Saturday, 8/27/11

NYT 10:49 (pannonica) 
LAT 7:50 (Jeffrey – paper) 
CS 6:18 (Sam – paper) 
Newsday 8:45 

Ashton Anderson’s New York Times crossword — pannonica’s review

NYT Sat crossword 8/27/11 • answers • 82711

Aside from the surprising start (SEXCAPADE crossing X-RATED), this was very much a button-down puzzle, all business. I liked it. Oh, okay, TIT was in the bottom right too.

Anyway, some people refer to a themeless puzzle—such as this one—as a FREESTYLE, which appears as the last across answer; it pairs symmetrically with 1-Across and… and… perhaps this crossword isn’t so reserved? My word! Just look at the narrative suggested in the NW triplestacked nines!

So… crunchy triple-stacks in each corner. Very fibrous. The aforementioned northwest, GLAM ROCK (which I had as PROG-ROCK for a while) / HOME RULE / SPINSTER, ASHTRAYS (trickily clued as [Camels’ resting places]) / SQUEEGEE / CULTURAL, and IT’S GO TIME! / NAILBITER / FREESTYLE. Wow-wow-wow.

Favorite clues:

• 39a. [Unwanted tail?] STALKER.
• 40a. [Black-and-white] SQUAD CAR. How can you not like “black-and-white” in a crossword? I mean, unless it’s OREO yet again.
• [Not apart, in scores] A DUE, not TIED. Didn’t fool me for a second, but I appreciated it.
• If you’re going to have tired abbrevs. in the fill, best to put them together and clue them in tandem: 56a [ID figures] SSNS and 58a [ID issuer] DMV.
• 60a. [“Let’s roll!”] IT’S GO TIME! Au currant!

Else:

• More likable fill: TENTACLE, ASCETIC, REUBEN, SAPPHO, ODDITY, PUMMEL.
• Least favorite entry: OPA [W.W. II agcy.] That’s the Office of Price Administration.
• New vocabulary: ORLOP [Lowest deck on a ship]. Not to be confused with Count Orlov.
• Most likely to be labelled “crosswordese”: INGLE, PENMEN, TET, RET’D.

Excellent puzzle, would solve again.

Kyle T. Dolan’s Los Angeles Times Crossword — Jeffrey’s Review

Los Angeles Times crossword Aug 27 2011

Theme: None.
Theme answers:  None. Pay attention.

Other stuff:

• 1A. [Gum with a jingle that began, “So kiss a little longer“] – BIG RED
• 16A. [Penance component] – AVE MARIA
• 17A. [Poker chips are often seen in them] – STACKS
• 18A. [Chocolaty treats] – DOVE BARS. Sounds soapy.
• 34A. [Calls at home] – BALLS AND STRIKES. Bowling terms.
• 36A. [Etta James classic] – AT LAST
• 41A. [Words spoken after Polonius says, “I hear him coming: let’s withdraw, my lord”] – TO BE. That immortal quote from… oh yeah, Footloose.
• 48A. [Air Force pilot who became a pop star] – DON HO. I tried Britney first.
• 52A. [One of Penelope’s 108 in the “Odyssey”] – SUITOR. No wonder she needed a Pitstop.
• 56A. [Phoned on a computer, in technospeak] – SKYPED. Ooh, modern stuff.
• 4D. [Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven,” e.g.] – ROCK BALLAD
• 7D. [Could choose] – HAD ONE’S DRUTHERS. Say, you never see druthers alone in a sentence.
• 9D. [Word heard before and after “say”] – NEVER
• 20D. [“__ to the Top”: Keni Burke song] – RISIN
• 27D. [Highfalutin] – HOITY TOITY. Well, la di dah!
• 28D. [Co-composer of “Johnny’s Theme“] – ANKA
• 47D. [Bob Seger’s “__ Got Tonight“] – WE’VE
• 48D. [Low area] – HAPPY
• 49D. [Object of ogling] – BIRTHDAY
• 51D. [Speak idly] – TO
• 52D. [Cheer syllable] – ME

Updated Saturday morning:

Lynn Lempel’s CrosSynergy/Washington Post crossword, “Just One More” — Sam Donaldson’s review

CrosSynergy / Washington Post crossword solution, August 27

Apropos of the title, Lempel adds the letter sequence O-N-E to four common expressions and then clues them as if the new expressions were real terms:

• 17-Across: The [Prisoners’ quarters with a new look?] are REDONE CELLS, the result of adding ONE to RED CELLS (whether we’re talking about the military term or the shorthand for red blood cells isn’t entirely clear, but I guess that doesn’t matter very much).
• 28-Across: To [Run in Rambo after a run-in?] is a clever way of cluing the wacky phrase, BOOK STALLONE, a play on “bookstall.” My dictionary struggles with “bookstall,” saying it’s the same thing as a newsstand. Hey, that’s more than I knew.
• 44-Across: A [Time to celebrate capitalism?] is MAKE MONEY DAY, a variation of “make my day,” an expression made popular in this movie scene.
• 59-Across: TV’s The Mod Squad gets revamped as the MOONED SQUAD, clued as an [Army unit facing a maneuver from the rear?]. My inner 10 year-old loves that clue.

Quintessentially Lempel-ian, the grid is smooth and contains several nice tidbits. I like JUNK FOOD (really, I do), DOODLED ([Draw while chatting, say]), BELTWAY ([Road around a city]), and COLD SOBER ([Successfully on the wagon]). There’s a reproductive vibe here, with OVA, the [Future fauna, frequently], and SPORE, the [Future fern].

My favorite clue was [Cow locator] for BELL. Teacher says every time a bell rings, a cow is nearby.

Oh, lest I forget—Happy Birthday to fellow Fiend Teamer Jeffrey!  As you can often surmise from his posts, he’s a really nice guy.

Barry Silk’s Newsday crossword, “Saturday Stumper”

Newsday crossword solution, 8 27 11 "Saturday Stumper"

Hello! It’s Amy again, back home after spending the week abroad. (What? Canada counts as “abroad”!)

The only crosswords I’ve done all week have been the NYTs. I did a Toronto Globe and Mail cryptic on the iPad (in the Crux app) before vacation and didn’t like the style one bit, so I was cryptic-free during my sojourn.

I am so very tired, having been in the car all day yesterday and having stayed up too late upon my return home. Ergo, I’ll make this a quick write-up.

First pass through a bunch of clues, I had a big fat nothing. One of the few answers I filled in turned out to be wrong—1a ([Abrupt transitions]) is JUMPS, not JOLTS. Oof! I also leapt in the wrong direction at 35a. [Duke’s home] is DURHAM, North Carolina. Whenever a Durham university is alluded to in the clue, it seems I get tricked and it’s about UNH, the University of New Hampshire in Durham, N.H., not Duke. So somehow I decided [Duke’s home] was NASHUA, N.H. See? I told you I didn’t get enough sleep. The H fit in OSHA, just as JOLTS’ J fit with JAW.

Fave answers/clues:

• 30a. MR. LONELY looks great in the grid. Mind you, I have never, ever heard of this [Bobby Vinton #1 tune].
• 38a. The STINKBUG has one of the best insect names. I’m not a farmer, so its [Agricultural pest] aspect isn’t much of a factor for me.
• 53a. The common O POSITIVE blood type is a blood [Bank deposit, often].
• 57a. [Nodes of some trees] suggested some sort of obscure botanical term, but no. It’s the RELATIVES on your family tree.
• 6d. BABY TALK! That’s a [Patronization technique]. You knew that one, didn’t you? Good for you! Mommy’s pwoud of her widdle baby.
• 24d. SPHINX is a great answer. Didn’t know it was an [Element of Masonic architecture]. Was Bobby Vinton in the Masons?
• 32d. [H.G. Wells, re “atomic bomb”] is the COINER of that term. Nobody knows who coined the word “nerd”; lexicographer Ben Zimmer has the scoop in the Boston Globe.
• 52d. An ISBN is a [Mystery identifier] and also a romance identifier, a crossword book identifier, and a dictionary identifier.

Biggest mystery in the puzzle: It took me 20 minutes to understand why 10d: [Piece of GE] was SHR. Abbreviation for a share of stock.

Four stars.