In a comment here last week, DA from Down Under suggested that we nominate the best five puzzles of 2007. He and I each hang onto our favorite crosswords during the year—I toss an NYT applet screen capture or an Across Lite file into a "Great Puzzles" folder on my Mac. And I'll bet plenty of you warehouse your favorites, too.
So let's look back at 2006 and give kudos to the crosswords that delighted, challenged, confounded, and entertained us. Here are some categories:
Best themeless puzzle
Best theme, daily size
Best theme, Sunday size
Craziest, most innovative twist
Toughest puzzle to solve
Toughest construction feat
Most entertaining crossword
Favorite newbie constructor
Favorite veteran constructor
Funniest or most dastardly clue
Best crossword book
I'm not in the mood to tally official results, so let's keep it resolutely nonscientific and free-wheeling. Feel free to mint your own categories as needed.
Some of the ones I remember off the top of my head (and yes, I know I'm straying from and muddling the categories I listed):
Twistiest: Ben Tausig's "reverse" 3/16/06 NYT (with theme entries like YGOLOHCYSP and MSICAR); Henry Hook's 3/17/06 Sun, "No Kibitzing" (rebused sentence); Michael Shteyman's surprising [MATCH] rebus in a Saturday NYT, 9/16/06; Henry Hook's HEAR/TTRA/NSPL/ANTS puzzle in the Sun, 2/10/06
Toughest construction feat: Joe DiPietro's 10/5/06 NYT with the clues in alphabetical order; Joe DiPietro's 2/19/06 "It's Next to Nothing" Sunday NYT, with every ITS next to a NIL; Joe DiPietro's "Lay of the Land" Sunday NYT, 12/17/06, with the state abbrevs rebused in where they belong on the US map—hmm, do you sense a pattern here?
Best Sunday theme: Ashish Vengsarkar's non-quote "quote" theme, 5/21/06 NYT; Michael Shteyman's pool table, 3/19/06 NYT; Trip Payne's Q extravaganza, 5/7/06.
Best themeless puzzles: Pretty much anything by Byron Walden, David Quarfoot, Karen Tracey, Bob Klahn, Sherry Blackard, Patrick Berry, Stan Newman, and Harvey Estes, plus most of the Saturday NYTs and Sun Weekend Warriors by other people, not to mention the Friday NYTs and Sun Themeless Thursdays. I'm moderately disappointed if a themeless doesn't fight me hard enough, but my favorite themeless constructors still entertain me even with easier clues.
Best themes, daily size: I'm partial to Thursday NYT and Friday Sun themes with twists or gimmicks. Nearly every early-week puzzle by Lynn Lempel, whatever the theme may be, delights me.
Favorite newbie constructor: I don't recall seeing David Quarfoot's byline before 2006, but he kicked butt with the many themeless creations he published during the year.
Favorite veteran constructor: In addition to the umpteen themeless constructors listed above, Pat Merrell's crosswords nearly always surprise and entertain me; I finished Henry Hook's Twisted Crosswords before this year and his sequel's not out yet, but I'm looking forward to the new book.
Toughest to solve: Might've been Hook's aforementioned rebus puzzle in the Sun, though there may have been a couple themeless puzzles that took me equally long.
Favorite crossword book: Among those published in 2006, the essential NYT Xtreme Xwords (collection of the hardest themeless NYTs of years past) and Byron Walden's Sit & Solve Commuter Hard Crosswords. In the non-crossword arena, The New Yorker Book of Cartoon Puzzles and Games is tremendously clever.
I'm missing a lot of my favorite Sun puzzles, because I've got the Across Lite files stashed in unannotated chronological order, and really, I ought to do a "save as" and copy my favorites to that "Great Puzzles" folder. I'd wade back through months and months of blog posts to give more specific shout-outs to the highlights, but you know what? Y'all will probably mention the same ones I would. So: what crossword puzzles and constructors would you like to single out for praise?
December 31, 2006
Best of the Best, 2006
Monday, 1/1
CS 3:02
LAT 2:46
NYT 2:37
(post updated at 8:45 a.m. Monday)
If you're wondering how to find this week's Sun crosswords before there's a 2007 calendar page at Puzzle Pointers, try the page for recent puzzles. Mind you, it won't get you a Monday puzzle for this week since Monday's a holiday. Despite Gerald Ford's funeral and the associated holiday, however, there is a puzzle posted for the 2nd.
There is an NYT crossword for New Year's Day, by Randy Sowell. Nice 'n' easy, just like we like 'em on Mondays, and aptly, the theme's perfect for the holiday. The theme entries all start with different BOWLS—the ROSE, ORANGE, SUGAR, and COTTON Bowls of college football. I have absolutely no idea which teams are playing in any of the games, nor do I care. But I could come up with teams of all-star crossword constructors to fight one another to the death in cage matches honor, and that will be the subject of a stand-alone post.
Updated:
In Donna Levin's LA Times crossword, a 56-square homophone theme is supplemented by three Z's.
December 30, 2006
Sunday, 12/31
NYT 9:27
WaPo 8:35
LAT 8:12
BG 7:15
CS 4:54
(post updated at noon Sunday)
Happy nascent New Year's Eve! I hope some of you have more exciting plans than I do. We're gonna have football (Bears-Packers match-up in prime time—which is throwing local Bears fans who had New Year's plans into a total tizzy) followed by whatever other TV is on. But it'll be in HD! On a big screen! And I bought a bottle of prosecco, which the Times told me was the hot new drink last summer, and I recognize that summer's long gone (in this hemisphere, anyway), but hey, it's a sparkling wine for New Year's Eve. Do these factors improve the caliber of my non-plans?
I haven't seen the Washington Post crossword yet, but I understand it's bylined by Elizabeth Gorski, who's also responsible for the jumbo (23x23) New Year's Eve crossword in the New York Times. Big theme for the 365th day of 2006—10 movie titles containing the numbers ONE to TEN, for starters. (And aptly enough, the one in the grid's center is TEN TO MIDNIGHT...nine, eight, seven...) The theme also includes COUNTDOWN IN /TIMES SQUARE and a 1987 heist flick with Peter Falk, HAPPY NEW YEAR. I would've guessed that there were at least a couple movies that started with the numbers (or "The" and then a number) from 1 to 10, but there must've been a lot of sorting out of movie titles by their lengths. Gorski managed to sandwich everything into the grid symmetrically, so that's cool. (And I bust no one's chops for ONE-EYED being in there along with 1932's ONE HOUR WITH YOU—it's crossing two theme entries, and who doesn't like a Cyclops reference?) I just confused myself looking at the finished grid. "Who is Bill Melater?" I asked myself. Ah, BILL ME LATER—a lively entry I liked as much as the adjacent QUIRKILY.
Updated:
I knew Elizabeth Gorski had a knack for holiday crossword themes, but I hadn't known she could create four different New Year's themes for four different newspapers this weekend. She started the weekend off with the Wall Street Journal crossword and rounded out the year with three Sunday puzzles. The LA Times syndicated puzzle is called "Win-Win Situation"; it's got a timely quip.
Wait a minute. What's this? The Gorski Washington Post puzzle doesn't have a New Year's theme? Huh. "Middle America" is just a regular ol' theme, with some lively fill like YOU'RE UP, PINK LADY, and FREE SPIN. The clue for TOELESS is [Like some hosiery]; can anyone suggest a horrifying alternative?
This week's themeless CrosSynergy Sunday Challenge is by Harvey Estes, who's linked a trio of triple-stacked 15's together with a tenth 15-letter entry down the middle.
Hex's Boston Globe puzzle, "Sounding Board," puns with soundalike words, so that [Served atop mutton?] is ON THE LAMB. Question: What does SUNDAE PUNCH play on? What does "Sunday punch" mean?
John Samson, the editor of the Simon & Schuster crossword series, wrote to the Cruciverb-L group to rave about a couple notable puzzles in two recent books. In book #253, Frank Longo crosses vertical and horizontal triple-stacked 21-letter entries in a puzzle with a low word count of 124 (Merl Reagle once published a 21x21 with fewer words). In #249, there's a 21x21 rebus puzzle with a whopping 21 different rebus symbols; I won't mention the constructor's name in case you want to be surprised by the rebus onslaught. I've added both books to my Amazon wish list, but you never know—I may buy them myself for pre-Stamford practice binges.
December 29, 2006
Saturday, 12/30
NYT 7:43
LAT 6:10
Newsday (untimed, mediumish hard)
CS 3:44
Rich Norris gathers up some terrific entries in his Saturday NYT crossword. Yes, I got whomped by at least a couple other applet solvers (oh, speaking of whomping—did y'all notice that Tyler Hinman finished Friday's puzzle in 2:35? Mm-hmm, that's right), partly because I either couldn't type or couldn't see. Do we all recognize that it's wrong to write TONE-DEAD and NINTELDO? Yes, I think so. Highlights of this puzzle, for me: 1-Across's ICK FACTOR, [Didn't stir at the right time?] for OVERSLEPT, [Unable to hit a pitch] for TONE-DEAF, the vague [Parade] for FLAUNT, [One who doesn't go past a semi?] for LOSER (as in loser of a semifinal match), [Cry while shaking] for IT'S A DEAL (don't you like to picture someone quivering with fright saying, "It's a deal"?), [Hide] for CLOAK, EYE OPENER, SQUEEZED, the petulant DOES TOO, [They can fix shortages] for ATMS, and the shout-out to the movie, EVE'S Bayou. I do recommend the movie—and not just because one of the stars is Debbi Morgan, who I used to watch of All My Children in the '80s. The young actress, Jurnee Smollett, was terrific (now she's all of 20 years old, and had a recent guest appearance on House). Movies and typing tribulations aside, I enjoyed this puzzle, as I do most Norris themelesses.
Updated:
Today's LA Times themeless is by Bonnie Gentry. Plenty of short gimmes helped me get a foothold, but other short answers vexed me for the longest time. (I had it in my head that Eleanor Roosevelt was originally named SARA rather than ANNA, and I didn't know IVAR Krueger but reckoned he was OTTO or ALDO for whatever reason.) I liked the pair of loop/Loop clues (for the CTA and CC'ED), the nifty GOOGLE HITS, [Pan handler] for CHEF, and [Simple life?] for AMEBA. FLOE is timely given yesterday's news story about a larger-than-Manhattan floe that's broken off from an Arctic ice shelf.
Favorite clue in Bob Klahn's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Copper Heads": [50 Cent pieces] for RAPS. (Elsewhere, UNUM is [Twenty-five-cent word].)
The Fresh Princes of New York
The crossword cognoscenti all recognize Peter Gordon's antipathy to using the same ol' clues in the New York Sun puzzles. Did you know that the New York Times clues under Will Shortz's aegis, while perhaps less aggressively new than the Sun clues, also tend to eschew the same ol' stuff? It's true. If you use the Cruciverb database and look up the clue summary for, say, STY, you find that the #1 clue is the rhyming [Pig's digs]. The NYT hasn't used that clue in over six years (four times in the earlier years included in the database), and the Sun's used it just once, in 2002. In contrast, the LA Times, Creators Syndicate, and CrosSynergy puzzles have each turned to [Pig's digs] seven to 10 times.
So when you think about the sort of easy clues that you've seen over and over (and over) again, you might not be encountering them so much in the Sun or the Times. This is just one factor that makes Will and Peter's puzzles more challenging, interesting, and consistently high-quality than the other mainstream daily crosswords.
December 28, 2006
Friday, 12/29
NYS 6:25
LAT 5:25
12/15 CHE 4:05
NYT 4:02
CS 3:09
WSJ 7:54
Reagle MIA—the source for the Across Lite version isn't publishing this weekend
(post updated at 11:20 a.m. Friday)
First up, Seth Abel's NYT crossword, which I kept thinking was a Thursday puzzle, wondering what the theme or gimmick was. (Hmm, Friday, themeless. Gotcha.)
And Jeffrey Harris's 15x16 Sun puzzle, "Where Have All the Vowels Gone?" As it turns out, the vowels are mostly there. This reminds me of the ad copy in the Polana food catalog: "Who stole the kiszka? Nobody stole our kiszka, we have plenty of it!" (I also kinda wish I'd written the copy for their head cheese.) The Sun puzzle's missing just a few vowels in the theme entries, yielding warped phrases that end with LBS (LaBS), JR (JaR), BLVD (BeLoVeD), KG (KeG), and CTR (aCToR). The theme left me surprisingly unmoved. Grossest clue/fill of the year: [Lump in one's throat?] for PHLEGM.
Moving back to the NYT crossword, I liked the grid's framing with four 15-letter conversational phrases (two taunts, a question, and LOVE CONQUERS ALL), none clued with a synonymous phrase in quotes, which I thought was an elegant touch. (Though a couple shorter phrases are clued with quotes.) There were a few answers I wouldn't necessarily have known a few weeks ago. Just recently, someone on the NYT forum mentioned that Alice FAYE can be deemed pig Latin, and a crossword taught me that ROSH is [Hebrew for "beginning"]. Here's hoping that a subsequent crossword will let me take advantage of learning here that LARA is an [1814 Byron poem]. Dig it: Byron's Lara is Count Lara. Favorite clue: [Nitpick?] for DELOUSE. I'm hoping the entry was included specifically because of the clue.
Updated:Fairly easy Wall Street Journal puzzle from Elizabeth Gorski, "Easy New Year's Resolutions."
Steven Lewis's December 15 Chronicle of Higher Education crossword, "Classical Physics," redefines five physics terms with classical music clues—wait, does Lawrence Welk's orchestra count as classical music?
Thomas Schier's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Familial Role Reversals," swapped MOTHER and SISTERS with FATHER and BROTHERS in the theme entries. Elsewhere in the grid, I half expected the answer to ["Treasure of the Sierra ___"] to be PADRE.
Doug Peterson's LA Times puzzle inserted YOS into base phrases to concoct things like MAYOR'S ROVER, [Canine at city hall?]. It took me a while to grasp the theme, and even more time to figure out the fill clues. Either the clues were a tough batch, or I just couldn't hit on the right wavelength.
December 27, 2006
Thursday, 12/28
LAT 4:58
NYT 4:34
NYS 3:43
CS 3:36
Aren't Karen Tracey's themeless puzzles a ton of fun? Her Themeless Thursday in the Sun is no exception. (Spoilers down yonder.)
Ed Early's NYT puzzle had a quote theme combined with a themeless vibe—just 72 words (with 40 black squares shaping the left/right symmetry), including two corners with stacked 9-letter entries (like the quaint KNEE PANTS) and tough bits like [Gearwheel tooth cutter] for HOB. The quote is from James Russell Lowell; you can read his bio at Wikipedia and many of his other quotes (but not this one) at Wikiquote. I liked C PLUS ([A little better than average]), the consonant-dense TWELFTHS, the [Outfielder's cry] I GOT IT, FLASHCARD, and NEVERMORE with a non-Poe clue. I do enjoy twisty Thursday gimmicks, but there's also something to be said for a Thursday puzzle that smacks of Friday fill and clues.
Karen's Sun puzzle had many of her trademarks—two interesting long answers crossing in the middle (SCHADENFREUDE, which I love, and JOHN QUINCY ADAMS), Scrabbly letters (the great BLOWZY, plus SHORTZ crossing DR KATZ), exotic geography (MONROVIA and GABONESE), 70 words in a sprawling grid, lively phrases (I THEE WED, JURY-RIGS, GO NUDE), and pop culture (BREE, LAA-LAA, HAL ASHBY). Hey, you know what I'd like to see? A book of Karen Tracey puzzles. I'm sure I wouldn't be the only buyer.
December 26, 2006
Wednesday, 12/27
NYS 5:08
CS 4:19
NYT 3:46
LAT 3:30
I should get back to finishing up my Big Project With a Looming Deadline (and what good is a deadline if you don't use every last bit of it?), so I'll be brief.
The Wednesday NYT is by Manny Nosowsky, and not only are the theme entries a little resistant to solving, but plenty of other clues are on the tough side. For example, ["That just shouldn't happen"] is IT'S A SIN, [A chorus line] is ALTO, and ["Peace on earth," e.g.] is WISH. Super-cute to have [Napoleon's place] lead to both ELBA and BAKERY. The theme entries are all conversational filler that might be attributed to certain types of people; for example, FRANKLY SPEAKING is how a hot dog vendor might introduce a comment.
In the Sun, Tony Orbach and Patrick Blindauer team up for "TD Conversions," in which the theme entries convert T's in base phrases into D's. Thus, "height and weight" become HIDE AND WADE. Favorite clue: [Strange bedfellows might give them to you] for STDS—nice not to limit those letters to being an abbreviation for "standards." I suppose [Flies into the seats]/DINGERS has to do with baseball, but don't know exactly. ARM CANDY and NAME-DROP are the fill highlights.
December 25, 2006
Tuesday, 12/26
NYS 3:36
LAT 2:52
NYT 2:34
CS untimed
Onion tba
Tausig tba
(no post updating today—book deadline looms!)
On Christmas Eve, my mother gave me a gag gift—a 1993 Kappa Books publication, Crossword Companion 4, containing 106 (no, not 100—a hundred and six!) unthemed 13x13 crosswords, complete with 2-letter entries. "We trust that you will find weeks and weeks of solving pleasure from the puzzles that follow," the introduction notes. (Weeks!) Printed right on the cover is a yellow starburst: WALMART SPECIAL PRICE 2/$1.00. Whoo-hoo!
A simple but surprisingly elegant NYT crossword by C.W. Stewart—while the theme entries are so basic that a kid could (given easier clues and the animal + homophone gimmick) figure them all out, the theme structure pulls together perfectly. All six have a noun preceded by a modifier, with half using the animal as the noun and half as the modifier. The animal names all appear in exactly symmetrical sets of squares—the MOOSE at the beginning of 19-Across is matched to the HORSE at the end of 58-Across. And then you've got those wide-open corners packed with 6-letter entries to freshen things up a bit. I think this might be an NYT debut for the constructor, too. If so, congratulations!
Monday, 12/25
LAT 3:20
NYT 3:18
CS 3:10
Merry Christmas and—for non-Christmas-celebrants—happy day off work! The Fiendlet relished all his gifts from Santa this morning, but was whining about being bored before noon. So it goes. His mother, however, is enjoying the solitaire version of the Blokus board game. More challenging than a crossword! Especially on Monday.
Adam G. Perl's NYT crossword includes three ALPHABET QUARTETs in the theme—entries containing ABCD, LMNO, and RSTU runs of letters. You know, my husband bought himself a plasma HD set. There was a Ghostbusters sequel on today, but I don't think it was in HD—otherwise, we could have an alphabet quintet with high-DEF GHosts. Any other semi-legit quintets out there?
Harvey Estes' CrosSynergy crossword, "A Word from Scrooge," includes BAH in five lively theme entries, beribboned with 8- and 9-letter fill entries.
In Arthur W. Farris's LA Times puzzle, guess what 14-letter word is defined as FEAR OF VISITING / SANTA. Oddly enough, I don't recall seeing that particular joke before. It's got to be an old chestnut, though, doesn't it?
