Irish statesman Cosgrave —FRIDAY, 11/20/09— Only private non-American to address joint session Congress 1989 / Cape Cod components / Net Nanny no-no

Constructor: Alan Olschwang

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: lots of phrases with "UP" in them (or, none)

Word of the Day: LIAM Cosgrave (24D: Irish statesman Cosgrave) — Liam Cosgrave (Irish: Liam Mac Cosgair; born 13 April 1920) served as the Taoiseach of Ireland between 1973 and 1977 and is the son of W. T. Cosgrave, Head of Government from 1922 to 1932). [seems his father, William T. Cosgrave, was a much bigger deal ... and why have I never seen TAOISEACH in a puzzle?] (wikipedia)

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A fine Friday outing, though the stuff that's supposed to be flashy (JAZZERCISE — 1A: Tae Bo alternative / ZOLAESQUE — 4D: A la the founder of literary naturalism) is stuff we've seen before, so the wow factor is a bit dampened. Also, three phrases with "UP" in them (RE-UP, STORE UP, ANTES UP)? What's that about? At two, I thought, "well that's no good." At three I thought there might be a theme I was missing. You'll let me know if that's true. In addition to the UPs, there was an IN, an ON, and an OUT. I was going to say that JAZZERCISE is not and never was a [Tae Bo alternative] in that nobody did JAZZERCISE after 1985, but I'm wrong. Somehow, it still exists. As for ZOLAESQUE, it's one of the more memorable answers in the movie "Wordplay" — when Trip Payne (solving on stage in the finals) finally figures it out he exclaims something like "Oh dear god!" in a completely disbelieving tone. Good stuff.

Only section that was truly effortless for me was the W-to-SW passage. Even without knowing LIAM, I was able to ride the momentum from ZOLAESQUE straight down the western seaboard. Picked up ZIPLOC (51A: Baggie biggie) off just the "O," and since KRIS was a gimme (63A), I had the "Z" and the "K" that would have made OZARKS easy even if I hadn't seen it (and almost this identical clue — 45D: Buffalo National River locale) only a month or so ago.

NW took a little work because even though JAZZERCISE was a fat gimme, GABLE ROOFS sure as hell was not (17A: Cape Cod components). Thought "Cape Cod" might be, I don't know, a drink? TABLE ROOTS? House type somehow didn't occur to me, and even if it had, I don't know that I could have told you the kind of roof such a house involved. Had JAB instead of JOG for a bit, which didn't help matters (1D: Nudge). SAFE was also invisible to me for a while — 9D: First call? is a pretty sweet clue. How in the world I remember ERSKINE Bowles's name, I have No idea (10D: 1990s White House chief of staff). Lucky me.

Last stand and toughest part for me was the SE. Despite having had a very public bout with "Ochlocracy" in a previous puzzle (I lost), I could Not remember its definition today. You win again, "Ochlocracy!" I had to piece MOB RULE together, which took some time. PETRI DISH was easy (33D: Germs grow in it), but I had CORE for CRUX (38D: Central point) and clearly had no idea what to make of 50D: Double whole notes (breves). I think BREVES are fancy coffee orders to me. That first "E" in BREVES was the last letter to go in the grid, and I just stared at that blank space for many, many seconds, wondering what in the world kind of word CU-D could make. CUAD? Maybe some letter in BREVES was wrong ... Finally just ran the alphabet. CUED! (56A: Ready to be played) D'OH! At some point I had ON CD for this answer. Also, for 56D: Firm wheels, for short, I had LIMO.

Bullets:

• 11A: English pop duo _____ & Dave (Chas) — though I'm sure I've said this before: "Who???"

[those poor kids have no idea what to make of the song ... they're just standing there]

• 22A: Only private non-American to address a joint session of Congress (1989) (Walesa) — the year Really helped here. "Private non-American" is a weird phrase.
• 25A: Sharpness gauge (IQ test) — needed "EQUUS" to get this one (21D: 1977 Richard Burton film)
• 34A: Net Nanny no-no (smut) — I can't wait for the musical adaptation of this clue: "No, No, Net Nanny!"

• 36A: Breaking capacity, briefly (SRO) — "breaking" = over, I guess.
• 53A: TV neighbor of Ralph and Alice (Trixie) — Norton's wife on "The Honeymooners"

• 2D: Baptist leader? (Ana-) — nice clue.
• 11D: Umbrella bird's "umbrella" (crest) — man, that's a stupid-looking bird. The Elvis impersonator of the bird world.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Hip-hop producer Gotti — THURSDAY, Nov. 19 2009 — Hearers of Jonah's prophecy / Titan who fetched apples for Hercules / Spanish chess piece

Constructors: Tyler Hinman and Jeremy Horwitz

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: Directors of Movies with Single-Letter Titles ("Z," "M," and "W.," respectively)

Word of the Day: Eugène IONESCO (13D: "Le Rhinocéros" playwright Eugène) — Eugène Ionesco (born Eugen Ionescu, Romanian pronunciation: [e.uˈd​͡ʒen i.oˈnesku]; November 26, 1909 – March 28, 1994) was a Romanian and French playwright and dramatist, one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd. Beyond ridiculing the most banal situations, Ionesco's plays depict in a tangible way the solitude and insignificance of human existence. (wikipedia) [I picked him because his 100th birthday is a week from today ... also the birthday of Charles Schulz, Tina Turner, and me]


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Wow, this was weird for a Thursday, or any day of the week where we normally see a themed puzzle. This must set some kind of record for least amount of real estate occupied by theme squares in a themed puzzle: a mere 32 squares. But when you use the non-restrictive nature of the theme to create an Incredibly wide-open grid crammed full of entertaining and lively answers and almost completely devoid of yucky stuff, then who cares? Not sure how the puzzle managed to still come in feeling almost perfectly Thursday-level, given that it's got so much white space and one theme answer that I completely blanked on, but it did. I could have done without GIRD UP (8D: Encircle with a belt), a phrase I've never heard and one in which the "UP" seems entirely redundant, but that's about the only thing to NAG (53A: Tiresome sort) about today. An unequivocal success.

Theme answers:

17A: "Z" director, 1969 (Costa-Gavras)


[This looks cool...]

32A: "M" director, 1931 (Fritz Lang)



51A: "W." director, 2008 (Oliver Stone)



COSTA-GAVRAS!!!! [Shakes fist at sky]. Aaargh! Couldn't come up with that name to save my life, and even after I pieced it together, it wasn't terribly familiar. I've clearly heard it before, but I've never seen "Z" or anything else he's directed. His fame (in this country, at any rate) belongs entirely to a previous generation. Couldn't name another COSTA-GAVRAS movie if I tried, and yet I could name multiple movies by both FRITZ LANG (an even older but far, far, far more important director) and OLIVER STONE. So I had to work the crosses like crazy in the NW. In fact, the NW and SE together were easily the hardest parts of this puzzle. So much white space!

In the NW, I wanted ANGRIER for 1D: More Irish? (luckier). Nothing up there really wanted to budge at first — US ONE is not a road I travel (14A: It joins I-10 in Jacksonville and I-90 in Boston) and 23A: "Totally" ("I agree") seemed like it could be anything. Finally started to hem that section in when I guessed STAX for 6D: Record label whose house band was Booker T & the M.G.'s, which gave me the "X" I needed to (eventually) get KLEENEX. Finally got the longish Downs up there to go by working their back ends with REY (29A: Spanish chess piece) and then ETAS (25A: Some honor society letters).

OLIVER STONE was a gimme and I still had to work for the SE. Forgot what "Taken" even was, so needed help with NEESON (46A: "Taken" star, 2008). Thought 47D: Breeze on a college campus (easy A) might be DREW (even though he's in the pros now and doesn't spell his name that way). Got "First Blood" confused with "True Blood," though it wouldn't have mattered if I'd had the right picture in mind because I never saw "First Blood" and forgot Brian DENNEHY was in it, if I ever knew it (40D: Brian of "First Blood"). So the puzzle provided me nice mini-battles in the NW and SE corners. The rest, I tore up no problem.

This puzzle is a pangram.

Bullets:

• 6A: Symbol in a Riemann sum (sigma) — I've either been doing puzzles long enough, or known math professionals long enough, that despite the phrase "Riemann sum"'s meaning nothing to me, I got this no problem.
• 24A: Spats (quarrels) — most amusing wrong answer of the day: I had FLARE-UPS! (from the "AR"). When that didn't work, I thought "spats" might have something to do with shoes ...
• 34A: El Paso neighbor (Juarez) — I didn't know this, but guessed SUAREZ off the "-EZ," and then adjusted for the Disney princess JASMINE.
• 42A: Italy's L'_____ Vogue magazine (Uomo) — means "man"; such a cool-looking word.
• 7D: Hip-hop producer Gotti (Irv) — no relation to *that* Gotti.

• 9D: Anne whose real-life husband played her ex on "Rhoda" (Meara) — yay! Great clue.
• 10D: Hearers of Jonah's prophecy (Assyrians) — ??? really wanted whatever the inhabitants of NINEVEH are called.
• 45D: Titan who fetched apples for Hercules (Atlas) — not the first, or last, thing I think of when I think of ATLAS. Apple-fetching = slightly less manly than holding the entire world on your shoulders.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Historic racetrack site — WEDNESDAY, Nov. 18 2009 — Eau de vie from Gascony / Vintage synthetic fabric / Indoor dipole antenna colloquially

Constructor: Paula Gamache

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: JACKS TO OPEN (60A: Five-card draw variation ... or a hint to 17-, 30-, 36- and 44-Across) — opening words of theme answers can be preceded by JACK in common phrases

Word of the Day: HIALEAH (2D: Historic racetrack site) — The Hialeah Park Race Track (also known as the Miami Jockey Club or Hialeah Race Track or Hialeah Park) is a historic site in Hialeah, Florida. It is located at East 4th Avenue. On March 5, 1979, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. Another listing for it was added in 1988. [...] The Hialeah Park Race Track is one of the oldest existing recreational facilities in southern Florida. [...] The park became so famous for its flocks of flamingos that it has been officially designated a sanctuary for the American Flamingo by the Audubon Society. [...] Hialeah Park Racetrack was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 2, 1979. On January 12, 1988, the property was determined eligible for designation as a National Historic Landmark by the Secretary of the Interior. Owner John Brunetti closed Hialeah Park to the public in 2001. [...] The track is scheduled to reopen on November 28, 2009.

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Pretty easy breezy puzzle for a Wednesday except HOLY COW that NW corner. I have never heard of either of the long Downs. HIALEAH looked all kinds of wrong when it finally came together (every letter from a cross, absolutely no way of inferring any part of it), and ARMAGNAC (3D: Eau de vie from Gascony) looked only slightly more valid, but both held up when I hit the "DONE" key (played "Against the Clock" at the NYT site last night, which I normally don't do). That's a lot of adjoining mystery real estate for one little section of a Wednesday puzzle. Thankfully, it was the only really challenging part of the puzzle for me. The equally mysterious ARNEL (40A: Vintage synthetic fabric) held me up a bit in the middle there (though I have at least seen that answer before), I couldn't pick up the front end of HOT WAR without crosses (6D: Korean conflict, for one), and I had some reluctance accepting DITTY as an answer for 69A: "Mary Had a Little Lamb," e.g., but the NE and SW corners went down in about ten seconds a piece, and everything else came together without too much crying and gnashing of teeth. Just under 5 on a Wednesday is not half bad for me.

Theme answers:

• 17A: Olympic track-and-field event (HAMMER throw)
• 30A: Play and film about a noted 1977 series of interviews ("FROST / Nixon")
• 36A: Loosely woven cotton fabric (CHEESE cloth) — I had some issues getting the front end of this answer, which happens to parallel the sounds-like-a-50s-waitress-name ARNEL
• 44A: Indoor dipole antenna, colloquially (RABBIT ears)

Other possibilities: SHIT head, SQUAT thrusts, BLACK magic, etc.



Bullets:

• 24A: Beast in an Ogden Nash poem (llama) — this damned poem gets more play in the crossword than any other except maybe "I, TOO." A bit tiresome / dated at this point (though approved — over the Scott Turow book — for cluing ONEL).
• 27A: Roasted, in Rouen (roti) — I think of this word as Indian, but had no trouble guessing it anyway.
• 54A: World of espionage (spydom) — read this as [Word of espionage] and *still* got it.
• 57A: Causes of some untimely ends (nooses) — grim. I was looking for wordplay or something here to pull it out of the execution / suicide category. But no.
• 67A: Palacio resident (rey) — Spanish for "king." Never saw it, since those Downs went down so fast down there. The only one I balked at for even a second was BOY TOY — and that's the best one of all (46D: Young stud).
• 18D: Massage deeply (rolf) — have I said this is one of the ugliest words in the English language? It is. Sounds more like a barfing sound than a massage.
• 25D: 1903-04 cars sold only in red (Model As) — woo hoo, good guess. I know nothing about old cars, but I figured those cars were So old they must be a MODEL ... something. T was later, so ... first letter of alphabet!? Yes.
• 29D: Washington Irving's Crane (Ichabod) — great answer I don't remember seeing before.
• 62D: Mauna _____ (Kea) — still holding out for the New Zealand parrot as a clue for this answer. I'm on a one-man mission to make KEA (the parrot) a common crossword clue. Vote KEA!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Eyelike windows — TUESDAY, Nov. 17 2009 — Media exec Robert / Smartphone introduced in 2002 / Arctic seabird / Fake at rink

Constructor: John Farmer

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: GROIN (52D: Rock star whose name is spelled out by the middle letters of 16-, 18-, 39-, 61- and 64-Across) — I'm kidding: it's RINGO ... but why?? ["middle letters" are actually intersections of identical words, the first and second parts of two-word phrases where first word is repeated]

Word of the Day: BLING-BLING (18A: With 10-Down, flashy jewelry) — Bling-bling (or simply bling) is a slang term popularized in hip hop culture, referring to flashy or elaborate jewelry and ornamented accessories that are carried, worn, or installed, such as cell phones or tooth caps. [...] During a 2008 Martin Luther King, Jr. Day parade in Jacksonville, Florida, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney admired a baby decked in dress attire with gold jewelry and said, "Oh, you've got some bling-bling here." In 2004, MTV released a satirical cartoon showing the term being used first by a rapper and then by several progressively less "streetwise" characters, concluding with a middle-aged white woman describing her earrings to her elderly mother. It ended with the statement, "RIP bling-bling 1997-2003." In 2005, the rapper B.G. remarked that he "just wished that he'd trademarked it" so that he could have profited from its use. [...]] Like many cases of once-exclusive vernacular that becomes mainstream, the views of the originators towards the term have changed significantly over the years. On VH1's Why You Love Hip-Hop, rapper Fat Joe stated, "rappers don't call jewelry 'bling' anymore, we just call em 'diamonds'." (wikipedia)

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Oh, Tuesday. Why can't you be like Monday or Wednesday? It's not that I don't love you, it's just that you're hard to love. What does RINGO have to do with intersecting, repeated-word phrases? Is he a big fan of DURAN DURAN? KNOCK KNOCK jokes? I don't know why the intersecting words couldn't have stood on their own? Seemed fine to me as a theme. But then there's this RINGO tacked on. And the clue should read [Rock star whose FIRST name is spelled out ...] because while we do all know him by RINGO, he's not BONO or CHER. Clue should say (or otherwise cue) FIRST.



Theme answers:

• 16A: With 2-Down, group with the only James Bond theme to hit #1 (Duran Duran)
• 18A: With 10-Down, flashy jewelry (bling-bling)
• 39A: With 25-Down, start of a nighttime nursery rhyme ("Twinkle, Twinkle...")
• 61A: With 50-Down, #1 hit of 1969 ("Sugar Sugar")
• 64A: With 54-Down, intro to a joke ("Knock, knock...")

Found the grid choppy and awkward, with a SPATE (I mean SPURT — 49D: Sudden burst) of icky stuff in there. WIGAN???? (40D: City near Manchester) Is that some place I'm supposed to be familiar with? Is RINGO from there? I had WIGHT briefly. What about this ASO guy (47A: Japanese prime minister Taro _____)? Is he the new prime minister? No, he was the last one. He Served For One Year (defeated in August '09). Now on vacation in WIGAN, I hear. TIDEMARKS and WIREPHOTO are spooky-looking in that I recognize all the words involved in the compounds, but those particular configurations aren't familiar to me. Slightly more familiar than TIDEPHOTO and WIREMARKS. ESSO crossing ESSA :( EKED crossing DEKE :( AOKS crossing ENCLS !?! :( I actually kinda liked the "five intersecting pairs of matched words" idea, esp. with its perfect symmetry, but between the redundant / irrelevant RINGO and some less than great OCULI (12A: Eyelike windows) ... I mean, fill, I'm happy to be done with this one and on to something else.

Bullets:

• 53A: Arctic seabird (skua) — it's a different "seabird" (AUKS) spelled backwards.
• 24A: Cuban base in the news, in brief (Gitmo) — also an Elmo-type puppet on "The Daily Show"
• 68A: Smartphone introduced in 2002 (Treo) — still surprised at how Infrequently I see this answer. The Palm TREO has been eclipsed in recent months by the new Palm PRE.
• 4D: Bilbao boy (niño) — wanted NENE
• 28D: Martial artist who starred in "Romeo Must Die" (Jet Li) — I remember that movie's being very disappointing. Then again, I remember nothing about it ... which is probably because I've confused it with "Romeo Is Bleeding," which stars frequent crossword answer LENA OLIN.

• 31D: Tampa Bay footballer, briefly (Buc) — not so great at the moment.
• 43D: French cheese (fromage) — tricky; figured it was a *type* of cheese, not the French word for "cheese."
• 15D: Media exec Robert (Iger) — forget who he is ... ah, president and CEO of Disney. I get him and Robert ILER (of "The Sopranos") confused, understandably.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]