SATURDAY, Jan. 27, 2007 - Karen M. Tracey

Solving time: untimed, but pretty long

THEME: ROAD TESTS (35A) (or, none)

The Return of Karen M. Tracey (see last Friday's puzzle). I got beat around something awful by this puzzle, but I kept my balance and stuck it out, making it well into the later rounds; but then, again, just like yesterday, I hit the SE. There, I was dealt a true knockout blow. I made a mistake (dropped my guard) and got belted in the jaw and fell to the canvas. When I came to and got up, everyone had gone home.

My mistake?: I put in ION instead of VUE for 56A: Saturn S.U.V. I could say a lot more, but that's really the heart of the problem. That made me see bad answers and discount valid ones - most notably OPERATIVE (59A: Key), which ION made impossible. ION!!! If I had put in VUE straightway (it is a model name well within my knowledge), I think I would have sailed through the SE - would have got VENT, for instance (56D: Means of escape), instead of spending what felt like hours trying to think of 4-letter for "means of escape" that starts with "I." My best guess: IPOD. Eventually "discovered" UNMOVED (44D: Dry-eyed) after plugging in VENI then VIDI then VICI then VENI again at 49A: Part of a Latin trio to see if any of those answers (I knew it was one of 'em) could give me a hint to the Down crosses (VENI gave me UNMOVED's "N," which is all I had when I got it). As with VISA yesterday, UNMOVED started the avalanche that (finally) finished off the puzzle. That metaphor would be better if there were actually avalanches in the Southeastern U.S.

This failure in the SE (now becoming a regular feature of my solving experience) was balanced by strange successes in other parts of the puzzle (where I "knew" answers, but did not know how), and my misery in the SE mitigated considerably by genuine pleasure ... elsewhere.

"ROAD TESTS?"

Why would I say that the theme of this puzzle is (or should be) ROAD TESTS? Good question. The whole grid has a very automotive vibe. For example:

35A: Indicators of comfort and handling (road tests) - hence the title of this segment; this answer sits horizontally across the center of the puzzle
36D: Jam ingredients? (autos) - this intersects ROAD TESTS at the "A"
43D: Old Ford model (Festiva) - I was thinking way, way older. Having No letters didn't help. I had BEARCAT written in there at one point. Wasn't that a car model name? YES! Stutz, not Ford, but whatever. Here's a 1930's model:

And here's something more recent - what is that chick doing?


56A: Saturn S.U.V. (Vue) - I've said all I want to about this one. S.U.V. makes me think of "Law & Order: SVU," which I like to call "Law & Order: SUV," which could be about two cops who ride around the city solving crimes ... in an S.U.V. They've spun the original show into so many increasingly useless, stupid, redundant directions that I don't think my S.U.V idea is particularly bad by comparison.

Beyond the automotive world, there are other little subthemes, including fine art (ERNST and Warhol (see below) and Tintoretto) and high fashion (62A: Some gowns (Diors) and 65A: Prada alternative (Kate Spade)) and espionage (34A: Notice (spy) and 59A: Key (operative)).

POP CULTURE

Me like pop culture questions, the more campy and obscure, the better. This puzzle had a host of gimmes, some of them virtually Pantheon material, and all of them pop culture-related. Let's start with ENOS (7D: Short-lived TV spinoff of 1980), which I'm pretty sure I've seen clued with reference to the "Dukes of Hazzard" spinoff before (instead of the more common biblical frame of reference), but my pleasure is not thereby diminished. JOANIE LOVES CHACHI wouldn't fit in the spaces provided, and AFTER M*A*S*H was from several years later - I really wanted to get this answer with no crosses, but alas, ah me, it was not to be. Answers I did get with no help (i.e. gimmes) included 10D: Actress Ryan of "Star Trek: Voyager" (Jeri), which was a gimme for both me and my wife (I should note that for the first time ever I solved with my wife for about half the puzzle - just wanted her to see what Saturdays looked like; evidence of our compatibility includes groaning at the same iffy answers, on which, more below). Another gimme, with Pantheonic leanings: 50A: Eric who played Hector in "Troy," 2004 (Bana). Eric BANA would be "that guy... you know ... brown hair" if it weren't for the NYT puzzle, which has made him the It Boy of Puzzledom. Loved ATOM ANT (3D: Superhero of 1960's TV), but did NOT love JAROD (10A: Main character of TV's "The Pretender"), first because yuck ick gross horrible forgettable 90's TV that no one watched in the first place, and second because the answer makes me think of the Subway guy. Last pop culture gimme: 23A: Boosler of stand-up (Elayne), though I had her name with an "I" and not a "Y" until YEAR (24D: Wine info) forced the issue. Oh, MARILYN (2D: Andy Warhol subject) is good pop culturey fill, and a virtual gimme (got it off just the "Y" in DYNE, 27A: Small force). And now that we've veered into the world of art, I'll throw in the last true gimme: 64A: Contemporary of Arp and Miró (Ernst), who, along with BANA, awaits his place in the Pantheon. By the way, ARP is a worthy candidate as well.

ABSURD FILL

If I ever buy a couple of pet rats, or create a comic about a couple of rats who have crazy (mis-) adventures, I will surely call those rats DITHERY (14D: Highly agitated) and TRICKSY (54A: Mischievous). I was actually pretty proud of getting DITHERY, in that ... well, you know how getting a gimme is useful and all, but it's not exactly satisfying, while unearthing a pesky, TRICKSY, annoyingly hidden answer gives a feeling of accomplishment? Well, I got that feeling from getting DITHERY, which came together slowly, and really started to come into view when I let go of SEE at 34A: Notice and put in the spicier SPY, giving me the terminal "Y" in DITHERY. The only other bit of ridiculous fill I can see in this grid is FACERS for 47D: Stunning slaps, which caused my wife more consternation than it did me, but she's not wrong. It's hard to imagine "stunning slaps" being so common that someone would invent a catchy, colloquial word for them. Was there a slapping craze in the 1890's?

I would also like to note the puzzle redemption of formerly Absurd Fill. So, All hail the return of I GO, this time clued in a non-insane way as 25A: "_____ for That" (1939 hit song) [and not the comically misguided "My turn!"]

ABSOLUTELY UNKNOWN

Oh there are a LOT of these - answers I could not have gotten in a million years without the crosses:

11D: Sour, fermented liquid (alegar) - I know Al's cousin Vin, but I've never met Al
9D: Neighborhood in the Bronx (Throgsneck) - huge props to my wife for knowing this off of just the THR-; I would have had to piece it together, cross by cross
6D: American coot (mudhen) - this clue / answer pairing recalls both "M*A*S*H" and "Dukes of Hazzard"; Klinger was from Toledo, whose minor league team is the MUDHENs. And Cooter (tee hee), like ENOS (who named these people??), was a colorful cast member of "Dukes" - Cooters are apparently some kind of turtle, and there is a Cooter Festival in Florida every year. Why can't the Crossword Tournament be held there?
40D: Eisenhower's Texas birthplace (Denison) - O ... K. I'll take your word for it.
42A: Patriot Putnam (Rufus) - this jerk is almost single-handedly responsible for my failure in the SE. I mean, ION/VUE didn't help, but if I'd known this guy ... all the delicious first letters he would have provided! With the RU- in place, I was certain I was dealing with a RUBEN.
48D: Poinsettia's family (spurge) - gross; worst flora name ever - Sandy, a plant person, did not have the faintest idea what this could be, for the record
63A: Old World pigeons with markings around the neck (ring doves) - inferrable, but without numerous crosses, ungettable
60D: Writer _____ Pera (Pia) - only one way this should be clued: [Aging sexpot Zadora] - best PIA Zadora "trivia" at imdb.com:

In 1984, her song "Rock It Out" earned a Grammy nomination for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. Among her fellow nominees: Lita Ford, Bonnie Tyler, Wendy O. Williams and eventual winner Tina Turner.

That, and her son's godfather is Don King.

Lastly, I want to acknowledge my own solving prowess, as I got OLD NEW YORK (29D: Locale in a classic Frank Sinatra song) off of just the "O" and NON-STARTER (28A: Dud of an idea) off of just the N--S. I'd also like to say that ESPN should get an assist credit on this puzzle, as two more gimmes I failed to mention earlier are straight out of the sports universe: 5D: N.B.A. star Brand (Elton) and 51A: Temple player (Owl).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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SATURDAY, Jan. 20, 2007 - Harvey Estes

Solving time: something close to an hour

THEME: Lots of crap I've never heard of or "Saved by Suffixes" or none

[updated 1:35 pm]

Not much to say about this one. Felt like the hardest Saturday I'd ever done, but times at the applet suggest otherwise, so who knows. Solved it just before going to sleep - not optimal conditions (warm horizontality). Today I'm going to start with some brief notes on the overall solving experience and then write ONLY about those entries I had Never heard of, which, as you'll see, should give me a healthy-sized entry.

The first thing I entered into the grid was 3D: American painter of sports scenes (Neiman) - nope, wait, the FIRST thing I entered was LOCATION at 20A: Chat room info, but that was immediately negated by the more solid NEIMAN, which had its "A" where LOCATION had its "I". After NEIMAN (which I wasn't even terribly sure of), not much happened for a few minutes as I scanned the Northern clues and Nothing Happened. The only reason I got a toehold on this puzzle - the ONLY reason - was that I inferred suffixes / endings on a few answers, which then allowed me to get one of their major crosses. 8D: Most vile (slimiest) did not come to me right away, but its -EST ending did; same thing with 10D: Producing bullets? (sweating) - couldn't see the full answer for a long time, but wrote that -ING in there. Between -EST and -ING, and then the -S that I wrote in at the end of 7D: Supplements (enlarges), I had --ST-G- for 32A: Put on again, and thus RESTAGE was the first word I put in the grid with anything like certainty. Fifteen minutes later ... the NE quadrant was done. I've done whole Saturday puzzles in fifteen minutes before. So we'll start our world of word mystery in the great NE (where it is currently cold and snowing, by the way).

6D: Radial alternative (bias tire)

To my credit, I managed to infer the TIRE part. But not being especially ... uh, handy, or automotive, or traditionally "masculine," I would not have written BIAS in a million years. Never Heard Of It. Had SNOW there at one point. That was the best I could do. Other words up there that seem weird / odd / wrong / from outer space: 21A: Mournful (triste) - yes, if you're in France, or possibly Canada. When (the #$#@) did this become an English word? - and then there was 19D: Otto's preceder (Sette); SETTE is like the Billy Baldwin of the SET brothers: SET-TO is in the Pantheon (he's the Alec). Then there are SET I (a recent entry) and SETA (a recent entry). I feel as if there is a fifth SET- brother, but as with the names of the rest of the Baldwin brothers, I can't remember it. [Just remembered it - it's SETT, uuuugggggh]

37D: Brazilian beach resort (Olinda)

Nope, never heard of it. Luckily for me, this word appeared in the easiest quadrant of the puzzle, so it didn't really give me trouble. What did give me trouble, at least when I tried to submit my grid to check my answers, was the fact that I apparently did not know how to spell PALOMINO (44A: Trigger, e.g.). My invented spelling of PALAMINO resulted in a crossing, MALDER, that I figured was just another of those words I'd never heard of, the kind one often finds in a Saturday puzzle. Turns out that MALDER really really wanted to be MOLDER (38D: Crumble), and while I could not properly have defined MOLDER (I'd have told you it had something to do with MOLD), it has the virtue of being (unlike MALDER) a word I'd heard of. MALDER makes me think of two great fake food-names from TV sitcoms of the past, oh, 15 years. Name them! (both start with "M")

28D: Water (Adam's Ale)

I would officially like to tell this puzzle to go to hell. Take a few letters out of ADAM'S ALE and it looks like it wants to be a word you know, but it's not quite up to the task. Stared at -DAMSA-E for a long time thinking ... it's not CASCADE ... what is it?" Actually, I had the "L" there in ALE but took it out thinking MAYBE it was wrong - turns out ILIAL (49A: Of a pelvic bone) was one of the few words I had right off the bat, though a. I wasn't sure about it, and b. when I first put it in the grid, it was ILIAC, and I won't even go into how badly that marred my ability to see ERNIE ELS at 31D: The Big Easy - I was convinced the answer had to do with New Orleans ("What other 'Big Easy' is there!?"),
and then the "C" in ILIAC gave me an ending of -ECS and I thought "dear god this is some crazy Cajun crap that I'll never get in a million years." Back to ADAM and his alleged ALE. No, on second thought, no more. Too angry-making. Last square to fall down here in the SW was the "P" intersection of 26A: Part of a pound (piaster) [yeah, a LEBANESE pound you m@#$#@fu##$ers! What am I, a numismatist!?] and 26D: U.N. beachhead during the Korean War (Pusan) [Oh "M*A*S*H," where were you when I needed you?!]. I invented a spelling of SELASSIE (29D: Part of an Ethiopian emperor's title), which turned out to be 7/8 correct! (I started the word SAL...)

I want to give a shout out to myself for getting PAS DE (47A: Deux or trois lead-in) immediately, while having very little idea what the phrases actually mean, beyond being dance-related. I also want to stop, briefly, to admire the odd stacking of STALIN (35A: Political leader from Georgia) on ARMANI (43A: Name in high fashion) on NESSIE (45A: Nickname in tabloids) - for this last one, I was looking at JESSIE, JACKO, and BENNIFER before I ever considered NESSIE. NESSIE makes me think of Scotland. Cue requisite picture of Willie:


12D: Woman in a "Paint Your Wagon" song (Elisa)

Not just a woman in the musical (which I've never seen), but a woman in a song in the musical. COME ON! I feel as if I should have gotten this, however, considering the fabulous musical parody "The Simpsons" did of "Paint Your Wagon" many years back (from "All Singing, All Dancing," a Western musical starring Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin, which Homer rents instead of renting "Waiting to Exhale" (Marge's choice) or "Emma" (Lisa's)).

Gonna paint our wagon
Gonna paint it good
We ain't braggin'
We're gonna coat that wood!

Gonna paint your wagon
Gonna paint it fine
Gonna use oil-based paint
'Cause the wood is pine (PonderOOOOOOSa Pine!)

Nothing about ELISA in there, so it remained / remains unknown to me.

Had SEOUL for KABUL (11D: World captial on a river of the same name) for a while, and the "O" in SEOUL gave me the nearly plausible OLDTIMER for 17A: Pooh-bah (big-timer), which then gave the (wrong) "D," which gave me the lame but desperate BIDES for 13D: Shows no signs of abating (rages). OLDTIMER made thematic sense up there in the NW, where it was the OLD-TIMER's comedy hour, with ALAN KING (15A: He said "Marriage is nature's way of keeping us from fighting with strangers") intersecting 4D: Half of an old comedy duo (Anne Meara). Yes, it was a thorny time in the great NW. It's very inky, my actual puzzle. The entirety of USERNAME (20A) (where I originally had LOCATION, as I mention above) and LEGREST (5D: Deck chair part) (where I originally had [something]-SLAT and then ARMREST) - both those answers, which intersect, form solid perpindicular ink smears on my puzzle. Something similar happened in the NE, where the wrong SNOWTIRE gave me a wrong "N" that gave me the wrong NIECE for 14A: One lost through divorce (in-law). That's the benefit / horror of doing the puzzle on paper - you leave a very visible trail of your ridiculous missteps.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS I would like to register my official disapproval of the spelling of LASAGNES (22A: Potluck panfuls). I prefer the Americanized plural LASAGNAS. I'm sure Garfield would agree.

PPS Just got a Comment from a solver working today's syndicated (i.e. 6-weeks-ago) crossword, and he/she said that in his/her paper, the genius clue of 17A: Write seperately, say (misspell) had been "corrected," so that it read Write separately, say, which renders the answer meaningless - wrong, in fact. A proofreading tragedy if there ever was one.

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THURSDAY, Jan. 18, 2007 - Randolph Ross

Solving time: untimed

THEME: 59A: SWORD (or a title for this puzzle) => ANAGRAMMED WORDS

I don't know if I knew that ANAGRAM could legally be used as a verb. It's a noun that I would happily verbize in everyday speech, but it's nice to have confirmation here that, yes, one can ANAGRAM something. This puzzle was pretty easy for a Thursday - once you figured out the theme, it was not hard to get very long answers very quickly, providing crosses for every Down clue. I figured out the theme once I got the -NGEOFH- in 26A: EARTH (change of HEART), and the rest came quickly from there. I didn't time myself today because I fell asleep before the puzzle became available last night, and in the mornings ... well, I refuse to time myself when there's a chance I might be interrupted, and in the mornings, that chance is quite high. So I solved it as I walked around the house this morning. Some new words (to me). Some great words. Some weird-ass words I'd never seen before. Let's get to it. Just short entries today, as I have a dentist appointment in ... let's see ... 67 minutes. I GO!

Entertaining / Amusing / Noteworthy Fill

• 1A: Lost it (had a cow) - ahh, 1990! No one has uttered this phrase in earnest since Season 1 of The Simpsons (when it briefly became a kind of catchphrase for Bart Simpson, as in "Don't have a cow, man!") but the expression somehow has legs. I was able to get this off of just the terminal -OW (from 6D: Anthem contraction (o'er) and 7D: Suffix with spy (ware)).
• 34A: "The Big Trail" or "The Big Sombrero," e.g. (oater) - as I check the Pantheon, I notice that OATER is mysteriously not in there. I have to believe that this will be remedied in 2008. What was the committee thinking? This word is a common five-letter answer, and it's totally antiquated, and it gets used in clues as well as answers. I would not know the word were it not for the NYT crossword. Plus, who doesn't love a good OATER? Unlike many of his crossword-common peers, I'm always happy to see OATER.
• 25D: Chain with many links (IHOP) - If only IHOP would agree to sponsor this site / my trip to Stamford, I would be happy to give it a place in the Pantheon. But until I see some payback for all this free advertising / mindless adulation, IHOP will remain a Pantheon outsider.
• 8A: "The Card Players" artist (Cézanne) - my favorite artist. Ever. I think he did a number of "Card Players," actually. There is one ... well, at the Getty, I think. I've seen it recently. I take it back - might be in the Guggenheim. I'm not bothering to look it up right now, as I have to get to the dentist soon.
• 11D: Matter for government approval (arms deal) - is this supposed to be funny? I thought that the whole point of ARMS DEALs was that they were typically covert, deniable, quasi- if not completely il-legal, and more often than not done without the formal "approval" of any government. But then again, I just finished watching four hours of "24," so my view of how the world works may be a bit skewed. I guess the appropriateness of this clue depends on how you define "government." Speaking of ARMS DEALs...
• 31D: Crude group (OPEC)
• 48A: Big man in Oman (emeer)
• 9D: Swallow (engulf) - I detect a subtheme. We used to make ARMS DEALs with certain nations on the Persian [en]GULF, but that led to the concentration of power in the hands of capricious and violent dictators. We have since tried to solicit the help of certain EMEERS in stabilizing the region and making it free for .... well, I'd say democracy, but ha ha, EMEERS are having none of that, so I'll say ... free for OPEC to continue its business unabated, with liberty and justice for all.
• 36D: Exacts satisfaction (revenges) - I am a big, big fan of All Things Revenge, as you may know by now, but I am not a fan of REvenge in anything other than its nominative (noun) state. You AVENGE your father's murder, you don't (or shouldn't, I guess) REVENGE it. Plus, shouldn't this clue be "Exacts satisfaction for"? The way it's clued makes it sound like an intransitive verb. "He hurt me, but I REVENGEd." No. Andrew (rightly) questioned REVENGEful the other day when G.W. Bush proclaimed, in some statement, that REVENGEful was something that he was not (vis-à-vis I'm not sure what - Hussein?). Anyway, to sum up: REVENGE = noun, AVENGE = (transitive) verb. VENGEANCE is also a good noun. Milton, for the record, distinguishes between VENGEANCE and REVENGE by reserving the former for use only in relation the righteous activity of God / Angels (e.g. Divine Vengeance), while everything Satan et al. try to do = REVENGE. I think the RE- prefix somehow debases the word, making it (like Satan's power) a bad imitation of the Real Thing. This theory = copyright me, right now (you know, just in case there are any lurking Milton scholars who have run out of good ideas. Back off).
  

Words I Did Not Know

• 16A: Not using liquid (aneroid) - ugh, science. I feel about science answers the way my wife feels about sports answers, i.e. ugh. See 31A: The Cowboys of the N.C.A.A. (OSU) and 39D: N.F.L. coach Jim (Mora), both of which (esp. the former) were gimmes for me, sorry honey. On the other hand, see also 19A: Author of "Broca's Brain" (Sagan), which I did not get forEver (had SEGAL, as in Erich), and 56D: _____ point (embroidery stitch) (gros), which my wife might have known, but I didn't - GROS means "fat" in French, but that's all I know about GROS.
• 40A: Name meaning "my God is God" (Eliel) - wanted ELIHU (as I always do). Again, if you really want to stump me, you will pack the puzzle with things Hebraic (or, of course, scientific) - a puzzle about ancient Jewish scientists would absolutely destroy me.
• 52D: Hindu hero (rama) - this had my one uncertain square in it: the M, which a good portion of my gut wanted to be a J, but then the cross would have been FT JEADE (62A: Home of the Natl. Cryptologic Museum), and something stronger than my gut told me that was just wrong. MEADE sounded right, and RAMA sounded like something, even if I couldn't define it. It appears that the RAMA of which the clue speaks is the legendary king believed to be an incarnation of Vishnu. I lifted that definition straight out of Wikipedia, for the record.
• 37D: One of the Scraggs in "Li'l Abner" (Clem) - I love that got CLEM with just the C because it was the first and most hillbilliest name that came to mind. I know a lot about comics post-1986, but not as much as I should, clearly, about early newspaper comics (see also my struggles with one Mrs. Cora Dithers). But seriously, do you know how far down the "Li'l Abner" totem pole you have to go to find CLEM Scragg?? So far that I canNOT find him on the official website. Fifteen pictured characters under "Other Li'l Abner characters," and only one of them named Scragg, and it ain't CLEM (it's Romeo ... of course). Looking at this list of characters is making me really, Really wanna read this comic. There's a character called "Moonbeam McSwine," and she is a hot woman wearing some kind of tattered, Hefty (TM) bag dress and chewing on a corncob pipe. What's not to love? Please see the cast of "Central High School Presents: L'il Abner!" - the very, very last person listed, in a very, very large cast, is the kid who plays CLEM Scragg. His name is Cordney and he likes playing XBOX (which, somehow, links this entry back to the world of crosswords)
  
• 15A: Nation born from war in 1993 (Eritrea) - did this country (or country name) really not exist at all before 1993? Weirdly, or maybe not so weirdly, I had it in my head until Just before writing this entry that ERITREA was in the region of Bosnia-Hercegovina, but then just now it dawned on me that there might have been something in Africa in the early 90s that created a new nation. One Google search later: ERITREA, occupying much of the beachfront property on the Red Sea (not sure how Ethiopia feels about this - a long skinny portion of ERITREA is the only thing standing between Ethiopia and sweet, sweet water. Someone else can go into the nuances of the war that led to this country's creation. I'm just glad I'd heard about it enough to be able to fill it into the grid today.

Had one very wrong entry which held me up a tiny bit: 35A: Like some noses (pierced) - an eminently acceptable answer, but ... well, I had the PI and the ED, and in between I wrote NCH, giving me PINCHED. It's a good answer, in some ways. Google says:

Enlarged adenoids can give the voice a "pinched nose" quality

And a PINCHED-nose coupe might look something like this:


But alas, the answer was PIERCED. Shaun used to have a PIERCED nose (he said, unnecessarily).

Oh, one last quick thing. ANAGRAMS were in full force in the SW, where the MEADE (in FTMEADE) intersects not one but two anagrams of itself, both of which (nicely!) intersect the word ANAGRAMMED. MEADE runs through (R)EMADE (44D: Like beds, again and again) and (T)EAMED (45D: Joined (up)), and OK, the initial R and T screw things up, but still, that's a lot of REMADE MEADE.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS, this is the third puzzle author named RANDY I've encountered since starting this blog. There's today's author, Randolph Ross, and then Randall J. Hartman and Randy Sowell. I know those are technically three completely different names, but they're close enough to raise questions. It's like there are only a half dozen names in CrossWorld and people have to share them, like Heather 1, Heather 2, and Heather 3. Surely there is an answer to this mystery of limited names. Someone please figure it out.

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MONDAY, Jan. 15, 2007 - David Pringle

Solving time: 5:21

THEME: TRAFFIC LIGHT (54A) - Three long theme answers contain colors RED, YELLOW, and GREEN (reading from top to bottom, in the same order the colors would appear on a traffic light): 20A: Special occasion (red letter day), 29A: Beatles movie (Yellow Submarine), 44A: Winner of the first Super Bowl (Green Bay Packers)

Ooh, the north of this puzzle was murder on me (I mean, for a Monday ... Monday Murder). I would say it was a Manic Monday and that I wished that it was Sunday, but in fact it was Sunday (evening) when I solved this puzzle, and nobody remembers the Bangles anyway, sadly. RED LETTER DAY is not a phrase I use or hear much, if ever. The other two theme answers were easier and easiest (for me), both answerable immediately without my knowing the theme. There were a lot of Scrabbly letters in here (again, for a Monday), resulting in a lively grid that felt almost Tuesday-ish to me (though my time improved 6 seconds from last week, which was up 5 seconds from the week before: impryooovement!). One objection to this puzzle. It is totally out of season. YULE (7D: Christmastime) was fine, unremarkable; but NOEL (38D: Christmas song) was pushing it - I mean "Christmas" in both clues, come on!; but what really tore it was EGGNOG (47D: Holiday quaff). Oh "Holiday" quaff, eh? Well, at least you didn't say "Christmas quaff," I guess, which would have combined redundancy with cute alliteration to create Angry Rex. Christmas is SO 2006. I give this out-of-season nonsense a CATCALL (43D: Raspberry).

In addition to calling for a halt to Christmas clues, I would like to call a halt to all constructors named DAVID. What the hell, do you guys have some kind of club or union or secret agenda for Daviding the planet? My middle name is David, so I'm a fan, in theory, but there are too many Davids in CrossWorld. I'm calling for quotas. We'll grandfather Benkof, Kahn, Quarfoot, Sullivan, and now Pringle, but the rest of you will have to apply, to me, for special dispensation. Moving on.

1A: Church recess (apse)

Ah, APSE. My beloved APSE. Sweet Pantheon gimme. It is in the Pantheon, right? (This year's new Pantheon line-up will be released later today, in honor, by total coincidence, of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.). So the first clue was easy. Second, however, was Not. 5A: Wallop in the boxing ring (kayo). This is all kinds of icky, and especially grating given the nearby presence of 12D: "Thumbs up" (A OK) - I've made my feelings known about words that sound silly when uttered one after the other (side note: I kind of like that there is a "Thumbs up" clue in a puzzle that also features EBERT as an answer - 40A: Film critic Roger). Criminy, if you say KAYO A OK, you have some kind of sonic palindrome. You also have an anagram of OO, KAYAK! This is all to say that I had some reasonable synonym of "punch" in there, and it was wrong, and the odd letters in KAYO for some reason took a (Monday) while to unearth from the crosses. One of these crosses, off the "O," was the great (but hard to see without the "O") OPERA BOX (8D: Area from which to hear an aria). OPERA BOX has puzzle symmetry with LEAP FROG (39D: Spring game?), which pleases me for reasons unknown to me. Maybe because they are very colorful answers from entirely separate universes.

25A: Arctic bird (auk)
39A: Unilever soap brand (Lux)


These two little buggers gave me small fits. Why can't you be more like your three-letter cousin, BOA, i.e. obvious (24A: _____ constrictor)? I have heard of, but could not define, picture, or perform the appropriate bird call of the AUK. I provide a picture here for my edification as well (perhaps) as yours. Like AUK, LUX is another answer I have heard of, but not often. It's from another era, right? Like, my mom used it to wash ... things ... in the 60's, maybe? AUK and LUX are what happens when you try to cram a lot of Scrabbly letters into a Monday puzzle (see also DANKE [19A: German word of appreciation], RUBIK [32D: Hungarian cube maker], WIZ [26A: Oz musical, with "The"], and "Q's - The Good and The Bad," below).

4D: 1928 Oscar winner Jannings (Emil)

Oh, right, 1928. I remember it well. No, wait, I don't. My GRANDMOTHER probably doesn't remember it well. I want to know what EMIL Jannings is doing in my Monday puzzle! It's not like he's there to pick up some tricky, odd letters. He's an anagram of LIME, for god's sake - surely you could have cleaned up this corner and gotten the musty silent movie star off stage - rest up for Thursday, EMIL!

5D: Acts obsequiously (kowtows)
43D: Raspberry (catcall)

Though KOWTOWS took me way too long to get - see my anti-KAYO screed, above - it is a great, colorful word, and has sizzling symmetry with CATCALL. I'm happy with today's puzzle pairings, for the most part. Makes it seem as if some serious thought went into grid construction.

46D: First (primal)

Untrue to its name, this was not anywhere close to the "first" answer I got. In fact, it was nearly last. For some reason it was nearly impossible for me to see it even though I had _R_MAL. Looks very wrong. I seriously entertained AROMAL before PRIMAL ever came into view. PRIMAL, to me, describes an urge, an atavistic craving, not the "first" of anything. I know that it means "first" in some contexts (math contexts?), but not in any contexts in which I find myself on a regular basis.

51A: Dadaist Jean (Arp)

God I love his name. I am a big fan of crazy-ass 20th-century art, esp Dadaism. I have a special Dada edition Swatch watch (Andrew is my wondertwin - we bought our watches together, which is possibly a more romantic purchase than anything my wife and I have ever made, save our wedding rings - and I lost my wedding ring almost two years ago. My Dada Swatch, however ... safe and sound!). Arp did a lot of abstract and blobby paintings and sculptures, many of which I find strangely beautiful. I get him confused with Calder for absolutely no good reason. ARP is his real name, which is great because it sounds just like something absurdly made-up, like he renamed himself in honor of the sound of a dog barking, which is something a Dadaist might do.

Q's: The Good and the Bad

GOOD:

9A: Catcher's position (squat)
10D: Waterfront site (quay)

I especially like the first of these, as I got it instantly, with no crosses. I would have preferred that it be clued 9A: Jack _____, but baseball is a good way to go too. I am indifferent to the word QUAY and include it here only because it's the "Q" crossing.

BAD:

57D: Figs. averaging 100 (IQ's)
62A: Capital of Ecuador (Quito)

Were this a Wednesday+ puzzle, I would be filing this under "GOOD," but that "Q" was blank for more seconds that I care(d) to count. I am very bad on South American capitals, in that I know most of them, but easily forget which countries they belong to. LA PAZ = Bolivia .... and it sort of breaks down from there. I know SUCRE is down there somewhere. Oh, SANTIAGO, that's easy. Is RIO the capital of Brazil? Anyway, QUITO would not quome (cwm?) to mind for many, many seconds. Some might say that this blank-out on my part is at least somewhat ironic, as I slowed down on a clue whose answer involved IQ. I would humbly disagree.

67A: S-shaped molding (ogee)

Again, this puzzle has ingenious symmetry, and this is the ingeiousest of all. Start with APSE (church architecture), end with OGEE (church architecture). Amen. Alpha and Omega. I'm sure God approves. Now if only you could have provided the appropriate symmetrical companion for EBONY (21D: Piano key wood). "EBONY and EXCEL (40D: Do well (at))" isn't nearly as catchy as "EBONY and IVORY."

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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THURSDAY, Dec. 7, 2006 - Kelly Clark

Solving time: 11:20

THEME: Ups and Downs - 4 long vertical theme answers clued with two-word phrases ending "up" or "down," the "up" answers running up and the down answers ... that's right. Example: 13D: Line up? (ngisruoystahw - or "what's your sign" standing on its head)

I like the fact that this grid is unusually shaped, and that all four theme answers are vertical - uncommon. I like also that the four theme answers are all consecutively clued, i.e. 11D, 12D, 13D, and 14D - also uncommon. Nice palindromic (or chiastic) structure to the four theme answers, which run, in order, down-up-up-down. But most of all, I like that this puzzle was written by KELLY CLARKSON! Woo hoo! I saw her in concert, and it was awesome. Perhaps you've seen the photo of me (and my giant hand) adoring her, but it's worth showing again:

Look, I know the author's name is Kelly Clark. I'm just going to consider it a not-so-clever pseudonym. I love you, Kelly!

The fill for the theme answers is not particularly striking, though I do like the idea of upside-down MORTIMERSNERD 12D: Dummy up?. Which is to say, DRENSREMITROM. I got slowed DOWN (slow on the UPtake) by IREMEMBERMAMA (11D: Play down?), because I couldn't figure out what was theme-y about it, especially after I had DRENSREMITROM. I took out all of IREMEMBERMAMA, figuring it was wrong and must really be something upside-down. Then I saw all the theme clues, noticed the "up" / "down" theme, and, uh, got it. Lost some time there. Not a good time. My nemesis at the NYT puzzle site, whom I have dubbed "Chuck," beat me today (after I had thrashed him the day before). O well. Tomorrow is another day, Chuck. Watch your back.

Speaking of Olivia Newton-John ... no fewer than two of my readers sent me this bit of Olivia News. She is apparently suing Universal for back royalties from the sale of the Grease soundtrack. Here is the brief AP article:

LOS ANGELES — Lawsuit is the word [heh, cute]: Olivia Newton-John is suing Universal Music Group Inc. for allegedly failing to pay more than $1 million in royalties on sales of the "Grease" soundtrack album.

Newton-John starred with John Travolta in the 1978 movie version of the Broadway hit.

The breach-of-contract suit was filed Friday in Los Angeles County Superior court. It contends that while Universal did pay some royalties on the album, it failed to make a range of other contractual payments, said John Mason, an attorney for Newton-John.

According to the suit, a recent audit showed Universal owes more than $1 million to Newton-John's company, ON-J Productions [good thing you got that "N" in there...], Ltd.

"The lawsuit is without merit and, at the appropriate time, we expect that the court will dismiss it," Universal said in a statement Tuesday.

Now I'm no lawyer, but my gut tells me Olivia should win this suit and be awarded not only what she's asking for, but massive punitive damages, which she could the use to bring her dreamy, peaceful, sexy vibe to all the people of the world who have never been mellow. I mean, she's like a million years old, and look how cute:
Clearly she has something wonderful to teach us all.

1A: Sounds in a coffee ad (ahs)
4A: Sight in a coffee ad (cup)

Coffee, coffee, bam bam! Nice. I have coffee every morning and yet could not see either of these answers at first glance. I guess if you're going to clue "ah's" and you want the clue to pass the dinner-table test, then yes, go with coffee ads, where people respond in ridiculously sexual ways to their mediocre morning brew. I always loved the ads where the poor, beleaguered housewife watches her husband guzzle coffee at a neighbor's house and then tells us (through the power of ESP) that her husband never asks for a second cup at home. That's because you don't know how to take care of your man, you stupid, selfish cow! You know what else? Your husband's sleeping with your neighbor, too. That's right. I guess you should've put a little more effort into your coffee-making, and a little less into shopping, watching soaps, doing your nails, and sneaking snorts from the flask you keep under the seat cushion of the Barcalounger, you sorry specimen of American wifery. Etc.

I would like to add that I am not fond of 7A: Clothe (tog). TOG is a verb, now? When did that happen?

18A: Studs (breeders)

I believe STUD was a recent answer, and now it is a clue. It is a good, versatile word. I don't like that this clue/answer pairing forces me to visualize horse sex, but I'm all for the word STUD, in theory. I would especially like to see it clued thusly: "'Tell me about it, _____'": last spoken words of Grease."

WORDS I DIDN'T KNOW:

2A: Montana college town named after a French port (Havre)
32A: Semidry American white wine (sauterne)
53A: Spinachlike plant (orach)
42D: Depth charge, slangily (ashcan)

I can tell you that my Blogger text editor does not like "semidry," "sauterne," "spinachlike," "orach," or "slangily" (all underlined in red by the editor-bot). I've heard of Le Havre, but not the Montana college town. Which college? O my god, Montana State University - Northern, a satellite campus, I guess, in the farthest northern regions of the state. That's a long way to go for this answer. SAUTERNE is surely some pretentious thing that a lot of hardcore solvers will know, but not me. Hmm, actually, it's pretentious in name only. From answers.com:

SAUTERNE

[soh-TERN; saw-TERN] A generic name used in the United States for inexpensive white wines ranging from dry to semisweet. Such wines aren't anything like the famous French sauternes (spelled with a final s) and are often simply jug wines made from a variety of mediocre grapes.

I would not willingly eat anything called ORACH. Unless I were in LVOV, where it's probably a staple. All I know about ASHCAN is that it's the name given to a school of realist painters working in New York City around the turn of last century. They did not paint submarines or the destruction thereof, as far as I know.

56A: Spanish "she" (ella)

Ella is also a beautiful name. Of someone I know. [wink]. And a great jazz singer.

7D: Kind of shell (taco)

Mmmm, timely.

26D: Huey, Dewey and Louie, e.g. (trio)

Jeez, I gotta deal with these ducks nearly every week when Sahra and I go to the comic store, and still this answer gave me trouble (made the rookie mistake of assuming the word was a plural ending in "s"). Lately, Sahra is more into all manner of Archie comics than she is into her earlier comics love, Uncle Scrooge. Yesterday she discovered Richie Rich in a back-issues box, and much as that pampered little jerk Richie and the aristocratic values he represents make the bile rise in my throat, I cannot bring myself to stifle Sahra's curiosity. So I bought her a Richie Rich comic. On the plus side, it was only a dollar, and thus a third of what I'd been paying for, say, Uncle Scrooge (who, like Richie, is tremendously wealthy, but has the decency not to sicken us with pretensions to virtue).

55A: Pot over a fire (olla)
61A: Literary inits. (T.S.E.)

Add 'em to the list of Pantheon nominees. OLLA in particular should rank pretty high in the Pantheon, with an insane crossword-frequency-to-language-frequency ratio. UZIS (5D) and SACS (51D) both aspire to Pantheon status, but are currently banned for reasons of violence and grossing me out, respectively.

47D: Part of a bowling game (frame)

Out of respect for my Kiwi wife ("Kiwife!" ... hey, it's better than "fishwife!") and her lovely home town of Dunedin, NZ, I humbly suggest that in the future FRAME be clued like this: "Dunedin-born writer Janet."

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THURSDAY, Nov. 30 - Patrick Merrell

Solving time: about 24 minutes (I'll explain)

THEME: don't get me started... - apparently the names GEORGE and JOAN can each be the name of either a man or a woman. GEORGEANDJOAN (36A) gives you a "She/he pairing" (21A: SAND AND MIRO) and a "He/she pairing" (55A: BUSH AND BAEZ)

I know that my grousing about themes must be tiresome, but I have to be true to my soul, which cries out to heaven to make the torturous themes-that-are-not-themes Stop. OK, let me back up. I took this puzzle to bed with me right at 10pm, but I got distracted doing something else, then was on the verge of falling asleep, when I remembered I hadn't done the puzzle, so sat up, somewhat bleary-eyed, and started in. I do not recommend this pre-sleeping strategy if your goal is speed. Or happiness. I nailed two top-of-the-puzzle gimmes right off the bat (always good) and then promptly slowed to a crawl. Beautiful 1A: Son undone by the sun (Icarus) and easy-for-someone-who-teaches-Arthurian-Lit 11A: Sorceress Morgan le _____ (Fay) gave me high hopes, but despite the help of ICARUS the NW would Not budge, and because I misspelled FAY (had "E" for "A"), I couldn't see 12D: Beloved ("A"dored), and the "F" and the "Y" in F[E]Y were giving me FIESTA (wrong - correct fill = FAJITA) and jacksquat, respectively (when I finally saw that the "Y" answer was 13D: Musician who takes a bow (Yo-Yo Ma), I physically wilted ... so much more obvious an answer than my ridiculous guess, YEHUDI). So frustration set in, which is never good. Again, I was too tired to be solving, so take everything I say with some grains of salt. I mean, I blanked on the very obvious (to a Beethoven-lover) 18A: Highlight of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony (Ode to Joy), despite owning it, listening to it with reasonable frequency, being able to hum it on command, etc. So I was not on all cylinders.

And yet, even in the cold light of day, with all my faculties, this so-called theme is bothersome. Look, if GEORGEANDJOAN meant anything - if those names were a well-known comedy act (GEORGE AND GRACIE), or a sports radio broadcasting team or, well, anything, I would not be so annoyed. JULESANDJIM? TOMANDJERRY? Give me Something. GEORGEANDJOAN ... I spent much of my dejected 24 minutes trying to think what the catch was. I had -NDMIRO hanging out at the end of 21A for a while and all I could think was "well that's wrong." Also had -ORGEANDJOAN and still could not bring myself to write in the initial "GE-" because, well, GEORGEANDJOAN is an arbitrary pairing. Arbitrary, I say! If I hadn't been a huge fan of Miro (my very favorite artist of all time ever ... except maybe Cezanne), I'm not sure how long the puzzle would have taken me. Worse, once I'd completed it, I did not see the gender-bending twist At All. All I could think was "yep, those are Georges and Joans alright ... So What!?" The idea that both GEORGE and JOAN had a unisex quality that was being exploited in this puzzle occurred to me only en route to the bathroom at 1:30 a.m., after I'd already slept for two hours (which tells you something about what a little sleep will do for mental clarity). Still, STILL, even with that late-night revelation, Ceci n'est pas un THEME!. When the clue to your theme answer has NO content besides 36A: 21- or 55-Across, then you know you don't have a real theme. Not that there isn't real cleverness in conception and execution here. I just ... look, I'll take it all back if GEORGEANDJOAN turns out to be a real famous pair of people. [And please don't try to pass this duo off as famous]

Speaking of my problems with themes, I screwed up yesterday and gave you only Half the actual theme. All I saw was the apparent oxymoronic quality of the entries, e.g. WHITEFACED BLACKBEARD. I was also supposed to notice (as two readers have since pointed out) that every answer had body parts in it. But they are not "oxymoronic body parts" because, well, they're not. COLDHOTLIPS would be oxymoronic. COLDHEARTED HOT LIPS is ... well, it is somewhat ironic, as both HEART and LIPS are associated with amorousness in some way. Even WHITEFACED BLACKBEARD has a certain ironic quality, in that you would not expect a fearsome pirate to be ashen with fear (or seasickness). But SMALL-MINDED BIGFOOT is not ironic. It's expected. So ... I don't know, the theme's still a jumbly mess. But I'm sorry I didn't see its full complexity yesterday.

OK. Last thing before puzzle specifics: I'd like to randomly vent about the NYT Solvers' Forum site for a moment. Now it's a valuable place to visit, and most folks over there are kind and lovely. But. There can occasionally be a certain prevailing attitude of superciliousness that makes me want to punch something/one. The following is my favorite recent post, in that it is my least favorite, and typifies the worst kind of pedantry that goes on over there (almost to the point of seeming self-parodic). Some guy writes:

Co says:

'the placement of the theme clues doesn't phase me at all.'

The word, of course, is faze.

There seems to be a lot of this sort of thing recently.

I see discrete when the writer means discreet.

"This sort of thing" - what a prick. I love the absolutely arbitrary last sentence. What I wanted to reply, but didn't, was:

"Really, you see 'discrete' when the writer means 'discreet?' That's weird, because I see 'asshole' when the writer means 'I'm a smart word guy.'"

And I'm done.

15D: Physics units also known as centigrays (rads)

Question: what is the only award that Rex Parker, English major, ever won for academic achievement in college?

Answer: The Physics I prize! A cool $50, oh yeah. And yet ... I did not know this answer. Add it to the pile of answers I didn't know (a large pile for a Thursday) including 20A: West Coast beer, familiarly (Oly) (I'm FROM the West Coast, dammit), 23A: People of the Southwest (Pima) (one letter away from my favorite brand of sportswear), 60A: "Help!" song (I Need You) (and here I thought the "Help!" song was "Help!"), 40D: Synthetic rubber (Neoprene), and 48D: Tuberous plant of the Andes (oca).

33A: "The Deep" co-star, 1977 (Nolte)

NICK Nolte. NICKANDNORA ... see, THAT would have worked as your theme. Well, it wouldn't have worked, because there are no guys named "Nora" that I know of, but you see what I mean. NICKANDNORA are a known duo - you can play the theme off of famous names like that; having the theme-defining answer be a phrase or concept that is common knowledge helps anchor the puzzle and give it Zing. Also, NICK AND NORA would have appreciated the face time: you gotta have some pity on a pair of very talented actors (Powell and Loy) who, crossword-wise, are routinely upstaged by a dog. Not just A dog. The Dog.

7D: Shoeless hero of fiction (Frodo)

"Shoeless"! Really, that's your clue for FRODO? This was one of many clues that felt off or forced to me, including 6D: Ship's passage (strait) (come on ... SOME ships, but very few ships, I would imagine, relative to all the ships there are in the world), 43D: They might have springs (resorts) (I ... guess), 35D: Objects, e.g. (nouns) ("Nouns in the mirror may be closer than they appear"), and, much worse, 51D: Word often preceding 35-Down (the), which is my least favorite way that a definite article has Ever been clued. Arbitrary, once again (it's my word of the day). THE precedes virtually all parts of speech: THE quick brown fox, THE badly behaved boy, etc. Why not clue THE: "Not just a" - that works. I'm just sayin'.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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WEDNESDAY, Nov. 22, 2006 - Edward Alch

Solving time: not paying attention

THEME: "POWER" - first word in all theme answers can precede POWER (29D) to create a familiar two-word phrase

Robert Altman died yesterday. He directed some of my favorite films, including Short Cuts, Nashville, The Long Goodbye, Gosford Park, and the inimitable, insane, random, rambling, absurd late-80s anti-classic O.C. and Stiggs. He was a Great director and one of the last remaining directors whose vision did not seem driven primarily by a desire for massive commercial success. Some of his stuff was terrible, but that's because he was daring and experimental - if you want to do Great work, you have to risk failing miserably. Otherwise, the best you'll ever get is passable mediocrity, of which we need no more in this world, despite the fact that, as I've said before, I do love the word "mediocre" on a purely sound-based level. R.I.P. Mr. Altman - Every Pret-a-Porter and Popeye I had to endure was more than made up for by The Player and all the other movies mentioned above. An enviable career.

Today's puzzle is by Edward Alch, a name I've not seen before. Sounds like a bad pseudonym. What are you hiding, Mr. Alch?! ... if that is your real name...

Yesterday's discussion of ATHOL led me to discover that there are ATHOLs all over America: in MA, ID, NY, SD, and KS (the last one with a massive population of ... 51).

4 theme answers running across and 2 running down. I would think doing intersecting long theme answers would be hard. The theme answers are pretty fun and unusual - I especially like 56A: "Saturday Night Fever" sequel (Staying Alive), mostly because it conjures up campy 80s Travolta-ness. I don't usually like to be reminded of WILL AND GRACE (20A), a comedy which started out interesting and ended up hateful (see also "Seinfeld"). So many other WILLs - WILL Ferrell? WILL o' the wisp? WILL you still love me tomorrow? But Mr. "Alch" cannot be blamed for my personal TV ... is there a word that's the opposite of "predilections?" Botched two answers (as you can see on my grid) - had LEAP for 41A: Bound along (lope) and ENTER for 49D: Put on the books (enact) - but otherwise, smooth sailing.

5A: Austrian's "Alas!" (Ach!)
51A: "____ bin ein Berliner" (Ich)

Is Mr. Alch tipping his hand here? Does he come from the land of Chocolate? Is he a Friend of Uter? Hmmm ... I'm just sayin' that this is a lot of phlegm-clearing guttural for one puzzle. One American puzzle, that is. If it were during WWII, or Germany were at all a military threat to anyone outside of Belgium, I'd be ... suspicious. I'm watching you, Herr Alch.

23A: Row C abbr., maybe (Ind.)

I claim that we have seen this exact clue, almost if not exactly verbatim, in the past month or so. Why not "Sen. Bayh's state" or "Place for a driver to put it"? - ooh, I really like that one. Steal it, Will!

30A: Cooperstown's _____ Lake (Otsego)

This is just down the road from me and it still took me a long time to get. There are So Many Native American "O" words with "G"s in them around here that I can't keep them straight. Otsego, Owego, Oswego, Oquaga, Onondaga. That's just off the top of my head. I'm sure there are more.

39A: Ratty place (sewer)

Again with the rats and the sewer! And as one faithful reader has pointed out, recent and future movies are not going to help sever this association. Flushed Away was all about rats in the sewer system, and I suspect that next year's Ratatouille will continue the caricature, only doubling the insult by having the rats live not only in sewers, but in France. (Not sure where my Euro-hostility is coming from today ... maybe not enough coffee in my system, though I am full of very American Pancakes, courtesy of IHOP)

46A: Bejewelled toppers (tiaras)

The TIARAS are starting to make me miss the ASPS. This is at least the third appearance of this word (singular or plural) in the past two weeks.

7D: Artist _____ de Toulouse-Lautrec (Henri)

Love this midget's work. Just an amazing, important artist, especially for all of his fabulously vibrant poster art of the late 19th century. Like other post-impressionists of the time, he was heavily influenced by Japanese art, especially print-making techniques. Great great stuff (just trying to give Europe back a little of the love I took away earlier in the commentary).

33A: Sandy's mistress (Annie)

I find the phrasing here very disturbing. I understand that dogs are normally said to have "masters," but Annie is a girl and so the word was changed to its feminine counterpart, "mistress." And yet ... "mistress" has romantic and even sexual overtones that make this clue read wrong. While I'm sure that there is a Tijuana Bible somewhere that depicts Annie as Sandy's "mistress," I'd prefer to think of her as his "owner" or "companion."

43D: Ralph of "The Waltons" (Waite)

More obscure than John Astin, I say! I watched "The Waltons" a Lot growing up - a very iconic 70s TV show whose final family "goodnight" scene is still famous enough to be parodied today in cell phone commercials and the like. But as of this second, I couldn't tell you which Walton Ralph Waite played. I only know it wasn't John Boy. Or Erin. Ah, yes, I would have guessed the father. In my mind, this Ralph Waite guy was by far a more believable and likable and more reasonably groomed TV father than Michael Landon ever was. Not that I didn't watch a Lot of "Little House" too.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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