Well, I guess I'll keep doing puzzles. This was a a piece of cake compared to yesterday...and what brilliant construction. How does she do it?

Lots of fun answers. I forgot to mention IRS AGENTS as a favorite. USED CAR, SLASHES, BELFRIES...there were so many good ones.
Linda G | Homepage | 12.29.07 - 7:19 pm | #

Yes, moi votes for this one too. Having taught first grade and kindergarten. . . Frosty is a much more user-friendly theme. I am apologizing for going ballistic over yesterday. It drove moi absolument fou.
moi-meme | 12.29.07 - 9:25 pm | #

Hi Amy - sorry for the lengthy posting, but the calendar demands a review. With a puzzling lack of female compilers (where's Gorski? Tracey?) I offer my Golden Oreo nominations for 2007:

Top-Shelf Tuesday – Joe Bower, 8/21 NYS for asking solvers to TAKEITORLEAVEIT in the four key entries.

A prize shared by David J Kahn, 11/6 NYS for burying an inverted word pyramid (STARTING, STARING, STRING etc) into a descending series of phrases….

(…a-la Patrick Berry’s fab Friday in Color Change, 9/14 NYS, where a central ladder turns BLACK into WHITE, each rung worked into 15 cross-running entries.)

Wow Wednesday – Brendan Emmett Quigley, 1/31 NYT, slanting 3 apt phrases (TIPSHEET, TILTATWINDMILLS, LEANONME) within an orthodox mix.

Wow Wednesday II goes to Jesse Goldberg in A Parent Time, 3/21 NYS, planting an optional MOM or DAD into the hub, allowing alternative answers streaming down.

(Special mention to Ogden Porter for modernizing geography on 4/4, NYS)

Astounding Alphabetic Feat – Francis Heaney, 5/4 NYS for jamming the alphabet across 11 central squares

Best Themed Interlock – Victor Fleming & Bruce Venzke, 8/30, NYT for somehow cross-hatching 4 15-letter question-posing song titles.

Best General Crossword – Byron Walden, 5/25 NYS for stacking STBERNARDS/TRIVIAQUIZ/
AUDIOGUIDE and nary a bogus entry.

Sunday Size Prizes:

5th Henry Hook, date (?) Boston Globe: Two Themes In One – where one ain’t enough;
4th Merl Reagle, 11/18, Philly Inquirer: Come On Down – letting cats & dogs fall across the very same phrase;
Bronze Oreo, Mr Hook again, date (?), BG: Spare Parts – packing surplus couples into a kapow payoff;
Silver Oreo, Mark Feldman, 2/11, NYT: Love Is All Around – crafting a valentine plotted by strewn heart symbols;
Golden Oreo, Patrick Berry, 9/9, NYT: Process of Elimination – funneling unique letters within extended entries into the phrase LEFTOVERS

Outstanding Onion – Byron Walden for uncloaking four entries – ANDYRODDICK, WEEWILLIEWINKIE,JOHNSON&JOHNSON, PETEROTOOLE – with cloned male organs.

Tausig Trophy – as Ben warrants his own award, given his regular byline. His best has to be All-Seeing, date unknown, where ‘seeing’ was not believing.

Cream Chronicle of Ed Entry: Middle Marches by Russell Brown, bedding four little women – AMY, BETH, JO, MEG – into a lively grid.

Client Is King Award, for meeting a specialist brief, goes to Patrick Merrell for his series of Scientific American grids – Set Theory and Worm Hole.

But this year’s Overall Oreo, for Most Outstanding Compiler, goes to [enter drum roll here] Patrick Blindauer. His exquisite quintet of form-pushing puzzles in the NYS somehow marry Frogger (HOP TO IT, 9/6), pirate map (BOOTY CALL, 9/20), Excalibur silhouette (KING ME, 8/7), VWs (12/20) and the year’s best puzzle, co-hatched by Francis Heaney: SOLVING BY THE NUMBERS (7/27) where Morse code and acrostics hybridize in harmony.

Congratulations to all Oreo honorees, and may your ingenious squares (and never your days) be numbered. We solvers are spoilt beyond measure.
DA | Homepage | 12.30.07 - 12:08 am | #

Great list, David! Quite a number of your Oreo winners were among my favorites of the year. Stay tuned around January 4, when Rex Parker and I present our first annual American Crossword Critics Association (which boasts a membership of 2) honors.
Orange | Homepage | 12.30.07 - 12:37 am | #

Clever and fun! A nice change of pace from yesterday's, although I thought this was a bit tougher than the average Sunday. Congrats to you on yesterday's solving time. You (and the other fast solvers) are truely doing something cognitively quite different than most of the rest of us which I find amazing! Looking forward to seeing you on MGCW.
jae | 12.30.07 - 1:11 am | #

I agree with Jae. You must have brains wired in some otherworldly way. I can't figure out how you do it! I actually finished the puzzle all by my lonesome without a google but it took me hours. I don't know how long precisely because it wasn't a continuous thing. I do love Elizabeth Gorski though. Lots and lots of fun with a capital F. Does she have puzzles stockpiled somewhere that I can do?
Wendy | 12.30.07 - 8:15 am | #

Wendy, if you're an NYT Premium Puzzles subscriber, use Barry Haldiman's NYT crossword database to get the dates for nearly 40 Gorski Sunday puzzles. Then go to the NYT crossword archive and fetch the Across Lite files for all the ones you want.

Also, I clicked the "Elizabeth C. Gorski" label below my post to find more 2007 Gorskis:

Wall Street Journal, 3/30/07, 7/13/07, 9/14/07 and 10/12/07
LAT (syndicated), 8/19/07
Washington Post, 7/29/07

And last year, December 31 was a Sunday, so Liz had three New Year's themes that day, in the NYT, LAT (syndicated), and Washington Post, and on December 29 she also had a holiday Wall Street Journal crossword.

You can use Will Johnston's Puzzle Pointers page (link in my sidebar under "Crossword Links")—and you should definitely bookmark it. And move quickly! Because the 2007 calendar pages may disappear when 2008 hits. Download! Download like the wind!
Orange | Homepage | 12.30.07 - 10:07 am | #

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: doing a Liz Gorski puzzle makes me sooooo happy.

And while I usually curse those who have a hand in getting songs stuck in my head, I'll forgive Liz this time, only because it dislodges the very annoying Christmas song that has been in my head for a week: "Mele Kalikimaka" ("...Hawaii's way to say 'Merry Christmas' to you...").

Happy New Year, everyone...
MN
Nothnagel | 12.30.07 - 10:38 am | #

Oh neat, thanks Amy. I don't know if my sudden urge to do a lot more puzzles in any way is reflective of my creeping intention to try the tournament this year, but if nothing else I'll just keep sharpening my wits and skills. I did a few Onions and really liked those!
Wendy | 12.30.07 - 11:03 am | #

Orange said: "Because the 2007 calendar pages may disappear when 2008 hits. Download! Download like the wind!"

This made me hit the panic button!

So far, I have been able to go to WIJ's puzzle pointers and search by constructor to get all the previous puzzles (as far back as 1996!). Is this feature going away?

Ashish
Ashish | 12.30.07 - 4:58 pm | #

It's more for the non-NYT puzzles that don't have a huge permanent archive home. I think. Don't quote me on that.
Orange | Homepage | 12.30.07 - 5:16 pm | #

As long as I have your blob, I feel no need to download or study. Moi is an oldt fahrt and Loves to join that competition in CT just to have the puzzles to wirework through em. I was taught on my grandfather's knee to fill in his CWPs. I was only 4 and he was very patient. Occasionally, perhaps you could do that for your own children or grandchildren to teach them the love for words and linguistics and opening themselve up to language-learning. The synapses are more prone to that in the younger years.
moi-meme | 12.30.07 - 8:38 pm | #

I am late to this party but I have to ask. How many LA Times puzzles are there? My LA Times puzzle was different from the syndicated one of which you speak.
Alex | Homepage | 12.30.07 - 10:39 pm | #

Shoot, since I have knot yet my own forum, I will repeat that my grandfather, who was a greek and latin scholar taught moi at his knee. This was a really rare opportunity. Give your children that early opportunidad. I beseech. It is the greatest gift that one can give to a young child. Start those languages at a youngest age as possible. I am shooting off my muse self. as that is what moi is. She is a muse for many. Sorry if I make tornados here. I am knot an estupide. I only wish that your children are not neglected in the language department. most schools don't ack the young ones. Don't make that mistake. I really don't care how fast they can solve a crossword puzzle, I only want them to know the languages of the world and also the music and the song and the rythyms of the earth. Instead of Connecticut, try coming to the http://www.deetjens.com/ By now you must know that I am a Cally forny perpetrator of many resources and I smash many badnesses when necessaire. I think all of you deserve a time out. That would be in the Big Sur.
moi-meme | 12.30.07 - 10:48 pm | #

Alex, the Sunday LA Times puzzle I do is the one that's syndicated to other papers (including the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, I know) but does not appear in the Sunday LA Times. The one in your magazine is by Sylvia Bursztyn, yes? I've done that puzzle a few times, but it seemed easier than most of the other Sunday puzzles. It's not easy for me to access it, and I prefer harder puzzles, so I don't blog about that one. The syndicated one, easily accessible via Cruciverb.com, is often one of my favorite Sunday puzzles, so I'm not giving it up. And frankly, it's a shame that the LA Times doesn't publish that puzzle for its local readers.
Orange | Homepage | 12.30.07 - 11:02 pm | #

Moi does agree on that madam Orange
moi-meme | 12.30.07 - 11:13 pm | #

Moi never looks for easy. Moi looks for a reasonable challenge of reasonable girth and for krix sape also not sew very obsurational to the ones who like a challenge. We do not kinky want to be tweaked by those in corntroll and I will accent the troll participle. Give the human beings a bit of a break in the ethers, or maybe NYT CWP can have a secret puzzle for the appreciaters. I will send you an Mwhatever of my other muse-victims. You will enjoy it and it will enhance your life. You are way too speed-oriented.
moi-meme | 12.30.07 - 11:19 pm | #