ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ I’M SO HAPPY]
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]
PROGRAM: [Java]
PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ I’M SO HAPPY]
PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]
Consider this easy puzzle offering as a mea culpa for my back-breaking, soul crushing, don’t call it the “bitch mother” lest some people will get mad puzzle #5 from the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament this past weekend. And yes, this one really is dirt easy. Thanks, by the way, to Pete Mitchell and his lovely wife who gave me, Liz, and Joon Pahk a ride back to Boston. We sort of stumbled upon this theme in conversation.
Well, speaking of the dastardly puzzle #5, might as well do a little post-mortem liner notes on it, shall we? It’s not too late to get your own copy of all the puzzles here. So if you were thinking about doing it, click away. I guess this goes without saying, but here goes: SPOILER ALERT! I will be talking about this puzzle from now on. So if you didn’t want to know why I did the add the names of the members of R.E.M. to well known phrases and clue them all wacky “?” style, read no further! Just throwing it out there, Liz utterly detests R.E.M. In her mind, they’re second only to Big Country as worst band ever. Michael Stipe second only to Phil Collins as worst human being ever. No joke.
Well, the bit about the theme being a puzzle with add an R.E.M. member to a well known phrase was a joke. Liz’s opinion, however, is never a joke. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, onto the real liner notes.
Will called me up in January and gave me my pick of either number 5 (the bitch mother), or number 7 (the Sunday-sized one). I opted for 5 because 21xs are a whole mess of work. And since anything goes with 5, I figured I could come up with something fun with it. Knowing full well that for those who were going to end up in top 20-ish or so, the majority of the puzzles were sprints. The trend lately has been away from nasty hard puzzles, and more just insanely fast filling in of grids. So, I thought, what are things that slow solvers down? And immediately what came to mind were the dreaded cross-referencing clues. You know the type: “With X-Across, Liz Donovan’s least favorite human being ever” / “See Y-Across.” I figured, in addition to building the theme around that standard, I’d go all meta with it and require the reader to include the word “with” in the first clue. So for example, the first matched pair of clues read: “Go, with 76-Across” and “See 19-Across.” The answer to 76-Across was THE FLOW, so I wanted you to substitute that answer into the clue at 19-Across and reread it as “Go, with THE FLOW” which clued CONFORM. Got me?
Ah, but wait, your puzzle’s theme answers were clued in the form “Clue, with X-Across” when the standard form for cluing cross-referenced clues is “With X-Across, clue.” Good point. This was strictly accidental, as the theme and grid had been approved and only when I was cluing it did I notice the inconsistency. It might have been a blessing in disguise as I think the shtick was hard enough as is, and if I had done it the traditional way, it might as well have been completely invisible to the point of being absurdly unfair. Über-editor Francis Heaney picked up on the switch and that gave him an edge in grokking the theme.
Let’s go for another unintentional design of the puzzle: I made it so that all the “with” clues came first in the puzzle, and all the “See” clues appeared at the bottom. I felt that would be elegant, not fully realizing that by doing so, the puzzle was, in effect, split into three parts. Part 1, parsing the cluing. Part 2, finishing just the bottom half as half the theme becomes fill-in-the-blanks clues. Part 3, working through the top half which becomes a themeless. Whew. I’m pretty happy with that happy accident.
Just a couple more notes. I was pretty pleased with the fill. Wanted to try and get something new and weird in the longish entries. Went with RIFT VALLEY as that was in zero databases I have, not knowing that eventual third-place finisher Anne Erdmann was a geologist and I gifted her ten squares off the bat. Also, Joon reads my blog and got ASHRAMS at 1-Across immediately knowing full well my sister is living on one as we speak. (See, it pays to go to BEQ.com if you want to compete at the ACPT!) As for cluing, I was particularly proud of “Remover of handlebars” for RAZOR and “It might pull a calf” for LASSO.
Oh, and I mentioned I was going to announce the winner of the “find my brother-in-law’s father-in-law” contest today. We had two contestants, and at least two more who forgot Stuart White’s name and didn’t realize they were sitting next to him throughout the weekend. So, I did a coin flip, and in the strangest display of physics, the coin landed on it’s side, neither heads nor tails. So both Elizabeth H. Saindon of Takoma Park, MD and Shari Tenca Galvez Guida of Peoria, AZ win. Shari gets bonus points for the BEQ t-shirt. Congrats, ladies. Their pictures are below:
One quick thing: if you enjoyed the puzzles this month, please consider hitting up the tip jar. It might not help your standings at the ACPT, or make you a better solver, but every time you tip BEQ another angel gets his wings. Just a thought. Thanks to all who have given so far.
Share the puzzle. New one on Friday. As well as ACPT wrap-up part 3.
Woo-hoo Shari! She and I were looking for him all weekend!
Man, you figured correctly because I hate cross-referencing clues with a red hot passion, especially the ones that loop back to each other. My brain completely froze up on this one (weird because I’m usually so in sync with your style) but now that I’ve had a chance to sit down and look it over it really is a great puzzle 5.
“they’re second only to Big Country as worst band ever”
There’s no way you just called Big Country the worst band ever.
Take it back or I’m summoning the ghost of Stuart Adamson and we’re driving up to Boston to deliver a beatdown. And we’ll have “Porroh Man” on loop as we teach BEQ a lesson he won’t soon forget.
Oddly, this one was not a breeze for me. Maybe it’s because I haven’t had my coffee, but none of the long theme entries was familiar to me, I can’t spell NANTZ, ARTOO and UTWO were right next to each other, and I couldn’t parse TENK (in the same grid as BTEN) to save my life. I’m happy as a COTOPAXI this morning.
MOOTER? Really?
(Thanks for the shout out).
I don’t have a problem with Big Country. Liz, on the other hand …
Well… not right off the bat, and not all 10 squares. I came to the UL corner last, and so I already had ALLEY from crossings. But yeah, it was a huge help to immediately be able to fill in the remaining RIFTV, especially since that UL corner was brutal for me otherwise. Don’t worry about having given me the leg up, Brendan, you more than made up with it by the tons of other stuff that stumped me in this one.
I never did fully get the theme at the time, by the way, and had to piece it out later (elegant indeed). Kudos to everyone who figured it out during competition, and especially to Francis for noticing that subtlety, which completely escaped me. I was too busy groaning at my most-hated type of clues, the cross-references.
It is interesting to hear the story behind a puzzle. What would also be interesting is to watch a “movie” of the puzzle being constructed. The “Wordplay” documentary showed Merl Reagle beginning to construct a puzzle but then, poof, a miracle happened and the puzzle was completed. What if constructor were to use a program to construct the puzzle that recorded his/her keystrokes and then had the ability to play them back like a player piano plays music?
I would be willing to write such a program if BEQ would use it.
I don’t know which was my worse ACPT moment this year…hearing Will call “1 minute remaining” when I only had the bottom 2/3rds of #5 done (and still hadn’t figured out the &*%$! theme) or hearing him announce before the Sat afternoon session that one solver (yours truly) had finished #1 in less than 4 minutes but had left 2 squares blank.
Needless to say…not a good weekend.
Thanks for the ‘behind the puzzle’ moment. Looking back on it, it was a great theme, and I know I would have gotten it if I had another 5 minutes…OK maybe 10… Kudos!
Uh, well, if you wish to do that, be my guest. The Boston Computer Crossword Orchestra?
I loved this puzzle great for my ego. As far as REM I can understand disliking REM after Out of Time but prior to that album, they were fabulous. A really great band in the mid-late 80’s, try it on her with some Autotune. Big Country is identical twin brothers if my memory doesn’t fail me.
I love R.E.M. exactly as much as Liz hates them. (Actually, more…R.E.M. is my favorite band of all time.)
And not all post-“Out Of Time” R.E.M. is bad. In fact, their latest album, “Accelerate”, is one of only a few of theirs that I listen to without skipping any songs.
And I will add my kudos to BEQ for Puzzle 5 — I actually saw the answer grid before I saw the clues, and had no idea what the theme was just by looking at the solution…but when I read the clues, boy oh boy. What genius. I’m just glad my puzzle came *before* it.
Wooohooo is right! I was two minutes behind Elizabeth Saindon in snapping a pic with the BIL’s FIL. With that kind of activity, I thought flashbulbs would be going off in his face all weekend. Congrats to him for his great final in his category.
Funny thing about this is that Bob Kefuffle on Rex’s blog said: “@shamik – Congrats on the additional BEQ/ACPT win!” So I had to hurry over here and complete today’s puzzle (still not in top half of BEQ time postings…my new goal in life…besides get a life), skip over the write-up on the armageddon of #5…and see my smiling face. Thanks for having the little contest…and even more thanks for allowing me to be happier than a pig in……………
I really liked the theme – I was able to get most of them without any crosses, except for 36A, which, when I had the beginning filled in, I decided HAD to be TWO BALLS. Which wasn’t right, I realized pretty fast, but it made me laugh. I think MY dog would be happier than your dog!!
Why not just a screen-capture program?
I think that was the Proclaimers. They are both Scottish, however.
Break out the bagpipes!
I’ll give puzzle #5 a thumbs up, even though it was pretty tough. I did figure out the theme, although as some have mentioned, the top half was still pretty difficult even with the bottom half complete. As it turned out, the part that fell last for me (lower right) wasn’t because of any issues with theme entries. So let’s say “bitch first-cousin-once-removed”.
I would like this to work in a browser on any machine. I think that screen capture is different on different machines.
i dug puzzle 5. tough enough that even after i blew through the NW thanks to ASHRAMS and RIFT VALLEY, and even after i figured out the theme, i still had trouble working it all out. toughest part by far was the upper right, or as i call it, the SLIWA zone.
BEQ, Puzzle #5 has convinced me to hit the tip jar. Very hard with a hammer. When Will announced you authored #5, I thought all my practice on your puzzles would pay off. I think I only barely avoided the green marker. It was nice to meet you and Liz. This was my first ACPT and the whole weekend was great. Thanks to you and all the others for your hard work!
That might be comment of the day.
BEQ,
Even after managing to fill in the bottom half of Puzzle 5, I still couldn’t quite wrap up the N/NE. Sounds like I’m not the only one.
I was with you all the way with “It might pull a calf” but I think I wrote in RIATA at first on the assumption that everything in this puzzle would be as difficult as possible.
Speaking of R.E.M., here’s a possible puzzle theme: something tying together the Ani DiFranco album UP UP UP UP UP UP, the R.E.M. album UP, the Pixar movie UP, the Pixar movie UP, noted Michigan land mass the Upper Peninsula (UP), etc. Since UP is two letters long, I guess it would have to be a repeated clue, and the DiFranco title the payoff referencing the other UPs. Unless one of you constructing savants has already cranked this out.
Nice chatting with you at the tournament. Speaking of college bands, I was the guy who likes Pavement.
Ah, yes. I remember now.
(As if the same word should an answer six times if it were five letters long. My non-constructorness is showing.)
I told you at the tournament that I hoped solving the puzzles on this site would help, and I think it did. I was undone on #5 by pilasters crossed by some sports tournament. And I laughed at a friend who missed the first letter on the Mr T. clue, then found out I had left it blank too. But not only did I fill in the most squares on #5 since ’07, I also figured out the theme this time. Yay!
Re Puzzle 5: … Part 1, parsing the cluing. Part 2, finishing just the bottom half as half the theme becomes fill-in-the-blanks clues. Part 3, working through the top half which becomes a themeless…
Of course, what makes this particularly devious is I’m guessing most people try to solve from the top down. This puzzle might have been easier to solve from the bottom up. Who knew?