TUESDAY, Mar. 6, 2007 - Paula Gamache

Solving time: 5:30 (on paper)
THEME: 50A: "You're on!" ... and a hint to answering the seven starred clues ("It's a deal!") - each of seven starred clues is a phrase beginning with a word that describes a kind of DEAL, e.g. 42A: *What the nouveau riche have (new money) ["New Deal"] and 37D: *Words after "Been there" ("done that") ["Done Deal"]

[late addendum - this is what I get for typing the grid in on Across Lite and not at the NYT applet (which checks my work): I accidentally reproduced my initial mistake of BLUR for BLOB at 1A. My apologies]

Not my favorite theme style, and the theme clues and answers felt a little weak at times, but Ms. Gamache got a surprisingly large number of DEALS into the grid, which was amusing: liked BUM, RAW, DONE, and NEW - but FAIR, BIG, and GOOD are kind of lackluster. Rest of the puzzle was easy, with a few exceptions. Today's commentary is very short, because it's colder than Satan's balls here in far upstate NY (and if you've read Inferno, you know how cold that is) and so everyone BUT ME gets to stay home from school. ERGO (51D: As a result), there's too much to be attended to for me to be sitting here for any significant period of time whining / gushing about crosswords this morning. Alas.

1A: Out-of-focus image, say (blob) - I would not "say" this. I would (and did) "say" BLUR, which is a far more reasonable answer. The BLOB is a creature from a horror movie starring Steve McQueen.

44A: Commotions (hoohas) - I have to challenge! And to say that for a word that is (as one commenter recently noted) slang for "vagina," this word is getting far too much face time (!!?). I was trying to cram BROOHAHA in there (which, by the way, is not something you want to do to your HOOHA - am I right, ladies?) - I'm making myself laugh this morning, at any rate.

It's a bit lame that we have two words for "commotion" in today's puzzle; first ADO (8D: Hubbub - how many silly words is too many for one puzzle!?) and then HOOHAS. Adding to the lameness is the presence of HOOHAS less inbred but still ugly cousin, HAHAS (55A: Laughs).

50D: Chain restaurant with a blue roof (IHOP) - do I like IHOP because it's in the crossword so much, or do I like crosswords because they are so full of IHOP. Scientists will be able to tell us, someday. All I know is that on Saturday, Mar. 24, I plan to be writing at least part of my blog from the Stamford, CT IHOP. Gotta procure a laptop with wifi capabilities AND a digital camera for easy uploading of the many IHOP photos I will surely take.

26D: Patty Duke's son Sean (Astin) - Wow. I did not know this. I mean, I got this easily, but I never put his ASTIN and her former Patty Duke ASTIN together. Live and learn. ASTIN was a hobbit:


36A: Sport of horse racing, with "the" ("turf") - ??? New to me. You play football on TURF. You might order "Surf and TURF" at your local steakhouse eatery family fun place. I guess that since horse racing, like boxing, is a totally dated and unexciting non-sport, I'm just not up on the lingo. I do like horse racing and boxing when they are featured in films noirs. Otherwise, meh. Speaking of film noir, I do like SHIV (11D: Switchblade, slangily) as a word, in general.

9D: *Cutting it can bring tears to the eyes (raw onion)
22A: Martini garnishes (olives)

I nearly cried foul here when, on seeing the initial "O" in 22A, I thought "they're gonna cross RAW ONION with ONIONS!? Is that legal?!" No, it isn't. Not sure why my mind went to ONIONS and not the far more common OLIVES? Maybe precisely because of the proximity of RAW ONION. I take OLIVES in my martinis, for the record, in case anyone is thinking of buying me a drink at Stamford - and if you're not thinking of it, well, you should.

37A: Subject of the 2004 biopic "Beyond the Sea" (Darin)
38A: Teri of "Young Frankenstein" (Garr)

I leave you with these two puzzle neighbors, both of whom I love love love. "More" by Bobby Darin is one of the most perfect popular songs ever - makes me instantly happy. And Teri GARR, as you know if you've been reading me long, is a long-time celebrity crush of mine. So so cute and funny. I learned something about speed solving today, and that is, it can make you a very bad reader of clues. I took one glance at 37A, saw "sea" in the title, figured it was something about sailing or a shipwreck or something nautical, and immediately moved on. If I'd taken a Friday approach and actually thought for two seconds, it would have been a gimme. Take us out, Bobby.

"More than the greatest love the world has known / This is the love that I give to you alone"

Etc.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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SUNDAY, Mar. 4, 2007 - Randolph Ross

Solving time: untimed - but like every puzzle this week, it seems, this one was on the easy side
THEME: "You Can Look It Up" - 63A: Dictionary source for each asterisked clue in this puzzle (Random House Unabridged)

I feel as if I am tempting fate by remarking on the easiness of recent puzzles. I'm sure this means that I'll get eaten alive by the Wednesday puzzle this week. Still, things have been pretty smooth sailing lately. Maybe I'm just getting better and the puzzle difficulty doesn't really need tweaking. I should develop a difficulty level rating system, ranging from PWN3D (easiest) to NO MAS (hardest). I guess these are based on things one might exclaim on completing (or, perhaps, in the case of NO MAS, not completing) the puzzle. I need words for levels of difficulty in between. Suggestions appreciated.

This theme ruled, IMOO. Oh, in case it's not clear, all clues have answers that relate to the placement of the clue's word or phrase in the RANDOM HOUSE UNABRIDGED dictionary, and those answers are themselves familiar phrases. The first theme clue sets this up - 23A: *Where to find para in the dictionary (one below par) - and subsequent themed clues just have ellipses, implying an extension of the 23A "para" question to later words, e.g. 46A: *... Hancock ... (beforehand). Just the sight of RANDOM HOUSE UNABRIDGED running across the length of the middle of the puzzle give me happy feelings. It is true that once you got the theme, you could at least get the beginning part of most of the asterisked clues pretty easily - and yet the cleverness of the whole endeavor, complete with 180-degree rotational symmetry for all asterisked answers, made solving the puzzle a pleasure.

[took a two-hour break for pancakes and for showing a couple of first-graders who's the boss of Crazy 8's]

58A: "The Man Who Knew Too Much" actress, 1934 (Edna Best)

This puzzle got a little sticky at the end, and this answer was one of the reasons. I had EDNA B-S-, and thought it could be BUSH or BEST. Even the "S" was tentative because I didn't really like WHISH (43D: Rustling sound) - SWISH or WHOOSH seemed more appropriate answers. Further, if it was BEST, which it was, the E gave me EMS for 60D: Modem termini? which I did not understand, primarily because the clue appeared (on paper) to be [Modern termini?]. In case you don't understand the clue/answer, "termini" are end points, and "modem" begins and ends with the letter "m" - thus "modem termini" are m's, written out here as EMS. To add to my problems in the Utah region of this puzzle, I did not know who 70A: Actress Kimberly of "Close to Home" (Elise) was - I don't even know what "Close to Home" is (a newish TV drama?). All of these problems might have been taken care of sooner than later if I'd only been able to see 44D: Broad, in a way (ear-to-ear)! When you are thinking a one- or two-word answer, EAR-TO-EAR is quite inscrutable, I assure you.

More stuff I didn't know

57D: Mallard cousins (widgeons)

A widget crossed with a pigeon gets you ... these birds! The word "mallard" always makes me think of this guy, so divorced from nature and immersed in the world of comics am I. I had a little trouble in this little puzzle thoroughfare - the one connecting Virginia with western Tennesse - because of both this answer and the parallel 56D: Take _____ (swing hard) [a rip], which I had as A CUT. It took me far too long to put in FRI for 62A: When "Dallas" aired for most of its run: Abbr. because the "C" from A CUT was where the "R" from A RIP should have been. For a while, I thought the "Dallas" clue might be referring to a time of day ... (9pm?).

76A: Volga feeder (Oka)

Aargh, Revenge of the European Rivers!

77A: Fashion designer Saab (Elie)

Memo to self - commit this dude's name to memory, as you have been busted by him before, and his name is so crossword-friendly that is bound to appear again and again.

11A: _____ II razor (Trac)

OK, I shave, with a razor, and I watch TV, so between the two of those activities, why did I not get this instantly. I blithely wrote in MACH. Then when that proved untenable, TECH. Stupid made-up hard-C advertising names.

109D: Kind of lane (HOV)

Heard of these, but we didn't have them in CA when I was growing up, or if we did, I didn't know. We had diamond / carpool lanes. There is a Jay-Z song (perhaps many) wherein he refers to himself as HOV. I can't explain, but this guy can. Officially, the term refers to "High-Occupancy Vehicle." I would like to add to my street cred by name-dropping not only Jay-Z but DRU Hill (78A: _____ Hill, R&B group), which was a gimme for me. I may even have a DRU Hill song on my iTunes, on one of my MTV dance compilations. Perhaps I should stop now before this gets any more embarrassing. OK, I just changed the music on iTunes from the very hip Decembrists to the very rump-shaking DRU Hill, specifically "In My Bed." I believe the chorus references "Goldilocks and the 3 Bears": "Somebody's sleepin' in my bed / Messin' with my head..."

Literary Training Pays Off (somewhat)

47D: Old mythological work (Edda)
53A: Like some Keats works (odic)

OK, that second one is an adjectival groaner, but I like that these answers are both quaintly literary and intersecting. I had EPOS for EDDA at first. That clue in four letters could also accommodate SAGA.

62D: Monastic title (Fra)

Know this only from the Robert Browning poem "Fra Lippo Lippi," which is also the name of a Norwegian synth/pop band.

55A: Rival of Cassio (Iago)

Ooh I sadly tanked this one. I was thinking of watch brands (or keyboard brands), not Shakespeare characters. Turns out that CASIO the electronics brand is spelled, well, like that.

Final Thoughts

"I ain't fer it, I'm AGIN it!" (50D: Votin' no on) - I just like quoting Abraham Simpson any chance I get, even if it means repeating the same quote I used last time AGIN was in the puzzle. Some answers I admire include:

DAS BOOT (84A: 1981 German-language hit film)
CRAP GAME (71A: Shooting match?)
DOOFUS (1D: Pinhead) - I can't see this answer enough; really really love all the words my sister might have called me when I was a teenager (or ... now, I guess)
BRALESS (85D: Without support, in a way) - [!]
LESAGE (24D: Writer of "Gil Blas") - OK, I don't exactly like this, I'm just dead curious about who the hell this guy is, as he's been in many of my puzzles lately; whoa, 18th century! Old School.

OK, must lunch, then walk in woods (as it's FINALLY warm enough to do so without physical pain), then prep for my teaching week.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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FRIDAY, Mar. 2, 2007 - Eric Berlin

Solving time: untimed - not hard (but super-fun)

THEME: paired answers aplenty (or, none)

This was a great, lively, entertaining puzzle - challenging in parts (I kinda had to guess one of the crossings) but characterized less by its difficulty than by its astonishingly varied and vivid vocabulary. As I did my initial post-puzzle annotations, I noticed a lot of answers that mirrored or echoed or otherwise complemented each other, which is one of the features I like most to see in "unthemed" puzzles - makes the grid feel like an organic whole rather than a bunch of fancy and unfancy words just taking up space. I'll start with the complementary answer sets, and then move on to individual observations about some of the more noteworthy fill.

31A: What two zeroes after a dot may mean (no cents)
35A: Big bills (C-notes)

These two sit one atop the other in the "Kentucky" or "Fort Knox" portion of the grid, and they make a great tweedle-dee and tweedle dum. The fact that they share many letters is also hot. What's particularly great about NO CENTS is that it has its little partnership with C-NOTES here, but also has a little thing going on the side with 32D: It's to the left of a dot (one's place), which intersects NO CENTS at the "O." So the money part of NO CENTS is brought out by C-NOTES, and the decimally part of NO CENTS is brought out by ONE'S PLACE. Synergy!

15A: Box to check on a form (sex)
47A: Blue prints? (smut)

Nice. I also like how CHASTE (2D: Pure) is way on the other side of the puzzle from SEX and SMUT. If only SECY (56A: Certain asst.) had been SEXY. Actually, that would have been a little repetitive. Never mind. Speaking of SECY.

56A: Certain asst. (secy.)
44D: Some assistants (stenos)

Office party! I feel a short story coming on:

Bob had eyes for his SECY., TERI (26A: Polo of "Meet the Fockers"), whom he'd chosen from among the many STENOS in the company pool. Bob got a little drunk at the office party and made a PASS (41A: Object of scout's search) at TERI - he had decided to ACCOST (1A: Waylay) her and convince her to go somewhere private with him, but his pickup LINE (48A: Play bit) was lewd, which offended TERI. After uttering a deeply ironic "AH, BLISS" (36D: Words of contentment), TERI told Bob he was A DIME A DOZEN (53A: Common and cheap). 'Plus,' she said, 'you've got TUNA SALAD (6D: Sandwich filler) on your chin.' Bob, humiliated, tried to force himself on TERI, saying, 'Don't be a HATER (38A: One not pure of heart), baby.' TERI, acting quickly, grabbed a nearby spork and proceeded to STAB (22A: Try) Bob in the throat, just above his COLLAR (3D: Arrest). Bob pulled out the spork, but seeing his own blood, he passed out, his head smacking hard against a file cabinet on his way to the floor. TERI did not hang around to see if Bob would ever COME TO (57A: Snap out of it).

~FIN~

More pairs

RANCOR

38A: One not pure of heart (hater)
40D: Other side (enemy)

SWEETS

45A: Alcohol-laced cookie (brandy snap)
17D: Dessert garnish (cinnamon stick) - these intersect!

RELIGION

18A: Protestant denom. (Bap.)
20A: Like some church matters (laical)

A triad:

FRENCH

52A: Here, over there (ici) on top of...
55A: French pronoun (ses) across the grid from...
43D: France's F.B.I., formerly (Sureté)

And a last quartet:

OLDE TYME CRYME (and its lingo)

33A: 1978-80 F.B.I. sting that forced a U.S. senator to resign (ABSCAM) - the puzzle's second F.B.I. clue!?
39A: Boss for agents Youngfellow and Rossi (Ness)
3D: Arrest (collar)
35A: Big bills (C-notes)

Other noteworthy fill:

• 7A: Object of ailurophobia (cat) - add it to the list of words I learned from crosswords ("ailurophobia," that is - not CAT)
• 26A: Polo of "Meet the Fockers" (Teri) - I've said many times now that she is the crossword "It Girl," and here she is again, proving her point. Lena OLIN (14A: "Hollywood Homicide" actress, 2003) is here to show TERI that she will not be relegated to the ashcan of actress-answer history. EERO (37A: First name in architecture) is here just to show everyone he's not dead yet. Puzzle-wise, that is.
• 16A: TV show that earned Jane Wyman a Golden Globe ("Falcon Crest") - 80's! I'd forgotten Reagan's ex was in this.
• 10D: Rocker with the 1981 triple-platinum "Diary of a Madman" (Osbourne) - gimme gimme gimme; despite its utter literalness, this is perhaps my favorite clue in the puzzle
• 27A: Archaeological handle (ansa) - wtf!? One of the only answers in this grid (see also SURETÉ) that I'd never heard of before. Here's another:
• 5D: Adaptable aircraft (stol) - seriously, that does not look like a word at all
• 33D: Misers' feelings (avarices) - you can pluralize this!?!? Only in hell, I say, which is where you will surely be if you do not give up your avariciousnesses.
• 4D: Dungeons & Dragons beast (orc) - pass me the icosahedron so I can see how much damage my cleric inflicted on this baby with his mace!

That is all. Seacrest, out.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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MONDAY, Feb. 26, 2007 - Peter A. Collins

Solving time: 4:36 (on paper)

THEME: THE HIDDEN AGENDA - 55A: What conspiracy theorists look for (as hinted at by 17-, 25- and 42-Across) - each of three 15-letter theme answers has six squares with circles in them, and when the theme answer is filled in correctly, the circle-squares spell out the word AGENDA

Very clever theme, and because of the weird manner in which I generally solved the puzzle (NW to NE to SE to SW, in a "Z" shape), I got the theme key answer before any of the actual theme answers were filled in, allowing me to go and fill in all the circled squares before I'd even looked at their crosses. My time is slower than it has been the past couple of weeks, but this is certainly the fastest I've ever solved on paper, so I feel OK.

Congratulations to Jennifer Hudson and Helen Mirren on winning Oscars last night. I really loved all the discussion (and the song!) about how Hot Helen Mirren is. Smoking. Seriously. God I love her. For once I actually saw some of the movies and performances that were awarded Oscars. Dreamgirls was just an OK movie ... except for the times JHud and Eddie Murphy were on screen, when it was Awesome. I generally have fond feelings for Melissa Etheridge, but my god her song was Boring and I can't believe it beat the Dreamgirls songs - those performances were by far the most exciting part of the night - the most exciting non-Helen-Mirren-related part, at any rate.

6A: Cub Scout group (den)

Well, of course. Yet wrote in BSA (Boy Scouts of America), a very common crossword abbreviation. I should have known that the word "Scout" in the clue pretty much precluded the answer from having the "S" from "Scout" in it, but it's a Monday puzzle and I'm not stopping to think things through. Still, this little hiccup cost me a little bit of time, as my error sat there until the Very End.

1D: E-mail offer of $17,000,000.00, e.g. (scam)
21A: Old punch line? (scar)
48D: Dagger wound (stab)

SCAR + STAB = SCAB; OK that equation makes no sense, but I can tell you that I got hung up on SCAR and STAB because I wanted both to be SCAB at various points. It's kind of weird how close, spelling-wise, all these knife-fight-related words are. In the end, the closest thing, spelling-wise, to SCAB in the puzzle was SCAM, which is nicely clued here. A fun gimme.

32A: One of the Astaires (Adele)

An old crossword standby. I should put her on the shortlist for next year's Pantheon induction. Still, I have no idea who she is or what relation she is to Fred. Time to find out. She was Fred's older sister, and they had a Vaudeville act together when they were both young (when she was more famous than he). Read this - it's pretty interesting.

48A: "La Nausée" novelist (Sartre)
43D: Rolle who starred in "Good Times" (Esther)

This is the reason I love crosswords. Where else in the world (besides the classroom, on occasion) would my love of depressing French philosophy and my love of 1970's sitcoms ever meet? There is an entire term paper to be written on the relationship of these two clues, I'm sure. Speaking as someone who has to grade lots of papers, I can tell you that a paper on existentialism in "Good Times" would be something I'd set aside to read last. To savor. Here is what the title of that paper would be, were it being presented on a panel at the annual MLA conference: "From Jean-Paul to J.J., or, No Exit from the Ghetto without Dyn-O-Mite!: Theories of Selfhood in the Post-War West."

51A: "Star Wars" guru (Yoda)
41A: C-3PO, for one ('droid)

[ahem] .... NERD! (anytime anyone violates the "no more than one Star Wars clue per puzzle" rule, I have to shout "NERD!" - just so you know, for future reference)

9D: Last part (tail end)
30D: Untagged, in a game (not it)

Nothing much to say about these, except that I liked them - fun, lively, colloquial, multi-worded - everything that good fill should be, and particularly appreciated in a Monday puzzle.

14A: Chili con _____ (carne)
60A: Spanish hero played by Charlton Heston (El Cid)

I just like that these two answers have 180-degree rotational symmetry. Remember that part in EL CID where he douses the Moors with chili con CARNE? Me either, but it would have made a great scene.

19D: Some blenders (Osters)
40D: Old gold coins (florins)

These answers genuinely gave me pause, and I entered them only tentatively, when I had just the first letter or so of each. I was very happy when they both panned out. On Mondays, I'll tend to send a longish answer out into the void much more readily than I will on other days, since on Mondays, my gut feelings about words tend to be much more accurate than on later days of the week.

Off to do the NY Sun puzzle. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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SUNDAY, Feb. 25, 2007 - David J. Kahn

Solving time: mid-high 20's

THEME: "Comic Relief" - All the long theme answers begin with the last name of an OSCAR (67A: With 56-Down, start of eight answers in this puzzle) EMCEE, e.g. 15D: Birding capital of New Zealand (2006) (Stewart Island) - the parenthetical year(s) after the clue = year(s) that the OSCAR EMCEE in question, in this case STEWART, hosted the OSCARs.

I own a book of David J. Kahn baseball crosswords, which I keep by my bedside and enjoy quite a bit. They are of medium difficulty and every one has a baseball theme and lots of baseball fill. Fun. Today's puzzle: not as fun. Or rather, very fun in parts, dismal in others - the bad parts are only partly blamable on the puzzle, to be fair. I have never been so stuck, with so much of the puzzle left open, on a Sunday before - not in recent memory, anyway; for a host of reasons, the earth was scorched from an epicenter somewhere around the area now occupied by DESSERTS (87A: Display on a tray) and extending out about an inch to two inches in all directions. So the problem had its center somewhere around the "Missouri" region of the puzzle, but ripple effects were felt all over. If I could blame one clue for the entire problem, what would it be? Hmmm, let's see. No, it's really a team effort, so here's the team:

24D: Company that merged with Lockheed in 1995 (2001, 2003) (Martin-Marietta)
88D: Transitional land zone (ecotone)
101A: Court grp. (NBA)

I have never heard of MARTIN-MARIETTA. Lockheed-MARTIN is a major employer in the area of the country where I live, and I know Steve MARTIN hosted the OSCARs, so the MARTIN part, no problem. The MARIETTA part ... ???? Nope, not in my ken at All. So why not just get the crosses? OK, the big problem there was that MARIETTA runs parallel for five letters with 73D: Western capital (1979-82, 1984) (Carson City) - which I swear I only just now realized was a theme answers! - and I couldn't see it at all. First, I didn't know if "Western" meant Western U.S. or "Western" the way most first-world countries are deemed "Western," or what. Second, and more importantly, is the tiny 101A: Court grp., which at three letters I thought was a cinch to be ABA. But no, it's a stupid trick clue (the kind that makes me say "@#$# you" out loud to no one in particular), and the actual answer involves basketball players, not lawyers. That one-letter mistake (A for N) took the N out of CARSON CITY, keeping me in the dark for minutes longer than I should have been. As for ECOTONE ... whatever! It's a word. I looked it up. But it sounds like a synthetic compound, or else a ringtone for your phone that plays sounds of the rainforest or something. Not thrilled about ECO (48A: "Baudolino" novelist) and ECOTONE being in the same puzzle, either. MARIETTA, ECOTONE, and CARSON CITY = a lot of empty neighboring squares = work for me. The little crosses and neighboring parallels were not self-evident, either. Did not know that CRIBs were defined by their mobility (83D: Mobile home?) - Oh, I just got it. You hang a "mobile" over a crib. Nevermind. Ugh. We have a mobile - why? - hanging from our hallway ceiling upstairs. There is no CRIB there. If you have ever watched MTV, then you know that CRIB is just slang for an ordinary, stationary home. So I was confused on many fronts. Then there was 83A: Abbr. after Lincoln or Kennedy (Ctr.), which seems fine when you look at it, but when you've got three blank squares, it's not so easy. Scratch that: when you have ONE blank square, it's not so easy - I had -TR and thought for many moments that the answer might be STR., as in "I live on Lincoln STR." Yeah, it was that bad for me. The worst answer of the night, though ... well, it was close. In second place, we have

9D: Florida's _____ Trail (Tamiami)

So much Florida geography this week! We aren't all retirees!! I've never heard of this so-called "Trail" and the answer reads like a cruel joke, in that it has recognizable Florida fill (MIAMI) inside it. I thought LA MIAMI .... but no. No No No. And the winner for worst answer of the grid:

94A: Code word (dah)

The very last square I filled in was the "D" in this answer, and I did so with absolute uncertainty. Ironically, my first thought was Morse Code, but wouldn't that be DASH? What is DAH?!?!?! The only good part about this answer is that it's one letter off from D'OH, which I know to be an actual word, and was what I found myself saying a lot while trying to solve this puzzle. DAH is how the DASH in Morse Code is written out in English. Because DASH is already taken??? It's a real word. It just Sux. The very worst part - and this wound is entirely self-inflicted, nobody's fault but mine - is that when I went to check my grid at the applet, I kept getting rejected, and I was certain the D in DAH was to blame, and I went over and over ways that I could make it different - then plugged in literally every letter in the alphabet into that slot. When that didn't work, it began to dawn on me that I might have other errors. But a scan of all the Acrosses turned up only valid fill. So I could Not get a grid accepted by the applet forEver. Eventually, instead of just checking all the Acrosses, I checked all the Downs, and found DEAR SSNTA instead of DEAR SANTA (11D: Opening in the North Pole?). Sadly, that wrong "S" gave me an Across of TSE, which is so Pantheonic that I hadn't blinked at it when I'd scanned the Acrosses earlier. The actual, weirder-looking answer is TAE (39A: Inventor's inits.). So I actually had the puzzle filled in correctly on paper, but wasted 20+ minutes trying to get my grid accepted by the applet because of a simple typo.

I'm running on too long this a.m., so just a few more quick observations before I close things out. Here's some stuff I liked:

• 4D: Popular Bach work for keyboard (1994, 1996, 1999, 2002) (Goldberg Variations) - This work sits near the top of my iTunes "Playlists," and it's beautiful - always nice to have a gigantic gimme in the puzzle. How many times does Whoopi have to host the OSCARs before people finally realize it's not a good idea. Four non-consecutive terms, come on! Nobody should get that many chances. To her credit, she made fun of herself very effectively on "30 Rock" lately.
• 29D: Words from Pope's "An Essay on Man" (1940, 1942-43, 1960-62, 1965-68, 1978) ("Hope springs eternal") - "... in the human breast." Another huge gimme, even before I knew the theme of the puzzle. Damn, HOPE hosted a lot!
• 43A: Ecdysiast Blaze and others (Starrs) - I just love the word "ecdysiast!" So much classier than "stripper."
• 23A: First mate's greeting? (Madam, I'm Adam) - easily my favorite answer of the night. Palindrome! I got it right away - one of the few harmonious wavelength moments I had all night.
• 52A: Year Constantine the Great became emperor (CCCVI) - I thought it was CCCIII, but whatever, I knew the century, at least, which really really helped take care of the "Oregon" section of the grid.

More crap I didn't know, or barely knew, or generally said "ugh" to for some reason

• 1A: Stick used to swat flies (fungo) - here I've been calling it a "fly swatter" all these years; what a chump - think of all the syllables I could have saved if I'd only known.
• 32A: Actors Max and Max Jr. (Baers) - pulled this from somewhere, but this last name is like LAHR (of Cowardly Lion fame) in that the only part that's solid in my head is the "R."
• 62A: 1970's HUD secretary Hills and namesakes (Carlas) - man that is a Long way to go for a CARLA.
• 65A: C8H8 (styrene) - ugh, chemistry. Not my strong suit.
• 97A: Old computer (Tandy) - A beloved actress ... and she can do your taxes!? I hate to tell you, though, that she's not just OLD, she's dead.
• 45D: Sirtaki dancer in a 1964 movie (Zorba) - way to hide the fat Greek guy inside a sultry Japanese woman (that's what a "Sirtaki dancer" looked like in my head before reality came crashing in)

And for your and my edification, here is a map showing where the ARAL SEA is (91D: Waters fed by the Amu Darya):


According to this article, the ARAL SEA will kill us all (in fact, should have done so already). Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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TUESDAY, Feb. 20, 2007 - Jonathan Gersch

Solving time: just over 8 (on paper)

THEME: SIDNEY POITIER (47A: Actor born Feb. 20, 1927) - lots of theme answers related to "47A"

Happy Birthday, Sidney Poitier. You are a fine actor. That said, I hated this puzzle. I mean, viscerally. I resented it. This was Thursday-hard for me, with many answers I didn't know or had never heard of. Also, there is some crap cluing. I actually froze and had that free-fall feeling that usually occurs only in Thursday+ puzzles. Thoroughly unpleasant. Old people will probably have loved it, as POITIER's career will have reminded them of their youth. Me, no. No no no. Would have liked it, Maybe, on a Thursday. Today, just rotten.

Luckily for you (and me), I have no time to write extensively on a Tuesday morning, so just the highlights (or lowlights).

• 1A: _____ Island, Bahamas, boyhood home of 47A (Cat) - right away, I'm annoyed. Never heard of CAT Island. What a stupid name for an island. And I know it's considered a constructing feat to cram in as many theme answers as possible, but could you make them good answers? Thanks.
• 7D: Gallery (loft) - what? WHAT? These are synonymous now? A GALLERY is where I go to see art, and a LOFT is where a farmer puts hay. Or maybe where one lives, if one is a pretentious urbanite.

The following are ALL from the NE section of the grid! (If my initial flat-out guess of REAGAN - 19A: President with an airport named after him - hadn't been right, I think I'd still be working on the NE)

• 8A: Brook sound (murmur) - Brooks BABBLE. They MURMUR only in Wordsworth poems. I resent this stupid trap, especially on a Tuesday. You clearly know who R.E.M is (52A: Michael Stipe's band), so why the @#$#@ couldn't you have clued 8A as [52A's debut album]?????!
• 21A: Autobiography of 47A: ("This Life") - Oh, of course, I read it often. Come on!!!! Again, no offense to Mr. Poitier, but this is rank obscurity - made worse by the fact that 11D: Gift givers (Magi) did not end in "S," as most plurals do, so I had "S" where the "I" in LIFE should have been.
• 16A: Discomfort (unease) - I just hate this word. It's legal, but icky
• 8D: Classic cigar brand (muriel) - Again, what? MURIEL's a lady's name. EL ROPO is better known to me than MURIEL.

So the NE was the worst of all trouble spots in this puzzle for me. Even the stuff I had no problem with, such as 9D: Intl. grp. for which 47A was named an ambassador (UNESCO), seemed a bit recherché for a Tuesday.

More junk:

35A: Computer acronym about faulty data (GIGO) - a distant cousin of the ridiculous "I GO," I presume. Maybe I've heard of this "acronym" somewhere, sometime, but if so, I can't recall. Yuck.
28A: Film starring 47A with a chart-topping title song ("To Sir With Love") - I enjoyed this film, and got this answer quickly. I love the song, which, to complete the R.E.M. (52A) trifecta in this puzzle, was sung (and recorded) live as a duet by Natalie Merchant and R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe at an inaugural celebration for President Clinton in 1993.
44A: Bamako's land (Mali) - whatever you say! This answer intersects the very, very lazy III (40D: Afternoon hour on a sundial) - see yesterday's MLII for a similar crappy use of Roman numerals.
54A: Debut film for 47A ("No Way Out") - does anyone Really know these answers? Or did you have to piece them together from crosses and inference like me!?! NO WAY OUT is a Kevin Costner film, as far as I know.

Here's a cutesy cluing technique I'm not that fond of - clue repetition:

50D: Relative of an ostrich (emu)
59A: Relative of an ostrich (rhea)

When asked what a RHEA is, my wife said, immediately, "It's a kind of a bird that looks a little bit like an ostrich." So somebody's heard of it. Not me. RHEA is the mother of the gods in Greek mythology, as far as I know. I claim that RHEA is Thursday fill, or Tuesday fill if the rest of the fill in the Tuesday grid is normal Tuesday level.

63A: Kind of acid used in bleaches (oxalic) - I give up. Puzzle wins. I cry "uncle." All this odd, off, difficult, yet not exciting fill has worn me down. I'm happy to say, though, per my many discussions of @#$#-ing European rivers, that I nailed OISE (69A: River to the Seine) with just the "O"; no great accomplishment for most people, perhaps, but it felt like a stroke of solving genius compared to most of my efforts in this grid.

I know I'm griping like a guy who couldn't even finish the puzzle, when technically I completed it in a vaguely respectable time. And like I said, most of my griping is a day-of-the-week thing. I have Tuesday expectations - I don't mind a snag or challenge, but solving this puzzle felt like slogging through mud. Possibly the hardest Tuesday puzzle I've done since I started blogging - oh, I take it back. I think the PFUI puzzle was a Tuesday. Maybe Tuesday is just a tricky day to get right - or there's just something wrong with me on Tuesdays. Who knows? Must go.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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MONDAY, Feb. 19, 2007 - Andrea C. Michaels

Solving time: 3:51

THEME: X-Y-X - three-word phrases, wherein the third word is a repetition of the first word, e.g. 20A: 007's introduction (Bond, James Bond)

An easy and rather listless theme, though I do like BOND, JAMES BOND as an answer. Did I mention how great the new Bond is? A very bad HOMBRE (1D: Man of La Mancha). The other two theme answers are:

36A: Embroidered sampler phrase (Home Sweet Home)
54A: Repeatedly (time after time)

For the record, these two answers could have been clued in a way far more entertaining to yours truly, which is to say, via 1980's pop music. Let's see, for 36A, how 'bout [Motley Crüe anthem] and for 54A, [Cyndi Lauper ballad]. If only some some novelty act had recorded a song in the 80's about James Bond, I could have hit the recluing Jackpot.

1A: "Survivor" shelter (hut)

Two things. First of all, I wouldn't call what most of them live in HUTs - HUT implies a far more completed and somewhat less porous structure than anything I've seen on "Survivor." Second, my wife can tell you if I'm correct about HUTS because she is a ... devotee ... of the show. Every season I vow not to get dragged back in to "Survivor" drama, but then inevitably, about mid-season, I'm getting roped in. So far, in this new season, I'm staying strong. But it's probably just a matter of time before it sucks me in and TAINTS (3D: Contaminates) my very soul, once more.

12A: October birthstone (Opal)

Here's something weird. I know this answer because my stepsister's birthday is in October, and for some reason the fact that OPAL was her birthstone has somehow stuck in my head. I could not tell you the birthstone of anyone else in my family. In fact, I'm hard pressed to name any other birthstones. Oooh, I think TOPAZ is one. BERYL? SARD? Seriously, I know birthstones like I know European rivers.

23A: Dustin's role in "Midnight Cowboy"

Really wish I'd actually seen this clue, as I love this movie. I like to say variations on "Hey, I'm walkin' here!" when crossing the street in front of impatient cars, or just generally walking around, anywhere, to whoever will listen. There's a nice little movie pile-up going in the NW, with RATSO just underneath BOND, JAMES BOND and intersecting JODIE (21D: "Panic Room" actress Foster). Speaking of Panic Room, I am very excited to see the new movie by "Panic Room" director [insert name here]: Zodiac. I normally hate serial killer movies, but this one has three great actors in it (Robert Downey, Jr., Jake Gyllenhaal, and Mark Ruffalo), and the movie seems to have a sense of humor, so I'm in. Other "actors" in the puzzle include Britney Spears (10D: Britney Spears's "_____ Slave 4 U" (I'm a) - one of the least savory clues of all time), Gwyneth Paltrow (56D: Gwyneth Paltrow title role (Emma)) and HOMER Simpson (39D: "The Simpsons" dad), star of the upcoming The Simpsons Movie, opening this July. WILLARD was a movie about a creepy rat guy - who is actually much more pleasant to think about than the guy this clue actually references: 38D: Weatherman Scott.

A few more notes before I leave this one alone: 17A: The year 1052 (MLII) is one of the laziest, weakest clues ever. Couldn't you have found some pope or emperor or something to clue it to. It's like you just gave up. I've actually never seen a Roman numeral clued so literally and directly. The Northeast, or "Bangor," section of the grid gave me much grief for a Monday. First of all, AMBIT!?! (7A: Circumference) - that's some fancy fill for a Monday. Had to get several letter from crosses before it ever occurred to me. Second, TOM!?!?! (11D: Mr. Turkey). TOM intersects AMBIT at the "T," so you can see my dilemma. When I saw [Mr. Turkey], my mind went to two places - first, advertising: I thought maybe there was a "Mr. Turkey" the same way there was a "Mr. Coffee" or "Mr. Clean." Second - Bodybuilding! Is there a "Mr. Turkey" the way there's a "Mr. Universe" or whatever? Who is from Turkey who is famous enough to be in a Monday puzzle? Answer: nobody. You call a male turkey a TOM. I am pretty sure that unless you are high or writing a children's book, you do not call him "mister." Hey, speaking of bodybuilding, wasn't Charles ATLAS (50A: Map book) a bodybuilder? Score, nice segue, Rex. The word AURAL (61A: Hearing-related) appears in the advertising literature for an on-campus talk today. Despite the fact that the talk somehow involves the awesome Stevie Wonder song "Livin' for the City," I am not going. That's just the kind of colleague I am: lazy. Actually, when people start subjecting Stevie to the deadening, dehumanizing, and smugly posturing language of contemporary theory ... well that is the kind of BAD DREAM (9D: Nightmare) I could do without. I'm gonna put Stevie on right now, and pay him proper reverence: awed silence, with occasional bouncing to the rhythm. After that, some Dr. DRE (29A: Hip-hop doc?), then maybe a Beethoven OVERTURE (37D: Orchestral intro) just to cool things down, and then full day's work (write read write read write etc.).

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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THURSDAY, Feb. 15, 2007 - Elizabeth Rehfeld

Solving time: 7:30 (give or take a few seconds)

THEME: Broken words - common phrases are clued as if one of their words were in fact two words, e.g. 53A: Bit of mischief that won't be noticed for years? (long-term imp act)

I hope that explanation of the theme is sufficiently clear. It was hard to make it succinct.

This puzzle was Super Easy - usually at least some of the Thursday fill seems to come from outer space, or at least from outside my ken, and yet there is literally nothing troubling or unusual about the non-theme fill today. Maybe a couple of SAT words or AP History terms, but really, all the difficulty (such as there was) was in the theme answers, which took some teasing out, even after I semi-deduced the theme. I did the puzzle in pencil, and I'm pretty sure that's how I'm going to be doing all puzzles from now until the tournament - must hone my paper technique. I timed myself with a bedside digital clock, hence the lack of pinpoint accuracy on my time. But it was 10:29 when I started and 10:36 when I was done, so I figured 7:30 is a reasonable ballpark figure - I started Exactly at 10:29, but I have no idea how long the clock had said 10:36 when I finished. Looking at the times at the applet (NYT website), I did pretty well. Take that, gilknipe and susanlaws! (my imaginary enemies - if you belong to one of these handles, please don't take my taunting seriously. Not very seriously, anyway. I'm sure you are very nice people whom I would like in real life. PS In your face!).

Today's entry will be short - must teach soon. So I will sip my HOT TEA (5D: Traditional cold remedy) - which is now a bit tepid, actually - and make a few observations. If all goes well, some of those observations will be SMART (38D: Clever), or possess some WIT (39D: Cleverness). There are very few clues that I DEEM (43D: Judge) to be ENIGMAS (42D: Knots), but I also didn't hate the puzzle, so at least after reading today's entry (unlike on other days), you won't be able to say "NO MORE (46D: Gone), I'm NEVER (16A: On the 31st of February) going to read that EVIL (14A: Dark side) jerk again. It's all VENOM (58A: Gila monster's defense?) with him. Once again, he had hardly anything nice to say - he just GRIPED (47D: Bellyached)."

21A: Neighbor of Hi and Lois, in the funnies (Irma) - it's one thing to expect me to know who Hi and Lois are, or who their creator is, but it is quite another to expect me to be familiar with their neighborhood. IRMA? Is she friends with CORA Dithers from "Blondie?" The crossword fan in me does not like such relative obscurity - the comics fan in me, on the other hand, loves it. More tertiary characters! This is how I feel about "Simpsons" clues too - stuff involving the core family is good, Apu and Moe are a little better, Disco Stu even better ... but trust me, you can go deeper. LIONEL HUTZ and TROY McCLURE (voiced by the late, great Phil Hartman) beg for greater use.

61A: Gillette of stage and screen (Anita) - how in the World did I know this. I had Only the "T" and, though I wouldn't write it in at first, my first thought was ANITA, and every subsequent cross bore that out. So weird. I swear that as of this moment, I have no idea who she is and could not pick her out of a line-up. Whoa - she's been on "Sex and the City," "C.S.I.," "Trapper John, M.D," and "Quincy." How many people can say that!? Also, she was apparently an occasional panelist on "Match Game"! The nadir of her career appears to be her time as part of the cast of "Normal, OH," a very short-lived (and so-called) comedy about a big fat gay guy, played by John Goodman. Oh, FOX. Will your good ideas never stop...?

Olde Tyme Literature

• 60A: When the shipwreck occurs in "The Tempest" (Act I) - While it took me too long to realize the nature of the answer (I was thinking "Springtime? ... Morn?..."), I remember this shipwreck very, very well. "The Tempest" was one of two Shakespeare plays I read in high school. My teacher was Very old school: we read them so slowly, and so closely, and were held responsible for the smallest details. The exams were legendary, arduous affairs - and I loved them! Nothing like a primarily objective exam to demonstrate your intellectual superiority, I always say. We also got to go to Ashland, OR for their annual Shakespeare festival, where we saw "The Tempest" (and other plays) performed. Mr. Berglund was a fabulous teacher. I just heard that he died a few years back. I heard about this because a high school friend of mine just contacted me to ask if I might possibly be coming to my 20th Reunion! After I cleaned up the tea I spit all over my computer screen on hearing the news that I'd been out of high school that long, I emailed her back and said that in order to get me back to Fresno, Literally Everyone I knew and liked (yes, all four of them) would have to be going. I doubt this will happen. We'll see.
• 52D: Vantage point of Zeus, in Homer (Mt. Ida) - this answer intersects ACT I (above). I thought it was going to be some Greek term I'd never heard of or couldn't remember, because I didn't know any words that ended -IDA. I then remembered that there is a Mount IDA, and that "Mount" could be abbreviated MT. And that was that. Exciting!
• 55D: "Behold," to Cicero ("Ecce") - ECCE HOMO! I just like saying that phrase - I so rarely have occasion to do so.

I should use the appearance of REO (24A: _____ Speedwagon) to tell you all about one of my greatest misheard lyrics (or "mondegreen") experiences of all time. Right up there with "I quest the rains down in Africa!" (by the way, if you Google ["I quest the rains"], the only hit you get is me! Awesome!). From "Keep on Lovin' You," by REO Speedwagon - here are the actual lyrics:

Instead you lay still in the grass
All coiled up and hissing.

And here is what I genuinely believed the lyrics were:

Instead she laid still in the dress,
All coiled up in Houston.

If you go here (and just scroll down, or do a screen search for "hissing") there are many examples of other mishearings of these very lyrics, though I have to say, my mondegreen is best. By the way, in a few days, if you Google ["coiled up in Houston"], you will get two hits - today's entry, and a page from a while back, when my friend Shaun taunted me with the phrase in the Comments section. Rex Parker - bringing the best misheard 80s lyrics to the world. Gotta run - gotta long day ahead of me, including teaching, parent-teacher conference, and then "The Office" and "30 Rock" on the television SKED (63A: Piece of Variety news) tonight.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS I forgot to pay respect to ASTA (66A: Film dog), former Pantheon President, who is just back from helping judge the Westminster Eugenics Compet... I mean the Westminster Dog Show, and making one of his occasional puzzle appearances, as he likes to do. For olde tyme's sake.

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TUESDAY, Feb. 13, 2007 - Nancy Salomon and Harvey Estes

Solving time: 6:13

THEME: Adjective-name phrases, some of which rhyme, some of which alliterate... - e.g. 38A: Hardly a beauty queen (Plain Jane)

This theme is a bit clunky for a number of reasons. The first being ... well, you can tell from the description of the theme, above. GLOOMY GUS (67A: Sourpuss), DAPPER DAN (61A: Natty dresser), and NICE NELLY (21A: Prude) alliterate, while HANDY ANDY (17A: Do-it-yourselfer) and PLAIN JANE rhyme. I see that they are all names that have become generalized expressions for a particular type of person, but I'm not a fan of the non-uniformity. The second reason this theme is off: actually, it's just one answer that is off: NICE NELLY. If I had asked you, before this puzzle, to think of an expression for a kind of person that involved the name NELLY, what would you have said? That's right, you would have said NERVOUS NELLY, which gets four times as many hits when Googled as a complete phrase than NICE NELLY does. My mediocre time today is almost entirely attributable to trouble in the NICE NELLY answer, specifically the "Chicago" portion of the answer (or maybe it's "Evanston," and NICE NELLY attends COLLEGE (11D: Hall locale) at NORTHWESTERN). Even with Pantheon stalwart Brian ENO (22D: Brian of early Roxy Music) in there supporting my efforts, I really really stumbled trying to get NICE into place. The Downs didn't help. I thought that in 7D: Nostalgic number (oldie), "number" actually meant a numeral. Then I thought "nostalgia" must be for a vague time in the past, like the OLDEN days. Ugh. Further, nobody has bought anything COD since the 1970's, so I had PAY NOW for 8D: What you may have to do for goods bought by mail order (pay COD). Again, I don't mind scratching for answers, but when the payoff is the dubious NICE NELLY... I say PFUI.

12D: Lake on the edge of Kazakhstan (Aral Sea)
30A: Wealthy widow (dowager)

These are two of the very few legitimately interesting pieces of fill. I can't believe I'm ... however old I am, and I don't know the technical difference between a "sea" and a "lake." Is the former just a big latter? I love DOWAGER because it makes me think of Marx Brothers movies and Strangers on a Train (the movie, where there is a great scene with Bruno charming a couple of guileless dowagers ... the scene ends with his going off into a kind of trance and nearly strangling one of them right in the middle of a crowded party; it's funny, I swear). I feel as if a "wealthy dowager" has been used to comedic effect on "The Simpsons" too, but I can't remember the scene (and I think whatever it was, it was a reference to a Marx Bros. film).

Pop Culture

• 16A: Bond before Dalton (Moore) - took me forever because I was thinking of a much more recent era. MOORE was the Bond of my childhood, so it pains me to miss this. He was suave. People dis him in relation to Connery, but I always loved Roger MOORE. Watch Octopussy and see why.
• 28A: Ja Rule's genre (rap) - now if JA RULE were the fill, that would be awesome...
• 66A: "The Tempest" spirit (Ariel) - [yawn]
• 69A: Fan mags ('zines) [yawn]
• 70A: Rick's love in "Casablanca" (Ilsa) [zzzzzzz...]

I'm doing a lot of SNIPING (44D: Taking potshots) today - that's some good fill, by the way - but I can't find much to get excited about. There's a lot of tepid, tired fill and not a lot of sizzling bacon action. Even SOLARIA (43D: Sunrooms) is feeling old hat to me today. I guess it beats ATRIA. DAMASK (59A: Reversible fabric) is nice and Shakespearean (to go with ARIEL, I guess). And APEAK (37A: Vertical, at sea) is a word I've never heard of, so that's fresh. But otherwise ... just look around. Lots of familiar faces doing familiar things. Ho + hum. And why is it that ORANGE(S) (47D: Juicy fruits) is getting more action than REX lately!? REX is so much smaller and handier, and yet I feel as if I've seen ORANGE several times since I've last seen REX. Here Rex! Here boy! Where are ya .... boy!? ORANGES intersects BEET (71A: Borscht need), which would be a nasty combination. A nicer combination = ORANGES and PEEL (62D: Banana discard). As for 49D: Learns easily (takes to) - well, it's fair, but do I like it? NYET (73A: Nikita's "no")! I think of TAKES TO as meaning "has an affinity for" or "likes" more than simply "learns." But whatever. I'm done. Off to prep my classes and brace for an impending gigantic NEW YORK (13D: Buffalo's home) snow storm.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS DAPPER DAN has fond memories associated with it for me, as it was the name of a doll that my sister and I played with when we were very small. He was very smiley and soft and dressed in garish 70's colors, as I remember. DAPPER for his day.

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MONDAY, Feb. 12, 2007 - Lynn Lempel

Solving time: 3:50

THEME: "LAST DANCE" (64A: 1978 Donna Summer hit ... or a hint to 18-, 25-, 39- and 56-Across)

Today is officially my fastest solving time ever for an NYT puzzle. I shattered my previous record by something like 30 seconds. The top part of the puzzle felt a little creaky as I was doing it - I was having to jump around a lot, and a number of answers didn't come to me quickly. But by the time I hit the middle of the puzzle, I could do no wrong. I don't think I had to backtrack or correct anything in the bottom half of the puzzle. It felt magical. As I look at the puzzle now, I realized that there are several clues I never saw - thankfully, as they would have slowed me right down. They include 68D: Vardalos of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" (Nia) [ick, even typing that title makes me cringe] and especially 46D: Navy building crew (seabees) - an answer I recognize but could not define. For some reason COPYEDIT (3D: Tweak, as magazine text) gave me a little trouble, despite that it's an activity I have engaged in frequently in my life. The answer that gave me the most trouble was 29D: Ohio college named for a biblical city (Antioch). ANTIOCH was pretty much the turning point, the line in the sand, the beginning of the end, whatever metaphor fits - once it fell, the rest of the puzzle didn't stand a chance.

This is a great Monday puzzle, and not just 'cause I smoked it. The theme is genuinely clever and elegantly expressed. The theme answers all feature DANCEs as their LAST element, though not only do the dances appear in non-dance contexts, but they are buried inside other words. Here they are:

18A: Sharp-toothed Atlantic swimmer (conger eel) => REEL
25A: Overabundance (plethora) => HORA
39A: Doohickey (thingamajig) => JIG
56A: All-time winningest N.F.L. coach (Don Shula) => HULA

If you look closely, you can see other dance words throughout the grid. ROUND (a form of dancing) can be found in GROUNDER (42D: Alternative to a fly ball), and one might dance in a HALL, which can be found in SHALLOW (2D: Not deep). The best non-theme dance answer, though, is surely A TEASE (11D: Relaxed).


Here's a subtheme: Japanese corporations!

9D: Big video game maker (Sega)
31A: Toyota rival (Honda)
26D: Tokyo electronics giant (Toshiba)

Random Thoughts

Lots of olde-timey movie answers in this one, including 17A: Film director Frank (Capra) - that did not come to me instantly, as it should have - 20A: Ron of Tarzan fame (Ely) - never saw it, which is good, because I blank on that guy's name like I blank on the Cowardly Lion actor guy's name - and 24A: Actress Gardner (Ava), who is ubiquitous. I was grateful for the "Simpsons" clue, 36D: Lisa, to Bart Simpson (sis), especially since you could have gone a million other ways on that clue. I don't think I've seen GAY clued as 41D: Not straight before. I mean, it's perfect, but I thought puzzles were iffy on direct references to homosexuality. Glad to see that's not (entirely) true. I can tell you that no one has ever called me TEACH (5D: Class instructor, informally) before; I'm not sure anyone has been called TEACH since "Welcome Back, Kotter" went off the air. It's very surprising that my time was so good (for me) considering I completely muffed the very first clue I looked at: 1A: "My Fair Lady" horse race (Ascot). I know nothing about "My Fair Lady" except 'enry 'iggins and "The Rain in Spain." Am I even thinking about the right movie? Anyway, I always get ASCOT confused with another super-common British horse racing answer: EPSOM.

Double Your Pleasure

67A: Tennis's Agassi (Andre)
57D: Huge hit (smash)

I just like that these intersect. I also like the Double Wonder-ness of these clues:

22D: Cry of wonder (Ooh)
12D: Musical Wonder (Stevie)

The music of Stevie WONDER (and Donna Summer, for that matter - love her!) will make you dance for sure, though probably not any of the dances featured in this puzzle. Hard to HULA to "Superstition," though "I Just Called to Say 'I Love You'" might work, I suppose.

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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