Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Title: Showing Some Muscle
Author: Tom Heilman
Theme: Adding short names of muscles to phrases.

• Geologic + LAT = GELATO LOGIC (18a: Reason for having a preference for Italian ice cream?).



• Boondocks + AB = BABOON DOCKS (24a: Primate piers?).


• Moats + DELT = MODEL TATS (36a: Display body art?).


• Restroom + PEC = RESPECT ROOM (54a: Where dissing isn't allowed?).


• Warrant + QUAD = WAR QUADRANT (59a: Combat division?).

This is kind of a cool Wednesday theme. Gelato Logic reminds me of the old Steely Dan album, "Pretzel Logic". And no, I'm not sure what that means either.

Sunny Spots:

Kudos for the nice variety of food references with scrabbly letters:

• 12d: Street vendor snacks (KNISHES).


• 25d: Pasta that resembles rice (ORZO).


• 45d: Butter pear (AVOCADO).

Sundries:

• 15a: Color also called meadowlark (ACORN). I never really thought of ACORN as a color. They are actually several colors throughout their life, ranging from green to brown to black.


• 29a: Where Tigrinya is spoken (ERITREA). Find a country name that fits. Once it ends in _EA, there aren't a lot of options.


• 30a: Spray of paint, e.g. (SPATTER).



• 32a: Interrobang part (DOT). I knew that a "bang" was an exclamation point, so it wasn't hard to figure that this was some other punctuation mark. Albeit, one I've never seen nor heard of.


• 33a: Part of ZPG (ZERO). Zero population growth.


• 47a: Sister of Iphigenia (ELECTRA). Daughters of Agamemnon in Greek legend/history.


• 51a: Mothball (RESERVE).


• 53a: Accessory for a lepidopterist (NET). Butterfly collector.


• 56a: Member of the first family (EVE). You'll see this clue again, so keep it in mind.


• 66a: Volatile solvent (ETHER). My favorite ETHER clue is "Number of people?"


• 67a: Close of an engagement? (I DO).


• 68a: Outfielder Ricky who won two World Series rings with the Yankees (LEDEE). HENDERSON didn't fit. And he won his rings with Oakland and Toronto.


• 69a: Questionable (SHADY). I had SHAKY to start, but NEK didn't sound much like a name to me.



• 2d: Plant on the back of Arizona's state quarter (SAGUARO).


• 9d: Eponym of Gdansk's airport (WALESA). Pretty easy guess once I had the W.


• 11d: Cowes Week event (REGATTA).


• 19d: Slicing spuds, perhaps (ON KP).


• 36d: Casual slip-on (MOC). Short for moccasin.


• 37d: Went like mad (TORE). Tried SPED first, which didn't help me any.


• 39d: Battery component (TEST). As in a battery of tests, not part of a Duracell.


• 44d: It's called Hrvatska by natives (CROATIA).


• 46d: Prescription pain reliever (DEMEROL). Drug reference tag? Nah, not for legal prescriptions...


• 55d: "The Fair Maid of ___" (Sir Walter Scott novel) (PERTH).


• 60d: The St. Lawrence R. flows through it (QUE). Quebec.


• 61d: Clicking sound? (AHA). Cute clue.

Suns of Bitches:

As always, first names are my bane.

• 6d: Gretchen of "Rounders" (MOL).


• 38d: "Vertigo" co-screenwriter Coppel (ALEC).


• 62d: Main character in "Pushing Daisies" (NED).

All in all, a fine Wednesday, with none of the SOBs crossing anything particularly difficult.

Thanks for listening.

- Pete M.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Title: Weekend Warrior
Author: Tom Heilman
Theme: None

This is a classic Weekend Warrior which, for me, means hard. I had to scrabble for toe-holds and tease out answers section by section until it finally fell open. As such, I'm not going to bother trying to separate the hard from the easy, the "good" from the questionable. Let's just take 'em as they come.

• 1a: Definitive statement (LAST WORD). Very nice fill that frankly took me longer to get than I'd like to admit. In fact, the NW was the last quadrant to fall.


• 9a: Springy? (FONTAL). Yeah, I get it, but... eh.


• 15a: Cofounder of Lucky Duck Productions (Linda ELLERBEE). I didn't know this at all, but it's a name I recognize so I was comfortable with it once it filled in.


• 16a: Spanish city that's the capital of Asturias (OVIEDO). No idea. Doesn't ring a bell at all.


• 17a: Naval formation (FLOTILLA). Another one I should have gotten more easily. For some reason I had ARMADA on the brain, which obviously doesn't fit, but it successfully blocked out any other useful thoughts. I hate when that happens.


• 18a: 1980 remake of "Down to Earth" (XANADU). I'm familiar with the film, though the fact that it's a remake of something is news to me. Great fill word, though, with the leading X and trailing U. Beautiful.



• 19a: Color-changing climber (TREE TOAD). This one feels like the kind of fill you put in because it's the only thing that fits. Nothing glaringly wrong with it, but it's just filler.


• 21a: Dance in triple meter (JIG). Not too many dances in three letters.


• 24a: "___ to Deodorant" (Coldplay song) (ODE). Great twist on a common word.


• 25a: Self-titled #1 album of 1982 (ASIA). The original "supergroup", I believe. Never liked them.


• 27a: Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary (GEICO). Ok, that's obscure.


• 28a: Particles of the meson family (PSIS). I didn't know this one, but was happy when I was able to shove a Greek letter in there. It just felt right.


• 29a: Sub spot (BENCH). Sub as in substitute. My first guess was OCEAN.



• 33a: Blokus piece (TILE). I thought, even after I got this right, that Blokus was some guy's name, like an author or artist. Turns out it's a board game, but not one that I've seen before.


• 36a: Sub spot (DELI). A nice partner to the BENCH, above.


• 37a: Volcano of Ecuador (COTOPAXI). This is a really cool-looking nasty fill word. It's not like it's something you could guess, or even nod and say, "Yeah, that looks right". I think I've seen it before somewhere, but I needed the crossings to get it.


• 46a: Low rollers (TIRES). I wasn't crazy about this clue. Even with TI_ES, I had to run through the alphabet to find what made sense. I almost settled on TIDES.



• 49a: Gelatin brand (KNOX). Vaguely familiar. Very vaguely.


• 51a: Happens to (BETIDES). I got this one off the leading B. Somehow, I just knew that's where this one was going.


• 53a: Bath suds? (ALE). Bath the city, I would say.


• 54a: Like a good drill team (IN STEP). Almost went with IN SYNC first, but thought better of it.


• 56a: Bad (SINISTER). Sinister literally means "from the left" or "left-handed". Any of you out there get ruler-slapped by a nun for writing with the "wrong" hand?



• 58a: 1952 Brando role (ZAPATA). Nice fill word.


• 59a: Good (OBEDIENT). Well, sort of. There have been some pretty obedient bad people in history.


• 61a: Fester (ULCERATE). Ewwww. (PB2: I can see why we'd want to avoid this one...).


• 62a: City on the Loire (NANTES).


• 63a: Brief buzz creator (TEASER AD). The "AD" part seems redundant, but it's still okay.


• 1d: Ring leader? (LEFT JAB). I'm pretty sure I've seen this clue before and I still didn't get it right away. Wonderful clue.


• 2d: Standing order (ALL RISE). Cute.


• 3d: Fizz ingredient (SLOE GIN). Well, it's an ingredient in a sloe gin fizz. Not fizz in general. But good fill.


• 4d: Kopf, across the Rhine (TÊTE). I don't know much German, but I know that dummkopf basically means "stupid head".


• 6d: Like a mango (OBLONG).


• 8d: Broadcasting no-no (DEAD AIR).


• 9d: Source of the heart stimulant digitalis (FOXGLOVE). This piece of trivia was actually lodged in the deep recesses of memory. Not sure why.


• 11d: Original MTV veejay Blackwood (NINA). No idea.


• 12d: Shade of pink (TEA ROSE).


• 13d: Included as a bonus (ADDED IN).


• 26d: Massachusetts town in Middlesex County (ACTON). I live in New Hampshire, so this wasn't unfamiliar.


• 28d: Make erect, with "up" (PRICK). Wow! This clue/answer combination is a bit, if I may say, ballsy, don't you think?


• 30d: Cool (HIP). This is amusing in that anyone who still says "hip" is decidedly not cool.



• 32d: Name engraved on the Claret Jug in 2002 (ELS). The Claret Jug is the trophy given to the winner of the British Open.


• 34d: Gym entrance requirement, sometimes (LATE PASS).


• 37d: Watch brand (CITIZEN).


• 38d: Senators hear it before facing off (O CANADA). That's the Ottawa Senator of the NHL.


• 39d: A winner might have it (TOP SPIN). Reference to tennis. Or ping pong or volleyball, I suppose.


• 40d: Common cartoon ending (IRIS OUT). This is a term I was unfamiliar with, but it makes total sense once I got it.




• 42d: Rampaging (ON A TEAR).


• 43d: Cornmeal mush (POLENTA).


• 47d: Like some underwear (EDIBLE). This is not at all where I was expecting this clue to take me, but I certainly got a good chuckle out of it.


• 48d: Tutor to Nero (SENECA).



• 51d: Frequent costar of Humphrey (BETTE). Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart.


• 52d: 45 halves (SIDES). I used to collect 45s (for you young-uns, those are vinyl singles, played at 45 rpm instead of the usual 33 1/3), so this one didn't fool me. Great clue.


• 57d: Marco, to Omar Khayyam (SIRE). Another piece of trivia I just didn't know.

This is exactly what I expect and like in a Weekend Warrior. Like a good Saturday NYT puzzle, I expect to have to poke and prod until things unfold. Too easy and it's unsatisfying. Too hard and it's not fun at all. A decent struggle that ultimately required no Googling to solve? Perfect.

Thanks for listening.

- Pete M.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Title: Bakin' Bits
Author: Tom Heilman
Theme: Substituting homophonic baking terms in familiar words or phrases
Guest Blogger: Cross-Man

• 18a: Gluten? (FLOUR POWER) Flower Power.


• 57a: Without having been pressed or folded? (NOT KNEADED) Not needed.


• 3d: Like someone whose cornea is caked up? (DOUGH-EYED) Doe-eyed.


• 32d: All there is from crust to crust? (PURE BREAD) Purebred.

A reasonable theme for a Tuesday, but one that (perhaps inevitably) requires some forcing in both the cluing and the answers. It's not as if we say "crust to crust" in normal speech, for example, and "not needed" is not a word or phrase that you would find in the dictionary. Oh, and speaking as someone who once had a ridiculously uncomfortable case of conjunctivitis, I could have done without the reference to a caked-up cornea. Blech. Call me sensitive.

Sunny Spots:

• 36d: Park that in 1933 held the first baseball All-Star Game (COMISKEY). A true sunny spot, like all baseball fields. Given that this year's All-Star Game just went by, this is a timely clue. Unfortunately, the name went corporate back in 2003. Isn't U. S. Cellular such a charming old-fashioned name?


• 38d: Moist, in a way (DEW-LADEN). One of the few interesting two-word phrases in this puzzle.


• 5d: Flattery(SOFT SOAP). And here's the other one.

Sundries:

• 15a: Pearl ___ (Gibson garnish) (ONION). I know martinis are somewhat popular again, but does anyone still drink Gibsons?

• 16a: Petty of "Tank Girl" (LORI). I only remember her from "A League of Their Own".


• 17a: Spitter's sound (PTUI). The traditional spelling, of course.





• 20a: One way to serve potatoes (AU GRATIN). Some might say it's the only way to serve potatoes, but I like mashed as well.


• 22a: Region of France that borders Germany and Switzerland (ALSACE). It also was held alternately by France and Germany multiple times between the 1840s and the 1940s.


• 23a: Job (HEIST). As in the 2008 movie "The Bank Job".


• 28a: Hit a short golf shot to be safe, with "up" (LAY). Golf? Was basketball out of town?


• 29a: Language of Sri Lanka (TAMIL). Sri Lankan didn't fit. Neither did Ceylonese.

• 31a: Gulled (DUPED). Did you know that the word "gullible" is not in the dictionary?


• 35a: Nice with (AVEC). Despite having seen Nice used this way so many times, this particular use caught me off-guard for a minute.


• 39a: Nike rival (PUMA). At least this wasn't AVIA. I had a blue suede pair of Pumas back around 1970, but I don't think I've noticed the brand much in the
  US in recent years.


• 40a: "War and Peace" director King ___ (VIDOR). A great name, and he directed an astounding number of movies before I was born. I don't think I've ever seen a one. Not to be confused with King Baggot.

• 42a: Threat in "Deep Impact" (COMET). The real threat was to the acting reputations of Morgan Freeman and Vanessa Redgrave. Better than Shelley Winters in "The Poseidon Adventure", I suppose.


• 49a: Baseball stats (ASSISTS). Baseball? Was basketball out of town again?


• 53a: Drink of beer used to wash down a shot (CHASER). I never got this concept. If the first drink needs chasing, maybe it shouldn't have gone down the hatch in the first place.


• 54a: Disappearing acts? (ERASURES). Sure, if you use "disappear" as a transitive verb.


• 60a: Gannon University's home (ERIE). An awfully obscure way to clue this, but I certainly am sick of "Part of HOMES".

• 62a: Crackers (GAGA). Two other four-letter words that could have gone here: nuts and loco.


• 64a: Luster (SHEEN). I didn't know that Martin Sheen was so priapic.


• 2d: Caesar's censure (ET TU). For all his achievements, old Julius only seems to get this or "veni, vidi, vici" in crosswords. How about a Rubicon once in a while?


• 6d: Not matched up? (UNLIT). I don't really hear "match up" used as a verb in this sense.

• 7d: National park in Utah (ZION). Previously known as Mukuntuweap National Monument. Can't see why they changed the name.


• 8d: Debtor's letters (IOU). It wasn't going to be SOL (S*** Outta Luck, in case you're wondering).


• 9d: Filled with delight (ENRAPT). I prithee not speak this way.




• 11d: Midwestern tribe (IOWAS). A change from OTOES, at least.


• 12d: El ___ (Spanish painter who was born in Crete) (GRECO). The "who was born in Crete" was hardly necessary here.


• 21d: "___ Talkin'" (Bob Dylan song) (AIN'T). Of all the great Dylan songs out there from the 1960s, I'm supposed to know one from 2006?


• 25d: Rapper with a trademark clock necklace, informally (FLAV). Just his last name. His first name is Flavor, in case that helps.


• 26d: Sitarist Shankar (RAVI). Or father of Norah Jones, if you're feeling a bit more contemporary. Ravi is 88 years old.

• 48d: Nirvana's genre (GRUNGE). A good word, but it feels like there should be a cleverer way of using Nirvana to clue it.


• 49d: Pimply (ACNED). No, no, a thousand times no. While I'm not a big proponent of the breakfast test, I make exceptions for caked-up corneas and anything to do with acne. Using this ridiculous adjectival form only makes it worse.



• 50d: Ocean liner? (SHORE). I think the oceans surround the land masses rather than the other way around, but I still liked this clue.


• 51d: "Nights in White ___" (1972 Moody Blues hit) (SATIN). Never reaching the end...


• 52d: Alla ___ (cut time) (BREVE). A vaguely familiar phrase to me; I apparently need to work on my musical education.

• 56d: "On the double!" (STAT). And if you can't come up with this one ASAP, you need to work a few more puzzles.
  

• 58d: Sigh of satisfaction (AAH). Blaah.

Suns of Bitches:

• 5a: "The World of ___ Wong" (SUZIE). A 1957 book and a 1960 movie, which I've not read, seen, or previously heard of. The title keeps reminding me of a much later film, "To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar".


• 54d: "Peter Gunn" character Hart (EDIE). I suppose I had a better shot at knowing this, but it's really from the same bat time, same bat channel as Suzie Wong.


• 55d: Vet (EX-GI). Even after getting it from the crossings, I had to look at it for a while before understanding what it meant.

All in all, a straightforward puzzle. Nothing exciting, but a perfectly good theme idea (albeit with some execution issues), and hardly any real junk in the fill, either.

Thanks for listening.

- Ruy (Cross-Man)

Thursday, May, 22, 2008

Title: Themeless Thursday
Author: Tom Heilman
Theme: None

This is a nicely constructed themeless with four 9-letter stacks and two additional 9-letter fills for a total of 14. It's the quality of these longer entries that makes or breaks a good themeless, so let's have a look.

• TACO SALAD (1a: Mexican restaurant dish). Doesn't hurt to start off with a nice colorful food entry.


• ECONOLINE (15a: Ford van). Not bad. Reminds me of the Neil Young song "Tonight's the Night", which includes the lyrics: "Bruce Berry was a working man, he used to load that Econoline van".


• SHOE PHONE (17a: Smart method of communication?). This is my favorite clue of the bunch. Love "Get Smart".


• JOE CRONIN (52a: President of the American League before Lee MacPhail). The name is familiar, once I figured it out from the crossings.


• ARBITRATE (55a: Determine). Kind of dull, with a dull clue to match.


• GOOD SENSE (57a: Savvy). Nice phrase.


• DEEP SIXES (9d: Jettisons). Excellent.


• I NEED A NAP (12d: Insomniac's declaration). This is right up there with SHOE PHONE for me. Love it! And I do need a nap, too, even though I'm not an insomniac.


• TANGERINE (13d: Atomic ___ (Crayola color formerly called Chartreuse). Nice combination of food and pop-culture reference (I would consider Crayola to be "pop culture", wouldn't you?)


• STEERSMEN (14d: Helm handlers). Going a little old school with this one, but I like it.


• DOGNAPPER (28d: Person who takes pointers from others?). Nice fill with an excellent clue.


• OVERDRIVE (29d: Intense state of activity). Decent.


• ZETA-JONES (30d: Best Supporting Actress of 2002). Also good, with the added bonus of a J and a Z. I started with ZE- and guessed ZELLWEGER. who coincidentally shows up at 47d: George's "Leatherheads" costar (RENÉE).


• CRYING JAG (31d: Fit of uncontrolled weeping). I'm torn on this one. It seems like a cool phrase, but I don't I've ever actually heard it used, so it feels kind of forced. I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt since the Steely Dan song "Turn That Heartbeat Over Again" includes the phrase "cry a jag on me".

Overall, that's a nice set of long entries. Let's look at the rest of the puzzle.

Sunny Spots:

• 19a: King's English? (TOPSPIN). I'm assuming it's referring to Billie Jean King and tennis. This is a very clever clue, but as a pool player I have to nitpick: Topspin (or "follow") is not technically English. Neither is backspin (draw). English implies left or right spin. Merriam-Webster backs me up on this: "spin around the vertical axis deliberately imparted to a ball that is driven or rolled" (emphasis mine). I know it's probably one of those things where enough people generalize "English" to refer to any spin that it becomes "acceptable", but I don't have to like it.


• 20a: Mentor's tutee (PROTÉGÉ). Nice to see this clued without reference to the car.


• 23a: Form letters? (IRS). This would been especially appropriate a few weeks ago.


• 32a: ___ Chimpsky (chimp in a language experiment) (NIM). A clear play on linguist Noam Chomsky. Very cute.


• 44a: Diet Coke forerunner (TAB). There was a running gag concerning Tab in the first season of the Sarah Silverman Show on Comedy Central, a pretty offbeat show that is often downright raunchy.


• 2d: Cold call? (ACHOO). Cute.


• 6d: Trumpeter nicknamed "The Round Mound of Sound" (AL HIRT). Not to be confused with Charles Barkley, who was the "Round Mound of Rebound". Here's Al playing our national anthem. Not bad, but my favorite version of all time, by far, was done by Branford Marsalis and Bruce Hornsby. I heard it played for an NBA All-star game back in 1991 when Desert Storm was just getting under way; it literally made people cry. You can find it on the soundtrack to Ken Burns's "Baseball" or, if you don't mind a quick, free download, you can hear it here for nothing. Oh, and by the way, guess who the MVP of that game was? None other than Charles Barkley. See how it all comes together?


• 25d: Cross product (PEN). As a former math major, I love this clue.


• 37d: Half-pints (SQUIRTS). Great fill and clue.


• 41d: Bad (RANCID). Rancid is a great word. It's also the name of a punk/ska band. You might have heard this one on the radio.


• 45d: Two-time screen role for Arnold Schwarzenegger (CONAN). Most people in his position would want to forget these films ever came out. But I get the distinct impression he's pretty proud of them.


• 50d: Twist request (MORE). It took me a second to make sense of this one. The clever twist here is that the Twist in question is Oliver Twist. Very nice.

Sundries:

• 24a: More financially sound (SOLIDER). This one makes me grimace a bit. Does anyone say "solider"? I totally understand why constructors put these in, but they feel kind of lazy to me. Just because it's an adjective doesn't mean you can add -ER to it and still have it sound "in-the-language".


• 27a: "___ longa, vita brevis" (ARS). Yeah, whatever. I do note that ARS shows up in the puzzle database five times more often in the NY Times than the NY Sun. Thank you for that, Peter Gordon. I also note that the much more commonly used ARSE never shows up in either. I'm just saying.



• 28a: Earthmover for short (DOZER). Dozer is also Tank's brother in "The Matrix".


• 31a: Forward-facing crew members (COXES). This one threw me a little. I immediately thought of COXSWAINS, the leader of a rowing crew, but I've never seen it abbreviated this way. I guessed COX'NS at first, which wasn't far off.


• 34a: Pushy person (URGER). More with the -ER fill, this time using it to change verbs to nouns. Correct or not, it's certainly not pretty.


• 35a: Die down (WANE)


• 36a: Grasp (GET). As in understand, get it?


• 38a: Become more tasty (RIPEN). I'd be more comfortable with this clue if it had a "perhaps" in it. Not everything becomes more tasty as it ripens. Meat, for example.


• 39a: Org. that opposed the Brady Bill (NRA). The "Brady Bill" was a gun legislation named for James Brady, a White House Press Secretary who was shot during one of the attempted assassinations of Reagan in 1981.


• 41a: Peri's role on "Frasier" (ROZ).


• 45a: Heel (CUR). I had CAD, which I think is closer in meaning to HEEL than CUR is.


• 48a: Math homework at times (PROVING). Yeah, okay. PROOFS feels more correct, but I'll let it slide.


• 49a: Tentacled zoophyte (ANEMONE). Great word; cool creature.


• 51a: Yearning person (PINER). You already know what I'm going to say about this one, right?


• 54a: She won the 1976, 1977, and 1978 U.S. Opens without losing a set (Chris EVERT). That's domination!


• 56a: Signs of silence (RESTS). Reference to sheet music.


• 1d: Placement determiners, sometimes (TESTS)


• 3d: Some apartments (CO-OPS). Or COOPS, if you're a chicken. I had LOFTS to start.


• 4d: Tip jar contents (ONES). I suppose g-string contents would have been too risqué?


• 5d: More drenched (SOPPIER). Ugh.


• 10d: Team owned by Peter Angelos (ORIOLES)


• 11d: Prefix with family or room (MULTI)


• 21d: Playmate of Spot (ROVER). Is this a reference to two specific dogs named Spot and Rover, or just based on the fact that Spot and Rover are common dog names? If the former, what is the reference? If the latter, I think I deserves a "?" or "maybe" at the end.


• 26d: Subject of the book "The Man Who Made Lists" (ROGET). Didn't know this, but it makes sense.


• 34d: One-way street no-no (U-TURN). Thank you for spelling this one out; when it's only three letters I never know if it's UIE or UEY.


• 35d: 1978 Michael Jackson movie, the "The" (WIZ). The cast of this Wizard of Oz remake also includes Diana Ross, Richard Pryor, Lena Horne, and Nipsey Russell.


• 38d: Chief Justice of the United States (John G. ROBERTS)


• 44d: Cardio workout routine (TAE BO)


• 53d: Montana motto metal (ORO). We're not sure why Montana's motto (Oro y plata) is in Spanish, but it is. Any Montanans out there that care to chime in?

Suns of Bitches:

• 18a: "Ryan's Hope actress ___ Kristen (ILENE).


• 22a: 2007 Jonas Brothers song (SOS). Don't know the Jonas Brothers. Is this an Abba remake, or an original song?


• 37a: Chalazia (STYES). Not familiar with the term.


• 8d: "The Voice of Bugle ___" (1936 Lionel Barrymore film) (ANN). Also with Maureen O'Sullivan, but I haven't seen it.

All in all, not a bad themeless. Not particularly hard, but with nice longer entries. I could do with fewer -ER fills, but that's pretty minor in the big scheme of things.

Thanks for listening.

- Pete M.