Nothing for Christmas - December 2014

Cute. Empty calories.

The Theme!

The ten unclued entries have haha “nothing” in common because they're synonyms for “nonsense.” Why not synonyms for “nothing” to better fit the title? Cuz titles don't matter, fools!!! Titles are ... nonsense.

Anway: cutie cute theme. Inferred POPPYCOCK (35A) and latched onto this theme early. Altho some of the synonyms for “nonsense” were prutttttty weird.

• 1A) HORSEFEATHERS
• 14A) BALDERDASH
• 23A) APPLESAUCE
• 35A) POPPYCOCK
• 43A) EYEWASH (wut?)
• 47A) TOMMYROT (Tommyknockers!!)

• 1D) HUMBUG (altho we put down HUBBUB)

Waiting for Guffman

• 5D) FIDDLESTICKS
• 11D) SCHMEGEGGE (we didn't get this one)
• 19D) BILGEWATER

More on SCHMEGEGGE under “The Tacky.”

Highlights!

• 15A) B-b-b-b-bugs (4)
  BEES (the letters and the insects)

A goofy loverful fun one! Sweet like honey!

• 18A) Nucleoli, etc. circulating around, top to bottom line, like some debts (13)
  (NUCLEOLI ETC + (bottom line * top = BL)) * anagram = UNCOLLECTIBLE

Big bombossa anagramma! You know we love!

• 22A) I could make binge begin either way, that's life (5)
  BINGE or BEGIN * anagram = BEING

YESssss! The wisdom of the Third Anagram! So sweet. Also reminded of an all-time favorite classic SNL sketch: “George F Will's Sports Machine” with Dana Carvey as George F Will:

George F. Will: Very well. Let us engage the sports machine. Gentlemen, as always, the questions will focus exclusively on baseball, the only game that transcends the boundary between fury and repose. All right, hands on buzzers. The precarious balance between infield and outfield suggests a perfect symmetry. For $50, identify the effect of that symmetry.

[ the contestants stare cluelessly, as the buzzer sounds ]

George F. Will: Sorry. The answer is: "The exhilarating tension between being and becoming." Being and becoming.

Source

• 32A) What's wrong with getting a new leader? That's the point (5)
  WRONG * getting a new leader = PRONG

YuhhhhhHHHhhh normally, like if the “P” isn't suggested somewhere, this would be a farty bum clue to us but the language! So natural and so smooth!

Our lovely Romanian Sweet V has been politically engaged by his home country recently during the Romanian presidential runoff elections. At the time of writing this paragraph (Nov 16th) there's a 5 km line in Munich to vote for Romanians residing outside Romania. Think about that kind of line for a second. 5 km. 3 mi (ish). In Chicago, that's like you can vote in Daley Plaza and the end of the line is in Lincoln Park. In San Francisco, that's like you can vote at the Ferry Building and the end of the line is in the Castro. In New York, that's like you can vote at the Empire State Building and the end of the line is at the Manhattan Bridge. In St Johnsbury, Vermont*, that's like you can vote at the Athaeneum and the end of the line is at the Green Mountain Mall.
* shout out to ABEvF!!

Not minimizing what happens in USA to keep voters from voting. Democracy is fucky lots of places. Specific to the Romanian character, though:

On Sunday, some Romanians waved toothbrushes to protest long waits at polling stations abroad and thousands protested in Munich, according to Mediafax news.

Source: WLOX

Toothbrushes! They brought toothbrushes to wave at the cameras!!

• 45A) Revolution counters macho street gangs (11)
  MACHO STREET * anagram = TACHOMETERS

Ahhhhh glorious! Annnnnnnnnagrams! Annnnnnnnagrams! Nice story. Double entendre on “counters.” Just beautiful. Just glorious.

REVOLUTION

Speaking of Guy Fawks masks and V for Vendetta: Hugo Weaving is this month's Nerd Hot Guy.

• 46A) Forward or behind in the outskirts of Sydney (5)
  (behind = ASS) in (outskirts of Sydney = SY) = SASSY

Ohhhhhh so wonderful. Oh so lovely :)

• 2D) Look up study of the past (5)
  ((Look = LO) * up = OL) + (study = DEN) = OLDEN

Nice and neat. Trippingly off the tongue.

• 7D) Liquor secreted in barracks (6)
  secreted in bARRACKs = ARRACK

Never hearda ARRACK but this was a nice double-use of “secreted” and also it reminds us of Arrakis. So, automatic highlight.

Arrakis concept art by Mark Molnar. Source

• 9D) Hero, he goes around a soldier in pursuit of love (6)
  HE goes around (A + (soldier = GI) in pursuit of (love = O)) = HOAGIE

Oh!! Such daring natural language, and lovely payoff.

• 16D) Physical condition that is largely misunderstood (7)
  LARGELY * anagram = ALLERGY

AhhHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
hhHHHFHHHHAHAAALJKFSDJKSDLFKJSD!!!!!!!!
SO GOOD

• 20D) A porgy, sir, swims in bands in the water (9)
  A PORGY SIR * anagram = SPIROGYRA

Definitely uncommon! I like.

Was convinced tho, and still not entirely unconvinced, that there's a synonym for dolphin or porpoise that uses a good percentage of those letters. Some old-timey old-fashionedy word, like that might be all over Moby Dick. Any Dear Readers know what we're talkin bout? Not grampus, altho grampus is an AMAZN word!

• 24D) High-fliers, expert in French and appearing in nightwear (8)
  (expert = PRO) + ((French and = ET) appearing in (nightwear = PJS)) = PROPJETS

Lovely! High-fliers maybe a little awkward, little tiny? But lovely payoff. French nightwear! OUI

• 30D) Pippin, opening canceled in its limited programs (7)
  (Pippin = APPLE) + (opening canceled in ITS = TS) = APPLETS

SO solid! So NATURAL!!

• 38D) Outcome of democracy: being blue (4)
  outcome of democRACY = RACY

Mmmmm v nice! And if one takes it to mean that democracy yields more liberal “blue state” thinking, then fodder for our sister blog Bleeding Heart Liberal Harper's Cryptic Clues??

• 40D) Good actor? Bad actor, I'd say (4)
  (Bad actor = HAM) * homophone = HAMM

As in Jon. Look at this photo and then try to even. You will find: you cannot. You can't even.

• 37D) It used to be contracted as belonging to an old airline? (4)
  It used to be contracted = belonging to (an old airline = TWA) = TWAS

We like this one even though it rides sooooo close to the line of TWAT. Sooooooooo close. Taunts us. Wants us to say it. We shan't. Nice try, Maltby!!

Lowlights!

• 12A) Peter Fonda played this title-role part for minuscule effect (4)
  miniscule effect = ULEE

Whoa, Ulee! Didn't expect to see you'lee here, in a puzzle of all places jk jk. Jk. We always expect Ulee in the puzzle. Ulee in the puzzle is like when someone complains about their shitty landlord. A landlord? Being shitty? Well I never!

Miniscule effect indeed.

“This honey is like GOLD!!”

• 30A) Not loud, more than just a broadcaster (5)
  (more than just = FAIRER) * (not (loud = F)) = AIRER

Loud like in musical notation loud.

Frequently we have been an AIRER of grievances against -ER'isms in the puzzle. They make a Scrabbo game more interesting. They make a puzzle so much less so.

The two-letter word list also makes Scrabble much more interesting. All you vocal two-letter-word list haters (there are many of you, and you are very vocal): eat a cookie and go take a nap. Call us when you're ready to play Big Girl Scrabble, with the big girls. We have the TWL list** pretty well committed to memory, but usually play with the list printed out and open on the table, no penalty for any player to consult it. Which is fair, right? Very fair. How's that cookie?
** yah, fuck SOWPODS! Fuck ZO! TWL 4evr baby!!

• 34A) Great: get back sheep before they're shorn (4)
  ((Great = G) + GET)* back = TEGG

Grumble grumble. The plural implication with “they're” messed us up. You ever do that in the cryptic? “Decide” you know the answer and don't think too hard about the reasoning behind it? And this Scrabble dictionary says TEGS is a word. Anyway.

Sweet V with Cousin Vasile's sheep

• 41A) Lead-free clothing gets hearing (3)
  (clothing = WEAR) * lead-free = EAR

Meh. Eh. Frequent indicator (“hearing”) instead the definition portion but blahhhh. Guh.

• 44A) Consumer appliance with the front removed (5)
  (appliance = HEATER) * front removed = EATER

Nice to split a phrase like “consumer appliance” but otherwise, not particularly fun. HEATER and EATER even rhyme, yo. It's fine when they rhyme. But we all have a better time when it's a little more creative, a little more lat'ral. You feel?

• 3D) Distributor of beer (Coors) decentalized things old-timers played on (6)
  BEER + (Coors decentralized = CS) = REBECS

What's a rebe—ok fine. Learning.

• 6D) Tees off for hot times at the Fontainebleau (4)
  TEES * off = ETES

Callin this out cuz ETES is toujours in the puzzles and can we get a PRINTEMPS can we get a HIVER? S'il vous plaît? Can we get a Spanish month that's not ENERO? This is the United States: everybody knows at least a little Spanish. Not joking. Can we get a MAYO can we get an ABRIL. Can we get a JULIO.

• Acid that helps make you rich (4)
  yoU RICh = URIC

Uric acid is a component of urine. This is the part where we pretend to you, Dear Readers, that we are not a gross person. Eww. Pee that helps make you rich. Pee barons. Gross (haha).

The Tacky!

Why tacky? No, not [just] because it's a word synonymous with penis.

Source: Dictionary.com

Dear Readers, if you knew 11D that is wonderful. Excellent and glorious for you. We were at a loss (our goy is showing). Confident in all our crosses, including faulty TEGS. Leaving us with some frustrating letter guessing games. Scumegense? Scamegeese?

Unclued theme word with letters unchecked? Boo. Not a very nice holiday present. Nuh tat tall. Usually this space is reserved for culturally tacky clues, but this time it's just a tacky cryptic clue qua cryptic clue. By which we mean: “we didn't like it, because we couldn't solve it.” Ego.

We're gearing up early for New Year's Resolutions, Dear Readers. 2015 is the Year of Freedom. Especially including freedom from ego. In preparation, we're queueing up some all-purpose responses for the next time we feel defensive-vulnerable-insecure.

Favorite right now: “eh ... probably!”

example
“Your blog is not very funny.”
“eh ... probably!”

Jk jk, everyone thinks this blog is funny!!

[eyes to the left]
[eyes to the right]

Commenting feels good and makes you more attractive [to us]!!

Theme and Variations - May 2014

Welcome to spring, Dear Readers! Love, above-freezing temperatures are in the air!

The Theme

1A and 3D are related, yielding three theme words with two variations each. 1A turns out to be TRIATHLON and 3D IRON MAN und dann the theme words are the three legs of a triathlon:

• 43A) SWIMMING
  variation: kindsa swimming strokes
  • 11D) DOG PADDLE
  • 12D) BREASTSTROKE
• 38A) BIKING
  variation: definition of component word parts
  • 6D) HERMAPHRODITIC (bi)*
  • 21D) MONARCH (king)
• 13A) MARATHON
  variation: other famous battles
  • 29A) WATERLOO
  • 25D) HASTINGS

*we shall explore why this is tacky at the und

Highlights!

• 12A) Good going in underwear worn before 50? (5)
  (underwear = BRA) + (50 = (5 = V) + (0 = O)) = BRAVO

Always with the brar always brar brar. And very much dislike this style of breaking up quantities into components, treating them as concatenated strings. It feels bad, and it is bad.

But forgiven for the mature underwear dance party this clue intimates! YUSSS!

Needtit be said? This month's Nerd Hot Guy: Bryan Cranston.

Sweet portrait via Fast Company

• 17A) Opening, except for the third word that goes on the next line (5)
  (Opening = WINDOW) * (except for the third [letter]) = WIDOW

Typography nerds! Stand on the next line and rejoice!

• 18A) Seafood ring served in concessions (8)
  (ring = CALL) in (concessions = SOPS) = SCALLOPS

Scallops used to be our favorite seafood. Yum. And favorite line from the translation of Ulysses we read in seventh grade: “Blast and damn / must I be a milksop all my life?”

O TELEMACHUS
YES
THE ANSWR IS

• 23A) Pedantic gossip carries on—one's heart follows (7)
  (gossip = DISH) + ON + (one's heart = N) = DONNISH

don•nish [don-ish]
adjective

resembling or characteristic of a university don; bookish; pedantic.

Source: Dictionary dut com

Got this one and was like, “ ... do they ever make donnish puns in Mad Men?”

• 24A) Heads off a ghost (5)
  HEADS * anagram = SHADE

Mmmm1!!!! Now this is what we love. Pure. Tight. Clean. Narrative.

Also very much enjoy when a likely indicator instead serves as anagrind. Delightful.

• 31A) Turned up, I rutted in depravity (9)
  UP I RUTTED * anagram = TURPITUDE

Mwa! Anagramas! We loves! Always appreciate sex-positive references to perversions and depravity. TURNT UP!

• 35A) Loaded in electric heater (4)
  electRIC Heater = RICH

Nice wordspanner.

• 45A) Profligacy in various sexes describing Second Coming? (8)
  (SEXES * anagram) + (SEC * reverse) = EXCESSES

Liked this one, as usual, for 1) anagram 2) narrative. What always love. What love every time. Same always. “what good” is “what like.” You know.

• 1D) Why water isn't hard? What's wrong? (4)
  WHAT * anagram = THAW

Oh very sweet, very nice play on “hard” water, very nice use of idiom. Mwa.

• 14D) Gussied-up den, set like some tables (6)
  DEN SET * anagram = NESTED

BAHAHA YUSssSS!! Nested tables! If you want to code an email to look the same in every client, like exACTly the same, your choices are to either make the whole thing one giant jpeg and hope ever'body has images turned on, OR nest tables within tables within tables. Web 1.0 didn't go anywhere. Because the people who still use Eudora 1.0 didn't go anywhere. They're not all dead (yet).

Not sure what nested tables mean to a non-coder. Or what they would have meant to us ten years ago. Sure as heyk know what they mean to us now. O the painstaking! O the meticulous!

• 27D) Miso soup is full of energy—it affects the cells (7)
  (MISO IS + (energy = E)) * anagram = MEIOSIS

Oh HAYLE yes! Ninth grade biology. Much love.

• 39D) Cows members of flock in Episcopalianism (4)
  floK IN Episcopaliamism = KINE

Ohhhhhh YUS in yet another highly specific and not particularly interesting memory from Erica's past: we know the word “kine” because it comes up in some crowd work on Buy Me Bring Me Take Me Don't Mess My Hair ... Life According to Four Bitchin' Babes, V. 1. Megan McDonough sings a song about kine, and explains, at length what “kine” is.

This is the songbook cover for the second line-up of the Four Bitchin' Babes.

Notable line-up change was swapping in Julie Gold for Patti Larkin. Yes, From a Distance is great. But also yes, Patti Larkin is way better and funnier then alla dem bitches put together. We said it. This paragraph is for the nonexistant Dear Readers who love the Harper's cryptic AND '90s folk music.

Lowlights!

• 9A) Spoken in the past tense, this would make a planet spin (5)
  ((planet = WORLD) * homophone = WHIRLED) - past tense = WHIRL

Ew! Ohhhhhhh so torturous. Bleh.

• 15A) New or otherwise, it's a second crop of hay (5)
  NEW OR * anagram = ROWEN

row•en
/'rouən
noun

a second growth of grass or hay in one season.

Source: Goog

This one was called out in the instructs as uncommon. Yah. Twas uncommon. Meh!

• 20A) Point of an instant message? (3)
  AIM (double syn.)

Wowee wowee wowee!! 1998 has come to join us in our world.

• 2D) Before, I never disputed small state of a flower! (8)
  (I NEVER + (small state = RI)) * anagram = RIVERINE

Riverine? Riverine? These uncommons are uncommonly bucolically bluh.

• 28D) Illness in the ear—took a powder for it (3)
  (took a powder = FLEW) * homophone = FLU

We first learned the phrase “take a powder” by reading IT at a much too young age. “too young” as in “not personally able to absorb without being disturbed, perceiving monsters in the dark, etc.” Another 11-year-old might have been fine. We were not. Anyway the character who grows up to be a driver (Eddie?) talks about taking a powder from his job when he gets the call that the monster resurfaced in his rural Maine hometown. At the time we assumed “a powder” meant “cocaine.”

There's a nice narrative quality to the clue, but “take a powder” = “flew” is weak. Appreciate the (accidental?) association with floo powder, tho.

• 36D) First to last, what's thrown around by gamblers? Getting murdered (4)
  (what's thrown around by gamblers = DICE) * (first [letter] to last) = ICED

Indicator is heavy-handed for a single-translation anagram of a word which is, like, one of the top three most common puzzle words. #PuzzleComplaints

The Tacky!

One and a half this month! And the “half” is us being sensitive ... or perhaps too sensitive? Which is it? Dear Readers can decide!!

• 22A) Mobile home tethered, at first, to a piece of fencing (5)
  (tethered * at first = T) + (piece of fencing = EPEE) = TEPEE

Callin' this half-tacky because of the class associations between mobile homes and poverty, and the reality of rampant poverty on American Indian reservations. So dire such poverty, it has its own Wikipedia page. Would prefer that references to tepees also mention “stolen land” “colonialism” &c.


Und, from up top:

• 6D) HERMAPHRODITIC (= bi)

“Intersex” qua “bi” is quite the stretch. “bi” commonly abbrevs “bisexual,” and without qualification, bisexual ≠ intersex. Altho, likely, non-zero intersex folks are bisexual. Altho, more likely, when you already occupy such a non-normative sex then what's the point of clinging to the gender binary anyway such that “bisexual” even holds meaning, and why not just call yourself “queer” and do whatever the fuck you want? Fuck whoever the do you want? Exactly.

Why don't we all just do that? Exactly.

Source: FuckYeahHardFemme.tumblr.com (our favourite)

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