Month: May 2019

Puzzle 4: E-Quips

The seed for this (which ended up as 60A) came to me while I was solving a recent WSJ Meta puzzle. One very slow database search later, I had a list of about 1,000 words that could potentially fit the pattern. Of those 1,000 words, only about 50 would actually work for the theme, and those 50 words yielded just 20 or so potential theme entires. Of course my personal favorite ended up being the only one that was nine letters long, so the only way to include it was to have five theme entries. That forced me to use some questionable fill in the middle — though my daughter assures me that 32D would at least be familiar to Pokémon fans — but I think it was worth it.

This weekend is the 5th annual Indie 500 crossword tournament in Washington, D.C. If you haven’t signed up yet you can try to get on the wait list, or just participate in the solve-at-home division. If you have signed up, come say hi. I’ll be the guy eating pie and solving a bunch of puzzles.

Puzzle 3: Neat! (with Laura Braunstein)

Today marks my professional crossword debut, with a puzzle in the American Values Crossword Club. It’s a puzzle I co-constructed with Laura Braunstein, who has made a bunch of great puzzles for a bunch of different venues. She also co-created and co-edits The Inkubator, a subscription service of crossword puzzles by women — cis women, trans women, & woman-aligned constructors. Big thanks to Laura for making this with me, and to Ben Tausig for editing and publishing it.

If you somehow read this site and don’t already subscribe to AVCX — and really, how is that possible? — you can buy the puzzle over there for a mere $1. Or you can just subscribe, which is a much better deal because you get an awesome puzzle from them every week, plus access to the complete archive of other awesome puzzles. Go subscribe to The Inkubator, too, which also has awesome puzzles, but (obviously) doesn’t include any by me.

See you here next week with a new puzzle that doesn’t require a subscription.

Puzzle 2: *5 seconds later*

I tried to make this one really easy, so that even people who are not familiar with the meme I’m referencing can solve it. To test this, I turned to a solver who is blissfully unaware of all internet memes — my dad. His thoughts:

“Good puzzle. I didn’t understand the theme questions but was able to get around them. Make the next one harder.”

Will do, dad! And if you’re not 46A enough to understand the theme either, click here once you’re done with the puzzle.

Puzzle 1: Delhi Counter

I was solving a crossword one day when the theme entry at 58A just popped into my head. I then spent a lot of time coming up with other potential themers, including a lot of brainstorming with friends, both on twitter and at tournaments. The clue for 64A was inspired by Brian Cimmet’s rant in Episode 148 of Fill Me In. Brian is also the organizer of Lollapuzoola, the best crossword tournament on a Saturday in August — and easily one of the five best crossword tournaments over all.