's names that contain a hidden ELK. There were plenty of other names in the fill, so the puzzle had a contemporary pop culture feel to it. The themers:
What's this SO BAD that was a [1984 Paul McCartney hit]? Why don't I remember that song at all?
I didn't get a chance to do the Wall Street Journal and Chronicle of Higher Ed crosswords yet. Maybe later...
Updated again:
Will Nediger's Chronicle of Higher Education crossword, "Puzzle 4.0," has a perfect 4.0 GPA in that the letter string GPA appears in four rebus squares. For extra elegance points, the rebus squares are in exactly symmetrical locations. I'm guessing there weren't all that many theme-entry phrase candidates that contain an embedded GPA at a specific point—how many other phrases could replace MOVIN[G PA]RT as 10-letter phrases with GPA in spots 6, 7, and 8, for example?
Some of the GPA phrases are terrifically fresh—BEG PARDON crosses DOG-PADDLES, and [Formulator of the exclusion principle] WOLFGANG PAULI (who??) goes to a STAG PARTY. The SWING PATH, LONG PANTS, and DRAG PARACHUTE are a bit drier. Favorite clues and fill: [Climate gaugers, in a way] are POLLS. I went with the physical climate and the earth's POLES—so close, and yet so far! HORRID, or [Absolutely atrocious], is a woefully underused word (as is TREACLY). DELETE crosses STETS in a corner that's not sure what the proofreader should be doing. I appreciate goofball vocabulary like [What a peccatophobe is afraid to do] as the clue for SIN.
Mike Shenk's alias, Maryanne Lemot, dwells in the byline of this week's Wall Street Journal crossword, "Convenient Cash." Each theme entry has a convenient ATM inserted into its midst. My favorites among the theme entries are as follows: Flapdoodle + ATM is a FLAT MAP DOODLE, or [Cartographer's sketch, but not for a globe?]. A combover + ATM is a COMBAT MOVER, or [Tank?]; this one I like because of the combover action. Honeybee + ATM is "HONEY, BEAT ME," a [Masochist's request to his sweetheart?]—a tad outré for a business-oriented newspaper, not that I'm judging anyone. Most troublesome clue for me: QUIBBLE is [Small grouse]. If you think of grousing as complaining, it makes perfect sense, but if all you can think of is a bird, QUIBBLE makes no sense—and it wasn't until after I finished the puzzle and began blogging that I realized a QUIBBLE wasn't a little-known cousin of the quail.
October 15, 2008
Thursday, 10/16
Sun 4:38
NYT 3:57
LAT 3:48
CS 2:33
Short and late blogging night—it's debate night! (Longer write-up of the Sun puzzle, which I tackled before the debate started.)
The New York Times crossword was constructed by someone whose name I don't recognize. A debut for Ian Tullis? If so, congratulations! The theme isn't particularly Thursdayish, but the overall difficulty is just past Wednesdayish. The theme is EXPANSION TEAMS, and three baseball teams are "expanded" by the insertion of an extra letter:
Favorite answers: BEESWAX, or [Affairs, slangily]; ENTOMOLOGY, or [Buggy field?]; THE SAUCE, or [Alcohol, slangily]; LONE RANGER, or [Silver topper?]; IXNAY], or ["Uh-uh"]; and SPERM (!), clued as [Kind of whale]. Lots of goodies sandwiched in around those theme entries, yes?
Tougher bits:
The Sun crossword (which I was able to retrieve by going to the Sun archive page and having the 10/16 puzzle e-mailed to me) is by Robert Doll. It's called "Four Letter Words," but the 4-letter words in the grid are immaterial. The title instead refers to four words that are represented by single letters (and appear twice in each theme phrase): U GET WHAT U PAY FOR stands in for "you get what you pay for." FROM C TO SHINING C swaps C for "sea." "Be" becomes B in B THERE OR B SQUARE. And the stealth theme entry is the 5-letter Down answer in the middle of the grid, I I SIR—with I standing in for "aye."
There are plenty of cool answers in this crossword. BRAILLE is [on Alabama's state quarter], along with Helen Keller. Eugene IONESCO is the ["Rhinoceros" playwright] whose work we studied in a "Plays and Antiplays" lit class. (Please don't ask me to define an antiplay.) The BRONZE AGE is notable because [The wheel was invented during it]; that Z intersects the [Pez product] SOURZ that I haven't seen. The [Jack worth one point in cribbage] is called HIS NOBS. Is this akin to his nibs, or are the two separate terms? Favorite clue: [Prescriptivist's concern] for USAGE. (We've been chatting about prescriptivism at the "Language, Etymology, Grammar" board at the Crossword Fiend forums.)
Updated:
Hmm, the LA Times crossword doesn't seem to be posted in Across Lite at Cruciverb yet.
Martin Ashwood-Smith's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Now See Here," hits at about a Monday level of difficulty. The three theme entries have the same one-word clue, though one adds punctuation: [See] clues both DATE REGULARLY and GET THE PICTURE, while ["See!"] clues "WHAT DID I TELL YOU?" Among the longish non-thematic answers in the puzzle are LEXICONS, or [Dictionaries]; GARY PLAYER, the [US Open winner of 1965] in golf; ITAR-TASS, a [Russian news source] (most often, just half of its name is in the grid and the other half sits in the clue); DYNAMITE, clued loosely as [It's a blast].
Now the Los Angeles Times crossword's available in Across Lite. Donna Levin's theme is similar to the one in today's CrosSynergy puzzle—four phrases are all clued with the same word, this time [Swell]. There's the verb phrase BECOME BLOATED. There's the slangy adjective GINGER-PEACHY, which sounds frightfully quaint. I've never heard it before, but apparently "ginger-peachy-keen" had its heyday once. The CLOTHES HORSE is a noun phrase, as is a CRESTLESS WAVE. Only the second and fourth of these answers qualifies as a stand-alone piece of crossword fill, but this type of theme often includes theme entries that would normally be seen as clues for SWELL rather than answers for [Swell]. (That makes sense, doesn't it?) I had no idea that [Bill Maher's film debut, in which he played a hack] was D.C. CAB, but that was the first answer I put in the grid. How many 5-letter movies involve "hacks," or cab drivers?
Clues of note:
October 14, 2008
Wednesday, 10/15
Tausig 4:48
Onion 4:40
Sun 3:32
LAT 3:29
CS 3:27
NYT 3:12
(updated at 10:40 a.m. Wednesday)
The New York Times crossword by Kevin Der packs in six theme entries with a unifying BABY at 53-Down, plus all manner of au courant techspeak. In the latter category, we have an iPHONE ([Macworld 2007 debut]), a URL ([WWW address]), CHAT ([Online activity]), RIP clued as [Copy, as from CD to PC], WEBCAMS ([Videoconferencing devices]), and TEXT clued as [Communicate without speaking]. Throw in the DATA that's [What pollsters need], and that makes a whopping seven high-tech answers. The theme entries are all phrases whose first word can follow BABY:
I extend kudos to Kevin for putting GRAND POOBAH into a puzzle. That Wikipedia article reminds me that I picked up that phrase from The Flintstones and Happy Days. The quasi-theme of computers and cell phones is fun, and I also liked the gambling combo of ODDS-ON ([Heavily favored]) and HOT TIP ([Tout's offering]).
Donna Levin's Sun crossword, "You've Got Male," includes six male animals at the end of the theme entries:
The theme entries make a lively batch of phrases, don't they? IDAHO gets a topical clue, [Where Sarah Palin was born]. I like NORTH and STAR clued together via [With 35-Down, Polaris].
Don't be fooled by the imminence of October 31—Brendan Quigley's Onion A.V. Club crossword may have a theme clue that reads [Characters who "haunt" this puzzle's theme answers], but there's no Halloween scaring going on here. The "haunters" in question are THE PACMAN GHOSTS, and their names appear in other contexts in the other theme entries:
Tough stuff pops up throughout this puzzle. [Obliquely] clues ASKANT, which is another version of askance. XEON is an [Intel processor]. MARL is an [Earthy deposit]. RUB is clued [Get the knots out of, say], as in Swedish massage and muscle knots. ARMA is the [First word of the "Aeneid"]. SST is a [Record label started by Black Flag]. A [1962 musical co-directed by Bob Fosse] is LITTLE ME. U-TWO is a [Classic spy plane]. T'PAU is the ["Heart & Soul" one-hit wonder who took their name from a "Star Trek" character].
In his Ink Well/Chicago Reader puzzle, "Ladies and Gentlemen," Ben Tausig has crafted a super-Scrabbly crossword filled with X's. The "ladies" theme entries contain XX, in honor of women's XX chromosomes, and the "gentlemen" answers contain XY:
Favorite clues: [Final event?] for FUNERAL; [Substance of a newspaper article?] for INK; [Mad skills, as it were] for WIZARDRY; [Character issue?] for DYSLEXIA; [Take, and be taken by, someone with whom you're taken] for WED; [Highway crosser] for DEER; [Presley's middle name] for MARIE (as in Lisa MARIE Presley); and ["Smooth move, ___!"] for EX-LAX.
OXYMORON and OXYGENIC fill out the theme, clued with [Original copies, e.g.] and [Like some photosynthesis], respectively.
Updated:
Raymond Hamel's LA Times crossword is gushing with theme entries: Each one begins with a word that means "something from which a stream of water may issue" in a different context. To [Rant and rave] is TO SPOUT NONSENSE. [Writer with a reservoir] is a FOUNTAIN PEN with an ink reservoir. A [Fast flier] is a JET AIRLINER. And one [Youngster metaphor] is SPRING CHICKEN. A rather subtle theme, isn't it? There's no title or unifying answer to make the connection between the theme entries obvious. This puzzle has some trivia clues. LIFE is clued as the [Board game whose earliest version came out in 1860]. 1860?! Wow. I like the '70s and '80s version of the game better than today's SpongeBob Life edition. Hey, I liked having to buy life insurance and other insurance policies. DUBAI is the [Second-most populous of the United Arab Emirates]. ALBERTA is an [Oil-rich Canadian province]. Did you know Ray Hamel's a hardcore trivia nut? It's true. He's in Ken Jennings' book, Brainiac.
Randolph Ross's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Layoffs," may be a harbinger of future unemployment, as each theme entry presents another layoff:
October 13, 2008
Tuesday, 10/14
CS 4:11
Jonesin' 3:33
Sun 3:30
LAT 3:00
NYT 2:41
Sun update: The Sun crossword subscription mechanism is now in place at Cruciverb. When submitting your PayPal payment, be sure to use the e-mail address you use for Cruciverb, or you won't be able to access the puzzle without contacting Kevin McCann at Cruciverb. (D'oh. No puzzle for me yet.) The cost is $12.50, or $20 for the "patron amount." Note: You need to be registered as a Cruciverb member (for free) before you subscribe to the Sun puzzles.
Barnes & Noble has a new video magazine series, Barnes & Noble Tagged. This week's short episode focuses on puzzle books and Will Shortz, and Will chats with host Molly Pesce. (You get a brief glimpse of Patrick Blindauer and Frank Longo, too.) One of the interview topics is KenKen puzzles, which I've done some version of in a Games publication. Unlike sudoku but like kakuro, there's arithmetic involved. I'll buy one of the kids' books for my son when it comes out in December.
Lucy Gardner Anderson's New York Times crossword pays tribute to a highway, INTERSTATE / NINETY-FIVE to be specific. I didn't know if I'd ever been on I-95, so I followed its route using Google Maps. Hey! The highway you take to get from LaGuardia Airport to Stamford, Connecticut is I-95, so I have been on it. This road takes you from Maine (ME) down to Florida (FL), passing through 13 other states on the way. All 15 states' 2-letter postal abbreviations are circled in the grid, and there's one in each row in proper north-to-south order. Cool, eh? Mind you, it wasn't so hard to finish the puzzle with zero idea where I-95 went.
Favorite answers and clues: a BON MOT is a [Bit of wit]. [Rolling Stones drummer Charlie] WATTS always seemed like the sanest Stone to me. [Nancy Drew author Carolyn] KEENE summons to mind the YouTube video I saw today, "There's No One As Irish As Barack O'Bama," because the song was written by Hardy Drew and the Nancy Boys. LENNY is clued as [Bruce or Kravitz]; hey, Lenny Kravitz's daughter has a pro-Obama video out there. DEFINE is defined as [Do lexicographical work]. A [User-edited online reference] is a WIKI. You know my objection to PORK, that [Much-criticized Congressional spending]? It is neither kosher nor halal. (You can have your PORK and your OFFAL, or [Butcher's byproducts]. Please. Take my share, too.) Move over, Cheryl Tiegs; Cheryl LADD of the '70s TV show Charlie's Angelsl has given you the boot.
Old-school crossword stuff: ANENT means [Concerning]. STEROL is an [Unsaturated alcohol] and another word I think used to get more play in crosswords. SMITTY was an [Old Walter Berndt comic strip about a teen]. It ran from 1922 to 1973, which explains why I don't recall it.
Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword, "You're Out!", compiles a group of things "dropped from the world of sports and games in 2008":
Did you know [Richie Rich's metallic, robotic maid] was called IRONA? I sure didn't. This must not be very well-known because I've never seen this in a crossword, not even with those three juicy vowels.
Updated:
Merle Baker's LA Times crossword presents a vowel change theme. Each theme entry ends with a P*NS word, and A, E, I, O, and U fill in the blank in sequence:
There are a dozen 7-letter answers in the fill to move the puzzle beyond standard Tuesday fill. I like the Polish intersection between LODZ, [Poland's second-largest city], and the ZLOTY, a [Polish coin].
As usual, Bob Klahn's CrosSynergy puzzle has clues that are tougher than the usual Tuesday crossword. The theme is straightforward—"Canned Pears" alludes to the PEAR "canned" within each theme entry. For example, to WAKE UP EARLY is to [Anticipate the alarm], and an ESCAPE ARTIST is [One who gets out a lot]. Toughest clues:
Updated again:
Tuesdays and Fridays are generally the days when anything I don't get to by 9 a.m. will have to wait until evening. And so it is that I'm only solving the Sun puzzle at 6 p.m. I think I'll relocate the Jonesin' puzzle to Tuesdays, since it comes out sometime on Monday, and boot the Onion and Tausig puzzles to Wednesdays, because those usually come out during the day on Tuesday when I'm away.
Anthony Salvia's got a busy byline week, with his NYT puzzle yesterday and the Tuesday Sun crossword, "Sword Swallowers." I do always appreciate the inside-joke aspect of contemporary crosswordese reworked into theme entries, and here the EPEE and three other swords are "swallowed" by longer phrases:
There are some supra-Tuesday clues here. [Cervid horn] asks you to remember that "cervid" has to do with deer, so the horn's an ANTLER. (Anyone else fond of those animal adjectives like cervine, bovine, ovine, ursine, corvine, and lupine?) [Jaguar rival] isn't automotive but NFLish, with a Houston TEXAN being a division rival of the Jacksonville Jaguars.
October 12, 2008
Monday, 10/13
LAT 2:59
NYT 2:51
Sun 2:48—via "Today" link at Puzzle Pointers
CS 2:32
Ginormous thanks to PuzzleGirl for giving me a whole day off. Yesterday I met up with a crosswordy friend (Dean Olsher—look for his book, From Square One: A Meditation, with Digressions, on Crosswords, in the spring), and my mother was spending the night at my house. This morning, my husband and I went downtown for the Chicago marathon with our "Ovation Pavilion" tickets. Breakfast and lunch buffets! Limited-access bleachers and portapotties! Respite from the sun in a tent with TVs! Not a bad way to partake of a sporting event (though we also watched the lead packs at mile 13.) During this time, was I writing about crosswords? Not at all. So thanks again, PuzzleGirl, for the rejuvenating break.
The Sun crossword's new subscription dealio doesn't appear to be in place as of Sunday night. I know there's a Monday Sun puzzle out there waiting for me, but I can't get to it until I subscribe. I shall be patient, because the Sun's worth waiting for, isn't it?
I like to think that Anthony Salvia's New York Times crossword is a tribute to Kenny Mayne: Each of the theme entries ends with a homophone of "Mayne."
Among the livelier fill in this crossword, we have a QUADRATIC [Kind of equation graphed as a parabola] (shout-out here to those who cannot abide the "kind of ___" clues in which the answer is not itself a kind of the thing in question. You'd better hit the books, because ROLE MODEL and STUDY FOR are sitting right next to each other in the grid, not too far from SCHOOL. Don't just hit the sauce—there's hard CIDER, or [Fermented apple juice] (nonalcoholic cider's not fermented), along with a MIMOSA. There's some music in this crossword, too—TINA Turner's "We Don't Need Another Hero" and the Police's "EVERY Breath You Take."
Updated:
I enjoyed the theme in Mike Peluso's LA Times crossword. You know how a clue like [Queens stadium] could be either ASHE (tennis) or SHEA (baseball)? Shea's being razed and replaced with something called Citi Field (which is "citified" with an L added to it), so present-tense stadium clues can't be for SHEA any more. Anyway, ASHE and SHEA are anagrams, so [Two Queens stadiums] are ASHE AND SHEA. The other three theme entries are related word pairs that are also anagrams:
Tom Schier's CrosSynergy crossword, "Coming to America," marks COLUMBUS DAY—[October 13, 2008 celebration]— with a holiday theme. That holiday accounts for this morning's inattention to my blog, as my son is off school and his grandmother is visiting us. Anyway, the remainder of the theme entries are:
When I try to access the Sun crossword via Will Johnston's Puzzle Pointers page or Cruciverb.com, I get this error message: Whoops, you've tried to access the Sun Crossword using the new URL format. The cruciverb.com site is undergoing construction in order to support the Sun puzzle. We hope to have the puzzle available very soon. If you managed to download the puzzle, would you please share the link that worked for you? Updated: The "Today" link at Puzzle Pointers works, but apparently not the links in the "2008 new" calendar page.
The Sun puzzle by Ogden Porter, a.k.a. Peter Gordon, is called "Human Pretzels" because that's what you turn into when you play TWISTER. The theme entries begin or end with things found on the spinner in the game of Twister—the spinner has left and right hand and left and right foot quadrants, each with red, yellow, green, and blue sections. Depending on what you spin, you've got to place that extremity on a spot of a particular color, and you end up entwined with the other people playing. MY LEFT FOOT was the [Best Picture nominee of 1989], starring Daniel Day-Lewis. 
SOYLENT GREEN was the [1973 Charlton Heston movie set in Manhattan in 2022] in which the titular foodstuff turns out (spoiler alert!) to be made from people. RIGHT-HAND MAN is a needlessly gendered term for an [Indispensable assistant]. RED LOBSTER is the [Restaurant chain "for the seafood lover in you"], and boy, do I hate that ad jingle. Too bad the RIGHT HAND and RED bits aren't also parts of movie titles here.
October 11, 2008
Sunday, 10/12
NYT 34:15
LAT 32:23
BG 25:57
CS 23:54
PI 22:42
Updated 12:30 pm Sunday
Surprise! It's me, PuzzleGirl! Wait, what? You knew it was me when you saw those huge numbers at the top of this post? Well aren't you observant! Amy's spending some time with her mom tonight and checking out the Chicago Marathon tomorrow morning, so she asked me to fill in which, of course, I'm thrilled to do. I do so love to ramble on and on about crossword puzzles. So let's get to it!
Rich Norris's New York Times crossword, "Change of Heart," takes a familiar three-word phrase and anagrams the middle word to create a new phrase which is then clued. (I can use anagrams as a verb, right? I didn't just make that up?)
I really struggled through this puzzle. On both Friday and Saturday this week I was totally on the constructor's wave-length so I guess I was due for a tough one today. Looking back on it, nothing really jumps out at me as particularly difficult. I just wasn't clicking I guess.
Three-letter fill I like:
Longer fill I like:
No way I can leave without mentioning:
The theme answers in Henry Hook's Boston Globe crossword are all clued with words that rhymes with stuff.
As usual, I got schooled by Henry Hook. Here's what I learned:
Odds 'n' ends:
I'll be back with more puzzles after I recover from these two. See ya later!
If I had known Merl Reagle's Philadelphia Inquirer crossword, "Columbus, the Game," was going to show up today, I might have said no to this blogging gig. Wow! A lot going on here. Let's see if I can explain it coherently.
The note tells us that "Three famous names associated with Christopher Columbus are concealed multiple times on this page." He also clues us in that one of the words will appear 14 times, another 9 times, and the last one twice. Also, if you read the note, like, 18 times to figure out what the heck it's saying, it will finally dawn on you that some of the hidden words are in the clues not just in the answers. Merl, you are diabolical. Just in case you're not sure what the three words are going to be, he throws us a bone: [Artist Al] HIRSCHFELD is our hint. Hirschfeld is the guy who's known for those really cool black-and-white drawings of celebrities and Broadway stars. He always hides his daughter's name somewhere (sometimes several places) in each drawing. His daughter's name is NINA. Aha! I bet the three famous names are Niña, Pinta, and Santa María. So, where are they?
Niña (14 times):
The last NIÑA is hidden vertically in the clues for 4, 5, 6, and 7 Down.
Pinta (9 times):
Santa María (2 times):
Obviously, there's a lot more we could talk about, but I'm afraid that talking about anything else would detract from this truly amazing work of art. Plus I'm exhausted. I'll be back in a few with the last two puzzles.
(See Merl's website for a visual of the hidden NINAs, PINTAs, and SANTA MARIAs.)
Dan Naddor's LA Times crossword, "On Finn Ice," has an awesome theme and it gave me fits the whole way through. Theme answers are familiar phrases in which a TH is changed to an F.
Other stuff:
Rich Norris's CrosSynergy "Sunday Challenge" kicked. My. Butt. I couldn't get any traction anywhere. And it was a huge disappointment because I really expected to have a decent time on this one, which would redeem my pathetic performances on the last four. I even had a couple sentences written in my head: "Finally, a respectable time. I mean, I know Howard probably finished this puzzle in, like, 2:34, but my time is still pretty good!" But no. My time is not really very good on this one. I have no idea what kind of [Mil. groups] TPS are. Add to that the fact that I could think of ten ways to fill in the blank on [Golden _____], none of which were AGERS, and the PASY in P.A. SYSTEMS [Brief announcement medium?] looked all kinds of wrong -- well, yeah, I was stuck down there for a while.
Don't get me wrong though, I liked the puzzle.
Had a blast as usual. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
October 10, 2008
Saturday, 10/11
Newsday 7:10
NYT 5:25
LAT 4:57
CS 3:54
Pete Mitchell's 70-word New York Times crossword is loaded up with juicy entries. What links WAYNE GRETZKY, the [Winner of eight consecutive M.V.P. awards], with JOAN JETT, who is [One of only two women on Rolling Stone's list of "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time"], and ENRIQUE IGLESIAS, the [Singer with the 2000 #1 hit "Be With You"]? Why, that would be EROTICISM, or [Steaminess], of course, along with their fondness for letters that score big in Scrabble. Other groovy entries:
This grid has lots of shorter answers in it, but that doesn't make it much easier because there are still some tough clues.
Updated:
Leonard Williams' 68-word themeless LA Times crossword included a few names I needed every crossing for:
There were other names and titles that came together more easily, but not because I actually knew the answer based on the clue. For example: ["Funny Face" stars, 1927] are ASTAIRES in the plural. WILD ONE is the [1960 hit with the line "I'm-a gonna tame you down"]. It was also a 1958 song, a 1964 song, and a 1993 song.
I did know that ESTELLE [Harris of "Seinfeld"] played George Costanza's mother, and that [Jack who played "the Man" in "Chico and the Man"] was Jack ALBERTSON. Turning off the sitcoms, RACINE was the ["Phedre" playwright], and I might have read that in translation. RUTH Bader Ginsburg was the Supreme Court [Justice appointed after Clarence]. ANNABEL LEE is the name of an Edgar Allan Poe [1849 love poem].
My favorite answer here was GINORMOUS, or [Totally big]. I liked the etymology in the clue for BALSA, [Spanish word for "raft"]—balsa wood does indeed float like a raft. A few of the compound or multi-word answers might snag some solvers: SKI RESORT is a [Gondola setting, perhaps]. Anyone else trying to think what sort of Venetian canals might begin with SKIRE? No? Just me? [Part of a credo] is a CORE BELIEF. [Very cold] clues LIKE ICE. I'm not sure this one rises to the level of "in the language," crossword-worthy fill. Same with RAGGED EDGE, which is clued with [Tear evidence].
The answer to Daniel Stark's 72-word Newsday "Saturday Stumper" is here. Some of the clues:
Will Johnston's CrosSynergy crossword is "Steps on Broadway: A Jerome Robbins Birthday Celebration." Wow! A theme custom-made to delight you musical theater lovers, but that will leave me piecing the theme answers together with the aid of crossings. I swear I haven't even heard of TWO'S COMPANY, the [1952 revue with lyrics by Ogden Nash, featuring Bette Davis in song-and-dance routines]. I do know of THE KING AND I, but Across Lite cut off the clue in the clue list and made the letters teeny in the single clue box, so I worked the crossings for that one instead of getting it from the clue (but I would've gotten it from the clue if I'd read the full clue). I've also heard of MISS LIBERTY, GYPSY, and CALL ME MADAM, but the year, stars, and shows' writers didn't point me in the right direction at all. (Robbins did the choreography for the shows.)
I see in Robbins' Wiki write-up that HUAC, clued here as [Anti-Red gp.], figures into his biography: he named names and betrayed some friends, but later felt bad about it. Hmph! Highlights in the fill: the 10-letter STAR-GAZING and MASQUERADE; PYGMY echoing GYPSY as a two-Y, no-vowel word; THE TUBE, [London's underground, informally]; POTBELLY, or [Beer gut]; SHLEMIEL, or [Unlucky one]; and a CHILI DOG, clued kinda grossly as [Sausage topped by stew].
