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Welcome to Week 33!

1) Please keep Portland-native puzzle person Tom Gazzola in your thoughts this week. Tom was struck by a drunk driver while jogging on Wednesday, and has been in a coma from head injuries since. Tom is a member of NPL, and was my roommate in Cambridge during the MIT Mystery Hunt in January. I know many in the puzzling community already know much of this, but please, keep Tom and his family in your thoughts this week.

2) For many of you Indie 500 participants, the questions was asked how I was able to beat joon pahk in worse handwriting? This was a question I asked myself, and I thought I’d ask Evan Birnholz, who said that he had no say in who won that award.

Well, I made him involved this week.

On Tuesday or so this week, I printed out two puzzles from Devil Cross, specifically two medium-difficulty ones (#37 and #41), and solved them as quickly as I can.

Here are those results (click for larger):

First of all, I’m pleased with my performances on both puzzles. Perfect solve on one, one mistake on the other one. Technically, I had seen these puzzles before, as I do solve all of Evan’s puzzles (as well as the rest of the indie puzzles out there), but I’ve forgotten both theme and when I solved them. So, the times were still fair.

I’ve been solving in the same “crossword handwriting” for about a decade now. I’m consistent in my “star formation” As, my “reverse N” Hs, and my curvy Ls. I don’t actually write papers with this handwriting, but I certainly solve puzzles this way. I kind of forget what my crossword handwriting looks like, because to use the same joke I used at the event “My Helvetica has been consistent for years now”, since Across Lite does make handwriting a little more uniform.

I would say the puzzles I turned in while in DC were similar to this style of handwriting. So, was it that bad? Let me know if I truly did deserve my handwriting award.

3) A couple of projects in the works for the blog:
-Thanks to a nice suggestion by Sam Ezersky while in DC, I will publish a meta suite sometime this summer. Mind you, this will be a “puzzle hunt” type meta suite as opposed to a crossword meta suite, but it will still fill your puzzle needs. So, if you like Panda Magazine, this will be up your alley. I’ve written four puzzle hunts to date, so it’ll be nice to have some non-event puzzle hunt puzzles out there.
-I’ve been contacting people to update the X-word Files series, so I hope to have a new one sometime in the next month or so (because it both gives me a week off, and because I use it as a site traffic booster). Is there any crosswordese you’d like to see covered on here? Feel free to send me any suggestions by either comment or by email at cking.gow(at)gmail.com, but please refrain from any genus names. Because who cares about those, am I right?

Thanks everyone!

Chris

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Welcome to Chris Words, and welcome to Week 32!

Well, I just arrived back home from The Indie 500, and what a fantastic event it was. Andy, Erik, Evan, Finn, Neville, and Peter wrote some pretty damn amazing puzzles, and the event was just a blast to attend. It was so great meeting these people really for the first time, and I got to shake hands and talk with so many other people that I greatly admire. And it’s not too bad solving at a table with both Matt Gaffney and Tony Orbach either.

In terms of how I did…I was no first place finisher. According to the amazing statistics kept at the event, I was 81st out of 100, or 41st out of 60 in my division. Not terrible, but I wish I was a faster solver.

The coordinators of the event issued the statement that the puzzles themselves should not be discussed for two weeks, which would give the at-home division a chance to play without spoilers. So, I’ll be back in two weeks to discuss my puzzle performances, and they’ll be something to read. Especially since I almost won the Best Wrong Answer award.

But speaking of awards, I did come home with some hardware!

I won the award for Worst Handwriting, which was sponsored by joon pahk! I genuinely can’t believe I won, because I don’t think my crossword handwriting is that terrible. Next week I’ll scan a copy of my work and you can judge for yourself.

Even though joon sponsored the award, I think the people (and the award’s namesake) were expecting joon receive the medal. As seen on Twitter:

So, I have no choice but to make the pahk name proud and show that I did, in fact, have the worst handwriting deemed by the Indie 500 judges. More on that next week.

There is a new puzzle this week, and I hope you enjoy it. The inspiration comes from the fun I’ve had this last year, and the fun many indie constructors have had (or will have) as well.

But I did promise all of you some data mining, so let me show you what I’ve got.

=

I’ve collected all the clues and answers I have used for the 32 puzzles of this blog (including today’s).

They can be found here. (The actual list might be on a different sheet in the file).

Besides looking at the Ginsberg clue database, I now also have this open, so that I don’t repeat clues I’ve already written. I felt this was necessary after discovering both of my clues for IKEA feature lingonberry jam.

Feel free to look around and see what you find. And a few notes I’ve made:

-There are more than 2400 words clued. Don’t know how many unique words, as I don’t have that kind of spreadsheet capability. I say more than 2400 because I combined two part clues (“With 56-Across,…”, etc.) to appear as one word in the spreadsheet.

-The maximum number of times a word has appeared altogether is four times. In that Four Timers club is ADO, ADS, AMIR, ANN, ELI, ICE, IDO, and MEG.

-The five most common words seen in the Shortz-era of the New York Times that have NOT yet appeared in ChrisWords are ATE, OLE, ERR, ENE, and IRE.

-I’ve only had one compass direction (NNE) appear in the puzzles so far. That’s good. I thought I didn’t have any, but there was on in #9. 

-The words NAE, OBI, GRAIL, IDOL, PERU, and KALI have all featured clues associating with the Indiana Jones franchise. So, it looks like I’m average an Indiana Jones reference once every five puzzles. This sounds about right to me.

-The word ATARI has appeared three times, and appeared in 3 out of 5 consecutive puzzles. Nothing really important there, just something I noticed in hindsight.

-Favorite clue? Lots of good ones, but I love the simplicity of [Words said before the band goes on?] = IDO. It felt good coming up with a new clue for that word that I hadn’t really seen anywhere else. 

Take a look, and see what you find. If someone made a dictionary of just indie constructor clues, that’d be something I’d buy pretty quick.

Again, welcome to Chris Words, and enjoy!

Chris

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Welcome to Week 31! That’s one puzzle every day for a month!

Last week was a meta, so time for an explanation: This puzzle was looking for something green that completes this puzzle’s theme, and the four longest answers in this puzzle were:

20A – [Novel set in the year 632 After Ford] = BRAVE NEW WORLD
26A – [Agreed upon, like two opposing forces] = MET IN THE MIDDLE
42A – [Country music selection?] = NATIONAL ANTHEM
48A – [Santiago’s profession in “The Old Man and the Sea”] = MARLIN FISHING

The first word of these entries were BRAVE, MET, NATIONAL, and MARLIN, which correspond to four out of the five MLB teams in the NL East. Specifically, they each begin with what a single player of that team would be called.

The only NL East team not featured in the puzzle are the Philadelphia Phillies, so the meta answer had to be something green that starts with the word PHILLIE. A quick Google would point to the team’s mascot the PHILLIE PHANATIC, which is the answer.

A couple of solvers seemed to be unsure of whether PHILLIE PHANATIC could be right, as it was directly related to the baseball team. However, the Phillie Phanatic is the best answer, as it is really the only thing that begins with the word “Phillie”. Unfortunately, “Philly” is not a single player from the Phillies, because if it was, the meta solution would be a food item.

I could have picked the NL Central, as all the teams there have easy to use names, but I’ve been a lifelong Braves fan, and I’m currently typing this in an Atlanta hotel as my family is seeing the Saturday and Sunday games at Turner Field.

This week, 28 readers submitted the Phillie Phanatic. This week’s randomly selected winner was David Cole. He will join Jon Delfin, John L. Wilson, Jim Quinlan, Eric Maddy, and Andy Keller in a future section of the site.

This weekend I’m in the home of the Braves, but next weekend I’m in the home of the Nationals! The Indie 500 is this upcoming weekend! I’ll be there wearing the Gamecock hat, so be sure to say hello. I’ll have a long write-up about the event on my blog two weeks from now, as I am positive I won’t be able to write a decent one between the event’s end and my Sunday noon deadline. There will still be a new puzzle next week, and I’ll have some cool stuff for you to ponder. I’ve been doing some data mining regarding my puzzling experience, and I’ll have new stuff for you over the next few weeks.

Enjoy this nice straightforward puzzle, and I hope to see you in DC!

Chris

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Welcome back everyone! Sorry I didn’t have a puzzle last week, but I feel like I had a decent reason.

Week 30! Since 30 ends with 5 or 0, it’s time for a meta puzzle.

For this sixth meta of the blog, I’m looking for something green that completes this puzzle’s theme. When you think you have it, email me at cking.gow(at)gmail.com with your answer. I’ll accept answers all the way to noon ET on Saturday.

In upcoming events, the Indie 500 is in less than a couple of weeks. I have full faith that it is going to be an awesome, awesome event. I’m expecting at least 6 fantastic puzzles for the tournament, and I look forward to solving them. Then I considered: what would it take for this tournament to suck? Presented here are six potential puzzles that would ruin the tournament.

In their website order:
1) Andy Kravis – This attorney, game show millionaire, and Rundle A Frontier champion has proven that knowledge is power. And power only comes from having a strong foundation. Thus, Andy’s puzzle will either be a puzzle with theme answers starting PARK/REVERSE/NEUTRAL/DRIVE/LOW or THUMB/INDEX/MIDDLE/RING/PINKY. Brush up on all your “Pinky”s, including ___ Tuscadero, ___ swear, and ___ and the Brain.

2) Erik Agard – He’s got the word “pun” in the name of this site, so we should expect the puns in this puzzle. And to quote a famous song, Erik will have a “sometimes words have two meanings” puzzle. Four or five theme clues, that each can be clued with the exact same clue. For maximum fun, hopefully it’s a one-word clue.

3) Evan Birnholz – As the married one in the group, love is in the air. In honor of his wife, his puzzle will be a wedding proposal puzzle. This tournament will feature a puzzle you only hear about on AOL or MSN homepages once every few years. Not sure who the lucky couple will be, but WILLYOUMARRYME will certainly be one of the Across entry. I think he’ll do it to honor Jon Stewart leaving the Daily Show. That’s how he proposed, you know.

4) Finn Vigeland – The newest constructor of the tournament! His puzzle was picked by the other five as a quality puzzle, but then again, the other five probably wanted to play it safe. Thus, Finn probably submitted a vowel progression puzzle. What’s the consonants he chose? B_LL?  F_LL? P_LL? It does seem that most of these things have LLs. Should be a fun one.

5) Neville Fogarty – Even though Neville has been out of the game for a little bit, he’s still want to commemorate the event with a fantastic puzzle. Going for a PhD in math, Neville has proven he’s a smart one, and as he currently tries to drill math skills into students, he wants to educate the people. Thus, we’ll have a __th anniversary commemoration puzzle. Start brushing up on what took place 50/100 years ago this month. I just hope nobody dies between now and the tournament.

6) Peter Broda – Stepquote. Get ready for the finest Mal-esque-a stepquote that you’ve seen since the 1960s.

Even if all this stuff does come true, it would still be an awesome tournament, because these guys are running it. Even if these are the six puzzles you guys are running, I still hope you put some cool references to the NBA or Pokemon or something.

New puzzle next week. Be sure to email me your answer!

Chris

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Hello, and welcome to Week 29!

The Honors Council, a group I’m a president of, was holding an end-of-the-semester field day. Calling it an Olympics, one of the organizers asked me if I’d write a puzzle for the event. I said I would. I clued it for a Monday/Tuesday, and a good number of the clues in today’s version are from that original cluing. The event never materialized, due to lack of numbers, but the crossword still lives. Enjoy it.

Also, today’s picture comes from the 2014 USC Puzzle Hunt. The theme of the Hunt was joining Pi Zeta Tau, a fictional Greek organization whose name comes from the 1st, 3rd, and last letters of “puzzle hunt”. The final answer for the entire Hunt is found at the top/bottom two letters of each of the five rings as seen above, which spell out EUREKA I WON. And as a bonus, the intersecting rings letters spell out OLYMPICS from left to right. This whole meta-meta puzzle is in my top 3 favorite puzzles I’ve ever assembled. Good times.

We’ll see if there is a puzzle next Sunday. Did you know I’m graduating THIS Saturday? Crazy right?

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Welcome to Week 28 everyone!

I hope you enjoyed the piece we ran about Erle Stanley Gardner last week. I definitely enjoyed organizing that, and I look forward to having more of those interviews in the future. Is there any crosswordese word you’d like to see more of? Let me know if you are thinking of any South American tubers or any Indonesian oxen you think we should investigate, and we’ll find who the expert of that word.

Anyway, here’s a themeless. Lots of fresh entries, and plenty of things to make the veterans remember the good days. Hope you enjoy!

Also: I have registered for the Indie 500! It’s going to be awesome! Make sure you go and register, and I hope to see you there.

Wikipedia defines “crosswordese” as “the group of words frequently found in crossword puzzles but seldom found in everyday conversation”. But here at Chris Words, knowledge is power, and everyone deserves a second chance. In these interviews, we learn more about the words that make up crosswordese, and what makes them so great.

Edition #1: ERLE
(has appeared 498 times in the NYT, 168 in the Shortz Era)

In this first edition of “The X-word Files”, we learn more about Erle Stanley Gardner, the American detective author best remembered for his Perry Mason books. To learn more about this famed author, we talked to Steve Williamson, a Museum Specialist at the Temecula Valley Museum in California. Temecula was the home of Erle Stanley Gardner for 33 years, and the museum has a vast collection of photographs and memorabilia of Gardner. We asked Steve Williamson nine questions, and here’s what he sent us:

1. Where does the name “Erle” come from? The only other prominent Erles in American history are oilman Erle Halliburton and director Erle C. Kenton.

SW: The best answer appears in the Dorothy Hughes book, The Case of the Real Perry Mason, p. 36. Gardner’s parents gave him the name “Erle”. In grade school, he was teased about it and began using his own spelling—at times “Earl”, other times “Earle”. By high school he reverted to using “Erle”.

2. Gardner was certainly a prolific writer, who penned 82 Perry Mason mysteries, 28 Cool and Lam novels, and also the Doug Selby and Terry Clane books, plus all the other fiction and non-fiction he wrote. What was an average day for Gardner? How did he manage his time?

SW: He often said that it took him 2 ½ days to write a book—the first half day to conceive of the plot, then 2 days of dictation. He was used to dictating into the wee hours of the night. Then, in the morning he’d take the recorded disc into the secretarial pool and ask, “Who wants to type this story?” So, the early part of his typical day was getting his secretaries started with a typing project. He was quite demanding in terms of productivity. He had high expectations of his secretaries. Even when traveling, he continued to work, although the lines between “work” and “play” became quite blurry. I get the general impression that he was a bit of a “night owl.” At least he often worked into the night.

3. How much of the character Perry Mason was based on Gardner? Both were California lawyers, so I imagine Perry Mason was largely inspired by his own experiences.

SW: Although he denied it, there is no doubt that the fictional character “Perry Mason” and secretary “Della Street” were patterned after himself and his own secretary, Jean Bethell. The fictional character was very “clever”, as was Erle. Perry Mason always won his cases because that was how Erle perceived himself. Della Street was loyal, efficient and responsible, as was Jean.

4. How involved was Gardner on the set of the show “Perry Mason”? On IMDb, Gardner’s only acting credit is his cameo as a judge on the series finale of the show. Was he involved with episode writing, directing, etc.?

SW: Erle was not involved on the set. I understand that he reserved the right to approve scripts. That was so he had control over the shows’ content. But he knew nothing about filming or directing. He only provided plots and story content.

5. Unequivocally, Erle Stanley Gardner loved Baja California. He set most of his non-fiction pieces there, and his ashes were scattered there in 1970. What drew Gardner to Baja California?

SW: In high school geography class he saw a map of Baja California with coastal towns identified and the entire interior was marked “UNEXPLORED.” This ignited the “explorer” instinct in him.

6. A.A. Fair, Kyle Corning, Charles M. Green, and Carleton Kendrake were just some of the pseudonyms he wrote under. How did he come up with these names?

SW: The early names were invented by Erle because he was somewhat embarrassed by the quality of the writing. His writing improved with time and experience. By the time he wrote his first novels, his agent recommended using his own name. He created “A.A. Fair “ for any novels other than “Perry Mason” because by that time, his name had become branded with Perry Mason.

7. How much has the works of Gardner influenced modern crime/mystery writing, as well as how much has the show “Perry Mason” influenced modern crime dramas?

SW: He struggled to create his own style that would be unique and not be associated with the other mystery writers of his own time. His style and story formula became so famous that even to this day, a shocking fact introduced in a real-life court room setting is still referred to as a “Perry Mason Moment.”

8. What’s a fun fact about Erle Stanley Gardner that you wouldn’t see in most biographies? 

SW: When asked by critics whether there was any “Hanky-Panky” between Perry Mason and Della Street, Erle recognized this as their attempt to pry into a possible relationship between himself and Jean Bethell. His answer was “That depends on how you define “hanky” and how you define “panky.”

9. If you wanted to introduce someone to the works of Erle Stanley Gardner, which specific work would you suggest?

SW: “The Case of the Stuttering Bishop” was drama, intrigue, red herring and blind alleys, and of course, Perry Mason “pinning down” the true killer in the end.

Chris Words would like to thank Steve Williamson and the Temecula Valley Museum for answering our questions. We hope you’ve enjoyed our interview, and we hope you’ll appreciate seeing this piece of crosswordese in a future puzzle.

Chris Words will be back next week with a new puzzle.

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Welcome to this Monday edition of Chris Words, and here’s #27!

Sorry for the delay guys. I plan was to finish cluing the puzzle after a party I went to Saturday night. I was the DD for the party, and unfortunately, I had to put all of my DD responsibilities to use. I’m a good friend, I’m told. So, since I didn’t think I could get the puzzle up by noon Sunday, here we are at noon Monday.

Hope you enjoy the puzzle!

And a note: I’m taking next week off. I graduate from USC in less than a month, and I have A LOT of work I need to focus on to make sure that I do indeed graduate from USC in less than a month. However, there will be something on the blog next Sunday. I’m starting a series that I have had in mind since this blog’s beginning, but will finally get to put into play. It won’t be a crossword, but I hope I’ll be able to entertain all you solvers out there.

Thanks for understanding, and enjoy the puzzle!

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Welcome to Week 26, and Happy Easter everyone!

Last week was a metapuzzle, so let’s get right onto that.

This puzzle was looking for a well-known website, and the five longest answers in this puzzle where:

16A – [Science fair taboo] = OUTSIDE HELP
23A – [Trivia night question style that involves wagering points before answering] = FINAL JEOPARDY
37A – [“My sincerest apologies”] = I’M TERRIBLY SORRY
47A – [Middle school missile] = PAPER AIRPLANE
58A – [2013 inductee into the Culinary Hall of Fame] = JAMIE OLIVER

All pretty standard cluing, and the puzzle’s name is “Mark My Words”. In what way can you “mark” the theme answers in this puzzle (and more specifically, the last words of the puzzle)?

Besides being standard words, each of these five final words are the names of something in pop culture. Help was an Beatles album, Jeopardy is a TV game show, Sorry is a board game, Airplane is a classic comedy, and Oliver is a well known musical.

However, the above paragraph is partially incorrect, as each of them are missing a silent element. Each of those brands includes a exclamation mark.

As shown on the left (and click for larger), each of these words can be succeeded by an exclamation mark, so you are literally “marking” my words.

The meta is asking for a well-known website, so the best known website that also features an exclamation mark is YAHOO!, which is our answer.

This week, 19 readers submitted the website Yahoo! (a little less than the last couple of metas, which might be one part ACPT and one part tougher meta). This week’s randomly selected winner was Andy Keller. He will join Jon Delfin, John L. Wilson, Jim Quinlan, and Eric Maddy in a future section of the site.

And enjoy this week’s puzzle. This morphed from being a potential metapuzzle, and ended up being a five-themer which I rather enjoy. Five puzzles ago was “House of Cards” puzzle, so I wouldn’t doubt the title of every fifth puzzle is now a TV show I’ve seen every episode.

And as a final note, I finally got around to watching Wordplay this week. Pretty good film. Can’t believe me it took this long to finally see it. Thank you Internet and your storage of all films.

Enjoy!

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Week 25! If this was a TV show, that means we probably would have finished Season 1 about now. I guess this week is sweeps.

Since 25 ends with 5 or 0, it’s time for a meta puzzle.

For this fifth meta of the blog, I’m looking for a well-known website. When you think you have it, email me at cking.gow(at)gmail.com with your answer. I’ll accept answers all the way to noon ET on Saturday.

Notes:

1) Good luck / congratulations to all of those at ACPT this weekend. I was not able to go, but I sincerely hope that Stamford will be a destination for next year.

2) I would like to thank Matt Gaffney for including this puzzle’s URL directly into MGWCC #355. That Friday morning, I was able to respond to his email about how I was the weekly winner that week. You can read the correspondence below.

And just like that, he was able to include this site as the INTERNET ADDRESS for that meta. When I was solving the puzzle, I first thought that Matt had somehow created a macro that would read out a website you had open at the time! I was just blown away by Chriswords making a MGWCC! Thank you Matt for including me in your puzzle, and thank you new visitors for coming to my mom-and-pop site. I hope you’ll enjoy the future puzzles this internet address has to offer.

3) Thanks to Erik Agard for the clue at 31-Across. I was finally able to redeem my free “clue exchange” gift after the big crossword he had last December.

Enjoy!

Chris