McDreamy's first name on Grey's Anatomy / FRI 10-23-15 / Singer with 4x platinum album No Angel / Scientific discovery of 1869 / One named singer who was a muse for Andy Warhol / Acronym in casual dining / Rural activity in urban legend

Constructor: Evan Birnholz

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Jonathan PRYCE (7D: Actor Jonathan, whose name sounds like it's worth something) —

Jonathan Pryce, CBE (born John Price; 1 June 1947) is a Welsh actor and singer. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and meeting his longtime girlfriend, English actress Kate Fahy, in 1974, he began his career as a stage actor in the 1970s. His work in theatre, including an award-winning performance in the title role of the Royal Court Theatre's Hamlet, led to several supporting roles in film and television. He made his breakthrough screen performance in Terry Gilliam's 1985 cult film Brazil. // Critically lauded for his versatility, Pryce has participated in big-budget films including Evita, Tomorrow Never Dies, Pirates of the Caribbean, The New World, GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra, GI Joe: Retaliation as well as independent films including Glengarry Glen Ross and Carrington. His career in theatre has also been prolific, and he has won two Tony Awards—the first in 1977 for his Broadway debut in Comedians, the second for his 1991 role as The Engineer in the musical Miss Saigon. (wikipedia)

• • •

I got COWTIPPING straight away (1A: Rural activity in an urban legend), but none of those first three Downs was clear to me—in fact, of that first stretch of Downs, only TNT, INFO, and NEO were obvious to me from their first letters, so I did not come blazing out of that corner as I thought / hoped I would. Still, after some knocking about with OPART and ROLOS and the gang in the west, I came back up to that NW corner and took care of it without too much trouble. Rest of the puzzle was a lark, a romp, a walk in the park. It's pretty sports-heavy, so you will either like that or you will not like that. I mostly like it, though honestly I don't really know what an AMEN CORNER is, despite having seen it in puzzles many times. I feel like the first time I saw it, it had something to do with golf?? Can that be right? What am I thinking of? Yeah, it refers to a section of the course at Augusta. But that has nothing to do with "vocal supporters," does it? Oh ... I see it has a church meaning too:

n.

1.

a. A place in a church reserved for persons leading congregational responses.

b. A group of ardent worshipers in a church.

2. Informal A group of uncritical supporters of a leader, party, or policy, especially a controversial one.

I saw "vocal supporters" and thought "sports." The phrase clearly means little to me—just a phrase that's semi-familiar to me from multiple crosswords. Another word that means little to me: PELS. I got it easily, in that I know the New Orleans basketballers are called the "Pelicans," but ... a. I've not heard them referred to that way (perhaps this is because they just don't get as much coverage as many of the other NBA teams, despite having the best player in the NBA not named "LeBron"), and b. even if I had heard them referred to as PELS, no amount of arguing could ever convince me PELS is good fill. The more you look at it, the more it looks like a typo. 

PELS brings me to the editorial choices that were made with this puzzle. See, this grid was changed in multiple places after its initial submission. I wrote to Evan asking him "Dude, what is up with that BACK dupe?—that is glaring, and you always complain about that stuff in other people's puzzles." His reply was (and I'm paraphrasing), "Dude, that was not my decision." Then he showed me his original grid (yellow squares mark places the editors changed):

Now some of these changes seem reasonable. Craig EHLO's name is known only to fairly hardcore sports fans, I would think, so I have no problem ditching him. The problem is the BACK dupe. It's glaring. You've got STEP BACK in the grid, and you opt for I'M BACK at 11D???! Little dupes, nobody really cares, but two longish colloquial phrases that both end in "BACK"? I don't know if that's carelessness or bad judgment, but it's something. SNOT is pretty ugly, but then so is the "fix" (INOT). Keyser SÖZE is pretty old pop culture now, but I would've left that SW corner intact anyway. The changes are Not an improvement. LA RAMS, worse, and ALAW, much much much worse. Changing ENT to END (19A) ... I mean, sure, OK, I guess, but most of these changes are lateral moves at best. Why meddle if you can't clearly improve? And that "BACK" thing ... that just grates. Still, overall, this was enjoyable. Many SWEET SPOTS. Bouncy like a DANCE CRAZE. Check out Evan's independent puzzle site, "Devil Cross," for more of his (consistently good, frequently great) crossword puzzles (published weekly).


Three last things: 

1. Don't McDonald's FRIES come in different sizes, and if so, how is 37A: McDonald's order with about 340 calories valid?  
2. I do not consider making goo-goo eyes at and ogling to be the same thing (13D: Make goo-goo eyes at = OGLE). Not even close. The one is a dopey expression of besottedness, the other is a leering, wolfish, objectifying, occasionally dehumanizing or even menacing expression of sexual desire. Making goo-goo eyes can be reciprocal; ogling never is.
3. I thought the [Actor Jonathan, whose name sounds like it's worth something] was Jonathan PENNY.  Then, later, Jonathan PENCE.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Hebrew letter before samekh / SUN 9-27-15 / "I Am Not ___" (1975 show business autobiography) / Site of the "crown of palaces" / Author ___-Rene Lesage / Beezus's sister in children's literature / Charge of the Light Brigade event / Site of the U.S.'s only royal palace / Royale carmaker of old / Wahoos of the A.C.C. / Romanian currency / Tax amount per $1,000 / Greek portico

Constructor: Tom McCoy

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (and I imagine it's even tougher if you don't see the Note at the top of the puzzle)

THEME: Mark My Words — A sort-of double-rebus puzzle in which six quotes have quotation marks (" ") at their starts and ends in the Across direction. The quotation marks should be interpreted as ditto marks (″ ″) in the Down direction, which means that the letters in those squares in the Down direction are the same as the squares directly above them. Did you get that? If not, let me try again with the puzzle Note: "When this puzzle is completed, 12 squares will be filled with a certain keyboard symbol — which will have a different signification in the Across answers than it does in the Downs."

Theme answers:

• 29A: Magical phrase in an old tale ("OPEN SESAME"). First ditto mark represents a D in the Down direction and crosses the double-D in CHEDDAR (4D: Money, in modern slang). Second ditto mark represents an L in the Down direction and crosses the double-L in PULL-TAB (21D: Soda can feature).
• 50A: Schwarzenegger film catchphrase ("I'LL BE BACK"). Crossing Down answer: 33D: Art critic, stereotypically (SNOOT). 
• 58A: Comment after a betrayal ("ET TU, BRUTE?"). Crossing Down answer: 34D: Not seemly (UNMEET).
• 74A: Catchphrase for one of the Avengers ("HULK SMASH!"). Crossing Down answer: 70D: How one person might resemble another (EERILY).
• 84A: Repeated bird call? ("NEVERMORE"). Crossing Down answer: 77D: Wool source (LLAMA).
• 103A: What the ring in "The Lord of the Rings" is called ("MY PRECIOUS"). Crossing Down answers: 85D: ___ rate (tax amount per $1,000) (MILLAGE) and 95D: Be a gentleman to at the end of a date, say (SEE HOME). 
• 31D: Assistant number cruncher (SUBBOOKKEEPER). Runs through all quotes.

Word of the Day: UNMEET (34D: Not seemly) —

Not fitting or proper; unseemly. (The Free Dictionary)

• • •

Hey there, this is Evan Birnholz. I'm holding down the fort here in Philadelphia during Popestravaganza 2015 -- it's supposed to be a madhouse when the Pope holds Mass on Sunday. Francis might not have time to solve one of my Devil Cross puzzles while he's here -- the name of my site probably doesn't do it for him either -- but lately I've been publishing some Sunday-sized crosswords just like today's, so check 'em out on this fine day.

I've been a fan of Tom McCoy's previous puzzles, and I'm all for crosswords that force you to think outside of the box. But unfortunately, this puzzle (ahem) missed the mark with me. It's a bizarre theme, to say the least. I get that each of the six long Across answers are well-known quotes and that quotation marks can sorta approximate ditto marks in appearance, but I can't shake the feeling that the puzzle is missing something. It could be because I've been solving a lot of meta puzzles recently, but I really, really wanted the "trick" letters in the Down direction to spell something relevant when you read them in order -- some phrase that might help unify the theme, like maybe QUOTE UNQUOTE or MIXED DOUBLES. Even another famous 12-letter quotation would be something. Instead, those gimmick letters are just the same letters as the ones right above them and otherwise have no extra layer to them. That felt like a missed opportunity.

There is good stuff in there, to be sure. The six quoted theme answers are all solid -- I love "HULK SMASH!" especially -- but for something this different, it just wasn't a tight enough theme concept to really grab me. It's basically: six relatively random quotes, quote marks look like ditto marks, you get some double letter pairs .... I just wanted more out of it, and the marquee answer in the grid that (literally) ties everything together (SUBBOOKKEEPER) doesn't strike me as a strong enough hook. It's a linguistic curiosity in that it's apparently the only one-word term that has four consecutive repeated letter pairs, and that can help you grok the theme. But if you don't know that, then it just appears like an otherwise dull term that got jammed into the grid for some unknown reason. It doesn't get much play in dictionaries; the sub- prefix makes it look like someone just made that job title up. SUBBOOKKEEPER! INTERPOSTMASTER! MICROSECRETARY! There's a theme in there somewhere.

In addition, something about the puzzle's presentation seems off. The puzzle Note (if you chose to read it beforehand) gives away a major piece of information about the theme in that several squares work differently in both directions. Generally I think it's better to let solvers discover that bit of trickiness on their own, and of course you could ignore the Note while solving. But even with the Note, I still had a tough time making sense of the theme when I was done. I never saw the quotation marks as ditto marks; I just assumed that the trick was that the quote marks could be replaced with whatever letter fit the crossing Down answer, not the same letter as the one in the square directly above it. So it felt like I had to solve the corresponding Down answers with no help from the Across letters (for instance, I had UNME_T at 34D and got completely stuck, not least because UNMEET is a word that no one ever uses). Maybe others had similar confusion? At the very least, that bit of trouble gave me the fun chance to interpret some of the Across theme entries as though the quote/ditto marks were never there, so "OPEN SESAME" and "I'LL BE BACK" became DOPEN SESAMEL and BILL BE BACKO. There's probably not a theme in there anywhere.

I'm also told that, while I solved this one on paper, this puzzle does not work well for solving on a computer or other electronic devices. To get the correct solution, you apparently have to enter the word QUOTE in Across Lite in the relevant squares instead of the appropriate symbols. So for electronic solvers, you may have already lost the two-way quote/ditto mark gimmick, which a few people mentioned to me had been pretty frustrating.

Now, with all that out of the way, let's talk Fill. This puzzle has 132 words -- well below the NYT's generally accepted maximum of 140 for a 21x21 puzzle. That means you can get some nice longer fill answers like OH CRUD, NBA STAR, HIMALAYAS, KARAOKE, NO SERVICE, CUE STICKS, ANGEL HAIR, and FIG LEAVES, the latter of which has a pretty funny clue (27A: Ones doing a decent job in the Bible?). But it also means you might get some rather cringe-worthy answers like:

• 20A: Got up again (REROSE) — I'm fine with RE- answers that you might hear in the wild like REREAD or RESEND or REMIX, but REROSE isn't one of them.
• 24A: Takes out, as some beer bottles (UNCASES) — It makes sense, but do people say this? I think you're more likely to say "Let's take the beer bottles out" than "Let's uncase the beer bottles." There's also UNMAKES at 34A: Takes apart.
• 38A / 30D / 110A (NT WT / ESTS / SCHS) — Strange abbreviations, all of them. There's really no reason the word "net" in NT WT should be abbreviated. Three letters was too long and so we made it two? Seriously?
• 52A: Amazon's industry (E-TAIL) — This probably isn't the worst E-something word you'll find in crosswords, but I still rarely see people use it. 
• 81A: Like some storefronts (TO LEASE) — That's a weird one. FOR LEASE and TO LET are much more common to my ear.
• 83A: Farmer, in the spring / 121A: Ones making an effort (SOWER / TRYERS) — Those "add -R or -ER to a verb to get a strange noun" answers, where the definition is just "one who [verb]s." Thus a TRYER is one who tries. You can just hear a coach telling his team, C'mon guys, you gotta be tryers out there if you wanna win!
• 14D: "What ___!" (cry after some spectacular goalie play) / 53D: "Lord, is ___?" (A SAVE / IT I) — I've never been a fan of partial phrases, and while IT I is common enough in puzzles, A SAVE sounds pretty arbitrary to me.
• 17D: @@@ (ATS) — AT SIGNS, yes. ATS, no. It's just not as common.
• The aforementioned, obscure UNMEET. I wish I could unmeet this word.
• 69D: One seeking the philosopher's stone (CHEMIC) — Yikes. I want to unmeet this one too. Surely I wasn't the only one who thought this would be a Harry Potter-related answer.
  
• 82D: Romanian currency (LEU) — Though it's probably a better currency to use in crosswords than the outdated ECU.
• 92D: Dictation takers (STENOGS) — Is there some industry standard for the shortening of "stenographer"? I know STENO isn't a whole lot better than STENOG, but can't we just stick with one of them? Are we going to start calling them STENS later on?
• 97D: Where many shots are taken (IN A BAR) — This feels arbitrary as a phrase, like IN A STORE or IN A CASINO would.
• 111D: Greek portico (STOA) — A classic piece of crossword-ese that I haven't missed much.
• 112D: 1940s prez (HST) — He's well-known, of course, but Truman's monogram isn't anywhere near as ubiquitous as FDR or JFK.
• 116D: Stand-___ (INS) — This isn't necessarily a terrible answer per se, but it seems strange to have INS as its own entry when you've already got IN HERE and IN A BAR.

That's quite a few sub- and sub-sub-par entries to swallow in spite of the longer, more sparkly answers. All of this is to say: 140 words in a 21x21 grid is tough enough to handle as it is. 132 words can be downright hazardous. In fact, I'd personally be in favor of raising the NYT's maximum number of words on Sunday puzzles to 142 or 144. If it helps clean up the fill, all to the good, I say.

MORE Bullets:

• 12A: Cassio's jealous lover in "Othello" (BIANCA) — I got my "Othello" ladies confused; I originally had EMILIA here.
• 59D: C equivalents (B SHARPS) — Just can't not think of "The Simpsons" here. 
  
• 93A: Travel over seas? (PARASAIL) — Nice clue.
• 95A: Be a gentleman to at the end of a date (SEE HOME) — The clue's a tad awkward for my taste, and the word "gentleman" shares a bit of a duplication with GENTLER at 28A.
• 85D: ___ rate (tax amount per $1,000) (MILLAGE) — I suspect this one could be a stumper for many. I wondered for a while why this word wasn't MILEAGE since that fourth letter was just a quotation mark in the Across direction, but that's where the "ditto mark/letter above it is the same" part of the theme kicks in.
• 109A: Hebrew letter before samekh (NUN) — Uh, alright. Kind of a curveball to throw at us non-Hebrew speakers when many other potential clues are available, but it's fairly crossed.
• 117D: Monopoly token that replaced the iron in 2013 (CAT) — I did not know this. I did, however, know that there was a Cat-Opoly version of the game that one of my friends got for Christmas many years back.
• 122A: Contraction with two apostrophes ('TWASN'T) — I actually have a certain fondness for this word. I can't really explain why; maybe it's just wacky enough that I'd laugh if someone used it ironically in regular conversation.

• • •

Finally, an announcement: if you live in the Tampa area, there's going to be a memorial on Sunday evening (that's tonight) celebrating the life of the late, great crossword legend Merl Reagle, hosted by his wife Marie. It's from 5-8 pm ET at the University of Tampa's Vaughn Center and it's open to the public. There's more information here, if you're interested in attending.

Signed, Evan Birnholz, Earl of CrossWorld

[Follow Evan on Twitter @devilcrosswords].

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Perianth component / SAT 8-29-15 / Microsoft release of 2013 / Big producer of novelty records informally / My Darling Clementine locale / Surveying device with letter-shaped rests / Longtime Washington Post theater critic Richard / Spice mixture in Indian restaurant

Constructor: Evan Birnholz

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: David CAMERON (40D: Brown's follower) —

David William Donald Cameron (/ˈkæmᵊrən/; born 9 October 1966) is a British politician who has served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom since 2010, as Leader of the Conservative Party since 2005 and as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Witney since 2001. (wikipedia)

• • •

This played hard, then easy, then hard, then easy. So "Medium." Couldn't get started, then couldn't understand how I had failed to get started, as I knocked off well over half the puzzle without much effort. Then got badly stuck in the SE. Then figured out what the hell [Brown's follower] meant and went on to finish the puzzle somewhere in the SW, possibly at the "Y" in YLEVEL (59A: Surveying device with letter-shaped rests). Overall it seems pretty decent. It's not a showy grid—looks oddly like a weekday/themed grid in its segmentation. There are no stacks of longer answers—in fact, it doesn't contain any answer more than 11 letters long. But there's a bunch of good stuff in there: OXFORD COMMA (20A: Much-debated grammar subject) and "LAY IT ON ME" and SCARE QUOTES being my favorites. SEX APPEAL's not bad either. Next to no junk. Nice. I found it a little annoying at first (and this may explain the difficulty / frustration I had getting started) because there seems to be sooooo many &%^$ing "?" clues. When I finished the puzzle, I counted—there are only seven (7) "?" clues total. It's just that five (5) (!) of those originate in the NW quadrant, where my solving experience also originated. Anyway, once I figured out XBOXONE, I took off, and the whole "?" issue ceased to matter.


Not sure how I feel about crossing ICBM and IBAR at the "I." I think I'm against it. Something about having to say the "I" out loud (as a letter) in both seems ... like duplication, even though one "I" is an abbr. and the other is just the letter qua letter, the shape of the letter being the issue. I definitely object to the dupe at XBOX *ONE* and SIDE *ONE*. So, to be clear, the "I" thing would never bother me if those "I" s weren't in the same box. Like, if IBAR were way on the other side of the grid from ICBM, I wouldn't even have notice, let alone cared. But the crossing ... not sure why it bugs me, but it does. I don't consider that a dupe, though. A dupe is a duplicate word in the grid. Here's the thing I realized about dupes—if they are fewer than three letters long, I don't care (again, unless they're intersecting). Like, you could have four "ON"s in the grid, and I'm not sure I'd notice. I certainly wouldn't notice two. But once you get into longer words (3+), then I think you shouldn't dupe them. It's just an elegance issue. No one is harmed by the two ONEs. But ideally, you don't do that.


Bullets:

• 30D: Color (TINCT) — Had TIN-. Guessed TINCT. Worried it could be TINGE. This doubt caused some of the ensuing problems in the SE.
• 48A: "La Dolce Vita" setting (ROME) — this caused some more of the problems in the SE. I plunked down ROMA with no hesitation. The title of the movie is in Italian, ROMA is the Italian spelling, parallelism takes over ... ROMA. But no. I also convinced myself that ESTOERA was a word (39D: Things rarely seen), so I didn't get that, or TEXAN (44A: President #36, #41 or #43) for a little while there. That section fell because I finally realized the way "diet" was being used in 41D: Mideast diet (KNESSET). 
• 5D: Unpleasant things to pass around (COLDS) — I had GERMS. So ... I was close. 
• 23A: Battle of Isengard participant (ENT) — never saw this clue, which is how it should be with short / over-common fill. That stuff should be inconspicuous to the point of invisibility. It should also be scarce, especially in a themeless, which, as I've said, it is today.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Nixon adviser Nofziger / SAT 8-1-15 / Jazz’s Beiderbecke / Cornel who wrote “Race Matters” / Put in bundles for the bookbinder / Musician Mendes known for the bossa nova / Irish runner Coghlan / Highest authority in some Eastern Churches / Basketball’s Black Mamba / Food writer Drummond

Constructor: Kameron Austin Collins

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: None

Word of the Day: QUIRED (42A: Put in bundles for the bookbinder) —

noun \ˈkwī(-ə)r\
Definition of QUIRE

:  a collection of 24 or sometimes 25 sheets of paper of the same size and quality :  one twentieth of a ream (Merriam-Webster)

• • •

Hey there, I’m Evan Birnholz. I write the weekly crossword over at Devil Cross, with a new puzzle every Saturday (the latest one should be up sometime this morning). And next Saturday is Lollapuzzoola 8, a.k.a. Lollapuzzocho. It’s a crossword tournament held on a Saturday in August. It’s a really fun thing that you should go to because I said so, but if you can’t make it in person, you can always order the set of puzzles for solving at home. I’ll be there, so come say hi to me.

I liked this one – it had a good contemporary feel and had several lively phrases like KOBE BRYANT, HOLY SYNOD, BLANK CDS, LAD MAG, MATCH POINT, GEMSTONE, PEACH PIT, TONGUE-TIED, P.A. SYSTEM, and SEXTED. I’m tickled by FRIEND ZONE (32A: Relationship with unrequited love, in modern slang) appearing right below BABYCAKES (27A: Sweetie); I can guarantee that any single person who tries to put the moves on a stranger at a bar while using the word BABYCAKES won’t get any further than the FRIEND ZONE (and more likely, they'll end up far away from the Friend Zone and instead land in the Sketchy Creep Zone). Anyway, the stairway pattern of 7-plus letter answers in the middle is nicely done -- it's not the easiest grid arrangement to pull off. Now, I'm not enamored with short stuff like GPO, E'EN, ENS, TEM, and REE, though at least REE has a more interesting clue (51D: Food writer Drummond) than an old standby like [Riddle-me-___]. I’m also not really a fan of the LIBELEE/INTERNEE combo (of the two I'd say INTERNEE is the better entry). But I can overlook these things for the sparkly phrases mentioned above.

There were, however, a few answers that left me scratching my head. NAÏVE ART (50A: Works of childlike simplicity) was totally new to me. It’s a legit thing, with a Wiki page and all -- apparently the artist Henri Rousseau was a practitioner of the form -- though I was looking askance at that one for a bit, like it were as arbitrary a phrase as EAGER ART or CUDDLY ART. But alright, I'm uncultured and uncouth and don't know as much about different art forms as I should, so no real harm there. FREE UNION (32D: Cohabitation without marriage) was another question mark. I've never heard of any living arrangement described as a FREE UNION before. Cohabitation, yes; but the clue is the same, word-for-word, as Merriam-Webster's definition, which to me is usually a sign that it's not a very common phrase since the puzzle gives you the most straightforward clue on a Saturday. Even with a Wiki page of its own, FREE UNION doesn't Google all that well as a term for cohabitation -- it gets more hits on the front page as an uber-small town in Virginia. And then there's QUIRED. That word looks like a beheaded REQUIRED (and how long till we see a puzzle with that as a punny theme answer, clued as [Put in bundles for the bookbinder again]?). It's not uncommon that I'll encounter maybe one or two names in a crossword that I don't know, but these answers felt way, way more obscure as phrases relative to the rest of the puzzle. Your mileage may vary.

Despite those issues, I didn't get slowed up that much while solving. For the most part I think the cluing felt a little too over-the-plate for a Saturday. It could be because Kameron and I are in roughly the same age group, so maybe the modern slang and pop culture references were in my wheelhouse. KOBE BRYANT was an insta-get for me as a lifelong NBA fan. FRIEND ZONE fell pretty easily too, as did BLANK CDS once I had the terminal -CDS (though that had a pretty good clue, 10D: They may get burned). Even something like 30D: Sent pixxx? basically screamed SEXTED because of the triple x's. Whatever the reason, most of the clues didn’t put up much resistance when I had a few letters filled in, save for things like QUIRED and FREE UNION and NAÏVE ART.

My biggest trouble spot in this puzzle, by far, was the southwest corner. At first I had WASN’T I at 48A: Defensive comeback instead of the correct AREN'T I, and actually the clue there seems a little strange. How is AREN’T I a defensive comeback? It strikes me more like something you’d say out of coyness (i.e. “Well, aren’t you just the cutest!” .... “AREN’T I???” *bats eyelashes*). I’ve heard of the musician SERGIO (53A: Musician Mendes known for the bossa nova), but I don’t know his music well and needed help from the crossing NGO (49D: CARE, e.g., for short). EAMONN (55A: Irish runner Coghlan)? Yeah, that name was definitely not coming to me without all of the crosses. Each of those answers was crossed fairly, fortunately. The clue that really threw me for a loop was 43A: Specialty, informally (BAG). Could be just me, but I’ve never heard anyone use BAG in this context. Would KOBE BRYANT say “Basketball is my bag”? Or is it more specific to a certain skill, like Kobe saying “Jacking up contested 21-foot jump shots fifteen times a game is my bag”? I dunno; maybe it's a regional or outdated expression. Maybe people who make bags at the Bag Factory use this kind of slang, and if they don’t, then they should.

Anyhow, all these nits aside, this was still an enjoyable puzzle. I would have liked a little more bite in the cluing, but overall, NICE.

(p.s. Just kidding, Kobe. You know I respect your bag. But on this puzzle blog you’re just like the BLANK CDS: you may get burned.)

Bullets:

• PEACH PIT (15A: Cobbler waste) — The ‘90s child in me felt about 0.5% sadness that this wasn’t clued as the hangout spot in “Beverly Hills, 90210,” then I realized that the other 99.5% of me didn’t care for and didn't watch much of that show when it was on. Somehow I remembered that little tidbit, though.
• OHH (21A: "Now I get it!") — Here’s how this little game played out for me: “Ah, it’s AHA!” **sees that 12D: Office paper is MEMO** ….. “Oh, it’s OHO!” ….. **SIGH** (14D: [Not that again]) “Oh, I get it now, it’s OHH.” Weirdly fitting that I would get this one wrong.
• RISKY (24A: Parlous) — "Parlous" is new to me too. It's basically the same as "perilous."
• RAILING (24D: What's up for grabs?) — This clue confused me at first. I thought it was referring only to a rail that you'd see overhead like on a subway, but I think it should be interpreted as "what's put up (i.e. built) for grabs."
• WEST (38A: Cornel who wrote “Race Matters”) — He was another insta-get for me. Two things about this answer: first, now that I realize it, if this had instead been clued in reference to NBA Hall-of-Famer Jerry WEST, then you’d have two Laker legends crossing one another, but maybe that would have been too many sports clues with MATCH POINT and ON THE ICE already in the grid. Second, this puzzle would be a pangram were it not missing the letter J, and 38A could have been JEST. But the crossing WAILERS (38D: Original band that sang “I Shot the Sheriff,” with “the”) references a fun song, so thumbs-up for that. Pangrams are overrated, anyhow.

• P.A. SYSTEM (56A: Principal means of address?) — I'm calling foul here simply because the A of P.A. stands for "Address," so I'm not crazy about it being duplicated in the clue.

Last thing: my best wishes to The Crossword Fiend Amy Reynaldo as she recovers from kidney transplant surgery. I've heard she's doing well, and hopefully she'll be up and about and back to normal as soon as possible. You got this, Amy!

Signed, Evan Birnholz, Earl "The Pearl" of CrossWorld

[Follow me on Twitter @devilcrosswords]

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Iowa politico Ernst / FRI 12-12-14 / NHL players representative Donald / Relative of harrier / Number of weeks in il Giro d'Italia / Land east of Babylonia / Tuber grown south of border / Car modified for flying in Absent-minded professor

Constructor: Evan Birnholz

Relative difficulty: Challenging

THEME: none

Word of the Day: JONI Ernst (34D: Iowa politico Ernst) —

Joni Kay Ernst (née Culver; born July 1, 1970) is an American politician who is the United States Senator-elect from Iowa, elected in the November 2014 election, defeating Bruce Braley, her Democratic opponent. She previously served as a Republican member of the Iowa Senatefrom 2011 to 2014 and is also a lieutenant colonel in the Iowa Army National Guard. Ernst is the first woman to represent Iowa in the United States Congress and the first female veteran in the U.S. Senate. (wikipedia)

• • •

Grid is just fine, but the clues were a. Saturday-level, and b. too cute and/or forced for me, much of the time. This was a Saturday puzzle. No question. A Medium to Medium-Challenging Saturday puzzle for me. A nearly 2x Friday puzzle. Could've been Friday. But the clues. JONI Ernst is not anyone, yet. She might be, in 2020, but she's not now. Now she is that Senator-elect best known for introducing hog castration to the lexicon of modern political advertising:

[Double threat: JONI and ERNST]

And FEHR? I'm supposed to know the N.H.L.'s *players' rep*!?!?! Baffling. I can't name the players' rep for any of the major sports. I wasn't aware it was a thing I was supposed to commit to memory—especially the players' rep of the least popular of the four major US sports leagues. Attempts to get cute with the [Talk show V.I.P.] double-up meant that I was asked to believe that a BOOKER is a "V.I.P." A BOOKER is important, I'm sure, but name one. . . I know. Me either. That clue was probably (or should've been) [N.J. Senator Cory] or something like that, originally. Between the two talk show clues and the Saturday-hard clue on ABBESS (1A: Person at the top of the order), and FEHR (again, ?!), I couldn't finish the NW until the very end. Eastern grid (the southeast in particular) was somewhat more tractable, though BASEMEN has a terrible clue (35A: Ones trying to prevent stealing). It's trying to get all misdirective and cute, but it's awkward and inapt from a baseball perspective. Without "first" "second" or "third" in front of it, BASEMEN is odd. Not used. And catchers are the real steal preventers. It's defensible, this clue, but yuck. Get cutesy, you better *land* it. Otherwise, wince.


I had no idea how to spell ELISHA. I wanted ELIJAH. This made things awkward in the west. Also, I thought 32D: Run through the gantlet, say was TYPO. Sincerely. "Gantlet" is one of those words that is "right" but shifting hard to "gauntlet," which is what most people *say*, and what dictionaries list as the primary spelling ("gantlet" being the variant). British dictionaries list "gantlet" as "American." Anyway, doesn't really matter. Point is, I was sure the answer was TYPO. Well, not sure, because I figured out quickly that that wasn't going to work. HAZE… I got all from crosses. This patch in the west would've been Very hard had I not Hail Mary-guessed ADONIS and crossed it successfully with IDOL. The place was pretty blank before that moment. Finished with FIGHT, also poorly / cutsily clued (28A: All hits all the time?). That's a radio slogan, I think, but it is a poor "?" clue for the generic word FIGHT. [All hits all the time] sounds like a very violent FIGHT, i.e a subset of FIGHT. I "FIGHT" all the time without hitting anyone. Point is, boo. Again, grid is pretty nice, but the cluing just missed the mark too often for me. And, again, this should've run tomorrow.

I will say, though, that the clue on "THE WIRE" (48A: Series of drug-related offenses?) is excellent.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. congratulations to a certain young woman who guest blogs for me on the first Monday of every month—she found out just yesterday that she got into Wellesley, early decision.

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Strong ale in British lingo / SAT 10-18-14 / Kvass component / Gomer's biblical husband / Annie old Scottish love song / Former Zairian leader Mobutu / Brand once plugged by John Madden / Subject of Word on first episode of Colbert Report

Constructor: Evan Birnholz

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: Kvass (43D: Kvass component => RYE) —

Kvass is a fermented beverage made from black or regular rye bread. The colour of the bread used contributes to the colour of the resulting drink. It is classified as a non-alcoholic drink by Russian and Ukrainian standards, as the alcohol content from fermentation is typically less than 1.2%. Generally, the alcohol content is low (0.05% - 1.0%). It is often flavoured with fruits such as strawberries and raisins, or with herbs such as mint. Kvass is also used for preparing a cold summertime soup called okroshka.

It is especially popular in Russia and Ukraine, but also well-known throughout Belarus, Estonia, Serbia, Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as in other former Soviet states such as Georgia, Kazakhstan and Armenia where many kvass vendors sell the drink in the streets. Kvass is also popular in Harbin and Xinjiang, China, where Russian culture is a strong influence. (wikipedia)

• • •

The girders on this one are sturdy—those longer answers that run between grid sections all hold up nicely. The bulk of the rest of it, though, was just middling. Attempted cleverness sometimes missed, and toughness in the clues too often came from obscure info ("Annie LAURIE" is an "old Scottish love song"? ERIC BANA was in "Funny People"? Wait, what's "Funny People"? Etc.). I can recognize that the puzzle is basically well put together, but for some reason I was never able to work up much affection for this one. Maybe it was the general dullness of perfectly reasonable fill like MESSKITS and RAREBIRD, or the bits of gunk like SESE and SEE over SEA and AMIN clued as if it's not a dictator, via an expression no one says ever ever. People call their dad "pap"? Papa, pop, pops, poppa, pappa, pappy—all of these I'd buy before "pap." Even KICKSTARTER and TRUTHINESS felt … late. Like great answers …  from 2010. Mostly, the puzzle just wasn't meshing with *me*. WILCO as a radio word and not the band; HUSTLE as a generic verb meaning "move" rather than a word related to Pete Rose or a dance or a con; ARNE as a chair designer and not Duncan or that composer guy—clues kept seeming either dull or baffling. I needed every cross to get STINGO (?) and every cross to get COOPERS (I've only ever heard of *Mini* COOPERS, and since I thought the company name was "Mini," LOOPERS was the only guess I had even when I got to the -OOPERS stage). So it's a solid puzzle that just wasn't for me. Evan's puzzles usually are for me. You should do the puzzle at his independent puzzle site, Devil Cross.


There weren't gimmes for me today. I think AVAST and RAFA and CALC and POE were about it. Oh, and RAS—that felt like cheating. I'm a bit of a Batman fan, so RAS was my first answer in the grid. I made a rectangle from RAS using ASTUTE then CITE then CROTCH, and proceeded from there. The NW was a wasteland until about midway through my solve, when the -STARTER prefix suddenly dawned on me. KICK gave that section the KICK it needed and I took it down easily from there. Had the hardest time getting into and finishing off the SE. The STINGO + COOPERS debacle kept me from being able to work from the top down, and with no idea what letter preceded TEST at 46D: Statistical method for comparing the means of two groups (T-TEST), I had only DIR- for the start of 45A: Scorpio hunter of film and, embarrassingly, couldn't do anything with it until I had a belated epiphany. If DIRTY HARRY hadn't suddenly come to me, MAN that SE could've been tough. Couldn't see AUTOCORRECT for-EV-er. Have to admit it's a good clue. I finished up somewhere down there, probably w/ the final "A" in ERIC BANA.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Harkness Tower locale / SAT 4-26-14 / Physical feature of Herman on Simpsons / It's canalized at Interlaken / Locale for zoot suit riots of 43 / He called his critics pusillanimous pussyfooters / Reality show documenting two-week trade / Group with 63 hit South Street / Brand named after some Iowa villages / Europe's City of Saints Stones

Constructor: Evan Birnholz

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: Herman (6D: Physical feature of Herman on "The Simpsons" => ONE ARM) —

Herman Hermann, voiced by Harry Shearer, is the owner ofHerman's Military Antiques. He dresses in military fatigues. He is an insectivorian. // Herman has only one arm. He told Bart that the other arm was lost by sticking it out of the window of a moving bus and it was torn off by a truck in the other direction. It was also implied it was him, as Ms. Krabappel said not to do it because a kid once lost an arm that way, while on a bus. However, in To Cur, with Love, it was revealed that he stuck it out on a street while trying to hail a car, resulting in the arm being torn off by a passing dogcatcher truck driven by Chief Wiggum. // Herman is not a very important and known person in Springfield, but he will often participate in large mobs and crowds. (simpsons wiki)

• • •

A decent challenge, but (with some notable exceptions) slightly lackluster. This impression may just be an effect of juxtaposition, i.e. most themelesses are going to look lackluster after Joel's nice effort yesterday. And there is definitely nothing wrong with this puzzle. It's solid. Fine. It's just that the marquee answers made me yawn a little. I love "CALVIN & HOBBES" as a comic strip (who doesn't?), but I've seen it in puzzles before, and WALT DISNEY WORLD … first, most don't really call it that, and second, it's a bit mainstream and ho-hum. Evan is capable of phenomenal work. Maybe he's saving it (as many independent constructors do nowadays) for his own site ("Devil Cross"). Maintain control. Maintain copyright. Maintain independence. Sell your knock-out stuff to Fireball (which pays $1 more than the Times). Sell your Just-OK stuff to the NYT. It's a pretty smart way to go. (You really should see this week's Fireball, written by a guy named … oh, look at that: Evan Birnholz) (it's a contest puzzle, so I can't tell you anything about it … except it's good).


ECHO for DIDO (17A: Tragically heartbroken figure of myth) really really put a cramp in my NW at first. I was so sure … and then the "O" panned out … that was a pretty brutal trap. Even made me doubt CAMP, which had gone into the grid immediately. I had OCELI for OCULI … I feel like OCELI are something, and since Blogger isn't red-underlining it, it must be a thing … nope, not finding anything. Not with one "L" anyway. ORIEL! I think that's the answer I actually wanted. Very wrong, but, in its defense, a window. If I'd remembered it, I'd've seen it was wrong (plural doesn't fit). But OCELI ended up being oddly close. Floundered a lot up top and then just peppered the grid with tentative guesses until I stumbled into the OREO / HYDROX thing. That got me SKY BOX SEATS, and the whole puzzle got a lot easier from that point forward.

The most disturbing thing about the solve was Not Knowing Who Herman Was in 6D: Physical feature of Herman on "The Simpsons" (ONE ARM). I am a pretty die-hard "Simpsons" fan, and as soon as I figured out the answer, I remembered instantly who Herman was, but as I was solving … no dice. Got him confused with one of the bullies. Dolph, I think. No, the other one. Kearney. Wow: full  name KEARNEY ZZYZWICZ (15)!!!! The point of this paragraph is holy crap that clue must've been hard for non-hardcore fans. Honestly, it feels like I haven't seen Herman in any meaningful role since 1993.

Very much liked RACE CARD (edgy!) (23A: Controversial thing to play), PROTEST VOTE (4D: Abstention alternative) and "WIFE SWAP" (51A: Reality show documenting a two-week trade). The rest is OK BUT… 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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What a gimel means on a dreidel / WED 3-5-14 / Cuban salsa singer Cruz / "Total Recall" director Wiseman / Town with an eponymous derby / One of two in an English horn / Aria title that means "It was you"

Constructor: Evan Birnholz

Relative difficulty: Who Knows? (See what I did there? No? Keep reading.)

THEME: CLUELESS — Theme answers are unclued and they all mean, basically, "Huh?"

You guys! It's me, PuzzleGirl! Got an SOS call from Mrs. Parker. Seems Rex is a bit under the weather so today you get me. Try to control yourselves. Let's see if I remember how to do this ....

Theme answers:

• HELL IF I KNOW
• I’M STUMPED
• BEATS ME
• DON’T ASK ME
• I HAVE NO CLUE
• NO I MEAN THESE ARE LITERALLY THE THEME ANSWERS, I'M NOT SAYING I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE THEME ANSWERS ARE!

Cute theme. Not too many rough spots. I had AND for ARE (29D: Word often abbreviated to its middle letter, in texts) and wondered if HELL IF I KNOW would actually include H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks or if it would be tamed down for the masses. Also, I can never remember how to spell 50D: Don of "Trading Places" AMECHE. But that's just a personal problem.

There's some nice fill here and there: SUNSPOTS symmetrical with STONE AGE, MIDTERM right smack in the middle, and JET SET is nice. POKEMON always makes me laugh because I know what it is … kind of. I mean, I know Pikachu, of course, and I know Pokemon evolve into other Pokemon and there's a show with a kid named Ash who has a really annoying voice, and I guess it's a game? Maybe with cards? Kids collect them and then they ... play a game with them? I don’t know. After that it gets a little fuzzy.

Now Nancy Drew creator Carolyn KEENE, on the other hand, I know a lot about. My undergrad honors thesis was called "The New Nancy Drew: But Can She Still Tap-Dance in Morse Code?" At the time (this was, like, a hundred years ago), it was widely believed that Carolyn Keene was the pseudonym of Harriet Adams, whose father, Edward Stratemeyer, founded the "Stratemeyer Syndicate," which produced the books. And we all just went along our merry way believing that. But then the Internet came along and all hell broke loose. Turns out Harriet Adams wasn't the only Carolyn Keene. In fact, there were many, MANY Carolyn Keenes. Harriet Adams didn't even write the first Nancy Drew title, "The Secret of the Old Clock"! It was written by Edward Stratemeyer's secretary, Harriet Otis Smith! I’ll be honest with you, I'm not entirely convinced Harriet Adams wrote ANY of the Nancy Drew books. Maybe she just got the credit because her dad was a big shot! And the moral of the story is that Nancy Drew is awesome and if you have daughters, you should get her the old books not the new ones (because, no, in fact she cannot still tap-dance in Morse Code).

Wait, where was I? Oh yes, the puzzle. Unfortunately, I'm afraid I can't exactly rave about a puzzle that includes both OTO- (12D: Ear-related prefix) and OTOE (45A: Siouan tribesman). The ARETE / AS IN / EKE OUT (53D: Glacial ridge / 46D: Words clarifying a spelling / 47D: Barely make) section is also a little sketchy. But I think that's what happens when you cram five theme answers into a grid, which seems to be pretty standard these days. Sigh.

So hey, are you all coming to Brooklyn this weekend? This is my favorite weekend of the year. I typically spend the whole weekend in my happy place, so if you see me please say hi!

Love, PuzzleGirl

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