Old World blackbird / MON 7-1-13 / l'oeil (optical illusion) / Whodunit awards / Furniture finish / "Evil Woman" band, for short / Group for kids of problem drinkers / Regd. names

Constructor: Patrick McIntyre

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: SHOWDOWNS — Answers to starred down clues are also names of Broadway musicals.

Word of the Day: MERL (19A: Old World blackbird) —

The Common Blackbird (Turdus merula) is a species of true thrush. It is also called Eurasian Blackbird (especially in North America, to distinguish it from the unrelated New World blackbirds),[2] or simply Blackbird, where this does not lead to confusion with a similar-looking local species. It breeds in Europe, Asia, and North Africa, and has been introduced to Australia and New Zealand. It has a number of subspecies across its large range; a few of the Asian subspecies are sometimes considered to be full species. Depending on latitude, the Common Blackbird may be resident, partially migratory or fully migratory. [Wikipedia]

• • •

I would have preferred the clue "Crossword constructor Reagle featured in Wordplay" for MERL (see Word of the Day). Crossing that with TROMPE (1D: ____ l'oeil (optical illusion)) is why I gave this a medium. I can imagine some might have failed the puzzle there. Perhaps MERL is crosswordese I should know by know, but alas I do not.

Add to that my start with BROKER instead of the correct TRADER (1A: Stock exchange worker), and I had a few minor bumps to overcome.

Tyler (not Hinman) Clark from Youngstown here to walk you through Monday's puzzle. It was an odd puzzle for me; when I wrote the answer RENT (6D: *Torn), I actually thought Hey, that's also a musical. But, when I wrote the theme revealer SHOWDOWNS (21D: Decisive confrontations ... or what the answers to the six starred clues are?) I was going too quickly to not take it literally, and even after writing the other theme answers, I still hadn't put it together. All told, the theme didn't affect my solving experience and was just something to enjoy once I had finished.

Theme answers:

• RENT (6D: Torn)
• HAIRSPRAY (8D: Salon supply)
• CHICAGO (10D: The Windy City)
• FOOTLOOSE (35D: Partner of fancy-free)
• CABARET (46D: Nightclub)
• CATS (63D: Jazz devotees, informally)

I was actually just listening to a live recording of the original 1971 Broadway cast of Follies, so I guess this is the perfect night for this theme for me. I was going to snidely remark that Footloose doesn't belong on this list, but when I looked up its run, it played over 700 performances, so I suppose you have to give it credit for that.

Bullets:

• KNAVE (53A: Scoundrel) — I just like the word and don't remember seeing it in many puzzles.
• EAVED (59A: Having a roof overhang) — I filled it in immediately, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.
• YOO (48A: "___-hoo") — I wrote "WOO" before HAIRSPRAY told me that was wrong.
• BAD IDEA (69A: "Don't even think about it") — I don't know why, but I wrote BACK OFF as the first thing in that corner, with only "BA..." to start me off. Knew from DEA (70D: Narc's org.) that this was ... off.
• STD (7D: Benchmark: Abbr.) — You'll need to subscribe to The AV Club xwords to get a punchier clue than that.

Wishing you a great holiday week!

Signed, Tyler Clark, Fan of CrossWorld

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Black Sea port to locals / TUE 5-21-13 / Fictional member of Potawatomi tribe / Antsy premeal question / Right on german compass / media-friendly quote / Bowlers skimmers /

Constructor: Patrick McIntyre

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: THE FIVE Ws (67A: Journalism staple) — five theme answers begin with each of the five Ws, respectively:


Theme answers:

• 14A: Defiant response to an order ("WHO SAYS SO?")
• 20A: "Can you explain this?" ("WHAT GIVES?")
• 29A: Searcher's query ("WHERE ARE YOU?")
• 45A: Antsy premeal question ("WHEN DO WE EAT?")
• 52A: "Is it any use?" ("WHY BOTHER?") 

Word of the Day: YAZOO (33D: Mississippi's ___ River) —

The Yazoo River is a river in the U.S. state of Mississippi.

The Yazoo River was named by French explorer La Salle in 1682 as "Rivière des Yazous" in reference to the Yazoo tribe living near the river's mouth. The exact meaning of the term is unclear. One long held belief is that it means "river of death".^[1]

The river is 188 miles (303 km) long and is formed by the confluence of theTallahatchie River and the Yalobusha River in Greenwood. The river parallels theMississippi River in the latter's floodplain for some distance before joining it north of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Natural levees which flank the Mississippi prevent the Yazoo from joining it before Vicksburg. A "yazoo stream" is a hydrologic term which was coined to describe any river or major stream with similar characteristics. (wikipedia)

• • •

Just a quick write-up this morning.

I don't think this works, on many levels.

This is the kind of theme that seems like it belongs to a much earlier era (in fact, I've seen it done at least once before, and would be shocked if it hadn't been done many times). It involves an obvious and not terribly interesting set of words that have something in common. If you're gonna build your theme around such a set, you need to *do* something with those words. Put them in non-question phrases, hide them inside other phrases, make sure the "questions" all have something (anything!) in common ... But what we have here is nonsense. Completely and UDDERly arbitrary who what where when why questions. They could've asked Anything. Where am I? What now? Why not? Who cares? These questions have nothing to do with anything. Not with each other, not with journalism. I'm not even sure 52A is really a question. It's a rhetorical question. Which, I guess, has "question" in the title, and so is, in fact, a question, technically, but you see what I mean.


Then there's the fill. Three answers destroy this puzzle for me (and would destroy virtually any puzzle for me): E-DATE  (!?!?) (32D: Online time stamp), ODESA (twice in one year with this thing?! Come on...) (34D: Black Sea port, to locals), and ALOE VERAS (63A: Soothing lotion ingredients). If one of the questions in this puzzle had been "WHERE ARE MY ALOE VERAS?", all would be forgiven. "WHO SAYS 'ALOE VERAS'?" "WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?" Etc.

See also EFT, ECRU, I SAW, I THE, ELHI, ARETE, and on and on.


I do like the answer SOUND BITE (37D: Media-friendly quote), and the clues on POLICEMAN (10D: One keeping the beat?) and UDDER (35D: One may be above a bucket) and TONTO (16A: Fictional member of the Potawatomi tribe) are nice.

In the wake of the absolutely horrendous tornado destruction in Oklahoma yesterday, all I want to do is remind you that "American Red Crosswords" exists. It's a collection of 24 puzzles I put together to benefit the Red Cross's Disaster Relief Fund after Sandy, but the money is used to respond to disasters everywhere. You can donate to the fund and grab the puzzles in .pdf or iPad/iPhone form here. Thanks.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Boxer who almost upset Joe Lewis in 1941 / TUE 9-13-11 / Sneakers brand sported by Abdul-Jabbar / Eurasian duck / Lilylike garden plant

Constructor: Patrick McIntyre

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: CON GAME (37A: Scam ... or an apt title for this puzzle?) — four "celebrities" whose last names are homophones of "CON"


Word of the Day: BILLY CONN (62A: Boxer who almost upset Joe Louis in 1941) —

William David Conn (October 8, 1917–May 29, 1993), better known as Billy Conn, was a Light-Heavyweight boxing champion famed for his fights with Joe Louis. He had a professional boxing record of 63 wins, 11 losses and 1 draw, with 14 wins by knockout. His nickname, throughout most of his career, was "The Pittsburgh Kid". (wikipedia)

• • •

Took me exactly one second longer than yesterday's puzzle. This one played on a little on the easy side until I hit the SE corner. BILLY CONN is a mystery to me—needed every cross—and ... let me say this about ALGID. I think that we as a people need to get together and decide: ALGID or GELID. One of them can stay, but the other has to go, because with FRIGID already in the game, there really isn't room for two additional -ID words that mean "cold." I had only vaguely heard of GELID and had never heard of ALGID until I started doing puzzles. I know that I've seen them both, but it's hard enough to dredge one of them up out of the swamp of my crossword memory, let alone remember that there are two that need dredging. ALGID. Bah. (Cager) ELGIN Baylor to NENE to ERSE. It's certainly no worse than what's in place now, and voila, no ALGID. ELGIN beats ALGID by a greater margin than DENT beats NENE (everything else is a push). Q.E.D.


[I said a few days ago that I was going to watch "Breakin'" (1984); I wasn't lying. This (amazing) song is featured prominently]

Theme answers:

• 14A: "High Hopes" lyricist (SAMMY CAHN)
• 20A: Singer with the #1 R&B hit "I Feel for You" (CHAKA KHAN)
  
• 52A: He was Sonny to Marlon Brando's Vito (JAMES CAAN)
  
• 62A: Boxer who almost upset Joe Louis in 1941 (BILLY CONN)
  

This one was pretty crosswordesed up: SMEW! Haven't seen that one for a while. You see them a lot in ENNA (8D: City of central Sicily), or so I imagine. ERITU is an ARIA sung by ESSENEs (48A: Dead Sea Scrolls ascetic) blah blah OCTAL LAIC IDE ENA OXO ERST ARY. Long Downs are decent, and the center is actually lovely, but you really gotta cut the mold off the edges to enjoy this one.

Bullets:

• 18A: Lilylike garden plant (HOSTA) — Proud that I remembered this, sad that I wanted to spell it like HASTA la vista, baby.
  
• 23A: "Paper Moon" father and daughter (O'NEALS) — Seems like the clue should indicate actors, not characters, but that's a technicality.

• 30A: Japan's "way of the gods" religion (SHINTO) — part of this puzzle's sweet, creamy middle, along with KOKOMO, which is thankfully clued non-Beach-Boys style (21D: Indiana University campus site).
  
• 59A: Allowed to wander, as a chicken (FREE RANGE) — like in that Wordsworth poem, "I Wandered Lonely as a Chicken"
  
• 64A: Jonas who developed a polio vaccine (SALK) — I saw "Jonas" and immediately wrote in NICK. I then decided that Dudley Do-Right's heartthrob (NELL) was TESS. You know, TESS Trueheart. But that was Dick Tracy. You can understand my confusion. I mean, those animated guys swapped heartthrobs all the time. I hear.
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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THURSDAY, Aug. 13 2009 — Mathematician Post Artin / Oscar Wilde Bill Maher for example / Having dividing wall in biology / Seaside raptor

Constructor: Patrick McIntyre

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: COIN FLIPS (32A: Starts of some games ... and of the answers to 16-, 22-, 48- and 56-Across?) — theme answers all begin with some rearrangement of the letters C, O, I, and N

Word of the Day: Machmeters (29D: What machmeters measure => AIR SPEED) — A machmeter is an aircraft pitot-static system flight instrument that shows the ratio of the true airspeed to the speed of sound, a dimensionless quantity called Mach number. This is shown on a Machmeter as a decimal fraction. An aircraft flying at the speed of sound is flying at a Mach number of one, expressed as Mach 1. (wikipedia)
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This took me nearly as long as a normal Friday puzzle, not because any of the answers are so hard (a few are, but no more than usual), but because the cluing seemed either vague or just off in a Lot of places. How is a YAPPER a 18A: Gossip? A YAPPER is someone who won't shut the @#$# up. I have no idea what he's saying, he's just bugging the hell out of me. EXPELS = 9D: Runs out? How? If you run someone out OF town, I guess you are expelling him. But then you'd need the "of." Is FEST even a word any more? (8A: Themed events). Can't imagine its ever being anything but a suffix. Oh, and COIN FLIPS? Where is the flipping? (A: nowhere). Unless you are prepared to start every theme answer with NIOC- (or YNNEP-, EMID-, etc.), then you should not give your puzzle this title. Too bad COIN SCRAMBLE is not a term. The grid looks just fine — ORIFICE (23D: Opening) and SYNOPSIS (15D: TV Guide info) and NICOTINE are all nice, unusual answers. But the botched theme concept and the iffy cluing made this less than entertaining for me.

Theme answers:

• 16A: Ingredient in some gum (NICOtine)
• 22A: Oscar Wilde or Bill Maher, for example (ICONoclast)
• 48A: Like some passes (INCOmplete)
• 56A: Cedar and hemlock (CONIfers)

Tons of error potential in today's puzzle. I think I fell into most of the lurking traps, including JUST A SEC for WAIT A SEC (44A: "Hold on!"), A TEAR for A ROLL (47A: Hot, after "on"), and TREAD for TROMP (49D: Step heavily (on)). They all involve the word "on" in some way. Evil little word, "on." Also had (Wade will like this) OWENS for O'NEIL (20D: Buck _____ first black coach in Major League Baseball (Cubs, 1962)).



Clue that actually made me say "F@#@ you" out loud: 58A: Mathematician Post or Artin (Emil). Seriously, go to hell. Quit trying to cover up your lousy reverse-citrus crosswordese with smug dorkness. AMINES was going to be my Word of the Day (46D: Organic compounds with nitrogen), but the definition is so boring and forgettable that I abandoned it. See identical clue, word for word, here. I'm sure I've seen UGO before, clued this same way (13A: Actor Tognazzi of "La Cage aux Folles"). That's a desperation name for sure. And never really listened to Genesis before the late 70s (i.e. B.C., Before Collins became frontman), so "Back IN NYC" (also a desperate entry, frankly) was unknown to me (6D: "Back _____" (1974 Genesis song)).



Bullets:

• 14A: Seaside raptor (erne) — see "raptor," think ERN(E). Usually right.
• 15A: Allen Iverson's teammates till '06 (Sixers) — I *guess* the "till" is s'posed to tip you to the slangness of SIXERS. Or maybe it's the jaunty "'06" abbrev. that the kids are using these days to signify the year. Who can tell?
• 28A: Sister who's won the U.S. Open three times (Serena) — how she makes time for her duties as a nun, I don't know.
• 51A: Mambo king Puente (Tito) — my favorite TITO.
• 1D: Hackneyed movie endings (sunsets) — well, it's hackneyed to ride off into them, sure.
• 5D: Small African antelope (oribi) — haven't seen the ELAND or ORYX in a while, but the ORIBI is engaged in some kind of P.R. campaign (actually, I think I've seen him twice this summer ... just seems like a lot).
• 54D: Like Clark Kent's manner (mild) — thought this ended in an "S" for a while, back when I thought the column in question in 61A: Kind of column was ONES (it's OP-ED).
• 55D: Third year in the reign of Edward the Elder (CMI) — who can forget? (A: everyone).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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