A Month In Crosswords: So Much Great Crossword Content

No puzzles published by me this month, and I already wrote about my experience at ACPT last entry, so, since I'm the star of Crossworld in my own head, as far as I'm concerned, there is nothing of great interest to report this month. But pretending for a moment that I'm not a self-centered narcissist, I'll still write about a few things.

Kudos Where Kudos Are Due

• The New Yorker has expanded its roster of constructors and moved to a five-day-a-week format (up from three), including a themed Friday puzzle. This is good news -- the more puzzles the merrier -- although it means I'll have to make even more room in my already stretched allotment of puzzling time, or I'll have to set some puzzles aside and lie to myself about doing them later, until the backlog gets so big that I just trash everything and start from a clean slate. That's currently how I manage my podcasts, and it's a decent system. If only I could tap a button to increase my solving speed to 1.5-time.
  
  
• Speaking of increased solving speed, I heard that Paolo Pasco solved an NYT Monday puzzle in under one minute. That. Is. In. Sane. The last time I heard a solving feat that impressive was when somebody (I think Andy Kravis) posted that they did the entire week of NYT puzzles in under 22 minutes, which would be close to a record time for me just on the Sunday puzzle. Paolo is so fast it seems like only a matter of time before he wins an ACPT. But, you never know; the faster you go, the more likely you are to make errors, which is what dropped him to the B-board this year. It's like being a quarterback, you can rack up the yards and the touchdowns, but if you don't also avoid turnovers and sacks, you probably won't be the best of the best. And I really should move on to a new subject now, before I start comparing individual crossword solvers to NFL quarterbacks and lose the few readers I have.
  
  
• And speaking of the Friday themed New Yorker puzzle, Andrew Ries had a nice one yesterday. It's a clever tweak on a standard crossword theme type -- a "wish I had thought of that" puzzle for sure. I also loved seeing TOTAL BS (which I struggled to parse at first -- TOTAL B'S? What does that mean?) and SAVAGE LOVE in the grid. Growing up in the Seattle-area, I cut my gay-culture teeth reading Dan Savage back when his column had a name I will link to but won't write and when reading about such things felt transgressive. I was born in 1977 making me solidly Gen-X but young enough to pal around with millennials, and one of the biggest differences between the two generations is the acceptance of gayness into everyday life. The progress that's been made along these lines is remarkable and, if I may get a bit sanctimonious, often not properly acknowledged even by people as old as their mid-30s today.
  
  
•  I thought this puzzle by Matthew Stock was wonderful. The fill is just normal-really-good NYT-themeless fill, but the cluing really sings. So many gems -- "They've got their own problems" for MATH TESTS; "They might smell fishy" for CAT TREATS; "They can have you going the wrong way" for HEAD FAKES -- but the true stroke of genius is "Joe carter?" for COFFEE URN. It's kinda a niche stroke of genius, but a stroke of genius nevertheless. The only baseball clue I've seen that rivals it was in a puzzle a few years ago when Trea Turner played for Washington, and TREA was clued as "Nat Turner".
  
  
• Two other puzzles I really liked are this and this Fireball meta (especially the former). I was able to solve both of them, and I've noticed my enjoyment of metas is directly correlated to whether or not I'm able to solve them.
  

• The LA Times has a new crossword editor! Longtime assistant editor Patti Varol has moved into the lead spot, and Christina Iverson is the new assistant editor. The LAT puts out a really good puzzle, especially their Saturday themeless, and I certainly don't expect things to change now. Congrats to Patti and Christina!

Wayward Word Watch

Let's check in on one of my favorite topics to discuss: entries some solvers didn't like.

The big one this month is CAR BOMB, which appeared in Sam Ezersky's 4/24 NYT Sunday puzzle with the clue "Irish ___, popular St. Patrick's Day cocktail". Unbeknownst to me at the time of my solve, this is a controversial drink name, as noted in the review at both Crossword Fiend and Rex Parker. I think the objection here is mainly due to the clue, in which case, yeah, okay, I'd probably change the clue, if only to avoid getting hassled. You gotta pick your battles.* However, I don't think it was some sort of grievous error by the NYT editorial team to clue it as they did because the drink's name is in fact "Irish CAR BOMB" -- that's what most Americans call it, without even thinking anything of it. So then it becomes a debate about whether crossword puzzles should reflect culture as it is, including the bad parts, or some curated version of culture in which uncomfortable subjects are not allowed. Reasonable people can (and do) disagree about this, but I very much prefer the former.

*Wait, is it offensive to use that phrase in this context?

Also, it's unclear to me how offensive the drink name really is. Wikipedia says it's "considered offensive by most Irish and British people, with many bartenders refusing to serve it," but the evidence for this claim is incredibly thin. If you actually read the cited sources you don't find anything more damning than a handful of anecdotes that some Irish people don't like it -- and even this is balanced out by other Irish people saying they don't mind it. It's almost always this way. So often when I hear something is offensive to people of a certain identity, I find it to be true and not true and everything in between. There are people of that identity who are offended by it; there are people of that identity who aren't offended by it; there are people of that identity offended by the notion they should be offended by it; and there are people (most people?) of that identity who shrug their shoulders and get on with their lives. No matter what opinion you hold on these types of issues, somebody you're supposed to "listen to" has cause to tell you you're wrong. 

One quote from an article I want to requote: 

“I don’t think the name offends people anymore,” Ford said. “The British and the Irish have a long tradition of using humor and satire to deal with serious issues. Putting some satire to the name of a drink would be a coping mechanism rather than something that is offensive.”

Yes! This speaks to me. In a different article, somebody says calling it an Irish CAR BOMB is like calling a drink a "Flaming Twin Towers," and I thought to myself I'd ordered a Flaming Twin Towers. It'd be two flaming Dr. Peppers served side-by-side in highball snifters, and then after you drink them, you smash the glasses, and Mark Ruffalo questions how they shattered so quickly. 

Gallows humor -- some people need it.

Moving on... another crossword entry that generated some negative feedback recently is RETARD, which appeared in a WSJ grid (3/29) by Lucy Howard, edited by Mike Shenk. The clue was "Slow down," as in The chemicals in the fire extinguisher will help RETARD the spread of flames. So, this is a different word, pronounced differently, used in a different context from the middle-school insult of the same spelling. In fact, when I see RETARD used as a verb, its pejorative cousin usually doesn't even enter my head. The verb is just a normal word I associate with chemistry.

And so, it probably goes without saying that I have no problem with RETARD being in a crossword grid. And it also probably goes without saying, given that this word has the same letters in the same order as an ableist slur, that some people feel differently from me. You can read the comments of such folks in the linked article above, or you can search Twitter.com where I saw a few indignant tweets asking how in 2022 could a crossword grid contain such a word? that were cosigned by some people in Crossworld whom I like and whose opinions I respect.

To be clear, I have no problem with somebody saying they don't like RETARD (or any other entry) and wouldn't put it in a grid. I take issue with people saying nobody should be allowed to put it in a grid. It strikes me as a very self-important way to look at something: I'm bothered by this, therefore it should be off-limits for everybody.

Actually, it's kinda interesting, on the same day RETARD ran in the WSJ, the aforementioned Paolo Pasco made his debut in the New Yorker, and a commenter (again linked above) criticized it for having too many "unfair" proper nouns to which Paolo replied:

sorry to hear that! just send me a list of all the things you, personally, know and i’ll make sure this mistake never happens again 

This is a brilliant retort, as it succinctly and humorously illustrates the absurdity of a solver expecting a crossword puzzle meant for a broad audience to cater to their personal knowledge base. And yet this is basically what people want when they demand a word like RETARD be stricken from puzzles because they, personally, don't like it. I'd suggest we respond to such demands by also asking for a list, but the person might not get the joke, and they'd actually give us a list, and then we wouldn't be able to use entries like ABC and OREO, and then where would we be?

There is no way for constructors and editors to respect the sensibilities of every person, or every type of person, or every group of people in their entire solving audience, unless this audience is smaller than, like, five people. The only way to ensure that nothing will be in a grid that you find unpleasant is to hire your own personal crossword constructor, in which case, I'm available. I'll make a puzzle that's nothing but sunshine and lollipops and Marianne Williamson quotes, for the right price. Actually, I'd probably make that puzzle for free. It sounds like a kinda interesting project, and I'm generous with my services that way.

Contrarian Corner: The Teaser

I started writing a whole other section here, in which I post things bloggers or commenters or other constructors say about crosswords with which I disagree, and then I state that I disagree with them and explain why. But it got to be too long, as it morphed into other broader crossword topics, so I cut it with the idea that I'll finish it and post it later, perhaps over several entries. But I'll at least give you a little taste of what I had going on.

• The Old-Guard Canard --  The fallacious (in my opinion) notion that there's an Old-Guard of straight, male, white crossword gatekeepers, who aren't interested in and often actively discourage or disallow crossword content that doesn't appeal to a stereotypical older, straight, white, male solver.
  
  
• The regressive practice of some crossword bloggers and commenters of perpetuating stereotypes as a means of measuring equality.
  
  
• How gay do you have to be to qualify for an NYT Diverse Crossword Constructor Fellowship? Do you have to be, like, full-on gay, or can you just be kinda bicurious? And aren't LGBTQ folks already pretty well-represented among crossword constructors? If not, then my read on certain people is way off the mark.

That's all I got for you. Until next time...

A Month In Crosswords: ACPT and Me

ACPT. It came. It went. It rocked, as always.

It was also exhausting, as always. I never sleep well at ACPT. I never sleep well in hotels, period. That's one of the ways in which I'm becoming an old man. I'm not there yet, but I'm definitely developing some old-man-ish attributes, such as never wanting to sleep anywhere but my own bed. And I'm a fussy fall-asleeper in general. I need to have everything just so to easily conk out. I need to be in my own bed, with my own pillow, feeling the tender touch of my own wife as she passes gas and grunts at me for hogging the bed sheet (I just have broad shoulders!). Absent these things, I will often lie in bed for hours wondering how little sleep somebody could get and still function like a normal human the next day. I think I slept about two hours Friday night, and that's a personal high for the first night of ACPT.

I participated in the tournament as a judge -- my third "straight" ACPT in such a role. I rode up Friday afternoon with my usual DC/NoVa crossword/trivia crew -- Dan Felsenheld, Michael Berman, and Brian Cross. I hadn't seen any of them since before Covid, so it was nice to catch up. The company for the drive was good, but the traffic was not, so we got into Stamford later than expected. The judges dinner was already underway when we arrived, and I was kinda starving, so I didn't have a chance to mill around the lobby and glad-hand a bit like I would have liked to have done.

[Damon Gulczynski: ACPT 2022 Champion, Super-Stud Division]

There was a small issue with my room, in that they first told me I didn't have a room, which is very bad, and then they told me I actually had two rooms, which is much better, but still not ideal, because it meant I had to pick between two other judges to room with. (Thanks for putting me on the spot, hotel guy!) Puzzle 7 constructor Mike Shenk was one of the options, so I picked him, because I roomed with him once before and found him to be a perfectly nice guy, and I had never met the other judge. I felt kinda bad about it though, because I thought maybe the guy I didn't pick was going to get his own room, and so by being a perfectly nice guy Mike was getting the short end of the stick.

I'm not sure if this was actually the case, but there definitely was a mistake because the next morning while sitting in the lobby drinking my morning coffee, I overheard the tournament organizer apologizing to Mike for a room mix-up and asking him if having me as a roommate was okay. It was one of those awkward situations where two people start talking about you, right in front of you, but don't realize it. Thankfully, Mike didn't say anything even remotely negative about me (perfectly nice guy, remember), and I quickly interjected with something like "actually your roommate is right here!" so that they'd know I was, in fact, right there. I had to make a quick decision to either reveal myself or try to blend in with the chair like a chameleon. I went with the former and I think it was the right move. Things could have gotten really awkward if I didn't say anything, and then they noticed me sitting there silently.

I had a new position this year within the tournament administration apparatus. I was a member of the tech team! My job was to take graded puzzles (wrong answers marked with highlighter) and scan them into a computer. It's not that simple, though, because you have to make sure everything scans correctly, and you have to make fixes manually if it doesn't. Something in Puzzles 1 and 4 were tripping up the scanner (they had circles in the grid, which was probably it), so I had to count the number of incorrect squares and words for about 95% of those puzzles by hand. Luckily there were relatively few mistakes on those puzzles. Had that happened on Puzzle 5 (a wonderfully brutal BEQ offering) it would have been a legit disaster.

I wouldn't say the job was "fun," necessarily, but it suited me just fine. It was very satisfying, and I enjoyed bonding with the other tech people the way you do when you spend 13 hours over two days accomplishing a common goal. The biggest downside to it is that you don't get to interact with that many other judges. You are in the tech room all day with the same seven or eight people (and you don't get a chance to work the ballroom, which is probably the funnest judge job). Beyond some basic pleasantries, I didn't get a chance to talk to as many of the other judges as I have in years past. I did get to hang out with fellow tech teamer John Lieb (he of Boswords fame), so that was cool -- he's a good guy. And I had a few delightful conversations with Tracy Gray and Robyn Weintraub. They're both great -- just a lot of fun.

After the work was done for the day, I'd go to the lobby/bar area and talk to whoever was willing to talk to me. It's an interesting social dynamic because you meet so many people, but you can't meet everybody, so you just see people around and know who they are without ever actually meeting them. And then sometimes I actually forget if I've met somebody or just thought I met them because I've seen them around so much.*

*This is another getting-to-be-an-old-man-ish thing. Twenty years ago I never forgot meeting anybody. I used to pretend I did though, so that I wouldn't seem like some sort of stalker-y weirdo, especially around girls. Oh, hey, you're Summer Lang, we had freshmen English together three years ago, you sat in the third row, wore baggy jeans and a backpack with a sunflower on it, and once you wrote an essay about the time you saw Rage Against the Machine with your sister at The Gorge... no, we never actually met or even talked, I just remember a lot about you for no particular reason, never struck me as the world's greatest pickup line.    

The tournament itself went pretty smoothly -- no major gaffes on our end. We had a mini panic when we couldn't find the last puzzle for a top B competitor (Jenna LaFleur), but it turned out she overslept and didn't solve it! That really, really sucks. She was on pace to be a shoo-in for the big board, and instead she dropped way down the rankings. I feel terrible for her, and I don't even know her. But at least it means we didn't lose a crucial puzzle.

The A division finals was very chalky with Dan Feyer, David Plotkin, and Tyler Hinman making the big board. Tyler won, which is cool, but I always pull for Dan, because I'm friendly with him and we seem to have similar puzzling sensibilities. I don't think I've ever met either David or Tyler (though I've certainly seen them around a lot).

It was a reasonably close finals between Tyler and Dan. Tyler got off to a better start and held on as Dan closed the gap a bit toward the end. (At least I think that's what happened; it's kinda hard to tell who's winning and by how much when you're watching it live.) David really struggled. He finished well behind the other two, and he had an error to boot. It's weird; he always does so well on the "regular season" puzzles -- he finished in first place this year -- and then he always comes in third at the big board. It kinda sucks for him, but, on the flip side, if we think of this like the Olympics, he's got like a half-dozen bronze medals to his name and that's certainly nothing to sneeze at.

Anyway... that was ACPT 2022.

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In other news, a puzzle of mine dropped in the New York Times this evening. I think it's pretty good. I like puzzles like this where most of the word play is in the clues. They are a good change up to the usual entry-based word play puzzles. (Here's another one like this I made a few years ago.) I don't have a ton else to say about it. I might hop back on with an update after I read the blogs and some of the comments.

Although, I can probably guess already what the bloggers will say.

XWordInfo: Jeff will point out the merits of the puzzle before comparing it to a similar puzzle, possibly one he co-constructed, from seven years ago. Although he won't say it explicitly, you'll get the impression he liked the older one better. Also, there will be dad jokes.

Crossword Fiend: They'll point out that in cluing LEHRER as a white man, I missed an opportunity to highlight the accomplishments of Salvadorian-born landscape artist MIA LEHRER. The comments section will then burst into flames.

Rex Parker: Rex will pick a nit -- possibly about how the RNC is a hate group or how LAMÉ is an ableist slur -- write five paragraphs about it, and then briefly mention that my theme is either stale or clever (it's about 50-50 with my puzzles). Whatever the case, the conclusion will be that the NYT needs a new crossword editor.

Wordplay: They'll provide insightful commentary because everybody who writes there does really great work and has brilliant takes on crosswords. And I'm not just saying this because they are the in-house blog for the New York Times who published my puzzle. That's totally a coincidence.

I kid, I kid... I mean, it's all kinda true, but still, I kid.

Actually, Jeff really could compare my puzzle to a similar puzzle, but not one that he co-constructed, nor one that was written seven years ago. Sam Donaldson published this excellent puzzle in Fireball a little over a year ago. Sam's puzzle has the same basic idea as mine, but the roles of clues and entries are reversed. Also, he uses a bigger grid with more themers.

In a previous entry, I discussed the phenomenon of similar themes, and this is a great example. I hadn't seen Sam's puzzle prior to creating mine (my puzzle had already been accepted when his ran), so there's no way I could have copied him, even subconsciously. We both just thought of the same basic idea at about the same time, totally independently. It happens. I guess Sam and I are the Leibniz and Newton of our day.

By the way, to find the link to Sam's puzzle, I went through my old emails to get the date it was sent out by Fireball, and guess when it was... January 6, 2021. This might explain why I don't remember being particularly bothered by the fact Sam had kinda beaten me to the punch -- we all had real things to fret about that day.

And on that cheery note...