Monday, 11/22/10

BEQ 4:21
LAT 2:47
NYT 2:35
CS 6:02 (Evad)

David Poole’s New York Times crossword

Well, the clues are pegged to a Monday level all right, but I’m not sure the theme is meant for a Monday. Each theme entry is a food item clued as [Meal money in {place}], and the first word’s a place name while the second word’s slang for money. Except…I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anyone call money “bacon.” So while the California MONTEREY JACK, Tuscan ITALIAN BREAD, and Massachusetts BOSTON LETTUCE work for me (although I know “lettuce” as slang for money pretty much only from crosswords), I’m unsure about CANADIAN BACON. I give the theme bonus points for being a little complex and absolutely more interesting than “the last word can follow {blah}” themes.

Crosswordese to watch out for:

• 6d. [Home of Zeno] is ELEA, in ancient Greece.
• 14a. The Gillette ATRA is a [Pioneering razor with a pivoting head]. The other 4-letter razor brand you may encounter is TRAC.
• 40a. The ERSE language is [Scots Gaelic].
• 51a. ESA and ESO are [Spanish “that”], depending on gender.
• 68a. OTERO is a [New Mexico County whose seat is Alamogordo]. Not to be confused with Cheri OTERI, who was on Saturday Night Live (24a: SNL) and most famously played one of a pair of overly enthused high school cheerleaders; Will Ferrell was the other.

With 16 non-theme answers in the 6- to 8-letter range, there’s some non-stale fill here. GADFLY, GOING FAR, and MAMA BEAR are particularly nice.

Updated Monday morning:

Gail Grabowski’s CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, “Conversation Piece”—Evad’s review

Constructor Gail Grabowski wants to strike up a conversation with us today, coming up with four theme entries which end in words related to a discussion:

• A LOYAL SUBJECT is an “Emperor’s minion.” Not many emperors around these days, are there? We’ve been watching the excellent BBC period costume drama The Tudors on DVD, and, given all the intrigue that surrounds the royal family, I would say very few of his subjects are what I would call “loyal.”
• The simple clue “Brains” refers to GRAY MATTER. In a writing class I took, I wrote “gray” as “grey,” and the instructor asked me if I was British? I dunno, the “e” spelling just looks better to me. Do only Brits spell it that way?
• FLASH POINT is clued as “Critical stage.” I’m familiar with the phrase, but not sure I think of it as a stage, but more of a moment when some simmering conflict gets out of control, like an unruly mob that decides to break windows and loot stores, for example.
• We end with a bit of advertising for a retailer, “Lands’ End pre-Christmas offering,” which is not something you can buy from them, but their HOLIDAY ISSUE. I don’t think of catalogs, which seem to come to our home biweekly if not more frequently, as “issues” in the way I think of mainstream periodicals. Certainly magazines such as O, Martha Stewart Living and Good Housekeeping will soon dominate our supermarket checkout lines with holiday issues if they haven’t already. (How many different ways are there to cook a turkey anyway? Actually, my brother will be deep-frying theirs this year, I’ll let you know how it turned out next week!)

So who has ever used the “Self-diminishing remark” IGNORE ME, except in a kidding way? I admit “Oh sure, just go ahead and IGNORE ME” has likely come out of my mouth at some point when I was feeling unappreciated, but I certainly didn’t mean to diminish myself. Just the opposite, I wanted some attention! Always love to see the “Lady of pop” GAGA in my puzzles, as well as “Jedi guru” YODA. Yes, pleased I am! SPROUT UP (Can you sprout in other directions than up? I guess tufts of hair can sprout any which-way.) and FLEA DIP are also fun longer entries in the fill.

Donna Levin’s Los Angeles Times crossword

Theme: YEARN is the final Across answer its synonyms appear at the end of the four long theme answers. JAPANESE YEN, Lionel Richie’s “ALL NIGHT LONG,” the movie-I’ve-never-heard-of LONESOME PINE, and a STOMACHACHE. (You ever want to pronounce that “stoma-cha-chay”?) It’s a solid theme except for the unfamiliarity of LONESOME PINE.

Crosswordese to watch out for:

• 2d. [Open-sided cart] is a DRAY. I don’t run into many mentions of DRAYs outside of crosswords.

Fill highlights:

• TENACITY and a BAD EGG.

Brendan Quigley’s blog crossword, “Themeless Monday”

One of Brendan’s easiest themelesses, if you ask me. It helped that the top two 11-letter answers fell quickly—I knew ZIPLESS FUCK from reading Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying about 25 years ago, though I wouldn’t say that the term has become more general “feminist slang.” And then ANAESTHESIA hits my medical terminology sweet spot, though I prefer the prevailing American spelling, anesthesia. An- means “without,” esthesia signals “sensation.” Excessive physical sensitivity is hyperesthesia; see how the word’s put together?

Entries I liked:

• WAX POETIC, ZAMBONI, SHRIEK, CINNABONS.

Verb phrases I could do without in a crossword:

• EXCEL IN and DID A SET don’t feel like lexical chunks the way SWAP OUT and PAID OFF to.