Administrivial Puzzle Contest Alert! All the puzzles this week, from Monday to Saturday, have been created by one person, Patrick Blindauer. Keep your solutions handy, because the Saturday puzzle conceals a meta-challenge involving the solution grids of all six. When you have the answer to the meta-challenge, send it to crossword@nytimes.com. (Please do not post them here on the blog; they will not be counted as submissions.) Twenty correct solvers, chosen at random, whose entries are received by 6:00 p.m. Eastern time Sunday, Oct. 26, will win one-year online subscriptions to The New York Times crossword. Only one entry a person, please. The answer and winners’ names will appear on Friday, Oct. 31, at www.nytimes.com/wordplay. Good luck to all who enter!
MONDAY PUZZLE – This is going to be an exciting week. Not only do we have our crossword puzzle contest, but all of the puzzles through Saturday are by the one and only Patrick Blindauer, a man of infinite creativity, a man of both words and letters, a man whose “Change of Heart” puzzle made me consider changing my name and finding another line of work, based solely on the comments and mail we received about it.
But Mr. Blindauer, who is also a man of incredible perseverance, has worked with Will Shortz to put together a suite of puzzles that will challenge even the most experienced solver. Maybe not at the beginning of this week, but surely by Saturday. And if not by Saturday, then when contemplating the meta-challenge that needs to be solved correctly in order to enter the contest. Remember, all of the solutions for this week are needed, so hold on to them.
I chose “Midnight,” the clue for 35 Across, as this post’s headline, because it occurred to me that when we begin to unravel a mystery, it’s like being in the dark. We feel around for that which is familiar and try to make sense of things that seem nonsensical. Bit by bit, we piece together clues that seem disparate, but whose reason for being and connection will become clearer over time. Hopefully, we eventually emerge from the darkness a wiser person. Could that be why Mr. Blindauer has chosen increasing increments of time as his theme today?
I always love seeing a Beatles song in a crossword, and DAYTRIPPER made me happy. You got all the theme entries, right? You don’t need me to list them. Take your time and figure them out for yourself. Hold on to your answers as you solve, and pay close attention. Eventually, you’ll see the light.
Let’s see what Will Shortz and Mr. Blindauer have to say about this first puzzle:
Will Shortz’s Notes:
Every autumn since 2008 I’ve run either a themed puzzle week or a Sunday puzzle contest in the Times. In 2008 it was a week of daily crosswords constructed by teens. The following years were, successively, crosswords by Times contributors for 50+ years, members of the Brown University crossword club, all-Patrick Berry, and Sunday crossword contests by Caleb Rasmussen and Mike Selinker.
This year I’ve returned to the 2011 format with a whole week of daily puzzles constructed by one of the greats of crosswording, Patrick Blindauer. The first five puzzles, Monday to Friday, look like normal crosswords. As the instructions explain, though, they contain the start of a hidden message. The Saturday puzzle completes the message and has cryptic instructions for finding it.
Can the hidden message be identified before the Saturday puzzle is published? I’d be astonished. But then I’ve been astonished by Times solvers many times before, so we’ll see.
By the way, the contest prizes this year have been upgraded to 20 one-year subscriptions to the online Times crossword. These prizes are nice, but (as you’ll notice) still modest. Federal and state laws don’t allow large prizes for contests that involve any significant element of luck, which this one does. You have to be lucky to be randomly selected from those who submit correct answers.
Still, it’s really the fun of the event that’s important. Also, if you win, you get your name in Wordplay next Friday.
Happy solving … and good luck!
Constructor’s Notes:
When Will asked me if I’d be interested in writing a six-part meta for The Times, of course I jumped at the chance. I’d be a fool not to … on the other hand, it had been done once before by my crossword idol, Patrick Berry. There’s no way I could make something as intricate or clever, but hopefully it had been long enough that people might’ve forgotten about his magnum opus a little. Rather than cower in the shadow of a giant, I resolved to do my own thing with it and give it my best shot. I had some ideas brewing, so I quickly set off to work on the set of crossword puzzles you’re seeing this week.
This is a six-part series of interconnected puzzles, each of which contains a piece of a larger mystery, which leads to a final answer. I won’t say anything about the meta-challenge until the contest is over, but today’s surface theme is a simple, Monday-level category theme featuring increasing units of time. Luckily for everyone involved, Will and Joel eased up the clues on this one considerably. Some of the clues that got changed (read: Clues I’ll use another time) include [Scientist Bill whose mother was a codebreaker], ["___ a Bully, Charlie Brown" (TV movie)], and [Josh who voiced Olaf in "Frozen"]. I like to think that part of this is due to space limitations, since space in the paper is extremely limited (especially when it includes a big blurb about the contest every day). I’ve gotten used to writing longer clues for crossword venues like my website and the American Values Xword Club, I guess, so a bunch of clues had their gists maintained and got truncated. Other gems like [Answer to "Paris est-il la capitale de la France?"] and [Apt anagram of CO-STAR - S] weren’t my doing at all. HUARTE is an obvious outlier, but I thought all the crossings were fair; this puzzle does skew older, what with HUARTE, CLU and HARLOW. Anyway, I hope it was a fun and breezy way for solvers to start the week, whether they’re participating in the contest or not.
I thought it was fun and breezy, didn’t you? But who knows what evil lurks in the heart of Patrick Blindauer? Stay with me this week as we make our way out of the darkness and solve this mystery together. All it takes is time.
Your thoughts?