Solve like Sondheim

Double issue last week, no new puzzle this week, so let’s go to the archives.

Last Friday’s Wall Street Journal included a feature on Sheldon Harnick, the lyricist for “Fiddler on the Roof.”  While showing the reporter around his New York apartment and talking about where and how he writes, he mentioned that the Blackwing pencils he used to use came on the recommendation of Stephen Sondheim.

I wonder how many Blackwings Sondheim went through creating his cryptics.  Do any of you use them for solving?

Printer’s Devilry (Puzzle No. 3,305)

Well if you noticed that last week’s The Nation was not a double issue, and we have a holiday coming up tomorrow, and those pieces of information led you to look for a new cryptic from Hot and Trazom on Wednesday and not Thursday, congratulations, you were right!

Link to puzzle: http://www.thenation.com/article/177353/puzzle-no-3305

Degree of difficulty (by standards of this weekly puzzle): mostly easy.

Hozom’s comment: “Sending a Letter Off” in which Hot and Trazom show how versatile the deletion element is in cryptic cluing.  I would have spread this theme over several blog posts, since there are so many kinds of deletions: beginning, end, both ends, middle, a specific letter, and much more.  They’re simple enough, and frequently easy enough, that they work well when compounded with other clue types like reversals or anagrams.


This week I’ve been working on one of the original Stephen Sondheim puzzles from New York Magazine: “Printer’s Devilry” (I’ll have to locate my original scan from the microfilm to confirm the date).  Printer’s Devilry is a notoriously difficult kind of clue, usually found not in the normal cryptic mix, but in standalone puzzles where all the clues are of this type.  That’s because there really isn’t a good indicator for the clue type, or even an acceptable direct indication like we have for Spoonerisms.  Further, it needs a pretty lengthy set of instructions plus an example, unless you’re writing for the narrowest of solving audiences.  Afrit is credited with inventing the clue type in 1937, and is duly acknowledged by Sondheim here.

The concept is a variant on the simple hidden word clue, except you aren’t given a definition and the answer is already taken out of the wordplay fodder.  So not only do you have to figure out the answer, you have to figure out where it belongs in the clue.  Both the original phrase and the phrase with the answer removed have to make sense, and if the modified phrase reads smoothly, it’s incredibly difficult.  But if the clue has a fairly obvious scar in it, you can guess that that’s where the answer goes, and get the beginning or end of the answer from the surrounding string.

Since it’d be a spoiler to those working this puzzle, I’ll put the examples and how I figured them out below the fold.

I’m of mixed feelings about seeing more of these in American cryptics.  From what I’ve gotten of the Sondheim so far (9 out of the 36 clues and a handful of additional partials), the results can be really clever or really boring.  So I think the key is to select only the good ones for your puzzle.  But if you need to build an entire grid of these, some of the fill is going to be the kind of stuff that only can be done awfully.  And from there, you get a puzzle that’s neither solvable nor entertaining.  So maybe the way to introduce these is as the theme answers in a grid: selected to be good examples of the clue type, asterisked so you don’t need to try and fit an indicator into the clue.

Richard Maltby?  Mark Halpin?  Other variety cryptic constructors?  How about it?

The difference between “challenging” and “hard” (Puzzle No. 3,298)

I think I’ve covered this ground before, but there’s a difference between puzzles that are challenging and puzzles that are merely hard.  And that, my fellow solvers, is the difference between good constructors and the rest of them.  Hard puzzles require you to recognize unusual words and know obscure facts.  Challenging puzzles are neither unusual nor obscure; they force you to see words from a different perspective.

In Crypticworld, the distinction is easier to see than in straight crosswords.  Constructors have a lot more ways to obfuscate the cluing of a common word, and this week’s The Nation puzzle is a good example.  I’ll call out some examples with the solution on Monday.

Now while I usually bust on the New York Times puzzles, today’s one was actually a timely exemplar of a strategy I’d like to see more often.   51a is a five-letter word clued: “Oxygen’s electrons, e.g.”  The answer is “octet,” which most times is a particularly awful bit of crosswordese, but good cluing saved it.  I don’t think it’s unfair: eight electrons in oxygen is straight out of high school chemistry, and it’s not unreasonable to expect most solvers to know this.  In fact I’d expect more solvers have passed high school chemistry than know the cast of Saturday Night Live (21a) or 70s prog-rock bands (59a), yet you see pop culture clues a lot more often than you see science.  And if you do see science, it’s usually in the service of awful crosswordese answers like “DNA” (58d)

Hex are a good example too.  I’ve learned that one of their tricks, in both straight and cryptic crosswords, is to make use of secondary and tertiary definitions.  They’re clear, but not obvious.  You wouldn’t want to go overboard on them, just like you wouldn’t want to bluff all the time in a poker game, Related tip: don’t go for the variants everyone else uses: at this point, when I see the word “flower” in a clue, my first thought is a river.

The Nation Puzzle No. 3,298

Link to puzzle: http://www.thenation.com/article/176549/puzzle-no-3298

Degree of difficulty (by standards of this weekly puzzle): moderate to hard, in the good way.  I circled a half-dozen answers to consider calling out to you in the annotation.

Hozom’s comment:  “Local Man Actually Eats Calendar (7)” in which Hot and Trazom consider more playful clue readings, and whether it’s cricket to leave an article in a clue if it doesn’t contribute to the wordplay.  Remember: “definition, wordplay, and nothing else.”

If you get to the advanced level of solving, you’d better be willing to handle clues that might not fit that rule, because the constructors may need to do it in the service of a larger cause, like stringing clues together in verse (a Sondheim favorite) or making the nth word in a clue part of some bonus meta-solution (something Kevin Wald is especially good at).

Solution and annotation to Puzzle No. 3,298 on Monday.  Join us this weekend as always for Sunday Brunch!

Jigsaw puzzles

The ballpark version of the “40 cloves of garlic”
chicken sandwich from The Stinking Rose.
Seemed to me that the cooks at the Giants game
aren’t able to count to 40. 

[bumped since I finished the Project Sondheim comment]

Something about jigsaw puzzles that you only do them on vacation, and family members who generally aren't interested in such mental exercises get into them to the point where you can’t drag them away.

Double issue of The Nation last week, so no new puzzle for us.  New cryptics for Sunday Brunch this weekend, or work on a few from last weekend: Xanthippe posted four.

Meanwhile, I brought along a couple more Stephen Sondheim originals, and solved one today: “Assemblage Line.”  Discussion below the fold since it includes spoilers.

Ice-Proof Scotch

Double issue last week: no puzzle this week (no Word Salad either).  So today I'm tackling "Code Format," one of Stephen Sondheim's original puzzles for New York Magazine.

I noted this along the way, as I was looking through old magazines.  It's a 1975 ad for Famous Grouse scotch whisky, making the somewhat scientific case that since it was bottled at 90 proof instead of 86 or  80 proof, it wouldn't be diluted as much when you drank it on the rocks.  Looks like a fun experiment to replicate.

I enjoy a wee dram once in a while: Glenmorangie in particular (a wine-drinker's malt).  Since my grad school days, I've ordered my whisky with one ice cube.  Order your whisky neat, and it's served in a shot glass.  Order it on the rocks, and you get more ice than whisky.  Ordering it with one ice cube meant you got the most whisky for your money, a key concern when I was living on a grad student salary.

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Expect the unexpected (Sunday brunch: February 17, 2013)

On average, the cryptics by Richard Maltby are the hardest that are regularly published in America.  This was not an average week.  First, after thoroughly beating his 1968 New York Magazine solvers up with "Vicious Circles" (which see), Stephen Sondheim took the week off and had Maltby fill in.  The result was "Anesthetics." I got the gimmick pretty quickly, and finished solving in a day or so, which is pretty good for me.

Then yesterday, the new Harpers appeared, with a puzzle titled "Title Search." (puzzle available to subscribers only)  I started in on it on a walk over to the library, got the top right corner right away, and instantly saw the theme.  This one categorizes as a theme puzzle rather than a variety puzzle, which is Maltby's usual medium.  I solved it by the time I got on the train home, in case you were one of the people on the platform wondering what that guy was doing blowing smoke from the muzzle of his pen.

Two easy wins?  Sabers did even easier, winning his latest tournament with a pair of 15-2s, after a decent effort Thursday against much tougher competition.  

There's a whole weekend left?  What to solve?  Start with the Hex cryptic in the New York Times (behind the paywall).  Deb Amlen has commentary at Wordplay, and I'll post the solution later this weekend.

With one set of circles done, Patrick Berry kept me well rounded last night with "Section Eight": a different form of circular variety puzzle: instead of radial words, there are eight sectors: one letter comes out of each sector and the rest are rearranged each time you move inwards.  A tough but very fair puzzle.

And of course, there's the weekly Hex cryptic in the National Post.  Falcon asks us: "Where's the Theme?"  (I think that was rhetorical.)  I'm not so worried about a theme considering the unusual grid.  Each of the 7- and 8-letter entries in the center are fully checked: rare in a block cryptic.

Murder (93)

Well those might have been the hardest 93 letters I've ever had to fill into a grid.

The June 3, 1968 New York Magazine cryptic by Stephen Sondheim was called Vicious Circles.  It's a format I've seen and solved before: don't recall whether it was Hex or Maltby, maybe both of them have set a puzzle of this type.  It's a series of five concentric rings, the first having three letters, the second six, the thir twelve, and on to 48 letters in the outer ring.  The letters in each of the 48 radii make up a word, though you have to rearrange them, while the outer ring spells out a quote and the third identifies its author.  As additional assistance, you're given an anagram of the 24 letters in the fourth ring, and are told that there are no duplicated letters in the first or second rings respectively.

Eventually, I solved it, but it took over a week.  A couple of sections fell quickly, but I got bogged down.  Fortunately, the first section was one of the ones I had, and that led to the quote and the author.  Another ten words or so followed, and Wednesday I was to the point where getting two words in a day was considered success.

There was one pair which would have been a nice cross-reference in a conventional puzzle, but here was just a quick way out for Sondheim, since he needed two words differing by a single letter.  I have to believe he could have done better today, with an anagram server available.

23  Not very highly strung player in Red group with nothing else...
24  ... put more of the same in a little room with one

look below the fold

Project Sondheim update: six down

After solving the first couple of Stephen Sondheim puzzles, I thought I might be looking for another new puzzle project before the year was out.  I'm not so sure now.  There's quite a lot of variability in the difficulty of the puzzles.  Here's what I've done so far, with links to the puzzles that were posted as part of New York Magazine's 40th anniversary feature.

1.  [untitled], April 8, 1968.  Fifteen unclued lights go with five theme words.  Easy.  The editors printed it under the title "New York Magazine Puzzle," aptly enough.

2. Dedicated Dodecahedron, April 15, 1968.  A dodecahedron-shaped grid where each face was a five-letter word sharing its letters with a six letter word.  Very easy as long as you can figure out the person to whom the puzzle was dedicated.

3. 3 Downs, April 22, 1968.  24 of the clues are anagrams of two words rather than the standard definition/wordplay construction.  You have to use those words to determine a third word to go into the grid.  Moderate difficulty: I recognized a few of the pairs which might not be familiar to younger people, and that helped a lot.

4. One Shy, April 29, 1968.  A straight bar cryptic, with a hidden message you have to find and interpret.  Easy.

5. Diametricode, May 6, 1968.  I remember solving another of this type--might have been a Maltby.  Fifteen of the answers must be enciphered before going in the grid, with the substitutions shown by the letters extending out from the grid.  Hard.

6.  Woodbabes, May 13, 1968.  24 of the lights are what I call visual puns, where the physical placement of the letters is indicated by the answer phrase.  So if the clue led to "babe in the woods" the light would be "woodbabes."  Sondheim gave enumerations for the lights, not the answers, which made this very hard.

And you thought that the term "snail mail" started with internet-era hipsters looking down on their old-fashioned elders?  Think again.

Public service advertisement from the U.S. Postal Service

New York magazine: April 15, 1968

Project Sondheim (Sunday brunch: February 3, 2013)

Well, as promised last week, I'll tell you about my next big solving exercise.  The Stephen Sondheim references in Word Salad, along with the bit I learned about Sondheim mentoring Richard Maltby and the sample Sondheim cryptics from New York magazine that I solved piqued enough interest that I'm going to work my way through the entire Sondheim catalog (at least the New York magazine part of it).

Fortunately, I have access to the University of Pennsylvania library, and they have the early run of New York on microfilm.  So I went over last week, found the reel, and fired up their new microfilm viewer.   Yes, I said "new," not "old."  This one lets you print the film pages to a PDF instead of paper, so it's cheaper and I can print a fresh copy if I foul up the first one.  The copy quality is not great, but it's enough to read and solve the clues.

I'll say it was a trip going back through the pages of a 1968 magazine.  Some big names like Jimmy Breslin were writing for the magazine, politics and culture were of a very different era, and the ads were a hoot.  My mother subscribed to the magazine, and I remember reading it in the 70s.  After the Sondheim cryptic had run its course, they started a competition where readers were asked to make up humorous movie titles or typos on a weekly theme.  It subsequently inspired the Washington Post's Style Invitational, which continues to this day.

And the ads...!  I'll have to wait for another weekend to share a few of my favorites, but suffice it to say it was a less PC (which is to say much less stutifying) world.

So as of now, I've solved the first six puzzles.  Some were easy, some were very hard.  I've tried to solve them as a 1968 reader would have: no Google, no anagram server.  It gives you a lot of respect for the solvers and constructors of that era.  I'll post comments on some of the puzzles as we go along.

And with perfect timing, we have a new addition to the Sunday brunch menu: the cryptics by Zebraboy for The Sondheim Review.  His latest is called "I Never Do Anything Twice." (Lara Bruckmann sings it below).  It was a nice solve.

I Never Do Anything Twice (by Stephen Sondheim, from "The Seven Percent Solution)

Elsewhere in the puzzling world, the Wall Street Journal has a Patrick Berry variety crossword called Mailboxes.  It's a slight variation on some of his previous work, but familiar to Berry's fans.  It's another fully-checked puzzle (a Berry specialty) where a jigsaw puzzle of rectangles is placed with the help of across-words.  I found it pretty hard, but some of the other folks commenting had an easier time.

The New York Times has a diagramless behind the paywall, plus the monthly Fred Piscop bonus puzzle, which I now understand is not another diagramless, though Piscop does many of their diagramless.  This month's is by Paula Gamache (must repeat her headshot).  I'll bet it's themed.  Look for the solution posted to the blog as soon as I get the puzzle and get it done.  [update: solution is posted, and Deb Amlen's post at Wordplay has the starting square if you want a hint.]

Want something a little more straightforward?  Hex have their regular weekly cryptic in the National Post, and Falcon will blog it for you as always, over at natpostcryptic.blogspot.com.  

That's a pretty full menu.  Something for everyone, unless you're Fannee Doolee...