Rum named for Spanish literary hero / WED 3-20-13 / Looney Tunes animator Freleng / Rihanna's record label / Genre pioneered by Miles Davis / Zodiac borders / He wrote Capital is dead labor

Constructor: Raymond C. Young

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: FOUR (25A: Minimum number of times each letter of the alphabet appears in this puzzle's solution) — what it says

Word of the Day: FRIZ Freleng (58A: Looney Tunes animator ___ Freleng) —

Isadore "Friz" Freleng (August 21, 1905 – May 26, 1995), sometimes credited as I. Freleng, was an American animator, cartoonist, director, and producer best known for his work on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons from Warner Bros.

He introduced and/or developed several of the studio's biggest stars, including Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Tweety Bird, Sylvester the cat, Yosemite Sam (to whom he was said to bear more than a passing resemblance) and Speedy Gonzales. The senior director at Warners' Termite Terracestudio, Freleng directed more cartoons than any other director in the studio (a total of 266), and is also the most honored of the Warner directors, having won four Academy Awards. After Warners shut down the animation studio in 1963, Freleng and business partner David H. DePatie founded DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, which produced cartoons (notably The Pink Panther Show), feature film title sequences, and Saturday morning cartoons through the early 1980s.

The nickname "Friz" came from his friend Hugh Harman, who initially nicknamed him "Congressman Frizby" after a fictional senator that was in articles in the Los Angeles Examiner. Over time this shortened to "Friz". (wikipedia)

• • •

Felt pretty easy to me, but I can tell from the times posted at the NYX site that my experience was not the norm. Even with 15-20 seconds of hunting down a stupid typo (somehow in changing YELPS to YAWPS I ended up with the nonsensical YAWOS), I finished under 5. And I finished first. Very weird to see my name on the leaderboard at #1 (for a minute or so) with no other names up there. Anyway, I think this will play harder-than-average for most folks, though maybe not Much harder. The hardness is located mainly in the (unfortunate) preponderance of proper nouns of the nutty-spelling variety. Your FRIZes and your DONQs (!?) (41D: Rum named for a Spanish literary hero) and your WOMACKs and your KYSERs and what not. My biggest slow-ups were ... just getting out of the NW corner (both THE DEVIL and OP-ED PAGE took me forEver to see), and then LAYOVERS for LAYS OVER (9D: Stops for a while in the course of a journey), and then ... I don't know, the rest was pretty easy. High value Scrabble letters tend to make words jump out pretty quickly. Just the "Q" got me all of KUMQUATS, for instance. I didn't know XXXIX, but somehow I don't feel too bad about that. And while we're on that answer—it's one big reason I'm not as impressed with this "theme" as I might be. I mean, if all of your Xs are coming in one Random Roman Numeral, then what's the point? Feels a bit like a cop-out. On the other hand, as 78-word themelesses go (and they never go anywhere, i.e. you'll Never see a themeless in the NYX over 72 words), this was pretty entertaining. I learned that CAVE BAT is a thing (29A: Upside-down-sleeping mammal). I know BATCAVE was a thing, but now ... CAVE BAT! And while, yes, the pressure to cram in Qs gets you junky stuff like SEQS crossing QTRS, it also livens up a grid that (with so much short fill) would in most other thematic circumstances be pretty pedestrian. JONQUILS (50A: Yellow blooms) crossing KUMQUATS (38D: Orange fruits) is a thing of beauty, and I mostly had fun filling this one in, so, as stunt puzzles go—a tepid thumbs-up.

[YAWPS]
Bullets:

• 47A: Rihanna's record label (DEF JAM) — I like the musical perpendicularity of this answer and NUJAZZ (43D: Genre pioneered by Miles Davis). I also just like the placement of this "J." "J" is almost always in initial position in at least one of its crosses; not here.
• 29D: Zodiac borders (CUSPS) — not sure how to take "borders" at first. I was imagining the dividing lines on some kind of zodiacal chart...
• 37D: He wrote "Capital is dead labor" (KARL MARX) — kind of obvious from the quote. His full name looks great in the grid. 
• 25D: Clotho and sisters (FATES) — "Clotho" sounds like a slovenly clown. There have been several times when I could've used it in one of my grids, but each time I end up feeling too sad and cutting it out.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Given orally at law / SAT 1-26-13 / Maxwell rival / 1919-33 in German history / Repeated cry from Mercutio / Butler who played Grace Kelly / Standard sudoku groupings / It's between Laredo Nuevo Laredo / Monkey launched into space 1958 / Pianist Gilels / Butler who played Grace Kelly /

Constructor: Raymond C. Young

Relative difficulty: Challenging

THEME: none

Word of the Day: KANSA (57A: American tribe that lent its name to a state) —

The Kaw Nation (or Kanza) are a federally recognized American Indian tribe in Oklahoma. They come from the central Midwestern United States. The tribe known as Kaw have also been known as the "People of the South wind", "People of water", Kansa, Kaza, Kosa, and Kasa. Their tribal language is Kansa, classified as a Siouan language.

The toponym "Kansas" was derived from the name of this tribe. The name of Topeka, capital city of Kansas, is said to be the Kaw word Tó Ppí Kˀémeaning "a good place to grow potatoes." The Kaw are closely related to the Osage Nation, with whom members often intermarried. (wikipedia)

• • •

Crash and burn, first because the SE was just brutal for me, and second because of a technical issue—Safari browser, for whatever reason, makes the letters in the NYT applet all wispy thin (see grid). Really annoying. But especially annoying today, when I kept reading the "Q" (from QUIVERY) as an "O" ... I spent forever trying to figure out what kind of [Military hut] started OU- ... I did not notice my misreading until I'd spent a good ten minutes just staring at (mostly) blankness in the SW. Oh, I also had RIGHT ON and not (the absurd) RIGHT OH (is that really the spelling? Not RIGHTO?) (36A: "Indeed, mate"), so the Mae West quote was never ever gonna come (37D: Mae West reputedly said this "is good to find" => HARD MAN ... not a thing!). Wanted SEARLE, but couldn't confirm a thing and so didn't trust it. MRS. TEE VEE? (54A: She told Willy Wonka "Loompaland? There's no such place") Talk about your tertiary ... or whatever's below tertiary ... characters. Ridiculous. SAD AS is an idiotic partial that doesn't even make sense in the poem it's from. I read poetry all the time and can't even figure out what is *literally* meant by the Wordsworth quote, "The strain seemed doubly dear, / Yet SAD AS sweet"; I wanted, I don't know, HALF AS, TWICE AS, JUST AS ... tried WAS AS. I have no idea what CTRL-C is. I'm guessing it's a computer key sequence. If that's true, why not CTRL-anything? Horrible clue. So I hated that corner, but mainly hated myself for reading "Q" as "O"—I would've got QUONSET instantly, and that *probably* would've made the SE corner doable. Ugh, ALERT MIND. That's Not A Thing. SOUND MIND, yes. ALERT MIND, no. Also no—>plural AHEMS. Dear lord (46D: Sounds that make frogs disappear?). What is this Maxwell whose rival is REO? I have no idea what that's about. I thought it was tape and the rival was TDK. But ... It's a car? Yes. Ugh. Yes. This car.


GAY PARADE? Come on. It's called a "Pride Parade," or maybe a "Gay Pride Parade" (both of which significantly out-google GAY PARADE). GORDO? (1D: Monkey launched into space in 1958) "A SAIL" (!?!?!?!) (2D: Repeated cry from Mercutio in "Romeo and Juliet"). Criminy. That corner's not much prettier than the SE (though I did it about ten times faster). PAROL?? (10A: Given orally, at law) Yuck. IRINA, yuck (16A: Russian princess who was Nicholas II's only niece). The SW is probably the most solid. If RIGHT OH had been RIGHT ON, then I'd be very happy with that corner. But when you go for a low word count (and lots of white space), fill tends to suffer. Most people shouldn't be down at 64. Just too hard to fill well. As 64s go, this is passable, but not very likable. 3/4 Easy-Medium, 1/4 Total Mess.

I refuse to spend any more time thinking about this puzzle. From now on, if I solve against the clock, it's in Firefox (which produces nice, fat, black letters in the applet).

Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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1894 opera set in Egypt / THU 1-28-10 / Scalding castle weapon / Star Wars droid informally / A gun slangily

Constructor: Raymond C. Young

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: PINK THINGS (54A: What 17-Across and 10- and 24-Down all conceal) — theme answers have words that represent PINK THINGS embedded in them...

Word of the Day: Lonette MCKEE (46D: Lonette of "The Cotton Club" and "Malcolm X") —

Lonette McKee (born July 22, 1954) is an American film and television actress, music composer/producer/songwriter, screenwriter and director. [...] McKee won critical acclaim for her Broadway debut performance in the musical The First. She became the first African American to play the coveted role of 'Julie' in the Houston Grand Opera's production of Show Boat on Broadway, for which she received a Tony Award nomination. Her tragic portrayal of jazz legend Billie Holliday in the one-woman show, Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill won critical acclaim, standing ovations and a Drama Desk Award nomination. She reprised the role of 'Julie' on Broadway in the most recent revival of the musical Show Boat directed by Hal Prince. [...] McKee had a recurring role on the NBC drama Third Watch. McKee was featured in People magazine's Fifty Most Beautiful 1995 issue. // McKee teaches a master acting workshop at Centenary College of New Jersey, where she serves as an adjunct professor in the Theater Arts department.

• • •

Went to sleep early last night, woke up at 5am and solved this puzzle first thing. Not the most ... efficient way to solve a puzzle. I was not in power-solving mode, so I'm actually not quite sure how difficult/un-difficult this one was. Felt on the easy side much of the time, but then there were hang-ups — most notably in the NE and SW — and I actually stared at the final blank square — the "K" in PINK! — for many seconds before the "K" fell in. PINY THINGS? No. One glance around the grid helped me (eventually) see the PINK. Came in slightly slower than normal ... I guess we an go "Medium-Challenging," but more "Medium" than "Challenging" for me. I don't know that I liked this theme, but I have to at least give it credit for being interesting. PINK THINGS is descriptive, but not exactly a common phrase. There is a song called "Pink Thing" on XTC's "Oranges and Lemons" album (1989), but ... it's about a PINK THING that appears *nowhere* in this grid (I'm pretty sure). My main problem today is that FLAMINGO and CARNATION can hardly be said to be "concealed" in their respective answers. There are only two other letters to "conceal" them in each case. It's like a fat guy trying to hide behind a lamp post — not working. Mildly annoying that the CARNATION in INCARNATION doesn't span two words the way the other "concealed" words do. But whatever. The grid, at least, is compelling, with all sorts of stuff I've never or rarely seen (including a TWADDLING THREEPIO!) (31D: Talking silly + 36D: "Star Wars" droid, informally).


Theme answers:

• 17A: Scalding castle weapon (FLAMING Oil) — concealing a pink FLAMINGO
• 10D: Resigned response to tragedy ("Que sERA SERa") — concealing a pink ERASER
• 24D: A pharaoh vis-à-vis Horus, in Egyptian myth (inCARNATION) — concealing a pink CARNATION

Found the NE the hardest section to get into and out of. Wanted RABID at first for 13D: Animal-like, but then ESSO changed that to -OID. Couldn't make sense of 10A: Pump, in a way — thought it might have something to do with gas or shoes. Eventually had to figure out QUE SERA SERA from the back end, and that "Q" gave me all the info I needed to handle the NE, including the previously eely QUIZ and ZOOID (nice intersection). Echo of this struggle in the SW, where T-SHAPED (43A: Like a crucifix) was not immediately clear to me, so I had to work that corner from the inside out, and I had OMEN where SIGN was supposed to go (59A: Foreshadowing). The clue that was supposed to be trickiest (I assume) ended up being the one that helped me the most down there. "Letteral" clues (self-referential clues that actually want a "letter" in the clue for their answers) are often hard to see, but HARD G (45D: Head of government?) was obvious to me in this case. This gave me SIGN and then ... done down there. Finished in the SE where only that final "K" in MCKEE gave me real resistance.

Bullets:

• 14A: Hatch at a hearing (Orrin) — good old trick: use names that are also perfectly ordinary words as a way of throwing the solver. Spent part of last night thinking about how to use N.B.A. star Rudy Gay's name this way.
• 16A: "Come ___ these yellow sands, / And then take hands": Ariel in "The Tempest" ("unto") — long way to go for [Golden Rule verb], but why not?
• 20A: Former Saturn (Ion) — Well, if it's "former," you know it's not the planet... that Saturn is still Saturn, as far as I know.
• 28A: Four-bagger (tater) — ooh, using slang to clue something even slangier. People probably put HOMER in here at first, if they put in anything.
• 49A: A gun, slangily (heat) — I don't know why "A" is in this clue. I thought it important, so considered A GAT... I guess that, in the phrase PACKING HEAT, "HEAT" stands in for "a gun." OK.
• 11D: Emasculate, say (unsex) — I had DESEX. Seemed reasonable. Part of the trouble up there in the NE.
• 43D: 1894 opera set in Egypt (Thais) — by Jules Massenet. Luckily the name THAIS rang a bell, but this one didn't come easily. Wanted AI(I)DA.
• 55D: Suffix with mescal (-ine) — that seems a bold way to clue (the otherwise cruddy) -INE. It's a psychedelic agent found naturally in peyote. I associate it with Hunter S. Thompson.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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FRIDAY, Jan. 4, 2008 - Raymond C. Young

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none

I have one criticism of this otherwise delightful puzzle. It's super crappy to have a baseball team that most Americans have never heard of intersect another word at a vowel where two different vowels result in technically acceptable spellings. I had LICEY (36D: Tigres del _____, Dominican team that has won the Caribbean World Series nine times) and SHYEST (48A: Having the most social anxiety) in those answers, but then could not Conceive of a Spanish word ending in "Y" for some reason. I know that's idiotic - "Y" is its own word in Spanish, after all. And yet LICEY looked ridiculous, which made me want to put in and "I" for LICEI, which also looks ridiculous, but somehow seemed more suitably Spanish (although now that I look at it, it's really more Italian/Latin-looking). I went with the "Y" only because ... well, it just seemed like the most acceptable spelling of SHYEST. And I was right. But ugh, I did not like having to make that decision.

The rest of the puzzle was a breeze. Some careless reader of mine commented on today's puzzle before I'd posted, and so ruined it for me (slightly) by claiming how easy it was. This user, thankfully, realized his/her mistake and deleted the comment, but the damage was done, to me anyway. At every point where I got slowed down, I would think "this is supposed to be Easy!" But in the end it was pretty easy, and I was done in under 10, which is just fine for a Friday.

Looking the puzzle over, I'm surprised by how easy it felt - there are a good number of answers I simply didn't know:

• 22A: Candlemas dessert (crepe) - got it from crosses. Like that it intersects CREME (22D: _____ de fraise)
• 29A: Forensic indicators of the presence of blood (hemins) - nope. Knowledge of root words helped me put in the HEM-, though, so that was good.
• 2D: Horse of the Year that won the 1949 Preakness and Belmont (Capot) - ????? No way.
• 4D: Soprano Albanese (Licia) - also, no way.
• 13D: London locale of Prada, Dior, Gucci and Giorgia Armani (Sloane Street) - I'm sure this is super-famous, in its way, but it was entirely unknown to me. Figuring out the STREET part helped me change PERPETUATE to PERPETRATE (32A: Cause).
• 24D: Olivia de Havilland film of 1949 ("The Heiress") - what's the obsession with 1949? Yeesh.
• 35D: Claudia _____, 1984 Olympic gold medalist in shot put (Losch) - come on. You don't really expect more than four people on the planet to know this, do you?
• 43D: _____-80 (classic computer) (TRS) - needed every cross. Not sure I've heard of it before.
• 1A: Like the reading on a thermometer (scalar) - true enough, I guess, but not only would the word not come readily - I realized I didn't really know what it meant. Seems related to "scale," obviously, but meaning is more specific. From Wikipedia:

A scalar is a variable that only has magnitude, e.g. a speed of 40 km/h. Compare it with vector, a quantity comprising both magnitude and direction

• 45A: Strength of a chemical solution (titer) - one of those words that I know without knowing why I know it (see also SCALAR). Thank god I knew it, because it intersected bloody TRS.

Then there were some pretty iffy-seeming words:

• 10D: Ones without a chance in the world (no-hopers) - where the hell does this come from? All the top Google hits are dictionary hits (not a good sign for the street-worthiness of your "word").
• 44A: Observatory doings (telescopy) - I have no doubt that this is a perfectly valid word. I also have no doubt that I've heard it exactly 0-4 times in my whole life.
• 38D: Fall times: Abbr. (Septs.) - oh, you hate to see that. [Wince]
• 6D: Plant on after a wildfire, say (reafforest) - the more I look at this, the more OK it seems, but while I was solving, I was like "WTF are they doing to the damned FOREST?!" Actually, earlier on, I had the -OREST and placed a "T" on top of the "O" and thought "hmmm, 'something TO REST' ... interesting."
• 8D: Producing some clouds (vaporific) - this sounds like the rejected slogan of Vicks Vapor Rub: "It's VAPORIFIC!"

Good stuff:

• 7A: Molly who wrote "Bushwhacked" (Ivins) - recently deceased. Sadly, I could not spell her name correctly, which really held up IN THE PINK (9D: Fit).
• 19A: Service for moviegoers (Moviefone) - fresh and modern; nice, just like...
• 34A: Modern marketing aid (email list)
• 25A: "In a hurry, are we?" ("Where's the fire?") - love it; plus, it was easy to get, and goes nicely, somehow, with ...
• 30A: Makes a fraidy-cat (out of) (scares the heck)
• 25D: Pilferers from ships and port warehouses (wharf rats) - LOVE this answer. Perhaps my favorite of the day. Colorful and unexpected. A pleasant surprise when it revealed itself.
• 26D: Alabaman who wrote the Best Novel of the Century, according to a 1999 Library Journal poll (Harper Lee) - took me an embarrassingly long time to piece the letters together. Parsing was difficult. So many generic letters.
• 30D: "The first network for men" sloganeer, once (Spike TV) - like "denizen" and "slangily," "sloganeer" is one of those words you see almost nowhere but crossword clues.

Off to do the day's other puzzles. Tune in again today at 2pm EST for the announcement of the 2007 ACCA Awards for Crossword Puzzle Construction. See you then.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Today's other puzzles:

• NYS 30 min. (C) - "Vwllss Crsswrd"
• LAT 8:03 (C) - ["dine away from home"]
• WSJ failure (C) - "International Food Fest" [idiotic mistake]
• CS 5:04 (C) - "Standing Out" (quip)
• Chronicle of Higher Education 8:09 (C) - RECOMMENDED: Larry Shearer, "Academic Transfers"

[drawing by Emily Cureton]

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SATURDAY, Jul. 21, 2007 - Raymond Young

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none

I thought overall this was a great puzzle. Tough, but doable, with lots of interesting fill. But the whole thing is marred, for me, by the very first clue in the puzzle.

1A: Faux pa? (stepfather)

I had SPERM DONOR. Why? Well, it was closest thing I could think of to "faux" where fathers are concerned. "Faux" implies not only fake, but cheap. A cheap fake. A knockoff. An imitation. Not as good. Less than. Ersatz. As a STEPFATHER myself, let me just say that this clue is officially invited to bite me. It's phenomenally insulting. Why not make the answer ADOPTER, or GOD - I mean, since you've already gone to the trouble of demeaning non-sperm-related paternal relationships, why not go all the way? I can barely bring myself to refer to Sahra as my "stepdaughter" because it feels like I'm qualifying something - it feels like I'm diminishing my love for her, actually. It's accurate enough, but the qualifier "step" ... almost feels like a betrayal when I say it. It's fine that she refers to me as her "stepdad" - she has a perfectly good biological father, so she needs to distinguish. But I don't. Anyway, if I'm a "faux pa," then she's a "faux daughter," and just try telling me that to my face. I am almost as committed to non-violence as a Quaker, and yet I would seriously kick your ass.

Whew. I feel better. On to the good stuff.

Crossing AMORIST (12D: Love lover) and EROTICIST (22A: Purveyor of hot stuff - HA ha) - genius. I wish the clue [Purveyor of "Hot Stuff"] had also been in the puzzle, with the answer DONNA SUMMER.

I got started on this puzzle with 16A: Not yours, in Tours (à moi) - thank you H.S. French. This got me nothing. The weirdest gimme of all time - and the one that confirmed that the awkward TEAMERS (7D: Special-_____ (football players used only in specific situations)) was in fact correct - was 8D: French novelist d'Urfe (Honoré). I am going out on a limb and saying that I am the only person among all 4000 of us reading this blog today who has not only heard of but actually written about this guy. Actual, published, I-got-paid-to-do-it writing. Finally some of my super-obscure knowledge pays crossword dividends. Seeing this answer here was a little like the time I took a break from my weekend-long Ph.D. exams (40 pages of writing in 3 days) on medieval Scottish literature only to walk into a movie theater and see a life-sized cardboard cut-out of Mel Gibson as the Scottish hero I had just been writing about, not two hours earlier. My dusty corner of the library turned Hollywood blockbuster before my eyes. Surreal. I was so delirious from exam anxiety that I thought I might be seeing things.

TEAMERS and HONORE confirmed the sad correctness of STEPFATHER at 1A, which made the rest of the NW pretty easy. I didn't know that PEENS were 4D: Tool parts for bending and shaping. I thought they were just the parts of hammers that you struck with. TITLING was a bit forced for 2D: Calling. Ditto, though to a lesser extent, ENTENTE for 3D: Dove's desire. SNAP PEA (1D: Stir-fry vegetable) is, in fact, snappy.

ORIENTATED (56A: Became adjusted) is a really ugly word with apparently superfluous letters. What's the difference between ORIENTED and ORIENTATED? The only SUMAC (48D: Cashew family member) I know is Yma SUMAC. Are there really edible, cashew-like things called SUMACS? SEA EAR (25D: Abalone) is also new to me. IRENIC (44D: Peaceful) is not new, but highly unusual. I had EDENIC until RIO DE La Plata at 43A made that impossible.

You could make a really odd dinner menu out of this puzzle: open with MANICOTTI (11D: Italian for sleeves") and SNAP PEAS, close with TAPIOCA (36D: Dessert Calvin doesn't like in "Calvin and Hobbes") and HOHOS (47D: Snack cake brand since 1967).

Both OPERA MUSIC (50A: Libretto accompaniment) and HAND CAMERA (54A: Little shooter) feel really weird. Neither the OPERA nor the HAND appears to really want to be there. It's as if they're being coerced into making an appearance just to make the grid work, not because they make for a perfect, in-the-language phrase.

Two mysteries:

• 53A: French painter of Napoleonic scenes (Gros)
• 30A: "Moesha" actress Wilson and others (Yvettes) - this gets my vote for most hilariously arcane pop culture clue of the year

Best clue / answer: 38A: Something often looked for on a rainy day (taxi cab). RAINBOW would have fit, but "rainy" in the clue seemed to preclude that answer. Thankfully, I had the "X" from today's mountaineering clue (seems like there's at least one a week), 23D: Scaling aid (ice axe), so I was in good shape to get TAXI CAB.

This is not at all a Scrabbly puzzle, but given the amazing feat of 4-stacking 10 letter answers in both the NW and SE, I'm willing to let it slide. Yesterday's puzzle had enough Scrabbly letters for one weekend.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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