Redd's Roster of Crosswordese: Do not read if you hate DRNO

Now I want to call a trivia team or suchlike
CELEBE SOX. DO U SEE?

I doubt anyone will want to follow me down this rabbit hole, but really enjoying doing these Dawn of the Shortz Era puzzles.

Do you mean like deep 90s stuff? More power to you, JR+tB. I have only dabbled in that area.

Currently I am working my way backwards into the archive, year by year. Currently on 2012, generally doing Wednesday through Saturday. (I usually don't bother with Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday except to keep the streak alive.)

2012 has a couple of decently clever Thursdays and some tough Fridays, but it's all pretty recognizable Shortziana. Looking forward to some baffling stumpers and Celebes Oxyness as the project proceeds. I am getting a graduate-level education in baseball-playing Alous.

At the same time I am trying to nurse a decent streak of current puzzles. Hope to hit a year in March or April.

The only time I think of ANI Difranco is when I do the crossword.

November 21st, 1993 was the beginning of the Shortz Era, which began with a splash with a Sunday puzzle by Peter Gordon, who therefore has a Shortz Number of one. I have yet to encounter Celebe’s ox or even DRNO himself.

Actually I must have seen him on December 27, 1993, but won’t see him again for a year.

Kind of like the retro nature of doing puzzles that are from before the blogs and before XWord Info comments, but still in the database so I can see the stats along which answers and clues are still used.

You can even solve the Pre-Shortz puzzles if you want, but I don't want.
https://www.xwordinfo.com/Calendar/1993?type=pssolve

I have a book of Eugene Maleska-era puzzles, and trying to solve them is like getting ice water thrown in your face. They’re so insane you wonder how people actually finished them back then.

In Infinite Tuesday, Mike Nesmith talks about how he had an uncle who would do the Sunday crossword pretty quickly– presumably some Texas paper– and then throw it away. One day young Michael fished the paper out of the garbage and saw all these unpronounceable nonsense words. It was like that moment in the documentary when R. Crumb finally looks at his brother’s sketchbook to see his latest work.

Part of the enigma that was Uncle Chick came into a degree of focus one Sunday after he had finished the crossword puzzle and left for the golf course. It didn’t make sense to me, this extraordinary word skill, and Chick didn’t really discuss anything with me that gave any hint about his thought processes. So on this Sunday I pulled the paper out of the trash, where he had thrown it, and looked at the puzzle, searching for clues. When I first looked at the filled-in puzzle, it seemed normal. Words like moon and igloo and kayak were in their proper place. Then I started to notice words like fonqi and nmfberhng and qplltrkller. Then I finally saw that most of the words were unrecognizable, and weren’t words at all. As this sank in, I was glad I was alone in the house. I carefully folded the paper up, put it back in the trash, and backed away.

That is funny. I bet Maleska could find a way to clue fonqi though.

I remember being able to do early week puzzles and even a leisurely Sunday puzzle solve back in those days, although I never attempted to speed solve and barely even tried Friday and Saturday.

Interesting to see how the cluing of EGAN has evolved.

Check it out: EGAN was in three puzzles in a row, Sun through Tuesday, starting the week of Jan 9, 1994.

Prefer this clue for one of today's answers from 1994: Hagar the Horrible's honey.

bobdole/clinton entry in the NYT sunday puzzle apparently

Monday's puzzle chock-a-block with classic crosswordese.

crossword constructors breathe sigh of relief as ESAI morales is cast in the new mission impossible movie

Lol!

Was just reminded on Novelists No One Reads Anymore of SOBIG, which I recall seeing a lot although doesn't seem to be that often in Shortz Era NYT.

Have to ask - is there anyone who calls a peanut butter and jelly sandwich a PBJ irl? PB and J to be sure, or even PBNJ, but PBJ? this has recently risen to the top of my bugaboo list

i am okay with that one

less so with TAX BITE, which appeared the other day

Agreed, I remember that puzzle seemed to have a few answers that were questionable