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

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

THEME: Celebrity names aplenty (or, none)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

58A: Baja California port (Ensenada)

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

45D: Liszt wrote only one (sonata)

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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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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WEDNESDAY, Feb. 28, 2007 - Elizabeth C. Gorski

Solving time: untimed, but fast (on paper)
THEME: The sound of "TIE" - three long theme answers all begin with homonyms:

20A: Establishment with spicy sauces (Thai restaurant)
36A: Martial art (Tai Chi Chuan)
54A: Finish the job (tie up loose ends)

Not an astonishing theme, but a fun one nonetheless. I've been practicing TAI CHI CHUAN for years, so that was a nice long gimme. I like Gorski puzzles; they are almost always elegant, with no straining for effect, and very little forced fill. All esoteric fill in this one had reasonably gettable crosses - with one exception, and it is not only the top issue in today's commentary, but the subject of my newest crossword crusade:

Operation: Stop Referencing "Ally McBeal"

Never has a show that ran for such a short period of time, that was cancelled so long ago, that sucked so hard, gotten so much attention. You might say, "But Rex, I can remember only one other reference to 'Ally McBeal' in recent months." I say, "Yes, two references - two too many." Calista Flockhart, while I'm sure she's a nice person and all (married to Harrison Ford, by the way), represents everything that was horrible about the late 90's, and everything hateful about TV in general. Superficial self-indulgence masquerading as avant-garde entertainment. Stunt TV ("I know, let's take our semi-popular hour-long show and re-air it that same week in a bite-size half-hour format!"; computer animation sight gags; and that dancing baby, dear god I didn't even watch "Ally McBeal" and that baby haunts me for days after any time I see it or hear a reference to it). "Ally McBeal" was pretty much the death knell of feminism, too; or, rather, clear evidence that feminism had been bought out by Disney, which had decided to retool feminism in order to make her more consumer-friendly, more emaciated. "We'll let you have a high-powered job, just like the guys! In exchange, you agree to look more f@#!able, and don't bring up issues of gender inequality ever again except in that cute, idealistic way you sometimes do before we pat you on the head and / or ass and send you dismissively back to your desk. OK?" "Ally McBeal" represents the apotheosis of the "empowerful" woman, and is directly responsible for causing a generation of young women to idolize not women of substance or genuine courage, but those hateful, superficial @#$@#s from "Sex and the City." "Ally McBeal" was a terrible show built around an insufferable character who managed to set both progressive politics AND good television back about a generation by convincing a handful of people who should have known better that it was something special. Further, both of the "Ally McBeal" clues in recent months have referenced secondary, if not tertiary characters! The assumption that I or any right-thinking person was So tuned in to that show that we would remember characters such as NELLE (65A: "Ally McBeal" role) or RENEE (from Dec. 15 puzzle) is insulting. When I said "let us never speak of this show again," I wasn't f#$#ing kidding!

My reaction today might not have been quite as extreme if NELLE hadn't intersected 56D: City south of Moscow (Orel) at the "L" - and while the answer was inferrable (what other letter could go there?) I get a little peevish when my ignorances cross.

By the way: Harper Lee's given first name: NELLE. Good to know.

In other puzzle news:

19A: Sufficient, once (enow) - I do love the Olde Tyme spelling

23A: Brazilian-born bandleader Mendes (Sergio) - is this the same guy who had a minor hit in 1983 with "Never Gonna Let You Go"? Yes! Damn, that's some good remembering. Summer camp '83. Other significant pop culture event of that year (well, the previous year, actually) - the launching of USA Today. Why oh why do I remember that - because for some reason I remember seeing some dork at summer camp that year wearing a "USA Today" baseball cap (!?) and thinking, even then, "Why would you do that? That's not even a real paper."

27A: Table scrap (ort) - I just love this word. Should be in the Pantheon. I learned this word from crosswords. I defy you to find it used, unironically, outside of crosswords in the past quarter century.

Some mystery fill

31A: Romanian composer Georges (Enesco) - I was able to get this from -CO, but I don't know why. I'm going to have to check into this guy's music. His name is interesting in that it is just one letter different from the fairly common UNESCO, and only two letters off from one of the first authors I ever read in French, Eugène IONESCO.
9D: Powdered wig (peruke) - I sort of knew this, as I believe it is related to the French word for wig (perruque), which is still stored in my brain somewhere. Still, it looks weird, especially the more you stare at it, and definitely stands out as among the trickier bits of fill in today's puzzle.
21D: Perfumer Nina (Ricci) - I'm more familiar with Christina RICCI of Addams Family and The Ice Storm fame. "Perfumer" is an odd-sounding title. I mean, she doesn't actually go around perfuming thing / people ... does she? I can see from Google that "perfumer" is preferred by a huge margin to "perfumist," and yet I prefer the latter, so please accommodate my preference in the future. Thank you. Oh, and you should read Perfume by Patrick Suskind, if you haven't already. It's unbelievably great - and short. Read it today on your lunch break. Do it!

Some names you should know:

46A: Rapper Lil' _____ (Kim) - someone in yesterday's comments wondered aloud whether George Michael was in or out of jail, and I am currently wondering the same thing about Lil' KIM. I feel like she broke some law ... ah yes, I am correct; from Wikipedia:

On March 17, 2005, Kim was found guilty of conspiracy and perjury for lying to a grand jury about her friends' involvement in a 2001 shooting outside the Hot 97 studios in Manhattan — involving the entourage of rap duo Capone-N-Noreaga and her reported fellow Brooklynite rival Foxy Brown. She claimed not to have known that her manager (Damion Butler), and another friend (Suif “Gutta” Jackson) were at the scene, despite video footage showing all three exiting the building. Both men have pleaded guilty to gun charges since. In July 2005, she was sentenced to a one-year-and-a-day in the Philadelphia Detention Center. She had requested to go to a camp center in Connecticut to be closer to her mother, but instead was ordered to report to the Philadelphia Detention Center. Many people were outraged over this stern sentence because Martha Stewart, who was also convicted of perjury during the same time period, was only sentenced to 5 months in a small women's camp in Alderson, West Virginia.

In the mid-90's, Lil' KIM was discovered and promoted by Christopher Wallace, aka The Notorious B.I.G., a hip-hop icon fatally shot in 1997, in case you didn't know.

29D: Phil who sang "Jim Dean of Indiana" (Ochs) - know him only from crosswords, where he shows up not infrequently.
53D: Swiss miss (Heidi) - HEIDI's name is easy; her creator's name, SPYRI, is not. Remember it, as it will show up in your puzzle eventually.
58A: Sundance Kid's lady (Etta) - near-Pantheon material, but I always botch it, thinking it's more oddly spelled than it really is (ETNA ... ESTA ... EMRE ...?)

I have never heard the term TAX BITES (36D: They're felt in mid-April). I had TAX TIMES in there for a little bit. Google says "TAX BITE" is a legitimate phrase, so fine. I hope that our TAX BITE this year is not SO BIG (4D: Pulitzer-winning Ferber title) that we cannot afford to go on our semi-planned cross-country road trip to MN/WI this year. Oh, yeah, Shaun, if you're reading this, maybe I should have told you first before announcing it to the world - you might have house guests in August.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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TUESDAY, Feb. 27, 2007 - Allan E. Parrish

Solving time: untimed - fastish?
THEME: IT'S ELECTRIC (57A: Title for this puzzle) - Three theme answers have words that are at least vaguely synonymous with electricity in them, clued in a non-electric context.

Theme answers:

17A: "The Razor's Edge" star, 1946 (Tyrone Power)
27A: 1980's Scott Baio sitcom ("Charles in Charge")
43A: Breakfast beverage (grapefruit juice)

Didn't know the first one, but guessed it from the TY-. CHARLES IN CHARGE was a staple of my teen years (and maybe my 20's, I forget). I was a genuine fan of the first season, which I believe was actually on in primetime, when the cast was normal-looking / brunette, before they completely remade the cast over in blond and moved the show to some kind of syndication. I think the only cast holdover besides Charles himself was Buddy, played by acting genius turned born-again Christian Willie Aames. I think Aames was recently seen on "Celebrity Fat Camp," or whatever it's called: the show where fat "celebrities" try to lose weight. Anyway, if you want to get me a gift, get me "Charles in Charge, Season One" on DVD. I can't bring myself to buy it, but I believe I would enjoy it. I just finished watching "The Office, Season Two," so I'm pretty much out of sitcom DVDs at the moment.

14A: "Winning Bridge Made Easy" author (Goren)

I'm guessing this is some old-skool gimme, but I'd Never heard of ... him? I can see how his name could be of value to a constructor: five common letters, unusual combination. It sucked for me a little that the "N" in GOREN intersected 5D: Spike TV's former name (TNN) because I thought the answer was TNN but then I thought that there is still a country network on the air ... and isn't that called TNN? No, I just realized right this second that the network I was thinking of is CMT (Country Music Television). TNN was The Nashville Network.

25D: Adventurer Nellie (Bly)

Nope. Not on my radar. Had to get it from crosses. She sounds very interesting and half-way insane. Traveled around the world and faked insanity to do an inside story on a mental institution - all well before you could get your own cable show for doing so.

48A: Lyndon's running mate (Hubert)

I totally spaced on this one and had to wait for the crosses to help me out. This was the last presidential election before I was born - I'm pretty solid on VPs from Nixon on.

56A: Pastor Haggard (Ted)

Oh my god is this the "I do crystal meth and have sex with male prostitutes" guy!?!? It is! This is very, very lurid for a NYT puzzle answer, isn't it? I mean, I'm not complaining, but dang. This guy would never have made the puzzle on his preaching alone, so the only reason he's here is crystal meth and male prostitutes. I'm just pointing this out. Is there any other answer in Times puzzle history where the person achieved puzzle status only for such lurid reasons? Someone who would not have made the puzzle otherwise, and who is not, say, a mass murderer? I like that TED intersects RUPERT Murdoch (44D: Media baron Murdoch), as surely the latter made a lot of money off of stories about the former.

7D: With 62-Across, nickname for former N.F.L. star Sanders (NEON DEION)

Fresh off of getting thrown out of the Pantheon, NEON DEION makes a triumphant return to the grid, in full rhyming splendor. His name somehow seems appropriate to the theme of this puzzle, too. So good for you DEION. We may reconsider you for Pantheon status yet. I should also acknowledge the return to the grid of past Pantheon president ASTA (51D: "The Thin Man" dog). OLEO needs to get out more often and let the people know who's boss now.

For some reason, the following words all seem weird to me this morning. Not bad weird, just strange or odd or ... alien:

• 24A: Triangular house part (gable) - very hard for me to get. Does my house even have gables?
• 22A: Beau (swain) - why don't these seem synonymous to me? The clue seems sweetly old-fashioned, while the answer seems ... sweaty and musty with the aroma of the engine room or the farm.
• 39D: Mil. designation (spec) - the word "designation" always throws me; doesn't it just mean "name for something"? Feels very non-specific. And aren't SPECs non-military "designations," too.

I am a big fan of Steely Dan and so AJA (41D: 1977 Steely Dan album that spent 52 weeks in the top 40) was easy. I am also a big fan of WHAM (23D: Kapow!), and SPONGE (13D: Moocher) bob Squarepants, and Elvis's "In the GHETTO" (43D: Run-down urban area), so all were easy. Enjoy your day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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THURSDAY, Feb. 22, 2007 - Mike Nothnagel

Solving time: 12:19 (on paper)

THEME: 52A: Like 20-, 25- and 43-Across? (Commercial Free) - theme answers are familiar phrases with an initial AD- removed:

• 20A: Quest for a stereotypical Jewish mother? (mission of guilt)
• 25A: What the dry cleaner might say after losing a garment? (dress unknown)
• 43A: Reactions to poetry? (verse effects)

DRESS UNKNOWN is a bit off. Either the whereabouts of the DRESS are UNKNOWN, or the dry cleaner is somehow lying and claiming he has never KNOWN this DRESS, but either way, the phrase does not come across as something a dry cleaner might say. That said, this theme is quite ingenious and I really enjoyed it. Got COMMERCIAL FREE before I got any of the theme answers, and knew instantly what it must mean. Took me a while (too long) to realize that all the AD's that had been removed were at the Beginning of the phrase. But I got it, and the theme answers were subsequently pretty easy to get.

This solving on paper thing is rough. I'm glad I switched now, a month before the tournament, because I Clearly need practice at paper-solving. I didn't feel like this puzzle presented much trouble, and yet my time was over 12. Ick. Oh well, there's still time.

9A: It's held in a hold (cargo)

Dear god this one gave me trouble. The only "hold" I could think of was a wrestling hold, like a half-nelson or something, so I was thinking arms ... then I thought maybe it was a rebus puzzle, and maybe it was [4 ... or fore?]ARMS. Of course the answer is not calling for a plural, so I'm not sure why my brain went where it did, but it did. This NE corner was the last thing to fall. I guessed early on, correctly, that 13D: Home of Bruce Peninsula Natl. Park was ONT (as in ONTario, right?). That helped a little. But NTEST (19A: Provocative military move, briefly) stayed out of sight for a while because "move" made me think of something a human being might do, so I kept thinking something along the lines of, I don't know, GOOSESTEPPING or SABRE-RATTLING (both far, far too long). Please see other commentaries for my feelings about NTEST / HTEST / ATEST - in short, :(

Oh, and nice to have TWO Canadian references in the NE section: not just ONT, but 9D: Losers to the Rangers for the 1994 Stanley Cup (Canucks) - I'm sure my many Canadian readers are either thrilled to see a Canadian team get some face time (during this period of American team dominance in the NHL) or they are sad because this team is clued in relation to its Losing. Poor Canada. Take your sport back! I assure you that no one down here actually wants it.

23A: A tiny bit (one iota)

Not much to say about this one except that I loved the fullness of it. The whole phrase, ONE IOTA, instead of just the normal, crossword-friendly IOTA. My feelings on colloquialisms are well known (i.e. I am for them ... with some notable exceptions). See also WHAT THE!? (48A: "Huh...?!")

35A: Author who inspired a Baltimore team's nickname (Poe)

The team in question is the Baltimore Ravens (NFL), in case you didn't know. This clue represents one possible weakness I have when solving on paper - my eye wanders over the page, and when it alights on a clue it knows, it wants me to go there, even if I'm in a groove and breaking down some other part of the puzzle. I actually stopped whatever I was hacking away at when I saw this clue, just so I could fill it in, instead of keeping up my rhythm and being patient.

28D: Word with black or fire (opal)

I finished this puzzle, walked into my bedroom, curled up with yet another NYT puzzle (from a giant book of them with some marathon runner on the cover crossing a finish line) and soon found that the puzzle in the book had this exact clue / answer pairing. Weird coincidence. That's all I have to say about that.

36A: Stuns (zaps)
56D: "Pow!" ("Bam!")

Now here's a subtheme I can really enjoy: comic book sounds! Thank god for ZAPS, as I never would have gotten "Z" cross without it: 31D: Sea of _____ between Russia and Ukraine (Azov). Hey, isn't Ukraine where LVOV is? Yes, but it's on the other (western) side from the Sea of AZOV, which is that little pouch of a sea on top of the Black Sea. Good to know.

6D: Some rings (arenas)
7D: Scrubbed (nogo)
8D: Anachronism, e.g. (goof)

These are all the Downs in the far North or "Fargo" portion of the puzzle. Despite having the first three letters of all of them very quickly, NOGO was the only one that would behave (btw, are you taunting me with the I GO, GIGO, NOGO - type clues? Every day...). I would like to know that someone, somewhere out there had AREOLA or some desperate made-up version of the word for [Some rings]. AREOLI!? For some reason, even with GOO- in place I could not think of an [Anachronism, e.g.] as a GOOF. Needed the cross to see the semi-obvious.

63A: George Strait's "All My _____ Live in Texas" (Exs)

I was just rereading an old blog entry wherein I commented on this very answer, and how odd the spelling was. And here it is again. What's weird / sad is that in rereading that entry, I was thinking of how weird EXS looks on paper, and then for some reason with today's puzzle, I still couldn't spell it right. I wrote XES first. Stupid.

12D: Heart (gist)
55D: Heart (crux)

Again, cute. Again, stop it. Unless the repeated clues have 180-degree rotational symmetry, in which case, I'll allow it.

33D: Duke it out (spar)

I thought SPARring was fake boxing. Like, practice. [Duke it out] implies actual fighting to me, so I hereby challenge the validity of this clue. I throw down the gauntlet. Nothnagel and I can [Duke it out] at some later date.

45D: Wealthy TV family (Ewings)
53D: "Thirtysomething" actor (Olin)

The first of these answers is Hot. EWINGS came to me immediately, though I suppose there are probably any number of wealthy families on TV. Something about "Dallas" is so campy and dated that I'm always happy to see it in the grid. OLIN (any relation to actress Lena OLIN?) took a while to rise to the top of my brains. Had just the "O" and had to sit patiently for a few seconds while the fog cleared and OLIN eventually presented himself. I did not watch this show much. Because I was not "thirtysomething" then. I am "thirtysomething" now. And what do I watch? "American Idol." I voted for Lakisha. What a world.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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WEDNESDAY, Feb. 21, 2007 - Elizabeth C. Gorski

Solving time: 8:33 (on paper)

THEME: -[vowel]DDY??? - 3 long theme answers have word(s) that end -DDY in them:

• 20A: Slangy question from a benefactor, maybe ("Who's your daddy?")
• 36A: 1964 party song by Manfred Mann ("Do Wah Diddy Diddy")
• 50A: Stuffy sort (old fuddy duddy)

A pretty uninspired theme, but a much better puzzle overall than yesterday's. If a theme is very hard (or awkward) to explain, as this one was, then that's a good indication it's not that strong. We don't get -DDY with all the vowels, just three of them, and one of the theme answers has just One -[vowel]DDY part, where the other two have two. Lastly, the spelling of that Manfred Mann song is very counterintuitive (which is nobody's fault but Manfred Mann's, but it needed saying).

14A: El Cid, to Spaniards (hero)

If this had been [El Cid, e.g.], I would have liked it better. "To Spaniards" implies that the answer is a Spanish word, and while HERO may in fact be a Spanish word, it's also an English word, so the "to Spaniards" really does nothing but muddy the waters. I was expecting something much more Spain-specific.

16A: Title girl in a 1986 Starship hit (Sara)

Sara
Sara
Storms are brewing in your eyes

Yes, it's terrible, but it beats hell out of "We Built This City on Rock 'n' Roll." PS if you really really want to make me happy, you will construct a puzzle crammed with 1986 pop culture. All of it somehow stuck to me like glue - or some worse substance, as the case may be.

23A: Prosperity (weal)

Ew. Gross word. Sounds like what little pig does when you grab it by its hind legs and take it off to become bacon. I don't believe the word WEAL is Ever used these days except perhaps in the (archaic, but still somehow in-the-language) Common WEAL. Must be related to WEALTH, right? In fact, WEALTH seems the better answer for a clue like [Prosperity]. It's like someone got lazy and couldn't be bothered to write that final "TH," and then WEAL just took on a life of its own. And so now we're stuck with a stupid, useless word that sounds like a frightened animal sound. Stupid lazy scribes.

24A: Style of shorthand, informally (Gregg's)

I feel as if we've had this before, but I didn't know it then, and I don't know it now.

42A: Cancellation (No Go)

I GO, YOU GO, We all GO for NO GO. GIGO! For a full list of NOGO-rhyming and NOGO-affiliated words, see one of the reader comments on yesterday's commentary. Oh, and we can add to that list a gigantic variant, GOO GOO (28D: Baby talk).

49A: Author Sholem (Asch)

This marks one of the first times that blogging some obscure (to me) answer has benefited me in the future. I blogged about Mr. ASCH several months back, and today I stared at A-C- and knew that I knew the answer ... and then it came to me, bam! So awesome. I mean, it's just two letters there, but I was happy to recall an answer I'd previously missed. This happened previously with AURIGA, a ridiculously obscure astronomical answer that I've seen Twice now in puzzles.

58A: Kind of artery (iliac)

A pretty specific kind of artery for a Wednesday. I somewhat resent that both ILIAL and ILIAC appear to be accepted adjectival forms. There was a Saturday puzzle a while back where the answer was ILIAL (I had originally written ILIAC), and today the answer is ILIAC (I had originally written ILIAL). Make up your minds!

41A: "Gosh" ("Aw, gee")
56A: Suffix with stink (-eroo)
60A: Highly distasteful (icky)

What are: things Dennis the Menace might say!? "AW, GEE, you StinkEROO, that's ICKY!" "Oh, don't be an OLD FUDDY DUDDY (50A)." EROO and ICKY are in the deep SW, or "San Diego" portion of the puzzle, one of two places I got a little bogged down. EROO and ICKY weren't the problem. Rather, I thought 63A: Brokerage initialism was NYSE, not NASD. Is NASD short of NASDAQ? And if so ... well, it's not that short. Did not help that I also didn't know one of the Down crosses, 48D: Earl _____, first African-American to play in the N.B.A. (Lloyd), although I feel I should have. It's Black History Month, so this clue is somewhat timely, I guess.

9D: Education (pedagogy)
31D: Ancient dweller of modern Iran (Mede)

PEDAGOGY is one of those academic buzzwords that I have to live with every day of my life, so that was easy. No one can just say "teaching" any more. Ugh. Anyway, I first learned about MEDEs not as a student, but as a teacher, i.e. through my PEDAGOGY - as a T.A. in a very very massive Great Books course, which all Honors freshmen were required to take at Michigan. I think there are MEDEs in Herodotus. Yes, there are.

45D: Excites, with "up" (psychs)

Man that's a hard word to see with only partial fill in place. The "C" is from ILIAC, so you can see why I was wondering which version of that adjective was right - I couldn't think of any words that ended -YCHS. Trust me, if PSYCHS is not in your head, as it is now, -YCHS just looks nuts, and if you're not entirely sure of the letters, then you start second-guessing yourself. Sholem ASCH gave me the "S," which made the answer obvious, but only after much time-wasting struggle.

51D: 1997 Peter Fonda title role (Ulee)
52D: Naturalist Fossey (Dian)

Crossword constructors everywhere should pay annual homage to Ms. Fossey and Mr. ULEE, as they represent some of the crutchiest, get-you-out-of-a-jam, what-can-I-fit-here four-word fill around. Very Pantheonic. ULEE is just an ugly (UGLEE) word, though, so I won't let it in the Pantheon. As for DIAN ... we'll see.

3D: Bowed, in music (arco)

ARCO is the first word I ever learned from my daughter. The first puzzle-worthy word, anyway. Needless to say, she is taking violin lessons. Since learning ARCO, I have used it at least twice in crosswords. Lesson: pay attention to 6-yr-olds! There's wisdom in between the crazy stories about monkeys and princesses.

65A: Cries during a bikini waxing? (yows)

Um ... why is there a question mark in this clue? It's pretty literal.

And lastly:

11D: "The Company of Women" author, 1980 (Mary Gordon)

Nope. Never heard of her. Sounds like a title that I would have seen on my mom's (massive) bookshelves back in the day, like Nora Ephron's Scribble Scribble and Gail Sheehy's Passages - why those are the very first books that leap to mind, I have no idea.

Have a nice 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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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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