Saturday, April 30, 2022, Joe Dipietro

Well, the themeless puzzles in The Turn did not disappoint this week. Both put up hard fights, and had plenty of fun and interesting answers with tough clues.

I will register my official (not official because I have no standing other than what we have given ourselves by writing this blog) (maybe official because Will Shortz expressed a hope that we weren't going to stop any time soon) complaint about the 1A and 2D. It is certainly true that a BOG is often an archaeological site, and I didn't fall for the more obvious diG. I don't like the clue "During" for OVER. Of course, now, looking at it, I can't see why I thought eVER would work. Ah well.

I also had an error at the crossing of TANKA and TUGS. I tried lUGS for "Jerks," and have never heard of this particular Japanese poetry form. But this one I chalk up to a learning moment.

The three grid-spanning answers are fun and fresh. NEVERFELTBETTER is great, while GAMESHOWNETWORK is a fine answer whose clue was actually a little too easy for this solver. The best clue of the three comes at 56A: People may never get over it (BARBEDWIREFENCE). Hah!

Do they look wise?

Some other fun clues:

30A: Poorly written words (SCRAWL) - hits home for this doctor.

59A: Musical segment (ACTII). Nice the use of "musical" as a noun rather than an adjective.

12D: One working for a dictator (STENO). True in so many senses.

33D: About to be sold (GOINGONCE) - unexpected!

Fun having THEMAFIA, GRAWLIX, BEAGLES, and HARDPASS as well.

Tomorrow we turn things back to Horace. See you in a couple of weeks!

P.S. There is a theme to the pictures in my posts this week - any guesses as to what might connect them all together?

- Colum

Friday, April 29, 2022, Erica Hsiung Wojcik

Sometimes clues in crossword puzzles are tough not because they're so dang clever, but because they are so simple. Look at 1A: Clean (WASH) - so many possibilities here. And we're not helped out by 1D: Floats (WAFTS). I had nothing going there until the very end of the puzzle.

I had much more luck on the east side of the puzzle. ETNA led to ETHos (incorrect, but fixed later on), and the also incorrect loRd for SIRE. Nonetheless, I exited the corner with some momentum on the strength of the amazing and unusual THEREMINS. If you've never realized you've heard one before, you will when you listen to Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys. That's a theremin making the weird swooping sounds in the chorus.

I then skipped down to the SE corner, where the unfortunate ONION and the GASOL brothers made short work of this section. I liked 45A: Apple counter (GENIUSBAR) - counter as in a piece of furniture, rather than an accountant. From here, the very nice non-QMC 24D: It's on the road again (USEDVEHICLE) opened up SLANDEROUS, and finally we were off to the races.

MOSH pit

WHOAMIKIDDING was my first long answer in the middle. 34A: They promise no hurt feelings (PAINRELIEVERS) is laugh out loud funny. And 30A: It's just you and me, baby (SOLOPARENTING) is also very nicely done. Three for three in the middle!

To work in TABULARASA and TRAGICOMEDY is lovely. I also enjoyed seeing FLIRTATION above TEENAGERS. Seems apt. Apt!

I'd say this is a well above average Friday themeless.

- Colum

Thursday, April 28, 2022, Pao Roy

A simply lovely Thursday for the start of The Turn! I figured out what was going on about 1/3 of the way through solving.

How many of us had IMAGE at 1A: Thumbnail, and then took it out when filling in 1D: Part of a sun salutation, in yoga ([DOWNARROW]WARDFACINGDOG)? I tried upWARDFACINGDOG first, which, if you've ever owned a dog, is the slightly less cute dog position. I worked through the full side of the west and started up the middle, when I hit 19A: Hosp. hookups (IVS). That IVT in the middle gave me pause, and then I saw it.

It's just the sort of theme that can only work with your theme answers in the long down positions. For those who are unaware (or who maybe just never thought much about it), any puzzle can be flipped across the axis of symmetry from NW to SE and still work. So there is only convention keeping our theme answers as the long acrosses. 

Here, IV becomes a down arrow, replacing the word "down" in four common phrases. Thus GOT[DOWNARROW]TOBUSINESS, TRICKLE[DOWNARROW]THEORY, and KEEPSONTHE[DOWNARROW]LOW. Also very nice is how the arrow steadily moves down the grid as you go from left to right.

BAMBI and friends

Some fun clues today:

34A: Hamilton producers? (ATMS). Cute.

41D: Muppet whose self-identified species is "Whatever" (GONZO) - agreed. Don't let them pigeonhole you, Gonzo, and your pet hens.

38D: Sight seers (EYES). Indeed they are.

Fun puzzle.

- Colum

Wednesday, April 27, 2022, Alex Bajcz

When I was a young lad, first year in college, I spent way too many hours in the rec room of the Freshman Union. Most of that time was spent playing pool, which I got reasonably good at over time. The rest was spent playing the Terminator pinball machine. Ah, the skills you learn in school...

All of which is to say that once again I had no clue what was going on in the puzzle today. And there's no revealer in the grid! I saw the circles, but couldn't make heads or tails of them. Fortunately, I checked the information button, which revealed that I had to read the circles in a clockwise manner, starting at the bottom, to find that they in face spell out P-I-N-B-A-L-L.

Thus, the "combo" of COMBOMEALS, "replay" of INSTANTREPLAY, "tilt" of TILTATWINDMILLS (very nice answer!), "flipper" of BURGERFLIPPER, and "bumper" of BUMPERCROP are all references to pinball machines. It's interesting that they bounce back and forth from the first word to the last word and back as you move down the grid, sort of like in an actual pinball machine. I would have liked it better if the flipper had been at the bottom, though.

Are we all lit?

We don't often see AKRONOHIO as a whole answer, and probably never see ALOEPLANT written out like that, but both are perfectly cromulent. 

But the puzzle shines with the cluing:

1A: One inclined to go in and out (RAMP) - that's lovely.

5D: Pretty trim (LACING). Not what I was expecting! By the way, these last two are great examples of non-QMCs at their best.

10D: Name often called in a smart home (ALEXA) - hah!

29A: What's often kept undercover? (SHEET) And a great example of a QMC.

- Colum

Tuesday, April 26, 2022, Simon Marotte

I love finishing a puzzle and having to look back over the theme to understand what's going on. When it hits, that aha! moment is delightful.

Today, I had to read the clue for the revealer twice to get what was going on. The revealer itself, ROCKBOTTOM, was confusing. Was I supposed to add "rock" to one of the words of each of the starred answers? That didn't seem to help. And then I saw the word "musical" in the clue, and got it. Each starred answer's second word is the name of a well-known rock band.

My own personal ranking of the bands involved in the quiz? I thought you'd never ask. Clearly Queen is number one (DRAGQUEEN), with the other three in a jumbled mix afterwards. Probably I'd put Rush second (SUGARRUSH), and then I guess Kiss (AIRKISS) followed by Heart (CANDYHEART) with a lot of question marks. Thoughts?

It's a nice smooth grid overall. My only real complaint is 46D: Fire felonies (ARSONS). I don't really think that's a noun that can be pluralized. Multiple fire felonies is still just arson in my mind.

Other than that, I enjoyed SLURPS (but not in real life), APLOMB, a word which we all should use more regularly, and DREAMON.

MOTETS and HYMNS gives a little mini-music theme, while it's clever to put LIBRA and ARIES right next to each other.

- Colum

Monday, April 25, 2022, Li Ding

Happy Monday to everyone! I had the enjoyable experience of jury duty this morning. I was not selected, so I'm off the hook for another 6 years. I brought along my iPad and passed a couple of minutes solving today's puzzle, only to find out that my volume was on high, announcing to everyone when I'd solved it. Hee hee.

So... today's puzzle was cute: three well known individuals one real, and two created for the purposes of advertising, associated with food, and who have military titles. Because of this, they could be in a FOODFIGHT! It turns out that GENERALTSO did not create the recipe associated with his name (which would more accurately be transliterated as Zuo Zongtang). He lived from 1812-1885. Thanks Wikipedia.

I am more of a fan of CAPNCRUNCH than COLONEL / SANDERS. Although some of the recent advertisements have been amusing.

SINCITY

The corners of the grid are bigger than expected for a Monday, but the answers are all fair. I particularly liked LAGGARD, OCEANIA, ALADDIN, ALPACAS, and NAIVETE. Those are some fine 7-letter answers.

JSBACH will always be in my list of top composers of all time. 

Nothing much more to say here. A fine and smooth Monday puzzle that I finished in 2:37, tied for my fastest time. But more importantly, Phoebe my daughter finished today in 3:34! A worthy challenger arises.

- Colum

Sunday, April 24, 2022, Sam Ezersky

MAGAZINE RACKET

Good morning to all! I've been somewhat absent from crosswording this past week, as things were very busy round here. Work was crazy, multiple rehearsals for concerts this weekend... you get the picture.

So I felt a little slow as I pored over this Sunday grid. Or was it Mr. Ezersky and his clever cluing? Either way, this puzzle took much much longer than a typical Sunday for me. Was it that way for you also?

There are eight theme answers, with one broken into two parts. The theme is simply adding -ET to the end of standard phrases, and cluing the resulting new phrases wackily. I love 48A: Today's plans: watchin' someone's kids? (SITTINONTHEDOCKET). It's perfect how the verb in the original phrase becomes a gerund noun in the actual answer. The exasperated WHATMAKES / YOUTICKET is laugh out loud funny.

APPLEJACKET and DARNSOCKETS are more neutral for me, while WATSONANDCRICKET is just silly. Pretty fun theme, which took me way to long to cotton on to.

LEGO Batman

Just a little insight into the difficult cluing today:

1A: Make a bust, say (SCULPT) - oof. What a great start!

72A: Happy companion (DOC) - nice hidden capital there! Took me a long time.

89A: Pie slices might be displayed in one (CHART) - didn't actually fool me, but I was stuck on grAph.

17D: Line on a neck (FRET) - just didn't see what they were getting at.

Some nice words also with XYLEM, BERNIEBRO, MERCH, and RICOTTA.

A fun tough puzzle, nice to see on a Sunday. 

- Colum