Sunday, 12/11/11

NYT 12:06 
Reagle 6:45 
LAT untimed—Doug 
Hex/Hook untimed (pannonica) 
WaPo 5:18 
CS 11:12 (Sam) 
NYT Second Sunday untimed 

Puzzle announcement: Peter Gordon’s weekly crossword for The Week is now available in Across Lite. Go to http://theweek.com/puzzle and click the relevant link (e.g. “Crossword – December 16, 2011”). That takes you to a page with a puzzle you can click on. Click on that and it takes you to a page where you can solve the puzzle online. Just below that puzzle, there’s a link that says “Download Crossword for Across Lite.” Click that to download the .puz file and solve in your preferred solving software.

Timothy Polin’s New York Times crossword, “Taking Half-Steps”

NY Times crossword answers, 12 11 11 "Taking Half-Steps"

Musical terminology is not my thing, so I leave it to others to relate the title to the rebus theme, in which FLAT, SHARP, and NATURAL are squeezed into single squares. (The NYT’s applet limits us to 4 letters per rebus square, so my solution has FLAT, SHAR, and NAT squares.) The theme entries, such as they are, are the longest five Across answers and a bunch of shorter answers throughout the grid, wherever those 14 (if I counted right) rebus squares are. From a clue standpoint, this is essentially a themeless puzzle. Now, I’m a fan of themeless puzzles, but I like them to have wide-open grids and earn their challenge through clues rather than a gimmick. I like rebus puzzles, but maybe more so when they’re smaller (and maybe more when the rebused word is fun, and for me, musical terminology is anything but fun). Working the puzzle felt like a bit of a slog, I confess.

The slog feeling was enhanced by some unfortunate fill. 120a: [Doorway jamb], ALETTE?? Really? That seems mighty obscure. I’d have clued 112d as a Web [Site for techies] to give a nudge towards the NET part of CNET, which I bet a great many solvers don’t know. (cnet.com is handy when you’re looking to buy something computery/techie, though—lots of good advice and reviews.) There seemed to be a bit too much in the ENATE ESKER ORTS ENOL STELE KUE APIA OSSE family of hardcore crosswordese, too.

Toughest clues, for me:

• 66d. [Mario’s dinosaur sidekick] is YOSHI, in the Super Mario video game world.
• 73d. [Backups for backups] are the C-TEAM that plays when the A- and B-team are out. Didn’t know there was such a thing.
• 83d. [10th-century pope] is probably a LEO, but which one? LEO VII, that’s who.
• 86d. [F major has just one] clues a {FLAT}TED NOTE. No idea what that is, honestly.
• 75a. [Body of water in a volcanic crater, for one] clues {NATURAL} LAKE. Doesn’t the clue seem mighty specific for an answer that feels so vague? Why not [Tahoe or Superior, e.g.]?

Highlights: Those unrelated-except-for-the-rebus-thing answers include some nice stuff. Usually the letters in FLAT just mean flat, but sometimes there’s a divergence. I like the broken SHARP in JEW'{S HARP}, and also {NATURAL} CAUSES, the {SHARP}IE/{SHAR P}EIS pair, Al {SHARP}TON impersonating 4-letter GORE, PRETER{NATURAL}, and the {FLAT} EARTH SOCIETY. The 8×4 stacked corners look nice, too.

Overall assessment, 2.75 stars. I bet the musical types enjoyed the theme, and thus the puzzle, more than I did.

Jayne and Alex Boisvert’s syndicated Los Angeles Times crossword, “Give B’s a Chance” – Doug’s review

Jayne and Alex Boisvert's syndicated LA Times solution 12/11/11, "Give B's a Chance"

Nice puzzle today from my favorite mother/son constructing team. (Are there other mother/son constructing teams?) I’m amazed that they were able to find eight double-P phrases that could be converted to double-B phrases and still make sense. Impressive! I tried to think of another one that would work, and I couldn’t do it. Well, BEA BOD kinda works. You can make up your own Bea Arthur-inspired clue for that one.

• 25a. [Jaded ballplayer?] – BITTER BATTER. My favorite.
  
• 27a. [Grain of sand?] – BEACH BIT.
• 47a. [Coal receptacle building blocks?] – BIN BRICKS.
• 51a. [Steer groups?] – BULL BUNCHES.
• 80a. [Fish with a bad cold?] – BARKING BASS. Strange clue. Do you bark when you have a cold?
• 83a. [Pointed front of a two-wheeler?] – BIKE’S BEAK.
• 105a. [Sound of Crosby’s doorbell?] – BING BONG. Alternative to a Google joint?
• 109a. [Collection of yokels?] – BUMPKIN BATCH.

More answers you might have noticed:

• 29a. [Fantastic] – SUPERB. Looking at this entry in the grid just now, I read it as two words: SUPER B. This puzzle has put Bs on my brain.
• 87a. [Browns] – SEARS. Speaking of Sears, I made the mistake of going to the mall on Saturday. Not fun, but I had to hit the Disney Store to pick up a couple of presents. There was an employee in there who was scaring all the kids. And most of the adults too. He was very energetic and loud. He’d kneel down and get in a kid’s face and yell something like: “Wow, that’s an awesome shirt! Where’d you get it? Do you like Mickey Mouse? You’re cool!!” Seriously, this guy needed to take it down about twenty notches. And then there was a woman dressed like Pocahontas. I wasn’t sure whether she was an employee or simply liked Pocahontas a lot. She was wandering around the store in a daze. No more Christmas shopping for me. I’m done.
• 113a. [How a team should work] – AS A UNIT. Fitting entry in a delightful collaboration.
• 14d. [“Pretty Woman” genre, briefly] – ROMCOM. Great entry. I was thinking about the Roy Orbison song, so this one took me a while to latch on to.
• 26d. [Singer Lionel] – RICHIE. Did you know Lionel Richie is huge in the Middle East? Check out this article for a few details. Hmm, I see that article is from 2006. I’m sure they still love him. Or maybe they’re into DeBarge now.
• 52d. [Sea witch in “The Little Mermaid”] – URSULA. I saw a cool Ursula ornament at the Disney Store. I was going to buy it for my niece, but then the Pocahontas lady started creeping me out, and I just wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible.
• 97d. [Web image-viewing software] – PICASA. I like this one too. Take note: the alternating consonants and vowels make this name very constructor-friendly, so you’re going to see it again. Wikipedia tells me that Picasa “is a blend of the name of Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, the phrase ‘mi casa’ for ‘my house,’ and ‘pic’ for pictures.”

Quite an enjoyable theme today. Rating: 4.25 stars.

Merl Reagle’s syndicated crossword, “The Whole Nine YD’s”

Merl Reagle crossword solution, "The Whole Nine YD'S" 12 11 11

No funky wordplay to figure out here, just a collection of phrases with Y.D. initials in a fairly easy crossword:

• 23a. [Payouts to stockholders] = YEARLY DIVIDENDS.
• 35a. [Marriage agreement?] = “YES, DEAR.”
• 42a. [Revolutionary song] = YANKEE DOODLE.
• 49a. [Anti-union, as some labor contracts] = YELLOW DOG. Didn’t know that one off the top of my head.
• 67a. [Sweet somethings?] = YUMMY DESSERTS. I like yummy desserts as much as anyone, but I wouldn’t call “yummy desserts” the sort of phrase that makes sense as a dictionary-grade crossword answer. And what a rip-off to have BATEAU sitting on top of it, when the French word for cake (gateau) is only one letter off. Bring me cake!
• 82a. [“Leave me out of this”] = “YOU DECIDE.”
• 89a. [1961 Fredric March-Ben Gazzara-Dick Clark drama, with “The”] = YOUNG DOCTORS. Before my time.
• 100a. Color before weaving] = YARN-DYE. Makes for a nicer stripe or plaid than mere printed designs.
• 111a. [December sights] = YULE DECORATIONS. Timely.

As I said, generally an easy puzzle. I couldn’t for the life of me make sense of 39a: [Major’s follower] until I had three or four letters via crossings. BLAIR! As in Tony Blair, John Major’s successor as British P.M. I was thinking of “words that follow major in two-word phrases.”

Why on earth did I want 65d: [___ crumbles] to be TOFU rather than OREO? I’ve heard of “tofu scramble,” not “tofu crumble.” TOFU just had to bide its time until the very next clue, 66d: [Vegan’s staple]. I must’ve subconsciously registered the second clue without thinking.

My vote for worst answer in the puzzle goes to 52d: [Scoreless tie]. OTOO means “0 to 0” with zeroes in place of two O’s. 00f!

Three stars.
Updated Sunday morning:

Tony Orbach’s CrosSynergy/Washington Post crossword, “Sunday Challenge” – Sam Donaldson’s review

CrosSynergy/Washington Post crossword solution, December 11

Today’s Sunday Challenge is a 70/34 freestyle from Tony Orbach, a guy who normally constructs themed puzzles. It’s an olio of awesomeness and stuff that made me feel stupid. The grid is anchored by the four crossing 15s, all of which are superb. There’s BACK TO SQUARE ONE on top, NOT SOLD IN STORES along the bottom, and ALL KIDDING ASIDE along with I’M TERRIBLY SORRY providing support along the sides.

I didn’t like seeing both LT. GEN. and ASST. D.A. in the grid. One longer abbreviation is perfectly fine, but two starts to look like a compromise. But to the extent both abbreviations were needed to make YOUNG TURK, EMOLLIENT, and IT’S OK, then maybe…well…it’s ok. ASK HER OUT, however, seems both cute and arbitrary, so I can’t decide whether I like it.

The puzzle had a lot of stuff that was well outside my wheelhouse, and these entries had an annoying tendency to be clustered together. Take the far north section, for example, with NUIT, CINQ, and ATTU all crossing or beside each other. Not remembering the latter is my fault (we see it often enough in crosswords that it should be sticking with me by now), but the other two just feel sub-optimal. In the northeast, I had never met MOIRA, the answer to [Ballerina Shearer], and she rests near another stranger, EGON, the first name of [Austrian Expressionist Schiele]. In the south, all I can say is “Thank goodness I’m a golf fan,” because if I didn’t know ISAO Aoki, I’d have been even more hard-pressed to crack into that section. It boasts the full name NKGB and one [Jeanne] D’ARC, heretofore known to me only as Joan of Arc. The other unknowns to me (HESS, the [Oil magnate and former owner of the New York Jets], Italy’s Lake GARDA, and ABYSM–I thought there was only an ABYSS) were much easier to suss out given the fairer crossings.

My favorite pair of clues were the consecutive [Three, at Roland-Garros] and [Tie, at Wimbledon], for TROIS and DEUCE, respectively. I’m an ace with tennis clues!

Mike Shenk’s Washington Post crossword, “Post Puzzler No. 88”

Washington Post Puzzler No. 88 crossword solution, 12 11 11

I solved this puzzle last night but found I was too tired to blog it then. This morning? The crossword’s not so fresh in my mind. What’s in this 68-worder of moderate (between a Friday and Saturday NYT) difficulty? These 16 items, for starters:

• 1a. [His presidential palace is located on al-Rashid Street] clues Syria’s ASSAD.
• 16a. [Cartoonist who illustrated more than 100 New Yorker covers] is PETER ARNO. I like full names in a crossword, but this guy? I know him from crossword clues for ARNO.
• 18a. [One end of the rubber band in the game Operation] is the ANKLEBONE. I forget where the other is. The knee?
• 27a. [People of note?] are MELODISTS. I can’t say for sure that I knew that was a word.
• 33a. The [High achiever] who’s a STONER may achieve a high via bong, joint, or pipe.
• 45a. [He debuted in 1934’s “Fer-de-Lance”] is NERO WOLFE. Fictional full name this time and again, a name I know primarily from crossword contexts (NERO shows up a lot).
• 47a. [“The sea supplies all my wants” speaker] is NEMO. Doesn’t sound like the Pixar clownfish, so I’m guessing this is Captain Nemo.
• 54a. [According to its jingle, it’s “really neat” and “fun to eat”] clues BEEFARONI. This word always makes me think of the Seinfeld episode with the horse-drawn carriage. Kramer got a deal on giant cans of “Beefareeno” and fed it to his horse, who susbsequently had massively stinky gas.
• 56a. [It featured a Teletouch shifter] clues the EDSEL. EDSEL has been in so many crosswords for so long, I know all sorts of trivial information about it.
• 2d. [Checkers and more] refers to SPANIELS. I forget which president’s spaniel was named Checkers. Nixon?
• 3d. [Spot for setting a land speed record] is a singular SALT FLAT. I’ve only seen the plural salt flats. I’m not sure you can parcel out a chunk of an area called salt flats and identify it as a single SALT FLAT.
• 7d. [Ones who capitalize letters?] are TENANTS, “letters” being the landlords who let/lease apartments. I’ve never found this double meaning of “letter” to be entertaining. Who calls their landlord a “letter,” anyway?
• 8d. Mr. [Bean creator], Rowan ATKINSON.
• 24d. [Question and answer in a 1939 film] is “TOTO, TOO?” I’ve seen this in crosswords a few times. Is it truly a key line in The Wizard of Oz, or has it just been added to a lot of constructors’ word lists because they like the letter combos?
• 28d. DENIM is a [Blue Crayola color]. That’s a gimme for me because I was just using crayons the other day.
• 48d. [Gob stopper?] clues the legendary SIREN, “gob” meaning “sailor” here. Eh.

Nothing in the grid particularly delighted me this week. 3.25 stars.

Mike Selinker’s New York Times Second Sunday puzzle, “Diagramless”

NY Times Diagramless crossword solution, 12 11 11

Usually the NYT diagramlesses have 17×17 grids but this one’s smaller and thus quicker to solve. The left/right symmetry means that if 1-Across and 4-Across are different lengths, they appear centered, one above the other. This made it easier to just start filling in things in the grid, rather than sketching out my crossings in the page margins and transferring the letters to the grid later.

The grid forms the shape of a dreidel, and six theme entries aptly contain the word TOP (but not in “spinning top” contexts). The “w”-ish shape in the middle of the grid represents the Hebrew letter shin, which appears on one side of a dreidel.

I like the inter-holiday play of having a Christmas TREE TOPPER inside the Hanukkah dreidel. Four stars—one for each side of a dreidel.

Don’t miss Deb Amlen’s interview with Mike Selinker at Wordplay. He’s an entertaining guy with tons of puzzle cred outside the world of standard crosswords.

Henry Hook’s Sunday crossword, “Confusable Names” — pannonica’s review

Hex/Hook 12/11/11 • "Confusable Names" • Hook • solution

Pairs of ostensibly confusable  names comprise the theme entries here.

• • 17a. [“Cash Cab” host] BEN BAILEY. Having only seen parts of the show once or twice, I wonder if he’s famous enough.
  • 118a. [Ousted hubby of song who’s not 17-Across] BILL BAILEY. “(Won’t You Come Home) Bill Bailey“, published 1902, recorded many times.

• • 19a. [“The French Connection” author] ROBIN MOORE.
  • 116a. [HLN anchor who’s not 19-Across] ROBIN MEADE. Who? What? Oh, Headline News, okay. I’d be more likely to confuse the author with actor Roger Moore.

• • 22a. [Radio host/ESPN alumnus] DAN PATRICK. That’s three marginal cable personalities in the first three pairs of names. I say marginal with a caveat because I don’t watch much television.
  • 73a. [Auto racer who’s not 22-Across] DANICA PATRICK.

• • 23a. [Impressionist extraordinaire] RICH LITTLE. I don’t think his paintings are that good.
  • 59a. [Rock ‘n’ Roll great who’s not 23-Across] LITTLE RICHARD.

• • 36a. [She had the title role in “Laura”] GENE TIERNEY.
  • 67a. [Boxer who’s not 36-Across] GENE TUNNEY. This was my favorite of the seven theme pairs.

• • 68a. [“Dave” star] KEVIN KLINE.
  • 96a. [Designer who’s not 68-Across] CALVIN KLEIN.

• • 113a. [1950’s pinup queen] BETTIE PAGE.
  • 119a. [1950’s pop singer who’s not 113-Across] PATTI PAGE.

Seems like a mix of names that might actually be confused with each other, and names that may be confused only fantastically or academically (how odd, that I found a way to equate those two). On the other hand, who’s to say how things become muddled? Off the top of my head, I can think of a few names I confused when I was young: Chuck Berry/Chuck Barris, John Lennon/Jack Lemmon, Billie Holiday/Buddy Holly.

A very impressive aspect of the construction is the preponderance of paired, stacked theme entries: Rows Two and Three complete; Rows Nineteen and Twenty complete; Rows Ten, Eleven and Twelve offset (with Eleven complete). I suppose it would have been preferable to have the names polarized, with all of the first halves of the pairs in the top of the grid, as opposed to just most of them. I’m sure that would have been exponentially more difficult to construct.

Overall the ballast fill is good, but not great. Along with some highlights (got to love ASTARTE), there are a number of awkward plurals (neighbors WIIS and EEKS, anyone?), some hoary crosswordese (I’m looking at you, TAW), unwelcome abbrevs. (e.g., CERT.), and partials (hello, DULL AS, A BARN). For that last, however, I did smile at (44d) ITCHY AND.

New words for me: 76a [Smooth sheer fabric] NINON, which is usually made from silk or rayon or nylon (m-w says “probably from French Ninon, nickname for Anne. First Known Use: 1911″). 7d [Sinful] PECCANT; I wonder if it shares a root with peccadillo… yes, they both derive from the Latin peccare, to stumble, sin.

Finally, I was stymied for a while in the southwest corner, where [Work meas.]  _TL_ connected [Charity espoused by Elizabeth Taylor] AM_AR and [Hedge-fund whiz] AR_.  It took quite some time for foot-pound to bubble to the surface; the acrosses remained obscure. amfAR is the Foundation for AIDS Research (still not sure where the “am” comes from, American?), and I’m arb. is short for arbitrageur, one who is proficient in arbitrage.

I’d call this one average, but put my thumb on the scale a little for the clustering of the theme entries.