1 Down – Cinema opening of “Top Gun” – THEATER. Opening of top = t, gun = heater. As in 24 Across (mentioned with the other Across clues in the previous post), the quotation marks were a red herring.
2 Down – Holding back coach among others – RESTRAINT. In this case, “among” means “inside.” This clue is like 29 Across, where coach = train, which is inside others = rest. Res(train)t.
3 Down – Victoria’s Secret line lives again – UNDIES. This clue is very much like 22 Across, two meanings for the same set of letters. If someone dies when they become dead, does someone undie when they join the ranks of the undead (vampires, zombies, etc.)?
4 Down – Chuck, in a tie, heading up to the sky – HEAVENWARD. I don’t get this answer. I get that Chuck = heave, and I get that drawn is a tie, but I don’t get why drawn should be reversed. I was looking for variations of Chuck in the middle of the word, and words signifying a tie at the beginning and end, as in one-one, one-all, etc.
5 Down – Sing “shoobie-doobie-doobie-shoo” – SCAT. Prosaic clues are allowed in cryptics. As the man said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
6 Down – Otto, in England, possessing fine vision – EYESIGHT. I can see that yes in inside eight, but I don’t get why eyesight is the answer to this clue. Anyone? Bueller?
7 Down – English city is up by the sound – LEEDS. “By the sound” means sounds like, and “is up” means “leads,” and Leeds sounds like leads
8 Down – Go back and pick up another tab – RETREAT. I kept wanting the back in “Go back” to signify something backwards, but again, I mistook a meaning word for a wordplay source.
13 Down – Actor Miller, for one, keeps name in spite of that – BEN STILLER. (N. Still) is embedded in BEER. BE(N. STILL)ER. I only get this a little bit.
16 Down – Bother to mete out reverence – ADORATION. Bother = Ado, and “mete out” = ration.
17 Down – Newspapers covering lifetime forecasts – PRESAGES. In this case, covering means including. Pres(age)s. I kept trying to get an anagram of the letters in forecasts, without success.
18 Down – Former Mideast group about to investigate – EXPLORE. I busted my pick on “Former Mideast group.” United Arab Republic? I didn’t get that Former is a clue for “Ex.” The PLO is a Mideast group. Actually, the clue would still be correct if it were to say “Former terrorist organization about to investigate,” because the PLO was considered a terrorist organization by Israel and the United States until the 1991 Madrid conference.
20 Down – Settler sabotaged part of a bridge – TRESTLE. Anagram of settler.
21 Down – Faction holding the French pick – SELECT. In this case, holding means containing. I don’t get why pick is in there. I would make the clue “Fraction holding a French article.” Faction is sect.
23 Down – Second unfinished coffee – LATTE. Second is latter, and latter unfinished is latte. Unfinished means “drop the last letter.”
25 Down – One performing in a little while – ANON. One = an, performing = on.

I grasp from looking at the answers that there are multiple words that signifiy a word being embedded inside another word, including about, among, keeps, covering and holding. So I will add that to the list of things I grasped from the last post…

• Look for clue words having to do with first and/or last letters (finally, ultimately)
• Think of synonyms of the beginnings and ends of clues
• Consider multiple possibilities (which I didn’t do on “small article,” f’rinstance)
• Shamelessly use the Internet Anagram Server as a tool
• Look for similar clues when one answer is found
• Notice multiple words signifying embedding (about, among, keeps, covering, holding, etc.)

I hope this helps. I think doing this helped me.

Technorati: Richard Silvestri, Cryptic crossword

1 Across “Wound up and pitched, as they say (7)” – THROUGH – Didn’t get that “as they say” signified a homophone (a word that sounds the same as another word, not a mobile device for gay people, not that there’s anything wrong with that)
5 Across – Brilliant was what we were supposed to get, and STELLAR is an anagram of “all rest.” I got that one
9 Across – Ragged, topless and relieved – EASED. Ragged = Teased, topless meant “remove the first letter.” I would have preferred topless to mean “remove the first letter” if it was a down answer. But I looked at ragged as an adjective instead of a verb.
10 Across – Minor-league infielders ultimately accept demotion – ABASEMENT – Minor leagues in baseball are graded A, AA and AAA, so minor-league infielders are “A basemen.” I was stuck on variations of “bush league.” Adding the last letter (ultimately) in accept to “A basemen” yields abasement, which is what this puzzle did to me.
11 Across – Aimed at sailor, cop, newspaperman – TARGETED. A sailor is a tar (In the Gilbert and Sullivan opera “H. M. S. Pinafore,” Josephine sings to Ralph the sailor, “Refrain, audacious tar, your suit from pressing,”) I didn’t know that a policeman could be a get, but it’s not implausible that a newspaperman could be an ed, as in editor. I’m grasping that a good thing to do is to generate synonyms of both the beginnings and ends of the clues.
12 Across – Thin-paper Time edition – TISSUE. T for Time as in “T minus…,” issue for edition. I got this one.
14 Across – Bar false witness’s return – RAIL. A false witness is a liar, and “return” signifies that liar is reversed. I still liked barf as an answer, even though it was wrong.
15 Across – Finally writes small article, “Cunning Lover” – SWEETHEART. “Finally writes” means take the s from writes, “small” means wee, “article” means the, “cunning” means art. All the clues with synonyms of finally went over my head. My only consolation is that I caught that article could mean “a” or “the,” but I messed that up in thinking that it had to be “a” because there was “small article” in the clue.
18 Across – I represent new business organization – ENTERPRISE. Business organization was what we were supposed to find, and enterprise is an anagram of “I represent.” I’m making a mental note that the Internet Anagram Server might be a valuable tool in solving cryptics.
19 Across – Refuses to practice – WONT. There were a number of clues in this class, clues where there two meanings of the same set of letters. I only got one of them. The two meanings are 1) won’t as in “will not,” and 2) wont as in “as I am wont to do” (as is my custom or practice). Got that?
22 Across – Smooth, like John Paul II – POLISH. This was the only two-meaning clue I got. So when you get an answer in a cryptic, it’s not unreasonable to think that there might be other clues of the same style.
24 Across – “Free Latvia’s leader,” I scold – LIBERATE – It has nothing whatsoever to do with Latvian President Valdis Zatlers, and everything to do with the first letter in Latvia. L + “I berate” = LIBERATE. Mental note: Quotes don’t have their usual meaning in cryptic clues.
26 Across – Tailor a long coat having a geometric shape – OCTAGONAL – anagram of “a long coat.” I vigorously outclevered myself by wanting it to be hemiconic.
27 Across – Toss out some of the victims – EVICT – embedded in the words “thE VICTims.”
28 Across – Poet and essayist confused mere boy – EMERSON. “confused mere” = EMER. Again, I should have looked for more clues like this one, containing both anagrams and synonyms.
29 Across – Feel sorry about alien in group of attendants – RETINUE. The only part I got right about this was to catch that alien meant “ET.” The “about” in the clue meant “around,” as in “round about.” The word rue (In Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Mikado,” the scorned Katisha sings to Nanki-Poo “Oh, faithless one! This insult you shall rue!”) is placed around ET + IN to get RETINUE.

This seems like a good stopping place, so I will do the down answers in a separate post. What have I learned so far?

• Look for clue words having to do with first and/or last letters (finally, ultimately)
• Think of synonyms of the beginnings and ends of clues
• Consider multiple possibilities (which I didn’t do on “small article,” f’rinstance)
• Shamelessly use the Internet Anagram Server as a tool
• Look for similar clues when one answer is found

Technorati: Richard Silvestri, Cryptic crossword

The Bible instructs us to “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed.” (James 5:16, KJV) I don’t think this is what James had in mind, but I’m confessing that I am crashing and burning on the Sunday NYT cryptic crossword. It makes it all the more humiliating in that this is the very kind of crossword at which I want to become skillful. I will show what I have, and perhaps some readers can help. As of 8:10 pm, Wednesday, January 13, Google didn’t show anyone putting up a solution.

5 Across – Stellar, anagram of “all rest.” I feel confident about this one.
12 Across – Tissue, Time as in (T-minus…), edition as in issue. I think this is right, but I’m not completely sure.
14 Across – Barf, embedded in the clue. Even though I think it is right, I’m now clueless about 1 Down
15 Across – I would like to think it begins with an a (“small article”)
16 Across – Enterprise, anagram of “I represent.” As in 5 Across, I feel confident about this one.
19 Across – Stop, embedded in the clue
22 Across – Polish. I think a lot of people outclevered themselves on this one. I know I did.
26 Across – I want it to be “hemiconic,” as in Tailor = Hem, a = 1 = I, geometric shape = conic, but I could be completely wrong. It causes me to be clueless about 18 Down
27 Across – Evict, embedded in the clue
28 Across – Emerson, if you change “boy” to “son,” Emerson is an anagram of “mere son.” The word “confused” is a hint that the answer is an anagram of part of the clue. I tried to find an anagram of “mere boy” without success. Did you?
29 Across – I want it to be “regrets,” because I want “alien” to be “ET,” but I don’t know how the alien is in a group of attendants if that is so. Therefore, “regrets” is probably wrong.
5 Down – Scat Sometimes a clue in a cryptic can be completely prosaic
6 Down – I want it to be “eyesight” as in vision, as the first e and the i are in crossing words, but then I’m not using all of the clue, which makes me think “eyesight” is probably wrong.
7 Down – I want it to be “Leeds,” which would fit my crosses, but I don’t get why Leeds would be the answer to the clue. It’s the only 5-letter English city I know that starts with an L and ends with an s.
8 Down – I want it to be “Reopens,” which would fit my crosses, but again is probably wrong.
25 Down – Anon, as in One = an, and performing = on. I feel pretty confident about this one.

As for the rest, I got nothin’. Dry hole. Shooting blanks. As I look through the comments on this puzzle at the NYT crossword blog, I take consolation that I’m not the only one.

Technorati: Richard Silvestri, Cryptic crossword