Bara Kristinsdottir for The New York TimesThe aurora borealis over Skorradalur, one hour north of Reykjavik. Administrivial Solving Tips Alert: The question of how to solve a puzzle that has rebus elements in it when you are solving on computer — whether you are on Mac or PC, solving in Across Lite or the applet — has come up, and I’d like to direct your attention to a new category on the right-hand side of the page in the Blogroll called Solving Tips. In it we will be putting helpful tips for (wait for it) solving. Our own Martin Herbach was kind enough to research and write up a new page about how to enter multiple letters for rebus entries, and there is an interesting article from puzzlemaster Will Shortz. Stay tuned for more additions, and if there is anything else you would like to see there, please contact me at deb.amlen@nytimes.com.
SATURDAY’S PUZZLE — What have I said since the beginning? You practice, and you stick with it, and sooner or later it pays off. Most weeks you fill in one word at a time, you put it down, you stomp around the house cursing roundly at the grid, you come back to it and fill in one more word. But every week, you get a little farther. I told you, didn’t I? Sorry, I’m just very pleased with myself today.
“It” is The New York Times crossword puzzle of course, and today is a special day for me because for the first time ever, I was able to muscle my way through a Saturday grid with no help. No Googling, no peeking at the answers, no burning of special, crossword herbal smudge sticks (it can help, really it can.)
Just me against the puzzle, mano a crucigrama, and that’s the real joy of this offbeat pursuit, isn’t it?
I won’t say it was easy, but then it’s not supposed to be easy on a Saturday. Saturday puzzles are meant to be a humbling experience, and that’s just what they were when I started. But when your friends tell you that they couldn’t possibly tackle a New York Times crossword puzzle because they’re just so hard, sit them down and tell them the tale of ol’ Deb Amlen. Tell them how she cursed and screamed and pulled her hair until one day, after being contractually obligated to do them each week (the beatings are just awful if I don’t), she filled in the last square on a Saturday puzzle and sat back with amazement as she realized that she had finally conquered The Beast. They probably won’t believe you, in which case you should just hand them a copy of Amy Reynaldo’s How To Conquer The New York Times Crossword Puzzle and tell them to get cracking.
And with whom do I share my happiness today? Barry Silk offers us a Saturday that seemed to be a bit easier than others, which may explain my good fortune today. On the other hand, it’s a grid filled with crunchy entries and very amusing clues, so who cares? “Interjections from the obtuse” made me giggle as a clue for DUHS, and I got off to a good start by confidently filling in COWABUNGA at 17 Across. I know Tom Stoppard’s play Travesties as a farce, but loved writing in BURLESQUE as its genre. “Easily changeable locks” is a very clever clue for WIGS. WIKIQUOTE makes its first appearance today, and I really liked the misdirection of the clue: “Where to get a citation while surfing.” I also enjoyed the math/science geek crossing of ISOMERS and CHI SQUARE.
CALLOW is a word that has fallen out of fashion, but we’re most likely to recall it from The Fantastiks, where it was originally performed in the song “Try To Remember” by the great Jerry Orbach. You’ll be happy to know that his talent lives on in his son; in fact, you’ve done his puzzles. The constructor Tony Orbach has probably heard this song much more than he would like to, but this video is a lovely tribute to his father:
Your thoughts?
Deb Amlen is a humorist and puzzle constructor whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and other mainstream media. The puzzles she creates for The Onion and Bust Magazine, however, would never fly at The New York Times. Sorry, Mom.
You can now download and print the popular variety puzzles from the Sunday magazine free online. Look below for links to this week’s puzzle as well as answers to last week’s.
Numberplay is a puzzle suite that will be presented in Wordplay every Monday. The puzzles, which are created by Pradeep Mutalik and made their debut on TierneyLab, are generally mathematical or logical problems, with occasional forays into physics and other branches of science. Every post also includes a word challenge. 