Photo

WEDNESDAY PUZZLE — Tony Orbach is a silly guy, as anyone who has met him can attest. He has a goofy sense of humor, which I am very fond of, so it’s no surprise that we get goofy puzzles from him. That’s a good thing. What better to get us over the hump in the week than a crossword theme that is a gigglefest?

There have been sound addition themes aplenty in crosswords, but sometimes you need to hear from someone whose brain takes them so far off the beaten path that the theme feels fresh again. It also helps that Will Shortz hasn’t run one of these in a while. You can keep your “Vanity Fair”; I’ll take a VANITY FERRET any day over a fashion magazine. The next time I watch anything on the Food Network, I will be waiting with bated breath for them to pull out the TELEVISION CRUET and douse things liberally with oil.

If you’re just moving into midweek puzzles, there are a lot of places where you might be able to gain a toehold. At this point in the week, you might not be able to rely on starting with fill-in-the-blanks clues, but there are enough gimmes in the form of names so that you can say that you’ve gotten a reasonable start.

“Actress Drescher” is FRAN; who could forget her? You might not have known that there is a Rodeo Drive Walk of Style (I didn’t), but how many Armanis do you know? The answer is most likely GIORGIO. “Former Yankee manager who also served as player-manager of the Mets” has to be Joe TORRE. If you haven’t yet PLOTZed from the agita of filling in Cape COD before you realized the answer was Cape ANN at 54 Across, that N will give you NALA from “The Lion King” at 55 Down.

Next, venture into the “clues that end in a ‘?’ ” territory. This is where the fun begins. A question mark at the end of a nontheme clue means that the answer involves thinking outside the box. “Place for a baldheaded baby?” could be talking about human babies, but NURSERY doesn’t fit. But the phrase “baldheaded” is there for a reason. What else can you think of that is baldheaded? If you guessed eagles, you would be correct, and the place for an eaglet is an AERIE.

TUESDAY PUZZLE — Is anybody hungry? Alan Derkazarian has delivered five HAM ON RYE sandwiches (and a CLUB sandwich, if anyone is finicky) and I figure that if I cut them into tiny little pieces, there may be enough for everyone.

While we’re munching, let’s find the 2-D sandwiches in Mr. Derkazarian’s grid. This type of theme is similar to what we saw on Sunday, with Randolph Ross’s puzzle about vessels on top of and under the water. Today, Mr. Derkazarian has placed entries that contain the letters HAM on top of entries that contain the letters RYE to build a very tasty Tuesday grid, as long as you remember to use mustard and not mayonnaise. The CLUB sandwich is at 44 Across, and don’t skip the MAI Tai at 30 Down.

I hit a speed bump in the southwest, where I had CURSE instead of SWEAR for a while, until I realized that 43 Down had to be PAY HEED. Also, a word to the wise: read the clue for 2 Down carefully. I thought the answer — even thought it didn’t fit — should be TWO A.M., but the clue actually says “Time to which you ‘spring forward’ …” We spring forward from 2:00 a.m. to THREE A.M., which is the correct answer.

Even so, this was a puzzle that solved smoothly, as one would expect on a Tuesday. Lots of three letter words, but I liked seeing the Festivus FEATS of Strength represented in the puzzle.

Here’s Mr. Derkazarian:

Constructor’s Notes

Whereas my first three New York Times crosswords were published within one or two months of their acceptance, this little guy sat around for twenty months. It’s a pretty simple theme, so maybe that had something to do with the long wait.

The original version of this puzzle had HOP ON POP as the theme. However, the H on top of the P proved to be quite challenging and, while Will and Joel liked the theme, they weren’t crazy for the fill. So HAM ON RYE was born and a better puzzle made. I do remember that in Joel’s acceptance email he said the five instances of HAM being on RYE was quite challenging to pull off and a key factor in the puzzle’s acceptance.

Hope you enjoyed!

Let’s move on to our midweek puzzle with some help from the boy king:

Your thoughts?

MONDAY PUZZLE — As a public service to those of us still raising children, I’d like to pose a question: Why is it that when you do laundry that involves the clothing of small human beings, what comes out of the washing machine is often less about the clothing and more about wads of disintegrated paper, rocks, small toys, melted candy and other trinkets?

Answer: POCKETS. Never forget to clean them out before you do the laundry.

In today’s puzzle by Ron Toth (making a New York Times debut) and Zhouqin Burnikel (who has taken on an impressive number of beginning constructors to mentor), there are four examples of things with POCKETS: CARGO PANTS, a BOWLING LANE, a POOL TABLE and PITA BREAD. I might argue that SKI BAGS are likely to have POCKETS as well, but that’s just a nit and, as a nonskier, I could be wrong. It would also make the placement of the theme entries asymmetrical.

Mr. Toth and Ms. Burnikel use mirror symmetry in their puzzle grid today and I think the “dip” in the black squares in the center looks something like a POCKET. I found this puzzle surprisingly hard to get started for a Monday. Maybe it’s because I had CDS instead of EPS at 6 Across, and therefore spent a long time pondering what Mexican dish that is made of “stuffed tortillas” could start with the letter C (the answer is really ENCHILADAS).

There were a substantial number of gimmes to help with my toehold, though, and before I knew it, the entries were connecting to each other and I was on my way to completing the puzzle. One of the nice things about the early week puzzles are the number of fill-in-the-bank clues. Those tend to be the easiest, so I advise beginning solvers to start there.

Welcome, Mr. Toth, and thank you to Ms. Burnikel for bringing us a new constructor. I look forward to seeing more from him.

Let’s meet Mr. Toth and hear from Ms. Burnikel:

Constructor’s Notes

Ron Toth: Though not a great solver, I’ve been a puzzle enthusiast for a long time. Early in 2009 I discovered C. C.’s Crossword Corner blog, and by the end of the year I was a contributing blogger. I now post there two Wednesdays per month. A couple of years ago, she invited me to work on a puzzle with her, and we’ve done a few collaborations since. She’s been an inspiring and generous mentor to me and several other partners in puzzle construction.

Read more...

Photo

SUNDAY PUZZLE — Creating crossword puzzles is not just a matter of crossing words. Some crossword constructors are visionaries who enjoy incorporating visual elements into their grids. I think immediately of the Sunday puzzles by Liz Gorski and Kevin Der’s “Grid Iron” puzzle.

Today, Randolph Ross offers us a visual element that has been seen before, in that it stacks words or phrases on top of each other to show their visual connection. We have a total of six vessels floating on top of various waterways and, in a wink to the “odd man out” concept of theme development, there is a U-BOAT lurking just underneath the ATLANTIC OCEAN. If you missed them, here they are:

23- and 28A: U-BOAT under the ATLANTIC OCEAN
38- and 43A: RAFT on top of the COLORADO RIVER
47- and 50A: GONDOLA on top of the GRAND CANAL
73- and 79A: OILTANKER on top of the ARABIAN SEA
81- and 85A: TRAWLER on top of the CHESAPEAKE BAY
101- and 105A: FERRY on top of NEW YORK HARBOR

Mr. Ross admits that, in order to get this theme to work, the nontheme fill is not as lively as he would have liked and I would tend to agree.

I had a bit of trouble in the north with JUDAEA, which my brain really wanted to be JUDEA, and when I got 10 Down’s AAA, which supplied the extra A, it looked funny to me. But it seems to be an alternate spelling of JUDEA.

This is one of those puzzles that is most impressive at completion. I liked BALALAIKA, HAVE A GO, WE’RE HERE and YES LET’S. The vessels on the water is a great idea, but the grid feels crowded to me. Perhaps two fewer pairings would have opened up the grid and allowed for fewer three and four letter words.

Even so, I liked some of the cluing, like “Head of the army?” for LATRINE (I know; I’m 12), “Heavy metal venue?” for STEEL MILL, “Solo pilot?” for HAN and “Fowl language?” for CHEEP. I also liked the trivia of 65 Across’s “Animal that an ailurophobe fears” for CAT.

Photo

SATURDAY PUZZLE — David Phillips had me right off the bat by opening with the clue “Steven who co-created TV’s ‘Sherlock'” for MOFFAT. Mr. MOFFAT also was, until recently, the showrunner for the BBC’s iconic series, “Doctor Who.” Put either of those shows in a puzzle and I’m paying attention.

But Mr. Phillips doesn’t stop there. This is a lively 15×16 grid, where the Internet’s least favorite hobby, TROLLING, makes its debut. “THE BIG BANG THEORY” makes its debut, and that was a fairly easy one: On how many sitcoms have Dr. Stephen Hawking and Buzz Aldrin made appearances?

I also liked the twin clues “Something to shuck,” for PEA and EAR. Filling in SCARERS for 43 Across reminded me of taking my kids to see “Monsters, Inc.” I also liked “It may be out for blood” for RED CROSS, “Stock report?” for MOO and “‘That’s O.K., everything’s fine'” for NO HARM DONE.

There’s a lot of great stuff here, but for beginners, I’d like to point out one difference between a clue that you might find in an early-week puzzle and a Saturday-level clue. Let’s look at 25 Across. There are a few ways to ramp up the difficulty of a clue, but in today’s puzzle, Mr. Phillips and Will Shortz have gone vague, with “Kind of sauce.” Earlier in the week, you would see a more specific clue that most people might know, like the male lead in the opera “La Traviata,” or, if you wanted to clue it to the pasta sauce, something along the lines of “Made with a creamy, cheesy sauce.”

So what do you do when the clue is vague and you’re not sure of the answer? You could let your brain run through the list of sauces that you know, but that’s not very efficient. I already had TROLLING and SCUFF, which gave me the _LF____. Once I had HOUNDDOG, I could guess that the answer was ALFREDO. If you have nothing in that area to help you, flit around the grid, filling things in until you make a breakthrough.

Photo

FRIDAY PUZZLE — Having a BAD DAY? Cheer up. It’s Friday and today’s crossword puzzle is by Patrick Berry. Those are always causes for celebration.

After a long week of solving packed puzzles, it’s nice to stretch out and enjoy the openness of a Friday themeless puzzle, especially one of this caliber. Today, Mr. Berry offers us a 66-word grid, and I especially liked how he salted the center of the puzzle with terms that are fresh to The New York Times Crossword. I was surprised to see that TURN SIGNALS is new, but so is FAITH NO MORE and GOES ON A DIET. Not only that, but I learned that DUNCAN HINES is not just your basic cake mix or frosting; he was a restaurant critic and ice cream entrepreneur.

I also liked seeing TALKING HEAD, DEADBEAT, SPANISH MAIN, DOUGHNUT, FUNHOUSE, LAPCAT, BAD DAY, TEA ROSE, KEYPAD and FIRE UP.

The cluing is particularly lively today and my favorites include “What you might get a distorted picture from?” for FUNHOUSE, “Scoring low on the excite-o-meter” for MEH, “Show authority?” for TALKING HEAD (think “authority that’s on a show”), “Unpaid interest?” for HOBBY, “Ring for dessert?” for DOUGHNUT and “One who gets no credit?” for DEADBEAT.

On Wednesday, we had the theme “What is it?” in the crossword, and today we have the same question being asked by FAITH NO MORE, the band that recorded the hit “Epic.” Let’s move into our solving weekend by wanting it all with FAITH NO MORE:

Your thoughts?