Tuesday, July 31, 2018, David Woolf

9:34

Today's theme revealer is DOTDOTDOT (Indication of more to come ... or what 17-, 28-, and 43-Across all contain) seems accurate as far as the clue/answer pair at 55A goes, but the three theme answers (WEBDUBOIS, JRRTOLKIEN, FAOSCHWARZ) don't actually contain any dots at all. Some might argue that I am being too literal, but I thought it was a little LOOPY. Unless, maybe the more to come is the dots in the names... :)

We get some zippy fill in the grid. I liked ERSATZ, SUEDE, TEEM, WEIRDO,  EMBOSS, RAINOUT, and REDCOAT.

While I had little trouble with the puzzle as a whole, I did get held up at 58A: Novelist Seton/56D: Actor Sheridan of "Ready Player One" cross. I remembered the author as ANnA Seton - incorrectly. If I hadn't already entered ANNA up at 15A (Actress Kendrick or Paquin), I certainly would have FWOED. Some might argue that the non-nameness of TnE might have tipped me off to my error, but ever since I encountered HODAKOTB in a puzzle, I've given up judging what might and might not be a name. Not that there's anything wrong with Hoda Kotb as a name, but having never heard of her, I was unable to guess that combination of letters as a name ("Today" co-host beginning in 2007). In this case, I ran the alphabet, and eventually got to Y making ANYA, which was a strong enough possibility to carry the unknown-to-me TYE with it.

As with ANNA and ANYA in the same puzzle, I was a little surprised by ENE and ENO, and the very similar DAUB and DABS answers, the latter of which crossed at the D. The word JIBE doesn't ENLACE with my favorable sensibilities, but tho I shake my tiny FIST when I hear it, the word ENDORs.

~Frannie.

Monday, July 30, 2018, Gary Cee

9:52

Game on, puzzle friends, starting with the theme! There are six two-word theme answers that each end with a judgement as to the status of a pitch or play commonly rendered by umpires in baseball games, all summed up by the revealer CLOSECALL. For example, 51A: "Attack from the sky" is AIRSTRIKE and 35D: "Vacationer's container for valuables is HOTELSAFE. I particularly enjoyed 25A. "Spilling a drink or eating all the guacamole, say" (PARTYFOUL), which, for some reason, reminds me to mention FUNSPONGE (One who sucks the joy out the room) in Saturday's puzzle. Ha!

Other athletic support in the puzzle included ESPN, TEE, NHLTEAM,  REF, and ERRORS.

Fill-wise I liked CADENCE, VEST, SPIFFUP, STEALTH, and TACIT. Also, I love NAAN. Best bread EVER. Better than Ezra in two ways. One, because it is, and two, because Ezra wasn't the correct answer.

I was amused to note that the puzzle contains both SEAU and ESAU, one a 12-time Pro Bowl linebacker, and the other mentioned more than 70 times in Genesis. The same, but different. And speaking of Genesis, how about the clue in Sunday's puzzle, 55A: First character in Genesis? I tried to jam "gamma" in there, but I was thrown by another curve ball. The answer was SOFTG. Rho!

I won't cry foul, but I was not a fan of IHOPE for 52D: "If there's any justice!" The clue-answer pair lacks the parallelism that I value.

Let us not say ADIEU, mes amis, but à demain!

~Frannie.

Boswords 2018 - Special Report!

Hello Crossword Puzzle Fans! I spent a very pleasant afternoon at the second annual Boswords tournament, and I thought I'd write a little about the experience.

First of all, I love that it's so local! It's a beautiful day today in Boston, and it's Sunday, so the traffic on the roads was minimal. I had considered taking public transportation to the event, but it would have cost me something like $20 (commuter rail to north station, orange line, bus, shuttle) and taken about an hour and forty-five minutes, so I rode my bike instead, which took me around 40 minutes, and was free! :)

The Championship Puzzle being contested.

Once inside, I saw some familiar faces from the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (A.C.P.T.), including one former champ. There's a fair amount of mingling out in the lobby, and then we all move into the gymnasium and settle into our seats (plenty of them, no fretting about that). John Lieb (who seems like the nicest guy) says a few words, and the puzzles are passed out. Following the model of the A.C.P.T., the first puzzle is a softball, and after that was an entertaining lesson on solving a crossword, with advice like "When you are stuck at the end and have some blank squares, just make them into extra black squares!"

Puzzle Two, too, didn't really pose any problems. Things are going well, I'm cruising along, and then comes Puzzle Three, by the Notorious B.E.Q. It was there, Dear Reader, that I met my Waterloo. A cross of two unknowns gave me my only error of the day. Blergh. But, I picked myself up and went clean through the last two. One error in five puzzles. I guess it's not bad, but it's not a clean tournament. On the bright side, I still have room for improvement. Right?...

But more than just recount my puzzle solving experience, I want to encourage you, if you enjoy crosswords and you have ever thought of attending a tournament, to consider this one. It's smaller than the A.C.P.T., and although the vibe in Stamford is plenty friendly, this kicked it up a notch. As I said, John Lieb and Andrew Kingsley - and really everyone associated with this thing - seem really nice. After the third puzzle they handed out pizza (plain cheese only - a decision I applaud), various individual-size chip and snack bags, and what appeared to be homemade chocolate chip cookies. I wasn't expecting that!

Also at the break (or after it, I guess), there was a performance by the Boston Typewriter Orchestra. If you've never heard of them, they are kind of like Stomp, but instead of prancing around a stage with brooms and trash cans, they're seated in front of typewriters at a table. It's kind of fun to hear them pounding away for a while, but after the fifth "song" (they performed again before the final), and maybe even a little before that, I had heard about enough. Still, I appreciated the effort to provide a little more entertainment (and, oh, did I mention that the entry fee is just $20?!), and the opportunity for a new experience.

At the end of the afternoon, the final puzzle was contested. At the A.C.P.T., the competitors are on stage solving on extra-large grids, but at Boswords, they solve on computers, and their screens are displayed above them on a huge screen. I found that I was able to follow the action much more easily with this method. It was fascinating to see the way they moved around the board, and the solve of the eventual winner was a thing of beauty. She didn't get anything in the top left, but found a foothold in the top right, and moved calmly, but quickly, through the entire grid, working a section completely before flowing into the next. Congratulations, Katie Hamill, on an impressive win.

One last thing - as the champions were named in the "Paw Sox" and "Pairs" divisions, it occurred to me that all the champions at this year's Boswords were women. Cool.

So that's kind of a lot of writing, but I had a great time. Thank you, Boswords Team, for a lovely afternoon of puzzling. I will definitely be back next year!

- Horace

Sunday, July 29, 2018, Will Nediger

THREE IN ONE

I love this kooky, three-in-one theme! The puzzle played a little harder than a usual Sunday for me, and I was just going along, ignoring all the theme clues and trying to fill in some squares. Eventually, things started going well and I got, almost by accident, MANHATTAN. Then I re-read the clue for that one - 86A: Result of wearing a fedora at the beach - and WOOSH!, I gave out an audible groan. An appreciative groan, mind you, but wow.

 

(un-) 27-Across

So Mr. Nediger has found normal words that can be broken into three parts. Not exactly three words, but three sections of meaning, as in what may be my favorite - PROPAGANDA (40A: Prosecutor who's sympathetic to the defendants in a witch trial). How can you not chuckle at that? Anyway, I love it. Some are just too absurd, like REINFORCEMENT (58A: Bridle strap utilized only on sidewalk surfaces), but for the most part, they at least got a chuckle. EXTERNALLY ... heh...

There seemed to be quite a few 7-plus-letter words in the Downs, and I credit them with providing at least some of the extra difficulty. Things that were not, for me, immediately gettable, like WILDROSE (11D: Iowa's state flower), GALUMPH (12D: Move clumsily), TABLEDHOTE (64D: Meal with a set menu), NEARBEER (28D: Serving during Prohibition), and LEGATION (31D: Diplomatic office below an embassy). Definitely needed a couple crosses for those.

Overall, though, I enjoyed the fill, and the design of the puzzle was unusual, with those three strong diagonals in the center. And I liked the clueing - 66A: Potential dinner (PREY), 5A: Antismoking spots, e.g. (PSAS), 91A: Item smashed by the original Luddites (LOOM) (Awesome. We humans are so crazy.), 55D: Stable parents (SIRES), 59D: "The Great" and "The Terrible" (EPITHETS)... all good. For me, one of the only WARTs was that it started with WART. Yuck.

So I'll be off soon to Boswords, and if you're one of the 150 or so puzzlers, maybe I'll see you there. And if I don't see you, Good Luck solving!

- Horace

Saturday, July 28, 2018, Natan Last, the J.A.S.A. Crossword Class and Andy Kravis

0:14:36

A fun puzzle today, centered on three very strong, stair-stepping answers: FASHIONPOLICE (32A: Ones who may dress down those dressing up?) (Great clue.); JUICECLEANSES (36A: Some detox diets); and GENDERSTUDIES (37A: Modern college major). Excellent. And off of the beginning and end of those we have JEOPARDY (36D: Show that once had an April Fool's Day episode hosted by Pat Sajak) (Boy, I wish I had seen that! In fact, I'd prefer to have him host the show every day. I might even start watching it again!), FUNSPONGE (32D: One who sucks the joy out of the room) (I've never heard this before, but I sure know a few...), ACADEMIES (11D: Places of learning) (fine), and DCCOMICS (12D: Distributor of Penguin classics?) (very nice). That's a pretty solid skeleton.

The corners are wide open, and they tend a little toward "ballast fill" at times, with ECCE, ODON, ETTU, and NAOH, but none of that bothers me too much. The biggest stretch for me was RHEE (53A: Onetime Korean statesman Syngman), but perhaps others will have heard of and remember the name.

I liked the cluing today quite a bit. How about 18D: "Nigerian prince," often (PHISHER). Hah! And 9D: She convinced George to switch to five-pointed stars, in American legend (BETSY) gives a nice little bit of trivia. See also: 46D: River crossed in 1945's Operation Plunder (RHINE). My last letter was the I of HINES (21A: Cheryl of "Curb Your Enthusiasm"). I didn't know the name (never watched the show), and WWIIEPICS took quite a while to come clear to me. I'm just glad it finally did!

These J.A.S.A. puzzles are frequently quite good. I wish I could make it to one of those classes sometime! For now, though, I'll settle for enjoying the product of others' work.

- Horace

Friday, July 27, 2018, Bruce Haight

D.N.F.

A mini theme today of quotations from fictional men, PRINCECHARMING (30A: He might say "A day without you is like a day without sunshine") and CAPTAINOBVIOUS (35A: He might say "A day without sunshine is like, you know, night"). Which reminds me of a joke I heard somewhat recently - "Red sky in morning, sailors take warning. Black sky in morning, night."

And we have two more characters in symmetrical positions outside of the central two - LILABNER (17A: From which Sadie Hawkins dances come) and ETHELRED (53A: English king nicknamed "the Unready" (ooh, that hurts!)). Interesting commentary on that last one.

To Bruce Haight, though, today, I say YOUGOTME. I dropped in AMeN instead of AMON (20A: Egyptian deity), and failed to remark upon the PECeS river being incorrect. I also did not know FOER (49A: Jonathan Safran ____, "Everything Is Illuminated" author), and IONTV just would not come to me, so I flailed and ended with a mess of a puzzle. Not the greatest way to go into a weekend containing another puzzle tournament. That's right, I've registered for Boswords, and I am very much looking forward to it!

Nice oblique clue for HUE (27A: Outcry), which is pretty much straight from the French word meaning "cry out," (or "boo") huer. And kind of a tricky one for ICEBERG too (13D: A little one is called a calf). "Speech in the Bible" for ARAMAIC was a little too, too, if you ask me. I mean, I guess I get it, but it doesn't seem quite perfect.

There, was, though, a lot I liked. INPEN (46A: Permanently, say) took me a while, and I liked TRAGIC, PENANCE, UNEARTH, and, of course, DRINKUP. Which reminds me, it's Friday! May you all, if you do DRINKUP, act a little SILLIER, perhaps, but not do anything that would cause you to end up ABLUSH. :)

- Horace

Thursday, July 26, 2018, Nate Cardin

0:09:44

For the first time ever, I put a rebus in on the very first clue I looked at, and it was (essentially) correct! I read "1D: A.T.M. necessity" and first thought "PIN," but looked and saw it was four letters... but then I thought "What the hell, it's Thursday, this could be it..." and dropped in PIN[number]. I'm not sure whether they would have allowed the word rebus, because a little while later, I got #CAKE, and I went back and changed to the symbol in 1D, but still... I was feeling my oats!

Interesting that the symbol has so many variant names and uses. I was not aware of its use in proof-reading to mean "space," but the clues at 27D and 48A could have called for nothing else. Also, the two names given in this puzzle - OCTO THORPE and HASH TAG - are the two most recent of all the names, it seems. The former being created (probably) in the 1960s (originally might have been "octotherp") by employees at Bell Labs as a joke, and the latter coming into common use at around the same time, possibly because it resembled cross-hatching. The Wikipedia article on what they call the "number sign" is pretty interesting. My favorite alternate name is "Capital 3," which is hilarious.

Anywho... I like that four different meanings are used here. And I also like plenty in the fill. MANCALA is a game I remember playing with Colum's younger daughter (although I didn't know the name of it until just now) when she was about five. She beat me every single time. I'm not kidding. And I wasn't just trying to lose because she was a cute little five-year-old. I don't play games and try to lose. Ask anyone.

REDACT (19A: Black out, in a way) is an excellent word, and it's an odd coincidence that it crosses MADLIB, an activity created through REDACTion. And who doesn't enjoy the mindless entertainment of a JUMBLE from time to time?

REFARM, EATER, and SIZERS were a bit of a NUISANCE, but a shiny AMULET and tumbling ACROBATS are enough to distract me, at least, from the lesser elements. Like SIMONES... yeesh. But CMON, it's a debut puzzle (!!), it's a cool idea, and I learned a lot today, so it's getting a big thumbs up from me.

- Horace