Orioles hurler 1966 champs / THU 3-31-11 / Solo crooner Oh My Pa-Pa #1 1954 / 140 pounds in Britain / 1970s sitcom ended with title character Congress

Constructors: Jeremy Horwitz and Tyler Hinman

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: PERFECT PITCH (19D: Something the eight people at 3-, 9-, 28- and 30-Down have all strived for?) — theme answers are all names shared by World-Series-winning Major League baseball pitchers and #1-charting singers / musicians


Word of the Day: TAI CHI CHUAN (62A: Dojo discipline) —

Tai chi chuan (simplified Chinese: 太极拳; traditional Chinese: 太極拳; pinyin: tàijíquán; Wade–Giles: t'ai⁴ chi² ch'üan²) (literal translation "Supreme Ultimate Fist") is an internal Chinese martial art practiced for both its defense training and its health benefits. It is also typically practiced for a variety of other personal reasons: its hard and soft martial art technique, demonstration competitions, and longevity. As a consequence, a multitude of training forms exist, both traditional and modern, which correspond to those aims. Some of tai chi chuan's training forms are especially known for being practiced at what most people categorize as slow movement. // Today, tai chi has spread worldwide. Most modern styles of tai chi trace their development to at least one of the five traditional schools: Chen, Yang, Wu/Hao, Wu, and Sun. (wikipedia)

• • •

As much as yesterday's puzzle was outside my wheelhouse, this one is in it. Right in it. I just clobbered this one. Minute and a half faster than yesterday, and a good minute faster than last Thursday. Seven of the eight men involved in the theme answers are well known to me—the only one I'd never heard of was the pitcher EDDIE FISHER, but I was able to get singer EDDIE FISHER off just the EDD-, so no sweat. Even TAI CHI CHUAN was in my back pocket—I'm guessing most folks know the TAI CHI part, but not the CHUAN. Annoyed to see that the same damn stupid clue for TAI CHI (CHUAN) is still being used — "Dojo" is from a different language and refers to different martial arts from a different country. Come on. Have some respect—China and Japan are different. Their martial arts are different. Terminology is different. Practiced TAI CHI for years and never saw or heard the word "Dojo" (for good reason). I see that there are a few places out there using the word "dojo" to describe their TAI CHI studios, but that's probably for commercial purposes, i.e. people are familiar with the term from pop culture. Please keep "dojo" away from TAI CHI clues. I'm sure "Dojo" is, in some rigmarolish way, defensible, but I don't care. It's not right. Thank you. End rant.



Only places I struggled were in a couple of corners—a little bit in the NE (where PEDICAB took its sweet time showing up (7A: Way around Shanghai), and where I had DORA for CORA (11D: Mrs. Dithers of the comics)), and a lot in the SE, where SIC for SUE (65A: Go after) and NAB for NET (71A: Capture) made a hash of things down there until MAUDE (55D: 1970s sitcom that ended with the title character in Congress)! And then there's MAUDE! She saved the day (god bless you, Bea Arthur). The only weird thing about the theme is that DAVE STEWART of the Eurythmics is *not* a singer, which makes PERFECT PITCH slightly odd, since that's a phrase I've only ever heard in relation to the voice. But instruments have pitches too, obviously, so ... it'll stretch. I especially like that all the pitchers won World Series and all the music folk hit #1. That's oddly serendipitous, theme coherence-wise. KENNY ROGERS actually once pitched a PERFECT game. DAVE STEWART didn't, but he did throw a no-hitter.



Theme answers:

• 3D: Yankees hurler (1996 champs) / Solo singer of "Lady" (#1 in 1980) (KENNY ROGERS)
  
• 28D: Orioles hurler (1966 champs) / Solo crooner of "Oh! My Pa-Pa" (#1 in 1954) (EDDIE FISHER) — father of Princess LEIA
  
• 9D: A's hurler (1989 champs) / Eurythmics musician on "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" (#1 in 1983) (DAVE STEWART)
  
• 30D: Giants hurler (2010 champs) / Beach Boys vocalist on "Help Me, Rhonda" (#1 in 1965) (BRIAN WILSON)
  

Bullets:

• 20A: 140 pounds, in Britain (TEN STONE) — had ...-TON- part and really wanted something-TONS, despite the fact that 140 pounds isn't anywhere near a ton.
  
• 24A: Distant sign of affection? (AIR KISS) — nice clue, nice answer.
  
• 47A: 1994 Costner title role (EARP) — Wow, there was a movie called "EARP?" That one got by me.

• 57DA: "Less Than Zero" (ELLIS) — more wheelhouseness. "Less Than Zero" was a Big movie when I was younger. ELLIS's "American Psycho" was big (controversial) news when I was in college.
  
• 67A: Car co-created and named by John DeLorean (GTO) — well that's some odd trivia that I am sure to forget right ... now.
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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Not just mess up in modern lingo / FRI 5-7-10 / Film character who lives to be 877 / Musician nicknamed El Rey / His #2 was retired in 1997

Constructor: Tyler Hinman

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none


Word of the Day: SURD (24A: Voiceless, in phonetics) —

n.

1. Mathematics. An irrational number, such as √2.
2. Linguistics. A voiceless sound in speech.

adj. Linguistics
Voiceless, as a sound.

[Medieval Latin surdus, speechless, surd (translation of Arabic (jad̠r) 'aṣamm, deaf (root), surd , translation of Greek alogos, speechless, surd), from Latin.]

• • •

This was the puzzle used in the Finals of the Crosswords L.A. Tournament, so I solved it right along with the three finalists: John Beck, Jon Berman, and Eric Maddy (the eventual champion — Beck had him beat by a good 15-20 seconds, but spent an eternity checking his puzzle over, and so Maddy ended up edging him out by about 5 seconds). It wasn't a clean solve, as Andrea Carla Michaels and Tyler himself were doing color commentary during the finals, and so inevitably revealed some answers (they actually got shushed by an audience member when they started discussing the puzzle, i.e. Doing Their Job). It's a fantastic puzzle but for two places. Admittedly, the first "bad place" probably isn't inherently bad — it just contains two longish words, both of which I find somewhat repulsive: AMORTIZE and ASPERSES (61A: Spread out over time, in a way + 63A: Slurs). I have never liked either word, and today, they have mounted one another. Yuck. The other "bad place" is more objectively bad: SURD!? Luckily the crosses were all recognizable words and phrases, because yikes. And, more luckily, the rest of the grid is clean and snappy, with entertaining cluing throughout. Loved it.

Let's start with "1-Across," which I'm going to start saying in place of "EPIC FAIL" despite the fact that no one will have any idea what I'm talking about (1A: Not just a mess up, in modern lingo). ANNA PAQUIN was a nice, fat gimme for some people. and a "?" for others. She won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for "The Piano" in the early '90s when she was, what, 11? 12? Anyway, she's growed up and vampiric now. I didn't know NASDAQ was a "company" — I thought it was an entity that tracked the value of companies — so I had NASCAR there at first (31A: Big company located in Times Square). I think I also wanted LA RUSSA where LASORDA was supposed to go, at first (8D: His #2 was retired in 1997).

Apparently some people thought swiss cheese was made with GOAT MILK, which then made getting into that SW corner a little tough (37A: Swiss cheese ingredient). That was my easiest corner, actually, though I had WARLIKE for WAR-TORN (39D: Opposite of pacific) and ROOTER for ROOT ON (57A: Support in a stadium) at first. Nice little crossing of SNOW and GLOBE there near the center (46A: With 35-Down, something meant to be shaken), but the "W" made KWANZAA almost *too* easy to pick up (40D: Annual celebration with candles) (I didn't even have the "K" at that point and I knew what the answer was instantly). Aside from SURD, which I just didn't know, the hardest answer for me to uncover was ST. AGNES (44D: Symbol of chastity), first because I don't normally think of human beings as "symbols," and second (related) because I thought the answer would be a single word. I might even have thought "What's a STAGNES" before realizing I needed to put a space in there somewhere.

I finished in the NE, somewhere around SURD.

Bullets:

• 16A: First name that's feminine in English and masculine in Italian (ANDREA) — a (coincidental?) shout-out to ANDREA Carla Michaels, who was calling the finals with Tyler.
  
• 20A: Nickname since 1959 (ALOHA STATE) — honestly, I can never remember when Hawaii joined. I must be the only person who gets Hawaii's statehood and the foundation of Israel confused, date-wise.
  
• 36A: Film character who lives to be 877 (YODA) — Also an anagram of "DAY-O," which I would pay good money to hear YODA sing.

• 45A: Old Spanish queen (ENA) — lateral move from the more typical [Bambi's aunt] clue.
  
• 53A: Musician nicknamed El Rey (TITO PUENTE) — Got to see him in concert once in the '90s. Very entertaining, though he was mildly contemptuous of his audience for being ... let's say, soulless. Ann Arbor!

• 58A: Staple of classic rock, informally (ZEPPELIN) — true enough, though slightly weird that "informally" here means, more precisely, "partially."

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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19th-century farmer (THU 5-6-10) Family of George's fiancee on Seinfeld / Little title figure in Beach Boys hit / When doubled #3 hit 1968 #1 hit 1987

Constructor: Dan Naddor

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: Angry dog — "GR" gets tacked on to the beginnings of familiar phrases, creating wacky phrases, which are clued wackily ("?"-style)


Word of the Day: GRANGER (37D: 19th-century farmer) —

n.

1. Chiefly Upper Midwest. A farmer.
2. Granger Chiefly Northeastern U.S. A member of the Grange.

• • •

Puzzle 4 from this past weekend's Crosswords L.A. Tournament — this one was a signature Dan Naddor add-a-letter (two letters) tour-de-force. A gaudy number of theme answers (7) with a very cool-looking slant-stack of three in the middle. I'm not much for this type of theme, but if you're gonna do it, overdo it, I say. Here, not only do you have scads of theme answers, but you have a nice, wide open grid generally. 72 words, with very open NE and SW corners, and nice longish columns of answers in the NW and SE as well. There are some unfortunate bits of short fill — ICS ALD ASE ITHE REW — but all in all, for what it is, I think it works fine. Most common mistakes at the tournament were probably predictable: and O-for-A swap on the one hand (DINO / TORTE) and an A-for-O on the other (ROSARIA / RASSES). With that last one, I'm not sure how people justified RASSES to themselves, but I am sympathetic to the error — I really don't think crossing two obscure NBC sitcom clues at a vowel is very fair (38D: Karen's maid on "Will & Grace" => ROSARIO / 62A: Family of George's fiancée on "Seinfeld" => ROSSES). As for the first error, DINA Merrill is crosswordese (31A: Actress Merrill), and DINO isn't a plausible actress's name, but the TORTE for TARTE error is completely understandable to me (27D: Pâtisserie offering).

Least appealing answer in the grid, to me, was SEA EEL (44D: Sushi offering). Is there any other legit crossword entry that has the appalling letter string "EAEE" in it?

Theme answers:

• 18A: Barbecue comfortably? (GRILL AT EASE)
  
• 20A: "Are your Southern breakfast vittles satisfactory?" ("GRITS OKAY?")
  
• 32A: Marvelous golf club? (GRAND IRON)
  
• 35A: Purple outfit? (GRAPE SUIT)
  
• 37A: Rules regarding tile setting? (GROUT LAWS)
  
• 54A: Big black bird? (GREAT CROW)
  
• 56A: Passenger gorging on fried chicken and potato chips? (GREASY RIDER) — winner!
  

Only a few things were truly out of my comfort zone on this one. Would never have gotten ROSSES without crosses (but did know ROSARIO, which helped). Haven't had chemistry since 1986, so needed many crosses to pick up TITRATE (41D: Measure the strength of, in a way). GRANGER is slightly, vaguely familiar as clued, but I definitely needed crosses, and would have clued it via one of the many GRANGERs you see pictured on the blog today (except Wayne Granger, whom I've actually never heard of).

Bullets:

• 8A: N'awlins sandwiches (PO' BOYS) — Mmm. "N'awlins" is a good way to clue the equally contracted "PO'"
  
• 23A: When doubled, a #3 hit of 1968 or a #1 hit of 1987 ("MONY") — #1! Wow, I had no idea that Billy Idol song was so big. "White Wedding" big!

• 24A: Nonmigratory goose (NENE) — they pretty much just stay there in Hawaii.
  
• 44A: "Little" title figure in a Beach Boys hit (ST. NICK) — wanted DEUCE COUPE so bad.

• 51A: Silents star Nita (NALDI) — Like DINA, crosswordese, but most solvers seem to have picked this up eventually even if it was initially unfamiliar to them.
  

That's it. More tomorrow. Oh, if you want to read about a scoring controversy at the Crosswords L.A. tournament — one that resulted in my fellow judge Tyler Hinman's having to be physically restrained and sedated — read his write-up of said controversy here.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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Debut Olympian of 2008 / SAT 3-13-10 / Personification purity literature / Entertainer first man married Caesars Palace / Tea originally wrapped foil

Constructor: Tyler Hinman and Byron Walden

Relative difficulty: Challenging

THEME: none


Word of the Day: LOMÉ (53D: Capital on the Gulf of Guinea) —

Lomé, with an estimated population of 737,751, is the capital and largest city of Togo. Located on the Gulf of Guinea, Lomé is the country's administrative and industrial center and its chief port. The city exports coffee, cocoa, copra, and palm kernels. It also has an oil refinery. (wikipedia)

• • •

This one ate me alive, and there is really only one reason: I couldn't remember the damned first name of that damned CUGAT guy who married Charo!!! (3D: Entertainer who was the first man to be married at Caesars Palace) "That damned CUGAT guy who married Charo" was a phrase that must have floated around my head for the better part of 5-10 minutes as I tried to make sense of the NW. Had I remembered that his name was XAVIER, I would have had an "X" and a "V" in that section and would have taken it down pronto. As it was ... it was a mud bog, and my purchased UTE was going nowhere (this is because I should have purchased an ATV — 13D: Mud bogger's purchase, briefly; and yes, I did make that error). Smaller, but still serious problem was that for a very long time, I had STREW where RESOW was supposed to go (5D: Make seedier?). This had caused me to give up LIANA at 15A: Tropical vine, which I "knew" was right. Eventually, when I went from something-ED to SLID ON for 19A: Had trouble with, as icy roads, I just threw caution to the wind and decided LIANE must be an OK spelling. This let me confirm BLESS (despite the "BM-" word it left me with at 1A) (1D: Smile on) and then get ELVIS (where only soup cans and Marilyn had wanted to be earlier — 17A: Andy Warhol subject), and then, finally, get the "X" in XAVIER / BMXER (1A: Debut Olympian of 2008). After that, I still had the SW to finish — it was toughish, but after the NW, it was really just an afterthought. Figuring out TRA LA (50A: Refrain from singing when you're happy?) allowed me to change ALIEN LIFE to ALIEN RACE (36D: Vulcans, e.g.), and the rest took care of itself.

Weirdly, I only just now "got" the meaning of "Refrain" in the TRA LA clue. I think I was thinking that *rather than* singing, you TRA LA (la)'d (which is kind of like humming, in that you might do it if you didn't know / didn't want to sing the words). But clearly "Refrain" here means simply a repeated part of a song.

This puzzle was really two puzzles for me: the eastern half was done at a pretty good clip, at probably a faster-than-normal Saturday time, but the west, dear lord. I managed to throw SOCIAL LUBRICANT across (35A: Alcohol, it's said), but that just sat precariously on top of ROMANCE and LAVENDER — had no idea what words were supposed to precede them. Thankfully, I had figured out STEPS (35D: Salsa ingredients?), which gave me the first letters to all the long Acrosses. This was after having ESSES as the answer at first. I loosened my grip slightly on RIALS, which allowed me to figure out the TRUE LIFE part of TRUE LIFE ROMANCE (38A: Hepburn and Tracy shared one), and also to figure out that RIALS was supposed to be RIELS (30D: Cambodian cash). From there, the ENGLISH part of ENGLISH LAVENDER (39A: Aromatic plant native to the Pyrenees) became evident, and when I threw MILLE BORNES (2D: Game with hazards, safeties and remedies) up into the NW, I was sure I was rounding third and headed for home ... but we all know that didn't happen.

Puzzle started with the gimme WES (23A: Film director Anderson), but went nowhere from there. Rebooted at ATE (25A: Fell hard, with "it"), and somehow got BY LOT off that "T" (9D: One way to break ties). Everything up there fell easily after that, even though I couldn't tell you anything about a COBB SALAD except maybe there's ham involved (6A: Dish served with Roquefort cheese). ORO Y PLATA was a nice long gimme (16A: Treasure State's motto, aptly). If you memorize only one state motto, memorize that one. Oh, and California's, because it's easy — just one word: Eureka! (not a word I was saying often enough today).

• • •

[Interlude — as I'm typing this, Will Shortz is blowing UP on Twitter because Neil Patrick Harris just tweeted a picture of himself and Will together, presumably on the set of the sitcom "How I Met Your Mother." Will is going to be making a cameo on the show in the near future, which I *also* learned about via Twitter — one of the show's creators follows me (and vice versa). OK, back to the puzzle. Oh, wait, you wanna see the pic? OK:

[Part of the accompanying message: "I'm a fan. I geeked out."]

... and now, really, back to the puzzle]

• • •

Completely guessed STAND IN A ROW (26D: Line up) from just the second "T" in TITAN (33A: "The Sirens of ___," Kurt Vonnegut novel). Couldn't believe it when it worked. Only part of the SE that rattled me was LOMÉ, which I knew had to be right but looked terribly wrong. I thank former crosswords for teaching me SALADA (52A: Tea originally wrapped in foil), which is not a brand I would know of otherwise.

Thought SELF-HEALING (24D: Holistic medicine topic) was SELF-HELPsomething for a while. The rest ... well, see below.

Bullets:

• 29A: Shaker's cry ("BRR!")— And I thought the Shakers just made furniture.
• 20D: Air Force base near Las Vegas (NELLIS) – Whoa, NELLIS. Looked sooo wrong. Was not at all sure about that first "L" — LEDS are kinds of screens, I guess (31A: They're often seen on scoreboards, for short), but I ran the alphabet at least once to see if any other letter could go in the "L" spot.
  
• 43A: Flier with delta wings (SST) — not sure what's cuing the abbrev. here.
  
• 44A: Arm supporters, for short (NRA) — uh ... shoulders? "Arms" would have been too obvious. Well played, Hinwald.
  
• 58A: Ulexite is rich in it (BORON) — and not, as you suspected, wackiness.
  
• 59A: Pope when the Visigoths seized Rome (INNOCENT I) — sure, why not. That sounds like a plausible pope.
  
• 4D: Personification of purity, in literature (ENID) — Total guess, after I got the "N" and "D" — there's really nothing else *to* guess at that point, is there?
  
• 11D: Garments covered by amices (ALBS) — ALB = oldskool crosswordese. I found a way to turn it into ALF in a crossword I recently made. It's ... unlovely.
  
• 12D: Language written with no spaces between words (LAO) — I had no idea. I was considering ASL, but that's not "written" at all.
  
• 47D: Albert with a National Medal of Science (SABIN) — I'm guessing he's the SABIN of "that other guy who invented a polio vaccine" fame.
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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Pseudopod formers — SATURDAY, Dec. 19 2003 — McCarthy cohort / Intraclub competition rankings / Casting device / Melliferous perhaps

Constructors: Tyler Hinman and Byron Walden

Relative difficulty: Challenging

THEME: none

Word of the Day: QUI VIVE (15A: Alert) — n. A sentinel's challenge.

Idiom: on the qui vive — On the alert; vigilant: "a loathsome Dublin politico who is on the qui vive for . . . terrorists" (Julian Moynahan).

[French, (long) live who? (a sentry's challenge to determine a person's political sympathies) : qui, who + vive, third person sing. present subjunctive of vivre, to live.]

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Found this very tough but not very entertaining. Love the (astonishingly timely) central crossing answers — ORAL ROBERTS (17D: "The Call" autobiographer) just died this past week and the CRIMSON TIDE (33A: Tigers' rival in the Southeastern Conference) will play for a National Championship in January (RB Mark Ingram just became the first player from that school — Alabama — to win the Heisman Trophy). The rest of the grid was mostly a chore, with all of the attempted entertainment in the clues, which were often too cute by half. I like a tough puzzle, but when the answers are mostly dull and the clues are so consciously forced into the realm of trickery and obscurity, then I start to lose the will to solve. Take little stuff like 21A: Cal ___ and 15D: Chili con ___ (Tex-Mex dish). My first guesses were TECH and CARNE, and there's no way I'm alone on that. I don't mind traps in general, but many of these clues were just screaming "trap!" But then when I would get the answers, there'd be no "AHA" or "WOW" moment. Just ... "huh, OK." None of the interlocking 15s did anything for me (though, again, some of the cluing is mighty imaginative, esp. on 10D: Thread used in briefs). The entire west coast was a slow, painful slog, mainly because I could not see the (seemingly redundant) FINAL in FINAL RESOLUTION (51A: Very end of a conflict) so the lower left section was a gaping hole. I mean ... I needed OCARINA (35D: Light wind) just to get into the SW, and I didn't even *know* OCARINA until I learned it (the hard way) at the 2008 Tournament.

[HORRIBLE TECHNICAL ERROR — I somehow deleted a chunk of text in here and cannot retrieve it .... attempting reconstruction. #$@#$!@!!!!! me.]

My failure to connect with today's puzzle is especially surprising, given that I can't remember ever not liking a puzzle by either of today's constructors. But after I crossed ORAL ROBERTS and CRIMSON TIDE, there just wasn't a lot of fun to be had. I wanted ECSTASY (23D: Transcendent state), but all I got was ... a TRIM DIE (22D: Casting device). Thanks, Santa.

Admittedly, some of my problem was my own damned ignorance, or pseudo(pod?!) ignorance — you know, not utter ignorance, but near-complete ignorance supplemented by a hazy ability to remember prior crosswords and make educated guesses. Take the NW. I couldn't do anything with 13A: Pseudopod formers, but then later, I guessed AMOEBAS, because it *felt* right. And it was. Same thing with 5D: Host of PBS's "Heritage: Civilization and the Jews" (Eban). Nothing, and then later ... "Hey, isn't there some famous Jewish guy named EBAN?" Yes, sure, try that. That's called "stumbling your way to victory." Yikes. Most maddening thing about the puzzle as having seen "Roger & Me" several times and having No Bleeping Idea what 18A / 4D could be (18A: With 4-Down, "Roger & Me" subject => URBAN DECAY). It's a very valid answer, but man I was racking my brain, recounting the plot, trying to think of "figures" (i.e. people, dead rabbits, something) from that movie. FLINT, MICH ... no. ROGER ... no, that can't be right. MICHAEL ... MIKE ... man. That NW was just ... like being in a painful ARMLOCK (26A: Hold in a ring). I still can't quite wrap my head around the clue at 1A: Intraclub competition rankings (ladder). So in ... some kind of club ... there is a competition ... is this tennis? I think so. How are LAY-UPS "standard" (1D: Standard buckets)? They are (comparatively) easy, but "standard" seems a (very) wrong adjective to apply to them. They aren't the most common type of "bucket" made in an "standard" NBA game, so this cluing is irksome — tries to be tricky (let's see how many definitions of "Standard" and "buckets" we can make them think of!) and ends up being just clunky.

Other stuff I just *didn't* know:

• SOTO (24A: All-Star Cubs catcher Geovany) — and I follow baseball!! Embarrassing (for me).
• NEILSON (34D: Roger who coached eight different N.H.L. teams) — not a great day for the sports-phobic. I feel like I've seen this name before (it's here only 'cause it's So grid-friendly), but that didn't help today.
• RED NOSE (37D: Item sported to support Britain's Comic Relief) — there's no part of that I understand. Thankfully, I knew this was REDNOSE before I ever looked at the clue (had only one letter missing at that point).
• OLEO (48D: Muffin stuffin?) — ... what? "Stuffin'?" I had EFFS at first. A much better answer than stupid OLEO. OLEO "stuffs" a muffin how? Or is it supposed to be the "stuff" on a muffin? Dear lord.
• APIAN (26D: Melliferous, perhaps) — eventually got this because I know APIAN means "related to bees" and I know "melliFLUOUS" means sweet (like honey). But "FER" means, what (aside from a "word" that may precede "sher!") — that the bees *carry* honey? Yeah, sort of — normally used of plants that contain substances that bees can turn into honey.
  
• SOAPIER (29A: More melodramatic) — ah, a word no one actually uses. OK. I see the connection only through the phrase "Soap Opera" (side note: they canceled "As The World Turns"! Oh, the humanity!)

Also thought "flibbertigibbets" were like "doodads" or "widgets," i.e. they are made, they don't do the making, so NO SENSE (55A: What flibbertigibbets make) was an educated guess at some point. I barely remember the eastern half of this puzzle, since So Much of my time was spent trying to bring down the west.

Bullets:

• 19A: Its leader's flag featured a black eagle: Abbr. (HRE) — Holy Roman Empire. So much of my (eventual) success today was just being a constant solver. Certain answers come to the forefront of my mind easily, certain letter combinations. Entered UAR here at first (!), but then got it sorted out quickly thereafter.
• 31A: McCarthy cohort (Snerd) — as in Mortimer, Edgar Bergen's dummy of yore.

• 46A: Italian site of a 1796 Napoleon victory (Lodi) — eerie. Just had a conversation on Facebook with my friend Wade yesterday that involved Boz Scaggs and his song "The LODI Shuffle." Oh, wait ... I mean LIDO. Never mind.

• 47A: Figure in Greek myth whose name means "desired" (Erato) — stumped me until I got a few crosses, and then ... "D'oh!" Seems so obvious in retrospect.
• 50A: They call themselves Suomalaiset (Finns) — had the FI-, so no sweat.
• 57A: Sandy who was national security adviser for Bill Clinton (Berger) — one that I "knew" ... only I couldn't retrieve it. Needed several crosses. That whole corner still took only about a quarter of the time it took me to get either of the corners in the W.
• 42D: "The Spirit" creator (Eisner) — my favoritest answer in the grid. So happy to see comics creators (especially legends like EISNER) get some recognition. "The Spirit" is a fantastic, funny crime strip from the 40s (originally), and I teach it in my "Comics" *and* "Crime Fiction" classes from time to time.
• 46D: About 33.8 fluid ounces (liter) — I'm off to drink about a LITER of coffee. Busy day ahead.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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Hip-hop producer Gotti — THURSDAY, Nov. 19 2009 — Hearers of Jonah's prophecy / Titan who fetched apples for Hercules / Spanish chess piece

Constructors: Tyler Hinman and Jeremy Horwitz

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: Directors of Movies with Single-Letter Titles ("Z," "M," and "W.," respectively)

Word of the Day: Eugène IONESCO (13D: "Le Rhinocéros" playwright Eugène) — Eugène Ionesco (born Eugen Ionescu, Romanian pronunciation: [e.uˈd​͡ʒen i.oˈnesku]; November 26, 1909 – March 28, 1994) was a Romanian and French playwright and dramatist, one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd. Beyond ridiculing the most banal situations, Ionesco's plays depict in a tangible way the solitude and insignificance of human existence. (wikipedia) [I picked him because his 100th birthday is a week from today ... also the birthday of Charles Schulz, Tina Turner, and me]


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Wow, this was weird for a Thursday, or any day of the week where we normally see a themed puzzle. This must set some kind of record for least amount of real estate occupied by theme squares in a themed puzzle: a mere 32 squares. But when you use the non-restrictive nature of the theme to create an Incredibly wide-open grid crammed full of entertaining and lively answers and almost completely devoid of yucky stuff, then who cares? Not sure how the puzzle managed to still come in feeling almost perfectly Thursday-level, given that it's got so much white space and one theme answer that I completely blanked on, but it did. I could have done without GIRD UP (8D: Encircle with a belt), a phrase I've never heard and one in which the "UP" seems entirely redundant, but that's about the only thing to NAG (53A: Tiresome sort) about today. An unequivocal success.

Theme answers:

17A: "Z" director, 1969 (Costa-Gavras)

[This looks cool...]

32A: "M" director, 1931 (Fritz Lang)



51A: "W." director, 2008 (Oliver Stone)



COSTA-GAVRAS!!!! [Shakes fist at sky]. Aaargh! Couldn't come up with that name to save my life, and even after I pieced it together, it wasn't terribly familiar. I've clearly heard it before, but I've never seen "Z" or anything else he's directed. His fame (in this country, at any rate) belongs entirely to a previous generation. Couldn't name another COSTA-GAVRAS movie if I tried, and yet I could name multiple movies by both FRITZ LANG (an even older but far, far, far more important director) and OLIVER STONE. So I had to work the crosses like crazy in the NW. In fact, the NW and SE together were easily the hardest parts of this puzzle. So much white space!

In the NW, I wanted ANGRIER for 1D: More Irish? (luckier). Nothing up there really wanted to budge at first — US ONE is not a road I travel (14A: It joins I-10 in Jacksonville and I-90 in Boston) and 23A: "Totally" ("I agree") seemed like it could be anything. Finally started to hem that section in when I guessed STAX for 6D: Record label whose house band was Booker T & the M.G.'s, which gave me the "X" I needed to (eventually) get KLEENEX. Finally got the longish Downs up there to go by working their back ends with REY (29A: Spanish chess piece) and then ETAS (25A: Some honor society letters).

OLIVER STONE was a gimme and I still had to work for the SE. Forgot what "Taken" even was, so needed help with NEESON (46A: "Taken" star, 2008). Thought 47D: Breeze on a college campus (easy A) might be DREW (even though he's in the pros now and doesn't spell his name that way). Got "First Blood" confused with "True Blood," though it wouldn't have mattered if I'd had the right picture in mind because I never saw "First Blood" and forgot Brian DENNEHY was in it, if I ever knew it (40D: Brian of "First Blood"). So the puzzle provided me nice mini-battles in the NW and SE corners. The rest, I tore up no problem.

This puzzle is a pangram.

Bullets:

• 6A: Symbol in a Riemann sum (sigma) — I've either been doing puzzles long enough, or known math professionals long enough, that despite the phrase "Riemann sum"'s meaning nothing to me, I got this no problem.
• 24A: Spats (quarrels) — most amusing wrong answer of the day: I had FLARE-UPS! (from the "AR"). When that didn't work, I thought "spats" might have something to do with shoes ...
• 34A: El Paso neighbor (Juarez) — I didn't know this, but guessed SUAREZ off the "-EZ," and then adjusted for the Disney princess JASMINE.
• 42A: Italy's L'_____ Vogue magazine (Uomo) — means "man"; such a cool-looking word.
• 7D: Hip-hop producer Gotti (Irv) — no relation to *that* Gotti.

• 9D: Anne whose real-life husband played her ex on "Rhoda" (Meara) — yay! Great clue.
• 10D: Hearers of Jonah's prophecy (Assyrians) — ??? really wanted whatever the inhabitants of NINEVEH are called.
• 45D: Titan who fetched apples for Hercules (Atlas) — not the first, or last, thing I think of when I think of ATLAS. Apple-fetching = slightly less manly than holding the entire world on your shoulders.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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Exuberant gesture with splayed fingers - SATURDAY, May 16 2009 - T Hinman + B Walden (Radiodensity indicators / White in fiction Brown in real life)

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: CATALPA (34A: Tree with heart-shaped leaves) - n.

Any of various, usually deciduous trees of the genus Catalpa, especially C. bignonioides or C. speciosa, native to the United States and having whorled, heart-shaped leaves, showy clusters of white flowers, and long, slender, cylindrical pods. Also called Indian bean.

[Creek katałpa : ka-, head + tałpa, wing (from the shape of its flowers).]

Woo hoo. I *loved* this puzzle. A puzzle that appears to have been written just for me (right in my wheelhouse in so many ways) and yet *still* gave me a Saturday work-out. Actually, this was a tad on the easy side for me, but I have enough perspective to realize that not everyone is going to benefit from an 11-letter gimme the way that I did. Asking me 20A: Sideshow Bob's last name on "The Simpsons" (Terwilliger) is like asking me the capital of Nevada - it's that familiar. I'm not sure I'd ever thought about spelling before, but my first guess was the correct one. I know I'm not alone here - this puzzle is going to break hard (difficulty-wise) not just along generational lines, but along "Simpsons"-fan / non-"Simpsons"-fan lines. One answer of that size is a not inconsiderable thing (though the other 11 in the puzzle - COFFEE BREAK (51A: Work stoppage?) - should have been pretty easy to get for just about anybody). Other name gimmes from which I benefited were CARRERE (39D: "Wayne's World" actress - though I spelled it with a terminal "A" at first) and NED BEATTY (56A: "Deliverance" actor) and JASPER (1D: Traditional March birthstone), the last of which was not clued via "The Simpsons," but could have / should have been.

Tyler Hinman started hyping this puzzle on his Facebook page yesterday, so I was braced for something killer. Then, when I saw he had teamed with Byron Walden, I thought I was in for something fiendishly clever and virtually undoable. So I was a bit surprised when, after a few typical Saturday moments of looking at clues and getting nothing, I saw 4D: Common field trip destination (zoo). That *has* to be ZOO, both because it's the first three-letter answer that comes to mind, and because of the "Z" - I'm betting at that point that these guys are going to revel in hi-value Scrabble letters. While testing out AW, GEE at 6D: "You shouldn't have," JAZZ HANDS sprang into view (1A: Exuberant gesture with splayed fingers). I learned the term from an episode of "Friends" where Joey lies to get into an audition where being a trained dancer is a requirement. He's not a trained dancer. At all. The only part of the whole routine he can get right is "JAZZ HANDS." With 1A in place, things got rolling.

My mystery word of the day was CATALPA (see "Word of the Day"). That was right around where I ultimately finished the puzzle. Because I had never heard of it and the spelling seemed like it could be any combination of alternating consonants and vowels, I very very nearly ended with a hilarious error at 31D: Extra in "Broken Arrow," 1950 (Apache). The only "Broken Arrow" I know is a bad movie from about a decade ago where Christian Slater and John Travolta ... do something involving terrorist or a bomb or something. So the title didn't evoke APACHE for me. I, therefore, guessed AMECHE ... as in legendary mustachioed character actor Don AMECHE. I remember thinking "well that's kind of an obscure way to clue an accomplished actor ... who's going to know what movie he was an extra in?" But then the lady I'd never heard of at 38A: Mrs. Wingfield in "The Glass Menagerie" really looked like her name wanted to end in "A" - not "E" (what was her name going to be? "GRANDE?") - so I went with "A" which was confirmed by "AMANDA" and then finally got that the "Arrow" part of "Broken Arrow" was supposed to signify OATER - in this case, one with many APACHE.


Bullets:

• 18A: Something gays and straights have in common? (long A) - after much cogitation, I finally realized that the clue had to be "letteral" - i.e. referring to the words in terms of their structural components (the letters) and not their meanings
• 26A: Like some gems and old movies (recut) - weirdly couldn't get this quickly even after I had "REC-" ... "RECTO? Is that a thing?"
• 32A: Longfellow or Millay, by birth (Mainer) - guessed it was a state thing, and thought probably MAINE, but I didn't know what MAINE folk were called. Now I know.
• 39A: Maker of the first electric compact calculator (Casio) - gimme. I had the "S"
• 40A: Rtes. with plazas (tpks.) - another useful gimme; always happy when an answer can "gimme" a "K"
• 55A: Red-haired Disney princess (Ariel) - another gimme. I can't remember whether her get-up allowed you to SEE TO (60A: Handle) her NAVEL (58A: Central point) or not. Probably. Yes.
• 59A: Something pulled out in church (organ stop) - had ... BOOK at first, but fixed it pretty quickly.
• 3D: Antiallergy brand (Zyrtec) - there are so many damned drug names out there that I had no idea which one went here. Tried ZANTAC (is that something?). I knew ZANAX was spelled differently. Ugh. I try avoid all medications (almost to a ridiculous degree), so this wasn't a gimme, but I certainly had heard of it.
• 11D: "My God," in Aramaic (Eloi) - when you absolutely positively can't bear another H.G. Wells clue for this answer...
• 29D: Baseball player known as Mr. White Sox (Minoso) - MINETA, MINOTO, MR. RMOTO, MENOTTI, MINNIE THE MOOCHER ... this one took many crosses, though the name is vaguely familiar.
• 33D: "Votre toast," for one (aria) - hardest ARIA clue I've seen in a while. Me: "Those words .... aren't from the same language."
• 45D: White, in fiction, and Brown, in real life (editor) - dang that is Good. Perry White is the EDITOR of "The Daily Planet" / Tina Brown is former EDITOR of "Vanity Fair" and "The New Yorker," now heading up "The Daily Beast." I love that "Superman" gets picked up again at 53D: Frequent phone booth user (Kent) - nice.
• 49D: Nick of college football who was twice A.P. Coach of the Year (Saban) - I spelled his name like the polio vaccine guy at first, but still ... easy if you follow college football or just watch ESPN at all.
• 48D: Item with a pegbox (cello) - had the "C" and CELLO was the first thing I thought. Maybe having a best friend cellist helped. I don't know. Nice that CELLO intersects the equally musical CHORDS (48A: They may be fingered :)

• 34D: Radiodensity indicators (CAT scans) - the last letter I filled in was the first "S" in this word. This resulted in SHE for 47A: One going steady? I thought about it. Checked the crosses. Thought about it. Checked the crosses. Nothing. I did NOT get it. Yes, SHE might go steady, but so might HE, so ...??? I wrote my fellow xword blogger Orange, asking her what it meant. I then asked Tyler, and as soon as I posted the question, the answer came to me: "STEADY AS SHE GOES ..." A ship = SHE. Damn it. As I said to Tyler, that's ice cold. But fantastic.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. My "Last-Minute Father's Day Gift Ideas" post is here.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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SATURDAY, Jun. 21, 2008 - Tyler Lewis Hinman (100 NANOJOULES)

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: almost...

Kwik Kommentary today as I am oddly busy. This almost never happens on a Saturday, but today ... one of my readers is in town and he's buying me dinner! Actually, I think we're having dinner on a boat on a lake in N. Penn. If I don't return tomorrow, you all now know my last known whereabouts, OK?

I enjoyed the strange grid today, and was intrigued by the long fill, in that I was sure a theme was developing when I noticed that the two 15-word Acrosses were PRIMARY ELECTION (22A: One may have runners) and FIRST IMPRESSION (44A: Something given at a meeting). Then on the grid-spanning Downs, you've got LEADING ARTICLES (9D: Front-of-magazine pieces) and finally, to round it all off ... TWO-MINUTE DRILLS (3D: Fourth-quarter strategies)??? It's like some cruel and / or fabulous joke. "One of these things is not like the others?" ("Sesame Street" .... anyone? - by the way, watch this, and then you will see why, as a very small child, I loved "The Electric Company" and thought "Sesame Street" was for ... what's a non-offensive word for "kids who are not that bright?"). Anyway, the TWO in TWO-MINUTE DRILLS not only doesn't belong, it's like it's tweaking its nose at the other long answers: "Yeah, I got your ONE right here! Psych! I'm a TWO, ya @#$#ing sheep." TWO-MINUTE DRILLS is surly and only vaguely coherent.

Wife just pointed out that Tyler's initials are spelled out by the black squares. Vanity! And here I thought the puzzle credit, "Tyler LEWIS Hinman," was just Tyler's new, big-boy name...

Bullets!

• 1A: Midwest farmers work later on it: Abbr. (CDT) - EZ, though I thought DST.
• 8A: Group whose logo has a clock set at 11:00 (Elks) - Wow, that's ... Watchmen-esque. Do ELKS graze at 11? What gives?
• 12A: E. S. _____, game company that popularized Yahtzee and Scribbage (Lowe) - no idea, and I only just now realized that "Scribbage" was not "Cribbage." I'm guessing it's some hybrid abomination of God's gaming will.
• 16A: Like "Beowulf," in brief (Anon.) - trying to think ahead of the curve, or ahead of the trick, or whatever - trying to anticipate cleverness, I tried ANIM. (see the recent "Beowulf" movie, if you dare)
• 18A: Six-Day War battleground (Gaza) - knew it involved Israel somehow ... GAZA is a good way to work a "Z" into your puzzle.
• 21A: Its drops may be alarming, with "the" (Dow) - had trouble computing the clue at first, but when I got the answer, the clue seemed perfectly accurate.
• 27A: _____ Center, second-tallest building in Chicago (Aon) - I'm guessing many non-Chicagoans balk at this every time it shows up (maybe once a year). If it weren't for the certainty of CAR CRASH (23D: Ending of many a chase scene) (and the impossibility of CIR CRASH), I'd have guessed ION.
• 28A: Filler for a gun (caulk) - having the "UL" in place made this a lot easier than it might have been.
• 31A: Planet system in several "Star Trek" episodes (Rigel) - the site of my one real problem; I was sure this was RIGEL (I never watched "ST" much, but it sounded right), but if RIGEL was right, WTF was LAN (33D: Iberia : Spain :: _____ : Chile)??? A very clever deliberately misdirective clue that supposes two things. 1) you will think "Iberia" is a place, not an airline, and 2) you don't know any specifically Chilean airlines. You know that LAN stands for Local-Area Network, but that's all you'll know.
• 36A: Girl who's the "you" in the lyric "I'll see you in my dreams" (Irene) - "Goodnight, IRENE" (song starts at about the 4:30 mark). IRENE is one of the most popular female names in the crossword, despite no one's being named IRENE anymore.
• 42A: Cartoon character who fathered octuplets (Apu) - HA ha. It's true. Great clue for him. No "Kwik-E-Mart" to tip people off.
• 43A: Old N.Y.S.E. ticker symbol that's now just "T" (ATT) - why just "T"? Weird. NYSE is a common crossword abbr. in its own right.
• 52A: Pioneering agriculturalist Jethro (Tull) - "We need more flute!"
• 54A: La _____, capital of Buenos Aires province (Plata) - wow, this puzzle is really S. America happy. "ORO Y PLATA" is, of course, Montana's state motto, in case anyone asks.
• 57A: Psychologist Havelock (Ellis) - I know this why? He must have studied sex. Oh yeah! Important predecessor of Kinsey.
• 7D: Actress O'Connor of TV's "Xena" (Renee) - Someday I will list every Damned RENEE that has ever appeared in the puzzle. RENEE is up there with IRENE, in that they both get around, crossword-wise.
• 8D: 100 nanojoules (erg) - physics, three letters, ERG, move on...
• 10D: Buzz producer (kazoo) - wanted YENTA. I only wish I were kidding.
• 13D: Moles go behind them (enemy lines) - well you know right away you're dealing with a mobile kind of mole, so you can check face mole off your mole list. Animal moles go underground, not "behind" things, so you're left with spy moles ... after that, it's hop skip jump to ENEMY LINES.
• 20D: Portable shelter (pack tent) - never heard the phrase. PUP TENT, yes. I assume a PACK TENT is one you can carry ... in your pack.
• 37D: Title role for Greta Garbo (Camille) - Looking for NINOTCHKA ... not finding it.
• 38D: Swedish home of Scandinavia's oldest university (Uppsala) - weirdly easy. Not sure why. Had the "PS" and knew it instantly.
• 45D: Locked, as a lavatory (in use) - nice tie-in with TOILET SEAT (24D: Can opener?)
• 49D: Late 1940s event, in headlines (N-test) - well, they can't all be gems. This corner is redeemed by the clue for SOT (61A: Rummy). I didn't know "rummy" was anything but a card game until I saw "The Days of Wine and D'oh'ses" (a "Simpsons" episode). I have learned many olde-timey expressions from that show, primarily from Mr. Burns.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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