Walcott on The Wall Street Journal Puzzle

2010-05-28T19:13:00.000-07:00

Coda: Why Stop Now?
Envoi for my puzzle blog.

1) Writing Career
I started this to keep in practice when the economy tanked all over my markets. Things have picked up to the point that dropping everything on Friday has gotten inconvenient. Yeah!

2) Vox Clamantis in Deserto
I never asked for a cult fan base but the radio silence has been deafening. When I started, I had one follower. Yippee! For a while I just had that one follower. Not so yip. Then my one follower decamped, leaving me feeling like an orphan puppy in a rain storm. Over the months I've had one viable comment (thank you). The rest have been foreign and of dubious linkage. I should have suspected that I'd want to hear from folks. I was one of those annoying kids always saying, 'Mommy, Mommy, look at me' or 'Mommy, Mommy, watch this.' What else is a blog but 'Hey Internet, watch this'?

3) Utility
I take it as read that people who create are higher on the food chain that those who comment. When I had a book column, I soothed myself that I wasn't a book critic as much as a book hunter, helping books find good homes. With a puzzle blog, reader and puzzle have already met. I did locate a few cool websites but wasn't really adding any new data to the system.

I so wanted to be a person who'd had a blog for a year. The symmetry appealed. However, the arbitrariness of the goal could not hold out against the above.

I will miss the Constructor's Corner.

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2010-05-21T12:50:00.000-07:00

Friends in Low Places
by Harvey Estes
edited by Mike Shenk
May 21, 2010

Commentary: Back at ?
Taking a blog break for a day, a week, forever ....
you'll be the second to know.

"Create because you love it & it brings you joy,
not because this is your assigned hobby."
BrickJournal Issue 5, Volume 2, Spring 2009, p20

ACPT Countdown Clock: 300 days
Friday, May 21, 2010, to Friday, March 18, 2011.

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2010-05-14T15:20:00.000-07:00

Insurance Claims
by Marie Kelley
edited by Mike Shenk
May14, 2010
Marie Kelly is "Really Mike"

As of this posting, full answers not yet available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page. Therefore, take these answers with a condiment of sensibility.

Theme: HMO inserted to make the clued phrase.
SINGH MOLE SPACING {23A Distance between golfer Vijay's blemishes?}
CASH MOTOR OIL {29A Singer Johnny's auto care product?}
DISH MONEY LAND {41A Area where chefs get paid?}
SLIDING SCHMO ALE {63A Brew whose mascot is a jerk coming home lying down?}
RAHM ON THE SHOW {87A Barack's chief of staff making a TV appearance?}
SHAH MOVED ICE {101A Ousted Iranian monarch got a job hawking sorbet?}
MATH MORON OF HONOR {109A Title awarded to the student who does worst in algebra?}
I was hoping for a common and therefore comment-able root between the five MO__ words. No luck: Middle Low German, Classical Latin, Anglo-Norman (2), & ancient Greek. I guess "mo" is an easy noise to make in English & we use it for all manner of adaptions.

Admissions of Defeat: 1 square
ETHELS {119A Waters and others}/ALFRE {100D Emmy winner Woodard}. I guessed A at the intersection ?THELS/ALFR?. Drat. I can't seem to get that last square for a perfect score.

Commentary: Book Recommendation
Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs by Ken Jennings (Villard 2006). Jennings was the fellow with the 75-game Jeopardy! run in 2003. He writes about that interspersed with the history of trivia. Answer: buzzer management, nerves, and knowledge. Question: What are the important factors for playing on Jeopardy! in order?

Naturally, every person wants their particular patch of turf to be greenest and bestest. "And, unlike a game of pinochle or an issue of Easy Crosswords magazine, trivia often delivers content that's far from trivial." [p152] Ok, I'll give him easy but what about hard crosswords? What position could be less trivial that the White House Chief of Staff? Plus we have to manipulate words from from Disney to DISH MONEY. Ack! Thppt! Our patch is better. Furthermore, he has the nerve ! to call Stamford, "an elite national tournament for even the geekiest of endeavors."[p236] OTOH, coming from someone who calls himself a "nerd folk icon," [p235] this might be a compliment. But really, it's a distinction without a difference. What could be a better audience for a Jeopardy! book than a hardcore crossword puzzle crowd?

Wordplay got me doing crosswords regularly. Brainac got me watching Jeopardy! again. Is it life-changing if the change is small?

Commentary: Shortness excuse
The paying word pile that delayed last week's blog took the rest of this week to wrestle to the ground. I find my desire to wiggle my fingers over the keyboard severely limited at the moment. (Except for talking about books. I could do that from a coma.)

ACPT Countdown Clock: 307 days
Friday, May 14, 2010, to Friday, March 18, 2011.

Constructor's Corner: Marie Kelly
"I realized going into this puzzle that the resulting theme answers would be pretty peculiar, which means that they're more challenging to clue in a way that makes them sound sensible. I hope I succeeded with at least a couple of them.

"My favorite answer that didn't fit into the finished puzzle because I had no answer of the same length to balance it: ELECTRIC SHAH MOVER. (I imagine some kind of golf cart-like vehicle with a Peacock Throne mounted on it.) So the SHAH had to settle for a shorter answer.

"I also had BRING HOME THE BACH MOON on my list. That would have been funny after last week's Capitalist Pig puzzle."

Thank you Ms. Kelly.

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2010-05-08T17:29:00.000-07:00

Capitalist Pig
by Dan Fisher
edited by Mike Shenk
May 7, 2010

Full answers available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page.

Theme: Piiiiigs Iiiiiiin Puuuuuzzle*
BRING HOME THE BACON {22A What the capitalist pig will do by working} - One page says the phrase is from a 12th C church in England, two others say a boxing match in the 20th C. The first theory is awfully specific for 900 years ago. In the second case, the phrase must have already had currency for the sportscaster to use it, otherwise why not bring home the pancakes? Either way, a ghoulish thing for a pig to do. And - apparently - an illegal thing for chefs to do. Bacon fandom.
GRUNT WORK {36A What the capitalist pig did in his first job} - We've all done grunt work. The OED says it began with the workers who stay on the ground to help electrical linemen. Are there linewomen out there? Either way, they too have a fan base - and targeted products.
THE PICK OF THE LITTER {43A What the capitalist pig's financial clout gives him when shopping} - Okay, I also thought it meant best.
SILK PURSE FROM A SOW'S EAR {69A What even a capitalist pig can't make} - But the chemists at Arthur D. Little can. Really, ya gotta look.
LIVING HIGH ON THE HOG {88A How the capitalist pig enjoys his wealth} - Another ancient seeming phrase with a modern pedigree.
PEN PUSHER {99A What the capitalist pig was earlier in his career} - I got nuthin.
CONGRESSIONAL PORK {115A What the capitalist pig embraces when elected to office} - Wiki says this originates with a 1863 story by Edward Everett Hale. That is one cannibalistic porker. For those who wish to watch the CPs in action.

News To Me: 13
Words
FIDO {6A Name that means "faithful"} - I thought it just meant dog.
ENOUNCES {84D States} - as in enunciate, from the French enoncer (with'). OED

Movie, TV, Radio & Book
EGAN {31A Richard of "A Summer Place"}
SIAE {42A Phillips of "I, Claudius"}
FIBBER {1D Molly's husband} - famous radio duo & owner of famed closet.
SO BIG {10D Nickname of Dick DeJong in a 1924 novel} - Edna Ferber, Pulitzer in 1925.

People
AALTO {109A Architect known as "The Father of Modernism"}

Places
INCA {123A Kingdom of Cuzco native} - Peru.
HIPPO {83D Kruger National Park sight} - South Africa. Krugerrand should have been a tipoff, but no.
NICOSIA {91D Divided world capital} - Cy pr us. Divided Greek & Turkish.

Songs
EBB TIDE {62A Hit for Vic Damone & the Righteous Brothers} - & Sinatra
AGER {80A Milton who composed "Hard Hearted Hannah"} - Ella Fitzgerald
OYE {116D "Oye Como Va"} - Tito Puente & Santana

Admissions of Defeat: 2
AALT+pick-a-vowel/NIC-where??-SIA
SIA__mystery letter__/OWN TO {30D Acknowledge} - Could have been OWe TO.

Admission of Incomprehension: 1
ISES {74A Follower's suffix} - ??

Commentary:
I had thought this would give me opportunity to pontificate on the importance of pigs in our culture and pig idioms in our language. Instead surfing showed me that the world is a vast and weird place. I keep learning this lesson and then finding out it is even more v&w than I had thought.

*The Muppets have their own Wiki. That's fame.

ACPT Countdown Clock: 314 days
Friday, May 7, 2010, to Friday, March 18, 2011.

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2010-05-07T18:40:00.000-07:00

Capitalist Pig
by Dan Fisher
edited by Mike Shenk
May 7, 2010

The paying gigs interfered. Tune in tomorrow, or by the end of this weekend at the latest.

ACPT Countdown Clock: 314 days
Friday, May 7, 2010, to Friday, March 18, 2011.

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2010-04-30T18:50:00.000-07:00

E-Books
by Judith Seretto
edited by Mike Shenk
April 30, 2010

As of this posting, full answers not yet available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page. Therefore, take these answers with requisite grain of salt.

Theme: Literature with an E
FEATHERS AND SONS {21A Book about characters like Icarus?} - Ivan Turgenev

WEAR AND PEACE {31A Book about concerns of an army tank maintainer?} - Leo Tolstoy

HEARD TIMES {41A Book about a newspaper's audio version?} - Charles Dickens

THE LEAST OF THE MOHICANS {63A Book about a tribe's smallest member?} - James Fenimore Cooper. Diary of a Crossword Fiend has a point, “How come we never just call him Cooper?” Compare JFC to the rest of these authors, although Seuss is usually Dr.

RABBIT RUNE {83A Book about a symbol found on a prehistoric burrow wall?} - John Updike

AS I LAY DYEING {93A Book about a relaxed beautician?} - William Faulkner

THE CAT IN THE HEAT {107A Book about a pet basking in sunlight?} - Dr. Seuss

Word of the Week: ISOGRAMS
{11D Words with no repeated letters}
Pursuing this intriguing concept led me to
Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics
Making the Alphabet Dance by Ross Eckler
Language on Vacation: An Olio of Orthographical Oddities by Dmitri Borgmann
How can I go so quickly from complete ignorance to I must have this?

Recreational linguistics, also called logology, is the study of words, particularly letter patterns. Logology can also refer to the study of corporate logos, which are all about the visuals. Logos also has a biblical application that is above my pay grade. Therefore logo can be text, graphics, or content. English is weird.

News To Me: 6
ENVOI {33D Poetic summary} - related to a diplomatic envoy because the final words are sending the poem out into the world. So says the OED.

PATEN {54D Eucharist plate}

HAVER {65D June of “Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay!”}

MARNI {73D Dubbing legend Nixon} - “Miss Nixon is the singing voice of Deborah Kerr, Natalie Wood and Audrey Hepburn in the Motion Pictures and on the Soundtracks of The King and I, An Affair to Remember, West Side Story, and My Fair Lady.” Legend indeed.

HUG {109D Bear's offering} - for any other reason than bearhug? Given the venue, a stock tip? I recently learned about the bear subculture from Logo TV. Forget heaven & earth, there are more things in my immediate neighborhood than are dreamt of in my philosophy. BTW – and yet another use of logo.

EMO {110D Dashboard Confessional's music} - What the heck *is* emo anyway?

Admissions of Defeat: 1 or 2...
...depending how you count. Took flyers on a nest of 5 squares involving 5 words. Got 4 of the squares and 3 of the words.

Correctly guessed
??T?R {68A Gunpowder ingredient} - NITER, after giving up on wedging in peTER, as in salt-.
PAT?N {54D} – PATEN, as above
CA?N? {60D “Deathtrap” co-star} – CAINE, as in Michael. Particularly difficult as I kept reading Death Wish.

Missed the intersecting D
O??R {75A German border river} & E?I? {64D Writer Blyton} - ODER & ENID not OsER & ENIs. A reasonable guess, if wrong, no?

ACPT Countdown Clock: 321 days
Friday, April 30, 2010, to Friday, March 18, 2011.

Added later.
Constructor's Corner: Judith Seretto
"When I came up with the idea for an e-books puzzle, my first thought was prefixing titles with an E to make new titles. After a bit of work on this idea with no good examples, I realized I had to be a bit more flexible.

Here are a few of the titles I came up with that didn't fit into the finished puzzle: THE RED PEONY; THE GRAPES OF WREATH; INVISIBLE MEAN; and the very questionable THE GOLDEN BOWEL."

Thank you Ms. Seretto.

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2010-04-16T10:00:00.000-07:00

Joint Accounts
by Alice Long
edited by Mike Shenk
April 16, 2010
&
?
by ?
edited by Mike Shenk
April 23, 2010

Delay of game.
I will be volunteering at a horse show next week. Like a backed-up drain, that has pushed my chores from next week into this week. No time for puzzle fun. I will get to the 4/16 and 4/23 puzzles but it may be May.

ACPT Countdown Clock: 335 days
Friday, April 16, 2010, to Friday, March 18, 2011.

Back soon.
Puzzle Fan

2010-04-09T20:01:00.000-07:00

Moral Compass
by Brendan Emmett Quigley
edited by Mike Shenk
April 9, 2010

As of this posting, full answers not yet available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page. Therefore, take these answers with g. of salt.

Theme: A timely tax quote
THE BEST MEASURE OF {24A Start of a quote by 83-Across}
A MANS HONESTY {36A Part 2 of the quote}
ISNT HIS INCOME {50A Part 3 of the quote }
TAX RETURN ITS THE {65A Part 4 of the quote}
ZERO ADJUST ON {97A Part 5 of the quote}
HIS BATHROOM SCALE {111A End of the quote}
ARTHUR C CLARKE {83A Science fiction author and source of the quote}
Wiki attributes this to “The Mammoth Book of Zingers, Quips, and One-Liners (2004) by Geoff Tibballs, p. 264.” The man, the foundation, the quotes – which are worth a detour. I tried to pick one as an example but wanted to paste them all. A blogger starving between two pages of text.

The quote is also cited in a list of tax quotes by the IRS, which proves that someone there has a sense of humor, not matter how unlikely that seems to someone else who was up until 1 am wrestling with Form 2210's Annualized Income Installment Method.

Letter of the Puzzle: W
I don't have the cool crucimetrics of An Englishman but I couldn't help noticing lots of spiky letters. This was no mistake, in an interview, the constructor said, “I think going all Scrabbly with the fill is, on the whole, a good thing.”

News To Me: 7
OCARINA {21A Instrument with finger holes} – a old-time flute.
REFIT {55A Accouter anew} - as in accoutrements.
EReS {57A Aces' are low} – No idea. All I get are Spanish sites. I'm thinking the ' after Aces is important. I'm fairly sure about the crossings but am open to amendment. Later: Diary of a Crossword Fiend says, “57A. [Aces' are low] – ERAS. As in baseball pitchers.” I misspelled Lamb Chop's alter ego!?! {SHARI 45D Lewis with Lamb Chop} Shame on me. I adore both Ms. Lewis and Ms. Chop. I saw them live at the Kennedy Center years ago and her (Shari's) ability to enthrall a concert hall of both kids & adults has become one my definitions of what it means to be an entertainer. This is the song that never ends..., available as ringtone & MP3 download. Even later: This is the song that never gets out of your head...

IPANEMA {63A Beach adjacent to Copacabana Beach} – in Brazil not on old CDs.
PTRAP {64D Letter-shaped plumbing fitting} – I would have, and tried to, call it a u-bend.
ESTO {105D “___ perpetua” (Idaho motto)} – It is perpetual.
ORTS {107D Table scraps} – Perhaps a new clue could be Oral Rehydration Therapy. OK, it doesn't pass the breakfast test but it's such a simple fix to a serious problem.

Admissions of Defeat: 0? Make that 1?
The constructor must have toned down the fill for a quote puzzle, o/w there is no way I'd move that quickly nor successfully through a BEQ puzzle. Thursday was my day to feel smart. Since this puzzle was posted the night before, it was the same day as Matt Ginsberg's NYT Jabberwocky puzzle [4/8/10]. MG is another constructor who causes me to sigh in resignation when I see his name on the top of the page. However, I've always said that my poetry appreciation ends with Jabberwocky – and now it's finally done me some good.

Both puzzles also had ENTS{59A Forest of Fangorn creatures}/ {57D Tolkien creatures}NYT and NEER {17D“I __ saw true beauty till this night”: Romeo}/{26D Opposite of alway}NYT. I'm going to stop doing that. One could spend hours cross-referencing words that appear between various puzzles in a given week. I don't need to give any more invitation to the Terrible Trivium, the “demon of petty tasks and worthless jobs, ogre of wasted effort, and monster of habit.” [The Phantom Tollbooth by Norman Juster, Random, 1961 p213] No really, it's more efficient to have my colored pens sorted by type.

ACPT Countdown Clock: 342 days
Friday, April 9, 2010, to Friday, March 18, 2011.

Constructor's Corner: BEQ
“Well, I've known Mike Shenk for as long as he's been editing the Wall Street Journal puzzles, and since it's my Dad's favorite newspaper, I feel like I have to make sure to appear in there every now and again. Usually, the hardest parts for making a WSJ puzzle is coming up with a suitable "business-y" theme. In this instance, I found that the taxes related quote could split up symmetrically (not as easy as you'd think). Mike liked it, and we rushed it to print in time before 4/15.

“The hardest part for me was the SE section. 75-Down, specifically. When you have a long entry like that, you really want it to pop. It took a while to come up with something clean (always crucial) and fresh. Of course, as dumb luck would have it, the entry in the grid I sent Mike is a crucial entry that is appearing in tomorrow's variety puzzle. So, he redid the corner. Great minds think alike, I guess.”

Thank you, Mr. Quigley.
[75D appeared as TALETELLER {Raconteur}]

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2010-04-06T07:41:00.000-07:00

Pole Dance
by Patrick Blindauer
edited by Mike Shenk
April 2, 2010

Full answers available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page.

Theme: Geomagnetic reversal comes early & suddenly.
PANNED THE BUCK {23A Gave Bambi a bad review?}- passed
BOSUN TRACK {38A Career path for a petty officer?}- bonus
FROST LAWS {49A Rules concerning cold cases?}- front lawns
PUNNY CAT {58A Hipster who's a quipster?}- pussy
CHARITY CANE {68A Support for the sympathetic?}- case
CLONE COMBAT {76A Conflict between truly identical twins}- close. Can something be more identical? Yes, if you put it to music. Apparently identical twins aren't.
SASSY CAM {89A Impertinent Hockey Hall of Famer Neely?}- nanny
FUSSY GIRL {98A Lass who's hard to please?}- funny
NEW AGE TASK {108A Endeavor for Enya?}- sewage tank
DETROIT PINTOS {125A Painted ponies from Michigan?}- Pistons

Crosswordpuzzlese: Yeah or Nay?
Elizabeth Gorski says that crosswordese doesn't exist. I disagree, it's like pornography, you know it when you see it. Or for a more operational definition, facts to commit to memory because you're Gonna See Them Again:
ERATO {40A Muse of love poetry} & her sisters.
Everything about Arthur ASHE {56D “Off the Court” autobiographer} & Yoko ONO {127D Walking on Thin Ice” singer}.
ILER {5D Robert of “The Sopranos”} – We better hope that R.I. gets a new gig once this one runs its cultural course.
&
TSAR{24D Pre-Lenin leader} – Although the editor is on record as saying he prefers Czar. [1st question under Ask? Will]

News To Me: 6
BICEPS {29A “Guns”} - All over the Web. Nothing definitive.
INDRA {46A God of war and storms, in Hinduism}
NAS {61A”Illmatic” rapper} - debut album
OTO {37D Native Oklahoman}
TASM {60D Loc. of some devils} - as in Tasmania?
OILY {122D Pinguid} - Who doesn't envision a greasy penguin?
Small world. Friday evening my hubby uses guns in conversation, in reference to the shirt policy at his gym. I'd never heard the word before that day. Then on Sunday, I read that “Blue denoted .... the raincloak of Indra, the war and fertility god of the Hindus.” in The Healing Power of Color by Betty Wood [Destiny 1984/1992] p15. Ditto.

Admissions of Defeat: 2 of 7
While I admire the puzzle's puns & plays, i.e. C CUP {34D Support spec} or SENS {19D D.C. 100}, I get cranky when a 48 year-old song [ESO BESO {75A 1962 Paul Anka hit}] crosses a local politician [CORY {71D Newark mayor Booker}] or when two actors intersect [OLMOS {57A “Battlestar Gallactica” star}/OSSIE{45D Ruby's longtime husband}]. Surprisingly I got those right, despite the fact that OSSIE has nothing to do with and is not even spelled the same as Ozzy Osbourne. So, while my score was two technically, I took a flyer on seven squares & really should have gotten RIDS {81A Clears} from ?I?S. If you don't know that DALASI is {83D Gambia's monetary unit} there's not much you can do. But for not getting a simple English word there is no one to crank at but oneself.

Commentary: Delay
Apologies. I am aware that predictability is a plus for posting. However, this weekend has not been my favorite few days.
--- The joy is that animals live with us. ---
--- The sorrow is that they do not live as long as us. ---
Paraphrased from somewhere. On to more cheerful topics.

ACPT Countdown Clock: 349 days
Friday, April 2, 2010, to Friday, March 18, 2011.

Constructor's Corner: Patrick Blindauer
“My latest 'word baby' started out even more complicated with all 4 directions in play. N would become E, E become S, S become W, and W become N, but it became clear pretty quickly that it would be hard to
find a decent set of theme answers (it's especially tough to change a vowel to a consonant or a consonant to a vowel). I narrowed the scope by focusing on N and S, thought of the title, and was on my way. Sort of.

“I found a few good entries on my own off the top of my head, but I figured there were more waiting to be discovered. So I turned to my friend the computer to help me find all the possibilities; I doubt I would've ever found NEWAGETASK on my own. FWIW, I replaced every S in my word list with *, replaced every N with S, and replaced every * with N, which switched all the N's with all the S's. Then I compared this new list with the original and kept only those words on both lists, which gave me possible theme words upon which to build. A favorite unused theme answer: THEBRADYBUSCH (13).”

Thank you Mr. Blindauer

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2010-03-26T22:24:00.000-07:00

“Enough!”
by Myles Callum
edited by Mike Shenk
March 26, 2010

Full answers not yet available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page. So take all answers with g. of salt.

Theme: Phrases joined by the letters TMI and clued with Too Much Information.
FILET MIGNON {23A *Cut from the tenderloin – its name means “dainty cut”!}
SALT MINES {25A *Sources of halite – that's a type of evaporitic deposit!}
DETROIT MICHIGAN {35A *Midwest metropolis – it has a view of Canada to the south!} - The southwestern section of Ontario runs between Lakes Huron and Erie, passing south and west of the eastern edge of the lower Michigan peninsula – a toe of Canada under the thumb of the mitten, as it were. Windsor, the city at the tip and the southernmost area of Canada, connects to Detroit by the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel. Similarly, I am always surprised at how much of California is east of Reno, NV. I tend to think of the states as neatly-outlined, brightly-colored boxes rather than as accretions formed war, transportation, and/or commerce. Where did I come by such grid-like thinking? For the full story on state borders, see How the States Got Their Shapes by Mark Stein [Collins 2008], an historical trivia goldmine.
ROBERT MITCHUM {55A *“Night of the Hunter” star – his middle names are Charles Durman!}
I DONT MIND A BIT {76A *“Fine by me!” - that sounds like something Mr. Ed might say!}
CABINET MINISTER {98A *High-ranking official – Canada's Leona Aglukkaq is one!}
GRIST MILL {114A *Flour-making plant – the Greek geographer Strabo wrote about one!}
COCONUT MILK {116A *White liquid used in cooking – it's called gata in the Philippines!} - Part of Thai cooking.
TMI {71D Briefly, a feature of each starred clue, and a chunk of its answer}

It's a Small, Small Puzzle World: 4
Given 242 answers in this puzzle and ~2000 words during the week (2 puzzles [LAT & NYT] x 6 days x over-100 words per puzzle + 2 Sunday puzzles x over-200 wpp + large fudge factor), odds are something will repeat. I'm not talking about bizarre crosswordpuzzlese but simple English words or puns with similar sensibilities. There are a finite number of English words and an even smaller set that fit happily into a crossword. However, this week hits one of those weird statistical blips between the weekly WSJ puzzle and today's [Friday 3/26/10] LA Times:
OR SO {31A Estimator's phrase}WSJ &{14A End of an estimate}LAT
LOL {13D Online chuckle} WSJ & {60D Tester's tehee*} LAT
CELL {11A Pen holder} WSJ & FELON {47D Pen resident} LAT
ROSE {84D Got up} WSJ & AROSE {38A Lost a lap?} LAT
*I would have said teehee but Urban Dictionary says it's a cute girlish laugh.

News To Me: 3
ELIHU {19A Benefactor Yale} - long version of the crossword-familiar Eli.
ANIS {29D Tropical cuckoos}
ONE O(ld) CAT {93D Classic baseball variant} - “This is town-ball modified to suit the occasion when only three or four boys play the game.” What, girls can't play?

Admissions of Defeat: 0?
Guessed on OCTAL {6A Notation used for Unix permissions}/COGNOMEN {7D Handle} - lOGNOMEN? nOGNOMEN? During my daily weight-bearing-stave-off-osteoporosis walk, the random noise in my head offer up COG- as in cognate, cognition, etc. That makes OCT- which sounds sufficiently computeresque. BTW, I believe the usage is UNIX. WSJ style may dictate otherwise. Also guessed on TNN {33A It became Spike in 2003}/ANIS. Was it The Nashville Network? By Jove, it was. Knowing the answer is the best, but guessing right is a close second.

ACPT Countdown Clock: 356 days
Friday, March 26, 2010, to Friday, March 18, 2011.
Likelihood of my attendance at the ACPT: 20%.
Down from a baseline of 30%. Had trouble with Wed & Thurs NYT this week. Only a decent showing on this puzzle saves it from going lower. I thought lack of progress was frustrating. Now I'm backsliding!

Constructor's Corner: Myles Callum
bio, scroll down
“The hard part is coming up with a theme that will be fun or reasonably entertaining. For the Wall Street Journal, I sometimes comb through financial glossaries looking for terms to play off or construe literally, like "Back Pay," where you can come up with lively entries that have words at the end that are synonyms for money-e.g., SHAKE YOUR BOOTY, HIT A SOUR NOTE, LOVE ME TENDER, etc. And I like doing puzzles that have words or acronyms hidden inside, like the TMI in this one. But the fun part here was getting the idea to liven it up by also giving "too much information" in the clues.

“It´s always instructive to see how Mike Shenk changes your puzzle, both in clues and grid fill. My 1-Across was RATSO, which Mike changed to LOTTO. That didn't surprise me; even as I used it, I was afraid RATSO was too easy because the limited clues are giveaways.

“My original clue for FILET MIGNON was "Cut from the tenderloin. It´s also called the psoas major!" But Mike changed the TMI part to "-its name means `dainty cut´!" which I like a lot better; my version was too esoteric by half, even though it was definitely too much information. Mike also has strong feelings about words used in grid fill, and in most of my early puzzles there were a lot of changes. In my more recent puzzles there are fewer changes, so after 12 years I may be getting the hang of it.”

Thank you Mr. Callum.

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2010-03-19T19:04:00.000-07:00

Pontification
by Joon Pahk
edited by Mike Shenk
March 19, 2010

Full answers not yet available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page. So take all answers with the appropriate amount of salt. (I still haven't figured out how to amend a blog without reposting and changing the date – and if I'm going to have my act together sufficiently to post this early, I want it recorded!)

Theme: Papal names inserted into common phrases.
URBANE COMMERCE {23A Suave business dealings?}
ALL INCLEMENT {33A Totally stormy?}
KOSHER SALTPETER {52A Ingredient for making gunpowder during passover?}
SATURN BENEDICTION {71A Blessing from a Roman deity?}
PRODIGAL PAULSON {88A Former Treasury secretary who couldn't keep to a budget?}
SIMONLEON SAYS {104A Game in which money talks?}
MIRACLE GROPIUS {121A Wondrous Bauhaus School founder?}
A list of popes.

Full disclosure: Got the pontifical connection. Was less than impressed with the resulting theme answers. I expect better. Totally missed that it was an insertion theme until reading Mr. Pahk's discussion below. I'll take stupid for $200, Alex. In his blog about the 2010 ACPT, Tyler Hinman says, “Here's a little tip: If you have "I guess that sort of makes sense" crossing "I guess that's just a word I've never heard before," YOU'RE WRONG, DUMBASS.” My corollary, if two professional and way-smart cruciverbalists create what seems to be a flaccid puzzle, YWDA.

Nomination for Word of the Week: SANTA
There has to be a very special level of punsters' hell for someone who can clue this with {104D Pole star}. It's the sort of answer where you get the word and have a minute to think, Huh? before the sandbag of sense thumps you upside the pun bone. Also MOO {99D Lea low} - a low in the lea, not a clever term for low-lying meadow & DRESSER {130A Unmentionable place} - a place for unmentionables. Mr. Pahk would easily hold his own at a pun tournament in Callahan's Crosstime Saloon [Spider Robinson /Ace 1977, Tor 1999].

News to Me: 4
PI DAY {117A March 14, to math teachers} - It's got it's own web page. It must exist.

ACETAL {126A Volatile solvent}

ORNETTE {127A Jazz great Coleman}

NO MAS {108A Roberto Duran's uncle?} - Spanish for no more, i.e. crying uncle. Apparently Duran is known for saying that in a rematch with Sugar Ray Leonard. Or maybe not.

Admissions of Defeat: ??
Results skewed this week. I got so excited about the new section that I read it before finishing the puzzle. Had been hung up on a 5x13 box in the bottom, left corner. Still, I never would have gotten HOMESLICE {82D Bro}. HOMEboy & HOMies wouldn't stretch and even I drew the line at HOMEdudes. With that & SIMOLEON SAYS (& the massive theme hint), I completed the rest with no ?s, although that doesn't guarantee no errors. Filed between the Aggg of last week and Almost of the week before.

ACPT Countdown Clock: 363 days
Friday, March 19, 2010, to Friday, March 18, 2011.

Likelihood of my attendance at the ACPT: 30% and falling.
Took a stab at the 2009 puzzles, available by mail. Flew through #1 – ARMS RACE by Byron Walden. Came to a screeching halt on #2 – ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF by Brendan Emmett Quigley. Am girding loins to look at #3.

Enough from me. Below I have started a new section, to which Mr. Pahk was generous enough to contribute.

Constructor's Corner: Joon Pahk
“Random thoughts about the puzzle's construction:

“i don't remember the origin of this puzzle. you might think that PIUS -> GROPIUS would have to be the seed entry, but i don't think that was actually the case. it might actually be one of those puzzles where the title asserted itself first, and then the theme fleshed itself out around it. the idea of doing an insertion theme where you don't insert the same letter or letters every time is, if not exactly new, at least rarely seen. so i wanted to try that, but of course you need to have the inserted bits fall into a narrowly-defined group; otherwise it's just unfair on the solver. anyway, i have a bit of a thing for catholic trivia, but it turns out there are only so many pope names that are famous as being pope names as well as usable in this kind of wordplay. JOHN PAUL is probably the most famous pope name among the current generation, but of course it's not really a part of any longer word or phrase. the same was very nearly true of PIUS; i'm certainly familiar with walter gropius, but i was a bit concerned that he wasn't quite famous enough for a theme answer. the only pope that had a lot of lively pun possibilities was LEO, perhaps in part because it's the shortest, and perhaps because it's the only one that could be slipped into the middle of a word instead of having to be tacked onto the beginning or end. some ideas that i left on the cutting room floor were LEONINE TAILS, HOWDY LEOPARD, OLEO PIONEERS, and the sneaky PILE ON CUSHIONS. i'm pretty happy with SIMOLEON SAYS as the best of the bunch, though, especially with the apt clue about "money talks." (while we're here, happy 60th birthday to my father-in-law, also named LEO.)

“i think the original version of this puzzle had 8 theme answers: the 7 popes in the final version plus JOHN. but JOHN wasn't doing very much other than just sitting there. i think the answer was CHICKEN LITTLE JOHN. and the fill wasn't very good. on the advice of brendan emmett quigley, i redid the puzzle with just the seven strongest theme answers, and to compensate for the relatively light theme, i tried to go for a low word count (136, not easy to do in a 21x puzzle), resulting in some wide-open spaces. there are a few more partial phrases (EYE ON, IS MY, SAID A, ARE UP, IN HER) and a few more "cheater" squares in the grid than i usually prefer, but overall i'm pleased with the fill. HOMESLICE is a new answer that i was very excited about, and the US HISTORY/THE NATION stack is pretty fun. i also kind of liked {They lean to the right}, ITALS, sitting on top of {Left-leaning weekly}, THE NATION, in the grid.”

Thank you Mr. Pahk

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2010-03-16T11:03:00.000-07:00

Signs of the Times
by Randolph Ross
edited by Mike Shenk
March 12, 2010

Full answers available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page.

Theme: Road signs starting common phrases
ONE WAY OR ANOTHER {22A Somehow}
SLOW MOTION REPLAY {30A Sports analyst's aid}
ENTER THE DRAGON {46A 1973 Bruce Lee classic}
STAY RIGHT THERE {82A “Don't move!”}
WRONG WAY CORRIGAN {98A Directionally challenged pilot of 1938}
STOP THE BLEEDING {111A Get a bad situation under control}
YIELD THE FLOOR {3D Let someone else speak}
EXIT INTERVIEW {54D Conversation after canning}

Nomination for Word of the Week: EGOISTS {64A I guys}
To my mind, egoist is a pompous way to say egotist, but the OED gives three definitions of the former, only one of which = the latter. Both talk about themselves, in addition, an -ist uses self as, “the guiding principle of his conduct.”

People of the Puzzle: EDISON {43D Holder of 1,093 patents}
1,093! A fact worth a pause for respect.

MOHS {74D Scale on which diamond is 10} – Is it immortality if society knows the name but only science knows the person? Poor Frederick doesn't even make Anonyponymous by John Bemelmans Marciano [Bloomsbury 2009].

Crosswordpuzzlese: DRE {11D Rap Dr.}
Got right off. So, either I'm getting cooler or doing too many crossword puzzles – which is likely to lead the other way. Geek Power!

News to Me: PAWLs {97D Ratchet parts}
The widget that moves the toothed wheel.

Admissions of Defeat: Nevermind.
Too many mystery Proper Noun crosses such as WILEY{25A Pilot Post}/ODAY{5D Jazz Singer Anita} (which I got) or LEON{51A First name in the CIA}/SENNETT{30D Mack, maker of madcap movies} (which I did not). ASHpit/ASHPAN? {39A Fireplace receptacle}. BAAaaaaaa{41A Sheepish response}. File in the Thank You for Playing category.

Commentary: The im/possibility of improvement?
When I first started doing puzzles regularly, I saw a jump in performance after 2-3 months. Since then I've been stuck. Good days/weeks; then bad. So, is it possible to move from a mid-level puzzler to an expert? Or does a certain type of intelligence lend itself to a certain level of puzzling and ya gotta dance with what ya brung? Gloom flowers strewn in my path this week.

ACPT Countdown Clock: 370 days
Friday March 12, 2010, to March 18, 2011.

Likelihood of my attendance at the ACPT: 30%.
Base level of interest: 10% NYC, 10% PuzzleFest, 10% interested traveling companion. 0% of 25% each for Friday NYT, Saturday NYT, & Fireball. Didn't even try this week. (re math: What can I say, it's not an exact science)

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2010-03-09T20:09:00.000-08:00

And the Nominees Are...
by Pancho Harrison
edited by Mike Shenk
March 5, 2010

Full answers available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page.

Theme: Best Actress (mostly) nominees (trivia from BA commentary - mostly)
BURSTYN OUT {23A Ellen's sign-off? (1971, 1973, 1974, 1978, 1980, 2000)} – Ellen Burstyn (real-name Edna Rae Gillooly, and first appearing with screen name Ellen McRae), Best Actress winner for Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974).
BERRY AT SEA {25A Halle in a state of confusion? (2001)} – Won with her first nomination for Monster's Ball.
DUNNE DEAL {48A Irene's business transaction? (1931, 1936, 1937, 1939, 1948)} - No wins; two nominations were consecutive (from 1936-1937).
MOORE INFO {58A Contents of Julianne's bio? (1997, 1999, 2002)} - Often, actresses have been nominated for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress for different films in the same year. ..... A total of eleven performers .... have duplicated that feat. Julianne Moore (Best Actress for Far From Heaven (2002) and Best Supporting Actress for The Hours (2002)).
BATES TRAP {87A Mouse catcher for Kathy? (1990, 1998, 2002)} - It also helps .... for showing acting diversity (Kathy Bates as the horror villainess in Misery (1990).
CRUZ LINES {98A What Penelope has to memorize? (2006, 2008)} - Spanish actress Penelope Cruz was nominated as Best Actress for her role as single mother Raimunda in Volver (2006) - she became the first Spanish woman to be nominated for a best actress Academy Award for a non-English speaking role.
DERN TOOTIN {123A Laura on her horn? (1991)}
THER ON ROOM {126A Charlize's bedchamber? (2003, 2005)} - The first acting Oscar winner from South Africa was Charlize Theron as Best Actress for Monster (2003). In the same year, Theron and Djimon Hounsou were the first African-born performers to be nominated for an Oscar. ...Theron won the Best Actress Oscar as a serial-killer prostitute.
BASSETT HOUND {34A Angela's dog? (1993)} - Gratuitous plug for Thursday Night Bassett Blogging & Sunday Night Puppy Blogging
WATTS COOKING {39A Dishes from Naomi's kitchen? (2003)}

WORD SIBLINGS: _ORE
My last square was the M of MORE {3D Added}/ERMA {1A Aretha's gospel singing sister}. Since my total lack of cool &/or musical knowledge prevented me from checking the cross, I ran thru the possibles for _ORE. I got 11: BORE, CORE, FORE, GORE, LORE, MORE, PORE, SORE, TORE, WORE, YORE. The Million Word Crossword Answer Book by Stanley Newman and Daniel Stark [2007 Collins 2008] added two more [p33]: DORE {French painter} [p1196] & VORE {Eater: Comb. form} [p1265 ].

It's a Small, Small Puzzle World: ERMA
Appeared again in the Sunday NYT [3/7/10] {57A Franklin who sang “Piece of my Heart.”}. Sister Aretha may get the press, but Erma gets the crossword puzzles.

Admissions of Defeat: 1
Phooey, phooey, phooey. I was so proud of myself for catching a mistake that would have ruined a perfect round. In pondering possible pithy comments, I would explain the mysterious PLe. I figured {65A Abba's group} was the Swedish congress, the Swedish music national academy, or whatever. Hmmm. Dunno who Abba is, but PLO works and CROAK makes more sense than CReAK as {54D Swamp sound}. Yippee. Although I got done early, I waited for the answers to be up before claiming my smashing victory. Darn. The San Francisco airport {51A N. Cal. Hub} is SFO not SFa and ADOPT works as well as ADaPT {36D Start using}.

Went down in a – for me – quick hour & ½ during a bout of insomnia Thursday night. Maybe I should get up in the middle of the night more often – despite the vowel confusion.

ACPT Countdown Clock: 378 days
I'm having trouble find a link or on-screen clock that is accepted and allows me to edit. So, for now the hand-cranked version. From Friday March 5, 2010, to March 18, 2011.

Likelihood of my attendance at the ACPT: 80% for the moment. Found a friend who said she'd go if I would. I'll settle down to a more realistic number soon but a compatriot is good for at least a 10% overall gain.

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2010-02-27T05:19:00.000-08:00

Table Talk
by Harvey Estes
edited by Mike Shenk
February 26, 2010
http://www.puzzability.com/whois.html

Full answers not yet available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page. So take all answers with a g. of s.

Theme: “PAT” removed from the top set of answers and added to the bottom set.
(PAT)TERN BALDNESS {23A Avian alopecia?}
(PAT)RIOT MISSILE {33A Object thrown at a demonstration?}
(PAT)RON OF THE ARTS {47A Howard as a museum supporter?}
PALPATE FACES {81A Check mugs for lumps?}
PATINA SENSE {92A Asset for bronze cleaners?}
PITAPAT BREAD {109A Money that makes the heart beat faster?}
PASS THE BUTTER {63A Table request, and this puzzle's theme}
PAT {110D Apply 63-Across to this word in three pairs of answers}

Ringing changes on the add-a-word/drop-a-word themes. Reminiscent of “Come Together” on October 9, 2009, by Mr. Estes, where he dropped various letters from song titles to form new titles. The dropped letters came together for LENNON. Mr. Estes doesn't just drop letters. He likes to play with them after.

Admissions of Defeat: 1?
No Googling, confidence in most of the answers. However, there always seems to be one box that devolves into guesswork. I guessed correctly on Tokyo for TSE {38A Japan's Big Board} and I like the rest of the acrosses but that leaves TROLL for {38D Sing in a carefree way}. Huh? Resolution pending appearance of the answers and my discovering how to update a post without reposting.

Commentary: Short post.
Overwhelmed with work in civilian life. You wouldn't think a once-a-week blog would be hard to fit in but it be. I've said it before. I can not imagine how folks puzzle & post everyday. Perhaps it would be easier if I could time my puzzle solving with a clock rather than a calendar.

ACPT countdown: (Extrapolating from 2010 dates.)

&amp;lt;a href="http://www.7is7.com/otto/countdown.html?year=2011&amp;amp;amp;month=2&amp;amp;amp;date=18&amp;amp;amp;hrs=0&amp;amp;amp;ts=24&amp;amp;amp;min=0&amp;amp;amp;sec=0&amp;amp;amp;tz=-300&amp;amp;amp;lang=en&amp;amp;amp;show=dh&amp;amp;amp;mode=t&amp;amp;amp;cdir=down&amp;amp;amp;bgcolor=%23CCFFFF&amp;amp;amp;fgcolor=%23000000&amp;amp;amp;title=Countdown%20To"&amp;gt;Countdown To&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;

Chances of my going: 40%
A surge of hope arising from a surprise showing on Friday's NYT. Fireball, Saturday, etc. still hopeless.

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2010-02-23T11:00:00.000-08:00

I’m A Mac
By Janet Bender
Edited by Mike Shenk
February 19, 2010
http://www.puzzability.com/whois.html

Full answers available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page.

THEME: Words ending in –MA joined with words starting with C-.
The two words ending in –MA are from Latin. The five place names come from languages indigenous to that area when the dictionary writers showed up.
PIMA COTTON {25A Underwear fabric}- Named after Pima County AZ where it was first grown. [OED] The county was named after a local tribe.
SUMMA CUM LAUDE {27A Valedictorian’s honor} – From Latin for highest. [OED]
OKLAHOMA CRUDE {47A 1973 George C. Scott film} – From Choctaw meaning red people.
DRAMA CRITICS {54A Some opening night attendees} – Via Latin from Greek, “deed, action, play, esp. tragedy.” [OED]
SONOMA COUNTY {79A Home to more then 250 wineries} – Chocuyen Indian name translated by some as "Valley of the Moon" and by others as "land or tribe of the Chief Nose." Wiki says Coast Miwok and the Pomo tribe plus VotM.
REDEEM A COUPON {85A Save 50c, say}
OBAMA CAMPAIGN {105A “The Audacity to Win” subject} – African/Kenyan Luo language, “Luo verb that means "to be slightly bent" or "to be twisted". Though no one knows for sure why his [BHO's] great-grandfather was given the name, experts on Luo language and culture think the most likely possibilities are that the baby either had a leg or arm that looked a little bent just after he was born, or that he was born in the breech position.” [Wiki ans]
PANAMA CITY {108A Museo del Canal Interoceanico setting} – Guarani word meaning a "butterfly,"

A cousin to "I'm a PC" by Myles Callum on November 6, 2009. Praise songs and accolades of the highest honor to the first constructor who creates I’m A Linux.

How many –MA words did Ms. Bender have to chose from? 166 according to the The Million Word Crossword Answer Book by Stanley Newman and Daniel Stark [2007 Collins 2008 pb], superior to the OED as a crossword-specific dictionary since it includes abbreviations, partial words, multiple words, popular culture, and proper names both geographic and personal.
Nine 3 letter words for _ MA (p4), including OMA {Medical suffix (p1237)}.
Forty-four 4 letter words for _ _ MA (p28), including CYMA {Cornice molding (p1193)}.
Forty-seven 5 letter words for _ _ _ MA (p108), including NAIMA {John Coltrane ballad (p1232)}.
Forty-Three 6 letter words for _ _ _ _ MA (p328), including LOOK MA.
Twenty-Three 7 letter words for _ _ _ _ _ MA (p841), including ATACAMA, the desert driven across in Road Fever: A High-Speed Travelogue [Random 1991]. Author Tim Cahill says that trees from the foothills can be uprooted by spring runoff, brought down into the salt pan, and then covered with wind-blown grit and sand, “The Atacama is the only place on earth where people mine wood.” (p163)

Admissions of Defeat: 3
I made a few errors, notably pulling an Al Saunders and leaving 2 squares blank. I’m irate with myself. Imagine if the ACPT had been on the line? Back in 1996, I volunteered at the Atlanta Olympics. We watched a Canadian competitor ride right past a jump to eliminate herself. It must be kinda like that.

On the plus side, I’m giving myself points for letting the word ‘protein’ tip the R(d)NA {78A Protein synthesis participant} guesswork scales in the right direction.

Commentary: ACPT
Thought about them all weekend. Wished I was there. So, I am making a public announcement that I will go in 2011.
IF
I can make headway on the Friday/Saturday NYT puzzles. I assume that basic competence at this level is a requirement to survive the championship. I’m currently a solid Wed/Thur/WSJ solver with a minimum of errors. Right now the only thing I can do with Fri/Sat printouts is use them for coasters. I’m not asking for 100% correct, just greater than 50% filled in. Whenever I thought about competing this year, I had an image of myself sitting in front of a sheet of paper with nothing to do for 45 minutes but draw smiley faces in the boxes.

See you in 2011. I hope.

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2010-02-16T17:42:00.000-08:00

Washington Square
by Elizabeth C. Gorski
edited by Mike Shenk
February 12, 2010

Full answers available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page.

Theme: A border of presidential names with nonpresidential clues.
HOOVER {1A Big name in carpet cleaning}
CLINTON {7A “Atomic Dog” singer George}
REAGAN {14A Frank who led the NFL in interceptions in 1947}
ARTHUR {130A He worked knights}
KENNEDY {131A “Ironweed” author William}
MONROE {132A DiMaggio's love}
HARRISON {1D “Here Comes the Sun” writer}
NIXON {19D Co-star of Parker, Cattrall and Davis}
PIERCE {52D Puncture}
TAYLOR {63D Grammy winner Swift}
COOLIDGE {92D “All Time High” singer Rita}
OBAMA {105D Port north of Kyoto}
PRESIDENTS BOX {72A Theater VIP section, as suggested by the answers on this puzzle's edges}

Although not suggested by the answer clue, five other names appear. I imagine Ms. Gorski had five more clues she didn't want to waste.
BUSH {33A Wild parts of Australia}
LINCOLN {42A Car introduced in 1920}
MADISON {99A Avenue east of Fifth}
FORD {111A Cross, in a way}
JEFFERSON {48D Blues legend Blind Lemon}
These were so symmetric, I wanted the inner names to form a second pattern, or perhaps a secret message along with the black boxes, but that would have been gilding the lily.

The clues came from a range of human activity.
Commerce: HOOVER, LINCOLN
Music: CLINTON, HARRISON, TAYLOR, COOLIDGE, JEFFERSON
Sports: REAGAN
Myth: ARTHUR
Literature: KENNEDY
Film & TV: MONROE, NIXON
Misc verbs: PIERCE, FORD
Geography: OBAMA, BUSH, MADISON
Ten of the 17 clues were proper names.

This should have been easy. Seventeen names from a finite list of 43* names which any American should know by heart. I didn't. Furthermore, I spent waay too long being confused by a president's whose name ends in an A?? Seriously. Being inclined to think historically is no excuse.

*Obama is our 44th president but Grover Cleveland split terms so counts as 22nd and 24th. Therefore 43 men have been 44 presidents.

Off topic: Other presidential trivia. My source for the above was a Presidents of the United States of America laminated placemat that doubles as my desk blotter. According to this infallible source, 4 presidents had full beards; 3 had mustaches; and 3 had an assortment of other face fuzz. Taft's mustache in 1913 was the last facial hair in the White House. Since Kennedy, 8 of the 10 recent presidents are pictured with toothy smiles.

Admissions of Defeat: 2
No comment. I'm not a confrontation person. I don't want to go on record with my opinion of SSW vs. SSe {115A Toronto-to-D.C. heading} being decided by a Flemish Painter {116D FP Jan van __}. Nor how my attachment to GEl instead of GEM {108A Setting item} colors my attitude toward BEDIMS {83D Obfuscates}.

Commentary: ACPT
The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament is next weekend. There will be another puzzle before that but it will probably be over before I post. For those who chose to live vicariously:
Wordplay, the movie.
Crossworld: One Man's Journey into America's Crossword Obsession by Marc Ramano (Broadway 2005). “This book, then, is the story of my quest ... to place at least near the top half of the single largest such competition in the nation.” p28.
From Square One: A Mediation, with Digression, on Crosswords by Dean Olsher (Scribner 2009). Watching Al Sounders lose, pp101-103.
Cruciverbalism: A Crossword Fanatic's Guide to Life in the Grid by Stanley Newman. (Collins 2006). Preparing for and winning in 1981, pp25-35.
Zen and the Art of Crossword Puzzles: A Journey Down and Across by Nikki Katz (Adams 2006). Interviews with Ellen Ripstein & Tyler Hinman, pp177-187.
The Crossword Obsession: The History and Lore of the World's Most Popular Pastime by Coral Amende (Berkley 2001). Commentary on the ACPT from a dozen+ people, pp173-180.
And the winner is
Gridlock: Crossword Puzzles and the Mad Geniuses Who Create Them by Matt Gaffney (Thunder's Mouth 2006). A chapter on judging the ACPT, pp 1-32.
Enjoy.

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2010-02-12T13:23:00.000-08:00

Dance Number
by Todd McClary
edited by Mike Shenk
February 5, 2010

Full answers available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page.

Theme: Answers where pairs of phrases combine to clue TANGO. Kinda. Yeah, it was that complicated.

BRITS WORD OF THANKS {23A Partner of 114-Across} = ta
& DINH DIEM OF VIETNAM {114A Partner of 23-Across}= ngo
What would NDD have thought of Vietnam.com, complete with an explanation of TET {59A Asian celebration}?

BEACH SKIN TONE {33A Partner of 100-Across}= tan
& MONOPOLY SPACE {100A Partner of 33-Across}= go

ORANGE DRINK MIX {43A Partner of 93-Across} = tang
& WOMENS MAGAZINE {93A Partner of 43-Across}= o

IT TAKES TWO TO TANGO {66A Maxim demonstrated by the partnered answers in this puzzle}

All is forgiven. Impenetrable on the way it; delivered on the finish. Even with the explanation answer and some of the theme answers, I was still asea. TANG was finally my way in. Do kids still know from Tang? It's out there, now in grape & tropical passionfruit. Less of a blip on the cultural radar than it used to be. Unfortunately I got so excited about grokking the answer I wrote in BRIef WORD OF THANKS without considering that ANeIGUN {4D Like NRA foes} made no sense.

Usually, I solve on paper and highlight the theme boxes with a colored pen.* For this one I color-coded the theme pairs in different colors. How in the world did online solvers keep track?

*[Recently overheard: That's not OCD, that's organized. My new mantra.]

Admissions of Defeat: 4
In addition to the two above, S(f)T(r)EIG {24D Shrek creator William} crossing BONIT(r)A {27A Madonna's “La Isla ___” } was random letter generation that I generated incorrectly. Also, SOOEY(e) {41A Message for a pen pal?}/MINKSY(e) {13D Big name in burlesque}.

Variety Puzzle: Acrostic
My solving of acrostics is always overshadowed by wondering How do they do it? One has a given set of letters - the quote – and a mandated number of words with the first letter fixed - the name and title. How do constructors not have a pile of stray letters left over???

Variety Puzzle: Rows Garden
I worry when the instructions are longer than the clues. Which is my way of saying I had no luck. So far my loyalty to the grid has not been tested.

Commentary: So taken with the main conceit that I don't have much to say about the rest of the puzzle. Plus I'm way late. Tomorrow is another week.

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2010-02-01T11:13:00.000-08:00

Brainstorming
by Myles Callum
edited by Mike Shenk
January 29, 2010

Full answers not yet available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page.

Theme: IDEA
Word embedded in phrases, mostly in front: RIDE A-, BRIDE A-, PRIDE A-, HIDE A-, DECIDE A-, WIDE A-, SIDE A-. One in the back half of the phrase: -I DEALER.

Just Because: 2
HONALEE {21A Puff the Magic Dragon's land} - I've always hated that song because I feel for Puff. He's going to live forever without someone to visit him? No, thank you. Abandonment issues anyone? It is not however, about drugs, so says Snopes.

LEGO {85D Company whose name comes from the Danish for "play well"} - Who says childhood has to end? Ogden Nash: “You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.” The Bible: “...and become as little children...” Matthew 18:3 KJV.

Admissions of Defeat: 0?
When the teacher doesn't show up to grade our work, doesn't that mean we give ourselves and A and go home?

Commentary: A decent puzzle that did not grab me nor inspire discussion. The second hide-a-word in a row, a theme more about letter order than any radical cleverness in content, and half a dozen deju vu words. Granted I'm casting aspersions without doing the research to back them up but I'd swear I'd seen ONE LOVE elsewhere in the past week. However, I defer to the puzzlers's authority & admit I may not be feeling grabesque just now. When everyone in the party is getting up your nose, it's time to consider the common denominator.

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2010-01-28T13:00:00.000-08:00

Making a Few Bucks
by Colin Gale*
edited by Mike Shenk
January 22, 2010

*Pseudonym of Mike Shenk as an ANAGRAM {2D Ancients, for instance} of collegian, so I'm told. Not to be confused with Colin Gale the Head of the School of Textiles, Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, University of Central England. I recently met a woman who has contacted all of 3 her Internet name-mates. I've looked up mine but haven't contacted her.

Full answers available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page.

Theme: STAG rebus
Instead of typing out 14 clues which you already know, I've broken down the word usage. (It's my party and I'll make laziness a virtue if I want to.)

stag-
STAGNATE
STAGGER

-stag-, as a form of -stage
HOSTAGES
POSTAGE
UPSTAGE

-st ag-
BELFAST AGREEMENT
PROTEST AGAINST
CONTRAST AGENTS
FIRST AGE

-s tag
MATTRESS TAG
PLAYS TAG

-st a g-
CAST A GIANT SHADOW
BUST A GUT
JUST A GIGOLO

A question for anyone out there who solves online. I can easily write 4 letters in one square. How do you convince the crossword program to do so? Okay, I read the instructions but how does having only the first letter influence your solving, particularly if the rebus is mid-word?

Sub-theme: UP
SETS UP {83A Frames}
WAS UP {38D Batted}
UPSTAGE {58D Eclipse}
FINISH UP {81D Prepare to leave for the day}
Also ON in 11 clues, including 2 three-way nests but only 1 as stand-alone, ON TOPIC {19A Relevant}

Crosswordpuzzlese: 1
A new category. Haven't the foggiest but get because they are standard crossword puzzle answers. Don't know a car clue or {66A Royale Sedans, for example}? Try REOS.

News To Me: 4
EGIS {26A Protection} – Part of defensive armor. I couldn't parse this even after I got the letters. Duh. A variant was the name of my college yearbook. Or, the phrase “under the aegis of...”.

ARA {31A Parseghian in the College Football Hall of Fame} – also a disease foundation.

MIRIMEE {41A Carmen's creator} – written not sung.

ARETES {50A Knifelike ridges} – I should have known this from cwpuzzlese.

Opportunities To Learn New Things: 0
Admissions of Defeat: 0
My first for 2010! Odd, considering the trouble I had wrestling this sucker to the ground.

Variety Puzzle: Snowflake
I have snowflaked my way into a corner. I know (or looked up) that Potomac [River] belongs but there is no place for it to flow. Which means I need to erase words and start again with different words &/or arrangements. I dislike backing up. Words should stay were they are put.

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2010-01-21T18:39:00.000-08:00

I Have A Dream
by Gabriel Stone
edited by Mike Shenk
January 15, 2010

Full answers available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page [note: this is a new link, see below].

Theme: A word from Monday split various ways across words & phrases.
SPANISH OPENING {22A Set of chess moves also called the Ruy Lopez}
ARCHBISHOP EMERITUS {37A Catholic retiree}
ORTHOPEDIST {50A Joint expert}
PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS {65A Consumer product from Adobe}
ANCHO PEPPER {84A Sweet chili ingredient}
ARTHUR SCHOPENHUAER {91A Proponent of the philosophy of pessimism}
SMOOTH OPERATOR {113A Sade song}
HOPE {104D Dream found in this puzzle's seven longest answers} – You may agree or disagree with the message, but MKL was an amazing speaker.
(Presenting both sides is lovely in theory but allow me to plant my flag as part of the 'liberal media conspiracy' when I say there are a lot of wackos, um, strident individuals with anger issues, out there.)

Family of the Week: The Brady Bunch
CAROL {62A Mike Brady's second wife}
STEPPARENT {46D Mike Brady, for one} - What is with the '70s nostalgia? It wasn't that much fun the first time around. Furthermore, the parts that were worthy of being remembered, such as Billie Jean King's defeat of Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes in 1973, aren't. Of course, sometimes kitsch is the point, as with Monk's Cooper Clan.

Opportunities To Learn New Things: 2
ELYRIA {96D City of northeast Ohio} – So, are all cities over 50K fair game in crosswords? The Census Bureau lists 718 of which Elyria is #612 with a population 55,953. Or perhaps all county seats [Lorain]? Wiki lists 3140 counties. BTW, “At the 2000 U.S. Census, only 16.7% of U.S. counties had more than 100,000 inhabitants.”

HIRT {102D “Sugar Lips” trumpeter} – All musicians are obscure to me.

Admissions of Defeat: 1
MACK {32A Womanizer in hip-hop slang}/PLINKO {10D “The Price is Right” game} - PLINKO was a goner, as was any slang but I should have known MACK from Buffy. So, I'm uncool. I'm comfortable with that. Since I'm also a word geek: “But mack is actually much older than hip-hop. It is found in jazz slang as well and is recorded as far back as 1887.”

Commentary: Their New Toy
The WSJ now has a dedicated puzzle page, including a commentary section. So far the consensus is Don't F*** with the crossword puzzle.

They have added a variety puzzle every Saturday to go with the standard Friday crossword. Once a month will be a British-style cryptic crossword by Emily Cox & Henry Rathvon or an acrostic by Mike Shenk. These will alternate with a biweekly novelty word puzzle by Patrick Berry & Mike Shenk, in which the across-and-down grid will be replaced with snakes, snowflakes, honeycombs, and other shapes. So they say.

I have to confess, I did not attempt the inaugural cryptic. As it is, crosswords are threatening to take over my life. Which is my way of avoiding the fact that I have no clue how to approach a cryptic. It's on my list.

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2010-01-14T12:42:00.000-08:00

Potluck Dinner
by Randolph Ross
edited by Mike Shenk
January 8, 2010

Full answers available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page [note: this is a new link for 2010] or with the following week's puzzle on WSJ's online Leisure Weekend or Lifestyle Arts pages.

Theme: A dozen menu items of professional interest.
NAVAL ORANGES {25A What the admiral brought to the p.l.d.?}
BUNION SOUP {39A What the podiatrist brought to the p.l.d.?}
KARAT CAKE {49A What the goldsmith brought to the p.l.d.?}
FRENCH FLIES {60A What the entomologist brought to the p.l.d.?}
SEIZER SALAD {74A What the repo man brought to the p.l.d.?}
PI A LA MODE {84A What the mathematician brought ...?}
ENGLISH TEE {95A What the British Open winner brought ...?}
RITZ QUACKERS {115A What the duck hunter brought ...?}
TUNER CASSEROLE {3D What the piano repairman brought ...?}
WRY BREAD {5D What the satirist brought to the p.l.d.?}
BAGELS AND LOCKS {54D What the hair stylist brought ...?}
COALSLAW {87DA What the miner brought to the p.l.d.?}
An impressive number of theme answers, but some dishes only Andrew Zimmern would eat. That's the trouble with potlucks. You can't control what people bring.

It's a Small, Small Crossworld: 7, at least
IMUS {19A Morning man on the radio} & NYT Fri [1/8/10] {51D 1989 Radio Hall of Fame inductee} Another clue that's easier, make that inescapable, if you live in NYC.

RAE {51D Explorer of Canada's coast} & LAT Sat [1/9/10] {22A Northwest Passage explorer}

ETO {75D WWII sphere} & NYT Sun [1/10/10] {49A D.D.E's 1942 Command}

EON {98D Very long time} & LAT Wed [1/13/10] {59A Years and years}

Same letters, different usage
OAR {66D Galley item} & NYT Fri [1/8/10] {45A Put in one's ____ (interfere)}

Different letters, same usage
SACRA {45A Pelvis connectors} & SACRUM NYT Wed [1/13/10] {9D Pelvis part}

And while we're at it
APED {100A Made like} & APE NYT Tue [1/12/10] {5D Monkey's uncle?}

For commentary, see blogs listed on left. (That's too many links even for my Google addiction!)

Admissions of Defeat: 3
Got AVANTI {9D 1972 Billy Wilder film} because of the car rather than the movie.

Completely missed on MELANIE {58A “Brand New Key” singer}. I had bELAmIE with bFA and emS. Technically, I would argue that curating is competitive enough one would need a PHD. So while MFAs was the answer for {58D Curators' degs.}, neither would be correct. Once I had the initial b, I tried to fill the singer's name out with m, creating the bastard child of Belafonte and the Bellamy Brothers. Totally barked up the wrong tree with ANS {52D T or F, often}. Well, T and F are small, about the size of an em-dash, perhaps? Amazing the contortions the mind can generate. Got the second a in KARAT wrong but after all of the above, a minor matter.

Commentary: I'm going out on a limb and assuming that crossword puzzle people are word people. If you laugh, or at least smile, at the sight of the word impluvious (adj.) “Wet with rain”, check out Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages by Ammon Shea (Perigee 2008/2009 pb [p87]). For the rest of you, move along, nothing to see here, move along.

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2010-01-07T12:30:00.000-08:00

Welcoming '10
by Alice Long
edited by Mike Shenk
January 1, 2010

Alice Long is sister to last week's Natalia Shore, i.e. an alias of the editor, an anagram of collegian. So I'm told.

Full answers available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page [note: this is a new link for 2010] or with the following week's puzzle on WSJ's online Leisure Weekend or Lifestyle Arts pages.

Theme: 10 added to phrases in celebration of the new decade.*
POR-TEN-T AUTHORITY {23A Oracle?}
PO-TEN-T BELLY {33A Sumo wrestler's asset?}
WOULDN(')T HURT TEN-A()FLY {47A Campaign slogan for a New Jersey mayoral candidate?}
HEAR-TEN-ING AID {66A Cheering section, say?}
AMBULANCE CHAS-TEN-ER {82A One taking emergency vehicles to task}
ARMY TEN-ANTS {99A Base residents?}
TEN-SING LIKE A BIRD {11A Imitating Tom Turkey before Thanksgiving?}
[* I hopped up and down about 2001 being the real start of the century, but loosen up after I read a convincing argument for it all being arbitrary.]

News To Me:
ESTOPPED {38A Prevented legally} – 'Oh no you don't. My lawyer won't let you.'

ELD {65A Former times, poetically} - According to my OED connection, ELD can be noun, adjective or verb, mostly to do with old age. Byron and Longfellow both used it in the sense it is used here.

CUGAT {44D Bandleader Xavier} – Known for Latin music.

AARONIC {88D Like lower-order Mormon priests} – Named after Moses's brother.

Speaking of Aaron, Webster's Third lists eight words starting with AA: aardvark, aardwolf, Aarhus (Denmark), Aaron~ic, ~ite,~'s-beard, &~'s-rod, and aasvogel (vulture).

News words are saved from blank-squarehood by their crosses. Even then, all I know about them is the information contained in the clue and answer. Just above these on the solving scale are recall words. {14D Arthur's foster brother} had the solving impenetrability of a news word but once I saw KAY, White's The Sword in the Stone came rolling back.

Admissions of Defeat: 1
So close. I guessed on 3 letters/5 words and missed one. Why does it always come down to an evil cross of proper nouns? This one had a 50/50 cross in the middle right and a nest of p.n.s at the bottom.

WOULDN(')T HURT TEN-A()FLY/ELAYNE {37D Comic Boosler}. Tenafli, NJ, seemed more likely but the expression calls for fly. Boosler's name could have gone either way. I took a flyer on Y and stuck the landing.

EAKINS {105A “The Gross Clinic” painter}
EGAN {105D Richard of “A Summer Place”}
SARA {107D Singer Bareilles}
Couldn't get the beginning or end of the painter here. Had a vague memory of the name Richard Egan without context. Bareilles was right out of the ballpark. Given EAKIN_, it could have been EAKINg but gARA made no sense. I settled on EAKINd with dARA. But no.

For Your Amusement, a totally unrelated Summer Place.

Commentary: With apologies, in the winter a compulsive puzzler's fancies lightly turns to thoughts of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, February 19-21, Brooklyn, NY. I've never attended but hope to, so I stick with the Monday & Tuesday NYT & LAT puzzles. Partly, I figure I may see words that will repeat later with harder cluing. Also, in Crossworld [Broadway, 2005], Marc Romano advises potential attendees to keep up with all levels of puzzles, “Since there's an art to doing the easier puzzles as much as there's an art to doing a Friday or a Saturday, and knowing it is important to scoring high in the first few rounds during a tournament.”[p66]

OTOH, Monday has become a bit of a fill-in exercise. I have a misty recollection of reading that left-handed writing stretches one's brain cells. [I believe it is in Dean Olsher's From Square One [S&S 2009] but couldn't locate the passage.] So I did. I filled in this Monday's NYT left-handed. While it is too soon to tell the effect on brain function, it did make the puzzle amusingly difficult. Did I have this much trouble learning to write the first time around? Another thing I did years ago in the interest of body balance was to switch my mouse to my left hand. Unclear what this has done to my chi, but now I can click & take notes without having to switch hands.

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2009-12-31T14:50:00.000-08:00

Gift Returns
by Natalia Shore
edited by Mike Shenk
December 25, 2009 (or so)

Full answers available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page or with the following week's puzzle on WSJ's online Leisure Weekend or Lifestyle Arts pages.

Those more knowledgeable than I inform us that this week's constructor is the editor under the anagram of Another Alias. Or for me, yet more proof that I have no business playing Scrabble. I couldn't anagram my way out of a baper pag, no matter how much I enjoyed Stephan Fatsis' Word Freak (Houghton Mifflin 2001, Penguin 2002) or the documentary Word Wars. (On a completely off topic aside, Word Freak lives on my desk. Specifically, under my printer's paper tray, so when the Blog Supervisor sleeps on the printer, she doesn't break off the tray.)

Theme: Two-word nouns with the first word amusingly reversed.
FLOG CLUBS {23A “I'm returning these woods – I beat myself up every time I use them”} - A coincidence I'm sure, but ya gotta wonder.
NIT SOLDIERS {25A “I'm returning these toy fighters – they're really lousy”} - Bugs do not pass my breakfast test.
MINED JEANS {39A “I'm returning these pants – I don't dig them like I used to”}
EVIL RECORDING {48A “I'm returning this concert CD – it's profoundly bad”}
SAG HEATER {63A “I'm returning this room warmer – it makes my floor bend downward”}
DEB LINENS {69A “I'm returning these sheets – I tuck them in, but they're always coming out”}
MOOR FRESHENER {78A “I'm returning this scented spray – it smells like a bog”}
GOD COLLARS {86A “I'm returning these pet accessories – they're quite holey”}
TOPS REMOVER {106A “I'm returning this laundry product – it only works on blouses”} - Throughout her life, my grandmother feared for my wardrobe. Whenever I visited, she wanted to buy me tops. Not shirts, not blouses, but tops. Memory can attack from the weirdest angle.
RAW BONNET {110A “I'm returning this feathered headdress – it's just not refined”}
Some weeks, the theme answers need crosses to get got. This week's were detailed enough that they could be determined on their own & then used to help with the downs.

Cool Crossings:
It cannot be an accident that BOA {111D Fluffy wrap} crossed feathers with WAR BONNET.
Or that
RNS {108D ER personnel} were around the corner from the ICU {100A Hosp. section}.
Or that
DIRTY {117A On the take} was in the laundry aisle near TOPS REMOVER.

Repeats of the week: ENYA {118A Irish New Age star}
NYT Friday [12/25/09] {16D “And Winter Came ...” artist} Co*mm*en*ta*ry.
&
LA Times Thursday [12/31/09] {52D One-named New Age singer}. Commen*tary.
also
INCA {19A People who honored the creator Viracocha}
appeared as INCANS in NYT Thursday [12/31/09] {70A Pachacuti's people}. Co*mm*en*ta*ry.

I confess to being new enough to regular puzzling that crosswordese & crosswordese people still constitute happy gimmes.

Puzzle on the web: HIS NIBS
{43D Mock title for a pompous boss} or a source for fountain pens.

Fusspot Peeve of the Week:
J DATE{40D Online singles service available in English, French and Hebrew} – What, no Oxford comma?!? Compulsive menu proofreaders will enjoy Anne Fadiman's Ex Libris (Farrar 2000). I have only read a review of The Lexicographer's Dilemma: The Evolution of "Proper" English from Shakespeare to "South Park" by Jack Lynch (Walker 2009) but it is now firmly on my wish list. I too “get afflicted with that crankiness when a TV anchor describes a Chihuahua rescued from drowning as 'very unique' or...” Of course, the must-read for grammar geeks remains Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss (Gotham 2006 pb). Even if she is soft on the Oxford comma [p85].

News To Me [I got 'em but I didn't get 'em]: 0
Opportunities To Learn New Things: 0
Admissions of Defeat: 2
TEED {74A Prepared for a drive}/ORMOND {50D Julia of “Legends of the Fall”}
Drive = golf is almost what the Englishman calls crossword Pavlovian. Witness the LA Times Wednesday [12/30/09] {32A Driver's aid} TEE. Commen*tary. However, one still needs to read the clues. PrepareD past tense, not prepareS -> TEEs.

RAITT {55A “Something to Talk About” singer}/MINT {39D Source of change}
Knew of Bonnie, couldn't spell her. MINe {Source of change} as in silver mine, kinda, sorta, please?

STTA was also the title of a movie in which a gentleman of my acquaintance was the stunt rider for Robert Duval.

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2009-12-24T17:17:00.000-08:00

Stocking Stuffing
by Dan Fisher
edited by Mike Shenk
December 18, 2009

Full answers available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page or with the following week's puzzle on WSJ's online Leisure Weekend or Lifestyle Arts pages.

Theme: People, things, and words with a TOY surprise inside. Two spliced, one Japanese, one French, one American, and two Russian. Harks back to the international origins for KI-D in Elizabeth C. Gorski's November 13 puzzle.
BLUEPOINT OYSTERS {23A They were originally harvested off Long Island} – Kurlansky's book on the subject is embedded in my To Read pile. He is also working on New York on the Halfshell, “A fully illustrated version of the Big Oyster with its unusual history, recipes, science and humor for 7 to ten year olds. The history of New York City told through its famous oyster beds and how they were destroyed.”
TOYOTA PRIUS {34A Popular hybrid}
CHATOYANCY {47A Iridescent quality of some gems} – The nonjewelery world knows this as cat's eye: “The term "chatoyancy" comes from the French "chat", which means cat and "oeil", which means eye. So, the term "chatoyancy" literally translates as "the eye of a cat". For this reason, this phenomenon is also known as cat's eye effect."
LA TOYA JACKSON {67A “Just Wanna Dance” singer}
LEO TOLSTOY {83A Count Vronsky's creator}
DOSTOYEVSKY {94A “Notes from the Underground” author} – An attempt at the definitive fan page has Dostoevsky. Wiki has the TOY spelling as main with 6 other varietiations.
GOOD TIDINGS TO YOU {109A Carol wish}
TOY {108D Stocking stuffer found in seven of this puzzle's longest answers}

News To Me [I got 'em but I didn't get 'em]:
TRON {74A Light cycle rider of film} - The film, the game.
KPMG {29D One of accounting's Big Four} - A Texas A&M professor supplies everything you'd want to know, including accounting humor.

It's a Small World After All: 2
Dual appearances by this week's puzzle personalities:
MEADE {42A Victor at Gettysburg} also appearing in the NYT Sunday [12/20/09] as {117A Army of the Potomac commander during the Civil War}. Having lived in Pennsylvania & in Dixie, I must say I do not get the continued fascination with this divisive & bloody era.
U THANT {71D Kurt Waldheim's predecessor} was also in the LA Times Tuesday [12/22/09] as {54A '60s United Nations secretary general}. I really should know this, from crossword puzzles if not from an awareness of the outside world.

Admissions of Defeat: 2
ITTY {58A Microscopic}/CANTAB {44D Darwin College student} – I was so sure of ITsY that I figured CANsAB was an Aussie reference that went past me. I will put questionable answers in light pencil, but once a letter is written in, I have trouble reevaluating, even in the presence of impenetrable crossings. The Googleverse supports cantab as an abbreviation for Cantabrigian, i.e. www.cantab.org.
VIDA {16A Life, in Lima}/DON BUDGE {18D First player to win tennis's Grand Slam} - MEADE got me BUDGE but I missed DON. vON BUDGE could have been a last name for all I know about tennis. VIvA, VIDA, whatever. OTOH, if ITsY/ITTY had been the the only thing between me & a win, I would have been apoploptic.

Commentary: Wishing you & yours a happy Feast of St. Stephens here and in ENGLAND {119A Where Boxing Day is celebrated}.

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2009-12-17T14:02:00.000-08:00

Your Mileage May Vary
by Myles Callum
edited by Mike Shenk
December 11, 2009

I assume most readers also do the NYT's puzzles, yes? In case you missed it, the WSJ's editor switched seats as constructor for the Sunday 12/13/09 puzzle. Com*men*tar*y.

Full answers for this week's puzzle available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page or with the following week's puzzle on WSJ's online Lifestyle page.

Theme: Phrases in which M, P, & G occur in order
MULTIPLY BY EIGHT {23A *How to get 24 from 3}
COME UP AGAINST {41A *Confront}
CAMPFIRE GIRLS {64A *Their motto is “Give Service”}
BUNGEE JUMPING {83A *It involves a leap of faith}
QUIT COMPLAINING {107A *“Whine, whine, whine!”}
HUMPHREY BOGART {16D *Actor who was once a chess hustler}
CAMPAIGN BUTTON {49D *Pol's promo}
MPG {108D What “varies” in position in the answers to the seven starred clues}

Word of the Week: MOUES {75D Annoyed expressions}
Try to say moue without making one.

Brainworm: GATO
{72A Cat, in Castile} Gotten easily from a Dr. Seuss childhood. Alright everyone sing, “Cat, hat. In French chat chapeau. In Spanish, el gato in a sombrero...” Wiki has the end entirely in Spanish, "Cat. Hat./In French, chat chapeau./In Spanish, el gato en un sombrero." When you sing it, both work.

News To Me: 3+
OLLAS {20A Spicy Stews} – We recently bought a pressure cooker, also know as an olla express. Big in Europe but not so much in the US. Our extravagance with energy amazes me.
PARLOUS {61A Fraught with danger} – Not to be confused with garrulous, which is only fraught with boredom.
ARP {63A Colleague of Grunwald and Ernst} – Jean, Alfred, & Max, all Dadas.

Mystery Cross:
SNEE {112A Ko-Ko's dagger} – Not only from the Mikado but apparently Gilbert's inspiration for it.
crossing
ANSA {105D Archaeological handle} – Ansa can also refer to “either of the ends of Saturn's rings which appear to project out from either side of the planet.”

Puzzle Patterns:
The puzzle resounds with visual and content echoes. {85D Echo:IMITATE} One is sloppy; half a dozen is a design choice. The duplication is clearly intentional in the repeat clue for EON & AGES{37A &116A Long time}. In addition, DIAL & RING {74A & 78A Call on the phone} not only repeat the clue but are stacked. The former brings to mind the Benoit College Mindset List. Read it & don't feel old – I dare you. My Mindset moment came in the early 90s when I was working in a college textbook store. One semester *Das Kapital* was required reading for government courses. Next term, it was on the history lists.

I gather it is verboten for a word to appear twice crossword? Mr. Callum had to be tweaking that rule with SALIS {97A Cum grano ____ (with a grain of 29-Down)} & SALT {29D See 97-Across}. Later: this rule was happily whacked upside the head on Thursday's NYT puzzle [12/17/09]. Awesome.

Since I wanted to USE part of one [USE UP {43D Exhaust}] to answer the other [EMPLOYS {17D Puts to work}], I'm calling it an echo.

J.R. saunters in twice with reference to his mother [ELLIE {6D With 25-Down, J.R.'s mother} EWING {25D See 6-Down}] and to the man who portrayed him [LARRYS {87D Holmes and Hagman}]. There is also a letter echo in the EWING/EWELL {28A Tom of “The Seven Year Itch”} cross.

Finally, there is a grand letter cross in the upper left corner.
LAMP {26A Reading aids}
SAMPLE {29A Use bits of one recording in another}
CAMPHOR {34A Moth repellant}
plus FLUME {22A Logging Channel} on top & GALE {39A Big blow} on bottom makes a diagonal string of four As, four Ms, & three Ps. Has anyone ever done a puzzle with the same letter along the diagonal?

Dunno that all these echoes change the solving but they sure make the pondering more fun, hence the extended blog this week.

Opportunities To Learn New Things & Admissions of Defeat: 4 problem spots. (sounds better than a word count.)

Had to look up the name stack of NEUMAN {93A “The Fly” director Kurt}/ETTORE {101A Car designer Bugatti}

Completely missed on the TEENA {5A “Lovergirl” singer __ Marie}/ELLIE cross area.

The QUI {107D On the __ vive} could have gone either way (e or i) and didn't.

When SNEE refused to come together, ANSA was no help.
I try to console myself that two weeks ago I was happy that my mind was working at all.

Taking Issue: ROAN
{19A Reddish-brown} Nope. *Horsewords: The Equine Dictionary* (Trafalgar 1997) defines roan as “a specific color pattern consisting of a uniform mixture of colored and white body hairs.” The colored hairs do not have to be brown ones. The American Roan Horse Association recognizes “blue roan, red roan and bay roan body color.”

As for other uses, Your Dictionary has, “said chiefly of horses.” So we can go with the equine usage.

Nota bene: ROAN was used correctly on Friday, September 11, 2009 {58A Chestnut with white mixed in, e.g.}

Commentary: Is it Product Placement if I don't get anything out of it? As I'm still huddled in the vestiges of the 20th century, I don't have the phone power to evaluate Crosswords for iPhone. I pass this along for people who might be more plugged in. I could see myself doing a crossword on a handheld before reading on one. I've got too much invested in the codex to change now. I did try an iPhone once, which tempted me to get one without a calling plan for the BubbleWrap App. Apparently it has a timer. I was popping too fast to notice.

Later: Ryan, of Ryan and Brian Do Crosswords, comments on iPhone crosswords, Thur 12-17-9. [re all the Laters - see what bonuses I get for procrastinating?]

I would be happy to Place other crossword Products - until such time as I start to I feel used.

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2009-12-09T15:44:00.000-08:00

Scrambled TV Signals
by Patrick Blindauer
edited by Mike Shenk
December 4, 2009

Full answers available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page or with the following week's puzzle on WSJ's online Lifestyle page.

Theme: TV show titles twisted into off-beat but real alternatives. Old feed examiners don't retire, they just go to seed.
SESAME TESTER {22A TV show about someone who examines seeds?} Sesame Street
WHEEL OF TEN FOUR {31A TV show about some CB users?} Wheel of Fortune
THE SADDAM FAMILY {47A TV show set in a bun ker?} The Addams Family
SERRATED DEVELOPMENT {64A TV show about a breakthrough in knife research?} Arrested Development
THE PRICE IS GIRTH {84A TV show about junk food repercussions?} The Price is Right
THE DOWNER YEARS {100A TV show about a period of depression?} The Wonder Years
LEAD OR NO LEAD {113A TV show about a filling station choice?} Deal or No Deal. Also on the right side of the puzzle was the gas-themed FUEL OIL {33D Heating need} crossing OUT OF GAS {56A Exhausted}.
Fortunately for the anagram-deficient, only one word of each title was scrambled. Plus an easy reversal in the last.

Other Crosses: 2
The aquatic SEA HAG/AVAST, {43A Foe of Popeye} crossing {45D Salt's “Halt!”}

OTOH, I could have lived without the abbreviated TEL/STDS, {41A Rolodex abbr.} crossing {37D EPA output: Abbr.}, or EMS/TMS, {55A Ambulance letters} crossing {42D Corp. identifiers}. Abbr are bad enough when taken alone. First you have to dredge up the word. Then you have to figure out which letters to toss back. Crossing them squares the pain.

Nomination for Word of the Week: current
OCEAN {39A Site of current events} was a fine mislead as I tried to figure out which CNN subject was most current. Unfortunately it mitigated the equally clever AMMETER {50D Current gadget} as I was primed to look for alternate meanings of current.

The SEALS {77D Ball-bearing creatures}/TEE {42A Ball-bearing item} are a similar mutually defining pair. Or they should be. I had worked up a correct but wonked approach that had SEALS dually defined as creature and as mechanical item containing ball-bearings. No - seals, ball, circus. Duh. After corkscrewing my mind to this extent, it took forever to look straight on and see the golfball resting on the TEE.

News To Me [I got 'em but I didn't get 'em]:
ESP {63A Ability tested with Zener cards, for short} Gotten on a long shot from the scene in Ghostbusters. Make your own.

EEE {73A Possible reading of a Brannock device} Trivia jackpot. Totally new information for a common item. We've all seen them, now we know their name. This is the sort of fix information junkies live for. I won't spoil it, ya gotta look.

DAME EDNA {5D Barry Humphries comic character} Comic not comics.

DDE {61D 34th C. in C.} Nevermind, light dawns. Hint, we are now on our 44th.

ERA OF {65D ___Good Feelings} A specific period during the presidency of James Monroe.

Opportunities To Learn New Things: O
Flying without hitting the Google-net this week.

Admissions of Defeat: 6
Less of a disaster than the amount might suggest, since five errors centered on my inability to spell AMMETER. l still think the clue is clever, even if I couldn't spell the answer. The other was an input error with ARTLOVERS {80D They often end up in a museum}. Sometimes if the across word has provided a letter, I'll skip over the line but not the letter, writing it in the line below instead. ARTLOVEeS was just plain sloppy.

Commentary: Last summer, I heard Leonard Nimoy at Dragon*Con. Once I stopped geeking out and saw Mr. Nimoy instead of Mr. Spock, I came to the conclusion that Mr. N. an extremely artistic and extremely odd person. I would love to be at his table during a dinner party. Extend that dinner invite to this week's puzzle constructor, Mr. Blindauer. Anyone who can pun this outrageously would definitely be able to sing for his supper. Of course, I have no idea how much sociability or charm Mr. Blindauer displays in 3-D. It may be that he's so much cooler online. I know I am.

Space forced me to move the constructor links down from the top. PB is scattered all over the web: Wordplay interview, Cru bio, acting profile, and cast pic.

I first made Mr. Blindauer's ecquaintance at his Kickstarter project. Welcome to a whole new world. The question remains to be see, is it Brave or not? The range of Kickstarter means that people with niche passions can join the other hundred people in the country with whom they Reach. So, are we shaking off our geographically-centered viewpoints and building non-traditional communities that will create foundations for a new form of society? Or are we dissipating our energies in ever more attractive, ever more expanding ways while the same old Powers That Be ferret out and rule over our every thought and action? The Internet: grassroots consensus or new opiate of the masses?

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2009-12-03T15:00:00.000-08:00

Unreal Estate
by Todd McClary
edited by Mike Shenk
November 27, 2009

Full answers available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page or with the following week's puzzle on WSJ's online Lifestyle page.

Theme: Real estate terms applied to well-known landmarks.
BRIDGE LOAN {25A The crooked realty agent tried to sell some sucker the Golden Gate by offering a ...}
CAPITAL PROPERTY {27A He tried to sell the National Mall, describing it as ...}
LIQUID ASSESTS {53A He tried to sell the Great Lakes, claiming they were ...}
LOCK IN CLAUSE {70A He tried to sell Alcatraz, even drafting a contract with a ...}
BALLOON PAYMENTS {98A He tried to sell the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade route, even arranging for ...}
CLEAR TITLE {101A He tried to sell the Crystal Cathedral, fabricating a ...}
CLOSING COSTS {16D He tried to sell Brandenburg Gate, offering to take care of ...}
LISTING AGENT {60D He tried to sell the Tower of Pisa, passing himself off as a ...}
(Is well-known redundant for landmark? If it isn't WK, would it qualify as a LM?)

News To Me [I got 'em but I didn't get 'em]: 3, at least
DOS {38A Good behavior} As in dos & don'ts, I assume?
T[-]MAC{108A Yao Ming teammate, to fans} Tracy McGrady on the Houston Rockets.
STARR {80D Best replacement} It's a Beatles thing. I did try to parse this as people rather than description but all I could conjure was Brenda Starr from the comics and Olympic rider Greg Best. Once I had the outstanding Gem Twist cantering around in my head, no mere drummer was going to oust him.

Progress Report: 3 Opportunities To Learn New Things & 1 Admission of Defeat
This one went down with something resembling style & grace except for the nest of proper nouns in the top middle. I had to make the digital acquaintance of EAGAN {21A Boston-based columnist Margery}, AMELIA {33A 2009 Hilary Swank biopic}, ALBANO {5D Pro wrestling's Captain Lou}, before I could coble together AZERA {8D Hyundai sedan}, STROM {9D Senator succeeded by Lindsey}, and HARRIS {11D Br'er Fox's creator}. Identifying this crowd was not helped by my inability to confidently corral the consonants in LISZT {20A “Les Preludes” composer} nor to shift from sanitarium & to baseball for {7D Bats} -> IS UP.

So the majority of my brain has rebooted save for this patch of Google green and a error-red spot where I took an erroneous flyer on ACCRA {90D Gold Coast port}.

Commentary: What do you mean it's Thursday again?! Where are my weeks going? The plan is to solve the puzzle on Friday, take a break for weekend warrior activities, and post on Monday. The reality is – not that. Invariably, I'm still finishing on Monday, Tuesday goes up in smoke, I surf and draft on Wednesday, and then post just in time to start all over again on Friday. The problem about being good with deadlines is being no good without one.

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2009-11-26T15:03:00.000-08:00

Faculty Meeting
by Randolph Ross
edited by Mike Shenk
November 20, 2009

Full answers available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page or with the following week's puzzle on WSJ's online Lifestyle page.

Theme: Professions, people, & things reinterpreted as teaching staff.
ENGLISH TEACHER {22A} Faculty member at Eton?
PROOF READER {30A} Member of the math faculty, at times?
RHODES SCHOLAR {40A} Faculty member with expertise on a Greek island?
DRILL INSTRUCTOR {62A} Faculty member at a dental school?
SEMI(-)CONDUCTOR {85A} Part-time music faculty member?
GRAVE MARKER {93A} Serious faculty member when it comes to grading tests?
MORAL AUTHORITY{109A} Faculty member who advises theology majors?
PRIVATE TUTOR {13D} Faculty member working for the U.S. Army?
PAST MASTER {15D} Faculty member in the history department?
CROSS TRAINER {58D} Angry member of the athletic faculty?
STAGE COACH {68D} Member of the drama faculty?
Snaps to ENGLISH TEACHER for being in common use in both senses: a teacher of English who is an English person. Few puns are fully true in both interpretations. One usage is usually an amusing stretch.

Word of the Week: TWEE {116A Affectedly dainty}
Such an annoying, squeaky little word for such an annoying, squeaky little concept.

Wild Guesses: 2
I guessed right but the wildness of said guessing bleeds out any satisfaction.

MEL OTT {35A Giant star} A two-word baseball hero, clue indicating team; not a one-word astronomy/Hollywood enigma, clue indicating magnitude/fame. No word-splitting difficulties can ever be as embarrassing as the amount of time I once spent over CASIN { __ cat}. I have five of the critters. I should know this. A new breed? A literary reference? A metaphor for how deeply I have repressed my initial struggles with A as in Apple, B as in Boat, and their ilk?

MOTETS {54A Sacred compositions} Emphasis on composition over sacred.

Baseball & music. I never had a chance.

Commentary: For the previous two weeks, I have been blaming a cold for my poor performance. Well, the cold is over and I'm still stupid. In *Gridlock* (Thunder's Mouth/Avalon 2006), Matt Gaffney is depressed (p1) about the prevalence of sudoku, “Though sudoku is popular with the general public, it gets the cold shoulder from some crossword constructors,...” (p17) Call me a logic slut, I like both. However, sudoku is an even harsher measure of ability. You can con yourself into thinking that the hundreds of variables make this week's crossword puzzle harder than most. Switch to numbers. I am slowly working my way through the books from the World Sudoku Championships. If I aced a puzzle on the recto last month, it's hard to say that the puzzle on the verso represents a different sensibility. Furthermore, it's one thing to fail because your logic is twisted. Putting the two of the same number in one box is just wrong. Fortunately, errors of this suddenness and volume are not permanent. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

The Jonesin' crosswords Gaffney talks about in chapter 5 are here.

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2009-11-19T15:08:00.000-08:00

Find Your Inner Child
by Elizabeth C. Gorski
edited by Mike Shenk
November 13, 2009

Full answers available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page or with the following week's puzzle on WSJ's online Lifestyle page.

Theme: ----KI + D-----
Who knew that English had so many words ended in -ki? I knew our language adopted words from other countries but 5 international origins for 7 words verges on the profligate.
SUZUKI DEALERSHIP {22A Its business is going through cycles} Japanese origin
KHAKI DRESS {34A Safari-inspired weekend wear} Indian origin
KABUKI DANCE {44A National Theatre of Japan offering}
CHICKEN TERIYAKI DINNER {67A Bento box entree} Japanese
SKI DOWNHILL {95A Compete in the Super G} Norwegian origin
TIKI DRINKS {101A Samoan Fog Cutter and Day Tripper, e.g.} South Pacific origin via California at the original tiki bar
PULASKI DAY PARADE {119A Annual fall event on Fifth Avenue} Polish origin. One of those clues that's easier if you live in NYC, as the parade was held the previous Sunday, November 7, but not held on General Pulaski Memorial Day, October 11.
KID {127A Child in seven of this puzzle's longest answers}

Miscellaneous Internet tidbit: Pictures of chic CRUMB containers {6A Silent butler's catch}

Commentary: Since I still inhabit that zipping, buzzing world unique to cough syrup, we will continue to ignore my performance. Instead let us ponder what puzzles tell us about their constructor. Coincidentally, this Sunday's New York Times's puzzle was also by Ms. Gorski. From what I have read of the puzzle industry, constructors may submit puzzles months before they are published. Therefore, it is sheer happenstance that the downs in one helped me with the acrosses in the other.

WSJ - PEACEKEEPER {18A Mediation pro}
NYT [11/15/09] – MEDIATED {17A Helped settle an argument}

WSJ – ILER {51A Robert of “The Sopranos”}
NYT – ditto {31A}

In the total absence of data, one wonders about Ms. Gorski's need for mediation. Is her life that turbulent? Perhaps the lives of those around her roil in chaos and she lies at the still, calm center playing PEACEKEEPER. If it is anything like my family's issues, I wonder if she also is tempted to lob a few oxymoronic Peacekeepers.

Furthermore, what is her obsession with Mr. ILER? Is the attraction in the cast of his features or in the arrangement of his consonants?

While we are baselessly speculating on Ms. Gorski's life, here is one of her alter egos.

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2009-11-12T14:01:00.000-08:00

I'm a PC
by Myles Callum
edited by Mike Shenk
November 6, 2009

Full answers available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page or with the following week's puzzle on WSJ's online Lifestyle page.

Theme:
PETTY CRITICISM
{27A Carping? Nitpicking of Richard? Whatever! I'm a PC}
PRIVY COUNCILS
{38A Royal Advisors? Outhouse committees? Whatever! I'm a PC}
PASTRY CHEF {56A Patissier? Tart person? Whatever! I'm a PC}
POTATO CHIP {77A Crisp? Tuber splinter? Whatever! I'm a PC}
PRICE CONTROLS
{89A Anti-inflationary measures? Vincent's knobs? W! I'm a PC}
PRINCE CHARMING
{103A Fairy tale guy? Hexing a pop musician? Whatever! I'm a PC}
POSSE COMITATUS
{15D Sheriff's power? Latin militia? Whatever! I'm a PC}
POSITIVE CHARGE
{52D Proton feature? Favorable use of plastic? Whatever! I'm a PC}
The cleverness lies in the clues. The first part, a straight definition; the second, a humorous, literal reading of the words. Next time I open an outhouse door, I'm going to be looking for a circle of old men in wigs.

The Puzzle on the Web:
AMICE {54A White vestment} Priestly gear.

CRESSETS {61A Metal baskets for burning oil} Cresset Chemical Company (“an innovator in Release Agents, Curing Compounds, Sealers, Hand Cleaners and other products for the concrete construction industry”) has what I assume is a cresset as a logo. Looks like an Olympic torch to me.

IKES {65A Alibi ___ (excuse makers)} From the eponymous book by Ring Lardner.

OLAVS {80A Several Norwegian kings} Five out of 64, including one of the recent ones.

OLEG {113A Russian clown Popov} A member of the International Clown Hall of Fame.

POSSE COMITATUS{15D} A while back I saw a bumper sticker: If You're Not Outraged, You're Not Paying Attention. May I modify that to Confused?

CREES {40D Buffy-Sainte Marie and Tantoo Cardinal, e.g.}

LACER {42D Football factory worker} Wilson Sporting Goods has a video of making a football, complete with hand lacing.

SKEDS {62D Timetables, a la Variety} A search of “sked” at Variety.com yields 9744 hits. An improvement of the complicated mess that is English or decline of standards? Let's decide over donuts.

AMITI {70D Valuable violin} One of the Big Two according to the Met.

Commentary:
We will pass in silence over my personal performance on this puzzle and move on to Puzzles as Measure. When you do the same activity week after week, you notice variation. Some weeks you are plugged into God's own dictionary. The trickiest clue is an admirable little gem that fools everyone but cannot escape your fierce and penetrating wit. Other weeks, when you are gacking and snorting and regretting sharing an airplane with 200+ flu-wielding strangers, you feel dumber than a box of rocks. Yes, there are different sensibilities among constructors. You may have shared a frat party/sports championship/opera score with the constructor. However, The major puzzles also have professionals whose job it is to put out a consistent product. Face it, a person is more of a mood swing than the puzzle is.

Conversely, therefore, a puzzle becomes a gauge of my head space. Mental vapor lock means sudden-onset Alzheimier's or I'm more stressed/sicker than I thought. Bring on the chicken soup.

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2009-11-02T15:26:00.000-08:00

Once Upon a Recession
by Norman Wizer
edited by Mike Shenk
October 30, 2009

Full answers available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page or with the following week's puzzle on WSJ's online Lifestyle page.

Theme: Nursery Fame No Guarantee
Downturn Hits Fabled Characters
{23A Snow White ...} HAD TO LOWER THE OVERHEAD
{39A Little Miss Muffet...} SOLD ALL OF HER SPYDERS
{56A Tom Thumb...} WAS FORCED TO DOWNSIZE
{82A Little Jack Horner...} DECIDED TO CUT CORNERS
{99A Goldilocks was...} JUST BEARLY GETTING BY
{119A The Three Little Pigs found...} THE WOLF WAS AT THEIR DOOR
After string of letterplay puzzles, contentplay that is not only clever but suited to its venue. On that happy note, I'm off on vacation. Back next week.

Commentary: A mind is a terrible thing to waste.
I'll be in New York City without a laptop. Since I get the NYT and WSJ puzzles online, I'll be puzzlepenic! No seriously, it took me far longer than I wish to admit to figure out the solution to this problem. Sigh.

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2009-10-29T16:27:00.000-07:00

Capital Gains
by Dan Fisher
edited by Mike Shenk
October 23, 2009

Full answers available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page or with the following week's puzzle on WSJ's online Lifestyle page.

Theme: Word or phrases + DC = clued phrases
ARMY BAR-D C-RACKS
{22A Poet of the platoon can't take the pressure?}
SEMICOL-D C-ON {27A One who's chilling in the big house?}
FAMILY FE-D C-UD {36A Thanksgiving guests treated like cattle?}
PRIVATE BE-D C-ACHES
{62A Stockpiles of money kept under the mattress?}
TEN-D C-EMENT HOUSES
{71A Do upkeep on dwellings made of concrete?}
RE-D C-AR WINDOW
{95A Product that offers drivers a rosy outlook on things?}
HOME A-D C-LONE {106A Duplicated real estate listing?}
SWEET CHAR-D C-ITY
{115A Municipality famed for its sugary leafy vegetables?}
In a reverse of last week, this week I got a majority of the fill & the theme words before I got a sniff of the theme itself. Army Brat? Semi Cold Con? I was up to the 6th theme answer when I finally I got a look thru RE__AR WINDOW.

One quibble. Cud is “is a portion of food that returns from a ruminant's stomach in the mouth to be chewed for the second time.” It is by definition regurgitated. Being 'fed' implies an external source for an item. A combination of the two is not something I wish to contemplate.

Nomination for Word of the Week: DIA
A European Union of foreign words this week.
Spanish words: DIA {25A Box on un calendario}
& ARRIBA {1D Exuberant Spanish exclamation}
Spanish descent: PUENTE {93D Latin jazz legend Tito}
Italian places: RIALTO {24A Heart of Venice}
& MILANO {30D Second-largest city of Italia}
Italian people: MORO {12D Two-time Italian prime
minister Aldo}. Crossing RIALTO no less.
French word: AMI {85A Picardy pal}
French derivation: GRIFFE
{19D Ornament at the base of a column}. Also French for claw.
German word: Kriegsmarine as the clue for U-BOAT
{38D Kriegsmarine vessel}

Admissions of Defeat: 4
C
The first was a defeat but not an error. I ended with my standard collection of single-letter holes with the option to look up or guess. I successfully pulled off the F in GRIFFE from FINS {32A Bass parts}. However the HUL_E/I_E hole refused to budge. No letter made more sense than any other. A few made less sense but didn't thin the pool enough. For the first time, I just had a big, old unfillable hole. I could have looked up HULCE {74D “Amadeus” star} but that would have have unjustly covered my total inability to come up with ICE {89A Clinch}. I expected a head smacking “duh” moment when I looked at the solution but can't say that I get it even now. Anyone out there have a clue about the clue?

A-L
I was so caught up in the ICE block that I missed my other errors, two of which should have been obvious. For LIT ON {52D Discovered by chance}, I came up with the very reasonable hIT ON and therefore ethANS across. The t went down in flames with LYNNE {51D Dick Cheney's wife} and left the smoldering wreck _LhANS for ALLANS {50A Detective Pinkerton and others}. Never saw the hole until I went to confirm that the above was my only defeat. Deuce ADOUT {50D Deuce follower, maybe?}??? Neither Google nor I understand. A word split I can't see? A foreign language? Help?

N
One of the joys of getting older is discovering large print. I have a helpful program to convert one-page PDF files into two-page posters. Voila, I can read the puzzle. The trade-off is one row of clues disappears into the printer. Having written I.D. as a short hand for the missing clue {111A Identify}, I then proceeded to read it as Identity. Instead of NAME, sAME (as in sameness) makes some sense here. For CAsCER instead of CANCER {96D Summer sign}, I have no explanation.

Not my best day.

Commentary: This is your brain on puzzles.
Puzzles are supposed to help us use our brains. Too bad they don't help us understand them.

Fixation – Getting so focused on an incorrect word that you cannot think of other answers. I achieved brainlock on STANards for S_AN_ _ _ {41D Attitudes [STANCES]} to the point that I could not see around it. Didn't matter that it didn't fit.

Momentum - The pace at which a person solves puzzles, be it fast or slow. You can tell when it's missing. You get stuck. You pick DRE {72D “Forgot About ___” (Grammy-winning song)} out of the atmosphere. You find another word. Your momentum picks back up. However, as soon as I stop to recall which clue was the trigger, I stop cold. You'd think I'd learn not to look back.

Momentum II – You are stuck. (I get stuck a lot.) You put the puzzle down and step away. When you come back, a previously impenetrable clue seems obvious. In From Square One, Olsher refers to this as the “crossword puzzle effect” [p32]. I mentioned this last last week but it's a standard feature of the WSJ puzzles for me. For Those Other daily Puzzles, I either whiz thru or get no traction at all. Similarly, single-letter holes are my usual endgame for WSJ. For That Other Puzzle, either filled squares or large, gaping voids.

Memory – How can I remember things I don't know? Even after writing out AMANDA {114A Heather's “Melrose Place” role} I could not tell you where from I dredged up the name nor the last name of the character. It wasn't just that the name fit. I knew it was the right one.

Why?

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2009-10-22T20:11:00.000-07:00

Cooking 101
by Tony Orbach & Patrick Blindauer
edited by Mike Shenk
October 16, 2009

Full answers available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page or with the following week's puzzle on WSJ's online Lifestyle page.

Theme: Phrase + C = Cooking Class
CHOP SKIP AND JUMP
{23A Course on keeping fit during vegetable preparation?}
CHOW IN THE WORLD {41A Course on international cuisine?}
CHIP HUGGERS {49A Course for British fried food enthusiasts?}
LETS GET READY TO CRUMBLE
{68A Course on preparing coffeecake topping?}
CROCK OF AGES
{88A Course in time-honored earthenware cooking?}
FORBIDDEN CLOVE {97A Course on a taboo ham seasoning?}
TAKE IT ON THE CLAM
{118A Course about using raw bar condiments?}

Nomination for Clue/Word of the Week: HETERO {59D Straight} First I put HonEst. I was so proud of myself for having come up with an alternative to 'straight as in line' only to be mystified when the across themes made that impossible. More on this below.

News To Me [I got 'em but I didn't get 'em]: 3+
INGRATE {1A Oblivious beneficiaries} – Really? I could picture Leopold being aware of his share in Godmother Petunia's will but not grateful.
AKELA {15A Cub Scout leader}
CAMISE {105A Loosefitting shirt} – Not to be confused with cami/camisole, which qualify as tops but not what my grandmother would call shirts. As a mild claustrophobe, I may never use the word camisole again without wincing, “In some inpatient psychiatric circles camisole has been the affectionate term for a straight-jacket.” Eeek.

And the usual slew of whodat? proper nouns:
Places
BASRA {39A Sinbad's home port} - Sometimes 26 letters just aren't enough. The letters also stand for Bahamas Air Sea Rescue Association & Bay Area Soccer Referee Association.
ASSAM {102A State south of Bhutan} - India
People
REBA {57A Nellie's portrayer in the version of “South Pacific” aired by PBS [McEntire]}, REA {60A Stephen of “The Crying Game”}, ALAIN {74A Director Resnais}, ELYSEE {75A ____ Palace (Sarkozy's residence)} EERO {95A Eliel Saarinen's son}, ELIAS {7D Author Canetti}, TAJ {11D Atlantic City casino, with “The”} ASCH {24D “The Nazarene” author [Sholem]}, NASH {32D He rhymed “Bronx” with “thonx” [Ogden]}, MAYS {64D The Giants retired his number [Willie]}, FABIAN {97D “Turn Me Loose” singer}, ETTA {110D “At Last” singer James}
Most were a mystery until Googled. A few I knew, such as REBA, but didn't know they had done that.

Admissions of Defeat: 1
A lesson in humility. Not the error. RoBELAIS for RABELAIS {87D Creator of Gargantua and Pantagruel} is not going to keep me awake at night. The shadow of Odin made oTLI seem more reasonable that Atli {92A Brynhildr's brother, in myth}, although the name is more recognizable once the nice webpage tells you it is a variant of Attila. No, the edification occurred in the time it took solve the other 99%. My recent streak of victories and near victories made me complacent. Even leading to the stray thought that if my learning curve continued, would I still want to pontificate on puzzles in six months? HA! Usually by Tuesday, it's all over but the guessing and I'm flogging myself to get on with the writing. (BTW tip of the hat to those who do this every day.) This Tuesday, I was flogging myself to get on with the finishing. It began when I got the theme before the fill. Usually even if I get the general idea I need some crossings to get the exact letters. Not so. For example, I got the grid-wide LETS GET off of __MB__. Admirable yes, but the rest of the white boxes where lying there laughing at me.

Not only was it a matter of time but a slew of perfectly reasonable wrong words: Dale for DELL {54D Wooded valley} or Braver for BOLDER {79D More intrepid}. There were even wrong crossings: blouSE for CAMISE led to the reasonable but wrong hbo for TCM {94D Cable channel whose first broadcast was “Gone with the Wind”}. I recall watching endless loops of GWTW back in the dark ages when HBO was the coming thing.

I even had help for which I cannot be blamed. S_Y_ became STYE {58D Lid problem} when the Tuesday NYT [10/20/09] had {70A Eyelid woe}. To the background music “It's a Small World After All”, the same puzzle also used CARLAS {12D France's Bruni-Sarkozy and others}. Not that it helped with ELYSEE. For more SWAA, the Thursday NYT [10/22/09] had the HETERO/Straight combo {48D}.

I had to solve it by nibbling at a few, putting it down, coming back, nibbling at a few more. Why does that work?

Commentary: ASS {5D Imbecile} & APE {56A Galoot}
What is with the animal insults in our language? Asses are smart and apes are graceful. The saying in the equine world is:
A horse knows one thing – what you want him to do.
A pony knows two things – what you want him to do & what he wants to do.
A mule knows three things – what you want him to do, what he wants to do & the fact that he ain't gonna do what you want him to do.
The mule didn't get his smarts from his horse parent.

When I worked at a zoo, my favorite exhibit was the rat habitat built into a wall of the Children's Zoo barn. [You can't have a barn without rats!] Not only did I enjoy startling people who where unknowningly standing next to it, but the rats were fun to watch. If language is any measure, people like to think of themselves as tigers and eagles. However, we as a species have a lot more in common with the rat: active, intelligent, passionately omnivorous, urban-dwelling, disease-carrying, and so on.

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2009-10-16T10:51:00.000-07:00

Come Together
by Harvey Estes
edited by Mike Shenk
October 9, 2009

[Pardon the lateness of this post. A combination of personal & electrical power outages.]

Full answers available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page or with the following week's puzzle on WSJ's online Lifestyle page.

Theme: Popular song titles changed to clued song titles by dropping a letter.
ROCK AROUND THE C[l]OCK (26A Song centered on a rooster?)
PIECE OF MY H[e]ART (42A Song about a venison serving?)
BA[n]D ON THE RUN (61A Song about evil in retreat?)
RAMBLIN MA[n] (80A Song about a jabberin' parent?)
GO[o]D VIBRATIONS (95A Song about a divine earthquake?)
DOW[n] TOWN (113A Song about New York City and its investors?)
which results in
LENNON (125A Letters dropped from six answers “come together” here). It would have been legendary to do this with six Beatles songs but a puzzle feat as is. One wonders how many song titles Mr. Estes had to search to find six that could supply the missing letter and still make sense in a clue. Of course, where there is John, there is Yoko ONO (76A “Double Fantasy” artist).

Cool Crosses: 1
EQUI/EQUINE (73A Prefix akin to iso-) crossing (67D Horsy) - okay, so I am a sucker for symmetry. Despite being the stereotypical horsey old lady, I wasn't familiar with this variant. The Googlesphere vets it.

Nomination for Word/Clue of the Week: POTATOES (7D Shoestring material). Leather? Cotton? Plastic? Huh??? Particularly since ___TOES came first. Honorable mention to CANNIBAL (90D One who has a guest for dinner).

News To Me [I got 'em but I didn't get 'em]: 4
ROTO (38A Old newspaper section) - Rotogravure is still used for “publications, catalogs, Sunday newspaper supplements, labels, cartons, packaging, gift-wrap, wall and floor coverings, and a variety of precision coating applications.”
MES (48A Octubre o noviembre) - Spanish for month.
VONDA (96D Pop singer Shepard) - I have no fears about being thought cool as I get older. I never was.
AUGUSTAN (108A Neoclassical) – 18thC England not 1stC Rome.

Opportunities To Learn New Things & Admissions of Defeat: 0
Only one hole this week but it could have gone either way. ROTO/HOOHA (38A) crossing (28D Commotion) sat around as R_TO/HO_HA for a while. Victory but not a slam dunk.

Commentary: Puzzle Redux
Certain words get puzzle replay. These three are on a short loop. WOE (115D Heartache) & AGER (62D Stress, for one) were both used within the last few weeks with the same clue. WOE was three weeks ago [9/18/09 47D]. AGER was last week [10/2/09, 78D]. However, since they gave me trouble worth noting, I felt smug rather than annoyed at seeing them again.

XXXXX (8A Raid target) was use two weeks ago used [9/25/09] as base phrase in the theme answer APPROACH MOTELS (82A What a mattress salesman might do?) Must we? I know the critters are ubiquitous in Manhattan but so are lot of thing we don't mention in Happy Puzzle World. I believe I spoke of a bug phobia? No, I won't write it out. I don't want those shift-number things skittering around my grid or my blog.

OTOH, it would be hard to make a puzzle blameless to all people. Someone who has lived through an tragic earthquake is not going to find them GODly. While I tend more toward Bourdain than the vegetarians, Hezbollah Tofu is not going to be happy about the Bambi burgers in the middle of their puzzle. [The “H-like splinter faction” quote is from p70 of Kitchen Confidential or here.]

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2009-10-08T17:41:00.000-07:00

Puzzle 5.0
by Randolph Ross
edited by Mike Shenk
October 2, 2009

Full answers available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page (currently mistitled with a repeat of September 25's title but the answers are for October 2) or with the following week's puzzle on WSJ's online Lifestyle page.

Theme: Phrases containing 5 Os
SHOOP SHOOP SONG (24A Tune also known as “It's in His Kiss” (with “The”))
BOOK OF MORMON (32A Sacred text first published in 1830)
HOOK OR CROOK (66A Any means)
GO ON TOO LONG (74A Overstay one's welcome at the podium)
NOT FOOLPROOF (106A Flawed, as a plan)
BLOODY GOOD SHOW (116A Compliment from a West End critic)
BOWL OF DOG FOOD (3D Feast for Fido)
DOOR TO DOOR (46D One way to sell)
VOODOO DOLL (41D Perilous pincushion)
BOY OH BOY OH BOY (60D Excited exclamation)
After the plenitude of Ps last week, we now have oodles of Os. In addition to the 44 Os of the theme answers (6 overlaps), 17 other Os, including NOISOME (22A Highly obnoxious).

Cool Crosses: 1, mostly it was about the Os. The BOOK/KOOK cross – (32A partial) crossing (33D Wackos) - oriented me on the theme.

Nomination for Word of the Week: INFO (38A Poop)
It's all in the cluing. A four-letter word for poop seems obvious but not possible. Of course it was a mislead. Is it me or was there a similar idea in TATA[s] (75D “See ya!”)? Either way, the two clues opened up a space in my brain for blameless clue/word combos that could be misread: athletic supporter –> fan, intercourse –> talk, threesome -> trio, and so on.

News To Me (I got 'em but I didn't get 'em): 4
AMBITS (7A Spheres of influence) - Mysteries of the brain. When it dredged up AMBIT, I said, Oh sure - but what's an AMBIT?

ANOUILH (13D “Antigone” playwright) – Vowel soup with consonants tossed in for garnish.

PETARD (42D Noisy explosive) – The Hamlet phrase apparently means being blown-up by your own prematurely exploding bomb. I had heretofore imagined it as a belt or suspender that got caught on rigging, a pre-modern nautical wedgie.

MOOT (94D Debatable) – One of those words that can mean its own opposite. The point has been mooted vs. the point is moot. OR Subject to discussion/Of no practical importance.

Opportunities To Learn New Things
& Admissions of Defeat: 6/2
A right swiss-cheeser that could have gone either way. I was stumped by 6 holes resulting from crossings of proper nouns. Having decided it is nobler to guess and be wrong that use “performance-enhancing reference works”*, I wrote my choices in the margins. Four fell my way, two did not.

BARRIE/MAHER (21A Pan man) crossing (8D “Real Time” host Bill). As in Peter Pan, as in the man who wrote. Duh. Maher has been permanently misfiled as M(O/A?)HER.

ADL/SARABI (26A Jewish rights org. [Anti-Defamation League]) crossing (1D Simba's mother, in “The Lion King”)

SOLTI/KLO (72A Georg who won more Grammys than anyone else) crossing (67D Nickname of 1957 home run leader Ted). Helps if you know his last name was Kluszewski and not The Burglar who Traded Ted Williams by Lawrence Block.

BOCELLI/TLC/IAGO (86A Tenor with four multiplatinum records) crossing (82D “No Scrubs” group) & (87D Scheming ensign of drama). Iago is a go-to crossword name but ensign had me out to sea, again. Apparently ensign can be a standard-bearer in the army as well as a midshipman in the navy.

AYLA/LOUISE (101A Jean Auel heroine) crossing (102D Charpentier opera)

News To Me & Admissions of Defeat: 2
REBBES (88A Synagogue scholars) - Yiddish for the Hasidic 'Rabbi'. I missed on AGER (78D Stress, for one) but was sure enough that R?BB? was in the ballpark that I never went back to commit to the vowels. More of an oversight than error, but still points off under ACPT rules. One source has spells the word as Rebe while another says it's all a best guess anyway.

Commentary:
NONPROS (35D Olympics athletes, traditionally) – The ancient Greek Olympians were handsomely rewarded, “The word athlete is an ancient Greek word that means 'one who competes for a prize'.” They drew no distinction between amateur & professional. Coubertin was either influenced by the idea of the Noble Amateur or deliberately included it in the modern Olympics to bring in the British. The 19th century upper-class British had developed the idea of the amateur to exclude anyone “who is or has been by trade or employment for wages a mechanic, artisan or labourer, or engaged in any menial duty.” You know - Not Our Kind, Dear.

The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica [athlete link above] is often seen as the greatest encyclopedia as it was the last time western society in general & encyclopedia makers in specific felt that everything could be known. This belief was shattered once WWI crashed down on everyone's heads. One wonders what the 1911 folks would think of the Internet. It's all there but in an ever-morphing, out-of-control, quatum form.

And finally, EWE (4D She sheep) – Minutes before seeing this clue, I had been reading Stanley Newman's Cruciverbalism: A Crossword Fanatic's Guide to Life in the Grid. In defense of puns, he says, “Don't be ashamed, don't be a sheep – the crossword world will accept ewe.” [p63]
*[Newman p66]

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2009-10-01T11:23:00.000-07:00

There's an App for That
by Dan Fisher
edited by Mike Shenk
September 25, 2009

Full answers available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page or with the following week's puzzle on WSJ's online Lifestyle page.

Theme: APP + phrase = new clued phrase
APPRAISE THE BAR (22A Decide if a saloon is up to one's standards?)
APPROVING EYE (33A Favorable look?)
APPEAR FOR MUSIC (47A Show up to take in a concert?)
APPALL A BOARD (64A Give the directors shocking company news?)
APPLYING DOWN (72A Lining with feathers?)
APPROACH MOTELS(82A What a mattress salesman might do ?)
APPEND TABLES(103A Make a textbook clearer with charts?)
APPOINTMENT JAR (117A Crock used in place of a datebook?)
Without An Englishman's nifty crucimetrics, I can't swear to the percentages, but this puzzle appears to have a pronouncedly higher proportion of Ps in addition to the APPlicable ones & their crosses: PAIN (79D Aspirin target), PAL (78A Bud), EPIC POEM (23D Virgil's “Aenid.” for one) and so on. A prolific performance.

Cool Crosses: 5-in-1
Up in the top middle, we have a whole nest of women's issues. It starts with ATHENA (20A Goddess often depicted in armor) crossing HARLOT (12D Jade), wherein lies the goddess/whore dichotomy. SHE (9D Haggard classic) Who Must Be Obeyed gives us the white queen power trope. Surrounded by AN AIR (11D Have __ of mystery), the Femme Fatale stereotype slinks in from 50s noir detective novels. Modern politics has given us Title IX and the ensuing effects on ATHletic (8D School dept.) teams. We finish with the hysterical if gender-divisive definition of CATs (7D Burmese or Balinese) as “tiny women in little fur coats.” This ties together six out of 8 words, a credit to the devious minds of Messrs. Fisher & Shenk or to my having spent way too long entangled with English Departments.

A nod to ACE/MACE, (70A Top trump) crossing (59D Knight club), & ORA/ORE, (93A Man-mouse link) crossing (86D Alcoa purchase), for their symmetry.

Nomination for Word of the Week: APPaloosa.
I know it wasn't there. I kept waiting for it to trot in. In retrospect, I can't think of an appropriate phrase but you can't write about horses for 20 years and not see spots when you hear App.

News To Me (I got 'em but I didn't get 'em): 2+
OPPUGN (96D Call into question): Impugn sure, but this? I can't even follow the Wiktionary definition.

OXO (58A Big name in kitchen gadgets): As defined. Props for coming with an alternative to a tic-tac-toe clue. I have to admit the relevance when I realize we several Good Grips tools in our kitchen.
http://www.oxo.com/oxoHome.jsp

And of course the usual handful of proper nouns that formed the usual alphabet soup for me: FRAYN (50D “Copenhagen” playwright), UTA (76A Tony winner Hagen), DELIA (110A Sister of Nora Ephron), and the rest. I did know DESOTO (123A Mississippi River discoverer) from DeSoto Caverns & the DeSoto Trail. I must raise an issue with the cluing on this one. I suspect many, many people knew about the Mississippi before the Spaniards stumbled upon it. While a crossword is not the place to argue the morality of the Age of Exploration or even the legitimacy of applying one era's morals to a prior era, we can at least aim to be linguistically accurate.

Opportunities To Learn New Things & Admissions of Defeat: 0
VICTORY! Now I'm going to RAISE THE BAR to getting all of the answers without wild guesses. After the WOE of last week, I carefully groomed the surrounds on NEPALI (1D Language akin to Hindi) and DELIA until these sounded right and proved to be correct. OPPUGN remained a what-else-could-it-be from the crosses.

Commentary: OILED (27A Blotto)
In Gridlock, Matt Gaffney quotes Merl Reagle quoting Margaret Farrar on the rules for crossword puzzles, “Crosswords are an entertainment. Avoid things like death, disease, war and taxes – the subway solver gets enough of that in the rest of the paper.” [p39] In Crossworld, Marc Romano speaks of the ACPT as a weekend that is and should be “Devoid even of the possibility of nastiness.”[p155] He could be talking about puzzles themselves.

To Farrar's list I would like to add public drunkenness. As someone who recently decided to greatly reduce her alcohol intake, I have been APPalled at the amount of casual drinking on TV and in movies. It recalls the smoking prevalent in mid-century media that is now nonexistent in the same venues. I suspect directors did it for similar reasons – to give actors something to do with their hands.

Similarly, I have been struck by the number of cute terms for drunkenness that have occurred here and in That Other Puzzle. It's not the reference alone. A saloon (clue for 22A) is both part of our culture and judgment-neutral. What rankles is the levity of the words blotto, sot, and their ilk. As if it is cute to be that way. Given the glassness of my house, I gently pitch these stones with the intent of being thought-provoking rather than simply provoking.

While on the subject of niceness, my bug phobia and I could have lived without the base phrase for APPROACH MOTELS.

And on that icky note, I sign off to begin tapping my foot until Friday morning.

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2009-09-25T11:55:00.000-07:00

Queue & A
by Daniel Rowe
edited by Mike Shenk
September 18, 2009

Full answers available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page (currently mistitled with a repeat of September 11's title but the answers are for September 18) or with the following week's puzzle on WSJ's online Lifestyle page.

Theme: words and phrases converted into terms of venery
Linedance -> LINE OF DANCES
(22A [River, barn, belly])
Thread Count -> THREAD OF COUNTS
(26A [Chocula, Basie, Dooku])
Stringbean -> STRING OF BEANS
(56A [Kidney, jelly, coffee])
Group Policies -> GROUP OF POLICIES
(69A [Energy, economic, foreign])
Listserver -> LIST OF SERVERS
(82A [Acolyte, tennis player, waiter])
Blockbuster -> BLOCK OF BUSTERS
(109A [Brown, Crabbe, Keaton])
Chain Gang -> CHAIN OF GANGS
(119A [Bloods, Hells Angels, Crips])
Apologizes to Mssrs. Rowe & Shenk. Initially, I had THREes OF COUNTS for 26A. I figured it was close enough to three-count and that we must accept occasional imperfections to make the grid work. I should never have doubted.

Cool Crosses: 5
La TETE de mon AMIE. (25A Chapeau supporter) crossing (2D Gallic girlfriend). What is it with all the French? Is the language of Voltaire perceived to be more suitably high-brow for pursuits such as crosswords? Would we feel that way if the latest wave of immigrants spoke French instead of the language of Cervantes? Or if we lived in Quebec? Or is it just all the vowels?

NASTY slamdances NSYNC. (90A 1986 Janet Jackson hit) crossing (79D 'I Want You Back” band). Maleska is titubating in his tomb. For those not in the know, read any book on crossword puzzle history.

ART TEACHER reflected by REACHER. (99A Life class leader) crossing (92D Rude fellow at the dinner table). I hear a new a nursery school song, “The ART TEACHER says 'Don't be a REACHER.' ”? Or is my Sesame Street youth showing?

ASSORTS abutting ASKANT. (125A Puts into piles) crossing (100D With suspicion). I have to admit to a pet peeve against crossword words that tack on an A: AROAR, ATREMBLE, Aso on. Correct but do we really use them? These two are not exactly but close enough to get on my peeve nerve. Before a package of assorted buttons leaves the factory, someone in charge ASSORTS them? I look ASKANT at the need for a variation on askance.

NEMESES encountering a FOE. (127A Archrivals) crossing (120D Challenger). Does this put them on the same side? According to Yahoo! Answers, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” has origins in Arabic, Chinese and the Book of Exodus.

Nomination for Word of the Week & News To Me: 0
Too caught up in my near victory to notice any. As I type, Count Dooku rears his ugly head. I do not know Dooku. I take great pride in not knowing Dooku. I have no desire to ever know Dooku. I must stop. We are close to descending into a fan rant about the original Star Wars trilogy vs. the first Star Wars trilogy. In A New Hope, I find nothing but despair. I ...... need to go lie down. Link from Wookieepedia, the Star Wars Wiki. Don't ya love the Internet?

Opportunities To Learn New Things & Admissions of Defeat: 1, with multiple arms.
So close. So annoyingly close. Most of grid fell into place in a few hours Friday evening. Was I actually going to solve this on my own? Two more days to figure out or make reasonable guesses for 7 of the 8 remaining boxes. The last box? Two further days & I finally give up. R_D LAV_R was never going to become ROD LAVER (51A & 73D two-time winner of tennis's Grand Slam). The last name crossed with CESAR (91A French film award). Given C_SAR, it was pretty much pick-a-vowel. The real problem came with DO_ (45A Average name). What could be more average than a John/Jane DOe? Which left e_E (47D Heartache) crossing the first name. You ain't kidding WOE. Particularly in a financial paper dealing with the DOW Jones Average.

Final total, two green boxes, one red. On my puzzle paper, theme answer boxes are underlined in orange. “Researched” answers appear in green. Errors discovered by consulting the solution are marked in the traditional red. (These are my pre-blog and non-WSJ puzzle rules. Yes, anal-retentive has a hyphen. I've checked.) So, which scores lower on the self-congratulation scale, one look up & one error or wild guessing & three errors? I have yet to decide.

Commentary:
If you love obscure but valid words – look to whom I'm talking - check out An Exaltation of Larks or, The Venereal Game by James Lipton [Grossman 1968].

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2009-09-18T09:49:00.000-07:00

Hear, Hear!
by Elizabeth C. Gorski
edited by Mike Shenk
Sept. 11, 2009

Full answers available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page or with the following week's puzzle on WSJ's online Lifestyle page.

Theme: words and phrases that begin and end with parts of the word sound.
SURROUNDSOUND (121A TV feature, and a clue to six other answers in this puzzle)
SHOPPED AROUND (23A Compared prices)
SECOND ROUND (35A First-week Wimbledon hurdle for Serena)
SOUPBRAND (52A Progresso, for one)
SOUTHERN COMMAND (69A Miami-based Department of Defense group)
SNOWBOUND (89A Stranded at Sugarloaf)
SLEUTHHOUND (103A Detective with a nose for fighting crime)
The middle two came last. Misleads after all the -OUND endings

Cool Crosses: at least 3

The POSSES pulling off a HOLDUP. (129A Spaghetti western outfits?) crossing (104D Sundance activity)

The ARIA from TOSCA. (101A Operatic selection) crossing (73D 1900 Puccini opera)

The ACELA pulling into the STATION. (97A Speedy Amtrak train) crossing (87D Pennsylvania, for one)
BTW, how do people who never lived in NYC know about such things as Penn Station?

Nomination for Word of the Week: Bloviates. (clue for 51D)
If I drew a cartoon of a person who SPOUTSOFF, he or she would have bovine overtones and then disappear in a B.L.E.V.E. [Fire service speak for boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion.]

News To Me (I got 'em but I didn't get 'em): 4

EPOS (47A Long narrative poem) - According to Merriam Webster, it is "1: epic or 2: a number of poems that treat an epic theme but are not formally united," Another fine mislead. You can't help but assume EPic.

Speaking of misleads, kudos for USED CARS (29A They include lemons). I spent way too much time pondering a scientific name for the citrus family that started with U- and end with -ARS.

ISTLE (50A Basketry fiber) - According to the BLM, “small palms such as istle or hemp have been used for blankets”. "Appendix D – Native American and Alaskan Native Resource Uses".(search the above & view as HTML) Umm, do the Alaskan Separatist know that the US Department of the Interior/Bureau of Land Management does not consider Alaskan Natives to be Native Americans?

ARA (67A Faint constellation next to Scorpius) - According to the American Association of Amateur Astronomers, the constellation Ara is know as The Altar.

OSIERS (125A Some willows) – According to the Britannica online, “The shrubby common, or silky, osier (S. viminalis) supplies twigs used for basketmaking in Europe.” Osier and istle baskets anyone?

Opportunities To Learn New Things: 2
For me, most proper nouns arrive as either lucky crosses or as an OTLNT. Opera, baseball, politics, it doesn't matter, I never know them. With the exception this week of IMOGENE (9D Classic comic Coca). No idea that she had her own variety show nor that she inspired Lily Tomlin. [Obit] The syllables just resonated. Therefore, if the crosses refuse to behave, one is forced to look up Choreographer Lubovitch (8D LAR) and the Cheever novel set in a prison (16D FALCONER).

Admissions of Defeat: 3
HONAN/RAMROD - error on the O, (21A Hard taskmaster) crossing (11D Chinese province).I suspected the O but did not commit to it. I couldn't give up HuNAN.

DON/ALDEN – error on the N, (68A Granada Gentleman) crossing (44D Plymouth name). John tried to speak for himself but I went to school with someone named Adler and the synaptic collision came out as ALDEr which I never revisited.

ARROW/WES – error on the W, (85A “Rushmore” director Anderson) crossing (57D Feathered flier). One of my Rs in SOUTHERN COMMAND (69A) looked suspiciously like a P, possibly influenced by the overly large P written into SPREAD (64A Elaborate meal). Therefore I was seeing ARpO_ which my internal autospell rendered as ApRO therefore ApROn. nES Anderson? WES Anderson? (85A) It's all Google to me.

I thought crosswords were supposed to help my brain, not make it into spaghetti.

Commentary:
Recently began reading From Square One: A Mediation, with Digression, on Crosswords by Dean Olsher [Scribner 2009]. His pondering led me to ask why I do crossword puzzles. The author enjoys filling in little black & white boxes because, “I am convinced that we solve crosswords to become unstuck in time.” [p3] Although I can't say I've experienced any temporal distraction, I do get a jolt of intellectual endorphins when the right word fits into its designated space. That's why the correct difficulty level is so important. Too easy, no satisfaction. Too hard, no word. Either way, no additive jolt.

Finally, I leave you with earworms from Guys and Dolls:
(1D Detroit on Broadway)
“That's good old reliable NATHAN!
Nathan, Nathan, Nathan, Detroit!”
host of the
“oldest established, permanent floating
Crap game in New York”
[lyrics]

(109A Markers:IOUS)
Brando, “I will give you my marker.” before breaking into,
“They call you lady luck
But there is room for doubt
At times you have a very un-lady-like way
Of running out.....”
[transcript] & [lyrics]

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan

2009-09-11T09:58:00.000-07:00

Solving (I hope) & blogging on the weekly WSJ Crossword Puzzle

Inaugural blog
With gratitude to Rex Parker for getting me hooked on blogs in addition to the puzzles themselves. Thank you, I think.

Right Here, Right Now
September 04, 2009
by Colin Gale, edited by Mike Shenk

The completed puzzle grid awaits an increase in my blogging ability.

Theme: ASAP embedded in seven phrases across plus ASAP as a stand-alone answer down.
HAS A PENCHANT FOR [22A Likes]
MONTANA SAPPHIRES [31A Output of Yogo Gulch's mines]
NASA PATHFINDER [46A Unmanned solar-powered aircraft tested in the 1980s and 1990s]
WAS APPARENT [68A Couldn't be missed]
LA CASA PACFICIA [80A Nixon's “Western White House”]
MONICA'S APPARTMENT [100A Setting of many “Friends” scenes]
PROUD AS A PEACOCK [112A Oozing hubris]
ASAP [81D Right now, as hidden in this puzzle's longest answers]

Cool crosses:
SATE/I ATE [44A “Must've been something __”/34D Quench]
ROAN/HORSE [58A Chestnut with white mixed in, e.g./50D Groom's Charge]
CANA/DANA [92A “Two Years Before the Mast” writer/82D Water-to-wine miracle site]

Number of words: 238
Number of words requiring The Opportunity to Learn New Things: 3

1)IOWAN [36D Tom Harkin, for one]. Tom Harkin is from Iowa and therefore is an IOWAN. I had MONTANA'SAPPle REd [31A Output of Yogo Gulch's mines]. Who knows, I was happy it had ASAP in it. ENCodE made some sense although ENCASE is correct [18D Protect, in a way]. eO was not leading me toward Iowa nor was lE leading me toward HEAVEN [35D Kingdom come].

2)LA CASA PACFICIA [80A Nixon's “Western White House”]. mA CASA works as long as one's knowledge of rap [80D “Stand Up” rapper LUDACRIS] is even less than one's knowledge of politics.

3)PACHISI [54D Sorry! inspiration]. This a personal record for the saddest use of Google. I work from the printed version of the puzzle. The exclamation point was beyond the event horizon of my current reading glasses. I read the clue as Sorryl (final L rather than !) and assumed a poet unknown to me (one of multitudes) who was inspired by a particular person or place. The worst part is that my grandmother and I played endless games of Parcheesi.

Commentary: On starting a blog on the WSJ puzzle

Yes, the New York Times puzzle is the gold standard. Yes, it comes out daily. However, the weekly WSJ puzzle has a snarkiness that calls to my soul. I do both and read Rex Parker religiously. Sometimes I even finish the puzzle first.

In describing his creation of Discworld, Terry Pratchett says, "The world rides through space on the back of a turtle. This is one of the great ancient world myths, found wherever men and turtles are gathered together; the four elephants were an Indo-European sophistication. The idea has been lying in the lumber room of legend for centuries. All I had to do was grab it and run away before the alarms went off." That's what I did. Grabbed the WSJ blog and ran away before anyone could stop me.

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan