NYS 5:12
NYT 4:08
LAT tba
CS 2:59
I don't know about you, but I found the fill and clues in Barry Silk's Wednesday New York Times crossword to be distinctly Thursdayish in difficulty. If you = Howard Barkin, then no, it's more like a Tuesday, no trouble here at all. But if you're like me, you may have found yourself piecing together unfamiliar phrases for three quarters of the theme entries. Mind you, I'm not complaining—I like harder crosswords. I just don't care for it when another solver insists that there was no particular challenge at all. Not that Howard would insist in such a fashion—he's far too polite for that.
As for the specifics, the theme is a bit of a conundrum. There's MYSTERY, ALASKA, which the clue tells us is a [1999 Russell Crowe movie]. I recall that it was a quirky hockey movie, but not that Crowe was in it. There's a PROBLEM CHILD—hey! I got that one right off the bat with a few crossings. There's the PUZZLE PALACE, which is both [Nickname for the National Security Agency] and the nickname for the spacious condo that some puzzle folks shared at Sundance in 2006. Last, there's the [W.W. II encryption device] called ENIGMA MACHINE. Cool for a crossword puzzle to have puzzles as its theme.
Highlights in the fill: DORM ROOM; the fairly arbitrary fraternity name ZETA PSI; the rather arbitrary-sounding [Last king of the united Sweden and Norway], OSCAR II; the LAST EXIT; VEXED; the [Fielder's cry], "I GOT IT!"; and the so-retro-it's ["Groovy!"] FAR OUT. Favorite and/or most vexatious clues: [A lot of pizzazz?] for ZEES (dang it, I was trying to make ZEAL or ZEST fit there); [Scorecard listing] for ROSTER (no big sports fan, I was looking for a 6-letter stat); [Deplaned, e.g.] for ALIT (this one I like because of its sheer ludicrousness—when's the last time you heard anyone mention "alighting" from anything, plane or otherwise? Okay, when's the last time it was a non-crossworder?); and ["Die Frau ___ Schatten" (Strauss opera)] for OHNE (it means "The Woman Without a Shadow," and while I don't know the title at all, I do remember my German prepositions). Hey! Go Google without. You'll get an interesting assortment of sites if you do.
Tony Orbach's New York Sun puzzle, "Shot to the Body," adds some BB shot to five phrases to generate long theme entries. The top and bottom pairs of theme entries are stacked together (staggered by a few squares), and the middle theme entry's bracketed by 7-letter answers above and below, so there's a spacious feel to the grid. My favorite theme entry transformed pre-Ahnuld California governor Gray Davis into Geena GRABBY DAVIS—certainly an unexpected place to invoke a governor's name. Favorite fill: VEX! Yes, I always love vex in all its forms. And SLACKER. Favorite clues: [Shoppers at a white sale?] for WINOS (who, it is well known, have a decided preference for chenin blanc); [Saint with a Minnesota college named after him] for OLAF (Ahem! I have a decided preference for St. Olaf's crosstown rival, my alma mater); [Solution to a Diophantine equation, e.g.] for INTEGER (wow, that clue works hard to addle the non-mathematician solvers! I'm not Googling this one—let's see who is the first mathematician to explain what a Diophantine equation is in the comments); [Long Island ice tea ingredient] for COLA (I drank plenty of those in college, but no longer remember all the other ingredients); [Numbers can be found in it] for BIBLE; [Deutsche marque?] for the brand name AUDI, unrelated to [Quattro foursome], or BLADES on a Schick Quattro razor; [Land of Lincoln: Abbr.] for NEBR (city of Lincoln, not home of Abe); [Fudge alternative] for DRAT; and [It might have a long run on Broadway] for a TAXICAB. You know, that COBBLE PORTER theme entry keeps making me think of Oswald Cobblepot, a.k.a. Batman's nemesis, the Penguin.
Updated:
Bonnie Gentry's LA Times crossword has four theme entries that begin with the words KNOCK, DOWN, DRAG, and OUT—as in a "knock-down, drag-out" BOUT (57-Down). Too bad KNOCK DOWN DRAG OUT is 16 letters long—it'd make a great anchor entry for a crossword.
Sarah Keller's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Sound Bites," featured animal sounds: FROG CROAKING, SHEEP BLEATING, etc. Tons of names in this one—23 proper nouns, mostly people but also a few places. Names generally make a puzzle easy for me.
January 15, 2008
Wednesday, 1/16
January 14, 2008
A thoughtful rant
There's a newish crossword blogger in the neighborhood by the name of JimH. I liked his latest post, which touches on the blandness of the average newspaper crossword that must avoid offending the tastes of aging subscribers. Jim also calls for the standard-bearer NYT crossword to embrace a little more hipness, to attract the younger solvers whose sensibilities may be more in line with those of the Onion A.V. Club crossword. I heartily concur!
(Jim has also crafted his own database of NYT crosswords with nifty features like a listing of the most common answers from 3 to 15 letters in length. LEONARDODAVINCI is the most popular 15. Who knew?)
Tuesday, 1/15
Onion 5:35—Great puzzle! If you don't already get the Onion puzzle via e-mail, you can sign up here
Tausig 4:00
CS 3:58
NYT 3:17
NYS 3:15
LAT 3:15
Last week, the Monday New York Times puzzle was by Lynn Lempel, who'd had the Sunday puzzle. This week, the Tuesday constructors are the same ones who made the latest Sunday puzzle: Stella Daily and Bruce Venzke. The theme is a familiar one, SOAPS. I've seen a couple other brand-name soap crossword themes in the last couple years, but you know what? I kinda like brand-name themes in general. Here, there's ZEST FOR LIFE and TONE OF VOICE, both following the soap/preposition/noun form, and COAST GUARD and IVORY TOWER using soap/noun phrases. Highlights in the fill: Scrabbly EXODUS, ZIP CODE, and GAZEBO along with that ZEST soap; ALFALFA clued with Our Gang; LEAD FOOT; the phrase TO DIE FOR; and over-frequent crossword denizen NEON expanded to fresher NEON GAS. (Which might sound clunky to chemists, I don't know. It sounds fine to me.) Less-satisfying fill: EZIO Pinza, one of those almost-only-in-crosswords names; [Lombardy province or its capital], VARESE, a not-so-well-known Italian place name; ITAR[-Tass news agency], another of those things relatively few non-crossword fans are likely to know. Extra bonus points for including AZT, which the Cruciverb.com database tells me has appeared in five NYT crosswords but only once in the other papers' crosswords. As far as three-letter abbreviations go, this one's got human importance as the [First drug approved to treat AIDS]. Beats the OPA any day!
Alan Arbesfeld's New York Sun puzzle, "Opening Moves," has one of those themes I didn't notice while solving. What was it? Let's see. I gather that it's the scrambling of the first three letters of each theme entry, including all six permutations. IN A QUANDARY and IAN FLEMING, AIN'T SHE SWEET and ANIMAL HOUSE, NAIL-BITERS and NIAGARA FALLS. Excellent sextet of answers, those. Not only are there these 66 squares of theme action, but the surrounding fill manages to give us five Z's along with the Q in the topmost theme entry. Favorite clues: [Girl from uncle?] for COUSIN; [Huitzilopochtli worshiper] for AZTEC (yeah, I had to look at the screen a lot while copying that clue); [Southwest, e.g.: Abbr.] for DIR (not airline!); [Trouble bubble contents] for DIE, referring to the board game's Pop-o-matic dome; [Electronic memory game with four colored lights] for SIMON (ah, the '80s!); [Short cut] for a BUZZ haircut; and the Run Lola Run clue for LOLA (now, that's a tense and adrenalin-crazed movie).
Updated:
The LA Times crossword by Verna Suit doubles up the opening syllables of four phrases to create theme entries with a skewed sense: tumbling becomes TUM-TUM BLING (]Flashy navel jewelry?]), codependent turns into fashionably COCO-DEPENDENT, there's a CAN-CAN OF WORMS ([High-kicking dance of limbless critters]—figure out for yourself what exactly the worms are high-kicking), and there are some GO-GO GETTERS. Favorite clue: [Food box word with a cable car in its "o"] for RONI. Cute little factoid for an otherwise lifeless entry. Given the preponderance of tramless O's that showed up in a Google image search, I wonder if that's a new thing.
In Mel Rosen's "STOP Fooling Around" puzzle for the CrosSynergy team, five anagrams of STOP are listed in the clues for the theme answers, which are all words or phrases that might be crossword clues for those 4-letter words. What's a SPOT? It's a LITTLE MARK—not the sort of phrase that can stand on its own as a crossword entry, but in this reverse-clue sort of theme, it'll work.
Updated again:
Matt Gaffney's Onion A.V. Club crossword is a thing of beauty with one small wart on it. Packed with 7- and 8-letter fill, it's got a word count suitable for a handsome themeless puzzle, but with three theme entries. Those theme entries take a palindromic 3-letter word at the beginning, middle, or end of a phrase and extend it into a 5-letter palindrome, still making a clueable phrase. Santa Ana winds become SANTA XANAX WINDS, and EVE and EKE become LEVEL and DEKED. Too many favorite entries to list 'em all—they include THE MINI, Monopoly's ST. JAMES Place, EXIT VISA, WAVE HI, RIYADH, AAARGH, Shatner's TEK WAR, C-CUPS, and FINITO. The wart was the nasty little trouble spot where a Glen Campbell song hits a semi-literate, semi-enunciated thing. Glen sang, "You've got TO PAVE your way into tomorrow," but boy, did I go through a lot of the alphabet there. The P crossed ["Whatevs..."], or PSH. But I still love this puzzle for its themeless-level fill crossed with Onion-sensibility cluing (South Park's "The Passion of the JEW", a smoker's STASH, a texted THX). Matt is in the running for the year's best improvement of a crosswordese word, with ANA and EKE promoted to key roles in a theme that works well.
Ben Tausig's Chicago Reader/Ink Well puzzle, "The Hidden Coin Trick," buries a dime, penny, nickel, and quarter among the theme entries, spread out in the circled squares. Next-wave crossword fill includes ANAL, COMMODE, CLEAVAGE, and PUHLEASE, not to mention SMELT clued as ["He who ___ it..."], as in "He who smelt it dealt it." Many clever and interesting clues: [Act the fifth columnist] for SUBVERT; [Go too far with the fast] for STARVE; [Misogynist comedian Cook] for DANE; [Creator of the annual Overlooked Film Festival] for EBERT; and the knowingness of [Cruciverbally useful Indonesian buffalo] for ANOA.
January 13, 2008
Monday, 1/14
NYS 3:23
LAT 2:55
CS 2:48
NYT 2:31
I don't watch much football these days, but I caught the last few minutes of the Giants/Cowboys game this evening. Seeing the Cowboys lose is even more rewarding than watching the Yankees lose. The Cowboys are the only NFL team I've ever been able to summon up any antipathy for. It must've been that whole overplayed "America's Team" nonsense.
Robert Dillman had a better day than quarterback Tony Romo, with the Sunday-evening release of his Monday New York Times puzzle. The theme is [Good sign at/on a...], with END ROADWORK (hooray!), FREE KITTENS (uh, I'll pass), VACANCY (well, if it's the Bates Motel, that's actually not such a good sign to see), JUST MARRIED (mazel tov!), and PRIZE INSIDE a candy box. A candy box? Boxes of candy have prizes? I can't think of any. Cracker Jack and breakfast cereal, yes. The candy is the prize. Surely my readers know examples of candy with a prize inside and will share. I like the Japanese restaurant vibe with SUSHI and SAKE, not to mention PLUMS (which are used to make sweet plum wine) and a TEA SET. Slangy PLUNKS and WEENIE liven up matters. There's a [Despotic ruler] called a SATRAP, which was just a tangential subject at Rex's blog last Monday.
"Pushing the Envelope" is the subject in Mark Feldman's New York Sun crossword. A group of LETTERMEN is represented by its star players: actor TERENCE STAMP, writer NORMAN MAILER, and aviator WILEY POST. Highlights: GOOGLED and RUGRATS, along with the high-Scrabble-count letters throughout the grid (two Js, two Xs, a Z, a Q, a K). Just once, though, I'd love to see MAXIS clued as [Thin ___].
Updated:
Thomas Schier's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Clean Slate," fills in the blanks with blank, or synonyms of blank—a BLANK EXPRESSION, WHITE SALE, EMPTY NEST, and CLEAR CONSCIENCE. One utterly unfamiliar name in the grid—children's author ELISA Bartone. Her Peppe the Lamplighter is a Caldecott Honor Book.
Doug Peterson's LA Times puzzle is a little aloof. I WANT TO BE ALONE unites a DETACHED GARAGE, COOL ONE'S HEELS, and REMOTE CONTROL. One wonders if the 10-letter answers have any connection: Do the COSA NOSTRA enjoy BOARD GAMES?
January 12, 2008
Sunday, 1/13
BG 10:46
NYT 9:50
WaPo 8:20
LAT 8:09
PI 7:32
CS 5:29
The Sunday New York Times puzzle was crafted by the team of Stella Daily and Bruce Venzke. In "Baby Talk," the theme entries have been translated into baby talk in that the L's in the various phrases have been changed to baby-talk W's. [Rouse a beloved English queen?] is WAKE VICTORIA (from Lake Victoria), and the gross [Stick one's foot in Chardonnay?] is TOE THE WINE. I also like [Married in error?], or WED ASTRAY. There are 11 theme entries, two of them vertical ones that cross multiple Across theme answers. Zippy fill includes SEE A SHOW and TAKE A CAB (outings in NYC!), LIVEN UP and UP TO NOW, the ARROW KEY and ALSO-RANS. Favorite clues: [Bean town?] for LIMA; [___ d'amore] for OBOE (What?! This oboe of love is unknown to me); [Donkey Kong, for one] for APE; [Goll-lee!"] for DANG; [Word before and after "a"] for MANO; [Viscera] for OFFAL (organs!); [Illustrator for Charles Dickens] for PHIZ (Who?! Born Hablot Knight Browne, he signed his illustrations as Phiz); [Bird whose name sounds like its call] for NENE (who'da thunk a crossword would teach me a new tidbit about the old NENE?); [Tricks] for KNAVERY (great word!); [Metal that may ignite if scratched] for CERIUM (raise your hand if you tried CESIUM or another 6-letter element here); [Tribal chief] for KHAN (as in "Khaaaaan!!"); [They're not good for QB's] for INTS (Packers QB Brett Favre, as is his wont, didn't throw any interceptions in today's playoff game against Seattle, despite the ludicrously heavy snow that fell throughout the game; and [Big mouth] for MAW (just because I like the word MAW).
Merl Reagle's Philadelphia Inquirer puzzle, "Spaced-Out People," has a great theme. Each of the 16 short (7- or 8-letter) theme entries is a first name that will fill in a blank if you split it into two or more words. ["Why does Ma let ___ her like that?"] clues PATRICK (as in "Pa trick"), and ["I can sing this ___ major but it won't sound too good"] clues CAROLINE (carol in E). Not to mention "I like only the MILD RED peppers" and "I love to detail pickup trucks but I will DO NO VAN without a down payment." Hey, this puzzle was fun!
Robert Doll's Washington Post crossword, "Solve Dis!", serves up eight phrases that end with words that can also mean dis, as in "criticize." The cosmetician's insult might be a LIPSTICK SMEAR, for example, and the mechanic might issue an ENGINE KNOCK. I kinda like GANGSTA RAP repurposing "rap" with the sense of the word that doesn't get much play (and which I think I learned from crosswords).
Henry Hook's Boston Globe puzzle in Across Lite, "Cross Words," has cranky puns on an assortment of 10 phrases, changing one word into a word that embodies crossness. Some of the puns involve spelling changes (PIQUE-ABOO), some involve vowel-sound changes (CHRISTMAS WRATH), some have consonant-sound changes (ANGERS AWEIGH), and some add a consonant or entire syllable (DANDERLIONS, INCENSE ORGANS). It is this sort of pun theme that moves me the least—and the new phrases didn't strike me as funny. The fill highlights make a nice menagerie: SCHNAUZER, MUSK OXEN, BONZO the cinematic chimp, and WILE E. Coyote.
Updated:
Dan Naddor's syndicated LA Times puzzle, "Two by Fours," not only has plenty of zippy fill (HOME ICE, D.C. AREA, CAMEO ROLE, CUTS INTO), it's also got a fun theme involving adjacent foursomes of 2-letter chunks. DI is repeated in DID IDI DIVIDE UGANDANS, a CONDO DODO DOZES has four DOs in a row, and the IS question is, IS ISIS ISLAMIC? I enjoyed piecing these together once the letter pair suggested itself from crossing entries. Let me take this opportunity to commend Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis, who edit this Sunday puzzle so that it offers a consistent level of quality and fun. This puzzle, which the LA Times syndicates to other papers but does not print in its own paper, is consistently one of my favorites each weekend. I have no idea who Joyce Nichols Lewis is and how she and Rich divide the workload, but I sure like the output.
Randolph Ross's themeless CrosSynergy "Sunday Challenge" is of mid-range difficulty, not easy but not so tough either. The most surprising answer is USED POT, clued as [Was a joint owner?]. Drugs! At the Sunday-morning breakfast table! This doesn't perturb me in the least, but I was surprised to see it in a newspaper crossword that doesn't skew young or racy too often. Favorite entries: First, there's ROTISSERIE league sports; the name is credited to Daniel Okrent (who said "because I'm an obsessive creep" in Wordplay), who used to meet some friends for fantasy sports action at a restaurant called La Rotisserie Francaise. Also from sports, there's BIG PAPI. Also a nice phrase, YOU AND I, that happens to be (ick) a Celine Dion song. BOND GIRL is classic pop culture. And I like the word APOTHEOSIS for whatever reason.
January 11, 2008
Saturday, 1/12
LAT 6:46
Newsday 5:05
NYT 4:56
CS 2:54
NYT second Sunday: Diagramless 12:53
My favorite entries in Frederick Healy's New York Times puzzle are the ones with unexpected letter combinations. I didn't know there was a MT. POCONO ([Touristy resort borough SE of Scranton, Pa.]) out there in the Poconos region, but I suppose it shouldn't be surprising. [Much unscripted fare] is REALITY TV; if you like TV but not reality TV, this writers' strike may be burdensome to you. (May I recommend the 30 Rock Season One DVD set?) There's also the M.D. DEGREE, or [Acquisition before becoming a resident]; a Chrysler K-CAR, or [Plymouth Reliant, for one]; and a LT. GOV. (pronounced "lite gov" in some parts), or [State second: Abbr.] Okay, K-CAR wasn't a fave, but it fits the odd-letter-combos category.
Other entries I liked: KICK-START to [Energize] something. ROAD RAGE, clued with the noun-not-a-verb phrase [Fits behind the wheel?]. In my teen years, I loved the [1984 Cyndi Lauper hit] "SHE BOP," which turned out to be a song about masturbation, and yet it's not a very good song at all—I just watched the video on YouTube and it pained me. A better choice: singer PEABO Bryson duetting with Roberta Flack here, also in the '80s (Cyndi Lauper's other hits are better—here's "Time After Time"). Cheesiness rules, with SPEEDOS, clued as [Small trunks], across from ROLLERBALL, the [Title sport in a 1975 James Caan film]. For more '70s fun, we get the combination of gymnast NADIA Comaneci, the [Big name at the 1976 Olympics], and the PERFECT TEN she was the first to attain. E-FILE isn't fancy, but it's one of the few E-___ answers that has spoken-English credibility (vs. things like E-CASH, E-NOTE, E-MAG). [Designer Saab] is ELIE—hey! People tell plenty of e-lies online.
Favorite clues: [Basketmaker?] for a SCORER in basketball; [Record holder] for both REGISTRAR and HIFI (and not for, say, CHAMPION or FASTEST]; [Curling setting] for SALON (I thought I was going to learn Canadian sports terminology, but no); [House style], plain and simple, for CAPE COD;
I don't know about present-tense STRAP for [Leave in difficulty]; you can be strapped, but does anyone or anything ever strap you? And RAISIN PIE—here's a recipe, but who wants to eat this [Sultana-stuffed treat]? I'll pass. I did not know [Star Steeler Stautner], ERNIE, nor that Leon EDEL was the [Writer of a five-volume Henry James biography]. And there's a French [River at Rennes] called ILLE? I don't recall this one. With letters like those, I suspect it will bubble up again in a future crossword.
Updated:
This weekend's "second Sunday" puzzle in the NYT is a diagramless crossword by Byron Walden. After the last diagramless, I wrote a how-to primer about solving this kind of puzzle and said that I usually use the solving hint that gives away the location of 1-Across's starting square. Tyler Hinman was so disappointed in me after that confession, I decided to try this one sans hint. Hey! This wasn't bad at all. I mean, yeah, it took more than twice as long as the Saturday NYT, but it was easy to figure out where to place the answers. (The giveaway was in the third row, where I had 4- and 8-letter entries with a clue in between them that had to be a 3-letter word, which pushed those other two answers to the edges of the grid. The nine starred entries (note: the asterisk in 22-Across belongs to 23-Across) contain a total of 19 words, each of which can precede the word CALL. (E.g., COLD DUCK gives you cold call and a duck call.) Did you know there were at least 19 "___ call" phrases? There are more, but they don't necessarily bundle themselves into phrases. You know, "cattle call" and "bad call" work, but nobody says "bad cattle." Or "booty conference," for that matter. I didn't know tennis umpires said LET FIRST SERVICE (that's my lack of tennis savvy), and SICK BIRD seems not quite "in the language," but JUNK MAIL, GOODWILL, HARD ROLL, and HOUSECAT are golden.
Dan Stark's Newsday Saturday Stumper is notable for its dearth of multi-word entries. I see IN BED and...71 single-word entries. I suppose there may well be a contingent of solvers who prefer straight-up words to the phrases that have become more popular of late, especially in themeless puzzles, but I am quite fond of the phrasal action. As far as single-word entries go, though, POLTERGEIST is great. Favorite clue (and one that befuddled me for far too long): [Best replacement] for STARR. Thinking only of Brenda Starr and Bart Starr, it made no sense—until eventually the early Beatle Pete Best and his replacement, Ringo STARR, dawned on me. The biggest disappointment was when my first guess for [They may go down the tubes] proved to be wrong. C'mon, with *O****ASTES, how could that not be SOLID WASTES? I know it passes no breakfast, lunch, or dinner test for crossword suitability, but solid wastes do go down tubes, whereas TOOTHPASTES generally get squeezed out of tubes.
Robert Wolfe's LA Times crossword was a little tougher than the other themeless puzzles of the day...or solving later in the evening dims my brain's wattage. The very last clue I figured out—with the help of playing the alphabet game, mentally scrolling through the alphabet trying to fill in one last square—was [It's weighed by the pound], with an excellent misdirection. This one's not about measuring in pounds; rather, it's a passive-voice construction about something that the pound weighs—a STRAY animal. Other favorite clues: [Cruise, often] for MALE LEAD and [Not a big hit] for TAP. I like two of the 15-letter entries, TAKING EXCEPTION and TIGHTEN ONE'S BELT, but "THAT'S NOT CORRECT" doesn't quite feel like a stand-alone crossword-suitable phrase to me.
Saturday-morning update:
Martin Ashwood-Smith's CrosSynergy puzzle has a quip theme (riddle and answer), but the crossings included so many easy clues and gimmes, there was no slogging through the grid. I believe I've heard the riddle before, too: WHAT'S WORSE / THAN RAINING / CATS AND DOGS? Why, HAILING CABS, of course. (Rim shot.) Favorite entry: THE ANIMALS. I can't say I'm familiar with any of their '60s music, but the '82 reissue of "House of the Rising Sun" was on radio and MTV rotation when I was at the teenage peak of my pop music immersion.
EMOTE
As used in an NYT blog today, the word emote has more to do with expressing emotion than hamming it up. The American Heritage Dictionary gives this definition: "To express emotion, especially in an excessive or theatrical manner." As in “The more she emotes, the less he listens, and the less he listens, the more strident and emotive she becomes” (Maggie Scarf).
The thesaurus entry on the same page says "To make an emotional display: emotionalize, gush."
So, how come crossword clues for the word usually stress a theatrical overacting aspect? From the Cruciverb.com clue database, we see that EMOTE has 172 uses in the indexed crosswords over the past decade or so. Of the 75 or 80 different clues, three have been used again and again: [Ham it up], [Chew the scenery], and [Overact]. These and other theatrical/dramatic/acting/ham clues account for about 85% of the EMOTE clues.
Far less frequently, EMOTE gets a non-theatrical clue, such as [Show feelings]. Some of the non-theatrical clues are pejorative—[Get all histrionic], for example, or [Shed crocodile tears].
Do theater/acting types use EMOTE the way crosswords do? I'm curious.
January 10, 2008
Friday, 1/11
NYS 10:06
LAT 4:39
CS 4:18
NYT 4:02
WSJ 11:12
Well, when you see the joint byline of Patrick Blindauer and Francis Heaney atop a crossword, you know you're in for some sort of smart twist. Their Friday New York Sun crossword, "Squares Away," jumped out at me because the grid wasn't symmetrical. Then it proved to be a rebus puzzle, but trickier than most because the entries with rebus action weren't symmetrical. But guess what? Those sneaky bastards placed a [BLACK] rebus square in five different squares...that could be colored in black to make the pattern of black squares perfectly symmetrical! This is the sort of push-the-envelope. play-with-convention gimmick that I like. (I just created an organized set of virtual folders and am putting this puzzle in the one for the year's favorite gimmick puzzles.) The posted solving time is sort of a lie—the middle left was mucked up, and I had Across Lite tell me which squares were wrong, after which I pieced it all together myself and wondered why I didn't get those anwers the first time through.
Favorite entries: THE FBI; RARE EARTH; LOGJAM; FROM HELL; VAN GOGH; JENGA; and many of the [BLACK] rebus entries, such as LITTLE BLACK BOOK, "BLACK DOG," BLACK FLAG, JACK BLACK, and BLACK COMEDY. Favorite clues: [Romeo's reference] for LITTLE BLACK BOOK (not Shakespeare's Romeo); [One who must, by Chinese law, seek permission to reincarnate] for LAMA; [Not very reflective?] for JET BLACK; [Backup] for LOGJAM; [Pork place?] for PIGSTY (drat, I thought it was SENATE); [Their noses tilted down] for SSTS; [Private] for CLOSET; and [Stoppers] for REDS, as in red traffic lights.
Least-known-to-me answers: Colorado's motto "NIL sine numine"; rock band Letters to CLEO; POLARIS with its 90° declination (not to mention the "wha?" astronomy clue for BLACK HOLE); SILAS on Weeds (thankfully not the Silas from Da Vinci Code); why RAJA is a [Chaturanga piece] (ah, it's a chess precursor); AVI the Newbery-winning author; and DONG as a [Monetary unit of Vietnam].
The New York Times puzzle is in the classic Mike Nothnagel vein—answers that zing with colloquialisms, uncommon letters, and pop culture. This crossword has got plenty to say. "AW, GEE," it empathizes with a struggling solver. "WHEW!"—you're done! "OH, WOW!" Totally "AWESOME!" Wait, you had a square wrong? "THAT'S LIFE."
The pop culture comes from LISA KUDROW, the [Ditsy waitress player on "Mad About You"] (waitress Ursula was the twin sister of Phoebe from Friends); ASOK the [Co-worker of Dilbert] in the office-based comic strip; [Late rocker Barrett], SYD Barrett of Pink Floyd fame; and DIDO, the ["White Flag" singer, 2003].
Scrabbly fill abounds here, with ZINC OXIDE crossing ZERO HOUR somewhere other than the Z, and SINE QUA NON (clued vaguely as [Requirement]). The showy long answers are a PARADIGM SHIFT ([Transition to a heliocentric model of the universe, e.g.]) and the MORAL HIGH GROUND, [What you take when you do the right thing]. Other admirable fill: THUMBS DOWN ([Negative sign]); a MALE MODEL ([GQ figure]); TELEPATHY ([Exchange of thoughts?]) crossing SYNAPSES ([They act on impulses]); and the straightforward phrases TIRED OF, RELATED TO, and ON THE LOOSE. Favorite clues: the vague [Key] for the adjective OPERATIVE; [One guarded in a soccer game] for SHIN; [Historic capital of Scotland] for SCONE (really! starting about 900 years ago, Scone was an important place in Scotland and not just a baked good); [Moon unit?] for REAR (as in dropping one's drawers and mooning someone); [Drive nuts] for BUG; and [Practices zymurgy] for BREWS (why didn't I know the meaning of zymurgy?)
The more scintillating answers were made possible by the following lifeless short entries: SERE ([Dried out]); ADAR (Hebrew month; [It follows Shevat]); REA (["Guilty," in a Latin legal phrase]—namely mens rea); the collars called ETONS; the game ONE-O cat; toiletry brand ATRA; and another sort of [Moon unit], an LEM or lunar excursion module. Throw me WHEW, some ZITI, and a pedestrian XING, and I can certainly forgive the less exciting bits.
Updated:
No Jonesin' puzzle today—the link from the paper that'd been the Cruciverb/Puzzle Pointers source for this puzzle isn't working. Jonesin' editor Matt Gaffney's working on an alternate link, but some of the other papers that run the puzzle are a week or two behind. I'll let you know when there's a good working link and resume blogging about the puzzle thereafter.
No Chronicle of Higher Education puzzle posted for 12/28—I presume the publication was on winter break with all its readers. I'll resume CHE solving and blogging when there's a new puzzle posted (on two-week delay) at Cruciverb.com.
Why did it take me longer to rassle Lynn Lempel's CrosSynergy puzzle to the ground than to finish Nothnagel's themeless? I don't know. Part of it is the new keyboard, which I eschewed last night in the interest of NYT applet competitiveness but used this morning. (That, and my endless love for themeless puzzles with Friday/Saturday cluing.) The "Spelling B's" theme entails putting a pair of B's into phrases to radically change them. My favorite was GRABBY WHALE (gray whale), just because the image of a grabby cetacean amuses me terribly. How does the whale grab? What's it grabbing? What does it do if you fight for possession of the desired item?
Jack McInturff's LA Times crossword adds a Y to the end of the first word of two-word phrases to alter the sense completely. Fair-minded becomes FAIRY-MINDED, [Like a child with a loose tooth]—my son Ben has a ridiculously loose tooth that tenaciously hangs by a thread, keeping the tooth fairy at bay day after day. I can't imagine the tooth will last the day, but that's what I said yesterday. My favorite theme entries: a TESTY PILOT and a BELLY CURVE, or [Spare tire characteristic]. AMIE is clued as [René's girlfriend], and I must quibble: first of all, that's not how I spell my name, and second, René and I have been married for 16 years now.
Brendan Emmett Quigley's Wall Street Journal crossword, "This for That," uses "A for B" phrases to rejigger assorted other phrases. For example, "jump for joy" is a well-known phrase. Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" is also famous. Brendan includes ODE TO JUMP, clued as [Stanzas about an axel?], and elsewhere JOY is clued [Word substituted FOR the last word of 108-Across]. The hidden phrases that govern the substitutions in the other theme entries are "lust for life," "money for nothing," "stalls for time," "go for broke," "food for thought," "cry for help," and "jockey for power"—eight theme entries in all, plus the eight swapped words lurking elsewhere in the grid.
January 09, 2008
Thursday, 1/10
NYS 6:13
NYT 4:36
LAT 4:25
CS 3:25
Imagine my surprise when an answer in Patrick Berry's New York Sun "Themeless Thursday" could be aptly illumined by a photograph of my kid. Here is Benjamin rocking a 7-Across, also known as a [Style associated with David Beckham]:
In a crossword packed with marvelous entries, FAUXHAWK is my favorite. What else? LET ME SEE. There are also DOT-TO-DOTS ([Line drawings?]), an ONTARIAN and a TUNISIAN, HAIR TONICS for those who haven't got the follicular ability to rock a fauxhawk (short hair on the sides, spiked up at top center—versus a Mohawk, with balder sides and more aggressive spiking), the phrase AS IT WERE (which I do like to wield), KEN KESEY, WEASELED, and the [Much-feared earthquake] oft called the BIG ONE. I'm impressed to have this many Ks and an X in a 66-word grid. It's not a very low-word-count puzzle, but nor is it in the 68- to 72-word category where I expect to be treated to stellar fill. My favorite clues: Black and white action with [One in whiteface, maybe] for GEISHA and [Black cloud formers] for GNATS; [A bit too-too, to a Brit] for TWEE; [Hole in the head] for SINUS; the adjective [Ranking] for SENIOR (as in "the ranking member of the committee"); and [Bandmate of Micky, Michael, and Peter] for DAVY Jones (of the Monkees, with Messrs. Dolenz, Nesmith, and Tork).
Liz Gorski's New York Times crossword is anchored by the entry JOHN LE CARRE BOOK, and continues on with a quartet of theme entries that summon up his book, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. TINKERTOYS are [Constructing things], TAILOR-MADE means [Custom], "SOLDIER BOY" was a [1962 #1 hit by the Shirelles], and SPY CAMERAS, which are [Means of remote monitoring]. Now, a less ambitious theme might include just that quartet, maybe with a LECARRE to tie it together, but Liz has gone the extra step and tossed in that unifying 15.
Toughest clues for me: [Country store?] for ATLAS (meaning...a book that is a storehouse of countries?); [Choreographer Lubovitch] for LAR; [Subject of a 1940 biopic starring Spencer Tracy] for EDISON; and [It was split into two parts by the 1899 Treaty of Berlin] for SAMOA (Berlin??). Other clues of note: [String ___] for TRIO and the musical key D MAJ. (Liz is a violist); [Couples cruise vessel?] for NOAH'S ARK; ['50s two-seaters] for T-BIRDS (the 2002-'05 retro Thunderbird was also a two-seater); [Annoyance, in British slang] for AGGRO; [It's made up of columns] for OP-ED PAGE; [Part of a camp schedule] for MESS; the verb [Lobby] for SOLICIT; [Rub, rub, rub] for SCOUR (SCRUB also fits the SC*U* pattern—another of those paired possible answers that share several letters); [Get into some hot water?] for SOAK in the bath; [Departures] for EGRESSES; and [Burlesque show wear] for BRA (B*A could also be BOA for this clue). Another nice touch: including JESSE and OWENS with a single vague clue, [With 46-Down, Ohio State's ___ Memorial Stadium]. It's a very specific clue, unless you have no idea who OSU's stadium is named after, in which case it's [Famous person's first and last names]. Mind you, I'm not complaining—anyone who can disprove Hitler's unbaked theories of racial superiority is aces in my book, and now I know that OSU's got a newish track-and-field stadium named for Owens.
Updated:
Patrick Jordan's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Miss-Named," features four cartoon characters with their married names, with their maiden names in the clues. The first two are from prime-time TV shows, the others from comic strips that are still running. I think it'd be more fun (and more challenging) to get the less-known trivia, their original surnames, into the grid. Although anyone from "Hi and Lois" would have to go—past and present last names from that strip are, I daresay, much less well-known than Marge and Blondie's names. Yet again, I have been snagged by a tricky TILDE clue—this time [Piñata feature?], last time something like a [Piña colada garnish]. Next time, I'm onto you, TILDE! And umlaut, don't think I'm not wise to you.
Gary Steinmehl's LA Times crossword applies the GIMME A BREAK concept to four other words or phrases, which are broken with an A and clued accordingly. For example, the stock market becomes STOCK A MARKET, or [Fill grocery store shelves?]. I caused myself some trouble by interpreting [Harry of pop music] as Harry CHAPIN rather than DEBBIE HARRY of Blondie fame (not Blondie Boopadoop Bumstead, but rather the "Heart of Glass"/"The Tide Is High"/"Call Me" Blondie of New Wave music). Other notable wome in this crossword: UMA Thurman and UTA Hagen! ALETA from "Prince Valiant"! TORI Amos! And one I didn't know, ALANA de la Garza of Law and Order. I think she's the current young-female-prosecutor cog in the show. Secretary of Labor Elaine CHAO also pops in to say ciao.
Wednesday, 1/9
NYT 6:03
Tausig 4:38
Onion 4:30
LAT 4:something
NYS 4:18
CS 3:50
I am operating at a double handicap tonight—not only have I just returned home after pub trivia, but I'm using a new keyboard. It's darling, really—this wee, wispy wireless Apple keyboard is about a quarter inch thick, and the arrow keys are in an altogether new location, and the keys are spaced a little differently. So I thought I'd go ahead and try the new keyboard on the NYT applet and see how it works. Not so hot, I think! Will just have to get used to it. I lost under a minute searching for a typo, so the rest of the supra-Wednesday time factor may accrue to the keyboard. Or the pub. Or both.
The Wednesday New York Times crossword is by John Farmer, and there aren't really any theme entries per se—the theme is the abbreviations for the DAYs of the week, spaced out at the beginning, exact middle, and end of seven differnt entries. Monday lurks in MAJOR IN, TUE in TV GUIDE, and so forth. The days are given in order from Sunday to Saturday. Favorite entries: Rebecca ROMIJN; TV GUIDE; THE HUTU; WHOLE WHEAT BREAD; and Susan SONTAG (Sonntag is German for Sunday, in a nice bit of synchronicity). Those are just a few highlights—really some terrif fill, just marvy (to use two laudatory words from crosswords). IRISH is parked atop the CELTS of basketball—more synchronicity. Toughest clues for me: the neighbor on Mama's Family was named IOLA; [Intrigue] is AMOUR; and right under that, [Wry faces] is POUTS. Now, I've pouted, and I've made wry faces, and I don't think they're the same at all. The Mac widget dictionary doesn't seem to think they're the same, either. What say you?
Updated:
Still getting used to the new keyboard this morning—I keep finding the caps-lock key by mistake, pressing the wrong arrow key, or pressing the shift key above the up-arrow key.
Patrick Blindauer's CrosSynergy puzzle, "C-SPAN," has 61 theme squares spread over five entries, each a phrase or word that starts and ends with C. CHENIN BLANC and CREATE HAVOC are particularly nice. It would appear that Patrick's tugging the CrosSynergy team one notch towards the new-generation crosswords (e.g., Onion, Ben Tausig's Ink Well, Jonesin')—the fill includes EEDIOT with a Ren & Stimpy clue. ALFRED U. also takes a somewhat unexpected form here. I hope to see more such tidbits of freshness.
Paul Guttormsson'a LA Times crossword has three 15-letter theme answers crossed by three other shorter theme entries, for a total of 65(ish) theme squares. FLASH crosses the middle and is the word that can precede the starts of the other five. Gotta love DANCE MOVE yielding Flashdance, which evokes that Kia commercial with "Maniac." The theme isn't the most exciting type of theme, but it's deftly managed here.
Edgar Fontaine's New York Sun puzzle, "I-Catching Names," assembles five people with *I*I first names, of varying degrees of fame. I'd never heard of French dancer ZIZI JEAN MAIRE, and cartoon skunk FIFI LA FUME's last name didn't come to mind. Poor Didi Conn gets left out (and if you don't know the name, then maybe your mom wasn't taking you to see romantic comedies when you were 11 in 1977). Rather tricky to clue KIKI DEE as [Music partner of Carmelo Luggeri] when we all know her from that '70s duet with Elton John, no? I didn't know OMAR [Metwally of "Rendition"], but for a movie about the Middle East, an OMAR isn't too far-fetched a guess.
Matt Jones's Onion A.V. Club crossword adds an -ER to the end of four phrases to turn them into dogs (e.g., a HOT SPRINGER spaniel, a SUGGESTION BOXER). Favorite clue: [Piña colada garnish?] for TILDE (!). Best fill: TRES CHIC, BROADSWORD, a LIP RING, PIDGIN, and Scrabbly SKI WAXES. I also like the pop-culture literacy of clues like [Monk's affliction: Abbr.] for OCD, cartoon dog Scrappy DOO, and American Gladiators' ELIMINATOR round.
Ben Tausig's Chicago Reader/Ink Well puzzle is called "Playing With Fire." Why? I don't know. Ah! I see it now. The theme entries teach rudimentary fire safety at the beginnings of STOP SNITCHIN', DROP YOUR WEAPONS, and ROLL INTO TOWN. Good to see NGO clued as [Designation for private global grps. since 1945)—a discussion on the Cruciverb-L mailing list revealed that a lot of crossword folks weren't familiar with NGO meaning "nongovernmental organization," but it seems to come up plenty on NPR and in the NYT. Is the clue for SIMI wrong? [Sonoma wine valley] is SIMI? There's a Simi Winery in Sonoma County, I think, but Simi Valley is in the LA area, whereas Sonoma is north of San Francisco. Favorite clue/answer: [Reverse gear?] for CROSS-DRESS. Other excellent fill includes MT. FUJI, NO U-TURN, GOSSAMER, ASCETICS, and VOODOO economics.
