Tuesday, May 31, 2022, Sam Buchbinder and Brad Wilber

I found AMPLE entertainment in today's puzzle, from good clue/answer pairs to an amusing theme. The theme is clued as "Suggestion to defer discussion ... and what might be said of 17-, 25-, 46-, and 60-Across." When I first read the clue, before having completed much of the puzzle, I thought the answers might be phrases in which the letters PIN had been inserted to comic effect, but no, it was the answers themselves that were amusing when read with the revealer, LETSPUTAPININIT, in mind: VOODOODOLL, CLOTHDIAPER, BOWLINGLANE, and ATMMACHINE. As I read the theme answers from top to bottom, my reactions went from nodding in agreement to COL (Chuckling Out Loud). 

Throughout the puzzle there was a real TANG to the cluing including some excellent QMCs like "Keep bumping into another punk music fan? (MOSH), "Place for a royal flush?" (LOO) - ha! - and  "Wreck room?" (STY). DIDO for the non-QMCs like "Spot for a guard at the World Cup" (SHIN)

"Gathering where one might make a splash" (POOLPARTY), and "Puts on" (DONS).

As if that weren't enough, we were treated both to quality words in the clues themselves like akimbo, stampede, and cavernous, and fine fill such as ASTUTE, MALADROIT, and CUSP. Plus Tupperware (LIDS)! A nice flourish was the C/AP pair "Not supporting" (ANTI) and "Supporting" (PRO), the latter of which, in case you haven't guessed it already, describes my stance vis-à-vis this puzzle. :)

~Frannie.

Monday, May 30, 2022, Alexander Liebeskind

Speaking of NEWBEGINNINGS (which we weren't, but will be presently), it's Frannie here, at the top of the work week, although, I for one, am not working today. It being Memorial Day, many STAFF have the day off. I have no BEEF with that - AMOS satisfactory situation. 

Wait, AMMO start over. NOLAuadable reader needs that kind of review on a holiday, if you take my POINT. Oh boy, EARL try again. If I can just TERN this into something interesting. GEES, this is difficult. I start ORGAN and ORGAN, but, if I'm honest, ORATE the entire thing a complete fail. I fear I'm in PERIL of losing our vast readership unless I SEAS this chance to make a good impression. Sometimes, I can STEEL an idea from the theme and when I'm on a ROLE, there's no stopping me, but inspiration is SCANTY today. So BEES it. AISLE try once more to TYPES something SERTAS to entertain. Who am I kidding? That's ASTRO not gonna happen. 

Maybe I should give up trying to be NUMEROUNO. It's a TRAP ENSURE to ENDS badly.

~Frannie.

Sunday, May 29, 2022, Daniel Bodily and Jeff Chen

A MONUMENTAL CENTENNIAL

One hundred years ago tomorrow, the LINCOLNMEMORIAL was dedicated. It's one of many memorials to our first assassinated president, including the capital of Nebraska, the Lincoln Highway, and - some say - Lincoln Center. 

The theme includes some nice black-square artwork showing his STOVEPIPEHAT, his BEARD, and the memorial itself. Plus a couple nicknames - SAVIOROFTHEUNION, HONESTABE, and the RAILSPLITTER. Not to mention the sly bonus theme answer ABET. 

Even with the thematically illustrative blocks of black squares, the puzzle didn't feel particularly blocky and went write along for this solver. I enjoy the notion of a HOBO spider haunting the train tracks, but I probably wouldn't want to travel with one. 

My favorite clue today was "Barely get wet?" SKINNYDIP. Ha! Fill-wise I liked CASHCOW and SACHETS.

In the mid-west I had a bit of a MaLT down - wait, make that MELT down because I didn't know EVA Green. I EGRET to say that because I didn't immediately know 48D, I became bittern.  

Other fun clues included "One making a racket?" CONMAN and "One-eyed giant?" HURRICANE. 

We're away from home today, and don't have a ton of time for this, so that's going to have to do until tomorrow. Ta!

- Horace & Frannie

Saturday, May 28, 2022, Joseph Greenbaum

I love the pair of 1D and 3D - "Twitch, say" (APP) and "Word that sounds like a plural of 1-Down" (APSE). I know you've heard me say I don't like clues that refer to other clues, but there are exceptions, and this is one. Very nice. 

I thought that NW corner was filled with Saturday-ish clues. It set us up thinking about cars with 2-Down "Onetime subsidiary of G.M." (SAAB), and then when you get to 4-Down "Corolla part," with its false capital, it took me quite a while to transition from cars to flowers and put in PETAL. 

Fun clues abounded - "Activities for dummies" (CRASHTESTS), "It ends with a big splash" (WATERSLIDE), "Low joint" (DIVE), and "Port authority?" (WINETASTER), to name but four. And then there were more HAUTE-variety clues like "England's first poet laureate (1668)" (JOHNDRYDEN), "1980 black-and-white film that was nominated for Best Picture, with 'The'" (ELEPHANTMAN), "River of Hades" (LETHE). Fun fact - Lethe just came up in conversation last night! Well, sort of, I was reciting "To a Nightingale" to an unwilling audience. But that's a story for another time.

I did not finish this one ASAP, nor was I WIKI (Who knew?), but it was satisfying as it slowly fell. I hope you enjoyed it too.

- Horace

Friday May 27, 2022, David Distenfeld

So, ok, at first I put in "gaslights" instead of CATFISHES (Lures into a relationship by using a fictional online persona), because I can't keep all these new nefarious activities straight. With me, Dear Reader, you know where you stand. Sure, I write this blog under a pseudonym, but by now, if you address me as Horace, I'll answer. In fact, I do answer to it quite frequently at the A.C.P.T. :) Anywhoo, that error was quickly fixed, and the NW corner fell in no time. 

A couple observations about that corner - I have imagined a scenario in which someone hears FIGS! yelled from another room, and then asks INPAIN? to which the injured party responds SCALDED! That's the kind of thing that happens inside my brain as I sit looking at a blank blog entry. SEES, no subterfuge here. ("Rawr, rawr, rawr. No one understands you SHEBEAR.")

Where was I?

Frannie started enjoying the ITALIAN beverage options a lot more when we started ordering the HOUSEWINES at little places in Tuscany, and if any so-called oenophiles have a problem with that, well, it's their loss.

And speaking of tipples, I had cOsmo in for "Occasion for a high flute?" (TOAST), but I like the real answer better. Still, my first thought fit with mEr (Jacques Cousteau's milieu) (SEA) (false French indicator!) and otS (Parts of some bowls, in brief) (TDS), and unravelling those errors made the NE my final battle. Luckily, it was not my Waterloo.

It was DEF tougher than yesterday, and if tomorrow lives up to its name, I'm in for a nice long solve. See you then!

- Horace

Thursday, May 26, 2022, Jonathan M. Kaye

Today, the Turn starts with that somewhat rare creature - the "Thursday that's simply harder than Wednesday and [presumably] easier than Friday." No rebus, no phantom letters outside the grid, no black squares actually being taken as letters or whole words... just a regular themed puzzle. 

And the theme is that classic 70s song "The Gambler," made famous by Kenny Rogers. Here's a thing I learned just now - that on that recording Kenny was backed up by The Jordanaires, who long before had more famously (perhaps) backed up Elvis Presley and Patsy Cline.

So anyway, the famous chorus of that song becomes the clues for the four longest answers, and they are given clever, non-poker-related answers.

You've got to know when to hold 'em - WRESTLINGMATCH

Know when to fold 'em - ORIGAMICLASS

Know when to walk away - LOWBALLOFFER

And know when to run - ELECTIONSEASON

It's a solid set and an original (to me anyway) theme. So we can put CHECKS in those boxes.

With 1A being "The Winner Takes It All" group (ABBA) and Singer Diana (ROSS), I thought this was going to be a cakewalk, but now I wonder if Mr. Kaye was simply setting us up in the 70's music mindset. But then MOPTOP (Mod do) pushed it back into the 60s. Maybe that was for the Jordanaires? OK, I'm definitely over-thinking this...

My biggest challenge came in the SW corner, where AFEWZS (Forty winks) and MTETNA (View from Catania, in brief) were slow to come. I had even put in ZUNI (Pueblo people), but took it out after I entered WETS (Moistens) and SPAS (Places with springs) (Yes, I tried "bedS" at first...), because ___WZS solicited an OHDEAR. 

The cross of BIO (It might be in the form of a thumbnail) and LOLA (German film award akin to an Oscar) was my last entry. That's a tough cross, and I was really stuck on the idea of a thumbnail image before finally figuring it out. I mean, it had to be a vowel, right?

So no trick, but a fine puzzle nonetheless.

- Horace

Wednesday, May 25, 2022, Christopher Youngs

I think this is one of my favorite types of theme - the "add letters to a normal phrase to make it absurd" theme. For example - take four things, a podcast, cranapple juice, med school, and a TED Talk. Most people have heard of all of them. Then, just because you can, jam the letters "ium" into them, and clue wackily. The result?

PODIUMCAST - Group of winners at a film awards show?

CRANIUMAPPLE - Target for William Tell?

MEDIUMSCHOOL - Where séance leaders get their degrees?

TEDIUMTALK - Lo-o-ong lecture from a parent?

OK, so only the last two clues are good, but I still like the idea. :)

I had never heard of LUCIAN before - in either context - as "One-named ancient satirist ... or a Pokémon character," and I didn't know that to DECOMPILE something meant to "Convert into a higher-level language, as computer code." Should I have?

Looking through the answers today I came to SHOT and, like the word "forlorn" for Keats, the very word was "like a bell / To toll me back from thee to my sole self!" Even the crossword cannot cheer my sad heart this morning. Pandemic, war, subway shootings, and now grade-schoolers. Again. 

O, for a draught of vintage ... that I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim.

- Horace