Take-out (Sunday brunch: June 7, 2015)

Quick post to catch up.

Kevin Wald (I can’t spell Ucaoimhu) is back with a good medium difficulty variety cryptic he set for the Washington Post’s Post Hunt puzzle contest.  It’s called “Saturday? Unknown.”

We have a new Puns and Anagrams constructor in the New York Times today: Mark Diehl.  Deb Amlen interviews him at Wordplay (spoiler warning).  Deb also informs us that the P&A will now appear every 8 weeks, with Diehl and Mel Taub sharing construcing duties.  Meanwhile, Hex’s cryptics will appear in the NYT less frequently: every 8 weeks.

Speaking of new constructors, Tom Toce has a guest puzzling for him in Contingencies.  Jerry Levy didn’t crete a cryptic, but cryptic solvers will appreciate the kind of wordplay he uses.  Will Shortz would appreciate it too: maybe we’ll see Jerry’s byline in the Times.

The Wall Street Journal puzzle is a Rows Garden by Patrick Berry.  I found it easier than usual.  I’ll post hints for the WSJ and the NYT solution shortly.  If you enjoyed that, remember that Andrew Ries publishes a bi-weekly Rows Garden that’s every bit as good.  Subscribe at www.ariespuzzles.com.

Stickler is taking a winter break (remember he’s in Australia) for R&R.  Wish him well at www.australiancrosswords.com.au

Falcon reports that he weekly Hex cryptic in the National Post was on the stormy side.  I haven’t gotten to the Globe and Mail cryptic yet.

Sunday Brunch (March 29, 2015)

We’ll try the streamlined format again, since The Other Doctor Mitchell was out of town all weekend working a skating competition, and I've been functioning as orchestra roadie, caterer, usher, cook, and more.

Cryptics 

National Post (Hex, blogged by Falcon): “Monkeys With a View”
   Peculiar in that the bottom right was a lot harder than the rest of the puzzle.

Stickler: #76 (congratulations, Australia!)

Maya: no new puzzle, but well played, Black Caps!

Harpers (Richard Maltby): “Search Warrant”
   Which means that the March puzzle (“Tetris”) is blogged by our friend Erica,
   who’s made a very big commitment: not to Vlad (yet) but to a dedicated domain.

Globe and Mail (syndicated): themeless, but hard.

Variety puzzles

Wall Street Journal: “Hunting Season” by Patrick Berry
   Great puzzle, hints and solution provided elsewhere on the blog

NY Times: Marching Bands by BEQ (blogged by Deb Amlen)
   And Deb provides ACPT commentary at Wordplay.
   Note also that BEQ is looking to kick off a subscription Marching Bands series
      like Aries’s Rows Gardens (which I highly endorse)

Under the weather (Sunday brunch: December 28, 2014)

I’m down with a cold today: let’s get straight to the links.

Māyā sends us a couple of Boxing Day gifts from New Zealand: one with a Dr. Who theme.  She also posted another cryptic earlier in the week.  From the Aussie side of the Tasman (Sydney, to be precise) comes the weekly Stickler.

North of the border, Hex make a topical reference in their National Post cryptic.   There’s also the weekly Globe and Mail puzzle.  

Hex also set a variety cryptic for the Wall Street Journal, continuing editor Mike Shenk’s trend towards slightly harder puzzles.  The puzzle is called Twenty-Six Out, since one letter of the alphabet has been taken away from  each row and column.  Solution and hints are posted elsewhere on the blog.  And the regular Hex acrostic is in the New York Times: Deb Amlen at Wordplay (spoiler warning) enjoyed the new words in it.

You might want to get ready for the new year by signing up for one of the subscription puzzle series My favorite is the biweekly Rows Garden by Andrew Ries.  He’s thoughtful enough to set each puzzle up with four levels of difficulty (withholding enumerations and cluing the blooms in random order).

I usually leave the straight crosswords to other bloggers, but I’ll make an exception for this puzzle by Andy Kravis with audio clues.  

Marshy (Sunday brunch: October 19, 2014)

This is being posted on Saturday because 25 years ago today, The Other Doctor Mitchell and I were honeymooning in Toronto (after a few days in Niagara Falls—how traditional can you get!), and on October 18, 1989, we attended the Toronto-Vancouver game at Maple Leaf Gardens.  The home team won (we didn’t have a rooting interest), but to my delight, Leafs’ veteran defenceman Brad Marsh played a memorable game.

Being an old, slow defenseman myself (I wasn’t old or a defenseman until the end of my playing career, but I had a lifetime of slow), I was especially thrilled. The Leafs, who had had a pretty bad start to the season, got the go-ahead goal early in the third period, but the Canucks mounted a furious effort to tie the game.

One of the last NHL
players without a helmet
(not that I endorse that).

Late in the third, Marsh had a shift where he blocked two shots: dropping to the ice to put his shins in front of a slap shot (one of the unsung aspects of the game you can’t appreciate without having played it).  After the second one, he picked up the puck and lugged it up ice into the Canucks’ zone.  After all, even a stay-at-home defenseman knows that sometimes a good offense is the best defense.   The crowd roared its appreciation and Marsh was named one of the three stars of the game despite having no goals, no assists, and only one shot on goal.
A few years later, when I earned a place refereeing in one of the high school leagues here, and my number 5 wasn’t available, I took number 8, in honor of Marshy, who wore that number for the Flyers.  

Now it turns out that Marshy has joined Hockey Buzz and contributes a few blog posts each month. Maybe he’ll share a few memories of that game in T.O. with us.

Speaking of slow, it continues to be a slow cryptic month: nothing new recently from LizR or Kevin Wald, Harper’s is off this month, and in the national papers it’s a two-acrostic week: Mike Shenk in the Wall Street Journal and Hex in the New York Times (blogged with spoilers by Deb Amlen).  Solvers note: the week-long New York Times crossword contest will be going on all next week.  20 solvers who figure out the correct answer to the challenge will win a full year NYT puzzle subscription.  I got my win already, finding out (on my birthday no less!) that I’d won Aries’s Rows Garden meta sweepstakes, and another year of his timely and thoughtful puzzles

The National Post cryptic (blogged by Falcon) was a little disappointing because of the large number of ‘ing’ words. Probably an easier grid to construct, but it made it easy to get partials, and the words those partials intersected.  The syndicated puzzle in the Globe and Mail is your other new cryptic today.

So I solved some Sticklers this week.  Go out and give them a try.  Stickler’s an Aussie, but he’s quite welcoming to us Northern Hemisphere solvers, providing “overseas help” in the form of definitions of Australian slang and cultural references that show up in his weekly puzzles. Every constructor should be so considerate: making the explanations available to those who need them but not forcing them on those who don’t.

Tabbies (Sunday brunch: April 6, 2014)

Don’t know if Hot and Trazom planned it that way, but in 3,319, they had TABBIES in 2d intersecting CATS in 1a.  So let’s introduce the feline members of the family, who both happen to be tabbies.

First there’s Joey, whose given name is Job.  We got him from a rescue group five years ago.  Sabers and Bangle had been angling for a pet, but there were concerns with everyone’s allergies, so we first spent an hour or so with him at the apartment of the person who was taking care of him.  There was no sneezing or asthma or rash, so he came home with us a week later.

Joey is built like a defensive end: big and strong and fast.  Even his whiskers are big, and his tail is like a labrador’s.  He’s almost six now, so he’s more like a retired defensive end, but he still gets his way around the house.

A year after we got Joey, another cat came up to the front window and knocked very politely.  We gave him a bite to eat, ascertained that there weren’t any other humans in the neighborhood looking for him, and got him to the vet, but he was certain that this was home.

Bangle (who was seven at the time) named him Dusty because of his pale tabby coloring.  Dusty’s a big cat too, but not as athletic as his brother.  His coat is not as fine, and it looks like it doesn’t quite fit him properly (if you can imagine that!).  He bites his nails too, so his claws are constantly broken.  But he has the most pleasant disposition.  He makes a fine lap kitty (if your lap is big enough), and purrs at the drop of a hat.  But he doesn’t speak much.  About the only time he’ll meow is if someone goes down to the back door: he’ll go down, reach up to the doorknob, and ask to go out.  Once he’s out, his desires are quite simple: roll around on the driveway and nibble on some grass.  I’ve never seen a cat eat as much grass as this one.

Find a lap kitty and a clipboard, and work on these puzzles.

The Hex cryptic in the National Post was interesting and maybe a little harder than usual.

There were two acrostics: in the New York Times (by Hex, behind the paywall, and Deb notes that the web wizards of the Times now have a non-Java online version) and Wall Street Journal by Mike Shenk.  On the latter, I think this was the first puzzle where I solved the acrostic before I even looked at the grid, so try it out.

Not much else this week, but if you subscribe to PandA or to Aries’s Rows Gardens, or you’ve got Cryptic All-Stars, you’ve got puzzles to catch up on.  I know I do.

Long words (Sunday brunch: March 30, 2014)

Apologies for the late post, I was down in Maryland most of the day yesterday and am running a tournament today.  —Braze

Congratulations to Bangle, who finished second in the Morris Open skating competition yesterday: second in her preliminary flight even though she went the wrong direction after a spin and had to adjust on the fly, and then second in the championship round.  Kid sports are a good place to learn resiliency.

The week’s puzzles include a diagramless from Ed Stein and Paula Gamache (fun--a double byline) in the New York Times (behind the paywall, comments [and spoilers] from Deb Amlen).

It’s a weekend for long words in puzzle grids.  Hex’s block cryptic in the National Post is a picture frame of 15s, and the rest of the grid is nicely interlocked.  Falcon was impressed.

See the reflection of the skate way down there?

The Wall Street Journal has a Spell Weaving by Mike Shenk.  He must have had fun with this one: there’s a 19-letter answer, a 16, and some other long ones too.

From large to small.  Nathan Curtis’s weekly puzzle is a Mini Rows Garden.  Go over and read the whole post for more news about what Nathan is up to.

Master Rows Gardner Andrew Ries has announced a weekly straight crossword to go with his Rows Garden series.

And the regular weekly Brit-style cryptic from Fraser Simpson can be found at the Globe and Mail in Java and print formats.

IJS (Sunday brunch: February 9, 2014)

It’s that time again when millions of people tune in to figure skating on the TV, which is soon followed by the time when millions of people wonder how in the dickens they keep score.  That’s why you read this blog. 

OK, so you read this blog to learn about the intricacies of breaking up a hockey fight?

No?  You said “puzzles?”  All right.  Here are the weekend’s new cryptics and other puzzles of interest.  Jump down below the fold to continue with the skating.

It’s a two-acrostic weekend.  Mike Shenk in the Wall Street Journal and Hex (behind the paywall) in the New York Times. Deb Amlen thinks the latter will be hard unless you recognize the quote. 

For cryptics (as well as for some of the contenders in figure skating), look north to Canada: Hex in the National Post and Fraser Simpson in the Globe and Mail (PDF or Java). 

Aries has added a new wrinkle to his bi-weekly Rows Gardens (available by subscription: name your price): two new less difficult versions of each puzzle where the enumerations of the rows are provided (like I do with the WSJ hint posts). 

(continued below the fold)

High definition (Sunday brunch: January 5, 2014)

A double Salchow by Bangle

Santa Claus brought a high-definition TV this year (we’re kind of slow on the uptake that way; I had a black and white set through most of grad school).  I’ve said that one of the great things of watching a hockey game in person is how much more detail of sound you hear: like players slapping a stick on the ice to get a teammate’s attention.

This is the visual equivalent.  You can see that the linesman in a World Junior Championship game is using an Acme whistle. Are you ready for your close-up?  Get out a nice sharp pencil and solve these:

I think the week’s highlight is the Marching Bands with cryptic clues that Tom Toce created for the accounting journal Contingencies, with a little help from his friends.

The Wall Street Journal has a Patrick Berry puzzle called “Jury Boxes.”  It’s one of the ones where a jigsaw of rectangles is intersected by clued rows.  I’ve posted the solution as well as the row enumerations as a hint (they can help you place those middle answers) elsewhere on the blog.

Hex are continuing to ring in the new year, with this week’s puzzle in the National Post, and Falcon is back for another year of blogging it.

The New York Times variety puzzle is a diagramless by Fred Piscop (behind the paywall).  Look for the solution here on Sunday afternoon, connectivity permitting (Sabers is going to be at his twice-postponed District 11 orchestra audition today).

A bouquet of roses for the gold medalist in your life?  Certainly—especially if she likes puzzles!  Aries has great news for us; he is bringing back his Rows Gardens, bi-weekly, on a subscription basis.  Sign up now: the sooner you do, the more puzzles you get.

BEQ used Boxing Day as a time to offer a year in review post.  Worth reading, and maybe solving some of the linked puzzles.

Puzzazz has an update out this week, and it’s a significant one.  They’ve set up a way to offer free puzzles like the ones you often see in .puz format.  It’s not discussed on their blog, but the info is at the app store for your particular device.   On top of that, they had an all-day improvisational construction festival, the results of which are posted for everyone to solve.

A birthday bouquet of roses (Sunday brunch: June 9, 2013)

(updated with New York Times diagramless solution)

A fine time to find a bouquet of roses: my mother's birthday (it's one of the ones with a zero) is today.  Now it happens that the peonies are stealing the roses' thunder this week in the garden, but on the puzzle clipboard, Rows Gardens reign.

A Rows Garden consists of 38 six-letter hexagons called "blooms" intersected by 12 rows.  The top and bottom rows are a single nine-letter entry, while the rest are composed of two answers totaling 21 letters.  The rows are denoted with letters and their clues are given in order.  The blooms are divided into sets of white, gray (sometimes pink), and black: their clues are arranged randomly.  Furthermore, the bloom letters can be entered clockwise or counterclockwise, and they can start anywhere in the hexagon.

Rows Gardens are usually harder than most other variety crosswords, and they must be a bear to construct.  Every letter is checked, and you're really constrained in the fill you can use.  Got a wonderful clue for a seven-letter word?  You're out of luck unless you can use it in a row.

Trip Payne and Nathan Curtis give credit to Patrick Berry for creating the Rows Garden concept, and one of Berry's is the variety puzzle in this weekend's Wall Street Journal.  These puzzles really play to Berry's strengths in meshing words.

Berry is certainly the best-known constructor in this genre, but others have tried their hand too.  Aries is definitely the most prolific though.  He reached #156 last month (#1 is here), and he's done us the additional service of offering both hard and easy versions of each of his puzzles.  The grids and the clues are the same: the only difference is that the easy puzzles list the bloom clues in the order they appear in the grid.

Nathan also happens to offer a Rows Garden, though definitely out of the ordinary.  First of all, there's a meta you have to deal with: encoded in blooms letters that are not used in the intersecting row (the instructions in the puzzle make it clearer).  Second, he offers both versions with both straight and cryptic clues for the same answers.  He originally wrote the straight, and then was convinced to "cryptify" it.  Thank you for the effort, Nathan.

Allergic to roses?  There's a Fred Piscop diagramless behind the paywall at the New York Times.  I'll blog the solution here on Sunday, while Deb Amlen will post comments (spoiler warning) at Wordplay.

If all those blank grids leave you hungering for a crossword that looks like a crossword (i.e. with black squares), Hex have what you want at the National Post.  See Falcon's blog, though it may be late owing to Falcon being on vacation.  Fittingly, some of the clues in the Hex puzzle are overseas too.

My favorite rose garden?  The one at Cline Cellars in Sonoma: if you're ever in California wine country, you should visit.  It's on the road back to San Francisco, between the big left-hand bend in Route 121 and Sears Point, and they're open late.  It's a perfectly-placed stop for getting out of the car, tasting a few wines, walking around the garden, and bringing home a jar or three of their Mourvedre hot fudge sauce.

New York Times solution below the fold.