Ryan and Brian Do Crosswords

Ryan’s back in town, so this might be the last you see of me for a while. For all I know, he’s writing a blog post about this puzzle as we speak, but I can’t get him to respond to my Google Chat, so who knows. RYAN! If you’re out there – I’m blogging already!

Today’s puzzle is a bit of an unusual one. It seems that if you access the puzzle online (via the PUZ file to use with Across Lite or through the nytimes.com applet), you can’t get the full effect. Here’s a link to a PDF of the puzzle.

As you can see, there’s a Bingo game smack dab in the middle of the puzzle. For those of you who attended Lollapuzzoola, you probably can tell as quickly as I could where constructor Todd Gross got his idea for embedding another game into the middle of a crossword puzzle. Todd – I’ll be collecting my inspirational 10% whenever you’re ready.

So the grid contains a handful of entries that are unclued, but turn out to be call numbers for the Bingo game. For example, 1A and 1D are B-SEVEN and B-TWELVE, respectively. Check off all the Bingo squares as you go, and if you did it right, you might just win. (Win what? Hard to say. Ask Will Shortz.)

First, one side of my brain. I think this was very clever. It broke the mold, it did something new. Unclued entries within a theme are a tricky concept, and this one went even further by having an entire second game in the grid. (Also, I think maybe the word count was lower than usual, due to a 5×7 block of nothingness in the center.) The fill, overall, was good (a few nit-pickies coming up later).

It was interesting using a new element to help my solving. I was able to figure out certain answers because they existed in the Bingo grid. Six letters with a Y at the end? It’s either N-FORTY or G-FIFTY. Doing this helped me get crossings that otherwise would likely have stumped this solver.

On the other side, I guess I should ask this first – did everyone get the same Bingo card? Or does it vary from paper to paper? If we all got the same Bingo card, then there’s no real game here. We all get bingo. Maybe some of us get it faster than others, but we all get the same winning card. However, if all the newspapers around the world printed different variations of the Bingo card, then it’s more of a game. (I wonder, of course, how this could even be possible, though, considering the millions of print copies of the New York Times that must be run off.)

A handful of things were new to me:

• 18D. Combine that makes combines : DEERE. I don’t even know how to say this clue out loud. The only noun kind of combines I know is where football teams test out the skills potential new players.
• 23A. The Pequod, e.g. : WHALER. Is this from Moby Dick? Where’s Joe Krozel and Peter Collins when you need them?
• 79A. What “prn” on a prescription means : AS NEEDED
• And a GCI: 93A. Writer Zora ___ Hurston and 94D. Popular 1940s radio show “___ Alley” : NEALE and ALLEN’S. I didn’t know if that was an A or an E. I guessed A, for what it’s worth.

And a couple I didn’t love:

• 22A. It comes after a “long time” : NO SEE. Cute, but it doesn’t sit right for me.
• 35A. Plumbing or heating : TRADE. What? Heating is a trade?

What’s your thought on this Bingo puzzle? Gimmicky with no reward, or clever beyond your wildest dreams? Chime in below.

See you Monday! (Or, rather – you’ll all see Ryan on Monday!)