Small boat made of wickerwork / SUN 12-23-12 / Unhappy king of legend / 1970 hit for Neil Diamond / Lost-parcel inquiries / Revolutionary 1960s Chinese youth / Rapper who played Brother Sam on Dexter / Long-running TV show featuring Hortons Bradys / 1996 Olympian noted for performing on injured ankle

Constructor: Joe DiPietro

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "Bywords" — circled letters form literal representations of "___ BY ___" phrases

Word of the Day: CORACLE (71D: Small boat made of wickerwork) —

n.
A small rounded boat made of waterproof material stretched over a wicker or wooden frame.

[Welsh corwgl, from Middle Irish curach, from Old Irish.]

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/coracle#ixzz2FpIY3n75

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Cute and easy puzzle. GO (by) TRAIN is weaksauce, but the rest hold up nicely. Would've loved to have seen ONE IF (by) LAND and TWO IF (by) SEA, but both ONE and TWO are already used in the grid. I wonder if you could make another puzzle with this identical theme, without repeating a single "BY" phrase, easily. TRIAL (by) FIRE? DEATH (by) CHOCOLATE? LEAD (by) EXAMPLE? The interesting thing about this grid is that the circled words do not exist as complete words in the grid. All the words are masked, embedded in words and phrases that have nothing to do with them, meaning-wise. This would probably be a lot easier to make if, say, TRAIN could've been a self-standing word. Now, this little added bit of difficulty does get you into an ugly predicament or two—witness LANOSE (16D: Woolly), which is hiding "a nose." But mostly I think the gambit pays off. The puzzle is easy as it is; if the circled words weren't truly hidden inside their answers, the puzzle would've felt both easier and flatter.


Didn't struggle much anywhere, but I'd say the NW and NE corners were, comparatively, harder than other parts of the grid. I wanted DARNER at 1A: Sewer, at times (now that I think of it, it's strange that the underground, sewage-related "sewer" never occurred to me when reading that clue), but changed to MENDER because of MIDAS (1D: Unhappy king of legend). No idea how REDID is acceptable  at 6D: Made de novo—that is a super-ugsome attempt to get a clue echo (see 43A: De novo). Why would you do that? "De novo" is Latin, so [Made de novo] implies a Latin answer. I know the response to that complaint is "but 'de novo' is in the English dictionary, so ..." to which I'd say, "raspberries." Clue should've been [Made 43-Across]. That, I could've accepted. As for the NE, well, there's LANOSE (wtf?), and then just a general vagueness about a lot of the clues leading into that section. Got someth-INGAT, but not the GNAW-. Got AT something, but not the WORK (though that's the only answer that makes sense, in retrospect). Not hard, just somewhat effortful, unlike most of the rest of the grid, which essentially filled itself in.

["Don't wanna live ..."]

I enjoyed a lot of the longer answers in this puzzle, like RED GUARD (59D: Revolutionary 1960s Chinese youth), KERRI STRUG (105A: 1996 Olympian noted for performing on an injured ankle), and "DAYS OF OUR LIVES" (54D: Long-running TV show featuring the Hortons and the Bradys). SCUM seemed a kind of harsh word to apply to people, esp. the [Dregs of society] (not sure whom that's intended to reference), but the word is certainly used that way colloquially all the time, so I can't complain too much. I thought Neil Diamond's "SHILO" had an "H" on the end (42A: 1970 hit for Neil Diamond), but that's a Civil War battle site, not the song. No idea what "F = ma" meant until just now, when I realized it's one of the first equations I learned in Physics: force = mass x acceleration. It's NEWTON's 2nd Law. On the other, non-scientific hand, I had no trouble with 100A: "Fish Magic" painter—either I've seen this clue before, or I've come to associate KLEE with fish, or with incongruous two-word titles. Never seen "Dexter," but I had MOSD- before I ever read 103A: Rapper who played Brother Sam on "Dexter" so I actually knew the answer (MOS DEF) before looking at the clue. I've heard MJ called "The King of Pop" (mainly by MJ and his sponsors), but I've never heard this so-called "Goddess of Pop" moniker allegedly given to CHER. "So-called," Ha ha.  By whom and where? These are important questions. I think of TRACERS as bullets, not [Lost-parcel inquiries], so that was another reason I had trouble getting into the NE. Read 49D: Hockey area in front of the crease as [in front of the goal], so my brain just kept going, "crease ... crease ... it's CREASE! Why won't it fit!?" (answer: SLOT). Finally, I feel like this day has been worth living if only because I now know that there is such a thing as a "classic two-line poem about fleas." "ADAM / Had 'em." I really doubt the veracity of the poem, but it *does* rhyme, so ... who can say?

Christmas Eve puzzle is by ... Me! So I won't be here tomorrow. But someone will. One of my sycophants, no doubt. So see you Christmas day! In the meantime, please accept these virtual cookies, courtesy of my baking-crazy daughter.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Afghan province or its capital / SAT 12-22-12 / Broadway's in Fashion artist / Owner of Bill Me Later / Birthplace of Rex Stout Kurt Vonnegut / Lloyd in College Football Hall of Fame / Its first CEO was W.W. I hero Eddie Rickenbacker / Big check-printing co. / Singer of 2010 #1 hit Rude Boy

Constructor: Tim Croce

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: HERAT (25D: Afghan province or its capital) —

Herāt is the capital of Herat province in Afghanistan. It is the third largest city of Afghanistan, with a population of about 397,456 as of 2006.^[1] It is situated in the valley of the Hari River, which flows from the mountains of central Afghanistan to the Karakum Desert in Turkmenistan. The city is linked with Kandahar andMazar-e-Sharif via highway 1 or the ring road that stretches across the country. It is also linked to the city of Mashad inIran through the border town of Islam Qala. (wikipedia)

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I see a face. Do you see a face? I see a face. It's like the face of the losing robot in Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots. Or Thing from "X-Men." A little like him. This puzzle was fun to look at, and even somewhat fun to solve. It got less fun as I moved from top to bottom (2/3 of those bottom 15s don't feel like real things, and PREV and -ESCE are ... well, they're PREV and -ESCE), but I found the top quite entertaining. The top furnished me with one of the odder solving experiences I've had in my career. I got 1D. Then I got 2D. Then 3D. And 4D. And 5D. Didn't know 6D, but just by looking at what was in place so far (and without looking at any of the Across clues), I got 6D. That's 6 Downs in a row, on a Saturday, with no crosses in place. That is cray. Zee. I was also, then, able to guess I STAND CORRECTED without ever looking at the clue (though I did, in fact, look at the clue; just to be sure). All those Acrosses up there are solid, and none of the Down crosses make me want to barf, so that is some good work. Middle was a little tougher, despite getting --THESAYINGGOES pretty quickly (didn't know if it was AS or SO that led off that phrase). My one gimme in the east was also my greatest source of trouble. I must've spelled RIHANNA about six different ways before I hit on the right one (35A: Singer of the 2010 #1 hit "Rude Boy"). Also had GHOST for GHOUL and ONE TO instead of ONE IN. West was much harder to get into, even after I got EASTERN AIRLINES. I had ABIDE and little else over there. Oh, TREES. I had TREES. But SURER and SAFER before SANER. Never heard of HERAT. So that section took a little work. Bottom was rough at first pass—none of the short Downs in the SW were coming (except DEN and -ESCE, which I didn't quite believe was right). But the Downs in the SE were a little more friendly, and finally NEAREST RELATIVE came into view. I think the last letter in the grid was the "C" in CARR (which, like HERAT, I'd never heard of) (46D: Lloyd in the College Football Hall of Fame).


Took a while to come up with DREADED for [Like a bugbear]. Seemed like it could be a million different adjectives. Is a "bugbear" a real  creature, or just a creature-sounding term? Oooh, second def. is "An imaginary being invoked to frighten children, typically a sort of hobgoblin supposed to devour them." Cool. Before this puzzle, I couldn't name *any* check-printing co., big or small. Needless to say, never heard of ADP. EXERCISE TRAINER is a term I have literally never heard (57A: One whose goal is changing shape?). I think in America we call them PERSONAL TRAINERs. I think that's all. A weird, mostly enjoyable puzzle.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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