THEME:FIGUREHEAD (55A: Carved decoration on a ship's prow ... or a hint to the first word of 17-, 25-, 37- and 45-Across) — first words of themers can *precede* (so, come before, or at the "head" of) "figure" in a common phrase:
Theme answers:
FULL NELSON (17A: Banned wrestling hold)
ACTION PLAN (25A: Aid in accomplishing a goal)
STICK TO YOUR GUNS (37A: "Don't give up the fight!")
GO FOR BROKE (45A: Risk everything)
Word of the Day:SADA Thompson(30A: Actress Thompson of "Family") —
Not sure I'm getting the use of "head" here. In the phrase "go figure," I don't think of "go" as the "head" of "figure." A word that simply precedes another word is not the latter word's "head." A prefix could be considered a head, or the first letter of a word (a common cluing wordplay trick). So we're stretching the meaning of "head" here a little bit. But the "___ FIGURE" gimmick is consistent, even if the resulting "___ FIGURE" phrases are adjective, noun, noun, verb phrase. Still, all of them work. I'm more familiar with "plans of action" than ACTION PLAN(s), but again ... theme, technically works. The fill, however, was torturous. I would like to put it more nicely, but I don't have it in me. Dreadful, dreary, dated, and inexplicably bad. Worse, unnecessarily bad. Will or Joel should've quietly cleaned this mess up. A grid with this shape, with this many little corners, with this theme density, should be easy to fill at least moderately cleanly. There is no excuse for an EELY SNELL on a Tuesday, or any day. On and on and on the subpar fill goes. In case you can't tell, I ain't FER it. I'm agin it. Bobby DOERR, DON HO, and SADA Thompson probably think it's grand, but hoo boy no. No no no. AT NO no. Just no.
["Don't give up the fight!"]
Puzzle was pretty dang easy, except for RELIC, the clue for which was oddly hard (6D: Linotype machine, nowadays). I misspelled DORIA as DOREA, so that probably didn't help there. Also struggled to get PETR, as having Czech clued via French made my brain just balk. I should add: DORIA, PETR ... these are tolerable answers in a demanding, theme-dense, or otherwise sparkly grid. In *this* grid, they're just so much dreck. I'll resist the urge to spout all the junk. In order to resist, I need to get off the computer. Luckily, there is bread baking downstairs, so pulling myself away from the computer will not be hard. Have a nice day.
THEME: NOEL (69A: Seasonal song ... or a phonetic hint to 18-, 23-, 37-, 52- and 59-Across) — DESCRIPTION
Word of the Day: Saint Philip NERI (63A) —
Saint Philip Romolo Neri (Italian: Filippo Neri) (July 21, 1515 – May 25, 1595), also known as Apostle of Rome, was an Italian priest, noted for founding a society of secular priests called the "Congregation of the Oratory". (wikipedia)
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[FOR MY READERS IN SYNDICATION: It's pledge week here at the Rex Parker site (thru Sat.) —read my pitch for donations in the opening paragraphs of Sunday's write-up, here ... and thanks for your faithful readership (and the many kind messages I've received so far)]
Cruciverb database search for PUP FICTION turns up two recent puzzles with the missing "L" concept. I'll say it again. Check your theme answers check your theme answers check your theme answers. I must say, however, that Will is far more to blame for this replication of a very recent theme than the constructors are. This theme is so screamingly obvious that you'd think he'd at least have run the tiniest background check. I knew I'd done puzzles like this before as soon as I hit "NOEL," and I'm not paid to keep track of such things.
The puzzle's theme could also be "Bygone"—as in 11D: Bygone Toyota sedan (CRESSIDA)and28D: Bygone Fords (LTDS)and this puzzle has been done before and it reeks of yesterday's crosswordese ([William Tell's canton] etc. etc.).
[Speaking of bygone ...]
Theme answers:
18A: Movie about La Brea Tar Pits' formation? ("THE BIG SEEP")
23A: Movie about a Nobel-winning chemist? ("THE ION KING")
37A: Movie about Wall Streeters' excesses? ("CASH OF THE TITANS")
52A: Movie about the early life of Lassie? ("PUP FICTION")
59A: Movie about the memoirs of the Duke? ("WAYNE'S WORD")
Bullets:
58A: Nonsense word said while pointing a finger (J'ACCUSE!)
8D: Texas/Louisiana border river (SABINE) — rings a faint, crossword bell, but I needed every cross.
36A: Surfer wannabe (HODAD) — er ... uh ... OK. Again, the crossword bell is faint. I wanted HAOLE.
37D: Musical with Mungojerrie and Jennyanydots ("CATS") — musical in four letters with some dumbass character names? Sure, I got that.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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THEME: MIXED MEDIA (61A: Artwork using both paint and collage, e.g. ... and a hint to this puzzle's circled letters) — circled consecutive letters inside theme answers are jumbles of the letters M, E, D, I, and A
Word of the Day: TOULON (11D: French port near Marseille) —
Toulon (ProvençalOccitan: Tolon in classical norm or Touloun in Mistralian norm ) is a town in southern France and a large military harbour on the Mediterranean coast, with a major French naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azurregion, Toulon is the capital of the Vardepartment in the former province of Provence. // Toulon is an important centre for naval construction, fishing, wine making, and the manufacture of aeronautical equipment, armaments, maps, paper, tobacco, printing, shoes, and electronic equipment. // The military port of Toulon is the major naval center on France's Mediterranean coast, home of the French Navy aircraft carrier Charles De Gaulle and her battle group. The French Mediterranean Fleet is based in Toulon. (wikipedia)
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Writing this ahead of a massive blizzard that is expected to descend upon this area of the country aaaaaaany second now (actually, it will come on slowly tomorrow and then destroy us some time on Wednesday). Northern midwesterners and northeasterners will have some idea what I'm talking about, if not now, then soon. I like this "Winter Storm Meter," which I lifted from the alloveralbany.com website. "SnOMG!"
As for the puzzle, I don't have much to say. There was something kind of lackluster about the whole thing. Theme answers aren't that interesting, and that non-theme fill is boring at best, strange and dated-feeling at worst. The dull: ELEE over SSTS (!), then ILA, ELEC, AAR, IBE (?), ERMA, ABM, ETA, SRO, SRI, CMI, NOMSG, etc. The strange: GSEVEN (bygone) (43A: Pre-Russia intl economic coalition), TOULON (where?), Mr. PIM (so bygone I couldn't even find a halfway decent summary online) (1D: Milne's absent-minded Mr.), and DACCA (so bygone the puzzle knows it's bygone: "old-style!") (20A: Bangladesh's capital, old-style). Whole thing felt very not-of-this-century, from the opening gambit ("PSHAW!") to OLD SOD (32A: Motherland, affectionately) to the clue for JAILER (unless "screw" is still contemporary non-sexual slang, in which case, my apologies) (21A: Prison "screw"). Despite never having heard of several of these answers, I finished in an absolutely average Tuesday time. All in all, the puzzle is just fine—not at all incompetent or off-putting. Just blah.
["Pretty girls come A DIME A DOZEN..."]
Theme answers:
17A: Big name in orange juice (MINUTE MAID)
25A: Large gem in the Smithsonian (HOPE DIAMOND)
37A: Kindly doctor's asset (BEDSIDE MANNER)
52A: Common (A DIME A DOZEN)
Stay warm. I'm off to ... do something. See you tomorrow.
THEME: Dental work— first words of theme answers are things a dentist might put in your mouth, clued in non-dental contexts
Word of the Day: CROWN VICTORIAS (48A: Full-size Fords) —
The Ford Crown Victoria (commonly nicknamed the Crown Vic) is a rear-wheel drive full-size car first produced by the Ford Motor Company for the North American market in the mid-1950s. Its current incarnation has been in production since 1992 at Ford's St. Thomas Assembly plant. While the Crown Victoria shares its platform and components with the Lincoln Town Car, it shares almost no exterior sheet metal or interior parts. Beginning with the 2008 model year, it has been available only for fleet sales, mainly in police and taxi form, but also for rental car companies.
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What year is it? I didn't even know Ford made the CROWN VICTORIA any more. Sounds like something from another era. Something you would drive to a FILLING STATION, say, if you were ELDERLY (4D: Getting on in years) and needed to refuel your car on the way to the dentist for the unbelievable amount of dental work that you apparently require. Even the computer is old here — IBM PC (28D: 1980s hardware that used Microsoft Basic) ... what is that? Or, rather, don't IBM PCs still exist? Anyway, I guess the original IBM PC is what's meant here, which came out around the time that LE CAR was in its heyday (29D: Old Renault) ("A 5-door hatchback body style was added for the 1981 model year," says Wikipedia). I had a good number of hesitations, but absolutely shredded the majority of the puzzle, and ended up ... right at normal for a Monday, time-wise.
First hesitation: right out of the box. Wanted only WAFFLE at 1A: Go back and forth in deciding. Then didn't pick up WAVER til the third cross bec. I appear to think it's spelled WAIVER. Hesitated at CROWN VICTORIAS (not a model I know well, clearly). I might have tried to put CROWN VICTROLAS in there. Hesitated again at IBM PC (ugly), again at beginning of FILLING STATION — got FOGS, which gave me the "F," which still didn't clear up matters. Hesitated at NAOH (41D: Sodium hydroxide, to a chemist). Probably had -CH or -CL or god knows what. NAOH is ugly on any day of the week. As is OTTO I (31D: 10th-century Holy Roman emperor). Despite getting hung up in all those places, as I said, average Monday time. Not a terribly enjoyable puzzle. I am quite hard on "first words / last words have something in common puzzles," for personal reason. If I see one of them, it had better be good. This wasn't, particularly.
Theme answers:
17A: Alaska boondoggle in 2008 campaign news (BRIDGE to nowhere)
27A: Place to get gas (FILLING station)
48A: Full-size Fords (CROWN Victorias)
63A: Gets ready to crash (BRACES for impact)
The whole set reads like a really tragic (or possibly comic) short story about a car wreck. Just move the BRIDGE clue to third position, and it all makes sense.
Bullets:
6A: Traffic tie-ups (jams) — man, there's lots of car stuff in this puzzle. See also the GMC Yukon (37A: Yukon S.U.V. maker) that is T-boning the LECAR.
10D: Western part of Czech Republic (Bohemia) — I learned this in grad school. Before that, I think I thought "Bohemia" was a mythical / fictional place, like Shangri-La or Manitoba.
30D: Beturbaned seer (swami) — humiliating admission of the day: I thought "Beturbaned" was a place name. Possibly some place in India. It was going to be my Word of the Day...
THEME: TINKER to EVERS to CHANCE — Three theme answers, each clued [1908 Cubs player and position], end up describing perhaps the most famous DOUBLE PLAY COMBO in baseball history.
Word of the Day: VETCH - n.
Any of various herbs of the genus Vicia, having pinnately compound leaves that terminate in tendrils and small, variously colored flowers.
Hard to rate the difficulty level on this one. For me, this was one of the easiest Tuesdays I've ever done. Even with a few rewrites and rough patches, I still came in at 3:24 — fast for me for a Tuesday. I merely glimpsed at the first clue and immediately filled in the beginnings of the first three theme answers and the entirety of the fourth. I can see non-baseball fans, however, being absolutely stumped by this puzzle. You know 'em or you don't, and if you don't, it's going to be something of a slog (though non-theme clues are mostly remarkably easy, perhaps for just this reason). Cubs fans in particular know the phrase "Tinker to Evers to Chance" because those guys were part of the last Cubs team to win a World Series, six thousand years ago. The names of the men in that COMBO were immortalized in a 1910 poem by Franklin Pierce Adams:
These are the saddest of possible words: “Tinker to Evers to Chance.” Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds, Tinker and Evers and Chance. Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble, Making a Giant hit into a double – Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble: “Tinker to Evers to Chance.”
By Franklin Pierce Adams New York Evening Mail July 10, 1910
For folks who don't know what a DOUBLE PLAY COMBO is — they're the guys who touch the ball in a routine double-play, i.e. a ground ball to the shortstop with a man on first, shortstop throws to second-baseman who tags second and throws to first to complete the double play. Two outs on one ground ball. 1908 is also the year that the song "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" debuted.
17A: 1908 Cubs player and position (TINKER, SHORTSTOP)
25A: 1908 Cubs player and position (EVERS, SECOND BASE)
43A: 1908 Cubs player and position (CHANCE, FIRST BASE)
57A: What 17-, 25- and 43-Across were, famously (DOUBLE PLAY COMBO)
This seemed an awfully straightforward puzzle for the NYT. Simply descriptive of a historical phenomenon. The main gimmick seems to be the amazing coincidence that the three man + position answers and DOUBLE PLAY COMBO all come out to 15 letters. That discovery must have prompted the puzzle, which is otherwise adequate but kind of unremarkable. Lots and lots of crosswordese, and then SPRITS and VETCH (?), which feel off and ugly to me. When most of your fill is short, you really want to maximize the punch of the 5+ stuff. Loved BRAINIAC, but wasn't that fond of the clue (52A: 2006 Ken Jennings book ... or the author himself). The book part is fine, but something about calling the author that feels off. The word, which I love, still has at least vaguely pejorative connotations to me. BRAINIAC is a DC supervillain, for one. And for two, I'm pretty sure "BRAINIAC!" was a playground taunt before it was ever a thing you might innocuously call a smart person.
Bullets:
16A: When repeated, Road Runner's call (beep) — I believe there was some discussion on this blog a while back about whether the sound wasn't more appropriately represented "meep meep!" The "meep" spelling is preferred in a number of places, including the Wikipedia entry for Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner. You be the judge.
35A: Hydrotherapy locale (spa) — This puzzle has "locale" and "sloganeer" in its clues (49A: "Yes we can" sloganeer) — sadly, it lacks "denizen" and thus fails to pick up the coveted Clue Jargon Trifecta.
39A: Polish's partner (spit) — Easy to get, though "Polish" is always a tricky one — nationality or verb?
41A: Baseball analyst Hershiser (Orel) — Is the "analyst" clue new? He's been one for years, but usually he's clued as a pitching great. I like that he's in this baseball puzzle.
60A: Virginia _____ (noted 1587 birth) (Dare) — Honestly, I've heard the name, but I don't know who this is. I see that she was the first child born in America to English parents.
4D: Peeling potatoes, stereotypically (on KP) — I see what the clue is going for, but something about it feels off, grammatically. I can think of situations where I can switch the two phrases neatly if I try (Sarge yelling at Beetle that he'll be "peeling potatoes" (i.e. ON KP) if he doesn't, I don't know, clean the latrine or stop ogling girls or something), but the verb phrase-to-prepositional phrase shift here feels jarring.
25D: 1946 high-tech wonder (Eniac) — It's always ENIAC. 1946? ENIAC. Pre-Gates computing? ENIAC. Maybe ADA Lovelace, if it's three letters. But otherwise, ENIAC. Learned it from crosswords.
31D: Black-clad and white-clad Mad adversaries (spies) — Best clue in the grid. Loved these guys (and Mad generally) as a kid.
32D: Wonderland cake phrase (eat me) — Also, like BRAINIAC, a playground taunt.
52D: Nonkosher diner offerings (BLTs) — I've never liked this clue on BLT. Seems unfair to clue it so negatively. "Nonkosher" seems to be puzzle shorthand for "it has pork in it."
53D: Iditarod terminus (Nome) — One of the many crosswordy terms given to us by Alaska. See also ALEUT and ATKA and many others.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
PuzzleGirl's write-up of today's LAT puzzle is here.
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A long time ago, I was solving this puzzle and got stuck at an unguessable (to me) crossing: N. C. WYETH crossing NATICK at the "N"—I knew WYETH but forgot his initials, and NATICK ... is a suburb of Boston that I had no hope of knowing. It was clued as someplace the Boston Marathon runs through (???). Anyway, NATICK— the more obscure name in that crossing—became shorthand for an unguessable cross, esp. where the cross involves two proper nouns, neither of which is exceedingly well known. NATICK took hold as crossword slang, and the term can now be both noun ("I had a NATICK in the SW corner...") or verb ("I got NATICKED by 50A / 34D!")
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