Sun 3:55
CS 3:15
NYT 3:06
LAT 2:54
(updated at 9:20 a.m. Tuesday)
Allan Parrish's New York Times crossword sports a retro theme of DANCING in the '60s. Well, I didn't make it to kindergarten until the '70s, so '60s dance crazes are not my strong suit. Here are the theme entries:
This theme is custom-made for those of you who are, say, 50 to 65 years old. The northeast and southwest corners of the puzzle are custom-made for fans of wide-open grids, with triple-stacked 9-letter answers. My favorites there are TOM SNYDER, who was ["The Tomorrow Show" host] some years back, and a TOTEM POLE, or [Indian carving]. Yesterday, I wrote that ET TU was sometimes clued as [Rebuke from Caesar], and sure enough, today it's here as [Caesarean rebuke]. Other crossword regulars that newer solvers should store away in the memory banks:
The Sun puzzle by Tony Orbach has one of those themes that I paid no mind to while solving. I surmise that it's called "Making Out" because each theme entry begins with a way of making an out in baseball. There are six ways? The phrases are mostly lively, and I like their clues:
My favorite answer in the fill: that [Hershey's product] called the KIT-KAT. Solvers outside the U.S. may know it as a Nestlé candy bar. I bought a bag of 55 snack-size Kit-Kats for my kid's school Halloween party a couple weeks ago. There are only 18 left. We're fond of Kit-Kats around here.
Updated:
Janet Bender's LA Times crossword features a simple theme: two-word phrases with T.T. initials. "So what?" you ask. Well, all five phrases come from the world of sports, so phrases like taste test, Tommy Tune, tuna tartare, and Tiny Toons don't make the team. A [Race against the clock] in cycling (if not other sports) is a TIME TRIAL. TABLE TENNIS has been an [Olympic sport since 1988]. The TENNESSEE TITANS [were the Oilers before 1999]. They played in the Monday Night Football matchup last night, and I was quite taken by their baby blue uniforms. [Hall of Fame pitcher Seaver's nickname] is TOM TERRIFIC. TRASH TALK is a [Taunting exchange during the game]. Other sports-related content in the puzzle includes IVIED, [Like Wrigley Field's walls]—once again lying dormant in October. The INDY 500 is a [Big May race, familiarly]. And Sean PENN could have been clued as PENN State, whose football team is doing well this season.
Patrick Blindauer recently had an NYT puzzle with ANTs on the march in the shortish theme entries. Today, his CrosSynergy crossword, "Moving Violation," offers another version of this theme. This time, it's a SIN (clued as [Violation, and word that "moves" within the six starred clues]) that moves one letter back with each step. It's at the beginning of the first 8-letter entry, SINISTER, and makes its way to the end of the sixth 8-letter answer:
SINISTER means [Ominous].
TSINGTAO is a [Popular Chinese beer brand]
ELSINORE is the ["Hamlet" setting].
BASSINET is a [Baby's bed].
DEPOSING is [Writing one's sworn testimony].
ASSASSIN is [One with a contract, say].
From the non-theme fill, here are my favorite clues: ARSENIC is clued as [One of two elements that ends with the letter C]. I love this sort of clue—can you name the other element? [Classical gas?] clues not music but an old gas company, ESSO. [Short pants] are GASPS and not something like knickers or capris. [It may come out of the closet] refers to LINEN. [Sources of world views?] are GLOBES.
October 27, 2008
Tuesday, 10/28
October 26, 2008
Monday, 10/27
Jonesin' 4:44
Sun 3:11
NYT 2:31
CS 2:45
LAT 2:42
Andrea Carla Michaels and Michael Blake have teamed up again for a Monday New York Times crossword puzzle. The theme is 55-Down, SPIN—they've put an SP at the beginning of three 13-letter phrases to convert them into 15-letter phrases:
I have the sense that most themes involving question-marked clues for nonexistent phrases don't manage to have such simple clues. This trio is short and sweet, with two-word clues conveying all the sense they need to. There are a number of answers that new solvers need to commit to memory if they don't already know them:
The Sun crossword is called "The Old College Try" and it was constructed by Joon Pahk. Three theme entries end with IVY LEAGUERS. The band KING CRIMSON corresponds to the Harvard team, the Crimson. HEY BULLDOG is a [Song on the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine" album], but I've never heard of it. You know how Yale students are in the crossword all the time as ELIS or YALIEs? Their official nickname is the Bulldogs. The Princeton Tigers show up in PAPER TIGER. It's a little distracting to have another team name in the grid—Whittier College's bad-ass POETS, not of the Ivy League. I like how the '80s band ERASURE sits beneath KING CRIMSON. (Wikipedia tells me Erasure is still recording and touring. Who knew?) Favorite clue: [Strong suit?] for ARMOR.
Updated:
Matt Jones has crafted a puzzle with an unusual gimmick in it. This week's Jonesin' crossword, "Early and Often," includes a ballot of sorts, and instructions to MARK AN X for whichever one YOU PICK. Each "candidate" entry is 14 letters long—FIRST CANDIDATE, ANOTHER NOMINEE, and THE THIRD OPTION—but appears with a blank 15th square (those 15th squares are supposed to be circled, but the circles were missing when I downloaded the Across Lite version of the puzzle). If you X in one of those squares, you change the crossing word, but the answer will be correct with or without the X:
Sarah Keller's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Have a Good Time!", has five different "good times" at the start of the theme entries. One [Pome variety], and a tasty one at that, is a GALA APPLE. SOCIAL WORK is a [Profession intent on improving living conditions. One [Joint type] is BALL AND SOCKET, as in your hip and shoulder. A RAVE REVIEW is a [Pan's opposite]. And a PARTY LINE is a [Tie-in to another telephone customer, as well as a tie-in to this puzzle's theme]. I wonder if anyone younger than me has first-hand experience with party lines—when I was a kid, my grandparents had a party line, and they gave out their phone number prefix as HEmlock-7 rather than 437. Old school!
Updated Monday night:
Well, the LA Times crossword hadn't been posted as of lunchtime today, and after it was posted, I didn't get a chance to solve it before late evening. Robert Morris's theme is PAPER, which precedes the first word of each of the four theme entries:
One of the 8-letter answers in the fill was unfamiliar. RANGE WAR is clued as a [Big beef over big beef?]. Wikipedia explains that range wars can also involve sheep herding and water rights.
October 25, 2008
Sunday, 10/26
PI 9:58
BG 8:54
LAT 8:15
NYT 7:33
CS 4:05
Next Saturday is All Saints' Day, so Daniel Bryant's "All Saints' Day" New York Times crossword appears the Sunday before. The abbreviation for Saint, ST, gets added to the beginning of a word in eight phrases:
The trickiest crossing for me was in square 125, where the [Old Indian V.I.P.] meets the [Key of Bach's best-known Mass]. As far as I know, there are seven letters that could work for the music clue (A through G), and NAWAB is better known in the corrupted form, nabob. Do musically inclined people remember things like "Oh, yeah, Bach's Mass is in B MINOR"?
Here are some clues I think people might be Googling this weekend:
Names!
Verbs!
Places! (Sort of.)
And the catch-all, miscellaneous:
Updated Saturday night:
Merl Reagle's Philadelphia Inquirer crossword, "Halloween Party Checklist," has another of Merl's punpalooza themes. Before I get into the theme, though, I must single out this clue: [Colon opening] is the clue for a 4-letter answer. Could it be...ANUS? No, Merl wouldn't do that. It's the prefix SEMI, as in semicolon. This one's my pick for gutsiest clue of the month.
There are 13 theme entries, with two pairs of Down answers running right next to one another.
My favorites are the PAIL and BEET ones, where the last word is changed to a homophone. Unfamiliar answer alert: DECRI is [Disrepute, to Depardieu]. Right next to that is HOBS, the [Pegs used in quoits]. (Anyone here ever play quoits?) ETERNO, presumably meaning "eternal" in Italian, is clued [Everlasting, to Enrico]. Its E crosses LEAL, which is an archaic Scottish word meaning [Faithful, old style]. For my generation, SHAZAM is forever enshrined as the Captain Marvel word, but my husband (betrayer of the generation!) also knows it as a [Mayberry exclamation] from Barney Fife.
Henry Hook's Boston Globe crossword in Across Lite was originally published some weeks back. The Across Lite edition shows up the same week that Lynn Lempel used the same theme idea in her Tuesday CrosSynergy puzzle, and both puzzles have the title, "Popinjays," as the constructors have popped in a J. Hook has eight theme entries, some of which intersect other themers. My favorites:
Oddities in the fill include NICHEVO, or [Nikita's "never mind"]; ASOR, a [Bible-era lyre]; FASCIATED, or [Malformed, as plant stems]; and ILIESCU, the [1990s Romanian president]. And then there's the insane crossing between a [Small nautical rope] called a CABLET (which I'm guessing is based on the word cable) and actor [Brad of "General Hospital"], MAULE (he played Tony Jones, a character I'm familiar with, but boy, did I not know who played him). The crossing was an L, but I tried some other random letters there first. There's also some primo fill: B-COMPLEX vitamins, the song "GET A JOB," a JALAPENO pepper, DERRIERE, Rhett Butler's GIVE A DAMN, and some potent GANJA.
Updated on Sunday morning:
On Halloween last year, the holiday-themed LA Times crossword was credited to Ada Honeywell. This year, the pre-Halloween syndicated Sunday Los Angeles Times crossword is another Honeywell puzzle with a timely theme. In "Scared You!", each theme entry is made by adding BOO to an existing phrase:
Seven theme entries is on the low side for a Sunday puzzle, and the result is that there's space for yummy fill:
I do wonder, when I see a constructor's work only in the LA Times and I like the puzzles (as I do this one), if the byline contains another pen name for editor Rich Norris or if it's just a constructor who isn't particularly prolific.
It's my impression that among the CrosSynergy team of constructors, the one whose themeless "Sunday Challenge" puzzles are most likely to contain triple-stacked 15-letter answers is Martin Ashwood-Smith. He's got another one today, with triple stacks at the top and bottom. Favorite clues/answers:
October 24, 2008
Saturday, 10/25
NYT 6:54
LAT 5:17
Newsday 4:37
CS 3:30
Yay! Another themeless crossword from Karen Tracey, this time in the New York Times. Like many of Karen's confections, this one contains a lot of Scrabbly letters (three J's, a Q, three K's), pop culture, people's names, and a little geography. Let's start with my favorite entries:
There were lots of other people and characters in the grid:
I know a lot of people grumble when a crossword contains a slew of names, but I'm glad Will Shortz is willing to strike a balance and publish this sort of puzzle on occasion to delight those of us who love it.clock bell in London, [Big ___] BEN.
Other favorite clues and answers I want to mention:
[Bill Clinton and Arnold Schwarzenegger, to the stars?] are LEOS, astrologically. Hey, me too!
Updated:
Doug Peterson's themeless LA Times puzzle duped me with that [Type of trail] fitting a *AP*R pattern. A PAPER trail, right? Nope, it's a VAPOR trail. Another trouble spot was [Taken out, as refrigerators], which made no sense to me. UNCRATED = taken out of a crate? Yeah, that works. [Products of hydrocarbon combustion] are OXIDES, but rust is an oxide and I don't think combustion is involved in rusting. Chemistry's not my strong suit, so I'm not familiar with all the ways of making oxides.
Favorite clues and answers:
For me, today's easiest themeless was Dan Stark's Newsday "Saturday Stumper." (Solution PDF here). The clue that took me off guard was [Temperaments, so to speak] for KIDNEYS. Say what? Who speaks that way? It's in the dictonary, but I've never encountered that usage before. I wonder if it dates back to when people talked about their humors (blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile) as if they affected personality traits.
Favorite and/or gnarliest clues:
Thomas Schier's CrosSynergy crossword is a "Paul Newman Tribute." The legendary actor Paul Newman died about four weeks ago, and his passing definitely merits a crossword made in tribute to him. The theme entries are three 15-letter movies for which Newman was nominated for an Oscar. Newman was in many other notable movies of varying letter counts: Hud (3), Cars (4), Blaze (5), Exodus (6), The Sting and Slap Shot (8), The Verdictand The Hustler (10), Nobody's Fool (11), Cool Hand Luke (12), and some longer titles. That's a lot of material, though mostly not bunched in same-length pairs—I wonder if anyone's been working on a Sunday-sized tribute to Paul Newman's career.
October 23, 2008
Friday, 10/24
NYT 7:02
Sun 6:02 (by the way, downloading the Sun should work now at Cruciverb)
LAT 5:51
CHE 4:02
CS 3:22
WSJ 7:34
(updated at noon Friday)
Friday blogging will be light/late—my son is off school, and we need to get started on making a model of the earth. Mantle, anyone?
Frederick Healy's New York Times crossword is riddled with spots to trip or to draw a blank on, but somehow it all came together. What's in this 70-worder? There are some people, specific and general. Two people get the full-name treatment:
Last names only for these folks:
On a first-name basis:
Fictionally, we have the '70s [Sitcom guy with a frequently upturned thumb, with "the"], FONZ, and SATAN. The latter is a [Bad lover?] if he loves bad.
Then there are all the generic sorts:
Geography figures into this puzzle, too:
Assorted other not-so-well-known bits:
Justin Smith's Sun crossword, "Swiss Cheese," has sprouted three HOLEs in rebus squares:
I like that my first name, AMY (or ["This Is the Life" singer Macdonald]—who?]) intersects with MR. HAT, the ["South Park" puppet] wielded by whacked-out teacher Mr. Garrison. I like other stuff, too, but duty calls.
Updated:
The theme in Larry Shearer's LA Times crossword is spelled out in the final theme entry: DISAPPEARING INK is a [Prankster's item, and this puzzle's theme] because INK is removed from various phrases to create the other four theme entries:
The surrounding clues and fill slaughtered me, alas. TEL [___ Hai: Israeli monument site] was a bit much, as the TEL crosses two theme entries, and the puzzle's already got B'NAI Brith, HORAS, an ESSENE ([Supposed inhabitant of ancient Qumran]), and ERIC Bana (who played an Israeli assassin in Munich) for the Jewish/Israeli sub-theme. I've heard of MORONI as Mormonism's Angel Moroni, but not as the [Capital of the Comoros]. All sorts of clues felt like Stan Newman "Saturday Stumper" clues—the noun [Adept] is an ACE; [Evening] a game is TYING the score; [Beats] are TEMPOS and not a verb; the verb [Rush] means to BOLT. Slightly more specific were these clues that still eluded me for a while: The [Gist] of something is its KERNEL of truth; and [Pleasure seekers?] are IDS.
Was this one tougher than you expected, or am I just not on Larry Shearer's wavelength?
The theme in Raymond Hamel's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Spaghetti Western," kept me guessing, and when it finally added up, it made for a nice "aha" moment." Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is the quintessential spaghetti western, and the three theme entries are 15-letter movie titles that begin with THE GOOD, THE BAD, and THE UGLY. The [2006 Matt Damon movie] is THE GOOD SHEPHERD, THE BAD NEWS BEARS is a [1976 Walter Matthau movie], and THE UGLY AMERICAN is a [1963 Marlon Brando movie]. Perfect theme, isn't it?
Karen Adams' crossword in the Chronicle of Higher Education just might be her debut. The theme is "Is There a Wort for That?"—Wort is German for "word," and the theme entries are all German words that have no one-word English equivalents:
Cool theme. I also like the anatomical collision between GLUTE, or [Certain muscle, slangily], and GLOTTIS, or [Laryngeal opening]. Things I didn't know: ROWE is [18th-century Poet Laureate Nicholas]. CAPUA is or was an [Appian Way city]. BODHI is [Enlightenment, in Eastern religion].
I had fun with Pancho Harrison's Wall Street Journal crossword, "Male Bonding." There are nine theme entries, famous men whose names include MAN at least once, and those MANs appear in rebus squares. Since [MAN]FRED MAN[N] has two MANs, that means there are 10 rebus squares that need to work out with intersecting Down entries. It all comes together smoothly, and some of the non-theme clues are fun: [Shell games?] are REGATTAS. [It has little foliage] clues BONSAI. [Tool used when the stakes are high?] is a SLEDGE, used to pound stakes into the earth. Archie [Bunker, for one] is a BIGOT. The fill contains a lively batch of words, such as Miami Vice's TUBBS, a GUSHER, ONE-NOTE, GARBLE, ROOMIES, Huey Lewis and THE NEWS, and SPLATTED like a water balloon. I still want to grumble that the WSJ crosswords have been easier than usual of late, but this one was a little closer to the mean, and the rebuses were fun to root out rather than burdensome. Anyone else notice DANTE and PEAK appearing in sequence together near the bottom? Dante's Peak was a volcano movie.
Scrabble jewelry
October 22, 2008
Thursday, 10/23
NYT 4:03
Sun 3:39
LAT 3:25
CS 2:32
I feel like I've been a less attentive crossword blogger than usual lately—I blame this month's cold, which focuses its attentions primarily on making me cough.
Patrick Blindauer's New York Times puzzle has a somewhat subtle, if buggy, theme. The ANTS that are ["Marchers" through the answers to the five starred clues] start at the left of a 7-letter word and march one square over through a progression of five words, ending at the right side of the fifth word:
ANTACID is a stomach [Settler in a pharmacy].
FANTASY completes the TV title, ["___ Island"].
PHANTOM is (was?) a [B'way hit beginning in '88].
ATLANTA is [Where Delta Air Lines is headquartered].
ENCHANT means to [Cast a spell over].
Including the theme entries, there are 20 answers containing 7 or more letters, giving this puzzle a moderately themeless vibe. Among the more interesting bits:
Holy cow, are there ever a ton of Smurfs characters—more than 100. Just five of them made the cut to be included in Kevan Choset's Sun crossword theme. The cartoon Smurfs are blue, hence the "Blue Man Group" title for this puzzle. I know next to nothing about The Smurfs, having never watched the cartoon (I was too old when it began airing here) or sought out the original Belgian comics—so this theme had no resonance for me. These long answers begin with SMURF (71-Across) names:
Here's one reason the Smurfs are dumb: More than 100 of 'em, and only three are female. Or maybe they're just a largely gay group of blue men, I dunno. The crossword seemed a good bit easier than the usual Thursday Sun puzzle, but October 23 marks the 50th anniversary of the Smurfs' creation.
Updated:
Sarah Keller's CrosSynergy crossword, "What a Trooper!", has an arresting theme featuring slang terms for law enforcement officers:
Cute theme!
Dan Naddor's LA Times crossword has an explosive theme, with five theme entries starting with synonyms for "explode":
This puzzle contained one completely unfamiliar name: [1980s KGB defector Gordievsky]'s first name is OLEG. On the plus side, it's a familiar enough Russian first name. [Saints' quarterback Drew] BREES and LEORA, [Arrowsmith's first wife] in the Sinclair Lewis novel, sit beside each other and potentially knot up the left side of the grid. Favorite fill entry: "IS IT EVER!" clued with ["You got that right!"].
October 21, 2008
Wednesday, 10/22
Tausig 5:05
Onion 4:22
Sun 3:33
NYT 2:55
LAT 3:06
CS 2:55
(updated at 10 a.m. Wednesday)
There've been other puzzles with similar themes, I think, but Gary Whitehead sets his New York Times crossword above the usual Wednesday pack in a few ways. There are two unifying entries, 68- and 70-Across, spelling out BED and SIZE. The other four theme entries are particularly colorful phrases that end with bed sizes:
A noun phrase, a spoken phrase, a movie title, and a musical make for a livelier foursome than, say, four noun phrases. Further adding to this puzzle's fun is MR. SULU, a [Crewmate of Capt. Kirk] in Star Trek. (Mr. Sulu's portrayer, George Takei, recently married his longtime partner in California.) I do tend to enjoy crosswords that are packed with names, and this one has Mounts ARARAT and ETNA, the [Nile Valley region] of NUBIA, THAI food, and NATAL the [Brazilian seaport] in the category of place names; some people who aren't real, the [Poe maiden] LENORE, MOE'S Tavern from The Simpsons, [Don Juan's mother] INEZ, and an ADONIS; and real people from the arts (Dr. DRE, Lucy LIU, EFREM Zimbalist, ED AMES, E. M. FORSTER the ["Howards End" novelist], Anthony QUINN, LUKAS Haas, and James AGEE), sports (Max BAER, ILIE Nastase), business (T. ROWE Price), and history (ALS [Capp and Capone], BIBI Netanyahu). I know a preponderance of names in the grid gives some people fits, and that's why not every puzzle is as crowded with names as this one.
Samuel Donaldson's Sun crossword, "Threepeats," concocts three phrases that contain a 3-letter sequence tripled, with those consecutive 3-letter pieces split across words:
In the fill, highlights include SNAIL MAIL, PINOT NOIR clued as [Wine featured in "Sideways"] (Paul Giamatti's Miles prefers that varietal to merlot: "If anyone orders Merlot, I'm leaving. I am NOT drinking any f*cking Merlot!"), NAPTIME, and two old comics names (SLUGGO and THE ASP). Favorite clue: [Adjective or adverb, e.g.] for NOUN. I have never once had [Drinks made with sweetened spiced liquor and eggs]—those are FLIPS. I know LODI is a California town, but didn't know that it's also a [Song on Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Green River" album].
Updated:
Robert Doll's LA Times puzzle teaches us some marine biology, as each theme entry begins with a SHARK. That unifying answer, SHARK, is clued [Ocean predator, of which there are five types starting this puzzle's longest answers]. Here are the beasties:
BULL MOOSE was [Teddy Roosevelt's party]. Bull sharks attack people near shore, and they can tolerate fresh water in rivers. Their range spans the globe.
TIGER IN YOUR TANK is the [End of an Esso ad metaphor]. Tiger sharks are also huge, they attack people, and they're found all around the world.
[Golfer's greenside choice] is the SAND WEDGE club. Sand sharks are a good bit smaller, and they're also known as ragged tooth sharks. A friend of mine went diving in a shark cage off the coast of South Africa to see these sharks.
LEMON TORTE is a [Tangy dessert] I'd take a pass on. What's a lemon shark? This.
NURSE BETTY is a [Renee Zellweger title role]. I never knew how nurse sharks got their name. They sound nurturing, don't they? "Nurse sharks are so-called because their method of feeding on prey larger than their mouths is to bite down and slowly suck the prey's flesh down their throats." Yow!
This crossword's a good example of what a Wednesday puzzle should be—Its theme isn't too obvious, and the overall fill and cluing hit right at a medium Wednesday level.
The CrosSynergy crossword by Stella Daily and Bruce Venzke is called "Fasten-ating" because each theme entry ends with a kind of fastener:
Nuts and bolts are hardware fasteners, as are washers and nails. The mighty screw did not make the cut today. Can you think of a good phrase that ends with SCREW, that doesn't use the hardware meaning of the word, and that passes the breakfast test better than LET'S SCREW? None of the other theme entries are compound words, so I don't think corkscrew works.
Deb Amlen's Onion A.V. Club crossword opens with a really long clue for 1-Across—the sort of clue that Across Lite doesn't display well. That clue reads [Start of an open letter from the puzzle constructor: ["Dear ___, you seem a bit confused about what the V.P. does every day, so here are some helpful hints..."]. Two pieces of advice are conveyed in the four longest entries in the crossword: CAST TIE-BREAKING / VOTES IN SENATE and ASK HOW MCCAIN / FEELS HEALTH-WISE. 50-Down is [End of the letter: "Thanks for the laugh. I'm voting for Obama/___."], or BIDEN. Heh. In the rest of the puzzle, here are my favorite spots:
I have no idea who ["Step by Step" actress Keanan], or STACI, is. Here's her Wikipedia page—Step by Step was a '90s sitcom I didn't watch. Boy, crossword constructors need someone named STACI to become really famous.
Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword provides a theme hint in its title, "On the House." I misinterpreted that hint, though, and was perplexedly wondering how the word HOUSE or something like it might correspond to theme answers like WEIGHT RANGE and HAND PRESS. The secret's down at 69-Across, where the [Word that may precede twelve words in this puzzle's grid] is FREE. The six long Across answers are all two-word phrases in which each word can follow free. What ramped up the challenge level was the dryness and non-obviousness of the theme entries. WEIGHT RANGE is clued as [Ring category], but it would've been easier with "boxing ring" in the clue to make it more specific. [Gutenberg device] is a HAND PRESS, but the popular term is "printing press." A [Government employee] is a STATE AGENT, but who calls them that? [Likely purchasing demographic] is the MARKET BASE, but those of us who aren't in retail don't much think about market bases, do we? VERSE FORM is a [Rhythmic composition]; I've never heard the term before. [Contemplative guy] is a THINKING MAN. Favorite clues: [Record weakeners of a sort] are ASTERISKS in sports record books. The KKK is the [Org. that suggests Obama's success is attributable to his being half-white]. POSHER is clued as [More likely to have heated floors, e.g.]—hey, I stayed in the lovely Hope Street Hotel in Liverpool, which heated the rooms via the floors. No icky carpeting! Despite a visit to England, [Legendary cricketer Brian] LARA is not a name I know. (He's from Trinidad.)
October 20, 2008
Tuesday, 10/21
Sun 4:18
CS 3:35
NYT 3:17
LAT 2:54
(updated at 9 a.m. Tuesday)
Randall Hartman's New York Times crossword feels a little more Wednesdayish than Tuesdayish, doesn't it? The five 15-letter theme answers (that's 75 theme squares, which is quite a lot) are the sort of phrases that seem better suited to clues than to crossword answers, as the theme gimmick resides in the clues and solvers need to piece together the answers bit by bit.
The least exciting bits of fill—answers like ELOI, suffix ERO, AM SO, and [Jack of "The Great Dictator"] OAKIE—tend to intersect with two of the long theme answers or sit astride a theme answer, so they're there in the service of a higher good.
Lee Glickstein's Sun crossword, "A New Beginning," has a theme that sounds simple enough on its surface—four words get new prefixes to change their meaning—but made me think from start to finish. In each instance, the result of the prefix change is a two-word phrase rather than a single word. A [Music nut?] is a STEREO MANIAC; an obsessive person is a monomaniac, and back in the days of vinyl, records could be recorded in stereo or mono. [Inmate dream?] is a CON VISION. The opposite of con- is pro-, and provision is a single word. [Where to buy underwater vessels?] is the SUB MARKET. Sub- means below, while super- means above, and we've all been to the supermarket. Reversing the pre- in precautions gives us POST CAUTIONS, or [Put up warning signs?]. Cool theme—just bendy enough to give the noggin a workout, but straightforward enough for a Tuesday...or maybe a Wednesday.
My favorite clues:
Updated:
Neville Fogarty's LA Times crossword invites all the famous WHITE SUIT men to a party:
I enjoyed this sartorial theme. Hovering around the theme entries are some unusual answers that don't appear much in Tuesday crosswords. ["The Sorcerer's Apprentice" composer] is Frenchman Paul DUKAS, not a household name. Then there's AZOIC [__ Era: old name for Earth's pre-life period]. Nautical terminology includes HAWSE, or [Anchor line's hole]. My favorite clue: [Athletic supporter?] for a TEE, as in the little doohickey that holds up a golf ball or a football.
I didn't recognize the constructor's name. Neville Fogarty is likely this young man who was on Jeopardy! in 2000 at age 11, and I think this puzzle is his constructing debut. Welcome!
Lynn Lempel's "Popinjays" puzzle for CrosSynergy pops in a J to alter four phrases:
In the past, SAUNA has been clued similarly, and some have argued that a sauna is not a [Steamy bath]. Mostly it's hot and dry, yes, but when water's thrown on hot rocks, there's temporary steam. Either way, I don't like the heat. There were two squares that led me astray temporarily. [Blackball] could be BAN or BAR, and I opted for the former until NIVERJOTTER made no sense. [Hold tightly] could be CLAMP or CLASP, and again I chose wrong. The crossing [Roman sun god] is SOL, not MOL.
October 19, 2008
Monday, 10/20
CS 3:06
NYT 2:56
Jonesin' 2:54
LAT 2:49
Sun 2:36
Daniel Raymon debuts as a New York Times crossword creator with his CHANGE DIRECTION puzzle. Did you realize that the four cardinal directions can all be anagrammed into other words? I wouldn't be surprised to learn that some other version of this theme has been done before. Each of four theme entries is a two-word made-up phrase with one direction word and its anagram, with north, south, east, and west states in the clues:
Aw, too bad WEST STEW is on the eastern side of the grid and EAST SEAT on the west. Perhaps the constructor tried the grid that way and the fill didn't wish to cooperate. Those two theme entries are sandwiched around the central answer, CHANGE DIRECTION, which restricted the flexibility of the surrounding fill. That fill is notable for the inclusion of a half dozen 8- and 9-letter answers. There's a CASE STUDY, or [Examined example]; PRAGMATIC, or [Hardheaded]; STOCKHOLM, or a [Capital on the Baltic Sea]; and a lovely DAFFODIL, clued poetically as the [Flower in Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"].
Updated:
I hit the sack early last night and slept for 10 hours, so I didn't see the Sun puzzle until this morning. I feel refreshed, but apparently my sinuses don't care how much sleep I got.
Caleb Madison's Sun crossword, "Water World," is among the easiest Sun puzzles ever. It's rare that an early-week Sun puzzle feels easier than the NYT. The theme entries are five movie titles that begin or end with bodies of water, and they alternate between beginning and ending. LAKE PLACID was a goofball horror/comedy movie about a man-eating crocodile in the lake. MYSTIC RIVER and SEABISCUIT were Oscar bait, but the latter wasn't about a body of water. RESERVOIR DOGS...did a reservoir figure into the movie at all? PEARL HARBOR, of course, relates to said harbor. I like the two corners with four 6-letter entries stacked together—that's not a Mondayish look.
Rich Norris's alter ego Lila Cherry (whom I picture as General Hospital's Lila Quartermaine—old, genteel, no-nonsense—though Rich himself does not look like a Lila) constructed today's LA Times crossword. The puzzle's easy, but the theme entries didn't leap out at me as being connected until I made sense of the unifying entry at 71-Across, HOOPS, or [This puzzle's theme, familiarly]. The other four theme entries begin with four things basketball players do:
Anyone else try TIED for [Playing a fifth qtr., say]? The abbreviation of "qtr." signaled an abbreviation in the answer, of course, but I don't recall seeing INOT (in OT, or overtime) in a crossword before.
The CrosSynergy crossword called "Cinderella Story" is by Randall Hartman. Each of the theme entries begins with a word that figures into the Cinderella tale:
A couple clues for long fill required me to wait for a lot of crossings to guess the answer. [The nuts, in Texas hold 'em] is a ROYAL FLUSH. Poker slang is not my forte. [Like a Jedi] clues TELEPATHIC. Star Wars arcana are also not my forte.
Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword, "So Cute," has four phrases that begin with baby animal names:
I know I said last week that I was shifting Jonesin' blogging to Tuesdays, but hey, the puzzle arrived in the morning and I'm busy procrastinating on a work project, so here it is. Overall, a lively puzzle with non-stodgy fill and clues. There's a typo in one of the clues in ym copy of the puzzle: [It's for children, in a Pat Benetar song]. The answer is HELL, and the singer is Pat Benatar. The song's about child abuse.
