BEQ cryptic 9:57
Onion 4:45
NYT 3:53
LAT 3:01
CS 5:57 (J―paper)
Wow, I had my low-key Wednesday all planned out. Rush-rush puzzle books all done, at last! Time to enjoy a day of medical editing in air-conditioned comfort. And then...the car's "check engine" light dinged on during the drive home from dinner. Who doesn't love taking the car to the shop and hailing a cab when it's 92° out? I know I do—not love that, that is. I expect my bilious mood to follow a sine-wave pattern. Right now it's in a dip, but I predict a rise by 9 a.m.
Oh! Maybe if I remind myself of this, I can keep the crankies at bay: Next Sunday, July 5, the crossword that Tony Orbach and I constructed will appear in the New York Times. Now I'm nervous. What if the other bloggers find things to complain about? What if they're underwhelmed by the theme? What if outraged blog commenters try to eviscerate Tony and me? How do constructors handle criticism with equanimity?
And another thing—Dean Olsher's book, From Square One, was officially published yesterday. Buy it now! I read it in galleys and found it most engaging, and I'm not just saying that because Dean says nice things about me in the book. Honest. (More info about the book and Dean's public appearances here.)
Corey Rubin's New York Times crossword
The phrase TAKE OUT AN AD inspires this theme, in which the letter pair AD is taken out of each theme entry:
Favorite clues and answers:
When do you encounter the plural MODI [___ operandi (methods)]? Not often, not often at all. Remember MABEL [Normand of old movies]? Me neither, other than from crosswords. We have a variant spelling of tyro: TIRO is a [Newbie: Var.]. And rounding out the category of "answers that I wasn't so fond of," we have [Chantilly's department], OISE.
Updated Wednesday morning:
Nancy Salomon's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Short Stuff"―Janie's review
Oh, boy―is this one lovely LEAN-machine of a puzzle; the solving is swift and the fill is fresh as can be. Today, the word short can precede the first word in each of the theme phrases. In this way:
Coming of age appears for the first time in a major puzzle, and both hand-in-glove and stop-on-a-dime are appearing for the first time in a CS puzzle, all of which makes for some really good stuff.
And so does the remainder of the fill―with the likes of EVIL EYE, LOOPHOLE, (CS-debut) STAMP TAX, JANE DOE, McJOBS and MUD BATH especially. I keep thinking of those cagey colonists who, in response to the stamp tax imposed by the Stamp Act, spoke up and won the right to for "no taxation without representation." What a loophole that turned out to be!
Where else but in the puzzles will you find T. S. ELIOT of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" fame in the company of COSMO [Mag famous for sex quizzes]? Hmmm. Maybe next April, for National Poetry Month, Cosmo will create "The Love Quiz of J. Alfred..." And where else but in the puzzles have most of us ever seen an OKAPI [Relative of a giraffe]? Here's an illustration of the two of them together from J. Arthur Thomson's 1922 tome, The Outline of Science. (Though it might be more fun to see an illustration of a ZANY YENTA...)
Anyone out there ever sing madrigals? That's where I first learned the word TABOR, as in Thomas Weelkes's:Strike it up Tabor and pipe us a favour,
I like [Start of something big?] for MEGA―and its placement beside ONE TON in the grid. That's fairly mega! I also like [Months and months] as the clue for YEARS; [Head line?] for PART; and the reminder that [Tangles or disentangles] are synonymous for RAVELS.
thou shalt be well paid for thy labour:
I mean to spend my shoesole to dance about the Maypole,
I will be blithe and brisk, leap and skip, hop and trip,
turn about in the rout,
until very weary joints can scarce frisk.
If the constructor has OUTDONE herself, well, that seems to be a pretty regular occurrence. I wonder about the theme-fill that didn't make it in this time: breadbasket, change of heart, division of labor, order in the court, etc., etc., etc. This is not to find fault! This is a lively theme and it makes me think about it―beyond what I see in the grid on the page. ["Well done!"], Nancy, BRAVO!
Sharon Petersen's Los Angeles Times crossword
My full write-up of this puzzle is over at L.A. Crossword Confidential. The theme is a David Bowie-less LET'S DANCE, with four phrases ending with the names of dances. It felt a little hit-or-miss as the theme phrases weren't all familiar and one of the dances was unknown to me (according to L.A.C.C. reader Carol, I'm just not old enough to remember the Pony). Here's what I said about the theme over there:
Invariably I misspell this constructor's last name with an -son ending. I did so in my L.A.C.C. post (since corrected). Thanks to Doug Peterson-with-an-O for correcting me all the other times so that I could finally get it right today.
Matt Jones's Onion A.V. Club crossword
Aha! While working this puzzle, I was feeling as though some of the numbers were arbitrary, but now I see that they follow the familiar 2-4-6-8 pattern, so I can better appreciate the construction. Here's the theme:
This crossword had all sorts of small bits of weirdness that I didn't know. [Georgia State's conf.] is the CAA. [Ookla the ___ ("Thundarr the Barbarian" character)] is MOK. JAM IT and DIG ON were unfamiliar verb phrases—the former completes ["I wanna ___ with you" (Bob Marley lyric)] and the latter means [Enjoy, slangily].
I did know the [L'Oreal hair color line] FERIA and the [Japanese poetry similar to haiku], or SENRYU—if you've written or read haiku that's funny, it might actually be senryu. I also liked the MAXI clue—[Absorbent pad]. No, references to menstruation in crosswords don't alarm me. MAXI dresses are back in style now, so constructors can once again clue this word with reference to fashion without looking outdated.
Brendan Quigley's blog puzzle, "Cryptic Wednesday"
Dang, I forgot about Brendan's puzzle and thought I was done blogging. Will be quick about it and just list a few of my favorite clues. Be sure to read the comments at Brendan's post—British cryptics guy Peter Biddlecombe gives an educated critique of Brendan's first cryptic, and he says it all so much better than I could.
23A. [Subway mascot shows a container to Mad man] (5). I was thinking that "subway mascot" was part of the wordplay, but that's the straight definition for JARED, the guy from the Subway restaurant ads. The container is a JAR and a man at Mad magazine might be an editor, or ED.
3D. [Desires sexual attraction for losers, probably] (4,5). "Desires sexual attraction" is redundant (and so, as I learn the lingo from Biddlecombe, maybe the surface reading of the clue suffers a bit), but it's split into two distinct parts. Desires = LONGS and sexual attraction = the HOTS. LONG SHOTS are probably going to lose a contest.
16D. [Dope! Callas is lying about Peron] (9). MARIA Callas is "lying about" JUAN Peron to make MARIJUANA, or dope.
June 23, 2009
Wednesday, 6/24
MGWCC #55
crossword 6:22
puzzle 0:28
greetings, fellow solvers. the 55th episode of matt gaffney's weekly crossword contest, "The Milky Way," featured a friday-esque crossword with a not-too-tough meta. the puzzle instructs us that This week's contest answer is a type of drink with two words and a total of eleven letters in its name. let's look at the theme answers, which somewhat resemble a recipe for this mystery drink:
so if we take the "ingredients" and "shake them vigorously" according to the "somewhat cryptic" instructions, that means we'll take the letters of TATTLE-TALE and anagram them. (those of you who solve cryptic crosswords will surely recognize "shake" as an anagram keyword.) the only catch is that TATTLE-TALE is 10 letters, and the drink is 11 letters, according to the instructions. also, you can't spell much with those letters, with only A, E, L, and T repeated. but you can spell LATTE (a drink you can certainly get at a coffee shop). that's the first thing i noticed. the second thing i noticed is that if you take those letters out, you get ... LATTE again. how about that? indeed, a "somewhat cryptic" interpretation is that you can "shake" TATTLE-TALE to arrive at a double latte, which is the answer to the contest.
what about the fill?
that's all for this week. tune in next time for the killer 4th-of-the-month puzzle.
June 22, 2009
Tuesday, 6/23
Jonesin' 3:32
NYT 3:11
LAT 3:04
CS 7:16 (J―paper)
At long last, we have reached the time of year when "cooler near the lake" is a splendid thing. Hot, muggy days are much improved by a lake breeze knocking off 10° from the temperature. I hope you Northeasterners who've had the same overlong wet, cool spring as Chicago are now getting some genuine June weather too.
I did some proofreading on six (!) different books today (Brendan Quigley's NFL-team word searches). Is it just me, or is looking at word search puzzles more exhausting than, say, medical editing?
Caleb Madison's New York Times crossword
Caleb's theme contains four phrases that begin with synonyms for "wallop":
Where this puzzle shines is in the longer Down answers. Why, here's GROUCHO MARX—[He said, "Here's to our wives and girlfriends...may they never meet!"]. Ah, adulterous deception is always a reliable source of hilarity. (Maybe the retro ADMEN, [Some Madison Ave. workers], are living the Groucho lifestyle.) One type of [Magazine staffer] is the FACT-CHECKER. STAN LEE is perhaps one of the more common 7-letter first-and-last-name people in crosswords; he's [Co-creator of the Fantastic Four]. REAL LIFE probably gets discussed more now than ever, thanks to how much time people spend in the virtual world discussing [Actuality]. Also nice: the Scrabblicious ZZ TOP, the ["Sharp Dressed Man" band], and an ELIXIR, a [Drink said to prolong life]. Is Diet Coke an elixir? I say yes. Favorite clue: [da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM] presents examples of IAMBS.
Updated Tuesday morning:
Donna S. Levin's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Early Bird's Reward"—Janie's review
The "early bird's reward" is of course the WORM, double-clued here as [Computer malady (and what can follow the starts of the four longest puzzle answers)]. May all of our computers be free of that first kind of worm―but what great fill Donna has provided in those four longest answers to clue the other kinds:
This is all top-notch fill in its own right that does double duty as it livens up a tried-(sometimes "tired-")and-true crossword theme.
Other terrific fill includes three CS-firsts: the poetically clued LOST LOVE [Theme of Poe's "Annabel Lee"], the colorful RED-NOSED [Like Rudolph, in a song title], and NTH POWER [Ultimate degree]. These phrases are well-met with IN RESERVE [Set aside] and SNEAK INTO [Crash]. Did you have trouble with either of these? I sure did. A little nosing around the Cruciverb database, however, reveals that both of these phrases with these exact clues have appeared in puzzles by Rich Norris―and in both cases, in Saturday NY Times puzzles. Aha―so that explains it. Glad I finally GOT WISE [Woke up and smelled the coffee] (another great combo)!
Knew PRESLEY [Graceland name] but was at a complete loss for WEIR [Bob ____ (Grateful Dead co-founder). Today is first time this name has been clued in conjunction with the Dead. More often than not it's clued in association with director Peter or as a "small dam."
All of which comes down to this: congrats to Donna for breathing so much fresh air into the cluing and the fill today!
Gary Lowe and Nancy Salomon's Los Angeles Times crossword
Newcomer Gary Lowe, a regular (and often hilarious) commenter over at L.A. Crossword Confidential, partnered up with constructing mentor extraordinaire Nancy Salomon for today's L.A. Times puzzle. The theme is things you COUNT (54D, [Tally, and what to do with the last word of 18-, 26-, 45- or 60-Across]:
Highlights in the fill: ADVICE GURU, MOLIERE, SLUMDOG Millionaire (though it remains to be seen whether "Slumdog" still resonates a few years from now), and EN MASSE.
I answered a question about 2D via Twitter today. Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn tweeted that he didn't understand how [Totaled] and RAN TO fit together. Totaled, as a restaurant bill, not totaled, as a car. Most of my tweets aren't about crosswords, but you're welcome to follow OrangeXW anyway.
Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword,"We've Got a Monopoly"
Cute theme—in each of the six theme entries, Matt changes a single letter in the name of a Monopoly space, giving it a new spin:
WORK WITH ME is stone-cold terrific, in-the-language fill. Its clue is ["C'mon, I need your help here, so stop resisting"]. FORD SUV is...is that terrific or contrived? I'm not sure. That's a [Bronco, Explorer, or Excursion, e.g.]. A trickier clue would've included only the Excursion and the Expedition.
I'm out of time for the morning, so I'll sign off here. Toodles!
June 21, 2009
Monday, 6/22
BEQ 3:54
LAT 2:40
NYT 2:20
CS 7:23 (J—paper)
Wow, is it relaxing to have a blogless weekend! Vielen Dank to PuzzleGirl for holding down the fort with her inimitable 4-letter words (brio and élan).
Fred Piscop's New York Times crossword
In Fred's easy Monday puzzle, I only knew 3 and 5/11ths theme entries, but the theme (phrases beginning with "cee" sound-alikes) gave me another 1/11th:
Your DEBIT CARD is indeed a [Quick, cashless way to pay for things]. Don't take it to RENO, the [Nevada gambling mecca], if you are prone to gambling away all your money. In a few more decades, I suspect a concept like [Leisure suit fabric] will vanish from our POLYESTER associations. The top two clues I liked: ARAMIS is a [Fragrance named for a Musketeer] and FALSE is a [Test answer you have a 50/50 chance of guessing right].
Here are some crosswordy things that may be unfamiliar to newer solvers. If you didn't know these ones, commit them to memory. Really, what else are you doing with all that memory? Go ahead and fill it up with common crossword answers.
Updated Monday morning:Sarah Keller's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Inside Job"—Janie's review
Embezzlement? A bank heist? Embedding the letters J, O and B in phrases like HOJO BURGER? Nupe. None of the above. Instead, a pert 4-part quip (doled out in 2 15s and 2 10s) about people in radiology. The words of wisdom being:
Kinda makes me wanna cue up this Beatles tune from Rubber Soul.
I enjoyed the quip and don't have lots to say about it or the non-theme fill. Still, the inclusion of the oft-seen FTD did make me question exactly what those letters stand for. I knew it had to do with Flower Deliveries, but in this day and age, I wasn't sure about that "T." It's an acronym with some 44 definitions, but the answer in the context of [Blooming bus.?] is Florists' Transworld Delivery, a service that has been delivering flowers—and saving the butts of procrastinating gift-givers—for nearly a century now.
I do like that clue, too—as well as [Ring toss item?] for HAT (as in,"I've decided to toss my HAT into the ring and run for office"); and [Shed item] for TOOL. This one had me stymied for a while. I kept thinking of the way a snake sheds its SKIN, but that wasn't working and I couldn't come up with anything else along those lines. Got me! Perhaps if I'd paid more attention to those AWLS [Hole-punching tools], I'd not have gone so far down the path of misdirection.
Good morning from Amy! Good gravy, where did this summertime come from? Chicago had three months of April and then suddenly—boom!—it's warm and too muggy.
Donna Levin's Los Angeles Times crossword
Donna's tennis theme felt familiar—three phrases ending in GAME, SET, and MATCH, held together by a timely mention of WIMBLEDON—and a search of the Cruciverb database finds that "game, set, match" has been fertile ground for crossword constructors. This isn't remotely intended as criticism of today's puzzle—Monday themes often tread familiar ground, and the English language has a lot of phrases that end with those three words. What Donna adds is WIMBLEDON, which doesn't appear in the Cruciverb database at all. Here's today's theme:
It's interesting to take a look at the other ways constructors have riffed on the same core idea:
I fully expect to see a September puzzle one of these years with GAME, SET, MATCH, and THE U.S. OPEN.
For more on today's LAT and a giggly Carol Burnett Show clip, see PuzzleGirl's L.A. Crossword Confidential post.
Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Second Life"
Brendan's still polishing his first cryptic, so we have a quote theme today instead of the cryptic he promised. "A quote theme? Ugh," you may find yourself groaning. Brendan's had a couple quote themes that I've actually liked, though. I think his success rate in making quote puzzles I like is in the 80% to 100% range, whereas the other constructors in the field average about 10%. What sets Brendan's quote themes apart from the rest? As I just commented at Brendan's blog, if he gave a class on the proper construction of quote themes, I think the main lessons would be:
(1) Find a quote with some edge to it. Today's quote is egotistical. Previous BEQ quote themes have had funny lines from current comedians like David Cross and Patton Oswalt.
(2) My god, don't use an old quote. Sure, Mae West and Yogi Berra got off some good lines, but by 2009 they're likely to feel stale.
(3) Shoot for a shorter quote to avoid a large volume of "gotta work the crossings" stuff. Today's quote is 27 letters long, with the theme supplemented by the speaker and the team he owns.
(4) Elevate the fill with more interesting stuff and a lower word count. This one's a 74-worder in which 27 of the fill answers are 6 to 8 letters long.
The quote is "WHEN I DIE, / I WANT TO COME / BACK AS ME." Spoken by MARK CUBAN, owner of the Dallas MAVERICKS.
Brendan rated this one as "easy." I like it that Brendan's easy puzzles settle in at Wednesday-plus level. I don't think Brendan likes making Monday-caliber puzzles much. Hey, that's fine by me!
June 20, 2009
Sunday, 6/21
NYT*
LAT*
PI*
BG*
CS*
*You don't really care; it's just PuzzleGirl.
[Updated at 9:45am with the LAT]
[Updated at 10:10am with the PI]
[Updated at 10:30 with the BG]
[Updated 12:00 noon with the CS — Whew!]
Hey, everyone, PuzzleGirl here with your Sunday puzzles. Someone remind me again why I told Orange I'd blog for her today? Oh yeah, I'm completely nuts. Sunday puzzles! They're just too big! Well, we might as well get started. I know it's a big drag when Orange is gone but let's just make the best of it!
Today's New York Times crossword by Matt Ginsberg and Pete Muller chewed me up and spit me out. I had to Google a couple times ("The horror!") and then when I thought I was all done, I had a mistake at [92A: Some pitcherfuls]. I had ALES instead of ADES and, I tell you what, for some reason mistakes on the downs are a lot harder for me to see than mistakes on the acrosses. BO DIDLLEY looked just fine to me the first ten times I scanned by it. Ugh!
The theme of this puzzle is "Famous Last Words," and theme answers are—you guessed it—last words of famous people. I'll be honest, I don't believe I've heard any of these quotations before. Have you? With a couple crosses in place, I could figure out most of them and they're pretty interesting!
Theme answers:
I liked seeing AKC [42A: Huskies' org.] so close to DOGGONE IT [50A: Words of disappointment] and DESPOT [60A: Kim Jong-il, e.g.] crossing DEPOT [60D: Points on some lines]. I wasn't crazy about seeing ILLEGALS in the grid [104A: Raid targets]. That seems like a fairly derogatory term to me. And HANOI clued as [10D: McCain residence for 5-1/2 years]?? Ouch.
Fred Piscop's L.A. Times crossword, with its wordplay theme, was closer to my comfort zone. Theme answers are familiar phrases with an X tacked onto the end, resulting in new wacky phrases clued "?"-style.
Theme answers:
You can see my full write-up of this puzzle at our other blog, L.A. Crossword Confidential.
Hey! A Father's Day theme! Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there! Merl Reagle's Philadelphia Inquirer puzzle lets us in on "What Dad Stands For" — theme answers are three-word phrases with the first letters D.A.D.
Wanna know DAD's favorite comedy? It's "Dumb and Dumber," of course. Favorite game? "Dungeons and Dragons," natch. I've never heard of "Duel at Diablo," but it came pretty easy through crosses, unlike "Dick and Dee Dee," which took a while to figure out because I also wasn't sure of the Carmen Miranda tune "Tico Tico." I am sure that I love her hat though. Other than that, it was a pretty smooth and steady solve, which is typical for me with Merl's puzzles.
The rest of the theme answers:
I did have to laugh at myself at 1A. I saw [Moscow headgear] and though, "What do they call those FUR HATs?" ["My pretty," in a 1939 film] for DOROTHY is a truly inspired clue. And what would my guest-blogging stint be without me telling you something really dumb I tried to fit into the grid. For [68A: When metal-casting started] instead of the correct IRON AGE, I literally — literally — started writing in Stone Age until it was obvious it wouldn't fit. The clue for NELSONS [81A: Mandela and others] made me wonder if it would be kosher to clue this answer with, say, Mandela and Ozzie. One with the NELSON as a first name and the other with NELSON as a last name. I'm thinking that's probably not cool.
I thought I was going to strike out in the SW — I didn't know any of the downs on my first pass! Luckily, my parents are big horse-racing fans and HIALEAH [115A: Racetrack near Miami] was a gimme. Also [109A: Mary's TV friend] RHODA who I love, love, love. Isn't it hilarious that NO ONE said "Play it again, Sam" in "Casablanca"? How in the world do those kind of errors take hold and become part of our popular culture? 119D reminded me that I'm going in for my first ACUpuncture treatment on Friday. Can't think of a better way to spend a Friday morning than having someone stick needles in my body. Wish me luck!
Oh, I really struggled through Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon's Boston Globe crossword, "Trainspotting." For some reason the BG puzzles are always hard for me. I think it's because I'm only exposed to these constructors (Emily and Henry, and Henry Hook) once a week. I did eventually finish this one, but it was rough. It's so chock full of theme and then there's all the "Look here! Look there!" — made me dizzy! Kinda like motion sickness. Heh. None of the train names came easy — although once they were in, they all looked familiar enough. Here are the trains found in this puzzle:
Wow! Question: Could there be any more theme stuffed into this puzzle? Answer: No. No, there could not. This is like an industrial sized tub full of theme here. Amazing. And even though I had a lot of trouble with the puzzle, it was totally my fault and not because of bad fill. In fact, they even managed to sneak some theme-ish fill in with TRAY clued as [Passenger's prop], and TOWNS clued as [Whistle stops, maybe]. Also:
And correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure "Broken Arrow" (which shows up at 3D: Michael of "Broken Arrow" (ANSARA)) is the movie where the nukes are on the train. John Travolta and Christian Slater? Right? Anyone?
As I expected, Bob Klahn's CrosSynergy crossword was rough going but ultimately beautiful. The only gimmes I had the first time through were LEGS [11A: Trio for grand pianos], ALP [19A: High point of "The Sound of Music"?], PIÑON [36A: State tree of Nevada and New Mexico], and Robin WILLIAMS [33D: Star of "One Hour Photo"] (never saw it, but it looks really, really creepy). That's not much to build on! With some perseverance, though, things came into focus. I've never heard the word ORISON before [21A: Prayer]. ELASTOMERS [12D: Synthetic rubber compounds] was new to me too, but gettable through crosses. Well, eventually anyway. I had the most trouble in the SW where I had ensure for ASSURE [25A: Warrant] and had no idea about [41A: "The Fantasticks" narrator] (it's EL GALLO). Just looked it up and, guess what. I bet Tony Orbach didn't have any trouble with that one. But my downfall was my stunning lack of military knowledge. For [32A: USMC E-4s] I first had guns, then subs, then cols (making my way to the ballpark!), and finally, the correct CPLS. Yikes!
I also suffer from that particular brand of dyslexia where I fill in wrong letters even when I know the right answer if I've already got most of the crosses entered. In this case, I had smokeatter instead of SMOKE-EATER at 55A [Firefighter, slangily]. That means I was looking at -ILDARA for the [Horse-breeding county west of Dublin] and both C and K looked reasonable to me, so I went with the C. If I'd had the proper last letter in there, I'm sure I would have seen KILDARE. Of course, by that time I was feeling a little pressure to be done already so I could write this up and get on with my day! As always, I choose to believe that had I taken a little more time, I would have ended up with a perfect solution.
With any luck, Orange will be back tomorrow. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
June 19, 2009
Saturday, 6/20
Newsday 7:37
NYT 6:19
LAT 4:00
CS 6:55 (J—paper)
Before getting around to the Saturday NYT crossword, I did a few Vowelless Crosswords by Frank Longo. Man, I just flew through one of those puzzles! It only took me 8 minutes, or a third longer than the NYT. Then the next crsswrd took me 26 minutes. Ouch. I'm enjoying the format tremendously but you know what? The fun won't last. Before you know it, I'll have finished the entire book and then what? Then I have to wait until fall for Brendan Quigley's diagramless book, but I test-solved a bunch of the puzzles so those ones will be reruns for me.
Brilliant constructors, please make more tough puzzle books. Publishers, please publish said books. Thank you.
Brad Wilber's New York Times crossword
Tons of cool fill in this puppy, eh? This may be one of the most enjoyable Wilber creations to date. Let's run through some clues:
Michael Wiesenberg's Los Angeles Times crossword
I'm leaving town early in the morning (PuzzleGirl will be here to cover the Sunday puzzles in my absence), so let me excerpt what I've written up for L.A. Crossword Confidential.
Just like last Saturday's L.A. Times crossword, this puzzle felt like an easy Friday NYT puzzle—and I had a bottle of Stella Artois before I began the puzzle.
The grid is unusual—if it weren't for the black squares in each corner, this puzzle would have triple stacks of 15-letter answers at the top and bottom. Instead, it's got pairs of 15's with single 13's. I love that last Across answer, TEETER-TOTTERS (61A: They have their ups and downs). It's got the most boring letters in the English language, the sort of letters that often populate the bottom row of a crossword, but we don't see too many 13's in themeless puzzles, and TEETER-TOTTERS have that playground nostalgia cachet.
Clues? Answers? We got 'em:
Sandy Fein's Newsday "Saturday Stumper"
(PDF solution here.)
7:37? All right, not too much harder than the NYT puzzle today. I'll take it as a victory.
I like the mislead of [Early riser] as a clue for an UPSTART, and I like the word SWAGGER ([Bluster]). PIUS VII, the [Adversary of Napoleon], is a Roman-numeraled person I don't recall seeing in a crossword before. Bowling [Lane marks] are STRIKES, if you're lucky. Interesting clue for AVARICE: It's [One of Spinoza's "species of madness"]. In hockey, you might get a PENALTY and [It may be served in a box]; so can some lunches. The NEWBERY Medal is bestowed on authors of American literature for kids; the clue is [Medal won by Lofting], referring to (I had to look this up) Hugh Lofting, author of The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle.
Lotsa weird fill here. The GRAYLAG goose is a [European goose]. Seven-letter partial HENRI DE [___ Toulouse-Lautrec] pushes beyond the usual 5-letter limit but with no great payoff in amusement value or in facilitating great fill in its neighborhood. There are some odd-jobbers in the grid: a TWEEZER, a DWELLER, and some TILTERS ([Quixote wannabes]).
I suspected that [Name to make up with] had to do with making up stories, but ALIAS didn't work with the crossings. The answr turned out to be cosmetics brand ESTEE Lauder. But...you don't make up with the name. You make up with the makeup. Unfamiliar place name of the day: HALLE is [Handel's birthplace].
Updated Saturday morning:
Randall J. Hartman's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Fly Apart"—Janie's review
I'm beginning to thing that Randy is out to give lie to the notion that "breaking up is hard to do," for in today's puzzle we have yet another example of what happens when you choose a word—FLY, say—and break it up, or take it "apart," so that its letters bookend (and belong to) the theme fill. Last week we were happily "covered in MUD"; about a month ago the theme answers were found "in a NUT shell." Today the tried-and-true theme (a pun itself) plays out even more playfully than in puzzles past—and is especially well-met with its non-theme complement. Behold:
There look to be a few sub-themes here today, too. Baseball for one. We get Mel OTT, ERNIE Banks, the METS, EARNED RUN average, and I'm even going to go out on a limb and include LEGGINGS. Was really thrown by [Giant nicknamed "Master Melvin"]. In vain I tried to think of some long-forgotten fairytale character... In other words, terrific clue.
"Things people say" would have to include YES'M ["Okay" for Tom Sawyer] and PAY UP [Shylock's threat]. Didn't help myself any by trying to make this PAY ME...
Then there's the television sub-theme, with hosts OPRAH Winfrey, Tom SNYDER, Jay LENO—and of course, the aforementioned FRED FRIENDLY. And a trio of working types: the ECOLOGIST, and the symmetrically placed odd-couple of PAINTERS and SOLDIERS. That last one can also be associated with NAM, then USAF, then A-TEST. (I'm afraid the more I see this one clued along the lines of [Big blast, briefly], the less amused by it I become.)
Our music today? DOOWOP. But the clue [Style of Randy and the Rainbows] was zero help. Turns out their claim to fame was "Denise," a song I do remember, and that this quintet included two sibling pairs—the Safutos and the Zeros (truly)—and a lone Arcipowski. (This clip is not of the original group, but does feature one Safuto and one Zero for some "doowop reunion" special...)
Finally—how SASSY is that HOT PANTS clue, ["Cheeky" style of clothing]? A fashion trend best suited for the long of limb and firm of flesh, I imagine that hot pants have long been a staple of the Glamour "Don't" list.
Rex's Father's Day gift ideas
Check out
Rex Parker's gift ideas, mostly of the puzzle-related ilk. These items don't just make good gifts for Dad—they'd be appreciated by any discerning puzzle person. Go ahead and buy 'em for yourself if you want.
June 18, 2009
Friday, 6/19
NYT 8:51
BEQ 7:07
LAT 3:56
CS 5:35 (J—paper)
WSJ tba
It would be hard for me to be any crankier than I am right now. The freelance assignments are piling up around my head, time is short, and every so many minutes, a malfunctioning car alarm right across the street goes off. Mind you, it's the first day in a couple weeks that the lakeside temperature topped 70°, so I'd love to have the window open but the car alarm just might drive me mad.
David Levinson Wilk's New York Times crossword
So that's the mood I was in when I started this puzzle and I was still in that mood when I finished. If you adored David's puzzle, you are probably quite right. I have no reason to think my negativity is a reflection of the puzzle's quality. Did it beat you up like a Saturday puzzle, or was that just me? Here are the bits that didn't sit with me:
And what parts of this puzzle could make me forget about stray car alarms? This stuff:
Oh, that car alarm? It went off at 10:02, 10:09, 10:14, and 10:18. It's been quiet for 9 minutes now. I grow worried when it doesn't check in regularly.
Updated Friday morning:
Martin Ashwood-Smith's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Middle Ears"—Janie's review
You remember your rudimentary introduction to the miraculous workings of the middle ear, don't you? The hammer, the anvil, the stirrup? Well, this puzzle has nothing to do with that. This puzzle has to do with the placement of the letters E, A and R in the middle of three 15-letter phrases—but literally, right smack-dab in the middle, occupying blocks 7, 8 and 9 of the entertaining fill. Take a look:
The clues for the theme fill are very direct—as is most of the cluing in this puzzle. This makes for a fairly easy kind of solve. Still, the grid throughout is embroidered with fine fill. At center is a column of 7s: TIBETAN (CS debut), AREA RUG and CORRODE; then we get two 8s, each of which is appearing in a CS puzzle for the first time: ATTACHÉS and another adverbial phrase, IN HIDING; and two CS-debut 10s: SCIENTISTS and the fabulous ROAD TO RUIN. In this case, the Triple A will probably not be able to provide you with a TripTik for the best RTE to follow. This is strictly a "make your own adventure" venture!
There's some eclectic music-related fill with two portions of the Requiem Mass: the Dies IRAE and the Agnus DEI; ["Lulu" composer], modernist Alban BERG; pop's Paul ANKA and the Beatles' "I ME [Mine"]. We also get weaponry fill: STEN and SABER (and a summoning of the NRA, cleverly clued as [Gp. that sticks to their guns]); and a trio of words that take us inside the boxing ring: champs Mohammed ALI, Leon SPINKS and the [Pugilist's weapon], his/her FIST.
The architectural term FASCIA board was new to me, but easily attainable through the crosses. (Pronounced with a long "a.") More familiar to me is anatomical connective-tissue fascia. (Pronounced with a short "a.") Many years ago I suffered a fascia tear in my calf. Major "ow" and definitely not recommended.
Other fill I fancied: HADJI, GNOME, JETTY, BRASS, AVENGE, LAUDE and SET IN clued almost poetically as [Arrive, as darkness]. Did I [Really enjoy] this puzzle? Yep, like a tasty ENTREE, this was one to EAT UP.
Orange here again—am pressed for time, so the blogging will be cursory. The Wall Street Journal puzzle wasn't posted yet, so I'll check back later.
Stella Daily and Bruce Venzke's Los Angeles Times crossword
The theme is a quote I've seen before: I NEVER HATED A MAN / ENOUGH TO GIVE HIM / HIS DIAMONDS BACK, uttered by ZSA ZSA Gabor, [Speaker of the quote, familiarly]. In the fill, SPACE AGE ([Period that started with Sputnik]) crosses PHASER (["Star Trek" weapon]). I'll bet at least a few girls got their first period coincident with Sputnik's launch, and I like to think one of them's doing this puzzle and filled in THE CURSE for 10D.
Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Themeless Friday"
There's time only for mentions of a few favorite bits:
More crosswords!
Cathy Allis (who used to use the Millhauser name) has a new gig at National Geographic. Her first "Geopuzzle," for the July 2009 issue, is right here (you can print out a PDF). I haven't done the puzzle yet—the theme entries relate to a NatGeo article about telescopes but I don't get the magazine, so I'll be working the crossings big time. (Or I could read the article online.) Cathy is known for her light touch, so it should be a fun puzzle—and I'm delighted we'll be seeing her byline on a monthly basis. Cathy and the crossword feature are introduced at this National Geographic blog; feel free to share your reactions to the puzzle with the NatGeo folks.
Todd McClary has posted a new puzzle here. I just did the one called "Minitheme 1," and it's themeless-with-a-minitheme. (That means two long entries form a minitheme, but don't take up enough real estate to count as a full theme.) This puppy took me 7:19, so I'd call it Saturday-NYT/Stumper-tough. I'd never heard of the song in the minitheme clues, and the northwest corner took me the longest to unravel. Great fill, great clues, good balance between erudition and pop-culture fun. Keep 'em coming, Todd.
Starting in July, Trip Payne and Patrick Berry will take turns constructing crosswords with politics/current affairs/history themes for the new digital magazine put out by the U.S. News and World Report folks. You'll have to subscribe to U.S. News Weekly ($19.95 a year—or free if you subscribe to the print magazine) to get the puzzles. If you're a news junkie, these puzzles'll probably be right up your alley, and for twice the cost of a book of crosswords, you'll get a year of news too.
Trip also has free* puzzles at Triple Play Puzzles. (*You're welcome to donate via his PayPal link. But don't get me started on PayPal, which I loathe with the heat of a thousand suns.)
And speaking of Patrick Berry, I just got an interview request from an Athens, Georgia, journalism student who's writing an article on Patrick for a local arts paper. Hmm, I think I can come up with a few salient things to say about him.
June 17, 2009
Thursday, 6/18
NYT 4:16
LAT 3:50
CS 6:43 (J—paper)
Tausig untimed
PuzzleGirl tipped me off Wednesday afternoon that someone following American Idol finalist Anoop Desai's Twitter feed sent him a link to this here blog:
Anoop! Tell your friends! And work Diary of a Crossword Fiend into your patter when you perform on the Idol tour. I wish you great success in your career because once you're famous beyond Idol, you could achieve crossword immortality. Your first and last name are both 60% vowels and would be a boon to crossword makers. I'm tired of ANODE and "thrown for A LOOP" and I am ready for some ANOOP. And DESAI! Esai Morales is in crosswords all the time. Mr. Desai, you could dominate.
(Thanks for the tip, PuzzleGirl.)
Patrick Blindauer's New York Times crossword
My initial reaction to Patrick's puzzle is that it's a fresh and delightful creation perfectly keyed to the expected Thursday difficulty level, with lively fill, some crunchy clues, and an entertaining theme. The theme answers are familiar phrases whose final words end with a silent E, but the E's have been changed to A's:
I like the theme's multiple surprises/punchlines. Somehow TUNA and CUBA strike me as inherently amusing tonight. In the non-theme fill, LEX LUTHOR ([Villain from DC] Comics) and his DELISH ["Yum!"] PIE CRUSTS ([Cobbler bottoms]) are the stars. How about that PIE CRUSTS clue, eh? [Cobbler bottoms] could also be shoe bottoms used by a cobbler. Two "court" clues hinge on different meanings; TAPES are [Hard-to-refute evidence in court], while MVPS in basketball are [Court stars, maybe, in brief].
Assorted other clues and answers:Bob William BARR, [Attorney general before Reno].
I love the serendipity of finding things like these in the process of Googling something unfamiliar. A '20s crossword cartoon! I had no idea such a thing existed. Thanks, Patrick and Will, for sending me down that route with the PETE clue.
Updated Thursday morning:
Randolph Ross's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "I Need a Plumber"—Janie's review
Context is everything. Today we get five familar phrases (two major-puzzle debuts, three CS) whose last word is something that might be a [Plumber's concern...]
Not only are we treated to this lively array of theme-related phrases, but both the first two and the last two have a seven-letter overlap in the grid. The NW and SE corners are lovely, too, with their triple-6 columns. Highlight fill here includes ORIENT, SANCTA and PEEVED. There are six more 6s, two 7s (including CS debut GESTURE), and two 8s: CS first-timer MORTICIA Addams (neé Frump [!]) and AL JOLSON. That NW corner has a bit of a Latin/ROMAN thing going, too. In addition to SANCTA (plural form of sanctum), we get the meeting of ERAT (as in quod erat demonstrandum) and ET TU, those [Famous last words].
While I'm always game for puns, I'm less enamored with names. Or names in quantity at any rate—and today we do have a passel of 'em, with upwards of twenty! I won't list 'em all, but will point out: Puccini heroines MIMI and TOSCA; Glinda portrayer Billie BURKE in the movie The Wizard of Oz, based on the books by author Frank L. BAUM (and how nice that these two meet at the "B"; [Bonnie's beau] CLYDE Barrow; and [World traveler Nellie] BLY.
Some clue considerations: I was thrown by the term [Pasta pattern] for BOW-TIE, though my Roget's does confirm that "pattern" and "shape" are in the same lexical category; I enjoyed seeing OSE clued as [Verb ending]—as in verbOSE—rather than [Sugar suffix]; and I liked seeing Beatles drummer Ringo STARR clued as [He played behind Harrison]. As in George Harrison...
Some thoughts on the non-theme fill before bidding you good day: The word MEWL will forever be associated in my mind with Jacques's "Seven Ages of Man" moment in As You Like It. (Check out the link if you can. It includes a limerick that pulls things together most succintly.) And though the word ODDISH is more than [Sort of strange] to my ear, with luck it will resemble its mirror word in the puzzle and appear only as a RARITY. Finally, a [1950s Cincinnati major-leaguer] is a RED LEG. I wonder how many of 'em got their start as little boys playing that [Game for future Little Leaguers] T-BALL.
Dan Naddor's Los Angeles Times crossword
The NYT record for the most X's is 13, so it is indeed impressive that Dan included 14 X's in this puzzle. Each theme entry has two X's, and there are seven (!) theme answers; one crossing pair shares an X, but there's a spare X in the fill at 27D/35A. XX marks the spot:
Highlights in the fill include a zillion X words as well as THE ROCK, or ([Alcatraz, familiarly]; we would also have appreciated a Dwayne Johnson clue.
For more on this puzzle, check out PuzzleGirl's L.A. Crossword Confidential WRITE-UP (which is clued here as [News article]).
Updated again Thursday afternoon and good gravy, where did the day go??
Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword, "Zero Point Zero"
0.0 is the grade point average for a student with straight F's. And this puzzle—both the answers in the grid and every clue but one—lacks A's, B's, C's, and D's. Five of the longer Across entries (11, 7, 13, 7, and 11, but not the Across 8's) are more or less theme entries: They are phrases or compound words in which both parts begin with F. But really, every single answer is a theme entry that doesn't contain A, B, C, or D. EFS (75-Across) ties it all together: [The only grading letters that appear anywhere in this puzzle (other than the present clue)]. Test-solving this baby took focus to confirm that no clue contained the forbidden letters. Let me tell you, it's not easy to write a clue for ORU, or Oral Roberts University, that doesn't include any version of "university" (since that's what the answer's U stands for) nor words like sChool, College, ACADemiC, TulsA, OklAhomA, or evAngeliCal.
My favorite answer here is JONGLEURS, or [Juggling minstrels]. Who doesn't love old French-root words relating to juggling? The clue I liked best is for MISSPELL: [Write relevently, e.g.]—the misspelling takes away a taboo A. Insanest clue: [MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMLXXX/XX] is MLIV, or 21,080/20 = 1,054. Yes, I know, the Roman numeral system uses a bar over certain numbers to represent larger numbers. But 21 M's in a row is insane, and insanity has its place in crosswords. Some solvers get their knickers in a twist over duplications of fill and for these people, allow me to say that EFS and EFF OFF do not duplicate one another. Ef is the spelled-out name of the letter F, whereas eff is a curtailment of the F-word that is substantively different. It's not the letter eff and "ef off" at all. I think Byron Walden taught me that.
Did the clues feel weird to you before you discovered the constraints under which they were written? I find I have a great capacity for overlooking clue weirdness and needing another cue to recognize cluing constraints.
