The big news in Crossworld this month, at least my minuscule corner of it, is that I got Covid again. I contracted Delta this summer, which laid me up pretty good for a few days, and last week Omicron wormed its way into my upper respiratory tract. I figured that, with my previous infection and the vaccine and the booster, I'd be sufficiently well-protected, but this virus is nothing if not persistent. It was still able to breach the moat and storm the castle. Thankfully, an order of antibody knights was able to repel it in relatively short order.
I could have become infected a dozen different ways. I basically went back to living life as if it's the "before times," but it's not the before times yet (ever?). I don't have any regrets, though. That's the risk; the reward is that I got to live life kinda like a normal human for nine months. It's a good tradeoff, as far as I'm concerned.
Because, although I tested positive, I didn't really get sick. I felt a little crummy Friday night, fell asleep on the sofa (which I never normally do) watching hockey and woke up feeling pretty much back to normal, other than being drench in sweat (I got the chills and bundled up before I nodded off). The worst part about the entire thing was the quarantine. My wife and kids tested negative, which is good, but it made me kinda lonely. I stayed in my basement for almost an entire week. It reminded me that as much as I like being by myself, I'm only half-introvert, at most. I need social interaction. It also made me realize that I could never be a deadbeat dad-- I missed my kids right away, and talking to a 6-year-old and 9-year-old through a closed door doesn't really work -- so that's good I guess.
It also gave me an opportunity to do even more crossword puzzles than usual. Let us discuss some of these puzzles.
Kudos Where Kudos Are Due
My favorite solve this month was this one from Michael Paleos -- just a really nice puzzle. The thing I like most about it is that all the adjectives describing the animals are spot-on for a party. Often when you see themes like this, there's one example that's just a little bit off -- like, you get it, but you think to yourself Yeah, but I would never actually say it that way. There's nothing like that in this case. They are all perfectly apt. ROCKING, WILD, DRUNKEN, and RAGING are all terms to describe a party, and none of them sound the least bit contrived. Also, the revealer is the perfect bow. This is a "Wish I Had Thought Of It" puzzle for sure.
Actually, I'm pretty surprised this theme hadn't been done yet. It seems like the type of idea I would get, get really excited about, and then check Cruciverb and see it had already been done a bunch of times, and then I'd have to decide whether it was worth it to try to make a sufficiently different version or just give up on it. But no -- it looks like this is legitimately the first time this theme has been done.
And I wonder if the constructor was sweating it out while his submission was under review. Whenever I get a theme idea that seems like it should have been before but hasn't been, I rush to make a puzzle and submit it as quickly as possible. Then I dread the impending "Regrets on your [theme x] puzzle, we already have a [theme x] puzzle in the pipeline" email. It's not an unfounded fear. This is the second most common form of rejection for me. "Your puzzle just isn't that good" (phrased much more tactfully) is number one by far.
I also liked solving this puzzle because it made me think about the ROCKINGest, WILDest, DRUNKENest, RAGINGest parties I've ever been to, and those are some fun memories. To be honest, I've always actually kinda disliked WILD parties -- I'm more of an intimate soirée type of guy -- but I have been to a handful that were really fun. I remember a New Year's Eve house party in Mount Pleasant, DC, circa 2006, that was super ROCKING and DRUNKEN and WILD and RAGING. The dance floor was hopping, I made out with the hottest chick in the house,* and one of the members of Fugazi was there.** It was so awesome.
*I had good game in my late twenties: Hey, baby, you ever wonder who makes the crossword puzzle?
**I didn't know this at the time. The friend I was with, a big punk fan, told me about it after the fact. I'm glad he waited, as then there is no way I could have acted weird around him -- well, I mean, I could have, and might have, but at least it wasn't "whoa! you're, like, a rock star!" weird.
Anyway, back to crossword puzzles. The clue of the month, perhaps even the year, is from this puzzle by Ryan McCarty and Yacob Yonas: "Rolls dough?" for CAR PAYMENT. So good! The misdirect of "Rolls" qua verb to "Rolls" qua noun is brilliant. I did see a few commenters say that somebody who could afford a Rolls Royce wouldn't need to actually make a CAR PAYMENT -- and that did cross my mind too -- but I'm not sure that that's actually true. I bet a lot of luxury cars are financed. For one thing, just because you can pay for something up front, doesn't mean you want to. For another thing, there's the whole businessman-buys-a-car-he-can't-afford-to-look-richer-than-he-really-is trope. There are probably examples of this in real life.
Although, I suspect not as many as there used to be. The whole car-as-status-symbol thing is mostly a relic of the past. Well, I say that, but we just got a Tesla a few months ago, and I'd be lying if I told you I didn't want people to check it out sometimes -- like after I work out, if I see one of my gym buddies in the parking lot, I might put my gear away a little more slowly and deliberately, in hopes they will catch a glance.
Of course Teslas might not even be cool now. We bought it just in time to avoid soaring gas prices, but also right before their owner became one of the more insufferable public figures. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before the calls come for him to be ousted from grids (if they haven't happened already). I have a feeling the North Carolina university is going to have a strong renaissance in crossword puzzle clues.
Anyway, final kudo of the post: David Steinberg published an NYT Sunday crossword with both his parents, which is legit awesome. It's a very fun, well-constructed puzzle too. I once, many years ago, made and submitted a puzzle with my dad, but it got rejected -- I think by both the NYT and the LAT -- and we didn't pursue things any further.
I sometimes wonder if my two boys will be into crossword puzzles or any word games at all. As yet they aren't showing too much interest, but I didn't really get into it until I was in my twenties, so you never know. Whatever. I try not to push them too hard in any particular direction. I'll make them little puzzles from time to time, but for the most part, they can do what they want to do during their leisure time. I'm not happy about the amount of time they spend watching YouTube videos of other people playing video games, but, hey, maybe in fifteen years they will have their own channel with thousands of subscribers, earning their own living -- or maybe they will be unemployable burnouts with no real life skills because they spent all their time watching others play Minecraft. Hopefully the former.
The Meta-Verse
I'm on a roll with the Fireball meta. I solved another one, my third or fourth in a row. One of these days I'm going to get lucky and win that sweet Fireball swag. I should probably subscribe to the Matt Gaffney weekly meta, as I very much enjoy meta puzzles (and Matt has been a super nice guy the few times I've met him). But as I've mentioned before, I obsess over metas and get down on myself when I can't solve them. I don't want to take on that mental obligation right now.
Wayward Word Watch
I was wondering when DOUCHE would make its mainstream crossword puzzle debut. I once toyed with the idea of putting D-BAGS in a submission, but I chickened out and put D-BACK* instead. Well, now I know, at least, that DOUCHE is acceptable, as it appeared in a very fun NYT puzzle by Andy Kravis on 5/18/22. The reaction was... interesting.
*By the way, isn't the nickname D-BACK for a member of the Arizona Diamondbacks one of the worst in sports? Whenever I hear it, I imagine a PA announcer: And now the lineup for your Arizona Douchebags!
Rex Parker objected to the clue for DOUCHE -- "Medicinal rinse" -- because it didn't specifically mention the vagina: "... you can say 'vagina.' It won't hurt you." This is a weird critique because, for one, anal douches are a thing (so I'm told), and, for two, the word "vagina" has already appeared in NYT clues, almost a dozen times, with reference to Eve Ensler's work "The Vagina Monologues." See, for example, this puzzle or this puzzle.
This needs some clarification. While an older relative was indeed advised by her gynecologist to douche regularly because of her pessary, those drugstore products aimed at “freshening” and scenting the vagina are not something I’d call “medicinal rinses” since doctors recommend against their use. If you’re gonna break DOUCHE into the crossword, please clue it better and more responsibly. (I wonder if the women on the editorial team argued against this clue and were outvoted by the men.)
I find this also to be a strange objection. There is nothing in the clue that implies that everything marketed as a DOUCHE is medicinal. I mean, it's a crossword puzzle clue. You have, like, six words. Some sociopolitical context is going to be omitted. Also, I could see somebody arguing that the clue is expressly responsible because it emphasizes the legitimate, medicinal use of DOUCHE and not the bullshit vagina-freshening use.
As to Amy's parenthetical remark, unless she has some sort of inside information, it seems like an incredibly fraught thing to speculate about. I mean, maybe it's true -- I certainly have no way to know -- but I find that, in general, things almost never break down nicely like this along gender lines. Surely, there are a lot of women who disagree with Amy and a lot of men who agree with her. Amy does this type of stereotyping sometimes (Rex too, actually), and I don't understand it -- like, isn't it bad to suggest all the women think one way and all the men think the other way? It certainly doesn't seem very progressive to me.
But I think the problem might be me -- how I read the blogs. I'm reading them as if they are meant to be assiduously researched opinion pieces on "The Way Crossword Puzzles Ought To Be." But clearly they are intended to be more like reaction videos in blog form. They're diaries, not analyses. (I mean, duh, the word DIARY is in one of the titles!) They are somebody's immediate feelings after solving a puzzle, so of course they don't always make sense to me. My own feelings don't always make sense to me.
Anyway, I think DOUCHE is a fine entry, and I think it has a fine clue. I certainly wouldn't mind seeing it clued it differently -- would "Obnoxious guy" fly? -- but I don't think it's disingenuous or irresponsible or anything like that as is. It just seems like a normal clue to me.
Well, that's all for now. Until next time...
