Happy Independence Day!
Yes, In the Heat of the Night had Sidney and Rod. There was a sequel, I think. Despite getting the non-theme theme, I struggled in the lower half of the puzzle. I had gritch for KVITCH, oy vey!
PhillySolver | 07.03.09 - 10:19 pm | #

loved this puzzle. in their interview with jim horne, joe refers to pete's desire for a "stealth theme" -- and wow, did they ever deliver. this puzzle is also a great complement to patrick blindauer's wsj puzzle yesterday.

now i'm really looking forward to tomorrow's nyt!

;-)
janie | 07.03.09 - 11:36 pm | #

Kudos to Joe and Peter.
Incredible interlocking theme entries.
Quite the feat to have related entries like these
intersect.
Interlocking theme entries were a trademark of puzzles in the 70s and 80s.
George M. | 07.03.09 - 11:50 pm | #

oh come on... anybody can whip up a 70-worder with four mutually interlocking thematic 15s, right?

i kid, of course. i certainly could not whip up a puzzle with four mutually interlocking thematic 15s no matter what the word count. this is a kahnian creation, perhaps even more impressive because it wasn't david kahn who created it. i'm suitably awed.

on the other hand, my experience of it as a solver was enjoyable but not breathtaking. i've never heard of ROD STEIGER or whatever movie that was that had whatever character who was mentioned in the clue, so that wasn't too much fun. and i had to guess the G at the crossing with CALGON. (G was my third guess, after N and L.) and it's not every day i run into a single greek mythology clue that i don't know, let alone two in the same puzzle: ALEA and ARIS. will have to learn those.

of course, both of those entries would have been straightforward for me with different clues. while i'm on the subject of "stuff i didn't like that joe & peter didn't have final say over," why the "odd job" clue for TOASTERS? i bet the geniuses over there at the NYT could have come up with a really fun clue for the appliances. this puzzle had many fine clues, of which my favorite was SACK RACE.
joon | Homepage | 07.04.09 - 12:05 am | #

joon, joon, joon,

I have immense respect for you, but to say that you have not heard of Rod Steiger is roughly akin to saying you have not heard of Willie Mays.

Please rent The Pawnbroker. Rod Steiger won the Academy Award for his portrayal of a redneck sheriff in In the Heat of the Night, but many think that that Oscar was a makeup call for his failure to win for the Pawnbroker. Lee Marvin won for Cat Ballou, which was funny and showcased Marvin's talent in other than a tough guy role, but Steiger's performance was extraordinary.

And if that is not enough to convince you, Rod Steiger is the other half of one of if not THE greatest scenes in movie history:

http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=e...feature=related


Steve
Steve Manion | 07.04.09 - 12:41 am | #

Amazing construction today...kudos to Joe and Peter.

I got stuck on ALOP, I'm guessing that means at an angle, but see no online support for that definition.

Happy 233rd America! You don't look a day over 185...
Evad | 07.04.09 - 6:50 am | #

I haven't tracked this sort of thing: is Trip's finish at 4:17 a Saturday record?
KarmaSartre | 07.04.09 - 9:28 am | #

Karma, "zachugly" is on the applet at 3:33, and Dan Feyer at 4:15. (Would they have beaten Trip's 4:17 on paper? I don't know. Paper's slower.) I think the Tyler/Dan types break 4:00 fairly often (online or in Across Lite) and have probably broken 3:00 a few times.
Orange | Homepage | 07.04.09 - 9:47 am | #

Those of us in the NY area who get the Times delivered get the Sunday puzzle on Saturday morning. Usually I go straight to the Saturday puzzle, but today I couldn't help but start the Sunday puzzle first. I don't think I'm giving anything away to say that I was "puzzled" as to why I was doing a puzzle on the Fourth of July that didn't have a Fourth of July theme. It wasn't until later, when I started the Saturday puzzle, that I realized my silliness!

A Saturday puzzle in under three minutes??!! Someone should post that on YouTube!
Sara | 07.04.09 - 10:31 am | #

I just checked out Dan Feyer's Saturday not-a-blog posts. On June 6, he smoked the NYT in 2:48!
Orange | Homepage | 07.04.09 - 10:51 am | #

That one was by Doug P. - whose wavelength I'm always on - and had a lot of long gimmes for me. I think I've done a couple Saturdays on paper under 4 minutes, and I'm sure Trip has too! (I can't touch Trip's "downs-only" skills on hard puzzles...)

I thought Dan Naddor's LAT "semi-themeless" trumped the NYT today. And it made me want more themelesses (or even mini-themes) from Dan, though he's said they don't interest him.
Dan F | 07.04.09 - 10:59 am | #

The highlight of this puzzle for me was seeing "ALAI" clued without referring to "Basque ball game" or something similar. (Although on the other hand I'd never heard of that mountain range; I actually had to look it up, and had "ALAY" for a while as that's the spelling the first source I found used.)

Also, have the three 15-letter across entires been done before in a (probably 7/4) puzzle? I feel like somewhere I read about which themes have been repeated in their entirety, and the list included an America-themed one. Of course, the interlocking ups the ante.
Michael | 07.04.09 - 12:34 pm | #

janie, fyi: the CS theme contains two stars, the other one being the SUN. still 48 short of a flag, though. (of course, if you include all the stars in the MILKY WAY, you're several billion long of a flag.)
joon | Homepage | 07.04.09 - 1:18 pm | #

4X15, with the 4th crossing the other 3 and a 70 word grid is just awesome, and done pretty flawlessly too, with tons of other gnarly stuff all over the place, like SACKRACE and KVETCH and ELOHIM and ROCKGARDEN and...


Misremembered MONGO as MUNGO (Aka Singer Jerry).
EMEER doesn't have it's (Var.) tag? Is anyone else sore about that... I didn't put it in for the longest time because of that. Maybe I just want to be mollycoddled?
Remembered dachshunds hunted badgers, and poodles ducks but couldn't think what hunted otters!
Wiki was last letter - intersection Calgon and Rod Steiger... 2 things I hadn't heard of, guess Calgon is a well-known U.S. brand that isn't available here (or maybe it is and I didn't notice...) Hmm, OK, if Joon hasn't heard of it I don't feel so bad...

Sorry if I'm feeling a little weirded out by the red and white blue time applet. That kind of patriotism doesn't (yet) seem to exist here... And we'd need 6 colors...
Gareth | 07.04.09 - 1:41 pm | #

gareth, just blow your vuvuzelas and everything will be better. :)

and i'm ... flattered? annoyed? ... that my ignorance of long-ago actors and bath product manufacturers is such a subject of interest to steve and gareth. :)
joon | Homepage | 07.04.09 - 1:57 pm | #

Keep them vuvuzelas away!
Gareth | 07.04.09 - 2:17 pm | #

Joon, if you were a teeny bit older and watched daytime TV in the summers or when home from school sick, you'd be familiar with the "Calgon, take me away!" commercials. The bath products were touted as all a woman needed to be able to forget her messy kids and unhelpful husband.
Orange | Homepage | 07.04.09 - 2:24 pm | #

FYI - still screwed up in Safari 4.

I realize everyone else is using a different browser, but I'm stubborn, dangit!
Alex | Homepage | 07.04.09 - 3:45 pm | #

What you got 'gainst Firefox anyway?
Gareth | 07.04.09 - 3:52 pm | #

best ODIE clue ever. (in case it's still not clear we're not talking about ODIN, "pants" is a verb.) and i emit a tee-hee at your contemplation of SOSA and a time magazine cover with 17 syringes.
joon | Homepage | 07.04.09 - 3:55 pm | #

@ Alex - Found a couple of stray tags that had to be repositioned...I feel we're fighting a losing battle though.
Evad | 07.04.09 - 4:03 pm | #

Alex, come back home to Safari 3.2. It's cozy in here. And the Safari 4 issues are giving the entire Crossword Fiend team coding fits. We want to write words, not code!

Joon: Oh, "pants" = verb. I didn't get that. It's been a looong time since I allowed my eyes to focus on Garfield and Odie. I was picturing a yellow jacket and pants rather than a yellow coat of fur on a panting dog.
Orange | Homepage | 07.04.09 - 4:28 pm | #