Captain Initially Assigned Harpooneer at Berth (4); or, The Cryptic

Some years ago—never mind how long precisely (okay, it was five)—having little or no ideas in my theme list, and nothing particular to interest me with regular puzzles, I thought I would construct a cryptic based on a classic work of English literature. It is a way I have of restoring the spleen and disregulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing gentle about the mouth; whenever it is a bright, sunny June in my soul; and especially whenever I get such an upper hand of my hypos, that I have no interest in deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to spend way too many stressful hours creating a puzzle.

Okay; enough of that. Anyway, a few months after I published that puzzle, Rachel Fabi, Michael Sharp (aka Rex Parker) and Neville Fogarty solved that puzzle together on Twitch, and at the end Michael joked that he was now going to construct a cryptic based on a specific classic work of American literature. But since he never actually pursued that, I decided I would take on the challenge myself. I then proceeded to work on it in occasional fits and starts with long gaps of nothing in between, until this year, when I reread that classic work as part of a Bluesky book club, and decided it was high time I finally finished the puzzle. (I’m intentionally not naming the book because I don’t want to spoil the puzzle – as if the title of the puzzle and the first paragraph of this post aren’t giant spoilers already.)

Big thanks to the following people for test solving (listed alphabetically):

  • Laura Braunstein (constructor of a new puzzle in These Puzzles Fund Abortion 5)
  • Daniel Grinberg (host of the great podcast Crosstalk)
  • Gideon Fostick
  • Joshua Kosman (co-creator of amazing cryptics every week at Out of Left Field)
  • Ken Stern
  • Brendan Emmett Quigley (creator of free puzzles twice a week on his site)
  • Stella Zawistowski (creator of free puzzles at Inteltainment and also poster of daily cryptic clues and weekly cryptic contests on Instagram)

There’s no PUZ file for this one because of some formatting restrictions, but cryptics are better on paper anyway. (Or you can solve in the browser below.)

It Never Did Run Smooth

It’s Shakespeare in the Park time again! Rochester Community Players’ free production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream opens tonight, and with it, of course, comes another Shakespeare-themed crossword. Thanks to Laura Braunstein for editing (and writing a bunch of the clues), and to Ginny Maier and marafish for test-solving.

The show runs until Sunday, July 26, so if you’re in the Rochester area please come check it out.

Constructed by Jesse Lansner using PuzzleMe"s crossword puzzle generator

The Progress of March

The idea for this one popped into my head last week while walking the dog. It seemed so obvious that I assumed someone must have already made a puzzle like this, but all I could find was this 2019 puzzle by Mary Lou Guizzo and Erik Agard that starts with the same idea but takes it in a very different direction (it’s still spoiler-y, though, so don’t click on that until after you solve mine). By the end of the day I had a theme set, and by the next day i was done with the grid. Then over the weekend I completely redid the grid because the first one really wasn’t that good.

Anyway, hope you enjoy this very topical puzzle. (Topical in the sense that it relates to the current time, not that it has anything to do with anything going on in the news right now.) Thanks to Matt Gritzmacher, Matt Forest and Martha Kimes for test-solving.

Made by Jesse Lansner using the crossword builder from Amuse Labs

Now the Wind Begins to Blow

Another Shakespeare play, another Shakespeare puzzle. This time, Rochester Community Players is presenting a really fun version of Pericles, Prince of Tyre for our annual free Shakespeare in the Park. If you’re in the Rochester area between now and Saturday, July 27, you should come see it. If you’re not, you should still do this puzzle.

Thanks to Laura Braunstein, Will Eisenberg and Heather Kennedy for proofreading and test-solving.

Off The Rose (with Laura Braunstein)

This isn’t my usual type of theme, but we went with it anyway since Laura is a big fan of this puzzle’s subject and I’m a big fan of finding related entries that have matching lengths (and also somewhat a fan of the puzzle’s subject). The grid ended up with a lot of short entries, which always leads to some iffy fill, but we tried to make up for it by having some fun with the clues. Some of those clues (and a couple of the entries) are on the more adult side, so if you normally solve my puzzles with a small child, first of all, why? But also, maybe do this one on your own.

Exit Rows

Shakespeare! Shakespeare! Shakespeare! Rochester Community Players’ latest Shakespeare production, The Winter’s Tale, opens tonight, and, like with all our Shakespeare plays, I’ve constructed a Shakespeare crossword for it. Thanks to Laura Braunstein for helping me brainstorm ideas, and to Kate Hawkins and my dad for test solving.

If you missed it, Laura and I had a puzzle in the Washington Post back in December while regular constructor Evan Birnholz was on paternity leave. You can solve that puzzle here, and also read a little interview with us.

Puzzle 41: Letter for Letter

It’s Shakespeare time again! Rochester Community Players’ production of The Merry Wives of Windsor opened last Thursday, and when RCP does Shakespeare, I make a puzzle for it. This one is pretty straight-forward, but the connection between the theme and the play won’t be apparent unless you’re at least a bit familiar with the play – which, let’s face it, even most Shakespeare fans aren’t. Merry Wives isn’t staged that often because it’s not a great play – but this production is great, and anyone in the Rochester area should come by and see it. The show runs until Saturday, July 29, with shows every night except Monday and Tuesday.

Thanks to Matt Gritzmacher, Diane Mezzanotte, BeerandCrosswords, and Stella Zawistowski for test-solving.

Notes (including spoilers)

The Merry Wives of Windsor starts with Falstaff deciding to seduce Mistress Ford and Mistress Page by sending them identical love letters. Of course the two women compare the letters and figure it out immediately:

MISTRESS FORD (after showing her letter to Mistress Page) : Did you ever hear the like?
MISTRESS PAGE: Letter for letter; but that the name of Page and Ford differs! 

The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act II, Scene 1
  • 25-A: Admit it; you found yourself saying “You’re damn right” after entering this answer.
  • 6-D: This quote comes from Rudd’s appearance on Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis. The whole interview is hilarious (and only five minutes long).
  • 30-D: Willie Randolph also played baseball before he was a manager, but that was mostly with the Yankees and obviously I’m not going to put that in the clue.
  • 53-D: A lot of the worst stories about Nero were probably spread by his successors looking to discredit him. On the other hand, the bare minimum standard for an emperor is “don’t get overthrown”, and he clearly failed at that.

Puzzle 40: This is How You Win The Puzzle War

This puzzle is inspired by the 2019 novel This Is How You Lose the Time War, and the recent events that have made that novel suddenly trendy again. If you know what those events are, you don’t need me to rehash them here. If you don’t, well, there’s no good way of explaining them without spoiling most of the puzzle. Also, if you haven’t read the book yet, you really should. It’s still really cheap at Amazon, but you can also find it on Bookshop.org, or at your local independent bookseller.

Thanks to Ken Stern and Jeremy Koenig for test-solving this. I’ve added some notes below the embedded puzzle, so be sure to check them out after solving.

This story was covered in dozens of publications, including Slate, Tech Crunch, Gizmodo, and even The New York Times. The best way to read about it, though, is to check out either of the co-authors‘s blogs.

A few notes on some of the clues and answers.

  • 16-A: Odin (or Allfather) is an important character in Naomi Mitchison’s 1952 novel Travel Light, which is referenced several times in This Is How Your Lose the Time War.
  • 34-A: HBCU stands for “Historically Black College or University”.
  • 38-A: @maskofbun’s full screen name is Bigolas Dickolas Wolfwood, which is a reference to a character named Nicholas Wolfwood in the manga series Trigun. But everyone has been referring to him by only his first two names.
  • 57-A: Do not watch this movie. It’s dumb even by Christmas movie standards.
  • 40-D: Somali-Canadian rapper K’naan’s original version of Wavin’ Flag was a moderate success in 2009. The next year he recorded a new version as the “Coca-Cola Celebration Mix”, which was used to promote Coca-Cola at the 2010 World Cup. That version was a top 10 hit in over a dozen countries.
  • 46-D: There’s a minor character in Stella Gibbons’ 1932 novel Cold Comfort Farm who is trying to prove that Branwell Brontë was the real author of all the books attributed to Anne, Charlotte and Emily – which is even dumber than the idea that the Earl of Oxford wrote Shakespeare’s plays.
  • 54-D: The Mets are in their 15th season at Citi Field. You’d think I’d be used to the name by now.
  • 59-D: NTID is the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, which is part of the Rochester Institute of Technology.
  • 60-D: Shaq is the nickname of former NBA great Shaquille O’Neal. Bayou Barbie is Angel Reese, who was named Most Outstanding Player in the 2023 NCAA basketball tournament. Livvy is gymnast Olivia Dunne, who recently rizzed up Baby Gronk. (If you’re not sure what that means, you can read this. Or just take comfort in not knowing.)

Puzzle 39: Yellow Stockings

It’s been a hectic few weeks here, but it’s finally time for another op’nin of another show. This time, Rochester Community Players is presenting Twelfth Night, Shakespeare’s greatest comedy about twins who have been separated by a shipwreck and are now constantly being mistaken for each other. The show opens tonight, so if you’re in the Rochester area – and aren’t scared off by the wind and cold – come on by. (Performances continue until Saturday, February 11, just in case you are scared off by the wind and cold.)

Constructing a crossword puzzle for each Shakespeare play seemed like it would be fairly easy when I first came up with the idea, but this one turned out to be a lot harder than I’d expected. I settled on the revealer for this early in the process, but then went through a bunch of failed attempts to fit a theme around it. And once I worked that part out, building a grid around it was another challenge. In the end, the only way to make this work was to include more 3-letter entries than I’d like (the ideal number is as close to zero as possible, because otherwise the puzzle ends up filled with acronyms and foreign words that it’s impossible to write interesting clues for), but I think on the whole I think it worked out well. Thanks to Helen Rosner, Matt Gritzmacher and Evan Jenkins for test-solving.

In non-Shakespeare-related crossword news, Laura and I co-constructed a puzzle for Grids For Kids, a charity pack of puzzles for all ages, created by parents, to benefit children in need. This is a great pack of 25 puzzles (including six kid-friendly ones) by a bunch of awesome constructors (and also me), and you can get them all by donating at little as $10 to a youth-focused not-for-profit of your choice. You can check out a free sample puzzle now, and order the whole package starting this weekend.

Puzzle 38: The A’s Have It (with Laura Braunstein)

This puzzle started with a conversation on the Fill Me In podcast back in (checks notes), November 2020??? Was it really that long ago??? Anyway, back then Laura and I fleshed out the theme set and set up a grid. Then we made one half-hearted attempt to fill the grid and promptly forgot about the puzzle for the next year and a half. We decided to take another stab at it because tomorrow is the return of Lollapuzzoola – the greatest crossword tournament ever to be held on a Saturday in August – as an in-person event. “Why does that matter?” some of you may be asking. Well, Lollapuzzola was created by Brian Cimmet and Ryan Hecht, the cohosts of Fill Me In, and is still run by Brian (in conjunction with Brooke Husic and Sid Sivakumar).

If you’re in the NYC area and haven’t signed up yet, you can still get tickets at the door. If you’re not in the NYC area you can still sign up for the online version of the tournament. If you’re spending the entire month of August off the grid and don’t see this post until Labor Day, you can simply buy the puzzles and solve them on your own. These are guaranteed to be awesome puzzles, so you really have no excuse for not solving them.

When you’re done with this puzzle, you can listen to the conversation that inspired it by checking out Episode 270 of Fill Me In and skipping to the 28:20 mark.

Hope to see lots of you tomorrow!