Princess loved by Hercules / THU 10-21-10 / Certain 1920s faddist / Cabinetmaker's hardware / Reddish-brown gem / Fraternity benefactors for short

Constructor: Dan Naddor

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: BLOCK (48D: The 2x2 black square near the middle of this puzzle's grid, e.g., which is part of eight answers)— black square in center represents the word BLOCK in Across and Down answers that either run into it or emerge from it


Word of the Day: PIANO HINGE (3D: Cabinetmaker's hardware) —

Piano hinge

a long hinge, originally used for piano lids, but now used in many other applications where a long hinge is needed. (wikipedia)

• • •

Super quick write-up today, as I am swamped in advance of my talk this weekend. It's like a vintage paperback bomb went off in here. I have 90% of the images I need scanned, and I'm pretty confident that I can smooth the contours of the presentation during the unfortunate bus + LIRR ride tomorrow. Barring massive technological snafu, things should be fine. But the point is—I got other stuff to do right now, including sleep.

I liked this puzzle. I like the BLOCK. I got the trick before ever seeing the BLOCK clue down in the SE. I wish the puzzle didn't even have that clue. It's unnecessary, and makes the puzzle easier than it needs to be. The grid is weird for many reasons, not least of which is all the long answers that have nothing to do with the theme. Never heard of a PIANO HINGE or BOTTOM ROUND (tried BOTTOM ROAST before realizing ROAST was in the clue) (21A: Butcher's roast cut). Wait ... what the ... this puzzle doesn't have rotational symmetry! OK, I like it less now. I guess it couldn't very well be symmetrical, with a 2x2 black square in the "middle." But ... yaargh, I'm getting a little woozy just trying to figure out the black square pattern.

Theme answers:

• 6D: What a hammer may hit (AUCTION-)
  
• 7D: Author's bane (WRITER'S-)
  
• 39A: Neighborhood get-togethers (-PARTIES)
  
• 41A: It displays the connections between system components (-DIAGRAM)

• 43D: Smash hit (-BUSTER)
  
• 44D: Bit of comic strip text (-LETTER)
  
• 38A: Temporary lapse of memory (MENTAL-)
• 40A: Metal casting housing automotive cylinders (ENGINE-) — "METAL" is in the grid, but whatever ... (2D: Rock music genre)
  

Despite filling in the BLOCK answers pretty easily (except BLOCK DIAGRAM—never heard of that), the puzzle still seemed Thursday hard, with odd phrases and toughish clues. Really struggled a lot with the NW. Without the PIANO part of PIANO HINGE, those short answers weren't readily apparent to me at all. Really loved MR. AND MRS. (27D: Start of some addresses) and POLE-SITTER (58A: Certain 1920s faddist) and WIZEN (50D: Shrivel from age). All the ugly short stuff (and there's not much of it) seems forgivable. Even SARD (13D: Reddish-brown gem).

Bullets:

• 15A: 1944 murder mystery directed by Otto Preminger ("LAURA") — one of the original film noirs. Good stuff.
  
• 16A: Jazz pianist with 16 Grammys (COREA) — I think Pat Metheny is playing at the University tonight. He and COREA may as well be the same person, as far as I'm concerned.
  
• 32A: O's overseas (OMICRONS) — these are Greek, right? Yup, 15th letter of Greek alphabet. Only just now noticed contrast between O-MICRON and O-MEGA. Small. Big. Weird.
  
• 1D: Fraternity benefactors, for short (ALUMS) — pretty specific clue for a pretty general group of people. Tough.
  
• 53D: Princess loved by Hercules (IOLE) — supercrosswordesey. I always forget her name, thinking it's IONE, or even IOLA ...
  

Enjoy the wonderful guest bloggers for the next three days. See you Monday.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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19th-century farmer (THU 5-6-10) Family of George's fiancee on Seinfeld / Little title figure in Beach Boys hit / When doubled #3 hit 1968 #1 hit 1987

Constructor: Dan Naddor

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: Angry dog — "GR" gets tacked on to the beginnings of familiar phrases, creating wacky phrases, which are clued wackily ("?"-style)


Word of the Day: GRANGER (37D: 19th-century farmer) —

n.

1. Chiefly Upper Midwest. A farmer.
2. Granger Chiefly Northeastern U.S. A member of the Grange.

• • •

Puzzle 4 from this past weekend's Crosswords L.A. Tournament — this one was a signature Dan Naddor add-a-letter (two letters) tour-de-force. A gaudy number of theme answers (7) with a very cool-looking slant-stack of three in the middle. I'm not much for this type of theme, but if you're gonna do it, overdo it, I say. Here, not only do you have scads of theme answers, but you have a nice, wide open grid generally. 72 words, with very open NE and SW corners, and nice longish columns of answers in the NW and SE as well. There are some unfortunate bits of short fill — ICS ALD ASE ITHE REW — but all in all, for what it is, I think it works fine. Most common mistakes at the tournament were probably predictable: and O-for-A swap on the one hand (DINO / TORTE) and an A-for-O on the other (ROSARIA / RASSES). With that last one, I'm not sure how people justified RASSES to themselves, but I am sympathetic to the error — I really don't think crossing two obscure NBC sitcom clues at a vowel is very fair (38D: Karen's maid on "Will & Grace" => ROSARIO / 62A: Family of George's fiancée on "Seinfeld" => ROSSES). As for the first error, DINA Merrill is crosswordese (31A: Actress Merrill), and DINO isn't a plausible actress's name, but the TORTE for TARTE error is completely understandable to me (27D: Pâtisserie offering).

Least appealing answer in the grid, to me, was SEA EEL (44D: Sushi offering). Is there any other legit crossword entry that has the appalling letter string "EAEE" in it?

Theme answers:

• 18A: Barbecue comfortably? (GRILL AT EASE)
  
• 20A: "Are your Southern breakfast vittles satisfactory?" ("GRITS OKAY?")
  
• 32A: Marvelous golf club? (GRAND IRON)
  
• 35A: Purple outfit? (GRAPE SUIT)
  
• 37A: Rules regarding tile setting? (GROUT LAWS)
  
• 54A: Big black bird? (GREAT CROW)
  
• 56A: Passenger gorging on fried chicken and potato chips? (GREASY RIDER) — winner!
  

Only a few things were truly out of my comfort zone on this one. Would never have gotten ROSSES without crosses (but did know ROSARIO, which helped). Haven't had chemistry since 1986, so needed many crosses to pick up TITRATE (41D: Measure the strength of, in a way). GRANGER is slightly, vaguely familiar as clued, but I definitely needed crosses, and would have clued it via one of the many GRANGERs you see pictured on the blog today (except Wayne Granger, whom I've actually never heard of).

Bullets:

• 8A: N'awlins sandwiches (PO' BOYS) — Mmm. "N'awlins" is a good way to clue the equally contracted "PO'"
  
• 23A: When doubled, a #3 hit of 1968 or a #1 hit of 1987 ("MONY") — #1! Wow, I had no idea that Billy Idol song was so big. "White Wedding" big!

• 24A: Nonmigratory goose (NENE) — they pretty much just stay there in Hawaii.
  
• 44A: "Little" title figure in a Beach Boys hit (ST. NICK) — wanted DEUCE COUPE so bad.

• 51A: Silents star Nita (NALDI) — Like DINA, crosswordese, but most solvers seem to have picked this up eventually even if it was initially unfamiliar to them.
  

That's it. More tomorrow. Oh, if you want to read about a scoring controversy at the Crosswords L.A. tournament — one that resulted in my fellow judge Tyler Hinman's having to be physically restrained and sedated — read his write-up of said controversy here.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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Electrical pioneer Thomson / THU 3-25-10 / Nile valley region / Carrier to Tokyo / Jimmy Stewart syllables / ABC daytime staple since 1997

Constructor: Dan Naddor

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: Odd signs ... — three 15-letter theme answers that imagine retail signs w/ unintended secondary meanings


Word of the Day: The WYE Accord (65A: ___ Accord (1998 Mideast peace agreement)) —

Officially called the Wye River Memorandum, the accord outlined a limited and interim land-for-peace settlement between Israel and Palestine. It was signed October 23, 1998, by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu (1949-) and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat (1929-2004) at a summit held at Wye Mills, on the banks of Maryland's Wye River. The meeting was the follow-up to the 1993 Middle East Summit in Oslo, Norway. There, after months of talks, both sides agreed to an interim framework of Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Wye meeting was the opportunity for both sides to make good on the promises made in Oslo. // The Wye Accord was brokered after a 21-hour bargaining session mediated by U.S. president Bill Clinton (1946-). The points of the agreement included developing a security plan to crackdown on terrorism; the withdrawal of Israeli troops from an additional 13 percent of the West Bank (along with a commitment for future additional withdrawals); a transfer of roughly 14 percent of the West Bank from joint Israeli-Palestinian control to Palestinian control; Palestinian agreement that anti-Israeli clauses in its national charter would be removed; Israel's guarantee that it would provide two corridors of safe passage between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank; Israeli release of 750 Palestinian prisoners; and the opening of a Palestinian airport in Gaza. (answers.com)

• • •

Very quick write-up today. Big day of midterms ahead. Plus, I woke up to a message from a friend who is in poor health, and I'm not in much of a mood to gambol through the puzzle (in my usual light-hearted, cheery way ...). Today's puzzle is a posthumous offering from the very prolific and much-admired Dan Naddor. It's an unusual Thursday — no crazy gimmick, just some clever plays on words. Lack of a demanding theme allows the grid to open way up, resulting in low word-count puzzle (for a Thursday). This means relatively wide open spaces, and, for me, a slightly slower-than-usual time despite the fact that the puzzle didn't feel particularly tough at all. I just had a hardish time picking up some of the answers, particularly in the NW, where I both started and finished (last letter, "F" in FETE — 20A: Roast, e.g.). I got LAL and AGA up there, and then AGLEAM, but the LAB FEE (1D: Physical expense) and LAO-TSE (3D: Who wrote "He who does not trust enough will not be trusted") just wouldn't come off their respective LA-s. This meant the BLOW in BLOW-OUT TIRE SALE was not visible, which meant that I had no idea what the theme was for the longest time — I had most of the grid filled in before I got a *single* theme answer, and even when I got my first (LINGERIE HALF-OFF), I didn't know what I was supposed to see in the others. By the end, I wondered why anyone would advertise "ALL SUITS SLOSHED," then realized that Jimmy Stewart was probably not in as much pain as I'd imagined (59D: Jimmy Stewart syllables — AWS).

Theme answers:

• 17A: Odd sign at a Michelin dealership? (BLOW-OUT TIRE SALE)
  
• 36A: Odd sign at Victoria's Secret? (LINGERIE HALF OFF)
  
• 56A: Odd sign at Men's Wearhouse? (ALL SUITS SLASHED)
  

There's a host of little things I didn't care for. Does the [Physical expense] of LAB FEE mean the price you pay when you get a physical (at the doctor's) and they charge you for lab tests? I think of LAB FEE exclusively as a fee students pay for their (science) labs in college, but that surely has everything to do with my spending well over half my life in and around universities. AAU (5D: Jr. Olympics sponsor) is a terrible abbreviation that I never saw before crosswords, and have probably seen only once before today. It's exceedingly unfamiliar. I had RATER for DATER at first, though the latter makes more sense. RSTU (55A: Alphabet string) speaks for itself. I have never seen ANA clued as a Japanese airline (All Nippon Airways) (40A: Carrier to Tokyo), but to be fair, that's the second hit that comes up when you google [Ana], right after American Nurses Association. I could do with never seeing LAR in any way, shape, or form again (35A: Choreographer Lubovitch). Otherwise ... the mid-length fill in the puzzle strikes me as quite solid, as does the longer stuff in the NE and SW corners. The theme is sufficiently cute. All in all, enjoyable.

Bullets:

• 14A: Near east honorific (AGA) — also spellable with an "H"
  
• 15A: Like boot camp vis-a-vis day camp (HARSHER) — given that those things are completely unrelated, this clue may as well have read [Like torture vis-a-vis a back rub]
  
• 61A: ABC daytime staple since 1997 ("THE VIEW") — has it been that long? Yeesh. I once (twice, actually) lost a fingernail when my finger got slammed in a door. . . make your own analogy here.
  
• 6D: "The A-Team" muscleman (MR. T) — "The A-Team," like everything from my childhood and adolescence, is being made into a movie now (see also the upcoming "Clash of the Titans")

• 18D: Symbol of limpness (WET RAG) — "Symbol" seems rather high-falutin' a word.
  
• 19D: Car whose name is an acronym (SAAB) — Swedes Are Amazingly Burly
  
• 25D: Nile Valley region (NUBIA) — I've heard rappers refer to black people as NUBIANs, but I never really considered NUBIA as a specific place. Until today.

• 50D: Electrical pioneer Thomson (ELIHU) — O boy, another ELIHU. Had never even seen such a name until I stumbled on it in a puzzle one day, clued via ELIHU Yale (founder of the eponymous University).
  

Good day,

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

APRIL 29, 2010 UPDATE:

P.S. this is my final plug for this weekend's "Crosswords L.A." charity crossword tournament at Loyola-Marymount University (5/1/10). Looks like I'm on the judging/scoring team with constructors Tyler Hinman, Doug Peterson, Todd McClary, and Alex Boisvert. Tyler and Andrea Carla Michaels are doing color commentary for the finals. It's cheap, it's fun, you can solve in teams if you want ... more info here. For those of you who are wondering if you are "good enough" to compete — you are. These tournaments are only stressful for the hyper-competitive. For the rest of us, they're just a chance to geek out about puzzles in a low-key, friendly environment. Hope to see L.A.-area folks there.

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