Interview with Half-Century Constructor Lou Sabin

Today I'm delighted to publish an interview with Lou Sabin, a prolific New York Times crossword constructor of at least 137 puzzles, 108 during the pre-Shortz era and 29 under Will Shortz's editorship.  Lou is also one of the few constructors to have published in The Times for more than 50 years!  To read the interview, click here or on the Pre-Shortzian Constructor Interviews tab above, then scroll down.  If you'd like to read more about Lou, see this 2009 Wordplay article by XWord Info's Jim Horne and this 2011 profile by John Saccenti, "The Puzzling Pastime of Creating Crosswords."

Interview and Visit with Guido Scarato—and Maleska's Letters

Happy New Year, everyone!  Over winter break I was delighted to receive an email from Will Shortz telling me about another pre-Shortzian constructor who'd resurfaced:  Guido Scarato.

Guido published many puzzles in The New York Times under Margaret Farrar, Will Weng, and Eugene T. Maleska, but almost all of them appeared without bylines, and many have been misplaced over the years, especially during a move from New York to California.  Guido now lives on the Monterey Peninsula in Pacific Grove, where his family has been since he was 13.  The area, which I've visited many times with my parents over the years, is a short detour from one of the routes we take between Los Angeles and Palo Alto, so it occurred to me that I might actually be able to meet Guido in person on my way back up to Stanford after the break!

I wrote to Guido and introduced myself, and before long we'd set up a time to meet.  I sent him some interview questions in advance, and you can read his responses by clicking here or on the Pre-Shortzian Constructor Interviews tab above.  But the real treat began when we pulled up in front of his house just a few steps away from Monterey Bay.

Guido, who is also a painter and singer, had a long career as an art director for boutique advertising agencies in New York, producing campaigns for clients including Citibank, Pan Am, Nabisco, and many others; his creativity and talent are evident even from the outside of his house, whose colors are unusually vibrant for the area.  You can see a little of that in this photo of us together by his front door:

And here's a painting he did of his house and yard:

When I came inside, I was immediately greeted by his two friendly dachshunds, whom he also painted in this self-portrait:

And taking up almost the entire wall facing the entrance is this triptych of wood panels painted by Rex Clawson in 1985:

Here's an explanation of it:

And below is a closer picture of one of the chairs:

After chatting a bit with Guido and a couple of his friends who'd brought over some delicious cookies, we went into another room filled with art (as was the rest of the house—not to mention the backyard, whose fence he turned into another masterpiece and where he celebrated his 80th birthday with more than 100 friends).  There, Guido showed me his crossword puzzle dictionary, much used and very worn over the years:

Front

First page

Sample pages

We then began discussing Crossword Compiler and other construction software, which Guido had never tried but was fascinated by.  I'd brought along my laptop, so I was able to show him how it worked (and also give him a tour of XWord Info, which amazed him!).  We got so into it that we actually began constructing a puzzle together that we may eventually finish and submit somewhere!

During the course of my several hours there, Guido told me more about his constructing and also showed me some of the letters he still had from Maleska, including the latter's missive to all constructors informing them of a moratorium on puzzle submissions.  I've posted them on Scribd here—highlights include the August 82 [sic], 1988, letter, in which Maleska says Guido owes him 25 cents; the September 23, 1989, letter, at the end of which Maleska asks Guido whether he'd solved a recently published Times puzzle that reminded Maleska of Guido's current submission; and his January 19, 1990, puzzle, in which he chides Guido for "careless defining."

Guido also still has a few of his old puzzles, and one of them—June 19, 1972—was a puzzle previously identified in my database as being by "Unknown."  It was great to be able to put a name to yet another anonymous puzzle.

Before our meeting came to a close, Guido offered to play a CD of his singing in South Pacific.  Guido has an amazing voice and has appeared in numerous musical productions, including The Sound of Music, Man of La Mancha, Oklahoma! and many others.

After I left, I was struck by how diverse Guido's interests and accomplishments were.  The pre-Shortzian constructors were (and are) remarkable for the variety and depth of their talents, and I suspect that the same holds true for some of today's constructors as well, though many of us are often too busy to do or talk about much other than crosswords.  There's a wealth and richness to the lives of these early constructors—and a willingness to share their experiences and thoughts—that seems elusive in our increasingly hurried and fragmented existences.

Thanks so much again for our wonderful afternoon, Guido!

Denny Baker's C. E. Noel Discovery, Margaret Farrar in CROSSW RD Magazine, More on Robert Guilbert, Mark Diehl Five-Time Blast! Winner, and Pondering Two-Letter Entries

Project Update

This week was jump-started last Friday afternoon by Todd Gross, who sent in 9 puzzles with 58 mistakes.  Then less than an hour later Denny Baker sent in 14 more.  On Sunday afternoon Mark Diehl sent 13, which were followed by another 14 from Denny that night.  And Wednesday night Denny sent 13 more.  Great job, everyone, and thanks again!  I'm now sending out puzzles from 1943—the end is definitely in sight, and by early next week I should have the 1955 puzzles ready to send to XWord Info!

Denny Baker's C. E. Noel Discovery

As Denny was proofreading this past week, he made a great discovery:  The December 24, 1944, puzzle was by C. E. Noel, which he pointed out was an obvious pseudonym.  I hadn't noticed that before, and when Denny wondered who it could have been, my guess was Charles Erlenkotter.  Charles published five puzzles in the Times in 1942, including the first one ever on February 15, 1942; three in 1943; and one—if this was indeed his—in 1944.  According to my records, this puzzle was his last for the Times, and Ancestry.com lists a Charles Erlenkotter who passed away in 1948 in White Plains, New York.  Thanks so much again, Denny, for noticing this pseudonym!

Mark Diehl Five-Time Blast! Winner

Litzer, proofreader, and now Blast! solver extraordinaire Mark Diehl is on a winning streak!  On Monday at 10:30 a.m., after three letters had been revealed, he was the first to solve last week's super-hard Blast! challenge and is now the first five-time Blast! winner—congratulations again, Mark!  The clue, which was from the June 16, 1952, puzzle, was "Legal status for oleo in New York, July 1, 1952."  The answer:  PRECOLORED.  Sounds appetizing . . . not!

Image courtesy of beachpackagingdesign.com.

This week's Blast! challenge is up in the sidebar, as usual—good luck!

Margaret Farrar in CROSS WORD Magazine

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

I've been continuing to make my way through the old issues of CROSSW RD Magazine, and this week I've posted Helene Hovanec's wonderful portrait of Margaret Farrar on Scribd.  "A Crossword Hall-of-Famer:  Margaret Farrar" was originally published in the November/December 1992 issue of CROSSW RD Magazine; to read it, click here.  The article was introduced by Helene's short piece "Robert Guilbert's Crossword Academy," which you can read here.  Guilbert spent the final years of his life trying to establish a crossword academy; I wrote about him and his American Crossword Puzzle Academy and Hall of Fame in posts on November 21, 2014; December 5, 2014; and December 19, 2014.  Although Guilbert's vision was never realized, Helene pointed out that "the raison d'etre behind his Academy—honoring the people who have contributed most to the profession—will continue in another format—through CROSSW RD magazine's establishment of a Crossword Hall of Fame."  Margaret Farrar was the first inductee.

Featured Puzzle:  Pondering Two-Letter Entries 

Today's featured puzzle, whose constructor is unknown, was published Friday, May 2, 1952; edited by Margaret Farrar; litzed by Barry Haldiman; and proofread by Mark Diehl.  According to my records, this is the penultimate New York Times puzzle whose grid included two-letter entries for nonthematic purposes; the last, which was published August 1 of that year, is also an interesting construction and will likely be featured in a future blog post.  In any case, I find this 72-word themeless fascinating, even though it technically violates a basic rule of crossword construction.  By breaking the rules, the constructor was able to create double-stacks of twelve- and fourteen-letter entries, a feat that is much more difficult under modern grid restrictions.  The twelve- and fourteen-letter entries are all very nice, my favorite being the timely/anticommunist FREE NATIONS.  Both the two-letter entries the constructor used, OF and NT, seem stronger to me than numerous other short entries in the puzzle, such as TORP (clued as "Small farm, in Sweden.") and NEI ("Moslem flute: Var.").  I find it slightly annoying that OF crosses NORTH OF IRELAND, but I've seen many more major duplicates, even in modern-day constructions.  I wonder, are two-letter entries really that bad?  They've been banned in crosswords for many years, but how many more impressive constructions could be produced if they were allowed again?  Could, for example, the lowest block count (17) be pushed even lower?  And would the inclusion of two-letter entries reduce the number of stale three- and four-letter entries that solvers always complain about, such as EKE and ALAI?  The natural argument against two-letter entries is that there are a limited number of them, which would make for an overly predictable solving experience.  Then again, there are 676 possible two-letter combinations, and would an occasional two-letter word be that detrimental to the solving experience?  I doubt these questions will ever be answered, especially since there's no Theoretical Crosswords major at any college (darn!).  But returning to the puzzle, I also appreciated the mid-length and longish fill in its grid, especially BOTTICELLI, RACCOONS, and HOUDINI.  BARBUSSE ("Henri ___, author of 'Under Fire,' 1916."), SAKHALIN ("Large island off coast of Siberia."), KRUTCH ("Joseph Wood ___, author of 'The Desert Year.'"), and NOROTON ("Town on L. I. sound above Stamford, Conn.") were all new to me, though the Stamford reference in the last of these clues made me smile!  Perhaps NOROTON would be a better place for a Scrabble tournament, given that its name consists of seven friendly letters (although NOROTON itself would be an illegal play).  In all, this is a fascinating and thought-provoking pre-Shortzian puzzle, despite its major shortcoming, and I'm looking forward to looking through more puzzles that make me ponder crossword conventions!  As usual, the solution to this week's featured puzzle can be seen below:

In the Farrar Era—and Mark Diehl Passes 1,000 in the Pre-Shortzian Proofreading Challenge

Pre-Shortzian Proofreading Challenge:  Mark Diehl Passes 1,000!

Only two more weeks of the Pre-Shortzian Proofreading Challenge remain, and just this morning Mark Diehl passed 1,000—he has now found 1,004 mistakes!  Congratulations, Mark!

It's been a very busy week, starting with 21 puzzles containing 11 mistakes from Mark on Friday night.  Saturday afternoon he sent 32 more with 12 mistakes, which were followed by another 22 with 35 mistakes that night.  Sunday morning he sent 30 more with 19 mistakes, then another 31 with 27 mistakes that night, and still another 30 with 34 mistakes later on, putting his total found mistakes at more than 900!  Late Monday morning Denny Baker sent in 31 puzzles but didn't count the mistakes.  That afternoon Mark sent 31 more with 18 mistakes, which were followed by 29 more with 19 mistakes that night.  Mark sent another 31 with 20 mistakes Tuesday night and then 30 with 9 mistakes late Wednesday night.  Thursday afternoon Todd Gross sent in 10 puzzles with 12 mistakes.  That evening Mark sent 22 more with 15 mistakes, which were followed by another 25 with 9 mistakes Friday morning, putting his total over 1,000!  Then this afternoon Todd sent in 10 more puzzles with 8 mistakes.  And this week Howard Barkin sent 32 puzzles with 30 mistakes.  Thanks so much again, everyone—we're making terrific progress!

In the Farrar Era

Last week XWord Info's Jim Horne pointed out that with the last installment of proofread puzzles on XWord Info—1969—we were now finished with the Will Weng puzzles and into the Margaret Farrar era, which began on February 15, 1942.  Indeed, the last puzzle Farrar edited was the January 5 Sunday opus by Frances Hansen, appropriately titled "Ring in the New"—not only for the New Year but also for the new editor, Will Weng.  On that day, the Times published a lengthy announcement of Farrar's retirement, noting that, at 71, she was currently editing her 97th crossword puzzle collection for Simon & Schuster and had edited 18 puzzle books for the Times.  The full text of this fascinating article, which contains several amusing anecdotes and reminiscences by Farrar, is available through libraries on ProQuest.

Courtesy of The New York Times

Several weeks later, on January 26, the Times published the following particularly charming letter from a reader:

Courtesy of The New York Times

Fortunately for us, we're working backwards in time, so rather than bidding adieu to Margaret, we're heralding in her era!

Featured Puzzle

Today's featured puzzle, whose constructor is unknown, was published on July 16, 1960; edited by Margaret Farrar; and litzed by Ralph Bunker.  This eye-catching 64-word themeless is ambitious, wide open, and beautifully filled—in fact, the puzzle doesn't have a single entry that feels particularly obscure, and there are only a couple of short entries that seem subpar (ESNE and LIGNE), both of which appeared in numerous other pre-Shortzian and Shortz-era crosswords.  I don't think I've come across a single pre-Shortzian puzzle that contains this few iffy pieces of short fill!  The upper right and lower left corners are particularly aesthetically pleasing:  In addition to incorporating only 6-, 7-, and 8-letter entries, these corners have a smattering of Scrabbly letters and contain numerous fun, in-the-language entries, such as CRAVAT, RIPPLE, PELLET, CRIMEA, and the IMPALE/IMPALA crossing.  Other highlights in the grid include MAN EATER, DRESSING ROOMS, and TROLLEY; admittedly, none of these entries knocks my socks off, but I really appreciate how cleanly they interlock.  I'm not as fond of CIGARETS (as opposed to CIGARETTES), and I've never heard of a MUSK TREE (clued as "Highly scented Australian plant."), but I'm just nitpicking at this point.  The clues also have a nice amount of spice—"Favorite beatnik word." for LIKE and "'All men are ___'" for LIARS particularly tickle me.  I find it fascinating that the word like has been prevalent in our dialect for more than 50 years—nowadays, like has become so commonplace that it's frequently used as a conversation filler!  In all, this is a masterful pre-Shortzian construction, and I look forward to locating additional gems as I finish looking through litzed puzzles from 1960.  Now that the wheels of the proofreading machine are spinning so fast, I have a feeling the Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project in its entirety will be complete before I achieve my personal goal of looking through every New York Times crossword in detail!  For now, here's the solution grid for this week's featured puzzle:

Litzstarter Goal of 13,000 Puzzles Reached 1 Week Early, 6 More Days of Contest, In 1958, PuzzleNation Interview, and Margaret Farrar's Delightful Invitation

Great news:  Late last night—a week early!—we reached the Litzstarter goal of litzing 13,000 puzzles by the end of October!  At 10:57 p.m., Mark Diehl sent in 21 puzzles that put us over the top—awesome job, everyone!  We've now litzed exactly 13,021 puzzles, 356 of which came in this past week!  The puzzle deluge started off very early Saturday morning, with Mike Buckley sending in 7.  Later that morning, Ralph Bunker sent in 28 more puzzles, putting us at exactly 12,700 on the litzing thermometer!  Saturday evening, Vic Fleming sent in 14 puzzles.  Then Sunday morning, Mark Diehl sent a 42-puzzle mega-batch, which was followed 17 minutes later by 28 more from Ralph . . . and then another 28 from Ralph that evening, putting us over 12,800 on the litzing thermometer!  Monday morning, Brian Kulman sent in 7 puzzles, which were followed that night by 28 more from Mark.  Tuesday afternoon, Nancy Kavanaugh sent in another mega-batch of 41 puzzles, putting us over 12,900 on the litzing thermometer (and her regular total at more than 800 and contest total at more than 300!)!  That night, Vic sent in 6 more puzzles.  Wednesday morning, Denny Baker sent in 7 puzzles, which were followed one minute later by 28 from Ralph.  That afternoon, Vic sent in 1 more puzzle, and then in the evening, Todd Gross sent in 7 proofread puzzles.  Thursday afternoon, Vic sent 7 more puzzles.  A short while later, Tracy Bennett sent in 7 more puzzles, which were followed 23 minutes later by 7 more from Vic.  A few hours later, Ralph sent in 28, then Mark sent in 21 more, putting us over 13,000 on the litzing thermometer (and his own regular total at more than 3,900!)!  Late this afternoon, Mike sent 7 more, and Howard Barkin sent in an additional 14 this week as well—thanks so much again, everyone!  We're now on our way to 14,000!

For those of you reading this who haven't been able to litz during the contest, there's still time!  By litzing 2–3 puzzles a day for the remaining 6 days of Litzstarter, you can be eligible for the Grand Prize drawing of free admission to the 2014 ACPT!

With all this litzing, we've moved into another year:  1958!  In searching for a representative event from that year, I discovered that 1958 was the year 14-year-old Bobby Fischer won the U.S. Chess Championship.  At 14, he was the youngest to have done so, and even after all these years, his record still stands.  Arguably the greatest chess player who ever lived, Bobby Fischer died in 2008.  Below is a photo of the young Bobby Fischer:

Photo courtesy of chesshistory.com

In other news, yesterday PuzzleNation published an interview with me in which I discuss the Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project, among other things.  To read it, click here.

A few days ago, I received another e-mail from Lyn Silverstein, the daughter of pre-Shortzian constructor Jules Arensberg.  She had attached a copy of a charming invitation—decorated with crosswordese!—Margaret Farrar had sent to Lyn's mother 10 years or so after Jules died.  The invitation was to a celebration of 50 years of Simon & Schuster crossword puzzle books (April 10, 1924, to April 10, 1974).  This amazing event took place at the Private Dining Room of The New York Times—here's the invitation:

Thanks so much again, Lyn!  If anyone remembers attending this party, please comment!

Today's featured puzzle (whose constructor is unknown) was edited by Will Weng, litzed by Todd McClary, and originally published on April 1, 1969.  I think Will Weng started the tradition of running an unusual puzzle on April Fool's Day each year, as the April Fool's Day puzzles I've seen so far from the Farrar era seem like ordinary puzzles.  If so, then this was the first of the bizarre April Fool's Day puzzles!  This wacky and novel crossword features 12 theme entries that contain actual apostrophes in them, such as ENTR'ACTE, DON'T, and WE'RE, a gimmick not reused in The New York Times for many years thereafter.  In fact, this is the earliest puzzle I've seen with punctuation marks in the grid!  Aside from the interesting theme, the nonthematic fill has some very nice longer entries, such as WINE TASTER, ADORABLE, and RESEMBLING.  The rest of the fill, however, feels rather strained, which is most likely a by-product of the theme density.  The not-so-great entries include a host of pre-Shortzian crosswordese (SAIC, ANANA, ARADO, et al.); MARMORA (clued as "Turkish sea."); ABT ("German composer."); ONE O ("___'clock), which, in addition to being an awkward partial, also has an apostrophe that isn't in the grid; and MSTA ("River to lake Ilmen.").  Despite these clunkers in the fill, I appreciate that Will Weng took a risk and published this ground-breaking April Fool's Day puzzle!  The answer grid (with highlighted theme entries) can be seen below:

I've come across several clues with debatable stereotypes about teenagers in crosswords from the middle to late 1960s, which makes sense since teenagers were heavily involved with the counterculture back then (much to the chagrin of their parents).  There is some truth to these teenage-stereotype clues, though I was disappointed not to see a clue referencing teenagers who build crossword puzzles!  In any case, here are the clues I've found, along with a 21st-century teenager's assessment of each one:

• April 29, 1967 (constructed by Louis Sabin, litzed by Mark Diehl)
• Clue:  Almost any teenager.
• Answer:  REBEL
• Commentary:  Almost is the key word here!
• June 26, 1967 (constructed by Dorothy M. Hall, litzed by Martin Herbach)
• Clue:  Teen-agers' monopoly, in many homes.
• Answer:  TELEPHONE
• Commentary:  I can count the number of times I've used a telephone, as opposed to a cellphone, on my fingers.
• January 31, 1968 (constructor unknown, litzed by Mike Buckley)
• Clue:  Teen-age preoccupation.
• Answer:  DATING
• Commentary:  No comment. ;)
• April 4, 1968 (constructor unknown, litzed by Denny Baker)
• Clue:  VIP in the family.
• Answer:  TEENAGER
• Commentary:  Darn straight!
• January 29, 1969 (constructor unknown, litzed by Mark Diehl)
• Clue:  Member of the go-go set.
• Answer:  TEENAGER
• Commentary:  You mean the set of teenagers who have used GO-GO as a crossword entry?

I didn't have to look too far to find a picture of a teenager—in fact, I even found a picture of one carrying a telephone in his backpack like his contemporaries did before cellphones were invented!

Image courtesy of teenagecruciverbalists.com!

Over 10,700, August Litzer of the Month Joe Cabrera, and Eliot Kieval Finds Article on Eugene T. Maleska and Poem to Margaret Farrar

We're making great progress—this week, we passed the 10,700 mark!  On Saturday, Todd McClary sent in 7 puzzles, then Mark Diehl sent in 5 more.  Sunday morning, another 7 came in from Denny Baker.  Then Sunday evening, Mark sent in 28 more.  Early Monday morning, 7 came in from Jeffrey Krasnick; Monday night, Todd Gross sent in 10 more proofread puzzles, and a short while later, Tracy Bennett sent in another proofread month of puzzles.  Wednesday morning, Nancy Kavanaugh sent in 14 puzzles; 7 more came in Wednesday night from Mike Buckley, and then 28 more from Mark, putting us over 10,700!  Thursday morning, Mark sent in another 13 puzzles.  The grand total of newly litzed puzzles for the week was 116—terrific job, everybody!  It won't be long before we're at 11,000!

We're also in a new month, and the August Litzer of the Month is OCR whiz and comics fan Joe Cabrera (who, incidentally, has an awesome cartoon head picture that accompanies all his e-mails!)!  To read more about Joe, click here or on the Litzer of the Month tab above.

Recently I received an e-mail from solver Eliot Kieval, who wrote that he had found two items he thought might interest me.  The first was an old New York Times article about Eugene T. Maleska having received a promotion at his job; although Maleska had already had crosswords published in the Times, he was not yet the editor.  Here is the article:

© The New York Times, September 15, 1962

The second item Eliot found was a letter to the editor of the New York Times Sunday Magazine in poem form after Margaret Farrar's retirement.  Here is that letter:

© The New York Times, January 26, 1969

That was hilarious—thanks so much again for passing these along, Eliot!

Over 10,000 Puzzles, Metapuzzle Update, and Will Weng Crossword Trends

I'm thrilled to announce that we passed the major milestone of 10,000 litzed puzzles this week!  Friday night after the last blog post went up, Todd Gross sent in 7 puzzles; late the next day, Mike Buckley sent in another 7.  On Sunday, Denny Baker and Todd McClary each sent in 7 puzzles, and Mark Diehl sent in 28.  Yesterday Alex Vratsanos sent in 10, and Mark sent in another 14.  Just a few hours ago, Denny sent in 7 more puzzles (putting himself over the 500 mark!); shortly thereafter, Alex sent in 6 more, putting himself over 100 and us over 10,000!  Congratulations, Alex, on being the one to get us past this major milestone!  And thanks so much, everybody, for all the awesome litzing—we're definitely on the downhill stretch now, and I'm looking forward to seeing how much terrific progress we make over the summer!

On the proofreading front, Todd Gross finished a month of 1982 puzzles this week and is busy on another—I'm hoping to have 1982 completed by the end of this month, if not before.

At the end of last year, I dropped a hint about a forthcoming 23x Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project metapuzzle.  Over the past few weeks, I've finalized the concept and found all the theme entries (which involved writing a specialized Java program); I also designed and filled the grid.  I'm currently working on writing the 172 (!) clues, which will definitely keep me busy for the next few days!  The metapuzzle should be ready in time for the project's first official anniversary on June 29.  I'll post more details on the blog next week, so be sure to check in!

Now that I've reviewed almost all the Will Weng–era puzzles and we've started litzing into the Farrar era, I figured it would be a good time to elaborate on trends I've noticed in Weng's editorial style.  First and foremost, Weng was willing to take risks as an editor.  He published the whole gamut of gimmicks, ranging from nudist-camp puns to extra squares outside of grids to thematic images formed by block arrangements.  Weng was willing to bend the rules slightly for innovative gimmicks and to publish clever themes that had slight inconsistencies.  I've encountered several 15x puzzles with 50+ blocks and handfuls of others that have asymmetric theme-entry arrangements and/or grids.  Nevertheless, almost all thematic Weng puzzles boasted incredible theme density and interlock.  Jordan S. Lasher was one of the many Weng-era constructors whose puzzles were exceptionally theme-dense—one of his masterpieces contained bi-stacks of 15-letter theme entries!  And A. J. Santora constructed some puzzles with phenomenal theme-entry interlock—some of his dailies contained more than 12 theme entries!

Themeless Weng puzzles often dipped below the 70-word mark, an incredible feat for the time period!  They frequently included Scrabbly letters (particularly in puzzles constructed by William Lutwiniak and Arthur Schulman) and multiple-word phrases.  Weng even published a few themeless Sundays (mostly 21x), which featured shockingly low word counts (often in the 120s) and wide-open grids.  Constructors Jack Luzzatto and Diana Sessions specialized in these themeless Sundays—Diana Sessions did several puzzles with staircases of 9-letter entries in the center, while Jack Luzzatto preferred stacking lengthy entries!

The thing that really differentiates Will Weng from Eugene T. Maleska, however, is that the puzzles Weng edited reflected the time period in which they were published.  Weng published puzzles about man landing on the moon, national concerns in the 1970s, the 1972 chess championship, the 1972 election, and, of course, hippies!  One current (but somewhat bizarre) 1971 daily included the theme entries THIS YEAR (clued as "1971"), LAST YEAR ("1970"), and LEAP YEAR ("1968").  Weng revolutionized crossword clues as well.  He not only published puzzles without periods after each clue but also started to mix clever, punny clues in with the vast sea of straight-definition clues, such as "His contracts had escape clauses" for HARRY HOUDINI and "Visitor from outer space" for METEORITE.  This new style of cluing flourished throughout the Maleska era and is still in use today.

Weng's willingness to publish unusual themes with such incredibly high theme densities did have a drawback, though.  The nonthematic fills of themed Weng puzzles tended to be significantly iffier than those of both the small selection of Margaret Farrar–edited puzzles I've seen and the Maleska puzzles.  Weng's puzzles were riddled with pre-Shortzian crosswordese, flat-out obscurities, lengthy partials, awkward word forms (such as OUTMIME), and contrived multiword phrases.  One multiword nonthematic phrase, MORE LARKS AROUND ("What a birdwatcher might want"), is so implausible that it's almost "risible"!  I can't image this entry appearing anywhere other than Trip Payne's Something Different puzzles these days!

Even though Weng puzzles frequently had fill problems, I've had a blast looking through them over the past few months and have learned a lot about how crossword puzzles evolved during his groundbreaking editorship.  I love how unpredictable looking through Weng puzzles is—I never know what unusual gimmick will crop up next (unless, of course, a litzer has mentioned a certain puzzle in his or her e-mail!).  I'll miss Weng's sense of humor as we continue into the Farrar era, but I'm also really looking forward to seeing how the Farrar-edited puzzles compare.

Today's featured puzzle, titled "Heritage," was constructed by Sylvia Baumgarten.  According to my incomplete records, this is the only puzzle she published in The New York Times, which is a shame, since it's certainly one of the best Will Weng–edited Sundays I've seen to date.  This 23x puzzle was originally published on July 4, 1971, and was recently litzed by Howard Barkin.  It features ten symmetrically interlocking theme entries related to American history (mostly to Paul Revere), two of which contain rebuses of numbers in the grid.  But what really makes this puzzle stand out is its ultrasmooth nonthematic fill and wide-open grid, both of which are amazingly clean considering the lack of computer software and that this appears to be the constructor's debut!  Some of my favorite entries are THE 8 BALL, CHEETAH, HANDBAG, SHOOT UP, SEA FOAM, ANAHEIM, BEET RED, EYELASH, and TORPEDO.  Also, both the upper center and lower center feel particularly elegant in that they flawlessly fill around three theme entries each.  I'm not as fond of 5OTHS, the partials A DOUBT and END OF IT, the Nazi camp DACHAU, OUTMIME (which I mentioned above), RERAMS, the variant spelling ABISS, or the theme entries BOSTON TEA and CONCORD MASS.  I'm partial to the 1-Across entry QUINQUE because I take Latin, though I have to admit, it wouldn't be my first choice for that position, despite its 2 Q's.  Notwithstanding these small flaws, this is a revolutionary pre-Shortzian Sunday (pun intended)—I'm sure it lit up many a solver's Independence Day!  The answer grid (with highlighted theme entries) can be seen below:

If you thought HELLBOX was an unusual-sounding typographical entry last week, you'll get a kick out of this one:  ETAOIN SHRDLU (and no, this isn't misspelled).  ETAOIN SHRDLU originally appeared in the June 6, 1971, puzzle by Fay L. Gieschi (another constructor with only one puzzle on record) entitled "Type Casting," which was edited by Will Weng and recently litzed by Denny Baker.  It was clued as "Popular line for printers"; Webster gives a much more detailed description of this unusual term, however:

a combination of letters set by running a finger down the first and then the second left-hand vertical banks of six keys of a Linotype machine to produce a temporary marking slug not intended to appear in the final printing

This devious constructor decided to cross ETAOIN SHRDLU with OELLA, a Maryland town that is also a very challenging entry.  What a printer's devil!

Not surprisingly, I wasn't able to find a good graphical representation for etaoin shrdlu, so below is a picture of a general linotype slug:

Image courtesy of Codes that Don't Count.