Thursday, August 31, 2017, Zachary Spitz

9:04

Oh, this is fun. What a great way to wrap up my month of blogging. I had a sense a rebus might be on the books when I had difficulty filling in the NW corner despite recalling ALONSO of all things.

So a rebus is less fun when it's predictable. There are two ways it can be predictable: the same rebus in all places, and rebuses in symmetric squares. This puzzle is predictable in where the rebuses are, namely in the three corners, but each square has a different rebus, which is very nice.

In the end, we have four examples of a CORNER / OFFICE. In the NW, it's a [BOX] office; in the NE, it's a [POST] office; in the SE, it's a [HOME] office; and in the SW it's the [OVAL] office. Very nicely done.

My favorite corner is the SW, because it took me so long to figure out what was going on, particularly because of 36D: Need for drugs (FDAAPPR[OVAL]). Tough tough clue, combined with the strangest combination of letters. Strong work, making 61A: "This puzzle is relatively easy," say (LIE) ironically true. The other two 8-letter down answers in that corner were tough also (RINSEOUT, because "De-suds" sounds like it should be a plural, and YAKITORI, because Japanese).

I was very happy to have Gavin MACLEOD right across the center of the puzzle. I did know him best from "The Love Boat," but plenty would recall him more from "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." Which one resonates most with you?

Love SAFEHARBOR and POOREXCUSE. 21A: Pilot's surroundings (GASOVEN) gets a nod of approval, especially with the lack of a question mark. I also enjoyed 57A: Odd group of musicians? (NONET), even though the answer lacked any specificity (note "trio," "quintet," or "septet" would all have satisfied as well). However, any group of musicians is likely odd, just from the get go.

Fave: NECK (60D: Make out). I was so ready for a non-blue answer here.
Least fave: NRA (F.D.R.-created program with the slogan "We Do Our Part"). Nice try, referring to the National Recovery Administration.

And I'm out. Enjoy a month or two of other people's reviews. I had a great time this month. I definitely felt like the puzzles were largely on the better than average side, with a few outstanding examples.

- Colum

Wednesday, August 30, 2017, David Kahn

6:28 (FWOE)

If it's Wednesday, it must be a word ladder. Or is the opposite? If it's a word ladder, it must be a Wednesday? Anyway, in either case, I'll take a good word ladder from time to time (de temps en temps, as Frannie would say). And this one is certainly ambitious. Each entry is 5 letters long, and there are nine total steps. In an additional lovely little twist, the central answer, BLADE, which has gone from BLUNT to SHARP, is tied to two extra 5-letter answers along the E and W sides, KNIFE and RAZOR.

Still... you really want every step in the word ladder to be widely accepted English words. Maybe one proper noun if necessary. Here, we have both BLART, the name of the main character in a movie which has 33% on Rotten Tomatoes, and SLADE, a glam rock band from the United Kingdom (yes, they had 6 certified #1 hits in England, but never reached higher than 60 here in the biased US of A). So that tarnishes the ladder somewhat.

Anyway, all of that theme (-ish) material means that there are really no standout filler entries. The longest six are 7 letters long, and really, STAPLES, UKULELE, TEALEAF, STEWARD, STUDIOS, and OLEMISS are not exactly world beaters.

On the other hand, the puzzle on the whole is pretty smooth. I made a stoopid error by putting in OsAMA instead of OBAMA. I mean, really? Too soon? Check your crosses, people.

I was amused by the brazenness of 6D: Rep. or Dem., e.g. (ABBR). That's putting it right there in your face. Guess that's why there's no "abbr." in the clue! Also, 22A: No longer in bed? (AWEIGH) is a tough misdirection of a clue! Very clever. And lastly, in the clever clue business, there's 55A: Cabbage or kale (DOREMI), which is referring here to money, moolah, dough.

Don't like ICERS, partial ANERA, or ever thinking about STYES.

Otherwise, I guess on the whole I'll give it a thumbs up.

- Colum

Tuesday, August 29, 2017, Adam G. Perl

5:02

Tuesday faster than a Monday. It think that says more about yesterday's puzzle than today's.

I'm a really big fan of this theme. First of all, there are four 15-letter answers, two of them by virtue of the 50% increase in numbers. Second, the three original answers, "twenty questions," "ten-foot pole," and "Eight Days a Week," are all very strong. And finally, the revealer, TOOCLEVERBYHALF, explains the puzzle in a self-conscious teasing way. I love it.

I figured out THIRTYQUESTIONS first, and wondered where the heck that came from. At first, when I had THIRTYQUE____, I was wondering if the question ("Classic game needing no equipment") was referring to 500, but that was clearly the wrong number, and in any case you need a baseball bat, a baseball, and any number of gloves to play it. Once I got FIFTEENFOOTPOLE, it was clear that everything was too much by a factor of 1.5.

28D: Lies (FALSEHOODS) confused me for a bit. I had FALSEHOpeS, which is sort of correct. TOpCLEVER____ put me right. I also had STeady at 44D: Kind of income a lending officer likes to see (STABLE). In this case, I like my answer better. Otherwise I had no true stumbling blocks.

10D: Words of encouragement (CHINUP) was clued oddly. I wonder if initially it was clued with reference to the exercise. I wanted to put CROUP in off of the clue, but hesitated because I wanted "satire" for SNL's COMEDY.

Isn't 29D: Hardly a celebrity (NOBODY) harsh? I mean, I'm hardly what you'd call famous, but I'd like to think I'm a little more than just a nobody. 37A: High winds? (OBOES) is a nice way to clue this standard piece of crosswordese. The only higher winds are flutes and piccolos.

1A: Staple of Chinese cuisine (RICE) gets a C. I had Chinese food tonight, but it was disappointing.
Fave: STOLE (62A: It's a wrap). Fun clue. And better than cluing with the past tense of steal.
Least fave: OTIS (23D: "Miss" with regrets). I now understand the clue, as it refers to a Cole Porter song, "Miss Otis Regrets," and thus is deserving of recognition. But the clue as it's presented is a mystery, IMHO, and well out of a Tuesday level.

Pretty good puzzle!

- Colum

Monday, August 28, 2017, Dan Margolis

5:04

All sorts of places I set myself back while solving this puzzle. It started with putting "space" in at 5A: Wide keyboard key (ENTER), then Aton for ALOT. Later I took out "space" because I wanted to put dEf in for RES. Following that I misspelled VITTLES with a Z (?!), and then finally stared at the crossing of CGI and GIGS for 15 seconds trying to place the final letter. Better than finishing with an error, I suppose, right?

Oh, and I put MutE in for 36A: Charades player, essentially (MIME). That's a lot of errors to make up for.

Our theme today is a collection of four equine beasts. An ass is a subspecies of equus, while a mule is the offspring of a donkey and a horse, and is famously sterile. All four phrases are relatively strong, with STUBBORNASAMULE and ONETRICKPONY being the best. ONONESHIGHHORSE suffers from the "one's", but is acceptable. THELAWISAASS is the least familiar and the most enjoyable, for certain, but required a number of crosses to become clear to this solver.

BEANTOWN is of course well known to the bloggers on this site. ISIAH returns once again, although not the Isaiah Thomas who was recently traded from Boston to Cleveland, maybe.

1A: Battery fluid (ACID) gets a B-. It's okay.
Fave: SIESTA (42A: Rest of the afternoon). Great clue.
Least fave: ASSN, I guess (1D: The first "A" of N.A.A.C.P.: Abbr.), just because it's an abbreviation from an acronym.

Pretty smooth overall.

- Colum

Sunday, August 27, 2017, Jeff Chen

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

This theme confused me for a while. I had CINDERELLASTORY in place fairly quickly, then hit 29A: 23-Across, literally? So I looked for 23-Across, which doesn't actually exist, but there is a square with 23 in it in the aforementioned long clue. So I looked at what happened there and found ...LASTORY. Oh, I thought. L.A. Story, that stalwart of crossword puzzles, also the movie with Steve Martin and the talking billboard.

So, when I finally had LASTPLACE entered, I was not at all sure what was going on. My confusion was further reinforced when I had THEGRANITESTATE in place and was asked to define the portion of 60-Down, which came out as ...TESTATE. That's also a word, meaning to have a will prior to one's death. So why did TESTSITE refer to that?

It became clear with the other two examples, as ...DEADIFFERENCE and ...CANALYST are not actually words on their own. Instead, the secondary answers refer to simply the placement of words inside the larger answers. Thus you get DEADSPOT and CANALZONE from the latter two answers.

Once I saw that there was nothing more to the theme than that, I actually appreciated it quite a lot. First of all, each of the "hidden" words cross multiple words in the parent phrase, as in MA[DEAD]IFFERENCE. Second, each word has to occur at a point in the parent phrase where an answer in the other direction starts, in order to have a number in that square.

And finally, all four secondary answers are strong answers in and of themselves. I had thought it would be "dead zone" initially, but had to take that out when the crosses didn't work, and DEADSPOT is definitely better. Oh, and also, note that all four secondary answers are parallel and only two rows or columns removed from their respective primary answers. Nice.

It's not a ton of theme material for a Sunday (although with all of the constraints listed above, any more would likely have been impossible), which leaves a lot of space for interesting fill. I didn't like IVANI or random ETIENNE (Lenoir, although I suppose this gentleman deserves more recognition). And what's with the rash of ANTIS recently?

Things I liked: 65A: Bombs developed in the 1950s (EDSELS) - so much better than N-tests or whatever. 79A: Disaster film? (OILSLICK) is a great clue. And 39A: Spicy stuff? (EROTICA) was bluer than expected. Probably my favorite clue, however, was 93D: Asked for a desk, say (ANAGRAM). Beautiful. Took a long time to figure out.

I liked this puzzle a lot.

- Colum

Saturday, August 26, 2017, Peter Wentz

18:12

Today, I solved INCAHOOTS with Cece and Hope, with one assist from Phoebe, who knew BOYLESLAW. By the way, that 1A (As thick as thieves) gets an A from me. Strong clue, great answer.

I had anilS before tealS, finally settling on CYANS. Which I've often thought of as green rather than blue. Actually, Wikipedia tells me it's between blue and green. On the other hand, it's the source of Prussian blue, so there's that.

Hope got ORALPHASE (17A: Nursing is a key component of it). I took a moment to understand. I was thinking so definitely about hospital care, but it's referring to breastfeeding. Very nice.

Was MULAN actually a princess? She's listed as one of the Disney "Princesses," but is also clearly not an actual princess in the sense of being the daughter of royalty. My goodness, I'm running into a lot of controversy today!

We're all big fans of YESAND around here. Improvisation is fun, but more to the point, it emphasized positive interaction and support. If you haven't seen it, I recommend The Incredible Jessica James, available on Netflix. It's lovely and funny and sweet. Yes, and it's about improvisation, at least in part.

Cece got OVERTHERE off of the E, so shout out to her. I liked 52A: Explosive theory? (THEBIGBANG).

Three quarters of the puzzle was finished in about 10-11 minutes, leaving the SE corner, which held out for the remaining 6-7 minutes. Even with IMBACK and LEBANON in place, it took quite some time to figure out any of the acrosses. First off, I had Golf in the place of GLEE. GAH is a tough find. POMELO even more so. I'd guessed MAGI for 56A: Birthday visitors?, but had not entered it.

In the end, Hope got ANALGESIC, and we were home free. A group effort, which is always fun.

- Colum

Friday, August 25, 2017, Sam Trabucco

7:13

I feel like we're on a roll here at the NYT xword. Another very nice puzzle today, full of fun entries, good clues, and smooth fill.

I was pleased that my first three guesses of GOD, ODE, and OOH turned out to be correct. It made the puzzle start off quickly. I very much enjoyed 15A: Shoe-in? (ODOREATER). GOODSTUFF wasn't quite as, well... good. I'd give it a solid B-. Fortunately, the clue was definitely a good omen for the rest of the puzzle.

I feel like all of the long answers were very strong. The puzzle felt FRESHFACED, and certainly avoided any BANANAPEELS along the way. 29D: Too high to catch? (ULTRASONIC) is an extremely fine clue.

12D: Home to many sisters (SORORITYROW) made me think I was looking for an abbey or a nunnery. Do sorority members actually call themselves "sisters"? I'd think "members" would be more the term, but what do I know? I've never been to a sorority in my life.

I thought having NEVEREVER over IDONTMIND was like asking for volunteers and getting the spectrum of answers. Meanwhile, the CONEHEADS lived in the bottom corner. I immediately knew that one! Can't believe Remulak has a little corner of my brain all to itself.

Two "Test" clues (DRYRUN and ASSAY), as well as the split reference to John Hancock as the individual from Massachusetts history, along with his famed PEN (although I think we all disregard the tool in favor of what it produced in this particular instance), and as the insurance company, whose rival is AETNA. And finally, the two sleeping answers cross at TAKEASNOOZE and DOZE. In our household, however, we take a little snoozle instead.

I don't generally enjoy seeing a referential clue appear before the clue it's referencing. Thus, REELS coming before ROD is not aesthetically pleasing.

But overall, this is a HELLA good puzzle. (And one that seemed very PERKY and pleased with itself, and life overall).

- Colum