ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ THE FINAL FOUR]
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]
PROGRAM: [Java]
PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ THE FINAL FOUR]
PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]
Liz got up at 5:15 this morning, so by extension that meant I was up that early. My body clock sez it’s lunchtime right around now. Good times.
So, I got a chance to do the daily puzzles before the blog post which was great for a change. (No spoilers for those so don’t worry.) I thought Dana Motley’s NY Times puzzle was great in sort of “just folks” kind of way. (I hope that doesn’t sound condescending, I like a lot of her work.) Nothing flashy per se, but her grids are so workmanlike and deceptively wide-open that it’s a refreshing change from the regular white chunks in normal themeless puzzles. Sometimes themeless puzzles come across like the constructor is saying “look what I can do.” And depending on the puzzlemaker it can be either a wild success, or it can feel like a rote Autofilled computer-generated puzzle. I think Dana’s work has a certain grace about it that doesn’t really come across as showing off, but I do find her to have a very unique style. And standing out among the crowd certainly accounts for something in this biz.
Amy Reynaldo said in her blog write up about Dana’s puzzle: “Rumor has it such a grid is easier to fill than the stack-heavy ones are.” Let’s kill that rumor right now, shall we? (Who started that rumor anyway?) Basically these grids are no different than a themed puzzle, and Lord knows I’ve made more than a few themed puzzles with themeless-level word counts (three examples are here, here, and here). And to continue to prove the point, and set up a little creative collaboration, send me suggestions for the long entries in a Dana Motley-esque puzzle via e-mail, Facebook or Twitter. The most interesting entries, will be the starting points for Monday’s Themeless puzzle.
In the meantime, share the puzzle. New Dana-Motley-esque puzzle on Monday.
Solid puzzle, though Peter Sellers played three roles in Strangelove. I liked the clue for JELLO and anything DFW related is sure to brighten my day.
Does this site have an unadvertised comment length limit? It’s not taking my comment. Part 1:
I’m basing the rumor on Byron once suggesting that I try to fill a blank Motley grid rather than trying my hand at a stack-heavy themeless grid. I never tried it, so I can’t say for sure if it’s any more pliable than another grid type.
Amen to praising a puzzle with no air of “look what I can do.” Too often my reply to “look what I can do” is “oh, you can piss me off with stilted, forced fill that’s been drained of life, that’s what you can do.”
Brendan, can you discuss the parallels between Auto-Tune and Crossword Compiler’s auto-fill option? Are you working on a “D.O.A.” song of your own?
Part 2:
As for this here puzzle, I kept mistyping things, so MICS led to OFFSCREEN rather than MISC/OFFCAMERA. Swapped a couple letters in GIRTH too. (No, R is not going to be part of a Roman numeral, Amy.) Blurgh!
Not crazy about BARCRAWLS instead of PUBCRAWLS, or the misleading/incomplete 53A clue.
I’ve had the “D.O.A.” post on the “things to do at some point” list for a while now. And FWIW, that “D.O.A.” tune by Jay-Z is just hideous.
http://is.gd/4UgTU
I’m not sure what’s up with the comment length limitation, I’ll look into that. Sorry, Amy. Glad you were able to post both.
Thanks for rewarding me at 38-Across, Brendan. I’m on the last eighty pages of Infinite Jest, and loving every second of it. Probably finish it tonight.
Country Slaughter was a gimmie that produced a big grin on my face. He’s a crosswordese ballplayer usually just for his first name but it was nice to se his full name in the grid for a change.
I was growing up in Houston while he was with the Cardinals and all my friends were Card fans because they owned the local minor league Houston Buffalos and many of the Cards had been local stars on their way up. Slaughter was a big fave of everyone. He was the hustler long before Pete Rose came along.
Breezy puzzle about horribly depressing subjects. Love that SW corner and its X/O’ness. Had USFL for NASL. Never heard of an OLLIE or an INRUN, but still managed to avoid FAIL (Epic or not). AL LEWIS wasn’t well known to me. ENFIELD! Yikes. And still, very doable. 6 flat.
I’m sure I’ll kick myself for asking, but how is MMII a “palindrome?” Oh, I see, it’s a palindrome in Arabic numerals: 2002. Had the terminal “I” and tried to imagine how the answer could possibly start with “I”…
rp
Nice to start Friday off with a puzzle that’s both fun and doesn’t cause me to bleed from the ears. SW was TOO cool–did you start with that, or was it a happy result?
And yeah, Justin’s right–I’m so old I saw “Stangelove” when it was first released and, indeed, three roles for Sellers.
Self-inflicted brain lock on 53A. Had UMass aleady, so when I saw “palindrome”, I proceeded to burn daylight trying to figure out how a RRN could possibly have MM in the center. Doh.
And maybe this is just a newbie sorta puzzlement, but I just can’t figure out 14A, payne. Or Payne. Or whatever. Can someone enlighten me?
C’mon, Brendan, you couldn’t come up with a theme entry ending in PESTILENCE?
Had the same problem as others with the Roman numeral clue; the brain doesn’t want to “think” too much when I’m speedsolving.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trip_Payne
SLAUGHTER? SLAUGHTER? SLAUGHTER?
Brendan, EVERYONE knows that it’s PESTILENCE. As in PESTILENCEWEEDS. Four Horsemen. Look it up. The mistake about Peter Sellers pales in comparison. Sorry, Brendan, you know I love ya, but this is the first puzzle of yours I’ve done that’s left me REALLY sour-faced.
And as long as I’m feeling grouchy, I’m kind of “eh” on the idea of crossword constructor names as answers. I’ve done this myself– in a BEQ tribute puzzle, no less– but I’m starting to wonder if it should be on a list of constructor habits that drive away casual solvers.
While putting this puzzle together, I found there’s no consensus agreement for the 4th horseman, in fact it’s the most poorly defined. We have Conquest Pestilence and Slaughter as the three most common. My published (non-web) source is “Schott’s Original Miscellany,” and I stand by it.
Duly noted with the puzzlemaker’s names.
Thought 21D was ATE CROW, then ATE SHIT. Was glad when it wasn’t ATE SHIT. I’m getting old, and I have kids.
Didn’t notice the theme until I came here. Nothing new about that. I’ll always be a philistine about puzzles.
Buff Stadium was before my time (I was born in Houston in 1958, see my comment on Astrodome in Wednesday’s puzzle), but I remember seeing the home plate preserved in the Baseball Museum in Finger’s Furniture Store. I think my mom said she saw Dizzy Dean when he was with the Buffs for a year or so (she moved to Houston in 1937).
I guess I’ve managed to get this far having heard only one version of that Horseman’s name. But you should know that I *did* do due diligence to make sure I wasn’t crazy. I Googled WAR DEATH FAMINE (no quotation marks), and PESTILENCE always came up. A search for WAR DEATH FAMINE SLAUGHTER yielded no references to the Horsemen. Looking more closely at the Wikipedia entry, I see it listed as CONQUEST/PESTILENCE, with CONQUEST given more weight, but the word SLAUGHTER isn’t even mentioned once.
(No fair editing that page now!)
(I will agree that the Fourth Horseman seems phenomenally ill-defined. Pestilence and Conquest and Slaughter aren’t even CLOSE to each other in meaning.)
(Of course, what REALLY filled me with confidence was the DC Comics series “52,” which I’d reskimmed recently and which features The Four Horsemen, including Pestilence. SUPERHERO LITERATURE, YOU HAVE FAILED ME YET AGAIN.)
Me and my other eleven-year-old pals loved to go to Buffalo Stadium and sit near third base the year Ken Boyer played there on his way up. He was loudly profane and we giggled madly whenever he would cut loose. Good times.
Fun puzzle. I had more to add but the three roles Sellers played and the pestilence/conquest horseman issue have been covered, as well as my WTF on MMII.
Thanks, Eric! N.B. Mr. Q–obscure (for us) insider ref’s are both tough and turn-offy to the unwashed masses of casual puzzlers.