Verde desert tree / WED 12-25-19 / Nebraska county named for indigenous people / Weather map lines relating to temperature / Rhyming question of attractiveness

Constructor: Bruce Haight

Relative difficulty: Medium (4:15)

THEME: Santa chortling all over the place — phrases with "HO" sound in them have that sound tripled to "HOHOHO," and phrase is given a wacky "things Santa might say"-type clue:

Theme answers:

• "LAND HO HO HO!" (17A: What Santa said when his sleigh touched down?)
• "PLEASE HO- HO- HOLD" (23A: What Santa might say on his North Pole hotline?)
• "IT'S HO- HO- HOPELESS!" (38A: What Santa said when the reindeer went on strike on Christmas Eve?)
• "HO- HO- HOLY SMOKES!" (50A: What Santa said when going down a chimney that had a lit fireplace?)
• "I'M HO- HO- HOME!" (61A: What Santa says around dawn on Christmas Day?)

Word of the Day: ISOTHERMS (31D: Weather map lines relating to temperature) —

1: a line on a map or chart of the earth's surface connecting points having the same temperature at a given time or the same mean temperature for a given period

2: a line on a chart representing changes of volume or pressure under conditions of constant temperature (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

If I may quote several early reviews I saw of this puzzle: "No no no." The theme is conceptually fine (though not that well executed—more on that in a moment). But the fill is so grim that I can't believe you'd want to run this puzzle *any* day of the year, let alone Christmas Day. I mean, Bashar al-ASSAD? Really? Really?? You want to put that ****ing murderous dictator, commiter of war crimes, user of chemical weapons, that guy, you want to put *him* in your light-hearted Santa-themed puzzle? And NOOSE!? Yeesh, that's grim: genocide *and* lynchings. Quite a day. And then you throw in the leering HOT OR NOT (39D: Rhyming question of attractiveness), an answer that recalls the creepy early days of Facebook, when it was called FaceMash and was set up as "a type of "hot or not" game for Harvard students. The website allowed visitors to compare two female student pictures side by side and let them decide who was more attractive" (wikipedia). Ugh. So many bad vibes in this puzzle. The misery even works its way into the theme a little, with the reindeer going on strike and Santa just going, "Oh, it's ho- ho- hopeless." Hey, Santa, pay your ****ing reindeer, you creep!


As I said, I don't mind the basic theme concept, though I wish the answers had more oomph to them. Also, LAND HO HO HO is awful, first because ... wow, there are so many things wrong. You say "land ho" when you see land, not when you "touch down." Also, that's just not a very Christmasy image. It's like you tried to make an utterly unChristmas thing into a Christmas thing just because it had "HO" in it. And about that: that answer is terrible because it's the only one where "HO" is not the first syllable of a larger word. That repeated "HO" syllable at the front end of words gives the puzzle its quirkiness and charm. But when you're just repeating "HO" on its own? That's just sad. Ho-ho-horrible first themer. The others are fine. 



Screwed up a few times along the way. Wrote in AGE instead of BIO (5D: Part of a dating profile, for short). Had PASO, I think, before PALO (1D: ___ verde (desert tree)). Wanted YOKEL before YAHOO (53D: Country bumpkin). And then just couldn't think what the hell kind of scent an air freshener might have. I hate those things. Artificial aromas give me headaches. I don't think I'd've guessed LEMON if I'd had ten guesses. So I just got that one from crosses. Hey, did you know you can get rid of NOOSE (ugh) super duper easy. NO ONE / ONO, and ... that's it. There are other remedies too, as any half-experienced constructor could tell you. I just don't get putting NOOSE in your puzzle if you don't absolutely have to. Especially on Christmas. Bizarre. OK, gotta get to bed before Santa comes. Merry Christmas, everyone.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Gen Pershing's grp in WWI / FRI 12-25-15 / Middle of three-part maxim / High Priest of Shiloh / Performer of Green Hornet theme in 1960s TV / Literary character on whom Captain Hook is based

Constructor: Mary Lou Guizzo and Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: CANDY CANES (29D: Four things represented visually in this puzzle's grid) — four candy cane shapes. One other "theme" answer (ST. NICHOLAS) and then unchecked squares that (when read clockwise, starting with the "X" in 9D: MARX) spell out XMAS.

Word of the Day: AEF (35D: Gen. Pershing's grp. in W.W. I) —

The American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) consisted of the United States Armed Forces sent to Europe under the command of General John J. Pershing in 1917 to help fight World War I . During the United States campaigns in World War I the AEF fought in France alongside French and British allied forces in the last year of the war, against German forces. Some of the troops fought alongside Italian forces in that same year, against Austro-Hungarian forces. The AEF helped the French Army on the Western Front during the Aisne Offensive (at Château-Thierry and Belleau Wood) in June 1918, and fought its major actions in the Saint-Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne Offensives in late 1918. (wikipedia)

• • •

One of those no-man's-land puzzles that can't seem to decide if it's themed or not, and so ends up with this light (sugar?) coating of theme. That's not really fair—there's clearly a XMAS theme here, however thin/scattered. It's just that after CANDY CANES (the most obvious answer in the grid), there isn't much space given over to theme material. Not white space, anyway. Just ST. NICHOLAS and the four XMAS squares. Visually, this (kind of) says Christmas, but content-wise, it's overwhelmingly a themeless.  Feels like there's not much there there. The CANDY CANES element is transparent. The only thing there really is to "get" is the XMAS bit—I like that part. As a themeless, this has strengths and weaknesses, though I think the former outweigh the latter (the latter mostly have to do with a preponderance of short answers, due to the grid shape). "END OF STORY!", HALF-COCKED and NO-LOOK PASS are all wonderful. KGB SPIES totally confused me; that answer, with its massive initial consonant pile-up, was a major contributor to my considerable struggles in the NW. Couldn't come up with BOARDS (kept trying to stretch MCATS ...). Also hard: RIMS (4D: Goes around). Couldn't find the handle on BASK, and kept doubting OLEG because of the improbable "-GB-" juxtaposition it gave me in the answer that turned out to be KGB SPIES.  Struggles in that corner were totally offset in the opposite corner (i.e. the SE), where I threw AD AGENCY across and got every Down, one after the other, with no hesitation.


Interesting to cross ALI with SOMALIS, since she is Somali-born (now a U.S. citizen). Also interesting to call a SLED a [Traditional Yule gift] because ... that's news to me. Was Rosebud a Yule gift? Do people still say "Yule" when it's not followed by "tide" or "log" or ("Brennere")? If I've ever heard of / seen AEF before today, I can't recall. Luckily the grid doesn't rely on anything else that antique and abbreviated. I had HE'S A KEEPER! instead of IT'S A KEEPER! at 12D: "Hang on to that one!" I feel like the clue was designed with that mistake in mind. I also had ENTICES instead of ENTRAPS at 36A: Inveigles, as in "He was inveigled / entrapped / enticed into HE'S A KEEPER!—the Charybdis of this grid's eastern half." (Get it? 'Cause the western half has Scylla  ... the SEA MONSTER? ... yeah, you get it). Actually, enticing is more the Sirens' job ... hmmm ... rather than mull Odyssean metaphors, I'm gonna pack it in.

Merry Christmas if you celebrate (and Merry Friday if you don't).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Startling newsmaker of 10/4/1957 / THU 12-25-14 / Cassava lookalike / Backdrop for Chamonix / Duck Hunt console for short / Aquarium giant / Samosa topping /

Constructor: Xan Vongsathorn

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging? Does that sound right? I was live-tweeting and drinking, so I have no idea ...

THEME: MIXED[NUT]S — all six permutations of "NUT," rebusized

Theme answers:

• AMO[UNT] / G[UNT]OTING
• WE[TNU]RSE / OU[TNU]MBER
• CH[UTN]EY / SP[UTN]IK 
• RO[TUN]DA / PE[TUN]IA
• DOW[NTU]RN / TARA[NTU]LA
• [NUT]MEG / MIXED[NUT]S

Word of the Day: Joe Quimby (46A: Joe Quimby on "The Simpsons," e.g. => MAYOR) —

Mayor Joseph "Joe" Quimby, nicknamed "Diamond Joe," is a recurring character from the animated television series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Dan Castellaneta, and first appeared in the episode "Bart Gets an F". A member of the Democratic Party, Quimby is the mayor of Springfield, and is a composite parody of U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy and certain other members of the Kennedy family who have entered politics. (wikipedia)

• • •

Merry Christmas. This will be one of my TERSEST write-ups ever, as it is late on Christmas Eve and everyone is heading off to bed in their new Christmas pajamas and I want to do same, asap. I was excited to see Xan's name as constructor today, as I haven't seen it for a while, and I like his work. I found this one quite hard at first, and then much less so, which is pretty standard with rebuses—they're brutal, then you pick up the gimmick, then they're not brutal. This grid doesn't even have an unusual name or term in it—I know, I looked. The fill is remarkably straightforward, though (mostly) not in a bad way. Outside the theme stuff, OPEN PIT is about as outré as it gets.

Nutmeg from Jacob Wild on Vimeo.
Fill in this one gets pretty rough in places, most notably in ETCHA / EHS / HAHAS territory. Yipes. But considering the theme density and the amount of very short fill, this thing's reasonably clean overall. My first thought on hitting the revealer was "I know I've seen this theme before." In fact, MIXED NUTS has been the revealer two other times since I started blogging, but one simply had rearranged "NUTS" hidden inside various theme answers, and the other rearranged specific nuts (i.e. CASHEW, PECAN, etc.) in the same fashion, and neither one of them was a rebus that worked in both directions and took all anagram permutations into account, so … I think this one wins. And to all a good night.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Actress Strahovski of 2000s TV / SUN 12-21-14 / Computerdom informally / Roy Rogers's real last name / Risky chess move / Zion National park material / Tree whose pods have sweet pulp

Constructor: Joel Fagliano

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "Season's Greetings" — add "HO" sound for wackiness:

Theme answers:

• HO HUM DINGER (22A: Homer that leaves people yawning?)
• HOKEY WORD (24A: "Shucks!" or "Pshaw!"?)
• BLACK-EYED HOPIS (42A: Southwest tribe after a fistfight?)
• DESPICABLE HOMIE (67A: Backstabbing pal?)
• NO-MONEY HOEDOWN (91A: Barn dance that's free to attend?)
• CROSS HOBO (114A: Vagrant after getting kicked off a train, say?)
• HOKUM TO PAPA (117A: Stuff your dad finds ridiculous?)

Word of the Day: MARA Liasson (111D: ___ Liasson, NPR political correspondent) —

Mara Liasson (/ˈmɑrə ˈlaɪ.əsən/; born June 13, 1955) is an American journalist and political pundit. She is the national political correspondent for National Public Radio^[1] and also a contributor at Fox News Channel. (wikipedia) (I will never not make public radio correspondents my WOTD … I'm coming for you, Ira Flatow …)

• • •

If you never solved a Christmas-themed puzzle in your life before today, this one likely seemed cute to you. And it is, without a doubt, a well-made puzzle, with a consistent theme and very good, fresh fill. If Joel (who works for W.S.) is being groomed for Will's job, well, fine by me. He's super-talented and lives in the 21st century, so thumbs-up. But back to the theme—I knew what it was before I started. Or, rather, I said to myself, "It's not just adding 'hos' to things, is it?" And then that's exactly what it was. Very good HO-adding, for sure, but very predictable HO-adding nonetheless. Either I am some kind of psychic *or* I've seen this theme before at least once. I mean, seriously, it was the most obvious / cliché theme I could think of off the top of my head, so it must've been done more than once. Still, though, these answers are new to me, and pretty funny on the whole. And you'll struggle to find bad fill here. The future looks bright. Here's to more careful editing, better attention to detail, and cleaner fresher fill in 2015. Not sure why I'm making the New Year's speech now, but I am.


My coup of the day was remembering SLYE (14D: Roy Rogers's real last name). Took me just 25 short years to commit that old-school GEM to memory. Yay me. TIM COOK (5D: Steve Jobs's successor at Apple) and EBOLA VIRUS (16D: Cause for quarantine) give the puzzle a very up-to-the-minute feel, while YOGA POSE and SOY LATTE show that the NYT *knows* its demographics. KUDOS also to BAR SCENE and its clue (11A: Likely feature of a college town). Took me a lot of crosses too see it, but when I did: your prototypical "aha" moment.


PUZZLE NEWS: Matt Gaffney's (amazing) Weekly Crossword Contest is going to a subscription-only basis in 2015 (and good for him—good puzzles are worth paying for). 52 top-tier meta-puzzles for just $26. All the details here. For aficionados and aficionados-in-the-making. Get some.

See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. SOY LATTE anagrams to SLYE TO A T. Like, when you describe a young Roy Rogers perfectly. "That's SLYE TO A T!" she said, delightedly.

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Ancient Mideast language / WED 12-25-13 / Aa pahoehoe / Rebellious region of Caucasus / Via main street of ancient Rome / Perino George W Bush's last press secretary / Anything 1994 Nick Nolte Albert Brooks film / Second-highest peak in Cascades

Constructor: Jacob Stulberg

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: FIVE GOLDEN RINGS (41A: One set of gifts in "The 12 Days of Christmas" … as suggested by the circled squares?) — Five "rings" (indicated by circled squares) spell out words that can follow the word "Golden" in common phrases.

The Goldens:

• RULE
• MEAN
• SLUMBERS
• HORN
• GATE

Word of the Day: OSSETIA (47A: Rebellious region of the Caucasus) —

Ossetia (/ɒˈsɛtiə/ Ossetic: Ир, Ирыстон Ir, Iryston; Russian: Осетия, Osetiya; Georgian: ოსეთი,Oset'i) is an ethnolinguistic region located on both sides of the Greater Caucasus Mountains, largely inhabited by the Ossetians. The Ossetian language is part of the Eastern Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages family. The Ossetian-speaking area south of the main Caucasus ridge is recognized by most countries as within the borders of Georgia, but under the control of the Russian-backed de facto government of the Republic of South Ossetia. The northern portion of the region consists of the republic of North Ossetia–Alania within the Russian Federation. (wikipedia)

• • •

Fortuitous discovery that FIVE GOLDEN RINGS is a perfect (i.e. grid-spanning) 15. It also works very well as a theme revealer. These aren't really rings, though. They're squares. I'm sure you could draw a circle that technically touched all the letters involved, but rings are rings and squares are squares and these are squares. Still, it's a cute idea, and it's probably close enough for horseshoes and hand grenades, ring-wise. I don't know what a Golden HORN is. Turns out it's the "inlet of the Bosporus dividing the city of Istanbul." Cool. Good to know. The fill on this one is average to below-average, but that's largely due to the theme, which sets up major restrictions all over the grid. I'm not sure that excuses the atrocious EAU DE, but it probably does excuse (or at least explain) the SSRS SYS SYRIAC business, or STET EELS, or DONEE ALEE I'LL DO ELL, etc. Actually, KABUKI (9D: Japanese dance-drama) is quite a nice answer. Always good to be able to shoehorn a winner into such a thematically dense grid.


This one played harder than normal for me. Couldn't remember Monsieur HULOT (more used to seeing TATI's name than his character's name in the grid). Had the squirrels eating SUET there for a bit. OSSETIA was slow coming, largely because I know the "rebellious region" as *South* OSSETIA and can't remember ever hearing OSSETIA on its own. Had SYRIAN instead of SYRIAC. You'd think that corner could've been worked out in SYRIAN's favor—would've been a major improvement. No one likes running into an [Ancient Mideast language]. Plural LAVAS is probably something a grid could also do without, though it's mildly interesting that there are, in fact, multiple kinds of lava, and that they have such curious (and, unsurprisingly, Hawaiian) names (29D: Aa and pahoehoe).

OK then. That's all.

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate (or simply appreciate the down time)

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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1970s first mother / SAT 12-25-10 / Twentieth century producer / Perfection under fire product / Corrosion-resistant plating

Constructor: Stanley Newman

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium


THEME: Santa ___ — names of famous places that start with SANTA

• 19A: Santa ___ (CATALINA ISLAND) — never heard anyone call it anything except CATALINA ISLAND ...
• 36A: Santa ___ (MONICA MOUNTAINS) — ... whereas I've never heard anyone call these MONICA MOUNTAINS, and furthermore I never think about SANTA MONICA as anything but the city (where Best Friend 1 lives), or maybe the BOULEVARD (it fits!) so ... weird and weird so far.
• 48A: Santa ___ (ANITA RACETRACK) — And weirder, as this one is not (like the others) a geographical feature ...

Word of the Day: LILLIAN Carter (18A: 1970s "first mother") —

Lillian Gordy Carter (August 15, 1898 – October 30, 1983) was the mother of former President of the United States, Jimmy Carter. She is also known for contribution to nursing in her home state of Georgia and as a Peace Corps volunteer in India as well as writing two books during the Carter presidency. (wikipedia)

• • •

Kind of an odd fake Christmas puzzle. Theme answers don't produce much joy. Fill is fine but unremarkable. Cluing is interestingly much more like Stan Newman's "Newsday" cluing than it is like the typical NYT puzzle. That is, it relies more on short (often one-word) and vague cluing for its toughness than the typical Shortzian creation. I'm thinking of [Point] and [Point] and [Tap] and [Zip] and [Spring] and such. [Go around] isn't ORBIT, it's AVOID. [Stir up] isn't AGITATE (as it should be), it's ANIMATE and the cross, [Imply], isn't GET AT (as it should be), it's AIM AT. That said, it wasn't all that hard, and there's hardly an obscurity in sight, so what toughness there was was welcome. [Put away] — is that about eating, or stowing, or ... nope. It's killing (DO IN). In the end, I liked this puzzle fine, though the theme left me cold.

Some interesting moments:

We've got STENO (7D: Old office worker) and STERNO (44D: "Perfection under fire" product), so lucky us.

I invented two words today: MAZING for 23A: Stunning (DAZING) and ADORATES for 37D: Fawns over (ADULATES).

I could remember the villain himself from 2009's "Star Trek," but not the actor who played the villain in 2009's "Star Trek" (xword-friendly Eric BANA).

Other wrong answers:

• ORDINAL for 8A: Point (DECIMAL)
• SPICE for 30D: Oomph (JUICE)
• ASTI for 34A: Sight from the top of the Leaning Tower (ARNO)

Also, could not get ANDROMICA out of my head at 20D: Wife of Perseus, probably through conflation of the actual answer (ANDROMEDA) with Shakespeare's "Titus Andronicus."

Bullets:

• 1A: "The Twentieth Century" producer (CBS NEWS) — probably the hardest answer of all for me, as I don't know what "The Twentieth Century" is and I was looking for a person, not a news organization. This was especially weird when I thought the actor who played Nero in "Star Trek" was Billy ZANE. "CZ-NE-S?!?! Who is that?"
  
• 44A: Happy cohort? (SNEEZY) — transparent, but I still liked the clue. That's the playfulness I like / expect in my late-weekers. (and it's a "Snow White" reference, in case somehow that's not yet abundantly clear)
  
• 45A: Company with an I.P.O. in both 1992 and 2009 (AOL) — 1992. Wow. Seems early, but I guess I got my first email address in 1991, so maybe not so early after all.
  
• 14D: Wiseman who directed "Live Free or Die Hard" (LEN) — wanted LES, which was good enough to get the ball rolling up there. No idea how I (2/3) know the name. Interesting fact: the first "Die Hard" was a Christmas movie. This "Die Hard" ... I don't know.
  

• 38D: Corrosion-resistant plating (TIN) — "Tin roof! Rusted!"

Merry Christmas to all relevant parties. If you frequently read the comments section, you might enjoy this blog-based holiday puzzle by my friend Dave Eckert (whose dad is the eponym of a local theater here where I live, but that's another story...). Get it here. Enjoy.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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Ertegun who co-founded Atlantic Records — FRIDAY, Dec. 25 2009 — 1843 work in five staves / Tannenbaum topper / Iconic flamers

Constructor: Paula Gamache

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: "A CHRISTMAS CAROL" (10D: 1843 work in five "staves") — grid contains three additional answers related to the Dickens story

Word of the Day: AHMET Ertegun (7D: Ertegun who co-founded Atlantic Records) —

Ahmet Ertegun (Turkish: Ahmet Ertegün; July 31 [O.S. July 18] 1923 – December 14, 2006) was the Turkish American co-founder and executive of Atlantic Records and chairman of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and museum, described as "one of the most significant figures in the modern recording industry. He also co-founded the New York Cosmos soccer team of the North American Soccer League. // In the 1960s, Atlantic, often in partnerships with local labels like Stax Records in Memphis, helped to develop the growth of soul music, with artists such as Ben E. King, Solomon Burke, Otis Redding, Percy Sledge, Aretha Franklin and Wilson Pickett. Ahmet heard Led Zeppelin's demo and knew they would be a smash hit after hearing the first few songs. He quickly signed them. He also convinced Crosby, Stills and Nash to allow Neil Young to join them on one of their tours, thereby founding Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Ahmet helped introduce America to blue-eyed soul when he discovered the Rascals at a Westhampton nightclub in 1965 and signed them to Atlantic. They went on to chart 13 top 40 singles in four years and were elected to the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.

-----

Interesting puzzle, but what the hell is this grid supposed to depict? What shape is that? A ghost? The only ghost it resembles is one of the ghosts from Pac-Man (my sister's first response upon seeing the grid: "Space Invaders?"). A Christmas tree? That's one messed up, lopsided Christmas tree. Neither wife nor I can figure it out. Like the way the theme answers intersect here, but feel like the rest of the grid is engaging in some serious Christmas overkill. Sneaking TINY TIM in was nice (24A: With 35-Down, brother of Master Peter), but JINGLERS (32D: Sleigh bells and such)? And then giving a Christmas-related clue to every possible answer? Dial it back. In addition to not getting the grid shape, I don't really love SOCIAL CLIMBER (12A: A-list wannabe) — great as a phrase, but weird for a non-theme answer to be longer than 3 of the 4 theme Acrosses in the grid. Wouldn't be so noticeable if it were directly under BOB CRATCHIT. I enjoyed this puzzle for its originality, shape-wise, and for its ambition. It was rough for me, in patches, but overall, mostly enjoyable.

Theme answers:

• 9A: One who worked in a "dismal little cell" (Bob Cratchit) — spelled it CRATCHET, which created huge problems in the already difficulty NE. AHMET!?!? RIBCUT (8D: Club steak, e.g.)? ENYA as an "artist????" (16D: "And Winter Came ..." artist). What's the opposite of TERRIF (11D: "Super!")?
• 26A: With 32-Across, one subjected to "incessant torture of remorse" (Ghost of / Jacob Marley)
• 53A: One who saw his name upon the stone of a neglected grave (Ebenezer Scrooge)

Besides the NE, my other trouble spot was in and around SOIL (51A: Agrarian concern). Couldn't do anything with it. Couldn't get ENGEL (60A: Tannenbaum topper). Took a while to see IONS (52D: Na+ and Cl-). Made a good guess at SSTS, which helped (63A: Tupolev Tu-144s, e.g.). Also, perhaps because the very phrase YULE LOG sounds repulsive to me, I completely suppressed it and had ... YULE POTS. Needless to say, I did not approve that answer. Sadly, real answer (totally valid) didn't make me any happier (34D: Iconic flamers).

Bullets:

• 25A: Stocking stuffer (toy) — best wrong answer of the day: TOE.
• 44A: Noted Bauhaus teacher (Klee) — had no idea he had anything to do with Bauhaus or was ever a "teacher" of note. Live and learn. And then forget, mostly, if history is any indication.
• 58A: Michael who wrote "Charmed Lives" (Korda) — I know him from a book about bestsellers called "Making the List." There was once a tennis player named Petr KORDA. Coincidentally, my sister and her husband are playing tennis on the Wii Fit (Christmas gift for their boys) as we speak.
• 40D: Hutch's head, briefly (Hef) — What the ???? I have never heard the term "Hutch" for (I'm assuming) the Playboy Mansion. This must have been common parlance in some misty era before I was born, or before I became an adult. The only "Hutch" I know partnered with Starsky.
• 50D: "The ___ Williams Christmas Album" ("Andy") — as Nelson Muntz once exclaimed, "ANDY Williams!?!?"

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

P.S. Here's your Christmas present — another puzzle to amuse you this holiday weekend. It gets a little ... blue in places, but I assume you all can handle it. The puzzle was inspired by a comment on this blog in which the commenter confessed to having initially misunderstood the theme of this past Sunday's puzzle, "Inside Dope." Thus, I offer you "Inside Dope, Part 2." Enjoy.

[as always, click on "Print" below, or go here (to the forum at crosswordfiend.com) to get a .puz / AcrossLite version of the puzzle]

Inside Dope

PPS Hardcore followers of this blog (particularly this blog's comments section) should find this puzzle entertaining — an untitled effort by reader "imdsdave"

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THURSDAY, Dec. 25, 2008 - Eric Tentarelli (Cousin of a treecreeper / Star of Broadway's "QED," 2001-02 / Family name suffix in taxonomy)

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: Football teams - wacky clues whose answers are made up of three NFL football team names (in the singular)

Merry Christmas. Not a very Christmasy puzzle. I guess we got ours on Sunday. Not only is this puzzle not Christmasy, it seems to suggest that Santa has, in fact, been killed - at least that's my interpretation of the RED SNO at the bottom of the grid?

[too gruesome? It gets nicer and more Jesus-y toward the end]

Not spending too much time writing this one up - gotta give myself a little rest on Christmas Eve / Day. So, after describing the theme answers, I think I'm just going to do the whole write-up as a long bullet list, with no more than two sentences per bullet. This is a challenge I set myself ... challenge accepted.

Theme answers:

• 20A: Chestnut-colored mustang offspring? (brown bronco colt)
• 38A: Main dedicatee of an Austin cathedral? (chief Texan saint)
• 55A: Hefty invoice for boots and spurs? (giant cowboy bill)

Cute clues. Wonder who wrote them? The theme is something I think I've seen before. Feels familiar. The team names don't go together for any particular reason except that they make a coherent phrase, which is enough, I guess.

Bullets:

• 1A: Choker component (clasp) - Had PEARL, which got me off to a slow start
• 6A: Music pioneered by Byron Lee and the Dragonaires (ska) - Educated guess (3 letters, and I know it's not RAP ... coulda been EMO, I guess). My intro to ska:

• 16A: Bygone Olds (Alero) - 21st century crosswordese. Other answers I got because of constant crosswording include O'SHEA (25D: Dublin-born film star Milo), ARAL (12D: Asia's _____ Sea), IONA (56D: College in New Rochelle, N.Y.), and LUCE (43A: Time-honored man?) - "Time" is a magazine title in that last one, in case you were still or ever wondering.
• 17A: Sorkin who created "The West Wing" (Aaron) - total gimme; loved "Sports Night," never watched "The West Wing." Tons of names in the puzzle today, including ARNE (23A: "Rule, Britannia" composer), ALAN ALDA (8D: Star of Broadway's "QED," 2001-02), AGNEW (31D: Predecessor of Ford), SNEAD (69A: Masters champ of 1949, 1952 and 1954), and some guy named NOLAN I've never heard of (47A: David _____, founder of the Libertarian Party).
• 22A: Its coat of arms includes a vicuña (Peru) - find the vicuña!

• 33A: Pitcher Hideo Nomo's birthplace (Osaka) - had the "K," which made it obviousish.
• 66A: Last name of Kipling's Kim (O'Hara) - very Irish up in here: O'SHEA, O'SAKA, now O'HARA ...
• 6D: Pelvic bone (sacrum) - yoga instructor mentions this bone a lot.
• 13D: Shed (molt) - had LOSE (as in "shed some pounds"). Grrr...
• 21D: Bust holder (bra) - what's a three-letter word for "pedestal?" Oh, you mean boobs.
  
• 30D: The City of a Thousand Minarets (Cairo) - as with OSAKA, I had the key letter in place (in this case, the "C" - though the "O" might have been telling too)
• 48D: Light ratio in astronomy (Al Bedo) - good ol' AL (I did not know this one, clearly - and I know it's one word and not a guy's name, so hold the email, thanks)
• 59D: Family name suffix in taxonomy (-idae) - the original version of this puzzle did not have the word "suffix" in it, hence my mild confusion. Don't like this and IDEA (35A) in the same puzzle - what's the big IDAE!?
• 58D: Cousin of a treecreeper (wren) - didn't know it. Just asked wife if she knew what a "treecreeper" was, and she answered: "Is it a bird? .... Is it a kind of WREN?" Damn her and her birdishness! How can I steal her powers?
• 46D: Home of Fort Scott National Historic Site (Kansas) - this one tripped me up badly, but only bec. the orig. clue was written with an abbrev. -> [Home of Fort Scott Natl. Historic site], and so naturally I expected one in the answer.

I'll leave you with two very different versions of my favorite Christmas carol (three if you click the link you just read over)





Enjoy whatever it is you eat today. I love you guys! (and I'm not even drunk ... yet)

xoRP

PS, click here to find out the answer to "What Was In the Basement?" - it is unbelievably fantastic, and the photo doesn't even begin to do it justice. P.S. I got my wife more than just the mug (though the mug is unique, handmade, and awesome)

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