Champion cyclist Leipheimer / SAT 4-9-11 / Japanese folk music swing feel / Singer/songwriter Vienna / 1979 negotiation / Pied wader / TV angel Munroe

Constructor: Scott Atkinson

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none


Word of the Day: ONDO (64A: Japanese folk music with a swing feel) —

is a type of Japanese folk music genre. (wikipedia—rest of the write-up is terribly written, with no cited sources, and I can't find anything useful elsewhere on the internet. Most ONDO defs. give it as a place name in Nigeria... there appear to be two main types of ONDO, Goshu and Kawachi; do (non-Japanese) people really know this???)

• • •

I've had better times solving puzzles. This one felt very uneven—super-easy everywhere but the SW, which felt normal, and NE, which was nearly impossible for me. So many strange names I'd just never heard of. EDNA BEST is the one that killed me (26A: "The Man Who Knew Too Much" co-star); I stupidly had ALDERS instead of ALDENS at 10D: "The Courtship of Miles Standish" couple, and so figured I was dealing with ED somebody (not knowing anyone in "The Man Who Knew Too Much" besides Jimmy Stewart ... turns out EDNA BEST was in the earlier, 1934 version, with Peter Lorre ... ??? ... not the '56 Jimmy Stewart remake). ED RABEST? Yeesh. Some cyclist named LEVI? (18A: Champion cyclist Leipheimer) Somebody else named TENG? (40A: Singer/songwriter Vienna ___) And what's up with the clue for WORK? (11A: A bummer for bums) I see now which meaning of "bum" they were going for, but the clue really reads as if I'm supposed to see tramps or vagrants as people who are poor simply because they don't like to WORK. Anyway, that corner was awful. Much of the rest of the puzzle was lovely, though loopy stuff like ONDO and STANE (53D: ___ Street (road from London Bridge to Chichester)) and BONITO (1D: Mackerel family member) I could really have done without. Really unfortunate to have pretty stuff like MRS. ROBINSON (23D: "Here's to you" recipient) and WOLF BLITZER and NO MAN'S LAND (17A: Unclaimed stretch) offset by junky little names and obscurities.



Went BROTHS to THUMP to PEU and was off to the races. Slowed down somewhat by Yet Another actor's name—though luckily this was the most common actor in all of crossworld, so once I picked up enough crosses, he went down. Didn't know that meaning of SCAR (35A: Protruding rock). ONDO schmondo. But I got out of there and over to the SE, which went down like a Wednesday (STANE notwithstaneding). Then there was just the NE, where I spent well over half my solving time. Tried something-PULITZER (?) before realizing "Emmy" meant TV, and finally mentally rolodexing my way to WOLF BLITZER. Had OATH for 16A: Shakespeare's "temple-haunting martlet" is a good one (OMEN). Had OOH for AAH (27D: "That's nice"). If I hadn't serendipitously come up with SALT II (30A: 1979 negotiation), with just the S and L in place, I don't now what I would have done. Wish I'd remembered Madame Defarge, but I just drew a huge blank (decades since I read "A Tale of Two Cities") (14D: Madame Defarge's sinister craft=>KNITTING).


[5D: When "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" aired: Abbr. => MON.]
Bullets:

• 1A: Network since 1998 (BBC AMERICA) — looks pretty good in the grid. Easy to get once the second B and C were in there.
  
• 28A: Seattle sea hawks (OSPREYS) — clever, but not at all tricky.
  
• 38A: "War With the Newts" novelist, 1936 (CAPEK) — he of "R.U.R." fame.
  
• 58A: "___ Boys" (1886 sequel) ("JO'S") — nice fat gimme. Strangely, I wanted JOS. PULITZER where WOLF BLITZER ended up going.
  
• 48D: Highball with white rum (MOJITO) — popular drink. Never heard the word "highball" anywhere around it, but since a "highball" is just a drink with alcohol and a larger portion of non-alcoholic mixer, the label fits.
  
• 57D: Supermodel Benitez (ELSA) — nooo idea.
  
• 49D: Pied wader (AVOCET) — an important crossword bird.
  
• 52D: Apache topper (ROTOR) — the helicopter, not the native American.
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Soul's 1970s TV co-star / SAT 4-2-11 / Start of dogwatch / New York find 10/16/1869 / 1980s TV private eye / Pee-wee's Playhouse mail lady

Constructor: Mark Diehl

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none


Word of the Day: RAKEHELL (16A: Libertine) —

A rake, short for rakehell, is a historic term applied to a man who is habituated to immoral conduct, frequently a heartless womaniser. Often a rake was a man who wasted his (usually inherited) fortune on gambling, wine, women and song, incurring lavish debts in the process. The rake was also frequently a man who seduced a young woman and impregnated her before leaving, often to her social or financial ruin. // The Restoration rake was a carefree, witty, sexually irresistible aristocrat whose heyday was during the English Restoration period (1660–1688), at the court of Charles II. They were typified by the "Merry gang" of courtiers, who included as prominent members the Earl of Rochester, George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham and the Earl of Dorset, who combined riotous living with intellectual pursuits and patronage of the arts. At this time the rake featured as a stock character in Restoration comedy. // After the reign of Charles II, and especially after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the cultural perception of the rake took a dive into squalor. The rake became the butt of moralistic tales in which his typical fate was debtor's prison, venereal disease, or, in the case of William Hogarth's A Rake's Progress, insanity in Bedlam.

• • •

Felt mostly quite easy, but not knowing THE CARDIFF GIANT (or, rather, forgetting it until I had the THE CARDIFF part) slowed me down enough that my time was just average (34A: New York "find" of 10/16/1869). Strangely, the most befuddling part was the COURSE part of COURSE FEES (28A: Tuition portion). Had FEES and just couldn't think what kind of FEES could be involved. Also, I had a ridiculous fit of second-guessing after I dropped down ARE YOU KIDDING ME (off just the A--Y!) (7D: "Really?!"). I read the clue at 33A: Animal whose tongue is long enough to clean its eyelids and ears and thought "sounds like a GECKO" (actually, OKAPI). Then was *sure* it was a GECKO after that "K" got me "AKA" for 30D: Cover letters? I mean ... that's a genius clue for AKA. It's a pretty good clue for SPF, I guess, but it's *really* good for AKA. Anyway, this made me doubt ARE YOU KIDDING ME. Ugh. So tripping in the middle took me from what would probably have been a Thu/Fri time right back to a Saturday time.

No trouble at all in any of the corners. Little bit of mucking around in the SW when I put in ENGIRD (!) for ENCASE (42D: Surround). Proudest / most embarrassing moment (I can't decide)—knowing instantly that 19A: Soul's 1970s TV co-star was going for the brown-haired guy from "Starsky & Hutch." I knew that if I just got a cross or two, his name would come to me. And it did (GLASER). Also, in the same TV-of-my-youth vein, I nailed STEELE with hardly any effort at all (44D: 1980s TV private eye). And though I never played it, "Legend of ZELDA" feels like a gimme handed to me from my youth (or maybe young adulthood) as well (40A: "The Legend of ___").


[How did I remember this? How? I must have had some pretty profound encounter with Mr. Soul earlier in my life. He clearly left an impression ... of some sort]

VHS forced me to change NOONIONS to NOCHEESE (38D: Whopper request). TEENER came far too easily for being such a dated / weird word (45D: "American Bandstand" viewer). My crossword instincts / memory must be getting pretty well developed, because NITER came eerily easily too, despite my not really knowing what it is (48: Atacama Desert export). I had to look up Atacama very recently (what, two days ago?), so at least I knew what part of the world we were dealing with—not that that helped with NITER. Had to run the alphabet at DI-O to remember DIDO (23A: "Thank You" singer, 2001). DI-D'OH! Should've been easier, as she was a major pop star when I was in grad school.



First answer in the grid: "ADAM'S RIB" (7A: 1949 comedy about husband-and-wife lawyers on opposing sides of a murder case). As with Mr. Soul, I don't really know how I know this. I just do. I must have watched, or tried to watch, the movie at one point. My aunt lives in San RAFAEL, which didn't help until I had the "AE" part (lots of SANs in CA). Despite knowing about the "CHE" biopic of 1969 (from crosswords, naturally), I didn't pick up SHARIF until the "F" (11D: Guevara portrayer). It's just so weird what your brain will and won't do for you when you're in the middle of solving. The brain giveth, the brain taketh away, the brain getteth distracted by thoughts like "a TWO-SPEED bike? Really?" (39D: Like some Schwinns)

Bullets:

• 31A: Voice of Fredricksen in "Up" (ASNER) — big fat gimme. ASNER is super common in crosswords, and he's also the most famous voice actor in that movie.
  
• 49A: Wallis and Futuna (ILES) — whoa. This one was hard. Gibberish hard. Turns out they are (combined) a French territory in French Polynesia
  
• 55A: "Doubt" co-star, 2008 (STREEP) — knew it ended in "P" before I ever saw the clue, so no problem (never saw the movie, but seem to remember that STREEP plays a nun, along with the Lovely Amy Adams)
  
• 9D: Sharing common alleles (AKIN) — "alleles" is yet another word I learned from crosswords. Pretty shmancy way of getting to AKIN.
  
• 56D: "Pee-wee's Playhouse" mail lady (REBA) — what a great REBA clue. Wish I'd seen it. Got REBA entirely from crosses before I ever had a chance to see the clue; figured it must be about the country / sitcom star.
  
• 54D: Destructive 1966 hurricane (INEZ) — "Destructive" is weird. Redundant, I'd think. I mean, if it's a hurricane we might be expected to remember, then I'm guessing it was probably pretty "destructive."
• 1A: Start of a dogwatch (FOUR PM) — is this related to "bells," i.e. metaphors for telling time in the Navy? Turns out, yes, sort of. "Dogwatch" = work shift, half the length of a regular watch (2 as opp. to 4 hours). Interesting info about etymology (related to Sirius? evolved from "dodging the watch?") here.
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

French actress Saint-Cyr / SAT 3-26-11 / Constellation next to Pavo / Creature revered by Mayans / Quarry boss of cartoons / Film villain sings Daisy

Constructor: Brad Wilber

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none


Word of the Day: QUETZAL (42D: Creature revered by the Mayans) —

Quetzals are strikingly colored birds in the trogon family (Trogonidae). They are found in forests and woodlands, especially in humid highlands, with the five species from the genus Pharomachrus being exclusively Neotropical, while the single Euptilotis species is almost entirely restricted to western Mexico (marginally also in adjacent U.S. states). They are fairly large (all over 32 cm or 13 inches), slightly bigger than other trogon species. Trogons have iridescent green or golden-green wing coverts, back, chest and head, and a red belly. They are strongly sexually dimorphic, and parts of the females' plumage is brown or grey. These largely solitary birds feed on fruits, berries, insects and small vertebrates (e.g. frogs), and can, despite the bright plumage, be surprisingly difficult to see in their wooded habitats. (wikipedia)

• • •

Too lazy to get off the couch, go upstairs, print out puzzle, and solve it on paper, so I just grabbed my laptop and solved while lying on the couch, with college basketball blaring nearby and with various bedtime preparations happening around me. Even with the distractions, and the utter lack of speed urgency on my part, I still finished in just a shade over 9—fast for me, for a Saturday, and wicked fast for me for a Brad Wilber Saturday. If only I'd remembered stupid CHÈVRE more quickly (1A: Goat cheese), I'd have been even faster. Very little resistance today. Biggest issues—figuring out what [Gone con] was after ("oh ... a con who has gone ... gotcha") (ESCAPEE); trying to remember which HENRY I was after (IV) (2D: John of Gaunt's son); convincing myself QUETZAL could stand on its own, without COATL; getting to HOGTIE from HOBBLE (65A: Render helpless) ... and that's pretty much it. Really like this grid—lots of Scrabbly letters and interesting words/phrases, not a lot of dreck. You can keep your stunt grids with the stacked 15s and big white spaces and what not. I'll take a modest-looking 70-72-word grid with tough clues and bouncy, in-the-language, original fill (BYE WEEK!) (45D: Idle stretch for an N.F.L. team) any day.

There were a few things I just didn't know—RENEE Saint-Cyr, for instance (36D: French actress Saint-Cyr). I know Lili St. Cyr (grrr...), but not RENEE. Knew QUEEN MAB and HESIOD, but their clues didn't make them easy to pick up (42A: She "gallops o'er a courtier's nose," in Shakespeare + 15A: Ancient "Works and Days" poet). Know SHREK, of course, but not as a musical (13D: 2009 Best Musical nominee). No idea that ARA was next to Pavo, but constellation in three letters = ARA until I'm shown otherwise. Prince HAL was the son of HENRY IV, but today the clue on HAL is much more modern and creepy (32A: Film villain who sings "Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do!"). The "Daisy" scene in "2001" is amazingly sad, almost touching. I've never thought of HAL as a proper "villain." I sort of like him.



Bullets:

• 23A: Cagney's employer (NYPD) — I'm assuming this is the Cagney of "Cagney & Lacey," a show any disco-era kid (or 80s teenager) (or X'ER) would have at least a passing familiarity with.
  
• 38A: First man featured on the cover of the U.S. edition of Vogue (GERE) — apparently it's "Mildly Obscure Clues for Richard GERE" week at the NYT (see 46A, yesterday)
  
• 49A: Biden's successor on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (KERRY) — that clue, like KERRY, makes me want to sleep.
  
• 64A: So-called "wand of heaven" (ALOE VERA) — anyone so-calling it that has never been anywhere around me. Luckily, this answer was easy to pick up from crosses.
  
• 8D: They may evoke tristesse (ADIEUX) — GERE twice in two days, not that weird. ADIEUX *and* GERE twice in two days, a little weird.
  
• 26D: Brave protector (TEPEE) — I can see how this clue might have been misleading, but I had all the Es in place before I ever saw the clue.
  
• 43D: Quarry boss of cartoons (MRS. LATE) — really mean lady. Also, kind of a night owl.
  
• 56D: Beatle George studied under him (RAVI) — Shankar. "Beatle George" sounds really weird. Like Beetlejuice meets Curious George.
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Carmine's cousin / SAT 3-19-11 / Pitch setter / Rockling, e.g. / Basilica di San Nicola locale

Constructor: Joe DiPietro

Relative difficulty: easy-medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: MASTIC (Resin used in varnishes) —

(Greek: Μαστίχα) is a resin obtained from the mastic tree (Pistacia lentiscus). In pharmacies and Nature shops it is called "arabic gum" (not to be confused with gum arabic) and "Yemen gum". . . Mastic is used as a raw material in the production of some varnishes. Mastic varnish was used to protect and preserve photographic negatives. (wikipedia)

• • •

Hello, treedweller here. For those who may not be aware, this weekend is the ACPT in Brooklyn, so our regular host is occupied and he has given me another opportunity to sit in the driver's seat. Some of you may recall my previous outing was also on a Saturday and I got slaughtered. My saving grace that weekend was to give a little solace to all the other clueless (answer-less?) puzzlers who are routinely demoralized by Rex's comments in the vein of "I dropped in [something you never imagined was even a word] immediately with no crosses and was done in four minutes."

This time, I find myself discussing another Saturday puzzle. I've improved over the last year or two and no longer consider it a miracle when I finish a Fri/Sat puzzle, but I still fail as often as I succeed (yesterday, for example). Today, I actually finished without cheating in just over half an hour, which is not quite good enough for the ACPT but faster than most of the Saturdays I've completed. It's probably Rex-Easy, but I threw in the hyphen-medium to make myself feel a little better about my success*. Those of you who still can't even get a toehold on Saturday have my permission to rate it Beyond Challenging. Go ahead, have fun, it's just us kids today.

This struck me as a light offering for the weekend. It was definitely a tough puzzle, but seemed a little mundane. Saturdays, I expect to be quizzed on the moons of Jupiter or the operatic works of [someone opera people would know but I don't because the only opera I know came from puzzles]. This was all pretty in-the-language stuff clued Saturday Hard. As with most of my successful Saturdays, I got a smattering of answers, some of which proved wrong, and I was sure I'd never finish, but then I slowly picked up an AAVERAGE (57A: It's between 90 and 100) here and an AIR IRAN (47A / 48D: it stopped flying to New York in 1979) there, and before I realized it I was closing in on the final squares (*correcting my error at 28D: Pitch setter -- CLEF, as it turns out--more on that later). The most obscure trivia I see is BARI (52A: Basilica di San Nicola locale) and my word of the day, MASTIC (27A: Resin used in varnishes). Unfortunately for me, the latter tripped me up and I finished with an error.

Actually, the problem started with DEFIANT (40A: Unwilling to stay in line), where I got the 'D' and the ANT and confidently threw down "deviant". So when I came to 28D: Pitch setter (which, I must say, had me mystified for most of the time I was solving), I suddenly realized it had to be "elev", never mind there's no indication of an abbreviation in the clue. And so I spent a few minutes post-solve trying to figure out what "mastie" was. Some of you are probably saying, "How long has he been at this that he doesn't know MASTIC?" but it's a new one on me, or at least one I figured out once and promptly forgot.

Bullets:

• 29D: Spirit of the Caribbean (JAMAICARUM)— I totally fell for the "spirit" misdirection, which contributed to the struggle I had in the SE until almost the end, and then realization dawned. And then I spent several seconds trying to figure out how to fit JAMAICANRUM in there. I'm still a little bitter about that, truth be told.
• 38A: Strategy game with disks (REVERSI) — Started with Othello (and wondered why the play wasn't referenced in the clue), then briefly tried PACHISI, though I was grumbling to myself that there's precious little strategy in that game. Maybe this should have been W-O-T-D, since I am a game fiend and yet I have never seen, much less played, REVERSI. Oh, wait, a little googling reveals that it's just an alternate name for Othello. Which is, of course, just a simplified version of Go. Which will make it into precious few puzzles since it's only two letters. God forbid we ever see "gos" or "goes" (clued in this context). I might welcome an outlaw puzzle with two-letter entries, but it had better be pretty damn good.
• 59A: To a very great degree (INSPADES) — This was one of those Saturday clues that revealed a very colloquial phrase. I like those.
• 37A: Borderline fare? (TEXMEX) — This was an obvious ploy to me, in that I was immediately looking for food, but I still took awhile getting the right answer. I kept trying "tacos" and "enchiladas" and other yummy-sounding stuff that didn't fit. Being as I'm in / from Texas, this may be an example of the specialist struggling where the amateur has no problems.
• 15A: Item removed before showering (TOUPEE) — FTW!
• 56D: "Knots Landing" actress ___ Park Lincoln (LAR) — sounds like a car dealership to me--which reminds me--
• 7A: They make vehicles very volatile (CARBOMBS) — I was quite pleased to quickly fill in "gas tanks" here, and a little disturbed to finally reveal the correct answer. Given the recent news from Japan, I had a similar reaction at 60A: Shake (TREMOR). I usually frown when the PC crowd starts trying to arbitrarily limit options based on personal concerns, and I am not lobbying to take these words out of the mix for future puzzles, but, nevertheless.

I'm back again on Sunday. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to get it done without cheating. Good luck to all the competitors.

Signed, treedweller,
on behalf of
Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

King of Tartary in Turandot / SAT 3-12-11 / Marquand title character / Tiger's successor computerwise / Nickname Mahattan jail / Bathing resort Lahn

Constructor: Joon Pahk

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging


THEME: none

Word of the Day: APLEY (9D: Marquand title character) —

The Late George Apley is a 1937 novel by John Phillips Marquand. It is a satire of Boston's upper class. The title character is a Harvard-educated WASP living on Beacon Hill in downtown Boston. // The book was acclaimed as the first "serious" work by Marquand, who had previously been known for his Mr. Moto spy novels and other popular fiction. It was a bestseller and won the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1938. An article in The New Yorker decades later called the book the "best-wrought fictional monument to the nation's Protestant elite that we know of." (wikipedia)

• • •

Very tough for me, possibly because I'm solving it at 2am after having fallen asleep around 9pm (?!), but possibly also because it was simply tough. I wish there had been somewhat fewer odd / obscure proper nouns, both because I wouldn't have floundered the way I did, and because I think odd/obscure proper nouns are icky and should be kept to a minimum. I was at a complete loss on RENI (5D: Painter of the "Crucifixion of St. Peter" in the Vatican), APLEY, BREA (11D: City next to Fullerton) and TIMUR (28A: King of Tartary in "Turandot")—the last one by far the most obscure, as well as the most unfortunate (crossing, as it does, another odd, albeit somewhat more familiar, proper noun in "ULALUME" (12D: Poem set "in the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir")—I have a Ph.D. in English and I'm only vaguely familiar with that poem title; there is precisely nothing inferrable about the name, making this cross a guaranteed knee-breaker for some people, since you can't really infer the "M" in TIMUR either). I took care of RENI from crosses, but APLEY's proximity to BREA and TIMUR, as well as my completely blanking on SAMISEN (even with -A-ISEN in place) (7D: Its three strings are plucked with a bachi) meant that the NE took a long time to come into focus. The upside of that particularly nightmare was that the big reveal, the "AHA" moment, was OSCAR BUZZ (6A: It's generated for high-quality pictures). Nice, bold, surprising way to finish off a puzzle. Once those "Z"s were in place, it was all over. Only way I overcame my DEAD STOP (38A: Brake-slamming result) in the NE was by running the alphabet at the first letter of SAMISEN—it worked; I hit the "S," remembered the "M," got I'M ALL EARS (after wanting only I CAN DIG IT) and OSCAR BUZZ, and that was that.



I still can't believe I threw down HARPER LEE effortlessly ... and it did virtually Nothing for me in the NE (16A: Lifelong friend of Truman Capote).

Beginning was more auspicious, with LASER (1A: Kind of beam), EXILE (15A: What many are forced to live in), and AXL ROSE (2D: Frontman on the 2008 rock album "Chinese Democracy") coming straight away. Couldn't work across the top and so went down the coast. After changing SONS to SEED (31D: Progeny) and GETS AT IT to GETS IT ON (30A: Begins brawling), the SW was fairly easy to get into—but then again I own a Mac (that runs Snow LEOPARD) (35D: Tiger's successor, computerwise) and I follow the N.F.L. reasonably closely (got DREW BREES off the "W"). Stalled out trying to exit the SW, so went over and rebooted in the SE with the quick 1-2-3 of TIER / TE AMO (later changed to TI AMO) / AMPLE. Barely heard of TRIMSPA (39D: Big name in weight-loss supplements), but crosses were easy to come by, so no sweat. Changed HARD STOP to DEAD STOP (38A: Brake-slamming result), and ended up in the mean NE. Ugh, BAD EMS (32A: Bathing resort on the Lahn River), why did you have to be right under TIMUR?? And why did you have to abandon my mind completely? I think that when I'm tired / disoriented (as I seem to be when I solve just after waking), my proper noun recall is horrrrrrrible. That's my theory, anyway. Frustration aside, I enjoyed the challenge, and thought the grid had some really nice fill.

Embarrassed how long it took me to get "SILENT T," considering I watch "The Colbert Report" every night (or, rather, every morning, thanks to TiFaux, aka the DVR) (3D: "The Colbert Report" ends with one).

Bullets:

• 17A: Crazy, in rap slang (ILLIN') — uh ... wow. Yes. In precisely one song that can recall. From high school ("Today you won a ticket to see Dr. J!"):

• 33A: Issachar's uncle (ESAU) — now there's an ESAU clue I've never seen before...
  
• 42A: Exercise done while pedaling (ETUDE) — I had TRADE at first. See if you can figure out how I got there...
  
• 43A: Nickname for a Manhattan jail, with "the" (TOMBS) — no idea. Guessed it from the "T" and "M" (seemed a suitably depressing moniker)
  
• 1D: Battle of Nations site, 1813 (LEIPZIG) — again, no clue. Saw it only by entertaining the possibility of ZONE at 22A: Court area.
  
• 8D: Accessory popularized by Louis XIV (CRAVAT) — you know that lyric from Carly Simon's song "You're So Vain" that goes "you had one eye in the mirror as you watched yourself gavotte?" I always thought it was "... you watched your silk CRAVAT," which would make for a suspiciously odd fixation on neckwear considering the song has already observed at that point that "your scarf it was apricot" ... but I heard what I heard.

And then there's this...

• 34D: Lands around mansions (DEMESNES) — DOMAINS... doesn't fit! I know this word, so I really should have gotten it sooner than I did.
  
• 43D: Capital whose central plaza is Skanderbeg Square (TIRANE) — got it of the -ANE, though to be honest I wrote in TISANE, which I believe is some kind of tea drink. Never saw the clue at 54D: 43-Down's place: Abbr. (ALB.).
• 36D: Lee who advised Reagan and Bush (ATWATER) — one of the first political operative names I ever remember learning. What I remember is that he died of a brain tumor, and that he played guitar.
  
• 47D: One going off on somebody? (PAGER) — not in this century. I had LUGER!
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

P.S. in case you missed it yesterday, Angela Halsted and I made yesterday's Guest Puzzle at BEQ's website—check it out. (It's a double-rejectee! Rejected once for not "tickling" the editor, and another time for having a theme answer that was simply deemed not famous enough)

Specialty oven / SAT 3-5-11 / Channel between mainland England Isle Wight / Transient madness Horace / Rue Morgue murderer / Two bridges India

Constructor: Randolph Ross

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none


Word of the Day: The SOLENT (15A: Channel between mainland England and the Isle of Wight, with "the") —

The Solent is a strait separating the Isle of Wight from the mainland of England. // The Solent is a major shipping route for passengers, freight and military vessels. It is an important recreational area for water sports, particularly yachting, hosting the Cowes Week sailing event annually. It is sheltered by the Isle of Wight and has a very complex tidal pattern, which has greatly benefited Southampton's success as a port. Portsmouth lies on its shores. Spithead, an area off Gilkicker Point near Gosport, is known as the place where the Royal Navy is traditionally reviewed by the monarch of the day. (wikipedia)

• • •

Did this in about half the time of yesterday's puzzle. It had a few tough parts, but behaved more like a Friday than a Saturday for me. Noteworthy parts of this puzzle include CLEAR AS MUD (best answer) (4D: Poorly explained), EAT FRESH (itself fresh) (52A: Subway line), and the fully-named APIA, SAMOA (APIA is an important crossword word in its own right — I learned it from crosswords, in fact — but I don't think I've seen it long-form like this) (44A: Capital served by Faleolo International Airport). Toughest part of the grid for me, by far, was the NE. Tried and failed to get into it early on (approaching from the west). Ended up finishing the puzzle by hemming in that section (approaching from the south) and forcing the tough answers to give up their secrets. Thorniest answer was MOILS (9D: Churns), which I had as the much more sensible ROILS. But I could Not get a Yankee to fit into RA---; ran the alphabet on that third letter and came up empty. Only after I accepted the non-solidity of the "R" did I (finally) see Roger MARIS (9A: Yankee star who batted left and threw right). Had never heard of the SOLENT, so that didn't help matters. Wanted "The SOLLES," but later realized that was due to my awareness of the existence of the Oregon city named "The DALLES." Weird, I know, but that's how my brain fired. Love the MINCing FOP, BORNE by the MORN to a state of, let's say, WRATH (46A: "A transient madness," per Horace).



Did not love (and did not understand, and do not understand) the clue on LEHR (5D: Specialty oven), which is apparently an oven for annealing glass. Also, never heard anyone say KNEEHOLE before (16A: Place to stretch one's legs). Oh, crud, it's not a clothing term: it's the space under a desk ... for your knees. I don't think of that as a place to "stretch," but OK. ONYM is horrid, but it's about the only thing in the grid that is (34D: Word: Suffix). Beyond that, not much else to say. A fine Saturday effort.

Bullets:

• 18A: It has two bridges in India (SITAR) — first thing in the grid, after I'd placed the terminal "S" on what ended up being ARKS (1D: They're open on Saturdays).
  
• 33A: Figure in the high 60s (D PLUS) — want to like this clue, but the phrasing is just a tad off, to my ear. A D PLUS *represents* a score "in the high 60s," but is not itself "in the high 60s."
  
• 7D: Real-life opera composer who's a title character in a Rimsky-Korsakov opera (SALIERI) — had the "SA-" so this wasn't tough, though I was slightly tentative when writing it in with nothing else to confirm it.

• 10D: "Valentine's Day" co-star, 2010 (ALBA) — as in Jessica, whom I know *only* from "Sin City"
  
• 36D: Senator supporter (OTTAWAN) — great clue. I had ATTACHE at first (?!). The Senators are, of course, Ottawa's pro hockey team.
• 26D: Area where Dali, Monet, Picasso and van Gogh all painted (MONTMARTRE) — got this off the "-TR-" at the tail end. Figured it had to be something French.
  
• 38D: Rue Morgue murderer (ORANG) — that's a revelation that's pretty hard to forget.
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Competitive lumberjack / SAT 2-26-11 / Gregor's sister in Metamorphosis / Hydra's neighbor / Group worshiping teocalli / Glamorous high profile pair

Constructor: Bob Peoples

Relative difficulty: Challenging

THEME: none


Word of the Day: BIRLER (49D: Competitive) —

BIRL

v. birled, birl·ing, birls

v.tr.

To cause (a floating log) to spin rapidly by rotating with the feet.

v.intr.

1. To participate in birling.

2. To spin.

n.

A whirring noise; a hum.

---

[Blend of birr and whirl.]

---

birler n.

• • •

PFFT (57D: Indication of a dud).

As you can (maybe) see from my grid, I finished with an error. I'll eat my hat, scarf, *and* mittens if I'm the only one who made the error — BUD / DIRLER for BUB / BIRLER. Look, there are lots of things I don't know, and I certainly finish puzzles with errors from time to time, so please understand that it really isn't sour grapes that makes me say that that crossing is horrible. Fatal, even. You have to figure the percentage of the population that's going to know that BIRLER is a thing. I put that percentage at pretty small. There's no way even to infer BIRLER, to pick it over DIRLER (the way I *totally* inferred the godawful ORNIS from the word "ornithological"—52A: Avifauna). Since the cross makes *much* more sense as BUD, not BUB (who says that?) (48A: Pal), this means folks who don't know BIRLER will naturally, understandably, put in the "D." And most will go on with their days having no idea it's wrong. The clue on BUB should not have had BUD as a possible (here, more probable) answer, but I'm not sure how you do that, frankly. This really is a construction failure of the highest order. Nevermind that you ran BIRLER through ORNIS (!?) and alongside the dreaded, never-thought-I'd-see-its-ugly-ass-again SODDY (53D: Like some outfields). The rest of the grid is a toughish Saturday with some good parts and some less-than-good parts, but the middle south? Should've sent the constructor back to the drawing board.

Not a fan of gaining your difficulty through obscurity instead of tough, clever, misdirective cluing. GRETE (29A: Gregor's sister in "The Metamorphosis"), AMTRAC (42A: Amphibious W.W. II vehicle), and non-KEN Burns were all big "???"s for me. Crossing old, bygone, largely forgotten actors in the SW? Not cool. I know ED WYNN only from crosswords (64A: "The Diary of Anne Frank" Oscar nominee) and HENREID? (38D: He played Laszlo in "Casablanca") ... I just saw that damn movie and couldn't remember his name. Wasn't til I was done that I figured out what RENOS stood for (RENOvationS) (47A: Decorating do-overs, for short). Thankfully, crosswords taught me ALEN (56D: Chrysler Building architect William Van ___). Too many odd names in one small place (leaving aside MRS. MALAPROP (55A: "She's as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of Nile" speaker), who is pretty famous and just about the loveliest thing in the grid). NW and SE are charming, but the rest was a bit of a chore, except the BUB / BIRLER / ORNIS part, about which, no more.

I had two absolutely deadly mistakes—ELATION for ELYSIUM early on (8D: Perfectly happy state), and FURNACE for RAT RACE toward the end (44D: Exhausting thing to run). Oh, wait, I forgot one: COMPANY for NOT MANY (40D: Two, say).

Important toe-holds USAF in the NW (5D: Ace's setting: Abbr.), ZONE in the NE, ANAT. in the SW, and LAH in the SE (though that last one did very little for me, frankly). The saddest thing about the entire puzzle, for me, was how I was saved from near death by ... MR. MISTER (32A: Band with the 1985 #1 hit "Broken Wings"), a band I once almost got beat up for mocking (true story—that guy *really* liked MR. MISTER...). These sensitive '80s rockers floated down and, like a guardian angel or mystical spirit guide, completely cracked open the upper part of the grid for me. Without MR. MISTER (whispering "Take / These broken wings / And learn to fly again / Learn to live so free..."), I might still be working with ELATION. So, despite finding their music cloying and semi-repulsive, I offer my thanks.


Sticking with '80s pop, here's the RIC (58A: Documentarian Burns) I wish I'd gotten:


Started out with IT COUPLE (1A: Glamorous, high-profile pair)—how lucky was that?—and then quickly ran into my ELATION problem. ZONE helped me get AZTECS (9A: Group worshiping at a teocalli), which made NE not so tough—though it took me many, many crosses to come up with SPENSER (14D: One-named fictional detective), which I always assumed was a last name, not an ENYA-type single name. Guessed ELIS at 25A: Big Red rivals out of crossword reflex. I assume Big Red is Cornell. Crossword reflexes helped again in the SE, where my sense that [Longtime classical music label] must be a "Saturday" way of getting at the ultra-common ERATO helped me get past FURNACE and into RAT RACE.

Lastly, [Inveterate brown-bagger] is perhaps my favorite clue ever for SOT.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Santa drawer / SAT 2-19-11 / Controversial color enhancer / Classic novel with biblical parallels / Picasso painting sleeping mistress

Constructor: Tim Croce

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none


Word of the Day: Emma SAMMS (48D: "The Colbys" co-star) —

Emma Samms (born Emma E. W. Samuelson; 28 August 1960) is a British television actress best known for her role as Holly Sutton on the American daytime soap opera General Hospital and for replacing Pamela Sue Martin as Fallon Carrington Colby on the primetime soap opera Dynasty. (wikipedia)

• • •

This was good, but had way too much short stuff to be very interesting. Tons and tons of 4- and 5-letter answers, more (or so it felt) than your average Monday puzzle. I count 14 answers at 9+ letters and 56 (!) 3-, 4-, and 5-letter answers. No mid-range fill. That's weird. Grid is also weird, with a ton of black squares (again, about as many as one might expect to see on a Monday). Not a lot of fun in going into one of these 4x4 nooks. The one in the SW was the toughest for me, and was not, in the end, very tough. I solved this faster than I did yesterday's, which I did in pretty good time. First thing in the grid was JAZZ (11A: What makes cats happy), and from there proceeded to wipe out most of the grid without much resistance. There were so many blind alleys, I kept expecting to get caught short in one of them (esp. the center), but that just didn't happen. Not a bad experience, but not a memorable one either. I'm thrilled to take a Saturday down in under 8 minutes, but somehow doing so today didn't feel like such a big accomplishment.

All the 4s and 5s gave me ample opportunity to slice into those longer answers, and they all went down without a peep. Up top, after getting EAST OF EDEN (20A: Classic novel with biblical parallels) out of the NE, I dropped ODEA, RDAS, and NAST (9D: Santa drawer) in order, which gave me HAD A BAD DAY (15A: Needed to relax and unwind, say), and the whole NW fell from there. Tried LEMON tart at first, but then a fat gimme just fell in my lap at 24D: "Wannabe" hitmakers (SPICE GIRLS), and LEMON became PECAN (35A: Kind of tart) and center went poof. GO WIRELESS (nice answer) was probably the toughest for me to pick up because I solved it from the back end and it looked like an adjective (ending in -LESS) despite the clue's clearly calling for a verb phrase (43A: Eliminate lines of communication?). From SPICE GIRLS, OMAR (54D: Baseball's Minaya), and MMES, I was able to take out the entire SE in about 30 seconds—the easiest Saturday quadrant I've ever solved, probably. Hardest section for me was that pesky 4x4 bit in the SW. Nothing in clue for N.F.L. UNIFORM to signal abbrev., so N.F.L was hard to see (50A: Wear for some guards), but EXES and FLAX were virtual gimmes, and with the exception of an APSE-for-NAVE hiccup (50D: Mass gathering place), that last section wasn't that hard, in the end.


Got interviewed by local NPR station today for some future segment on crosswords. Interviewer had me solve a puzzle in studio, commenting as I solved — the only puzzle she had handy was the Newsday puzzle, which I normally don't do. But I dove in and really enjoyed it. Turned out it was written by my friend, all-star constructor Doug Peterson. So happy to have a decent puzzle to talk my way through.

Bullets:

• 19A: "Wielding ___ Sword" (Piers Anthony novel) ("A RED") — I think I read some of his stuff when I was an adolescent. Never heard of this title, but phrase was very easy to pick up from crosses.
  
• 31A: Language with 44 consonants (THAI) — this clue may as well have said, simply, [Language], though that is an interesting bit of trivia.
  
• 58A: Controversial color enhancer (ALAR) — had SLUR here at first, figuring a SLUR would be controversial and (euphemistically) colorful, language-wise.
  
• 11D: "Death in the Desert" writer, 1930 (JAMES AGEE) — got the JAMES easily, then just guessed the AGEE part a bit later. Never heard of this work.
• 55D: "Le ___," Picasso painting of his sleeping mistress ("RÊVE") — thought it might be "Le DORA" or "Le MAAR," but the masculine "Le" was wrong and anyway the very idea is preposterous. Blew through that corner so fast I never even had to figure it all out. Crosses just took care of it.
  
• 28D: Hissy-prone missy (DIVA) — wanted SNIT, but figured that was gender-neutral. Then wanted some kind of cat ... got DIVA from crosses.

[Why God invented Youtube]

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]