ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION]
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]
PROGRAM: [Java]
PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION]
PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]
I’ve been making puzzles for (count ’em) 13 years now! Damn that’s a long time. I mean, that’s definitely longer than I’ve applied myself in the academic world. Easily. I was a classic get-by-on-the-skin-of-your-teeth straight-B-minus scholar. It’s a minor miracle I even have a Bachelor’s degree. In (you guessed it), English, the classic I-don’t-know-why-I’m-in-college-in-the-first-place-but-I-need-to-get-a-degree degree.
But I digress.
One thing that keeps coming up over all these years is that us puzzlemakers bemoan the fact that really isn’t any new themes out there. And it’s true, to a small degree, that a lot of the most fertile material has been strip-mined bare in the ninety or so years that crossword puzzles have been around. Granted, there have been trailblazers in the field (one good example is Peter Gordon’s editorial work for the New York Sun), but typically the schticks are kept to the same basic principles. To wit: phrases beginning (or ending) with words that belong to a set, add/drop a letter, puns, rebuses, the aforementioned quotes — to name a few.
They all work. But it does often feel like you’re spinning your creative wheels.
But isnt it kind of like saying there’s only seven stories in Hollywood?
And aren’t pretty much all pop songs about love in some form? And don’t they all use the same finite number of acceptable chord progressions?
Yet all these rules haven’t stopped the barrage of entertainment out there. Everyday, artists are filled with the need to retell the same classic stories in their own voices. Sure, some get all freaky and ape Stan Brakhage or Captain Beefheart. But doesn’t even their rule-breaking stuff tell us something about the human condition?
The beauty of playing with the English language is that it’s one of most versatile instruments out there. It’s become the gigantic melting pot of neologisms and culture. In fact, from a puzzlemaking standpoint, it’s almost easier to make puzzles today than it was even ten or fifteen years ago. A parade of new celebrities and slang enter into our vocabulary daily. And well constructed puzzles should do that too.
Before I go, just a quick thanks to Simon Vozick-Levinson over at Entertainment Weekly for dropping the science about this blog.
Thank you so much for providing entertainment after a long day in the office. I’m a bit slow on the uptake, and it took quite a while for me to figure out the theme, but I enjoyed it once I figured it out. Although there were many clues I didn’t know, I was able to infer/guess correctly. My middle-eastern restaurant serves a “donor” kebab, which gave me the guts to guess a “d” for the IDOMENEO/ADANA crossing. Thanks for the time/effort of putting out your puzzles. I really had some fun.
This one was really fun. A nice challenge.
I’m really enjoying your site. I’ve been checking in since your first post, and done all of your excellent puzzles. This one was, to me, the most challenging, but I revisited it after a few beers and it fell. I wasn’t on the lookout for anagrams as you’d mentioned in your last post that they don’t come to you very easily.
Mark
PS: Mr Show was as good a sketch comedy show as there’s ever been–I was lucky enough to attend several tapings of the show. A favorite bit was Bob Odenkirk recording God’s book on tape as Robert Evans.
Glad you’re liking the puzzles. Keep the comments coming! I originally had more dance + dance anagrams without the base words in the grid, but it was just too out there and seemed too hard.
Also had to guess the D on Idomeneo. And had never heard of Emme. Like the baseball clues. Thanks!