Saturday, January 14, 2017, Andrew Kingsley

0:14:50

A very fast Turn for me this week, with all three puzzles coming in under fifteen minutes. I've been very busy with other thoughts, and perhaps having so many active thoughts clears the mind, in a way, or at least opens a little wider the channels of thought. I'm not sure I'm explaining this well, but I'm thinking of how Glenn Gould said that he had a breakthrough while practicing piano in a room where someone was running a vacuum cleaner. I think he frequently practiced with a vacuum cleaner running beside him after that. Of course, he was a world-famous genius, and maybe these were just slightly easier puzzles than normal. Either way, I think Glenn Gould and I are pretty much identical.

Did I mention that I've been working a lot and I'm tired? ...

So anyway, this was another solid puzzle. Attractive grid - maybe a tad tight getting into the NE and SW, but the long pins, GRASSSTAINS (10D: They often turn knees green) and HAREBRAINED (22D: Cockamamie) are good, and the corners are wide open.

1A: Back in (RETROCHIC) gets an A-. It's a fun start, and it was one of the last things I put in. I had RE_R... for a while, and I got caught up thinking of "rear-something," as if you were backing up a car. Also, that CRAPS/SPRAT (19A: Anchovy or sand eel) cross was my final square, and for it I had to run the alphabet in my head. I love anchovies, but I had never heard the term SPRAT before. I like learning it, though, just as I liked learning of the pulse food group from crossword puzzles a couple years ago.

Love SPATE (55A: Run), and THEPOPE (40D: Obviously Catholic person, in a snarky rhetorical question) makes another appearance today (after being invoked by "Popemobile" yesterday), but really, what else could that have been?

Overall, maybe a little too easy for a Saturday, but no big complaints.

- Horace

Friday, January 13, 2017, Andrew J. Ries

0:14:13

I love the trivia in "19D: The first one was a modified Ford D-Series truck" (POPEMOBILE). Hah! And PARODYACCOUNT (39A: @fakechucknorris.com) is hilarious. ("I make onions cry.") But BUYERSREMORSE (35A: New homeowner's feeling, maybe) seems wrong. When we bought our house we were very happy! Isn't everyone? Buyer's remorse comes with impulse buys, doesn't it? Anyway, that's just one little thing. Most of this is great!

RYEWHISKY (36D: George Dickel product) was tricky, because George Dickel is probably the only whiskey maker outside of Scotland who spells it without an "e," and 38D: Some French votes (OUIS) could just as well have been "nons." And I don't know about you, but I was having a hard time coming up with a U.S. president who wrote plays, but I never thought to think of other countries'  presidents (HAVEL).

41A: Updated art? (ARE) made me LOL, even though I've seen that type of thing before. Overall, I really enjoyed this. I'm afraid I'm too tired today to give it the review it deserves, but I hope you liked it too.

- Horace

Thursday, January 12, 2017, Joe Krozel

0:12:03

Wellity, wellity, wellity.... I'm pretty sure I've never seen a grid like this. BUS/TED APART, as it were. BRO/KEN INTWO. And the third (what I'll call) theme entry BAN/ANA SPLIT made me LOL.

It was a strange solving experience. Our colleague Mr. Amory is wont to complain about tight passageways between sections of a puzzle, but today we have a complete divide, only bridged by the continuity of the theme answers, which themselves have their first word broken. As you might have noticed, it went rather quickly for me today, despite the oddness, but it sure was fun while it lasted.

I liked the fill a lot. TAXICAB (17A: Its distance is measured within a meter) is remarkably clever, I like the word IKEBANA (18A: Japanese flower-arranging art), and wish I could have remembered it without crosses, 38A: Throw on the floor (AREARUG) is another strong clue, and I enjoyed THENORM (40A: How things typically are) too. I don't know about you, but I was surprised by NEIGHED for "55A: Called from a stall, say," and was thinking more along the lines of "Any paper over there?"

I could go on and on. 21D: Subject of an old wives' tale? (HUSBAND) got an LOL, and the bonus 15 TRANSISTORRADIO (11D: It could carry a tune in the 1950s) got a smile, too. I love the word AWEIGH (39D: Out of bed, in a way?), but I'm not entirely sure I understand the clue, and MASERS (42D: Atomic clock components) I am entirely sure I don't understand.

Overall, I liked this a lot. I even smiled at TPING (32D: Pulling a prank outside a house), and the somewhat pedestrian BUS (1A: Route follower) gets a B, even though it is part of the theme. That's just the kind of good mood I'm in.

- Horace

Wednesday, January 11, 2017, Peter A. Collins

0:09:14

I wondered if today were some kind of anniversary, but no, WATSON and CRICK's article was published in April. Also, while looking for that date, I learned that they did not discover DNA, but rather discovered its DOUBLE HELIX structure. Nice, by the way, that those first four bold words are found symmetrically in the puzzle. The swirl of "DNA" down the center is also lovely.

The structure of the puzzle, however, strains a bit. ACNED (29D: Spotted at the prom, perhaps?), despite its cute clue, is pretty ugly, and ERO, ENDO, BANOS (36A: Spanish baths), ACOP, and MDLI are all less than great.

On the other hand, ARACHNID (20A: Scorpion, for one) is strong, BRINDISI (36D: Port city at one terminus of the Appian Way) is great trivia, and STUBBY is fun, as are the clues for WED (41D: Enter an altared state?) and ROIS (16A: 18 Louises). That last one was news to me. I thought they would have stopped with the "Louis" name after #16 got his head cut off.

Some entries, like REALGNP, AGREESTO, TENACE, and DECEASE seem a little bland, but one can't really complain too much about that, can one? At least I'm not going to, because I'm hoping that Mr. Collins will buy me a couple PILSNERS in Stamford if he comes east again for the ACPT this year. Is that wrong?

- Horace

Tuesday, January 10, 2017, David Poole

0:06:11

Everybody loves a word ladder, right? That the beginning and end are opposites (BLACK (unrated)/WHITE) makes this one especially nice, and Mr. Poole manages to work in a double-revealer of sorts by giving both names of a common game. Very nice.

All the five-letter words (nine of them!) constrain the board a bit, but I think he's done a good job of keeping things reasonably decent. Outliers include LEMAT (2D: Actor Paul of "American Graffiti"), ICAHN (28D: Corporate raider Carl), TEY (46D: Josephine who wrote "The Daughter of Time"), AMERCES (25A: Slaps with a court fine), and DANELAW (42D: Rules in force in England before the Norman conquest). Not exactly what I think of as early week fare.

Still, there are some quality non-theme answers. SLAPDASH (41A: Haphazard) is great, KISSERS (10D: Mouths, slangily) is good (I tried to fit in "pie holes," but alas...), and STRETCH (19D: Something to do immediately after waking up) is fun. And I like how OTHELLO was turned into a mini-Shakespeare theme with GENTLEMEN (58A: Twosome in a Shakespeare title) and ELSINORE (27A: Where "Hamlet" opens).

OK, as I look around, I keep seeing things like EPH, MII, GENL, LOCOS, SEV (very weak), EEO, TEL, and REBAG. So there were a lot of compromises. Still, somehow, I like the theme, and it's not all bad. I know, I know, sounds like faint praise, and it's as though the central entry (STALE) is calling out for reviewers to pick it out and run with it, but for some reason I still liked it.

- Horace

Monday, January 9, 2017, Neville Fogarty

0:04:07

I'm all too familiar with bed frames recently, as Frannie and I have been trying to empty out her family's seven-bedroom home. And somehow there were even more beds than bedrooms!

Today's puzzle runs through the standard bedframe sizes, Twin, Full, Queen, and King, using four well-known answers. The first, TWINPEAKS (17A: 1990s TV series about a murder in a town in Washington) is the weakest, because A, the show is 25 years old, and B, that show was set in Washington? Which one was it that was set in Alaska?

The theme is fine. Mr. Fogarty went a little heavy on the French today, with CREPE, EPEE, NEE, ADIEU, ETRE, and the third-person singular subjunctive form AIT. I'd almost rather it be (see what I did there? I used third-person singular subjunctive...) clued as a small island. At least that would appear in an English dictionary. Anyway, seems a little rough for a Monday. Especially with the somewhat tricky cluing of GOATHERD (9D: Job that might involve watching the kids?). Nice answer, though, GOATHERD.

Other bright spots include QUACK (49D: Phony doc) (Colum, does the profession use this word? Or is it taboo?), SKELETON (28A: Exhibit in an anatomy class), and the possibly controversial BOYTOY (42A: Young male viewed as a sex object). 1A: AIRS (Puts on TV or radio) gets a D+. The puzzle overall, though, is more of a wash. Good theme, some good fill, kind of a lot of NOAA, ALA, ICES ... and I've never really believed that NERTS (12D: "Rats!") is a real expression.

- Horace

Sunday, January 8, 2017, Peter Broda and Erik Agard

THE DOWNSIZING OF NATHANIEL AMES

Yesterday I started my review by saying that a pleasing grid shape can influence how I feel about a puzzle. Another thing that can sway me is a good title, and when I read today's, I couldn't wait to dig in and find out what it meant. It turned out that the trick was to simply follow the instructions and "downsize" by using only the first initial of the first name and concatenating with the last name to make a new word. Thus: "The downsizing of names."

The answer that gave it to me was the amusingly-clued PROSEPOETRY (31A: "Charlie Hustle is my name / I am banned from the Hall of Fame," e.g.?). Once you know what's going on, some of them give the first letter away, like 20A: Things smoked by singer Courtney? (CLOVECIGARETTES), but I didn't really mind that. The theme entries are all pretty good. I didn't know what CHANDLERBING was, but I looked it up and it seems to have been a character on the show "Friends." MALIEMPIRE seemed a bit odd, but it's hard to criticize anything having to do with Muhammed Ali, so I'll let it slide.

The non-theme fill was quite good, I thought. The top half of URLHIJACKING (58D: Underhanded use of someone else's domain name) looks amazing in the grid, and its symmetrical pairing HARRYHOUDINI is also strong. Other highlights include MINOTAUR (83D: Figure at the center of a maze), PERJURE (67D: Forswear), DANK (54A: Cold and wet), LEOTARD (92D: Trampolinist's wear), and KIDNEYS (30D: Nephrologists study them). Who knew?

Sure, we've got the usual bits of glue, like CTA, ERM, GENL, SEGO, SSNS, and EXS (but it is "Ex's" in the song title), but I don't mind. This was a quality Sunday puzzle.

- Horace