Friday, 4/8/11

Good news! Crossword Fiend commenter Pannonica is now Crossword Fiend co-blogger Pannonica! She has volunteered to take on the scholarly Chronicle of Higher Education puzzle as well as the Monday New York Times crossword. Welcome to the team, Pannonica!

In other news, Brendan Emmett Quigley’s latest offering is a contest puzzle. It’s no more challenging than a first-week-of-the-month Matt Gaffney contest puzzle, and might even be a notch or two easier. So go do that one if you haven’t already. Deadline’s next Wednesday.

Joe Krozel’s New York Times crossword

4/8/11 NY Times crossword solution 0408

It’s not a themeless Friday puzzle this week—it’s a themed one, and I think it could well have run on a Thursday based on some solving times. It could also have run around June 3-6 of this year rather than two months earlier, and thereby commemorated the 50th anniversary of the theme event. At Wordplay, Deb Amlen outlines the history in question. John F. KENNEDY met with the SOVIETS‘ Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna in June of 1961, a FENCE became the Berlin Wall, and thus began the COLD WAR. In addition to those entries being thematic, the glut of black squares “spell out” the year 1961. Deb also points out that the Berlin Wall separates East from West in the grid—see how the word FENCE at 27d divides the grid in half?

Now, if you’re gonna make a puzzle commemorating this moment of history, you gotta put KHRUSHCHEV in the grid! How nuts would that be, with those consonant masses? The parallelism between KENNEDY and SOVIETS is out of whack. And then COLD / WAR has a symmetrical pairing with OHM / NERD. At least the 1961 made out of blocks has a symmetry to it.

What all is in this puzzle? Let’s have a look under the hood:

• 1a. [Beaks] are called NEBS in Maleskatopia, the land of crosswordese.
• 1d. I sure wish NATURAL DISASTER had been clued with something out of season, like a hurricane. With today’s [Earthquake, e.g.] in Japan further rattling people, it’s too evocative of great tragedy.
• 15a. Was thinking of a country for [One of its official languages is Eng.], but it’s THE U.N.
• 25a. My eye refuses to see AT ONE’S FEET as three words. I see ATONES FEET.
• 38a. A glass [Pitcher’s catcher] of what you’re pouring is a WATER GLASS.
• 52a. Never pleased to see CWTS or CWT in the grid. This abbreviation for “hundredweight” is clued [Shipping units: Abbr.]. 100 lb = 1 cwt.
• 2d. Favorite clue: [They may be hard-pressed to work] refers to ELEVATOR BUTTONS. I started to press a “walk” button to cross the street today but the button was covered with gum. Eww! Do you feel that ELEVATOR BUTTONS are a “thing,” a lexical chunk?
• 5d. TAKE A BACK SEAT TO is a good 5-word verb.
• 6d. [Jumper, for one] clues SLEEVELESS DRESS. This is similar to SENSELESSNESS and STRESS TESTS—an answer that’s mostly S’s and E’s and lends a blaSÉ air to the grid.
• 11d. [English Midlands city that is home to the largest outdoor covered market in Europe] is a mighty long clue for an English city of no great distinction, LEICESTER. Actually, the city has a fabulously rich history, and the market has been in its current location for 700 years. Isn’t that tidbit far more interesting than the “largest outdoor covered” part?
• 33d. Valiant, yes. But VALIANCE? As a noun meaning [Bravery]? Does anyone use this outside of the World of Warcraft/Italian heavy metal/Dragon Age II arenas? The word valor has 500 times as many Google hits as valiance.

John Lampkin’s Chronicle of Higher Education crossword, “A Change for the Verse” — pannonica’s review

Chronicle of Higher Education April 8, 2011 – solution

If punning is your preference and meter is your métier, then this week’s CHE is for you. What we have are five familiar phrases and titles in which one word has been exchanged for a similar-sounding poetic form. My sympathies if you’re averse to that sort of thing. In any case, the tenth muse, Logopaígnia, would be so very pleased:

• 18a. [When one of David’s poems is sung in church?] is PSALM TIME (some time), which is—unfortunately for the first theme entry—the most pedestrian base phrase of the bunch. Many of the Old Testament psalms are credited to King David.
• 20a. [Discussion of a Theocritus poem?] is an IDYLL CHAT (idle chat), which has nothing to do with Simon Cowell Paula Abdul Ellen DeGeneres whoever is on that show now. Hold on «tapping ear» I’m getting an update…who? Steven Tyler?! As if the pun wasn’t enough to make me wince. Theocritus.
• 40a. [Group of ghostwriters for a Shakespeare poem?] is a SONNET COMMITTEE (senate committee). When their sessions are held underwater it’s called…oh, never mind. Everybody knows Shakespeare’s sonnets.  (n=154)
• 58a. [Reader making sure that Keats’s poem is heard?] is of course an ODE YELLER (Old Yeller). The sentimental original is probably well known to young and old alike as a young adult novel and Disney film. Spoiler: the dog dies not far from where the red fern groans. nb: Keats and Yeats do not rhyme, not with each other, anyway.
• 63a. [Chest full of Burns’s poems?] clues a BALLAD BOX (ballot box), stuffed with gooey somethingness. Robert Burns née Berengarten is still among the living.

As Bart Simpson might say, HAIKU RUMBA! (That’d be an [Interpretive dance for Bashō’s poem?]

Enjoyable fill:

• 6d & 10d. The neatly paralleled ZEPHYR [Gentle breeze] and ZITHER [Instrument used to score ‘The Third Man’] are classy, with an old world charm. Incidentally, The highly infectious Third Man theme was composed and performed by the crossword-friendly Anton Karas.
• 47d & 59d. More seneximundial flavor in SVELTE [Alluringly slender] and DOFF {Tip politely]. Pardon me, Mrs. Cow.
• For that Higher Education™ feel, there’s Curriculum VITAE (17a), Sartre’s NO EXIT (49d), composer CÉSAR Franck (54d), and the thin-ice crosswordese concert violinist EFREM Zimbalist (whom I know of primarily as the father of actress Stephanie Zimbalist who starred with Pierce Brosnan on the 1980s show Remington Steele). In a nice flourish, the puzzle ends with (71a) [Synonym stockpiler] ROGET.

Things I learned:

• 8d. [It shows a lot] Very literal, this clue. It seems a PLAT is “a plan, map, or chart of a piece of land with actual and proposed features (as lots)” [m-w.com]
• 15a/9d. [Poet ____ Wheeler Wilcox/___ ammoniac]. Ferreting out my mistaken entry for this intersection accounts for about 45 seconds of my time. Instead of ELLA and SAL I had ELLE and SEL. In retrospect, both of my original fills are obviously not in the least bit plausible.
• 39a. [Union general Wallace] The clue for the author of Ben-Hur (which I knew was LEW) here takes its marching orders from the history department.
• Speaking of knowing things, 27d [”That’s obvious!“] made me wish that the oldie “I’m a poet/And didn’t know it” had been invoked somewhere in the puzzle. I KNOW, right?

Favorites:

Populus deltoides, the Eastern cottonwood

• 28a. [Boat contents] GRAVY. Don’t know why.
• 29d & 30d. AROSE and VIM, as clued by the sequential [Got up] and [Get-up-and-go].

Is it my imagination or has the definite article lately been making an incursion into grids across (and down) the landscape? Recent multiple sightings of THE PO and, in this puzzle, THE ALAMO (42d) have me wondering. On the other hand, without that article the historic mission becomes an auto rental company.

That wraps up my first crossword review here at Crossword Fiend central and frankly I’m surprised that I found nothing worth quibbling about, as has often been my wont in the comments. Perhaps all the amenities and perks here at CF Headquarters—they put Google’s to shame, people!—have made me soft?

Scott Atkinson’s Los Angeles Times crossword

4/8/11 LA Times crossword solution

Each of the six theme entries is capital city/country combo in which one letter has been dropped from the country’s name:

• 16a. [Celtic quaffs?] clues CARDIFF (w)ALES. Mind you, Wales is technically a principality within the United Kingdom and not a free-standing nation.
• 30a. [Caribbean baby animal?] clues HAVANA CUB(a).
• 38a. [Arabian guy?] clues MUSCAT (o)MAN.
• 52a. [East Asian “pet”?] clues BEIJING CHI(n)A.
• 11d. [Iberian bridge?] clues MADRID SPA(i)N.
• 26d. [Mesopotamian savings plan?] clues BAGHDAD I.R.A.(q).

I dunno, these just didn’t grab me. The results of the letter drop aren’t humorous, and there’s no consistency in which letter was dropped (W/first, A/last, O/first, N/fourth, I/fourth, Q/last).

Eight more clues:

• 6a. [Disaster response gp.] clues EVAC. How is a short form of “evacuation” a group? Is this an unfamiliar four-letter acronym? The clue screamed FEMA to me.
• 10a. [Eric the Red’s birth year, roughly] is CML, or 950 in Roman numerals. Did the Vikings use Roman numerals?
• 25a. [Words of affection from Luigi] to Mario are CARA MIA. What? That’s the only famous Luigi I can think of.
• 43a. [’70s TV cop played by Robert Blake] = BARETTA! With the short-sleeved sweatshirts (when did they stop making those?) and the white cockatoo!
• 2d. I RAN [“__ (So Far Away)”: 1982 hit for A Flock of Seagulls]. Why clue this as the one-word country name and distract people from the geo-theme when A Flock of Seagulls are at the ready? One question arises when you watch the video: If your hair looked like that, would you go into a funhouse room full of mirrors so that there was an infinite recursion of bad New Age coifs?
• 22d. BASALTIC is clued with [Like much Hawaiian lava]. Here’s some science for you.
• 23d. “I CAN’T SEE” is a [Complaint while groping] for the light switch in the dark. If two people are groping each other, ideally there are no complaints.
• 41d. [And those following, in footnotes] clues ET SEQQ. I have only seen et seq. but the dictionary tells me et seqq. is fine too. Who knew? And is this the only valid crossword answer with two Q’s in a row?

Updated Friday morning:

Raymond Hamel’s CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, “Movie Mayhem”—Sam Donaldson’s review

This one’s a killer. More precisely, this one’s about killers. Even more precisely, four actors who portrayed killers in classic movies. Yet even more precisely, four actors who portrayed killers in classic movies I haven’t seen and who have not been in my kitchen. You’re welcome, fans of Cheers and Jeopardy!

Each of the theme entries is clued with reference to both the movie and the actor who played the victim:

• 17-Across: ERROL FLYNN is the answer to [He killed Anthony Quinn in “Against All Flags”]. I’m guessing the movie tells the story of a man who hates semaphore so much he goes on a murderous rampage. On an unrelated note, this is the fifth day in a row that the first theme entry in the CrosSynergy puzzle has been at 17-Across. Yes, we at the Diary know that it’s fascinating insights like this that bring you to the blog.
• 26-Across: [He killed Steve Cochran in “White Heat”] clues JAMES CAGNEY. I’ve heard of Cagney, but the clue was entirely unhelpful to me, as neither Steve Cochran nor “White Heat” is familiar to me.
• 47-Across: The answer to [He killed Basil Rathbone in “The Mark of Zorro”] is not Antonio Banderas but TYRONE POWER. I know Basil Rathbone from the many films in which he played Sherlock Holmes. In fact, I still picture Rathbone when I think of Holmes.
• 63-Across: ROBERT RYAN is [He (who) killed Abbe Francis in “Bad Day at Black Rock”]. It certainly was a bad day for Francis’s character. Robert Ryan is unknown to me. I know Nolan Ryan, Jeri Ryan (pictured to the right), Harrison Ford’s Jack Ryan, and even Private Ryan, but not Robert Ryan.

I think I’m missing something here. If the theme is simply actors who played killers, it’s not especially tight. I mean, lots of actors have played killers on the big screen, even if you limit the field to actors in classic films. So why these guys? I’m trying to find something else that unites this particular collection of actors, but all I’m coming up with is “they all have the letter Y in their names.”

Other than my lingering confusion regarding the theme, there’s much to like in this crossword. There’s HALF-EATEN intersecting LUTEFISK, the [Traditional Nordic dish]. There’s AMETHYST, the [Gift for an Aquarius, maybe] (and my own birthstone). There’s JEAN Stapleton and Leonard NIMOY. And there’s some lively terms like IN FUN, AS IF, REAR UP, and a TIN CAN, the [Navy destroyer, slangily]. All this good stuff makes up for my confusion with the theme.

Pancho Harrison’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “The Picture of Health”

4/8/11 Wall Street Journal crossword solution

Fun theme—Pancho takes (mostly) familiar movie titles with body parts in them and clues them as various medical specialists’ favorite films:

• 23a. [Podiatrist’s favorite film (1989)] is MY LEFT FOOT, with Daniel Day-Lewis.
• 33a. [Orthopedist’s favorite film (2009)] is THE LOVELY BONES. Got this one with zero crossings.
• 51a. I needed a few letters to make PLACES IN THE HEART, the [Cardiologist’s favorite film (1984)], take shape. Sally Field, right?
• 64a. Ditto for the [Ophthalmologist’s favorite film (1981)], FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, a James Bond flick.
• 82a. [Neurosurgeon’s favorite film, with “The” (1983)] is THE MAN WITH TWO BRAINS. I’m not sure I’d want a neurosurgeon to remove one of my brains if I had two of them. I think this is a Steve Martin movie.
• 95a. [Dermatologist’s favorite film (2004)] clues MYSTERIOUS SKIN. Say what? Missed hearing about this one, though it definitely would be an appealing title for a dermatologist.
• 112a. [Hematologist’s favorite film (1982)] is FIRST BLOOD, the first Rambo movie.

Highlights:

• Lots of interesting long fill here. There’s a GHOST SHIP and a HORROR STORY. The FLINTSTONES and MARLBORO.

I finished the puzzle quickly despite a slow start with 1- and 2d. [Running back Bradshaw] is named AHMAD. And no, he’s not Terry Bradshaw’s son. Never heard of him. 2d: [“I want my ___!” (old ad slogan)], starts with M—all I could think of was MTV and Malt-o-Meal, neither of which is 5 letters long. MAYPO?? Like IPANA (110a: [Toothpaste with a spokesbeaver]), before my time.