Words: 66
Average Length: 5.76
This is a tough one, for sure. For solving assistance or just because it’s a great song, here’s a link to the Bob Marley recording referenced in the clue to 5 Down. I hope you enjoy it – come back Wednesday for a gentle mini (as yet unconstructed, but I promise it’ll be gentle, or at least reasonably so) and next Sunday for a medium-difficulty themed puzzle entitled “Gorp.”
Words: 16
Average Length: 5.00
This one probably plays tougher than usual for a midi – I clued it at roughly the difficulty level of a full-size themeless. Enjoy!
Words: 70
Average Length: 5.57
One thing (of many) that I love about crossword construction is that I learn stuff – sometimes “neat” (e.g., 21 and 49 Across) and sometimes silly (11 Down, which is hilarious in an I-shouldn’t-find-this-funny kind of way). As much as I enjoy filling a grid – thinking three steps ahead to consider whether a word will work with the rest of a section – cluing is more intellectually challenging. How difficult do I want the puzzle to be? What’s a good misdirection? Are there any interesting factoids I can work into a clue? Are the references that come to my mind head-scratchers for younger solvers (i.e., 90% of the audience)? (The last problem, among many others, is dealt with by my test-solver, son Adam. Thanks Adam, again and again!)
Words: 72
Average Length: 5.25
I recently heard someone say 1 Across and thought: (1) You rarely hear 1A 1A. (2) 1A could be a decent seed for a themeless, especially because I’d just listened to Buffalo Springfield (seminal ‘60s band) and 1A is the first word of the title of one of their signature songs. The other four words of the title are scattered through the puzzle, as are the names of the song’s composer/lead singer and one of his bandmates. So maybe it’s not really a themeless, but whatever it is, I hope you enjoy solving it!
Words: 66
Average Length: 5.85
I enjoy cluing well-known people’s names with obscure facts, as in the clue for 21 Down.
Spaceballs (see 53 Across) is one of my favorite all-time comedies, Mel Brooks at his irreverently silly finest. Prince Valium, Princess Vespa, 53 Across, Lone Starr, Barf, Dark Helmet, and of course, “just plain Yogurt.”
Words: 72
Average Length: 5.36
CORRECTION: THE CLUE FOR 68 ACROSS SHOULD READ “THREE MAKE AN O”, NOT A T.
The three seeds for this grid were 20, 36, and 57 Across. I started with 20 Across and then 36 Across immediately popped into mind. I had to find a third entry to complement 20 Across and continue the mini-theme, and a couple of minutes’ thought produced 57 Across.
By the way, if you ever get a chance to visit 36 Across, it’s a charming place to spend a few days. I was there last summer after a week hiking in Wales – you can read about it and see additional photos on my PuffinlessTravel blog here and here.
Words: 10
Average Length: 4.60
1A: STEAM comes from a kettle and a steamroller is a piece of construction equipment
6A: a HEDGE is a kind of bush and one can hedge a bet
7A: Mike Trout is an ANGEL, as is an investor in a start-up
8A: ROAST can mean good-natured kidding, and one roasts a turkey
9A: ERR works as a prefix for both -and and -or
1D: Kids learn to SHARE in kindergarten, and stocks are sold in shares
2D: Coltrane played TENOR sax and Pavarotti was a tenor
3D: EDGAR Allen Poe wrote “The Raven” and EDGAR Degas painted “The Dancing Class”
4D: AGES follows both “Stone” and “Middle”
5D: Ice will MELT, and a tuna melt is a (delicious!) sandwich
Words: 68
Average Length: 5.56
The seed for this grid was 15 Across, which is a fact I learned, appropriately enough, while playing trivia on a joint US-Canadian team (creatively called “USCAN”) on a recent trip. (Our team won the ship’s progressive trivia tournament!). For the whole story of the connection between 15 Across and Pooh, see this Wikipedia link.
Words: 10
Average Length: 4.60
This one may (or may not) play a bit tougher than previous VMs – I can never tell. Spolers/explanation below the break.
1A. AMP – amplifier, ampere
4A. CORDS – newborns have umbilical cords and cords (corduroy pants) have wales (ridges)
7A. IDIOT – Village idiot; Dostoevsky wrote The Idiot
8A. DEMME – Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins appeared together in Silence of the Lambs, Jonathan Demme’s most famous movie.
9A. SLEEP – REM is a sleep stage; the famous Hamlet soliloquy contains the line “to sleep, perchance to dream”. (The clue would work equally well for DREAM.) I wanted to further the REM misdirection by having the second half of the clue be “Sidewinder”; the band had a medium-sized hit song called “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite,” but it’s 30 years old and I wasn’t sure how well-known it is.
1D. ACIDS are used in etching, and “on acid” is slang for tripping on LSD
2D. MODEL – a model poses on a runway, and an A380 is an airplane model from Airbus. Major misdirect on this one!
3D. PRIME – beef and numbers both may be prime
5D. DOME – Buckminster Fuller is known for designing a geodesic dome, and the Pantheon in Rome is one of the most famous domed buildings in the world
6D. STEP – it’s a synonym for stair and, in music, a step is a whole tone (e.g., from C to D).
Jeff's Puzzles