ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ MIND GAMES]
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]
PROGRAM: [Java]
PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ MIND GAMES]
PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]
You’d think with a puzzle called “Mind Games” running the day after the 30th anniversary of John Lennon’s death that it might be a tribute. Alas it is not. It is, however a blast from the past as it is a rerun from the TONY days. Should be new to most of you, though.
Now, to the mailbag. This one comes from Stuart White of Missoula, MT. People may recall Stuart is my brother-in-law’s father-in-law. He was also part of the “Find Stuart” contest from this past ACPT (recap here). Anyway, Stu sent the above picture with the following e-mail
Thought you might get a kick out of what my former paper, The Great Falls Tribune, thinks is a holiday bonus for crossword folks. I quote from the introductory blurb at the top of the page: “As a special treat in our biggest paper of the year is the biggest crossword puzzle of the year … we invite you to spread out the pages and have a little fun … in fact, if you really get into it, we’ll give out a FREE 2011 Farm & Ranch Memories calendar to the first 10 puzzles completed and brought in to the Tribune …”
They later announced that only one person brought in a completed puzzle.
In spite of the fact that it’s kinda fun to say, “Gee, I’m stuck on 639 across,” I’m afraid something like this could set crosswording back about 60 years.
If there’s a version of KP duty/seventh level of Hell/etc. for puzzlemakers, it would be something like having to make puzzles like this. The thought of having to write 639 clues horrifies me. At least the grid would be easy to make. Thanks for the story, Stu.
Share the puzzle. New one on Monday.
Before I even read your last paragraph I was thinking that I’m going to hear the phrase “639-Across” in the Cluing Hell portion of my brain for the rest of my life.
Thanks for the chuckle.
Back in 1997 somebody bought me that wall-sized crossword you used to see advertised in the Hammecher-Schlemmecher or whatever you call it catalog. The sky mall thing. I hung it up in my apartment and worked on it occasionally, but it wasn’t much fun because you had to spend so long looking down the list of clues. Plus I never really got it to lay flat on the wall when I hung it up. It was really huge. Bigger than a king-size bed, if I recall. Everybody I’ve ever met from Montana–about nine or ten people–has been crazy or rude. I was going to say that that doesn’t necessarily mean everybody in Montana is like that, but I guess it probably does.
Is that Bonnie Gentry’s giant Thanksgiving Day crossword? I like to think hers would have been a standard crossword grid, only ginormous, because she’s got the skills to make a giant standard crossword.
I have an online friend who’s a Montanan. She’s great. Fills her back yard with ice every winter (which, up there, means by the beginning of December) so the family and the neighbors can play hockey all the time.
Frank Longo’s “World’s Longest Crossword Puzzle” (http://amzn.to/gBRjtv) has a 1926D and a 2239A. It follows all the rules of crosswords (symmetry, no unchecked squares, etc.) and gets progressively harder as it goes along. I did it and hope that he publishes another one someday.
AHEM. AHEM.
http://www.ubercross.com/fiddy.html
768 CLUES/ANSWERS.
ALSO PUBLISHED THIS YEAR. WITHOUT UNCROSSED SQUARES LIKE THIS ONE HAS.
I’M JUST PUTTIN’ THAT OUT THERE. SINCE THERE SEEMS TO BE SOME CONFUSION ON THIS POINT. YOU’RE WELCOME.
(Of course, I once had grander claims for that puzzle than “largest puzzle of the year,” until news of the 1949 Stilgenbauer put me in my place. So consider this paying it forward, Great Falls Tribune.)
Great theme answers. 12D? Really?
I barely have the patience for a Sunday xword puzzle, good luck with that. Someone who thought they knew me bought me the “largest” crossword with a dictionary of clues, I didn’t even crack it open, maybe time for a regifting.
You know Frank Longo made another one that’s even longer, right? “The 25-Foot-Long Crossword Puzzle”!
@Amy, It is indeed my puzzle. I have done it for the past 4 years. Gannett wanted it this way when they asked me to take it over. Although a large American-style crossword would be more elegant, I would be forced to use Saturday words, obscurities, variants, etc. to make it work. With this format, I can keep it to a Monday/Tuesday word list and clues. T. Campbell’s puzzle is well-done, but I’m afraid Gannett wants to stick with what it knows is a popular feature in Arizona (and where it syndicates). And they pay me very well so the tedium of clues is well worth it.