As threatened, I’m posting the two crossword puzzles I created for The New Yinzer in 2003 and 2004.
The October 2003 puzzle is the first crossword I ever created, and at the time I found it only slightly more difficult than removing my pancreas. Every time I changed a letter to make a clue work, another would fall apart. But I was young and stupid. Now that I’m older and stupid I know I was going about the process kind of backwards. As a result the puzzle contains several humiliating two-letter answers, and in the clues you can see me straining to turn some of the ridiculous strings of letters into acceptable words. It’s kind of like a TV Guide crossword written by an intern who’d just finished reading a Malcolm Gladwell book (see 30-down, for example). The 2004 puzzle seems surprisingly composed in comparison, even if I inexplicably squeezed in a synonym for “ducklike.”
Anyway, I just tried solving both puzzles after having not looked at them for seven years, and they seem surmountable. Be warned that the clues include a fair number of Pittsburgh references, since they were published in a Pittsburgh literary magazine. But they also include “Red suns are pasted in the sky like them” and “Ralph Macchio probably doesn’t know that this literally means ‘empty hand,’” so I’m not apologizing.
Oh and also: digging up these puzzles has inspired me to try to create some new ones, since I need something new to do to fill my downtime, at least until I figure out how to unlock the three-wheeled door in Tomb Raider: Underworld. So stay tuned.
- “It’s Fall” (Oct. 2003) – Download/print | Answers
- “I am Getting So Hot; I am Going to Take My Clothes Off” (May 2004) - Download/print | Answers
