It's been a wonderful year for puzzles, and signs point to 2022 being an even better one. In 2022, I'm hoping to branch out a bit in terms of solving and dip into some puzzles sources I've been ignoring. In particular, I've found it hard to keep up with what the good stuff on Crosshare is. If anyone has any recommendations for Crosshare creators that you think I'd particularly like, please let me know!
December 3: Just ... No (Kate Chin Park, Crosswords Schmosswords)
December 19: Untitled (Quiara Vasquez, 7xwords)
December 21: a moiety fine puzzle (themeless) (Erik Agard and Claire L. Rimkus, Just Gridding)
December 24: "Do They Come in Other Styles?" (Paolo Pasco, Grids These Days)
December 27: The Impossible Crossword (Megan Amram and Paolo Pasco, The New Yorker)
December 27: themeless xvii ("the feminine urge") (Brooke Husic, xwords by a ladee)
December 29: themeless 16 (colonnades) (Rafa Musa and Malaika Handa, girlbosswords)
December 30: LaughCry (Quiara Vasquez, Crucinova)
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Just ... No (Kate Chin Park)
I've praised Kate's cluing chops on here before, but this puzzle is a great display of her gridding skills as well. It's anchored by stacks of DIRTY COMPUTER/THESE GO TO ELEVEN and SEE INSTRUCTIONS/EXCELLENT TAKE, but the rest of the fill is both very clean and packed with entertaining mid-length entries (ALT TEXT, NEW COKE, PORK BUN, etc.). Oh, and the cluing is unsurprisingly great too: [Some fruity centerpieces?] for PEACH PITS, [Top gear?] for TOUPEE, and the title clue, [Just ... no] for AMORAL. (Admittedly, Kate had to explain that last one to me, but I think it's genius.)
Untitled (Quiara Vasquez)
When this post goes up, 7xwords will have just wrapped up. Kudos to Malaika Handa for editing and posting puzzles 6 days a week(!) for an entire year(!!!). It's been awesome to see the different approaches various constructors have taken to filling the canvas of a 7x7 grid. Quiara's approach in this puzzle seems to have been "Cram a bunch of cool, rarely-seen fill into the grid," of which I approve: SENSE8 crossing 8-BIT ERA, the fabulous ANOHNI, PREHAB, and especially EA-NASIR are the highlights of this one. Admittedly, ANOHI crossing EA-NASIR is pretty much the definition of a Natick, but as a fan of both of them (insofar as one can be a fan of someone who doesn't even deliver copper of the correct grade) it's perfectly okay by me.
a moiety fine puzzle (themeless) (Erik Agard and Claire L. Rimkus)
This is one of my favorite sorts of themeless puzzles - it's got a beautifully wide open grid and is filled extremely cleanly, but there aren't a lot of obvious seed entries. Instead, it's got lots of ordinary words and phrases which lend themselves to clever cluing - and with Erik and Claire constructing, you know there will be devious clues galore. [Go "hahahaha" or "lololol"] for ALTERNATE is definitely my favorite, but I also love [Flight test?] for SIP, [One with a mounting client base?] for HORSE TRADER, [Always mugging for the camera, say] for TYPECAST, [Minecraft?] for ORE CARS, [Roadside attraction?] for CURB APPEAL, [Secret service location?] for SPEAKEASY, and many more.
"Do They Come in Other Styles?" (Paolo Pasco)
It's rare that we get a new blog puzzle from Paolo these days, so we should treasure the ones we do get. This one, admittedly, is a bit niche - if you've never seen I Think You Should Leave, you'll likely be bemused by the theme. But if you've never seen I Think You Should Leave, you should remedy that ASAP. This one is based on a sketch about T-shirts that come with a dope TUGGING KNOB so you can pull it and wreck your shirt or hurt your hand. So four theme entries include words for types of shirt, where one of the letters (always an O, to imitate the shape of the knob) has been "tugged" to the right: PALO ALTO features a POLO shirt whose O has been tugged, and similarly with BAWLING OUT and BOWLING, PERSIAN GULF and GOLF, and GEN ALPHA and ALOHA. It's an ingeniously conceived and perfectly executed theme, and of course the non-theme clues are filled with Pascovian humor: [E. major in music??] for SHEILA, [Probably the easiest vegetable to shoot by blowing through a straw] for PEA, and so on.
The Impossible Crossword (Megan Amram and Paolo Pasco)
The New Yorker is covered on Crossword Fiend, but I don't think the special holiday puzzles issue was, so it fits my 100% arbitrary definition of what crosswords are eligible for these writeups. This one is a very funny light mockery of both stuffy crossword conventions and The New Yorker's sensibility. The joke is that there are two sets of clues, one easy and one extremely hard, so you can look smart by solving it while secretly peeking at the easy clues. For instance, the hard clue for CUP is [___ product, a simple method of adjoining two cocycles of degree p and q to form a composite cocycle of degree p + q], while the easy clue is [Sippy ___]. I'm also a fan of JEST, whose easy clue is ["Infinite ___"] and whose hard clue is ["Infinite ___" (novel that's very easy to read and understand)].
themeless xvii ("the feminine urge") (Brooke Husic)
Typically inventive work from Brooke. The cluing in her experimental puzzles is always a highlight; here, my favorites include the potentially mystifying [Cu - 4] for ENE (think the Spanish alphabet), [A foundation may support many of them] for SKIN TONES, and [$ maker?] for SHIFT. This puzzle also features beautiful wide-open corners with super-clean stacks: STARBUST/HALEAKALA/I CAN'T EVEN/FINESSED, and SAWAYAMA/SO NOT OKAY/MATRILINE/the aforementioned SKIN TONES.
themeless 16 (colonnades) (Rafa Musa and Malaika Handa)
This themeless has a very aesthetically pleasing grid pattern, and Rafa and Malaika take full advantage of the wealth of long spots, with conversational fill like SO TRUE BESTIE, I MEAN COME ON, WHO'S TO SAY, DO NOT REPLY, and WHAT A DEAL. The cluing is equally great, with plenty of indie flavor, some rather meta stuff: ERIE clued as ["if i ever stop making crosswords it will be so i never have to clue the word ___ again" (Rafa's comment on the cluing spreadsheet for this puzzle)] and IUDS clued as ["would prefer if you clued this one bc i don't have a uterus" (Rafa's comment on the cluing spreadsheet for this puzzle)]. The cluing also has more traditional wordplay-based delights, including [Attentive listener?] for AUDIOPHILE and the subtly-tricky-because-it's-literal-instead-of-figurative [Crowning moment] for CORONATION.
LaughCry (Quiara Vasquez)
I'm loving all the zany grid art that Crucinova has been publishing, and this is one of my favorite examples - the grid is a spot-on representation of a "crying laughing" emoji. There are some quasi-thematic entries like TRAGICOMEDY and SO FUNNY I FORGOT TO LAUGH, but this is basically a themeless, and it's packed with juicy stuff, including PIVOTED TO VIDEO, JPEGMAFIA, KINDA SUS, PRINCESS DAISY, AY CARAMBA, and ZORRO MASK. As always, Quiara's clues manage to freshen up a lot of the short fill - YOLO is clued as [#carpediem (if that was ever a thing)] and ELO is clued as [2500, for the Beth Harmon bot on chess.com], for example.
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