Damon Winter/The New York Times President Obama and Mitt Romney shaking hands with audience members after their final debate last month.
TUESDAY’S PUZZLE — Today’s puzzle is a
New York Times debut by a very nice young man named Erik Agard. I’ve
had the pleasure of corresponding with Mr. Agard on all things puzzle
and humor, so it was a lovely surprise when I saw his name in this
week’s queue. We’ll learn more about him after the discussion.
If you haven’t voted early, Mr. Agard has kindly reminded us via circled letters in the long Across entries of the two main political running teams, OBAMA/BIDEN and ROMNEY/RYAN. The fun thing here, though, is not sussing out the running mates. The fun thing here is trying to figure out where Mr. Agard stands in his political leanings.
We’ve got DEM right below President OBAMA, but that’s obvious and doesn’t tell us anything. TEA Party is stuck mysteriously between the Democratic candidates, but I recognized that as the red herring it was so obviously meant to be. What finally gave away Mr. Agard’s clear contempt for both sides? He’s accusing them of a cross-party sex scandal.
That’s correct. Oh, this one is so going to get me that Pulitzer, when they finally add that Best Crossword Blogging category. Only another few hundred phone calls to the Pulitzer Committee and I just know they’ll cave, if they don’t disconnect their phones first.
Anyway, the SEX scandal is uncovered at 51 Across, under RIGHT ON THE MONEY, and continues with a reveal of the turn ONS between BIDEN and ROMNEY. ROMNEY throws OXO hugs and kisses down toward RYAN and ERICA Jong, writer of sensual fiction and poetry, even joins in.
That is journalism, my friends. Reading between the lines. You can thank me later.
On another subject, here is why you should never try to do the crossword puzzle before you’ve had coffee: I filled in the entry at 54 Across, which should have been TAJ as TAL, because my caffeine-deprived brain conflated TAJ and Mahal. That led me to having LAR as 55 Down’s “Pickle holder.” Personally, I’ve always held pickles in my fingers, but for all I know there are fancy people out there with utensils made specifically to avoid having pickle juice run down their wrists. So I looked up LAR, and I will tell you that if there is one thing you do not want, it’s the shock of Google imaging what is supposed to be some kind of fork and seeing pictures of monkeys, automatic weapons, and for some reason, a priest. As always, I’m not quite sure what it is, but let that be a lesson to you all.
Let’s meet Mr. Agard:
Let’s move on to the Wednesday puzzle with the most awesome scene in “MR. SMITH Goes to Washington”:
If you haven’t voted early, Mr. Agard has kindly reminded us via circled letters in the long Across entries of the two main political running teams, OBAMA/BIDEN and ROMNEY/RYAN. The fun thing here, though, is not sussing out the running mates. The fun thing here is trying to figure out where Mr. Agard stands in his political leanings.
We’ve got DEM right below President OBAMA, but that’s obvious and doesn’t tell us anything. TEA Party is stuck mysteriously between the Democratic candidates, but I recognized that as the red herring it was so obviously meant to be. What finally gave away Mr. Agard’s clear contempt for both sides? He’s accusing them of a cross-party sex scandal.
That’s correct. Oh, this one is so going to get me that Pulitzer, when they finally add that Best Crossword Blogging category. Only another few hundred phone calls to the Pulitzer Committee and I just know they’ll cave, if they don’t disconnect their phones first.
Anyway, the SEX scandal is uncovered at 51 Across, under RIGHT ON THE MONEY, and continues with a reveal of the turn ONS between BIDEN and ROMNEY. ROMNEY throws OXO hugs and kisses down toward RYAN and ERICA Jong, writer of sensual fiction and poetry, even joins in.
That is journalism, my friends. Reading between the lines. You can thank me later.
On another subject, here is why you should never try to do the crossword puzzle before you’ve had coffee: I filled in the entry at 54 Across, which should have been TAJ as TAL, because my caffeine-deprived brain conflated TAJ and Mahal. That led me to having LAR as 55 Down’s “Pickle holder.” Personally, I’ve always held pickles in my fingers, but for all I know there are fancy people out there with utensils made specifically to avoid having pickle juice run down their wrists. So I looked up LAR, and I will tell you that if there is one thing you do not want, it’s the shock of Google imaging what is supposed to be some kind of fork and seeing pictures of monkeys, automatic weapons, and for some reason, a priest. As always, I’m not quite sure what it is, but let that be a lesson to you all.
Let’s meet Mr. Agard:
Before I regale you with details from my boring life, a public service announcement: if you can vote in today’s election, and you haven’t yet, please do. In case you couldn’t tell from the puzzle, I think the whole democracy thing is pretty neat. Seriously. Please vote.
O.K., we’re on to me now. I’m a sophomore African-American studies major at the University of Maryland (Terp Nation!) I haven’t quite figured out what I’m doing with my life yet, but it will, without a doubt, involve puzzles. I also have a crossword blog! I’m not sure if I’m allowed to plug it here, but if you’re reading this sentence, it means I am most definitely plugging it, and that you should click on the link.
I stumbled upon the punchline for this puzzle in August, and thought to myself, “Self, this would make a great theme for a crossword puzzle! If only there were an election coming up sometime soon.” And the rest, as they say, is… i can’t remember how the expression goes, but this is a thing that happened.
I’m already out of stuff to say – I really do hate talking about myself – but before I go, I’m going to Oscar acceptance speech this thing {Cue “walking off” music — D.A.}We hope to see you here again soon too, Mr. Agard.
This is a dream come true. I want to thank my family, Will and Paula, the lovely Deb Amlen (whose life I have hopefully not made harder in the process of writing these notes), Mr. stein and all the Blair people, Matt Gaffney, Brendan Emmett Quigley, and most importantly, you. You’re awesome. You made this possible. Thank you for solving, and I hope to see you back here sometime soon.
Let’s move on to the Wednesday puzzle with the most awesome scene in “MR. SMITH Goes to Washington”:
No comments:
Post a Comment