S U N D A Y March 27, 2011 Matt Skoczen & Victor Fleming
[Note: This is the syndicated L.A. Times puzzle. It does not appear in the actual newspaper, but is available for free at cruciverb.com.]
Theme:"Rowdy Bunch"— Theme entries in which the first word can follow the word "WILD" to make a familiar word or phrase: wild card, wild cherry, Wild Turkey, wildflower, etc.
Theme Entries:
22A: *Old library aid (CARD CATALOG).
32A: *Soda fountain choice (CHERRY COKE).
97A: *Ragtime dance (TURKEY TROT).
110A: *'60s Haight-Ashbury type (FLOWER CHILD).
3D: *Political mantra (PARTY LINE).
20D: *Drug problem (SIDE EFFECT).
67D: *One side of a defunct wall (WEST BERLIN).
76D: *A cappella leader's gadget (PITCH PIPE).
64A: Maurice Sendak kids' book, and the starts of starred answers (WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE).
Hey, everybody. This is Doug, back from Brooklyn and the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. I had a fantastic time! If you haven't read PuzzleGirl's ACPT recap yet, what are you waiting for?
OK, today's puzzle is by Matt Skoczen & Victor Fleming. Very impressive construction. Matt and Vic have taken the basic "word that can go before..." theme to another level. First of all, the 21-letter theme revealer, WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE, is excellent. Second, each theme entry crosses another theme entry, and some of them cross two theme entries! That's not easy to pull off. (I highlighted all the theme entries so you could see how they intersect.) Kudos to today's constructing duo.
Bullets:
19A: Aromatic resin (ELEMI). This is one of those crosswordy words that shows up every now and then, usually clued as "Fragrant resin" or "Varnish ingredient." I wish I had even one interesting thing to say about elemi, but I don't.
24A: Gadget, for one: Abbr. (INSP). "Inspector Gadget" was an cartoon in the mid-'80s. I watched it couple of times. It was pretty bad, but Don Adams did the voice of Inspector Gadget, so I'll give it bonus points for that.
48A: Cockney toast starter ('ERE'S). As in "'ere's to you, 'enry 'iggins!" I've also seen OME clued as "Cockney's abode." I'm not sure how far we can carry this Cockney cluing thing. How about "'uge 'erbivore" for IPPO?
50A: Souvenirs at the park, usually (FOULS). I've never caught a foul ball at the ballpark or been close to anyone who has. Very disappointing. I must be sitting in the wrong sections.
119A: Stieg Larsson was one (SWEDE). The late Stieg Larsson is the author who wrote "The Girl With the Yankees Sweatshirt Who's About to Blow Your Head Off" and other umlaut-laden novels.
9D: 1847 novel based on its author's time in the Society Islands (OMOO). Has anyone actually read this book? I would read it, but I've learned all I need to know about "Omoo" from crossword clues. I feel the same way about the opera/play "Aida."
13D: E-mail option (REPLY ALL). I know you all saw this ad during the Super Bowl, but it's worth another look.
40D: Abecedarian (NEOPHYTE). "Abecedarian" means "one who teaches or studies the alphabet; a beginner." And the word apparently came from the the letters A, B, C, and D. They just strung them together with a couple e's and added "-arian." How cool is that? For some reason, my made-up words never catch on.
101D: Kind of shoes or blues (DRESS). Great clue. At first glance, I thought the answer was SUEDE.
Short write-up today. I'm still tired from last weekend's crossword extravaganza. Have a great week.
Doug here, filling for PuzzleGirl, who's taking a much-deserved Saturday vacation.
Nice themeless puzzle by Vic "The Gavel" Fleming today. A little easier than recent LA Times Saturday puzzles. Perhaps Rich Norris figured we'd all be recovering from our Thanksgiving food comas today.
Vic started off with a bang at 1-Across: One is in the Guinness Book for its 1728-word vocabulary is the clue for PARAKEET. That is so awesome and so weird. I was thinking it was some kind of ape or gorilla, or maybe a dolphin. How did Guinness verify this record? Did someone sit by the cage for days, recording every word the parakeet squawked? Maybe they just took the bird's word for it.
Bullets:
18A:Like "The Hurt Locker," e.g. (R-RATED). One of PuzzleGirl's crack assistants, SethG, pointed out to me that there's a sort of mini-theme running through the puzzle. You've got this entry, R-RATED, along with 30A: G-STRING (find your own picture), 34A: E STREET, and 47A: I-BAR. Cool.
19A: Iteration opening (I SAID). Part of our "first letters" mini-theme? Probably not. Sort of a tricky clue though. When you iterate, or repeat, something, you might start off with "I said..."
27A: Elbows on the table, say (FAUX PAS). I overthought this one. I figured the "elbows" were referring to MACARONI. I wasn't expecting a completely straightforward clue on Saturday.
6D: Hot time to see Nancy? (ÉTÉ). Nancy's a city in France, and été is French for summer. When I see this word in a puzzle, I pronounce it like "eat." And why does it have two accents? (Note to commenters: I really don't want to know.) I'm glad I took Spanish in high school. Spanish makes sense. One accent mark per word.
9D: Lith., once: (SSR). We've got a little Soviet/Communist mini-theme in this section of the puzzle: SSR (Soviet Socialist Republic), 11D: Source of some Russian copper (URALS), and 14D: RED STATES. (Thanks to SethG for that one too.) I thought about including a Yakov Smirnoff video here, but only for about two seconds.
25D: 1981 Wolfgang Petersen film (DAS BOOT). I've always wanted to see this movie. From Wikipedia: "To make the appearance of the actors as realistic as possible, scenes were filmed in sequence over the course of the year. This ensured natural growth of beards and hair, increasing skin pallor, and signs of strain on the actors, who had, just like real U-boat men, spent many months in a cramped, unhealthy atmosphere." And you thought actors were all a bunch of wimps.
28D: Short ___ (STORY). I like this clue because it reminds me of the "Match Game" bonus round.
32D: Track fixture (TOTE BOARD). During college, I worked summers at different racetracks, so I've seen the inside of many a toteboard. It's not as exciting as it sounds.
52D: Jazz organist Saunders (MERL). For crossword fans, there's only one Merl to remember.
THEME: No theme today—It's a themeless puzzle, just like every other Saturday.
With a 4:20 solving time for me, I'll rate this puzzle a bit tougher than the average Saturday L.A. Times crossword.
I'll walk you through the puzzle now, focusing mostly on my favorite parts:
1a. [McCarthy era phenomenon] is the RED SCARE. Wouldn't it be awesome to use that clue for an answer like BUDDY HOLLY?
17a. The clue [1985 John Irving best-seller] is missing with "The". With or without The, CIDER HOUSE RULES looks good in the grid. 1985? Holy cow. I still think of this as one of Irving's more recent novels.
20a. I like this clue. Yes, CUTENESS is a [Baby's asset]. Without said asset, the human race might've died out eons ago. If you're going to disrupt my sleep for months, you'd damn well better be cute.
30a. [Rested] clues TOOK FIVE, a solidly idiomatic phrase. I got addled by a wrong crossing. For 23d: [Show approval, or disapproval], I had RATE instead of the correct RAVE. (One raves about good things but gets raving mad about terrible ones.)
35a. This clue is misleading. [Frequent saver] is a GOALIE? As if. If I were the goalie, I assure you the saves would be infrequent.
42a. HOME STRETCH is perhaps my favorite answer today. [It's right before the end].
53a. AN ERA completes ["Corporations have been enthroned and ___ of corruption in high places will follow": Lincoln]. Good old Abe knew whereof he spoke.
54a. One [Cryptozoologist's subject] is the LOCH NESS MONSTER. Another is the yeti. Imagine my surprise when I drove past a store that had gone out of business and saw its name: Yeti Boutique.
8d. [They're not wild] isn't about untamed beasts, it's about EDUCATED GUESSES.
27d. [It's sold in bars] clues OLEO. "Barkeep! Double oleo, neat."
29d. The only reason I know that a [Paving stone] is sometimes called a SETT is because that word's been in crosswords before. It's too rare to count as crosswordese, I think. Luckily, all four crossings are more common, which should take the guesswork out of SETT. You won't see this entry before Saturday.
34d. FRESHEN UP is another great in-the-language phrase. [Shower and change, say] pretty much covers it.
56d. [Where "Shazbot!" is a curse] is ORK, as in the planet in Mork and Mindy. Ah, that takes me back to my tween years.
And now, a roundup of the less savory filling:
6d. [Sports fig.] clues ATH., short for "athlete," rather than some sort of statistic.
12d. [Everyone, in Essen] is ALLE. People seem to grumble when there are German words in the grid. (Me, I like 'em because I studied German.)
13d. [Suburban followers?] is a cute clue for a plural suffix, -ITES.
31d. Boring ONE-A is clued as [Service rank], which makes it sound like a military rank (along the lines of CPL, SGT, COL, MAJ) rather than a draft classification.
32d. Sure, a partial like OF AN is not great fill. But I do like the clue: ["Confessions __ English Opium-Eater": 1821 De Quincey work]. Are any of you opium-eaters? No? How about lotus-eaters? Anyone?
35d. GOT AT isn't so easy to put in a natural-sounding sentence in the past tense. The clue is [Touched], but I feel like "getting at" is more about implying. Dictionary tells me "get at" also means "reach" and "bribe." "I crawled under the car and GOT AT the damaged muffler"—that works, right?
41d. ["Life With Father" co-star Leon] AMES is no longer a household name. There was a guy in my college dorm who always called me "Ames." I'm still surprised no one else ever has.
45d. If you haven't encountered James ENSOR, the ["Christ's Entry Into Brussels in 1889" artist], in crosswords, you probably haven't run into him anywhere else. He had a decidedly macabre bent, with skeletons playing a prominent part in his art. Check out his work, and then he won't be an obscure entry anymore. (Advice: Belgian artist, 5 letters, your answer will invariably be ENSOR.)
51d. [Plasm lead-in] is the prefix ECTO-.
I usually don't know any current songs. My pop music fluency ended in about 1984. But now! I have a new favorite song, "Tightrope" by Janelle Monáe. It sounds great, and the video is captivating. The only relevance this video has to the crossword is that if the singer hits the big time, you might start seeing MONAE in the grid. Why, that name is 60% vowels! And her first name makes a good 7-letter entry, as the last 6 letters are super-common.
Crosswordese 101: ARETE is standard crosswordese with a lengthy pedigree. It means 9d: [Narrow ridge], meaning a sharp mountain ridge. Learn it, because it's not going anywhere.
Everything Else — 9A: Trysting relationship (AFFAIR); 15A: Flattered, in a way (IMITATED); 16A: Grand Canal span (RIALTO); 19A: Architect Saarinen (ELIEL); 21A: Goes back (RETROGRADES); 24A: "Shucks!" ("RATS!"); 25A: Displays, with "out" (TROTS); 36A: Medical malpractice issue (INFORMED CONSENT); 38A: Naval construction worker (SEABEE); 39A: Garden entrance component, perhaps (GATE POST); 40A: Beefy-T maker (HANES); 41A: A psychic may see one (AURA); 49A: Goes before (PRECEDES); 57A: Celebrate a promotion, maybe (EAT OUT); 58A: Grin measure? (EAR TO EAR); 59A: Shows exhaustion (DROOPS); 60A: Aviation pioneer (SIKORSKY); 1D: Sous chef's gadget (RICER); 2D: '60s boxing champ Griffith (EMILE); 3D: Finished the job (DID IT); 4D: Guide (STEER); 5D: Swindler Ponzi, at birth (CARLO); 7D: Popular '20s auto (REO); 10D: Early Ford supplier (FIRESTONE); 11D: Woodland spirit (FAUN); 14D: 18th-century sewer (ROSS); 18D: Brewski (SUDS); 22D: Ugly buildup (GRIME); 26D: Grating sound (RASP); 28D: Pie containers (TINS); 30D: Mrs. Addams, to Gomez (TISH); 33D: Capital of Hyogo Prefecture (KOBE); 37D: Traffic units (CARS); 43D: "Night Music" playwright (ODETS); 44D: Sought aid from (RAN TO); 46D: Beans of Paris? (TÊTES); 47D: Reason to lubricate (CREAK); 48D: Potter of fiction (HARRY); 49D: Asked in earnest (PLED); 50D: Jungle warning (ROAR); 52D: Half a track sound (CHOO); 55D: It follows April in Paris (MAI).
