THEME: WORDS PRONOUNCED / DIFFERENTLY / WHEN CAPITALIZED (16A: With 36- and 58-Across, what the answers to the starred clues are) — four theme answers fit the bill:
READING (1A: *Poet's performance)
RAINIER (65A: *Like Seattle vis-à-vis Phoenix)
MOBILE (22D: *Not fixed)
POLISH (31D: *Shine)
[Update: when originally submitted, the puzzle had an asterisk on the clue for DIFFERENTLY as well ...]
Word of the Day: ARIÈGE (45D: French department in the Pyrenees) —
Ariège (French pronunciation: [aʁjɛʒ]; Occitan: Arièja) is a department in southwestern France named after the Ariège River. // Ariège is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4th, 1790. It was created from the counties of Foix and Couserans. // Foix is the administrative capital of the Ariège. It is an ancient medieval town with a fortress Chateau de Foix perched on a hill overlooking it. The fortress has been attacked many times without capture, including an attempt by Simon de Montfort. It has also been used as a prison, and the names of English Prisoners of War can still be seen on the cell walls. Another famous chateau in the Ariège is Montségur, located on a rocky outcrop at a height of 1200 metres (3,900 ft). During the Albigensian Crusade and siege of 1244 AD the chateau was largely destroyed, with more than two hundred Cathar priests burnt at the stake as heretics. The chateau was gradually rebuilt by Royalists over a period of the next three hundred years.
• • •
Early morning tomorrow, so short write-up, which is good, because the only thing of substance that I have to say is fairly succinct. I tend not to like puzzles where instructions or explanations of the theme are a dominant part of the fill. This was especially true today, where 41 squares are used to explain to me what's happening with just 26 other squares. The proportions just feel off. Having only four *real* theme answers hardly seems to warrant the amount of space taken up by the explanation—and yet because the explanation takes up that amount of space, you have a puzzle with a fairly dense 67 total squares of theme material. Normally I'd praise theme density, especially when the rest of the fill holds up pretty well (as it does here, with the long arcane name DEMAREST (36D: William who played Uncle Charley on "My Three Sons") and the whatthewherethe geographical oddity ARIÈGE being the only notable negatives). But long instructions/explanations in my grid just leave me cold. Idea here is clever, but in practice, the whole puzzle feels out of balance, and none of the theme answers have a pop or an aha quality to them. I didn't need the theme and didn't use knowledge of the theme to get any of the four relevant words. Matt's a super-talented constructor, but this one just wasn't for me (that's three in a row now ... hoping the streak breaks tomorrow).
Bullets:
14A: Country with which the U.S. goes to war in "Wag the Dog" (ALBANIA) — I'd completely forgotten this. Took a while to see, as I had THE BAY instead of the correct RAW BAR at 1D: Seafood lover's hangout for a while.
19A: 1973 nonfiction best seller about a woman with multiple personalities (SYBIL) — "SYBIL" was a term to be defined on the midterm I just gave. Not this SYBIL.
40A: Figures on the ceiling of la Cappella Sistina (ANGELI) — didn't take the time to notice that this was in Italian, so had ANGELS to start with...
54A: Bette's "Divine" stage persona (MISS M) — Gimme. A nice five-letter answer.
2D: Nancy Drew's aunt (ELOISE) — uh ... OK. Guessed it from the -ISE. Figured it wasn't Gary SINISE ... although I guess both DENISE and LOUISE were more plausible possibilities.
12D: Flower that shares its name with a tentacled sea creature (ANEMONE) — used this word in a puzzle once and have never forgotten it. My daughter asked me about a sea creature today. Specifically, her question was: "What's a Kraken?"
34D: Burglar in detective stories (YEGG) — one of the all-time great bits of olde-timey crime slang.
15A: Who "saved my life tonight" in a 1975 Elton John hit ("SOMEONE") — I love this clue, and this song. "Sugarbeeeaaaar"
THEME: What's next ... ? Blank clues are supplied by the clue that follows (either Across or Down), e.g. with 17A: -- / 18A: Held up, [Held up] works for both clues; instructions for solving are in the grid itself: IF A CLUE / IS MISSING USE THE / NEXT ONE (Advice for solving this puzzle)
Word of the Day: Ron INSANA (35A: Business TV newsman Ron) —
Ron Insana (born March 31, 1961) is a reporter for Market Score Board Report with Ron Insana, syndicated by Compass, and a former Senior Analyst at CNBC. He was Managing Director of Insana Capital Partners from inception to collapse. He was the anchor of CNBC's "Street Signs", which aired weekdays during stock market hours. Until December 5, 2003, he and Sue Herera co-anchored CNBC's then flagship nightly financial news program, Business Center. He is a resident of Tenafly, NJ. (wikipedia)
• • •
Clever, but a pain in the ass to solve, especially in AcrossLite. I have never ever solved clues in order—highly inefficient. I'm always working crosses, going back and forth quickly between Across and Down clues, so the notion of "Next" was not instinctive to me (though it makes perfect sense on paper). Also, the middle of this grid was full of concepts and names that were absolutely foreign to me. Never heard of INSANA. Never heard of P AND L (28D: C.F.O.'s concern). Crossing two specialized business finance-related clues like that seemed kind of ... not great. Had to look up what"P AND L" even stood for: profit & loss. But you probably knew that. FLAUNTER!? (26D: Exhibitionist) I lost much time simply trying to will the word FLASHER to be longer. I typically do not like puzzles with instruction-answers, but I liked this one OK. It's pretty ingenious. Not the most fun for me to solve, but nicely put together, with some cool, unusual fill (e.g. SINISTRAL, WET SPONGE).
I actually got the NW corner pretty quickly despite the blank clues. I had no idea why RAKES and BORNE were there, but they fit, so I just moved on. Then there was just stoppage, all over the place. North was almost empty, even after I got SPONGE. Middle, as I say, not happening. I know the hair style as a RAT TAIL, not RAT'S TAIL (44A: 1980s hairstyle with a long strand in the back), so I was all messed up over there. It was very late in the game before I even looked at the clues for STYX (40D: Frightful river to cross) and TYS (46A: Baseball's Cobb and others), both of which were gimmes. Not sure what took me so long to see them—they really would've helped get the "USE" part of the instructions, which was a mystery to me for a while. Had CASTE for NASTY (49D: Rank). Wanted AIR for SOW (43A: Broadcast). TANS for SUNS (48A: Goes for the bronze?). ATTAR for ESTER (67A: Perfume ingredient).
Got APERTURE before I ever had the theme. Thought I might have to solve almost the whole damn thing by just intuiting the answers, but I finally broke the post-MISSING part of the instructions and then things weren't so bad.
Bullets:
10A: Longest river entirely in Switzerland (AARE) — Educated guess / gimme. Crosswordese. Comes in handy.
19A: Slaughter who dashed home to win the 1946 World Series (ENOS) — another gimme. This is how I pieced together APERTURE.
32A: There is a "super" one every four yrs. (TUE.) — Nice clue, though I want "Super" to be capitalized...
58A: Earl of ___ (Sir Anthony Eden) (AVON) — no idea ... but guessed correctly.
1D: Official traditionally seen in a black hat (RABBI) — no idea why, but this was the first answer that popped to mind (when REF and UMPIRE came and went, that is).
21D: Like the poem "Tam o' Shanter" (BURNSIAN) — Easy, but weird. Why does he get his own adjective? I mean, that's some Shakespeare / Chaucer STATUS right there. You'd never say a poem was ANGELOUSIAN. In fact, do any women have adjective status? AUSTENIAN? No. DICKINSONIAN ... I think that's a word. Not as common as DICKENSIAN, but real nonetheless. I think. Moving on.
33D: "Choice" agcy. (USDA) — Tricky. Beef! Had to get "Pro-Choice" out of my head.
45D: King who gained international prominence in 1922 (TUT) — stupid TANS kept me from seeing this for Far too long.
22A: Excellence as a virtue, to ancient Greeks (ARETE) — that's going pretty far out of your way to hide your crosswordese...
4D: Harem guard, typically (EUNUCH) — good-looking word. Do harems still exist and are they still guarded by EUNUCHs? Seems like something I learned from western caricatures of eastern potentates. No idea about historical validity or persistence. I do, however, know that ODA is the name of a harem chamber. You don't see it that much any more, thankfully, but it's still handy to know.
THEME: ALCHEMY (8D: 13-, 20-, 49- and 57-Across, commonly?) — word ladder going from LEAD to GOLD
Word of the Day: GOURDE (36D: Haitian currency) —
The gourde (French: [ɡuʁd]) or goud (Haitian Creole: [ɡud]) is the currency of Haiti. Its ISO 4217 code is HTG and it is divided into 100 centimes (French) or santim (Creole). (wikipedia)
• • •
Surely someone at the NYT should have remembered that this theme has been done before—just this past August! But then this is also kind of a themeless (just 70 words, very thin theme content), so ... I don't know. Feels betwixt and between, and for that reason, and despite the manifest greatness of BOLLIX UP(10D: Bungle) and THERMOPYLAE as answers (9D: Where Persia defeated Sparta in 480 B.C.), I didn't enjoy it much. Actually, as a themeless, it's not half bad. A bit on the easy side, but full of mostly interesting words. Had a weird lot of trouble getting started, but once I got going, had no real trouble. Obvious theme (helps when you've seen it before) made GOAD and GOLD super easy to pick up, and so I had toeholds all over the place on this one. I think I realized why I tend not to like Fridays of late—they seem to be the "overload on '?' clues" day. Always one (or more) too many of them. Just too cutesy for my tastes. At least today's are mostly terse and not strained. [Secretive group?] is probably my favorite (GLANDS), although HERMIT (which took me Forever to get) is also pretty good (25A: Definitely not a company man?). I'm oddly proud of getting SHOAT with no crosses (5D: Young hog). No one ever calls Spade a 'TEC in The Maltese Falcon, that I recall (35A: Spade, e.g., for short), so I wish people would stop using him in 'TEC clues.
Theme answers:
13A: Sleuth's quest (LEAD)
20A: Weight or freight (LOAD)
49A: Pointed encouragement (GOAD)
57A: What some hearts are made of (GOLD)
Just a few things I truly didn't know today. The A-TWO? Nope, not up on my Americanized spellings of German superhighways (1A: German superhighway connecting the Ruhr with Berlin). "GYPSY"? Heard of it, but know nothing about it: not its date, not any of its songs (36A: 1959 Broadway hit with the song "All I Need Is the Girl"). Had no idea a SQUASH ball was dotted (39D: Game played with a dotted ball). Otherwise, everything else in the grid is at least somewhat familiar to me (including GOURDE and HANSOM (43D: Victorian taxi), both learned from ghosts of crosswords past).
The clue on HARLEY (21A: Road hog?) gives us a nice "hog" mini-theme (along with clue on SHOAT, and then QUAHOG: 42A: Edible clam).
Bullets:
26A: Endangered Arctic presence (SEA ICE) — "presence" is bugging me. It's a defensible use of the word, but ... I might have gone with "entity," for the alliterative clue if nothing else.
38A: "The powerful scent of real clean" sloganeer (PINESOL) — Powerful is right. Headache-inducingly powerful.
55A: Angel Cheryl (LADD) — Mmmm, softball. "Charlie's Angels" is one of my earliest TV memories (after "Electric Company" and "Mr. Rogers," of course).
3D: Shipyard worker fired in 1976 (WALESA) — honestly wanted ROCKY here. Was he a shipyard worker? Was he fired? I know "Rocky" was 1976. Kind of funny when SLY showed up later in the grid (28D: Rocky, really).
14D: Walking the dog and others (CHORES) — wanted (yo-yo) TRICKS.
34D: Oxymoronic chances (EVEN ODDS) — Had ODDS. Put in EVEN, but because I had TIME NOR TIDE (?), EVEN looked wrong, so I took it out. Put it in. Took it out. Eventually changed NOR to AND (24D: They won't wait, in a phrase).
THEME: "DOUBLE CROSSERS" — theme answers have a special "square" that's divided into four quadrants. I was going to sum up, but there is too much. Let me just show you. Each theme answer crosses one of those squares with four letters in it. The answer is to be read with both the first two letters and the second two letters. (Note that the "first two" going down will be the two on the left, and the "first two" going across will be the two on the top.) So one of these answers is to be read as SCOTS PLOTS, and the other as SPEARS CLEARS. With apologies for my handwriting:
Word of the Day: PELEE (98D: Volcano that devastated Martinique in 1902) —
The volcano is now famous for its eruption in 1902 and the destruction that resulted, now dubbed the worst volcanic disaster of the 20th century. The eruption killed about 30,121 people. Most deaths came from the city of Saint-Pierre, at that time the largest city in Martinique, due to its pyroclastic flows.
Pyroclastic flows completely destroyed St. Pierre, Martinique, a town of 30,000 people, following the eruption of Mont Pelée in 1902. The eruption left only two survivors in the direct path of the volcano: Louis-Auguste Cyparis survived because he was in a poorly ventilated, dungeon-like jail cell; Léon Compère-Léandre, living on the edge of the city, escaped with severe burns. The event marked the only major volcanic disaster in the history of France and its overseas territories.(wikipedia)
• • •
Matt Ginsberg is a very creative man, and this theme is an amazing concept.
SethG here, finishing out the weekend while Rex is away. This will be a short~ish write-up, and will not be as funny as Wade's or Ben's were. Next time.
A side effect of a rebus (and I'd consider this to be one) is that any entry that contains a theme square automatically becomes an theme entry. With just 10 special squares here there are a full 20 theme entries. (And with each theme entry essentially being read twice, there's a huge amount of theme material.) It's hard to keep the fill pristine when there're so many constraints, but that's much more excusable when it's because something new and interesting is being done. Here, something new and interesting was done. There is some yuckiness, but, on the whole, though, A+ for originality and creativity. Theme answers:
1A: *Winning dad in a race (FASTER FATHER)
6A: *Like Enron (IN THE RED IN THE END)
20A: *Whispers heard during an in-class test (CHEATER CHATTER) — This seems like it's a play on "chitter-chatter", but I think it's a coincidence. "Chitter-chatter", I've just learned, is not in the dictionary.
43A: *Serving tray left next to the frying pan (SPATTER PLATTER) — Serving tray? This phrase makes no sense. If the purpose is to catch the flying oil droplets, it's not a serving tray.
58A: *Revival meeting (CONVERSION CONVENTION) — This was one of the ones where I had to rely on the cross to see in which order the words would go.
73A: *"You're not that sorry!" (CONTRITION CONTENTION) — Didn't I just type this?
80A: *One who apprentices woodworkers (STAINER TRAINER) — Are people who stain considered woodworkers? I guess woodworkers stain, but if I met a professional stainer who claimed to be a woodworker I'd think he was putting on airs. And, well, stain.
90A: *Bozo, for one (KIDDIE KIDDER) — In this puzzle, I think some of the shortest/simplest answers were the best. It's got accuracy, it's got K's, it's got a nice ring to it, it certainly sounds better than CONTRITION CONTENTION.
105A: *Singer Britney succeeds at the high jump (SPEARS CLEARS) — I won't play any Britney for you, and she clears by cleanly jumping over the bar.
117A: *Just one or two pups, say (LITTLE LITTER) — Another of my favorites.
3D: *Edberg enjoying a sports match (STEFAN THE FAN) — I could very easily go on for pages and pages about Stefan Edberg. He was my idol growing up. I'll just tell one story: on September 25, 1992, I sat across the aisle from his wife while watching the Courier/Kulti match in the Davis Cup semifinals. Then I sat courtside (actually, closer), near the net, to watch him lose to Agassi. I left the match with his water bottle. I had Stefan Edberg's water bottle. I had Stefan Edberg's Water Bottle! In June, 1993, my "friend" threw it out while helping me move.
11D: *Knock again (RETRY ENTRY) — That thing I said about the shorter ones being better? It wasn't always true.
14D: *Nectarine grove (PEACH PATCH) — A nectarine is a peach? Who knew? (Probably, those of you who knew that a grove is a patch.)
26D: *Stupid show from a cable TV giant (TIME WARNER TIME WASTER) — Okay, this one is probably actually the best of all.
43D: *Orthodontist, at times (SPACER PLACER)
68D: *Oven, at times (COOKIE COOKER) — Again with the K's. Me likey.
74D: *Small-claims court (RESTITUTION INSTITUTION) — Okay, this one is probably actually the worst of all.
80D: *Lorry in a ditch (STUCK TRUCK) — Not the best or the worst, but my actual favorite.
97D: *Vlasic employee (PICKLE PICKER) — Another simple winner.
105D: *Where Robert Burns and kin are buried (SCOTS PLOTS)
One unfortunate side effect of the difficulty of finding appropriate theme answers is that in seven of the ten special theme squares the upper-right and lower-left letters are the same. The effect is that both the across and the down wind up using the same sequence in their pairs of words. So STuck TRuck, for example, appears with STainer TRainer. Not a big deal, but it turns the quadrant of letters into a sort of simpler rebus than it could be.
Bullets:
94A: Speed (CELERITY) — (With celerity) was a clue some other time I subbed here. Someone asked why I posted the picture I did.
49A: Aladdin's kleptomaniac sidekick (ABU)— Trickiest spot in the puzzle was where this crossed 38D: Brother of Rebekah (LABAN). Some of you will have guessed other letters here. If I were writing the puzzle, I think I'd have used a C instead of the B.
66A: Medieval chest (ARCA) — Learned it in crosswords. I had ORCA from the crosses, until I changed 51D: Slips(ERRATA) from ERRORS. Tee hee, I made an ERRORS error. Okay, you're right, that's lame.
61D: Strikingly, as in a dress (FIT TO KILL) — Did MG make this up? I think MG made this up. One can dress to kill or impress, or be fit to be square, serve, or be tied, or a view might be to a kill, but I've never heard this.
78D: Tries to impress, as in conversation (NAME DROPS) — I started out with DROPS NAMES.
75D: 1981 Mel Gibson Film (GALLIPOLI)
Okay, that's probably enough. Anything more you can hash out in the comments, and Rex will be back tomorrow. And now your Tweets of the Week — puzzle chatter from the Twitterverse...
@sethicsCovering for Rex Parker 2day. Haven't been following all week to find potentially interesting crossword tweets. Tried searching, too many.
the counties of Foix and Couserans. // Foix is the administrative capital of the Ariège. It is an ancient medieval town with a fortress Chateau de Foix perched on a hill overlooking it. The fortress has been attacked many times without capture, including an attempt by Simon de Montfort. It has also been used as a prison, and the names of English Prisoners of War can still be seen on the cell walls. Another famous chateau in the Ariège is Montségur, located on a rocky outcrop at a height of 1200 metres (3,900 ft). During the Albigensian Crusade and siege of 1244 AD the chateau was largely destroyed, with more than two hundred Cathar priests burnt at the stake as heretics. The chateau was gradually rebuilt by Royalists over a period of the next three hundred years.
This was especially true today, where 41 squares are used to explain to me what's happening with just 26 other squares. The proportions just feel off. Having only four *real* theme answers hardly seems to warrant the amount of space taken up by the explanation—and yet because the explanation takes up that amount of space, you have a puzzle with a fairly dense 67 total squares of theme material. Normally I'd praise theme density, especially when the rest of the fill holds up pretty well (as it does here, with the long arcane name DEMAREST (36D: William who played Uncle Charley on "My Three Sons") and the whatthewherethe geographical oddity ARIÈGE being the only notable negatives). But long instructions/explanations in my grid just leave me cold. Idea here is clever, but in practice, the whole puzzle feels out of balance, and none of the theme answers have a pop or an aha quality to them. I didn't need the theme and didn't use knowledge of the theme to get any of the four relevant words. Matt's a super-talented constructor, but this one just wasn't for me (that's three in a row now ... hoping the streak breaks tomorrow).
