XWord Info to Continue, Nancy Schuster Interview, In 1964 and Over 10,800, and a Will Weng Photo

Awesome news this week:  As many of you know, Jim Horne had decided to wind down XWord Info at the end of this year.  This would have been a huge loss for the crossword community, and even though the pre-Shortzian puzzles would have continued being posted on his site, there would no longer have been a place where all the New York Times daily and Sunday crosswords could be found.  So I was thrilled to learn on Monday that XWord Info wouldn't be winding down after all—instead, Jeff Chen will be taking over as the administrator.  Thanks so much, Jim and Jeff, for making this happen!

In other news, legendary crossword constructor, solver, and editor Nancy Schuster wrote a lovely piece for the Pre-Shortzian Constructor Interviews page of this site.  Among many other things, Nancy discussed the three main pre-Shortzian editors from her unique editorial stance, which is fascinating!  To read Nancy's interview, navigate to the Pre-Shortzian Constructor Interviews page or click here.

A ton of newly litzed and proofread puzzles came in this week as well, and we're now sending out puzzles from 1964!  Sunday afternoon, Mark Diehl sent in 35 puzzles, putting his own total at more than 3,200 puzzles!  A few hours later, Jeffrey Krasnick sent in 7 more, which were followed by 20 from Howard Barkin that night, and then 10 more proofread puzzles from Todd Gross.  Tuesday afternoon, Denny Baker sent in 7 puzzles, putting us over 10,800 on the litzing thermometer!  Then late Wednesday night, Mark sent in another 21 puzzles, followed by 14 more on Friday morning.  Great job, everyone!

Since we're now in a new year, here's a representative photo from 1964.  It's of the New York World's Fair, which actually continued into 1965.  The Unisphere—a 12-story high, stainless-steel model of the Earth—is in the center:

Photo courtesy of loge13.com

While I'm on the subject of photos, Miriam Raphael (aka Ditto) recently sent me a terrific portrait of Will Weng, which I plan to frame and display somewhere in my bedroom!  Below is a scan of the photo, which was taken by Don Christensen:

Photo courtesy of Don Christensen

Now that I'm back from Stanford, I have time to resume the Puzzle/Clue and Entry of the Week features of these blog posts.  This week, I'll be featuring a Will Weng–edited puzzle constructed by Nancy Schuster!  This impressive puzzle was originally published on March 12, 1969, and was recently litzed by Martin Herbach.  It features eight theme entries clued as military-rank fill-ins—for example, OF INDUSTRY is clued as "Captain ___." and PUNISHMENT is clued as "Corporal ___."  I've seen many puzzles with different military ranks starting each theme entry, but never one where the entire theme is in the cluing.  Kudos to Nancy for adding a nice, clever twist to an already-solid theme idea . . . and for filling the grid so nicely!  The nonthematic fill's highlights include SHERBET, SNUFFED, and PIPE STEM.  There are also some interesting tidbits in the clues:  "Destination of some planes." is a historically significant clue for CUBA, and I like the back-to-back parallelism of "French numeral." for ONZE and "French summers." for ETES.  I do wish there hadn't been any other nonthematic fill-in-the-blank clues, since they distract from the theme a bit, but I can see why they were necessary.  Also, COPAS (clued as "Panama gum trees."), TUFA ("Porous rock."), and OLT ("Danube tributary.") aren't my favorite entries.  Overall, though, this is a nice, solid pre-Shortzian puzzle—I look forward to reviewing the rest of Nancy's earlier opuses!  In the meantime, below is the answer grid (with highlighted theme entries) for this puzzle:

I've noticed that Margaret Farrar– and Will Weng–edited puzzles contained many clues that started with "Modern."  These clues are always amusing, since the 1960s were so long ago that the answers to the "Modern" clues are now considered commonplace or even obsolescent!  Over the past few months, I've amassed a whole collection of "Modern" clues:

• October 31, 1966
• Clue:  "Modern outdoor sport."
• Answer:  SPACEWALK
• December 29, 1967
• Clue:  "Modern fabric."
• Answer:  DACRON POLYESTER
• June 5, 1968
• Clue:  "Modern weapon."
• Answer:  ATOM BOMB
• August 2, 1968
• Clue:  "Modern fabric."
• Answer:  DACRON [This one was popular!]
• December 1, 1968
• Clue:  "Modern convenience."
• Answer:  CENTRAL HEATING
• January 10, 1969
• Clue:  "Modern hero."
• Answer:  ASTRONAUT
• July 21, 1969
• Clue:  "Modern money."
• Answer:  CREDIT CARD

Below is a picture of something that really is modern these days—I bet I'll be laughing at how old it is 50 years from now!

Image courtesy of Azusa Pacific University

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.

Miriam Raphael's Maleska Stories, Helene Hovanec's "Creative Cruciverbalists," May Litzer of the Month Vic Fleming, Herbert L. Risteen Article, Another Litzing Script, Over 9,300—and in 1968 and the Farrar Era!

Several weeks ago I received an e-mail from master solver and crossword editor Miriam (Mimi) Raphael (whose National Puzzlers' League nom is Ditto).  Mimi won first place in the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in 1979 and first place in the Seniors Division 18 times between 1988 and 2011.  She had some Maleska stories she thought I might be interested in—and I was!  With her permission, they appear below, followed by a photo of the Fairfield County Puzzlers:

Back in the 1980s and '90s, there was a group of puzzle people—Will Shortz and a number of constructors and others interested in crosswords—in this area that called themselves the Fairfield County Puzzlers, after Fairfield County, Connecticut, where most of them lived.  I was actually just across the border in Westchester, New York, but I was a member, anyway.  Will Shortz was our leader—he was not puzzle editor of The New York Times in those days.  Norton Rhoades, who had been a school principal in Stamford, Connecticut, was a member, as was Stephanie Spadaccini, Maura Jacobson, and a few others whose names you might be familiar with.

We met every other month, as I remember, and one time decided to have a Maleska Roast (to which he was not invited).  Everyone was encouraged to bring a nasty letter they had received from Eugene.  I had one.  Through a strange combination of circumstances, I was editing a series of puzzle books—Champion Crosswords, for Simon & Schuster.  There were eight books published in the series before it died.  When Margaret Farrar found out about it, she was very helpful.  One of the best pieces of advice she gave me was to be gentle with constructors when I had to refuse their puzzles.  This was their "baby," she reminded me, and they sent it to me with many hopes and misgivings.  I took her advice seriously and once even received a thank-you note for a letter I had written to a constructor explaining why I couldn't use her puzzle—it wasn't very good, but I didn't say that in so many words.

Maleska, on the other hand, returned Maura Jacobson's early effort with, "You have a long way to go before you're ready to submit to the NY Times."  I received a letter from Maleska saying, "It has come to my attention that you are editing Crossword Puzzle Books for Simon & Schuster.  What are your credentials to be a crossword puzzle editor?"  I responded (and this was my letter in full) that "my credentials were sufficient for my publisher to offer me a contract," and I didn't hear from him again.

Just about everyone at that Fairfield County Puzzlers meeting at my house had a similar nasty letter from the great Eugene M.  We had a great time!

The Fairfield County Puzzlers on Miriam Raphael's front porch.  Front row:  Miriam Raphael, Stan Newman, Mark Oshin, Robert Carroll, Unknown.  Second row:  Doug Heller, Nancy Schuster, Bonnie Sirower, Unknown, Grace Frary, Will Shortz.  Back rows:  Unknown, Norman Landis, Halloween Man, Mike Shenk, Evie Eysenburg, Robin Landis, Ted Fishman, Unknown, Unknown, Unknown, Ed Snarski. 

Thanks so much, Mimi!  (And thanks, too, to Will Shortz and Stan Newman for helping to identify some of the people in the photo!  If anyone else knows who the remaining "Unknowns" are, please contact me.)

Coincidentally, I've been reading a wonderful book I recently found out about that offers a few quite different impressions of Maleska.  Helene Hovanec's Creative Cruciverbalists contains fascinating profiles of many pre-Shortzian constructors, and the one for Karen Hodge notes that "Hodge submitted several puzzles to Maleska, who although rejecting them, kept on encouraging her for he felt that she showed a flair for constructing."  When he finally accepted one of Hodge's puzzles, Hovanec writes:  "His congratulatory note, which elated her, began:  'Your avian opus is certainly not for the birds.'"

Similarly, the profile of Henry Hook shows another side of Maleska, who was so impressed with Hook's initial submission that he offered "to critique his crosswords and send him a style sheet (which Hook hadn't known existed)."  In fact, Hovanec writes, as "Hook developed under Maleska's tutelage, Maleska further assisted him by sending his work to other editors."

And the profile of Maleska himself is truly amazing.  Maleska's own puzzles did not meet with immediate acceptance.  His first efforts, which he sent to the Herald Tribune, were repeatedly rejected:

Maleska remembers the route he traveled:  "First I bought the newspaper every day and studied the style of the puzzle very carefully.  Months later I submitted my first professional effort—and held my breath.  I had enclosed a self-addressed stamped envelope, but did not bother to write an accompanying letter.  I had too much amour propre to plead.  My bubble of self-esteem burst abruptly.  Not even a formal rejection slip!  I was tempted to give up right then and there.  But persistence emerged to take the place of pride. . . .  I set some sort of record for initial failure—over forty rejections from a silent editor in a two-year period!"

Even more surprising to me was learning that Maleska actually tried to "jazz up" the clues in his puzzles:

He vividly remembers the first puzzle in which he "broke the log jam."  "'Nest' was defined as 'Nutcracker's suite' and the clue for 'noon' was 'When both hands are up.'  For 'ironer' the solvers were confronted with 'He has pressing problems.'"

And the first stepquote Maleska published, under Margaret Farrar, created a furor, with very polarized reactions on the parts of solvers.

Maleska seems to have been someone with many different sides—he could be arrogant and harsh with some constructors but was also apparently very encouraging to others.  And although the "educational" aspect to his puzzles could be stifling, some of his innovations, such as with cluing and stepquotes, were very creative.

In other news, I'm delighted to announce that Vic Fleming is the May Litzer of the Month!  To read about "Judge Vic," click here or on the Litzer of the Month tab above.

Also, I was thrilled to get an e-mail from litzer and proofreader Todd Gross on Wednesday about an article he'd found on pre-Shortzian constructor Herbert L. Risteen.  Todd had been reading the interview with Litzer of the Month Vic Fleming, who mentions the entry VIC SEIXAS, and remembered that he'd seen Vic Seixas mentioned in an article he'd read about Risteen.  I've now linked to this article from the Pre-Shortzian Constructors page; to read it, click on the link there or go directly to the Risteen article here.  Thanks so much, Todd!  If anyone else comes across articles on pre-Shortzian constructors, please let me know.

Herbert L. Risteen.  Image courtesy of
The Milwaukee Journal.

Last week I wrote about the litzing script Martin Herbach had sent me, and today I just received some additional information from him::

fyi, the following one-line sed script merges any line that doesn't begin with a number, with its previous line:

sed ":a; $!N;s/\n\([^0-9]\)/ \1/;ta;P;D" fromfile >tofile

It took a bit of messing with before I got it working.  It's for gnu sed on windows.  Other sed versions will take some syntax  changes.  I'm not an osx expert, so I have no idea what sed is built-in or available.

As you can tell, I hate doing something manually that can be automated.  I run it right after the ocr.

Thanks again, Martin!

It's been a very busy week on the litzing front, with some huge puzzle shipments!  On Sunday, Mark Diehl sent in 21 puzzles; Jeffrey Krasnick, 7; and Todd McClary, 7.  The next day, Mike Buckley sent in 6, and then on Wednesday, Martin Herbach sent in five batches totaling 33 puzzles.  Early today, Mark sent in 35 puzzles—putting us over 9,300 on the litzing thermometer!—and then three hours later, Martin sent in another five batches totaling 35 puzzles!  And on the proofreading front, Tracy Bennett, Todd Gross, and Kristena Bergen all sent in lots of proofread puzzles.  Thanks so much, everybody—awesome job!

One final piece of news:  We're now in the Margaret Farrar era, where we'll remain till the very end!  We're also now in 1968, a very eventful, dark time in history.  On the lighter side, here's a photo from the sketch comedy TV show Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, which debuted on January 22, 1968:

Image courtesy of sixties60s.com.

Today's featured pre-Shortzian puzzle (constructor unknown) was edited by Will Weng, litzed by Mark Diehl, and originally published on August 11, 1972.  It features a mind-blowing 11 symmetrically interlocking theme entries . . . based on the entry NUDIST CAMP!  The theme clues are a riot—here are a few of the wackier ones:  NUDIST CAMP [15 Across] (clued as "Mosquito heaven"), NUDES PAPER ("House organ of 15 Across?"), RAW DEAL ("Poker round at 15 Across"), CLOTHES ("Eyesores at 15 Across"), GAZA STRIP ("Locale of 15 Across?"), and BARE HANDS ("The help, at 15 Across").  This puzzle exemplifies Weng's sense of humor and willingness to publish surprising, bizarre-but-awesome themes!  Unfortunately, we don't have the constructor for this outré masterpiece; however, based on all the authored Weng puzzles I've seen, I'm guessing this puzzle was by master cruciverbalist A. J. Santora.  A. J. Santora was known for his ability to fit an incredible amount of theme entries into a daily-sized grid.

Regardless of who the constructor was, he or she did a great job filling around the 11 theme entries, and I noticed that even the ordinary clues feel a bit more playful than normal.  Some of the more interesting nonthematic entries include I'M GAME, the combination of CAESAR and CESAR, and the combination of DARNS and DAMNED; interesting nonthematic clues include "Taffy event" for PULL and "Wields a needle" for DARNS.  There are some clues and entries that elicited a "Sound of anguish" (GROAN) from me:  BLS ("Beer containers: Abbr."), ORDU ("Turkish army corps"), IRAK (Baghdad's land: Var."), APAR ("Armadillo"), PLUVIAL ("Showery"), SMUT clued as "Plant disease," BRUH ("Macaque of East Indies"), ASEM ("Old gold alloy"), and ACCA ("Old silk brocade").  Nevertheless, this is a brilliant and fun pre-Shortzian puzzle!  The answer grid (with highlighted theme entries) can be seen below:

Today's featured pre-Shortzian clue is almost as risqué as the featured puzzle!  It originally appeared in the March 27, 1976, puzzle by H. Hastings Reddall, which was edited by Will Weng and litzed by Nancy Kavanaugh.  The clue for TOPLESS read "Like some waitresses."  This clue feels slightly off-color—I'm pretty sure that, of all the pre-Shortzian editors, Will Weng would've been the only one to allow it!  I can see that Maleska used much less suggestive clues for this entry ("Extremely high" and "' . . . ___ towers of Ilium': Marlowe."  Below is a picture of the seemingly topless Mt. Everest:

Image courtesy of Mount Everest Summit Climb.