TUESDAY, Dec. 23, 2008 - Joe Krozel (Arizona locale famous for its red rocks / "Boom" preceder in song / Game with matchsticks)

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: rotational symmetry - rotate the puzzle 180 degrees and see the letters all in the same place (well, you have to turn them right-side up again, if you literally rotate it, but you get the idea)

Nearly ever crossword puzzle grid has rotational symmetry with respect to the black and white squares. Today, it has rotational symmetry with respect to fill.

I wonder if anyone else was thinking, about halfway through the solving experience, "Why am I doing a crappy themeless puzzle on a Tuesday?" I confess that I had very much the same thought when I was done - even as I was beginning to give Mr. Shortz feedback on the puzzle, I didn't see the "theme" (too distracted by bad fill to have gone looking for it yet). Then I saw it. And oh yes, it definitely explains the horrible fill. It explains TARARA (15A: "Boom" preceder, in song) and LAMINA (38A: Thin layer) and the plural VALS (41D: Actor Kilmer and others) and plural DELIAS (48A: Screenwriter Ephron and others) and RETRAP (18A: Snare again) and RETAR and REMAN and REMIT and REPAID, etc. In the end, it's yet another "Look what I DID! (64A)" puzzle, where we are meant to admire the constructor, not enjoy ourselves while solving. Why not build a crossword museum and hang the completed grid on the wall? Then everyone can ooh and aah, and we can bypass the agony of having to fill the thing out ourselves, under the mistaken assumption that it might be entertaining.

No theme answers, so that's one less thing I have to write about this puzzle. There's an upside.

Oh, and crossing ONs = :(

[SPIT ON (25A: Show utter disrespect for) x/w ON AN (26D: _____ even keel)]

EDILE (54D: Ancient Roman magistrate) and NIM (66A: Game with matchsticks) are Tuesday answers in no known universe; and here ... they intersect ... [cough]

Take out the "WOF" letters ("Wheel of Fortune," i.e. RLSTN and E), and you don't have much left. Here's what the "WOF"-less grid looks like:


Only four consonants besides RLSTN in the whole grid. And not a single "U." That's what a concept like this forces you into. Compromise after compromise after compromise. All for what? In this case, a golf clap. That's all I got.

[Someone just suggested to me that using only 13 letters was part of the gimmick - half the alphabet for a puzzle you need only complete halfway ... I hope that is not true. I hope the 13-letter thing is coincidence, because now all I can think is how good the puzzle might have been if the constructor hadn't put the @#$#ing shackles on.]

Rest:

• 1A: A Turner (Ted) - tough, as IKE and NAT work just fine.
• 17A: Actress Conn (Didi) - I remember the name, but can't remember why I remember ... o my god, she's "Beauty School Dropout!"

• 50A: Policy of many hotel shuttles (no tips) - this, I liked. Inventive, accurate.
• 67A: Biblical landing site (Ararat) - I like the Moses clue over the Noah clue here in the SW. Very ... Patriarchal.
• 72A: Badge flasher: Abbr. (det.) - as in "detective." My favorites: in literature, Philip Marlowe. On TV ... guess. You'll Never guess. Well, you might.
  
• 4D: Arizona locale famous for its red rocks (Sedona) - had SONORA
• 38D: City in California or New Jersey (Lodi) - lots of trouble here, as I was convinced the puzzle had an error. I had (understandably) PATINA instead of LAMINA at 38A, and so this was PODI ... I was convinced that PATINA was supposed to be LATINA, and that the clue just hadn't been changed. And of course, in a normal Tuesday puzzle, LAMINA would have been changed to LATINA. But here, that would have screwed the precious symmetry.

• 58D: Backside, slangily (prat) - I only just noticed this .... what is this? What Is This? Just looked it up. British. More often an insult for a stupid person. Man, at this point, I don't even care. Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWord

PS This blog turned up yesterday in promotional material (under "Press") for the movie "I.O.U.S.A." yesterday. The movie title was an answer in Sunday's puzzle, and I mentioned it in my write-up. I said that the title was 80% vowels and would surely show up again. Apparently, that's quotable. I also suggested that Patrick Creadon made the movie with the sole purpose of creating a new, enduring crossword answer. Funny, the promotional material didn't quote that. Patrick is a nice guy (someone introduced him to me at last year's tournament), and it's cool to see him have non-crossword-related success.

PPS The answer to "Who's my favorite TV detective?":

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MONDAY, Dec. 22, 2008 - Lynn Lempel (Holder of an unfair trial / Othello's undoer / Sidewalk santa worker, e.g.)

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: HOP TO IT (38A: "Get going!," and a hint for the starts of 17-, 24-, 51- and 62-Across) - all theme answers are phrases that start with something that HOPs.

This was oddly thorny for a Monday. In fact, I have "oddly thorny" scrawled across my original copy of this puzzle. It's a fine puzzle, but it took somewhat more effort than a Monday puzzle usually takes. Start with the sheer number of theme answers (5) - that's a reasonably high theme density, which tends to force the puzzle into odd words and less-than-predictable fill. This is not bad at all; it just results in some fill - particularly the mid-range stuff - that I wasn't for on a Monday. Throw in some deliberately tricky cluing, and you have the recipe for a slightly slower-than-average Monday outing. For instance, I thought the "stage" in 4D: Middle school stage, commonly was an actual place, like a set where the drama club might put on shows. GYM? CAFETERIA? Needed several letters before PUBERTY came into view. TEMP was not at all intuitive to me at 1A: Sidewalk Santa worker, e.g. Clue makes Santa sound like a hooker. Then there was the non-plural LINT at 27D: Bits of fluff, the non-slangy YES for the slangy 36D: "Right on!" and the always irksome NATCH (53D: "But of course!"), which I always want to be something else, initially (NO PROB?). Further, I drink HERBAL TEA, not HERB TEA, though I recognize the latter as an acceptable phrase (45D: Chamomile product). TEHEE does not sound like a 68A: Giggly laugh. Is that first "e" short? Look, just because someone somewhere decided you could spell TEPEE that way doesn't mean you can, by extension, do the same e-extraction with TEHEE.

Theme answers are tough (for a Monday), but splendid:

• 17A: First in a John Updike novel series ("Rabbit, Run")
• 24A: Batsman at a wicket, say (cricket player) - first read it as "Batman at a wicket," which is something I guarantee you you would never see.
• 51A: Holder of an unfair trial (kangaroo court) - wonderful phrase
• 62A: Umbrellalike fungus (toadstool) - this is one word, which ever-so-slightly throws off the consistency of the theme (all the other hoppers being stand-alone words). Not enough for serious grumbling, though.

Finish quickly:

• 5A: Bugler's bedtime tune (Taps) - also a Tom Cruise movie from the early 80s.

• 14A: Felipe or Moises of baseball (Alou) - Crossword Lingo 101. Some words survived from the Maleska era, and this is one of them (of course, it helps that the ALOUs also survive and continue to have a presence in Major League Baseball)
• 49A: Long-necked waders (egret) - if it "wades," it's an EGRET. Or an IBIS. Maybe a HERON.
• 10D: Numbers yet to be crunched (raw data) - my favorite answer, along with MOB SCENES (3D: Crowded, frenzied gatherings)
  
• 8D: House mate? (Senate) - another example of decent trickiness.
• 25D: Queenly role for Liz (Cleo) - Remember Miss CLEO?

• 40D: Othello's undoer (Iago) - Othello's under the what now? Oh, UNDOER. I ... see. You could argue that Othello undoes himself. He certainly kills himself.
• 43D: Household downsizing event (tag sale) - is that word, "downsizing," applicable to the unloading of crap from your basement? Speaking of basements, I'm not allowed to go into mine at the moment. Something Christmas-related is going on down there. Had to stay out of the house for hours on Saturday for a similar reason. Man, this surprise better be good. I'll report back to you on Thursday.
• 50D: Boring routines (ruts) - I had ROTE. Made sense to me at the time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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