The JimH Crossword Blog

Twisted but Fair

At the Crossword Tournament in Brooklyn last winter I met Merl Reagle and bought his Sunday Crosswords Volume 14. His foreword (or rather 4-Wd.) concludes with the motto "My Guarantee—Twisted but Fair." Mr. Reagle lives up to that motto too. His creations are always fun.

But it's not just about fun. Fairness is critical in crosswords. It might seem overly picky but if I as a solver am going to invest a chunk of time, and for a Saturday puzzle it might take me a few chunks, then at least I want it to be fair.

The Saturday, May 10 puzzle by Karen M. Tracey (answers) reminded me of Mr. Reagle's slogan because it just manages to be fair for me. In fact, it nearly fit my personal definition of the perfect puzzle; one that on first glance seems completely impossible but gradually yields its secrets without having to resort to outside help. A secondary definition would be one that defeats me, but when I investigate the missing answers I realize I could have figured them out if I had thought a little harder. That's what happened today.

Ms. Tracey's puzzle was eminently doable, except for the bottom-left corner which tied me up in knots. "Work on it began in Rome in 1817." What an interesting clue! Most Roman multi-year accomplishments that come to mind began well before the 19th Century. What could it be? An opera maybe? Some famous painting? Nothing architectural, right? In fact it is architectural, just not Roman. Work on the ERIE CANAL began on July 4, 1817 at Rome, New York. The same clue without "in Rome" would have been much simpler. Dastardly.

That busy ditch combined with not knowing that "Hebrew or Phoenician" was CANAANITE doomed me.

Some favorite clues: "Make an impressive delivery" is ORATE. "Meat grinder" is MOLAR. "Top suit" is CEO. And for nostalgic reasons, I liked "Commodore competitor" as well. One of the very earliest personal computers was the Commodore PET (Personal Electronic Transactor). It came out in 1977, well before the IBM PC that changed the world in 1981. My first computer was its biggest competitor, the TRS-80, made by Radio Shack, aka TANDY Corp.

Where many lives are expended

I like Jim Page puzzles and he created today's May 9 crossword (answers) with his usual flair. I've talked before about being in synch with him. He manages to combine Friday density with natural sounding words and phrases. That's real skill.

This is the first time that ORIEL and ORIOLE have appeared together in the same puzzle. "Yellowish-orange spread" sounds disgusting but that gets decoded into APRICOT JAM which is, technically speaking, nummy.

I love clues like "It tells you where else to look." It's inherently amusing and it perfectly describes CROSS INDEX. "Where many lives are expended" seems like a tragic place but it turns out the lives are all virtual (as opposed to virtuous) and the offing occurs in an ARCADE. "Certain character sketch" for CEL. Lots of clever and precise clues even for the few common answers. That's the sign of a pro. Plus we learned something interesting about the Jolly Corks. Who knew?

It's nice to see Luchino Visconti's most famous (and most wonderful) film The Leopard get a mention. Rent the Criterion edition that came out a few years ago. RINA Morelli plays the princess.

Handheld computer, or holding hands

We were just talking about Nancy Salomon and today's Thursday, May 8 puzzle (answers) is by one of her frequent collaborators. Harvey Estes has 69 solo efforts plus 43 co-written with Ms. Salomon (and one with Bob Klahn) in my database.

Being lucky is as good as being smart and today the theme answers tumbled out quickly. I have a vague feeling I should feel ripped off when that happens on a Thursday, but just the opposite. It's fun to breeze through a mid-week. That could mean it was too easy or I'm getting smarter, but let me put the KIBOSH on those explanations and suggest it's just luck. Everything I guessed was right. That's statistically going to happen now and then.

I tried to do some etymological research on kibosh but it turns out all my references say the origin is either unknown or obscure. Isn't it odd how such a colorful word can make it into common speech without anyone remembering for sure how.

It was interested to see both IRE and IRK in the same puzzle. I thought that might be unique but it's happened twice before. Ire. gets a country reference for variety. "Chasers in a saloon, perhaps" is a great clue for POSSE.

That's ENYA in the photo. I've always thought she should do a duet with that other crosswordy vocalist Yma Sumac someday.

I Get Mail

The Wednesday May 7 puzzle (answers) is the second in four days for Richard Silvestri. It's back to the ballpark today after only thinking we might be headed there yesterday.

Other than the dead center, this was a fun and easy romp with so many clues I enjoyed. The "man of principle" is PETER. Back in 1970, The Peter Principle was one of those aha books that suddenly made the world make sense. Everyone you have to deal with is an idiot because they kept getting promoted to just beyond their level of competence, or so goes the theory. It's absurd or at least overly simplistic in retrospect but it made a big impression at the time since it's such a satisfying explanation.

"White house" shows up now and then for IGLOO but it's a great clue. A "big jerk" is, of course, a SPASM. And if I were to signify anything, what would it be? ONE. Got it. That's NEVE in the photo.

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Three recent blog posts have generated A TON of mail. One was yesterday's Sudoku discussion. It turns out there's a lot of passion around that topic. For the record, sudokus are fun, at least when they're not absurdly hard, but the point of my stupid essay is that one aspect of crosswords that makes them special is that they are conducive to interesting conversation afterwards. That's what crossword blogs are all about. The genius of sudokus, on the other hand, is that they require absolutely no special knowledge and no special skills except the ability to think hard for a while. It's a completely different kind of cranial exercise but one that can also be satisfying. What it shares with crosswords and Rubik's cube is the joy of creating order within constraints. Nothing wrong with that.

My second email magnet was the mini-biography on the dark side of Will Shortz. Not surprising.

What I didn't expect was the flood of email when I talked about Nancy Salomon. Ms. Salomon is the Queen of Collaborators. I didn't know is she is the Much Loved Queen of Collaborators. Several people sent private mail telling me how much she had helped them, often pointing to her essays at cruciverb.com as the best collection of advice for beginners. Nancy herself sent me a gracious and modest note, but I hope she knows how appreciated she is. My favorite quote was forwarded by Orange who pulled some remarks by Stephen Edward Anderson from the NYT forum. With Mr. Anderson's permission, I'm including them here. It's an inside look at the creative process. The discussion refers to the recent April 23 crossword (puzzle, blog.)

Having found the four theme entries and arranged them horizontally in a grid, I sent it to one of the most remarkable persons I have ever known. Nancy Salomon sent it back, in her signature lightening turnaround time, with the comment that it might look better with the twin elevens running vertically. 

In an almost incidental sort of way, she dropped in the grace notes that make this more than just a run-of-the-mill themed grid built around some rather dated movie nags. Checking the database, I found that HADABIT was spanking new. Nancy sagely advised me against giving it a theme-related clue, and likewise steered me away from the flatfooted temptation to clue the theme entries with mention of horses or cowboys: 

"That's what RIDE 'EM COWBOY is for," she wrote. 

What I deserve credit for is having stopped arguing with my wise and kind mentor, who has declined my suggestions of co-authorship: "Looks like a rocky road," says she, self-protectively.

The JimH Sudoku Blog

Like you, I live my life in fear. In my case it's fear that I've bet my blog on the wrong horse. Crosswords are so old school and, after all, there are plenty of crossword blogs. In the mean time, it's becoming increasingly clear that sudoku is not a flash in the pan. Shouldn't I be investing in that instead? Today, I take a stab at what just could be the next great blogging trend. Let me gather my notes on today's sudoku, clear my throat, and launch into my new venture. Ok, here goes...

 

Welcome to the first ever entry in my new blog! What a thrill to speak to you today about our shared passion — the joy of sudoku. I'll be coming to you regularly with a full analysis on each day's puzzle and through your insightful comments and naive questions together with my gentle admonishments for not being as clever as I am, we'll have a great time.

Today's Tuesday sudoku has some lively numeric combinations not seen in precisely this way for weeks. Beginning with a 6 in the far NW corner is 0.0328% more likely than any other number so that was no surprise for those who follow my statistical analysis closely.

This was, once again, a themeless sudoku. I know some of you are annoyed to see the number 3 crop up so frequently in today's puzzle but my advice is, get to know that numeral. Sure, it's sudokuese but it comes in handy for constructors trying to work out of a jam so you're going to encounter it again and again.

What killed the puzzle for me personally, though, was 7. Hate it, hate it, hate it! That number's insistence on showing up in every single row and every single column sucks the life out of what was otherwise some very sparkly fill.

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Update: The Tuesday puzzle (answers) is by Gary J. Whitehead who seems to have regained his middle initial after losing it in his previous puzzle a couple of months ago. If you saw the circles arranged in a diamond and thought baseball, you're not alone. The Delaware Diamond is, in fact, a star in Ursa Major (Big Dipper) and if you want to see it yourself just walk outside some very dark night, twist around to a right ascension of exactly 9h 40m 44s, look up to a declination of 48d 14' 2" and there it is! It's twinkling a little brighter tonight because its namesake state is the star of an NYT puzzle.

I like IT'LL DO as an answer word. DELINQUENT makes its overdue first appearance at the Times. CUT A RUG is such wacky imagery for "dance" that I wonder where it comes from.

Rhymes with Hackett

Let me start by thanking my good friend who I've never met and know absolutely nothing about, KarmaSartre, for his outstanding spin as a guest blogger. It has not escaped my notice that his and SethG's posts have been the most entertaining recently. I'd say I was humbled, but it's more like annoyed. Showing up the host is always bad manners.

I take exception to a couple of points, though. I have a formula? What? Me? Tell me this is some kind of sick joke. Ok, the truth. It's more than a formula, it's a computer program. I feed the undigested puzzle into my Dell in the evening and after an hour or so of what we call "processing", what plops out the other end is a fragrant post like this one. You can hardly tell, can you? Open the damn pod bay door, HAL.

Secondly, what's this about weird tangents? Eleanor of Aquitaine was a clue answer! You'd think I was including totally random images or something.

Finally, the question was raised about how many puzzles Will Shortz has edited for the Times. The answer is posted on the front page of www.xwordinfo.com every day because it's the number of puzzles in my database. The Puzzlemaster has an amazing 5280. By strange coincidence, this is the number of feet in a mile. (Why?) Yes, that was marginally tangential.

Anyway, great job, KS. I've decided the secret to personal success it to get smart people to do my work for me. Be careful, dear reader. I may be tapping you next.

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Stella Daily and Bruce Venzke have collaborated for the 14th time in today's Monday puzzle (answers.) Ok, ok, I admit that does sound a little formulaic. I'd love to know more about the collaboration process. Which was the John and which the Paul?

Answer words seem to come in and out of fashion like everything else. This is already the fourth appearance for YENTL this calendar year. SKOSH was new to me for "smidgen." I don't think we had skoshes in Canada when I was growing up.

The clue "like blue movies" turned out to be ADULT and that always reminds me of Alistair Cooke who, on this side of the Atlantic, is mostly known for hosting Masterpiece Theatre. In one of his introductions he talked about it being too bad that there wasn't a good word for programs that, unlike most childish TV dreck, appealed to a more sophisticated and mature audience. I can't remember the exact quote but in his very proper English accent he said something like, "I'd like to use the word adult if that adjective weren't already appropriated by morons."

POPLAR MUSIC

RICHARD SILVESTRI's Sunday 5/4/08 puzzle (answers) is very entertaining, mixing popular music with tree names. It will prove extra appealing to the millions of us who majored in Pop Music and minored in Arboriculture. I knew that would come in handy some day.

This is my first go at Guest-Blogging and I do hope I got the answers right. I think this stint will work out fine, as JimH provided a cookbook approach for providing a passable entry. Following is his 5 step (underlined) process:

1. Identify the Constructor.
This is where Jim would indicate how many Sunday puzzles Mr. Silvestri has done. Today, I think I will concentrate on the editor, instead. Mr. Shortz has edited, I don't know, say a gazillion puzzles. There seems to be a book of them in every room of my house.

2.Discuss Theme if Any.
The theme answers all have a word (or words or a syllable) of a popular song title replaced by the name of a tree, retaining the meanings of the titles while changing their pronunciations a hair or four. The clues to the Theme answers all follow the same format, e.g. [24a 1977 Dolly Parton song for tree fanciers]. The others are a 1965 Yardbirds song, a 1957 Jerry Lee Lewis song, a 1964 Bobby Goldsboro song, a 1982 Joan Jett and the Blackhearts song, a 1959 Chuck Berry song, and a 1978 Linda Ronstadt song. Here are the original song titles and their treed versions:

24a -- "Here You Come Again" becomes "Here You GUM Again"
33a -- "For Your Love" becomes "FIR Your Love"
50a -- "Great Balls of Fire" becomes "Great BALSA Fire"
61a -- "See the Funny Little Clown" becomes "CEDAR Funny Little Clown"
79a -- "I Love Rock'n'Roll" becomes "OLIVE Rock'n'Roll"
90a -- "Almost Grown" becomes "ELMost Grown"
107a -- "Poor, Poor Pitiful Me" becomes "PAWPAW Pitiful Me"

As I got the OLIVE answer first, I thought the theme had to do with switching two letters, but was soon disabused of that notion. I think Weird AL Yankovic would bless this puzzle. Some folks would elmost grown over these answers; I enjoyed all of them.

3. Discuss the Fill.
Choose a maximum of three descriptors from (Brilliant / Fresh / Surprising / Pantheotic / Desultory / Scrabbly / Crosswordesey / Old-timey / Too Obscure / Too Easy / Inconsistent with the quality of the theme / Too distant from my fields of expertise / Good). I found the Fill to be lively, interesting, and pretty challenging (whoops, those aren't on the list), and often very clever. A few items that seemed noteworthy:

58a "One trillionth: Prefix" -- PICO. Wonder what this does to Pico de Gallo?

69a "Like a lot of Australia" -- ARID. I was very glad this was not PAVER.

82a "Jazzy Nina" -- SIMONE. Somewhat obvious clue-wise, but I give constructors extra-credit for every mention of the goddess.

101a "Do police work" -- KEEP ORDER. I was having a horrid time in the Lower Right corner of the puzzle, and this clue was not helping. I had cLAN for KLAN, you know, like in the CCC. I swore off Google, but I knew calling the Police Department is always OK; they're there to help. I asked the Desk Sergeant what they do. He said "KEEP ORDER".

5d "Strand" -- SEA SHORE. Reminded me to read more English mysteries. Ruth Rendell is due.

31d "A Letter for _____" (Hume Cronym film)" -- EVIE. A nice coincidence, as just a couple days ago I suggested "Humecronym" (call me for the correct pronunciation) as a term to possibly solve the "Quarfoot" mini-controversy.

61d "Play-by-play partner" -- COLOR. That's a brilliant clue..where the announcer or analyst part just needs to be understood.

80d "Ran through again" -- REVIEWED. Good degree of ambiguity in the clue, so many possibilities between the RE and the ED. Misreading 89a as Flight information (instead of formation) didn't help.

104d "Something one can never do" -- DUET. Another great clue...but I still want to say "What about Natalie Cole"?

4. Go off on a Weird Tangent to Differentiate the Blog from Others.
Come on, Jim, that's a tough one. Couldn't we just await your return? Oh, what the heck, and apropos of minus-zero: Someday, possibly in 2011, when Charlie ascends to the throne, and, feeling he can finally be himself, he declares, in a rebellious act upending the monarchical tradition, that he is not to be the King, but rather "The Royal Formerly Known as Prince".

5. Summarize and sign-off.
Thanks Mr. Silvestri. An excellent puzzle, in my guest-opinion, a meaty Sunday challenge with a creative theme and well-rounded fill from many areas of knowledge.

I'm KarmaSartre and I approve this message.

Pity makes suffering contagious: Nietzsche

Patrick Berry gives us an absolutely delightful Saturday May 3 puzzle (answers) complete with six, count 'em, six, trick clues! This is approximately 6.0 more than we're used to seeing on the toughest end of the crossword week and that surprise made it even more fun.

Is this a rebus puzzle? I suppose it is but it won't show up as one on my stats site because there are no letter or symbol substitutions. Should it?

The image is ELEANOR of Aquitaine, whom I like to think of as the Oprah of the Middle Ages. She might not appreciate that analogy but she held power most kings could only dream of. If you've seen the play The Lion in Winter you know all about her. Some of it may even be true.

Did you know EL GRECO was tutored by Titian? I love clues like that where the point is not do you know some trivia but, for example, there's a famous person, obviously a painter, whose name you can get and by the way here's an interesting little tidbit about him. In addition, we get a useful tip on being a cat burglar — keep the NOISES down! Damn, that is good advice. I'll be sure to remember it next time.

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Robin and I will be out of town over the weekend so that means you'll be treated to another guest writer here at The JimH Crossword Blog. This time I tapped KarmaSartre because either I liked some of the comments he's posted or maybe I just like his snazzy nom de web. It's like some triple portmanteau you can tease apart in different ways. Anyway, he's going to be doing the write up on the Sunday puzzle so tune in for a completely different point of view. He's new to blogging so go easy on him with your comments. After all, I may be tagging you next! Ah, what the heck. Rip away. After all, pity makes suffering contagious, apparently.

I asked him for a brief bio and he suggested that, as is my wont, I just make stuff up. With nothing at all to go on other than my inerrant intuition, let me introduce KS with another Mini-Biography of Someone I Don't Know Anything About.

KarmaSartre was forced to grow up early. As a child, the only bedtime book his great uncle Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre would read him was Being and Nothingness which left him permanently psychologically scarred. His only escape was in the world of crosswords where the neat meshing of Across and Down promised some sense of order in his otherwise bleak existential life. Wandering for years through the mountains of Tibet sharpened his mind to the point where even Patrick Berry puzzles came easily to him, sometimes without even having to read the clues. KarmaSartre spends his non-puzzle time scratching grids in the sand with a sharp stick.

Contest with many missions

There's a lot to love in this tough Friday May 2 puzzle by Barry C. Silk (answers.) If you completed it in seven minutes that's the same amount of time it takes to listen to LAYLA, apparently. HERSHEY, Pennsylvania has sticky sweet streets. Speaking of sticky, CHEEZWHIZ makes its NYT debut. And for some reason I hope one of my readers explains, "one with a lot of workers" is apparently PAVER? Maybe I have that one wrong.

Favorite clues include "famous finger-pointer's declaration" for I WANT YOU, "unrevivable" for STONE DEAD, and "contest with many missions" for SPACE RACE. We forget that was fundamentally a contest. Seems hard to believe that it's been 36 years since a human walked on the moon.

Unicorns and Griffins

The icky (in the nicest possible way) Thursday, May 1 puzzle (answers) is by Jim Leeds. Is that the same Mr. Leeds who has also published under the moniker (or monicker, either seems to be correct although every single previous NYT reference uses the shorter ick-less version) James R. Leeds? I have no idea but I hope someone will let me know so I can keep my database in order.

We need another descriptive name, this time for clues which distract by being over-specific. 1 Across is "unicorns and griffins" which turns out to be merely BEASTS. Those clues always amuse me. A pedant might argue that it's an inappropriate clue because one of the attributes of beastliness ought to be actual existence, but that didn't stop me from smiling.

One of my favorite moments in crosswords is that aha when you discover there's a rebus involved. When did that moment come for you? I tried to fit PICKWICK into 17 Across but it wouldn't fit so I knew something was up. I wish, though, that the clue for 38 Across, "That's repulsive! ... or a hint to this puzzle's theme" hadn't been quite so specific because my second favorite moment in rebus puzzles is figuring out what re's get bused and in this case the question provided the answer. I shouldn't complain. It would have fallen quickly anyway, but I felt a tiny bit cheated having had Moment Two denied me.

I love STICKY WICKET ("awkward situations, informally") and the fact that the phrase comes from the sport that rhymes with it, cricket, makes it even better. DADO is one of those cross words that sneaks in from time to time. Usually it's clued as some sort of carpenter's groove, but the less groovy "pedestal part" is also popular. I have no idea why a "quiz show gizmo" is a CLICKER. I'd suggest that perhaps it's a button used to turn such off but I already received enough angry letters from rabid game show fans when I dissed that TV crossword show so I won't be quite so rude this time. Or is it too late? Oops.