THURSDAY, Jul. 31, 2008 – Allan E. Parrish (1979 AC/DC seven-time platinum album / Author of a once-popular book of quotations)

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

Oh, it’s really too bad that Rex is still on vacation; I’m sure he’d have some Danteësque explanation for the theme that really pulled it all together and which might mystify my math-major mind. And it’s really too bad that PuzzleGirl’s not up today, because the theme entries are expressed musically, and I’m sure she’s all over that. Me, I had quite a bit of trouble with this puzzle, but I still generally enjoyed it.


This was one of my slowest Thursdays of the year, and only part of the reason can be attributed to the distractions of my houseguests, the PBS show we were watching about an aircraft Carrier, or the continuing arctic-like conditions in my living room. Though when I look back at my other relatively slow times, often the puzzles seem to be not bad for lots of people. But I know PuzzleGirl had some problems today, too, so I don’t feel bad.

THEME: From Heaven to Hell – answers are musical and include Heaven, Earth, and Hell.

Theme answers:

• 19A: 1979 Bee Gees chart-topper (Too Much Heaven)
• 34A: Band with the 1970 hit “Get Ready” (Rare Earth)
• 50A: 1979 AC/DC seven-time platinum album? (Highway To Hell) – I recognized all of the songs once I heard them, but this is the one I knew the answer to right away. Though I like Get Ready more...

Lots of stuff to talk about, and I’ve let Rex and morning people down by being so late so I’ll just get to it.

The Stuff:

• 1A: Temple activity (worship) - wanted PRAYING. Or, really, lots of other stuff. This was one of my last fills. Don’t tell my mom.
  
• 2A: Tex-Mex treats (tamales) - My first answer, and very surprised to find I was right. In honor, I will try to make it to the market today for tamales for lunch.
  
• 18A: Bach work (cantata) – isn’t that a cat food commercial? Really didn’t help me to cross that with 12D: Michael ___, Bush secretary of health and human services (Leavitt) and 14D: Suffragist Elizabeth Cady ___ (Stanton).
  
• 21A: Civvies (mufti) – Uh, huh? I guess it’s accurate:
  ▸ noun: a jurist who interprets Muslim religious law
  ▸ noun: civilian dress worn by a person who is entitled to wear a military uniform
  But...it’s ridiculous. Mufti sounds like a sandwich, or an endearment for a small woman in a nursery rhyme. Maybe Ken dresses in mufti, GI Joe does not.
  
• 25A: Great Plains tribe (oto) – crosses 22D: Multipurpose truck (ute). Lotsa cluing options here.
  
• 30A: Professor Lupin in Harry Potter books, e.g. (werewolf) – Also, Michael J. Fox and Jason Bateman. I always want this to have more letters.
  
  I feel a little bad because my posted picture isn’t actually from Harry Potter, but I’ve never been into the series…I read the first, and saw that movie, but it didn’t draw me back for more. But...Frisbee!
  
• 39A: Many Latin compositions (epitaphs) – Not epitaths, and not at all what I was expecting to put here. I’m only a little embarrassed to admit the trouble I had getting to 40D: Military wing (phalanx). I had (T)HALAN_ for a long time, crossed with 62A: Takes over (anne_es). I finally had to run through the alphabet, then I chuckled with pity at, well, me.
  
• 47A: Author of a once-popular book of quotations (Mao) – when it wasn’t Bartlett, I was thinking it was maybe from Cats.
  
• 55A: Blow up (enlarge) – Someday, I will not think explosion with this common clue/answer.
  
• 59A: Smaller than small (teenier) – Does this work? I don’t think this works. What’s that second small doing in there? Does this make anyone else think “ice cold”?
  
• 60A: Where the buoys are? (channel) – While you’re there, watch out for 10D: Harbor danger (mine(s)).
  
  
  
  
  
• 1D: Fighters’ org. (WBC) – three letters, put a B in the middle and work on the crosses.
  
• 5D: Radio ___ (onetime propaganda source) (Hanoi) – A bit older and I’m sure this was a gimme. I had HAITI for a long time, along with To Touch Heaven, a perfectly plausible Bee Gees song title. PuzzleGirl just sent me an email joking about Bee Gees music to make fun of the fact that I’d never heard of some country dude she likes and for another reason.
  
• 9D: Menotti title character (Amahl) – Is this opera? Then the answer must be ARIA or OTELLO or FIGARO? No? Then I don’t know it.
  
• 11D: Architectural pier (anta) – Is this architecture? Then the answer must be...actually, I don’t even know a standard answer here. (Sorry Ulrich!)
  20D: One that’s “perky” in the morning (coffee pot) – obvious, but still fun.
  
• 26D: Chess tactic that involves attacking two pieces at once (fork) – That makes a lot of sense. In retrospect. But this was the last area I solved. My problem: I had ST MARY for 36A: One of the four evangelists, briefly (St Mark). And the chess tactic could easily have been named after someone, and 26A: County of St. Andrews, Scotland (Fife) could have been lots of stuff. I think my first stab was FORY, but I think I tried TORY and maybe WORY before changing my saint. I’m an ordained minister, but I never had to study evangelists or anything.
  
• 37D: Drill instructor’s charge (trainee) – I got to this exactly when the carrier-folk on tv started taling about their new trainees.
  38D: Got around at a get-together (mingled) – I’m a good schmoozer, maybe the situation in which I’m most socially competent. Mingling is much harder if you don’t know everyone.
  
• 42D: Hardly a chug (sip) - Again.
  
• 44D: Football Hall-of-Famer Gale (Sayers) – His career was cut short by injury, but when he played he was one of the best ever. He’s also famous from the movie Brian’s Song, which detailed his close friendship with his (white) teammate, Brian Piccolo, during Brian’s struggle with cancer. A great movie and story, but I’ll post this Sayers video instead.
  
  
  
• 49D: “Walkin’ After Midnight” hitmaker, 1957 (Cline) – I assume she wore her boots.
  
• 51D: Mandlikova of tennis fame (Hana) – I have yet to fully define my wheelhouse, but 80’s tennis stars (and she was, absolutely) are definitely in it.

Sorry this was late, all. Wade tomorrow!

Signed (contritely), SethG, Royal Vizier of CrossWorld

WEDNESDAY, Jul. 30, 2008 - Elizabeth A. Long (EARLY COLONISTS ALONG THE DELAWARE / LEADING LADY LAURA)

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: SHAKESPEARE quote attributed to Sam Goldwyn: "Fantastic! And it was all written with a feather!" (letters of SHAKESPEARE appear, in reading order, in circled squares throughout the puzzle)

REX PARKER remains on vacation in New Zealand.

Thus: I am officially not here. Not blogging. On vacation. But I can't help myself. So I'm going to mutter a few things and then let one of my surrogates take over. I had a rough time with the quote, as it requires punctuation after "FANTASTIC" to make any sense. It's not a great quote. But I'm terribly impressed that this puzzle could get PHLOX (49D: Jacob's-ladder, for one), BWANA (47D: Swahili form of address), SWALE (34D: Low marshland), and ARHAT (2D: Enlightened Buddhist) into the grid and still remain Wednesday level. And, as always, I'm impressed with Laura LINNEY (9D: Leading lady Laura), however, whenever, and wherever she appears.

Full write-up forthcoming later in the day.

RP

PS New York Magazine on-line had a nice little write-up of this blog in its Culture Vulture / Agenda section yesterday, 7/29/08. I love publicity, but being on the other side of the world when I get it is surprisingly disconcerting. Like it's not really happening ... or like somebody fabulous and famous (say, Laura Linney) is phoning me at home, and I'm not there to take the call.

P.P.S. Ms. Linney, if you have indeed been trying to reach me (as occasionally happens in my dreams), I'll be home soon, I swear. Please call back.

---

And, surrogate SethG here with the full write-up. Or full~ish. I never really clicked with this puzzle, and I fear that my write-up will be as scattershot as my solving approach was.

Where do I begin? I guess in the middle, since Rex already hit the high points.

Okay, I’ll start with NATAL (19A: Birth-related). Still no kid for the very pregnant couple living with me until yes kid. Why I’m thinking about it right now: it’s 90 degrees in Minneapolis, but the mom-to-be has my air conditioning turned up so high that I’m wearing pajamas, a sweatshirt, and covered by a blanket as I lie on the couch writing this. Brr.

(And if there’s still no kid this weekend we may play poker, and if we do they’ll both be there...)

Stuff I liked:
A friend of mine is a fellow Carleton ALUM (15A: Homecoming returnee) named Laura. Not Linney, but still a good enough excuse to link to a song of hers. I saw her in concert last year in Melbourne, a fantastic show but my camera was stolen the next day so I don’t have any pictures. But I do have a picture from a month earlier in New Zealand, where I happened to stay on a sheep farm not long after her parents did. It’s a small, small world.

I don’t need to use any BEE (24A: Comb maker) products—I shaved most of my hair off this weekend. Finally.

I don't like LIMAS (55A: Succotash ingredients), and don't like the use of the plural, but I love the word Succotash. For obvious reasons...

I think we’ve seen AWN (48A: Foxtail feature) and HEISTS (44D: The job in “The Italian Job”, and others) and ATTIC (33D: Dusty place, traditionally) and SIP (45A: Hardly a gulp) recently.

KNEECAP (25A: Gangster’s target, maybe) crosses SMACKDOWN (8D: Wrestling show).

One of the reasons I chose Carleton was because it had no frats, but I still enjoy a good TOGA (54D: “Julius Caesar” costume) party as much as the next guy. In honor of PuzzleGirl’s last day in Costa Rica I bring you the following:

Yes, I know, I’m kidding. But boy there was a lot I didn’t know in this puzzle.

What I didn't know:
ARHAT (2D: Enlightened Buddhist). Like Teddy? Would you say that (Salinger’s) Teddy has achieved arhatship? That’s just a weird word.

PHLOX (49D: Jacob's-ladder, for one). Jacob’s ladder is a biblical Stairway to Heaven and a 1990 horror film, but I think this clue is about plants. That’s just an ugly word.

BWANA (47D: Swahili form of address). My roommates live in Uganda, were there’s a bit of Swahili but mostly not. I spent time with them there, and also in Tanzania and Kenya, where it’s the dominant language, but none of us knew this.

(5A: Goober) PEAS. Uh, what? Maybe that explains why I never liked the candy. And I don’t remember hearing of SADA (18A: Thompson of TV’s “Family”), so I had a lot of trouble with the Idaho region. I originally had MASSES instead of PASSEL (5D: Large quantity), and SYL (29A: Word part: Abbr.) is an awkward Abbr. so it took me a bit to work my way out.

PEAS is just one of what seems to be an abnormally high number of fill-in-the-blank clues. Also:

• AT AN (40A: Undisclosed location)
• PHD (49A: Candidate)
• “GODS (62A: and Monsters” (1998 film))
• “NOT (11D: an option”)
• TRA (12D:-la)
• (26D: Magna) CARTA
• ELLIS (30D: Island, museum site since 1990)
• (56D: “Now) I’VE (seen everything!”)

By the way, I should mention that I really hate overly generic fill-in-the-blanks. We didn’t really have any of those today, but we’ve recently had stuff like “That’s ___!” or “Let ___” or "Be ___ and ..." Please stop.

(45D: Early colonists along the Delaware) were SWEDES. Stefan Edberg, my idol growing up, is Swedish, as is Anita Ekberg.

Asante sana,
SethG

PPPS it's Rex again. This is my absolute favorite photograph of my NZ trip so far. You can really appreciate the beauty of Lake Hawea, but at the same time, you can gaze slack-jawed at the gangly weirdo who appears to be break-dancing for a rapt audience of two dogs and a little girl. The orange gloves really seal the deal.

TUESDAY, Jul. 29, 2008 -- David Kwong and Emily Halpern ("Casablana" star, informally / GIBBONS OF TV TALK / ATOLL MAKEUP)

Relative difficulty: Easy

It was Poker Night here tonight and when the game finally broke up (one guy leaving with pretty much all the money and another guy promising he wouldn't be back next week) I had some technical difficulties, so I'm way behind schedule. Plus I'm exhausted -- from, ya know, reading, eating, and lazing around the pool all day -- so I'm going to get straight to the puzzle and who knows what I'll say?

THEME: Mediocrity -- Theme answers are phrases that include the word "great," but substitute a word that means … something less than great.

Theme Answers:

• 17A: Mediocre F. Scott Fitzgerald novel? (The Decent Gatsby)
  
• 27A: Mediocre place to scuba? (Good Barrier Reef)
  
• 49A: Mediocre Steve McQueen film? (The Not Bad Escape)
  
• 65A: Mediocre Jerry Lee Lewis hit? (Okay Balls of Fire)

I really like this theme. As I said yesterday, I typically don't pay attention to the themes in early-week puzzles, but I just couldn't figure out how to ignore four 15-letter theme answers. When I finally got enough crosses to figure out The Decent Gatsby, I went straight to the other theme answers and got them quickly, which helped a lot. The only teeny, tiny quibble I have with theme -- and I really hate to even bring this up because I really like the theme and the puzzle in general -- is that it includes a book, a movie, a song, and … the largest coral reef system in the world? One of these things is not like the others, folks. But I'm not going to let that stop me from saying once again that I really like this theme. I even like a lot of the fill. And, really, how often does that happen on a Tuesday?

Bullet points (cuz that's how I roll):

• 1A: "Casablanca" star, informally (Bogie). I think I've been watching too much golf, because I really wanted to spell it "bogey."
  

• 16A: Bejeweled topper (tiara). Every once in a while I see an otherwise normally clad young woman wearing a tiara in public. I always wonder if that's her go-to fashion accessory or if she lost a bet or what.
  
• 21A: Gibbons of TV talk (Leeza). Couldn't find the clip, but this reminded me of the Sports Night episode where Casey McCall (Peter Krause's character) goes on a blind date with a woman whose name is spelled "Lisa" but pronounced "Leeza." He has a truly cringe-worthy conversation with her about how is ex-wife's name is also Lisa, but "pronounced the normal way." What's really weird though, is that in "Six Feet Under," Peter Krause's character has an ex-girlfriend named Lisa who comes back into his life and he eventually marries her, and in "Dirty Sexy Money" his character's wife's name is Lisa. What's up with that?
  
• 38A: Atoll makeup (coral). I've seen the word "atoll" in the puzzle before, so today I decided, as a gift to you, I would finally look it up. You're welcome. Turns out an atoll is "a ring-shaped ribbon reef enclosing a lagoon in the center." The term was popularized by Charles Darwin who, of course, wrote On the Origin of Species, which my dad is actually reading right now. We're not sure what's wrong with him.
  
• 41A: Quick-witted (sharp). I had the S here and I knew it was a word that shared a bunch of letters with "smart" but wasn't "smart." Weird.
  
• 69A: Barbie's beau (Ken). Did you know Ken has a last name? It's Carson. The weird thing is that I was going to tell you about how, for some reason, Ken always makes me think of Nancy Drew's boyfriend, Ned Nickerson. And Nancy's father's name is Carson Drew. Eerie.
  
• 73A: Hose material (nylon). Is this just referring to pantyhose or are garden hoses made out of nylon too?
  

• 1D: "Little Women" woman (Beth). Someday I will have a puzzle published with BETH as one of the answers and I guarantee you right now that I'm cluing it in relation to the Kiss song and not to "Little Women." Not that there's anything wrong with "Little Women." Or anything particularly right with Kiss.
  
• 4D: "For sure!" ("Indeed"). This word sounds best if you can also refer to the person you're talking to as "my friend." For example: Person A: Wow, that Peter Criss can really sing. Person B: Indeed he can, my friend. Indeed he can.
• 5D: Suffix with journal (ese). Huh? I had no idea this was a thing. Or rather, I've always chuckled at the phenomenon of journalese but I didn't know it had a name. Some funny stuff here.

• 11D: Scope out, pre-heist (case). As in "case the joint." Speaking of heists, if you liked Ocean's Eleven and haven't seen Ocean's Thirteen yet … what are you waiting for? Go rent it now. It's awesome.
  
• 18D: Items of apparel for Dracula (cloaks). Don't like the plural here.
  
• 26D: _____ welder (arc). Whatever you say.
  
• 28D: First name in book clubs (Oprah). You know what's weird about my grandmother? She hates Oprah. I don't know why but she can't stand the woman. If Oprah's name comes up in conversation, Grandma scoffs and rolls her eyes and mumbles under her breath. I've seen Oprah in situations where I thought she was really, really good but I can't get over the fact that she puts herself on the cover of her magazine every freakin' month.
  

• 33D: "All My Children" vixen (Erica). I heart Susan Lucci.
  
• 40D: Roget's listings (synonyms). Weren't we just talking about Frank Caliendo the other day? He does a bit in which President Bush says that synonym is his favorite flavor.
  
• 45D: Alley _____ (oop). I haven't really been into basketball much in the last few years (like, since the Magic-Bird era), but there's nothing prettier in basketball than the alley oop.
  
  
  
  
• 67D: One of a snorkeler's pair (fin). The second time PuzzleHusband and I came down here to Costa Rica we had been married about seven months. PH went out boogie boarding and got caught by a wave so big that he lost his fins and his wedding ring! At that point in time, my dad had managed to hang onto his wedding ring for 34 years, an observation I made several times that day. And, yeah, I've made it a few times since then too.

Thanks again for putting up with me the last couple days. Seth will be here filling in tomorrow and Thursday, then I think Wade is on for a couple days, and I'll be back after that. I'm pretty sure Rex will be back eventually. I'm sure I missed a few things, so please have fun in the comments….

Pura Vida, PuzzleGirl

MONDAY, Jul. 28, 2008 -- Roger Baiocchi (GIVERS AND RECEIVERS OF ALIMONY / DYE IN TEMPORARY TATTOOS)

Relative difficulty: Easy-medium

Hi, everybody. PuzzleGirl here, still broadcasting from the lovely, although somewhat rustic, Nosara, Costa Rica. Hey, I've got wireless Internet, so I'm not complaining. Today I hope to answer the question that seems to be on everyone's mind: "What do you mean 'blog a crossword puzzle'?!" Seriously. My parents have houseguests and my mom was bragging to them about me having this blogging gig, which is Totally Cute and I can't tell you how much I Love it. But, you know, people who don't read this blog every day have a hard time wrapping their heads around what it is we actually do here. A lot of people pick up a crossword puzzle every once in a while and finish it or not finish it, and when they're done they put it down and forget about it. I know. It doesn't make any sense to me either.

Other people -- like us -- have a completely different experience. Like many of you, I'm sure, I found this blog when I had given up on a puzzle and was Googling for an answer I just couldn't come up with on my own. I loved Rex's writing so much that I started to pop in every once in a while, but it seemed like some days it was hard to keep up. And I hate it when I can't keep up. So I started doing the puzzle every day and checking in here every day. Then I saw Word Play and it was pretty much all over. I was hooked. (Does it bother anyone else that some places the movie is referred to as "Word Play" and others as "Wordplay"? I thought so.) So AddieLoggins and I went to the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in February where we met Rex, Orange, PhillySolver, and a bunch of other awesome people who seemed to be just about as nerdy as I am (I'm not going to speak for Addie). When I got home, I started to look at the other crossword blogs, JimH's and Orange's and … oh my God! Some days there are, like, six other puzzles I could be solving and reading about. I'm gonna need a spreadsheet!

You get the idea. I guess this is just like anything else people are interested in. Once you're into it, there's a Lot to talk about and, thanks to the Internet, you can make it a small part of your life or a big part of your life depending on the size of that part of your brain that obsesses about stuff. That part of my brain is, apparently, relatively large. (I'm pretty sure I just got an Amen from PuzzleHusband.) But enough about me, let's see what I think about the puzzle.

THEME: Site-Specific (72A) -- Each theme answer is a phrase that refers to a specific location.

Theme Answers:

• 1A/21A: Begin from scratch (start at square one)
  
• 41A: Move into the limelight (take center stage)
  
• 59A/73A: Be beaten by the rest of the field (end up in last place)

On early-week puzzles I don't generally even notice the theme until I'm done, but this one sort of demanded attention from the get-go with the referential clue at 1A. I'll be honest. That annoyed me a little. But once I completed the puzzle and took another look at it, I decided it was pretty cool that the first theme answer STARTed the puzzle, the second was right in the CENTER, and the last was right where it belonged: in LAST PLACE.

Although we all seem to have wildly different opinions on this every time it comes up, it seems to me that there aren't too many of the old standbys in this puzzle. ERIE, AHOY, ESE, OMEN, EPA, OMIT, AGEE. I don't know, does MANX count? How about STAT, DYNE, and IRAQI? Possibly OHIO and LEES. But that's it. That's all I'm giving you. The rest of the fill was good for the most part and occasionally awesome.

Good Fill:

• 18A: Tailless cat (Manx). This breed originated on the Isle of Man (not the ISLE of Wight: 25D).
  
• 26A: Number of a magazine (issue). Today we get a nice, straightforward Monday clue.
  
• 45A: Once did (used to). Have you ever heard someone say they "used to could" do something? Bizarre.
  
• 47A: Element of a doctrine (tenet). Also, former director of the CIA George.
  
• 51A: Recreation center posting (rules). I was stuck on activities, dances, classes.
  
• 66A: Lets or sublets (rents). I kept skipping right over "lets" and reading "sublets" as a noun, so that slowed me down a little.
  
• 70A: Peeved, after "in" (a snit). Now this is a phrase I might actually use. (As opposed to "in a pet," which seems to come up relatively frequently in the puzzle, and which I would never use.)
  

• 3D: Extremely well-behaved child (angel). I have heard from a variety of sources that my children are angels when I'm not around.
  
• 8D: Nasal congestion locale (sinus). Eeewww.
  
• 9D: Sam Houston served as its president, senator and governor (Texas). What in the Sam Houston could I possibly have to say about this one?
  
• 28D: Unit of force (dyne). Memorize it. You'll need it again.
  
• 30D: Cleanser whose name comes from Greek myth (Ajax). Note to self: After you learn the Hebrew months and the European rivers, get a grip on Greek mythology.
  
• 31D: High-priced seating area (loge). Not to be confused with luge. Two totally different things.
  

• 32D: Performers Peggy and Pinky (Lees). When I was in high school, I was in most of the music groups. In the pops choir, we had a "solo night" two or three times a year. One of my fondest memories of my grandfather is how he went on and on after one solo night about how much I reminded him of Peggy Lee when he saw me up there on that stage.
  
• 38D: Nix, presidentially (veto). When my eye scanned "Nix" and "president" all I could think of was Nixon. And all the words that sprang to mind were inappropriate for the puzzle.
  
• 52D: Tilts (lists) and 54D: Tilt (slant). Nice.

Not So Much:

• 19A: Emulate a mob (riot). I always think of a crowd at, say, a concert as a mob. In my experience, though, there is very rarely rioting involved on those occasions. Except at that one Guns N' Roses show.
  
• 65A: It's "catchy" (snag). A little too cutesy for my taste.
  
• 71A: 7-6, 2-6, 6-4, e.g. (sets). This makes no sense to me at all. Those numbers represent the scores of the sets, not the sets themselves.
  
• 42D: Such a jokester (cutup). Not sure what the "such" adds to this clue.
  
• 59D: What modest people lack (egos). I guess if you define ego as an inflated sense of self-worth, this clue/answer pair works. I don't know. That's a pretty narrow definition for a Monday.

Awesome fill:

• 6A: Heart of the matter (gist). Good word.
  
• 36A: Woodsy (sylvan). Pennsylvania means, literally, "Penn's woods." Huh. I bet you people in Pennsylvania already knew that.
  
• 40A: Coffee, in slang (joe). My favorite slang word for coffee. I just wish the clue had been "Coffee, slangily."
  
• 10D: Lurch from side to side (careen). Awesome word.
  
• 53D: Ho-hum feeling (ennui). Definitely not a ho-hum word.

I better sign off for now. The monkeys get up pretty early around here. And if the monkeys ain't sleepin', ain't nobody sleepin'. Hope to see you all back here tomorrow.

Pura Vida, PuzzleGirl

SUNDAY, Jul. 27, 2008 - Mike Nothnagel and David Quarfoot (UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITE IN JORDAN / "THINK BIG" SLOGANEER)

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "Going Every Which Way" - rebus puzzle with squares representing RIGHT, LEFT, UP and DOWN

Copped the theme straight off, but still found the puzzle quite challenging. Turning UP all those direction squares was a bit exhausting, especially since some of them were really, really cleverly disguised, e.g. S[UP], DOG! (92A: Slangy street greeting). There was only one part of the puzzle that I found really irksome, to the point that I wish the entire area had been torn out and remodeled: the hyper-Germanic far south, where two different Wagner opera heroines duked it out with some African range I didn't know (ATLAS - 152A: Africa's _____ Mountains), somewhere in Jordan I didn't know (PETRA - 156A: Unesco World Heritage Site in Jordan), and Tolkien's crazy-ass middle name (REUEL - 148A: The second "R" in J. R. R. Tolkien). When I wrote in ELSA for (139D: "Bridal Chorus" bride), I honestly didn't know if any letter after the initial "E" was correct. At that point, I didn't even know I was dealing with Wagner. I just knew that ELSA ... was a name. In some crosswords. Yuck. Otherwise, a pitch-perfect Sunday - very doable, but not too doable.

Theme answers:

Man, I'm not sure I can list them all...

• 29A: Popular 1970s British TV series ([UP]stairs [DOWN]stairs)
• 1D: Block (dam [UP])
• 30D: Went from second to first, say ([DOWN]-shifted)
• 16D: Barely fair, maybe ([DOWN] the [RIGHT] field line)
• 16A: Command to an overly friendly canine ([DOWN], boy)
• 37A: "Now you're talking!" ("All [RIGHT]")
• 36D: Erect (standing [UP][RIGHT])
• 101A: Football defensive line position ([RIGHT] end)
• 72D: Secured, in a way, with "on" ([LEFT] a [DOWN]payment)
• 71A: Liberals (The [LEFT])
• 84A: Cause of unemployment ([DOWN]-sizing)
• 38A: Took the risk ([LEFT] it [UP] to chance)
• 38D: Not brought home ([LEFT] on base)
• 41D: Awake by ([UP] at)

• 70D: Sentiment suggesting "Try this!" ("It's [RIGHT] [UP] your alley!")
• 90A: "Amen!" ("[RIGHT] on!")
• 95A: Arrangements (set-[UP]s)
• 125A: Exasperated teacher's cry ("Sit [DOWN] and shut [UP]!")
• 113D: Happen, slangily (go [DOWN])
• 89D: Took it easy (rested [UP])
• 137A: Missing glasses' location, usually ([RIGHT] where you [LEFT] them)
• 105D: Common entry point (stage [RIGHT])
• 140D: Bazooka Joe's working peeper ([LEFT] eye)

I'm sure I skipped one or two in there, but really, at this point, I don't care. I'm just trying to beat my laptop's remaining battery time.

We are in Dunedin, NZ, on the very large property of some extended family. There are horses and dogs, and a sheep, who this morning was just hanging out in the front yard, grazing. Got to feed a cow and heifer this morning after a long, beautiful, muddy walk, so that was good. It's all too beautiful, really. Not sure what else I can say about it. Maybe I'll show another picture or two in a bit.

Points of interest:

• 20A: Genus of poisonous mushroom (amanita) - YIPE (19D: Exclamation of surprise)! That's the most outer-spaceish answer of the lot, today.
• 25A: Nickname for a bodybuilder (Muscles) - something about this answer seems so dated / campy to me.
• 27A: Junior in the N.F.L. (Seau) - sometimes it pays to watch ESPN. A great defensive player (safety?) who languished on the perennial also-ran Chargers for nearly his entire career.

• 53A: Opening screen option on many an A.T.M. (Español) - ooh, I like this clue.
• 56A: "Think big" sloganeer (IMAX) - I like to blog every "sloganeer" clue, on principle
• 66A: Tic-tac-toe plays (X's and O's) - very very nice. Sahra liked this one (She was watching me solve over my shoulder for a while)
• 68A: Warner Brothers shotgun toter (Elmer) - easy and great. For other animated fare, see also TOM (147D: Cartoon feline)
• 79A: Ralph who co-wrote "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" (Blane) - YIPE x 2. This is as bad as the poisonous mushroom genus, as far as I'm concerned.
• 81A: Cartoonist Keane (Bil) - of "Family Circus" "fame"
• 86A: It might follow a slash mark (divisor) - lovely. Took me a while - I was aided by a Roman numeral guess at 62D: Benedict III's predecessor (Leo IV)

• 94A: Ball with a yellow stripe (nine) - frightfully clever.
• 102A: Old musical high notes (elas) - no idea what this means, but I know this term ... from crosswords.
• 103A: Deuce beaters (treys) - never heard anyone use this term in real life, except occasionally when a sportscaster refers to a three-pointer in basketball.
• 119A: A hyperbola has two (foci) - a guess. Math constructors must have their math clues.
• 133A: Part of a shark's respiratory system (gill slit) - this phrase feels entirely made up. What's the difference between a gill and a GILL SLIT?

• 153A: A super's may be supersized (key ring) - man, I needed this answer. Was having real trouble, briefly, with the Downs down there.
• 2D: Birds that can sprint at 30 m.p.h. (emus) - also, apparently, good swimmers (we got tricked on an EMU question on quiz night because they included this bit of trivia, throwing us completely off the EMU scent)
• 5D: French orphan of film (Lili) - ???
• 6D: Camper's aid (sterno) - weirdly, I get STENO and STERNO confused
• 12D: Cyclades island (Ios) - pretty sure we had this very recently. Well ... here it is again. Don't confuse it with EOS (Greek goddess of the dawn)
• 15D: Hollow center? (double "L") - goes nicely, in its self-referentiality, with SILENT U (87D: Building component?)
• 42D: Bootleggers' bane (T-men) - why were Treasury Men after bootleggers? Tax avoision?
• 43D: Son-in-law of Muhammad (Ali) - ALI was an educated guess. Not sure what else, in three letters, it was going to be
• 48D: Proposed "fifth taste," which means "savory" in Japanese (umami) - I don't even understand the clue, let alone the answer. There are four other tastes? Salt, sweet ... dancer and blitzen?
• 55D: Tasmania's highest peak (Ossa) - Kiwi folk here did Not know this one. And Tasmania's just over ... there (I'm pointing NW)
• 58D: Z-car brand (Datsun) - had forgotten about these. DATSUN is now Nissan.
• 60D: International oil and gas giant, informally (Oxy) - the only OXY I know gets rid of pimples.

• 81D: Construction project that gave rise to the Ted Williams Tunnel (Big Dig) - nice. Timely. Also, one of the few positive references I've heard made about the Big Dig.
• 98D: Pal of Kenny and Kyle (Stan) - love the "South Park" references.
• 129D: Singer Mann (Aimee) - just got her new album, which has the awesome, hard-to-alphabetize title "@#%&*! Smilers"

I gotta stop. Tired. Family awaits. Children beginning to overrun my work area.

I am on indefinite leave after this. No idea when I'll have reliable computer access again before I return to the States. So I leave you (until further notice) in the capable hands of Puzzlegirl OR Wade OR SethG (who should feel free to add pics and video to this write-up as they see fit).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Cousins of oribis and dik-diks: SATURDAY, Jul. 26, 2008 - Barry C. Silk (CONDUCTOR OF MANY TV EXPERIMENTS)

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none

A very easy breezy Saturday *except* for the NW, where nearly half my fifteen minutes were spent. Never watched whatever MR. WIZARD is (1A: Conductor of many TV experiments), I've seen REEBOKS but not RHEBOKS (2D: Cousins of oribis and dik-diks), though to my credit I got the -BOKS part easily enough. The All Blacks recently played the SPRINGBOKS of S. Africa, I think (and lost, here in Dunedin). Tonight, the All Blacks take on the Wallabees of Australia. Dear Australia, your rugby team name is Ridiculous. Perhaps if you change it, you will win more often. Just a suggestion. So the NZ/AUS match tonight is Huge Business here in NZ, and I am at a massive family gathering where, after "tea" (that's "dinner" to you and me), the men (...) will gather around the TV and watch / talk rugby. I am in for some kind of schooling, I expect. "Let's teach the American about rugby!" All I know about rugby is that there are no helmets involved and the All Blacks uniforms are totally flash. I want one.

Oh, SNAP, we just got wireless to work, so I'm getting off this clunky desktop and work on the Mac, huzzah. Now I can do a screen grab and get the finished grid for you all.

Well, I'm back on the clunky desktop, which is actually less clunky than my laptop when it come to mouse-work. I should have brought my wireless mouse on the trip - touchpads just aren't as fast, for me. Anyway, the puzzle:

Started easily enough with 9A: Many people get 100 on it (IQ test) - once I tested the "Q" crossing - 10D: Big telecom company (Qwest) - I knew I was right. NE corner was done in under a minute. No foolin'. Only real STUMBLEs (13D: Err) occurred at 54A: Second biggest city in Russia's Orenburg region (Orsk), where I entertained only OMSK and then OREL ... maybe OPEL. Not sure I knew ORSK was a real place. Had ERGO for IS TO (26D: What a colon may mean) and GAS LIT for OIL LIT (25A: Like some old lamps) and EST for OST (61D: Right turn from Nord) - the capital "N" should have told me the language wasn't French. Had real ISSUEs with the ISSUE-region of the puzzle (32A: Children). Made a complete and utter (and, it turns out, correct) guess at 24D: New York Congresswoman Slaughter (Louise), and finally worked that narrow passage to the NW down to a single blank square - the NEB. / IBMS crossing. Creighton sounds like it's in NYS (29D: Home of Creighton U.), and computers never occurred to me where "servers" was concerned (35A: Many servers). Once I put the "B" in, I figured I was home free with a sub-10 min. time. But no.

The Mix:

• 19A: Scottish : Mac :: Arabic : _____ (Ibn) - love it. Nice counterpoint to IBMS. Also, being in NZ makes me think often, and fondly, of Scotland - Mac names everywhere. DUNEDIN = EDINBURGH ... just upside-down and backwards. And with palm trees.
  
• 20A: Where Charles de Gaulle was born (Lille) - there are other, more LILLE-ish clues out there. Alain de _____, for instance. Also, isn't LILLE known for its textile production?
  
• 23A: Advent number ("Noel") - Proud of my brain for sticking with this one the 10-12 seconds it took to piece it together. Thought "12" as in "12 Days of Christmas," then thought 25 - number of days on an "Advent" calendar (?), then thought "NOEL," but didn't know why. Then figured out what was meant by "number."
  
• 27A: "Frank TV" airer (TBS) - only just saw this clue. Hmmm. No idea what "Frank TV" is.
  
• 30A: They don't respond favorably (noes) - wanted NAES then realized I wasn't in Scotland.
  
• 33A: Snack for a dragonfly (gnat) - no idea why, but this is the first thing that came to me.
  
• 52A: Ventura County's most populous city (Oxnard) - woo hoo, I got this with only a cross or two. Helps to have lived part of one's life in S. California. OXNARD always sounds vaguely obscene to me - like we're talking about a part of the OX that ought not be discussed.
  
• 55A: The Guinness book once dubbed her "television's most frequent clapper" (Vanna) - as in White. Seems like the firstness of her name should be indicated somehow.
  
• 57A: Mount Saint _____ (Alaskan/Canadian peak) (Elias) - no idea. I worked it out, somehow.
  
• 65A: 1966 Pulitzer-winner poet Richard (Eberhart) - noooo idea. Thankfully all those Downs were Pieces of Cake.
  
• 67A: Heartbeat halves (systoles) - we had this in a recent late-week puzzle, making it relatively easy to turn up here.
  
• 1D: High point of the O.T. (Mt. Sinai) - "That part where Moses totally kicks ass!" - it's a literal and figurative "high point" - neat.
  
• 3D: Stockbreeding devices (weaners) - I shudder to think what one of these looks like. Fake teats?
  
• 6D: Hospital procedure, for short (angio) - did not come easily to me, but since my dad was a doctor and I spent some time in and around hospitals, I figured the term would eventually come to mind. And it did. One of the earliest articles of Rexiana is a "Slip to Go Home" written out for one of my stuffed animal dogs when I was very very young. Five? Six? Anyway, it had made-up medical stats on it and was titled "Doggy's Angiogram"; only a radiologist's son could pull that one off before grammar school.
  
• 11D: Pond denizen (teal) - went for TOAD, obviously. Daughter was mauled by ducks today at the Dunedin Botanical garden - they know when people are bringing them little packets of seeds, and they care naught for the sensitivities or phobias of small children. Sahra was tall enough to fend them off with good humor. Other, smaller children were not so lucky. At least one had to be physically rescued by an adult.
  
• 21D: Title woman of song who "lives in a dream" (Eleanor Rigby) - didn't come immediately, but with a few crosses, it fell right in place, which helped my time on this puzzle considerably.
• 31D: Oahu "thank you" ("Mahalo") - easy if you've ever been to Hawaii; probably hard if you haven't.
  
• 38D: Melodramatic outburst (sob) - SOB is weird as a noun.
  
• 39D: They may have just one or two stars (B movies) - great clue, though I got instantly.
  
• 40D: Ore galore (bonanza) - Clue is great; "Ore Galore" was rejected for the Bond film in favor of her sister, Pussy.
• 43D: Players with saving accounts? (goalies) - another great clue that I got instantly. Watching UEFA this summer helped.
  
• 47D: Columbus discovery of 1493 (St. Kitts) - I've stumbled on other Columbus discoveries in the past, but today, bam, I nailed this one. No hesitation. Thanks to the "K" from OMSK (now ORSK).
• 52D: She won the 1970 National Book Award for Fiction (Oates) - Joyce Carol. Another one that just came to me, despite my never having read much by her. "Where Are you Going, Where Have you Been?" - that's her, right? That story is creepy.
  
• 53D: About 5.5 Europeans (Danes) - making Denmark more populous than NZ by somewhere between 500K and a million people.
  

And I'm done. Must socialize. I'm getting a reputation for reclusivity.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

FRIDAY, Jul. 25, 2008 -- John Farmer (Five-time Horse of the Year, 1960-64 / Turkey's wattle / Baseball's Belinsky and Jackson)

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: None

Those of you who were around last night know that Rex sent up a smoke signal asking for one of us benchwarmers to get in the game. Okay, it was a little more high-tech than a smoke signal, but apparently not by much. After I responded to the plea for help, I checked in with Wade who said his power had gone out during the last episode of "The Sopranos" and was writing to me from his Blackberry. So he's no help. No idea where Seth is. He's young, so he's probably out gallivanting somewhere. Which leaves you with me, PuzzleGirl. Let's just try to make the best of it, okay? Hey, it could be worse -- we could have a sucky puzzle today, but we don't. I like this puzzle a lot! I had many Aha!'s, only a couple WTF?'s, and, who knows? Maybe some of the fill reminded me of a story or two. Let's find out.

Good stuff:

• 15A: Continue the journey (ride on). Also the name of the bus service in Montgomery County, Maryland. I had MOVE ON at first.
  
• 18A: How some are offended (mortally). With the MO in place I wanted MORALLY, but of course that doesn't fit.
  
• 23A: Tribulations (ills). Had WOES here.
  
• 25A: Baseball's Belinsky and Jackson (Bos). When I saw that I needed to do the write-up for today, I admit I panicked a little. Sometimes I can't even finish the Friday puzzle! So I did get some help from PuzzleHusband. About this particular clue, PuzzleHusband says "I just don't think of Bo Jackson as a baseball player." Fair enough.
  

• 30A: Visitors (sojourners). Great word.
  
• 35A: Cousin of a woodcock (snipe). Sounds like these are good birds for crossword puzzles. Wikipedia tells me they have "cryptic" plumage. Whatever that means.
  
• 40A: Ones with read faces? (timepieces). Also Eric Clapton's two-volume "best of" compilation. I was on the right track here but kept thinking it should end with -WATCHES or -CLOCKS.
  
• 56A: "Your children are not your children" poet (Gibran). Apparently the third best-selling poet in history after William Shakespeare and Lao Tse.
  
• 57A: Bank of America Stadium team (Carolina). Again, went straight to PuzzleHusband for this one. He immediately said, "Carolina Panthers?" and I'm all, "Well, PANTHERS has the right number of letters but doesn't fit with the crosses." The cross I had was the O from NOSH (54D: Have a little something). Ya know, the 4th letter of CAROLINA. D'oh!
  
• 1D: Goal of middle management? (trim waist). Again, I was on the right track here, but with the I*T in place I thought it would end with DIET.
  
• 3D: Acting (ad interim). Note to self: Learn more Latin.
  

• 12D: One with a high Q score (celeb). I knew this had something to do with movie stars. I found the following explanation here: "Twice a year, 55,000 families are asked their thoughts about 1,800 public figures in entertainment, sports and business: Have you heard of them? Are they one of your favourites? How much do you dislike them? The answers are transformed through a mathematical equation into a single numeral. That number, the Q Score, is the oldest and best-known gauge of celebrity." So now you know.
  
• 13D: Five-time Horse of the Year, 1960-64 (Kelso). Since it wasn't Seabiscuit, Seattle Slew, Secretariat, or Affirmed, I couldn't come up with it without the crosses.

Great stuff:

• 44A: Got by (did OK). With D*D*K in place I thought for sure I had hosed something up. Aha!
  
• 53A: Start of a "Name That Tune" bid ("I can…"). As in "I can name that tune in three notes." I've been told that an aunt of mine was a contestant on "Name That Tune" in the 1970's. She didn't win, but legend has it she went home with a year's worth of Rice-A-Roni (2D: Quaker Oats product).
  

• 7D: Rolling Stones hit just before "Honky Tonk Women" ("Jumpin' Jack Flash"). When I had WOES instead of ILLS, "Brown Sugar" came to mind but, obviously, didn't fit. PuzzleHusband isn't a big Stones fan, but "Jumpin' Jack Flash" is on the same album as "Sympathy for the Devil" and, as far as I'm concerned, every song mentioned in this paragraph Rocks. The. House.
  
• 31D: Some court contests (one-on-ones). Love this one. So many different types of courts.
  
• 32D: Shortage in a rush-hour subway (elbow room). Got this with only the B in place. Awesome answer.
  
• 42D: Intimate (suggest). I knew I was on this puzzle's wavelength when my first thought was "'intimate' is a verb here, not an adjective." I guess you can only fool me so many times with that one.

WTF?:

• 16A: In Dutch (up a creek). I understand "up a creek" but have never heard the expression "in Dutch."
  
• 20A: Practice (ply). PuzzleHusband: "You know, like 'ply a trade'?" Gotcha.
  
• 22A: Turkey's dewlap (wattle). Pretty sure I've heard "wattle" before, but never "dewlap."
  

• 62A: Weed (hasheesh). No. No. No. Possibly with a "Var." designation, but spelled this way? No. Plus, I thought weed was marijuana. Isn't hashish ... something else?
  
• 34D: Dry state (soberness). Sorry, but I have to protest this one too. The word is "sobriety." "Soberness" might work in other contexts, but not in the one where "sober" means "dry."
  
• 46D: Base of support (plinth). My favorite new word of the day.

Thanks for putting up with me again today. Maybe Rex will be here tomorrow….

Pura Vida, PuzzleGirl

THURSDAY, Jul. 24, 2008 -- Matt Ginsberg (Jacqueline Susann novel, and the problem with some of the answers in this puzzle /Roughly triangular racket)

Relative difficulty: Easy

Hey, everybody. You've got the whole damn second string here today. I'm PuzzleGirl, and I'm coming to you from beautiful, sunny Costa Rica today. SethG is, well, he's in his living room. And Wade would love to blog from his new office except he and his dad couldn't quite get the whole thing built in time. Lots of good stuff in this puzzle, which is what you'd expect from a Thursday. But it's not just me here. Let's hear from the rest of the team:

SethG here. Hey, look! It's a picture of what PuzzleGirl claims is Costa Rica, but yo hablo enough español to know that Costa means coast, and she's sitting by a pool. Or is that even her? How are we to know? Maybe PuzzleGirl is actually a lonely 65-year-old man from Hackensack! I tried to take a picture of my living room, which is actually my living room, but my hair doesn't look good, PuzzleMomToBe looks like she feels, and PuzzleDadToBe Pbo was sitting at an angle we'll call "unflattering." Today is PMTB's 30th birthday, PuzzleBaby's 0th will be any day now. Also, I'll stop using those awkward names now. Sorry bout that.

This whole thing reeks of one of those fake duets that were obviously recorded in different studios at different times, doesn't it? Well, it's not. The real story is that PuzzleGirl and I were married in a private ceremony in Enid, Oklahoma this past weekend, Oklahoma being the only state in the country where it's legal for a woman to marry a dog. Yes, that's the other bombshell: I'm a German Shepherd. On the internet nobody knows that, of course. Our first order of business after our marriage ceremony, which was presided over by Fergus, who has that authority by virtue of being a sea captain on his home planet, was to fulfill our lifelong dream of adopting SethG. So now all three of us live in a yurt in Swampscott, Mass., raising organic beets and stuffing trouts with sage. Some people may think it's funny, a woman marrying a dog and the two of them adopting a grown man against his will. Well, I bite those people. We're no different from you. We do puzzles. It's what we do. It's who we are. This is your Thursday puzzle team.

Help.

THEME: Once Is Not Enough (35A: Jacqueline Susann novel, and the problem with some of the answers in this puzzle). Theme answers are phrases that should start with a repeated word, but in the puzzle the phrase begins with the word only once.

Theme Answers:

• 17A: Hollow-point projectiles (dum[-dum] bullets)
  
• 22A: Mutually beneficial interaction (win[-win] situation)
  
• 45A: Puerto Rican-born P.G.A. star (Chi [Chi] Rodriguez)
  
  
  
• 56A: Child's fair-weather wish (rain, [rain,] go away)

Other stuff we want to talk about:

• 10A: Klingon on "Star Trek: T.N.G." (Worf). I do not like it when the Star Trek stuff turns up in the puzzle.
  
  
• 14A/46D: Writer of "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" (Alex Haley). Got this one with no crosses. Reminds be of Gertrude Stein's "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas" in that it doesn't really make sense, does it?
  
  
• 15A: Originator of the equation e to the power (pi * i) + 1 = 0. If it’s Math, EULER's a good bet.
  
  
• 21A: Pixie-esque. ELFIN is a word. ELVIN is not.


• 25A: Roughly triangular racket (crosse). Looked this one up and then felt really stupid. Yes, boys and girls, it's the stick used to play lacrosse.
  
  
• 28A: Chemistry Nobelist Hahn, who co-discovered nuclear fission (Otto). Remember this one -- he's sure to be back. My least favorite Nobelists are chemistry Nobelists.
  
  
• 51A: Impoverished (dirt poor). Have you read The Glass Castle? This phrase will forever remind me of that book. It's an awesome memoir about a girl who grew up, you guessed it, dirt poor. Her parents (alcoholic dad and mentally ill mom) are eccentric and brilliant. While the book describes neglect that can only be categorized as appalling, it also forced me to think hard about privilege and today's common practice of "over-parenting." I tried to find the video of “We ate sand” from Raising Arizona. I failed. You ate sand?!?
  
  
• 58A: Usher's offer (seat). Almost seems too easy.
  
  
  
  
• 60A: "Your Majesty" ("Sire"). I think Rex prefers Your Majesty.
  
  
• 1D: Synthetic (made). Wanted FAKE at first.
  
  
• 3D: Dole’s 1996 running mate (Kemp). Remember the bumper stickers that changed it to Dope and Hemp?
  
  
• 4D: River bends (oxbows). That’s a dang fine word. Never seen it in a puzzle. Long overdue.


• 5D: Like a leopard (feline). I'm glad this wasn't my first thought: SPOTTY.
  
  
• 7D: Incense resin (elemi). Another one to take note of -- you'll see it again for sure.
  
  
• 11D: Norwegian king who converted the Vikings to Christianity is OLAF I. Not Olav. Is that the same SIRE with two allowable spellings or was it two different dudes?
  
  
• 12D: Portion of an advertising budget (radio). Does this clue/answer really work? This really works. I used to do stuff with stuff like that, but now I do this.
  
  
• 13D: One of the Mudville players on base when the mighty Casey struck out (Flynn). Beautiful. Just beautiful. From the original version of the poem:
  

  But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake,
  And the former was a lulu and the latter was a cake;

  And we know that a LULU (6D) is a beaut.
  
  
• 21D: Taken in (eaten). Could have gone down so many wrong paths: altered, scammed, there must be more. Arrested, perceived. Furled.
  
  
• 26D: Slots spot (Reno). Reno is The Biggest Little City in the World, you know. This answer reminds me of the time I shot a man in Reno. Why? Just to watch him die.
  
  
• 31D: Preschoolers? (roe). I get it. Fish. Everybody’s against me. Even Roe. Not anymore, Wade.
  
  
• 34D: What you used to be (thee). But it yoused to be THOU, too.


• 37D: "You ____!" (cry while hitting oneself on the head) (idiot). At our house we cry "Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!" (hitting ourselves on the forehead three times for emphasis). See also 48D, idiom.
  
  
• 42D: Mass dismissals (purges). You do not want the visual image this answer gave me.


• 43D: Duke Atreides in "Dune" (Leto). Whatever you say.
  
  
• 49D: _____ Weasley of Harry Potter books. Let's see Ron, Fred, George … what the heck is the little sister's name? Oh yeah, Ginny.
  
  
• 52D: Toddler's cry of pain ("Owie!"). I know some of you don't like this word. You mentioned it last time it was in the puzzle. And the time before that. I think maybe it's time to let it go. "Owie" is a noun, not an exclamation. You get an owie. You don't cry "owie." Sit, boy, sit!

So, that's your puzzle and that's our show. Rex will be back tomorrow. Until next time,

Pura Vida! PuzzleGirl, Wade and SethG

WEDNESDAY, Jul. 23, 2008 - Henry Quillen (CHILD IN A 1980s CUSTODY CASE / ONETIME "CONCENTRATION" HOST JACK)

[IMPORTANT NOTICE: THE PUZZLE FEATURED IN THIS BLOG ENTRY MAY NOT BE THE ONE FEATURED IN YOUR PAPER - read the opening paragraph of the write-up (the part in italics) for an explanation]

Relative difficulty: Easy / Challenging (The West!?!?)

THEME: A to Z to A (39A: Theme of this puzzle) - zigzagging pattern of circled squares form words that begin with "Z" and end with "A," then begin with "A" and end with "Z" - and so on. Two such interlocking patterns stretch from corner to corner, intersecting at a "Z" in the puzzle's dead center


The following correction appeared in today's paper:

Crossword Puzzle

Because of a production error, some copies of Wednesday’s paper contain an outdated crossword puzzle and its solution. If you look here first, proceed with caution. If the answer in the solution to one across also appears in the puzzle above it, you have a paper with the wrong crossword. If the solution to one across matches Tuesday’s puzzle, you’re in the clear, and on your own.

The outdated puzzle appears to be this one from last June. I assume they'll print both puzzles tomorrow or something, or subscribers can complete the puzzle online or download it in Across Lite format on the Times' puzzle page.


Great great concept. Really marvelous. But WTF is up with the far west. BABY who??? Man, if only I'd known MUNICH (46A: Birthplace of composer Richard Strauss). Had the -ICH and wrote in ZURICH, which OH, YOU only confirmed (27D: "What a kidder!"). The whole Western patch felt like a fragile cake, about to fall apart at any second; it still looks that way to me, with many awfully tenuous answers. YOU in OH, YOU intersecting YOU in YOU'LL (42A: "_____ regret it!"_)?? AHH (34A: "That feels great") and BYE (38A: Free pass, of sorts) one atop the other?? AHH and OH, YOU and YOU'LL all have quotation mark clues - all clued as expressions. And then there's the too-cute THE U.N. (28D: N.Y.C. country club?). After ZURICH, I had THE U.R., which is meaningless, but the only thing I could think to put there was "S" - i.e. THE U.S. - that's the country where NYC is... right? I should have turned up U.N. but didn't. So I utterly failed at this puzzle, after totally torching the rest of it. Oh, well, OH YOU, AH, ME, etc. Lastly, let me iterate: BABY who? (26D: Child in a 1980s custody case)

Theme answers:

• 1A: Coors product (Zima) - started with BEER (something someone might actually drink). Fixed it fairly quickly thereafter. I think that corner may be the second hardest section in the puzzle.
• 4D: Ingrediente en paella (arroz) - had ARROS, remembering ARROZ Con Pollo but not how to spell it. This made me want something like SERTA for the next theme answer...
• 23A: Keebler cracker brand (Zesta) - eat ZESTA with Perle MESTA then sleep on SERTA.
• 24D: Flagstaff's place (Arizona)
• 52A: Madison Ave. trade (ad biz) - again, must plug "Mad Men"

• 53D: Ethan Frome's wife (Zeena) - really? OK.
• 70A: Animated film hit of 1998 (Antz)
• 58A: Ball's comic partner (Arnaz)
• 39D: The Rock (Alcatraz) - The Rock is also a movie. And a wrestler.
• 9D: Cubic _____ (gem) (zirconia)
• 9A: Frank in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (Zappa)

Great long answers transect this puzzle's midsection. Especially like WENT TO POT (6D: Deteriorated) and OIL BARON (40D: Getty or Rockefeller). Would have liked STRIDENCE (36D: Harsh quality) better if it had been STRIDENCY, which sounds more like a word, but it'll do. Scariest moment (besides my total derailment in the west) was in the SE, where HENRIETTA (63A: Queen _____ Maria, mother of England's Charles II and James II) ran smack into the impossible-seeming NARZ (61D: Onetime "Concentration" host Jack). Almost had to rename "The NATICK Principle" "The NARZ Principle," but "A" was the only really reasonable guess there. "E" is a close second. Had never heard of (or barely heard of) LINEAR A (43D: Ancient Cretan writing system), but I pieced it together. Crosses were reasonably fair.

I would like to use my favorite part of the West - BOT (26A: Sci-fi sidekick, maybe) - to talk about the local Quiz Night we went to last night with my in-laws. It was the most ... local ... thing I've been to in a long time. Possibly ever. Took place in the Lake Hawea community center, in the main room, where there was a roaring fire and we were looked down on by giant placards displaying the names of Lake Hawea Men's and Ladies' Lawn Bowling Champions, past and present. The Quiz Night featured a raffle (every team of 4 paid $20 and brought a wrapped gift for the raffle - when one of our tickets was drawn and my wife went up to get a gift, Nick (husband of wife's stepmom, not wife's dad ... long story) shouted "grab something shaped like a bottle" (hoping to score some wine, which we did). Anyway, there were about a dozen teams in the room and there were seven rounds of questions and sometimes it paid to be an American ("What was Dirty Harry's last name?") and sometimes it did Not ("What are the names of Hairy Maclary's dog friends in 'Hairy Maclary from Donaldson's Diary?'"; "What is the current height (depth?) of Lake Hawea"?). There was an entire set of questions straight out of the 1954 Edmonds Cookbook (a NZ classic) ... there was a parsley sauce controversy ... Anzac biscuits ... it's all a blur. Who was the only athlete at the 1976 Olympic games not to be given a sex test? Hint: it's not Nadia Comaneci. Answer: Princess Anne. It was only after we returned home that I was informed that the answer was the Actual Princess Anne and not a horse of the same name. Seven rounds, this quiz was. Oh, the connection to BOT. Well, it's a "Star Wars" connection, at any rate - one of the questions was "What sort of creature is Chewbacca in the 'Star Wars' movies?" - only the questioner pronounced "Chewbacca" with the accent on the first syllable, making it sound a bit like "Chupacabra." After I translated, I got it instantly. I couldn't begin to recreate for you how she pronounced "Wookie." The whole event was fun. Very fun. There was an auction at the end of the night. We came in third and would have won if a. anyone had listened to me that MEDICINE was one of the categories of prizes awarded by Nobel, b. we hadn't changed our Celsius to Fahrenheit conversion answer to accommodate my overly certain mother-in-law, c. I hadn't overridden myself on the location of the ruins of Carthage - I blurted out (to my teammates) "Tunisia" (right answer), but then changed it to "Libya" (wrong). They screwed up and robbed me of my fantastic correct answer to "What was the name of Tarzan's chimp?"; I got CHEETA, but they said it was something like Nikima. So ... third place. There were huge beers all around and tea and various cakes. Most of the money raised - all, in fact - went to some charity or other. By the end, I just wanted one more round so we could pass those smug bastards sitting next to us who were clearly stealing our answers.

Rest:

• 5A: N.Y.C. theater area (B'way) - semi-tricky
• 15A: Surrealist Magritte (René) - ceci n'est pas un crossword blog
• 16A: Apple instant-messaging program (iChat) - I love that there is almost no part of that clue that would have made any sense to anyone 30 years ago.
• 17A: Lovers of fine fare (gourmands) - GOURMANDS should come here, where the native cuisine is startling fresh and tasty.
• 21A: Madden, and how (incense) - wanted JOHN
• 25A: Aurora's Greek counterpart (Eos) - you should know this instinctively by now, really.
• 29A: Restaurateur Toots (Shor) - one of the greatest names in xwordpuzzledom.
• 35A: Honeybee genus (apis) - thank you, Virgil
• 51A: Highlands refusal ("Nae!") - I do love the Scotticisms, Och!
• 65A: Stiller's comic partner (Meara) - love her; I'd put her in every puzzle if I could
• 1D: Goes this way before that (zigs) - love that this sets off the zig-zag pattern without actually being a part of it
• 5D: Military bigwig (brass hat) - kind of a dumb phrase. I guess if your wig is big, then it needs a brass hat to protect it.
• 10D: Truman's last secretary of state (Acheson) - NO idea, even though I'm nearly certainly he's been in my puzzle before
• 11D: Unit of loudness (phon) - whoa ... really? First I've heard of it.
• 22D: Three R's org. (NEA) - Do they really use the phrase or concept "Three R's" anymore. If so, they should be disbanded.
• 31D: Cubs, but not Bears, for short (NL'ers) - icky answer, but nice clue
• 32D: When said three times, "et cetera" ("yadda") - to appease the "Seinfeld" fans out there. "Remember that episode when Elaine..." No. No I don't.
• 33D: Ol' Blue Eyes classic ("My Way") - Here you go:

• 47D: Part of a bray (hee) - the other part: HAW
• 49D: "Of course, senor!" ("Si si!") - I'm growing fond of this sycophantic Spanish-type answer
• 55D: German river to the Fulda (Eder) - perhaps for the first time ever, I nailed this answer. Had the -ER, went to type YSER (instinctively), then checked myself and went with EDER. Take that, Germany. (but then MUNICH came back and bit me ... so much for defeating Germania).
• 59D: 9-mm. gun of W. W. II (Sten) - like EOS, something you should Just Know (if you want to ace the crossword, that is)
• 64D: Schubert's "The _____-King" (Erl) - Take it away, Ulrich.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS somebody else will be doing tomorrow's write-up. I should be good for the weekend.

SYNDICATION WARNING

Those of you who solve the puzzle in syndication - please be patient. The Times seems to have changed its republication schedule. Apparently, for a few days, the puzzle has been FIVE weeks behind, and not its customary SIX. I've made inquiries and will try to settle the matter as quickly as possible. In the meantime, you can pinpoint any puzzle I've written about in the "Blog Archive" (bottom of the sidebar). And for now, if the syndicated link takes you to six weeks ago, and that's not the puzzle you've got in front of you, just use the Blog Archive to fast forward one week. That should do the trick. Click on arrows next to any month to unfurl a menu of all the entries I've written for that month.

Writing frantically from New Zealand,
Rex Parker

TUESDAY, Jul. 22, 2008 - Lynn Lempel (LIKE SOME TICKETS AND WESTERN PIONEERS / HEADGEAR FIT FOR A QUEEN)

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: Add an "N" after an "S" - in familiar phrases, resulting in wacky phrases, which are clued





Do not try this at home. Only the best constructors should risk such a tired, worn-out type of theme (in this case, addaletter). Ms. Lempel fills her grids with smooth peanut-buttery goodness. No owies, no cracked teeth to deal with. Gorgeous. Smooth. Perhaps not memorable, but about as good a Tuesday as I've seen for a while (see Wade's comments last Wednesday about Tuesday - the black sheep of the crossword family ... speaking of which, I saw a black sheep today ... but back to puzzle). Five theme answers, some of them amusing. A couple of cool features (including fraternal twins THEDA (6A: Film vixen Bara) and THETA (31A: Letter between eta and iota). Can't ask for much more from my Tuesday.

[I call this one "Man With Weird Hat Points At Mountains While Adorable Girl Ignores Him"]

Theme answers:

• 18A: Competitive noshers' event? (sNack race)
• 23A: One cured of a sleep disorder? (sNore loser)
• 35A: Sarcastic comment? (sNide line)
• 48A: Brushoff from the Ottomans? (Turkey sNub) - best of the lot
• 53A: Terrible-twos tantrums? (baby sNits)

Speaking of terrible-twos - have I mentioned that we've spent the past three days in the presence of a not-quite-two-year-old? It's true. Check it out:



The tall one is our daughter, while the short one is my wife's ... sister. It's true. In a way. Wife's stepmom adopted Brittany because Brittany's mom (in the extended family) couldn't take care of her. So my wife has a sister over forty years younger than she is. A stocky, curious, beaming, adorable sister, I might add.

Today was much more WINTRY (4D: Cold and raw) down here in NZ than it has been of late, which basically means that it rained aggressively for a few hours. Now it's semi-lovely again, and still far warmer than our winters back home. Did you know there's a kind of OWL (59A: Round-faced flier) called the "morepork"? I pointed to its picture in a NZ bird book and asked my wife "You know what this owl wants?" My wife grinned at me like I was an 8-year-old in need of being humored.

I love the art of ROY Lichtenstein (58D: Pop artist Lichtenstein), but today ROY is kinda freaking me out. Like ... he's only in the puzzle once, but because of the weird R-O-Y traffic jam up in the NW, it feels like he's all over the place.

The Rest:

• 17A: "2, 4, 6, 8 - Who do we appreciate?," e.g. (chant) - wanted CHEER. Last time I heard this CHANT chanted to its conclusion, I was 11 years old and on a soccer field.
• 22A: Iraq's second-largest city (Mosul) - amazing what a war will do to the puzzle viability of a city.
• 33A: Pupil surrounder (iris) - OK, we need a word for the horrible "-er" words that appear only in xword clues (i.e. "surrounder"). I am going to make a push soon for the use of SPOOR as substitute for "crosswordese." SPOOR is perfect for a number of reasons - it's crosswordese itself (or at least borderline). And, like crosswordese, it helps you reach your goal but it's basically shit.
• 37A: Glad rival in the kitchen (Ziploc) - second time we've seen this answer this month, I think. It's a great little 6-letter word. Later in the week, this clue would not have included "in the kitchen."
• 57A: Hole-making tool (auger) - not a word I ever use. Where "hole-making" is concerned, I tend to rely on the AWL. I confuse AUGER and AUGUR (unsurprisingly).
• 60A: Daisylike bloom (aster) - Beautiful spoor. Suffixing "-like" to words is also a very crossword cluey thing to do.
• 61A: Low-tech office recorder (steno) - I started watching "Mad Men" (TV show) on the plane over from S.F. I think there are STENOs on that show (it's set in the advertising world of the early 60s).
• 64A: On edge (testy) / 48D: On edge (tense) - traveling while sick can make you either one of these. Somehow, we have all survived with a minimum of testiness.
• 2D: Biofuel option (ethanol) - Still seems like a mythical fuel to me. If we use all the arable land to feed cattle and cars ... what are we going to, you know, eat? Besides cattle. And maybe cars.
• 5D: French composer Erik (Satie) - gorgeous music. I like to plug him every chance I get.

• 9D: Remodeler's planning (decor) - I had COLOR :(
• 44A: Newspaper columnist Goodman (Ellen) - I know her name. I don't know why.
  
• 11D: Like some tickets and Western pioneers (scalped) - one of the more outlandish clues in recent memory. Gruesome. Funny.
• 19D: Fraternity recruit (rushee) - one of those idiotic words that ends -ee when it should end -er. My college roommate rushed a frat. Didn't that make him a rusher?
• 21D: Church official (cleric) - I had something else here at first, and now I have no idea what that could have been.
• 23D: Parts of P.O. labels (sts.) - possibly the worst thing in the grid.
• 24D: Roman poet banished by Augustus (Ovid) - banished to Tomi on the Black Sea for "crimen et carmen" (crime and song). He somehow degraded the emperor's daughter ... it's all very hazy. I love Ovid this much (my hands are spread Wide apart).
• 25D: Acapulco agreement ("Si, señor") - more outlandishness. Good stuff.
• 31D: Sherpa shelter (tent) - such a simple answer; yet I had YURT.
• 34D: Headgear fit for a queen (diadem) - TIARAS would have fit
• 36D: Tap mishap (leak) - I was imagining Fred Astaire taking a terrible spill

• 37D: Last of 26 (zee) - down here: ZED
• 49D: Moonshine ingredient (yeast) - Not what I would have guessed. Had no idea this was true. You know what also contains yeast: VEGEMITE (delicious). I'm a total convert. We'll be bringing big jars back with us to the states. Vegemite and manuka honey and apples are all I've been eating for breakfast here. Dreamy.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS following up on the video SethG posted yesterday, re: crazy NZ potato chip flavors, here is a photo of my daughter enjoying one of the featured brands, which she stumbled onto completely by chance in her kids' meal box at a local cafe:



PPS A New Zealand music triptych. I had some silverbeet tonight (it's like swiss chard, I think). Anyhoo, it reminded me of an album of the same name by The Bats, a Dunedin-based group I listened to a Lot in grad school (thanks, Kathy):



Split Enz featured Tim and Neil Finn. Neil went on to found Crowded House (a hugely underrated band - "Temple of Low Men" is one of my favorite albums, ever). Their songwriting is wry and thoughtful and sometimes funny, and their sense of melody is unparalleled in pop music. Here's an early Split Enz video - "Six Months in a Leaky Boat" (it's got a LONG nautical intro - be patient):



And here's Neil doing "Don't Dream It's Over" live:



And here's Anna Coddington, who seems to be the Next Big Thing in NZ pop music. Here's a radio interview and in-studio performance. I find her incredibly charming (in the interview there are references to Bic Runga and Anika Moa, both very big singer-songwriters down here).

MONDAY, Jul. 21, 2008 - Gilbert H. Ludwig (FURBYS OR YO-YOS, ONCE / 1975 TITLE ROLE FOR LYNN REDGRAVE)

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: Women in Good Moods - three film titles following the pattern [THE + synonym for "jolly" + kind of woman]

Managed this one in under four on a very touchy and temperamental laptop here in my in-laws' place in Lake Hawea. A simple, elegant Monday puzzle, that also manages to be funny. THE HAPPY HOOKER makes a great punch line to this theme. Which of these theme answers is not like the others? By a longshot, THE HAPPY HOOKER. The other 2 answers are black&white 1934 musical comedies about - I assume - reasonably respectable women. Not that a hooker / madam can't be "respectable," by some definition of the word. My favorite factoid about "THE HAPPY HOOKER" - it co-starred Tom Poston.

Theme answers:

• 20A: 1934 title role for Ginger Rogers ("THE GAY DIVORCEE")
• 35A: 1934 title role for Jeanette MacDonald ("THE MERRY WIDOW")
• 51A: 1975 title role for Lynn Redgrave ("THE HAPPY HOOKER")

I have a minor admiration for the non-horrible 3x6 areas in the NW and SE. RUSTLE (1D: What leaves do in the wind) has a certain autumnal quality, though it's winter here and we have certain heard much rustling in the various bushes and shrubs that we pass on our (many) walks. The rustling is usually some exotic bird, which is to say, a perfectly ordinary bird to everyone around here. I am currently sitting in the library where I can see through the living room out onto the deck and across the lake to the mountains. Which means that I'm currently enjoying a spectacular LAKE VIEW (12D: Placid vacation vista).



Many little birds are currently fighting each other on the deck for the apples and suet that my in-laws leave out for them. I'm told they are insect-feeding birds called "white eyes" or "silver eyes." They just look like a slightly more colorful (greenish?) version of the Little Brown Birds I see all over the place in NY.

We took a walk into town this morning, to the local BODEGA (3D: Barrio grocery), which appears to be the only store in town. Literally. The Only One. Gotta go to Wanaka (15 min. down the road) to do a proper shop, I guess. Lake Hawea (which wants to be in a puzzle someday) is apparently where old people who like mountain life live. Wanaka and Queenstown are given over to yuppies and x-treme sports types, respectively.

I wonder if anyone would pay to see a movie called "The BANAL CABAL" (18A: Like "Have a nice day") + (4D: Plotters' plot).

Today's puzzle did a nice job of staying out of the crap fill rut, with only ADELA (15A: Journalist _____ Rogers St. Johns), ALAI (7D: Jai _____), and YMA (38D: Singer Sumac) even vaguely mucking things up.

EVA MARIE Saint (25A: With 56-Across, Saint of Hollywood) is hot, and also features prominently in one of my favorite songs of the 80s: "Rattlesnakes" by Lloyd Cole and the Commotions.


I wish this puzzle had MINARETS, because it's got a wonderful near-east theme going, what with all the TURKS (19A: Denizens of 45-Down) in ANKARA (45D: Capital ESE of Istanbul) practicing ISLAM (42A: Imam's faith).

Remainder:

• 4A: Unconscious states (comas) - strangely, the only one of the first six Across answers that I didn't get right off the bat. I say "strangely" because I feel like I've been in and out of a COMA as I try to get adjusted to life down under. Yesterday was the first day where I really felt like I'd kicked whatever sickly pall had been hanging over me since landing here. Coincidentally, the sun is shining brightly and it's 50+ degrees, even though we're in the mountains in the dead of winter. I don't get this place at all. You can see palm trees and snow-capped mountains in the same vista, and some of the trees here are flowering ... eerie.
• 16A: Whodunit award (Edgar) - not just for "whodunits"
• 17A: Rev. _____ (Bible ver.) (std.) - omg that clue / answer makes my head hurt. Too many abbrevs. Plus, REV and VER ... well, you can see - palindromic. Again, eerie.
• 31A: Bank acct. guarantor (FDIC) - Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; I remember various ads, probably for banks, that would end with a quickly uttered "Member FDIC"; had no idea what the hell that meant until I was much older. Same thing happened with MSRP.
• 32A: "That's one small step for _____ ..." ("a man") - I honestly had no idea about the indefinite article, although clearly it's necessary to draw the distinction between the individual man and all humanity.
• 41A: "Darn," more formally ("Alas") - er ... I'm not sure I can accept this clue. "Darn, poor Yorick, I knew him, Horatio." "ALAS" is not the exclamation that "Darn" is. To my ear.
• 48A: Nonvegetarian sandwich, for short (BLT) - read the clue too quickly and it'll knock you over - "Nonvegetarian" looks like an adjective applying to resident of some Nordic region.
• 2D: Purim heroine (Esther) - learned it from xwords. I believe HAMAN is involved in there, somehow.
• 5D: Jazzy Anita (O'Day) - I get her confused with Keely Smith.

• 8D: Series of shots, as from warships (salvos) - I just started reading "Great Expectations," and there are SALVOS of a sort at the beginning of the novel, warning of the escape of an inmate from a prison ship. Why am I reading "Great Expectations?" OK, so there's this NZ novel called "Mr. Pip," which my brother-in-law gave me to read, and I started reading it and was Loving it - until it became clear that the plot of "Great Expectations" was going to figure prominently. My mother-in-law was only too happy to loan me her copy of Dickens. "Won't it be lovely for you to read it again?" I said, "If by 'again' you mean 'for the first time,' then yes, it will." (English Ph.D., U. Mich., 1999, and ... virtually no Dickens under my belt). I'm only about 8 chapters in. I'll let you know how it turns out.
• 22D: Defeat by a stroke? (outswim) - clever, though it had me thinking, morbidly, about defeating someone by causing him/her to have a stroke.
• 29D: Part of a cigarette rating (tar) - makes me realize how seldom cigarettes feature in the puzzle (anymore?). Cigars, sometimes. Cigarettes, hardly at all. Or else I'm forgetting something obvious because I'm in an NZ-induced COMA.
• 31D: Furbys or yo-yos, once (fad) - the very word "Furby" makes me cringe in horror at the entire decade that was the 90s.
• 35D: Sailor's yarn (tall tale) - this answer is much better vertical than it would be horizontal.
• 36D: Charles de Gaulle : Paris :: _____ : London (Heathrow) - most of the time I have spent in England has been spent at Heathrow. I think I've spent all of 24 hours total in England; compare to weeks in Wales and months in Scotland (which is like the NZ of the Northern Hemisphere).
• 43D: Drain furtively, maybe (siphon) - nice clue / word combo
• 54D: Gym locale, for short (YMCA) - "Gime? ... Oh, Gime!"

Off for another long walk. We picked out the site of our future home yesterday. Sadly, we later found out that the scraggly plot of land - sans house - had already received an offer of $1 million. Granted, that's $1 million NZD (thus somewhat less in USD), but still, a tad out of our current price range. So we're still looking.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS - to my earlier point about NZ being like a Bizarro AMERICA (28D: Song that begins "My country, 'tis of thee"): we rented a car at the Queenstown airport. It's a Nissan (OK, that's familiar) ... which appears to have two model names (??): "Sunny"


and, more perplexingly / hilariously, "Ex-Saloon"


as in "That hooker sure looks happy. What kind of hooker is she?" "Oh, that's Velda. She's EX-SALOON"

SUNDAY, July 20, 2008 – Barry C. Silk (ANCIENT GREEK COINS/NATIONAL FLOWER OF MEXICO)

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium, with a few Huh?s

Theme: Across the (Chess) Board – six theme answers contain (in circles) the names of chess pieces, with the last containing CHESS itself.

Hey, SethG here, sitting in for vacationing Rex and trying to live up to the standards set by PuzzleGirl and Wade. But I know that’s unlikely, so instead of sitting home worrying about the puzzle and my write-up I took this show on the road.

As soon as the puzzle was released I printed out a few copies, and PuzzleMomToBe and I headed to the Metrodome, where we did some crosswork while watching the Twins play the Texas Rangers. Joining us in our mad adventure were John Chandler-Pepelnjak, JohnJohn, Weeky, and Kirby. My goal: finish the puzzle, don’t miss a pitch.


The events:
6:11: Sit down just as Livan Hernandez (watch out for his name!) delivered the first pitch of the game.

6:25: Joe Mauer hits a home run, and I have 7 answers scattered about.

6:35: Davis hits a 2-run shot for the Rangers to go up 2-1. I get LIMA, OHIO (72A: City 70 miles SSW of Toledo) from the H, and my first real traction in an area with ATM FEE (45D: Charge for cash) and NONET (46D: Large chamber group).

6:40: (102A: Egg roll topping, perhaps) is CHINESE something. So the last circle must be an S to spell [chess], and I’m thinking the circles will spell out board games.

I explain what the circles will mean to PuzzleMomToBe. Then I think maybe it’s just different kinds of boards—it wouldn’t surprise me to see circles spelling out Ouija, emery, school… Awesome!, I’ve got a sweet Ouija board story I can tell for my blog entry.

6:51: I move to the middle. And the traction I had gave me an FE in (59A: It’s quite different from the high-school variety). I know immediately that it’s gonna be PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING, and the circles spell out [pawn]. Okay, it looks like a chess board after all, with the circled letters spelling out chess pieces, and if there’s one thing I know about chess it’s the names of the pieces.

Luckily, there’s one thing I know about chess. I can fill in the pieces in the rest of the theme clues, and this is one of those times when understanding the theme really helped make solving the puzzle much easier. Uh, constructors, pretend you never heard what I said about the other boards…

7:06: They play Hava Nagila over the loudspeaker, everyone’s favorite Hebrew folk song/stadium anthem. PMTB asks me if (14D: TV pooch) is ALF. I say “ALF was not a dog.” And I’d have laughed at her, but that had been my first thought too. It’s REN.

“What about the abbreviation for Bridge? For (35D: Abbr. after Cleveland or Brooklyn)?” she asks. I tell her I don’t have it yet, but that I’ve never heard of the Cleveland Bridge. It’s HTS. Morneau hits an RBI single and is thrown out by 8 feet trying to reach 2nd.

Friend Kirby is upset because they picked the one (51D: Mad magazine cartoonist [Dave]) he doesn’t know. I had BERG from the crosses.

7:11: Ashley Nelson will marry Ray! I feel comfortable sharing that information on the internets because (a) 1/3 of Minnesota is named Nelson and (b) they already provided those details to the near-sellout crowd of 35,085. Then a couple named Orval and Bernelle were congratulated for something, and Evan Wojtowicz, we all love you.

Denard Span hit a sharp bouncer to left for a single to move the runner over to third, and he snuck over to second when the throw was lazily lofted in to hold the lead runner there. There might be a name for that, but I’m actually not much of a baseball fan. Nice play, though.

(7A: Leader of Lesbos?) is LAMBDA, the first letter of the Greek Island, which means (10D: One desiring change) is BEGGAR. Too bad I can’t tell my Buddhist hot dog joke.

7:25: Intentionally walk Mauer to load the bases with two outs. To pitch to Morneau, who bats from the same side and has a better average and more power.

7:27: Morneau hits a 3-run double. 6-2, Twins. Kirby somehow has “oil” in place of KIM (23D: Kipling novel).

7:48: It’s 8-2, 1 out with runners at 2nd and 3rd, and I’ve got only Washington state and 56A to finish. For (1D: Lose strength) I have xAG, and it could be B or L or S, or maybe some form I don’t know of J or R or W or Z? It’s SAG, cause (1A: Demanded without reason) is SAID SO.

7:55: Morneau hits a 2-run HR to right. The Twins are up 12-2, and I’m verifiably angry at 56A and mildly annoyed at myself because I can’t think of 19A or 36A

8:07: Hernandez throws a 58mph pitch, followed by an 86mph pitch. We make eephus jokes.

8:11: No progress. Buscher hits a 2-run HR, 14-2. DEFACE (4D: Give bad marks) seems horribly wrong to me, as apparently I’m thinking of face removal rather than the common word “deface”. ACCEPT (19A: Honor) seems wrong to me, though somehow I know it’s right. “Like a credit card,” says everyone around me, all of whom filled that in a while ago. Oh, right.

8:30: Win, 14-2. I’m admitting defeat, and am thinking about texting Orange to find out what 56A is.

9:30: We adjourn to the wine bar across from the theater. They’re showing Goonies at midnight, and Weeky and I wouldn’t miss it. (I will admit to an ‘80s crush on Martha Plimpton...) Kirby’s gone home, but PMTB’s husband Pbo joins the rest of us for a snack. Weeky and PMTB start working the puzzle together, and they’re making real progress. I warn them away from my area of disaster, but otherwise they’re doing well. PMTB finally remembers everyone’s favorite Turkish pooh-bah, PASHA (87A: “Doctor Zhivago” role). Weeky’s coming up with stuff left and right, naming an answer, saying “that can’t be it”, and looking over to have me confirm that it is. “PUBLISHING COMPANY” [bishop], she blurts out (77A: Viking, for one). She comes up with the full (102A: Egg roll topping, perhaps), CHINESE MUSTARD.

PMTB blurts out “(55A: Alphabet quartet) is MNLO!” I’ll admit I JAPED. It’s MNOP.

I explain that (111A: Mrs. Woody Allen) is SOON YI, his step-daughter, but it turns out he was only her mom’s long-term partner, not her mom’s husband. Because that’s much less icky.

We talk about my favorite answer in the puzzle, RYE (107D: Manhattan part). The other parts: a DOLLOP (54D: Spoonful, say) of sweet vermouth, a dash of bitters, a garnish.

2:30: Get home from Goonies, sit down to figure out what I had wrong.


The rest of the theme answers:

• (22A: November 5 in Britain) is GUY FAWKES NIGHT.
• (29A: Wild sheep of the western United States) is ROCKY MOUNTAIN BIGHORN [king].
• (44A: Best Actor of 1991) is SIR ANTHONY HOPKINS [rook] for The Silence of the Lambs.
• (91A: Army supply officer) is a QUARTERMASTER GENERAL [queen].

Some yucky crosses/huh? moments:
JAPES (36A: Mocks) crosses OPERE (30D: _____ citato) at the P. I figured that was a kind of opera in some language, but that’s the full version of the Latin “op. cit.”, which means “in the work quoted.”

I somehow forget studying OSTEND (113A: Belgian city with an 1854 manifesto) in my 19th century European History class, and it crossed the could-have-been-lots-of-stuff SID (105D: Half-brother of Tom Sawyer) at the D.

Turns out I had a wrong answer where BRAVA (81A: La Scala cheer) crosses ISOLA (62D: Capri, e.dg., to a Capriote). BRAVO has been clued the same way, and remind me why I’m supposed to know the gender of the Italian word for island? Is this fair? It is not.

Illinois. Lots of yuck for me in Illinois. I’m lucky I remembered that (67A: Eurasian ducks) is SMEWS, or I wouldn’t have had the S in ISOLA in the first place. I love the clue phrase “Eurasian ducks”. A discussion here back in the day taught me that (56D: Bygone blades) are SNEES. As in “snick and snee”, but I don’t remember what snick is.

I have medium-end skills, not enough to know the high-end crosswordese OBOLS (47D: Ancient Greek coins) even after visiting the Numismatic Museum of Athens last July.

And finally, I have NEVER heard of SKIRR (43D: Go rapidly). And I have NEVER heard of SPOOR (56A: Trail to follow). My guess was the SPOOL you use for Ariadne’s thread, and SKILR looks almost as plausible as SKIRR.

But still, unlike ISOLA these are at least English words, so I can’t say that it’s unfair, just that it hit a void in my knowledge. But I will say that there were six of us talking about this. I was the only regular crossword solver, but we’re all educated and fairly intelligent, especially John Chandler-Pepelnjak, and none of us had any idea. Unfortunately, it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth from an otherwise fine puzzle.

Okay, PuzzleGirl will be mad at me if I don’t get some more sleep before today’s activities, so I’ll leave you here. Rex is back tomorrow, and I promise more PG and Wade in the near future!

Signed, SethG, Royal Vizier of CrossWorld

SATURDAY, July 19, 2008 - Todd McClary (HERO/GIANT CREATED BY RABELAIS / RECORDING STUDIO SOUND SHIELDS)

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: None (or maybe "failure" with the crossing of YOU CAN'T WIN 'EM ALL and MET ONE'S WATERLOO)

Hi, all. Wade here for Rex, who, for those of you who might have been out of the loop lately, is in New Zealand. The backup team is PuzzleGirl, super-nifty gee whiz kid; Seth the boy genius; and me, the wealthy industrialist who bankrolls their crime-solving efforts and lets them drink all the Sunny D they want to in my opulent mansion. PuzzleGirl heads to Costa Rica this weekend, I'm here from Houston today, and Seth will be here tomorrow from Minneapolis to take your nothing day and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile. (Don't forget your hat, Seth.)

I'm doing this write-up on Friday night because my dad has come down to stay with me a few days during my temporary bachelorhood and help me build an office in the garage. It's hard to get my dad to come to the city--he's afraid he'll get shot--but I've found that if you present him with a project the idea is more palatable to him, so I asked him to come help me build an office. (I have a three-and-a-half car garage but only one and a half cars.) My wife is nervous about the idea, I can tell by her voice, but she's in Scotland and can't do anything to stop us. She had no problem with the idea when I brought it up several months ago--"Yes, dear, sounds nice, dear," that sort of thing--probably thinking it would go the way of my other ideas, like moving to Portland or building a time machine (Seth and I have a plan), little realizing that this idea would fall into the infinitesimal percentage of stuff I say I'm going to do that actually gets done. So what you're reading was actually written last night between about 10 and 3 a.m. [I originally had midnight here, but PuzzleGirl went to bed and left me in the lurch to do my own formatting], with breaks for Chips Ahoy! (That's not me being overly excited about Chips Ahoy!, though I do love them; the exclamation point is part of the product's name, just like Dr Pepper's periodlessness.)

I have mixed feelings about this puzzle. I don't really have a "typical" Saturday solving experience. I might finish one in fifteen minutes, an hour, or in any other time frame or not at all. This one took me about 45 minutes probably, though I stopped the clock at 35:16 with nine blank squares in the NE and got up and had some Chips Ahoy!, the original ones, not the chewy ones or peanut butter ones or ones with M&M's or any of the other gimmicky ones, just your plain goddamned basic Chips Ahoy! we've all been eating since we were old enough to eat cookies and I don't know why people have to keep messing with stuff that works fine the way it's always been, which seemed to clear my head, and when I came back I saw GAINS staring at me (9D: Results of bull markets) in that wonderful, mystical crossword way of things, and quickly polished off the rest of the nine squares and a couple more Chips Ahoy! With milk, of course! [sic]

I started the puzzle with high hopes when it flattered my intelligence with 17A Hero/giant created by Rabelais (GARGANTUA), an answer I knew, probably from crosswords. I thought we were in for another top-notch puzzle like the ones we've had pretty much all week. I thought this puzzle was going to prove I was a genius for a day, which is what crosswords are supposed to do. It didn't. In fact, it sort of seemed to resent that I knew GARGANTUA so effortlessly. Do you ever suspect that a crossword sometimes changes itself out of spite after you've started doing it, that a correct answer you've entered pisses it off so much that it rewrites itself so that your next answer, correct when filled in, is made no longer correct? I'm pretty sure that's what this puzzle did, because after GARGANTUA the next answer I filled in, with great confidence, was TEEN (31D: Selective service registrant). I'm sure that was the right answer when I entered it, but by the time I'd gotten to the downs the puzzle had rewritten itself so that the new correct answer was now MALE, and that's what totally boogered up the NE, and that's why the puzzle, cornered and confused and almost undone by its own malevolence, had to conspire to invent the word GOBOS (9A: Recording studio sound shields), which wasn't a word when I started doing the puzzle but now the dictionaries say really exists.

Still, the puzzle and I wound up on good terms by the end of it. We learned to accept each other's differences and, in the process, I think, learned something about ourselves. I saw grudging respect when I filled in that double A in CANAANITE (56A: Language group including Hebrew). For the double B in BB GUN (1D: Plinking weapon) I was rewarded with a smile. When I got to the end of YOU CAN'T WIN 'EM ALL (8D: Words of consolation), the music swelled, the puzzle looked at me and said quietly, "Wade, well done." Then it shot my dad.

Noteworthy stuff, or at least noted stuff:

• 16A: "Avoid extinction, say" (ADAPT) – The "say" clue is underrated. I hate the "say" clue, but somehow still it's underrated.
• 22A: "___ sequence" (DNA) – The fill-in-the-blank clue can bite you in the ass like no other unless it's a title or some other type of unique proper noun. I filled in INA here on my first pass, which was a really stupid guess and only coincidentally one letter off from the actual answer, which proves what I've been saying all along: God despises me.
• 26: "Some pinball targets" (RAMPS) – We need a name for this irritating type of clue. It reminds me of conversations I used to have with an old girlfriend. "You'll never guess what I saw on my way to work." "You're right, I won't." "I'll give you a hint. They're some pinball targets." "Some pinball targets." "Yes!" "That could be anything. It could be anything a pinball hits." "Tries to hit. I'm not saying anything more!" "It's ridiculous. Just tell me what you saw on your way to work." "I told you! Some pinball targets!" "But it could be anything a pinball hits! Tries to hit, I mean! And I don't even know anything a pinball hits! Tries to hit, I mean!"

  
  
  
  

• 35A: Grandson of Noah (MAGOG) – Biblical names are the new Dylan. (Remember when there were kids named Jimmy? I had a friend named Jimmy. So did you.) I don't think anybody named Magog, however, will need to start using his middle initial any time soon.
• 36A: Suffered defeat (MET ONE'S WATERLOO) – Seth was disgrunteld with this answer; he says it gets only two Google hits, both on a Japanese translation site. Me, I was gruntled. The clue is straight down the middle of the plate, unassailable really, and the phrase is pleasing to me, probably because it makes me think of the first time I heard the word "Waterloo." Stonewall Jackson (the country singer, not the Civil War general who died across the river and through the trees) recorded a semi-novelty song of that title back in the fifties, and my mother had it on a 45 she'd owned since she was a girl. It was my little sister's favorite song when she was about four and I was six. Neither of us knew what it was about; we just liked the word and the tune. My favorite song was "Running Bear" by Sonny James. It was about an Indian boy and girl whose respective tribes are enemies and are separated by a river. Running Bear jumps into the river to swim across to White Dove, and she comes to meet him, and they both drown, but now they'll be together forever "in their happy hunting ground." My mother would play one and then the other, one and then the other, and sometimes she'd play Homer and Jethro singing "How Much is that Doggie in the Window?" which we liked because it had actual dogs barking on the chorus. This was in a rattlesnake- and yellow-jacket-infested old farmhouse we rented at the end of a dirt road near a town called, really, Scotland. There was nothing else to do but stick grasshoppers through their thoraxes on barbed wire fences and watch them try to push themselves off the barb. I did that too. No telling how many grasshoppers I slaughtered as a kid.
• 1D: Plinking weapon (BB GUN) – It's all fun and games til somebody loses an eye. ("Plinking" though? "Plinking"?)
• 3D: Five-sided pods (OKRAS) – So they are. I'd never counted. We pronounced it "okry." My grandpa wouldn't eat okra because, he said, it was a gourd. Like that settled it.
• 15D: Kraft offering in a can (PARMESAN) - At my house we pretty much inhale this stuff. I wonder what it is.
• 24D: Braking maneuvers for skaters (T-STOPS) - I didn't know this, of course--nobody did. Liar. But I should mention that one of the reasons I'm building an office in my garage is because I just moved my new official office to the Galleria for reasons that make sense except that I HATE WORKING IN THE GALLERIA! I literally work in the mall now. When I go downstairs, there are all the people I don't like, all in one place at the same time. The Galleria is like a little custom-made hell just for ol' Wade. Anyway, there's an ice-rink in the mall, which is why I bring it up.
• 34D: Trattoria offering (OSSO BUCO) – They eat a lot of this at Artie's on The Sopranos. I still can't spell it right if left to my own devices.
• 47D: One-stanza poem (HAIKU) – Took me a long time to get this. I'm a cinquain man myself.
• 52D: "Creator of 1867's 'Grand Caricatura'" (NAST) – "This is sure to spark a revival in interest of our great-great-great-uncle Tom's work!" think the descendants of Thomas Nast. No, kids, it won't. We just need his letters. (Got NASTY in the grid, too: (23A: Foul). I guess if you draw like Nast your caricatures could be described as Nasty.)
• 55D: "Had an uneventful day" (SAT) – What, nothing happens when you're sitting down? The Easter Bunny begs to differ.

Seth tomorrow, Rex or maybe pot luck on Monday.

Wade

FRIDAY, July 18, 2008 - Mike Nothnagel (SHOWY FLOWER OF THE IRIS FAMILY / CHORUS "INSTRUMENT" IN VERDI'S "IL TROVATORE")

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none

This blogging- in- the- afternoon thing is very disorienting. First off, I clearly do not solve on all cylinders at this time of day (i.e. the time of day when sensible Spaniards are sleeping). This puzzle took me 15+ minutes, a good 50% longer than most Fridays take me. I couldn't get a damned thing going up top, and even after I dropped EXIT RAMP (14A: Way off) in, with no crosses, I promptly gummed up the entire works by confidently entering PET for 15D: Familiar (pal). For the record, PET is a far, FAR better answer. PAL indeed. Harumph. The real killer in this puzzle was IXIA (2D: Showy flower of the iris family) ... you know a word's wacky when you have the "X" in place and still can't place it. I first thought AXIL, which is in the ballpark (flora-related), but wrong, clearly. I finally got a (non-CIRCADIAN) RHYTHM (17A: It helps you sleep at night) going when I threw down NAPSTER (18D: Onetime foe of the recording industry), daring it to be wrong, and it wasn't. RARA (40A: Hard to find in old 13-Down) helped me get ROME which helped me settle my SHEA / ASHE dilemma (12D: New York stadium name). The rest of the puzzle was easy enough, though I had a heck of a time getting the "N" at the NYS (52D: Grover Cleveland was once its gov.) / MONISM (51A: Belief that all things are made of a single substance) intersection. And I'm a pseudo-MONIST who lives in NYS!! Ugh.

Marquee answers:

• 10D: Inclusive, as some resorts (gay-friendly) - had the FRIENDLY, then had -AY FRIENDLY, and was still at a loss (DAY-FRIENDLY? Like a DAY spa?). Then I figured out DOGEAR (a great word - 8A: Turndown?) and couldn't believe I didn't get the GAY part much sooner. This answer makes me think of Waylon Smithers, who goes to a GAY-FRIENDLY resort in one of my favorite "Simpsons" episodes, "Homer the Smithers" (Homer fills in for Smithers as Burns's lickspittle).
• 22D: Person with a burning resentment (fire marshal) - the symmetry of this answer and GAY-FRIENDLY pleases me no end.
• 27D: "Diner" co-star, 1982 (Kevin Bacon) - I wanted ... oh, what's her name ...? Oh, Ellen Barkin. Doesn't fit. Paul Reiser was also in that movie. He's an alum of the place where I teach. I wonder how many degrees of separation there are between KEVIN BACON and LITA Ford (54D: Rock guitarist Ford). I'll leave it to you all to figure it out.
• 1A: Music lovers flip for it (side two) - flipPED for it. I mean, come on. Vinyl? Cassette tapes? What year is it? (I know that vinyl has never gone away for many music enthusiasts ... and yet, I demand the past tense, nonetheless).
• 56A: "Unfortunately..." ("Much to my chagrin...") - fabulous, in a retro kind of way. It's such a ... mom thing to say. I must have learned this expression from my mom, in fact.

Assorted otherness:

• 20A: 17-Across disrupter (jet lag) - yes. Yes. . . . yes.
• 22A: Rage inducers (fads) - love it. Put it in, then took it out ... then near the end discovered that I'd been right all along.
• 23A: Antoinette after whom the Tony Awards are named (Perry) - mysterioso. The Tonys are the Awards about which I know least.
• 31A: Some dolls can do it (nest) - I was about to ask what the hell this means ... but just as I started typing the clue, I got it. Nesting dolls. Like these:

• 33A: Private modes of transportation? (jeeps) - nice. Getting it made me realize I'd screwed up, gender-wise, with 24D: Indian chief (Raja); I had RANI. I like that RAJA and BAJA (25D: Popular Mexican tourist destination) both made the puzzle. Ditto DECO (42A: Like some '39 New York World's Fair buildings) and DEKA (36D: Prefix meaning "10": Var.). In fact, DECO is the only thing that makes DEKA tolerable.
• 37A: Enzyme's end (-ase) - argh, sciencey suffixes. Always throw me. -OSE, -ASE, -ENE, -ANE, etc.
• 38A: Chorus "instrument" in Verdi's "Il Trovatore" (anvil) - cooooool. I had no idea.
• 39A: "Pokemon" genre (anime) - "Pokémon" is so strongly associated with the trading card game (for me) that I sometimes forget that it's an animated series as well.
• 45A: Presidential portrait site? (wallet) - not in my wallet, not at the moment. Who knows what these people (Kiwis) put on their bills? It's not presidents, that's for sure.
• 47A: T-bar or Z-bar (brand) - uh ... what? What kind of brand? Like the brand you brand your cattle with?
• 57D: "I didn't need to know that," informally (TMI) - "Too much information"
  
• 53A: Redwood National Park sight (elk) - aargh, got my "site" and "sight" confused.
• 1D: Pres. appointee (secy.) - I have never liked this abbr.
• 3D: Benedict of "The A-Team" (Dirk) - For some reason, this clue / answer really makes me wish I could see "A.L.F." somewhere in the grid
• 5D: Emperor before Hadrian (Trajan) - Sure, why not.
• 6D: Began energetically (waded in) - as I've said before, wading is not energetic. Expect more WADE DIN this weekend, when Wade fills in for me again (I'll be back for the early-week puzzles next week).
• 9D: Glaswegian "Gee!" ("Och!") - The spelling is different (from Scottish to German), but the pronunciation is roughly the same ... isn't it?
• 32D: English jurisdiction (Earldom) - are EARLDOMs still viable, legal divisions of the country? "Jurisdiction" implies so.
• 34D: Section of the hockey rink in front of the goal (slot) - took me a while. Could think only of CREASE.
• 46D: Force commanded by the Duke of Medina Sidonia (Armada) - I didn't know this, but what else is [Force commanded by some Spanish guy] gonna be?
• 48D: Biotite and lepidolite (micas) - good thing I know the word MICAS, because those clue words mean Nothing to me.
• 53D: Offspring of Chaos, to Hesiod (Eros) - I had no idea. Nice clue for an overly common answer.

See you Monday - Wade and SethG will have the Saturday and Sunday puzzles for you.

Signed (from Wanaka, NZ), Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS Coffee-wise, a "flat white" is a thing of beauty. I'm drinking them everywhere, all the time.

My daughter is also a thing of beauty. Her financial sense, however, is still in development. She has roughly $20NZ to work with for three weeks, and today, her first purchase ... was a compass (!?).

THURSDAY, Jul. 17, 2008 - Elizabeth A. Long (STARR OF THE OLD WEST / AVANT-GARDE FILMMAKER BRAKHAGE)

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: "SHAPES UP" (42D: Quits misbehaving ... or a literal hint to 4-, 9-, 13-, 49- and 57-Down) - theme answers are shapes, which read from bottom to top

Rex here. I'm back blogging for a couple of days, then gone again, then back, etc., until Aug. 7. You'll pardon my lack of blogging motivation. Or you would pardon it, if you'd ever been here in NZ. I promise that I'll at least *try* to care about the puzzle.

Well, this one took me far longer than it should have. Something about Due North just krushed me. Couldn't remember 5A: Starr of the Old West (Belle), thought LIL (7D: One of TV's Rugrats) was DIL, thought BOLL (5D: Cotton pod) was ARIL, then HULL ... ugh. Plus, the theme took me somewhat longer than usual to figure out. So between (among?) 5A, 5D, 7D, and 9D: Coterie (elcric), I was a mess. The rest of the puzzle - mostly fine, difficulty-wise. I am still on super- slo- mo- mode, though, so nothing I say can be trusted at this point. Need several more days to recalibrate. My set-up here at my brother-in-law's is not optimal, but it'll do. I'm currently having trouble printing from Across Lite, which is making mark-up of the puzzle (an important pre-write-up ritual) impossible. Looks like I'm going to have to do some tinkering, because I canNOT do this properly w/o a printed-out puzzle in front of me. For now ... I'm just going to improvise.

Oh, and NZ is beautiful. I had Manuka honey on toast today, and then vegemite on toast. Both excellent. Hour+-long hike with the families and dog to a lake. Trip to Puzzling World (about which much more later).

Theme answers:

• 4D: Percussion instrument in an orchestra (elgnairt)
• 9D: Coterie (elcric)
• 13D: Headliner (rats)
• 57D: Racetrack (lavo)
• 49D: Unhip person (erauqs)

The only other non-theme-related trouble I had was in the name collision in the SE, where LORELAI (57A: One of TV's Gilmore Girls) meets DINAH (52D: Alice's pet cat in "Alice in Wonderland"). Didn't know either, and LORELAI in particular took a while to come together.

The Remaining:

• 24A: U.N. Secretary General from Ghana (Annan) - Very familiar name I can never remember how to spell. ANAN? ANNAN? KHOFI? KOFFI? KOFI?
• 33A: Colorful lawn or garden feature (whirligig) - great word, and one which I've never seen in the puzzle (to my knowledge). Much better in my puzzle than in my garden (they seem kinda tacky).
• 37A: Soundtrack annoyance (lag) - good clue; LAG often happens on embedded youtube videos
• 44A: Something you might want to get to the heart of? (artichoke) - mmmm. I got spoiled living in California, where these were fresh and plentiful. Delicious. Sidenote on fruit: NZ has the best apples. The Best. I had a Braeburn this morning and I handed it to my wife and said "This. This is what apples are supposed to taste like! This is the apple I look for every time I go shopping! ... This!"
• 50A: Sale day feeling (mania) - I seriously doubt that anyone actually has this feeling. It's what retailers SAY you have, or SAY they have, but ... come on.
• 67A: Doha's domain (Qatar) - the Doha / QATAR clue / answer pair can run in either direction. Doha and QATAR are the emirs of Crossworddom's Middle Eastern region.
• 11D: "The Worst _____ in London" ("Sweeney Todd" song) ("Pies") - misread this at first and thought it was the clue for 21D: Small hill (knoll), so I had "KNIFE"
• 28D: Tourist city between Jaipur and Lucknow (Agra) - AGRA's wearing fancy clothes today. Sadly, AGRA by any other name smells the same.
• 48D: Ha-ha, nowadays (LOL) - I prefer HA ha, actually. It's just one more key stroke, and it reminds me of my all-time favorite laugh.

• 55D: "The Country Girl" playwright, 1950 (Odets) - went through a major Grace Kelly phase in the 90s. Kelly won her Academy Award for her performance in the movie version of this play.
• 60D: Avant-garde filmmaker Brakhage (Stan) - What the what the what the? Of all the STANs. STAN Laurel. STAN Lee. UzbekiSTAN.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

WEDNESDAY, July 16, 2008 -- Joe Krozel (1889 Jerome K. Jerome Comedy Novel / Carlo who married Sofia Loren)

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: Random state abbreviations

Theme answers: (all are clued "See note," which note references the states by their nicknames)

• 20A: MT (Montana, Big Sky Country)
  
• 27A: TN (Tennessee, The Volunteer State)
  
• 47A: KS (Kansas, The Sunflower State)
  
• 56A: UT (Utah, The Beehive State)
  
• 6D: MO (Missouri, The Show-Me State)
  
• 11D: AL (Alabama, The Heart of Dixie)
  
• 62D: OR (Oregon, The Beaver State)
  
• 63D: ME (Maine, the Pine Tree State)

Howdy all. PuzzleBoy here broadcasting live on WREX from sister station WADE in Houston, filling in for PuzzleGirl filling in for Rex who fills in for nobody, baby. I drew the Wednesday straw, and I just couldn't be more tickled. I like Wednesdays. Wednesday is when I start paying attention. Everybody likes Wednesdays. How could you not? They're the most earnest and striving of the crossword family; they are so eager to please and they try so hard. If Fridays and Saturdays are your know-it-all Republican uncles, Thursday is your mom when she's a bit "tipsy," Sunday is grandma rattling on about her Franklin Mint collectibles, and Tuesday is ... well, we're a bit concerned about Tuesday.

Tuesday seems to be going through a ... phase. He's been spending a lot of time in his room (what is he building in there?), we don't know his friends, he's on the internet all the time, and where did that sullenness come from? It seems like only yesterday he was cute, adorable little Monday, so full of joy and surprise ("What does the mama cow say, Monday? What does the mama cow say?" "Moo! Moo!"), and now he's turned into this unrecognizable ... thing. (But what is he building in there?)

We hope for the best. We hope he'll grow out of it. We hope our regularly scheduled programming is not interrupted someday because of something Tuesday did.

But that Wednesday! Straight As! Working ahead in the textbook! Those little hearts dotting her i's! Why can't you be more like Wednesday? the mothers all ask their puzzles.

All right, enough of that.

Purists are gonna have a beef with this puzzle in that it gets to break the two-letter answer rule. And it's not like it brought a note from the doctor that excused it from having to play by the other kids' rules; no, this puzzle is somehow inherently special. It's got a theme, see? State abbeviations! So, coach, the rule doesn't make sense for me, because ....

Okay, I bought it. The states are randomly chosen and their placement in the grid doesn't approximate where the states would fall on a U.S. map, and states or their abbreviations don't really have anything else to do with the puzzle as far as I can detect, so really this puzzle gets a free pass to make some otherwise illegal letter combinations. But it pays off somewhat gloriously. If I gotta put up with eight two-letter combos to get eight 15-letter answers square around the grid, seven of which I've never seen before, I'll take that deal. This time. Even if the cluing is not always something to write home about.

The Long Answers

• 1A: 1889 Jerome K. Jerome comedy novel (Three Men in a Boat). I wonder if Jerome K. Jerome is related to Ford Madox Ford. Or maybe a cousin to William Carlos Williams. (Shouldn't it be "comic" novel?)
  
• 16A: Undesirable alternatives (horns of a dilemma). I never thought of the two horns of the dilemma as being alternatives, undesirable or otherwise. The dilemma is what's undesirable, and the horns are just the poky things that make it undesirable, right? I'm saying a dilemma is itself undesirable. It's like sitting on some horns. The horns aren't the thing you have to choose between. I'm overthinking this. I should look this stuff up before I start shooting my ignorant mouth off, but I have too much stuff opened up on my computer -- the puzzle, this site, Rex's posted site so I can check formatting, Outlook so I can keep up with PuzzleGirl telling me I'm a failure because I can't figure out how to paste the puzzle into this post, and I'm scared to death I'm going to lose what I've done so far and have to start over, because I tried to "save as draft" a while back and it posted what I'd done so far. Don't tell Rex. I got it deleted in time, I think. But you can see the horns of the dilemma I'm sitting on.
• 61A: Dessert not for the calorie-conscious (chocolate mousse). Great. We'll have some recipes to talk about today. Great.
• 64A: Some awards for accomplishment (honorary degrees). Bob Dylan got one from Princeton in the sixties, I think. My father-in-law's gotta a garage-ful of the things. He's not doing so well, healthwise. My wife and kids are over in Scotland with him now. Here's a shout-out to Neil and hoping he's feeling better.
• 1D: Outline (thumbnail sketch). Great answer. The clue's not so adventurous. Not like I got anything better.
• 2D: Whence the line "A person's a person, no matter how small" (Horton Hears a Who). This is the one I'd seen before. It was in a puzzle not so long ago, maybe clued the same way. I didn't know it then and didn't remember it today.
• 14D: Something customary (a matter of course).
• 15D: Pushing beyond proper limits (taking liberties).

A random sampling of stuff that caught my eye:

• 18A: Some feds (T-men). Always makes me think of George Jones's "White Lightnin'." I've listened to that song a thousand times in my life and I still can't tell whether he's saying "T-men" or "G-men," just like you never know which it's gonna be in the puzzle.
• 23A: Carlo who married Sophia Loren (Ponti). I know it's a crossword staple, but I never remember it, and I'm calling Natick on the cross with the painter Piet Mondrian, who probably also is a crossword standby.
• 28A: New Orleans to Indianapolis dir. (NNE). Dang. We just got there yesterday.
• 36A: Schubert's "The ___ King" (Erl). There's a guy from my hometown named Earl King. I think he's somebody's stepdad.
• 26D: Heel style (stiletto). I first heard this word in the Billy Joel song of that name on the album 52nd Street when I was about twelve or thirteen. I thought he was talking about a knife. It was a long time before I knew it was a shoe. Billy Joel gets a bad rap. I've said that before. I've said most stuff before.
• 32D: Light ______ (as air). I had YEARS, which along with the incorrect TORES (31D: Joe who was twice A.L. manager of the year (Torre)), made that little interior bit kind of tough for a few minutes. There's a level in Brickbreaker that looks like this grid, by the way.
• 33D: Forward (remail). Wednesday's feeling her oats!
• 41D: Footwear giant Thom (McAn). I peed my pants sitting on the Easter Bunny's lap at a Thom McAn's in Sikes Center Mall in Wichita Falls. It wasn't all that long ago, either.

• 48D: 1973 War hit "The ____ Kid" (Cisco). I don't know this song. Weird way to clue CISCO. The first Hilton hotel was in Cisco, Texas. (Yes! Got it in! Finally!)
• 55D: Shoot in a swamp (reed). Nicely clued. Seems I've seen it before, though.

Man, this internet blog-html designing and coding and writing stuff is nerve-wracking. I probably didn't use any of those words right. I'm going to post a video, just because I can.

Rex is back tomorrow. This was fun. But somebody's gotta stay and help me clean this place up.

TUESDAY, Jul. 15, 2008 -- Leonard Williams (BACTERIUM THAT DOESN'T NEED OXYGEN / LOCATION OF A STARRY BELT)

Relative difficulty: Easy

Hi, everybody. PuzzleGirl here with you again for your Tuesday puzzle fun. I flew through this puzzle with only one really small glitch and Seth reports this was his third fastest puzzle ever, so don't try to talk me out of the "easy" rating. (Wade was too busy watching "The Sopranos" to get an accurate assessment.) The theme? I didn't love it and didn't hate it, but have two minor quibbles with it.

THEME: "Sit Back and Listen" -- Phrases that introduce stories.

Theme answers:

• 20A: Fairy tale's start ("Once upon a time….")
• 34A: Grandpa's start ("When I was a boy….")
• 41A: Mom's start ("Back in the day….")
• 56A: Legend's start ("In years gone by….")

So here's my thing with the theme. These are good theme answers. Fine, fine theme answers. The clues on the other hand are, as a group, a little off. The fact that the clues echo each other (i.e., [something]'s start), to me, indicates that they should be more alike than they are. Fairy tale's start = Start of a fairy tale. Legend's start = Start of a legend. So far, so good. Grandpa's start = Start of a grandpa? Sorry but that doesn't work for me. Similarly, "Back in the day…." isn't the start of a mom. And, even worse, it's not even the start of a mom's story. It's the start of a prison inmate's story. I think the phrase that would actually fit for a "mom's story" (whatever That is) is "In my day…." Of course that doesn't have enough letters. So let's talk about the rest of the puzzle.

• 1A: Music played by Ravi Shankar at Woodstock (raga). Wikipedia warns that these "melodic modes in classical Indian music" should not be confused with ragga (which is short for "raggamuffin music"). The things you learn.

• 25A: Thor Heyerdahl craft (Ra I). This one tripped me up because Kon-Tiki wouldn't fit.

• 51A: Cooke who sang "You Send Me." I know we talked about this song not too long ago, but we were focused on the lyrics, not the artist. Did you get this one?

• 66A: It produces more than 20 million bricks annually (Lego). Seth suggested the accompanying picture. It's a two-fer, fitting both this answer and the theme: uphill-both-ways Legos!

• 3D: Ice cream flavor Cherry _____ (Garcia). I've never been tempted to try this particular flavor. Also not a huge Grateful Dead fan. Except for "Casey Jones." And "Friend of the Devil."

• 9D: Where Schwarzenegger was born (Austria). Is it weird that he's referred to by his last name only?

• 27D: Pastoral composition (idyl). I think that spelling deserves a "Var."

• 34D: Chinese cookers (woks). This word -- and virtually any Asian-sounding surname -- reminds me of something that happened once when I was working at a law firm in downtown D.C. When the receptionist would page someone, she would say, for example, "Mr. Parker, please. Mr. Parker." Of course you can't hear the inflection she used, but it was very calm and soothing and it was always the same. So one day, I swear to God, she paged two people right in a row. "Mr. White, please. Mr. White…. Mr. Huang, please. Mr. Huang." I never did find out if she did that on purpose.

• 36D: Rudiments (ABCs). It's easy as 1-2-3:

• 37D: Yuri's love in "Dr. Zhivago" (Lara). Let's just consider this our daily shout-out to Omar Sharif.

• 38D: Curved saber (scimitar). I knew this word but really had no idea how to spell it.

So I want to thank you all again for letting me hang out with you the last couple days. I'm scheduled for tomorrow's post too, but I think I'm going to hand it off to Wade. If I can pry him away from the TV.

Signed, PuzzleGirl, on behalf of H.R.H. Rex Parker

MONDAY, Jul. 14, 2008 -- Ed Early (LIKE THE OUTFIELD WALLS AT WRIGLEY FIELD / PETER WHO DIRECTED "THE LAST PICTURE SHOW" )

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

So Rex is on his way to New Zealand and you're stuck with me, PuzzleGirl, for the next couple days. Wade and SethG will also be filling in and, I tell you what, we were emailing each other like crazy all day yesterday.



At first we were all "This is nerve-wracking." "Rex has a huge following, what if we hose it up?" "What the hell was Rex thinking giving us authority over CrossWorld?" But then we started to get used to the idea. Ya know, "We're college-educated -- certainly we can think of something interesting to say!" "We're smart enough to find funny photos tangentially related to something in the puzzle!" "We know how to post YouTube videos!!!" (Well, that was just Seth and me. Wade is … technologically challenged.) So we're feeling pretty good about ourselves right now and I'm going to go ahead and get this thing rolling. Oh s%*t. It's a boring puzzle. Maybe that's a little harsh. There's nothing really Wrong with the puzzle, it just … well, nothing really jumped out at me as remarkable. And yet, I'm going to remark on it anyway….

THEME: Wetlands -- Theme answers start with a type of wetland.

Theme Answers:

• 17A: Red Sox stadium (FENway Park)
  
• 54A: Seaside community NE of Boston (SWAMPscott)
  
• 11D: Peter who directed "The Last Picture Show" (BOGdanovich)
  
• 24D: "The Goodbye Girl" actress (MARSHa Mason)

The theme didn't help me at all. In fact, I've been struggling with whether to admit this publicly, but I think I'll just go ahead since we're all friends here. It took me a while to get the theme. With Fenway Park and Swampscott, we clearly had a Boston thing going, right? I'm obviously looking for the next theme answer to be Boston-related. Tip O'Neill maybe. Or Red Auerbach. And I get Marsha Mason? And Peter Bogdanovich? What do they have to do with Boston? Well, nothing actually. So does that mean the theme is shaky? I don't know. Two theme answers clearly linked to Boston, the other two clearly linked to … the film industry. That seems a little broad. Maybe if Marsha Mason and Peter Bogdanovich were married or something. They're not, are they? Hold on while I check…. No indication in their Wikipedia entries. So, yeah, maybe a little shaky. What do you think?

I rated this puzzle easy-medium (instead of straight-up easy) because I breezed through it, looking like I was going to break a record, but then got hung up in the AUK / RUPP / SWAMPSCOTT area. I can assume I'm not alone in initially entering ERN for AUK (46A: Diving seabird). I had to think really hard to come up with RUPP (44D: Coach Adolph in the Basketball Hall of Fame) and, as I've never heard of Swampscott, I thought for a second that SWAMISCOTT(?!) was reasonable.

Other notable stuff:

• 6A: Massachusetts vacation spot, with "the" (Cape). Continuing with our Cyndi Lauper theme from yesterday, she was on Letterman once and referred to it as "The Cod." I always call it that now.

• 8A: Make holes in, as for ease of tearing (perforate). Great word.

• 14A: Like the outfield walls at Wrigley Field (ivied) sitting right on top of Fenway Park. Nice.

• 20A: Actor Omar (Sharif). I had the Biggest Crush on him when I was in, like, third grade. Wait a minute, it wasn't Omar Sharif, it was Robert Goulet. How did I get those two guys mixed up?

• NIH (39A: Fed. biomedical research agency) was just in the puzzle yesterday. It helps to pay attention!

• We've got a religious thing going in the center with PRAYS (30D: Says grace, e.g.) crossing (40A) "O Come, ALL YE Faithful."

• 48A: Classic Alan Ladd western (Shane). If you can watch the end of this movie without dissolving into a puddle of tears, there's something wrong with you. "Shane! Come back!" I tear up just thinking about it.

• 54A: "_____ Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (SGT). Classic.

• And I'll leave you with a video related to 57D: TRA la la (thanks, Seth).

Looking forward to hearing from you in the comments. See you tomorrow.

Signed, PuzzleGirl, on behalf of H.R.H. Rex Parker

'HOOD INHABITANT / JASON'S JILTEE (SUNDAY, Jul. 13, 2008 - Matt Ginsberg)

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: "Parting Thoughts" - long quotation representing .... somebody's ... "last request" (before dying)

I normally don't like quotation puzzles - just a bunch of filling in the blanks, no playfulness or trickery, no theme, blah - but this one is pretty damned good. I love how completely reckless the puzzle is with any notion of Sunday-morning decorum. I like my humor dark, like my chocolate, and this puzzle's central quotation delivers:

26A: Last request, part 1 etc.:

"To die quietly in my sleep / like my grandfather / not / screaming in terror / like the people in his car"

In addition to blood on the pavement, we've got, let's see, Hitler and his BIG LIE (9D: Propaganda technique introduced by Hitler in "Mein Kampf"), slavery (81D: Slaves => THRALLS), and over in the SW corner, we have a big fat joint (89D: Marijuana cigarette, slangily). Is SPLIFF a word that people who are over 40 / never listen to rap music know??? I laughed out loud when I got it. It makes the whole puzzle better, man. Like ... REFERS (87A: Alludes (to)) looks like REEFERS. Good for Matt Ginsberg for taking the puzzle out of the safety zone. He's made a puzzle for highbrows and HOMEGIRLs alike (5D: 'Hood inhabitant). In fact, if you are a highbrow HOMEGIRL, you should have torched this puzzle.

Q: "Who does da HOMEGIRL like to hang out with?"
A: "DAHOMEY" (53D: Benin, until 1975)

Here's some stuff I didn't like (I don't always have reasons):

• 93D: Ecological groupings (biotas)
• 82D: Spinachlike plant (orach) - I like that this is one letter away from constructor Tony ORBACH's last name. Other than that, I don't like it at all. I've been in Many kinds of grocery stores and never seen it. Don't like that that "A" crosses the first "A" in EMERIL LAGASSE (61A: With 95-Across, chef whose recipes are used on the International Space Station). That "A" could have been an "E" as far as I was concerned. Luckily, the "spinACH" in the clue made me guess right.
• 25A: Poet John who wrote "Lives of X," an autobiography in verse (Ciardi) - Whoa! Who? I mean, I know him - I think he's one of the many Dante translators out there. But ... yikes, I had no idea he was famous enough to be in the grid.
• 47D: Keeper of a flame? (gas oven) - I should love this (a day after PILOT LIGHT), but something about GAS OVEN feels weirdly arbitrary to me. OK, I don't hate it. It's fine. Maybe if the clue had referred to The Bangles' "Eternal Flame," I'd have liked it better.
• 23A: Take heat from? (unarm) - I will never accept that this word is real. It's DISARM or nothing.

Some stuff I screwed up:

• 1D: Very dry (brut) - I had ARID
• 28D: One of two title roles (in the same film) for Spencer Tracy (Mr. Hyde) - I had DR. HYDE - pure idiocy on my part
• 42D: Social worker (ant) - BEE
• 108A: European carrier (Iberia) - ITALIA (!?)

Didn't know:

• 9A: Hale-_____ (comet seen in 1997) (Bopp) - completely forgot about this BOPP. Here are some Bops I cannot forget:

The rest:

• 19A: Page facing a verso (recto) - studying medieval mss. occasionally pays off
• 20A: Arthur Miller play about the Salem witch trials, with "The" ("Crucible") - not sure why, but those trials hold zero interest for me. I think Miller's play was at least in part a response to McCarthyism / HUAC.
• 31A: Animal more closely related to the mongoose than the dog (hyena) - I have many good stories about daughter and Hy-henas, but they'll have to wait for another time.
• 36A: Cabinet inits. since 1979 (HHS) - Health and Human Services, I assume
• 41A: Endorsers, typically (payees) - this one was slippery, for some reason
• 52A: Barney's buddy, in cartoondom (Fred) - They used to pitch Winstons.
• 109A: Part of many an autobiography's author credit (as told to) - excellent phrase
• 110A: Morticia, to Fester, on "The Addams Family" (niece) - Hence "UNCLE Fester"
• 113A: Clothing retailer Bauer (Eddie) - if you have been in a mall or, I don't know, get mail, you should have known this instantly.
• 114A: Erica Jong's phobia, ostensibly (flying) - funny, but too easy
• 7D: Crowd in Calais? (trois) - seen it before, still think it's clever
• 11D: What dead men don't wear, per a 1982 film title (plaid) - very memorable Steve Martin movie
• 14D: W.W. I's so-called "U-Boat Alley" (Irish Sea) - so proud of myself for guessing correctly here, with almost no crosses. History is not always my strongest suit, despite the fact that I'm married to an historian.
• 37D: Noted bunny lover (Hefner) - fabulous
• 40D: Jason's jiltee (Medea) - Hef + Jason = Playas; also, more "jiltee," please
• 46D: Pirate whose treasure is recovered in Poe's "The Gold Bug" (Kidd)
• 95D: Poe poem that ends "From grief and groan to a golden throne beside the King of Heaven" ("Lenore") - wow, a pair of Poes, after yesterday's EAP monogram. Again, more evidence of this puzzle's dark side - HARD TIMES (49D: Dickens's shortest novel) next to EVIL DOERS (50D: Bad guys) ... you see what I mean?: darkness. It's good!
• 74D: ESPN sportscaster Dick (Vitale) - seems like a nice enough guy, but I can't Stand his voice and over-the-top enthusiasm. It's freakish. Also, in general, I find guys who make careers out of obsessing about the bodies of teenage boys ... a little unsettling. The phenomenon is worse in football than in (Vitale's) basketball, somehow.
• 107D: Roger who won the Best Actor Tony for "Nicholas Nickleby" (Rees) - dude, I have NO idea who you are.

I'm out of here for many days - look for able-minded and able-bodied surrogates to keep this thing rolling in my absence. I'll be in and out intermittently for the next three weeks. Puzzlegirl, SethG, and Wade will keep things going in the interim. Either that, or they will secretly outsource the blog to India. We'll see.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS Puppies (mine is the one not wearing green)


PPS If any of you know anything about sabotaging, destroying, or otherwise @#$#ing with plagiaristic google-whore sites like this one:

http://www.intips.org/2008/07/sunday-jul-13-2008-matt-ginsberg-hood-inhabitant.html

please let me know. If you are practicing your hacking skills, why not start with this asshole? Doesn't even give me a link or a credit, the way other rip-off artists usually have the courtesy to do.

SATURDAY, Jul. 12, 2008 - Myles Callum (1999 CLOROX ACQUISITION / AROMATIC HERBAL QUAFF)

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none

This puzzle was EZ except for the CA/NV region, which took over a third of my time. I was going to finish my Saturday puzzle in around 10 minutes (a good time for me), but writing in SEEM SAD instead of LOOK SAD (38A: Be down, apparently) put a quick end to that possibility. Here are all the ways I screwed up the long Downs after that

• HOUSEMATES (!?) instead of STALEMATES (26D: Play halters)
• OBOE SONATA (that's a thing, right?) instead of TRIO SONATA (27D: Any one of Handel's Op. 2 pieces)
• TAMILS instead of PEKOES (33D: Sri Lanka exports) - I was thinking that maybe TAMIL Tigers were actual animals, which were exported to ... zoos, I guess.

It's amazing how quickly the puzzle went from intractable to simple once I put in LOOK SAD. The "K" made all the difference (as it often does). I thought this puzzle was SASSY (25A: Flip) and amusing. Lots of odd, cool words and very little crap. I wonder if a lot of people today are going to be wondering what PWTS are because (like me) they wrote in PRANK CALLER instead of CRANK CALLER (1A: 911 pest, e.g.). The impossibility of PWTS led me to CWTS (1D: 100-lb. units), which is fortunate, because I wrote in PRANK CALLER with utter confidence. I do not like FUNSTER (40A: Clown), but it's such an absurd word that I can't work up a lot of anger. Watching FUNSTER try to be a word is like watching my puppy trying to be a dog - it's sort of cute. I somehow got SHEBAT with only a couple of crosses (22A: 30-day winter month). Ooh, maybe people will crash and burn in and around SHEBAT - after all, it's got the ultra-absurd KNEEHOLES (5D: Desk features) running through it. What are KNEEHOLES!?!?!?! How do you put your KNEE (and not your leg) through a hole (without hurting yourself)? There's also the near-violation of the "Natick Principle" that happens when ELENAS (23D: "Uncle Vanya" wife and others) meets AILEEN (36A: Quinn who played Annie in film) - but since their intersection couldn't reasonably be any other letter besides "N" - no foul! Anyway, I can see that SHEBAT corridor being tricky.

Still in pre-vacation mood, so my schedule is stacked today. Must dash this off, list-style:

• 12A: V.P. between Wallace and Barkley (HST) - grumble grumble. Names in clue should parallel name in answer, so I do not like the initials here. I don't care if "V.P." is supposed to tell me they're coming. Yuck.
• 15A: D. H. Lawrence novel made into a 1969 film ("Women in Love") - I think I read this in college. Nope, I read "Sons and Lovers." Nevermind.
• 16A: Time for Tours tourists? (été) - ridiculously easy for a Saturday
• 17A: Many a first course (tossed salad) - this particularly food item has a name that has forever been ruined for me. Let's see if I can find you a link to explain why. Oh yeah, this is it. CAUTION: profanity and adult subject matter abound in the following clip:

• 20A: Had sum problems (misadded) - one of many cute clues today
• 26A: 1999 Clorox acquisition (STP) - do you know how many three-letter detergents there are? A lot.
• 34A: Home of the Museum of International Folk Art (Santa Fe) - no idea. My go-to answer for all clues of this nature is OSLO, and that didn't fit.
• 41A: Idaho motto starter (Esto) - state mottoes is one of my least favorite brand of clues.
• 45A: Ones with shovellike forefeet (moles) - not too hard. I like "shovellike," as a word
• 47A: What a virtuous woman is worth more than, according to Proverbs 31:10 (rubies) - hence this movie.
• 49A: Aromatic herbal quaff (anise tea) - yuck. Might go well with a TOSSED SALAD, though.
• 51A: _____ Dove (the constellation Columba) (Noah's) - never saw the clue, but now that I do see it, I like it.
• 60A: Fruit with a pit, to a Brit (avocado pear) - oh you Brits and your wacky names for things. No end of fun, you are.
• 61A: Got into the swing, say (sat) - I love this clue so so much. One of my favorites in recent memory.
• 62A: Clandestine classroom communicators (note passers) - I was once one of these, as late as my senior year of college.
• 6D: Enemy of the Moors, with "the" (Cid) - more horribleness. THE CID? I know only "El CID." This Anglicized version hurts my head.
• 24D: What directors sit on: Abbr. (bds.) - [me making a disbelieving cringe-face]
  
• 8D: Cud chewers (llamas) - the proximity of LLAMAS is about the only thing that makes LOLITAS, esp. as clued (9D: Alluring adolescents), remotely tolerable. "LLAMAS and LOLITAS" could be the title of a memoir of a very disturbing man ... or a LLAMA-loving bibliophile.
• 10D: NASA spacewalks (EVAs) - stands for something, I'm sure.
• 11D: "Yet do thy cheeks look _____ Titan's face": Shak. ("red as") - super easy. No need ever to have read Shak. to get it.
• 14D: Comforters on kids' beds (teddy bears) - great clue
• 21D: "The Count of Monte Cristo" hero (Dantes) - REVENGE!
• 30D: Mashed potato alternative (watusi) - had the "W" and got it almost instantly, much to my shock.
• 35D: They're hooked up to some TV's (Nintendos) - I played with the Wii the other day. That sentence really does not sound like what it means. I like that another TV attachment, TIVO (50D: It can stop the show) is also in the puzzle.
• 46D: French city that shares its name with a car (sedan) - my first guess; saved me from running through every five-letter make or model of car I could think of.
• 57D: "To Helen" writer's inits. (EAP) - Poe, who has the bronze medal for literary initials. Gold goes to TSE, silver to RLS. Honorable Mention goes to GBS.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

FRIDAY, Jul. 11, 2008 - Barry C. Silk ("MECANIQUE CELESTE" ASTRONOMER / NATIVES OF UMM QASR)

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: Letter(s) + words (or, none)

Short explanation of today's tardiness:

1. I have a puppy
2. I dogsat for another puppy last night (my puppy's brother, who, unlike my puppy, does not sleep quietly through the night in his crate yet...)
3. I had to work (god forbid) today, advising the incoming wee ones
4. I spent the afternoon w/ a dazed look on my face watching old "Project Runway" episodes, completely forgetting that I hadn't yet written the blog
5. I ran last-minute errands (today is the last weekday before I leave for NZ)

I have not yet read any of the comments, so sorry if I repeat anything you all have already said.

OK, so this puzzle was good. Check out all the letter (or initials) + word (or name) combos:

• 36A: So-called "Texas White House," once (LBJ Ranch)
• 34D: He said "I am free of all prejudice. I hate everyone equally" (W.C. Fields)
• 18A: Suspect eliminator, often (DNA test)
• 37D: Barnes & Noble acquired it in 1987 (B Dalton)
• 3D: Hollywood icon since 1924 (MGM lion) - I led with MAE WEST
• 1A: It can be used to get your balance (ATM card)
• 20A: Big name in Web-based correpondence (G-Mail)
• 46D: Fritz the Cat's creator (R. Crumb)
• 10D: Heat meas. (K-Cal) - they made great compilation albums in the 70s and 80s.
• 8D: Impress, and then some (B-dazzle)

What else did this puzzle have? Some stumpers:

• 30D: _____ Wheeler, 1964-70 chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Earle) - I know EARL Weaver ... he was the longtime Orioles manager.
• 26A: Early Japanese P.M. Hirobumi (Ito) - on M or T, this is an OJ trial-related clue
• 36D: "Mecanique Celeste" astronomer (Laplace) - I know he's been in the puzzle before, but that didn't help at all today

And then there was...

• 8A: It's flaky and nutty (baklava) - mmm, it sure is. Used to eat it all the time in Ann Arbor (where there were several decent Middle Eastern restaurants). Now I rarely see the stuff.
• 22A: Old televangelism letters (PTL) - if you are too young to remember the 80s well, this one might have been lost on you. Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker were tabloid legends of my teens.
• 27A: Old sitcom couple's surname (Mertz) - EZ - plus the clue's a bit boring
• 40A: Natives of Umm Qasr (Iraqis) - I'm just glad I was not asked to come up with either UMM or QASR
• 4D: Stuffed and roasted entree (capons) - I know I'm tired and could be imagining things, but didn't we just have this answer, like, yesterday?
• 6D: Abbr. after Sen. Richard Lugar's name (R-IN) - on M or T, this is a RIN Tin Tin clue. Or perhaps ["There's no _____ 'team'!"]
• 39D: Ring after exchanging rings? (hora) - eluded me for a while. You dance the HORA in a ring ... surely one of my many Jewish readers has already explained this.
• 41D: Extravagant romantic (Quixote) - this makes QUIXOTE sound like a synonym for DON JUAN or LOTHARIO. QUIXOTic "romance" is way larger than the modern heterosexual connotations of the word would suggest. QUIXOTE is "romantic" in that he thinks he is In A Medieval Romance (a knight errant, on a quest).
• 49D: Singer profiled in "Sweet Dreams," 1985 (Cline) - I feel like this came out at roughly the same time as "Coal Miner's Daughter," but that can't be. "CMD" was five years earlier, it turns out. In "Sweet Dreams" (a phrase which now reminds me only of Eurythmics), Jessica Lange played Patsy CLINE.
• 52D: Great Trek figure (Boer) - wanted something Chinese, then KIRK or SULU, then ...

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS, *Man*, I should not-write my blog more often! My traffic is Off The Charts. For 8 hours in a row I had over 1000 visitors/hour. That is Nuts. I'm going to be close to 15K visitors by day's end (absolutely crushing my site's old traffic record)

THURSDAY, Jul. 10, 2008 - Ari Halpern (CHOICE POULTRY / SINGER OF ROSSINI'S "LARGO AL FACTOTUM")

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: S to RY (Level ... or a three-word hint to 20-, 38- and 60-Across) - three common phrases ending in "S" have the "S" changed to an "RY," creating a wacky phrase, which is clued.

This felt easy enough, but my time did not bear that out. Not sure why. Still shocked I got BADE right off the bat (1A: Gave an order to). It's weird to make a guess so outlandish that you can't even take it seriously - only to find out that it's the right answer after all. The spelling of LITCHI (52D: Chinese fruit tree) was once again an issue. Not sure how many "correct" spellings there are, but there are at least two. Had APING instead of APERY, not surprisingly (57D: Copycatting); could not think of the first letter in SUMPS (55D: Water pits); started 20A: Arctic explorer post-flight? with BLACK AND BLUE ... and BLACKENED... before finally hitting on the answer; was shocked and amused that NOT ON was the answer to 32A: Off; loved ROLY POLY (12D: Pudgy); guessed THANE (30D: Shakespearean title) and SERAPE (25A: Possible cover for a siesta) right off the bat(s), while GALACTIC (38D: Enormous) eluded me for a good while; and I did not get 53D: Duke's home (Durham) until just this second.

Theme answers:

• 20A: Arctic explorer post-fight? (black-eyed Peary)
• 38A: Bows and arrows for Midas? (golden archery)
• 60A: Storage area for ribbed fabric? (corduroy pantry)

I should say that I hated this theme until I got to STORY, and then I grudgingly acknowledged its cleverness.

TSIL:

• 14A: Platinum Card offerer, for short (AmEx) - "offerer"; not a word you see a lot outside of xword clues
• 19A: Alternatives to creams (gels) - I had OILS
• 33A: "_____ Love," 1975 Jackson 5 hit ("I Am") - this was rougher than it should have been; I have no memory of this song.

• 46A: 1985 John Malkovich drama ("Eleni") - no recollection of this movie at all. Know it only from xwords
• 54A: Choice poultry (capons) - I tasted chicken last night; bad vegetarian! Bad vegetarian! (I left my Tofurky brats at home when I went to my neighbor's bbq)
• 65A: Inspector of crime fiction (Morse) - uh ... who wrote about him? I forget. Colin Dexter? I take it back, I didn't forget. I just didn't know.
• 69A: Horse-drawn carriage (shay) - I get this and DRAY mixed up
• 70A: Switch possibilities (AC/DC) - nice ambiguity in the clue ("switch" = verb? noun?)
• 3D: Presidential middle name (Delano) - had some crosses and literally started counting backwards: Walker, Jefferson, Herbert Walker, Wilson, Earl, Ford's middle name, Milhous (HA ha), Baines, Fitzgerald, David, S., DELANO!
• 8D: Polo alternative (Izod) - to go with your IPOD (16A: Shuffle or 67-Across, e.g.) - 67A: MINI
• 10D: Singer of Rossini's "Largo al factotum" (Figaro) - thank you, Looney Toons
• 11D: Zero personality? (operator) - pretty good cluin' there, STUD (64A: Ladies' man)
• 39D: Candy box size (one pound) - that's a lot of candy. Not MINI, or SMA (64D: Little, to Robert Burns)
• 42D: The "I" of Claudius I (ego) - Latin for "I" (first person nominative singular)

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

WEDNESDAY, Jul. 9, 2008 - Tim Wescott (MEXICAN MURALIST OROZCO / OLD GERMAN DUCHY NAME)

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: Numbers (HINT = 65A: "The first word of the answer to each of the six starred clues describes the number of that clue," e.g.)

Trying to write this during puppy nap, which is already half over. This puzzle seemed ingenious, but maybe the Math folk (NDE?) can tell me if I'm right or not. I don't know what a "perfect" number is (though apparently "6" is one of them), and I'm not sure why "33" is any more "real" than other numbers (perhaps because it's on every bottle of Rolling Rock beer ...?), but no matter. This is a smart theme, and there were very few groaners required to achieve it. Huzzah.

Theme answers:

• 4D: *Balance in personality (EVEN tenor)
• 6D: *Pitcher's dream (PERFECT game)
• 11D: *They don't belong (ODD men out)
• 25D: *Basic Scout ties (SQUARE knots)
• 33D: *It's no fake (REAL McCoy)
• 37D: *It follows the evening news (PRIME time)

On the non-theme front, SYSTOLE (24A: Part of a heartbeat) and POMACE (9D: Crushed pulp) gave me some trouble. I know the word "systolic," but couldn't think of the nominative form, and I wanted to spell POMACE something like PUMICE, which is also a word. Happier experiences included:

• 10A: Mexican muralist Orozco (Jose) - the only "Orozco" I know is former Mets pitcher Jesse, but I'm happy to learn this one (if only because he didn't violate the NATICK Principle - see sidebar under "Important Posts")
• 15A: Major-league team member through 2004 (Expo) - I like how EXPO has gone the way of ALERO, SST, and SSR (among others), in that it continues on in the puzzle despite only fairly recently achieving "bygone" status.
• 16A: Month before Nisan (Adar) - hey, I finally got this without blinking, after years of encountering it and thinking "oh ... starts with 'A' ..."
• 19A: Year Cortes conquered Cuba (MDXI) - thankfully, a Roman numeral year without a pope clue. More of these!
• 20A: "Rhoda" and "Frasier" (spin-offs) - very nice. "Why won't SITCOMS fit!?"
• 25A: Suffix with moon (scape) - took me way Way too long to get
• 27A: Mathematician's "ta-da!" (Q.E.D.) - I just like the "mathematician-as-magician" angle here.
• 40A: Supermodel Carangi (Gia) - like ADAR, she finally went down without a fight.
• 47A: Former Notebook maker (IBM) - I live nextdoor to the original home of IBM. Not that that helped me here.
• 53A: Stimulus response (kinesis) - nice sciencey symmetrical pairing with SYSTOLE
• 1D: Jawbone of _____ (biblical weapon) - this seems wildly desperate, and yet I love it.
• 12D: Old German duchy name (Saxe) - Didn't anything happen in MDLI that could have made this SALE (or MDVI / SAVE)?
• 13D: Land o' blarney (Erin) - the puzzle loves the Irish; the "E"-words alone would fill a small satchel or whatever it is Leprechauns carry their gold in.
• 58D: Gay Talese's "_____ the Sons" ("Unto") - this guy is the oft-omitted name when people speak of "New Journalism"; Hunter Thompson and Tom Wolfe tend to get more credit.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of waiting on a damned mouthy puppy hand and foot

TUESDAY, Jul. 8, 2008 - Andrea Carla Michaels (DR. KILDARE PLAYER AYRES / "WISEGUY" ACTOR KEN)

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: Sounds like "AIR" - five theme answers all start w/ "AIR" homophones

I have about ten minutes to write this. Having a puppy (a very, very, criminally young puppy) is exhausting. Not metaphorically exhausting. Literally exhausting. She's sleeping in her crate now, which gives me 20 minutes or so before she awakes and needs to be let out (10 times a day, minimum, including twice in the middle of the night). She's traumatized and we're traumatized but she's clearly going to be awesome one day, so I'm sure my brain will bury the memories of no sleep and house-training frustration. At least I hope so.

Loved the puzzle except for the LEW (32D: Dr. Kildare player Ayres) / WAHL (42A: "Wiseguy" actor Ken) crossing, which I botched, and which is truly a horrible call on someone's part. An "S" or "D" would have gone in that "W" spot nicely; instead, you get two B- to C-list pop culture has-beens. Yuck.

Theme answers:

• 16A: Big name in athletic shoes (Air Jordan)
• 22A: Prince (Heir to the throne)
• 37A: End of a Napoleonic palindrome? (ere I saw Elba)
• 52A: Black-and-tan purebred (Airedale Terrier)
• 61A: Carrier with a shamrock logo (Aer Lingus)

List:

• 66A: Zaire's Mobutu _____ Seko (Sese) - eeks. I can never remember this. Always feels iffy.
• 1D: Possible result of iodine deficiency (goiter) - yuck
• 3D: Basketball's Erving, familiarly (Dr. J) - feels like I haven't seen him in a while
• 24D: Puff the Magic Dragon's frolicking place (Honalee) - oh, man, the spelling was a total phonetic guess.
• 13D: Turkish pooh-bah (pasha) - that's at least four Turkish pooh-bah names: PASHA, Aga, Dey, and Bey.
• 39D: 1930s heavyweight champ Max (Baer) - wanted BAHR, thanks possibly to stupid Ken WAHL, and also the eternal influence of crossword champion what's his name LAHR (from "Wizard of Oz").
• 45D: Church groundskeeper (sexton) - yay, first guess, and it was right.
• 54D: Monthly fashion issues (Elles) - plural? Hmmm...
• 55D: Category in which the single-season record is 191 (RBI) - record-holder: Hack Wilson
• 53D: Code-crackers' org. (NSA) - I knew this, and yet any time I'm dealing with government abbreviations / initialisms, I lose all confidence.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of Puppyland

MONDAY, Jul. 7, 2008 - Bob Klahn (RECURRING MELODIC PHRASE / PLAYFUL KNUCKLE-RUB)

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: Skosh, smidge, tad - theme answers contain words (signified by circled squares) that mean "a tiny amount."

Once again, there's a Tuesday puzzle where my Monday puzzle should be. Today, however, I didn't really mind - every Monday should be this clever / challenging. Required just the right level of effort (i.e. some). I was a bit disappointed in OSTINATO (9D: Recurring melodic phrase), not just because I'd never heard of it, but because it felt painfully, egregiously un-Mondayish, especially compared to the rest of the puzzle, where the challenge was all in the clever cluing. If you play music, you know what OSTINATO is, I guess. If you don't, it's a mystery, and a long one. I've never seen it in a puzzle. In a late-week puzzle, I'd probably find it beautiful. Here, it's a sore thumb. On the up side, despite a preponderance of crosswordese (EROS, ST LO, IN A and ULA, ELIA, ERSE, OTTO, etc.), this puzzle felt fresh and entertaining. Some very Klahn-y moments at 16A: Genesis son (Enos), where ABEL (the more common Genesis son) fits so nicely, and 48D: It'll bring a tear to your eye (duct) undoubtedly led about half of you to fill in DUST at first. The puzzle has DUCT and PORE (10A: Sweat opening), which is a nice if highly bodily theme, and then there's a blast of Biblical stuff to go with ENOS, including IS IT I? (5D: "Lord, _____?" (Last Supper query)), ON HIGH (11D: Like angels we have heard?), and ISAIAH (47D: Book after Song of Solomon). I'm going to guess that the toughest part of the puzzle for most people (if they encountered any difficulty at all) was at the bottom of OSTINATO, where HIT AT (33A: Try to strike) seems completely counterintuitive, as "HIT" of course means "strike," so how can trying to do something and doing something be the same thing (they can, but this clue / answer pairing hurts my brain a little, nonetheless). And SHARP (28D: On the ball or on the dot), despite being an important word in my life, completely eluded me for a very long time (measured in Monday-puzzle time). Finished in just over 4 minutes, and was surprised I'd gone that quickly, considering all the snags I seemed to hit. Kind of clunky for a Klahn puzzle ... which is to say that it was a very, very good puzzle (this is what happens when you set the standard so high, Bob?)

Theme answers:

• 17A: Antiterrorism legislation of 2001 (Patriot Act)
• 20A: Proverbial saver of nine, with "a" (stitch in time)
• 35A: "My Cousin Vinny" Oscar winner (Marisa Tomei)
• 54A: Classic battles between the Giants and Dodgers, e.g. (pennant races)
• 58A: 1986 world champion American figure skater (Debi Thomas)

Other answers:

• 6A: Normandy invasion town (St. Lo) - one of the crosswordiest places in the world
• 45D: Airline with a kangaroo logo (Qantas) - one of the crosswordiest airlines in the world. EL AL and SAS are more common, but you are going to run into QANTAS many times a year. How could anyone resist a U-less "Q" word for very long?
• 25A: Playful knuckle-rub (noogie) - fabulous colloquial answer. If you have a ROOMIE (12D: Dormmate), you should give him/her a NOOGIE right now, if only because those two words go so well together.
• 4D: Wind tunnel wind (air stream) - lots o' trouble here, mainly because I wasn't reading the clue correctly. Couldn't this answer have been clued simply [Wind]?
• 34D: Pavarotti performance (tenor solo) - had TENOR PART for a BIT.

• 51D: Equivalent of 10 sawbucks (C-note) - 100 bucks. Much more than a SOU (37D: Trivial amount) - for most people, anyway.
• 41D: Diminutive suffix (-ula) - wife had horrible time with this, and I was no help explaining, as I couldn't think of a good example of its use. The only -ULA words coming to me are FORMULA and SCROFULA (!?). Oh, and HULA. Having OLLA in the cross didn't help my wife any (49A: Earthen pot). Another super-crosswordy answer. Enough to make you feel STUPID (46A: "Keep it simple, _____") on a Monday, if you aren't up on all the inside xword vocab...

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

("TREASURE ISLAND" ILLUSTRATOR, 1911 / TOWN AT THE EIGHTH MILE OF THE BOSTON MARATHON) - SUNDAY, Jul. 6, 2008 - Brendan Emmett Quigley

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: "What the H?" - puns involving changing W-words to WH-words

Thorny as all hell, but too often in an irksome way. As I told fellow blogger Orange last night, I am going to honor this puzzle by naming a crossword constructing principle after one of its elements. I call it: The NATICK Principle. And here it is: If you include a proper noun in your grid that you cannot reasonably expect more than 1/4 of the solving public to have heard of, you must cross that noun with reasonably common words and phrases or very common names. Question for the day: does NC WYETH (1D: "Treasure Island" illustrator, 1911) pass the "very common names" test? Answer, NO. I mean, if the cross had been inside the name WYETH, fine, I'd have guessed it, as there is Another Famous Artist Named WYETH (Andrew, same family). But once we're into initials, forget about it. This guy is not W.C. Fields or E.E. Cummings. N.C.? The only N.C. I know is NC-17. Criminy. Look, I don't mind stuff I don't know (I see it every day), and I don't really mind stuff I don't know crossing other stuff I don't know, but only if there's some way for me to make a reasonable guess. If you don't know the lesser Wyeth or (choke) NATICK (1A: Town at the eighth mile of the Boston Marathon), that far NW letter could be anything, any consonant and at least two vowels. And I'm not even getting into the adjacent CARROL (19A: Charlie Chan player J. _____ Nash). Come on. That NW corner is just dickish. Not clever (à la Walden), or evil (à la Klahn). Just dickish.

The theme answers - I don't know. Felt very sub-BEQ. And what is "weatherwise"? - it's a random adverb, right? I mean ... what is it, except some word a weatherperson might use to describe what kind of day it is? Or can someone be "weather wise"? "You know much about the weather, master." Not terribly familiar with the term "editorial we," but I'm guessing it's like the Royal We, only ... used by an editor. When speaking for the paper as a whole.

Theme answers:

• 22A: V.I.P. in a limo? (wheeled authority)
• 36A: Stories about halting horses? (tales of whoa) - cute. I thought "halting" meant "lame" or "limping," and so the clue made me very sad until I got the answer
• 58A: Causes of meteorological phenomena? (weather whys)
• 77A: Iceland? (Isle of White) - white from ice? or white from all the white people?
• 98A: Barrier Ahab stands behind? (whaling wall) ... saying his "whaling adverb," THAR!
• 115A: Cry after writing a particularly fun column? (the editorial "wheeeeeee!" [just two e's, actually])
• 16D: 45, e.g.? (whirled record)
• 57D: Where ax murderers' weapons are on display? (whacks museum) - ax murderers? Yikes. Golf and lumberjacking were just too tame, I guess.

What else? Well, a lot. There was much that I liked about this puzzle, but before I get to that, here's what I did not like: SNEERY (56D: Derisive), ARISTO (87D: Blue blood, informally - I never like it, no matter how many times I see it), ITEMED (45A: Detailed, old-style), and "ED TV" (30A: 1999 film with the tagline "Fame. Be careful. It's out there") - actually, I'm torn on this one; while I like the absurd, dated (pre-reality TV!) pop culture on this one, I do not like recalling most Matthew McCaughnehoweveryouspellhisname movies ("Dazed and Confused" excepted).

OK, the fun stuff - allow me to list it:

• 7A: 1971 Tom Jones hit ("She's a Lady") - how much do I love that this was the Very first thing I put in the grid. No crosses. Turn it up!

• 27A: Singer Winehouse (Amy) - she's like a talented Britney Spears, this one.

• 42A: 1954 event code-named Castle Bravo (H Test) - never sure how to keep these letter-tests straight.
• 43A: Swedish Chemistry Nobelist Tiselius (Arne) - wow. No idea.
• 56A: Certain guy, in personals (SWM) - single white male. The airport code of my local airport is BGM, which always makes me laff whenever I see it / think about it.
• 60A: "Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are _____!" (hit 1978 album) ("Devo") - awesome. I love these guys. O man, this is an Early video:

• 61A: Eponymous German brewer Eberhard (Anheuser) - crazy-looking clue, familiar answer.
• 63A: Says, in teenspeak (goes) - perfect. Sadly, no longer just "teen" speak. Those "teens" who started speaking this way ... are now my age (20 years past my teens).
• 70A: Missile's course (vector) - stumped me briefly. Wanted something simple like ARC.
• 82A: French-Belgian border river (Lys) - if you say so
• 83A: Start of a sign on a gate (beware) - great clue
• 94A: MDX and RDX maker (Acura) - luckily, I had most of the letters in place before I ever saw the clue.
• 102A: Literally, "back to back" (do-si-do) - in what language? DOS is "back" in French ...
• 107A: Long-distance swimmer Diana (Nyad) - good name for a swimmer.
• 108A: Something little girls may play (dress-up) - I can tell you that it's not just little girls. Boys are more than happy to play this until they start getting the idea that it's something only girls do.
• 2D: Showed delight over (aahed at) - had OOHED AT, which seemed reasonable.
• 8D: Residence on the Rhein (Haus) - had the "H" and then had a complete mind-block, with HERR blocking any other German word I could think of. Finally remembered the term HAUSFRAU. My good friend and erstwhile roommate in grad school was (is) a German historian, so I really should know more German, if only from osmosis.
  
• 17D: Connecticut town where "The Stepford Wives" was filmed (Darien) - OK, this is how NATICK should have gone down. Had no idea about DARIEN, but pieced it together from reasonably gettable crosses.
• 21D: Sen. McCaskill of Missouri (Claire) - I think she's adorable. I hope that doesn't sound patronizing and disrespectful. I just really really like her. If someone asked me "Which senator do you have the biggest crush on?," I would not hesitate to say "CLAIRE McCaskill."
• 31D: Clergy attire (vestments) - not sure why, but I like this word this morning.
  
• 49D: Slogan holder, often (tee) - great clue. Infuriated me for a while (thought the "H" from the theme answer went in that second slot, and so had THE ...!?)
• 54D: 1887 Chekhov play ("Ivanov") - no idea. Still got it. From crosses. That's the idea. Here, the NATICK Principle is in full effect.
• 60D: 1973 Helen Reddy #1 hit ("Delta Dawn") - I wish this were in every puzzle. Here's Tanya Tucker (it was the title song on her debut album - she was 13!)

• 67D: Ray, e.g., in brief (AL'er) - the kind of stuff you just have to put up with, esp. in a Sunday.
• 71D: Phnom Penh money (Riel) - I gave a lesson in the RIAL/RIEL distinction not too long ago, and Still spelled this wrong, initially.
• 73D: Bygone station (Mir) - tripped me. "Station" could have been many things. Space station did not occur to me for a while.
• 91D: Pourer's comment ("say when") - greatness. Very nice colloquial expression.
• 109D: Fen-_____ (banned diet aid) (Phen) - Do they sell Fen-PHEN in Phnom Penh?
• 116D: Season for les vacances (été) - I like my clues all-foreign, or all-English. This hybrid stuff is for les oiseaux.
• 118D: Third-century dynasty (Wei) - thought maybe WEN, but that's a cyst (ew), then thought WII, but that's a video game console.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

SERBIAN PROVINCIAL CAPITAL ON THE DANUBE / LEAPING DESERT RODENT!! - SATURDAY, Jul.5, 2008 - Karen M. Tracey

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none

Ah, finally, I feel like the puzzle world has returned to normal. Every puzzle this week has felt off, difficulty-wise, but this one felt just right. Tough but fair. Lots of stuff I didn't know, but all of it gettable. Nice. Also, very Scrabbly, as I expect (and like) from Ms. Tracey.

This morning is my last chance to spend time with my sister and her family before they leave, so this puzzle gets less time than it deserves. Sorry. Ultra-brief recap: The NW was wicked and I did it last. I've probably seen NOVI SAD (19A: Serbian provincial capital on the Danube) before, but if I have, it sure eluded me last night. The nuttiest answer in the puzzle is of course JERBOA (44D: Leaping desert rodent). Needed every single cross for that one. Man, they are scary/ugly-lookin' things. My first answer is the grid, oddly, was START (10D: Possible result of a gunshot) - my brain said "WOUND ... no, that's too easy ... what else do gunshots do? ... START a race?" I then wrote in two wrong answers that were right enough for me to get the traction I needed: STOP (for STEM - 10A: Staunch) and TOMIO (for TONIO - 11D: Fool in "Pagliacci"). Most frustrating moment was not remembering the first word in GALAXY QUEST (24A: 1999 comedy featuring aliens called Thermians). I had QUEST and though I could name at least two members of the cast of the movie, I couldn't remember its name. Oh, and my one flat-out guess was the "B" in SABER SAW (45A: Portable power tool) and BEAME (47D: 1970s Big Apple mayor). I don't know anything about tools, and my knowledge of NYC mayors goes back only as far as Koch (though I'm aware of other, earlier ones, like Fiorello La Guardia).

The placement of UP AND AT 'EM (54A: Morning cry) over SEMI-ERECT (57A: Less than upstanding) is pure beautiful, evil genius.

OK, let's do this list. Divided today into "!?!?!", "hmmm," and "EZ"

"!?!?!"

• 34A: Pope during the reign of Charlemagne (Adrian I) - Yo, Adrian, I can't be expected to keep track of your papacy.
• 39A: Hua succeeded him (Zhou) - this clue reminds me, unpleasantly, of Pacino in "Scent of a Woman": "Hua!"
• 5D: Domestic breed of chicken (sussex) - I know that word, but not in its chicken-related sense
• 48D: Keebler's chief elf (Ernie) - I know the Keebler commercials well, but I'm just glad that by the time I actually saw this clue, 60-80% of the answer was already filled in

"hmmm"

• 1A: Spanish conjugation part (estas) - no idea what the clue was going for with "conjugation part"
• 15A: Opal alternative (moonstone) - guess based on a the sequence of letters I had in the middle of the word
• 17A: Lemony Snicket's count and one of Snoopy's brothers (Olafs) - in the pop culture confusion, I failed to note (for a while) that the answer was a plural
• 28A: Zimbalist's violin teacher (Auer) - Leopold (not Mischa)
• 29A: One of the Obama girls (Sasha) - they are rather adorable, those girls. Not sure how I remembered the name SASHA. Had to change that first letter from a "Z" to an "S" (SHIATZU seemed a reasonable spelling - 16D: Acupuncture alternative)
• 51A: Earlike organ (auricle) - stumped me. I feel like it's stumped me before. The "AUR-" part helped a lot here.
• 56A: Puffy hat wearer (baker) - for a while, the only answer I wanted (for reasons even I don't understand) was FAKIR.
• 58A: A stroke might indicated it (one a.m.) - first thought the stroke was a pen stroke, then got that it was time but ... AM or PM?
• 60A: Shared bath accommodations, briefly (SROs) - Single-room occupancies (a term I learned ... from crosswords)
• 1D: Monopoly subj. (econ.) - thought "Monopoly" referred to the game ... or does it?
• 7D: City near Ben-Gurion airport (Lod) - I know this, but for some reason a series of nonsensical and vaguely Hebrew letter combos kept flooding my head: TOV? LEV? etc.
• 20D: Nordic (Aryan) - wanted POLAR :(
• 25D: 2000 musical that won four Emmys ("Aida") - wanted ABBA :( (that's "Mamma Mia") [this clue appears to be in error (should read "TONYS"?), but please don't write me or anyone else an angry letter yet - just wait: an explanation is forthcoming, I'm sure]
  
• 43D: Honors for top scorers? (Oscars) - as in "Best Score"
• 27A: "Glengarry Glen Ross" Tony winner Schreiber (Liev) - knew it, but ... had temporary spelling issues
• 52D: "A Book of Nonsense" author, 1846 (Lear) - OK, so ONE A.M. - gotcha

"EZ"

• 18A: Supposed tools of the devil (idle hands) - wish I'd seen this clue first
• 42A: Duo first seen in "Puss Gets the Boot," 1940 (Tom and Jerry) - in case you missed the "Tom and Jerry" cartoon I posted yesterday (weird coincidence), here's another:

• 21A: Supermarket suppliers (dairies) - OK, I needed a couple crosses, but still, this came quickly. Our local newspaper recently featured a discussion forum on its website: "What is your family doing to deal with the SKYROCKETing cost of milk?" (31D: Zoom) My thoughts, in order: first - it's SKYROCKETing? more than other products? and second - you could stop drinking it? I mean, how many answers are there to that question? "We started stealing it - so far, so good."
• 22A: Pulitzer-winning critic Richard (Eder) - crosswordese, by now
• 41A: "Morning Dance" band Spyro _____ (Gyra) - why I know this band's name I have NO idea
• 49A: Much-repeated part of binary code (zero) - I could, of course, think only of this:

• 37D: Invasive Japanese import (kudzu) - lots of Scrabbly power for one little word
• 46D: Rhone-_____ (French region) (Alpes) - OK, not exactly EZ, but I had the "LP" in place already when I saw the clue, so I got it quickly.

I'm off to enjoy my crazy nephews.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

FRIDAY, Jul. 4, 2008 - John Underwood (IT IS "RESISTLESS IN BATTLE," WROTE SOPHOCLES)

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: JOHN PHILIP SOUSA (28A: Subject of this puzzle)

Happy 4th of July, Americans. Assuming there are no thunderstorms, we are going to spend the day in patriotic style: poolside bbq followed by minor league baseball game, complete with post-game fireworks. Added bonus: first 7000 fans get Groucho glasses, because nothing says "4th of July" like 7000 people at a minor league baseball game trying to break the record for "Most People Wearing Groucho Glasses at In One Place at One Time." My sister's family is here for the holiday, and we spent all yesterday hanging out with them. My nephews are 3 (Griffin) and 6 (Miles) and completely hilarious. Sahra and Miles together are like some olde tyme comedy team, only with no set jokes and no timing and a tendency to crack themselves up into incoherence. Highlights of yesterday's visit included eating a pancake breakfast prepared by my lovely wife; watching my sister and brother-in-law do the U.S.A. Today crossword puzzle while I offered color commentary (which mainly involved my proclaiming that every other answer sucked); walking in the woods; watching the kids swim in the near-lethally chlorinated hotel swimming pool, which featured an insane and unnecessarily graphic sign nearby telling you what you could and Could Not do in the pool; eating a delicious dinner at a downtown restaurant while playing increasingly surreal games of Hangman with the kids (Miles was partial to words like "eeeeeeeee" and "dite pepse" (he's obsessed with soda ... obsessed, I tell you - perhaps because, unlike many other kids, he is not allowed to drink it with impunity). We started doing Hangman using complete sentences. I gave the kids "MILES AND SAHRA SMELL LIKE CHEESE." They loved it, and Sahra countered with "MILES AND REX SMELL LIKE ALCHAL" (we destroyed evidence of this one, as it seemed the kind of note that could be used against me in a court of law). Highlight of the night was hearing about a big-horned sheep stuffed animal that was the "mascot" of my sister's family's recent trip around Colorado. The sheep was named (by Miles) "The Big Sh'Clark" (I'm laughing just typing it), and somehow the whole latter part of last night was overwhelmed by "The Big Sh'Clark": calling everything "Big Sh'Clark," turning "Sh'Clark" into a verb, and finally creating a recipe for a dessert called "The Big Sh'Clark" which contains (in case you are interested) chocolate ice cream, vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, M&Ms, a single Skittle (!?), halves of Reese's Pieces (?), and root beer .... ok, as if on cue, this very second (6:30am) my daughter walked into the room holding up a yellow piece of paper for me to see. Me: "What's that, honey?" Sahra: "The Big Sh'Clark" Me: [can't stop laughing]. Here are photos from dinner.

And ... puzzle! Super easy - must be some kind of holiday exception going on here, because I can't believe this was intended as a Friday puzzle. It took me only a few seconds longer than Tuesday's puzzle did, and the whole thing felt very, very Thursday. Almost quintessentially Thursday. No matter - it's an enjoyable little puzzle with the nice patriotic bonus of a twice-repeated "U.S.A." (the start, middle, and end of a patriotic cheer).

Theme answers:

• 20A: 1916 work by 28-Across ("America First") - scary title; sounds like an anti-immigrant group
• 48A: Title subject of a 28-Across work (Stars and Stripes)
• 55A: Sobriquet for 28-Across (The March King) - it's the 4th of July and you go with ... "sobriquet?" Bastille Day is only 10 days away; you could have waited.

Not a lot of tough stuff today. Sister and family are going to show up here any minute and make writing impossible, so:

Kwik list:

• 1A: Designer known for his "American look" (Ellis) - as in Perry. I think the first cologne I ever bought was Perry Ellis. I now cannot stand the smell of cologne or perfume, in general. Hurts my nose, and thus my head, and thus my soul. Maybe the tiniest whiff is OK. Most people who wear it bathe in it.
• 16A: "Three Places in New England" composer (Ives) - I like him. I'm going to put him on right ... now ("Trio for Violin, Cello, and Piano")
• 35A: When doubled, a book by Gauguin (Noa) - whoa ... that was a shocker. I had NON, at first, as in "NON, NON, zat is not how you paint ze naked ladees."
• 54A: N.R.C predecessor (A.E.C.) - needed all the crosses, largely because I confused the N.R.C. with the A.N.C.
• 61A: Items for Rambos (uzis) - so there are multiple Rambos now?
• 64A: Ames Research Center org. (NASA) - I did not know this. Is this in Iowa? Nope. CA.
• 67A: Anita who sang "Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby" (O'Day) - lotsa people have sung this. I like Dinah Washington's version. But this one's not bad either:
  

• 68A: Where Hercules slew the lion (Nemea) - that's why it's called the Nemean Lion.
• 3D: It is "resistless in battle," wrote Sophocles (Love) - interesting answer
• 4D: Spring river breakup (ice run) - one of those seasonal, regional things that I never knew about growing up in CA.
• 6D: Barbara Kingsolver's "_____ America" ("Otra") - I had "VIVA!"
• 11D: "Die Meistersinger" heroine (Eva) - no idea; this answer and NOA and HARLAN (30D: Supreme Court justice Stone) were the only unknowns to me today.
• 32D: Beamed intensely (lased) - yes, that is intense. I wanted RAYED. Well, I didn't "want" it, but I thought it was the answer.
• 38D: Fraternal patriotic org. (SAR) - I somehow neglected the "fraternal" part of this clue and so had DAR for a while. You almost Never see the SAR.
• 46D: Opposite of legato: Abbr. (stac.) - hmmm. Kind of icky. Maybe not ICKIER (51D: More gross) than TSKS (55D: Clucking sounds), but icky nonetheless.
• 58D: "Garfield" waitress (Irma) - it slightly sickens me that that the crossword can go this deep into "Garfield" for an answer.
• 41D: Poetica opening (ars) - not sure I like ARS and "opening" so close to each other.
• 50D: Put back on display, in a way (rehang) - OK, now that's icky.
• 21D: Sammy the lyricist (Cahn) - he's good, but I prefer Sammy the Seal

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

What the @#$#?

Created by OnePlusYou

Company founded by Ingvar Kamprad -THURSDAY, Jul. 3, 2008 - Keith Talon ("Scenes of Clerical Life" author, 1858 / HOME OF THE 1,612-FOOT RIBBON FALLS)

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: Typos - three theme answers are editorial words (and one phrase) that (ironically?) aren't spelled correctly - further, clues are all self-referential, so that the answer becomes in some way self-descriptive

Meh. This was OK. We had a misspelled word puzzle not long ago (a Sunday, I think), so nothing here was surprising, and the clues really made the theme quite obvious - one theme answer even contains the word "error," just in case you were having trouble picking things up. It's also a little disappointing that the first two "errors" in question are not ones that anyone would make. I just typed TYPOGRAPHICAL quickly a few times, and the "I" changed to a "J" once, and I while I did insert an "A" between the "P" and "H," I didn't lose the first "A." In fact, if you touch-type, you know it's really really really hard to make a mistake between "R" and "A." I suppose you might miss the "A", but you are not not not going to squeeze any letter in between the "R" and the "A" - that's a very fluid, very fast, very instinctive letter combo. Further, the theme answers are noun, adjective, and then noun-adjective. And two of the clues are "?" clues, where one isn't. It all just seems a bit loose, a bit off.

Must go quickly. Sister and nephews and brother-in-law arriving any moment for pancakes.

Theme answers:

• 20A: What this answer could use? (proofreadinng)
• 37A: Like this answer's error? (typogrpahical)
• 53A: This answer contains one (mispelled word)

The non-theme parts of this puzzle were very easy. I'm trying to anticipate where people might have had trouble. Maybe in and around the "K"s? Not sure why, but TIKI came to me instantly (15A: _____ bar) and was confirmed by the fairly obvious IKEA (7D: Company founded by Ingvar Kamprad). In the SE, RISKS (49D: Takes a chance on) was pretty easy, which made LATKE (61A: Hanukkah staple) much much easier to turn up than it would have been without the "K" in place. Some stuff I couldn't remember readily - PEPSI is a good example (30D: It "hits the spot" per an old jingle) - but crosses made things simple. I grew up in CA and went to YOSEMITE many times but have no recollection of Ribbon Falls, which made 38D: Home of the 1,612-foot Ribbon Falls (Yosemite) something of a surprise when I finally got it. I don't know if I've ever seen beggars cup their hands outside of the movies, so CUPPED (1D: Like beggars' hands) felt a little weird. If only the MINTER (33A: Coiner) could get together with the beggars ... hmm, I just noticed that this puzzle has both ESTEE (50D: First name in beauty products) and ESTEE ... M (41A: Prize). Ouch.

Listington

• 1A: "_____ Si Bon" (1950s Eartha Kitt hit) - gimme. Here she is:

• 5A: Post-diet, ideally (slim) - wavered between this and THIN for a few seconds
• 14A: Dinosaur National Monument locale (Utah) - only ever been to their airport. Seems like a gorgeous state. I want to go, but ... can you get coffee there?
• 16A: "Scenes of Clerical Life" author, 1858 (Eliot) - and then one hundred years later...
• 17A: 1958 World Cup hero (Pele)
• 24A: With 19-Across, language from which "steak" and "eggs" come (Old Norse) - one of those few times that my academic training has come in very, very handy. This was a gimme.
• 28A: Alaska vacation destination (Denali) - it's a national park and the gigantic mountain found in that national park.
• 32A: Federally funded program since '65 (NEA) - I like "'65" as a way of indication "abbreviation ahead"
• 52A: _____ Jemison, first black woman in space (Mae) - I did not know that ... though something tells me she's been in my crossword before.
• 64A: "_____ Eyes" (1969 hit) ("These") - Ah, the Guess Who. Instant gimme.

• 65A: Irwin who wrote "Rich Man, Poor Man" (Shaw) - I seem to remember this as a major mini-series when I was very young.
• 4D: One of the "Cosby Show" kids (Theo) - I read this new comic yesterday; I think it's meant for kids (like ... preteen), but it's beautiful and really entertaining and made me care about Captain Marvel for the first time in my entire life. It's called something something Captain Marvel, or maybe SHAZAM ... I forget. But it's beautifully illustrated and colored and the story is smart and cheeky in the way that tolerable children's entertainment can be sometimes. Really great stuff. Most stuff aimed at kids, as you might imagine, is dreck. Sub-dreck. O ... why am I telling you this in reference to THEO? Because Captain Marvel's arch-nemesis is Black Adam, whose real name is ... THEO Adam. WHAM! (56D: Pow!)
• 12D: Mother of the stars and the winds (Eos) - usually clued as goddess of the dawn
• 31D: "Was it _____ I saw?" (classic palindrome) ("a rat") - never heard of it, but was able to piece it together really easily
• 35D: Steering system part (tie rod) - bought a new car yesterday. Well, a new very used car. My 1991 Pathfinder needed to be put down, so when a cheap, somewhat younger alternative came my way (quite by accident), I took it. So today is the first day of my new car life. My old car life lasted 17 years - the longest, closest relationship I've had with anyone or thing besides my mom, dad, and sister. Moment of silence ... moving on. Oh, one last thing: when we were cleaning out the years and years of accumulated crap (mostly coins) under the seats of the Pathfinder, my wife turned up ... my wedding ring, which had been missing for over three years.
  
• 37D: Instruction at a horse show (trot) - there was all this kerfuffle last night about pony camp ... apparently it might not happen, which would disappoint Sahra no end, but as long as she's with her best friend that week, I doubt she'll care much.
• 39D: Property divider (hedgerow) - good answer
• 54D: "The Dukes of Hazzard" spinoff ("Enos") - sweeeet.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

WEDNESDAY, Jul. 2, 2008 - Daniel Kantor (KENDO MOTION / TOLKIEN'S THE PRANCING PONY, E.G.)

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "GREEN EGGS AND HAM" (57A: Dr. Seuss book ... or a description of the answers to the three starred clues) - starred clues are descriptions of "green," "eggs," and "ham," respectively

Yesterday I was wondering where my Tuesday puzzle had gone. Well, I found it. It was hiding in Wednesday's slot. Did this puzzle in well under yesterday's time (closer to Monday's), and with zero hesitation, except for a very brief moment where I thought the attorney general in question might be BURR and perhaps there was a variant version of the well-known Hawaiian dance called the HULU (there is a website called "Hulu.com," which is great - lots of high-quality recent tv clips and other videos). But I played it conservatively and went with BARR (35D: Attorney general after Thornburgh) and HULA (39A: Dance with a wiggle), which ended up being correct. Today's theme is wonderful - tight, concise, clear, clever. Not much to say but "good job."

Theme answers:

• 17A: *1986 Newman/Cruise film ("The Color of Money") - in the U.S., yes, this is (a kind of) GREEN
• 26A: *Ritzy delicacy (beluga caviar) - this concept is always confusing to me, as BELUGA is a whale, and whales don't lay eggs... but BELUGA CAVIAR comes from the BELUGA sturgeon found primarily in the Caspian Sea.
• 44A: *Showboating type (grandstander) - HAM ... this definition of HAM seems just a teensy bit off. A bad actor would have been nice here, but perhaps that would have been too insulting. The last thing the NYT wants is an angry letter from Rob Schneider (he fits!).

Not a lot more to say about this puzzle on a general level. My sister and family arrive tomorrow and stay through Saturday, so puzzle commentary will likely get briefer for a few days. Also, I leave for a three-week trip to NZ on the 14th. I have people (I do) covering for me on travel days, but I should be coming to you live from Dunedin (or thereabouts) beginning on the 18th or so. Assuming we don't buy the wrong adapter and explode the laptop. I will take those weeks in NZ to lobby for new crossword words - NZ is horribly under-utilized. Various flora, fauna, and related Maori words could really liven up our language. KEA and TUI alone could do big business in our grids, I think. So ... "RPDTNYTCP" goes international in two weeks. Look for it.

List just in...

• 1A: "The aristocrat of pears" (bosc) - whose (absurd) quote is that? Pear in four letters = BOSC. One of the few SC-ending words that isn't DISC or an abbreviation.
• 23A: Vintner's valley (Napa) - started to write in ASTI when I thought 4D: Milk sources (coconuts) had something to do with COCOA...
• 31A: Woodworking tool (router) - ADZ? Is it ADZ? ADZ won't fit. But ... ADZ!
• 33A: Marvelous, in slang (fab) - also, a detergent.
• 36A and 46D: Symbols of industry (ants)(logos) - check it out - an ant logo:

• 51A: Alternative to Gmail (AOL) - AOL is a minor crossword god, and can apparently be clued a bijillion ways.
• 62A: "Never follow" sloganeer, once (Audi) - ooh, a bygone slogan. Those are always good.
• 63A: Gin flavorer (sloe) - it's gin season. Too bad I will be spending most of it in a NZ winter (yeah, it's winter Down There).
• 6D: Disposition pick-me-up (Prozac) - um ... this clue seems wrong, or at least mis-leading. Prozac is not cocaine or no-doz. It is not (as I understand it ...) fast-acting, so "pick-me-up" seems way way off.
• 7D: Label in a bibliophile's catalog (rare) - This bibliophile does not use this label. Not that I don't have some RARE books.
• 9D: Mag mogul beginning in the '50s (Hef) - easy. He has a good short nickname that you see in crosswords from time to time.
• 11D: Kendo motion (lunge) - is Kendo a martial art? Aha, "the way of the sword." Yes. I would show you video, but I just tried to watch a championship, and it was terminally boring (how is that possible!?), so I'll spare you.
• 19D: Language of Kuala Lumpur (Malay) - Kuala Lumpur used to have the tallest buildings in the world (Petronas Towers), but have since been overtaken by Shanghai and Taipei.
• 24D: Like early night election returns (partial) - wanted PRE-something for a few seconds.
• 26D: Grill option, for short (brat) - I don't think I saw this; it would have thrown me, despite the fact that I've been eating pseudo-brats on a regular basis this summer (Tofurky does much more than ridiculous fake turkey)
• 38D: Tolkien's The Prancing Pony, e.g. (inn) - I have no recollection of this. Luckily (for someone) the nerd factor on Tolkien fans is so incredibly high that there is a detailed description of this inn over at Wikipedia.
• 44D: Dolphins Hall-of-Fame QB Bob (Griese) - QB when I was a kid. I'm surprised his name doesn't appear more often. A potentially useful six-letter "G"-word.
• 51D: Gelatin substitute (agar) - one of the few ultra-crosswordy bits of fill today. Well, I guess there is SLOE. And EMIT. And A TON. And ALOE and OGLE and EONS and LUTE and IRATE and STYES and OSAGE. Hmm, I guess this puzzle gets a lot of credit for making me forget how much crosswordy fill it actually does have.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

TUESDAY, Jul. 1, 2008 - Ken Bessette (COBBLERS' FORMS / HORSE-RACING DEVOTEES, SLANGILY)

Relative difficulty: Challenging

THEME: uh ... let's see ... what sound like common phrases starting with "a"-words are actually phrases in which "a" is being used as an indefinite article

Ouch. Yesterday's Monday took me as long as a Tuesday and today's Tuesday took me as long as a Thursday (mid-6s). This is due almost entirely to the NW corner, which held the key to unlocking the theme (such as it is), but also held two words that left me agape and agog, even after (eventually) I solved them:

2D: Objets d'art (virtu) - I ... I ... and here I thought I knew something about art. I have this weird sense of déjà vu, like maybe I've complained about this word before, or at least seen it before, but ... nothing about it says "art," nothing about it says "plural," no one but no one uses it ever. Ever. No, you don't use it, shut up. PS this is the second definition of VIRTU, the first of which is "love or appreciation for ... objets d'art." Ugh.

4D: Cobblers' forms (lasts) - the very word "cobbler" makes me laugh. I know they still exist, and it's an important (and dying) craft, but still, "cobbler" ... it's Dickensian. LASTS is a verb to me. The definition of "LAST" is "A block or form shaped like a human foot and used in making or repairing shoes." It is, as you might guess, very very far down the possible meanings of "LAST" in the dictionary. There is a British unit of volume or weight, which is ever farther down the list.

Throw in TANAKA, which I have never seen or heard of (6D: 1970s Japanese P.M. Kakuei _____), and I was completely stymied in the N and NW for a while, so the "theme" remained mysterious for much of my solving experience.

Theme answers:

• 17A: Retired general? (a resting officer)
• 37A: Late nobleman? (a count past due)
• 59A: Carillon call? (a peal to the crowd)

OK, about Tuesday puzzles, which I have complained about more than any other day of the week: I heard from a constructor that the times has an 8-9 month Tuesday backlog!? How is that possible? And if it's so, why not raise (high) the bar for Tuesday quality (i.e. reject more Tuesday-ish puzzles)? Today's puzzle is solid in many ways, but the theme is kind of lackluster and some of the fill is a bit forced (esp. for a Tuesday). RIPON? (29D: Wisconsin town where the Republican Party was born) EX-GI????! (7D: W.W. II vet, e.g.). I can't even look at EX-GI without wincing.

• 1A: Kansas City university formerly known as College of Saint Teresa (Avila) - needed crosses to guess this one, then felt stupid as I know this saint's name very well (from grad school) and her most common appellation is "Teresa of AVILA"
• 14A: Gore who wrote "Lincoln" and "1876" (Vidal) - very nice cluing. I was thinking AL or LESLEY, i.e. "Gore" as last name. Gore VIDAL also wrote mysteries under the name "Edgar Box," back in the 1950s. Now you know.
• 15A: Eddie's character in "Beverly Hills Cop" (Axel) - AXEL Foley. Here is his theme:

• 23A: Part of the mailing address to Oral Roberts University (Tulsa, OK) - I like this. Hard to get that "AO" combo in English; be inventive!
• 25A: Field for Dem Bums (Ebbets) - The Brooklyn Dodgers ... I always wanna spell EBBETTS ... thusly!
• 31A: Poetic work by Tennyson (idyl) - wanted "MAUD"; there's such a thing as knowing too much (or so says this book I'm reading, which is fascinating, but which sadly shares its name with a Carnie Wilson memoir about her gastric bypass surgery)

• 44A: Glass-encased item in "Beauty in the Beast" (rose) - that image is weirdly iconic; even *I* remember it (not a big fairy tale fan).
• 48A: Residue locale (ash pit) - is this a thing? Is it like a fire pit? Oh, it's just the area underneath a fireplace hearth. "Pit" is a pretty grandiose word for such a little place.
• 55A: Unit a little longer than an arm's length (ell) - mmm, arcane measurements based on assumed standard lengths of body parts. My favorite. Here's a def:

An old body measure based on the human arm. Although suggestive of the forearm alone, British practice corresponded to the whole arm plus some fraction of the chest, hence a yard or more. It was the reference unit for the old measure in Scotland. Modern usage is primarily with textiles.

• 68A: Seven-year stretch (teens) - wow, that's good. Glad I never saw it. It would have tripped me.
• 10D: Horse-racing devotees, slangily (rail birds) - first, "slangily!" Yay. Second, despite having seen this slang term before, I completely forgot it and had to hack at it with crosses for a long time. Like VIRTU, LASTS, TANAKA, RIPON, and ELL, it seems to come from another era.
• 30D: "Little" Stowe character (Eva) - I know this only from xwords. Ditto ETUI (57D: Decorative sewing kit).
• 33D: Giant glaciers (ice sheets) - OK ... "glaciers" sound much more massive and impressive than "sheets," which I have on my bed. I wanted SHELVES, then actually wrote in SHELFS (!?), then had SHEARS (!!?) ... SHEERS (?) ... etc.
• 39D: General on Chines menus (Tso) - to complete your order, please see 60D: Kung _____ chicken (Pao)
• 47D: Word in many Perry Mason titles ("Case") - I just went through a run of Perry Mason books at my vintage paperback blog. Here's a sample:

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS here is a somewhat funny, somewhat self-effacing slam on all of you who found me by googling. Crosswording seen from a non-crossworder's perspective. Please just lurk and/or play nice. I'm definitely not mad (HA ha, I just - accidentally? - typed "I'm definitely mad")