E-Books
by Judith Seretto
edited by Mike Shenk
April 30, 2010
As of this posting, full answers not yet available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page. Therefore, take these answers with requisite grain of salt.
Theme: Literature with an E
FEATHERS AND SONS {21A Book about characters like Icarus?} - Ivan Turgenev
WEAR AND PEACE {31A Book about concerns of an army tank maintainer?} - Leo Tolstoy
HEARD TIMES {41A Book about a newspaper's audio version?} - Charles Dickens
THE LEAST OF THE MOHICANS {63A Book about a tribe's smallest member?} - James Fenimore Cooper. Diary of a Crossword Fiend has a point, “How come we never just call him Cooper?” Compare JFC to the rest of these authors, although Seuss is usually Dr.
RABBIT RUNE {83A Book about a symbol found on a prehistoric burrow wall?} - John Updike
AS I LAY DYEING {93A Book about a relaxed beautician?} - William Faulkner
THE CAT IN THE HEAT {107A Book about a pet basking in sunlight?} - Dr. Seuss
Word of the Week: ISOGRAMS
{11D Words with no repeated letters}
Pursuing this intriguing concept led me to
Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics
Making the Alphabet Dance by Ross Eckler
Language on Vacation: An Olio of Orthographical Oddities by Dmitri Borgmann
How can I go so quickly from complete ignorance to I must have this?
Recreational linguistics, also called logology, is the study of words, particularly letter patterns. Logology can also refer to the study of corporate logos, which are all about the visuals. Logos also has a biblical application that is above my pay grade. Therefore logo can be text, graphics, or content. English is weird.
News To Me: 6
ENVOI {33D Poetic summary} - related to a diplomatic envoy because the final words are sending the poem out into the world. So says the OED.
PATEN {54D Eucharist plate}
HAVER {65D June of “Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay!”}
MARNI {73D Dubbing legend Nixon} - “Miss Nixon is the singing voice of Deborah Kerr, Natalie Wood and Audrey Hepburn in the Motion Pictures and on the Soundtracks of The King and I, An Affair to Remember, West Side Story, and My Fair Lady.” Legend indeed.
HUG {109D Bear's offering} - for any other reason than bearhug? Given the venue, a stock tip? I recently learned about the bear subculture from Logo TV. Forget heaven & earth, there are more things in my immediate neighborhood than are dreamt of in my philosophy. BTW – and yet another use of logo.
EMO {110D Dashboard Confessional's music} - What the heck *is* emo anyway?
Admissions of Defeat: 1 or 2...
...depending how you count. Took flyers on a nest of 5 squares involving 5 words. Got 4 of the squares and 3 of the words.
Correctly guessed
??T?R {68A Gunpowder ingredient} - NITER, after giving up on wedging in peTER, as in salt-.
PAT?N {54D} – PATEN, as above
CA?N? {60D “Deathtrap” co-star} – CAINE, as in Michael. Particularly difficult as I kept reading Death Wish.
Missed the intersecting D
O??R {75A German border river} & E?I? {64D Writer Blyton} - ODER & ENID not OsER & ENIs. A reasonable guess, if wrong, no?
ACPT Countdown Clock: 321 days
Friday, April 30, 2010, to Friday, March 18, 2011.
Added later.
Constructor's Corner: Judith Seretto
"When I came up with the idea for an e-books puzzle, my first thought was prefixing titles with an E to make new titles. After a bit of work on this idea with no good examples, I realized I had to be a bit more flexible.
Here are a few of the titles I came up with that didn't fit into the finished puzzle: THE RED PEONY; THE GRAPES OF WREATH; INVISIBLE MEAN; and the very questionable THE GOLDEN BOWEL."
Thank you Ms. Seretto.
Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan
Friday, April 30, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
Joint Accounts
by Alice Long
edited by Mike Shenk
April 16, 2010
&
?
by ?
edited by Mike Shenk
April 23, 2010
Delay of game.
I will be volunteering at a horse show next week. Like a backed-up drain, that has pushed my chores from next week into this week. No time for puzzle fun. I will get to the 4/16 and 4/23 puzzles but it may be May.
ACPT Countdown Clock: 335 days
Friday, April 16, 2010, to Friday, March 18, 2011.
Back soon.
Puzzle Fan
by Alice Long
edited by Mike Shenk
April 16, 2010
&
?
by ?
edited by Mike Shenk
April 23, 2010
Delay of game.
I will be volunteering at a horse show next week. Like a backed-up drain, that has pushed my chores from next week into this week. No time for puzzle fun. I will get to the 4/16 and 4/23 puzzles but it may be May.
ACPT Countdown Clock: 335 days
Friday, April 16, 2010, to Friday, March 18, 2011.
Back soon.
Puzzle Fan
Friday, April 9, 2010
Moral Compass
by Brendan Emmett Quigley
edited by Mike Shenk
April 9, 2010
As of this posting, full answers not yet available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page. Therefore, take these answers with g. of salt.
Theme: A timely tax quote
THE BEST MEASURE OF {24A Start of a quote by 83-Across}
A MANS HONESTY {36A Part 2 of the quote}
ISNT HIS INCOME {50A Part 3 of the quote }
TAX RETURN ITS THE {65A Part 4 of the quote}
ZERO ADJUST ON {97A Part 5 of the quote}
HIS BATHROOM SCALE {111A End of the quote}
ARTHUR C CLARKE {83A Science fiction author and source of the quote}
Wiki attributes this to “The Mammoth Book of Zingers, Quips, and One-Liners (2004) by Geoff Tibballs, p. 264.” The man, the foundation, the quotes – which are worth a detour. I tried to pick one as an example but wanted to paste them all. A blogger starving between two pages of text.
The quote is also cited in a list of tax quotes by the IRS, which proves that someone there has a sense of humor, not matter how unlikely that seems to someone else who was up until 1 am wrestling with Form 2210's Annualized Income Installment Method.
Letter of the Puzzle: W
I don't have the cool crucimetrics of An Englishman but I couldn't help noticing lots of spiky letters. This was no mistake, in an interview, the constructor said, “I think going all Scrabbly with the fill is, on the whole, a good thing.”
News To Me: 7
OCARINA {21A Instrument with finger holes} – a old-time flute.
REFIT {55A Accouter anew} - as in accoutrements.
EReS {57A Aces' are low} – No idea. All I get are Spanish sites. I'm thinking the ' after Aces is important. I'm fairly sure about the crossings but am open to amendment. Later: Diary of a Crossword Fiend says, “57A. [Aces' are low] – ERAS. As in baseball pitchers.” I misspelled Lamb Chop's alter ego!?! {SHARI 45D Lewis with Lamb Chop} Shame on me. I adore both Ms. Lewis and Ms. Chop. I saw them live at the Kennedy Center years ago and her (Shari's) ability to enthrall a concert hall of both kids & adults has become one my definitions of what it means to be an entertainer. This is the song that never ends..., available as ringtone & MP3 download. Even later: This is the song that never gets out of your head...
IPANEMA {63A Beach adjacent to Copacabana Beach} – in Brazil not on old CDs.
PTRAP {64D Letter-shaped plumbing fitting} – I would have, and tried to, call it a u-bend.
ESTO {105D “___ perpetua” (Idaho motto)} – It is perpetual.
ORTS {107D Table scraps} – Perhaps a new clue could be Oral Rehydration Therapy. OK, it doesn't pass the breakfast test but it's such a simple fix to a serious problem.
Admissions of Defeat: 0? Make that 1?
The constructor must have toned down the fill for a quote puzzle, o/w there is no way I'd move that quickly nor successfully through a BEQ puzzle. Thursday was my day to feel smart. Since this puzzle was posted the night before, it was the same day as Matt Ginsberg's NYT Jabberwocky puzzle [4/8/10]. MG is another constructor who causes me to sigh in resignation when I see his name on the top of the page. However, I've always said that my poetry appreciation ends with Jabberwocky – and now it's finally done me some good.
Both puzzles also had ENTS{59A Forest of Fangorn creatures}/ {57D Tolkien creatures}NYT and NEER {17D“I __ saw true beauty till this night”: Romeo}/{26D Opposite of alway}NYT. I'm going to stop doing that. One could spend hours cross-referencing words that appear between various puzzles in a given week. I don't need to give any more invitation to the Terrible Trivium, the “demon of petty tasks and worthless jobs, ogre of wasted effort, and monster of habit.” [The Phantom Tollbooth by Norman Juster, Random, 1961 p213] No really, it's more efficient to have my colored pens sorted by type.
ACPT Countdown Clock: 342 days
Friday, April 9, 2010, to Friday, March 18, 2011.
Constructor's Corner: BEQ
“Well, I've known Mike Shenk for as long as he's been editing the Wall Street Journal puzzles, and since it's my Dad's favorite newspaper, I feel like I have to make sure to appear in there every now and again. Usually, the hardest parts for making a WSJ puzzle is coming up with a suitable "business-y" theme. In this instance, I found that the taxes related quote could split up symmetrically (not as easy as you'd think). Mike liked it, and we rushed it to print in time before 4/15.
“The hardest part for me was the SE section. 75-Down, specifically. When you have a long entry like that, you really want it to pop. It took a while to come up with something clean (always crucial) and fresh. Of course, as dumb luck would have it, the entry in the grid I sent Mike is a crucial entry that is appearing in tomorrow's variety puzzle. So, he redid the corner. Great minds think alike, I guess.”
Thank you, Mr. Quigley.
[75D appeared as TALETELLER {Raconteur}]
Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan
by Brendan Emmett Quigley
edited by Mike Shenk
April 9, 2010
As of this posting, full answers not yet available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page. Therefore, take these answers with g. of salt.
Theme: A timely tax quote
THE BEST MEASURE OF {24A Start of a quote by 83-Across}
A MANS HONESTY {36A Part 2 of the quote}
ISNT HIS INCOME {50A Part 3 of the quote }
TAX RETURN ITS THE {65A Part 4 of the quote}
ZERO ADJUST ON {97A Part 5 of the quote}
HIS BATHROOM SCALE {111A End of the quote}
ARTHUR C CLARKE {83A Science fiction author and source of the quote}
Wiki attributes this to “The Mammoth Book of Zingers, Quips, and One-Liners (2004) by Geoff Tibballs, p. 264.” The man, the foundation, the quotes – which are worth a detour. I tried to pick one as an example but wanted to paste them all. A blogger starving between two pages of text.
The quote is also cited in a list of tax quotes by the IRS, which proves that someone there has a sense of humor, not matter how unlikely that seems to someone else who was up until 1 am wrestling with Form 2210's Annualized Income Installment Method.
Letter of the Puzzle: W
I don't have the cool crucimetrics of An Englishman but I couldn't help noticing lots of spiky letters. This was no mistake, in an interview, the constructor said, “I think going all Scrabbly with the fill is, on the whole, a good thing.”
News To Me: 7
OCARINA {21A Instrument with finger holes} – a old-time flute.
REFIT {55A Accouter anew} - as in accoutrements.
EReS {57A Aces' are low} – No idea. All I get are Spanish sites. I'm thinking the ' after Aces is important. I'm fairly sure about the crossings but am open to amendment. Later: Diary of a Crossword Fiend says, “57A. [Aces' are low] – ERAS. As in baseball pitchers.” I misspelled Lamb Chop's alter ego!?! {SHARI 45D Lewis with Lamb Chop} Shame on me. I adore both Ms. Lewis and Ms. Chop. I saw them live at the Kennedy Center years ago and her (Shari's) ability to enthrall a concert hall of both kids & adults has become one my definitions of what it means to be an entertainer. This is the song that never ends..., available as ringtone & MP3 download. Even later: This is the song that never gets out of your head...
IPANEMA {63A Beach adjacent to Copacabana Beach} – in Brazil not on old CDs.
PTRAP {64D Letter-shaped plumbing fitting} – I would have, and tried to, call it a u-bend.
ESTO {105D “___ perpetua” (Idaho motto)} – It is perpetual.
ORTS {107D Table scraps} – Perhaps a new clue could be Oral Rehydration Therapy. OK, it doesn't pass the breakfast test but it's such a simple fix to a serious problem.
Admissions of Defeat: 0? Make that 1?
The constructor must have toned down the fill for a quote puzzle, o/w there is no way I'd move that quickly nor successfully through a BEQ puzzle. Thursday was my day to feel smart. Since this puzzle was posted the night before, it was the same day as Matt Ginsberg's NYT Jabberwocky puzzle [4/8/10]. MG is another constructor who causes me to sigh in resignation when I see his name on the top of the page. However, I've always said that my poetry appreciation ends with Jabberwocky – and now it's finally done me some good.
Both puzzles also had ENTS{59A Forest of Fangorn creatures}/ {57D Tolkien creatures}NYT and NEER {17D“I __ saw true beauty till this night”: Romeo}/{26D Opposite of alway}NYT. I'm going to stop doing that. One could spend hours cross-referencing words that appear between various puzzles in a given week. I don't need to give any more invitation to the Terrible Trivium, the “demon of petty tasks and worthless jobs, ogre of wasted effort, and monster of habit.” [The Phantom Tollbooth by Norman Juster, Random, 1961 p213] No really, it's more efficient to have my colored pens sorted by type.
ACPT Countdown Clock: 342 days
Friday, April 9, 2010, to Friday, March 18, 2011.
Constructor's Corner: BEQ
“Well, I've known Mike Shenk for as long as he's been editing the Wall Street Journal puzzles, and since it's my Dad's favorite newspaper, I feel like I have to make sure to appear in there every now and again. Usually, the hardest parts for making a WSJ puzzle is coming up with a suitable "business-y" theme. In this instance, I found that the taxes related quote could split up symmetrically (not as easy as you'd think). Mike liked it, and we rushed it to print in time before 4/15.
“The hardest part for me was the SE section. 75-Down, specifically. When you have a long entry like that, you really want it to pop. It took a while to come up with something clean (always crucial) and fresh. Of course, as dumb luck would have it, the entry in the grid I sent Mike is a crucial entry that is appearing in tomorrow's variety puzzle. So, he redid the corner. Great minds think alike, I guess.”
Thank you, Mr. Quigley.
[75D appeared as TALETELLER {Raconteur}]
Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Pole Dance
by Patrick Blindauer
edited by Mike Shenk
April 2, 2010
Full answers available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page.
Theme: Geomagnetic reversal comes early & suddenly.
PANNED THE BUCK {23A Gave Bambi a bad review?}- passed
BOSUN TRACK {38A Career path for a petty officer?}- bonus
FROST LAWS {49A Rules concerning cold cases?}- front lawns
PUNNY CAT {58A Hipster who's a quipster?}- pussy
CHARITY CANE {68A Support for the sympathetic?}- case
CLONE COMBAT {76A Conflict between truly identical twins}- close. Can something be more identical? Yes, if you put it to music. Apparently identical twins aren't.
SASSY CAM {89A Impertinent Hockey Hall of Famer Neely?}- nanny
FUSSY GIRL {98A Lass who's hard to please?}- funny
NEW AGE TASK {108A Endeavor for Enya?}- sewage tank
DETROIT PINTOS {125A Painted ponies from Michigan?}- Pistons
Crosswordpuzzlese: Yeah or Nay?
Elizabeth Gorski says that crosswordese doesn't exist. I disagree, it's like pornography, you know it when you see it. Or for a more operational definition, facts to commit to memory because you're Gonna See Them Again:
ERATO {40A Muse of love poetry} & her sisters.
Everything about Arthur ASHE {56D “Off the Court” autobiographer} & Yoko ONO {127D Walking on Thin Ice” singer}.
ILER {5D Robert of “The Sopranos”} – We better hope that R.I. gets a new gig once this one runs its cultural course.
&
TSAR{24D Pre-Lenin leader} – Although the editor is on record as saying he prefers Czar. [1st question under Ask? Will]
News To Me: 6
BICEPS {29A “Guns”} - All over the Web. Nothing definitive.
INDRA {46A God of war and storms, in Hinduism}
NAS {61A”Illmatic” rapper} - debut album
OTO {37D Native Oklahoman}
TASM {60D Loc. of some devils} - as in Tasmania?
OILY {122D Pinguid} - Who doesn't envision a greasy penguin?
Small world. Friday evening my hubby uses guns in conversation, in reference to the shirt policy at his gym. I'd never heard the word before that day. Then on Sunday, I read that “Blue denoted .... the raincloak of Indra, the war and fertility god of the Hindus.” in The Healing Power of Color by Betty Wood [Destiny 1984/1992] p15. Ditto.
Admissions of Defeat: 2 of 7
While I admire the puzzle's puns & plays, i.e. C CUP {34D Support spec} or SENS {19D D.C. 100}, I get cranky when a 48 year-old song [ESO BESO {75A 1962 Paul Anka hit}] crosses a local politician [CORY {71D Newark mayor Booker}] or when two actors intersect [OLMOS {57A “Battlestar Gallactica” star}/OSSIE{45D Ruby's longtime husband}]. Surprisingly I got those right, despite the fact that OSSIE has nothing to do with and is not even spelled the same as Ozzy Osbourne. So, while my score was two technically, I took a flyer on seven squares & really should have gotten RIDS {81A Clears} from ?I?S. If you don't know that DALASI is {83D Gambia's monetary unit} there's not much you can do. But for not getting a simple English word there is no one to crank at but oneself.
Commentary: Delay
Apologies. I am aware that predictability is a plus for posting. However, this weekend has not been my favorite few days.
--- The joy is that animals live with us. ---
--- The sorrow is that they do not live as long as us. ---
Paraphrased from somewhere. On to more cheerful topics.
ACPT Countdown Clock: 349 days
Friday, April 2, 2010, to Friday, March 18, 2011.
Constructor's Corner: Patrick Blindauer
“My latest 'word baby' started out even more complicated with all 4 directions in play. N would become E, E become S, S become W, and W become N, but it became clear pretty quickly that it would be hard to
find a decent set of theme answers (it's especially tough to change a vowel to a consonant or a consonant to a vowel). I narrowed the scope by focusing on N and S, thought of the title, and was on my way. Sort of.
“I found a few good entries on my own off the top of my head, but I figured there were more waiting to be discovered. So I turned to my friend the computer to help me find all the possibilities; I doubt I would've ever found NEWAGETASK on my own. FWIW, I replaced every S in my word list with *, replaced every N with S, and replaced every * with N, which switched all the N's with all the S's. Then I compared this new list with the original and kept only those words on both lists, which gave me possible theme words upon which to build. A favorite unused theme answer: THEBRADYBUSCH (13).”
Thank you Mr. Blindauer
Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan
by Patrick Blindauer
edited by Mike Shenk
April 2, 2010
Full answers available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page.
Theme: Geomagnetic reversal comes early & suddenly.
PANNED THE BUCK {23A Gave Bambi a bad review?}- passed
BOSUN TRACK {38A Career path for a petty officer?}- bonus
FROST LAWS {49A Rules concerning cold cases?}- front lawns
PUNNY CAT {58A Hipster who's a quipster?}- pussy
CHARITY CANE {68A Support for the sympathetic?}- case
CLONE COMBAT {76A Conflict between truly identical twins}- close. Can something be more identical? Yes, if you put it to music. Apparently identical twins aren't.
SASSY CAM {89A Impertinent Hockey Hall of Famer Neely?}- nanny
FUSSY GIRL {98A Lass who's hard to please?}- funny
NEW AGE TASK {108A Endeavor for Enya?}- sewage tank
DETROIT PINTOS {125A Painted ponies from Michigan?}- Pistons
Crosswordpuzzlese: Yeah or Nay?
Elizabeth Gorski says that crosswordese doesn't exist. I disagree, it's like pornography, you know it when you see it. Or for a more operational definition, facts to commit to memory because you're Gonna See Them Again:
ERATO {40A Muse of love poetry} & her sisters.
Everything about Arthur ASHE {56D “Off the Court” autobiographer} & Yoko ONO {127D Walking on Thin Ice” singer}.
ILER {5D Robert of “The Sopranos”} – We better hope that R.I. gets a new gig once this one runs its cultural course.
&
TSAR{24D Pre-Lenin leader} – Although the editor is on record as saying he prefers Czar. [1st question under Ask? Will]
News To Me: 6
BICEPS {29A “Guns”} - All over the Web. Nothing definitive.
INDRA {46A God of war and storms, in Hinduism}
NAS {61A”Illmatic” rapper} - debut album
OTO {37D Native Oklahoman}
TASM {60D Loc. of some devils} - as in Tasmania?
OILY {122D Pinguid} - Who doesn't envision a greasy penguin?
Small world. Friday evening my hubby uses guns in conversation, in reference to the shirt policy at his gym. I'd never heard the word before that day. Then on Sunday, I read that “Blue denoted .... the raincloak of Indra, the war and fertility god of the Hindus.” in The Healing Power of Color by Betty Wood [Destiny 1984/1992] p15. Ditto.
Admissions of Defeat: 2 of 7
While I admire the puzzle's puns & plays, i.e. C CUP {34D Support spec} or SENS {19D D.C. 100}, I get cranky when a 48 year-old song [ESO BESO {75A 1962 Paul Anka hit}] crosses a local politician [CORY {71D Newark mayor Booker}] or when two actors intersect [OLMOS {57A “Battlestar Gallactica” star}/OSSIE{45D Ruby's longtime husband}]. Surprisingly I got those right, despite the fact that OSSIE has nothing to do with and is not even spelled the same as Ozzy Osbourne. So, while my score was two technically, I took a flyer on seven squares & really should have gotten RIDS {81A Clears} from ?I?S. If you don't know that DALASI is {83D Gambia's monetary unit} there's not much you can do. But for not getting a simple English word there is no one to crank at but oneself.
Commentary: Delay
Apologies. I am aware that predictability is a plus for posting. However, this weekend has not been my favorite few days.
--- The joy is that animals live with us. ---
--- The sorrow is that they do not live as long as us. ---
Paraphrased from somewhere. On to more cheerful topics.
ACPT Countdown Clock: 349 days
Friday, April 2, 2010, to Friday, March 18, 2011.
Constructor's Corner: Patrick Blindauer
“My latest 'word baby' started out even more complicated with all 4 directions in play. N would become E, E become S, S become W, and W become N, but it became clear pretty quickly that it would be hard to
find a decent set of theme answers (it's especially tough to change a vowel to a consonant or a consonant to a vowel). I narrowed the scope by focusing on N and S, thought of the title, and was on my way. Sort of.
“I found a few good entries on my own off the top of my head, but I figured there were more waiting to be discovered. So I turned to my friend the computer to help me find all the possibilities; I doubt I would've ever found NEWAGETASK on my own. FWIW, I replaced every S in my word list with *, replaced every N with S, and replaced every * with N, which switched all the N's with all the S's. Then I compared this new list with the original and kept only those words on both lists, which gave me possible theme words upon which to build. A favorite unused theme answer: THEBRADYBUSCH (13).”
Thank you Mr. Blindauer
Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan
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