Wednesday, 6/6/12

NYT 4:00 
LAT 5:03 (Jeffrey-paper) 
CS 5:00 (Sam) 
Onion tba 

Gary Cee’s New York Times crossword

NY Times crossword solution, 6 6 12 0606

Pardon me. V. distracted by WTTW’s pledge-drive programming, Chicago’s Loop: A New Walking Tour. Lived in the area my whole life, and there’s still so much to learn about Chicago architecture. (If you’re in town in the warmer months, don’t miss the Chicago Architecture Foundation’s Chicago River tour.) The puzzle’s just sitting here patiently waiting for me to return my attention to it.

Okay. Five long answers include a 1a/65a FLIP SIDE, as in a hidden EDIS lurking in their midst. (If only “hidden flip side” were a thing, the theme would make a little more sense.) Puerto Rico is called the ENCHANTED ISLAND. LYME DISEASE is Connecticut’s most famous infection with a tick vector. THEATRE DISTRICT with a limey spelling gets a [London’s West End, e.g.] clue to justify the -re spelling. [Record collector’s curio] is a PICTURE DISC, and that is the theme’s second reference to records after the FLIP SIDE clue. Last, there’s a JEDI STARFIGHTER. Now, I’m no Star Wars nerd, so I checked Wookieepedia to see if “Jedi Starfighter” is a thing. I’m not convinced that it is, but I will take the word of Star Wars nerds on the matter. Pretty sure there are at least a couple of you out there in crosswordland. The theme answers, at least, are fresh phrases rarely ever encountered in crossword grids, so thumbs up for that.

I like FILLMORE thanks to The Brady Bunch (“F, F, F-I-L! L, L, L-M-O! O, O, O-R-E! Fillmore Junior High!”) and ROSWELL thanks to the aliens, but the trusty Scowl-o-Meter went “whoo00OP, whoo00OP” a few times here. Prefix IONO-. Names/places IBA, OREL, LONI, POHL, ATRI, ERLE, ARA (a constellation is sort of a “place”). Partial AN I. Abbrevs HIST, INCL and ENCL, LSTS, ETAS, PCPS (of the plural abbreviations in this puzzle, this one’s the worst—it sounds terrible and perhaps ought to have been clued as “primary care providers,” which is more natural to pluralize than phencyclidine’s), STAC. The Disney ride piratical song is indeed “YO HO” but that’s a mighty ugly-looking entry. What’s more, some of these answers cross others listed here.

Three stars.

Janie Smulyan’s Los Angeles Times crossword – Jeffrey’s review

Los Angeles Times crossword solution Wed June 6 2012

Theme: Mamma Mia! Dancing with the Crosswords

Janie is, of course, well known for her long run blogging the CrosSynergy puzzles on this site, using the pseudonym Sam Donaldson.
Theme answers:

• 31A. [Garment for a French 51-Across] – CAN CAN SKIRT
• 33A. [Cheerleader’s accessory] – POM POM
• 38A. [Shoes for a Latin American 51-Across] – CHA CHA HEELS
• 28D. [Doll’s word] – MAMA

Oh, sorry, that’s not the theme theme.

Theme answers:

• 20A. [Short coat for a Spanish 51-Across] – BOLERO JACKET
• 31A. [Garment for a French 51-Across] – CAN CAN SKIRT
• 38A. [Shoes for a Latin American 51-Across] – CHA CHA HEELS
• 51A. [“Young and sweet, only seventeen” ABBA title girl] – DANCING QUEEN

Other stuff:

• 7A. [Basic ballroom dance] – TWO STEP. Sneaky almost theme answer.
• 17A. [Silky-coated dogs] – BORZOIS. Never heard of them. Looking it up – BORZOIS are silky-coated dogs.
• 50A. [’60s-’70s TV Guide critic] – AMORY. Never heard of him/her. Looking it up – Cleveland AMORY, animal rights activist. I bet he had heard of BORZOIS.
• 36D. [Inc. tax rate, e.g.] – PCT. Well, you just knew Janie/Sam would sneak in an income tax reference.

You can dance / You can jive / Having the time of your life / See that girl / Watch that scene / Diggin’ the DANCING QUEEN

Garage door update: Working again. Fixed itself. Very weird.

Updated Wednesday morning:

Gail Grabowski’s CrosSynergy/Washington Post crossword, “I Missed You” – Sam Donaldson’s review

CS solution, June 6

I list my solving times here like most of the other Fiend correspondents, but I don’t actually track my solving times to discern trends over time. I do it mostly to fit in with the “diary” gimmick and to provide comfort to mortal solvers that there are those of us who make goofs, fall into traps, have to play guess-a-letter–and many times all of that happens in the course of the same puzzle. I mention it now only because I don’t remember ever posting a solving time before that ended right on the minute mark. (I’m assuming my solving software didn’t decide to stop at the five-minute mark for a rest.) One would think there’s a 1-in-60 chance of that happening, but in this case that exact second has proven elusive in the past.

The “you” that is “missing” in this puzzle is the letter U, as Gail takes four common (okay, three common and one uncommon, at least to me) two-word terms and deletes the U that would normally be the third letter in the second word:

• 20-Across: I didn’t have to be awake very long to learn something new today. “Alabamy Bound” is a ragtime tune. Here‘s a version from crossword great Les Paul. The lyrics, in their entirety, are thus: “I’m Alabamy bound / I’m Alabamy bound / They’ll be no heebie-jeebies hanging ’round / Just gave the meanest ticket man on earth / All I’m worth to put my tootsies in an upper berth / Just hear the choo-choo sound / I know that soon we’re gonna cover ground / And then I’ll holler so the world will know / Here I go.” Well, ditch both the heebie-jeebies and the letter U from the song title and you get ALABAMY BOND, a [Pact between kinfolk from Mobile?].
  
• 60-Across: [Knee-high stockings?] are HALF-WAY HOSE, a play on “half-way house.”
• 11-Down: To [Look after an ape?] is to MONKEY SIT, a variation of the “monkey suit.” Wouldn’t “monkeysit” be a compound word if it really existed? If so, the conversion of a two word expression into a one-word compound is interesting, though inconsistent with the others.
  
• 34-Down: With Richard Dawson’s death still fresh on the mind, it was nice to see FAMILY FED, the [Offspring employed as a G-man?] that’s a play on Dawson’s most famous television venture, the game show Family Feud.

That southwest corner housing FAMILY FED has plenty of other gems too, like FELT-TIP, PRUSSIA, NOT HERE (with the terrific clue, [“Let’s talk about this outside.”]), and FERAL. I also liked ALL DONE, NEON GAS, and WAS AT.

Sure, the grid has 78 words and 38 black squares (both typically considered the maximum amounts in quality crosswords), but the grid maintains a rather open feel because it boasts far more 4- and 5-letter answers instead of 3-letter answers.

I never saw this clue while solving, but [Leg attachment?] seems like an awfully hard clue for IRON (if I’m reading it correctly, a “leg iron” is a legcuff–what fastens you to the proverbial ball and chain). It feels a little out of place with the rest of the clues, which made for very smooth sailing. But as I said, I never even saw the clue because I got the letters through crossings. Since this wasn’t a tournament, I didn’t feel compelled to check every crossing entry–if I’m reasonably sure of my answers and the crossings looks like real terms, I rarely take the time to read those clues until I’m writing about the puzzle.

Matt Jones’s Onion A.V. Club crossword

Onion AV Club crossword, 6 6 12 Jones

Whoa. I previously solved the PuzzleSocial edition (6/6/12) of this puzzle, and didn’t remember any of the stuff from the upper left corner. 1d, 2d, and 3d were TYPE AB, SABATO, and AMSTEL, which I found much easier than this CON JOB, SAFECO, ATLATL fill (but certainly not, say Monday-easy). ATLATL? A [Spear-throwing tool]? That one’s new to me. Given that I didn’t know if 16a: [Dolphins’ org.] would be NFL or NFC or if 19a: [Single from the Smiths’ “This Charming Man”] would be JEANE or perhaps the French JEUNE—oy. I tried the L and the U, no dice. Tried the L and A, bingo.

Moving along! The theme gets OLD. Literally, each theme answer is made by getting the OLD trigram wedged into it.

• 21a. GOLDEN XER, [Someone who signs anonymously, but with a fancy pen?]. Gen Xer.
• 27a. BOLDED MATE, [Partner who stands out in print?]. Bedmate.
• 33a. EAR DOLDRUMS, [Boredom with music?]. Eardrums. My favorite theme answer.
• 41a. MOLDING THE MERCILESS, [With 50-Across, seminar for young supervillains?]. Ming the Merciless. My other favorite.
• 64a. OLD, [Grate, with “get,” or what this puzzle’s theme answers get].
  

Joon commented about the “impenetrable NW corner.” I don’t know why the TYPE AB, SABATO (Italian day, cognate of Spanish Sabado and “sabbath”), AMSTEL corner wasn’t used for both outlets. I’ll bet Joon and many of you would have had less trouble with those words.

I’ll also bet that at least one or two of you knew what an atlatl is before seeing this puzzle.

Fave fill: Aerosmith’s JOE PERRY, the car radio listener’s refrain “TURN IT UP,” TO EXCESS looking like “toe xcess” to me, PALM OFF, THE WHO, fresh PEETA, ZITHER (we had one when I was a kid, not that it honed my lack of musical ability any). Least liked, besides that ATLATL/JEANE business: ALLYL (29d. [Varnish component that gets its name from the Latin for “garlic”]).

Grade for the PuzzleSocial edition: 3.33 stars. Grade for the version emailed out this week: 2.5 stars on account of apparent mean inscrutability.