Duck lookalike / FRI 7-8-16 / Oz salutation / Ilmenite is chief one / Discoverer of New Zealand / 1995 Emmy winner Sofer / European city whose name means eat

Constructor: Barry C. Silk

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Kirmans (7D: Kirmans, e.g.) —

Kerman carpets (sometimes "Kirman") are one of the traditional classifications of Persian carpets. They are named after Kerman, which is both a city and a province located in south central Iran, though, as with other such designations the term describes a type which may have been manufactured somewhere else. Kerman has been a major center for the production of high quality carpets since at least the 15th century. In the 18th century, some authors considered the carpets from the province of Kerman, especially at Siftan, to be the finest of all Persian carpets, partly because of the high quality of the wool from the region, known as Carmania wool. (wikipedia)

• • •

Weirdly insulted by the inclusion of "on the calendar" in the clues at 1A: Preceder of 64-Across (BLACK FRIDAY) and 64A: Follower of 1-Across on the calendar (CYBER MONDAY). It's a Friday, no need to condescend with the additional information. My first impulse would've been a date anyway (I was thinking CHRISTMAS EVE / NEW YEAR'S DAY ... those didn't pan out). The puzzle was reasonably enjoyable overall, though the cross-references were a little out of control—two sets of cross-referenced pairs, and then two more clues that require you to look elsewhere in the grid for the information. Nuisance cluing. You can have one or two cross-references, but six? Come on. Also, duplicate clues? Not that exciting, and again, today we get an overdose (2xWord of Warcraft figure, 2xCivil War battle site). Overall, the grid was pretty smooth, if overly reliant on overly familiar stuff. Nothing about the grid really stands out, but it was pleasant to solve.


The only thing that was interesting from a personal solving standpoint was that in both the north and the south I could not parse one of the Acrosses until I got to its very last square, and the squares in question are perfectly symmetrical. I had TITANI_MORE ... then had an ultra-brief moment of "who's TITANIA MORE?" and then I figured it out. (This is where knowing what Kirmans are would've come in handy (7D)). Then on the other side of the grid, right at the end of the solve, I completely missed the twist on the meaning of "port" (59A: Port authority?) took "Port authority" literally, and wondered what kind of Native American word I was looking at that started WINE.. (which I was mentally pronouncing "win-uh"). So the "S" in what turned out to be STEWARD was my last letter in the grid. I didn't know a SAWYER was a lumber mill employee. Without that "Y" there I was thinking "Are there two ... "W"s ... in SAWWER? One who saws is a SAWWER?" I don't know any Sawyers except Tom and Diane. Turns out a sawyer *is* actually "one who saws," though not a "sawer" (or "sawwer," probably).


Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. woke up to find my wife had insomniacally solved the puzzle in the middle of the night. She, a kiwi, is none too happy about the TASMAN clue (20A: Discoverer of New Zealand). I'll let the first line of "The History of New Zealand" wikipedia page tell you why: "The history of New Zealand dates back at least 700 years to when it was discovered and settled by Polynesians, who developed a distinct Māori culture centred on kinship links and land." I hate it when facts are so PC! What's happening to this country!?

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Erato played one / FRI 12-11-15 / Junk removal service / Internet based Homeland Security program used by employers / What carries shield typically / It featured parody soap Days of Week / Cumulative series of bets /

Constructor: Barry C. Silk

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: FOOD WEB (28A: System of what eats what) —

A food web (or food cycle) is the natural interconnection of food chains and generally a graphical representation (usually an image) of what-eats-what in an ecological community. Another name for food web is a consumer-resource system. Ecologists can broadly lump all life forms into one of two categories called trophic levels: 1) the autotrophs, and 2) the heterotrophs. To maintain their bodies, grow, develop, and to reproduce, autotrophs produce organic matter from inorganic substances, including both minerals and gases such as carbon dioxide. These chemical reactions require energy, which mainly comes from the sun and largely by photosynthesis, although a very small amount comes from hydrothermal vents and hot springs. A gradient exists between trophic levels running from complete autotrophs that obtain their sole source of carbon from the atmosphere, to mixotrophs (such as carnivorous plants) that are autotrophic organisms that partially obtain organic matter from sources other than the atmosphere, and complete heterotrophs that must feed to obtain organic matter. The linkages in a food web illustrate the feeding pathways, such as where heterotrophs obtain organic matter by feeding on autotrophs and other heterotrophs. The food web is a simplified illustration of the various methods of feeding that links an ecosystem into a unified system of exchange. There are different kinds of feeding relations that can be roughly divided into herbivory, carnivory, scavenging and parasitism. Some of the organic matter eaten by heterotrophs, such as sugars, provides energy. Autotrophs and heterotrophs come in all sizes, from microscopic to many tonnes - from cyanobacteria to giant redwoods, and from viruses and bdellovibrio to blue whales. (wikipedia)

• • •

Typically thorny Silk puzzle. Only two "?" clues in the whole thing, but they were right on top of each other, right up front, so their effect was outsized. [Store in the Middle East?] kept me stymied for a while, even after I got OIL R-. Same for [Round numbers?] even after I got GREEN-.  Main problem up there was writing in SPAM FOLDER at 1A: Junk removal service (SPAM FILTER). I sort of knew that a "FOLDER" wasn't a service, but I thought maybe by some stretch it could be. And it sure fit. It was the answer I managed to cobble together from very few answers I had after my first pass at the NW: MRES, FEN, and REST were all I could put in with certainty. From that: SPAM FOLDER! Sometimes, 80% accuracy is sufficient to get things going. Once I got out of the NW, it wasn't too tough to get through the middle and into the SE, where, with the exception of the toughish SEEK ASYLUM (56A: Try to escape a tyrant), things were a little easier-going. That left the NE and SW corners, both of which looked like potential disasters. Something about their shape and sequesteredness suggested they could easily become dead ends.

I was half right. The SW turned out to be remarkably easy, as TURN INTO and TRIAL RUN fell right into place. And the NE also looked like it was going to come together, but once I got in close, things got tough. FOOD . . . FOOD . . . I got nothin'. Just nothin'. FOOD CHAIN ... and then I'm out of FOOD phrases. This is my first time seeing FOOD WEB. Without that WEB, traction in the NE was that much harder to come by. I had IBAR and LYRE in there, but LYRE seemed like it could be LUTE, and even with SLICED in place, none of the rest of the ACRosses were coming, which meant also that none, None of the Downs would fall. [Large-scale spread of viruses, say] was never ever going to lead me to CYBER WAR, for instance. The only way I toppled that section was by brainstorming four-letter shows that started with "S" (11A: It featured the parody soap "The Days of the Week"). At first, the only show I could think of was ... "Soap." But somehow "SCTV" (which I've never actually seen, I don't think) came to me out of the blue, and then everything gelled. But before that ... that clue on CENT? (21A: 1850s Flying Eagle, e.g.) No way. Same with the clue on the icky ACR (32A: From one end to the other; Abbr.). IN ALL, this seemed a decent offering—somewhat outside my cultural wheelhouse, as Silk puzzles usually are, but sufficiently feisty for a Friday, and mostly clean (despite some assorted regressive junk, e.g. ISS MRES ACR STLO INRI CIERA OTT AMATI IBAR AOL). Is it weird to have TRIPLE A and AAA CELL in the same grid? A little. Crossing each other? A little more. 5-yard penalty. Repeat first down.


I'm off to the deep northeast today, so my next write-up will come to you from a cabin in the woods. Literally. Gonna write and read and drink coffee and sleep and not much else. Leaving very very early, and so ... to bed.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Financial adviser Edelman / SAT 11-7-15 / Title heroine of Massenet opera / Cluster in marquise / Quartet in No No Nanette / Ice Road Truckers locale / Offside detector / 1998-2010 major-leaguer Kapler / Suffix on AriZona can

Constructor: Barry C. Silk

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: RADIO GALAXY (4A: Centaurus A is one) —

(google)

• • •

I did this while chatting with a friend online, so ... starts and stops ... so I don't know how long it would've taken me if I'd been going at it in earnest, but I doubt more than 5 or 6 minutes. I struggled precisely no times. I kept waiting for something terrible to happen and it never did. The hardest corner to get was the first one, and that's just because it was the first and I had no traction yet. But COMPUTERS ended up being right (Me: "No way, too obvious ... wait, what?") and then nothing was ever a problem again. Got GARDEN from the "R," OKAPI from the "I," PLEISTOCENE from the "PLE-," and on and on and on. BON JOVI, gimme, AVA, gimme, GABE Kapler, gimme, CESAR, gimme, MCA IMO ZIMA ETON THON HOSER TESLA RUPP ... all gimmes. Ditto HAYS and DIEU and ENS. I don't get that many gimmes on most Wednesdays. Really, really weird. Seems a solid enough grid. More trivia clues than clever clues, but I will single out 18A: Mold in the freezer? (ICE CUBE TRAY) for its particular excellence.

I took a couple of screen shots, figuring I'd track my progress through the grid, but then the whole thing was over so fast that I only remembered to get a couple. Here's the opening gambit. It's really just a boring shot of a completed NW corner (I titled it "COMPUTERS/IMO" because that's how I got started up there):

From there it was a quick trip down ETON to THON and then right into the front ends of all those long Acrosses in the SW:

 Honestly, I don't know what else to say about this one. I blinked and it was over. It took some doing to get CORSICA (41D: One of the 27 regions of France) and TOE CAP (?) (39A: Boot feature), but everything else just fell.

Thus, good night.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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1960-62 home of Lee Harvey Oswald / SAT 10-3-15 / Old alternative to Rabbit / Close-Up competitor once / Center of Cyclades / Semiprecious pendant option / Craft for amphibious operations for short / Signature attire for Archie / Super rare feat in baseball lore / 1968 hit by Dells time place girl face / Oil ink additive / I Married 1987 ABC sitcom

Constructor: Barry C. Silk

Relative difficulty: Challenging (for me)

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: OYES (57A: Cry for silence and attention) —

• • •

Almost impossible for me to finish. Tough overall, but that's what I expect on a Saturday. Whole puzzle skews before my time, but that also happens. I mean, NYNEX? I can never remember that. The Dells? I listen to lots of old music, still didn't know that. LE CAR? More oldeyness. Silk's puzzles tend to be anchored in the '60s ('60s music, '60s TV, '60s Oswald), when I wasn't yet born, so I routinely find it hard to find footing in his puzzles. But this wasn't what made this puzzle miserable to solve. It all ended up coming down to OYES, which I can't remember ever seeing, and DRIER, which I still don't understand (56A: Oil or ink additive). Secondary problems were NO BET, which I now get but which I had no hope of seeing even with NO-E- in place (I wanted NOTED), and DELOS, which I had has DOLOZ and then DOLOR and then (after I attempted the horrendous but correct OYES) DOLOS, and then I finally realized that the answer to 47A: "Aha!" wasn't "I KNOW IT!" but "I KNEW IT!" And that's where it ended: with a could-be-either vowel crossing a minor Greek island crossing whatever alternate olde-timey junk OYES is. I like challenges! I don't like (at all) when the challenge ends up at the gunkiest, worst-conceived part of the puzzle.


As for DRIER? I just don't know. You add DRIER to oil? DRIER is an additive? My language skills just break down here, as they broke down trying to understand what the hell "provision" meant in 46D: Password provision (ENTRY), as they broke down trying to understand both "Metro" and "line" in 44A: Metro line: Abbr. (RTE). I was staring at this for so long, wishing I could just make the '60s TV sidekick be TONTO, which was the only sidekick I could think of:

I think the only way I pulled out of this was to just start forcing the issue, typing in random things that seemed right but weren't working, and then somehow I shoved ENTRY into 46D and it all came together. The only one I felt bad about not getting more quickly was ROBIN. But man, DRIER. Man. That was the real killer. Still means nothing to me. So that clue on DRIER I really don't like, but I guess I can forgive. The whole I KNEW IT / DELOS / OYES (!?!?) thing. No. That's just bad. DELOS / OYES is bad, and having the mystery vowel in I KNEW IT be inside DELOS is bad. Everything boils down to OYES, which is supremely bad. I think you all are imagining that DELOS is a *lot* more famous than it is. I mean, I recognize it. Now. But ugh. And OYES. Seriously, imagine you struggle with a puzzle only to find out that what you were snagged on was OYES, a terrible, bottom-barrel piece of fill (problem one) that you thought could be spelled only two ways: OYEZ (yes) and OYER (which is, in fact, a part of a legal term—oyer and terminer—but which doesn't, apparently, apply here). OYES? ONO. Boo. I don't really even care about or remember the rest of the puzzle, except COFFEE RUSH is not a thing and QUADRUPLE PLAY is not a thing (even though it is the one thing that broke my puzzle wide open, finally):

From LSTS to OYES. That was my puzzle. LSTS and OYES: appropriately ugly bookends for a puzzle I am happy to put behind me.

Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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It's Red Magic Time sloganeer once / SAT 8-22-15 / Comedian once called Female Bob Hope / Little Bitty Tear singer 1962 / Female helicopter pilot from Hasbro / Sitcom teacher of Vinnie Boom Boom / To whom prospero says Thou liest malignant thing / Paper with Mansion section for short

Constructor: Barry C. Silk

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: KERN (31D: Typeface projection) —

verb

verb: kern; 3rd person present: kerns; past tense: kerned; past participle: kerned; gerund or present participle: kerning; noun: kerning

1. 1.

   adjust the spacing between (letters or characters) in a piece of text to be printed.

   • make (letters) overlap.
2. 2.

   design (metal type) with a projecting part beyond the body or shank.

noun

noun: kern; plural noun: kerns

1.

the part of a metal type projecting beyond its body or shank

• • •

A fairly typical Silk puzzle—solid, tough, nostalgic. Not as smooth as yesterday's offering, but pretty clean nonetheless. I only have about four frowny-faces written on my printed out puzzle here, and there's certainly nothing abysmal. Longest Downs are the real highlights here, with JAZZ QUARTET and CHANNEL SURF providing contrasting entertainment options (somewhat highbrow vs. somewhat lowbrow, somewhat old vs. somewhat modern). Unfortunately, what stands out most for me in this puzzle is how aggressively non-contemporary it was. The puzzle is essentially a giant F.U. to anyone under 60. It's relentless, really, in its insistence that the center of the cultural universe is circa 1962. In just that damned NW corner alone (for me, the first corner I solved and the toughest corner by far), you've got a 1962 Burl IVES song (?), a [1960s pop idol], and [J.F.K.'s U.N. ambassador]. I have no idea when that "It's red magic time!" slogan is from, but my gut says '60s. Hang on ... HA, bingo: exactly 1962 for this ad right here:

When do you think Martha RAYE was called "the Female Bob Hope"? Actually, that was probably a couple decades earlier, even. My point is the core NYT solver demographic would be squealing with outrage if that many 21st-century clues were shoved in one corner. And that's just that corner. There's also Benny Goodman and LUISE Rainer and "DONALD Gets Drafted," and words like "once" and "Old-fashioned" and "bygone" all over the place. JOANNE KERN (I made that part up) Rowling is the one real nod to this century, and she started getting famous last century. Again (and again and again) no one has a problem with bygone clues per se. There's just no balance here. It is a professionally constructed puzzle, but everything about it is old and white and meh. Please, puzzlemakers. Mix. Things. Up. At least a little. I beg of THEE.


Here's the solving sequence. Just ... flailing in the NW. I've titled this screenshot: "O, RLY?" because I was not at all sure I had the right stuff in there (turns out I did).

This one I call "'60s Much?"; as you could guess, it's just a screenshot of the completed NW:

I was stuck here for a few seconds, spinning my wheels, until I rolodexed through the words that might follow JAZZ and hit QUINTET! Real answer is QUARTET, but that didn't matter, because Q to the res-Q! ETIQUETTE flashed across the grid and I was in business. Puzzle became "Easy" thereafter:

Once the QUINTET issue got fixed, I ran right up into the middle of the grid, expecting to get stonewalled but never encountering real resistance. I knew the puzzle was gonna go down without too much fight after I tested FLINTLOCK and then nailed down CREE and KERN immediately thereafter. That gave me a base camp from which to attack both the NE and the SE, both of which fell without much of a fight.

Had to change PEACH to PEARL (42D: Fine example), but otherwise, no mistakes. Oh, no, wait. I did have LOITERS for LOUNGES (23A: Chills, so to speak). And I had to wait to see if the designated driver was gonna have TOO MUCH or TOO MANY (37D: One drink, to a designated driver).


Did you know there's a place where you can UNREEL a film while sniffing JUNIPER OIL? It's called a BOATEL and you can get there by following the signs for "Stuff That Sounds Made Up." And with that [Bit of snark], I'm off.

POOF.
 
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. Lollapuzzoola 8 puzzles have been made available, for an extremely limited time. Monday. You need to get them by Monday. After that, puzzle rights go back to the constructors themselves. These puzzles are phenomenal. I know, I went to the tournament. I solved them. Please get them and do them and go "wow" and then show your friends. For real.

P.P.S. The legendary crossword constructor (and my friend and mentor) Merl Reagle has died. I'll have more to say about him tomorrow, and in the coming week, and for the rest of my crossword-blogging life, probably. But for now I'll just say he was a wonderful man. And nobody but nobody cared more about crosswords or crafted funnier or more outlandish crosswords than Merl. Knowing him was a privilege and a joy. I'm just gutted right now.

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Aron's girlfriend in East of Eden / FRI 7-10-15 / 11th-century conquerors / 1920 birthplace of NFL / Tycoon with middle name Socrates / German architect who spent 19 years in Spandau prison /

Constructor: Barry C. Silk

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: David GROH (43A: David of "Rhoda") —

David Lawrence Groh (May 21, 1939 – February 12, 2008)^[2] was an American actor best known for his portrayal of Joe Gerard in the 1970s television series Rhoda, opposite Valerie Harper. (wikipedia)

• • •

My feelings were all over the map today. Jarring to get -IEST (The Worst) and then immediately get BEER O'CLOCK (The Best). More than jarring. Neck-snapping. Much of the rest of the solve was like that, though not quite so dramatic. Cluing also felt like it was everywhere at once. Some clues were just transparent (50A: Shankar at Woodstock), some cleverly hid their answers (7D: It may be thrown around at a party), some were dated trivia (GROH?), some dealt in bizarre red herrings (FIBER OPTICS, general; [Laparoscopy technology], absurdly specific). Whole puzzle skewed slightly older, in its cultural references (GROH!) as well as its acceptance of some terrible crosswordese that used to be considered QUITE normal (i.e. ABRA, ARILS, AARE, BRIC, etc.). I mostly enjoyed solving this, I think. The red patches on my printed-out grid (I mark the puzzle's trouble spots before blogging) are dense and livid in a couple areas (NW, SE), but non-existent in others. PLUSes outweight the minuses today, I'd say.

[Please stop watching after the great Perot bit (with Phil Hartman as Larry King!!), 'cause it gets real racist real fast in the next segment]

Here's that opening gambit. BEER O'CLOCK (15A: When it's acceptable to start downing brews) totally rescues that corner, which was nearly fatally wounded right out of the gate by ABRA and -IEST. I haven't even put ABRA in at this point, mostly because I'm hoping I've misremembered it.

I think maybe Barry's from Baltimore. He was at a dinner with me and a bunch of my friends in suburban D.C. recently, and I know he lived nearby, so ... maybe. Anyway, very Baltimore puzzle today, what with CHARM CITY and ORIOLE PARK (which I thought was "Camden Yards" ... full name = "ORIOLE PARK at Camden Yards," FYI). I got hung up badly in a few places. Weirdly, despite my early success in the NW, I couldn't get ARI ONASSIS to save my life. Was not looking for / expecting the shortened form of his first name, and having -RIO... had me looking for, I don't know, ORION somebody ... I certainly didn't imagine a break between the "I" and the "O." That "Socrates" part should've been a dead giveaway, but wasn't. Also had "I KNOW" (a thing people actually say) instead of "I KNEW" (less so), and that caused some trouble.

After that, though, all my trouble was in the SPEER / GROH / AREOLE / SCORNER (?) area. That is an unpretty ... area. Nabokov saved me down there. Protip: Nabokov novel in three letters: ADA; in four letters: PNIN. Finished with the "R" in AREOLE/GROH ... then realized I'd gone with ACED instead of ICED at 9D: Sewn up, resulting in ONASSAS ... fixed it. Finished.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Meteorite impact product / SAT 5-2-15 / Pretty in Pink heroine / Computer data structure / Old German duchy name / Lulu opera composer / Corporate headquarters in Mountainview Calif / Flower-bearing shoot

Constructor: Barry C. Silk

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none

Word of the Day: TEKTITE (38D: Meteorite impact product) —

noun

GEOLOGY

1. a small black glassy object, many of which are found over certain areas of the earth's surface, believed to have been formed as molten debris in meteorite impacts and scattered widely through the air. (google)

• • •

A fine, tough puzzle. I actually don't care for the GOOGLEPLEX / GOOGOLPLEX thing, even though it really helped me out a lot (had the first in place, and then, by inference, got the second off just the "X"). I'd rather a wholly different interesting word go in place of one of those plexes. Also, I didn't know GOOGLEPLEX was a place. I wanted GOOGLEDOME. Sounds much cooler / more sinister. Like Thunderdome or Terrordome or Astrodome. But no big deal. One answer sacrificed to unnecessary cuteness. Rest of the puzzle is smooth, if oddly dull in the longer stuff (except ROY ORBISON). Mainly you get common phrases, which are decent, but not exciting. But the vagueness and toughness of cluing made for a not unpleasant grind. The kind of grind I don't mind on a Saturday.


Had tough time getting started, as I tried MESTA at 1A: Socialite who wrote "How to Catch a Man, How to Keep a Man, How to Get Rid of a Man" (GABOR). You know you know too much crosswordese when MESTA is the first thing that leaps to your mind in *any* situation. So I was screwed in that corner. Abandoned it for adjacent area in the north. No luck there. Finally got traction by guessing AGED at 10A: Acquired wisdom, per a saying, then guessing ANNIE (close!) at 10D: "Pretty in Pink" heroine, and then getting ELEC / DETECT / ENURES in pretty quick succession. Was really surprised that worked, as I wasn't certain about any of the stuff that got me going. From there it was most a slowish, steady clockwise trip down, over, and back up again to finish in the NW. Actually, I finished in the far north. Here's the exact square, where I was stopped cold:

I had no idea. At all. None. As far as I knew, there *was* no word that followed the pattern -LEATE, so I figured I had an error. But I ran the alphabet and then SOAP slipped into view. OLEATE … OK then.


Bullets:

• 6D: Seat of Monterey County (SALINAS) — I was just in Monterey County last month. Still needed many crosses to pick this one up. 
• 48A: Divorced title couple of film (KRAMERS) — just watched "Kramer vs. Kramer" earlier this year. It holds up OK, though courtroom scenes, like, apparently, all courtroom scenes in movies, were Preposterous. Also, Streep's whole "I'm just abandoning my child to go find myself" thing felt really poorly motivated and explained, and thus unsympathetic. Still, she was great. But it's mainly a hero-dad picture.
• 37A: Thou (G-NOTE) — Not convinced this a real thing. Do people really say it. C-NOTE, sure. But a. that's a much rarer "note," and b. no reason a "Thou" should come in a single "note." I wanted GRAND. Then, at GNO-E, I wanted GNOME. Not really. I just like the idea that the puzzle was saying to me "Thou art a GNOME!"

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Bluebeard's Castle librettist Balázs / SAT 2-28-15 / Linking brainstem part / Bit of headwear in British lingo / Laugh-inducing pic / Stovepipe of WWII / Classic symbol of rebellion / Holder of many diorama / Greasy spoon appliance / Occasion for goat-tying

Constructor: Barry C. Silk

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none

Word of the Day: BELA Balázs (53A: "Bluebeard's Castle" librettist Balázs) —

Béla Balázs (Hungarian: [ˈbeːlɒ ˈbɒlaːʒ]; 4 August 1884, Szeged – 17 May 1949, Budapest), born Herbert Bauer, was a Hungarian-Jewish film critic, aesthete, writer and poet. […] He is perhaps best remembered as the librettist of Bluebeard's Castle which he originally wrote for his roommate Zoltán Kodály, who in turn introduced him to the eventual composer of the opera, Béla Bartók. This collaboration continued with the scenario for the ballet The Wooden Prince. (wikipedia)

• • •

This puzzle was just OK. I was put off by a series of wonky words that were perhaps supposed to be quaint or trigger some sort of nostalgia, but that struck me as simply WEARISOME. The only thing I enjoy about TITFER (49D: Bit of headwear, in British lingo) is saying "TITFER TOT" (the two words conveniently sit next to one another). Otherwise, that strikes me not as cute but as desperate. PONS … I gotta believe PONS could've been avoided there. It's such a stupid-looking technical term. And anyway, you'd only want to use something like that to hold a great bank of longer answers together, and that's just not what PONS is doing here. It's sitting in a perfectly reworkable area. Then there's FRYOLATOR (67A: Greasy spoon appliance), which I think I'm supposed to find charming and retro. But it feels made-up. Is it a brand name. I eat in greasy spoons from time to time—never heard of it. I feel like it must be what normals call the "fryer" or "deep fryer." Is that right? [...checks…] Ha! Yes! It's listed as an alternate name under the "Deep fryer" entry at wikipedia. Even if I liked that answer, and I don't, too many of the crosses are dreary: SMELTER and SMEARER and ALERO and UTIL and SAN REMO are all zzzzzz. In fact, the only entries I truly enjoyed today were BAZOOKA (14D: "Stovepipe of W.W. II) and PHOTOBOMB (48A: Laugh-inducing pic). Everything else was adequate to dull.

[In the '80s, we didn't have BLU-RAY. We had this.]

[R.I.P. Leonard Nimoy]

My greatest solving coup today came very early, via a (normally unloved) cross-referenced clue. I read 5D: Last name on a 40-Down and decided to check 40-Down. Once I saw that 40-Down was [Holder of many a diorama], I instantly thought SHOEBOX, which instantly suggested MCAN as a possibility.  So I'd only just begun, and this is what my grid looked like:

I wasn't sure the guessing was going to pay off, but crosses (iron and otherwise) eventually confirmed I was right. This meant that I was going to be starting the grid in earnest from the SW corner—a scenario that almost never occurs. That "X" was the obvious starting point, and sure enough EXERT was easy to get, and that corner was done quickly. Soon, I was into the TITFER PONS morass:

From here, the fire of my solving prowess spread very quickly through the SE and up the east coast. I zagged back across the grid into the NW and had no trouble sweeping right through it, counterclockwise, back around to DANK. That left just the NE to attend to, and while for a second or two things looked dicey (-MAN -ERS and -OKA weren't looking promising…), I rode to victory on the most '80s answer up there:

REPO MAN! (12D: One who assumes control by default?). God bless you, Emilio Estevez, wherever you are.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Sainted maiden of literature / SAT 11-8-14 / Up-coming world phenomenon / 1914 Belgian battle line / Eisner's successor at Disney / Literally skyward / Song whose title follows Para bailar / Eco-chic clothing option

Constructor: Barry C. Silk

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none

Word of the Day: "Bob" IGER (56A: Eisner's successor at Disney) —

Robert Allen "Bob" Iger (born February 10, 1951) is an American businessman and the current chairman and chief executive officer of The Walt Disney Company. He was named president of Disney in 2000, and later succeeded Michael Eisner as chief executive in 2005, after a successful effort by Roy E. Disney to shake-up the management of the company. Iger oversaw the acquisition of Pixar Animation Studios in 2006, following a period of strained relations with the animation studio. He also led the company to acquire Marvel Entertainment in 2009 and Lucasfilm in 2012, further broadening Disney's intellectual property franchises. (wikipedia)

• • •

Trying to figure out why this one seemed so joyless compared to most Barry Silks. I think it's largely the swing-and-miss cluing. Or, rather, all the "?" cluing that was more forced than clever. [Binder?] for PACT … I get it, but yuck. Is the "joke" that we're supposed to think of a three-ring binder? Not sure what the joke is on 41D: Goes with the flow? (STREAMS), as that clue is either too literal to need a "?" or relates to streaming video, in which case … the clue doesn't make any kind of joke at all. How in the world is QUARK [A tiny bit strange?]. What is "strange" about it? Oh, I see that "strange" is a "flavor" of QUARK (… [crickets] …). OK then. But [Up-coming world phenomenon?] annoyed me the most, though there I was more annoyed by the answer. Call me terra-centric, but I don't think a phenomenon that no human being experiences should have a name. You experience this on the moon, right? When I finally got EARTH RISE (I needed every cross) I honestly didn't know what it was. That whole NW corner was just a [shrug] to me. Don't play golf, don't know what EARTH RISE is, never heard of Spender, etc.


Mainly I am surprised that a 72-worder is this lifeless. High word count themelesses should Pop. This one is clean, but EARTH RISE and GREEN TAPE just don't seem like strong marquee answers to me. Those are this grid's seed entries, right? I mean, they must be, as they are the main original-seeming answers in the grid. But neither of them is flashy or even very interesting, so while they're fine entries, they don't have top-billing-type oomph. Of course I enjoy BATSIGNAL, but there should be so many more such delightful answers, and the cluing overall needs to be more playful, less dull. What the hell is "Eco-chic"? (5D: Eco-chic clothing option).  That's a thing? Ugh (seriously, I thought the answer here was UGGS). Anyway, HEMP is a clothing material option, not a "clothing option."


Did not care for SOLS / EL AL. I'm more a SOTS / ET AL man myself.

See you Sunday.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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1965 Yardbirds hit / SAT 7-19-14 / Cap'n 1904 novel / Company with the King David Club

Constructor: Barry C. Silk

Relative difficulty: Saturdayish

THEME: No theme

Word of the Day: ERI [54D - "Cap'n ___"(1904 novel)] —

The Golden Boys is a romantic comedy, set on Cape Cod in 1905, about three 70-year-old retired sea captains who try to lure an attractive middle-aged woman into marriage. Developed under the working title Chatham, the film is an adaptation of the Joseph Lincoln novel Cap’n Eri. It stars David Carradine, Rip Torn, Bruce Dern, and Mariel Hemingway. It only made $43,600 at the box office. Ouch! (Wikipedia)

• • •

Hey, crossword fans. Doug here again. Wow, I lucked out this weekend. I got a Livengood yesterday and a Silk today. Score! Today's puzzle is a classic Barry C. Silk production. Some sports stuff, some oldies music, and a nice wide-open grid pattern. All in all, a spot-on Saturday puzzle for your solving enjoyment.

Were any of you bothered by GO ALL OUT (15A: Pour it on) crossing GO TO YOUR ROOM (8D: Call for a timeout)? I didn't notice the GO duplication while solving, and it doesn't bother me much. I've found that editors tend to be pretty forgiving about minor duplications. And both entries are fun, so really the only reason I mentioned it was to fill up a little space. We substitute bloggers have to meet our quotas.

Bullets:

• PRETZEL LOOP (27A: Roller coaster feature with a food name) — Now that's a fun answer. Other roller coaster elements I found on Wikipedia: batwing, butterfly inversion, cobra roll, demonic knot, hammerhead turn, Norwegian loop, and the dreaded wraparound Immelman.
• WILD CARD TEAM (20D: Underdog playoffs participant) — Great entry. Reminds me of the time the Yankees declined the Wild Card.
• ESAU (25D: Biblical venison preparer) — I thought I'd solved all the ESAU clues, but whaddya know, here's a new one.
• FOR YOUR LOVE (1965 Yardbirds hit) — OK, I admit I didn't know this song. I dig the lead singer's bongo playing.




• ODESSAN (47A: Dweller near the Potemkin Stairs) —Somehow this was the first entry I filled in today. I've had a lot of Odessa facts drilled into my head over the years by crosswords.

• YOUNGER (24A: Like Princess Leia vis-à-vis Luke Skywalker) — They're twins, and I guess Luke was born first. I'm not going to check Wookieepedia to verify. And as you can see, they're quite close. 
• VAINER (43D: Like Cinderella's stepsisters vis-à-vis Cinderella) — We all tried UGLIER first, right?
• C SHARP (1D: D preceder) — This is embarrassing, but I didn't know if it was C SHARP or E SHARP until I got the crossing letter from COSMOS. I can never figure out the musical note clues. In my world, they're all just letters randomly followed by SHARP, FLAT, MAJOR, or MINOR.

While I've got your attention, I might as well plug my two new books: Brain-Straining Crosswords and Lickety-Split Crosswords. They both hit shelves on August 5th. Buy the hard one for yourself and the easy one for a friend. Or buy ten copies of each and hand them out as party favors. That's even better! Thanks for hanging with me the past couple of days. Peterson out.

Signed, Doug Peterson, Warrior Prince of CrossWorld

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Kentucky county in 1976 Oscar-winning documentary / SAT 5-10-14 / Prop for Kermit Frog / Profession of Clementine's father / Girl in Music Man with floral name / 2001-05 Pontiac made in Mexico / Org in 1950s-60s TVs Naked City / Melvin King of Torts

Constructor: Barry C. Silk

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: Ruy LOPEZ (46D: Ruy ___ (chess opening)) —

The Ruy Lopez (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈrwi ˈlopeθ/ˈlopes]), also called the Spanish Opening orSpanish Game, is a chess opening characterised by the moves:

1. e4 e5

2. Nf3 Nc6

3. Bb5

The Ruy Lopez is named after 16th-century Spanish priest Ruy López de Segura. It is one of the most popular openings, with such a vast number of variations that in the Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings (ECO) all codes from C60 to C99 are assigned to them. (wikipedia)

• • •

Another lightning-fast themeless solve for me (I rated it "Easy-Medium" only because others' times — posted at the puzzle website — seemed not quite as faster-than-usual as mine was). No idea what's going on, but the last two puzzles have hardly put up fight at all. I liked this one fine. I think I would like it more if I knew what a CRAZY BONE was. Is that the same as FUNNY BONE? If not … just how many of these wacky-type bones do I have?? Longer answers are just moderately interesting to me today, except MCMANSION and DREAMLAND, both of which are lovely colloquialisms. Fill is somewhat weaker and duller in the W/SW than in most of the rest of the grid. DSO / ETES / ALLES / MIES are all a little crosswordesey, and SALLIE MAE and DES MOINES aren't exactly scintillating as longer answer go. But most of the rest of the grid is solid and bouncy. Very nice job handling the fill in the triple-Z SE section. Normally against cramming Scrabbly letters into a corner just 'cause, but here the fill is strong despite/because of the three Zs, so hurray.

Once again, 1A was a gimme for me (1A: Prop for Kermit the Frog). There is only one thing I can picture Kermit holding, and it's a BANJO. With those letters in place, that NW section goes down almost instantly. This leads directly to the easy SEQUEL, and then up into the NE via the "K" in SHAK, which gave me AZTEK (Walter White's car for most of "Breaking Bad," btw). That "Z" made me think CRAZY- even though, as I said, I've never heard of a CRAZY BONE. My dissertation was in part on Chaucer, so MCD was a gimme and that essentially meant that the whole NE, across the top and around the corner, went down fast. Things got a little dicey in the SE section, where I briefly thought I might get stuck for a good long while. But I guessed AROMA correctly at 48D: Something from the oven. I had forgotten LOPEZ (despite knowing it from, I think, Chandler novels), but once it popped into my mind, I iced that section pretty quickly. That left the SW, where I had gotten stalled coming out of the NW (wanted NEON GAS instead of RARE GAS, didn't trust ELATED …). WEBSITE to HERS to HYPO put me in decent position. DES MOINES was easy from there. NAME PLATE was harder. AMARYLLIS was hardest of all, since I'm not the best with floral names, but to my credit, I did eventually get it off the -YLLIS. From there, mad dash to the end. Last letter was the "S" in MERGES (I'd had an "R" there before seeing Über ALLES).

OK then. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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