HOLDEN TANK (17A: Military vehicle for actor William?)
BACON POWDER (24A: Makeup for actor Kevin?)
DANSON SHOES (36A: Footwear for actor Ted?)
WALKEN STICK (47A: Cudgel for actor Christopher?)
LANDON GEAR (57A: Equipment for actor Michael?)
Word of the Day:OMSK(37D: Trans-Siberian Railway city) —
Omsk stretches along the banks of the north-flowing Irtysh at its confluence with the smaller Om River. The city has an elevation of 87 meters (285 ft) above mean sea level at its highest point. // Omsk is an important railroad hub, and is the junction point for the northern and southern branches of the Trans-Siberian Railway.
The city also serves as a major hub for the regional highway network.
River-port facilities handle both passengers and freight, giving the
city access to navigating the extensive waterways of the Irtysh and Ob River. The waterways connect Omsk with the coal and mineral-mining towns further up the river in Kazakhstan, as well as with the oil, natural gas and lumber operations of northern Siberia. Omsk is served by the Tsentralny Airport,
which offers access to domestic and international (primarily, German
and Kazakh) destinations, making the city an important aviation hub for
Siberia and the Russian Far East. (wikipedia)
• • •
BERN crossing CRATERS? Interesting. It's at least mildly ironic to get a "Feel the BERN" reference today, considering what a historic night Clinton had last night. So the slogan makes it into the crossword at the very moment that the slogan becomes (or begins to become) historically erst (BERN crossing CRATERS....). Speaking of erst yore bygonedness—the clue on KODAK (48D: Big employer in Rochester, N.Y.). Constructors / editors / anyone who will listen—you might want to update your cluing database. Maybe you heard what happened to, uh, film over the past two decades or so. Long story short, KODAK is no longer even in the Top Ten of Rochester-area employers. Longtime solvers of erstwhile puzzles will still associate that company with that city, but as a firm believer that puzzles should dwell in the present, I want clues to be current. 2016 puzzles, 2016 data, please. I don't have much to say about this theme. It has an ersty feel to it as well—corny wordplay, of a kind I am certain I've seen before. Puns are cute, but not LOL-worthy. Some of the short fill is unfortunate. Most of the fill overall is acceptable, but no better than that. I'm a big fan of UMPTEEN, but not much else.
["... last year, on that stupid 'Dame EDNA' special.."]
Took a while to put together HOLDEN TANK, but after that, things whipped right along. I wrote DUB in at 29A: Burj Khalifa's home: Abbr. which was simultaneously smart and dumb (it *is* in Dubai, but DUB ... is not an abbr. ... for that ... place). Had trouble getting LL BEAN from 44D: Competitor of The North Face since I think of LL BEAN as a store and a catalogue and The North Face as just a brand. So NW and SE gave me a little trouble, but the rest was very simple. Here are some late-night puzzle thoughts from some of my Twitter followers:
And here's Indie 500 Crossword Tournament Best Handwriting winner Brian Cimmet not-so-quietly judging me for my Worst Handwriting medal. I would show you our handwritings side by side (as tourney organizers did when they posted them on the wall at the back of the ballroom), but I don't want to spoil the puzzles for people who are solving at home...
Word of the Day: Bobby TROUP (54A: Bobby who wrote "Route 66") —
Robert Wesley "Bobby" Troup Jr. (October 18, 1918 – February 7, 1999) was an American actor, jazz pianist, singer and songwriter. He is best known for writing the popular standard "(Get Your Kicks On) Route 66", and for his role as Dr. Joe Early, opposite his real-life wife Julie London's character, in the 1970s US TV series, Emergency! (wikipedia)
• • •
SPECIAL MESSAGEfor the week of January 10-January 17, 2016
Hello, solvers. Somehow, it is January again, which means it's time for my week-long, once-a-year pitch for financial contributions to the blog. The idea is very simple: if you read the blog regularly (or even semi-regularly), please consider what it's worth to you on an annual basis and give accordingly. In making this pitch, I'm pledging that the blog will continue to be here for you to read / enjoy / grimace at for at least another calendar year, with a new post up by 9:00am (usually by 12:01am) every day, as usual. This year is special, as it will mark the 10th anniversary of Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle, and despite my not-infrequent grumblings about less-than-stellar puzzles, I've actually never been so excited to be thinking and writing about crosswords. I have no way of knowing what's coming from the NYT, but the broader world of crosswords looks very bright, and that is sustaining. Whatever happens, this blog will remain an outpost of the Old Internet: no ads, no corporate sponsorship, no whistles and bells. Just the singular, personal voice of someone talking passionately about a topic he loves. As I have said in years past, I know that some people are opposed to paying for what they can get for free, and still others really don't have money to spare. Both kinds of people are welcome to continue reading my blog, with my compliments. It will always be free. I have no interest in cordoning it off, nor do I have any interest in taking advertising. I value my independence too much. Anyway, if you are so moved, there is a Paypal button in the sidebar, and a mailing address here:
Rex Parker
℅ Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
Binghamton NY 13905
And here: I'll stick a PayPal button in here for the mobile users.
There. Hope that helps.
For people who send me actual, honest-to-god (i.e. "snail") mail (I love snail mail!), this year my thank-you cards are "Sibley Backyard Birding Postcards"—each card a different watercolor illustration by ornithologist David Sibley. You could get a Black PHOEBE. A California TOWHEE. Or maybe even a picture of some fabled SCARLET TANAGERS (15). Or give via PayPal and get a thank-you email. That's cool too. Please note: I don't keep a "mailing list" and don't share my contributor info with anyone. And if you give by snail mail and (for some reason) don't want a thank-you card, just say NO CARD. As I say in every thank-you card (and email), I'm so grateful for your readership and support. So thanks, not A TAD, but A TON (partial fill! coming in useful!). Now on to the puzzle …
• • •
This one played kind of STAID. It's got PHOTOBOMB (1A: Drop-in shot?) right out front, which is fantastic, but nothing else in the grid is anywhere near that interesting. What we get instead is a mostly (though not always) clean grid designed to please that segment of the solving population that doesn't like sports and doesn't like brand names and doesn't like contemporary pop culture anywhere near their puzzles. It's worth noting that this segment of the solving population is still pretty sizable. I actually thought most of this puzzle was solid, if workmanlike. It's loaded with tough-but-fair clues, many of them playful in a non-irritating way. But there were three areas that gave me a slight case of the grimaces, and so my feeling upon wrapping it up (in the SE) was not a terribly satisfied one—although if I play "LIP SERVICE" in my head, my mood does improve considerably.
Things started very, very badly. I actually took two screenshots documenting each of my first two answers. The first shot is titled "inauspicious," and the second "ReallyInauspicious":
Now MTAPO was a gimme for me, and those few of you who have been reading me for most of the past decade will (maybe) remember why: I completely crashed and burned on that answer once at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (in 2009), and was so traumatized by the event that I brought it up in one of my crossword write-ups. In the tourney, I guessed at an answer for the Philippine peak and it ... wasn't right. If you google [rex parker moapo], you'll see. So now when I see MTAPO (which is almost never, because it's terrible fill), I have some minor PTSD symptoms. It's very, very weird, for me, to open with MTAPO. Fills me with bad memories and dread of what I'm in for. To then cross it with OENO? ... oh, no. Now, eventually, that quadrant ended up cleaning up real nice, to the point where I almost forgave the junk. And then the NE corner was ... fine. Easy. Uneventful.
[gratuitous cat picture]
But then I got into the SW corner. Seemed like no problem—nailed all the long Downs without too much trouble, so it was just a matter of finishing off all that little stuff at the bottom and ... then ... TROU-??? This was the point that I realized the cultural center of gravity for this puzzle was at least two decades before my own. ROB REINER was hard enough to come up with (I was a child). Bobby TROUP?? LOL, no. And you cross TROUP ('60s/'70s) with "S*P*Y*S" (1974)!? Now, despite never having seen "S*P*Y*S" and not even knowing stars were supposed to go in here, I figured out that "P." I'd *heard* of "S*P*Y*S." I have to think some younger (than 46) solvers (and some older) will not have. And since "S*P*Y*S" is a misspelled plural ... I don't know how inferrable it is. I am now imagining an animated movie about pigs called "S*T*Y*S" (PIG IT! ... Summer 2018). Gotta give credit to the "M*A*S*H" misdirection in the clue, though (51D: 1974 film witih three stars in its title)—"M*A*S*H" was four years early, but you'd be forgiven for not remember that. Also, turns out that the two movies have the Same Two Stars:
And who the hell knows what an ERGOMETER is? Does it measure how often you make logical connections. I've heard of ERGONOMIC furniture, but that is the extent of my ergoknowledge. And AD INITIUM, yikes! (55A: At the beginning) I had my face in a Latin textbook just yesterday and that one still took work. AB OVO ... is how I would say "at the beginning" Latinly. It's how the crossword usually says it. AD INFINITUM is of course wrong, but it kept running around my brain anyway. So that SE corner was kind of hard to get into. I knew RENE RUSSO, but she didn't help much. Ironically, Julie TAYMOR was the one who bailed me out (I've never seen her work; just know her name somehow) (45D: Julie with two Tonys for "The Lion King"). Actually, TUBA was the real hero—the first thing I managed to throw down in that largely empty section (48A: It has a solo near the end of "An American in Paris"). Thanks, TUBA.
THEME: CANDY (33D: Checkout counter staple … or, when read as three words, what 20-, 31-, 47- and 55-Across have in common)— theme answers follow "C and Y" pattern, i.e. they're two-word phrases where first word starts w/ "C" and second word starts with "Y"
Theme answers:
20A: January 1 to December 31 (CALENDAR YEAR)
31A: First pilot to travel faster than the speed of sound (CHUCK YEAGER)
47A: Area around a henhouse (CHICKEN YARD) [probably shouldn't have had "Area" in the clue, given the presence of SKI AREA elsewhere in the grid]
55A: Bright color (CANARY YELLOW)
Word of the Day: Oscar ISAAC (28D: "Inside Llewyn Davis" actor Oscar and others = ISAACS) —
Oscar Isaac (born Óscar Isaac Hernández; March 9, 1980) is a Latin American actor and singer. […] In 2013, Isaac starred in the film Inside Llewyn Davis, written and directed by the Coen Brothers. Isaac played a talented yet unsuccessful folk singer in a drama set in Greenwich Village in 1961, and sang all his own numbers. The film won the Grand Prix at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. (wikipedia)
• • •
Pretty remedial stuff here. Seen this conceit before—it's theoretically replicable with a ton of revealers (PANDA, SANDY, LANDO, etc.), and the resulting theme answers here just aren't that exciting. Also, the grid is built in such a way that short, boring stuff is maximized. Fill is not that great, perhaps the result of the fact that all theme answers are crammed toward the middle: four long answers and the five-letter Down revealer, all bunched into nine rows. Would've been easier to fill if the shorter themers had been placed first and last, and pushed to 3rd and 13th rows, respectively, *but* then CANDY as the central Down would've been impossible. So—trade-offs. Anyway, this certainly isn't terrible, but it's forgettable, and ELIA, SYD, ERS, DINO, EDY, IMO, EKED, MDSE, PIA etc etc is really too much gunk for such a basic Monday theme. "Easy" puzzles should be doable by newcomers, and stuff like ELIA and SYD aren't really "easy." They're crossword-easy (i.e. easy for constant solvers). Short fill can be done cleanly. Just see virtually any Newsday puzzle. We've just grown accustomed to seeing gunk as "normal"—doesn't have to be that way. Again, this puzzle feels very average, in terms of NYT fill quality. But average here is below what average really should be, and can be.
I see the puzzle is trying to decrease its musty feel by having somewhat more contemporary clues. Or clue, anyway, as today we have an "Inside Llewyn Davis" clue on ISAACS. While I'm grateful any time the puzzle feels contemporary, I thought that clue was actually pretty hard for a Monday. I certainly didn't know the guy's name. I'm not by any means calling the clue unfair—I did this puzzle in 2:42, so his name was pretty easy to figure out. But he definitely felt like a 21st-century outlier shoved in there with your ALECs and DIORs and PIAs. "Inside Llewyn Davis" hasn't played where I live and isn't likely to any time soon. Gotta go to Ithaca to see most decent stuff, though I did manage to see "American Hustle" (which I keep wanting to call "Boogie Nights") and "Nebraska" (which we saw just this afternoon, actually). I really hope June Squibb wins for "Nebraska," both because she was Amazing and because her name would be a real boon to crosswords.
A million thanks to my friend Matt Gaffney for filling in for me this past week. I didn't really *need* a break, but he wanted to see what it would be like to blog a week at a shot, and since it was my first week back teaching, I was happy for the respite. But now I'm back for good—probably until July, excluding any sick days or crossword tournament days I might take. Speaking of the ACPT, you can register here. Also, if you are an upstater, the Finger Lakes Crossword Competition is coming up on Saturday, Mar. 1, in Ithaca, NY. Information here. I will be there in a non-competitive capacity before heading to Brooklyn the following weekend for the ACPT.
Oh, and lastly, since I wasn't around to announce it yesterday, I'll mention briefly that my Crossword of the Week last week was Neville Fogarty's "Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!"—think of it as a Super Bowl puzzle for people who don't really care about the Super Bowl. It violates a cardinal rule of crosswords, but … that's kind of the idea. Enjoy it here! Enjoy it here! Enjoy it here!
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
Read more...
THEME: The shift is on! — Phrases of the form "[Baseball player] S____" shift the S to the first word to become a new possessive phrase. It's easier than I'm making it sound, honest.
Word of the Day: ABBY (Women's soccer star Wambach) —
(I had to give a shout-out to soccer and to women's sports in general, both of which can get short shrift in American sports coverage. Plus, the world record thing just happened.)
Theme answers (with spacing and punctuation for extra illumination!):
GIANT'S QUID
CARDINAL'S IN
TIGER'S TRIPE (In my .puz, this clue lacks a question mark. Is this just an online error? How does it look in the paper?)
PIRATE'S HIP
Tyler Hinman here once again to offer my take on today's Times puzzle. I don't think today's constructor had any way of knowing I'd be guest-posting today, but he puts one right in my wheelhouse with a baseball theme. Even though the possessive theme has been done a whole bunch in various forms, I quite liked this one; very tightly defined. The fill isn't immaculate, but mostly pretty solid. My biggest complaint is that I blazed through it in under three minutes, with a brief hiccup in the upper right my only sticking point. Leaving aside my level of experience, I know Thursday is capable of putting up more of a fight. Nonetheless, a thumbs-up for Mr. Dobbin; he didn't horse around here.
Bullets:
AL MARSALA — Kinda sounds like a ballplayer as well, doesn't it? "Pinch-hitting for New York... playing right field... Al Marsala."
IRANI — I believe I've heard or read Merl Reagle claim that he'd never use this in one of his puzzles because the term is IRANIAN. Any thoughts? At the very least, this is a tired entry. The constructor hemmed himself in a bit by placing black squares that force an I???I entry.
NSYNC — These guys were a thing that happened. Bye bye bye.
ATTU — An island that could be part of a Monday vowel-change theme if only ITTU, OTTU, and UTTU were things.
RUBIK — Have you seen the X-Cube? Pretty cool. I've memorized how to solve the regular cube several times and keep managing to forget.
ALL IS WELL / DIAGNOSIS — An optimistic pair of consecutive Down answers.
SPAT OUT — Alternatively, a tipster at an OTB in a health club.
In closing, the first two theme entries evoked bad memories of 2010 and 2012, respectively. The third is my girlfriend's favored team as well as Rex's, and I'm sure they don't care to recall the end of 2012's season either. As for the fourth team, well, I'm just going to leave this here.
THEME: OUTSIDERS (35A: Nonmembers ... or what 4-, 7- and 10-Down lack?) — three theme answers have "R"s that are outside the grid (i.e. you have to imagine the initial and terminal Rs in those answers)
Word of the Day: ILSE Steppat (19A: Actress Steppat of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service") —
Ilse Paula Steppat (November 11, 1917 in Wuppertal – December 21, 1969 in West Berlin) was a Germanactress. Her husband was noted actor and director Max Nosseck. // She began her cinematic career at the age of 15 playing Joan of Arc. Steppat appeared regularly on the German stage, and starred in more than forty movies. In the 1960s, she appeared frequently in crime movies based on the work of author Edgar Wallace, such as Die Gruft mit dem Rätselschloss, Der unheimliche Mönch and Die blaue Hand, which brought her great fame in Germany. // In her only English language role, Steppat played Blofeld's assistant and henchwoman Irma Bunt in the James Bond movie On Her Majesty's Secret Service. In the first English language conversation between Steppat and the movie's producer, Albert R. Broccoli, she confused the word verlobt (engaged) with engagiert. Despite this, however, she was awarded the role of Irma Bunt. Steppat was unable to capitalise on her new fame outside of Germany, as she died of a heart attack only four days after the movie's international release. She is buried in the Waldfriedhof Dahlem in Berlin. (wikipedia)
• • •
Talk about your crossword coincidences. An ILSE who played an IRMA!? Wow.
Not sure why, but this puzzle took me Forever to get into, and even after I got the theme figured out, I still struggled. Nothing up top was a gimme except EST'D and IS IT I ... maybe GETS. It's possible that if I'd abandoned the N much earlier and headed south (where I might've seen the gimme GWENS, for instance; 65A: Music's Stefani and others), I could've got rolling sooner. ERIS would've helped. I don't know. Between ridiculous stuff like ILSE (who?), ALEC (who?), ASANTE (we're supposed to know Swahili now? why is this valid?), and EGON (22A: Certain Ghostbuster) (I recently rewatched "Ghostbusters" and still needed virtually every cross), and then forced-tough cluing — SELECTS as a noun (!?!?! ouch.) (11D: Superior things); EDITION as a [Dictionary specification]!? — I just floundered. But mostly I just failed to come up with stuff I should've come up with. %&^*ing CASSAVA (1D: Tapioca source). I wanted IPOD at 1A: It can change one's tune and so both CASSAVA and CAPO (and, indeed, the whole NW corner) stayed hidden for a long time. Not LA PAZ or SUCRE or LHASA but SANA'A! Brutal (20A: World capital at 7,200+ feet).
Concept seems fine. Cute. None of the long phrases feels like a bullseye, though. All accurate enough, but just a bit ... off-center. Apt-ish. Defensible, but odd. RESIGNATION LETTER is probably closest to spot-on. Anyway, not thrilling, but just fine. Wish the bizarre proper noun onslaught had been less onslaughty, but there's nothing really beyond the pale. Not much else to say.
Theme answers:
4D: Checker or Domino (OCK AND ROLL SINGE)
7D: It may include two weeks' notice (ESIGNATION LETTE)
10D: John Calvin, e.g. (ELIGIOUS REFORME)
So not all Rs are "outside." Just some.
Bullets:
16A: Wolf whistle accompanier, maybe (LEER) — I was looking for something more vocal. Hubba hubba or yowza or the like.
46A: Old Shaker leader (ANN LEE) — super-important name to know for crosswords. Her full name shows up a lot (as do ANN and LEE, obviously)
66A: Recording artist made famous by the BBC series "The Celts" (ENYA) — never heard of that series. She was made famous by "Orinoco Flow," as far as I remember.
8D: 10th-century Holy Roman emperor (OTTO I) — among the dreckiest, crosswordiest answers. And it helped me a Lot today. I also managed to remember the much less crosswordesey WES (59D: Montgomery of jazz), though like OTTO I, he's known to me only through crosswords.
2D: Ellery Queen and others (ALIASES) — wanted PEN NAMES or PSEUDONYMS from the second I saw the clue. Criminals have ALIASES.
25D: Floride, par exemple (ÉTAT) — fooled by this one at first. Not sure my brain even registered the Frenchness of "par exemple."
49D: ___ Neuchâtel (LAC) — no idea what this is. At all. I mean, I assume it's a lake, but ... yeah, for me this is up there with ASANTE and ALEC and ILSE as far as familiarity goes.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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A long time ago, I was solving this puzzle and got stuck at an unguessable (to me) crossing: N. C. WYETH crossing NATICK at the "N"—I knew WYETH but forgot his initials, and NATICK ... is a suburb of Boston that I had no hope of knowing. It was clued as someplace the Boston Marathon runs through (???). Anyway, NATICK— the more obscure name in that crossing—became shorthand for an unguessable cross, esp. where the cross involves two proper nouns, neither of which is exceedingly well known. NATICK took hold as crossword slang, and the term can now be both noun ("I had a NATICK in the SW corner...") or verb ("I got NATICKED by 50A / 34D!")
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