Milquetoast of old comics / FRI 2-18-11 / Bird in Sean O'Casey title / Unseen Mork & Mindy character / Common praenomen Roman emperors

Constructor: Patrick Berry

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none


Word of the Day: PAYCOCK (5D: Bird in a Sean O'Casey title) —

Juno and the Paycock is a play by Sean O'Casey, and one of the most highly regarded and oft-performed plays in Ireland. It was first staged at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 1924. It is set in the working class tenements of Dublin in the early 1920s, during the Irish Civil War period. // It is the second of his well known "Dublin Trilogy" - the other two being The Shadow of a Gunman (1923) and The Plough and the Stars (1926). [best I can tell, PAYCOCK is some kind of phonetic rendering of "peacock" (!?!)]

• • •

Status: IRRITATED (37A: Peevish). I'm used to Loving Patrick Berry puzzles, and I just didn't love this one. It's fine, but sub-Barry. Got annoyed at the uneven difficulty level, first of all. Super easy NW. Most of the rest was ordinary Friday-hard, but the NE, jeebus! Half my time was spent in that damn quadrant. OK, maybe not half, but at least a third. Couldn't see LEECHES off the LE-. Didn't know ISLA. Could never have guessed STET for 35A: Indicator of second thoughts. Could Never have guessed GRECO- for 20A: Roman leader? Thought the clue on INANE (16A: Like wearing socks on your hands) was just that (esp. after watching the latest "Glee," where leg warmers worn on the arms became a fashion fad). So many other adjectives fit that stupid clue. Thought PALAU instead of SAMOA at 9A: 2009 "Survivor" setting. No idea what an AEROSTAT is (13D: Balloon, e.g.). As for 12D: Like early life, I believe the term is "single-cell(ed)" — ONE-CELLED looks INANE. In short, the only answer I had in there was HALT, and I wasn't even sure about that (28A: Stop order?). I'd still be solving that damned quadrant if I hadn't just guessed NADER (18A: Four-time presidential candidate) and gotten the ball (finally) rolling.

I liked the SE best, with CASHES OUT being perhaps my favorite answer (31D: Quits gambling). I also like that HAVE A GO AT (14A: Attempt) looks like HAVE A GOAT (don't mind if I do!). Too much of this grid was simply dull. ASSIST, SNEERS AT, SENSE, ATTESTS, "ERES TU" (23D: 1974 Billboard hit with Spanish lyrics)—it all felt uninspired. Too many of the "?" clues fell flat. The very word "milquetoast" is annoying to me and despite knowing a thing or two about comics I'm utterly unfamiliar with the character of CASPAR Milquetoast from the 1924 (!?) comic strip "The Timid Soul" (24A: Milquetoast of old comics). I figured The Friendly Ghost was at issue. And then there's the matter of PAYCOCK, which I assumed was some kind of close relative of the gamecock. But no. Some Irish play I don't know. . . this puzzle just wasn't for me.

Bullets:

• 19A: "Isn't that so?," to Rousseau ("N'EST-ÇE PAS?") — big fat gimme that opened the NW right up. From there, LENTO, ARTOO (21A: Sci-fi beeper), GHANA (1D: African soccer powerhouse popularly known as the Black Stars), etc. Then I dropped TESLA COIL (15D: Early radio transmitter). Then ... nothing.

• 33A: 2008 greatest hits album that includes the song "Proud Mary" ("TINA") — first guess, but couldn't believe *that* would be the clue for an ordinary name like TINA.
  
• 34A: Palindromic name high on the Forbes billionaires list (SOROS) — even with the Os, I couldn't see this. Kept wanting PEROT, despite his name's being utterly non-palindromic.
  
• 53A: Unseen Mork & Mindy character (ORSON) — wow, it's been a looooong time since I've thought about "Mork calling ORSON, come in ORSON!"

• 55A: Common praenomen among Roman emperors (GAIUS) — not sure where I pulled this name from, but it came pretty easily.
  
• 30D: 1997 animated film set in Russia ("ANASTASIA") — I have only a dim memory of this movie's ever existing. Clue made it easy enough to get from crosses.
  
• 33D: More than a quarter of native Filipinos, ethnically (TAGALOGS) — knew Tagalog was the language; had no idea it was an ethnicity :(
  
• 50D: ___ Research Center (NASA lab in Silicon Valley) (AMES) — I must have heard of this place before, bec. I wanted AMES early on, but I honestly don't know how.
  

Put your OATER in the OSTER and your STOAT in an AEROSTAT, get an ASSIST from a FANTASIST ... yeah, I'm done.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Read more...

Company concerned with automobile history / THU 2-17-11 / Andy's dinosaur in Toy Story / Radioactive enemy of Captain Marvel / Cutesy in London

Constructor: Mike Nothnagel

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: WAR & PEACE (33D: What's broken out of the answers to the starred clues? & 40A: Opposite of 30-Down) — WAR is removed from familiar phrases, creating wacky phrases, clued "?"-style


Word of the Day: ASHLAND (4D: Henry Clay's historic Kentucky estate) —

Ashland is the name of the plantation of the nineteenth-century Kentucky statesman Henry Clay, located in Lexington, Kentucky, in the central Bluegrass region of the state. It is a registered National Historic Landmark. // The Ashland Stakes, a Thoroughbred horse race at Keeneland Race Course run annually since the race course first opened in 1936, was named for the historically important estate.

• • •

This was a lot of fun—best Nothnagel puzzle I've done in a while. Remove a letter string / Get wacky phrase = an old trick, but this had many wonderful things going for it: interesting and occasionally funny theme answers (especially liked FLASH FORD), clean and fresh fill, and a theme revealer that was not just the missing word (WAR), but a second word (PEACE) symbolizing the first word's absence. Having the opposites WAR and PEACE cross each other in the grid's dead center, as well as having the revealers combine to form the title of a Russian novel = icing. Choked a bit on EXACTOR (23A: Tax collector, e.g.) ... I think I had EXCISOR (?!) ... but otherwise experienced no feelings of unpleasantness. Loved the nowness of CARFAX (34A: Company concerned with automobile history) and "SEEN IT" (15A: Jaded response to a movie suggestion), the colloquialness of "NOT BAD" (69A: "I'm impressed"), and the deeply insightful intersection of SEXY (60D: Hot) and REX (67A: Andy's dinosaur in "Toy Story"). Truly NOT BAD.

Theme answers:

• 18A: *Photogenic athlete from Cincinnati? (HANDSOME REWARD)
  
• 22A: *Cozy rooms for playing? (GAME WARDENS)
  
• 56A: *Social gathering for auction participants? (BUYER BEWARE)
  
• 61A: *Diatribes from captured criminals? (ARREST WARRANTS)
  
• 3D: *Commercial for a private school? (ACADEMY AWARD)
  
• 35D: *Expose oneself to a former U.S. president? (FLASH FORWARD)
  

There were several answers about which I had no clue, but they fell easily from crosses. These included ASHLAND, which I know much better as the site of an annual Shakespeare Festival, and Lew AYRES, whose name I've seen before, but only in crosswords (53D: 1948 Best Actor nominee for "Johnny Belinda"). Love the way the puzzle steered around a partial at AND ... GO! (7D: "Start ... now!"). That could so easily have been [Touch ___]. It's funny how dated PRETEENS looks now (39D: Much of Nickelodeon's target audience). That word has been largely supplanted by TWEENS. They're the same group of kids, right? I'm not criticizing PRETEENS; it's a fine word. Just observing how quickly language can change.

Bullets:

• 29A: Food made from fermented beans (MISO) — ugh, embarrassing how long this took me. Wanted TOFU, then had the M and S and wanted ... I don't know, MASH? I'm pretty sure we have a container of MISO in our fridge...
  
• 43A: Indian city now known as Chennai (MADRAS) — I did not know that. CHENNAI seems like a word that wants to be in crosswords, but I've never seen it (to my knowledge). Got this answer easily from just a cross or two.
  
• 24D: Halloween costume, maybe (CORPSE) — I don't get this clue at all. Even after getting CORP- I refused to write in the answer. A CORPSE is not a costume. A sheet—that's a costume. But a CORPSE? And plus, don't you mean "zombie?" A CORPSE would not be much of a costume. You'd just ... lie there. If you are animated (ambulatory, etc.), then you are not a CORPSE; you are undead. This distinction is important.
  
• 25D: Cutesy, in London (TWEE) — got this right away. This was a word I had never seen or heard used before 2008, when I first encountered it as a genre of contemporary music.
  
• 37D: Marked, as a questionnaire (X'D IN) — this answer looks wrong, but feels right, so ... I'll allow it.
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Read more...