Ryan and Brian Do Crosswords

Well, I got the grid totally filled in. That’s something. Unfortunately, I made a mistake and I couldn’t spot it until I checked xwordinfo.com. Here’s where I went wrong:

• 26D. Off (DOIN). I was sure this was DOWN. It made, and still makes, perfect sense to me.
• 25D. Item for a travel bag (ETUI). I remember Will Shortz showed the crowd an etui at the tournament not realizing that the word was in the next puzzle. That experience was memorable enough for me to retain 3 of the letters. I put in ETOI.
• 33A. Turnabout, in slang (UIE). I think I’ve only seen this as UEY before. When it clearly wasn’t that I didn’t know what the heck it could be. My wrong downs gave me OWE. Since OWE is a word which could possibly describe a circular path (at least in my head it could) I decided that I had brilliantly figured out this section. Not so much.

Other than that I figured out the rest of this Michael Langwald puzzle. I thought this was the perfect difficulty for a Thursday. Brian has detailed the theme but I will say this. I had only the the Y and the U for IGOTYOUBABE and I instantly got it when I read the clue. I have no idea how. The rest of the theme was pretty clever.

Here’s what I didn’t know when I ate my cereal this morning:

• 14A. Alicia Keys #1 album “___ Am” (ASI). Continuing my path of ignorance through all styles of music.
• 31A. “Solaris” author Stanislaw ___ (LEM). As much as I like science fiction, I’ve had difficulty getting in to the books. Most of them have been disappointing and not well written. Of course, having said that, my favorite book of all time is The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. But the movie version made up for the book by being disappointing and not well written.
• 37A. Grandmother of Jesus (SAINTANNE). I thought this was a trick and they were going for a the grandmother of a Spanish-speaking guy named Jesus. Turns out they were actually going for the mother of the Virgin Mary.
• 41A. Hamilton who wrote “Mythology” (EDITH). You know what movie needs a remake? Clash of the Titans. Who’s with me?
  
• 71A. Cross as ___ (annoyed) (ABEAR). Is this a saying? Never in my life have I heard this. I’ve head “a cross to bear”. Is annoyance a major characteristic of bears? I thought they were happy-go-lucky omnivores.
• 5D. The Rams of the Atlantic 10: Abbr. (URI). Now that I’ve looked this up I still don’t get it. The Rams are the team of Fordham University. Where does URI come from?
• 36D. Mother of Charlemagne (BERTHA). Bertha? Really?
  
• 39D. River to the Rhine (AARE). Oh rivers, will I ever learn your myriad yet so similar sounding names?

Favorite clue/answers:

• 12D. Condiment made with a mortar and pestle (CHUTNEY). Chutney, I like saying it and I like eating it. Send us your favorite chutney recipes or put it in the comments. I will make them and eat it on the next podcast.
  
• 53D. “Ghostbusters” director Ivan (REITMAN). I love this movie. It’s just as funny now, 20 years and 30-40 viewings later, as it was the first time I saw it. “I feel so funky.”

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Maybe my new game is to see how I rank on the list of Fastest Finishers on the New York Times site. I didn’t start the Thursday puzzle until nearly quarter ’til eleven, and I was still the 54th to finish. Although I have nothing with which to compare it, I am still pleased with my work.

In baseball news, the Red Sox lost to the Angels 6-4. Boston’s pitching is falling apart. Last year, they had the best staff in the league. This year, not so much.

Don’t forget: Podcast: here. Email: here. Facebook: here.

New York Times – 16:04

New York Times
constructed by Michael Langwald; edited by Will Shortz

I had the grid filled in just over thirteen minutes, but it took me three more minutes to locate my one error. Although I had a plethora of answers that were new to me, the mistake was in one of my earlier fills: 8D. Like some bagels — for some reason, I decided that some bagels were ONIONS, when in fact something that is like some bagels would instead be ONIONY.

The theme came from this clue: 62A. 1965 hit by the performers suggested phonetically by the ends of 18-, 24-, 37- and 56-Across. A clumsy clue, to be sure, but made enough sense that once I landed 56-Across, everything else (thematically) fell into place:

• 18A. Summer arctic phenomenon : MIDNIGHT SUN
  
• 24A. 1890 battle site that’s now a memorial : WOUNDED KNEE
  
• 37A. Grandmother of Jesus : SAINT ANNE
  
• 56A. Measure of a company’s dominance : MARKET SHARE

And the solution to 62A, of course, is I GOT YOU BABE. I can’t think of that song now without imagining the oft-repeated opening scene to Groundhog Day, when Bill Murray wakes up to the clock radio every day. What a great movie.

The rest of the puzzle was a fairly worldly fill, with quite a roster of globetrotting players: Germany’s ESSEN, Belarus’s MINSK, Israel’s KNESSET, the French UNE, the Greek EOS, Hawaii’s ALOHA Bowl, India’s CHUTNEY, the originally Persian KABOB, England’s ETON, Poland’s Stanislaw LEM, Australia’s EMU, the Spanish language ANO, the Russian NYET, Switzerland’s AARE River and 60’s sexpot URSULA Andress, and the interplanetary ETS.

I still haven’t learned how to sell things on Amazon.com. Hey Ryan — do we get a cut of those sales?

I had no idea what the theme was for this Stephen Edward Anderson puzzle. Didn’t really matter as I was able to finish it and I don’t think knowing the horsey theme would have helped me any. It was a good Wednesday puzzle, tricky in parts but ultimately doable.

Here’s what I didn’t know when I woke up this morning:

• 1A. Low pitch symbol (FCLEF). Thefreedictionary defines this as a clef that puts the F below middle C on the fourth line of a staff. I think I’ve proven without a doubt that I know nothing about music. That definition could say “a clef that puts the pizza below middle elephant on the fourth Jerry Lewis of a saran wrap” and it would make just as much sense to me. Perhaps Brian can clarify.
• 40A. “Bill Moyers Journal” airer (PBS). I thought it was CBS. This is a show I’ve never, ever seen. Seems pretty interesting though. Maybe I’ll give the podcast a listen.
  
• 57A. Courtier (TOADY). In my head courtier meant a man who is trying to woo a woman. Not the case. It’s actually one who seeks favor, especially by insincere flattery or obsequious behavior. This is one of those instances where knowing the definition of the clue helps greatly in coming up with the answer.
• 56D. Sister and wife of Hyperion (THEA). Wait, sister AND wife? Bleh.
  
• 58D. Former newspaper publisher ___ Chandler (OTIS). I always assume these newspaper publishers to be thin, wispy men. I do not expect them to look like the 6 million dollar man. He died way too young from something called Lewy body disease.

Favorite Broadway play appearing in today’s puzzle:

• 49A. Neil Simon’s “Lost in ___” (YONKERS).  I’m a big Neil Simon fan and this is one of his best.  Pickles and I met doing a production of Simon’s “Proposals” almost 10 years ago.  Not a great play but so much fun to do.  I was Vinnie Bavasi and she was my dimwitted love interest.  Good times.

To reiterate what Brian said, if you haven’t listened to our podcast yet, please do.  We welcome any kind of feedback you may have.  Subscription links are on the right side of the page.

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I was the thirty-ninth person to finish the New York Times puzzle online. While this is fun, it is not as much fun as watching Dustin Pedroia and Jacoby Ellsbury bring youthful life to the Boston Red Sox. As I write this, Pedroia has just doubled, Ellsbury has scored from first, and the Sox took a 7-6 lead over Anaheim. By the time I finish posting, I may have the final score for you.

[UPDATE: At this point, Papelbon has saved the game with two strikeouts and a pop-up in the ninth. Go Red Sox!]

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New York Times – 10:27

New York Times
constructed by Stephen Edward Anderson; edited by Will Shortz

This was a far more enjoyable Wednesday puzzle than the pseudo-Wednesday that ran two days ago… The gimmicks were cute, and seemed to be a bit more than your standard four-clue set. We had four famous horses running through the grid in these locations:

• 17A. Mercury : QUICKSILVER — Again! with the 17-Across! (Double exclamation points for double the joy!)
• 60A. Easily set off, as a temper : HAIR TRIGGER
• 11D. #1 on the Hot 100 : CHART TOPPER – Never heard of Topper. Pictured here is William “Hoppy” Boyd (as Hopalong Cassidy). I don’t know if I trust this, only because Wikipedia (oracle of all things) doesn’t list any horse, either on the page for Hopalong Cassidy or the page for William Boyd. I’m obviously of the wrong generation, but I’ve heard of the others.
• 25D. Discoverer of stars? : TALENT SCOUT

And in addition to this equine quartet, we also had a pair of clues in the middle of the grid:

• 30D & 27D. Western cry : RIDE ‘EM, COWBOY!

Lots and lots of abbreviated words and acronyms today: FAQ, NBA, SESS, RDS, GRE, IOUS, and the whole bottom left with ETCETC, NCO, AMT and the French SOU. Joining that last one, there were several foreign answers as well: BETE, OSO and OTRO.

I’ll leave it to Ryan to do the daily Amazon store… I haven’t figured it out yet.

What kind of world do we live in where the Tuesday puzzle is easier than the Monday puzzle? As Venkman would say, “Dogs and cats, living together, mass hysteria!” I finished this one by Nancy Salomon in 6:47. Just 17 seconds longer than Brian. He’s already detailed the theme so I won’t go over it again but here’s what I didn’t know before I started this puzzle:

• 15A. Muscat resident (OMANI). I’ve seen this before in puzzles and for whatever reason I continue to think Muscat is in France. I have no valid reason for thinking this and yet I do. Muscat is actually the capital of Oman and one of the oldest cities in the Middle East.
  
• 50A. Celestial altar (ARA). Is a celestial altar another way of saying constellation? Because that’s what Ara is.
  
• 12D. Lake next to Avon Lake (ERIE). This is a little tricky because as far as I can tell Avon Lake is not actually a lake but a town on a lake and that lake which it is on is Lake Erie and not Lake Avon.

This was a solid Tuesday puzzle, not thrilling, but solid. Here’s a couple of clues/answers that peaked my interest:

• 33D. New Age superstar (ENYA). Embarrassing admission: I went through a phase when I was 19 or so where I would lay on the floor and listen to Enya with the lights off and candles burning. Please do not use this against me.
• 56A. Funny Charlotte (RAE). Here’s an awesome yet almost unwatchable clip of a George Clooney episode of The Facts of Life. See if you can get through the whole thing. I couldn’t.

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I can barely see straight… The weekend was full of nephews and noise, today began with a 6:00am wake-up call courtesy of one young Mr. Levi Pontti — oh, so very cute, but oh, so very loud. Tonight, an enjoyable concert but a painfully unfortunate piano. And outside the theater tonight, I happened to see Jon Delfin. I didn’t say hello — Jon, if you read this, I saw you!

I also want to say, before starting in with the puzzles, that we’re getting lots of positive feedback on our podcast. If you haven’t checked it out, try the links to the right. iTunes has it, and you can also listen straight from this site. We’ve done six episodes so far (the next one will be this coming weekend), and we’re having a blast. Email us your thoughts and comments at rbxblog@gmail.com.

Finally — we have a group on Facebook. I don’t know if this links there successfully, but if not, get on your Facebook, and search the groups for one called “Ryan and Brian do Crosswords.”

Anyway. It’s Tuesday. Yesterday kicked my ass, but today, I’m trying again. Here we go…

New York Times – 6:30
New York Sun – 6:45
Los Angeles Times – 6:40

(more…)

This puzzle by Janet R. Bender is perhaps the most difficult Monday puzzle I’ve ever come across.  Luckily, I was helped out by a number of answers that had appeared in puzzles of the recent past.  Most notably:

• 49D. Local theaters, in slang (NABES).  This, to me, is Will Shortz having fun with everyone.  I think he saw that everybody hated nabes when it appeared 3 days ago and decided it would be funny to throw it right back at us on a Monday.  And, I have to admit, I got quite a chuckle out of it.  I still think it’s a horrible word though.

My biggest complaint with this puzzle was the difficulty was all over the place.  You had typical Monday clue/answers like:

• 1D. Sunbeams (RAYS)
• 64A. “Hey!” (PSST)
• 41D. Bram Stoker novel (DRACULA)

Alongside clue/answers that I’ve never heard of or, at least, belong squarely in a Wednesday or later:

• 20A. Low-growing tree found typically in rocky soil (SCRUBOAK)
  
• 63A. Drug-yielding shrub (SENNA)
• 52A. Stock transaction done at a loss for tax purposes (WASHSALE)
• 50A. Hasty glance (APERCU)
• 11D. Red who fought oil well fires (ADAIR)

This puzzle is a great example of how you can get better at crosswords.  If I hadn’t been doing these things like a nut for the past 4 months I would never have figured out: 

• 32A. Fugard’s “A Lesson From ___” (ALOES)
• 3D. Banned spray on apple trees (ALAR)
• 24D. Actor Tom of “The Girl Can’t Help It” (EWELL)
• 29D. Legendary Washington hostess Perle ___ (MESTA)

So there, I haven’t been wasting my time.  Doing crossword puzzles makes you better at many facets of life such as: doing crossword puzzles, solving crosspuzzles, figuring out word grid games, and the list goes on.

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For the week in puzzles ending Sunday, April 20, Ryan and Brian present another half hour of random banter and cover almost no intellectual ground whatsoever. It’s possible they make vague reference to puzzles from Wednesday, April 16 through Sunday, April 20.

This week’s episode includes Planet of the Apes, viewer email (Hello, Amanda!) and Brian’s father. Also, a hidden puzzle within the podcast asks this question: What is the meaning of DCHFILY?

Email us with your thoughts, comments, stories, pictures, and anything else you want to send along. Operators are standing by at rbxblog@gmail.com, 24 hours a day.

On a disappointing note, the guest stars we had planned for this week were unable to make it. We hope to feature them next week instead.

 

 Episode #006 [31:17m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Zambezi and oat.

Apparently, I’m not allowed to “give up.” This Monday puzzle ruined me. Sat here for way too long (by my own ludicrous standards), and had about eight zillion blank squares.

AUDIE SCRUBOAK ALOES SWEEPHAND ROOS APERCU (APERCU?) WASHSALE SENNA ERST ALAR ADAIR SITED MESTA SEVER SWAIN EWELL PITH WUSS SPATE…

This felt like a fleet of Wednesday answers on a Monday grid. But I wouldn’t trust this useless mind of mine if I were you…

I liked this puzzle entitled Spaced Out by John Farmer. It has a bunch of circled boxes which spell out the names of the planets. I was almost at the end of the puzzle before I realized the planets are in distance-from-the-sun order from top to bottom. I almost finished the entire puzzle on my own but needed a quick assist from Pickles and little last minute googling.

The theme answers:

• 24A. 1941 Henry Luce article that coined a name for an era (theaMERicanCentURY). Mercury.
  
• 34A. Closeout come-on (eVErythiNgmUStgo). Venus.
  
• 52A. Novel that ends “Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody” (thEcAtcheRinTHerye). Earth. I know it’s almost a cliché to this it one of your favorite books. But it really is one of my favorite books.
• 75A. Artful deception (sMokeAndmiRrorS). Mars.
  
• 82A. 1972 Harry Nilsson hit (JUmPInTothEfiRe). Jupiter. I thought this was a Duran Duran song. I really am a musical ignoramus.
  
• 107A. Prime eatery (fiveStArresTaURaNt). Saturn.
  
• 125A. Stanley Cup finalists of 1982 and 1994 (vancoUveRcANUckS). Uranus.
• 138A. Head of a special government inquiry (iNdEPendenTcoUNsEl). Neptune.

This is the kind of theme I like. Once I figured it out I was able to fill in the circles which helped me figure out more of the puzzle. Good stuff.

A couple things I still don’t understand:

• 1A. Thing in a case (RES). What?
  
• 27D. Application letters (NMI). Huh?

And a few of the things I didn’t know before I started this puzzle:

• 1D. “Number 10″ Abstract Expressionist (ROTHKO). This Mark Rothko and his Number 10 is below.



• 8D. Botanist Gray (ASA). The original McDreamy.
  
• 84D. Nick Nolte movie based on a Kurt Vonnegut novel (MOTHERNIGHT). I need to read more Vonnegut. I loved Galapagos.
  
• 134A. He played Krupa in “The Gene Krupa Story” (MINEO). For some reason I thought Gene Krupa was a football coach. He was not. He was a jazz drummer. You can watch him do his thing here. I wonder how he’d do on Rock Band.
• 72A. “Tancredi” composer (ROSSINI). I’ll take Operas I’ve never heard of for $50o, Alex.
  
• 64A. 1990s-2000s English tennis star Tim (HENMAN)
• 33A. Celine Dion’s “I’m Your Angel” duet partner (RKELLY). Pickles helped me out with this one. I got about 25 seconds into the video before I was completely cheeseballed out. Lucky we have people like Ricky Gervais to make fun of this style.

Favorite clues:

• 100A. Chickadees’ kin (TITS). Hee hee.
• 43A. “Your Moment of ___” (”The Daily Show” feature) (ZEN). Greatest Daily Show clip ever:

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