SATURDAY, Jan. 6, 2007 - Robert H. Wolfe

Solving time: untimed

THEME: me, wincing

As with yesterday's puzzle, very little fun here. This puzzle does have one of the best clue/answer pairings of all time (see below), but mostly the answers made me wince, cringe, and grimace. My pace felt very odd, like I'd be very stuck, and then I'd solve a whole chunk of the puzzle in one shotgun burst. Was the shotgun RECOILLESS (22A: Having very little kick)? Hmmm, not exactly. RECOILLESS was one of the wince-inducing words, though over 200K Google hits say it is, in fact, a word. It feels terribly made-up. Why not RECOIL-FREE, which is easier to say and doesn't sound like you're mispronouncing a foreign word? In general, I much prefer Saturday puzzles that are hard because of tricky cluing to Saturdays that are hard because they have over-relied on the darkest corners of the dictionary.

TOP FIVE WINCES:

• 47A: Like a string bean (tall and slim) - A string bean cannot be TALL unless we are in some alternate fairy-land veggieverse, which we are not. I understand that the term "string bean" is used colloquially to refer to a TALL AND SLIM person, but this cluing is off. I mean, once I had the TALL- part, I could guess the rest (though I thought LEAN at first instead of SLIM), but still, wince, cringe, grimace.
• 31D: Voiced bits of speech (sonants) - It's like a typo of "sonatas" - again, like RECOILLESS, it's hard to imagine anyone's using it without that person's interlocutor going "... what?" See also the very funny recent bit on "30 Rock" where an actress is starring in a movie called Rural Juror, which no one can pronounce without sounding ridiculous. Just comes out sounding like "RuhhJuhh." SONANTS sounds too much like "sonnets." It must be related to CON-SONANTS. Oh, I guess that's because consonants go "with" (CON) sonants, which are mostly vowel sounds ... although some consonant sounds are voiced: B is, P isn't. Essentially same lip/tongue movement, but B gets voiced. My piecemeal knowledge of linguistics is at an end.
• 7D: Boils down (decocts) - Let me count the ways that this answer blows. No One Would Ever Say It. It appears to be reverse-engineered from CONCOCTS (an actual word with 10 times as many Google hits as DECOCT). Apparently, when you extract the flavor of something by boiling it, you DECOCT it. It's just an ugly, ugly word.
• 43A: Relish (piccalilli) - What is it with long, long words I've never heard of that describe food that looks like vomit!? Yesterday I had to endure NESSELRODE, and today, this ridiculous-sounding condiment. A bit too close to PICKANINNY if you ask me. Wife Sandy says her "Gran" used to make it, a fact which does not abate my distaste for this word (and, in all probability, the "relish" itself - if the picture is any indication). I didn't have the first part of the word right until this morning. In fact, I had DECCALILLI. Like I'm supposed to know 43A: Tom Courtney's [who?] "Doctor Zhivago" role (Pasha). I was super-proud when I flat-out guessed SASHA and it turned out to be mostly right. I wish I had remembered Crossword Fiend's lesson a while back (I forget where she set it forth) about the differences between ELSA and ILSA and which was a lion and which was not. ILSA looks like the lion's name. I think it's the "IL" beginning, which reverses the beginning of LION. At any rate, the SW was not kind to me.
• 53A: Chiselers (stone men) - I have tried many different Google searches to make this clue-answer pairing make sense. I have not heard of a sculptor of rock called a "stone man" (or "stoneman," for that matter). It may be in an unabridged dictionary somewhere (mine's in the mail!) but it's not in any of the on-line variety. STONE MEN are things that one chisels - they don't do the chiseling. If you Google ["stone men"] you get lots of stuff, but nothing about "chiselers," unless what they are "chiseling" is in fact STONE MEN - as in this 1953 Time magazine article about Polish sculptor Fritz Wotruba (now there's some hot fill). My favorite Stone Men are the ones who bailed out of their malfunctioning spaceship, landing on Easter Island, where they put themselves into a state of suspended animation while waiting for their captain to return with the repaired ship to rescue them.

• Honorable Mention: 34A: Vernacular (demotic)

1A: Cranberry center (Cape Cod)

This answer was a humiliating disaster for me. My first thought was - for some reason - that the answer must be somewhere in Maine. So my brain never left Maine. Even when I was staring at CA__CO_, I was still trying to think of Maine cities besides Bangor, Augusta, Orono, and however you spell Kennebunkport. Then I got the "P" from PERSPIRED (3D: Didn't stay dry) and at that point I believe I literally said "D'OH!" out loud. Would have struck my forehead with my palm, but I was holding a sharp writing implement.

PROUDEST MOMENTS:

I was stuck very early in the puzzle. Started getting a toehold only by using the imagined final "S" on clues that looked like plurals, e.g. 6D: Some Siouans - I didn't know it right off the bat, but I figured it ended in "S," so put in the "S" and was able instantly to get the cross, 25A: Not spontaneous (studied). [Eventually got the 6D answer itself: OSAGES] But after I got 20D: Fair selection (ride) off the first "D" in STUDIED, I was pretty stuck and abandoned the midwest for the far southwest of the puzzle. Here's where I had great, lucky success. Again, with the terminal "S" trick, I got the first "S" in 54A: To-do list (tasks). Then, with just the terminal "K" in place, I immediately got the 10-letter 24D: One being counter-productive? (sales clerk), which I confirmed with the oddly but acceptably spelled 23A: Protection (egis), which crossed SALESCLERK at the first "S." The other correct and large leap of faith I was able to make in this puzzle was 50A: Five-time Art Ross Trophy winner (Esposito), which I got with just the "E" in place. O, and I got 29D: Result of a coup (new regime) with just the "IM" in place.

55A: Asses with dorsal stripes (onagers)

A factoid that resides in my brain for reasons unbeknownst to me. This answer reminds me simultaneously of LIGERS, TIGONS, and OKAPIS (my favorite X-Word animal). Here is a good view of the dorsal fin, I mean stripe, in question:


Google image search of [onager] gives back only two kinds of images: asses and catapults (which would make a great title for ... something):


Final notes: Got very very thrown by the -EU- in 33D: Investigator who finds someone's birth mother, say (re-uniter). Until the RE- prefix dawned on me, I was wondering what kind of hellish German word I was dealing with. I have seen the word MARTEN (17A: Valuable fur) before, but as of this second, I have no idea what that animal looks like. O MY GOD it's the Cutest Thing In The World - Why would you kill and wear it? You people are sick. Unless you are Inuit / freezing to death, you have no business wearing MARTEN. Had only one fit of wrong fill in the puzzle - STOCKS for STORES (15A: Inventories) - a mistake I made only because I could "smell the barn" (my friend Michelle's expression for when you are very near the end of your run, and so pick up the pace). Biggest nobody in the puzzle: 28A: Sir Frank _____, historian of Anglo-Saxon England (Stenton). How do I know he's a nobody? Because I was Trained as a Medievalist at a semi-major University and I've Never Heard of Him - OK, so Anglo-Saxon England isn't my personal specialty, but still, you'd think his name would have crossed my field of vision in my 8 years spent buried under all things medieval. My favorite word that sounds made-up but I don't care: DE-RAT (26A: Make more sanitary, in a way). Awesome understated clue! Like someone's going to cut meat on your kitchen counter and you say "wait, let me DE-RAT the counter first." Good idea!

Two weird architectural features of the puzzle.

1. NEWTON SQUARE - the name I'm giving the 3x3 square in the Virginia region of the puzzle, whose sides are made up of only NEW and TON (2 of each). Look. You'll see what I mean.
2. The other, less symmetrical but no less mesmerizing physical feature of the grid is the crazy diagonality that you can get going off of the last 4 letters in 1D: Was logically consistent (cohered). From the first "E" and "R" you can see diagonal runs of the same letter heading NE (4 E's, 4 R's) and off the final "E" and "D" you can see diagonal runs of the same letter heading SE (5 E's, 3 D's). I circled the diagonal runs, as if I were doing a Word Search. Oh, the whole "E" and "D" runs result in a 3-tiered stack of DE- words in the W part of the puzzle: DERAT, DELIS (30A: People often leave them with cuts - nice!), and DEMOTIC. If only DECOCTS had been down here, I might not have hated it ... as much.

Finally, I officially nominate the following for the cleverest clue of 2007:

32A: Toast, after "a" (goner)

I didn't get this until it was Right On Top of me (G__ER) - I had been thinking (as I was supposed to) that "toast" meant something you give at a wedding or special occasion, like "À votre santé!" or the like - and then the gist of the clue hit me, and I had that "wow" feeling you're SUPPOSED to have when a clue has had its way with you. It's like in tennis when someone hits a winner so spectacular that your awe for your opponent actually overcomes your sickness at dropping the point. Head-shaking disbelief. Good job. Game over.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. breaking news - there are many NEWTON SQUARES in America, including one in Reston, VA, origin (coincidentally?) of a great many hits to this website. Hmmm... I feel like there is something cryptic or coded that I'm supposed to understand about this NEWTON SQUARE, which, as I said, is in the VIRGINIA area of the puzzle ...

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THURSDAY, Jan. 4, 2007 - Alan Olschwang

Solving time: Under Protest

THEME: Punctuation - Rebus (or so I thought) puzzle where punctuation symbols stand in for letters in theme answers and their crosses, e.g. 49A: President (,nder-in-chief - that is [COMMA]nder-in-chief)

Oh, applet. Applet, applet, applet. If it's a rebus, then symbols go where letters normally would. So why, when I put all the right symbols in the right places, would you Not Accept My Grid!? I know, I'm a novice at the applet, and I should have known the rule (is it a rule?) that you just put in the First Letter of whatever symbol or idea or multi-letter entry is supposed to go there. I figured this out very very late. My official time is something over 20 minutes, which is ridiculous. I'm guessing it was closer, much closer, to 10, but I'll never know, as I didn't look at the time when I first pressed "DONE" and I had hidden the clock anyway. So ugh x infinity. Plus one. But seriously, for this puzzle of all puzzles, why not just accept the . and , and : and - ?

I will wait til tomorrow to blog this, as my frustration is too fresh for me to see the puzzle clearly. It has many fine features, and my big big problems were in the N and especially NW, where 14A: Puncture (hole) eluded me til the Very Last Second (or what would have been the Very Last Second if the applet had behaved properly). I had BORE, both because I did not know 3D: Asia's Trans _____ Mountains (Alai) (I had URAL at first), and because I could not see 1D: Tool holder (shed) for the life of me and thought maybe an S-BED was something... that's my favorite preposterous supposition in a good long while. Both the SHED and the HOLE clues are pretty tricky, the former because "holder" somehow suggests a belt or some other implement actually keeping the tools in place or elevated, and the latter because "puncture" immediately suggests verb, not noun (though upon reflection, yes, "puncture" can indeed be a noun). So when the applet rejected my first come-on, I thought my NW corner was still f-ed up. The whole SHED-HOLE struggle had me doubting myself. But after many, many diligent scans of the Entire Grid, I decided no, the grid is right ... there is a technical problem. When I saw that you cannot put more than 4 letters in a single square, I thought "well, COMMA has five letters, so that will never work," and so I remained stumped until I finally read the fine print about the first letter of a symbol being adequate. Even when I changed all the symbols to letters, I was very very dubious that this would have any effect. And yet ... tada!

43D: Pork _____ (loin)
51D: Show eager anticipation (drool)

These words really should not be anywhere near each other, especially with NUDE (21D: Botticelli subject) and CRAVE (52D: Hunger for) so nearby. It's all too disturbing. ABRADES (42D: Rubs) isn't helping.

48A: Having I-strain? (selfish)
9D: Small bag (carry-on)

These words both want to be other words. Every time I look at this grid I keep seeing SHELLFISH - the word sits underneath PAELLA for god's sake (44A: Spanish entree) - and CRAYON. Likewise, REINA (19A: Isabel, for one) looks like its missing a "T" and SHIRR - well that word just looks wrong in any context.

63A: Singular, to Caesar (rara)

Ooh, I don't like this. "Singular" seems to imply, if not outright declare, ONE-ness, where RARA means "rare." I understand that somehow, colloquially, "singular" means exceptional and not necessarily unique, but still, I was looking for some form of one, like UNA or something.

20A: Condescend (deign)
32A: Poured (rained)
19A: Isabel, for one (reina)
58D: Skates (rays)
66A: Uncommon trick taker (trey)

When the REINA would not DEIGN to help her subjects, God sent a plague: it RAINED RAYS for TREY days.

9D: Small bag (carry-on)

Hmmm. "Small" compared to what? A CARRY-ON is huge compared to a toiletries bag (which, incidentally, I no longer CARRY ON airplanes, as officials are sure to confiscate it for its dangerous shampoos and unguents). I really wish this answer had been clued ["_____ My Wayward Son"].

15A: "The Last of the Mohicans" woman (Cora)
68A: _____ Gwyn, mistress of Charles II (Nell)

These two answers were blind spots for me, but gimmes for Polly (my new name for my wife - I've been instructed by Andrew not to refer to her as "Wife" anymore, as it sounds misogynist, bigoted [I wrote "bigtoed" just now, ha ha], and hateful to him. Done and done, sir). This is the second CORA this week that I haven't known. Makes me wish for the return to the puzzle of Irene CARA. My knowledge of Fenimore Cooper's work begins and ends with Twain's evisceration thereof - one of the greatest pieces of humor / literary criticism ever written, especially if you have ever been forced to endure a Cooper novel. NELL Gwyn was somewhere in the back of my mind, as I have a friend / colleague who is deliriously and orgasmically in love with all things Charles II. Seriously. He came [!] dressed as Charles II to a Halloween party last year (I, on the other hand, put on my Batwoman T-shirt, then spent the rest of the night saying "... no, BatWOMAN ... she's a lesbian now, you know...").

25A (THEME): Sprint (hundred yard -)
13D (THEME): Haphazardly (slap -)

SLAP [DASH] gave me the theme in one epiphanic moment early in the solving experience. Or, rather, it clued me into the rebusness. I thought [DASH]es would be everywhere, but then [COMMA]NDER-IN-CHIEF forced a reconsideration of that assumption. The theme answer it somehow took me longest to get was 40A: Without a regular schedule (a[period]ically), first because it's a word you hardly ever hear, and second because in puzzle-rush mode, I was not paying attention to precisely where rebuses should go. The Down cross, 29D: Week or month at the office, usually (pay [period]), was not helping, as I had only the PA- (the "Y" being as yet invisible because SYM (37A: Kind of orch.) is not an abbrev. with which I was familiar, though yes I can see that it stands for "SYMphony"). Where was I? O, the themes. The [colon] was also tricky at first - even after I had figured out 33A: Haiti, once (French [colon]y)), I couldn't get 35D: Wearers of eagle insignias ([colon]els) for way too long. Wanted COLONIALS or COLONISTS. Damn Your Unphonetic Spelling, COLONELS!

Enjoyed seeing 59A: Sci-fi figure ('droid) in the grid. Like the way DIOR (31A: Classic Paris couture house) is sitting in a very neatly centered way right atop the FRENCH in FRENCH [COLON]Y. Somewhere I.M. PEI and Mr. and Mrs. ROPER (from TV's "Three's Company" as well as the short-lived spin-off "The Ropers") are feeling slighted that they were passed up as cluing options in this puzzle (see 44D: Canadian prov. and 22A: Rodeo performer - the latter of which I had initially answered with CLOWN, which, coincidentally, was what I felt like when I kept getting rejected by the applet ... and the commentary has come full circle).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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WEDNESDAY, Sep. 27, 2006 - Elizabeth C. Gorski

Solving time: 9:09

I muddled around in this one for a while - couldn't quite get a rhythm. Maybe I was distracted by thoughts of my lovely wife, as today is our THIRD ANNIVERSARY!!! But enough celebration; on to the puzzle!

1A: Appropriate-sounding papal name (Pius)

Normally, I'm not fond of 1A clues. Too showy, too cocky, too vain. I mean "1A" - could you imagine a more presumptuous name? They hog the spotlight. They're like the really high-achieving student - not necessarily the smartest, but the most self-promoting. Not the kind of folks I like to hang out with. In this case, however, I'll make an exception, as a. I am a sucker for all things papacy, and b. I am at this very moment teaching the Aeneid in my British Literature course (don't ask) and "pius" is the adjective (in the original Latin) that most often attaches itself to our hero, Aeneas. It means "pious" but "dutiful" is perhaps a better translation. He is all about the Common Good - preserving his household gods and his father and son (wife conveniently burned up in Troy and then even more conveniently returned as a ghost to cheer him on to his Destiny as founder of a new homeland for the exiled Trojans; this Destiny involves his marrying a new wife, a certain doorpost named Lavinia, but I digress). In short, Aeneas is like the first-born son in a fucked-up family who's doing everything he can to keep everything from coming apart, and though he is not nearly as flash as other epic heroes (say, Achilles, or, uh, Milton's Satan), I want to recognize the virtue of decency and civic-mindedness. Aeneas is boring, but he will not let you down. We have things in common.

15A: "East of Eden" director Kazan (Elia)

Kazan is a master director who ratted out friends and colleagues to HUAC. I saw a great documentary on PBS recently about his career and his relationship with Arthur Miller - it was fascinating, and pretty even-handed toward Kazan. Apparently he nailed Marilyn Monroe a lot. That's what I took away from it. The documentary was called Arthur Miller, Elia Kazan and the Blacklist: None Without Sin. Check it out.

O the other thing I wanted to say about this (common) answer is that there is another way that constructors often clue it: "Lamb alias" - Charles Lamb wrote essays for London Magazine under the pseudonym "Elia" in the 1820s. Who was Charles Lamb? Damned if I know. Go here to find out: "Charles Lamb, Elia"

41A: "One Tree Hill" target viewer (teen)

How do I love this clue? Let me count the ways. First, it will be so dated so fast! Imagine a neophyte puzzler in 2020 pulling this puzzle out of the archive and trying to solve it: "I know those words, but that title makes no sense." I love when constructors go so hyper-contemporary because the future obsolescence of the clue somehow soothes my soul. (See also 39A: Excellent, slangily (phat)) I also love the answer to this clue, because the word "teen" just makes me laugh. I think it's because every time I see or hear it, I think of Krusty the Clown worrying aloud during one of his broadcasts, after reading his up-to-that-second ratings: "We're losing male teens!" Like many Simpsons phrases, it has, for me, broken free of the show and fucntions as a great stand-alone exclamation. I just like saying it.

[Reader "Andrew" points out that Krusty did not, in fact, say the line about losing male teens. That line belongs to the sunny, versatile, and utterly conscience-free advertising executive - sales consultant Lindsay Naegle.]

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS Thanks to "Steve" @ the NYT Crossword Puzzle Forum for helping me realize that the reason I couldn't figure out what the answer to 31A: Gun meant was because the Real Answer is not "ren" (as I had it) but "rev." Can you blame me for having 10D: Congressional Record info down as "House Notes?" The word "Record" in "Congressional Record" just sounded so ... documentish, that I figured the answer must be "Notes." But no. "Votes," of course. "House Votes."

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