Enterprise captain prior to Kirk / WED 10-5-11 / Macmillan classmate Harry Potter / River across French/German border / City lake in northern Italy

Constructor: Barry Boone

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: DOUBLE A (39A: Pro baseball level ... or a hint to 12 answers in this puzzle) — rebus puzzle with six "AA" squares

Word of the Day: ANA ALICIA (22A: "Falcon Crest" actress) —

Ana Alicia (born December 12, 1956) is an American actress. She is best known for her role as scheming heiress Melissa Agretti on the long-running primetime soap opera Falcon Crest. (wikipedia)

• • •

This one felt easier than your average Wednesday, but I figure the gimmick is apt to slow people down enough that solving times are bound to be about average. Mine was right near average, despite my having the feeling of tearing through this with no problem. I doubt I've ever picked up a rebus puzzle's gimmick faster than I did here. I hit 17A: "The Godfather" actor very early, with the "C" and "N" already in place. Then I made a face and thought, "Well, CAAN, but ... ?" Then I checked the Down cross: 2D: It's said to be salubrious (SEA AIR) and confirmed that the "AA" square to make CAAN was correct. Quickly worked down to BAAED / SAAB and knew that there was nothing else to the gimmick—just find the DOUBLE A squares, which ended up being pretty easy to do. The toughest "AA" answer by far was ANA ALICIA (who nearly ruins the puzzle with her obscurity—I'd take her as a clue for ANA or even ALICIA, but someone that unfamous should not be a theme answer).

The DOUBLE As

• SEA AIR / CAAN
• ANA ALICIA / SALAAM (9D: Low bow)
• SAAB (38A: Car with the numeral 9 in all its model names) / BAAED 
• SAAR (41A: River across the French/German border) / IZAAK
• AFRIKAANS / MAALOX (50D: It has its moments)
• NAAN (63A: It may be eaten with tikka masala) / TEA ACT (53D: Boston Harbor event precipitator — awkward clue because of the need to avoid the word "TEA" in "TEA Party," presumably)

Besides ANA ALICIA, I had no idea about this Captain PIKE person (45A: Enterprise captain prior to Kirk). How am I supposed to know that? Did he appear in a lot of episodes, or was he just a name? Seems pretty dang obscure. VARESE is probably less obscure, but that didn't keep me from not knowing it (4D: City or lake in northern Italy). Didn't know what Carquest was, so that made NAPA hardish to get (I was going to say that neither of these auto parts stores exists anywhere near me, but turns out there's a NAPA in town; just in a part of town I never go to). I had some hesitation / rewriting at the HONING / HOARSE intersection, in that I had TONING, and considered BONING (up?) and then tried COARSE in the Across, which gave me CONING, which was pretty sure was wrong ... then tried HOARSE and figured that had to be right. I've read every Harry Potter book but I don't remember ERNIE (54D: ___ Macmillan, classmate of Harry Potter). ON LATE feels like a very iffy answer—a random phrase like IN THE HALL or THROUGH MUD. I enjoyed seeing DENIZEN in the grid opposed to the clues, for a change (43D: Inhabitant). I am 1/3 of the way through the fabulous new Ken Burns documentary "Prohibition"—just finished watching the first part about a half hour ago—so REPEAL was a concept very fresh on my mind (18A: The 21st Amendment, e.g.). Also SOUSES (48D: Drunkards).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Swedish actress Persson / THU 8-12-10 / Joni Mitchell song lyric she was swallowed by sky / Top ten singer born Nigeria / Christiansen founder Lego

Constructor: Barry Boone

Relative difficulty: Challenging

THEME: The sinking of the Titanic — the S.O.S. (73A: See 38-Across) call to the R.M.S. CARPATHIA (65A: Responder to 38-Across on 4/15/1912) is spelled out in MORSE CODE (17A: See 38-Across) in the center of the grid, in rebus form: DIT DIT DIT DAH DAH DAH DIT DIT DIT (38A: 73-Across, in 17-Across)


Word of the Day: ESSY Persson (62A: Swedish actress Persson) —

Essy Persson is a Swedish actress born 15 June 1941 in Gothenburg (Sweden). In 1971 she appeared in the movie Want So Much To Believe. (that is the Entirety of her wikipedia write-up!)

• • •

This puzzle was comically hard for a Thursday—more like a toughish Friday for me. Surprised by my slow time, I checked the initial returns at the NYT site and laughed out loud at how slow they were—the puzzle had been up 25 minutes and only 11 people had finished and my cruddy time would have put me third. Actually, the puzzle wasn't *that* tough until I got to the SW corner, where things got ridiculous. I had nothing below AYE (49A: Reply to Captain Kirk). Just ... nothing. Kept trying to think of a *place* at 41D: "The Great Gatsby" setting=>JAZZAGE) and failing. Started doubting the JET part of JETSKI (41A: Vacation vehicle). Just a disaster. Wanted TOUGH for LONER (56D: Typical Clint Eastwood role). Had no hope of getting EMERY (71A: What might do a foul tip?), AXONS (64A: Transmission conduits, of a sort), ESSY (!?!?), or LONER from the clues alone. Deeply ironically, the answer to save me down there was TEA ROSE (43D: Flower named for its smell). I don't even know what one is. But I've seen it in puzzles before (it's loaded with low-value Scrabble letters, so not uncommon as 7-letter answers go), and for some reason the clue was specific enough to make my brain go blip. And then everything fell.



Before that ... well, I didn't really understand what was going on. That is, I had NO IDEA what CARPATHIA was. Never heard of it. So the puzzle's theme made little sense to me, though from the date I could infer the Titanic was involved somehow. As for the rebus, I picked it up without Too much trouble. Hit the middle of the puzzle and *nothing* was working (good sign that some trick is afoot). Still, that all fell without too much struggle. Had much, much more trouble piecing together HI MOM (15A: Stadium sign). Don't know the title "AMELIA" (8D: Joni Mitchell song with the lyric "she was swallowed by the sky") even if I've probably heard the song at some time ... er, nope, never heard it. So I had to back that one into the corner, praying that it was in fact "AMELIA" (and CREMA—4A: Caffè go-with) and not EMELIA (a name I've seen only in Shakespeare—oh, damn, that's EMILIA. Nevermind).


So there's the general toughness of a rebus puzzle, coupled with tougher-than-average cluing. I mean, didn't you put in CABANAS for 1D: Beach shelters (RAMADAS)? How mean was that? Plus, RED was clued weirdly (1A: Stop on it) and AXE's clue felt off (14A: Headbanger's instrument)—I always think of the headbanger as the fan, not the guitar player, and doesn't AXE come from blues, not metal? (comes from neither, it turns out— see interesting etymological discussions here and here). So it was rough all over. My love of rebuses is offset here by my general dislike of (very) heavily cross-referenced cluing. CARPATHIA's clue is the only one with Any info in it. No symmetrical answer for SOS, either. That middle string of DITs and DAHs, though ... that's pretty magical. Overall, a memorable, challenging, and predominantly enjoyable puzzle.

There is one answer in this puzzle that made me laugh out loud—you will find out why on Tuesday...

Bullets:

• 44A: ___ Christiansen, founder of the Lego company (OLE) — whoa. Big day for the Scandinavians, I guess. OLE, ESSY; ESSY, OLE.
  
• 68A: Rightmost column in the periodic table (GASES) — ugh. I haven't looked at a periodic table since junior year of high school. Wanted, I don't know, INERT or something. Actually wanted NEONS, but knew that NEON was just one element, not a column. At least GASES was a recognizable entity I could get with a few crosses.
  
• 24D: Part of the "De Camptown Races" refrain (DOO [DAH]) — this answer right here is where I started to figure out the theme. Wanted DOOS, but then the clue would have to read [Parts ...], not [Part...]. First thing I put in was DO-DA, thinking, "man, that is a stupid way to spell that."

• 35D: Snake's place (I[DAH]O) — brutally vague, until you get the theme.
• 53D: Neighbor of Francia (ESPAÑA) — fittingly, right next to the Spanish word PAZ (67D: Goal of las Naciones unidas), and crossing the Francia-ish, i.e. French, words PAS DE (63A: ___ deux).
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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TUESDAY, Nov. 3 2009 — Gila woodpeckers nest in them / What Fred Ott did in first movie to be copyrighted / Flu fighters Abbr

Constructor: Barry Boone

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: Election-day puzzle = a quote from MARIO CUOMO (1A: With 73-Across, former New York governor): "YOU CAMPAIGN IN / POETRY, YOU / GOVERN IN PROSE"

Word of the Day: Gila woodpeckers (17A: Gila woodpeckers nest in them => CACTI) — The Gila Woodpecker (Melanerpes uropygialis) is a medium-sized woodpecker of the desert regions of the southwestern United States. They range through southeastern California, southern Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico. [...] This woodpecker's habitat consists of low desert scrub typical of the Sonoran desert. They build nests in holes made in saguaro cacti or mesquite trees. Cavities excavated by these woodpeckers in saguaro cacti are later used by a variety of other species, including the Elf Owl. There, they typically lay 3-5 white eggs.

-----

Good that this ran on an off-year election day, because it's pretty forgettable. I've heard the quote before, though it took me a while to get enough crosses to figure it out. It's a virtual cliché by now. It's not a terribly insightful quote. The politician is bygone. But it would be a decent puzzle anchor, I suppose, if the rest of the fill were good, which it's just not. Has a strong autofill feel to it. You have to wrestle with your software, not acquiesce to its first suggestions. Words like TOWLINES (39D: Water-skiers' holds) and RAREE (30D: _____ show (carnival attraction)) suggest not a lot of effort's going into making the fill tight and interesting. These are convenient answers that a computer offers up, not words anyone's likely to want or come up with on their own (despite their not being particularly obscure). Never mind the avalanche of abbreviations and the ridiculous FIFTEEN (15) fill-in-the-blanks (incl. at least three partials). What in the world is "Gimme DAT ding?" Is that supposed to be Brooklynese? I will give the puzzle dis ding — it's more wide open, with more 7+ non-theme answers, than you usually see on a Tuesday. But for what? Not a lot.

Young Jeezy - New Music - More Music Videos

Stuff you wouldn't want in your grid if you could help it (i.e. less than ideal short fill): KPS, ATA, CUZ, A DRY, YOS, UAR, IN RE, ENE, DAT, PFC, PDQ, DE LA, FEU, plus crosswordese like EDO, SLOE. You know who likes all these "words"? OOXTEPLERNON! (he is the God of Bad Short Fill, and he approves this message). Wish I had a rubber stamp that said simply "OOXTEPLERNON" so I could stamp it on puzzles. Might have one made.



Bullets:

• 26A: What Fred Ott did in the first movie to be copyrighted (sneezed) — Love this clue. I really wanted answer to be SNEEZE, though. Can't explain exactly why the past tense feels weird to me, since the clue has "did" in it (which indicates the past ... what DID he do? He SNEEZED ... seems unimpeachable).
• 2D: Flu fighters: Abbr. (AMA) — really? The AMA is fighting the flu? In that they are doctors and therefore are theoretically fighting Every disease, OK, but this is a bad fit. Pun on "Foo Fighters" no payoff here.
• 12D: "Beware the fury of a _____ man": John Dryden ("patient") — again, I don't get why there are so many fill-in-the-blanks today. That said, this is a cool quote. Ditch CUOMO, put in DRYDEN.

Get out there and vote. Or not. Whatever. It's a free country.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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1970s Robert Young TV role - TUESDAY, April 14, 2009 — Barry Boone (Congos name before 1997 / Simpsons teacher who was called Mrs. K)

Hi. Andrea Carla Michaels filling in one last time for Rex. As some of you eagle-eyed folks noted yesterday, yes, it's true, I was actually the blonde dancing around in the Rick Astley video. I get residuals every time "Never Gonna Give You Up" is played on YouTube … so after yesterday's Rickrollin' good times, I now have enough to retire to ZAIRE (10D: Congo's name before 1997). Thank you, everyone!

So it's nice to go out on a solid Tuesday Barry Boone puzzle. Many of you may recall Barry was "retired" after accusations of "alleged" steroid use, helping him to set some sort of baseball record, but now a repentant BB works off his community service sentence by writing crosswords for the NY Times.

THEME: True to his name, Barry Boone has hit a home run in constructing a puzzle with a boon of theme answers: "Hidden Gems" — Five sets of gems are "hidden" in long phrases with consecutive letters circled in addition to the explanatory phrase HIDDEN GEMS, thus creating a "playing field" of 60 squares of theme answers: His "diamond" has answers the lengths of 10, 11, 9, 9, 11, 10!

Theme answers:

• 17A: 1985 Glenn Close/Jeff Bridges thriller ("Jagged Edge" = jade)
  
• 21A: Mail service made obsolete by the transcontinental telegraph (Pony Express = onyx)
  
• 32A: Simple swimming stroke (dogpaddle = opal)
  
• 40A: Widening in a highway, maybe (toll plaza = topaz)
  
• 53A: 1970s Robert Young TV role (Marcus Welby = ruby)
  
• 59A: What the long Across answers with circles have (HIDDEN GEMS)
  

He has traded one diamond field for a field of diamonds … or something like that! You would never realize it was the same person, but he sneaks in signature clues like 26A: Most Little Leaguers (BOYS), 38D: World Series org. (MLB), and 54D: Catch and throw back as fly balls (SHAG). Barry was very clever not to have clued SHAG with an Austin Powers reference where we would then have to brace ourselves for sniggering comments by ACNED BRATs (ACH!) about its double entendre meaning in the other English-speaking nation.

Instead, we get some nice back and forth … 42A: Lenin's "What IS TO Be Done?" seems to be answered by the other Lennon's 44D: "Let IT BE." (Actually, it was written by Paul … but still!) 50D: Tree with "catkins" (whatever the hell they are) is sweetly paralleled with the theme answer DOGPADDLE. And for every highbrow, sophisticated clue/answer such as 34D: Andrei Sakharov in the Soviet era, e.g. (DISSIDENT) there's a less highbrow 63D: "Evil ERNIE" (comics series).

Some of the interesting pairings are even self-contained in the clues, e.g. 44A: Eisenhower and Turner (IKES) is so visually evocative — I can totally picture DDE and Mamie across a candlelit table from Ike and Tina on a double date … from hell! Speaking of DDE, if I had any nits to pick about this puzzle, it would be that there were an abundance of three letter initials: BLT, ETO, EKG, GRE, MLB, LPS as well as ten (count 'em, ten!) fill-in-the-blanks with partials such as INOR, ISTO, ITBE, ASTAR, TOSEE. Although there is something I like about TOSEE, it feels like a cross between Tushie and Watusi.

Speaking of which, I'd like to take this opportunity (as it's my last blog before I watusi my way to the Congo) to complain that I get the letters WATUSI on my Scrabble rack at least once a game, which is illegal to play in Scrabble, and yet is almost impossible to make another word out of. On a positive note, however, this puzzle was very Scrabbly with a nice sprinkling of Zs,Xs, Ks, and a J. If only AGUA (28D: Contents of the Spanish Main) had been AQUA, the puzzle would have been one F away from a pangram! (And only one clue away from having NO gratuitous Simpsons references! 56D: "The Simpsons" teacher who was called Mrs. K (EDNA)! D'oh!)

It's now after 1 a.m. so I'd like to put this blog to bed to the dulcet tones of my favorite answer "LOLA" (37A: In a Kinks hit s/he "walked like a woman and talked like a man"):


Aw c'mon, now, I needed 37 more cents to get to Zanzibar … ciao ciao, rafiki!

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WEDNESDAY, Oct. 1, 2008 - Barry Boone (Internet equipment powerhouse / Bangladesh's capital, old-style / Doer of stand-up)

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: NO PLACE LIKE HOME (40A: End of a popular saying related to this puzzle's theme...) - OK, so apparently, strictly speaking, the "theme" is the CONNECT-THE-DOTS (20A: Kind of puzzle suggested by this crossword's theme) ... nope, that's not it. OK, what is the "theme" if it's not NO PLACE LIKE HOME and it's not CONNECT-THE-DOTS? Is the picture of the HOME the "theme"? I know the theme's not ALPHABETICALLY (57A: How to link the 12 letters in this puzzle with a single line to make a picture). I'm not sure how "theme is being used in the first two clues. Long story short, you can connect the dots and create a child-like outline of a HOME, complete with door and chimney. Hurray!

Theme is clever and tight. I have no desire to draw on my puzzles once they are done, but that's neither here nor there, really. A very easy puzzle except for the SW, where there was a car I didn't know - the LADA (58D: Russian car). This was a very computeresque puzzle, with two Mac clues - 52A: Mice an be found around them (iMacs) and 61D: Precursor of the Apple Macintosh (Lisa) (?) - an olde-timey supere-computere in ENIAC (42D: 1940s computer), and a modern computer-related corporation in CISCO (5D: Internet equipment powerhouse). There are topical entries like NADER (9D: Candidate trailing Bush and Gore) - he's still running; guy down the block has NADER signs on his lawn - and FDIC (1D: Bank protector, for short). Two kinds of blue in AZUL (57D: Blue, south of the border) and SAD (53A: Blue). You could even SKI (38D: What one might do in 27-Down) in ASPEN (27D: John Denver wrote two songs about this town) in this puzzle. Little thematic bursts to suit any palate. Here's a John Denver song that features neither Aspen nor John Denver:


Kwik Kuts:

• 1A: Figure in "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" (faun) - Mr. Tumnus!
• 5A: Kind of cuisine in which onions, bell peppers and celery are the "holy trinity" (cajun) - gimme. You can get this combo prepackaged in your local grocery store.
• 17A: Hughes poem with the line "They send me to eat in the kitchen" ("I, Too") - a very common four-letter answer; worth remembering. The Hughes in this clue is Langston. Ted Hughes is also a poet. Or was.
• 19A: Cy Young winner Hershiser (Orel) - my favorite pitcher (after Clemens) in the late 80s. Unlike Clemens, Hershiser has stood the test of time.
• 23A: Cleopatra used it as a beauty lotion (aloe) - wanted ASP. Didn't fit.
• 25A: Carnivorous fish (skate) - had MANTA here for a bit.
• 28A: Terse letter opener ("Sir") - Does anyone really open letters like that any more? [Title for rapper Mix-a-Lot] would have worked better for me.
• 70A: Surveyor's map (plat) - learned it from xwords. Really needed it down here in foreign car land.
• 8D: Logan's locale (Utah) - Boston?
• 33D: Doer of stand-up (comic) - aaaargh, "Doer!" It's like an icepick in my ear, that word. I was in such denial about the word that I imagined it was someone's last name. I know no stand-up comics named DOER. Here's a DOER of stand-up:

• 34D: Gardeners may work on them (knees) - there's a clue I like. Clever, switches the meaning of "work on" on you. Good stuff.
• 48D: Sparkle and wit (esprit) - never associated "wit" with ESPRIT. My sister wore a lot of ESPRIT in the 80s.
• 54D: Bangladesh's capital, old-style (Dacca) - now DHAKA. I wanted DAKAR, which is the capital of Senegal. There was a horrid-smelling cologne when I was a teenager called DAKAR Noir. I might have owned some once.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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MONDAY, Jun. 2, 2008 - Barry Boone (HEATER OR REPEATER)

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: THE FOUR ELEMENTS (7D: What the starts of 22-, 36-, 41- and 50-Across comprise)

I do like this type of puzzle structure: a 15-letter theme-revealing answer coming straight down the middle of the puzzle, right through all the theme answers. I would have liked this puzzle slightly more if THE FOUR ELEMENTS had intersected not just FIRE and EARTH, but WATER and AIR too - but that may well have been impossible. I also like my theme answers a little longer than 7 letters (unless there are a Lot of them). And what's with EARTH ORBIT - I'm sure it's a valid concept, but there are many better, more in the language EARTH + 5 phrases. EARTH ANGEL. EARTHQUAKE. OK, so there's at least two. Further, a puzzle like this is always more elegant if the theme answers are used in non-theme contexts; in this case, that would mean using the elements in non-elemental contexts, which, again, may be completely impossible. AIR DATE and FIREARM transcend elementality, but EARTH ORBIT and WATER COLOR are still pretty elemental. So many angles to consider. In short, this puzzle would have been Perfect if the theme-revealing answer had a. intersected all the elements and b. featured the elements in all non-elemental contexts. As perfection is rarely if ever attainable, we should be happy we got the puzzle we got. It's good.

Except for a few Ugly words - especially ugly for a Monday. OCTAD hurts (5A: Group of eight). It hurts! And ironically, OCTAD's symmetrical counterpart, RESEE (65A: View again), has caused me to go blind at the horror of its non-wordness. It's really one of the cheatingest, most horrible "words" in the book. I had to guess (correctly!?) at 46A: Treaty of _____ Litovsk, 1918 (Brest), which seems rather la-di-dah for a Monday. SEXTON wasn't that easy either (20A: Church bell ringer). I had SECTON at first because I misremembered ALEX Trebek's first name as ALEC (3D: "I'll take Potpourri for $200, _____"). And yet I stared at 1A: Calves' meat (veal) wondering what the hell it could possibly mean. Why is CALVES' written as a possessive?? [Calf meat], OK. [Calves' meat] sounds like it's meat that calves eat, which, dear God, had better not be veal. That's how mad cow happens. PIG MEAT = pork. COW MEAT = beef. I mean, I'd never use those phrases, but they make sense to me. The possessive does not feel right (though I'm sure there's precedent). I looked at that clue and started trying to think of another word for the "meat" behind my shinbone.

Theme answers:

• 22A: Heater or repeater (firearm) - wife had never heard of "heater" before; I tried to assure her that it was a semi-olde tyme crime fiction slang. I don't know if she was buying it. More on wife's reaction to puzzle below...
• 36A: Revolutionary pattern of the moon (earth orbit)
• 41A: Non-oil painting method (water color) - a really ungainly clue
• 50A: TV Guide info (air date)

Much of what I have to say about the rest of the puzzle is affected by the post-puzzle conversation I had with my wife.

Wife: "I'll bet there are some people who are Not going to be happy with 4D: The Civil War, for the Confederacy (lost cause)."
Me: "I don't think the people who are likely to be upset by such a clue are really crossword puzzle people."

Wife: "Do you really call old people 'golden AGERs?' (11D: Golden _____ (senior))?"
Me: "No. No you don't."

Wife: "Why isn't a 60A: Countess's husband a count?"
Me: "I ... don't know. Maybe EARL is England's version of Count. Count seems very European." [I was pretty much right]

Wife: "Who is SHERE Hite?" (39A: Sex researcher Hite)
Me: "You're a women's historian, shouldn't you ..." [wife glares at me]

One last way this puzzle relates to my wife: yesterday, she inexplicably and hilariously brought me home a bottle of Sierra Mist, the label of which was plastered with the image of Steve Carell as Maxwell Smart. Apparently the promotion for this summer's "Get Smart" movie adaptation has already begun. I don't drink soda (much), but this bottle is so cool-looking that I might not have a choice. Oh, and this relates to the puzzle ... because KAOS is the 10A: Evil organization in "Get Smart"

Misc.

• 19A: "Man, oh, man!" ("Jeez!") - first, this is just a contraction of JESUS!, right? And if so, isn't it ... offensive ... to someone ... somewhere? Come on! Lord's name in vain! Anyone? Hey, is "GEE" related to "JESUS?" For the record, I say "aw JEEZ" an awful lot.
• 24A: Japanese maker of watches and calculators (Casio) - first, I always want to put two S's in this answer. Second, CASIO feels eternally mired in the 80s to me. If they have made a product since 1986, I don't know about it.
• 27A: Weight of diamonds (carat) - once again ... screwed it up and went with "K"-spelling.
• 43A: Fashion's _____ Saint Laurent (Yves) - R.I.P. He died yesterday.
• 1A: Winery containers (vats) - just seemed too ... downmarket to be right. Wanted something fancier. Why?
• 46D: It can be constricting (boa) - I had ... BRA. It's a good, good wrong answer.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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