THEMELESS MONDAY: [ ACROSS LITE][ PDF]
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At Lollapuzzoola this year, Kevin Der came up to me and said let’s make a themeless puzzle. And my response, of course, was “hellz yeah.” And let me tell you a couple things, Kevin’s “Quality Control” setting is capital D Demanding. I gave him the seed answer at 51-Across, and of course he comes back with said answer in a solid 4×8 chunk of whitespace. Ridiculous. That meant I had to do the same thing with his seed answer, the symmetrically placed 19-Across. Good times. The “QC” didn’t end there as Kevin Flat Out Refused to use any extra black squares in the remaining corners. Ergo, the equally ridiculous slabs in the northeast and southwest. All-told 66 words, with only 6 threes. Outrageous.
When it came to writing clues, Kevin demanded that this be The Hardest Puzzle Of The Year, and well, he didn’t disappoint. His half of the cluing made me laugh out loud when I read them, and that didn’t include some of the fine “?” clues. I burst out laughing at how demandingly twisted the clues were. So, undaunted, I rolled up my sleeves and got down and dirty with the cluing too. Pour yourself another cup of something strong. You’ll need it.
Thanks Kev, that was a workout. Glad to run it here, and at the very least, it gives me an excuse to run that old picture of the two of us up above. We were so young, once.
Share the puzzle. New one on Thursday.
That was nowhere near as tough as I thought it would be. Thanks! But I’m confused by the numbers in parens after some clues (e.g., 18-across, 7-down). They look like they might be enumerations, but it’s not clear to me why they are there, and what there is about those particular entries that merits enumeration.
I think you need a new category: BRUTAL! 🙂
The cluing definitely made for a harder puzzle. I felt like I was on some pretty shaky ground in a couple of places, but I didn’t see a lot of alternatives to what I had. Lots of fun, though.
Naticked at 51A/45D. What’s with the letter count in parens after some clues?
I thought this one was on the harder side of your hard puzzles lately, but not crazy-hard. I had another (very commmon keyboard button) as the answer for 47D that screwed me up for a while. And I had no idea what the clue for 21A/24A was, so that also was a hold up. My age/gender (57 male) was probably a hindrance to getting this clue.
Otherwise, very nice!
P.S. add me to the list that would like to know the significance of the numbers in parens on some of the clues.
That was a fun challenge.
I admit to needing help with 21A….the sly clues were keeping the rest of the NE from falling into place.
Thanks guys!
This was a lot of fun, although, starting out, I had lots of white space and few ideas. Had to guess at 19A and 51A, both unknown to me. I liked the cross of 1A and 7D. I’m in the latter group and it was fun to recall playing 55A. Thanks for the workout, really enjoyed it.
Still no answer on the numbers in parens? Reminiscent of the cryptic xword convention, but no. I’m guessing it’s just an artifact of the construction process since if there doesn’t seem to be any significance to it as a clue to anything.
Add me to the ones who found 21A/24A the hardest nut to crack, and happy to blame my gender and generation rather than advancing decrepitude for NE making the difference between a 20-minute and a 30-minute solve. Nice workout, as Carola said.
10:49, though in a tournament I would have anguished for a few more minutes over the 29D/40A crossing; the letter I guessed (which was correct) made both look like words, but I’m unfamiliar with either.
Having worked with Kevin on a Mystery Hunt cryptic (where he basically did all the grid construction) I can confirm that he is indeed a beast.
When introducing a puzzle, maybe it’s better to adopt the PR addage: Underpromise, overdeliver. This just wasn’t as hard as it was cracked up to be. The stack at 25A/34A and 21A/24A has an amateurish feel not in keeping with the usually high standards adhered to on this site.
I thought this was a fantastic puzzle. And I’m really glad I’m not the only one confused by the numbers in parens.
Here’s my guess at the enumerations: The numbers 7,6,7,5,3 are the letters BRENDEN EMMETT QUIGLEY and KEVIN DER.
@Dan Katz: “Basically did all the grid construction”? I seem to recall that he did all of it, no basically about it!
Also, because I love plugging the 2014 Mystery Hunt, that puzzle is here if anyone wants to try it: http://web.mit.edu/puzzle/www/2014/puzzle/puzzle_with_answer_nowhere_man/
As for this puzzle, 34-across gave me an ear worm, which Kevin may recall me singing obnoxiously the last time we were solving puzzles together.
3.5 years later. No, 21A/24A was a gimme. I have a teenager.