THEMELESS MONDAY: [ ACROSS LITE][ PDF]
PROGRAMS: [Across Lite] [Adobe Reader]
PROGRAM: [Java]
In case you missed my latest The New York Times puzzle, You can get it here: [Across Lite][PDF]. You might want to solve it before you read the rest of this write up. Just saying.
To the mailbag! I got asked this question at least five times this weekend, here’s one randomly chosen letter. Andrew Greene from Newton, MA writes: “Nice puzzle. But I’m ‘left’ wondering — am I missing a meta? So many of these names are biblical or ecclesiastical… but I can’t find the connection if there is one. Thanks.”
Hard as it is to believe, that was the whole theme: everyday phrases that included first names running backward, or in this case to the left. Five men, five women. And scene.
Every now and again I like to make what I call “themed themeless puzzles.” There’s a connecting thread to all the long answers, but sometimes a very slight one. Since there’s no obvious repeated element throughout (adding certain letters, say), it makes getting the long answers slightly harder. Even knowing the gimmick of this puzzle doesn’t help you solve those long answers any faster. Therefore, it has more of a themeless feel.
The crossword meta had been on life support until Matt Gaffney resurrected the form five years ago. The idea is simple: solve a crossword, extract some information from the completed puzzle, do something with that information. Eric Albert and Henry Hook made some stellar metas back in the late 80s, early 90s. Nowadays, everybody’s doing them. (Here’s one of mine that I rather liked). It’s gotten to the point where even if there isn’t a meta (and they’re almost always announced, mind you), solvers have become conditioned to look for something that just isn’t there. We’ve become a nation of John Nash-esque crossword solvers! Stop the madness people! Don’t think that the acrostic in this write up, that is to say the first letter of each paragraph, means that you should I THE T’S! Where does it all end?
Share the puzzle. New one on Thursday.
UPDATE: Posted the wrong version of this puzzle. Files are fixed now.
why was the puzzle I did an hour earlier different?
Bev
If I hadn’t started typing KAUFMAN at 1A, I might have been able to break 2 minutes on this one. Which I know is bonkers, but for once I knew all the indie rock references cold…
Talking about older Hook metas prompted this. I know this is the arcanest or arcane questions, but:
Back in the mid-90s when I was a young teenager, I did Stanley Newman/Henry Hook “RH $10,000 Crossword Challenge” where there were 50 small crosswords whose solutions and answers each provided two letters which were fed into a large acrostic in the back. The acrostic provided an instruction to extract a 13-letter word (I think) from the last puzzle: a very hard (at least to 14-year old me) oversized grid by Hook called “Tough Stuff” (again, I think).
I was all proud of myself for solving the acrostic and (with help) filling in the grid of the last puzzle. However, I was never able to figure out how get that final answer. And, it has been bugging me to some degree ever since.
Can anyone shed any light? Anyone have the remotest of ideas of what I’m talking about?
Thanks!
Yes, I made it to the final tiebreaker, but Tom Weisswange beat me and a few others to the punch for the ten grand. Here’s the note Stan Newman sent out to the rec.puzzles.crosswords newsgroup back on 8/1/1996 before the tiebreaker period began:
“Now that the deadline has passed for first-round entry into the Random House $10,000 Crossword Challenge, as the editor of the book I can reveal
what was what.
The hidden message was obtained from the ANSWER DIAGRAMS — each had exactly one misprint. The two “hidden letters” for each puzzle were the incorrect letter, and what the letter should have been. When properly entered into the spaces provided adjacent to puzzle #50, the hidden message directed you to find a 13-letter word hidden in the solution to puzzle #50, delete a pair of letters from the word, then rearrange the rest to form the full name of a famous person.
The hidden word, found in the bottom-left to top-right diagonal (skipping black squares), was ILLOGICALNESS. Deleting two Ls and rearranging the rest yielded the name OLEG CASSINI.
Initial word from the contest firm handling the adminstration for us is that about 75 persons have submitted the correct answer. The first tie-breaker crossword will go out to these people later this month.
Thanks to all who participated in the contest. I’d appreciate hearing your comments about the book and will be happy to respond in rec.puzzles.crosswords to specific questions you may have.
Stan Newman
Managing Director, Puzzles & Games
Times Books/Random House
P.S. Henry Hook says hello.”
Thank you so much!
2 minutes is indeed bonkers, but 17a was apt.