ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ THEMELESS FRIDAY]
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]
PROGRAM: [Java]
PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ THEMELESS FRIDAY]
PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]
What? Another themeless puzzle? That’s two in one week, Quigley. What gives? Well, lemme explain: I was originally going to post a cryptic puzzle today. My first ever, by the way, so I wanted it to be special. But the damnfool thing took me way longer than I had allocated time to make it. Also, I wanted to run it by some cryptic masters first for some input/criticism. Basically, I ran out of time. So, Monday’s and Friday’s puzzles were swapped.
This is hardly a big deal anyway as most of y’all love the wide-open themeless. Well look at that beast up there. 64 words. 5.94 average word length! That’s moneygridding, baby! Decision was split on the difficulty, so tie goes to the runner (in this case the runner is Nancy Schuster, with her decades of puzzle editing experience). Nancy said it’s a “medium” but it’s probably got a few hard patches so really it’s a “mard.” A moneygrid mard puzzle.
By the way: huge thanks to everybody who got the word out last Wednesday. Numbers went up big time. All the tweets, RTs and Facebook postings were humbling. Thank you it was very much appreciated. But our work isn’t done! Please keep it up folks. It’s our mantra: share the puzzle. Share the puzzle. Regulars know this site smokes all those crappy puzzles in the free Metro newspapers. We need to tell others. Share the puzzle!
Pat Blindauer is kind enough to share puzzles with me. So just a quick thanks to him for sending me a copy of Frank Longo’s latest book, Vowelless Crosswords. Is it overstating the obvious this book is bananas? I’ll go into it anyway. Frank’s removed all the vowels from every entry in the book: A, E, I, O, U, and just because it’s “sometimes” a vowel, he erred on the side of caution and got rid of every entry with a Y as well. So CROSSWORD appears as CRSSWRD, HAPPINESS IS A WARM GUN appears as HPPNSSSWRMGN, and BRENDAN EMMETT QUIGLEY wouldn’t appear at all because of that pesky Y at the end of my name (even if it is technically a consonant there. UPDATE: I have been told by a few people, it’s a vowel. Regardless, it still wouldn’t be in any puzzle because of the Y). Since Frank’s a masochist, all the grids are insanely wide open, 60-ish word range. Moneygrid x infinity. And the grids, when they are filled in correctly, always look like my racks when I play Scrabble (all the nasty letters and no Es). Their difficulty, at first is daunting. Nasty hard. Mostly, though, because it’s tough to parse out the spacing of the words. For instance, a 15 letter entry is probably going to be in the 7 or 8 word (!) range. Maybe an 8 letter entry might be a 15 letter word, and how many 15 letter words, not entries, words do people really know? To compensate, Frank clued them straight, and for the really stuck, listed word lengths in the back of the book, but even then it’s still friggin’ hard. At least until you get your sea legs. About 5 or 6 puzzles in I got the hang of it. Well recommended.
Enjoy this one. See you on Monday (cross fingers for this cryptic).
Yay for another themeless! And yay for an upcoming Monday cryptic! Look forward to seeing what you have wrought.
I’d call this one hard, not mard. 33A was a need-every-crossing answer for me, and for the [Summer month to some], I had JUIN and AOUT in mind. That whole quadrant snagged me. I would bet everyone $5 that 19A was your seed entry, with 48A a close second—but who would bet against those?
The 34A clue wants to be in the past tense, no?
I think the Y in your name is a vowel, Brendan. Consonants involve sounds that can be combined with a vowel to make a syllable, but LEY sounds no different from LE or LEE. I’m sure you have readers who are better versed in linguistics than I.
Many seed entries, really, seed entries all over the grid.
Alas, your bets a push. I made the SE corner first with 48-Across as the first one, then the NW (with 19-Across as the first part). So you were correct in both instances, just got the order wrong.
I was just about to put some other seeds that didn’t make it, but I’d just ruin future puzzles.
Yes, the Y in Quigley’s a vowel. (Well, it doesn’t mean much to say the Y is a vowel, because the Y is an orthographic letter, not a phonetic segment. But the [i] sound at the end is definitely a vowel.)
I gave it Medium because for once there weren’t tons of new music names in it.
And 52A, Amy’s 33A, and 31D were in my age group.
Never heard of 48A, but remembered 19A from the comments the other day, thank God! Laughed out loud when I got 1A.
Medium for me, though agree re: WTFery of RAVENAL. I had never heard of GODWIN’S LAW, either, though the LAW part went right in and I solved that section backwards.
Isn’t LAY AWAKE past tense?
hmm. i’m with amy. the SW beat me up bad. and curse you a million times, ELUL! i swore an oath never to get beaten by ELUL again, but now you’ve done it with your super-vague clue. grr.
I did enjoy this one, but one entry rubbed the wrong way a bit: RIOTGRRL. Maybe because I had RIOTGIRL in for a while, preventing me from getting Green CARD and slowing down my time. But more than that, compared to all the rest of the entries it looks a) the most forced, b) the least in-the-language and c) (corollary to b) most restricted for number of potential users.*
*IMO, (b) does not always imply (c)
Great puzzle, tough deciding between 4 and 5 stars… TRAMP STAMP and PINOT NOIR…’nuff said.
As soon as I read the clue for 7D, I anticipated some kind of GRRL, just had to get the RIOT part… maybe its a regional thing, or the fact that I live in a house full of grrls…um, girls.
And I LOVE cryptics!! Most anticipated.. cryptic…. ever!
Gotta love those mystery entries like RAVENAL that hold the whole damn thing together.
Thank you!
Just throwing it out there: RIOT GRRL (and the more common RIOT GRRRL) is in the OED, so it’s not only fair game, it’s completely in the language. I also suspect most solvers should reject CAID as incorrect as well.
Man, and hearing that “most anticipated ever” comment, you’ve just made me even more nervous about this puzzle. Gulp!
I really enjoyed this one, particularly “Tramp Stamp”, which I would have gotten quicker had I not had “Otoe” for “Otos” (Damn tribes!!) and thankfully since I’m in musicals both RAVENAL and IAMACAMERA were gimmes for me.
I have to question the cluing for 42D though…I guess if you ROAM you’re not technically headed anywhere, but isn’t it still the opposite of going nowhere? Go nowhere seems to imply idle or laze much more than aimless wandering.
Regardless, really loved the puzzle and love the site now that I’ve discovered it in the past month. I’m looking forward to the day you do an entire Wu-Tang or Hip-Hop themed puzzle, even if I might be the only person in the world to enjoy it.
I swear to God, I thought about making a Sudo-Wu puzzle, where instead of putting the numbers 1 through 9, I was going to put in pictures of the Wu-Tang Clan… Until I discovered that King Magazine already did that!
I had some trouble in the SE until I AM A CAMERA hit me. It’s one of those titles I learned from crosswords, via the old chestnut “___ Camera”.
TRAMP STAMP was awesome! I’ll look for WHALE TAIL in your next puzzle.
I’ve heard of GODWIN’S LAW and various corollaries before, but couldn’t pull the name out without a few crosses. And I got the RIOT GRRLs with a few crosses. But RAVENAL? New to me. Missteps included PINOT GRIS, ADAR for ELUL, INTRO for PART A, and TIRE for JADE. And I don’t think I’ve heard the term OPEN EARS used in a sentence. Enjoyable puzzle.
doug, i learned I AM A CAMERA from crosswords, too, but not from the partial–from the full monty, in one of brad wilber’s brutal saturday NYTs from about a year ago. it was stacked on top of MRS. MINIVER (which i had also never heard of) and the CURATE’S EGG.
Moneygrid + many long gimmes = 5 stars. Not only did I know RAVENAL, but I just met the actor who originated the role in the 1997 revival of “Show Boat”! (Mark Jacoby, who was co-starring in the show I drove to Maine this week to see.) I don’t know if I’d call Gaylord Ravenal the “protagonist” of the musical, because Cap’n Andy is the central character, but RAVENAL is the romantic lead so it’s close enough for crosswords…
Thanks Karen. Sometimes it’s hard to take out wrong answers. (See: me on today’s brutal NYT puzzle.)
The ever-elusive Dan Feyer-approved 5 stars. Fucking A! It’s PBR time!
I stand corrected. I did not think to check the OED. Thanks for pointing that out.
I only needed the google in the extreme SW, because I know neither Good Charlotte nor French(?). Wait. I had to google Osman, too. By and large, though, some excellent fill.
Your puzzle made me feel a little better about myself after the (aforementioned) NYT puzzle today. My grid for that one hurts my eyes with all the crossing out I’ve been doing today.
Nice puzzle with some very interesting clues/answers, but definitely easier than your usual Friday offerings. I’m partial to Gromit (and Wallace) not grommets, though grommets is a fun word.
interesting puzzle: top half was total pie; bottom half was brutal (and the SE fell only by brute fucking force). RIOT GRRL was a gimme for me, though i’m probably used to seeing it “grrrl,” as was GROMMETS, NEMO, RPMS, and a lot of the rest of the NE. DOTARDS was fun; ROTO ROOTER atop TRAMP STAMP was hilarious for some reason. MAGI was slightly cruel, since gifted should mean “receiving a gift” and not giving it, though i suppose the case could be made for “one who has a gift in-hand,” regardless of the trajectory. crueler still was GODWINS LAW on top of I AM A CAMERA, two things i’ve never heard of (though i’ve seen “cabaret” at least twice). four stars.
I finished and Mr. Happy Pencil did not show up; apparently my guess for the intersection of 13A AGITATION and 8D DNA-TARDS was incorrect (and I forgot to check GEMO at 14D). I assumed that DNA-TARDS was some sort of Generation Y ageist term, but apparently now. But a nice puzzle.
er apparently not.
Making people feel better about themselves after the (aforementioned) NYT since 2008!
Thanks… thought it was just a hair easier, hence the “Medium” rating.
Four stars even after an ass kicking, I’ll take it.
Thanks, Cole.
Whoa, I am really happy to hear Amy thought it was hard, not mard, but I struggled and would label it FARD.
This was a very enjoyable puzzle, pop open yourself a sixer of PBRs!
Mark
I know none of you care, but that Broadway revival was from 1994. And I saw it in 1996.
On my second now, thanks!
The “F” in Dan Feyer really stands for “Fact-checker.”
This one was definitely hard! The only way I managed to get it going at all was the (to this Usenet veteran) gimme GODWIN’S LAW.
Never heard of RAVENAL, screwed up the NE when I initially entered “star’s name” for SCALE NOTE, and also wound up briefly crossing “riot girl” with “caid” before I whacked myself upside the head.
The very last entry to fall was PASSWORD, which made me grin 🙂
After the discussion a few days ago I should have been more ready for TRAMPSTAMP (but OTOE made it harder to see). Thanks to Vic for mentioning Gromit (who I love), and which made GROMMET look wrong to me. I confidently entered …RULE for 48A, and it took a while for me to realize that it was really a LAW. My last letter to get Mr. Happy Pencil was the cross of APPS and ASMAN; it took some seconds to grok the clue for 43A and correct myself.
Oh I just gave up on this one. But had a good laugh with the outrageous clue for AAA – which I knew because I had bothered to read that dippy magazine I get from them and was amazed to see all the discounts I never take advantage of! Did get RIOTGRRL, though! Nice.
I really glossy collection of words though the clues in general felt more (I think) vague than misdirecting…
RAVENAL was “Huh?” too, though GAYLORDFOCKER would look great in a grid!
Re ELUL – EL_L was when I realized and then cursed you to heck, that’s sneaky that
I’m on the younger side of this blog’s age bracket (I think), but RIOT GRRL didn’t come so
quickly, only with the R of green card, which is ironic?
52A was funny, I knew that I knew it from crosswords, but it wouldn’t come till quite a few crossers… then I realized i used it as IAMA in a crossword I made this weekend (with my “batting average” don’t expect to see it anywhere soon though…)
Looking forward to seeing your cryptic. I’ve had a few assays at such a thing myself, didn’t take too naturally to it though. The 2 trickiest parts I found were keeping it easy and also not ending up with a few so-so entries lying around…
Oh, and to me grommets are those icky things that go in peoples’ ears…