It took me close to 4 and half hours and the back of my brain started to melt but I was able to no-google this Ken Bessette puzzle. I got off to a quick start with the right side but left side took some doing and the bottom left alone fought with me for at least an hour.
It’s 4 in the morning so I’m just going to quickly list my favorites. All around a very good puzzle.
1A. Seek change? (PASS THE HAT). I knew it was going to be about money. Didn’t make it easy though.
15A. Between wings (ON THE STAGE). This one I got right off. See, kids, being an actor can pay off.
17A. Ad pitcher who’s really a pitcher (KOOL AID MAN). I tried to make JIM PALMER and his Jockeys fit but he just wasn’t the right size.
25A. Chicago Fire’s sports org. (MLS). If I’ve absolutely never heard of the team and it’s from a large city, I go with soccer.
29A. Trials (HARDSHIPS). This was the last one I filled in. Jeez. Just wouldn’t come to me. At one point I had HAPPY HIPS in there.
36A. Blood drive quantity (ONE UNIT). Had ONE PINT for a while which didn’t help things.
37A. Player of the first Bond girl (ANDRESS). I list this clue solely for the opportunity to post a picture of Ursula Andress.
40A. No place for a lady (STAG PARTY). Has anybody actually been to a STAG PARTY? Good times?
4D. Cart (SHLEP). Shouldn’t this clue indicate the answer is a variant?
29A. Copper head? (HONEST ABE). This one took me way too long. I knew it was about the penny but never thought it could be Lincoln. Do I know what a penny looks like? Discuss.
41D. Stand-up routine? (THE WAVE). I am not a fan of the wave. Although sometimes I am a fan in the wave.
51D. Whac-___ (carnival game)(AMOLE). My pick for the easiest clue of the puzzle.
I’ve had this Brendan Emmett Quigley puzzle open for almost 6 hours and, to be honest, I don’t have much filled in as yet. For whatever reason (I’ll leave it to you kind folks to decide) my brain is just not jiving with these clues.
4D. It has made many people lose their heads (HEG_TNE__Y_). Are any of those letters correct? They sure don’t look it to me. I’ve tried to think of every type of head that could reasonably show up in a NYT puzzle. A person’s head, the head of a beer, the bathroom, etc. So far nothing is making sense to me.
I don’t have any of the long acrosses in the top right:
5A. City at the foot of Mount Entoto. I guessing this is somewhere in Japan.
16A. Sludge buildup sites. Something with oil, maybe?
18A. Brownish orange. I’m color blind which automatically disqualifies me from attempting to answer this.
I possibly have the long acrosses in the bottom left:
52A. Gardener or landscaper (OUTSIDE MAN). This actually might not be right.
56A. Some forms are filled out in it (TRIPLICATE).
58A. 1993 Emmy winner for Seinfeld (LARRY DAVID). I’m pretty sure this is right but this puzzle is making me doubt everything. I hear they’re working on a new season of Curb. Love that show. His character comes closer than anything else in the media to sharing my world view.
There are a few (a very, very few) that I’m sort of (very, very sort of) sure about:
47A. Cry when you don’t think you’ll make (WERE DOOMED).
23A. Journalist with a widely read “Report” (MATT DRUDGE).
You know, that’s about it. I have some more filled in but I’m iffy about everything else. So, I feel kind of like a moron here. I know it’s a Friday but I feel I’ve been doing pretty well with Fridays lately. Is this one just really super hard or am I regressing back towards a fetal state? I see the Great Howard Barkin, Knower of All Things took almost 5 minutes to solve it. I haven’t yet figured out how to extrapolate that information into an accurate measurement of the puzzle’s difficulty but that seems longer than usual for Howard.
I was on BEQ’s site yesterday doing one of his puzzles and I read a blog post of his about how “a puzzlemaker’s biggest fear is that the puzzle will not be solved”.
But for most of us, an unsolved puzzle is an unsuccessful one. It may not seem like it, but we really want you to get that last entry, even if it means scrambling, straining and reaching into the darkest recesses of your mind to pull out the finishing letters. This is entertainment we’re talking about here. And if you just say “screw it” in the middle, we didn’t get the job done. Now that, my friends, is a huge problem.
Well, I’m not about to say “screw it” but I am feeling frustrated. The puzzle is clearly solvable but is BEQ saying the puzzle is a success for those that can solve it but unsuccessful for those who can’t? Can a puzzle be successful and unsuccessful at the same time?
Ah well, I will keep at it. BEQ constructs great puzzles and I’ll do what I can to make this one a winner.
Ah crap, I totally blew my no-google streak on today’s Barry C. Silk, Friend and Confidante of Doug Peterson, Crossword Gentleman and Man About Town puzzle. I got so focused on a Nexus of Ryan’s Ignorance and, after unsuccessfully trying every letter combination, I googled it not realizing I had a mistake somewhere else in the grid.
The Nexus:
50A. Riga resident (LETT). I had L__T. Two things I didn’t know. 1. Riga is the capital of Latvia. 2. LETT is an archaic word for Latvian. Now, not to quibble, but shouldn’t we be notified of the archaic angle somewhere in the clue?
48D. George who directed “Miracle on 34th Street” (SEATON). I had S_ATON and figured it was SEATON but thought it could also be STATON, SHATON, SLATON or SQATON.
38D. Cold northerly winds of southern France (MISTRALS). I had MIS_RALS and really didn’t have any idea.
The Other Error:
1A. Suffix with social (IZE). I put ITE and it never occurred to me it was wrong. The incorrect T gave me TWEI which looked fine to me for the German word for two. Never having had the opportunity to count in German, the error was not easy to spot.
I got everything else including the fun but difficult theme.
66A. Word defined by 17-, 25-, 35-, 45- and 58-Across (BAR).
LEGAL PROFESSION My first guess: ROYAL PROFESSION
BANISH BY DECREE My first guess: FINISH BY DEGREE
TAP ROOM
UNIT OF PRESSURE My first guess: INCH OF PRESSURE
MUSICAL NOTATION
Other highlights:
4A. Best in mental combat (OUTWIT). Tricky clue. I thought it meant best as in “the best” and assumed it would end with EST.
15A. Time Magazine’s 2007 Invention of the Year (IPHONE). Seriously, it’s enough with these already.
16A. Jacques Cousteau’s middle name (YVES). Got this one right away. How did I do that? Applied knowledge, baby.
20A. Cockpit datum (AIRSPEED). Was I the only one who put ALTITUDE here first?
22A. They’re inserted into locks (OARS). Ok, I knew this wasn’t going to be KEYS but I certainly didn’t know it was going to be OARS.
31A. Influential Greek physician (GALEN). He wrote three books on bloodletting. I wonder what was left to cover after the first two.
64A. TV heroine who wielded a chakram as a weapon (XENA). I did a youtube search for chakram and the first thing that popped up was the following video. Apparently any time you use a chakram you must immediately flip backwards. Does anyone know why this is?
Oy, I’m miserable. Still sick and at work. Every half hour or so I have to get up from my desk so I can go somewhere and have a violent sneezing fit. One of these fits happened while I was solving today’s Michael Langwald puzzle which extended my solve time but did not keep me from logging my 10th no-google in a row.
I found this puzzle to be much like Mary Poppins in that it was tough but fun. Nothing came easy for me with this one. Certainly not the theme.
60A. Bearers of a phrase suggested by saying the starts of 17-, 24-, 38- and 49-Across (CHILDS TOYS)
17A. Robin Hood’s love (MAID MARIAN). Why do so many theme answers start at 17A?
24A. One at the front desk, perhaps (INN KEEPER). I really thought this was going to be BANK something.
38A. Nail-biter, perhaps (TIE GAME). 16 days, 10 hours and 18 minutes until Spring Training starts.
49A. Leader deposed in 1955 (JUAN PERON). Here’s a sentence I found intriguing from wikipedia: Perón and his second wife, Eva, were immensely popular amongst many of the Argentine people, and to this day they are still considered icons by the Peronist Party. Well, yeah. It’s the Peronist party. Who’s going to be their icons besides Juan and Eva Peron? Dan Ackroyd?
The starts of the theme answers spell out: MAID INN TIE JUAN or MADE IN TAIWAN. Fun theme.
Other highlights:
9A. “Natch!” (SURE). When would one use NATCH? I’ve never heard this in everyday conversation. Never heard NERTS either.
16A. Played for a cat’s-paw (USED). How did I solve this puzzle? I’ve never heard of any of these things. Cat’s-paw?
9D. Any character in Clue (SUSPECT). Loved this one. Made me smile (in between sneezing my brains out). I hope somebody brings Clue to the ACPT. It’d be fun to get a game going.
38D. “The Sound of Music” family name (TRAPP). Do you know I’ve never seen the Sound of Music? It’s true.
I better wrap this up. I feel another sneezing fit coming on. I do want to take a moment to back up my partner, Brian. I distinctly remember something in Wordplay about how writing in lower case letters speeds solving time. I’ll pop the DVD in when I get home and see if I can find that part. It’s entirely possible that I’ve made the whole thing up though.
Today marks one month (numerically) before the onset of the 2009 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. The tournament will run for three days (February 27-March 1), and consist primarily of Tyler Hinman and Dan Feyer being really really fast at solving puzzles, and everyone else wondering what they ought to have done with their $300. So join in the fun!
If you looked at my copy of today’s puzzle, you might think that my handwriting needs work. Usually, I am a little bit OCD about clear, precise lettering, particularly in crossword puzzles. I need the letter to not only fit in the box, but fit with a smallish bit of cell padding. No part of the letter may touch the edges of the box (I do overlap the numbers occasionally). Square or cornered letters usually have those lines parallel to the box edges. I have the hardest time with G and S. I don’t know why. I do not put serifs on my I or J. I will often erase a letter and re-enter it if it doesn’t meet my standards. And I recently learned that my mother is the exact same way.
But today, I skipped past all of that. I’m working on developing my pencil speed. I am no Dan Feyer, but I want to show improvement at this year’s tournament. And some people have suggested that writing in lower case letters will speed things up. A lowercase E, for example, is just one swirl. A capital E is four lines. So today, I did this Jim Hyres puzzle in pencil, on paper, and in (mostly) lower case letters. I’m not sure what to do with I vs. L — if I don’t dot the I, the two letters look alike. If I dot the I, I’m taking more time than I’d like. Oh heavens, what shall I do?
Today’s puzzle demonstrates that my lower-case penmanship has indeed been born again. Or borne again? Bornes again. No wait: Bourne again. We have a nice quartet of answers for which the theme is Words That End Two-Word Things or Phrases Where the Second Word Always Sounds the Same, but is Spelled Differently:
11D. Heir to a throne, typically : FIRST BORN. Someday, my parents will start a kingdom, and then I will be their heir. I’m looking forward to ruling.
17A. Game with “Out of Gas” cards : MILLE BORNES. I used to play this game when I was a kid. I loved it. I don’t remember why I loved it, as is evidenced by the fact that I played it again recently and didn’t really understand the point. But back in the day, it was a huge hit at my house.
33D. Like the dust in a dust storm : WIND BORNE. Here’s how dumb I am. I put WIND BLOWN, and couldn’t understand why it was wrong.
58A. Robert Ludlum protagonist : JASON BOURNE. I liked the first one, but not so much the second. And I never saw the third one. But I do like that whole Sarah Silverman/Jimmy Kimmel bit about Silverman’s intimate encounters with Matt Damon. Funny stuff. Maybe a video?
I also like the layout of the grid. It looks like, if the black squares made walls, that this would be the floor plan for an art show, perhaps. I’d like to buy the watercolor over where the Z serves as the cross between 51D. PONZI scheme (investment scam) and 62A. Larry MIZE, who won the 1987 Masters. I do wonder if the 1987 Masters are now long ago enough to be totally random, and not really a fair kind of specific for a Tuesday. I mean — twenty-two years ago? Any golfer not named Tiger Woods, Ernie Els, Jack Nicklaus or Sam Snead has no business in a Tuesday.
48D. Some bridge seats – this answer always sticks in my mental craw. The answer is usually EASTS or WESTS, but it seems strange to see it as a plural. Unless, of course, you’re talking about duplicate bridge, in which several quartets play bridge with the exact same hands as each other. My parents used to do this. Not only do I not understand any one individual thing about bridge, I really don’t understand how you can play it the same way as ten other tables. I guess then it’s not just having you and your partner win at your table, but you have to best all the other wests in the room.
We also get a stacked pair of cars: 45 A. Alternative to a station wagon or a convertible (SEDAN) and 49A. Convertibles, informally (RAGTOPS). I’ve rarely talked about convertibles in my daily conversations, but I’ve never used the word ragtop, either. I need to up my stakes when it comes to topless cars. And in the vein of mini-themes, we also have a lawn mini-theme, what with 43A. Like newly laid lawns (SODDED) and 64A. Start over with, as a lawn (RESEED). Lawns, to me, are a weird enough thing (being that I don’t have one of my own) that they stick out in the puzzle as an odd pair of clues.
Ryan is apparently “sick” with some sort of “cold.” I don’t believe a word of it. You should listen to our podcast, the most recent episode, and see if you can hear sickness in his voice. I can’t.
Welcome to this week’s episode of the world-famous crossword podcast, Fill Me In. In this episode, we interview crossword constructor Matt Jones, of Jonesin’ Crosswords. We also tackle the usuals:
Viewer mail
Discussing a few puzzles
Ryan can’t form a complete sentence
The episode runs too long
In conjunction with our interview, here are a few links to more of Matt Jones’s work:
I have had it up to here with the applet. I want to be Andy Rooney for a minute, and just complain about the applet. Can I do that? What happened to Andy Rooney? Does he still do his schtick? I haven’t watched Sixty Minutes, so I’m not aware of anything.
Doing a podcast after midnight when your co-host is ill is a bad idea. Three other bad idea comments show up in the Monday puzzle by Timothy Powell and Nancy Salomon. Nancy, we have learned, is something of a mentor and tutor to many new constructors — I wonder if Timothy is a new constructor, and this is a nice example of Nancy’s teamwork shining through. The three theme answers are LET’S NOT GO THERE, YOU MUST BE JOKING and I DIDN’T HEAR THAT — all clued with “Bad idea!”
We are just a few short weeks away from the start of Spring Training, and so the appearance of 40D. Shortstop DerekJETER just whets our collective appetite for baseball. The World Baseball Classic apparently happens before the real season begins, but I don’t know much about it. I’m sure Ryan does, as Venezeulan baseball is something of a hobby of his. I can say things like this because a) he doesn’t read what I write, and b) he’s too sick right now to pay attention to anything except Fish Wrangler.
There are many instruments out there with 30+ strings, but the one clued here is the ZITHER. Ryan has often asked, on the podcast, if I know how to play the zither. I do not. But here’s a picture of one, just because I haven’t put pictures in my posts in a while.
As I write this, Ryan is reading over my shoulder, and asked what that was a picture of. I told him it was a zither. He asked, “is it a string instrument?” I thought Ryan did these puzzles, but now I’m beginning to doubt it. Listen to our recent episode of Fill Me In (a crossbird bankjob), and let me know if you think he’s off his rocker, too.
And at the end of February, come to Brooklyn for the ACPT. It’s going to be awesome. See you there!
This post is going to be shorter than usual. The room in which our computer resides (we call it the “office”, original, yes?) is flipping freezing. We’ve got a Real Feel of 0° outside right now and it’s not much warmer in here. I need to buy either a laptop that I can take into a different room, a keyboard that emits heat, a shawl like they use in Little Women, or some sort of fireplace. Shouldn’t there be heat coming out of our radiator. Isn’t that what it’s for? It’s supposed to radiate heat, right? All it’s doing now is radiating sounds and language from the downstairs apartment.
Well, anyway, I very much enjoyed today’s Michael Torch FIDDLE DEE DEE puzzle. This one completed a no-google week for me. Sure, the NGW was aided by a much easier than normal Saturday but it still counts. The theme today was a classic Sunday-style theme with DD’s replacing TT’s in everyday phrases. The most appropriate entry being:
2D. Why the eBay user was laid up? (BIDDER COLD). This is appropriate because, and forgive me if I’m repeating myself, the room I’m sitting in right now is BITTER FLIPPING COLD.
A few other clues I enjoyed:
12A. Certain audio download (PODCAST). Clearly, this is about us. You can admit it Mr. Torch. You’re a huge fan of Fill Me In: A Crossbag Birdflack and you just had to get us in a puzzle. I mean, to what else could this be referring?
20A. Landlord’s schedule (RENT ROLL). I’ve never heard of a RENT ROLL so I don’t know what it is. Here’s what I do know. Our landlord sucks the weenie with relish.
59A. New York town with Playland amusement park (RYE). How on Earth could anybody who lives outside of the New York area possibly have ever heard of Rye Playland? Discuss.
56D. Angler’s baskets (CREELS). Brian knew someone named CREEL once. He opened a jar of salsa for her and the rest, as they say, is history.
So, that’s it. Great puzzle. Cold office. I must retreat now to the balmier rooms of the apartment.
Next stop, Monday.
(I realize now I could have made some joke about Mr. Torch providing warmth but I didn’t think of it and now it’s too late.)
Continuing a recent trend of improbableness here on Ryan and Brian Do Crosswords, I just solved this Saturday Mark Diehl puzzle in about a half hour. How the hell does something like that happen?
This brings up the interesting question of how Will Shortz determines what day of the week a certain puzzle will appear. For me, today’s puzzle was no harder, and perhaps even a little easier, than yesterday’s Friday puzzle. But there was clearly something about this puzzle that made Mr. Shortz feel it was too hard for a Friday. I wonder what that was.
I was able to get a good start because of a number of relatively easy clues.
5A. Peruvian Sumac (YMA). I’m not sure what else this could be. A type of tree, perhaps?
24D. Sports star with an accent in his name (PELE). Sports star + 4 letters + accent = PELE.
59D. Colony member (ANT). I’m surprised this Monday-style clue showed up in today’s puzzle. I feel there must be a more difficult way to clue ANT. Not that I’m complaining.
57A. Pitcher Saberhagen (BRET). I guess if you don’t know anything about baseball this might be a toughie.
Those and a few others got me started and, somehow, I was able to keep going until all the boxes were filled in with correct letters. I think this was the first time this week I only had to submit my answer once.
Getting away from the difficulty factor, I thought the puzzle was lots of fun. A good mix of pop culture, history and in-the-language phrases.
28A. ___ Volcanic National Park (LASSEN). Pickles and I have actually been here. We drove through here quickly on trip through Northern California. The whole place smells of sulfur. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to go to Bumpus Hell.
1A. Brand for preparation on a stovetop (JIFFY POP). If you’re ever in dire need of some salt make yourself some Jiffy Pop. Suck on a few kernels and you should be good for at least a couple of weeks.
23A. Where pins are made (MAT). I enjoyed this one.
29A. Fifth-year exams at Hogwarts (OWLS). My god, people really like these books. They should make them into movies or something.
I also enjoyed OPEN YOUR EYES as another way to say, “Look, Bonehead!” and ALL GUSSIED UP for Dressed to the nines.
Did JAVA MAN live during the IRON AGE?
If you while growing up you were a girl, did you or did you not spend your free time drawing ODIE? Be honest.
There were a few inhabitants of the puzzle who were unknown to me. ADELA Rogers St. John. TIERNEY of Laura. ANN BLYTH of Mildred Pierce. I’m just now realizing the Crimes of Love author is Marquis DE SADE.
So, what did you guys think? On what day of the week would you have published it?
How is this possible? I did a whole Friday all by myself? Yes, it’s true. But it was a relatively easy Friday, as Fridays go. It was constructed by our recent podcast friend, Barry C. Silk (friend and confidante of Doug Peterson, crossword gentleman and man about town). On our podcast, we asked Barry about his contructing process, and he told us that in this particular puzzle, he didn’t use the long answers as the launching point for the rest of the grid. Which word did he use? We don’t know, but we leave it to you, our gentle viewers, to weigh in with your ideas. (And no fair, if you found out from some other site already!)
For me, I got the bottom half filled in pretty quickly, but struggled with much of the top/middle area. Lots of things I didn’t know at all:
1A. Creek Confederacy tribe : ALABAMA. Alabama is better known as a state, and somewhat known as a band. It’s also one of the five states I’ve never visited. These would have been far more acceptable clues.
15A. Two-time foreign minister of the U.S.S.R. : MOLOTOV. I can’t tell you how many times I read that clue, and thought it said “two-timed.”
16A. Clio maker : RENAULT. I thought a Clio was a kind of PDA. A Renault is a kind of car (or maybe a kind of French person). Clio also sounds a little dirty, even though I know it’s not.
17A. Film with the line “By the authority vested in me by Kaiser William II, I pronounce you man and wife. Proceed with the execution” : THE AFRICAN QUEEN. And holy crap, what a long clue! I mean… that’s a long clue!
22A. Home of Sault Ste. Marie : Abbr. : ONT. I thought it was in Minnesota. Is part of Ontario in Minnesota?
51A. Asian au pair : AMAH. What is “Ayah,” and why do I always think of that word before Amah?
5D. Justice Dept. division : ATF. I have no idea what this stands for.
8D. Inclination : GRADIENT
10D. Govt. probe : INQ. Another random abbreviation. Isn’t anyone’s probe an inquiry? Why in this clue, government?
14D. Chain links? : Abbr. : MTNS. This time, “chain” isn’t golf. Mountains come in chains now? I thought they came in ranges.
30D. Beards : AWNS. This is some grain thing, isn’t it?
40D. Franklin contemporary : REO. Is this another kind of car? I don’t know.
Now, I have a slight problem with 44A. Evidence that one is an alien (ACCENT). That’s not evidence of anything. There’s tons of people here in America who are not aliens, not legal immigrants, nothing but pure citizens — and they have accents. Furthermore, there are plenty of people who might come down from Canada, come over from somewhere — and quickly adapt to the speech patterns here, thus all but completely shedding their accent — and some of these people are aliens. So I can’t even draw a Venn diagram of this. Some people with accents are aliens. Some aliens have accents. From these facts, can you determine if someone is an alien based on their accent? No!
It’s super late, so I’m done for now. Ryan, if you want to add pictures, do your thing. Otherwise, see you Saturday!
Patrick Blindauer's 2009 Holiday Puzzlefest Through kickstarter.com, Patrick is raising $2,000 by November 1 to fund his latest project. Read more about it here.
Will Shortz's Wonderful World of Words - November 13-15, 2009 Calling all puzzle people, please! Our word lovers' extravaganza is hosted this year by Will Shortz, puzzle editor of the New York Times. Enjoy language experts and puzzles to twist your brain. It's all about words at Mohonk this November. More info
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Time travelling…
If you don't get the actual New York Times (in print or online), you're likely looking at puzzles that have previously been published. The dailies come out in syndication six weeks after their original date; the Sunday puzzles are one week behind.
