Good afternoon, crossword fans — welcome to Week 116 of my contest. If you’re new to the contest and would like to enter, please see the site FAQ on the left sidebar for instructions.
LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:
Ding ding ding — new record! 341 entrants (old record was 327) correctly found JETBLUE hiding in the seven circles in last week’s grid. That was the airline on which flight attendant Steven Slater recently blew his top — cursing out passengers on the P.A. system, grabbing a six-pack of beer, then deploying and sliding down the plane’s emergency chute at JFK airport.
The names of five other airlines began last week’s theme entries:
DELTA HOUSE
UNITED FRONT
AMERICAN DREAM
VIRGIN DRINK
PAN AM GAMES
Peter Gwinn even found a seventh airline in the mix:
I was hoping that the answer would be TED (26D), the recently departed United spinoff, and one of the silliest ideas in the history of aviation.
While Adam Gale notes an inelegance among the theme entries, and suggests an improvement:
The clue for 60-Across is not consistent with the other theme clues. The other theme answers use the name of the airline in a non-airline sense, but PAN AM GAMES is used solely as a reference to the airline.
Instead, maybe something about jumping down the emergency chute being a good way to train for the next Pan Am Games?
This week’s winner, whose name was chosen at random from the 341 correct entries received, is H.B. of whereabouts unknown.
LOLLAPUZZOOLA:
Congratulations to Jeffrey Harris, Joon Pahk and Jon Delfin for their 1-2-3 finish at Lollapuzzoola 3 last weekend.
Hear all the gory details in tournament organizers Ryan Hecht and Brian Cimmet’s entertaining podcast here:
BEQCC:
A rather spectacular — and hitherto unnoticed, AFAIK — piece of wordplay forms the basis of Brendan Quigley’s crossword contest this week. Really wish I’d thought of this meta! Check it out.
WILK ON THE WILD SIDE:
You already know that Matt Jones and Ben Tausig grace the pages of alt-weeklies across the country with their syndicated hipster crosswords. But there’s a third self-syndicating edgy kid in that mix, too: David Levinson Wilk, who made me laugh while solving his puzzle this week in Charlottesville’s C-Ville Weekly.
The puzzle’s not available online, but David sent me the Across Lite file so you can enjoy its sheer goofiness as I did. It’s in the MGWCC archives under the filename “wilk”. NOTE: if the file is corrupt when you click on it in my archives, try saving it to your desktop and opening it there (right-click on the file in the archives, then copy and paste to the desktop).
Humorous note: David mentions that he originally submitted this puzzle to the New York Times, which rejected it because it has too many black squares — 57! That is a lot…
THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:
One of the ten famous animals listed in this week’s three long theme entries is missing its mate. Which one is it? E-mail it to me at crosswordcontest@gmail.com by Tuesday at noon ET. Please put the contest answer animal in the subject line of your e-mail. [UPDATE: 8/20, 6:00 PM ET: Bambi is a boy, not a girl! Who knew? Apparently everyone but me (36-across). Just a mistake, not part of the meta, FYI].
To print the puzzle out, click on the image below and hit “print” on your browser. To solve using Across Lite download the free software here, then join the Google Group (1,300 members now!) here.
Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.