Jonesin' 12:49
CS 9:19
NYT 7:41
Sun 6:28
LAT 5:14
(Updated at 10:45am Tuesday)
Joe Krozel's New York Times crossword is, well, it's, in a word ... awesome. It's a Thursday puzzle dressed up (or maybe dressed down) to look like a Tuesday puzzle. Or maybe it's just a Tuesday puzzle in a Thursday puzzle's grid. I would have liked this theme a lot on Thursday, but the fill was definitely Tuesday level. Should I stop babbling about the days of the week and get to the specifics already? If you haven't figured out the theme yet — and I'm guessing there are a few people out there who haven't — you might want to sit down because this is going to blow your mind.
The puzzle is symmetrical. No, not just the grid. The letters in the grid. Check it out: TED at 1 Across in the northwest corner mirrors DET at 72 Across in the southeast corner. And, yeah, keep going. It works through the Whole. Damn. Puzzle. I don't care who ya are, that's impressive. Nicely done, Joe. (Is it okay if I call you Joe? How about Krozie?)
Obviously, with the restrictions posed by the theme, some of the fill is going to be iffy, but I'm just going to let it go because the symmetry is so very cool. I'm not going to say much about this puzzle. But you should take the time that you would typically spend reading my commentary and admire the puzzle some more. I'll just tell you the one thing that made me laugh while I was solving. What does it say about me that when I saw the clue [Eat by candlelight, say] I thought of a power outage and not, ya know, a romantic dinner. Sheesh!
Whoa! Complicated theme and "A Flurry of Activity" in Brent Sverdloff's Sun crossword today! The four letters in the corners of the grid — W, O, S, and N — are circled, as is the letter R in the center of the grid. The notepad explains that the five circled letters can be arranged to form a word that rhymes with the first part of the starred clues. That word is SWORN. In addition, the four letters in the corners can be arranged to form a word that can precede the second part of the starred clues: SNOW. So here we go. Starred clues are:
In retrospect, the theme is kind of cool. It didn't help me at all while solving though. I looked at the instructions on the notepad and decided it was too complicated and I'd figure it out later. I did like quite a bit of fill in this puzzle though:
Updated:
Pretty sure this is the first time I've ever done a Jonesin' crossword and it was hip, which is just what I expected! Theme answers in this "Note for Note" puzzle exchanges one letter of a musical artist or band name such that the resulting phrase contains a word describing a foreign currency. So the Scottish post-punk band Franz Ferdinand becomes FRANC FERDINAND. (Yes, I had to look that one up because I'm ... old.) Mary Wells, who sings "My Guy" becomes MARK WELLS. (I didn't have any trouble with that one.) Dinah Washington becomes DINAR WASHINGTON, Boys II Men becomes BOYS II YEN, and The E Street Band becomes THE E STREET RAND. Clever and fun!
I always get a kick out of seeing music-oriented clues and answers in puzzles. Unfortunately, this particular puzzle references one of my Top Three Least Favorite Songs of All Time, "Send in the Clowns." So now it's stuck in my head and I'll no doubt be cranky all day.
TAFKAP stands for The ARTIST Formerly Known As Prince. I wanted to post a link for any Prince fans out there but apparently TAFKAP is diligent in his review of copyright infringement on YouTube. So here's Tom Jones doing a Prince cover.
Oasis's song "D' YOU Know What I Mean?" is not the same as Lee Michaels's classic 70s song "Do You Know What I Mean?," which I first heard covered by Renee Geyer and which I'm seriously hoping gets stuck in my head now that I'm talking about it.
Ya know what? I could spend all day looking up all the musical connections I made while solving this puzzle, but I think I'll move on so I can get some other stuff done today!
I don't typically tend to struggle much with the CrosSynergy crossword, but today's constructor is Bob Klahn after all. Which means, of course, that it contains colorful fill, tricky clues, and a theme that I almost didn't see. The title of the puzzle, "Letter Openers," made me think that the theme had something to do with letters of the alphabet when, in fact, the first words of the theme answers can be added to the word letter resulting in a familiar phrase. We've got RED (letter) HERRING, CAPITAL (letter) CRIME, SILENT (letter) BUTLER, and BLOCK (letter) PARTY.
To my mind, Klahn is the King of Cluing Misdirection. Most of the time I really appreciate his humor — like OPIE for [Bee minder of '60s TV] and MADAM for [Address of the very first palindrome?]. There are also few in this puzzle that rate pretty high on the groan-meter. [Brest milk], [It's put before Descartes], and [Item peddled by a spokesperson?] leap to mind. Ya know what, though? I don't think a pun cares whether you laugh or groan, it just wants the attention.
I was going to tell you a funny story about Bob SEGER but I can't remember all the details off the top of my head and this is already taking me too long. Maybe he'll appear in another puzzle this week and I'll be ready for it.
Gail Grabowki's L.A. Times crossword offers us phrases that all begin with words that describe someone who TALKs A BLUE STREAK. The first theme answer, RAMBLING MANSION, made me think the theme was going to be adding -SION to familiar phrases. Of course I had the Allmann Brothers song in mind, but to make up for leaving out the Bob Seger story, here's a clip of his "Rambling Gambling Man." Do you think they couldn't afford a mike stand so he wrote his part for just the one hand? Other theme answers are GABBY HAYES and WINDY NIGHT.
Hey look! Just when Orange went to the trouble of letting us know that AT SEA is usually clued as [Confused] (or something similar), here it is clued as [Between ports]. I guess Miss Smarty-Pants Speed Solver doesn't know everything. Of course, she never claimed to know everything. I'm just making a joke at her expense because she's not here to defend herself. Plus I did yesterday's NYT in 4:07.
Finally, I'll leave you with my favorite NAMETAG and see you tomorrow.
December 22, 2008
Tuesday, 12/23
ASEA
Orange here, with a postdated post that was written last Thursday. I'm off the grid (electrical, phone, computer, crossword) this week because I am ASEA on a big ship. How often does one get the chance to use a solid crossword-friendly word like that in non-ironic fashion? Probably not very often, given that some dictionaries don't even include this as a word. They seem to prefer at sea, but in crosswords, at sea means confused rather than sailing on the water. Weird, huh?
Monday, 12/22
Sun 8:57
LAT 5:04
NYT 4:07
CS 4:00
(Updated at 9:30am Monday)
Hi, everyone. PuzzleGirl here. If I had only done a little better on the Sun puzzle, you probably would have thought I was Orange. I mean, 4:07 is pretty good, right? Okay, I realize it's not Orange good, or Howard good ... or Tyler good, or Dan good, or ... Oh whatever — I'm holding my head high today! 4:07!
Lynn Lempel's super-easy New York Times crossword — and I only say it's super-easy because of my incredible time — has theme answers that start with hopping animals. We start out with John Updike's Rabbit Run, which I haven't read. Trying to remember if I've read anything of his. Oh sure, Witches of Eastwick. I understand the sequel, Widows of Eastwick, has just been published and it's supposed to be pretty good. Next, we move on to CRICKET PLAYER, which is a [Batsman at a wicket.] Have I offered you my obligatory "Sports Night" reference in the last few days? No? Well, here it is. All I can remember about the episode "Ten Wickets" is that Jeremy hears about a phenomenal accomplishment by a professional cricket player and everybody's like, "Okay, sure. Great, Jeremy," because they know absolutely nothing about cricket. The summary for the episode also says that "Natalie continues to refuse to break up with Jeremy," so I guess Jeremy is not having his best day. Moving on to the next hopper — ooh! that would have been cool to have Dennis Hopper in this puzzle somewhere! — a holder of an unfair trial is a KANGAROO COURT. Well, that's odd. I thought the proceedings themselves were called the kangaroo court. Who is the holder exactly? Man, I can get caught up in the minutiae. I think we'd better move on. Next is TOADSTOOL. Apparently, there has never been a consensus on the exact difference between a mushroom and a toadstool.
What else?
Today's Sun crossword raises the question on everyone's mind: What the heck is a Triple Crown in baseball? Okay, maybe not everyone's. Peter Gordon, for instance. I'm sure he knows. For those of you who, like me, were trying to think of a horse with a three-letter nickname, let me look it up for you. According to Wikipedia, in baseball the Triple Crown refers to "1. A batter who (at season's end) leads the league in three major categories — home runs, runs batted in, and batting average, and 2. A pitcher who (at season's end) leads the league in three major categories — earned run average, wins, and strikeouts." The triple crown for batting is less common than the triple crown for pitching. In fact, the last time someone achieved it was in 1967 and guess who! Our buddy Carl Yastrzemski, otherwise known as YAZ. The last time a batter lead both leagues in the three categories was 1956. Anyone have a guess who it was? That's right, Mickey Mantle. The only two-time winners of the Triple Crown are Rogers Hornsby (1922, 1925) and Ted Williams (1942, 1947). Are you bored of the baseball talk? Sorry about that. What else is going on in this puzzle? Oh yeah, the theme! I'm not really sure how to explain it coherently so I'll just give you the theme answers and you can figure it out on your own.
So you don't need me to come up with actual words to explain that. You've got it, right? Good. You know what? There's lots of good stuff in this puzzle, but I got so distracted with the baseball info that I'm pretty much done for today. Go ahead and fawn over this puzzle in the comments. TECATE and GO-GO GIRL crossing COCO CRISP and RAVEL? Good stuff! I'll be back later with the rest of today's puzzles.
(Updated:)
Edgar Fontaine's L.A. Times crossword pays tribute to the classic Rock, Paper, Scissors game. My husband calls the game rochambeau, which I had never heard until I met him, but shows up quite prominently in the game's Wikipedia entry. I also recall reading an article once about how people in Japan use this game in otherwise serious social contexts with strangers — for example, two shoppers might play R-P-S to determine who gets the last ... I don't know, Indiana Jones action figure on the shelf at Target. Do they have Target in Japan?
A couple tough ones for a Monday:
Sarah Keller's CrosSynergy crossword reminds us that today is the first day of Hanukkah. It defines [MENORAH] as a CANDLEHOLDER, [DREIDEL] as a SPINNING GAME, and [LATKE] as a POTATO PANCAKE. All things associated with the FEAST OF LIGHTS. In the spirit of this puzzle, I'd like to share with you an ... unconventional version of the Dreidel song. Enjoy!
I'll be back tomorrow with your Tuesday puzzles. PuzzleHusband has been lobbying hard to "help" me blog tomorrow, so come on back and see what kind of foolishness he wants to talk about.
December 21, 2008
Sunday, 12/21
PI 29:20
LAT 26:52
NYT 25:02
CS 10:32
(Updated at 11:45am Sunday)
Hey, everyone. PuzzleGirl here with you again, filling in for the vacationing Orange. It's been a rough couple of days for me, but Monday is just around the corner and I dare say you will be impressed with my early-week times. So I've got that goin' for me.
When you saw Elizabeth C. Gorski's byline on the New York Times crossword you knew you were going to be impressed, didn't you? I sure did, and I sure was. The centerpiece of this puzzle, titled "Laughing All the Way," is a line of HOs stretching from top to bottom on the center vertical. That didn't sound exactly the way I wanted it to, but you all know what I mean. We've got JOLLY ST. NICK a/k/a KRIS KRINGLE a/k/a Father CHRISTMAS in the puzzle, landing on your HOUSE and causing all kinds of mayhem. There's also room for three French HENS, and a reference to the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), which is closed on Christmas Day. Any other Christmas-y stuff I missed? Let me know in the comments!
Stuff I thought about while solving this puzzle:
On the 95th anniversary of the crossword, Merl Reagle's Philadelphia Inquirer puzzle pays tribute to "those old crossword words that just never seem to go away." He's taken familiar phrases and changed one completely normal word into one of those ucky crossword words that we all know and love.
More ramblings:
Updated:
Mark Feldman's L.A. Times crossword, "You're Out!," takes the letters URE out of familiar phrases to create new amusing phrases.
A couple of those seem a little off to me. The al on GEOMETRICAL feels redundant. I've always thought a FEATURE FILM was one thing and a DOCUMENTARY another. But the phrase used in the puzzle gets 55,000 Google hits, so I guess someone uses it somewhere.
Olio:
Martin Ashwood-Smith's CrosSynergy "Sunday Challenge" has a cool-looking grid with some nice fill. The 15s aren't particularly sparkly, but there sure are a lot of them. DELICATE BALANCE is nice.
December 19, 2008
Saturday, 12/20
NYT 44:52
LAT 14:45
CS 6:15
Newsday — Gave up after 64:20
[Updated at 12:00 noon Saturday]
Not sure how much I'll be able to write about Brad Wilber's New York Times themeless crossword. What with all the scrapes and bruises I suffered from this puzzle. It beat me up good. I honestly can't believe I finished it. I had to look up one letter, the R in the ORAN/ORALES cross. That's right, Yves Saint Laurent was born in Oran, Algeria. Everybody knows that, right? Wow. And who knew [Papal capes] can be called ORALES? Nobody on the whole entire Internet, that's who. Please, please, please, if you can find a reference to this word in this context anywhere — for Pete's sake, share the link with us in the comments. Apparently, the word is a Spanish slang word that can mean many different things. It is reportedly synonymous with "aitte homie." It's all in the pronunciation, folks.
What else? I was thrown for a loop immediately when none of the three original Mod Squad kids — Michael Cole, Peggy Lipton, and Clarence Williams III — would fit at 1 Across. OMAR EPPS? I only know him from "House," which, in case you didn't know, you can see pretty much any time of day or night if you have enough cable channels. Just ask PuzzleHusband. Anyway, I guess there was a remake of "The Mod Squad." Sorry to go off on a tangent here, but when I was looking this up I found out that Dennis Farina played Captain Adam Greer in this movie. I heart Dennis Farina. He was on Law & Order for a while (speaking of shows that are always on), but I know him and love him as mob boss Jimmy Serrano in "Midnight Run," possibly my favorite movie of all time. And guess what I found? A "Best of Jimmy Serrano" video on YouTube. If you are offended by the F-word, do yourself a favor and don't click this link.
Okay, enough random off-topic stuff. What else can we talk about? I had lots of missteps. I tried chilly for FRIGID [Arctic]. Nuit for SOIR [Time after le soleil sets]. Dollop for JARFUL [Quantity of peanut butter]. Yeah, I know. Dollop is more for whipped cream. I erased it even before I had any crosses to confirm my error. Chess for SHOGI [Game played on an 81-square board]. Layered for FROSTED [Like some cakes and hair]. And I guessed BSA for NRA [Org. with the Eddie Eagle safety program].
Things I didn't know. AGNES GREY is a classic by Anne Brontë. And RITA is apparently a [Classic name in copiers]. Not sure where that comes from. [Thanks for pointing out my error here, guys! Should be MITA since the Trans-Siberian Railroad stop is OMSK, not ORSK.] You know those loose-fitting garments with flared legs that women wear? They're called PALAZZO PANTS. I had no idea. SABU was a [One-named film star of the 1930s-'60s]. Here's a picture.
I liked seeing DRUM SOLO in the grid, although I'm not particularly keen on actual drum solos when they come up at concerts. I'm not going to go looking for videos of THE FRUG, the [1960s dance showcased on "Laugh-In"]. Why? Because I know what will happen. I will start looking at "Laugh-In" clips and the next thing I know the sun will be coming up. Not that I've ever done that. Finally, don't think I've seen NETFLIX QUEUE in a puzzle before, and I've actually been thinking about Netflix a lot lately. Seems like such a great idea, but I've just never been able to commit to it. Something to explore in therapy, I guess. Peace out for now. More later.
[Updated:]
Robert H. Wolfe's fun romp of an L.A. Times crossword is full of attitude. Or is it despair? Maybe both. The three long answers are: WHAT'S IN IT FOR ME?, I CAN'T DO ANY WORSE, and HOW SHOULD I KNOW?
I was amused right out of the gate with PLAN BS [Backups]. I had a boss once who didn't believe in Plan Bs. He always said what we needed was another Plan A. Always good to see tricky clues in more than one puzzle at a time, like [One who leaves too many things out] for SLOB. We just had that in another puzzle, right? Now we should be more likely to remember it for next time! For [Hybrid cuisine] I originally entered Tex-Mex instead of the correct CREOLE. The ["Go for the Goal" autobiographer] is Mia HAMM. I guessed Gordie Howe off the H. Muhammad Ali had 25 career TKOs. I don't know a lot about boxing. Is that a record? BENIN and Togo are African countries. BWI stands for British West Indies, and not just Baltimore-Washington International airport. I was going to tell you the rest of the stars in VIRGO (besides Spica), but it turns out there are hundreds of them. And they don't all have names. I need to learn more about astronomy....
[Updated again:]
Patrick Blindauer's CrosSynergy crossword, "Covert Ops," provides a nice break from today's other killer puzzles. It's always a pleasure to see PB2's byline. And I'm not just saying that because he owes me money.
Theme answers, which are two-word phrases with the first word ending in O and the second word beginning with P, include the mundane POTATO PEELER and BRILLO PADS. Also making an appearance is the extremely-fun-to-everyone-who's-playing-it-and-annoying-to-everyone-else pool game, MARCO POLO. Rounding out the theme answers are CARGO PANTS which do, indeed, have a bunch of pockets, and TATTOO PARLOR. PuzzleHusband has a tattoo of an eagle on the top of his foot. Legend has it that when he arrived at the tattoo parlor and explained where he wanted it, the 300-pound tough guy tattoo artist with ink over 70% of body winced and said, "Ooh, that's gonna hurt." I once referred to the footrest in our living room as an OTTOMAN and the kids thought that was hilarious. They're like, "It's a footrest." Now they use air quotes whenever they say the word ottoman. I've noticed a scouting theme over a few of the recent puzzles, and now is the time of year when those Boy Scouts are out selling popcorn in big TUBs. Do yourself a favor and try the Mud Puddles. Yum!
I'm 64 minutes into Doug Peterson's Newsday Saturday Stumper and am veerry close to closing the deal. I might have to Google. I'll be back in a little bit with the results.
[Last update:]
Okay, I'm back. When I realized I was going to have to blog the Saturday Stumper I said to myself "God, please, let it be Doug Peterson. God, please, let it be Doug Peterson." Not that his puzzles are necessarily easy — they're not! — but I have a much better chance of being on his wavelength than I do with some of the other constructors of this puzzle. Unfortunately, today I couldn't get it done on my own. After 64 minutes, I had this:
Pretty close, right? Some good guesses? Sure, but finally realized I couldn't get there from here. I just knew that if I could figure out the song I could crack this thing. And I could not get "You Light Up My Life" out of my head. Guess what. That was Song of the Year the same year HOTEL CALIFORNIA was Record of the Year. I was sooooo close! Ack! Still had trouble with the Northern California area where the clue for MAUREEN, [Six-time Jane], looked like some kind of secret code. Turns out Maureen O'Sullivan played Jane in the 1932 "Tarzan the Ape Man" and its sequels. I'm guessing there were five of them. And over in South Carolina, now that I see the X, it makes perfect sense that LEX is [Roman law], but the Bantu speaking XHOSA was no help to me there. Here's the correct final grid:
I know there's much more to talk about, but I'm exhausted and I need to rest up for Sunday's puzzles. In closing, I think we should all make a deal that we'll try to use the phrase SLY BOOTS in casual conversation at least once today. See you tomorrow.
December 18, 2008
Friday, 12/19
NYT 28:04
Sun 24:03
WSJ 22:21
LAT 21:51
CHE 10:24
CS 5:30
(Updated at 9:45 pm Friday)
I'm going to put this here above the cut just to make sure she sees it. Happy Birthday, Mom!
Hi. I was going to try to fool you. But you knew it was me, didn't you? You could tell by the big numbers up there. At first you panicked, thought you had stumbled onto the wrong blog somehow and were losing your mind. Or that something terrible had happened to Orange and she amazingly, inexplicably, began sucking at crossword puzzles. Then it hit you. You thought: "It's just that speed solver wannabe PuzzleGirl again. Why, oh why, does she continue to humiliate herself by publicly advertising her dismal solving times every chance she gets?" You know, that's an excellent question. I'm gonna think about that one and get back to ya! For now, though, I'll just warn you that I'll be here all week while Orange is off on a big boat somewhere in the sun. Sounds great, right? Yeah well, she won't have the kind of internet access she's used to. And she's so much like me, I can tell you what she's doing right now. Her eye just started to twitch. She's pacing frantically. Pretty soon she'll be breathing into a paper bag. It's sad really. Where technology has taken us. And by us, I mean, Orange and me. None of you are that nutty, right? Okay, enough jibber-jabbering, onto the puzzles.
Did everybody else love Natan Last's New York Times crossword? It wasn't just me, right? I mean, how can you not love a puzzle that includes AZERBAIJANI and GUITAR HERO?? A lot of misdirection in this puzzle — had to be careful with verb tenses, not get locked into obvious pronunciation, and beware the dreaded First Word Proper Noun Trick. I need to catch my breath here because I just don't know where to start. Well, Pinocchio's exuberant cry "I'M A REAL BOY!" was the first thing I placed in the grid. I could hardly believe my luck that it fit. Oh, hell, let's run down the best of the misdirection:
Other random good stuff:
Robert A. Doll's Sun crossword, "Position Papers," is a fun newspaper-themed rebus, with some lovely symmetry thrown in for your solving pleasure. We've got the Globe at the cross of GOLDEN GLOBE and GLOBETROT; the Star joining John McCain's SILVER STAR and Nancy Reagan's STAR CHART; the Sun at arguably the strangest theme crossing in the puzzle, juice brand CAPRI SUN and SUN YAT-SEN, the father of modern China; the Bee brings together Clara Edwards's friend AUNT BEE and Richard Gere's "BEE SEASON"; and smack-dab in the middle, we've got the Times at the cross of MANY TIMES OVER and 1978 #1 Commodores hit THREE TIMES A LADY. Just stop a minute and admire the symmetry. Seriously. Close your eyes and picture it. It's beautiful, isn't it? Take another minute or two if you need it. I'll wait ....
And we're back. I always enjoy the pop culture references in crossword puzzles, particularly when they involve music and sports, so I loved seeing three-fourths of the Fearsome Foursome today. L.A. Rams MERLIN Olsen, Deacon Jones, Rosey Grier, and Lamar Lundy, terrorized their opponents throughout the 1960s. I would venture to guess that there was never a quartet of famous tough-guys with weirder first names.
Speaking of weird names, I was tripped up quite a bit in the SE corner with EVIE [Val and Joan's mother in the comic strip "Stone Soup"], Olympic swimmer DARA Torres, and reliever Robb NEN. Throw in an ancient warship I've never heard of down there and, well, I'm sunk. TRIREME? Really?
I also had a hard time remembering that vie means life in French, to which EAU (water) is indispensable. ROSEBUD was [Charles Foster Kane's dying word] in "Citizen Kane," one of those movies I can't believe I haven't seen. (It's in pretty good company with "Casablanca" and "Gone With the Wind," though.)
That's it for now. Back later with more Friday puzzles....
In Dan Naddor's LA Times crossword, an s (representing the word it's) is added to the beginning of familiar phrases to create new phrases à la the Gershwin classic "'S Wonderful."
I can't believe I'm going to admit this to you, but I had a lot of trouble with 1 Down. I got right away that the clue — ["Come on down!" announcer] — referred to "The Price Is Right" game show. Without thinking, I entered PARDO, realizing an NSEC later that it wasn't right. I erased it and heard Bob Barker in my head: "Who's our next contestant, Johnny?" Johnny... Johnny! ... Johnny who? What the heck is Johnny's last name? Couldn't get it without the crosses. His last name? Yep, pretty much the same last name I had for the first 35 years of my life: OLSON. Ack!
Olio:
I always get a little nervous at the prospect of solving the Chronicle of Higher Education's crossword. It's often chock full of academic-type stuff and my brain hasn't worked that way in a long time. A few of the theme answers in today's John Lampkin offering, "Physical Romance," were a little too scienc-y for me to understand, but I looked them up for you. It's just one of the services I offer. You're welcome.
I'm running out of time here. Have to get over to a thing at the kids' school. I'll leave you with "The ANVIL Chorus" from "Il Trovatore." If you're just dying to talk about the CS and WSJ puzzles, knock yourselves out in the comments. I'll be back to add my no doubt fascinating perspective later on today.
Hey, guys. Sorry to do this, but this day has been a lot crazier than I expected. I'm going to go ahead and post the completed grids for the WSJ and CS puzzles, but I haven't had time to pull my thoughts together and there are still a few more things I have to do before that makes it to the top of my list. Speaking of which, where the hell is my list?!? Oh, here it is. Anyway. Sorry about that.
Trip Payne's Wall Street Journal crossword, "Following the S&P," adds the letters SP to the beginning of familiar phrases to create new amusing phrases.
I really enjoyed this puzzle. When I see Trip's name, I know I'm in for a workout and this puzzle didn't disappoint. Tough stuff for me: [Fielding novel] refers to Henry, not Helen. So that means AMELIA, not Bridget Jones. HOMER is the [Brother-in-law of Patty and Selma] and I can only assume that's a "Simpsons" reference. As many times as I've entered it in crossword grids, I had no idea MENLO Park was in New Jersey. Thought it was a suburb of Chicago for some reason. Never heard of the ELI Young Band. Never knew that [Tastiness] can be called SAPOR. Good thing we learned that a PIT is a [Trading spot] in another puzzle today. [King's domain?] refers to CNN's Larry King. And [Some business partners] are SONS, which reminds me of the Undisputed Number One Best Television Theme Song of All Time. You can hear an awesome version of it here. (Thanks, Wade.)
Raymond Hamel's CrosSynergy crossword, "Game Birds," features four professional sports teams each with a different bird mascot. One football team: the BALTIMORE RAVENS; one basketball: the ATLANTA HAWKS; one hockey: the ANAHEIM DUCKS; and one baseball: the TORONTO BLUEJAYS.
Not a lot to say about this easy, breezy puzzle. I like how the [Hawaiian veranda] LANAI crosses the [Floral neckwear] LEI in the northern California region. We've also got MORAL crossing ORAL there. Looks to me like only a couple things might have tripped people up. The crossing of [Icelandic currency] KRONA and [Big name in headphones] KOSS seemed unusually tricky in this particular puzzle. I can never get [River nymph] NAIAD without the crosses. PuzzleSon is a Cub Scout, so AKELA, the [Cub Scout pack leader], was familiar to me, but I sure would have had a hard time with it a few years ago. And, oh yeah, LPS. For you whippersnappers, that's what we used to listen to music on back in the old days before CDs.
Sorry it took me so long to get today's write-ups done. When Orange gets back, she'll probably fire me. Hey look! It's almost time to start tomorrow's puzzles! I guess this is what it's like living without Super-Human Solving Powers. See y'all in a little bit....
December 17, 2008
Thursday, 12/18
NYT 4:42
Sun 4:15
LAT 4:15
CS 2:37
(updated at 10:05 a.m. Thursday)
Michael Vuolo's New York Times puzzle tells a spy tale in the long theme answers:
I mucked things up for myself by not noticing a typo for a long time and thus having trouble with the crossing. One of the two [Part of a famous septet] clues wants ASIA, but I'd entered ASIS and thus couldn't get SABBATH as the [Subject of Exodus 20:10]. The other 4-letter [Part of a famous septet] is ENVY. I prefer continents to sins, personally. The peaceable olive branch corner holds AT PEACE ([Tranquil]) beside OLIVES ([Tapenade ingredients]). Other clues/answers of note:
Patrick Jordan's "Themeless Thursday" Sun crossword was excellent—right up my alley in terms of fill. Scrabbly stuff, interesting phrases that don't get much play in crosswords, pop culture, plenty of people's names. JUAN VALDEZ, the coffee commercial guy! AL BUNDY, from Married With Children! YALE LAW right next to SHOW BIZ! QUEASINESS crossing the LAST SUPPER! SAM'S CLUB and THAILAND! There are so many cool answers packed into this grid. Among the names are young actress AMANDA Bynes, hip-hop/crunk pioneer LIL Jon, cartoonist BIL Keane, fictional CHIP from My Three Sons, and gross GENE Simmons of Kiss fame. Sandwiched between the incongruous pairing of CHIP and GENE S. are three Mideast-inflected answers. LUNE is a [Crescent-shaped figure], and the crescent is a symbol of Islam. DOHA, Qatar, is a [Capital on the Persian Gulf]. And IRAN's [flag says "God is great" 22 times].
Favorite clues:
Updated:
Jack McInturff's LA Times crossword changes double-D's to double-T's:
Less familiar stuff: AGNES is the [Patron saint of chastity]. [Old ski lift contraption] is a J-BAR. SECRETS are ["...edged tools [to] be kept from children and from fools": Dryden]. [Day star] isn't the sun but OPRAH. ['80s-'90s Serbian import] clues YUGO; I always heard it described as a Yugoslavian car, not a Serbian one. ["Jesus Christ Superstar" song] HOSANNA meets [Medicinal plant] SENNA at the S.
Sarah Keller's CrosSynergy puzzle is easier than most CS crosswords. The "PC Pieces" theme is phrases that end with words that are also computer peripherals:
Three allied answers are EDIT, or [Wield a blue pencil]; CARET, or [Insertion mark]; and STET, or [Leave in, as text]. We also get some notable women: ELLEN is [Talk show host DeGeneres]; ANNE is [Author Tyler or Rice]; and STEFFI is the great [Graf of tennis].
December 16, 2008
Wednesday, 12/17
Tausig 4:12
Onion 4:10
Sun 3:55
LAT 3:15
CS 3:08
NYT 3:02
(updated at 10:23 a.m. Wednesday)
John Farmer works a mnemonic into his New York Times crossword, but he does a good job of hiding it. There are five circled squares, the ones that begin the longest Across answers and the central Across answer. All of those letters—E, G, B, D, and F reading downwards—are NOTES, or [Staff members, and what the circled letters in this puzzle represent] at 65-Across. The five EGBDF answers start with words that are used in a common mnemonic for remembering the order of those notes: EVERY GOOD BOY DOES FINE. Now, the way I learned it, every good boy deserves fudge, and I'm feeling a little ripped off that Farmer didn't bring the fudge. (I kid!)
John Farmer likes to do it up fancy, so the first and last theme answers are accompanied by stacked pairs of 9-letter answers and crossed by triple-stacked 7's to boot. The fill is rather Scrabbly as well. My favorite parts:
Now, this puzzle's not all fudgy goodness. Abbreviations and quasi-crosswordese answers include RGS, or [Some football linemen: Abbr.]; EZIO, [Opera singer Pinza]; DSL, the [Alternative to dial-up] (I like this abbreviation, though); the FAA, or ["Black box" regulator: Abbr.]; OMY or "o' My," clued as ["Peg ___ Heart"]; DJ'S and BB'S and CD's; the [U.K. honor] known as the OBE; the [Onetime Mideast letters] UAR, or United Arab Republic; AOL and DNA; DAWS, or [Crow cousins] (as in jackdaws); and AZO [___ dye].
The Wednesday Sun crossword constructor is Stephen Kennedy, an unfamiliar name. Perhaps "Bawdy Parts" marks his debut, and it's a good puzzle. The theme entries end with words that sound like body parts.
Two corners of the grid are wide open. In one of those corners, ["Casablanca" director Michael] CURTIZ appears. Why is that name so unfamiliar? (No, it's not his original name.) This puzzle seems to have quite a bit in the way of X's, Z's, and K's. There's also Erik ESTRADA, who is on my TV screen right now. He's playing a cop (a California highway cop, as luck would have it) on the kid show, Drake and Josh. (He looks the same, but with a bit of a paunch.)
Updated:
The first theme entry in Bill Ballard's LA Times crossword is COME AS YOU ARE, clued with ["It's a party! Informal, so ___..."].Great, a whole theme of Nirvana songs! I'm playing the song as I write this, but no, the rest of the theme entries were not Nirvana songs but party invitation phrases: NO GIFTS, PLEASE. KEEP IT A SECRET. And BRING YOUR OWN bottle. There are some pop culture references in the puzzle, though. FLIX is clued as [Net attachment?], as in Netflix. [Paul's "Exodus" role] was ARI (that's Paul Newman). Sam COOKE was the ["You Send Me" singer]. [Spike TV, formerly] was called TNN. SNL is the [TV show that had recurring "Killer Bees" sketches]. James ARNESS was the main ["Gunsmoke" star]. And Garfield's housemate ODIE is the [Slobbering comics dog] in question. There's one answer I've never seen before: ASSUROR is clued as an [Underwriter].
Tom Schier's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Who's Who," gathers a party of people with the initials W.W.:
I didn't know the [Driver in the most favorable position at the start of the race] was called a POLE SITTER; I know about pole position and the old flagpole sitting craze, though. Favorite entry: WET BLANKET, or [Enthusiasm dampener]. Knit your own wet blanket with [Balls of yarn] called CLEWS. There are a few place names mapped out on the grid. ATTU is the [Farthest of the Near Islands]. [Fort ___ (U.S. gold storage facility)] is Ft. KNOX. LANAI is a [Neighbor of Maui], and the Pacific has many a [Coral island], or ATOLL. ALGIERS was a [Former Barbary State in Africa]; from the 16th to 19th centuries, Algiers, Tunis, Morocco, and Tripolitania (Tripoli) were the Barbary coast divisions. AKRON is the [Rubber hub in Ohio].
Brendan Emmett Quigley (who's got a new blog where he dispenses crosswords on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays) constructed this week's Onion A.V. Club puzzle. It's a quote theme, but the quote is a famous Bushism, so it was easier than usual to fill in the quote without needing crossings. The quote begins with the clue, [Start of an ironic quote from a certain Yale graduate]: RARELY IS / THE QUESTION ASKED: IS / OUR CHILDREN / LEARNING? Two more answers relate to the theme: LEFT / BEHIND is clued [With 63-Across, how those among 54-Across who speak like their President might end up].
Favorite answers and clues:
Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword, ""Holding Water," holds some H2O in each theme entry:
Among the more interesting clues and answers are these:
That's a lot of good stuff there. Tougher words: [Spinning round?] is a DJ SET. [Ottoman dynasty founder] is OSMAN. [Hip parts] are ILIA, plural of ilium. [2002 Literature Nobelist Kertesz] is IMRE Kertesz. [Belligerent Chinese dynasty until 1125] is LIAO.
MGWCC #28
crossword 5:34
puzzle not long, maybe another minute or so
this week's installation of the matt gaffney weekly crossword contest was perhaps the easiest one of the series for me, both in terms of solving the crossword and then solving the subsequent brainteaser. the puzzle was called "mystery mailman," and the five-part instructions in the grid spelled out: JOIN THREE / CANADIAN POSTAL / ABBREVIATIONS TO / FORM AN NFL STAR'S / FIRST NAME. well, there are thirteen canadian postal abbreviations, but only five have any vowels: AB (alberta), NU (nunavut), ON (ontario), PE (prince edward island), and YT (yukon territory). as it turns out, three of these five made up the theme answer: PE/YT/ON, as in indianapolis colts QB peyton manning. for any football fan, this is one of the first names that would come to mind, but you don't need to be a football fan to know peyton manning, because he stars in an absurd number of commercials for various products--credit cards, energy drinks, HD TVs, cell phones, NFL.com, you name it.
fun stuff in the grid: former chess champion anatoly KARPOV, with a pretty insane clue: [Miles famously beat him in 1980 with 1. e4 a6!? 2. d4 b5!?]. that's a chess opening known as the st. george defence, and it's generally regarded as being an inferior opening for black. so it is pretty notable that tony miles used it to defeat a world champion like KARPOV. also enjoyable from the world of sports was ANDY roddick, clued as [Supposed rival of Roger] federer. yeah, back in 2004-5 it looked like they might be rivals, but roger destroyed him time after time for years and was basically unrivaled until rafa nadal showed up to fill the void. (i'll give matt ten points for the clue, and dock one for having ANDY samberg show up elsewhere as the clue for SNL.) i also enjoyed the clue for SAMOA: [Where the locals fooled Margaret Mead], the cultural anthropologist who wrote coming of age in SAMOA. finally, you gotta love QAT, the [Stimulant often seen in Scrabble games]. it's not quite as ubiquitous now that they've added QI to the fourth edition of the OSPD, but it's still damned useful. (what is QAT? it's an alkaloid-containing evergreen shrub chewed mostly by yemenis.)
[Maryland resort town] OCEAN CITY was a gimme for me, as we used to vacation there when i was a kid, but i don't know how well people from elsewhere around the country might know it. did it give anybody problems? (i remember it giving me problems--horseflies the size of golf balls. *shudder*)
stuff i didn't know: anna FARIS [who starred in the "Scary Movie" series] and ["Dear Abby" singer John] PRINE. seems like FARIS is a familiar name, but i didn't recognize her picture on imdb.
December 15, 2008
Tuesday, 12/16
Jonesin' 4:13
Sun 3:35
CS 3:14
NYT 2:50
LAT 2:45
Three cheers for President-elect Obama! He announced his pick for Secretary of Education today, and it's Arne Duncan from the Chicago Public Schools. While many Chicagoans, especially those of us with kids in the public schools, will miss him, how nice that a guy named ARNE is becoming nationally prominent. Who will be the first crossword constructor to let this ARNE bail her out of a tight corner?
Gail Grabowski's New York Times puzzle hits the usual Tuesday difficulty level—pretty darned easy, but a notch tougher than a Monday. There are three theme entries whose ends are labeled by a fourth long answer:
There's a whole row in this puzzle that can be read backwards—STRAW TIDE PETS is STEP EDIT WARTS backwards. Good stuff in the grid: A [Standby passenger's salvation] is a NO-SHOW at the airline gate. A 'VETTE is a [Sporty Chevy, for short]. (The Corvette and the Ford Mustang are good arguments for a Big Three bailout.) HOT DOG is clued as an exclamation synonymous with ["Oh, goody!"]. BAD PRESS is [Unwanted publicity]. [Enough, for some] clues ONCE; Jacqueline Susann is on record as saying that once is decidedly not enough.
Kelsey Blakley's Sun puzzle is called "Out of Order" because the first two letters in each theme entry are out of order:
In the fill, the comparative CORNIER is clued as [More banal, as a joke]. Doesn't this make you want to pronounce HOOSIER ([Indiana native]) with an extra syllable? Hoosier, more hoosy. I was stymied by the clue [X tenth?], for which the answer is PIN—on a bowling score sheet, X is a strike, or 10 pins. Right below PIN is UNI, which is the Latin-derived prefix that means one, which is a tenth of the Roman numeral X, but I suppose it would have been hard to link UNI to X in the clue.
Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword this week is a themeless one with the title, "Letters Entertain You." Matt puts his own stamp on a themeless. The grid has triple-stacked 10's intersecting with another triple-stacked set of 10's in two of the corners, and some of those 10's are absolutely fabulous. Kickass entries include the following:
Now, I can envision a themeless crossword in one of the weekend editions of a daily newspaper that would include a few of these answers, but usually we don't get such a wealth of fresh and fun stuff in a single puzzle. Favorite clues:
Updated:
Randall Hartman's CrosSynergy crossword, "Moving Along," progresses from one to four clue words, with the answers reflecting both the clue words' meaning and how many clue words there are:
When I read [Part of IPA] and saw that I needed 7 letters, I figured the answer couldn't be INDIA, PALE, or ALE. As it turns out, it's PALE ALE. IPA also stands for the international phonetic alphabet, which luckily has no 7-letter words in its name! [Diva Christina] is pop star AGUILERA and not an opera diva. BLEEPS are [Swear word deletions], in the news of late.
Today's LA Times crossword was constructed by Derek Bowman and Sarah Keller. The theme reconceives THREE-D MOVIES (like the new animated film, Bolt) as being movies with three D's in the title:
I'm not sure why MALADIES are clued as [Chronic ailments]; I think maladies can be short-lived acute conditions too. Is the flu not a malady? Speaking of diseases, ALOIS is the first name of [Dr. Alzheimer], who first identified the disease that bears his name. PHOOEY looks cute in the grid; it's clued as ["Nuts!"].
