MGWCC #57

crossword 2:51
puzzle -2:51

this week's episode of matt gaffney's weekly crossword contest marks the 57th flavor of matt's ketchup. i haven't timed myself every single week, but i'm pretty certain that this is the fastest i've ever done one of matt's crosswords. and the meta was easy enough from the title, instructions, and timing of the puzzle that i guessed the right answer actually before i even started the crossword.

the puzzle, called "ABC," has the following theme entries:

• [Japanese lunches] are BENTO BOXES. yum!
  
• ["The father of numbers"] is the ancient greek mathematician PYTHAGORAS.
  
• [Tourist town in the Black Forest] is BADEN BADEN. once upon a time, i had a dream of making a puzzle with theme answers BADEN BADEN, WALLA WALLA, PAGO PAGO, and BORA BORA. of course, it's been done, many times before actually. ah well.
  
• [1939 Hitchcock film] is JAMAICA INN. yowzers. it's only a slight exaggeration to say that everything i know about hitchcock films i learned from crosswords, but ... never heard of this one. not even close. also, there really, really, needs to be a consonant of some sort between JAMAICA and INN.
  
• tying them all together is the central answer, [What this puzzle's four theme entries start with]: THREE-LETTER HITS.
  

so what do BEN, PYT, BAD, and JAM have in common? why, they're michael jackson hits, of course. the puzzle's title, "ABC," is also a three-letter hit, not by michael himself but by the jackson five. and since the puzzle's instructions tell us that This week's contest answer phrase is a famous person whose first and last names total 14 letters, we can pretty well deduce that the contest answer must be michael jackson himself.

i'm not going to embed the videos here, but just in case you haven't had your fill of jacko in the last week and a half, i'll provide links: ben pyt (pretty young thing) bad jam. these hits impressively span the decades of michael's popularity, from "ben" in 1972 (his first #1, when he was still a boy) to "jam" in 1991. i confess i had blocked out any memory i had of "jam," and only vaguely know about "ben." "PYT," believe it or not, i have only ever seen in ... matt gaffney's weekly crossword contest, back in week 45. "bad," of course, is one of the biggest hits of all time, by michael or anybody else. the choreography in the video is must-be-seen-to-be-believed precise, and of course this was back in 1987, early enough that you know it's real dancers rather than CGI. after you've seen the video, be sure to check out weird al's version, too.

okay, what else?

• i can't decide if i like [Sign that it's time to clean the kitchen] for ANTS. i loved this clue the first time i saw it, in ... matt gaffney's weekly crossword contest, week 48. that was only 2 months ago.
  
• i don't think i saw the clue for TAO, [2006 Fields Medal winner Terence ___], until just now. whoa, the fields medal. high-falutin'. i took complex analysis as an undergrad from curt mcmullen, who won the 1998 fields medal. TAO sounds like an interesting character, at least according to wikipedia, but of course, i've never heard of him.
  
• matt goes meta with DECODE, clued as [Solve, as a Kaidoku]. have you checked out alex boisvert's kaidoku blog, to which matt and alex each contribute one puzzle a week?
  
• right next to DECODE is DEBUG, or [Perfect a program, perhaps]. for a programmer, the DEBUG step often leads straight into the RECODE step. hopefully not DECODE, though.
  
• i think [Kick-___ (awesome)] is my favorite ASS clue. easy, but just right.
  
• [Not yet having turned pro, perhaps] is an amusing clue for ANTI.
  
• ["I am happy about this!"] made me giggle. it's an identical sentiment, albeit much more formally expressed, to the one expressed by "YAY!"
  
• i liked ["___-ching!"] for CHA. but joe cabrera says it "grinds his gears" when somebody says "cha-ching" instead of "ka-ching." how onomatopoeia is transliterated seems a strange thing to get worked up over, doesn't it?
  

that's all for this week. look for a tougher puzzle next week.

Read More...

Summary only...

Tuesday, 7/7

Jonesin' 4:05
NYT 3:13
LAT 2:54
CS 7:03 (J―paper)/3:04 (A—Across Lite)

Lynn Lempel's New York Times crossword

Shouldn't this be a Wednesday puzzle rather than a Tuesday one? It seemed tougher than expected for a Tuesday. But/and I loved it! The theme took me a while to figure out, but it was so dang fresh it was worth the wait. Each person in the theme has a chronological/calendrical last name, and they're "late-arriving" so the last name is bumped back a notch:

⚀ 17A. The [Late-arriving TV detective?] is the fictional Joe Friday–cum–JOE SATURDAY.
⚁ 28A. Fredric March as the [Late-arriving actor of old?] is FREDRIC APRIL. I wonder how many people were thrown off by wanting another E and maybe a K in his first name.
⚂ 44A. [Late-arriving singer/actress of old?] is DORIS EVENING, formerly Day.
⚃ 59A. Whoo, disco! [Late-arriving disco singer?] is DONNA AUTUMN, once Summer.

Interesting use of the phrase "of old" in two of those clues. I wonder if this signals increasing attention to younger solvers or if it's just a Tuesday-level sop to help all solvers narrow their focus better. And why no "of old" for JOE SATURDAY? I guess the not-so-successful Dragnet revivals of 1987 and 2003 make Sgt. Joe Friday a more current name than Day and March.

I like the variety pack Lempel uses—day, month, time of day, season. Ideally the smallest unit, Day-to-EVENING, would have appeared first in the series, but that would muck up the symmetry of the theme entry lengths. I also like the balance of two men, two women.

Highlights in the fill include 10A BRYLCREEM, the ["A little dab'll do ya" brand] of old; 25D GRENDEL, the [Monster defeated by Beowulf]; and 42D P'S AND Q'S, or [Manners]. And 56A ETRURIA, the [Region of pre-Roman Italy] where the Etruscans hailed from—what's that doing here on a Tuesday? Clues I liked: 14D LABORS are [Feats for Hercules]; 31D [The hots] means LUST; and 54D [Sea lettuce, e.g.] for ALGA (feh, I'll pass on the sea salad, thanks).

I'm tired of seeing N.L. EAST ([Atlanta Braves' div.]) and A.L. EAST in crosswords. C'mon, constructors—get the N.L. CENTRAL in there when you need a 9-letter answer. Or NFC NORTH (8). Stretch a little. ALEAST and NLEAST are becoming as predictable as ALER and NLER these days.

I used to say Lynn Lempel was among my favorite Monday constructors. Let me amend that to "favorite Monday to Wednesdayish."

Updated Tuesday morning:

Doug Peterson's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Give 'Em an Inch..."―Janie's review

Where yesterday's puzzle had "a broken word bracketing the rest of a phrase," today's has a phrase broken (and transformed) by the addition of the word "inch." If not wildly innovative as a theme, with one exception, it does yield some pretty interesting results. In this way:

• 17A. Get well soon becomes GET WINCHELL SOON [Directive from one wishing to hire columnist Walter?]. For them as doesn't know of 'im, Walter Winchell was a journalist/gossip columnist whose way with a word was near-legendary, but who (in backing Joe McCarthy in the '50s) brought himself down. For those who know the book, film or musical Sweet Smell of Success, antagonist J.J. Hunsecker was based on Winchell.
  
• 27A. Ping-pong becomes PINCHING PONG [Making off with an old video game?]. This is the one that made the theme completely clear to me, that let me see the double-phrase fill each theme entry provides. While I have played ping-pong, I've never played Pong. Okay, or any video game... But it doesn't take an experienced player to see how very basic―almost quaint―this early contender is. Still sometimes basic is best.
  
• 48A. Vitamin C becomes VITAMIN CINCH [Easy way to get nutrients?] Raise your hand if you've ever heard of "Cinch" bars or the Cinch line of weight loss products. They're not available in stores, but can be purchased on line or through direct sales (kinda like Avon products that way). These are manufactured by Shaklee and don't appear to be an ideal way to get nutrients, but the folks at Shaklee would probably say otherwise. So, here's this questionably familiar product incorporated into today's theme fill. Strike one. Strike two? The entire product line appears to be very low in providing vitamins, so the idea of a "Vitamin Cinch" feels wholly fabricated and not likely, since the product comes in flavors―like chocolate and peanut butter. "Vitamin" is not a flavor... Strike three: unlike the other three theme entries, this time the word "inch" appears at the end of the phrase and not within it. If there'd been a great reason to include this entry, perhaps I'd find the variation less problematic. But for the reasons I've stated, it simply feels weak.
  
• 63A. Spring fling becomes SPRING FLINCHING [Reaction from someone who's afraid of Slinkys]. A stretch, perhaps, but the base phrase is good and it does summon up a strong visual.

Am I making too much of a HOOHA over the lack of parallel construction and less-than-perfect theme fill? Mebbe. But, hey, that's why I get the big bucks here―to speak about a puzzle's weaknesses (as I see 'em) as well as its strengths.

And on that subject, there are several non-theme highlights I have IN MIND. GAS LOGS, for one, which seems to be making its first puzzle appearance. While they may be [Fireplace fakes], it seems to me you could still CHAR marshmallows over 'em in pinch. Then there's PIKEMAN [Old infantry soldier armed with a spear]. This term was totally new to me, but between the clue and pix in the Wiki article, it all made perfect sense. If you had difficulty filling this one in, take heart. It appears that the only other time pikeman was in a puzzle was as part of a New York Times Friday...

And I loved the shout out to I. M. PEI as [Rock and Roll Hall of Fame architect]. John Mellencamp (yesterday's puzzle) is an inductee; I thought perhaps KAREN [One of the Carpenters] might have made it. But no. The ORIOLES, however, did win a place in the "Early Influences" category, lest we forget they're not just that (fave o' mine) [Camden Yards baseball team]!

Gail Grabowski's Los Angeles Times crossword

The theme here hinges on 54D HEAT, a [Summer phenomenon, and word that can precede the first words of 17-, 28-, 44- and 58-Across]. It's timely, what with it being July. Although Lake Michigan is keeping Chicago cool today, and yesterday someone mentioned it was cold in Seattle. (Not that I'm trying to taunt those of you who are baking in a heat wave.) The HEAT answers are as follows:

✺ 17A. Heat index—INDEX FINGER, or [Pointing finger].
✺ 28A. Heat rash—RASH DECISION, or [Choice made without thinking. I started with RUSH DECISION here, which was but one of several wrong turns. I also had the [Fish holder] being a TACO rather than a TANK and chose PICK SIDES instead of TAKE SIDES for [Eschew neutrality].
✺ 44A. Heat lightning—LIGHTNING BUG, or [Firefly]. Ah, summertime and lightning bugs. I haven't seen any yet, but I haven't been outside much after dark lately. I'm delighted to see LIGHTNING BUG in the grid, though.
✺ 58A. Heat wave—WAVE GOODBYE, or [Signal to from the pier, perhaps].

Highlights: 34D [D and F] are BAD GRADES indeed. 5D [Exec's perk at a ballgame] is a BOX SEAT. I've been in the box seats at Wrigley Field and they're lovely. Mind you, it was only during a tour when the Cubs were out of town, so it's not as if I've seen a game from there. 15A HAIRY is clued as [Like a wolfman]. That reminds me—my son's going to the beach today with his day camp group. Will there be any HAIRY men there, or will the sub-70° temp keep the wolfmen at bay?

More on today's LAT from PuzzleGirl, who tells you everything you need to know about jai ALAI in the crossword arena.

Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword, "I'm Getting Dizzy"

Matt innovates by using an asymmetrical grid that spirals around. (I think Merl Reagle once had a 21x21 puzzle with a hurricane theme and a swirly hurricane pattern in the grid.) The theme entries are all things that can cause dizziness, and they start with a 6-letter answer in the eye and are linked together as they spiral outward:

• 26A. ANEMIA is a [Blood cell deficiency that may cause dizziness]. It crosses...
• 20D. VERTIGO, a [Hitchcock movie that may make you dizzy]. That takes us to...
• 35A. PAINT FUMES—[They make you dizzy while redecorating a room]. Right beneath that is a HIGH RISE ([Tall apartment building]) and I don't know about you, but looking up at a HIGH RISE or out from high up in one can make me dizzy. (Have you heard about the new glass boxes extending out from the 103rd floor of the Sears Tower? You can look straight down 1,300-some feet through the glass bottom.) The PAINT FUMES cross...
• 10D. CHAMPAGNE, a [Drink that makes you dizzy]. And causes headache, if you're me. You can sip CHAMPAGNE...
• 14A. ...while SAILING THE SEAS, which is [Traveling that may make you dizzy]. Head to solid ground for...
• 12D. CARNIVAL RIDES, [Attractions that may cause dizziness]. Or save yourself the money and just try...
• 57A. SPINNING AROUND, a [Kids' activity that causes dizziness]. You know why that's not an adults' activity? Because we spin a couple times and begin to reel. The repeated spinning is inconceivable.

Sure, this grid has 49 or so black squares, but it also has something like 67 theme squares with some really long non-theme answers. Overall, I give it 1.5 thumbs up. The other half thumb is pointed down, way down, for the clunky 3-letter entries that cross those delicious swaths of long answers. There's IDG, [Original publisher of the "For Dummies" book series]. PTO, a [Bottom-of-page abbr.] I don't understand at all (PTO can also mean "parent-teacher organization). UMH is a [Surgery site located on a Florida campus, for short]—what is this, University of Miami Hospital or something? Ouch. IDC was the [Arkansas real estate group under scrutiny in the Whitewater investigations]. And ANR is apparently [Antwerp International Airport's code on luggage tags].

Read More...

Summary only...

Monday, 7/6

BEQ 6:48
NYT 2:41
LAT 2:35
CS (not today for Janie...)/(3:24 Amy)

Some of the background story behind yesterday's NYT puzzle appeared at Jim Horne's blog, Wordplay. There's more from me after the cut here—so if you didn't get around to the Sunday puzzle over the holiday weekend, mind the spoilers that follow.

As I've said elsewhere, the impetus for the theme was my husband asking, while working on a crossword puzzle, whether "studpuffin" was a word. The answer he needed was STUDMUFFIN, of course. I blogged about that and it caught Tony Orbach's attention—and we proceeded to riff on other M-to-P letter substitutions.

Next thing I knew, we had a solid set of theme entries (plus a list of rejects that didn't lend themselves to decent clues or that were an oddball length for our theme). Tony filled most of the grid and left me a couple spots to noodle around with, and we honed the fill until we were happy with it. (Yeah, I know that means we were content with fill like ACERS and ODIE. These things happen!)

We largely split the cluing duties as Across/Amy, Tony/Down. Tony not only knows how to design a grid to accommodate theme entries and lively fill, but he also writes funny clues. So he made the entire process a joy. We lucked out in getting a decision from Will Shortz quickly—within a month or so—and then waited the length of a giraffe's gestation period for publication. At last, the baby giraffe popped out this weekend, and nearly everybody said the baby was cute. (Nobody ever tells the mom her baby looks like a monkey—or an okapi.)

I compared the clues Tony and I submitted to the final set of clues. About two thirds of the clues were unchanged, and another 15% or so were cosmetically changed but retained the basic gist. Among the clues that Will changed for the better:

• We had [Stovetop?] for BOILING PAD, and that became [Summer apartment with no air-conditioning?]. This one seemed to resonate with solvers, especially since it's July.

• BALD EAGLE began as [Winner over the turkey for national bird]. I like that, but Will's [Quarter back] threw a lot of people for a loop. I'm always fond of clues that throw people for a loop.

• Tony had an interesting [Gee's Bend creation] clue for QUILT. Look how incredible these quilts are—not at all your standard quilt patterns. (I hadn't heard of the Gee's Bend quilts until I read Tony's clue.) Will changed this to [What a bee produces], which is particularly wicked because HONEY also has 5 letters.

Tony and I had both been amused by the image of a PAN ABOUT TOWN, envisioning a wok painting the town red. Maybe the wok is the STUDPUFFIN's wingman. Or maybe I just like the puffin/pan combo because it rhymes with the Muffin Man. We had two suggested clues for PAN ABOUT TOWN: [Carousing wok?] and [Wok around the block?]. Will jettisoned those in favor of PAN the verb: [Move a movie camera around a community?]. That's really my only grumble about cluing changes—and the new clue works fine, it's just that it isn't as funny.

Hey, I should do this again sometime! It's a blast seeing my name in the New York Times magazine.

Fred Piscop's New York Times crossword

Fred runs the political gamut from left to right with his theme:

• 17A. LIBERAL BENEFITS include [Company-paid medical and dental coverage, college tuition, etc.].
• 37A. [A sot he's not] clues MODERATE DRINKER. I tried to wedge DESIGNATED DRIVER in there, but it just wouldn't fit.
• 59A. CONSERVATIVE TIE is a [Bit of attire for a business interview, maybe].

GONO looks nutty in the grid. It's a two-word partial, 42A ["This will ___ further!"]. Among the tougher bits:

• 10D. [Pour forth] clues EFFUSE.
• 62D. ADA is clued as [Critic ___ Louise Huxtable], and I'm thinking she's not so Monday-level familiar.
• 4D. Gotta learn your 4-letter European rivers if you're going to be a crossworder. The ODER is a [Baltic Sea feeder].
• 25A. Today's [Upholstered piece] is a SETTEE. This long seat for more than one person is seldom heard of outside of crosswords, at least in my circles. There are couches and sofas, there are loveseats, there are futons, there are lounge chairs and chaises longues. Who sits on a SETTEE these days? I like to picture crosswordese people like Theda Bara sitting on settees.

Updated Monday morning:

Bob Klahn's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Windbreakers"―Janie's review

Why no published time from me today? Really, once it exceeds ten minutes I feel no need to share; it did and I don't. But did my dopey time stop me from enjoying the puzzle? Hardly. In "Windbreakers," Bob takes the word wind and breaks it up into two uneven pieces―win and d―which bookend a familiar phrase or word. All of today's theme fill seems to be appearing for the first time, which makes it very fresh fill indeed. Behold:

• 17A. WINE STEWARD [Port authority?] And that's one fine clue as well.
  
• 27A. WINTERIZED [Prepared for single digits]. Am so glad it's summer and I can postpone thought of single-digit temperatures for the moment!
  
• 45A. WINGSPREAD [Flight statistic]. Like wingspan, this measurement is usually cited in reference to birds and insects. Some dictionaries do define the word in connection with aircraft however, so the clue is definitely fair. Did you know about this "Wingspread," the Frank Lloyd Wright classic in Wisconsin? New to me.
  
• 60A. WINNING HAND [Flush, often]. Ah, this one did me in in any number of ways as it morphed from winning card to winning hard to winning hand at last. Said flush could be an ODDS ON boon in OMAHA [Texas Hold'em cousin often played high-low].

And there's a TON of strong fill and cluing among the non-thematic entries as well: SHIVAREE (what a great word that is), a loud celebration or [Post-nuptial kettle-and-pan send-off]―yep, that'd be noisy all right; apparent CS-debuts LOVE NEST (and its alliterative clue [Private place for paramours]) and PROTOZOA [Unicellular critters] (and not parameci...); and CHEW OUT [Rake over the coals]. People engaged in a SCRAPE, a non-condiment [Jam or pickle] or SNITS [Huffs or tiffs] tend to chew out someone in the process. Keep yer distance!

For tipplers, we have a [Shakespearean barmaid] for WENCH (just couldn't get Nell Gwynne to fit...) and [Joe the Bartender player] for GLEASON (though if you [Went to Joe's], you ATE there). Jackie Gleason of The Honeymooners fame, went on to have his own variety-type show in which he created a number of memorable characters (such as super-wealthy Reginald van Gleason, I recall).

For birdwatchers, there's the [Pigeon's perch] for LEDGE, [White wader] for HERON and [Alarm cock] (!) for ROOSTER. For music lovers, the [Key of Dvorák's "New World Symphony"] is E MINOR, or you may prefer the uber-Slavic ["Song of the Volga ___] BOATMEN" or maybe just a little [...Janis] IAN or John Cougar Mellencamp with ["Jack & ___] DIANE." For those in the throes of being astonished, there's [Blowing away] for WOWING and [Blown away] for AWED. AWW ["That's so-o-o-o cute!"].

Other cute stuff? TEETH clued as [Mouthpieces?] (I tried PIPES...); DEE for [Hollywood ending?] and EGOS for [Hollywood biggies?]; BITE clued as [Nip or nibble]; CAGED as the brilliant [Boxes of bars]; and my fave, the crossing of ["Get a Job" syllables] NA-NA-NA with NO! NO! NO! ["You're badly mistaken"].

As badly mistaken as I was time after time in this puzzle (which threatened to beat me to a PULP), I slogged through each SNAFU to make a NEW start and upon completion, felt duly rewarded for my efforts. IN A WORD (or so...): a terrific if somewhat humbling solve!

—Back to Orange. The "broken word bracketing the rest of a phrase" theme never does much for me, but the fill (especially in those corners—lots of longer answers) and Klahny clues entertained me.

David Cromer's Los Angeles Times crossword

I had just read this Chicago Tribune article about the Journey song "Don't Stop Believin'," which peaked at #9 on the charts but has become people's favorite Journey anthem. The "Don't Stop" part ties in to Cromer's theme of phrases that begin with "endless" synonyms:

• 20A. PERMANENT PRESS is clued as [Wrinkle-resistant after washing].
• 34A. [Fabled fountain's reward] is ETERNAL YOUTH. I kept reading "fountain" as "mountain."
• 41A. I do like the FOREVER STAMP, the first-class postage stamp that doesn't ever need a 1¢ stamp added to it. [You can still use it when postage rates increase].
• 55A. ["Semper fidelis," in English] translates to ALWAYS FAITHFUL. Hey, there's a Journey song called "Faithfully."

The JOURNEY vibe hit me again when I discovered it was in the grid at 9D, clued as a [Long trip].

I've got another puzzle to blog before I take my foot to the doctor's office, so I'll refer you to Rex's take on the puzzle at L.A. Crossword Confidential. He critiques the theme's lack of parallel construction, in that the some of the synonyms are used as adjectives and some as adverbs. Frankly, I often don't pay enough attention to a Monday puzzle to notice these things.

Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Themeless Monday"

Gotta love a Saturday-tough themeless on a Monday!

Brendan mentioned a new book, Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon's The Atlantic Cryptic Crosswords. I ordered a copy from Amazon before I commented at Brendan's blog and before coming here to blog his puzzle. If, like me, you haven't done the bulk of Hex's Atlantic variety cryptics, YOU MUST BUY THIS BOOK. Provided, of course, that you like challenging cryptic crosswords, as I do. See? This is totally going to get in the way of constructing. It's so much easier to do puzzles than to make them, and I'm looking forward to the book arriving. But dammit! I still have most of Frank Longo's Vowelless Crosswords to do, too. Why did I take on that new "puzzle consulting" client, again? This work gets in the way of puzzle time.

A few of my favorite things from Brendan's themeless:

• 1A. [Vehicle specifically for crybabies] is the WAHMBULANCE, which my trainer always threatens to call for me at the gym.
• 19A. Gotta love SFAX, the [Tunisian port]. I know it only from crosswords. It can also be spelled Safaqis, but the insane letter combos in SFAX are so much more fun.
• 44A, 46A. Parallel clues: KINSEY's a [Name associated with reports] and TSO is a [Name associated with chicken].
• 65A. SHIP OF FOOLS is the classic [Hieronymus Bosch masterpiece].
• 4. [Bicentennial of the end of the Civil War] is much more gettable than the recent NYT clue invoking Chinese poet Li Po, who was busy around 700 A.D. but only people who've studied Li Po are likely to know that. The Civil War ended in 1865, so 2065 is MMLXV.
• 22D. The generic "IT" GIRL is a [Young woman with intense media coverage]. Did you start out thinking you needed somebody's name here? I did.

Read More...

Summary only...

Sunday, 7/5—the non-NYT crosswords

BG 7:37
LAT 7:10
PI 6:30
CS 4:29

Sunday, July 5, New York Times crossword post below

Richard Silvestri's syndicated Los Angeles Times Sunday crossword, "Heard Down Under"

This puzzle's got a sound-change theme in which phrases with long A sounds in American English are pronounced Australianically, turning our long A zone into long I land. Spellings are changed to make real words:

✦ 23A. [Cookie made with Chianti instead of figs?] is a WINE NEWTON, playing on singer Wayne Newton.
✦ 25A. [Wood for sashes?] clues WINDOW PINE rather than pane.
✦ 34A. Prince's Purple Rain turns into the [Blue Danube relative?] PURPLE RHINE. This answer crosses the RHONE, a [River through the Lake of Geneva].
✦ 50A. [Discovery of the mother lode?] is a MINE EVENT (main event). Pet peeve: when people write "mother load."
✦ 76A. If you [Put an "X" where you want to cut the cord?, you MARK TWINE. To better reflect Australian pronunciation, should this be MOCK or MACK TWINE? (I know, the theme is strictly the one vowel change.)
✦ 90A. [Female chiropractor?] is LADY OF SPINE (Lady of Spain). She's offset by two male worker terms, ADMEN ([Commercial developers]) and MAN-HOUR ([Unit of work]).
✦ 105A. [Squall at sea?] clues BRINE STORM (brainstorm). This is my least favorite theme entry. Maybe a pickle-related clue or a different brain/BRINE idea would've worked better.
✦ 107A. ["I never forget a face," e.g.?] is a MEMORY LINE (memory lane).

There's plenty of good fill here. 29D is LLEYTON, or [2001 U.S. Open champ Hewitt], lost to Andy Roddick at Wimbledon, no? Poor Roddick. He's now being fed to the Federer lions. He can't beat Federer, can he? Also in the arena of sports is 82D RCA DOME, or [Colts' home before Lucas Oil Stadium]. Wait, what? The new stadium has a retractable roof, and the RCA DOME was razed last December. Okay, so RCA DOME is becoming less useful as a crossword answer.

27A is [Like some pens]—ERASABLE. Do not attempt a crossword tournament with a non-erasable pen. The Pilot Frixion gel pen is nicer than goopy Eraser-mate ballpoints.

26D [God for whom Wednesday was named] is WODEN. I like to pronounce it "Woden's Day" on occasion.

Least familiar answer: 71D. [Basso Cesari], or SIEPI. Crossing two theme entries at the I's! Runner-up honors go to 34D PALMA, or [Balearic Islands capital].

Merl Reagle's Philadelphia Inquirer crossword, "The Forts of July"

You can zip right through this puzzle as if it were an easy unthemed crossword, but then you're missing the hidden theme. Per the note accompanying the puzzle, there are 11 famous fort names hidden in the grid, sometimes spanning black squares. It took me just as long to find the forts as it did to solve the crossword. The last one I found was little Fort DIX, hiding in the APPENDIX as 24A ([Back-of-the-book section]). Here are the other forts (which I've circled in my completed grid):

✦ Fort Bliss in 22A STATE OF BLISS, or [Very happy "place"].
✦ Fort Lauderdale occupies 27A/29A, [Cosmetics name] LAUDER and ["Brenda Starr" creator Messick], or DALE.
✦ Fort Sumter joins 34A PLAY POSSUM ([Fake it, in a way]) to 38A TERMINAL ([Grand Central, e.g.].
✦ Fort Lee, N.J., is the middle name of 56A TOMMY LEE JONES, [Harvard roommate of Al Gore].
✦ Fort McHenry crosses two black squares, joining three answers: 66A USMC is [Jarhead's org.], 67A HEN is clued with [She might fly the coop], and 68A RYAN is [Matt Damon's private] in Saving Private Ryan.
✦ Another middle name gives us Fort Knox—83A JAMES KNOX POLK, [Tyler-Taylor go-between] in the procession of U.S. presidents.
✦ Fort Ticonderoga is a great hidden fort, isn't it? 98A EMOTICON is clued by way of [:-) is an example of one] and 101A DEROGATORY means [Belittling].
✦ Fort Apache's in 107A PAPA, or [Bear in a tale], and 110A CHEKOV, or [Captain Kirk colleague].
✦ Fort Bragg occupies 118A BRAGGART, or [Blowhard].
✦ Fort Worth, Texas, is inside 120A WORTH THE WAIT, [Like great shows].

I wonder whether it was emoTICON/DEROGAtory or LAUDER/DALE that nudged Merl into crafting this unusual theme. I just realized that the theme entries are placed symmetrically! The fort names aren't all the same lengths, but one at the end of a phrase is balanced by a fort at the beginning of a phrase on the opposite side of the grid. The two middle names are in an opposing pair of entries. MC/HEN/RY is smack dab in the center of the grid. The four forts that span single black squares are plunked down around symmetrical pairs of black squares. Cool.

Updated Sunday afternoon, after the epic Wimbledon men's final:

Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon's Boston Globe crossword, "Tacked-on Endings"

Ten theme entries have a letter tacked on at the end, changing the phrase's meaning. Patrick Blindauer's Third of July Wall Street Journal puzzle added the letters of LIBERTY to the theme entries, so I took a look at the added letters in the Hex puzzle. ORGTREPUOI...hmm, that anagrams to POI GROUTER? PIG OR ROUTE? I think it's just 10 random letters.

Most surprising answer: BONG clued as [Pot holder?]. Drugs! Illicit ones!

Favorite theme entries: BATHING SUITE is clued as a [Many-chambered shower room?], and GARBAGE MENU represents [Dumpster-diver's choices?].

Least timely: In tennis, [Six games to none] is a LOVE SET. The Wimbledon match had none of those. I'd never seen a 16-14 set before. That was insane, wasn't it? Roddick absolutely made Federer earn his plaudits today (and I wish Roddick had won, because what a Cinderella story that would be).

Lynn Lempel's themeless CrosSynergy "Sunday Challenge"

This puzzle flirts with having its 15s constitute a mini-theme. There's DIAMOND JIM BRADY, the [Gilded Age philanthropist known for his jewels and huge appetite], and then there's ORDER IN THE COURT, a [Call from a bench]. Baseball diamond, basketball or tennis court? Maybe? No?

Toughest clues: 16A [According to church doctrine] clues CANONIC, which looks odd without an AL on the end. 39A [It keeps you from going gray] is BALDNESS, which technically does not prevent grayng unless it is absolute BALDNESS that removes all traces of hair before any of them go gray. 1D FADDISH is clued with [In one year and out the other]—year, not ear. 7D [Put down roots, in a way] clues SODDED, which doesn't feel like a common past-tense verb. Speaking of unusual past-tense verbs, 14D SCYTHED is clued as [Cut down in the field]. 30D. [Atlas holders] are missile SILOS holding Atlas missiles.

9D is [LBJ albatross], and I wanted the answer to be HIM or HER. But Johnson's pets were beagles, not albatrosses, so the albatross is metaphorical: Viet NAM.

Favorite clue: 45D [Reason for a rash response?] for ALLERGY.

Read More...

Summary only...

Sunday, 7/5—New York Times crossword

Guest post by The Shark

Tony Orbach and Amy Reynaldo's New York Times crossword, "M N O P"

[140 words, 9 theme entries, 107 theme letters, 72 blocks]

The Sunday NYT puzzle by Tony Orbach and Amy Reynaldo has a letter-substitution theme where the letter M is replaced by the letter P in nine familiar phrases.

This is a construction debut for Amy Reynaldo and a blogging debut for yours truly, The Shark.

Letter addition, deletion, or substitution themes have long been a staple of constructors and I enjoy such themes. When done well.

Editors tend to give short shrift to this genre, maybe because the bar is high and most alphabet combos have been exhausted. In short, if you attempt this theme, you better have some real doozies to get the editor excited and satisfy the discriminating solver.

So, does Team Orbaldo deliver the goods on this patriotic weekend?

Yes.

How well?

On my rigorous 9-point rating system for crosswords, the puzzle scores an 8! Why 8? Read on....

THE THEME:

The shining stars of the puzzle are STUD PUFFIN [Strutting bird on an ice floe?], THE POD SQUAD [Pea farmers?], and FULL PETAL JACKET [Floral Technicolor dreamcoat?]. These three phrases made me smile when the lightbulb went on. To take a fresh word (STUDMUFFIN) and convert it to a strutting bird is zany (zany is good), while transforming an old TV show (THE MOD SQUAD) and giving it a new twist is delightful! And FULL PETAL JACKET was clued perfectly.

Right on the tail of these three wonderful entries are two phrases that are solid and provide great satisfaction when the code is cracked. PORTAL DANGER [Tripping over a threshold, perhaps?] and NEW YORK PETS [Residents at a Manhattan A.S.P.C.A?] deliver, although visions of my favorite team being toyed around (and swept) in the recent subway series bring back bad memories.

Rounding out the theme are BOILING PAD [Summer apartment with no air-conditioning?], PAN ABOUT TOWN [Move a movie camera around a community?] and PASS CONFUSION [Explanation for an interception?]. During construction, these entries usually follow the brilliancies that seed a puzzle. Reasonable entries, none juicy or sexy, but “Heck,” the constructors say to one another as they collaborate via email, “... we have five great entries, and we need at least seven for a Sunday, so let’s find a few more.” Nothing wrong with this approach, since we don't expect (and rarely get) an aha from every theme answer.

THE SOLVING PROCESS:

I start the puzzle in the SE corner. Why SE? As a medium-level solver (my Sundays take anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours and I usually have a couple of wrong crossings), I tend to start in the bottom-right for Sunday puzzles because a) I find the clues in this corner to be slightly easier—some gimmes, some repeats. I am convinced that the constructors have gotten tired of concocting clever clues as they approach, say, 129 Across (Clue: Twos for DEUCES), and b) I hope to find some forced plurals because the constructor has focused a lot on lively fill elsewhere in the puzzle.

I am sure some constructors will be offended by this insightful peek into their lazy approach to cluing, but I must say I have overheard a constructor call cluing a 21x21 “a dreadfully boring task, which I wish could be outsourced.”

Back to the puzzle: I spot the clue: “Hi-__” and quickly fill in RES (Didn’t I just see this clue in last Sunday’s puzzle? Is Mr. Shortz recycling clues so blatantly, so frequently? And thinks I won’t notice?), proceed to RHINE [River straddled by Basel, Switzerland], STOIC [Impassive (the most common clue in the database for STOIC)] and INCA [Cuzco inhabitant (Cuzco having appeared in an INCA clue over 25 times)], crack open the theme (I get it, "M? No, P!" is how you parse the title) and enter PASS INTRUSION.

Wait. So the original phrase is MASS INTRUSION? What’s that? This puzzle sucks, I say to myself, and I have to blog it on Crossword Fiend's blog?

Of course, I have fallen into a trap. This week the answer to Hi-__ is FIS (I knew there would be a plural, darn it!); DEUCES [Twos] (plural), and ETHERS [Early anesthetics] (plural) lead me to DROSS [Chaff] and I correct my theme answer to PASS CONFUSION! OK, now this makes sense. (I feel better about blogging for the Fiend. And I take back my Shortz-recycling outburst.)

In addition to the RES/FIS confusion, the puzzle sets traps at HONEY/QUILT [What a bee produces] and DRAWS/DRAGS [Pulls], which I sidestep.

The solving process goes really smoothly from there—SE to central to NE to NW to SW and the puzzle is solved in 25-30 minutes—one of my faster times! So, I rate this an easy puzzle on my personal difficulty scale.

THE GRID, THE FILL:

The grid is fairly clean with two crossings that confound me. First, the HARING/ARAM intersection [1980s street artist Keith/Saroyan’s “My Name is __”]. OK, I should have known ARAM—it has appeared several times in puzzles, usually clued as “Composer Khachaturian.” But street artist who? Never heard of him, sorry. Tough crossing. I know I usually have a crossing or two wrong, so I make an educated guess and move on.

Second crossing that causes problems: GOUACHE/ONO [Watercolor technique/Plastic __ Band]. Didn't know GOUACHE and the ONO clue is probably from the musically inclined Torbach. Come on, Torbach! Can’t you give us a simpler ONO clue to make this an easier crossing? (Of course, die-hard Beatles/Lennon/Ono fans will disagree on this point.)

Some non-thematic fill that I like:

• BALD EAGLE [Quarter back] intersecting GASBAG [Wind source]—both great entries, and nice clues!
• ETIOLATE [Bleach]—I love this word. Why? Because. No reason. Just. Sounds like titillate? Maybe that’s why.
• The BERLIOZ, LAVERNE, ORESTES [“Symphonie Fantastique” composer/One of the Andrews sisters/Electra’s brother] stack in the SW—usually I don’t like too many proper nouns together, but the crossing, PABLO [Literature Nobelist Neruda], is a gimme and I quite like how these three stack up (although I now notice the ARLES [Bizet suite “The Girl From __”] crossing—probably would have given me pause, but didn’t need that clue!)
• KLUTZES [China shop personae non gratae]—didn't know there were two e's in the plural.
• HINDI, NEHRU, TOMB [Language that gave us "pajamas"/Co-founder of the Nonaligned Movement/Taj Mahal, e.g.]: This is clearly a fill designed to give someone with an Indian heritage a huge leg-up in solving. What's up, Team Orbaldo? Got some Indian friends you are trying to help?

Some complaints that will not be entertained by the Shark Complaints Department. (Why? Because the constructors need some levers to create a good puzzle, that’s why!)

• Crosswordese: ATOI, ELOI, APER, AARE, ODIE, ALEUT—we just need to memorize these words. The grid has 140 words, the constructors have to make sure there are no repeats, they have only used 6 or 7 of these, and we did get some good fill to compensate for this crosswordese, so let's hold those complaints for a 15x15 later in the week.

• Awkward plurals: OK, I agree, LLDs, RNAs and PDAs are awkward, but so what? The clues clearly indicated they were plurals and abbreviations. What else do we want?

• Partials: IS IT, AT AN, I LOST, A PEAR, A PEEP are partials, but gimmes, of the easiest kind: fill-in-the-blanks (FITBs). FITBs give us a toehold (or is it a foothold?). I thank the constructors for the partials.

WHY 8 OUT OF 9?

So, Shark, you ask, why deduct 1 point for this puzzle? Why not a perfect score?

The answer: SPELL THE ROSES [Give Axl and Pete a break?], the ninth theme entry. This theme phrase creates an inconsistency and doesn't quite sparkle for me, for two reasons: a) an M that's replaced is the second letter in a word, as opposed to the eight other phrases where M was the first letter in a word (not the phrase), and b) a tertiary meaning of “spell” is clued (spell: relieve, as for a break). Maybe a clue like “A-X-L, P-E-T-E” would have made this entry more palatable? Probably. Is this inconsistency a killer? Maybe not.

Usually, one entry doesn’t affect a puzzle much, but we have a very clean puzzle in the making with eight solid-to-great phrases and, surely, the theme is simple enough to have offered some alternatives? Phrases like MIDDLE SCHOOLS, THE MARRYING KIND, PITCHER'S MOUND, AMERICAS MOST WANTED could have found a home somewhere, no? WILL YOU MARRY ME? Hmm, don't want another M word (ME) in the phrase, or WILL YOU PARRY ME? would be cool. MISSING IN ACTION? Breakfast test!

Substituting a zingy alternative for this theme entry would have raised the rating to a 9.

Sidebar: This offer of alternative theme entries from the Shark highlights another problem with simple deletion/substitution/addition themes—the hard-working constructors have to suffer the ramblings of a smart-aleck blogger who thinks he can do better. Especially since he doesn't bother to count the number of letters in his alternative theme entries!

But forget the ratings and the score. This was an easy, breezy fun puzzle for the long weekend with several aha-inducing moments. I can't ask for more from my solving experience. And what brought a bigger smile to my face was Team Orbaldo's amazing prowess to launch commercial merchandise on Amazon.com (I kid you not, go ahead and enter "STUD PUFFIN" and buy one of these boxers for only $13.99). And don't forget to check out what people who bought these boxers also bought. If I see GLUTEUS MAXIMOOSE in the next puzzle, I know where the inspiration came from!

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Overall, "M N O P" is a wonderful debut (a Sunday New York Times debut, no less) for Amy Reynaldo and another delightful collaboration for Tony Orbach.

Kudos to veteran constructors who collaborate—and more power to accomplished solvers and bloggers who wish to enter the construction zone! And to all the new constructors, "Wear your hard hats, for ye know not what we, the critics, will throw at you in the blogosphere!"

—SHARK OUT

Read More...

Summary only...

Chicago Tribune "Puzzle Island"

Heads-up to Chicago-area puzzle fans: This weekend, the Sunday Trib will have a four-page puzzle section they're calling "Puzzle Island." I don't know what sort of puzzles they'll be, but I'm going to buy the paper to find out.

When financial considerations make the NYT move the second Sunday puzzle out of the Magazine (when ad pages are down...which could be every week this year) and inspire the Atlantic Monthly to drop the Hex cryptic from the magazine website, it's encouraging to see some extra puzzles pop up in a newspaper. Man, I hope it's not a page of word searches, Jumbles, and amateur crosswords.

Read More...

Summary only...

Saturday, 7/4

NYT 5:20
LAT 4:00
Newsday untimed
CS 7:20 (J―paper)

Happy Fourth of July!

Peter A. Collins and Joe Krozel's New York Times crossword

When a holiday lands on a Saturday, every now and then we get a commemorative themed Saturday puzzle. Peter and Joe's puzzle is anchored by INDEPENDENCE DAY running down at 7D, clued as the [Highest-grossing film of 1996], crossed by three related 15s: THE UNITED STATES is not just a country but also the [Fastest ocean liner ever in a transatlantic crossing (3 days, 12 hours, 12 minutes)]. The STARS AND STRIPES is what we call the U.S. flag and the name of a military newspaper, clued as [Private reading?], as in the newspaper read by privates in the Army. [Patriotic display] is the RED, WHITE, AND BLUE—and I didn't need the clue to fill that one in with a few crossings in place. The word count's just 70, so with unrelated 15s, this could be a themeless grid. I enjoyed this puzzle quite a bit.

Seven highlights before I hit the sack:

• 15A. MONGO is the [Planet ruled by Ming the Merciless in "Flash Gordon"]. I half watched the movie with my son last year. Ridiculously cheesy!
• 33A. [Copy cats?] is a verb phrase. If you imitate kitties, you might PURR.
• 49A. To [Bellyache] is to KVETCH. You know what the kvetchers cry, don't you? They cry "oy vey.'
• 58A. ROD STEIGER looks great in the puzzle. [Oscar-winning portrayer of Police Chief Bill Gillespie, 1967] is his clue. In the Heat of the Night opposite Sidney Poitier, no?
• 31D. [Star of India and others] are SAPPHIRES.
• 34D. [It may make people jump to a conclusion] clues a SACK RACE.
• 35D. [Broke a court rule] in basketball is TRAVELED.

Updated Saturday morning:

Randolph Ross's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Space Exploration"―Janie's review

While we don't have "Stars and Stripes Forever" on this Independence Day, Randy has provided a celestial array (with one star anyway). The beginning of each of the five theme-related phrases (in 61 letters of theme-fill) names a heavenly body.

• 17A. SUN MICROSYSTEMS [Computer company based in California]. That'd be the company that uses this logo.
  
• 29A. MOON MULLINS [1923-1991 comic strip character]. This link will take you to a page with panels from a few decades. The last one, from the early '70s is telling for the way it addresses the era of peace,beads and love. This fill, btw, is the only one of the five that seems not to be appearing for the first time in one of the puzzles covered by the Cruciverb database. Impressive.
  
• 36A. STAR JONES [Former controversial cohost of "The View"]. And her real first name isn't Star either. It's Starlet... The article will fill you in on the "controversial" part in case you need to know...
  
• 47A. MILKY WAY BAR [Chocolate and chewy candy]. I'm not a serious chocoholic and generally favor a Snickers Bar. But still―yum!
  
• 60A. PLANET HOLLYWOOD [Movie theme restaurant]. Really telling here is the number of locations closed. Yikes.

The remainder of the fill is very solid, with twelve 7-letter words. Faves of mine among those include: the elegant ELEGANT, EXURBIA, ANEROID [Barometer type], and the APOSTLE who may ABSTAIN. Or not...

I've not yet seen the movie (it's on my library dvd-list), but (the trailer of) Fight Club came to mind when I saw ACTS OUT beside RULE ONE [Most important guideline] (both of which appear to be CS debuts). Remember? "Welcome to Fight Club. The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is: you DO NOT talk about Fight Club!" That's one rule one ya wanna take very seriously!

Oh―and I'm wondering how many times NICOLAS [Cage on film] appears in the same puzzle as his aunt TALIA [Shire in show business]. Anyway, it's nice to see them paired here.

The cluing throughout was fairly straightforward, but not without some highpoints. I liked seeing familiar ASEA clued as [Between ports] which gives me a strong visual. Also liked ESTS for [Ballpark figs.]. Nice misdirection there, as often-as-not the fill is MGRS. So we're in the metaphorical ballpark today with an abbreviation for estimates and not in [your favorite stadium here] with the team's managers.

I felt there was something off in the cluing of ARMBAND. While there's precedent for [Symbol worn on a sleeve] as a crossword clue, darned if I could find support for it in the dictionary. Looking through most of the Onelook.com listings, I consistently came up with some variation of "band/piece of cloth worn around the arm for decoration/as identification or to indicate mourning/protest." The clue suggested emblem to me―which is one letter shy of course―the sort that folks in the military display. Or Scouts for that matter.

Before parting, will add that I enjoyed seeing the meeting of MA'AM and MESSRS in the northeast corner. Enjoy a happy, safe and glorious Fourth, all!

Dan Naddor's Los Angeles Times crossword

There's much to admire in this themed, 15x16, 73-word holiday crossword. Tons of good fill, clever clues, the works. See what I had to say over at L.A. Crossword Confidential. Between a foot injury, a nascent cold, and sleeping in this morning, I find I lack the pep to blog this puzzle a second time. But it's a good puzzle! If you haven't done it, you ought to make time for it.

Updated Saturday afternoon:

"Anna Stiga" or Stan Newman's Newsday "Saturday Stumper"

(PDF solution here.)

I did this one a quadrant at a time, starting with the lower right corner, moving up to the upper right, filling in the lower left, and trudging through the upper right last. While the only famous [Jan. honoree] is Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., it took forever to figure out what combination of his name and titles would fit together there. I call foul on DR. M. L. KING, JR., which looks cool in the grid with its 90% consonants, but doesn't at all sound like a common way to refer to King. It Googles OK but...meh.

JOB LOT isn't so familiar to me. It's a [Large quantity] and a solid in-the-dictionary term. I had the J for a long time before coming up with RAGTOPS (not HUBCAPS!) for [Auto parts] helped jostle things loose in that section.

Favorite clues and answers:

• [His fiction inspired "Airplane!"] clues Arthur HAILEY, who wrote Airport, which spawned several '70s disaster movies, which Airplane! then spoofed.
• IRA LEVIN, author of Rosemary's Baby, gets this clue: [Stephen King called him "the Swiss watchmaker"].
• A plain ol' LENS is [One of your contacts].
• When I had ODI* for [He wears a yellow coat and pants], I paused to question whether this was cartoon dog ODIE (yes) or Norse god ODIN (no).
• [Something Spooner might have "flung out"]...hmm, it's probably a spoonerism involving "hung out," so what's something that starts with FL that can be hung out and that becomes another word when the FL turns into an H? Flag —> HAG.
• JUDGE JUDY! Great answer. She's a [Non-nonsense arbiter] on TV.
• Trivia! [His "Time" cover featured seven syringes] kept me guessing for a long time. Turns out it's polio vaccine developer Jonas SALK. With S***, I briefly contemplated SOSA.

Read More...

Summary only...

Friday, 7/3

NYT 6:06
BEQ 3:58
LAT 3:38
CS 8:53 (J―paper)
WSJ 10:05

Kevin Der's New York Times crossword

This is my favorite of Kevin's puzzles to date. Look at this exquisite creature—super-duper Scrabbly, terrific fill, and fun clues. There's also a mix of high ([Apollonius of Rhodes' "Argonautica," e.g.] is an EPOS) and low (discounter KOHL'S is a [Target competitor]). What'd I like most? This:

• 1A. TIME WARP gets the puzzle off to a lively start. How many people misread "era" as "ear" in the clue, ["In one era and out the other" phenomenon?]?
  
• 15A. Usually "O SOLE MIO" gets the fill-in-the-blank treatment in crosswords, so it's nice to see the full title. It is the [Basis of Tony Martin's "There's No Tomorrow"], and no, I have no idea who Tony Martin is.
  
• 18A. HOOPLA's a great word. [Smoke and mirrors] are sort of a bunch of hoopla, I guess.
  
• 23A. ACER is a blah answer, but I like the Wimbledon-timely tennis clue, [One who has a quick point to make?]. Then I thought that 31D [One cooking a return] was the tennis player receiving serve, but it turned out to be a TAX EVADER.
  
• 29A. [Hornswoggles] is a great word, too. It means BILKS.
  
• 43A. The Z gets play in ZERO G, or zero gravity—[What you may experience when going around the world?].
  
• 56A. Goodbyes in England and France are [Cheerios, abroad] and ADIEUX. I sincerely hope some people tried to think of what Cheerios cereal might be called in other countries.
  
• 58A. The Q enters into COQ AU VIN, or [Certain fricassee]. Tricky Q without a U in hot pursuit.
  
• 2D. I'm going to ISAAC's second birthday party tomorrow. Not the one who was [Half brother of Midian, in the Bible]. Midian? Never saw that name before. Reminds me of the Jedi "midichlorians."
  
• 3D. MOIRE fabric is the shiny cloth with those optical wavy lines, or [Waves on garments]. The moiré pattern is also a visual effect.
  
• 8D. [Hogwarts class taught by Severus Snape] is POTIONS.
  
• 13D. A HULA SKIRT is indeed a [Grassy bottom].
  
• 30D. SWAZILAND! [Its flag includes a shield and two spears].
  
• 55D. [Like Magic?] is TALL. Magic Johnson, I presume.
  

I was less pleased with these two:

• 6D. AMOS is clued as [Half a 1950s TV duo]. Ah, yes, classic racist TV entertainment. (Kate and ALLIE is referenced in 34A [Half a 1980s TV duo].)
  
• 24D. MILKMAID is clued as [Girl with considerable pull?]. Ick. Can we keep evocations of teat pulling out of the crossword, please?
  

And here are a few tough clues for the Googlers out there:

• 40A. MEADE was the [Army of the Potomac commander].
  
• 44A. ANGELO's the first name of [Muhammad Ali cornerman Dundee].
  
• 54A. ATTILA the Hun is the [Historical figure on whom a Verdi opera is based].
  
• 63A. REAL EASY means [Like duck soup]. How many cranky letters will Will Shortz receive from outraged traditionalists who think the crossword is affirming that we don't have to say "really easy" any more? I hope zero.
  
• 5D. [ABC, Fox, etc., in Variety] are WEBS. What, NETS is too cumbersome for Variety? Variety is weird.
  
• 29D. BASEL, Switzerland, is the [City where Erasmus taught]. He was Dutch. What was he doing in Switzerland, aside from confusing 2009 crossword solvers?
  
• 38D. [Lines that lift up] aren't tow ropes on a ski hill or pulleys. The lines make up an ODE that, what, elevates the soul or boosts the ego?
  
• 47D. LUXES are the units also called [Meter-candles], or lumens per square meter.
  
• 49D. [Octavian's wife] was LIVIA. Was that Tony Soprano's mother's name, too?
  
• 54D. AQUA is a [Shade close to beryl].
  

Kevin made a splash last year(ish) with a record-breaking puzzle with 18 black squares and a low word count. This puzzle's got 72 entries, the max for a themeless. And I enjoyed it a lot more. I'm typically in the camp that treasures the quality of the fill more than the impressive difficulty of the construction. Go ahead and make us some more 72-worders, Kevin!

Updated Friday morning:

Raymond Hamel's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Garbage Bag"―Janie's review

What can I say? This puzzle is absolute rubbish―and as such is also quite perfect, I'm happy to say. Each of the theme-fill phrases ends in a word that's synonymous with garbage―and there's an EXTRA/bonus word as well. Let's review the choice refuse:

• 17A. [Proverb advising against a rash approach] HASTE MAKES WASTE. This looks to be the first time this phrase has appeared in a CS puzzle―so I guess that makes it fresh garbage... In this case, that's a very good thing indeed.
• 38A. [Ship observed on the Silk Road] CHINESE JUNK. A ship on a road? The Silk Road refers to the trade routes―maritime and overland―connecting China to the Mediterranean world, North and Northeast Africa and Europe.
• 60A. [Finest] PICK OF THE LITTER. Remember the "Don't be a Litterbug" campaigns?
• 25D. [Drunk, or an alternate title for this puzzle?] TRASHED. I do like how this crosses Chinese junk exactly in the center of the puzzle. Nice touch. And look―all that garbage and not one thing to make me say "UGH" ["Disgusting!"]. Smartly done, Mister Constructor!
  

Was this a particularly difficult puzzle? No. But in solving it, I sure did manage to [Move slowly] CREEP. Why? Well for starters, I couldn't get started. Not at the top anyway―unless you want to count the "A" in [Mauna ___] LOA. But was it gonna be LOA or KEA?... CREEP or CRAWL? Didn't have much luck either with ["___ girl!"] IT'S A or ATTA? The latta―but I chose the former, where at least the first "T" and the "A" were right. (Ooh―I just noticed that when you add "IL" to ATTA, ya get ATTILA [Hun leader].)

I think the first thing I filled in correctly and completely was CSI, and for reasons I'll never understand, that was all I needed to open up the SE, where I couldn't have been happier to see Indonesia's KRAKATOA [Volcano that violently erupted in 1883] at 40D. And what's there at 39D? Another lava-spewer, ETNA [Sicilian volcano].

See that fine crossing of GAS and GASPED? For some time I'd completed that first word, clued [Need on a road trip], with MAP. Silly me. All ya hafta do is ask for directions, right?... Am wondering if anyone out there tried GPS.

At any rate, once I was able to get some kind of solving rhythm going, the rewards were many:

• COSMETIC and CASTLE [Chess verb];
• CLAM UP and (apparent first-timer) the dynamic POWERED UP [Started, as a computer];
• that nifty crossing of AYE-AYE and EYE; of BAJA [__ California] and [Carne __] ASADA [(Mexican dish)];
• the shout-out to [Mrs. Archie Bunker], EDITH, memorably portrayed by the funny and always touching Jean Stapleton;
• and best of all, the other apparent first-timer, KID ACTORS, clued here as [Cast of "The Little Rascals"]. We are living in such a new world. Kid actors actually have their own website these days. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

A [Period of time served]―in the armed forces, say, or in jail―is a STINT; and a [Quick glance]―a summary as opposed to a work in its entirety, for example―is an APERÇU.

In researching the fill on the Cruciveb database, I learned that this theme has been used on two other occasions―and that some of the theme fill had seen the light of day in those puzzles. But ya know what? When you get a puzzle with as much fresh, lively fill as this one delivers, there's little to object to. The theme continues to work and the non-theme fill couldn't be better. Hurray for Ray!

Jeff Chen's Los Angeles Times crossword

We've got a new (I think) name atop today's L.A. Times puzzle, Jeff Chen. Congrats on the debut!

The theme is "X in the Y" phrases or titles rendered by moving the X word between "the" and "Y" to replace "in":

• 17A. [1988 biopic about Dian Fossey, literally] clues THE GORILLAS MIST, or Gorillas in the Mist.
  
• 27A. [It's too important to ignore, literally] is the figurative "elephant in the room," or THE ELEPHANT ROOM.
  
• 49A. [Kids' ball game, literally] is THE MONKEY MIDDLE, or "monkey in the middle." (I hated being the monkey.) Why, look, it's all animals in the middle! A tight theme.
  
• 65A. [Metaphorical philosophical conflict used as an album title by The Police, literally] is THE GHOST MACHINE, or Ghost in the Machine. Oh. Not an animal. So the theme's a little looser. At least there's an even balance between familiar phrases and titles of creative works.
  

I'm crunched for time and focus this morning—there's a toddler's birthday party at 10 a.m. and I may have a broken toe. Today's L.A. Crossword Confidential post by Rex isn't up yet, but should be soon. That'll review more clues than just the theme.

Patrick Blindauer's Wall Street Journal crossword, "Let Freedom Ring"

The timely holiday theme is 54D LIBERTY, and each of the letters in that word is added to a phrase to change it. I've circled those letters in the grid and bolded them below:

• 23A. [Truthful member of the first family?] is HONEST ABEL.
  
• 28A. [Bad things for acrophobic teetotalers?] are STAIRS AND BARS.
  
• 36A. [Snoopy and family?] are AMERICAN BEAGLES.
  
• 73A. [Relative who leaves you in stitches?] is UNCLE SEAM.
  
• 104A. [East Coast ball for bawlers?] is the BOSTON TEAR PARTY.
  
• 114A. [Motto of a self-important dictator's followers?] is TIN GOD WE TRUST.
  
• 124A. [Extras in "The Wizard of Oz"?] are MINUTE MANY.
  

Oh, hey! I didn't fully notice this while solving (I'm barely awake), but each of the base phrases has patriotic American history significance. Well done, Patrick. The longest Down answers are also related to the theme. 69D GREAT BRITAIN is clued as [George III's kingdom], and he was king in 1776. Who knew that 3D YANKEE DOODLE was the [State song of Connecticut]? I sure couldn't tell you what Illinois's state song is.

Insanest crossing: 33D YNEZ, or [Santa ___ (neighbor of Lompoc, California)], meets 53A ZEILE, or [Todd who hit homers for 11 major league teams]. Ynes is also a valid spelling of the name, and I've never heard of the baseball player, so the Z was more or less a good guess.

Favorite clues: [First sound of impact?] is the SHORT I sound. [The land down under?] is underwater ATLANTIS.

Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Strip Search"

This one's a repeat from Brendan's run of Time Out New York puzzles. It's basically an easyish themeless puzzle with a word search in it. I found seven of the 10 hidden comic strip names. Did y'all find the other three?

Read More...

Summary only...

July linkfest

Tournament!

It's Lollapuzzoola 2! It takes place August 22 in Queens, registration is $20, and there's an all-star line-up of constructors and officials. "Beg your pardon, but what is Lollapuzzooola?" some of you may be asking. Why, it's a small crossword tournament put on by Ryan Hecht and Brian Cimmet of Ryan and Brian Do Crosswords blogular fame. Some of the tournament puzzles will have a multimedia aspect to them, the sort of thing a newspaper crossword just can't do. If you're in the New York area and dig crosswords, you have no excuse not to go to Lollapuzzoola 2. Ryan and Brian, will you be selling Lollapuzzoola 2 t-shirts there? Because those would be awesome.

Ha ha!

Crossword constructor Deb Amlen, one of the Onion A.V. Club team of puzzlemakers, has a new humor blog at debamlen.com. I subscribe to the RSS feed so I always know when a new post is up, but you can also get a heads-up from Deb's Twitter feed, @DebAmlen. Her first book, It's Not PMS, It's You is coming out next year and is about relationships, not crosswords.

A different kind of puzzle!

Matt Gaffney's latest crossword contest featured a Kaidoku (a.k.a. coded crossword or alphacode) puzzle. As of today, Alex Boisvert and Matt have a new blog called Kaidoku! They'll have a new Kaidoku puzzle twice a week, solvable via Java applet or printed PDF. I enjoyed Matt's Pocket Idiot's Guide: Kaidoku. (What's a pocket idiot?)

Read More...

Summary only...

Thursday, 7/2

NYT 6:13
Jonesin' 3:38
LAT 3:09
Tausig untimed
CS 6:08 (J―paper)

D'oh! Matt Jones tweeted me (@jonesinpuzzles) to ask where my writeup of his puzzle was. Yeah. I meant to do that yesterday, but completely forgot. Let's add it to Thursday's list of things to try not to forget!

Elizabeth Gorski's New York Times crossword

It's Thursday, and you know what that means—sometimes, not every week but some Thursdays, there's a rebus. Throw Ms. Gorski in the byline and it's practically a certainty. This time, there are four rebus squares in the central answer:

• 34A. [Famous quote by 20-Across] is "{ROSE} IS A {ROSE} IS A {ROSE} IS A {ROSE}." Who is 20-Across?
  
• 20A. [Pittsburgh-born poet who was the subject of a Picasso portrait] is GERTRUDE STEIN. Here's that painting and the interesting story behind it.
  
• 50A. What's up with the rebus squares? They're a FLORAL DISPLAY, or [Colorful decoration hinted at by 34-Across].

I worked too many Longo vowelless crosswords before doing this puzzle tonight, and my brain wanted long answers with only the consonants showing. Between that, the rebus, and some wicked-hahd clues, you'd think it was Saturday or something. Sheesh! Here were my trouble spots:

• 1A. LIST means [Not stay fully upright]. So do LEAN and TILT.
  
• 10A. [Year the Chinese poet Li Po was born]? Come on! I'll take Roman numeral arithmetic over that kind of clue. It's DCCI, or 701.
  
• 16A. [10 to 1, e.g.] is a ROUT if those numbers are points scored by two opposing players.
  
• 30A. ELMS are [Raw materials for shipbuilding]. Is that really the lingo? Are the trees used for shipbuilding, or is it the wood?
  
• 57A. HILO is a city in Hawaii, but it's also HI-LO, a [Kind of poker] I've never heard of. Bring me the stud. I have heard of the stud.
  
• 59A, 53D. I like Lisa Kudrow but...["___ X" (2003 Lisa Kudrow film)] crossing [Mil. awards] damn near killed me. MARCI and DSCS. I took a stab at DSTS, even though DST as in daylight saving time is at 41A.
  
• 60A. No! Really? ASIR? A [Province of Saudi Arabia]? Don't recall seeing that one ever.
  
• 1D. LIEGES are [Subjects studied by medieval scholars?] in that lieges are the subjects of a lord. Strangely, liege can also mean the lord.
  
• 11D. Never did read Julius Caesar, so I needed plenty of crossings to see that CORNELIA is the [Wife of Julius Caesar].

And now for the things I liked that didn't give me fits:

• 39A. Albert CAMUS is the one [Who wrote "Can one be a saint if God does not exist?].
  
• 55A. SHOE FETISH is clued by way of [Carrie Bradshaw had one in "Sex and the City"]. High heels, feh. Foot-mangling waste of money. Terrific entry, though. Can one have a SHOE FETISH for sensible shoes, like Merrell and Naot? Because one can never have too many pairs of those.
  
• 61A. KOLN (Köln, really) is the German spelling of Cologne. It's a German cathedral city. Relieved to know this one, right on the heels of the MARCI and ASIR debacles.
  
• 7D. TIME? [It may be on your side]. Are you singing that Rolling Stones song now?
  
• 9D. [Twisted this clue's is] suggests mangled SYNTAX. Yoda! Is that you? Are you working for Will Shortz now?
  
• 24D. AMB{ROSE} is clued as [Writer Bierce]. He wrote The Devil's Dictionary in 1911. The Barnes & Noble review of my book had given Bierce credit for a mock definition of "crossword," but the crossword was invented in 1913.
  
• 27D, 46D. MO{ROSE} means [Gloomy], and EEYORE, a [Character in "Piglet's Big Movie," 2003] is a classic example of moroseness. (The other two rebuses are in {ROSE} RED, [Snow White's sister}, and {ROSE} UP, or [Was revolting].)
  
• 44D. [Like Chopin] clues POLISH. Don't let the "Frederic" fool you.

Updated Thursday morning:

Patrick Jordan's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "A Wrinklin' Time"―Janie's review

Playing off the title Madeleine L'Engle's science fiction/fantasy classic A Wrinkle in Time, Patrick's three theme-fill phrases each begin with a something that is associated with being, well, wrinkled.

• 17A. [With "The," 1980 Anthony Hopkins film] gets us started with ELEPHANT MAN (which is also a play). Metaphorically speaking, wrinkles are sometimes known as "ripples of time." This guy is very well-rippled...
• 37A. [1959 Broadway show with Sidney Poitier] yields A RAISIN IN THE SUN (which is also a movie). Yep. Raisins are mighty wrinkly, too.
• 56A. [Fruity breakfast pastry] serves up PRUNE DANISH. No argument here.

The strength of this theme-fill is in the images it summons up―and the images for all three entries are perfection. Additionally, all three feel very fresh and (in the Cruciverb database-era [CDbE]) are appearing for the first time in a CS puzzle. Where I feel a bit let down is in the lack of consistency from phrase to phrase. Two are the titles of stage/film works; one is an edible. One of the former appears in the grid minus the article that's part of its title; the other appears in its entirety. Raisin and prune are both examples of dried fruits; the elephant...isn't.

That said, I thoroughly enjoyed solving this one, and the quality of the non-theme fill/clues is first rate. For starters, there's the whole Asian/Pacific feel we get with: GEISHAS, GURUS, KRISHNA, SRI [...Lanka], ["Kama ___"] SUTRA, and even ["Pearly Shells" singer] DON HO. SEN-SEN [Classic breath freshener] sounds like it should be Asian, but there's nothing in its history to support that idea. What a nice aural complement it is, though, to YENS [Longings] and ESSENTIAL.

The top half of the puzzle is nicely scattered with high-scorin' Scrabble letters in such words as: JERSEY, OZONE, OLIVE, EXHIBITS and XEROX.

We're also treated to a series of lively phrases: HOME BASE clued not in conjunction with America's favorite pastime, but as [Headquarters]; CDbE CS-first SIDE BET [Secondary wager]; TRADE UP, ON SPEC and SANK IN. Something that has been cut IN TWO has been [Bisected, say]. Once cut, will the parts ever again be able to UNITE [Form an alliance]?

While I have no strong interest in GUNS, I do like that UZI is clued as an [Israel Weapons Industries product]. The specificity in the clue gives us a fresh take on now-standard fill. Ditto [Finnish steam bath] for SAUNA. Other geographic references can be found in [Costa] DEL [Sol], ELLIS [New York Harbor island] and [Eugene resident] OREGONIAN. Not only is this word absent from the C'verb database (and Jim Horne's), but in looking for images of prunes, I found a wonderful one of a fruit crate label for (really) Beaver Brand Fancy Evaporated Oregon Prunes. Gee I love it when everything comes together like this!

Pete Muller's Los Angeles Times crossword

The plumber's coming this morning so I figured I'd better clean the bathroom. No wonder I hate doing that—it wore me out and made me develop that crossword dyslexia in which I read entirely wrong clues and proceed to fill in errant answers. The first "INNER EAR" theme entry is the [1979 Sister Sledge hit] WE ARE FAMILY, but somehow I turned that space into 14-Across and tried to get [With 26-Across, city in southern Brazil]. RIODEJANEIRO doesn't fit at all and yet I tried typing that in.

So, anyway! The INNER EAR is the [Balance organ that's literally found in the answers to starred clues]—besides the Sister Sledge song (which I love), there's NOSE AROUND, ANNE ARCHER, THE ART OF WAR, and AREA RUGS. That two-part Brazilian city is PORTO / ALEGRE, and no, it wouldn't be fair to put that in a Monday puzzle. This one's Thursday, so it'll fly.

For more on this puzzle, check out PuzzleGirl's L.A. Crossword Confidential post. The Crosswordese 101 tutorial today is that [Inland Asian sea], the ARAL Sea, its assorted clues, and how it is not the URAL. I went to school with a kid named Ural.

Matt Jones's Jonesin' puzzle, "Additive Properties: You're giving me a headache"

The theme's not about math, it's about a common food additive that gives some people headaches. 67A is NO MSG, a [Dietary restriction that the long answers manage to disregard], and the five longest entries have an embedded MS G. (The 10-letter answerts COMICS PAGE and MELLO YELLO aren't part of the theme; they're merely fantastic entries.) Here's the theme:

• 20A. Reversing a common clue for ENOS, we have [The Bible's Enos, relatively speaking?] as a clue for ADAM'S GRANDSON.
  
• 24A. H.M.S. GREENWICH is a [British ship that shares its name with a New York "village"].
  
• 36A. [Former name of the airport in Phoenix, Arizona] is WILLIAMS GATEWAY. Or WILLIAM'S? I like to think the new name is the more casual "Bill's Vacation Portal."
  
• 44A. ALL SYSTEMS GO is the classic [NASA OK]. Look at that crazy all-caps clue.
  
• 52A. ["I'm fine with it"] means SEEMS GOOD TO ME.
  

The most unusual answer is HARD CH, clued as [Feature of "Christmas" or "chimera"]. I'm pretty sure linguists would just call that something like a K sound. I see websites that call the CH in "chimichanga" a "hard CH," vs. a soft one "chemise."

Plumber's here—gotta go!

Updated Thursday afternoon—no, make that Thursday evening

Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword, "Special K"

What's going on in this puzzle is a K sound is inserted into four familiar phrases to make 'em into entirely different things spelled with a QUE:

• 18A. BLACK BASQUE is clued as [African immigrant in the Pyrenees?]. I suspect there's a fish called the black bass.
  
• 27A. [Dialing up an expensive shop?] is a BOUTIQUE CALL, riffing on "booty call." Nice!
  
• 46A. I have a weakness for Auntie Anne's Pretzels, the cinnamon/sugar ones in particular. I once chose a flight that connected through Pittsburgh specifically because the Pittsburgh airport had Auntie Anne's. This was back in the '90s, before the chain invaded the Midwest. If you were on a flight from Pittsburgh to Chicago around 1996 and the smell of cinnamon was tormenting you, I apologize. Auntie Anne's with a K sound inserted becomes ANTIQUE ANNE'S, a [Mall kiosk with really stale pretzels].
  
• 59A. I'd much rather eat sugared pretzels than wasabi peas, but that's just me. WASABI PIQUE might be an [Intense feeling from eating sushi?].
  

Now, who will swing by Water Tower Place to fetch me a cinnamon/sugar pretzel? I'm really hankering for one right now.

Favorite clues:

• 24A. ARETHA is [Preacher and civil rights activist C.L. Franklin's daughter.
  
• 41A. You say ["Ch-ch-ch-___"] and David Bowie sings "Changes." The TV commercials sell you CHIA Pets.
  
• 55A. With those alternating consonants and vowels, ISABEL should find good use in crosswords. A currently famous one is [___ Toledo (designer of Michelle Obama's inauguration dress)].
  
• 3D. [Dash alternative] sounds like...laundry detergent? No, a COLON—in punctuation. You know: <— one of those. 34D. To KNIT is to [Be a needle user?]. 54D. [Item manufactured in Blaine in "Waiting for Guffman"] is a STOOL. Gotta love the little touches of the ludicrous that Christopher Guest puts in his movies.

I didn't know BATU, the [Mongol ruler Khan descended from Genghis]. Do you think Genghis Khan was a cuddly grandpa? I'll bet he was.

Read More...

Summary only...