Friday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: July 31, 2020

My time: 12:52, decent enough.

The puzzle clues MALTA as "country whose name is believed to come from ancient Greek for honey-sweet," but this is uncertain; Etymology Online has a different view.

I'm so far removed from sports, I didn't know the NCAA was headquartered in Indianapolis.

Whiskey, sure, but I don't think I've heard of RYE beer.

"Columbia athlete" is LION.  Their mascot is a blue lion named "Roar-ee!"

HIS AND HIS for "like some monogrammed towels" got me.  Good for you, New York Times!  Very progressive.

Did you know Tokyo's Imperial Palace has a MOAT?  Now you do.  You're welcome. 

I know who DINAH SHORE is, but I had no idea she was in the World Golf Hall of Fame.  Apparently she began golfing at the age of 52, and was no pro.  But she brought a famous name to a tournament and helped bring golf onto television. Shore had such a lasting effect on the LPGA Tour that in 1994 she was posthumously made the only honorary member of its prestigious Hall of Fame.

Alice FAYE is an actress who was most active in the 1940s.  In 1939, Faye was named one of the top 10 box office draws in Hollywood.  She was known as "Queen of Fox Studios."  Her movie song sold over a million copies.  How quickly the world moves on.

Never heard of MICROBLADING, an "eyebrow-filling technique."  It involves making small cuts in the very top layer of skin, like a tattoo but not permanent.

Hilton ALS is a critic at The New Yorker.  He's a fine writer, but maybe not famous enough to be a crossword clue?

Los ALTOS is a city in California.  Over the years, the New York Times puzzle has featured every city in California, I think.

The symbol for density is rho, which looks like a small rounded P.  RHOS indicate matter divided by volume.

Clever clues: "Ball in a gym, maybe" is PROM.  I was thinking about medicine balls; they got me good.  "Org. for good drivers" is PGA!  I of course fell for it and put *AAA at first.  "Overlook" is a noun and is LEDGE.  "Stage for a big star?" is RED GIANT; well played.  LIMB being clued as "life partner" is a neat trick.  The last word of "Meteor showers" has a long o, as in showing the meteors: it's the pompous plural PLANETARIA.  "Act like a shark, in a way" is LEND.

Great puzzle!  Fun and challenging cluing, with some nice long answers.

Thursday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: July 30, 2020

My time: 6:48, blowing my old record of 8:00 out of the water! Woot!

Theme: TWO / TO ONE.  Every two Across answers has just one clue, because they're two-part phrases.  WIFE / TO BE, SCRAP / IRON, OPEN / HOUSE, MEAT /PIES, and so on, all the way to NEST / EGGS.

I'm not too familiar with the term FALL / LINE; it's used in geography and topology.  In skiing, it's the route leading straight down any particular part of a slope.

Department that's new to me department: AIN, a French region in the east, located on the Ain River.  It's just south of the Jura department, of the Jura mountains and Jurassic fame.

Clever clues: "Raised one's paddle, say" is MADE / A BID.  I just kept thinking about rowing!  "Connection you might miss while flying?" is WIFI.

Woot!  I blew through this one like a BOSS!

Wednesday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: July 29, 2020

My time: 12:28, a full two and a half minutes slower than my average.  Man!  This one beat me like a red-headed MAGAt.

Theme: STRONG PASSWORD ("it may require letters, a number, and a special character," as seen in the highlighted answers).

I had a plethora of wrong first attempts in this one.  For "small building blocks" I put *LEGOS; it's ATOMS.  Well played, ma'am/sir!  For "things finished with handshakes" (aren't we in a post-shake world now?) I put *DEALS but it's PACTS.  For "apt rhyme for casino" I put *KINO!  That's a good answer, dammit!  But no, it's RENO, argh.  For hospital patients who are "post-_____" I put *ICU for some reason but it's OPS.  For "friendly honk" I tried *BEEP but it's TOOT.  For "venture a thought" I put *SPEAK but it's OPINE, of course.  That was too bold of me. Finally, I took "bowling game" to mean "one game of bowling" so I put *FRAME but it meant "type of bowling game" and is BOCCE.

"Breathful" for AIR really got me.  I was thinking of it as an adjective.  What a breathful morning!

"Imitates" is DOES?  I can't think of an example in which that is true, except in "monkey see, monkey do," which implies an object to both verbs.  This is a bad clue.

I didn't like "Bit of paperless reading" for EBOOK.  Why bit?  That implies something small and brief.  I wanted to put EBOOK but that word made me think it would be something like E-ZINE or some crap.

Alces alces is the MOOSE, or elk as it's called in Europe.  The word "elk" in North American English refers to a completely different species of deer, Cervus canadensis, also called the wapiti.  I hope this clears all your moose-terminology-related questions up.

I don't think Japanese tennis pro Naomi OSAKA has come up before.

Ypsilanti school Eastern Michigan University, or EMU, came up in 2018.

I had a vague uncertain trace of memory of IBANKER and it turns out it was featured way back in October 2017.

Wow, I really screwed the pooch on this one.  I feel like a DOLT, but I also think some of the clues were poorly written.  Well, ADIEU to today's and here's to Thursday's attempt.

Tuesday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: July 28, 2020

My time: 7:27, just under average for Tuesday.  I made a lot of clumsy finger mistakes, but the truth is, this one caught me off guard.  Maybe I should do my solving when I'm more awake.

Theme: WEB OF LIES: the shaded and linked answers are all a form of lie, like TALL TALES, FICTION, LIBEL, and so on.

I'm not happy with my time especially because some of these clues are so simplistic.  "Meditation syllables" (OMS).  "Kit _____" (KAT).  "Outs' opposites" (INS).  "Raise the ____" (ALARM).  These would be rather simple, and boring, even for a Monday.

On the other hand, I'm not sure "Let me see..." is a great clue for WELL.

I have never heard of the baseball term "twin killings."  It means double plays, or DPS for short.  And what is a double play?  It's when you get two outs in one action.

"Bubble gum in 1906" is INVENTION.  This is... contested. Bubble gum was invented in 1928 by a man named Walter Diemer, say some sources.  Frank H. Fleer invented a substance in 1906 that we would not probably call successful bubble gum: Blibber-Blubber!

I have never heard of the term DIME STORE (e.g. Woolworth's).  I have always heard "five and ten cent store" or even "five and dime store."

Ariana Grande has a song "ONE Last Time," but the Hamilton song would have been a better referent.  Her song is kind of boring and has a weird video.

For "reactions to slugs" I put *EWS but it's OWS because it means punches, not mollusks.

The wrist bones CARPI have come up before.  Remember that, Fishwrist!

I liked the theme today.  Well-spun, with a nice capper that explained it all.  It's always admirable when the capper of the theme helps you solve the rest of the theme answers. 

Monday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: July 27, 2020

My time: 3:54, fourteen seconds slower than the record.

Theme: spelling variants of the sound /hī/, as in HIKING GEAR, HAIKU POEM, HIGH-END, HEIGH HO, HEIDI KLUM, and HYBRID CARS ("Toyota Prius and Honda Insight").

Cute theme, easy Monday.  An AGREEABLE puzzle.  Nothing too challenging or new.  Many of these answers as well as their clues are old hat (NEHI, TMI, I DOS).  So CIAO and SEE YA!

Sunday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved; July 26, 2020

My time: 25:13, a couple of minutes under average. This one was a toughie!

Theme: several phrases are recast by having the letters of one word rearranged into ABC order (47 Down: "kind of order for the circled letters in this puzzle").  So for example shot in the dark becomes HOST IN THE DARK ("emcee during a power outage?").  That's the best of the clues by far.  And ocean tides becomes OCEAN DEIST ("one who believes exclusively in a sea god?").  As you can see from that second example, there are some diminishing returns on the cleverness of these answers.

"What you might do after the movie previews are finally over?" is BEGIN WATCHING.  That's kind of meh but not infuriating.  What is infuriating is "facial feature of a Lego man?"  SQUARE CHIN.  First, it's Lego figure, not Lego man.  Second, Lego figures don't have square chins.  Their heads are cylinders.  They don't even have chins.  This is beyond misleading and there is no payoff.  I think it's fair to say without hyperbole that I am utterly outraged.

Never heard of the Bocca Nuova crater.  It's atop MT. ETNA.

"Regulus is its brightest star."  LEO.  It has so many stars!

"What the abscissa and ordinate are measured from."  AXIS.  Have I heard those terms before?  Maybe twenty-odd years ago in high school.  I was told there would be no math.

Our old pal SAL is in this puzzle, but it's not the famed mule of song for once but instead some stupid skit on "Jimmy Kimmel Live."

"Major account" had me scratching my head for quite some time, imagining some sales account like in "Mad Men" or "Bewitched."  Instead it's an account like a tale: SAGA.  Oof!  I should have gotten that faster.

"Bird in Liberty Mutual commercials" is EMU, the LiMu Emu!  Ha ha!  The bird is wearing a shirt!

We're all familiar with MAHI-MAHI and its various named, like dorado (from "golden" in Spanish), but didn't know that the Hawaiian name means "very strong."

Never heard of Martin MILNER, actor known for "Route 66."  He was also in "Adam-12" and Sweet Smell of Success, one of my favorites.

I've watched Grease and I know the character of Frenchie, but I couldn't have told you that she's played by DIDI Conn.

As I've mentioned, I'm not a big musical fan.  Apparently there's a character named Winthrop Paroo in "The Music Man," and he has a LISP.  Okay, then.  And he plays a cornet, maybe?

There were quite a few red herrings in this puzzle.  For "most eccentric" I naturally put *LOONIEST but it's LOOPIEST.  "Miss" is LASS.  And so on.

Familiar faces: Oldsmobile ALERO.  It's a mainstay.  And OSAKAN as a member of Japan's "second city" came up on January 2, 2018.  Another quite common mainstay: opera singer RENEE Fleming.  Ragtime player EUBIE Blake came up on one of the worst Thursdays ever.

Clever clues: "Where a phone might be tapped" is ICON.  "Blew off steam?" is HISSED.  I like "took in" (ATE), and "take in" (SEE) in the same grid.  "Making a clerical error?" is SINNING.

Thing I thought would be a clever clue: "common thing to lie about."  I thought maybe *BED but it's just AGE.

This was slow going for me, as the theme took a long time to sink in and as mentioned there was some pretty tricky cluing.  Not a puzzle for DIMWITS. 

Saturday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: July 25, 2020

My time: 10:51, a full twelve minutes faster than my average!  I'm a speed demon, baby!

I love this grid, with its giant cross and plethora of grid-spanning answers.  Well done, Royce Ferguson!  Truly, you are a cruciverbalist to the gods.

The only one that struck me as off was ALL ALONG THE LINE for "from day one."  But indeed, that's the expression!

"Top of a face" being XII is a trick I've seen before but it still gave me pause.  It's clocks!

A new thing to me is TIE WRAP ("simple cable binder").  This seems to be a catch-all term for variosu types of zip ties.

IDYL, as in Theocritus' poems, is usually spelled idyll, no?

Let's learn internal anatomy with Dr. Digestive Organs! The jejunum (plural jejuna) is he part of the small intestine between the duodenum and ileum.  The cecum (plural ceca) is the cul-de-sac lying below the terminal ileum, forming the first part of the large intestine.  ILEA (singular ileum, not to be confused with the ilium, the hip bone) are the distal portions of the small intestine, extending from the jejunum to the cecum.

I've heard of ST. VITUS, but not this Catholic "Fourteen Holy Helpers" mumbo-jumbo.  They are a group of saints venerated together in Roman Catholicism because their intercession is believed to be particularly effective, especially against various diseases.  Doesn't that sound like pagan superstitious hoodoo?

The ALTAI Mountains have come up before, but I had forgotten entirely.

AVIS is the parent company of Zipcar, whatever that is.  Oh look, it's come up before as well!

UNADON has come up several times before. It would be nice to have a memory.

Clever clue: "Was on eggshells?" is BROODED.

Great quiz!  Maybe not a ONCE IN A LIFETIME experience, but it was fun ALL ALONG THE LINE.

Friday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: July 24, 2020

My time: 8:57, just three little seconds short of my Friday record!  Wowsa!  I should have hurried more.

The distinctive thing about this puzzle is the grid shape that leads to lots of long answers.  There's a lot of rare and fun fill here, like STEAMBOAT WILLIE, HALF-NELSON, GOING VIRAL, PULL RANK ON, and BOSS BATTLE.  I'm not so sure about the plural MICROFILMS.  Maybe as a verb?

ELON, the private university in Elon, North Carolina (home of the Fightin' Phoenix!) has appeared quite a few times before.

Longfellow's "The Bell of ATRI" was explained on April 10, 2018.

Racecar driver ARIE Luyendyk, "The Flying Dutchman," appeared on October 28, 2018.

I have never heard of the Stone of Hope; it's the name for the granite statue of Martin Luther KING in Washington DC.

Clever clues: "A lot of volume?" is TOME.  I had put *TONE thinking, sort of, about hair volume; I know it doesn't really work. "Free money?" is BAIL.  "Trying to untie?" is IS OVERTIME — that was a tough one.

This was a fun puzzle, with lots of original, modern fill and a different style grid.  I'd like to see more like this; hope it's not just a ONE-OFF.

Thursday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: July 23, 2020

My time: 12:53, about three minutes faster than average.

Today's theme: REMOVE THE / LETTER W / FROM CLUES, or NO W (clued as "present... or a concise explanation of this puzzle's theme").  Today is the 23rd, and W is the 23rd letter of the alphabet.  Is the date this ran a coincidence?  Probably.

What does this mean for you, the solver?  It means that on every clue with a W, you must read it as if there were no W.  So "sewer" is read as seer and is thus ORACLE.  "Wedgy" is read as edgy and is TENSE.  "Fist frequently caught by newts" is read as ...caught by nets and is TUNA (filling this in, I felt one of the first nagging itches of puzzlement... newts eat tuna?  I'd better check that later).  "Swaying just before a disaster" is read as saying and it's UH-OH.  "Major source of wheat" is read as ...of heat and it's SUN.  Clear?

So this was quite a challenge when you didn't know what the theme was and the clues are deliberately misleading.  The one that really got me was "AWOL part," for which I dutifully put *WITHOUT, because it fits.  I didn't know about the theme then.  It's read as AOL part and is AMERICA.

My favorite is "Hawn the of silver screen."  It's SOLO, because the clue is actually Han.

For "zipped" I put *SHUT but it's SPED.  Wrong zipper.  For "Bold alternative" I couldn't stop thinking of laundry detergent competitors.  It's bold, and thus ITAL.

I couldn't decide if Algeria was neighbors with MALI or Chad.  It's the former.

"Image on the Missouri state quarter" is ARCH, of course!  The St. Louis Jefferson National Expansion Memorial Gateway Arch!  Personally, I'll be deep in the cold, cold ground before I recognize Missourah.

ELIHU Root was a statesman who served under Theodore Roosevelt and William McKinley. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1912 for his efforts to get nations to work together (it didn't take in the long run).

"Special Agent OSO" is a Disney educational animated series about a bear spy.

Clever clues: "Donna's predecessor?" is PRIMA.  "Labor day event" is BIRTH.  "Dough used in a taqueria" is DINERO.  D'oh!

This was a such an original, witty, and well-executed puzzle!  I enjoyed the challenge.

Wednesday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: July 22, 2020

My time: 9:09, just a little slower than average.  This one was slightly tough, like a poorly cooked steak.  Well, let's DIG INTO (not RIP INTO) it.

Theme: it's elementary!  Four phrases have an element hidden within them, plus the symbol for that element.  So, for example, SAFE ENVIRONMENT has iron and Fe it.  There's nothing else in the puzzle to indicate this.  It would be fun if that middle Down said element instead of NY TIMES.

I would have caught on sooner if I had heard of PAUL GOLDSCHMIDT, "six-time All-Star for the Arizona Diamondbacks."

I'm not sure OMG is equivalent to "Shut...UP!, in texts."

Taraji P. HENSON is a new name to me.,  She starred in Hidden Figures, Hustle & Flow, and was the mom in the remake of The Karate Kid.

I don't know anything about chemistry, but here's a rather abstruse review of why an NH2 group is an amino.

I was stymied a bit by "some hop. workers" being LPNS.  Licensed practical nurses (LPN) have about a year of nursing education, often culminating in a certificate.  They mostly work in long term care and have a more limited role than RNs in hospitals.

I was never a Ringhead so I didn't know ROHAN, "kingdom of horsemen in Lord of the Rings."

Shoe company AVIA has appeared a few times before.

Clever clues: "Spike in movie rentals?" is LEE.  "Man of the cloth?" is DIOR.

A nice Wednesday puzzle, a bit of challenge for me, but not exactly wow-inducing.  I like the theme to be more cohesive or relevant to some other thing (like, for example, if this was Tom Lehrer's or Sherlock Holmes' birthday).

Tuesday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: July 21, 2020

My time: 5:07, pretty close to the Tuesday record!

Theme: variants of "2020," "20/20," "20:20," etc.  For example, "20-20" is a TIE SCORE, "20/20" is a NEWSMAGAZINE, "2020" is a LEAP YEAR, etc.  Maybe this puzzle should have run back in early January?

For "frugal sort" I put *MISER but it's the pretty clunky SAVER.  That cost me!

Here's a new one for me: "popular hair coloring technique" is OMBRE.  Written with an accent aigu on the e (ombré), it means a blended shade, like blonde to brown.  This town ain't big enough for the two of us, ombré.

ERIN Andrews, "Dancing With the Stars" co-host and possible contestant, came up in 2018.  Also she's the "sexiest sportscaster."  Also she is sadly known for something about a nude photo scandal.  WHAT A SHAME!

This was a fun Tuesday puzzle.  Now I'm ALL FIRED UP with no place to go.

Monday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: July 20, 2020

My time: 4:56. 

Theme: sayings with a direction plus a prepositional phrase, as in RIGHT ON THE MONEY, LEFT IN THE LURCH, and so on.  I think FRONT OF THE LINE could have been clued in a more interesting or at least lucid way ("where someone who goes next is standing" — "next" is a relative term; I'm only next after the person in front of me).

"Responses to jokes" is HA-HAS.  Ugh.  And there's also a HEH in there.  Too much!

The Trojans are the team names for USC. Sports is boring.

"UPS competitor" DHL has come up before.

I got totally caught at the southwest corner.  For "metric meas. of speed" I put *KPS and as a result had *DISSY for "like good gossip" which definitely struck me as off, but still made sense, albeit slangily.

"Where Samson slew the Philistines" is LEHI.  He burned their crops, so they burned his wife and father-in-law, so he "smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter."  Isn't that always the way?  The old typical feud story, one thing leading to another.

IN TRUTH, this wasn't a great Monday puzzle — just okay, not brilliant. 

Sunday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: July 19, 2020

My time: 28:54, a minute slower than average.  This one was a mess!

Theme: "Doubles Play."  Each themed answer is written as if you say a plural letter name inside it.  So trapeze artists is written TRAPP ARTISTS (tra-P's artist).  "Geez Louise" is written GG LOUISE ("G's Lousie).  "Amusement parks" is written AMUUMENT PARKS (am-U's-ment parks).  And so on.

THE COPA is The Copacabana, the real-life New York nightclub famed in song and used as a setting in many, many movies.

I thought Astro might say "RUH-ROH," but I didn't want to commit to it, because that's what Scooby Doo says!  How derivative.  If there's an original thought out there, I sure could use it right now.

Cathedral city ELY has come up before.

For "bug" I could not stop thinking of synonyms for "annoy."  It's WIRETAP.  The cross there didn't help.  I thought "pang" was for sure *THROB but it's THROE (?).  And "special orders on new autos," one I got ?RIMS made me try to imagine a sort of class of rims, like *Z-RIMS or something.  It's the far more quotidian TRIMS.  Sometimes I try too hard to out-think the wordplay.

Still, there was just way too much that I felt was obscure and abstruse in this grid, and it nearly sunk me.  Language spoken on Easter Island?  RAPA NUI is not exactly in most people's knowledge base.  One of its crosses baffled me for a while: "it's found in a key: abbr." is ANS.

Jazz vibraphonist MILT "Bags" Jackson isn't exactly a household name, either.  And while I've heard of crossing answer Alvin AILEY, I don't think "Revelations choreographer" is likely to ring a lot of bells.  From the website: "More than just a popular dance work, it has become a cultural treasure, beloved by generations of fans."  Has it, though?  Has it?!

You know who else isn't a household name?  "Author/magazine editor" ELAINE Welteroth!  In April 2016, Welteroth was named editor-in-chief of Teen Vogue, making her the second person of African-American heritage in Condé Nast's 107-year history to hold such a title.  Teen Vogue?  Look, I don't want to be an old fogey, bu this won't do.

Children's author ROS Asquith has come up before, and I never heard of her then, either.

"First man, in Maori mythology" is way too abstruse for even a Sunday.  It's TIKI.  He found the first woman, Marikoriko, in a pond; she seduced him and he became the father of Hine-kau-ataata.  That clears things up!

For "taste" I confidently put in *SAVOR.  It's SAPOR.

I liked the tricky theme a lot, but some of these grid was a real chore to put in even once the penny dropped.  YES, I SEE the complexity of it.  But I NO like.  NERTS!

Saturday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: July 18, 2020

My time: 16:05, six minutes faster than average.

Some impressive fill today, including YOU HAD TO BE THERE, VAMPIRE BAT, EX NIHILO, and the greatest Simpsons character of all time, DISCO STU (he doesn't advertise).

"Das Knaben Wunderhorn?" Was ist das?  In English, "The Boy's Magic Horn," a collection of German folk poems and songs.  Gustav MAHLER composed voice-and-piano and voice-and-orchestra settings for the poems in 1905.

Langone NYU is a health center in Manhattan, so its students would go to NYU / MED.

You will find the unexplained clue "ERI tu" explained here.

An EMPTY NET goal is a hockey term of art meaning a situation when a team scores a goal into a net with no goaltender present.

ALLAN Lane is the now-forgotten actor who voiced Mr. Ed.  He is otherwise remembered for some roles in B picture dramas and cowboy movies.

Clever clues: "A, as in April?" is SCHEDULE.  "Good thing to have on hand during winter?' is MITTEN.  "Sort of spousal separation" is AGE GAP.

This was a good crossword!  NICE ONE.

Friday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: July 17, 2020

My time: 13:01, four minutes faster than average and four minutes slower than my Friday record!

About today's puzzle I have so many questions.  Well, one main question.  Why a bear-like smiley face?  The answer, my friends, is blowing in the grid.

You have to admire the crazy grid-length fill, though: INTIMATE APPAREL (with the devilishly vague clue "slips, e.g."), STATE LEGISLATOR, AUTO PARTS STORES.

I guessed that the name EVE means "life," but I'm no Hebrew scholar!

For "home where the heart is?" I immediately put *TORSO, but unfortunately it's CHEST.  Missed it by that much.

I think I've vaguely heard of Joey Dee and the STARLITERS, but I had to have a lot of crossfill help before it clicked.

I'm not really sure why "one who might grade on the curve?" is ART TEACHER.  Does it mean the curve of a drawing model? 

It took a long time for me to understand why "backing" is PRO.  They're both adjectives meaning "being in favor of."

Brand-new piece of information: DESI, a term for the people and culture of the Indian subcontinent.

Tokyo-based air carrier ANA has come up before.

Clever clue: "Links things?" is CARTS.  That took me a while: it's golf carts.  "It forms at the mouth" is DELTA.  "Majors in acting" is LEE.

A fun puzzle.  The grid made me smile, although I wish there were some answer that tied in somehow.  Oh, well.  I had a good solve time today.  As a SOLO PERFORMER, it's my time to GLOAT.

Thursday's New York Times crossword solved: July 16, 2020

My time: 8:55, just about a minute slower than my record!  Woot!

Theme: DARK ART ("witchcraft... or what each block of three black squares in this puzzle represents?").  From top to bottom, we have POISON D[art], [art]ICLE II ("part of the Constitution establishing the executive branch"), FLOWCH[art], and [Art]HUR DENT.  And down, it's [art]IFICIAL HE[art].

I was slowed by a couple of wrong answers.  For "caught" I put *NABBED but it's SNARED; for "sighting from a crow's nest" I put *SHIP but it's LAND.

Apparently I-80 crosses the Missouri River at OMAHA.  I'm not sure this is a Fact Worth Knowing.

George Eliot's real name was Mary ANN Evans according to this puzzle, although Wikipedia says it might be Mary Anne and she at one point called herself Marian.

JACOB DeGrom, Mets pitcher and Cy Young winner, has a fun last name, but that doesn't mean I'll remember him.

Clever clues: "Subpar performance?" is BIRDIE.  "Company with a great deal of advertising?" is GROUPON.

This was a good puzzle.  The theme was a cute TRICK.  It might have been better run on a Halloween but I'm not complaining.

Wednesday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: July 15, 2020

My time: 6:24, just a minute slower than the record!  Now that's more like it. 

Theme: the grid is a volcano, with MOUNT at the top, and A/S/H and L/A/V/A appearing down the sides of the cone in circled letters.  I didn't notice this until the grid was completed.

New to me is the SHIBUYA district or ward, a fashion center in Tokyo.  The fashion district surrounds the eponymous railway station, one of the busiest in the world.

I think I've heard that OKRA is called "ladies fingers" before, but I don't think I could have answered that without crossfill.

I liked the fill on this one: PHALANX, SITS PAT, MEDIA-SHY, CAMPER VAN, DRESS CODE, TEXAS HOLD 'EM, PEA-SHOOTER.  Was this a fun puzzle?  Yes INDEEDY.  It would be more impressive with some volcano-related answers, but you can't have everything.

Tuesday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: July 14, 2020

My time: 12:16.  Is that the worst Tuesday ever posted?  I don't know.  What the hell happened?!  This is an embarrassing solve time.  Just terrible.

Theme: common phrases recast as musical titles with an adjective following.  This leads to some rather prolix, tedious clues.  So, for example, "Positive, albeit terse, review of a 2003 Broadway musical?" is WICKED GOOD.  "Super-cold spell on the set of a 1996 Broadway musical?" is RENT FREEZE.  "Performance venue for a 1977 Broadway musical?" is ANNIE HALL.  And "Souvenir from a 1968 Broadway musical?" is HAIR SHIRT.  (That last one is pretty clever.)

So, I guess, first of all I don't know much about musicals.  I mean, I've heard of all of these, but it's not my wheelhouse.  Maybe my brain just refused to think about or process those long clues as soon as I saw the phrase "Broadway musical."

Also, I had a lot of wrong answers.  For "grant entry to" I had *ADMIT for a long time; it's LET IN.  For "one of the First nations of Canada" I put *ERIE but it's CREE.  This is precisely the same mistake I made on October 17, 2017; I'm an idiot.  For "workplace discrimination law enforcer, for short" I put and stuck with *OSHA for too long.  It's EEOC.  For "old piano's sound" I put *PLUNK which left me with *WRUNG for "all wet," which kindasorta works but it's the other meaning of "wet" and it's WRONG.  For "Jennifer of Dirty Dancing" I put *BEAL but it's GREY.  Jennifer Beal isn't even anyone!

Jacob's first wife? I blanked for so long.  It's LEAH, as explained on October 8, 2018.

Anyway, this was a cavalcade of errors.  Hopefully I'll be more ALERT on tomorrow's puzzle.

Moday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: July 13, 2020

My time: 5:16.  That's only a bit faster than average.  I was surprised that it took this long.

Theme: things you might see on a MAH JONG TILE.  These are PLUM BLOSSOM ("flower of the tree Prunus nume"), RED DRAGON  ("winged beast on the Welsh flag"), and NORTH WIND ("bringer of cold weather").  The first clue is ridiculously recondite; the second is misleading, as it asks for a beast and gives a color plus beast instead (a better clue might say, "what you see on the Welsh flag").

Never heard of the song "Dark Lady" so didn't know that it was CHER.  It was a #1 hit in 1974.

I'm also not familiar with the hairstyle option TWISTS.  They're like small dreadlocks.

Also new to me is the amusingly-named Dee REES, director of Mudbound and Bessie, films that I've never seen.

For "oh no!" I put *DRAT.  I was certainly not expecting CRAP from the Old Gray Lady.  Oh, and BTW, "take that" is BOOYAH?  Really?

I didn't think this puzzle was OUTTASIGHT.  Not the BEST of puzzles.  The theme is pretty meh and the clues weren't particularly helpful or clever.

Sunday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: July 12, 2020

My time: 25:10, two minutes faster than average.

Theme: chore wordplay.  "Chore for a security guard?" is SWEEP THE FLOOR.  "Chore for a dog-walker?" is PICK UP THE TOYS (which doesn't work so well).  A funnier one is "chore for a rower?" which is GO TO THE BANK.  "Chore for a censor?" is TAKE OUT THE TRASH. 

And so forth.

I knew there was a STL Cardinals (from crosswords, of course), but I didn't know about the ARI Cards.

RON Johnson is a Republican senator from Wisconsin.  Ugh, who cares.  He's a shitty Trump lapdog who attacks US intelligence agencies.

Aralia cordata, known as UDO in Japan, is an edible herbaceous plant.  The edible stem is sometimes boiled and served in miso soup. Young stems are consumed from the roots and added to soups and salads. It must be properly cooked, as the raw stems are coated in a resin tasting similar to pine.  Prior to eating, they should be thinly sliced and boiled in water a few times or placed in chilled water for an hour to eliminate the resin.  It's the fugu of the plant world!

I have never heard of "crispy cookie brand" TATE'S.

ETON has been in the grid many, many times, as a school ("near Windsor"), a cap, and a collar.  Now it's as part of ETON mess, a strawberry cream dessert.

Koko Head is a headland in OAHU, known for Koko Crater, a tuff cone.  Hee hee, tuff cone.

It's the New York Times Crossword's goal to include every single California place name ever in their grids.  Here is NOE Valley, a neighborhood in San Francisco.

Despite Utah resort town ALTA having come up in the past, I was totally stumped by it.

Clever clues: "Magic, once" is LAKER.  "Carrying a key?" is TONAL.

I wasn't very fast today, but I wasn't POOR AT the puzzle either.  The important thing to try to remember as much of the new material as I can!

Saturday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: July 11, 2020

My time:20:09, about three minutes shorter than an average Saturday for me.

No 7-11 theme today, unfortunately, just lots of vague, challenging clues.  Check out that unusual and modern fill: MEATSPACE, CROCODILE TEARS ("hollow-eyed expression?"), PARADISE FOUND ("heaven, sweet heaven"), DATA COLLECTION, SOUL TRAIN LINE!  Wow.

So, I have never heard of Tarana Burke (more evidence of the Great Black Erasure), who started the #ME TOO MOVEMENT and who currently works to promote gender equality.

I was not expecting "geez!" to be GOD.  I just thought another euphemism would more properly fit there, like WOW.  Also, for "lacking any emotion" I put *STONE but it's STONY.  That section was the last to be completed.

I have never taken any Spanish, so "MAS o menos" was not something I knew.

We all know and love that rascally red toddler puppet monster thing ELMO, but who the hell is Mr. Noodle?  He and his family are Elmo's silent, doofus friends who mime out simple things.  According to writer and "Elmo's World" co-creator Judy Freudberg, "Mr. Noodle, who never speaks, is all about trial and error. When you throw him a hat, he acts like he's never seen one before. Kids feel empowered watching him because they can do what he can't." The characters give young viewers "the opportunity to figure it out" before the adults do.

IONA comes up in the NYT puzzle a great deal, with various clues, but it was clued as "Macbeth's burial place" on July 4, 2018.

And the Oldsmobile cars known as ALEROS were last mentioned on July 5, 2018.

And EDYS is also a mainstay.

I don't really like DICIER for "less predictable."  I'm more familiar with dicey meaning dangerous, not unpredictable.

Clever clues: "What's all the buzz about?" is HIVE (I got this immediately — my kind of pun).  "Locale for house reps?" is HOME GYM.  "Tube traveler?" is OVUM.  "Berth place" is MARINA.

Altogether a very well done puzzle.  If this was a poetry slam I'd give it a SNAP.

Friday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: July 10, 2020

My time: 12:36, five minutes faster than average.

No theme, but some smart clues and interesting fill (BASILICAS!  LITE BRITE!  GRAYBEARD!  TERRY CREWS!).  "Reunion attendee, informally" had me stalled on school reunions, but it's one who goes to a family reunion — AUNTIE.

I've heard the title TRUE WEST, but I didn't know it was a Sam Shepard play.  It's about two brothers, one a screenwriter and one a drunk and thief.

Why on earth is there a 23-foot bronze statue of EL CID in Balboa Park, San Diego?  Is there some connection?  No one knows.

I didn't know MOVEMBER was an annual event to grow awareness of men's health issues.  I honestly thought it was an annual event to raise awareness of mustache-growing.

A SCHUSS is a straight downhill run in skiing.

I rolled my eyes as I wrote TOON for "Linus or Lucy, e.g."  They aren't toons in my eyes.  Comic strips aren't toons, dammit!

Apparently Rita Moreno played someone named ANITA in "West Side Story."   Anita is a Puerto Rican immigrant. She is the girlfriend of Bernardo and a close friend and confidante to his sister Maria. Anita's character is based loosely on Juliet's Nurse in Shakespeare's "Romeo & Juliet."

So apparently the parallel of a soccer mom — left-leaning, high middle class — is NASCAR DAD, blue collar and right-leaning.

A LETT is a Latvian, the people living on or near the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea.

"Duke's grp." is ACC, which has come up so often before. I just don't care about sports conferences.

SEGNO, the musical repeating mark, came up way way back in 2017.

Clever clues: "Garb for the masses?" is ALBS.  "Causes for alarm?" is HEISTS.

Nice puzzle!  SLOW CLAP.

Thursday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: July 9, 2020

My time: 12:33, four minutes faster than average.

Theme: a rebus with circle-type words in circled squares.  DOESN'T [RING] TRUE crossed with SPY [RING], and FROOT [LOOP] crossed with THREW FOR A [LOOP], for example.  I was a little held up at first because for "network of secret agents" I had put *RING before I was thinking about any theme or special fill.  So when I saw DOESN'T ____ TRUE fitting across it, I assumed it was to be read with the intersecting down word in the middle.  Soon, however, it became clear this wasn't the case.

"THIS [ROUND] IS ON ME," the robot shouted at the bar, hoping his inflection made him sound human.  It did not.

Never heard of the Solheim cup.  The Solheim Cup is a biennial golf tournament for professional women golfers contested by teams representing Europe and the United States. It is named after the Norwegian-American golf club manufacturer Karsten Solheim, who was a driving force behind its creation.  Most of its competitors come from the LPGA tour.

I was a bit unsure as to whether a Lipizzaner was a STEED or a dog.

Some of the clues were challengingly vague, as befits a Thursday.  "Effort" turns out to be DOING, as in, "that took some doing."  "Be routed" plays with multiple meanings.  Its answer is LOSE BIG.  "Travel tirelessly?" is SLED.

Lawn care (and snow-blower!) brand TORO has come up before.

This was no TWO-BIT puzzle, HOMIE.  It was a good one!  Well, gotta JET.

Wednesday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: July 8, 2020

My time: 6:46, three solid minutes faster than average.

Theme: well-known phrases clued with fonts to make the meaning literal, with a verb and object.

"Having a meal" is STRESS EATING.

"M i l i t a r y t r a i n e e s" is SPACE CADETS.

"Downward dog" is STRIKE A POSE.

"Will you marry me?" is BOLD PROPOSAL.

I didn't know BASS was a show company.  It's G.H. BASS actually.

ROLO!  YOLO!  *NOLO!  Whoops, I mean NOLA.  Those other two threw me off.

More evidence of the Great Black Erasure.  I never heard of OPAL Tometi, the activist who co-founded Black Lives Matter.  I have heard of the march on SELMA, of course.

Florida State athletes!  The Seminoles!  That guy's a proud NOLE!

I did not know that a main ingredient of succotash is LIMA BEAN. Sufferin' succotash!

Martini & ROSSI came up in November, 2018.

Was this a fun, well-done puzzle?  I'D SAY SO.

Tuesday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: July 7, 2020

My time: 6:07, about two minutes faster than average.

The theme is WRAPPING PAPER.  It's Christmas in July, for some reason. The circled letters on the right and left sides going across spell out types of paper: LIT/MUS, TOI/LET, CAR/BON, and TIS/SUE.

The term STOCK SPLIT is new to me.  A stock split is a decision by a company's board of directors to increase the number of shares that are outstanding by issuing more shares to current shareholders.  For example, in a 2-for-1 stock split, an additional share is given for each share held by a shareholder.

Our old friend UIE is back!

I've never heard of MARIST College, a liberal arts institution in Poughkeepsie.

That's all I have today.  Everything was more or less straightforward.  Only those two items above were GNUS to me.

Monday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: July 6, 2020

My time: 4:33.

The theme: first name of celebrity plus a verb to make a well known phrase.  "Pianist Cliburn plays basketball defense?" is VAN GUARDS.  "Singer Dylan has fun in the snow?" is BOB SLEDS.  "Actress Rogers flips out?" is GINGER SNAPS.  "Businessman Gates gets out of the poker game?" is BILL FOLDS.  And "TV host Behar takes mass transit?" is JOY RIDES.

One of these days I'll remember Rafael NADAL.  He comes up an awful lot.

I think I heard at one point that the OPAL is mined predominantly in Australia.  The town of Coober Pedy in South Australia is a major source of opal.  ha ha!  Coober Pedy!

Did you know PEORIA is on the Illinois River?  Also apparently it floods a lot.

In several Asian martial arts, the DAN is a rank.  Dan is often used together with the word kyu in certain ranking systems, with dan being used for the higher ranks and kyū being used for lower ranks.

All right, there's NO MORE.

Sunday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: July 5, 2020

My time: 19:57.

Theme: TICK ALL THE BOXES, because we're British now and don't say check, I guess.  The shaded squares are read as [box] when Across and [TICK] when down.  So, for example, SOAP [box] crosses with S[TICK]Y SITUATION, and TOY [box] crosses with THAT'S THE [TICK]ET.

I knew there was something cutesy going on, but at first I thought it was leaving out the middle word of a phrase for some reason, so I had *CARROT STICK and *TICKLE IVORIES.  Eventually, of course, the explanatory clue kicked in.

I had "Never meet your *HEROS" and shook my head at the apparent misspelling.  It turns out to be "Never meet your IDOLS," which I think we can agree is not the usual way to say it.  (See also REIMAGE and UNARMS.)

But then apparently HOT HAND, singular, is something people say?  Odd.

"What Franklin famously asked for" is RESPECT.  That baffled me and, I'm ashamed to say, I had to Duck Duck Go it.  It's talking about Aretha!  Duh!

I never heard of Ka LAE, southernmost point on Hawaii.

I got a chuckle out of "Elizabeth Warren, vis-a-vis former chief justice Earl Warren, e.g:" NO RELATION.  That's so dumb it works.

SHE Would be King is a debut novel by Wayétu Moore, a fictional history of Liberia.

ISLAM follows the Hijri calendar, according to which it's the year 1441.

Roy CAMPANELLA was a catcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers in the late 1940s and 1950s.

Jan HUS was a Czech church reformer in the 14th century (in the Western calendar, not the Hijri).

The Kaaba, in MECCA, appeared way back in 2017.

Clever clue: "Note-taking spot?" is ATM.

A pretty good Sunday edition. Sundays are long and sometimes a lot of work; a nice theme like this helps break up the monotony.

Saturday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: July 4, 2020

My time: 19:35, a few minutes faster than average.

This was a fun puzzle, super tough, with vague clues that made me chuckle or kick myself when everything finally clicked.  Which is exactly the right level of challenge!

No America's Birthday theme today, which I find surprising.  Oh well, #AllCountriesMatter

I had the most trouble with that southwest corner, but truthfully, all the corners were hotspots.  I got DECKLE edging in books right off the bat but not much else.

While I enjoyed the clever phrasing of the cluing in general, I have a couple of complaints.  RAPS is not usually pluralized.  ("These chart-toppers are great RAPS," said the white guy, whitely.) 

I'm not familiar with the phrase ROCK-RIBBED for "unwavering," but it's valid.

I know what P.F. CHANG'S is but didn't know they had a Great Wall of Chocolate.  This seems to be a cake, a single dessert.  I imagined a sort of chocolate bar where you pick types of chocolates off the wall.  I guess that's a little Willy Wonka.

"Archangel of the Apocrypha" is URIEL, supposedly the one who stood guard at Eden with a flaming sword, but then left his post to check for the requisite lamb's blood on the doorframes of the Jews in Egypt.

Sports are not my department department: BIANCA Andreescu is a Canadian tennis champion.  Tennis great ROD LAVER has come up before, but I had forgotten about him.  I had to get nearly every letter on these before I was able to complete their names.

For "top drawer" I had *CLASSY which made the Fellini film *LA STRADY, which confused me a bit.  It's CLASS-A (and LA STRADA, ovviamente).

For RAT TERRIER I put *FOX TERRIER almost immediately which tangled me up a bit.  For "Uh-uh!" I had *NO WAY for a long time.  It's NOHOW, which I insist is not equivalent to "uh-uh!"  Boo on this clue.

Clever clues: "Checked out for a bit" kept me focused on the sense of zoned out but it's ON LOAN.    "Business checks?" is BOYCOTTS.  "Lines of code" is BYLAWS.  "Call overseas?" kept me guessing a good long while.  I had *AWAY RATE and knew that wasn't right.  It's not a telephone call.  It's AHOY, MATE.  Yarr, that's a good 'un.  "What a current flows into" is ANODE.

Lots of tough thinking it out, on this one. I fought for every square but finally emerged victorious.  It provided AMPLE challenge.

Friday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: July 3, 2020

My time: 15:16, a couple minutes less than average.

For the Italian sauce ingredient I saw ?OMAT at the start and was convinced that it began with tomato.  I therefore ended up with *TOMATO MATO and stuck with it for what is clearly far too long. 

Prince Kūhiō Day, marking the birth of deposed prince-turned-statesman Jonah Kūhiō Kalanianaʻole, is celebrated in HAWAII.

I do not like the phrase "Tech BRO."  It is a subculture whose death has already been proclaimed.

I like how STRAW and BATH, both clued as "it can be drawn," cross.

Clever clues: "Singles player in the 1950s" is PHONO.  "Present time, for short" is B-DAY.  "Record component" is PRIOR.  "Coach for the bench players?" is PIANO TEACHER.

I liked Isabel Allende but had not heard of her novel De AMOR y de Sombra.  The plot sounds like 1984.

ANYHOO, this was a fun puzzle.  Great fill, including ANTHONY BOURDAIN, QUOTIENT, NON SEQUITUR, and others.  I'M IN HEAVEN.  Well, let's not go that far.