Friday, 11/28

Sun 14:08
NYT 5:16
LAT 4:57
CHE 4:09
CS 3:22
WSJ 7:03

(post updated at 11:15 a.m. Friday)

Joe Krozel packs 10 15-letter answers into his New York Times crossword, but he spaces them out so it feels different from the sort of themeless puzzle with lots of 15's stacked together. Here are the long answers, every one of 'em a lively phrase:

• SHIVER ME TIMBERS is a [Cry on a corsair], which is not to be confused with a Corvair. (Pirate ship vs. unsafe car.)
  
• [Something exercised by artists] is CREATIVE LICENSE.
  
• THE COST OF LIVING? [It's high in Manhattan].
  
• PENTATONIC SCALE is a [Music theory subject] I know zip about.
  
• STING OPERATIONS are [Plans to nail suspects].
  
• The [Goal of a neighborhood watch] is CRIME PREVENTION.
  
• SERVICE STATIONS are [Island locales] in that gas pumps are located on little islands. Great clue.
  
• [Coaching cliche] is THERE'S NO I IN TEAM. May I point out that there is also no WE or US in team?
  
• CRITICAL ACCLAIM represents [Great all-around reviews].
  
• [Is totally apathetic] clues DOESN'T GIVE A HOOT. Anyone my age can't hear "give a hoot" without thinking of the '70s PSA catchphrase, "Give a hoot—don't pollute."
  

Miscellaneous other clues:

• [It makes pot potent: Abbr.] isn't the letters ENT—it's THC, tetrahydrocannabinol.
  
• [Judah's house, in a Lew Wallace title] is HUR. Is this related to Ben-Hur at all?
  
• [Thirds, e.g.] is MORE. More food! Anyone have thirds of Thanksgiving dinner? Anyone not have thirds?
  
• There's a bizarre crossing between PSEC, a [Tiny fraction of a min.] (picosecond), and A SEC, as in ["Be there in ___"].
  
• [State whose capital is Panaji] is GOA in India.
  
• [Yom ___] is TOV. All I could think of is the Thai dish, tom yum.
  
• TONI [___ Twins (pair in old ads for home perm kits)] dates back to the "Give a hoot" era. "Which twin has the Toni?"
  
• [Part of O.H.M.S.] is ON HER, as in On Her Majesty's Service. Is the James Bond movie On Her Majesty's Secret Service playing on that?
  
• [Rough housing] is a HUT and not just roughhousing, the action.
  
• [Commandant's outfit: Abbr.] is USMC, the U.S. Marine Corps.
  
• Roman numeral year! [Year Emperor Henry IV was dethroned] was MCV, or 1105.
  
• [Verb from which "sum" is derived] is ESSE, Latin for "to be." Latin sum means "am" (or maybe "I am").
  

Fraser Simpson's Sun puzzle is a cryptic crossword, and it's a good bit more challenging and involved than the NYT Second Sunday cryptics are. For a guide to solving cryptics, see Fraser's "How to Solve Cryptic Crosswords" tutorial. I wrote up my answers over at the Crossword Fiend forum before I noticed that there was already a PDF of the answers. In the PDF, "anag." means anagram; parentheses indicate letters inserted (CAPS) or deleted (lowercase); "hom." means homophone; "rev." means reversal. If you are hesitant about giving cryptics the old college try, read Fraser's tips and see if you get any of the clues in the puzzle. If you're stuck, peek at an answer or two—in my forum post, the answers are in white text, so you can peek at a single answer without having the rest of the puzzle spoiled. Often, having even just a single letter in place from a crossing will help you figure out what an answer is.

Updated:

It took me a while to suss out the theme in Donna Levin's LA Times crossword. Each theme entry makes a pun using a demonym or nationality that sounds like a common English word:

• [Bangkok wave?] is a THAI BREAKER (tie-breaker).
  
• [Vocal ranges of Prague crooners?] are CZECH REGISTERS (check registers).
  
• [Bilbao native al fresco?] clues BASQUE IN THE SUN (bask in the sun).
  
• ["Come up and see my etchings, Helja," e.g.?] clues FINNISH LINE, as in a line used in a singles bar (finish line).
  

Highlights in the fill (which tended to the Scrabbly side): [Capo di tutti capi] is the KINGPIN. CHEEK gets a funny clue: [Half-moon?], as in a single butt cheek. MY GIRL was a [1965 #1 hit for The Temptations]. To NITPICK is to [Cavil]. The [2007 People magazine adjective for Matt Damon] was SEXIEST; Damon's response was funny.

Clues that got in the way of my finding the answers (as they're supposed to on a Friday):

• CLEAT = [Nautical line securer]. Man, I hate nautical clues. No baseball shoes here?
  
• HELLO = ["That is soooo stupid!"].
  
• RAPID = [Like arpeggioed notes]. Man, musical terms are not my forte.
  
• SOX = [Bo follower?]. I had the OX and went with TOX.
  
• FROST = the verb [Top in a bakery]. I was thinking noun and CRUST.
  
• SERMONS = [Homiletics subject]. Homiletics is "the art of preaching or writing sermons."
  

Randy Ross's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Riddle Me Math," dispenses four riddles that hinge on math-oriented puns:

• [How did the mathematician describe a Sicilian pizza?] He said PIE ARE SQUARE. πr² is the formula for calculating the area of a circle. To calculate the area of a Sicilian pizza, just multiply the length by the width.
  
• [What did the mathematical pirate say when his bird flew away?] POLLY GONE. A polygon is a multi-sided shape.
  
• [What did the mathematical mermaid buy at Victoria's Secret?] Why, ALGAE BRAS, of course. I don't think algebra takes a plural, but the S was needed to create a 9-letter answer to balance POLLY GONE.
  
• [What did the mathematical lumberjack dance to?] LOGGER RHYTHM (logarithm).
  

The fill includes 22 answers that are 6 or 7 letters long, which gives the puzzle added freshness. There's the [Persian poet] Omar KHAYYAM, for example, and MT. SINAI, a [NY hospital named after a biblical site]. My favorite clue was [Harry and Tara] for REIDS—one doesn't ordinarily think of the Senate Majority Leader and the largely discredited actress in the same moment.

Ed Sessa's Chronicle of Higher Education puzzle, "School of Victual Arts," is more playful than most CHE crosswords. The theme entries are five fields of academic study punned out with food. For example, ["You'll view the world as thin sheets of pastry in our ___ class"] clues PHYLLOSOPHY, based on philosophy and phyllo dough. LINGUINISTICS combines linguistics and linguini. Sociology becomes SUSHIOLOGY; economics, EGGONOMICS; and literature, LIQUORATURE. Interesting fill includes ALATEEN and DOGBANE, VESPUCCI and the Battle of MIDWAY. Did you look at your fingers to figure out [Second digit from the right]? The answer is the TENS digit next to the ones place.

Dan Fisher's Wall Street Journal crossword has a theme that combines two things I like: word manipulation (e.g., anagrams, reversals) and geography. In each "Global Recession" theme entry, the capital city (or maybe just a large city) points you to a country, the name of which appears in reverse (in highlighted squares) in the answer. The rest of the clue gives a more straightforward definition of the answer:

• [Huge sum from Havana?] is MEGABUCKS, with Cuba running backwards inside it.
  
• [Bulky lizard from Bamako?] is GILA MONSTER, hiding Mali.
  
• [Discerning in Jerusalem?] is CLEAR-SIGHTED with an embedded Israel.
  
• [Martial arts target in Lima?] is a PRESSURE POINT with Peru inside.
  
• Italy lurks in [Ancient tongue from Rome?], or EARLY LATIN. This clue works on an extra level, since Early Latin may well have been spoken exactly where modern-day Rome is.
  
• [Screenwriters from Tehran?] are SCENARISTS around Iran.
  
• [Breakfast treat from Muscat?] is CINNAMON TOAST, with Oman filling.
  
• [Bedtime reading from Damascus?] includes FAIRY STORIES (Syria).
  
• ["Seinfeld" actor from Nairobi?] is WAYNE KNIGHT (Kenya).
  
• [Nacho toppers from Katmandu?] are JALAPENOS (Nepal). You actually can find nachos in Katmandu, but they may disappoint you.
  

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Sunday, 6/1

NYT 9:06
LAT 8:17
PI 7:42
BG 7:27
CS 3:27

NYT cryptic (Second Sunday puzzle) 10:40

Sorry that the HaloScan commenting function is out of order as of mid-day Sunday. Grr!

June at last! Chicago finally found solid May weather, just in time to usher us into June, glorious June.

All right, so, this Sunday New York Times crossword by Patrick Berry has such a cool theme, I had to read all eight theme entries to my husband. He laughed out loud at four of them, and had two questions:

"Who wrote those?"
and
"How does he come up with these??"

"Patrick Berry," I replied. "He's a geeenius."

In the "Extra Syll-uh-bles" theme, an uh sound is added within a word to radically change the phrase's meaning. Here are our favorites:

• MORALLY SAFER, or [Wiser from an ethical perspective?]. This is a play on 60 Minutes' Morley Safer's name.
  
• THE SALIVATION ARMY, or [Fighting force trained by Pavlov?]. Given that Ivan Pavlov's classical conditioning techniques are akin to training, the clue's especially apt. (The base phrase is the Salvation Army, of course.)
  
• HUMMABLE BEGINNINGS, or [Catchy song parts heard on "Name That Tune"?]. My god, could that be any apter? The game show did indeed give the catchy and hummable beginning few notes of each song. This one plays on humble beginnings.
  
• RENT-A-SENATOR plays the political corruption game, positing a [Store that peddles political influence?]. This one spins off the Rent-a-Center chain.
  

The other four theme entries are:

• BUYABLE BELT, [Waistband sold in stores?], Bible Belt.
  
• CORONER ON THE MARKET, [Freelance autopsist?], corner on the market. The verb phrase corner the market sounds much more natural to me, but the noun phrase including the on has appeared in an 1896 NYT headline.
  
• RIOTING IMPLEMENTS, [Stones and brickbats?], writing implements.
  
• RED SKELETON, [Boiled lobster's feature?], Red Skelton.
  

Because this is a Berry puzzle, there's also much to admire in the fill, and nothing to deplore. Well, OK, we can deplore 9-Down, ["___ the Wanderer" (1820 gothic novel)], MELMOTH. I'm pretty sure I've never heard of that, and not all of its crossings were easy. [Two points?] is a good clue for COLON, but the first O crosses MELMOTH and the C crosses CASS, [Buchanan's secretary of state]. MELMOTH's E crosses LEONES, [West African coins]. At the other end of the grid, HETTY [Sorrel, woman in a love triangle in "Adam Bede"], didn't ring a bell. (My favorite Hetty is Hetty Green, the "World's Greatest Miser." PINSK is a [Belarus port], and Minsk is the capital of Belarus. Fortunately, the map doesn't show any other major Belarussian cities ending in -insk.

Turning away from that gnarly MELMOTH concatenation, look at this good fill:

• An [Issue to avoid] is a HOT POTATO.
  
• [Wellborn folks] are the non-S-plural GENTRY.
  
• SARONGS are [Skirts worn by both men and women]. It's a shame most Western cultures don't have men's skirts. So comfy, and cool on a hot day.
  
• CLAUDIA, my mother's name, was also [Lady Bird Johnson's given birth name].
  
• ERITREA, over there near Ethiopia and Somalia, is a [Country with a camel on its coat of arms].
  
• ATTACK DOG? [Its bite is worse than its bark]. I was reading the clue backwards and relied on the crossings to tell me what sort of gentle but noisy dog this might be. (D'oh.)
  
• ROSEY, [N.F.L. star Grier] and singer of "It's Alright to Cry."
  
• ORANGE! A [Self-descriptive fruit].
  
• HANS ARP, [Founding member of the Dadaists], also called Jean Arp.
  
• BRING IT ON! Them's [Fighting words].
  

My favorite nonthematic clue here is [Think that might is right?] for MISREAD. Isn't that one perfect? A few other clues I liked: [It's in the spring] for WATER; [Alibi] for STORY; [Sound of a failure] for THUD; and [They may be big fellers] for SAWS used to fell trees.

Updated:

This weekend's second NYT Magazine puzzle is a cryptic crossword by Fraser Simpson. Feel free to ask in the comments if you're looking for a hint or an explanation for any of the answers. This puzzle's cluing style didn't much grab me. The clue I liked best was 13-Across, [Power chosen by Rhode Island metropolis]. Chosen = the adjective elect. Rhode Island's abbreviation is RI. A metropolis is a city. Put 'em all together, and you've got some power.

The Across Lite rerun of the Boston Globe crossword for this week is "Laundry List," by the team of Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon. The ennead of theme entries are all puns incorporating laundry-related words. STARCH MADNESS, the [Laundry tournament?], plays on March Madness, for example. And FRANKENSTAIN is a [Monster of a laundry problem?]. Highlights in the fill: JOE BLOW, both PALOMA and PABLO Picasso, and both [Wife of Iago] EMILIA and [Marc Antony's wife] OCTAVIA. Now, the clue [Short, thick smokes] gives us BLUNTS. Wait: Can BLUNTS have tobacco, or are they strictly giant joints? The always helpful Wikipedia explains, "Blunt cigars are often utilized for cannabis smoking."

Updated again Sunday morning:

Patrick Jordan's themeless CrosSynergy "Sunday Challenge" is clued to be easy, but you know what? I really liked it anyway. It gave me the WARM FUZZIES, a ["Feel-good" sensation]. TORNADO WARNINGS, or [Some Weather Channel bulletins], makes for a good, fresh 15. [Due to] is BY DINT OF. The three-word phrase GET AN A, can be tough to parse; I'll bet somebody will Google [Do well in class] and GETANA in search of an explanation.

In Merl Reagle's Philadelphia Inquirer crossword, "Funny Business," Merl dispenses a batch of his trademark puns. This time the theme is punny store names, such as PARAFFINALIA, a [Name for a candle shop?], and THE MERCHANT OF VENUS, a [Name for a sex shop?]. I'm also partial to EVERYBODY LOVES RAIMENT, a [Name for a vintage clothing store?]. There are six other theme entries in the mix. Some of the fill is what only Merl can get away with, such as CABO SAN linked to LUCAS and a 6-letter partial, SO NEAR ["___ and yet..."].

Tom Heilman's syndicated LA Times crossword, "Abutting In," ADDS IN (11-Down) to seven phrases to make something new. Favorite theme entry: [Affair in the mountains?], or HIGH INFIDELITY. The other theme entries are [Completely turned around?] or WELL INVERSED; [Stir up some stoolies?] or INCITE ONE'S SOURCES; [Get upset over nothing?] or INVENT ONE'S ANGER; [Missing the point?] or a DECIMAL INFRACTION; [Do software uploads at a news magazine?] or INSTALL FOR TIME; and [Goal of deep breathing?] or OXYGEN INTENT.

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Friday, 11/23

NYS 15:30
NYT 5:35
CHE 4:21
Jonesin' 4:20
LAT 4:10
CS 3:05

WSJ 7:46

We'll start out in a place that is alien to many of you: The land of cryptic crosswords. I'll list many of the answers to Fraser Simpson's post-Thanksgiving New York Sun puzzle, a cryptic crossword. If you don't know what cryptics are about and are skipping the puzzle, at least take a peek at the clues and see how I derived the answers. You never know—it just might appeal to you after all. And if you like to tackle cryptics but haven't done this one yet, unfocus your eyes as you scroll down to coverage of Friday's standard crossword puzzles.

In the Sun puzzle, I had a hard time getting my head wrapped around Simpson's cluing style. Some clues were too easy—12-Across, 15-Across, 2-Down, 8-Down, 15-Down, and 18-Down were straight-up anagrams of a word (or two words) in the clue, and 24-Across was a straight-up embedded answer. (Feel free to ask in comments if you need extra hints on any of those.) Granted, it's been a long day and I was ready to fall asleep at 7:00 while working on this puzzle, but a few other clues just weren't adding up. So I cheated and used Across Lite's "reveal current letter" a few times, and then was able to piece together the answers and see how they were derived. For 1-Across, catcher = C, to kid = to RIB, win = BAG, and electronic = E: game = CRIBBAGE. For 3-Down, a swimmer = BATHER, which hems about = RE, and a brief rest = BREATHER. Here's how the other ones shake out:

5-Across: Double definition, secure and place for baby Jesus—STABLE.
9-Across: Rub out = MURDER, answer = ANS.; both are "written about" or in reverse, making a SNARE DRUM percussion instrument.
11-Across: The fruit BERRY sounds like ("so it's said") bury, or put into the earth.
13-Across: The IRS AGENT tax collector is I + (SAG inside the musical RENT).
16-Across: Pennsylvania = PA, the word IS is inside it; PISA is a tower locale.
19-Across: LIFT = LI (Roman 51) + FT (abbrev. of foot); give someone a ride = give someone a lift.
20-Across: DWELLING (home) = D is Depot's "leader" + welling (up).
23-Across: EMERSION (coming out) = Ralph Waldo EMERSON protecting the letter I.
27-Across: THEME (topic) = THE + ME (abbrev. of Maine).
28-Across: "Better" able by anagramming it into ELAB + ORATE (to speak); ELABORATE = add details.
29-Across: ROTATE means turn. Turn = ROT + T ("turn" originally, first letter of that word) inside A & E.
30-Across: A $5 bill is a FIN, inside ice cream CONES -> CONFINES = encloses.
1-Down: COSTAR = commanding officers (COS) + a sailor (TAR).
4-Down: GARY = GRANARY (thresher's warehouse) - RAN.
6-Down: The note TI (do re mi fa so la ti) + BIAS (a bent) = TIBIAS (leg bones).
7-Down: Communist RED is uprising -> DER, inside BORING (pedestrian); BORDERING = surrounding.
10-Down: The initial of "mentioned" is M + character named ARI GOLD = flower MARIGOLD.
14-Down: AS A WHOLE (in full) = SAW (carpentry tool) inside A HOLE (a gap).
17-Down: AL OERTER = ALERTER (more aware) around O (Olympics' first letter).
21-Down: ASCENT (climb) = A + SCENT (trail).
22-Down: ANGERS = park RANGERS "after introduction," meaning without the first letter.
25-Down: PLAIN (everyday) = homophone ("in the auditorium") of carpentry tool PLANE.
26-Down: MAYO (spread at lunch) = MAY (might) + O (love in tennis).

I think it was hard for me to get into the constructor's frame of mind, since I've been spending a couple hours a week on British cryptics for the past three months. Here are a few clues I've admired in The Times Crossword Book 11. Can you figure these out?

1. Savoy, perhaps, gets cold underground? Just the opposite (5)
2. Uproar created by lout leaving a dance first (8)
3. Obsession about larva over in Winnipeg area (8)
4. Writer depicting seabirds according to Chinese dynastic principles? (6,9)
5. Quick pint, perhaps around four? (5)

Moving along to American-style crosswords:

For our post-gluttony dessert, everyone has room for Paula Gamache's New York Times crossword. There's a mini-theme with the VISITORS' DUGOUT ([Where Yankees are found at Shea Stadium]) across from BALLPARK FRANKS ([Fan fare?]). This crossword has a lot to say: "IT'S ALL GOOD" (["Everything's cool"]); "OH, GOSH" (["Jeez!"]); "LOOK, MA!"; "EVER SO SORRY" (["A thousnad pardons"]), hey, BRO ([Dude]); and "HOLA" ([Ciao, in Chile]). Can someone explain that last one to me? I though hola was hello in Spanish, and ciao is goodbye. Ah, ciao also means hello. Interrelated clues: [Waist products] for OBIS, [Waste product] for TRASH BAG, and TOSS for [Put into a (TRASH BAG)]. Tennis gets two, with the USTA ([Court org.]) and GRAND SLAMS, of which [Rod Laver won two]. The completely unrelated RURIK stands alone—that's the [Ninth-century founder of the Russian monarchy]. Never heard of him, but the Wikipedia story is interesting. Oddest clue: [What someone might win after stumping a cultural group?] for ETHNIC VOTE. I prefer the more colloquial stuff—the LOUSY ([Stinko]) [Two-timing types] are RATS, and DETOX and MAGS are both short for longer words, and there's GLOM and YADA. Stale crossword shoe width EEE gets promoted to EEE WIDTH. I learned a new word in the clue for ASIAN FUSION, [Cuisine that may be served with a chork]. Chork? Here's what it is, a chopstick/fork blend. People, it's not that hard to learn to use chopsticks. Honest. Avoid the chork.

Matt Jones's Jonesin' puzzle, "DEF Jam," has four theme answers that contain the DEF letter string. There's also a South Park character I'd never heard of, GINGER KID. And a band I wouldn't recognize, STEREOLAB (where first I entered STEREOGUM, but that's a music website, not a band.

Updated:

Dan Fisher's Wall Street Journal puzzle, "The Borrowers," has just five theme answers tied together by 104-Down, LOAN—each contains those letters in a chunk. CARMELO ANTHONY and APOLO ANTON OHNO cover sports, while movies give us actor EVERETT SLOANE, director MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI, and the toons LILO AND STITCH. The thematic lightness means there's plenty of room for good fill, with numerous chunks of 7-letter answers. MASHUP is clued as [Musical mix of two songs into one]—as in Danger Mouse's Grey Album combining music from the Beatles' White Album with vocals from Jay-Z's Black Album. Overall, I really enjoyed this puzzle's cluing and fill.

Jeffrey Harris's 11/9 Chronicle of Higher Education crossword, "On the Campaign Trail," takes political campaign terms onto the hiking trail, cluing those terms as if they pertain to a twig running for office. GRASS ROOTS, SPLINTER PARTIES, STUMP SPEECH, and the others can all be viewed from a tree's standpoint. Two unfamiliar names in the grid: PAVIA, the site of a battle in the much-beloved Italian War of 1521. (What? That's not one of your favorite wars to study?) It was [Where Charles V defeated Francis I, 1525]. The other mystery, wait-for-the-crossings name was [Bengals kicker Graham] SHAYNE. Is it Graham Shayne or Shayne Graham? The latter.

Dan Naddor's LA Times crossword really beats around THE BUSH—six other theme entries, all clued with [Beat], encircle THE BUSH. I admire the thematic density, but one of the theme entries, LIKE KEROUAC, rubs me the wrong way. I can overlook that thanks to the swath of stair-stepped Across answers in the middle—CAROUSEL atop HONOLULU atop THE BUSH atop OVERTOOK atop SEAN PENN.

Sarah Keller's CrosSynergy puzzle is called "Going Nowhere" because its four theme entries are verb phrases that sound active but don't involve making physical progress—e.g., RUN OUT OF STEAM, JUMP AT THE CHANCE.

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Cryptic crosswords

I'm not hooked on cryptics the way I hanker for standard American crosswords, but they do offer this advantage: A cryptic crossword tends to occupy me for considerably longer. This weekend's Second Sunday puzzle in the NYT is a spring-themed cryptic by Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon, and it took me about 50% longer than the Saturday NYT did. (A good chunk of that time was spent trying to suss out the answer the cryptic's last Across clue. Eventually, I managed to parse it correctly.)

The Hex duo has also been making tougher variety cryptics for the Atlantic for years, but the puzzle is now a Web-only, subscribers-only feature. Fortunately, one of my blog readers subscribes and freely violates copyright by sending me the PDF of each puzzle. The Atlantic puzzles always have some sort of twist (letters being added to or dropped from certain answers, for example) and a nonstandard grid (a few months ago, there was one with a hexagonal honeycomb). These puzzles often take me around an hour to complete, i.e., roughly 10 times longer than the typical themeless puzzle. There are so few outlets for wickedly hard standard crosswords these days, I have to go cryptic in order to luxuriate for a good long while. (Non-speed-solvers may think it would be easy enough to just take my time on standard puzzles, but my fellow speed-solvers would agree, I think, that that wouldn't be satisfying. You either know the answer to a clue or you don't—and if you do, is it any fun to try to read the clue more slowly and enter the answer into the squares more slowly?)

Harper's Magazine also publishes a variety cryptic, by Richard Maltby, Jr. (who spoke at the ACPT and presented the awards). On P.D. Wadler's recommendation (P.D.'s a weekends-only Crossword Fiend reader), I bought the February issue in March and did the puzzle in it; it took some getting used to, the non-Hex style. In the midst of writing this post, I checked out the Harper's site and saw that subscribers gain access to the complete archives...which presumably means many, many tough cryptics. A year's subscription is just $16.97, so I figured, why not?

The New Yorker used to publish a small (and easy) cryptic; 101 of these are gathered in this book edited by Fraser Simpson. I have the book, but found the puzzles were as easy as early-week NYT crosswords. If you haven't tried cryptic puzzles and have been wondering what all the fuss is about, this book is a great place to get your feet wet. You'll learn the basics of solving cryptic clues and hone your skills. If you've read this far but are still wondering what the heck "cryptic crossword" means, you could do worse than to drop the $7.95 on this book to find out if you enjoy this type of puzzle and the different sort of brain workout cryptics offer.

Intermediate-difficulty standard cryptics and tougher variety cryptics are also available in Games magazine and Games World of Puzzles.

If you'll excuse me, the Harper's archives await...

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