Chaiken co-creator/writer of The L Word / TUE 1-3-12 / Hitter of 511 career home runs / Baseball brothers George Ken / Fictional reporter Kent

Constructor: Allan E. Parrish

Relative difficulty: Medium (leaning toward Medium-Challenging)

THEME: Middleton and Jackson —two-word phrases where second word is an anagram of KATES

Word of the Day: EROSE (26D: Not even, as a leaf's edge) —

adj.
Irregularly notched, toothed, or indented: erose leaves.

[From Latin ērōsus, past participle of ērōdere, to gnaw off. See erode.]

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/erose#ixzz1iOeXeH2N

• • •

• Highlight: LORETTA! (25D: "Get back, ___ ... Go home" (Beatles lyric)) (also [Two-time All-Star second baseman Mark])
• Lowlight: ILENE (no offense to her personally, but she's an outlier here, fame-wise) (46A: ___ Chaiken, co-creator/writer of "The L Word")

Didn't think much of the theme, but LOVE the grid. It's essentially a themeless grid (i.e. low word-count, in this case 72) and from NE to SW corner, and particularly in the middle, it is very wide-open. I wasn't even sure where the theme answers were at first. Long Acrosses don't really jump out in a grid like this. Anyway, I'm impressed that a 72-worder can be Tuesday-easy. Maybe this was a *little* tougher than usual, but I was still well under 4, which is not outside my Tuesday norm at all. Hardest answer for me By Far was (irony!) MEL OTT (12D: Hitter of 511 career home runs), the crosswordiest baseball player of all (pace ALOU family). Simply was not expecting that answer to be anything except a single last name. "Who the hell is ... MELIOT? MELOIT? Who is this French Guy!!?" Had a little trouble up there also because I misspelled SELASSIE ("A" for "E" in that second slot), and then wrote in ABBOT for 16A: Often-consulted church figure (ELDER). I also had a little trouble getting into the SW because of a tenacious wrong answer at 45A: Expensive coat? (GILT). I had PELT, which works (or appears to work) for every cross but one—the "P"; if it hadn't been for the manifest wrongness of NEPLECTS (the last answer I got), I'd have finished with an error. As it was, I made an easy fix. Strange that I was willing to buy CUTEES as an appropriate spelling, but I was.


Theme answers:

• 17A: It goes in the ground at a campground (TENT STAKE)
• 24A: Four-wheeled wear (ROLLER SKATE)
• 35A: Tenderized cut of beef (MINUTE STEAK)
• 47A: "Huh ... what?" reactions (DOUBLE TAKES)
• 56A: "Ode on a Grecian Urn" poet (JOHN KEATS)
  

Speaking of MELOTT, this was an über-basebally puzzle, with a double dose of MELOTT (see also GIANT), and then a double double dose of baseball baseball brother brothers. There should be some way to clue the fact that you will only have heard of one of the brothers. George BRETT is a Hall-of-Famer active during my prime baseball fan years (ages 8-14), his brother... ? (22D: Baseball brothers George and Ken) Joe TORRE is the legendary Yankee manager. Frank ... ? (52A: Baseball brothers Joe and Frank)

[10D: Fictional reporter Kent]

Beware the CARROT ID of Jennifer ANISE-TON! It's an orange, licoricey nightmare!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Flying Cloud maker / SAT 11-19-11 / Old shippable shelter / Sea bream in sushi bar / Faux amateurs / For Laughing Out Loud memorist / Brand of literature

Constructor: Allan E. Parrish

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: McPeople — A pair of intersecting Mc- names in each quadrant of the grid

Word of the Day: ETESIAN (13D: Like some annual Mediterranean winds) —

adj.
Occurring annually. Used of the prevailing northerly summer winds of the Mediterranean.

[From Latin etēsius, from Greek etēsios, from etos, year.]

etesian e·te'sian n.

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/etesian#ixzz1e7OCpPHJ

• • •

This played Easy-Medium for me, but I can tell from the times at the NYT website that I'm in the minority, and I understand why. If I didn't teach a course on comics, and thus have at least a passing familiarity with the name George MCMANUS, I don't know what would've happened to me in that (deathly) NE corner. That thing was its own puzzle. Both Mc's were phenomenally obscure / old. Old-timey intersecting Old-timey coupled with ETESIAN intersecting NISI (!?!?) (22A: Like some divorce decrees) coupled with "The CID" ("The" When is it ever not "El"!?!?!) (10D: Alfonso VI exiled him, with "the") coupled with TAI (31A: Sea bream, in a sushi bar) — that's a recipe for trouble. I was bailed out several times in this puzzle by personal and/or puzzling experience. I'd seen [Flying Cloud maker] in puzzles before (REO). I know NISI is a Latin legal word, so even though the context here was baffling to me, I got it ("S" = last letter into the grid). IPO and CLU and EMU (33D: Noted six-foot runner) were all gimmes (cluing / answer length on IPO and EMU were dead giveaways). Biggest luck-out, besides the MCMANUS thing, was QUONSET (40D: Old shippable shelter), which I know about only from stumbling on it in some other crossword. Misspelled it QUINSET, but figured LOINS was probably not another word for [Fruitcakes], and fixed it. I thought figuring out the MC- theme would make this thing a piece of cake, and it certainly helped, but the cluing got ratcheted up enough to offset the McHelp.



Theme answers:

• MCGWIRE (1A: Cardinal making many round trips) — nice clue
  
• MCCOURT (1D: 1997 Pulitzer-winning memoirist)
• MCCAREY (?) (8A: "Going My Way" Best Director winner)
• MCMANUS (8D: George ___, "Bringing Up Father" cartoonist)
• MCQUEEN (38A: The King of Cool)
• MCCLAREN (?) (38D: Formula One racing legend Bruce)
• MCMAHON (42D: "For Laughing Out Loud" memoirist)
• MCBRIDE (42A: Martina with five #1 country hits) — by far the easiest of the Mc's to get
  

[29D: 1978 Grammy winner for the jazz album "Friends"] 
Not that fond of CARSON'S or its clue (17A: "___ Comedy Classics" (syndicated TV series)); I've never seen / heard of this alleged series. Is it still on? I assume it's something to do with Johnny Carson. Yes, here you go. It's a terrible partial, is what I'm saying. MADAMES isn't the greatest plural, but it saved my neck in the NE, so no complaints (18A: Pompadour and others). I was frustrated that I couldn't get the second half of either ICE- or RAIL- during my first pass at them (28A: Producer of a chilling effect + 47A: Track team member?). My brain actually went to COLA and CONE (?) before CUBE. The "Carmen" clue is mean-spirited, of course, but once I got the "CE-" I figure out what it was after. TAI was rough, though I know I've seen it before. BECCA, also rough (30D: Daughter on ABC's "Life Goes On"). That's going way back for a secondary TV character from a never-that-popular show. No idea who Baal Shem Tov is, but I had enough crosses to make HASIDIC pretty easy (61A: Like Baal Shem Tov's sect). Can't for the life of me remember who ETHAN Brand is. I wanted ELTON, but he plays basketball. Well, I guess I can be forgiven, since it's from a Nathaniel Hawthorne short story. One that I didn't read in college, apparently (20A: Brand of literature). My favorite clue / answer of the day was RINGERS (24D: Faux amateurs). I don't have a good explanation for why.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Folk singer Griffith / WED 11-24-10 / Performer dubbed Great Dane / Tampa Bay gridders / Infomercial host Gibbons

Constructor: Allan E. Parrish

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: SHUTTLES — names of six space shuttles are clued only by their # (i.e. #1, #2, etc.), which represents the chronological order of their first launches. Circles, forming what I imagine to be some kind of elliptical orbit, spell out the word SHUTTLES.

[Puzzle note reads: "When this puzzle is done, read the eight circled letters clockwise, starting with square #24, to identify this puzzle's theme"]


Word of the Day: CAT'S PAW (52A: Tool) —

n., pl., cat's-paws, also cats·paws.

1. A person used by another as a dupe or tool.
2. A light breeze that ruffles small areas of a water surface.
3. Nautical. A knot made by twisting a section of rope to form two adjacent eyes through which a hook is passed, used in hoisting.

[From a fable about a monkey that used a cat's paw to pull chestnuts out of a fire.] (answers.com)

• • •

Interesting puzzle, built solely because of the neat coincidence of the possibility for symmetrical grid arrangement. I don't think the circles do much for the puzzle—they add another theme element (good), but look a mess (bad). Maybe there is some rationale for their arrangement that I am missing. At any rate, it's a solid puzzle with an interesting, widely divergent array of pop culture clues scattered throughout the grid. Songs from the '60s (11A: Car that was the subject of a 1964 top 10 hit), '70s (11D: Andy with the #1 hit "Shadow Dancing"), and '80s (44A), TV shows from the '70s/'80s (12D) and '00s (39A), movies from the '90s (33A: Co-star of Hanks in "Forrest Gump"), and ... Victor BORGE (46A: Performer dubbed "The Great Dane").


Theme wasn't too hard to pick up. Took a good deal of clawing away at short answers, but once I got COLUMBIA, options narrowed down pretty quickly (Ivy League schools?). Once I noticed CHALL- and DISCO- hanging out there, I knew what I was dealing with. I had no idea that ENDEAVOUR had British spelling. That seems ... weird. Unamerican, even. According to wikipedia, "Endeavour was named through a national competition involving students in elementary and secondary schools. Entries included an essay about the name, the story behind it and why it was appropriate for a NASA shuttle, and the project that supported the name." Did they think the "U" made it ... fancy? Worse than spelling Americans writing "theatre," I think. CAT'S PAW has shown up several times in recent years in clues, but never as the answer. That answer took me longer to get than probably any other in the grid. Misspelled BANZAI (as BONZAI) (55A: W.W. II battle cry), never heard of this version of THOR (65A: Old space-launched rocket), couldn't remember if Mrs. Bush was née WELSH or WELCH (9D: Laura Bush's maiden name), and thought CRABBY (23A: Cantankerous) was ORNERY at first. Otherwise, nothing too troubling.


Theme answers:

• 30D: #1 (ENTERPRISE)
  
• 18A: #2 (COLUMBIA)
  
• 3D: #3 (CHALLENGER)
  
• 6D: #4 (DISCOVERY)
  
• 60A: #5 (ATLANTIS)
  
• 36D: #6 (ENDEAVOUR)
  

Bullets:

• 14A: Sesame seed-based sauce (TAHINI) — tasty, and an important component of hummus.
  
• 2D: Folk singer Griffith (NANCI) — saw her twice during my grad student days in Michigan. Super-talented, with an impossibly sweet voice.

• 69A: Team with a big B on its helmets (RAVENS) — "B" stands for Baltimore. They have a pretty good team this year. Playoff quality. Tied with the Steelers atop the AFC North.7-3 record, same as the other football team in the grid—the BUCS (7D: Tampa Bay gridders, for short)
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]