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My brother-in-law was was saying last week that he heard Dean Olsher plugging his new book on NPR. (If there’s anybody from Scribner who cares to send me a review copy of “From Square One,” be my guest.) And the only thing Geof mentioned about the interview was that it was supposedly proven that crosswords do not in fact stave off dementia. Because of the overemphasis of the same typical entries that hold a puzzle together crosswords are supposedly not an actual exercise, but mainly rote filling in the grid.
To which I counter: It may not stave off dementia, but that statement is complete and utter bullshit. Someone who makes a statement like that has clearly never bothered to solve a puzzle in their lives. Or, if they did, it was probably some piece of shit puzzle you might see in back of a shopping circular or Metro newspaper. (Again, anybody from Scribner wanna send me a copy of this book, please, hit me up. I’ll be a fair and honest reviewer.)
We got copies of the San Francisco Chronicle while we were up in the sticks last week. (What? What is this thing you’re talking about “copies of the San Francisco Chronicle?” Yes, believe it or not, there are places on Earth that don’t have the Internet, and the people who live there get their news — if they even care to get it at all– a day later and from only one resource: a dead tree.) And on the puzzle page they had, count ’em, two crosswords. One appeared to be the L.A. Times puzzle, and I’ve mentioned before those are pretty solid work. A little on the easy side, but I’d hardly call them a cakewalk. All were themed, had some topical cluing/entries. No surprises, Rich Norris is a veteran editor.
The other puzzle, was clearly filled in and clued from a presorted computer database (I’m sure if there was a way to have the computer export it as well, they’d do that too). No innovation. Nothing topical. Zero freshness. I’m guessing if a life of crosswording is spent doing that dreck, there wouldn’t be much thinking involved.
The average solver cannot get solve a Wednesday New York Times puzzle. It requires too much of them. And it only gets harder by four more levels of difficulty after that. Rote filling in of answers will not help you to solve these. They require intuition, logic, guesswork, general knowledge, spelling — you name if. And if you want further proof that rote recall is necessary for solving all puzzles, I’ll point you to the direction of Frank Longo’s, Patrick Berry’s and/or Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon’s latest books. There isn’t one tired repeater in any of those puzzles. They are all workouts.
Is working out every day going to make you live forever? I doubt it, but it’ll probably make you healthier. Doing any challenging mental exercise is no different. If doing crosswords supposedly won’t stave off dementia, I’ll take my chances and have a blast doing so.
nice–I had NO idea what the theme was until I got the King movie. I saved it for last to see if I could figure it out, but no avail. I’m not quite at the Reynaldo-esque level of solving the whole puzzle so fast you don’t have time to even search for or notice the theme until it’s done. 🙂
I love how your “easy” puzzles invariable take me nearly as long as NYT Thursdays. Also loved the way the theme explaining entry was still part of the theme. “Beatles cover” immediately elicited “Dizzy Miss Lizzy” from my brain, which wouldn’t give that notion up. Sentence diagrams are something I know from 5 years of homeschool doing an American syllabus, them’s foreign to South African.
Something about the diatribe above… I can’t quite wrap my head around it, but a rote filling, zero freshness, zero logic and minimal general knowledge crossword is what a surprisingly large number of solvers actually want, it seems.
More MEDIUM than easy for me. NW corner was a bear (nice job on RYAN BRAUN, even tho’ I didn’t get him til late – Fresh)
Olsher definitely rebuts the anti-dementia thing, but I don’t recall his using word “rote.” His book would be pointless if that’s all puzzle-solving really involved. Gareth is right, though: sizable solving population wants predictability, constant do-ability, with no possibility for failure and no chance of being offended. Puzzle = Olive Garden. Recalls artfulness without actually possessing any. Facsimilicious!
That’s “NE” corner. Ugh. E/W dyslexia strikes again (and again).
rp
Nice one. And, for an easy puzzle, a damned fine rebuttal to the argument about stale puzzle fill and “rote” solving. Makes the point of your argument in spades. Pulls from knowledge all across the board (MLB, rap music, the college days of the Talking Heads…). I liked it a lot.
I think the clue for THOR is great, although I didn’t really slow down and read it until later. I read way too many Marvel comics, and only goat as far as “pulled by goats” before I filled it in, without noticing the original-language spelling of “Toothgnasher” and “Toothgrinder,” as good old Walt Simonson called them.
Nice, lively fill. I actually meant to give it four stars, not three–I was expecting the theme to use those words in the same phrase, so I forgot to look at what was above and below. Clever. Plus, I solved it (albeit, at the pace of a Wednesday NYT), which means you gave enough crosses to help me get the pop culture I lacked.
Righteous rant, Brendan. What Rex and I have learned from the L.A. Crossword Confidential blog is that yes, there are truly people who hate the LA Times puzzle and wish they still had a “great” puzzle like the TMS one. My theory is that they cling to their crossword dictionaries, which will be enormous help in completing a computer-generated, lifeless crossword but of little use in the sort of puzzles we like. They like feeling smart when they finish a lifeless puzzle and don’t appreciate feeling dumb when the challenge is a more creative crossword.
Brendan, you really need to work harder on understanding this “easy” business. This was a medium, Thursday-NYT-level puzzle in my book. Hey, I don’t mind if your blog puzzles run the gamut from medium to hard. There are plenty of easy puzzles in the world. I’m not looking to you for 2 1/2-minute breezes. You excel at tougher ones, so why pretend you’re making easy puzzles?
I greatly enjoyed discovering what 29D was.
People who can solve these fast without getting the theme answers are insanely talented.
Odd, all the test solvers said it was a walk in the park.
BEQ puzzles = anti Olive Garden since 1996!
Phew, at least one of you thought it was on the easy side.
Wednesday level, hmm?
I try to make easy ones because I want to appeal to the masses who aren’t already drinking the BEQ Kool Aid.
What’s the hitch here? Is it the fill? The theme? The cluing? What’s makes this not an “easy” puzzle. Again, I repeat, all the test-solvers agreed this one was an easy.
A fine Wednesday puzzle, a difficulty level which I wish the NYT would offer.
I’ve not yet drunk your Kool-Aid, yet, but I do appreciate your asking your solvers for a little more effort than filling in a symmetrical grid of one-syllable grunts.
struck me as between easy and medium. i didn’t look at the difficulty tag before downloading it, and as i was doing it i was like, ‘he’s woodshedding mondays and tuesdays,’ but then as the puzzle went on it seemed a hybrid of a monday (easy fill, crosswordese, straightforward clueing) and a wednesday (obscure references, weird clue/answer combos like the jigsaw puzzle one). the only real hitch for me was in the NE, because i don’t know my baseball and i got lazy with the SRAS/STAS and BFA/MFA alternatives. solid puzzle, but kinda boring (nothing to do with the difficulty level).
I go by my solving time. It took me over 4 minutes, which would make it a harder Wednesday at minimum. I reserve the “easy” label for anything I can finish in under 3, or in the low-3 range. Medium is maybe 3:30 to 5:00.
I consider an “Easy” BEQ different from an “easy” puzzle elsewhere… Here, “Easy” = Tue-Wed, “Medium” = Thu-Fri, and “Hard” = Sat-plus.
Is BEQ even capable of making a true Monday-level puzzle? 🙂
Two, actually.
http://is.gd/1rmeJ
http://is.gd/1rmgt
Wednesday level, at least. I got stuck in the NE because I never heard of RYAN BRAUN and figured curators must need at least an MFA 🙂
I got interrupted twice while doing this, and messed up the timer to boot, so I have no idea what my “real” time was. This was certainly easier than most of yours, but non-easy from a NYT Mon-Tue standpoint in the following ways, to take a random selection: 57D could be nearly any part of speech, and so the 3-letter answer doesn’t give the automatic toehold that 3s often do; for non-young people like me, there’s no hope that 65A is going to be a gimme – could have been ICET for all I know (but I could get it with the __YZ); the F of 29D was the very last letter I filled in, as that word is not something that comes to mind in a crossword context; I’m usually pretty good at sports clues, but 11D didn’t ring a bell for me at all (at first I wanted RYANNOLAN as a backwards thing); similarly I had USC at first for 52A; I was stuck on thinking that 25D ended in MIKE, which didn’t fit; etc, etc. Nothing that by itself is over-the-top difficult, but an accumulation of little things that take a while to see that ended up slowing me down a lot.
From antiagingrevolution(period)com —
“There is a group of researchers studying nuns in Mankato, Minnesota. They live in a convent and routinely live past their nineties. These nuns were progressive educators, so they donated their brains to science after they died, a noble cause.
It was discovered that the college educated ones lived longer and because the religious order believed that an idle mind is the devil’s playground, the nuns constantly did brain exercises — crossword puzzles, playing Jeopardy on television, constantly stimulating their minds to think. On autopsy, they found the nuns all had extensive brain dendrite formation at the time of death due to the intellectual stimulation. In other words, they were mentally young. The researchers noted that the ones who stayed mentally active did not suffer from dementia as much as those who didn’t.”
______________________
I think they mean “past ninety”.
Good puzzle! I was curious how you’d end up spelling the 3 Stooges’ noise.
I liked it all except PRECUT. Not too hot about PREanyhting for that matter. What does it mean, Cut before it’s Cut?
The goats were a great touch…
I have translated the BEQ “easy” already into my level of difficulty and found it to be just that. I actually moved through this puzzle at a good pace with the NE being problematic and the crosses of ALI/MAYLE and PAH/HAMM being my intuitive stabs. I hadn’t heard of the Kneeling BUS.
All right enough of the actors lets get back to some music….
Nuns were intellectually curious and active. No proof xwords in particular had Any specific effect. It’s the pseudoscientific conclusions about xwords that Olsher disputes. Can’t stand when puzzle books are marketed as anti-aging. It’s like Cheerios saying it helps your heart. I call bull (and so did the FDA), or at least “insufficient data.” I also dislike xword books that have “MENSA” on them. Won’t Touch Them. Make people Love puzzles, don’t scare them or shame them into doing them (or appeal to people’s @#$damned sense of intellectual superiority).
So the code is BEQ sez Easy, it’s a Wednesday. Don’t tell the new kids. We need them to stick around.
Sometimes solid means kinda boring, though I thought the fill had some fun stuff.
Sometimes you’re going to hafta think juvenile with my puzzles.
Fair enough.
Particularly proud of the goat clue.
All the buses in Greater Boston “kneel” and have “Kneeling Bus” plastered on the sides of the doors. It’s for those who are disabled. I can’t imagine this is the only city with ’em.
Completely agree with you on the “Mensa” bit. And the dude who gets shit on the most with that tag doesn’t even need that word to sell his stuff: Frank Longo. If you can ignore the offending word, the books are stellar, especially the M**** level Sudoku books (if you’re into that sort of thing). I cruised through Vol. 4 and “Roots” on my honeymoon. Do what you will with that information.
For me, what always makes your puzzles tougher than most is the pop culture. I like to think I’m reasonably up-to-date, but we just seem to have different areas of interest. In this one, I did not know ALI/MAYLE (but guessed right), HAMM (but PAH was clear enough), RYANBRAUN/ARCO (I realize ARCO is not pop, but I did not know it–and, like Ellen, thought an MFA would be necessary), or JAYZ (and I was trying ADv, and didn’t know the airport, so I got stuck).
I still enjoy them, even if they don’t keep my brain from rotting.
Yep, this wasn’t a hard puzzle by Quigley standards, but what made it trickier for me (and maybe some others) was the names. You’ve got a ‘Heroes’ actor, ‘Earthquake’ star, one rapper, a comedian, the famous agent, a “Mad Men” actor, and that’s the slightly more pop-culturey bunch. Never heard of the comedian or the last actor, so that hurt.
A set of more difficult clues could have stopped this puzzle solve dead for a lot of people. On the other hand, these also can open things up nicely to solvers tired of names of popes, etc.
Since I’m way behind on “Entertainment Weekly” and my TV watching is waaay (3 ‘a’s) down lately, this was a tougher go than many, requiring crossing help.
Just saying it could be one factor that makes these an easier/tougher climb, mileage may vary.
Oh, yeah, the comedian. Got that from crosses. Same for RISD, though I like the THs. Another clue that set this one apart from the easys was RATSO’s–got it, but had to think about it.
Just to be clear, I’m not complaining–I like Wed-Thur difficulty–but you asked.
I don’t have anything constructive to add here, but my own theory is the crosswords, both solving and constructing, actually CAUSE dementia.
i’ll take the blame/credit for jon HAMM. “mad men” is pretty huge even though i don’t watch it, and he’s the star, not just some supporting actor. and i think we’ve all seen good old mia hamm enough times.
fwiw, i didn’t know the comedian or the agent (though i feel like i’ve seen his name before), nor did i recognize the JAY-Z clue. i did have some gimmes like THOR and RISD and RYANBRAUN that really cracked it open for me (though i still think tulowitzki deserved the ROY that year, subsequent divergent career paths notwithstanding).
Yep, I’m out of the loop on Mad Men. Always good to see a new name and a new clue in a puzzle. We all have our knowledge niches and random junk that we bring to the table, which makes these things more interesting.
My uncle was in a group home for dementia patients the last two years of his life. The puzzles they were given to do were the small pulp magazines you can buy checking out at the grocery store. If the control and test groups had been in that home, I guarantee they wouldn’t have found a difference.
I’m not a fast solver, but do every one you post, and the NYT Sunday every week. I felt this was one of the easiest yet on this site. But maybe it’s because I wasn’t thrown by the pop culture clues. Could it be I’m actually hip? Naaaa…
Definitely easier for me than most of your puzzles, and for once I actually caught the theme (they often escape me entirely). I agree that an easy BEQ is at least a Wednesday for the NYT – and that is just fine with me. As Treedweller and others have said, the difficulty level goes way up when you focus on current music/musicians and sports. But that’s fine – i’m learning all the time, and am happy to say that I actually got Jay-Z without a pause. Progress!!!!!
Interestingly, I keep trying to convince my husband that both xwords and bridge are helping me stave off dementia. What does it mean if my argument isn’t working???
agreed on both counts. and just so as not to be misunderstood: crossword puzzles can be like sex (or is it pizza?): even when they’re boring they’re not.
I liked this one – it was BEQ easy which equals fun easy to me – as in I can finish it but have to think a bit to do so and takes more than 7 min to do (not a speed solver like everyone else!). I agree that it’s more NYT Wed level.
Anyway, I like these kinds of themes and the fill that’s not all old and stodgy.
Jon Hamm won a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Emmy, so he’s probably fair game. My teenage son is a big fan of Milonakis, so that was a gimme for me. I had exactly the same time on this as today’s Thursday NYT, so I’d agree with the folks who rated it Medium. I’m always a bit slower on the BEQ/Tausig/Onion/Jones set of puzzles, I imagine due to the fact that the fill and cluing is skewed younger than the NYT. But don’t change a thing, I enjoy the chance to expand my puzzle comfort zone.
As for Mensa:
I think tagging the books “Mensa” is simply a marketing gimmick by owner Barnes & Noble, via Peter Gordon. It just targets a certain naive solver who’s impressed with the name. It turns off the rest of us solvers, me included.
I tagged this Easy because so many of the clues are perfectly straightforward. Brendan’s puzzles are never NYT Monday or Tuesday easy. Wednesday, yes.
I’m fairly up to speed on my pop culture references, and knew Ryan Braun, so it was a relatively easy solve for me. Not quite a medium, but more fun than the usual early to mid week puzzles. Your lively fill helps even if I found it ‘easy’. Nothing worse than an easy puzzle with boring, uninspired fill.
Re Deb’s “cause dementia”: During the puzzle craze of the 1920s, someone actually wrote a Broadway musical based on the craze, complete with a scene set in a mental ward for people who’d gone completely nuts from their puzzle addictions. So it can happen…if you’re in a musical.
Re Nancy’s “Mensa” comment: It’s difficult for me to associate word puzzle books with Mensa, since originally most “puzzle” books from Mensa were either IQ tests with those abstract intersected shapes and “pick A B C or D” to complete the pattern, or reprints from British publications with visual abstract math puzzles and “Count the number of triangles” puzzles. The closest word puzzle is either an easy anagram or “what three letter word fills each blank to form a new word.” Not the most lively or appealing, IMHO.
Thought this was a relatively easy one, except some of the names. ALI/MAYLE stumped me in the end, otherwise I got the ones I didn’t know from the crosses.
Got a question about easy vs hard and solving times, though. I can rip through a NYT Mon-Wed puzzle without feeling like I have the least hesitation on any of the clues and yet I don’t think I’ve ever finished in under 5 minutes. It seems like the ability to turn in faster times isn’t so much a matter of mental acuity as physical coordination or something. I’m a reasonably good touch-typist but I simply can’t type that fast. Is there some trick to it that I’m missing?
I’m with Treedweller about the names making it challenging. And while Ryan Mraun LOOKED funny to me, MFA sure looked right, and that Jason Mraz guy has changed up all the spelling rules, so I thought I was good to go. I was wrong. I rate it easy from a BEQ standard, and agree that it’s mid-week NYT fare. I still don’t grok you people who can do these things in the 3-minute range. I can neither type nor tab that fast. I am reasonably sure my times would be faster if I printed the puzzles out and did them in ink, but why kill a tree to run a race with you fine folks? That’s all I’m saying. 🙂 — jesser in NM
there is some trick to it. or rather, there are some tricks. i’m not the best solver out there, but i’m probably pretty close on pure speed–i.e. not in tyler/dan territory, but i can hang with pretty much everybody else on monday-tuesday puzzles in across lite (how’s that for a claim to fame?). my keys to success are:
1. never look at the clue list. you can lose a lot of time looking back and forth between grid and clues (and i do, when i solve on paper), but you don’t have to in across lite because it shows you the current clue in big font right up top. very convenient.
2. learn the navigational keys. there are much faster ways to get around the grid than using the arrow keys. shift-arrow, enter, tab, etc. (i guess you could also mouse, but that seems slow to me.) related: get used to the way across lite skips over already-filled squares when you’re entering an answer. it will jump over them, even if it means going back to the beginning of a word. but if you type in the last letter of a complete entry, it won’t jump you back to the beginning.
3. this is the most counterintuitive, because it directly contradicts good advice many of us got when starting out on crosswords: don’t use the crossing letters. if you already have most of a word filled in, don’t look at the clue–try to get the rest of it using just crosses. more bang for your buck, so to speak. it’s also more mistake-prone, but a) you can go back and check it when it’s all filled in if you are paranoid, and it’s still faster; and b) you need to make some sacrifices if you really want to put the pedal to the metal.
4. think faster than you are comfortable thinking. it turns out that there is a big difference between thinking about every clue for 1-2 seconds and thinking about them for 0.1-0.5 seconds. 78 clues later, you’ve added two minutes to your time. will you enjoy the puzzle less by doing this? probably, but on easy puzzles, adding the dimension of “can i break my monday record” might make up for it. depends on your personality type.
5. think in parallel. top on-paper solvers are often looking ahead to the next clue as they’re still writing the answer to the previous one. you can’t do this in across lite without breaking rule #1, but what you can do is notice the way the fill is shaping up and try to guess what the crossing words will be without even looking at the clues. and if you’re a good touch-typist, your eyes don’t need to be on the clues or the keyboard while you’re typing in an answer, so they might as well be on the grid. that way, if you’re entering successive downs and you notice that there’s an across that looks like, say, _TUI, you can probably guess it’s going to be ETUI without needing to read the clue.
that’s my advice. it’s guaranteed not to make you a better person or a happier solver but i suspect it will make you a faster one, at least in across lite (or the NYT applet, which i actually don’t use due to very slight differences which bump me out of my comfort zone, mostly as relates to item #1).