ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ THEMELESS FRIDAY]
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]
PROGRAM: [Java]
PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ THEMELESS FRIDAY]
PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]
BEQ.com goes international today. Intercontinental even. Gareth Bain, our latest guest contributor, comes all the way from South Africa. Gareth is wrapping up the final year as a vet student at the University of Pretoria. He’s a new face on the puzzle-making scene with a few already published in the L.A. Times, and look for one of the four on deck for the Gray Lady herself. Anyway, he sent me this one and I’m happy to run it here. And frankly, it’s nice to have a South African export that’s not as embarrassing as Die Antwoord. Let’s do this interview.
BEQ: What are South African crosswords like?
Gareth: Well I grew up with the “You” magazine Blockbuster crossword, which is probably the most popular, at least most people I come across who solve crosswords solve that. [I did it] with the help of my grandfather and a yellow crossword dictionary ca. 1969 of which only about 1 in 20 words would be considered remotely fair. But, I digress. The style is assymetric, with two-letter words and unches and lots of one-word synonym clues and obscure stuff that frequently likes to be unchecked. I’ve yet to see the popular word REDE in a US puzzle, but I’m sure I will eventually. A different crossword-making ethos, though not far from the NYT pre-Shortz. The long words were often delightful though, and I presume still are.
It was enough for me to get hooked on solving. and by about 13 trying to emulate them and then chase various family members around the house with them trying in vain to get them to solve them. I digress again.
Most newspapers run UK cryptics but I don’t think too many people actually do them.
BEQ: So how’d you get into U.S. puzzles?
Gareth: Was bored in the summer holidays and did a search for crosswords to
solve. Found bestcrosswords.com whose puzzles I quickly ate up. They’re in the US style, sort of, no themes and more words/blocks and simpler clues. They also have puzzles by “guest” constructors (about the only really well-known one would be Ben Tausig), and I quickly added my name to that list.
Via the “email constructor” function, I got a couple of suggestions to look at Cruciverb, and got blown away by the huge difference in quality of grid and the themes in the L.A. Times, N.Y. Sun and CrossSynergy puzzles. I quickly started solving them and immediately tried making my own. Took a few months before I sold one to Timothy Parker, then things slowly took off from there. Learned a lot about constructing initially from following Amy Reynaldo’s blog, cruciverb-l and of course the constructive feedback I got from Rich Norris!
BEQ: Do you notice a massive cultural difference while solving U.S. puzzles? I do when I try my hand at the odd British puzzle.
Gareth: Just not spelling things “ou” or “ise” was difficult, at first. Honestly, American culture is pervasive enough that a lot of stuff I have heard, from somewhere or other. But puzzles laden with US sportsmen and politicians can be my downfall. I usually have to work around the former category in your puzzles.
Though having said that, I’ve yet to convince any of my puzzle-loving friends/relatives that U.S. crosswords are actually awesome. They keep saying they’re too difficult, even when I drop a Monday LAT in their lap. I suspect the major mind shift is from synonym-based clues to the more playful style favored in most U.S. crosswords. Possibly also that many more names are featured and that multi-word phrases don’t have their lengths indicated.
BEQ: Just wondering: how do you construct puzzles with vuvuzelas droning on in the background?
Gareth: The main problem is actually having to keep the lions at bay with my assegai.
Very good puzzle, thank you. Very nice to see a US style puzzle from an international constructor that has a few non-US pop culture influences (48A, 61A)
I’m surprised I’ve never heard of ELON university until now. Seems like it was named just for the benefit of xword constructors.
22A was very tricky. Could have almost been DEFER, DETER. Took me a while to knock out the NW because of that.
I misspelled 17A as APOPLEPTIC which gave me RAPE for 6D (RUN FOR IT!). I thought “I know BEQ will publish some edgy clues, but that can’t be right.”
Also, 30A has gotta be a killer fill for someone who doesn’t follow tech blogs.
Thanks again and have a happy weekend!
Nice job. Definitely a hard.
I can no longer see “sitcom character” without thinking Mr Ed.
Oh, Michael Morowitz, thank you. I made the same exact mistake with APOPLEpTIC/RApE and thought the same exact thing: that’s a bridge too far even for BEQ’s site. I was embarrassed when I wrongly stuck with it anyway, even though nobody had to know (and nobody probably would have if you hadn’t had the courage to admit it first).
I really loved this puzzle. Fresh with just the right number of obscure clues. I got off to a great start with 54A as my first fill — as a big Coen Bros. fan, I know all the songs used in “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” by heart. Gareth and I must have fairly similar wavelengths, because a lot of the clever clues came to me much faster than in a typical BEQ-Hard puzzle. Hardest part for me (other than my aforementioned red-faced moment) was getting LORI/DEBAR/ISM/MIRI. Never heard of LORI Loughlin, couldn’t remember the female name in the Zack & Miri movie, DEBAR is just a hard word, and with the clue {You’d better believe it} I was looking for something less optional than an -ISM.
Everything else was very crisp and satisfying. Thanks, Gareth!
Great interview!
In what world is someone choosing between guacamole and CLAM DIP?
The long fill is great, except for the never-heard-of-’em CIGARETTE TREES. Googling…it’s from a hobo song? That’s…weird. Never heard of the song. Also never heard of ROSELLA.
Couldn’t believe how long it took me to puzzle out the clue for 36a!
Here you go Amy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqowmHgxVJQ
funny, i had never heard of “the big rock candy mountain” either until we got a “family songbook” a few years ago. it’s filled with all kinds of old songs that caroline knew and i had never heard of, including that one. so now i’ve heard of it, but i still don’t know the lyrics well enough to have remembered CIGARETTE TREES. luckily i had CI_ARET in place before i read the clue.
I’m still stumped at the answer to 26-Across. Does it stand for Initial Something Something? I have a feeling I’m going to kick myself when someone answers…
Great inscrutable clue for 59-Across. Still no idea what a “dan” is, but whatever it is I like it.
I tried BEANDIP instead of (the nonsensical, I’d say!) CLAMDIP, but even with that, I got APOPLECTIC right off and thought I was doing well.
Then I thought of BELTCOLOR for 59A and it was too short. Glad that I was close on a first guess.
Overall, went pretty smoothly for me once I put CPAS in and changed the dip.
@JD
ess is a feminine suffix in English, ita is a feminine suffix in Spanish.
Very hard puzzle. Didn’t have the time to do it properly so my solution was machine-aided.
Ohhhhhhhhh that makes sense. “Ess” as a suffix never occurred to me. Kind of questionable, now that I think about it, since “ess” just means feminine, whereas “ita” means feminine AND diminutive.
Nice puzzle! I especially enjoyed the references to AbFab, O Brother, and Family Matters. Nice cluing on 20A — I was initially thinking about “catch up” as what you have to do when you fall behind. Thanks for the challengingly fun puzzle!
Mom here.. just to confirm that yes, I am intimidated by the crosswords, but love doing them as long as you’re hovering in the background to correct me, or set me on the right path. Your persistence and patience in following me, with a crossword in hand, as you were growing up, certainly helped you practice. We were the guinea pigs! Dear Gramps would have been proud to have known he was responsible for kindling your passion of compiling crosswords .. ultimately going international nogal!
Gareth,
Mom here.. just to confirm that yes, I am intimidated by the crosswords, but love doing them as long as you’re hovering in the background to correct me, or set me on the right path. Your persistence and patience in following me, with a crossword in hand, as you were growing up, certainly helped you practice. We were the guinea pigs! Dear Gramps would have been proud to have known he was responsible for kindling your passion of compiling crosswords .. ultimately going international nogal!
@abigail – clam dip is very good and also easy to make: take one 6 oz can of minced clams (hold juice for last to adjust consistency) and one 8 oz block of cream cheese. blend together with a mixer and then add enough clam juice to get the right thickness. use your favorite chips for dipping.
great puzzle – thanks Gareth
I’ve heard of clam dip, but I don’t think anyone would be happy if I substituted it for guacamole. Not that most of the folks here eat guac anyway….
But maybe I’ll try it now that you mention it!