Wednesday, July 31, 2019, Dan Caprera

5:55

Welcome to Wednesday, where the oddball puzzles live! I am pretty amused by today's "X marks the spot" (literally) theme. There are four 15-letter answers that make up pirate treasure instructions. I like that you don't need the pirate-speak clues to follow their directions: you could simply read STARTATTHESKULL EASTTWELVEPACES SOUTHSEVENSTEPS WESTFIVETHENDIG, and you'd end up at the only X in the puzzle, right in the middle of the grid.

Of course, since X does always mark the spot, we hardly needed the instructions, but that's just being mean-spirited.

There were other theme-related answers, such as PET, SEIZE and PRIZE in the SE corner, as well as TRUNCHEON, which feels like it should have been mentioned somewhere in The Pirates of Penzance, but never was ("Here's your crowbar and your centre-bit; your life preserver - you may want to hit; your silent matches, your dark lantern seize, take your file, and your skeletonic keys").

As is typical of quotation puzzles, I moved slightly more slowly than a typical Wednesday. I made a couple of missteps myself, including DISks instead of DISCI and heWN instead of SAWN, but these were corrected well in time.

Otherwise, ECASH and the INTRANET felt like reverse anachronisms in this puzzle. I think I'll ENDIT there.

- Colum

P.S. Two debuts in a row! Welcome, Mr. Caprera!

Tuesday, July 30, 2019, Christina Iverson

4:01

Debut alert! Welcome, Ms. Iverson, to the elite crew of NYT crossword constructors. We here at HAFDTNYTCPFCA (boy, that's a lot of capital letters to type in a row - thank goodness we have some practice doing exactly that in these reviews) always like to see a new face, metaphorically speaking. Really what we see is the evidence of your clever brain at work, and that's worth a heck of a lot more to my thinking.

In any case, today's theme is STARTUP / CAPITAL, represented literally by four phrases where the first one to two syllables are an actual world capital. I had no idea where this was going (or perhaps I was solving too fast), and didn't get the trick until the puzzle was completed, even with the revealer in the middle of the puzzle.

Topically speaking, as he will be debating this very evening, is 47A: Longest-serving Independent member of Congress in U.S. history (BERNIESANDERS). It's amusing that the capital his name is hiding, Bern, belongs to the notoriously independent country of Switzerland. They don't even belong to the European Union. I had always assumed it was to make sure their banking wasn't controlled federal policies, but I see Wikipedia states that it was the Swiss citizens' opposition to the EU that prevented their application from going through.

I have been to Paris (sadly hidden in PARISHPRIESTS, a group that has lost a fair amount of respect over the last twenty to thirty years) and Rome (much better represented by ROMEOROMEO), but never to Latvia and Riga. I have been to Tallinn in Estonia, but good luck hiding that name in a theme answer.

Other than the theme, I note a higher than typical percentage of female names, such as LAURA Linney, IRENE, DINAH, and RHODA. LOME is another world capital, so perhaps it would have better to avoid it in the fill. My favorite clue comes at 9D: They're almost always shared by twins, informally (BDAYS). Can you imagine being twins and having your births separated by the arbitrary turning of the clock over at midnight, so your birthdays are on consecutive days?

Actually, I can't even imagine being a twin, so there goes that thought experiment.

- Colum

Monday, July 29, 2019, Bruce Haight

3:14

I'd say today's puzzle is pretty much how you want a Monday puzzle to be. It's a fun theme with a surprise revealer, and smooth fill for the most part. I only regret that Dr. Haight's great sense of humor has less leeway on a Monday because the clues have to be relatively straightforward. We do see some of it in clues like 57A: "____ your piehole!" (SHUT).

So the revealer is ONTHEBENCH. I feel doubly bad for our constructor that Mr. Charlson's excellent Friday puzzle of this past week played the same game with the clue "Their players are often benched," leading to the answer "pianos." Today, we instead get 48A: Herbie Hancock or Chick Corea (JAZZPIANIST). That's certainly the jazziest of the theme answers, on several levels!

But there are also several snazzy answers in the fill, including 7D: Boat you might shoot rapids in (KAYAK), and 40D: Leave at the altar (JILT), which always reminds me of Anthony Trollope, and his frequent admonishment of "There's many a slip twixt the cup and the lip." Of course, the right people almost always do end up together in his novels. But not always...

WEREINLUCK makes good use of a long down answer with a fun colloquial answer. We really need a better name for these sorts of uttered phrases which are so much more common nowadays in the NYT puzzle. Any takers?

There were a few answers I was NUTSO KEEN on, including OSSA and ICARE ("Words of empathy"? I feel like if I said that to somebody they'd look for the easiest way to exit the room). But on the whole, we'll give this puzzle a nice thumbs up.

- Colum

Boswords 2019 - Special Report!

Hi Crossword-Lovers, it's Horace here, with a quick PSA about the Boswords tournament in Boston.

Today was the third installment of this tournament, and since it was a nice day, I rode my bike down to Roxbury Latin to join in the fun. (Either I'm the only person who bikes to it, or everyone else knows where they hide the bike racks at that school!)

It was much the same as last year, which is to say that it was another fun tournament in a friendly atmosphere. I saw some familiar faces from the A.C.P.T., caught up with old friends and made some new ones, and, sadly, just like last year, I finished with one error! And this time it wasn't something I didn't know - it was a dumb mistake that would never have happened if I had checked the cross! ... grumblegrumblegrumble...

Others, however, made no mistakes, including this year's winner, Andy Kravis. His speedy dispatch of the final puzzle occasionally provoked spontaneous laughter of disbelief from several of us who watched on the big overhead screen. It was, however, somewhat reassuring to see that even he had some difficulty in what I and my table-mate considered the toughest part of the devilish Finn Vigeland puzzle. In the end, though, it didn't really hold him up all that long, and he finished well in advance of the two other finalists.

I don't have too much to say about the tournament that I didn't already say last year, but I did want to put up a post to let publicize the event. If you've ever considered attending a crossword tournament, and certainly if you live within easy biking distance (or even driving distance, I suppose), I'd highly recommend you check it out.

- Horace

Sunday, July 28, 2019, Christopher Adams

ANAGRAMMAR

Welcome back to me. Every week I say to myself, how can I possibly write any reviews of interest after Frannie has dazzled us with a week of humor and delight? Perhaps if I drank one of Horace's famed NEGRONIS, I'd be more apt to dazzle. Alas, I prefer CHAMPAGNE. Quite the tipsy corner there in the SW!

I do love a themed puzzle that keeps me guessing until the revealer shows up, and this puzzle did exactly that. The theme answers are nicely spaced along a mirror axis of symmetry down the center of the grid, with the revealer, MIXEDMETAPHORS coming at the very bottom. And in fact, each theme answer contains inside of it an anagram of the word "metaphors." ATMOSPHERE comes the closest to being a perfect anagram, adding only an extra E.

Note that in each case, the anagram is contiguous within the overall theme answer. That's impressive. For example, CHRI[STOPHERMA]RLOWE. Now, was he truly a collaborator with William Shakespeare? There appears to be some meaningful evidence that he wrote parts of Henry VI 1-3. On the other hand, he clearly died in 1593, so his collaboration after that time must have been limited at best, we suppose. The best part of this is that the theory that Marlowe wrote all of Shakespeare's plays is called the Marlovian theory (this is an obscure reference that only Horace and Frannie will get, but you must pardon the occasional inside joke).

In any case, the theme gets a huge thumbs up. What about the fill? Well, there's very little I'd be inclined to flush down the TOLET. Examples here would include REKEY, odd partial ORA (why not clue it with reference to Spanish?), SETA, and the peculiar 50A: "In case you didn't hear me ..." (ISAID).

Otherwise, look at all those bonus long down answers, like BLANKSTARE, PAXROMANA, and PRENUPTIAL in its full form. I also liked the references to LORDE, SONDHEIM, and THEMASK.

Amusement was also to be had, such as at 60A: Pompous pronoun (ROYALWE), 91A: It's all downhill from here (ACME), and 68D: One of two in "The Grapes of Wrath" (IAMB). That was a tough clue!

A nice start to the week. Let's keep puzzling, shall we?

- Colum

Saturday, July 27, 2019, Byron Walden

43:38

Whew! Quite a different solving experience compared to yesterday. After I had gone once through all the acrosses and downs, I had the sum total of twelve letters in the grid: ROO (Hundred Acre Wood youngster), REEDY (High and thin, as a voice), and ERIC (George Orwell's real first name). However, even though faced with almost a totally blank grid, I HADFAITH that I would be able to FILET few more squares if I kept at it.

I had to rely on the old trick of entering probable partials to make anything like a real start. I had no idea what "Manner of speaking in eastern Virginia" might be, but I had tried ASEC next to ERIC, which lead to 'CC' toward the end of the 17A slot, which lead me to hazard ACCENT. The same thing happened in the south with "Linguistic borrowing, as 'earworm' from 'Ohrwurm.'" Once I got a few letters in the south east, the partial TRANSLATION started to seem likely, so I put that in. I have the word "Rideau" in the clue "World capital on the Rideau canal" to thank for my ability to guess OTTAWA because, as you all know, I ken not geography. And so it went. Thanks to the partials, the right half of the grid fell, then I chipped away at the left. Color me surprised when I eventually finished in under an hour and without a FWOE! Although, as I thought more about it, maybe this is the kind of puzzle that makes FWOEs unlikely - besides typeFWOEs, which no one can control. When one is SLOWED by the level of difficulty and faced with so many long answers, maybe FWOEs become less likely.

Anyhoo, LETTUCE begin by pointing out some of the great clues that exploit the multiple meanings of English vocabulary. The abundance of same is what helped make this a tough, but satisfying Saturday solve:
Don (CRIMEBOSS)
Performance bonus (ENCORE) - excellent! This one took me forever!
Print alternative (CURSIVE)
Place for driving lessons (TEEBOX) - who knew such a thing existed?!?
Salves (RELIEVES)
Charged (RANAT)
Leveled (RAZED)
Checked out (EXAMINED)
Strips (REMOVES)
And how about BOING for "Spring report"? I didn't see that coming! Also, I love the word TRICE. You don't see that every day.

Probably the weakest clue is "Inits. in a bowling alley" (AMF), one of only two three-letter entries in the grid - who's going to argue with ROO? :) The pair Surmount/RESTON at 11D left me wondering if I was mis-parsing clue or answer. Those two don't seem like a match to me. And, although I appreciate the effort in "One who gets lots of tweets?", the answer, AVIARIST, seemed a bit of a lame duck. As I struggled to come up with that one, I thought to myself that a funny alternative might be "One who doesn't get a lot of tweets?" and the answer could be SYLVESTER. Don't laugh, I'm CERES.

~Frannie.

Friday, July 26, 2019, Trenton Charlson

14:10

So, under fifteen for a Friday. I'll take it. It FELT like this one was right in my wheelhouse. I seemed to have a guess for every clue and, in an odd turn of events, my guess was often correct. For example, although I didn't know "Bird named for its black-and-white markings" I thought immediately of ZEBRA. I was able to confirm the Z with the down "Full-figured" (ZAFTIG), so in it went. True, I didn't know what kind of Zebra bird was wanted, but as the old saying goes, a word in the band is worth two in the mush, or something like that. The rest of the downs in the north east helped me identify the bird as a FINCH. Also, for reasons we don't need to go into here, I am familiar with the ingredients of a FUZZYNAVEL cocktail, so that answer went right in. And thus I went along at a brisk TROT.

The only real trouble I had was in the south east. I was a FOOL and entered CHALKmark instead of the correct CHALKLINE, even though the word "mark" is right in the clue. Double derp. So I had that wrong, When I looked at the clue "So on and so forth" with an initial letter of A from ROMAN (Kind of type) I applied too much ZEAL, or rather, not enough, and kept thinking along the lines of "Adinfititum," or "Adnauseum." The correct answer, ALLTHATJAZZ, is much better PHIL.

I got "It comes from Mars" (TWIX) right away, but I was temporarily duped by "Rock and roll, e.g." (VERBS). Also, I entered bILKS at first for "Uses shamelessly" but when I checked the resulting across, I realized bUSTNT was a no-no, so I was able to clear that up before I got into any real trouble.

But enough about how I went SARONG, here's what was so right in this puzzle:
Their players are often benched (PIANOS)
Was charming? (CASTASPELL)
Reason for going out a lot? (NARCOLEPSY)
Dough nut? MISER - ha!

Not to mention a HEAP of good fill like AQUAMARINE, CRABAPPLE, and
THANE. Plus, two great words in the clues: Pismire and Foofaraw. I'm a FAN.

There was some fill that was not EQUAL to the rest. The one clue/answer pair I would put EXES on is "Demand" (ENTAIL). SAGO is fine, but not fun. And "___ soda" (SAL), is even less fun, especially if you happen to mistake it for a refreshing beverage. Speaking of which, there's some peach schnapps and orange juice calling my name.

~Frannie.