Source of multicolored Maos / THU 6-14-18 / Way to put legislators on record / Dual-purpose viewing equipment / Classic fantasy game informally / Promontory with tragic romantic story connected to it

Constructor: Joe Krozel

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (~5:50 ... though clock read in the low 8s ... explanation below)

THEME: ROLL CALL VOTE (1A: With 44- and 76-across, way to put legislators on record ... or the start, middle and end of a word ladder) — a word ladder [yes, in the year of our lord 2018, a word ladder] that goes from ROLL to VOTE, with CALL at the center. The other "steps" in the ladder have nothing to do with legislators, afaict]:

Theme answers:

• ROLL POLL PALL PALM CALM CALL MALL MALE MATE MOTE VOTE

Word of the Day: AISHA Tyler (17A: Talk show host/actress Tyler) —

Aisha N. Tyler (born September 18, 1970) is an American talk show host, actress, comedian, author, producer, writer, and director. She is known for portraying Andrea Marino in the first season of Ghost Whisperer, voicing Lana Kane in Archer, portraying Dr. Tara Lewis in Criminal Minds and portraying Mother Nature in the Santa Clause film series, as well as recurring roles in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Talk Soup and Friends. She is a former co-host of CBS's The Talk, and the host of Whose Line Is It Anyway? Tyler also hosted Ubisoft's E3 press conferences from 2012 to 2016, and has made various video game appearances including Halo: Reach and Ubisoft's Watch Dogs where her voice and likeness are featured. (wikipedia)

• • •

Do you really need me for this? I'll give you a little peek at what solving this puzzle was like inside my household tonight. Me: [opens puzzle, reads 1-Across, closes puzzle, rethinks chosen blogging lifestyle]. Wife, speaking from next room: "Alright, here I go ... oh, god." It's so bad. It's all so bad. First, it's a word ladder. And honestly, we can stop there. No one wants a word ladder. They are joyless exercises in joylessness. They are the mustiest, oldest, tiredest of theme concepts, and though this one tweaks the concept ever-so-slightly (by making the first middle and last "step" a coherent phrase), the tweaking was minor and weird, and in the end, it was still a word ladder. There is nothing to them. Literally nothing. I mean, check out the clues ... imagine thinking [Sixth clue ...] is a good thing, an exciting thing, a reason you subscribe to the "greatest puzzle in the world." And there are So Many Steps Dear Lord Whyyyy!? And you can go from PALL straight to MALL! Why are there all those other "steps"? What kind of circuitous "ladder" is this??? This, solvers, is what it looks like when a monopoly thumbs its nose at you. And it's oversized (16-wide!). LOL. Enjoy!


I sincerely shut the puzzle down so I could mentally regroup, so visceral was my negative reaction to 1-Across. Long, convoluted ... and—and I can't stress this enough—a word ladder. So I was probably 2 and half minutes away from the puzzle before I started it in earnest. I finished in the low 8s, so I figure I was in the high 5s, but I was never really doing this with any kind of pace. My heart just wasn't in it. I would never have bothered with this puzzle At All if I hadn't had to write about it. Would've quit at 1-Across and not felt bad about it at all. But I did solve it, so ... there are some really off-putting things in here. CHOKE COLLAR, for one. They're bad. They have the word "choke" in their name. If they were nice, they'd have a nicer name. When was choking ever good. Please don't at me with your fake-woke "Well actually some dogs..." nonsense. Choking is something you can take right out of my puzzle, thanks—unless a team chokes in a game, or you choke up on a bat, or maybe there's some slang for artichokes out there ... but choking living beings, pass. Worse, way worse, is the eugenics nonsense clue on ROYAL BLOOD (19A: Nice genealogical find). "Nice?" "Nice?" Who are you? Who wrote this, my racist great aunt?* Who the heck cares about the royalness of blood. Ick, this racist world is bad enough without people fetishizing blood like that. Hard pass. Oh, and then we've got suicide at LOVER'S LEAP, so that's nice. This puzzle is putrid at every level. Here, I'm gonna let other people take over now, bye.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

*this great aunt is fictional, but, you know, plausible

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Spiny fish named after bird / FRI 4-13-18 / Layout with little concern for privacy / Many Youtube video upload / Render undrinkable as alcohol / Piece of armor worn over shin

Constructor: Joe Krozel

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: SEA RAVEN (43A: Spiny fish named after a bird) —

Sea ravens are a family, the Hemitripteridae, of scorpaeniform fish. They are bottom-dwelling fish that feed on small invertebrates, found in the northwest Atlantic and north Pacific Oceans. They are covered in small spines (modified scales). (wikipedia)

• • •

I have been so happy in recent years to see the low-word-count puzzle fade in prominence. They're not just tough (which I don't mind) but the resulting fill is often unpleasant. Stuff like APTERAL  and VETOER and FROE (real examples). For a while there it seemed like a lot of constructors (all men) were in some kind of low-word-count arms race: Look how low mine is! Oh, yeah, well look at mine, it's lower! They became architectural stunts / pissing contests, but solving them? Yeesh, no. No fun. So when I first looked at this one, I wasn't too thrilled, especially since it's *Friday*, which is my fun day—the day when the puzzles are (ideally) reasonably breezy and wildly inventive. Saturdays are supposed to put you through the wringer, but Fridays?! Fridays want to take you to frolic on the beach and then get ice cream. Good ol' Fridays. Anyway, this Friday didn't look at all like what I wanted, but it was very doable, and ended up being far less painful than I'd feared at the outset. Not a fan of the highly-segmented, four-in-one type puzzle—the quadragon—because you have to get new traction in each quadrant. You better slide through the narrow opening into each quadrant or Good Luck. Today, the sliding was not hard. Well, 3/4 not hard... we'll talk about ZIPPERED later.


1A: One talking a blue streak? (CUSSER)—that's a good clue, but it's also the last thing I got up there. I thought maybe STYLER (as in, your hair STYLER (?) might "talk" to you about getting a "blue streak" ... in your hair?), and that was absurd but the -ER did suggest RESOLE (the first thing in the grid) (6D: Do some cobbling work on). Then I got lucky—my sister drives a Dodge DURANGO. Or she did. Not sure if her latest SUV is still a Durango, but that hardly matters to you. What matters is she loved the original Durango and talked about it affectionately and drove it into the ground, so while I don't know all the SUV models out there, DURANGOS, I know. From that, got the -UP at the end of STORES UP, and the MORE at the end of TAKE MORE. Then PENTA. So that corner was pretty much taken care of.

[PENTAgram]

Then took HOW SO into the SW. Actually, I might've thrown GAZELLES across, then dropped ZIP down, then put SIP at the end of HAVE A SIP (which I thought was SMALL SIP at first), but it's HOW SO that really propelled me into that corner. Very proud that I got WEASELED off just the "W" and threw BOREAL (!) across off just the "A"—finally, teaching poetry for umpteen thousand years pays off! This corner ended up being the easiest by far. I remember very clearly adding RONDA and ROUSEY to my crossword wordlist, so she was a gimme. Only SALE DAYS (?) proved at all eely. NE might've been very tough but I got ACQUIRED / TASTES off just the -ED in ACQUIRED (7D: With 12-Down, blue cheese and black coffee, typically). Also, QUINNS would've been a gimme anyway, and probably ROBLES too. Took a little time to give sideeye to UNNAILED (?) but got out of that corner in pretty good time, which left only the SE ... sigh.

[UMLAUT]

So for some reason I could not come up with the letters that followed ZIP at 26D: Like many coats with liners (ZIPPERED). We had recently seen ZIP-ON, I think, and so I went looking for some kind of compound word. I even considered ZIPPABLE (what the ...?). Finally just dove into the corner blind and lucked onto EARN IT (36D: Deserve something through hard work), and then immediately double-lucked onto DIVE BAR (49A: Seedy establishment). As with WEASELED, I couldn't believe my first guess ended up being the right guess. Also, I knew GREAVE! Somehow! Total D'oh! moment when ZIPPERED finally fell in, and, well, Quoth the SEA RAVEN, "There's no more!" ... puzzle to solve. Finished. Not my favorite kind of Friday puzz, but doable and enjoyable nonetheless. Huge applause for 20A: High points? (UMLAUT). That is a hell of a clue. Super wordplay, plus the fake plural? Mwah! Good stuff.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Popular beige work boots colloquially / THU 9-28-17 / Org with millions of members HQd in Fairfax va / Hale House majority leader of 1970s / Widely played sport developed at Amherst College in 1960s

Constructor: Joe Krozel

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: PIÑATA (44D: Party item depicted in the middle of this puzzle's grid) —isolated bit inside the (alleged) PIÑATA is CANDY (35A: Likely contents of a 44-Down), which, a note tells me, is "C and Y"—two letters that appear nowhere in the rest of the grid ...

Word of the Day: Hale BOGGS (10A: Hale ___, House majority leader of the 1970s) —

Thomas Hale Boggs Sr. (February 15, 1914 – presumably October 16, 1972 but not declared dead until January 3, 1973) was an American Democratic politician and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New Orleans, Louisiana. He was the House majority leader and a member of the Warren Commission. // In 1972, while he was still Majority Leader, the twin engine airplane in which Boggs was traveling disappeared over a remote section of Alaska. The airplane presumably crashed and was never found. Congressman Nick Begich, of Alaska, was also presumed killed in the same accident. [...] Hale and Lindy Boggs had four children: U.S. TV and public radio journalist Cokie Roberts, born December 27, 1943, and the wife of journalist Steven V. Roberts; Thomas Hale Boggs, Jr., a prominent Washington, D.C.,-based attorney and lobbyist; Barbara Boggs Sigmund, who served as mayor of Princeton, New Jersey; and William Robertson Boggs, who died as an infant on December 28, 1946. In 1982 Mrs. Sigmund lost a bid for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate to Frank Lautenberg. (wikipedia)

• • •

This is so poorly conceived. It's like one concept, with an entirely unrelated concept tacked on to it for no apparent reason. Who cares that there is no C or Y in the non-CANDY part of the grid? Those letters are not not not not not hard to do without. The puzzle wants you to think that a non-accomplishment is an accomplishment. Then there's the (alleged) PIÑATA, which I thought was a dog on some kind of weird leash (not sure if that was before or after I thought that it was some kind of desk or workbench). I do not read notes, ever, before solving. Unless your puzzle is a meta-puzzle, it should be solvable without reference to any "note." The PIÑATA would not hang properly if that's where the string met the horse's torso. Further, those legs are ridiculously long and skinny. Also, I'm told that on the website, the PIÑATA answer is yellow (!?), which, visually, is ... interesting.

So the theme, in all its parts, is just a mess. It's like a bar bet puzzle. "I bet I can do this?" "Who cares?" "BET ME!" "OK, jeez, take it easy." I think the stack in the NW corner is nicely done, and GO JUMP IN THE LAKE is not bad, though I thought it was *A* lake. It's supposed to be a metaphor, not a recommendation regarding a nearby body of water. But I see THE is well attested, so some of my fondness for that answer remains.


There's not a single woman in this grid. There is only one woman mentioned in all of the clues, and she is mentioned only in relation to a man—and What a man! It's this editor's favorite man, the man he can't help working into the puzzle seemingly every day. Another day, another gratuitous Trump reference (57A: Melania Trump ___ Knauss) (NÉE). The guy really, really doesn't know (or respect) his solving base. But this sad NÉE clue is fitting for this puzzle, with its G.I. JOE and the NRA and all that fake manly crap and no girls allowed. A tiresome sausagefest of a party (with the world's dumbest-looking PIÑATA). I mean, the puzzle even manages to shit on the lone female *animal* in the puzzle (39A: No Triple Crown winner ever = MARE). That's some high-end chauvinism right there.

Bullets:

• 10A: Hale ___, House majority leader of the 1970s (BOGGS) — there's only one BOGGS. He played 3B for the Red Sox and then the Yankees and then I think maybe the (D)-Rays, but that last part I tend to block out.
• 16A: "Get ___, you two!" ("A ROOM") — since this is up there in the NE corner, I assume "you two" refers to G.I. JOE and ELMER Fudd.
• 34A: Well-planed (EVEN) — yes, I too read this as "well-planned." I'm guessing that was the plane.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Japanese flower-arranging art / THU 1-12-17 / Old video game maker / Voice-activated assistant

Constructor: Joe Krozel

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: Across the Grid Divide — in three rows of the puzzle, two sequential 3-letter Across answers are to be taken (per the clue of the following Across answer) as 6-letter words that have been divided.

Theme answers:

• BUS TED APART (1st row)
• BAN ANA SPLIT (8th row)
• BRO KEN INTWO (15th row)

Word of the Day: MASERS (42D: Atomic clock components) —

A maser (/ˈmeɪzər/, an acronym for "microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation") is a device that produces coherent electromagnetic waves through amplification by stimulated emission. The first maser was built by Charles H. Townes, James P. Gordon, and H. J. Zeiger at Columbia University in 1953. Townes, Nikolay Basov and Alexander Prokhorov were awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics for theoretical work leading to the maser. Masers are used as the timekeeping device in atomic clocks, and as extremely low-noise microwave amplifiers in radio telescopes and deep space spacecraft communication ground stations. (wikipedia)

• • •

SPECIAL MESSAGE for the week of January 8-January 15, 2017

Hello, solvers. A new year has begun, and that means it's time for my week-long, once-a-year pitch for financial contributions to the blog. The idea is very simple: if you read the blog regularly (or even semi-regularly), please consider what it's worth to you on an annual basis and give accordingly. In making this pitch, I'm pledging that the blog will continue to be here for you to read / enjoy / grimace at for at least another calendar year, with a new post up by 9:00am (usually by 12:01am) every day, as usual. Despite my regular grumbling about puzzle quality, constructor pay, and other things that should be better in the world of crosswords, I still love solving, I still love writing about puzzles, and I love love love the people I meet and interact with because of this blog. Well, most of them. Some I mute on Twitter, but mostly: there is love. The blog turned 10 in September, and despite the day-in, day-out nature of the job, I can't foresee stopping any time soon. The community of friends and fellow enthusiasts are all just too dear to me. You can expect me to be here every day, praising / yelling at the puzzle—independent and ad-free. Some people refuse to pay for what they can get for free. Others just don't have money to spare. All are welcome to read the blog—the site will always be open and free. But if you are able to express your appreciation monetarily, here are two options. First, a Paypal button (which you can also find in the blog sidebar):

Second, a mailing address:

Rex Parker c/o Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
Binghamton, NY 13905

All Paypal contributions will be gratefully acknowledged by email. All snail mail contributions (I. Love. Snail mail!) will be gratefully acknowledged with hand-written postcards. This year's cards are "Cookery Postcards from Penguin"—beautifully designed covers of vintage cookbooks, with provocative titles like "Cookery For Men Only " (!) or "Good Meals from Tinned Foods" (!?). Please note: I don't keep a "mailing list" and don't share my contributor info with anyone. And if you give by snail mail and (for some reason) don't want a thank-you card, just say NO CARD.  As I say in every thank-you card (and email), I'm so grateful for your readership and support.

Now on to the puzzle!

---------------------------

Fantastically underwhelming for a Thursday. A very straightforward and somewhat tired theme. The only vaguely interesting thing about the puzzle is the grid, with its unusual top/bottom symmetry and *non*-all-over interlock, i.e. the two sides of the grid are themselves "divided." I tried to make some sense of the shape of the black squares that divide the two sides from one another, hoping there was some deeper meaning here, but all I could come up with was some kind of awkward, asymmetrical ≠ sign. And so what are we left with? There are only three theme answers here. A non-whopping 33 squares of theme activity. Fill seems fine, but also completely unremarkable / uncurrent / uninteresting. And the the first and third themers are particularly weak. You could swap their final elements and the answers would seem equally adequate. BUSTED IN TWO. BROKEN APART. Yep. Same. BANANA SPLIT is the only one that's spot-on. Also, BUS/TED and BRO/KEN are self-descriptive. BUS/TED is busted, BRO/KEN is broken.  Don't even need the following word. Then there's BANANA, which does. So you can see (I hope) how BANANA SPLIT is, in every way, the superior answer, putting the other ones to shame. That's a problem. I expect a ton more on a Thursday. Ambitious failures are better than this. There's barely a concept here, and not nearly enough thought and craftsmanship has been brought to bear to make this thing as intriguing as an NYT Thursday ought to be.


Sometimes I solicit opinion from 10 o'clock solvers (like me) on Twitter. The verdict tonight seems to be overwhelmingly "played like a Wednesday" and [shrug]. The only answer I had trouble with was MASERS (seen the word but had no idea what it meant til I looked it up just now), but the crosses were so easy that my progress wasn't slowed down much. I wrote in ECHO for 51D: Voice-activated assistant (SIRI), so that added a bit to my solving time as well. Would've been cool if the long Down (TRANSISTOR RADIO) could've had *something* to do with the theme (it does cross alllll the last words in the theme answers). But I don't think it's related to the theme. I think it's just an answer. I had TRANSISTOR RADIO in the '70s. Not sure what's so '50s about it. But sure, '50s, whatever. I did enjoy the clue on ARMHOLE (59A: What you might accidentally try to put your head through when getting into a sweater), but not much else. Here's hoping something livelier comes around the bend tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Popeye villain who sailed black barnacle / THU 11-17-16 / Work not of buffa style / Longtime home of Tappet Brothers / Video game featuring archaeologist heroine / Tree frog with distinctive call / One of eggs used in this 1986 film is now exhibited in Smithsonian / Insect with multi-queen colonies

Constructor: Timothy Polin and Joe Krozel

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

[.puz version of this puzzle had the following note:]

THEME: King TUT's tomb, I think (28A: King of the 18th dynasty) — you've got his name there in the center and then his MUMMY there entombed in that black-square pyramid structure at the bottom, and then you've also got a handful of theme-word-containing answers (one Across, two Down):

 Theme answers:

• PYRAMID SCHEME (17A: Common scam)
• TOMB RAIDER (21D: Video game featuring an archaeologist heroine)
• PHARAOH ANT (23D: Insect with multi-queen colonies)

Word of the Day: PHARAOH ANT —

The pharaoh ant (Monomorium pharaonis) is a small (2 mm) yellow or light brown, almost transparent ant notorious for being a major indoor nuisance pest, especially in hospitals. The pharaoh ant, whose origins are unknown, has now been introduced to virtually every area of the world, including Europe, the Americas, Australasia and Southeast Asia. This species is polygynous, meaning each colony contains many queens, leading to unique caste interactions and colony dynamics. This also allows the colony to fragment into bud colonies quickly. Colonies do not display aggression toward each other; this is known as unicoloniality. Monomorium pharaonis is also notable for its complex foraging system, involving intricate trail routes maintained with several pheromones. It was the first ant species discovered to use a negative (repellant) pheromone. These chemicals are integral for communication in this species. Pharaoh ants are a tropical species, but they thrive in buildings almost anywhere, even in temperate regions provided central heating is present. (wikipedia)

• • •

I admire the ambition here. Was just talking with a constructor about the strengths and weaknesses of crossword conventions—particularly having to do with grid size, shape, symmetry—and how newspapers are limited (in practice, anyway) by physical space. The grid has to occupy just so much space in the paper, and has to be a certain shape (square or close to square) in order to fill that space neatly. Digital delivery (with the puzzle freed from the tyranny of newsprint) has made it possible to be far more creative; and yet, because of the strong force of habit, even indie, non-newspaper crosswords distributed solely in digital formats tend to conform pretty strictly to print-bound conventions when it comes to size and shape. Conventions give an art its form, its contours—they make it visible and understandable as a Thing—but they set limits, the usefulness of which be, well, limited. Which brings me back to this puzzle, and the fact that I wish it were shaped like a pyramid instead of a moth.


The pyramid effect is expressed neatly enough in those lower black squares, but nothing about the rest of the grid really screams or even whispers "pyramid" (feel free to walk up to random people today and whisper "pyramid" in their ear, spookily—call it "the pyramid challenge," film it, it'll be great). Full-blown pyramid woulda been cool—semi-pyramid with antennae, less ... evocative. But the concept, I still dig. And it played like a pretty clean and interesting Friday, and who doesn't like that? I will say that the meta was a little too easy to get. Would've been cool if figuring out MUMMY involved something more complicated / clever than just plugging in letters that correspond with numbers in the grid. But I'm spoiled by my regular solving of killer metas by the likes of Matt Gaffney, Erik Agard, Francis Heaney, so my standards are perhaps unreasonably high on that count. Enjoyment was had. By me. Passive voice!


Had trouble raiding this tomb, at the outset, because I briefly blanked on ALBOM and briefly blanked on when Passover is (I wrote AUG—?!), and then PEEPER (11A: Tree frog with a distinctive call) I wanted to be PEWPEW (*much* more "distinctive call," PEEPER—you might wanna look into it), and once LIFT got into my brain for 2D: Get off the ground? (LEAP), it didn't want to leave. Not sure why that clue has a "?"—it's pretty literal, although, OK, I guess when your clue is a phrase commonly used as a metaphor and you want us to take it literally, sure, "?" No problem. After I got the NW sorted, I tore through the rest with no issues. Briefly couldn't remember if it was LSATS or PSATS, briefly didn't believe RASTAMAN was serious (27D: Dreaded guy?). Nothing else provided much resistance. Ominous to have LITHUANIA (26D: Eurozone member beginning n 2015) next to LAST-GASP (32D: Done in desperation), considering the current political climate, but as crossword answers, that juxtaposition is very pleasing. The end.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Vaccine letters / FRI 10-16-15 / One of officemates on Office / John of old sitcoms / Frontiersman Boone informally

Constructor: Joe Krozel

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: unchecked squares along the borders = every letter of the alphabet 

Word of the Day: NIPA (45A: Long-leaved palm) —

Nypa fruticans, commonly known as the nipa palm, is a species of palm native to the coastlines and estuarine habitats of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the only palm considered adapted to the mangrove biome. This species is the only member of the genus Nypa and the subfamily Nypoideae, forming monotypic taxa.
(wikipedia)

• • •

Well at least this pangram makes sense, i.e. it's part of the internal logic of the theme and not some stupid, grid-hampering "accomplishment" that someone has tried to force on a early-week themed puzzle. I actually used the theme to solve the theme, i.e. I was able to narrow down possibilities by looking at what letters had Not shown up yet in the border squares. In this way, the apparently unchecked squares actually are, in their way, checked—by the finitude of letters of the alphabet. I relied on that finitude in part to get the "X" in SIX (23A: Big roll?) (not sure why the "?"—the clue is literally true for a six-sided die) and to get the very last edge piece, the "K" in what turned out to be PEAK (46D: Where people are drawn to scale?) (that one definitely needed the "?"). Tough clue, good clue. Too bad the "P" crossed NIPA (!?!), probably the worst thing in the grid. That "P" was my last letter. I had to run the alphabet to get it.


The longer answers are occasionally a bit odd or ungainly. It's PROCEDURES MANUAL way way way more often than PROCEDURE MANUAL (unless your office has just the one procedure, I guess). The indefinite article in the verb phrase ROLLOVER AN IRA is awkward. That answer describes a thing people do, but it is not very tight, as stand-alone phrases go. QUEENS OF ENGLAND, as a plural, also a bit outside the bullseye. But there's nothing jarring there. Just some iffiness.


Today I learned the word VISCID (11D: Sticky). I knew "viscous." VISCID, I just had to infer. I made a few mistakes along the way. OPEN ELECTIONS for OPEN PRIMARIES. . . actually, that may be it. This was pretty easy overall.

Was this a "New Idea"? Maybe. I don't think I've seen anything like it before. But on the whole "New Ideas" week has been a fraud. All the "New" ideas are variations on ideas that have been seen before, though usually in venues less popular than the NYT. So maybe "New-To-You Ideas, Probably" Week would've been more accurate. My issue is with the week and its pomposity (and inaccuracy), not w/ the puzzles per se, which have been decent-to-great. For god's sake, even the little "note" accompanying the puzzles is deceitful. It reads:

"We asked some favorite Times crossword contributors, "What would you like to do in a daily Times crossword that has never been done before?" This week's puzzles, Monday to Saturday, are the result." 

But here are yesterday's constructor's notes about his own puzzle. Kevin Der wrote: "I submitted this puzzle about a year and half ago, and fortunately it ended up fitting into this special week." So ... ignore the (astonishing) part about how that puzzle sat around for a year and a half (!?) ... and just focus on the fact that yesterday's puzzle was not not not not the result of anyone's "asking" Kevin anything. He made it of his own accord because he is awesome. The scenario laid out in the note from the NYT is simply a fiction. I won't say "lie." But you can if you want.


What happens Monday. Do we revert to tedium interspersed with occasionally good/great puzzles? Let's see.

Have a nice Friday. TGIF! MAS TACOS!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Dare colloquially / SAT 7-18-15 / Title heroine of an 1884 Helen Hunt Jackson novel / Hassan Arabian Nights figure / Tokyo-based carrier

Constructor: Joe Krozel

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: ONE-THIRTY (24D: Setting depicted by this puzzle's grid) — The minute hand is pointing straight down, the hour hand is that little three-square diagonal run in the NE.

Word of the Day: "RAMONA" (5D: Title heroine of an 1884 Helen Hunt Jackson novel) —

Ramona is an 1884 American novel written by Helen Hunt Jackson. Set in Southern California after the Mexican-American War, it portrays the life of a mixed-race Scots–Native American orphan girl, who suffers racial discrimination and hardship. Originally serialized in the Christian Union on a weekly basis, the novel became immensely popular. It has had more than 300 printings, and been adapted four times as a film. A play adaptation has been performed annually outdoors since 1923. // The novel's influence on the culture and image of Southern California was considerable. Its sentimental portrayal of Mexican colonial life contributed to establishing a unique cultural identity for the region. As its publication coincided with the arrival of railroad lines in the region, countless tourists visited who wanted to see the locations of the novel. (wikipedia)

• • •

You gotta ignore a Lot of black space to make this "theme" work, but whatever. It's a funny-shaped grid. Nothing wrong with that. Actually, the four-square black segments at 12, 3, and 9 O'CLOCK are likely intended to be part of the clock face itself, so ... not a bad facsimile. Before I got ONE-THIRTY (O'CLOCK???) I thought the setting depicted by this puzzle's grid was POKER CHIP or some kind of island or Pac-Man or something. I could've guessed all day long and never come up with ONE-THIRTY (O'CLOCK). The column of 15s is remarkably solid. Things get a little dicey in those wide-open spaces, but that's utterly predictable and probably mostly unavoidable—if you want to do stunt puzzles with lots of white space, you're gonna pay for it somehow. It's not really worthwhile covering the less lovely parts. I actually think the puzzle hits more than it misses. There's just one answer I find laughable and baffling. Laffabling. I wonder if you can guess. I wonder if you too were left staring at it thinking "Oh, man, that's not a word? What do I have wrong?" When I finished, I fully expected not to get the happy "Congrats, you finished" message. And yet there it was. And so I returned to the scene of the crime that is ... DAST (15D: Dare, colloquially). That answer is almost as ILLIN' as ILLIN'. Actually, way more, in that I have actually heard someone "Colloquially" use ILLIN'. Look here:

["Small Fries, BIG MAC!"]

I cannot imagine this DAST being said by anyone ever. I've heard of (archaic) "durst." "Daren't." But DAST? Apparently it's in "Death of a Salesman," but the tense is wrong. There, it means "dares," not "dare." I mean, tense is not really my problem with this answer, but it's an added problem. Hmmm, cruciverb says it has been used once. 21 years ago. Clued as [Dare, in Dogpatch]. So it's AlCappian? Ugh. All I know is that it is AT REAR of my favorite answers today (just behind AT REAR).


There's some unusual, inventive stuff in here. DOMECAR! I don't know what that is, or didn't, but I can imagine it. "I CAN RELATE" is a fantastic (and actual!) colloquialism.  I am getting a lot of laugh mileage out of parsing 26-Down as ASS TATED. I know TATED is meaningless, but that's part of the joy. Otherwise, all I can say is this could've been much worse. As pointless experiments in grid manipulation go, this one isn't bad.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Judge John who was Time's 1973 Man of Year / THU 6-4-15 / 1998 Sarah McLachlan hit / Girlfriend group 2002 / Many early internet adopter / Schoolmaster in Washington Irving tale / Mythical huntress / Morris signature on Declaration of Independence / Singer with 1994 double-platinum album Under Pink

Constructor: Joe Krozel

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: CAVERN — Note: "This puzzle seemingly as more than one solution … but only one is 'correct.'"

Theme answers:

• CAVERN (1A: Location containing 10-Downs and 25-Downs)
• STALACTITE (10D: 1-Across sight)
• STALAGMITE (25D: 1-Across sight)

The gimmick: the crosses for the "C" and "T" in STALACTITE seem correct if you write in STALAGMITE, and vice versa with the "G" and "M" in STALAGMITE. Thus

• 28A: *Features of some front teeth = CAPS (but GAPS works)
• 34A: *Work hard = TOIL (but MOIL works)
• 44A: *Undermine, as a government program = GUT (but CUT works)
• 48A: *Plural suffix with organ = ISMS (but ISTS works)

Word of the Day: John SIRICA (57A: Judge John who was Time's 1973 Man of the Year) —

John Joseph Sirica (March 19, 1904 – August 14, 1992) was the Chief Judge for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, where he became famous for his role in the Watergate scandal. He rose to national prominence during the Watergate scandal when he ordered President Richard Nixon to turn over his recordings of White House conversations.

Sirica's involvement in the case began when he presided over the trial of the Watergate burglars. He did not believe the claim that they had acted alone, and persuaded or coerced most of them to implicate the men who had arranged the break-in (G. Gordon Liddyremained silent). For his role in Watergate the judge was named TIME magazine's Man of the Year in 1973. (wikipedia)

• • •

The core idea here is interesting, but the fact that the joke/trick can't land w/o the note is a bit of a problem. I am curious if anyone out there (like me) failed and/or refused to read the "Note" ahead of time, and if so, if you had any trouble at all placing the STALACTITE and STALAGMITE in their correct places. Once I had STALA- at 10D: 1-Across site, I knew the answer was STALACTITE. Everyone knows that STALACTITEs stick "tight" to the roof of caverns, while STALAGMITEs rise up from the ground. So I wrote in STALACTITE and STALAGMITE in their visually appropriate places, bam bam, one two, the -TITE up top, the -MITE down below, without ever, for one second, considering that they could've been switched. Why would they be switched? Who would make a puzzle with a STALAGMITE up top—not plausible. Sooooo…. yeah, then I finished and wondered what the big deal was. Only then did I read the "Note" and see that, in theory, you could've swapped the -TITE and the -MITE and had the crosses work. The note starts, "This puzzle seemingly has more than one solution," but it never "seemed" that way to me at all. The Note is the only thing that called my attention to it. I think reading the Note ahead of time would've confused me. Again, I think this concept is interesting, but the puzzle just didn't play right. The gimmick is a post-solve curiosity, not a mid-solve challenge.


Also, the either/or concept here (where either of two different letters "works" in both the Across and Down) is not new, or, in this case, very taxing. The effected words are these weak little things, and there are just four of them. Who would guess MOIL over TOIL? Also, the "choice" between "-ISTS" and "-ISMS" is a profoundly ugly and largely meaningless one. I generally love puzzles that can pull the either/or thing off—the most famous example of the type is, of course, the rightly legendary BOBDOLE / CLINTON crossword of Election Day, 1996. But this one just didn't bring much new or delightful to the gimmick.


At 1-Across, I had -AVERN / -AMP and not idea what could go there; or, rather, I couldn't conceive of anything but "T" going there, but TAMP made no sense as clued (1D: Overly theatrical, maybe). The fill has some pretty terrible moments, most notably ADELES, some crossing Roman numerals (MCCI vs. ACTIII!?), DOSO, ENOL, both TSE and TSETSE (!!??), NEY, ROBT, AOLER (dear lord, still!?), and then a bunch of mediocre stuff. But several of the longer Acrosses were nice, if you can call DIRT STAINS nice. Can't believe COMEDY TEAM wasn't clued via Stiller & Meara. Really, really can't believe it, considering her recent death, and her crossword-common name, and her having been a crossword aficionado in real life. Missed opportunity.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Late media journalist David / SUN 5-17-15 / Iconic figure in Warhol work / Cubemeister Rubik / Egg-shaped tomato / Post-deluge sight / Many old monitor in brief / City in 1965 headlines

Constructor: Joe Krozel

Relative difficulty: Very, very easy

THEME: "To-Do List (Abridged)" — theme answers are clued as to-do lists, wherein the terms overlap, i.e. the noun at the the end of the first item becomes the verb at the beginning of the second.

Theme answers:

• WIND A WATCH A PLAY A PRANK (23A: Set time / Go to theater / Engage in tomfoolery) [i.e. wind a watch / watch a play / play a prank]
•  THUMB A RIDE A WAVE A FLAG (33A: Hitchhike / Surf / Show patriotism)
• DO A FLIP A COIN A PHRASE (54A: Somersault / Start football game / Invent some language) 
• RUN A LIGHT A FIRE A SHOT (75A: Not stop at intersection / Warm up / Use rifle)
• MAKE A CATCH A BUS A TABLE (89A: Play baseball / Take public transportation downtown / Clean up after diners leave)
• FILE A RETURN A BOOK A TRIP (108A: Finish taxes / Visit library / Plan vacation) 

Word of the Day: ANDREA del Sarto (92D: Renaissance artist ___ del Sarto) —

Andrea del Sarto (Italian: [anˈdrɛːa del ˈsarto]; 1486–1530) was an Italian painter from Florence, whose career flourished during the High Renaissance and early Mannerism. Though highly regarded during his lifetime as an artist senza errori ("without errors"), his renown was eclipsed after his death by that of his contemporaries, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael. (wikipedia)

• • •

I just watched a movie called "Heart Beat" (1980), starring Sissy Spacek, Nick Nolte, and John Heard. It was about the relationships among Jack Kerouac and Neal and Carolyn Cassady in the '50s and '60s, mostly before On the Road was published. The movie's not readily available, but you can rent it on Amazon, so that's what I did. It's a weird little movie with big stars. I've never read Kerouac or any of the so-called beats, despite having a "Beat Generation" movie poster on my living room wall. I bought that poster on eBay in the late '90s, back when people still used dial-up, so the timing of the last-minute bidding always felt very precarious. I was going through a pretty heavy Mamie Van Doren phase, and I was spending a lot of money I didn't have on all manner of mid-century vintage crap—mostly paperback books with lurid covers (3,000 or so of which sit just to my left here in my home office). So late-grad school depression + vintage culture obsession + Mamie fandom led me to this poster—and it really is beautiful.

I like how the main painted figure at the center is either one face (looking at you) or two faces (with the nearer one in profile) depending on how you choose to look at it. If it's two faces, it's a white guy and a black guy. The mouth becomes a cigarette ("tea") in profile. And then it's got the word "Beatniks" on it, and that's Louis Armstrong way up top there, and then of course Mamie herself, in some Mondrian-inspired wrap. Amazing. But, as I say, my first-hand experience with actual "beat" writing is nil. I know SAL Paradise from crosswords. I once had a student who wrote a letter to Lawrence Ferlinghetti at City Light Bookstore as part of her final project (He wrote back—a postcard—telling her he couldn't possibly answer all of her questions; I told her that was a Win). Why am I telling you all this? Because I'd rather do anything than talk about this puzzle. Seriously, anything. I don't do drugs, but if you had some, I'd sooner do them than talk about this puzzle.


Briefly: the theme is joyless and repetitive and phenomenally easy to pick up. If you really tried, you could probably get most of the theme answers without filling in a single cross (once you figured out the gimmick, that is). There is nothing to recommend this puzzle except easiness—except that it will certainly make some people who routinely struggle to finish Sundays feel like *****ing geniuses for once. And that's valid. Some Sundays should be Easy. But Easy doesn't have to mean lifeless. It really doesn't. If I weren't Rex Parker (i.e. if I didn't have to write ... this), I would not have bothered finishing this one. The good news (the only good news) was that I lost just 9 minutes of my life. But I've spent at least three times that writing this post. Well, at least 2/3 of it was spent writing about things I cared about. KARENS and MARCS of the world! Demand better puzzles. You deserve them.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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