Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Title: Vowel Movement
Author: Patrick Blindauer
Theme: Two-part phrases where the second part mirrors the first part except that the vowels progress (A=>E, E=>I, I=>O, O=>U).

• 3d: NASA doctor’s collection? (SPACEMAN SPECIMEN).


• 5d: Glittering lymphoid mass? (TINSEL TONSIL). Ewww.


• 8d: With 51-Down, jelly thickener for "The Conference of Champions"? (PAC-TEN/PECTIN).


• 11d: Fad collection of actor Dempsey? (PATRICK'S PET ROCKS). It would be too egocentric to self-reference here, I guess. Eh, Patrick?


• 26d: Breath fresheners for a certain prayer? (MANTIS MENTOS). That's prayer as in "one who prays" -- a praying mantis.

Well, we have give a "potty humor" tag just for the title, don't we? I've seen a theme like this before, though I don't recall the exact details. I don't believe it dealt with double phrases like this one -- I think it was just phrases that were modified by the vowel progression. The 16-letter theme entries force the 15x16 design with theme clues running down. Plenty of theme fill here, and a remarkably smooth fill -- not unexpected from recent Constructor of the Year Oryx winner Patrick Blindauer.

Sunny Spots:

• 27a: Square that might have two sides? (MEAL). I'm certain I've seen this clue before, and it still caught me. Very clever, a square meal including sides. But why two? Why not three?


• 36a: "Play with us" channel (NICK JR). I love this because the CKJR letter combination seems so unplausible during the solve.


• 6d: Sparks could be seen on it in '07 (IDOL). Jordan Sparks and "American Idol". Very nice clue.

Sundries:

• 1a: Medicinal meas. (TBSP). An abbreviation at 1a is not ideal, but we'll forgive this minor indiscretion.



• 5a: Alfred directed her in "The Birds" (TIPPI Hedren).


• 10a: Tail of a Tibetan terrier? (APSO). Cryptic half-of-dog_name: Lhasa apso.


• 19a: The whole kit and caboodle (A TO Z).


• 20a: In "Penny Lane," what the banker never wears in the pouring rain (MAC). Beatles clues are always welcome here.


• 21a: Minor key? (ISLET). Cute clue.


• 22a: Bruno of "City Slickers" (KIRBY).


• 23a: Capital near the Oahe Dam (PIERRE). South Dakota.


• 25a: One with an abode in Aden (YEMENI). Usually it's ADEN in the puzzle, not the clue.


• 28a: Lie-down, to a Yank (NAP). Why to a Yank? Southerners don't nap?


• 29a: Private sleeping arrangement? (COT). Military reference.


• 38a: Australian Open champ before Steffi's three-year winning streak (HANA Mandlikova).


• 39a: Foot massager? (ODIST). Okay, that's pushing it.


• 43a: ___-Poo (character in "The Mikado") (NANKI).


• 44a: 1974 film starring Elliott Gould and Donald Sutherland (SPYS). I was so certain this was going to be MASH. If TRYSTS weren't such a gimme I might have had a real problem here.


• 47a: Most in need of Beano, maybe (GASSIEST). This ices the potty humor tag.


• 50a: Torn up on the screen (RIP). Rip Torn. But you knew that. You've seen this clue before.


• 52a: It borders Sask. (MONT). Montana.


• 65a: Economize (STINT). I wanted SKIMP in the worst way here, but I couldn't make it fit. STINT, to me, means a length of time.


• 68a: Number of pesetas in un duro (CINCO). Pick a Spanish number that begins with C.


• 69a: Chain with chairs (IKEA).



• 70a: Chachi's cousin, with "the" (FONZ). From "Happy Days", of course.


• 1d: Disney mutt (TRAMP). "Lady and the Tramp" is one of my favorite Disney films.


• 2d: Religion seeking world peace (BAHAI). You'd think all religions would seek world peace, wouldn't you? If only.


• 7d: "Our Gang" dog (PETEY).


• 13d: Black Sabbath vocalist's first name (OZZY). Easy, but nice to get that double-Z in there.


• 22d: Military cap with a flat top (KEPI). This is a word I learned from crosswords.


• 34d: Mathematician Lovelace (ADA). Linda didn't fit. And counting to twelve doesn't make one a mathematician... ;)


• 37d: –1, for 180° (COSINE). Speaking of math...


• 46d: Mortarboard tosser (GRAD). That's those funky hats they make you wear.


• 48d: Jolt, e.g. (SODA). "All the sugar and twice the caffeine."



• 59d: Toque wearer (CHEF). Hey, "Hell's Kitchen" has started again. But they don't wear toques. This is the time of year when Fox dominates the airwaves... "House", "Idol", "24", "Hell's Kitchen", ...

Suns of Bitches:

• 16a: Webkinz company (GANZ). Never heard of it. I've heard of Gas-X (in puzzles), but that didn't fit.


• 56a: Subject of the song "Tell Me, Trudy, Who Is Going to Be the Lucky One?" (EDERLE). I'm too lazy to look this up. It's only vaguely familiar.

Another nice puzzle from PB2, as we've come to expect.

Thanks for listening.

- Pete M.

Thursday, November 6th, 2008

Ooh, too cool. Patrick Blindauer is probably my favorite crossword constructor. He is constantly pushing the boundaries of what a crossword puzzle can be, turning that familiar black and white grid into an acrostic, a chess problem, a picture of the sword in the stone, or even a game of Frogger to name just a few. Even when he plays it straight as he does with today's puzzle, I enjoy his clues and the way his mind works.

Title: 007
Author: Patrick Blindauer
Theme:Seven across entries have a double-O phrase in the place of the more common single-O one.

17A: Cheerleaders? (MOOD SQUAD) One white, one black, one blonde; they're cops on a soul beat. My feelings about "The Mod Squad" changed a lot during its five-year run. When it started in 1968 I was ten years I thought Pete, Linc and Julie were cool heroes but by the time it ended in 1973 I thought they were dirty turncoat traitors. I did however still have a crush on Peggy Lipton.
But these guys weren't real hipsters. Look they can't even spell "groovy."


21A: Test on which to use a number two pencil? (POOP QUIZ) I guess it reveals what a high-brow I am when I tell you that was far and away my favorite of the themed entries. Double potty humor -- number two pencil! that's funny.

30A: Pail for bailing out a single-master vessel? (SLOOP BUCKET)

36A: Trousers for Woodsy Owl (HOOT PANTS) Give a hoot, don't pollute!


48A: Midday menthol (NOON SMOKING)

55A: Entrance stairway discontinuity (STOOP GAP)

61A: Like people with hoops in their lobes (LOOP EARED) I wish PB had found another way to clue this one. HOOP and LOOP are just too close for comfort.

Sunny Spots:
I always like sexy-sounding clues and this puzzle starts and ends with them. 1A: They get laid (EGGS) and 65D: One who's coming out (DEB). Along the same lines there's 32D: Castrated cock (CAPON)

I can't remember now exactly who the Mod Squad worked for, but DEA is right under them in this puzzle (20A: Busters; abbr.) and that seems likely that they would probably turn in all their pot-smoking buddies first.

52A: Abbr. on a holey vestment (IRR) 48D: Russell of "The Wiz" (NIPSEY) He was a ubiquitous figure on 60s and 70s game shows, usually showcasing poems like this:

Sundries:
49D: Member of the WHO (ORG) That's world health organization, of course, not the guys responsible for "Behind Blue Eyes."



71A: Its logo is a crowned griffon (SAAB) I could see that griffon in my mind, but I didn't get the answer until I had S_AB.

43A: the 2s in 2 + 2 = 4 (OPERANDS) Well, damn, it looks like my fourth grade teacher Miss Overton lied to me again. She told me they were called ADDENDS.

58A: "The Premature Burial" writer (POE) Not one of his most famous stories.

Suns of Bitches:

The whole southwest corner was a bugaboo for me for a long time. I'm not big on westerns so I didn't know 40A: 1966 Howard Keel western (WACO) and I really wanted 42D: Entertainment option since the 1950s (COLOR TV) to be TV MOVIE. It was hard to let go of because all I had was that O in the fourth square so that would have worked. I also wanted 69A: Emissary (ENVOY) to be PROXY.

It's not that hard, but I initially missed 6D: Only valid three-letter Scrabble word that doesn't contain Y or any consonant (EAU). (I had IOU). By the way I don't know if it's the only three letter Scrabble word with no vowels, but NTH is a good one to remember when your rack is consonant-heavy.

Not knowing what a hackberry is, I also missed 1D: Hackberry's cousin (ELM). (I had ELK, which is embarrassing cuz I don't think berries and mammals are very closely related.

That's all I've got this time. See you next Thursday
Norrin

Friday, October 24, 2008

Title: Swiss Cheese
Author: Justin Smith
Theme: HOLE rebus

• 20a: Song that includes woofs in its chorus (Who leT THE DOGS OUT). I got this right away, but as I listen to the song again, I can't tell if they're saying "woof woof woof" or "who who who". You decide.



• 37a: What you might use to finish this puzzle (THREE hole PUNCH).


• 57a: Unified entities (INTEGRATED WholeS).

And the crossings:

• 18d: Irascibility (CholeR).


• 28d: Reflecting no sound (ECholeSS).


• 56d: Tevye's creator (SholeM).

I've got to be honest -- I was underwhelmed by this theme. Too many little things about it just rubbed me wrong. Let's take them in order of annoyance.

Firstly, the title was both too easy and too inapt. Swiss Cheese just screams HOLES, doesn't it? I mean, what else would one expect? But Swiss Cheese does not imply three equal-sized, regularly-spaced holes. The real theme of this puzzle is the three-hole punch, which is a fine concept. Unfortunately, it only allows for three rebus squares, which makes for kind of a ho-hum solve. But at least give it a title that fits, and save the Swiss Cheese title for another, more appropriate theme.

Secondly, I wasn't crazy about about the long fills. WHO LET THE DOGS OUT is great; no complaints there. The middle one defines the theme, so okay, though it's too bad HOLE has to sit there as a standalone word. But that's life. But INTEGRATED WHOLES is just kind of blah. I don't find it interesting, and I don't like that "wholes" sounds just like "holes" -- it would have been nicer to find a fill that hid the rebus more like the first one.

Thirdly, I wasn't crazy about the short fills. SHOLEM, CHOLER, and ECHOLESS? Not so much.

Fourthly, two 12-letter themes and an 11-letter theme make for a bit of an ugly grid. Late-week puzzles should be more open and elegant. Those 5-square blobs of black on the east and west coasts of the puzzle are unfortunate.

Finally, and yes we're getting really nitpicky here, it would be pretty difficult to actually use a three-hole punch to "complete" the puzzle (even if the size was correct), since the holes run diagonally. You can usually only get about an inch or so of the paper's margin into the machine. :)

The Rest:

• 4a: Professor played by Christopher Lloyd (PLUM). Never saw this 1985 film of "Clue", but didn't need to. My first thought was "Back to the Future", and I couldn't remember his name there so I skipped past it. It's Dr. Emmett Brown, if you were wondering.


• 14a: Main man? (TAR). The main is the ocean.


• 15a: "The ___ Report" (1976 book) (HITE). A book on female sexuality that came out when I was 14; of course I read it.


• 16a: Prominent Shaker (ANN LEE).


• 17a: 2000 Best Picture nominee (CHOCOLAT).


• 19a: 1995 A.L. MVP (Mo VAUGHN). He was with the Red Sox at the time. Here's one of my favorite Mo Vaughn moments. Aaron Sele throws tight on George Bell, who charges the mound. Sele steps aside and Mo Vaughn comes charging in from the first base side and flattens Bell. Good stuff. Check it out here.


• 22a: Secretly (SUBROSA). According to the American Heritage Dictionary: "from the practice of hanging a rose over a meeting as a symbol of confidentiality". I much prefer the cone of silence, myself.




• 24a: Reuss River's canton (URI). I'm sure I've seen this in puzzles before. I knew it was going to be vowel-consonant-vowel, but I needed crossings to nail it.


• 25a: It contains uracil (RNA). If you say so.


• 26a: Carbon-date, e.g. (AGE). Nice clue.


• 27a: Unlike absolute values: Abbr. (NEG). Absolute values are positive by definition.


• 29a: Bass parts (PEGS). I guess tuning pegs. Are there other pegs on a bass? Not on mine.


• 44a: Subject of a museum in Austin, Minnesota (SPAM). Somehow I knew the answer here was SPAM. I couldn't have told you where the Spam Museum was, but my subconscious must have remembered.


• 49a: Start to go? (GEE). Cryptic letter clue. Potty humor.


• 51a: "This Is the Life" singer Macdonald (AMY). This is not music I tend to listen to. Here it is:




• 53a: Broadway success (HIT SHOW).


• 60a: Very ardent (RAH RAH).


• 61a: Premature (UNTIMELY).



• 64a: Eponymous pants wearer Bloomer (AMELIA).


• 3d: Cow (BROWBEAT). Excellent.


• 6d: Jazz fan, perhaps (UTAHAN). The problem with sports teams moving from city to city is that their names no longer make sense. The New Orleans Jazz was a very logical team name. So were the Minneapolis Lakers, for that matter. What's next, the Buffalo Heat?


• 8d: Degust (SAVOR). Degust sounds a lot less pleasant that savor, doesn't it?



• 9d: Caterpillar roll component (UNAGI). Crossword constructors must have given great praise when sushi went mainstream.


• 12d: Like many a moved picture (REHUNG). Also, the title of an email reply regarding "American Idol" season three?


• 13d: Good dishers (YENTAS). Not really tricky at all. Is there another meaning of disher besides one who spreads gossip?


• 31d: Runner-up to Secretariat in the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness (SHAM). Nobody remembers the losers.


• 33d: Part of WYSIWYG (SEE). What you see is what you get.


• 36d: Roadhouse (INN).




• 38d: Good class for a lazybones (EASY A).


• 39d: International waters (HIGH SEAS). Also, the main.


• 42d: Defunct GM brand (GEO).


• 45d: Where balboas are spent (PANAMA). For some reason, I knew this. I think there was a currency puzzle a while back with ROCKY BALBOA in it, wasn't there? Ah yes, here it is... August 6th.


• 46d: Upstanding music? (ANTHEM). Cute.



• 52d: "South Park" puppet (MR HAT). Very nice.


• 58d: Oil company founder Halliburton (ERLE). Seen this before. Still didn't remember.


• 59d: Narwhal's protrusion (TUSK).

Despite the underwhelming theme, this wasn't a bad puzzle. Just not one of my favorites.

Thanks for listening.

- Pete M.