August 20, 2005

Which clues stumped people last Sunday?

According to Yahoo's Buzz Index, the Yahoo Search people see a spike in searches like "ballerina Karsavina" every weekend, when people are stumped by the Sunday NYT puzzle. Last weekend, in addition to TAMARA Karsavina, here are some other clues that saw heavy web-search action:

king of England in 1700
Duke Ellington classic
musician Brian
sister of Erato
Sophocles drama
Shatner's war
fire goddess Brigit
female swans
french illustrator Gustave

I don't even remember seeing half of those clues. Let's see, the first was probably William of OrangePeach. And then "Mood IndigoPeriwinkle." (Hah! Patrick Merrell's theme had an ingenious way of thwarting Googlers, didn't it?) Brian Eno, Urania, Ajax, Tek War, ___, pens, and Doré. Who was the fire goddess? I'm looking at a static image of the completed puzzle, and I don't see that one. Julia Child??

The article also informs us that most of these searches were performed by women between the ages of 35 and 64. (I swear it wasn't me.)

Check out the article yourself—it doesn't say much else, but it's illustrated with a picture of Trip Payne in the ACPT finals last March. (Next year, Trip and I are going to have to uncoordinate our wardrobes. What were the odds of two people in lime green shirts appearing on stage?)