The JimH Crossword Blog

Déjà vu all over again

The new Wordplay blog is live. This time I mean it. Swing by and check it out.

http://wordplay.blogs.nytimes.com

That means The JimH Crossword Blog is being put to sleep. It’s been a fun year blogging from outside The Beltway but it’s time to leave the Real America behind as I set up shop at the new URL.

Thanks to my many visitors, commenters and contributors, the experience of writing this blog has been incredibly satisfying for me. I’ve met so many smart and interesting people, at least virtually. I’m grateful to you all.

I won’t be updating this blog any more but it’s not going away either. All the posts and all your comments will remain on line for posterity. It’s always good to help out those posteriors, don’t you think?

I was a blogger for the New York Times

Really, I was. It was live for about two hours. Eight times the Warhol limit. I even got a comment. So, ok, if you blinked you missed it but for the rest of my life, I can put "NYT Blogger" on my resume.

It was so much fun, I'm going to do it again. Maybe even for longer this time. To answer a great many questions, it's looking like Monday will be the official re-launch. I hope you'll drop by and say hi. Garson Hampfield said October, so does that mean we're still on schedule?

 

Update: Shortz Numbers continue to drop for some constructors as I find more errors in the data. A recent comment from Liz Whistler identified three more pairs of constructor name that were misspelling of one another. It would be a long-shot bet to guess that I've now found all the errors...

V Formation

Thanks to the sharp eyes of many readers, I'm gradually cleaning up the data in XWord Info. Once a week or so, someone sends me mail with another bug: a constructor name is misspelled, a clue is transcribed incorrectly, or an answer is just wrong.

Today's bug report was especially embarrassing because it concerned one of my favorite puzzles. V Formation by Elizabeth C. Gorski is one of the most elegantly lovely puzzles in the collection.

Try it yourself with this updated Across Lite file. If you want to spoil the fun, the complete answers are here.

The original publication date was April 25, 2004.

Sexing the Constructors

What are the differences between crosswords constructed by men and by women? This is just one of the new areas of statistics I plan to pursue in the future. Unfortunately, I can't always check authors' Y chromosome counts directly so I have to guess.

The Shortz Number page now shows my best guess. There are some holes. I've listed all the currently unsexed constructors here. If you happen to know whether, C. W. Stewart, for example, is a man or a woman, please let me know.

Speaking of the Shortz Number, some of the assigned numbers have dropped a peg or two. Doing historical research with the help of a few friends has yielded a couple of cases where two presumably different constructors were combined when it was determined that one was just a misspelling of the other. Ashish Vengsarkar, for example, drops from #443 to #441. I hope you haven't already ordered t-shirts, Ashish.

Anyway, please help out if you can by identifying the "unknowns" or pointing out sex errors in the Shortz Number page. Thanks.

 

Update: Thanks to a certain Puzzlemaster, the "unknown" list is down to a single constructor. For those who placed bets, Carolyn W. Stewart turned out to be a woman.

Wordplay is Live!

 

 

The Wordplay blog is live. For those who don't know, The JimH Crossword Blog is winding down and it's being replaced by a new blog at http://wordplay.blogs.nytimes.com.

The first real post will be Sunday evening for the Monday puzzle but stop by, check out the new environment, and say hi. I'm looking forward to reconnecting with old friends at my new address.

UPDATE:

It turns out the Times isn't quite ready to roll out the new blog this weekend after all. Things are so much more complicated when it's not just a one-man shop. I'll let you know when I learn the real start date. Sigh...

XWord Info Constructor stats have changed

Perhaps only crossword authors care about this but I have changed how I calculate constructor stats for puzzles with more than one author.

If you want to learn more, this page explains it all. Even more exciting, you can also find out your Shortz Number™!

 

The new NYT blog is looking like it's ready to roll out sometime next week. I'll let you know.

Garson Hampfield on Broadway

Crossword solvers are clever. Yes, I mean you.

When I mentioned that a very special guest would be announcing the upcoming New York Times Crossword Blog, I didn't expect anyone would figure out who that guest would be. I think the first two guesses were both Garson Hampfield, which turns out to be correct. I'll try never to underestimate my audience again.

Of course by now the cat's out of the bag but the name of the blog and the new URL are a closely-held secret which I'll let Mr. Hampfield reveal. Here's a hint to that, which I now fully expect you to get. The Times had to do a special deal with a movie company to get permission.

If you haven't yet met Garson, you should start with his brilliant debut video here.

Then check out the new announcement video here.

Interview with a blogger

JH: You’re on record here at The JimH Crossword Blog as being an admirer of Glenn Gould, the pianist with the odd personal quirks like humming while he played and sometimes interviewing himself.

JH: I don’t think there’s anything necessarily odd about…

JH: And like Gould quitting his concert career at the height of his success, you’re dumping the blog that made your name just when you’re on a roll.

JH: That’s rather stretching the point. I’m moving to a new label, that’s all.

JH: Selling out, I think is what you’re trying to say.

JH: That’s somewhat harsh. I’m very proud of having a chance to write for the Times and I’m excited about where this experiment might take us. I’m sure it will evolve in directions we can’t yet imagine.

JH: What have you learned by writing about crosswords during the past year?

JH: Good question.

JH: Thanks.

JH: I used to think of myself as a good solver but it turns out the world is full of people who are smarter, faster, and more knowledgeable than me. Never sit right behind Tyler Hinman at the ACPT, that’s my advice. I admire the great solvers and I’m in awe of the best constructors.

JH: Why did you create your blog?

JH: Like all bloggers, I suffer from the twin delusions that I have unique insights and that other people might care to hear them. When you start a blog, there’s no way to tell if that’s true and feedback comes slowly at first, especially in an established field like crosswords. The other bloggers have been great, by the way. Amy and Rex and Linda and Donald were early linkers. Much of my traffic comes via links from Rex's blog. Amy has been a great help, gently noting bugs and typos. I wish she’d make more mistakes so I could return the favor. The other person who most helped was PhillySolver, aka Michael Smith. Sometimes it’s hard to get that first comment before others roll in and PS was brave and persistent and was an early supporter.

JH: What about the constructors? What do they think of someone like you opining on their art?

JH: The ones who have contacted me have been universally supportive. Some of my favorite posts are the constructor interviews. Often those come after a long series of exchanges about puzzle philosophy or the practical aspects of their craft. The women and men who create and edit crosswords make magic inside small boxes, literally and figuratively.

JH: Huh?

JH: Oh, never mind.

JH: Have you become a better solver by writing this blog?

JH: Oh, probably, but not much. I’m having more fun, though, because I’m learning more about it.

JH: What will happen to the stats site XWord Info?

JH: Well, it will get a new visual design, some of the internals will be rewritten to use ASP.NET 3.5 and LINQ (sorry, geek talk) but the capabilities will be similar. Updating the code is part of the reason I’m taking some time off before starting the new blog. Also, at the request of The Times, I’m going to stop revealing full solutions before they do, usually 24 hours after publication. I realize there are other places on the web where answers can be found quickly if you’re stuck. Commenters will be free to say anything they like.

JH: What other constraints will you be under?

JH: Writing for the Times carries some new responsibilities. I need to learn their style guide, I can’t use copyrighted images or text, I should probably avoid subjecting the paper to legal jeopardy, and so on. On the other hand, I get to work with an editor!

JH: What do all those stats you track have to do with anything?

JH: For me, it’s another layer on top of the solving experience that often reveals something interesting but I realize many people don’t care about the numbers. Some constructors find it helpful.

JH: Will your style change?

JH: Not intentionally, although I hope my writing continues to improve. According to the Will Shortz announcement, I’m supposed to be lively, insightful, and amusing. I’ll start with just one of those at a time, move up to two, and see how it goes from there.

JH: You said something about a special guest coming to this blog?

JH: That's still to come. The cat's out of the bag but you'll want to check back here over the next few days.

JH: Ok, I will. When are you publishing your promised Critique of Crossword Blogs?

JH: Several people have asked me that but it turns out I was kidding.

JH: What? You bastard!

JH: Hey! You can’t say that on the new site, so start being careful, ok?

JH: Sorry. But thanks for chatting.

Will Nediger

It's amazing what you learn from crosswords. Today I learned that ANNE RICE was born Howard Allen O'Brien. Her mother liked the name. The Saturday, September 13 puzzle (answers) by Will Nediger wraps up Teen Week at the Times.

Artists of any stripe struggle to find their voice. Mr. Nediger is starting to establish a recognizable personal style. He has an unusual sense of humor that I enjoy and a confidence that belies his youth. And maybe great software. Whatever, it works.

Back when I interviewed Caleb Madison I was able to include a photo of him with Jemaine Clement. (Knowing who Mr. Clement is will be important if you ever want to pass yourself off as a cool teenager.) Will Nediger joins in with his own celebrity photo, a definer of cool in an earlier age. That's Tommy Chong in the middle and Mr. Nediger on the right. I can't tell where the photo was taken but it seems clear the trio traveled either years into the future or to a galaxy far, far away.

JH: Hi, Will, and thanks for speaking with me. According to today's notepad, you’re an 18-year old second-year student at the University of Western Ontario. What are you studying?

WN: I'm majoring in linguistics, which is no surprise to anyone who knows me and my love for all things word-related, which is also what got me into cruciverbalism and Scrabble. Of course, it turns out Scrabble isn't really a word game at bottom and a lot of linguistics is pretty mathematical, but at least crosswords are still an activity for logophiles.

JH: What is your solving and constructing background? What first prompted you to build your own? Tell me about getting your first puzzle published back in May, 2006.

WN: I've been solving for as long as I can remember. I wore out many a pad of graph paper constructing when I was younger, but my early efforts were full of entries like MITSU (clued with relation to Mitsubishi somehow) and worse. I never constructed themelesses, either, though nowadays those are mostly what I construct. I sent my very first attempt at a themeless to Peter Gordon and, predictably, it was rejected but I sent in a few more and slowly improved with Peter's guidance. I had lots of experience with the NY Sun by the time I tried the Times, so I think my second submission to the Times was accepted.

JH: How does being a Canadian affect your puzzle construction?

WN: There are lots of things most Canadians know that would be a mystery to Americans and vice versa, so some things which don't seem like obscurities actually will be to American solvers who make up most of the audience. The Quebec Act, for example, which I included in my Q&A Session puzzle, is part of every Canadian schoolchild's education, but fairly obscure for non-Canadians. Still, that didn't stop me from crossing QUEBECACT with EGOYAN. On the flip side, there's lots of Americana I don't know that most solvers do.

JH: What other puzzles besides crosswords do you like?

WN: Most anything, but I'm a professed anti-Sudokist.

JH: Which constructors do you particularly admire?

WN: I'm a themeless fanatic and I especially like Karen Tracey's creations which usually have creative grid designs framed with plenty of fresh and Scrabbly entries. Frank Longo's grid-filling prowess is also amazing, particularly in his large puzzles in Simon & Schuster. These are often packed with fill entries intersecting multiple theme entries which is always hard to pull off. I can always count on a puzzle with Byron Walden or Ben Tausig in the byline to be fun.

JH: How specifically has Will Shortz or Peter Gordon helped you?

WN: Will always includes useful comments with his rejection letters and even sometimes with acceptance letters. (I'll resist the temptation to make the inevitable "constructive criticism" pun here.) And he's very in touch with the cruciverbal zeitgeist which makes it a lot easier for constructors to know what he expects from submissions.

I remember Peter redoing a corner of an early themeless which he accepted. Initially I was really concerned with keeping the short fill clean, to the detriment of the longer fill. So I had a corner in which every entry was decent, but none of them had any sparkle. This works well for a themed puzzle (Stan Newman does this well), but not so well for a themeless, so he jazzed up the corner a little. I don't remember my original fill, but his had BARSCENE / IRISHSEA / TEETOTAL stacked.

JH: What advice do you have for other people wanting to get into crossword construction?

WN: Keep an eye on the blogosphere so you know what solvers like and what they don't. Then, once you've figured out what people like, ignore it. With time, you'll be able to satisfy editors while still sticking with your own style.

I particularly like that last quote.

New York Times announcement

I’ve been scooped by The Times!  This announcement was posted in the Today’s Puzzle forum on the nytimes.com website today:

 

wshortz - 11:32 AM ET September 12, 2008 (#61909 of 61922)

Announcement

The Times has asked me to make an important announcement about something starting next month -- an official New York Times crossword blog.

This new blog will feature daily commentary on the puzzles by Jim Horne, whom many of you already know from his website www.xwordblog.com. Jim will continue his lively, insightful, amusing writeups on the Times puzzles, with bonus information and occasional contributions from yours truly. The blog will incorporate Jim's database of crossword stats (currently at www.xwordinfo.com) in addition to having many new features.

The existing problem-riddled forum will be discontinued when the new blog begins. Besides the addition of official commentary, probably the most noticeable change for you will be your ability to read and write comments about specific puzzles via threaded discussions, rather than all the comments appearing linearly. And behind the scenes, the Times promises that the technical performance of the blog will be much more robust than that for the forum. No more "Service Unavailable" messages, we hope!

The exact start date of the blog is still to be decided.

I hope this official new blog will make the Times' crosswords more enjoyable, answer questions better, be more informative, and help bring the Times' online crossword community even closer together.

--Will Shortz

 

So, yes, I’m moving to a slightly more upscale web address. This current blog will remain here as a kind of archive.

I’ll have lots more to say about this as I wrap up XWord Blog. This evening I’ll be running my last constructor interview and I have another interview to run over the next few days. Then there will be an official announcement appearing sometime in the next week or so.

Along the way, there will be some time for reflection and some thoughts about the future. I’m excited about the change. I hope you’ll join me at my home.

-- JimH

Yellow squirt

Fifteen-year-old Caleb Madison is back and his Thursday, September 11 puzzle (answers) has a bit of everything. There are circles, rebus squares, an odd-looking grid, a long answer split across two clues, and a connect-the-dots game to play when you're done. Only KITCHEN SINK seems to be missing.

Poor ELAINE MAY gets tagged as the director of Ishtar again. That colossal box office failure in 1987 ended her directing career. Perhaps future constructors could take pity on a remarkably talented woman and find some kinder clue in the future.

The rebus answers seem to be particularly well executed today, especially the middle and bottom ones. You have to look at them twice to convince your brain that they make sense. Bravo.

We had VLAD the Impaler yesterday and VAMPIRE BAT today. Dracula has certainly been a successful meme. The Bram Stoker novel is great fun to read, especially if you remember it was the progenitor of everything from Anne Rice to Buffy. In case you missed it, I have to mention KarmaSartre's wonderful comment on yesterday's post: "I always thought VLAD would make a good personalized license plate on a Chevy Impala."

It's nice to see IRENE Adler get a mention. Here are my other favorites: "They might be chocolate" for LABS, "Like some six-packs" for ABDOMINAL, and "Yellow squirt" for MUSTARD.

As I mentioned, I'm working on a couple of interviews so I'm not sure if there's going to be a post tomorrow. The next interview will run Friday evening for the Saturday puzzle, and the other will follow soon after.

It's what's inside that counts

Teen Week continues with the Wednesday, September 10 puzzle by Lucas Gaviotis Whitestone (answers.) The notepad says he's an 18-year-old student at Carnegie Mellon and his debut puzzle uses circles to explore the "inner" meaning of his four theme answers.

Today's surprise debut answer word is COWBELL. "It may be heard in a herd." "Menaces to hobbits" is a colorful clue for ORCS. IVOR Novello wrote Keep the Home Fires Burning. It was a big hit in 1915.

I'm not sure "standard degrees for scientists" works for CENTIGRADE SCALE. Surely scientists would far more often use the modern Celsius rather than the long-deprecated Centigrade. Perhaps "standard degrees for junior high science teachers approaching retirement" was too long.

"Come to PAPA" is such a common phrase. I wonder whence it arose.

This puzzle reminds me of a very memorable crossword from Tuesday April 25, 2006 by Kevan Choset. Try it here and you'll see why. I’m serious. Try it.

Since the political season is heating up, I think it's time to bring in a legendary foreign actor to explain what America is all about. Lights, Camera, Emote!

Domesticated ox in India

I love the Tuesday, September 9 puzzle by Patrick John Duggan (answers.) The theme is clever, the execution is brilliant, and the fill is entertaining.

Right at 1 Across there's a clue this is from a younger constructor. "Filter's target" refers to a programmatic filter trying to block SPAM. Some of my friends work on those algorithms for a living and it's a fascinating and complicated job. Spammers and blockers are constantly evolving their strategies in a never-ending battle of wits. It's all made possible because some tiny percentage of suckers insist on clicking those links. Just say no.

"Cut me some slack" sounds like a youthful expression. I know kids who say SHEESH all the time. "Fire insurance" is a wonderful clue for TENURE.

There were a few surprises. "Architect Saarinen" provokes the Pavlovian response by now to write in EERO but if you did so you found yourself a letter short. ELIEL, an art nouveau specialist, was Eero's dad. "Goes platinum" is my favorite clue ever for DYES. Platinum as in platinum blonde. "Escape from the rat race" momentarily tripped me up. Escape is a noun. The answer is SPA.

Carolyn KEENE never existed, of course. It was a pseudonym for the writers of the Nancy Drew mystery books, intended to be a Hardy Boys for girls. This line of work wasn't a lot more lucrative than crossword construction. Writers were initially paid $125 per book, although that went a lot further in the 30s and 40s.

ZEBU is a word worth remembering because it shows up from time to time. Clued here as "domesticated ox in India" it's a delicious combination of letters that constructors won't be able to resist. This is not to be confused with ANOA, the famous Celebes Ox.

Teen week continues through Saturday. Upcoming highlights include another constructor interview followed by an unconstructor interview. Stay tuned.

Teen puzzlemaker week

Constructing a crossword worthy of being published in the NYT requires years of puzzle-making experience and decades of life experience. This week is all about proving that previous sentence wrong. Every puzzle from now through Saturday is constructed by someone under 20 years old. Eventually it's going to be like women's gymnastics. By the time you're 14, you've lost the mental flexibility to be able to compete at the highest levels.

Or rather, the opposite is true and that's one of the wonderful aspects of crosswords. This is an activity that can be enjoyed at any stage of your life, and creators come from a wide variety of backgrounds. Bravo to Will Shortz for cultivating a new generation of constructors. Like every art form, crosswords will thrive and evolve in unexpected ways by introducing new brains into the creative mix.

The week kicks off with Oliver Hill's, Monday, September 8 puzzle (answers) and it's already making me hungry. I'm guessing that Mr. Hill came up with his theme while standing in line at the local deli in New Haven, Connecticut trying to figure out what to eat.

"Igloo inhabitants" are INUITS. Thank goodness. It's nice to see crosswords finally catching up to modern sensibilities and eschewing the Eskimo label.

As I do the puzzles this week, I'll be asking myself what seems different about this puzzle because it's written by a teenager. The Monday puzzle has so many constraints that it might be harder to let your youthful personality show through, but "actress Hudgens of High School Musical" is certainly a clue that I would never have thought of. That's VANESSA in the photo.

Crosswords cover a wide cultural gamut and part of the fun is taking a mental journey each day through a variety of topics. Today I was reminded of how much I admire Frank Loesser. Guys and Dolls is a remarkable score and for some reason the song SUE ME appeals to me at a deep level. I'll be humming it to myself the rest of the day.

 

Some people had problems downloading the Across Lite version of this puzzle from the NYT web site. I think it’s fixed now, but click here if you still need it.

Pun-ditry

We haven't heard from Randolf Ross here in over a year (he's been contributing to The Wall Street Journal) but his NYT puzzle count ranks number 10 in my database. The Sunday, September 7 crossword (answers) is his 90th, although he's a Tuesday short of hitting for the cycle. I don't imagine he cares.

As the political season heats up, the pundits are pontificating and what better puns than pundit puns to provide puzzle pleasure. Oh, Really? Yes, according to reliable sauces. BEAT THE PRESS has, oddly enough, been used before nearly exactly ten years ago.

Highlights today include "possessor of many rings" for TREE and "works at a museum" for OILS. NPR's SUSAN Stamberg makes her puzzle debut. Speaking of reliable sauces, she's the one with the cranberry relish. "Subject of the book Disaster in Dearborn" is a nice clue because crossword regulars can easily guess EDSEL without knowing anything about the book in question. "Passed out in a bad way" is a fun clue for MISDEALT because it makes you wonder about those times you passed out in a good way.

Word on the street is that Will and the rest of the NYT Box Team are treating us to Teen Week starting tomorrow — six consecutive puzzles constructed by kids — to make the rest of us feel old. I'm looking forward to it.

Root word?

Dr. Pangram is back. Four of Barry C. Silk's previous five puzzles have used every letter. Even more impressive, four of the previous five pangrams that anyone has constructed are by Mr. Silk.

Back on July 26, he started 1 Across with MR WIZARD which I thought described him pretty well. Today's Saturday, September 6 puzzle (answers) starts with "Westinghouse/Intel award winner". The answer is WHIZ KID. Indeed.

There is so much I love about this puzzle I'm not sure where to start. It's amazingly fresh according to my formula despite including OLE, but look how brilliant that clue is: "Root word?" A question mark on a Saturday means something very special is going on. Should I ever find myself watching a blood sport in Spain, it's a word I'll be sure to employ should I choose to root for the matador. Frankly, I'm more drawn to the underbull.

"Sounded like a bufflehead" made me laugh but it turns out a bufflehead is a duck, and probably one who is tired of being laughed at. You can hear one here for a very precise answer to that clue.

"Alert while driving" is another outstanding clue. Alert is a verb, not an adjective. I like to think that when other drivers HONK AT me, they're merely alerting me, not suggesting I do something obscene.

I had to look up Sal MAGLIE, the losing pitcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1956. Don Larsen of the Yankees pitched a perfect game and won the game 2-0 and the World Series at the same time. This seems obscure but I suppose it's legit. It's the only post-season perfect game in history. In fact, it's the only post-season no-hitter. Baseball fans care about these things even more than they care about pangrams, probably.

Hitchcock's Notorious was an RKO film, as was King Kong, Citizen Kane, and so many great movies of the 30s and 40s. Such brave filmmaking for the time, and it holds up well today. That's Ingrid Bergman with Cary Grant in the photo. Would you send her off to sleep with the Nazis to help win the war?