MADness—the Blog

You may have heard reports of a crossword sighting, and we can now confirm.  MAD Puzzle No. 8 is in building.  If you want it, I’d recommend looking in the Puzzles room.

That one is new, this one is not.

Notice anything odd?

Of course not.  Congratulations on a job well done!

Are you stumped?  I’ll explain, after the jump.

That second grid is from a puzzle of mine that ran in the New York Times last Thursday.   If you’re a regular solver, it’s probably old news, but if you’re a Times subscriber and you haven’t done it yet, you may want to before reading on.  (Puzzle is here; comments from Wordplay’s Jim Horne et al.—and me—here.)

The “nothing odd with this” puzzle has no answers with an odd number of letters.  All answers are 4, 6, 8, or 10 letters in length.  A puzzle with all even-length answers is unusual—and it’s all right with me if you want to say that’s odd.

The reaction to the puzzle was odd too, with a few grenades tossed my way that I have to admit I didn’t see coming.  I usually fare pretty well, but fair to say, the appeal of this one didn’t exactly appeal to everyone.  On the other hand, some people liked it a lot.  I received emails from a couple of well-known names in the crossword community that were very complimentary.  That was a nice surprise, and I’ll take that trade.

I was traveling at the time and didn’t get to say anything real-time, and I don’t have anything to add now, but I did come accross the first all-even grid that I designed.  It’s an ugly beast—73 black squares—but it confirmed for me that a grid with all even-length answers was possible.

It’s not gonna happen, but it would be fun to see that grid for a puzzle in the paper someday.  If people wigged out on last week’s, I can’t imagine the conniption they’d have on this one.  I’d have to make some popcorn before reading the comments that day.

Heads-up:  my next puzzle in the NY Times is a week from today, Friday, the 23rd.

1. Pete Normand says:

   August 13, 2010 at 8:34 am

   I had a lot of problems with this one. A COVE (26-across) is not a “spot to moor” unless your boat can be made fast to a dock, pier, wharf, slip or some other man-made structure. In this case, a better clue would have been a “spot to anchor.” “DANL” (44-across) was a poor crossword. Its clue was worse. RENU (45-across) is a brand name word that I would guess is only familiar to some (but not all) people who wear contact lenses. It was certainly a stumper to me. SPERRY (46-across) did not invent the “gyro,” a Greek sandwich. SPERRY invented the gyroscope. ERGS (55-across) and DYNE (44-down) … what can I say. This whole puzzle was a real stretch.