Disc-shaped vacuum cleaner from iRobot / TUE 3-27-12 / Bit of pirate booty / Separator of syllables in many dictionaries / ___ bodkins! / Midwest city representing average tastes / Lava lamp formation / City where Peer Gynt premiered

Constructor: Todd McClary

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (pushing Wednesdayish)

THEME: FEATHER ONE'S NEST (62A: Gather wealth by exploitation ... as hinted at by this puzzle's circled squares) — circled squares have a bird name sitting directly on top of its feather ... type?

• ROBIN on PLUME
• LOON on DOWN
• HERON on QUILL

Word of the Day: 'ODS bodkins (35D: "___ bodkins!") —

The phrase sounds entirely suited to Tudor yokels and is a stock in trade of any author wishing for a shortcut to convey a sense of 'Olde Engylande'. 

A bodkin is a small tool for piecing holes in leather etc. This term borrows the early bodikin version of that word, not for its meaning but just because of the alliteration with body, to make a euphemistic version of the oath God's body. This would otherwise have been unacceptable to a pious audience. That is, odds bodkins is a minced oath. (The Phrase Finder)

• • •

This one's a little clunky. Do the feathers go with their respective birds, or are the groupings just arbitrary (or, rather, just based on shared word length)? Does a loon have down? A robin plumes? I don't associate those words very strongly with the words they are sitting on. Also, I had no idea FEATHER ONE'S NEST meant what the clue says it means. None. I think I had it confused with "a feather in one's cap," which I don't think has anything to do with "exploitation." Mostly I've never really heard anyone use FEATHER ONE'S NEST, with this clue's meaning or any meaning. Don't like that PLUME (20A: Smoke column) and DOWN (45A: Depressed) get different, non-bird meanings in their clues, but QUILL ... well, not really (67A: Declaration of Independence signer?). You can call it a writing implement, but I still see a feather. There were parts of the grid I liked—most notably ROOMBA, which I briefly thought was going to be ZOOMBA (sp?) which is some kind of workout / dance fad thing. I think. But ROOMBA I like better. ON THE Q.T. is good too. Those two almost make up for ERUPTIVE (?) and the insane non-drug cluing on ODS. Wobbly. That is the general feeling I got from solving this one.


Bullets:

• 1A: Insignificant one (TWERP) — that clue just doesn't say TWERP to me. It's accurate enough, but there's something much harsher, tone-wise, about TWERP. Also, had trouble seeing it because I went with MACH over WARP at 2D: Measure of speed in "Star Trek" 
• 16A: Talent agent Emanuel (ARI) — No idea, but I figured ARI Gold is a talent agent, so ... why not?
• 32A: City where "Peer Gynt" premiered (OSLO) — never saw the clue. Saw OSL- and just dropped the "O" and kept going. 

• 48A: Poker legend Ungar (STU) — learned from crosswords. Alternative to Disco STU.
• 58A: Separator of syllables in many dictionaries (DOT) — again, accurate enough, but just not a Tuesday clue. See also 39D: Word usually abbreviated on timelines (ANNO). Yes, it's a "word." Just not an English word. Surprise!
• 47D: Midwest city representing average tastes (PEORIA) — in one expression, that I know of: "... but will it play in PEORIA?" I have no idea if PEORIA really represents anything about "average" America.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Family in John Grisham's Skipping Christmas /FRI 7-22-11/ Pool exhibitions / Filming process multiple aspect ratios / Fantastic figure children's lit

Constructor: Todd McClary

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none


Word of the Day: AQUACADES (3D: Pool exhibitions) —

A water spectacle that consists usually of swimming and diving with musical accompaniment. (M-W.com)

• • •

I apologize in advance for the briefness of this write-up. It's not just the hottest night of the year, it's the hottest night of the 12 years I've lived in this damned town. We have one room with A/C, and my wife is currently trying to sleep in there—the sound of my typing will not help, and let's just say the hottest night of the year is *probably* not the best time to be annoying my wife with my (admittedly heavy) clackitty-clacking. The heat somehow did not keep me from attending a Level 3 (hard) yoga class this evening in a non-air-conditioned studio, so I'm a little beat. Plus some jackass in my neighborhood apparently has a Lot of firecrackers he forgot to set off on the fourth, so it sounds like there's a full-on gun fight going on about a block away. None of this is conducive to clear or thoughtful writing. So, to be brief...

I mostly enjoyed this grid. Cluing seemed pretty damned hard, but I managed to make it through in an above-average but reasonable time. The smaller corners, with the longish Acrosses, are quite a bit better than the bigger corners, with the longish Downs. Specifically, I could do without AQUACADES (do these still exist? where do you go to see them?) and OPEN MATTE (an odd technical term I'll never remember) (33D: Filming process for multiple aspect ratios). Both feel very plucked-by-computer-from-a-wordlist. But the other longer answers are mostly nice. Enjoyed the LIFELIKE SEX SCENE (49A: Natural + 54A: R-rated element) and the idea of CLIP-ON TIE as a "fashion" (!) (31D: Hassle-free fashion item) and I could practically smell the AROMATIC MGM GRAND (16A: Redolent + 7A: Vegas Strip hotel). There were few answers that I really didn't like ... in fact, aside from the aforementioned long stuff, only one thing besides the obviously terrible REECHO (30A: Come back again) struck me as a real problem: KRANKS (27D: Family in John Grisham's "Skipping Christmas"). Who the what the? How in the world is anyone supposed to know this? Is that Grisham novel a classic? Widely known? So widely known one might be expected to know the family name? When did that happen. Nothing about the clue makes the answer inferrable. Doesn't feel like a legit answer at all. Didn't get the vowel until I *finally* deciphered LAST LAP (35A: It's signaled with a white flag). KRINKS seemed more likely, but only because of Kris KRINKle, which is obviously not his name. The MOWS clue kind of blows because the "(down)" part is completely unnecessary (20A: Cuts (down)). Red herring nonsense. DYSON (45D: James who invented the Dual Cyclone vacuum cleaner) crossing LYNDA (48A: ___ Bird, daughter of L.B.J.) at the "Y" felt a little dycey for few seconds, but I don't think any other letter makes any kind of sense there.But most of this was solid and entertaining.

Bullets:

• 1A: California river, county or mountain (SHASTA) — first thing in the grid, after confirming the final "A" with ARS (6D: "___ Grammatica" (classic work on Latin)). Drove past Mt. SHASTA and drank SHASTA soda during many a summer trip as a kid.
  
• 28A: 2003 movie involving Christmas Eve robberies ("BAD SANTA") — this puzzle really should've appeared in December.
  
• 38A: Co-writer of Michael Jackson's posthumous hit "This Is It" (PAUL ANKA) — I only know one "This Is It." Nope, two.

[God I loved this song as a kid. I'm kind of an unrepentant Loggins fan. I blame "I'm Alright," from the "Caddyshack" soundtrack]

• 7D: Island where Rafael Nadal was born (MAJORCA) — and not, as I initially guessed, CORSICA :(
  
• 11D: Movie box set? (RAISINETS) — the "set" part is reeeaching, but I still like it.
  
• 35D: Second pope, following St. Peter (LINUS) — I'd've gone Pauling or Van Pelt, but that's just me.
  
• 42A: Style on Japanese screens (ANIME) — this one got me. I was sure the screens were decorative (and not movie/TV).
• 20D: The "1" in 1/2, e.g. (MONTH) — an old trick that nonethless Totally got me.
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Bloomsday honoree — SUNDAY, Oct. 4 2009 — Political comedian with 1973 album Sing a Song of Watergate / Enemy in 1980s arcade game Arabian

Constructor: Todd McClary

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "Initial Offerings" — theme answers are famous person + word that sounds like initials in famous person's name, e.g. SAMUEL ADAMS ESSAY (S.A. -> "ESSAY")


Word of the Day: CAVY (115A: Rodent named for a 20th-century novelist? -> KURT VONNEGUT CAVY) — n., pl., -vies.

1. Any of various tailless South American rodents of the family Caviidae, which includes the guinea pig.
2. Any of various similar or related rodents, such as the capybara, coypu, and agouti.

[From New Latin Cavia, genus name, perhaps from Galibi cabiai.] (answers.com)

-----

Cute and easy puzzle today. Didn't we just have this "NV"-to-ENVY type puzzle? Am I making that up? Feels awfully familiar. Theme phrases are fresh and entertaining. The gimmick was too easy to uncover and made solving too easy for me — I had a sub-10 min. time, my fastest NYT Sunday time ever, I think, or close to it. Needed most of the crosses to get the first theme answer, SAMUEL ADAMS ESSAY, but a. those crosses were easy to get, and b. after that, with the theme in hand, the other theme answers were a cinch to knock down. Just a few letters in CUTIE gave me the entirety of QUENTIN TARANTINO CUTIE for instance. Yes, that's how the Easy factor is injected into this puzzle. For once, solving the tail end first actually helps make the whole answer clearer. Usually coming at answers from the back, as opposed the front, is less helpful. Not so today. But some of the theme answers you could get just by looking at the clue. Television award give to a Surrealist? — that shouldn't take anyone (who knows anything about art or does crosswords ever) more than a second to get. TV award = EMMY ... M. E. ... surrealist ... Max Ernst. Piece of cake. I don't mind the simpleness so much because I sort of like all the answers involved. Wish the non-theme fill had been tougher, though.

Theme answers:

• 23A: Article written by an early American patriot? (Samuel Adams ESSAY)
• 39A: Dental problem for a boxing promoter? (Don King DECAY)
• 47A: Desire to be more like an actress of Greek descent? (Nia Vardalos ENVY)
• 66A: Adorable child of an edgy filmmaker? (Quentin Tarantino CUTIE)
• 88A: Tent used by a Latin musician? (Tito Puente TEPEE)
• 94A: Television award give to a Surrealist? (Max Ernst EMMY)
• 115A: Rodent named for a 20th-century novelist? (Kurt Vonnegut CAVY)

The only place I got even briefly hung up was in and around CAVY, which felt new to me, though it probably wasn't. I've seen, learned, forgotten, relearned, and reforgotten a lot of rodent names since I started doing puzzles. AGOUTI? PACA? Sure, whatever. I get AGOUTI confused with ARGALI, and when that happens, you know you've been doing way, way too many crosswords. Thought the STERNER PEARLER (124A: Less lenient + 109A: Oyster bed diver) and the SORER ELATER (87D: More likely to snap + 97D: Someone offering a lift?) were pretty horrific, especially considering they're swimming next to each other down there. You can take IDVE and the clue for LAA back wherever they came from (40D: "If only _____ known ..." + 104A: "_____ note to follow ..."). Didn't know AILEEN (6D: Actress Quinn), but it didn't matter because I had nearly all her letters before I saw her clue. Thought I knew NOLA but it turned out her name was NONA (112A: R&B singer Hendryx). As for MOS DEF (94D: "The Ecstatic" rapper) — you're welcome.



Bullets:

• 1A: Political comedian with the 1973 album "Sing a Song of Watergate" (Mort Sahl) — often in puzzles as last name only, his was the first name that came to mind. Oh, and I learned his name from crosswords (before my time).
• 32A: Record label for Bill Haley and the Comets (Decca) — Dang, I just wrote a clue for DECCA almost exactly like this. Now I gotta go change it.
• 34A: Enemy in the 1980s arcade game Arabian (Roc) — loooove this clue even though I have never seen / played the game in question. "Arabian" was enough of a giveaway for me.
• 44A: Chinese dynasty 1,000 years ago (Liao) — Went with LING, then LIAN ... bah. If 39D: Clue game board space (door) had come to me sooner, LIAO would have been no problem.
• 56A: Godzilla contemporary that was a giant flying turtle (Gamera) — "contemporary," HA ha. Like they constitute a historical era. GAMERA was the subject of at least one ep of "Mystery Science Theater 3000," so I know ... him? ... well.

• 120A: Name beside a harp on euro coins (Eire) — seen this clue many times now.
• 16D: Looney Tunes lothario (Pepe Le Pew) — a skunk who is hot for cats.
• 17D: Like much of the Danube's territory (Slavic) — I think of "Slavic" as relating to people, not land.
• 33D: Animal that leaves when it's cared for? (Chia Pet) — I don't like "leaves" as verb meaning "grows leaves," but the clue is a valiant misdirection attempt.
• 48D: Overly enthusiastic (rabid) — yes, like fans.
• 51D: Salamandridae family member (newt) — "Salamandridae" looks formidable, but you can see ordinary "salamander" in there, and NEWT is supercommon.
• 63D: Bloomsday honoree (Joyce) — remember how I told you I've never read Yeats? Well he's not alone on my DNR list ...
• 64D: Skedaddles (scoots) — I had SCRAMS.
• 71D: Member of a modern theocracy (Iranian) — technically a "theocratic republic," I think.
• 99D: Court great Karl (Malone) — I worry about Mr. MALONE. How long until people just forget about him. I know he's a Hall-of-Famer for sure, but still ... I see future crosswords with future solvers complaining "Who the hell is Karl Malone?" To which I will reply, "How could you not ...? Why, in my day ..."

And now your Tweets of the Week (puzzle chat from the Twitterverse)

• fleetwoodwack Don't solve a Patrick Berry crossword with a hangover.
• Zahornberger I got so close to finishing this crossword... WtF is "Nosegay"?
• ericaandbaxter Sometimes I wonder whether nytimes crossword puzzles are in english
• miltonline I have been treated really badly by the UK Press this year. They keep charging me for each newspaper & give me really difficult crosswords.
• Belflower122 No Shame Theatre was full, so it's beer and Twizzlers and The Office and crosswords! I am so exciting.
• BriefCanPhotos is watching Jet Li fight himself, and is beginning to think his love for crosswords may be unhealthy
• AlChiz Catching up on missed NYT crosswords, and I find Sept.12th was one of my Dad's. Gee, thx for telling me, Pops. Sigh. [follow-ups: AlChiz @rexparker Ta for shout-out, tho my tweet contained a mistake: it was 9/9 that was my dad's (Richard Chisholm). // AlChiz @rexparker PS it may cheer your readers to learn that my dad constructed his first puzzle in his 70s (he is 85) after 50+ years as a solver.]
• ertchin More Kickstarter crosswords! I want one of these projects every month. At least. http://tinyurl.com/ybgohyq

That last tweet is no joke. Click through to visit the Kickstarter page for Patrick Blindauer's new puzzle project, "2009 Holiday Puzzlefest." It's the lastest independent puzzle project from one of the very best constructors in the business. A suite of 10-12 puzzles of the very highest caliber and cleverness, and you can get in for a mere $5. In just a couple of days he was already better than halfway toward his subscription goal. Get on board. Support independent constructors. You won't be disappointed. There's a contest and everything. Get details here. It'll be the crosswording event of the Holiday season. OK, I'm not sure what the competition's like in that category, but ... I'm pretty sure Patrick will own it.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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SATURDAY, July 19, 2008 - Todd McClary (HERO/GIANT CREATED BY RABELAIS / RECORDING STUDIO SOUND SHIELDS)

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: None (or maybe "failure" with the crossing of YOU CAN'T WIN 'EM ALL and MET ONE'S WATERLOO)

Hi, all. Wade here for Rex, who, for those of you who might have been out of the loop lately, is in New Zealand. The backup team is PuzzleGirl, super-nifty gee whiz kid; Seth the boy genius; and me, the wealthy industrialist who bankrolls their crime-solving efforts and lets them drink all the Sunny D they want to in my opulent mansion. PuzzleGirl heads to Costa Rica this weekend, I'm here from Houston today, and Seth will be here tomorrow from Minneapolis to take your nothing day and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile. (Don't forget your hat, Seth.)

I'm doing this write-up on Friday night because my dad has come down to stay with me a few days during my temporary bachelorhood and help me build an office in the garage. It's hard to get my dad to come to the city--he's afraid he'll get shot--but I've found that if you present him with a project the idea is more palatable to him, so I asked him to come help me build an office. (I have a three-and-a-half car garage but only one and a half cars.) My wife is nervous about the idea, I can tell by her voice, but she's in Scotland and can't do anything to stop us. She had no problem with the idea when I brought it up several months ago--"Yes, dear, sounds nice, dear," that sort of thing--probably thinking it would go the way of my other ideas, like moving to Portland or building a time machine (Seth and I have a plan), little realizing that this idea would fall into the infinitesimal percentage of stuff I say I'm going to do that actually gets done. So what you're reading was actually written last night between about 10 and 3 a.m. [I originally had midnight here, but PuzzleGirl went to bed and left me in the lurch to do my own formatting], with breaks for Chips Ahoy! (That's not me being overly excited about Chips Ahoy!, though I do love them; the exclamation point is part of the product's name, just like Dr Pepper's periodlessness.)

I have mixed feelings about this puzzle. I don't really have a "typical" Saturday solving experience. I might finish one in fifteen minutes, an hour, or in any other time frame or not at all. This one took me about 45 minutes probably, though I stopped the clock at 35:16 with nine blank squares in the NE and got up and had some Chips Ahoy!, the original ones, not the chewy ones or peanut butter ones or ones with M&M's or any of the other gimmicky ones, just your plain goddamned basic Chips Ahoy! we've all been eating since we were old enough to eat cookies and I don't know why people have to keep messing with stuff that works fine the way it's always been, which seemed to clear my head, and when I came back I saw GAINS staring at me (9D: Results of bull markets) in that wonderful, mystical crossword way of things, and quickly polished off the rest of the nine squares and a couple more Chips Ahoy! With milk, of course! [sic]

I started the puzzle with high hopes when it flattered my intelligence with 17A Hero/giant created by Rabelais (GARGANTUA), an answer I knew, probably from crosswords. I thought we were in for another top-notch puzzle like the ones we've had pretty much all week. I thought this puzzle was going to prove I was a genius for a day, which is what crosswords are supposed to do. It didn't. In fact, it sort of seemed to resent that I knew GARGANTUA so effortlessly. Do you ever suspect that a crossword sometimes changes itself out of spite after you've started doing it, that a correct answer you've entered pisses it off so much that it rewrites itself so that your next answer, correct when filled in, is made no longer correct? I'm pretty sure that's what this puzzle did, because after GARGANTUA the next answer I filled in, with great confidence, was TEEN (31D: Selective service registrant). I'm sure that was the right answer when I entered it, but by the time I'd gotten to the downs the puzzle had rewritten itself so that the new correct answer was now MALE, and that's what totally boogered up the NE, and that's why the puzzle, cornered and confused and almost undone by its own malevolence, had to conspire to invent the word GOBOS (9A: Recording studio sound shields), which wasn't a word when I started doing the puzzle but now the dictionaries say really exists.

Still, the puzzle and I wound up on good terms by the end of it. We learned to accept each other's differences and, in the process, I think, learned something about ourselves. I saw grudging respect when I filled in that double A in CANAANITE (56A: Language group including Hebrew). For the double B in BB GUN (1D: Plinking weapon) I was rewarded with a smile. When I got to the end of YOU CAN'T WIN 'EM ALL (8D: Words of consolation), the music swelled, the puzzle looked at me and said quietly, "Wade, well done." Then it shot my dad.

Noteworthy stuff, or at least noted stuff:

• 16A: "Avoid extinction, say" (ADAPT) – The "say" clue is underrated. I hate the "say" clue, but somehow still it's underrated.
• 22A: "___ sequence" (DNA) – The fill-in-the-blank clue can bite you in the ass like no other unless it's a title or some other type of unique proper noun. I filled in INA here on my first pass, which was a really stupid guess and only coincidentally one letter off from the actual answer, which proves what I've been saying all along: God despises me.
• 26: "Some pinball targets" (RAMPS) – We need a name for this irritating type of clue. It reminds me of conversations I used to have with an old girlfriend. "You'll never guess what I saw on my way to work." "You're right, I won't." "I'll give you a hint. They're some pinball targets." "Some pinball targets." "Yes!" "That could be anything. It could be anything a pinball hits." "Tries to hit. I'm not saying anything more!" "It's ridiculous. Just tell me what you saw on your way to work." "I told you! Some pinball targets!" "But it could be anything a pinball hits! Tries to hit, I mean! And I don't even know anything a pinball hits! Tries to hit, I mean!"

  
  
  
  

• 35A: Grandson of Noah (MAGOG) – Biblical names are the new Dylan. (Remember when there were kids named Jimmy? I had a friend named Jimmy. So did you.) I don't think anybody named Magog, however, will need to start using his middle initial any time soon.
• 36A: Suffered defeat (MET ONE'S WATERLOO) – Seth was disgrunteld with this answer; he says it gets only two Google hits, both on a Japanese translation site. Me, I was gruntled. The clue is straight down the middle of the plate, unassailable really, and the phrase is pleasing to me, probably because it makes me think of the first time I heard the word "Waterloo." Stonewall Jackson (the country singer, not the Civil War general who died across the river and through the trees) recorded a semi-novelty song of that title back in the fifties, and my mother had it on a 45 she'd owned since she was a girl. It was my little sister's favorite song when she was about four and I was six. Neither of us knew what it was about; we just liked the word and the tune. My favorite song was "Running Bear" by Sonny James. It was about an Indian boy and girl whose respective tribes are enemies and are separated by a river. Running Bear jumps into the river to swim across to White Dove, and she comes to meet him, and they both drown, but now they'll be together forever "in their happy hunting ground." My mother would play one and then the other, one and then the other, and sometimes she'd play Homer and Jethro singing "How Much is that Doggie in the Window?" which we liked because it had actual dogs barking on the chorus. This was in a rattlesnake- and yellow-jacket-infested old farmhouse we rented at the end of a dirt road near a town called, really, Scotland. There was nothing else to do but stick grasshoppers through their thoraxes on barbed wire fences and watch them try to push themselves off the barb. I did that too. No telling how many grasshoppers I slaughtered as a kid.
• 1D: Plinking weapon (BB GUN) – It's all fun and games til somebody loses an eye. ("Plinking" though? "Plinking"?)
• 3D: Five-sided pods (OKRAS) – So they are. I'd never counted. We pronounced it "okry." My grandpa wouldn't eat okra because, he said, it was a gourd. Like that settled it.
• 15D: Kraft offering in a can (PARMESAN) - At my house we pretty much inhale this stuff. I wonder what it is.
• 24D: Braking maneuvers for skaters (T-STOPS) - I didn't know this, of course--nobody did. Liar. But I should mention that one of the reasons I'm building an office in my garage is because I just moved my new official office to the Galleria for reasons that make sense except that I HATE WORKING IN THE GALLERIA! I literally work in the mall now. When I go downstairs, there are all the people I don't like, all in one place at the same time. The Galleria is like a little custom-made hell just for ol' Wade. Anyway, there's an ice-rink in the mall, which is why I bring it up.
• 34D: Trattoria offering (OSSO BUCO) – They eat a lot of this at Artie's on The Sopranos. I still can't spell it right if left to my own devices.
• 47D: One-stanza poem (HAIKU) – Took me a long time to get this. I'm a cinquain man myself.
• 52D: "Creator of 1867's 'Grand Caricatura'" (NAST) – "This is sure to spark a revival in interest of our great-great-great-uncle Tom's work!" think the descendants of Thomas Nast. No, kids, it won't. We just need his letters. (Got NASTY in the grid, too: (23A: Foul). I guess if you draw like Nast your caricatures could be described as Nasty.)
• 55D: "Had an uneventful day" (SAT) – What, nothing happens when you're sitting down? The Easter Bunny begs to differ.

Seth tomorrow, Rex or maybe pot luck on Monday.

Wade

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SUNDAY, Aug. 26, 2007 - Andrew M Greene and Craig Kasper (and Todd McClary and Jeffrey Harris)

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "Getting Ahead" - circled squares represent (and spell out) parts of A HEAD

[updated 12:40 pm]

A very ambitious puzzle, executed fairly well. Got the theme very early and figured I'd be able to fill in all the circled squares right away. I was wrong. I put LIPS and LIPS where LIPS and CHIN were supposed to go; took me a while to get BROWS (whose BROWS are in the middle of their forehead, between their eyes?); and SCALP still seems quite wrong - unless you are balding (like me), you can't see the SCALP. If you stared at a face and described it all day long, you would never talk about the SCALP. But that's the only gaffe; other than that, the puzzle was fun.


I am told that there were actually four authors of today's puzzle, though the Times can credit a maximum of just two - that's why I credited Todd McClary and Jeffrey Harris in parentheses in today's title, in case you were wondering.

Here are the answers that contained HEAD parts (from top to bottom, left to right)

• 21A: Toddler's mealtime accessory (booster cHAIR)
• 29A: Quarters for a business, e.g. (fiSCAL Periods)
• 54A: Safari, e.g. (web BROWSer)
• 53D: Be weighed down (bEAR the burden)
• 64A: Persuaded with flattery (blarnEYEd)
• 66A: Noted explorer of Polynesia (HEYErdahl)
• 76A: Time in which light travels one foot, approximately (naNOSEcond)
• 100A: Astronomical events that occur twice or more a year (lunar ecLIPSes)
• 113A: Nested set of containers (CHINese boxes)

[Whoops - looks like I Van Gogh'd this puzzle: here's the missing ear: 15D: Empathetic one, derisively (bleeding hEARt)]

Going for walk in the woods before it gets too hot. More later.

...

And I'm back, following a late breakfast of fried eggs, potatoes, and coffee, as well as two crossword puzzles out of The Listener (NZ) with my wife.

Hardest part of the puzzle for me was the NW. That stupid IMAC / APPLE clue at 1A: See 7-Across really should have been SYMBOL. In my grid, it was SYMBOL for a while - until forced to become the far worse EMBLEM (it's not emblazoned on a coat-of-arms, for god's sake). The soap BORAXO (18A: Heavy-duty hand soap) is only barely known to me. And all those Downs were exceedingly mischievous. You'd think I'd be on solid ground with D&D, but it took me a while to get BROAD AX (3D: Dungeons & Dragons weapon). ROXANNE and ALL OF ME both fit where L.A. STORY was supposed to go (4D: Steve Martin romantic comedy). EXTANT was tough, but it's clued beautifully (5D: Like seven of Sophocles' 123 plays). The answer that got me my first bit of traction up in the NW was 24A: Battle report? (rat-a-tat), which in retrospect is a really odd answer to get so easily. Shouldn't have been a gimme, but was. I could watch "Casablanca" 1000 more times (current number of viewings: 1) and not remember UGARTE (35A: Lorre's "Casablanca" role).

SANTA returns to the puzzle today disguised as the Grinch - actually, it's the other way around (42A: Grinch disguise). ESSENES (36D: Dead Sea Scrolls sect) has gone from being totally unknown to me to being a virtual gimme. So many "Wheel of Fortune" letters ... and yet esoteric enough to fly in a late-week puzzle. Ditto 34D: Dutch painter Jan (Steen). I was just in Boston last month, but only barely remember ever hearing about the part of town called the BACK BAY (11A: Posh part of Boston).

My schoolkid's knowledge of Latin helped with 81A: Creatio ex _____ (Christian tenet) (nihilo) and 86A: Prayer opener ("Ave") - less helpful with getting 22D: Org. with the motto "Per Ardua ad Astra" (RAF) - though, if pressed, I could translate that motto for you.

My favorite clues and/or answers in the puzzle include:

• 14D: Skiffle instrument (kazoo) intersecting 23A: Ceramists, at times (glazers)
• 70A: 1940s-'50s Dodger who was a 10-time All-Star (Reese) - would have liked to see his fun full name, PEE WEE REESE, in the puzzle, but this'll do.
• 71A: Particle created by a cosmic ray (muon) - fun to say; stretch that "U"
• 96A: Knight time? (yore) - I was trained as a yore-ologist
• 98A: Teahouse floor covering (tatami) - teahouse I was thinking of was not Japanese, so this took me a while
• 68D: "There's No Place Like _____" (old TV slogan) (HBO) - "old TV slogan??!" Man, there's nothing that'll make you feel older than seeing something 15 years younger than you described as "old"
• 111D: They were worth $5 each on "What's My Line?" ("NO"s) - some old person will explain this. I guess the idea was to fool some panel about your identity for as long a time as possible. Was Bennet Cerf on this show? Kitty Carlisle?
• 101D: Kittens' "handles" (napes) - this clue makes me laugh. Something about the quotation marks around "handles"; like the clue can barely take itself seriously. The clue makes me imagine people carrying around kittens like briefcases. Also makes me think of cats driving big rigs and working the CB - "10-4, good buddy, This is Mr. Whiskers, etc."

New semester starts tomorrow. Commentaries will be shorter, but hopefully no less awesome.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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SATURDAY, Jul. 7, 2007 - Todd McClary

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none

I was going to print this out and solve it over breakfast, but once I took a look at it and saw 11A: Three-time Gold Glove winner _____ Otis (Amos) sitting there (a gimme for me), I started typing in answers, and never stopped. In fact, I barely paused. The thing about 10-letter answers - there are 12 of them in this puzzle - is that if you can unlock one with just a few crosses, then it really opens the puzzle up. In this case, none of the long answers were very tricky. After getting AMOS and then MOLT (16A: Undergo ecdysis - an incredible guess on my part, inferred from my knowing that an "ecdysiast" is a stripper), I set down the long answers in the NE in 1-2-3 fashion, but in reverse. First STEP ASIDE (14D: Relinquishes control), then OL' MAN RIVER (13D: Show tune sung by a stevedore named Joe), then MONTESSORI (12D: Casa dei Bambini school founder). A few more little crosses, and just like that, one quadrant of the puzzle was done.


Once I changed GREW to FLEW (9D: Gained popular acceptance), the long NW answers started to fall into place, beginning with HELLO HELLO (15A: Enthusiastic welcome) - I just had the second HELLO at first, and briefly considered A FINE HELLO, but got the right answer fairly easily. There is one insane answer in the NW: 5D: Eternal (eonian) - yikes. Thankfully, all the crosses were super-common words.

I was aided by the return of some fill I'd seen recently, including EXACTA (23D: Track wager) and TO SIR (10D: Quaint note opener). Oh, and PINA COLADA (61A: Cosmopolitan alternative) - though last time, that answer was clued in a far more gettable fashion, via the Rupert Holmes song.

Check out the high-end cluing on crossword staple OLE - 39A: Outboard motor inventor Evinrude! No bullfighting clues today.

I'm wondering if 37A: Zolaesque imputation ("J'accuse") will give people trouble. It was a gimme for me, but it might seem from outer space for people who have never heard of the Dreyfus Affair.

Only a few other little answers provided any kind of obstacle. Didn't know:

• 60A: Fröbe who played Goldfinger (Gert) - I feel as if I have not known this before...
• 54D: Sourdough's dream (lode) - bread has dreams? (I eventually figured out that this must be a term for a prospector, and only just this second figured out the connection between the bread and S.F. and the Gold Rush).
• 56A: St. _____ (Cornwall resort town) (Ives) - Is this the same St. IVES as in the poem "As I was going to St. IVES, I met a man with seven wives..."?
• 29A: Sorority letters (XIs) - I thought "X" was called a "CHI," but I guessed this spelling anyway, and as with nearly all my guesses in this puzzle, it was right.
• 51D: Pick _____ (pettifog) (a nit) - "pettifog"!?!? Now that's a new one to me. I know PETITS FOURS ... PETTICOAT ... TOM PETTY ... THE VELVET FOG ... but no, not this word.

The one square I nearly blew was at the intersection of MR. ED (41A: TV role for Bamboo Harvester) and MARSALA (41D: Zabaglione ingredient). Had _RED and _ARS__A and was seriously going to enter FRED / FARSINA (!? - I think I was thinking FARINA, like the flour...?), but then I got the _ARSALA part and that first letter became an "M." MR. ED, of course. Not sure what FRED I was thinking of. Maybe the voice of FRED Flintstone ... or FRED from "Scooby Doo"...

That's all. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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THURSDAY, Oct. 26, 2006 - Todd McClary and Dave Tuller

Solving time: 20:23 (on-screen)

THEME: SEE [blank] (long clues ask you to "See" another clue/answer, which ends up being the second word in the clue, e.g. 17A: See 59-Down [where 59-Down=FIT ... so "See Fit"] (deem worthy))

First things first. Chocolate. If you live in or near the Ithaca, NY area, you must, must, must head to Sarah's Patisserie and start eating everything in sight. Sarah herself brought a box full of chocolates and primarly-chocolate pastries to my office yesterday and O My God. Everything was beautiful *and* delicious. Sarah even included a little chocolate duck for my 6-yr-old daughter. Sarah's wife, Tammy, is the executive chef and owner. Her desserts are featured at Willow restaurant (also in Ithaca, also Great). This is what one of her desserts looks like. It's called "The Sixth Avenue." My wife and I had one last night, and it was the best chocolate experience I've had since I went to Jacques Torres's place in Brooklyn last summer (completely coincidentally, M. Torres was Tammy's chocolatiering teacher). If Sarah's Patisserie Only Had a Website (!?) I would have a link to it HERE.

Why did I do the puzzle on-screen when I had Just vowed never to do so again? Who knows? Self-inflicted misery. I guess part of me imagines that I will have a massive solving-time breakthrough; instead, I end up stuck in the utterly foreseeable morass of mis-typing and mis-clicking. And once again, my ensuing crankiness is inflicted upon the puzzle and its talented, well-meaning constructors.

Can a puzzle simultaneously be clever, too clever, and not clever enough? If so, this is that puzzle. There is the undeniably clever use of "See [another clue]," which is a crossword cluing convention so common that you would never suspect it of trickery. The best kind of trick is the one that is hidden out in the open. The Purloined Letter trick. Plus, they managed to pull off this cleverness without choking the puzzle with obscurities (47A: Mexican Indian tribe (Huastec) being the one exception). So, this puzzle, it's clever. Yet, it's too clever: I don't like looking all over Hell and Gone to figure out what my clues are. Cleverness has impeded the Pleasure Principle (never wise). Then there's not clever enough: there is no pattern to the clue / answer pairings - those we are asked to "See" are not in any consistent relationship to the answers they clue, and they are (maddeningly, to my OCD brain) NOT symmetrical; worse, they are Almost symmetrical, as if the constructors thought they might be able to pull it off, but were forced to bail out of their plan at some point. So all the answers we are asked to "See" are vertical answers that touch the corners of the puzzle (we See RED, See THINGS, See FIT) ... except in the NE, where, if the puzzle Were symmetrical, we would have to "See BEEPER" (not an expression I know ... ABOUT is sitting sheepishly just three clicks to the west, like an actor who missed his mark). And if the concept is clever, the execution is not (so much). There's no real pop or life to the clue/answer pairings - I do like HALLUCINATE at 11D: See 43-Down [=THINGS], but TAKE CARE OF and BECOME ANGRY are kind of lifeless, and DEEM WORTHY is a Stretch for "See Fit" (the former implicitly applying to a person, the latter, to a situation or action - or so my morning brain tells me). This puzzle is wonderful in its conception, weaker in its execution (which is almost word-for-word what one of my grad school professors wrote about my written work in a letter of recommendation that I attempted to read by holding the sealed envelope up to the light...).

6A: Moonfish (opah)
6D: Daily TV staple since 1986 (Oprah)

Not sure if this is brilliant or lazy, but there's something oddly pleasing about these conjoined near-twins. Oprah is ubiquitous, but her show does not run "daily." Is "weekdaily" a word?

28D: City founded by Cadmus (Thebes)

Ah, my comfort zone. I love all things Theban - it's where all the most horrible things on earth happen, where family does things to family that should Not be done to family (Home of Oedipus REX). Cadmus is banished from Tyre by his father Agenor for failing to find his abducted sister Europa. So Cadmus heads off to settle a new land called Boeotia. Things do Not go well - all the people he brings with him are slaughtered by a giant serpent. Cadmus avenges their deaths by killing the serpent. Then he sows the serpent's teeth, and a new race of men emerges from the earth like plants. And then these new men immediately set to killing each other until only five remain. So the city is basically born out of family harming family, brothers killing brothers, civil war. Here is Ovid, from Metamorphoses (trans. Martin):

Now all of them were equally enraged!
These brothers of a moment slew each other,
until young men, whose lives had just begun,
lay beating the breast of their ensanguined mother. [nice!]
And now just five remained: one was Echion,
who, warned by Pallas, threw his weapons down,
seeking and giving securities for peace
among his brothers; these were the companions
Sidonian Cadmus had when he built the city
granted him by the oracle of Phoebus. (153-62)

And they all lived happily ever after.

42A: Product that prevents gas (Beano)

Awesome. Contemporary. Flatulence-Preventing. The only reason I am aware of this product is because I would often find it lying around the home of my friend Steve - super-smart, super-funny, super-gassy. At least I think it was Steve's. It could have been his wife's...

43A: "Boyz N the Hood" role (Tre)
45A: Kind of round in a tournament, informally (elim)
54A: Canceled (no go)

I don't like any of these. The first is pretty obscure, and makes me think of the early 90s, which you all know is a time in my life which I'd just as soon forget. Plus, whenever I see that movie title, I cringe. Spell it right, or go all the way and change "the" to "da." That's what I say. The second answer (ELIM) ... I don't hear it much if at all, and I've been in some tournaments. It works, it's just not as colloquial as I'd like. The last (NO GO) seems quite off. How can something be "canceled" if it was never allowed to "go?"

62D: Pop music's _____ Vanilli (Milli)

OK, if I must be reminded of the 90s, this is the way it should be done. If you're going to go dark, go very, very dark. So dark that it's Funny. Allow me to remind you that Milli Vanilli won the Best New Artist Grammy in, let's see ... 1989? (won it in 1990 for the year 1989, yes). Also nominated that year: Indigo Girls. Who did I start dating that year?: the sister of one of the Indigo Girls. It's true. Didn't last, or end well, but it's a nice little bit of trivia for the future Rex Parker bio (unofficial versions of which are surely already in the works).

63A: Classic rock group with a name from Greek myth (Styx)

O yeah. The late 70s and early 80s I am happy to remember. And the mythology theme (ERATO, THEBES ... uh, XENA) continues. There are two great moments in the history of the song "Sailing," by Styx. First, Cartman's version. Second, the use of the song at the school dance at the end of the pilot episode of Freaks and Geeks, one of the very greatest shows ever to be canceled (or should I say NO GO) after just one season.

2D: "For Lycidas is dead, dead _____ his prime": Milton (ere)

A thousand ways to clue ERE, and these guys decide to go through Milton. God bless them.

18D: Dungeons & Dragons creatures (orcs)
22D: "The Simpsons" bus driver (Otto)

Two gimmes, one right after the other. The fact that these two were gimmes tells you just about everything you need to know about Rex Parker (and his early and late nerdiness).
29D: Asian oil capital (Baku)

I had Bali here for a while, temporarily forgetting that that is a tourist resort, not an oil town. I have never heard of Baku. It sits in the part of the world about which Rex knows least (Russian Asia). BAKU is the capital of Azerbaijan, and it lies on the western side of the Caspian Sea. It is also the home of Aku, Dark Lord and nemesis of Samurai Jack:
Procter & Gamble brand (Gleem)

I just now guessed that this is a toothpaste, but I was thinking initially of household cleaners and air fresheners and other things that depressed housewives use in their futile-yet-never-ending War on Germs. This product falls under the "wacky spelling" category of brand names, which I hate so much. I want my teeth to GLEAM. GLEEM suggests they will give off some weird, radioactive glow. Good for Halloween, bad for ... well, every other situation one might find oneself in.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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