ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ SIDELINES]
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]
PROGRAM: [Java]
PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ SIDELINES]
PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]
This isn’t news, but it bears repeating: Bob Klahn’s puzzles kill me. I mean, no other puzzlemaker comes remotely close. His themelesses are my kryptonite. I’m done. Maybe at this point I’ve been whupped but good too many times by Bobby Dazzler that just by reading his by-line causes me to freeze in terror. But then again, any puzzlemaker who has the chutzpah to clue BUBBLE BATH as {Modesty preserver, in some films} is either (a) insanely clever or (b) a supreme dick. Possibly, and probably, both. And yeah, that one still bothers me two years later. Thanks a lot, Bob!
Another Klahn vs. Quigley story goes like this: I can’t remember what year it was, but at one of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournaments Bob had puzzle #7, that’s the Sunday-sized one that’s done, appropriately enough, on Sunday morning. Puzzle’s gimmick was a rebus with the letters “TV” in one box. Cute and clever. The formula for how that one played out went as follows: Bob Klahn’s byline + his clever/dickish cluing + early Sunday morning + undercaffeinated, dehydrated and hungover BEQ = unfinished puzzle + BEQ too damn frustrated at the whole situation leading him to immaturely write “FUCK YOU” in massive letters across the puzzle’s grid. Needless to say, I think I came in toward the end of the pack that year.
So why the Bob stories again? Well, the good folks at Puzzlewright Press sent me a copy of his latest anthology: “The Wrath of Klahn.” 72 themeless puzzles from the guy who makes me recoil in horror means this one is probably going to go untouched, thrown across the room half-completed and/or with immature comments written in the margins right? Wrong. I’m not sure how this played out, because the puzzles in this book aren’t easy, but Lord knows they aren’t ruthless. But don’t we want them hard? Isn’t that the Klahn trademark? Yes, but this book is worth mentioning because it champions Bob’s technical wizardry (no unnecessary black squares, no partials, no plural proper names, rather wide-open grids to name a few) that I think sometimes gets lost in his effort to be the most dastardliest crossword guy out there. A definitely recommended title.
Share the puzzle. New one on Friday.
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