ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ THEMELESS MONDAY]
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]
PROGRAM: [Java]
PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ THEMELESS MONDAY]
PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]
Paste Magazine has started running my puzzles. I will be updating this blog later on when they tell me the puzzle’s gone live on their site. Check back later. UPDATE: Might be a couple more days. When I know, you’ll know. Meanwhile, Grizzly Bear is still boring.
I’ll be talking about some favorite entries and clues and, of course, the thought process behind making the puzzle. So for those who are sensitive to that sort of thing, avert your eyes now! There will be some puzzle conversation after a brief spoiler space.
And by “spoiler space,” I really mean “record review.”
So Sonic Youth’s “The Eternal” is pretty damn good. Shocker, right? You know that that’s not really much of a surprise. You know they’re reliable. You know the record’s gonna be at the very least half-amazing. Well it is. Course, these guys back-load the entire record (I start with track 6: “Calming The Snake”). Does track order even mean anything nowadays? Anyway, it’s kind of hard to believe that, this is, what, like their 17th record? Has anybody put out a good 17th record? I can’t imagine that’s true, but I’ll listen to anybody’s argument. As usual, Lee gets all the half-assed beat poetry jangle, Kim gets the WTF? jams, and Thurston walks away with all the “singles.” I must have been listening to too much auto-tune lately because Kim’s anti-singing was jarringly refreshing. And if you don’t think I already approved this one, please note “Sacred Trickster” and “No Way” caused me to break out into some air guitar paroxysms. Play it loud at the beach this summer and watch all the uncool kids clear the fuck right out.
As for the puzzle: I had only a half-conceptualized theme that was supposed to run today, but I felt it should go back into the incubator. Ergo, another themeless. I wanted to make sure I was the first one to use SOTOMAYOR. That’s the glory of the blog: immediacy. We all know those letters are easy to work with along the bottom edge of the grid, nothing new there. Figured I might as well debut GUYLINER as well, so it went on the other edge. Had a really tough time deciding how the grid was going to be shaped. I had a couple ideas/fills, but they were a little bland. It was only after I got the AL D’AMATO and SADR CITY corner that I felt good about it.
IPHONE APP went in next at 1-Across. Nothing special about the fill, I don’t think. But that’s not a bad thing at all. At the test-solve stage, 19-Across was BAD and 3-Down was HAND OVER … until Tyler Hinman said he had BAG/HANGOVER for a short while (adding: “no comment”). I liked those entries better so I went there. Really like that clue I had for HANGOVER too {Morning sickness?}
EPROM basically sucks, but alas, it holds together an other wise wild NE corner. Where else but in crosswords can you have Greek mythology (EUMENIDES), thrash metal (MEGADETH), and chain stores (GAP KIDS) living in perfect harmony?
I was pretty happy to get a J and a Q in the SW. I really wasn’t trying for it, it just sort of happened, and miraculously, it doesn’t look all that forced. Usually, when a constructor adds a J, we get that lame entry AJA. Look, I love Steely Dan, but unless AJA is the glue holding together something eye-popping going the other way, please stop using it just so you can add a J. Thank you.
I aimed for slightly easier clues that the latest themelesses. Let me know if I got that difficulty correct. Hope you enjoyed it, and look for a new puzzle on Wednesday.
My time to solve your puzzles consistantly averages around 30 minutes. so we must be doing something right! I do enjoy them, along with all the “inside” information!
Favorite entry was L’CHAIM, which I can’t say I’ve seen in a puzzle before.
some nice entries. I too liked L’CHAIM. Also IPHONEAPP, SADR CITY, and MENS STORE. In fact the whole upper left (with the exception of 1-D) is pretty fantastic. Rusty classical education came in handy when I got EUMENIDES with just one cross. 🙂
That’s cool! Stick with it, and you should see your times get faster. Consider me your puzzle life coach.
Much appreciated.
One-cross EUMENIDES is pretty bad-ass.
I’m always for an early in the week themeless. Like Christmas in July.
And what’s to stop a wide open <72 worder full of lively fill from being published with easy Monday-level clues? Today's (very good) NYT had AESIR and INCE as entries, and they didn't throw off the entire difficulty of the puzzle. It may even help newbies ease into the weekend challengers without having to cut their teeth on randomly circled letter themes.
Way back when Will ran themelesses whenever. I’m not sure when he switched to the current Friday/Saturday slot. Or for that matter, why. Maybe Jim Horne can check in?
Glad you liked it.
If this had been an NYT puzzle, I suspect a few people would complain that [Mens ___] REA and MEN’S STORE both had a “mens” even though they’re entirely different words.
Good puzzle, but sheesh, the clues are too easy. I don’t want a themeless that fits into the Wednesday difficulty slot. I know some people are crying out for that, but I wanted to spend more time wrestling with this fill.
I was deliberately going for easy today, Aims. Can’t make this site all about the insanely hard stuff for the top-flight solvers like yourself. Have to entertain everybody now.
You’ve got the whole urban mini-theme going on in the lower-right, with SADR CITY, New York Sen. D’Amato, and the more subtle SotoMAYOR crossing.
I can’t make GUYLINER fit into that, but it had me chuckling anyway. Not very emo, I know.
Re difficulty, 8:30 for me, which is actually kinda long considering I didn’t feel particularly stuck at any point. By comparison the easiest Monday NYT for me is about 5 minutes–I just can’t type much faster than that.
Actually thought CLODDY more of a stretch than EPROM, the latter being a term actually in use, if jargon, while the former is more of a cruciverbalism. Not quite as bad as old faves like “ired” (has anyone ever actually in their entire lives heard anyone say “I was ired at him”???) but headed in that direction. Still, a very small price to pay for GUYLINER, which absolutely made my day.
First one I got was HANGOVER. Probably the first time I used reasoning about a constructor’s tendencies to actually speed an answer. The clue is excellent.
Between that, and MEGADEATH, this one was right where I live. GUYLINER is great, as a word anyways; always brings me back to Social Distortion, where Mike Ness was rocking that stuff decades before emo was ever invented.
Usually the music & band references in your puzzles baffle me, but not today. “Rust in Peace” is my favorite album, so that MEGADETH entry made my day! Good stuff all over the grid, and I didn’t even think EPROM was that bad.
I just wanted to commend you for this puzzle, BEQ. Themelesses aren’t usually my thing (although yours tend to be my favorite because of the fresh fill), but this was a sweet themeless. Any puzzle that has EUMENIDES right above MEGADETH is an instant win in my book.
This is second only to that puzzle you did early on here where you had the word Under literally underneath the word Earth to symbolize underground and so on. That puzzle blew me away; it’s easily in my top ten.
Anyhow, great, great puzzle today! Thanks!
I loved GUYLINER and the clue for HANGOVER, but I want to quibble about the L’CHAIM / STORIETTE crossing.
When I finished (faster than my posted time) Across Lite didn’t give me a happy pencil, so I spent another minute tracking down my error in crossing STORYETTE and L’CHAYM (not a common spelling, I know, but “l’chayim” is, and I’ve seen “storyette” several times but never “storiette”). When there are variant spellings, I’d like the crossing to help me pick one, and this one didn’t. :}
Dudes + makeup = happy customers.
Yeah… well, write what you know.
Oh man… Whilst flying back to Beantown this weekend, I saw some dude with a Megadeth tee. You’re God damned right I started listening to “Holy Wars (The Punishment Due)” right there and then.
Thanks!
Loved the Monday themeless. I guess I’m showing my age when I tell you that I promptly wrote in “Eightball” at 1A – and quickly changed it when I just knew that 3D was “Hangover”. 1A took a lot longer since I don’t have an iPhone and have little interest in getting one. The rest of the puzzle when pretty quickly. The SW corner is dazzling – the Jammal/Aqaba/Unique fill is just awesome. Thanks!
The Melvins are up to something like 18 to 22 albums now, depending on which releases you want to count (there’s some very VERY obscure limited-run stuff out there), and their lineup is better now than it’s ever been. Adding in the drummer / bassist from Big Business and letting the two mirrored drum-kits play off each other makes for quite an exhausting live show.
By my count, 2006’s “(A) Senile Animal” is their 17th, and it’s one of their all-time best.
Good point. Figured somebody did that feat.
FWIW: I was wrong. “The Eternal” is their 16th. Just out of curiosity, I went to The Fall’s discography and saw that “The Infotainment Scan” is their 16th, and from what I’ve heard, it’s one of their best.
Thanks. I was pretty happy with how that corner turned out myself.
I’ve heard “guyliner” used as a nickname for Nestor Carbonell, who played Gotham City’s Mayor Anthony Garcia in Dark Knight.
It’s a stretch, but do a google image search of the man. His natural state has perfectly black-lined eyes.
oof. It depends on your point of view for the Melvins’ 16th. It’s either “A Live History of Gluttony and Lust” in which they re-record their classic “Houdini” album with a new lineup and whiz-bang live production quality (and is a fantastic set to see live), or if you don’t count that (I do), it’s “Pigs of the Roman Empire”, which I consider to be about half filler.
Or it could be one of the records they did with Jello Biafra. Workhorses, those Melvins.
Rush’s 17th album (Vapor Trails) was totally awesome! Yes, I registered just to say this!
Nice… you win at Six Degrees of Heavy Makeup. Knew there had to be some connection, somewhere.
Wasn’t Nestor Carbonell also in the short-lived “The Tick” live-action series? I wish that had worked out better.
Tangent over and out.
Can’t say too much about Rush other than their contributions to classic rock radio are amazing. Hope you stick around for the puzzles, though.