FRIDAY, Aug. 31, 2007 - Paula Gamache

Relative difficulty: Challenging

THEME: "GH" words (or, none)

I had a horrible time with this puzzle, possibly because I did it first thing in the morning - literally, rolled out of bed, went to my desk, and started the puzzle. Even with some fairly substantial gimmes, it took me a while to really get going, and then at about the 2/3 mark, I got completely stuck, with the NE and the far W being wide open and recalcitrant.

Started with MAHALO (15A: Hawaiian "thank you") - if you ever go to Hawaii, you learn this word. We had a sign inside our condo that said "MAHALO for taking your shoes off." Only other true gimmes for me were DANTE'S (37A: "_____ Peak" (1997 Pierce Brosnan film)) and RICHTER (8D: Scale developer), though I managed to get SOUTHERN CROSS (33A: Constellation seen on the flags of Australia, Samoa and Papua New Guinea) very quickly, with just the last two letters in place. Still, after many minutes, only the Eastern portion of the puzzle was substantially filled in.

This puzzle was admirably tough, with lots of crafty cluing and colorful answers, but still, there were some answers that bugged the hell out of me. What in the world is a HUG-ME-TIGHT (29D: Short, close-fitting jacket)!? I mean, I'm guessing that it's a short, close-fitting jacket, but Damn. Ugh. Come on! Google Image Search doesn't even turn up an image of one of these - nothing that makes it clear what species of jacket we're talking about. There appear to be pictures of hand-knitted something-or-others, but... the term only gets 25K Google hits, period, which is tiny. So this answer was Rough for me. Same goes for "LAUGH AT ME" (28A: 1965 Sonny Bono hit), which stretches the meaning of "hit" to the breaking point. I don't believe I've ever heard this song, and I spent the entirety of my junior / senior years in high school listening to oldies stations. This title was really really hard to divine from crosses. The "G" was giving me fits - was it "LET GO OF ME"? So I struggled a lot. Didn't help that HUG-ME-TIGHT and "LAUGH AT ME" intersect!

Other "GH" words / phrases of note include RIGHT ARM (16A: Exchange for something you really want?) - a tough but perfect clue; TOUGH (47A: "Deal with it!"); and HEIGHTEN (59A: Opposite of diminish).

Clues that gave me trouble:

• 38A: Parliamentary address? ("Madame Speaker") - I had SPEAKER, but ... couldn't figure out how "address" fit in. Wrote in SENATE SPEAKER and kept it for a while. :(
• 42A: This, in Thuringen (diese) - don't speak German
• 5D: Hockey player Tverdovsky (Oleg) - Where's Cassini when you need him?
• 6D: Youngest of the Culkin brothers (Rory) - Where's Calhoun when you need him?
• 19A: Wrestler Flair (Ric) - Where's Ocasek when you need him?
• 9D: One-room house, typically (igloo) - a one-room house is not typically an IGLOO. An IGLOO is typically a one-room house
• 44D: Tree with double-toothed leaves and durable wood (red elm) - I knew it was some kind of ELM, but ...

Really really disliked the following (and again, intersecting) pair of simple answers with insane, trying-too-hard clues:

• 21D: It has many functions (math) - ... ? OK. It sure does. I mean, I get it, but ... are the "functions" of MATH actually finite? Can you count them, such that "many" makes sense? If so, how many functions?
• 24A: Runners with hoods (autos) - my least favorite clue. As with MATH, it occurred to me, but then seemed too ridiculously easy or ordinary to be correct. I think I don't like that both MATH and AUTOS are abbreviations too (of a sort). Just got a rubbed-the-wrong-way feeling off of both these answers

Loved the twin skin pic clues:

• 10D: Skin pics? (cheesecake)
• 12D: Skin pic? (tat)

If I ever got a TAT, there's a high likelihood that it would involve CHEESECAKE. So far, though, I'm TAT-free - except for this temporary TAT of the local minor league baseball team's mascot that I'm currently sporting on my left hip (long story involving daughter). In addition to the 2x skin pics, nice doubling of Teddy Roosevelt on 34D: Home of Theo. Roosevelt Natl. Park (N. Dak.) and 46A: Regulation targets for Theodore Roosevelt: Abbr. (RRs). Another great doubling effect is the intersection of PIGPENS (40D: Dumps) and DIRT POOR (50A: Hard up). PIG PEN is my second-favorite "Peanuts" character behind Franklin.

Liked the cluing on PICKETERS (43A: Striking figures) and GYM SHOES (20A: They might just squeak by in a basketball game) and PRICE TAG (7A: Shock source, sometimes), though that last one should probably be STICKER, since that's the phrase that's in the language: sticker shock. There were a couple of ancient clues that might have proved tricky for some - 2D: Pantheon heads? (capita) and 23D: Ancient meeting places (agoras); actually, that last one should be a near-gimme for frequent solvers.

I have never in my life seen POE's name written thusly: E.A. POE (31A: "Berenice" author, briefly). Feel about HAIR (36D: Eyebrow makeup) the same way I feel about MATH and AUTOS, above. Boo! Never watched "Entourage" so didn't know 13D: Agent Gold on HBO's "Entourage" (Ari) - I guessed IRA at one point, which is anagrammatically correct. Super happy to remember 32D: Desert Storm reporter (Arnett), even if I did have him as ARNESS to start. Lastly, and most embarrassingly, it took me For Ever to get what should have been the gimme-est of gimmes for this erstwhile medievalist - was looking for something much more generic at 3D: Fights with knights (The Crusades). JOUSTS? TOURNAMENTS? I studied this stuff for Years!!! So sad. And yet ATRA (22A: Grooming brand introduced in 1977) I got almost instantly. Can't remember what he studied in school forever, but shaving products he knows only from TV ads ... those leap straight to the front of his mind.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

THURSDAY, Aug. 30, 2007 - Victor Fleming and Bruce Venzke

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: Who, What, Where, When (but no Why? ... Why?) - four long theme answers begin with each of those interrogative words

Managed to work this out in decent time despite not knowing many of the answers. I actually had one square wrong, at what I consider to be an unfair crossing:

• 21A: Debussy's "Air de _____" ("Lia")
• 4D: _____ acid (old name for hydrochloric acid) (muriatic)

These intersect at the "A," and I've never heard of either of them. That parenthetical remark in the MURIATIC clue is useless. Did that actually clarify things for anyone who is not a chemist? Hmmmph. Annoying. But otherwise, this was a fairly enjoyable puzzle, with four colorful fifteen-letter theme answers:

• 17A: 1961 Connie Francis hit ("Where the Boys Are") - My dad once had a celebrity crush on either Connie Francis or Connie Stevens. One of the Connies. Not Connie Chung. That I know.
• 3D: 1952 Doris Day hit that was an even bigger hit for the Lettermen in 1961 ("When I Fall in Love")
• 12D: "Huh?!" ("What in tarnation!") - awesome old-timey hick-speak.
• 61A: End of a line about friends ("... who needs enemies") - got this with just two letters in place, at a time when most of the grid was just empty space

Despite my not really liking "Seinfeld," 1A: Seinfeld's "sworn enemy" (Newman) was a gimme. Didn't help me much, as the only cross it provided was NEWS (1D: Google heading). Finally found an easy answer - 62D: Part of una semana (dia) - followed by another - 55D: Belt-hole makers (awls); those gave me WHO NEEDS ENEMIES, and I was pretty good from there on out.

Some stuff I didn't know:

• 9D: Suffix with beta (tron) - means nothing to me
• 46D: Mortgagor, e.g. (lienee) - ack, that's one ugly clue / answer pairing.
• 55A: Children's author/photographer Alda (Arlene)
• 44A: _____ Beach, Fla. (Del Ray) - I've heard of it, maybe, but needed many crosses (side note: doesn't it seem like this puzzle has an excess of fill-in-the-blank clues?)
• 25D: Passover month (Nisan) - add an "S," and you get the make of vehicle that I drive
• 18D: Mr. Wickfield's clerk, in literature (Heep) - Uriah HEEP? The only reason I know the name "Uriah HEEP" is because I believe it was the name of a rock band of some sort in the early 80s or possibly earlier. Its literariness is lost on me (and my Ph.D. in literature).
• 5D: Bob _____, young man in Dreiser's "Sister Carrie" (Ames) was another literary failure of mine. Bob AMES is a funny name - reminds me of "Bob Vance, Vance Refrigeration" ("The Office").

More literary ignorance: I thought 42A: Tennyson woman called "the Fair" (Enid) was MAUD (!?). And I actually teaching Tennyson's Arthurian poetry, so this mistake was particularly galling. Further, I did not know 40D: One of the men waiting in "Waiting for Godot" (Vladimir). Writing clues that I knew included 45A: _____ Jordan, who wrote "The Crying Game" (Neil) and 47A: A writer may work on it (spec).

It's a fairly cold-hearted puzzle, with nasty entries like PIRANHAS (16A: Vicious sorts), and SINISTER (19A: Up to no good - too tepid a clue for SINISTER, IMOO), and SNEERS AT (65A: Derides).

NET TV (6D: Web-based service) sounds weird / wrong - like the real answer should be WEB TV. Also weird is 20A: Sterile, in a way (neuter), in that NEUTER is always a verb to me, unless it's describing grammatical gender, I guess. Not too fond of ATL. as an answer for 41A: View from Long Is. Wanted the answer to be STRIP MALLS. Never have any idea how to spell SALCHOW (37A: Eponymous rink jump). Growing up ... in fact, until I was in my mid-30's (which is to say, a couple years ago), I thought it was SOWCOW. Lastly, I call a serious European river foul in the far NE, where I was made to endure the proximity of two of my bitterest foes, 13D: It rises in the Bernese Alps (Aare) and 14D: Battle of the _____, 1914 (Yser). AARE is the sound I make when confronted with yet another European river in four letters with improbable letter combinations.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 29, 2007 - Jayne and Alex Boisvert

Relative difficulty: Super-Easy

THEME: "THUMB" - rebus puzzle where THUMB (or a picture thereof) goes into four squares symmetrically arranged throughout the grid

This was criminally easy for a Wednesday. There are maybe two or three answers that were odd or tricky or possibly unknown to people (including me), but nothing you couldn't get from crosses with no problem. The theme itself was easy to uncover, and once you had it, long answers became a piece of cake. I like the feeling of being a puzzle master as much as the next guy, but if there's no challenge, then the accomplishment of a fast time hardly seems to matter. And did you really have to remind me that there once existed a show called "Joey?" (12D: "Friends" spinoff)

THUMB answers:

• 1D: Barnum midget (Tom THUMB) - is "midget" still an OK word? I do love the way it sounds.
• 20A: Expresses scorn (THUMBs one's nose) - Tried to fit "Turns up one's nose" in here for a while
• 29A: 1966 Rolling Stones hit ("Under My THUMB") - again, like "midget," something totally politically incorrect that I love
• 33D: Kind of sketch (THUMBnail)
• 26D: It may stick out (sore THUMB)
• 43A: Scan (THUMB through) - these don't seem quite equivalent
• 51A: Human hand characteristic (opposable THUMB)
• 56D: Encouraging sign (THUMBs up)

The only answers that should have slowed people down at all are...

15A: 20 Mule Team compound (Borax) - which I still don't understand. Must be some old advertising slogan. Thought the answer was going to be "BORAT" for a few seconds. Wasn't sure how that would have worked, logically, but then again I haven't seen the movie yet.

19A: Wilson of "Zoolander" (Owen) - easy for me, but I can see it befuddling the people whose minds aren't poisoned with inane pop culture of the past decade. Or perhaps you just know OWEN Wilson better as "Dupree."

39D: Quarterbacks' play changes (audibles) - easy for me, but I can see it befuddling the sports illiterate among you. This is probably my favorite answer in the grid. AUDIBLES are plays called from the line of scrimmage (instead of from the huddle).

30D: Boortz of talk radio (Neal) - and here we come across my area of illiteracy - talk radio, ugh

58A: Rhone feeder (Saone) - Yesterday AARE, today SAONE; with vowel combinations like that, is it any wonder I hold a grudge against all European rivers?

24A: Early TV comic Louis (Nye) - Why do I know this guy's name if he's "early." This is the NYE who is not the "Science Guy."

Enjoy your Wednesday,

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

TUESDAY, Aug. 28, 2007 - Linda Schechet Tucker

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: HERB GARDEN (62A: Where the first words of 17-, 26- and 47-Across may be found)

The theme is pretty straightforward, but the overall grid is pretty impressive. Lots of unusual or colorful phrases, with only a minimum of crosswordese. Well, maybe a little more than a minimum, now that I look at it. Still, an enjoyable puzzle.

Your HERB answers:

• 17A: It's worth listening to (SAGE advice)
• 26A: Sherlock Holmes portrayer (BASIL Rathbone)
• 47A: Perfect shape (MINT condition)

All of the HERB names here are used in non-HERB contexts, of course.

The theme answers are fine, but fairly predictable. I'm a bigger fan of today's longer non-theme answers, like the swell BOY OH BOY (10D: Cry of glee), the regal OCEAN TIDES (30D: They're controlled by the moon), the curious OUTER EAR (38D: Catcher of sound waves), and the dainty HYBRID TEA (54A: Variety of rose) - the last one totally unknown to me. Not sure how I feel about 21A: Conduct a survey (ask around). I like the phrase, but the clue seems a lot more formal than the answer.

Noteworthy features of today's puzzle include a new ELSA (32D: Actress Lanchester, who married Charles Laughton), a variant that's one letter away from a breath mint brand (45D: Haberdashery items: Var. (tie tacs)), a porcine philosopher (3D: English philosopher called "Doctor Mirabilis" (Roger Bacon)), a surprisingly persistent defunct automobile (52D: Old Oldsmobile (Alero)), and the answer to the mystery of what Chester A. Arthur's middle initial stands for (12D: Chester Arthur's middle name (Alan)). Not sure why I know Fort ORD (5D: Fort _____, former Army post on Monterey Bay). Didn't know 6D: Source of basalt (lava). I'm not even sure what "basalt" is, frankly. Had HILT for HAFT in the SW (54D: Knife handle), which made the Swiss river AARE hard to pick up (61A: River of Switzerland). This may be the least Scrabbly puzzle I've seen all year, but it was inventive enough that I didn't mind.

See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

MONDAY, Aug. 27, 2007 - Steven Ginzburg

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: ANTS (68A: Tiny critters found twice each in 17-, 38- and 60-Across)

Blew through this quickly except for the NW, which was clunky as all hell. In the end, I had an error that I spent a good three minutes tracking down. The error produced valid-looking entries in both directions, hence the long delay. I started at 1A: It's rounded up in a roundup and couldn't think of anything. When I came back to the NW at 14A: Hawaii's "Valley Isle" I wrote in OAHU. Wrong. Eventually 1D: Insurance grp. (HMO) gave me the "M" for MAUI. Eventually had HE-D for the 1A clue, and wrote in HEAD - as in, HEAD of cattle. It made total sense at the time. Didn't check the cross, which was AUG (totally valid abbrev.). Sadly, the clue was 3D: Oriental _____, making AUG unequivocally wrong. HEAD and AUG eventually became HERD and RUG.

Two-ANT answers:

• 17A: Operation for a new liver or kidney (organ transplant)
• 38A: Beneficial substance in fruits, vegetables and tea (antioxidant)
• 60A: Literary genre popular with women (romantic fantasy)
  

Most inventive answer in the grid is 27D: Four (two x two) - I've never seen the letter "X" used as a multiplication symbol in a grid before. Hot. The phrasing on 43A: Picking _____ with (nits) seems off, or awkward. The positioning of "with" is bugging me for some reason. Apparently FOIE gras (36D: _____ gras) is illegal in Chicago, but nobody, especially law enforcement, cares. It is Chicago, right? Some big city, anyway. I didn't know that ROMANTIC FANTASY was an established genre (60A: Literary genre popular with women). FANTASY tends to skew toward the Sci-fi in my mind. Just learned today (from wife) that linen is made from FLAX (16A: Linen fiber). Wife also had the decency to point out actual, real-live I-BAR (47A: Letter-shaped building support) in the parking lot of the Carousel Mall in Syracuse last weekend.

Tripped slightly in the SW, where having SOON for ANON (66A: Shortly) caused a minor typing and retyping kerfuffle. TASSEL (50A: Mortarboard addition) just looks wrong, as a word. TASSLE looks right. Don't argue with me. CLASS ACTION (11D: Kind of suit) is a fun, fancy phrase for a Monday. Lastly, I like the musical pile-up where G MINOR (29D: Key of Saint-Saens's "Danse macabre" - a great piece) pierces right through VOICE (44A: Alto or soprano) and CAROLS (49A: Yuletide songs). And we get a Yuletide reprise, despite its being all out-of-season, at 71A: Yuletide (Noel).

Long day ahead of me tomorrow. Must get some rest.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS many new vintage paperbacks and commentaries at my other blog

SUNDAY, Aug. 26, 2007 - Andrew M Greene and Craig Kasper (and Todd McClary and Jeffrey Harris)

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "Getting Ahead" - circled squares represent (and spell out) parts of A HEAD

[updated 12:40 pm]

A very ambitious puzzle, executed fairly well. Got the theme very early and figured I'd be able to fill in all the circled squares right away. I was wrong. I put LIPS and LIPS where LIPS and CHIN were supposed to go; took me a while to get BROWS (whose BROWS are in the middle of their forehead, between their eyes?); and SCALP still seems quite wrong - unless you are balding (like me), you can't see the SCALP. If you stared at a face and described it all day long, you would never talk about the SCALP. But that's the only gaffe; other than that, the puzzle was fun.


I am told that there were actually four authors of today's puzzle, though the Times can credit a maximum of just two - that's why I credited Todd McClary and Jeffrey Harris in parentheses in today's title, in case you were wondering.

Here are the answers that contained HEAD parts (from top to bottom, left to right)

• 21A: Toddler's mealtime accessory (booster cHAIR)
• 29A: Quarters for a business, e.g. (fiSCAL Periods)
• 54A: Safari, e.g. (web BROWSer)
• 53D: Be weighed down (bEAR the burden)
• 64A: Persuaded with flattery (blarnEYEd)
• 66A: Noted explorer of Polynesia (HEYErdahl)
• 76A: Time in which light travels one foot, approximately (naNOSEcond)
• 100A: Astronomical events that occur twice or more a year (lunar ecLIPSes)
• 113A: Nested set of containers (CHINese boxes)

[Whoops - looks like I Van Gogh'd this puzzle: here's the missing ear: 15D: Empathetic one, derisively (bleeding hEARt)]

Going for walk in the woods before it gets too hot. More later.

...

And I'm back, following a late breakfast of fried eggs, potatoes, and coffee, as well as two crossword puzzles out of The Listener (NZ) with my wife.

Hardest part of the puzzle for me was the NW. That stupid IMAC / APPLE clue at 1A: See 7-Across really should have been SYMBOL. In my grid, it was SYMBOL for a while - until forced to become the far worse EMBLEM (it's not emblazoned on a coat-of-arms, for god's sake). The soap BORAXO (18A: Heavy-duty hand soap) is only barely known to me. And all those Downs were exceedingly mischievous. You'd think I'd be on solid ground with D&D, but it took me a while to get BROAD AX (3D: Dungeons & Dragons weapon). ROXANNE and ALL OF ME both fit where L.A. STORY was supposed to go (4D: Steve Martin romantic comedy). EXTANT was tough, but it's clued beautifully (5D: Like seven of Sophocles' 123 plays). The answer that got me my first bit of traction up in the NW was 24A: Battle report? (rat-a-tat), which in retrospect is a really odd answer to get so easily. Shouldn't have been a gimme, but was. I could watch "Casablanca" 1000 more times (current number of viewings: 1) and not remember UGARTE (35A: Lorre's "Casablanca" role).

SANTA returns to the puzzle today disguised as the Grinch - actually, it's the other way around (42A: Grinch disguise). ESSENES (36D: Dead Sea Scrolls sect) has gone from being totally unknown to me to being a virtual gimme. So many "Wheel of Fortune" letters ... and yet esoteric enough to fly in a late-week puzzle. Ditto 34D: Dutch painter Jan (Steen). I was just in Boston last month, but only barely remember ever hearing about the part of town called the BACK BAY (11A: Posh part of Boston).

My schoolkid's knowledge of Latin helped with 81A: Creatio ex _____ (Christian tenet) (nihilo) and 86A: Prayer opener ("Ave") - less helpful with getting 22D: Org. with the motto "Per Ardua ad Astra" (RAF) - though, if pressed, I could translate that motto for you.

My favorite clues and/or answers in the puzzle include:

• 14D: Skiffle instrument (kazoo) intersecting 23A: Ceramists, at times (glazers)
• 70A: 1940s-'50s Dodger who was a 10-time All-Star (Reese) - would have liked to see his fun full name, PEE WEE REESE, in the puzzle, but this'll do.
• 71A: Particle created by a cosmic ray (muon) - fun to say; stretch that "U"
• 96A: Knight time? (yore) - I was trained as a yore-ologist
• 98A: Teahouse floor covering (tatami) - teahouse I was thinking of was not Japanese, so this took me a while
• 68D: "There's No Place Like _____" (old TV slogan) (HBO) - "old TV slogan??!" Man, there's nothing that'll make you feel older than seeing something 15 years younger than you described as "old"
• 111D: They were worth $5 each on "What's My Line?" ("NO"s) - some old person will explain this. I guess the idea was to fool some panel about your identity for as long a time as possible. Was Bennet Cerf on this show? Kitty Carlisle?
• 101D: Kittens' "handles" (napes) - this clue makes me laugh. Something about the quotation marks around "handles"; like the clue can barely take itself seriously. The clue makes me imagine people carrying around kittens like briefcases. Also makes me think of cats driving big rigs and working the CB - "10-4, good buddy, This is Mr. Whiskers, etc."

New semester starts tomorrow. Commentaries will be shorter, but hopefully no less awesome.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

SATURDAY, Aug. 25, 2007 - Myles Callum

Relative difficulty: Challenging

THEME: none

This puzzle was brutal, but in a beautiful way. So many of these clues were painfully elusive, but in ways that provided genuine, admiring "aha" moments. There were a couple parts that were just plain hard, bordering on unfair, but overall, this is a near ideal Saturday puzzle. I had to work for it, and it was worth it.

Thought I might tear through this one, as I solved the SE corner in about a minute. Had LENA for 57D: New Wave singer Lovich (Lene), and though it was wrong, it (along with ERNS - 58D: Shore scavengers) helped me get the long UTNE READER (60A: Magazine that hands out annual Independent Press Awards) and RAGGEDY ANN (65A: Little redhead). UTNE is often in the puzzle, but UTNE READER - first time I've seen it. Ditto ORONO, MAINE (13D: Northeastern city named for a Penobscot chief). ORONO is supercommon, but not with its state name attached. The most fabulous answer in the SE, however, was GOOGLY EYES (67A: Puppet glue-ons). So cool and imaginative and apt. Apt! Though there was one patently obscure answer in the SE - 62D: Vietnam's _____ Dinh Diem (Ngo) - the whole section fell lickety-split.

And then came the waiting game ("... oh, the Waiting Game sucks! Let's play Hungry, Hungry Hippos!") [sorry, gratuitous "Simpsons" reference]

I had some scattered answers, like UMA (33A: Player of June in "Henry & June") and NCR (7D: Money machine mfr.) and ECOL (3D: Green's concern: Abbr.) and SERA (66A: "Buona _____!"), but I couldn't get much traction. Finally I saw a nice juicy gimme in ELAYNE (20A: Comic Boosler) - remember her name and its spelling, because it's not uncommon in late-week puzzles; from there I half-guessed 11A: "...there are evils _____ to darken all his goodness": Shak. ("enow"), and ORONO, MAINE popped into view. The rest of the NE fell from there pretty quickly. Could tell from the clue that 14D: One concerned with the nose had to do with wine, but needed the "W" from ENOW to see that it was WINE TASTER. Absolutely love 12D: Response to "I had no idea" ("Now you know") - this was a clue that bugged hell out of me until I saw the answer. That's just ... good. Damn good. Couldn't sing the line about LASSES in "Deck the Halls" if I tried (21D: Some of those who "hail the new" in "Deck the Halls") and never ever heard of ELIAH (11D: Son of Elam whose name means "God the Lord") - though, to redeem myself biblically, I totally nailed HOSEA (49D: God commanded him to marry a harlot) off just the "A." O, I left out that the little Pantheonic EWER (47A: Prize cup, maybe), really really helped me solve the NW. Seriously, EWER. I MEAN IT (40A: No-nonsense cry). Hey look, there's EWER, and there's SEWER (22A: Place of refuse). Wasn't SEWER (as in, "one who sews") in yesterday's puzzle? No, that was Thursday's puzzle, and it was SEWERS.

More colloquial goodness in this puzzle:

• 25D: Cry "nyah, nyah!" (rub it in) - best variation on the [Schoolyard taunt] variety of clue that I've ever seen
• 1A: "That may be true, but ..." ("The thing is ...") - that's just bad-ass. I mean, unfair badassery. When idiomatic expressions like this show up, and they are clued in such a spot-on way - it gives me the kind of joy I can barely express.

The last part of the puzzle to fall, and the part wherein I had one incorrect square, was the SW. That's a good place to begin my list of the answers in today's rather large "WTF!" department. We have:

• 28D: Outlaw band member (Allan-a-Dale) - that's right, two dashes in his name! He was a wandering minstrel who joined up with Robin Hood's band of Merry Men, it seems. More often called one-L "Alan-a-Dale"; so this answer is super-obscure and a variant. Ouch. Cool that the "outlaw" here crosses the "rebel" E. LEE (64A: Part of a rebel name). However, it also cruelly intersects...
• 48A: Jazz pianist who played with Satchmo (Fatha) - O FATHA, who art thou? I had FOTHA and ALLAN O'DALE (the famous Irish ... outlaw) at first.

Other magical mystery answers include:

• 4D: Italian tenor _____ Schipa (Tito) - He's a Yugoslavian president, he's a Jackson, , he's a Latin American percussionist who once appeared on "The Simpsons," and he's an Italian tenor. Beware the many faces of TITO.
• 6D: Soap actress Kristen and others (Ilenes) - you must be joking. Who???
• 30D: Saki story whose title character is a hyena ("Esme")

And finally the king of all insane answers:

• 23D: Arrow of Light earner's program (Webelos) - Holy Moly. Just look at that word. It makes my head hurt. Is that the name of a cereal? I thought for sure it had something to do with computer programming, but it's something to do with Cub Scouts (which is what I wanted the answer to be here) - short for "We'll Be Loyal Scouts."

I would like to take the time now to bow before two of the cleverest pop culture clues and answers I've ever seen. Brutal, but brilliant:

• 34A: Title locale of five 1980s films: Abbr. (Elm St.) - had the "M" and "T" and could make Nothing out of it. The "Abbr." part just mystified the hell out of me. But as soon as I got the "S" from ESME, it became obvious. The "Nightmare on Elm St." series is iconic 80s horror goodness. Freddy Krueger is a horror movie legend. I would tell you about the time "The Simpsons" parodied the "NOES" series, but ... I'm trying to limit my "Simpsons" references to one a day.
• 41A: King's second ("Salem's Lot") - I'm a bit in awe of this one. Such devastating cluing. Is it a King in chess? Checkers? An actual, political king? Martin Luther King, Jr.? I considered all these. Never considered Stephen King. Wondered what kind of SLOT could be a "second," then parsed it correctly and marveled at the result.

Less great, but still fun, pop-culture-wise, were 45A: She had brief roles as Phyllis on "Rhoda" and Rhoda on "Dr. Kildare" (Cloris - as in Leachman), 16A: _____ Lemaris, early love of Superman (Lori) and 35D: Felix, e.g. (tom cat) - wasn't sure if "Felix" was going to refer to the Cat or the neat freak from "The Odd Couple." Had THE CAT in there for a while, which I love even though it didn't quite make sense given the clue. Ooh, and one more great, somewhat pop-culturish clue: 5D: Routine responses? (hahas) - as in, responses to comedy routines. Good stuff.

There was a clunker here and there in this puzzle, like RELOAN (19A: Advance further?) and SERUMS (31A: Shot putters' supplies?) - that last one is painful in that the clue is tortuous and the end result is a substandard plural. But those answers are a very small price to pay for the greatness that is this puzzle. Myles Callum - as a constructor, he's no SMALL TIMER (29D: Insignificant sort). This puzzle was A HOOT (26A: Tons of fun). Those who were prepared to bury The Times and declare the The Sun the new King of Puzzles (you know who you are) might want to rethink that stance, because the past two days have provided two of the very best themeless puzzles I've seen all year, in any publication.

I'm done.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS I love The Sun puzzles, and mean no disrespect. I actually think the "which is better?" argument is pointless - we should just count ourselves lucky that there are two such outstanding daily puzzles out there.

FRIDAY, Aug. 24, 2007 - Patrick Berry

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none

This is great puzzle, both in fill and in cluing. Could have been a Little more challenging, but other than that, there are very few flaws. It's weakest in its long Acrosses, strongest in its long Downs, and impressively lively and varied and inventive in the short answers.

Started at 1A: "It's all here" sloganeer, once (CBS), which I half thought was a gimme and half thought I was guessing. Maybe I was right on both counts. Anyway, I got it, and from there the NW fell instantly, with 1D: Continue effortlessly (coast) leading into 21A: The Pacific Ocean's only island kingdom (Tonga). TONGA always reminds me of the very first scene in the very first episode of "The Simpsons," where Springfield Elementary is putting on a Christmas pageant and in the "Santas of Many Lands" segment, Lisa plays "TOWANGA, Santa Claus of the South Seas," juggling torches and dancing while wearing a grass skirt and a tribal mask. Anyway, after TONGA, I got SATAN (3D: "Paradise Lost" character - see also his anagram SANTA - 46D: Stocking stuffer - in the SE corner) but blanked on 2D: Dog in Disney's "Cinderella" (Bruno). Had the "B" and "O" and thought BALTO (that's a movie about a wolf), then BALKO (which sounds like the name of the company involved in the Barry Bonds steroids scandal). The Acrosses in the NW fell next; ORATORIO (14A: "Elijah" or "The Creation") was easy - I think it was an answer in the Crossword Tournament's final puzzle - but the clues on the other two Acrosses made things a little trickier. 17A: Drop a few positions, maybe (automate) was tough, both because of the misdirection of the clue (I was thinking of dropping in the rankings, not axing jobs) and because there's not a direct relation between automating and firing - the latter may be the result of the former, but not necessarily. If you follow. Still, loved this challenge. Also loved 19A: Maker of Kiwi Teawi (Snapple), which is a very original and initially confusing way to clue this common beverage brand.

15D: Highest-grossing film of 1986 ("Top Gun") was the movie I saw on my very first date ever - a rather unromantic double date that was really more like "4 friends going to the movies," but when you've got no track record, no dating history, and you are attracted to one of those friends, and you sit next to her and smell her shampoo and try to make incidental contact without seeming aggressive or creepy ... believe me, it counts as a "date." Reading over that description, even I'm not surprised we never "went out" again. "Top Gun" was awesome, though, so some good came out of it.

As I've said, the long Acrosses were bland:

• 26A: They're staffed with doctors (universities) - perhaps this bores me because it's about me
• 30A: Bad time for a tropical vacation (rainy season) - nice enough phrase, but easy easy clue
• 38A: Country that won the most medals at the 1980 Winter Olympics (East Germany) - I feel like EAST GERMANY was just in the puzzle very recently. Again, this clue is pretty easy. A couple crosses should get you the answer, if it didn't come to you instantly.
• 40A: Reluctantly accepting (reconciled to) - pretty good, but nothing to write home about.

But the long Downs are another story:

• 4D: Ultraloyal employees (company men) - a great phrase, and one that conjures up a fabulous and brutal movie called "In the Company of Men," starring Aaron Eckhart of "Thank You for Smoking" ... fame? It's like a longer, extremely sadistic version of "The Office," minus the mockumentary conceit.
• 8D: Feeling no better (unconsoled) - also (with "The") the title of a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, one of the greatest writers on the planet.
• 11D: Is clueless (has no idea) - love phrases of three or more words.
• 27D: Soul singer who is also a coronated king of Ghana (Isaac Hayes) - awesome bit of trivia. I had the "I" and started to write in IKE TURNER. HAYES is best known, recently, for quitting "South Park" (HAYES was the voice of Chef) after the show ran an episode that mocked Scientology - it's a justly famous episode that features the star of "Top Gun" (coincidentally) in a closet (... [cough] ...) for an Extended period of time.
• 32D: One of the "10 Attic orators" (Isocrates) - I did not know this. Pieced it together from crosses. Sounds like the title of SOCRATES' autobiography. Other names I didn't know but guessed easily were CHERIE (55A: Mrs. Tony Blair), ELIAS (45D: 1981 Literature Nobelist Canetti), COLIN (20A: Mystery author Dexter), and ALEC (58A: _____ Ramsay ("The Black Stallion hero)). Had a hell of a time remembering ALBAN (48A: "Wozzeck" composer _____ Berg). Had ALLAN for a while
• 29D: Near the bottom of the drawers? (inartistic) - very very cute. "Drawers" = "ones who draw." Same trick is occasionally played when "flower" is used to clue a river.

UTAHAN (8A: Marie Osmond or Loretta Young) and MARSALA (35A: Wine used to make zabaglione) might have been harder to turn up if they hadn't both been in the puzzle in recent months. The only sticking point of the puzzle was the SW, where not knowing ISOCRATES meant having to hack away at a lot of Acrosses. Knew YURI (42A: First name in cosmonautics) but EDS (34A: I.T. firm founded by Ross Perot) was totally unknown (or forgotten). Also, had to wait on the last letter of 37A: Member of an extended familia (tio) because it could have been (and usually is) TIA. OILERS (41D: Team that won the first A.F.L. championship) might be hard for non-sports and very young people; they were a reasonably successful N.F.L. team when I was growing up (they eventually morphed into the Tennessee Titans). Another tricky, but very COOL (50D: "Fantastic!") sports clue in today's puzzle is 10D: Pass under the basket, maybe (assist) - I spent many seconds wondering why anyone would walk under a basket.

That's all for HOY (43A: Major U.S. Spanish language daily).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

THURSDAY, Aug. 23, 2007 - Joe Krozel

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: B-word homophones - all instances where Across and Down clues share the same first letter feature homphones that start with the letter "B"; the Across answer is clued, the Down is not (its clue is just a "-")

I can't believe 23 of you commented on my non-commentary! Thanks. I am reasonably well, thanks for asking.

This puzzle:

I too did not get the "B" in BODE (27A: Point to) until the extremely bitter end, as I ran through the alphabet many times, with "B" never ever registering as a viable option. My mind treated the possibility of BODE the same way it would have PODE or GODE.

I did not notice that all the homophones were "B" words until I read someone's comment here. Shows you how observant I was feeling last night.

I did the puzzle without ever seeing the "Notepad" that explained the use of dashes as clues. Would have felt like cheating. Got the whole NW, saw that the "-" clue was a homophone of 1A: Obstruction at the entrance of a cave, maybe (boulder), and thus solved the rest of the puzzle's "-" clues easily. That BOULDER clue should have "... in cartoons or B-movies" added to it, as I'm reasonably sure I've never seen a BOULDER blocking the entrance to a cave in the real world (not that I have had occasion to see many caves).

Today was a day where being a puzzle addict helped, as stuff like DIRK (19A: Weapon in old hand-to-hand fighting) and IDA (58D: _____ B. Wells, early civil rights advocate) and OROS (31A: Rich Spanish decorations) and EOE (6D: Want ad abbr.) and N-TESTS (32A: Big blasts) even the horrid DESEX (15D: Neuter) were all easy first guesses.

"Recondite" is one of my favorite words - an SAT word I think I actually learned when I was preparing to take my SATs, and a word I have some occasion to use (if only in describing the scholarship of some of my peers). So 39D: Recondite (obscure) was gettable with just a cross or two. SEWERS took me a few seconds because, well, just look at it. SEWERS carry sewage. Only in very clear context do they SEW. Still, this answer goes well with 25D: Lowers the cuffs on, maybe (alters).

Just now, looking at the grid, I was wondering what POSEDAS meant in Spanish. Turns out it's two words - 66A: Pretended to be (posed as).

OK, that's all for this puzzle. Just wanted to have something up. I won't be getting back from Ithaca til late tonight, so Friday commentary might not be up til morning, but (I hope) no later than 9 am.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 22, 2007 - Patrick Blindauer

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "Pick-up Lines" (61A: Singles bar repertoire (and a hint to 17-, 24-, 36- and 52-Across) - all theme answers are in some way related to the phrase "pick up," I think

This theme is fun but a bit tenuous. I'll see if I can explain how all of the theme answers are examples of PICK-UP LINES:

• 17A: McGarrett's TV catchphrase ("Book 'em, Danno") - picking up a prisoner
• 24A: Question for a hitchhiker ("Need a lift?") - picking up a hitchhiker (not often advisable)
• 36A: Shout from the phone ("It's for you!") - picking up the phone
• 52A: Chevy truck slogan, once ("Like a Rock") - a pick-up truck

Hope that's right. If not, correct me.

This puzzle felt very easy. Even ones I didn't know really know, like 5A: Nanki-Poo's father (Mikado), I could guess pretty easily. I knew that Nanki-Poo was a character in "The Mikado," and MIKADO fit, so there. I couldn't tell you the plot of the musical if my life depended on it. 5D: Ones minding the store: Abbr. (mgmt.) might trick a few people, as the clue suggests plural but the "T" ending does not. I found a couple of answers a bit iffy, like 4D: Clicked on'es tongue (tsked) - didn't know TSK was a proper verb now - and 24D: Innocents (naifs) - which sounds too French to be true. ALIENEE is not a favorite word of mine, despite the fact that it contains the cool ALIEN; perhaps the least fortunate answer of the day is strange-sounding INTONER (44D: Chanter), one of those odd-jobby words that's more conveniently passable than real. Not in the language (contrast it with the very real job GUNNER - 15A: Artillery unit member).

The best of the long non-theme answers are 11D: Tall wardrobe (armoire) - both because it's a pretty word and because "wardrobe" could misdirect people toward actual clothing; and 13D: Yachting event (regatta). I had CALMEST for COOLEST for a bit (45D: Least ruffled), but other than that, no dead ends. Oh, except I had CUKES for COKES (54D: Burger go-withs) - also for not very long. Loved the recurrence of OLE, here in its double-sized format: 59A: World Cup chant ("ole ole!"). Never heard of SLAP-UP (22D: Top-notch, to a Brit), but I'm not British, so no surprise there. Also never heard of LEILA (56D: Hyams of 1920s-'30s films). Have, however, heard of 55A: John of London (Elton), though that's a super-odd way to clue him. Sports-haters will be happy that there is only one real sports clue here (not counting REGATTA and OLE OLE), and it's pretty easy: 22A: 600-homer club member (Sosa). Really, if you didn't know it from the 4 letters, you should have gotten it quickly once you got a cross or two. He is one of the more famous ball players of the past decade. Not being a sewer (i.e. one who sews), I have no idea what practice 63A: Make darts (sew) refers to.

62D: New England state sch. (URI) looks harder than it is (University of Rhode Island). Ditto 35A: Paris Metro station next to a music center (Opera). Even if you don't know Paris Metro stations, a few crosses, and the musicness of the clue, should have tipped this one. Nice double-egg quality to this puzzle with 16A: Some eggs (roe) and 27A: Eggs, in labs (ova). Then of course there's 6D: Birth control option, briefly (IUD), which is egg-related, in its way. Sorry if that didn't pass the breakfast table test. Lastly, I get great pleasure out of seeing TINA Yothers in the puzzle (37D: Yothers of "Family Ties") - I watched a LOT of "Family Ties" as a kid. She was the strange youngest sister who didn't really have a personality. I liked that she was not cute at all - they added a conventionally cute baby brother later on to fill that void. I'm stopping now before this turns into a detailed interpretation of the nuances of the entire series.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

TUESDAY, Aug. 21, 2007 - Tom Heilman

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: BEES (60D: Theme of this puzzle) - Each of the four theme answers has a bee-related word in it

This went very fast. Had to search for a while for a typo and still finished in under five. Didn't see or get the theme until the very end; it hardly mattered, time-wise. I need to get some sleep tonight, so I'm going to keep it short.

Theme answers:

• 17A: Police ploys (sting operations)
• 30A: End-of-day spousal salutation ("Honey, I'm home!")
• 46A: "Call when you get the chance" ("Give me a buzz")
• 62A: Bogart/Hepburn film ("The African Queen")

Didn't get a single word until the fifth Across clue I looked at (15A: OBOE). Got my first toe-hold by working the Downs in the NW, four out of five of which I got right on the first pass (with good old standbys like 5D: Wee bit of work (erg) and gimmes like 3D: Quickly growing "pet" (Chia) it wasn't that hard). Had BILL for COST (1D: How much to pay), but that was quickly fixed.

Enjoyed the intersecting SORE EYES (8D: what a welcome sight relieves) and STYE (21A: Lid trouble), as well as the arty quartet of HENRI (4D: Painter Matisse), TATE (42A: Gallery showing works by Turner, Reynolds and Constable), ALBA (58A: Duchess of _____, Goya subject), and ANDY (61D: Pop artist Warhol). The combo of ENERO (34D: First month in Madrid) and AÑOS (43A: Calendario units) is less inspiring. UPTAKE is an interesting word, in that I never hear it except in the phrase "slow on the UPTAKE." Though it's clued properly enough (48D: Mental grasp), it's weird to see it isolated like this.

I liked two of the long non-theme answers: CHIP SHOTS (10D: Lofted approaches to the green) and MEAT PIES (41D: Pastries in "Sweeney Todd") - I think the "Sweeney Todd" pastries are filled with ... people meat. The only answer in the grid I'd never seen before is KIROV (29D: Russian ballet company). I am notorious pathetic when it comes to ballet questions. Luckily, they are fairly rare. Finally, it was nice to see Téa LEONI (28D: Téa of "Spanglish") in the puzzle, first because I sort of like her as an actress, and second because she was fresh on my mind - NPR did an interview with her husband, David Duchovny (of "X-Files" fame) only last week, and her name came up. One of the PERKs (66A: Use of a company car or private washroom, say) of listening to public radio is that occasionally the information comes in very handy, puzzle-wise.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

MONDAY, Aug. 20, 2007 - Lynn Lempel

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: Trios of rhyme - theme answers are all famous trios from nursery rhyme and song

Theme answers:

• 17A: Fortune-seeking trio (Little Pigs)
• 11D: Trio at sea (Men in a Tub)
• 36A: Grass-eating trio (Billy Goats Gruff)
• 33D: Trio on the run (Blind Mice)
• 57A: Gift-giver's trio (French Hens)

Which of these theme answers is not like the other? Which of these five just doesn't belong? Answer below.

This puzzle is weird. Fun, but strange. The theme does not hold together very well, for two reasons. First, none of the trios is clued in relation to what they are best known for, or they are clued so vaguely that the correct answer does not jump to mind. A little difficulty is fine, but ... when I think of the three LITTLE PIGS, the first thing I think of is the wolf trying to blow their house(s) down, not the fact that the pigs are "fortune-seeking." And the BILLY GOATS GRUFF are clued in relation to the fact that they eat grass?! That's pretty weak. But the bigger problem here is with one answer: FRENCH HENS. All the other answers are from children's songs or rhymes, but those HENS are from "The Twelve Days of Christmas," which is a carol for everyone. Moreover, the HENS are not anthropomorphized in said carol, while all the other featured TRIOS are people (the MEN IN A TUB) or people-like animals. Lastly, and most importantly, all the other TRIOS are CENTRAL to their rhymes - the rhymes are ABOUT them. But the HENS? They are only one of twelve gifts, and they don't even DO anything. Which of these theme answers is not like the others? The answer is FRENCH HENS.

Three of the four long non-theme answers here are really good, in that they are colorful and I needed more than a couple of crosses to get them. 9D: Peaceful interludes (respites) tricked me because "peaceful" seems an extreme way to describe RESPITES, which I think of as mere lulls. But it's accurate enough, so fine. I had the GLI- in 38D: Minor hang-ups (glitches) and still had to go fishing for other crosses before it came to me. Lastly (or firstly, if we're talking about the order in which I actually solved them), there's MALARKEY, which is a hell of a word to try to uncover with only a few crosses. I don't normally think of MALARKEY (5D: "Nonsense!") as an exclamation the way "Nonsense!" is. "That's a bunch of MALARKEY." So there's a lot of slant cluing going on here, but it's not over the line.

The longer Across answers were pretty sweet too, with three of them being two-word phrases and the last being a titter-inducing lake I remember from 7th grade Geography. 24A: Hits the roof (sees red) goes nicely with 43A: Pedestrian's intersection warning ("Don't Walk"), as the pedestrian who sees a DON'T WALK sign literally SEES RED. SAT DOWN (48A: Took a load off one's feet) is nice insofar as it crosses SANTA (48D: December list keeper), and one might sit down on SANTA's lap. And what's not to love about Lake TITICACA (28A: Peru-Bolivia border lake)?

I'm not fond of WANLY as it's clued (50D: In a weak manner), not because it's a bad clue, but just because I'd never ever say WANLY. When I think WAN, I think pale, and even if I were describing something or someone pale, I probably wouldn't use WAN unless I were being deliberately hyperbolic or old-fashioned. I'd use ASHEN before WAN. Not a fan of WAN and its related word forms - that's what I'm telling you here in these words that I am somehow writing a lot of. Also not fond of the way that NARC is clued (54A: War on drugs fighter). That overly politicizes what a NARC does. Even to describe drug-law enforcement as part of the "War on Drugs" (a phrase that didn't exist before the sloganeering of the Reagan administration, as far as I know) is to put the activity into the stupid and ineffectual language of politicians who have done nothing but FAIL to deal very successfully with America's drug problem. I think the "War on Drugs" was the first fine-sounding but theoretically eternal and unwinnable "war" that we as a country declared. I think Reagan also invented the idea of a Drug Czar. Czar? Of all the titles we could adopt. Criminy. I can only pray that we have better luck with the so-called "War on Terror." All I'm saying is that if you frame matters in terms of war, then you better have a realistic and compelling vision of how to win and what winning looks like. Otherwise ... try another metaphor. If OBAMA (14A: Politician who wrote "The Audacity of Hope") gets elected, maybe he'll have some fresh ideas. Until then (and perhaps long after), constructors will happily continue to welcome him into their puzzles, as his name is a sweet new five-letter combo never-before-seen in CrossWorld.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

SUNDAY, Aug. 19, 2007 - Elizabeth C. Gorski

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: "Buried Treasure" - symbol for gold (AU) is inserted in squares around the grid; these "AU" squares, when connected, form the outline of a "heart" - 26A: With 113-Across, 1972 song lyric hinting at this puzzle's theme ("I've been a miner for a / heart of gold")

[In the printed grid, right, "$" = AU]

A very clever, multi-layered theme. I feel very fortunate to have figured out the theme almost immediately. Had the I'VE B part of 26A, then started getting annoyed at what seemed to be some messed-up, variant spelling at 33A: Scene (tableAU) - what did they want, TABLET? TABLEU? Then noticed that the cross - 27D: Lover boy (beAU) - needed an AU too - knew that AU = gold, looked back at I'VE B and filled the rest of it in instantly. Thrilled to see that it all fit. Even with that big head start, I found challenging pockets. it's a weirdly shaped grid - it doesn't have rotational symmetry and you can't get at the center except from underneath (much trouble in the upper-center region - more on that later). After complaining about people's apparent ignorance of Steffi Graf yesterday, I got floored by not one but two female sports star clues today - one of them clued in relation to 1988, just as the GRAF clue was. Karma. Luckily, I guessed both their names correctly.

• 44A: Kristin _____, six-time swimming champion at the 1988 Olympics (Otto)
• 120A: Tennis player Smashnova (Anna) - that's an insanely good name for a tennis player, but ... a pretty long way to go for ANNA.

The GOLD answers:

• 28D: Overseas Mrs. (FrAU)
• 36A: Victorians (AUssies)
  
• 39A: Outdoor shindigs (luAUs)
• 34D: Letters from Greece (tAUs)
• 41A: "Your mother wears army boots!," e.g. (tAUnt)
• 35D: Mideast's House of _____ (Pancakes ... I mean SAUd)
• 58A: "Homage to Clio" (AUden)
• 58D: Author who wrote "One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other" (AUsten) - I love love love the AUsten/AUden literary meeting of minds here; clever
• 59A: Some shavers (BrAUns)
• 54D: Extol (lAUd)
• 61A: Pianist Claudio (ArrAU) - if he weren't in the crossword fairly frequently, he'd have given me fits
• 77A: Child-care provider (AU pair)
• 77D: Sound (AUdio) - I had ECHO here at first, not realizing it involved a theme square
• 79A: Capital city about an hour by plane from Miami (NassAU)
• 97A: European air hub (De GAUlle)
• 100D: Park Avenue, for one (AUto) - constructors like to throw this make at you because it's got built-in misdirection

I'm tired, so I will discuss just a few thorny parts.

I had a nice little blank 3x3 square in the upper heart of this puzzle for a while. I knew AU went in there somewhere, but at first I tried to put it too high - second square in 53A: First Shia imam (Ali). Turns out it went one square down - in BRAUNS. Did not think -INI (55D: Magician's name suffix) was really a suffix. Is HOUD- a root word? And ARA (53D: Constellation near Scorpius) is always the last constellation I think of, in that I don't think of it ever.

Waiting for my wife to finish puzzle so she can explain 36A: Victorians, e.g. (AUssies) to me. Oh, I think I just got it. There must be a place name in Australia named Victoria ...? I hope so. Had no idea what MELANITES were (17D: Deep black garnets) - some kind of stone, it seems. MELANITES intersected with OTTO (above) at the "T," so I was guessing there.

Oh, I should note that the Neil Young aspect of this puzzle is continued in two more long, symmetrical answers in the SE and SW of the grid:

• 68D: Atomic number of the special parts of this puzzle which, when connected, form a 113-Across (seventy-nine)
• 64D: Like 113-Across (by Neil Young) - that one threw me at first because I had BYNEI and thought "what the hell sort of word is that?"

Finally, some tricky names:

• 11D: Missy _____ with the 2002 hit "Work It" (Elliott) - gimme for me, though I didn't know she had the double-L and double-T version of this last name.
• 10D: Bill who created the comic strip "Smokey Stover" (Holman) - I will confess that I've never heard of this guy.
• 74A: "The Baptism of Christ" painter _____ della Francesca (Piero) - I'm semi-proud of guessing this off just the "P," figuring that PIERO was the most likely Italian name to go there.
• 40D: German-born Hollywood actor _____ Keir (Udo) - wow, now that's a name. I'm sure I've seen the name before, but he's not registering.
• 66D: 1954 Jean Simmons movie ("Desiree") - GENE Simmons has a reality show on VH1 now.
• 43D: Author Janowitz (Tama) - she used to appear with far greater frequency than she does now. Her name is crossword AU, but quickly became crosswordese, I think, and is now avoided if possible (like her writing - just kidding! never read it).

The other reason ANNA Smashnova was so hard for me was because I figured she must have a far crazier name than ANNA (see Orange's frequent assertion that if the person seems uncommon, the name is probably uncommon as well - not so in this case). So I had AN-A and the Down cross was NOT helping - 104D: French department in Picardy (Aisne) - is "department" a geographical place? Yes, a department is sort of like a county, apparently. Seven years of French and I can't make sense of a simple clue like this. Ugh.

Good night

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

SATURDAY, Aug. 18, 2007 - Jim Page

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none

Choppy waters here, but I managed to sail through, eventually. I think yesterday's puzzle was actually harder, though I have no empirical evidence. Just my gut. I learned a new word today: REVET (20A: Face with stone). That was one of two places in the puzzle where I just had to cross my fingers and hope I had a word. The other place was in the SE, where the cluing on 41D: As yet uncollected for (owed on) was so awkward that I couldn't figure out what type of phrase could go there for a long while, and thus two crosses, 40A: Relatives of pollocks (cods) and 46A: High-tech surveillance acronym (AWACS) had holes in them for a while. Never heard of a "pollock" or AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System).

Had LANDED for CAMPED (6A: Settled down securely), but because of the correct "A" and "E" I got my first toehold with ACS (7D: Filter holders, briefly) and EVERYONE (10D: Who's a critic?). I am not thrilled with the annoyingly prefixed 14A: Do further work on a bird? (recarve) and 9D: Give shades to in advance (precolor), but most of the other fill in the puzzle was good to very good. Took me Way too long to get ASPCA (1A: Adoption option: Abbr.), but once I did, the NW fell pretty quickly. The really tricky answer for me up there was 4D: Water fleas, barnacles, etc. (crustacea), which I could not see without that initial "C" from ASPCA. After I got the "U" from CORRUGATED STEEL (15A: Construction material), I confidently wrote in AQUAFAUNA, thinking, "Wow, what a fantastic word." Another fantastic word that is actually a word, and actually in the puzzle: HEPTADS (35D: Water polo teams, e.g.).

SAMISEN (13D: Banjolike Japanese instrument) is one of those words I've seen before but couldn't recall, and probably won't be able to recall in the future. I saw a woman play a Chinese banjolike instrument earlier this year. It was called a PIPA. There's lots of crosswordese in the puzzle, but it's all so trickily clued that it doesn't feel so tired:

• ACRE (19A: Parcel part)
• SERA (23A: Hospital supplies - that one's not so tricky)
• STOA (24A: Feature of some classical architecture - that one isn't either)
• ALOE (clued viciously as 26A: Fragrant heartwood ... ??)
• ELSA (not the lion, but 37A: Actress Pataky)
• STET (47D: Galley countermand)
• SI SI (49A: "You betcha, Bartolomé")

Today's weird name of the day goes to ABRA (25D: Julie Harris's "East of Eden" role), narrowly edging out DUZ (52D: Old washday choice). LEIFS (39D: Conductor Segerstam and novelist Enger) and HOYT (22A: Waite _____, Hall-of-Fame Yankees pitcher) finished a distant third and fourth, respectively. Cute pair of twin clues today in 34D: Thighs may be displayed in it (erotica) and 33D: Thighs may be displayed in it (meat case). I'll take the former thigh display any day.

My wife does not like it when people mimic her accent, but occasionally I like to parody all pseudo-British accents, and that parody will usually involve some version of 38A: Cockney greeting ('ello), possibly followed by "guv'nuh." 35A: Writ introduction? (habeas) was a cute gimme. Less cute, but no less a gimme, was 50A: "_____ Work" (George F. Will best seller) ("Men at") - I own that book, though (as with many of my books) haven't read it.

My old DATSUN was decidedly not a "roadster," so I have no idea what 54A: Some bygone roadsters is thinking of. Unless "roadster" is being used Very Generically. My DATSUN also did not have TINTED GLASS (16D: Auto option).

There were at least five film clues today, including 5D: Lee of Hollywood (Ang), 8D: 1932 Garbo title role (Mata Hari), that ELSA woman (see above), 31D: Eastwood played him in five films (Callahan, aka Dirty Harry), and, possibly, EROTICA (also above). Oh, and the nicely clued OFF CAMERA (30D: So as to avoid getting shot).

The DANUBE (42D: It rises in the Black Forest) was easy to get with a couple crosses, but SANER (57A: Less like a yo-yo), for some reason, was not. Did not know 27A: James Bay native (Cree), but pieced it together - that's pretty rough cluing, as the clue suggests Nothing about Native Americans. Doesn't get more Anglo-sounding than "James Bay" (located in Canada). Not much else to say except that I was strangely proud of myself for getting SCALAR (43D: Graduated) off of just the "R" and BORONS (29A: Five atoms in a ulexite molecule) off of just the "N." What an anticlimactic way to end the entry. O well.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS Pop Sensation has been updated, with many new scans from my vintage paperback collection

PPS It's Saturday morning now, 8:46am, and Google Trends tells me that tons of folks are searching for Steffi GRAF (36A: 1988 tennis Grand Slam winner) today. My god, there is no predicting you people. She's only one of the winningest woman in women's tennis history. At least two different authorities ranked her as the greatest female player of the 20th century (I'd dispute that - Martina was greater, but still, GRAF was undeniably Great). In fact, GRAF's 22 Grand Slam singles titles is second place all time, man or woman, behind only Margaret Court. She's married to Andre Agassi. 1988 isn't that long ago. Why don't people know her!?

You know I hate when people ask, usually smugly, "how could anyone not know that?" - and yet... never even to have heard of GRAF's name!? To resort to Googling?! Actually, I've been amazed at how many of my most popular searches are for 3-and 4-letter words. It's like ... people just want a little boost. One of yesterday's big winners was RICO, for instance. Being able to see how people search is a really interesting window into the nation's puzzle-solving habits.

FRIDAY, Aug. 17, 2007 - Roger Barkan

Relative difficulty: Challenging

THEME: none

I got destroyed by this puzzle, especially in the top half. How? Here's how.

I've never heard of - NEVER heard of - CHARLOTTE AMALIE (14A: Caribbean cruise port of call). That's a long answer not to know. Kind of like T. BOONE PICKENS (see many weeks ago). Also didn't know one of the crosses, 9D: Title aunt in a 1979 best seller (Erma). Though almost all those Downs at the top look gettable now, I couldn't see a damn thing when they were blank. GTOS (4D: Classic cars with 389 engines) was the only thing close to a gimme. Working backward didn't help. Had the TEA in CHAI TEA (14D: Coffee alternative) without knowing what kind (went with ICED at first). Had the ONE in SHIN BONE (12D: It's guarded in a soccer game) and thought I was dealing with some kind of ZONE. And O My God I had -T-NDINGO before I parsed STANDING O correctly (1D: Star performer's reward). Early guesses included FANDANGO and MANDINGO, neither of which fit. A-PLUS (3D: 100, say) also looks nuts when you come at it from the wrong end. RHEAS (7D: Birds with a name from Greek myth) is hard to get without any crosses, and I had none (except the "S," which hardly counts). I tend to think of hotels as offering "roll-aways," not COTs (5D: Hotel room option) - it's not a field hospital, for god's sake. Loved the clue on SALAD (11D: Leaves alone, sometimes) ("How can that end in a 'D!?'").

And all this failure after being so proud of myself for nailing RICO (13D: "Copacabana" antagonist) and ZASU (19A: Early film actress Pitts). Less proud for nailing Van DAMME (37A: Van _____ of "Double Team" and "Double Impact"), though no less happy for the entertainment. It was finally getting TEARIEST (10D: Most affected by pathos) that allowed me to hack my way into the top and eventually work it all out. STEP TO THE REAR (12A: Bus line?) is fantastic and nicely colloquial, though it sort of brings to mind Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott... maybe that's just 'cause I watched a PBS special on the 60's last night.

Lived in California much of my life, never knew there was an EEL river in it (15D: Third-longest river of California). Only just recently commiserated with my wife about the nutso spelling of the UINTA Mountains (26A: Utah's _____ Mountains), and still, today, couldn't retrieve it. Knew it started U, some other vowel - but that's it. Had MAD AS for AS MAD (28A: Comparable to a wet hen). Thank god for MIX TAPE (43A: This-and-that recording for a friend or a party), which is the first answer I really could build something substantial off of.

Guessed HINDUS (16A: Diwali revelers) correctly, but had No Clue about MALAYALAM (29D: Language of India with a palindromic name); got the first three letters and was happy to be able to fill in the last three letters as a result. APPLETON (30D: Home of Lawrence University)? Whatever. Had DESK KIT for DESK SET (31D: Accessories for a secretary), then wondered how in the world a hula hoop could be a GYRATI - 52A: Hula-hoop, say (gyrate). Is HAYES Rutherford B. HAYES (49A: Profile on a 19¢ stamp)? ANDES seems to vague an answer to 18A: Home of the Cotopaxi volcano - it's a big mountain range! As someone who has written Many a Footnote in his day, it took me a surprisingly long time to get 21A: Abbr. after an author's name, maybe (ibid.).

Bottom half of the puzzle was far more tractable, though I had ANTEDATE for ANTECEDE (33D: Go ahead of), PLUSH for PILED (46D: Like 1-Across), CAGIER for WARIER (43D: Like someone who's been fooled before) - which caused me to entertain CALK ("shouldn't there be a 'U' in that?") for WALK (43A: Cement layer's work) - and my favorite mistake, RENO for OREM (45D: Self-styled "Family City U.S.A."). The gimme-ness of 55A: _____ diet, food plan emphasizing olive oil, fish, fruit, vegetables and red wine (Mediterranean) almost made up for the CHARLOTTE AMALIE fiasco up top. DESERT STORM (56A: Gulf war offensive) was a cake walk too. URIC ACID (50A: Major component of kidney stones) does not pass the breakfast table test for me, though neither does "Wickiup" - which wins the award for most made-up-sounding word in a clue this year: 44D: Wickiup, for one (hut). Thought it might have something to do with Wikipedia. No. All in all, it feels a little bit like I ATE DIRT (38D: Accepted bad treatment), but I have no business complaining too much about a wicked Friday when I whined so much about easy puzzles all week long. Touché, puzzle. You win this round. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

THURSDAY, Aug. 16, 2007 - Alan Arbesfeld

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "From / Start to Finish" (10A: With 37-Across, theme of this puzzle) - the letter "T" is moved from the "start" of four common phrases to the "finish," creating a new absurd phrase, which is clued

What is with the super-easy puzzles? This one was far more enjoyable than yesterday's, primarily because the theme answers are pretty rich, but still, I expect a little more challenge on a Thursday. I barely slowed down FROM START TO FINISH. Well, actually, I stopped. About a 1/4 of the way through, I took a clean puzzle in to my wife for her to solve, and there we had a conversation about yesterday's puzzle (she thought TREWS was just fine, had no problems, what was I going on about?, etc.), then I returned to my home office, sat down, and finished the puzzle. I left the timer running the entire time, and still, when I was done, it read only "10:30" or something close to that - which means that, conservatively, I did the puzzle in 8 minutes. Actual time was probably closer to the 6-7 minute range. And I wasn't really trying. Once again, there's not a lot here to challenge an experienced solver, except maybe the theme itself, which I cracked pretty early on.

If the theme is FROM START TO FINISH, then why is the only letter that gets moved FROM START TO FINISH a "T?" Seems like "T" is part of the theme, but the description does not indicate that. What am I missing?

Theme answers:

• 18A: Reason to renovate an opera house? (rust in Met - reformed "Trust in me")
• 20A: One cauterizing a skin blemish? (heater of wart - reformed "Theater of War") - this was the first theme answer I got, and it's quite disgusting. I like it.
• 54A: Narc operation on Amtrak? (railways bust - reformed "Trailways bus")
• 57A: Dropped "The Simpsons" from the TV schedule? (ended Bart - reformed "tended bar") - this, of course, is my favorite theme answer by far.

Lots of two-word phrases in the NW, but all of them pretty standard: RUSH TO (1D: Hurry in the direction of), ANTE UP (2D: Make a stud payment), and the ubiquitous ICE AXE (3D: Climber's chopper).

ENYA must die (6A: 2001 Oscar nominee for the song "May It Be").

There's just nothing very difficult to talk about today, nor anything particularly scintillating. The clues I found most challenging were:

• 6D: Battle of the _____, in the Spanish Civil War (Ebro) - actually, not very challenging. Once I had a cross or two, it was easy. My knowledge of Spanish geography is pretty limited. In fact, it doesn't extend much beyond EBRO.
• 30D: From the beginning (ab ovo) - had this completely filled in and thought the final "O" must be wrong; shouldn't that be ABOVE. Then I reread the clue and parsed the answer correctly.
• 33A: Prefix with warrior (eco-) - OK, again, not actually hard, but weirdly modern and unexpected.
• 55D: Word with house or Carolina (wren) - not a bird man. This mystified me, and I had to get it almost completely from crosses.
• 62A: Iris's place (uvea) - I had LENS. Dumb.
• 60A: Florence's _____ Vecchio (Ponte) - Had PONTO. Dumb. Also had ANNOY for ANGER (63A: Tee off)

I appreciate the interesting letter combinations in Q-TIP (64A: Wax remover), C-SPAN (52D: Hearings airer), T-BONE (53D: Steakhouse selection) - they definitely work better as a set than they do on their own. Would have liked ARMLOAD if I hadn't seen it clued exactly the same way fairly recently (34D: Big bag of groceries, e.g.). SKI BUM is an original, colorful answer, oddly clued (43D: Slopes devotee). It's a pretty noble puzzle, with Paris from the ILIAD (36A: Poem about Paris, in part) and KNIGHT (31A: Caballero), and then REALM (40A: Kingdom) right next to a (partial) quotation from Shakespeare's "Henry VI" - 41A: "When I am dead and gone, remember to _____ me...": "Henry VI, Part I" ("avenge").

ADA would have been better clued as [Nabokov novel] - far more Thursday than 28A: Abbr. on a toothpaste box. I assume that anyone who has ever worked a word processing program of any sort knows that Helvetica is a FONT (10D: Helvetica, for one). I really like the clue for OWL, because even though the word's not exciting, at least I learn something (44A: Hieroglyphic symbol for the ancient Egyptian "M"). The wrinkly CASABA (33A: Wrinkly-skinned fruit) has been in the puzzle recently (tons of people searched for the answer, according to my sitemeter account), as has MST (13D: Boulder hrs.) (as recently as Sunday, I think). A FEW (35D: Some) and A TAD (56D: Slightly) make one too many A phrases, though I did like A-TTACK (9D: War cry). Speaking of cries, I didn't know OLE (12D: Soccer cheer) belonged to soccer. I find the intersection of RED (40D: Brave opponent) and DYE (48A: Salon supply) exciting, if not SEXY (37D: Hot).

All in all, a pleasant, well-conceived puzzle that just NEEDS (66A: Can't do without) a little added spice.

The next person to use ENYA in a puzzle gets NEUF (7D: Nine, in Nantes) lashes with a wet BEET (15A: Sugar source). Crossword Vengeance.


Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 15, 2007 - Ray Fontenot

Relative difficulty: Super-Easy

THEME: Newspaper headline about a workplace mishap (long quip)

Here's the quip:

20A: Newspaper headline about a workplace mishap - MAN WHO FELL INTO
34A: Headline, part 2 - UPHOLSTERY
42A: Headline, part 3 - MACHINE NOW
51A: End of the headline - FULLY RECOVERED

Normally don't like quip puzzles, and didn't especially like this one. I was shocked at how quickly I could get through the grid even with the relative disadvantage of the quip theme (which are sometimes slow-going because you often can't get the parts of the quip until you get a hell of a lot of crosses). AIDA, OSLO, ESSO, ISLE, SOD, ESNE (41A: Feudal serf), ETA, AMINO, EDENS, ULNA, ALOES, ECRU, SOAP, CLIO, ELLA, IRE, EWES, OKRA, WOKE, ELAN, DAIS, ERECT, OHIO, METE, EGO, SRI, SLAT, ETC, etc. - it's all So Low Rent.

But THEN, there are these oddities - to my mind fairly obscure stuff - that stick out like very sore thumbs, ESPECIALLY in the "Mid-Atlantic" region of the grid. First, ILO (24A: U.N. workers' grp.)?! Never heard of it. Couldn't guess what it stood for. Turns out it's "International Labour Organisation." I can tolerate an obscure abbreviation in my puzzle, but hitting this answer after Sailing across the boring straight long flat roads of the rest of this puzzle - well, it was jarring. Next, AMIR (37A: Mideast ruler: Var.)!? My distaste for this ugly variant is mitigated only by the fact that it spared me yet Another bit of tired crosswordese: EMIR. But the worst answer in the puzzle - "worst" both because it's an insane bit of foreign couture and because it was not adequately confirmable by crosses - is TREWS (33D: Close-fitting tartan pants). I have been to Scotland several times, wrote one of my dissertation exams on Scottish literature, and yet this word has somehow never entered my vocabulary. What's more, the "W" in TREWS could (as far as I was concerned) just as easily have been a "T" - in fact, the quip reads better with a "T" in place of the "W," I think.

MAN WHO FELL INTO / UPHOLSTERY / MACHINE NOT / FULLY RECOVERED

The "NOT" part jibes with the clue for the quip - 20A: Start of a newspaper headline about a workplace mishap. The "NOT" gives a nice potential double-meaning to "mishap," I think. Is the "mishap" that the guy fell in, or that the upholstery machine didn't do its job very well? Having "NOW" there ... the quotation remains a one-dimensional pun.

So this was a criminally easy puzzle, with rare, odd, unpleasant hard bits thrown in. Like eating a rather tasteless cream pie where occasionally you bite down on a screwhead or little rocks - boring, then suddenly painful.

Besides ILO (which really wishes it were J-LO), I didn't know the abbreviation DSC (25A: Mil. decoration) - the Distinguished Service Cross. Also didn't know 12D: Broadway's _____ - Fontanne Theater (Lunt), or that ESSO meant "it" in Italian (13D: Brand name that's coincidentally Italian for "it"). I enjoyed seeing Tycho BRAHE in the puzzle (30D: Astronomer Tycho _____). He strikes me as perfect Wednesday fare, and his name is a nice, unusual combination of common letters. 46A: I, in old Rome (ego) was nicely tricky, as "I" looks like it's being used as a Roman numeral (suggesting an answer of UNA), when really it's being used as a pronoun.

I think I'm stopping now.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

TUESDAY, Aug. 14, 2007 - C. W. Stewart

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: "Doofus" = clue for six theme entries

This was an enjoyable puzzle, but only because I never saw the alleged punchline - after a puzzle full of "Doofus" clues, we end up at 61D: A person who is not a doofus (you). Hey, puzzle, when did you turn into such a condescending, smarmy @#$#? I have plenty of self-esteem, thanks. This is the kind of ego-stroking nonsense that led Time to declare me "Person of the Year" for 2006. My response: Go to hell. It's such an insulting advertising ploy, like any of the terrible ads that tell me "you deserve it" as in "you deserve a shamefully overpriced luxury car" or "you deserve to have your husband take you out to KFC." Basically, I don't want my puzzle making any assumptions about me. Maybe I am a doofus. "An incompetent, foolish, or stupid person" - I have definitely been two out of three of those things, and recently. To sum up, I respect puzzles that throw fastballs up around my eyes and then taunt me more than those who throw hanging curve balls and then give me a "You're a Winner!" ribbon when I knock the ball over the fence. If you follow.

Theme answers:

• 4D: NUMSKULL - I would have spelled this NUMBSKULL, which is why I didn't fill it in straight away when I had the NUM-
• 18A: NINCOMPOOP
• 27A: BIRD BRAIN
• 39D: DUMBBELL
• 48A: DING-A-LING
• 55A: NOODLEHEAD - the least likable word of the bunch; is this even an expression?

Loved the pop culture clues today, though they were relatively easy. Had BRIT for ICON (1A: David or Victoria Beckham). Wondered, for about a second, what sitcom had the catchphrase NANA NANA before the part of my brain that blocks all thoughts of Robin Williams shut down temporarily and allowed me to remember Mork's NANU NANU (13A: When doubled, an old sitcom goodbye). I love "Clueless" and all things Austen, so 23A: Novel on which "Clueless" is based ("Emma") made me happy. I'm teaching Austen in the fall, possibly to prisoners, which should be ... awesome, actually. Amused by 36A: Stanley's love in "A Streetcar Named Desire" (Stella!) because I've never seen the play / movie, and so my only experience with the name-shouting moment is in the "Simpsons" musical parody, where a very muscular Ned Flanders (as Stanley) shouts "Stella!" before going on to rhyme it with "yell-a" and "hell-a."

There are two difficult terms in the puzzle - 41A: Craggy mountain ridges (aretes) - which looks wrong even as I type it - and 54D: Hebrew month (Adar). My ignorance of flora led me to write in POPPIES instead of PANSIES at first for 7D: Pretty violets. Speaking of LED (as in "led me to write..."), I botched 38A: Shown the door (led out) at first by having LET OUT, which seems to work equally well (except, you know, in the cross, where I had TUMBBELL). Had an inexplicably hard time bringing up the obvious JUDAS (34D: Traitor), and yet DONEE - a stupid word - was the first thing that popped into my head for that clue (33D: Recipient). For 24A: English philosopher who wrote "Wherever Law ends, Tyranny begins" (Locke) I had the -KE and wrote in the much more unlikely and obscure BURKE (?). The little clue that slowed me (and wife) down the most was the annoying, gnat-like 53A: Airport stat. (ETD) - we both had ETA, and that (plus our near vegetarianism) made 43D: Chicken _____ (Tenders) hard to see. EPITHET (42D: Nickname) was difficult to get too, for some reason. Had the EPIT- part and could think only of EPITOME, obviously wrong. Lastly, I enjoyed the double double-O answers in the SW, both of which have no true "OO" sound in them: 49D: "Shall _____?" ("Want me to continue?") ("go on") and 50D: Nary a soul (no one).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

MONDAY, Aug. 13, 2007 - Andrew Ries

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "Daily / Paper" (5A: With 72-Across, the end of 20-, 37-, 44- or 59-Across)

Got 1A: "Woe is me!" ("Alas!") easy and then moved to the next Across answer, which was 5A, and saw all those numbers and thought "screw that, I'm outta here." Then went on to solve the whole puzzle in under 4 minutes (finally - it's been months since I got under 4). Didn't notice the theme until I began writing this entry. It's pretty cute. Most of the non-theme fill is forgettable or tired, but some of it's nice. I really like both long 9-letter Downs - 11D: Hand protectors for bakers (oven mitts) and 36D: Earned run average, e.g. (statistic). I shouldn't like STATISTIC very much. Not a very fancy word. But something about it is striking me as rather fancy, unlike ALAS and ESTES and EWER and EVEL (ugh) and ARIAS and ALII and some of the others. To its credit, the puzzle does have two X's and a Q, even if it doesn't do much with them. Further, it has some curious words like OCTAL (34D: In base eight) - complemented by the equally mathish 5D: Tenth: Prefix (deci-) - and ... wait a minute: should JESU (10D: Bach's "_____, Joy of Man's Desiring") really be intersecting SEXY (19A: Like a Playmate of the Month)!? The fact that he's intersecting SUN is a nice, punny twist, but SEXY? I don't think Bach meant "Desiring" in that way.

Theme answers:

• 20A: 1951 Montgomery Clift/Elizabeth Taylor film, with "A" ("Place in the Sun")
• 37A: Venus (Morning Star)
• 44A: Place to do business in the Old West (trading post) - I had POST and wrote HITCHING in front of it, which ... I'm not sure how I did that, since it doesn't fit, but I did it, and then was surprised when the far West of the puzzle didn't work out. The only hiccup I had in the whole puzzle.
• 59A: 1987 Prince song and album ("Sign O' the Times") - a gimme (it's a Great double album), though for a couple seconds I thought I was wrong because I couldn't make it fit (I had "of" instead of the cheeky non-Irish "O'").

Words I like in this puzzle:

• GORP (14A: Hiker's snack) - this stuff is gross, but the word sounds fabulous
• ERNIE (15A: Els of the links) - prefer when he's clued in relation to Burt, but this'll do. Hey, speaking of golf, who won the PGA Tournament today...? Aha. This is from the PGA website:

Tiger Woods made the final round of the 89th PGA Championship more interesting than most everyone thought it might be this afternoon, allowing ERNIE Els and Woody Austin to dream of pulling off a major upset down the stretch. But Woods toughened up just when he needed to, protected his lead and put the finishing touches on his fourth PGA Championship and 13th major title.

Good for him.

Back to the puzzle...

• BONN (29D: East Berlin's counterpart during the cold war) - young 'uns will not find this a gimme, what with the Cold War (capitals, right?) being over for a while now
• LITHO (8D: Many an art print, for short) is slightly unusual, though awfully pretentious sounding
• IVOR (38D: Actor/composer Novello) was the one huge question mark in this puzzle. I have no conception of who this is. He was British. He was gay. He was a character in Altman's "Gosford Park"? Well, I've learned something, so I'm done.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

SUNDAY, Aug. 12, 2007 - Cathy Millhauser

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "Lightheaded" - first word in all long theme answers describes a type of moon, clued by 52D: Ralph Kramden catchphrase on old TV ... and a hint to this puzzle's theme ("To the moon!")

Once again, I have had to delete comments from weirdly overzealous commenters who, for some reason, can't wait until my write-up to comment on the Sunday puzzle. I don't care that you get the puzzle on Saturday a.m. and are so bloody excited about it that you just have to tell someone. Don't Tell Me. Even saying anything about the puzzle, Anything, is a massive distraction. Comments section is for commenting on That Day's Puzzle. Why am I having to explain this???

Took me a while to catch the theme, and would have taken much longer if I hadn't gotten 52D fairly early on (third theme entry I got). "Lightheaded" is a Terrible Title for this puzzle. Otherwise, it was a reasonably enjoyable puzzle.

Theme answers:

• 22A: Tarot reading, crystals, spiritualism, etc. (New Age movements) - MOVEMENTS is completely inapt here. No one would describe Tarot or crystals as MOVEMENTS.
• 33A: Traditional English festival (Harvest Home) - never heard of it. Got these first two theme answers and had no idea what the hell was going on.
• 44A: Little John's weapon in Robin Hood legend (quarter staff) - is there another Little John who is not from "Robin Hood legend?"
• 38D: Proverbial portion (half a loaf) - don't know this expression. Had HALF A LOAD for a bit.
• 64A: Brooke Shields movie, with "The" ("Blue Lagoon") - gimme gimme gimme. Cheesy gimme.
• 75A: Its roar is worse than its bite (paper tiger)
• 94A: Dinner bun (crescent roll)
• 103A: Hair removal site (waxing salon) - they have salons just for waxing now!?
• 119A: 1987 Kubrick film ("Full Metal Jacket") - another movie gimme; really helped me out.

There was some tricky stuff up top - I had NEB. for 6D: Sen. John Kerry served there ('Nam), which is a very nice trap [if you don't know the difference between John Kerry and Bob Kerrey - see Comments], but I gotta object to the slangy NAM, which is not quite the same as the abbreviation implied by the clue's use of "Sen." Had KEEN for WEEP (26A: Mourn audibly) which screwed some things up. Thought GO SEE (13D: Start of a referral) was pretty stretchy, if strangely interesting. Real snag happened in the NW, where I had ETHOS instead of ETHIC (14A: Body of precepts), giving me SENSE for CENSE (18D: Perfume, in a way). Having the wrong CPLS for CPOS (29A: U.S.N. noncoms) gave me the hideous ODIL-S for 17D: See red, talk a blue streak, etc. (idioms). Not sure how I extricated myself from that one.

Next tricky part was the whole "California" portion of the puzzle, starting with ENFIELD (87A: Northernmost borough of London), which I'd never heard of - it's an awfully British puzzle in some ways, now that I look at it. 80D: Hiram Walker, for one (distiller) was the last thing I filled in. The intersections with ENFIELD and LATIN (97A: Exempli gratia, e.g.) were what was holding me up. While we're down here, let me just say that I love love love the NILLA / AXILLA nexus (117A: Nabisco's _____ wafers and 98D: Underarm).

Final sticking point was in the far SE, where TOODLEOO (125A: "Ta-ta") took far too long to come to me, largely because I'd forgotten about JOY (122D: Procter & Gamble detergent) and LEON (115D: Province NW of Madrid) was completely unknown to me. I'd also forgotten 112A: "South Pacific" role (Emile). I like the fancy ELYSIAN for 128A: Like a paradise.

More unknowns:

• 106A: Composer Franz (Lehar) - ??
• 30A: Wheel on a spur (rowel) - looks like a typo of any number of words
• 25A: Jack who played a sawmil worker in "Twin Peaks" (Nance)
• 91A: Elongated marine fish (eelpout) - who named that!? Horrible.
• 11D: Spiritual path in Hinduism (Tantra) - mistakenly thought TANTRA was Buddhist (!)
• 35D: Boring tool (trepan) - actually, I knew this (with help of some crosses), but only because it has been in the puzzle before

Unwelcome crosswordese:

• 92D: Singer with the double-platinum album "The Memory of Trees" (Enya) - god, the title alone makes me want to punch her
• 108A: Seed cover (aril) - I always want to call it ANIL
• 86D: French town on the Vire (St. Lo) - more French includes 124A: Capital of France's Aube department (Troyes), and sort of, 116D: W.W. II arena (ETO)

Liked the double-Greekness of AGORA (60D: Old Greek market) and ODEA (53D: Ancient theaters). Also like that I got totally faked out by 99A: Abbr. on Rockies skeds (MST), thinking the clue had to do with baseball. Happy not to get thrown by the shifty 104D: Centaur's head (soft C). I think that's all. Nope - gotta give out a shout out to Nelson ALGREN (58D: Nelson _____, author of "The Man With the Golden Arm"), if only because I have a copy of this book in my paperback collection. Oh, and I almost forgot. Didn't know 46D: Alice of "Hollywood Cavalcade" (Faye), though she is apparently famous enough to have an entire DVD collection devoted to her.


Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

SATURDAY, Aug. 11, 2007 - Karen M. Tracey

Relative difficulty: Challenging

THEME: none

Normally love Karen M. Tracey puzzles, but I'm finding this one particularly hard to love. I got brutalized, primarily by a couple of long foreign/insane names I just did not know. There was a boatload of obscurity in this puzzle, with few patches feeling smooth, and almost none of it feeling very fun. Also some iffy cluing. OK, first the good stuff:

27A: Fictional salesman of '80s ads (Joe Isuzu) - thank god for this gimme, or I don't know how I would have gotten off the metaphorical ground

20D: Mideastern news source (Al Jazeera) - the "J" in JOE ISUZU made this one easy, and it's a very sparkly answer. The "Z" helped me get ZIEGFELD ... sadly, it could not help me come up with ZIEGFELD's first name (more on that later)

52D: Cyborg's beginning? (robo-) is very clever, especially considering it's in near-symmetrical relationship to 13D: Science fiction author Greg (Egan) (I wanted BEAR here)

24D: Sex therapist's suggestion (Viagra) - like VIAGRA in the grid, but not sure about the clue. Is a "sex therapist" different from a doctor? Wouldn't a doctor be way, Way more likely to "suggest" this? In fact, wouldn't [Wife's suggestion] be way more realistic?

54A: Resident of Chinese highlands (giant panda) - by the time I got here, I was so beleaguered by obscure answers (see below) that I was looking for something Way more difficult than this ended up being.

16A: Gain or loss (yardage) and 59A: Relief pitcher Armando (Benitez) were two sports-related answers that helped me a lot. Also nice to have the oddly easy EVEL (53D: First name in motorcycling) in the puzzle.

19A: Where the African Union is headquartered (Addis Ababa) goes beautifully with 11D: Sportswear company whose logo is three parallel stripes (Adidas) - just as JOE ISUZU goes great with TRUST ME (17A: Line from a scam artist) and the [Jambalaya] clues complement each other as well (32D: OLIO, 58A: GRAB BAG).

4D: Best Supporting Actress of 1997 (Basinger) - I had BASI- and still couldn't get this for a while, which is very embarrassing, because I LOVE, and own, "L.A. Confidential."

1A: Whole _____ (shebang) - this gave me fits, but when I got it, I liked it

57D: Cousin of TV (Itt) - had ITT before I ever saw the clue and wondered what the hell it could be - turns out, it's a pop culture reference I actually understood

Iffy cluing:

46A: Firm wheel: Abbr. (pres.) - ugh. I mean, I see it, but ugh. "Wheel?" This is just intentionally shifty without being particularly clever (tho' the fact that I wanted EDAM is funny enough that I don't hate this clue as much as it warrants)

10D: Univ. class (Jrs.) - to be fair, I never actually saw this clue, but still, it's no good. Mushy misdirection. :(

21A: Headache intensifiers (dins) - this is extrapolating too much. Odors and bright lights are far, far more likely to intensify my headaches than DINS.

Guessing and / or Crashing...

36A: Biographical subject of the Best Picture of 1936 (Florenz Ziegfeld)

file under "Guessing" AND "Crashing." ZIEGELD was easy, but the first name remained elusive til the end. FLORENCE? FLORANN? FLO FLO FLO COME ON! I had errors spiking off this answer, most notably 34D: Co-star of Broadway's "Fanny" (Ezio Pinza) - WTF!? Look, Olde Tyme Entertainmente is not my cup of tea, and two such clues, long clues, intersecting at a "Z," with totally exotic names ... that's just not fair. To me. Total wipe-out. Sadly, I let the madness spread to other answers that I really should have nailed, namely 26D: Smart (dressy), where I had BRASSY (!?) and 25A: Dept. store stock (gds.) where apparently I had GBS, which is nothing I recognize.

50D: Virtual meeting of a sort (e-date) - apparently you can just put an "E" in front of anything now and it's a justifiable word. Yuck.

52A: 1988 chart-topping country album ("Reba") - actually not that hard, but I certainly didn't know it; inferred it.

51D: Patrick with a Tony (Magee) - whatever. No idea, and didn't help that it intersected with yet another (what is that, half a dozen now) prehistoric pop culture answer, 62A: McDonald's mascot before Ronald (Speedee).

44A: He beat Botvinnik in 1960 (Tal) - no part of this makes sense to me. I had HAL, because I confused Deep Blue with the computer from "2001: A Space Odyssey." Nevermind that I thought Deep Blue's name was Big Blue (the name for IBM). And nevermind that this gave me H-STRAP (44D: Pump alternative) when I had the correct T-STRAP just a couple days ago.

33D: Monkshood (wolfsbane) - just ... insanity. I managed to piece it together, but ugh.

38D: Like many a road map (foldable) - I had FOLDED UP, which ... well, you can imagine.

29D: _____ Corporation (jewelry retail giant) (Zale) - would have had a Lot of trouble were it not for the "Z" from JOE ISUZU. Wanted DEBEERS before I saw that I was dealing with just four letters.

Lastly, GREBE (7D: Relative of a loon) is just a stupid word - really, that bird should be embarrassed - and I don't think I knew that a group of NOMADS (6D: See 2-Down) is called a HORDE (2D: Group of 6-Down). Also forgot that Henry VIII had six wives. I somehow thought eight, and so had OCHO and even HUIT before I ever had SEIS (14D: Number of wives of Enrique VIII).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Dear AOL customers...

I only just discovered (today) that for months my mail program has been filing messages sent from AOL accounts as "Junk." So if you wrote me from an AOL account - and something like 100 of you did - I apologize for not replying earlier. I don't reply to every bit of mail I get, but I reply to most. A few of your messages really warranted a response, and I just combed through my junk mail and tried to reply to the most elaborate / sincere of the "lost" messages, but there are too many for me to reply to them all. Anyway, I'll keep my eye on the "Junk" box in the future, but if you could send me messages from some other ISP besides AOL, I would be grateful.

Best wishes,
Rex Parker

FRIDAY, Aug. 10, 2007 - Patrick Berry

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none

The top half of this was easy, while the bottom half proved ... less so. First answer I got was a total gimme, 19A: "The _____ the limit!" ("sky's"), which gave me the "K" that I needed to get the ALASKA part of ALASKA PENINSULA (6D: It separates the Bering Sea from the Pacific). Unfortunately for me, the PENINSULA part was far longer in coming. I had WATERWAY, and then I had nothing for a while. Thought about ALASKAN PIPELINE for a while, though that made no logistical sense. Anyway, ALASKA was enough to make short work of the entire top half of the puzzle.

14A: Wizards and Magic, e.g. (basketball teams) wasn't nearly as clever as it wanted to be, though I guess with Potter-mania still fresh in the air, it could have been construed as misdirective by some unwary solvers. I would never describe a BANANA SPLIT as "oblong" (1A: Oblong dessert), but I guess it's at least in the vicinity of "oblong" if you squint real hard. I am not old enough for 8D: Compartmentalized box's contents (pills) to be a gimme ... yet, though I got 17A: Suitable for hypertension sufferers (salt-free) pretty quickly. I have never heard of 9D: Two-time Pro Bowler Leon (Lett). I know of Ronnie LOTT, but not Leon LETT (who becomes the second LEON in the puzzle in as many days - weird). Other stuff up here that I didn't know includes the insane-sounding SMERSH (13D: "From Russia With Love" org.) and the sweet-sounding BABKA (14D: Sweet, glazed cake) - I had BUNDT at first, and that "K" was the last letter I filled in in the grid's top half; felt wrong, but KONG was the only answer that made any kind of sense for 21A: Skull Island denizen, for short (which at first I thought was a "Survivor" reference). Stuff I liked in the top half includes the cleverly clued ICE FLOES (10D: White sheets) and the fabulous Ms. ARETHA Franklin (26A: "_____ Now" (1968 R&B album)).

Transition to the bottom half was impeded by my not knowing PENINSULA, but also by my balking at GALLERIES (27A: Old masters reside in them). I put it in, then nothing in the crosses was coming readily, then I thought "masters" would have been capitalized if painters were indeed at issue. Also balked at PEAS (22A: Mushy _____ (British dish)) because I knew of no D.C. team whose name began wit a "P" (22D: D.C. players). Turns out sports weren't at issue; politics were (POLS). Once I worked the middle out and even got PENINSULA, the three long bottom answers still took time in coming. First to fall, strangely, was CAKES AND ALE (48A: 1930 novel that takes its title from Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night"), which I managed to pull off from the letter string -ESAN-. Eventually I figured out PUTTING UP A FRONT (45A: Hiding one's true feelings), but PIERRE L'ENFANT (47A: French-born architect who designed Washington, D.C.) is entirely unknown to me. With Wizards and POLS and now this architect guy in the puzzle, I say there's far too much D.C.-ness going on. That's not even counting the Supreme Court clue - 38A: Baker v. _____ (landmark Supreme Court voting rights case) (Carr), which I'd never heard of, and which crosses another proper name I did not know (35D: Jeremy _____, 1980s-'90s portrayer of Sherlock Holmes (Brett)), which normally I'd complain about, but to be fair no letter but "R" could have connected those two names.

Stuff I liked in the southern hemisphere included, let's see ... well, I like Scotland, so DIRK is good (43D: Highlands weapon). I like primates in space, so I'm pro-CHIMP (29D: Early "astronaut"). I like sports, generally, though the past two days have really pressed the limit of my sports tolerance (not my knowledge, mind you, just tolerance). After LETT and BASKETBALL TEAMS up top, we get 41A: Long known for playing football (Howie) - he's an announcer now for FOX's NFL coverage, I think - and LINE-UP, the clue for which I really liked (30D: It reveals who's on first), although now that I think of it, this answer isn't sports-related at all. It's more concert-related. Baseball LINE-UPs will tell you who's UP first. And second. And so on. HOFFA (41D: 1992 Nicholson title role) is not the first Nicholson role anyone is likely to think of, just like (ugh) GREEN TEA (27D: Ice cream flavor) is not the first, or second, or twelfth ice cream flavor anyone is likely to think of. Needed SORBET (44A: Gelato sans milk) to get the taste of that one out of my mouth. Never heard of SAKS (25D: "The Odd Couple" director) in a non-5th-Avenue context. Love MISS (37A: Overlook) over GENT (40A: Square dance partner). The end.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

THURSDAY, Aug. 9, 2007 - Tyler Hinman

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: Famous people whose last names end with the sound "GALL" ... at least, I think that's the theme

This puzzle is super-wacky and unusual in many ways. First, no rotational symmetry. Just symmetry. The empty grid looks like one of the aliens from the original Space Invaders video game. Second, the puzzle was really, really easy. I started at 1A: Moon and Starr, for short (QBs) and after fumbling for a few seconds to pick up BARTOK (2D: Hungarian composer who wrote "The Miraculous Mandarin"), I was off and running and never hesitated until I hit the SE corner. Then I just moved to the NE and worked my way down and was done. Don't know how fast because I was doing it untimed on paper, but I'd say somewhere between 6 and 8 minutes. The last odd thing about the puzzle is that it was more fun (for me) than any puzzle has been in a long time - very clever, with some real low-rent pop culture clues that made me very happy.

Theme answers

• 20A: With 22-Across, actor with a black belt in aikido (Steven / Seagal) - this is one of the "low-rent" clues I was talking about. This guy was always cheesy / campy, and I don't think he's been heard of since his mysterious bout of fame in the early-mid nineties.
• 36A: President with a bridge in Montreal named after him (Charles de Gaulle) - filled this in without ever looking at the clue, that's how easy this puzzle was.
• 53A: He said "Great art picks up where nature ends" (Marc Chagall) - I went through a serious Chagall phase in college.

Favorite clues / answers

• 3D: Star near Venus? (Serena) - I stopped, thought about it for about three seconds solid, and it popped into my head. The Williams sisters! Love them. Great, great clue. One of my cats is named SERENA, though that didn't help at all here.
  
• 33A: Item sought in the spring (Easter egg) - got it off of initial "E" and final "G"
• 39D: Protection against smearing (libel law) - nice misdirection in the clue. I like the double "L" in this one (as I like the double "C" in MARC CHAGALL)
• 19A: The Engineers of coll. athletics (RPI) - I suppose if I constructed a puzzle, I would try to find a way to work my alma mater into it too
• 65A: "Who Let the Dogs Out" group (Baha Men) - if there is a lower-rent pop culture answer than STEVEN SEAGAL, surely this is it. Awesome.
• 16A: TV title character voiced by Paul Fusco (Alf) - As long as crosswords exist, this sitcom will Never Die
• 47D: Beer, often (chaser) - this was one of the few clues that I had to take several passes at before it fell - very good colloquial term that I haven't seen much, if ever, in the grid

ATLANTA is common fill (as 7-letter fill goes) and gets clued a million insane ways (e.g. [Bailiwick of TV's Matlock]); today we learn that ATLANTA is "Where Home Depot was founded" (4A). I have no idea what Sharjah is, but 14A: Sharjah's locale (UAE, i.e. United Arab Emirates) was easy enough to piece together (easy, in this case, because I never saw the clue - got it all from crosses). Got ALLA Breve easily because of its recent appearance (54D: _____ breve (musical direction)). 10D: Tenochtitlán dweller looks intimidating, but come on - you know you're dealing with one of three things with a name like that: INCA, MAYA, or (in this case) AZTEC. Maybe OLMEC (a name I know only from its being referenced on "The Simpsons"). I pieced together 50D: Italian apologies (scuse) just from imagining what some Italian guy would say if he bumped into me. And I have no idea who LEON Russell is (40D: Rock singer Russell). I'm going to look him up now, and I hope he's important, or at least funny-looking ... woo hoo! We have "funny-looking!"

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 8, 2007 - Donna S. Levin

Relative difficulty: Easy

Theme: Daddy's Home - or, Raising Pennsylvania - "PA" is added to familiar phrases to create new phrases, which are clued

Did this one rather quickly, finishing around 6 minutes ... but I had a wrong square and had to go back and check my crosses, which took me a while. Finally found out that I had entered EONS for 61A: Poetic times (e'ens), which gave me the obviously wrong WAGOR, instead of WAGER (51D: It might be placed at a window), in the cross.

It's a pretty simple theme, but so what? Sometimes simple is nice. No need to fuss around too much or get overcomplicated. Nothing here is that memorable, but it's a pleasant diversion nonetheless.

Theme answers:

• 20A: Back-to-the-slammer order? (PA-role reversal) - speaking of "Back-to-the-slammer," it looks like I might be teaching in prison starting next month; much more on that later...
• 30A: Reason the kids were left alone? (PA-rent strike)
• 40A: Reward for a Ringling invention? (circus PA-tent)
• 54A: Scuff marks on the prairie? (Buffalo PA-wings) - this one is the weakest; I don't get it - what's a PAWING? Is it just the act of putting one's PAWs on something?

There were no real stumpers in today's puzzle. Some entertaining pop culture clues, though. ADO ANNIE (11D: "Oklahoma!" gal) is a funny, horribly awkward name, though perhaps no funnier than DOOGIE (59A: TV's Howser). DOOGIE is better known these days as a character on "How I Met Your Mother" - can't tell you his character's name, as I don't watch that show, or any live-action sitcom, for that matter. The genre is dead, and I'm waiting for the Resurrection. Wait, I take it back. I like "The Office" and "30 Rock." Like "DOOGIE Howser," they have no laff trak. And I am quite sure that I am now the first person in the history of TV commentary to compare "The Office" and "30 Rock" to "DOOGIE Howser." Other pop culture clues include three movies - "LIFE BOAT" (35D: 1944 Hitchcock classic), which I've never seen, but which stars Tallulah Bankhead, whose autobiography I own (part of my vintage paperback collection); "THE FOG" (14A: 1980 John Carpenter chiller); and "Norma RAE" (60A: "Norma _____") - a musical genre that I've never seen in the grid before: AFRO-POP (4D: Music from across the Atlantic - pretty vague clue, considering how many countries lie across the Atlantic from us) - and a "Saturday Night Live" throwback answer: 51A: Baba _____, Gilda Radner "S.N.L." character (Wawa).

I failed my first test of my newly acquired Biblical knowledge. In desperation, wrote in EBAN for ONAN (25A: Son of Judah), but I figured out my mistake quickly. I mean, really, who can keep all the names in Genesis straight (aside from the really major ones, I mean)? Please don't answer that. It's a hypothetical question.

My wife, currently working the puzzle in the next room, will surely be as annoyed by AL'ER (46A: Devil Ray or Blue Jay, for short) as she was by yesterday's NHL'ER. The Mets, who play at SHEA (33D: 1969 and 2000 World Series venue) are NL'ERs, and their Double-A team plays here in town. I do love a minor league baseball game. I am not a TAPIOCA (43D: Starchy dessert) fan, and rarely come into contact with the stuff, so I have no idea why I nailed that answer off of just the first letter, but I did.

It is weird to me that there is a "Toyota Camry model" (1A), since I always thought "Camry" was the model. Thus SOLARA, a familiar enough name, never readily pops to mind (though I've seen it several times before). Can't really picture a T-STRAP (32D: Woman's shoe style), but with "TS" as the lead letters, I got it pretty quickly anyway. Gertrude EDERLE (17A: Channel swimmer Gertrude) is known to me only from crosswords, and while I know RONA Barrett, RONA Jaffe (18A: Novelist Jaffe) is a bit of a mystery to me. Lastly, have you ever noticed how many letters Paul Anka and SRI LANKA (12D: Ceylon, now) have in common? Now you have.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS Check out my non-biological progeny working the grid. I can't tell you how happy these pictures make me.

TUESDAY, Aug. 7, 2007 - Daniel Kantor

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: As Heard On "The Sopranos"...

Is FUHGEDABOUDIT (25A: "Not on your life!") standard, spelling-wise? Is that in the dictionary? I feel like half my time on this puzzle was spent amending the spelling for that entry alone. I'm exaggerating, but not a lot.

Other theme answers:

• 20A: "Just like that!" ("Bada bing!")
• 42A: "Yeah, wanna start somethin'?" ("You talkin' to me") - that's more "Taxi Driver" than "Sopranos," but whatever
• 50A: "The Sopranos" clip? ... or where you might hear 20-, 25- and 42-Across (mob scene) - I don't quite get it. Or maybe I do. I mean ... this is a play on words, right? Because MOB SCENE in general usage just means a really crowded place, not a place where mobsters hang out.

I like that the symmetrically-placed EZ-PASS (22A: Electronic toll-collecting system in the Northeast) and BADDIE (47A: No-goodnik) have a certain thematic edge to them, the first relating to Jersey (they have EZ-PASS there, right?) and the second relating to criminality.

Stupid mistakes in this once include the rookie ELSA / ILSA (36A: Rick's "Casablanca" love) screw-up, which kept the cruel-sounding IRON CAGE (36D: Circus animal enclosure) hidden for Far too long. Also the CARATS / KARATS (40A: Gold standards) screw-up. Also had URGED for EGGED (59A: Goaded, with "on"). Also had CREW CUT for BUZZ CUT (9D: Army barber's specialty) - BUZZ CUT is much better, if only for the "Z"s. Had a lot of trouble remembering the correct fill for 30D: "Bali _____" ("Hai"). I had HOO, though I think I was thinking of "ballyhoo." In fact, I'm sure of it. "Bali HAI" is a song from "South Pacific."

Otherwise, no serious trouble. Got off to a bad start when I nailed 1A: Liquor holder in a coat pocket (flask) but proceeded to FLUB every Down off of it except FLAB (1D: "Spare tire"). LAVA was pretty well disguised in 2D: Content of some cones, and KIT BAGS (5D: Toiletries holders) is not a phrase I'm familiar with. To me, KIT implies the BAG. For some reason even 4D: Farmer's headwear (straw hat) gave me a little trouble. And yet I got 7D: Henry Clay, politically (Whig) instantly. Go figure.

URANO took some effort (26D: Heavens: Prefix), and was not terribly welcome after I'd already seen a similarly long prefix in the puzzle at 14A: Milk: Prefix (lacti-). Cleverest answer in the puzzle was definitely A TISKET (41D: Start of an Ella Fitzgerald standard) - and crossing Ella (beautiful name...) with KAREN (56A: One of the Carpenters) makes for a nice little musical moment down there in the SE. Sorry Billy OCEAN (54A: Continent separator) - you aren't allowed in music corner this evening. "Caribbean Queen" will have to wait for another night.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS I've finally updated my other blog, where you can now see what I would look like if I were a character on "The Simpsons." Also, I've begun a new project of scanning in / commenting on the covers of the books in my massive vintage paperback collection.

See you tomorrow.

MONDAY, Aug. 6, 2007 - Allan E. Parrish

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: Bowling - 6 long theme answers end with bowling-related words (though answers themselves are not bowling-related)

Another average Monday for me. My times are astonishingly regular on Monday puzzles - I managed to break 4 minutes a few times earlier in the year, but lately, every Monday is coming out about 4:25. Clearly I'm not trying hard enough to get my speed up, which may not be a bad thing. I figure, over time, my average will slowly come down ... until I get old-person's-brain, and my times start to go back up again; when does that happen? No offense to old people. I'll be joining your ranks soon enough.

This puzzle had a few odd / arcane words - I ran into a brick wall the first time I hit the SW corner because I had no idea what 51A: Book size was going for; and it ended in "O?" I thought maybe it was "quarto," but it didn't fit and seemed awfully technically literary for a Monday. Turns out I was on the right track, just one fold short (a quarto is made from folding one page twice to produce a sheet of four leaves; third fold gets you eight leaves - OCTAVO). Problem in SW was trifold, as I blew OCTAVO in part because I couldn't get two crucial Downs - 47D: Like some balloons, questions and corn (popped) and 48D: Playwright Sean (O'Casey). As my wife can tell you, as far as puzzles go, I am weakest when given word associations like 47D, especially when the associations come in threes. We do the cryptic and the standard British-style xword in The Listener (NZ) every week, and she is unfailingly faster at getting the kind of question that's phrased: "What word can precede x, y, or z?" My normally supple brain just locks up. Not sure why.

Flying through the puzzle, I didn't notice the theme, though I sensed it had something to do with repeated two-letter sets - the two FR's in FREEZE FRAME (17A: Result of hitting the pause button on a movie), two NA's in BANANA SPLIT (11D: Dairy Queen offering), two ST's in FIRST STRIKE (25D: Attack before being attacked). I really liked HAT PINS (27D: Millinery accessories) and TO SPARE (38A: Extra) before I ever knew they were theme answers. Sometimes themes result in forced-feeling fill - other times, themes inspire freshness and creativity. Today, the latter prevailed more often than not. Two appearances of TIN PAN ALLEY (61A: Old-time songwriters' locale) inside of one week is a bit much (see that Periodic Table puzzle a few days back), but otherwise, no complaints. Oh, and while we're on the subject of repeats, PARROTS (56A: Chatty birds) was in yesterday's puzzle. NO LIE (45A: "Honest to goodness!").

Most insane word in the puzzle is BOATEL (12D: Overnight accommodations by the shore). CATO (58A: "The Censor" of ancient Rome) was slightly challenging, but LEO XI (14A: Pope before Paul V, whose papacy lasted less than four weeks)!!! When it comes to popes, the clues may as well be [Early 12th century year] or some such crap because I'm just going to have to piece it together from crosses. Had to piece together OTTAWAS (35A: Chief Pontiac's tribe) from the crosses as well. Everything else was pretty smooth sailing.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

SUNDAY, Aug. 5, 2007 - Caroline Leong

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "Winging It" - all theme answers are composed entirely of bird names

Dear person who gave away the theme to today's puzzle in Yesterday's Comments section,

Don't ever do that again. Why would you do that? Most of you will not have seen this person's post, as I deleted it as soon as I saw it. Those of you privileged enough to get Sunday's paper on Saturday morning somehow - I don't want to hear about it 'til I've posted my commentary. Please, I know you mean well, but think before you type.

That said, this theme was pretty easy to get, so no major damage done. It's all very cute and clever. Nothing mind-blowing. Pleasant. And I learned a few new bird names, including MERLIN, RAILS, COOTS, and BOOBIES.

Theme answers:

• 23A: Nurse Florence sells adventures? (Nightingale hawks larks)
• 31A: Actor Steve repeats what geezers say? (Martin parrots coots)
• 57A: Lawyer Atticus avoids crazies? (Finch ducks cuckoos)
• 69A: Architect Christopher gobbles banisters? (Wren swallows rails)
• 93A: Famed magician cheats chumps? (Merlin rooks boobies)
• 106A: Disney's Captain Jack dupes church leaders? (Sparrow gulls cardinals)

Three minor trouble spots: "Oregon," "N. Carolina," and "Florida"

In the west, I couldn't figure out what type of "croak" was meant at 41A: Croak, and sense I had TAG instead of TAP for 32D: Select, I had the wrong last letter (a "G" instead of the actual "P"), so I didn't see RASP for a while. Also, my American History is bad (sorry, honey, but it's true - don't be too ashamed), so ROLFE (41D: Jamestown colonist) was kind of a guess, and one I made only after a bit of flailing around.

Back east, I didn't know RAILS were birds, but even with that guess, there were many crosses that were a bit obscure to me, including ones I'd had before like 67D: _____ Janis, star of Broadway's "Puzzles of 1925" (Elsie) and 83A: 1970s-'80s supermodel Carangi (Gia). ASSAM was a great, helpful guess on my part (68D: Tea-growing area of the Himalayas).

Then down into the deep southeast, I had SIS for SIB (87D: Household member, for short), which hid the mysterious BOOBIES from me for a while. Also never heard of CORDED tires (91D: Like some tires). I would say that we witnessed the return of EULER today (98D: Mathematician who introduced the function symbol f(x)), but that's not exactly right, since he Never Went Anywhere. He just hung around after the rest of yesterday's answers went home. Other odd but familiar names include EULA (73D: Faulkner femme fatale _____ Varner) and IOLA (47A: Kansas county seat on the Neosho River). Oh, and the ubiquitous ANKA (17D: "Lonely Boy" singer/writer).

Here's a bunch of stuff I did not know, or barely knew, and am apt to (re)forget:

• 11A: Kohada, on a sushi menu (shad) - SHAD is one of the ugliest short words, and one of the most unattractive food names imaginable
• 22A: Actress Wood of "Diamonds Are Forever" (Lana) - I'd have preferred Turner or Lang here
• 28A: French silk (soie) - nice triple vowel run
• 45A: Smutch (grime) - "how much do you want?" "Oh, I don't know ... how about [holds hands one foot apart] ... 'smuch?
• 64A: Word game popularized by James Thurber (Ghost) - define "popularized"...
• 6D: Particles in electrolysis (anions) - I love this answer; it's all-purpose, I see it all the time, and I honestly don't know what it means
• 78A: Some military helicopters, familiarly (Hueys) - I think I know only APACHES
  
• 46D: Food writer Ruth (Reichl) - her name is semi-familiar, though I don't know why
• 80D: Norse deity of mischief (Loki) - guessing / knowing this helped me change FREES to FLEES (79A: Cuts out). I feel as if some TV show I watch recently made a LOKI joke, but I can't recall it, which is too bad, as you never know when you'll need a good LOKI joke.
• 102D: Mideast capital (Sana) - always forget this one. Unlike in yesterday's [New Zealand capital], today's "capital" actually means a capital city, not a form of currency.

'Slate, and I'm off to bed.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

SATURDAY, Aug. 4, 2007 - Byron Walden

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none

Damn! I should have done this at the NYT applet - I finally would have been able to see my name on the top ten list, and for a while too. I solved this in just over 16 minutes, the first third of which was spent staring at almost totally empty space. I managed to get ELICITED (9D: Brought out) with no help, but after that - zip. Just a sad little TAC (19A: Central square, maybe) appended to ELICITED. First trip through all of the Downs on top got me precisely squat - ELICTED and OPP. (10D: NE for SW, e.g.), and that's it. Desperate, I inferred a final "S" from the apparently plural 1D: Galas (big dos) and from that got SNL (25A: _____ Digital Shorts (late-night comic bits). Totally guessed 21A: First word of "Shrek" (Once...), which gave me the double-N necessary to get ETIENNE (2D: Saint-_____-du-Mont, church containing the remains of the patron saint of Paris), and then I finally began to take apart the triple-stack at the top of the puzzle. Also totally guessed I LIE (24A: "Lo, here _____, / Never to rise again": "Hamlet"); but as with the "Shrek" clue, you don't need to know this to get it - you just need to stop and think "If I were this answer, what would I be?" I had I SIT for I LIE, but I worked it out eventually. The key is persistence and patience. In other words, KEEP ON KEEPING ON (60A: Last).

I really wanted 4D: Hardy one? (Ollie) to be TESS, and for completely mysterious reasons I was nearly certain that 20A: 50 Cent cover (do-rag) was "MY WAY." Some rapper I know covered, or at least sampled that song. Maybe Jay-Z. ANYway...

God bless Herr EULER (30A: Discoverer of the law of quadratic reciprocity), who appears in the puzzle for at least the third time this year, and second time in the past couple weeks. He got me a little traction in the "Utah" portion of the puzzle. I was wrong about 27A: Drawing of the heart? (tug) at first - I had EEG, but that mistake got me the "G" which got me GRAPE (28D: Gatorade choice) - always good when mistakes work out.

How is the ITALIAN ALPHABET (16A: Dante characters?) different from the English alphabet. Do they have characters we don't???

I like the great carnie quality of the puzzle, with the fabulous, long, intersecting entries BEARDED LADY (34A: Sideshow staple) and DUNK TANK (35D: Charity carnival feature). While at the carnival, why not enjoy a BURRITO (22D: Chihuahua fare)? Or, if the carnival is in the South, some SOPS (47A: Food eaten with gravy) and OKRAS (49A: Mallow family members).

The puzzle has a little bit of everything - lots of tiny sub-themes, from exotic locales like HANOI and BENIN; to musical answers like THAD Jones (11D: Jazz trumpeter/composer Jones), Ray EBERLE (13D: "Over the Rainbow" vocalist Ray), "THE GIRL FROM IPANEMA" (17A: The "she" in the lyric "And when she passes, I smile"), LEO Arnaud (31D: Olympics theme composer Arnaud), YODELING (36D: Higher calling?), and SUZI Quatro (55D: 1970s rocker Quatro); to baseball answers like FARM CLUB (3D: Place for some prospects) and CIN (57D: N.L. Central team, on scoreboards); to higher education answers like TAS (54A: Some stipend recipients, for short) and AMERICAN STUDIES (56A: Interdisciplinary college major); to sciencey answers like EPSOM / SALTS (38A: With 55-Across, MgSO4.7H2O) and NUCLEUS (23D: Chromosome home). . . whew. When I started that list, I had no idea how long it was going to be.

Most colorful answer, for my money, was NICOTINE LOZENGE (59A: Patch alternative). There were two words I'd never seen before: DEMIT (18A: Relinquish) and HAMAN (8D: Villain in the book of Esther). Got temporarily frustrated by 45A: Capital of New Zealand: Abbr. (dol.) - "It's Wellington, dammit," I thought. Ah yes, the old "'capital' = money" trick. Well played, Mr. Walden. Who would expect such bush league shenanigans from the world's most devilish constructor? Not I. I have no idea what any of the following means: 53D: Co-founder of the Non-Aligned Movement, 1961 - but TITO is a name and it fit, so there. I wanted MAYDAY Malone, then SAMMIE, for the ultimately anti-climactic NORMIE (41D: Nickname on "Cheers"). Lastly, I learned that I have a STIRRUP in my ear (6D: Place for a stirrup). Gross / cool.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

FRIDAY, Aug. 3, 2007 - Charles Barasch

Relative difficulty: Challenging

THEME: none

Well I NEVER (46D: "How dare you!") heard of the FIBONACCI SERIES (35A: "The Da Vinci Code" sequence). That basically tells you all you need to know about my solving experience. I wouldn't touch "The Da Vinci Code" (book or movie) with a ten foot pole. Oh, and the GAELS (30D: Iona College athletes) is the stupidest name for a college team ever. GAELS is barely a word. I had GAULS for the longest time, making SERIES invisible to me. In fact, I kept getting frustrated that I couldn't make ANYTHING out of the crosses I had for FIBONACCI SERIES. Wanted ACCESSORIES to be involved somehow. So bad was all this that I second-guessed MALRAUX (26D: France's first minister of culture, 1959-69), kept changing INSECURE (36D: Wobbly) to UNSECURE and back again, and repeatedly cursed the downright stupidity of the clue for B NATURAL (37D: Note offering good advice for life?). Speaking of B NATURAL, if you have never seen this short film from "Mystery Science Theater 3000," you really should. Oh, and here's Part II, if you really want more.

The rest of the puzzle was tough, but fair. The other 15-letter answer in the puzzle, VOODOO ECONOMICS (8D: Derogatory term popularized by George H.W. Bush) was s-h-h-h-ooooo much better than that "Da Vinci" code crap. I was thinking TAX-AND-SPENDER or some such dreck, but the actual answer is great (used by Bush against Reagan and his "supply-side economics," back when he and Reagan were both running for the Republican presidential nomination). I'd forgotten about that phrase. Had PANTIES for JAMMIES (53A: Undercover wear?), so that screwed things up a bit. Really like the way KOOKY (49A: Out there) looks over JAMMIES, btw. SKI TOW (43D: Help in getting up) is a weird term. It's called a T-BAR where I come from.

I don't think I ever knew Chamorro's first name - 15A: Two-time Nicaraguan president Chamorro (Emiliano). Was lucky to remember SAHL (54D: "Look Forward in Anger" comedian) from a puzzle not too long ago. I thought XENA had a sidekick. Didn't know she was one (51A: Gabrielle's sidekick, in a TV series). No idea how I remembered (almost instantly) the name of the family on "Soap" - 6D: "Soap family" (Tates). If I hadn't lived my early life in California, and had relatives in the Bay Area, I might still be puzzling over SAN MATEO (17A: County whose seat is Redwood City). Wanted 23A: Beaucoup de Louises (rois) to be ELLES, so feminine does that plural look. Had I'VE GOT IT for 1A: Celebratory cry (Mazel Tov), and even after I knew the answer, the spelling ... was another story. Other tough bits (for me) included

• 44A: _____ Bay (South China Sea inlet) (Subic) (!?);
• 10D: Head makeup (suds) (which I only just now got);
• 2D: Stuff in a bomb (amatol);
• 4D: Hackberry relative (elm);
• 5D: Pseudologue (liar); and
• 55A: Prescription notation (ter) - TER means "three" in Latin, but this could have been anything; I had B.I.D.

Oh, and I don't think I've ever seen JEAN in the singular (53D: Sturdy, twilled cotton fabric). Oh, and further, 56A: Bottle (nurser)!?!?! Yuck. [Sipper] or [Mother, perhaps]. The bottle can't actually "nurse" anything without the agency of a human (oh, unless it's one of those upside-down bottles that hang in animal cages, I guess, ugh). This answer does tie in semi-nicely, however, with 42A: Temp takers (RNs) and 52A: Place for 42-Across (ICU). Two other parts I liked - appropriately, I find the word ANODYNES soothing (14D: Soothing things); and 58A: Horror cry ("It's alive!") is easily the best answer in this grid.

In case you ever wondered what Billy GRAHAM (60A: Religious leader who wrote "Peace With God") would look like on top of SELENA (62A: Jennifer Lopez title role) - now you know.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

THURSDAY, Aug. 2, 2007 - Robert Dillman

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: Atomic Phrases - common phrases that contain elements (e.g. iron) have those elements replaced in the grid by their atomic symbols from the Periodic Table of Elements (e.g. FE)

Didn't take me long to figure out the theme, but not knowing the symbols for "tin" and "lead" off the top of my head really killed me - made the N and the W of the puzzle very sloggy. Otherwise, just a few odd names and some slanted cluing - nothing terribly difficult.

Theme answers:

• 17A: "Shake a leg!" ("Get the PB out!") - knew the phrase, but initially thought "rebus," and so had "Get the lead [out]," with out crammed into one square. But that put "out" in the third position of a four-letter word in the cross, which seemed highly doubtful. And was.
• 11D: Try to win (go for the AU) - the final "U" was what tipped me to the theme.
• 24D: Christmas song since the 1950s ("AG Bells")
• 28D: Songwriters' home (SN Pan Alley)
• 59A: Sound out? (cast FE alibi) - this one threw me, mainly because I had no idea what the clue meant. "Sound" = adj. and "out" = n. Rough. Even with "cast FE" in place, I was slow on the uptake. Couldn't make "skillet" fit (or make sense).

The current Barry Bonds mania made STEROID (21A: Target of some testing) easy (once I had a few of the end letters). Bonds could tie Hank Aaron's home run record tonight. In fact, he could be tying it as I type. I hope so. Anything to kill the hype / controversy. I'm bored.

Did not watch "Seinfeld" with any regularity (i.e. I hardly ever watched it), and so SAAB (32A: Car driven by Seinfeld on "Seinfeld") was something I just inferred from crosses. First instinct: YUGO. The "Seinfeld" clue joins a handful of other quirky pop culture clues in today's puzzle. 16A: 1992 U2 top 10 hit ("One") was a gimme - their only hit in three letters, I think. Mary J. Blige and Bono did a duet of this song for Katrina relief a couple years back and it was unfathomably great. Her contribution made the original version sound soporific by comparison. 38A: Ayres who played filmdom's Dr. Kildare (Lew) was a mystery to me, as was 56D: "_____ Baby" ("Hair" song) ("Abie") - original way to clue the old school crosswordese ABIE (of "Abie's Irish Rose"... fame?). And in 19th-century popular culture, we have ELIZA (18D: "Uncle Tom's Cabin" woman), which I also, sadly, didn't know.

Some old to ancient stuff gave me fits, including 26A: Sobriquet for Charles V, with "the" (Wise). I wanted BALD. Was expecting something much more esoteric or shifty from 6D: Like old Rome (imperial). I swear to you that I seriously considered ARTERIAL (as in ... all roads lead to Rome, so ... it makes sense from a Dept. of Transportation perspective). Made a good guess on 5D: Prophet who predicted the destruction of Nineveh (Nahum), not because I'd ever heard that name in a biblical context, but because I had -AH-- and I knew of the name NAHUM from poet / librettist NAHUM Tate (wrote libretto for Purcell's "Dido & Aeneas" - and I said I knew nothing about opera!).

EDINA is probably the most famous suburb in all of CrossWorld, and I like it 'cause it reminds me of my friends who live in St. Paul. I challenge 34D: Some fraternity men (etas); or, rather, I claim that it is stupid to call yourself an "eta." The most unmanly sounding Greek letter I can think of (besides Mu, I mean). After wading through Many pictures of pretentious bars, I finally found an I-BAR (27D: Letter-shaped part of a grate), just to confirm that there is in fact something particularly I-shaped about it. I was thinking "aren't all bars kind of shaped like "I"s?" Lastly, screw cribbage - 7D: Certain jack, in cribbage (nob).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld