Gulf of Aqaba resort city / FRI 11-28-14 / Trading insider Boesky / Space blanket material / Italian port on the Tyrrhenian Sea / Theater magnate Marcus / Mother of the Freedom Movement, to friends / Tolkien protagonist

Constructor: Tracy Gray

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: BLACK FRIDAY (56A: Time of annual madness … or a hint to four squares in this puzzle) — rebus in which "SALE" appears in four different squares.

Theme answers:

• JERUSALEMCROSS / SALERNO
• SPRINGSALEAK / NEWSALERT
• ROSALEEPARKS / SALEM'SLOT
• ADAM'SALE/ESALEN

Word of the Day: ESALEN (64A: Big Sur institute) —

The Esalen Institute, commonly just called Esalen, is a retreat center and intentional community in Big Sur, California, which focuses upon humanistic alternative education. Esalen is a nonprofit organization devoted to activities such as personal growth, meditation, massage, Gestalt, yoga, psychology, ecology, spirituality, and organic food. The institute offers more than 500 public workshops a year, in addition to conferences, research initiatives, residential work-study programs, and internships.

Esalen was founded by Michael Murphy and Dick Price in 1962. Their goal was to explore work in the humanities and sciences, in order to fully realize what Aldous Huxley had called the "human potentialities".

Esalen is located about 45 miles (72 km) south of Monterey and nine miles (14 km) north of Lucia. Esalen is situated on 120 acres of Big Sur coast. The grounds were once home to a Native American tribe known as the Esselen, from which the institute got its name. (wikipedia)

• • •

A puzzle to celebrate idiotic consumerism. Great. Fantastic.


Even if I didn't find the "madness" this puzzle is celebrating slightly repugnant, even if I was a huge love of BLACK FRIDAY shopping, I would still have found this puzzle wanting. There were a couple big reasons for this:

1. It's just a SALE rebus. I mean, that's it. Straight. Basic. Kind of dull. If you're going to have a revealer like BLACK FRIDAY, it seems like you could exploit black squares or the letters FRI or something, anything interesting. That's certainly what a Fireball or American Values Club or other high-end independent outlet would've done. Something truly creative. This is simply a SALE rebus. Four SALEs. I do not see how this is an adequate way to represent a self-described "Time of annual madness." Four SALEs is not madness. It's barely Presidents' Day weekend.
2. While the theme does get us a couple nice rebus-containing answers (SALEM'S LOT, and, especially, NEWS ALERT), it also gets us dreadful old crosswordy answers like the ADAM'S ALE / ESALEN crossing, and the improbable and utterly uncrossworthy middle-name version of Rosa Parks's name. Also, SALEM and JERUSALEM are too related to inhabit the same grid. Salem, in the bible, is the "royal city of Melchizedek, traditionally identified with Jerusalem." This is where other SALEMs get their name. I consider JERUSALEM and SALEM dupes. Bad form.

Fill overall is middling, with EILAT and SHMO being the most irksome stuff (though that ALOHAS MESON SYST bank is pretty rough, too). Most of the rest is solid, but none of the non-theme stuff really shines. The main difficulties in this puzzle were a. figuring out that there was a theme at all (who's looking for it on Friday?), and b. just finding out where those four squares were. I didn't know until quite late that there was a theme. I had almost all the N and NE worked out. But I had SPRINGS A - (crossing NEWS RT, which I didn't blink at). So I thought there was a rebus of some kind, but from where I was sitting, it looked like the rebus was "LEAK." Then I scanned the clues to see if there was a revealer, and found it, and then things got much easier from there. The cluing is really uninspired on this one. I'm looking around for clues to single out for praise, and honestly don't see any. Seems like your big blow-out BLACK FRIDAY puzzle should be bolder and more creative than this. So many people will be working the puzzle today—what the hell else are you gonna do, stuck at home with the family you've already spent so much time with? Why not give solvers something daring, bold, and truly tricky?

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Cockney pal of Mary Poppins / FRI 11-23-12 / Blowgun dart poison / Kylver Stone letter / Leaf bisectors / Evan's best friend in Superbad / Mythological lyrist / TV character who said KO instead of OK

Constructor: Patrick Berry

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: RHYTHM STICK (4D: Elementary school percussion instrument) —

(n.)
a small wooden stick used, especially by a child, as a simple percussive instrument inlearning the rudiments of musical rhythm. (dictionary.com)

• • •

This is a fine grid, but I just couldn't find the Love. I struggled quite a bit, and the payoffs rarely seemed worth it. Also, I've simply never heard of a RHYTHM STICK (except in the Ian Dury song, posted above) or a DAYMARE (28D: Fight when it's light?) and I don't know who BERT is (48A: Cockney pal of Mary Poppins) and have only barely heard of MIDRIBS (probably in some other crossword) (35A: Leaf bisectors). Seeing the full phrases AT A LOW EBB and FROM A TO Z failed to excite me, and there's nothing else very 'zazzy in either of those corners.  I think the NW is the nicest area by far. The rest is just fine, but lacks that Berryesque sparkle I know and love, though there are some fantastic clues. I especially liked 17A: Kids whose parents fight? for ARMY BRATS (that struggle *did* have a payoff) and 6D: One raise in Amish country for BARN (the second thing I put in the grid, right after TUBE).


On the other hand, some clues didn't do much for me. Found the Oprah quote irritating for a number of reasons—I like my maxims classical, or at least, you know, accurate. Who in the world can remember [Evan's best friend in "Superbad"]. I saw that movie. I know that SETH Rogen was in it, but ... that's not what's being asked here. People remember character names from "Superbad"? That seems unlikely. Oh, no. Sorry. McLovin'. That name, I remember. But SETH? Not so much. Of all things ORION is known for, I'm guessing walking on water is down the list (55A: He could walk on water, in myth). What kind of a horn is an ALTO HORN? (53A: Instruments also known as mellophones) Never heard of it, and thus clearly never heard of mellophones. How in the world is there a dutch cheese in queso relleno? So many things about this puzzle are at least mildly grimace-inducing.

Bullets:

• 10A: Biblical prophet who railed against idolatry (MICAH) — no idea. All from crosses.
• 15A: Big-eyed toy (CHIHUAHUA) — dog angle came easily to me, as I watched part of that dog show on NBC today (an ugly, prissy dog won, as usual).
• 26A: Minor-league team of Toledo (MUDHENS) — "M*A*S*H" to the rescue (at least I think that's how I know this)
• 34A: 1960s-'70s dance partner of Nureyev (FONTEYN) — figured this was Joan. It's Margot. This shows what I know. I had the -EYN ending and the rest was easy. 
• 57A: Musician/radio host Steven Van ___ (ZANDT) — from the E Street Band. And "The Sopranos."
• 11D: Org. that disarmed in 2005 (I.R.A.) — watched John Huston's "The Dead" (1987) earlier this evening, so Ireland was on my mind, even though that movie is based on a Joyce story and has zero to do with the I.R.A. ... oh, no, wait, I think there was some mention of republicanism. Pre-I.R.A. (movie was set in 1900s), but related.
• 40D: Blowgun dart poison (CURARE) — this is a pretty old-school crossword answer. Maybe I know it from somewhere else, but really, what are the odds?

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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1926 English channel crosser — FRIDAY, Nov. 27 2009 — Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of Shak / First U.S. computer to predict US election outcome

Constructor: Ed Sessa

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (minus tryptophan and 12yo scotch, probably more like Medium)

THEME: TURKEY LEFTOVERS (59A: Post-Thanksgiving fare) — two other answers begin A WING and A LEG, respectively

Word of the Day: Gertrude EDERLE (48D: 1926 English channel crosser) — Gertrude Caroline Ederle (October 23, 1905 – November 30, 2003) was an American competitive swimmer. In 1926, she became the first woman to swim across the English Channel. [as six-letter answers go, she's surprisingly common, though that didn't keep me from completely forgetting her today] (wikipedia)

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I did this post-Thanksgiving dinner, post chocolate pie w/ fresh whipped cream, post-12yo scotch (birthday gift), so I was feeling good but Not moving through the puzzle very well. The whole top part made me feel lost, esp. the NE. I hate the word ARISTOS so much (in that I refuse to believe anyone actually says it) that it never occurred to me at 8A: British V.I.P.'s to Brits. Not thrilled at the "I" part — ARISTOcratS are "important?" Now? Bah. Never heard of DENTON'S (16A: Dr. _____ (infant sleepers)), so the NE was a slog. All I could do was poke at things (an EL AL here (6D: JFK-to-TLV carrier), a NOGO there (33A: Scrubbed)). Then put in DOGS at 5D: Things near Baskerville Hall (I've been reading some A.C. Doyle lately) and despite its wrongness it helped me get CONSOLE (15A: Place for buttons) and then a couple Down answers off of that, and then whatever meager combination of letters I had at 17A: Hope born of desperation got me A WING AND A PRAYER. At this point I'm still assuming that the puzzle is themeless (it's Friday, after all).

The top would remain incomplete and patchy for a while as I moved via BONER (31D: Blockheaded move) and DEAD (39D: Gone to glory) into the bottom half of the puzzle. DEAD to DADE to SENSES to TRESSES (confirmed by ARAFAT and STIR) helped me make short work of the SE, *except* ... I couldn't remember EDERLE (48D: 1926 English Channel swimmer) at all and by the time I had that corner done, the name I had in place was EDERSE. Who is this EDERSE person I've never heard of? Is that a last name? Or is his name ED ERSE (I may have to add that to my roster of aliases)? Never ever occurred to me that 63A: Site for a seal, maybe would be anything but AIRHOSE. Your AIRHOSE would need a seal of some sort in order to maintain proper airflow. Or if it ever had a leak or tear. I really don't understand how AIRHOLE work unless the clue is *trying* to refer to the fact that seals (the aquatic mammals) have AIRHOLEs. But they don't. Do they? No. Or do you make a seal against an AIRHOLE in order to breathe out of it? Oh, so ... this clue is somehow referring to the holes that seals (aquatic mammals) might breathe out of??? Clue seems atrocious to me. I eventually changed that "S" to the "correct" "L" because I suddenly remembered EDERLE, but ... god bless you ED ERSE, wherever you are. It should have been you.

I am told that a seal's breathing hole (made in ice) is called an AGLU. Now there's a word you pray never to see in your puzzle.

I hereby REPROVE (64A: Dress down) the "word" ORIENTE (62A: Where Japón is). LET 'ER RIP (37D: "O.K. ... go!"), on the other hand, is fantastic.

Theme answers:

• 17A: Hope born of desperation (A WING and a prayer)
• 36A: Justifiable basis for one's position (A LEG to stand on)
• 59A: Post-Thanksgiving fare (TURKEY leftovers)

Speaking of TURKEY LEFTOVERS, our refrigerator is filled with second and third and fourth Thanksgivings. Wife made dinner for eight. But there were only three of us present. This was calculated, as there are few things we love more than Thanksgiving leftovers. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, breakfast, lunch, dinner, and eventually, when we're close to losing our love of Thanksgiving fare, the rest of the (gigantic) turkey goes into soup, and we're done with it.

Bullets:

• 1A: "Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of _____": Shak. ("slumber") — had S-UM-ER and still took many, many seconds to figure it out. "The heavy dew of STUMPER? Who's STUMPER?" The clue on this one made me laff — read aloud, it sounds like "Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of Shaq!"

• 22A: 1950s-'60s NBC host (Paar) — should've been a gimme, but I figured it might be some Friday trick, so I didn't put it in til late. I actually went back and picked it up after I got LENO (54D: A successor to 22-Across) — awkward "A" in that clue because, of course, LENO was not *the* successor.
• 28A: Running things (in control) — really nice (tough) clue. Figured the answer was a plural. DISHWASHE... oh it doesn't fit.
• 1D: Garlicky dish (scampi) — I have decided I really like the look of the word "garlicky."
• 2D: Figure on a totem pole, figuratively (low man) — torn here. Like the daring quality of the clue, but still found it a little wonky. LOW MAN doesn't stand alone very happily.
• 3D: First computer to predict a U.S. election outcome (Univac) — I know ENIAC and UNIVAC *exclusively* because of crosswords.
• 8D: Most populous county of Idaho (Ada) — Dumb luck — ADA county is in a clue in the breast cancer benefit puzzle I just released this week (see below). Would not have been a gimme for me otherwise.
• 12D: Schroeder's instrument in "Peanuts" (toy piano) — true enough, and very easy to get off just the "Y".
• 23D: Boxer's name holder (robe) — tricky. You would never actually *say* that the boxer's ROBE is "holding" his name, but the answer seems accurate enough on a literal level.
• 44D: Lipped lab container (beaker) — not sure why, but I went looking for PIPET (PIPPETTE?).
• 47D: Cinephiles often watch for them (cameos) — ??? Cinephiles watch movies for lots of things. They might notice or remark on CAMEOS, but I have a hard time imagining a group of cinephiles getting together to watch for them, specifically. Hitchcock movie watchers might watch for them (in that they're expected). Any other context doesn't ring very true.

For those of you who have been away for the past couple days, I want to draw your attention to a puzzle I wrote to benefit the breast cancer foundation of Christina Applegate (whose birthday was Wednesday). Please go HERE to read about it and download it or print it out, and please share it with anyone you know who likes puzzles (or breasts). I'm going to be promoting this puzzle for the rest of the weekend. Check it out, and then go here to get the completed grid and commentary (and to leave comments).

Also, Doug Peterson and Andrea Carla Michaels wrote a birthday puzzle for me — a verrrrry insidery puzzle all about this blog and the community of people who comment on it frequently. Really lovely work. Get it here.

Thanks — enjoy your Black Friday. My day = comics and pie.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

PS here's a recent Slate article by Matt Gaffney about how it is that two constructors might come up with virtually identical puzzles completely independently of one another — very informative about constructing issues.

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FRIDAY, Nov. 28, 2008 - Joe Krozel (Judah's house, in a Lew Wallace title / Commandant's outfit: Abbr. / It makes pot potent: Abbr.)

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none

Today's puzzle provides an illustrative contrast to yesterday's puzzle. Yesterday's puzzle was astonishingly smooth from stem to stern. Only a couple of abbreviations, almost no forced fill at all. Magical. The theme, while imaginative, wasn't an excessive burden on the grid, so the constructor could fill it gracefully. But because today's puzzle has a very high degree of architectural difficulty - ten 15-letter answers in one grid! - the non-15-letter fill is severely constrained, often painfully so. When you are locked into an ambitious concept like the one on display today, short answers suffer. I've rarely seen such a large and unappealing group of abbreviations in one place at one time. It's one thing to need a few abbreviations to fill out your grid, quite another to rely on TMI (55D: 1979 nuclear accident site: Abbr.) and IGN (56D: Engine starter: Abbr.) (ugh, side by side) and MEM (19A: Part of a grp.) and VISC (37D: Baron's superior: Abbr.), not to mention the seriously wince-inducing suffixes -IER (46D: Occupational suffix) and, especially, -ATIVE (40A: Talk ender). But perhaps the worst construction offense in the whole puzzle was the inexplicable decision to cross ASEC (23D: "Be there in _____") and PSEC (28A: Tiny fraction of a min.). I don't want those two answers in the same grid together at all, let alone crossing. Just ... no. No. No. In both cases, SEC is an abbrev. of second ("picosecond," "a second"). Therefore ... come on! This obscenity alone practically negates the magnificent achievement of the five up / five down 15-letter answers. Don't even get me started on the proximity of SECY (29A: Dept. head) to this whole mess. Weirdly enough, just last night, right before I solved this puzzle, I threw aside (in disgust) a puzzle that contained both ERA (clued [Elizabethan or Victorian]) and AN ERA (clued [End of _____]). And those answers didn't even intersect. Bah! This is a marquee puzzle - if last year is any indication, more people solve the puzzle today than any day of the year (Black Friday refugees). The puzzle should really put on a better face (though its relative easiness will probably make it appealing to many)

Your 15-letter answers:

• 16A: Cry on a corsair ("Shiver me timbers!") - a fine answer, but one sadly upstaged by the appearance of its identical twin very recently (in the "Talk Like a Pirate" Day puzzle)
• 22A: Something exercised by artists (creative license)
• 34A: It's high in Manhattan (the cost of living)
• 44A: Music theory subject (pentatonic scale) - my favorite long answer
• 52A: Plans to nail suspects (sting operations) - cool that it intersects ...
• 2D: Goal of a neighborhood watch (crime prevention)
• 5D: Island locales (service stations) - not the kind of island you were thinking of ...
• 6D: Coaching cliché ("There's no 'I' in 'team'")
• 8D: Great all-around reviews (critical acclaim)
• 10D: Is totally apathetic (doesn't give a hoot)

Once again, exotic clothing helps me get some of my initial traction in a puzzle. TAM is clued as a "topper" an awful lot, perhaps because of the alliteration (30A: Topper around a loch). I haven't (or haven't much) seen today's clue for SARI (42A: Bollywood cover-up). Gives SARI a nice, modern, pop cultural feel. I was helped along today by two short answers that I first learned as a result of screwing them up early in my blogging career. I was unaware of the existence of GOA (33A: State whose capital is Panaji) until it appeared in a puzzle and I went "?" and some people told me that it's well known as a vacation destination (for whom, I forget). Anyway, I got GOA today pretty easily (three-letter Indian state ... I don't know any but GOA, although I can't say that I knew GOA was a "state" until today). I also got TONI easily (49A: _____ Twins (pair in old ads for home perm kits)), mainly because when it first appeared in a puzzle a while back, I looked it up and ended up posting a picture of the "Twins" in question. Nice to see that some things stick.

Left-overs:

• 6A: It makes pot potent: Abbr. (THC) - an abbrev. I actually liked. Fresh, rarely seen, slightly risqué for the NYT.
• 14A: Judah's house, in a Lew Wallace title (Hur) - I would like to thank Mr. Burns from "The Simpsons" for making a vanity biopic of his life, "A Burns for All Seasons" (directed by Señor Spielbergo), and then entering it in the Springfield Film Festival. A quote from that "movie" is the only reason this answer was a gimme for me. Here is the movie plot (synopsis taken from here):

The first scene opens with Mr. Burns atop a horse wearing a sombrero, rounds of machine gun ammunition draped across his chest. "Simple villagers," he says to a group of people, "I promise you I will close plants in America and bring work here!" Chespirito cries, "Viva Senor Burns!" and the assembled villagers cry, "Viva! Viva!" Burns' horse gallops off, but Burns doesn't manage to stay in the saddle, instead getting dragged back and forth along the ground.

The next scene features Mr. Burns saying, "Remember, Elliot, I'll be right here," on one knee to a child. The tip of his finger lights up briefly; he then enters a spaceship, its door spiraling closed, which takes off into the crimson sky.

The next scene shows a Roman centurion on a horse leading a group of shackled prisoners across the desert. The last prisoner, who bears a striking resemblance to Charlton Heston, collapses from exhaustion. A shadow appears over him: a man kneels in front of him, strokes his hair, and hands him a bottle of spring water. "Drink up, Judah Ben Hur," exhorts Mr. Burns. Ben Hur does so, then looks up gratefully and says, "You truly are the king of kings." A heavenly light shines down upon Burns, and he says "Excellent."

• 21A: St. Anthony's crosses (taus) - it's like the top part of the cross broke off
• 38A: Yom _____ (Tov) - I know Yom Kippur, and I know Mazel Tov. I do not know Yom TOV.
• 39A: Laotian language group (Tai) - one of those Friday/Saturday-level three-letter answers I can never quite remember.
• 57A: Potential lockdown preceder (riot) - there is a hateful show on MSNBC, I think, called "Lockdown" (actually, now that I think about it, it's "Lockup") where you get to gawk at "real life" inside a prison. Maybe I'm in the minority on this, but ... I just don't think suffering shouldn't be a spectator sport. OK, so we don't sell our prisoners' organs on the black market like ... some countries ... but I'm not sure it's a good idea to exploit human misery ... ever.
• 60A: 365 giorni (anno) - a good guess
• 61A: Friend of Frodo (Sam) - is that anything like a "Friend of Dorothy"?
• 1D: Part of O.M.H.S. (On her ...) - Bond. James Bond.
• 13D: Commandant's outfit: Abbr. (USMC) - United States Marine Corps. "Comandant" sounds awfully foreign.
  
• 25D: First name in New World exploration (Leif) - wife liked this. Not sure why. Here's some LEIF for you:

• 26D: River through Mâcon (Saone) - one of the ugliest river names there is. I swear to god that I just typo'd "names" as THAMES. HA ha.
• 27D: Hi-tech read (e-mag) - the internets are no longer "hi-tech"
• 35D: Hawaiian staple (nene)*
• 45D: Fictional faithful friend (Tonto) - unlike SAM, who is, of course, real.
• 47D: Montana who played Luca Brasi in "The Godfather" (Lenny) - news to me. Wife had LINNY, as she could not, for the life of her, figure out 51A: Gents (hes). I told her I understood. Nobody likes / uses / wants to see HES.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

*just kidding, it's TARO

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