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PUZZLE #82 & Puzzle-solving celebrity spotting / introducing star ratings / “Behind the Puzzle”

Posted on by Brendan Quigley




ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ THEMELESS MONDAY] 
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]

PROGRAM: [Java]

PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ THEMELESS MONDAY]

PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]


Had a chill weekend (for once) in what seemed like, well forever. Some family (on both sides) were in Boston, so it was good to see them. Even took a break from “having to make puzzles” and focussed a little more on, well, everything else in my life. Chillaxing is underrated, if not rated at all.

Couple small puzzle-related things though before I get into a very abbreviated “Behind the Puzzle” episode:

  1. Twitter’s an amazing site (are you following me yet?). Just did a cursory search yesterday to see who was solving my Sunday New York Times puzzle, only to discover that ’90s one-hit wonder Lisa Loeb was doing just that. What a mindfuck. Well, I know loads of celebs do the Times puzzle, I just never had proof they were actually doing my puzzles specifically. Well, QED Twitter!
  2. Dave Sullivan comes through again with another amazing addition to the site. As you recall he put together that awesome Leaderboard at the top of the middle column. Well, he’s just about outdone himself by adding star ratings along with it. So, go to town everybody: share your times (if you wish) and hit me where it hurts. Tell me what you really think of me with pictures of stars instead of words. (For those into the whole verbosity thing, the comments section remains open. Oh, and please, if you haven’t done so already, check out Dave’s running club.)

Well that’s enough puzzling news. As for this puzzle, 7-Down was, predictably, the starting point. 15-letters baby! And Jesus, what an amazing record. Hunt that record down if you ever liked Talking Heads, or if you just liked the idea of Talking Heads. The 33- and 38-Across section concluded the heavily “Entertainment Weekly” quota of the puzzle (and I forgive if a lot of these entries were: huh?). Was pretty happy with how the NW and SE sections came out (NW especially). The answer to 4-Down I’m sure will be a polarizing entry. For those who were already drinking the Elizabeth Gilbert Kool Aid will invariably love that entry. And for those who can’t stand both that book and all the blind love for that book will invariably groan and/or chalk it up as BEQ-knowing-irony. (I’ll leave that proof up to the reader.) Favorite clues in the batch: 52-Down for the humor, and 6- and 13-Down for the trivia.

Hope you enjoyed it. New puzzle on Wednesday.


41 thoughts on “PUZZLE #82 & Puzzle-solving celebrity spotting / introducing star ratings / “Behind the Puzzle””

  3. I wonder how many people found 7-Down to be a gimme. Psst: You actually don’t need the “The” in their name—I found that out when proofing your Harvard puzzle book’s acknowledgments, which is where I first heard of the band last week. (Mere days later, I came across the album review in Entertainment Weekly—the critic gave it an A- or B+.)
    I always want the Gilbert title to be Eat, Drink, Love, because that sounds much more fun.

  4. Oh, as for the star ratings: I’m thinking that you won’t ever have a 1-star puzzle because you’ll be avoiding the bullshit themes. Do you want to be graded based on the BEQ curve, in which our least favorite of your puzzles get 1 star, or on the universal curve, in which your truly exceptional puzzles hit 5 stars and the worst you do is pretty much gonna be 3 stars?

  6. Good point. I’d say if it really sucked bad beyond all infinite levels of badness, give me the one star. I can take criticism. I’m assuming it would never get to that; I’m assuming the test solvers would let me hear it. And frankly, you can’t please everybody, so I’m assuming somebody will inevitably give me a one star just because they feel like it.

  7. I couldn’t figure out how they got NSYNC from Timberlake, so I looked it up…its the last letters of their FIRST names…not that I care! Great puzzle, BEQ!
    My best mistake: “EAT PRAILINE”(sic)….yum!

  8. I’m a tough grader! 5 stars is for an extraordinary puzzle, 4 for a very special one, 3 for a good one. this is a good puzzle. 🙂

  9. also you might want to tweak the column width, so that 4- and 5-star ratings all appear on one line in the standings?

  10. Really enjoyed this one, but I wondered if 58-Across shouldn’t be “deponents” instead of DEPOSERS. I’ve seen “deponent” before, at least.
    I used LIL BOW-WOW to get RAAB…wonder how many people took the reverse route?

  11. Lotta musical references in this one. All I could think of for 7D was Dirt Merchants, not being familiar with the ensemble in question, which was no help. Had to guess 33A (are all rappers “lil” now?) and hold my nose for 6D. But sweet relief came with 21A, who deserves wider exposure. And who might also have added to his most famous line, “The television will not be revolutionized!”

  12. ktd–I second your comment on 58A. Aren’t the deposers the ones deposing the deponents?

  13. interesting that you are so proud of the NW, which for me was fourteen times harder than the rest of the puzzle, which felt either breezy (NE) or challenging but doable if you work at it (SE and SW). i worked hard at the NW but ultimately had to cheat to finish — mainly, i think, because the two proper nouns were totally unknown to me and because i’ve never heard of a napoleon pastry. hat trick ov death. MESHUGA’s a cool word, though. 3 stars.

  14. needless to say, i did not complete this puzzle in 00h01m. sorry for throwing off the time rankings; i wanted only to enter the stars. maybe we could enter stars w/o having to enter times? i don’t really do xwords “for speed.”

  15. I originally had NUTTY PROFESSORS at 7-D. The TYPRO string had me convinced it was right, and it sounded like a good name for a band.
    This is something I never thought I’d write: Awesome NSYNC clue!

  18. Fun BEQ fact: the Dirt Merchants won the WBCN Rumble (an idiotic Battle of the Bands out of Boston) some twelve years before one of BEQ’s bands did.
    Erm… isn’t it “The revolution will not be televised?”

  22. Another one I couldn’t actually finish. All four corners were fine … but I got stuck in the middle, never having heard of JON SEDA or LIL-whoever, or the DIRTY PROJECTORS. (If they’re anything like Talking Heads, though, I may seek ’em out.)
    And I think this is the first time I’ve seen RAAB for “rabe”. We must read different food blogs. 🙂

  25. Like others I was reluctant about DEPOSERS, as I thought that would mean “those who took depositions” rather than the testifiers themselves, but Google supports your definition.
    Your puzzles frustrate me. As with the Sunday NYT, there is usually a crossing that eludes me completely. Here it was 7D and 38A, neither of which I’d heard of (showing my age here; my kids know these things, but not me). Then I always feel stupid afterwards as the right letter seems so natural. The Medium rating gave me hope that I would finally break 10 minutes on one of these, but no such luck (but thank you and Dave for the ratings anyway).
    It didn’t help that I doubly misread 22A as needing a plural and so needing to be FRIS and not THUR which led to erasing STPATS. I had also just read about the Elizabeth Gilbert but could not retrieve the title until many crosses were there.

  26. Oops, I thought the stars were difficulty rating, not quality rating. I also frequently answer the poll question before reading the blog.

  28. I knew a bunch of the media trivia. In sports was happy SIMEON came to me not happy I didn’t remember SIPE. Once again the top of the puzzle came through and the bottom caused me conniptions.
    I’m not digging the DPs yet, we’ll see.

  30. Yep, JON/PROJECTORS hit me hard, my clinical pop culture/music definicency quotient killed me there. Pretty cool puzzle though.

  31. That’s “deficiency”. Note: do not post when desperately hurting due to lack of sleep.

  38. Three 1/2 stars here. I too balked at DEPOSERS and also got the 7d/38a square wrong. Had a “T.” Although I’ve never heard of the band I was a big fan of “Homicide” and do know who JONSEDA is. I guess PROTECTORS seemed fine and I really never checked 38a closely. Need to pay more attention in the future. Anyway, fun puzzle that added to my pop culture data base.

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