Friday, July 31, 2020, Claire Rimkus and Erik Agard

0:12:44 (F.W.O.E.)

I spelled ELASTIGIRL (Superhero in "The Incredibles") wrong, and since I didn't know the difference between MICROBLADING and MaCROBLADING, I didn't find the error until I was forced to. Honestly, I didn't even know there was a call for an "Eyebrow-filling technique," but if there is, I'm glad someone else is taking care of it.

I enjoyed the conversational cluing of DONTCARE ("Whatever") and AMENTOTHAT ("Preach!"). "Stage for a big star?" was a clever one for REDGIANT, HISANDHIS (Like some monogrammed towels) was nicely au courant, and "Some like it hot" was an amusingly misleading clue for CIDER. The raciness continued with "Lead-in to amorous" (POLY), and what about "Groin pulls?" for LUSTS? That's outstanding.

My favorite of the side-by-side tens was PLANETARIA (Meteor showers?) and GASTRONOMY (Food-filled field). Tricky, both.

I didn't quite get "In one ear?" for HEARD, "Crush something?" seemed trying a bit too hard for ORANGESODA, and "Like 50 U.S. senators" (HALF) was a groaner. Any counter arguments? On the other hand, the MALTA clue (Country whose name is believed to come from ancient Greek for "honey-sweet") was solid trivia.

Overall, thumbs up.

- Horace

Thursday, July 30, 2020, Joel Fagliano

0:06:54

A puzzle from the heart of puzzledom. Mr. Fagliano works directly with Mr. Shortz, so when I see his byline, I expect something special. Is it fair for me to do so? Perhaps not. Is it true nonetheless? Yes. So when I end up realizing that every single Across clue will serve two Across answers, in a TWO TOONE ratio, as it were, my puffed up hopes are, for some reason, a little deflated.

I could be missing another layer of meaning, but I find nothing particularly exciting or rewarding about the stunt, and after reading the first two Across clues, I chose to work the Down answers instead, where I quickly ran into the old-fashioned ENL (Photo lab request: Abbr.), OPIE (Boy on "The Andy Griffith Show"), and ENE (Chemical suffix that's also a direction). On the other hand, BENS ($100 bills, in slang) might be a little too modern for me.

Also, when I reached the revealer, I thought back to 1A, and wondered if every pair of answers consisted of one word, then two, as in WIFE TOBE. But no, that didn't hold up either.

Of the two answers longer than five letters, FOLKMUSIC (Genre for Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez) is the better. TOILETBAG (Holder of a toothbrush, toothpaste, comb, etc.) is not a thing. "Toiletry bag," maybe, "toiletry kit," yes. TOILETBAG is just gross.

Maybe my expectation that it would SHINE was too high, but while I did not find it TOBE SCRAP, neither did I SWOON. 

- Horace

Wednesday, July 29, 2020, Amanda Chung and Karl Ni

0:10:06

Cute theme today that takes the idea of a STRONGPASSWORD and transforms it into an ordinary phrase in standard text. So TWOPERCENTMILK is to be imagined as 2%Milk, say, and ONEMICHELINSTAR as 1Michelin*. And speaking of 1Michelin*, we had a lovely dinner at LaButte a few years ago, and I can recommend it if you happen to find yourself out in the wilds of Brittany.

In non-thematic material we have the exciting DAREDEVIL (Adventure seeker) and the interesting SCHLEPPED (Lugged). I learned the latter word while I was working as an assistant for a photographer who worked with film and a 4x5 camera. I think that's all the explaining I need to do on that.

I slowed myself down by dropping in "legoS" instead of ATOMS (Small building blocks) and "dealS" instead of PACTS (Things finished with handshakes), but I already had a cross or two for EPEE (Something waved in the Olympics," so although I was tempted to enter "flag," I held off.

Is it duplication to have both "iphone" and IBANKER in the same puzzle? And really? IBANKER? Is that a thing? And is CONG a common abbreviation for "congress?" I'm sure I don't know.

But those quibbles aside, I appreciate the oddness of this theme. What more can one ask for on a Wednesday?

- Horace

Tuesday, July 28, 2020, Ross Trudeau

0:05:40

An interesting theme today, because there's not really a trick to it, it just is. It's a perfectly symmetrical web of nine intersecting FICTIONs, each clued in a normal way. Well ... with the possible exception of INVENTION (Bubble gum in 1906, e.g.) - that's a bit of an odd way of getting at that answer. What's more, my quick research into the invention of bubble gum does not really confirm the date given in the clue. Most of what I see says bubble gum was invented in 1928. There's a story of Frank Fleer trying to make bubble gum in 1906, but his formula proved too sticky. Was that enough? Did H. G. Wells invent time travel in 1895 by thinking it up? Or would he have had to try to make one, and then even if it didn't work, he'd still get the credit.

Speaking of gum, one of my favorites (aside from Bazooka and Adams Sour Gum, of course), was the Spruce Gum sold by L. L. Bean in the 1970s. It was little blobs of sap from a spruce tree, coated with cornstarch. Each blob was hard as rock at first, but once you shattered it and then chewed it back into a coherent mass, it kept its flavor pretty much forever. Ahh... good times.

So anyway, I liked all the lie-words, and WHOPPER is fun to have running right down the middle.

With all this theme, you'd expect to find a CARLOT of odd fill, yet while there is a bit of GARS, IBARS, and OMS-KAT-INS, there's still a lot of enjoyable longer fill. DIMESTORE (Woolworth's, once) and CYBERFRIEND (Chat room pal) are nicely contrasted in time, TRELLIS (Framework for vines) and SEACOASTS (Shorelines) evoke lovely imagery, and even ENCINOMAN got a chuckle. And in the shorter stuff, I chuckled at PFFT ([Fizzle]) and DMV (Org. staffed by sloths in "Zootopia," and everybody enjoys RYES.

In the end, it struck me as something new. I don't know how they keep coming up with these things, but as long as they do, I'll keep trying to solve them. Thanks!

- Horace

Monday, July 27, 2020, Alan Arbesfeld

0:03:36

Starting the week off on a high note. Six entries, each with a different spelling of the same sound:

HIKINGGEAR
HAIKUPOEM
HIGHEND
HEIGHHO
HEIDIKLUM
HYBRIDCARS

Somehow I think that I pronounce "haiku" a little differently - with a longer "ai" sound... or maybe that's true for all of them except HIKINGGEAR, where the sound is slightly shorter... I don't know, it gets a little confusing when you keep saying them over and over. It's like repeating the word "spoon" until it loses all meaning. Ever done that?

Anyway, I enjoy this type of exploration. We've seen similar examples before, but that doesn't bother me, and I like the theme.

And there's some AGREEABLE fill, too. The "Gotta go!" pair - CIAO and SEEYA, the two classics HENRI Matisse and King PRIAM in the North, and the unspoken pairing of "Well, Golly!" (OHGEE) and Gomer PYLE. TEENAGE (Like many members of Gen Z, now) was interesting, and everyone likes the word LANKY, right?

A fine start to the week.

- Horace

Sunday, July 26, 2020, Trenton Charlson

MADE-TO-ORDER

Again, the title is perfect. At first, I didn't get it, because SQUARECHIN (Facial feature of a Lego man?) is an actual thing. I mean, it's also amusing to say that a Lego man has a square chin, because he is made out of blocks! (We'll ignore the fact that their heads are actually rounded.) Anyway, then came HOSTINTHEDARK (Emcee during a power outage?), and I was suddenly in the dark myself. "Why is that especially funny?" I wondered.

Then it hit me - the title isn't talking about something ready-made, it's explaining that one word in each theme answer - each, a common expression - was forced into alphabetical order, and then, as is the custom, the resulting expression was clued wackily. Very nice.

So just to belabor this, BEGINWATCHING (What you might do after the movie previews are finally over?) comes from "binge watching," and BELOWMACARONI (Where spaghetti and orzo rank in terms of their suitability for making necklaces?) (this is my favorite of the wacky clues) is a transformation of "elbow macaroni." Colum, earlier this past week, alluded to the unusual mind of a crossword constructor, and this puzzle is further evidence. Mr. Collins is a seasoned veteran, but young Mr. Charlson is carrying on the tradition nobly.

Also, if you haven't looked over at xwordinfo.com yet, Will Shortz notes that "Trenton's Twitter page declares that he's the founder of Z.J.X.Q. - Americans Against Accurate Acronyms." To which the reviewer Jim Horne responded "Let's all hope he doesn't run afoul of the A.A.A.A.A.A.A. - the American Association Against Acronym and Abbreviation Abuse." If that doesn't win you over, then I have no idea what you're doing here.

So ok, amusing, unusual theme, well done. What else? Well, lots, really. I laughed out loud at NIX (Word often spoken in pig Latin). So true! And we've got a couple paired clues with different answers: "Give in" for ACQUIESCE and ACCEDE - both strong entries, and "Take in" and "Took in" for SEE and ATE. And then there's little things like "Where a herd might be heard" for LEA, the interesting cluing of old crossword favorites like ETNA (Site of the Bocca Nuova crater) and ESAU (Hariy hunter of Genesis), the interesting trivia in "Fish whose name means "very strong" in Hawaiian," and the clever "Making a clerical error?" for SINNING. Overall, I liked this one a lot.

- Horace

Saturday, July 25, 2020, Royce Ferguson

14:15

It's been a long time since we had a good old triple stack puzzle like this one. It used to be that quad stacks were the ultimate in constructing, and then apparently Mr. Shortz put the kibosh on them for a while. When I first started doing the daily puzzles regularly some... [checks on the site for past posts] ...um, some seven years ago (?!) I would regularly DNF those puzzles. I found it frustrating to work through all of the tiny crossing answers, many of which seemed obscure, and sometimes downright unfair, just to get to the 15-letter answers.

Well, those times are long past. Just doing puzzle after puzzle makes the shorter answers more obvious. My usual strategy is to glance at the long across answers to see if any of them are apparent off of the clue (none today), and then just work my way through those short crossing answers until something becomes apparent.

Today, I got ILEA, SHE, EEL, RIPA, and TESS off of the clues, although not all on the first pass. In fact I made my first real purchase on the grid in the center W section. Much of this section was pretty straightforward, except for TIEWRAP (I had nothing for a long time, then TInWRAP before taking the N out) and the funny 29D: For whose sake? (PETES).

Ruby DEE

I then worked on the center E section, which led to 12D: Things for which you must memorize information (CLOSEDBOOKTESTS), and then the top started to fall. I love 5D: It's a big whoop (OLE). Hah!

Nice piece of trivia about VICTORIASSECRET, and SEALEDENVELOPES makes me both happy to think about the Oscars, and sad because how could there even be Academy Awards this coming year?

Other fine clues include 41D: Some small Asian exports (BONSAIS) - I was expecting a car reference, and 51D: Three-time World Cup champion (PELE) - I was expecting a country. I even tried Peru, even as I was convinced this could not be correct. After Googling, I see I was right - Peru has won none.

WINPLACEANDSHOW is how I feel about the turn this week. The Thursday was the winner, the Friday placed, and the Saturday came in a very respectable third.

- Colum