Bruise (Sunday brunch: July 27, 2014)

I just got to a fencing exhibition in Allentown when I got a message from my assigner: can you skate two games tonight?  They were part of a charity event and not league, so I figured they wouldn’t be difficult.  Good chance to see what kind of shape I was in.

So I fenced in front of a lot of onlookers, won one bout, and didn’t look out of place. The event was outdoors: it wasn’t as hot as last year, but I was still sweating profusely under the mask. Lost in the quarterfinal as expected, got changed, and hustled home.  Then I had a whole 15 minutes to put down the fencing bag, grab the hockey bag and ref briefcase, make sure (twice) that my sports glasses were in the bag, and leave for the rink (with time enroute to grab something to eat).  When I got to the rink, I exchanged pleasantries with a group of players and wives/girlfriends tailgating in the parking lot, which had me looking forward to a nice friendly skate. 

Not so.  About five minutes in, we had our first scuffle of the night.  Several more ensued, each one more heated than the last.  The last three I managed to get in between the combatants before any punches were thrown, but my partner had had enough.  He called the two captains over to the referee’s crease and read them the riot act.  “You guys are acting like a bunch of five-year-olds arguing ‘he started it.’  This is a charity tournament: we’re here for something more important than the final score… and if we have to break up one more fight I’m calling the game and sending you home!”

That got us through the second period with no more incidents, and by the third, the players were too tired to fight.  They weren’t too tired to play though, and the white team took a 3-0 lead.  Halfway through the third, with the white team shorthanded, one of their good defensemen wound up a slap shot to clear the puck out of the zone.  Instead of aiming up the middle of the ice, he aimed for the boards, right where I was standing.  The puck hit me on the top of the hip, so hard it almost drew blood even though it hit me on the padded girdle I wear. 

Fortunately the second game was much more what we expected: C teams playing for fun and only one or two minor tussles.  I got a bag of ice from the snack bar and stuffed it under the girdle while I skated.  The bruise has been a beauty.  Sunday there was a red diamond with a white center where the puck hit, Monday and Tuesday it turned deep black and blue; a splotch about as big as your fist.  The end of the week was a rainbow of colors; who needs tattoos?  And today there’s still a puck-sized mark more violet than purple, with a knot where I was hit.

So far no pencils have suffered any injuries as I work my way through these puzzles:

Two acrostics this weekend: by Mike Shenk in the Wall Street Journal and by Hex in the New York Times (puzzle behind the paywall,  comments and spoilers at Wordplay).

Block cryptics in the Canadian papers: by Hex in the National Post (blogged by Falcon) and syndicated (Hot informs us it is not Fraser Simpson constructing these) in the Globe and Mail.  Easy and hard respectively.  

Catching up with Kevin Wald, I solved Bachelor Party this week: another example of his amazing ability to hide themes in clues as well as the grid.  

BEQ reminds us that Lollapuzzoola is going on two weeks from now in New York, but you are invited to play from home too.    The ever-useful BEQ also points us to an article in The Atlantic expressing concern about the future of crosswords in an age when fewer and fewer people read printed newspapers and magazines.  BEQ catches the irony of seeing this in a publication that is “covered in Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon's blood.”  

BRUISE (cluing challenge: July 25, 2014)

Since The Nation didn’t publish an issue this week, there’s no Word Salad and no new puzzle.  The cluing challenge migrates over here, and I didn’t have much trouble picking a word for you—BRUISE.

Submit your clues in the comments.

Catching up (solution no. 3,331)

The solution and annotation to The Nation puzzle No. 3,288 is below the fold.

I thought it was going to be an easy month...  I’ll clear the backlog of posts over the next coupla days, starting with last week’s The Nation solution.

A few people complained about having a variety puzzle, but it’s not like it was unsolvable.  As variety puzzle twists go, this was a very gentle one (clues being wordplay only) and it only affected seven clues.  Further, they were part of a theme that was really easy to identify and finish.  In other words, an ideal first variety puzzle to do.

Seeing a pattern? (solution no. 1,066)

The solution to The Nation puzzle no. 1,066 (from 50 years ago last week) is below the fold.

Boy that was tough.  I had to resort to the answer key six times there, but when a puzzle combines very obscure words with non-Ximenean cluing, it’s gonna be murder.  Much of the rest needed intersecting letters, and in a few cases I still don’t have a clue about what Frank Lewis was intending.  Can any of you figure them out?

On the other hand, I’ve found a Shakespeare reference in each of the Lewis puzzles we’ve tackled so far.  Was this a signature?

Scorecard (Puzzle No. 3,331)

Still owe you a solution to 1,066—it’s pretty hard.

As Hot and Trazom hinted a few weeks ago, we have a variety cryptic this week in The Nation. Variety cryptics usually but do not always have a bar-style grid instead of a block grid.  The thing that defines a variety cryptic is some kind of systematic breaking of the basic rules.  It could be an alteration to some of the clues, an alteration to some answers before they go into the grid, a set of unclued answers or answers which are not numbered so you have to sort out where they go.  It can get much more complicated from there, working up to the well-loved forms seen regularly in The Listener and in Harper’s and the intricate and unique twists Kevin Wald creates.  This puzzle is an invitation to explore that universe.

Link to puzzle: http://www.thenation.com/article/180658/puzzle-no-3331

Degree of difficulty (by standards of this weekly puzzle):  Easy.  I think that was intentional, as a means of not scaring solvers off from trying a variety puzzle.  Still, there were some good spots of misdirection to trap solvers who want things to be too proper.

Hozom’s comment: “Writing a letter,” in which Hot and Trazom explain how constructors get and use single letters in their clues.  There’s a lot of opportunity for misdirection here if constructors are alert and creative.

Cluing challenge: “HORSESHOE”


We got a nice comment a coupla weeks ago correcting an earlier post about the MIT Mystery Hunt.

Erin Rhode wrote:
>>Sometimes I Google myself to see what comes up... regarding the Mystery

>>Hunt cryptic, while I wasn't an author, I was an editor. The original idea

>>was Aaron Bader's, Kevin Der wrote the grid (and holy crap, I still don't

>>know how he did that), and Aaron and Dan Katz wrote the clues.

So I looked up Erin, and interestingly, she fit right into the topic I’d planned on using this week.  The Major League Baseball All-Star Game was held Tuesday, and it brought to mind my habit of keeping a scorecard when I go to the ballpark.  My earliest recollection of scoring a game was watching an All-Start game on TV when I was about 12.  I made up my own form for it, with a ruler and ball-point pen, and eventually used a ditto master to print a bunch of them.  Like so much else, the computer makes it a lot easier today, but I still use a scorecard of my own design, with a few quirks like spaces designated to record hot dogs, cheesesteaks, and beer consumed by the scorer.

So I wonder if the same geek gene that’s responsible for an interest in cryptic crosswords and other odd puzzles also drives an instinct to keep score at the ballgame.  It’s worth doing if you’re at the game: not just for the bleacher cred (Erin subtitles her blog “Don’t try to show up the chick with the scorebook.”), but also because you might end up with the greatest souvenir, as when a college friend of ours went to a Braves game and ended up scoring a no-hitter.

Erin linked a couple more puzzles from the Mystery Hunt: I’ll add them to this weekend’s Sunday brunch.

Germany 2, Argentina 0 (Sunday brunch: July 13, 2014)

It’s a good thing Sabers doesn’t have school tomorrow: he and just about everyone else in Bad Reichenhall going to be up late celebrating a World Cup win for Germany.  No better time for a sports-minded kid to go on an exchange student trip than during the World Cup.

Argentina’s coach thinks his team will have to play a perfect game in order to win, and I agree with him.  The German defense is better than that of the Dutch who managed to figure out Messi and minimize (though not eliminate) his opportunities to create a goal.  The first half will look like the Brazil-Netherlands third-place game, minus the penalty that I thought should have been just outside the box.   Germany will have the majority of possession early on, and Klose will put one away.  Then another goal late as the Argentines press for the equalizer.

While you’re waiting for kickoff, you can solve these puzzles.  Still no World Cup themes in the cryptic realm though.

The Wall Street Journal has an easy variety cryptic by Hex called “Family Reunion.”  As usual, the solution is elsewhere on the blog.  Falcon reports that Hex’s weekly straight cryptic in the National Post is also easier than usual.

Want something harder?  Take on Fraser Simpson’s puzzle in the Globe and Mail.  Or (as we catch up with Kevin Wald) “Catching Four,” his contribution to the Post Hunt in Washington (knowing that fact might help you work out one of the themes).

The New York Times variety puzzle (behind the paywall) is a Hex acrostic.  Commentary (and spoilers) from Deb Amlen at Wordplay.

Before you go, don’t forget that Trip Payne’s 2014 Extravaganza is going to start August 1.  Sign up here.  Ten bucks for twelve puzzles plus a meta, and two solvers with correct answers win $100.

Wall Street Journal solution: July 12, 2014

Below the fold is the solution to this weekend’s Wall Street Journal variety puzzle, a cryptic by Hex titled “Family Reunion.”

Once you’re done with that one, why not try your hand at writing a cryptic clue?  This week’s cluing challenge is NAT HENTOFF.