NYT::: Very difficult. I was about to fold when SOMBER and SUABLE finally fell. Lucky guess on GWYNNE saved me. I still don't understand GRAPPLE for Ape Wrestlers. About 34 minutes!
barryf | 02.01.08 - 12:13 am | #

As in aping wrestlers, or copying them by doing a little of your own grappling. Kinda liked the SUA in SUABLE crossing ASSUAGE.
Orange | Homepage | 02.01.08 - 12:33 am | #

Oh, aping wrestlers....thanks.

NYS::: Pretty difficult. No wonder I couldn't parse JoanDanark. 34 minutes again (but an error). Your "freak flag fly" reference takes me to the Jimi song with "freak flag high" in it. Pretty sure "Freak flag fly" is in Crosby, Stills, and Nash's "Almost Cut My Hair". But its late, and I need to google NESBIT and EQUERRY.

Oh, GERITOL was a competitor of SERUTAN (early/mid '50s?) whose ad line was "Natures spelled backwards", so Lotireg gots lots of play in my household.
barryf | 02.01.08 - 1:20 am | #

Its hard for me to tell what's difficult these days. My first impression of the NYT was that it was going to be tough. But, it went pretty smoothly. Probably because there were only a few obscure names but lots of tricky clues to decipher which I tend to prefer. An engaging and enjoyable puzzle.
jae | 02.01.08 - 1:20 am | #

NYT: It felt like an accomplishment to finish today. Came in at just a little over my usual Friday which suprised me. I thought I took much longer.

GRAPPLE was a key to finally finishing.

Good puzzle.
rick | 02.01.08 - 5:16 am | #

NYS: Finally a KMT where I knew most of the names.

DESIARNAZ was my first, with no crosses. Does anyone besides me remember when TV Guide was relevant? It had sociological comment and a great tech section. When I was young (about the era of the clue) it was one of my favorite reads.
rick | 02.01.08 - 7:52 am | #

My first thought on block stocker was ICESTORE, but the crossings helped me out of a jam, I guess. Speaking of icehouses, Chicago has a new ice sculpture going up by the "bean" (few call it Cloudgate) this weekend. The artist was making the sculpture in a blast freezer set at 0 fahrenheit. It looks pretty cool. jay
Flipperista | 02.01.08 - 10:19 am | #

Yes, Jae, I agree on the NYT. This kind of puzzle takes me a long time, but I can finish if I just keep at it because it doesn't have a lot of obscure 16th century cousins of Shakespeare's barber and such. Finished in my usual time of Orange to the tenth power.
rikki | 02.01.08 - 10:23 am | #

Really enjoyed the NYT today. Nice challenge, a bunch of sticky spots, but in the end, a satisfying solve. I wasn't nearly as satisfied after finishing the NYS, even though I did it faster. I like some names in a puzzle, but this was way too much to make it fun. You either know them or you don't. Luckily, I did, mostly.

Just for the heck of it, I highlighted the squares in both puzzles that had names of people or things. The score: NYT 50, NYS 123 (that's well over half the squares). Maybe the heading for such puzzles should be "Crossname Puzzle"?

Count me among those who really enjoyed LAT, too. The short theme entries threw me off until I saw what they were, but then it was okay. And Orange, my take on HOOD KING was that it meant "king of all the hoods"--not neighborhoods, hoodlums. In that context the clue seems dead-on to me.
Jim | 02.01.08 - 10:29 am | #

But Don King's a boxing promoter, Jim, not an organized crime overlord. How does he tie to hoodlums?
Orange | Homepage | 02.01.08 - 10:48 am | #

LOVED the K. Tracey NYS. Hard as Hell, but well worth it.

Had ICE for EIS, ILO for PLO, RADS for REMS, IND and then REP for R-NY - embarrassingly, it took me forEver to get ETES.

I only wish I HEARD THAT had been clued as ["Amen!"]. JOAN VAN ARK = awesomely retro. As for MESABI and NESBIT (yikes!) - that stuff just comes with the Friday territory.

mds
Michael | Homepage | 02.01.08 - 11:15 am | #

Ah, I see why we don't understand each other.

I see "Don" as referring to a mafia leader, and HOOD KING to me means "chief of all the hoodlums." Does that seem far-fetched to you? It's the only interpretation I thought of. Don King never crossed my mind.
Jim | 02.01.08 - 11:24 am | #

Jim, I think you have the right interpretation for Don. At least that's how I read it. I was reading the hood part as neighborhood, though. I think your hoodlums interpretation is the correct one. I totally missed that ECOOLER and TCITIES were theme entries when I was solving, duh! Overall, I enjoyed the puzzle. The cluing style felt like a themeless, which made the puzzle pretty challenging overall.
Al Sanders | 02.01.08 - 11:56 am | #

Ah! I get it, Jim. I just can't get Don King out of my hair. :-)
Orange | Homepage | 02.01.08 - 11:58 am | #

"Chacun a son gout"

Orange, I've read this in two different blogs this week: yours and Tim Gunn's.
rick | 02.01.08 - 1:05 pm | #

Hi all. First time writing on the site. Does anyone know if the NY Times puzzles can be downloaded/printed without having across lite?
Jim | 02.01.08 - 2:43 pm | #

jim -- i'm pretty sure the answer is no. well -- you can print the puzzle and some of the clues, but in order to get them all, you have to scroll and print, scroll and print.

across lite is a free download...

best --

janie
jlsnyc | 02.01.08 - 3:04 pm | #

Ok, late-come to today's discussion because it took me until now to get around to doing the last of today's set -- I was definitely taken down by the NYS, though interestingly, names notwithstanding, it was LAOS as a place for elephants that probably did me the most hurt. Of course, if it hadn't crossed a couple of propers, I might not have left it as ZOOS until Acrossl told me it wasn't, but whatever.

Gotta say, Orange, that your first mention of Don King threw me completely for a loop. Since I did the LAT several hours ago, I was feeling very amnesiac, until I figured out what was going on. Mind you, what's harder than getting Don King out of your hair is getting Don King's hair out of your head....

So, wasn't Geritol the product with the god-awful-sappy-at-the-time-and-truly-abhorrent- by-modern-standards tagline, "My wife! I think I'll keep her?"

Russell
Russell G. Brown | Homepage | 02.01.08 - 6:08 pm | #

(Psst - it's VELAZQUEZ in the Sun - gotta love that double-Z bonus!).
LA Times gave me trouble as well. Someone left the paper with the syndicated version of it at the office, and I finally got to take a crack at it. Nastiest puzzle of the day.
Howard B | 02.01.08 - 7:18 pm | #

(Thanks for catching the typo, Howard. Karen never met a ZZQ name she didn't like!)
Orange | Homepage | 02.02.08 - 12:12 am | #

LAT 14A) Mr. X
ANON
Could someone explain this one?
thanks
Anonymous | 02.02.08 - 12:36 am | #

ANON=anonymous
Anonymous | 02.02.08 - 12:38 am | #