Friday, January 31, 2020, John Guzzetta and Michael Hawkins

39:39, Big Fat FWOE

The above might be a BFFWOE, but it's definitely not a BFF FWOE. :( I was vexed, although not entirely surprised, when I didn't get the congratulatory message from the app after completing the puzzle. Even after I had finally spelled the excellent SRIRACHA correctly - revealing the amusing RENEW (Keep the books? - ha!) - I couldn't figure out 22A: "Know-it-alls" or 23D: "Last name on a shoe box" and sadly, no ECLAIR enlightened me. I grasped at straws for four-letter shoe makers, in no way helped by the shadowy George COE (original cast member of "S.N.L.") or "City south of Luxor (ASWAN), so I ended up trying "beAN" on for size. That gave me SWAbIS, which I thought was funny and vaguely possible, but it had the unfortunate effect, which I failed to notice, of making Mr. Coe a bit too e-zie. Although I  have heard of MCAN shoes, that sure is kicking it old school. I tried to ARGO that "Know-it-alls" is too negative to be a match for SWAMIS, but Horace suggested the clue might have been meant as 'all knowing.' Derp.

Anyhoo, let's kick up our heels and enjoy the many clever clue/answer pairs in today's puzzle. Some of my favorites were
"Where all the pieces fall into place" (TETRIS)
"Taken with" (KEENON)
"One with lots to sell" (AUCTIONEER) - Trixy! I kept trying for something in the realm of real estate.
Potter's house (GRYFFINDOR) - I needed the Alohomora spell to open my mind up for this one.
"Suggested, with 'of'" (SMACKED)
"Forks over" (SHELLSOUT) - a clue/answer pair with a nice parallelism.
"'What's the skinny?'" (ANYNEWS) - mostly for 'the skinny' part in the clue. That's a great expression.
And talk about kicking it old school with MCAN, how about STOLE for "Bit of attire for a fancy night out"? That one could have been clued, 'Succumbed to the temptation offered by a WILDPITCH.' :)

PENDULUM, ELDORADO, and ROSEBUD are also nice.

There were some clues that I thought couldn't be said to be LPN this grid reach the ACME of puzzledom, including "'Am ___ brother's keeper?'" (IMY),
"___ board" (EMERY), and "Roller-skating in the house, say" (NONO), but they were SPARS.

~Frannie.

Thursday, January 30, 2020, Emily Carrroll

17:03 (or so)

It's Thursday and we have a rebus - and a variable rebus at that. In today's puzzle, variable rebii illustrate the way one might PLAYHIDEANDSEEK by starting with [IT]COUPLE in the top left corner and moving from [COLD]SHOWER to BE[COOL] to [WARM]UP and RED[HOT] (to name only the acrosses) until LEANON[ME] is caught in the bottom right. The progress from cold to hot was well done and built drama and excitement. I found it quite entertaining.

Elsewhere in the puzzle answers ranged from JAW dropping ease to EDILE dysfunction, but in most cases, the mix of clues made it all OKIE. The only place I really got slowed down was in the midwest where a perfect storm of clues requiring knowledge of world geography (BENIN (country bordering Togo)), the order of books in the Bible (NEH (Book after Ezra)), and rappers ([COOL]IO) made it difficult for this solver to find the answers she was looking for.

Other clues that deserve to be called out are "Dollar alternative" (AVIS) - anyone else start with 'euro' there? - "One may be bronze or golden" (AGE), and my favorite of the day "A long way to go?" (LIMO). Ha!

I also enjoyed SUBTLER, CURARE, PARSNIP, and GRETEL.

There's probably more to say, but I'm NAGANO lie, sometimes the review just flows, other times [IT]SAJOB.

~Frannie.

Wednesday, January 29, 2020, Jeremy Newton

15:59

I was something of a slow POKER today. The theme was fun, but challenging for me. In each of the five theme answers, an actor from a movie or TV show was "wanted" in some way. For example, the clue for 23A was "Want an actor from 'Wonder Woman'? and the answer was PINEFORCHRIS. Part of the problem was that I didn't immediately notice that the theme clues contained gender distinction (actress/actor) so I first thought of Gal Gadot and couldn't see how to make it work. It all came together, though, with JONESFORJANUARY. HOPEFORBOB was a nice throwback.

I thought the fill had some nice DEPTS to it, showcasing a fine set of question mark clues (QMCs) including "Single's bars?" (ARIA), "Vow to get even?" (IOU), "By the dawn's early light?" (EAST), and "Game of checkers?" (POKER). We here at HAFDTNYTXPFCA often contrast QMCs with non-QMCs, such as "Something most people don't go into more than once a year" (LABOR) in this puzzle. It is something I try to understand, but I am still NAAN the wiser.

Other good fill included TOQUE, FLOE, FIDO, and GUMMIER.

It gave me a small personal thrill to see GRAB clued as "Take rudely". I don't know how anyone else PHILS about it, but the recent rise in wait staff asking to grab things either for me or from me has vexed me greatly. I felt a small sense of vindication that an authority of the stature of the NYTX agrees with me that grabbing is rude. Soapbox speech is now over.

I cannot tell ELI, there were a couple of answers I thought were a little weak, in particular RID for "Stripped (of)," Cobbler's supply (SOLES), and "Word before nose or hair" (BYA).

~Frannie.

Tuesday, January 28, 2020, Trenton Charlson

5:27

If you'll note my time, you'll C that it's a red letter day for this solver! I finally broke the six minute barrier AND it's my turn do write the review. I CANTOR believer it.

Today's theme gives the FINALFOUR a whole new meaning - one I can get behind. Each of the theme answers each ends with one of the last four letters of the alphabet, in order from top to bottom, starting with COMPOUNDW. The theme suits me to a T for several reasons. One, see above. Another is that it includes CONTROLZ - Best. Key. Combination. Ever. I didn't remember seeing it in a puzzle before and it turns out I haven't. According to XWord Info both COMPOUNDW and CONTROLZ are unique to this puzzle. G whiz!

Apropos of GENERATIONY, which I'm not, I remember a time when MODEMs were a more frequent topic. Anyone else?

There's a TROVE of other good stuff, too, from AHH to ZAIRE. And "You'll trip if you drop it" (LSD) is A material. HOODOO, TOPOLOGY, LADE, TROVE, GRANDEUR, and of course, SHAMU.

The only clue-answer pair that troubled me was "SRO" for a sold-out performance. If it's sold out, how can there be any SR? Anyhoo, that's a minor complaint. Today, I'm just happy I have nothing to EGRET.

~Frannie.

Monday, January 27, 2020, Timothy Polin

8:52, FWOE

We have a group of four mustachioed villains lurking in today's grid including DRFUMANCHU, YOSEMITESAM (not too villainous), SNIDELYWHIPLASH (great name!), and CAPTAINHOOK. I did a quick image search on all four and Yosemite Sam's got them all beat in the lip sweater department.

I FWOEd in a ridiculous way. I left "Tennis star ___ Osaka" (NAOMI) blank, hoping to fill it in with the downs. One of those downs was ""Cornfield cry," which I decided was CoW, as if someone were pointing out one in the field. See how that TIESIN? Yeah, me neither. I am full of EGRETS.

I thought the clue "Mother in a stable family" (MARE) was amusing. It's nice to see EEL again. It feels like it's been a while. SPACECADET is a fun throwback. And who doesn't enjoy a MADLIB? _____ (Proper noun). And, while we're in the before time, how about the delicious fill ROCKYROAD? According to one origin story for the ice cream flavor in the Wikipedia, William Dryer and Joseph Edy gave the flavor its current name "to give folks something to smile about in the midst of the Great Depression." Mmmmm, rocky road.

I don't like the spelling TEHEE for something pronounced teehee because if both vowels are pronounced the same, shouldn't they be spelled the same way? I think they  ________ (mild expletive) should. :)

~Frannie.

Sunday, January 26, 2020, Erik Agard

FOOD ENGINEERING

This Sunday puzzle has a lot of theme - ten (!) theme answers plus a message that clues a little game wherein you change each theme entry to find a secret phrase. Most of the theme entries are perfectly normal things, like SKINNYJEANS and TIMEFLIES, but others, like LIZCAMBAGE (*Holder of the single-game W.N.B.A. scoring record (53 points)) and EYEPOPPER (*Something visually arresting) may not be all that common to many solvers. Still, it's quite a feat to find ten phrases that contain ten words that can be transformed into ten foods, and then to have the changed letters spell out, in the proper order, "break bread." Amazing really.

Body of water greatly shrunk by 1960s [and beyond] Soviet irrigation

And to do all that while still getting in such lovely answers as PIANOSONATAS, CATNAPS, GRAMMARPOLICE, and RINGTHEALARM, well, that's pretty amazing.

This review will be SUCCINCT, as I don't have too much more to say. I find this to be an impressive display of crosswording SAVOIR-faire. SMAZE'ing!

Frannie takes over on MONDAY.

- Horace

Saturday, January 25, 2020, Stella Zawistowski

0:27:32

Whew! That was a struggle!

But as we frequently say, we enjoy being JARRED by end-of-The-Turn puzzles. Take "Where did you go?," for instance, whose nine-letter answer (ALMAMATER) took at least six crosses, possibly seven. LABORIOUS! But in the best possible way. :)

I did not recognize Ms. Zawistowski's name, so I checked xwordinfo. This is not another debut, but it is her first grid since "retiring" from constructing crosswords in 2010. She said she came back because she had come to feel that Saturday puzzles were getting too easy. Well, Ms. Zawistowski, mission accomplished, I say.

I plodded through this one, breaking in with the very little stuff like UNE (Ravel's "Pavane Pour ____ Infante Défunte") (It could be little else), ENT (Otolaryngologist, familiarly), NEE (At birth), and LUX (First word in Yale's motto) (It's last word is Harvard's motto in its entirety). And from LUX I got LOOSEST, AUS, SOSAD, and PIXAR, and AIRBALL, and then, slowly, worked outward from there.

The eleven- and nine-stacks in the corners were really nice. I have never heard DURANCEVILE (Fancy term for a long prison sentence) before, but when I was left with guessing the first letter, it kind of made sense.

The NW was where I finished. I did not know FIGUREEIGHT (What mathematicians call a lemniscate) (I wish I had!), and I did not remember Ruth NEGGA from when we saw her on "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.," and I made not one, but two wrong guesses (TierS and then TReES) before finally seeing TRUES.

I love a challenging puzzle, and this one certainly fit the bill. But will it play in PEORIA?

- Horace