#2 hit by Richard Harris / 3-31-14 / Jane Fonda sci-fi / Ars Poetica

Yay! We're back!  Just like the first ray of sunshine after a long, gray, endless winter. For those who don't know us, we're Liz and Jenny, aka Rex's BFFs. Here's a little more about us: Our spirit animal is an ELK (31A - Antlered animal); our celebrity soulmate is Brad (29A-Of "Moneyball") PITT; if we were a snack food, we'd be a (14A-Triangular chip) DORITO; if we could have any hairstyle, we'd have an (40A-Bushy hairdo) AFRO; the place we should live is (53D- Jakarta's Island) JAVA; if we were a constellation, we'd be (51A-The handle of the Big Dipper is its tail) URSA MAJOR. (Rex hasn't begged us to blog in a while, so we've been killing time taking BuzzFeed quizzes. Don't judge...you know you take them too).

Constructor: Robert Cirillo

Relative difficulty: So easy, even we can do it! (Oh right...that's why we're here)

THEME: MA and PA — All starred clues are 2-word (except for one that is 3-word) phrases where the first word starts with "MA" and the last word starts with "PA"

Word of the Day: SEINFELD

Seinfeld is an American television sitcom that originally aired on NBC from July 5, 1989, to May 14, 1998. It lasted nine seasons, and is now in syndication. It was created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, the latter starring as a fictionalized version of himself. Set predominantly in an apartment block in Manhattan's Upper West Side in New York City, the show features a handful of Jerry's friends and acquaintances, particularly best friend George Costanza (Jason Alexander), former girlfriend Elaine Benes (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), and neighbor across the hall Cosmo Kramer (Michael Richards).

We know, we know, it's not in the puzzle. But, in addition to taking BuzzFeed quizzes, we've been watching a lot of Seinfeld reruns on the the TV. There are so many references to Seinfeld in the answers. Is Mr. Cirillo a fan? All clues point to YES!

Speaking of Seinfeld...last April, Liz went to LA. On the flight out, she told her husband "If I could meet any star in LA, I'd want to meet Larry David."

Look what happened at baggage claim!!

Theme answers:

• MAsquerade PArty (16-A: *Where Romeo and Juliet meet)
• MAssage PArlor (24-A *Often-seedy establishment)
• MAcarthur PArk (42-A *1978 #1 Donna Summer hit that covered a 1968 #2 hit by Richard Harris)
• MArdi Gras PArade (56-A *New Orleans event with floats)

Ma and Pa reminds us of the Seinfeld episode where Kramer makes Jerry take his shoes to the Ma and Pa shop to be cleaned or re-soled or something. And Kramer gets a nosebleed, puts his head back, and sees wires sticking out of the ceiling. Somehow the fire marshall gets involved and Ma and Pa can't afford to fix the wires and they skip town with all of Jerry's shoes. Oh, and guess what??!! They don't even have kids! So they're totally not even a Ma or a Pa!!

Seinfeld clues:

• MAandPA (35-A Rural couple...or what the respective halves of the four starred clues start with) — see above
• MAssage PArlor (24-A *Often-seedy establishment) — George gets a massage from a male masseuse, and he thinks "it" moved
• MAcarthur PArk (42-A *1978 #1 Donna Summer hit that covered a 1968 #2 hit by Richard Harris) — Jerry has a box of stuff from his grandparents and in it, is a statute that George wants because, when he was a kid, his parents had the same statue, and he used it as a microphone to sing "Macarthur Park" and accidentally threw it during the finale and it broke.
• PITT (29-A Brad of Moneyball) — Elaine worked for Mr. Pitt!

That's all for now. For those in the Mid-Atlantic area, join Rex's BFF Liz at the 12th annual Annapolis Book Festival on April 5 from 10-4:30. Until next time, just remember, if we were a 1968 Jane Fonda sic-fi film, we'd be (10D) BARBARELLA; if we were a breakfast food, we'd be an (59A-Yolk's place) EGG; if we were a car, we'd be a (60A-famously available in any color, as long as it was black) MODEL T; and if we were a song, we'd be (46D-a 1961 hit) RAMA LAMA DING DONG!

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Like Cyrillic Hebrew alphabets / MON 4-1-13 / NJ city on west side of GW Bridge

We're back!  And good news - we're here to stay!  Rex is on an "extended hiatus" due to all the stress of doing puzzles, blogging about puzzles, writing puzzles, and competing at puzzles.  So while he enjoys some R&R at the "spa" for who knows how long, we, Jenny and Liz aka Rex's BFFs, are your new Kings (ok Queens) of CrossWorld! 

Constructor: Gary Whitehead

Relative difficulty: Impossible!

THEME: None — You'd think that on Easter Monday there would be some kind of theme but there must be some kind of a trick because we couldn't figure it out!

Word of the Day: None!  Our first act as Queens of CrossWorld is to nix the word of the day.  You may know that we've never been fans of this part of the blog.

• • •

Typically theme answers would go here, but we sure couldn't find a theme on this April 1st puzzle.  Is this some kind of a scam?  We felt like dunderheads and nincompoops trying to piece this puzzle together.



Bullets:

• 16A.  The "A" in Thomas A. Edison:  ALVA.  We don't know about you, but we can't hear the name Thomas Edison without automatically singing one of our favorite School House Rock Tunes!

• 46A. NJ city on the west side of the GW Bridge:  FORT LEE — You'd have to be a boob to miss this one.  Everyone knows that's where Rosanna Arquette's character lived in Desperately Seeking Susan (only one of the dopest movies in 1985!)

• 50A. Like the Cyrillic and Hebrew alphabets:  NONROMAN — Really?  On a Monday?  Are we the only ones who felt like asses trying to figure this one out?

• 44D.  Throat lozenge:  TROCHE — We almost got duped by this one too!  Ever hear of a Sucret??

In summary, this puzzle was no joke, but, this write-up is!  April Fools!  Rexy will be back tomorrow, and we will settle for being his BFFs and the laughing stocks of CrossWorld 

Signed,
Jenny and Liz

PS Hey it's me, Rex. I'll be back tomorrow, so the "extended hiatus" thing is "extended" only til tomorrow. In the mean time, here is a radio show I was on this morning w/ crossword legend Merl Reagle: "Life Elsewhere." Enjoy!

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BFFs, Mon 3/11/13, Champion, Bugs, Fleas, Tomfoolery, Bussing

Happy Monday!!!  The BFFs are back because Rex is bussing it back to Binghamton after a glamorous weekend in New York City at the ACPT (Annual Crossword Puzzle Tournament?  American Crossword Puzzle Tournament?  Something like that).  So when Rex asked for our help, we were thrilled as always to stand-in for the 31st fastest crossword puzzle solver in the universe.  Or for the 40th fastest.  Or the fastest in Westchester/Upstate New York.  Whatever his rank, he'll always be number one to us.

Constructor: Robert Fisher

Relative difficulty: Monday = Easy (that's why Rex lets us blog)

THEME: ANIMALS - all of the theme answers begin with the name of a male animal

Word of the Day: BREVITY 

brev·i·ty

 noun \ˈbre-və-tē\

plural brev·i·ties

Definition of BREVITY

: shortness of duration; especially : shortness or conciseness of expression

Of course this word wasn't in the puzzle, but, we're tired and cranky because of the stupid time change (it's daylight SAVING time, not SAVINGS!!!).  Also, the blog website was acting really buggy, (maybe it has FLEAS?), so we really need to get this done before it crashes (again) and we lose everything (again!)

• • •

Theme answers:

• 17A Prankish activity - TOMfoolery
• 23A Double-whammy economic condition - STAGflation
• 35A Without a stitch on - BUCKnaked
• 50A Impromptu, wide-ranging conversation - BULLsession
• 58A Shoddy and unsturdy - RAMshackle

The clue answers were pretty good, although we're not really sure that "TOM" fits as an animal.  But we'll let it slide because we imagine that our BFF Rex managed to engage in some TOMFOOLERY while hanging with his puzzle friends in New York.

Clues we liked:

• 16A Rest ____ (roadside stop) - AREA — Rex took a bus from Binghamton to Brooklyn.  
• 21A Attic accumulation  - DUST — Whoever has dust in their attic is luckier than Liz.  She has raccoons.
• 25D One nipping Nipper, maybe - FLEA — We loved this one.  Even though in addition to the raccoons, Liz also had a flea infestation 2 years ago (I blame the "pet friendly" hotel in West Virginia, but, that's a story for another day).

How's that for brevity?

Signed, your favorite BFFs

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Merry Christmas, BFFs, Mon 12-24-12, Savanna grazers, South American plains, Spain's longest River, Sycophants

Greetings from the North Pole!!! Liz and Jenny here, aka Rex Parker's BFFs.  Today, we're not only his BFFs, we're also his little helpers.  Rex is busy wrapping presents for the brilliant daughter and the beautiful wife (a little elf told us that he went to Jared!). Since Hanukkah was so last week, we graciously agreed to be his Christmas Eve elves.

Oh, and also, he wrote the puzzle, and blogging about his own puzzle is totally not kosher.


Constructor: The King of Crosswords, aka Michael Sharp, aka Rex Parker, aka our BFF

Relative difficulty: As Easy as beating the NY Giants last night

Here's the fabulous Rex-written puzzle:

THEME: 

Word of the Day: SYCOPHANTS —

Sycophant^[1] is obsequious flattery.

Alternative phrases are often used such as:

• apple-polishing

• ass kissing

• ass licking

• bootlicker

• brown nosing

• crawler

• fawning

• flunky

• groveling

• hanger-on

• kowtowing

• lackey

• lickspittle

• sucking up

• toady

• yes man

In Sunday's blog, Rex said the following:

Christmas Eve puzzle is by ... Me! So I won't be here tomorrow. But someone will. One of my sycophants, no doubt. So see you Christmas day! 

Guess he couldn't find any SYCOPHANTS, so as always, we selflessly agreed to do his job.

• • •

We loved this puzzle.  It was fun, it was easy, even Liz's 7-year old daughter knew some of the answers (Thursday comes after Wednesday!! (56D) Acorns come from oak trees!! (57D) Ok, maybe she had to recite the days of the week to get to Thursday, and her first guess was a pine tree, but come on.  She's 7.  It's late.  And she gets an A for effort...someone give that kid a trophy!!)

Theme answers:

• 17A Yesterday's joe? (STALE COFFEE)
• 24A Scouring pad material? (STEEL WOOL)
• 36A Bonus for showing panache? (STYLE POINTS)
• 47A What Jackie Robinson did, famously, in the first game of the 1955 World Series? (STOLE HOME)
• 56A Informant? (STOOL PIGEON)

To be honest, we were a little stumped by the theme (see above).  We were looking for the Christmas tie-in.  Or the Festivus reference.  Kwanzaa anyone?  But it was a good solid theme and very fun to solve.

Bullets:

• 14A The ____ State (New York)?  (EMPIRE) — Also known as home to the one and only REX PARKER himself!!!
• 16A Rite ____ (drugstore)?  AID — Also, our new most un-favorite store.  Why?  Because on Tuesday, December 18, Liz went into her local Rite Aid to buy a pair of reading glasses (we know what you're thinking..."no way are the BFFs old enough to need reading glasses!!!"  But alas, it's true, we're older than we look). Anyway, what was on display at Rite Aid on Tuesday, December 18?  VALENTINE'S DAY CANDY!!! That's right. A full 7 days before Christmas.  Can't we just celebrate one holiday at a time???  (Don't ask if she bought any of the aforementioned candy...we have no comment).
• 44D 1986 Tom Cruise Blockbuster? (TOP GUN) —We think that we LOVE this movie.  But, we're in this movie club with our BFF, and we've been watching "all" of the movies that were released in 1987.  There are so many that we thought we remembered loving, but really we hate it ("3 Men and a Baby" anyone?)

We'd like to thank our BFF for allowing us to blog about his puzzle.  Merry Christmas to all who celebrate.  Happy New Year.  Peace on Earth.  And all that sappy crap.  Until next time, we leave you with our favorite Christmas song.  

Signed, Liz and Jenny, aka the Sycophants, er...BFFs!!

One last thing.  In case you were wondering, here's what we'll be doing on Tuesday:

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Hi again from Rex's BFFs Jenny and Liz, coming to you from the hometown of the greatest Olympian of all time, the one and only Michael Phelps!  That's right, in just one short week we dropped that other guy like he was hot (which, let's face it, he totally is), and jumped right back on the Phelps bandwagon!  

Constructor: Lynn Lempel

Relative difficulty: If they awarded Olympic medals for being easy, this puzzle would get the gold!

THEME: London Olympics — the end of the six starred clues are all different events in the summer Olympics.  We love this theme, because we love the Olympics and can spend hour after hour watching just about any Olympic sport (except for Rex's favorite, ping pong.  "Sport?"  Really?).

Some of our favs besides the obvious (gymnastics, swimming, tennis, track and field), are equestrian (because even old people - we're looking at you Rex Parker - can make the equestrian team) and trampoline (go Dong Dong!)

Word of the Day: VACATION  

A vacation or holiday is a specific trip or journey, usually for the purpose of recreation or tourism. People often take a vacation during specific holiday observances, or for specific festivals or celebrations. Vacations are often spent with friends or family.

Not in the puzzle (duh), but, once again, Rex has filled his AVEO (28A, former Chevy subcompact) with ESSO (59A, petrol brand), and is away on vacation!  Who can blame him?  How else does one GET OVER (16D, recover from) a three week vacation to New Zealand?!  Rex, this is becoming an enviable TREND (57D, general way things are going).

Theme answers:

• 16A.  [Big gamble] - crap SHOOT  
• 24A.  [Election Day receptacle] - ballot BOX 
• 37A.  [Result of a financial panic] - bank RUN
• 40A. [Tight braid] - corn ROW
• 51A. [Series of changes from birth to death] - life CYCLE
• 63A. [Precipitous drop in cost] - price DIVE

Bullets:

• 19A. [Good-looker]  HOTTIE  — (see last week's blog re: Ryan Lochte)

• 66A. [Verdi's opera slave girl] AIDA — only our favorite Broadway musical of all time!  As for Opera...not a fan!  (except of course the opera scenes in Moonstruck and Pretty Woman.  So dreamy...)

• 1D. [Like he-men] MACHO -  (see 9D below)

• 9D. [Baseball's record-setting Ripken] CAL — Another hometown boy!  (also see 19A above).  We turn 'em out good in Baltimore!

(Speaking of Cal Ripken, you may have heard that his mother was abducted from her home last week, and thankfully was found unharmed, but again, too soon Shortz!)  (calm down everyone, we're just kidding about it being too soon!)

Ok, all this blogging is cutting into our Olympics viewing time, so we're out of here!

Signed, Jenny and Liz, Rex's BFFs 

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MON 7-30-12

Back by popular demand* it's Liz and Jenny.  Our BFF Rex cannot tear himself away from the ping-pong on the TV, so he begged* us to substitute again.  And there's nothing we would rather do than help our bestie out...we're here anytime you need us Rex!  Because, you're our bestest PAL [22A-Buddy]!

Constructor: Rosemarie Dolan and Christopher Geach

Relative difficulty: As easy as beating Michael Phelps in the 400 IM in the London Olympics

Word of the Day: ASTERISK —

An asterisk (*; Late Latin: asteriscus, from Greek: ἀστερίσκος, asteriskos, "little star")^[1] is a typographical symbol or glyph. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star.  The asterisk is used to call out a footnote, especially when there is only one on the page. Less commonly, multiple asterisks are used to denote different footnotes on a page (i.e., *, **, ***). Typically, an asterisk is positioned after a word or phrase and preceding its accompanying footnote.

Nope...not in the puzzle.  But we didn't know how to add footnotes, so we used asterisks in our almost entirely true introduction.  For example, we actually asked Rex if we could blog again today.  This sounds boring and self-promoting, so, with an asterisk, we changed this to the more colorful version presented above.  Enjoy!

THEME: Batman (oy-too soon!)—Theme answers all relate to Batman. 

We're not a fan of the genre.  We much prefer Archie Comics, especially Betty and Veronica (go team Betty!!).  But we'll take George Clooney as Batman any day.  Does anyone remember when he used to be on "Facts of Life" and "Roseanne"?  Speaking of hot guys, OMG Ryan Lochte.  Not to DIS [46A-Insult, slangily] our hometown boy, Michael Phelps, but, as soon as we laid eyes on this beautiful swimming phenom, we were all..."Michael Phelps who?"  It was LUST [52A] at first sight.  Hey Ryan...call us!! xoxo

While we're on the subject of the Olympics, we wished we had PONIED [5D-Paid (up)] up the dough to [53A-Schlep] LUG ourselves across the pond to go shopping at Harrods, have a spot of tea, attend a RAVE with Pippa and Harry, and maybe take-in some of the Olympics (we hear that the ping-pong is just riveting, right Rex?)

Theme answers:

• 17A [Alternative name for 42-down] DARK KNIGHT
• 33A [Alternative name for 42 down] CAPED CRUSADER
• 58A [Alternative name for 42-down] BRUCE WAYNE
• 13D [Home of 42-down] GOTHAM
• 42D [Comics Debut of 1939] BATMAN
  

As we said, we're not really a fan of Batman.  There is however, a man in a cape that we're a HUGE fan of:

Speaking of Seinfeld, Liz got tripped up on [11D-Protein-rich vegetable soup].  It was just one of those times when you know the answer, but it won't get out of your head.  But, the crosses were easy enough to fill this one in pretty quickly.  And as for LENTIL soup?  Yuck...no soup for us!

In the words of Rex Parker, YAY!  We'll be back next Monday!!
Signed, Liz and Jenny, Rex's BFFs.

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MON 7-23-12

A bittersweet hello from Jenny and Liz, on this, our last blog post for our BFF Rex. Why bittersweet? Because while we are so sad to say goodbye, we are also so happy that Rex is on his way home from the future (aka New Zealand), and will be back to take over here.








Constructor: Lynn Lempel

Relative difficulty: Easy-ish 

THEME: The Invisible Man — synonyms for "man" are found in the circled squares

Word of the Day: Anticipation

an·tic·i·pa·tion n. 1. The act of anticipating. 2. An expectation. 3. Foreknowledge, intuition, and presentiment.

• • •

Of course this word does not appear in today's puzzle, but as we said above, our BFF Rex is currently on his way home from New Zealand, and he promised to bring us presents!  And one thing we love almost as much as we love our bestie is getting presents, so the anticipation is at an all time high as we await his safe return.  (And speaking of presents, over the past four weeks we have learned that writing this blog is a whole lot more work than we had anticipated when we begged agreed to do it, and we've only written once a week.  We already knew that Rex was amazing but now that we know what it takes to keep this blog going day after day, we would like to take a moment to make a small pitch to all of you who enjoy  reading or ripping on this blog to please consider giving a gift to Rex by making a donation; see instructions on the right side of this page).

And of course, we can't see or hear the word anticipation without thinking of the this classic:

Theme answers:

• 17A.  [Equipment to help a patient breathe]  OXYGEN TANK (gent)
• 25A.  ["Sorry to hear that"]  SUCH A PITY (chap)
• 49A.  [Went to pieces]  FELL APART (fella)
• 61A.  [Vishnu or Shiva] HINDU DEITY (dude)

Bullets:

• 21A.  ["___ I care"] AS IF — This makes us think of the movie Clueless, but sadly we couldn't find the clip where Cher is walking along outside of school and some guy comes up and puts his arm around her and she immediately shrugs him off and says "eww, AS IF!"  It's really funny.  Trust us.
• 45A. [Trees that sway in a hurricane] PALMS  — Of course, trees also sway in a derecho...  (see our blog entry dated 7/2/12)
• 5D. ["Cluck, cluck" makers] HENS  — This one was a gimmee for us because Liz is the proud owner of two hens, who live in her backyard.  Chickens are pretty low maintenance, except for when they get eaten (true story) or when one gets sick and has to be rushed to the chicken hospital in a cat carrier on a Saturday afternoon, and then needs to take chicken antibiotics twice a day for 10 days even though she was probably faking the whole thing.  Anyway, here's a picture of them (Little Jerry Seinfeld on the left, Chicken Little on the right) stopping by the back door to say good morning:

• 39D.  [Rick's beloved in "Casablanca"] ILSA— For some reason, neither of us can ever remember if this common answer starts with an I or an E.  It gets us every time.  And, once again, we can't find the clip that we wanted to use for this clue, which is from one of our all time favorite movies, When Harry Met Sally, but for our Italian-speaking friends, we were able to find this:     

For those who don't speak Italian, Harry and Sally were discussing how Casablanca has the best ending ever.  And speaking of endings, this brings us to the end of today's blog.  We are really grateful for all of the support you have given us in your comments, and we're grateful to Doug and Puzzle-Girl for all their technical support.  We have had so much fun these past four weeks, because everything we do with our BFF Rex is always fun.  So, before we sign off for the last time, click on the video below to check us out, just hanging with our bestie, having fun as always.

Click here:  (the video might not be available on your iPad, so hopefully you can access it from your computer!) 

Signed, Jenny and Liz, Rex's BFFs

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MON 7-16-12

We're baaack! In case you're new here, we are Liz and Jenny, aka Rex's BFF's. And today, we are grinning from ear-to-ear-to-ear-to-ear because we both received postcards from our bestie Rex, all the way from New Zealand! Where he is still living in the future, keeping busy by drinking lattes at Starbucks (and having the world's greatest adventure ever). Hey Rex, take your BFF's with you next time! We'll buy your Frappuccinos!
Constructor: Randall J. Hartman

Relative difficulty: EASY. Which is the opposite of trying to figure out what the heck Rex meant when he described us as "Strangely Different." What does this mean? Should one of us be offended or flattered? And if so, which one? There's no EASY answer. If you correctly solve this puzzle, you'll win a trophy.

THEME: — AWARDS. Since we grew up back in the day where to get one you had to actually earn one, we only have a few, and now feel gypped.

Word of the Day: sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia

An ice-cream headache, also known as brain freeze, cold-stimulus headache,^[1] or its given scientific name sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia (meaning "nerve pain of the sphenopalatine ganglion"), is a form of brief cranial pain or headache commonly associated with consumption (particularly quick consumption) of cold beverages or foods such as ice cream and ice pops. It is caused by having something cold touch the roof of the mouth (palate), and is believed to result from a nerve response causing rapid constriction and swelling of blood vessels^[2] or a "referring" of pain from the roof of the mouth to the head.^[3][4] The rate of intake for cold foods has been studied as a contributing factor.^[5][6]

• • •

You all know us well enough by now to know that this word did not appear anywhere in the puzzle. It is the scientific term for "Ice Cream Headache," which we are suffering from as we write this blog (on Sunday evening) because Sunday was "National Ice Cream Day"! Liz had coconut chip in a pointy cone (we can never remember if that's the sugar kind or the cake kind). Jenny had mint-chocolate chip (not chocolate chip mint or chocolate mint chip) in the flat-kind of yellowish cone, which when you think about it, isn't coned-shaped, and really shouldn't be called a cone at all. Liz's dog Rosie even had a small bowl of vanilla with a doggie treat on top.

This was an easy, and kind of boring puzzle. I mean, two Huck Finn clues? Really? And so weird, because we're both reading a fantastic thriller called "Gone Girl," written by Gillian Flynn, which takes place in the Missouri hometown of Mark Twain. The protagonist, Nick, used to work at a Tom Sawyer historical site, and there are many many references to Tom and Huck in the book. Perhaps, the constructor is reading it too, and quickly whipped out this easy puzzle so he could get back to the book, because it is so good!! In fact, we were glad it was easy, and are whipping through this blog post as well, so we can get back to the book too!

Theme answers:

• 17A [Husband's status symbol, possibly] TROPHY WIFE
• 26A [General Mills baking product] GOLD MEDAL FLOUR
• 42A [Panel for a complex legal case] BLUE RIBBON JURY
• 57A [Popular Canadian Whiskey] CROWN ROYAL

No one's getting any awards for figuring out these easy theme answers. Except for 42A-never heard of it. But the crosses were simple enough to work it out in no time. Our favorite was 31D "Hurts So Good" Singer, 1982 [JOHN COUGAR]-pre Mellencamp.

Bullets:

• 10A Cracked open, as a door [AJAR] — hahahahahahahahah! We can't stop laughing at this one!!! (inside joke...you had to be there)
• 40D Quartet minus one [TRIO] — Just like we're a trio of besties

We'll be back next week for our final installment. Now, back to our books.

Signed, Liz and Jenny, Rex's BFF's (and now, pen pals too!!)

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