Thursday, 3/10/11

 

 

 

 

 

 

Matt Ginsberg’s New York Times crossword

When I filled in POLISH for 31d: [*Shine] and had a handful of letters near the ends of 16a and 36a, I thought about the sort of word oddities that have inspired Matt Ginsberg to make previous crosswords and said “Aha, —— PRONOUNCED / DIFFERENTLY,” because there’s long-O Polish as well as polish. Indeed, the theme includes four words with starred clues that are WORDS PRONOUNCED / DIFFERENTLY / WHEN CAPITALIZED:

• 1a. [Poet’s performance] is a READING, small-R reading. With a capital R, I think Reading is pronounced “redding.” (Not as in Reading Is Fundamental—as in Reading, Pennsylvania.)
• 65a. [*Like Seattle vis-a-vis Phoenix] clues RAINIER, as in “more rainy.” You know what’s near Seattle? Mount Rainier.
• 22d. If it’s [Not fixed] into place, it’s MOBILE. Now, that adjective has three pronunciations of its second syllable’s main vowel, my dictionary tells me, and one of ’em is the long-E sound found in Mobile, Alabama. But “MO-bull” and “mo-bile” are more common for the adjective than “mo-beel” (which is the pronunciation for the noun mobile, as in a moving sculpture).
• 31d. [*Shine] = POLISH, as discussed above.

Although MOBILE isn’t 100% unimpeachable, it still works, and I do like this theme.

Highlights:

• 14a. I misremembered the [Country with which the U.S. goes to war in “Wag the Dog”] as a made-up land rather than real ALBANIA. Great clue, though.
• 27a. REDONDO! This [__ Beach, Calif.] town has been in the news this week on account of a die-off of millions of anchovies and sardines. How pretty the harbor looks when the surface is glistening silver!
• 62a, 63a. The puzzle is talking to me. “LAST ONE!” Liar! There are three more Across answers to come. But that’s OK. “I MANAGE.”
• 1d. RAW BAR, great fill, but nowhere I want to eat.
• 36d. I do like names in the puzzle, but I won’t think less of you if [William who played Uncle Charley on “My Three Sons”] wasn’t a gimme for you. And I won’t blame you if you think I’m nuts for putting DEMAREST on my highlights list.
• 39d. PAD THAI, great fill.
• 44d. BANZAI, ditto. You don’t see a ton of longish answers that end with -AI, you know,

Lowlights:

• 45d. ARIEGE, some [French department in the Pyrenees]? Ouch. Never heard of it. I tried AMIENS thanks to the A, I, and E, but no dice.
• 29d. OLEA is clued as [Pharmaceutical oils]. The cognates (oil, oleo, oleaginous) are clear enough, but I don’t recall ever running into this word before.
• 33d. I’m OK with the EMU at 9d, but the ERN is more crosswordesey.
• 50d. The clue’s lively, but seeing the partial IS I in the grid isn’t.
• 60d. Anyone know LAI ([Medieval French love poem]) from literature/language studies and not from crosswords?

Pamela Klawitter’s Los Angeles Times crossword—Neville’s review

 

SWITCHBLADE is the [Street weapon, and a hint to the circled letters in 17-, 23- and 48-Across] that Pamela’s used as theme fodder today. BLADE gets SWITCHed up in the three remaining theme entries:

• 17a. A [Negotiation obstacle] is a DEAL BREAKER. “No deal, Howie!” Too much Deal or No Deal this week?
• 23a. [Recovery sites] are HOSPITAL BEDS. That’s probably the best possible wThisay to clue this.
• 48a. [Most agree] that the NATIONAL DEBT [should be reduced], but I for one think we should spend, baby, spend! I can’t stress enough how much I’m kidding here.

There’s a lot of nice fill in this puzzle:

• 40a. [State capital component, often] – SALES TAX. No, ROTUNDA doesn’t fit – that would be for a state capitol, anyway. This one took me a few letters, but I loved the payoff.
• 32a. [Holdup note?] – LATE PASS. A punny winner here. In middle school, our choir director wouldn’t accept late passes, yet she always kept us late and would write notes for us. Pot, meet kettle.
• 8d. [Words of aggression] – TAKE THAT! Said in battle? Maybe. In checkers? Absolutely.
• 25d. [Bronco or Charger] – AUTO. Now that’s an unexpected answer for me. Makes perfect sense, but my mind said, “Sports? Pass.”

ORE and OAR ran right next to each other in the top center. No referential homophone clue? I’m grateful for it. That’s it from me this week – see you in the ACPT lead-up week. Keep puzzling!

Peter Gordon’s Fireball crossword, “Themeless 37”

Dang, I misspelled KWYJIBO as “KWAJIBO.” How embarrassing! I almost remembered the right spelling of the most cromulent Simpsons-created Scrabble play. This fake insanity is my pick for favorite entry of the day.

So, so much sports in this one. A river clue is for a REGATTA. I’ve never heard of ERIC Crouch. An edible SNOWCONE is so much more familiar than whatever this baseball clue was. Bowling has a ONE PIN. OARED and ARCHERY are sort of athletic. Didn’t recall GANG GREEN until I had at least 6 or 7 letters. Even NIP gets a sports clue. Too much!

I can never see the MINERAL [Apatite, e.g.] without think of moviemaker Judd Apatow.

Is it just me or do both GETS JIGGY WITH IT and YOU DA MAN feel a tad dated?

Love the clue for HEIMLICH—12d: [A 1974 Emergency Medicine article by him included the line “eject the offending bolus like the cork from a champagne bottle”]. Pop!

Updated Thursday morning:

Donna S. Levin’s CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, “Sacrifices Must Be Made”—Janie’s review

Yesterday was the late-appearing Ash Wednesday, marking the beginning of a most sacred period on the Christian calendar—a time when many believers forgo certain luxuries in advance of Easter. Donna capitalizes on this idea in her 4-part Q&A-quip.

The Q (which, at first blush, I thought was going to take us into “Que Sera, Sera” territory…):

• 17A. WHAT WILL I BE
• 26A. GIVING UP FOR LENT?

(Hmm. What is it Donna is trying to SUGGEST [Hint at]? Aha.)

The A:

• 44A. ALL OF MY NEW YEAR’S
• 59A. RESOLUTIONS.

I’m impressed that she held on to ’em this long!

There isn’t lotsa other showy stuff in this puzzle, but that’s not to say it’s either NEBULOUS [Lacking distinct form] where, say, the tone is concerned or without its verbal charms. “NO, SIR” [Respectful denial]. In fact, there’s some especially strong cluing today. In no particular order, here’s a list of the many things I liked—a lot:

• [One may hear this from a kitten in distress] clues MEWLING—which is not a sound you’re likely to hear from LEO [Feline zodiac sign]…
• [Platters, so to speak] for VINYL and [Insincere talk] for JIVE. Jive‘s a great slang word. It can also refer to swing and jazz-band music. The kind that got recorded on vinyl.
• [“Shaken, not stirred” cocktail] clues MARTINI. For “Bond, James Bond.”
• Seems appropriate that [Frug’s relative] WATUSI abuts the dance-related GYRATES [Spins] in the grid. Never heard of the Watusi? Take a listen to The Orlons (from their vinyl days).
• You might need to brush up on your MATH [Numbers class?] to remember that 1/3 x 6 = 2, which is handy for confirming that ANNE is the [Name of one-third of Henry VIII’s wives]. Half of ’em were Catherine—and one solitary Jane…
  
• And while the dry, chem-lab [Ethanol, in relation to dimethyl ether] clues ISOMER, on the kind of rainy day this one promises to be, dry is one of the attractive features of the fill directly above it, SEDONA [Arizona city known for its energy vortices]. Sounds heavenly.

Brendan Quigley’s blog crossword, “This Year for Lent”—Matt Gaffney’s review

Are you giving up anything for Lent? Brendan Quigley’s post-Mardi Gras puzzle envisions what four famous folks would be advised to go without:

20a. Pac-Man would be told to GIVE UP THE GHOST. Which means that he must survive for 40 days on dots, power pellets and the occasional piece of fruit.

30a. Actor Nathan is advised to “FAST, LANE!”

35a, 42a. Supreme Court justice Sonia (not Sonya) Sotomayor would want to REFRAIN FROM JUDGMENT.

53a. Finally, chess legend Garry Kasparov is advised not to make a QUEEN SACRIFICE. Like move 23 here.

Nice theme, since there are two food items and two behavioral items given up, which seems like about the right proportion for Lenten abstentions. You might argue slight inconsistency since the synonym for “give up” is at the beginning of the first three entries and and the end of the last one, but Merl Reagle would counter: Not one solver in 1,000 will notice that, but they will notice whether the answers are funny. Which they are, so this works.

Fill highlights:

• KUMQUAT, JIF, RED SUITS, MAIN ISSUE, PETER ARNO, GETS WARM. Notice how Quigley almost never wastes an 8- or 9-letter fill opportunity.

Quibbles: I’d prefer using the directional suffix for ERN (44d). The erne is an obscure enough bird anyway, and without his tail he’s even more so. Also I’m not sure I like LASH AT — “lash out at” is what’s meant here.

Good clues:

• 17a. [Broadcaster whose CEO resigned yesterday] for NPR. Timely.
• 59d. {[“___ Contestant” (“Jeopardy!” webpage button)] for BE A. Nice.
• 21d. [21 ___ (Shaquille O’Neal’s shoe size)] for EEE. Mediocre entry elevated by clever clue. Good save, and those two 21s look cool side by side.

Thanks for the puzzle, BEQ, and have an above-average Thursday, everyone!

Ben Tausig’s Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword, “Gentleman’s Jargon”

We’ve got another pun theme this week, with slangy terms for “fellow” worked into the midst:

• 18a, 23a. [Sweetener in processed foods geared toward males?] is GUY (high) FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP.
• 34a. [Grocery store option for males with low income?] is DUDE (food) STAMPS.
• 39a. [Equal exchange among males?] clues QUID PRO BRO (quo). That’s kinda cute.
• 54a. [Bits of male wordplay?] are MANAGRAMS (anagrams)! I like that. The managram of “Ben Tausig” is BEATING US. He is writing and editing a lot of crosswords, and those puzzles do outwit some solvers because they’re seldom easier than a Thursday NYT puzzle.
• 60a. [Term for modern portmanteau words that describe male things] is BROCABULARY (vocabulary). Minus 5 points for duplicating the BRO in 39a here. (And minus 5 points for me as a test solver for not noticing that when I first solved the puzzle.) The portmanteau “brocabulary” could certainly be used to describe a woeful collection of words, no?

It’s a 76-word grid, and yet it looks like the word count’s lower thanks to the zillion 7-letter entries. Sixteen of ’em, stacked in pairs and trios all around the periphery. Looks great like that, doesn’t it?

Highlights:

• 20a. [No. 2 end] is not about “going number 2,” it’s about a No. 2 pencil with an ERASER.
• 45a. Fun HORA clue: [Dance with terrified 13-year-olds held aloft by drunken relatives]. The last two weddings I attended gave me my only personal experience with the hora, and nobody rode the chair at either reception.
• 11d. GROW DIM = [Fade, as prospects].
• 13d. THE RAMS = [“Greatest Show on Turf” team].
• 35d. [Dry place for sailors to wash] is ASHORE. This isn’t about bathing at all.
• 39d. QUIBBLE = [Split hairs].
• 46d. [Egg manufacturers] are OVARIES. I reckon you’ll find that even hens have ovaries.
• 51d. [Surname for some 40% of Vietnamese people] is NGUYEN. Phone books probably aren’t too helpful in Hanoi, huh?
• 61d. [Bacterial issue potentially treatable by drinking cranberry juice: Abbr.] is a UTI, or urinary tract infection. Ladies, that’s real cranberry juice, not cranberry juice cocktail. And remember to go pee after sex, too, to help ward off a UTI.
• 62d. Fresh approach to cluing LES. Instead of the French article or some not-incredibly-famous man named Les, we get an abbreviation for a [Trendy NYC neighborhood, briefly], the Lower East Side.

Now, some of the shorter fill falls in the category of “blah fill,” and some of it falls in the “tough clue” zone. Here are some examples of both:

• 16a. RAH [___ Digga (MC with “Dirty Harriet”)] is not a name I knew.
• 17a. [Carrier to Narita International] is JAL, which is short for Japan Airlines. Another Japanese airline you may see in crosswords is ANA, or All Nippon Airways.
• 32a. [Chemist’s ending] usually clues the old standbys ANE, ENE, and INE. This time it’s the –IUM at the end of a lot of chemical element names. Not sure I’ve seen IUM in a puzzle before.
• 33a. [Ancient social networking suffix] is a good clue for a blah suffix, –STER. It alludes to Friendster.
• 36a. ESO is often clued by way of the song “Eso Beso,” but Ben stretched for [Beginner Spanish page 5 pronoun].
• 70a. SSS is lame fill, but it’s rescued by this clue: [Awful sound to hear while riding in a hot air balloon].
• 8d. The Physicians’ Drug Reference, or PDR, is a [Drug book for MDs]. I’m tossing a 2000 edition because I don’t need it for my editing any more (drug info is readily available online), it takes up too much space, and it’s outdated. If you don’t have a health care worker, medical transcriptionist, or medical editor/writer in the house, is PDR a complete mystery? I don’t know how broadly it’s known.
• 24d. [Former German president Johannes] RAU is one of those leaders I know pretty much just from crosswords.