I was thinking about the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament today. It may be short on ethnic diversity, but the age range of the participants is phenomenal. I think Will Shortz said on the radio that the youngest competitor was 18 and the oldest 86—and both rookies. Looking back at who I talked with a couple weekends ago, it's amazing. I had conversations with college students, people in their 70s and 80s, and all the decades in between. Going to Stamford's kind of like attending a big family wedding, where you'll talk to the kids and your cousins and assorted grandparents and a bunch of weird uncles—except at Stamford, it's a crossword-lovin' kinship rather than a familial one, and there's no taffeta or dance floor.
April 06, 2006
If you want to check your work
Here's my solution grid for the Starbucks tiebreaker puzzle (which I assume was constructed by Patrick Berry and edited by Will Shortz, though there was no byline on the PDF). Where there are two letters in a circle, one of the letters from each down answer should be dropped (e.g., 14 Across, "Hammer," is RAM after the H and O are dropped). You can obtain the blank grid and clues here (thanks for posting it, serendipity).
The dropped letters, read in the numerical order of the Down entries, spell out the final question, of course.
I'm sure I could have solved the puzzle on my own, but 80% of the grid was filled out cooperatively with my talented teammates, Marty Howard, Vic Fleming, and Bonnie Gentry. It was a treat to have a puzzle so challenging that it lent itself to group solving—I can't imagine doing that on a standard daily puzzle, which I can finish more quickly by myself. 
April 05, 2006
Bloody Thursday
Heading into the Thursday puzzles, I'm feeling a little puzzled out. I think I'll wait until morning to do the Sun puzzle. In the meantime, what are Friday-level solving times doing on a Thursday NYT? Ed Early's quote puzzle (to paraphrase Ellen Ripstein—whose views on quip/quote puzzles are unknown to me: Quotes, ick.) was harder than I expected. Not only was the quote an unfamiliar one, but then there are Saturday-stretchy, semi-obscure entries like ARMCO ("former steel giant"), CYANIN ("dye used on photographic plates"), and CROOKING ("bending"). Amazingly, "one-legged literary character" did not come to me without the crossings, despite AHAB making an appearance inside the Starbucks tiebreaker. At least IMAGO was fresh in my mind from the Starbucks puzzle. (Conspiracy theorists, those are surely coincidental.) And seeing ROSEBUD in this grid makes me think that should have been the answer to the Starbucks challenge! I bet at least one person tried to phone in with ROSEBUD as their answer.
Updated:
I was telling my son, Ben, about the Gary Steinmehl "Heroic Men" puzzle, and the existence of a Plastic Man and Iron Man. "He dresses up like an iron," said Ben. Pressing shirts and steaming out wrinkles wherever he goes, it's Iron Man!
Karen Tracey gives us the one-two with the Themeless Thursday in the Sun and a themer in today's LA Times puzzle. The themed puzzle squeezes in a few hard words like Karen's themeless puzzles. The Themeless Thursday's skeleton is made of two vertical 15's joined by an 11 crossed by a central 9, and these entries contain a Z, Q, X, and J—one Scrabbly letter per entry. Nice work, Karen! (And Peter.)
Scumbag redux: In Slate, Jesse Sheidlower writes about the SCUMBAG flap. Thanks to Byron for the link. Sheidlower's concluding sentence: "If, once you come up with the seven letters, you're still bothered, well, you're the one with the dirty mind." Exactly.
NYT 6:15
NYS 4:52
LAT 4:38
Newsday 2:57
CS 2:52
Well, so much for that
I finally finished every square of the Starbucks tiebreaker puzzle. The long hint entries read EVERY DOWN/ANSWER IS MISSING/ONE LETTER. Circle those missing letters, or jot them next to the appropriate clue, read them in clue order, and you get the woefully anticlimactic climactic question: "Who was Captain Ahab's first mate in Moby Dick?" Duh, STARBUCK. Now, I spent about 50 minutes co-solving over a conference call with three teammates, and some additional time afterwards to finish the grid. There's no way in hell the first person to call with the magic word—STARBUCK—actually solved much of the puzzle. Or maybe any of the puzzle. Trip Payne solved the NE corner, had enough extra letters from the word "Captain" figured out, realized the obvious, and called 10 minutes into the solving period—to learn that he was too late. Trip is one of the fastest solvers there is, so unless the winner turns out to be someone well-known in puzzling circles (say, a perennial Stamford contender, or a National Puzzlers League member), then it may be that someone merely guessed STARBUCK. Hell, if COFFEE HOUSE got ya into the tiebreaker, how hard could it be to guess STARBUCK as the final answer? It'd be great if whatever person or people called in before Trip not only knew STARBUCK, but could actually read off multiple entries from the tiebreaker puzzle. But that didn't seem to be part of the contest design.
Given that it was completely unnecessary to complete all the steps from the first six puzzles, the ad, and the 3/26 NYT puzzle in order to call in and say "COFFEE HOUSE," it feels like a big waste of time. Raise your hand if you're disappointed.
Wait! I ended this post too soon. The tiebreaker puzzle, which presumably is another Patrick Berry creation edited by Will Shortz, is fantastic, gnarly, and tricky. It took me a helluva lot longer than Byron Walden's ACPT puzzle #5, and has plenty of devious entries and clues. "Words that affect the span of attention?" = AS YOU WERE, with the W dropped out. "Performs poorly" is EMOTES, with the S dropped out. These both cross TOUPEE ("It provides limited coverage"). See? Devious. Especially challenging to fill in the grid when you don't know which letter is dropped out of the down entry—first, last, anywhere in the middle. The contest portion may have been frustrating, but the crosswords themselves delighted me.
Gulp!
I'm as ready as I can be for the tiebreaker puzzle in the Starbucks challenge. When 4:00 rolls around, man, I hope the puzzle turns out to be a crossword!
April 04, 2006
Hooray for Wednesday
...and the onslaught of great crosswords. First up, Patrick Merrell's NYT puzzle with its CKS-to-X theme. I hope the germ for this puzzle was the funny DREAD LOX. Throw in BABYING, BAGPIPE, METOOER, and BUSYBODY, and you've got yourself a lively crossword.
In Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader puzzle, "Park Parlance," the timely theme this week is baseball. I thought the puzzle was harder than most of Ben’s Ink Well crosswords—his editor mentioned at Stamford that they’re aiming for harder, so that’s good. The world needs more challenging crosswords! Okay, now, be honest. Who saw "brand of rubbers," 5 letters, and put in DUREX? Oops. It’s TOTES, the brand of rubbers my dad used to wear…over his shoes on rainy days. Rubbers, not scumbags! Duh. And who can explain why "modern mod" is TAT? Mod = modification? And how 'bout that clue for PEN: "some like it felt on the tip"! Tch.
The Sun puzzle by Gary Steinmehl, "Heroic Men," appears to have three theme entries, CASEY AT THE BAT, ITSY BITSY SPIDER, and BUILDING SUPER. And...I don't get it. How do they tie together? (I await a grand "d'oh" moment.) Albrecht Dürer's WOODCUTS, $5. Cluing EWE as "baa nana," $100. USES PLASTIC, priceless.
Updated:
'Tis the season: More baseball in Bruce Venzke and Stella Daily's LA Times puzzle.
Tausig 5:19
NYT 4:49
LAT 4:03
NYS 4:01
CS 3:15
Newsday 2:34
April 03, 2006
Tuesday
I haven't even heard of two of the songs in Robert Dillman's theme in the Tuesday NYT puzzle. If I'm too young to know the vulgar connotations of "scumbag," then surely I'm too young for some of those songs...
David (Evad) Sullivan's Sun puzzle, "Pump Up the Volume" adds an FF (fortissimo, "to be played very loudly") to generate the theme entries, turning AVIAN FLU into AVIAN FLUFF (aptly clued "Down?"). Great fill, too—just a guess, but I bet VISHNU and PLOTZ have never appeared together in a crossword. The clues "Dead" for AT PEACE and "Vomit Comet org." for NASA raise a mildly surprised eyebrow—death and puking in a single crossword?—but the eyebrows return to their default amused position with GO WEST (“Advice for a young man?”), LALA land, the “Common sense?” of SMELL, and the shout-out to Gladys and ABNER from “Bewitched.” Dave, is that OREO clue—"Cookie that’s been kosher since 5758"—yours or Peter's?
Updated:
Harvey Estes' CrosSynergy puzzle plays a Jeopardy!-ish "Before and After" game in the theme entries (five interlocked 15's). It felt refreshingly challenging for a Tuesday, even though my finishing time says otherwise.
NYS 4:23
LAT 3:27
NYT 3:15
CS 3:13
April 02, 2006
Starbucks Ultimate Coffeehouse Crossword Challenge
Tuesday, April 4: After the Starbucks contest is over, I will be happy to spell out all the puzzle details I know. But until then—everybody zip it! Don't discuss any specifics of any puzzles here. You know why? Because my teammates and I are in it to win. To win real money. Anyone who posts answers or revealing hints on the internet makes it easy for any yahoo who doesn't know what he's doing (but knows how to use Google) to call in and try to win. You never know what details from earlier puzzles might be brought to bear in later stages. So, I repeat: Zip it!
My teammates and I finally cracked it this evening, and I'm left with a question.
The official contest rules say When you have solved the treasure hunt and the answer to the question, you must call 1-866-801-0112 on April 4, 2006 after 1:00PM Central Daylight Time (“CDT”). But after you've cracked the puzzle, you're told to return April 4th at 10 a.m. (PST) to complete the next phase of the Ultimate Coffeehouse Crossword Challenge. Well, we just moved to Daylight Savings Time (most of the country did, anyway). By my calculations, 10 a.m. PST translates to 11 a.m. PDT and 1:00 p.m. CDT, meaning the "next phase" coincides with the time window for calling in. Unless the folks managing this contest have completely forgotten about the onset of Daylight Savings Time, which isn't that far-fetched, given the assorted problems throughout the contest (such as people going to Starbucks stores and having the employees tell them they haven't heard of any crossword contest). Is there a one-hour window for solving "the next phase" before calling, as some people believe, or is it a hurry-up-and-solve-so-you-can-call thing?
Monday
I was hoping to get a chance to meet Lynn Lempel at Stamford, but I don't think she (or he?) was there. I enjoy her (his?) Monday puzzles far more than most early-week puzzles. This one's no exception, combining an ON THE BEACH theme with six entries (most of which are cool entries on their own), SEETHE (which I always want to put in when the answer's SEE RED; SEETHE is such a fun word to say), the sporty END ZONES and FACED OFF, RUBEN Studdard from "American Idol," and SCUMBAG. I didn't really raise an eyebrow at that last word until I saw Harris RUBEN's "hmm" comment on the NYT forum, leading me to his blog, leading me to figure out that the word connotes "condom" to the generation before me. I did a little Googling and found the Random House Word of the Day write-up of "scumbag." According to that link, when Rep. Dan Burton called Pres. Clinton a scumbag, the New York Times opted not to print the word in an article about the foofaraw. Has the NYT become less delicate about such words since 1998, or did the Monday puzzle stray from house style? Is it a matter of Will Shortz, Style Renegade, or The Times: Keeping up with the times? (Lynn Lempel, if you're out there: Please keep constructing early-week puzzles, which you do so well!)
Updated:
I enjoyed Kelsey Blakley's Sun puzzle, "This 'n' That." Six theme entries, one of which actually follows the form of "This, That 'n' The Other Thing" (ED EDD N EDDY, a Cartoon Network show my kid watches; every episode name works "Ed" into something, like "Over Your Ed," "Ed-n-Seek," "In Like Ed"—many of the references are hard to explain to a kindergartner. Actually, a lot of cartoon episode names draw heavily on wordplay...). And there's REDRUM from "The Shining," and BRAD has a "Rocky Horror Picture Show" clue.
Hey! Over in the Puzzle Brothers blog, Ellen left a link to a great article about Merl Reagle. Check it out.
CS 4:22
NYS 3:27
LAT 3:18
NYT 3:11 (I've forgotten how to type today)
Newsday 2:09
April 01, 2006
Sunday
Bob Klahn seems to specialize in late-week difficulty, so it's a treat to see his byline on a Sunday NYT. Of course, he brought along plenty of that difficulty, making the treat even better (unless you're too stymied to enjoy it). "Take Five" means, of course, that a V (Roman numeral 5) has been removed to make each theme entry, like ENDING MACHINE for "Guillotine?" Clever cluing, like "Mistress of the spirit world?" for ALEWIFE, "Was an Orly arrival?" for FLEW IN, "Ring count" for ONE TO TEN,
"Lose track?" for DERAIL, "Frost lines" for POEM, and "Hustler’s hangout?" for DISCO. Zippy fill, like ILL TELL, CODE RED, MA AND PA, and MEECE (as a goofy plural of "mouse"). I'm always pleased to wield the remnants of my German language knowledge, as in "When Schweine fly!" (NIE means "never"). And I knew that people speak Catalan in ANDORRA because I'd just seen a similar clue today in Peter Gordon's new book. I actually would've been about a minute faster if not for a typo ("tenuous" is not SHALY, of course, but SHAKY, which I should have picked up on quickly instead of assuming that LASHMIRI was a word. D'oh.)
Updated: The Puzzle Brothers Dave and Bob Mackey have today's LA Times puzzle, "OO-EE," where OO is changed to EE to make theme entries like NEEDLE CASSEROLE and SNEEZE ALARM. Plenty of fresh longer entries, like MGM LION, SAD EYES, NY GIANTS, and ALIEN RACE. (Interestingly, that LION crosses LAMBS, but two days into April rather than at the beginning or end of March.) I got snagged by the crossing of BILBO (clued as the arguably obscure "old-time alternative to ankle chains"—ouch!—rather than, say, "hobbit who turned eleventy-one") and RBS. (Somebody want to give me a list of all the football positions and their abbreviations?)
Timothy Powell's Washington Post puzzle, "Scrambled Headlines," provides a little anagram action for the morning. • Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon strew body parts all over their LA Weekly grid. • Mel Rosen's Newsday puzzle features songs with birds in the title.
Bob Klahn also puts in themeless time today, with the CrosSynergy Sunday Challenge. Tons of snappy multiword phrases in the long entries, plus one obscure old word apparently derived from Anglo-Saxon (SNATH, a scythe handle),
NYT 10:22
LAT 9:02
LA Weekly 7:57
Newsday 7:28
WaPo 7:05
CS 6:41
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