1975 Puzzles Up on XWord Info, New Proofreading Progress Calendar, More Todd Gross Research, and Edgy Clues/Entries

Great news:  The 1975 puzzles are now up on XWord Info, which shows just how much faster the proofreading process is going now that some former litzers have become proofreaders!  To represent the progress of the proofreading graphically, I added a new proofreading progress calendar below the litzing thermometer.  Thanks so much to all the proofreaders (and to Jim Horne, for doing an awesome job providing a home for the pre-Shortzian puzzles)!  

It's actually been a challenge keeping up with all the proofread puzzles that have come in this week!  Saturday night, Mark Diehl sent 28, then another 30 Sunday afternoon, which were followed by 31 more from Tracy Bennett, then another 30 from Mark late that night, then 31 more from Mark Monday morning and another 31 from Mark that afternoon!  Early Wednesday morning, Todd Gross sent 10 proofread puzzles, which were followed by 26 more from Mark a few hours later; that night, Todd sent 10 more puzzles, and then early Thursday, 8 more, which were followed by 31 more from Mark that night.  Early Friday morning, new litzer Finn Vigeland sent in 1 litzed puzzle, and then Friday afternoon, Todd sent in 14 more proofread puzzles.  And this week Howard Barkin sent 31 proofread puzzles too—whew!  Great job, everyone—thanks so much again!

In his down time from proofreading this week, Todd did some more research on pre-Shortzian constructors and discovered an interesting article about the extremely prolific A. J. Santora, who passed away in 2005.  Todd also discovered that James Barrick, who constructed numerous puzzles in the Weng and Maleska eras, often in collaboration with his wife, Phyllis, is still building crosswords!  I plan to try to contact him soon.  Finally, in his quest for more information about constructor Cyrus McCormick, Todd came across a humorous article (see below) about how crossword puzzles can benefit anesthetists.  Thanks for all this fascinating biographical research, Todd!

Today's featured puzzle, "Mixed Doubles," was constructed by Edward J. O'Brien; published January 13, 1974; edited by Will Weng; and recently litzed by Barry Haldiman.  This puzzle features eight pairs of theme entries that consist of a base phrase and its wacky spoonerism—this makes a total of 16 theme entries, which is truly amazing!  Even more impressive, the constructor placed each base phrase adjacent to its spoonerism in the grid—wow!  SECOND FIGHTS seems a bit iffy to me, but all the other base phrases feel strong and in-the-language; also, most of the spoonerisms are legitimately funny.  My favorites of the spoonerisms are WORD BOTCHER (clued meta-style as "Spooner, e.g."), SPATE OF AIDES ("Too many cooks") and SHUNS THE ROE ("Refuses a fish delicacy"), though at least two others made me chuckle!  The puzzle's high theme density did force a lot of iffy entries, which include the lengthy partials THE LAST ONE, AS FATE, PRIMES THE, LAP WAS, IT THIS, and TRIED A; the contrived phrases DEM DOSE ("Words after dese") and PERSIAN GOD ("Ahura-Mazda, for one"); and a smattering of not-so-great abbreviations like WTRS ("Restaurant workers: Abbr.") and variants/old-style entries like PAPAIAS SNEWS ("Winter falls, old style"), and TWEESE ("Instrument case, old style").  Nevertheless, the puzzle is largely free of flat-out obscurities, and entries like SWISS WATCH, EXTENUATED, and HIGH-HAT give the grid a nice bit of zip.  Overall, this is an ambitious and amusing pre-Shortzian puzzle that is extremely well-executed for its presoftware time!  The answer grid (with highlighted theme entries) can be seen below:

This past Thursday's New York Times puzzle, constructed by Anna Shechtman, featured the entry SHTUP, which caused quite a stir among crossword solvers!  In that vein, here are some Farrar- and Weng-era clues/entries that caused me to raise an eyebrow.  These clues/entries don't quite measure up to SHTUP, but they were certainly edgy for their time!

Farrar era:

• February 16, 1959 (constructed by Edward Canstein, litzed by Brian Kulman)
• Clue:  Storage place for family skeletons.
• Answer:  CLOSET
• October 14, 1963 (constructed by Leonard Sussman, litzed by Mark Diehl)
• Clue:  Little woman.
• Answer:  WIFE (I'm pretty sure Mr. Sussman slept on the sofa on October 14 . . . that is, if he didn't end up in the closet!)
• January 31, 1966 (litzed by Mark Diehl)
• Clue:  Wetback, perhaps.
• Answer:  PEON
• December 14, 1966 (litzed by Mark Diehl)
• Clue:  Like sweet sixteen?
• Answer:  UNKISSED (one look around my high school at lunch shows that the question mark is definitely justified!)
• March 10, 1967 (constructed by Louis Sabin, litzed by Alex Vratsanos)
• Clue:  Popular kind of girl.
• Answer:  PIN-UP
• October 30, 1967 (litzed by Mark Diehl)
• Clue:  Womankind, so Webster says.
• Answer:  WEAKER SEX

Weng era:

• August 16, 1969 (litzed by Mark Diehl)
• Clue:  Words for a sweet 16 girl
• Answer:  NOT KISSED (no question mark this time)
• February 19, 1970 (litzed by Martin Herbach)
• Clue:  Ivy and some girls
• Answer:  CLINGING VINES
• August 2, 1974 (constructed by Jordan S. Lasher, litzed by Todd Gross)
• Clue:  Words after book or playmate
• Answer:  OF THE MONTH (does this entry win partial of the month?)
• October 8, 1974 (constructed by Harriet Gilson Rosenberg, litzed by Howard Barkin)
• Clue:  Building
• Answer:  ERECTION
• December 12, 1974 (constructed by Miller [first name unknown], litzed by Mark Diehl)
• Clue:  Mental defectives
• Answer:  MORONS
• September 14, 1976 (constructed by Louis Baron, litzed by Peter Broda)
• Clue:  Kind of night stand
• Answer:  ONE (because some people have a single nightstand next to their beds, of course!)

I think I'll forgo posting an image to go along with this group of clues.  I will say that I look forward to seeing what other surprising clues and entries show up in puzzles from the earlier part of Farrar's editorship!

In 1966, An Interesting Crossword History Article, More William Lutwiniak Links, and Metapuzzle Reminder

I'm pleased to announce that the litzing has continued to progress steadily over this past week.  Late Friday night, Mark Diehl sent in 35 puzzles, putting us over 10,100!  While preparing a new batch for Mark the next morning, I sent out the first puzzles from 1966!  Unfortunately, nearly all the daily puzzle authors are missing from 1966; with a few exceptions here and there, they won't appear again until February 1964.  The missing daily puzzle authors didn't slow down our "litzing juggernaut" in the least—Sunday night, Mark sent in another 14 puzzles!  On Tuesday, I litzed a reassigned batch from 1982, and on Wednesday, Denny Baker sent in 7 puzzles, which were followed by 6 more from Mike Buckley.  On Thursday, Martin Herbach sent in 34 more puzzles, putting his litzed total at more than 500—congratulations again, Martin!  And Todd Gross proofread nearly two more months of puzzles—awesome progress!  Thanks so much again, everyone!

In other news, recently Miriam Raphael's sister Laura Bobrow discovered a very interesting article about crossword history, which she kindly sent my way.  The first page of the article focuses on Arthur Wynne and the very early crossword years; the second page (which can be accessed via a tiny link at the bottom of the page reading "History of the Crossword Puzzle Part 2") goes into detail about crosswords from the 1920s and contains some information that I haven't seen elsewhere; and the third page (accessible via a similar link on the second page) lists popular crossword publications at the time the article was published back in the early 1980s.  All in all, this article was a fun, informative read.  Thanks, Laura and Miriam!

On a related historical front, Martin Herbach noticed that many of the puzzles he was litzing were constructed by William Lutwiniak, so he did a little Googling and found some very interesting links.  I've added them to the ones that were already on the Pre-Shortzian Constructors page, so if you'd like to read more about this fascinating NSA cryptanalyst who was on an NSA bowling team and who is now buried in Arlington National Cemetery, click on the tab above or here and scroll down to the links.  Thanks so much again, Martin!

Just a reminder:  Only eight more days till the first Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project metapuzzle is released!  I'll be writing about it more next Friday, and the metapuzzle itself will be released on Saturday, June 29, so mark your calendar if you want to give it a try!

Now that we're litzing puzzles from 1966, I searched for a good graphical representation of that year.  As with other years during the 1960s, 1966 was in many ways a dark time.  Rather than focus on the Vietnam War, race riots, or other major political events from that year, I thought many crossword fans might appreciate a photo of the science fiction television series Star Trek, whose very first episode aired in 1966:

Today's featured puzzle, "Rhymes from Way Out," was constructed by Edward J. O'Brien.  I've come across several groundbreaking Will Weng–era Sunday puzzles by this constructor—he was a master at getting theme entries to interlock!  (Reverend O'Brien also compiled the 1975 Compendium of Constructors, which has been—and will continue to be—very useful in determining the full names of Weng- and Maleska-era constructors.)  This featured opus was published on September 28, 1969; it was edited by Will Weng during his first year as editor and was recently litzed by Mark Diehl.  The brilliant construction features 16 symmetrically interlocking nonsensical rhymes, many of which are quite amusing (much like entries in Trip Payne's Something Different puzzles).  But what truly makes this puzzle stand out is the tri-stack of 23-letter theme entries at the center of the puzzle—I've seen very few puzzles with tri-stacks of thematic 21-letter entries, and I believe this is the only New York Times crossword, Shortz or pre-Shortz, to accomplish this feat.  (There was a 1974 23-letter triple-stack, but it was themeless.)  My favorite rhymes in terms of humor are WHITE COLLAR DOLLAR HOLLER (clued as "Clerical union's demand for a raise"), A COBBLE JOB'LL HOBBLE ("Forecast for a poor shoe repair"), and NO ROE ALSO ("Out of fish eggs, too").  And who doesn't love HEMISEMIDEMIQUAVER SAVER ("One who keeps 64th notes")?

Outside of the theme, the fill is an OMNIUM gatherum of liveliness, crazy partials, and esoterica.  Some of my favorite nonthematic entries include REACH FOR, SANTA FE, ECONOMICAL, SENSIBLE, and TEE-VEES (cleverly clued as "Living-room eyes").  Among the entries that made me say OH MY were EMAN ("Relative of a Cockney 'ero"), ANY SUIT ("Hearts, clubs, whatever"), BARRETTS OF ("___ Wimpole Street"), ELSENE ("Flemish name of Ixelles"), and SPLADS ("Chair backs: Var.").  Do you think entries like EMAN justify the addition of all "Cockneyisms" to constructors' word lists?  I'd personally be against adding arbitrary Cockneyisms to my word list, though I'm sure they could come in handy in quad- and quint-stacks—please feel free to comment if you have an opinion on this matter.

Even with these entries (and plenty of others that would make Amy Reynaldo's Scowl-o-Meter go through the roof!), this is a remarkable pre-Shortzian puzzle that I'm guessing would only have been published under Will Weng!  The answer grid (with highlighted theme entries) can be seen below:

If you thought the two recently posted typographical entries ETAOIN SHRDLU and HELLBOX were unusual, buckle your seat belts—I've now assembled three pages of cool-sounding-but-unusual pre-Shortzian entries!  Today's featured pre-Shortzian entry is SJAMBOKS, which, according to the Ginsberg clue database, has never been reused in the Shortz era (SJAMBOK, however, did appear later on in a Maleska-edited puzzle from 1990).  SJAMBOKS originally appeared in the August 14, 1970, puzzle (constructor unknown), which was edited by Will Weng and recently litzed by Nancy Kavanaugh.  SJAMBOKS was clued as "African hide whips"; Webster defines a sjambok as "a heavy leather whip often of rhinoceros hide."  It goes on to mention that sjambok comes from the Afrikaans sambok, which comes from the Malay cambok (large whip), which comes from the Hindu cābuk, which ultimately comes from the Persian chābuk.  Webster notes that a sjambok is comparable to a chawbuck.  I'm impressed by how rich an etymology the word sjambok has!  Below is a picture of a sjambok:

Image courtesy of Museum Box.