Ryan and Brian Do Crosswords

Can’t do it. I’ve been staring at this thing, about 85% done for the better part of an hour, and I give up. Fair warning: this is going to be an angry post. The combination of answers I don’t like in the grid plus the fact that I can’t complete it makes Brian a cranky boy. So if you don’t like this sort of thing, call Ryan. He’s always cheerful.

It’s a Patrick Berry puzzle, which in my opinion has come to mean two things. One, it’s masterfully crafted, and usually contains very clever wordplay, a fun gimmick, and a buttload of trivia, much of which I don’t know. The other thing it means is that Patrick Berry has written a zillion puzzles, and I wonder if he gets a bit of a free pass based on his reputation as a master puzzle crafter. Maybe the more seasoned constructors, like Mr. Berry, get certain puzzles accepted, puzzles which would likely be rejected had they been delivered by rookies. Maybe? Maybe. I’m thinking specifically of the very frustrating puzzle from August 2, 2009, which contained, essentially, unchecked squares with Greek letters spelled out in them. Today’s puzzle has another multiple-letters-in-a-box gimmick, but its inconsistency leaves me dissatisfied and annoyed.

The gimmick is hinted at by the title: “That Is Two Say.” Okay, this title doesn’t actually make any sense, except that the word “two” probably means that there will be, duh, two of something. Fine. In this case, it’s that some squares (randomly scattered around the grid) will get two letters in them. And these squares, when read in one direction, will sound like the two letters as syllables, and in the other direction, the letters will just be part of the bigger word.

Did that make sense? No? Good.

The first one I got was 60A. Music compilation marketer and 60D. “Married… With Children” actress. In this case, it’s K-TEL Records and KT (Katey) SAGAL. Get it? See, across, it’s the normal spelling of… wait, not really. I guess not really, because K-TEL isn’t a normal word. So in this instance, the K is a letter, and the T is part of TEL. But the down version seems to follow the vague formula, in that the name Katey and the letters KT both sound the same, when spoken aloud.

Okay, let me try to find one that works better.

108A. It’s not to be touched and 96D. Flu symptom, with “the” : POISON IV and SHIVERS. So this one works a little bit better. Except I’m not 100% sold since IV looks so much like the word it sounds like, ivy. I mean, the I isn’t even representative of a longer-spelled-out syllable. It’s just I.

Fine. One more try. Let’s see if there’s one instance of the theme actually working. How about 103A. American everyman and 104D. Carny booth prize : JOHN Q. PUBLIC and QP (Cupie) DOLL. Nope. Same kind of problem as with K-TEL.

Seriously? So this so-called theme doesn’t really follow a terribly consistent pattern, unless that pattern is to kind of work and kind of not.

Now, there are sections of the grid I haven’t even finished yet. I gave up, because I found solving this puzzle to be so frustrating and un-fun that two hours was more than enough. Below is my grid. The circled letters are the “theme,” and the grayed out boxes are the things I had to cheat on.

Oops. I already see a mistake I only partially corrected. 77A. Driving surface is TEEPAD, not TEEWAD. What’s a TEEPAD? I guess it’s some kind of golf thing. I had previously tried FREEWAY here, with the FR in one box, and then attempted to come up with the name of a Pointer sister that had an FR in it. I don’t know what I was thinking.

Here’s the rest of the theme entries:

• 14A. Club and 14D. Casual farewell : CUDGEL and CU (see you) LATER
• 24D. Post decorations on four-posters and 31A. Dental problem : BEDKNOBS and TOOTH DK (decay)
• 40A. Praiseworthy and 13D. Latin catchphrase sometimes seen on sundials : ADMIRABLE and CARPE DM (diem). First of all – Latin has catchphrases? Is that why the language has lasted the test of time so well? And second of all, the sundial thing – is that just there so that when you think of the one Latin phrase you know (carpe diem) you second-guess yourself because there were no sundials in “Dead Poet’s Society”?
• 47A. Chianti and Beaujolais and 48D. Singer who player herself in “Ocean’s Eleven” : REDS and ED (Edie, or maybe Eydie) GORME
• 67D. How drunks drink and 74A. “Fer-de-Lance” mystery novelist : TO XS (excess) and REX STOUT. Yes, use this one horrible time to not talk about Nero Wolfe, which is the only way anyone knows who Rex Stout was.
• 70A. 1873 adventure novel that begins and ends in London and 55D. Units of fineness : AROUND THE WORLD IN AT (80) DAYS and KARATS.
• 83D. Chisel face and 87A. Stop worrying : BEZEL and REST EZ (easy)
• 93A. Dipstick housing and 94D. Driver of the Cannonball Special : CRANKCASE and KC (KC? Or Casey?) JONES
• 116A. Jealous and 107D. Sneaker material : GREEN WITH NV (envy) and CANVAS. This may have been the one theme crossing that actually seemed to a) work, and b) be solvable by the idiots in my office (me).

My last series of gripes is with the entries that just don’t make sense for me:

• 56A. Authors’ aids: Abbr. : AGTS. How does this work? If the agent is helping the author, is he not an aidE? Or does the mere fact that he’s aiding the author make him an aid? And what agents aren’t really just in it for themselves anyway? The author is merely a vehicle to bring income to the agent.
• 78D. One end of a digression, for short? : PAREN. What is this, for parenthesis? Who says “paren”? And why does this clue get a question mark? It’s not clever, and it’s not wordplay. In fact, it’s not even a word.
• 83A. Republic once known as Dahomey : BENIN. Joon, don’t even bother. I’m in a bad mood already.
• 89D. Mug with a mug : TOBY. What on earth is this?
• 97A. Masters piece : POEM. Who is Masters? Someone famous? I’m sure. I’ve never heard of the Bard Masters.
• the crossing of 106A. Unaccented syllable and 100D. “Peer Gynt” princess : ATONIC and ANITRA. First of all, ANITRA and ANITA in the same grid? Feh. See also: SMIT/SMUT and TEATS/YEATS. Second of all, stop crossing two things that aren’t words.
• the crossing of a whole bunch of names and a theme entry made the middle of the grid a big-time goat rodeo. REX STOUT crossing with TO XS, TROLLOPE and DUANE.
• 101D. Bad connection, say : MISHIT. I had all but the first two letters in place, thanks to crossings. And thanks to that, my crossword puzzle had a naughty word in it, and all the letters were right. Ha ha ha.

You know – I’m going to stop here. I just didn’t like this puzzle. I didn’t like that the theme squares were randomly placed, that they had no consistency with across and down, that they had no consistency with whether the letters were parts of words or initials or letters or whatever.

I admire Patrick Berry’s puzzles a great deal – most of the time. I admit, I didn’t care for the one with the Greek letters. And I don’t care for this one very much. It’s clever, but I wanted it to be done thoroughly, not arbitrarily.

I look forward to the rest of the world singing Mr. Berry’s praises in the comments below.