Chardonnay from Burgundy / SAT 2-20-10 / First Japanese infielder to sign with a major-league team, familiarly / The Pearl of the Orient

Constructor: Paula Gamache

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: None

Word of the Day: ran-tan (riot) —

A person or persons who makes extremely off-the-wall remarks on any subject matter.

(Urban Dictionary)

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I gave this one a medium rating, but I bet we'll have a split of people who found it a cakewalk and people who found it, maybe not impossible, but not a cakewalk. I'd think this one and yesterday's should have been switched.

(By the way, have any of you ever actually been on a cakewalk? When I was a kid, the small town near where I grew up had a little community center that had a cakewalk diagram painted on the floor, and sometimes it would be put to use. It's very exciting when you're seven or eight years old to walk around that circle and see if the number you're standing on when the music stops is the one that wins the cake [more often it was a pie.] I don't know why "cakewalk" began to be equated with something very simple. It's not like everybody wins a cake in a cakewalk, or a pie either. Cakewalks are no cakewalk. Granted, if you're seven or eight and it's a little town where everybody but you is nearly a hundred years old, they usually make sure you get a cake.)

I'm not a good judge of the difficulty of this one. First, I'm tired and getting the flu. I had the bright idea earlier today that I wouldn't do a write-up but would do a little documentary about doing the puzzle--i.e., I would do a video of myself doing the puzzle with real-time commentary, edit it down to three or four minutes, throw in some gratuitous nudity, and call that the write-up. I actually gave it a shot. This is how far I made it:

You were hoping for the nudity, weren't you? You get that with the subscription service.

Second, I gave up sooner than I normally would have, since I don't want to be up til 2:15 like last night, and am not sure whether I'd have cracked this one on my own. (I got all of it done on my own except a chunk of the NW. Googling for KAZ got the rest of it.) I suspect I wouldn't have finished. I like PG's puzzles most of the time, and this one will probably have some big fans. As for me, this one this time is just too sporty and foreign for my tastes.

So yeah, puzzle, it's not you, it's me.

The people who found it a cakewalk will probably be those to whom 18A: First Japanese infielder to sign with a major-league team, familiarly (Kaz Matsui) was a gimme. As for me, it was bad enough when I saw "first Japanese infielder," and it got much worse when I saw "familiarly." "Familiarly" has risen up the charts to become my least favorite type of clue. I am almost never familiar with the way people are familiarly known.

Those same people probably also knew right away how to spell Usain Bolt (50A: 2008 Olympics sensation). I did not and in fact was misled for a long time by the opening "USA." That's probably what she meant to happen. (I'm not so sure, by the way, that that crossing with Irina [33D: ____ Spalko, Indiana Jones villainess] was fair.) I detest the Olympics, though I can stomach the track and field stuff better than I can stomach all the beautiful snow people. I'd like the Olympics better if they let more ugly people compete.

I did get Lebron (44D: James of the court) with little fanfare. I don't know squat about baskeball, but I know the name Lebron James.

The foreign and foreign-esque clues and answers also made the puzzle less interesting to me than perhaps it was to less xenophobic solvers. In that category are 24D: _______ Eireann (Irish legislative assembly) (Dail) [and is that fair to cross timbal (11D: kettledrum) with Dail?]; Nein (46A: ___ doch!" [German reply]) (Are there only about ten words in German? Judging from crosswords, there appear to be only about six letters. And German reply to what?); Stara (48A: ___________ Zagora, Bulgaria); Grazioso (3D: Elegantly, to Brahms); and Pouilly Fuisse (15D: Chardonnay from Burgundy), though I did know that one, having worked at a wine store in Austin back in my grad school days.

I'm going to get to some stuff I like, but first, we would be delinquent in our duties if we did not call our constructor out on the atrocity of 38A: I.M. not sent through AOL? (Pei). It reminds me of a joke my son told me a few days ago:

"Daddy, how do you spell 'i-cup'?"
"I've never heard of an i-cup. Do you mean eggcup?"
"No! How do you spell i-cup?"

"I don't think it's a word--"
"How do you spell it?!"

"All right then, good grief. . . . I-C-U-P."

Ensuing of merriment.

The punchline: My son is seven. He doesn't understand why Paul Simon or any man would divorce Princess Leia. This, however, is the New York Times Saturday crossword puzzle.

Here's some stuff I liked:

• 17A: Like the drummer for rock's Def Leppard, amazingly (one-armed) — That's another one that will cause camp divisions. If you were under forty for any portion of the eighties, you probably entered this one immediately. The town where I was born has a dove hunt for amputees every year, billed as the "One-Arm Dove Hunt." I knew a bunch of one-armed men when I was growing up in the north Texas oil fields. It was rare for any man of my grandfather's generation to have all his digits and limbs. Granted, it was also rare for them to find success with hair metal bands. Most became county commissioners and drove around on road-graders all day drinking Schlitz.


• 21A: Writer of the 1950 Tony-winning play "The Cocktail Party" (Eliot) — News to me that T.S. Eliot won a Tony. It's worth knowing.


• 25A: Ran-tan (riot) — I'm putting this in the "stuff I liked" column for lack of a WTF? column. That Urban Dictionary definion is the only one I found, and it doesn't look too sanitary. Kate Bush has a song with "Ran Tan" in the title. There are several others in the WTF? column, if I had one, including ideality (2D: perfection) and the aforementioned timbal.


• 7D: The Pearl of the Orient (Manila) — Again, something I did not know. I know it now, but upon further research, I don't really know what it is I know. I mean, says who and so what? I didn't know Manila was known for anything but its fine office supplies.


• 19D: Copenhagen alternative (Skoal) -- My favorite clue/answer pair by a mile. This is the day the New York Times acknowledged that snuff-dippers exist.

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• 47D: Diminutive chthonic figure (gnome) -- Chthonic! If you're going to go to all the trouble of learning to speak, acquiring a vocabulary, and engaging in the dialect of the tribe, hell yes, by all means use a word like "chthonic" before you die.

Thanks to Rex for letting me play in his sandbox again--sorry for screwing up the formatting and getting lazy with the pictures today. I'm not sure who's doing the write-up tomorrow, but it was nice talking to you all again, and good to have met some of the newer folks. Hope everybody makes it home safe and with good stories to tell.

Signed, Wade

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