#38: The One with the Deez Nuts Reference (Themeless #17)

 

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difficulty: medium

Just a quick themeless built around a (chef's kiss) perfect northwest corner. Not a lot to say about this one, other than that I tried to make it pretty straightforward relative to the regular QVXwordz themeless, which skews towards the very difficult.

Did you guys do the awesome Yacob Yonas themeless I edited for AVCX? You should! It's great! Oh, also, there's a great book of Inkubator puzzles that's coming out next month, and I have a puzzle in it!! I don't have a puzzle in These Puzzles Fund Abortion II but it's a great pack of puzzles for a good cause, so if you haven't donated for that, do that too. OK, applet below the cut, hope you love it!

Crossworld Monthly Roundup, February 2022

 

Hey gang! It's that time of the month again - the time where I get cranky and insist on making very poor decisions - that's right, it's monthly roundup time! After doing another 250 puzzles, I've separated the wheat from the chaff, and I'm proud to announce that I have the objectively correct takes on all of crosswords.

My favorite puzzle of February 2022 was... "Throw Some D's" by Kelsey Dixon and Erik Agard! Everyone loves Erik Agard; everyone loves Kelsey Dixon [citation needed]; everyone loves Rich Boy's ringtone rap classic "Throw Some D's" [citation sorely needed]; what could go wrong with a grid like this!?!? (Nothing, that's what.) Give yourself a minute to solve the puzzle, then report back to me...

...ok, you did it? Awesome. What I like about this puzzle, on the most obvious level, is that it's a very interesting fusion of two distinct but synchronized varieties of "you don't see that every day" cluing and entries. Erik's doing his thang here, as evidenced by the one-two punch of the consecutive across entries [daequan smith org. for workers' rights] and [___/xer pronouns] (cluing UAW and XIE, of course), but you also have some extremely Kelsey clues like [painting, cinema, minions fanfic, etc.] for ART. The unabashed voiciness here means that clues that would be the highlight of any other puzzle - e.g. [south american city where you may have a come to jesus moment] for RIO - barely even register when deluged with such cool stuff.

But all this talk about cluing voice is surface level - one of the secretly most brilliant things about this puzzle is it how it handles its theme. "Add a letter" themes are, of course, a dime a dozen, but I don't think I've ever seen a puzzle which lays out the added letters in the same way this puzzle does. There are ten Ds sprinkled across five theme entries, but instead of putting 2 Ds in each themer, the Ds are put in in quantities of 1/2/4/2/1 - a very mathematically appealing way to do it, which allows for greater theme density in that you can get both HAND SOLO and the marquee DRANK AND FIDDLED to fit. It's a very satisfying themeset, done very elegantly. I give this... a D+!!! Get it, because... oh, never mind. Anyway, Erik edits a lot of puzzles, duh, so you'll see his name... um, literally everywhere, and Kelsey you will start seeing monthly as part of Lil AVC X, the midi branch of the AVCXpansion! Please sign up for that if you haven't already, because I get more money if we get enough subscriptions.

More highlights and lowlights under the cut...

 

#37: Hey, it's Q Vasquez

 

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difficulty: easy-ish (Tuesday)

Lots of exciting personal news: first of all, me and Kaybart won the pairs division at the Boswords Winter Wondersolve, which was great - both our unexpected victory and the four puzzles themselves which were unsurprisingly brilliant. (But how could they not be, with a line-up like Kate Chin Park, Christina Iverson, Ade Koiko, and Matthew Stock!?!?) Registration is now open for the Boswords Spring Themeless League, which will be similarly great.

Even more exciting: after a successful Kickstarter, the AVCX's expansion is kicking off tomorrow, so for the low cost of $30 a year you will be getting daily-ish content from some of the best people in the crossword game. Including myself, both as a constructor and as an editor of various themeless puzzles. So yes - two midis, a themed puzzle, a themeless, a cryptic, and a trivia game! Every week, more or less. For $30. If you aren't subscribed, you're missing out!

Anyway - here's a slightly belated puzzle. It's the best sort of puzzle: a puzzle where you'll either not get the theme at all or get the theme and *hate* it. Hope you like it despite that. Applet under the cut.

Crossworld Monthly Roundup, January 2022

Why should Will Nediger have all the fun with these end-of-month roundups? I solved 225 puzzles in January - about 70/30 mainstream/indies (although that "mainstream" count includes things like Vox and Vulture so it's really more like 50/50) - and I had many, many thoughts about them. So much so that I think these roundups are going to replace the first Thursday puzzle of each month. Most of these thoughts will go under a "read more," but let's take a minute to appreciate my favorite above the fold:

My Favorite Puzzle Of January 2022 was... 2 x 22 by Brendan Emmett Quigley! Let's take ten while you solve it. (I will be fairly liberal in spoiling puzzle themes and clues here - consider this your warning.)

You're back? Good. So, rebus puzzles are fun[citation needed], but they usually don't play well with online interfaces. This puzzle hits on a fairly elegant solution for that: have the CHI rebii in the grid represented by the letter X. (I admit that until I sat down to write this grid out, I didn't realize that the "22" in the title is referring to chi being the 22nd letter of the Greek alphabet.)

Now, having the letter X sub in for other letters/bigrams/words is pretty well-trod ground: just this month there was the 1/18 Universal by David Alan van Houten, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Matthew Stock's NYT debut from Jan. 7 of last year. What makes this grid awesome is, first of all, the sheer quantity of theme content: the puzzle's five themers, with their 10 [CHI]s, make up over 30% of this grid's squares (57/187 - yes, I counted). And these are pretty great themers too: who could hate [CHI]CKEN [CHI]MICHANGAS and PIT[CHI]NG MA[CHI]NE? But what really makes this grid shine - and I know this is not a common opinion - is just how much cross-referencing is going on here. Four of the Xs going down in this grid are keyed to other entries in the grid, which goes a long way in making stuff like TEX/MEX and TO A/HUGE EXTENT cool, and they make everything in the grid feel super connected. And despite the 11 Xs here, Brendan still makes room for Ben GAZZARA in the grid! Just a masterclass in grid architecture.

More highlights (and nadirs) under the cut...

#36: The Black and White Puzzle (Themeless #16) (ft. Kate Chin Park)

 

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difficulty: medium-hard

Don'tcha love Kate Chin Park? Did you know that Kate is constructing a puzzle for Boswords' Winter Wondersolve? You should register for that, IMO. If you go to the Boswords website and register right now you can see a picture of Kate squirming in pain as she puts ketchup on a burrito.

Kate and I did this puzzle a couple months ago and I am posting it here now because, quote, "guesting on your blog really ups my cred." (Lies! But I'll take the compliment.) Anyway she's the best, this puzzle is very good, etc etc. Please enjoy; applet under the cut.

#35 (Sweet Goodbyes): Exit West (by Parker Higgins) (Guest Post) (Grid Charlemagne)

 

(yes, i know not scoring this puzzle with the dan is blasphemy, but i don't want to spoil the grid)

difficulty: medium
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You know a puzzle with four distinct parentheticals in the title is going to be a doozy. So here it is: a puzzle by everyone's favorite human, Parker "xor" Higgins. Among other things, Parker co-hosts the stream Cursewords Live with the equally attractive Ross Trudeau; runs a Twitter bot that posts train emoji every couple hours; and, most importantly for those of you keeping up with QVXwordz lore, has split mango mochi with me and Brooke Husic. What a king!

Parker notes:

It's an honor and a pleasure to have the opportunity to offer a contribution to the "Grid Charlemagne" movement. Thank you to Quiara for hosting me among her uniformly excellent puzzles, to Adam Aaronson for kicking off this whole Grid Charlemagne business, and to Walter and Donald for the music.

Well, that's it from me. I'll see you all next Monday with the... yes, I know I promised there'd be a Monday Mini *last* week. Please don't make a running gag out of this. Applet, as always, under the cut.

#34b: Babysitting Dragons (Themeless #15)

 

[PDF] [PUZ]
difficulty: hard

Double Dragon pt. 2. Not a lot to say on this one, other than that you should check out the puzzle Ada Nicolle and Jenna LaFleur did together which I shamelessly stole the layout on this puzzle from. Thank you to the test solvers on this one and the previous one. Ajay, Kate, Will E., um, Noah I think, some other people? This past week was a blur. Our bathroom doesn't work, it's a whole thing. A whole smelly thing. I'm glad you can't smell me over Zoom. OK, bye, hope you likey, applet under the cut; mini next week, I pinky swear.