Many a Marvel character / TUES 3-28-23 / Wyatt of the Wild West / Beverages with tasting notes / Bakery unit / Red gemstone

Hello, everyone! It’s Clare, back for the last Tuesday of March. Hope everyone is having a good start to your spring. I saw the cherry blossoms here in DC yesterday, and they were stunning — the sky was clear and bright blue, and the blossoms were at about their colorful, fragrant peak. It was just… imagine a lot of people… now multiply that by about tenfold. But, yes, I still got some lovely photos. I'm also enjoying the weather warming up because it means I can ride my bike without having to wear seven layers of clothing. And, of course, I’m staying up-to-date on all the sports happenings in the world, especially the men’s and women’s NCAA tournaments. 

Anywho, onto the crossword!

Constructor: Daniel Kantor and Jay Kaskel

Relative difficulty: Pretty easy

THEME: Emphatic gestures that use a body part

Theme answers:

• BROW WIPE (17A: [Phew! That was close!]) 
• KNEE SLAP (26A: [Har-har-har!]) 
• EYE ROLL (40A: [Puh-lease!]) 
• FACEPALM (51A: [D'oh!]) 
• FIST PUMP (64A: [Woo-hoo!])

Word of the Day: IDIOT (35A: Dostoyevsky novel about a "positively beautiful man," with "The") —

The Idiot is a novel by the 19th-century Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. It was first published serially in the journal The Russian Messenger in 1868–69. The title is an ironic reference to the central character of the novel, Prince Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin, a young man whose goodness, open-hearted simplicity and guilelessness lead many of the more worldly characters he encounters to mistakenly assume that he lacks intelligence and insight. In the character of Prince Myshkin, Dostoevsky set himself the task of depicting "the positively good and beautiful man." The novel examines the consequences of placing such a singular individual at the centre of the conflicts, desires, passions and egoism of worldly society, both for the man himself and for those with whom he becomes involved. (Wiki)

• • •

So that puzzle… existed. I don’t know. It was straightforward and fairly easy. The theme wasn’t overly special, but it was at least different from some of the usual themes we get. The gestures generally felt solid — except, I didn’t like BROW WIPE (17A); you wipe your brow, but I don’t think a BROW WIPE is a thing, is it? The theme didn’t take me very long to get, and once I got it, the answers came pretty easily. 

I think if you were in the mood for something kind of meh that you could do while listening to music and watching the South Carolina women win again in the NCAA tournament, you probably enjoyed this puzzle. On the other hand, if you wanted some inventive clues/answers with a really invigorating theme, this may not have been your favorite puzzle. 

I fell somewhere in between. There was some good to the puzzle. I don’t usually love bracket clues, but the theme used them well. PIE HOLE (30D: Mouth, slangily), SATCHEL (49A: Bag with a strap), LEMURS (66A: Madagascar's aye-ayes and sifakas), and TREETOP (28A: "Rock-a-Bye Baby" setting) were all fun words you don’t see that often in puzzles. The fill wasn’t too crosswordese-y. 

But, some of the puzzle just felt off. There was some laziness seemingly with ACT UP (46D: Make Mischief), EVENS UP (44D: Ties, as a score), and SHOOT EM UP (3D: Video game genre for Space Invaders) all having the same ending. Also, while I don’t blame the constructors for this, it was really poor timing to have an answer in the puzzle be SHOOT EM UP given Monday’s horrible events in Nashville. Having CRIMEA (8D: Black Sea peninsula) and RUSSIA (62A: Country that seized 8-Down in 2014) there in the puzzle felt somehow off to me, too — maybe it’s the clue for 62A, where “seized” is a pretty tame word for what RUSSIA did. 

I had “in the nude” rather than IN THE BUFF (36D: Not wearing any clothing) for a bit, which confused the SE corner for me before I saw the clue 68A: Douglas __ and knew the answer had to be FIR. I also had no idea what 25D: Chichi was. I’ve since Googled it, and I’m not convinced the definition of “chichi” really aligns with TONY. It seems the definition for TONY (not the award for excellence on Broadway) is aristocratic manner, fashionable, stylish, expensive. Chichi seems to be more about being elegant or trendy or elaborately ornamented in a pretentious way.

Misc.:

• I was all set to make EMIL (60D: Actor Jannings who won the first Best Actor Oscar) the “word of the day,” but looking through his Wikipedia page, I quickly learned that he was a Swiss-born German actor and starred in a lot of Nazi propaganda films.He even apparently carried his Oscar around to prove he’d been associated with Hollywood. Not sure we needed him in the puzzle… 
• Quick aside: Can anyone tell me why doornails are DEAD (57A)?! 
• With 28D: "Rock-a-Bye Baby" setting, if you look at the lyrics for “Rock-a-bye-Baby,” why in the world is this a nursery rhyme? “Down will come baby, cradle and all.” I guess there’s room for interpretation, but I’m pretty sure the baby dies there. Similar vibes as “Oh My Darling, Clementine,” where the woman drowns. 
• Thanks, but I didn’t really need another reminder about the TAMPA (12D) Bay Buccaneers winning the 2021 Super Bowl. As if Tom Brady really needed that seventh ring. Just rub it in, why don’t you? At least he’s retired — for now. Also, today I learned the city is just TAMPA, not “Tampa Bay.” 
• SLOPES (69A: They can be slippery) reminded me of the recent Alpine ski racing season that just ended where Mikaela Shiffrin had one of the most phenomenal years of any athlete in any sport ever. Having just turned 28, she now has the most wins of any skier all time (among a whole bunch of other records she set) and also won the overall title and two discipline titles (aka three Globes). Her win percentage in the races she enters is at about 35 percent, which is just insane and is also the highest of any athlete in any sport (higher than Novak Djokovic, Serena Williams, and Tiger Woods). In case you can’t tell, I’m a big Mikaela Shiffrin fan. She’s pretty much the best. Let’s get her into some crosswords, okay?

And that's it from me. Have a great April!

Signed, Clare [Head Scratch] Carroll

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Product-testing nonprofit since 1936 / TUE 8-2-22 / Late-night show starting in 2003 / Moon-landing acronym / Vaccine shot in British lingo

Constructor: Jay Kaskel and Daniel Kantor

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: REPEAT AFTER ME (36A: Swearing-in words ... or a hint to 17-, 22-, 48- and 55-Across) — in each theme answer, a letter "repeats" after the letter string "ME" ... I think that's it

Theme answers:

• FOR OLD TIMES' SAKE (17A: In remembrance of former days)
• STEAMED DUMPLING (22A: Dim sum serving)
• CONSUMER REPORTS (48A: Product-testing nonprofit since 1936)
• "JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE" (55A: Late-night show starting in 2003)

Word of the Day: KRONA (4D: Swedish currency) —

noun

1. 1. 

   the basic monetary unit of Sweden, equal to 100 öre.
2. 2. 

   the basic monetary unit of Iceland, equal to 100 aurar. (google / Oxford Languages)

• • •

Hello again from Lake Michigan. The write-ups for these next three days (T, W, Th) really are going to be shorter than usual because timing ... is just ... hard when you're on vacation. Drinking and eating and socializing really horns in on your crossword time, it turns out. So I'm sitting here just after 10pm writing fairly frantically while my wife and friends are all sitting around planning tomorrow's adventures. I could get up at 4:30am like at home but LOL that is not happening on this particular vacation. There's a reason I normally have people cover for me on vacation, and cover for me they will once my vacation switches VENUEs (headed to Los Angeles on Friday). But for now, you get squibs. Is that the word? Squib? Maybe I mean "stub," I don't know. Definitely not "squab," which is some kind of small fowl, I think. Onward!

It's possible I'm missing something today, because I don't see what makes this particular concept special. A double letter following "ME," is that really it"? I thought maybe the repeated letters would spell some relevant ... something, but no. S + D + R + L, that doesn't spell anything I'm familiar with. I have no idea how high or low the difficulty bar is here. Seems like there must be a million phrases that feature "ME" and then repeated letters. Today, the repeated letters break across two words every time (that is, the first of the pair (e.g. the "R" in "CONSUMER") is the last letter in a word and the second of the pair (e.g. the "R" in "REPORTS") is the first letter of the next word. That's ... something. But it's not a particularly flashy or even noticeable thing. The concept just doesn't feel tight enough. Also, there should be no other "ME"s in a puzzle like this. If the theme is REPEAT AFTER ME, then that should hold for all "ME"s in the grid, which is why "ME"s should occur only in themers. But there are, of course, other "ME"s, like in MEATS. Eliminating all non-theme "ME"s from the grid is a way to make the whole theme seem more elegant. And it wouldn't have been hard to do. The grid is not tough to fill—in fact, the fill really could be saucier and more interesting overall, given how little pressure the theme puts on the grid. Mostly what we get is very familiar and predominantly dull stuff. It was really hard even to decide on a Word of the Day today, so uninspiring was the fill. Basically, where the fill was concerned, this puzzle OGLED OGRES. The point is, well, twofold: there should be no non-theme "ME"s and the fill in general should've been much more interesting. 

There is nothing terrible about this puzzle. No big misses, nothing off-putting (except TASE, which, for me, is too strongly associated with police violence). The most jarring moment was trying to figure out 5D: Palindromic rental, getting D-D, and having no idea what that could be. I forgot that people still rent DVDs. Hell, *I* still rent DVDs, in that I still have (or recently re-got) the Netflix red-envelope snail-mail DVD/Blu-ray subscription dealie (and I love it). But cluing DVD as a rental still really threw me, since that is not how most people get their movies any more. OK, that's all, gotta go eat peaches. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Early-blooming ornamental / THU 9-27-18 / Dr Foreman player on House / Brand name derived from phrase service games / Word that sounds like state when accented on second syllable rather than first

Constructor: Daniel Kantor

Relative difficulty: Easy (5:16, and that's with every theme answer essentially unclued; see below)

THEME: dunno ... some visual clues, I guess; here's what the grid looked like on the app:

So I guess the answers are a literal description of either ... what you do or ... where the answer ... is? None of this meant anything to me, as I had a regular grid and all my theme clues said SEE NOTEPAD (I did not, in fact, SEE NOTEPAD, which turned out to be a stupid warning that my software couldn't handle the blah blah blah don't care)

Theme answers:

• FILL IN THE BLANKS
• SHADES OF GRAY
• INSIDE THE BOX
• BETWEEN THE LINES

Word of the Day: SEA LEGS (49A: Good standing in the Navy?) —

noun

1. a person's ability to keep their balance and not feel seasick when on board a moving ship. (google)

• • •

Once again, the puzzle tries to get fancy with some gimmick that my software won't accommodate. Once again, I don't think the gimmick is worth it at all. This is a Monday puzzle playing dress-up. All non-theme answers are short and boring, and the themers aren't much to look at either. The fact that I could finish this in just over five minutes, having absolutely no information about the theme answers (my theme clues all read SEE NOTEPAD), tells me it was way too weak for Thursday. Further, now that I look at the intended grid, the one with all the visual cues, it's weird-looking, and the difference between the "box" and the "lines" is barely perceptible. You'd think you'd want to do something more visually dramatic, something that would clearly differentiate one theme line from the next. Only the SHADES OF GRAY one is at all interesting, and even then, well, the themers are all inconsistent, parts-of-speech-wise. First one is a command, the second describes the boxes in the answer, and then the third and fourth are prepositional phrases indicating where you write the answer. It's a train wreck. An easy train wreck. Welcome to my midnight metaphoring.

[50D]

Five things:

• 9A: Zombie's domain (SCI-FI) — that's more horror than SCI-FI, come on
• 21A: Word that sounds like a state when accented on the second syllable rather than the first (MISERY) — I mean, it's true, but I did not spend any time trying to work it out. I need a term for a clever clue that is somehow also way too long and involved and therefore nothing I'm going to bother with.
• 9D: Card letters (STL) — embarrassed it took me five seconds to grok this one, instead of the one second it ought to have taken (STL are the letters on the baseball cap of any given Card, i.e. St. Louis Cardinal)
• 25D: Org. whose first-ever presidential endorsement was Ronald Reagan (NRA) — f*** this white supremacist terrorist org. A decent editor woulda changed this answer to KIA.
• 49A: Good standing in the Navy? (SEA LEGS) — probably the best thing about this puzzle. Certainly the thing that gave me the most trouble (I had SEAL and thought there was some other term for Navy Seals ... which you would have to be in "good standing" ... to belong to? )

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. Happy 15th anniversary to my [Lambchop] wife, who is the best

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Onetime MTV reality stunt show / WED 10-28-15 / 1950s mideast hotspot / Big name in 1980s jeans / Ouzo flavoring / Confident counterclaim / Political group unlikely to be swayed

Constructor: Jay Kaskel and Daniel Kantor

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (*for a Wednesday*) (not sure why, but my time was sky-high)

THEME: FOOD COURT (34A: Legal setting for 17-, 25-, 45- and 53-Across?) — food products clued as if they were involved in court cases (thus playing on the first, descriptive word in the food's name):

Theme answers:

• CANNED CORN (17A: 34-Across case involving ... wrongful termination?)
• SPLIT PEAS (25A: ... divorce proceedings?)
• DIRTY RICE (45A: ... political corruption?)
• BAKED BEANS (53A:  ... marijuana possession?)

Word of the Day: "JACKASS" (1D: Onetime MTV reality stunt show) —

Jackass is an American reality series, originally shown on MTV from 2000 to 2002,^[2] featuring people performing various dangerous, crude, self-injuring stunts and pranks. The show served as a launchpad for the television and acting careers of Bam Margera, Steve-O, and Johnny Knoxville, who previously had only minor acting roles. // Since 2001, three Jackass films have been produced and released by MTV corporate sibling Paramount Pictures, continuing the franchise after its run on television. The show sparked several spin-offs including Viva La Bam, Wildboyz, Homewrecker, Dr. Steve-O, Nitro Circus and Blastazoid. (wikipedia)

• • •

Cute idea, but the themers are inconsistent, arbitrary, and kind of dull. Foods really seem forced, conscripted, into the theme. The idea of a (literal) FOOD COURT is amusing, but there has to be a way to make this tighter / more amusing. Getting canned or split is not a crime, but being dirty or getting baked is (though ... do people go to court for simple possession still? Also, simple "possession" does not get you BAKED ... or so I understand). Lots of things are CANNED—CANNED CORN doesn't feel special or tight. Feels like it was just a "canned" answer that fit.  Also, DIRTY RICE is a whole dish, where the others are just single food items. Fill-wise, it's rough in many places, though you do get some occasionally interesting things in those giant, weirdly sequestered corners in the NW and SE.


I took a screenshot part way through when I got weirdly stuck. Looking back, it seems impossible that I couldn't instantly get SPLIT PEAS from this ...

... but my mind was racing to try to find types of peas. Like SWEET. Split is a form of processing. Brain just wasn't tilting that way. This brings up another inconsistency: no one eats SPLIT PEAS. As soup, sure, but just on their own? No. You could eat the others as they appear in the grid. But nobody eats just SPLIT PEAS. Google [split pea...] and all the suggestions are for soup. For A Reason.

Bullets:

• 32D: Unidentified hostile aircraft (BOGEYS) — had trouble with the plural part, but not with the answer in general. This is because I just watched "Top Gun" (on Saturday night). BOGEYS everywhere. Also oiled man-bods. Venetian blinds. And fans. Ceiling fans. Metal-cage desk fans. Just ... blowing. Lots of blowing.
• 47A: North Dakota city (MINOT)— fourth-largest city in the state! Which puts it under 50K. Not sure how I semi-remembered this. But I semi-did. Not great fill. I mean, beats ENERO and OUSE, but not by a ton.
• 9D: Stop for water (DAM) — clues like this one (a good one) are why this puzzle played a little hard for me. This is a tough, hard-to-read clue. It's got that whole "what does 'stop' mean?" thing going on. I was trying to decided if it was a verb or noun, but I was imagining a totally different form of noun (like an oasis). Tricky. 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. I made today's Buzzfeed crossword (a themeless). You can get it here. I would love it if you solved it. Thanks.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Goo goo eyed old style / TUE 8-11-15 / Ones steeped in tradition in England / Biblical kingdom its Utah namesake / Messy sandwich filler / Sweatship regulator / Nattering sort in Spiro Agnew speech / Classic beer once brewed in Detroit

Constructor: Jay Kaskel and Daniel Kantor

Relative difficulty: Dunno. I had to stop several times to let the rage subside.

THEME: PULLED PORK (59A: Messy sandwich filler ... or a hint to this puzzle's circled letters) — the letters P and O and R and K appear in order, but separated from one another, in four theme answers that start with P and end with K:

Theme answers:

• PHONE PRANK (17A: Frequent Bart Simpson antic)
• PUSH YOUR LUCK (23A: Ask the boss for more vacation time after getting a raise, perhaps)
• PIN ONE'S EARS BACK (34A: Scold a person)
• PLYMOUTH ROCK (50A: Landmark with the year 1620 inscribed on it)

Word of the Day: MINOT (51D: North Dakota city with a nearby Air Force base) —

Minot (ⁱ/ˈmaɪnɒt/ MY-not) is a city located in north central North Dakota, United States. It is most widely known for the Air Force base located approximately 15 miles (24 km) north of the city. With a population of 40,888 at the 2010 census, Minot is the fourth largest city in the state. In 2012, the Minot Area Development Corporation estimated that there were between 46,000 and 47,000 permanent residents within city limits. The city is the county seat of Ward County and is a trading center for a large portion of northern North Dakota, southwestern Manitoba, and southeastern Saskatchewan. Founded in 1886 during the construction of the Great Northern Railway, Minot is also known as "Magic City", commemorating its remarkable growth in size over a short time. // Minot is the principal city of the Minot Micropolitan Statistical Area, a micropolitan area that covers McHenry, Renville, and Ward counties and had a combined population of 69,540 at the 2010 census. In 2012, it was estimated that the population of the Minot Micropolitan Area was 73,146 (wikipedia)

• • •

This puzzle is unacceptable. No constructor I know, not a one, would've let a grid this unpolished get to print (to say nothing of the generally lackluster clues). I am genuinely tired of pointing this stuff out, but since most puzzle professionals won't say a damned thing publicly about how poorly conceived and edited the NYT puzzles can be of late, I'm kind of on my own here (although privately any constructor or editor worth his/her salt will tell you exactly what's wrong with this puzzle, exactly what could be easily changed, exactly where the wincing happens, etc.—you can probably do same). So ... the theme has promise (not the OLEO kind of Promise, but promise nonetheless). It's based on a common constructing gimmick: take a common/familiar phrase and literalize it in some way. Here, PORK is being PULLED apart in the various answers. If ever there was a reason for non-consecutive circles in a puzzle (which I normally don't care for), this is it. But there's one big problem: I know the gimmick from the jump. Once you get PHONE PRANK, all the circles and the revealer can be filled in immediately. So whatever cleverness is involved in the concept is offset by what happens at the actual solving level. Same letters are pulled over and over and over. Theme is way too transparent. But this is merely unfortunate. It saps the puzzle of its power to please and entertain, but it is not unprofessional.

["Hey guys, I'm looking for a Jacques Strap!"]

What *is* unprofessional, again (and again and again), is the outright sloppiness and laziness of the fill and the cluing. I literally stopped at SMIT (6A: Goo-goo-eyed, old-style) and took a time out because I couldn't believe the "Best Puzzle in the World" couldn't be bothered to remove such an obvious, horrible, easily fixable stupid archaic ye olde wart of an answer. We get NABOB for the Second Day In A Row, which says Everything about what's wrong here, and in general. Everything is so OLD HAT, so out-of-a-dusty-drawer or mothbally closet. I can't believe anyone put any care at all into making the grid, cluing the grid, editing the grid ... puzzles, even very easy puzzles, can be So much better than this. There's really no excuse for OHTO or SMIT or even (in the case of an easily fillable 78-worder like this) SKEE, MINOT, UELE, CEE, ECRU, ONEA, OLEO, LAPP, OSHA, MANO and probably many others. The grid is devoid of interesting or contemporary fill. The cluing is stale (with notable exception of [Ones steeped in tradition in England?] for TEAS, which is a winner). After the theme, the rest of the puzzle is just phoned in. A promising theme concept doesn't get the crafting and love it needs to become an overall Good 2015 puzzle, and so we get this—an echo of a memory of a puzzle from earlier times, decades ago, when fill standards were simply lower, when cluing was more straightforward and less artful. This is the kind of puzzle that gives crossword puzzles their reputation as a moribund pastime for the moribund.


The NYT is about to get serious, daily competition from two new outlets: the WSJ (which has published a Friday 21x21 for a long time) starts a daily 15x15 puzzle in the near future, as does BuzzFeed, which just posted specs and a sample puzzle yesterday. BuzzFeed is matching NYT's pay right off the bat, which is a great sign, as is the joyful enthusiasm of BuzzFeed's crossword editor, Caleb Madison. The BuzzFeed puzzle might end up playing a little poppy and youthful for some of you, but that's OK. Different kinds of solvers like different kinds of puzzles. What's not OK is slop. I have very high hopes for the future of crosswords in general. My hopes for the future of the NYT crossword in particular aren't as high. Great constructors will continue to submit, so the high points will still be high, but I have no reason to believe that the average quality level won't continue to slowly and quietly sink (or, perhaps, hover, while other outlets shine). Rigorous polishing and up-to-date, clever cluing don't appear to be a high priority at the NYT right now. Maybe the new competition will raise all boats. But I won't hold my breath.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. Here's Oliver Roeder's write-up of Lollapuzzoola 8 for the NYT. I'll have my own write-up soon enough.

P.P.S. A friend of mine just wrote me, re: PIN ONE'S EARS BACK: "Using "one's" this way means you're pinning your own ears back. Why would you be scolding yourself??? As if there isn't enough wrong with this puzzle ...."

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Yellow-eyed birds of prey / WED 2-27-13 / Cybermenaces / Sonata finale often / Late 19th-century anarchist's foe / Pre-election ad buyer / Online party reminder

Constructor: Daniel Kantor

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: CHANGE OF HEART (37A: Decision reversal ... or, literally, what can be found inside 17-, 22-, 49- and 58-Across) — rearrangement of letter string "heart" can be found in each of four 15-letter answers.

GREAT HORNED OWL (17A: Yellow-eyed birds of prey)
SECRET HANDSHAKE (22A: Part of a fraternity ritual, perhaps)
COMPUTER HACKERS (49A: Cybermenaces)
SEEN BUT NOT HEARD (58A: How children should be, in a saying)

Word of the Day: COHOS (54D: Some Pacific salmon) —

The coho salmon, Oncorhynchus kisutch, (from the Russian кижуч kizhuch) is a species of anadromous fish in the salmon family. Coho salmon are also known as silver salmon or "silvers". It is the state animal of Chiba, Japan. [...] The traditional range of the coho salmon runs along both sides of the North Pacific Ocean, from Hokkaidō, Japan and eastern Russian, around the Bering Sea to mainland Alaska, and south to Monterey Bay, California.^[2] Coho salmon have also been introduced in all the Great Lakes, as well as many landlocked reservoirs throughout the United States. (wikipedia)

• • •

This was an extremely easy puzzle. My not-so-impressive time represents a. my dealing with rather upsetting pet issues *right* before sitting down to do the puzzle (I just wasn't in a mood to speed) and b. my spending 30 seconds or so looking for a stupid IPADS for IPODS error (66A: Apple products since 2001). One look at the year in the clue, or at the cross, would've told me PAD not POD, but I guess I was distracted. Anyway, there was not one point in the puzzle where I slowed down or struggled. In a very segmented grid like this, there are lots of short answers, and that tends to signal "easy." Here's the downside of not driving longer Downs through more than two theme answers: lots of short stuff and not a lot of sizzle. Since all the themes (except the reveal) are 15s, you can't sneak a long Down around any of them, so there's no non-theme answer longer than 6 in the whole puzzle. Hence easiness, and dullness. Now, the theme answers themselves are gold. Really great individual answers. The theme is not exciting—I immediately thought "I've seen this before ... this must have been done a bunch." Which is not true. Or, rather, it's true that the revealer has been a theme answer a bunch before, but the  concept has not been executed in quite this way. So basically this is a grid with four very good answers. Theme isn't that clever and fill is clean but unremarkable. I had to pause slightly at RAW BAR (11D: Where to order oysters), NAIFS (25D: Unworldly ones) and ABA (44A: Counselors' org.) (I had APA, thinking of a different kind of "counselor"). My favorite non-theme answer in the puzzle by far is "I'M LIKE..." (12D: "My answer was ...," in teen-speak). It's terribly, horribly accurate, and not just for teenagers. Plenty of grown-ups, most of my students, and occasionally I use this phrase. I have often found myself standing in line for coffee on campus, counting the "LIKE"s in the conversations around me. You get up into the double-digits very, very quickly. Sometimes within a few sentences. This is all to say that the phrase "I'M LIKE..." is ubiquitous. I also really like the clue on PAC (32D: Pre-election ad buyer, maybe). Still waiting to see SUPER-PAC in a puzzle (I think).


That's it.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Song of 1859 / FRI 12-24-10 / It has 3750 steps of penitence / Scrooge player of film / Sacred symbol to Zeus / Word on vin bottle

Constructor: Jay Kaskel and Daniel Kantor

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: SILENT NIGHT (59A: Song of 1959 ... or what the five circled letters represent?) — silent N, I, GH, and T can be found in circled squares in four Christmas-related theme answers


Word of the Day: IAN Ziering (52D: Ziering of "90210") —

Ian Andrew Ziering (born March 30, 1964) is an American actor best known for playing Steve Sanders on the television series Beverly Hills, 90210. (wikipedia) (so he *started* playing a teenage at 26 ...?)

• • •

Hot on the heels of the GHOTI / "Fish" puzzle, we get another puzzle based on the vagaries of the English language and its pronunciation. When I first finished, I did not get the "silent" part of the puzzle — I thought the fact that NIGHT was "hiding" in the circles (quietly?) was the feature signified by the word SILENT. That wrong conclusion lasted only a few seconds, as I realized it made no sense, and the circles didn't form a Christmasy shape that I recognized, so some quality of the letters themselves must be important (I reasoned) and bingo—theme solved. Helped (somehow) that NIGHT shares 4 out of 5 letters with GHOTI. The fact that the silent letters all appear in Christmas-related answers (including the date-specific CHRISTMAS EVE) is a nice touch. The puzzle felt a little slight for a Friday (possibly because of all the short, basic answers occasioned by the strange, black-square-heavy grid design), but there are very few weak spots and the theme is tight and clever. Thumbs up.

Theme answers:

• 18A: Carols, often (CHRISTMAS HYMNS)
  
• 24A: Scrooge player of film (MICHAEL CAINE) — when was that?? Ohhh...
  

• 38A: Polar opposites? (NAUGHTY OR NICE) — okay, That is a good clue
  
• 51A: Time before the present day? (CHRISTMAS EVE) — again, good clue
  

Started out tough for me and then opened right up. Then ended up tough again (started and finished in the NW). First things I put in the grid with any confidence were RARA (15A: Uncommon, in ancient Rome) and CRU (6D: Word on a vin bottle). Couldn't remember my lesser trigonometrical functions (i.e. ARCTAN, 4D: Inverse trig function), so had to move along and found GEHRIG (8D: The Iron Horse of baseball). From there I was able to get into the NE and once CHURCH HYMNS was in, I caught fire. The only real thorny parts were all part of that NW corridor that runs the length of MAURITANIA (2D: Its capital is Nouakchott) and MUSIC STAND (3D: Score keeper?). Never heard of the USAC (39D: Car-racing org.), so needed every cross there. Terrible trouble seeing MT. SINAI (didn't expect a mountain to have "steps") (29A: It has 3,750 "steps of penitence"). OH I and HEN were very well hidden (21D: "___ don't know" + 1D: Game ___), and it took me a while to give up on YES as the answer to 1A: Not an ideal answer to "Do these jeans make me look fat?" ("HMM...").

Bullets:

• 14A: Feu fighter (EAU) — another great clue, punning (I assume) on this band name:

• 17A: N N N (NUS) — Greek letters. That "N" was the last letter I filled in, I think.
  
• 57A: With 67-Across, sacred symbol to Zeus (OAK / TREE) — I did not know this. Pieced it together with little trouble. Lots of ancient stuff today, what with two Latin words and Zeus and Greek letters and MT SINAI.
  
• 5D: Exclamation hear 12 times in Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" (RAH) — I am familiar with that part of the song, but somehow remember the syllable differently: MAH or BAH or LAH or maybe combinations of all those...

• 12D: Lady whom Don Giovanni tries to seduce (ANNA) — HMM ... opera. For me, this generally means "insert random woman's name here." And so it was today. Crosses: mercifully easy.
  
• 32D: "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" setting (THE RIVIERA) — this movie co-starred ... MICHAEL CAINE. Nice touch.

• 35D: Lily, in Lille (LYS) — as in "fleur-de-"

Merry Christmas Eve.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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TUESDAY, Jan. 13, 2009 - D. Kantor and J Kaskel (Risk-taker's credo / Two-seated carriage / Hockey fake-out)

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "MIXED NUTS" (63A: What 17-, 26-, 38-, and 52-Across contain) - consecutive circled squares in each of the theme answers contain various arrangements of the letters N, U, T, and S.


Word of the day: DEKE - (v.) To deceive (an opponent) in ice hockey by a fake; (n.) A fake, intended to deceive a member of an opposing team. (answers.com)

I'm back from my comical adventures in freezing cold morning flat tire repair. Those words should probably be hyphenated in some fashion, but my fingers are still numb from the cold, so no way. Wife's tire was low on air, so she went to the gas station, and in the process of figuring out that their air pump was not working / frozen, deflated the affected tire even more. She's using my car to buy a new air compressor now, as the one in my car is a piece of @#$# and refuses to do anything but provide meager illumination with its stupid lamp component. Anyway, kwik write up today (had KWIK in a puzzle I'm constructing yesterday ... then realized it might be a deal-breaker and so, sadly, removed it).

Today's puzzle was a theme I swear I've seen before. And I don't mean the general anagram concept. I mean "MIXED NUTS" in particular. AHA! Here it is, in a far more interesting / challenging form, with different kinds of nuts anagrammed inside each theme answer. The good thing about today's puzzle is that the theme answers themselves are inherently interesting, vibrant, and ... grabby. No surprise that my favorite is AUNTSELMA (17A: Marge's sister, to Bart Simpson). There is no other show that has crossworthiness to a depth of 10+ characters. Well, I haven't done the research, but I really doubt it; there's all five Simpson family members and MOE and NED and OTTO and APU and ABE ... "Simpsons"-haters should get used to seeing at least those names for ... I'm going to say 'the rest of their lives.'

Theme answers:

• 17A: AUNT SELMA
• 26A: Not a good way to buy a car (sighT UNSEEN)
• 38A: Risk-taker's credo ("no gUTS No glory")
• 52A: Seasonal Arctic phenomenon (midnighT SUN)

This one was very easy from the get-go, with the two Aussie clues in the NW opening the doors to the entire top half of the puzzle. What else could those clues be but EMU (2D: Outback runner) and KANGAROO (3D: Outback hopper)? There was lots of crosswordy words in the puzzle today - not junk, exactly, but stuff you see and know instinctively if you do enough of these things. DEKE is the first one that comes to mind (1A: Hockey fake-out). I wrote this in first, and instantly, but today when I came downstairs, the "D" was one of only two letters my wife didn't have. Of course the other was the "I" in IMAC (14A: Apple variety), so she must not have been fully awake yet. I am seeing A-TRAIN an awful lot lately, esp. for a 6-letter answer (35A: Transport in Duke Ellington's theme song). Maybe not surprising, given all the common letters. As repeating fill goes, I like it. AD OUT (16A: Deuce follower, in tennis) is tennisese worth knowing, as is its more common cousin AD IN. IHOP returns after a long hiatus (72A: Flapjack eatery, for short), and we've also got a couple more abbreviations of note - SAS (62D: Carrier to Oslo) and LOL (6D: Online guffaw). I learned SAS from crosswords, and LOL from histrionic net denizens everywhere. I didn't learn SURREY from crosswords (12D: Two-seated carriage) - I learned it from "When Harry Met Sally" - but I did learn its cousin HANSOM from crosswords, so look out for that.

Bullets:

• 56A: 1972 treaty subj. (ABM) - anti-ballistic missile; don't see that much anymore. It's all ICBMs these days (the word that both Clinton and Stewart both got easily when solving the puzzle in "Wordplay")
• 58A: _____ Report (luxury lifestyle magazine) (Robb) - There's a VA senator named ROBB. He would have been welcome here.
• 68A: "Need You Tonight" band, 1987 (INXS) - four improbably combined letters? That earns you crossword credibility for years and years to come. Music!

• 28D: Moonwalking Armstrong (Neil) - More moonwalking for you:

• 46D: Steakhouse offering (ribeye) - I don't eat RIBEYE, but I have to say that as a piece of fill, I ADMIRE it (47D: Regard highly)

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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WEDNESDAY, Jul. 2, 2008 - Daniel Kantor (KENDO MOTION / TOLKIEN'S THE PRANCING PONY, E.G.)

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "GREEN EGGS AND HAM" (57A: Dr. Seuss book ... or a description of the answers to the three starred clues) - starred clues are descriptions of "green," "eggs," and "ham," respectively

Yesterday I was wondering where my Tuesday puzzle had gone. Well, I found it. It was hiding in Wednesday's slot. Did this puzzle in well under yesterday's time (closer to Monday's), and with zero hesitation, except for a very brief moment where I thought the attorney general in question might be BURR and perhaps there was a variant version of the well-known Hawaiian dance called the HULU (there is a website called "Hulu.com," which is great - lots of high-quality recent tv clips and other videos). But I played it conservatively and went with BARR (35D: Attorney general after Thornburgh) and HULA (39A: Dance with a wiggle), which ended up being correct. Today's theme is wonderful - tight, concise, clear, clever. Not much to say but "good job."

Theme answers:

• 17A: *1986 Newman/Cruise film ("The Color of Money") - in the U.S., yes, this is (a kind of) GREEN
• 26A: *Ritzy delicacy (beluga caviar) - this concept is always confusing to me, as BELUGA is a whale, and whales don't lay eggs... but BELUGA CAVIAR comes from the BELUGA sturgeon found primarily in the Caspian Sea.
• 44A: *Showboating type (grandstander) - HAM ... this definition of HAM seems just a teensy bit off. A bad actor would have been nice here, but perhaps that would have been too insulting. The last thing the NYT wants is an angry letter from Rob Schneider (he fits!).

Not a lot more to say about this puzzle on a general level. My sister and family arrive tomorrow and stay through Saturday, so puzzle commentary will likely get briefer for a few days. Also, I leave for a three-week trip to NZ on the 14th. I have people (I do) covering for me on travel days, but I should be coming to you live from Dunedin (or thereabouts) beginning on the 18th or so. Assuming we don't buy the wrong adapter and explode the laptop. I will take those weeks in NZ to lobby for new crossword words - NZ is horribly under-utilized. Various flora, fauna, and related Maori words could really liven up our language. KEA and TUI alone could do big business in our grids, I think. So ... "RPDTNYTCP" goes international in two weeks. Look for it.

List just in...

• 1A: "The aristocrat of pears" (bosc) - whose (absurd) quote is that? Pear in four letters = BOSC. One of the few SC-ending words that isn't DISC or an abbreviation.
• 23A: Vintner's valley (Napa) - started to write in ASTI when I thought 4D: Milk sources (coconuts) had something to do with COCOA...
• 31A: Woodworking tool (router) - ADZ? Is it ADZ? ADZ won't fit. But ... ADZ!
• 33A: Marvelous, in slang (fab) - also, a detergent.
• 36A and 46D: Symbols of industry (ants)(logos) - check it out - an ant logo:

• 51A: Alternative to Gmail (AOL) - AOL is a minor crossword god, and can apparently be clued a bijillion ways.
• 62A: "Never follow" sloganeer, once (Audi) - ooh, a bygone slogan. Those are always good.
• 63A: Gin flavorer (sloe) - it's gin season. Too bad I will be spending most of it in a NZ winter (yeah, it's winter Down There).
• 6D: Disposition pick-me-up (Prozac) - um ... this clue seems wrong, or at least mis-leading. Prozac is not cocaine or no-doz. It is not (as I understand it ...) fast-acting, so "pick-me-up" seems way way off.
• 7D: Label in a bibliophile's catalog (rare) - This bibliophile does not use this label. Not that I don't have some RARE books.
• 9D: Mag mogul beginning in the '50s (Hef) - easy. He has a good short nickname that you see in crosswords from time to time.
• 11D: Kendo motion (lunge) - is Kendo a martial art? Aha, "the way of the sword." Yes. I would show you video, but I just tried to watch a championship, and it was terminally boring (how is that possible!?), so I'll spare you.
• 19D: Language of Kuala Lumpur (Malay) - Kuala Lumpur used to have the tallest buildings in the world (Petronas Towers), but have since been overtaken by Shanghai and Taipei.
• 24D: Like early night election returns (partial) - wanted PRE-something for a few seconds.
• 26D: Grill option, for short (brat) - I don't think I saw this; it would have thrown me, despite the fact that I've been eating pseudo-brats on a regular basis this summer (Tofurky does much more than ridiculous fake turkey)
• 38D: Tolkien's The Prancing Pony, e.g. (inn) - I have no recollection of this. Luckily (for someone) the nerd factor on Tolkien fans is so incredibly high that there is a detailed description of this inn over at Wikipedia.
• 44D: Dolphins Hall-of-Fame QB Bob (Griese) - QB when I was a kid. I'm surprised his name doesn't appear more often. A potentially useful six-letter "G"-word.
• 51D: Gelatin substitute (agar) - one of the few ultra-crosswordy bits of fill today. Well, I guess there is SLOE. And EMIT. And A TON. And ALOE and OGLE and EONS and LUTE and IRATE and STYES and OSAGE. Hmm, I guess this puzzle gets a lot of credit for making me forget how much crosswordy fill it actually does have.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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WEDNESDAY, Jun. 11, Daniel Kantor (GRID GREAT GRIER)

Relative difficulty: Super Easy

THEME: LIE-ABILITY (62A: What 17-, 23-, 37- and 51-Across may demonstrate?) - theme answers are commonly told lies

Despite its manifest cutsiness - what with the made-up word and all - I really liked this theme. WON'T HURT A BIT is jarring in its lack of an initial "THIS," but otherwise, the theme is very smooth. I DIDN'T DO IT is the catchphrase Bart Simpson accidentally invents during a Krusty the Klown skit in the episode "Bart Gets Famous" - the catchphrase propels him to superstardom before leaving him a laughable has-been shortly thereafter (this is a fantastic bit of self-reference on the part of "The Simpsons," as the show's own early fame was propelled by similar, stupid Bart catchphrases like "Ay Caramba!" and "Eat My Shorts!" and "Don't Have a Cow, Man!").

Theme answers:

• 17A: Prankster's denial ("I didn't do it")
• 23A: Doctor's assurance ("Won't hurt a bit")
• 37A: Gift recipient's declaration ("Just what I wanted")
• 51A: Debtor's avowal ("It's in the mail")

I finished this puzzle in just over four minutes, without really trying. Felt much more Tuesday than Wednesday, and was probably the easiest Wednesday I've done in recent memory. No misdirection, lots of gimmes. Check out the large volume of common crossword fill - just a sampling:

• AIDA (2D: Opera set along the Nile)
• SNERT (13D: Hagar's dog)
• TARA (26A: Olympian Lipinksi)
• AJA (30D: Steely Dan album of 1977)
  
• EERO (35D: Architect Saarinen)
  
• OTOE (67A: Siouan speaker) - WHOA ... "Siouan" has four consecutive vowels. Freaky.

One of the newest hot bits of crossword fill is WIFI (49D: Internet cafe offering). Like ALITO and OBAMA, it is sure to appear frequently for years to come. WHOA is about the last one you'd expect to pose a problem in this puzzle, and yet it's the only one that I had to make multiple passes at before I figured it out. This puzzle has KILN (14A: Where firings occur) and OAST (28D: Brewery fixture) (a rare oven twofer), and, just a few days after the 40th anniversary of the RFK assassination, ROSEY Grier (33A: Grid great Grier), who was just feet from Kennedy when it happened.

Le Rest:

• 5A: Academy newcomer (plebe) - one of my least favorite words. It's like something you'd call a very nerdy extra terrestrial.
• 10A: Shelter array (cots) - wanted DOGS
• 21A: Dernier _____ (latest thing) (cri) - "CRI" literally means (not surprisingly, perhaps) "cry" or "shout"
• 29A: Sled pullers (team) - nice little deke here, as you go looking for the terminal "S" that never arrives...
• 31A: Bygone muscle car (GTO) - I do so love any clue that has "bygone" in it. A klassic krossword klue word.
• 43A: Org. with an "edu" address (sch.) - one of my least favorite abbrs., yet I got it instantly today (doubted it, briefly, because of the whole WHOA issue, but stuck with it anyway). A SCH. is where DEES get you 1.0 (45A: They're worth 1.0)
  
• 61A: Enterprise Klingon (Worf) - make me think fondly of my wife, who watched "TNG" back in the day (before I knew her). I've never actually seen her watch any "Star Trek" episode, but everything "TNG" makes me think of her anyway.
• 8D: Mediterranean capital (Beirut) - sadly, I never associate this city with the Mediterranean, largely because the Mediterranean conjures up images of placidity and temperateness and abundance, while BEIRUT I know largely from war footage. In my mind, it is uniformly brown and in ruins.
• 40A: Sub's weapon, perhaps (ICBM) - had the "C" and could think only of "ECHO" ... "Can you attack something with ECHOlocation technology ...?" No.
• 63D: Writer Beattie (Ann) - I know her only by name, and only because I used to be such a huge Raymond Carver fan, and her name seemed to come up a lot whenever I read about him.
• 64D: Restaurants competing with Mickey D's (BKs) - this is a horrible answer and a horribly written clue. "Restaurants" is in the proper plural, but "Mickey D's" ... is that supposed to be how your write the plural? Or is that a singular? And has anyone ever used the "word" "BKs" in a sentence? "We've opened five BKs in Uruguay this year!" Huh. Maybe.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS a reader picture of 15A:

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