British truck / MON 4-8-13 / Cabinet department since 1977 / Europe's longest river / Author of "The Wreck of the Mary Deare" / Work by Karel Capek / Jason's wife in mythology / Singer Lavigne

Constructor: Janet R. Bender

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: O.S. — Common two-word phrases where the first word begins with O and the second begins with S.

Word of the Day: INNES (54A: Hammond ___, author of "The Wreck of the Mary Deare") —

Ralph Hammond Innes (15 July 1913 – 10 June 1998) was a British novelist who wrote over 30 novels, as well as children's and travel books. He was married to fellow author and actress Dorothy Mary Lang in 1937 who died before him, in 1989. He was awarded a C.B.E. (Commander, Order of the British Empire) in 1978. The World Mystery Convention honoured Innes with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Bouchercon XXIV awards in Omaha, Nebraska, Oct, 1993. (Wikipedia)

• • •

Hello, CrossWorld. Evan Birnholz here, pinch-hitting for the King.

No no, not that King. That one's busy making everyone's life hell in "Game of Thrones." (NOTE: Do NOT give any spoilers to last night's episode in the comment section -- I ain't seen it yet). I meant this King:

Damn it! Wrong picture again. Whatever, you know who I'm talking about. Onto today's puzzle.

This was your average Monday. The theme is very basic, and the fill is alright, but nothing really stood out to me. The theme entries are okay, but with one exception, their clues are a little on the dull side. I thought there might be a little more to it than just "phrases with the initials O.S.," but nope. There's no revealer or anything....it's just, name the phrases and that's it. I doubt a revealer would have done much good, though. If O.S.S. had been in the grid, it might have been clued as [C.I.A. predecessor....and a hint to this puzzle's theme], but that would mean you'd have to parse it as the plural OS's, and that'd be pretty lame. I guess if there were ten O.S. phrases you could make it a tribute puzzle to Apple's OS X -- and OPERATING SYSTEM would work well for that -- but I digress.


Theme answers:

• 17A: Words from Ali Baba (OPEN SESAME) — Well, this does remind me of the classic Bugs Bunny/Daffy Duck cartoon "Ali Baba Bunny."
• 25A: Beavers' school (OREGON STATE)
• 37A: Windows or Unix (OPERATING SYSTEM)
• 47A: What Jesus is said to have been born without (ORIGINAL SIN) — The best answer (and most colorful clue) of the bunch.
• 57A: Cranberry juice brand (OCEAN SPRAY) — Just bought some yesterday, actually. I'm drinking it now, too! (While I was writing the post, that is. Not every minute that you're reading it.)

As for the fill: It's pretty clean, but the longest non-theme answers are six letters long, and there are only six entries of that length, which doesn't leave a lot of room for fresh, original answers. I like the clues for FRONTS (10D: Is the lead singer of) and AFRO (64A: Hairdo for any of the Jackson 5), but everything else is pretty straightforward. INNES was the only real stumper -- I needed every cross for that one. It hasn't been used in a New York Times puzzle since 1999, which is a little surprising given its entirely Scrabble-friendly combo of letters, but regardless, it's definitely not a Monday-level entry. I suspect that the actress Laura Innes who played Dr. Kerry Weaver on "ER" is more well-known than the novelist Hammond, but I can't say -- I didn't watch much of "ER" in my formative years!

For what it's worth, this puzzle's constructor has done similar "two-word phrases with the same two initials" themes before -- see here, here, and here for examples. There's nothing wrong with reusing a simple theme idea for an early-week puzzle, though if there isn't going to be a couple of long, interesting fill answers, I'd prefer those theme entries (or at least their clues) to have some real sparkle to them.

SNL: Hilary Duff, Lindsay Lohan & Avril Lavigne - MyVideo

Bullets:

• 7D: Arboreal ape, informally (ORANG) — This shows up a lot in puzzles, but no matter how many times I see it, I still don't like it. I'm yet to hear any parent at the zoo say "Hey kids, let's go look at the ORANGs!" 
• 9D: Go from blond to brunet, say (DYE) — I had no idea you could spell "brunet" that way. It's the correct spelling when referring to a male's hair color, whereas "brunette" is for females. I learned the same thing last year about the other hair color in this clue.
• 10A: Whip (FLOG) — Yeesh.
• 20A: Assassinated (SLAIN) — Yeesh, part II.
• 22D: Test versions (DEMOS) — I had BETAS at first before catching onto the theme.
• 29D: Work by Karel Capek (R.U.R.) — This might be tricky for novice solvers. It stands for Rossum's Universal Robots. This 1920 play introduced the word "robot" to the English language. In other words, Karel Capek gave us this:

• 39D: Animated character (TOON) — Perfect opportunity to say that the best internet cartoon that ever was, bar none, is Homestar Runner.  It's too bad that the creators went on hiatus and haven't updated the website in several years, but I could still spend all day watching their short toons. If you've ever met crossword speed demon Tyler Hinman, you might know that he likes to wear his Trogdor T-shirt for good luck at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.
• 45D: Unreturned tennis shot (WINNER) — Somehow, I had a feeling the answer wasn't AAAACE.
• 48D: Event with barrel racing (RODEO) — I had ROLEO at first. I thought that made perfect sense: log-rolling competition....maybe the competitors use barrels instead of logs sometimes....right? Unfortunately, ELIT didn't make sense for 56A: Prepare for publication like EDIT did. Fortunately, that mistake gives me an excuse to tell you the following: Using a non-mobile browser, open Google and type the words "do a barrel roll" into the search bar. It's probably a little strange to a lot of people who didn't come of age in the mid-1990s, but anyone who's ever played the game Star Fox 64 will instantly find it hilarious.

Signed, Evan Birnholz, Earl of CrossWorld

p.s. If you haven't done so already, I highly recommend reading through Rex's and Matt Gaffney's conversation about a Sunday puzzle from October 1989 when Eugene T. Maleska was the Times's crossword editor (you can try solving the puzzle itself here, and check the solution here). It's very funny and gives you a good sense about how much crosswords have improved in the last twenty-four years.

p.p.s. I also recommend checking out the "Twenty Under Thirty" crossword collection if you haven't gotten around to it yet. I plug it a lot in the comment section for obvious reasons (it includes my first-ever published puzzle, so I'm very excited about it), but I can tell you for certain that it has fantastic work from some very talented young constructors under the age of 30. It's only $5 for the entire set of 20 puzzles.

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County ENE of San Francisco / MON 7-26-10 / Monica player on Friends / Brutes in Gulliver's Travels / Native of eastern South Africa

Constructor: Janet Bender

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (EASY for me, but I beat some speedsters, so I think my time was idiosyncratic)

THEME: COCO — theme answers are two-word phrases where first and second words start with "CO-"


Word of the Day: CONTRA COSTA (17A: County ENE of San Francisco) —

Contra Costa County (Spanish for "opposite coast") is a primarily suburban county in the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2006, the US Census Bureau estimated it had a population of 1,024,319. The county seat is Martinez. (wikipedia)

• • •

A lovely Monday puzzle—theme is a bit simple, but the grid is very splashy overall. A nice array of high-value Scrabble letters and some very lively fill made the puzzle a pleasure to solve. Next to no junk, too, which is usually all I ask of my Mondays. Two big surprises (for me) today. First, that CONTRA COSTA is puzzle-worthy at all, not to mention theme-worthy! Do people outside CA know this place? A county whose biggest city is Concord (the 47th largest city in CA)?! Weird. Second surprise: that COURTENEY COX's first name has that first "E"—is that normal? I wrote in her name and had a space left over. Decided to throw in another "E" in the only place that seemed plausible, and voila! Other than that, nothing surprising, but lots to love, including (to name just a few):

• ON RECORD (5D: Publicly known)
• DECAMP (6D: Leave suddenly)
• ST. CROIX (23D: Largest of the Virgin Islands)
• GAWK (53D: Get an eyeful)
• BIG MAC (51A: Alternative to a Quarter Pounder)
• RED COAT (41D: British soldier in the American Revolution)
• YAHOOS (45D: Brutes in "Gulliver's Travels")
• SHORTCUT (39D: Clever travel suggestion)

And not just a JEW, but a JEW TABOO (successive entries!) (60A: Observer of Yom Kippur + 61A: Eating pork, to an observant 60-Across). Nice work. By the way, in case you missed it yesterday, you might want to check out W. Shortz's defense of "JEWFRO" and other recent and somewhat controversial answers, published here this past weekend.

Theme answers:

• 17A: County ENE of San Francisco (CONTRA COSTA)
  
• 27A: What a programmer writes (COMPUTER CODE)
  
• 43A: Monica player on "Friends" (COURTENEY COX)
  
• 57A: Winter afflictions (COMMON COLDS)

Bullets:

• 48A: China's Three Gorges project (DAM) — see, now that's an interesting clue for DAM. Not a typical Monday clue (i.e. not transparent), but an interesting clue.
  
• 11D: Native of eastern South Africa (ZULU) — was hesitant to write this answer in, as part of me thought that ZULU were somehow bygone, or only existed in movies. I blame "Shaka ZULU"
  

• 27D: Vitamin brand promoted as "Complete from A to Zinc" (CENTRUM) — Product Placement! Actually, I don't care about such issues. I only wish the product name were less dull. I take only Vitamin D and Fish Oil.
  
• 30D: Missile that might be tipped with curare (DART) — why would you tip your missile with ... oh, "missile" in the general, not-necessarily-rocket-propelled sense. Gotcha.
  
• 45D: Brutes in "Gulliver's Travels" (YAHOOS) — A memorable reading experience, for many reasons (not the least of which is that I spelled JONATHAN wrong, repeatedly, in my paper for British Literature II. The fact that JONATHAN was also the professor's child's name (and that the professor bothered to tell me so) made the error particularly ... memorable). Best name in "Gulliver's Travels": Houyhnhnms!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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Nigerian native — MONDAY, Aug. 3 2009 — English dramatist George / Larva successor / One of two for the Ten Commandments

Constructor: Janet R. Bender

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: MAYS / MAIZE / MAZE — those three homophones are clues and their definitions are answers

Word of the Day: Zuider ZEE (30D: Zuider _____ (former inlet in the Netherlands)) — Zuider Zee (zī'dər zē, zā, Du. zoi'dər zā) , former shallow inlet of the North Sea, c.80 mi (130 km) long, indenting NE Netherlands. In ancient times Lake Flevo, it was joined to the North Sea by a great flood in the 13th cent. A vast drainage project, begun in 1920, split the old Zuider Zee into the IJsselmeer, S of the IJsselmeer dam, and the Waddenzee, between the dam and the West Frisian Islands. Much of the IJsselmeer has since been reclaimed for farm lands and urban expansion. (Columbia Encyclopedia)

-----

Not much to say about this one. A pretty ordinary Monday, and after yesterday's provocative / infuriating creation, doing this puzzle felt like a massive letdown. The old homophones-as-clues gag, eh? Where the clues are really answers and the answers definitions ... only those "definitions" are always slightly arbitrary and off-feeling. Not definitions one would naturally or easily offer for the homophones in question. They're accurate enough, but often you can feel the constructor's desperation to get the answers to come out to lengths that allow for symmetrical placement. LAB RAT'S MILIEU is so ridiculous it's almost good. As my wife said, "that's one pretentious rat."

Theme answers:

• 20A: MAYS (slugger Willie)
• 36A: MAIZE (pale yellow color) — "you call it corn ..."
• 57A: MAZE (lab rat's milieu)

One of the big reasons this puzzle didn't sit well with me was the whole GLUEY / PEELE section, which feels like a real blot on the puzzle (especially a Monday puzzle, where ultra smooth fill is easiest to pull off and thus expected). GLUEY (21D: Viscous) ... well GLUEY is GLUEY is GLUEY. An awful adjective no one really uses. GOOEY, yes. STICKEY, yes. But GLUEY? GLUEY sounds like the fourth nephew of Uncle Scrooge. The one Nobody wants to talk about. The one who was shipped upstate in the 40s for a "nervous disorder." And PEELE? (33A: English dramatist George) Name a work by PEELE. I thought not.

Did anyone else try SNARE at 60A: Tangle and then wonder what the hell a TABEET was at 45D: One of two for the Ten Commandments? Even now, reading it over, I have trouble making sense of the phrase "One of two for." Taken altogether, the clue sounds like "1, 0, 2, 4, the 10 Commandments." Nutso.

Bullets:

• 28A: 1st to 220th, in Manhattan: Abbr. (sts.) — cool clue for a boring answer.
• 44A: Soda can feature (pull tab) — one of the more interesting answers in the grid, along with LA LA LAND. I also like the symmetry of OPOSSUMS (39D: Arboreal animals with pouches) and OVERKILL (6D: Excess). Move over Urge Overkill. OPOSSUM OVERKILL is the next great band name.

• 64A: With 34-Down, golf's U.S. Open champion of 1994 and 1997 (Ernie / Els) — his last name is practically crosswordese at this point. I like the full, split name here.
• 8D: Part of a whodunit that reveals who done it (ending) — spent much time last night trying to work out the theme answers for a puzzle theme that's very closely related to this clue.
• 36D: Larva successor (pupa) — "successor" is weird here. Literally true, but makes PUPA sound like he beat Larva in an election or inherited the throne from him or something.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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MONDAY, Apr. 21, 2008 - Janet R. Bender (DRUG-YIELDING SHRUB)

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: Cleaning up - six theme answers all begin with a word that can refer to a method of cleaning

This was a Tuesday puzzle. I did it in under 4, but I'm not sure how, as I stumbled and stutter-stepped all over the place, in between picking my jaw up off the floor after seeing multiple astonishing clues and answers. The theme is well conceived, but stretched too far, at least for a Monday. SCRUB OAK is not terribly familiar, SWEEP HAND is equally marginal (really annoyed my wife), and WASH SALE ... an absolute novelty to me. I'll give the puzzle credit for originality, and for ambition. But I have to question why there are so many high-end words, normally seen only in late-week puzzles. I have recently blogged about at least three different words in this puzzle, and how puzzling / annoying they were to me, but none of those words had the gall to show up on a Monday. And here they are ... like some kind of gang, a roving pack of puzzle undesirables.

29D: Legendary Washington hostess Perle (Mesta) - "Legendary?" She's not the Loch Ness Monster.
50A: Hasty glance (apercu - actually aperçu) - that killed people when it turned up in a Friday. Monday? Monday? Wow. OK.
24D: Actor Tom of "The Girl Can't Help It" (Ewell) - this sap is lame enough when he's clued via the (at least familiar) "Seven-Year Itch." In this guise ... he's unbearable. Throw him back!
63A: Drug-yielding shrub (senna) - more flora I've never heard of.
32A: Fugard's "A Lesson From _____" (Aloes) - soothing plants can teach us so much ... and yes, the plant is in fact what the title refers to: a collection of ALOE plants. It's ... a metaphor for something, I'm sure.

I'd be surprised to see any of the above answers on a Monday. All of them together ... freakish. Weirdest Monday experience I've had in a long time.

Theme answers:

• 18A: Symbol of a new start (clean slate)
• 20A: Low-growing tree found typically in rocky soil (scrub oak)
• 33A: It indicates the seconds on a clock face (sweep hand)
• 40A: Small whirlwind (dust devil)
• 52A: Stock transaction done at a loss for tax purposes - I wonder how many people, having no idea what either this or 52D: Pantywaist (wuss) means, will be inclined toward CASH SALE here...
• 57A: Old radio part (vacuum tube)

There are some high-end clues for basic answers. I particularly like the clue for ERIE - 39A: _____ Lackawanna (bygone railroad) ("Bygone," by the way - another great crossword clue word, à la "slangily" and "sloganeer"). MEALS is also clued a bit fancily - 38A: Three squares, e.g. I was unhappy with a couple answers because they seemed off, clue-wise. First, isn't HAZMAT (26A: Dangerous cargo) an abbreviation? Shouldn't "briefly" be somewhere in this clue? Then there's RIFLED, which I also don't like, as it doesn't substitute well for the words in the clue - 44A: Ransacked and robbed. "Ransacked" is enough here, isn't it? "Robbed?" If you rob someone with a "rifle," I guess. . . Today is yet another day where syntactically linked clues bring me no joy. If REAP's counterpart had been SOW, maybe, but SEEDS (13D: Does some spring farmwork)? Meh. (REAP = 1A: Do some fall farmwork ... I didn't really read the "farmwork" part and immediately wrote in RAKE)

Et Alia

• 16A: Actor Murphy of old westerns (Audie) - familiar to me, but wife got very thrown by the intersection of this answer and 11D: Red who fought oil well fires (Adair), neither of whom she knew (she grew up in the Antipodes, people, give her a break).
• 43A: "As You Like It" forest (Arden) - pretty uppity literary clue for Monday. I had an English professor named ARDEN Reed. Sadly (as far as aptness goes), he did not teach Shakespeare. He taught British Literature II. Pope, Swift, etc. Also Romantic poetry. Probably still does. I remember misspelling Jonathan Swift's name on a paper (I wrote JOHN ...) and getting it back with a comment that he (Professor Reed) was particularly sensitive to this misspelling, as Jonathan was his son's name. D'oh!
• 45A: Seer's gift, briefly (ESP) - I think of "seers" as ancient and ESP as modern. Not sure why.
• 59A: "Stronger than dirt" sloganeer (Ajax) - I cannot resist a clue with "sloganeer" in it!
• 2D: Prez or veep (exec) - how I discovered my 1A - RAKE - was wrong.
• 5D: Debutante's date (escort) - see also 30D: Lover (swain).
• 8D: Fat farm (spa) - well that's not ... nice.
• 27D: Baseball's Felipe or Jesus (Alou) - the most common baseball name in crosswords at one point. I have to give editors credit - they have kept my puzzles nearly ALOU-free for a good long time now. So much so that I'm almost happy to see ALOU today.
• 44D: Usher again (reseat) - oh come on, that's terrible. At least the clue wasn't [Ush again].

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS I have a bet going with myself, and it starts ... now.

PPS Well, that took exactly four minutes - I bet myself that someone would make a NABES comment inside of 15 minutes (49D: Local theaters, in slang). Commenter Mimi made that 15 minute mark look ludicrously high. Thanks, Mimi.

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MONDAY, May 7, 2007 - Janet Bender

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: E.E. - theme answers are two-word phrases wherein each word begins with "E"

This puzzle took me forever (on Monday, that means over 5 minutes). Is this even a theme? E.E. Is May 7 National "E" Day? Well, it's a pretty weak theme, and the answers themselves are decidedly non-sparkly. This contrasts severely with some of the non-theme fill, much of which is Scrabbly in the extreme and even a bit esoteric (again, for a Monday). The theme answers are:

• 20A: "The Breakfast Club" actor (Emilio Estevez) - a very promising way to start your theme answers off. I do love this movie - crucial to my particular teenage moment - but sadly the theme ended up not being about my adolescence, or teen stars, or Paula Abdul's ex-husbands. It ended up being about ... E's. . . . [cough] . . . [tumbleweed floats by] . . . etc.
• 31A: More work than required (extra effort) - don't like how this is clued. It might take EXTRA EFFORT just to do whatever is "required" of you -EXTRA, as in "more than you are currently giving."
• 41A: It may come as a shock to a diver (electric eel) - does this really happen? The shocking, I mean? I stay the hell out of open water, so I wouldn't know.
  
• 55A: Domain ruled from Constantinople (Eastern Empire) - is this a real place? Sounds like a very made up, general name ... from a fantasy movie, perhaps. It does appear to be an acceptable name for the Eastern Roman Empire. But the first hit you get for ["Eastern Empire"] is some "hobby resource" site, and the next one is a Chinese restaurant in Sacramento. Then comes the Byzantine Empire site...

Let's Play Scrabble

The "Q"

52D: Tickle, as one's interest (pique)
61A: Pastel shade (aqua)

"X" the first

8D: Cry at a motor vehicle bureau ("Next!") - nice clue
18A: Grand _____ (annual French auto 17-Across) (Prix) - gangly clue. "Auto 17-Across?" Leave the "auto" off. It just sounds stupid.

"X" the second

32D: South African native (Xhosa) - this one lost me precious seconds, because I was sure it had to be wrong. I reconsidered every one of its crosses, especially 40A: "My mama done _____ me" ("tol"), which might be the Worst Answer In The Grid. XHOSA are Bantu people, and XHOSA is also the second-most commonly spoken "home language" after Zulu. NOT something I'd expect to see on a Monday. The answer literally made me GAPE (50A: Be wide-open).

The "J"

51D: Pear variety (Anjou)
60A: _____ California (Baja) - For whatever reason, neither of these answers came to me very quickly. I had the "A" in ANJOU and still the only pear variety I could think of was BOSC.

The non-ESTEVEZ "Z"

11D: Floor between first and second (mezzanine) - a very pretty word that is also Monday level
19A: "Carmen" composer (Bizet) - ditto. This is how you play Scrabble on Monday

I honestly did not know that PAPOOSE (5D: Native American baby) was a word for the baby itself - I thought it was the contraption in which baby is carried. I don't play bridge, so did not know that WHIST was an "Early form of bridge" (7D). I thought TELEMETRY (33D: Rocket data) was an exceedingly technical answer for a Monday (a great word though, and one I've not seen in the grid before). The real hang-up for me, though, was my own stupidity / blindness / bad luck - I had REPLAYS instead of the far better (and correct) REPEATS for 43D: Second airings, and that kept the far south (the "heart" of the EASTERN EMPIRE, ugh) a murky mess for a while.

I was going to blog the Clinton puzzle, "Twistin' the Oldies," but have decided that it is so non-standard (and big, and mildly irksome to me) that I'm going to let others have at it. It's all about how Baby Boomers are getting old, with old songs "updated" (read: turned into puns) to refer to the bodily ailments of the aging. I love Bill Clinton with all my heart and some of my soul, and the puzzle was fun in its way, but there were a few too many groaners for this non-baby-boomer. I will say, however, that as puns go (and I generally hate them), "YOU'RE SO VEINY" (50A: Boomer's update of a 1972 Carly Simon song?) is pretty decent.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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