TV persona giving prank interviews / FRI 2-11-11 / Hockey player's dangle / Antigonae opera composer / Title character of 1920s Broadway

Constructor: Adam Cohen

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none


Word of the Day: ADELLE Davis (21A: "Let's Cook It Right" author Davis) —

Daisie Adelle Davis (25 February 1904 - 31 May 1974), popularly known as Adelle Davis, was an American author and a pioneer in the fledgling field of nutrition during the mid-20th century. She advocated whole unprocessed foods, criticized food additives, and claimed that dietary supplements and other nutrients play a dominant role in maintaining health, preventing disease, and restoring health after the onset of disease. (wikipedia)

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A solid if undistinguished themeless offering. I really do like fresh, contemporary entries in my themelesses, and this one had virtually none. Could have been from 30 years ago—except NORAH Jones (7D: Singer Jones). Even JETER is a little last-millennium. Nothing else is very Now. Smooth, but ... shrug. I wish themeless constructors would build grids around a handful of winning, modern names / terms / in-the-language phrases. It's the NYT. It should be forward-thinking. Currently, it's being outshone on a regular basis in that department by several other puzzles, including Peter Gordon's Fireball Crosswords and The Onion A/V Club puzzle. Being modern doesn't have to mean including some indie band that no one over 40 will have heard of; it simply means that the puzzle should seem at least vaguely responsive to the world as it's currently being lived in. I do admire today's puzzle — it's very well crafted — but I wish themelesses in particular would be a bit more daring than this.

Lots of names Again today, though only ADELLE and TED(s) (48A: Oscar-winning screenwriter Tally and others) were outside my knowledge base (ELIE is inside the base only because crosswords have pounded her name into my head ... she's a she, right? Damn, he's a he. Of course he is. ELIE Wiesel's a he. What was I thinking?) (3D: Fashion designer Saab). TED Tally won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for "Silence of the Lambs." What the hell was going on with the sports clues today? A hockey player's "dangle?" That sounds obscene. And DEKE is already slang? Why would you need "dangle" when you have DEKE? I've never heard of this "dangle," though I'm admittedly not a hockey fan. I'll ask 5-time ACPT champion Tyler Hinman. He likes hockey, if his incessant hockey-season tweets are any indication. Bigger issue for me was the clue on JETER (39A: He broke Gehrig's 70-year all-time hits record). Misleading as hell. JETER does not hold the "all-time hits record." That record is held by Pete Rose. What JETER holds is the "all-time Yankees hits record." The fact that the clue omits this important bit of information makes it, pardon my French, total bullshit. JETER does have more all-time hits than any active player, but he's a good 1300+ hits shy of Rose's record. P.S. Pete Rose should be in the Hall of Fame, but that's a point to be made another time.


[This is the go-to one-L ADELE of the future; get on board now]
Started this one with -SGT (1D: Squad leader: Abbr.) and TEES (19A: Two out of twenty?) and ELIE and that gave me a momentum that never ceased. Slowed a little in the SW when I double-stumbled with ATT and TILE (instead of ITT (37A: Onetime communications giant) and PINE (56A: Flooring option)), but I finally backed GET IN SHAPE (26D: Work out) into a corner and got out of there unscathed. Tore through the rest of it until the NE corner, which I inched my way through. Stupid ADELLE and stupid ITALIANATE held me up. Ironically, gave my lecture on Italy and the Renaissance today in Brit Lit I. Never once used the word ITALIANATE, though (12D: Like much Renaissance art). Speaking of Renaissance—two Shakespeare quotations?! That's more than I HATH ERST seen in a puzzle.(23A: "She ___ Dian's wit": Romeo + 49D: "The even mead, that ___ brought sweetly fort ...": "Henry V")

Bullets:

• 1A: Loser to Al Pacino for Best Actor of 1992 (STEPHEN REA) — "The Crying Game"; Pacino won for (barf) "Scent of a Woman" (possibly my least favorite movie title ever).
  
• 15A: Where pitchers are often placed (SALES ROOMS) — words cannot expression how tired I am of the use of "pitch" as a misdirection word in clues for AD- or SALES-related answers.
  
• 29A: "Antigonae" opera composer (ORFF) — Got it off the "F" in ASIANFLU. Not really other options in that scenario.
  
• 38A: Pesäpallo is their national sport (FINNS) — Hmmm. Wikipedia sez:

The rules of pesäpallo are quite complicated, but the idea of the game is simple. One team tries to score by hitting the ball and running through the bases, the other team tries to defend by catching the ball and putting the runners out. The key to the game and the most important difference between pesäpallo and baseball is the vertical pitching. Hitting the ball, as well as controlling the power and direction of the hit, is much easier. This gives the offensive game much more variety, speed and tactical dimensions than in baseball. The fielding team is forced to counter the batter’s choices with defensive schemes and anticipation, and the game becomes a mental challenge.

• 35A: Group seen in late-night hours? (AEIOU) — I actually love this. Clever.
  
• 41D: TV persona giving prank interviews (ALI G) — even though I've known of this character for years, I almost always trip on him when he shows up in xwords. ALIG just looks so odd in the grid.

• 52A: Title character of 1920s Broadway (ABIE) — should be a gimme for any long-time solver. "ABIE's Irish Rose."
  
• 59A: Old Hollywood method of promoting talent (STAR SYSTEM) — despite its self-professed oldness, this answer is probably my favorite. Snappy and original-seeming.
  
• 25D: Onetime meringue-filled treats (OREOS) — Ew, really? I don't eat these much, but I much prefer the straight, untinted creme filling. I'm an original Double Stuf purist.
  
• 55D: Minnesota city with Vermilion Community College (ELY) — A Garrison Keilloresque clue. I must have heard of this city at some point, because it went in pretty easily.
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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Captor of Wendy Darling / WED 6-2-10 / Metaphorical target of attacks / Rawhide singer Frankie / Quebec's main drag / Forte's opposite

Constructor: Adam Cohen

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: Fishing — theme answers end with ROD, HOOK, LINE, and REEL


Word of the Day: Grande ALLÉE (65A: Grande ___ (Québec's main drag)) —

La Grande Allée est une importante voie de Québec. Elle est située sur la colline de Québec, parallèle au fleuve Saint-Laurent, dans les arrondissements La Cité–Limoilou et Sainte-Foy–Sillery–Cap-Rouge. Elle est réputée pour ses restaurants et ses beaux édifices. (wikipédia)

[The Great Walk is an important route of Quebec. It is located on the hill of Quebec, parallel to the St. Lawrence River , in the boroughs City-Limoilou and Sainte-Foy-Sillery-Cap-Rouge. It is renowned for its restaurants and beautiful buildings.]

• • •

Not much to this one. Theme feels overly simple and *very* old-fashioned. Theme answers, ho-hum (though LIGHTNING ROD and VIRGINIA REEL have a kinetic quality that's kind of appealing). Rest of the grid is solid and unremarkable, except for STRIKE PAY (6D: Compensation during a work stoppage), which shines, and ALIMONIES (37D: Severeance package payments?), which doesn't. Long answers aren't the place for forced plurals. Anyhow, I'm grateful for the almost complete lack of dreck. I stumbled in several places, but still came up with a time under 4, which says "Easy" on a Wednesday. Went with KENTS instead of KOOLS (1D: Mentholated smokes) — love the clue on that one; poetic — and DIRGE instead of ELEGY (8D: Poem of lament). Later, I took HOPI over ZUNI (59A: New Mexico native) and ARI over URI (60D: Altdorf's canton) — a perennial mistake of mine.

Theme answers:

• 20A: Metaphorical target of attacks (LIGHTNING ROD)
  
• 35A: Captor of Wendy Darling (CAPTAIN HOOK)
• 42A: Game show originally titled "Occupation Unknown" ("WHAT'S MY LINE")
  
• 56A: Dance with fiddlers and a caller (VIRGINIA REEL)
  

Couldn't remember DEL RAY at first (46A: ___ Beach, Fla.), had to fumble around to get ALLÉE, and found the clue on BALMY tough for some reason (30D: Like Indian summer days). Wanted some word for "unseasonably warm." Or "long," which is weird, as Indian summer days aren't particularly long. They suggest a "long" summer. Hardest clue of all, for me, strangely, was 59D: ___ + 4 (ZIP), especially considering I didn't have the "Z" at first. "Where's the 'equals' sign?" I'd forgotten that the ZIP code system is called "ZIP + 4" ("4" being the four digits that come after a hyphen, after your regular ZIP — I don't know my "4").


Bullets:

• 1A: Japanese beef center (KOBE) — also, a phenomenally talented Laker who will begin playing for the NBA championship tomorrow night.
  
• 49A: Oslo Accords partner of Yitzhak and Bill (YASIR) — I like when first names are clued this way (via parallelism) more than when they're clued via last name. Usually.
  
• 66A: Diary fastener (HASP) — Me, while solving: "What's a dairy fastener?" Me, a few seconds ago, when looking at this clue again: "What's a dairy fastener?"
• 69A: Sawbuck halves (ABES) — like this clue as much as [Mentholated smokes]. Three cheers for the colloquial.
  
• 7D: "Rawhide" singer Frankie (LAINE) — If I had a "Crosswordese 101" segment to this blog, the way PuzzleGirl does over at her (now) very own LAT crossword blog, this would have been my entry for the day. An important name to know, and one I know only from crosswords. There's also a (doubly crosswordy) CLEO LAINE.
  
• 22D: Eclipse, to the impressionable (OMEN) — I have trouble with the word "impressionable." I think you wanted to convey "ignorant," but thought that too mean, so hedged, and got a word associated mainly with children. Not good.
  
• 28D: Sporting tattoos, slangily (INKED) — good clue. I'd have gone the comic book route in this clue, but tattoos work fine here.
  
• 31A: Forte's opposite (PIANO) — so "pianoforte" is an oxymoron?
  
• 44D: Sicilian spewer (ETNA) — "spew" is up there on the Ugly Words list with "MOIST" and "PUS" and "MULCT" and some others.
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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Corporate raider Carl / MON 1-18-10 / Game show catchphrase / Firenze friends / Neighbor of a petal

Constructor: Adam Cohen

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: Game show catchphrases

Word of the Day: Clinton DEWITT (5D: Early New York governor Clinton) —

DeWitt Clinton (March 2, 1769 Little Britain, Province of New York – February 11, 1828 Albany, New York) was an early American politician who served as United States Senator and the sixth Governor of New York. In this last capacity he was largely responsible for the construction of the Erie Canal. Unlike his adversary Martin Van Buren, who invented machine politics, Clinton became the leader of New York's People’s Party. Clinton is an authentic but largely forgotten hero of American democracy, according to Daniel Walker Howe (2007). Howe explains, "The infrastructure he worked to create would transform American life, enhancing economic opportunity, political participation, and intellectual awareness."

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First of all, congratulations New York Jets for a. pulling off the huge upset over the Chargers, and b. providing football viewers with the weekend's only interesting game. For the second weekend in a row, 3/4 of the games just sucked. This one actually came down to about the final minute. I managed to pick All Four Games this weekend incorrectly. So when I say there will be a Saints / Jets Super Bowl ... well, you know how to bet.

This puzzle was wicked easy. Got hung up in two places and still finished just a hair's breadth over three minutes. Didn't know DEWITT, so that got me off to a slow start. Then at the end, I had much hesitation in the west. First with NO TIP, an answer I don't like at all, as it is not a solid self-standing phrase (40D: "Reward" for poor service). My mom used to insist that a 2% tip was the real way to let a waiter/waitress know he/she was terrible, but we never ever saw her use that maneuver, even when we were in NYC in the '80s and got treated poorly virtually everywhere we ate (tourist bumpkins that we were). ICAHN I know but forgot, so needed crosses (39A: Corporate raider Carl). And RECON didn't come easily (26D: What a drone airplane may do, for short), perhaps because our drones are now best known (or so my recent reading suggests) for bombing things, mainly Taliban and other terrorist hide-outs in mountainous areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan — drones likely controlled by some teenager with a joystick in northern VA.

Theme answers:

• 20A: Game show catchphrase #1 ("Can I buy a vowel?")
• 37A: Game show catchphrase #2 ("Survey says ...")
• 43A: Game show catchphrase #3 ("Come on down!")
• 55A: Game show catchphrase #4 ("The password is ...") — that might be the hardest of the bunch for today's audience. Certainly was for my wife (who did not live in this country when that show was popular). Well, there was that attempted "Password" revival in 2008-09, but I don't think anybody noticed that.

Bullets:

• 42A: Neighbor of a petal (sepal) — huge victory of the day was not hesitating for a moment on this one. Right off the "S," bam. I say "huge victory" because there was a time when I had Never Heard of this word (learned it from crosswords). From WTF to gimme! Love when that happens.
• 54D: Shelley's "__ the West Wind" ("Ode to") — my wife had "ONE TO the West Wind," which sounds like some kind of ancient sacrificial rite.
• 31A: Medieval martial art (tai chi) — never like when word "medieval" (derived specifically from European history/literature, medium aevum, "the middle age," between the Classical (European) Age and the (European) Renaissance) is used to refer to things non-European. Plus, TAI CHI originated in the 13th century, but it's a contemporary practice for millions of people, so calling it "medieval" just seems weird.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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Elephant rider's seat — WEDNESDAY, Dec. 30 2009 — Amtrak debut of 11/17/2000 / Strawberry Fields pilgrimage figure / Tay Lomond /

Constructor: Adam Cohen

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: Stock ticker symbols

Word of the Day: William Van ALEN (65A: Art Deco architect William Van ___) —

William Van Alen (August 10, 1883 – May 24, 1954) was an American architect, best known as the architect in charge of designing New York City's Chrysler Building (1929-30). [...] Unfortunately, when commissioned to build the Chrysler Building, Van Alen failed to enter into a contract with Mr. Chrysler. After the building was completed, Van Alen requested payment of 6% of the building's ($14 million) budget - which was the standard fee of the time. After Chrysler refused payment, Van Alen sued him and won, eventually receiving the fee. However, the lawsuit significantly depreciated his reputation, as an employable architect. His career effectively ruined by the lawsuit, followed by the Great Depression, Van Alen focused his attention more on teaching sculpture. (wikipedia)

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Ah, jet lag.

Let's see if I can get this thing up by 9am EST. (1/2 hour from now)

First, could some enterprising constructor out there please contact United Airlines' "Hemispheres" magazine and offer to write their crossword for them, because whoever is doing it now suuuuuuuuuuuux. Huge 23x23 grid, but only a handful of *randomly placed* theme answers, and the theme was ... Japan. As in ... all theme answers were in some way related to Japan. Grid had some appalling number of black squares, including highly unnecessary cheater squares aplenty. Best FAIL moment: DEW sitting directly and squarely on top of ... BEDEW. Holy cow. Solving that puzzle was the second-most horrifying in-flight moment of my trip, right after Sky Mall's headline for G-Defy shoes: "Feel like your defying Gravity!"

This puzzle was OK, but I don't see any link among theme answers except that their ticker symbols have some cute symbolic relationship to the company they represent. What the hell is a GENENTECH? The other answers are exceedingly well known retailers, but GENENTECH sounds like the ominous corporation in a scifi thriller. Like PrimatechPaper or Massive Dynamic. Really odd to have one answer so much more obscure / different from the others. Also, three Woody Allen clues? I get it, you're a fan, but yeesh. All in the N / NW, so I thought that was the theme at first. Two partial names I didn't know — 57D: Explorer Cabeza de VACA and 65A: Art Deco architect William Van ALEN — and one partial name I did — 16A: SAXE-Coburg-Gotha (old British royal house). How many more fill-in-the-blank names can there be? Answer: four. Wallace SHAWN (18A: Wallace ___ of "Manhattan"), Rubina ALI (52A: Rubina ___ of "Slumdog Millionaire"), CHAKA Khan (29D: Grammy winner ___ Khan), and MYRA (36D: Vidal's "___ Breckinridge"). That's a lot.

Theme answers:

• 20A: Company with the stock ticker symbol BKS (Barnes & Noble)
• 25A: Company with the stock ticker symbol DNA (Genentech)
• 39A: Company with the stock ticker symbol ZZ (Sealy)
  
• 48A: Company with the stock ticker symbol PZZA (Papa John's)
• 53A: Company with the stock ticker symbol HOG (Harley Davidson)

Watched an episode of "Nova" last night about DNA research and evolution, and while no one mentioned GENENTECH, one segment did feature a series of cheek SWABs used to collect DNA from different people in the lab, so that answer was oddly timely for me (1D: DNA collector, perhaps). Also timely was MYRA Breckinridge, as it appears my (entire) family will be vacationing there (Breckinridge, CO) when next we vacation (summer?). What else ... oh, the long Downs are nice, esp. EFFRONTERY (3D: Chutzpah). I'm not sure I quite understand the clue on O'DAY (22D: Jazz singer who took her surname from pig Latin). She took her name from DOUGH? D'OH? DOUGH wasn't her real name, was it? According to wikipedia, it's from "dough," slang for money. Innnnteresting. Mom just got me a CD of hers and I like it a lot. She had serious drug problems but lived a long life and was still working when she died in 2006.



Bullets:

• 5A: Tay and Lomond (lochs) — first thought: "Who are they?"
• 23A: Strawberry Fields pilgrimage figure (Ono) — new (to me) clue. Interesting.
• 61A: Amtrak debut of 11/17/2000 (Acela) — a northeast thing. Learned it from xwords. Saw ads for it in Dulles, which may be the first time I've seen ACELA outside xwords.
• 8D: Elephant rider's seat (howdah) — seen it before. Forgot it completely.
  
• 54A: Former Fox series set in Newport Beach ("The O.C.") — had THEOM here because I didn't know the explorer guy's name and I apparently tried to make it rhyme with Vasco de GAMA.

See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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