Grace Fabbroni on Her Crossword Career—Plus More Todd Gross Finds and His Interview on the L.A. Times Crossword Corner

Grace Fabbroni on Her Crossword Career

Photo courtesy of Grace Fabbroni

Recently I heard from crossword historian Todd Gross, who'd been in contact with pre-Shortzian and Shortz-era constructor Grace Fabbroni on LinkedIn.  Grace wondered why her byline had been listed as "Mrs. John Fabbroni"—a name she never went by—instead of "Grace Fabbroni."  I explained to Todd that we'd just used whatever name had been listed with the puzzles but that this new information was very helpful and we'd change all her bylines.

Todd also noted that Grace planned to send something about her crossword career, which she did—here it is:

Thanks so much again for letting me know about this, Todd, and for this wonderful reminiscence, Grace!

Frances Hansen

A couple of months ago, Todd also told me about a 2004 article (and photo) he'd found on pre-Shortzian and Shortz-era constructor Frances Hansen, who passed away some six months later.  The link worked then but unfortunately has since disappeared.  I've listed the article on the Pre-Shortzian Constructors page, though, so you may be able to track it down through your local library.

Obituaries:  Eugene T. Maleska, Alex F. Black, Terry Healy, Maurice J. Teitelbaum, and Jack Jumonville

Todd also found some fascinating obituaries for editor/constructor Eugene T. Maleska and constructors Alex F. Black, Terry [Teresa] Healy, Maurice J. Teitelbaum, and Jack Jumonville, all of which you can see by clicking on the individual links here or on the Pre-Shortzian Constructors page.  The Alex Black obituary also contained this photo taken by his family:

Alex F. Black (photo courtesy of the Black family)

Todd did some additional research on Jack Jumonville—here's his report:

Jack Jumonville

I went to Ancestry.com to see if I could find more about Jack Jumonville.  There's a fair amount there, including pictures from his college yearbook.  He was a member of a fairly elite club at LSU called Samurai, which means a larger than normal picture.  I'm enclosing what I found . . . the picture of young Mr. Jumonville not quite what I expected. . . . There's also a private story and a private picture of him.

Here's the earlier photo of Jack from the Louisiana State University yearbook that Todd found, along with some information about the Samurai organization Jack belonged to:

Jack Jumonville in college (photo

courtesy of the Louisiana State 

University yearbook)

From the Louisiana State University Yearbook

Thanks again, Todd—it's always great to learn more about the lives and careers of these early constructors, who, in addition to their crossword talents, often had successful unrelated careers and other wide-ranging interests!

Todd Gross's Interview on the L.A. Times Crossword Corner

Finally, Todd was recently interviewed for the L.A. Times Crossword Corner!  In his interview, which you can read by clicking here, he mentions the Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project and talks about his interest in crossword history and career as a constructor for The New York Times and other top publications.  Congratulations, Todd!

1958 Puzzles Up, Frances Hansen in CROSSW RD Magazine, and Mark Diehl First to Solve Blast! Challenge

Project Update

Another year is done:  The 1958 puzzles, which you can see here, are now up on XWord Info—thanks again to Jim Horne for hosting them!  And we're well on our way with more—Friday night Mark Diehl sent in 31 proofread puzzles, then another 22 Saturday night, and 18 more later on!  Sunday morning he sent in 13 puzzles, which were followed by 21 more late that afternoon.  Early Monday morning Todd Gross sent 10 puzzles with 50 mistakes (and a grand total of 403, if you count all the missing periods!).  Then Tuesday morning Mark sent another 14 puzzles, with 19 more appearing that night.  Wednesday morning Todd sent in 10, which were followed by 15 from Denny Baker and then 31 more from Mark and another 7 from him just after noon—a banner morning for proofreading if there ever was one!  Thursday morning Todd sent 11 more, then that afternoon Mark sent another 28, which were followed by 28 more that evening from Denny.  And Friday morning Mark sent another 31 puzzles.  Thanks so much again, everyone—we've made tremendous progress this week!

I'll be attending an admitted students event at Stanford (not Stamford!) for several days next week, so the next blog post will be in two weeks, when I hope to be finished with the 1957 puzzles!  As always, you can continue to send in proofread puzzles while I'm gone, though I may not be able to send out any new ones until my return.

Mark Diehl First to Solve Blast! Challenge

Mark Diehl was the first person to solve last week's Blast! challenge—he sent in his answer late Saturday night, after only one letter (the E) had been revealed!  Congratulations, Mark!  The clue from the July 12, 1956, puzzle was "Quest of the modern 'forty-niner.'"  The answer:  URANIUM ORE.  This clue certainly enriched my understanding of the 1950s!

As usual, you'll find the next Blast! challenge in the sidebar—the name of the first person to solve it correctly will be announced in two weeks!

Frances Hansen in CROSSW RD Magazine

I've been going through a few more issues of CROSSW RD Magazine, and this week I've posted Helene Hovanec's wonderful profile, "The Limerick Lady," of the legendary Frances Hansen on Scribd—to read it, click here.  Although Frances was perhaps most famous for her limericks, she can also be credited with popularizing the rebus puzzle:  She was among the first constructors to regularly use this then-novel gimmick.  Another interesting thing about Frances is that although her first Times puzzle on record dates back to 1964, she didn't publish any daily-sized crosswords until 1983!  She was truly a master of Sunday grids.

Photo copyright 1992, 2015, Megalo Media, Inc. Reprinted
by permission of Stan Chess and CROSSW-RD Magazine.

The article mentions that one of Frances's puzzles inspired humorist Russell Baker to write "Crashing into Crosswordland," a hilarious column that appeared in the January 19, 1975, New York Times and that can be accessed for free through many libraries on ProQuest.

Featured Puzzle

Today's featured puzzle was constructed by Eugene T. Maleska; published September 10, 1955; edited by Margaret Farrar; and litzed by Mark Diehl.  Seven entries in this puzzle's grid contain the word HORSE; as a bonus (and to make the theme symmetrical), CLOSE RACE was added as an eighth theme entry.  Generally I'm not a big fan of repeated-word themes, but this one stood out to me for two reasons.  First, the interlock of the theme entries is remarkable!  Having double-stacks of 9- and 10-letter entries cross was especially uncommon in pre-Shortzian themeless puzzles, so pulling off such an ambitious grid using only thematic 9- and 10-letter entries was no mean feat.  More significantly, however, the HORSE parts of all the theme entries look like they're competing in a close race, provided that the grid is treated as a racetrack.  This interpretation of the theme entries' layout may be a bit of a stretch—the constructor may simply have been striving for impressive theme entry interlock—but I was totally feeling the visual element!  The assortment of bonus horse-related entries (such as MANEGE, SHOW, and STALL) scattered throughout the grid is another nice touch.  The nonthematic fill has a handful of chewy entries, though the puzzle was published on a Saturday, so the inclusion of tougher vocabulary is more forgivable.  Yes, I'm talking to you, PURLIEU ("Outlying district."), VOLANT (clued as "Able to fly."), and SOCORRO ("City in New Mexico.")!  Interestingly, the most esoteric entry in the grid, HORSE EMMET ("Large ant."), is one of the theme entries.  I wasn't able to dig up much information about this bugger!  On the flip side, DRY ICE and PREFAB are excellent, and GSC ("General Staff Corps: Abbr.") is the only real stinker among the 3- and 4-letter entries.  In all, this is a top-notch pre-Shortzian puzzle whose possible visual element really sung to me!  In fact, many of Maleska's Farrar-era constructions were standouts for their time.  In any case, here's the solution grid (with highlighted theme entries) for this puzzle:

1967 Puzzles Up—Plus Highlights of December 1960

1967 Puzzles Up

Great news:  The 1967 puzzles are now up on XWord Info!  To see them, click here—thanks again to Jim Horne for posting them!  We've now proofread 27 years of puzzles, and as the Proofing Progress calendar in the sidebar shows, we're more than halfway done—great job, everyone!

It's been another busy week, starting off on Sunday morning with 31 puzzles from Mark Diehl in which he found 61 mistakes; that night he sent 30 more with 56 mistakes.  Tuesday afternoon Denny Baker sent in 23 puzzles, which were followed by 22 from Dave Phillips that night.  Thursday afternoon Dave sent 6 more, and then 5 with 8 mistakes came in from an anonymous proofreader.  That night Mark sent 31 more with 57 mistakes, putting him at more than 2,000 found mistakes—congratulations, Mark!  Early Friday morning Todd Gross sent in 10 with 14 mistakes; he also sent this very apropos screen capture of some clues from the May 5, 1966, PDF—note the appearance of the 9-Down clue, "Twist out of shape," which was for the entry DISTORT!

Thanks, Todd—and thanks so much again, everyone, for all the puzzles!

Blast! from the Past and Vocabulary Quiz

Last week's Blast! from the Past challenge had no correct answers—I'm obviously going to have to write better hints!  The clue, from a 1960 crossword, was:  "New international symbol."  The hint:  "The first word is 3 letters long, the second is 4 letters, and the third is 8."  The answer was . . . THE UGLY AMERICAN.  Hmm!

This week's Blast! challenge, which appears in the sidebar, should be a bit easier!

The 1960 Vocabulary Quiz from last week also must have been too hard, because no one posted their scores.  I guess words like chassepot, topepo, and avadavat aren't in the toolboxes of even the most avid puzzlers!

Featured Puzzle

This week's featured puzzle, "Edited for Television," was constructed by Frances Hansen; published September 8, 1974; edited by Will Weng; litzed by Barry Haldiman; and proofread by Mark Diehl.  (Since the 1974 puzzles have been proofread, you can solve the featured puzzle on XWord Info before reading on.)  This 23 x 23 by the queen of limericks and other twisty tricks contains a rather unusual gimmick:  replacing hell and damn with bleep, as if the puzzle were being censored for television.  Thus, Admiral Farragut's famous line, "Damn the torpedoes," becomes BLEEP THE TORPEDOES, and the expression "When hell freezes over" becomes WHEN BLEEP FREEZES OVER.  I find it fascinating that a theme like this would be published in the 1970s, a tumultuous time known for things far more "offensive" than the mild oaths hell and damn!  Then again, even these days, most newspaper crossword puzzles tend to avoid potentially offensive references much more than, say, song lyrics do!  As for the puzzle itself, I appreciate the number of theme entries Frances squeezed in, and getting BLEEP YANKEES to cross three theme entries must have been no easy feat.  I do wish that 80-Down could have been tied into the theme somehow—I guess one could make a case for this entry subtly implying that each theme entry is more ELEGANTLY PUT than its offensive original form, though I would have preferred a more direct thematic tie-in.  I also feel the puzzle would have been more elegant if all the theme entries had demonstrated actual censorship rather than some demonstrating actual and others artificial censorship.  In other words, the theme could have been tighter without entries such as CLAMSBLEEP that replace a hidden hell with BLEEP, forming gibberish in the process.  Nevertheless, I enjoyed seeing such a creative theme; if Frances were still alive, she certainly would have been within her rights to say "My dear, I don't give a bleep!" to my minor criticisms!  The nonthematic fill also has a handful of strong entries—in addition to the provocative, lively SLIT SKIRT (clued as "Drafty dress feature"), Frances gives us OPAQUE, IMMOLATES, COURTYARD, TRYG VELIE (great name!), DABBLE, OH DEAR, and SIESTA.  On the not-so-sparkly side, there are a few more partial phrases and foreign words than would be ideal, and a sizable handful of the short entries, such as RASAS ("Hindu dances"), PURRE ("___ maw [roseate tern]"), and WALER ("Australian horse"), seem quite obscure.  One particularly unconventional three-letter entry, KOM ("Afo-A-___ [stolen statue]"), has a fascinating back story.  According to Wikipedia, the Afo-A-Kom statue, which is sacred to the Kom people of Cameroon, was stolen and sold to a U.S. art dealer in the late 1960s; after purportedly wreaking havoc on its new owner, the statue ended up in a Manhattan art gallery before ultimately being returned to its place of origin.  How many three-letter entries have a tale like this to tell?!  In all, although this puzzle has some slight inconsistencies and a handful of unsavory shorter entries, I admire its ingenuity and novelty.  I look forward to featuring more of Frances's puzzles on this blog in the upcoming months!  This week's featured puzzle can be viewed on XWord Info in its complete form; as usual, the answer grid (with highlighted theme entries) can be seen below:

Highlights of December 1960

When I review litzed puzzles, I'm always on the lookout for particularly interesting and/or timely clues.  Most pre-Shortzian crossword clues are straight definitions, but every once in a while, something catches my eye!  Below is a list of clue/answer pairs from December 1960 (litzed by Ralph Bunker and proofread by Mark Diehl) that piqued my interest.  Only the December 25 constructor (Eva Taub Pollack) is known.

December 7

• Pessimist's view of modern life. (RAT RACE)
• Promise of Christmas. (PEACE)

December 9

• New republic on the Gulf of Guinea. (GABON)
• Ike's 1914 status. (CADET)

December 15

• Teen-ager's term for "tops." (SUPER)

December 25

• Housewife's aid. (DEEP FREEZE)

December 28

• Type of conveyance, perhaps obsolete. (SPACESHIP)

My favorite of these is the December 28 clue, the "perhaps obsolete" part of which intrigues me!  Even nowadays, spaceships are symbolically futuristic.  Here's a picture of a spaceship:

Image courtesy of Limit Theory Forums.

1986 Puzzles on XWord Info, Sending 1973 Puzzles, Over 7,400 at Halfway Point in Contest, Mark Diehl Hits 2,000, New Litzer of the Month Denny Baker, and David Astle's Call for Crossword Stories

Great news:  The 1986 puzzles are now up on XWord Info, and we've begun proofreading puzzles from 1985!  We're also now sending out puzzles from 1973 to be litzed—it won't be long before we're in the Margaret Farrar era!

We're also now at the halfway point in the litzing contest, and I'm delighted to report that we've litzed more than 7,400 puzzles!  At the beginning of January, we'd litzed 6,198 puzzles, and we're now at 7,441.  So in just one month, we've litzed 1,243 puzzles—a phenomenal achievement, surpassing even the first litzing contest in terms of number of puzzles litzed!  Our goal is the halfway point—8,113—by the end of February, so we only have 672 more to go in the next four weeks.  Awesome job, everybody!

Some of you have commented on what appears to be a neck-and-neck race between longtime litzing legend Mark Diehl and already-astounding Howard Barkin.  Mark put us over the 7,300 mark on Sunday and then over the 7,400 mark yesterday, and he has now litzed more than 2,000 puzzles—another all-time litzing record!  Congratulations, Mark!  And Howard, who just started litzing at the beginning of January, has already litzed more than 300 puzzles—that's approximately 10 per day.  Great job, Howard!  Here at Litzing Central, I never know what's going to come in or when:  Last night at 8:18, I received 23 litzed puzzles from Mark; just three minutes later, at 8:21, an e-mail with 19 litzed puzzles came in from Howard!  Then, a couple of hours later—at 10:06, to be precise—5 more puzzles arrived from Mark, putting Mark and Howard in a tie, with 308 litzed puzzles each during the contest!

The 616 puzzles from Mark and Howard comprise slightly less than half of the 1,243 that have been litzed so far this month, so all the other puzzles from everyone else are helping an enormous amount too!  Thanks so much, everybody—I think we'll be over the Halfway Hump in just a few weeks, if not sooner!

In other news, we have a new Litzer of the Month for February:  Denny Baker, who, as I've written before, is a constructor and was a litzer back in the day when Barry Haldiman was litzing his favorite puzzles!  To read more about Denny, click on his photo on the right or the Litzer of the Month tab above.

Also, I recently received an e-mail from Amy Reynaldo (Diary of a Crossword Fiend), who forwarded an e-mail she'd received from David Astle ("DA").  DA is putting together what sounds like a fascinating book that will celebrate the first 100 years of crossword puzzles.  The Great Clue Chase will contain 100 mini-chapters containing different stories linked to each of the 100 years.  DA is interested in "good stories, remarkable puzzles, flukes, backfires, Russian, Ninas, firsts and lasts" to fill out his timeline.  He comments that the "best stuff has a year attached—the further back the better often—as well as neat story."  He's not reproducing puzzles—just providing a clue or two and telling the story.  If you have any ideas or stories for this book—there are probably many about puzzles from the pre-Shortzian era!—contact DA through his web site.  Anyone who sends a "zinger" will receive a copy of DA's Puzzles and Words, a new book of word origins and connected word puzzles!

Today's featured pre-Shortzian puzzle, "Living It Up,"  was constructed by Frances Hansen.  It was originally published on December 29, 1974, and was recently litzed by Mark Diehl.  This is one of several Will Weng–era quote puzzles I've seen that doesn't work the same way as a modern quote puzzle.  Instead of dividing the quote by natural word breaks, the constructor broke the quote at every twenty-third letter; the quote simply continues from line to line in an acrosticlike fashion!  Nowadays this puzzle probably wouldn't fly because of the word-break issue, even though the constructor's original verse is very clever.  Interestingly, Maleska probably would have rejected this puzzle as well.  In all the many Maleska-edited quote puzzles I've looked at (some of which were constructed by Frances Hansen), I have yet to encounter a straight quote puzzle with this kind of word breakage (though I have seen several step quotes).

Back to the puzzle.  The ingenious verse reads:  A DEFIANT OLD MAID, PRAY FORGIVE HER, REMARKED WITH A HABIT OF A QUIVER: "TONIGHT I SHALL SMOKE AND DRINK TIL I CHOKE AND NUTS TO MY LUNGS AND MY LIVER."  It's amazing that the verse, in addition to being exactly 115 letters long, makes perfect sense (even with the word-break issue)!  Also, the fill, in addition to being pangrammatic, feels more polished and clean than the average Will Weng–edited Sunday.  I especially like the entries ROOF JOBS, RAFFISH, and TABASCO!  I can do without AANI (clued as "Dog-headed ape"), ADMIS ("African gazelles"), DHAVA ("East Indian gum tree"), NABO ("P. I. shrub: Var."), and TONDO ("Circular painting"); nevertheless, this is a remarkably small number of flat-out obscurities for a hand-constructed 23x.  Is anyone else surprised that Will Weng allowed the entry HOMICIDAL into the grid?  To me, this seems to violate the breakfast test. . . .

Even though it has its weaknesses, this crossword provides insight into what quote/verse puzzles looked like before the Maleska and Shortz eras.  I look forward to seeing how other types of themes evolve as we continue to litz through the Weng era and further back into the Farrar era!  This puzzle's answer grid (with highlighted theme entries) can be seen below:

Today's featured pre-Shortzian clue appeared in the November 28, 1950, puzzle by Thomas Meekin, which was edited by Margaret Farrar and recently litzed by yours truly.  The clue, which led to EXTRACURRICULAR, read: "Describing activities now lacking in N.Y.'s public schools."  Apparently in 1950 and 1951, New York teachers were dissatisfied with their salaries and decided to boycott extracurricular activities until their pay rates were increased!  I find this kind of historically significant clue fascinating—there's hardly any information about the boycott anymore.  Each pre-Shortzian puzzle (particularly those edited by Margaret Farrar) is a snapshot of major events occurring when it was published!  Below is a picture of children in a classroom from the 1949–50 school year:

Image courtesy of Artswipe.