Month: June 2019

Puzzle 6: A Crossword Puzzle Walks Into a Bar

The inspiration for this puzzle came from a tweet by Helen Rosner:

This was in relation to her article accompanying a video chat between New Yorker crossword editor Liz Maynes-Aminzade and New Yorker (and other venues) constructor Natan Last, which also supplied one of the theme entries for this puzzle. Spoilers, obviously, so wait until after you solve the puzzle to read it. Or don’t — most of you probably know all these punchlines already.

Not surprisingly, this theme has been done before (“Served With a Twist”, Patrick Jordan, Los Angeles Times, Sunday, November 7, 2004) but I figured there were enough jokes out there to justify my own version — even though Patrick had already used the first punchline I thought of (“Why the long face?”). I also had to leave out my daughter’s favorite joke, so I’m including it here instead.

What do you call a fish with no eyes?

A FSSSH!

Puzzle 5: #banCars

This puzzle is sort of a response to Brendan Emmett Quigley’s It’s A Lot, but really, as anyone who follows me on Twitter knows, it’s the puzzle I was born to construct. I was somewhat surprised at how few potential answers there were for this theme, but I think in the end I came up with a pretty good set — though once again I found myself forced to use some questionable fill in order to fit everything in.

Thanks to my test solvers, Evan, Guan and Kim, for flagging a few clues that needed improvement. They also noticed that questionable fill I mentioned above, but I had no good way of getting rid of those entries. Sorry, guys!

Scheduling note: For a variety or reasons, I’m going to switch this blog to bi-weekly puzzles for a while (that’s a new puzzle every two weeks, not two new puzzles every week) — though if I start to assemble enough of a backlog I’ll go back to weekly. The best way to make sure you don’t miss any of these puzzles is to sign up for my newsletter, which I promise I will never convert into a multi-level marketing scheme.

Puzzle 0: Fudge Factor (with Chris Adams)

I spent too much time hanging out with crossword friends in DC over the weekend to finish the puzzle I was working on, so I’m offering up a rerun instead. (Yes, technically we were all also competing/volunteering at the Indie 500, but we spent a lot more time at restaurants and bars than we did at the tournament.) This puzzle was a collaboration with Chris Adams that originally ran on his website last year. I’m reposting in here for anyone who doesn’t solve his puzzles, but really, you all should be solving his puzzles. They’re good and they’re free.

Speaking of crossword friends, my friend Rich O’Malley’s new book, One Lucky Fan, was released yesterday and you should all go buy it. Rich is a good guy and a good writer, and you should all support him, even if he is a Yankees fan.

New puzzle next week. Promise.