It's not always black and white

A lot of the crossword constructor's guidelines I've seen says something along the lines of "Avoid stale, overdone themes, such as colors, et cetera." Pete Mitchell's "Nonconformity" is about colors, but it's neither trite not overdone. More like proof that all you need to take a theme from trite to exciting is just a little tweak.

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 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. This is a great way to get people who are still a little green (so to speak) at crosswords used to themes that "break" the rules of crosswords. It's not too hard for a Wednesday so it won't have anybody seeing red.

Here's how it works: Four unclued symmetrically-placed words won't fit in the grid (i.e. inside the lines). All four words happen to be the names of colors. The reason why I think this puzzle is not too hard is because you get a great clue at 37A: How some color (and a hint to solving this puzzle) OUTSIDE THE LINES -- how some color? It's got to be "outside the lines"; I got that answer with no letters in place to help me. The intersecting entries are likewise helpful. I've watched enough television so that 1A: Mrs. Howell, to Thurston (LOVEY) and 14A: When "SNL" wraps (ONE AM) were no trouble at all. 2D: First name in gossip has got to be RONA (even though Ms. Barrett now deals in lavender not innuendo) and what else could 5D: Member of the Amazin's be but NY MET. Now that I know my first guess -- MOM -- for 1D: House rule maker, perhaps can't be right it must be BLOC and I've got three letters now that won't fit. Where could they go? 37A told me where they go, and once I had BROWN in place, and knowing crossworder's obsession with symmetry, I could skip around to the four corners and work my way inward which is what I did.

For the record, the four colors are (counterclockwise from 1A) BROWN, PURPLE, GREEN (My favorite color, a fact which I suspect will come as a shock to absolutely no one) and (for the second day in a row) ORANGE, which gives me the opportunity to reiterate my recommendation for Amy Reynaldo's "How to Conquer the New York Times Crossword Puzzle" Whatever level of a solver you are, you can pick up some useful tips here. This book definitely gets the Green Genius Seal of Approval.

Other entries of interest:

7D: Result of a promotion, maybe (QUEEN) This is a chess reference, where is you can get one of your pawns to your opponent's back row, you can turn that pawn into any other piece you like, including the most powerful piece, the queen.

30D: Winning manager of the 2005 World Series (GUILLLEN) That's Ozzie Guillen of the Chicago White Sox, who are not playing like champions this years, but then neither are the 2006 World Series champions Saint Louis Cardinals.

68A: Hoppy happy hour drinks (ALES) My favorite clue in the grid. Despite the kangaroo mental imagery, it refers to the hops that give beer and ale bitterness and flavor.

51A: Lumberjill's tool (AXE) I guess a lumberjill could be a female lumberjack, but the few times I've heard the word it referred to a butch lesbian.

28A: Do stuff? (GEL) That's hairdo, of course.

That's all for today. See you on Thursday.

Away from the Storm

Got a good one for you today, so let's get the SPOILER WARNING out of the way: Don't read any further until you've done today's New York Sun Crossword Puzzle. New York Sun puzzles are every bit as good as the more well-known New York Times, and they're indisputably better in one way -- they're free. You can download this puzzle and join in on the fun here.

Gimme Shelter is by Pete Mitchell, and the conceit here is revealed in 69A: Last name for the starts of 17-,27-,46-,and 61-Across LEE.

So we get 17A: Rock, e.g. STANDUPCOMEDIAN
(And yes, Stan the Man Lee is having a big week; he was in yesterday's Sun puzzle too. Well, okay, it might have been Stan Musial, but it looked like Stan Lee to me.)

27A: 1992, to Queen Elizabeth II ANNUSHORRIBILIS. (Anybody else would have just said it was a bad year.)(Ann Lee was one of the founders of the "Shaking Quakers" or Shakers religion. At one time they had 6,000 members but they forbade any "sexual expression" whatsoever, so they didn't make any baby Shakers and it's kinda hard to recruit new members with those kind of rules. At last count they had 4 members.)

46A: City in upstate New York with horse racing SARATOGASPRINGS
(My sixth-grade teacher Miss Chewning was fanatical about the double-negative rule. She HATED Sara Lee's jingle "Everybody doesn't like something, but nobody doesn't like Sara Lee."

61A: 2003 film with the tagline "Feel the love" ANGERMANAGEMENT
"Eat, Drink, Man, Woman," is my favorite Ang Lee movie, but he also directed "Sense and Sensibility" and "Brokeback Mountain."

Even after I had figured out the theme and finished the puzzle I wasn't sure why it was called "Gimme Shelter." When I realized that it was because every themed entry gained a "Lee" and alee means away from the wind or toward shelter, I got a delayed chuckle out of it. Much
appreciated.

Some entries of note:

I found 4A: Essayist who wrote "Lawyers, I suppose, were children once" LAMB interesting, mainly because it seems the only time Charles Lamb comes up in a puzzle, it's just a reference to his pen name Elia, so it's kinda cool to actually hear from the man. In addition to the lawyer quip, Lamb also said:

" T'is sweet to think that where'er we rove
We are sure to find something blissful and dear;
And that when we 're far from the lips we love,
We 've but to make love to the lips we are near."

(which makes me think Lamb might want to sue Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Their "Love the One You're With" was a complete rip-off.)

He also wrote:

"The greatest pleasure I know, is to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident." (Which is profoundly true)
and
"Asparagus inspires gentle thoughts." (Which isn't.)

39A: Noted dump truck manufacturer TONKA. Love those clues that take you unexpectedly back to childhood. 48D: Toy that'll give you a lot of bang for your buck (POPGUN) had much the same effect.

7D: Org. led by a Grand Exalted Ruler BPOE. That's the Elks Club, y'all, more formally known as the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.

24D: Tea type OOLONG The word oolong means "black dragon" in Chinese, supposedly because the leaves resemble dragons awakening when hot water is poured on them.

45A: Question in a long-distance relationship MISSME.
This one took me unexpectedly back to my adolescence, where I had a couple of long distance relationships.

The trickiest entry in the puzzle for me was 40A: Trivial Pursuit piece. I had _IE and knew that it had to be PIE. I was still sure even though I couldn't make the intersecting LAPEN (32D: Heavy) make any sense. Finally by playing the alphabet bet I realized that you also need a DIE to play Trivial Pursuit and LADEN made a whole lot more sense than LAPEN.

A lot of great clues in this puzzle even for some pretty common entries 53D: They might yell at their privates and 62D: Like a fat mule both gave me an interesting visual and a mid-puzzle chuckle before I got SGTS and EEE.

And finally we have this clue 49A: Letter that resembles the "y" of Disney's signature PHI. Does it? Decide for yourself.