NYT 13:something
WaPo 9:28
BG 9:20
LAT 8:55
PI 8:21
CS 4:28
A few days ago, reader Jordan asked why I don't blog about the USA Today crossword. It's not just the lack of an Across Lite option for that crossword. Tyler Hinman explains in depth here.
(Tyler also explores the flaws in the gameplay of Merv Griffin's Crosswords and suggests a few tactical improvements.)
My mojo was been stolen. My desktop computer (aka Home of All Things Crosswordy) was refusing to connect to the internet properly, so I was using my laptop instead this weekend. But you know what? Working a Sunday puzzle on a 13" screen is a lot different from working it on a widescreen Apple Cinema display. I did the NYT crossword in Across Lite to avoid feeling hemmed in in the applet, but everything's all out of whack. (Sigh.) Or maybe the New York Times puzzle by Henry Hook was just clued hard? Let's take a look at the applet. No, a couple people were five minutes faster than me. I'm back on the big machine now, where I hope to reclaim my mojo when I do the other Sunday puzzles.
The theme in Hook's "Political Leaders" puzzle is a little oblique. The clue for 19-Across reads, [With 105-Across, what the answer to each starred clue starts with]. Those two answers give us SCRAMBLED / PRESIDENT, but I missed the end of the clue, so the anagrams hid from me until after I finished the puzzle. The beginning of each of 10 theme entries is an anagrammed U.S. president, but they can be part of one word (e.g., Bush at the beginning of HUSBAND-TO-BE) or part of two words (Hayes in SAY HEY KID)—or, in one case, part of three words (Harrison in RAIN OR SHINE). Monroe is one ONE MORE TIME; Adams, DAMASCUS STEEL; Taft, FATTED CALF; Carter, TERRA COTTA; Pierce, PRICE/EARNINGS; Wilson, SLOWING DOWN; and Taylor, ROYALTIES. You didn't need to figure any of that out to finish the puzzle, of course—although it might speed the process up for an anagram-savvy solver. There's a whole lotta theme packed into this grid, though, isn't there?
I had a passel of favorite clues and answers. [Passing remark?] is "'SCUSE ME" as you squeeze past someone. [Home of Faa'a International Airport] for TAHITI? That gave me my RDA of geography factoids. [Butlers and maids] means the HELP; did you see the HBO movie, Bernard and Doris, about heiress Doris Duke and her butler Bernard? (Soapy, but in a good way.) [Supermarket lines?] means a UPC CODE (and yes, I know the C stands for code; it's still an in-the-language phrase.) [Split] pulls double duty for the consecutive CLOVEN and FORKED. The RED HEN is the ["Not I!" hearer]; there's a great old short cartoon of that tale I should scour YouTube for. KEISTERS are indeed [Rears], though I was looking for a verb here. Another body part is a HAIR CELL, [Sensory receptor in the ear]; you have a boatload of these if you're lucky. (Also in the sensory category: RETINAE are [Rod holders] in the eye.)
Toughest answers: I've seen VENIRE before ([Jury pool]), but it's the sort of word I tend to forget. A couple unfamiliar names struck me: BOUTON is the last name of [Jim who wrote "Ball Four"; [Schumacher of auto racing] is RALF; HENRY is [___ Fleming, central character in "The Red Badge of Courage"]. Then there's COIGN [___ of vantage (good position for viewing)]. I didn't know that ATTILA was an opera, a [Titular Verdi role]. DEMIT can mean [Relinquish]. Her sister Erato gets so much more play in crosswords, but it's good to dredge EUTERPE, the [Muse of music], out of the memory banks from time to time.
(Google experiment: If I add [Violinist Mischa] at 1 p.m., along with the answer, AUER, how long will it take Google to send someone here?)
Updated:
Merl Reagle's Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer crossword this week is a rerun as he works on a tournament puzzle, says the Across Lite Notepad. So if you don't do Merl Reagle's puzzle each week and you're getting ready for the ACPT, you'd better start practicing! The theme entries in "I'm Gonna Rearrange Your Face!" are phrases that include the wrong facial feature. After working a long night towing Santa's sleigh, shouldn't he be called RUDOLPH THE / RED-EYED REINDEER? Sure. And Jeanie with the light brown hair gets too much testosterone and becomes JEANIE WITH THE LIGHT BROWN GOATEE. Fun theme—standard playful Merl.
Robert Wolfe's Washington Post puzzle, "Pronouns-ments," has an interesting theme—eight phrases that include a pronoun (it, which, our, I, what, none, we, and you) swapped out for a homophone (as in SECOND TO NUN and the non-urinary THE ROYAL WEE). I liked this puzzle, but now that my internet connection's working just fine, I'm interfering with myself by using the little wireless keyboard with its wee arrow keys, and the cursor keeps running off in the wrong direction. So I think this crossword was a bit easier than the comparative solving times suggest.
I should've paid attention to the title of Arlan and Linda Bushman's syndicated LA Times crossword, "McPuzzle," earlier on. It was only after meandering through the grid for a bit that I realized each theme entry was an M___ C___ phrase, such as MEXICO CITY, MOLOTOV COCKTAIL, and MIDNIGHT COWBOY. Not an especially aggressive theme, but the puzzle's got a lot of nice fill (including theme entries)—GOTTA GO, EMMA PEEL, a TIE GAME, a creepy FOOTSTEP, BOXED IN.
Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon's online Boston Globe puzzle, "Candyland," contains a hodgepodge of candy-related puns. TRUFFLE EXPENSES instead of travel expenses, for example, and DROMEDARY CARAMEL for camel. I couldn't quite land on this particular pun wavelength, except for PERILS OF PRALINE (thanks, Baskin Robbins ice cream!). A-words you should know for crosswords include AROAR ([Wildly cheering]) and ALOFT ([In the sky]); A TRIFLE ([Slightly]) appears to be two words. (ANEAR, ABEAM, and ASTERN are other A-words you're likely to see in crosswords.)
Moving to themeless territory, Rich Norris provided this week's CrosSynergy "Sunday Challenge." The fill is rather Scrabblicious, with three Zs, a bunch of Ks (nine answers end with K!), and a Q. DAFFY DUCK and BIZARRO come from cartoon/comics land. SECONDHAND SMOKE is a [Pub hazard, in some places]—fortunately not in Illinois! You know how you can tell if you've done too many crosswords in your time? My second answer in the grid was the UBANGI River. If you encounter the set of a BAREBACK (62-A) POLAR BEAR (33-D) SKIN FLICK (34-D), DON'T MOVE (37-D). At least that's what PEARY (50-D) told me. One of the BLUENOSES (2-D) who SCRAMS (9-A) just ends up QUENCHing (16-A) the bears' thirst for blood.
February 16, 2008
Sunday, 2/17
November 02, 2007
Patrick Jordan on MGC
Patrick Jordan—who is familiar to many of you from his appearance in Wordplay and because he's a constructor (he's had about 20 crosswords published this year)—was on Merv Griffin's Crosswords today.
Edited to add: For those of you who missed the show, it's on YouTube—Part 1 and Part 2.)
The show opened with two contestants at the podiums. The woman was blazing through the clues, answering correctly and racking up dollars, while her opponent mostly stood quietly behind his podium. (And when he wasn't silent, he had an unfortunate tendency to spell words with too few letters.) When the trio of spoilers strode down the ramp, Patrick was on the right. He made quick work of the puzzle, amassing more cash for his podium. And then a spoiler yoinked the podium out from under Patrick! I think it was the very first correct answer that guy had given, however, and he quickly yielded the podium back to Patrick. Patrick wagered $2,000 on a Crossword Extra clue and got it right, so he took $5,050 and a trip to San Francisco into the grand prize round. He blazed through the final puzzle, adding another $2,000 of prize money and a trip to Cancun.
Congratulations, Patrick! You looked great, you played smoothly, and you looked convincingly excited about winning the trips.
October 17, 2007
Congrats to Eric LeVasseur!
I just watched one of today's Merv Griffin's Crosswords episodes with Eric LeVasseur (who was a B Division finalist this year at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament and was a most congenial fellow). Okay, I didn't sit down with Eric and watch the show, but rather watched the show on which he competed. Eric started out in the spoiler row, worked his way to the Podium of Life, racked up more dollars there, got booted back to Spoiler Row, and regained the Podium of Life in time to win. He charged through the final round with only a couple of pauses and left with more than $8,000, a trip to St. Lucia, and two California vacations. Well done, Eric!
Now that your show has aired, Eric, feel free to share all your winning strategy tips...
October 15, 2007
Merv Griffin's Crosswords tryouts
Having already run through many of the Southern Californians into both crosswords and game shows in the first couple months of taping, the Merv Griffin's Crosswords producers decided to expand their contestant search to Chicago. On Saturday, hundreds of Midwesterners tried out, and the producers will fly 50 of them to L.A. to compete on the show. Here's how it all went down.
We assembled in the overheated lobby of the NBC Tower. Why did I wear a cashmere sweater?? Staffers worked their way back in the queue, giving out numbered name tags and photographing each applicant.
Elevatorfuls of would-be contests were taken up to the spartan second floor, where we filed into a pair of conjoined rooms, skinny and cramped but with vending machines. We were asked to seat ourselves in numerical order—the papers on each chair were numbered sequentially. While we waited, we filled out the papers—name and address, an avowal that we don’t know anyone who works for the show, etc.
A staffer broke up the waiting by asking us to answer crossword clues. The first person to give the answer and correctly spell it aloud, MGC style, won a t-shirt embroidered with the show’s name. [Greek letter shaped like a trident]? Whoo, I’m all over that. PSI garnered me a t-shirt…men’s size large. What, no tailored women’s tee? Hmph.
Eventually it was test time. Twenty-nine multi-square blanks corresponding to the 29 clues a staffer would read (clues were also projected onto the wall), with one square filled in. Mind you, that’s one square filled in for one word, and zero squares filled in for 28 words.
The clues definitely had the same Timothy Parkeresque vibe the clues on the show have, meaning sometimes they made me furrow my brow and scowl just a tad. Most of the clues were gettable. The very first one was for a 5-letter adjective that could be completely straightforward or a little slangy, but the others were more clearcut. I left only the last one blank: something like [Some parental substitutes, psychologically speaking], 13 letters. Completely obvious after someone said what they'd put down, but nothing had come to my mind during the test. Out of about 2,500 people who have tried out for the show in L.A., only about three have answered everything correctly on the test.
About 40 people in the noon group passed the test, so there was more biding of time and another round of win-a-t-shirt action. Then we bided a little more time up on the fifth floor, in a spacious conference room. Someone had actually decorated the fifth floor, not dingy, not beige, not spartan. Another woman mentioned Wordplay, so we chatted about that. In small groups, we went down the hall to tape our interview—basically face the camera, pay no mind to the camera ogling you as it pans all the way down and back up again, introduce yourself, talk about something interesting you do, answer a couple questions. The producers will review the videos and choose 50 people. I figure there were more than 100 people who passed the test, so most of the auditioners will not be getting a call. Only the selected contestants will hear anything—the others will be left wondering if their phone malfunctioned when TV fame came calling.
When I came out of the interview room, the show’s host, Ty Treadway, was meeting and greeting the applicants biding their time in the elevator lobby. He chit-chatted, gave hugs (apparently it is de rigueur to hug anyone who has seen one on a soap opera), posed for a picture, and talked about game play. He said there’s a definite advantage to watching the show and knowing how to strategize, and that contestants who haven’t seen the show don’t do as well as regular viewers. He also said the final round, in which the winner tries to finish the puzzle in 90 seconds for the grand prize, is harder than it looks. (Although I’m guessing that any seasoned speed-solver should be able to contend with that.) Also, it must be noted here that Ty has lovely blue eyes. Blogger is petulantly refusing to upload the camera-phone photo of me and Ty, but here's another picture of him. Hey, he was wearing a black shirt and a leather jacket on Saturday, too.
The show’s format has changed a bit. There are no longer getaway clues with Podunk vacations; instead, there are five “crossword extras” that are a little like a Jeopardy! Daily Double, and I think the amount you can wager has increased. The grand prize has also been upped, to $5,000 and a trip to somewhere tempting, like Hawaii.
Also, a staffer said that it’s been breaking about 50/50 for who wins: a contestant vs. a spoiler. This gives encouragement to the people who are assigned to be spoilers—although if front-row contestants make up 40% of the players but 50% of the winners, then there is a statistical advantage to not getting assigned to the back row. If you're invited to appear on the show, you won't know until taping whether you'll be a contestant or spoiler.
My questions, for those of you who have competed on the show or who watch it regularly:
• What’s the most important thing to do, strategically? What's the best approach?
• If there’s a clue that could have more than one answer based on the board—e.g., ***U**, [Make certain], could be ASSURE, ENSURE, or INSURE—does it make sense to ring in early and hope you guess lucky? Or do you sit back and wait to see if other contestants flub it so you can zero in on the correct answer?
• If you’re a spoiler, do you ring in even if you don’t know the answer immediately, just to have a shot at taking a front podium? If you're a spoiler, you lose nothing with a wrong answer, no?
• How does wagering for the Crossword Extras compare withJeopardy! Daily Double wagering? Do you want to bet conservatively since you just need to be ahead of one other podium, or does a big-money lead pay off strategically? (Obviously, a big-money lead lets you take more money home if you win, but if the grand prize is $5,000, I think it’s less important whether you enter the final round with $1,000 or $2,350.
• When it comes to that final round, what’s the most expeditious approach? Head for words with lots of blanks, or words with more givens? If there’s a long answer with four blanks, do you want to spell the one long thing or split it into four crossings?
• Would you recommend getting a book of Timothy Parker crosswords for pre-show training? Apparently there are no older Parker books available from Amazon (older books are available only from people selling books via Amazon, and are not sold by Amazon), but several MGC tie-in books will be released tomorrow and later this month.
September 10, 2007
OBOLS?
I caught the last 15 minutes of today's hour of Merv Griffin's Crosswords. The gist of it is two contestants and three spoilers rotating through two podia, trying to answer each crossword clue that's presented to them. Incorrect answers lose money, correct answers win money. The money leader at the end is the winner, and he or she continues to the grand prize round in which the the goal is to fill in the remainder of the crossword, spelling the answers aloud.
Tyler Hinman watched the full hour and has some remarks about clues he deems iffy.
One caught my eye: [Six of these make a drachma] (or something along those lines). OBOLS is old-school crosswordese, so I knew it. I've been doing crosswords fairly regularly since about 1980, so many of those words we don't see much any more are still wedged inside my mind. But the word, in singular or plural, has a mere three appearances in the puzzles indexed in the Cruciverb database, two in 2000 and one in 2004. Why has the word largely disappeared from high-quality crosswords? (1) It's stale old crosswordese. (2) Greece switched to the euro back in 2002, so nobody's using drachmas or fractions thereof any more. What do you know? None of the contestants got this one. One guessed RUBLE.
My favorite thing about this game show: Spelling counts. The majority of Jeopardy! responses don't require spelling, and I can spell pretty well, so I'm partial to anything that plays to my strengths. Now, if we could only get the Merv Griffin's Crosswords people to hold auditions somewhere other than Hollywood...
Updated:
Trip Payne also reviews the show.
And Tyler reviews day 2, shows 3 and 4.
