Crossword Puzzles - Wordplay Blog

Feb 1 10:00 pm

Supersonic Speed

TUESDAY PUZZLE — Look! Up in the SKY! It’s a FLOCK OF BIRDS! It’s a PLANE! It’s Paul MOLITOR, whom I did not know before today’s puzzle by Peter A. Collins. But apparently, Mr. MOLITOR can fly, because he’s up there above the HORIZON.

Today we have a crossword with a visual element, which is the HORIZON stretching across the middle of our grid, and the “blue expanse” SKY and the “blue expanse” SEA above and below. Some of the contents of the SKY and the SEA can be seen in their appropriate places in the grid. (We won’t talk about the placement of Amelia EARHART at 41 Down. Mr. Collins explains that in his notes below.)

Two theme entries that are relatively common phrases — FLOCK OF BIRDS and SCHOOL OF FISH — make their New York Times debuts today, a fact that surprised me. Wouldn’t you think they would have appeared at least once in this crossword? When I first solved the puzzle, I felt like I had seen this theme before, but Mr. Collins’s take on it seems to be unique.

Mr. Collins talks about the nontheme fill in his notes below, and I agree with him that there seems to have been quite a few three-letter words in addition to less desirable fill and abbreviation. Still, I appreciated the CHEX Mix offering and the fact that it was above the HORIZON, because who likes soggy snacks?

Let’s hear from our constructor:

Constructor’s Notes:

Into which category does the theme of this one fall? There is no wordplay in the usual crossword sense – it’s the location of the themed entries that gives them relevance. Is there a name for this kind of puzzle?

The theme has quite a lot of three-letter answers (25), which was necessitated, to a large extent, by HORIZON and its neighboring black squares in the center of the grid (forming a visual “horizon,” I hope). Will and Joel asked me to rework the grid to try to lower the three-letter word count, which I did. However, in the end they thought the fill in this original version was significantly superior — enough to counterbalance the short-answer overload.
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Numberplay Feb 1 12:00 pm

Google Artificial Intelligence Beats Expert at Go Game

Gary Antonick

Tremendous news last week: Google announced that it had created a computer program that defeated a professional player at Go – an event that many thought was still a decade away.

This week we celebrate this victory with a simple strategy challenge suggested by our friends at Brilliant.org, the online community for students and professionals looking for tantalizing problems, like-minded peers, and mentorship. Our discussion will be moderated by Brilliant’s Zandra Vinegar.

But before we begin — what did this computer program (called AlphaGo) actually accomplish, and what is the significance of this breakthrough? For perspectives on this I reached out to several people familiar with artificial intelligence and its quest to conquer Go: Rodrigo Alvarez, who helped design a breakthrough cognitive computing chip as part of IBM’s TrueNorth. (In case you missed it, “IBM Develops a New Chip That Functions Like a Brain.”) Bob Hearn, who studied AI at MIT and is a 2-dan Go player and longtime follower — and organizer — of human vs. machine Go contests. And Alan Levinovitz, who wrote “The Mystery of Go, the Ancient Game That Computers Still Can’t Win,” which appeared in Wired magazine in 2014.

Gary Antonick: Machine learning has recently enabled computers to recognize faces and understand spoken language. Why is the ability to win Go such big news?

Alan Levinovitz: Contests, especially contests modeled on war, feel like objective, decisive assessments of ability. Chess and Go have long enjoyed pride of place as contests that decide which human has a more powerful mind — pure skill, no luck. When computers beat us, it seems as if the quest to make a humanlike mind must be close to over.

Bob Hearn: Go was the last bastion of human superiority at what’s historically been viewed as quintessentially intellectual. This is it. We’re out of games now. This is seen by some as a harbinger of the approaching singularity.

Alan: But of course these games are far from being measures of who is the most human human (whatever that means). Single-player, deterministic perfect information games like chess and Go are actually well-suited to computers — there’s not much psychology (like poker), no teamwork (like bridge). And rule-bound games are themselves better arenas for computers than the un-rule-governed games of life like figuring out whether someone is speaking in earnest, or really loves you, whether they’re looking off into the distance or avoiding your gaze. There’s no doubt that, a few singularity-worshipping cheerleaders aside, we are very, very far from creating anything that resembles a human mind.

Four-Baggers

Deb Amlen

MONDAY PUZZLE — One of the things I like about Gary Cee’s crosswords is the nod to his profession as a radio D.J. and program director in most of, if not all, of his puzzles. He opens his puzzle today at 1 Across with AM/FM.

Not only that, but once you’ve thrown that AM/FM switch, the rest of the puzzle is smooth solving. The only speed bump I hit was how to spell VIEIRA, although that was quickly remedied once I realized that “A, in Berlin” was EIN.

Before you know it, though, Mr. Cee has moved from radio to movies. The theme today is ROAD MOVIES, and we know this because all three of the theme entries are movies that have as their second word STREET, BOULEVARD or DRIVE. I didn’t immediately think of “Bonnie and Clyde” and “Thelma and Louise” as ROAD MOVIES, so this was the rare Monday that kept its secret from me until almost the end.

I also enjoyed the movie “extras” Mr. Cee threw in as nontheme entries. Other nontheme entries I liked are FREE ON BAIL and ALL-NIGHTER.

Are you ready for your close-up? Let’s move on to the Tuesday puzzle by watching the best staircase descent ever:

Your thoughts?

Jan 30 6:00 pm

Message to Buyers

Deb Amlen

SUNDAY PUZZLE — We last met up with Yaakov Bendavid nearly two years ago, when he was caught cheating by turning failing F grades to passing Ds. Today, Mr. Bendavid presents us with a list of warnings to buyers that are clued in a punny way. Caveat emptor. Five of the six theme entries make their debuts today, and some work better than others. I liked “Offer of free pillow fill?” for NO MONEY DOWN, “Desert supermarket?” for STORE IN A DRY PLACE and “Sign on the N.S.A.’s entrance” for INTEL INSIDE. For some reason, “Note on a watered-down assault indictment?” for BATTERY NOT INCLUDED made me cringe a bit.

Other than that, it’s a fairly straightforward solve, and I would have liked to see some more wordplay and fresh, nontheme entries.

Let’s check in with Mr. Bendavid:

Constructor’s Notes:

From come-ons plastered on billboards to disclaimers and warnings in tiny print or read at lightning speed at the end of radio ads, we’re inundated with ad and packaging copy. So why should the Sunday crossword be an exception? (Just kidding.)

I hope solvers enjoy the alternate definitions for some familiar phrases in my sixth New York Times puzzle.

One clue/theme entry I would have liked to fit:

Disclaimer on a poker school price list? DEALER PREP EXTRA

And one clue that didn’t get in with the entry that did:

Audition notice encouraging forgetful actors? CONTAINS SMALL PARTS

My New York Times puzzles have all been Sundays and I’ve been asked, ‘Why only Sundays?’. Well, before embarking on the actual construction, I spend a lot of time gathering theme entries and possible clues. I want to have 20 or more candidates from which to choose six to nine entries that pair up for symmetry purposes and which allow for a nice-looking grid, clean fill, and clever/funny clue-answer combinations. Having phrases up to 21 letters, as opposed to 15 for a non-Sunday puzzle, gives me many more phrases from which to choose.

Thanks to Will and Joel Fagliano for their editing and patience through two revisions.

And now, let’s learn how to properly trash talk our opposing Super Bowl teams, for the Super Bowl that is definitely next weekend, and not any time else, no matter what you might have read in an earlier version of this post. May the odds be ever in your favor.

Your thoughts?

Jan 30 12:00 pm

Variety: Spiral

Deb Amlen

VARIETY PUZZLE — I love these Spiral puzzles. On the surface, they seem really easy, but keeping track of the entries going inward and outward can be tricky.

If you’ve never done a Spiral before, please give it a try. It’s the kind of thing you can print out and take with you, filling in a word every now and then when it trickles through your brain. And when you’ve filled in the entire Spiral, feel free to milk it for all it’s worth with family and friends.

Here are the instructions:

When completed, this grid will contain two series of words — one reading inward from No. 1 to 100, the other outward from No. 100 back to No. 1. Every space will be used exactly twice. Work from both sets of clues to complete the puzzle.

Your thoughts?

Jan 30 9:00 am

A Little Variety

Deb Amlen

A LITTLE VARIETY PUZZLES — This week’s puzzles include:

• “Spelling Bee” by Frank Longo, with the letters U + A T O N M I
• “Projectors” by Patrick Berry
• “Tents” by Wei-Hwa Huang

Your thoughts?

Jan 29 10:00 pm

Parenthetical Figures

Deb Amlen

Administrivial Contest Alert! George Barany and Friends is holding a crossword contest called “Eliminating the Competition,” which ends at midnight P.S.T., February 8, 2016. There are multiple prizes, but I can’t talk about them because that would be a spoiler. Click here for more information.

SATURDAY PUZZLE — One of the wonderful things about solving crossword puzzles with bylines is that, after you’ve been doing this for a while, you begin to know what to expect when you see a puzzle by a given constructor. It can give you something to look forward to, and it can warn you that you are about to encounter a real challenge.

I always look forward to individual and collaborative Samuel Donaldson and Brad Wilber bylines, because I know that I am about to solve a puzzle with an immaculately filled grid, interesting entries, brain-twisting clues and things I will no doubt be learning for the first time. Things don’t get much better than that, unless the crossword is served up with a martini.

It was particularly entertaining to me for some reason to note that SIPPY CUP makes its New York Times crossword debut today, as does VISIGOTHS, VEAL MARSALA, CREPEY, SAY YES TO, DAWN RAID, ABSTAINERS and VIZSLA. I also liked MAMA BEAR, SPEED DATING, SATIRIZES, BAD DEAL, ME TIME, and RIG VEDA.

Clue(s) of the Day for me were “What isn’t working?” for ME TIME, “Following the beat?” for ON PATROL and the fraternal twin clues at 47- and 49 Down. Hands up if you briefly misread 50 Down as “Vulcan” instead of “Vulgarian.”

Mr. Donaldson and Mr. Wilber tell us how they make the magic happen:

Constructors’s Note:

Sam Donaldson: In December of 2014 I sent a partially completed grid to Brad, asking if he wanted to collaborate. That’s code for “I like what I’ve done so far, but I can’t seem to make anything else work. HELP!” The grid I sent him had the northwest and southeast corners done. Not surprisingly, what he sent back was terrific. He balances my low-brow MAMA BEAR, SPEED DATING, and SIPPY CUP with the RIG VEDA, the VISIGOTHS, and (what now may be my new favorite word) CREPEY. The result, I hope, is a balanced puzzle that puts up a tough fight.
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Jan 28 10:00 pm

Without a Doubt

Deb Amlen

FRIDAY PUZZLE — If I had asked a Magic 8 Ball last week whether my part of the country was really going to be blanketed by nearly 30 inches of snow, I can only imagine that the answer would have been “IT IS DECIDEDLY SO.” That thought amused me as I was shoveling my way through the blizzard and it will continue to amuse me, at least until it is time for my next dose of Motrin.

I also have this theory that using one’s brain power is an effective way to raise one’s core body temperature, which makes David Phillips’s Friday 66-worder a helpful way to warm up for our weekend. Remembering that GENERAL ZOD is a foe of Superman was enough to kindle the fire, and being misdirected by the clue “Battery container?” for CAKE PAN set the puzzle ablaze. I learned that the University of Cincinnati team is called the BEARCATS.

If you have no cause for alarm, do you really need to shout “I’M UP”? The way I read the clue for 1 Across at first (“Shout when there’s no cause for alarm?”), you would pop out of bed and shout that if you did have cause for an alarm. In all likelihood, if you live in my area of the country, you would then head out to shovel more snow. Maybe you would shout it if you were already up and did not need the alarm anymore.

Other entries that I liked include ONE PLEASE, DR. PEPPER, CELADON, BLONDE ALE, TOY POODLES, POTPIES, BANANA BOAT, PAR VALUE and ARM RESTS.

Let’s raise the heat a bit further with Mary J. BLIGE’s “Work in Progress”:

Your thoughts?

Jan 27 10:00 pm

Party Staple

Deb Amlen

THURSDAY PUZZLE — Let me float this by you: It’s Thursday, so it wouldn’t be out of place for there to be some sort of “trick” today, right? As “tricks” go, a rebus is not a terribly complicated one, but what if, in addition to the rebus, there was an extra layer of goodness?

We haven’t seen Elizabeth C. Gorski around these parts since mid-2015, but she’s back today to start a party. She’s brought us a rebus puzzle, but when you’ve finished solving the puzzle itself, take note that the HE rebus entries (He is the chemical symbol for HELIUM, which also appears at 56 Across) form the shape of a BALLOON, which also happens to be the central entry. Also, take note that the letter combination HE does not appear anywhere else in the puzzle, an elegant touch in a rebus puzzle. I was a little alarmed to see the entry DRILL plunging through the BALLOON, seeing as how delicate they are, but fortunately for us, DRILL is clued as “Fire safety measure” and not as a pointy object.

Side note: If you are solving in the print newspaper, you might have noticed a curved line running through your clues. That’s the BALLOON’s string. How else are you supposed to hold on to a puzzle about HELIUM? Sadly, the string could not be replicated for the online versions.

If that’s not making you feel like you’re floating, we have ON POT and ACID HEADS to keep us high and a TUNA HERO to take care of our munchies.

And as for those of you wondering how some people solve the answers to the crossword online with what seems like superhuman speed, the typical answer is “I CHEATED.”

Clue of the Day for me was “Monsieur Marceau spoke the only one in all of Mel Brooks’s ‘Silent Movie'” for MOT (French for “word”), because I loved the movie and because it was easy to overlook the French hint of “monsieur” to let us know that the answer should also be in French.

Start Swimmin’

Deb Amlen

WEDNESDAY PUZZLE — A good protest song should be general enough to call for the perpetual need for societal change, but passionately specific enough to allow generations upon generations take it as their own anthem. There were many that came out of the turbulence of the 1960s, but Bob Dylan’s “THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN'” is probably the Platonic ideal of this genre.

Mr. Dylan wrote the song after being influenced by Irish and Scottish ballads as a way to unite young Americans who were protesting the Vietnam War, as well as to support the civil rights movement. Since then, the song has been covered by countless other artists and was ranked #59 on Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Songs of All Time.”

Today, Adam Perl offers us an homage to that anthem by anagramming the word TIMES in six symmetrical places in his grid, so the word is literally “changin’.” I knew we had an anagram theme, but it took me until I had solved the middle of the revealer at 38 Across until I had my “Aha!” moment. For some reason, that fragment — THEY ARE — sparked my memory of the song and enabled me to fill in the rest of the song’s title.

I agree with Mr. Perl’s opinion below that there is a mix of decent fill and crosswordese/partials in his puzzle. I did like seeing INDIGO GIRLS, IN THE MOMENT, TUNA SUB and I AM SAM in the grid. In addition, I liked the fact that this theme, as presented, seems to be fresh, at least in The New York Times. There may have been other Bob Dylan themes and other references to the song, but no one else has presented the times as literally changing by anagramming the word.

Let’s check in with Mr. Perl:

Constructor’s Notes

The inspiration for this puzzle was Bob Dylan’s classic song of 1964, “The Times They Are A-Changin’” and the realization that the title could be split into three seven-letter sections. I knew that there were four common anagrams for TIMES (SMITE, EMITS, MITES and ITEMS), but I set out to find all the possible permutations and discovered the additional pair of two-word phrases, IT’S ME and I’M SET.

Despite no long themed entries, the puzzle has a total of nine theme-related answers. This makes getting interesting non-thematic words in the grid a larger-than-usual challenge. I was very pleased to have been able to include IN THE MOMENT and INDIGO GIRLS (who appeared as New York Times crossword fans in the wonderful documentary “Wordplay”) as the two long down words, as well as the secondary entries of SEE PAST, TUNA SUB, CIA GATE, I AM SAM, SO I SEE and A AND E.

There are a few crosswordese bits in the fill, but on balance, I feel the theme density and the many interesting side entries more than compensate for them.

We need more protest songs like this one. Let’s start swimmin’ or we’ll sink like a stone:

Your thoughts?