Tuesday, January 31, 2017, Neil Padrick Wilson

0:08:33 (F.W.O.E.)

Sad to end the month with a careless error, but I'll take it, as I always try to, as a lesson to be more careful. In my defense, INCOG (36D: Disguised, briefly) is not exactly a great answer, and my attempt (INCOs) makes some sense, what with "cosplay" being such a big thing nowadays. Of course, TEXTMESSAsE (55A: *Its arrival might be signaled by a ding) makes no sense at all. Check. Your. Crosses.

Now, on to the theme. I like the idea of all those things being found INABOTTLE, and QUALITYTIME (23A: *What a family spends together at the dinner table) (at least found in a bottle in song) and TEXTMESSAGE are both good. But FORKEDLIGHTNING (38A: Branches in a storm?) is not a thing that anyone ever says. Sure, lightning can be forked, but FORKEDLIGHTNING isn't a thing like QUALITYTIME is a thing. Or even like SWEETTEA (58A: So-called "house wine of the South") (Favorite clue of the month) is a thing. CARGOSHIP (18A: *Vessel with a large hold) is also a thing, but kind of a boring one.

So that's kind of a wash. The fill has a few annoying bits, like SOUPNAZI (22A: "Seinfeld" stock character?) (cute with the "stock," but still... when's that show going to fade gracefully away?), and ABU (2D: Aladdin's monkey), ISSEL (4D: Basketball Hall-of-Famer Dan) and FRYE (43A: 6'11" Channing of the N.B.A.) are not exactly Tuesday-friendly names.

I did like them bringing the LOLZ (32A: Hilarity, in Internet-speak), and GALLANTRY (3D: Courage in Battle) and CHENILLE (5D: Plush fabric) are fancy... are they worth ABU and ISSEL? It's a hard call. 1A: Pulling a rabbit out of a hat, e.g. (MAGIC) gets a B. I tried "trick," which fouled me up for a while, and I think Frannie tried something different but similar. Overall, let's call the whole thing ABASH. I mean a wash...

Colum takes over again tomorrow (I hope. :) ), and I'll see you in March. (Rumors have been circulating that Frannie might actually take March, and if those prove true, I'll see you in April. If I don't see you in person at the ACPT first, that is. (!))

- Horace


p.s. Congratulations to Mr. Wilson on his debut puzzle!

Monday, January 30, 2017, Zhouqin Burnikel

0:04:42

Interesting theme today of MALELEADS. That is, names for male animals - stag, cock, bull, and buck. The names are all situated in solid fill - STAGNATED (18A: Got stuck in a rut), COCKTAILHOUR (20A: Time before dinner for socializing) (Excellent), BULLETPROOFVEST (37A: Protection for a police officer), and BUCKEYESTATE (53A: Ohio's nickname).

In non-fill, we have the amusing EPICFAILURE (3D: Huge blunder) (usually shortened to just "epic fail"), VIPENTRANCE (25D: Special access for celebs), REFRAINS (41A: Repeated parts of songs), ABHOR, BLOAT, EXTOL, DEUCE, and UTTER (51D: Say). Pretty good stuff.

On the other hand, LIETESTS (33A: Polygraphs) felt a little ad hoc, BOHO (37D: ____-chic (fashion style) felt a tad non-Mondayish, HAR (42A: Sarcastic laugh sound) APAL, and TRE are straight-up glue, and SYSOP and LASIK are a little specialized, but that's not much. Overall, I'm a FAN.

1A: Views as (DEEMS), gets a C+, for being mildly unusual.

- Horace

Sunday, January 29, 2017, Jim Hyres and David Steinberg

HIT THE DECK

Todays theme is a game of Blackjack, or TWENTYONE, between PLAYER and DEALER. The former gets two, three, six, and jack, totalling 21, the latter goes BUST, with ace, five, king, and eight (24). The cards are laid out on opposite sides of the table, as it were, and they're as symmetrical as words of different length can be. Horizontal symmetry allows for this, and the theme answers containing the circled "cards" are hit or miss. THREEBEARS (47A: Fairy tale family) is fine, GIVEMEFIVE (52A: Celebratory request) is ok, if a bit formalized (I would have expected "gimme five"), and, well, how are you going to argue with the full name JACKLONDON? ELITEEIGHT (110A: March Madness stage) is a little obscure, at least for this non-college-sports-watching crossword solver, and SERVICEACE (28A: It's unreturnable) seems a little overdone. It's like saying "frozen ice." It's just an ace, and it's just ice.

The puzzle was a little on the easy side, and as I was going through it I gave a few more eye-rolls than I did guffaws. I will not grade 1A, since it's part of the theme, but I will say that starting the puzzle with a cross-referenced clue is not my idea of a good idea. See also, 76A: "See 125-Across." Yuck.

I did chuckle slightly at 17D: Delivery instructions? (LAMAZE), and VAMOOSE (21A: "Get lost!") was nice. And 97A: Silly Putty holder (EGG) brought a smile both because, well, who doesn't love Silly Putty?, and because we just saw "Something Rotten" last night, the plot of which turns on a theatrical production that features dancing eggs. Hah! I highly recommend seeing it if it comes through your town.

So in all, I guess I didn't love it. There's the old names (DYAN, FOYT), the DREI/GRAU cross, the product placements (ANNTAYLOR, FENDI)... and not enough zip. Or even LILT.

ITSFINE.

- Horace

Saturday, January 28, 2017, Damon Gulcynski

0:12:50

The Turn went backwards for me this week. Thursday took me half an hour, yesterday was 26 minutes, and today was just under half that! Everything just seemed to come together quickly, but that's not to say I didn't enjoy it.

My first answer might have been UNIX (21A: System developed by Bell Labs), then PERONI (23A: Italian brewery since 1846), and from those came YOGURT, ROANOKE, and ERMINES. then JANEEYRE (6A: Classic novel written under the nom de plume Currer Bell), and that corner was done.

On the other side, I think I started with KIR (25A: Wine aperitif) which brought back fond memories of my college life in Rennes, France. From that K, BADJOKE (1D: Something a bomber delivers), and from the J, the excellent JAZZHANDS (19A: Gesture of razzle-dazzlement). (Were the Zs in the clue a sub-conscious giveaway?).

Getting into the middle was easy with the Monday-ish clue "6D: "Steel-driving man" of African-American lore" (JOHNHENRY). Was JOHNHENRY an African-American? Funny, I've known that song for as long as I can remember, but never once do I remember remarking upon his skin color. Anyway, a crossing clue that took me way longer than maybe it should have was 30A: " (INCHES).

How about SPIDEREGG (52A: Web deposit?)? Gross! I was not familiar with TRIOLET as an "Eight-line verse form." I read a lot of poetry, but maybe not enough about poetry. FAUVES (44D: Matisse, Derain and fellow artists, with "les"), on the other hand, went right in, but perhaps that's only because I know French and I have always loved the Fauvists. And speaking of art, 1A: "The Haywain Triptych" painter (BOSCH) gets a B. B for BOSCH.

It went FLYING by, but I still think Mr. Gulcynski did a BANGUPJOB.

- Horace

Friday, January 27, 2017, John Guzzetta

0:26:09

An attractive grid today with twelve entries of ten or eleven letters. Not bad. My favorite might be AMELIORATE (26D: Take the edge off), but OPENBORDERS (1A: Feature of the European Union) (A-) and INTERRACIAL (49A: Like marriage supported by Loving v. Virginia) are both strong, too. ANYTHINGBUT MADEABOOBOO, actually. Yikes. TITLEFIGHT (27D: Someone gets belted at the end of it) is clever, and might be moreso if it weren't for the fact that someone is getting belted from start to finish! Heh. Oh, and that whole NE corner is very good, too. With AMBULATORY (12D: Not bedridden), BOILEDOVER (13D: Blew a gasket), and ECOSYSTEMS (14D: Caves and coral reefs, for example). So the "long-word" theme gets a thumbs up. :)

The twelve six-letter-and-up crosses are all pretty strong, too. ARIOSE (43A: Melodious) does not appear in my deskside Webster's (they favor "arioso"), and LIEGEMAN (38A: Vassal) is a tad obscure, but it's Friday, and we allow some of that sort of thing. SATYRS (40A: Part-human gods) is good, BAHAMAS (5D: Where many Loyalists resettled after the American Revolution) gets an interesting clue, and PIMIENTO (33D: Red stuffing?) puts one in mind of a martini, which is never a bad thing on a Friday afternoon.

It's only when we get into the smaller stuff that we find any real glue. HOAG (44A: Romance novelist Tami) was unknown to me, and RETIE and PINAS are a little weak. RES, ETH, CHA, VIOL, OMAN... these are all pretty standard bits of glue. HAMA (46D: Mie ____, actress who played the Bond girl Kissy Suzuki) is a stretch. Is any "Bond girl," as they put it, acceptable? I would argue not.

On balance, though, this was a fine Friday puzzle. There's enough good long stuff to justify the glue.

- Horace

Thursday, January 26, 2017, Hal Moore

0:30:16

Whew! This was a fun one. And tricky! There were a few real moments of despair when that SW corner would just not come together for me. I got ALITTLEBIRDIE (36A: Secret's source ... that can be found four times in this puzzle) before getting any of the rebuses, and even knowing that there had to be one more in that corner, it still took some kind of trance-like state to finally see LO[WREN]T (54D: Shabby). You might have noticed that "Lincoln" fit into "62A: Best Picture subject nine inches shorter than the actor who portrayed him," but there were two possible problems with that - Was Daniel Day Lewis even taller than Lincoln? (no, he was two inches shorter), and Did it win an Oscar? (No, though it was nominated). "Capote" didn't fit, and even though O'Toole was just in a puzzle a few days ago, it would have been a long time before I came up with TELA[WREN]CE! So in short, I loved the theme. The rebuses were all nested, as it were, in very good fill, and the "little birdie" descriptor was apt, given the small letters needed to spell out the bird names.

My first rebus answer came at the cross of IN[CROW]D (55D: Cool people) and [CROW]NROYAL (63A: Whisky first produced for King George VI's 1939 visit to Canada). That's a nice bit of trivia! In that same quadrant, I enjoyed the colloquial nature of NOTHERE (60A: "Let's go someplace private"). The mini ice cream theme, with SHOP, CONE, and CUP was cute, and in the opposite corner, the two "Lively" clues (UPTEMPO and SPRY) were also good. I tried "that is" for 1A: To wit (SUCHAS), and even though I like my answer slightly better, I'll still give it a B.

There's lots to like in here and very little to grouse (see what I did there? It's another bird.) about. Overall, a great start to the Turn! (For our new readers, that's what we like to call the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday puzzles, as a group.)

- Horace

p.s. OMG! I see that this is a debut puzzle! And I'll add that it's got to be the best debut that I've ever seen. Can't wait for the next one, Mr. Moore. Keep up the good work!

Wednesday, January 25, 2017, Tracy Gray

0:07:19

The only one of these mild oaths, or "@#$!," that I knew off the bat was SHAZBOT (... from Mork), but at least one other (HORSEHOCKEY) (... from Colonel Sherman Potter) sounded familiar. It makes me wonder whether Deputy Dawg was, in fact, the first to say DAGNABIT, and the final two were new to me. So the theme fell a little flat for me, but it certainly seems like one that others may enjoy more.

The puzzle starts off with a cheese often found in crosswords, EDAM, but I give it a grade of B today, due to the interesting clue: 1A: Sweet-curd cheese. I had never heard this term, which is used for cheeses that are made using only rennet, and no "starter bacteria." Being less acidic, the sweetness of the milk is allowed to come through more fully than in other types of cheese. Examples of "sweet-curd" cheeses also include Asiago, Muenster, and Gouda.

"Difficult past tense alert" on 19A: Hid from the cops, say (LAYLOW). It would have been easier, I think, if clued in the present, but it works either way, which is cool. I was also amused ('though not tricked) by 63A: Abode that's abuzz (APIARY), 66A: Snowsuit attachment (MITTEN), and GASBAGS (45D: Long-winded sorts). Furthermore, I love any mention of the SYCAMORE (39D: Tree that sheds its bark).

On the down side, we have AZO, HSN, ICEE, ALGA (3D: Bit of birdbath gunk) (Eeeuw!), JEB, and RHOMBI. Cool word but awkward plural. On second thought, scratch that, it's not in the "down side" column.

Overall, I guess I found it kinda Wednesdayish. How's that for a kwality review?

- Horace