Lemonlike fruit / MON 2-22-10 / Parts of a bride's attire / Caesar whose forum was TV / Depressed urban area

Constructor: Steve Dobis

Relative difficulty: No idea

THEME: 28A: Parts of a bride's attire for this puzzle — theme answers start with words that can follow SOMETHING (as in the phrase "SOMETHING old, SOMETHING new, SOMETHING borrowed, SOMETHING blue") (36A: Word that can precede the starts of 18-, 20-, 53- and 58-Across)


Word of the Day: NEW CALEDONIA (20A: Island east of Australia) —

New Caledonia (French: officially: Nouvelle-Calédonie; colloquially: (la) Calédonie; popular nicknames: (la) Kanaky, (le) Caillou), is a colonial collectivity of France located in the subregion of Melanesia in the southwest Pacific. It comprises a main island (Grande Terre), the Loyalty Islands, and several smaller islands. Approximately half the size of Taiwan, it has a land area of 18,575.5 square kilometres (7,172 sq mi). The population was estimated in January 2009 to be 249,000. The capital and largest city of the territory is Nouméa. The currency is the CFP franc. // Since 1986 the United Nations Committee on Decolonization has included New Caledonia on the United Nations list of Non-Self-Governing Territories. New Caledonia is set to decide whether to remain within the French Republic or become an independent state in a referendum to be held between 2014 and 2019. // Nouméa, the capital, is also the seat of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (formerly the South Pacific Commission), an international organization. (wikipedia) [notice how "Australia" appears no where in this discussion...]

• • •

Welcome back! Wait, you guys didn't go anywhere. I was the one who was away this weekend. The tournament in Brooklyn was a lot of fun, though I did not participate. That last sentence appears to make little sense, but is true nonetheless. I was on the periphery of the tournament all weekend, seeing friends and meeting new people and turning my voice recorder on at various, occasionally inappropriate times to try to capture the wisdom, eloquence, and occasionally drunken ramblings of various constructors, editors, and solvers. While the participants were solving, I went into Manhattan for soba noodles (Saturday), or slept late (Sunday). I also got to see really good friends and their brand new baby. There wasn't nearly enough time to see or talk to everyone I would have liked to. There is a new champion, as most of you know by now: Dan Feyer, a guy who trained for his first tournament by solving every crossword I ever wrote about and reading every write-up I ever wrote. One of the first things he told me two years ago was, "I'm probably the only person besides your mother who's read every word you've ever written." And now he's the champ. The other two finalists, Anne Erdmann and Howard Barkin, would have made excellent champions as well — I don't know Anne, but I do know that she was the only woman besides Ellen Ripstein to be on the stage for the finals in the past quarter century; I do know Howard, whom I met at my very first tournament three years ago and who is possibly the nicest guy in the world of crosswords (populated almost exclusively by very nice people). Tyler Hinman was out of the running because of a tie-breaker rule (he finished the main round of 7 puzzles tied for third). This was disappointing to me and a lot of people, as we would have loved to see him defend, but he was gracious in defeat and generous in his praise for Dan and got a *huge* standing ovation when he was announced as the fourth-place finisher (and, for the last time, champion of the Juniors division). It was actually pretty moving. Everyone was excited for a new champ, but everyone still (rightly) stands in awe of Mr. Hinman's skills (and string of 5 championships in a row). Like the Terminator, he'll be back.

OK, on to this puzzle. I did it on paper, with the grid in the wrong part of the page (upper left is great if you're left-handed; I'm not). I wish I could figure out how to make Black Ink (my software) MOVED THE DAMNED GRID TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PAGE. If anyone has the answers, please hit me up with an email, thanks. Plus I was bus-lagged, despite not changing time zones. Anyway, I was slow, but refuse to believe it was the puzzle's fault. Grid construction is cool / odd / possibly harder to flow through because of that creamy middle that you can only access via narrow passages at E and W. Also, NEW CALEDONIA!? I've heard of it, but had no consciousness of its position vis-a-vis Australia. ALLE is not a German word I ever care to see in the puzzle again, but it was pretty inferrable (6D: It means everyone to Hans). The clue on THEME confused rather than clarified things ... for a bit. Once I hit SOMETHING, the rest of the puzzle went down fast. Bottom half is a breeze when you can put in BORROWED and BLUE without even reading the clues involved. I know I have seen variation(s) of this theme before, but not executed in this cockeyed, interesting way, with a Beatles song in the middle. Generally interesting theme answers and gigantic NW / SE corners also give this puzzle added interest. I want to say "Approved," but fear that is ©Brendan Emmett Quigley. Hell with it; I'll pay him later. Approved!

Theme answers:

• 18A: Nickname for Andrew Jackson (OLD HICKORY)
  
• 20A: Island east of Australia (NEW CALEDONIA)
  
• 53A: Dangerous thing to be living on (BORROWED TIME)
  
• 58A: First prize at a fair (BLUE RIBBON)
  

Here's some more crap I messed up on my road to completion. SID Caesar (50D: Caesar whose forum was TV). Easy enough, right? Then why can't I (ever) remember that his is spelled the normalest of all the SIDs. He's not SYD Hoff; he's not (dear god) CYD Charisse. He's just SID. Today, I had him with the HOFF spelling (the nice thing about solving on paper is that I leave visible marks where I screw up, so remembering and writing about them is a breeze). I still have never seen a CITRON in my life (19D: Lemonlike fruit). Isn't that make (or model) of car? Anyway, I had CITRUS there, though knew it had to be wrong — couldn't think of any [Depressed urban area]s that ended in "U" (Unless Elvis was really singing "In the GATEAU!").



I figured the nose picked up SCENT, not SMELL (my answer is much more natural-feeling and in-the-language ... just wrong) (50A: What the nose picks up). I tried AMIDST for AMONGST at 1D: Surrounded by, but petered out at about the fifth letter (how did it take me that long!?) when I realized it wouldn't fit. Otherwise, mostly smooth sailing.

Bullets:

• 39A: Smart ___ (wise guy) (ASS) — wouldn't put this in because it just seemed too crass for the NYT. Maybe this is the donkey kind of ASS, so permissible.
  
• 61A: Force felt on the earth, informally (ONE G) — a great piece of crosswordese that must leave many people baffled the first time they see it. "Are you sure it's not OLEG, honey?" "Yes I'm sure!"
  
• 4D: People's worries (CONCERNS) — OK, this I don't get. Why is "People's" in this clue. Whose worries are they gonna be? Woodchucks' worries? That part of the clue was so weird that I figured "People" must refer to the magazine, and so I considered RENEWALS.
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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Port of old Rome — TUESDAY, Dec. 15 2009 — Weapon using high-arcing ammo / Cynical Bierce / Spitfire-flying grp / Bigfoots asian cousin

Constructor: Steve Dobis

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: EAGER BEAVER (17A: Zealous sort whose schedule may include 27-, 50- and 64-Across, i.e. PLACES TO GO, THINGS TO DO, PEOPLE TO SEE)

Word of the Day: OSTIA (36A: Port of old Rome) — Ostia Antica is a large archeological site that was the harbour city of ancient Rome, which is approximately 30 kilometers (~20 miles) northeast of the site. "Ostia" in Latin means "mouth". At the mouth of the River Tiber, Ostia was Rome's seaport, but, due to silting and a drop in sea level, the site now lies 3 kilometers (~2 miles) from the sea. The site is noted for the excellent preservation of its ancient buildings and magnificent frescoes. (wikipedia)

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Short write-up today. Not a lot to say about this one. EAGER BEAVER seems a not great fit with the three-part PLACES TO GO... phrase. An EAGER BEAVER is eager to perform a specific set of duties, where the three answers suggest someone who's just generally busy (more like a bee). Here's Webster's 3rd Int'l on "EAGER BEAVER":

n : one who is overzealous, overdiligent, and impatient not only to perform his part with promptness but to volunteer for more.

Both the sense of excess and the sense of task-specificness are lost in today's cluing. "EAGER BEAVER" kind of skews toward deliberate ass-kissing show-off with a specific goal in mind, i.e. advancement or impressing others. PLACES TO GO, THINGS TO DO, PEOPLE TO SEE might as well be out of a Dr. Seuss book — a phrase implying happy activeness. The upside: once I got the first two theme answers, I could fill in the next two instantly, with no crosses.


The grid shape is ungainly. Look at those NE and SW corners. Nobody wants to see 3-letter answers stacked 5 (FIVE!) deep. Other things nobody wants to see:

• OSTIA (36A: Port of old Rome) (an oddity that stands out like a SORE, vowel-swollen thumb on a Tuesday)
• ELYS (43A: Golf innovator Callaway and bridge maven Culbertson) (right under OSTIA?)
• OTTOI (30D: 10th-century Holy Roman emperor)

Least favorite answers of the day, though, is MISSENT, esp. as clued — 35D: Loaded onto the wrong truck, say. The word itself is not pretty — sounds like the winner of a beauty pageant for tree people (i.e. "... and your MISS ENT for 2009 is ... Oaky!" — uh oh. I'm being told that, tragically, there are no female ENTs. There were, but ... oh, just read about it here). But mainly, with MISSENT, I don't like the clue's equation of loading with sending. Simply having loaded something doesn't mean I've sent it. People misload and then unload before sending all the time, I'd imagine.

Do like the long Downs, AFICIONADO (11D: Devotee) and AFTER SHAVE (29D: Item in a man's medicine chest), and the north and south portions are pretty solid (and kind of make up for the claustrophobia-inducing NE and SW), but overall, just a so-so solving experience today.

Bullets:

• 1A: Lamebrain (simp) — went with DODO at first, SIMP not being a word that comes readily to mind (despite my oft-professed love for "The SIMPsons").

• 12D: Sci-fi automatons (droids) — went with DRONES at first. Been hearing too much about the unmanned fliers in Afghanistan (and elsewhere) lately, I guess.
• 48D: One on deck (seaman) — needed virtually ever cross. Just not seeing it until ... it was there.
• 33A: Rapper Kanye (West) — much maligned, mostly by people who already hated rap before Kanye went and acted like a clown at the MTV Video Music (VMA) Awards. Most of those haters are busy hating Tiger now.
• 62D: Bigfoot's Asian cousin (yeti) — even imaginary beasts have "cousins" in CrossWorld
• 45A: She-bears, south of the border (osas) — crosswordese, so not great, but there's something about "She-bears" that I find amusing, so OSAS gets a pass.
• 47A: Barker (dog) — not necessarily. Maybe. Sometimes. With a basenji, never.
• 20A: Weapon using high-arcing ammo (mortar) — had no idea what to make of this one until after I was done. I thought the MORTAR was the ammo, i.e. the missile, but it's the gun that fires the missile "high in the air over short distances" (google dictionary)
• 52D: Movie camera lens settings (T-stops) — never heard of this. Ever. I thought a T-STOP was the way some ice-skaters stopped their forward momentum. What an odd, obscure word, esp. for a Tuesday. Weirder still — there are just three instances of TSTOPS in the cruciverb.com database (one skating, two camera) ... but NO instances of the singular TSTOP. How does that happen? That suggests TSTOP is really uncommon and used only in desperation.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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Bay area concert venue — TUESDAY, Jun. 30 2009 — PC-less Internet hookup once / Island neighbor Tonga and Tuvalu / Sea dog's libation

bay area concert venue bay area concert venue



Constructor: Steve Dobis

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "ELOCUTION PHRASE" (40A: Exercise in pronunciation ... like the first words of the answers to the starred clues) — first words spell out "HOW NOW BROWN COW"

Word of the Day: BRET Maverick — Maverick is a comedy-western television series created by Roy Huggins that ran from September 22, 1957 to July 8, 1962 on ABC and featured James Garner, Jack Kelly, Roger Moore, and Robert Colbert as the poker-playing traveling Mavericks (Bret, Bart, Beau, & Brent). Moore and Colbert were later additions, though there were never more than two current Mavericks in the series at any given time, and sometimes only one. (wikipedia)



When I do these puzzles on paper, untimed, I have a really hard time assessing difficulty — I'm used to using the clock as a gauge. This one *felt* very very easy — about as easy as yesterday's, maybe easier. The front part of ELOCUTION PHRASE was about the only part of the puzzle that took some thinking, and that's only because I tried to guess it without any crosses in place (had the PHRASE part). I was not familiar with ELOCUTION PHRASE with a phrase as such. "HOW NOW BROWN COW" is a phrased used in elocution lessons to demonstrate round vowel sounds (or so wikipedia tells me). But if you Google ELOCUTION PHRASE you get ... crossword blogs discussing today's puzzle on your first page of results. That suggests the phrase ELOCUTION PHRASE isn't much of one. But still, it's very gettable and makes sense. Overall, the theme seems reasonably solid and clever to me.

Theme answers:

• 17A: *Informal greeting ("HOW goes it?")
• 30A: *At times (NOW and again)
• 47A: *One not using the company cafeteria, maybe (BROWN-bagger)
• 64A: *Bay Area concert venue (COW Palace) — my favorite theme answer. I haven't been there, but as I was working my way down the grid, I made a bet with myself that the answer for COW would be COW PALACE. And I was right. Pay up, me!

This puzzle is a pangram. It's also bionic, with all kinds of electronic parts. Check out the CAMS (36A: PC video gear, for short) and WEBTV (which still exists, though it's now called MSNTV) (63A: PC-less Internet hookup, once) and ... looks like someone left a 90s-era SEGA Genesis gaming system lying around here too (71A: Sonic the Hedgehog's company). Sometimes, moving through the grid quickly is a matter of very good luck. Take the east today, for instance. Got TAWNY off the T (39A: Lion-colored), then GARB off the A (32D: Clothing), then BRET off the B (46A: One of TV's Mavericks). All other answers in that section are pieces of cake. The ability to see answers that aren't there is far more important to solving efficiently than the fact of knowing many arcane things (though that undoubtedly helps in some situations).

There are cheater squares in the NE and SW — normally these don't distract me, but today they seem neon. Not sure why. Cheater squares are black squares that don't change the number of Acrosses and Downs. They just add more black space and make the grid easier to fill. They are under STY and over WIZ, respectively.

I just realized that I know the word "NOGO" (42D: Scrapped, as a mission) from Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire": "Edsel is a NOGO" — that's what he says, right? Man did I not like that song (from the Pop Music Nadir period 1987-91, which I have theorized on this site before).




Bullets:

• 5A: Island neighbor of Tonga and Tuvalu (Fiji) — would love to spend more time in South Pacific. Maybe on our next trip to NZ (where my wife is from, for those who didn't know), we can add another island nation or two to the itinerary ... though truthfully that "island" will probably be Australia. Wife lived there for a time, but I've never been.
• 14A: Sea dog's libation (grog) — Portland Seadogs are the name of the Red Sox AA team.
• 2D: Hotel room amenity (iron) — had the "I" and thought "ICE ... ICER? ... ICES?")
• 10D: Here, in Honduras (aqui) — Here in Honduras, we have no president. Thanks, military.
• 63D: 1978 Diana Ross musical, with "The" ("Wiz") — also a Michael Jackson musical. Seeing this movie in a big downtown theater in Fresno when I was an 8-yr-old kid remains one of the more vivid movie-going experiences of my life.

See you tomorrow,

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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TUESDAY, Jun 9 2009 — Long-bodied lizard / Carillon sounds / Rack purchases briefly / Like band-aid solution / B'way booth in Times Square

Constructor: Steve Dobis

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: "SHORT" (39A: Word that can precede the starts of the answers to the eight starred clues)

Word of the Day: CARILLON (25A: Carillon sounds => DONGS) — n.

1. A stationary set of chromatically tuned bells in a tower, usually played from a keyboard.
2. A composition written or arranged for these bells.

intr.v., -lonned, -lon·ning, -lons.

To play a carillon.

[French, alteration of Old French quarregnon, from Late Latin quaterniō, quaterniōn-, set of four. See quaternion.] (answers.com)

Nine theme answers (8 + the central reveal) — that's dense. The constructor's discard pile on this one must have been HUGE. That is, there are many more words that can follow SHORT than appear here — BREAD, CIRCUIT, CUT, STACK, FUSE, PEOPLE, SHEET, LIST, etc. — and each of the chosen SHORT followers could have started multiple phrases — HAIR alone must have a dozen legit phrases it could open. This is simply to say that getting four intersecting pairs of phrases to work out symmetrically like this would have required lots and lots of options, and lots of time working out the initial architecture issues. "Word that can precede" themes are not intrinsically interesting, but this one's impressively constructed, while still solid in terms of its overall fill. Very decent.



Theme answers:

• 17A: *Movie starring a cross-dressing John Travolta ("HAIRspray")
• 4D: *Nonbinding vote (STRAW poll)
• 21A: *Big writing assignment (TERM paper)
• 9D: *Like a band-aid solution (STOPgap)
• 58A: *Very easy tasks (CAKEwalks)
• 44D: *Defeats mentally (OUTwits)
• 64A: *Electric Slide, for one (LINE dance)
• 37D: *Heels-over-head feat (HANDstand)

I lost traction and nearly spun out only once in this puzzle, trying to round the corner from CAKEWALKS into the SE. Got SKI- for 53D: Long-bodied lizard and thought "oh #$#!, I better know those crosses." Wife says they have SKINKs in Australia. I've never seen the beast, or its name, in my life. The final "K" ended up being more work than it should have been — I had a feeling I was dealing with a booth that sold tickets, but my brain kept trying to put an "X" somewhere in TKTS (70A: B'way booth in Times Square).

Nothing much to complain about today. Sure, there's an odd bit of less-than-optimal fill here and there, but that's to be expected on such an ambitious puzzle. You gotta take your EYERS (57D: Close watchers) and your DOISes (24D: The Everly Brothers' "All I Have to _____ Dream") ... as long as they are scattered and rare, then fine. Speaking of DOIS, I have twice now looked at that word and tried to remember what it meant, or what the original phrase was. Looks like a perversion of LOIS. "DO ME a favor. DOIS Dane wants DESE (12D: Dis and dis) delivered to her domicile by dinner... D'you think you can do dat, DOLT?" One odd feature of the grid — all the NOs. When the grid said "No, NO, A thousand times No!" it wasn't kidding:

NO A (28A: "... thousand times ...")
NOH (27D: Japanese drama)
NOG (35D: Yuletide quaff)
NOS (47A: Most apts. have them)
MNO (22D: 6 on a telephone)



Bullets:

• 42A: Lowell and Tan (Amys) — I know many, many AMYS. I talk to three on a regular basis. They were all born between the mid-60s and the mid-70s, when AMY was a much more popular name than it is now (I think).
• 34D: Rack purchases, briefly (mags) - this threw me. Had the "M" and couldn't think of anything on a rack besides clothes and guns.
• 55D: One of the Yokums (Abner) - as in "LI'L". More AL CAPP. Seems like he's the most popular cartoonist in CrossWorld.
• 8D: "Sophie's Choice" author (Styron) - I get him and Wallace Stegner confused something awful. To say nothing of Wallace Stevens.
• 5A: Andrews and Edwards, for two: Abbr. (AFBs) - Air Force Bases. Far more familiar, as an initialism, than, say, N.A.S.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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THURSDAY, Apr. 23, 2009 - S Dobis (Documentarian Morris / Financial writer Marshall / One of Isabella I's kingdoms / Word with mountain or fly)

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: BROWN (71A: Shade that defines 17-, 27-, 49- and 65-Across)

First BROWN - GODFATHER OF SOUL (17A)
Second BROWN - FEDEX COMPETITOR (27A)
Third BROWN - CLEVELAND PLAYER (49A)
Fourth BROWN - IVY LEAGUE SCHOOL (65A)

Word of the Day: IVOR Novello - David Ivor Davies (15 January 1893 – 6 March 1951), better known as Ivor Novello, was a Welsh composer, singer and actor who became one of the most popular British entertainers of the early 20th century. [...] After World War I, Novello pursued a film career until the 1930s. He starred in two silent films directed by Alfred Hitchcock, The Lodger and Downhill, both in 1927. (wikipedia)

Not much to say about this one. Solid. Non-theme fill is pretty blah, but the theme is nice, tight, and the BROWNs are wonderfully varied - a name, a company, a football player, a school. The only thing that provided any difficulty in the puzzle, aside from some odd names here and there, was the fact that in a puzzle like this, your answers are really definitions and so are not apt to spring readily to mind because they don't tend to hold together as stand-alone phrases. The one big exception here is GODFATHER OF SOUL, which would be a fine entry in any puzzle (hard to think of any puzzle, or anything at all, that wouldn't be improved by a little James BROWN).



I had no trouble with the puzzle, though the first two theme answers were slower in coming than I would have liked. Much as I love James BROWN, I was not looking for him (didn't know the theme was "BROWN" yet, and I had GODFATHER -F SOU- and my mind went "GODFATHER OF SOUP?" and about a millisecond later I realized the right answer. Also had most of FEDEX COMPETITOR before I was able to get it. My FEDEX read -E-EX, and I thought "TELEX COMPETITOR?" Forgot, for a moment, that "BROWN" was what UPS has been calling itself lately. The other two theme answers were much easier for me to uncover.

Heavy on the proper nouns today. ROMER (34D: Former Colorado governor Roy) and LOEB (63D: Financial writer Marshall) and (oddly) LINC (51D: "The Mod Squad" role) were the only ones that gave me any trouble, but IVOR (56D: Songwriter Novello) might have been tough if you've never seen it before. AOKI (62D: Golfer Isao), ERROL (28D: Documentarian Morris), and OLSEN (19D: Merlin of football and TV) are standard crossword fare, and GIBB (55D: 1970s-'80s singer Andy), while not exactly common, is pretty damned famous (or was, in the late 70s). He was Teen Beat heartthrob of epic proportions.

[Olivia! ... give the video 10 seconds to get going]

Bullets:

• 9A: Certain sultan's subject (Omani) - one of many vague clues. Got it easily 'cause I had the "O" in place.
• 21A: Midcentury year (MDL) - see. Vagueness.
• 37A: Language that contains no adjectives (Navaho) - wow ... how does that work. No BROWN?
• 54A: Alternative to "roll the dice" ("spin") - I wanted STAY or STOP or something that meant "I choose NOT to continue in this game."
• 55A: Band lineup (gigs) - I know that you "line up" GIGS, but would you call your GIGS a "lineup?"
• 69A: Def Leppard hit "Pour Some Sugar _____" ("On Me") - don't mind if I do.

• 72A: Title grp. in an ABC drama (NYPD) - "old" would have helped here
• 6D: Word with mountain or fly (ash) - I don't know what mountain ASH or fly ASH is. They sound familiar, but I couldn't define them or draw you a picture. The former is apparently a tree.
• 50D: One of Isabella I's kingdoms (Aragon) - a place more often associated with Catharine. Still, pretty easy with the "AR" in place.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Interview with me over at Crossword Corner today - you've probably heard it all before, but why not hear it all again!?

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