NYT 4:22 ... LAT 2:40 ... CS 1:53 ... ND 2:04 ... WSJ 5:38 ... BEQ 9:28 ... MGWC ~3:00
Cool design by Martin Ashwood-Smith in the NYT. His 10-Minute Crosswords book has the most aesthetically pleasing empty puzzles of any in my library. Flip through it at Barnes & Noble - gorgeous grids. Today's had some great clues too, which I don't usually notice speed-solving.
Nice Newsday by Sandy Fein - a Klahnian grid, in that the theme is simple and minimal, but the fill is wide-open and interesting. I LOLed at seeing the "first Ghanaian president" clue... his last name is in BEQ's Diagramless Crosswords, and I found it the most obscure/random entry in the whole book. Thanks BEQ, because I knew his first name today.
Also thanks BEQ for publishing a Trippy "Something Different" today!
3 comments:
you have BEQ's diagramless book? i thought it wasn't out yet.
i actually knew KWAME nkrumah. back when i did quizbowl i learned lots of names of 20th-century african leaders. nowadays i can't always keep straight which leaders went with which countries, but i can still remember their names. omar bongo, mobutu sese seko, jonas savimbi, patrice lumumba and joseph kasa-vubu... great names. they're all about as important as idi amin, but not all of them have as crossword-friendly names (though you do see SESE in the grid, of course).
nowadays, i think NBA draft bust KWAME brown is the most famous KWAME.
I test-solved the BEQ book. Speaking of new books, I should pick me up some Vowelless Crosswords today.
Thought the KWAME clue was funny because of those other KWAMES from this century. Are those Africans really comparably important? I knew of Mobutu before SESE and SEKO came up in Crosswordese 101, but never heard of the others. Omar Bongo!
lumumba and kasa-vubu were president of the DRC or congo or whatever it was called then. i feel like there's some ridiculous story involving lumumba being assassinated by the CIA and then toted around in the trunk of a car for weeks, but i don't remember the details. savimbi was the head of the rebel organization UNITA, which was at war with the angolan government for decades. it's a big deal. omar bongo was president of ... i want to say gabon ... for something like 30+ years, and maybe he even still is. he was even in a very long sun clue last year.
oh, and i probably should have thought of him earlier, but i'm guessing KWAME kilpatrick is (in)famouser than brown (or nkrumah) nowadays.
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