"Married Couples," 12/25/16

Time to finish/time I gave up: 34:14
Did I finish it without help? Yes! With some guest star solvers at my side!
Did I check puzzle? If yes, how many letters were wrong? N/A

Commentary:
Merry Christmas! I completed this puzzle with my dad and sister since we are all holidaying together, and it was a delightful experience. The puzzle didn't give us much of a challenge, and sadly, it had nothing to do with Christmas. It didn't really have much to do with anything, including its purported theme, "married couples." Ah well, it's always fun to puzzle with family. Here are some of the entertaining ideas we had:

The first theme clue (22A Play by heart) is supposed to be an overlap of "dramatic pieCE" (play) and "CEnter" (heart). Before we understood that it was an overlap, though, I thought it was a "dramatic pie center..." perhaps a HUMAN HEART??? Think Arya Stark's revenge... 

25A Monastery title is FRA, but we were also hoping for BRO, or perhaps BRA (alt. of BRAH, obviously)

70A Cry at a surprise party just before the honoree arrives Sadly we couldn't make "Oh my god...she's going to be so surprised..." fit. (Wiig's SNL character)

I'm too young for this $h*t

• 90D "Well, Did You ___?" (Cole Porter tune) The answer is EVAH, and this song is from a 1939 musical. At first we had in EVER (which is a real word), and when that looked wrong, we were kind of hoping it would be EVEN (Cole Porter can't even) (yes I just linked back to my own blog. A throwback reference for my faithful readers, that's how you build loyalty.) But alas, it was the non-word, evah.

Really?

• 56D "Quite true" ITISSO. It is so? Who is the speaker here? Spock? My sister really wanted this to be INITDO, as in, "innit, tho/doe?" Excellent try, Fran.
• 63D Toward the back AREAR and 66D Very loud AROAR. Maybe the crossword creator was hoping that the proximity of these clues would make us think they were a cute little pair. He was wrong, because instead we think they are nothing.

Things I learned today:

• Fasces: (in ancient Rome) a bundle of rods with a projecting ax blade, carried by a lictor as a symbol of a magistrate's power, and used as an emblem of authority in Fascist Italy.
• Vänern is the largest lake in Sweden, the largest lake in the European Union and the third-largest lake entirely in Europe after Ladoga and Onega in Russia. More interesting than that is the fact than in the year 530 there was an epic Battle on the Ice of Lake Vanern. Ice battle! No mention of how many people fell through into the lake. 
• Eileen Fisher is a fashion designer. I don't really do high fashion, but I have to say, from what I see on Google Images, I'm not impressed. 

Crosswordese fails

• 100D Hawks' hangouts AERIES. I knew this one from my years of inconsistent crossword puzzling, and also from the American Eagle spinoff store called Aerie. What a yawn of a clue.

Fritz and Holomans out. Enjoy your Christmases and/or other holidays!

Sunday, 12/18/16

Time to finish/time I gave up: 32:43
Did I finish it without help? Yes, but it wasn't an unqualified success...
Did I check puzzle? If yes, how many letters were wrong? 1. Blast. I don't want to talk about it, it was a stupid mistake.

Commentary:

I feel like I need to label this post with a *spoiler alert* because the theme takes you by surprise! Halfway through, you realize that...the clues at the bottom are the same as the ones at the top! "Mirror Reflection" was a real mind-blower. I don't really think I liked it, though--I agree with Rex's summary today. One redeeming quality was that every time an answer we liked turned out to be wrong on the top, it ended up being right on the bottom. E.g., "Wait a minute, Egyptian queen isn't Cleopatra? Nefertiti I guess..." [15 minutes later] "Oh, it's Cleopatra too! Nailed it."

I'm too young for this $h*t

• 32 and 113A One of Frank's wives AVA and MIA. I admit to Sinatra being a bit of a blind spot for me, but I am truly not interested in learning about all of his philandering. I have no joke to make here because I don't want to read the Wikipedia article. (We are talking about Frank Sinatra, right?)

Really?

• 56 and 85A Anagram of the letters O-N-D. Is this the worst clue of all time? This is the equivalent of, say, cluing "snorkel" as "rhymes with shmorkel."
• 15D Suffix with schnozz OLA. For those times when calling someone's nose a schnozz just isn't hilarious enough.
• 51D Raise again, as a flag REHOIST. This is not a thing.

Things I learned today:

• Australia exports both tin and rum. What a boring fact.
• Side note: I thought the Caribbean had rum exporting on lock--TRIANGLE TRADE, FOOLS. (My dad sang this song repeatedly while I learned about this concept in 7th grade, and now I will remember triangle trade forever. Thanks, Dad!) 
• Xoth is the home star of Cthulhu. Yikes, that is a geeky thing to have learned. I mean, I like being a nerd, but come on, you have to draw a line somewhere.
• 12A Old German ruler nicknamed "The Short" OTTOVI. If anyone knew who this was, you deserve a prize. The Wikipedia article on this guy is quite brief. It doesn't even say how short he was.
• Fun fact: My sister, who is 6'3", calls me Shorto. I am 5'10", which is far above average for a woman. So, don't be so quick to assume that our friend Otto was diminutive! 
• A redan is a V-shaped fortification. Through subsequent wiki-reading, I have learned that the term is also applied to a certain type of golf hole construction: "Macdonald's oft-quoted description from Scotland's Gift: Golf is as follows: 'Take a narrow tableland, tilt it a little from right to left, dig a deep bunker on the front side, approach it diagonally and you have a Redan.'" Wikipedia author, I think you and I have different definitions of "oft."
• Elul is the month after Av in the Jewish calendar.
• 90D City that, despite its name, is smaller than Little Rock BOULDER. This is a pretty funny clue, and I learned that Boulder is not very big. Or Little Rock is quite big? I don't really know anything about either of them, turns out.
• Ferenc Molnar is an author, and he wrote the play Liliom. Which, as it turns out, is the basis for Carousel, so that's your second sweet musical reference of this post.

A new section! Things I learned in other weeks that came back today: a jab at crosswordese. [This section sponsored by the Otoe.]

• This only sort of counts: 5A Tinker, for one, in olden days SHORTSTOP. I've seen Tinker in the context of "Tinker to Evers to Chance" in a previous puzzle, but it wasn't enough for me to remember his name. Just got SHORTSTOP from context of other letters. I suspect Evers is the MVC (most valuable crosswordese) of these 3 really old baseball players. File also under "too young for."

Fritz out.

PS: for those wondering, I didn't win my fantasy football game last week. But I only lost by 13 points!

Sunday, 12/11/6

Time to finish/time I gave up: 25:09
Did I finish it without help? Yes!
Did I check puzzle? If yes, how many letters were wrong? N/A

Commentary:

This was certainly the easiest of the 3 Sunday puzzles that I have written about so far. The theme clues were easy to crack, and there weren't too many places we got tripped up. 25 minutes! Not bad for when you are also watching football at the same time. (Shout-out to everyone who is in their fantasy playoffs! My team made it, but we're facing Le'Veon Bell, who has 24.5 points at halftime. Bite me, Le'Veon Bell.)

I'm too young for this $h*t

• 29A "Fernando" band ABBA. It's not that I had trouble figuring out a 4-letter band ending in __BA, it's just that I don't know the song "Fernando." [listens to song] Verdict: not bad. Better than I expected for an ABBA song.
• Thing I am just the right age for: 101D "____even" ICANT. Arguably, I'm even too old for this one. Way to keep up with your millennials, Tom McCoy. Here's a joke for your Sunday: Why do teenage girls travel in groups of 3, 5, or 7? Because they can't even!

Really?

• 54A Skimobile, informally SLED. First of all, when you look up "skimobile," the first thing that comes up is the definition: snowmobile. Wouldn't we normally just say snowmobile then? Second, do people informally refer to their snowmobiles? As sleds? "Hey, watch me ride my tricked-out sled, brah." I dunno, maybe they do.
• Side note: when I clicked on the dictionary definition of skimobile, it suggested that I look up "words that rhyme with skimobile." Intrigued, I did. Some highlights are: bearded seal, glockenspiel, orange peel, pimpmobile, stainless steel. (Now I am watching "Peeno Noir" from Kimmy Schmidt.)
• 55A "Tell me how you really feel!" SAYIT SAY IT
• 49D Target demographic for Hot Wheels BOYS. Boooo to gender-typing toys. There are approximately 8,000 other ways you could have clued "boys."

Things I learned today:

• A newt is called an EFT in its terrestrial juvenile phase. 
• OBOLS are Coins that pay for passage over the River Styx. I also learned, while googling this, that 6 obols make a drachma, 70 drachmae make a mina, and 60 minae make one Athenian talent. This makes slightly more mathematical sense than Harry Potter currency (29 knuts in a sickle, 17 sickles in a galleon. Why would you possibly pick those numbers, J.K.?)
• Isadora Duncan was a famous and maybe racist dancer from the 1800s.
• Ipse dixit is a dogmatic and unproven statement. Wikipedia encourages one to see also "truthiness." 
• Jean Arp was a German-French sculptor, painter, poet, and abstract artist in other media such as torn and pasted paper. Bet he features in the new section below at some point.
• ALGAL is the adjectival form of alga/algae, and also the answer to ____ bloom (result of fertilizer pollution.)

A new section! Things I learned in other weeks that came back today: a jab at crosswordese. [This section sponsored by the Otoe.]

• 11D "Rosy-fingered" Greek goddess EOS. She's back! I did know that the dawn is always rosy-fingered thanks to my 12th grade English teacher, who shouted about it repeatedly. I kept a list of funny Mr. Duffy quotes, which I found while cleaning out my childhood bedroom recently. Example: "We didn't have any soccer camps. We had violence!" Unfortunately, the rosy-fingered dawn did not make it into any of the funny quotes.

Fritz out.

PS: Now that I have finished writing this post, Le'Veon Bell has 45.3 points, and there are still 7 minutes left in the game. I can't even.

Sunday, 12/4/16

Time to finish/time I gave up: 43:26
Did I finish it without help? No :(
Did I check puzzle? If yes, how many letters were wrong? 2. We figured out one of them but had to reveal the other. Read on to find out more!

Commentary:

I loved the theme clues of this puzzle! I think my favorite was 66A ___ a new film adaptation SEANPENNED. Silly wordplay gets me every time. I note that Rex [Parker, inspire-r of this blog] was not impressed, but he has done approximately 1.2 million more puzzles than I have, so it was good enough for me. You will see that there are a great deal of "Really?" questionable fills listed below, though.

Everything went pretty smoothly for us except the two crosses where we got stuck. One that we missed at first but then corrected after the check was 39A Many a suit has one, for short/39D Goya subject, MBAS/MAJA. Here is my entire knowledge base about Goya: Spanish painter. (Or, maker of cans of beans.) We had BAJA at first (a Spanish word!) and were just punting on the suits as "BBAs," thinking a BBA was some kind of fancy lapel or something. Wordplay, you tricked me this time! We figured out MBAs after the check. Imagine my surprise when I looked up "maja" just now and discovered it's a nude painting! I feel like I got tricked into looking at a naked lady by the New York Times! It's the new rickrolling!

We never did get 119A Actions of environmental extremists/106D ___ lily ECOTAGE/SEGO. Ok, eco-tage like sabotage, I get that now. We went through every letter of the alphabet and tried a few ("Ecotape? Maybe like they taped something off?" "Ecotale. Like, they told a tale to create fake news and alarm people.") before giving up. Thinking it was that long A sound instead of the French "tage" was a killer. I'm bitter that "sego" lily was no help. I googled it, it's a stupid-looking flower anyway. I hate you, sego lily.

I'm too young for this $h*t

• 47A ___ Doggie of old cartoons AUGIE. I can do old Looney Tunes cartoons, but I wasn't a Hanna-Barbera kid. Augie Doggie looks pretty cute though.
• A couple of the theme clues stars were borderline for me. I knew James Garner was a person, but had to look up who he is ("Oh! The old guy from The Notebook!"), and Shelley Long squeaks into my knowledge because Jamie and I have been watching Cheers on Netflix.
• 57D Michael ___, Brett Halliday detective SHAYNE. Ok, Michael Shayne is from the 1930's. Everyone is too young for this one.
• 70D Singer Marie TEENA. Yes, I'm too young for Teena Marie. We kept thinking Marie was the first name and got all the way to TE_NA and were debating Elba vs. Alba [77A Italy's Isola d'___] before I pulled Teena Marie out of my brain.
• Bonus points for this puzzle creator for including things I am exactly the right age for:
• 34D Hogwarts groundskeeper HAGRID
• 57A "The Lion King" villain SCAR

Really?

• 21A Harshly bright AGLARE. Every time I walk into Target I'm like, "ugh, it's so aglare in here."
• 99A Giggled TEHEED. Te-hee? With one E in the "tee" part? Does this laugh sound like "teh-HEE?" Thinking about this made me tehee and I woke up my baby.
• 7D Sunbathing locale POOLAREA. Ah yes, the pool area. I had "pool deck" in here briefly, and Jamie really wanted it to be "poop deck," but instead it was just the uninspiring pool area.
• 62D Naval conflict SEAWAR. I mean, I guess that's a thing. Just like an army conflict is a land war ("Never get involved in a land war in Asia!") and an air force conflict is a sky war. Someone help me out here.
• There were a lot of questionable "saying" clues in this puzzle. See 31A "Phooey!" AWRATS, 43A "You think I won't!" DAREME, 81A "Ha! I was right!" TOLDYA, 84D "A likely story!" YEAHIBET, 94D "I'm waiting...?" WELL. Try to employ these phrases in your upcoming week. Especially "Aw, rats!" And/or its clue, "Phooey!"
• 90A Like food EATABLE. All I have to say about this one is "tehee!"

Things I learned today:

• 28A Sibling of Helios and Selene, in myth EOS. Apparently is the goddess of the dawn; not affiliated with the lip balm. 
• 89A Cads ROUES. I did not know this word, but intend to call people roués whenever possible from now on. Jamie rightly points out that it's featured in "Sixteen Going On Seventeen" from The Sound of Music, though: "Eager young lads and roués and cads/Will offer you food and wine." That's my husband!
• 9D Borodin's prince IGOR. Prince Igor is an opera by Alexander Borodin. An opera clue! Where's my dad when you need him? (Answer: at church probably?)

Fritz out.

PS this is the 3rd time in my short few weeks of consistent crosswording that the OTOE have made an appearance. Otoe, your PR people are on point.