Merl Reagle, April 12

Even after I solved the first theme clue, I didn’t really understand what Merl was getting at: BOW AND SCRAPE for 112 Across, “To really need some rosin while playing the violin?” I had to solve a couple more before I had the “Aha!” moment — it’s an aural thing.

Try these: 29 Across, “Result of too many orders in the garment district?” THE SEWERS ARE BACKED UP. How do you pronounce SEWERS? Not like those grates in the street; say it again like you’re talking about seamstresses. Same with MINUTE in MINUTE MAID — the answer to 41 Across, “Thumbelina?” She was pretty small, not a fraction of an hour.

Also nice was 87 Across, “Sonogram?”, which yields BABY SHOWER. (Here I’ll give a shout-out to my brother and sister-in-law, who are expecting my niece in August! Can’t wait.) And 84 Across, “‘How They Get Graphite Into Pencils’?”, is for all my talented but beleaguered journalism colleagues: THE LEAD STORY.

Questions or comments? Twitter me @crosswordkathy

Merl Reagle, April 5

As if you needed a reminder that it’s baseball’s opening week (watching the Phillies raise the 2008 championship banner wasn’t enough of a hint?), Merl Reagle has crafted a gem of a puzzle chock full o’ team names — both across and down.

The one that made me laugh out loud was at the center of the puzzle, 66 Across: “Get a certain player out?” The answer — TAG A MET — is also a heartburn medication. As long as the Phillies keep tagging Mets, I hope not to need Tagamet this season.

Other fun ones: THE LONE RANGER (13 Down, “Only player on base?”); ATHLETIC SUPPORTER (113 Across, “Fan of a West Coast team?”);  THE ARTFUL DODGER (54 Across, “Ballplayer who plays with panache?”); and, as a frequent Red Sox fan, YANKEE GO HOME (96 Across, “Advice to a player on third base?”)

21 Across, “Oldest player on one team?” made me think of high school English. The answer, THE ANCIENT MARINER, is the from “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. I don’t remember ever having to read it, but the title has always stayed with me because of the “rime” part … you always thought he meant “rhyme” — and wouldn’t life have been easier if they had? — but no, he meant “rime,” as in ice. Brrrrr. Guess that would explain why the mariner was ancient.

Play ball! Go Phillies!

New York Times, April 5 (UPDATED)

I had wanted to get the bulldog edition of the NYT on Saturday (essentially Sunday’s paper a day early), but no such luck in Oneonta, N.Y. Had to wait until Sunday, when I got back home to Philly and luckily found a few copies left at the corner store. My goal is to do the puzzles on Saturday and post my post-mortem, as it were, in time for those who start puzzling on Sunday. Here’s hoping I can keep up next week.

“Taking Care of Business” is simple wordplay, taking common business phrases and twisting them to fit new definitions. 133 Across, “Activity of duvet makers?” yields a phrase we’ve read too much about recently: DOWN SIZING. It crosses with 85 Down, “Exchange for 007?” — BOND TRADING, referring to famous fictional spy James Bond.

It’s nice that this puzzle is loaded with theme answers both across and down. But I guess there’s no shortage of business terms to play off of; and, fortunately or unfortunately, we are all more familiar with them today than we probably ever were, including LOW INTEREST LOAN (109 Across, “Mortgage no one cares about?”) and JOINT VENTURE (27 Across, “Founding of a hip replacement clinic?”).

Questions or comments? Twitter me @crosswordkathy

Eiffel Tower, NYT-style

New York Times, March 29

Bonjour! This puzzle had a French flair not immediately obvious from its title. It was also one of those puzzles that my boyfriend would describe as “not fair,” because it doesn’t follow the basic rule of crossword puzzledom: one letter per square.

I realized this after I had filled in nearly all the letters for 10 Down, “Insurance giant” — A_NA — and 21 Across, “1986 self-titled album whose cover was Andy Warhol’s last work” — AR_HA. The only insurance giant I know that could possibly use those letters is AETNA, which would mean squeezing the ET into a single square. Conveniently, squeezing ET into that square also gave me ARETHA. 

I knew then that was the gimmick, but I still didn’t get the “architectural drawing” until I had solved 26 Across, “1951 Oscar-winning film whose title suggests a visitor to the 118-Across” — AN AMERICAN IN PARIS. That pretty much gave away that 118 Across (“Landmark inaugurated 3/31/1889 whose shape is suggested by nine squares in this puzzle’s completed grid”) is EIFFEL TOWER.

At that point, you can pretty much figure the “ET” in the squeezed box stands for “Eiffel Tower,” and that there will be eight more you can “connect” to form a rudimentary Eiffel Tower shape. My favorite was the central clue, 74 Across, “Modern traveler’s purchase.” The answer — E-TICKET — required squeezing ET into both the first and last box. Pretty cool.

You’ll notice the date of the tower’s inauguration in 118 Across means it is celebrating its 120th birthday this year. Bon alors, joyeux anniversaire a la Tour Eiffel!

Questions or comments? Twitter me @crosswordkathy

New York Times, March 22 (UPDATED)

When I first saw the title to this puzzle, I thought it would probably mean the theme answers had something extra added on to the end — thus “closing the deal.”

And as I started working my way through the clues, it seemed like the closing letters would even be the closing letters of the alphabet: X, Y and Z. I seemed to be finding them in theme-length answers, including PIZZERIA UNO (119 Across, “Classic name in chain restaurants) and EX-MARINES (23 Across, “Corps Veterans”) and YOM KIPPUR WAR (50 Across, “Conflict of 1973″). But they weren’t exactly closing any deals.

But I had my “A-ha!” moment as I filled in 27 Across, “Engagement gift”: DIAMOND SOLITAIRE. Not a ring, but a SOLITAIRE — a card game. All of a sudden the YOM KIPPUR WAR made sense, as did PIZZERIA UNO — both were favorite childhood card games. (And EX-MARINES wasn’t a theme answer after all.)

It didn’t take me long to close the rest of the “deals” after that.

UPDATE: The Times actually published a correction on a clue to this puzzle in the April 5 edition of the NYT Magazine. The clue for 57 Across, “Showcase Showdown prize, perhaps?” yielded the answer DINETTE SET. Cute, but as any veteran watcher of “The Price is Right” should know, the Showcase Showdown is the preliminary round where contestants spin the wheel and try to get closest to $1 in order to appear in the plain old Showcase — and win a dinette set.

I should have been hip to that, considering my college roommate was actually ON “The Price is Right” and won both the Showcase Showdown AND the Showcase. She did, indeed, win a dinette set if memory serves, along with a brass room divider and a satellite TV system (this was 1989, mind you).

Questions or comments? Twitter me @crosswordkathy