![]() ![]() The spirit of Merl made the whole weekend feel very warm. Having Merl's voice fill that ballroom again was both haunting and inspiring. I had to go stand by myself off to the side toward the back, because I kind of couldn't deal. It was all terribly beautiful and crushing. Patrick Creadon (director of "Wordplay") put together a tribute to Merl on Saturday night, made up of footage and outtakes from "Wordplay" interspersed with Patrick's own reminiscences of both Merl and of Patrick's father, who also died last year. Merl's partner Marie was there to present the first ever MEmorRiaL award for Lifetime Achievement in Crossword Construction (it went to the legendary Maura Jacobson, longtime crossword maker for New York Magazine, and longtime ACPT puzzle contributor). It was also improved by a general feeling of happiness and gratitude that pervaded the whole tournament, largely because so many of us were missing the presence of our friend, Merl Reagle. The tournament experience has definitely been improved by the move back to Stamford. I was pleasantly surprised at how many varied and excellent places there were to eat and drink within walking distance of the hotel. And yet Stamford in no way sucks as a host city. The tournament feels more like Home in Stamford than it does in Brooklyn-people aren't being pulled off into the various distractions of the big city. This was my first time back in Stamford since my very first tournament, in 2007, and it was very good to be back. Well, now that it's no longer timely, let me tell you what ACPT weekend was like. It was bad to begin with, but with all the interleague play now (I mean, the Tigers opened in Miami? Miami!?!? Ugh), the terms mean even less than they did before.Ī brief recap of last weekend's ACPT ( contains one tiny possible spoiler for one of the puzzles, if you are planning to solve them at home and haven't done so but it really is tiny): Strive to go beyond the cliché! Also, kill ALER. Remember that people who aren't Exactly like you actually solve your crossword, constructors. This puzzle needs to rethink its priorities. GRIDIRONS doesn't even get the football clue that it should have, probably because only unwashed heathens care about "sports." I don't know. NAH and NAE in the same grid? Again, as always, no one of these is unforgivable, but en masse, all this junk is suffocating. ![]() SERIO- and SINO- are sequential Across answers? This is head-hangingly sad. AGE ONE is also a NO WAY, as all AGE-whatevers are (green paint, made up). YAGO is terrible fill that is also an absurdity. In Shortz era, it appeared once in 2013, but before that, it was 2003, and then 1997. site? Is "sant' gria" a thing that is different from "sangria"? Anyway, this is one of the stupidest, most "hell no"-ish things I've ever seen in crosswords. WTF is YAGO? I try to google and it's just stupid automated crossword clue sites and then YAGO's own. Which is sad, because again, the theme concept is adorable. I mean, son of a LEVERET, this was off-putting at every turn. But now, when I do a puzzle like this, I realize how much the NYT appears not to care (at times) about solvers who are not already in The Club. They are getting to be good solvers, and of course there is no reason at all that everything (or even most things) in a puzzle should be thrown softly into a millennial's strike zone. I had a conversation with some very smart novice solvers in their early twenties recently, and was brought up short by how much the NYT crossword's cultural center of gravity is beyond them. But Holy GNEISS, ATMAN, there has to be a way to balance and broaden a modern crossword's frame of reference. If this reminds you of the good old days when you learned to do crosswords during the last regime (or even earlier regimes), I get it, we all have pangs of nostalgia from time to time. A single NAS does not a modern crossword puzzle make. Please don't ever complain to me again about "popular culture" (boo hoo!) if you somehow think this puzzle, with its ROLLOs and ERNIEs and alt-spellings and OLEOS and prefixes galore is somehow OK. Frame of reference, solidly 40-50 years ago. This is a throwback to when crosswords were an exclusive, exclusionary test of all the dumb short and / or arcane words you needed to know to participate. I guess if I were feeling generous, I'd just call the fill " CLASSIC," but I'm not. But fill this rough / dated / Maleskan simply shouldn't be allowed to dominate a NYT crossword in the 21st century.
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