"Hair" producer Joseph / WED 7-11-12 / ___ the Tentmaker / Depression-era agcy. / Org. for R.V. owners / The Plame affair, informally / "Giant Brain" of 1946

Constructor: Allan E. Parrish

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: PRIMARY ENDS — The theme answers end with synonyms of primary. No wackiness ensues.

Word of the Day: DRAX (12D: "Moonraker" villain) —

Sir Hugo Drax is a fictional character created by author Ian Fleming for the James Bond novel Moonraker. Fleming named him after his friend, Sir Reginald Drax. In both versions of Moonraker, Drax is the main antagonist. Hugo Drax is a billionaire living in California in a château that was imported from France. He owns Drax Industries, which constructs space shuttles. An example of the Drax character's ruthlessness as portrayed in the film is given by the manner in which he disposes of enemies. Bond follows a trail around the world to investigate the theft of a space shuttle on loan to the UK by Hugo Drax, starting in California at Drax Industries, and following it to Italy, then to Brazil, then into space.

• • •

Hey there cruciverbalists! Greetings from Portland, Oregon where Summer is finally starting. It's your new Rex for a day Bret A. making my second appearance in CrossWorld. It's nice to be back for my second 15 seconds of micro-celebrity.

So about the puzzle... meh. The theme has been done and done and seems misplaced on a Wednesday. The theme answers are also completely flat. There is some trickyish cluing to try ratchet up the difficulty to Wednesday, but it doesn't quite get there. It's a 78-worder (the max word count for the NYT), and you definitely get the smooth grid you'd expect from such a high word count. There's no real junk in the grid, and the worst of it is easily inferrable. The longest non-theme answers are only 7 letters, but they are the most interesting in the grid, as it should be. It's a "Q" short of a pangram, so there's that. There's not a single "?" in any of the clues. No junk. No wackiness. No sparkle. Just meh. I was really hoping for something really good or really bad for my stay here. This is just... fine.


Theme answers:

• 17A: Joe Clark in "Lean on Me," e.g. (SCHOOL PRINCIPAL)
• 29A: Item on a superintendent's chain (SKELETON KEY)
• 48A: Ripe territory for pirates, once (SPANISH MAIN)
• 63A: Losing player in the first Super Bowl (KANSAS CITY CHIEF)

Hey, the MLB All-Star Game was in Kansas City tonight. INNING and RBI are down in that part of the grid too making for a mini baseball theme.

Bullets:

• 1A: Body part first transplanted in 2010 (FACE) — Actually, this was first done in the 1997 Travolta/Cage classic Face/Off.
• 15A: ___ the Tentmaker (OMAR) — If I had my way, this would always be clued with some sort of reference to "The Wire."
• 55A: Depression-era agcy. (NRA) — There's that cluing, trying to make this feel like a Wednesday. How about a clue like (Group of piece advocates?) It's still easy, might as well try to be funny. Or punny at least.
• 6D: Whisk broom-wielding official, for short (UMP) — More baseball!
• 25D: "99 Luftballons" singer (NENA) — Well, that's stuck in my head now. 

• 38D: "___ pig's eye!" (IN A) — This is the funniest thing in the grid. That's sad.
• 46D: Some steaks (RIBEYES) — Mets legend/broadcaster/"Seinfeld" guest star Keith Hernandez calls RBIs RIBEYES, and they cross in the grid. Sure, that's probably only interesting to me. But still, more baseball!

 

That's it for me. Rex will be home before you know it. Let everyone know how much you miss him in the comments. 

Signed, Bret Agins, HEPCAT of CrossWorld

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"Aces!" — a Rex Parker free puzzle

Here's a puzzle I wrote last week when I realized that a recent public announcement presented great opportunities for puzzle answer symmetry. It's too straightforward a tribute puzzle to be a good fit for newspapers, and the subject matter / names involved will cause radically different solving experiences among solvers. Still, I hope there's entertainment or challenge enough to go around. Should be solvable even if the subject matter is way out of your wheelhouse.

Get the puzzle in .puz (AcrossLite) format HERE (or just print it out below; click on "Print") ... completed grid can be viewed HERE.

Thanks, RP

Aces

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SUNDAY, Feb. 4, 2007 - Paul Guttormsson

Solving time: 26:57

THEME: "INITIAL INITIALS" (61A: What the answers to the 15 starred clues have) - e.g. 38D: Apple variety (iMac), 71D: Critical time (D-Day), etc.

In a foul, foul mood for a host of reasons, not the least of which is that I have to blog now (Saturday night) because tomorrow a.m. is all filled up with crap. I am also having infuriating knee problems for No Good Reason, which is making me feel 30 years older than I am. To top it off, having to blog early meant having to solve early, and what began as an absolutely brilliant, lightning-fast solving experience was utterly derailed by daughter coming upstairs (like 15 feet away from where I type) for bathtime, during which she is notoriously shrill and hyper. Once she started with the shouting / singing / what not, I could Not concentrate, and once I got hung up (the entire S of the puzzle, particularly the SW), I really really got hung up. Sore, audibly creaky knee + sporadically loud child + a couple of thorny patches in the puzzle = me wanting to smash something. Then I told myself that these are really really bad solving conditions, and maybe I should solve like this more often in order to simulate whatever is going to annoy me about tournament conditions. And then I finished. What would have been a glorious, well-under-20 minute time ended up just slightly worse than average. This was also about the tenth puzzle I've solved today (and my third Sunday), so I might have been flagging a bit.

I enjoyed the theme somewhat, but the most exciting thing about it may have been the description in the middle of the puzzle: INITIAL INITIALS. The actual theme fill was, in large part, run-of-the-mill stuff, like the aforementioned IMAC and DDAY, plus

• 16A: Primo (A-one)
• 19D: In-box contents (e-mail)
• 64D: Fortune 500 company based in San Jose, Calif. (eBay)
• 109A: Backup for Dick Tracy (G-men)
• 111A: Benjamin (C-note)

Some theme answers were pretty colorful, like 53D: Saloon floozie (B-girl) and 110A: Gridiron lineup (I-formation), but mostly they just lay there. Somewhat disappointing as themes go.

There was, however, a subtheme. Three of the clues feature villains:

• 44D: Villain who says "For I am nothing if not critical" (Iago)
• 65D: Villain who says "That's a Dom Perignon '55. It would be a pity to break it" (Dr. No)
• 93D: Villain who says "So you don't like spinach?" (Bluto)

These were more fun than the actual theme answers, and the last one absolutely shot me down in the SSE. For some reason I was thinking that Popeye's nemesis was BRUTUS, not BLUTO. Turns out I had good reason for making this error. At any rate, BRUTUS wouldn't fit and my failure to get BLUTO led to my most serious snag in the puzzle (more below on the horrendous South). I like that all these villains kinda rhyme.


If the main theme was no great shakes, thankfully some of the non-theme fill is pretty hot.

Hot Fill

• 21A: "Hey, good lookin'!" ("Hubba hubba!") - for a non-theme answer, this goes especially well with the doubleness of the theme itself: INITIAL INITIALS
• 37D: Nowheresville (the sticks) - I like the clue even more than I like the answer
• 36D: Like sororities, at times (serenaded) - man this took me Way too long to get
• 73D: Gets blitzed (ties one on) - what one does in THE STICKS to dull the pain of not being SERENADED
• 93A: Treat for a dog (belly rub) - nice play on "treat" - I was thinking something edible, but the -LYR- combo brought the real treat to light. My dog does like BELLY RUBs - but not as much as she likes actual, edible treats, that's for sure.
• 42D: Product in an orange box (Wheaties) - a very nice clue. Beats hell out of "Breakfast of Champions" and goes nicely with ATHLETIC (80D: Fit)
• 91A: Sang on high: Var. (yodelled) - I guess the "Var." is that apparently extra "L" in there. "YO, DELL. It's ED!"
• 49D: Umpire's call ("Strike one!") - this is cool and odd. STRIKE OUT and STRIKE TWO would have worked here as well.
• 53A: Infamous innkeeper (Bates) - Psycho!

There were lots of "OR" sounds in this puzzle. I made a little story out of the "OR" fill, just fOR you. Ahem. "NORA (39D: Best-selling author Roberts) is a BOER (40D: _____ War of 1899) who lives on the MOORS (46A: Ties up). She PERFORMS (31A: Executes) for a LORD (82D: Follower of "O") named SOREN OSBORN (36A: Philosopher Kirkegaard and 89A: "The Paper Chase" author John Jay _____ Jr.)." That's all I have so far. What do you think?

Stuff I Didn't Know

Not much, actually, but some. For example, that OSBORN guy, above. Total blank. No idea. Further:

• 52D: _____ Kinnock, 1980's-90's British Labor Party leader (Neil) - to be fair, to myself, I'm pretty sure I've heard of this guy, but only vaguely.
• 72A: Retired N.H.L. great Hull (Brett) - OK, I knew this, but I clearly forgot it temporarily, because it was not a gimme. Kept wanting BOBBY even though I knew I was thinking of BOBBY ORR.
• 92D: Md.'s largest city (Balto) - I was pretty sure that yes, BALTimOre was the city in question, but I had never heard it / seen it abbreviated as such. Maybe it's common in their local newspapers? BALTO, in my mind, is a dog ... a sled dog, to be exact.

The Rough Spots

First was the far SW, where, as I've told you, I'd never heard of that damned OSBORN guy (89A), and I mysteriously had T-WING instead of O-RING at 89D: Certain gasket. This made 97A: Golf outing, whose answer is the innocuous ROUND, impossible to solve because in my grid it looked like this: WO-ND. WOUND? That's some odd golf slang right there. The whole situation "down there" was made worse by my having G-MAN instead of G-MEN: 109A: Backup for Dick Tracy looks like it wants a singular answer, dammit! So 91D: Dieter's problem looked like this: --L-A. That's right, that gives you Nothing. Further confusion resulted from 106A: Scrubbed (no go), which I could Not see, and which I had as NO NO for a while (so close!); that turned --L-A (for [Dieter's problem]) into the more wrong --LNA. How I got from --LNA to BULGE (the correct answer) is actually beyond me at this point.

Lastly, there was the Deep South, where I was in despair as I had so many Downs and yet couldn't buy an Across to save my life. I guessed (correctly) that 98A: Where St. Paul was shipwrecked, in Acts was MALTA (it was that or YALTA). But I still don't know what MILLENNIUM means as an answer to 102A: Period of future bliss. What year is it? Was this puzzle written in the 90's. Or better yet, the 50's, when everyone believed the MILLENNIUM would bring us jet packs and world peace? Nope, this puzzle must have been written since the 90's, because there's a Better Than EZRA clue in here (25A: Rock music's Better Than _____).
Also, I know it's not the 50's because my answer of SEN for 103D: D.C. baseballer was mysteriously wrong. Apparently D.C. has a new team called the NATs (at least that's what they call them in BALTO). Back to MILLENNIUM: Maybe I'm supposed to believe that the year 3000 is going to be Edenic? God only knows (seriously, He does). Under MILLENNIUM we have AFTERTASTE (107A: Diet soda feature). This answer is highly subjective. Not sure diet soda has more of an AFTERTASTE than regular soda, or lots of other drinks. I can't tell you how many times I tried to make ASPARTAME fit in here. My mind would Not let it go. Would have been a much better answer, btw. But not Better Than EZRA, because EZRA, well, that's some A-ONE fill.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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SUNDAY, Jan. 28, 2007 - Victor Fleming and Bruce Venzke

Solving time: untimed, but fast

THEME: "Having Pull" - all theme answers are things that may be pulled

Where was A FAST ONE? ONE'S LEG? MY FINGER!? This theme was cute, if awfully simple. The only real puzzler was 81A (THEME): It may be pulled (client's case file), and even that was inferrable with a handful of crosses. Still, discovering what could be pulled next was enjoyable, and after Saturday's puzzle, I was glad to have the level of difficulty lowered considerably. My favorite theme answer was 49A (THEME): One may be pulled (starting pitcher), which reminds me that baseball season is Just over the horizon (when I can begin to erase the memory of last year's abysmal and colossally disappointing World Series). My friend Matt got Red Sox tickets yesterday, so even though the opponent is lowly Kansas City, I'm very psyched. Never been to Fenway, despite having adopted the Red Sox as my team in the early 80's (when I lived in Central California). After the Super Bowl, the only thing worth noting, sportswise, is the NCAA basketball tournament in March. Then it's glorious April, with opening day and springtime and sunny joyous American love for all. I have no idea why I'm writing about sports right now. Oh, themewise, I also liked OLD SWITCHEROO (35D: It may be pulled), though the clue should read [It may be pulled, with "The"]. "Hey, you pulled OLD SWITCHEROO" makes no sense, unless you are imagining the phrase being uttered by an ESL (3D: Immigrant's class: Abbr.) student or Borat or someone else with an aversion to definite articles.

6D: Yellowish shade (ochre)
38A: Neutral shade (linen)

"What are 'The Colors of Nausea?'" The first of these looks like it's spelled wrong, and I had no idea the latter "color" was a color at all. Thought it was just a very, very hard-to-care-for fabric. LINEN is over in the Portland, OR portion of the puzzle, and borders / intersects some iffy fill. Not fond of either 29D: Abbr. of politeness (pls) - seriously, who writes this? Someone who really hates vowels? - or 30D: Gradually slower, in mus. (rit.). Abbr. next to Abbr. = lazy and ugly. I also don't think much of 44A: Cookout staple (steak) - I don't know what kind of "cookouts" you're going to, but that's pretty high-end fare. Hands up if you had the "K" (from SRI LANKA, 5D: Country that styles itself a "democratic socialist republic") and wrote in the far more plausible and democratic FRANK, as in FRANKfurter, Beans and FRANKs, etc.?

45A: _____-mo (slo)

Here is some tired fill that I would really, really like to see go on a long, long vacation. It should be in the Pantheon, but I just hate it too much. Two other, less groan-inducing bits of Pantheonic fill can be found at 107D: Petrol brand (Esso) - although ESSO did sort of make my wife groan, as in 'ugh, not again' - and the very high-end 119A: Grasshopper stage (imago) - "high-end" because it's a fancy word that has managed to become a crossword staple without becoming a crossword whore (see SLO).

71A: Stu of early TV (Erwin)
61D: Pulitzer-winning Sheehan (Neil)

Usually, when names I don't know cross one another, it's bad, bad news. But here, the "I" that joins these two guys was pretty obvious, saving me the "which vowel goes here" heartache that often attends intersecting stumpers. I don't know Stu ERWIN, but I damn sure know the other TV clues in this grid. 87A: Half of a 1980's TV duo (Allie) was one I got right away. I enjoyed that show in a comfort-food kind of way. I think 90% of that show was shot on that one cheap set that seemed to include the entryway, the stairway, the living room, and the kitchen. How did all those people share that tiny space? One of the daughters looked vaguely like Debbie Gibson, and the other was more reminiscent of Tiffany - these are the categories into which one might have divided girls circa 1986. I forget which of the grown-ups was Kate and which one ALLIE, but I have always had something of a crush on Jane Curtin, despite her work on some pretty hateful shows (see "3rd Rock," e.g.). Tina Fey is my new Jane Curtin. But I digress. The other great TV throwback was 39A: Half of a 1970's TV duo (Starsky). I never watched "STARSKY and Hutch" (on too late for 5-year-old me), though I have a strange desire to Netflix the show, since I am a big fan of crime fiction in general, especially that of the period between when Reagan did his last movie (1964's The Killers, hot!) and when Reagan became president. I am currently working my way through "Kojak" - I'm five eps in and he has yet to suck on a lollipop or say "Who Loves Ya, Baby?" - and I've got "The Rockford Files" waiting in the wings. One more campy TV answer: 26D: Linda of soaps (Dano), which, very sadly, I knew instantly.

92A: Fireplace receptacle (ashpan)

Now comes the part of the show where I talk about words I don't know. Had ASHCAN here, 'cause I knew that was something, but ASHPAN feels awfully made up. British? Sandy hadn't heard of it, and she's Kiwi, which is almost British. Speaking of British, went to see The Queen last night, and it was fantastic - one of the best-made films I've seen in a good, long while. And I managed to enjoy it despite the fact that apparently people are raised in barns these days and think chatting with their spouses during quiet moments of the film is OK. Where was I? Oh, words I don't know. How about 118A: Syrian leader (Assad)? Is that a guy's name? Yes, Bashar ASSAD is the leader of Syria, indeed. Why did you all make his name cross FATWAS (95D: Mullahs' calls) and THEISM (96D: Basic belief), and then, worst of all, have it sitting on top of SMOKE (122A: Content of some rings). There's an entire season of "24" plotted out in this one square inch of grid. Try a little sensitivity ... or Try a Little Tenderness, whichever. More trouble: I just told you all (recently) that I get all the ADEN, OMAN, ASSAN, OREN, OREM, ORAN, etc.-type answers confused, constantly. And then today I had to fight my way through not one but two of them: 37D: Gulf of _____, off the Horn of Africa (Aden) and 120A: Arab league member (Oman). If I see "Gulf" or "Horn" or "Cape," I know I'm in trouble. But in today's case, crosses took care of all the vowel ambiguity that normally plagues me with these answers. Speaking of geographical ignorance, a river clue held me up for a bit (one of two minor sticking points in this puzzle): I knew that 53D: Köln's river started with RH-, but to ignorant me, that meant RHINE or RHONE. Didn't know I'd be faced with the German spelling of the former, RHEIN, but pieced it together eventually. I still have no idea how BEEF can be an answer for 70D: Kick. Had to ask my wife what kind of "literary monogram" EAP (113D) was (Poe, duh). If I'd ever heard of LITTLE ME (84D: 1962 musical co-directed by Bob Fosse), it was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. I wanted to squeeze ORPHAN ANNIE into those last two squares. For all I know, LITTLE ME starred NIA Long (111D: Actress Long), of whom I'd also never heard. I have a vague feeling, though, that I have blogged about never having of heard of this same actress before, which would mean that I've heard of her. My instinct is to say that there's only one actress named Long, and her first name is Shelley, but my instinct also tells me that I have written those very same words before. Weird.

Final thoughts: Didn't know that LBJ was a VIRGO (89A: Lyndon Johnson, by birth), and can't say that I really care. Don't know if it's good or bad to see the "H-added" spelling of SENHOR/A again (34A: Lady from Ipanema) - I'm going to say good, as I got it instantly, and like the song "Girl from Ipanema." Not sure how I feel about ERRATA (9D: Text miscues) and SERRATE (77A: Saw-edged) being in the same grid - little too much ERRAT. As with DANO (above), I am mildly embarrassed that I got TEEN IDOL (106A: Tiger Beat topic) almost instantly (with just the "T" in place). I've never even read that magazine, not once, I swear. I can't see the title Tiger Beat without picturing Leif Garrett, for some reason, although the phrase TEEN IDOL is more apt to make me picture Shaun or David Cassidy. Lastly, I want to give a warm welcome to OSIER (6A: Wicker willow) - one of my favorite "learned-it-from-the-crosswords" words and by far my favorite basket-making material - way better than that cheap RAFFIA crap.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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THURSDAY, Jan. 25, 2007 - Manny Nosowsky

Solving time: untimed

THEME: ONE TWO THREE FOUR (7D: Start of a march chant ... or a hint to 17-, 27-, 47- and 63-Across) - This answer runs vertically through the middle of the grid, from top to bottom; four theme answers, with the words ONE, TWO, THREE, and FOUR (respectively) hidden inside other words or word combinations, provide horizontal crosses to the vertical answer, with each horizontal answer intersecting the vertical answer at that answer's respective number, e.g. 63A (THEME): Bill Moyers speech on income inequality in America (Fight oF OUR Lives) intersects ONE TWO THREE FOUR at the "O" in FOUR.

Well, that's officially the longest explanation for a theme that I've ever had to offer, but it was worth it, as this puzzle is instantly a candidate for Best Thursday Puzzle of the year. Not just clever, but clever in multiple ways - hidden numbers, intersecting numbers, and then (whether intended or not) a total theme fake-out: the first theme answer had MONEY in it and the next one had SOU, and when I saw that the next one (47A (THEME): Critical stage in a space shuttle's flight (Earth re-entry)) had -REEN in it, I thought for sure that those letters would become GREEN and that the theme would, obviously (MONEY, SOU, GREEN) be words for currency. Wrrrrong. Very wrong. My misunderstanding of the theme thus meant that it took me Forever to see EARTH RE-ENTRY. I thought perhaps there was some technical NASA term that had the phrase GREEN DAY in it, and that, possibly, that was where the band got its name. Yes, I did actually think that, and am not saying it (just) to try to be funny.

Short entries today - Thursday is quite tight for me from now until, oh, mid-May.

17A (THEME): 50% likelihood (even money chance)

I have never heard of this phrase. I have heard the phrase EVEN MONEY, but the CHANCE part is new to me. Not having CHANCE meant that the whole NE corner stayed empty for a while, until a blessed, ubiquitous Genesis clue (10D: Leading man? (Adam)) bailed me out, as it has time and time again. While we're up in the NE, I'll say that 9A: Where some bolts fit (jambs) is a really, really odd clue, despite being, technically, correct. The answer to this could have been Anything. How about NECKS? GATES? DOORS? I do love the look of the word JAMB, I have to say. I am put off by 9D: Head (John), as it does not pass my personal breakfast-table test. [Male Doe?] is a better clue, and has the virtue of not referring to the toilet.

34A: _____ of color (riot)

I'm sorry, what? I could have worked on this answer from here to eternity and Never have guessed this. There are nearly 82K Google hits for this phrase, but yuck. [Zoot Suit pastime] works better for me. My ignorance of this answer made the West very thorny for me, despite the fact that when you look at the words over there, none of them is very troubling. My problems were made worse by my being unable to close the deal with IN---- at 24D: All together (intact). IN SYNC and IN STEP were making a lot more noise in my brain than INTACT was. Besides "RIOT of color," other answers I'd never heard of include:

• 69A: Artful Dodger (Reese) [Oh, Criminy, I JUST got this - you jerky clue-writers! Pee Wee Reese = "artful" at the position of shortstop for baseball's Dodgers = ugh - and here I thought I was missing a Dickens clue, or a cleverly worded clue about Della or Witherspoon]
• 52D: Monte _____ of Cooperstown (Irvin) - another baseball clue I didn't get, though at least this time I could tell that the frame of reference was, in fact, baseball. Other, hidden baseball answer in the puzzle: 30D: Steep-sided gulch (arroyo)

There were other answers that I knew, or knew of, but spaced on, such as 49D: One of the Castros (Raul) and 58D: Microscopic Dr. Seuss characters (Whos) and 60A: German honey (frau) - the last of which I spaced on because I thought they meant "honey" such as Pooh Bear is fond of.

Some potential Pantheoners make a strong showing here, including 39A: Jingle creator (adman) and 57D: Eyeball (ogle) and 13D: Hook hand (Smee).

I have to go prepare for work. I'll update the entry, with a few visuals, in the early afternoon. [I was wrong about this, sorry - by the time I had time to get back to this, it was time to do the next day's puzzle. My apologies]

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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WEDNESDAY, Jan. 24, 2007 - Gary Steinmehl

Solving time: 13:16

THEME: Desserts - all theme answers start with dessert names used in non-dessert contexts, e.g. 45A: Credit of a sort (brownie point)

This was not a good puzzle for me, as you can see my by Thursday- or Friday-like time. Did two Thursday puzzles (out of this book) just before I did this one, and both Thursdays were done in (much) better times than today's 13:16. What makes my slowness truly galling is that I know the answers - it's not like I got thrown by obscurity or ignorance. I got thrown by my inability to see the contours for the phrases - that is, to see where words in multiple-word answers began and ended. I was further thrown by my inability to see PIE as a name, let alone a dessert, despite the fact that not only do I know who PIE TRAYNOR (17A (THEME): Pittsburgh Hall-of-Fame third baseman) is - I can quote a "Simpsons" line with PIE TRAYNOR's name in it! I am currently cuing up "Homer at the Bat" (from Season Three) - nope, the quotation isn't there, though in that episode, PIE TRAYNOR is the third baseman on Mr. Burns's first proposed team of ringers for his Power Plant softball team. Hmmm, I'll try "Dancing Homer" (Season Two, when Homer briefly becomes the mascot for the minor league Springfield Isotopes) - I know the quotation is out there somewhere ... HA, YES! Stupid internet didn't have the quotation, but my beautiful, faithful DVDs and my ridiculous infinite patience have rewarded me with the quotation I was seeking! Homer is sad when Mr. Burns sits right next to him at the Power Plant-sponsored Family Night at the ballpark, figuring his good, beer-drinking time will be ruined. But then he and Burnsie start having fun, drinking, doing the wave, etc. Toward the end of the game, the Isotopes look certain to lose, and after watching a 'tope strike out (the second out of the ninth inning), Burns exclaims:

"Damnation! These banjos couldn't carry PIE TRAYNOR's glove!"


"Banjos," awesome. Burns's ridiculously old-timey speech gives me great pleasure. Now that I have confirmed that my memory is not totally faulty, on to the puzzle.

And back to PIE TRAYNOR. I can't tell you how long I stared at PIETR-YNOR and thought "PIETRO? Was there an Italian baseball player named PIETRO YNOR?" This was at the end of my solving experience, after I (supposedly) had the theme. Didn't see PIE. Instead, thinking it was some dumb-ass, made-up dessert like NAPOLEON (29A (THEME): The man from U.N.C.L.E. (Napoleon Solo)), I thought "PIETRA? PIETRI? PIETRO? Italian dessert?" I couldn't even see PIE, let alone PIE [space] TRAYNOR. All because _IDE_E CAMP (18D: With 53-Down, officer's helper) meant nothing to me. An officer is helped by a CAMP? RIDERE CAMP? SIDELE CAMP? Ugh. I don't even remember how I finally arrived at the correct AIDE DE CAMP. So, baseball and French, two things I know something about ... end up crushing my skull. FOYT (5D: Four-time Indy winner) always breaks me, too; I get the -OYT part, and then can never remember what the @#$#-ing consonant is. FOYT is a stupid, hick name. And the F-cross (5A: Easy mark, in cards (fish)) provided no help - not a term I've heard much, if at all.

30D: Infrequent: Abbr. (occ.)
32A: Turn-of-the-century year (DCC)

I had the final "C" of 32A, but not yet having AIDE DE CAMP - which provides the "D" in DCC - I couldn't decide what "year" the damned clue was talking about. Too vague a clue. Arbitrary, stupid clue. Worse, though, is OCC. I had O-C and just stared at it. When is OCC. used as an Abbr.? I know it's (probably ) short for "OCCasionally," but still, ick. I was starting to think that I'd spelled NAPOLEON wrong, and the first letter might be "A" ... that's how stupidly frustrated I got by this one square. Grrr.

9A: Pale hue (aqua)

I never think of AQUA as "pale," though I suppose it has legitimate claim to that designation. On the count of three, all crossworders everywhere will tell me the four-letter answer I instinctively entered here. One, two, three! ECRU! Is that word in the Pantheon, 'cause it should be. ECRU gave me the "E" in ELM (9D: Workable wood), though sadly the answer was not ELM but ASH. That whole NE corner might have been an utter disaster if TEN (23A: Perfect rating) hadn't bailed me out, giving me the terminal letter combination for the two five-letter Downs, 10D: "Indubitably!" ("Quite!") and 11D: Starving (unfed), both of which were very hard to see with just their final letters in place.

47D: Bewhiskered beast (walrus)
64A: _____ salad (tuna)
54A: California river named for a common sight in it (Eel)

With FISH and AQUA in the far north of the puzzle, these two southern hemisphere-dwellers continue our surprisingly deep nautical theme. We could even stretch it to include a first MATE (63A: Spouse) whose ship has SUNK (16A: Done for) off the coast of ELBA (38D: Site of a notable exile). The MATE ASKS (67A: Sets, as a price) for help via RADIO (65A: Dashboard feature), but in the end he is not SPARED (24A: Let go) from a briny death, and a ONE-WAY (49D: Arrow words) ticket to see PETER (48D: Fizzle out) at the Pearly Gates. Now that that little anecdote is over, I can tell you that I am from California, and I don't know that I ever saw a "river" in the state during my entire 12 years living there. Any "rivers" were usually (if not always) dry. River beds, not actual rivers. The fact that there are EELS anywhere in California comes as a total shock to me. As for ELBA, I like the tie-in with NAPOLEON at 29A. Nice.

Most of the rest of this puzzle was tractable. Liked seeing Rhoda's mom IDA (60D: TV's Mrs. Morgenstern) in the puzzle. Nancy Walker is perhaps best known, of course, as Rosie the waitress from the old "Quicker Picker Upper" Bounty commercials. Or is that the "You're soaking in it!" lady? No, "You're soaking in it" was from Palmolive ads featuring "Madge," played by actress Jan Miner. Commercials used to be so much better, somehow. Throw in Mr. Whipple here, and you have a holy trinity of 70's advertising.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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THURSDAY, Jan. 11, 2007 - Lee Glickstein and Nancy Salomon

Solving time: 11:08

THEME: "ADD-ICT" - Common expressions have ICT added to them to make odd expressions, which are then clued. 62A tells you the theme: Fiend ... or a hint to this puzzle's theme (addict)

I feel very good this morning, despite an only slightly better-than-average Thursday time (I give myself a B+). After yesterday's debacle, and after doing Several Puzzles in a Row in my Shortz "Greatest Hits" puzzle book wherein I had 1-3 squares wrong in Wednesday and Thursday puzzles, it was nice to complete a puzzle, with no extended struggle, and to have the applet accept my first grid submission. The other reason I'm happy - uh, this puzzle was hard. There were multiple times when I managed to get past a really difficult part and immediately thought "man, that was rough - that's gonna trip someone up" (usually that someone is me). Examples below.

I am still waiting for confirmation from someone that yesterday's Homer quotation was in fact genuine and not an internet myth grown to stellar proportions. I wouldn't want the paper to have print another retraction - as they had to do recently when SARA LEE got clued [Company that owns the brands Playtex, Kiwi and Hillshire Farm] - doesn't own Playtex anymore, apparently - but facts are facts and I want facts. Not factiness. Speaking of "The Colbert Report" (which I just did, whether you knew it or not), I was terrifically happy yesterday when I was flipping through the latest issue of Previews - massive catalogue of upcoming comics releases .... [cough] ... ["Nerd!"] ... -
and I noticed a number of high-profile ads for the upcoming comic book adaptation of Mr. Colbert's unpublished "Tek Jansen" novel. Here is the promotional blurb:

Solar plexus! Bursting out from the hit Comedy Central show, The Colbert Report — it’s Stephen Colbert’s Tek Jansen! In this stunning continuation of Stephen Colbert’s critically acclaimed, yet unpublished prose novel, everyone’s favorite sci-fi hero must stand against the enemies of freedom, no matter what dark planet they crawl from!

I ordered the series - which won't be in stores for three months. I'll let you know how it is.

THE THORNS

31D: Glimpse (aperçu)

This clue/answer pairing is an ass-pain on many levels. First, APERÇU implies "insight" or "special understanding," where [Glimpse] just suggests "sight." Second, the clue skews more verb-ward than noun-ward, likely causing many mental forays into Useless-ville. Third, holy cow, what the hell ends in -CU??? Without the cedille on that C, that C really really wants to be hard (!). But the U comes from EMU (48A: Noted Australian sprinter), and how could EMU be wrong when it gave me the M that allowed me to get the great and manifestly correct 30D: "Rah!" (Go team!) (where formerly I had HUZZAH, which is making me laugh even as I type it)? In the end, APERÇU was about as palpably physical an "aha" moment as I've had in a while. Exhilarating.

36A (THEME): Order to act one's age? (maturity d-ICT-ate)

Was working on this before I had the theme, and the only thing that second word wanted to be was some form of DIRECT ... DIRECTIVE ... DIRECTION ... ? I had even written in DIRECT, which left me one letter shy of the end of the answer. I figured if I just let DIRECT hang out there for a while, something would happen. Strangely, though it was wrong, its "T" helped me confirm the correct GO TEAM (30D, see above). Now that I look at this whole mid-Atlantic region of the puzzle, it's very very France-circa-WWII. Two French military answers: 35D: 1944 battle site (St. Lo) and 44A: Encamp (bivouac) (the latter apparently comes from the French, via probably Swiss-German). Then APERÇU and Albert Camus, too (that's a rhyme!): 29D: Camus subject (plague). ST. LO is pure crosswordese - a very handy four-letter combo I know only from doing crosswords. I was happy to traipse through this mid-Atlantic region relatively unscathed. I had to work for it, but I could easily have fallen flat on my face, and didn't.

60A: Required (need be)

I can't tell you how befuddled I was by this. Time-wise, I didn't get chewed up too badly, but I ran into an apparent Unstoppable Force / Immovable Object problem when this answer, which I had understandably entered as NEEDED, rammed its final "D" right into the "E" of 58D: Firmed up (set), which, true to its name, would not budge. "NEEDLE? How is a NEEDLE 'Required?'" It was left for me to pick up the "B," which I did only by finally (duh) getting the gist of 57D: "The Office" address? - I had N_C, and I figured the answer was something web-related, or something having to do with business-speak or somebody's title in an office. Of course, if I'd bothered to notice the quotation marks around "The Office," it might have dawned on me sooner that the Office in question was the TV show of that name (which, semi-ironically, is one of only 4 or so shows that I actually watch). So NBC. That's the "address" of the show. OK. NEED BE. Wow. Another thorn that impeded but did not halt my forward progress.

49A: "The Odd Couple," for one (Simon P-ICT-ure)

As of right now, I have no idea what SIMON PURE is. Once you add the ICT, then I get the clue, but what is this expression that is being modified??? OK, I am calling in my resident Restoration and 18th century expert on this one. So, Shaun, when you read this, please respond. Apparently the phrase "The (real) SIMON PURE" dates from the early 18th century and comes from "The name of a Quaker in Mrs. Centlivre's comedy A bold stroke for a wife (1717), who is impersonated by another character during part of the play." So "the real SIMON PURE" is the genuine article, not a fake. At least one on-line dictionary suggests that the phrase might also be used derisively, to mean "superficially or hypocritically virtuous." Do people use this expression nowadays, or even know it? Yes, I'm talking to you.

Speaking of "Odd Couple," Christina ROSSETTI (9D: "Goblin Market" poet Christina), meet Horatio ALGER (41A: Author of "Jed, the Poor House Boy"). She writes wistful sonnets, and he exhorts boys to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.

The SW was where I made my last stand, and after my first pass through the Across clues, it was still wide open. But 49D: Chesterfield, e.g. (sofa) - everything I know about furniture I learned from the NYT Crossword - gave me the first letters of all the longish answers down there, 51D: Bleu parts of French maps (mers) [sacré bleu, more French] gave me their third letters, and everything fell from there. Really liked Jackie Robinson's number getting the fully written-out treatment: 59A: Jackie Robinson wore it (forty-two) (which also marks the strange, strange return to the puzzle of the number "42" (see Tuesday's puzzle)).

Wrong Fill

• CALVIN for ARMANI -1A: Big name in menswear and cologne
• REVELLED (?) and then CAVILLED (!?!?!) for CAVORTED - 38D: Made merry

(More) Stuff I Didn't Know

• 12D: Son of Ramses I (Seti) - sure, OK, whatever you say
• 8D: It's to the left of # (Oper.) - this is on a telephone keypad, right? Did not know that. Kept looking at my own computer keyboard and seeing only "@" and "2"
• 37D: Group whose 1946 song "The Gypsy" was #1 for 13 weeks (Ink Spots) - not THE INK SPOTS? Worst band name ever.
• 20D: Harvard's motto (veritas) - I pieced this together easily enough, but didn't know it, exactly. Pretty pompous motto.

Hot Fill

• 16A: Fit of rage (apoplexy) - one of the greatest words to grace the grid in a while
• 5D: Not very potent potable (Near Beer) - great, Jeopardy-esque clue with super-fresh answer

Given that 7A: Sticking points (morasses) crossed with 7D: Kind of nest (mare's) in the NE, I'm really surprised I didn't have trouble there. APOPLEXY is up there too. That corner is all bark and no bite ... and 99 44/00 Awesome.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Note on Today's NY SUN puzzle

Solving time: 14:06

This puzzle warrants mentioning for some fabulous fill, including 1A: Lila Crane portrayer in "Psycho" (Vera Miles), 32D: Alternative to Golden Crinkles (Tater Tots), 38D: She played Prue on "Charmed" (Shannen), and the very very best answer of 'em all, 14: Simpsonian institution (Kwik-E-Mart). Who Needs the Kwik-E-Mart!? I dooooooooooooo. This puzzle is also awesome because I got to use my knowledge of the fabulous but rarely seen word "ecdysiast" (41D: Is an ecdysiast (strips)) and because I got to use recently acquired obscure TV knowledge in answering 45D: Ralph of "The Waltons" (Waite). I'm also a big fan of the DIME NOVEL (17A: Early paperback) if not, at all, a big fan of REBA (20A: Sitcom title character with the last name Hart).

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WEDNESDAY, Jan. 3, 2007 - Kim Seidl

Solving time: 5:57

THEME: Game Pieces, I think - Theme answers begin with board game pieces: TOKEN (20A), MARBLE (32A), PAWN (41A), DIE (52A)

It took me a long time to figure out this puzzle's theme for some reason, but who cares - I posted my Fastest Time Ever for Wednesday, and am currently at #29 on the leaderboard (out of 219 solvers) at the Times site, which is ... insane, for me. Never happens. I was several minutes ahead of my average for a Wednesday, I crushed my normal competition, and my name now sits among names of people who are Way Better Than I Am. I'm in full Tournament Mode now. Two-and-a-half months to go. I'm expecting my ACPT registration material in the mail any moment now. C Division, here I come (reality: I will get stomped by much better solvers, but I'm enjoying exuding fake bravado at the moment)!

6A: Nascar's Gordon (Jeff)

How well were things going for me last night? Well, for example, the second clue I looked at was a NASCAR clue (ugh) ... and it was a gimme! I believe there are only about three imaginable NASCAR clues in the known universe that are gimmes for me, and this is one of them. In fact, this is the first answer I filled in. Thank you, NASCAR. There was also one real sport referenced in the grid today: 5D: Slalom alternative (downhill).

37A: Nancy of "Access Hollywood" (O'Dell)
40A: Do, for example (note)
43A: It should be low on a diamond (E.R.A.)

These are the answers that cross the Western Plains of this puzzle, and they were all very elusive, for different reasons. In the first place, "Access Hollywood?" Look, there's lowbrow - of which I'm generally a fan - and then there's Nobrow, or Unibrow, or in my case, Furrowedbrow. I knew a Tara and a Bobby O'DELL growing up. I am familiar with the Farmer in the DELL. My old crappy crash-prone computer was A DELL. My DELL knowledge ends there. And my "Access Hollywood" knowledge ends where it begins, which is nowhere. I only just now figured out what 40A was getting at - First thought "Do" was a verb, then thought it was a hairstyle; only now figured out that it is what the answer says it is: a NOTE (e.g. a deer, a female deer). I object to the baseball clue here. "Should" be low? The pitcher would like it to be low, I guess. But it's not an absolute. There's nothing in the rules about its being low. Batters don't want the pitcher's E.R.A. to be low - and there are several pitching stats more important than E.R.A. Cork SHOULD NOT be in your bat, pine tar SHOULD NOT be on your pitching hand, but an E.R.A. can be wherever it wants to be, and the game goes on and there are no rule or propriety violations. "Should" shmould. If it weren't for the fairly easy Down clues here in the West - 32D: "Haystacks" painter (Monet) and 33D: Really go for (adore), I could have stalled very badly. As it was, I just stumbled a bit. It did take me a while, though to figure out the whole first half of the long 34D: Inhibitor (retardant).

1D: Sudden burst (spate)

So tricky for such an innocuous-seeming clue. I had _PA___ and boldly (wrongly) entered SPASM. Only got to SPATE on the clean-up (you know, when you go back into a patch of the puzzle that you've "solved" without looking at the crosses, and fix it). This morning, I noticed that my wife had a very different wrong SPA- answer in the same spot: SPARK. SPATE is the most apt word of all the words in question here, but ... I can't visualize a SPATE, which makes it unlikely to rise to the forefront of my mind. I'm sure SPATE has a physical form, but to me, it's just an abstract term.

26D: Handy (utile)


O my wife did not like this word. Really really didn't like it. She kept repeating it, derisively, as if it were the most contemptible, preposterous word on the planet. In fact, before settling on it, she asked "UTILE's not a word, is it?" I was sorry to inform her that it is, in fact, a word. Not a good one, but a word nonetheless. IKON was similarly dissatisfying to her (30D: Sacred image: Var.). Not sure why that was easy for me. Maybe because I had the -KO- and the spelling seemed familiar, probably from some Greek something I came across somewhere (not that I can read Greek at all). I like the friction of IKON against FATWA (29D: Islamic decree) against CIAO (35D: "Bye"). Lots of good exoticism. Actually, there's French and Italian and Hebrew (EZRA's Hebrew, right?) and Latin all over this puzzle. Oooh, and Brazilian (PAULO, 14A).

53D: The Soup _____ (Nazi)
54D: Shrek, for one (ogre)

Speaking of compelling grid friction, these two stand scarily side-by-side at the very bottom (deepest pit of hell) of the puzzle. I object to the Seinfeldian frame of reference here, and the smug certainty (probably warranted, sadly) that Times solvers will know and enjoy remembering the Soup NAZI. I prefer remembering Michael Richards's racist tirade, but to each his own. Wife - who's getting pretty opinionated about the puzzle, I'm realizing - accused the OGRE clue of being "unimaginative" based solely on the fact that she had seen OGRE clued almost exactly the same way (via Shrek) in her book of NYT puzzles that she's working currently working her way through. My only question: if you decide that the bottom of the puzzle is hell, so bad that you would put a NAZI and and OGRE there, why would you also put the A-TEAM down there (48D: Starters)? Yeah, they blow lots of stuff up, but they're the good guys. Who else is going to rescue your daughter from the lair of a drug kingpin who is secretly being funded by government officials? No one, that's who.

10D: Rosie of "Fearless" (Perez)
49D: Head of costume design (Edith)
36A: Dark genre (noir)

Hot Movie Answers! I never saw Fearless, but I did see and enjoy Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing, which features a very memorable opening dance number by Ms. Perez (she's good as Mookie's baby's mama, too).
EDITH Head (great clue by the way) was only the most famous movie costume designer of the middle of the century, nominated for 34 Academy Awards (won 8 times). I don't think a costume designer has ever done more for an actress's image and career than EDITH Head did for Grace Kelly - Head designed costume for Kelly's roles in her two most iconic movies: Rear Window and To Catch a Thief. Man those movies are good. NOIR is my favorite genre of all time. I'm directing a graduate student's Independent Study on Film Noir this coming term, which is more fun than work for me. Speaking of NOIR, Edith HEAD designed costumes for Ingrid Bergman in Hitchcock's awesome noir flick Notorious (1946). I haven't even mentioned Frances Farmer, Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland - the whole elegant look of the mid-century female film star is basically Edith HEAD's doing. God bless her. And God bless America.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

NY SUN Solving time: 8:09 - KETEL ONE eluded me to the very end, which seems impossible, but it's true. Also stared at the single box where LAW and SOWED cross for many, many seconds, finally getting the "W" only after plugging in every previous letter in the alphabet.

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MONDAY, Jan. 1, 2007 - Randy Sowell

Solving time: 5:32

THEME: BOWLS (39A) - four theme entries are all two-word phrases, the first word of which is also the title of a College Football Bowl Game: ROSE GARDEN (3D), ORANGE CRUSH (53A), COTTON CANDY (21A), and SUGAR SHACK (30D)

I just spent an hour tearing up my house trying to find a stupid little piece of paper - I was unsuccessful. So I feel like I am losing my mind, which is always a good way to start the New Year. In order to mellow out, I decided I'd do the puzzle (somehow it always surprises me when Monday's puzzle appears so early on Sunday evening - you'd think I'd be used to it by now). And I can't say doing the puzzle relaxed me (I'm never happy if I'm over 5 minutes), but it sure took my mind off my early-onset dementia. The piece of paper itself is totally replaceable - it's just the idea that I would lose something that drives me Crazy. There are few things I hate more than losing things. I thought Crosswords were supposed to Sharpen your mental faculties. Where is the payoff!?

1A: Mrs. Dithers of the comics (Cora)

Man, not knowing 1A on a Monday is just a horrible feeling. And I'm supposed to Know Something about comics. Ugh. Um, this woman is Dagwood Bumstead's boss's wife, which I deem obscure, thereby eliminating my state of self-loathing for blanking on this answer. For future reference, [Red Sox infielder] will do the job for CORA. Or did they trade him? Nope, he's signed through 2008, despite his crappy batting statistics.

9A: County, in Britain (shire)

Why didn't I know this right off the bat? Probably because I try to put all Hobbit / LOTR-related things far, far out of my mind whenever possible. Again, a better clue (for my sensibilities) would be [Actress Talia].

25A: "It's not easy _____ green" (bein')

No "g," eh? OK. I nearly went past this one, thinking "BEING is five letters," but then the thought of clipping the word, hick-style, occurred to me, and I decided, rightly, to risk it. The greenness here is synesthetically echoed in the SW by 59A: Cape _____ Islands (Verde). I like that VERDE is sitting just under the ORANGE in ORANGE CRUSH, as ORANGE is my favorite color, while VERDE is my wife's.

33D: President before Taylor (Polk)

Everything I know about James K. Polk can be found right here.

53D: "Metamorphoses" poet (Ovid)

I don't have anything particular to say about Ovid (whom I love, as you know), but since he's here, I thought, why not add a little light to your lives, and this new year, by giving you a little taste of his genius. One of the great things about "Metamorphoses" is the opening Creation story, which has many many Biblical parallels, including God (Jove) going all Wrath and Vengeance on the stupid, wicked human beings. Like Lycaon (whom Jove has just turned into a wolf, the poem's first metamorphosis), humankind is greedy and self-worshiping and needs to be taken down. Or out. So like the Hebrew God, Jove, after toying with the idea of fire, brings down a world-destroying flood. "So now Jove set his mind to the deletion / Of these living generations" The translation is from Ted Hughes, and I love Hughes's modern phrasing, as well as his wickedly effective capacity for understatement. "Deletion," like Jove is going to wipe out humanity with his keyboard. His rendering of the final lives of Ovid's flood story are (like all good poetry) truly horrifying:

Birds grow tired of the air.
The ocean, with nowhere else to go,
Makes its bed in the hills,
Pulling its coverlet over bare summits.

While starvation picks off the survivors.

Drowned mankind, imploring limbs outspread,
Floats like a plague of dead frogs.

5D: Like many evangelicals (reborn)

Hmmm, I guess this is right. "Born again" is the more common phrase, but the gist of the meaning is the same. According to Wikipedia, there are Lots of different meanings for REBORN. Here is my favorite.

14A: Breakfast chain (IHOP)
2D: "Gone With the Wind" surname (O'Hara)

IHOP wants into the Pantheon. What a coincidence - I want into IHOP, nearly every day of my life. I'm not sure why I didn't kick off the New Year this morning by eating my way under the table at IHOP. Maybe this weekend. I like that my favorite restaurant chain intersects with one of my very favorite authors - two of my favorite authors, actually. I know it's clued to GWTW, but O'HARA to me means John (novelist) and Frank (poet), unrelated except in their greatness. John wrote novel after novel about the habits, mores, and rituals of Eastern Pennsylvanians - I know that doesn't sound hot, but the guy has the sharpest eye for detail and the sharpest ear for dialogue and I could open nearly any one of his novels at random and start reading, with pleasure. Frank O'HARA was a major mid-century poet who was very very involved in the modern art scene in Manhattan (friends with De Kooning, among others). He died in a freak dune buggy accident on Fire Island. It's true. Like you'd want that on your obit. Anyway, his poems are gorgeous, if often hard to make sense of. Best of all, he was obsessed with and wrote many poems about the color ORANGE:

Frank O'Hara, "Having A Coke With You" (1960)

is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluoresent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I'm with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o'clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles

and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them

I look

at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it's in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven't gone to yet so we can go together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn't pick the rider as carefully
as the horse

it seems they were all cheated of some marvellous experience

which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I am telling you about it

Happy 2007, everyone.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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FRIDAY, Dec. 22, 2006 - Mike Nothnagel

Solving time: untimed, but fast

THEME: none

I am very sorry that of all the puzzles I've done in the past three months, this is the first one that gets the abbreviated commentary treatment, because it truly deserves my full attention. This is one of the best Friday puzzles I've done since I began the blog - it's got that sizzling, surprising, Quarfootian quality that I Luhhhhve in a puzzle. There is Nothing dull or old-fashioned or painful about the puzzle at all. It's super-clever in its cluing and fresh and inventive in its fill. Really first rate.

The whole NE is some kind of miracle quadrant. 8D: Lecture follow-up (Q and A) has been done before, sure, but its "Q" and (first) "A" crosses are phenomenal: 8A: Special delivery? (quints) made me very happy, and 16A: When some hands join (at noon) really blew me away - but I'm a sucker for longer entries that include short words normally left out of answers - indefinite articles, definite articles, and (in this case) prepositions. 11D: Rarely (not often) is fairly unremarkable, but it sparkles here because, as a negative, it contrasts beautifully with its much more positive (and deliciously dated) neighbor to the east, 12D: 100% (to the max).


I had FOUR gimmes in this puzzle, which is a ton for me, for a Friday. The first thing I filled in was 53A: Met who won the 1985 Cy Young Award (Gooden) - that's right at the tail end of my dorky-teen / baseball-card-collecting phase (I'm being told the "dorky-teen" part was not a phase, just a state of being). Gooden was a force of nature. Then he won a World Series. THE World Series. Then he coked out, right? Or was that Strawberry? Anyhoo, speaking of THE World Series, another baseball gimme lies just across the grid: 41D: Winner of the first World Series (as the "Americans") [Red Sox]. RED SOX were of course the infamous losers of THE World Series (1986). I wasn't sure if the answer was BOSTON or REDSOX, but I knew it. BOSTON seems more accurate - how can a team that doesn't exist yet win anything? That's like saying Ali beat Liston. Clay beat Liston. Still, I don't care, 'cause I knew this one cold.

I like the two other gimmes because they are so colorful, and from opposite ends of the pop culture spectrum (high and low brow). 30A: Wonderland directive made me think EAT ME before I'd even looked to see how many letters it was. EAT ME is just a great phrase, and I'm glad someone found a way to get around its apparent profanity to work it into a puzzle. I grew up listening to INXS (Aussies), and I really liked them, so it's mildly depressing to see them clued here at the nadir of their career as 10D: Band featured on the reality show "Rock Star". Should have been called "Who Wants To Replace Our Singer, Who Died From Auto-Erotic Asphyxiation?"

My proudest correct guess of the puzzle: with only the final "T," I got 57A: Stumblebum (galoot). The very long crossing fill in this puzzle - 15D: Clinical trial phenomenon (placebo effect) and 34A: Superstition that a rookie's second season will fail (sophomore season) were remarkably easy to get. That latter clue needs to be re-written, though. The rookie must have had a good first season ("rookie phenom"?) - and a rookie can't have a second season ... "a player's second season"? Superstition usually comes into play, or up for discussion, when rookie is no longer one.

Loved how this puzzle forced me to stick with answers that just seemed Wrong when partially filled in, e.g. 32A: Relaxed (Type B) - "What ends in "-EB???" - and that mysterious "X" floating out in the middle of 55A: Doesn't let differences cause conflict, what could that be? Answer: COEXISTS. Loved also the clever cluing in 29D: It can help you carry a tune (iPod) - mine will be helping me carry thousands of tunes tomorrow on a flight to Denver (fingers crossed). Thought that 28D: Rescuee's cry (My hero!) should have had "in cartoons" or "in melodrama" appended to the clue. Again, as I did recently with "TGIF," I take issue with the idea that anyone, anywhere, actually "cried" this phrase.

NW was the last to fall, mainly because of perhaps the most insidious clue of the bunch - never has a three-letter answer stymied me for so long. I wanted 7D: It helps in passing to be DEE or CEE. Then, when I totally nailed 17A: "Sold!" (It's a deal!), I knew that the final letter was A, so I thought "wow, how cute: AN A. That sure does help in passing. But that meant that a word would have to end in -NP, which I was willing to believe for a while, given other odd letter combos in the puzzle. But then 14A: Shop steward, briefly (union rep) became undeniable, giving me _EA, and then the full weight of the clue's sinisterness hit me. "Passing" as in "passing a (@#$#-ing) law." YEA (as opposed to NAY). Genius. Seriously. If only I had known my non-baseball-related 80s questions - 1A: Seminal computer game of 1989 (Sim City) and 19A: 1982 Richard Pryor flick (The Toy), the whole NW might have been much easier, and the YEA issue might never have come up.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS Damn, this commentary wasn't "abbreviated" at all. I gotta work on this "writing less" thing.

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MONDAY, Dec. 18, 2006 - Donna Levin

Solving time: 6:36

THEME: The War on Christmas - one week before the birth of Our Lord, the Times decides that Christmas is just another "holiday," along with KWANZAA and HANUKKAH - somebody call Bill O'Reilly! or Stephen Colbert! Where's the outrage!?

Seriously, though, the theme was "Holiday decoration" - a clue used for three different 15-letter theme answers: 17A: CHRISTMAS WREATH, 37A: KWANZAA UNITY CUP (new to me), and 57A: HANUKKAH MENORAH. God knows (really, he does, I'm sure) how to spell HANUKKAH in English. I think there are at least two different spelling conventions, if not more. That, and the mysterious UNITY CUP thing kept me from flying through this the way I like to on a Monday, though I will say I felt like I was flying. I never stopped typing - but I had to correct a lot of wrong fill along the way, and never got a good rhythm going. O well. It's a cute little holiday puzzle.

2D: Liniment target (ache)

Without blinking I wrote ACNE, and so instead of seeing that the long theme answer at 17A began CHR... which would have given me at least five more letters as gimmes, I was presented with the baffling CNR... another rebus, perhaps? Who knows, I'm too busy madly bouncing around the grid and pounding the keyboard to find out ('til very late in the game). I used to think of OCALA (14A: Central Florida city) as a real puzzle player, a Pantheon prospect, but I think this is the first I've seen him in three months of blogging. Where has he been? Injured? Traveling? He should get out more often. Besides ACNE (for ACHE), other fill I got wrong initially included FUSE for WELD (6A: Solder), MALL for MART (53A: Shopping place), IOTA for WISP (46A: Fleeting trace), and, most appropriately, OOPS for OH NO (25A: "This looks bad!") and MUFF for GOOF (35A: Flub).

41A: Memo opener (in re)
60A: Abbr. before a colon (attn)
10D: Shorthand pro (steno)

It's like a generic 1950's office in here, what with STENOs writing memos that read ATTN so-and-so, IN RE: this and that, etc. IN RE is fabulous short fill that I know only from puzzles. Rarely use it (or see it) in real life. My first thought on seeing the clue for 60A was that the answer must be RECTO-, but it doesn't it, and doesn't quite pass the breakfast table test. Plus RECTOCOLON is a very uncommon term, returning only 183 Google hits. 976 if you put a hyphen in there. By the way, doctors recommend that you don't put a hyphen in there.

11D: The "E" in Q.E.D. (erat)
21A: Numbered work of a composer (opus)
42A: Plural of 21-Across (opera)
49D: Famed Roman censor (Cato)

Latinity! First two were gimmes, but o my god my years of Latin training disappeared when I hit 42A. I mean, if you had asked me that in casual conversation, I probably could have told you without thinking, but in the middle of puzzle frenzy, my brain came up empty. Weird feeling, like forgetting your mother-in-law's name or what day of the week it is. Puzzle-solving has made me hyper-attuned to how quickly (or slowly) my brain is able to retrieve information. I feel as though it's all downhill from here - any time I make up through practicing solving puzzles will be lost by the slow but inevitable decline in mental agility and ... my god, even writing this sentence is taxing my knowledge-retrieval abilities. Must move on. I don't think I knew CATO was a "censor." He is the author of a history of Rome, many political speeches, and many maxims, and was a staple of Latin education throughout the Middle Ages - though a group of very popular writings called The Distichs of Cato, which circulated in the Middle Ages, is probably not by Cato at all; but the fact that it was attributed to him tells you what kind of cachet his name had, especially where Latin learning and history were concerned. Hey, did you know that (according to Wikipedia) "In 205 BC, Cato was appointed quaestor?" Woo hoo, "Var." of QUESTOR (see yesterday's puzzle)! ["Why is he so excited?" "I don't know - let's just move on"]

34A: Like a pitcher's perfect game (no-hit)
28D: Hopeless, as a situation (no-win)

These intersect at the "O" - nice. They are not opposites, but they're close. With OH NO (25), we have three appearances of "NO" in this puzzle. NO NO NO. Where's the HO HO HO? I mean, is this a CHRISTMAS puzzle or isn't it?

4D: Business that routinely overcharges (clipjoint)
35D: Ship-to-shore accessway (gangplank)

This may be the most glorious long fill I've ever seen in a Monday puzzle. Makes me think it probably should have been a Tuesday (see my time), but whatever. Will's the boss. I own a fabulous novel by Fredric Brown called The Fabulous Clipjoint (part of my fabulous ginormous vintage paperback collection) - and though I've read the novel and I've stared at its glorious cover a billion times, I don't know that I could have told you what the word "clipjoint" meant before right now. I had the first four letters of that answer and thought "Huh, must have something to do with coupons..." and had to move on and come back to it. GANGPLANK - man, that's a great word, and it creates a nice, big "K" pile-up at the bottom of the puzzle, what with HANUKKAH and its crosses OINK (44D) and KAT (58D: Krazy _____ of the comics) down there. And I haven't even mentioned the pretty great GYPSYMOTH (36D: Insect whose larvae destroy foliage), with its two "Y"'s. All four of the nine-letter non-theme answers cut across two Theme answers. Seriously, this is a Monday puzzle?

56D: Lt. Kojak (Theo)

Who loves ya, baby?! This is some TV obscurity, especially (again) for a Monday. ["Cosby Show" son] might have been more readily gettable. [Sox GM Epstein]? [Cager Ratliff]? But no, go for the lollipop-licking Lieutenant, the bald badass himself. Telly! Is "Kojak" on DVD, because I'm getting a craving.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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