Saturday, May 16th, 2015, Gareth Bain

Theme: None

Words: 72 (missing Q,X,Z)

Blocks: 32

  Oh, I was so close on this one - but I had to cheat, just once, and then I peeked at the red-letters to see where I was wrong - silly mistake on my part.  Great puzzle, had my brain going, and a decent mix of clues both obscure/vague and "oh, I know this".  This is Gareth's third Saturday offering!  We just had him on Thursday, May 7th with his anagram puzzle.  A climber crossing a spanner today, with clever pairings of 11-letter answers in the Down, and 9-letter ones in the Across, plus two 12-letter names rounding out our long fills;

19. "Let Sleeping Vets Lie" author : JAMES HERRIOT - this should have been a gimme, but instead I got the V-8 can; growing up, my mother always loved the PBS presentation of the "All Creatures Great an Small" TV show  Such a "feel good" theme song - I still love it

"Piano Parchment" - J Pearson

47. Subject of the biopic "I Saw the Light" : HANK WILLIAMS - biography clue #2 - I did not know this was a Hank Williams song

George Thorogood

Move it ON-oh-waRD~!

ACROSS:

1. Crowd in Berlin? : DREI - always good to start off with an "I know this~!" - German for three, as in "Three's a Crowd"

5. Baptizes, say : WETS

9. Ever so slightly : A TAD

13. "Handsomest of all the women," in an 1855 epic : MINNEHAHA - From this poem; there's a Minnehaha Blvd in one of my Southold trucks, off Hiawatha's Path - I always think "little laugh"; get it~?  Also a very popular name in MN

15. What a "B" may mean : BORON - didn't come to me immediately; was thinking "C Flat"

17. Modern mining targets : DATABASES

18. U Nu's country : BURMA - My one cheat.  Forgot about this man

 21. Like the ruins of Chichén Itzá : MAYAN

24. Back-to-back contests? : DUELS - har-har

25. Large vessel : VAT

26. Bibliography note : IDEM - Latin for "the same" in citation

27. 410-year-old Siberian city : TOMSK - um, OK.  perps.

28. Ever so : VERY - I went with MERE, then NARY.  Drat.

29. __ de canard: duck feathers used to tie fishing flies : CUL

30. Fertilization target : OVUM

31. "__ but known ... " : HAD I - this borders on 'fun sponge'

32. Ready signal : ALL SYSTEMS ARE GO

37. Level, e.g. : TOOL - I hesitated to put this in, but it was my first thought

38. Life-of-the-party type : RIOT

39. More than cool : RAD - ah.  Not ICY

40. Stitches : SEWS

41. 1990 film that featured "Unchained Melody" on its soundtrack : GHOST

43. Four times duo : OCTO

44. Genesis 6 creation : ARK - The boat Ark, not the Covenant one

45. Psalm 23 comforter : STAFF - I did not get this until I looked it up afterwards.  When I typed "psalm" into Google, it suggested "23" right away

46. __ ring : ONION

50. Autobiography whose first chapter is "Nut Bush" : I, TINA

51. Rent : TORE APART - I had a feeling this did not have to do with "leases"

55. Suit : BEFIT

56. Always prepared : EVER READY

57. Film crew locales : SETS

58. Edit menu option : REDO

59. Blackened surface : CHAR

DOWN:   

1. Drill user, briefly : DMD - ah, Doctor of Medical Dentistry, not DDS - Doctor of Dental Sciences

2. River inlet : RIA - knew this, but spelled it rYa first

3. Endoscope user, briefly : ENT - Ear, Nose, Throat

4. Stuck : IN A JAM

5. '80s pop duo with an exclamation point in its name : WHAM!

Everything She Wants

 6. Removed with finesse : EASED OUT - you mean, like a Splynter~?

7. Hippie phenomenon : THE SUMMER OF LOVE

This AIN'T The Summer of Love

8. Scouts' accessories : SASHES

9. Some dict. entries : ABBRs

10. Overseas vacation, perhaps : TOUR - clecho #1

11. Overseas farewell : ARRIVEDERCI - clecho #2

12. Overseas thanks : DOMO ARIGATO - clecho #3

14. South African-born Middle East diplomat : EBAN - perps

16. Smart : NATTY

20. __ crossing: Canadian sign warning : ELK

21. Mineral whose name is Latin for "crumb" : MICA

22. Doctors : ADULTERATES

23. Canadian territorial capital : YELLOWKNIFE - Northwest Territories, to be specific

27. Sports bar array : TVs - the NY Rangers edged out the Capitals and start the Eastern Conference Finals vs. the Tampa Bay Lightning today....anyone in Fla a fan~?  I know that half the Rangers from last year went to TB as free agents, including my guy Brian Boyle - should make for a cool series

28. Dict. spelling tag : VARiations

30. Thimble Theatre name : OYL

31. Job, metaphorically : HAT - I wear about three these days; pre-load at UPS, "property maintenance director" both at aMano and A Lure restaurants, and still doing side work

33. Desperate letters : S.O.S.

34. Didn't go off : MISFIRED

35. Barfly : SOT

36. Take to excess : O.D. ON

40. Indian title : SAHIB

41. Sporty Golf : GTI - Volkwagen, that is

42. Bikini option : HALTER - show me YOUR choice of pics; I prefer the "bottom half", if you know what I mean

43. How much freelance work is done : ON SPEC

45. Goes for flies : SWATS

46. Acting brother of Cuba Gooding Jr. : OMAR

48. Grow together : KNIT

49. Sol lead-in : AERO - Aerosol....D'oh~! I went with "mi fa", as in do re mi fa SOL la ti do

52. Patient remark? : AAH - Open wide, I have my endoscope

53. Nutritional stat. : RDA

54. One-handed Norse god : TYR

Splynter

Note from C.C.:

Happy 94th birthday to Jazzbumpa's mother!  Ron said that his mom and her twin sister are the only ones remaining from 9 siblings. Click here to read Ron's musing in 2013.

Mother's Day, 2013

Friday, May 15, 2015, Melanie Miller

Theme: It is all about that GROSS not the NET. (MUSIC plays in the background).

Well hot on the heels of her latest Sunday, MM makes her Friday debut with an 'add a three letter word' puzzle, where NET is added to in the language phrases. Melanie who has become a bit of a Sunday specialist, here provides a Monday looking grid, with lots of blocks and short average word length, but some very hard clue/fill to make this a challenge. She did begin her publications at the LAT with Argyle blogging her work. Some of the cluing really slowed me down,  not knowing if it was her clue or Rich's, makes it hard to tell her intentions. Not much in the way of non-theme long fill, but we do have : ANKLES,  DANGER,  IF ONLY,  MORE SO, ENWRAPS,  I MEAN IT,  TACTFUL, TOPPLES, MANNERISM,  TOTEM POLE.
L
I do like the theme consistency where 1/4 take a single word and by adding NET you get two words, while 2/3 are two word phrases to begin with. Well lets get our Friday feet a movin'g


16A. Sign posted on an office computer? : NETWORK OUT (10). I remember when network only referred to TV companies.

22A. Attractive legumes? : MAGNETIC BEANS (13). I guess they have great personalities. Magic beans was hard to suss.

50A. Dark-haired brigade? : BRUNETTE FORCE (13). Brutus was the alternate name for the big guy in Popeye; I like the clue/fill very much. Is MM a brunette?

60A. Blaze at a hat factory? : BONNET FIRE (10). A slightly sexist view but I like this one as well.

And the reveal,
36A. Taxable amount ... and a hint to the four longest puzzle answers : NET GAIN (7).

Across:

1. Unit of volume : LITER. QUART fit, so this was a slow start.

6. One of the Twelve Olympians : ARES. Also hard, as both GREEK and ROMAN deity are considered OLYMPIANS. We have ZEUS, HERA as other Greek gods, JOVE, JUNO and MARS in the Roman pantheon. Then we have a four letter god from Scandinavia 18A. Ruler of the Valkyries : ODIN. With 17D. Russo who plays Frigga in "Thor" : RENE.

10. Factory container : VAT. Okay maybe the downs will be easy.

13. Inexpensive opening? : ECONOlodge?

14. Bering Sea port : NOME. Just south of the Bering Strait.

15. Subterranean critter : MOLE. Kinda cute. not at all like Spiderman's molemen.

19. Venison source : DEER. Cool! A 100% easy fill!!!!!

20. End of basketball? : ELS. Oh the the deception!

21. Exasperated : IRKED. Don't let it get to you.

26. Overthrows : TOPPLES. Like governments.


28. Omegas, to a physicist : OHMS. A quick  PRIMER.

29. Sprang (from) : AROSE. An A word that actually gets used.

30. Train station stat : ETA. Arrival.

31. Its national anthem is "Peace to the Sultan" : OMAN. All perps. LINK.

35. Chum : PAL. I do not believe either of these words are in popular usage any more

40. Diamond standout : ACE. baseball diamond.

41. Winter vehicle : SLED. No Tin, golf cart only works in Florida.

43. Find, with "up" : DIG. What 'journalists' do these days generally bad things about people..

44. Italian white wines : ETNAS. Never heard this term and since the Mountain is in Sicily, are the grapes from Italy or Sicily?  QUESTION?

46. Deuce follower : AD IN. Tennis.

48. Unequivocal statement : I MEAN IT. Confusing letters to parse, but nice fill when done.

54. Thigh-toning exercise : LUNGE.

55. Stick : ROD. careful now; juxtaposition is tricky. It could be a ...

56. Decoy : TRAP.

59. Pot enhancer : ANTE. Glad this was not a drug reference. It might cause a...

63. Furor : STIR.

64. Labor long hours : TOIL.

65. Turns red, maybe : RUSTS. Is rust really red? I asked this man...LINK.

66. Frostbite victim : TOE.

67. Cheese manufacturing byproduct : WHEY. Showing you the WAY.

68. Wes Craven film locale: Abbr. : ELM ST. If you saw these letters without the clue, you could go elmst meaning the most elm?

Down:

1. Allow to use : LEND.

2. Arctic Blast maker : ICEE. BBT's Sheldon and the ICEE vs. Slurpee.

3. Tlingit feature of Seattle's Pioneer Square : TOTEM POLE. Just an educated guess.

4. Completely surrounds : ENWRAPS.

5. Joey of fiction : ROO. Kanga's kid is back.

6. Places for electronic monitors : ANKLES. To keep tabs on people.

7. Chick bar? : ROOST. Nice literal clue/fill, not a pick up bar.

8. Grounded Aussie : EMU. Flightless birds, why?

9. Unbendable : SET. As, set in your ways.

10. Bloody Mary ingredient : VODKA. Along with Screwdrivers, my introduction to Vodka.

11. "The War of the Worlds" character : ALIEN. How cool, coming so soon after Jeffrey Wechsler's Orson Welles tribute puzzle in the NYT Wednesday.

12. Minds : TENDS. Like a flock.

15. To a larger extent : MORE SO. Good two word fill. Also, 48D. Wishful words : IF ONLY. 51D. Eagerly head for : RUN TO.

21. Lenovo acquired its PC business in 2005 : IBM. The DETAILS.

23. Rural valley : GLEN.

24. Smidgen : IOTA.

25. Beverage flavored with cinnamon and cardamom : CHAI. Actually it is black tea that is flavored to make Chai tea.

26. Bugs : TAPS. Listening devices.

27. Like film narration : ORAL. Why film? All narration by its nature is oral?

30. Person, slangily : EGG. really? I know a good egg is an accepted phrase, but egg by itself? Is this a yolk?

32. Individual way : MANNERISM. Like Johnny Carson and David Letterman playing with pencils? Crossword puzzle no no. 49D. Manner : MODE.

33. Popular palm fruit : ACAI. All you ever wanted to know about this wonder FRUIT.

34. Hornet hangout : NEST. Alliteration always welcome.

37. Doctor, perhaps : EDIT.

38. Color variant : TINT.

39. "What, will these hands __ be clean?": Lady Macbeth : NE'ER. Nope, sorry they never will be.

42. Jeopardy : DANGER. Knowing this to be true, did you ever wonder why Merv named the game show?

45. Aptly sensitive : TACTFUL.

47. Welsh/English border river : DEE. It is also in both countries.

50. Verbally assault : BLAST.

52. Remove, as a cravat : UNTIE.

53. Bath-loving Muppet : ERNIE. Does he love the bath or his rubber ducky?

57. Culinary pursuits : ARTS.

58. Unwelcome garden visitor : PEST.

60. Texter's "I almost forgot" : BTW. My phone has taken to translating my texts to the full words.

61. Wowed one's word : OOH. One who is wowed often goes....

62. "I __ Piccoli Porcellini" : TRE. I am sure marti knew but I was unaware of the highbrow music for the Three Little Pigs.

I am very curious what you all think; recently if the puzzles are easy not many comments and if they are hard lots of complaints. Enjoy. Lemonade out.

Note from C.C.:

D-Otto (Tom Uttormark) and I made today's puzzle for the Chronicle of Higher Education. You can click here (the very first puzzle) for the puz file. Click here to solve online. Click here to read pannonica's writeup.

Brad Wilber, crossword editor for CHE, came up with the fantastic "Waffles, Anyone?" title and greatly improved our fill & clues. Brad is a total pro and another unsung hero behind so many puzzles.

This is the very first puzzle Tom & I made. Just like he is on the blog, Tom is super fun to work with. Extremely efficient. Congratulations on your CHE debut, Tom!

Interview with Kevin Christian

Today is our 18th puzzle from Kevin Christian (no relation to this Gia Christian), who stops by our blog and reads what we have to say every time he has a puzzle, just like Dan Naddor. 

  

If you study Kevin's grids covered on our blog, you'll notice that Kevin has an eclectic style. He is one of the very few constructors who can make both easy Mondays and tough Saturdays. 

Also like Dan, Kevin has a fondness for theme density & has a specific number of long fill he tries to incorporate in his grids. Look at this ET puzzle he did for the NYT in 2013. Amazing stacks and intersections.

I enjoyed very much reading his answers. I hope you do also.

Xword Info Picture.

I presumed you also considered using *BAN/*BEN/*BIN/*BON/*BUN as theme entries, but decided to go with the vowel progression as clues approach?

I never considered *BAN/*BEN/*BIN/*BON/*BUN although maybe I should have, and I didn’t consider BAN*/BEN*/BIN*/BON*/BUN* either.  I did consider *BAND/*BEND/*BIND/*BOND/*BUND, there are some fun theme answer possibilities for that one, but it had been done before.  Bon Scott died when I was a sophomore in high school, and I’ve always been an AC/DC fan, so once I figured out that ACDC SINGER SCOTT had 15 letters, it was pretty much a done deal that I would go the route of using BAN BEN BIN BON BUN as the clues.  I liked that I was able to come up with five 15’s for the theme answers.  I liked that one of them is a horror movie reference.  I liked that when I did the construction I was able to get a pangram without doing anything too unnatural.  I liked that the puzzle only has 74 entries instead of the max 78.  It just kind of worked.

Is there any reason why all your theme entries have 15-letters? What were the other theme answers you also considered but discarded?

I like to challenge myself.  Five 15’s is a hard construction.  Bruce Venzke did one in 2010, and Mark Bickham did one in 2011, but I don’t know if anyone else has done one since those two.  You certainly don’t see them too often.  Doug Peterson once said to me that I like to cram a lot of theme materials into my puzzles.  He’s probably right.  Not all of my puzzles are theme heavy, but I’ll probably keep doing at least some number of theme heavy puzzles.  As for theme answers I discarded, I considered THE FED’S BERNANKE for BEN, but that just wasn’t as much funs as SEQUEL TO WILLARD.  Plus Ben Bernanke retired so that answer would have been outdated.

What's the trouble spot for you in the gridding/filling process? Tricky to deal with tons of entries that intersect at least two theme entries, yet this 74-worder is very smooth.

Usually I’m very careful and spend a long time selecting fun long down entries to intersect my theme answers.  I try to have 4 or more down entries of length 8 or more.  For this puzzle I didn’t do that, because there was so much theme material, but usually I do.  I think it’s important to revise, revise, revise.  When I finish filling a grid, I never clue it and send it in right away.  I let it sit for at least a week or two, sometimes even months or years, and then I come back to it later, and try to remove any fill that I think is stinky.  I first built this grid in 2012, but I didn’t finish it and send it to Rich until late 2014.  Another way I revise is to send it to a collaboration partner, ask them if they’ll collaborate on it with me, and ask them to remove the stinky fill for me, just to get someone else to add their creativity to it.  Now, some collaboration partners won’t want to do that, because they want to be in on the whole puzzle from the beginning, but some will do it if they really like the theme.  The key thing is to never settle on a fill just because you finished filling the grid.  You should revise it and make it better.

Tell us a bit about yourself. What's your background? And how did you get into crossword construction?

My father was in the Air Force, so we moved around a lot when I was growing up, so I didn’t grow up in one place.  I graduated from high school in Fairfield, CA, and went to college at UC Davis.  I have an undergraduate degree in math.  I’ve always enjoyed math and puzzles.  When I was a kid I worked a lot of jigsaw puzzles on rainy weekends and would do word search puzzles on long car trips.  I was inspired to start constructing crosswords by the movie “Wordplay.”  I saw Merl Reagle doing it in the movie and I thought, “Oh, I could do that!”  I was right, I was able to do it, but it was a lot harder than I thought it would be.  There was a lot more to learn in order to get good at it than I originally imagined.

What kind of theme & fill fascinate you and what kind do you try to avoid in your grids? 

That’s a tough question.  That’s like asking what type of music is good.  I like all kinds of music.  I like AC/DC, but I also like the Indigo Girls, and U2, which are all very different from each other.  So I guess I like lots of different kinds of crossword puzzle themes too.  For themes, I always enjoy a style of theme that hasn’t been done before, or something with a visual element to it, where the arrangement of black squares is related to the theme.  For fill, I keep a list of shorter fill words that have never been used in a crossword puzzle before, at least according to cruciverb.com, and I try to use one or two of those in a puzzle when I can.  I think the best fill words are ones for which you can write a clever clue that hasn’t been used before.  So it’s not the fill word itself that makes it good fill, it’s the clue you write for it.  I try to minimize the use of 3-, 4-, and 5-letter words that start with E, because it seems like they’ve all been overused, but you can’t totally avoid them.

Which part do you enjoy the most in the construction process: theme development, filling or cluing?

I enjoy filling the most.  I try lots of different grid patterns and lots of different long down fill before I settle on anything.  I have a lot of patience for it, so I try lots of different possibilities early before I lock into anything.  Sometimes I get up very early on a Saturday or Sunday, make my coffee, sit in front of the computer, and start filling something, and pretty soon two hours have slipped by and it feels like only a half hour.  I kind of get into a zone.  For themes, I get ideas in the car listening to the news and driving to and from work, listening to people’s conversations, and when I’m watching movies.  I watch a lot of foreign films, so I’m always on the lookout for interesting 15-letter expressions in the subtitles.  I like writing clues too, but it’s definitely the hardest part of the process.  I have tons of unclued grids laying around, probably 50 or more.  So when I decide to clue a puzzle, I go through all of those unclued 
grids and pick the one I like the best.

What kind of reference tools do you use for crossword construction & cluing? You had "Var." in your original SAREE clue, yes? :-)

I use crossword compiler software for constructing.  For reference tools, I use google, xwordinfo.com, cruciverb.com, wikipedia.org for sports history and geography references, imdb.com for movie and TV references, allmusic.com for music references, there are tons more.  I don’t own an OED, although I’ve asked for one for Christmas before.  As for SAREE, I originally had SAUCE as that entry, but Rich asked me to revise that corner, because I had A RIB at 60-Across, which he wanted me to remove.  When I did the new version, the one that’s being published, SAUCE became SAREE and A RIB became IVAN.

Besides crosswords, what else do you do for fun?

I live in Burlingame, California, which is a suburb of San Francisco, south of San Francisco near the San Francisco airport.  I have a wife named Helen and two kids named Tim (age 13) and Kate (age 11).  I work for a software company in Silicon Valley.  When I’m not solving or constructing crossword puzzles I like to go to the gym, watch movies, and walk the dogs.  I like to watch my son Tim play baseball.  I volunteer with a community theater organization called Pied Piper Players in which my daughter Kate is active.  I play the bass guitar in a cover band called Keeping Our Day Jobs.  I’ve been in the same band with the same 5 other people since 1996, except for a sax player change, but we’re not as active as we used to be.  I stay pretty busy. 

Thursday, May 14, 2015 Kevin Christian

Theme: Vowel (sorta) progression

I say "sorta" because usually the vowel progression is in the answers. With this puzzle, the vowel progression is in the clues. The problem is to figure out the exact wording that the constructor used for the answers, since these are not all "in the language" phrases.

Five grid-spanners covers a lot of territory:

17-Across. BAN : LEGALLY PROHIBIT.

22-Across. BEN : SEQUEL TO WILLARD. Never saw either one - not a big fan of rats...

36-Across. BIN : TRASH RECEPTACLE.

45-Across. BON : AC/DC SINGER SCOTT. Did not know him. I was looking for something "good" in France...

53-Across. BUN : BREAD FOR A HOT DOG. Not this hairstyle?

It's only fitting that a vowel progression theme should also be a pangram, with every consonant accounted for.


Across

1. Charms : MOJOS.

6. 60-Across, e.g. : CZAR.

10. 1992 Matchbox acquirer : TYCO.

14. Candy message : I LUV U. I have been looking for this phrase on candy hearts for years, and have to say, I have never come across it.

15. Offend, in a way : REEK.

16. Old record problem : WARP. Hand up for "skip" at first?

20. '70s Sonny and Cher label : KAPP. I wanted Atco, but that was in the '60s.

21. Dramatist with three Pulitzers and three Tonys : ALBEE. None of them were for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"

28. Spiral-horned antelope : ELAND.

29. Skunk River city : AMES.

30. Tornado survivor of film : TOTO.

31. Shakespeare's "__ Andronicus" : TITUS.

33. Edwards, e.g.: Abbr. : AFB. Air Force Base.

40. Greek org. : SOR.ority.

41. Lash LaRue vehicle : OATER.

42. Branch of Islam : SHIA.

43. "Deal __ Deal" : OR NO.

44. Very long time : AEONS.

51. Eastern garment : SAREE. And a semi-clecho at 52-Across. Eastern nurse : AMAH.

60. "Terrible" ruler : IVAN. Ivan the Terrible.  "Grozny" translates in English as terrible, but the Russian word actually connotes "causing great fear," or "formidable."

61. Histamine opener : ANTI. To help prevent those 33-Downs. "Gesundheit!" trigger : ACHOO. I wish I could find an antihistamine that would open my sinuses without closing my eyes!

62. Wet : RAINY.

63. Prized possessions : GEMS.

64. "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" co-screenwriter : DAHL. Learning moment: Ian Fleming wrote the novel it was based upon.

65. Gas brand with a red-white-and-blue logo : EXXON.


Down

1. Grand squared : MIL.

2. Encouraging word : OLE. And a clecho at 50-Down. Encouraging word : RAH.

3. __ wine : JUG. [shudder!]

4. Reproductive cells : OVA.

5. Moped : SULKED.

6. Burial chamber : CRYPT.

7. Youngest Marx brother : ZEPPO.

8. __ Lingus : AER.

9. "Citizen Kane" studio : RKO.

10. Denim and chino : TWILLS.

11. Start of a '60s TV toon yell : YABBA...dabba doo!

12. Old-time news source : CRIER.

13. Elected : OPTED.

18. California NBAers, on a scoreboard : LAL. LA Lakers.

19. Least infirm : HALEST.

22. Paving stones : SETTS. Everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask...

23. What Mexican Olympians go for : EL ORO. "The Gold."

24. Doha is its capital : QATAR. I learned this when Doc was in Doha.

25. Pizzeria chain, familiarly : UNOS. Formally, "Pizzeria Uno" and now "Uno Chicago Grill."

26. Liquid 32-Down : WATER. And 32-Down. Solid 26-Down : ICE.

27. "My turn!" : I'M UP.

31. Grand __ National Park : TETON.

34. Spark producer : FLINT.

35. Sixth-day creation : BEAST.

37. Fooled (around) : HORSED.

38. Eastern royal : RANI.

39. "Just __!" : A SEC.

43. Loads : OCEANS.

44. One way to be washed : ASHORE.

45. Comparable to a house? : AS BIG.

46. Use a pocketknife, perhaps : CARVE. I would rather use skis.

47. Fantasize : DREAM.

48. Recurring Dana Carvey "SNL" character : GARTH.

49. Some spam : EMAIL.

54. __ diet : FAD. Another clecho at 55-down. __ diet :  ON A.

56. Strain : TAX.

57. New Jersey fort : DIX. Hand up for wanting "Lee" at first?

58. Lennon collaborator : ONO.

59. Dr. for women : GYN.ecologist.

Marti, out for the count!