Home of groundhog Punxsutawney Phil / MON 2-18-13 / Green with 2010 hit Forget You / Los Angeles district near Sherman Oaks / Stringed instrument for madrigal / Mortise's partner in carpentry / Singsongy cadence / Set of people receiving placebo

Constructor: Jeffrey Harris

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: CONTROL GROUP (46A: Set of people receiving a placebo ... or what the ends of 20-, 28- and 41-Across belong to?) — theme answers all end with words that are kinds of controls (such as one might find on a TV or dashboard)

• GOBBLER'S KNOB (20A: Home of the groundhog Punxsutawney Phil)
• CUTE AS A BUTTON (28A: Simply adorable)
• BAIT AND SWITCH (Underhanded commercial ploy)

Word of the Day: GOBBLER'S KNOB —

Punxsutawney Phil Sowerby is a groundhog resident of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. On February 2 (Groundhog Day) of each year, the town of Punxsutawney celebrates the beloved groundhog with a festive atmosphere of music and food. During the ceremony, which begins well before the winter sunrise (which occurs at 7:26 AM Eastern Standard Time on February 2 in Punxsutawney)^[1], Phil emerges from his temporary home on Gobbler's Knob, located in a rural area about 2 miles (3.2 km) east of town. According to the tradition, if Phil sees his shadow and returns to his hole, he has predicted six more weeks of winter-like weather. If Phil does not see his shadow, he has predicted an "early spring."^[2] The date of Phil's prognostication is known as Groundhog Day in the United States and Canada. He is considered to be the world's most famous prognosticating rodent. During the rest of the year, Phil lives in the town library with his "wife" Phyllis.

A select group, called the Inner Circle, takes care of Phil year-round and also plans the annual ceremony. Members of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club's Inner Circle are recognizable by their top hats and tuxedos. As of 2011, Phil has two co-handlers, Ben Hughes and John Griffiths. (wikipedia)

• • •

Oh, puzzle, you had me at GOBBLER'S KNOB. I watched "Groundhog Day" this past Groundhog Day, and am more convinced than ever that it's among the greatest comedies of all time. Probably one of the ten best movies of the '90s. Just perfect. Last week marked the 20th anniversary of the film's release, so this answer is all kinds of timely. However, it is likely to slow most Monday solvers down, since unless you've seen and know the film Really well (as I do), it's possible you fumbled around a bit there. Also possibly at ACRED (wtf?), and, if you're like me, at JEEZ (I swear I *just* did a puzzle where it was spelled GEEZ ...). Oh, and THE BLUES—that was a pretty tricky clue (4D: Low spirits, as experienced by St. Louis's hockey team?). So tricky, I actually thought it was a theme clue at first. So there are a bunch of places one might get briefly snagged, but the rest was typically Monday-easy, so overall, it was a Monday. A Monday Monday, albeit one I liked more than I typically like Mondays. The theme is of a very basic (last words) type, but with theme answers like those, the unoriginality of theme type is meaningless. Theme works, fill is great, so: success.


Oh, and maybe you didn't know CEE-LO (39A: Green with the 2010 hit "Forget You"). The clue is accurate but misleading, as the song is really called "F*ck You," but for radio play they obviously had to change it. I know his name well and still froze a bit when trying to enter it. Somehow I want it to be C-LO, like J-LO ... but with a C.

[WARNING: Profanity ahead]
CANOERS (39D: Ones paddling down a river, say) made me wince a bit, but in retrospect I don't see anything terribly wrong with the word. It's just that when words get -ERed and pluralized at the same, that's usually a bad sign. I mean, fine for, say, BOMBERS, but bad for, say, SCARERS. I didn't set a personal record time on this puzzle, but I did manage to put my name on top of the leaderboard at the NYT site for the first time ever. That bit of glory lasted all of thirty minutes, and since then many of my friends have posted times *well* under mine. Oh well. At least I'll always have this screenshot (that's me at #1):

See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Hannibal Lecter's choice of wine / MON 12-31-12 / Make show-offy basket / Triangular pieces of browned bread / Orange snacks / Welsh form of John

Constructor: Jeffrey Harris

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: FINGER FOODS (60A: 17-, 30- and 45-Across, literally and figuratively) — theme answers are all foods you eat with your fingers, and the second word of each phrases is an action you can perform with your fingers (at least I think that's what's going on)

Word of the Day: EDIE Falco (54A: Falco of "The Sopranos") —

Edith "Edie" Falco (pron.: /ˈiːdi ˈfælkoʊ/; born July 5, 1963) is an American television, film and stage actress, known for her roles in Oz asDiane Whittlesey, as Carmela Soprano on the HBO series The Sopranos, and as the titular character on the Showtime series Nurse Jackie. (wikipedia)

• • •

Didn't notice the theme until I was done, and then (and now) wasn't quite sure what the gist of the theme was. Are the phrases supposed to  read like sentences, so that we imagine the food doing something with its (figurative) fingers? If so, CHEESE CURLS doesn't really work, as you can "curl" a lot of things–the word just doesn't conjure up fingers. If it's just that the second word in the phrase is something one's fingers can do, then I don't understand what's "figurative" about the answers. In short, I'm in the "not getting it" camp. Or I'm in the "Getting it and not appreciating / liking it" camp. Not sure which camp is nicer. I kind of hope I'm in the first camp, because that means there is some nuance I am not appreciating, which means the puzzle is better than it seems, which is good. Outside the theme, the grid is just a grid. Nothing noteworthy except "THAT TEARS IT," which is a line from one of the greatest scenes in movie history:

["I wonder if you wonder..."]
Theme answers:

• 17A: Crisp, spicy cookies (GINGER SNAPS)
• 30A: Triangular pieces of browned bread (TOAST POINTS)
• 45A: Orange snacks (CHEESE CURLS)

I had one great misunderstanding while solving the puzzle, which is that I assumed that the basket being made in 67A: Make a show-offy basket was ... woven. Me: "There's a verb for fancy-basket making now? Ugh. I wonder what kind of Maleskan monstrosity this answer's gonna be ... oh. Ohhhhhh. That kind of basket. Of course. Nevermind."

HAPPY NEW YEAR, everybody.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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SUNDAY, Aug. 26, 2007 - Andrew M Greene and Craig Kasper (and Todd McClary and Jeffrey Harris)

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "Getting Ahead" - circled squares represent (and spell out) parts of A HEAD

[updated 12:40 pm]

A very ambitious puzzle, executed fairly well. Got the theme very early and figured I'd be able to fill in all the circled squares right away. I was wrong. I put LIPS and LIPS where LIPS and CHIN were supposed to go; took me a while to get BROWS (whose BROWS are in the middle of their forehead, between their eyes?); and SCALP still seems quite wrong - unless you are balding (like me), you can't see the SCALP. If you stared at a face and described it all day long, you would never talk about the SCALP. But that's the only gaffe; other than that, the puzzle was fun.


I am told that there were actually four authors of today's puzzle, though the Times can credit a maximum of just two - that's why I credited Todd McClary and Jeffrey Harris in parentheses in today's title, in case you were wondering.

Here are the answers that contained HEAD parts (from top to bottom, left to right)

• 21A: Toddler's mealtime accessory (booster cHAIR)
• 29A: Quarters for a business, e.g. (fiSCAL Periods)
• 54A: Safari, e.g. (web BROWSer)
• 53D: Be weighed down (bEAR the burden)
• 64A: Persuaded with flattery (blarnEYEd)
• 66A: Noted explorer of Polynesia (HEYErdahl)
• 76A: Time in which light travels one foot, approximately (naNOSEcond)
• 100A: Astronomical events that occur twice or more a year (lunar ecLIPSes)
• 113A: Nested set of containers (CHINese boxes)

[Whoops - looks like I Van Gogh'd this puzzle: here's the missing ear: 15D: Empathetic one, derisively (bleeding hEARt)]

Going for walk in the woods before it gets too hot. More later.

...

And I'm back, following a late breakfast of fried eggs, potatoes, and coffee, as well as two crossword puzzles out of The Listener (NZ) with my wife.

Hardest part of the puzzle for me was the NW. That stupid IMAC / APPLE clue at 1A: See 7-Across really should have been SYMBOL. In my grid, it was SYMBOL for a while - until forced to become the far worse EMBLEM (it's not emblazoned on a coat-of-arms, for god's sake). The soap BORAXO (18A: Heavy-duty hand soap) is only barely known to me. And all those Downs were exceedingly mischievous. You'd think I'd be on solid ground with D&D, but it took me a while to get BROAD AX (3D: Dungeons & Dragons weapon). ROXANNE and ALL OF ME both fit where L.A. STORY was supposed to go (4D: Steve Martin romantic comedy). EXTANT was tough, but it's clued beautifully (5D: Like seven of Sophocles' 123 plays). The answer that got me my first bit of traction up in the NW was 24A: Battle report? (rat-a-tat), which in retrospect is a really odd answer to get so easily. Shouldn't have been a gimme, but was. I could watch "Casablanca" 1000 more times (current number of viewings: 1) and not remember UGARTE (35A: Lorre's "Casablanca" role).

SANTA returns to the puzzle today disguised as the Grinch - actually, it's the other way around (42A: Grinch disguise). ESSENES (36D: Dead Sea Scrolls sect) has gone from being totally unknown to me to being a virtual gimme. So many "Wheel of Fortune" letters ... and yet esoteric enough to fly in a late-week puzzle. Ditto 34D: Dutch painter Jan (Steen). I was just in Boston last month, but only barely remember ever hearing about the part of town called the BACK BAY (11A: Posh part of Boston).

My schoolkid's knowledge of Latin helped with 81A: Creatio ex _____ (Christian tenet) (nihilo) and 86A: Prayer opener ("Ave") - less helpful with getting 22D: Org. with the motto "Per Ardua ad Astra" (RAF) - though, if pressed, I could translate that motto for you.

My favorite clues and/or answers in the puzzle include:

• 14D: Skiffle instrument (kazoo) intersecting 23A: Ceramists, at times (glazers)
• 70A: 1940s-'50s Dodger who was a 10-time All-Star (Reese) - would have liked to see his fun full name, PEE WEE REESE, in the puzzle, but this'll do.
• 71A: Particle created by a cosmic ray (muon) - fun to say; stretch that "U"
• 96A: Knight time? (yore) - I was trained as a yore-ologist
• 98A: Teahouse floor covering (tatami) - teahouse I was thinking of was not Japanese, so this took me a while
• 68D: "There's No Place Like _____" (old TV slogan) (HBO) - "old TV slogan??!" Man, there's nothing that'll make you feel older than seeing something 15 years younger than you described as "old"
• 111D: They were worth $5 each on "What's My Line?" ("NO"s) - some old person will explain this. I guess the idea was to fool some panel about your identity for as long a time as possible. Was Bennet Cerf on this show? Kitty Carlisle?
• 101D: Kittens' "handles" (napes) - this clue makes me laugh. Something about the quotation marks around "handles"; like the clue can barely take itself seriously. The clue makes me imagine people carrying around kittens like briefcases. Also makes me think of cats driving big rigs and working the CB - "10-4, good buddy, This is Mr. Whiskers, etc."

New semester starts tomorrow. Commentaries will be shorter, but hopefully no less awesome.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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