Sorry for the delays once again, folks. Today I’ve got spicy puzzle that doesn’t care about your crossword rules, man! What follows in the rest of this post is actually a play-by-play of how this puzzle’s theme came together. Warning: it contains spoilers. So go solve the puzzle first before reading on.
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I’d built the initial template of this grid last year, but didn’t go for much of a cohesive theme set beyond “rebus puzzle with phrases that contain the word LOVE.” Some of the original answers inside the heart were LOVE SEAT and the Lady Gaga song “LoveGame.” But earlier this week I realized that IN LOVE was the title of a Ronnie Milsap song, and that I could fit the Dean Martin classic “THAT’S AMORE” at the original space for 2-Down, so I went off and running to find other appropriate lovey-dovey song titles.
Filling the heart itself proved to be very challenging at first. Instead of just any LOVE-related phrase, I needed three specific songs. I refused to use the aforementioned Lady Gaga song for theme consistency — I didn’t like how LOVE became contained in a single word in that entry where it would be a free-standing word in the others. I also refused to use LOVE SONG by The Cure just because, strangely, it would have been too apt; it would describe every other theme entry in the puzzle, but it would be off-center in the grid, and plus I already had a separate revealer down below. After trying various combinations with titles like LOVE BOMB by AC/DC, REAL LOVE by Mary J. Blige, THIS LOVE by Maroon 5, and LADY LOVE by Lou Rawls, I got a working theme set as seen in the actual puzzle where I could fill it successfully and reasonably well.
(And as for ADORING right in the middle? Totally unplanned. But it worked out neatly.)
The exterior of the grid was a bigger problem. THAT’S AMORE was a good Valentine-y title, but I was having major trouble getting a matching title on the other side. At that point, the grid looked like this:
What I needed was a 10-letter love song title that fit multiple conditions: the third letter was an A; it could not use the word LOVE (or ADORE); it had to be something at least reasonably well-known for a crossword puzzle, though I would have accepted something that was at least gettable; and above all, it had to scream “love song” in the title. Surprisingly, there were almost no good choices that I could find for a 10-letter love song title beginning with I WANT or I HAVE. Even a 10-letter love song beginning with HEART- just wasn’t happening. HEARTLIGHT by Neil Diamond seems like it could be decent option, but that’s a song about the movie “E.T.” (because of his glowing heart…..yes, it’s true).
What I wanted most was a well-known title that unambiguously hinted at the theme of love — as in, you don’t need to know the song or the lyrics to think it was a love song. That proved to be just about impossible. The best options I could in my search find were:
STAY WITH ME by Sam Smith — a big hit last year, though it’s more of a song about lost love, and the lyrics say “This ain’t love.”
STAY MY BABY by Miranda Cosgrove — this song never made it to the Billboard charts at all, I don’t think.
CRAZY ON YOU by Heart — this was probably my best option and it is about love among other things, but I doubt people normally think of it as a love song. Of course, it is by Heart, and that would be appropriately Valentine-y.
I’M ALL YOURS by Jay Sean — only #85 at its peak on the Billboard Top 100, but it does have 27+ million views on YouTube.
TE AMO TANTO by Flex — perhaps not terribly well-known for those who don’t listen to Latin music, but it has 32+ million YouTube views. It also has AMO where I already had AMORE in another theme answer.
I CAN’T LET GO by numerous artists (Air Supply, the Hollies) — I didn’t think the title sounded love-y enough.
So what did I do in this situation? I crowdsourced for help to get an alternative, and even offered to give someone co-constructor credit if they could get a good one. Multiple friends (listed below) offered to go on a similar search with me. And guess what? Just about everyone had as much trouble as I did. Some decent alternatives they suggested were HEARTQUAKE by Mads Langer, which is pretty obscure; and HEARTBEATS by The Knife, which the lyrics suggest is actually a pretty dark song (not to mention obscure). CHANCES ARE by Johnny Mathis is a classic love song, but the big problem with that was that the title itself doesn’t unequivocally suggest the theme of love like THAT’S AMORE does.
Finally, solver Peter Abide suggested that I look for 13-letter song titles with LOVE in a rebus square. While I was a little worried about using LOVE rebus squares that were unchecked in some cases and crossed in others, I thought that was a better problem to have than a long theme entry that was iffy by design. Plus, there were a lot more song options to choose from this way. Peter found WHAT ABOUT (LOVE) by Heart (a good choice) and I WANT YOUR (LOVE) by Chic. Now all I needed were crossing titles with LOVE in it. After dropping in a couple of cheater squares, I got (LOVE) IS and MY (LOVE). Perfect.
Because of some issues with filling the grid cleanly, however, I went with a couple of different song titles than what Peter originally suggested: SAVE YOUR (LOVE) and PART-TIME (LOVE). Still, he gets major credit for helping me make my theme more cohesive.
I need to also thank the rest of those who volunteered their time to help me search for a good theme entry. In alphabetical order, please stand up: Adam Bergman, Peter Broda, Matt Gaffney, Jesse Lansner, Roy Leban, Paul Melamud, Alex Miller, Tony Orbach, Dani Raymon, Bruce Ryan, Jeffrey Schwartz, Jill Staunton, and Brad Wilber. You’re all heroes. As you can see, sometimes it takes a village to make a crossword. If I left your name off of this list and you’d like credit, my apologies — just let me know and I’ll add you here.
Happy 14-Across, y’all. There will be a new Devil Cross puzzle on February 21.
Update, 2/16/15 @ 5:20 pm ET: A solver points out that 56-Across should begin [1976 tune…], not [1978 tune…]. I’ve fixed that.
Written on Feb, 07, 2015by Evan Birnholzin Spicy | Comments Off on PUZZLE #34: Themeless 15 (and contest results)
Today’s Puzzle
72-word themeless today. Not much to say about it since there’s a whole contest write-up below. So enjoy the puzzle — there will be a new puzzle on Valentine’s Day, February 14.
Special Thanks
Once again, my thanks to my test solvers for checking out the meta, in particular Sam Ezersky for his kind shout-out on his weekly crossword site (which has fun puzzles that you should solve, too). I have two other bits of major gratitude: first, to Matt Gaffney for nominating “Hidden Gem” for Puzzle of the Month for January 2015 (the second overall nomination for Devil Cross); and second, to Amy Reynaldo and the solving community for voting my Fireball puzzle “White Lies” among the Top 25 puzzles for all of 2014 (it finished tied for #21). There are some great puzzles on both lists, and I’m very appreciative to have any of my crosswords included with them.
“Hidden Gem” Contest Results
Last week’s meta puzzle asked solvers to find a specific gemstone. Here’s how it worked:
There were five starred theme entries: TRAVIS MCGEE, BRIAN CRANE, JEFF AMENT, IGGY AZALEA, and LESLIE BEVIS. Some of these names may have been unfamiliar to you (confession: I was not familiar with all of them myself before writing the meta), and so the puzzle may have required you to harness the power of the Internet to help you through. What you had to realize was that each name was associated with a very specific gemstone.
The clue for TRAVIS MCGEE referred to a 1973 book where he goes to Hawaii and helps out his friend Pidge. That book is “The Turquoise Lament.”
One of BRIAN CRANE’s major characters in his comic “Pickles” is Opal Pickles.
The bassist JEFF AMENT plays for Pearl Jam.
IGGY AZALEA’s birth name is Amethyst Amelia Kelly.
The clue for LESLIE BEVIS referred to her character in “Spaceballs,” and she played Commanderette Zircon.
The first letters of those gemstones, in order, spell out TOPAZ, the meta answer found by 72 solvers. This was an appropriate-ish meta to run on Devil Cross’s first birthday, considering the theme answers were associated with birthstones and the meta answer itself was another birthstone. I guess AMETHYST would be the apt birthstone for February birthdays, but who cares?
Fun Fact #1: as far as I can tell, TOPAZ is the only birthstone that can be spelled out using the initials of other birthstones, hence why it got the nod for the meta. PERIDOT and PEARL come close, but there’s no birthstone beginning with I or L.
Fun Fact #2: the very first idea I ever had for a crossword six years ago involved gemstones. I’ve long had a fascination with them for some reason, probably stemming from old computer games that included gemstone riddles like this one and this one. Anyway, when I first sat down to try and make a crossword — with some combination of graph paper and Microsoft Word’s “Insert Table” option — I tried to jam twelve birthstones in a 15×15 grid at the same time. Of course I didn’t realize then that the idea was lame, but I didn’t have to. The grid showed me right quick that it just wasn’t gonna work –too many impossible crossings with that many theme entries. So I never got anywhere with it then, but thought it’d be fun to resurrect the theme idea now.
Solver comments:
Jeffrey Harris mentioned that it’s a surprise that John D. MacDonald (the author of the Travis McGee books) didn’t include more gemstones in his titles. As I found out, MacDonald’s titles in the Travis McGee series followed a color pattern. In fact, this came up in a discussion on Matt Gaffney‘s color-themed meta puzzle last week, as Peter Abidepointed out that crossword legend Merl Reagle made a color-themed 21×21 puzzle in tribute of all 21 titles in the McGee series.
My clue for 26-Down was [Author who inspired the musical “Wicked”], and the answer was BAUM. But Jim Quinlan wrote, “Isn’t it more appropriate to say that the book ‘Wicked’ by Gregory Maguire inspired the musical? And that Baum inspired Maguire’s book?” It’s a fair point, and one I didn’t really consider while writing the puzzle, though I think the clue is still technically okay since the musical was based on Baum’s original characters (albeit with Maguire’s story arc). Actually, that reminds me: BAUM is the reason I went with stars on my theme clues. I worried that solvers might see the associations between the theme answers and the gemstones, then see BAUM’s name sitting in the grid and think, “A-ha! the answer must be the Emerald.” It might be weird if that one little filler answer contributed to the meta when no other short answer did, but BAUM has a close enough association with the Emerald City that I figured I should cover my bases.
Sean Forbes submitted the correct answer but made an interesting observation: “Interestingly enough, starting with the D in 21-Across, you can spell out “diamond” Boggle style in 2 different ways — don’t know if this was intended or not.” It wasn’t intentional, but that is pretty damn cool — a real hidden gem, indeed!
Paolo Pasco noticed something sneaky while searching for the gemstones on Google: “Clever thing, to edit Leslie Bevis’ Wikipedia page.”
He’s right! He saw that a mysterious Wikipedia user named Ebirnholz did some underhanded work for this meta before it went live. I wanted solvers to be able to find the correct gemstones on each theme entry’s Wiki page, but they were originally missing for both Brian Crane (see here for more details) and Leslie Bevis (see here). I edited some sentences on their respective pages to say that “Pickles” is about a retired couple, Earl and Opal Pickles; and that Leslie Bevis had a minor role in “Spaceballs” as Commanderette Zircon. That may have made searching for the right information a little easier, but that’s alright. All I had to do was hope that a) solvers would find what I wanted them to find, and b) that no other Angry Wikipedia user would see those sentences and erase them. Looks like my strategy worked!
(Note to self: consider being evil by editing certain helpful information out of Wikipedia for a future meta. *cackles*)
Finally, Neville Fogarty writes: “You’re so fancy.”
Observe song #1:
And now observe song #2:
Alright, now for the big moment: the winner of the contest, randomly selected from all 72 correct answers, is Tim Mitchell. He’ll receive …. Something! We haven’t yet settled on a prize. But it will in fact be Something unless otherwise specified.
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