Friday, September 14, 2018, John Guzzetta

Untimed, DNEF

 Mr. Guzzetta and I were largely on the same WAVELENGHTHS today, except for one square in the south east. I’ve never heard of DAX Shepard (of “Parenthood,” apparently), and it wasn’t a personal name that I could guess, I guess. I tried to HUNTANDPECK through the alphabet, and thought a good guess might be DAn, but although I didn’t know the answer to 47D: "Classic Jaguars,"  either, I was pretty sure it wasn’t nKES, if you see what I mean. So, I asked Horace to tell me what was wanted in that square, which caused the DNEF (Did Not Exactly Finish) you see above. And, no one likes a CHEATER, so to be completely honest, the puzzle was not exactly untimed; I tried to do it last night when it came in at 10PM, but I feel asleep with the puzzle open, so the timer continued to tick as I dozed, which is no reflection on the WORTH of Mr. Guzzetta’s puzzle, it was just that kind of a day.

I liked all the ten-and eleven-letter answers in the puzzle, and the sort of pinwheel shape of the grid. I especially liked the three in the bottom right (HUNTANDPECK, ITSAMIRACLE, and THATSGENIUS), but the international trio of SWISSCHARD, ABBA’s song HONEYHONEY, and Mazurka’s TRIPLETIME meter in the south west were also upstanding entries.

Shameless plug for my niece's Etsy shop

“Offensive line” (BARB) was a nice twist especially since the puzzle also included the clue and answer at 36D: "Grounds for a 15-yard penalty" (LATEHIT) which is actually football related.

I especially enjoyed “Distant stars?” HASBEENS. Ha! ROTISSERIE for Spit spot is also nice. Somewhat to my surprise, I dropped THU right in for 9D: "Night that ‘Friends’ aired: Abbr." I never watched the show, but somehow I knew the answer. IMAGINETHAT!

Let us all remember, dear readers, that pride goeth before a all. “End of a count?” totally rooked me today. I had the correct answer (ESS) thanks to the downs, but I could not figure out why. I FILA little SHEEPISH about it, but there you go.

~Frannie.

Thursday, September 13, 2018, Alex Eaton-Salners

18:38

Greetings all. I'm here to explain to you the connections and loopholes, or ins and outs of today's puzzle. Not that they need much explaining. The two revealers, clued as "Where work piles up" [IN]BOX and "Where finished work goes" [OUT]BOX tip us off to the fact that each theme answer has a literal [IN] and [OUT] box rebus square. Apt! Well, they tip us off to that fact once we get to the south easternmost part of the puzzle. I don't  know if this happened to any of you, dear readers, but I entered FOUNTAINOFYOUTH (Goal for Ponce de Leon) right out of the gate, which, amazingly, fits in the same number of squares as the correct answer THEFOUNTA[IN]OFYO[OUT]H. Who'dda thunk? It's funny what fits when you don't realize there's a rebus. The same thing happened to me at 33D where I entered "blankly" for "One way to stare" instead of the correct answer [IN]TENTLY. My favorite theme answer was FROTH[IN]GATTHEM[OUT]H (Incensed). It's crazy good. :)

INS:
"Give the silent treatment?" (MIME) - what happens if you give a mime the silent treatment?
"Um, don't look now, but ..." (AHEM) - I enjoyed the scene this clue conjured up.
"The end of mathematics?" (QED) - I bet Huygens liked this one, if he is still out there puzzling.
"Middle of a puzzle?" (ZEES) - this self referential clue didn't fool me for a minute.
"Cash cache, for short" (ATM) - fun clue for an old chestnut.
And my personal favorite:
"John of Cambridge" (LOO) - ha!

OUTS:
URSI, LLCS, PSY, and AKC didn't AMAZE, but I do appreciate the fact that Mr. Eaton-Salners kept his clue for SHH librarian-free!

~Frannie.

Wednesday, September 12, 2018, Jeffrey Wechsler

12:35 FWOSLDETY

Despite another puzzle whose theme and consist were practically tailor made for me, I still FWOEd - with a slightly less dumb error than yesterday. I misspelled the names of both Philosopher Lao-TsE and Prime Minister SHINsOABE in one stroke. It looked legit but apparently it wasn't. :)

I relished the theme - literal translations of French food items. Once I got to the revealer, FRENCHCHEF (Julia Child's PBS show, with "The" ... or one associated with the answers to the starred clues), the four theme answers went like hot cakes. BOUILLABAISSE was new to me - translation-wise. I'd never really thought about it before, perhaps because I've never had it before. I don't take a fruit de mer.

In addition to the French menu items, a number of other entries combined to give the puzzle an international zest:
"____ und Drang" (STURM)
"Food that comes in rolls" (SUSHI)
"Like about 17% of the land in Holland" (RECLAIMED) - I wonder if the statistic applies literally to Holland, or The Netherlands as a whole.
"Ancient Icelandic literary work" (EDDA)

There were some other tasty small bites as well:
"Pricey bar" (INGOT)
"Example of change" (DIME) - nice one, but I wasn't fooled.
"Rose no longer seen in fields (PETE)

I also liked SHUN, PEP, and, of course, ASIMOV.

The puzzle had, perhaps, too liberal a sprinkling of abbreviations, partials, and three-letter fill (EMT, LAS, SAO, AAA, et al.) to earn a five-star rating, but ASWITH all matters of taste, de gustibus non disputandum est.

~Frannie.

Tuesday, September 11, 2018, Timothy Polin

7:55 FWODE

Mr. Polin starts off this puzzle squarely in my wheelhouse with METADATA (Information about other information). DEFANG (9A: Make harmless, as a snake) went right in and I was off to the races. That is, until I put the moron in OXYMORON by spelling it with an "i". Derp. TiRESE as a cross was no help, as I've never heard of Mr/s. Gibson.

For the theme we are treated to a bouquet of expressions featuring names of flowers, including SHRINKINGVIOLET and GILDTHELILY that together make for some "High-flown speech or writing" or FLOWERYLANGUAGE. I thought it a nice arrangement.

I liked MOSHES, EXHORT, SLUG and SNUG. Looking at TEASET after I finished the puzzle, I thought it could be an old past participle of tease. :)

LOKI then and now

There were two pair of related clues, which I found interesting:
"Long in the tooth" (OLD) and "Grow long in the tooth" (AGE)
"Stare slack-jawed" (GAWP) and "Slack-jawed feeling" (AWE)
That's the NYTX for you: keeping things FRESHASADAISY.

~Frannie.

Monday, September 10, 2018, Jacob Stulberg

10:22

Today's grid is filled with rounds of delicious cheeses evenly distributed within longer words like FREETRADE (FETA), DEADCALM (EDAM), BURLIVES (BRIE), and BILGEPUMP (BLEU), making a real CHEESE SPREAD. My favorite is bilgepump, a spot some might think apt for a moldy old dairy product like blue cheese. Apt!

What, dear readers, do my solve time and Limburger have in common? They both stink. Last week, I almost broke the 5 minute mark, whereas today, in my attempt to speed through the puzzle, erroneous synonyms or close matches regularly BEFELL me. I entered EATat instead of EATON (Use as a dinner table), beCALMed instead of DEADCALM, and 'value' instead of MERIT, to name just three examples, which made it more of a SLOG than it might have been. That is not to say that I didn't enjoy the puzzle, just that it took me longer than it should have. SOBE it.

I loved all three of these conversational clues today:
"Well, obviously" (NODUH)
"Oh, puh-leeze!" (SPAREME)
"Start working" (GETBUSY)

I liked that the longer answers in the north east and south west symmetrical spots were kind of opposites: STOODASIDE and EMBARKEDON. Also, looking over the puzzle for the review, I notice that we have both WED and AWED. What a difference an A makes. :) I thought it was nice that HEX crossed CRONE, but are we allowed to say crone these days?

We don't normally admire a partial, but who can argue with "Slangy ending for 'any'" (HOO)? And the tired old AARP is revitalized with its excellent clue "Grp. making after-work plans?" - ha!

~Frannie. 

Sunday, September 9, 2018, Hal Moore

MIXED FEELINGS

Love 'em or hate 'em, the LOVEHATERELATIONSHIPS today are surprise rebus squares! Me, I love 'em. There are only four, but they are very well done, using "LOVE" in the horizontal and "HATE" in the vertical. And at least for me, they really made simple answers much more difficult to see. C[HATE]AU (98D: Fancy French home), for example, should have been easy enough, but it took me forever! Even with LEIAS (110A: "Princess ____ Theme" (John Williams composition)) and ERST (99D: Once, once) in place, that quadrant was the last one I filled in. In fact, the A of ADOUT (114A: Certain break point) was my last square. The "17-year-old Peace Nobelist Yousafzai" was not helping me!

I liked the cluing today. 31A: Minor's opposite (ADULT), for example, probably had a lot of people guessing "major" at first, and for 29A: Whopper inventor (LIAR), I spent some time trying to remember if it was M&M Mars, or Hershey's, or some other chocolate company that made those malted milk balls... And 88A: Parts of many law firm names (AMPERSANDS) also amused me. And for the record, I got 98A: Chocolate chip cookie starters? (CEES) with a single cross - and still couldn't see C[HATE]AU for a long while! Sheesh!

Other things I liked were HUNTERGATHERER, CALIP[HATE], OVERTURE (76D: Score starter), BAREFOOT, INDECENCY (see also: BUM), and YESWECAN.

I'll let Frannie tell you what she did or didn't like in the second half of this review.

Thanks for reading!

- Horace

Saturday, September 8, 2018, Andrew J. Ries

0:21:08

I mostly liked this puzzle, but QUEBECER (19D: Celine Dion, by birth) did not sit well with me. I don't know any, so I probably shouldn't be making any judgments on this (do you think it will stop me?), but I prefer the term "Québécois." Also, I guess TAXISQUAD (18A: Practice roster for an N.F.L. team) rings a faint bell, but why is it called that?

Those two ignorant complaints aside, I enjoyed this challenging Saturday puzzle. So let's get to the good stuff! FERRIS (43A: Name for a big wheel) was amusing to slowly uncover. And FLOATS (41D: Jerk's creations) was fun, even though I so wanted to make "malted" work. And AREARUG (2D: It provides only partial coverage) got one of those super-literal clues that seems so obvious when you have it filled in, but gets you thinking of all different things before that.

The central stair-stepping trio includes some good trivia in GEORGIADOME (32A: Only facility in the world to have hosted the Olympics, Super Bowl and Final Four), but the other two are only mildly interesting. CARROTJUICE. Hmph. There's nothing super-long except that central spanner SNAPCHATFRIENDS (7D: Ones sharing some shots), the clue for which would work whether "shots" meant photos or alcohol, I think.

Let's end by focussing on TUSCAN (27A: Florentine, for example), but here's a TIP, the next time you travel to Tuscany, don't spend more than a day or two in Florence. Sure, it's mandatory, but don't let it be all you see of this incredibly beautiful region of the world. Go to Siena and sit in the Campo eating a gelato in the evening, get a car and drive the curvy, gently rolling roads through the fields of wheat and sunflowers, visit one of the many hilltop towns and get lunch at some hole-in-the-wall place. I assure you, you will ADORE it.

- Horace