08.29 Mon

M O N D A Y

August 29, 2011

Jennifer Nutt

Theme: So sue me! — Each theme answer is a familiar phrase in which the last word can mean something filed in a court of law.



Theme answers:

• 16A: *Not animated, in filmmaking (LIVE ACTION).
• 23A: *Like replays that reveal bad calls (SLOW-MOTION).
• 49A: *One who can't function under stress (BASKET CASE).
• 10D: *Ineffective executive (EMPTY SUIT).
• 33D: *Hunk or babe's attribute (SEX APPEAL).
• 59A: Where the ends of the starred answers are filed (COURT OF LAW).

Hey, everyone. Hope y'all had a good weekend. I made it through the hurricane completely unscathed, so I'm feeling very grateful today. It was definitely raining and blowing hard out there, but I didn't see any trees down in my neighborhood and I didn't ever lose power, so I'm one of the lucky ones.



Smooth solve this morning. Considering that I've worked in law firms most of my adult life, it took me far too long to figure out this theme. In my defense (see what I did there?), I only worked in litigation for a very short time, so the Perry Mason stuff isn't exactly right there in the front of my brain most days. I hope BASKET CASE was the seed entry for this puzzle, because it's awesome. EMPTY SUIT is also really nice and SEX APPEAL adds a little, um, sex appeal to the grid.



Other favorites for me include:

• 21A: Disco dance (HUSTLE). Can you see a reference to this dance without hearing a bunch of guys yelling "Do the hustle!" at you in your head? I can't.
• 66A: Online business review site (YELP). I've just recently discovered YELP and it's been super helpful. So far, we've used YELP to find a moving company and a mechanic and we haven't been disappointed.
• 14D: Rascal (SCAMP). I don't know what it is about these types of words (also scoudrel and … I can't think of the others right now) but I love them. They sound old-timey and highfalutin' and, well, perfect.
• 30D: Central Washington city (YAKIMA). I'm sure YAKIMA is a beautiful city but I don't think I could live somewhere whose names brings to mind a cat coughing up a hairball. But maybe that's just me.

Crosswordese 101 Round-up:

• 13A: Lake into which Ohio's Cuyahoga River empties (ERIE).
• 39A: Doves' homes (COTES).
• 65A: Movie lioness (ELSA).
• 6D: Quarterback Manning (ELI).

Everything — 1A: Cookie holders (JARS); 5A: Baseball feature (SEAM); 9A: What gears do (MESH); 13A: Lake into which Ohio's Cuyahoga River empties (ERIE); 14A: Alabama march site (SELMA); 15A: Austen novel (EMMA); 16A: *Not animated, in filmmaking (LIVE ACTION); 18A: Rotating cooking rod (SPIT); 19A: Grassland (LEA); 20A: Plunked oneself down (SAT); 21A: Disco dance (HUSTLE); 23A: *Like replays that reveal bad calls (SLOW-MOTION); 27A: "Affirmative!" ("YES!"); 28A: Traveler's guide (MAP); 29A: Dental fillings (INLAYS); 31A: "A Doll's House" playwright (IBSEN); 34A: __ noire: literally, "black beast" (BÊTE); 35A: Enveloping glow (AURA); 38A: "I __ Pretty": "West Side Story" song (FEEL); 39A: Doves' homes (COTES); 40A: Do-it-yourselfers' buys (KITS); 41A: __-Coburg, Bavaria (SAXE); 42A: Like speaking (ORAL); 43A: Wee parasites (MITES); 44A: Word with power or reactor (ATOMIC); 46A: "Casablanca" pianist (SAM); 47A: iPhone download (APP); 49A: *One who can't function under stress (BASKET CASE); 53A: Mealtime lap item (NAPKIN); 55A: "That feels great!" (AAH); 56A: Org. issuing many refunds (IRS); 58A: Garden of Eden's __ of life (TREE); 59A: Where the ends of the starred answers are filed (COURT OF LAW); 63A: Emblem of authenticity (SEAL); 64A: Proverbial waste maker (HASTE); 65A: Movie lioness (ELSA); 66A: Online business review site (YELP); 67A: Cut with acid (ETCH); 68A: Medvedev's "no" (NYET); 1D: Come together (JELL); 2D: Astrological Ram (ARIES); 3D: Opponent (RIVAL); 4D: "Get it?" ("SEE?"); 5D: Spat (SET-TO); 6D: Quarterback Manning (ELI); 7D: __, amas, amat ... (AMO); 8D: Ways to get under the street (MANHOLES); 9D: Army meal (MESS); 10D: *Ineffective executive (EMPTY SUIT); 11D: Look happy (SMILE); 12D: Can't stand (HATES); 14D: Rascal (SCAMP); 17D: Nile dam (ASWAN); 22D: Italian "a" (UNA); 24D: Brunch staple (OMELET); 25D: Neckwear pin (TIE TACK); 26D: Santa Clara chip maker (INTEL); 30D: Central Washington city (YAKIMA); 31D: Uncertainties (IFS); 32D: Actress Arthur (BEA); 33D: *Hunk or babe's attribute (SEX APPEAL); 34D: '90s Russian president Yeltsin (BORIS); 36D: Numbered hwy. (RTE.); 37D: Barnyard brayer (ASS); 39D: Old buffalo-hunting tribe (COMANCHE); 43D: Like a he-man (MACHO); 45D: Kimono accessory (OBI); 46D: One of 50 (STATE); 47D: Unable to sit still (ANTSY); 48D: City of Light, in a Porter song (PAREE); 50D: Mars neighbor (EARTH); 51D: Goofy (SILLY); 52D: Wipe off the board (ERASE); 54D: Brown seaweed (KELP); 57D: Whack (SWAT); 60D: Cheerios grain (OAT); 61D: Trojans' sch. (USC); 62D: Quagmire (FEN).

06.15 Wed

W E D N E S D A Y
June 15, 2011
Jennifer Nutt

Theme:  Between a Rock and a Hard Place — A plethora of predicaments.

Theme Entries:

• 17A: *Aid for loose-leaf filing (HOLE PUNCHER).
• 10D: *Pay for a verdict (FIX THE JURY).
• 14D: *Random sample (SPOT CHECK).
• 29D: *Improvisational gig (JAM SESSION).
• 32D: *Deli container (PICKLE JAR).
• 61A: Trouble at the starts of the answers to starred clues (PREDICAMENT).

Hey, puzzle fans. Doug here on a Wednesday. Did you hear the big news yesterday? PuzzleGirl made her New York Times crossword puzzle debut! She's reached the top, the Holy Grail of crossworddom. Her next goal: replace Will Shortz as editor. I wouldn't put it past her. Anyway, she spent most of Tuesday reading congratulatory emails, tweets, and Facebook messages & was generally super-excited all day long. That'll wear you out. So she's asleep right now, and I'm the elf who gets to do the blog while she's zonked out.

I don't know anything about today's constructor, Jennifer Nutt. Hmmm, I see she once collaborated on a puzzle with Andrea Carla Michaels. That settles it. She's awesome. I enjoyed today's theme, and I really like the fact that some of the theme entries intersect. Those of you who've tried constructing puzzles know that it's hard enough to find a set of theme entries that are consistent and have matching lengths. Now imagine that they also have to intersect each other symmetrically. Yikes! So yeah, this grid is impressive. On the downside, I think 17-Across is more commonly known as a HOLE PUNCH (no -ER) and 10-Down, FIX THE JURY, isn't as "in the language" as the other phrases.

Bullets:

• 10A: "The dog ate my homework," e.g. (FIB). I once tried telling PuzzleGirl "The dog deleted the blog," but she didn't believe me.
• 38A: Former Fiesta Bowl site (TEMPE). It's officially the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl and has been held in Glendale, Arizona, since 2007.

• 46A: American realist who painted "The Gross Clinic" (1875) (EAKINS). Thomas Eakins. Huh? That's a tough entry for a Wednesday, or any day of the week. I read the Wikipedia article on  "The Gross Clinic" and it's pretty darn interesting. The painting depicts what a surgical theater looked like in the nineteenth century. The title is accurate: it's gross. One critic said that the painting is "one of the most powerful, horrible, yet fascinating pictures that has been painted anywhere in this century...but the more one praises it, the more one must condemn its admission to a gallery where men and women of weak nerves must be compelled to look at it, for not to look at it is impossible." I don't want to traumatize our weak-nerved readers, so please enjoy this basketful of kittens..
• 61A: Trouble at the starts of the answers to starred clues (PREDICAMENT). Was the theme clear to everyone? Each of the starting words is a predicament. You can be "in a hole," "in a fix," "in a spot," etc. And none of them are where you wanna be.

• 66A: He's got the life (RILEY). When I was a kid, one of our neighbors often said to me "You're living the life of Riley!" I never had a clue what the heck he was talking about. Sometimes he told me that when I was mowing the lawn, so I don't think he knew what he was talking about either.
• 27D: "Beetle Bailey" dog (OTTO) / 36D: "Garfield" dog (ODIE). Two very common crossword dogs. You might also run into SNERT from "Hagar the Horrible" or DAWG from "Hi and Lois." I've yet to see the dog from "The Family Circus" in a puzzle. Good old BARFY.
• 59D: Charon's river (STYX). "The Best of Times," by request.

PuzzleGirl will be back tomorrow, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and ready to blog. See you on Sunday.

04.25 Mon

M O N D A Y

April 25, 2011
Jennifer Nutt

Theme: Getting Your Ears Lowered - Things that that get covered in Hairstyling 101.

Theme answers:

• 16A: Near miss (CLOSE SHAVE).
• 22A: Boxer's fit condition (FIGHTING TRIM).
• 37A: Neckwear accessory (TIE CLIP).
• 49A: Specially edited version of a film (DIRECTOR'S CUT).
• 61A: Establishment where the ends of 16-, 22-, 37-and 49-Across take place (BARBER SHOP).

Good morning, puzzlers - Neville here, standing in with scissors in hand while PuzzleGirl finishes up her move. (Poor thing - she's without Internet at the moment!)

So we've got your BARBER SHOP basics in this puzzle - SHAVE, TRIM, CLIP and CUT. None of these is directly related to hair as clued, and that's nice to see. As someone always in search of the perfect CLOSE SHAVE, though, this one could be construed in a hair care fashion. I still like it a lot though, because it's a great entry, and a great theme overall.

I suppose the partner puzzle for this moves down the body a bit: PLUCKED STRINGS, WAX POETIC... erm, STEVE MCNAIR? This needs work - I'll leave the hair removal puzzles to Jennifer, I think.

Bullets:

• 9A: "___, poor Yorick!": Hamlet (ALAS)... I knew him, Horatio:
  
  
  
  Yeeeeeeeah!
  
• 15A. Tibetan spiritual master (LAMA). At the ACPT I was reminded of that gem by Ogden NASH (60A):
  
  The one-L lama,
  He's a priest.
  The two-L llama,
  He's a beast.
  And I would bet
  A silk pajama
  There isn't any
  Three-L lllama.
• 25A: Texas city across the border from Ciudad Juárez (EL PASO). I hope you remembered Juárez from last Thursday's puzzle! Okay, enough blatant self-promotion.

• 43A. It's younger than a yearling (FOAL) - not a MONTHLING.
• 46 & 48A. Police action (RAID & ARREST). Hey, Jennifer - give it ARREST!
• 54A. Regal pronouncement (EDICT). We've got a royal wedding coming up! I wish I had this Friday off.
• 7D: Succeed in every way (HAVE IT ALL). Are the kids these days still listening to Jesse McCartney? I don't think this song is terrible:
  
• 27D: Cut the peel from (PARE). With the P in position, I questioned if the answer could be PEEL, but that's not allowed.
• 59D: Acme (APEX). see 27D above, but replace P with A.

Crosswordese 101 Round-up:

• I don't think there's any real crosswordese in this puzzle? Think I missed something? Kvetch below!
• Okay, on second thought, PG has deemed 21A. Glacial ridge (ARETE) as crosswordese in the past. Let's all remember it (and its classical meaning of excellence) from now on so we don't have to revisit this one. 

[I'm still not on it, but if you are, you should totally follow PuzzleGirl on Twitter.]

Everything else - To be updated!

T U E S D A Y November 16, 2010Jennifer Nutt

Theme: Chocoholic — Each theme answer ends with a word that can follow the word "chocoloate" in a familiar phrase.

Theme answers:

• 18A: *Chicken soup dumpling (MATZO BALL).
• 35A: *Paleontologist's lucky find (DINOSAUR EGG).
• 43A: *Cappuccino seller (ESPRESSO BAR).
• 3D: *Basic computer component (SILICON CHIP).
• 27D: *Parting smooch (GOODBYE KISS).
• 61A: Confection that can start the ends of the answers to starred clues (CHOCOLATE).

Yummy theme today. Is it too early for chocolate? I'm kind of impressed with this grid. It's hard to pack five theme answers plus a reveal into a 15x15 grid. And Jennifer was able to do it without overloading the fill with clunkers. In fact, without any clunkers at all that I could see. My sparkly entry of the day is definitely LAZY DOG (9D: Quick brown fox's obstacle?). That clue is a thing of beauty. (For anyone who doesn't know, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" is a sentence useful in learning to type because it includes all 26 letters of the alphabet. These days you can use it to test out a font.)

The only real problem I had was a result of slapping in the AE plural ending on AURORAS (25D: Sky lights). I knew at the time that it could have gone either way, but I decided to take my chances. I know! Livin' on the edge! That mistake made SAID hard to see (52A: Came out with). Other than that, I didn't know that a barque has at least three MASTS. Possibly caused by the fact that I didn't know that a barque is a boat. I read 12D: Texter's guffaw as "Texan's guffaw" and wondered how to laugh with a drawl. (LOL)

I enjoyed this solid Tuesday puzzle. Let us know what you thought of it.

Crosswordese 101: Here are the EVAs you should know for crosswords:

• A character in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin.
  
• The youngest Gabor sister, who starred in "Green Acres."
  
• The actress EVA Longoria who plays Gabrielle on "Desperate Housewives."
  
• The actress EVA Mendes who appeared in the movies "2 Fast 2 Furious" and "Hitch."
  
• The actress EVA Marie Saint (and you don't have to know anything she's been in because she's only ever clued as a fill-in-the-blank).
  
• And, finally 11D: "The Loco-Motion" singer Little EVA.

Other crosswordese in the puzzle that we've already covered:

• 15A: Athletic shoe brand (AVIA).
• 22A: Neophyte (TYRO).
• 47A: Baseball's Diamondbacks, on scoreboards (ARI).
• 7D: Breakfast for Brutus? (OVA).

[Follow PuzzleGirl on Twitter.]

Everything Else — 1A: Cold shower reactions (GASPS); 6A: Chicken or turkey (FOWL); 10A: Hair tamers (GELS); 14A: Sacro- ending (ILIAC); 16A: Stratford's river (AVON); 17A: Seward's Alaska purchase, to some (FOLLY); 20A: National flower of Scotland (THISTLE); 23A: Anatomical bag (SAC); 24A: Zeus' wife (HERA); 26A: Fight-or-flight response generator (DANGER); 30A: Ajar, say (OPEN); 32A: Atop (UPON); 34A: Typical studio apartment room count (ONE); 38A: Punch-in-the-gut grunt (OOF); 39A: "Batt. not __" (INCL.); 40A: Bon __: witticism (MOT); 41A: Sit in traffic (IDLE); 42A: Utmost degree (NTH); 48A: Apollo program org. (NASA); 49A: Wee (TINY); 50A: Bunny or kangaroo (HOPPER); 54A: Recede (EBB); 57A: Ahmadinejad's land (IRAN); 59A: Body surfer's ride (BREAKER); 65A: Come up (ARISE); 66A: Crest (PEAK); 67A: Coup d'__ (ETAT); 68A: Correct, as a stitch (RESEW); 69A: Torah holders (ARKS); 70A: Geologic stretches (EONS); 71A: A barque has at least three (MASTS); 1D: Birthday buys (GIFTS); 2D: Hawaii hi (ALOHA); 4D: Buddies (PALS); 5D: Grain-cutting tools (SCYTHES); 6D: Hall of __: athletic standout (FAMER); 8D: Two-time 1980s skating gold medalist Katarina (WITT); 10D: Cameroon neighbor (GABON); 13D: Tina Fey was its first female head writer, briefly (SNL); 19D: Asian ape (ORANG); 21D: Singer Horne (LENA); 28D: __ Gay (ENOLA); 29D: Send for consultation (REFER); 31D: D.C. go-getter (POL); 33D: Tennis's Sampras (PETE); 35D: Shore of Hollywood (DINAH); 36D: Words before the talk show guest enters (INTRO); 37D: Masked men at home? (UMPS); 41D: Charged particle (ION); 43D: Diciembre follower (ENERO); 44D: Frozen cake maker (SARA LEE); 45D: Recipe direction (STIR); 46D: Holstered pistol, e.g. (SIDEARM); 51D: Selections (PICKS); 53D: Looks out for, as a partner in crime (ABETS); 55D: Plague (BESET); 56D: Beer and ale (BREWS); 58D: Belg.-based peacekeeping gp. (NATO); 60D: Place (AREA); 61D: Tax pro (CPA); 62D: "I've Grown Accustomed to __ Face" (HER); 63D: Wine barrel wood (OAK); 64D: Brown shade (TAN).