This is the crossword puzzle thread

6 minute tuesday was a new record for me... was it just real easy?

new yorker puzzles are fairly easy trivia heavy themelesses, don't know if they work on
a phone

https://www.newyorker.com/crossword/puzzles-dept/2020/01/27

like these puzzles too: https://www.ariespuzzles.com/

not sure if available in the US but the Times (uk) quick crytpic regular Teazel has a good crossword app simply called Crossword Cryptic

I’m looking for a new crossword now that I’ve stopped buying the Times. Atm I’ve been resorting to the i and the national.

i subscribed here but won't get a new issue until april (?!?!), will report back
https://gamesmagazine-online.com/

had a Games subscription for a while, good shit.

they are exorbitantly expensive! i think it's $30 for 6 issues via subscription which is almost always like 20% of newsstand but not here

if you're primarily after American-style crosswords there's plenty of indie options that are a better value

would love to hear about on paper options that don't suck

these are free and dece: https://www.brendanemmettquigley.com/

American Values Club, the now long-former Onion AV Club crossword, sorta kicked off indie crossword subscriptions afaik, and I can vouch for the quality and relative freedom from the tired NYT house style https://avxwords.com

AV Clubs are good, yes

The Inkubator is a good AVCXword spinoff

https://inkubatorcrosswords.com/

Also ulysses you'll probably get your first issue soon—they're pretty far out as far as dating issues goes

good! I thought that was nuts to buy in january and have to wait three months!

My conceptual art piece of the day https://imgur.com/hJpHfU0

https://m.imgur.com/gallery/zIsbIrK

Oh forget it.

i dig the concept

Is it some kind of rebus?

Another good themeless today! 27:38 for me.

Deviously clever NYT puzzle today

Yes! I quite liked it.

same. cracked it with the "school daze" clue

Just walked out in my garden for a few, too few minutes of sunshine. Heard some kids and then came within a dozen feet of a guy sitting out there supervising them who turned out to be Ben Tausig. He told me he and his wife had already had the virus and recovered.

He doesn’t even live here, but a block away. He assured me he was practicing good social distancing with this other family.

cool

^I didn’t know where to post this so I posted it here, sorry

no it is cool!

He is one person I seem to see around the neighborhood a lot. I usually say hello to him even though he doesn’t ever quite remember who I am. So to me it was kind of funny that he was sitting there in my garden, especially since I didn’t recognize him for a bit and then had that “hey, Wait a minute!” moment.

sounds like you have a number of cool neighbors !

Were you reading one of the other threads?

I did the "crossword from your couch" tournament on Saturday, super fun puzzles. Was 244 out of 1815 total entrants, and no mistakes, which I was pretty happy with...the playoff puzzle with the hard cluing totally kicked my ass, however

puzzles here: https://www.crosswordtournamentfromyourcouch.org/puzzles/

Actually, just found out that two of my former across the street neighbors will be on the cover of the May issue of Downbeat.

dang i didn't know about that tournament! hope they do another one

I think it was bcz ACPT was cancelled. I've never done any kind of tournament before

xps

hi, yes, sorry james. you mentioned a neighbor on the hoagy carmichael thread, where i’ve been meaning to post but haven’t. wasn’t trying to be nosy.

Ben T. tweeted about COVID-19 yesterday:

We've now officially tested positive.

I am not mentioning this to be alarmist. I'm physically fine, and have no more symptoms. I'm totally, totally ok, and focused solely on not exposing others.

But damn, the mismanagement. The levels and layers of mismanagement.

— American Values Club (@AVCXWord) March 24, 2020

Anyway, I popped in here to say that I've decided to get into crosswords again while in quarantine. I re-subscribed to the AVC crossword (after letting my subscription lapse 3 years ago) and have been going through back puzzles. It's proving to be an excellent distraction from the news.

Are you constructing as well?

So this is a thing

https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/03/fight-to-make-crosswords-more-inclusive/608212/

I agree, and love seeing fresher, more inclusive puzzles.

(But I am not gonna stop doing NYT puzzles because I am fucking good at doing them, and frankly I need all the tiny victories I can get right now)

i'm bored with nyt puzzles but the ease of doing them on an ipad is perfect for me. i wish i could get the new yorker puzzles the same way

I really like Natan Last's puzzles! Probably my biggest regret in lapsing on doing the NYer every week.

Erik Agard is my favorite from the NYer crew, he's a genius (at crossword solving/constructing), and he cares a lot about inclusivity.

My current NYT stats

Monday average 5:24
Tuesday average 6:15
Wednesday average 7:13
Thursday average 9:54
Friday average 9:24
Saturday average 10:45
Sunday average 16:56

As a dork I am interested in how this graphs, because it steps up so neatly in one-minute increments but then I'm slightly faster on Fridays than Thursdays. (Because hard themeless is my jam; some of the Thursday gimmicks just elude me for too long. Rebuses and whatnot).

Wish I could bring Sunday down more just for visual elegance - but it's all about the size, not the difficulty.

How often do you get a DNF, out of curiosity?

Are you constructing as well?

― Robbie Shakespeare’s Sister Lovers (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, March 26, 2020 11:40 AM (two weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

Haven't quite gotten back into that yet. I think I need to solve more to get more into the construction mindset, where themes start popping into my head.

However, I *have* started editing a monthly puzzle (by V1c Fl3m1ng) for the magazine I work for.

Josefa - I have never not finished. On archived puzzles from years ago, I will use "check" and sometimes need to run through all the letters. Every once in a while I do get well and truly stumped, alas. So I confess I have sometimes googled to get out "1973 Superbowl MVP" or "1952 Best Supporting Actress nominee" or whatever. Three or four times a year?

But for the current puzzles in the week's streak, it's all legit; I would rather just work my way out of it by focusing on the internal logic of the puzzle or solving the other direction.

Wow, that's impressive. I can finish maybe 14 out of 15 of the contemporary NYT Fri and Sat puzzles, but I bought a collection of Sunday puzzles from the Eugene Maleska era (1988-1992 specifically) and they are way way harder than today's puzzles... I can finish about 1 in 5 of them.