THEME: Tumblers — Each theme answer is a different definition of the word "tumblers."
Hey, everybody. PuzzleGirl here with your Tuesday serving of puzzly goodness. Rex is sans Internet tonight for some reason, so you're stuck with me. Let's try to make the best of it, shall we?
Theme answers:
17A: Tumblers (LOCK DEVICES).
32A: Tumblers (CIRCUS ACROBATS).
41A: Tumblers (WHISKEY GLASSES).
59A: Tumblers (JACK AND JILL).
Okay, some people don't like this type of theme, but I'm not one of them. I like a little something different now and then just to mix it up. I also think the JACK AND JILL answer is inspired. Doug and I were chatting about it and he said he thought the acrobats and Jack and Jill lead to the same definition of "tumblers," but I disagree. Jack and Jill are inadvertently falling down a hill having tripped on a rock or something. On the other hand, the circus people are doing that activity known as "tumbling" and though they may be rolling around much like someone falling down a hill, their actions are controlled and purposeful. I rest my case.
I'm not going to spend a lot of time here today. It's late, I'm tired, and I'm in Oprah Magazine. Wait, what? You didn't know I was in Oprah Magazine? Yes, I really am. Page 167 of the November issue if you just want to check it out in line at the grocery store. It's a section about people who have found a hobby they're passionate about. Mine is about scrapbooking. No no no, of course it isn't. It's about puzzles! It's just a little part of a bigger article, but it has my picture and everything so yeah, it's exciting. I mean, it's freaking Oprah.
Was there something else we were supposed to be talking about? Oh right, the puzzle. Setting aside a couple of clunkers (I'm looking at you OBEYER and KEY CASE) and the presence of URKEL, there's some pretty awesome fill here. I mean, how can you not like RABBIT TEST? That right there is a sparkly entry. Also, "WHERE TO?" I always get a kick out of the colloquial phrases.
I don't think I would have liked only two sports abbreviations in the grid, but since there are three, it almost seems kinda cool. Other than that, um … yeah, I think I'm done. I mentioned the thing about Oprah, right? ….
Love,
PuzzleGirl
P.S. from Rex: What PuzzleGirl didn't say—she's ending her own popular crossword blog, "L.A. Crossword Confidential." Today is her last post over there. I assume that I will be able to call her out of retirement when I need a substitute blogger, like when I'm drunk out of town. At any rate, she will be missed by lots of faithful L.A. Times solvers. PPS I hear she's in "O" magazine this month.
Constructor: Doug Peterson and Angela Olson Halsted
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging
THEME: Sad — theme answers all begin with word that can mean "sad"
Word of the Day: BYPLAY (1D: Incidental activity) —
n.
Action carried on aside, and commonly in dumb show, while the main action proceeds. (Webster's Unabridged 1913, via answers.com)
• • •
BYPLAY? I don't think I've ever seen that word before. I know BYPRODUCT, and BYWAY, and "MY WAY," but BYPLAY eludes me, and so something like half my time was spent just figuring out the first theme answers. BEDS was hard for me too, for some reason (1A: Places to retire). I wanted DENS, then ... pffft, I don't know. Time has somehow separated the concepts of "Indie" and "LOW-BUDGET" in my head, so that answer didn't come easily at all. Throw in the fact that I had ARAL for URAL, and I just made a mess for myself up there (21D: Caspian Sea feeder). The rest went down reasonably easily, though cluing throughout felt more Wednesday than Tuesday. Didn't get theme until after I was done.
33A: Unusually chromatic performance ensemble (BLUE MAN GROUP)
41A: Mostly idled (BUMMED AROUND)
57A: Thick alternative to a blanket (DOWN COMFORTER)
Thought Valentino was the actor, so ARMANI took a few stabs (46A: Valentino rival). "Chromatic" as "colorful" was not clear to me, so BLUE MAN GROUP also took work. ANTI-FOG (9D: Like some lens coatings) and ENTWINE (42D: Tangle up) also didn't come easily, the first because I've never been offered such lens coatings, and the second because other words seemed to fit, most notably ENSNARE. Clue on NANO was great but tough (45D: Modern running companion?). Ditto the clue on TEETH (8D: Enforcement provisions). Had MOPE for POUT (26D: Sulk); I still like MOPE better (I'm moping). Theme concept isn't much, but execution was nice, and the grid was fairly entertaining. Note that all the first words of theme answers are used in non-SAD contexts. This is what you do in themes—hide the connection so that it emerges only when theme answers as a group emerge and create a pattern.
Bullets:
16A: He once placed a "long-distance call" to Aldrin and Armstrong (NIXON) — Had the "X," which made it easy. I only just now got why there are quotation marks around "long-distance call."
17A: Stroller to Soho (PRAM) — "to" is odd. Still, this was easy.
29A: Company in a 2011 merger with the Huffington Post (AOL) — first answer: AIG. Moral of the story: actually read the whole clue; don't just stop at first word, look at letters you already have ("A") and guess.
43D: The Belmonts' frontman, in 1950s music (DION) — nice clue echo at 54D: Contender in the Belmont (HORSE)
50D: Persian king in 2006's "300" (XERXES) — I like the number pile-up in this clue.
For those of you who don't know, today's co-constructor Angela Olson Halsted writes here (and at her own fine blog) as "PuzzleGirl" and is my good friend. This is her NYT debut. This Doug Peterson guy, on the other hand ... no idea who he is. Seems a little shady. Oh, I suggest you check out their pictures HERE. Angela looks like a glamorous, mysterious movie star ... or like a self-important crossword queen who's just had her eyes done, I can't decide. Either way, awesome.
----- [The following announcement will be up all week]
I'm coming to NYC for the Lollapuzzoola Tournament on Saturday, Aug. 6 (you should go—info here). But you know that. What you don't know (yet) is that I'm coming several days early to do some interviews for a crossword project I'm working on, and I'm hoping to interview some of You (New Yorkers) about your xword habit. I'm especially interested in talking to people who think they are unlikely solvers, or who solve in weird / interesting / iconic places, or who have good solving anecdotes, or who are famous / prominent in their fields, or any combo of the above. I'm also interested in ordinary everyday solvers. I'm not looking for fast or accomplished solvers. Just interesting solvers. If you live in NYC, this (probably) means you! If you are going to be in town on Aug. 4-5 and are willing to talk to me for a few minutes, drop me a line at rexparker at mac dot com. I'll be exceedingly grateful. I'll see what kind of response I get and set up a schedule from there. If I don't hear from you, I'll just have to wander the streets harassing anyone I see solving a crossword, even though this may result in my getting punched, or worse. So help me out. Thank you!
THEME: "Look on the Bright Side!" — When you get to the end of the allotted space while filling in the theme answers, there's NOWHERE TO GO BUT UP.
Hello, everybody, and happy Sunday. It's PuzzleGirl filling in again today while Rex is off at the Crosswords L.A. tournament hanging out with Andrea Carla Michaels, Tyler Hinman, Doug Peterson, John Beck and many other awesome puzzle people including, of course, the lovely and talented Elissa Grossman who makes the whole thing possible. So jealous! I went last year and had a blast, but just wasn't able to make it this time around. It's entirely possible I'll pout my way through this write-up. You have been warned. (Speaking of all the people who are at the tournament, did anyone tell Kevin Der about it. He lives out there and last year I was all, "Where were you last weekend?" and he was all, "What are you talking about?" Did anyone remember to tell him about it this year?!)
Here's the thing. Those of you who know me know that I don't like Sunday puzzles. They're just too damn big. For some reason, a 21x21 (or bigger) is very difficult for me to enjoy. I just feel like I'm slogging through it and when I get to the end I typically feel more relieved than anything else. So, sometime in the past year Doug Peterson and I started solving the Sunday puzzle together. Have you ever noticed the "Solve With a Friend!" link on the New York Times puzzle page? Well that allows you, surprisingly, to solve the puzzle with a friend. So that's what we do. To make it more fun, one of us solves the acrosses and the other solves the downs. We try to stay in the same area of the puzzle and work our way around as smoothly as we can. It's pretty fun. So, when Rex was looking for a sub for today's puzzle I volunteered thinking that Doug and I could solve it together and then I would blog the acrosses and he would blog the downs. Funny, right? Yeah, except I forgot Doug was at the tournament too. So you're stuck with me. The one who doesn't like Sunday puzzles. Have I listed the theme answers yet? No? Well, let's get that out of the way.
Theme answers:
22A: *Most awful thing you could imagine (WORST NIGHTMARE COME TRU[E]).
36A: *Destination of 1911 (THE SOUTH POL[E]).
46A: *First rung on a ladder (ENTRY-LEVEL JO[B]).
64A: *Dunce's place (BOTTOM OF THE CLAS[S]).
83A: *Destitution (ABJECT POVERT[Y]).
93A: *Coldest point (ABSOLUTE ZER[O]).
110A: Optimist's phrase under adverse circumstances ... or a hint to completing the answers to the six starred clues (THERE'S NOWHERE TO GO BUT U[P]).
This is a clever theme. I figured out pretty quickly that there was literally NOWHERE TO GO BUT UP at the end of each theme answer, but I didn't realize until I had a few theme answers in place that the answer phrases represent starting points from which there's really only one way to go. And that's up. Unless that wasn't clear. ENTRY-LEVEL JOB? Yep, you can only go up from there. ABJECT POVERTY? Totally depressing, but yeah, up up up. This makes the puzzle much more appealing than if the theme answers were just random phrases with the last letter atop the second-to-last letter. I'm never happy when I finish a puzzle, review the theme and then ask "But, um … why?" Didn't happen with this one so even though it's Sunday, I'm more inclined to like this one than to dislike it. I'm sure Xan is so relieved.
There were a couple things in this grid that I just flat-out didn't know, most notably WAT and KAABA (22D: Buddhist temple / Most sacred building in Islam). With [41A: Where lavalava skirts are worn] and [55D: Hinny's mother], on the other hand, it was words in the clues that tripped me up. A lavalava skirt is a SAMOAn article of clothing similar to a pareo or sarong, and a hinny is the offspring of a male horse and a female donkey (or ASS). So there you go.
Clues that made me chuckle today include:
19A: 21, at a casino, say (AGE LIMIT).
67A: It may have a cross to bear (STEEPLE).
78A: Doctor whose patients never pay the bills (VET).
96A: Burger King vis-à-vis McDonald's, fittingly (ARCHRIVAL).
LOSER for [30D: #2 or #3, say] also made me laugh. Not because it's inherently funny but because PuzzleHusband and I sometimes like to act like we're asshole competitive parents yelling at our kids that "Second place is first loser!" (Please note: We have never actually yelled that at our kids.)
Highlights for me today include:
52A: Hits and runs? (LOOTS) and 54A: Hits or runs (STAT). Sometimes I don't like the "running joke" kind of clues, but this one struck me as amusing.
116A: Like stars on a clear night (AGLIMMER). I tried ATWINKLE first.
3D: Surprise birthday parties often involve them (RUSES). It just occurred to me just now that I don't believe I've ever been involved in a surprise birthday party. Ever. Is that weird?
47D: Dates determined by the lunisolar calendar (EASTERS). I'll tell you what does surprise me every year though: EASTER. Not being Christian, it's not something that I ever really think about. Usually what happens is that at some point in March or April I'll be talking to someone about an upcoming event and they'll say something like, "So, the weekend after Easter then?" And I'll stammer a little and try to act like I know when Easter is. That annual conversation was actually pretty funny this year. Someone at my new job asked me when my birthday was so she could put it on the office calendar and when I told her, her eyes lit up and she said, "Oh! You're birthday is on Easter!" Seriously, I had no idea until that very moment.
So that's enough rambling out of me, right? With any luck, Rex will be here tomorrow with Andrea Carla Michaels. You won't want to miss that, so come on back!
Word of the Day: EM'LY (66A: Mr. Peggotty's "little" niece) —
Emily (Little Em'ly) – A niece of Mr. Peggotty. She is a childhood friend of David Copperfield, who loves her in his childhood days. She leaves her cousin and fiancé, Ham, for Steerforth, but returns after Steerforth deserts her. She emigrates to Australia with Mr. Peggotty after being rescued from a London brothel. (Wikipedia)
• • •
Hey, everybody. PuzzleGirl here, filling in for Mr. Parker while he's off gallivanting around California. And honestly, I don't know what the hell I was thinking. We just moved into a new house last weekend and I'm living out of boxes. I mean, basically scrounging for clothes every morning. It's pathetic. Still trying to take care of a few last-minute things at the old place (anyone need a huge blue filing cabinet that has to be hauled up a flight of stairs to get out of the house?) and haven't really been sleeping well because, ya know, it's just weird being someplace different. But Rex asked me to fill in and what am I going to say? No? Wait, what? I could have said no? Oh man. Sure wish I had thought of that.
As you might know, my biggest fear when I sub for Rex late in the week is that I won't be able to finish the puzzle. I've gotten a lot better at puzzles since I started solving obsessively diligently a couple years ago, but it's definitely not a given that I can finish a Saturday New York Times puzzle. I'm finishing them a lot more often than I used to, but I'm not at 100% yet, that's for sure. Fortunately, I managed to crank this one out and didn't have all that much heartburn along the way.
The biggest trouble spot for me was in the South Texas area where it was hard for me to let go of HAVE IT DOWN where HAVE IT MADE was supposed to go. And wasn't there a presidential dog named Checkers? So you can see where that D was a problem for me. Add to that the vaguely clued crossing answers at 56D and 62A (ODDS and ENDS), and I thought I was gonna be toast. It all fell together eventually though so here I am with my head held high feeling like maybe I do know a little bit about this here puzzle business.
Oh wait! Before we get to the puzzle! Did you all see the Royal Wedding yesterday?! Yeah, me neither. Here we go ….
Bullets:
14A: Hazzard County deputy (ENOS). First answer in the grid. No crosses. Not sure if I should really be bragging about that.
17A: A cowboy may have a big one (BELT BUCKLE). Heh.
24A: "True, alas" ("AFRAID SO"). I'm going to start saying "True, alas" from now on.
48A: Western master (ZANE GREY). I can never remember if he spells his last name with an E or an A. Is it true that one way of spelling GRAY/GREY is a British spelling and the other is American? Even if that's true, is there any possible way I'll be able to remember which is which? (Answer: no.)
50A: Inn's end (DANUBE). So the Inn is a river — a tributary to the Danube. Who knew?
55A: Poor (NOT SO HOT). I like to see this kind of colloquial phrase in my puzzles.
65A: Noted elephant designer (NAST). Please tell me you were as confused as I was about this one. I'm all, "Elephant designer? What could that even mean?"
11D: Dragon puppet (OLLIE). It's been a long time since I've thought about Kukla, Fran and Ollie. And I'm not sure I ever knew OLLIE was a dragon.
18D: "Desperate Housewives" role (BREE). I've never watched "Desperate Housewives" but I did know the show has (had?) a character named BREE. Of course, when I first entered it into the grid I spelled it BRIE and it didn't even occur to me that I was assuming she had been named after cheese.
25D: Brit's "guv" (DAD). I did not know this. I thought Brit's "guv" was … "guv."
31D: "Grace Before Meat" pen name (ELIA). One indication that it's the end of the week? The clues for crosswordese is ratcheted up a notch.
38D: Singer Barry (LEN). I didn't think I knew this guy, but I do recognize this song.
THEME: "Works in Translation" — Easy to understand, but hard to describe. The theme answers are titles with the pattern "Something in Somewhere." The "Something" is translated into the language spoken in "Somewhere" to create the clues. Got it?
Word of the Day: AVEDA (79D: Skin care brand ) —
Aveda (pronounced ah-vay-da) was founded by Horst Rechelbacher in 1978. In 1970, Rechelbacher, on a trip to India, was introduced to the healing properties of Ayurveda (the Hindu science of longevity) and the vision for his company (and the name Aveda) was born. Horst had formulated the first product, a clove shampoo, in his kitchen sink. Today Aveda is part of Estée Lauder Companies, Inc. According to the company's website, "Aveda" is Sanskrit for "all knowledge," but in fact means "no knowledge." (Wikipedia)
• • •
Greetings, Rexites. This is Doug Peterson, in the house with PuzzleGirl, and ready to do some semi-serious crossword blogging. We're filling in for Rex today, but I can assure you that he is not drunk. However, there was a rumor going around that he's been hopped up on goofballs all weekend.
I'm very glad to be talking to you today. You wouldn't believe the hoops I had to jump through to become an official Rex Parker contributor. There was a background check, blood test, retinal scan, and … a couple other things I don't want to talk about right now. But it looks like I've been approved and am good to go. If the RP security goons drag me out of here before we're done, PuzzleGirl can finish up by herself.
The reason we're doing team blogging today is that we usually solve the Sunday puzzle together. Personally, I just got tired of Sunday puzzles several months ago. They're just too big! For some reason I really feel like I'm just slogging my way through a 21x21. So Doug suggested we solve together on the New York Times “Solve with a Friend!” applet and we've done it that way ever since. To make it interesting, one of us solves only the acrosses and the other does only the downs. We try to stay in the same general area as we're making our way around the grid, but sometimes that doesn't work too well. If you look at the grid we posted, you'll see that some of the letters are green (those are the ones I entered) and some are blue (those are Doug's). Sometimes when we're all done, the whole grid is pretty much Doug's color and that's embarrassing. When that happens, I usually come up with some lame excuse about how my kids were bugging me or the smoke alarm went off or something. I'm pretty sure Doug knows I'm lying when I do that, but he's too nice to say anything.
Theme answers:
27A: 1934 novel "Maw'id" (APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA).
38A: 1968 hit song "Nazad" (BACK IN THE USSR).
47A: 1985 hit song "Neung Keun" (ONE NIGHT IN BANGKOK).
68A: 2003 film "Érase una Vez" (ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO).
90A: 1951 film "Une Personne des États-Unis" (AN AMERICAN IN PARIS).
99A: 1912 novella "Morte" (DEATH IN VENICE).
114A: 1943 novel "Whaddya Tink? A Sapling Stays a Sapling Fuhevah?" (A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN).
(Note: The bulleted list above contains English-alphabet versions of the clues for 27A, 38A, and 47A. The original clues are shown in the image underneath. Thanks to the NY Times and its Wordplay blog for providing the image. We tried to insert those funky foreign letters into our write-up, but it wasn't working at all. Apparently English is the official language of the Rex Parker blog.)
If you're wondering who came up with that wonderfully lame theme explanation up top, it was me, Doug. Some of you may still be confused, so let's look at an example, say, 99 Across. "Morte" is the Italian word for "death," so the word "Morte" is literally "Death in Italian" or specifically "Death in Venice." The rest of them follow the same pattern. "Maw'id" is Arabic for "appointment," "Nazad" is Russian for "back," etc. Very clever! And the last one, written in Brooklynese, is the most awesome of all. I love when the constructor saves a killer punchline for the last theme entry. Well done!
Bullets:
31A: Harold's car in "Harold and Maude" (HEARSE). Herman's car in "The Munsters" would have been an easier reference for me. [Claire's car on "Six Feet Under" for me.]
64A: Electrophorus electricus, for one (EEL). Really? This reminds me of the pseudo-Latin names they used at the beginnings of Road Runner cartoons. Road Runner would be classified as "Acceleratii incredibus" or "Velocitus delectiblus" and Wile E. Coyote as "Famishus vulgarus" or "Apetitus giganticus."
76A: Constellation next to Ursa Major and Ursa Minor (DRACO).
85A: Brilliant display (RIOT). Tricky clue. I've heard the phrase a "riot of color," so it works.
113A: 90% off? (SENILE). My least favorite clue of the day. I don't need to see a "funny" clue for SENILE. People affected by senility are 90% off? That's just cruel.
123A: German photographer ___ Bing (ILSE). Ah, the great Ilse Bing! If you look at the grid, you'll see that this answer, even though it's an Across, is all in green. That means that PuzzleGirl filled in every letter for me.
127A: Classic brand of hair remover (NEET). I learned recently (from Orange's blog) that Neet is now known as Veet. Remember the ads for the hair removal product called Nads? Seriously, Nads? If I weren't so mature, I'd find that name hilarious. I could find out more, but there's no way I'm typing www.nads.com into my browser.
1D: Bike brand (YAMAHA). I wanted SCHWINN. Totally different kind of bike.
4D: It's often visited during a trip (MOTOR INN). Oh yeah ….
5D: Failure to communicate? (PHONE TAG). This is an awesome clue. PHONE TAG is one of those terms that used to be totally hilarious and now it's just like a normal thing to say. Isn't that funny how that happens?
8D: Daily or weekly (ADVERB). This one stumped me for quite a while. I thought it would have something to do with magazines or newspapers or some other type of publication.
11D: Author Steinhauer with the 2009 best seller "The Tourist" (OLEN). No idea. [We already have Robert Olen Butler for our OLEN clues, and that should be sufficient. Now we need to remember another author no one's ever heard of?]
41D: "And who ___?" (ISN'T). One of two relatively snippy colloquial phrases in this puzzle. See also, 81D: "Any day now" ("I'M WAITING").
52D: Area crossed by Marco Polo (GOBI). Wait, Marco Polo didn't travel across a body of water calling out to his crew members to guide him because he was, I don't know, blind-folded or something? I've really had that wrong all these years.
94D: Comic who said "A short summary of every Jewish holiday: They tried to kill us. We won. Let's eat" (ALAN KING). Okay, that's funny.
101D: Gourd (NOGGIN). Here in the PuzzleHouse we prefer "melon," as in "Can you get this shirt over your big melon or is it time to send it to Goodwill?" (That's me talking to PuzzleSon. The first thing I said when he was born — and I'm not making this up — was "Oh my God, it's huge." The boy has a big head, is what I'm saying.)
104D: The Supreme Court, e.g. (ENNEAD). "ENNEA-" means "nine." There are nine Supreme Court justices. Quick — name them! No cheating!
When I found out I was going to be teaming up with PuzzleGirl on today's blog, I told her, "I hope we get a good one!" And today's puzzle was great, so no worries. I thought the theme was fun, clever, and consistent. You can't ask for much more. But I would like to make a request of Will Shortz and future Sunday constructors. Could you please try to make sure you have theme answers running in both the Across and the Down directions? It makes it more fun for those of us who only get to see half the clues every week. I don't have my own cool sign-off yet, so I'll borrow one from Ryan Seacrest: Peterson out!
Word of the Day: SALADIN (41D: Sultan who captured Jerusalem in 1187) —
Saladin was a Kurdish Muslim who became the first Ayyubid Sultan of Egypt and Syria and led Islamic opposition to the Franks and other European Crusaders in the Levant. At the height of his power, he ruled over Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, Hejaz, and Yemen. He led the Muslims against the Crusaders and eventually recaptured Palestine from the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem after his victory in the Battle of Hattin. His chivalrous behavior was noted by Christian chroniclers, and despite being the nemesis of the Crusaders he won the respect of many of them, including Richard the Lionheart. Rather than becoming a hated figure in Europe, he became a celebrated example of the principles of chivalry. (Wikipedia)
• • •
Well hi there! And Happy New Year! Bet you didn't think you'd be seeing PuzzleGirl again so soon, did you? Neither did I. It's a long story and it's not very interesting so I won't bore you with it. I'll just say that it involves Rex becoming unsure about which day it was yesterday. It actually sounded a little like some kind of alcohol-induced confusion but I don't really have anything to base that on. Total speculation. Absolutely no facts. Nothing at all to indicate that Rex was actually drunk yesterday when he forgot what day it was. I mean I'm sure there are many other reasons a person would be confused about what day it is. Even a person who's drinking! I mean, just because a person is drinking doesn't mean that's the reason they can't remember stuff. Ya know what? Again, this is a completely unfounded rumor — the one about how Rex was drunk and couldn't blog today — so we really shouldn't even be talking about it. Just forget I said anything.
This is going to be a quick write-up because, well, you know, it's New Year's Eve and all. Plus I figure you all are hungover today and probably can't solve the puzzle, much less read some crazy lady running her mouth about it. This New Year's Eve is actually kind of interesting. PuzzleSon, our 6th grader, is at a New Year's Eve party put on by the county at a community rec center. PuzzleHusband dropped him off there at 8:00 and will pick him up at 1:00. That's right. 1:00 A.M. My baby is out there doing God only knows what and we won't see him until practically the middle of the night. It's a little unnerving. Sure, the people running the party were all wearing bright green "STAFF" shirts, and there were two cops at the door, and parents will be required to show I.D. to pick up their kids, but just because the people putting on the party have done every single thing they can do to calm the fears of the overprotective high-strung North Arlington parents doesn't mean that something TERRIBLE WON'T HAPPEN TO MY BABY! I mean they CAN'T ANTICIPATE EVERY POSSIBLE PROBLEM! ::deep cleansing breaths:: Oh man, teenage years are gonna be rough on the Mommy in this house. ::in with the good air, out with the bad air:: Tell ya what — let's talk about the puzzle.
I really enjoyed this one. I plunked in MR. ROBOTO with no crosses whatsoever and felt like I was off to the races. That southwest corner fell pretty easily and that's probably why I have an overall positive feeling about the puzzle. It was so nice and Scrabbly down there! I did run into a little trouble when I plopped in BALE OF HAY where BANJO PICK was supposed to go (55A: Barn dance accessory), but that didn't take long to straighten out. I knew LOKI was right for 59A: Mythological trickster who was punished by being held to a rock, so even though I wasn't entirely sure what 52D would be, I was pretty sure it wouldn't be *FL**. Obviously, you can never be too sure, especially on a Saturday, but it felt like a wrong-wrong start, not just a not-really-wrong-but-tricky start. So I erased BALE OF HAY, caught on to JOEY right away from its clue (56D: Bouncing baby) and was excited to add that J to the U, Y, Z, X, and V already in that part of the grid. Love it!
The rest of the grid was a little tougher. I'm sure I've seen the name ANOUK AIMÉE before (16A: "Prêt-à-Porter" actress), but I have no idea who she is and it took me a lot of crosses before her name actually came into view. Once I got her in there, I thought 7D: Dingbats looked like it should be LOONEYS (which I think is actually a better answer than the correct GOONEYS), so that made LIGHT SHOWS (5A: Concert spectacles) hard to see.
Let's do a few bullets and then you can all get back to nursing your hangovers. My suggestion? Peanut butter toast and 7-Up. Or next time maybe don't drink so much.
Bullets:
1A: Star of India, once (SABU). I do not know what this means.
30A: N.Y.P.D. descriptor (FINEST).
32A: Cry to get 40-Across (SEND HELP). I tried NEED HELP first, which is a crappy answer. Especially cuz it's, ya know, wrong.
42A: "Rock Me ___" (1984 hit) (TONITE). I don't remember this song. At first I was thinking "Rock Me Amadeus," and actually the year isn't that far off (1986). "Rock Me TONITE," though, is a Billy Squier song and its Wikipedia page explains that "The video for the track …, which shows Squier dancing around a room in a pink tank top, frequently appears on 'worst music video ever' lists." Well that's something, I guess.
45A: Simon & Schuster's parent (CBS). I did not know that.
51A: Leaving lines (TA-TAS). Heh heh. You said TATAS.
57A: Onetime Chevy Blazer competitor (ISUZU RODEO). Have any of your ever heard Rosie Pérez say "Isuzu Trooper"? It's the funniest thing. I'm pretty sure it was on Letterman when I saw it, and it was like a real thing. Like Letterman said, "Okay, I've heard you do this before, so now, if you would, please say 'Isuzu Trooper' for this audience." And then she said it and everybody cracked up laughing. I wish I could find a clip of it. (SethG?)
8D: Dug in, with "down" (HUNKERED). This is an awesome, awesome word and we all should use it more often.
11D: Area where blood vessels enter an organ (HILUM). This was my WTF answer of the day. I'm not real good at the science-y stuff.
38D: Hit from the 1983 platinum album "Kilroy Was Here" (MR. ROBOTO). Don't try to act like you didn't know this was coming.
47D: Yanks' foes (BOSOX). I started a new job a couple weeks ago and the guy I work for is a huge baseball fan. He has season tickets to the Nats and that's his main team (he grew up in this area, so he was a Senators fan back in the day). So I cornered him one day and said, "Okay, I know you're a Nats fan, but if you had to pick: Yankees or Red Sox?" He was all, "Ohhhhh, this is a trick question. I really don't want to screw this up." Don't worry, I let him off the hook.
I'll be here tomorrow with a special guest, so come on back and check us out. It's sure to be entertaining. Oh and here's a tip for tomorrow. At the very bottom of the New York Times crossword blog, there's a note: "The Sunday crossword will be available on the Premium Crosswords page in both Across Lite and PDF format …. Three clues in the PDF and print version use foreign alphabets; the Across Lite version uses English-letter transliterations." So make sure you don't let that trip you up. See you tomorrow.
Hi, everybody. PuzzleGirl here with your very last puzzle of the year. What an honor! And it's only because Rex is off drunk somewhere. Allegedly. I mean, that's what I heard, but there really hasn't been any confirmation, so I probably shouldn't say anything. You know what? Let's just forget I said anything. I'm sure there's a perfectly good reason that Rex isn't here today and I'm relatively certain it has nothing to do with alcohol. So let's just move on. Sorry about that.
Hey, look everybody! It's Caleb! Remember how yesterday Andrea was talking about how everybody has a crush on Caleb? Well that's the truth. And if you met him, you'd know why. He's completely adorable. Now, he's got a filthy mouth on him, that's for sure. But other than that? Completely. Adorable. Oh and then there was that one time he used RECARVE in a puzzle. Boy, that was ghastly! But did I mention he's completely adorable? Would you like to see a picture? I know you would.
So here's the thing about this puzzle. There is some awesome, awesome stuff in here. Then there's some stuff that really stinks. So let's just really quickly get this out of the way: NIS is the 25A: Serbian city where Constantine the Great was born. Huh. Interesting? Memorable? Fun? No. ACTA is clued as 32D: Court proceedings. Whatever. S-STARS? IPSA? (Don't try to act like you didn't try "ipso" first.) QUA? ORRS? AITCH? I could definitely do without any of that stuff. Actually QUA wasn't that bad for me because it tricked me: I tried both "per" and "ala" before it finally clicked into place. But that's all I'm going to say about the bad stuff because there's a lot more good stuff to talk about. Like …
STICK IT TO THE MAN(35A: Be revolting). Is that awesome or what? And BROMANCE? Will let's the young kids get away with all that hip slang. And that's a good thing! Plus, how crazy does LAILA ALI look in the grid with all her Ls and As and whatnot (3D: Boxer who wrote "Reach!")? I also like the dueling melt downs of WIGS(10D: Freaks (out)) and LOSE IT(34D: Freak). Everybody chill! Let's just run some bullets and get out of here.
Bullets:
1A: One likely to die on the road? (JALOPY). I know Rex was just talking about the Archie comics here the other day. Did someone in the Archie Gang drive a JALOPY? Because I always associate the word JALOPY with Archie. Or I bet it was Jughead. He seems like he would drive a JALOPY, right?
7A: What something may go down to (THE WIRE). I've heard so many great things about this show. (Yes, I know it's not clued as the show, but I'm just going off on a tangent, try to keep up.) But I've never seen it! Then all of a sudden one day, I'm looking at something on the Internet machine about it and I realize that the brother of a friend of mine was actually on the show. Now I definitely need to see it. Good thing we finally signed up for Netflix last week. What year is it again?
14A: Foster girl (JEANIE). This is a reference to Stephen Foster's famous song "Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair." But you knew that.
15A: Poster girl (TEEN IDOL). The most popular poster girl here at the PuzzleHouse is Taylor Swift. In fact, when I got home from work today, PuzzleDaughter and her friend immediately started explaining to me about how they had just been discussing how cool it would be if Taylor Swift came to PuzzleDaughter's birthday party because then maybe they could cut off a little piece of her hair and keep it as a souvenir. Also if she went to sleep, they could take a video of her sleeping. I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.
41A: San Francisco's Museo ___ Americano (ITALO). Thought we were looking for Spanish here, but I couldn't get Latino, Chicano, OR Mexicano to fit.
47A: Big hit (POW).
57A: "The Humbugs of the World" author, 1865 (P. T. BARNUM). Oh yeah, I liked the two guys with the two initials. J. J. ABRAMS(1D: Creator of TV's "Alias") looks especially cool in the grid with that J collision that seems like it should be totally wrong until you realize what's going on.
63A: 1974 hit with Spanish lyrics (ERES TU). I really wanted this to be "Oye Como Va" for some reason. Oh right, because it's a kick-ass song.
65A: The Allman Brothers Band, e.g. (SEXTET). Okay, one more video, but that's it.
38D: "Gentille" one of song (ALOUETTE). Does this song make anyone else think of Ginger on Gilligan's Island? Just me? Fair enough.
That's it for me for now. I might be back in a couple days. You just really never know who's gonna show up when Rex is … indisposed.
Hey, everybody. PuzzleGirl here with your Tuesday serving of puzzly goodness. Rex is sans Internet tonight for some reason, so you're stuck with me. Let's try to make the best of it, shall we?
Okay, some people don't like this type of theme, but I'm not one of them. I like a little something different now and then just to mix it up. I also think the JACK AND JILL answer is inspired. Doug and I were chatting about it and he said he thought the acrobats and Jack and Jill lead to the same definition of "tumblers," but I disagree. Jack and Jill are inadvertently falling down a hill having tripped on a rock or something. On the other hand, the circus people are doing that activity known as "tumbling" and though they may be rolling around much like someone falling down a hill, their actions are controlled and purposeful. I rest my case.
I'm not going to spend a lot of time here today. It's late, I'm tired, and I'm in Oprah Magazine. Wait, what? You didn't know I was in Oprah Magazine? Yes, I really am. Page 167 of the November issue if you just want to check it out in line at the grocery store. It's a section about people who have found a hobby they're passionate about. Mine is about scrapbooking. No no no, of course it isn't. It's about puzzles! It's just a little part of a bigger article, but it has my picture and everything so yeah, it's exciting. I mean, it's freaking Oprah.
Was there something else we were supposed to be talking about? Oh right, the puzzle. Setting aside a couple of clunkers (I'm looking at you OBEYER and KEY CASE) and the presence of URKEL, there's some pretty awesome fill here. I mean, how can you not like RABBIT TEST? That right there is a sparkly entry. Also, "WHERE TO?" I always get a kick out of the colloquial phrases.
