One-Puzzle Litzing Challenge, Only 6 Packets Left, Over 15,800, Done with 1943, In 1942 (the Final Year!), Fireball Fortnightly News Crosswords, and Funny Typos

The One-Puzzle Litzing Challenge has gotten off to a great start, thanks to Jim Horne of XWord Info, who was the first to respond and who then wrote about his experience on Cruciverb-l!  Others who have accepted the challenge or inquired about it include Michael Blake, Jeff Chen, Emily Cox, Jon Delfin, Patrick Merrell, Cory Oldweiler, Spencer Pasero, Henry Rathvon, Andrew Reynolds, Mel Rosen, Stephanie Spadaccini, Finn Vigeland, Larry Wasser, and Bryan Young—thanks so much, everybody!  If you own Crossword Compiler, Crossdown, or CrossFire and would like to litz a puzzle before we're through with the last six packets, e-mail me and I'll send you everything you need.  Depending on your typing speed, litzing one 23 x 23 Sunday puzzle takes approximately 20 minutes, and there's no rush, since the puzzles are from 1942 and we're currently proofreading puzzles from 1976!  If you didn't see Jim's clever quote (slightly modified!) from Henry V, here it is:

We few, we happy few, we band of litzers;
For he to-day that digitizes with me
Shall be a litzer; be he ne'er so vile,
This task shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in U. S. now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That worked with us upon PSPP.

It's been another busy week on the litzing front, starting off with 7 puzzles from Tom Pepper on Saturday morning and 1 from new litzer Jim Horne.  Sunday morning, Jim sent 3 more, and Todd Gross sent 10 proofread puzzles.  Monday evening, Jim sent 6 more puzzles, and then Tuesday afternoon, Susan O'Brien sent 4 more.  Wednesday morning, Jeffrey Krasnick sent in 4, which were followed by 8 from Barry Haldiman and 1 each from new litzers Michael Blake, Patrick Merrell, and Kristena Bergen.  That afternoon, Ralph Bunker sent in a whopping 28 puzzles, putting us over 15,800 on the litzing thermometer, and then Denny Baker sent 4 more!  Thursday morning, Denny sent another 4, putting his total at more than 900 litzed puzzles—congratulations, Denny!  A short while later, new litzer Larry Wasser sent in 1 puzzle.  Friday morning, Lynn Feigenbaum sent 2 puzzles, which were followed by 10 more proofread puzzles from Todd that afternoon.  We're now at 15,822 on the litzing thermometer—awesome job, everyone, and thanks so much again!

We whizzed through 1943 and are now in 1942—the final year of pre-Shortzian puzzles! One of the most noteworthy events of 1943 was Britain's development of Colossus Mark 1 to break German encryption.  According to Wikipedia, Colossus Mark 1 was the first electronic digital computer that was programmable.  Here's a picture of an improved version of the Colossus Mark 1 (not surprisingly, the Colossus Mark 2!):

Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

And although many historical and cultural events occurred in 1942, none was more important—at least to the Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project—than the publication of the first crossword puzzle in The New York Times on February 15, 1942!  This 23 x 23 puzzle, "Headlines and Footnotes," was constructed by Charles Erlenkotter.  Below is a picture of its filled-in grid; the blank grid appears on the sides of this Web site and on the original Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project T-shirt!

As I've mentioned previously, the puzzles from the 1940s contained a great deal of news and are particularly interesting from a historical standpoint.  And in 2014, we may actually have a parallel to these puzzles:  Peter Gordon's Fireball Fortnightly News Crosswords!  Some of you may have tried his previous Fireball Newsweekly Crosswords; these Fortnightly News Crosswords will be in the same vein but appear once every two weeks.  Peter is running another Kickstarter campaign to fund this endeavor, with a $1 minimum pledge or $6 minimum to receive the crosswords.  I'm looking forward to more of these "topical" (as Farrar would say) puzzles!  If you'd like to help back Peter's project too, click here.

I decided to choose a crossword from 1976, the year that's currently being proofread, for this week's featured puzzle.  "Free Thinking" was published on July 4, 1976; constructed by Anne Fox; edited by Will Weng; litzed by Barry Haldiman or one of his former team of litzers; and recently proofread by Todd Gross.  At 27 x 27, this gargantuan construction is the largest square crossword ever published by The New York Times!  The puzzle appeared on the bicentennial of the day the Declaration of Independence was ratified, and it's jam-packed with symmetrically interlocking patriotic theme entries.  The puzzle was printed with an inspirational Ben Franklin quote, "Games lubricate the body and the mind.," underneath the title, a feature I've never seen before in any other crossword!  The theme entries themselves are snippets from famous American quotes and folklore, and all but two of them are more than 20 letters long.  Getting seven such lengthy across theme entries (along with THEE I SING and LEXINGTON, to boot!) would have made for a perfectly good pre-Shortzian puzzle, but Anne Fox must not have been satisfied:  She symmetrically arranged her theme entries so they would cross the 25-letter reveal THIS DAY TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO.  Once again, Anne Fox's mastery of interlock and grid design without the assistance of computer software blows me away!

The one theme entry that feels a bit unnatural is HUNDRED PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE (clued as "Sixteen ___"), which, in addition to not being able to stand on its own as well as the others, is typically represented numerically (as 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue rather than Sixteen Hundred Pennsylvania Avenue).  Nevertheless, this puzzle's theme and grid really sparkle in my book!  The nonthematic fill also has an unusually high number of fun, colloquial entries, including YOO-HOO, OH YEAH, HOT WATER, GOOD GRAVY, TINKLY, CHARLES I, HOUND DOG, HIDE-OUT, CEASE FIRE, and GLOW WORM.  I like how CEASE FIRE can be thought of as a quasi-theme entry, and I immediately thought of the Pilgrims, who arrived in America nearly two centuries before the Declaration of Independence, when I saw the entry GOOD GRAVY!  The puzzle does have its share of less-common and/or forced DUDS (98-Across), such as MAMO (clued as "Hawaiian bird."), ADAI ("Louisiana Indian"), TAC TOE ("Tic ___"), TEAGUE ("Texas city"), ETAH ("Greenland base"), PHARO ("___ fig [sycamore of Egypt]"), ZORIL ("African skunk"—a real stinker!), and ANIMI ("Resin: Var."), but they're few and far between and don't really jump out at me.  So in all, the fun, fresh entries far outweigh the less desirable ones in this puzzle.  As for the clues, most are pretty standard, though quite a few have a twisty Weng-esque feel to them that makes the puzzle seem significantly less fusty.  My favorites are "No thing for three" for MATCH, "Chess crisis" for MATE, "Old school item" for TIE, and "Egyptian under wraps" for MUMMY.

It was a pleasure coming across another lovely Anne Fox construction, and I look forward to seeing how awesome this 27 x 27 puzzle will eventually look on XWord Info!  For now, here's the answer grid (with highlighted theme entries):

On the subject of proofreading, here are 10 more funny typos from the Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project's growing collection:

• Entry:  ANTIC
• Right:  Prank
• Wrong:  Plank
• Entry:  CAFE
• Right:  One kind of society
• Wrong:  One king of society
• Entry:  EFE
• Right:  Letter F, in Spain
• Wrong:  Letter F, in Spam
• Entry:  ELIOT
• Right:  Author of "Four Quartets"
• Wrong:  Author of "Four Quarters"
• Entry:  FIB
• Right:  Little lie
• Wrong:  Little he
• Entry:  GREER
• Right:  Feminist Germaine
• Wrong:  Feminist Germane
• Entry:  JOT
• Right:  Write briefly
• Wrong:  Wine briefly
• Entry:  LOTI
• Right:  Viaud's pen name
• Wrong:  Viaud's pen
• Entry:  RAVE
• Right:  Rapturous praise
• Wrong:  Rapturous bird
• Entry:  RILEY
• Right:  Hoosier poet
• Wrong:  Hoosier port

My favorite of these typos is the one for RAVE, since I can tell that the litzer thought he or she was transcribing a clue for RAVEN!  Quoth the David "Nevermore"!

Raven image courtesy of The Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Progress Update, Metapuzzle Announcement, Fireball Newsweekly Crosswords Nears Its Goal, and Funny Typos

We may be entering the lazy days of summer, but our litzers and proofreaders are certainly as active as ever!  On Sunday, Mark Diehl sent in 21 puzzles, putting his personal total at more than 2,800 litzed puzzles!  Then on Monday, Martin Herbach sent in five batches totaling 35 puzzles; later on, Mike Buckley sent in 7 more, and on Tuesday, Denny Baker sent in another 7.  On top of all this, Todd Gross proofread an entire month of 1982 puzzles and just sent 10 more a few minutes ago!  Way to go, everyone—before you know it, we'll be litzing from 1966 and proofreading from 1981!

In other news, I finished cluing the Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project metapuzzle late last week.  I sent the puzzle off for test-solving to steel-trap litzer/proofreader Todd Gross, who called it "an awesome piece of construction."  Based on Todd's excellent suggestions, I tweaked a few clues and the instructions yesterday—the puzzle is now completely ready for mainstream solving!

The metapuzzle, which will be available for download on XWord Info, will be released on June 29, the official one-year anniversary of the Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project!  There will be no charge for entering the metapuzzle contest—if you really enjoy it, though, a contribution to the Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project would be much appreciated!  And there will, of course, be crossword-friendly prizes!  In the meantime, the most important thing to do is spread the word about this metapuzzle to other crossword fans—the more solvers we have, the merrier!

Also, Peter Gordon's Kickstarter campaign for Fireball Newsweekly Crosswords has almost reached its $10,000 goal!  There were three awesome new awards offered earlier this week for pledges of $450 or more, and many additional awards at the other levels have been added.  So if you were thinking of pledging, say, $20 but were kind of bummed that all the book awards were gone, now you can get one!  I'm stoked about the Fireball Crosswords baseball cap I'll be getting, and there are still a bunch of those left.  The campaign ends Sunday, though, so if you'd like to see this very worthwhile project happen, click here to make a pledge or add to the one you already made!

As the proofreading continues, many more funny typos have surfaced and been corrected.  Here are several gems from the project's "collection," courtesy of Todd Gross:

• Entry:  PANEL
• Wrong:  Kind of trick
• Right:  Kind of truck
• Entry:  STRAP
• Wrong:  Brand of leather 
• Right:  Band of leather
• Entry:  PANNE
• Wrong:  Kind of valet
• Right:  Kind of velvet
• Entry:  UTES
• Wrong:  Slat Lake City team
• Right:  Salt Lake City team
• Entry:  SEVEN
• Wrong:  Numbeers of wonders
• Right:  Number of wonders

Today's featured puzzle, by an unknown constructor, was originally published on December 13, 1969.  It was edited by Will Weng and was recently litzed by Martin Herbach.  When I featured a 23-block crossword back in March, I never imagined I would discover another one from significantly earlier on.  But once again, the Will Weng puzzles offered a pleasant surprise:  another ingenious 23-block puzzle with an actual theme in the four intersecting 15-letter entries!  The theme is accounting, and our mystery constructor managed to come up with a tetrad of in-the-language entries that fit beautifully into the grid.  ARITHMETICAL AID is probably the iffiest of the bunch, but it's certainly inferable from the clue "Adding machine, for example."  The nonthematic fill is remarkable given all the grid constraints—who doesn't love entries like HOME RUN, MEANDER, and DELICATE?  There are a few enigmatic entries, though they aren't the usual sort of three- and four-letter dreck that snuck into many pre-Shortzian grids.  (In fact, a grand total of only 20 three- and four-letter entries, the vast majority of which are quite well-known, appear in the grid.)  These select few "meh"-inducers include PLANATE (clued as "Flattened."), SERENES ("Tranquil expanses."), and AUTOMEN ("U.A.W. members.").  I could add PICTISH ("Of an old British people."), SNUFFER ("Candle device"), and BELDAM ("Hag") to this list, but they're so much fun to say that I'm having a hard time objecting to them.  The clue for TUNE OUT ("Give up on, as a TV program.") is particularly amusing as well.  All in all, this is certainly one of the best pre-Shortzian puzzles I've seen—I don't think Weng will run out of surprises until I look at his very last (or very first, depending on your point of view) edited puzzle!  The answer grid (with highlighted theme entries) can be seen below:

Since we had five funny typos this week, I thought I'd feature five amusing clues (whose constructors are unknown) from the early Weng era as well.  Coincidentally, all five of these clues come from the same batch of Martin Herbach puzzles, which contained five weeks.  In the December 24, 1969, puzzle, the entry HAS-BEEN was clued as "One whose future is past."  The day before, the entry SNACK was evocatively clued as "Dieters, avoid this!"  I haven't come across any other pre-Shortzian clues that are such arrant commands!  The December 6 puzzle contained a cornucopia of clever clues, my favorite of which was "Marriage counselor's concern." for STATE OF THE UNION.  On December 4, the entry TAXIDERMY was brilliantly clued as "Stuffy business."  Finally, on a more historically interesting front, the entry PROGRAMMED was clued as "Fed the computer." in the December 3 puzzle.  Remember the good old days when computers were operated with punch cards?  Well, thank goodness I don't—Java is much, much more convenient!  Nevertheless, here is a picture of a computer punch card:

Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

Over 9,900, June Litzer of the Month Martin Herbach, Jim Horne's XWord Info Press Conference, Fireball Newsweekly Crosswords, and Funny Typos

We've now litzed more than 9,900 puzzles!  On Sunday, Todd Gross sent in 7, followed by 14 from Nancy Kavanaugh and 7 from Denny Baker.  Then Monday, Martin Herbach sent in another five batches totaling 35 puzzles, followed by 42 (probably the largest puzzle shipment ever!) from Mark Diehl, who put us over the 9,900 mark on the litzing thermometer!  Thanks so much, everybody—it won't be long before we're at 10,000!  (Incidentally, at least one litzer has told me he's hoping to be the one to put us over that milestone—it will be interesting to see who ultimately does it!)

The proofreading is also progressing—on Thursday I received a month of proofed puzzles from Tracy Bennett.  Many thanks again, Tracy!

Tomorrow is June 1, and we now have a new Litzer of the Month:  Martin Herbach!  As I've written about before here,  here, and here, Martin has devised a very effective and fast way of using optical character recognition (OCR) to litz.  Lately he's been sending in batches of 35 puzzles at a time in rapid succession, though recently some subpar PDFs of puzzles have slowed this process down a bit and necessitated manual litzing.  Luckily the poor-quality PDFs are relatively few and far between—there doesn't seem to be any correlation between a puzzle's original publication date and the PDF's clarity.  To read more about Martin, click here or on the Litzer of the Month tab above.

If you haven't read Jim Horne's informative and entertaining 2013 XWord Info Press Conference yet, click here to take a look (and see the mention of the Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project—thanks, Jim!)!  (I really wonder what got lost due to "technical issues" in those 26-minute initial remarks!)

Last week I wrote about Peter Gordon's Kickstarter campaign for Fireball Newsweekly Crosswords.  As of today, this promising project has reached more than 50% of its funding goal, and there are still 15 more days left to back it!  I have to admit, I was concerned last week when I saw how much more funding was needed, so I increased my pledge (and am looking forward to receiving a cool Fireball Crosswords baseball cap in addition to all the great puzzles!).  Increasing pledges is really easy on Kickstarter—you just log in, go to the project page, and click on "Manage Your Pledge."  Then you type in the amount of your new pledge (which isn't added to your previous pledge—the revised pledge is the total amount you'll be charged if the Kickstarter campaign succeeds).  If you'd like to increase your pledge or learn more about Fireball Newsweekly Crosswords and how to pledge, click here.

My list of funny typos is getting longer and longer, so I thought I'd include a few of the best today:

• Entry:  CORRS
• Wrong:  They report for news
• Right:  They report for. news
• Entry:  ALAI
• Wrong:  Part of a front on game
• Right:  Part of a fronton game
• Entry:  ILE
• Wrong:  Marine land
• Right:  Marne land
• Entry:  EIGER
• Wrong:  Peak in the Burmese Alps
• Right:  Peak in the Bernese Alps
• Entry:  LPS
• Wrong:  Disco ducks
• Right:  Disco disks

Today's featured puzzle (constructor unknown) was originally published on March 24, 1972.  It was edited by Will Weng and recently litzed by Mark Diehl.  As I've continued to review litzed packets of puzzles from the early 70s and late 60s, I've come across many daily puzzles with repeated-word themes.  Some of them have impressive theme entry interlock, but ultimately, the vast majority aren't interesting enough to feature.  This innovative puzzle puts a novel twist on the traditional repeated-word theme—it contains four arrangements in which a theme entry containing the word BUTTER appears to be on top of a theme entry containing BREAD!  The puzzle works on many levels:  The BREAD and BUTTER theme entries are the same length and feel in-the-language, the BUTTER entry is always above or to the right of the BREAD entry, and the theme entries are arranged symmetrically in a pinwheel formation.  In addition, the fill is exceptionally clean—an extraordinary feat, considering that the theme entries are stacked on top of each other!  I especially like the entries DAINTY, DICTATE, SHUSH, and CRUSH!  Among the very few not-so-great entries are ARCT (clued as "North: Prefix"), SIRUP ("Pancake coating: Var." [have you ever seen this spelling outside of crosswords?]), and ASHAKE ("Trembling").  Nevertheless, this daily puzzle is a tour-de-force—the constructor clearly knew which side his solvers' bread was buttered on!  The answer grid (with highlighted theme entries) can be seen below:

Today's featured pre-Shortzian entry is HELLBOX, which originally appeared in the November 28, 1970, crossword (constructor unknown).  This puzzle was edited by Will Weng and recently litzed by Denny Baker.  According to the Ginsberg clue database, HELLBOX has never been used in a Shortz-era puzzle.  This unusual entry was clued as "Printer's trashcan"; Webster defines it as "a receptacle into which a printer throws damaged or discarded type material."  The printing industry has lots of bizarre slang—I'll be featuring another typographical oddity next week!  For now, below is a picture of a hellbox:

Image courtesy of gochipmunk.com.

1983 Puzzles Up, 178 More Puzzles Put Us Over 9,800, In 1967, Daily Puzzle Authors Return, Albert J. Klaus, and Fireball Newsweekly Crosswords

Great news:  The proofread 1983 puzzles are up on XWord Info, and we're now busy proofreading 1982!  As more and more pre-Shortzian puzzles have been uploaded, Jim Horne has continued to expand the "Selected pre-Shortz observations" section of XWord Info.  He now has lists of the pre-Shortzian rebus puzzles, fewest and most block records, asymmetrical puzzles, pangrams, most common entries (and most common entries unique to pre-Shortzian puzzles), Sundays by title, and constructors!  I encourage everyone to check out these awesome lists (which are rapidly expanding)—to do so, just scroll down to the bottom of the main page of XWord Info.

This week a whopping 178 more puzzles came in, putting us over 9,800!  Early Saturday, Mike Buckley sent in 7 Will Weng–edited puzzles that had periods after the clues for the daily puzzles.  In his e-mail, Mike quipped, "Should we call them 'period pieces'?"  Saturday night, Howard Barkin sent in 21 puzzles, followed a short while later by 35 more puzzles from Martin Herbach.  On Sunday, Jeffrey Krasnick sent in 7; later that night, Mark Diehl sent in 14, putting us over 9,700!  Monday evening, Todd McClary sent in 7 puzzles, which were followed on Tuesday by 7 from Denny Baker.  On Thursday, Barry Haldiman sent in 7, Martin sent 35 more, and then late that night, Mark sent in another 34 puzzles, putting us at 9,799 and his own personal total at more than 2,700!  I added in 4 of my own, so we're now at 9,803!  Thanks so much, everyone—terrific job!

We're also now in 1967, another tumultuous year.  Here's a graphic representation of the hippie counterculture movement during the Summer of Love, which, according to Wikipedia, was "a social phenomenon that occurred during the summer of 1967, when as many as 100,000 people converged on the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco, initiating a major cultural and political shift":

Image courtesy of artifactor.org.

In other news, I'm thrilled to announce that daily puzzle authors have returned!  We've had a long spell with next to no daily puzzle authors, but this morning I sent out 10 packets from 1967 that almost all included the daily puzzle authors.  It's been a bit disheartening having to list the authors for so many puzzles as "Unknown," so I'm really glad those data are available again for a good percentage of the Farrar dailies!

Jim Horne noticed that there are already 115 pre-Shortzian puzzles by Albert J. Klaus.  I was able to dig up an obituary for someone by that name in Florida but haven't been able to find any other information about him.  If anyone remembers anything about this very prolific constructor, please let me know.

I'm really excited about Peter Gordon's Kickstarter campaign for Fireball Newsweekly Crosswords!  I already subscribe to Fireball Crosswords and like them a lot—they're always really interesting and challenging puzzles.  So when I found out about this new venture, which will feature 20 current events crosswords in which many puzzle answers will be taken from current news, I signed up right away!  I'm even more interested in this Fireball project because one of the things I like best about the pre-Shortzian puzzles of the Farrar era is that many of them reflected events and attitudes from the times in which they were written.  I've gotten something of an education from them, and I'm looking forward to learning more about current events in the most fun way possible—through great crossword puzzles!

Today's featured puzzle, titled "Arithmetricks," was constructed by Alfio Micci and edited by Will Weng.  It was originally published on October 3, 1971, and was recently litzed by Mark Diehl.  This exceptionally unusual puzzle features twelve symmetrically interlocking math problems!  The symbols (+, –, x, and ÷) actually appear in the grid, and the clues for these math problems are the answers.  For example, the clue "4" leads to SEVEN – THREE; similarly, "1/2" leads to SIX ÷ TWELVE.  I like how deceptive this gimmick is—even after a solver figures out that the theme entries are all elementary math problems, there's no way to know exactly what the problem will be (or even which operation will be used) until some of the crossings are filled in.  I also like that some of the multiplication signs read as ordinary x's—this not only allowed the constructor to get all the theme entries to interlock symmetrically but also added a fun new twist to an already wacky puzzle!  This puzzle exemplifies Will Weng's willingness to push the envelope and publish gimmicks that might not be universally well received.  I wouldn't be surprised if Weng got piles of letters from traditionalist solvers complaining that the gimmick didn't fit the definition of a crossword puzzle, as Margaret Farrar did when she published Bernice Gordon's novel ampersand rebus.

I have to admit that the nonthematic fill in this off-the-wall masterpiece is a mixed bag.  Some of the highlights include ERSATZ, SHRIEKS, CHARLOTTE, HOGGED, and ENCHANT.  The puzzle does have its share of iffy abbreviations and "mystery" entries, though, such as TRS (clued as "Train rails: Abbr."), GOSE ("Japanese town"), UINAL ("Mayan month"), TULU ("Dravidian Indian"), NHANG ("Tai people"), and OASI ("Insurance abbr.").  Even though this puzzle has some questionable fill, it's certainly one of the most interesting pre-Shortzian puzzles I've seen so far!  The answer grid (with highlighted theme entries) can be seen below:

I've been keeping track of the most clever clues that have jumped out at me as I've looked through the Will Weng–edited puzzles.  Here's an octad of my favorites:

• "Air-conditioning, so to speak" (COLD COMFORT)
• "Liquid assets of a sort" (WATER BEDS)
• "Perishables for Jan. 1" (RESOLUTIONS)
• "Breath unfreshener" (GARLIC)
• "Clip joint" (BARBERSHOP)
• "Dog's worst friend" (FLEA)
• "Dig this" (ORE)
• "Gnuisance" (GNAT)

Unfortunately, I haven't been seeing as many clever clues as we continue back into the early Weng/late Farrar times.  Litzer Jeffrey Krasnick remarked in an e-mail, "I guess clever clues are now a thing of the past (or future)."  There are certainly a handful of gems from the early days, though.  If you've come across any other clever early Weng/Farrar clues, please comment!  Below is a picture of some breath unfresheners:

Image courtesy of Wikipedia.