And If the Sun Comes Up Tomorrow, Let Her Be, Let Her Be

Another crossword puzzle of mine was published in the New York Times today.  Good.  I’m slowly reaching my goal of becoming a “famous” constructor.  I doubt I will ever reach Elizabeth Gorski level – she’s the Leonhard Euler of crossword puzzle construction – but I would like to get to the point where every solver who cares about bylines recognizes my name, says “Oh, him again,” and then either smiles or sighs depending on their taste.

I submitted this puzzle about a year and a half ago, which is a pretty typical turnaround time for one of my themeless puzzles.  I groused a few entries ago about the lag time from submission to publication in the New York Times, because I feel like it causes a misrepresentation of my current constructing skills.  I don't feel that way as strongly with this puzzle, but the sentiment is still there a bit.  To use a sports analogy: I feel like I'm nearing my prime, but solvers are doing my rookie year puzzles.

To take the comparison further, consider the career of retired baseball pitcher Randy Johnson.*  In the early ‘90s, he was decent enough ballplayer -- a legit major league starter, but not a star.  He threw a few great games and showed promise, but he was inconsistent and wild.  So he worked on his control, and within a few years he was one of the best pitchers in the game.  Now imagine it is 1993 -- Johnson’s first great season -- but instead of seeing what’s happening in the current season, baseball fans can only see his games from two years earlier, 1991.  Nobody will see his 1993 season until 1995, when he will be in the midst of an even better season.  That would be a bit frustrating for Johnson, right?  That’s how I feel.  And, yes, I am aware that I just compared myself to one of the greatest players in baseball history.  I’m cool with that.

[Randy Johnson's killer fastballer.  Don't watch if you really love birds.]

Anyway…

This puzzle is my first published attempt at a super low word count puzzle.  It’s only 64 words (52 of which are longer than four letters), but filling it in was less daunting than one might think, because of the four Tetris-looking blocks of cheater squares.  I think the staircase pattern helps as well.  Honestly, this isn’t my favorite grid layout in the world, but I think it’s a nice changeup (keeping the baseball theme going) to the typical stack-heavy themeless patterns.  It’s something different, which is good.  You gotta throw off the solver's timing once in a while -- mix it up.

I’m mostly happy with the way it turned out, but it does have a few cringe-worthy parts that I might have been able to eliminate if I made it today.  My least favorite part is the EAPOE, SATANS, RATINE section.  That’s an abbreviated name on top of a random possessive on top of an obscure, boring word.  That's not great.  Then there is SAR on STER, which is less offensive, but also ugly.  But that one is pretty well cooked into the puzzle.  The EAPOE part I might be able to extricate and replace with something better.  But then again maybe not.  That was the last part of the puzzle I filled in, and it took me a very long time, so maybe that area is just thorny and there will be compromises no matter what.  Plus, it is holding together the SATINSHEETS/MEMORYHOLE crossing, which I quite like.  SATINSHEETS reminds me of the Madonna song “Express Yourself” (Satin Sheets are very romantic, but what happens when you’re not in bed…), and MEMORYHOLE reminds me of the Savage Lovecast.  Of course, it is originally from 1984 (pretty good book -- although I think Orwell got it all wrong on mass surveillance, but that's a whole other topic), but that is not where I got it.  As I explain in my XWord Info notes:

I had MEMORY???? for the longest time and kept cycling through various options (e.g., MEMORYCARD, MEMORYLANE), but couldn't get anything to work right. Then one night I was working on the puzzle listening to Dan Savage's "Savage Lovecast," and a woman called Dan saying she had a one-off affair, asking if she should tell her husband about it. Dan told her that if she thought she would never do it again then she should not tell him and instead she should slide it down her "memory hole." How serendipitous! Who knew marital infidelities could aid the construction of crossword puzzles?

OK, let’s hit some bullets and call it a post.

• According to Jim Horne at XWord Info, this grid pattern has been used one other time, 18 years ago.  It is the grid with the fewest words in the Crossword Compiler library (in my version, at least).
• Hootie & The Blowfish were inescapable my sophomore year of high school.   I never really liked them -- kinda sappy -- but whenever I hear their songs now I get all nostalgic.  I was happy to debut LETHERCRY in a puzzle. 
• Speaking of sappy, nostalgia-inducing songs, I originally clued CETERA as "'Glory of Love' singer Peter".  I suspected it would get changed, but I had to try.  I fucking love that song.  I am a man who would fight for your h-o-n-or...
• MOMJEANS was my only seed entry.  It was inspired by our president.  And I thought the clue for it -- "What some women are waist-high in" -- was pretty good.  I think Will changed it a bit, but I'm pretty sure I came up with the gist of it.
• Late entry, but I've been noticing that the initial feedback from blog commenters on this puzzle has been mostly positive, and yet Rex Parker panned it (Amy liked it though).  Interesting.  The truth of the matter is that I still have no idea which of my puzzles people will like and which ones they will dislike.

Alright, that's it for this entry.

*Speaking of Randy Johnson, he has a very underrated double-entendre name.  Think about it: Randy Johnson.  One of the great tragedies in baseball history is that, despite playing in the same league for nearly half a decade, Randy Johnson never faced off against longtime Twins outfielder Randy Bush.  You can read more about Mr. Johnson, Mr. Bush, and plenty of other players with great names (even some you can't make juvenile puns about) in my terrific book Urban Shocker All-Stars: The 100 Greatest Baseball Names Ever.

It's Not Plagiarism; It's a Sequel Puzzle: '90s Fads

I didn't plagiarize anybody, but I did borrow a theme idea from myself.

On June 26, 2006, a puzzle of mine ran in the NYT with the theme '80s fads.  (It was chosen as one of "Will Shortz's Favorite Puzzles," which I point out only for context -- the context being that I want to brag.)  Since that was just about 10 years, I figured -- hey, why not a '90s fads puzzle?  Devoid of a decent answer, I decided to make such a puzzle.  I always liked the idea of a crossword puzzle sequel, anyway.  In fact, I would love it if I could keep going with this theme every decade, but I think it will end here.  The '00s don't feel like a "thing" in the same way as the other decades.

[Can you name each of the '90s music artists below?]

With a theme this broad, the key is finding the right mix of theme answers.  I wanted fads from different categories, which I think I achieved (toys, TV/hair, apparel, and music), and from different cultures, which I didn't quite achieve, because there isn't a hip-hop fad.  Being that hip-hop was a huge part of the '90s, this is a nontrivial omission.  But I just couldn't get a distinctly '90s hip-hop fad to fit in the grid (OVERALLSWITHONESTRAPUNDONE is way too long).  I tried.

Actually, at one point I had HAMMERPANTS in the grid, but I deleted it when I realized that MC Hammer's first big album Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em wasn't technically released in the '90s.  Except it was.  I got confused because I saw somewhere that MC Hammer performed his megahit single "U Can't Touch This" on the Arsenio Hall Show in 1989, and he did, but it was a "sneak peek" before the studio version was released on his album in January of 1990.  So it's legit '90s after all! (Some might say 2 legit.)  But by the time I realized this, my puzzle had already been accepted.  Oh well, c'est la vie...  And by the way, today MC Hammer is a bit of a joke (because of things like this video), but the dude was hot back in the day.  I have distinct memories of kids trying to copy his dance moves on the playground in middle school.  I was never much of a dancer, but I bet I could still rap all of "U Can't Touch This" if you got me started.

My, my music hits me so hard, makes me say "Oh, my lord"...

Somewhat interestingly I never partook in any of the fads I used in this puzzle.  I never owned a Tamagotchi pet (I think real pets are a waste of time, never mind fake ones); I never sported "The Rachel" hairstyle (I wasn't a huge Friends fan, although I used to watch it on occasion); despite kinda being a wannabe grunge kid (almost by default, I grew up near Seattle) I never owned a pair of Dr. Martens; and I didn't even know who sang "Macarena" until I wrote the clue for this puzzle.  I did, however, once read the English translation of the lyrics.  They don't make much sense.  I'm not sure if something is lost in translation, or if it's just a nonsensical song.  But being that "Macanera" was named by VH1 the "greatest one-hit wonder" of all-time, I'm leaning toward the latter.  Here is the English translation of my favorite verse:

Macarena has a boyfriend who's called...
who's called the last name Vitorino,
and while he was taking his oath as a conscript
she was giving it to two friends ...Aaay!
(repeat once)

I like how it's repeated once.  The listeners really need to understand Macarena's relationship with Vitorino and how she was catting around on him with two friends while he was taking an oath as a conscript (?).  I'm glad that Los del Rios drove this point home with a second telling.

Well, I think this post has more or less run its course.  Let's end with a few parting shots.

• Does 14-Across have an inaccuracy in the clue?  I think the Wham-O toy is stylized Slip'N Slide without a space between the apostrophe and the N.  (This is how I submitted it.)  On the product page, this is how it is written in the heading and in the logo on its box.  However below this it says Slip ‘N Slide® with a space before the apostrophe, so I'm not sure.
• My original clue for FIVE0 explicitly referenced the remade version of the show, as the original show was Hawaii Five-O with the letter O, not the number 0, at the end.  The remake uses the number 0.  It's not a big deal, but since the original is the much more well-known show, I wanted to make it clear that it was not the one being referenced.  I imagine most solvers will get the correct answer without giving it much thought.
• I was aiming for a Wednesday puzzle because this is a day I need to complete "the cycle," but Will Shortz wanted it to be a Monday, and he's the decider.
• The good thing about a making a puzzle like this is that even if it's not very good, a certain segment of the population will like it anyway because it reminds them of the good old days.  It's like how Jimmy Fallon isn't really funny, put he does skits that make Gen-Xers feel nostalgic, so his show is popular.  (I particularly enjoyed this one.)
• Finally, a few fads that didn't make the cut:

The aforementioned Hammer pants...

If those aren't your bag, how about Zubaz pants...

Or maybe Umbro shorts...

They go great with a Hypercolor t-shirts...

And some Reebok Pump sneakers...

While rockin' a high top fade in overalls with one strap undone...

Or a Starter jacket (we called them "bombers" for some reason)...

Beanie Babies anybody...

No -- how about some Pogs...

Or Sega Genesis (it's 16-bit!)...

We can play NHLPA Hockey '93; I'll knock your ass out with Bob Probert!

Finally, you really should buy my word-nerdy baseball book: Urban Shocker All-Stars: The 100 Greatest Baseball Names Ever.  It's been getting a lot of great publicity lately!  By which I mean I was contacted by a local radio producer about possibly going on a show sometime in the next few weeks to talk about.  It hasn't happened yet, and might not ever, but, hey, fingers crossed! ... Right?