Thursday, March 31, 2022, Oliver Roeder

A real 'edgy' theme today featuring literal MARGINALIA. Six left side clues and six right side clues extend outside the grid by one letter, either at the start or end of the answer. The sets of "outside" letters are EGALE, and, read top to bottom, spell 'margin' on both sides. The icing on the cake is the lovely parallel Down answers of ANNOTATION and MARGINALIA, one in the east and west. That's a real ACEHORSE move. 

I caught on to the trick thanks to the pair of clues at 1A and 1D. The clue "Beat in chess" could have been 'mate' but when I saw that 1D: was "Now: Sp." I knew A had to be the first letter (AHORA) and "Leader of the house band on 'The Muppet Show'" was, of course, DRTEETH, so the jig was up pretty quickly. On the other hand, I didn't notice that the outside letters spelled 'margin' nor that the left and right letters were parallel until after I finished the puzzle.

I ran into a little trouble in the southeast. For some reason, I first had gOYOU where TOYOU belonged ("Two-word tribute") which made it difficult for me to see MELTAWAY for "Dissolve." Also, at first, I didn't remember who cometh at at 50Across (the [I]CEMAN), or "Award-winning Ward" (SELA). Our dear readers will not be surprised to hear, on the other hand, that I had no trouble with [N]ERDY ("Geekish"). Also, the very clever "Tried something?" for CASE had me stymied for a bit. I had the emphasis in the wrong place on that clue. Same with "Put on sale, say" for REPRICE in the southeast. Fill-wise, I liked TOUTS, AFOOT, and [G]OBLETS. 

My missteps aside, I found a lot to like in this puzzle. Many clues were cleverly worded to take full advantage of multiple possible meanings and semantic categories. Here are some of my favorite from today:

"Boot" (OUST)

"Skim" ( NOFAT)

"Get in trouble, in a way" (RATON)

"Fixes" (MENDS)

I remembered the bit about BRAHE from the updated "Cosmos" series ("Astronomer who lost part of his nose in a sword duel"). Amusing to have the clue for the answer below BRAHE be "Takes a bit off" - apt! And who knew ATARI meant the same as 'check' in Go? I didn't. 

~Frannie.

Wednesday, March 30, 2022, Jack Murtagh

Today's theme entries are personal names respelled so they can be interpreted as  verb phrases, for example, "Cradlin' a Salinger protagonist?" is HOLDINCAULFIELD and "Bein' in debt to a 'Wedding Crashers' co-star?" is OWINWILSON. It's a fine theme idea, but the variation in the way names were modified to become verbs - three of the five simply substituted an I for an E while the other two required some additional letter swapping - threw this solver for a bit of a loop and caused a real slow down in the middle left area. If I had automatically known Kevin Bacon was in "Footloose" I probably wouldn't have had so much trouble with it, but that lacuna combined with the K from TRANK (where one would expect the C in Bacon) briefly befuddled me. It didn't help that  KAT Dennings and birthplace of Zeno (ELEA) were unknowns. 

Two death and burial clues threw something of a pall over the puzzle for this solver. Clunky fill like GOTAC ("Did so-so at school") and NTILE ("One-point Scrabble draw"), NOTI  ("Moi? Never!), and SYSOP ("Internet admin") didn't exactly RADII puzzle bliss. And call me NITPICKY, but the number of abbreviations  (GAH, ELO, NHL, YSL, AFL, DNA, GMT, IEDS, RMS), not to mention three texting shortcuts all in the same section (FWIW, BTW, IMO), made a real alphabet soup of this one.

A few clever clues resulted in some AHA moments that brightened the landscape including "Blond at the bar, say" (ALE), "Bee teem?" (SWARM) - ha! - and "Crow, but not magpie" (VERB). Fill-wise, I liked SHINNY - you don't see that every day. 

So, some things to grumble about, but nothing a little Dustin 'Offman of acronyms wouldn't have remedied.

~Frannie.

Tuesday, March 29, 2022, Jamey Smith

I never metonymy I didn't like - at least in today's puzzle. I think that's more or less what's going on with today's theme - although if there's a specific name for location-based metonymy, I don't know it. For each theme clue, the answer is the place that represents the indicated industry. So we have NASHVILLE for the country music industry and DETROIT for the automotive industry. The only one I'd never heard of was KSTREET for the lobbying industry. I'm sorry there is such a thing as a lobbying industry, which makes me less sorry that I didn't know that answer. On the upside, it's pretty nice that the constructor was able to get 6 such entries into the grid without sacrificing the rest of the puzzle to the theme industry. :)

A smooth solve overall, with some fun clues like "'Think OMG! OMG!'" for PANIC and the fun "Major or Minor in astronomy?" for (URSA). Fill-wise, there's a lot of good unusual material like COIF, ROSIN, CLOAK, CHISEL, and ANDROID, with only occasional spots of ESC, NSC, and TVMA. TIPSY and CANOODLE are especially nice. 

I did hit one snag when I entered 'vide' for "Sous-___" instead of CHEF, but I corrected it when I got to "National symbol" which I thought had to be (and was) FLAG. 

That's my POST for today. ¡Hasta mañana!

~Frannie.

Monday, March 28, 2022, Leslie Rogers

A fun theme that calls upon the solver to interpret and incorporate the special punctuation of the clued word as part of the clue, resulting in an answer that is a synonym that combines the two, so "Q.U.E.U.E.S" is DOTTEDLINES and "E+X+T+R+A+S" is ADDEDBONUSES. My favorite was "W/H/E/E/L/S" for SLASHEDTIRES. Ha! I dashed this one off in pretty quickly, but I blame some PESKY butterfingered typing in the southeast ARIA for blowing my chance to break the five minute mark on this one (5:09). Next time.

I thought the puzzle was off to a good start with "Officially accepted works" for CANON, which seemed like a nice level of challenge. Clues like "Prove helpful" (AVAIL), "Once named" for NEE, "Costume for St. Nick" (SANTASUIT), "Spy's gathering" (INTEL) maintained the level, with only periodic clues like "Direction of the morning light" - which is a little like saying, "please type the word EAST."

I might have hit a full stop in the middle section, but thankfully, I was able to rely on the Down answers rather than my geographical knowledge for "Himalayan country that's home to the world's highest unclimbed mountain." I didn't know BHUTAN, and I also didn't know there were still unclimbed mountains in the world. Interesting!

Other answers to exclaim over include BLEAT, BENTOBOX, ALLABOARD, (for its exciting reminder of travel), and CUSSWORD, which seems pleasantly old timey. Conversely, in up to the minute topics, has Will Smith now dropped to the DLIST?

~Frannie.

Sunday, March 26, 2022, August Lee-Kovach

I'M STILL STANDING

Not I.

I'm curious to know how many of you knew the name KHUFU (This puzzle's subject). Me, I didn't. I know him only as CHEOPS.

I now see that in the web version, at least, each block of KHUFU is numbered, and you are supposed to transpose the letters from the puzzle into the crypt. Great. If you're trying to teach us this obscure name, why not just fill it in for us, or include it in the puzzle in a normal way so we can get it with crosses.

Did not like.

- Horace

Saturday, March 26, 2022, Ashton Anderson and James Mulhern

Hoo-boy. This was a beauty. So tough! And good practice, I suppose, for next weekend. 

I spent a long time with only a few guesses in the grid, and it was a RELIEF to get any kind of a foothold at all. For me, it came at 42A: Polaroid's SX-70 camera, for one: Abbr. (SLR). That is not, by any stretch, the most salient feature of the SX-70, but still, it let me posit an adverbial Y under the L, which gave me MOTLEY (Ragtag), and while the rest of that corner wasn't exactly ASNAP, it did get me started. 

This is the kind of puzzle where I can hardly remember how I managed to get through it. It's all speculation and guessing until something clicks. I thought of IBMS for "Watson and others," and guessed at NONPAREIL (Ne plus ultra) (nice French/French C/AP), and eventually BRANDISH (Wave one's arms?) (lovely), and SEEDOUBLE (Lose focus, in a way) broke the logjam in the NW.

I was happy to see my people represented in FINN (Member of the world's happiest people, per repeated World Happiness Reports), and I liked the trivia in ALLIGATOR (Animal that can grow up to 3,000 teeth in its lifetime). "What 'chicken' and 'egg' are examples of" is an excellent clue for SALADS, and BIOFUEL (Algae, at times) is a nice modern idea. But let's SAYNOMORE about CUDDLEPUDDLE, shall we? Who knew that was an expression?

Tough. I finally got the "Congratulations!" screen at the 35-minute mark, and I was ready to shout out CANIGETANAMEN? 

Loved the clues, loved the entries (most of them), and I loved the challenge. 

- Horace

Friday, March 25, 2022, Evans Clinchy

omnia vincit amor et nos cedamus amori

"LOVECONQUERSALL, so let us yield to love." Nice entry, but odd in juxtaposition, as it is, with LEADADOUBLELIFE. 

On the bottom, HATERSGONNAHATE matches much better with OVEROPINIONATED. Not that these grid-spanning entries have to match up, because as Mr. Clinchy says, this puzzle is not THEMED (Like many crossword puzzles (though not this one)). 

Still, one tends to group things when one can. Like the Latin reference above and the word NISI (Unless, to a lawyer). I think of NISI more as "except," as in De mortuis nihil nisi bonum dicendum est, but then, the words except and unless are close, and I am not a laywer.

And speaking of close - I suppose the word "autocamp," whatever that is, is supposed to lead us to choose MOTEL instead of hotel for "Alternative to an autocamp," because we get no help from the Down - "Speakers' hesitations," which could be either UhS or UMS. 

Funny clue for ISLE (Man is one), because, well, "No man" is also one. Heh. And I loved the literalness of "Really dig" (EXCAVATE). See also: "Group of signs" (ZODIAC). Also, the sun is huge. (The sun's is approximately 865,370 miles (DIAMETER)) (It's over 100 times larger than Earth (7,917.5 miles). Imagine if taking a plane to Paris took 600 hours instead of six. The flight would take almost a month!)

Anybody ever heard of the band LEN? Not me. 

I liked this one. The cluing was fun - "They might help with the dishes" (RECIPES) and "Something that's thrown out while using it" (ANCHOR), for instance - and it sent me on a few research errands, and that's always fun. I hope you enjoyed it too.

- Horace