In case you somehow didn’t know, Deb is a talented crossword constructor, but these days, she’s better known for her role as the head writer and senior editor of Wordplay, the crossword blog and educational/humor column associated with The New York Times crossword puzzle.
You can read her thoughts in today’s Wordplay column, but please allow me to share a snippet of her thoughts from an accompanying Facebook post:
After more than 4,400 bylines and millions of words, mostly in the right order, I can honestly say that this has been the best job I’ve ever had. I’ve had the honor of working with some of the greatest journalists and editors in the business. It has been a wild ride, and as the great David Carr once advised, I have enjoyed every caper I’ve ever pulled at the company: the Trans-Atlantic cruise, the curling adventure, the rogue Crosswords Live. All of it.
…
Hopefully, after an extended period of drooling on myself to get over the deadlines, I can also continue to be part of the puzzle community in some way, because you all are the kindest, most generous, most funny people I know. Also extremely attractive.
As an ambassador into the world of puzzles, Deb’s warmth and playfulness have been the perfect counterbalance for new and inexperienced solvers to the sometimes daunting prospect of tackling a New York Times crossword. Her columns are always funny, more than a little self-deprecating, and very complimentary to each day’s constructor.
I’ve interacted with Deb a few times over the years. I interviewed her for the blog back in 2020, and we had several friendly conversations at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. Her enthusiasm for not just puzzles, but for meeting other puzzle fans, is unmatched, and even during a quick “gotta run!” visit, you come away with a smile.
I’m sad to see her go, but I’m glad to know that she’ll be working on new passion projects, traveling, and leaving the Wordplay column in the very capable hands of Sam Corbin and Caitlin Lovinger.
As one of the public faces of The New York Times Crossword, Deb often found herself the recipient of public feeling toward the crossword. Over the years, she has become rather infamous for reminding people that SHE just writes about the puzzles. “I didn’t do it” has become a catchphrase.
Well, Deb, it was true the vast majority of the time, but allow me to say, when it comes to making puzzles more welcoming and accessible to solvers, you absolutely DID do it.
The world of puzzles and games is larger than constructors and game designers. There are artists, writers, editors, wordsmiths, hosts, musicians, and influences that help shape puzzles and games in so many different ways. Their efforts enrich and popularize these beloved pastimes, contributing to the world by celebrating wordplay, creativity, and nerdy pursuits.
And sadly, the world grew a little less witty, a little less clever, and a lot less bold and outspoken about so many important topics when Tom Lehrer passed away a few days ago.
It’s hard to know where to begin.
How do you describe the cultural influence of a man whose songs still delight, inform, and push boundaries today, even though he wrote most of them over sixty years ago?
How do you describe a successful musician who walked away from public performance after three brilliant albums — thirty-seven songs, each an intricately-crafted dissection of some aspect of culture, science, or current events, often as poignant and sharp-tongued as they were hilarious — and spent the bulk of his life as a teacher and college professor instead?
His influence on pop culture can’t be overestimated. Across generations, his songs educated and inspired, and his legacy is bulletproof. He created songs for The Electric Company, Square One TV, and That Was The Week That Was. (Those shows were decades apart!)
He inspired performers like “Weird Al” Yankovic, and I think his fingerprints are unmistakable on other hilarious and educational projects, like the songs of Randy Rogel for Animaniacs. (Trust me, you can’t listen to “the Multiplication song” from Animaniacsand NOT think of Lehrer’s “New Math”.)
Tom retired from live performance in the late 1960s, having felt like he’d said everything he wanted to say with his music. (Plus, as he famously pointed out, “political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel peace prize.”)
But his songs wouldn’t be denied.
Dr. Demento’s radio show brought Lehrer’s work to new ears in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, and Honest2Betsy has brought him to yet another generation’s attention with her videos over the last few years.
His songs are timeless. “The Elements” alone has appeared in Better Call Saul, NCIS, Gilmore Girls, and The Big Bang Theory. (Not to mention Daniel Radcliffe’s famous rendition of the song on The Graham Norton Show, where he called Lehrer his hero. This actually led to Radcliffe starring in the film Weird: The Al Yankovic Story.)
Speaking of “Weird Al,” his New York Times crossword puzzle with constructor Eric Berlin namedropped Tom as part of the grid fill in this pun-heavy collaboration:
And it is a love of wordplay that sparked this tribute today.
Lehrer’s work is absolutely riddled with clever puns, comedic craftsmanship, and playing with the listener’s expectations: all things that great crossword cluing employs.
You can’t listen to songs like “Silent E” or “Without an S” and NOT imagine clues or themes that Lehrer’s linguistic legerdemain could inspire.
Not to mention this gem:
There’s a playfulness there, paired with technique, creativity, and an absolute willingness to bend conventions to their breaking point in order to make something new. How can you not love it?
But wordplay, commentary, and scientific and mathematical literacy weren’t Lehrer’s only gifts to the world.
He claimed to have invented the jello shot while in the military (to skirt rules about alcohol consumption). He wrote the song “Don’t Major in Physics,” which would have been good advice to me in freshman year of college, had I cared to listen.
And he also made the incredible gesture in 2022 of transferring the music and lyrics for all the songs he had ever written into the public domain. He relinquished the copyright and performing/recording rights for his songs as well, making his music and lyrics free for anyone to use. Downloadable lyric and music files are available on his website.
His statement releasing all his works into the public domain concluded with this note: “This website will be shut down at some date in the not too distant future, so if you want to download anything, don’t wait too long.”
For now, at least, the website remains online.
And it seems so apropos that the man who walked away from music decades ago to share his love of mathematics, science, and teaching with others is also the man who would happily sign away the rights to his music to enrich the lives of others once again.
The humanities and the STEM fields both owe Tom Lehrer a debt that can never be repaid.
The world was blessed with his presence for 97 years, and I have no doubt that his words, his music, and the forceful spirit that infused both will be around for many many years to come.
This is wonderful news, as Will had to step back from his editing work in February to attend to his recovery.
For those who were unaware, Will suffered a stroke that affected his mobility — he offered details on both the stroke and his recovery to Brain & Life magazine — but he is back to editing and playing table tennis.
From the NYT article:
In addition to completing hours of physical therapy and rehab, Will slowly returned to puzzle making and editing throughout the year. He directed the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, returned as the creator of NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday Puzzle in April and resumed choosing puzzles for The Times in May.
We wish Will all the best in his continued recovery and return to puzzling. I’ve had the pleasure of interacting with Will a number of times — mostly at the ACPT, though I did interview him for the blog years ago — and I’m very glad to hear that he’s well enough to enjoy both of his favorite pastimes again.
Once again being hosted in Stamford, CT, the ACPT is a weekend-long puzzle extravaganza of solving, puzzle-themed events, fun, and community.
This year’s tournament runs from April 4th through the 6th, and you can click here for more details (and to register for this year’s event, should the spirit move you).
Are you planning on competing this year? Let us know in the comments below! We’d love to hear from you.
Our last bit of crossword news was brought to our attention by friend-of-the-blog DGhandcrafted.
There is a crisscross grid featured on the site for the entire month of January, and the numbered answers correspond to what’s on sale that particular day!
There’s even a chance to win a bonus prize if you solve the entire puzzle early!
It’s a pretty clever way to bring solvers and crafters back to the site throughout the month, and hopefully it’s a success for both the customers and Lima Beads.
Puzzles bring joy to so many of us. They’re an escape, a challenge, a satisfying little test of our wits, our dedication, our creativity, and our flexibility of thought.
In uncertain times, in times of trouble, people often turn to puzzles. Puzzles were a refuge for many during lockdown when COVID hung over our heads. And now, when so much seems uncertain, if not downright unstable, people will no doubt turn to puzzles again.
That’s not to say that puzzle solving is a mere flight of fancy, a desperate bit of escapism, a Hail Mary avoidance of difficult circumstances, hard questions, and treacherous times to come. Quite the opposite, in fact.
If you turn to puzzles now, you’ll see a road map that proves things can get better.
Because, like it or not, misogyny once dominated the world of puzzles. It was baked into crosswords from the very beginning.
Yes, Arthur Wynne created the template for crosswords. Simon & Schuster are credited with publishing the first crossword puzzle book, as well as all the bestselling puzzle books that followed, serving as the foundation that helped build their brand.
But it was women who made crosswords into something more.
Women like Richard Simon’s aunt Wixie. She insisted Simon look into publishing a limited release crossword book. (UPDATE: I originally wrote that none of the stories mentioned her name, but I later found some that included her nickname, Wixie. I later discovered her actual name is Hedwig Simon.)
Women like Margaret Farrar. While serving as “an unofficial editor of the crossword-puzzle section,” she prevented errors and helped establish some of the baselines that still stand in crosswords today.
Women like Ruth Hale. Ruth was the founding president of the Amateur Cross Word Puzzle League of America, an organization that set crossword standards like limiting black squares and symmetrical grids, building off of Farrar’s work.
Women like Nancy Schuster. Schuster (no relation to the aforementioned publisher) not only ran Dell Crosswords but was the first winner of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.
Women like Helen Haven. In the 1920s, Haven was the organizer of the first competitive crossword-solving contest and served as the puzzle editor for The New York Herald-Tribune.
As pointed out by Anna Shechtman in her book The Riddles of the Sphinx: Inheriting the Feminist History of the Crossword Puzzle, between 1913 and the 1960s, most crosswords were created by women.
Puzzles were literally women’s work! With all the connotations that phrase invites.
The New York Times called the crossword “a primitive form of mental exercise” and female solvers were blamed for neglecting their families and wifely duties because of their “utterly futile finding of words the letters of which will fit into a prearranged pattern, more or less complex.”
Funny how their opinions changed just in time to profit on crosswords in the 1940s.
Much like the Beatles — who were dismissed as nothing more than a glorified boy band when thousands of women cheered at their shows, only for them to be recognized as a once-in-a-generation group of talents when men started paying attention — crosswords became “respectable” only when men took interest and took over.
The percentage of female constructors published in The New York Times went down during the Will Shortz era, as compared to the Will Weng and Eugene Maleska eras.
And like it or not, but “the average solver” concept — a problem I discussed years ago — is still using a white male yardstick for comparisons, to the detrimental of solving and constructing.
And I realized how lucky I was to NOT have that association. In fact, I don’t think I would be a puzzly guy without the women in my life.
My mother (the first female store manager in A&P history) still solves crosswords and jigsaw puzzles to this day, and encouraged my interest in puzzles in the first place. My oldest sister (a teacher) introduced me to wordplay. My older sister spent hours playing puzzle video games like Dr. Mario with me. My younger sister is not just a master jigsaw puzzle solver, but a fiend at trivia nights and escape rooms, forever challenging me to match her flow.
I was trained in crossword puzzle editing and construction by Penny Press’s crossword guru Eileen Saunders, and still lean on her creativity and wisdom every day (and marvel at her blistering speed and efficiency).
I was shepherded through the world of variety puzzles by Los Angeles Times crossword editor and puzzle badass Patti Varol. (Though it was probably more like dragging my deadweight body through molasses than “shepherding” if I’m being honest.)
And that’s not counting the undeniable and indispensable influence of Amy Roth (a shining light at Penny Press), Chris Begley, and so many other female voices that make Penny Press one of the best outlets for puzzles in the world.
I love puzzles because of those women. I have made a career in puzzles because of those women. I am better at puzzles because of those women.
The puzzle world is better because of women. It will continue to advance and innovate and thrive because of women.
How do I know this? Because women are doing incredible things in puzzles RIGHT NOW.
A small sampling of the women making puzzles better. Wyna Liu, Amanda Rafkin, Soleil Saint-Cyr, Tracy Bennett. Illustrations by Ben Kirchner.
Look at The New York Times. Tracy Bennett, Wyna Liu, and Christina Iverson are delivering great daily puzzles like Connections, Strands, and Mini Crosswords not just consistently, but brilliantly.
The aforementioned Patti Varol is absolutely crushing it at The Los Angeles Times crossword. With Katie Hale and Angela Kinsella Olsen on Patti’s team, every month since mid-April 2022 has had a minimum of 50% women constructors and often exceeds that, all while delivering topnotch puzzles.
The New Yorker, USA Today, The Slate Crossword? Liz Maynes-Aminzade, Amanda Rafkin, Quiara Vasquez. Brooke Husic runs PuzzMo (where Rachel Fabi constructed my favorite puzzle of the year!) and Amy Reynaldo co-edits Crosswords With Friends.
Rebecca Goldstein just won the Orca for constructor of the year. Smarter people than me have called Stella Zawistowski a crossword boss in every sense of the word. Ada Nicolle won the 2024 Lollapuzzoola crossword tournament.
The impact of projects like Women of Letters and The Inkubator weren’t just the tip of the iceberg, they were the tip of the spear. A spear aimed directly at the heart of outdated notions of who makes crosswords and who solves them, dismantling the idea of some mythical “average solver” that has never truly represented the crossword audience.
As constructors, editors, and solvers, women in the past shaped puzzles as we know them. And women in the present are redefining puzzles. Not just in terms of representation (both as grid answers and creators behind the scenes), but in terms of acknowledgment, respect, and appreciation.
As for women of the future? I, for one, can’t wait to see what they have in store for us.
(And thank you to several of the women mentioned above for making this post far, far better than it started.)
Part of the challenge for many crossword solvers is that you can’t adjust the difficulty of the cluing on a given day. The clues you get are the clues you get.
New York Times crossword solvers are intimately familiar with this, talking about Tuesday puzzles and Saturday puzzles and understanding what each means in terms of expected puzzle difficulty.
Our own Penny Dell Crosswords App offers free puzzles across three difficulty levels each day, but those are three distinct puzzles, not three different clue sets for one particular puzzle.
Having options for more than one set of clues is fairly rare. Lollapuzzoola has two difficulty-levels for their final tournament puzzle, Local and Express. GAMES Magazine previously offered two sets of clues for their themeless crossword, entitled The World’s Most Ornery Crossword.
The tournament final of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament offers different clue difficulties for three separate divisions. The Boswords Spring and Fall Themeless Leagues work in a similar manner, offering three levels of clue difficulty — Smooth, Choppy, and Stormy — for competitors to choose from.
The concept of Easy and Hard clues is not unheard of… it’s just rare.
And it’s only natural that someone, eventually, was going to take this concept and dial it up to a Spinal Tap 11.
The pair of someones in question are Megan Amram and Paolo Pasco.
Paolo is fairly well-known around crossword circles, having contributed puzzles to the American Values Club crossword, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, and other outlets, while also serving as associate crossword editor for TheAtlantic.
And Megan is an incredibly talented television and film writer who has written for Parks and Rec, The Simpsons, and The Good Place. Anytime you saw a hilariously shameless punny name for a store in The Good Place, it was undoubtedly one of Megan’s.
The instructions are simple: This crossword contains two sets of clues to the same answers. Toggle to the set labelled “Hard” to impress people looking over your shoulder. (And toggle to “Easy” when they look away.)
This 9×9 crossword’s Easy clues were fair and accessible, but the Hard clues were the real stars. They ricocheted between immensely clever, wildly obscure, and hilarious parodies of themselves.
For instance, the word JEST was clued on the Easy side as “Infinite ____” but received the brilliantly condescending add-on “Infinite ____” (novel that’s very easy to read and understand) in the Hard clues as a reference to the famously dense and impenetrable nature of the novel.
For the word APPS, the Easy clue was “Programs designed to run on mobile devices,” while the Hard clue was “Amuse-gueules, colloquially.”
(I had to look that one up. An amuse-gueule is “a small savory item of food served as an appetizer before a meal.”)
And those are just two examples.
When you finally finish the puzzle, this is your reward:
“You’re a genius! You can tell your mom to get off your case about going to law school.”
All at once, The Impossible Crossword manages to be a fun puzzle to solve on its own, a riotously fun gimmick that lampoons clue difficulty in general, and the most meta puzzle I’ve solved all year.
Kudos to Megan and Paolo for pulling it off. What a way to welcome the Cartoons & Puzzles era of The New Yorker while the rest of us close out another year of puzzling.
In crossword forums, the comment sections of crossword blogs, and virtually any other online space where people share their thoughts on puzzles, you’re bound to see the same criticism over and over.
“The average solver wouldn’t know ____.”
I saw a comment on a r/crossword reddit forum recently, regarding the November 11 USA Today puzzle. 10-Down was clued “Spoons,” and the answer word was ENERGY. The poster was baffled.
(If you’re among those who didn’t get the reference, this clue references Spoon Theory, a concept common to those who suffer from chronic pain, fatigue or other debilitating conditions, regarding how many “spoons” a certain activity costs. It’s a way of quantifying how their condition affects their daily life.)
After it was explained, the poster asserted that “nobody” would make the connection between spoons and energy.
Now, no matter what you think of that clue — I personally would have gone with something like “Spoons, to some” or “Spoons, metaphorically” — it’s plainly false that NOBODY would make that connection.
Is it commonplace? Depends on how old you are and in what circles you travel, it seems. (Based on an informal poll I conducted, people 35 and younger are far more likely to know it.)
But one must never mistake their own unfamiliarity with a term for genuine obscurity. And I don’t say this out of judgment. It’s a mistake I’ve made myself on more than occasion. Heck, earlier this year, I did so when reviewing a tournament puzzle. I felt an entry (a hybrid fruit) was too obscure, only to discover others found it fairly common. Live and learn!
Another example where someone questioned the “average solver” was recently shared on Twitter. Constructor Malaika Handa shared part of a Crossword Fiend review:
She pointed out that this assumes that the “average solver” isn’t of Latino descent.
(It’s also worth noting that AREPAS is a more interesting entry than ARENAS, but I digress.)
What do you picture when you imagine the “average solver,” I wonder?
Because I think about those two nebulous measuring sticks a lot: “nobody” and “the average solver.” While they can be valuable to consider, they’re also very misleading.
I mean, what does the “average solver” know? European rivers? Football players? Greek letters? Classical composers or K-Pop bands? How many people would know ETUI if not for crosswords? It’s hardly commonplace.
Do they know those things AND solve crosswords, or do they know those things BECAUSE they solve crosswords? If constructors start regularly cluing or referring to spoons or arepas, then they become part of crossword vernacular, and then the “average solver” might be expected to know them.
Quite a slippery slope when you really start digging, isn’t it?
Plus, there’s more than one average solver, depending on how you look at it. Every outlet has a different “average” solver, and they’ll change over time.
Take PuzzleNation for example. Our Facebook audience is different from our Twitter audience, which is different from our blog audience. But there is overlap. We know there are Daily POP Crosswords and Daily POP Word Search solvers among all of those groups. But that’s five different “average solvers” to consider at the minimum.
That’s the challenge, isn’t it? Every crossword constructor walks a tightrope, trying to keep their puzzles fresh while still appealing to solvers.
And, as recently pointed out in a New York Times piece, the Internet has accelerated the proliferation of new slang and terminology. Words become part of the modern vernacular much faster now. (And every time The Oxford English Dictionary adds new words, we get a sense of how deeply some of these new terms have embedded themselves.)
Personally, I think crosswords are better when we’re learning from them. I’d rather have to look up a word or assemble it from familiar crossings — and broaden my own vocabulary and knowledge — than see the same old fill. Those European rivers. Those composers. Those Greek letters.
More spoons and arepas, please. If there is an ideal average solver out there, let’s teach them something new.
PuzzCulture 