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 Friday, May 18, 2012
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Genkvetch Crossword
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NYT Crossword
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Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle
TV's hipster doofus / FRI 5-18-12 / 1997 #1 hit with nonsense title / Ticker with cachet / Retail giant mascots Red Ruff Blue Mews / Cartoon character who cries You eediot / 2006-08 heavyweight champion Maskaev | Constructor: Allan E. Parrish
Relative difficulty: Medium
THEME: MR. RAKE — anagrams thereof
Word of the Day: OLEG Maskaev (60A: 2006-08 heavyweight champion Maskaev) —
Oleg Alexandrovich Maskaev (Russian: Олег Александрович Маскаев; born March 2, 1969, inZhambyl, Kazakh SSR) is a Russian professional boxer and a former WBC heavyweight champion. He is an ethnic Mordvin. [...] Oleg is known for his powerful right-hand punch: he has knocked out former WBO heavyweight challenger Derrick Jefferson, contender Alex Stewart, and twice knocked out former WBC heavyweight champion Hasim Rahman. However, he is also noted for a weak chin that was evident in his knockout losses to contenders Oliver McCall, David Tua, Kirk Johnson, Lance Whitaker, Corey Sanders and journeyman Nagy Aguilera. (wikipedia) • • •
Flimsy excuse for a theme. Do a real themed puzzle or do a themeless? This puzzle's kind of stuck in no man's land. The cluing on it is very good, though, and tough in places. I wouldn't like "scrapper" or "bugger" in a grid, probably, but in the clues they were interesting, in that I wasn't quite sure at first what they were going for (11A: Many a bugger = SPY; 28D: Scrappers put them up = DUKES). I had no idea the cat and the dog in the PETCO logo had names (49D: Retail giant with the mascots Red Ruff and Blue Mews)! Clue on SPEECH, good (4D: Word chanted at a celebratory party); clue on ROLEX *killed* me, but it's good (40A: Ticker with cachet); I had the "X" but thought it must be some kind of exchange like NASDAQ ... only ending in "X." NYNEX? Is that something? Hmmm, a former northeastern telcom ... no, not what I was thinking. Anyway, that SW corner was the toughest for me by far. Had AVIA for MCAN (37A: Big name in footwear). Blew the ROLEX answer. Found clue on CALORIES remarkably hard (34D: What water lacks). Big issue down there was actually annoying cluing on all the short answers. I'm not big on clues where I know instantly what the clue is getting at but don't have enough information to make a choice. So, I knew instantly that it was UIE ... or UEY (58A: It's often illegal to hang one). Not "hard," just ... annoying. Same with the NL West clue (55A: N.L. West team, on scoreboards). I can name every team in in the NL West, but with no crosses ... I just wait. No way to get it otherwise. And again, with LES (61A: Article in the Louvre?)—I know all the "articles" in French, but ... there are several that are three letters long, so ... wait. Difficulty by clever cluing is better than difficulty by annoying vagueness, especially clustered annoying vagueness. To be clear, this is different from the vagueness of a clue like, say, [Point] (is it a dot? is it a location? the gist of something? what a free throw's worth? a verb meaning to indicate with the finger?). That kind of vagueness can be maddening, but also interesting. But the vagueness in the SW has no mystery, no surprise. I instantly surmise a limited set of possible answers, and then just wait around to figure out which one it is. UIE can't really be fixed, but ARI and LES could've had more specific clues.
Theme answers:
- 20A: It may be acknowledged with a slap (OFFENSIVE REMARK)
- 34A: TV's "doofus hipster" (COSMO KRAMER) — I was thinking of Bob Denver's character on "Dobie Gillis," who I now recall was named MAYNARD G. KREBS
- 51A: Bad tool for a toddler to find (PERMANENT MARKER)
I don't see how a SIDE TRIP is a "bonus" (63A: With 14-Across, cruise bonus). Did you not pay for it? Was it unexpected? That was odd to me. I messed up several answers initially, including PUTS down for MOWS down (5D: Routs, with "down"), and MMVI for MMII (6D: When the Salt Lake City Olympics took place). Wanted MACARENA for 5A: 1997 #1 hit with a nonsense title, but it wouldn't fit ("MMM BOP"). Had trouble getting from [Wish] to PLEASE and [Watch it] to SPECTATE, but there was nothing truly mysterious except *all the names in the SE corner*—never heard of any of 'em, not COLIN (50A: "9 to 5" director Higgins) or SARA (57A: Ramirez of "Grey's Anatomy") or OLEG (60A: 2006-08 heavyweight champion Maskaev). Yeesh. Still, managed to work it out in reasonable time.
That is all.
Just a reminder about the Crosswords LA tournament puzzles:
P.S. For anyone with an interest in solving the puzzles from this year's Crosswords LA tournament, they're now available online at http://alexboisvert.com/xwla/. They are certified Fantastic—I test-solved all of them.
For $5, you get six tournament crosswords (by Donna Levin, Aimee Lucido & Zoe Wheeler, Todd McClary, Trip Payne, Brendan Emmett Quigley, and Byron Walden), two bonus crosswords (by Andrea Carla Michaels and Doug Peterson), and a clever team game (by John Schiff). As always, proceeds from puzzle pack sales are donated to charity.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld | | 5/18/2012 4:00:00 AM |
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Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle
Jazz trumpeter Sandoval / THU 5-17-12 / Mr Ellington in 1977 song / 1960s teaching focus / First satellite to transmit phone call through space 1962 / Peter Annette of film / Nog flavorer | Constructor: Joe Krozel
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
THEME: spelled songs — three 7-letters songs are spelled out in the grid as a succession of unchecked letters:
- DIVORCE (It's spelled out in a Tammy Wynette hit)
- RESPECT (It's spelled out in an Aretha Franklin hit)
- TROUBLE (It's spelled out in a Travis Tritt hit)
Word of the Day: IASI (50D: Former capital of Romania) —
Iași ( Romanian pronunciation: [jaʃʲ]; also historically referred to as Jassy or Iassy) is one of the largest cities and a municipality in Romania. Located in the historical Moldavia region, Iași has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Romanian social, cultural, academic and artistic life. The city was the capital of the Principality of Moldavia from 1564 to 1859, then of the United Principalities from 1859 to 1862, and the capital of Romania from 1916 to 1918. Known as The Cultural Capital of Romania, Iași is a symbol in Romanian history. The historian Nicolae Iorga said "There should be no Romanian who does not know of it". Still referred to as The Moldavian Capital, Iași is the seat of Iași County and the main economic centre of the Romanian region of Moldavia. (wikipedia)
• • •
I actually liked this theme a lot, but that doesn't mean I didn't feel the sting of dreck like ITOS (11D: Midor and Lance), ARTUROS (17A: Jazz trumpeter Sandoval and others), O'TOOLES (18A: Peter and Annette of film) (three plural names?!), ATONERS, SETTS, ENTWIST, ASSISTON (!?), ST. ELMO'S (too long for a partial) and especially IASI, which looks like something someone pulled out of the crosswordese machine when they were cleaning it. But there were several nice answer to compensate a little (i.e. NEW MATH (19A: 1960s teaching focus), SIR DUKE (34D: Mr. Ellington, in a 1977 song), EGO SURFS), and, as I say, the theme is nifty. Lots of write-overs today because of ambiguity (or bad clue reading on my part)—WENT APE for GONE APE; BEAR CUB for LION CUB; ONE IRON for TWO IRON (8D: Club not seen much nowadays); SETES for SETTS (forgot how to spell this word, which I know only from crosswords) (28D: Small paving stones); and RESHOD for RESHOE (there's the bad clue reading) (7D Do some farrier's work on). All of these mistakes were pretty easily fixed. No major hold-ups today. The SE threatened to be tough at one point, but folded after "ESO BESO" showed its hoary mane (54A: Paul Anka hit with a rhyming title). Never heard of MERIDEN (!?) (43A: Connecticut city on the Quinnipiac River) but didn't need it, as I knew all the crosses. Even the NE, with two significant write-overs, didn't put up too much fight—ONE didn't work, I switched to TWO; BEAR didn't work, I switched to LION. Easy enough. Probably the toughest part was getting started. Somehow got Lake Victoria confused with Victoria island and wanted CANADIAN at 1D: Like part of Lake Victoria (UGANDAN). Ended up having to back into that corner via RESHOE (luckily the wrong RESHOD was right in all the right places, NW corner-wise).
Bullets:
- 8A: Afghan power (TALIBAN) — the reason I changed BEAR to LION. Thanks, TALIBAN!
- 9D: Class for budding painters (ART I) — Thought answer might have something to do with flowers. It didn't.
- 37D: Asian land where French is widely spoken (LEBANON) — always a deliberate mind%&^$ when Middle Eastern countries are clued (correctly, but no-one-would-say-that-ly) as "Asian."
- 32A: First satellite to transmit a phone call through space, 1962 (TELSTAR) — learned it from crosswords. Still sounds like a cheesy corporate name, possibly for a telecommunications giant in some dystopic future.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. For anyone with an interest in solving the puzzles from this year's Crosswords LA tournament, they're now available online at http://alexboisvert.com/xwla/. They are certified Fantastic—I test-solved all of them.
For $5, you get six tournament crosswords (by Donna Levin, Aimee Lucido & Zoe Wheeler, Todd McClary, Trip Payne, Brendan Emmett Quigley, and Byron Walden), two bonus crosswords (by Andrea Carla Michaels and Doug Peterson), and a clever team game (by John Schiff). As always, proceeds from puzzle pack sales are donated to charity. | | 5/17/2012 4:00:00 AM |
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Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle
The Lizard constellation / WED 5-16-12 / Violinmaker Amati / Modern home of ancient Elam / Home of MacDill Air Force Base / 1964 Hitchcock thriller / Former world heavyweight champion Johansson / Comment made while elbowing someone / Burgundy bud | Constructor: Kevin Adamick
Relative difficulty: Medium
THEME: I don't know. Double something. — Two entries in each of the puzzles corners are repeated words.
Word of the Day: LACERTA (38A: The Lizard constellation) —
Lacerta is one of the 88 modern constellations defined by the International Astronomical Union. Its name is Latin for lizard. A small, faint constellation, it was created in 1687 by the astronomerJohannes Hevelius. Its brightest stars form a "W" shape similar to that of Cassiopeia, and it is thus sometimes referred to as 'Little Cassiopeia'. It is located between Cygnus, Cassiopeia and Andromedaon the northern celestial sphere. The northern part lies on the Milky Way. (wikipedia) • • •
This is not good. I don't even get the theme. Quadruple double? What's the point? And the fill!? LAR (61D: Actress ___ Park Lincoln)? HITCHY (9A: "___-Koo" (old ragtime standard))? RETAN? Crossing ATAN? I just kept groaning and groaning—by the end, I was stuck in the NE and I almost didn't bother to push on. Honestly, I just stared at the grid. My solving time is atrocious for this reason. This puzzle ... it's just not acceptable work. I hate saying this, I honestly do, but this should've been rejected. How bad does the NYT need Wednesdays? I could go on and on, but the flaws are glaring and I'm just too tired. [A friend just pointed out that this puzzle is 70 words, i.e. *exceedingly* low for a Wednesday. That's a Fri/Sat word count. This *might* explain the atrocious fill (lower the word count, harder the grid is to fill well). Maybe if the grid were utterly rebuilt, this could've been passable. Still wouldn't have cared for the "theme," but at least it would've been inoffensive.]
ET ALIA does not mean [And so on]. No, it doesn't. No, it doesn't. I swear to you. Well, I guess you could lawyer it into submission, but ... no. ET ALIA means "and others." You're thinking of ET CETERA ("and the rest" / "and so forth"). I had ETCETC there at first. Godawful. OK, I'm stopping, because I have zero nice to say. Except there's a reason you never see LACERTA in the grid. OK, sorry, seriously, stopping.
Now you all can heap praise on this thing. Someone should. I can't.
P.S. GOERS.
Theme answers:
- MAHI MAHI
- AMEN AMEN
- HINT HINT (had WINK WINK—certified superior answer)
- YADA YADA
- "LIAR LIAR"
- SERA SERA (this is what's known as a "partial"; we don't make theme answers out of them)
- AGAR AGAR (now *there's* a scintillating theme answer!)
Bullets:
- 11D: Home of MacDill Air Force Base (TAMPA) — no idea. Part of the reason I just stared at the NE in exasperated silence for a while.
- 25A: Like the area around an erupting volcano (ASHY) — mind's eye saw only lava, not ash.
- 28A: Tennis whiz (ACER) — these aren't equivalent. I served aces in my time. I was never a "whiz." Plenty of "whizzes" don't ace much at all. To be honest, the clue isn't the problem here. It never is with ACER. All future ACERs should get PC-related clues.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
PS now seems as good a time as any to direct your attention to this exhaustive recent discussion about the problem (or non-problem) of "bad fill" (at Tyler Hinman's blog)—many constructors chime in, and almost none of them are crybabies. | | 5/16/2012 4:00:00 AM |
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Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle
Nina of 1940s-50s films / TUE 5-15-12 / Vine-covered passageway / Harry who co-founded Columbia Pictures / Old Saturn model | Constructor: Susan Gelfand
Relative difficulty: Medium
THEME: FULL OF HOLES (53A: Like 17-, 23-, 33- and 48-Across) — theme answers are things that are.
Word of the Day: Nina FOCH (45D: Nina of 1940s-'50s films) —
Nina Foch (April 20, 1924 – December 5, 2008)[1] was a Dutch-born American actress and leading lady in many 1940s and 1950s films. [...] Foch's movie career came during the height of the 1940s, when she played cool, aloof, and oftentimes foreign women of sophistication.[citation needed] She would ultimately be featured in over 80 films and hundreds of television shows. The actress was a regular in John Houseman's CBS Playhouse 90television series. In 1951, she appeared with Gene Kelly in the musical An American in Paris, which was awarded the Best Picture Oscar. Foch appeared in Scaramouche (1952) as Marie Antoinette, and in Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956) as Bithia, Pharaoh's sister who finds the baby Moses in the bullrushes, adopts him as her son, and joins him and the Hebrews in their Exodus from Egypt.
• • •
 Didn't care for this one. Very lackluster fill for a 78-worder (which is the maximum word count—such grids are generally the easiest to fill). EOCENE (15A: Epoch when mammals arose) is a fine word if you are in a bind and have a dense theme, or if you need to make an otherwise sparkly themeless work out, but in a 78-worder it's lazy / borderline inexcusable. This goes double, triple, and quadruple for FOCH. What the FOCH? At the very least, you could've gone with SOPH. MOTH or MOSH would've worked too, as the MLA (Modern Language Association) is a major academic org. with its own style guide and everything. FOCH is something you accept only after all your other options have run out. You notice I'm not saying "FOCH and EOCENE should never be in a grid." I'm saying, "these should not be in a grid if they aren't necessary." Also, the clue for FOCH was clearly written after one glance at the wikipedia page. Please note that Ms. FOCH acted in films in not just the '40s and '50s, but Every Decade After That. Further, UNSHADE (1D: Expose to light) is barely a word. Ditto REMOP (52A: Swab the floor again). We can do better than this! No point working Xs and Js and Zs into the grid when the fill's not rock solid. Lipstick on a possum.
Theme answers:
- 17A: Monte Cristo ingredient (SWISS CHEESE)
- 23A: Spelling aid? (VOODOO DOLL)
- 33A: Pub hub? (DART BOARD)
- 48A: Where people are always putting things? (GOLF COURSE)
 Tripped several times, sometimes in obvious places (FOCHety FOCH FOCH), other times in less obvious but fairly understandable places. Faced with -EE---- at 10D: "Golly!" (JEEPERS), I went for GEE WHIZ. Then I crossed the "Z" with SEIZED for 32A: Tightened up (TENSED). Not bad, eh? Pretty plausible trap. I later had the initial Z- at 41D: Closing (in on) and went with ... ZOOMING (instead of the correct ZEROING). Also, faced with --E- at 24D: Nuts, berries, etc., for squirrels, I went with FEED instead of DIET. Got PERGOLA off the P, but I don't know why, or how well known that word is generally. Again, feels *slightly* unTuesday (but I didn't blink, so, I can't complain).
Bullets:
- 1A: "Kinsman" of Tarzan (APE) — quotation marks threw me, as I thought it was an actual quotation (i.e. someone with the name "Kinsman," or someone Tarzan literally called "kinsman"), but they're just scare quotes indicating ersatziness.
- 21A: Old Saturn model (ION) — the official car of IOS (57A: Aegean island on which Homer is said to be buried).
- 8D: Harry who co-founded Columbia Pictures (COHN) — No idea. None. All crosses. There's a lot of older fill here today. Yes there is. O MY! Not EOCENE old. Just old. Could use balance.
- 64A: Car that "really drives 'em wi-i-ild," in a 1960s song (GTO) — I could not tell what kind of sound that "i" was making in "wi-i-ild" — it's a pretty good approximation of the way the verse actually sounds. Well, "Wiiiii-yi-yild" may be closer, but that's gibberish.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld | | 5/15/2012 4:00:00 AM |
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Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle
Onetime Wisconsin-based insurance giant / MON 5-14-12 / Line of Canon cameras / Tolkien's talking tree race / Impatiently endure time passing | Constructor: John Dunn
Relative difficulty: Medium
THEME: SYNS. (70A: Roget offerins (abbr.) ... or, loosely, the firsta nd last words of 20-, 28-, 48-- and 56-Across) — "[verb] THE [noun]" phrases where, yes, the verb and noun (when one of the two is converted from verb to noun or vice versa) are, loosely, SYNonymS
Word of the Day: WAUSAU (48D: Onetime Wisconsin-based insurance giant) —
[Near as I can tell, an insurance co. that was bought by Liberty Mutual in 1999, and then retired as a brand in 2009: "Wausau, founded in Wausau, Wis., in 1911, was one of the earliest writers of workers comp coverage. It adopted a train depot as its logo in 1954 and built a brand that became widely recognized over the next 50 years." (Business Insurance)] • • •
Not a big fan of this one, first because the reveal is so weak (an abbrev. is never a great payoff), and second because it just wasn't interesting. Yes, I can imagine scenarios wherein the first and last words mean the same thing. In the case of WASH THE LAUNDRY, I really don't have to go very far to make them match up. I mean, imagining those words as SYNS. doesn't even require me to think outside the laundry room. The theme "works" just fine, but it's dull. Fill is mostly very solid, with a nice handful of long answers (except SUCH THAT (5D: So), which is a perfectly adequate phrase ... just not "nice"). I had several early missteps in this puzzle—way more writeovers than I normally have in a Monday puzzle. Right away, with 1A: Money owed (DEBT), I was off my game. Got DVD at 1D and then thought, re: 1A, "... DUES?" Crosses, cleared this up quickly, as they generally will on Monday, but I went on to make several more wrong initial guesses in quick succession: DELAY for DETER (14D: Hinder); AMP for ADO (23A: Hoopla) (this is only because I had yet another misguess in place—BLOW PAST for BLOW OVER (3D: Pass without effect, as a storm); and DITZ for SIMP (5A: Lamebrain). So the puzzle wasn't hard, so much as it was (in parts, to my brain) vague. At least at first. Once I got out of the N / NW, except for a brief EOS / IOS dust-up (55A: Line of Canon cameras), I flew pretty quickly around the grid, stopping only at the end, in the SW, where WAUSAU was a complete mystery to me. There's something interesting about the relative symmetry of the OVER in BLOW OVER and the UNDER in UNDERWAY. Also, I enjoy TALL ONES (38D: Some brewskis). Other than that, this one's already fading in my rearview.
Theme answers:
- 20A: Impatiently endure passing time (WATCH THE CLOCK) — I'd've gone with PUNCH THE CLOCK
- 28A: Win by enough points, in sports gambling (COVER THE SPREAD)
- 48A: Perform a routine household chore (WASH THE LAUNDRY)
- 56A: Pass through a crisis safely (TURN THE CORNER)
First thought for 30D: Have a nontraditional marriage, in a way (ELOPE) was BE GAY (hey, it fits). That wayward thought was about the most entertaining part of the solve. This is perfectly acceptable work. But it's not gonna stick.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
PS if you are not a Sunday-puzzle type of person, you probably missed my announcement yesterday that I was featured on the CBS Evening News on Sat. night. You can view the clip here.
PPS—Attention: Constructors (and Would-Be Constructors) Under 30 — Ben Tausig will be editing a collection of crosswords called "Twenty Under Thirty"; crosswords will be selected by a panel that includes me. The selection process will be blind. Here is the official press release.
About "Twenty Under Thirty"
"Twenty Under Thirty" will be a standalone app featuring crosswords by twenty of the top young puzzle constructors in the world. Submission is open to anyone under thirty years of age, regardless of where she or he has published work in the past. Payment for selected entries will be $250--more than any newspaper daily in the United States--and participants will be featured prominently in announcements and marketing campaigns for the app. We want selection to feel like the honor that it is, and hope also to help young constructors make a name for themselves. Although the judging process will be blind, "Twenty Under Thirty" encourages submissions from groups underrepresented in puzzlemaking, including women and people of color. Selections will be judged by a panel of experts, including New York Times regulars Elizabeth Gorski and Brendan Emmett Quigley, and blogger Michael Sharp (aka Rex Parker at rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com) . The winning puzzles will be edited by Onion A.V. Club and Ink Well xwords editor Ben Tausig, and the app will be produced by crossword app maker CRUX for iPhone and iPad.
Submission Instructions -Entry is limited to one puzzle per constructor. Completed, clued puzzles should be emailed to twentyunderthirty@gmail.com by midnight, June 20, 2012.
-IMPORTANT: In order for the judging to be blind, please make the file name of your submission (whether it is a .ccw, .puz, .doc, .pdf, etc) a random string of ten numbers and remove all indication of your own name from the puzzle and file information. You may submit from your personal email account, but I don't want any way of knowing that your puzzle is linked to you. If you have questions that might reveal your theme, simply email me from an anonymous (or a friend's) address.
-All submissions must be wholly original, and neither I nor the panelists can know that they are yours. (i.e., if you've workshopped an idea with Brendan, then come up with a different idea).
-We are looking for work in the range of Tuesday-Friday New York Times difficulty. Both themed and themeless puzzles will be considered, and judged within the same pool. It's up to you to decide which type best reflects your talents. Since we expect to receive upward of 40 puzzles for 20 spots, plan to submit your very best stuff. Genre-bending themes are strongly encouraged; feel free to extend grids and to do things that aren't seen every day. (The app can accommodate special grids and gimmicks). Add-a-letter and three-of-a-kind themes are very unlikely to be chosen unless they feature a truly excellent twist. Amaze us.
-In general, puzzles should be 15x15, but we will also accept 16x15, 15x16, and 16x16 sizes.
-Puzzles should conform to the usual high standards of construction--avoid excessive black squares, have no more than 78 words, stay away from lousy entries such as long partials and pluralized names, and try to weed out repetition in the grid. You know the drill.
-Aim to submit work that feels fresh. No specific bad words or references are off-limits, but you'll get a lot more credit for cluing PUBES as "Strands below?" than dropping in QUEEF because you feel like it. Likewise, include literature, film, music, food, and sex content that skews young, but be sure to keep it clever, not just edgy.
-Crossword Compiler or Across Lite files are preferred, but any other reasonable format is acceptable. As long as we can see the completed grid with numbers and the corresponding clues, you're in good shape.
Good luck! Ben | | 5/14/2012 4:00:00 AM |
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Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle
Big maker of smoothies energy bars / SUN 5-13-12 / Forerunner of euchre / Where to conform per expression / Dead Sea Scrolls writer / Grammy-winning Radiohead album of 2000 / Dallas pro baller / World leader beginning December 2011 | Constructor: Ben Tausig
Relative difficulty: Medium
THEME: "Indies" — add "D" sound for wackiness!
Word of the Day: ODWALLA (90D: Big maker of smoothies and energy bars) —
The company experienced strong growth after its incorporation in 1985, expanding its distribution network from California to most of North America, and went public in 1993. A period of decline occurred as a result of a fatal outbreak of H7 in 1996 that was caused by using bruised fruit that had been contaminated. Odwalla originally sold unpasteurized juices, claiming that the process of pasteurization altered the flavor of the juice. Following the E. coli outbreak, Odwalla adopted flash pasteurization and other sanitization procedures. Odwalla recalled its juices and experienced a ninety-percent reduction in sales following the event. The company gradually recovered, and, after a few years, was making a profit again. (wikipedia)
• • •
See, a little sound-change puzzle can be kind of fun. Always nice to lead with one of your stronger entries, and WEED SHALL OVERCOME certainly qualifies. Also always good to close with one of your stronger entries, and WHOLE NUDE BALLGAME definitely qualifies. Ben edits the Onion A/V crossword and has his own weekly syndicated crossword as well—I have the latest book collection of these puzzles, "Crosswords from the Underground," and the puzzles are uniformly entertaining, moderately challenging, and very, very current. Plus he has a great puzzle book for kids called "Mad Tausig vs. the Interplanetary Puzzling Peace Patrol." Which is all to say he's an old pro who knows his stuff. Younger than me, but still an old pro.
Theme answers: - 23A: Slogan for medical marijuana activists? (WEED SHALL OVERCOME)
- 36A: Persians who protect their feet? (THE SHOD OF IRAN)
- 50A: Entitlement to cross the stream first? (RIGHT OF WADE) — my least favorite
- 69A: "If you can't behave on this tour, I swear you'll be sorry!"? ("NO MORE MISTER NICE GUIDE!")
- 88A: Big part of the dairy business? (CHEESE TRADE)
- 104A: Lost subject of a hit Beatles song? (WANDERING JUDE)
- 115A: Clothing-free version of the national pastime? (WHOLE NUDE BALLGAME)
I had two significant hang-ups today. The first was that I couldn't remember KIM JONG-UN's name (31D: World leader beginning December 2011). I had KIM IL-SUNG and KIM JONG-IL in my head, and I knew the new guy ended with an "UN(G)" sound, but I forgot that the JONG remains the same (come on ... come on ... nothing? ... OK, moving on). This North Korean dictator spelling problem was compounded by my not having *any* idea what the clue 49A: Big twit? meant. I had -EER and still couldn't do anything with it. If you "twit" someone, do you JEER them? Maybe? That's how I'm explaining it to myself, anyway. Thank god I knew Bruce Springsteen's "NEBRaska" (78A: State for which a Springsteen album is named: Abbr.). That tiny abbrev. helped me settle both KIM JONG-UN and REDBUD, which had previously been RED OAK (which is the name of a local diner and, I assume, also the name of a tree) (61D: Oklahoma state tree). So, first hang-up, Korean dictator. Second hang-up, the DRAM IN ROME. Mixologists really measure things in DRAMs (63A: Mixologist's measure)? I've read a lot of drink recipes and have Not seen that measurement. Not saying it's not real, just saying DROP or DASH seemed more likely. And IN ROME, yikes (51D: Where to conform, per an expression). Very apt clue, very hard to get (for me). I'm just grateful I've heard of OMBRE (75A: Forerunner of euchre)—otherwise I'd've been like "EMBRE ... I guess so ... must be something I've never heard of." RADNOR (50D: Josh of "How I Met Your Mother") I got but misspelled. The way to remember how to spell him—just remember: he's funny, but he's no Gilda RADNER. (I kid: he's a handsome, talented guy, and Will was on his show once; show creator Carter Bays is a big crossword fan)
[I used to think Kurt was singing "Kim Il-Sung, Kim Il-SUNG ... Mary! ... Mary!"]
I think I know C.W. POST as a cereal magnate, not as a school name (82A: Largest campus of Long Island Univ.). I had JARGON at first instead of PIDGIN (125A: Simplified language form). Not much else in the way of problems for me. Oh, except, -EUSE, which I am ready to declare the single worst piece of crossword fill I've ever seen anywhere ever (123A: Feminine suffix). Ever. Please recall my earlier declaration about [Feminine suffix] clues and how I hate them because a. they're suffixes, so already not great, and b. they can be ENNE *or* ETTE. Or, now, apparently, -EUSE. EUSE! It's as lovely as it sounds.
Bullets: - 1A: One waiting in France (GARÇON) — I've really got to get a better print-out system on Sundays. This clue *still* looks like [One wailing in France] to me.
- 28A: More than a quarter of academic circles? (CEES) — not great fill, but fantastic cluing.
- 90A: Like much of Pindar's work (ODIC) — I know I'm not supposed to like this word, but somehow I can't bring myself to hate it. It's like ODIN and ODIE had a baby and someone wrote a poem about it.
- 10D: Dallas pro baller (MAV) — wow, NYT is working "Baller" hard this week. Almost as hard as ELWES (105D: Cary of "Robin Hood: Men in Tights").
- 41D: Obama's birthplace (HAWAII) — Me: "KENYA!" D'oh! That's his dad. Stupid brain.
- 52D: Jason who's a five-time baseball All-Star (GIAMBI) — non-baseball-fans might have trouble here, esp. as this crosses OMBRE. I assume most people still remember Paul REISER (79A: Hunt's co-star on "Mad About You")
- 100D: Grammy-winning Radiohead album of 2000 (KID A) — I think Ben's studying ethnomusicology at NYU. His puzzles tend to be music-heavy, which I enjoy.
- 103D: Dead Sea Scrolls writer (ESSENE) — One Of Those Words. All common letters. Useful to know. You'll see it again (and again).
Since I plugged Ben's books earlier in the write-up, I feel compelled to plug the newest Winston Breen novel from crossword constructor Eric Berlin, called "The Puzzler's Mansion" (just came out May 10). This is the third book in his puzzle-based novel series—it's "juvenile" fiction (I think that's what they call it)—for ages 8 and up. The books are big hits with kids (esp. kids of inveterate crossword solvers—I know my kid and fellow blogger Amy Reynaldo's kid are both fans).
I should probably also mention that I was on national television last night—CBS Evening News finally ran the segment on me that they interviewed me for back in February. All the wintery parts are edited out and there are blog visuals from just yesterday. Contains very rare footage of me in the wild (i.e. teaching). I don't know if I can embed the video, but I can certainly link to it. You can also watch it at my Facebook page.
[PuzzleGirl sent me this photo of her TV screen, somewhere in sunny Southern California (where she was participating in the Crossword LA tournament). Made me laugh.]
Enjoy!
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld | | 5/13/2012 4:00:00 AM |
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Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle
1969 Tony winner for Promises Promises / SAT 5-12-12 / 1955 Dior debut / Tiropita ingredient / 1989 EPA target / Quintillionth prefix / Kikkoman options / Producer of venom solenopsin | Constructor: Caleb Madison
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging
THEME: none
Word of the Day: CRYSTAL SET (28D: Early radio receiver) —
A crystal radio receiver, also called a crystal set or cat's whisker receiver, is a very simple radio receiver, popular in the early days of radio. It needs no battery or power source and runs on the power received from radio waves by a long wire antenna. It gets its name from its most important component, known as a crystal detector, originally made with a piece of crystalline mineral such as galena.[1] This component is now called a diode. (wikipedia) • • •
Not among my favorite puzzles by Mr. Madison, for a couple of reasons. First, there's just less sparkly fill and more awkward stuff like ALTERANT (17A: Change-producing agent) and STENTORS (59A: Their voices really carry). Loved BOB BARR (11D: 2008 Libertarian presidential candidate) and really want to love THIRTY ROCK (since I watch it and all) (31A: Emmy-winning show of 2007, '08 and '09) (not the greatest clue), but no one anywhere ever has written that THIRTY out. Now, writing out numerals is a crossword tradition, so the answer isn't exactly wrong, but instead of inducing a "wow" reaction, it got more of a disappointed sigh (disappointed at myself for not getting it more quickly, disappointed that a marquee answer has this numeral/word issue). The other thing that brought me down, was the SE corner, which just blinded me with stuff I didn't know. I thought the difficulty level was pretty normal for a Saturday, maybe even slightly on the easy side, until I got down there. Never heard of CRYSTAL SET, NATHAN (42D: Annual George Jean ___ Award for Dramatic Criticism), or ATTO- (51D: Quintillionth: Prefix), and since they all crossed the not-so-common STENTORS, that corner Wrecked me. So much so that I started doubting stuff that was obviously right, e.g. U.S.S.R. (52D: Locale in a Beatles title) Having all my ignorance concentrated in that one tiny corner was annoying—more my problem than the puzzle's, I guess, but when the tough stuff is just "???" and not "wow," then I'm left a little disappointed. To be completely fair, my biggest problem down there was my complete inability to see how a third-person singular verb could end -US (50A: Starts to stagnate). Brain just kept going "has to be wrong has to be wrong has to be wrong." When I finally (and I mean finally) got PLATEAUS, I think I may have said "(You) idiot!" aloud to myself. At myself.
Several choice gimmes made this puzzle feel relatively easy at first. Too bad BOB BARR and SOON-YI cross (16A: André and Mia adopted her), because I knew them both instantly (better to have my gimmes spaced out—for maximum traction). Also knew A-LINE DRESS (38A: 1955 Dior debut), which somehow got me all the way into the NW. LEE TIDE off the -DE (4D: It goes whichever way the wind blows) and (more impressively) LYRIST off the -ST (5D: Apollo, for one). Confused AVAST and ABAFT (6D: Sailor's behind), but that didn't last long. Didn't know POLA, but it didn't matter—all her crosses were gettable/inferrable (2D: ___ Debevoise, Marilyn Monroe's "How to Marry a Millionaire" role). Loved GUN FOR HIRE (7D: Piece offer?), which allowed me to get RACIER (26A: More likely to be bowdlerized), which beforehand had just been sitting there as -ER. Loved seeing Jerry ORBACH in the puzzle (20A: 1969 Tony winner for "Promises, Promises")—his son Tony is a frequent crossword constructor and all-around nice guy. Hey ... [Tony winner ...] ... and his son's name is Tony. I just got that. Not that there's anything to get, it's a coincidence, but still: there it is. I got Michael STEELE without any crosses (58A: 2009-11 Republican National Committee chairman)—I know him best from his frequent muppet-form appearances on "The Daily Show." He is Reince Priebus's predecessor (which would've made an interesting clue).
ALAR is often in the puzzle, so I got it off the first "A" (46A: 1989 E.P.A. target) but nearby NINES was not nearly so easy (42A: Nearly flawless bodies?). I had -INES and had to run the alphabet (the only way I got enough crosses to infer NATHAN). FETA and FIRE ANT were just good guesses (40A: Tiropita ingredient + 40D: Producer of the venom solenopsin). Clearly I don't know the key words in either of those clues. And SOYS really feels like its missing its SAUCE (53D: Kikkoman options). Really really feels that way. But getting it wasn't hard, so no harm done. Wish I'd liked this one better, but a flawed Caleb Madison puzzle is still a pretty good thing.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld | | 5/12/2012 4:00:00 AM |
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Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle
Drive-in theater in old slang / FRI 5-11-12 / Jai alai basket / Streaming video giant / Football Hall-of-Famer Marchetti / Moe Howard catchphrase / Dixon self-styled seer astrology book for dogs / Fictional narrator Legends of Old Plantation / Literary captain I am not what you call a civilized man | Constructor: Natan Last
Relative difficulty: Easy
THEME: none
Word of the Day: TIE FIGHTER (61A: Craft in a "Star Wars" battle) —
TIE fighters are fictional starfighters in the Star Wars universe. Propelled by Twin Ion Engines (hence the TIE acronym), TIE fighters are depicted as fast, fragile starfighters produced by Sienar Fleet Systems for the Galactic Empire. TIE fighters and other TIE craft appear in the original Star Warstrilogy—Episode IV: A New Hope (1977), Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980), and Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983)—and throughout the Star Wars Expanded Universe. Several TIE fighter replicas and toys, as well as a TIE flight simulator, have been released by merchandise companies. (wikipedia) • • •
When I saw Natan's name, I thought, "Oh, I am going to kill this." And I was right. With today's 6:18 time (and yesterday's 10:21), I am now averaging the same time on Thursdays and Fridays over the past two months (since I started tracking my times and solving exclusively on paper). This grid is chock full of original, lively answers, and while some of its answers place it squarely in the 21st century (OPEN SOURCE, HULU) (15A: Like some freely available software, 16A: Streaming video giant), it's also very wide-ranging in its knowledge base. Feels like it was made by a reasonably young person, but I wouldn't call it "youth-oriented," by any means. I'm not so fond of how many little foreign words are in the Down crosses up top, and AUDI DEALER (while original) doesn't exactly stir the soul (12D: Where to see some German models), but "WHY I OUGHTA..." is genius (32D: Moe Howard catchphrase), most of the long answers are quite good, and most of the short stuff is solid. A very worthy effort.
I know PASSION PIT as a band, not "old slang" for a drive-in theater, so that took more than a few crosses to uncover, but I got OPEN SOURCE off the "P," so that first corner came together quickly. Off SNOW ANGELS (4D: What people waving their arms might produce), I threw down BANGS, EMCEE, and TELL, which opened the whole SW right up. CESTA (44A: Jai alai basket) is one of those words like ... like the names ELWES or GEER or O-REN, names that I just know from doing crosswords. I'm looking around for spots where I struggled, or even significantly paused, and I'm not finding any. I'm surprised I wasn't even faster than I was. I hesitated at 50D: "The Dark Knight" actor, having totally forgotten that Michael CAINE was in it, and I wrote in REEKS for SUCKS (14D: Is god-awful)—I don't think I've ever seen SUCKS clued in this common colloquial manner before. I doubted SUCKS for a few moments because I just couldn't believe the NYT would allow that usage. But there it is. We watch HULU (Plus) almost every day, so that confirmed the "U" in SUCKS, and I finished it off with FLINTSTONE.
Bullets:
 - 39A: When repeated, response to "Who wants ice cream?" ("I DO!") — I clued "I DO" almost identically just this morning. Except my kids wanted cookies.
- 52A: First female dean of Harvard Law School (ELENA KAGAN) — had the "ELEN-" so, piece of cake. She's in the puzzle all the time (in first name form), so she sprang readily to mind.
- 56A: Football Hall-of-Famer Marchetti (GINO) — noooo idea. Needed every cross. The only Marchetti I know is Lou, and he painted paperback covers in the '50s and '60s.
- 66A: "The Case of the Demure Defendant" protagonist (PERRY MASON) — speaking of paperbacks of the '50s and '60s ... I own a lot of them, including this ERLE Stanley Gardner title. You can see it here, at my "Pop Sensation" blog.
- 1D: Offering from a Parisian butcher (PORC) — French for what it sounds like it's French for.
- 5D: It has more museums per capita than any other country: Abbr. (ISR.) — that is an odd stat.
- 28D: Fictional narrator of "Legends of the Old Plantation" (UNCLE REMUS) — had the -NCL- part, so no sweat, though I did briefly forget if it was REMUS or REBUS.
- 48D: ___ Dixon, self-styled seer who wrote an astrology book for dogs (JEANE) — HA ha. Great clue. Wish I'd read the whole thing while solving, but I only needed to get as far as "seer" to know whom I was dealing with.
- 53D: "Great" detective of kiddie lit (NATE) — missed this guy entirely when I was a kiddie. Learned him from crosswords.
- 58D: Literary captain who says "I am not what you call a civilized man!" (NEMO) — I love revenge stories, and "20,000 Leagues" is a good one.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld | | 5/11/2012 4:00:00 AM |
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Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle
Daddy Warbucks's henchman / THU 5-10-12 / City near Entebbe airport / 1942 Tommy Dorsey hit / Marine snail / Eastern dance-drama / Breakfast cereal propeller-headed alien / Galerie art museum on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue | Constructor: Jules P. Markey
Relative difficulty: Challenging
THEME: JUMP (69A: Word that can precede each set of circled letters, forming a literal hint for entering certain answers in this puzzle) — circled letters spell out words that can follow JUMP, and the Down answers literally JUMP the letters, i.e. when entering Down answers with circles in them, treat circles as if they do not exist. Just JUMP them.
Word of the Day: ESTELLE Parsons (40A: Actress Parsons) —
Estelle Margaret Parsons (born November 20, 1927) is an American theatre, film and televisionactress and occasional theatrical director.
• • •
A great idea that seemed kind of unfair at the end. The whole point of *cross*words is that every letter is crossed, i.e. part of an Across and a Down answer. Providing JUMP just isn't sufficient to make up for the fact the circled letters aren't crossed. I could've run JUMP phrases all day and might not have hit "jumpsuit." I just lucked out that I lived in a suite my freshman year and had SUITEMATEs—but that took a lot of just staring thinking of words for "apartment." The BAIL in BAILEY'S also took some doing, and did the SHIP in COURTSHIP (though I was only stalled a few seconds with that one). So finishing the puzzle was a little annoying—it wasn't "hard" at all, actually. There was just a lot of dead air toward the end while I tried to come up with SUIT. Once I got the theme, and it didn't take that long, the non-circled part of the puzzle was certainly much easier than average. But throw in the rule-breaking circles, and you've got yourself a fairly time-consuming Thursday. Times at the NYT site are hilariously high (took me 10:21 on paper—at the time I finished, that would've put me in second place ... and online solving is generally at least a little faster than on-paper solving)
Circled JUMP answers:
- SUIT inside SUITEMATE (17A: One sharing an apartment)
- SEAT inside LET'S EAT (21A: "Chow down!")
- ROPE inside EUROPEANS (33A: Poles, e.g.)
- BALL inside "CAT BALLOU" (43A: Film for which Lee Marvin won Best Actor)
- BAIL inside BAILEY'S (53A: Big Irish cream brand)
- SHIP inside COURTSHIP (61A: Engagement precursor)
As I said, nothing particularly challenging, fill-wise, about this grid. Let's see ... somehow remembered QUISP (9A: Breakfast cereal with a propeller-headed alien on the front of the box)—or sort of remembered with a little help. Remembered the "Q" anyway, which helped change EMIT to QUIT (9D: Give out). KABUKI (23A: Eastern dance-drama) was actually one of the first answers I got after KAMPALA (5D: City near Entebbe airport), BLANC (24D: Mont ____), and WHELK (8D: Marine snail) gave me crosses—this was how I knew the circles were screwy: no headway around circles, easy headway everywhere else. THE ASP was actually my very first entry (20A: Daddy Warbucks's henchman), and I was lucky, because that gave me something very solid and secure in that rough NW corner. Somehow solidified my sense that the circles were screwing things up—if the crosses weren't working, it sure wasn't THE ASP's fault. Tommy Dorsey returns (?!) with an even earlier song than last week's "OPUS ONE." Today it's "TAKE ME" (51A: 1942 Tommy Dorsey hit with Frank Sinatra vocals). Nope, don't know that one either. guessed the BAR part of I-BAR (48A: Flanged structural element), which was good enough (confirmed by 'BAMA; 49D: Rival of Ole Miss). I think I had dessert once at a cafe near or adjoined to the NEUE Galerie (38D: ___ Galerie, art museum on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue). Got confused at 41D: Five-time U.S. Open winner (SAMPRAS) because I couldn't think of a tennis (or golf) player whose name was SAM besides Snead ...
And I'm done. Didn't exactly *enjoy* it, but it provided an interesting challenge.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld | | 5/10/2012 4:00:00 AM |
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Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle
Menotti title character / WED 5-9-12 / Phoenician port / Townsman in Fiddler on Roof | Constructor: Eshan Mitra
Relative difficulty: Easy
THEME: Get off my quays! — terminal -ACE sounds are turned into terminal -AZE sounds in familiar phrases. Wackiness ensues.
Word of the Day: JAFAR (10D: "Aladdin" villain) —
Jafar (Arabic: جعفر Ǧaʿfar, Ja'far) is the main antagonist of the first two films. He is voiced byJonathan Freeman in both films and in the Kingdom Hearts series of video games. An inspiration to the character is the villain Jaffar, played by Conrad Veidt in The Thief of Bagdad, from whichAladdin borrows several character ideas and plot elements. (wikipedia) • • •
This is quite solid. Theme is consistent and theme answers are cute. Seems like the theme could've been extended to a Sunday-sized puzzle, but then the theme might have begun to grate at the 7th or 8th theme answer. Again I find myself without much to say. The fill is all familiar, and there is nothing particularly sparkly or dreadful. The only potential pitfalls I can see today are proper nouns, most notably JAFAR (which I forgot, never having seen the film in question) and AMAHL (which I remembered because of that one time long ago when it sunk me). The "title" of [Menotti title character] is "AMAHL and the NIGHT Visitors," only the clue couldn't tell you that because NIGHT is in the grid (with a great clue, btw—24D: Comment to one who's retiring). Besides those names, though, everything feels very common-knowledge. And if not common, crossword-common at least.
Theme answers:
- 17A: What company bosses do for employees? (SET THE PAYS)
- 23A: Best meal of a cow's life? (AMAZING GRAZE)
- 37A: Having a successful theater career? (IN THE RIGHT PLAYS)
- 45A: Guantánamo and others? (MILITARY BAYS)
- 57A: The second round of betting, for one? (POKER PHASE)
I forgot GOMEZ (12D: Mr. Addams of "The Addams Family") and JAFAR and couldn't pick up FEMA (19A: What comes as a relief?: Abbr.) at first, so that corner was the most trying (left it and came back to it at the end). Had a bit of trouble getting started since SETT-E---- and its clue (17A: What company bosses do for employees?) looked like it would be SETTLE something. Took a bit of thinking to parse that one and thus get INHUMANE coming down (5D: Barbaric). I wrote in a terminal "S" at 31A: Star followers and then later wondered what the heck GRST was at 25D: Sandpaper surface. Thought the D&D enemy at 60A: Common enemy in Dungeons & Dragons (OGRE) was ORCS, though crosses got me out of that one pretty quickly. Otherwise, besides Briticizing MITER (31D: Kind of saw), I didn't have any trouble at all. Well below my Wednesday average time.
Oh, maybe TYRE (35D: Phoenician port) was a bit thorny for some people. Probably less well known than JAFAR. I know the story of Apollonius of TYRE from ... I don't know, being a medievalist, I guess. It was just in the air. Shakespeare wrote Pericles, Prince of TYRE, and wikipedia tells me Apollonius of Tyre was a source for both Twelfth Night and Comedy of Errors as well. TYRE is also the British spelling of "tire."
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld | | 5/9/2012 4:00:00 AM |
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Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle
Early TV star with biography title Schnozzola / TUE 5-8-12 / Fearsome dino / Tree with namesake ski destination / Edvard Munch depiction | Constructor: Lynn Lempel
Relative difficulty: Medium
THEME: Short of interesting — S- turned to SH- in familiar phrases, wackiness, etc.
Word of the Day: MARRYIN' SAM —
MARRYIN' SAM is one of the few gainfully employed men in Dogpatch. A preacher who specializes in $2 weddings (but anything is negotiable) he cleans up only once a year--- during the annualSadie Hawkins Day Race, when slow-footed bachelors are dragged kicking and screaming to the alter by their respective brides-to-be. Generally, the only other time Marryin' Sam gets a gig is when a bachelor accidentally violates (or is tricked into violating) "th' code o' th' hills," whereby any man who merely kisses an unmarried woman automatically has to marry her. Marryin' Sam was prominently featured on the cover of Life magazine in 1952 when he presided over the unexpected wedding ofLi'l Abner and Daisy Mae. In the 1956 Broadway musical and 1959 Li'l Abner film adaptation the rotund Marryin' Sam was perfectly played by 5' 7" 250 pound actor Stubby Kaye. (deniskitchen) • • •
I have a theory: fewer solvers have heard of MARRYIN' SAM than have heard of GHOSTFACE KILLAH. My other theory—a Venn diagram of people who know one name and people who know the other will show very little overlap. Some. But not a lot. This is all to say that the only trouble I had with this grid (besides picking up the theme, which I didn't even try to do at first) occurred in the SE, where MARRYIN' SHAM runs into ACCUSES (47D: Charges in court). I had ALLEGES. This necessitated some erasing. Otherwise, pretty straightforward stuff. Obviously I've never heard of Marryin' Sam. Thankfully, all the crosses were highly gettable, so ... here we are. Another Tuesday done. I've seen better. I've seen worse.
Theme answers:
- 17A: Winner of a pea-preparing contest? (BEST SHELLER)
- 28A: Lotharios' lines in a singles bar? (PICK-UP SHTICKS) — Best in Sow
- 48A: One preparing corn for long hours? (ALL-DAY SHUCKER) — odd that two of these SH- words mean "one who removes the outer layer from" something.
- 62A: Phony wedding? (MARRYIN' SHAM)
This puzzle skews slightly older, much older than yesterday's puzzle (see DURANTE and MACY'S (as clued)) (39A: Early TV star with a biography titles "Schnozzola" + 46A: Store featured in "Miracle on 34th Street"). But everything here (except the olde-timey MARRYIN' S*AM) is well within general crossword solver knowledge. In fact, "general" is the best word I can use to describe the fill. "Basic" is another. "Familiar." I like the clue on ASPEN (71A: Tree with namesake ski destination), and the SCREAM clue is timely (the 1895 pastel sold for almost $120 million just the other day) (31D: Edvard Munch depiction), and HEROIC (10D: Valiant) and CHIVALROUS (30D: Gallant) MAKE (23D: Fabricate) a nice pair, and TREX are for kids (2D: Fearsome dino) ... Beyond that, there's not a lot to say.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld | | 5/8/2012 4:00:00 AM |
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Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle
Rapper who came to prominence as member of Wu-Tang Clan / MON 5-7-12 / Storage for fast Web page retrieval / Opiate used in cough syrup / What Dubliners call homeland / Shaggy's nickname canine friend | Constructor: Guy Tabachnick
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
THEME: The Immaterial World — theme answers contain words that are (roughly) synonyms of "apparition"
Word of the Day: GHOSTFACE KILLAH (20A: Rapper who came to prominence as a member of the Wu-Tang Clan) —
Dennis Coles (born May 9, 1970), better known by his stage name Ghostface Killah, is an American rapperand prominent member of the Wu-Tang Clan. After the group achieved breakthrough success in the aftermath of Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), the members went on to pursue solo careers to varying levels of success. Ghostface Killah debuted his solo-career with Ironman in 1996, which was well received by music critics. He has continued his success over the following years with critically acclaimed albums such as Supreme Clientele (2000) and Fishscale (2006). His stage name was taken from one of the characters in the 1979 kung fu film Mystery of Chessboxing. Ghostface Killah is critically acclaimed for his loud, fast-paced flow, and his emotional stream-of-consciousness narratives containing cryptic slang and non-sequiturs. In 2006, MTV included him on their honorable mention list of The Greatest MCs of All Time, while the editors of About.com placed him on their list of the Top 50 MCs of Our Time (1987–2007), praising him as "one of the most imaginative storytellers of our time." Ghostface's storytelling abilities have widely been praised, with Q magazine calling him "rap's finest storyteller." (wikipedia)
• • •
Wow. I don't know if Mr. Tabachnick is a young man, but he sure plays one on T.V. This is what easy puzzles should look like in the 21st century. Theme is very basic — phrases share words that are synonyms — but those phrases are solid and current, and the rest of the fill (and cluing!) is alive and kicking, wherever possible. AGHA and IOTA and A-RONI, like the poor, will always be with us, but when you mix them up with DOPE (as clued—53D: Extraordinary, in slang), HOOK UP (as clued—9D: Begin a tryst), CACHE (as clued—2D: Storage for fast Web page retrieval) and BALLER (45D: One playing hoops), their spoilage capacity is severely diminished. SCOOB! (1A: Shaggy's nickname for his canine friend) Ha ha, I could barely believe that was real. I mean, it was a gimme, but made sure the crosses confirmed it, one by one. I found this puzzle very easy, though it was no record, largely because I lost precious seconds staring in slack-jawed awe at how college-y the clues were. I mean that in the best possible way.
I do, however, feel for the tens of thousands of regular crossword solvers who will Never have heard of GHOSTFACE KILLAH. That's a lot of grid territory to concede to someone who is gonna be virtually unknown to (I'm just guessing here) *most* crossword solvers over 50. Just a guess. I'll be thrilled to be wrong. I've been on the other side of this musical / pop cultural equation, and it's not always pleasant. I hope that at least the sheer wackiness of the guy's name brings you at least some measure of happiness.
My kingdom for a picture of GHOSTFACE KILLAH and ARLEN SPECTER together!
Theme answers:
- Rapper who came to prominence as a member of the Wu-Tang Clan (GHOSTFACE KILLAH)
- 25A: Former Republican-turned-Democratic senator from Pennsylvania (ARLEN SPECTER)
- 43A: Form of sparring (SHADOWBOXING) — GZA (pronounced "jizzah"), another member of Wu-Tang clan, had a 1996 single called ... "Shadowboxin'"; can't make this stuff up. Well, actually, you probably could, but I'm not. (WARNING: Video contains tons of profanity)
- 53A: Whiskey or vodka (DISTILLED SPIRIT)
Bullets:
- 3D: "America's Finest News Source," with "The" ("ONION") — I would say that this, too, is youth-oriented, but I'm 42, and it's oriented right at me, so ... you're gonna have to add "middle-aged-oriented" to the mix.
- 41D: Opiate often used in cough syrup (CODEINE) — had some when I was a teenager, following oral surgery. Never again. Stomach ... unhappy.
- 10D: Langauge offshoots (DIALECTS) — hmm. I never thought of them as "shooting off," but I guess that's right. I like the answer, just as I like its symmetrical counterpart, RED STATE (36D: It leans to the right)—yet another nice 21st-century answer.
- 44D: Ukrainian port whose staircase is a setting for "The Battleship Potemkin" (ODESSA) — you had me at "Ukrainian port" (and the "O"). So much so that I never saw the whole (Long) clue until now. Some nice cinematic trivia for you. I like that the puzzle isn't just up-to-date, it's all over the map. Bobbing, weaving, SHADOWBOXING its way into my heart.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld | | 5/7/2012 4:00:00 AM |
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Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle
Newsman Roger / SUN 5-6-12 / 1920s Olympic track gold medalist Paavo / Sister 1920s-30s evangelist / Old country name from Portuguese for beautiful / Savanna grazer / Protector of dead in Egyptian myth / Air Force college athlete | Constructor: Alex Vratsanos
Relative difficulty: Medium
THEME: A-V Club — theme answers are two-word phrases (or names), first word starting with "A," second word starting with "V"
Word of the Day: Sister AIMEE (86A: Sister ___, 1920s-'30s evangelist) —
Aimee Semple McPherson (October 9, 1890 – September 27, 1944), also known as Sister Aimee, was a Canadian-American Los Angeles, California evangelist and media celebrity in the 1920s and 1930s.[1] She founded the Foursquare Church.[2] McPherson has been noted as a pioneer in the use of modern media, especially radio, which she drew upon through the growing appeal of popular entertainment in North America. (wikipedia) • • •
Not much of a theme, but who cares? It's Sunday, so all I ask is that the grid not suck and the theme not be tiresome, convoluted, or otherwise annoying. This one's so simple, it can hardly offend. And the constructor gets to indulge his amazing vanity. It's win-win.
Theme answers:
- 23A: Have, say (AUXILIARY VERB) — by far the hardest of the theme answers to pick up. Because of its placement, and the general vagueness / toughness of clues in the N and NW, it took me a good while to really get started. Once I got going, though the cluing seemed thorny at times, the puzzle most felt normal, difficulty-wise.
- 38A: They're likely to blow (ACTIVE VOLCANOES)
- 65A: Not seeing eye to eye (AT VARIANCE) — one of three AT phrases in the puzzle (see also AT MOST and AT PEACE).
- 68A: End of the main part of the Constitution (ARTICLE VII) — "VII" isn't really a word ... I mean, that's a five, not a "V"
- 89A: Electrical pioneer (ALESSANDRO VOLTA)
- 114A: Common houseplant with colorful blooms (AFRICAN VIOLET)
- 50D: Brandy, for one (AQUA VITAE)
- 46D: Some succulents (ALOE VERAS)
Stupidly started with some kind of -MAN at 7A: Air Force college athlete (FALCON), and so had MNOP for my [10D: Alphabet quartet]. Followed that up with AMENDS for 21A: Nervous ... that is to say, I read the wrong clue. This *often* happens on Sunday, when the print-out of the puzzle (because it's all crammed onto one 8 1/2 x 11 page) leaves the type tiny and the numbers in the grid prone to being obscured. Bah. BAH. Once I got that whole northern area sorted out, the only persistently nasty part of the grid was at the very tiny opening that links the northern section to the eastern section, i.e. the PEELE / SLIT area. I've *barely* heard of George PEELE (36D: Shakespeare contemporary), and I teach poetry from that time period regularly. Never thought of a SLIT as a "channel" before (43D: Microchannel). Thought the ELAND (49A: Savanna grazer) might be on ORIBI (wrong continent, probably). And OBLIQUE is very oddly clued. I'm not even sure how it's equivalent to [At a glance] which seems more adverbial phrase than adjective. Weird.
Bullets:
- 26A: Protector of the dead, in Egyptian myth (ISIS) — just a guess, off the "I"
- 63A: Decidedly eligible, in a way (ONE-A) — about the toughest ONE-A clue I've ever seen.
- 105A: Two-finger keyboard shortcut in Windows (ALT-TAB) — not a Windows user, but could infer the answer easily enough with a few crosses.
- 118A: Speaker of the line "He thinks too much: such men are dangerous" (CAESAR) — To be clear, Shakespeare's CAESAR says this, not real CAESAR. For the third Shak-related clue of the day, see 41D: Romeo's "two blushing pilgrims" (LIPS).
- 4D: Record label for the Kinks and Pink (ARISTA) — this is how I confirmed LENTO (31A: Slowly). I get LARGO and LENTO confused.
- 51D: 1920s Olympic track gold medalist Paavo ___ (NURMI) — I partially remembered this, somehow, though the first two letters needed crosses for me to be certain.
- 112A: Old country name from the Portuguese for "beautiful" (FORMOSA) — formerly "Taiwan"; that was tough. SE corner gave me a minor scare there at the end, but a correct guess of WAFTS helped me pry it open (94D: Drifts).
- 91D: It might go up via an escalator (SALARY) — I'm not familiar with this concept, though, again, it wasn't too tough to infer.
- 56D: Newsman Roger (O'NEIL) — Dude does not have a wikipedia page, what the hell? He was "the reporter of record" for the JonBenet Ramsey story, according to his bio page at MSNBC. And the world is better for it, I'm sure.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld | | 5/6/2012 4:00:00 AM |
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Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle
Papuan port / SAT 5-5-12 / Taxonomy suffix / 1945 Tommy Dorsey hit / Pungent fish topper / Film with protagonist Z / Common barn roof / Philippine province on Luzon / Onetime Lake Texcoco dweller / Beatles If you wear red tonight | Constructor: Ned White
Relative difficulty: Challenging
THEME: none
Word of the Day: GAMBREL (2D: Common barn roof) —
A gambrel (also known as a Dutch gambrel) is a usually-symmetrical two-sided roof with two slopes on each side. The upper slope is positioned at a shallow angle, while the lower slope is steep. This design provides the advantages of a sloped roof while maximizing headroom on the building's upper level. The name comes from the Medieval Latin word gamba, meaning horse's hock or leg. (wikipedia) • • •
Hard to know what to say. This feels half great and half terrible, and in that combination ... the result is terrible. There is so much obscurity, so much nonsense, so much forced fill, that the good stuff ... actually, no. Nothing is really "good." There's lots of stuff that's just fine, but nothing that makes me go "Yes!" The one attempt to get ultra-current falls horribly flat—a single AQUATEEN? (38A: Any of three title characters in a long-running Cartoon Network series) Wow. VEAL RIB ... really? I just ... I don't know what to say about an answer like that. That is not a phrase I've ever heard, and I had no idea that a VEAL RIB could be a [Steak or chop choice]. Those sound like different things ... from ribs, ... but I'm not a big meat-eater, so maybe people eat VEAL RIB a lot and it's a major thing. But I used to eat much more meat, and I can't remember ever seeing those words together like that. RIVER PO?? (60A: It forms much of Lombardy's southern border) God that's awful. Can we do that now? Just put RIVER before the name, like RIVER DANUBE or RIVER MISSISSIPPI??? NEHI SODA, not much better. There is no other NEHI. NEHI SODA = redundant (36D: Drink that had a Wild Red variety). Am I going to confuse it with a NEHI blender or a NEHI razor?
Who is DELIBES? (65A: "Coppelia" composer) I barrrrrely know that name. Came to me from somewhere, and thank god, 'cause that corner is nuts. Not as nuts as the NW, though; I had an error there. Never heard of GAMBREL. Never heard of -OTA (4D: Taxonomy suffix). I'm just shaking my head at -OTA. Brought down by *&$%ing -OTA, one of the worst pieces of fill in xword history. Couldn't parse [Medium frequencies include them] to save my life, so figured it would be some engineering / physics thing I didn't know. Wrote in AMBENDS. Why not? OTE? OTA? Who can tell the difference? And AMBENDS seems as much a word as, say, GAMBREL, so ... pfft. I still don't get FINS (5D: Drum and bass parts)—total guess that ended up right (kind readers tell me "drum" is a kind of fish; news to me). Here's my report on the NE: Let's see ... never heard of BOB STAY (8A: Rope holding down a bowsprit), never heard of "OPUS ONE" (16A: 1945 Tommy Dorsey hit), never heard of RESTONS (18A: Journalists James and James Jr.), never heard of "YES IT IS" (14D: Beatles tune that begins "If you wear red tonight") ... and yet that was the corner I got the quickest.
This puzzle is a nightmare, both because it's filled with stuff I don't know (tough luck) and because that stuff seems absurd—I don't expect you to have the same ignorances I have, but I'm confident today's puzzle is going to be an ignorance bloodbath for a lot of people. A lot of smart people. This is a puzzle choked with obscurities and without a single answer that really sizzles (GRIZZLES, yes, but not sizzles). QUIRINO!? (39D: Philippine province on Luzon) Holy crap, did Maleska come back from the grave for this one? I've written way too much about this puzzle already.
Bullets:
- 1A: Fault line? (I GOOFED) — started with "I'M SORRY"
- 30A: Pungent fish topper (AIOLI) — one of a small handful of gimmes today. Also, EFT (59D: Small creature that undergoes metamorphosis). Actually, EFT was more "... man, I hope so" than gimme. Educated guess.
- 23A: Scary sucker, for short (DRAC) — took a while.
- 20A: Ingredient in gourmet potato chips (SEA SALT) — true enough. Not sure how it's different, flavor- (or other-) wise.
- 37A: Film with the protagonist "Z" ("ANTZ") — zero memory of that.
- 46A: With 42-Across, old ad mascot who sang "It's dandy for your teeth" (BUCKY / BEAVER) — another gimme. Thank you, "Grease" (the only place I've *ever* heard / seen the Ipana ad)
- 49A: Source of the word "robot" (CZECH) — from "R.U.R." I'm guessing.
- 63A: Central feature of St. Peter's Square (OBELISK) — again, no idea. Looking at how little I knew today, I'm surprised the grid got filled in completely at all, and that there weren't several more errors.
- 32D: Papuan port (LAE) — ouch. It hurts. Up there with -OTA among my least favorites. I've seen it before and still couldn't remember it completely. Remembered it was terrible, that it was something I'd rejected from one of my own grids before ... but couldn't remember it.
- 13D: Author of "The Stranger Beside Me," 1980 (ANN RULE) — well, at least I've heard of her. Certainly didn't know this, but was able to put it together off the -ULE.
- 45D: Relatives of dik-diks (RHEBOKS) — compared to most other answers in this grid, this was a piece of cake. That's saying something.
- 38D: Drink that has a Ruby Red variety (ABSOLUT) — superhard. Could think only of grapefruit juice.
Hard is good, but remember—enjoyable. EnJOYable.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld | | 5/5/2012 4:00:00 AM |
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Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle
Mother of Valkyries / FRI 5-4-12 / Designer Gernreich / Goldeneye relative / Jazzman Montgomery / ESPN anchor Kolber / Holden Irving Bacheller novel / Follower of Help / Emergency extractor | Constructor: Barry C. Silk
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
THEME: none
Word of the Day: TEXAS STAR (32A: Ferris wheel in Dallas that is the tallest in North America) —
The structure has an overall height of 212 feet (64.6 m) (approximately 21 stories) and can carry up to 264 passengers in its 44 gondolas. It will be superseded as the tallest Ferris wheel in North America if the proposed 286-foot (87 m) Pepsi Globe proposed for American Dream Meadowlands, in New Jersey, is constructed. (wikipedia)
• • •
Wheeeeeee! Fun, and easy, except for a couple of places where I got dead-stopped. This is where difficulty gets tough to gauge. A puzzle might be tough overall and take you, say, 10 minutes, or it might be easy everywhere except that one damn corner you can't figure out w/o struggling, and take you 12. So I guess the latter puzzle is "harder," but that hardly gets at the flavor of the puzzle ... which is perhaps why I wrote semi-complete sentences about the puzzle instead of just slapping a difficulty rating on it and leaving it at that. "Challenging!" "Three Stars!" Man, that would be nice/easy. I should do that on days when I'm just not feeling it. Anyway, I got slowed down three times, to varying degrees. In order of devastation, from least to most devastating: the NE, where ERDA (14D: Mother of the Valkyries) / PENNA (21A: Only one of the 13 Colonies not touching the Atl. Ocean) is particularly unpretty (I'd change the "A" to an "E"—sure ERDE (German for "earth") is bad, but worse than "ERDA?" I doubt it. And PENNE beats PENNA hollow); the DEALER / DRY MOP (42A: Collector of dust bunnies) crossing—not knowing that single letter (even with -EALER in place) meant I was way slower getting into the SE than I would've liked; and the SW, where side-by-side obscure names really took the wind out of my sails. I just realized that if a solvers have never heard of ODER-NEISSE (54A: ___ Line (international boundary)), they are likely screwed in that corner, as RUDI (46D: Designer Gernreich) and EBEN (47D: "___ Holden" (Irving Bacheller novel)) are not exactly household names.
When I saw -EALER for 42D: Crack investigator's target?, I thought the answer might be SEALER. Because ... you seal cracks? It made a kind of sense at the time.
This puzzle lost me at 1A: Goldeneye relative (SMEW) (I got "goldeneye" confused with "goldenrod"—a SMEW is a duck), but then immediately got me back with the highly-made-up-yet-exciting SIXERSGAME (1D: Wells Fargo Center event, informally). Then I was permanently won over at JAWS OF LIFE (5A: Emergency extractor). Is that a NYT xword first? So good! Really really hate ODER-NEISSE as an answer (an old, not-loved grid denizen), but then along comes "RUBBER SOUL" to ease the pain (50A: Follower of "Help!"). MAELSTROM's a lovely word (37A: Very turbulent situation). I don't know ... with the exception of a few fill hiccups, this looks nice in retrospect.
Bullets:
- 17A: Jags of the 1960s and '70s (XKES) — a crossword gimme, though often the letters come back to me all out of sorts. "X ... J .. Ks?"
- 34A: Angle in botany (AXIL) — another crossword gimme; got it off the "I"
- 43A: ESPN anchor Kolber (SUZY) — she's pretty well known to ESPN-watchers. There's a popular NFL humor blog called "Kissing SUZY Kolber."
- 4D: Jazzman Montgomery (WES) — first word in the grid! This has become yet another crossword gimme for me.
- 20D: Three-time All-Star pitcher Pappas (MILT) — under the influence of the election season, I misremembered this guy as a MITT.
- 24D: Annual "Hot 100" publisher (MAXIM) — good clue, absurd magazine.
- 28D: Cardinal for 22 years (STAN MUSIAL) — I think I'd have gotten this with no crosses. He's The Cardinal.
- 51D: "Still Crazy" star, 1998 (REA) — wow, 1998 is a dark dark hole for me, movie-wise. Once I had -EA, I was fairly sure who I was dealing with, though.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld | | 5/4/2012 4:00:00 AM |
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Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle
Dana of MacGyver / THU 5-3-12 / Extra life in video game / Article with ushiromigoro / Henry who founded Cadillac / Persistent Seuss character / Org associated with US Cyber Command / Single-mom sitcom of 2000s / Explorer born around AD 970 | Constructor: Neville Fogarty
Relative difficulty: Easy
THEME: MISPELLED (60A: Like the six longest answers in this puzzle) — commonly misspelled words are, in fact, misspelled in this grid.
Word of the Day: Dana ELCAR (19A: Dana of "MacGyver") —
Dana Elcar (October 10, 1927 – June 6, 2005) was an American television and movie character actor. Although he appeared in about 40 films, his most memorable role was on the 1980s and 1990s television series MacGyver as Peter Thornton, an administrator working for the Phoenix Foundation. Elcar had appeared in the pilot episode of MacGyver as Andy Colson (a completely different character), but was later cast as Peter Thornton, making his first regular appearance in the 11th episode of the first season. (wikipedia) • • •
Why ERICSON is not part of the theme, I don't know (23D: Explorer born around A.D. 970)—it's the only word in this grid I routinely misspell (or misremember how to spell; I don't have occasion (one "s") to use it in my everyday writing very often). I want there to be two Ss, or maybe an E as the last vowel. ERICSEN ... no, I can't see myself making that error. ERICSSON? Is that something?
Neville tells me he wrote this puzzle three years ago. Such is the fate of many an NYT submission: an acceptance (ideally), followed by an indeterminate time in puzzle purgatory (I've got one at something like two years and counting). Neville is a much savvier constructor now. He seems a bit anxious about how the puzzle will be received. I think it's a cute idea. I don't misspell these words (except perhaps GENEOLOGY), but with the exception of OCCASSION (really?! rhymes with "passion"?), I can imagine that these words are, in fact, frequently misspelled. I remember forcing myself to remember how MILLENNIUM is spelled (sometime around Y2K). The spellings of the others either seem intuitive or have somehow just stuck.  The grid seems reasonably well filled, though ELCAR (19A: Dana of "MacGyver") over LELAND (21A: Henry who founded Cadillac) (? and ?, respectively) was a bit harrowing, and I came to a complete halt at the very end, in the tiny western section. Two wrong answers (DDE and STE instead of IKE and MME) (25D: Five-star W.W. II hero, informally + 27D: Fr. title) really screwed me, as did absurd cluing on SIX and KIMONO. SIX is a [Big roll] only if you are a rolling a single, six-sided die, and why would you do that? SIX is just not "big." TWELVE, I'd buy as "big." Not SIX. And leaving off "of clothing" in 30A: Article with an ushiromigoro is just perverse. "Article takes me to a written work or to grammar. Or to the Articles of Confederation, I guess. Anyway, with IKE, SIX, and MME misbehaving, and the "Article" shenanigans, I lost a good 30 seconds. Puzzle still came in a solid Easy.
Theme answers:
- 17A: Study of trees? (GENEOLOGY)
- 22A: Tenacity (PERSEVERENCE)
- 50A: Survey staple (QUESTIONAIRE)
- 10D: Long time (MILLENIUM)
- 31D: Event (OCCASSION)
Got started quickly with 1A: 2007 Ellen Page film ("JUNO"). Somehow first-guessed UTEP (2D: Sch. with the mascot Paydirt Pete). Got a bit hung up in the PALERMO / PCBS region (5D: City gained by Rome during the First Punic War + 5A: Some coolant fluids, for short). Had SALERNO at one point. Nice modern clue on ONE UP (4D: Extra life, in a video game). I like the clue on SAM I AM (43A: Persistent Seuss character), though at fist I could think only of the book's title ("Green Eggs and Ham") and the damned fox ... you know, the one in a box. I have never seen a single episode of "REBA" (I don't think it's really for ... me), but I knew it instantly, thanks to much crossword training (57D: Single-mom sitcom of the 2000s).
Good day.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld | | 5/3/2012 4:00:00 AM |
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Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle
Bygone Chryslers / WED 5-2-12 / Atlas go-with / Bygone US Postal Service mascot / Novy Russian literary magazine / Watson's creator / Upright swimmers / Q-U string | Constructor: Paula Gamache
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging
THEME: CROSS (38A: Out of sorts ... or what completes the answers to the nine starred clues) — starred clues have answers that make no sense unless you imagine the word CROSS in front of them
Word of the Day: GAZETTEER (17A: Atlas go-with) —
A gazetteer is a geographical dictionary or directory, an important reference for information about places and place names (see: toponymy), used in conjunction with a map or a full atlas.[1] It typically contains information concerning the geographical makeup of a country, region, or continent as well as the social statistics and physical features, such as mountains, waterways, or roads. Examples of information provided by gazetteers include the location of places, dimensions of physical features, population, GDP, literacy rate, etc. This information is generally divided into overhead topics with entries listed in alphabetical order. (wikipedia) • • • A variation on the "words that can follow"-type theme, only here there are no real Theme Answers per se, just ... words. Nine short words. There is longer fill, utterly unrelated to the theme, and it's ... fine. Occasionally entertaining (I like BUYS TIME, GAZETTEER, AUSTERITY, and BEAR CLAW). Solving experience was a nice diversion, but the whole missing-word theme adds difficulty without also adding interest. Also, CROSS is perhaps too easy a word to combine other words with. Hatch, section, country, beam ... I could go on.
Theme answers:
- 14A: *Features accompanying the comics, often (WORDS) — "features" is not a word I'd use. Really threw me. [They accompany the comics, often] would've worked Just fine. This habit of gumming up clues with off-phrasing can be seen again in the ARMOR clue (1A: Pieces of mail). ARMOR and "mail" are synonymous. The "pieces of" part of the clue is a borderline nonsensical attempt at misdirection.
- 16A: *Like some tennis volleys (COURT)
- 62A: *Labradoodle, e.g. (BREED)
- 64A: *Symbol on some flags (BONES)
- 2D: *Intersection (ROADS)
- 12D: *Appear as Tootsie, e.g. (DRESS) — this is oddly specific. In fact, it appears to be a clue that relates only to Dustin Hoffman.
- 34D: *Weapon for William Tell (BOW)
- 48D: *Scope lines (HAIRS)
- 52D: *Bygone Chryslers (FIRES)
I (somehow) got most of these theme answers without knowing the theme, i.e. before I got CROSS. A labradoodle's a BREED ... I figured FIRES were just some car I'd never heard of. William Tell certainly used a BOW. There are BONES on flags. If comics are pictures, then yes, those pictures are accompanied by WORDS. I muddled through OK. Not a big fan of intersecting foreign words (MISSA / SEI) or the word IDEATE, and there are two MR.s in the grid (MR. ZIP and MR. PINK) (3D: Bygone U.S. Postal Service mascot + 46D: Steve Buscemi's role in "Reservoir Dogs") ... but overall the fill seems fine.
Bullets:
- 6A: Watson's creator (IBM) — Wanted only Doyle, though for a ridiculous half-second I second-guessed myself and considered POE.
- 8D: Cousteau's milieux (MERS) — There's something noxious about the plural "milieux." Of all the ways to clue this basic word, the puzzle goes with "gratuitously frenchy."
- 29D: Olympics competitor of NZL (AUS) — in the Olympics, you compete against ... everyone. So ... whatthehell? This clue is terrible. I asked my NZL wife. She agreed: terrible. "They *do* have a competitive relationship, but ... *everyone* competes in the Olympics." Me: "What about [Rugby rival of NZL]?" My NZL wife: "[Rugby rival] would've been Good."
- 35D: Novy ___ (Russian literary magazine) (MIR) — oh dear lord. As if people know American literary magazines, let alone Russian ones. MIR is a spacestation. Or the Russian word for "peace." Or a typo of MRI. And that's all it is. [FYI: apparently MIR also means "world," and "Novy MIR" means "New World"]
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld | | 5/2/2012 4:00:00 AM |
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Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle
Kardashian matriarch / TUE 5-1-12 / Child prodigy of Heroes / It's stolen in Austin Powers movie / Pompom on skullcap | Constructor: Zoe Wheeler and Aimee Lucido
Relative difficulty: Easy
THEME: ADDIE — familiar two-word phrases have -IE added to the end of the first word, creating wacky answers, clued "?"-style
Word of the Day: KRIS Jenner (21A: Kardashian matriarch) —
Kristen Mary "Kris" Jenner (née Houghton; formerly Kardashian; born November 5, 1955) is an American television personality, socialite and businesswoman. She also is the manager for all of her family members, including Kourtney Kardashian, Kim Kardashian and Khloé Kardashian. She is the current wife of 1976 Summer Olympic Games Decathlon gold medalist Bruce Jenner and was married previously to lawyer Robert Kardashian; they divorced in 1990. (wikipedia) • • •
KRIS Jenner used to be married to Robert Kardashian. Robert Kardashian was a friend of O.J. SIMPSON. Just a few minutes before I did this Aimee Lucido puzzle, I did a different Aimee Lucido puzzle that had O.J. SIMPSON as an answer. So she's clearly celebrity-obsessed and needs help. Help her. Please. Somebody.
Kidding. I liked this puzzle. The only thing I didn't like was that it felt like it was trying maybe a little Too hard (TTH!) to be current by being hyper-pop-cultural. MICAH (1A: Child prodigy of "Heroes") and KRIS probably shouldn't be in the same puzzle, let alone that close to each other, because the former is already showing its non-staying power (I watched two seasons of "Heroes" and *I* couldn't remember his name), and the latter ... is famous for nothing. For being famous, I guess. Anyway, the point is, these two answers aren't just pop culture (which I love); they're the slightest, thinnest, weakest stuff that pop culture has to offer. At least the PARIS clue went in a non-Hilton direction (37D: "Midnight in ___" (2011 Woody Allen film). TREY Parker's also pop-culturey, but at least he has (co-)created something iconic, something of lasting cultural importance (64A: "South Park" writer Parker). Two things, if you count "The Book of Mormon." Three things, if you count "BASEketball."
Theme answers:
- 17A: Package full of syringes? (JUNKIE MAIL)
- 23A: Thesis topic for sex ed? (QUICKIE STUDY) — Love this one. Actually, both these first two theme answers are pleasingly edgy.
- 36A: Cameras taking pictures of permanent markers? (SHARPIE SHOOTERS) — I like the word SHARPIE when used to describe a "shrewd, cunning person, esp. a cheat"
- 46A: Pompom on a skullcap? (BEANIE SPROUT) — I don't really get the "sprout" part here. Because the pompom ... sprouts? ... from the top of the beanie?
- 57A: Police investigation of a betting house? (BOOKIE CASE)
Puzzle really does have a nice, contemporary feel, even if it is a bit celeb-obsessed (celebsessed). I know there hasn't been a new Austin Powers movie in a while, but MOJO still feels reasonably current (1D: It's stolen in an Austin Powers movie), as does the ubiquitous AÇAI berry (30A: Berry for the health-conscious). PARIS gets the recent Woody Allen movie treatment. Even OREO gets an ultra-current clue (56A: Cookie celebrating its centennial in 2012). Plus, my daughter's name is in the puzzle, so it's a good day all around (yes, we named our daughter TSAR—don't judge). I'll leave you to contemplate the RING-wearing PROBE that's covered with LUBE. Good day.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld | | 5/1/2012 4:00:00 AM |
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Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle
Quaint lodging / MON 4-30-12 / Group that includes North South East West / Chesapeake Bay delicacy / Cheese popular with crackers / Bygone Italian coins | Constructor: Susan L. Stanislawski
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
THEME: B AND B (28D: Quaint lodging hinted at by the outsides of 18-, 20-, 28-, 42-, 51- or 55-Across) — theme answers are two-word phrases where first word begins with "B" and second word ends with "B"
Word of the Day: BLUE CRAB (28A: Chesapeake Bay delicacy) —
Callinectes sapidus (from the Greek calli- = "beautiful", nectes = "swimmer", and Latin sapidus = "savory"), the Chesapeake or Atlantic blue crab, is a crustacean found in the waters of the western Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific coast of Central America and the Gulf of Mexico. On the Pacific coast of Central America it is largely ignored as a food source as picking the meat is considered too difficult. It is the Maryland state crustacean and the subject of an extensive fishery. (wikipedia) • • •
Neither offensive nor remarkable. Straight over the plate. Ably but not excitingly filled. It's a Monday puzzle. It happened. And though the core theme concept isn't eye-popping, the resulting theme answers (six of them!) are at least interesting. I can verify that puppies do indeed love BELLY RUBs (42A: Activity a puppy loves). As do dogs. As do some people. I flew through this, with one notable sticking point—see, I got BILLY BOB (20A: Actor Thornton of "Sling Blade"), and then got B AND B, and so (not having read the B AND B clue thoroughly) I assumed that each word in the phrase would *start* with "B." (I must've gone through BELLY RUB by that point, but somehow that didn't disabuse me of my incorrect assumption). Anyway, imagining the Bs would start both words in the phrase meant that when I got to 18A: Group that includes North, South, East and West, I had double-trouble. First, I'd made an incorrect assumption about the theme, and second, bridge??? I know nothing about bridge. I honestly don't even know what a BRIDGE CLUB is. I know a game of bridge has ESNW positions, but I don't know how "club" fits in. Is it the normal meaning of club? And if so, isn't saying a BRIDGE CLUB includes NSEW a bit like saying a book club includes words? As you can see, I'm out of my depth with bridge. Anyway, I had BRIDGE (easy) but then put in a B for the next letter and promptly got stuck. Also, imagined answer could be BRIDGE BETS. Eventually just solved the short stuff in that NE corner and everything worked itself out. Rest of the grid was a snap.
Other theme answers:
- 51A: Service provided at Meineke and Pep Boys (BRAKE JOB)
- 55A: Sparring injury, perhaps (BRUISED RIB)
Sales of new vinyl are actually up in recent years, so the "Old" part of 27D: Old LPs and 45s is patently unnecessary (actually, even if sales weren't up, it would be unnecessary). Everyone has some bit of tired, short fill they find particularly irksome. I have never thought about ranking said fill in terms of how much it bugs me, but I think if I could get rid of one short answer—just abolish it from all future puzzles—it would be ENNE. I do this on two counts—first, it's a suffix, and no one (least of all the constructor) actually *wants* suffixes in a grid. They are always a last resort. So, there's that. But ENNE is particularly annoying because its most common clue (today's [Feminine suffix]), can be two things: ETTE or ENNE. So you can't just write it in, move on, and *forget* about it (which is all anyone wants to do with a suffix). You have to actually work crosses. Now, I'm not opposed to work, but I am opposed to working for *that*. For no payoff. When crud adds *any* level of difficulty, it stands out more and irks more. "We're gonna make this puzzle a little more challenging by yanking one of your hairs out at the two-minute mark, OK?" That might actually be preferable to encountering ENNE again.
Please understand that I'm not faulting this puzzle for containing ENNE. *Lots* of puzzles have contained ENNE, some of them quite fine, I'm sure. I'm just saying that if I had a magic wand, ENNE would disappear. Forever.
Clue-wise, 10D: Something always sold in mint condition? (TIC TAC) is the big winner by far (despite the fact that there are non-mint TIC TACs; I like the orange).
Oh, also, [Cheese popular with crackers]? That's pretty racist.
[emoticon indicating lack of seriousness]
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld | | 4/30/2012 4:00:00 AM |
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Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle
Student of morality / SUN 4-29-12 / Gherman cosmonaut / Ancient Balkan region / 2009 Hilary Swank biopic / Child-care author LeShan / 1984 superpwower / Botanical beards / | Constructor: Tracy Gray
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging
THEME: "Infractions" — five theme answers with ordinal numbers and two theme answers with actual fractions in them have those numbers/fractions represented as fractions by having the numerator (which in very case is "ONE") take the place of the ordinal number in the answer, and then having the denominator be the answer directly below said numerator.
Word of the Day: Gherman TITOV (48D: Gherman ___, cosmonaut who was the second human to orbit the earth) —
Gherman Stepanovich Titov (Russian: Герман Степанович Титов) (September 11, 1935–September 20, 2000) was a Soviet cosmonaut who, on August 6, 1961,[1] became the second human to orbit the Earth aboardVostok 2, preceded by Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1. Titov was the fourth man in space after Gagarin and Americans Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom (the latter two made suborbital voyages). (wikipedia) • • •
The theme simply doesn't work because of the HALF / QUARTER issue. With all the other answers, ordinal numbers are being represented as fractions, but with the HALF and QUARTER answers, fractions are being represented as fractions. Fifth in a sequence and one-fifth are totally different things. Half and 1/2 are not. That is a Major-League inconsistency.
Theme answers:
- 23A: With 26-Across, like grandchildren ([Third] GENERATION)
- 33A: With 44-Across, execute, in a way (DRAW AND [Quarter])
- 45A: With 50-Across, euphoric ([Seventh] HEAVEN)
- 71A: With 77-Across, high-end retail chain (SAKS [Fifth] AVENUE)
- 94A: With 103-Across, 1999 Shyamalan thriller ("THE [Sixth] SENSE")
- 105A: With 112-Across, compromise (MEET [Half] WAY)
- 122A: With 127-Across, classical work that's the source of the European Union's anthem (BEETHOVEN'S [Ninth]) — without thinking, I put a FIVE under that ONE instead of the proper NINE. Minor stumbling ensued.
Fill on this one is subpar, with a few notable exceptions (DIXIECRATS makes a nice answer, and I really liked THANATOS, thought that may just because a. I *knew* it, and b. it's fun to say) (80A: Political party that won 39 electoral votes in 1948 + 89D: Death personified, in ancient Greece). Since this is a puzzle about fractions, let's talk fractions. Consider the longer (non-theme) answers in this grid. Now consider how many of them are made up predominantly of the Wheel of Fortune letters, RLSTNE (with S and E being the real spotlight hogs). You need these letters, obviously, but when you cram your grid full of them, you really limit how interesting your fill can be. But back to fractions—RLSTNE presence, expressed in fraction form:
- ABSCESSES (2/3)
- ENLISTEES (8/9)
- STEELIEST (8/9)
- SOITSEEMS (2/3)
- ATTHESTART (7/10)
Now, I can imagine a really interesting word that is RLSTNE-heavy, but that would be the exception, not the rule. When your long fill (the bang pow awesome stuff) is laden with RLSTNE, you diminish the overall interestingness of the grid considerably. Consider these grid neighbors and their RLSTNE content: TESTER, all of it; SUNUNU, just half. The latter is indisputably better. Now, I DO TOO is just 1/6 RLSTNE, and it's not exactly amazing, so the presence of these letters is by No Means the only consideration when filling a grid. But they are good letters to keep your eye on. I always tell my students to "kill linking verbs" (incl. all forms of the verb "to be"). Now, I don't mean this. I just mean, hunt them. If you find that they need to live, let them live. But be aware of them, because if they proliferate and overrun your prose, you are in a heap of trouble.
Also, no one is going to win any friends with answer like OSTEOID (95D: Bonelike), ARISTAE (75A: Botanical beards), or SEPTAL. I'm currently having a love/hate relationship with CASUIST (13A: Student of morality). It's obscure (bad), but unusual and interesting, esp. in this grid (good!).
Where's EIGHTH!?
PIXY seems like a [Var.] (70D: Sprite). Never seen it, except in the candy name PIXY Stix (which I would very much accept as a clue). OCHRE should've had some kind of [British] marker (markre?) in the clue (109D: Cousin of rust). The SW seemed to me the toughest part of the grid by a good margin. Knew ISADORA (125A: Dancer Duncan) but not how to spell her—there are Lots of variants that ceom from that basic name template—ATLASES clue was Saturday-hard (128A: They have scales), no way I was guessing TINWARE was a "service" (though I see it now) (92D: Colonial service), AREOLAS was thornily under-clued (93D: Colored parts), never heard of "AMELIA" (98D: 2009 Hilary Swank biopic) and EXP. makes sense now (111A: Abbr. on many food labels), but I can't remember seeing it clued thus and had a hard time getting it even with the "X" in place. Oh, and I misremembered EDA as IDA (121D: Child-care author LeShan). I had some trouble in the PIXY / TWP (68A: County subdivision: Abbr.) / WRIT area too (which probably spilled into the SW). Otherwise, the rest of the grid seemed of avg. Sunday difficulty (unless you've never heard of GEORDI (11D: "Star Trek: T.N.G." role)—I guess that could've been rough).
Bullets:
- 53A: Faith that celebrates both Jesus and Muhammad (BAHAI) — really wanted ISLAM here.
- 113A: Ancient Balkan region (THRACE) — also Kara ___ (aka "Starbuck") of TV's "Battlestar Galactica"; here she is solving a puzzle (of sorts):
- 129A: Gave, as a hot potato (TOSSED TO) — Gave : Tossed :: Gave to : TOSSED TO. He gave John the potato : he tossed John the potato :: he gave the potato to John : he tossed the potato to John. Something's screwy here.
- 7D: "1984" superpower (EURASIA) — the great "1984" superpower conundrum for xword solvers: EURASIA or OCEANIA?
- 58D: R&B singer Hayes (ISAAC) — musical finale!
["You socked it to me, mama!"]
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld | | 4/29/2012 4:00:00 AM |
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Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle
Trombonist Winding / SAT 4-28-12 / Hall of Fame jockey Earle / Poem comprised of quotations / Old-time actresses Allgood Haden / Common language of Niger / Round dance officials | Constructor: Gary J. Whitehead
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging
THEME: none
Word of the Day: Earle SANDE (48D: Hall-of-Fame jockey Earle) —
Born in Groton, South Dakota, Earl Sande started out as a bronco buster in the early 1900s but then became a successful American quarter horse rider before switching to thoroughbred horse racing in 1918. Sande joined Cal Shilling and Johnny Loftus as a contract rider for Commander J. K. L. Ross. In 1919, he tied an American record with six wins on a single racecard at Havre de Grace Racetrack. He went on to ride for noted owners such as Harry F. Sinclair, and Samuel D. Riddle and was the leading money-winning jockey in the United States in 1921, 1923, and again in 1927. He won both the Belmont Stakes five times and the Jockey Club Gold Cup on four occasions, the Kentucky Derby three times and the Preakness Stakes once. In 1923 he won 39 stakes races for Harry F. Sinclair's Rancocas Stable, ten of which were on ultimate Horse of the Year winner Zev, including the Kentucky Derby, Belmont Stakes, and a match race against England's Epsom Derby winner Papyrus. Sande's most famous wins came aboard Gallant Fox in 1930 when he won the U.S. Triple Crown. Sande's fame was such that he was immortalized in a number of poems by Damon Runyon. Following his retirement in 1932, Earl Sande remained in the industry as a trainer. In 1938 he was the United States leading trainer and by the mid 1940s owned and operated his own racing stable. (wikipedia)
• • •
An usual triple-stack-laden puzzle, in that it played harder-, not easier-than-average for me. Usually, I can put a few Downs through those stacks and make them roll over pretty readily, but those Downs were a bit of a mess today (up top and below), and so I had issues. You can add triple-stacks (and quad stacks) to the list of alleged construction accomplishments I don't care for (see also pangrams). The problem is two-fold. A: the 15s are often hit-and-miss, at best, because phrases with friendly letters don't necessarily make for interesting phrases. Today, the lower stack was the only one I really cared for. The others are pretty dull. And this is a problem because in a stack-heavy puzzle, your stacks are virtually all you've got. Because B: the Downs you will need to make the stacks stick together are too often junky. Lots of short, awkward stuff. CENTO & HAUSA (our opening 1D and 2D punch) are about as ugly a pair of side-by-side answers as I've seen in any NYT puzzle, ever (1D: Poem comprised of quotations + 2D: Common language of Niger). Those are the kind of answers that would've reigned in the Maleska era, the kind that give crosswords a bad name ("I don't like crosswords because you have to know bygone Italian sausages and the Sasquatchian word for 'raccoon,' etc."). Mostly, though, it's the ordinary short stuff that clogs the bulk of the grid—that's what wears you down. This puzzle is by no means bad, as an example of its type. Its fairly typical. But it's a stale type. Most of my favorite themeless constructors will focus on making an exciting grid filled with new and/or vivid phrases and names and words. That's what I love. This was certainly a decent challenge, but the excitement just wasn't there.
I absolutely guessed NURSE CLINICIANS (17A: They may perform minor surgeries)— well, the NURSE part — since A: I don't really know what NURSE CLINICIANS are (are they like NURSE PRACTITIONERS, which is a thing I've heard of?), and B: CENTO and HAUSA were Martian as far as I was concerned. Had a slightly worse time in the CUERS (47D: Round dance officials) & SANDE portion of the grid. Looking at C-ERS, S-NDE, and --E (for 55A: Trucial States, today: Abbr.), I honestly thought I was dead. Started reconsidering EPICS (since I'd wanted TIKKA and not TIKKI to begin with (37D: McAloo ___ (burger at McDonald's in India)) ... but then EPICS was the only thing that made sense at 46A: Big pictures, so I left it). Eventually ran the alphabet at C-ERS and hit my mark, then stared at U-E ... and finally got it. Rest of the grid just wasn't that tough. Slow, steady progress took care of it.
Bullets:
 - 26A: Old-time actresses Allgood and Haden (SARAS) — another thing about this grid that made it unappealing—it was Ruthlessly "old-time." From SARAS to SANDE to KAI (62D: Trombonist Winding), there is nothing in this grid that you couldn't have found in a grid 40 years ago. Maybe the ALE (a clue I really liked; 57A: Buzzsaw Brown, e.g.). "Old-time" stuff is fine, but it's nice when puzzles bear at least some small mark indicating that they were constructed in this millennium.
- 51A: Sycosis source, informally (STAPH) — not to be confused with the southern musicians' disease "zydecosis."
- 7D: Literary lion (ASLAN) — took me a while, which is especially ironic given that my wife fell asleep in bed next to me, not five minutes before I started this puzzle, reading (that is, rerererererererererere-reading) The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
- 8D: 1955 sci-fi-film that was one of the first to use Technicolor ("THIS ISLAND EARTH") — the very best thing about this puzzle, both because it amazingly cuts through *all* the stacks and, at the same time, is better than every single one of the answers it crosses. I know this film mainly from the background of the comic Watchmen.
- 11D: Killers that may go through hoops (ORCAS) — those must be big hoops. I tend to avoid animal parks of all kinds, so I wouldn't know.
- 12D: City near Oneida Lake (UTICA) — I was bracing for something much more obscure. I've never been there, but know it well from a. "The Simpsons" (a single joke about hamburgers and Albany and Utica that I have never forgotten) and b. the fact that a friend of mine used to commute there to teach.
- 25D: Luis in the Red Sox Hall of Fame (TIANT) — I always get him confused with Dock Ellis (they pitched in the same era). Ellis was most famous, probably, for pitching a no-hitter while high on LSD.
- 33D: Ticket, informally (DUCAT) — I ... don't know what this means. Is it old-timey? I know DUCAT as a very old-timey coin.
- 35D: Color-streaked playing marble (IMMIE) — another triple-stack fill casualty. Not great.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld | | 4/28/2012 4:00:00 AM |
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Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle
Koran memorizer / FRI 4-27-12 / Finnish architect Aalto / Pick-up sticks piece / Warp drive repairman on original Star Trek / North Pole author 1910 / Tom Detective 1896 novel | Constructor: Patrick Berry
Relative difficulty: Medium
THEME: none
Word of the Day: MARTA (35A: Commuting option in Georgia's capital) —
The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority or MARTA ( /ˈmɑrtə/) is the principal rapid-transitsystem in the Atlanta metropolitan area and the ninth-largest in the United States. Formed in 1971 as strictly a bus system, MARTA operates a network of bus routes linked to a rapid transit system consisting of 48 miles (77 km) of rail track with 38 train stations. MARTA operates almost exclusively in Fulton andDeKalb counties, with bus service to two destinations in Cobb county (Six Flags Over Georgia and theCumberland Transfer Center next to the Cumberland Mall) and a single rail station in Clayton County atHartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. MARTA also operates a separate paratransit service for disabled customers. As of 2009, the average total daily ridership for the system (bus and rail) was 482,500 passengers. (wikipedia) • • •
I am getting worse and worse at puzzles. This is by far my slowest, clunkiest week in the past six weeks, and today, I can't even blame the puzzle's thorniness. I just ... don't know. I get bogged down somewhere and bump my head against a wall instead of moving on, putting answers in, taking them out. This puzzle's pretty dang normal, now that I look at it; I just got hung up on stupid things. Like ... oh, I don't know, insisting to myself that 48A: Some ruminants (DEER) must end in an "S" and therefore Not putting in SAWYER (36D: "Tom ___, Detective" (1896 novel)), which is the only answer my brain wanted (and the correct one, it turns out). Wanted "TELL ME ... something" instead of "TALK TO ME" (great answer, btw) (31D: "I want the lowdown!"), and just the wanting of TELL over TALK kept me from seeing the *easy* PACED (34A: Expended some nervous energy) for an absurd amount of time. Wanted SPINE (?) instead of SHIRT at 5A: Back cover? Could not retrieve ALVAR to save my life (11D: Finnish architect Aalto). Here is the one place I think the puzzle itself (and not just me) is actually weak: over-reliance on odd names. This is especially true in the southern half of the puzzle, which is crammed with proper nouns, many of them totally unknown to me (MARTA? KURTIS? EWELL? — I read "To Kill a Mockingbird" just last summer, and that name clearly didn't stick At All). Never would've gotten YNEZ (50A: Santa ___ Valley (winegrowing region)) if not for OYEZ (43D: Courtroom cry). Other parts of this grid, I cut right through. But a slow start and a ridiculous amount of fussing in the region in and around (esp just SW of) JACKSTRAW (26D: Pick-up sticks piece) put me over my normal time by a good margin. BEAT for DEAD (41D: Utterly exhausted) was kind of a backbreaker too. Weak, weak work on my part. Embarrassing. I don't even know what a JACKSTRAW is. Maybe that would've helped.
Love the long answers here. "THREE TIMES A LADY!" (20A: First #1 hit for the Commodores) Not my favorite Commodores song, but good. And 15! They mostly make up for the not-great name-i-ness of the grid.
[The best Commodores song]
I think I resent KURTIS (40A: Former "CBS Morning News" co-anchor Bill) (seriously, who?) so much because a. you already forced me to remember ALVAR (!), and b. the clue wasn't this guy (the world's greatest KURTIS):
Bullets:
 - 8D: Like a town that used to be a ghost town (REPEOPLED) — because of SPINE (ugh), I had this starting "NEW-" for a while.
- 5D: Warp drive repairman on the original "Star Trek" (SCOTTY) — one of the few things I had in the grid early on. Sadly, also the answer (along with IMAM ([Koran reciter])) that convinced me that SPINE was right at 5A.
- 6D: Koran memorizer (HAFIZ) — youch. Neverheardofit. Probably should've been my WOTD. According to wikipedia, this is "a term used by modern Muslims for someone who has completely memorized the Qur'an."
- 18D: "The North Pole" author, 1910 (PEARY) — Admiral, I presume. I didn't know if it was PERRY or PEARY, so I just waited (for ERSATZ—one of the language's greatest words).
- 9D: Schooner features (TOPSAILS) — any time the clue goes nautical, I'm pretty much doomed. I was also thinking maybe "schooner" was a kind of beer glass. Hey, look, something I'm not wrong about. For once.
- 27D: English physician James who gave his name to a disease (PARKINSON) — So the disease is his 4D.
- 42D: Literary governess's surname (EYRE) — this and MARLA and MERKEL were my flat-out gimmes in the South. If I'd moved out of the SW and found them earlier, this thing would've been wrapped up much more quickly.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld | | 4/27/2012 4:00:00 AM |
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Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle
Capital city on Daugava River / THU 4-26-12 / Oto neighbors / Hebdomodally / Doggie old cartoon pooch / 1970 Hugo Award-winning novel by Larry Niven / Indian sauce with coriander cumin / Group making billion-dollar loans / | Constructor: Julian Lim
Relative difficulty: Challenging
THEME: "IT'S / A SMALL [WORLD] AFTER ALL" (1A: With 40-Across, a chorus line ... or a hint to this puzzle's theme) — a [WORLD] rebus, with 5 [WORLD] squares
Word of the Day: "RING[WORLD]" (50D: 1970 Hugo Award-winning novel by Larry Niven) —
Ringworld is a 1970 science fiction novel by Larry Niven, set in his Known Space universe and considered a classic of science fiction literature. It is followed by three sequels, and preceded by four prequels, and ties into numerous other books set in Known Space. Ringworld won the Hugo Award in 1970,[1] as well as both the Nebula Award and Locus Award in 1971. (wikipedia) • • •
Over the past six weeks, my Tuesdays are a minute slower than Mondays, Wednesdays a minute slower than Tuesdays, Thursdays *three minutes* slower than Wednesdays, and Fridays just 13 seconds slower than Thursdays, and Saturdays just six seconds slower than Fridays. This means that there is hardly any difference between my average Thursday and Saturday solving times of late: 19 seconds. Zero difficulty gradation. I don't think I like this. And yet, I do like challenging puzzles. It just seems like Saturdays should be appreciably harder than Thursdays, and they just haven't been, of late. Today, I had a rebus in a grid that didn't look like a rebus grid (i.e. it has a bunch of longish Acrosses that looked like typical theme answers). There was the initial difficulty of turning up the theme, and then the added difficulty of Fri/Sat-style cluing, all over the place. By far the toughest parts were the NE and SW. I say this having taken my first stab at the NE w/o knowing the theme. After I figured that out, that corner got easier. But I knew the theme when solving the SW, and it didn't help as much as it should have. Or, that is, it did, eventually. Who knows where the damned [WORLD]s are gonna be? I had to remind myself of the theme in order to pick up (finally) OLD [WORLD]. Never heard of "RING[WORLD]". Did not know THIRD had anything to do with yellow ribbons (49D: Place for a yellow ribbon), which I associate with oak trees.
I think the revealer is a winner. Otherwise, it's just a rebus, like any other. Well, better/tougher, in that the [WORLD]s are not symmetrical, but there was an utter haphazardness about the [WORLD] placement here that was actually a little annoying. Three of the five long Acrosses have them, but their symmetrical counterparts don't. The fill is pretty strained in many places. I would've gutted the whole grid from NROTC (29A: Campus org. for ensigns-in-training) all the way east (theme matter excepted). That Down sequence of CRT / RAITA (37D: Indian sauce with coriander and cumin) / OL' MAN / PLEUT is particularly unlovely. One or two of those answers, fine; jammed together like that, suffocating. ROOT CROP made me wince (35A: Turnips, e.g.), as ROOT VEGETABLE is the far more common phrase—but it's validish, so no big problem. But having TOSS DOWN instead of TOSS BACK was a huge letdown. It always sucks when an answer is defensible, OK, but not really the mot (or phrase) juste. It's like soy cheese. Maybe passable, but just ... not right.
UNHINGE is a fantastic word (55A: Drive mad). HAB ... isn't (60D: Old Testament book before Zephaniah: Abbr.).
Theme answers:
- SEA [WORLD] / [WORLD] BANK
- "REAL [WORLD]" / FIRST [WORLD] WAR
- "IT'S A SMALL [WORLD] AFTER ALL" / [WORLD] WIDE WEB
- "A WHOLE NEW [WORLD]" / [WORLD]LY
- OLD [WORLD] / "RING[WORLD]"
Also, "a chorus line" for the revealer? Vague to the point of absurdity. Yes, the line is from the chorus ... of a song. Something a little more specific/vivid would've been nice.
Bullets:
- 19A: Capital city on the Daugava River (RIGA) — total lucky guess. Four-letter capitals FTW!
- 27A: Hebdomadally (A WEEK) — kind of an ostentatious clue for not-so-great fill. Still, that is a good (insane) word.
- 7D: Result of rampant inflation? (POP) — cute
- 12D: ___ Doggie (old cartoon pooch) (AUGIE) — just not happening today. No idea where this name disappeared to, but I had a lot of trouble getting it back. Deputy Dawg, sure, but AUGIE Doggie was nowhere to be found.
- 22D: Arizona and Arizona State joined it in '78 (PAC-TEN) — a most welcome gimme.
- 34D: Plum look-alike (SLOE) — this helped me change TOSS BACK to TOSS DOWN (an answer I had to choke down ... while I choked back tears ... not really, but it's interesting that "back" and "down" can (it seems) follow both "toss" and "choke")
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld | | 4/26/2012 4:00:00 AM |
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Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle
Catchphrase of announcer Harry Caray / WED 4-25-12 / Football club that plays at San Siro / Baggy pants popularizer in 1980s / Bygone sports org for which Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura was TV analyst / Locale in 1964 Stan Getz hit | Constructor: Peter Wentz
Relative difficulty: Medium
THEME: SEVEN Cs (61A: Punny title for this puzzle that's a hint to the answers to the starred clues) — DESCRIPTION
Word of the Day: COLETTE (68A: "Gigi" novelist) —
Colette (pronounced: [kɔ.lɛt]) was the surname of the French novelist and performer Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette(28 January 1873 – 3 August 1954). She is best known for her novel Gigi, upon which Lerner and Loewe based the stage and film musical comedies of the same title. (wikipedia) • • •
OK, I'm gonna tell you why this theme doesn't quite work. Don't freak out, OK? OK.
The revealer is SEVEN CS. This is true about no aspect of this puzzle. There are more than 7 Cs in the grid. The perfect puzzle would've had Just Seven. But, let's give some leeway and say "look, you know what it means ... it's referring to the *theme*." Well, OK. It's just that ... there are more than 7 Cs in the theme answers too. See RC COLAS and DC COMICS. That takes you to 10 Cs, by my count, and I might have missed one—I'm really not paying that close attention. "But ... come on, you're nitpicking. You knooooow what SEVEN CS is getting at — it's those "C"s in the second position, the ones that you actually pronounce as "SEA"—those!" At that point, I guess, I would say, "you got me." I can't argue with that. I can say, however, that the (at least) three different answers beginning "AC" that are *not* theme answers are a distraction, esp. as two of them are Acrosses exactly the same length as other theme answers. "Can't you just let things go!?" Clearly, I can't. I actually enjoyed parts of this puzzle. I made a whole puzzle about MC HAMMER a couple weeks back for his 50th birthday. It is always enjoyable to remember MC HAMMER. FACE OF EVIL (32D: Villainy personified) was hard and a little off-the-beaten path, but once I got it, I kind of liked it. DACTYL (also hard) (45D: "Innocent," but not "guilty") was cleverly clued. AC MILAN brought a nice Euroflair. I didn't know "CUBS WIN!" was a "catchphrase" (sounds more like a simple declaration of fact) (1A: Catchphrase of announcer harry Caray), but I love it at 1-Across. But the theme has issues. And if, as So Many Insist, the theme is everything, then the theme oughta be air tight. Fill here is decent. Sadly, I finished up in the very worst part of the grid (the ATLAS / LUNES / ANENT part) (35A: Space launch vehicle / 36D: Crescent shapes / 37D: Regarding), so I was left with a bad taste in my mouth, but looking back, I think the state of the fill is not bad overall.
Theme answers:
- 17A: *Football club that plays at San Siro (AC MILAN)
- 18A: *First soft drinks sold in cans (RC COLAS)
- 19A: *Green Lantern company (DC COMICS)
- 33A: *He said "Start every day off with a smile and get it over with (W.C. FIELDS)
- 43A: *Big clothing retailer (JC PENNEY)
- 56A: *Baggy pants popularizer in the 1980s (MC HAMMER)
- 59A: *The Wolfpack, informally (N.C. STATE)
Bullets: - 8A: Early French settler (ACADIAN) — or A.C. ADIAN, I'm not sure. I always think of ACADIA as a mythical place.
- 15A: Locale in a 1964 Stan Getz hit (IPANEMA) — Off the "IP" it was easy. I don't think I associate the song with Getz, though that is, in fact, who made it famous. I was thinking Herb Alpert for some reason.
- 31A: Bygone sports org. for which Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura was a TV analyst (XFL) — Had the "X," so ... easy. I miss that (insane) league. Mainly I miss He Hate Me.
- 56D: Figure in a crèche (MARY) — really, really thought this would be a French word. The whole RESTYLE / DACTYL / MARY nexus gave me (small) fits.
- 48D: "Jane Eyre" locale (MANOR) — I wrote in MOORS. I think I confused it with "Wuthering Heights." I can't be the first.
So earlier today I was having a busy, cruddy day—too many encounters with too many pathetic, dishonest, or otherwise insufferable people (both in real life and online)—but once work was over, I had yoga (always good), and then, right after, I had "An Evening With Neil DeGrasse Tyson" awaiting me (and my family) at the university. So: yay. Only ... when I got to the Tyson talk, as I'm waiting in line to get in, a young woman from the BU Student Association pulls me aside and says "so... they were expecting you backstage." I just stared at her. Then said: "What? WHAT?" Now, I should back up a bit here: a friend of mine (you may have heard of her ... xword constructor ... initials ACM) is friends with Dr. Tyson and I knew she had asked him about any possibility of my daughter being able to meet him during his visit here ... but that was weeks and weeks ago and I never heard anything definitive back, so I figured it was a no-go. So to hear that I was expected (!) and missed it (!!!!) was exceedingly deflating. How was I expected, but no one told me!? So, I felt slightly sick. But then the young woman said, she'd go back and ask if maybe we could still get back and see him; this is about 20 min. before start time. So we're like "cool!" But then she Never comes back, so we figure she's forgotten about us, or it just wasn't possible, or whatever. THEN, right before start time, she comes up to us and says "I'll take you to see him after the talk. I know where you're sitting. I'll come get you."  So we're like "Yay, game back on!" (keep in mind there is an 11-yr-old Tyson fan next to me clutching her copy of Dr. Tyson's "The Pluto Files" this whole time). Then the talk (brilliant, 2.25 hrs) ends, and ... the young woman never comes back. Place empties out and we're just ... standing there. We wander out ... nothing. Just people milling, buying books, etc. Then it's announced that there won't be a signing. So—hopes dashed. We linger a while, but no sign of my Student Association contact. So we start to exit the building by the back way, and there are three kids lingering in a hallway, and I'm half wondering what they're doing just standing there, and then I can hear what sounds like a small party on the other side of a nearby door, and I recognize Tyson's voice very clearly among all the other voices. As I approach the door, the kids all say "the door's locked." Aargh. So close ... yet so far. So I'm thinking about maybe knocking, but then I see that my wife has moved down an adjacent hallway and is standing in front of an *open* door and motioning me over. I come over and bam, there he is, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, surrounded by Adoring students who are handing him all manner of things to sign. (He did not, however, want to sign a blank piece of paper this one kid gave him: "A blank piece of paper? I can't ... this is just too sad ... do you guys have a leftover program or something ... I mean, a blank piece of paper!? We gotta do better than this." I said "Maybe you can sign his boob," but I don't think anyone heard). When we first come in the room, one official-looking Student Assoc. person looks at me like he's wondering "who the hell are you?" but then I see the young lady from earlier, as well as a former student of mine, and I'm in. And, more importantly, my daughter is in.
I have never seen her starstruck before, but she literally lost her ability to speak and answer questions like a human being. It was pretty adorable. He was gracious and generous and warm to everyone, and he signed my daughter's book with an elaborate drawing and dedication. I told him I was ACM's friend and he said "oh, *you're* the guy we've been expecting." Yes. Yes I am. And I was *that* close to missing the experience entirely. So thanks ACM. And Dr. Tyson, of course. Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld P.S. if you have time / inclination, you really should check out the epic thread about "bad fill" at Tyler Hinman's blog (with contributions by many constructors and bloggers, as well as a certain xword editor whose name you may know). Very interesting debate, though kind of insidery. Maybe you can bring some perspective. | | 4/25/2012 4:27:00 AM |
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Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle
1906 Massenet opera based on Greek myth / TUE 4-24-12 / TV doctor Sanjay / 1940s Bikini blasts / Public place in Athens / Number of Los Lonely Boys | Constructor: Adam G. Perl
Relative difficulty: Challenging
THEME: "The GIRL WITH The Dragon Tattoo" (1A: With 10-Across and the circled letters, a best-selling novel, with "The") — puzzle also contains the "heroine" (LISBETH SALANDER) and "hero" (MIKAEL BLOMKVIST) of the novel
Word of the Day: "ARIANE" (43D: 1906 Massenet opera based on Greek myth) —
Ariane is an opera in five acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Catulle Mendès after Greek mythology (the tale of Ariadne). It was first performed at the Palais Garnier in Paris on October 31, 1906, with Lucienne Bréval in the title role. (wikipedia) • • •
There is only one reason this puzzle exists—because the constructor noticed that the two heroes of the "Dragon Tattoo" have 15-letter names. I know "everyone" has read these books, but I haven't, and filling in random Swedish names does absolutely nothing for me. I'm guessing the circles have some relation to the book—maybe the dragon tattoo is in a shape roughly approximating the stripe on Charlie Brown's shirt?—but if so, I don't know what that relation is. I got the title easily, actually, and filled in all the circles very quickly. I also vaguely remembered LISBETH SALANDER because Rooney Mara was nominated for an Oscar for playing her, so her name must have crossed my path a few times this year. But MIKAEL BLOMKVIST!? Forget about it. I thought that SW corner was going to stop me completely, and in fact if my (real) name weren't "Michael," it might have taken me even longer than it did for me to come up with that "A" at MIKAEL / "ARIANE" (43D: 1906 Massenet opera based on Greek myth).
Speaking of "ARIANE," !?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Wow. Now, come on, I know "obscurity" is relative, but *that* is obscure. I actually wanted ARIADNE there, but, obviously, it didn't fit. Between the "hero"'s name, "ARIANE," and the insane clue on GLIDE (40D: Dance movement—really? With that clue, I was looking for something like GLISSÉ or ... I don't know, something not ordinary), and the other not-totally-obvious stuff down there, I was in trouble. Was over my normal Tuesday time by a full minute. Times at the NYT site are quite high for a Tuesday. As with yesterday, this puzzle feels misplaced by a day. I found it mostly annoying, but my opinion is that of someone who hasn't read the book. Maybe "Dragon Tattoo" lovers will love it. Who knows?
Strangest moment of the solve came right away, when I got "GIRL" and thought "GIRL ... Interrupted?," then figured out the actual answer, and *then* ran into WINONA Ryder (10D: Actress Ryder), who was, of course, in the movie version of "Girl, Interrupted." Freaky. Stunned to see G-SPOT make such a quick return (34D: "The ___ and Other Recent Discoveries About Human Sexuality" (1982 best seller)). I'm sure there's a joke in there about G-SPOT coming multiple times, but I'm too tired. The non-theme, non-SW-corner parts of the grid all seem normal. Not exceptional, not terrible. Onward and upward.
Bullets:
- 29A: Zero personality? (OPERATOR) — great clue, but Hard clue. Another answer that added to the later-in-the-week feel, difficulty-wise.
- 42A: Silicon Valley city (LOS ALTOS) — familiar to me, but I'm from California. This seems like it might be tough for some.
- 40A: TV doctor Sanjay (GUPTA) — was wondering when I'd see him in a grid. Maybe I already have and am forgetting.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld | | 4/24/2012 4:30:00 AM |
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