Words: 24 (9×9)
Average Length: 5.33
Hot peppers, hot cars, and two really cool places, along with some quirky clues. Enjoy!
Tag: Midi
1 Across was the seed for this one. Sandy and I were watching American Idol, for which Jelly Roll is acting as a mentor. Knowing nothing about Jelly Roll, I looked up what genre he mostly works in, and voilà – there’s 1 Across.
A couple of other notes: In Ecuador, they sometimes make 3 Down with popcorn. I’m a popcorn fan – it’s dinner, often enough – but not in conjunction with 3 Down. And, as promised in the note to the puzzle, here’s a link to My Back Pages.
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Crossing Dogs and Lions
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Takes Stock
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Oink! Excuse Me, I Was Using Those
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That’s All Folks!
Words: 40 (11×11)
Average Length: 5.15
This one started as a random idea – gee, I wonder how many times I could reasonably (without compromising fill) cram the most common word in the English language into a midi crossword? The answer: six as the word itself – with double credit going to certain post-punk band (23 Down) – as well as three more times where the letter string appears. The title references Porky Pig’s famous closing line in the Looney Tunes cartoons, which should make sense if you think about it.
I’m happy to shout out Tom Lehrer (6 Down), a long-time math professor at Harvard with a second career as a writer of satirical, mostly political songs. Here’s a link to the one in the puzzle, which isn’t political but does concern science, so maybe these days it’s somehow controversial after all.
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Spaceman Spiff
Words: 26
Average Length: 5.15
Unlike many comics from the ‘80s and early ’90s, Calvin & Hobbes holds up brilliantly. (Speaking of comic recommendations, I am besotted with Nathan W. Pyle’s gentle, funny, and profound Strange Planet webcomic. Check it out if it’s new to you.)
The title of this puzzle, of course, is one of Calvin’s alter egos. Interestingly – draw whatever conclusions you wish – I typed the title as “Spaceman Spliff” and didn’t notice until I’d finished cluing the grid.
Words: 42 (11×11)
Average Length: 4.86
Constructing a puzzle using A and I as the only vowels, it turns out, is not a trivial undertaking. This grid is my third attempt – the first two tries (a 7×7 and a 9×9) were fatally fill-compromised, to put it politely. I bumped the grid size up to 11x, and that did the trick; there’s only one truly unfortunate entry (3 Down) and, I hope you’ll agree, lots of good stuff.
Once I had the fill where I wanted it, the second part of the challenge – writing clues whose initial letter alternated between A and I – proved almost as difficult. May you find the end result amusing and informative!
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