Lee Higbie author page
1 puzzle by Lee Higbie
with Jeff Chen comments
See the 6 answer words debuted by Lee Higbie.
| G | L | A | M | M | O | U | N | T | C | A | B | S | ||
| A | U | T | O | E | R | R | O | R | A | S | A | P | ||
| L | I | E | U | D | E | L | T | A | N | A | S | A | ||
| A | G | A | S | S | I | S | C | A | N | I | N | |||
| S | I | T | S | P | A | T | P | H | A | L | A | N | X | |
| E | A | S | E | E | A | R | S | |||||||
| E | T | D | T | H | X | A | R | M | C | D | S | |||
| S | H | I | B | U | Y | A | S | T | E | W | A | R | T | |
| P | E | A | R | L | S | H | H | L | I | M | E | Y | ||
| M | P | A | A | H | O | O | A | L | P | S | ||||
| L | I | E | V | C | O | L | O | R | L | E | S | T | ||
| O | K | R | A | A | L | I | T | O | A | R | C | S | ||
| G | A | B | I | N | D | E | E | D | Y | V | O | L | ||
| I | D | A | S | I | E | R | R | A | S | A | D | O | ||
| C | O | G | A | T | M | S | N | L | N | E | T |
Alas, a 108th anniversary puzzle doesn't quite catch people's attention. Seeing as Lee didn't want to wait 92 more years, perhaps it was better to shelve this one.
But wait! You all know I love me some grid art, so as I was reading up on this explosion — expelling 30 times more ash than the St. Helens eruption, for 60 hours? — I began to wonder if we could make something resembling a volcano out of black squares. Maybe with ASH blowing out the top? And LAVA flowing down the sides?
The grid turned out to be a red hot gusher, spewing crossword goo everywhere we tried to fill. 60 bleary-eyed hours later …
I wish we could have opened up the mouth of the volcano for better solving flow, but nothing worked. Ironic problem for a puzzle about a MOUNT blowing its top.
For those of you who don't know SHIBUYA, put it on your bucket list. I've had the fortune to travel to Japan for work a dozen times, and seeing all the crazy outfits and styles was always a highlight.
As with all highly constrained constructions, we had to figure out some trade-offs, and if a bit of HOO, ISA, ETD, VOL inelegance bugged you, that's on me. I give you free rein to kick my ASH.