Tuesday August 21st

SPOILER WARNING: Don't read any further until you've done today's New York Sun Crossword Puzzle. New York Sun puzzles are every bit as fun and challenging as the more well-known New York Times -- No, you know what, they're better. That's right, I said it, the New York Sun's puzzles are better than the New York Times's puzzles, and I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to be Peter Gordon and to keep putting out this superior product and have everybody just blog, blog, blogging and yak, yak, yakking about the Times, Times, Times. Look, if you don't have time for two great puzzles a day, do the better one, do the SUN -- (we now return you to your regularly scheduled spoiler warning) -- and they're indisputably better in one way -- they're free. If you'd like to read about an unbiased head-to-head competition between the Sun and the Times puzzles check this out. Or if you're ready to decide for yourself you can download this puzzle and join in on the fun here.

"Final Offer" is by Joe Bower, and as much as I enjoyed the puzzle, I'm not sure I get the title. I expect the titles to be somewhat obscure, and a lot of times I don't know what they mean till I finish the puzzle. But on this puzzle involves taking -- Oh, I just figured it out. I was going to say this puzzle involves adding or dropping the letters I-T as explained at 37A: Alternative title of this puzzle (TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT) which is what people say a lot of times right after "This is my final offer. . . "

I take back what I was going to say. That's a great title.

The themed entries are (starting with the ones that take I-T):

16A: Time of obese outlaws? (THE BIG BANDIT ERA)

21A: Falsehoods from the preacher? (PULPIT FICTION)

And now the ones that leave I-T:

45A: Headquarters of a great meat sauce? (CENTER OF GRAVY) One of the new comic books that I picked at this summer's Heroes Convention was Gravy Boy, who was supposed to be Gravity Boy, but there was a slipup in the superhero origin thing somewhere. Unfortunately, this was not the only misspelling in the book. Note to indy comics creators: Get a friend or two to proofread.

56A: Hidden sun blocker in a car? (UNEXPECTED VISOR) You know, there are sun-visors that are not part of a car -- those topless hats. I think this clue would have been better if it had been just Unexpected sun blocker?

Other entries of interest:

27A: They represent the people: abbr (DAS). Yeah, I guess so, in the sense of "The People vs. SoAndSo" but really they represent the state. If you're a person who needs legal help and you have no money you're going to want to talk to a PD (Public Defender) rather than a DA (District Attorney).

23D: Gilpin of "Frasier" (PERI) According to the IMDB, she was named after the squirrel "Perri" from a Walt Disney "True-Life Adventures" documentary. It's a wonder she grew up to be so successful after her parents named her after a lawn rat. I initially had PERE, as in "Pere Goriot" cuz I never could tell Balzac and Walt Disney apart.

7D: Skosh (TAD) "skosh" is from the Japanese word "sukoshi" which means "a little bit."

9D: Passage performed by all players (TUTTI) I'm not an opera buff -- yet, but I aspire to be. So far my favorite opera is Mozart's "Cosi Fan Tutte" (which means "All Women Do Like That." "Tutte" being the feminine form of "tutti.") And most of what I know about that I learned from the delightful Australian movie "Cosi" about a guy who is hired to be activities director at a mental institute and somehow ends up directing an opera starring people who can't sing or speak Italian or refrain from flipping out.

17D: "I want to go out" in Pekingese? (ARF) An exceptionally polite Peke, maybe. Most of the ones I've met will just bite you on the ankle when they want to go out. BTW, why when we changed the American pronunciation of China's capital city from Peking to Beijing, did we not change the name of this dog breed from Pekingese to Beijingese?

48D: Barnyard dropping (OAT) Maybe it's just me, but a barnyard dropping sounds like something an animal might do after he's had too many oats. I don't think of oats as droppings.

That's all for today. My tiger and I wish you a Happy Tuesday.