Thursday, 7/28/11

NYT 6:38 
Fireball 5:23 
LAT 6:17 (Neville) 
CS 5:54 (Sam) 
Tausig 6:04 (pannonica) 
BEQ 6:07 (MG) 

Alan Arbesfeld’s New York Times crossword

NYT crossword solution, 7 28 11 0728

Rather a tricky rebus puzzle, as there’s also a topsy-turvy aspect to it. There are seven symmetrically placed Across answers with {UP} rebus squares in them. The Down answers that intersect the {UP} squares are actually Up answers. 3-Down is PAUPER, as in The Prince and the Pauper, but it’s backwards and rebused so it looks like RE{UP}AP if you read in the conventional downward direction.

Now, the Across rebus answers, they all use the word UP as such. The Down-is-Up answers mix things up. There’s also NO{UP}, or UPON (one of only two UP words with an UP aspect); {UP}NERP, or PRENUP (the most confusing part of the grid for me until the light finally dawned, and of all the ways to clue that crossing TOR, good gravy, an obscure actor is the least friendly); T{UP}S, or SUPT. (Hello! Tup is the word for a ram making whoopie with a ewe); STES{UP}, or UPSETS; S{UP}OS, or SOUPS; and {UP}HW, or WHUP.

The inclusion of A CUT ABOVE and TOP THIS is mildly confusing, as they seem faintly connected to the theme, but I think they’re just randomly coincidental here.

Fill I could do without: ODER, AH SO, BRAE, TOR, ALERO, SSSS, OTERO, TSETSE, RAREE. RAREE! Been a while since its last appearance, hasn’t it? Or did we have it in the last few months and it felt like it had been gone from puzzles for years?

I liked the challenge of the upwards answers and the find-the-next-rebus square hunt, but some of the fill left me unenthused. 3.75 stars.

Peter Gordon’s Fireball crossword, “Time to Begin”

Fireball 2-28

This week’s theme is hidden HEBREW MONTHS, with Tishri, Nisan, Elul, and Adar lurking within the otherwise unrelated theme answers. Those theme answers are lively, but I have no particular affinity for Hebrew months. And I’m not sure why the puzzle’s running now, two months before Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year). And why these four months? Is there a rationale beyond “because Peter could find good phrases that hid these ones but none of the other month names”?

The stacks of 7s in the corners are pretty good, particularly VIVALDI and P.W. BOTHA. There are some bizarre clues. Of all the ways to clue ESSEX, you go with the whaleship that inspired Moby-Dick? Never heard that tale.

Favorite clues: The ones for VIVALDI (trivia I think pannonica referenced in a Crossword Fiend post a few weeks back), LIONESS, and BRA.

3.875 stars. (Peter doesn’t like it when I give puzzle ratings to the nearest tenth, so I’m moving to the nearest eighth. Or maybe the nearest thousandth. I haven’t quite decided.)

John Dunn’s Los Angeles Times crossword—Neville’s review

LA Times crossword answers, 7 28 11

Dear John,

• 69a/1a. [Spend time frivolously] – MONKEY / AROUND… grumble… why are we starting cross-referenced? Why is the start of this answer in the lower right but the end in the upper left? This makes me think that the entries go around the puzzle. So misleading. I have nothing positive to say—flip these entries!
• 16a. [Breakfast option] – SOFT-BOILED EGGS. Who eats more than one of these at once? (I’m still unhappy from the first entry.)
• 24a/51a. [Presley hit with “glue” in the lyrics] – STUCK / ON YOU – Okay, I like that clue, and this split isn’t terrible.
• 38a. [“A Clockwork Orange” star] – MALCOLM MCDOWELL, whose name I remembered right once I had the theme figured out.
• 60a. [End the chat room suspense, in a way] – MEET FACE TO FACE. Warning: This could end with you on To Catch a Predator!
• 17d. [Like this answer’s position, and what can follow the starts of [the above]] – IN THE MIDDLE. Ha! Nice visual element, and yes, it legitimately follows the beginnings of each of the other theme entries. Cool concept here.

74 words – but a fair number in the corners are 3-letter words, which saddens me, but I’m okay with that. I would rather trade fixing 69a/1a.’s positions for four more words. Cool words:

• CHURLS – can we see this word more often in life in general, please? It has an oozing connotation that’s almost onomatopoetic.
• DEO gratiam habeamus is [Kentucky’s Latin state motto], and since I’m moving there right after Lollapuzzoola 4, this is pretty cool.
• PARADOX, which is of course two dox.
• NO FUN, like the 69a/1a. issue.
• ACCT. NO. is the Asst. D. A. of the financial world.

Hey, remember how 1a. is linked to 69a., but 69a. is the first part of the answer? Yeah, me too.

Odd bits of the huh or who’s that nature:

• Czech this out: A blog dedicated to [80’s tennis great] HANA [Mandlikova]!
• ILONA Massey?
• How is PEPSI “informal” – because it should be PepsiCo?

In all: This is a pretty solid concept brought down a little by 3-letter words and a lot by not understanding which way one reads English. I want to be able to give this puzzle more than 4 stars for the concept, but the 1-Across sketchiness takes this down to a 3 for me. Sorry, John.

Updated Thursday morning:

Raymond Hamel’s CrosSynergy/Washington Post crossword, “Don’t Bug Me!” – Sam Donaldson’s review

CrosSynergy / Washington Post crossword solution, July 28

Break out the fumigators!  This crossword is riddled with pests, as the four theme entries are all two-word nouns where the first word is a type of insect (or arachnid):

• 17-Across: The [Spot for antique vendors] is a FLEA MARKET.  There was a time in my youth, honest to goodness, when I thought a flea market was the souvenir stand for a flea circus.  I kinda wish I was right about that one.
• 26-Across: I liked the clue for BEETLE BAILEY, [Comic strip character whose eyes are never seen].  ANDY CAPP would be another possible answer, and isn’t there a Doonesbury character that also fits this description?
• 46-Across: The [Primate with a prehensile tail] is a SPIDER MONKEY.  Spider Monkey, Spider Monkey, does whatever a Spider Monkey does.  Can he swing from a web?  No he can’t, he’s a monkey.  Look out!  He is the Spider Monkey!
• 65-Across: I didn’t know that a CRICKET BAT is [Sports equipment typically made from willow].  But given my lack of knowledge about all things cricket anyway, I’m not surprised.

Anyone else creeped out by the fact that we have a BEDSPREAD in the grid among the bugs?  Fortunately, the rest of the grid does not appear to be infected.  TEXARKANA and its two rare letters are always a welcome sight, and another X lurks on the opposite end of the grid (though only in this puzzle would one see ODIE so close to SEXY).  Other highlights include MADE UP, IN A BIT, and the TV network A AND E.  I also like GETS OLD, though that’s also an apt description of entries like ANIL and ANNEE.

Ben Tausig’s Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword, “Twin Sets” — pannonica’s review

Tausig Ink Well puzzle "Twin Sets" 7/29/11 answers

It took a while for me to break into the theme entries, but once I got wise to the game, completing the puzzle was like being swept away by floodwaters; it was hard to keep up without drowning or being smashed against rocks.

Each of the four long themers, of thirteen and fourteen letters, consists of the same word repeated as an alternate rendition of a well-known phrase.

• 20a. [1980s sitcom starring twins Jean and Liz Sagal]. TROUBLE TROUBLE = Double Trouble. Never heard of it. Personally, would have preferred a clue for Stevie Ray Vaughn’s backing band from the same era.
• 25a. [Like David Bowie and Anne Heche] SEXUAL SEXUAL = bisexual. Knew I was in trouble when ‘heterochromic’ didn’t fit. Besides, I didn’t know if Anne Heche had eyes of two different colors. Besides besides, I didn’t know she was bisexual. Whatever.
• 46a. [Cheaters] TIMERS TIMERS = two-timers. They hang out with srebbats.
• 54a. [Person with multiple passports] CITIZEN CITIZEN = dual citizen. Not secret agent. I’m sure the watch company Citizen makes models with two time zones, but I stray too far.

As you can see, each original phrase has a different word or prefix: double, bi-, two, dual. That’s to be expected in a well-constructed theme. I enjoyed the theme, how they looked strange as the letters dripped in, the aha! moment, and the exhilaration of rapidly completing them.

What I didn’t like was a good chunk of the regular fill.

• Icky partial dead-center across [“Snap into __ Jim!” (“Macho Man” ad line)] A SLIM. Long-winded clue for unsavory [sic] answer, given pride-of-place in the grid.
• 40a. [Pirate’s refrain] YOHO. Yoho? Come on. Everyone knows that fictional pirates always say “Yo ho HO (and a bottle of rum).” Yo-ho might, however, be a good name for little bottles of Yoo-Hoo approximately-chocolate drink.
• 60a. [March tourney] NCAAS. Are the NCAA men’s basketball finals really referred to as the NCAAs?
• 62a. [Apocraphyl fiddler] NERO. Was really thrown by the misspelling, thinking it might be related to chlorophyll, which got me thinking about fiddlehead ferns, and then—casting farther about—fiddler crabs. “Apocryphal”
• 25d. [Circus __ ] SEAL. Doesn’t seem much of an in-the-language term to me.
• Needlessly obscure clue for 15a [UK guitarist/singer Kate] NASH. Yes, I fell into the trap of thinking Kate BUSH, but there are plenty of other Nashes to choose from, even if some of them may be too tired and overused in crosswords. I appreciate that the Tausigs—like the Onions, BEQs, and others—are “edgier” than the major outlet puzzles, but this felt too far. Besides, she may be more well known as a pianist than as a guitar player, though I’m just being grumbly at this point.

On a brighter note, there was some sparkly fill as well as some clever cluing.

• The former: JETTISON, ANALYSTS, ACTUALLY, CHATTEL, SUDOKU, FLACK.
• The latter: [You pay them to mess with your head] ANALYSTS; [One working with feet professionally] POET; [Grab coffee, perhaps] MEET UP; [Sending a message indirectly?] CCING (not ICING—yes, I know).

Brendan Quigley’s blog crossword, “P.O. Boxes”—Matt Gaffney’s review

BEQ 353 solution

The PO-PO are swarming around BEQ’s house today.  No crime has been committed, though — it’s a rebus where each of the five theme entries contain two PO cells.  Check it:

• (PO)LE (PO)SITION is the classic video game.
• GREGG (PO)(PO)VICH is the coach who has led the Spurs to four NBA titles in the last 15 years.
• (PO)UND FOR (PO)UND is SRR’s boxing autobio.
• HIP(PO)(PO)TAMUS is a big animal with a wide yawn.
• (PO)T(PO)URRI is the classic Jeopardy! category.  And candle scent.

Five strong theme entries — all familiar except the book, but it’s easy to guess and makes sense and a pun once you’ve got it.  Extra (PO)ints for the two entries where the rebus cells are adjacent, and for putting the extra one across the middle.  Rebus bonus, is what we call that in the business.  Title is exact but gives the game away right off the bat — come on, BEQ, how about “5-0 in the House”?  We can handle it.

Five random observations:

1. I got 37d with just the (PO) in square 2.  Aw, yeah…that’s why the whole puzzle took me just 6:07.
2. QADDAFI opposite NA(PO)LEON in the grid.  This puzzle has a gangster subtheme!
3. Do you think anyone has ever ANTEED an ENOL at the scientists’ poker game?
4. 10 is a lot of rebus cells for a 15×15.
5. AW, GEEZ, this puzzle’s fill is Scrabbly.

4.05 stars is what I say.  Your opinion may be higher or lower, and feel free to let Brendan know by hitting “rate it.”  Thanks for the puzzle, BEQ, and have a pleasantly overproductive day, everyone!