Crossword 137: Decease

 
Evelyn de Morgan, The Angel of Death

Evelyn de Morgan, The Angel of Death

 

This is the third and final installment of the trilogy—hence the “cease” of “decease.”  Some critics may think I’ve got the order wrong, as “Defeat,” “Decease,” and “Decomposition” are, in a sense, the final three chapters of anyone’s biography.  

But the more subtly observant puzzle connoisseur will notice that the first pun of the first of the series returns as the final pun of the last of the series, giving the whole a pleasingly cyclical form that, in the face of decline and decay and despair, hints hopefully at renewal.

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137-Decease.puz

137-Decease.pdf

Solve this week’s crossword online:

137 Decease

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A crossword of mine appeared yesterday, July 3, in the Los Angeles Times

Crossword 133: Literal Stem-Winding

 
George Elgar Hicks, A girl listening to the ticking of a pocketwatch while sitting on her mother's lap

George Elgar Hicks, A girl listening to the ticking of a pocketwatch while sitting on her mother’s lap

 

As the attached note informs you, to appreciate this puzzle properly you must fill it entirely with lower-case letters, as though you were e.e. cummings.  I’m thinking of taking up the lower case myself and insisting that the world refer to me as “david alfred bywaters.”  The combination of apparent humility (no big letters for itty-bitty little me!) with actual ostentation (I’m not like everybody else!) should prove irresistible.

Download this week’s puzzle:

133-Literal-Stem-Winding.puz

133-Literal-Stem-Winding.pdf

Solve this week’s puzzle online:

133 Literal Stem-Winding

Crossword 132: Crossed Words

 
Albert Joseph Moore, Waiting to Cross

Albert Joseph Moore, Waiting to Cross

 

Here’s another crossword title that would do for any crossword whatsoever.  It’s the second in a groundbreaking series I began with Crossword 113: “Can You Fill This Out?”  I’m planning several sequels, including “Numbered Clues with Corresponding Answers,” “Across and Down,” and “It's Puzzling!”  And all these titles are, of course, available for use with my blessing to novice constructors. It’s my way of making a contribution to the common good.

Download this week’s crossword:

132-Crossed-Words.puz

132-Crossed-Words.pdf

Solve this weeks’s crossword online:

132 Crossed Words

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A crossword of mine will appear today, May 30, in the Wall Street Journal.


Crossword 125: E Emotion

 
Walter Langley, Silent Sorrow

Walter Langley, Silent Sorrow

 

Here’s another crossword which, though made like all my crosswords to endure forever, is nonetheless at the same time keenly focused on the present moment.  A few weeks ago I made a puzzle on the topic of the general retreat (by those who can afford it) from the pandemic onto the internet; now here’s another, on that trend’s darker emotional consequences.

Are you indignant at the obscurity of this crossword’s base phrases? at the randomness of its substitutions? Are you tempted to compose an angry complaint? There’s no need! This crossword includes within itself its own outraged response! The 15 letters involved in its substitutions (either as replacing or replaced) can be anagrammatically rearranged into the terse but telling phrase, “Hate E Emotion Gag!”

Download this week’s crossword:

125-E-Emotion.puz

125-E-Emotion.pdf

Solve this week’s crossword online:

125 E Emotion

Crossword 120: Whirled Piece

 
James Jacques Joseph Tissot, At the Rifle Range

James Jacques Joseph Tissot, At the Rifle Range

 

I’ve got a thirty-eight special, and a Colt forty-five, and a thirty-two-twenty, and a Winchester seventy-three, and a hard-shooting pistol just as long as my right arm, but, I don’t know, somehow I just don’t feel safe. . . .

Actually——that’s a joke!  I’ve never used  a gun.  All right, I admit it, I’ve used STEN and UZI once or twice in a puzzle, and I used NRA (as Will Nediger points out) just last week. But if any of you solvers out there have purchased a submachine gun, or joined the NRA, because you found these things mentioned in my puzzles, please, for your own sake as well as mine, return the gun, cancel the membership, and—why not?—donate the refund, or your next round of dues, to this website!

Guns bother me.  They’re useful neither for self-protection (since the proverbial “bad guy with a gun” always enjoys the crucial advantage of surprise) nor for restraining undue government power (the US military has us all outgunned).  So, as part of my world-improvement program (and a sort of sequel to Crossword 116) I’ve here turned them (or anyway the letters that compose their names) to more benign uses.

Download this week’s crossword:

120-Whirled-Piece.puz

120-Whirled-Piece.pdf

Solve this week’s crossword online:

120 Whirled Piece

Crossword 118: Conjunction Conversion

 
Thomas Anshutz, A Rose

Thomas Anshutz, A Rose

 

Here's a riddle:  What Pakistani president's first name is a catchphrase used by Alicia Silverstone's character in the 1995 film Clueless?  The answer is in this week’s puzzle's revealer!

Download this week’s crossword:

118-Conjunction-Conversion.puz

118-Conjunction-Conversion.pdf

Solve this week’s crossword online:

118 Conjunction Conversion

N.B. Curious about my shockingly unorthodox views on crossword substitution themes? See my FAQs, or the introductions to Crossword 031 and Crossword 59.

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A crossword of mine will appear in papers that carry Universal Crossword on Friday, February 28.


Crossword 117: A Miss is as Good as a Mile

 
Hubert von Herkomer, Miss May Miles

Hubert von Herkomer, Miss May Miles

 

“A miss is as good as a mile”—what an odd expression!  “Miss” and “mile” are grammatically but not conceptually parallel.  “Good” actually means “bad.”  It’s a triumph of sound over sense, and therefore well suited to this web site.

Download this week’s crossword:

117-A-Miss-is-as-Good-as-a-Mile.puz

117-A-Miss-is-as-Good-as-a-Mile.pdf

Solve this week’s crossword online:

117 A Miss Is as Good as a Mile

Crossword 114: Making the Worst of Things

 
John William Waterhouse, Pandora

John William Waterhouse, Pandora

 

Two weeks ago I pushed this web site in a daring new direction, challenging aesthetic norms in order to engage with the gritty underside of the human condition.  The critical plaudits I expected, however, have not arrived, at least not yet; so it’s time to double down, to go all in, to—what’s another tough-sounding idiom like that?  I don’t know.  Anyway, if you’re a complacent member of the bourgeoisie, prepare to be shocked!

Download this week’s crossword:

114-Making-the-Worst-of-Things.puz

114-Making-the-Worst-of-Things.pdf

Solve this week’s crossword online:

114 Making the Worst of Things

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A crossword of mine will appear Wednesday, January 29, in the Wall Street Journal.