New York Times solution: March 30, 2014

Below the fold is the solution to this weekend’s New York Times variety puzzle: a diagramless by Ed Stein and Paula Gamache (commentary and spoilers at Wordplay).

Want more interesting puzzles?  Like 19, 16, and 15 letter answers?  Sunday brunch is still on the table. Maybe Bangle will skate it over to you.

Waiting for 3,319 (temporary post)

The Nation has posted the page for puzzle no. 3,319, but the puzzle itself isn’t included.  

I’m going to have to wait until the print magazine arrives to give you the rundown on the puzzle.  

Meanwhile, Hot and Trazom have their weekly Word Salad post up.

Stay tuned for updates.

Playoff weekend (Solution no. 3,318)

You’d look good too if you got to sleep as long as
our crocuses did.  They finally woke up a month late.

I can’t figure out come coaches.  My first game this weekend I had a coach who yelled at my partner and me a couple of times--when the calls we made were in his team’s favor.

The first was a situation where the white team goalie made a save but couldn’t control or cover the puck: it happens a lot at this level because the goalies aren’t that good.  Since the puck was loose and nobody was slashing at the goalie, I let them play.  Eventually, he covered the puck and I blew the whistle.

Then after the stoppage, a black team player hit a white team player in the back, and it was an easy roughing call.  I think the black team coach wanted to yell at me about the penalty, but he couldn’t because it was so obvious that his kid had hit the other kid.  So he yelled that I should have blown the whistle sooner.   I replied: “What?? You want me to take away your team’s scoring opportunity?”

The good part was that after a weekend where I did some fencing and skated a double, the only thing that was sore Sunday morning was my face (from the cold).

Solution to The Nation puzzle no. 3,318

Link to puzzle: http://www.thenation.com/article/178901/puzzle-no-3318

Degree of difficulty (by standards of this weekly puzzle): hard
Legend: “*” anagram; “~” sounds like; “<“ letters reversed; “( )” letters inserted; “_” or lower case: letters deleted; “†” explicit in the clue, “^” first or last letter or letters, “{“ relocated letter or letters; “§” heteronym, “¶” letter bank

Across

1a	JACK	Double definition
3a	CAR GO P ANTS	CAT (“Lincoln, e.g.”) + GOP (“Republicans”) + ANTS (“some soldiers”)
10a	SLAT HER	SLAT (“part of a blind”) + HER (“woman’s”) This had me thrown for a while, since I wasn’t thinking of a venetian blind
11a	*DIAGR AM	*A GRID (anagram indicated by “somehow”) + AM (“in the morning”)
12a	IMME D(I)ATE	IM ME (“declaration of identity”) + I (“one”) contained in (“adopted by”) DATE (“companion”) This parses out several ways, only one of which is right.
13a	§IDEAL	§I DEAL
14a	*ESPRIT	*PRIEST (anagram indicated by “reformed”)
16a	*D(<ROOP<)IER	<POOR< (“feeble,” reversal indicated by “when returning”) contained in (“in”) *RIDE (anagram indicated by “bumpy”)
18a	WARPLANE	WARP (“to damage”) + LANE (“road”)
19a	HOB(N)O B	HOBO (cross-reference to 26a: “vagrant”) containing N (“nitrogen”) + bom^B^ (last letter indicated by “at the rear”)
22a	L EARN	^L^esson (first letter indicated by “beginning”) + EARN (“net”)
23a	<E(YEP IE CE)S<	<SEE< (“to look,” reversal indicated by “back”) containing (“around”) YEP (“you betcha”) + I.E. (“that is”) + C (“cold”)
25a	*OMICRON	*MORONIC (anagram indicated by “drunk”)
26a	VA GRANT	VA (“Virginia”) + GRANT (“award”)
27a	FRAUDULENT	FRAU (“in Berlin, a woman”) + DU (“you” [still in German]) + LENT (“advanced”) There are going to be some complaints about this one, but it’s not afoul of the rules.  Many solvers will run right by that if they just work on filling in the grid.  We might see this one in an upcoming episode of Word Salad.
28a	<TRAP<	<PART< (“constituent,” reversal indicated by “in retreat”)

Down

1d	§JUSTICE	§JUST ICE I take my whisky with one ice cube.  If you go to a bar and ask for a whisky neat, you get it in a shot glass.  If you ask for whisky on the rocks, you get more ice than whisky.  Asking for one ice cube got me more whisky for my money, which was important when I was living on a grad student salary.
2d	C HARM	^C^an (first letter indicated by “initially”) + HARM (“hurt”)
4d	A IR B A G	A (†) *RIB (anagram indicated by “broken”) + A (†) +^G^ash (dirst letter indicated by “in front”)
5d	GA(D GET)RY	GARY (“Cooper,” film star) containing (“has”) ^D^esire (first letter indicated by “bit of”) + GET (“to understand”)
6d	PLACI(DO DOMI)NG O	PLACING (“locating”) + O (“love”) containing (“holding”) DO DO MI (“three notes”)
7d	*NORWEGIAN	*ON WEARING (anagram indicated by “slips”)
8d	SI(*MILA)R	SIR (“a knight”) containing (“hiding”) *MAIL (anagram indicated by “damaged”)
9d	~RHODE ISLAND RED	~ROW DIAL IN DREAD (“paddle and call in terror,” homophone indicated by “heard”)
15d	*PER CA PITA	*CAPER (anagram indicated by “absurd”) + PITA (“bread”)
17d	INTE(*RNA)L	*RAN (anagram indicated by “amok”) contained in (“consumed by”) INTEL (“information from espionage”)
18d	<WAL< D OR F	<LAW< (“rule,” reversal indicated by “overturn”) + D OR F (“possible bad grades”) Another one that rewards the effort to parse
20d	BUS STOP	BUSS (“a kiss”) followed by (“on”) TOP (“a peak”) I’d have clued this in a different order so as to imply the kiss being the peak of the day.
21d	HE(AVE)N	AVE (“hail”) contained (“swallowed by”) in HEN (“bird”)
24d	CHA(I)R	CHAR (“burn”) containing (“outside”) I (†)

Whistle in the pocket (Sunday brunch: March 23, 2014)

[oops, didn’t check the am/pm in posting time--that’ll teach me to blog after a playoff doubleheader]

It’s not something in the book, but a lesson passed on to novice refs in training camp: take off your whistle and put it in your pocket when there’s a scuffle and you’re going in to separate the players.  Depending on who’s teaching that part of the seminar, you’ll be advised there are other times to put your whistle in your pocket.  A lot of guys ignore that advice; it’s a bother to always be taking off and putting on your whistle.  But I’ve made it a habit. 

Why do you put the whistle in your pocket?  Read on after the weekend’s puzzles.  

Last week, my post and Nathan’s look to have crossed in the mail.  So there are two of his puzzles to commend to you: last week’s was a Pathfinder (good one!) and this week Nathan offers his first Split Ends (a puzzle type not to be confused with the “Split Ends” puzzles Will Sortz constructs for the New York Times).

The Wall Street Journal puzzle this weekend is “Omission Statement,” a variety cryptic by Hex.  This one is on the easy side, and even includes an acrostic final answer, so it’s definitely worth a try.  By contrast, the weekly Hex puzzle in the National Post is harder than usual.  I liked the grid, which included a dozen nine- and ten-letter words. Falcon will help you though it if you need. 

The Fraser Simpson cryptic in the Globe and Mail (printable, Java) is at its usual (hard) level of difficulty.       

The NYT has a Hex acrostic this week (behind the paywall).

Good news!  Erica has survived the bedbugs and posted her assessment of the tackiness of this month’s Harpers.  

Back to hockey.  Why do you put the whistle in your pocket?  Because of the metal clamp that holds it on your fingers.  If you get hit on the whistle, it’s a good way to sprain or break your fingers (I’ve broken seven, but none of them because of the whistle).  Yesterday proved the point.

It was a playoff game, a good one, though we had a lot of icings.  When there’s an icing call, the lead official blows the whistle when the puck crosses the goal line, skates to the puck, and skates it the length of the rink back to the trail official at the face-off dot.  It’s a time when we want to show off our best skating skills, and for me it’s the time when I can remind myself to pay attention to the things I learned in the power skating lessons I had a few seasons ago. 

On one of those situations, in the second period, I had just crossed the blue line and angled across towards the opposite circle when a red team player coming the other way angled across towards his bench.  We didn’t have a head-on collision, but he ran right into my whistle hand.  We then collided hip to hip pretty hard and both of us went down.  But I was ready, and since my whistle was in my pocket, neither the hand nor the whistle was injured.

NHL linesman Tim Nowak had a similar situation in a game I was watching on TV last week.  A player ran into him during a stoppage, and he went down.  He needed several stitches to close a gash in his whistle hand, but he was back out there soon enough.  Tim’s a good linesman, a veteran now.  A native of the Buffalo area, he’s a proud product of the USA Hockey Officiating program and gives back to his fellow officials.  I had the opportunity to skate with him and hear him speak at the last district camp I attended.  The occupational hazards of being a ref are there for all of us. 

Streamlined solving (Puzzle No. 3,318)

During the school year, I get the weekday New York Times, and since I already read another newspaper, I read just a few items from it: the weekly science section, some of the sports coverage, a few metro articles, and arts and culture.  I treat the daily NYT puzzle the same way.  While it’s a daily habit for thousands, and probably the most solved and blogged crossword in the world, I’m more of a cryptic and variety fan now.  So my approach to the Times puzzle is to look for a theme first, and if there is one, get enough of puzzle done that I can get all the theme answers.  I don’t knock myself out trying to get every last entry.

On the other hand, sometimes a themed puzzle is right up my alley, like this one by Erik Agard at Glutton for Pun!  

Link to puzzle: http://www.thenation.com/article/178901/puzzle-no-3318

Degree of difficulty (by standards of this weekly puzzle): hard

Hozom’s comment:  “Name Dropping,” in which Hot and Trazom discuss some of the many cluing possibilities that the names of celebrities, artists, and political figures bring, and introduce a weekly cluing challenge.  Think you have a knack for creating great cryptic clues, but don't have the time or inclination to work on a full puzzle?  Here's your chance to shine.

Solution and annotation posted Monday.  Join us this weekend for Sunday brunch, including a good new Pathfinder crossword.  

Bravo, Dan and USA (Puzzle No. 3,317)

Two winners to recognize today: Dan Feyer, five-time American Crossword Puzzle Tournament winner; and Team USA, three-time Paralympic sled hockey champions.  The Americans beat Canada 3-0 in the semifinal Thursday, and avenged a loss in pool play with a 1-0 victory over Russia in the gold medal final.

Share in a little of that glory if you solved puzzle no. 3,317.  The solution and annotation is below the fold.

Bonus puzzle (you know I couldn’t resist this one): “Penalty Boxes,” a straight crossword by Erik Asgard.

What are you waiting for? (Sunday brunch: March 16, 2014)

The calendar says spring is supposed to begin next weekend, but I’ve still got snow in the yard and there’s another four inches predicted for tomorrow. Normally I like winter, but I think we’ve had enough already.  Worse still, there’s all the cleanup to do from the ice storm to do before I can get on with starting the garden for spring.  Maybe time to go back in where it’s warm and there are puzzles waiting.

The new Harper’s is out, and the latest Richard Maltby variety cryptic is a “Twofers” with two grids and run-together double clues.  You may have seen this kind of puzzle before (the inaugural issue of Wordplay had a triple version), but it’s a good concept worth doing again.  Interestingly, the April issue went online Wednesday March 12, but the deadline for solvers to submit for the prize (and the coveted note from Maltby) was the 14th, so you could have gotten away with copying the answer from the magazine.  Stay tuned for the next edition of Tacky Harpers Cryptic Clues (or maybe not, if the army of Chicago bedbugs has carried off Erica).

Like Mark Halpin, Tom Toce doesn’t do anything twice, but he bowed to popular demand and made another cryptic acrostic.  Short and sweet, though the people who typeset it forgot to put in the letters that tell what answer the letter in each box is from, so you have to scan through the puzzle to find the number when you work back from the grid.  Fortunately, I got a lot of the clues right off the bat, so I didn’t need to work backwards much.

Also in twos, block cryptics in major Canadian newspapers: Hex in the National Post (blogged by Falcon) and Fraser Simpson in the Globe and Mail (blogger wanted)

The Wall Street Journal weekend puzzle is a Rows Garden by Patrick Berry.  For once I got this one in a single sitting.  It was very gratifying to have one answer lead to another that led to the next on up the grid until the puzzle was finished.  For those of you who couldn’t make that nice chain, I have some hints posted.  And if you love Rows Gardens, Andrew Ries has a bi-weekly series available by subscription.

Also in the variety crossword department, BEQ’s puzzle no. 622 is a Marching Bands.  It was not easy, and it’s intended to whet your appetite for his upcoming book of Marching Bands.  Brendan’s post also includes a recap from the ACPT.

In the Times (behind the paywall) is a Will Shortz word puzzle called Two For One.

Finally, Foggy Brume has posted issue 48 of PandA magazine as a free sampler.  Register to see and download the issue.  PandA is a subscription e-mag that contains a new extravaganza each issue (six times a year).  Not for the faint of heart or mind, but if you think you’re up for the challenge, give it a try.