Tuesday, March 31, 2020, Christina Iverson and Ross Trudeau

9:28

Today's theme includes two answers I'm not familiar with. One is the revealer itself. I've never heard of CLAPBACK("Respond quickly and sharply to criticism ... or a hint to 17-, 28-, and 46-Across"), but, after consulting some example sentences, I am chalking it up to me being out of the loop on today's social media interactions. For the theme answers themselves, one must add the word CLAP to the "back" of each answer. So for ROLLINGTHUNDER that gives us THUNDER CLAP, there's also LETSTAKEITSLOW CLAP, and the other new-to-me term: GOLF CLAP. As defined by the Oxford Dictionary it's "an instance of deliberately restrained clapping by an audience, of a type considered appropriate during a golf tournament but expressing a lack of approval or appreciation in other contexts." I think I will be able to find situations in which the golf clap will come in handy when I'm back in circulation. :)

I was off to a good start with ABBA, MAKEDO, and RIO, but I dropped the BALL when it came to "Frisbee sport." I backed myself into a corner by confidently entering 'ultimate' - the other 8-letter Frisbee sport - instead of the correct DISCGOLF. Progress also slowed in the south west. I entered the incorrect BiANCA for "Like the middle band of the flag of Mexico" (BLANCA) and I didn't know "Bruins' sch." but luckily I realized UCiA wasn't likely to be correct before the final buzzer went off. It's times like these that I feel I'm back to square one on sports trivia.

I liked MENSCH, KITTENHEEL (as a word, not to wear), and LEAPSECOND. I also chuckled at DINGO, thinking of that bit in Seinfeld, but I just read about the origin of the phrase and maybe that one should take a back seat.

~Frannie.

Monday, March 30, 2020, Lee Taylor

6:44

Today's six theme answers are two-word phrases that all contain a first name, but as compound words, refer to (mostly) non-human things. I've never heard of SNEAKYPETE, but the rest, BLOODYMARY, EVENSTEVEN, SLOPPYJOE, JOLLYROGER,and LAZYSUSAN are old friends. The theme entertained, but I do worry that the NYTX is pushing the limits of social distancing by crowding those six individuals into a 15 x 15 grid, not to mention LESAGE, LEROY, ELMER, and GAVIN.

The puzzle also features the "Sign of the Ram" or ARIES, which is the sign for people born between March 20th and APR 21st. Happy birthday to all the Aries out there, especially anyone whose birthday is today!

And speaking of the ALPS, Horace and I took an AERO plane earlier this year to attend a work conference in Innsbruck, where one can see what are apparently called the Northern Limestone Alps. Whatever you call them, they make for stunning scenery. In the city, it was just cold enough to wear WOOL. When we climbed an Alp to go sledding, we could see ITALIA in the distance. Horace and I travelled through the CANTON of ZURICH en route to Paris. No DUTCH this time. We returned from Europe only six weeks ago, but it's a different world now.

~Frannie.

Sunday, March 29, 2020, Ricky Cruz

KEEP THE CHANGE

This puzzle lost me at BONESAW (Surgeon's tool). Before that, I'd been chugging along, entering things like DISTURBIA (2007 Shia LaBeouf thriller or a 2008 "#1 hit by Rihanna), BARF ("Eww, gross!"), SQUALID (Like a pigsty), SAC (Ink container), OPIOIDS (Some pain relievers), and VEAL (____ parm) without thinking too much about it. But BONESAW? OOF.

I finished it off, eventually, and then stared long and hard at what I thought for a while were two shaded Ns. Finally, I realized that they were actually shaded boxes, and the circled letters were the only different letters in the entire 5x5 squares. All the other letters, and even the black squares, were just the same. Kind of cool, but also kind of weird that they are so arbitrarily cut from longer words all around them. They are nicely side-by-side and centered in the grid, but, well, ...

And what about that TELLRIGHTFROMLEFT entry? We're supposed to SPOTTHEDIFFERENCE between the left and the right squares, and then enter the circled letters into the unchecked slots at either side, but does it really matter which side is which? And why "Keep The Change?"

I don't like unchecked entries, no matter how carefully spelled out, unless there is an exceptionally clever or necessary reason to (self)isolate them. To me, it was all very unsatisfying. But tomorrow is another day, and another reviewer! Here's hoping the new week brings better things.

- Horace

Saturday, March 28, 2020, Erik Agard

0:15:40 (F.W.T.E.)

OK, well, I didn't know HAUDENOSAUNEE (Native name for the Iroquois Confederacy), but the puzzle did prompt me to look at the Haudenosaunee Confederacy Web site a bit. I have long been interested in the groups that were here in America before we arrived, but my focus, when I did focus, was on the groups in the Pacific Northwest. The HAUDENOSAUNEE are in the eastern Great Lakes/upstate New York region.

My favorite American poet

It's good to learn of them, but the ending of their name, combined with the obfuscation of the clues for 38D and 47A, gave me some trouble. I ended up guessing incorrectly on 38D, and I'm actually not quite sure whether I initially had an E starting it or not, but whatever the case, it wasn't until I tried one or two nonsensical combinations around the X that I finally saw INT and EXT as the opposite kinds of shots "in a screenplay." It was that "in a screenplay" that really made me over-think it.

Anywhoo, aside from that area, this moved along rather fluidly. STILETTOHEELS (They don't give you much to stand on) and ITSRAININGMEN (1980s disco hit that became a gay anthem) came pretty quickly, and helped to pull the middle together. Up in the NW, I tried getACAB at first, and sofaS instead of COATS (Chesterfield and others), but my French helped again today with ATOI ("Merci ____ aussi"), and then PALEOLITHICDIET (Vegetables, fruits, nuts, roots and meat, classically) eventually helped to clear things up.

ETESIAN (Kind of wind across the Aegean) is another entry that is entirely new to me, but fortunately, the crosses in that quadrant were more to my liking.

Favorite clues: "Person on horseback?" (CENTAUR) and "Rider on a carousel?" (SUITCASE). Those were the days... remember when we could travel? Sigh.

- Horace

Friday, March 27, 2020, Kyle Dolan

0:14:44

A solid Friday today, showcasing ten ten-letter answers. My favorite set was the triple-stack in the NE, partly because I've been all about ticking one more ACTIONITEM off the list this week! Seriously, who knew I could be so productive working from home?! (I've been working so much that I haven't even had time to get the review out at a reasonable hour!)

SHEETGLASS (What a pane!) was cute, and even though my roommate at Beloit made his own out of plywood and some trucks and wheels he found in the trash, it still took me forever to get LONGBOARDS. (Tim, if you're out there, say hi in the comments!) That's a really tough clue for a skateboard, but it is Friday...

Speaking of tough clues, "Africa's largest city that's not a national capital" (LAGOS) was just one of those that will require all the crosses. I'm guessing CANEM (Cave ____ (beware the dog)) was like that for some folks, but that one I was able to drop in. Thanks, Latin! And speaking of foreign language, you don't see SEUL (Alone, to Alain) much in a grid.

The pair of "Series of tweets" clues (THREAD and BIRDSONG) was nice. "Didn't use the can?" got a raised eyebrow, and I think I was almost more upset than I thought I might be when the answer turned out to be LITTERED. I mean, one is biodegradable, at least...

I don't have much else today. How'd you like it?

- Horace

Thursday, March 26, 2020, Alex Eaton-Salners

0:11:33 (F.W.O.E.)

Is Mercury in retrograde? No, not right now. It was earlier this month... but it sure seemed like something was, because I kept looking back to previous CLUES to see if I really did just see "Mercury" mentioned a couple clues back. Turns out I did. Mercury is paired with five other, different members of our solar system, and each time, the answer is in a new category.

Mercury or Sun, e.g. - WNBATEAM
Mercury or Venus, e.g. - ROMANGOD
Mercury or Earth, e.g. - INNERPLANET
Mercury or Mars, e.g. - MUSICIAN (Freddie and Bruno)
Mercury or Saturn, e.g. - AUTOMAKE (both now defunct)

Not a bad set, but only barely Thursday-esque.

"Approved undertakings" "A new order of the ages"

I said OHNO to a few answers, like SOAKAGE (Liquid absorbed by surrounding soil), FIERO (Sporty 1980s Pontiac) (Remember those? No?...), and OPIUMS (Poppy products), but one must ACCEDE to such inclusions from time to time. Especially when they allow for more interesting fill like ASTARTE (Bronze Age fertility deity), OCELOTS (Striped and spotted felines) (This was my favorite animal in grammar school), and SABERS (They go into battle at the sides of cavalrymen). That last one is fun, and it didn't exactly trick me, but I did enter SwordS at first, which slowed that NW corner down a bit.

My FWOEment came at the intersection of ANYA (Novelist Seton) and ADVERT. I had entered ANne originally for the author, thinking, I suppose, of Anne Sexton, and I eventually changed NnE to NYE ("Bill ____ Saves the World"), but I never looked back at that E. Tant pis.

Not one out of the GILDED Age of puzzles, perhaps, but a decent enough start to the Turn.

- Horace

Wednesday, March 25, 2020, Laura Taylor Kinnel

0:09:26

I like Spring, and I like this theme. The months of that best of seasons are found - in order - in the names of different fictional characters (roles), and even though I had a hard time coming up with some of the names (I'm looking at you, APRILKEPNER), I thoroughly enjoyed the concept. Also - they're all women, which is nice, as, if you'll remember, this is Women's History Month.

There were several entries in here that came slowly to me, making it seem a little on the hard side. Not having gotten quite so caught up in the Bible or the Godfather as others have, neither ROMANS (New Testament epistle) nor CAPO (Sonny Corleone, for one) was on the tip of my tongue. And FILCH (Swipe) is a word I would never have come up with without crosses. See also: OPI (Big name in nail polish). That is the first time I've ever seen those three letters standing alone in my life.

Speaking of odd three-letter entries, that was some good trivia for PEI (Canada's smallest prov.).

In COVID-19-related fill, we have CARRYOUT (To-go), (what all food service establishments are reduced to, at least here in Massachusetts), AMA, ONCALL, ICU (Where R.N.s are always needed), and CURLSUP (Gets cozy), which is the best that we can hope for while we are all ALONE. And finally, IMISSYOU (Avowal to a long-distance lover), which is what everyone is saying to everyone.

Stay safe out there, and don't forget about the archive of puzzles available to you with your NYTX subscription. You can try any puzzle from the entire Shortz ERA! So sit back, DIVE into another crossword, and try to keep LOOSE.


- Horace