WEDNESDAY, Aug. 27, 2008 - Donna Hoke Kahwaty (Comical Boosler / Capulet murdered by Romeo / Suffix with buoy)

Relative difficulty: Eeeeeeeasy

THEME: Stuttering - familiar phrases have their first word repeated, creating comically improbably phrases, which are clued in comical "?" style

My only comment on the entire puzzle when I test-solved it was "EZ," which I had underlined a million times. I thought Will had said that he was going to toy with the clues to make it harder, but the clues are virtually identical to the ones I saw first, and the only clue change that could possibly have led to an increase in difficulty was the removal of "(informed)" from the tail end of 6D: In the _____ (know). Otherwise, it remains a shockingly easy puzzle. I suppose if you don't know what a PAWPAW is, you might struggle, but otherwise, I don't see the difficulty here. I struggled a tiny bit in the far west, where something about the non-"ing" ending on NITPICKY (4D: Sweating the small stuff), the non-ANCE answer to 35A: Suffix with buoy, and the (to me) mildly weird ESKIMO clue (22A: Parka wearer, maybe), caused a slight slowdown. But otherwise, a cakewalk.

Theme answers:

• 20A: Some fruit still lifes? (pawpaw prints) - this theme is pretty clever, I'll give it that
• 26A: Showy dance intro? (can-can opener)
• 41A: Gobbler in a powwow musical group? (tom tom turkey)
• 47A: Chocolate's journey? (bonbon voyage)

The eeriest word in the puzzle, to my eye, is YARE (50D: Easy to maneuver, at sea), which I assume is pronounced "YAR," but I could be wrong. I think a pirate might say "YAR," and a ship might "YAW." "YARE" just looks like a typo for "YEAR." The clue for UNION (19A: Shop group) was mildly tricky, but I blew right through the Down crosses and thus barely noticed it. 25A: Orbital extreme (apogee) could easily have created trouble, but APOGEE came very quickly for some reason. I handed out copies of DANTE's "Inferno" to all my TAs today, so 59A: Writer who went to hell? (Dante), despite its little trickiness-indicating question mark, read like a straight clue to me (and in the original draft, it was - [As a writer he went to hell]).

OK, off to watch "The Situation Room" - I mean "The Colbert Report." More in the morning.

54D: "The Situation Room" airer (CNN)

RP

[the next morning...]

OK, the first issue is that I made an error in transcribing the grid from paper to computer, and it's one I should have recognized as a possible error for LOTS of people. ELAYNE Boosler (43A: Comical Boosler) is virtually crosswordese to me, so often have I seen her "Y"-ish name in the grid, so I never considered that the crossing of her name (proper noun) with TYBALT (proper noun) (41D: Capulet murdered by Romeo) at the "Y" would cause any trouble. But of course it would - "I" spellings seem reasonable, certainly no less outrageous than "Y" spellings. So my sympathies if you tripped here. Would have been super annoying for one to torch a puzzle in one's best time ever only to find out that one had a mistake (those "one"s are for you, Seth).

Anything else?

• 39A: Actor Rutger _____ (Hauer) - someone in the comments section said he didn't know who this was. You're in good company; neither did Will.
• 2D: Jersey sound (moo) - was "lament," which I like better.
• 37D: Dungeons & Dragons character (sorcerer) - I remember them as "wizards," but that could be Harry Potter running interference in my brain.

Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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THURSDAY, Jun. 14, 2007 - Donna Hoke Kahwaty

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "ARTLESS" (38A: Ingenuous ... or like 17-, 24-, 50- and 60-Across [or, like Paul Simon's solo career?]) - four theme answers are familiar phrases which have had the letter string ART removed. New, weird phrases are then clued.

Once you figure out the theme, this puzzle is a piece of cake. The whole thing felt far more Tuesday than Thursday. I'm going to call this puzzle an anti-rebus: instead of multiple letters (or a picture, if you will) shoved into one square, you have the equivalent removed from the grid entirely.



Theme answers:

• 17A: Con man's pay? (sting salary) - ART-less "starting salary"
• 24A: Satan? (He of Darkness) - ART-less "Heart of Darkness"
• 50A: Slapstick staples? (surprise pies) - ART-less "surprise parties"
• 60A: Parts of dollhouse dinner table settings? (mini-glasses) - ART-less "martini glasses"

That last one took me the longest to figure out; I had the MINI- and kept trying to think of a word long enough to have ART taken out of it and still be seven letters long. Interesting mini-coincidence - today's Newsday puzzle features MINI ME as one of its answers.

At first I thought the puzzle was a rebus, because I could tell from crosses that I was dealing with something OF DARKNESS for the "Satan" clue. I thought some part of PRINCE was being rebused, but then realized the rebus would have to be five letters long - either PRINC or RINCE, and neither seemed likely. Somehow between -SALARY and -OF DARKNESS, the possible preceding fill made me realize the theme, allowing me to fill in ARTLESS with no crosses. And then the puzzle was child's play. Speaking of "Child's Play" - Andrew, remind me that I have #1 and #2 of the new "Chucky" (from the movie "Child's Play") comic for you...

Super-fast featured five...

20A: Supply at a changing station (talc) - threw me for a second. Figured the answer had to be plural. Really wanted NAPS, as in Wet-NAPS, but the very fact that I have to qualify my answer should have tipped me off that it was Wrong.

40D: Fit to stand trial (sane)
46D: Snaps (loses it)

These make a nice parallel yin-yang pair in the southeast-ish part of the grid.

2D: 1930s film dog (Asta)
56D: Town ESE of Turin (Asti)

Here's a not-so-welcome pair - tiresome old world fill. ASTA is past president of the Pantheon, though, so I guess he (it's a he, right?) deserves some respect.

11D: Jailed (up the river) - it's worth noting that the puzzle does have two sets of parallel 10-letter answers in the SW and NE; this answer is my favorite of the four. Crime-related slang ("Crookspeak" or ARGOT - see last Sunday's puzzle) always makes me happy - anything Jimmy Cagney might have said in "White Heat."

55A: Clanton rival (Earp) - I don't know my Western mythology nearly well enough. I was thinking CLANTON was a make-up brand, like Clairol.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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