SATURDAY, Mar. 3, 2007 - Karen M. Tracey

Solving time: untimed, but quick - something around 15 minutes

THEME: Celebrity names aplenty (or, none)

I always feel good when I am able to have my way with a Saturday puzzle, so maybe that is skewing my feelings about this puzzle - but, that said, I loved it. Loved it! Heavy on the fun pop culture, light on learned obscurities. Even the long clue involving flora, which I was certain I would end up strangling me, came out smelling sweet - 22A: Woodbine or twinberry (honeysuckle). Once I got that "Y," I think I literally said "aha!" and the NNW, which had remained a bit sticky to that point, finally tumbled. Let's take this puzzle in five parts, each part represented by the celebrity who helped me (or in the case of the NW, didn't help me) unravel it.

Part the First: The Land of Manuel de Falla (Center)

33A: Manuel de Falla opera "La _____ Breve" ("Vida")

OK, so Manuel de Falla is not exactly a "celebrity," and his name's not actually in the grid, but ... he'll have to do. This was the very first answer I entered on the grid. And then it just sat there, as I tried, with no success, to get crosses. But it's important that it was sitting there, because eventually (three corners later) I built back toward it, and it not only opened up the middle, but gave me entree to the NW. So, an important little answer for having so little initial impact. I knew the phrase implied "Life is Short" - from the ancient aphorism ars longa, vita brevis (Hippocrates, apparently) - but wanted VITA there at first. Then, knowing that de Falla was Spanish I thought "what's the Spanish word for 'life?'" Then I remembered the Ricky Martin song "Living La Vida Loca," and I was set. Thanks, Ricky. I probably would have clued VIDA as [Pitcher Blue] or something slightly more clever, but having recently heard a performance of de Falla's excellent "El Amor Brujo," I'm very happy to see him name-dropped in this way. VIDA intersects DELISH (20D: Finger-lickin' good), which pairs nicely with the other creatively spelled entry in the grid, PAREE (40A: "Since Marie Has Left _____" (Sinatra song)). Not sure how I feel about [Finger-lickin' good] as a clue - technically, it's pretty good, but since it is (or was) KFC's (or Kentucky Fried Chicken's) catchphrase for the longest time, it's giving me bad vibes of creepy old plantation owners and chickens being absolutely tortured under modern poultry-processing conditions.

Part the Second: The Land of Norah Jones (The Southwest)

26D: Her "Don't Know Why" was 2002's Record of the Year (Norah Jones)

An outright gimme - seriously, if you got any answer in this puzzle, you probably got this one, as this chick was @#$#-ing ubiquitous several years back. I'm guessing you not only like NORAH JONES a little, you probably even own one of her albums. Admit it, Times readers. Somebody's propping up her career, and you all are my prime suspects. One of the first controversial stances I ever took on This Here Blog was that NORAH JONES was inferior in every way to Merle Haggard (yes, the comparison may seem arbitrary, but it was related to their both being in the puzzle around the same time). I stand by that comment to this day. However - while normally I'm not happy to encounter NORAH JONES, she really, really helped me get this puzzle started, so maybe I should give her a break. I had the entire SW section done inside of a few minutes thanks to her. Other great features of NORAH JONES-land:

36A: Items in many a still life (oranges)
25D: They offer hot links (IHOPs)

As I was writing in ORANGES, I exclaimed "Dammit, how come she keeps getting her name in the puzzle while I continue to be snubbed!?" ("She" being my fellow crossword blogger whose handle is ORANGE). Then, the very next entry I filled in was IHOPS (Plural! Just like in heaven!) and it was as if the puzzling gods were saying "We have not forgotten thee, Rex." Since IHOP is my oft-declared official religion, I take all IHOP references as a tip of the hat to me, whether so intended or not. Apparently the idea that the ORANGES / IHOPS intersection is a dual crossword blog reference has already been put forth at the NYT Forum - the fact that anyone besides me noticed makes me happier than you'll ever know.

49A: Singer who wrote the poetry collection "The Lords and the New Creatures" (Jim Morrison)

As he is a bigger musical legend than NORAH JONES, perhaps it seems unfair that he should be relegated to secondary status in this SW quadrant. But, first of all, to be fair, NORAH JONES handed me a ton of answers with no effort on my part, where JIM MORRISON came to the party late. And second, as he is clued in relation to his poetry-writing (!?) I can't in good conscience give him priority status. When I first read the clue, I swear to you that my first guess (before looking at the number of spaces involved) was JEWEL. Singers who write (crappy) poetry ... first thought = Jewel. And since the answer did indeed start with "J," I thought maybe JEWEL had a last name ... but no, the answer is not JEWEL. It's the Lizard King.

58A: Baja California port (Ensenada)

My family went here on an infamous road trip in, let's say, 1985. I have a picture, which I could scan and post ... maybe some other time. I bought many a comical stuffed frog, and a leather wallet which I used well into the late 90's. Speaking of family trips to Mexico, we'll be doing it all again in April, only this time, Destination: Club Med Cancun. I'm totally serious. Can you blog from there? We'll find out.

45D: Liszt wrote only one (sonata)

Just a neat little factoid, to go with the other musical factoid I learned yesterday, which is that Debussy wrote only one opera: Pelléas et Mélisande. Reader Ultra Vi is surely happy with today's multiple music clues: De Falla, Liszt ... and ... let's see ... ooh, also DALE EVANS (28A: With 8-Down, "Happy Trails" songwriter), Gene KRUPA (24D: He had a 1941 hit with "Drum Boogie"), and one other which I'm holding off on 'til ... well, 'til right now, as he is the celebrity who rules our next puzzle section.

Part the Third: The Land of Xzibit (The Northwest)

1A: Rapper with an MTV show ... whose name sounds like a word meaning "show" (Xzibit)

Best Crossword Fill Ever. Look at his name! This was a gimme for me, though I couldn't figure out at first how "Pimp My Ride" "sounds like a word meaning show.'" Then I realized that the clue is just badly written, and that "whose" refers back to "Rapper" (not the more proximate "show"). . . [cough] . . . ["Nerd!"] .... yes, anyway. Xzibit is a very charismatic man, and I have watched his show several times - in fact, it might be the only MTV show I have watched more than once since Daria went off the air. The "X" in XZIBIT helped me get 1D: Marvel Comics comic (X-Men), which you'd think would be easy for me - I teach comics, for god's sake - and yet I swear to you that my first thought was not the wildly popular X-MEN, but the wildly silly THOR.


Love the intersecting colloquial fill 15A: Defiant dare ("Make me!") and 5D: "Nothing for me, thanks" ("I'm good"). And it's always good to see the handsome, campy Billy ZANE (2D: "The Phantom" star Billy) in the puzzle. "The Phantom," like X-MEN (in a way) is a comic - see the ridiculous, modern, ongoing version in my sidebar (if you dare).

Part the Fourth: The Land of Margaret Atwood (The Southeast)

60A: "Oryx and Crake" novelist, 2003 (Atwood)

Thanks to my sister, who has a massive assortment of ATWOOD novels, including this one, which I feel as if my mother bought for her a couple years back, maybe for Xmas. Or maybe I'm making that up. Anyway, the title "Oryx and Crake" is super-memorable, as both proper nouns look like horrible typos - "'Oryx and Crake' ... that can't be right. She must mean 'Onyx and Cake,' right?" "Yes, because that makes Much more sense."

54A: Pioneer in the development of nuclear power (Fermi)

Crossword solving rule #182: When in doubt, vote FERMI!

Please note the rarely seen phenomenon of the "four-square" here in the SE section of the puzzle. This is the name I am giving to when four squares, all holding the same letter, form a larger square. This one is an "O" four-square, with ATWOOD and RETOOL (62A: Modernize, as a factory) (one of my favorite words, especially when used in relation to sitcoms) intersecting ROOT (55D: Etymologist's concern) and MOOT (56D: Kind of point). Two things about ROOT. My first thought: "What part of an insect is the ROOT?" Second: "A perfectly good opportunity to reference Elihu ROOT, squandered."

Part the Fifth: The Land of Ian Fleming (The Northeast)

12D: "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" author (Ian Fleming)

Like the HONEYSUCKLE clue (with which I opened today's ridiculously long blog entry), I psyched myself out here, figuring it would be some strange British woman I'd never or barely heard of. Little did I suspect that the author of "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" was also the creator of James Bond.

10D: Something that has long needed settling (old score)

Such a great great clue / answer pairing. The "needed" part was throwing me - seemed a rather subjective, qualitative judgment for the puzzle to be making. I was halfway hoping the answer would be WEST BANK if only to see the giant controversy that would stir up. But no, OLD SCORE. Perfect. I do love vengeance. If you wanted to settle an OLD SCORE, why not MARAUD (9D: Freeboot) ... you know, DEMOLISH (7A: Total) a few buildings ... it's fun!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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SUNDAY, Feb. 18, 2007 - David Kwong and Kevan Choset

Solving time: 21:10

THEME: "Magic words" - Theme is explained by 70A: Magic words ... or a hint to the other long answers in this puzzle ("NOW YOU SEE IT, NOW YOU DON'T"); The word "IT" is inserted into and taken out of familiar phrases to make new, odd phrases, which are then clued, e.g. 25A: Einstein's asset (Great Brain) or 27A: Acerbic rock/folk singer (Biting Crosby).

I didn't enjoy solving this puzzle, though in the end I had to admire its cleverness as well as its architectural elegance, with the 21-letter explanatory theme answer (70A) running right through the center of the grid. I could see very early on that the theme had something to do with "IT," but it took me a Long time to get 70A, because of a mistake that I had early on, and actually never bothered to correct: 74D: Words with house or move (on the). I had IN THE (guess I saw the "house" but not the "move" part of the clue), which made 70A end -OWYOUDINT (I forget exactly how many of those other letters I had in place when I made the error) and I was thinking "is this some kind of horrible slang, some botched approximation of black slang, e.g. "O no you dint!", an expression of offended disbelief wherein DINT is a contraction of DIDN'T!?!?!?" So, as I said, I didn't get 70A until almost the very end. I just went around guessing theme answers ("put IT in or take IT out"). The whole experience felt slow, and clunky, and awkward. I got no kind of rhythm. There were times where I just stared at the grid and felt very much in free fall - THEN I spent 3-5 minutes searching for a mistake in the grid (two, it turns out - the one I already mentioned [DINT for DON'T] and another to be discussed below). And STILL my time was respectable. That is, no worse than my average Sunday.

104A: Person at court (baron)

How is this? Is this because a BARON has a court? Of his own? Like a king has a court? Or is he a person at a king's court? The "court" part of this clue seems arbitrary and off. I understand that a BARON may have a court of his own, but if you search "court" at the Wikipedia entry for BARON, the only word it hits is "courtesy," as in "courtesy title," as in a BARON without a "court" to speak of.

1D: Modern workout system (Tae Bo)

Really? Still? I haven't seen Billy Blanks on my TV screen in a while.

80D: Georgia and others, once: Abbr. (SSRs)
81D: Sen. McCarthy ally (HUAC)

It's getting very Cold War over in the "Carmel-by-the-Sea" portion of the grid. And very Abbreviated as well. Nice little sub-thematic juxtaposition.

43D: Boxer nicknamed "Hands of Stone" (Duran)
44D: Año starter (Enero)

What month was it when Sugar Ray Leonard made Roberto DURAN say "No mas!"? Was it, by chance, ENERO? No, it was NOVIEMBRE.

59D: First name in comedy (Whoopi)

Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you said "comedy."

34A: Graf _____ (Spee)

The Admiral Graf SPEE was a German battleship that served in the early stages of WWII. This answer is known to me Only from crosswords, and even then, not very well; I remembered that it was S-EE, but couldn't remember what letter went in that second place. So it's time to play "Better Know Your S-EE Words"

1. SHEE = [Irish fairy people (Var.)]
2. SKEE = [_____-ball, arcade game]
3. SMEE = [Hook's helper]
4. SNEE = ["Snick or _____": knife-fighting]
5. SPEE = see above
6. SWEE = [Popeye's Little _____ Pea]

Problem Fill

• 61D: Hammer user (nailer) - true enough, but such a crappy word - one of the horrible "Odd Jobs" I like to gripe about - that it would not come to me even after I had most of its letters
• 99D: Beams (girders) - I have no idea why this answer took so long to come, as it seems quite ordinary now that I look at it. I just know that I took many, many passes at it before it came into view. I think I thought the word was a verb.
• 6D: French film director Allégret (Marc) - didn't actually give me problems because I never saw it. Good thing, because I have Never heard of this guy.
• 50A: Faulkner character _____ Varner (Eula) - sadly, I did see this one. No idea. Never heard of her (it's a her, right?). Why is that? Because I've read but one Faulkner novel in my entire life: As I Lay Dying - I don't remember the plot of that book, and I know next to nothing about the plots of his others. Best line from As I Lay Dying: "My mother is a fish." That is, literally, all that I remember about that book. EULA Varner is a character in The Hamlet, a novel which, I swear, I had never heard of until just now. It was made into a movie called The Long, Hot Summer in 1958, starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, and featuring Lee Remick as EULA Varner. If my cursory research is correct, EULA kills herself with a pistol. I guess I should have said "Spoiler Alert."
• 41D: Word in many a Nancy Drew title (Clue) - I was happy to see the "C" there and immediately entered the obvious CASE - forgetting, of course, that CASE was already taken by The Hardy Boys (one of whom was played on TV by Parker Stevenson, as I established in a recent entry and / or comment).
• 85D: Literally, "instruction" (Torah) - I'm embarrassed to say I had no CLUE about this answer, even with the "T" in place. Wasn't until I had the terminal -AH that it became obvious.
• 78A: Percolate (leach) - never in my wildest dreams would I have put these two words in the same universe. STEEP seems more closely related to both of them than they are to themselves, if that pronoun pile-up makes any sense. I think LEACH is how Robin spells his name. I would have spelled it LEECH on a spelling test.
• 125A: "_____ Dream" ("Lohengrin" piece) (Elsa's) - I blew an ELSA clue a few months back, so I sort of remembered her this time. Sort of. I should say that that ELSA clue, the one I muffed, resulted in an avalanche of hits to this website from people searching for her name. Common fare to crossword pros, a mystery to hacks (sadly, I'm still more latter than former).
• 38D: Dagger (dirk) - a perfectly good word that was stored away in my brain from my D&D days (circa 1981). Unfortunately for me, it was stored away so well that I actually couldn't retrieve it. It wasn't 'til I got AIKMAN (62A: 1993 Super Bowl M.V.P.) that the "K" dropped into place and DIRK became visible. I like that DIRK intersects 48A: The Henry who founded the Tudor line (VII), mostly because DIRK seems like a word that would have been in common parlance in that era. Unlike now, when it's best known as the first name of the NBA's greatest German.
• 22A: Sinatra's "Meet Me at the _____" (Copa) - My era = COPA Cabana. In the future, please clue this word via Manilow.
• 102D: _____ Society (English debating group) (Eton) - so, so, so many ways to clue ETON, and this is what you give me. A school, a collar, "The _____ Rifles," etc. I would have preferred them all.
• 123D: What barotrauma affects (ear) - aaargh. Simple little answer. Since a barometer measures atmospheric pressure, I figured barotrauma affected the AIR. I swear that it makes a kind of sense.
• 115D: Citation of 1958 (Edsel) - I'm guessing that the Citation was a make of car. I think Citation is better known as a racehorse. My god, how did I know that? The weird detritus that floats around in my head... Speaking of HORSES (109A: Engine capability, slangily (horses))... that's it, just that clue, right there. I got it fast, for which I was very proud of myself, considering I know less than nothing about cars (or other things that might have engines).

Always happy to see John Kennedy TOOLE in the puzzle (47D: "A Confederacy of Dunces" author) because that novel is great. It reminds me of my mom, who gave me my first copy when I was young(er). Something about the "North Carolina" portion of the puzzle is making me happy today, specifically, the pile-up of multiple-word phrases, where IN TURN (56D: Sequentially), ON THE (74D: Words with house or move), NO SIR (75D: Polite refusal), and TWO P.M. (Soap time, maybe) all intersect ERE NOW (79A: Heretofore) and NOT SO (88A: "Baloney!") - not to mention NOW YOU SEE IT, NOW YOU DON'T. TWO PM is precisely the time that my soap, As The World Turns, comes on. When I discuss As The World Turns with Andrew (who has been watching Way longer than I have) we abbreviate the show to ATWT - which, I forgot to mention in a recent puzzle, occurs occasionally in puzzles as an abbr. of Atomic Weight. I'd really really like to see ATWT clued with reference to the soap, which I believe would be legal, as the only sites that come up on a Google search of [ATWT] are soap-opera-related.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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FRIDAY, Feb. 16, 2007 - Charles Barasch

Solving time: unknown

THEME: none

Home with Sahra today, so a very, very short entry, comprised entirely of things I didn't know.

• 1A: Bristly (setose)
• 4D: 1937 Oscar role for Luise Rainer (Olan)

My one screw-up: had an "A" where the "O" should have been in these intersecting words. My gut told me the word was SETOSE, but then OLAN seemed ridiculous, and ALAN - well, that's at least a recognizable name. Everything about 4D is absolutely nuts. Super arcane. Just 'cause someone won an Oscar doesn't make him/her memorable or interesting. This puzzle was KRAMMED with pop culture arcana. For instance:

• 40D: Brian of "Juarez," 1939 (Aherne) - again, what? Never heard of him, never heard of the movie, nothing. Sadly (for me), AHERNE sat right next to another answer I didn't know: 39D: The "blood" in bloodstone (jasper) - I know a JASPER. One JASPER. And he looks like this:

• 54A: Classic 1894 swashbuckler, with "The" ("Prisoner of Zenda") - a familiar title - I own an early paperback version (buried somewhere in my collection) - but it took me a while to piece together. Why? First, its first two letters intersected 39D and 40D, respectively (see above). Second, I thought the Spanish word for "bears" was OROS, then ORAS - that stupid, wrong "R" was where the "S" should have been in "PRISONER."
• 12A: Henry Clay's estate in Lexington, Ky. (Ashland) - ASHLAND, OR, yes. Every other ASHLAND, no.
• 43A: 18-Across feeder (Aube) - well, I got 18A: Quai d'Orsay setting (Seine), but when we get down to feeders ... well, you know my feelings about European rivers: too many, and too ridiculously-named. Can't keep 'em straight. Must do some river research before tournament.
• 45A: Footballer Haynes (Abner) - an AFL running back from the 1960's who played eight seasons with five different teams! Tell me more! [yes, that was sarcasm]
• 3D: HBO showing of 1975 (Thrilla in Manila) - I didn't know HBO existed back then. I had THRILL and thought briefly that it had something to do with the making of Michael Jackson's video for "Thriller," but that was 8 years later.
• 9D: Epic achievement? (Cast of thousands) - a good clue, but I spent way too long trying to think of an epic that started CAST OF THE ... CART OF THE ...
• 25: Two-time A.L. home run champ Tony (Armas) - another sports obscurity. Well, not really. He was a pretty good player in the 80's, but for the life of me I can't remember him, anything about him, his baseball card, nothing. And his career was in my baseball-card collecting sweet spot. His son (Jr.) is a big league player today, currently for the Washington Senators. I mean Nationals.
• 14D: Carroll creatures (Toves) - I'm embarrassed to say I did not know this, though I recognize it now that I see it. Vaguely.
• 51D: Glass finish (-ine) - what is glassINE? I guessed this answer, but I don't think I know what entity it refers to. Answers.com says:

A nearly transparent, resilient glazed paper resistant to the passage of air and grease.

When would I use this?

Must go be a decent father (figure).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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SUNDAY, Feb. 11, 2007 - Mark Feldman

Solving time: 27:10

THEME: "Love is All Around" - a [HEART] rebus puzzle, e.g. 6D: Oscar-winning "Titanic" song by Celine Dion ("My [HEART] Will Go On")

How do I get my keyboard to produce a little "heart" symbol? I'm sure it has the ability, but I can't be bothered to figure it out. And what the hell happened to everyone over at the applet? The times for this puzzle are way WAY higher than normal. 27:10 is a crappy Sunday time for me, but it was lightning fast compared to most people so far - many people as good as or better than I seem to have forgotten how to fill in a rebus puzzle when solving on the applet (first letter of the rebus word goes in the rebus square - I think there are other options, but that's the fastest).

I didn't enjoy this puzzle much, for a number of reasons. First, the theme is pretty uninspired. I mean, there are a TON of theme answers, which is admirable, but a lot of the answers are of a piece, e.g. SAD [heart]ED, HARD [heart]ED, GOOD [heart]ED, etc. It's only in the movie / book / song titles that things get a little interesting and animated, and even then the titles get pretty obscure, not to mention boring, e.g. THE [heart] OF A LION (17D: 1917 Frank Lloyd film) and [heart] AND SOUL (101A: 1938 #1 hit composed by Hoagy Carmichael). So, solving-wise, kind of a blah experience. But...

Then I got sent a link to another blogger who had demonstrated that the arrangement of the rebus squares produces the outline of a very appropriate image: a heart! (well, more exactly, a valentine). Here is a link to a picture of the completed grid with the rebus squares filled in with valentines, so you can appreciate the artfulness of the construction.

My three favorite theme answers:

• 4D: Where "sage in bloom is like perfume," in song ("The [Heart] of Texas")
• 77A: 1972 #1 Neil Young hit ("[Heart] of Gold")
• 85D: Joseph Conrad classic ([Heart] of Darkness)

Shouldn't that first answer be "Deep In THE [h] OF TEXAS?" I know that song only from Pee Wee's Big Adventure. [H] OF DARKNESS was one of the few books I read the summer before entering graduate school, when I was worried that I was very poorly read (you know, for an English major from a decent liberal arts college) and that I needed to know more of these "classics" I'd heard so much about. I can't say that reading Conrad did anything for me. I did learn that Conrad's first language is Polish. Like Nabokov, Conrad wrote his most Klassic work in a language that was not his "mother tongue." That's all I know.

Potential theme answers that went unused:

• Wild at Heart
• The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
• Miss Lonelyhearts

And the very hardest (actual) theme answer to get!

56A: Washington's profile is on it (Purple [H]eart)

I am wondering if anyone else out there had the U (from ESTUARY - 39D: Rio de la Plata, e.g.) and the second E (from MORESO - 41D: To a greater extent) and blithely entered QUARTER for this answer. Anyone? This clue, in the, let's say, "Valley Forge" region of the puzzle, threw me way, way off and all of the surrounding territory remained quite wide open for what felt like forever. There are several really hard crosses that kept PURPLE [H] hidden.

• 32D: Coll. fraternity with a skull-and-crossbones symbol (Sig Ep) - OK, so that's SIGma EPsilon, but I've never heard it referred to as anything but "Skull-and-Bones." Had the SIG and then everything thereafter felt arbitrary.
• 57D: Cell stuff that fabricates protein, for short (R-RNA) - is there even a hyphen in that? I don't know. Had the RNA, and could not remember what letter went before it.

Then there was the first of many ridiculous, seemingly non-words that populated this puzzle. This one ran right on top of what would become PURPLE [H]:

• 51A: Reddish-brown gems (sards) - now, I am told by professional solvers (well, one of them, anyway) that SARDS is a common answer; I was even sent proof from the cruciverb.com database (I'm pretty sure that's where it was from) showing me that it had been in several grids in the past ten years. Still, I'd never heard of it. Further, it looks ridiculous. It's a name a kid would make up to describe some new weapon he'd invented for his Power Rangers. Also, it sounds like a disease.

Other crazy words:

• 49A: French white wine (muscadet) - muscatel, muskrat, Muskie, musketeer, Mouseketeer - those are all familiar to me. MUSCADET? No. Is it like Space Cadet?
• 95A: Pregnant woman, in obstetrics (gravida) - doesn't this mean "fat chick" in Latin?
• 31D: Of the morning (matutinal) - I swear that I always thought the word was MATITUDINAL. Why is that? Is that a word? It does not appear to be, alas.
• 30D: Eastern European pork fat dish (salo) - I didn't even see this crazy answer until just this second. You eat pork fat? Like, just the fat? As a "dish?" How many famines do you have to endure before that starts to sound like a good idea?
• 75D: Fishhook line (snell) - the most made-up-sounding of them all. Now please you all the following words in one sentence: SARDS, MUSCADET, SNELL.

I like the stacking of FERNWOOD (65A: Mary Hartman's TV hometown), MARYANN (69A: "Gilligan's Island" castaway), and GARR (73A: "Mr. Mom" co-star), because they are all pleasantly pop-culture-y. When I was a young man, and other guys my age were hot for, oh, let's say, Cindy Crawford, I had an Enormous Crush on Teri GARR. I remember when she did print ads for Jockey underwear. Boy do I remember. I don't think they were supposed to be particularly sexy, but supposed to, schmosed to. Love her. "FERNWOOD 2Nite" is one of my favorite 70s TV shows - one I didn't discover until I saw it on Nick at Nite in the 90's. It's a fake local talk show with Martin Mull as the host and Fred Willard as his sidekick. If it's not available on DVD, it should be. And as for the old Ginger / Mary Ann debate, if you don't know which side I come down on, then you are a very, very bad judge of character.

Call out the composers! Specifically ALBAN Berg (1D: Composer Berg) - who has a very convenient first name, from a crossword perspective - and GIAN Carlo Menotti (12D; Composer _____ Carlo Menotti). I'm pretty sure GIAN here wrote "Something something and the Night Visitors." I remember [Menotti boy] was a clue a few months back, and I didn't know it then, and I clearly don't know it now ("Something something"). It's AMAHL. No wonder I can't remember it. Here, it didn't matter. I think of GIANCarlo as one word, but I guess not.

One more answer I didn't know:

• 99A: Pulitzer-winning biographer Leon (Edel) - not much to say; just don't know him.

Last thoughts, at random: 67A: Screened, as a patient (pre-seen) is a little bit of absurdity. Who would say it? It's got more syllables than the far more comprehensible "screened." I don't normally like seeing NAZI in a puzzle (too ... depressing?) but here it's positioned neatly (under 113A: White-collar work (desk job)) to form a phrase, DESKJOB NAZI, that aptly describes Dwight Schrute, the best character on TV's best (current) sitcom, "The Office." I kicked ass on the ancient clues today, like 60A: Old Aegean region (Ionia) and 96D: Golden calf crafter (Aaron). I can tell you that NIKOLAI Gogol (34A: Writer Gogol) is the eponymous "namesake" in the upcoming movie The Namesake, for which I saw a confusing but compelling trailer recently. I have never read Uncle Tom's Cabin, but I am über-familar with both little EVA and Simon LEGREE (86D: Stowe villain), thanks to the crossword! Another crossword staple that you should never forget: 1A: Shooting marble (agate). Let's end on an 80's note by teaming up Mork from ORK (127D: Sitcom planet) with, oh, let's say, JASON (114D: 1980's screen slasher) from the Friday the 13th franchise. Yes, that works. I'd pay to see that crossover.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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FRIDAY, Feb. 9, 2007 - Eric Berlin

Solving time: 16:50

THEME: none

What a horrible, horrible feeling. I ran through this puzzle like a hot knife through butter ... until I hit the NW, and then I went into what felt like an eternal free-fall. Nothing. I couldn't get a damn thing. Well, that's not true. I would get something, and then it wouldn't work, so I'd erase it - over and over and over. There were two major problems that prevented my getting into that NW quadrant (besides an ignorance of "country" music - who the !@#@ is Joe ELY? (1D: Country rocker Joe and others (ELYS)). And those problems were:

9D: Masters topics (sex lives) - I had the LIVES part and had no idea what this could be. Didn't know if LIVES was its own word, or part of a longer word, or what. Knew that the "Masters" in question wasn't "Master's exams" - that has an apostrophe in it - but the only other Masters I could think of was the golf tournament. What ends in -LIVES and concerns championship golf? Answer: NOTHING. Turns out the question refers to ancient sexperts Masters & Johnson. Here is something I didn't know (from "Discovery Health" website):

Masters and Johnson initiated a project that ultimately included direct laboratory observation and measurement of 700 men and women while they were having intercourse or masturbating.

Wow. Who volunteered for that? Maybe they paid well. Did they ever consider that people doing it at home, or wherever, might be quite different from people doing it in a lab, knowing they're being watched. This is like having cameras in the courtroom (which I'm against) - no one can be completely unselfconscious with a camera trained on him. Then there's the inevitable probes or cathodes or who knows what other Clockwork Orange-type gadgets. Maybe their interest was more purely physiological than sociological. This is way too much space to devote to this damn answer, which thwarted my entry (!) to the great Northwest. Oh, and the other roadblock?

22A: A, B or C, often: Abbr. (Ans.) - such a little answer! How could it possibly cause any harm? Well, I'll tell you. I did not have ANS. I had the good, perhaps better, ANSwer: APT. That's right APT! As in "Apartment," not the word APT, though my ANSwer was, in fact, APT, dammit. APT! And then that gave me a "P" at the end of 5D: Admit, which I was sure would have to be OWN UP, despite the fact that OWN UP was very discordant with its parallel neighbor, AVE MARIAS (4D: Parts of some services). So what did I do? Naturally, I erased AVE MARIAS (or, more precisely, I erased the AVE M- part). In the end, though, I have to give ANS. all the credit for my being able to solve this puzzle at all. After many, many minutes spent completely blanking out on everything in the NW, I finally saw that APT. could be ANS., I changed it, and the puzzle, including the very APT answer AH YES (6D: "I understand now"), was done inside of a minute. Oh, so 5D: Admit was not OWN UP, but LET IN (which, for the record, I botched again before getting it right, thinking the answer was SEE IN, ugh). In the end, if I only could have remembered the name of the very memorable tune, YAKETY SAX (17A: Polka heard frequently on "The Benny Hill Show"), all those Scrabbly letters would have helped me knock the NW out quite quickly (see 20A: 1950's political slogan ("I Like Ike"), which has the Scrabbly "K"s and which I got right away). But no. No no no.

Gimme gimme gimme

God bless the following answers, for giving me precious life when all the other answers were playing hard to get:

18A: Part of a chronicle (annal) - I've dated more than one historian in my lifetime. Well, no, just the one, actually. Anyway, this is a fairly common term, especially in medieval and early modern history. I also once read a dreadfully boring book called Annals of the Parish when I was in Scotland. It was written by a man named John Galt (1821). When I returned to the states, I would occasionally see these bumper stickers that read "Who is John Galt?" and I couldn't figure out why people wanted to know about a 19th-century Scottish novelist. Turns out the question is from Atlas Shrugged, which I have never read, but which my mother owns a signed copy of, for some reason. Who is John Galt? Here is John Galt.
27A: Hunter of literature (Evan) - second time he's been in the puzzle since September. I know because he's a name I remember. He is better known as the best-selling crime writer Ed McBain. Here is one of his 50's paperbacks (I've shown this before, but it's been over four months, so who's gonna remember?):
30D: Actress Sobieski (Leelee) - this girl is giving TERI POLO a run for her money as the (so-called) Actress clue of the 21st century. She was in another puzzle I did in just the past couple of days. Expect to see more of her. Coincidence: the last message I received in my email inbox was from a former student named, I kid you not, Li Li.
58A: "He seemed like such ____ boy" (a nice) - super-gimme for all! And right on top of another gimme: 60A: When to see la luna (noche)!
53D: Cartoonist Walker (Mort) - "Are you the creator of 'Hi & Lois,' because you are making me laugh." - Comic Book Guy, "The Simpsons" [note: this quote must be uttered with deadpan sarcasm]. See also: "If you are waiting for the 'Hi and Lois' signing, you are too late. It has been moved to the Springfield Colosseum."
36A: Doesn't puff idly (inhales) - piece of cake! Thanks, Clinton (god I irrationally love that man)
37D: TV witch (Samantha) - are you kidding? My cat is named for her evil cousin! Hey, somebody stole my idea!

What I Didn't Know

• 38A: Subject of the biography "All or Nothing at All" (Sinatra) - well, I know who SINATRA is, just not in reference to this particular book. Is the title a lyric from "My Way"? No, it's an actual song title. Sadly (very sadly) "All or Nothing at All" makes me think not of Sinatra but of O-Town. Have they been crossword fill? Because OTOWN looks like it could come in quite handy in a pinch.
• 29D: Bearer of catkins (alder tree) - first of all, I have NO idea what a "catkin" is. Is it anything like a kitten? No, they're just these sort of cone-y, fuzzy, probably seed-bearing thingamajigs. Isn't the addition of TREE here a bit ... superflous. I mean, I've seen the answer ALDER a few times, I'm pretty sure. Of course it's an ALDER TREE. Is there an ALDER FOX? ALDER DOLPHIN? ALDER BUS? What other kinds of ALDER are there?
• 49D: Like some stocks (no par) - again, if you need financial advice, please look elsewhere. Business and commerce-related fill stumps me almost as much as the damned Bible (although, today, I owned the Bible! Take that, ENOCH (47D: Methuselah's father)!
• 45D: Heavens: Prefix (Urano-) - inferrable, in a way, but outside my ken (not my CATKIN).
• 46D: Nervine, for one (tonic) - once again, inferred, not known. TONIC is also a terrible, terrible band. One of those generic white guy bands from the 90s whose name you know and whose songs are bland but very, very familiar, in a generic kind of way. Warning: you will find yourself humming and / or tapping your feet if you are not very careful. Infectious, in the way that pernicious diseases are infectious.

I like that OUTEREAR (44A: One end of a canal) and FRONT END (50A: Frequent area of auto damage) sit one atop the other, as it gives your REAR and FRONT in close proximity to one another. My favorite fill from this puzzle is all kind of negative, if not outright morbid. 21D: How a snake may be caught? had me thinking IN A PIT (too literal), but the real answer, IN A LIE, was so much better. I did not know what "anacusis" was in 39A: Develops anacusis, but with the last three letters in place I was pleasantly (?) surprised to see that the answer was GOES DEAF. ("Anacusis" reminds me of "ailurophobia" for some reason - perhaps because they are both disorders that start with "A," and I learned them both from crosswords: "ailurophobia" = fear of cats, which I do not have. See Serena, above). Lastly I enjoyed the frankness of 40D: A bad way to be left (for dead), which is how the puzzle nearly left me. But I had an AWAKENING (10D: Realization) and persevered.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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TUESDAY, Jan. 16, 2007 - Dave Mackey

Solving time: 5:13

THEME: Family REUNION - three long theme answers (one of which is impossibly good) describe sets of relatives, such as one might find at a REUNION (40A: Celebration that may involve the people in 20-, 42- and 56-Across)

These are your theme answers, listed here, in order, from good to mind-blowing.

• 56A: 2005 Mark Wahlberg movie ("Four Brothers")
• 20A: Chekhov play, with "The" ("Three Sisters")
• 35A: With 42-Across, Lesléa Newman book ("Heather Has / Two Mommies")

I solved this puzzle so quickly (for me), that I didn't not notice HEATHER HAS TWO MOMMIES as the answer until it was 80% filled in. This book was legendary when I was in college (originally self-published in 1989) for being one of, if not the, first children's books to depict a lesbian household. I have said that everything about pop music, from the years I was in college, sucks. Well, one of the better - or at least more interesting - developments of my time in college was that it was a time of increased visibility of gay people in literature and movies. Or maybe it's just that I finally met some gay people when I was in college and then noticed they were everywhere and, it turns out, as messed up as everybody else I knew. Hurray for equality. Anyway, this book, as well as Annie on My Mind, got talked about (usually jokingly, even among the most politically sympathetic, i.e. gayest, of us) a lot in my latter college years. I won't even tell you the alternative (i.e. totally made-up) titles we had for some of these. Let's just say that "My Mind" was not what Annie was "on."

Yesterday I announced a moratorium on guys named Dave/David authoring puzzles. I then grandfathered a bunch of Davids, but forgot to grandfather Dave Mackey (I did it in Comments). And then voila, here he is. So, he's legal, but seriously, don't push me. Oh, I also forgot to grandfather Dave Tuller. I wonder what the record is for using "grandfather" as a verb in a single day. Single paragraph?

14A: Followers of so (la ti)
2D: Nobel-winning Nelly (Sachs)

How many times will I be suckered in by the damned "notes on a scale" trick, where SO or DO are used in a clue as if they are words, but then it turns out they are part of that damned Sound of Music song!? Do you know any effeminate homosexual men who have won the Nobel prize in anything? I don't. Wait, did Auden win? The only Sachs I know is Oliver, and I don't really know him except by name. LATI looks incredibly stupid and wrong when written into the grid. These two answers, up in the always slippery "Seattle" section of the puzzle, gave me my only real solving challenge of this puzzle. Everything else more or less fell together without much pause (for once).

25D: Actor Milo (O'Shea)

So I posted the new 2007 Pantheon line-up yesterday, and immediately second-guessed myself like crazy. I'm already considering new words for next year, and this puzzle makes a good case for O'SHEA, who comes up a lot for a dead Irishman. O, my bad, he's not dead. He was the friar in Zefferelli's Romeo and Juliet (pictured). He was also somehow involved in the Janeane Garofalo movie The MatchMaker. Guy's gotta eat. Actually ... I saw that movie in the theater. What's more, I didn't ... hate it. Might have ... liked it. Enough movie confession. O'SHEA is a worthy Pantheon candidate ... for another year. See also 53D: Home on high (aerie) and 55D: Perfume compound (ester) - which reminds me, I really really want to see Perfume; the novel was amazing, especially at the end when ... well, you'll see.

24A: "Hamlet" setting (Elsinore)
48A: Five Nations tribe (Onondaga)

So much colorful symmetrical goodness here. ONONDAGA live nearby, so I'm familiar with their name. ELSINORE took a little cajoling to come out into the light (DENMARK being the only "setting" that came to mind at first glance), but a couple of crosses made the answer obvious. This is one of the best Tuesday puzzles in a long time - between the beautifully structured and highly original theme, and the super-fresh fill in the non-themed answers. I am putting this one into the "Puzzle Awards 2007" folder I have on my desktop - it'll probably get nominated for best theme answer and best Tuesday. But who knows - there are still 11.5 months to go, and anything can happen.

4D: Musical liabilities (tin ears)
44D: Pizza slices, usually (eighths)

More hot symmetry. These answers are both musical, if you hold them in the right light. I love that EIGHTHS has five consonants in a row (one of the few words in English that can claim that). I also love that apparently I can't spell "consonant" (keeps coming out "consanant").

10D: Pale lager (pilsner)
43D: _____ Mann of 1960's pop (Manfred)

OK, I swear, this is the last pair of symmetrical answers I will shower with adulation. I just love it when these long connectors are something other than workmanlike. PILSNER isn't astounding, but it's sort of jaunty, and MANFRED Mann is a crazy blast from the past. "Blinded by the Light!" - Springsteen did a version of this song, but I prefer MANFRED's. Has the greatest misunderstood (by me) lyric in the history of song. But I am too modest to write it down; the line starts "Wrapped up..." That's all I'll say. Did you know that a PILSNER glass is FOOTED - It's true. How do I know. A little puzzle told me so - about 2-3 months ago.

62A: 1986 Indy winner Bobby (Rahal)

I have yelled at ESPN more times than I can count for its decision to count NASCAR and other auto-racing events as "sports." The machine does the work: NOT A SPORT. And yet, I must have absorbed something while ignoring the screen during the NASCAR coverage, because RAHAL was a gimme. I didn't know my gimmes went beyond Jeff Gordon, but apparently they do. So bring on the NASCAR, if you must. I am no longer afraid.

19A: Sue of "Lolita" (Lyon)

If I haven't said it before, I'll say it now: Kubrick's is the only "Lolita" you want to see. Doesn't matter that Sue LYON is way too old. Peter Sellers is some kind of genius in that movie (as is Shelley Winters), and the Jeremy Irons version is Pitifully lame and unfunny. No Sense of Humor. Nabokov would have retched. If I have performed this tirade before, my apologies.


33D: Steve the late Crocodile Hunter (Irwin)

This clue sounds more like a children's book title than a clue about a recently dead guy. "Steve hunted crocodiles, but he could never seem to get to work on time..." His death is sad, of course, in the way that all unnecessary deaths are sad. Did no one learn anything from Grizzly Man?!?! Let's leave the lethal animals alone, as God intended.

40D: Sonata ending, often (rondo)

I am running out of steam this morning. Andrew, what does this mean? And does anyone else remember a refreshing soft drink from the late-70s that went by the name of "Rondo?" HA ha, the (musical) RONDO entry at Wikipedia begins with an advisory: "For the former U.S. soft drink, please see Rondo (soft drink)." Only when you go there, you just get redirected to a generic "Citrus Drink" page, where RONDO is described very briefly. Answers.com tells me that two of its slogans were:

* "Rondo - The Thirst Crusher!"
* "Lightly carbonated, so you can slam it down fast!"

I want a picture of the can!!!! There don't appear to be any in existence (on the whole internet!? how is that possible?). Free "Rex Parker" T-shirt to the first person who can provide me with a pic. That is, when I actually get around to having the T-Shirts made. Or even designed.

Speaking of which, I received a "scholarship" to Stamford from my Aunt Nancy, which was very thoughtful. I am clearly going to have to set up something in the sidebar that acknowledges my benefactors; something like "Brought to you by ... IHOP ... the Letter 'K' ... and the Nancy McNichols Foundation for Better Blogging."

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS I love that OLEO gets elected Pantheon President on a Monday, and then turns around and makes a puzzle appearance on a Tuesday. She's a man of the people.

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SATURDAY, Jan. 13, 2007 - Patrick Berry

Solving time: 39:54 (ugh, it's true)

THEME: time slipping away ... tumbleweeds rolling past ... (actually, none)

Let's take this in parts. First, well, you can see the completed grid there on the right. It's got its iffy spots, like any Saturday grid, but whatever. With the possible exception of AMENRA (3D: God worshiped in ancient Thebes), all of the answers are at least readily discernible as words or concepts in the language - though #$#@-ing GLACÉ (5D: Frosted) is from another language and stayed hidden Good and Long because you can't see an accent aigu on the grid, and I so badly wanted the answer to be [something] ICE. OK, where was I? Right, not an obscene grid when you see it all filled in. But, for whatever reason (there are many to choose from), I tripped on the NW, left it for the NE, which fell reasonably quickly, swept down the eastern seaboard to the SE, which fell very quickly, and then circled back westward and got totally held up. Went back to the NW, alligator-wrestled it into submission, and then went back to wide open SW. The Grand Canyon - a big hole in the SW that seemed destined to be there for eternity. Everything I threw into it just disappeared. And so I was in total free fall for god knows how long. LONG.

So I'm going to give you a little visual aide, to show you how badly one can get stuck when a wrong answer yields potentially (but not) correct results on the crosses. I'm going to show you the SW grid in two stages of fill (well, two more - you can see the final stage above) - the one with one wrong answer, and then the one with several wrong answers built off that initial wrong answer. The wrong answer in question is LAMP OIL, which I had as the fill for 47A: Kerosene. It's a great wrong answer, even though, technically, "Kerosene" and LAMP OIL are different oils - they are in the same damned family of oils (LAMP OIL being more refined, creating less soot on burning). But I digress - LAMP OIL seemed so right to me. And thus this initial fill for the SW:


So, the major problem for me here was that I could not, for the life of me, get 52A: Some chocolate. This physically hurt me, as I love chocolate something awful and think that I know a little about its chemical make-up and various tasty forms. My love for chocolate will be relevant to why I did not see the answer for a very long time. Anyway, I was thinking it was some French word like PASTILLES, only, you know, shorter, and relevant to chocolate somehow. Perhaps more painful than not knowing the chocolate answer, however, was not immediately getting 31D: Kansas State Athletes. They were a reasonably good football team a few years back and I could see their uniforms, their colors (purple and silver?), but unfortunately (this would be my key to solving it, eventually) I did not focus my mental attention, initially, on their helmets (home of a picture of their mascot!). Worse, WORSE, the "M" in LAMP OIL made me near-certain that whatever the K.S. athletes were, they were some kind of -MEN (see Syracuse Orangemen, U Mass Minutemen, etc.). So, if LAMP OIL was strike 1, hooking my cart to that -MEN ending was strike 2. Here come strikes 3, and, for good measure, 4. While toying around with possible French names that could go into the spaces for 50A: French rococo artist Watteau, the spurious name EVELINE floated into mind - I had considered and even written in ANTOINE (which is Correct), but rejected it because that "T" clashed with the "M" in LAMP OIL / [blank]-MEN. Nice. The genius, the sick, horrible genius of my entertaining EVELINE, is that it got me AV_ as the last three letters in 30D: Exclusive meeting (8 letters total). Sometimes you don't enough words, and sometimes, you know too many - here is what I ended up entering:


CONCLAVE turns out to be the greatest wrong answer I have ever had, because it is actually much better as an answer for the clue, [Exclusive meeting], than the actual answer, ONE-ON-ONE. You can have a ONE-ON-ONE in a cafe, for god's sake, how "Exclusive" is that? It's more basketball term than [Exclusive meeting]. CONCLAVE, however, is defined thusly:

1. a private or secret meeting.
2. an assembly or gathering, esp. one that has special authority, power, or influence: a conclave of political leaders.
3. the assembly or meeting of the cardinals for the election of a pope.
4. the body of cardinals; the College of Cardinals.
5. the place in which the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church meet in private for the election of a pope.

There is NO MORE "EXCLUSIVE" MEETING IN THE WORLD than the damned CONCLAVE to elect a pope. Remember when all the 24-hr. "news" networks staked out the building where it was taking place, waiting for the right-colored smoke to emerge ... what kind of spooky medieval bull@#$ is that, anyway? (No offense to my Catholic readers, [wink]) ANYWAY, CONCLAVE rules as an answer. RULES, I say. But very shortly after I put it in, those "C"s started to do this nails-on-a-chalkboard thing in my brain. Couldn't get any reasonable words to be their crosses, so, with great sadness, I had to abandon CONCLAVE, and then abandon the made-up name EVELINE, and eventually abandon LAMP OIL.

Somewhere along the line I started plugging letters, in alphabetical order, into the fourth place in the Chocolate answer (_ _ _ _ LES). It was only once I let that damned Kansas State answer end in "S" (not the "N" from erroneous "-MEN"), that I got an "S" in the third position of the chocolate answer, and then the "T" slid into the fourth position and the awful NESTLES (as a plural noun? Horrible) came into view, and I knew instantly that it was right. NESTLES = crap chocolate, btw.

Once the -MEN ending was done away with as a possibility for the Kansas State answer, I returned my mental focus to the damned helmets of their football team, which look like this:


And WILDCATS just leaped forth in all its feline glory. This gave me SODS for 42A: Landscaping supplies (which I had written in earlier and discarded because SODS (plural) as "supplies" (plural) seemed way too much of a stretch. I went to tools: HOES, then, strangely, HODS, which I believe are used only in bricklaying, which might, I suppose, be part of a landscaping project...). OK, so I got SODS and INC (____ 500, annual list of the fastest growing private companies), which like HODS was in fact my first guess. Thus, in an alternate universe, I focused my attention on these short words, went with my gut, and solved the SW lickety-split.

But back to reality - having my initial suspicions about these short answers confirmed was no consolation. Further - never heard of a COWBIRD (29A: It lays its eggs in others' nests); I had JAY- and RED- and CAT- and god knows what else in there. NEVER would have put COW in. ONIONS makes far more sense as a 34A: Spanish rice ingredient than PECANS (the only word my brain wanted to put there). As for RELAY (36A: Device that contains an electromagnet) ... muh. Whatever. I have no particular feelings about you. And I just this very second noticed that the stupid 32D: Squeezers clue = BOAS, which is perfectly apt, and yet I don't think I would have gotten it in a million years without the crosses. PS, 29D: Napoleon, e.g. was CORSICAN. I had had him as an EMPEROR, then he was ENISLED, an EXILEE, something about ELBA, then he was a pastry ...


OK, now that I've anatomized the SW so thoroughly, I don't really have much energy for the rest of the very difficult but mostly pleasing puzzle. I'll give the NW a little attention, as it was the second-hardest quadrant. Was, appropriately, blinded by a clue's apparent adjectivity, which caused me to take forever to see its actual verbality: 1A: Blind, in a way (tear gas). TEAR GAS as a verb is somewhat cruel. A.A. MILNE (15A: Children's author who was a regular contributor to Punch) was the very first thing I wrote into the grid, but ... I abandoned it when I couldn't get crosses to work! So many right answers abandoned in this puzzle, ugh. Thankfully, MILNE's cross-grid authorial counterpart, RUDYARD (18A: "Just So Stories" author's first name) held up, allowing my first real toe hold in the puzzle. But back to NW, I lost an absurd amount of time on one tiny word: for 19A: When there's no other option (if necessary), I could not see the IF, and so had AS. But this screwed up TAP-INS (1D: Putts that might be conceded), which I was sure was right (and it was, though my first thought was GIMMES). I let AS hang around far, far longer than I should have. I've already mentioned AMENRA and GLACE up here. Whatever. This quadrant got done.

Where's the joy!? OK, here's some: 14D: Elton John hit that begins "Guess there are times when we all need to share a little pain", which is a long, long (and fairly creative) way to go to get SAD SONGS. I'd have clued it as [Elton John hit with chorus line "Turn 'em on"], but maybe that's too easy. This song is not to be confused with the 1979 #1 song "Sad Eyes," which was in a puzzle a couple of months back and, if hits to this site are any indication, befuddled the hell out of much of the puzzle-solving populace. SAD SONGS helped me get ANDORRA (16A: Nation of 181 square miles), which I initially wanted to be MONACO or SAN MARINO neither of which fit. I misspelled RODAN (26A: 1956 cult film from overseas) as RODIN (you know, French sculptor ... The Thinker ...). It's a great answer, but one I know about only because of Michael Nesmith's "Elephant Parts" - a kind of sketch comedy special that the former Monkee and White-Out heir did in the early 80s that is probably the most formative piece of pop culture in my life in terms of developing whatever comedic sensibility and sense of the absurd that I have. He sings a sweet little song about RODAN - just one verse, actually - as we watch someone in a giant lizard-costume trample and absolutely destroy a very crude model of a city. The whole bit lasts maybe 30 seconds. But it's indelible for some reason, as are most of the segments in that show. Man, I gotta get it on DVD. Seriously, it's some kind of weird early 80's genius, and the best thing that could possibly have happened to me at age 12. I can still quote "Elephant Parts" to my dad and sister, with joyous results. Netflix it today!

Wanted TOWN MOUSE (28D: Aesop character with a country cousin) to be CITY MOUSE, but I just put in the MOUSE part and the rest took care of itself. Had no idea the 33D: National instruments of Guatemala were MARIMBAS. How are those different from MARACAS? Hang on ... oh, they are way, way different, in that they are like vibes, not hand-held at all. 46A: One that picks up the kids? (baby monitor) was very trickily worded, but the rest of the SE was so easy that it didn't take long to solve. MINIMAL ART is a synonym for MINIMALISM (as far as I can tell from Google) that I have not heard before, but which is very inferrable. 8D: Capacitance units (farads) is kind of hard, and I've had about enough physics clues for a while, thanks. Its neighbor INURE was quite hard to see because of (once again) deliberate part-of-speech confusion in the clue, 9D: Condition.

Lastly, here are a couple of grid pairs that I like and dislike, respectively. Let's call them the DO'S (21A: Recommendations) and DON'Ts of answer pairing.

DO: create synergy by juxtaposing words from the same verbal universe, e.g. ASSISTS (51A: Court stat) and SET SHOT (53A: Free throw, e.g.), basketball answers which sit one atop the other in the far SE.

DON'T: feature two words that are just one letter different from one another, especially when those words sound terribly silly when uttered one after the other, e.g. PUNY (35D: Insignificant) and PINY (27D: Like some air fresheners).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS if anyone can tell me why all text after a bulleted list in my entries goes to super-single-spacing, I would love to know. Stupid Blogger coaxed me into "updating" my template, and while navigation to individual entries is now much easier ... I've got this dumb spacing bug to work out. Nothing in HTML code indicates why spacing should be different for one part of the entry vs. the next. Little help! Blogger's "help" is Horrible. Guess that's what I get for using a "free" service. [note: I've figured out the problem - fixing it involves writing extra coding that I Really don't want to write, so...]

PPPPS I have now reverted to my good ole original template until Blogger fixes the line-spacing glitch.

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THURSDAY, Jan. 11, 2007 - Lee Glickstein and Nancy Salomon

Solving time: 11:08

THEME: "ADD-ICT" - Common expressions have ICT added to them to make odd expressions, which are then clued. 62A tells you the theme: Fiend ... or a hint to this puzzle's theme (addict)

I feel very good this morning, despite an only slightly better-than-average Thursday time (I give myself a B+). After yesterday's debacle, and after doing Several Puzzles in a Row in my Shortz "Greatest Hits" puzzle book wherein I had 1-3 squares wrong in Wednesday and Thursday puzzles, it was nice to complete a puzzle, with no extended struggle, and to have the applet accept my first grid submission. The other reason I'm happy - uh, this puzzle was hard. There were multiple times when I managed to get past a really difficult part and immediately thought "man, that was rough - that's gonna trip someone up" (usually that someone is me). Examples below.

I am still waiting for confirmation from someone that yesterday's Homer quotation was in fact genuine and not an internet myth grown to stellar proportions. I wouldn't want the paper to have print another retraction - as they had to do recently when SARA LEE got clued [Company that owns the brands Playtex, Kiwi and Hillshire Farm] - doesn't own Playtex anymore, apparently - but facts are facts and I want facts. Not factiness. Speaking of "The Colbert Report" (which I just did, whether you knew it or not), I was terrifically happy yesterday when I was flipping through the latest issue of Previews - massive catalogue of upcoming comics releases .... [cough] ... ["Nerd!"] ... -
and I noticed a number of high-profile ads for the upcoming comic book adaptation of Mr. Colbert's unpublished "Tek Jansen" novel. Here is the promotional blurb:

Solar plexus! Bursting out from the hit Comedy Central show, The Colbert Report — it’s Stephen Colbert’s Tek Jansen! In this stunning continuation of Stephen Colbert’s critically acclaimed, yet unpublished prose novel, everyone’s favorite sci-fi hero must stand against the enemies of freedom, no matter what dark planet they crawl from!

I ordered the series - which won't be in stores for three months. I'll let you know how it is.

THE THORNS

31D: Glimpse (aperçu)

This clue/answer pairing is an ass-pain on many levels. First, APERÇU implies "insight" or "special understanding," where [Glimpse] just suggests "sight." Second, the clue skews more verb-ward than noun-ward, likely causing many mental forays into Useless-ville. Third, holy cow, what the hell ends in -CU??? Without the cedille on that C, that C really really wants to be hard (!). But the U comes from EMU (48A: Noted Australian sprinter), and how could EMU be wrong when it gave me the M that allowed me to get the great and manifestly correct 30D: "Rah!" (Go team!) (where formerly I had HUZZAH, which is making me laugh even as I type it)? In the end, APERÇU was about as palpably physical an "aha" moment as I've had in a while. Exhilarating.

36A (THEME): Order to act one's age? (maturity d-ICT-ate)

Was working on this before I had the theme, and the only thing that second word wanted to be was some form of DIRECT ... DIRECTIVE ... DIRECTION ... ? I had even written in DIRECT, which left me one letter shy of the end of the answer. I figured if I just let DIRECT hang out there for a while, something would happen. Strangely, though it was wrong, its "T" helped me confirm the correct GO TEAM (30D, see above). Now that I look at this whole mid-Atlantic region of the puzzle, it's very very France-circa-WWII. Two French military answers: 35D: 1944 battle site (St. Lo) and 44A: Encamp (bivouac) (the latter apparently comes from the French, via probably Swiss-German). Then APERÇU and Albert Camus, too (that's a rhyme!): 29D: Camus subject (plague). ST. LO is pure crosswordese - a very handy four-letter combo I know only from doing crosswords. I was happy to traipse through this mid-Atlantic region relatively unscathed. I had to work for it, but I could easily have fallen flat on my face, and didn't.

60A: Required (need be)

I can't tell you how befuddled I was by this. Time-wise, I didn't get chewed up too badly, but I ran into an apparent Unstoppable Force / Immovable Object problem when this answer, which I had understandably entered as NEEDED, rammed its final "D" right into the "E" of 58D: Firmed up (set), which, true to its name, would not budge. "NEEDLE? How is a NEEDLE 'Required?'" It was left for me to pick up the "B," which I did only by finally (duh) getting the gist of 57D: "The Office" address? - I had N_C, and I figured the answer was something web-related, or something having to do with business-speak or somebody's title in an office. Of course, if I'd bothered to notice the quotation marks around "The Office," it might have dawned on me sooner that the Office in question was the TV show of that name (which, semi-ironically, is one of only 4 or so shows that I actually watch). So NBC. That's the "address" of the show. OK. NEED BE. Wow. Another thorn that impeded but did not halt my forward progress.

49A: "The Odd Couple," for one (Simon P-ICT-ure)

As of right now, I have no idea what SIMON PURE is. Once you add the ICT, then I get the clue, but what is this expression that is being modified??? OK, I am calling in my resident Restoration and 18th century expert on this one. So, Shaun, when you read this, please respond. Apparently the phrase "The (real) SIMON PURE" dates from the early 18th century and comes from "The name of a Quaker in Mrs. Centlivre's comedy A bold stroke for a wife (1717), who is impersonated by another character during part of the play." So "the real SIMON PURE" is the genuine article, not a fake. At least one on-line dictionary suggests that the phrase might also be used derisively, to mean "superficially or hypocritically virtuous." Do people use this expression nowadays, or even know it? Yes, I'm talking to you.

Speaking of "Odd Couple," Christina ROSSETTI (9D: "Goblin Market" poet Christina), meet Horatio ALGER (41A: Author of "Jed, the Poor House Boy"). She writes wistful sonnets, and he exhorts boys to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.

The SW was where I made my last stand, and after my first pass through the Across clues, it was still wide open. But 49D: Chesterfield, e.g. (sofa) - everything I know about furniture I learned from the NYT Crossword - gave me the first letters of all the longish answers down there, 51D: Bleu parts of French maps (mers) [sacré bleu, more French] gave me their third letters, and everything fell from there. Really liked Jackie Robinson's number getting the fully written-out treatment: 59A: Jackie Robinson wore it (forty-two) (which also marks the strange, strange return to the puzzle of the number "42" (see Tuesday's puzzle)).

Wrong Fill

• CALVIN for ARMANI -1A: Big name in menswear and cologne
• REVELLED (?) and then CAVILLED (!?!?!) for CAVORTED - 38D: Made merry

(More) Stuff I Didn't Know

• 12D: Son of Ramses I (Seti) - sure, OK, whatever you say
• 8D: It's to the left of # (Oper.) - this is on a telephone keypad, right? Did not know that. Kept looking at my own computer keyboard and seeing only "@" and "2"
• 37D: Group whose 1946 song "The Gypsy" was #1 for 13 weeks (Ink Spots) - not THE INK SPOTS? Worst band name ever.
• 20D: Harvard's motto (veritas) - I pieced this together easily enough, but didn't know it, exactly. Pretty pompous motto.

Hot Fill

• 16A: Fit of rage (apoplexy) - one of the greatest words to grace the grid in a while
• 5D: Not very potent potable (Near Beer) - great, Jeopardy-esque clue with super-fresh answer

Given that 7A: Sticking points (morasses) crossed with 7D: Kind of nest (mare's) in the NE, I'm really surprised I didn't have trouble there. APOPLEXY is up there too. That corner is all bark and no bite ... and 99 44/00 Awesome.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Note on Today's NY SUN puzzle

Solving time: 14:06

This puzzle warrants mentioning for some fabulous fill, including 1A: Lila Crane portrayer in "Psycho" (Vera Miles), 32D: Alternative to Golden Crinkles (Tater Tots), 38D: She played Prue on "Charmed" (Shannen), and the very very best answer of 'em all, 14: Simpsonian institution (Kwik-E-Mart). Who Needs the Kwik-E-Mart!? I dooooooooooooo. This puzzle is also awesome because I got to use my knowledge of the fabulous but rarely seen word "ecdysiast" (41D: Is an ecdysiast (strips)) and because I got to use recently acquired obscure TV knowledge in answering 45D: Ralph of "The Waltons" (Waite). I'm also a big fan of the DIME NOVEL (17A: Early paperback) if not, at all, a big fan of REBA (20A: Sitcom title character with the last name Hart).

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MONDAY, Jan. 1, 2007 - Randy Sowell

Solving time: 5:32

THEME: BOWLS (39A) - four theme entries are all two-word phrases, the first word of which is also the title of a College Football Bowl Game: ROSE GARDEN (3D), ORANGE CRUSH (53A), COTTON CANDY (21A), and SUGAR SHACK (30D)

I just spent an hour tearing up my house trying to find a stupid little piece of paper - I was unsuccessful. So I feel like I am losing my mind, which is always a good way to start the New Year. In order to mellow out, I decided I'd do the puzzle (somehow it always surprises me when Monday's puzzle appears so early on Sunday evening - you'd think I'd be used to it by now). And I can't say doing the puzzle relaxed me (I'm never happy if I'm over 5 minutes), but it sure took my mind off my early-onset dementia. The piece of paper itself is totally replaceable - it's just the idea that I would lose something that drives me Crazy. There are few things I hate more than losing things. I thought Crosswords were supposed to Sharpen your mental faculties. Where is the payoff!?

1A: Mrs. Dithers of the comics (Cora)

Man, not knowing 1A on a Monday is just a horrible feeling. And I'm supposed to Know Something about comics. Ugh. Um, this woman is Dagwood Bumstead's boss's wife, which I deem obscure, thereby eliminating my state of self-loathing for blanking on this answer. For future reference, [Red Sox infielder] will do the job for CORA. Or did they trade him? Nope, he's signed through 2008, despite his crappy batting statistics.

9A: County, in Britain (shire)

Why didn't I know this right off the bat? Probably because I try to put all Hobbit / LOTR-related things far, far out of my mind whenever possible. Again, a better clue (for my sensibilities) would be [Actress Talia].

25A: "It's not easy _____ green" (bein')

No "g," eh? OK. I nearly went past this one, thinking "BEING is five letters," but then the thought of clipping the word, hick-style, occurred to me, and I decided, rightly, to risk it. The greenness here is synesthetically echoed in the SW by 59A: Cape _____ Islands (Verde). I like that VERDE is sitting just under the ORANGE in ORANGE CRUSH, as ORANGE is my favorite color, while VERDE is my wife's.

33D: President before Taylor (Polk)

Everything I know about James K. Polk can be found right here.

53D: "Metamorphoses" poet (Ovid)

I don't have anything particular to say about Ovid (whom I love, as you know), but since he's here, I thought, why not add a little light to your lives, and this new year, by giving you a little taste of his genius. One of the great things about "Metamorphoses" is the opening Creation story, which has many many Biblical parallels, including God (Jove) going all Wrath and Vengeance on the stupid, wicked human beings. Like Lycaon (whom Jove has just turned into a wolf, the poem's first metamorphosis), humankind is greedy and self-worshiping and needs to be taken down. Or out. So like the Hebrew God, Jove, after toying with the idea of fire, brings down a world-destroying flood. "So now Jove set his mind to the deletion / Of these living generations" The translation is from Ted Hughes, and I love Hughes's modern phrasing, as well as his wickedly effective capacity for understatement. "Deletion," like Jove is going to wipe out humanity with his keyboard. His rendering of the final lives of Ovid's flood story are (like all good poetry) truly horrifying:

Birds grow tired of the air.
The ocean, with nowhere else to go,
Makes its bed in the hills,
Pulling its coverlet over bare summits.

While starvation picks off the survivors.

Drowned mankind, imploring limbs outspread,
Floats like a plague of dead frogs.

5D: Like many evangelicals (reborn)

Hmmm, I guess this is right. "Born again" is the more common phrase, but the gist of the meaning is the same. According to Wikipedia, there are Lots of different meanings for REBORN. Here is my favorite.

14A: Breakfast chain (IHOP)
2D: "Gone With the Wind" surname (O'Hara)

IHOP wants into the Pantheon. What a coincidence - I want into IHOP, nearly every day of my life. I'm not sure why I didn't kick off the New Year this morning by eating my way under the table at IHOP. Maybe this weekend. I like that my favorite restaurant chain intersects with one of my very favorite authors - two of my favorite authors, actually. I know it's clued to GWTW, but O'HARA to me means John (novelist) and Frank (poet), unrelated except in their greatness. John wrote novel after novel about the habits, mores, and rituals of Eastern Pennsylvanians - I know that doesn't sound hot, but the guy has the sharpest eye for detail and the sharpest ear for dialogue and I could open nearly any one of his novels at random and start reading, with pleasure. Frank O'HARA was a major mid-century poet who was very very involved in the modern art scene in Manhattan (friends with De Kooning, among others). He died in a freak dune buggy accident on Fire Island. It's true. Like you'd want that on your obit. Anyway, his poems are gorgeous, if often hard to make sense of. Best of all, he was obsessed with and wrote many poems about the color ORANGE:

Frank O'Hara, "Having A Coke With You" (1960)

is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluoresent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I'm with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o'clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles

and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them

I look

at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it's in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven't gone to yet so we can go together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn't pick the rider as carefully
as the horse

it seems they were all cheated of some marvellous experience

which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I am telling you about it

Happy 2007, everyone.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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