ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ UNDEAD SET]
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]
PROGRAM: [Java]
PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ UNDEAD SET]
PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]
As regular solvers of crosswords already know, celebrities appear in them all the time. Here’s just a few of them off the top of my head: Alan Alda, Ani DiFranco, Emo Philips, Eero Saarinen, Teri Garr, Idi Amin, Jack Paar, Jay Leno, Eva Peron, Eva Gabor, Eva Mendes, Eva Longoria-Parker. Tommy Agee. James Agee. Baseball’s Moises, Felipe and Jesus Alou. Rock bands too: ELO and R.E.M. Rappers Nas, Dr. Dre and Eminem.
A (mostly) pretty uninspiring list of celebrities, to be sure. Yet, in crosswords, they are the heavy hitters. The reason they appear all the time is because of their vowel-heaviness, shortness of length, and easy-to-use-letters of their names.
The thing with pop culture questions is that you either know it or you don’t. As constructors we try to add the extra tags to make it feel like even if you don’t know it, you should know it. “Coldplay producer Brian” for example (see 2-Down).
Back in the spring of 2002, I attended a luncheon with some other puzzlemakers and editors. Nancy Schuster, The New York Times’s head test-solver at the time, was sharing a beef she had with a supposedly very difficult Saturday-level clue that she felt was an easy gimme: “‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’ author.” Everyone at the table had heard of the book/play/movie, but nobody could remember Muriel Spark’s name. Thing was, it was Nancy’s favorite book, so of course she’s going to know it!
But where’s the line of “fair game” drawn? What are the things we shoud be expected to know, and what’s too meaningless to know? At the luncheon, Nancy asked the very same questions, and, trying to prove her point, posited the question: “Who was the Super Bowl MVP this year?” Which of course I immediately shouted “Tom Brady!” as my team, the Patriots, was fresh off their first Super Bowl victory of the decade. (Full disclosure: I have the biggest man crush on the future Hall-of-Fame quarterback.)
Shouldn’t puzzles reflect the zeitgeist? Shouldn’t puzzles be for the people who can wax poetic about “Lost” and recite pages upon pages of Lil Wayne lyrics? Can’t puzzles reference both viral videos and video games? Wasn’t that the reason we read all those post-modernist authors like Don DeLilo, Thomas Pynchon and David Foster Wallace? Not only did we appreciate the obtuse references to obscure punk bands and rules of tennis but we felt smarter having to draw upon our rudimentary grasp of animal husbandry and subtance recovery programs in order to get the jokes.
Crosswords today should be just like that! Listen, in today’s puzzle world you’re going to have to know not only the capital of Malawi and which opera has the “Sull” aria, but also what indie rock band is used to shill iPods and you’re going to have to speak LEET.
All right, enough spieling. Enjoy this one.
“The thing with pop culture questions is that you either know it or you don’t.”
Well, today I don’t. I never quite finished the SE. Too easy to cheat in AcrossLite, so I finally just gave up and looked at the answers. In the end, I enjoyed this less than the first two.
Which raises the question: How often are the puzzles we don’t like the ones where we don’t have the right specialized knowledge? Certainly I have no major specific complaints–I just didn’t like staring at a blank space, then finally learning the answer was totally foreign to me and never would have been gettable without cheating. Oh, well. Thanks for the puzzle.
I’m going to make a reference to an obscure punk band so I feel smarter:
Christie Front Drive.
There. Now I’m gonna go read me some Coover!
Treedweller: I feel this one’s fair game. A publishing phenomenon and hit movie. How many times was this subject on the cover of “Entertainment Weekly” this year? Five times?
Thanks for coming.
You like those directions, don’tcha, Mike F?
Didn’t know it (heard of “Twilight” but knew nothing else), and yet completed the grid nonetheless, no problem. Sign of a good puzzle. There are no intersecting horrors in this one that I can see. Specialized knowledge is not a problem. Crossing specialized knowledge – that’s when it gets rough.
I guessed MEYER, as a swimmer I recently didn’t know had that name.
But I’m an idiot, as I can’t seem to grasp the Buddha/DOPE connection. Is it a marijuana ref?
rp
I have to confess ignorance on Buddha/DOPE as well–the only one where I was completely mystified. I’m clueless enough that I didn’t know the Duran Duran song but totally gettable from crossers. Also great clue for SNL that, alas, I can’t see Shortz using anytime soon.
This proved too hard, as I don’t know my Duran Duran.
Who’s the picture, Eero Saarinen?
I didn’t get the Buddha dope connection either, but apparently both are slang for marijuana.
I guess ANYWHO is OK but I’ve always seen it as ANYHOO before.
Anyhoo, good puzzle.
Agreed on fair game, agreed on the no unfair crosses. It just wasn’t happening for me. I don’t know the movie or the author, and I don’t read EW. My loss, I’m sure.
Oh, and Garymac reminded me of the ANYWHO odyssey–I tried anyway, made it anyhow, went back to anyway, and then finally got the right answer.
Like I said, I had fun for awhile, but got bummed when I didn’t know the last few answers. Wasn’t meant as a slam against the puzzle.
Looking back, I guess I didn’t say that. I did enjoy most of it, but wasn’t overly excited by it, then there was that bit at the end . . .
Hi Brendan. Love the new site. Saw it on Rex’s blog, which I also really enjoy. I’m getting back into puzzles again after a few years on the wagon. I do the Times every day, but it’s refreshing to see a constructor unleashed, so to speak. Also, I really appreciated seeing Ian MacKaye today (I went to school near DC – the only way I could’ve been happier is if that clue had been “Make-Up frontman Svenonius – but that’s just obscure).
Not sure about ANYWHO vs. ANYHOO, but that’s no biggie. Also, I didn’t see OUEFS coming… maybe if it had been clued “omelet ingrédients”… But honestly, this is your site and the puzzles are free, so you can do whatever the gosh darn heck you want.
Thanks again for the site.
Andy —
Did you know that Ian MacKaye’s dad used to be editor of the Washington Post Magazine crossword?
I did not know that, Matt, though it’s not hard to picture Ian coming from smart people.
While I’m here, does anybody have any good references for would-be puzzle constructors?
Toughest one yet (for me anyway). Flew through the North and then hit a brick wall in the Southern hemisphere. Not knowing anything about Twilight didn’t help.
On the plus side I learned new words for marsh, soft-boiled eggs, and nativity scene.
..let me count the ways:
I’m sick with The Cold, and therefore curled under my feather puff with the unabridged audio version of the second volume of the theme series playing on my laptop. And.. I’m Danish!
*beam*
Just wanted to chime in on the ANYWHO vs. ANYHOO debate. Since it’s a neologism, I couldn’t find a print edition to confirm the spelling, so I went with the amount of Google hits. ANYWHO won. Both were included in the Urban Dictionary. So maybe I’ll add the “: Var.” tag to my clue to make it work.
Andy: I saw the Make Up a couple times, so who knows? Maybe Mr. Svenonius will make his way in a puzzle yet! Lord knows I have to utilize the bajillions of indie rock trivian in my head somehow.
I tripped over anywho as well. Never seen it in a puzzle spelled in that way. I wish I had taken the time to solve yesterday, so my comment would be more timely. Anyhoo, enjoy the weekend.
i found this exactly as tough as the first two, even though none of the theme made any sense to me. i’ve heard of TWILIGHT, but i didn’t know it was a series, didn’t know the character names, didn’t know the author, and didn’t know the sequels. oh, and i didn’t know the duran duran song, and still don’t know what ECLIPSEAWARD refers to. i did know TWILIGHTZONE, so i was all over 1/7 of the theme. take that!
overall this one was okay, but not as much fun as the other two, probably because it was constrained by the seven theme answers (and the theme did nothing for me). but there was definitely nothing unfair about it, since i did manage to solve it.
i liked the clue for LALALA.
Andy: There’s an old out-of-print constructor’s bible called THE COMPLEAT CRUCIVERBALIST. Used copies can be bought on Amazon. There’s also a very good section on crossword construction by Merl Reagle in the WORDPLAY companion book (I edited the book, so this recommendation is biased–but Merl is as good as they come). Finally, Kevin McCann’s cruciverb.com puzzle database and mailing list are sort of the central online meeting point for constructors–the paid membership is definitely worth it if you want to construct for publication in the Times and elsewhere.
Andy —
Besides Ethan’s recommendations, you might also buy Patrick Berry’s book:
http://www.amazon.com/Crossword-Puzzle-Challenges-Dummies-Patrick/dp/0764556223
To append Ethan’s post: THE COMPLEAT CRUCIVERBALIST was republished as THE PUZZLEMAKERS HANDBOOK. Also out of print. A little out-dated as they were published right before the Internet and computers somewhat changed the rules. But, all the basics, theory, and artistry are covered in there. Highly recommended if you can find one.
There you go, joon and treedweller have put it well.
As in this puzzle, an obscure theme, or lots of popcult, or specialized arcana, doesn’t stop you from solving the puzzle, since there are enough fair crossings to make the whole thing guessable.
But what an obscure theme kills is your enjoyment of the puzzle.
Perhaps this puzzle would be better in a literary crosswords book or a specialized magazine, rather than published to the masses.
This comment is not a criticism of the puzzle, which is fine if you know the background info; I loved “LALALA.” This comment is simply sincere feedback to the publisher.