Stanley Newman author page

You want two forms of ID? Why? The PRESIDENTIAL BIDs were free and fair! Do I need to PROVIDE EVIDENCE? Sigh, I'm going to need some more ROLAIDS ANTACIDS, which have more than PAID DIVIDENDS during these past two strange weeks.

See what (I D)(ID) there?

I would have loved TWO FORMS OF ID as a revealer today. IDS by itself at least points out what's going on, but it doesn't give adequate rationale why there are two of them in each theme answer.

Stan's such an old-time pro, having done this for decades. I was impressed by how smooth the solve went (mostly). True, there are only three theme answers, so I expect nothing less than an exceptionally colorful and clean grid, but incorporating EAST BAY (anyone remember J.R. Rider?), DUE SOUTH, IT'S A GIRL (no gender reveal parties though!), MATZOH, while only relying on a bit of YALE U (do Elis say that?) is solid.

The one knock: PARIETAL crossing ULSTER. Man, those are tough words to expect newer solvers to know. Hopefully, you've gone to med school or been reincarnated from the Victorian days.

I would have liked a stronger revealer to tie everything together and a snazzier set of themers — especially given that there are dozens to pick from — but this one mostly worked as a newb-accessible Monday.

QUEEN VICTORIA's 200^th birthday! An excellent feature entry to build around, and so nice to catch the bicentennial. Can you imagine people naming an entire (Victorian) era after you? Unfortunately, "Chennian" doesn't have the same ring to it.

Stan's "Saturday Stumper" puzzle in "Newsday" is often the hardest puzzle of the week, of any publication, bar none. It's great for the top of the tip-top solvers who want a devilish challenge. I gave it up a while back because I averaged approximately zero point zero zero letters filled in.

Today's puzzle had a stumper-ish vibe: not many playful clues, and a ton of difficult (to the difficult power) ones. Even the one delightful clue, [London or Manchester] for WRITER made me stop and think. Jack LONDON, yes, but MANCHESTER? That's ... William MANCHESTER, who confusingly was an American? It's clever, but it would have a bigger impact on someone more well-read than me.

TIX are [Passes, informally]? Yes, when they're passes to the movies. [Tool used on foot] is an EDGER? I suppose so, although I've used them while sitting down, too. Why so specific about using them on foot?

Satan is the DEUCE?

Yikes! This is supposed to be the easier of the themelesses, Fri vs. Sat. I bet it's tough for Stan (you ever notice how Stan and Satan only differ by one letter, hmm?) to make things easier when he's so used to aiming for harder than diamonds.

I liked some of the other feature entries, like SLAPDASH, OPEN BAR, LEND AN EAR, US SENATE. There were so many entries that felt out of my generational grasp, though. I do like PASCAL and MANTLE, both timeless fellas. But with the addition of ABRAM, NONCE, LINDY, the puzzle as a whole had a past-tense / historical vibe.

Not a bad thing, considering how many older solvers there are.

However, with how hard it played for me — more a hard Saturday than a Friday — it wasn't my cup of Victorian tea. I'm a big fan of Earl Grey's spicy bite, so I appreciate Will asking Stan to lively (liven?) it up. Could have used another round of iteration in that regard.

I think the theme is … entries with two Qs? At first, I was underwhelmed, as there have to be a ton of entries with two Qs, yeah? Not the case! I only searched for a few minutes, but the few others I turned up were QUOTE UNQUOTE, UNIQUELY QUALIFIED, QUID PRO QUO, QUADRATIC EQUATION, QUELQUECHOSE, QUEEQUEG, QLEARQUIL, LIQUOR IS QUICKER, BURLESQUE QUEEN(S). Shows what I know!

Although having so few theme squares made the theme feel thin, it did allow Stan to play with a wide-open grid. A couple of long entries, the juicy CUE CARDS and MORTIMER, gave me a smile (as I reminisced about "Trading Places" and "Arsenic and Old Lace"), and a whole slew of seven-letter fill in the corners. There wasn't anything sizzling in that mid-length material, but I did appreciate TORPEDO, POITIER, and the good use of the Qs in ACQUITS and MACAQUE. These are all fun words, although I wish at least some of those seven-letter entries had really jumped out at me like CUE CARDS.

Speaking of CUE CARDS, is that related to the theme? Or could it have been? Sometimes I think puzzles don't give solvers enough credit when they use an overt "revealer" phrase at the end of the puzzle, summarizing what's going on with the theme. Here, I think there's untapped potential for some wordplay, some fun CUE of CUES phrases that could enrich the theme. Not quite sure what that might be, though. If only TWO CUES or CUE PAIR or something were a real phrase.

But Stan does a nice job of smoothly filling his grid, only a minor SCI and … that's it. Pretty darn good work considering he had to work around six Qs — not an easy task. I personally would have preferred more colorful fill, especially more multi-word phrases like CUE CARDS, at the cost of a few more gluey bits. Since the grid is so beautifully clean — pretty much immaculate — I doubt I would have even noticed two or three more bits as minor as SCI. But it's a reasonable decision to go almost perfectly clean, if not that snazzy.

Nice little trick today, using the holiday to create misdirection. "Thanksgiving phrase" has nothing to do with the Thanksgiving holiday, but instead refers to "giving thanks." Appropriate for the day, and a fun twist of wordplay.

I had no idea JUDGE JUDY was the highest-paid person on TV in 2014 — not sure whether to applaud her for the empire she's built, or groan for what this says about America. That's a really cool piece of trivia, one I enjoyed learning and which will stick with me.

Stan's Saturday Stumpers in Newsday are regarded by some to be the most difficult puzzle of the week, and I'd have to agree, rarely (if ever) finishing one (even the one I wrote!). Often he uses oblique clues, single-word clues chosen for their ability to accurately describe roughly half the words in the English dictionary, shenanigans relating to dictionary definition #86, and SAT words to up the difficulty level to 11 and beyond. As a solver, it's usually not my favorite type of puzzle, in that it sometimes feels to me more like a homework assignment than a diversion.

But I can understand people loving that type of uber-challenge. And I definitely got a strong sense of satisfaction when I finished today's puzzle; that I was able to actually complete what felt like an incredibly difficult Thursday puzzle felt like a big win. Finally piecing together things like PARE from [Take a coat off] gave me a huge sigh of relief.

Interesting layout today. I usually like interlock, and it is pretty neat that Stan found three themers that connect so neatly. It's so unfortunate that the 13s in rows 3 and 13 require those unsightly triplets of black squares in each corner. Twelve extra black squares introduced into a single puzzle ... I would personally have preferred a straightforward 13/11/13 layout, which might also have opened up the grid for more colorful 8+ letter fill. Subjective matter — there will probably be some out there who think the black squares border the grid nicely.

Finally, I absolutely loved the clue for RETORT, most solvers thinking about a kitchen counter first because "sharp edges" usually refer to physical objects. Use the "comeback" definition of "counter" and you have a brilliant clue. That's the type of dictionary shenanigans that personally does it for me.

Crossword veteran Stan Newman works to bridge a generation gap (or two), tying older DVDs together with a DVD RECORDER revealer. I didn't quite understand how the revealer worked at first, but it started to make some sense after cogitating over it. A DVD RECORDER (different than a DVR — thanks to Josh Saks for pointing this out) in this case is a person recording DVD entries into a crossword grid. Doesn't totally fire on all cylinders for me, but it's nice to work a little bit to understand a Monday puzzle.

I used to be a big fan of the Patty Duke Show (I'm an identical twin; what do you expect?) and have seen every Gilligan's Island episode roughly 16 times, so this puzzle made me want to go back and check out DICK VAN DYKE. I've never heard of DEATH VALLEY DAYS — I put in DEATH VALLEY HIGH before turning red, admitting that I knew what SWEET VALLEY HIGH was. Anyhoo, both nice answers.

With just three theme answers, this puzzle has lower theme density than today's average of four themers. Additionally, most puzzles with only three themers have 13-15 letters in each, which makes this feel even slimmer. It's pretty hard to make DVD RECORDER anything else than that, though, and I think a relatively thin theme can be just fine. To me, I would have loved to see one more DVD entry — but is that possible? Challenge issued! Can anyone think of one in the same vein? I'll put the winning entry or entries at the end of this post.

Low theme density does open up a puzzle for both clean and lively fill. Stan does the first in spades, really not having much of anything stick out. APACE is kind of an awkward word, and Gay TALESE isn't in my wheelhouse, but he does seem crossworthy, at least from his Wikipedia entry.

I would have loved to see more long fill in this puzzle, given the low theme density. Stan's point about going up to 78 words is well-taken; that definitely makes it easy to fill a puzzle smoothly. But it also means that there's not much room for additional meat in the puzzle. PAPA JOHNS and NERVE CELL, that's the kind of fill I like as bonus material. I personally might have played with removing black squares, the ones between MOBS / FEAR and SAPS / LADY, for example. A pair of 9's in those two slots could have helped a lot. In today's quickly evolving crossword market, I think beefing up a thin theme is near essential. Not enough to "just" have smooth fill anymore.

So far the best DVD candidate, by Mike Black: DALLAS VS DENVER [Super Bowl XII matchup, the only NFL Championship game with its initials]. I also like Bruce Haight's DALLAS VIA DENVER [only airline route from New York to Colorado that has those initials]. Creative thinking!

What a workout today. Having the three main theme answers be opaque until the very end made this one play like a quote puzzle. Eventually I was able to piece it all together, and afterward, I felt like I had just done ten sets of ten weighted pull-ups.

Okay, five sets of five.

Would you believe three?

Fine, I did the flexed arm hang! But yes, I was drained afterward.

As with most all of his puzzles, Stan does a nice job of laying out this one and filling it with quality. With just three themers, I would expect there to be some snappy longer fill, and Stan doesn't disappoint. LOANER CAR is beautiful, my favorite of the bunch, but LIFEBELTS was also quite nice. I had no idea what a RALLYE was, but it was fun to read up on. Even MCCOY brought back some nice memories of "Star Trek." I would start saying "Dammit Jim (Horne), I'm a writer, not a Javascript coder!" But being from Canada, I think Jim would likely just say, "Eh?" Politely, of course.

And as with Stan's "Saturday Stumpers" in Newsday, he does a great job of avoiding the icky short stuff. AGCY isn't great, nor is HIRER, but if those two are your worst entries, you've done a nice job overall. Good care taken with his construction, as always.

To me, the theme felt somewhat underwhelming, sort of an afterthought to having solved the puzzle. I suppose I could have gone back to marvel at each and every clue having exactly four syllables, but after a quick peek at three or four clues, it seemed to check out. I just wasn't sure why four syllables was significant, or why it was four syllables instead of four-letter words, or 140 characters, or something else with some rationale behind it. Would have been really nice to have some additional layer, some unifying theme revealer to pull it together.

Anyway, a good, hard workout. In closing, my favorite clue = [What takes a stand?] = TBALL = super fun (both TBALL the game and the clue — I may or may not have totally beat my nephew the other day at TBALL and rubbed it in his face). I love the clever repurposing of "taking a stand" here.

Quote puzzles have an incredible ability to draw out strong reactions from solvers, some people loving them, some people calling for the guillotine. Well, I say haters gonna hate, solvers gonna solve. Not totally sure what that means, but it sounds catchy.

A veteran of the crossword world steps in for his first NYT puzzle in quite some time. Stan edits the Newsday crossword, and often comes up with the hardest puzzle each week, his "Saturday Stumper." I wrote one Stumper for him and tried to race Dan Feyer on it. But Stan had upped the difficulty so much, I barely solved it, having to guess in a few places (chalk up another victory to Dan; no surprise).

The quote today is amusing, although I found it slightly too easy in that I was able to guess the quip with a lot of blanks still out. And these days quote puzzles have become a bit overdone, requiring a truly hilarious or surprising quote in order to make it stand out. I did like today's, but I didn't personally find it to be something I'd tweet. Look at me, joining the 20th century! (Twitter: @JeffChenWrites)

I found the grid very interesting, though. Very unusual to see three black squares stacked in each of the corners. These "cheater squares" are a bit unsightly, but they are necessary when putting a 13 (or 14) letter entry in rows 3 and 13. Doing this does let Stan spread out his four theme entries so that it's easier to make a low word-count grid (72). And there is something visually cool about seeing those rectangular blocks. Perhaps it's just the novelty of it, but they started to grow on me. I wouldn't want them very often but to see them once in a while is a nice change of pace (just like a quote puzzle!).

One trademark of Stan's "Saturday Stumpers" is that he's very careful to avoid easy-to-answer three letter entries like SST, ESE, etc. And true to form, look at the care he's put into this grid: very few subpar entries. Maybe REDRAFT is the least appealing piece of fill? And not a single three-letter entry is a stinker. That's very good work. Granted, there isn't much with a "wow" factor, perhaps SODA POP or PEAPODS as the snappiest entries. But that's what often comes with a tight, clean grid.

I appreciate both ends of the spectrum: Stan's ultra-clean but not as snazzy approach on one end, and other constructors' wildly fresh but with a necessary sprinkling of crosswordese on the other.