Mesh (with) / TUES 7-31-18 / Hollywood and such / Oddball

Hi, everyone!

It's Clare again, because it's the end of the month as we know it. It's almost the end of the summer as we know it, too, so I hope people are soaking up every last little bit of sunshine they can find. I'm currently trying to do that in Lake Tahoe, where I'll keep enjoying my time as a server for another couple of weeks before I move to D.C. and start my next big adventure: law school!

Constructor: David Woolf

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: DOT DOT DOT (55A: Indication of more to come ... or what 17-, 28- and 43- Across all contain) — Three people who have dots in their names because they go by their initials.

Theme answers:

• WEBDUBOIS (17A: Contemporary of Booker T. Washington)
• JRRTOLKIEN (28A: Best-selling author who invented multiple languages)
• FAOSCHWARZ (43A: Classic toy store founder)

Word of the Day: BOBBIES (3D: British officers) —

In creating London’s Metropolitan Police (headquartered on a short street called Scotland Yard), Robert Peel sought to create a professionalized law enforcement corps that was as accountable to everyday citizens as to the ruling classes. Instead of the resented red coats, Peel’s patrolmen wore black jackets and tall wool hats with shiny badges. They went out armed only with a short club and a whistle for summoning backup, walking regular beats and working to gain the trust of the local citizens. Robert Peel’s system was a success, and by the mid-19th century large American cities had created similar police forces. In London, the policemen were so identified with the politician who created them that they were referred to as “Peelers” or—more memorably—“Bobbies,” after the popular nickname for Robert. (History.com)

• • •

Maybe I'm in a grumpy mood — I'm SORE from riding 50 hilly miles today as part of training to ride the full 72 miles around the lake — but I found the dot dot dot puzzle meh meh meh. A lot of the fill was uninspiring, and it felt at times like the entire puzzle was fill. It was kind of weird to have DABS and DAUB and also ANYA and ANNA in the same puzzle. Though, I did like some of the long downs in the corners — they felt elegant somehow. The theme was kind of clever, but it didn't particularly help me solve any of the puzzle. There is a slight problem with the theme, too, because the Wikipedia page for FAO SCHWARZ doesn't have any dots in the name, and websites referring to the company don't have any dots, either. Also a problem: 43A: Classic toy store founder refers to the person, not the company, and from my Google search it doesn't seem like Frederick August Otto Schwarz ever went by his initials. I got J.R.R. TOKIEN very quickly because I'm a huge "Lord of the Rings" fan, and I had a conversation the other day with someone about how Tolkien spent about 30 years perfecting the Elvish language for the series. I also learned a lot about W.E.B. DUBOIS in college, so it's nice to think my history degree can be used for something!

There just wasn't much of anything remarkable about the puzzle — or even much of anything for me to write about! There were a lot of words and abbreviations that frequent crossword puzzles, like: ENE, ENO, ANO, and SNO (a veritable word ladder of junk fill), as well as NIL, TBAR, ARTY, IDO, EDAM. i also had some nits with a handful of clues. Having two clues about cheese seemed kind of lazy. I'm not sure I've ever heard the word BOSH used in the context of "nonsense" before (then again, I just turned 22...). I also know that it's not possible to put accents in a puzzle, but it still always feels weird to me writing ANO for 6D: Year in Spain instead of año, like it should be. For 44D: Informal question of identification, I've never heard anyone actually say WHO DAT outside of the context of the New Orleans Saints. 

Only one or two of the clues/answers seemed particularly clever. My favorite was 39A: Professionals who put on coats for work as PAINTERS. When I first completed the puzzle, I just couldn't understand 51A: Dog unlikely to have a solid coat. After way too long, I finally got why it was SPOT and was quite amused. Maybe it's because I really enjoy math, but I also thought that 51D: Function associated with oscillation as SINE was a fun answer.

Miscellaneous:

• I watched probably every episode of CSI when I was younger, but it still took me a little while to come up with GIL because I honestly can't remember anyone ever calling him by his first name on the show.
• With 4D: Setting in "Return of the Jedi," I tried to put "space" instead of ENDOR but quickly realized that was off.
• I don't know why, but I really like the word JIBE.
• It may not be worth noting, but I will note it anyway because there isn't much else to say about this puzzle: CEST was used in both yesterday's and today's puzzle — in different contexts, but it feels weird to see that answer back-to-back.
• That the Scottish coat of arms has a unicorn on it is fun information.
  
• There were a few pop culture clues in here. I got MINAJ and ANNA with no trouble, but I had absolutely no idea who TYE Sheridan is. He's apparently only 21, so maybe I'm getting too old for these crossword puzzles.

Signed, Clare Carroll, an Eli about to become a 1L

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Stabilizing part of ship's compass / MON 4-16-18 / Supporting nativist policies

Constructor: David Woolf

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (3:34) (slowish for a Monday)

THEME: EYE CONTACT (62A: Asset for a public speaker ... or a hint to 17-, 24-, 37- and 52-Across) — themers all have two "I"s next to each other (i.e. making "contact" in the grid)

Theme answers:

• SUNNI ISLAM (17A: World's largest religious denomination)
• SETI INSTITUTE (24A: Org. looking for aliens)
• ANTI-IMMIGRATION (37A: Supporting nativist policies)
• SKI INSTRUCTOR (52A: One teaching pizza slices and S-turns)

Word of the Day: GIMBAL (23D: Stabilizing part of a ship's compass) —

noun

1. a mechanism, typically consisting of rings pivoted at right angles, for keeping an instrument such as a compass or chronometer horizontal in a moving vessel or aircraft. (google)

• • •

So yesterday we had GOOK (well, GO space OK, but come on...) and today, right in the middle of the grid, the longest answer in the puzzle: ANTI-IMMIGRATION. And with an adorably innocuous clue, too. Oooh, *and* it's crossing NRA! Fun. Keep up the ... work, NYT.

[This is where the party ends / I can't stand here listening to you / And your 37A Friend!]

I think the theme is pretty clever, actually. You don't see "I"s next to each other very much in English, so having all the answers do that, and then punning on "eye," yes, that works. I got SUNNI ISLAM easy, but SETI institute was slightly tougher (knew SETI, from crosswords, of course, but ... never thought there was a word or term that followed it). Also slightly misread the clue on ANTI-IMMIGRATION—my brain was thinking Native American policies, not the racist white "nativist" policies, perhaps because my brain was wishfully thinking that racist garbage wouldn't be front and center in the puzzle again. Yeah, the problem is definitely with me. I also couldn't make heads or tails of the clue on SKI INSTRUCTOR (52A: One teaching pizza slices and S-turns). Like ... gibberish to me. Further, no idea what a GIMBAL is (needed every cross and still wasn't sure), no idea (until I got the very last letter) what 26D: Still uninformed was getting at (I stared for seconds at NOWISE- thinking that maybe the last letter was "E"??? NOW I SEE?), and weirdly this is the very first I'm hearing of either Daisy or RIDLEY or Daisy RIDLEY, despite having seen her in the role in question (48D: Daisy who plays Rey in "Star Wars" movies). Weird. So, yeah, allllll of that made me slower than normal today. Oh, and I somehow also totally misread 7D: Cartoonist Keane (BIL) as ... well, I don't really know, but I ended up thinking of an old Nickelodeon TV show and writing in KEL, that's how lost I was.


I'm sure YAO Ming is, in fact, "worth millions," but that's still a super-weird clue for him (63D: Ming worth millions of dollars). When I think of him, I think of basketball, not how wealthy he is. Lots of athletes are far wealthier than him (I mean, I'm pretty sure). I think the clue wanted to alliterate (??) but it should have resisted that urge.  And even then, why not just [Ming worth millions]??? I mean, I'm on record as hating cross-reference clues, but NBA *is* in the (damn) grid, so... if you wanted to annoy me with your clue, you had other, better options.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS "Dancing with the Stars" judge?? (29D) Once again, an LOL "no way" from me. So many absolute whiffs for a Monday. Bizarre.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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1982 international chart-topper by Trio with repetitive title / SAT 10-1-16 / Roman soldier who became Christian martyr / Hoarder's squalor / Headliners at Palais Garnier / Brand once advertised with line they never get on your nerves / Where mud engineer works

Constructor: David Woolf

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Edward Gorey's "The Gashlycrumb TINIES" (18A) —

The Gashlycrumb Tinies: or, After the Outing is an abecedarian book written by Edward Gorey that was first published in 1963. Gorey tells the tale of 26 children (each representing a letter of the alphabet) and their untimely deaths in rhyming dactylic couplets, accompanied by the author's distinctive black and white illustrations. It is one of Edward Gorey's best-known books, and is the most notorious amongst his roughly half-dozen mock alphabets. It has been described as a "sarcastic rebellion against a view of childhood that is sunny, idyllic, and instructive". The morbid humor of the book comes in part from the mundane ways in which children die, such as falling down the stairs or choking on a peach. Far from illustrating the dramatic and fantastical childhood nightmares, these scenarios instead poke fun at the banal paranoias that come as a part of parenting. (wikipedia)

• • •

An exercise in Adequacy. Boring, acceptable, occasionally marginal fill, and only 2-3 interesting answers in the whole grid (namely, ASSANGE and STRESS EATS, and possibly BMX BIKE). That double [___ deck] business was garbage, esp. ORLOP (?). Things get very 1-point tile-ish through IRON ORE / I REST / EELERS (ugh) / AEON. I think maybe HAHAHA hovering over "DA DA DA" is supposed to be funny. Maybe if the "International chart topper" (wth is that?) were more Something, I would like it better (I can hear the tune in my head ... actually, just the DA DA DA part ...). I do not accept TINIES as a thing except insofar as it is that thing that I occasionally call my dogs (true story). ONE TO TEN should've been clued as [Scale type] if it was to be clued as anything (not fond of it as an answer at all). But most of the rest is, as I say, serviceable. Just blah.

[A "chart-topper" ... in Austria, New Zealand, South African, and Switzerland only]

Also, right now, I am quite worried that I am supposed accept that when two people are "spooning" one of them is called the BIG SPOON and I cannot and will not accept this ever. I swear to you that I just assumed there was some form of the word "cuddle" (v.) that I just didn't know, involving a BIG SPOON. Maybe like "muddle" (v.) ... maybe you do it for cocktails ... "Step 2: cuddle the mint with a BIG SPOON." I don't know. But after looking up "cuddle" and "cuddler" several times and coming up with nothing involving muddling stirring or mixing of any sort, I was forced to come back to the strong possibility that the puzzle wants me to accept that there are BIG SPOONs and (!?) little spoons involved in the act of spooning. Never mind that actual spoons that nest together are the Same Damned Size. Never mind that the physically bigger person might be spooned. Ugh. Please tell me there is some non-spooning way to understand this stupid answer.

Here is a short podcast that constructor / solving phenom Erik Agard recorded yesterday re: yesterday's GHETTOBLASTER (which, apparently, Shortz tried to pre-emptively defend yesterday on the NYT's house blog—you can find the link on Erik's Soundcloud post). Succinct and smart and strident.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Japanese salad herb / Hardwoord percussion stick / WED 7-6-16 / Corcoran of Bachelor Father / Nonpro sports org / Biophramaceutical company that makes Enbrel / Cudgel made from knotty stick

Constructor: David Woolf

Relative difficulty: Challenging

THEME: TWO-STATE SOLUTION (39A: Topic of international negotiations ... and a hint to every four-letter answer in this puzzle) —four-letter answer all made up of two two-letter US state postal codes

Word of the Day: CLAVE (64A: Hardwood percussion stick) —

n.

1. One of a pair of cylindrical hardwood sticks beaten together as a percussion instrument.

2. A syncopated two-bar musical pattern. (thefreedictionary.com)

• • •

Well, first, this should've been a Thursday. I was two minutes over my normal Wednesday time, which is to say it took me 40-50% longer than normal. The grid *is* extra (16) wide, so that accounts for a little of the time, but not nearly all of it. But appearing on the wrong day of the week isn't this puzzle's main problem. It's not even top three. What a joyless, horrible, painful slog this was. The worst, most obnoxious kind of puzzle, in that it exists *solely* to satisfy the constructor's sense that he pulled off some architectural feat ("look at me, ma!"), and is in no way—not one—geared toward the enjoyment or pleasure of the solver. Tell me, please, how interesting / entertaining / enthralling it is to know that the four-letter answers (ooh, four letters, exciting!) are made up of two state codes. How on god's green can that be interesting? What's worse—much worse—is that not only is it horribly uninteresting, it *causes the fill in the puzzle to be terrible*. Laughably terrible. You can't have walls of hyper-restricted four-letter answers like this and expect *anything* good, fill-wise, to come of it. For instance, we call it SAINTHOOD, not SAINTDOM. A HOST, OK, fine, I can let that particular partial slide, but then, hot on its heels, A FARM!? A bleeping FARM? Also, something called TRIAMORY, of which I'm hearing for the first time today ("polyamory," sure, but this? gah). Something called a CLAVE. Someone named MAE (?). Someone named NOREEN (??). Dreaded short stuff like UDO and AAU. And ... OAKED? For real?? EST GAIA LETTS TWI TNUTS etc. make it stop stop stop. And for what? For what? Four-letter words. I've got some four-letter words for this puzzle, that's for sure.


The best (read: not best I'm being sarcastic) part was having to guess on the final square. Just ... guess. Now, it was an educated guess, and I guessed correctly, but ... AMGEN!? (18A: Biopharmaceutical company that makes Enbrel). I laughed out loud at the clue, because ... Enbrel?? What futuristic planet is all this happening on? I've literally never seen either of these ... names ... in my life before today. AMGEN, dear lord. I guessed that "M." That clunky clue for ROM (2D: It can't be written to, in a PC), yikes. I knew a CD-ROM was a thing, so I guessed ROM. Ill-conceived theme, terrible fill ... just astonishing. I got the revealer very very early and instantly ceased to care. "Oooh, look, an OR *and* a CA," I failed to imagine myself thinking. What kind of bored masochist is going to go back and check to make sure that, indeed, those four-letter answers are all made up of two-letter postal codes? Oy, HOI, no.

Good night.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Sidekick in 1990s SNL skits / SUN 6-19-16 / Many-time Indy 500 pace car / Hazel's love in Fault in Our Stars / 1991 film with tagline secret of life secret's in sauce / Brand with two harnessed horses in its logo / Starting point for Pompeii tourism / 1948 John Wayne film

Constructor: David Woolf

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "Traffic Intersection" — some black squares (in the above version) function like intersections, where the square is "RED" in answers that precede and follow the square, but do not go *through* the square, and "GREEN" in answers that *do* go through the square, thus:

Theme answers:
 
HANK [Green!] BERG, but
BEET [Red!] // [Red!] SCARE

FRIED [Green] TOMATOES
BLOOD [Red] // [Red] RIVER

WINTER [Green] GUM
BIG [Red] // [Red] HAIR

GOD'S [Green] EARTH
SEES [Red] // [Red] EYES

EVER [Green] TREE
TURNS [Red] // [Red] HOTS

and finally

JOLLY [Green] GIANT
RUNNING A [Red!!!!] LIGHT

Word of the Day: TALLINN (63D: Baltic capital) —

Tallinn (/ˈtɑːlɪn/ or /ˈtælɪn/, Estonian pronunciation: [ˈtɑlʲˑinˑ]; names in other languages)^{[citation needed]} is the capital and largest city of Estonia. It is situated on the northern coast of the country, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, 80 km (50 mi) south of Helsinki, east of Stockholm and west of Saint Petersburg. Tallinn occupies an area of 159.2 km² (61.5 sq mi) and has a population of 440,950. Approximately 32% of Estonia's total population lives in Tallinn. (wikipedia)

• • •

RUNNING A [Red] LIGHT. Cute. All the other intersections involved legal driving behavior, but here, a violation, and a near-miss of the JOLLY [Green] GIANT. I thought this theme worked pretty well. I was advised by a note that I should do the PDF or "Web game version" (?) because there would be colored boxes of some sort, possibly with green on two sides of the square and red on the other two sides? Wouldn't that make solving it really obvious. Part of the challenge for *me* was finding exactly which black squares were functioning as intersections. I get that colors are pretty and all, but why give so much away? Oh well, no matter, I did it My Way, and it worked. What's more, the fill was really very clean. I continue to not know TALLINN, so that second "L" was my last squares, but ... maybe next time it'll stick. There's always next time. Good ol' next time.


I picked up the precise nature of the theme at HANK [Green]BERG. I am a Tigers fan, so this is not a surprise. I have never heard of TOMGIRL and do not in any way believe it to be a real thing. TOMBOY, of course. TOMGIRL ... I thought the "Tom" part was supposed to connote the gender convention-breaking for the girl. How do you hop from boy to girl via "Tom"? It makes no sense. What's more, no one ever says it ever. Also, SANTACON is a "pub crawl"? Where when what? Typically "-con"s are conventions. I have never heard of this con and have no way of knowing if it's really famous or just some regional thing or what. Oh, wait. I do have the Internet / internet. Hang on. Wow, it looks like a very modern and really stupid thing and I'm going to go back to not knowing about it now. I was surprised to get stymied by an ampersandwich (BANDB). It's been a while. Usually I can spot those, but today, because the clue was so vague (1A: It's accommodating), and because the "D" cross was a tough "?" clue (4D: One going for a board position?), I had to work that area down to the last square before I knew what was going on.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Longtime NBC newsman Roger / MON 5-30-16 / Showtime's serial killer protagonist familiarly / Lover of Tristan in legend

Constructor: David Woolf

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: TOSSED SALAD (62A: Common first course ... or what's literally contained in 17-, 23-, 32-, 44- and 49-Across) — circled squares in the theme answers contain are scrambled versions of the word "SALAD"

Theme answers:

• PIÑA COLADAS (17A: Tropical drinks often served with umbrellas)
• SALSA DANCING (23A: Spicy ballroom activity?) 
• DEAD LAST (32A: Finishing eighth out of eight, say)
• ROAD SALT (44A: Application to highways before a winter storm)
• DOUGLAS ADAMS (49A: "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" author) 

Word of the Day: "RED" (61A: 2012 #1 album for Taylor Swift) —

Red is the fourth studio album by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. It was released on October 22, 2012, by Big Machine Records, as the follow-up to her third studio album, Speak Now. The album title was inspired by the "semi-toxic relationships" that Swift experienced during the process of conceiving this album, which Swift described the emotions she felt as "red emotions" due to their intense and tumultuous nature. Red touches on Swift's signature themes of love and heartbreak, however, from a more mature perspective while exploring other themes such as fame and the pressure of being in the limelight. The album features collaborations with producers and guest artists such as Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol and Ed Sheeran and is noted for Swift's experimentation with new musical genres. Swift completed The Red Tour in support of the album on June 12, 2014, which became the highest-grossing tour of all time by a country artist, grossing over $150 million. (wikipedia)

• • •

Mixed feelings. The theme is so hackneyed that I'm stunned it hasn't been done before. Cursory look through the cruciverb database doesn't turn up anything, though, so ... it's simultaneously original and old-as-dirt. But who cares? I didn't even see the theme. How could I? The puzzle was (until the very very very end) so easy I didn't have time to think about what was going on in those circled squares, or much of anything beyond the nice long Downs. And the fill was smooth enough, and grimace-free enough, that it didn't call attention to itself in either a bad or good way. It just flew by. Short fill is dull in parts, but not ugly. I don't like that the tossed "salad"s are not all broken across two words; PIÑA COLADAS is a yucky outlier in this regard. Should've been chucked. Boo. But overall, the puzzle was fine. I like how timely the puzzle is—at least for me, personally. As I write this, I am at the end of a Very LAZY SUNDAY (29D: Relaxing time after church, say), with a G&T in my rearview mirror and homemade mint chip ice cream (with mint from the garden) waiting for me when I'm through here. Hiked in the woods with dogs much earlier in the day, but the rest of the time I spent organizing my comic collection (which I'd let get disgustingly disorganized over a period of many years) and listening to music. If it were a tad less, uh, sweaty, today would've been perfect.


I thought I was gonna come close to my Monday NYT record solving time (which ... I actually don't remember, though I think it's 2:36. I've been faster on other easy puzzles, but not the NYT). And I would've gotten it, too, if it weren't for those meddling kids, by which I mean a Taylor Swift album name I totally blanked on and a "Longtime newsman" whose name I am never going to remember no matter how many times I see it in puzzles. Roger O'NEIL? Sure, why not? Not in my time, but great—his name crossing "RED" meant a hiccup of untold seconds, resulting in a final time of 2:45, which is still fast, but ... it's infinity far from from 2:36, in my experience. I see 2:40s a lot. I see 2:30s virtually never. I have dumb fat clumsy fingers, too, which ... don't do me any favors.

That's all. Stay authentic, colloquially! See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constituent part of Russia bordering Mongolia / THU 3-17-16 / 1990s fad game piece / Vin classification / Home invasion in police shorthand / Live ESPN broadcast every June / Some repurposed corn fields / Repeated title role for Jim Carrey

Constructor: David Woolf

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: TURN OF EVENTS (59A: Unforeseen development ... or a feature seen four times in this puzzle's answers?) — four answers take a 90-degree "turn" somewhere in the middle of the letter string "EVENT":

Theme answers:

• PREVENTABLE (17A: Like many disasters, in hindsight)
• SEVENTEEN (10D: Hearst monthly)
• ACE VENTURA (37D: Repeated title role for Jim Carrey)
• TURN OF EVENTS 

Word of the Day: TUVA (4D: Constituent part of Russia bordering Mongolia) —

The Tyva Republic (Russian: Респу́блика Тыва́, tr. Respublika Tyva; IPA: [rʲɪˈspublʲɪkə tɨˈva]; Tuvan: Тыва Республика, Tyva Respublika, [təˈvɑ risˈpublikɑ]), Tyva or Tuva (Tuvan: Тыва, Russian: Тува́), is a federal subject of Russia (a republic, also defined in the Constitution of the Russian Federation as a state). It lies in the geographical center of Asia, in southern Siberia. The republic borders the Altai Republic, the Republic of Khakassia, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Irkutsk Oblast, and the Republic of Buryatia in Russia and Mongolia to the south. Its capital is the city of Kyzyl. Population: 307,930 (2010 Census). // From 1921 until 1944, Tuva constituted a sovereign, independent nation, under the name of Tannu Tuva, officially, the Tuvan People's Republic, or the People's Republic of Tannu Tuva. The independence of Tannu Tuva, however, was recognized only by its neighbours: the Soviet Union and Mongolia. // Forests, mountains, and steppe make up a large part of the geography of Tuva. // A majority of the people are Tyvans, but Russian is also spoken extensively. Tuva is governed by the Great Khural, which elects a chairman for a four-year term. The current chairman is Sholban Kara-ool.

• • •

Wow, this puzzle worked exactly like it was supposed to, I imagine. I traipsed through it, enjoying the fill and the little bendy-word game, but not having any idea what the unifying concept was—then I end up in the SE, fiddle around with the answers down there, and Bam: the revealer actually does its damn job, giving me the conclusive "aha"+appreciation moment that is so elusive. What I like about this puzzle is how reserved it is. The concept, in the end, is simple, and despite all the turning, the theme answers don't crowd the grid, meaning that the overall fill can be reasonably clean and even sparkly at times. I never imagined I'd be shouting SATANISTS! gleefully, but here we are (20A: Devilish sorts?). OPEN TABLE, likewise great (5D: Restaurant availability). The cluing was a little on the easy side, which seems a reasonable strategy for offsetting the difficulty of figuring out the loopy grid trick. Though the puzzle seems to want me to be angry (SEETHE! ENRAGE! RANT!), I liked this one a whole lot: clever, clean, fun to solve.


The only parts that gave me a little scare were those teeny tiny corners. I honestly thought I might get stuck in the SW when the two little Downs ended up being mutually cross-referenced, and I couldn't figure out 66A: 100+, say (HOT). But then I calmed down and thought "Question that's an anagram of a question... there aren't really many options here." So WHO and HOW and done. In the NE corner, likewise, I wasn't sure if it was NAP or NOD (11A: Drift off), and for all I know Ginsberg wrote a poem about Plutonian ORE, so ... there was a little bit of muddling around up there before it all fell into place. None of the other nooks and crannies gave me trouble.

My only slow moments involved not knowing I was dealing with a turning answer. When did Hearst publish a magazine called "SEVEN," I wondered. Repeated title role for Jim Carrey ... four letters ... must be "LIAR (LIAR)." I also tried to make EVITA PERON fit and/or turn Down. It would do neither (44A: 1996 Madonna starring role = EVA PERON). I was weirdly happy to see the return of the Ampersandwich, i.e. the letter+AND+letter-patterned answer. Today: B AND E (15A: Home invasion, in police shorthand). I feel like we used to see these a lot more. I find them slightly charming, and they add to trickiness levels. I was also happy to end on a high note (figuratively) and end in a high place (literally)—last answer in the grid was APEXES (51D: Tops).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Malicious computer programs / SUN 1-3-16 / Alternative to Facebook Messenger / Pre-curve figure / Blues musician known as Sleepy John / Rathskeller decoration

Constructor: David Woolf

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: "Record of the Year" — a rebus puzzle with three-letter abbrs. of each month, appearing in order, each in its own square, one in each section of the grid

• TROJANS / JANGLE
• LIFEBLOOD / FEBRILE
• MIMIMART / IMARET
• CAPRIS / APRICOT
• SOTOMAYOR / MAYHEM
• CARL JUNG / ADJUNCT
• BANJUL / JULEPS
• SLAUGHTER / CAUGHT
• ASEPTIC / SEPHORA
• DOCTRINE / DECOCT
• CASANOVAS / WIN OVER
• TAPE DECKS / DECEIT

Word of the Day: SEPHORA (79D: Big lipstick seller) —

Sephora is a French brand and chain of cosmetics stores founded in 1970. [...] On November 18/2014, a lawsuit was filed against Sephora alleging that they discriminated against Asian customers based on stereotypes that all Asian customers abuse discounts to engage in bulk purchasing for re-sale. [...] Sephora currently operates over 360 stores across North America. Featuring more than 200 brands, along with its own private label, Sephora offers beauty products including makeup, skincare, body, fragrance, color, and haircare. (wikipedia)

Notable crosswordese:

• UNS (32D: Young ___)
• EPEE (64A: Cousin of a foil)
• ULNAS (73D: Ones up in arms?)
• SSRS (116D: They were wiped off the map in '91)
• EPODE (105D: Horatian work)
• IMARET (17D: Turkish inn) (man, knowing this helped today...)
• IMACS (7D: Some desktops)
• ESTES (127A: Blues musician known as Sleepy John) (new one today, to me)
• EKGS (113D: Hosp. readouts)
• DAE (118D: Daniel ___ Kim, "Hawaii Five-O" actor)
• AMÉLIE (23A: 2001 foreign film with five Oscar nominations)

Notable recent popular culture:

• GOTYE (40D: Singer with the 2012 #1 hit "Somebody That I Used to Know")
• GCHAT (40A: Alternative to Facebook Messenger)

• • •

On the one hand, hurray for a Sunday that made me work a little. I got the theme pretty early, but even knowing what was coming, I still had to fight in each section to find the three-letter month abbr. This puzzle was like 12 mini puzzles, which has the virtue of novelty, if nothing else. I enjoyed the workout, but it was a bit weird / anticlimactic to know, very early on, exactly what was going to go down in each section of the grid. After uncovering my first month, the only real Surprises left involved finding the precise square for each rebus. But you knew what you were looking for and you knew where to look, every time. And there are no other calendar-related answers, so the whole thing plays a bit like a themeless, actually. The fill gets quite iffy in places, but for the most part it holds up, and the rebus answers are often delightfully creative. SOTOMAYOR! CARL JUNG! Fun stuff.


I could've done without STRS, RESAW, three-R'd BRRR, ONRICE, and the terribly absurd ONEK (who runs ONE Ks?). The themers, though, I really liked, on the whole. They taught me a couple of new things. I still don't have all the world capitals memorized. Honestly, I probably haven't heard of a couple couple dozen of them, at least, and BANJUL is certainly one of those. Thank god for JULEPS ... seriously, thank you, God, for JULEPS, they are delicious. Also, they saved me from crashing on the shoals of BANJUL. Does BANJUL have shoals? Possibly. It is coastal. Holy moses, have you seen Gambia on a map? First, it's *The* Gambia, thankyouverymuch. Second of all, it is of an amazingly eely shape, essentially following from the Atlantic back along the contours of the Gambia (!) River, surrounded on all sides by Senegal, until it reaches a place called "unnamed elevation" (on the map I'm looking at).

If the only thing I remember about today's puzzle is the location and insane shape of (The) Gambia, it will have been worth it. I also didn't know SEPHORA. I mean, looking at pictures of its storefronts, I realized I probably *have* seen those stores around, but not so that I'd remember.

I am all of a sudden having visions of people crashing and burning at the GCHAT / GOTYE crossing. No real reason you should know GOTYE, honestly, and _CHAT seems like it could be Lots o' things. Oh well. Happy continued New Year.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. if you have time for another puzzle today, or want to print one out and save it for when you *do* have time, please check out Patrick Blindauer's latest free puzzle, inspired by his new baby daughter (just go to "Play" in the top menu of his site). It's pretty magical, and not (only) for sentimental reasons.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Like a wet blanket / SAT 9-26-15 / Frothy drinks with tapioca balls / Excellence, in modern slang / Old-school rapper? / Hirelings of old / Carry before delivering / How Viola dresses in "Twelfth Night"

Constructor: David Woolf

Relative difficulty: Medium-Tedium

Word of the Day: FERULE (Old-school rapper?)—

fer·ule

ˈferəl/

noun

historical

noun: ferule; plural noun: ferules

1. a flat ruler with a widened end, formerly used for punishing children.

• • •

...children and crossword solvers, amirite? Lena Webb here, literally filling in for Rex. It took me a while (an hour) but I filled it in and, well, it was:

I've solved some puzzles lately that make good use of staggerstacks, and the first couple steps down this puzzle's stairway are solid but the ground floor collapsed under the multiple awkwardnesses of VILLAINESSES. Yes, RADIO SILENCE and PUT A RING ON IT are lively, crisp, sparkling, dripping in DOPENESS, etc., but I felt pretty meh about CAMERA LENSES despite the "heroin chic" clue (38A: Shooter's bagful) and then VILLAINESSES. What, ESNES wasn't good enough? CameraLENSES, even! Why not throw in ESSES (?D: What this puzzle does not need more of). Personally, I've moved beyond the tacking on of "-ess" to women who are just doing a normal job... or being a normal villain-- let alone pluralizing them in a crossword. Stewardesses? Flight attendants. Waitresses? Servers. Villainesses? Villains. "Oh, Villainess! Can you grab me a can of whoop-ass from the fridg--" POW! 

LATTE ART and CILANTRO were very nice, PALTRIEST got some side-eye from me, and I didn't like THE MOB or AS A MAN (there is some unspoken crossrule that makes "the" best implied and not seen, and ASAMAN is just another arbitrary source of "gentle letters," as I like to call them).

The LATTE ART is not amused

And was the marquee-- an appropriately French word-- worthy of the additional life-giving square that makes this puzzle 15x16? I'm sorry, but no. The whole time I was thinking "jeez, everything is so vertical! Am I a boring, horizontal kind of lady?" Maybe. I will admit to feeling constrained by the single black square blocking my entry to the "mini-puzzles" in the  NW and SE-- but back to France. I love French. I gleefully pencil in all those French crossword answers you probably hate. But APRES MOI LE DELUGE was too much. Perhaps it is my own naiveté that had me thinking this would be something we might hear tossed around, say, the Republican debates but no. I got Seven Years' War-shamed on this one. Louis XV. Was he huge? I just figured this would have been a phrase that is used in modern political shenanigans. C'est dommage!

Despite what I've said, NO FUN is too harsh. I like that this grid flips the NYTimes' 15x15 table, and I know what it's like to have dynamite seed entries demand some compromises, so please join me in thanking David for constructing a grid for us to solve and discuss.

HUAC! Sorry I had to cough.

Bullets:

• 27A: Travel mag advertiser (B AND B) — My boyfriend and I know this as the cocktail  "Bénédictine and Brandy," rather than that B&B on the Cape (point is, "and" seems weird with the already abbreviated "B")
• 20A: Out-of-this-world settlement (MOON BASE) — Is there a moon base? Not yet.
• 52A: Photographer's support (UNIPOD) — Selfie stick or the pics didn't happen. (Selfie stick in Wikipedia is described as a MONOPOD omg)

Signed, Lena Webb, Court Jester of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
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Milky gem / MON 6-1-15 / Online periodical / Wife portrayed in 2005's "Walk The Line" / Greek letter after phi

When is a door not a door? When it's AJAR! When is Rex Parker not Rex Parker? When he's GUEST BLOGGER ANNABEL THOMPSON!

Constructor: David Woolf

Relative difficulty: Easy


















THEME: "Chicken Soup for the Crossword Lover's SOUL/SOL/SOLE/SEOUL" — Theme answers feature homophones of "soul."

Theme answers:

• SOL CERVEZA (17A: Popular Mexican brew)
• SOLE BENEFICIARY (27A:  The only trustworthy one?)
• SEOUL SOUTH KOREA (48A: Where Kia and Hyundai are headquartered)
• SOUL SISTER (63A: Woman's closest female friend)

Word of the Day: LOVE-IN (6D: Groovy 1960s event) —

A love-in is a peaceful public gathering focused on meditation, love, music, and/or use of psychedelic drugs. The term was coined by Los Angeles radio comedian Peter Bergman, who also hosted the first one in March or April 1967 (sources disagree) in Elysian Park.^[1][2] It has been interpreted in different ways by different organizations, but is often connected to protesting local, social or environmental issues.^[3][4] Such protests were held in opposition to the Vietnam War.^[5]

• • •

This puzzle was a SNAP for me, actually; I got at least half the across clues on my first round, and I don't expect down-only people had much trouble today either. The fill was just OK, honestly, didn't learn a lot of new words and there weren't any neat arrangements. I did like all the Spanish words peppered throughout! ESOS...PESO...SOL CERVEZA...even DOS although it's supposed to be talking about hair arrangements. But I never took Spanish. Ay caramba!

The theme was...a Monday theme. Not much to say here. Except that I had GIRLFRIENDS in 63A for the longest time and was driving myself nuts wondering why nothing would work with it. (I briefly considered "gal pals," but it obviously wouldn't fit.) Until I realized "duh, that's a theme answer."

Wow, that really wasn't a very glowing review of this puzzle at all. Am I turning into Rex??? I͓͚̞̳͝ͅs̕ ͕̰ṭ̦h̨e̟̥̖̮͔̬̲ ̷͚̣̖t͖̱͖͔r̷͎͇͓a͍̲̙̥͕͈͕n̗͇͍̠ş͎̼̠̠f͉̕o͕̰͝ṟ̣͟ͅm̻ͅa̦t͕͍̗͎i͙̻͎̫̫͉͡ọ̸n ̴̼̞̰̫͇s̭͈̙̣͉ṯ̼̰͓͞a̴r̦̙͚̪͙͍͓͝t҉̼̮i̴͖̘̭̣̼̩n҉̯̗̝̹̙̭g̵͓?͉̤̟̘͕͢?͎̭̖͇ͅ?̭̺͙̪̮ͅ?̫̤

Bullets:

• LIQUORED UP (29D: Three sheets to the wind) — I have never once heard this expression used in my life. Maybe that's just how the kids don't talk these days?
• OPAL (15A: Milky gem)— I'm at the point where I can't see the name of a gemstone without thinking of Steven Universe. So, here you go! 

• IN HEELS (22A: Wearing party shoes) — Please give credit to anyone who wears heels, ever. Prom happened the other weekend, and let's just say that I got way more blisters from my stilettos than I did from six days hiking the Appalachian Trail, even when I fell over a rock and, later, almost got bitten by a snake. And we're expected to dance in heels? Next time there's a formal dance, I swear I'm going in combat boots.

And finally, y'know, some guys just can't hold their ARSENIC..

Signed, Annabel Thompson, tired high school student - and that's the last time I'll be writing that. Get ready for Annabel Thompson, tired RISING COLLEGE STUDENT, to start blogging!!!

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1950s Reds star Ted for short / FRI 5-22-15 / Longoria with two Gold Gloves / Message accompanied by red lips / Peak in eurozone / Saturday in Seville / He partnered with Bear in 1923 / Ancient medical researcher

Constructor: David Woolf

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Fela KUTI (23A: Fela ___, Afrobeat music pioneer) —

Fela Kuti (born Olufela Olusegun Oludotun Ransome-Kuti;^[1] 15 October 1938 – 2 August 1997), also known as Fela Anikulapo Kuti or simply Fela, was a Nigerian multi-instrumentalist, musician, composer, pioneer of the Afrobeat music genre, human rights activist, and political maverick. (wikipedia)

• • •

Sleep nearly took me out early again tonight, but I had to be up late because my daughter was getting back from a trip to NYC at close to midnight, so ha, sleep, you lose. Still awake. OK, I might've rested my eyes there for a little, but I'm awake now, which is the point. This puzzle was weird for me, perhaps because of the heretofore mentioned "resting of the eyes." I started in on this puzzle as I usually do with such stack-oriented puzzles: I went for all the Downs up top, one after the other, without even looking at the Acrosses until I'd made my way all the way across the top of the grid. This may not actually be the most efficient solving method—perhaps one ought to at least glance at the long Across clues—but it feels efficient to me, and usually yields great results once I've traversed the grid and finally look at the Acrosses. Even if several of the Downs are wrong (they usually are), I'm often able to see the correct answers through all the muck. Pattern recognition! Anyway, my first pass through the Downs up top yielded very little, so I ended up getting my first real start in the grid at a very odd place—sort of ENE, starting around KUTI (a gimme) and working down toward the middle. Like so:

 ["A CUPS in T TOPS!" Coming soon to Cinemax.]

You can see that my northern grid is a pathetic combination of empty and wrong, with a smattering of right. Don't speak Spanish, so just had the first two letters of SABADO there. I was wrong about KIA; I knew there was a KIA with a short model name (it's the RIO), so I just wrote in KIA and waited. I see now that I could also easily have gone with the equally wrong answer, HYUNDAI. Interesting. I'd be surprised if I was the only one who dropped ADESTE in there without hesitation. As six-letter carol starters go, none ranks higher, grid frequency-wise, than ADESTE (of "Adeste Fideles" fame). IT CAME ... would not have occurred to me (it's by far the most terrible answer in the grid, one of the dumbest 6+ partials I've ever encountered). But KUTI got me going, and then all that failure up top turned quickly to success when I noticed 15D: Many an Instagram had to be SELFIE. With those last three Downs in place up top, the long Acrosses went down fast. Despite the wrong answers I had in place, I saw ALL OVER THE PLACE almost instantly after SELFIE dropped. The -ISS at the end of 1A: Message accompanied by red lips suggested KISS, which then suggested the rest of the answer. And then it was just a matter of LUGGAGE or BAGGAGE CAROUSEL (the latter, it turned out). So after a terrible first trip across the top of the grid, I caught fire and ended up here in what felt like no time:

As for the bottom of the grid, it might as well not have existed. I've never finished that much of a late-week puzzle that quickly. With the first three letters of the long Acrosses in place, I got ON HANDS AND KNEES and then TRACTOR TRAILERS. With one more cross (the "S" from 51D: CSA), I got RUSSIAN ROULETTE. The Downs were helpless at that point. I picked them off methodically without even seeing the shorter Across clues toward the middle there. You're welcome for GALEN, by the way (46D: Ancient medical researcher). (I jokingly brought him up in the write-up of that ANGEL anagram puzzle earlier this week, and now, several days later, he materializes, like some kind of slow-to-respond genie).


Despite some iffiness here and there in the fill, this seemed an entirely acceptable puzzle. Too too easy down below, and with no real killer answers, but solid nonetheless.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Glassmaker's oven / FRI 2-20-15 / Orphan in Byron's Don Juan / Island due south of Livorno / Sporter of eagle insignia / Cousin of contrabass / Man's name meaning manly / Story of building in France / Dagger of yore / Mysterious figure in I am walrus

Constructor: David Woolf

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: THEME — DESCRIPTION

Word of the Day: LEHR (55A: Glassmaker's oven) —

A lehr is a temperature-controlled kiln for annealing objects made of glass. The name derives from the German verb lehren meaning to teach and is cognate with the English lere also meaning to learn or acquire knowledge of (something).

Rapid cooling of molten glass generates an uneven temperature distribution in the body of the glass which results in mechanical stress sufficient to cause cracking before the object has reached ambient temperature, or to result in susceptibility to cracking in later use, often resulting from thermal shock. To prevent this, objects manufactured from molten glass are annealed by cooling gradually in a lehr from a temperature just below the solidification point of the glass. Anneal cooling rate depends on the thickness of the glass, and can range from several tens of degrees Celsius per hour for thin sections to a fraction of a degree Celsius per hour for thick slabs or castings.

In glass manufacture, a lehr is typically a long kiln with a temperature gradient from end to end, through which newly made glass objects such as glasses or vases are transported on a conveyor belt. However, the same effect can be obtained in a small kiln by controlling the cooling rate with an electronic temperature controller. (wikipedia)

• • •

Overall quality of the grid is not bad but I do not understand, and I mean do Not understand, how you do this pseudo-theme thing where you link two long answers in the NW … and the SE … and the SW … and … that's it. You just leave the NE hanging? What the hell is that? Are you doing the Thing or are you not doing the Thing? What a weird, oddly maimed concept. I also don't understand how you go to press with -EOUS in your grid. That is quite possibly the single worst suffix in the history of crossword answers. Look at it. Go on. Jeez louise. Wow. It hurts. It makes ADES look like ZYZZYVA, that answer. Horrific. Most of the other terrible fill is neatly contained and harmless. SNEE and OLIOS cause very little discomfort. ETAGE is mostly BENI(g)N. And I had a pretty good (toughish) time puzzling out the double-stacked answers in the NW and SE. I'd say that overall I actually enjoyed this. It's just flawed in slightly maddening ways. Between BIG-BREASTED (1A: Buxom) and the Bond girl (ANYA), the puzzle feels slightly leering . . . and I'm almost 100% certain the original clue on 13D was different. In a way that relates to the leeringness I'm talking about. But it's certainly not offensive so I'll try to ACT NORMAL.


I like APPLEID (45A: Need for an iTunes Store account) even though it looks like a typo of "applied." I forgot LEHR was a thing, so that was awkward. Four-letter ovens … let's see, I've got KILN, and … OAST and … I'm out. My giggles sound more HEEHEE or TEEHEE than HEHE (?), but I think that's some kind of industry-accepted variation. Considered TEHE but LETR seemed pretty wrong. I had Steve Jobs at YALE and BARD before I placed him correctly at REED. I also had [HuffPo's parent] as NYT (?) before AOL. I am having a hard time accepting SAME-AGE as an adjective (that is, as it is clued) (40A: Like George W. Bush vis-à-vis Sylvester Stallone). But they really are the same age—exactly, not just roughly (7/6/46). It's weird to me how confident I was in IDAHO as the answer to 51D: Home to Shoshone Falls. My mom grew up in IDAHO, and my grandma still lives there, so maybe the name just sunk in somewhere along the line—I can't tell you where it is, or what it's near, or anything. But at five letters, I plunked IDAHO down immediately.  If you don't know the word PELOTA you should learn the word PELOTA because that thing will come back at you. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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