Wednesday, September 30, 2020, Erik Agard and Andy Kravis

0:05:59

One could imagine that today's puzzle was hand-picked to follow yesterday's debate. Not being one of the so-called undecided voters, I did not watch it. I did, however, see headlines today that spoke of much FOULLANGUAGE being traded by the two candidates, only one of which, it now appears, is STINKINGRICH. The other, as has been repeatedly and embarrassingly shown, should be categorized among RANKAMATEURS. Will this country reach a RIPEOLDAGE? Or will our ERRING ways HAUNT us as we go from chanting USAUSA to being simply something that once WAS?

On a happier note, any mention of SIRDUKE (Stevie Wonder's tribute to Ellington) always makes me smile. He sounds so happy and into the music - especially at the end when he shouts "Go!" to start those runs for the last time. At the end of the first one he gives out a yell, and after the next shouts, I think, "Down with the love!" before giving out a laugh before the last one. As I said, it always makes me smile, and the more I can get of that feeling these days, the better.

And continuing on with things I like, I have always loved the CHEETAH (Something spotted on a safari). And closer to home, is there any more symbolic American creature than the BUFFALO (Sacred creature to many Native Plains people)? (OK, sure, the eagle maybe.)

I do not enjoy GRAPPA, but as it makes me think of Italy, and particularly our friends who live in Bassano del Grappa, I'll allow it. TRAPEZE (High bar?) is fun, SPARSE is interesting, and I loved the "game within a game" clue for STATES (What "radio wave," "foregone" and "main event" all hide). 

Overall, despite it drawing my attention to distasteful political matters, I am a fan of this mid-week puzzle.

- Horace

p.s. If you are a fan of "Spelling Bee," or if you have played it and are not a fan, you are invited to make your opinion known through this link. I submitted my own thoughts yesterday.

Tuesday, September 29, 2020, Ricky Cruz

 0:04:41

Who doesn't enjoy punctuation? Nobody. And even one were AVERSE to it, that oddball might be happy today to see four such characters broken into two and strewn over two entries. 

The tilde, hyphen, ampersand, and asterisk all appear in circled letters separated by a single black square. Very nice, really. Tidy. And I like that the revealer is a nice long grid-spanner right in the middle. During my solve, I got the revealer thanks to the first part of its clue and existing crosses, and I didn't think any more about the theme until I was done. Looking at it now, I quite like it.

And like yesterday, the fill is interesting and very clean. A couple of Spanish entries in AZUL and AMOR (Subject of una balada), a couple of classical references in HERC (Nickname for a mythical hero) ("Hey Herc!") and SPARTA (Peloponnesian War victor) (nice trivia!), and the whole thing is bracketed by photography (SEPIA) and poetry (YEATS) - seems perfect for me. :)

I enjoyed the spirit of the clues - like "Devices relied upon to a high degree?" (OVENS), "They do dos" (SALONS), and "It might be stolen in full view" (BASE). And "Shortcut for ships" (CANAL) had me stumped for a while. I kept wondering "why would they need shortcuts? They can just turn wherever they want?" Hah!

The longer non-theme material is in the Across answers today, which is a bit unusual. I like COLONIAL and EMULATED, and "Some Catholic gift shop purchases" for ROSARIES just struck me as funny. Gift shops for religions. Why not, I suppose. Where else are people going to get little Buddha statues and Whirling Dervish hats? I guess it's just that "gift shop," to me, usually brings to mind things of a more secular nature.

Lastly, it's two days in a row now for TACIT. Will we see tacet tomorrow? 

- Horace

Monday, September 28, 2020, Lynn Lempel

0:04:33

Hi, Horace here! Today's theme of misreading words by breaking them up into smaller words is not new, but it's still kind of fun. As usual, some are better than others. CASTANET (Do some trawling at sea?), for example, works pretty much perfectly, as do METAPHYSICIAN (Was introduced to the doctor?) and, to a slightly lesser extent, PROPAGATE (Support the pasture entrance?), but CARDAMOM (Check someone's parent to make sure she's of drinking age?) and PANASONIC (Criticize Sega's hedgehog design?) are both a bit of a stretch. Still, I always enjoy this kind of absurdist exercise. 

Aside from theme entries, there was plenty to like, especially in the longer Downs. ROADRAGE (Driver's furious fit), ATTIRE, ARABIC, ABUNDANT - lots of A words... - and the other TACIT (Not stated directly). It seems we've seen the "tacet" spelling more often lately, but maybe that's just me. They both come from tacēre, and are very similar. It's one of those crossword words that I've started to enter with one letter missing, like ALI_, and L_S. Luckily, today it was pretty obvious which one we needed.

I haven't thought about a CRAWDAD (Small, lobsterlike crustacean) in a long while, so that was nice. And in an opposite vein, EDDIES (swirling currents) were the subject of the short meditation recording I listened to this morning, so that was something I had thought about very recently. Fascinating, I know. (It's only six more days 'til Frannie's back. You can make it!)

How 'bout that fun clue for CAIRO? (Capital near the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World that's still largely intact). I know a fun way to end today's review, let's review them all!

Great Pyramid of Giza - 2584 BCE - still there

Hanging Gardens of Babylon - 600 BCE - gone sometime around 1 CE

Temple of Artemis at Ephesius - 550 BCE - destroyed by arson and plundering gone by 262 CE

Statue of Zeus at Olympia - 435 BCE - destroyed by fire 6th c. CE

Mausoleum at Halicarnasus - 351 BCE - destroyed by multiple earthquakes between 12th - 15th c. CE

Colossus of Rhodes - 280 BCE - destroyed by earthquake 226 BCE

Lighthouse of Alexandria - 280 BCE - destroyed by earthquake 1303 CE

- Horace

Sunday, September 27, 2020, Alex Eaton-Salners

PLAYING WITH FOOD

Frannie here - just to add to the recent reviewer confusion. In an odd turn of events, I am writing the review without having solved the puzzle myself. Whaaa? Well, our carefully planned weekend went off the rails when Horace and his friend got into something of a FUDDLE (State of drunken confusion). So, instead of leaving Maine on Saturday afternoon with plenty of time to close up the house, drive home, unpack, settle in at home, prepare for this morning’s Family Zoom (Jeopardy ™ edition), do the puzzle, and write the review before getting ourselves downtown early this afternoon for a physically distanced, but emotionally charged celebration of our friend’s landmark birthday, I am writing the review in the car as Horace drives us as fast as he legally can south on the Maine Turnpike, but while still able to admire the beautiful fall foliage en route. 

As I looked over the solution to today’s puzzle to prepare to comment, my general impression was  that the clues were engaging and apt. I enjoyed, for example, “Up to one’s ears” (AWASH) and “Gaggle” (BEVY). Here are the ones that I found particularly appetizing:

Part of a return address? (IRS)

Hip-centric dance (HULA)

It keeps a top up (SPIN)

First lady (EVE)

Lose stiffness (GOLIMP) paired with Viagra competitor (CIALIS)

Bit of swearing in church? (IDO)

Completely defeat, as a noob (PWN)

Quarters costing dollars? (HOTELS)

Hook, for one (PIRATE) – nice hidden capital.

Has away with words? (DELETES) – Ha!

Theme-wise, the puzzle lived up to its title. In four answers, food items were “played with,” or depicted cryptically within circled letters. In one case, the entire word [OLIVE] was stuffed, rebus-like, into one square. In another, the well-known and much touted BANKOFGUYANA contains the word ‘banana’ split, with the first three letters of banana at the start of the word and the last three letters at the end. The cryptic food clues all appeared in the top half of the puzzle while their explications appeared as answers in the bottom half (BANANASPLIT ; STUFFEDOLIVE), in, I might add, the same order, top to bottom, as the original cryptic version. We also got CHOPPEDSALAD and MASHEDPOTATO. I, for one, found the theme to my taste. :)

There were three answers I would have had a hard time coughing up without all the crosses including AGOUTI (Central American rodent that resembles a guinea pig), ILOILO (Philippine port with a reduplicative name), and ANNALEE (Silver-screen actress known as ‘The British Bombshell’).

While playing with food is frowned upon in real life, I thought this puzzle version hit the spot.

~Frannie (and Horace).

Saturday, September 26, 2020, Kristian House

11:17

It's been a fun and short week of reviewing. Specifically, the Turn has been very enjoyable, and today's Saturday themeless lives up to its billing.

Let me tell you a little story about the NW corner, which was the toughest for me for a very specific reason. If I had been a little more flexible, it would have fallen much more quickly. On my first run through, I had no entries at all. I suspected TEM for 4D but didn't put it in. Instead I broke in with KIRI, an easy gimme, and worked through that NE corner quickly.

Eventually, I worked my way back across the middle of the puzzle and approached the NW corner from the bottom up, having gotten EFRON, NFC, and DIN. My first solid answer was 2D: Change of heart on Facebook (UNLIKE).

And then I saw 17A: Luxuriating in the outdoors... and entered aLfresco. Seemed like a pretty good approximation, a great Saturday style answer, and it fit so perfectly.

Too perfectly. Nothing else worked, and so I abandoned the corner to finish the rest of the puzzle. And when I came back, I decided to do that thing you should always do in a puzzle when it's not working: take out the answer you feel most certain about. And then I got CHALET, figured out 1A: Classic makeshift solution (DUCTTAPE - very nice), and realized finally what Mr. House's devilishly clever clue was getting at: GLAMPING. Luxuriating indeed. HAH!

There is much to like in this puzzle. 41A: Unbiased opinion, e.g. (OXYMORON) is lovely cluing. 62A: Click the "X" when vexed, maybe (RAGEQUIT) is fun, as is NERDCRED.

55A: Collection of seeds? (BRACKET) is a fine example of a QMC. 

Did you notice that the puzzle is a pangram, that is to say, that every letter of the alphabet is represented in the grid? I used to think creating a pangram was a holy grail for a constructor, but since writing this blog and reading other blogs, I've come to realize that it's usually not worth the effort. But it worked out well today.

I'm guessing that Horace is taking over again tomorrow, but we'll see. Life is unpredictable.

- Colum

Friday, September 25, 2020, Rachel Fabi

6:05

Today's a debut, and what a beautiful job Ms. Fabi has done in this themeless. It is just chock full of fun answers, clever clues, and a lovely flow (no section too cut off to make solving it like working on a separate mini-crossword puzzle). Don't you feel like the bar is getting higher and higher for good construction? Makes me happy that the bar for blogging is set so low.

So, so low.

Let's start with my favorite answer, which comes all the way down at 57A: Concept in artificial intelligence (TURINGTEST). For those of you who have never heard of this, it's a mind experiment put forth by Alan Turing (the main character in the movie The Imitation Game, played by Benedict Cumberbatch), wherein he suggests a person in an isolated room with two terminals, each solely connected to either a human inputting responses, or a computer, which is programmed to carry on a conversation. If the first person is unable to figure out which of his conversationalists is the computer, then it can be said to have attained artificial intelligence. I've always been fascinated by this idea. I refer you to Douglas Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach for further enjoyable reading.

But enough about my personal interests, how about the scads of fun long answers today? THEMANDALORIAN makes its debut, and I love INTOTHENIGHT (22D: How a mysterious figure may disappear). The pair of derrières at 42A and 11D (END and POSTERIORS) were delightful.

My favorite clue today by far is 38A: Force feed (RATIONS). Holy cow, I did not see that coming until I entered the final letter. I am very glad it is not RAmdOwn, which was my first guess.

REDBEAN paste, ACTAEON (always like a reference to Greek mythology), 10A: Seoul music (KPOP)... so much goodness.

I don't think the clue at 17A: High anxiety? (ACROPHOBIA) needed the question mark. After all, there was an entire Mel Brooks movie about that very subject, called High Anxiety. There was no pause at all as I entered that answer.

I could note a few answers that are less aesthetically pleasing, but I will obey the first rule of blogging: DONTGETCUTE!

- Colum

Thursday, September 24, 2020, Trenton Charlson

6:36

TRUSTME when I say that I am generally delighted to see Mr. Charlson's name at the top of a puzzle. I enjoy his sensibility and the way he carries out themes.

Today, I didn't understand the theme at all even after I completed the puzzle and had time to look back. Until it hit me. That's what I call an "aha" moment. The revealer comes at 63A: Explained in great detail ... or what four of this puzzle's clues are? (SPELLEDOUT). So, I had recognized early that 18-, 22-, 38-, and 57-Across all used words that were homonyms for individual letters. Thus, 18A: Kay, e.g., was clearly referring to the letter K.

But that "e.g." threw me off. What was K supposed to be an example of? And how could that relate to the answer, BEERBARREL?

You see, what you're supposed to do is spell the entire clue out, thus K-E-G, "keg!" Brilliance. The others are L-E-G (DRUMSTICK), P-E-G (CRIBBAGEMARKER - a personal favorite amongst the authors of this blog), and B-E-G (PANHANDLE). So good.

The only downer in the puzzle was Roger B. TANEY, racist and author of the Dred Scott decision. But I was able to look past this BADVIBE for other more ROBUST fare.

If you haven't read the Patrick OBRIAN Aubrey-Maturin books, you are missing out on an outstanding literary achievement. The first book is a little daunting because it explains in some great detail the makeup of a British naval ship during the Napoleonic war era. But the relationship between the two main characters is beautifully drawn.

Other enjoyable entries include GAUSS, SORCEROR, and MISSAL. I enjoyed the clue for 4D: Land of Opportunity? (MARS) - referring to the NASA exploration rover. 

Nice start to the turn.

- Colum