Wednesday, March 31, 2021, Trenton Charlson

Wednesday puzzles are often an odd bunch. It can't be as tricksy as a Thursday, and it has to be tougher than the newbie grids on Monday and Tuesday. So I'm always grateful for a puzzle that surprises me. 

Mr. Charlson has created an atypical puzzle for his usual fare, which tends to teem with scrabbly letters like X, Z, and Q. The theme revealer is BUILDINGBLOCKS, which are represented somewhat literally in six places in the puzzle. Each is a type of building that is exactly six letters long, and which read clockwise in the shaded in squares.

Any example that goes C-V-C-V-C-V (where C is consonant and V is vowel) is reasonably straightforward, as the second row will go well with the first row. For example, "palace" or "pagoda" create easier two-letter combinations as seen in the NW and N sections. Meanwhile, "school" works well at the top of the puzzle, where those first three consonants can start words.

Tougher to make "chalet" work, because of the -HE ending, but our bold constructor has nicely put LOATHE there, finishing off the ORDEAL that must have been the creation of this grid.

Can I say ILOVEDIT? Well, I'm impressed by it. There's some necessary glue, and I won't overlook UDO, GWB, and EMME that had to help hold everything together.

Yummy!

But we get some nice fill with things like SLAMDUNK, GRIMACE, and BIBLICAL. And there's the very funny clue at 13D: Going places? (COMMODES). Hah!

Nothing held me up much, but I will note that I entered iNdianan at 42D: Abraham Lincoln, for one (UNIONIST). This was only partly correct. He was born in Kentucky, mainly raised in Indiana, before settling in his adulthood in Illinois.

- Colum

Tuesday, March 30, 2021, Alex Rosen and Brad Wilber

Today's theme is very well put together. Four singers known to the world by one name only (thus MONONYM), hidden inside of phrases. In each case, the name crosses over the words of the phrase. I chuckled aloud at the final one, where Eminem is hidden inside MINEMINEMINE. That's a great find.

The four singers in question are Bono, previously Paul David Hewson; Pink, also known as Alecia Beth Moore; Enya, whose full name is Enya Patricia Brennan, and Eminem, who took his name from his initials (Marshall Bruce Mathers III). Is it a requirement to have three listed names like this? I was surprised to come across it via Wikipedia.

Other singers known by a single name? Why, I'm glad you asked. I came up with Sting and Cher, each of whom would be very difficult to fit into this theme pattern. Others that come to mind are Madonna and Prince. I would in general be loath to accept individuals who simply are known by their first name, like Elvis or Beyoncé. Yes, they are super celebrities, but it's a little like saying that RAFA is a mononym.

Anyway, I enjoyed working through the theme answers to discover the hidden gems. Once again, I'll note that it would have been better without the circled letters, but that's a losing battle.

OTTER

I like how 4D (SITBACK (and relax)) is symmetric to BADMOVE! Doesn't it make you feel like there's a story going on here? Somehow, the last several words in the SE imply a danger NEARS, as we VEER, or somebody ERRS.

Too much?

Perhaps. So let's end with my favorite Tuscan city, SIENA. I highly recommend visiting.

- Colum

Monday, March 29, 2021, Lynn Lempel

Ah, the vagaries of the English language and its spelling oddities. Some of you may have heard of George Bernard Shaw's alternative spelling for the word "fish," namely "ghoti." "Gh" as in "enough," "o" as in "women," and "ti" as in "tradition." 

It's also a deep mine to delve in for our beloved crossword constructors. Today, Ms. Lempel, who is a past master at creating beautiful smooth early week puzzles, has used TOBEORNOTTOBE as a way to nod at the difficulties of recalling whether a B is doubled in a word or not. Her examples of either direction are the last word of the first two theme answers and the first word of the last two - a nice bit of symmetry there.

At first, to be honest, though, I wondered whether it should have been "three B" for BRERRABBIT and PEBBLEBEACH. But I'm not one to pick nits here. The trick still works. And of course, I'm all in favor of the TREBLECLEF. What various mnemonics did people have for that E-G-B-D-F sequence? I recall "Every good boy deserves fudge." The ALTO and the ENTRACTE right next door fit into the musical allusions.

In other areas, I don't really take a THINMINT, myself. I'm much more partial to Samoas. It's that time of year, so we've already demolished the one box we allowed ourselves. Honestly, our next door neighbor Girl Scout is now 15 or 16, so I'm not sure how much longer it's going to go on for anyway. There's simply no way in the world to obtain Girl Scout cookies without a neighbor, right?

Fun words today include APLOMB, BELGIANS, and SCAMPI. And in the good clue section, there's 6D: Try, try again? (REHEAR), referring to court rooms. But cleverly it crosses RUGBY, where one is always trying for a try.

Here's hoping your APR is not too full of CPAS.

- Colum

Sunday, March 28, 2021, Olivia Mitra Framke

OVER THE MOON

On this rainy Sunday, I once again take the reins of blogging after two fine weeks from my esteemed co-bloggers. Since I was last here, the household has gained another pup. Craziness abounds, and the smell of wet fur permeates the rooms at this moment. Although offset by the lovely smell of chicken stock, in preparation for matzoh ball soup tonight. Happy Passover!

Meanwhile, in the puzzle, we get five examples of phrases whose first word is a synonym for being in a good mood. Each word is directly above the name of a moon in our solar system, equalling the word in its length. Thus, they are "over the moon" in two senses.

The challenge in this construction is not so much in finding synonyms and moons whose numbers of letters are the same, although BLISSFULIGNORANCE over GANYMEDE was likely the toughest there. No, I imagine it's the constraints of the two words being adjacent, and which leads to most of the less than lovely fill. See where "merry" is atop NAIAD, leading to MNO, or "happy" atop TITAN leads to SYN.

Still, it's a great set of five long answers, with the highlight being the grid-spanning HAPPYDAYSAREHEREAGAIN. I also very much enjoyed the Mary Poppins reference CHEERYDISPOSITION from the too cute for words song "The Perfect Nanny." Perhaps GEMINI and UFOS were bonus theme answers.

Other highlights include the clue for 82A: Time before computers, facetiously (STONEAGE) - dang, I remember getting our first home computer, an Atari 800. My older brothers enjoyed programming in Basic. Me, I just liked the games. Also, 99A: Solo flier? (CHEWBACCA) is very nicely done.

20A: Take part in a D&D campaign, e.g. (ROLEPLAY) certainly could have been a bluer clue, but I appreciate the nod to a renewed national interest in Dungeons and Dragons, an old favorite from around the time we got that personal computer. Recently I've gotten back into it, and it's a ton of fun. 

Finally, we should all give a nod to Thomas F. Wilson, the actor who played BIFF in Back to the Future. No great high school movie can succeed without a great bad guy, and he did it beautifully. "So why don't you make like a tree, and get out of here?"

- Colum

Saturday, March 27, 2021, Michael Hawkins

Tough finish to the week for this solver. I got in under an hour - but just barely (56:15). There was so much I didn't know! That problem combined with what seemed like a small amount of overlap between sections really kept me FARFROMIT for quite some time. I was in trouble right out of the gate with1A: "Singer with a supporting role in 2019's 'Hustlers.'" I'm not familiar with the movie or LIZZO, although I did take the opportunity to listen to what appears to be one of her well known songs, "Cuz I love you" - not bad! Of course, song reviews isn't why you called me here. Back to the puzzle! After LIZZO, my difficulties continued with TRIMSPA, ISHTARGATE, HYDE, CORA, PICAROS (a BIGASK for this solver), MAYA, and finally, DEUS, although that last one I was eventually able to guess, despite my lack of familiarity with Arizona's state motto. 

Fortunately, there were some answers I did know straight off: ERIK (I surprised myself with that one), PESTO (fun clue!), SPARE, PESO, SPAMS, YETI, USAIN, MIDAS, STPAT, and PREGO. With at least some solid answers in place I was able to slowly chip away at the empty squares. The toughest spot for me, and where I finally finished, was the southeast. In addition to all the answers I just didn't know, I made things worse by being convinced that PIrAteS for "Rouges" and GdP for "Economic fig." (instead of GNP) were correct, and THUS leaving them in for too long. :(

Elsewhere, there were AWS of both kinds to be found, including among the  amusing QMC's "One who's got the bug?" (SPY) ; "Not your average joe?" (LATTE) ; and "A little bit of everything?" (ATOM), plus the clever non-QMC clue, "Out of the picture, say" (CAMERASHY) - ha!

I confess to a few AWS of the disappointment kind where I felt there was some C/AP dissonance, particularly in "Unable to stay away, say" (BACKFORMORE), "Assail" (SETAT), and "Crux of the matter" (PITH). I'm not saying there's anything wrong with these pairs or that they aren't appropriate for a Saturday puzzle - the constructor would be well within his rights to say, THATSONYOU, Frannie, and he'd be right - just that they didn't sing to me the way some clues and answer pairs do. "Wishes undone" for RUES and "Reckon" for SURMISE are more what IHOP for in a puzzle.

~Frances (without ANI). 

Friday, March 26, 2021, Daniel Larsen

Quite a few twists in today's puzzle, from the shape of the grid to the many clues that could be considered from a number of angles. Some of the cleverly ambiguous clues had me saying, WHATSTHEBIGIDEA? when my first guesses turned out wrong. I discussed a few of the clues of this type with Horace and it was interesting to see which ones we caught on to right away and which had us headed down the wrong PATH. Here's my list:

"One with a nest egg" (HEN) - twigged

"Result of a good pitch" (SALE) - twigged (good one!)

"Not fast" (EAT) - did not twig (my favorite)

"Give a hand" (DEALIN) - did not twig

"Filled in some gaps" (CAULKED) - twigged

"Bugs" (NAGS) - did not twig

Sometimes you have to LEGO of your first TRIS or end up with a SADFACE. 

The puzzle featured significantly fewer QMC's. I found "Pop around a lot?" (STAYATHOMEDAD) mildly amusing, whereas I liked "Mower handle?" (DEERE) quite a bit. The C/AP "Voluptuary" and HEDONIST is very good. Did TENUTO put anyone else in mind of Menudo, or is that just me?

~Frannie. 

Thursday, March 25, 2021, Alex Eaton-Salners

Opposites not only attract, they PILEIN on each other in today's theme answers. In each of the six theme answers the circled letters form an antonym of the complete answer word. So, WONDERFUL contains WOEFUL, ANIMOSITY contains AMITY, the FEASTING amusingly encompasses FASTING, and COURTEOUS, CURT. In some cases, like the latter, my eye fooled me into seeing circles where there weren't any, and I found myself wondering what was so opposite about COURT and COURTEOUS? But a timely tip from Horace cooled my impulse to go GONUCLEAR in the review. :) I doubt it was intended as such, but the lovely C/AP "Best" (DEFEAT) might be considered bonus theme material, in a way. 

I enjoyed the interesting factoid about the color RED being on the flag of every permanent U.N. Security Council member. That clue, along with a couple of others, brought the topic of travel to mind. It was, perhaps, not a great leap, because I've been thinking about travel a lot, especially now that the weather around here has begun to improve. Plus, I've been reading "The Olive Farm" by Carol Drinkwater, of "All Creatures Great and Small" (original version) fame. In the book, she and her French boyfriend buy an overgrown olive farm in the south of France near Cannes to refurbish and eventually inhabit - living her dream, and mine - I mean the part about the French boyfriend. ;)

By Deer hunter Rick Jacobs of Elk County, Pennsylvania took this image at the Allegheny National Forest in Northwest Pennsylvania while attempting to photograph deer for the upcoming fall hunting season. Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24669818

I think the fact that you couldn't figure out the theme clues without the Downs slowed me down a bit - at least until I understood what was going on. The clue at 12D, "Distance between 'some' and 'where' in 'Somewhere over the rainbow'" completely confused me until the answer (OCTAVE) became clear through the crosses. If they had been any trickier, I might have hit a false note there. In order to make full use of this blog's specially glossary, I might also mention that TATAMI, especially with today's clue ("Mat used for judo") is totally KOFKAesque for this solver. I narrowly avoided a FWOE at the cross of ""China/North Korea border river" and "Division of the Justice Dept." Fortunately, my decision to try the vowels "in order" for that blank square paid off - YALU!

~Frannie.