Doubling up

The title of today's puzzle was a lot more help than yesterday's title. It's "Two Against One" and I figured that had to mean more than just Francis Heaney and Patrick Blindauer against me in the crossword ring.

First our 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.

Like I said, I had an inkling of where this one might be going and the fact that the themed entries all say something like 1A: "With 1-Across. . . " or 72A: "With 72-Across. . . " Two-part answers are nothing new but if it's paired up with itself it must be a case of two letters sharing one box. I knew 4D: Author of "The Call of Cthulhu" could only be HP LOVECRAFT and I put an H and a P in that first box even before I got HOCUS POCUS at4A: With 4-Across, spelling phrase. JET SET at 9A: With 9-Across, frequent fliers was the next to fall, and after that I skipped down to 72A: With 72-Across, Toro product and confidently filled in POWER MOWER. BIG DIG at 1A: With 1-Across, Boston public works project (BIG DIG) took a little bit longer cuz I'm just not as informed about Beantown building boondoggles as I should be and because I was unfamiliar with BD WONG (1D: "M. Butterfly" Tony winner). But I got 27D: FedEx doesn't deliver to them (PO BOXES) and that helped me to get PUT OUT at 27A: With 27-Across, retire.
It also messed me up a little bit because by now I was sure all the themed entries had the doubled up letters in the first box of the answer and it actually occurred in the last box at 56A: With 56-Across, eat (BREAK BREAD) and in the middle at 48A: With 48-Across, rap (HIP HOP) but all in all I finished this in about the same amount of time I normally finish a Friday Sun puzzle, which I felt pretty good about, considering who I was going up against. (The fact that there are 5 entries with doubled up letters in the first box and 2 elsewhere does lose the puzzle a few elegance points.)

Other entries of interest:


57D: Knight costar on '70s TV. I figured they were probably talking about Ted Knight on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, but man he had a lot of five-letter co-stars on that show. Besides MOORE herself, there was Ed ASNER, GAVIN MacLeod, BETTY WHITE, and of course ultra-ditzy Georgia ENGEL.

23A: Thou (G NOTE) Earlier in the week, the Sun thought it could always substitute the word "spot" for "note" in this slang terms for big bills, and ended up with something more lascivious than legal tender when they had C-SPOT for an answer. I'm glad they didn't do it with this one or I'd know for sure they were trying to corrupt America's morals.

Speaking of sexy stuff, I know it's an old-fashioned slang term, but AARP is not the first thing that I think of when I hear the phrase PUT OUT.


45A: Exercise done on a bench (ETUDE) That one stumped me for a while. I wasn't thinking of a piano bench.

In Genesis Chapter 29 Lia tricks Jacob into marrying her after he had slaved for seven years to marry her younger sister Rachel. I was kinda hoping LIA might show up in this puzzle to go with 67A: Scala of "Ride a Crooked Trail" (GIA) and 39D: Lunes, e.g. (DIA), but we had to settle for 22D: '80s rocker Ford (LITA)

That's all for today and for this week. Monday's a holiday, so there won't be a new crossword puzzle until Tuesday. We'll have new content this weekend so come on by unless all you care about is crosswords -- if that's the case, I'll see you Tuesday.

I wanted to say something about that video I'm sure you've all seen where Miss South Carolina Teen USA has her train of thought derail during last Friday's pageant. I just think it's so unfair the way people have been jumping on the bandwagon to publicly mock this poor young woman. So I was going to say something but then Peter David said it better than I could have hoped to. Peter David is a very talented writer of comic books and bestselling novels like "Sir Apropos of Nothing" and "Knight Life". He has a spiffy blog too at http://www.peterdavid.net/ Check it out.
Miss South Carolina Teen
By Peter David
Pundits are having a field day dogpiling on poor Caitlin Upton, Miss South Carolina Teen. Asked in competition, "One fifth of Americans can't locate the United States on a world map; why do you think that is?" her response was rambling and literally incoherent, with non-sequitor observations about Iraq and South Africa. She has since said she froze. Genuine freezing might have been preferable; saying nothing would have been better than what she did say.

I refuse to make fun of her. Personally--and I'm completely serious here--I'm wondering if she didn't have a sort of mini-stroke brought on by the stress of the moment. It makes sense to me. People who have had strokes sometimes find themselves unable to say the words they're thinking; instead random words are tossed out. Circumstances such as those that she found herself in would be enough to burst a blood vessel in anyone's head. They probably did dry runs with her about assorted world topics and her synapses just started spitting out fragments of those replies.

Second, I don't think that a country that has tolerated seven years of a president so characterized by malaprops that entire 365-day calendars are devoted to them--a president whose town-hall meeting questions are carefully vetted before they're spoken--gets to laugh too hard at a scared teenager who had a tough question sprung on her. Caitlin Upton has to do her own damage control; she doesn't have a press secretary to face reporters the next day after a session of babbling incoherence and say, "Okay, what she MEANT to say was..."

And it WAS a tough question, because in thirty seconds she had to try and come up with an answer that was fundamentally upbeat and positive because, hey, that's what beauty pagents are all about. If someone asked me that question and I had to come up with an off-the-cuff response, it would be this...
"One fifth? I'm surprised it's that low. On the quiz show "Power of Ten" it was recently revealed that twenty-five percent of surveyed Americans believed that the inventor of the diesel engine was Vin Diesel. The fact is that obesity is not the number one health problem in this country, it's stupidity. A lot of Americans are stupid. Bone dry stupid. Stupid as a box of rocks. They were born stupid, they were stupid in school, and they became stupid grown-ups. And there's enough of them out there to have a considerable impact on this country, because morons are running for high office and morons are voting for them and putting them in there. Americans are oblivious to the rest of the world, and if that were not the case, then maybe our leaders might have listened when the rest of the world said, 'Stay the hell out of Iraq, you morons.' Many Americans have a fundamental arrogance that stems from a basic lack of intellectual curiosity. They don't read. They don't learn. They don't think. They tune out with television or computer games or Ipods and obsess about what Lindsay or Britney or whatever other troubled pop tart is up to rather than caring about things that really matter.
Our educational system needs to be overhauled beyond the test-centric mandates of No Child Left Behind. If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day; teach him how to fish and he will feed himself for ever. Students need to be taught HOW to think, not WHAT to think. More money needs to be spent on programs for kids who are already gifted so that those gifts can be fully realized and brought to fruition. We need to remember that the arts enrich a civilization; that science and scientific thinking is not the enemy; that it is more important to care for poor people over here than blow up poor people in other countries.
The fact that one fifth of Americans can't find the country on the map pales beside the likelihood that one fifth of Americans probably couldn't find their own asses with both hands and a flashlight. And that stupidity is going to continue to be a hallmark of our country until we work together to remedy the situation from the top down."

Not an easy thing to sound upbeat about in thirty seconds, is it.

My condolences to Ms. Upton. Now...she needs to strive to be part of the solution, rather than be dismissed as part of the problem.

Thursday 8-30-07

Man, maybe I shouldn't take a day off. This puzzle kicked my keister -- well, not the puzzle itself, which I solved without much problem, but figuring out what was going on with the theme took forever.

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.

"Self-Reflective" is by Steven Ginzburg and at the puzzle's theme is described -- well, hinted at -- at 54A: Florida lake in which you could view the unchanged vertical reflections of 18-,28-,35-45-, and 54-Across (OKEECHOBEE)

The four other entries referenced by this clue are:

18: Natalie Maines, for one (DIXIE CHICK)

28A: Put one's foot in someone else's mouth (KICK BOXED)

35A: Twice nueve (DIECIOCHO)

45A: It can be balanced (CHECKBOOK)

I looked at those for a long time and other than noticing that they had more than their share of C's and K's I got nowhere. CHECKBOOK was almost an anagram of OKEECHOBEE but not quite. The "vertical reflection" thing just made my head swim. How do you have a vertical reflection of a horizontal entry?

After way too long something niggled at the back of my brain. I wrote down all the unique letters in these entries. In alphabetical order they were: B C D E H I K O X, and something about that looked familiar. I remembered some riddle or something somewhere about flipping letters vertically and having them remain the same. All of these letters will do that -- in upper case at any rate -- and they are the only ones that will do that. So that's it, the themed entries are all composed of letters that are vertical reflections of themselves.

Pretty cool, huh? I mean, a major mental workout but still cool.

Other entries of interest:

1A: Carrier letters (USS) Got off on the wrong foot right off the bat here -- I had UPS, thinking package carrier not aircraft carrier.

9A: Starship chart topper (SARA) Oh my god, I am such a Star Trek: The Next Generation geek I couldn't figure this one out. I knew it had something to do with the USS Enterprise not the mediocre followup to the Jefferson Airplane.

16A: Start of many Ocean Spray juice flavors (CRAN) Yep, and I think I tried them all when I thought my messed-up back was actually messed-up kidneys. Although it doesn't start with cran- my favorite way to consume cranberries is in Craisins, Ocean Spray's sweetened dried cranberries. Now that's good stuff there.

There were some gimmes in this puzzles like 33A: One side in a famous family feud (MCCOYS) and 37D: Muesli's cousin (GRANOLA) which was balanced out by some toughies 48A: Pole vault metal? (GROSZ) I don't really get. Is "grosz" Polish for "gold"? 36D: Court call (OYEZ) I don't get either.

62A: Works on a kakuro puzzle (ADDS) Kakuro is supposed to be the next Sudoku. It actually requires some basic math skills unlike Sudoku where are you need is logic. One thing they both have in common is that I suck at them.

52A: Voicer of Sylvester (MEL) Obviously that's Sylvester the cat, Tweety-Bird's bane and Mel Blanc. I'm just curious as to why they clued it as "Voicer of. . ." and not just "Voice. . ."

10D: Second word of "Mr. Roboto" (ARIGATO) "Domo Arigato" which is Japanese for "Thank you very much." So that's Spanish, Polish, 30A: It's divided into comtes (ETAT) is French, whatever the heck OYEZ is, and now Japanese. You have to be multilingual to solve this one -- either that or or have spent a large portion of your youth listening to bands like Styx.

That's all for today. Let's do it again on Friday. Friday's by the way is by Francis Heaney and Patrick Blindauer, so it ought to be a good one.

Day Off

Today is the day my wife and I celebrate our anniversary. We have not allowed ourselves to take this good thing we have for granted, and for that reason it just gets better and better. Whenever I count my blessings I always start with Kim. My anniversary is actually my favorite holiday of the year.

My son is going back to public school after 5 and a half years of home school and it is a transition, to say the least.

And work -- oh my God, don't even mention work to me. This week was supposed to be so good since my boss is in the Carribean, but the stuff hit the fan first thing Monday and then somebody turned the fan on high on Tuesday.

Far all those reasons I am taking the day off from crossword blogging. If things let up I may try to find a minute or two to comment. But I'm not counting on it.

Have a nice day.

Tuesday 8-28-07

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.

"Tripling" by Alan Arbesfeld should probably be called "Triple Ing" cuz that's what each of the themed entries contain -- an ING followed by an ING followed by another ING.

And it looks something like this:

17A: Fred's frequent routine on the way to the set? (DRIVING IN GINGER) This was the last one of the themed entries I got -- mainly because the only Freds I could think of were Flintstone and Mertz, which is weird cuz I love Fred Astaire and Ginger Rigers movies. My favorite is "Flying Down to Rio."

27A: Suggestions for many '90s GOP fundraisers (BRING IN GINGRICH) Provided of course that Newt is not too busy hounding Bill Clinton about his affair with Monica Lewinsky while simultaneously committing adultery with a woman twenty-three years his junior. This was his second wife he was cheating on this time. He served his first wife divorce papers while she was in the hospital battling cancer. Just another example of Republican hubris and hypocrisy.

46A: Possible variety headline if an "American Beauty" actress agrees to a D.L. Coburn play? (BENING IN GIN GAME) Probably not for a few years however. The Gin Game is about two people in a nursing home playing rummy and Ms. Bening is only 49.

61A: Wagner opera performer's activity? (SINGING IN GERMAN) " Wagner's music is better than it sounds." Mark Twain.

Other entries of interest:

9A: Large piece of cabbage? (C SPOT) C Spot? that sounds more like another part of the female anatomy I'm unfamiliar with. It doesn't sound like money, that's a C-note. I thought it might just be me -- after all, "Driving in Ginger" sounded sexy to me too, so I did a Google image search for C-spot -- 10 pages of some very interesting stuff but no money. Am I missing something?

14A: Pop alternative, in two different ways (DADA) It took me a minute to figure this one out -- Dada as a pop art alternative and a baby-talk alternative to the word "pop".

6D: Mac and cheese lead-in (BIG) Nice little Tuesday misdirection. Thought we were going to have pasta, ended up with a fast-food burger.

7D: Mobile home? (CRIB) Another tricky clue. I was trying to think of a four-letter abbreviation for Alabama. CRIB is a much better answer.

30A: Close up on the silver screen (GLENN) Another great clue.

43D: Nags (VIRAGOS) There's a great old-fashioned word that you hardly ever hear.

That's all for today. Let's do it again on Wednesday.







(You can ignore that "Tomarry-Mortary" stuff; I was working on the Scrabble-grams.)

Monday 8-27-07

My back was so bad yesterday I couldn't straighten up. So I went somewhere I rarely ever go -- to the doctor. After all the inspecting, detecting and rejecting, he told me that I was 50 years old and I threw out my back lifting something that would have been no problem for a younger, fitter person. (See why I don't like to go there?) Anyway, so I've spent the weekend intimately involved with an icepack, hopped up on muscle relaxers and watching "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" DVDs. This post will be brief.
Not so brief that there's no 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.
"Head of the Animals" is by Pancho Harrison and each themed entry is a phrase or compound word consisting of an animal followed by a body part -- more specifically a head part, but not in crown to chin order like Sunday's NY Times puzzle.

Without further ado:

17A: Wide-angle lens (FISHEYES) 26A: Reason to get braces (BUCK TEETH) which actually are not named after male deer, but after the act of bucking because it looks like the teeth are kicking up.
By the way, in France buck teeth are called dents à l'anglaise, literally "English teeth."
Well!

38A: Having a rounded cutting edge, as a tool (HOG NOSE) Not a real handy kinda guy. The only hognose I know is the hognose snake.

40A: Bookmark alternative (DOG EARS) No, it's not an alternative to a bookmark. It's vandalism. Don't dogear your books or the library books either. If you need a bookmark, let me know, I've got hundreds of them and I'll be glad to send you one.

50A: Nincompoop (BIRD BRAIN) 64A: City in Saskatchewan (MOOSE JAW)

Other animals or body parts in the puzzle:

20A: Snaky swimmer (EEL) 16A: Expensive caviar (BELUGA) 43A: One not invited to a stag party? (DOE) 67A: Colony insect (ANT) 22D: Boston seafood selection (SCROD) 66A: Low digit? (BIG TOE) Not technically part of the head obviously, but I'm going to allow it.

Other entries of interest:

5A: Prez who was in office for more than 12 years (FDR) Something about this one doesn't feel right right to me, maybe because FDR is an abbreviation and there is no corresponding abbreviation in the clue -- "Prez" is slang, not an abbreviation.

8A: Carter-era FBI bribery probe (ABSCAM) Mostly forgotten part of political history now, I guess, but we were mighty proud at the time that one of our own representatives -- John Jenrette of Myrtle Beach -- was involved in this felony, since South Carolina politicians aren't known for anything else other being old as dirt.

23A: Claude who played Sheriff Lobo (AKINS) My only misstep in this puzzle. I had __INS and I went to Casablanca rather than Orly County and put RAINS.

46A: Amused immensely (SLAYED) That reminds me -- I'm coming back to you, Buffy. I'll bring the muscle relaxers.

More books I've read in 2007

It's always interesting to me how when I have something on my mind, it seems like everywhere I look I find it. I even find it when I'm not looking. If you read my 300th post you know I've been thinking a lot about nostalgia for right now, for the present moment, and that's what "Bel Canto" by Ann Patchett is about -- among many other things.
In an unnamed South American country, a banquet is held for a Japanese tycoon to try to get him to build a factory there. Performing is Roxane Coss, one of the greatest opera singers of modern times. It's a beautiful evening that goes horrible awry when terrorists storm the building and take all the guests hostage.
It goes awry for the terrorists too, as their plan was to kidnap the president of the country and take him back with them to the jungle. But at the last minute the president canceled out. (He didn't want to miss his favorite soap opera.) And the terrorists have no plan B. So a ten minute kidnapping becomes a 5-month long standoff. Nothing can make you appreciate every moment like knowing any one can be your last moment, but eventually tensions relax as hostages and terrorists become more comfortable with each other. The tycoon and the opera singer fall in love, as does Gen his interpreter with a young female kidnapper. And everybody falls in love with music, as Roxane sings every morning and gives lessons to a naturally talented young kidnapper. Although you never know what's going on outside the gates, other than what the Red Cross negotiator tells them, but you know it can't end well for the terrorists and it doesn't. But it left me with a renewed appreciation for music and for the moment, so I'd say it had a very happy ending.
I also read "Fantastic Four: Hereafter" just cuz I was missing Mike Weiringo, the artist on this volume, who passed away on August 12th. I read these stories when they first came out in the monthly comic book, but I wanted to see if they were as good as I remembered. They were, as the Fantastic Three take a trip into the afterlife to rescue Ben Grimm AKA the Thing, who was killed in a battle with Doctor Doom. This volume is rounded out a couple of more lighthearted stories as the Human Torch goes to Spider-Man to pick up some tips and improving PR, and it turns into a battle with Hydroman at a Hoboken water park.
Which brings us to my "Oh My Goddess." This is a long-running manga series about a Japanese college kid who misdials the pizza parlor and gets a goddess hotline. He's allowed to make one wish and he wishes that the goddess -- Belldandy -- would stay with him forever. And his wish is granted. Before long Belldandy brings along her sexy older sister Urd (pictured on the cover of volume 22 above) and her bratty but brilliant younger sister Skuld. Theses goddesses are based -- very loosely -- on the three Norns of Norse mythology, where Belldandy was known as Verdandi. And I swear I did not know this until I looked it up ten seconds ago but according to Wikipedia, the name Verdandi "literally is the present tense of be or "to be" and is commonly translated as "in the making" or "that which is happening/becoming", related to the Dutch word worden and the German word werden, both meaning "to become". She is the present moment." (So you see what I mean about being instinctively drawn to things that can show you more about something you're fascinated by.)
I'm sure you've heard about people who claim their religion is Jedi or some other non-existent pop culture faith. I'm not quite that crazy yet, but I do have "What Would Belldandy Do?" on all my checks -- which was a compromise; I wanted a WWBD tattoo --- and Belldandy has been a great inspiration to me as a human being and as a writer -- because I was taught in composition class that it's a character's weaknesses and flaws that make them interesting. But Belldandy always does the right thing and she is a fascinating character. The only flaws I've ever seen her exhibit were very mild jealousy and sometimes when she has used a lot of magic she has to take a nap right away. But that's not what makes her interesting anyway.
An example of what makes her interesting is in my favorite story in this volume. A couple of demons invent a teapot that will imprison a goddess or a human inside if they kiss the teapot. The problem of course is getting anybody in their right mind to kiss a teapot and they get around this by casting another spell on it so that when they look at it people will see the cutest thing they can imagine not an old teapot. So Skuld sees a toy rocket, Urd sees a little nurse advertising mascot, other people see roses, a cute boy, a motorcycle, and Keiichi (the college boy) sees Belldandy. All of them kiss the teapot, all are sucked into it and imprisoned there. All except Bellldandy. Now she comes along, sees the teapot, "oohs" and "aahs" all over it, then takes it into the kitchen to clean it up. Well, it turns out that hot water reverses the spell and everybody is released from the teapot prison.
Later the two demons are talking about their plan and what went wrong. One wonders out loud what Belldandy saw when she looked at the teapot, and the other one says Belldandy saw the teapot because Belldandy doesn't need illusions. She loves life just the way it is.
And I just got goosebumps writing those last two sentences. That is exactly how I want to be.

Royal Flush

Wow, another mind-blower from Patrick Blindauer. This one took me a while to solve and even longer to figure out what was going on. I could blame it on cranberry juice intoxication since I've been pouring it down trying to flush out this kidney ache -- or caffeine withdrawal since I haven't had any tea or Diet Pepsi today, but truth is it's a tough, fair puzzle -- and if you're smarter than me and tumble onto the theme a little sooner than five minutes after you finish the puzzle, it might help you crack the puzzle a little faster.

Anyway, here all fresh and rested from its one-day vacation is our ever-popular 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.

Blindauer has taken all of the cards in the highest natural poker hand and shuffled (anagrammed) them into new phrases.

Starting with the TEN OF SPADES which becomes ONE STEP FADS (17A: Simple crazes?) and moving up to the Jack of Spades or SAFE JOCK PADS )(19A: Gear that keeps an athlete protected?).

The Queen of Spades morphs into FED OPAQUENESS (34A: Cause of difficulty in understanding Ben Bernanke?) and the King is now FAKES DOPINGS (51A: Creates false positives on drug tests?) and the mighty Ace is now an ESCAPED SOFA (54A: What a couch detective looks for?)

I like all these new phrases but they don't lend themselves well to illustration. I looked all the web for a picture of an escaped sofa but found nothing. And I'm sorry, but I am not even going to look for jock pads.
The only other card themed entries I see are 9A: Vide ____ (see before, in Latin) (ANTE) and 58A: Fight (MIX-UP) (another word for shuffle) and I guess 61A: It's corny (TRIX) might slide in, as well. At least I can find a picture for it.

Other entries of interest:

26A: One out of ten (ZERO) That's almost a cryptic crossword clue. As I read it, if you take the digit 1 out of 10 you're left with 0.

39A: Cabal (RING) I had GANG for the longest.

38D: Bud holder? (KEG) Another misstep. I had MUG. That's what I get for thinking small, I guess.

46A: "Baby __ Back" (1992 #1 hit) (GOT) I am embarrassed to admit that this is where I got my initial toehold on this puzzle.

20A: Noted trio member (EGO) I realize it's got to be something simple that I'm just missing but I've got more curiosity than pride and I admit I don't get this one. What trio is ego a member of?

That's all for today. Have a great weekend.

Themeless Thursday

I really enjoyed this puzzle from Frank Longo, but I am not feeling well -- not sure whether I've thrown my back out or messed my kidneys up, but I need to sit back in my recliner with some "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" DVD's. This post might be a little shorter than this puzzle deserves is what I'm trying to say.

Ever since Orange pointed out to me how often these themeless puzzles actually have mini-themes, I'm always on the lookout for one. The one today wasn't hard to spot. The mini-theme is Ecstatic Extremities. We've got 1A: Warm welcomes (GLAD HANDS) and 62A: 2006 film with an Elvis-like character named Memphis (HAPPY FEET).
Or maybe it's Hidden Tits since we've T-I-T in some form in 20A: Football Hall of Famer Y.A. (TITTLE) ; 13DE: Biggest cut, often (TITLE TRACK) 58A: Joint (BIPARTITE) ; 18A: Grammy winner Travis (TRITT); 36d: Where a trial takes place (TEST SITE) 10D: Web spaces? (ATTICS); 12D: Not much (A LITTLE BIT)

BTW, Travis Tritt is one of my least favorite country singers. All you need to know about him is that he considers himself an "outlaw" and he drinks Bud Light. Unfortunately, that tells you a lot about country music too. I was assigned to review his newest CD "The Storm" and he pissed me off again -- this time by putting out an album that wasn't bad enough to rip into or good enough to enjoy, just mediocre.

And Y.A. Tittle -- I'm sure he never got teased in school. Especially since the Y.A, stood for "Yelberton Abraham."

Other entries of interest:

6D: Baby boomers first seen in 1985 (ARLO AND JANIS) I hate it when I can't get something that's right in my wheelhouse. Arlo and Janis is a comic strip, not one of my favorites, but pretty funny sometimes and it shouldn't have given me such a hard time.

24D: Props for Sally Rand (FANS) This might actually fit in with our second mini-theme, although Sally kept them very well hidden. Everybody kept thinking they were going to see her naked; often they thought they had, but it was all an illusion.

38A: I-beam's cousin (H-BAR) Cousin? I don't think so. I think I've finally learne dth difference between an a I-beam and a T-bar, but an H-bar, that's just an I-beam on its side.

61A: Sneva lost to him in the 1978 Indy 500 (UNSER) You're ususally pretty safe going with UNSER if it's anything Indy.

22A: Like bachelors (EDUCATED) Not saying that married men are ignorant, these are bachelors of arts or sciences.

30A: Sound of recognition(AHH) I had AHA for the longest time, which really messed me up on 26D: B-picture quality, often (CHEESINESS)


Okay, that's it. Buffy and the recliner beckon. Be here Friday to see Patrick Blindauer has cooked up for us this time.

Wednesday

Hi.
Got a good Wednesday puzzle for you, and we'll get to it right after this 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.

I liked this puzzle, but it's one of those times when the theme is harder to explain than to demonstrate. I'm going to try to explain it however. Stop me if any of this starts to make sense.

The theme of Alan Arbesfeld's "Greetings From the Front" involves 6 words or phrases that start off (the Front) with different ways of spelling the "aitch-long I" sound. Another word is then grafted onto the rear of this word, resulting in an unexpected new phrase. Hilarity ensues. (Well, hilarity ensues if you enjoy groanworthy puns as much as I do.)

And away we go. . .

18A: Chief Thief? (HIJACK LORD) Jack Lord is an actor best known for playing Steve McGarrett on the TV series "Hawaii 5-0" and for uttering the immortal catch phrase "Book 'em, Danno." Hawaii 5-0 was never one of my favorite shows, but I am grateful to it, since its title is the only reason I know that Hawaii and not Alaska is the 50th state.

24A: Fan letter? (HYPER MISSIVE) This is the only one of the themed entries that doesn't work for me. All of the others are people or things that one might conceivably say "Hi" to, but how and why would anybody ever verbally greet an adjective?

32A: Delay in verse production? (HAIKU WAIT) And this is my favorite of the themed entries. I just love the visual of somebody sitting there on the Persian Gulf trying to write a Japanese poem.

46A: Surprised shout upon seeing Meg, Beth, and Amy's sister? (HEIGH-HO JO) Howard Johnson's don't seem to be as ubiquitous as they were when I was a kid. We never stayed at the motels -- my Dad was a Holiday Inn man -- but we ate at the restaurants a lot. I remember they made great milkshakes.

52A: Bar association? (HIGHBALL CLUB) A highball is not any one particular type of cocktail, but basically any simple mixed drink served in a tall glass. Scotch and soda, Harvey Wallbanger, Cuba libre, and a sloe comfortable screw against the wall are all highballs.

64A: Five gold medals in speedskating at 1980 Olympics? (HEIDEN MARK) At the Lake Placid Olympics Eric Heiden did what no one before or since has done -- won five individual gold medals. He won more that year than Finland, Norway, the Netherlands, Switzerland, West Germany, Italy, Canada, Hungary, Japan, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and France combined.

Other entries of interest:

23A: Powell's frequent co-star (LOY) That's William Powell and Myrna Loy -- or Aunt Myrna, as we called her. No, we're not really related, I'm just kidding, but I do feel a special bond with her. She's the most famous person with my last name and I wonder if she had as much trouble with people misspelling this little three-letter-surname. I get Lloyd, Floyd, Foy, Low, Lou -- you name it. In addition to the five Thin Man movies, Powell and Loy starred in nine other motion pictures together, including "Libeled Lady" with Jean Harlow and Spencer Tracy. Check them out here. I'll watch anything either of them are in, together they're even greater. In fact if you're looking for a gift for your favorite New York Sun crossword blogger, here's a suggestion.

45D: Gang hit, perhaps (DRIVE-BY) More proof that the Sun does not have anything like the NY Times's breakfast table rule.

68A: Banks, familiarly (MR CUB) I was sure after I had MRC that I had screwed up somewhere -- but I was thinking credit unions, the sides of rivers, the family in "Mary Poppins." Everything but baseball and hall of famer Ernie.

11D: Base runner? (AWOL) And here when I shouldn't have been thinking baseball, I was. Great clue for AWOL, by the way.

59A: Newman's ____ (OWN) Highly recommend the salsa, the spaghetti sauce, the salad dressing -- but the Newman O cookies only if you can't get Oreos.

3D: Postmarked thing (STAMP) Well, technically, the thing that goes over a stamp is usually a cancelation mark, and the postmark -- indicating the date and time the USPS processed the item -- is to the left. I'm not just being a mail nerd -- Wikipedia agrees with me.

19D: Loonie, e.g. (COIN) Wow, Canadian slang. That's what they call their dollar coin which has a loon on one side and Queen Elizabeth on the other. Wonder why they don't call it a Betsy.

And from LOON, it's just a one-letter leap to Moon -- 21D. Drop ____ (TROU) So, we've gone from "Greetings From the Front" to mooning, or greetings from the rear.
Must be time for me to go. See y'all tomorrow.

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.

Monday 8-20-07

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.

"Slice of Hamlet" is by Curtis Yee. 7D: With 39-Down, Hamlet quote indicating what can follow the first parts of 19-, 24-, 46-, and 52- Across THE PLAY'S (39D:) THE THING. The full quote is "The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king." Hamlet utters these lines when he strikes upon the idea of staging a play that shows how he thinks his Uncle Claudius killed his brother, Hamlet's father.

19A: Politician's source of influence (POWER BASE) A power play in hockey is when you've got more players than the other team because they've got a guy in the penalty box. They have power plays in other sports too such as football, but I don't know how that works.

24A: Street Sense's sport (HORSE RACING) Street Sense is the reigning Kentucky Derby champion, a granddaughter of legendary stud Northern dancer.

46A: Computer program that kicks in after a set time of idleness (SCREEN SAVER) 52A: Cruciverbalist (WORDSMITH) I think we all know about wordplay.

Other entries of interest:

9A: Dance in Rio (SAMBA) I need more dance knowledge. These South American dances are always 5 letters long and I never know if it's SAMBA, SALSA or MAMBA.

16A: Saddle-shaped brand of potato chips (PRINGLES) Not the only ones anymore, now that Lays has ripped them off with their Stax brand chips.

34A: Clio relative (ERATO) As I mentioned a couple of days ago, Erato is hands-down the most popular muse among crossword constructors. Maybe it's the verb-consonant-verb-consonant-verb layout of her name and maybe they just really like erotic poetry, which is what Erato is the muse of.

51A: Savion Glover's specialty (TAP) I have TEP. Whoops.

20D: Nintendo game system (WII) Go here to read about a woman who died of water intoxication while trying to win a "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" contest sponsored by a Sacramento radio station. She drank two gallons of water and held her wee as long as she could. Not a good idea. But who knew there was such a thing as water intoxication. I guess there's many a SOT (38A: Tippler) who'd like to know that.

That's all for today. See you Tuesday.

More books I've read in 2007

The current Dennis the Menace could slide right in with the cherubs on "The Family Circus," but back in the day he was a real Hellion. And there was no Ritalin back then either, so I'm surprised that his parents weren't baldheaded alcoholics.
Peanuts paperbacks were some of the first books I ever bought -- from Weekly Reader books or whoever those people were who sold books to first and second graders. It amazes now that I would have spent my money thusly, since there was a lot of stuff in there I didn't get. Peanuts seems like maybe the most grown-up comic strip despite the fact that were no grownups in it. Maybe I didn't realize how much I wasn't getting, but I got enough to find some of the strips disturbing. If you have any empathy at all it's tough to watch Charlie Brown strive and strive and constantly fail at everything -- even getting a GD Valentine, for God's sake! Another strip that I think made me cry when I first read it and I know I've never forgotten has a bunch of the kids walking somewhere and then noticing that somebody is following behind them, someone they call a big baby and not old enough to hang with them. Turns out it's Charlie Brown (of course) and he says something like, "Actually I'm older than them. They're referring to my emotional immaturity."
Rough stuff.

Weekend Warrior 8-17-07

Okay, here's something I bet you won't see in the New York Times crossword puzzle with its famous Sunday-morning-breakfast-table test. The first two clues in Karen M. Tracey's Weekend Warrior puzzle are 1A: Stiff and 6A: Cocks, e.g.
Stiff cocks, c'mon, that can't be an oversight.
SPOILER WARNING (now with 50 per cent more rant!): 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. For an unsolicited testimonial from someone who agrees with me, see here. Or if you're ready to decide for yourself you can download this puzzle and join in on the fun here.

I'm about to unveil the Raymond Chandler method for getting unstuck during late-in-the-week crossword puzzles. Raymond Chandler, the great hardboiled mystery writer, creator of Philip Marlowe, said that whenever he got writer's block he just had two guys come in the door with guns. I propose that if you get stuck on a Friuday puzzle, throw in a high-value Scrabble letter like a Z, Q, J, V, K or X. It would have served you well in this puzzle.

24A: He lost out to Philip Seymour Hoffman for Best Actor of 2005 (JOAQUIN PHOENIX)
47A: It split apart on January 1st, 1993 (CZECHOSLAVAKIA) I hadn't internalized the Raymond Chandler rule yet and I wanted this to be THE SOVIET UNION.

Other entries of interest:

10A: "The Alphabet Suite" artist (ERTE) I know as much about "The Alphabet Suite" as I do the dissolution of Czechoslavakia. I had the initial E and thought it might be the ubiqitous ENYA.

16A: "___ on First" (1981 biography of a comedian) Lou Costello was famous (with his partner Bud Abbott) for the baseball routine "Who's on First."

18A: Beauty expert Berg (RONA) If it was any day other than Friday, this would probably refer to former gossip queen (and most famous Rona) Rona Barrett.

39A: GUI piece? (USER) GUI stands for Graphical User Interface.

51A: Unfair criticism (LOW BLOW) In keeping with the "stiff cocks" subtheme, I'll tell you that a popular comedic routine when I was a lad was to insult a friend then say, "I'm sorry, that was a low blow. Speaking of low blows, how's your father? Oh, I'm sorry, that was a dirty crack. Speaking of dirty cracks, how's your mother?"

59A: One of the "three little people" whose problems "don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world." (ILSA) We know it's only four letters, so it can't be Victor Laszlo, it must be either Rick Blaine or Ilsa Lund.

63A: Second word of "Candle in the Wind" (NORMA) "Goodbye, Norma Jean." Norma Jean Baker was the name Marilyn Monroe was born with. (Unless it's the reworked Princess Diana version of the song, then it would be ENGLAND'S as in "Goodbye, England's rose.")

2D: Driving instruction? (HOME JAMES) I was looking for a trick here, maybe having to do with golf, but no, this is what I tell my chauffeur to do when we leave the opera house. If you don't have a chauffeur, go to HomeJames.com,when you've had too much to drink or when you're just trying to impress somebody, and you can arrange for a chauffeur to come wherever you are on a collapsible scooter. He'll put his scooter in the trunk of your car and drive your drunk ass home in style. The only catch is you have to live in LA.

21D: Bunny bits (DUST) In Britain what we call "dust bunnies" they call "beggar's velvet."

36D: Hector portrayer in "Troy" (ERIC BANA) Didn't see it, knew Brad Pitt was in it, had just enough letters to know it couldn't be Brad Pitt.

30D: Acts like Chicken Little (CRIES WOLF) I guess what she did could be termed "crying wolf", but the boy who cried wolf was just bored and Chicken Little really did believe the sky was falling. I wanted OVERREACTS, which wouldn't quite fit,

Other proper names in this puzzle besides the aforementioned Joaquin Phoenix, Norma, James, Eric Bana, Ilsa, Erte, Lou and Rona include NORA DUNN, ANN MILLER, ARIE Selinger, VERN Buchanan, AENEAS, and stretching things just a tiny bit -- ARAMIS (45A: Estee Lauder fragrance for men) and CHAD (1D: Bit of an election controversy?)

That's all I've got. Enjoy your Friday.

The Captain and the King

The things that you fall in love with as a kid are always with you. They stick in your subconscious like nothing else. I decided when I was 12 years old what I thought was cool -- and that was comic books, baseball, crossword puzzles, country music and girls with dark hair and dark eyes. And that's still what I think is cool today.

Elvis Presley died thirty years ago today. He and I have at least one thing in common -- he fell under the spell of comic books at an early age too, and he never got over it; it influenced the rest of his life and consequently American culture. Elvis's favorite comic book hero was Captain Marvel Junior, who was the first teenage hero in his right rather than being relegated to sidekick. Unlike Billy Batson, who transformed into the original Captain Marvel by saying the acronym SHAZAM, Freddie Freeman became Captain Marvel. Jr by shouting out "Captain Marvel." (And yes, that means he was the only superhero who could not say his own name otherwise he would turn into a crippled little boy, not a good thing to do when you're fighting bad guys like Captain Nazi.)

Elvis's feelings for Captain Marvel Jr are well-documented. The Presley's apartment in Memphis has been preserved as a historical and a copy of a Captain Marvel Junior comic book sits on a desk in Elvis's old bedroom, and there are a stack of them in the attic at Graceland. According to Pamela Clarke Keogh’s “Elvis Presley: The Man. The Life. The Legend,” Elvis used comics as an escape. “Like a lot of kids with a chaotic home life, Elvis created his own world inside his head. He read comic books and was drawn to Superman, Batman, and, most of all, Captain Marvel Jr. Around the age of 12, Elvis discovered Captain Marvel Jr. and quickly became almost obsessed with him.”

Want proof of the extent of Freddie Freeman's influence on Elvis Presley? All you have to do is look at the hair Elvis always dyed black (his hair was naturally light brown) like CMJ, and those sideburns, which started out looking just like CMJ's. The Vegas outfits Elvis wore , the jumpsuits, scarves, boots and half-capes are all from Captain Marvel Junior. The Taking Care of Business TCB emblem that Elvis designed and emblazoned all over jewelry and clothing has a lightning bolt in the middle that looks a lot like the one that struck when Freddy changed into Captain Marvel Junior, and that he wore on his chest.






















By the way, it wasn't all one-sided hero worship either. In a recent issue of Teen Titans, Captain Marvel Junior reveals that he's a big fan of the King's too.


You can read a lot more about the connection between the Captain and the King here.