Destination of 1911 / SUN 5-1-11 / Naan cooker / Baroque painter Hals / Over three-quarters of bunsenite / Leonidas' kingdom

Constructor: Xan Vongsathorn

Relative difficulty: Who am I to say really?



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.
• 75A: ___ Stix (powdered candy brand) (PIXY). Memories!
• 81A: 52 semanas (AÑO). No comment.
• 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!

Love, PuzzleGirl

[Follow PuzzleGirl on Twitter] [Oh, and if you solve the L.A. Time puzzle on a regular basis, I'd love to have you join us over at L.A. Crossword Confidential.]

Folk rock singer Straw / SAT 11-27-10 / Moose Drool Trout Slayer / Old China essayist / Old dirk / Bond girl player Green / Tony winner Caldwell

Constructor: Xan Vongsathorn

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none


Word of the Day: WELTER (15A: Confusion) —

n.

1. A confused mass; a jumble: a welter of papers and magazines.
2. Confusion; turmoil.

intr.v., -tered, -ter·ing, -ters.

1. To wallow, roll, or toss about, as in mud or high seas.
2. To lie soaked in a liquid.
3. To roll and surge, as the sea.

[From Middle English welteren, to toss about, as in high seas, from Middle Low German or Middle Dutch, to roll.] (wikipedia)

• • •

This started out very rough, but it turns out I was just looking at bad starting answers. Once I finally stumbled into a couple little easy pockets, this thing opened right up and I was done in better-than-average time. Today's puzzle feels balanced—not overly contemporary, not overly old-fashioned. This is possibly because Mr. Vongsathorn is quite young, but more likely because Mr. Vongsathorn is just good. Feels very up-to-date, language-wise, in a way that most people of all ages can appreciate. While I don't care for the show itself, "THE BIGGEST LOSER" is a fresh answer (32A: Show in which many pots disappear?), and though the intersecting 15 doesn't do much for me (FIRST ONE TO BLINK feels slightly jury-rigged—7D: Defeated contestant in a face-off), I really like the Acrosses in the NE and SW, plus SENIORITIS (22A: High-class affliction?) and BOBBLEHEAD (47A: Bounce in a sports stadium?). STEEL JAWS is too gruesome for me (31D: Features of some bear traps), but I kind of like how animal cruelty is offset symmetrically by the more animal-friendly FREE-RANGE (6D: Like some chickens).

Started with SLUES (9D: Turns sharply) / SNEE. Anyone else? Anyone? [Old dirk] just screamed SNEE, and terminal -ES on 9D screamed SLUES. Please note that you can hear these screams *only* if you do a *lot* of crosswords. Other screams: four-letter Nabokov title (PNIN). Four-letter British institution (ETON; 26A: Historic institution near Slough). Four-letter District in southern Kazakhstan (ARAL). Three-letter constellation (ARA; 53D: Neighbor of Scorpius). Four-letter essayist (ELIA; 36D: "Old China" essayist). These are all answers that a constant solver is going to be able to suss out fairly readily. I had some other gimmes, but they were accidents of knowledge (e.g. JERI Ryan (51A: Ryan of "Star Trek: Voyager"), SYD Straw). Had some name trouble with and ZOE (21A: Tony winner Caldwell) and EVA (49A: Bond girl player Green) (whom I now realize I've seen before), as well as DRE (whom I *know* I've never seen before), but I worked it out via crosses. Got my first real bit of traction from ETON / SEPT / ETCH. From there I eventually got SENIORITIS, and the grid opened up in all directions from there.

Bullets:

• 40A: Moose Drool or Trout Slayer (ALE) — never heard of either, but educatedly guessed it once I had the "L" from ELIA in there.
  
• 4D: "Quickest way to Harlem," in song (A-TRAIN) — Ella's version is the one I know best.

• 12D: Alternatives to Triscuits (RITZES) — I submit that no one calls them this. "Do you want some Triscuits? Do you want some Ritz? ... somehow, colloquially, that "Z" does double duty as a plural ending (grammar be damned)
  
• 34D: Dinar earner (SERB) — I think there are many countries that have the dinar as currency, yet somehow I got this quickly, off just the "S"
  
• 42D: Adjective-less language (NAVAHO) — Very easy to get when you have -AHO already in place before you even see the clue.
  
• 50D: Setting of Mozart's only clarinet concerto: Abbr. (A MAJ.) — I listened to Mozart's Clarinet Quintet only yesterday—a birthday treat.

• 56D: Folk rock singer Straw (SYD) — far less famous than she should be. I own two of her albums. Love her style. Here's a cut from an album I played all throughout my college years.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]