Ryan and Brian Do Crosswords

Welcome back to everyone’s favorite podcast of cruciverbalist interviews! In today’s episode, we discuss appropriate and not-so-apprioriate topics with the editor of The Onion’s crossword, Ben Tausig.

 

 Fill Me In #035: Slice this open and cry! [49:23m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

You can find more about Ben at http://groups.google.com/group/inkwell. In conjuction with this episode, I (Brian) have done two recent Onion puzzles, and I’m offering a little of my blog stylings to them. If you want to do the puzzles yourself, you can access them (and many other dailies) at Ephraim’s Crossword Puzzle Pointers. There are probably other places that link to them as well, but this is where I go to get my daily fix.

December 3, 2008 (solved in 18:48)

The theme of this grid seems to be Things George W. Bush Is Leaving Behind At The White House For Barack Obama. We have:

• 1A. and 20A. White House item #1, bequeathed from 43 to 44 : BIN LADEN DARTBOARD
• 33A. Item #2 : NAILIN PAYLIN TAPE. Did this ever get made? Or was Palin’s quick exit from the political spotlight just cause to terminate production?
• 41A. Item #3 : CAN OF SPAGHETTI-WS. I had hoped this was a real product. If it is, the grande olde internette cannot find me a picture.
• 52A. Item #4 : EAR WARMER. I totally don’t understand this one at all. Can anyone explain it to me?
• 67A. Item #5 : PRETZELS

While these are a good poke of fun at outgoing President Bush, I’m not sure I follow them all. Then again, I haven’t followed much of what Mr. Bush has done these past eight years as most of it makes me sick to my stomach. If Spaghetti-Ws taste like their O brethren, then I’d be happy to eat them. Incidentally, that was the first of the theme answers to fall for me, which led me to (incorrectly) believe that we were doing a W-for-O swap on the theme (trading George’s popular initial for Barack’s). That not being the case had me a little confused. Nonetheless, an enjoyable, perhaps somewhat NYT-Wednesday-ish style puzzle.

December 10, 2008 (7:50)

Very clever wordplay at work here in the theme to this puzzle. I understood the premise of the theme before finishing the grid, but only after I was done could I look back at the theme answers and fully understand what was happening. The whole thing was clued at:

• 61A. What presidential term limits mercifully ensure, and what each of this puzzle’s theme answers “receives” : NEW BLOOD

And in each of the theme answers, a normal phrase had either an A, B or AB replaced with an O (serving as both an initial representative of the new blood and a blood type).

• 17A. Film part shot at the dairy farm? : MOO SCENE (Presumably it was MOB SCENE, with the B replaced)
• 18A. Move around the rowboat? : OARHOP (BARHOP)
• 30A. Rejected spreadable soda variety? : CHEESECOKE (CHEESECAKE, which I have never thought of as “spreadable.”)
• 36A. Numismatist’s affliction? : COIN FEVER (CABIN FEVER). I can never remember fast enough whether numismatism is coins or stamps. What is the word for stamps?
• 49A. Right-leaning R&B act? : THE GOP BAND (Was this THE GAP BAND? I don’t know… I think of FILL ME IN as the best R&B act around, to tell you the truth.)
• 59A. Broadcast with updates about Disneyland? : OC NEWS (ABC NEWS). I was a bit confused here. Aren’t Disney and ABC affiliated? What does OC have to do with anything?

Good puzzle, and just from these two, we get a mild sense that The Onion has no feelings whatsoever about politics.

So our thanks to Ben Tausig, and to The Onion for their delightful contribution to the puzzle community!

Zambezi and oat.

You know, I think I’ve officially given up on my quest to be speed solver.  First off, it’s never going to happen.  Second off, I get so focused on it on Monday and Tuesday that I sometimes forget to enjoy doing the puzzle.  So, the hell with it.  Today I deliberately took my time and had much more fun.  It helped that Lynn Lempel designed a great Monday puzzle.

38A. ”Get going!,” and a hint for the starts of 17-, 24-, 51- and 62-Across (HOP TO IT).  This reminds me of another reason why I’ve nixed the whole speed solver idea.  I hate being rushed.  I’m a slow, deliberate person.  I walk slowly, I eat slowly and I think slowly.  Speeding through things goes completely against my nature.  I also don’t like it when people yell: “Get going!”, “Hurry up!” or my absolute least favorite, “Chop, chop!”

17A. First in a John Updike novel series (RABBIT RUN).  I started this book but couldn’t get through it.  Is this anybody’s favorite book?  Should I give it another shot?

24A. Batsman at a wicket, say (CRICKET PLAYER).  There are many people who will argue baseball is a 100% American invention.  Have these people never heard of cricket?  Runs, batters, fielders, innings.  The list of similarities goes on.

51A. Holder of an unfair trial (KANGAROO COURT).  The origin of this term is unclear.  But it possibly derived from anti-Australian sentiment during the California gold rush.

62A. Umbrellalike fungus (TOADSTOOL).  So named for it’s resemblance to a chair a toad would sit on while ordering a beer.

Other highlights:

40A. Othello’s undoer (IAGO).  Another problem I have with speed solving is I tend to misread the clues.  I read this one as Othell’s underwear.

Not too much else to say about the puzzle.  I good, solid Monday.

Next stop, Tuesday.

As the holiday season surrounds us, it is no surprise that a cute and clever Christmas puzzle would appear. And who better to put together such a grid than Elizabeth C. Gorski? Ms. Gorski has designed more Sunday puzzles in the Will Shortz Era than anyone else (43), and has done many holiday- (or at least, winter-) themed puzzles in the past, including these: Dec. 30, 2007, Dec. 14, 2003 (which is totally worth doing, just for the amazing trick involved), Dec. 31, 2001 (which was featured in the Wordplay book, and another worth solving just for the great theme work, even though it’s New Year’s and not Christmas), Dec, 31, 2000 (another New Year’s puzzle), not to mention countless others. The links go to www.xwordinfo.com, which is completed solutions with clues — you need to have access somehow to the New York Times puzzle archive to get empty versions to solve.

In today’s puzzle, she has given us a handful of moderately theme-ish clues and answers:

• 69. Cry when a surprise guest arrives : LOOK WHO’S HERE!
• 3D. December 25 answer to 69-Across : KRIS KRINGLE
• 74D. December 25 answer to 69-Across : JOLLY ST. NICK. Even though it doesn’t fit, I thought it was Jolly OLD St. Nick. But what do I know?
• 17D. Song who’s subject is encouraged to “hurry down the chimney tonight” : SANTA BABY. Here’s the requisite video of Eartha Kitt singing this classic:

• 84D. Father ___ : CHRISTMAS
  

However, the main gimmick of the puzzle is a single down entry, located at:

• 10D. Greeting from 74-Down : HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO

And to make it great, each HO gets a square of its own — meaning every across clue that meets it has one fewer squares than it ought to (for example, 7A. Cheesy snack is NACHO, but in four squares).

As I was solving, I found it very peculiar that I got the left side and I got the right side but the center, from top to bottom, remained curiously empty. I noticed the long clue going down, but it took me a bit to get it. Once it fell, I had few problems, and got through the rest in what was, for me, relatively good Sunday time (under 20 minutes).

The things I didn’t know (and will likely forget before tomorrow):

• 7D. Basketry palm : NIPA
• 28D. Apollo’s birthplace : DELOS
• 51D. ___ cit. (footnote abbr.) : LOC
• 55D. “Burma Looks Ahead” author : UNU
• 64A. Pacific salmon : COHOS (with the HO in one square) — I got a little hung up here at the very end since I had made “salmon” a singular in my mind, and tried COHOE as the answer. The down made no sense to me (65D. C.I.S. members, once : SSRS), and ESRS seemed as reasonable an acronym for something I didn’t know.
• 75D. Anoint with sacred oil, old-style : ANELE – Old or new, I know nothing about anointment.
• 87A. Egypt’s Mubarak : HOSNI (HO in one square) — Sometimes I think crossword constructors collect phone books from foreign countries, and then make up clues like this to justify random assortments of letters.
• 94A. Answered the phone : SAID HELLO – Yes, I knew this one. But I wanted to talk about my grandmother, who always answered the phone with “Good morning,” “Good afternoon,” or “Good evening,” never with “Hello.” I don’t know if I ever asked her about it, but it was a rather classy thing to do, and she was a wonderfully classy lady. Although part of me wishes she was around now to watch me struggle with the puzzles, part of me does not, in that she might be disappointed that a descendant of hers would have such horrible trouble with Saturday grids.
• 113D. Phoebe of “Gremlins” : CATES – I knew this one, too. And I wonder if Phoebe of “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” fails the breakfast test.
• 115D. Single-named supermodel : EMME – Why isn’t this ever IMAN anymore? And why can’t I ever remember if it’s EMME or EMMA? Someone tell me that the supermodel and the Bronte book are not the same thing.
  
• 129A. Throat soother : TROCHE – No way to make TEA into a six-letter word.

And my favorite clue of the day:

• 86D. Succeeded at musical chairs : SAT

Fill Me In: Episode 35 will be out sometime on Monday, featuring an interview with The Onion’s Ben Tausig. Check us out here, and see you Monday!

A few weeks ago, I completed a Saturday puzzle. I was very pleased with myself. And it seems that ever since then, I have been nothing but a complete failure at this end of the week. And after cheating heartily, I still couldn’t complete it (and get “accepted” by the New York Times applet) — until I discovered that my cheating source had a mistake of its own. Whoops! See what Googling gets you?

This puzzle was pretty much a grid full of Things I Will Never Know, most of which crossed Other Things I Will Never Know (The Sequel). Some examples:

• 31D. Trans-Siberian Railroad stop and 36A. Classic name in copiers : OMSK/MITA. There is only one classic name in copiers, and it is Xerox. Whoever this Mita nonsense is needs to get with the program. And I know about the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, which is not the same thing as the Railroad. But here’s a vide of a delightful (if somewhat manipulated) Christmas light display using music of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra as accompaniment.

• 8D. Game played on an 81-square board : SHOGI. Doesn’t matter what this crosses with, what the hello is Shogi? According to Wiklqpedia, it’s also known as Japanese chess, and it’s quite popular with people who are too smart for normal chess. I am not smart enough for normal chess, getting regularly beaten on the “Easy” level against my Palm Pilot years ago, until my inner rage against that particular machine was such that I had to either delete the game from the PDA’s memory, or delete the PDA from my own existence. And to just make me feel really good about myself, here’s a picture of some extremely young children obviously mastering this game that far exceeds my own mental agility.

• 34D. Grp. formed in Bogotá in 1948 : OAS. I wonder if this was just some random social club — you know, like three old ladies got together and said, “Let’s form a club. No boys allowed. Let’s drink tea and eat Madelines and discuss painting and sculpture and our favorite books. We’ll call ourselves the Original Art Society.” And while I know that Wikipedia is not the source of all information, it’s worth pointing out that there are eleven other OAS listings available that aren’t the Organization of American States.
• 1D. City near the Wasatch Mountains : OGDEN. This is the sort of clue that gets under my skin. It makes a very specific reference to a place or thing I’ve never heard of, and then the answer is something else I’ve never heard of. It’s as if the clue is saying, “Okay, we’re looking for the name of a city. And since it would be ridiculous to ask you to just guess the city, we’ll tell you it’s near something else. We won’t tell you what the something else is, but the city we want is near it. Okay? Go.” (And in case you’re wondering, it’s in Utah.)
• 

  31A. Able to stand the heat? : OVEN-PROOF. There’s a term for this?

• 53D. Birthplace of Yves Saint Laurent and 57A. Papal capes : ORAN/ORALES. I was sure it would be OMAN, not ORAN, since OMAN is an actual place that I’ve heard of, and since I’ve also heard of Yves St. Laurent, it stands to reason that he’d have been from an actual place. My knowledge of papal capes is about as deep as my knowledge of four-lettered river names and Asian board games with 81 squares, so the answer could have been anything.

I have about two months before I have to be able to do Saturday-level puzzles at the ACPT. I will make an extremely poor showing, there is no doubt. Maybe the Great Howard Barkin, Knower of All Things, will let me cheat off his paper…

This Friday puzzle by Natan Last is just about as perfect as you can get.  In-the-language phrases, pop culture, geography, musical instruments and not one, but two Books of Mormon.  The clues had a great flow to them (does that make sense?) and I had a couple of great aha moments.

The first answer I entered was:

14A. Exuberant cry from Pinocchio (IM A REAL BOY).  It was the first thing I thought of and I was thrilled when it fit.

I quickly figured out some crosses:

15D. Of whom Hamlet said “He hath borne me on his back a thousand times” (YORICK).  Here’s the full speech from the Folio.  (Yes, I’m a Shakespeare nerd).

Let me see. Alas poore Yorick, I knew him Horatio, a fellow of infinite Iest; of most excellent fancy, he hath borne me on his backe a thousand times: And how abhorred my Imagination is, my gorge rises at it. Heere hung those lipps, that I haue kist I know not how oft. Where be your Iibes now? Your Gambals? Your Songs? Your flashes of Merriment that were wont to set the Table on a Rore? No one now to mock your own Ieering? Quite chopfalne? Now get you to my Ladies Chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thicke, to this fauour she must come. Make her laugh at that: prythee Horatio tell me one thing.

4D. Sullivan Travis, in a 2000 film title (DR T).  I’ll admit it, I had MR T here for a little while.  Personally, I think Mr. T would have made it a better movie.  Not that I’ve ever seen it.  I really only know of its existence because of puzzles.

2D. ABC Radio host (IMUS).  Really?  Does anybody really care what this guy has to say?

Then I got this one:

17A. Hit video game series launched in 2005 (GUITAR HERO).  Maybe this is why I like this puzzle so much.  I love these games.  I’m more of a Rock Band fan because I like playing the drums but GUITAR HERO started the whole thing.  These games are made for people like me who have no aptitude for real instruments.  Here’s what passes for rockers in my apartment.

(On a side note, see that guy standing, holding the mic on the left?  That’s our good friend Adam.  He’s in the hospital right now and going through a really, monumentally tough time.  We’d appreciate if you’d take a couple of seconds and send some good thoughts his way, or some good vibes, or say a prayer.  Whatever works for you.  Thanks.)

The rest of the puzzle did not come nearly as quickly but the whole thing was a ton of fun.

18A. Minor area? (ASIA).  Aha moment #1.  For some reason I couldn’t get the ball room at Chuck E Cheese out of my head.  I don’t know how the correct answer came to me but I nearly leapt out of my chair when it did.

22A. Basher ___, one of the eleven in “Ocean’s Eleven” (TARR).  Some joker (no, it wasn’t me) told my wife that they all die at the end of this movie.  She believed him and waited through the whole movie for disaster to strike.  Right at the end, there’s the scene with all of them gathered in front of a fountain and she’s waiting for an bomb to go off or an asteriod to hit.  Hee hee.

24A. Third book of the Book of Mormon (JACOB).  Totally got it through crosses.  If the clue involves Mormons and the answer isn’t UTAH then I’m lost.  Yes, I’m ignorant.  Not surprisingly, I didn’t know the fourth book was ENOS.

27A. Like a baby’s bottom, often (TALCED).  This is skirting the edge of “words that no one ever uses” but I liked the clue so much I’ll give it a pass.

37A. “Da Ali G Show” persona (BORAT).  I guess I should tell you personally before you hear it on the streets.  I’m not a big fan of the Borat movie.  I just didn’t think it was that funny.  Maybe I missed the point of the whole thing.

44A. Club with a big ball (DISCO).  Great clue.  Had me thinking of sports and organizations that put on gala balls.

47A. Lead, for one (ROLE).  Another great clue.  I thought of the metal and the meaning “to lead”.

49A. Russian’s neighbor (AZERBAIJANI).  How the heck did he fit this in the grid?  I needed a lot of crosses for this one.

58A. Wind instrument Down Under (DIDGERIDOO).  This one I knew right away but I had no idea how to spell it.

60A. Reacts to a big buffet (SEES STARS).  More misdirection.

10D. Work with raw material? (X RATED MOVIE).  I had a false aha moment here when I assumed this would have something to do with sushi.

21D. Be altered? (ARE).  I am wise to this kind of nonsense now.  Bring it on, baby!

22D. Common A.T.M. feature (TOUCH SCREEN).  Aha moment #2.  Almost too obvious to think of.

32D. They may hold the lead (ORES).  Man, I was sure this was GUNS.  And I stuck to them for way too long.

46D. Sports basket (CESTA).  The last thing I filled in.  I was sure it was wrong.  I’ve never played Jai Alai.

50D. Law with many parts (JUDE).  Aha moment #3.  Favorite clue in the puzzle.  The answer got on a bus, took the train to Grand Central, somehow got past security at work, went up the elevator and bopped me square in the back of the head.  I’d put a picture of JUDE here but I simply can’t find any on the internet.  Instead, here’s a picture of a JUDE Law impersonator.

56D. Start of an exchange (TIT).  New York Times constructors are severely limited in how they can clue TIT.  If the plural version is ever needed might I suggest “With sugar, Mel Gibson’s name for a police officer”.

Great, great, great puzzle.  Nice job, Natan.

Next stop, Saturday.

Phew!  This Michael Vuolo puzzle was a toughie.  I had no interruptions at work (at least none that I paid any attention to) and it took me 50:31.  I knew almost nothing right off and had to rely on guesses and crosses.  I really have to hand it to both Michael and Will.  How do they know the clues are just the right difficulty?  I didn’t know most of the answers initially but I was left with the potential to solve the whole thing.  Color me impressed.  The theme was a lot of fun.

17A. Keeper of confidential information (UNDERCOVER AGENT).

26A. Like a keeper of confidential information (SWORN TO SECRECY).

46A. With 60-Across, what a keeper of confidential information might say (IF I TOLD YOU THEN).

60A. See 46-Across (I’D HAVE TO KILL YOU).

Great stuff.

Here are the answers I got purely from guesses and crosses.  I guarantee you if any of these clues or answers show up in tomorrow’s puzzle I’ll be just as stumped as I was today.

4A. Bearded (FACED).  I don’t even begin to know what this means.  What if someone is mustached?  Would they be lipped?

23A. The last King Edward of England (VIII).

25A. “O terra, addio,” e.g. (ARIA).  What is that, Latin?  Anything that’s vaguely Latiny sounding and needs to be 4 letters I figure is an ARIA.

34A. Fruit used in English jelly (SLOE).  Yet another way to clue the ever popular fruit.

36A. Subject of Exodus 20:10 (SABBATH).  Total guess.  I continue to know nothing about the Bible.

41A. ___ fides (bad faith) (MALA).  More Latin?

65A. Slippery one? (ELM).  A little Internet research reveals the Slippery ELM is an herbal remedy.  I’m not sure I understand the question mark.  Where’s the wordplay?

5D. Inverse trig function (ARCSIN).  One of the few things my bible knowledge dwarfs is my knowledge of Trigonometric functions.

9D. With French, one of the two official languages of Chad (ARABIC).  I once knew a guy named Chad.  He may have spoken French but I’m quite sure he didn’t speak ARABIC.

18D. Poetic coda (ENVOI).  I am completely in the dark on this one.

The puzzle was also filled with great, clever clues/answers.  The pair of famous septets being ENVY and ASIA.  Something to pick was BONE and not NOSE.  But you tried NOSE first, didn’t you?  Admit it.  A LOO is where you go in Greenwich.  RADII start in the middle and BOO is the cause of a scare.

One of the few answers I knew without any crosses was:

58D. Spicy chocolate sauce (MOLE).  I have a great recipe for mole sauce.  It’s got 25-30 ingredients and takes all day to make.  At some point I will make it and invite you all over for enchiladas.

Next stop, Friday.

I enjoyed this John Farmer puzzle even though I found it a touch harder than the typical Wednesday.

I figured out the theme relatively quickly:

65A. Staff members, and what the circled letters in this puzzle represent (NOTES).  Perhaps I’m becoming more musical.  On the last episode of Fill Me In I shocked everyone by effortlessly singing an octave (even though I’m not entirely sure what that means) and today my childhood piano training came back to me with Every Good Boy Does Fine.

19A. On occasion (EVERY SO OFTEN).

27A. Yesteryear, nostalgically (GOOD OLD DAYS).

35A. Order of the Arrows members (BOY SCOUTS).  I was not in the boy scouts.  It’s one of the many things I regret refusing to do during my long, stubborn childhood.

46A. Makes something better in a big way (DOES WONDERS).

54A. Ducky (FINE AND DANDY).

Fun theme and well done.  My troubles stemmed from a few things of which I’d never heard.

59A. One of the Gandhis (RAGIV).  Once again it is apparent that I need to learn more things about stuff.  RAGIV was the elder son of Indira Gandhi and the 9th Prime Minister of India.

62A. Sherwood Forest minstrel (ALAN A DALE).  I’ve gleaned most of my knowledge of the Robin Hood legend from Robin Hood: Men in Tights and The Adventures of Robin Hood.  I don’t remember ALAN A DALE from either of those.  But here is a great sword fight between Robin and Guy of Gisbourne.

60D. ___ dye (AZO).  I don’t have a clue what this is.

Those three mysteries created a minor Nexus of Ryan’s Ignorance.  In the end it took me a little over a half hour to solve the puzzle.

Other highlights:

5D. Actress Lamarr (HEDY).  The only reason I know this is becuase of another Mel Brooks movie, Blazing Saddles.

23A. Yuppie ___ (chronic fatigue syndrome) (FLU).  I don’t get this.  Why is it called Yuppie FLU?

42A. Competitor of uBid (EBAY).  I find it shocking that EBAY still has competitors.  Why would you try to sell something on a site nobody has ever heard of?

63A. Like lapis lazuli (AZURE).  I was convinced this was either a flower, an area of the Middle East or something dirty.  Turns out it’s a semi-precious stone.

61D. Project (JUT).  Great clue.  The many different meanings of project made this trickier than it looked.

Really nice, clever puzzle by Mr. Farmer.  Jim Horne has an great interview with him over on the Wordplay blog that details how he came up with the theme.

Next stop, Thursday.

In Episode 34, Ryan and Brian take on the roles of the Volga Boatmen (Brian is the one in the front), and conduct their second consecutive interview-free show.

For those who prefer the interviews — give us a chance! We will have one next week!

For those who prefer the non-interviews — listen to this show, over and over again!

In this episode:

• Dan Feyer loses his nickname
• Howard Barkin offers tips on fun in the water
• Brian and Ryan have completely different methods of dealing with a Saturday puzzle
• Brendan Emmett Quigley is too cool for school

All that, and probably about 2% more!

 

 Fill Me In #034: The Song of the Volga Boatmen [30:49m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Zambezi and oat.

I am back from San Francisco where I had a lovely weekend with the family and saw many wonderful things. One thing I did not expect to see on my trip was a tank full of jellyfish. But see it I did.

I also saw a great fish whose name I believe is Steve the Fish.

Our trip to the aquarium reminded me how excited and completely terrified I am about our snorkeling adventure on our upcoming cruise. Has anybody ever snorkeled on Roatan in Honduras? If you have, were you ever swept out sea? After being swept out to sea did you ever land on a deserted island? After landing on the deserted island how many years did you spend eating raw plankton before your family and friends forgot about you? Just curious.

On to the Gail Gabrowski puzzle. I have to say, although the puzzle was very well done, the subject matter of the theme left me a little cold.

64A. What the ends of 17-, 27- and 48-Across each represent (COMPUTER COMPANY). Although I certainly enjoy computers and all they do for us (you hear that, future robot overlords?) I’m not much interested in COMPUTER COMPANIES.

17A. Kindergarten tune, with “The” (FARMER IN THE DELL). We have a Dell computer now. It is enjoyable.

27A. Entrance to a botanical display (GARDEN GATEWAY). Is GARDEN GATEWAY and actual proper noun thing? Or is it a generic term for the area where you can enter the botanical display from wherever you are to begin with? I don’t have a lot of botanical display entering experience. And, oh yes, we used to have a Gateway but now we have a Dell.

48A. Gift that almost killed Snow White (POISONED APPLE). We had an iMac for a brief period of time. I’ll admit it, I don’t get it. Why do people love these things so much. I find Windows to be so much more intuitive. Did I just make people crazy by saying that? Tell me. Why is Apple so great?

So, that was the theme. Again, very well done but the subject matter was a touch dry for me.

Other highlights:

5A. Something a cat doesn’t like (BATH). This pretty much goes without saying. I can’t imagine trying to give one of our cats a bath. Seems ludicrous to me.

9D. Civil War nickname (ABE). Learned this from reading Team of Rivals. Good ol’ Abraham Nesbit, what a Civil War guy he was.

Brian and I will be recording yet another episode of Fill Me In: A Crossword Podcast. Will there be jellyfish involved? Stay tuned to find out.

Next stop, Wednesday.

It’s a normal Monday. I have nothing much to do, and the Java applet that I adore so takes 46 seconds to load. Anyone who reads this and never has problems with the Java applet — please tell me how. How to avoid problems. How to embrace this garbagey thing that we’re forced to use. I find it amazing that the greatest newspaper in the world can’t hire someone to make a better interface. I want to learn Java programming so I can write one. (But I won’t, because I have no knack for the things I’ve actually trained to do, let alone something I have no clue whatsoever about.)

Anyway. Susan Gelfand’s puzzle was delightful. Four theme entries in which someone’s last name serves also as part of a food.

• 4D. Writer Anne’s favorite dessert? : RICE PUDDING
• 18A. Poet Ezra’s favorite desserts? : POUND CAKES. Yes, desserts and cakes… I don’t particularly like it, especially because the other across theme answer is a needless plural.
• 27D. Writer Jack’s favorite entree? : LONDON BROIL
• 62A. Essayist Charles’s favorite entrees? : LAMB SHANKS

Since both the across theme answers were plurals, I wonder if they couldn’t have been made singular (and therefore be more in-the-language — I mean, who has more than one pound cake at a time?) and still satisfy the needs of a Monday puzzle? You be the judge. This is a PDF. This is a PUZ. Should be super easy, since you already know the theme answers.

52A. Attempt at getting a tan is SUNBATH. I’ve never heard this word used. Sunbathe, yes. Subathing, yes. Getting a tan, yes. Sunbath? No. I know nothing about Rutherford B. HAYES (55D. President after Grant), except that his name is awfully snooty. Did he do anything of note? And two hundred years from now, which presidents from my lifetime will be unremembered like this? Probably Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. Maybe King George I (though definitely not King George II).

We had both SNUG (32D. Like a bug in a rug, according to an expression) and SMUG (58D. Contentedly confident), both of which seemed to earn much longer clues than necessary. Who doesn’t know what a bug in a rug is? One I certainly didn’t know was that DOVE was an antiwar advocate (21D). Are we talking Dove the soap, or dove the bird? Or some other dove I don’t know about?

For those hundreds of you wondering when on earth Ryan will be back to entertain you with his superior posts, the answer is: tomorrow. And if you’re wondering when the next podcast will be, the answer is: I don’t know. I talked to Ryan yesterday, and I’m sure we worked it out, but my mind is a blank. Maybe also tomorrow? Hard to say…

See you Tuesday!