Weeper of myth -TUESDAY, Oct. 14, 2008 - Lucy Gardner Anderson (Old Walter Berndt comic strip about a teen / Harsh Athenian lawgiver)

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: INTERSTATE / NINETY-FIVE (20A: With 59-Across, highway that goes through the 15 places indicated in this puzzle, in order, north to south) - 15 different state codes found in circled squares on each of the 15 rows of the puzzle

This is the kind of theme that must have fallen in the constructor's lap, which is not to say that it was easy, but once you learn of anything that has fifteen elements in it, there is some part of your brain (if you write puzzles) that thinks "crossword." When I first did the puzzle, I didn't fully read the theme clue, so I discovered on my own that there was one state on each line and that they were ordered north to south. I enjoyed discovering that. Then I noticed that the puzzle had discovered it for me.

Today is my wife's birthday, and also I have exams to write/give, so I have things to do. Thus, I am going to blow through this puzzle if you don't mind (and even if you do).

Theme answers:

• 6A: Netting (ME sh)
• 14A: _____ water (facing trouble) (i NH ot)
• 19A: Epps of TV's "House" (O MA r)
• 22A: Ice Capades venue (RI nk)
• 24A: Asset in answering the question "Does this dress make me look fat?" (ta CT
• 26A: Bruce or Kravitz (Len NY)
• 38A: "Dueling _____" (ba NJ os)

• 40A: Longtime "S.N.L." announcer Don (PA rdo)
• 43A: Do lexicographical work (DE fine)
• 48A: Online health info site (Web MD)
• 50D: Cole Porter's "Well, Did You _____?" ("E VA h")
• 56A: Final Four org. (NC AA)
• 63A: Mideast missile (SC ud)
• 67A: Nintendo rival (se GA)
• 71A: Skedaddles (FL ees)
  

I solved this puzzle cleanly but when I went to the NYT site to get confirmation, it kept rejecting my puzzle. I checked and double-checked and triple-checked and finally couldn't see a damn thing wrong and so went to another blogger's published grid (a first for me) to find that I had mistranscribed NIOBE (54D: Weeper of myth) as NIOBI, and my proofreading eye refused to notice that it was wrong. Ditto the answer it created in the cross: FLIES, which is a perfectly acceptable answer for the clue [Skedaddles].

Rest:

• 18A: Y's guys? (Elis) - I was thinking only of the Village People. I remember being Traumatized in 6th grade when I was told that the Village People were all "gay," which was about the worst thing you could be in elementary school in 1980 in Central California (Fresno!). I just remember thinking "... but I love them."

• 47A: Harsh Athenian lawgiver (Draco) - the only "lawgiver" I could come up with at first was SOLON, but he was not "harsh," or at least not harsh enough to have an adjective made out of his name. I'm going to start using "SOLONIAN" to mean ... what, wise? "Don't you mean "SOLOMONIAN?" "No. No I do not."
• 52A: College town near Bangor (Orono) - it's Bangor's week to shine! "Bangor? I hardly know her."
• 8D: Old Walter Berndt comic strip about a teen ("Smitty") - None of this makes any sense to me. I thought I knew at least the titles of most notable comic strips, but I guess not. Here's a couple choice pics for you:

• 48D: Like sheets after bleaching (whiter) - better than the original clue, [Like teeth after brushing, say], which is mostly just false.
• 53D: Butcher's byproducts (offal) - the plural clue + non-plural answer here is weird. Not awful. Just weird.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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THURSDAY, Oct. 18, 2007 - Lucy Gardner Anderson

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: SIDE SPLITTING (38A: Hilarious ... or a hint to this puzzle's theme) - four different two-word "side" orders are "split," with the first word appearing in one part of the grid and the second appearing in another.

I did this puzzle in just over 6 minutes, which is insanely fast for me on a Thursday. Had a slow start, but once I got some traction, the whole thing went down fast. I think I was slow to get going because I over-thought the theme. Thought there might be some trickery afoot. No, just very familiar side dishes. Hmmm. Can't say I liked the puzzle much, though I do like being fast.

Theme answers:

• 5A: With 50-Down, steak go-with (baked / potato)
• 10A: With 68-Across, fish filet go-with (cole / slaw) - I am slowly realizing, now that I've typed it twice, that I hate the word "go-with"
• 1D: With 69-Across, burger go-with (french / fries)
• 33A: With 44-Across, hot sandwich go-with (onion rings) - "hot sandwich?" I ... guess.

Only a couple answers made me say 'yikes.' Yesterday, it was one space answer: GUION Bluford. Today, another space answer: 26D: One of a series of joint Soviet/U.S. space satellites (Bion). The other answer from outer space (figurative outer space now) was GET LOW (45D: 2003 #2 hit for Lil Jon and the East Side Boyz). Guess what I think is the funniest element of this clue / answer*:

a. "GET LOW"
b. "Boyz"
c. "#2 hit"
d. "Lil Jon"

No idea what "The Beeb" is, but TELLY was easy enough with a cross or two (40D: The Beeb is seen on it). Is that short for the BBC? Robert Zimmerman wrote a recent NYT puzzle, and today he returns as a clue: 64A: Bob Dylan's first wife and the title of a song about her (Sara). I know woefully little about Mr. Dylan's work, so this was lost on me. Had the final "A," or otherwise I would have guessed JOAN or BAEZ. Weren't they married? No, apparently not. Just involved, before Dylan married SARA.

I made frowny faces at several clues / answers today. First frowny face goes to 15A: Water, for one (oxide). Water is lots of things. And you know I suck at science. So this is totally fair, but unpleasant to me, personally. Next frowny face goes to 18A: Fix, as a hitch (retie). I dislike most RE-prefixed verbs. And "a hitch?" What is this, the Old West? Blah. Next frowny face: 34A: Like waves on a shoreline (erosive). True enough, I guess. Are all shoreline waves, by definition (or by the inherent properties of water) EROSIVE? No matter the composition of the shore? Just curious. I would have put yet another frowny face next to AVOWER (3D: One saying "I do") - icky Odd Job - but it crosses 14A: Wedding parties?: Abbr. (revs), creating a little wedding mini-theme, so I withhold the frown.

I botched and or tripped over a few answers. Very thrown by KITE (7D: Toy sometimes seen on a beach), perhaps because I don't see it "on a beach." I see it "in the sky" when *I* am "on a beach," maybe. I wanted PAIL or something like that. I was semi-miraculously able to guess CAFTAN (10D: Unisex dress) off of just the "AF" despite not being able to define the word or even picture it to save my life. I spelled it initially with a "K," but whatever. That's pretty good. I reforgot SILAS (32D: Albino in "The Da Vinci Code") today - can we ban "The Da Vinci Code" from the puzzle like we banned "Ally McBeal?" Please? Thanks. I wrote in the highly cool ATTAR instead of the far more pedantic and sciencey-sounding ESTER for 53D: Perfume ingredient.

Not sure why, as I've never seen him act in any way, shape, or form, but TATI was a gimme (56D: 1955 Oscar nominee for "Mr. Hulot's Holiday"). Another, more fun gimme was MEAL (60A: Airline rarity, nowadays). Got this instantly. I miss my airline meals, crappy as they were. Sometimes the stuff you can buy on planes is actually far superior to what you would have received for free in the olden days, but some part of me still resents having to pay for food on a plane. I'm nearly 6'4" and you've got me crammed into a seat intended for somebody 5'10", max; the least you could do is give me some gummy lasagna and super-pale green beans.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

*Answer: c

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TUESDAY, Mar. 27, 2007 - Lucy Gardner Anderson

Solving time: 5:29

THEME: Public Transportation PSA - four theme answers are all highway warning signs that are likely to force you to slow down - e.g. 17A: First sign of a highway headache (Road Work Ahead) - and then 66A suggests that there is an "alternative to avoid the headaches" of those signs. That alternative?: the TRAIN.

[updated, 2pm - see green print, below]

I'm back on track with today's puzzle, which seemed quite a bit easier than yesterday's to me. No strange words or phrases in this one at all. I actually went slower than normal because I was aware on Monday of making a ton of general typing and grid navigation errors. I do not have mad keyboard skillz yet. Not at all. So I was methodical, and it worked out. I've seen road sign themes before in puzzles, but this one has the nice twist, with the public transportation alternative to driving showing up in the far SE (where theme keys and twists often show up - like a little afterthought). A little too much crosswordese in the grid (e.g. ALAI, IGOR, DELE, EKED, ARIA, AMOR), but the main attractions here are the fairly colorful theme answers, so OK. There is some non-theme fill of note, including 26D: Deli pancake (latke) and 30D: Battleship blast (salvo). If I ever wanted to start a food fight in a deli, I would start with a LATKE SALVO for sure. I can barely look at the word DELI right now, though ... it is a treacherous, evil little word for what it did to me this past weekend. . . let's just say it took another, nicer little word and gagged it, bound it, shoved it in a basement, and then assumed its identity. And I bought the impersonation hook, line, and sinker.

1A: Mammoth (giant) - I entered GREAT - a mistake, but one that still allowed me to guess (correctly) 1D: Encircled (girt). Sometimes mistakes are felicitous. This happened at least once to me this past weekend during the Tournament. I guessed an entire theme off of an answer that turned out to be flat-out wrong. Dumb, dumb luck. The other initial wrong answer I had in the grid - I somehow thought that Eisenhower went to BAMA instead of the US Military Academy. - 16A: Ike's alma mater: Abbr. (USMA)

25D: Prince Andrew's ex (Fergie)
32D: TV word before and after "or no" ("Deal")

Pop Culture from the 80s and today. Actually, we could reclue FERGIE in a contemporary fashion - how about [Vocalist on "My Humps"] or [She sang about her "lovely lady lumps"]. Half of you know what I'm talking about, and the other half are puzzled, horrified, or both.

33A: Nasser was its pres. (UAR) - United ... Arab ... Republic? Yes! I'm right. Man, this country barely ever existed. 1958-1961!
48A: Nashville sch. (TSU) - total guess. Had the "S," knew Nashville was in TN, did the math.

21A: U.K. heads (PMs) - a far more decorous clue than the one I would have used

Today's Puzzle Celebrities

39A: Dame Nellie _____ (Melba) - uh, I said "celebrities" not "toast types."
52A: Hammarskjöld of the U.N. (Dag) - his name always sounds to me like a mild oath, as in "Dag, I missed my train." I get this guy confused with Thor Heyerdahl. A lot.

[Late addendum: Orange alerted me to the fact that "dag" is AUS / NZ slang. I asked my Kiwi wife if she knew about this ... which prompted the following email from her, which contains far, far more about DAG than you'd ever want to know:

Oh yes. There is an iconic NZ comedian whose alter ego is/was "Fred Dag." His theme song was "where would you be without your gumboots." Most Kiwis my age could sing that to you.

Using the word in a sentence: You would say "he's a real dag," or, when referring to a funny incident or person, "what a dag."

Other meanings/useage: to rattle your dags = get a move along (comes from the original meaning of the word, which is the dried poop on the rear end of sheep, which will indeed rattle as sheep move across the paddock).]

13D: Entertainer Max or Max, Jr. (Baer) - BOHR, LAHR, BAER ... all prominent crossword names whose spellings I will botch no matter what.
19D: Painter Nolde (Emil) - Love his stuff. It's often creepy.

See what I mean?

53D: Comedian Sandler (Adam) - some perverse part of me wants to see his new movie with Don Cheadle (I think it's actually not a perverse part of me, but the part of me that respects Don Cheadle). I like ADAM in the grid today because he's just downwind of ERRED (27D: Slipped up) and only a few columns away from EDEN (57D: Idyllic spot). There's even an apple clue in the puzzle, but it's used to clue New York - 64A: Big Apple ltrs. (NY, NY) - and not the instrument of humankind's demise. Alas.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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