The JimH Crossword Blog

Ape wrestlers

A dandy Friday Feb 1 head scratcher from Doug Peterson (answers.) The long clues are all too good to give away easily although you can click to reveal but here are some of my favorite shorter ones.

"Playboy's plea" is RENEW. As soon as I saw that I knew this puzzle would be good. Then I got "Prepare for a shower, maybe" as GIFT WRAP and I was hooked. I also liked both clues along the bottom: "Without much wind" is TERSELY and "Tickled the most" becomes PINKEST.

"Domesticates" as GENTLES struck me as odd, but at least I could wrap my brain around it. Could someone please explain why "Ape wrestlers" is GRAPPLE? I know I'm going to feel stupid when the answer arrives, but I don't get it.

In other news, I should have realized that I'm only an amateur when it comes to trying to be offensive. The Times raves today about Jerry Springer: The Opera which had only two performances at Carnegie Hall. Ben Brantley opines that it could be the great American musical of the 21st century. Wow.

Update: I love the Internet. I ask a question and the answer comes just a few minutes later. Profphil explains the grappling apes in his comment below.

Doug Peterson had another winning puzzle a couple of years ago. What might CONDOLEEZZA RICE and DOESN'T KNOW BEANS be? Click here for the answer.

Profile of a crossword solver

I turned on Google Analytics a couple of days ago and I now have some data about you, dear readers. For example, 80% of you use Windows. I thought the Mac total (18%) might be higher. Those of you on Apples prefer Safari more than 2 to 1 over Firefox. The next most popular OS is the iPhone. Does that even work on my blog?

You come from around the world, but mostly U.S. and Canada. The state with the most visitors is New York followed by California. The city with the most traffic is New York followed by, as it happens, Brooklyn. The "heat map" of NY shows more specifically where the hits originate. Bigger circles mean more visitors. Click it for a larger view.

I bragged in a previous post that I could bring traffic to my site by using a tough clue as a blog post title, so how did that work out? Over the next day, 136 people got directed here by typing "Stellar swan" into a search engine. Tiny numbers for the established crossword blogs but big news for me. Still, nearly as many visitors came here by typing "Rex Parker triangulation" which continues to crack me up. If you want Rex (mini-bio) his blog is here. Sorry to divert you. On my stats site www.xwordinfo.com the most common search phrases are "Nancy Drew's guy", "Bourg's department", and "Fangorn forest dweller" which says something about which clues people struggle with. The answers are NED, AIN, and ENT, if you've forgotten.

Of course this isn't a true cross section of crossword solvers, only people who read my blog. Smart solvers go to one of the sites listed in the left column which provide, how can I put this, useful information. Really smart solvers don't need help at all.

The month ends with Paula Gamache's Jan 31 puzzle (answers) and she falls victim to a software bug. Apparently some people have problems with the notepad feature of Across Lite so info that used to be hidden away in the notepad now gets included as part of the title instead. Too bad. Sometimes you want to figure out the trick on your own.

That made the title longer than my program at www.xwordinfo.com was expecting so uploading my solution failed and I had a bug to fix too. It made it a frustrating day since, because of a dumb error, I couldn't finish the puzzle without looking up answers. Damn.

Of special note, this puzzle marks the NYT debut of both OPIUM DEN, safely ensconced in the literary reference "Setting in Sherlock Holmes's 'The Man with the Twisted Lip'" and BRAIN DEAD, gingerly clued as "Not just stupid." And finally, I should have saved my offensive post for today since Paula introduces the first NYT fart joke in my memory with WITS END. Brava! I mean, I'm thinking of canceling my subscription in protest!

What's your Offensiveness Index?

For God's sake, quit reading this post now if you're easily offended.

Still with me? Ok, I warned you.

I blogged a couple of weeks ago about how mainstream crossword puzzles are hampered by the insistence on the safe and the uncontroversial. Orange commented recently that cluing RIB as "Eve's origin" was not only sketchy science but unconscionably sexist. It bugs me too that currently out-of-fashion supernatural entities (Zeus, Isis) are treated differently than equally implausible fashionable ones, presumably to avoid offending adherents. The difference is that I say, to quote the philosopher G. W. Bush, "Bring 'em on!" Go ahead and offend me. Give me something to get riled about. Amuse me with your balls. (Woops!)

Rather than give you a detailed analysis on what I think is or isn't appropriate and why, I'm taking a tip from trashy supermarket magazines. They provide inane quizzes that answer life's persistent questions. Why can't I do the same? So, here it is. What's your O.I.?

Imagine you're Will Shortz. Which of these would you allow? Which amuse you but you wouldn't use anyway? Which offend you deeply? I'll try to include some of each. I'll even help you write your comment. Start as follows: "Sir, I am shocked and appalled!". You can fill in the rest yourself. Click the links below for the answer words... if you dare.

1. Ditzy dame (6 letters)
2. The _____ Man's Burden (Kipling) (5 letters)
3. Wuss (5 letters)
4. Poop (4 letters, of course)
5. World Trade Center destroyer (4 letters)
6. Spectacles, testicles, wallet and _____ (5 letters)
7. Book with conflicting creation stories (7 letters)
8. State with the worst education system (7 letters)
9. Wet t-shirt feature (6 letters)
10. Clinton grand jury testimony (4 letters)

To see how you did, add up your score, multiply by 9/5 and add 32. All the answer words have been used before. The only clue on my list that you'll find in the NYT database is poop which has four occurrences.

There's nothing at all offensive in the Wednesday puzzle by Peter A. Collins (answer) unless you make a vowel-substitution mistake on 57 Across, Extreme poverty.

Update: The best part of doing this blog is getting to virtually meet other addicts or, in this case, a pusher. In exchanging email with Constructor Collins it's become clear, though, that I have failed to note a couple of significant accomplishments. First, this is Peter's tenth published NYT puzzle. That's the cutoff for inclusion in my Most Prodigious Authors list so you can now check out his entire oeuvre. As he says, "Number 237 with a bullet, baby!"

More importantly, he has shattered the previous record for most number of "G's" in a 15 by 15 grid. Take that, Manny Nosowsky (mini bio here)! We all get a lot of pleasure from this hobby and so in this, an entry devoted to pushing the envelope, it seems appropriate to praise Mr. Collins particularly for tickling the crossword G-spot more often than anyone else.

Stellar swan

The Tuesday, January 29 puzzle by C. W. Stewart and J. K. Hummel (answers) is, surprisingly, the first time the constellation CYGNUS (aka the Northern Cross) shows up in my NYT database, although its brightest star DENEB is a bit of a regular. Why mention all this? I recently added hooks into this blog site for Google Analytics which gives me all sorts of summarized data about where my readers come from (geographically, not philosophically), what browsers on what operating systems they use, and so on. Much of my traffic comes from people typing clues into search engines. Putting the exact clue into a blog post title means the phrase shows up in an <h3> tag from which search engines infer significance. Posts like Required reading for 007 are among my most popular. I intend to use this knowledge for evil and not good by manipulating further searches to my nefarious advantage.

The theme clues today had this in common: THEY CAN BE ROLLED. Not much of a theme, really, but the authors redeemed themselves somewhat by making the other theme answers progressively more clever from top to bottom. I liked the non-theme clue "Old Timer?" for SUNDIAL which is again, surprisingly to me, new to the NYT database. Did it make me smile? You bet your "Braying beast" (65 Down.)

The Crossword Puzzle Moment

I call myself a crossword addict. There’s a deep sense in which that’s true. As the joke goes, I can quit any time I want; I just don’t want. But what’s the hook? What do I get out of an activity that looks suspiciously like homework? The answer is what I call the Crossword Puzzle Moment.

Remember the knock against American-style crosswords is that, far more than their cryptic foreign counterparts, they rely on factual knowledge. You either know the name of some TV character or river or politico, or you don’t. So what’s the point?

The point is that you know more than you think, and dredging musty facts out of the far corners of your brain is satisfying. Making synaptic connections that have lain dormant for years causes something deep in the pleasure center to squeeze out a juicy shot of chemical goodness. How many times has this happened to you? You read a clue and know immediately that there’s no way you can know the answer. Then while you stare at the boxes the answer letters slowly dissolve into place before your eyes.

I separate these experiences into two categories — facts you knew you once knew and facts you know you never knew. "Reagan Attorney General" is an example of the first. If you’re old enough to have read newspapers or watched TV during the 1980s then this is a name that you heard every few days but, unless you’re a puzzle regular, haven’t thought of in decades. You notice the answer is five letters and all of a sudden something clicks. EDWIN, right? No, that was the first name. The last name is stored somewhere in a nearby folder in the same general disk location. It’s on the tip of your cranium, just out of reach. You finally give up and concentrate on the next clue and just when you divert your brainpower to another topic the word MEESE floats up into your consciousness. Who knows how or from where, but it feels good. Maybe you never forget anything in your life and just need the right trigger to pull it out. That would be depressing if true.

The second category is even more amazing; those facts you know for sure you don’t know, have no way of knowing, couldn’t possibly have ever known. Here’s an example that happened to me a while ago. The clue is "Seinfeld role", 6 letters. I’ve never seen that show, I have no clue what it’s about (despite friends trying to explain it to me) and consequently I skip immediately to the next clue. With the cross clues I get an E as the final letter, and I know immediately that the answer is ELAINE. How? I have no idea. I must have read something about the show or heard people talking about it. Who knows? The point is, it’s not just an aha moment. It’s not just that I figured out some logic puzzle and can be smug about how clever I am. It’s more like magic. I concentrated. I relaxed. The answer came to me.

Maybe this is what religious experience is like for some people, like the universe is speaking to them, providing them with answers. Maybe it’s all just Crossword Puzzle Moments. Or maybe God likes crosswords too.

As usual, recent solutions are in the Answers module in the right-hand column. Happy puzzling.

Reader Mail

For some reason this blog generates far more private mail than it does comments so it's time to reach into the old electronic mailbag and catch up on some reader stories and questions.

 

British Cryptics update

Here's a link to British puzzle master Peter Biddlecombe's new post Independent and Financial Times Crosswords for new solvers including commentary, some frequently asked questions, and links to the puzzles themselves. Check 'em out.

 

The family that puzzles together...

I loved hearing from reader Michael McFadden. Here are some of his comments and a story that proves crosswords don't have to be a solitary activity.

Jim – I started reading your [January 13 post] with the bit about "why aren’t crossword puzzles more popular?" – good question. I try to turn people on to them by showing them completed interesting ones, where there is a cool twist to it. I have the famous 11/5/96 NYT hanging on my office wall (the Election Day one where "CLINTON" and "BOBDOLE" were interchangeable) and show that one often. However, most neophytes will pick up a blank puzzle and scan all the clues quickly, in its entirety and feel overwhelmed. They don’t realize that you don’t even have to know all the answers, there are plenty of hunches and good guesses involved once you get into the nitty gritty of the grid. I see sudoku fanatics on the bus all the time. I tried it, it gave me a headache and I kept thinking "I could do this in a minute in Excel". Plus, where is the payoff? Where is the wit? AND you never learn anything (today I learned MICHAELMAS DAISY was an aster…. Never knew that before!).

Your speed post was great, the phrase: "some supernatural force of nature from Chicago whose over-clocked brain works on completely different scientific principles" cracked me up. I am the same way as you, I do not go for speed at all and am awestruck by people like Amy. Then again, I slow down during the last chapters of a good book just to savor the experience. I started doing the Sunday NYT puzzle with my dad, he would start it off and then pass it around to the family and we would all chip in. He had a few rules — don’t put anything down unless you have something crossing it to anchor it down. He also told me never to underestimate yourself; once there was a large quote running through the puzzle as a theme and there was an ending clue that said something like "Writer of the quote" and we had a lot of blanks and then NKN together. I told my dad that we screwed up, something is wrong — who has a name that has NKN together? He said to hang in there and he was right as the answer was AUTHOR UNKNOWN.

Best regards, Mike

 

Questions and Answers

Here are some answers to questions I've received, some from multiple sources.

Q. Why don't you include a complete puzzle analysis each day?

A. Because there are lots of other great sites that do that, some linked from the left column. Instead, I enjoy thinking about and writing about the world of crosswords and I often let each puzzle inspire the day's theme.

Q. But I came here looking for answers!

A. No problem. Even when I don't blog about a specific puzzle, I post my answers each day. There are links right under the Quick Clues module in the right hand column.

Q. Is that painting supposed to be you? Is that what you look like?

A. No and no. It's a Picasso self portrait. I just happen to love it.

Q. Do you do other crosswords? Other puzzles?

A. I do lots of each. I love puzzles. This site concentrates on NYT crosswords because I wanted to limit my scope and because the NYT is the only important institution which makes its archive available publicly going back far enough to make statistical analysis interesting. See www.xwordinfo.com.

Q. Have you ever written a published puzzle?

A. Not a crossword but there's one famous puzzle I created, or at least popularized. Every version of Microsoft Windows from about 1990 until Vista shipped last year included a puzzle game I wrote called FreeCell.

Q. Why the anonymity? Why just JimH?

A. With every job I've ever had, my email address has been jimh and that's how many people know me in real life. You can see my full name by opening up FreeCell, choosing Help from the menu, and opening the About box.

Dear Leader

One great thing about crosswords is that everybody knows something about something. I nearly added that nobody knows everything about everything but there is that elite group, and Will Shortz knows the names of each of them, who do, but let's ignore them for now.

I have vast areas of ignorance — a fact brought to my attention on Fridays and Saturdays by Will and his sadistic accomplices — but there's always a toehold that makes the puzzles possible. The fun part is that your toehold will be different than mine. Let's look at the Friday January 25 puzzle by David Quarfoot (answers) as an example.

I happen to be a musician so I could quickly do the logic that 18 Across must be a major key and 9 down was BEER so it must be E MAJOR so 58 across must be A SHARP and before I knew it I had a bunch of letters in opposite corners. Maybe you know that Columbus sailed OESTE or that ARTICLE VI forbids religious tests for political office. One or two answers is often enough for the magic to kick in, and soon even the hard clues tumble into place one by one.

Along the way you learn a thing or two, like the astounding fact that in North Korea, head of state KIM JONG-IL goes by the jaunty moniker Dear Leader, a.k.a. 친애하는 지도자. Man, Korean crosswords must be hard!

Unsafe?

A short post today because I'm working on some longer essays coming soon. The Thursday January 24 puzzle by Matt Ginsberg (answers) is exactly the kind I like. It was difficult at first until the trick unlocks it and everything falls most satisfactorily into place. My favorite clue was "Unsafe?" (3 letters.) For the answer, click here.

As an interesting side note, the same constructor clued the same word as "So last year" exactly one week ago and that's a great clue too.

Manly deeds, womanly words

Long-time followers of this web site will know that the JimH Crossword Blog is all about manly deeds and, yes, womanly words too. Who knew that this was also the motto of the great state of MARYLAND? Not me, that's for sure.

In fact, you have to be smarter and perhaps older than me for the Jan 23 puzzle (answers) to be only Wednesday-level difficult. It's been a while since CAMELOT debuted, and Hollywood Squares? What's that? (Whatever happened to ROSE MARIE?) Those fabled LAZY, HAZY, CRAZY days of summer were a few summers ago.

Oddly enough, this makes me happy. It means I can look forward to enjoying crosswords well after the "kids nowadays" have no respect for whatever cultural icons I latch onto and I'll be the one who gets the obscure clues from my generation.

Look, up in the sky!

I've never met a professional setter (I love that Britishism for "constructor" that Peter taught me in the previous post) but today's Tuesday January 22 puzzle by Adam G. Perl (answers) has pushed me to ponder how one might approach the job. Once again as I do so often in this blog, I'm just going to make it up!

The actual mechanics of fitting theme words appropriately into a grid, doing the fill and creating the clues has been well documented but what comes before that? Like every artist, the puzzle author starts by staring at a blank canvas and asking himself what story he's going to tell today. He glances around the room and then out the window searching for inspiration. He leans his head back and closes his eyes and lets his mind wander. What excites him? What does he love? From where (ok, for this audience "whence") does a warm feeling worth sharing with the world arise? For Mr. Perl, the answer took him back to his childhood, to those magical moments when a D.C. comic completely captured his imagination. Today's puzzle has a Superman theme. And guess what? It brought me back to those same fun memories. Thanks, Adam.

This reminds me of two favorite past puzzles. There was another Superman puzzle back on Oct 31, 2000 by Bill Zais with its pattern of circles in the shape of an S each containing an S. Then there was this lovely puzzle from Jan 1, 2004 by Richard Silvestri. The black squares in the middle form a letter S, the two long answers are clued " S " and " 's ", and to top it off, every single clue starts with S as well. Splendid!