THEME: "Get Ready to Roll" — A bowling rebus puzzle, with PIN and BALL squares and circles that spell out the word GUTTER along both sides of the grid... plus three theme-related answers:
UP ONE'S ALLEY (101D: Suited to a person's strengths)
SPLIT DECISION (49D: 5-4 ruling, e.g.)
SPARE MOMENTS (9D: Bit of free time)
BALL squares appear to represent a trajectory suggesting a bowler attempting to pick up a SPLIT / SPARE...
Word of the Day: IRNA Phillips (30D: Soap opera creator Phillips) —
Irna Phillips (July 1, 1901 – December 22, 1973) was an American actress and most notably writer who created and scripted many of the first Americansoap operas. (wikipedia)
• • •
Getting a late start on this one, as I was over at friends' for most of the night, so write-up will have to be shorter than I'd normally like. I was a big fan of Kevin Der's last Sunday architectural marvel: the Chinese Zodiac puzzle. This one ... I'm less thrilled by, first because the exact thing being represented in the grid isn't entirely clear (and there's no key phrase uniting at all), and second because of the loopy fill that I had to wade through in order to finish. I know you have to make allowances for cruddy / strange / forced fill in a grid with so many architectural demands, but ... well, I picked up the theme at T-[BALL] GLOVE and immediately thought, "that's a thing? They have special gloves designed for T-BALL? Isn't the act of catching the ball exactly the same as in baseball?" [FYI they appear to be simply smallish baseball gloves] I then went on to fight off CREAMWARE and LIMECORDIAL (83A: Citrusy cocktail mixer) and NEOGENE (!) (53A: Period of the Cenozoic Era) and a ton of odd abbrevs. and IRNA and CA[BALL]ED and ALEMAN. Lack of a tight theme / clear visual made the awkward stuff more distracting than it ought to have been. I expect I'll be in the minority today. So be it. I was dutifully impressed by the construction, and I did have a genuine little AHA moment when the first "BALL" made me notice that the "U" and "T" in the circles were part of "GUTTER," but in the end this strikes (!) me more as an interesting oddity or curiosity than a brilliantly executed puzzle.
Bullets:
19A: Century in Amer. politics (U.S. SENATE) — "Century? Oh, *that* century ... ugh."
24A: Bally enthusiasts (PINBALLERS) — the marquee answer, in some ways. Two rebus squares + enigmatic clue (which Bally? The bra people? The fitness people? ...)
94A: Drink with tempura, maybe (ASAHI) — SAKE! Oh. No. OK.
144A: Pixar robot with a female voice (EVE) — I think this is from "Wall-E." Never saw it.
115A: "make.believe" sloganeer (SONY) — again, not on my radar, but easy to pick up.
77A: Red-haired film princess (FIONA) — from "Shrek." You get the feeling Mr. Der likes his animated movies ... (see also ASNER, 8D: Ed heard in "Up")
35D: Ambulance, slangily (MEAT WAGON) — nice answer, though surprisingly gruesome for a Sunday NYT...
993D: Highlands daggers (DIRKS) — considered SNEES. Reconsidered.
120D: Engage in a 1920s fad (POLESIT) — I liked this answer, and the entire bottom portion of the grid, actually.
134D: W. or Bam (PREZ) — I confess I have no idea what "Bam" means here ... huh. Obama. I have literally Never seen / heard him called that, though I can find all kinds of examples when I google. It's a stupid nickname, if only because (I presume) it's pronounced differently than the "bam" part of Obama's name. Like the sound effect "Bam!" Not at all equivalent to "W.," which is a widely known nickname, the title of a movie about Bush, etc.
THEME: "Circle of Life" — Rebus puzzle with all twelve animals of the CHINESE ZODIAC (which has a TWELVE-YEAR CYCLE) arranged symmetrically throughout the grid (41D: Collection of animals featured in this puzzle)
Word of the Day: Den HAAG (110A: Den ___, Nederland) —
The Hague [...] is the third largest city in the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam, with a population of 485,818 (as of May 31, 2009) (population of agglomeration: 1,011,459) and an area of approximately 100 km². It is located in the west of the country, in the province of South Holland, of which it is also the provincial capital. Along with Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht and Almere, The Hague is part of the Randstad metropolitan area that totals 6,659,300 inhabitants. (wikipedia)
• • •
Ingenious. Maddening — because of general toughness and odd answers and a RAFT of not-great short fill — but ingenious. Why is the RAFT Finnish, by the way (19D: Finnish transport?)? Do RAFTs have fins? I don't get the joke [Update: Oh, Huck Finn. Huh. All right]. Anyway, this puzzle is remarkably ambitious on an architectural level. I didn't know the NYT was doing 23x23 puzzles anymore. Also, I was told that rebus answers couldn't be more than 4 letters in length because it was unreasonable to expect solvers to be able to write long answers in the squares—at least that was the reason given for the rejection of a rebus puzzle I once submitted. I suppose you could draw the animals, but ... really? Did you do that? No, you didn't. Perhaps special dispensation was given to this puzzle because it's just so damned creative and daring. At any rate, I kept simply writing in the first letter of the animal involved, and then forgetting that that letter was supposed to stand for a whole animal (this kept me from instantly getting [TIGER] WOODS, for example: "TWOOD-? TWOODY? Was there a golfer named TWOODY?"). The marquee answer today is, of course, "CROUCHING [TIGER], HIDDEN [DRAGON]" (91D: With 88-Down, 2000 Ang Lee film) — just brilliant. Must have been just about the first thing in the grid (after the central crossers).
Theme answers:
BRASS [MONKEY] (1A: Rum, vodka and orange juice drink) / [MONKEY]ING AROUND
RED [ROOSTER] / [ROOSTER] TAILS(10D: Wakes thrown up behind speedboats)
[DOG]EAR / [DOG]OODERS
PORKY [PIG] / SEA [PIG]
DEMOC[RAT] / ROOM [RAT]ES
F[OX]ILY / T[OX]INS
CROUCHING [TIGER] / [TIGER] WOODS
[RABBIT], RUN / ROGER [RABBIT] (114D: Much-wanted toon in Toontown)
PEN[DRAGON] / HIDDEN [DRAGON]
[SNAKE] SKINS / [SNAKE] PIT
[HORSE]POWER / ON [HORSE]BACK
IN F[RAM]E / BIG[RAM]S
NW was rough, with a random pope (17A: Pope after Marinus I—pope after who(m)?) and the weird BIGRAMS (1D: Two-letter combinations) and the weirdly indefinite-article-including ANE (3D: Most common draw in Scrabble). Did not like the clue on SNAKE SKINS (95A: Cobra products)—a cobra is a snake. Cobras do not produce SNAKE SKINS, except in the Redundant World of Redundancy. They produce cobra skins, or just skins. Never seen MUESLIS pluralized before, but why not (12D: Cereal mixes)? Love the double-breakfast moment with MUESLIS and GRANOLA (73D: Breakfast in a bar). Had noooo idea that Den HAAG was just Dutch for The Hague. Also had no idea who this RADO guy was (81D: "Hair" co-writer James). I know what a sea cow is, but a SEA PIG? News to me. My favorite non-theme answer is SALARY CAP (140A: Topic at an owners/players meeting), and I now have "Hey, JUDE" stuck firmly in my head (60D: Revelation comes after it).
Bullets:
49A: So-called "Heart of Texas" (WACO) — Makes me think of Branch Davidians and Dr Pepper.
111A: Ubangi tributary (UELE) — only word I know (besides the preposterous UEY and Bob UECKER) that starts "UE-"; very much worth committing to memory.
112A: Phalanx weaknesses (GAPS) — Very weird clue for GAPS. Also, my brain kept processing "Phalanx" as "Larynx"...
139A: "The Lovely Bones" composer, 2009 (ENO) — I did not know that. Add this clue to the seemingly endless list of ways to clue Brian ENO.
11D: Revealing 1970s wear (HOT PANTS) — great answer. Maybe better than SALARY CAP. I like that they are called "PANTS" even though they are shorts. Very short shorts.
18D: 1962 action film set in Jamaica ("DR. NO") — I really should see this movie. Is it possible that it's the most popular film title in all Crossworld?
36D: Hotelier Hilton (CONRAD) — if you attend the Crosswords L.A. Tournament at Loyola-Marymount University in May, you will compete inside a building named after this guy (if I remember correctly).
55D: Foppish courtier in "Hamlet" (OSRIC) — Ooh, "foppish." Good word. I don't remember foppishness in "Hamlet." It's been a while.
65D: 1985 John Malkovich drama ("ELENI") — would give "DR. NO" a run for its money if it were somewhat more famous (and thus more desirable as a crossword answer).
74D: High-tech officer in film (ROBOCOP) — For some reason, I don't like "in" in this clue. Want "of." Or "of movie fame," or something like that. "ROBOCOP" poses no threat to "DR. NO"'s supremacy.
SYNDICATED READERS (those doing the puzzle on 2/6)—listen up!=>Matt Gaffney is running a special crossword contest from his (very popular) website—here's the message he sent me a couple days ago:
I'm running a special month here at MGWCC ("Matt Gaffney's Weekly Crossword Contest") called "Literary February." Four book-themed puzzles, and *every* solver who answers the four February metapuzzles correctly wins a MGWCC pen, pencil and notepad set.
Word of the Day: René COTY (55D: President after Auriol) —
René Jules Gustave Coty (French pronunciation: [ʁəne kɔti]; 20 March 1882 – 22 November 1962) was President of France from 1954 to 1959. He was the second and last president under the French Fourth Republic. (wikipedia)
• • •
A fine 72-worder from Mr. Der, but one I had trouble moving through, generally. Very herky-jerky progress: nothing, a little progress, slow, very fast, stopped, creeping, fast, slow, "people really called him 'RIP?'," and done (45A: Washington Irving hero, informally). Finished significantly over my average Friday time, but I have this weird feeling that if I'd simply looked at the easier parts first, or earlier, things might have been different. Dunno. I liked the puzzle fine, though nothing made me cheer, and several clues left me feeling like "... yeah, I guess that's right. [Shrug]." I thought a SABOT *was* a clog—no idea "French" had anything to do with it (41A: French for "clog"). I knew the MEDES but have no association of them with the "Iron Age" (18A: Iron Age people). COME for [Take place]? Yes, OK. "Whatever may COME." I suppose. "NE'ER" is [Aye's opposite, poetically]? "Yes" and "never" are opposites? I guess "Aye" means "always" here ...? Do people know that meaning of "aye?" Odd. Veterans "recall" IRAQ? In that any veteran might recall any war he/she was in ... sure. I think of (animated) cartoons as having FRAMES and comics as having PANELS (27A: Cartoon series), but people call "Peanuts" and the "Wizard of Id" et al. "cartoons" all the time, so ... I mean, it all works, but often the cluing just did not feel CRISP(ED) (38D: Like rice in some cereal treats). Fill is quite smooth, though, with only TAL and INO seeming at all subpar.
[Which is worse: deceiving your daughter or letting her eat that "food"?]
First letter in the grid was the "S" at the end of SEARS (8D: Brands ... or carrier of brands), which immediately got me RUSTY (24A: Out of top form). Last letter in the grid was the "I" in RIP. I ended up using the RUSTY / TETES / EMS nexus as my hub, striking first into the NE, then (fruitlessly at first) into the SE, then S, then NW and N, and finally SW. Toughest parts were, first, the chunk between and including LYON (5D: Lord ___ (overseer of Scottish heraldry)) and TAL up top, and second, AIR TAXI (was briefly mystified by the letter string "A-RTA-I") (39D: On-demand flier).
Miscues included:
GUN for UZI (4D: Magazine holder)
ELIHU for ADIEU (7D: Literally, "to God")
LYMON for WYMAN (21D: Longtime Rolling Stones bassist) — no idea what I was thinking there
CRAZY TALK for CRAZY IDEA (15A: Nut's suggestion)
SLURP for SLOSH (30D: Washing machine sound)
GREAT MIND for QUICK MIND (49D: With 22-Across, genius's asset)
[Random three seconds of bikini-clad boobs in here ... No Idea why ...]
Proudest moment: getting BIENNIA with no crosses despite not knowing anything at all about the Ryder Cup except that it involves golf (42D: Stretches between Ryder Cups). Happiest moment: imagining a man who turns into toast when the moon is full (65A: Dead duck's cry).
Bullets:
10A: Savannah growth (COPSE) — didn't know COPSEs were more a feature of "savannahs" than anywhere else
19A: Mythical mortal who helped raise Dionysus (INO) — No clue. One of a handful of "No clue"s today. See also TAL (9D: ___ vez (Mexican "maybe")) and COTY.
31A: Frog-eating bird (ANI) — as with COPSE, I had no idea the clue information was particular to the answer.
47A: Vigil locale (SHRINE) — read "Virgil locale"; this probably would have happened even if I hadn't been currently teaching the Aeneid.
12D: Dish topped with crushed peanuts and lime (PAD THAI) — big, fat, tasty gimme.
36A: Herpetologist's supply (ANTI-VENOM) — briefly forgot what "herpetologist" meant. Somehow "HEPA filter" got in my head and I was thinking about air pollutants. . .
THEME: TOTAL LUNAR ECLIPSE (125A: Event on Dec. 21, 2010, viewable in North and South America, depicted visually in this puzzle) — mostly a rebus a puzzle, with the MOON going BRIGHT, DIM, DARK (rebus squares in upper left of grid) until it's directly aligned with the EARTH (rebus square) and SUN (rebus square), then goes DARK, DIM, BRIGHT again (rebus squares in upper right of grid). In a TOTAL LUNAR ECLIPSE, the SUN is CASTING / A SHADOW on the MOON (137A: With 146-Across, what the center of this puzzle is doing during a 125-Across). Oh, and apparently at its climax, the MOON will TURN RED (35A: What the focus of a 125-Across will do at its climax) during a TOTAL ECLIPSE.
Word of the Day: AMNION (96D: Protective membrane) —
n., pl., -ni·ons, or -ni·a (-nē-ə). A thin, tough, membranous sac that encloses the embryo or fetus of a mammal, bird, or reptile. It is filled with a serous fluid in which the embryo is suspended. (wikipedia)
• • •
An incredible architectural achievement (on an oversized 23x23 grid) that I didn't enjoy much at all. Did not understand (and still mostly don't) the BRIGHT, DIM, DARK squares, and that BRIGHT square in the west was a total bear. I mean, that section was bleeping hard. Had IN UTERO and ERST and that's it. If I'd gotten the BRIGHT on the other side first, things would've been so much easier (I mean, Madeleine AlBRIGHT—easy!). But back to BRIGHT DIM DARK. Why does the MOON go DARK before the alignment with SUN and EARTH, and *then* TURN RED!? Oh, here's an explanation:
The Moon does not completely disappear as it passes through the umbra because of the refraction of sunlight by the Earth’s atmosphere into the shadow cone; if the Earth had no atmosphere, the Moon would be completely dark during an eclipse. The red coloring arises because sunlight reaching the Moon must pass through a long and dense layer of the Earth’s atmosphere, where it is scattered. Shorter wavelengths are more likely to be scattered by the air molecules and the small particles, and so by the time the light has passed through the atmosphere, the longer wavelengths dominate. This resulting light we perceive as red. (wikipedia)
But does the MOON ever get wholly DARK, then? Confusing. The whole concept felt forced in terms of its physical execution in grid-space. I mean, there are some inspired (if brutal) answers in this puzzle because of all the theme mumbo jumbo. CD IMAGE, ouch! Criminy (47A: Clone of an optical medium's contents). And what the hell (I thought) is the center square in AT THE — SCORE. "At the [blank] Score," what kind of a title is that? (SCORE is not a self-standing word at all—answer is "AT THE EARTH'S CORE"). RARE EARTH is not a term I've ever heard except as a band name (59D: Terbium or thulium). I thought turbium and thulium were RARE metals? RARE elements? Pfft. I finished with a wrong letter: AMNEON / TE AMO instead of AMNION / TI AMO (119A: Italian lover's coo). This error is ironic for reasons I'll tell you about in a few days.
BRIGHT spots: MAHARANI (120A: Indian royal) over XRAY SPEX (124A: Novelty glasses), PEA BRAINS (57A: Dummies), and the clue on LITERATI (116A: Book set?). Lowlights: ENARM (64D: Prepare to fight), OLOGY (86D: Science), TEEMER (98D: One that overflows), INBUILT (150A: There from the start), and the clue on MXLV (120D: The year 1045). Also the partial A MERE, ugh (89A: "Honor is ___ scutcheon": Shak.). Again, that little section in the west, just nasty. Oh, and I almost forgot: ARRANT?!?! I have literally never seen that word before (95D: Out-and-out). Maybe I've *heard* it and thought it was spelled "ERRANT." Yeeeeesh.
Theme answers:
BRIGHT IDEA (63D: Promising proposal) / BRIGHTEN (63A: Remove drapes from, as a room) -- ALBRIGHT (69A: First female U.S. secretary of state) / BRIGHT SIDE ) (71D: Optimist's focus)
ON A DIME (40A: One way to stop) / DIMAG (41D: Yankee great Joe, colloquially) -- CD IMAGE / DIMLY (48D: How things may be lit or remembered)
AFTER DARK (29A: At night) / DARKMAN (30D: Superhero played by Liam Neeson in a 1990 film) -- DARK HORSE (32A: Long-shot candidate) / DARK AGE (32D: Era of ignorance)
MANY MOONS AGO (26A: A long time past) / MOONING (27D: Youthful prank in a car)
AT THE EARTH'S CORE / RARE EARTH
GOES UNDER (140A: Folds) / SUN-UP (143D: Dawn)
Studied Chaucer forEver and never once did I hear "HEROIC couplet" used in relation to his work (16D: Kind of couplet for Chaucer). That is a term I associate with much later poets (18c) who wrote in a much more regular meter. Chaucer's lines in "Canterbury Tales" are, generally, rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter, and that, apparently, is good enough for him to get credited all over the place with writing in HEROIC couplets, but this seems imprecise. "HEROIC" just doesn't fit for "CT." Except maybe "The Knight's Tale." Here's the definition of "HEROIC couplet" from "Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms":
Named from its use by Dryden and others in the heroic drama of the late 17th century, the heroic couplet had been established much earlier by Chaucer as a major English verse‐form for narrative and other kinds of non‐dramatic poetry; it dominated English poetry of the 18th century, notably in the closed couplets of Pope, before declining in importance in the early 19th century.
This makes sense—invented in the English Augustan Age and then grafted back onto Chaucer. Dryden was, after all, one of Chaucer's most important translators. It's the "for Chaucer" part of the clue that bugs me. "HEROIC couplet" was not a term "for Chaucer." It didn't exist in the 14th century.
Bullets:
11A: Shop dresser (ADZE) — so "dressing" is some kind of woodworking term? This clue was hard.
23A: Rama's kingdom (SIAM) — King Mongkut of "The King and I"? — Rama IV? Confusing.
38A: Glossy black bird (DAW) — crossword instinct: this was my first guess. Also had good luck recalling another crossword regular, SATO (51D: 1974 Japanese Nobelist).
103A: Loser to McKinley (BRYAN) — trouble, as this went through the mysterious ARRANT...
151A: It marks the target on a curling rink (TEE LINE) — target is shaped like bullseye, isn't it? Not a line ... this is some technical thing I clearly don't understand.
18D: Paper for which Murray Kempton and Jim Dwyer won Pulitzers (NEWSDAY) — who?
101D: Jordan's Queen ___ International Airport (ALIA) — ugh. yuck. How was this not NOOR?
Elemi (Canarium luzonicum) is a tree native to the Philippines, and an oleo-resin harvested from it. // Elemi resin is a pale yellow substance, of honey-like consistency. Aromatic elemi oil is steam distilled from the resin. It is a fragrant resin with a sharp pine and lemon-like scent. One of the resin components is called amyrin. // Elemi is chiefly used commercially in varnishes and lacquers, and certain printing inks. // Elemi is used as a herbal medicine to treat bronchitis, catarrh, extreme coughing, mature skin, scars, stress, and wounds. The constituents include phellandrene, dipentene, elemol, elemicin, terpineol, carvone, and terpinolene. (wikipedia)
• • •
This was way harder than I thought it was going to be once I uncovered the theme. Some theme answers came easily (e.g. THINK OUTSIDE THE BACHS), while others ... did not (e.g. GRASP AT STRAUSS ... had STRAUSS but couldn't think of a thing that it could be a pun for; still can't. "Straws" is a stretch too massive for my brain to handle, perhaps because I pronounce both the vowel and the terminal "S" sounds differently. I think I also German up the initial "ST" a bit. Anyway...). Mostly I thought the puns were cute; I don't generally like puns, but these seemed OK. I also thought the grid was really interesting and lively, but holy cow some parts of it were Really thorny. Mostly good thorny, but not always. I think I literally flipped off the puzzle when SHE-DEVIL turned out to be (the Weak) SHE-DEMON (11D: Succubus).
NW was a definite SHE-DEMON in general. I had most of the area about BACHS blank for a good chunk of time, largely due to ALERO's sitting in the place of the (much less "popular") CIERA (13A: Once-popular Olds). All the Across clues were very vague, I could not think what type of -IN 21D: Peaceful protest could be. SIT-IN. BE-IN ... and I'm out (it's LOVE-IN). Not up on my Hindu gods (of thunder or otherwise), so I had to fight like mad for this section (14D: Hindu god of thunder=>INDRA). Same thing with the lower-west (AT WORST) section of the grid. Once I (finally) got HAYDN in there, I was able to bring it down, but before that, yikes. Both 66D: France's ___-Pas-de-Calais (NORD) and 67D: ___ Islands, group at the mouth of Galway Bay (ARAN) are pretty obscure geographical clues, 75D: Not straight (WRY) is vague, again (I had GAY, not surprisingly). The only thing I thought was certain in there was TEA (74D: Crumpet's go-with). I started out sure of SERRA (78A: Missionary Junipero ___), but when none of the Downs behaved, I figured it had some weird spelling I couldn't remember, so pulled it. Oh, and I had AT LEAST for AT WORST (73A: If all else fails). Got beat around in other places too, but mostly with pleasure.
Theme answers:
22A: "Carmen" composer-turned-dam builder? (BIZET AS A BEAVER)
29A: Embrace more than just a family of Baroque composers? (THINK OUTSIDE THE BACHS) — "Embrace?"
39A: Romantic overindulgence in nocturnes and mazurkas? (CHOPIN SPREE)
55A: Singing a "Messiah" piece too quickly? (FLYING OFF THE HANDEL)
66A: Countrywide music celebration in Hungary? (NATIONAL LISZT PARTY) — composer as suffix ... weird
83A: Part of a children's game with the Father of the Symphony? (HAYDN GO SEEK)
93A: Grand nuptials whose only music was "Peer Gynt"? ("MY BIG FAT GRIEG WEDDING")—probably the most inventive of these answers, though the BACHS one is good too.
105A: Try to capture the Waltz King? (GRASP AT STRAUSS)
Even familiar names were hidden behind dark curtains today. I know enough about OVID (big fan) to pick up 88A: Poet depicted in art alongside the Scythians, but that seems like a tough clue to me. The BAHA Men are missing their usual "Who Let The Dogs Out?" clue and today get this much more obscure clue, 20A: ___ Men ("Move It Like This" group). I love diners—I'm trying to go to every one I can in my general geographical area—and I can tell you that I have yet to see a JUKEbox in any of them (1A: Diner fixture, informally). Maybe because they are real diners and not "50s Retro Diners." No idea who the physicist is— just guessed his name from crosses (104A: Physicist Schrödinger and others=>ERWINS). I know EIDER as down, so no idea what's up with 102A: Cousin of a goldeneye. "Goldeneye" sounds floral, so I thought maybe EIDER was a plant I didn't know about; turns out I'm backwards—EIDER isn't floral; "Goldeneye" is a kind of duck (who knew? Outside birdies and ornithologists, I mean?). Seen "ANTZ" in the puzzle many times—saw it in the theater when it first came out—and yet today's clue was utterly meaningless to me (53D: 1998 film featuring Princess Bala). Another common answer—RIATA—also had a tough clue (98D: One thrown from a horse). I started with RIDER. All in all, a solid, tougher-than-avg Sunday workout for me.
Bullets:
26A: It hangs around the Amazon (MIST) — really good clue. I was looking for some kind of vine. A four-letter LIANA, maybe.
52A: Oblast bordering Kazakhstan (OMSK) — my go-to oblast (that is not a joke). KAZ is in the grid (3D: Second baseman Matsui, to fans) ... pretty sure the country and the second baseman are etymologically unrelated, though.
103A: Some old runabouts (REOS) — again, common enough answer, but toughish clue.
5D: Purchase of 1867 (ALASKA) — Seward's Folly!
32D: Lager sources (TAPS) — not at all intuitive to me. I had TUNS (?!) at first.
91D: It's often carried around at the gym (ODOR) — Weird: I have experienced other people's body ODOR way more strongly in stores, restaurants, subways, etc. than I ever have in the gym. I think most people in gyms tend to, uh, take care of themselves, and be kind of self-conscious about such things. I mean, they clearly care how their bodies look, so ...
93D: Irish novelist Binchy (MAEVE) — gimme, but only because she was in this Encyclopedia of Popular Contemporary Writers that I edited. Had never heard of her before I signed on for that project.
And now your Tweets of the (past two) Week(s) — puzzle chatter from the Twitterverse:
@greenmelindaDear @KCStar: why is there a section for "faith" listed and not one for the damned crossword puzzle?
@TSWHITLOWThis lady is eatting n front of her kids while they have nthng bt a crossword puzzle ☹ wtf is the deal
@JayyGotOneToo12th grade still doin crossword puzzles and word searches nshit -_- what kind of shit is this.
@dexshowFinished the whole USA Today crossword from yesterday by myself! Who says athletes are dumb? Cmon man! http://yfrog.com/n5g66nj
@joannamogoThis isn't crossword, its sudoku! :'( what a way to spoil my day
@lizzwinsteadIt really is shocking that in such serious times, GOP keeps supporting candidates who couldn't solve the TV Guide crossword puzzle
@TheVeganButcherI just finished a whole crossword puzzle for the first time in my entire life! Completely drunk!!!
@IreneZieglerThe Sunday NYTimes #crossword puzzle wiped the floor with my non-absorbent butt. #BillShortzMustRepent
Word of the Day: HINNY (41A: Rare equine hybrid) —
A hinny is a domesticequinehybrid that is the offspring of a male horse and a female donkey (called a jenny). It is similar to the more common mule, which is the product of a female horse and a male donkey.
• • •
Was on phone with my sister (working out vacation details / gossiping) while solving this puzzle, so I don't know exactly how hard it is. Felt pretty Easy, but initial times at the NYT puzzle site seem more Medium. As is typical for a Friday, I had a few moments of "huh?" followed by a slowish hacking away at a small portion of the grid, and then bam: openness. Here's what my grid looked like after the first few minutes:
I've gotten more and more fascinated by *how* people solve—that is, the route by which they get from blank to done. Just watching the finals at the ACPT, where only three people's work is visible, you can see the incredibly different paths different minds take. Combination of special knowledge and luck (i.e. the luck of getting just the right crosses that will let you see a word you couldn't see before).
What's weird to me is how often my initial guess is correct for certain answers. Like today, I wanted SMASH UP right away at 1D: Bad traffic accident, but wouldn't commit to it. Ditto HIVED, which seems like a made-up word and yet is the word I immediately wanted (21A: Joined the swarm). It's tough when you want an answer but can't get any of the crosses to confirm its rightness. Today, my start was pretty pedestrian and cruddy—wrote in the -ED suffix at 21A and then the RE- prefix at 26A: Convened anew. Then put the "T" at the end of that answer because I knew it was either RESAT or REMET. DREARY came easily from there (22D: Overcast), as did ERRS (27D: Goes off). Got THANE with no crosses (30D: Ross, Lennox or Angus, in Shakespeare), and then PESTERER became the ugly-but-unavoidable solution to 29A: Nag. As you can see from the partial grid above, I was able to stake a cross right in the heart of the grid early on, which was a big help in breaking the puzzle open. HARD CLAMS was easy off the "HAR-" (32A: Quahogs), and then off only the "-ARC" I got GREEN ARCHITECTS (8D: Ones concerned with sustainable design). After that, I was able to move methodically through the rest of the puzzle—those stacks of 15 aren't that hard to blow up if you can get a few crosses through them.
The only trouble came at the very end, in the SW, which seemed to me the very hardest portion of the grid. I had two answers I didn't know crossing two answers I didn't know! Oy. Thankfully, I was able to infer ENFANTS (36D: "Jeux d'___" (42-Across [BIZET] keyboard work)) and PIANINO (35D: Undersize keyboard). "F" from ENFANTS made RAFE a virtual certainty (44A: ___ McCawley, Ben Affleck's role in "Pearl Harbor"), but I had to run the alphabet to see the last letter—the "H" in HINNY / SHRIVEL (kicked myself for not seeing SHRIVEL with S-RIVEL in place, ugh). HINNY made me laugh as just tonight, at the dinner table, I told my family something I learned via Katie Hamill on Facebook—that a rare zebra/donkey hybrid was recently born (in GA), and it is called a ZEDONK! Best Animal Name Ever. No wait ... I'm sorry, correction. The best animal name is HONEY BADGER. HONEY BADGER is the best. I apologize for any offense I might have given any HONEY BADGERs out there. Again, that's HONEY BADGER 1, ZEDONK 2.
Bullets:
1A: Christmas trifle (STOCKING STUFFER) — great answer. My favorite thing in the grid, right after LAZY SLOB, which is virtually unbeatable (33D: Epithet for an annoying roommate).
24A: Actress Edelstein of TV's "House" (LISA) — Do *not* understand popularity of this show. *Do* understand popularity of Hugh Laurie, though. So maybe sentence 2 takes care of sentence 1.
34A: Potential game stoppers (SPEARS) — G-r-r-eat clue. Took me a long time to get it, and the surprising answer was totally worth the wait.
6D: User of a record-keeping device called a quipu (INCA) — had the last "A" and honestly considered "PARA" (as in "PARAlegal").
11D: Japanese salad plants (UDOS) — no idea how I know this; I just do. UDON, UDO, same cuisine.
47D: Masur's New York Philharmonic predecessor (MEHTA) — As conductors go, he is kind of a big deal. Got him off the "M." Zubin! There's a name I could stand to see more of.
50D: Sage exiled on the planet Dagobah (YODA) — someday I want to compile every YODA and EWOK and ENDOR and other "Star Wars" answers; I'm pretty sure I could come close to reconstructing the plots of at least the first (last) three "Star Wars" movies just from crossword clues alone.
Getting a late start on this one, as I was over at friends' for most of the night, so write-up will have to be shorter than I'd normally like. I was a big fan of Kevin Der's last Sunday architectural marvel: the Chinese Zodiac puzzle. This one ... I'm less thrilled by, first because the exact thing being represented in the grid isn't entirely clear (and there's no key phrase uniting at all), and second because of the loopy fill that I had to wade through in order to finish. I know you have to make allowances for cruddy / strange / forced fill in a grid with so many architectural demands, but ... well, I picked up the theme at T-[BALL] GLOVE and immediately thought, "that's a thing? They have special gloves designed for T-BALL? Isn't the act of catching the ball exactly the same as in baseball?" [FYI they appear to be simply smallish baseball gloves] I then went on to fight off CREAMWARE and LIMECORDIAL (83A: Citrusy cocktail mixer) and NEOGENE (!) (53A: Period of the Cenozoic Era) and a ton of odd abbrevs. and IRNA and CA[BALL]ED and ALEMAN. Lack of a tight theme / clear visual made the awkward stuff more distracting than it ought to have been. I expect I'll be in the minority today. So be it. I was dutifully impressed by the construction, and I did have a genuine little AHA moment when the first "BALL" made me notice that the "U" and "T" in the circles were part of "GUTTER," but in the end this strikes (!) me more as an interesting oddity or curiosity than a brilliantly executed puzzle.
94A: Drink with tempura, maybe (ASAHI) — SAKE! Oh. No. OK.
