Chardonnay from Burgundy / SAT 2-20-10 / First Japanese infielder to sign with a major-league team, familiarly / The Pearl of the Orient

Constructor: Paula Gamache

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: None

Word of the Day: ran-tan (riot) —

A person or persons who makes extremely off-the-wall remarks on any subject matter.

(Urban Dictionary)

• • •

I gave this one a medium rating, but I bet we'll have a split of people who found it a cakewalk and people who found it, maybe not impossible, but not a cakewalk. I'd think this one and yesterday's should have been switched.

(By the way, have any of you ever actually been on a cakewalk? When I was a kid, the small town near where I grew up had a little community center that had a cakewalk diagram painted on the floor, and sometimes it would be put to use. It's very exciting when you're seven or eight years old to walk around that circle and see if the number you're standing on when the music stops is the one that wins the cake [more often it was a pie.] I don't know why "cakewalk" began to be equated with something very simple. It's not like everybody wins a cake in a cakewalk, or a pie either. Cakewalks are no cakewalk. Granted, if you're seven or eight and it's a little town where everybody but you is nearly a hundred years old, they usually make sure you get a cake.)

I'm not a good judge of the difficulty of this one. First, I'm tired and getting the flu. I had the bright idea earlier today that I wouldn't do a write-up but would do a little documentary about doing the puzzle--i.e., I would do a video of myself doing the puzzle with real-time commentary, edit it down to three or four minutes, throw in some gratuitous nudity, and call that the write-up. I actually gave it a shot. This is how far I made it:

You were hoping for the nudity, weren't you? You get that with the subscription service.

Second, I gave up sooner than I normally would have, since I don't want to be up til 2:15 like last night, and am not sure whether I'd have cracked this one on my own. (I got all of it done on my own except a chunk of the NW. Googling for KAZ got the rest of it.) I suspect I wouldn't have finished. I like PG's puzzles most of the time, and this one will probably have some big fans. As for me, this one this time is just too sporty and foreign for my tastes.

So yeah, puzzle, it's not you, it's me.

The people who found it a cakewalk will probably be those to whom 18A: First Japanese infielder to sign with a major-league team, familiarly (Kaz Matsui) was a gimme. As for me, it was bad enough when I saw "first Japanese infielder," and it got much worse when I saw "familiarly." "Familiarly" has risen up the charts to become my least favorite type of clue. I am almost never familiar with the way people are familiarly known.

Those same people probably also knew right away how to spell Usain Bolt (50A: 2008 Olympics sensation). I did not and in fact was misled for a long time by the opening "USA." That's probably what she meant to happen. (I'm not so sure, by the way, that that crossing with Irina [33D: ____ Spalko, Indiana Jones villainess] was fair.) I detest the Olympics, though I can stomach the track and field stuff better than I can stomach all the beautiful snow people. I'd like the Olympics better if they let more ugly people compete.

I did get Lebron (44D: James of the court) with little fanfare. I don't know squat about baskeball, but I know the name Lebron James.

The foreign and foreign-esque clues and answers also made the puzzle less interesting to me than perhaps it was to less xenophobic solvers. In that category are 24D: _______ Eireann (Irish legislative assembly) (Dail) [and is that fair to cross timbal (11D: kettledrum) with Dail?]; Nein (46A: ___ doch!" [German reply]) (Are there only about ten words in German? Judging from crosswords, there appear to be only about six letters. And German reply to what?); Stara (48A: ___________ Zagora, Bulgaria); Grazioso (3D: Elegantly, to Brahms); and Pouilly Fuisse (15D: Chardonnay from Burgundy), though I did know that one, having worked at a wine store in Austin back in my grad school days.

I'm going to get to some stuff I like, but first, we would be delinquent in our duties if we did not call our constructor out on the atrocity of 38A: I.M. not sent through AOL? (Pei). It reminds me of a joke my son told me a few days ago:

"Daddy, how do you spell 'i-cup'?"
"I've never heard of an i-cup. Do you mean eggcup?"
"No! How do you spell i-cup?"

"I don't think it's a word--"
"How do you spell it?!"

"All right then, good grief. . . . I-C-U-P."

Ensuing of merriment.

The punchline: My son is seven. He doesn't understand why Paul Simon or any man would divorce Princess Leia. This, however, is the New York Times Saturday crossword puzzle.

Here's some stuff I liked:

• 17A: Like the drummer for rock's Def Leppard, amazingly (one-armed) — That's another one that will cause camp divisions. If you were under forty for any portion of the eighties, you probably entered this one immediately. The town where I was born has a dove hunt for amputees every year, billed as the "One-Arm Dove Hunt." I knew a bunch of one-armed men when I was growing up in the north Texas oil fields. It was rare for any man of my grandfather's generation to have all his digits and limbs. Granted, it was also rare for them to find success with hair metal bands. Most became county commissioners and drove around on road-graders all day drinking Schlitz.


• 21A: Writer of the 1950 Tony-winning play "The Cocktail Party" (Eliot) — News to me that T.S. Eliot won a Tony. It's worth knowing.


• 25A: Ran-tan (riot) — I'm putting this in the "stuff I liked" column for lack of a WTF? column. That Urban Dictionary definion is the only one I found, and it doesn't look too sanitary. Kate Bush has a song with "Ran Tan" in the title. There are several others in the WTF? column, if I had one, including ideality (2D: perfection) and the aforementioned timbal.


• 7D: The Pearl of the Orient (Manila) — Again, something I did not know. I know it now, but upon further research, I don't really know what it is I know. I mean, says who and so what? I didn't know Manila was known for anything but its fine office supplies.


• 19D: Copenhagen alternative (Skoal) -- My favorite clue/answer pair by a mile. This is the day the New York Times acknowledged that snuff-dippers exist.

• 
  

• 47D: Diminutive chthonic figure (gnome) -- Chthonic! If you're going to go to all the trouble of learning to speak, acquiring a vocabulary, and engaging in the dialect of the tribe, hell yes, by all means use a word like "chthonic" before you die.

Thanks to Rex for letting me play in his sandbox again--sorry for screwing up the formatting and getting lazy with the pictures today. I'm not sure who's doing the write-up tomorrow, but it was nice talking to you all again, and good to have met some of the newer folks. Hope everybody makes it home safe and with good stories to tell.

Signed, Wade

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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Host of a self-titled 1990s talk show / FRI 2-19-10 / "The Broken Tower" poet / Oregon Shakespeare Festival locale

Constructor: Victor Fleming

Relative difficulty: Challenging for Wade

THEME: none

Word of the Day: "Edessa (ancient Macedonian capital) —

Edessa (Greek: Έδεσσα, Édessa, IPA: [ˈe̞ðe̞sa]) is the capital of the Pella Prefecture of Macedonia, Greece. Administratively, it belongs to the Central Macedonia periphery and is also the capital of the defunct province of the same name. With a long history stretching back to antiquity, Edessa is home to the Marketing and Administration Departments of the University of Macedonia."

--Wikipedia (of course)

(Gotta love that last sentence. From super-global to micro-parochial non sequitir in 1.2 seconds.)

• • •

Hmm. I can already tell Puzzlegirl's been working on this blog formatting. She's got it programmed so that it won't let me do two spaces between sentences the way God intended. It just jumps back to one space. That drives me nuts.

I'll take that up with her later. On to the puzzle.

Our constructor today, in addition to directing two classics of American cinema (man, I bet he gets sick of that), is a star of Wordplay and an Arkansas district court judge. It is therefore fitting that he get his comeuppance by being found guilty of the charge of ASSAULT (21D: Blitzkrieg) based on the brutality displayed in this puzzle.

This was supposed to be an easy day, wasn't it? All the hotshot teachers' pets are off in Brooklyn strutting around, probably trying to act all cool when Shortz walks by but just aching for a chance to speak to him ("Hey, nice pen you got there. Bic?" "Shut up, kid, don't bother me. And bring me more whiskey."), and we stoner losers who didn't make the cut were supposed to get to order pizza and watch a movie. Instead we got . . . this.

It's a fine puzzle, unassailable really. Just hard. I'm guessing it wasn't that hard for you. You probably saw 34A (Metaphor for a middle-class American) and "Joe the Plumber" probably came to you immediately.

Know what came to me immediately? Joe Six-Pack. That didn't fit. I got a few down clues in the end, saw _UMBER emerging, and any vestige of a Joe popped out of my head just as good ol' Bob Seger's "Feel Like a Number" popped into my head.

And. Would. Not. Leave.

My first pass through the puzzle yielded not much more than AGATES (33A: Cat's-eye relatives), the first E in ELIEL (16A: The senior Saarinen) because, like LBJ, all those Saarinens had a thing about having identical monograms among their family members (LBJ even named his dog so that he'd have the LBJ monogram: "Little Beagle Johnson") and ONE-A (8D: First to be called up).

That's fine, I've worked with less and still emerged victorious, and I knew there were a few that would come to me as the moment ripened. I could see in my mind 22A Sportscaster Collingsworth, the stretched-out guy who looks like Bob Saget (no relation to Bob Seger. Or Pete Seeger) after somebody's used him for tug-of-war, but just couldn't place his name (CRIS); I knew it would come to me.

The NE fell. The SE fell. I struggled in the NW (my favorite part of this puzzle), but finally broke through. That left the "Crayola color in a 64-crayon box" (30D: sepia), which I tried to make "siena," and all the SW, which was anchored by my intransigently wrong answer for 34A: "Another number."

At 46:11 I turned off the timer. Hours passed. I'll spare you the rest, but the main point is I failed. I googled the crayon, which gave me the P for plumber, and that got it done.

Bullets:

• 1A: Male gopher (office boy) — Shouldn't that be "gofer"? I was trying to get "prairie dog" to fit. Crosswords make you stupid.
  
• 10A: People travel only one way on them (T-bars) -- Nice clue for an old standby.
• 15A: "The Broken Tower" poet (Hart Crane) — I was real proud of getting that one off the N. I see that Judge Fleming has taught "Law and Literature." I took a class by that name at UT Law School, taught by Getman. I'll tell you about it sometime off line.
  
• 19A: Orlando's ____ Arena (Amway) — There's an Amway Arena? Before you go, do you have to meet at Denny's to hear a spiel about "an exciting business opportunity"? (I wasn't going to use my time here for self-promotion, but if they're going to tee it up for me. . . .

• 52A: Weapon for Wonder Woman (tiara) — I had LASSO here for a long time. What did the tiara do? Probably something goofy as hell. The lasso made you tell the truth. I guess that's useful in some situations. But that invisible airplane was ridiculous, because you could still see her. It's not like the bad guys would have been afraid of an airplane. It's Wonder Woman herself who needed to be invisible, not her mode of transportation. "Oh, look, there's Wonder Woman zooming across the sky toward us in a seated position." "Well, at least she doesn't have an airplane, so we should be safe."

• 37A: Host of a self-titled 1990s talk show (Rupaul) — Freakishly, I somehow knew that. I can't remember what Rupaul was all about. I'm picturing Rick James and Lady Gaga at the same time. The problem at "Another number" kept me from sealing the deal, though.
• 46A: New range rover? (foal) — Since you asked, no.
• 54A: When women may get in for less (ladies day) — If this were football, I'd use one of my challenges on this one. Ladies' night, sure. Ladies' day? Jiffy Lube gives women half off their oil changes on Wednesdays, I think, but I've never heard it called "ladies' day." One of you internet people out there can google it and give me the statistics. I'd do it myself except I'm working on this Fisher Price toy Mac computer and not a real machine and can't toggle quickly to another page without watching the Mac do all its little swirly dance moves just getting something off a screen. Using a Mac is like living in Austin. Sometimes you just want the fascinating waiter to bring you your damn coffee.
• 11D: They have chocolate relatives (black labs) — I like that one. Probably because I got it off the last "a" and it made me feel smart.
• 32D: Encouraging statement start (be assured) — Did not like that one. It got me singing "Home on the Range" while trying to think of something to do with bank statements.
• 34D: Kind of appointment (judicial) — Nice. And apropos. (Except I think our constructor was elected. Probably by promising to be "toughoncrime." That's what it takes down here. It's not enough to be "tough on crime." It has to be one word.)
• 43D: Offer? (slayer) — Bravo!

Rex and/or crew should be dropping in here or in the comments to let us know what's going down in Brooklyn. Until then,

I remain,

Your faithful servant, Wade

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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