Crossword Puzzles

[beginish]

The pandemic has sapped my spirit for reading and other pursuits (like, um, exercise), so finding entertainment has gotten progressively harder. Streaming video? I’m done. Sports? I miss you! (Thank God that Premier League soccer is back)

The one thing that’s worked for me has been crossword puzzles. I’ve been doing the NY Times Crossword for years, but inconsistently. I do it via the app on my phone or tablet, and since this all started, I’ve been doing it daily (even the really hard Friday and Saturday puzzles). For some reason, it still works for me and I’ve gotten pretty good at it.

As I’ve dug into it, I’ve discovered a whole range of crosswords and internet crossword culture. Lots of good, free puzzles are available, especially if you tackle them via your browser (USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Atlantic). And the blogs devoted to picking apart the puzzles are a very interesting read as well (lots of spoilers in them, so I do the puzzle first and then read the blogs and comments).

Any other puzzlers here?

 

[Aaron]

It's been a few years. I used to do one every day on my lunch break; I think it was the Washington Post.

 

[uacowboy]

I have picked them up off and on. my spelling sucks so i usually end up very frustrated lol

 

[August West]

I used to work at The Post Office with a giant of a man we called Staz. A real force of nature he was. It was an abbreviation of his Polish surname. Staz was raised in the Bronx, but found his way to Syracuse through marriage to a full blooded Iroquois woman who lived on the reservation. Everyday he did the NYT’s crossword in pen while we were waiting for our tractor trailers to dispatch. It was truly awe inspiring to see him so adroitly tear through it. I asked him to make me a copy and under his tutelage I became fairly proficient in six months time. He shared with me during a period when I was plateauing that to be a true master, one has to understand the clues through lived experience in the NYS boroughs. His illustrations made it clear this crypticness was real. It was great fun. I will leave you with this anecdote. After he returned to work from his honeymoon I asked how it went. He replied he really was impressed with his Iroquois naming ceremony. Naturally curious, I asked, “What is your new name?” He smirked and replied, “Ten Beers”. It was between that and “Dances with Kegs”. God, how I miss that SOB.

 

[beginish]

I think Staz is onto it with some arcane NYC and NYS knowledge. Mayor Abe Beame made an appearance this week. Though the NYT puzzle is considered the gold standard, there are a lot of good puzzles out there. USA Today has a really good easy-moderate difficulty puzzle every day, and the New Yorker does 3 really good ones each week. Having good constructors is half the battle, and some have their own subscription services. This year I subscribed to Liz Gorski’s Crossword Nation and Ben Tausig’s AVN Crossword. It’s fun to do puzzles with different sensibilities when it comes to clues and the words in the grid.