ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ UNFINISHED BUSINESS]
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]
PROGRAM: [Java]
PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ UNFINISHED BUSINESS]
PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]
This one was a weird one; you’ll probably see why when you solve it (no spoilers, don’t worry). In fact, I’m going to shut up now and just let you do it. Notes on the puzzle coming later on today somewhere in the comments section.
MID-AFTERNOON UPDATE: I was going to post this in the comments section, but instead I decided to add onto the blog post. So if you’re late to the party, and you don’t want anything spoiled, you might want to turn away now.
And besides, I didn’t have enough time to write this morning, what with my early morning doctor’s appointment and everything. And since you asked, I’m happy to report all the tests came back positive. Can’t have enough positivity in my life.
But let’s face it, I really wanted to see how the solving played out. It turns out my suspicions were correct.
First off, hat tip to reader Peter Abide who gave me the idea for this puzzle a few weeks ago. I decided to wait on it as it was originally a little too insidery. Peter’s suggestion relied heavily on the now-infamous “Natick Principle,” coined by blogger Rex Parker after he did a New York Times Sunday puzzle by yours truly. Rex states: “If you include a proper noun in your grid that you cannot reasonably expect more than 1/4 of the solving public to have heard of, you must cross that noun with reasonably common words and phrases or very common names.” That’s crossword construction 101 gold, there.
(FWIW, while I was making this puzzle, I ran the question “what do you call two shitty entries that cross each other?” by a couple other puzzle editors. There was no consensus answer, so I went with BAD CROSSING. It’s probably a good thing there’s no term for them because it’s sloppy puzzlemaking.)
So, with the theme in place, I set out to put in what I felt were four completely crappy crossings in there: THE XX / KLAX, AVEY Tare / VISANTHE Shiancoe, Roger BISSIERE / BASF and ORKUT / GHOTI. Looking back on it now, I wished I put in a few extras in the NW and SE corners. Oh well.
Anyway, I tried to make them varied enough that there would be at least one unsolvable crossing per solver. So how’d it play out? Most people did get stuck with at least one of them. Looks like top-flight solver “Steely” Dan Feyer got caught on three, and Amy Reynaldo, who makes a cameo at 27-Across, thought there was only two. Thing is, with any bits of trivia, there’s no 100% foolproof not-one-single-person-knows-it trivia. Somebody out there is going to know maybe, possibly one of them. For example, one of my test solvers knew GHOTI without knowing ORKUT, another knew VISANTHE without knowing AVEY (although for another friend it was the total opposite).
The moral? I’m an asshole. And I promise no more post-modern puzzles unless I think of a good theme.
Share the puzzle. New one on Friday.
I enjoyed the postmodern self-reference at 37A, although not so much the examples throughout! I managed to get them all though. Hardest was at 21A/8D which I just guessed at.
South was Murder. GHOTI is … wow. Just a disaster down there. Otherwise, the “V” in “VISANTHE / AVEY” was (as you intended) an impossibility, but everything else was doable. THEXX!
Aww, I made it into the puzzle! Thank you for not making 27A part of a lousy crossing, Brendan.
I love GHOTI. I used to spell out my pre-Reynaldo last name thus: “Z as in zeitgeist (with the German ts pronunciation), E as in either (long I sound), K as in knight….” I forget what I had for A, but then it was “S as in sugar.” Tsinush?
Three empty squares, three wrong guesses! Should have remembered BASF, but I went with THE XY and ALEY up top. Great concept… I guess this one isn’t going in the book?
Being a sports guy, I knew VISANTHE, and fortunately I remembered KLAX — the only crossing that I had to go trial-and-error on was 23A/12D.
Fortunately Visanthe is playing well enough for the Vikings that he’s beginning to be recognized for his football talents. Previously, he was best known for some unfortunate overexposure during a live postgame Fox Sports broadcast after a Vikings game a couple of years ago.
any fantasy football player will know shiancoe, as he’s one of the good-but-not-great TE options. that one was no problem for me (although AVEY, wtf?), but i guessed wrong on KLAX/THEXX; thought it might be KLAS/THE X’S or KLAY/THE XY.
GHOTI is a total know-it-or-you-don’t answer, maybe the best one in the grid; no letter of it is guessable if you have the other four. for those who aren’t in on GBS’s joke, it’s GH as in laugh, O as in women, and TI as in nation. that spells fish.
roger BISSIÈRE doesn’t have a wikipedia entry (unless you count french. that can’t speak highly of your artistic career.
That’s pretty ingenious. You got your own built-in cover for any criticism, kind of like a friend of mine in college who used to write songs that didn’t make any sense and sounded awful, which he justified on the basis that life is meaningless and that’s what the song was about. Can’t argue with that. I don’t mean your puzzle doesn’t make any sense or sounds awful. I just mean life is meaningless.
I had a bunch of blanks, including DEKED and KLAX. GHOTI was one of my gimmes. Hardly a month goes by that I don’t trot that one out to impress somebody.
GHOTI was a gimme, but THEXX and AVEY are completely foreign to me. DEKE is a word that, every time it shows up in a grid, I swear I will commit to memory. It never sticks – I’m always saying “dele? dene? depe?” And KLAX definitely wasn’t going to be any help.
Between him and Chris Cooley — what it is about tight ends?
Enjoyed your spin on this. I got them all except I had XHOSI for GHOTI. (Stax Records had a great horn section!)
I nailed GHOTI / ORKUT, but the others tripped me up.
Interesting “theme.” I’ve learned a lot about construction here.
Here’s my original idea, for those scoring at home:
(snip)
I’m catching up on a few years of inactivity and just figured out what the Natick Principle is, I guess named in your honor. This idea rattled out:
Solving fear UNKNOWNCROSSERS (15)
Blogger who coined __-Across to define __- Across REXPARKER (9)
Something represented four times in this puzzle NATICKPRINCIPLE (15)
And in each corner area you would have an almost impossible crossing of two entries…
(snip)
Put me down for three: I remembered KLAX from the ’80s, and the magazine I work at just did something on THE XX, so no problem there, either. However, it wasn’t the T in GHOTI that gave me the problem (I’d heard of ORKUT…from a crossword!), but rather the H. I guess in this regard — knowing more about social networking than geography — I am an average American. I actually completely bolloxed up the center-west, since I didn’t know TOR, couldn’t get MAILOUTS (embarrassingly enough), and kept wanting TEEMS for “bustles.” Infuriating.
I’ve had hits from ORKUT before, which is the only way I knew it. Shocked that so many knew GHOTI, as that one was the most “from outerspace” of the lot for me. I might have gotten killed by THEXX/KLAX had I not a. discovered THE XX last week and b. suggested them as an answer to BEQ. I figured he might use them SOMEday, after they were more famous. But he opted for RIGHT AWAY. For good reason.
rp
Same here.
I’m guessing Tyler knew VISANTHE and Francis knew AVEY, but not vice versa…
I learned GHOTI at an early age – because a (friend/neighbor/teacher?) had it as his/her vanity license plate!
Got VISANTHE, KLAX with the K in place (I was a video-game geek, yes), and not too much trouble with GHOTI/ORKUT.
What got me? GETS/GITS crossing BISSIERE. It never even crossed my mind that the ‘I’ was a possibility for some reason, and the cubist painter was just vowel soup to me. In retrospect, I should have figured that out, but like you said, everyone’s going to have a different squishy spot in this one.
Interesting theme idea that pokes some good fun out of frustrating puzzles.
A friend emailed me earlier today asking if I had an email for a mutual acquaintance, Vasanthi – whom we usually call “V” – which was enough to jog my brain for VISANTHE. 🙂
However, I’ve never heard of DEKED and KLAX took the better part of the last 5 minutes of my time to come up with. I too had never heard of THE XX and had considered THE XY and (briefly) THE XO.
Nice thing about xwords is that they require less physical effort than self-flagellation. Needed cheats on 40D, 37D, 51D, 64A, and 12D before I could drive a stake through this puzzle’s heart. Brilliantly mean-spirited. That I had “badcrossing” pretty early on was totally cold comfort.
Well done in a sadistic way. GHOTI I knew and use that one with my kids. All the rest I fell for AVEY, THEXX, GITS. I put in GET A RIDE at first which just mucked up that SE badly. Then both ASA GRAY and BISSIERE sealed the deal for a horrific SE.
Hey when did you get so jaundiced against pop music?! There’s got to be one with some social commentary.
I lucked out on the KLAX/THEXX cross, but bizarrely my biggest problem was that I misspelled 40D as ASAGREY, to get Afghan WE_ crossing BISSIE_E – took some time to see where the mistake was.
I sort of knew VISANTHE, but cycled through 3 or 4 spellings before hitting on the right one.
i use ‘GHOTI’ on the first day of spanish class every year to show my kids how f’ed up english is and how easy spanish will be by comparison.
a shared love of fantasy football and indie rock made VISANTE/AVEY a snap, and i wouldn’t be shocked to see animal collective sharing a bill with THE XX at the cmj festival going on this week.
but the whole region around BASF/BISSIERE was a mess for me. an absolute mess. loved the puzzle, though. i do enough every day that i vastly prefer being entertained by one i can’t solve than being bored by one i can.
For your statistics (and I’m generally a BEQ Easy to Medium solver):
Knew GHOTI so got that one.
Guessed (or dimly recalled) BASF so got that one.
Did not have a clue in hell for the other two.
BTW, it feels kind of funny to really like the term ‘Natick Principle’ but at the same time know every dreary mile of Rte. 9 from Worcester to Boston.
Guessed right on KLAX and BISSIERE but completely screwed up the AVEY and GHOTI areas. In addition to the Natick crossings I had trouble with the STAG clue and getting ABEYANT. Nice sort of medium puzzle!
Anybody know ‘semiphore'(sp?). That’s what my solved grid reminds me of, when I look at it. Apparently, I knew DEKED, and a few others.
I am pleased to say that, while solving, it dawned on me that the gimmick for the puzzle was, indeed, demonstrating the Natick Principle. I think I said it out loud, in fact. I like at least being on your wavelength, even if I can’t always solve these mofos.
Hand up for knowing GHOTI…Shaw’s essay about reforming spelling was in our Lit book Sr yr of HS, so that would mean 1965. I just lucked into ORKUT, but the rest– I guessed, and I guessed wrongly. So shoot me.
Is no one else going to mention that dreaded ICETEA? unless that is yet another error on my part.