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I had this great idea for a puzzle called “Change Holders,”  featuring celebrity names with words like “cent” and “dime” and “nickel” and “quarter” hidden in the middle. So I found Dominick Elwes, the English portrait painter who eloped with an heiress in 1957, and Jacen Tan, the Singaporean film director, and Cristoforo di Messisbugo, the chef to the dukes of Ferrara, but then I began to have some doubts as to whether these particular celebrities, though household names in my household, were known to the hip young demographic I’m going for.  Also “quarter” had me stymied.  But I didn’t want to abandon the title, having gone to all the trouble of thinking it up, so I made this puzzle instead.

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293-Change-Holders.puz

293-Change-Holders.pdf

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293 Change Holders

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Hey solvers!  Xmas is almost here!  And then comes NYE, and after that MLK Day!  There’s no time to spll thgs out!  So hurry!  Do this xword rght nw!

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292-Xmas.puz

292-Xmas.pdf

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292 Xmas

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That’s right—I’m fed up!  I’m fed up, for example, with politics, which is actually just an effect of tribalism, which is in turn just an effect of human nature, which is itself just an effect of nature in general, which is after all just an effect of whatever mysterious process created everything for whatever mysterious purpose.  So I’ll just do a crossword.

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291-Fed-Up.puz

291-Fed-Up.pdf

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291 Fed Up

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Here at David Alfred Bywaters’s Crossword Cavalcade and Fortnightly Victorian Novel Recommender we always conform our dress to the eternal and universal rules of etiquette.  We wear morning coats, evening gowns, dinner jackets, party frocks, top hats, white ties, and tails—whatever is appropriate to the time of day, the season of the year, the nature of the occasion, etc.  Never, ever do we wear “tees,” cropped or otherwise.  But our consumer research department advises us that we need to appeal to a broader demographic—to the vile habits, undeveloped tastes, uninformed opinions, and appalling manners of the vulgar multitude.  So today’s puzzle includes allusions not only to the informal dress but also to various of the other things—musical, literary, etc.—which that multitude is said to enjoy.

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289-Cropped-Tees.puz

289-Cropped-Tees.pdf

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289 Cropped Tees

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Digital privacy is a matter of great public concern these days, and here at David Alfred Bywaters’s Crossword Cavalcade and Fortnightly Victorian Novel Recommender we take it very seriously—both your privacy and our own.  No doubt various commercial entities would be bidding against each other for our web site data if we put it on the market—but we never have, and we never will.  If we happen to learn something about you, the solver, we instantly and completely forget it.  As for ourselves, if we need to buy something online, we set up a burner account and pay in crypto-currency; but mostly we buy things in person, using small bills and fake beards. And of course we operate under an assumed identity from an undisclosed location marked only by the electrified razor wire that surrounds it.

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288-Don't-Get-Nosy.puz

288-Don't-Get-Nosy.pdf

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288 Don’t Get Nosy

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Like most of my puzzles, this one began with a single phrase I thought amusing (in this case, 39 Across).  After finding four more phrases that followed the pattern of the first, and constructing and filling a grid, I discovered, to my dismay (through Matt Ginsberg’s sadly discontinued clue database, which I use to avoid forever replicating the same clues for the same answers), that one of my theme answers had already been clued not once but twice, in 2009 by Matt Jones, and in 2021 by Gary Larson.

Now, why must other people always be getting in my way?  I used to enjoy doing crosswords; but ever since I took up constructing them, I find I can’t complete a themed puzzle without saying to myself either “What a bad theme, compared to the themes I produce at fortnightly intervals; what a shame!” or “What a good theme; I’m sure I’d have thought of it eventually and done it even better, but now here it is already done; what a shame!”

Anyway, though I replaced the shopworn theme answer with a bright new one, I cannot deny that two puzzles with roughly the same theme have preceded this one into the world.  But what then?  Was Michelangelo’s David preceded by no other statues of David?  Was Raphael the first to paint a Madonna?

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287-Double-Letters.puz

287-Double-Letters.pdf

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287 Double Letters

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“Senior,” as a euphemism for “old,” has been around for many years—as least since the senior citizens of the present day were junior citizens.  Indeed, the very fact that the term hasn’t had an update in such a long time is, I suspect, a consequence of the unspoken ageism that permeates our society.  We need a new word or phrase that means “old,” but lacks the pejorative associations with wrinkles, hair loss, jowls, etc. that “senior” now inevitably evokes.  Unyoung?  Ripe?  Temporally enriched?  Durable?  Not yet dead?  Well, I leave it to the online influencers whose coinages appear regularly in all the major crossword venues.  Meanwhile, before “senior” dies out, I hasten to post this puzzle.

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286-Senior-Centers.puz

286-Senior-Centers.pdf

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286 Senior Centers

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Do you find, disconsolate solver, that when you address yourself hopefully to a new crossword, expecting a little harmless recreation, perhaps some amusing wordplay, you are faced instead, whether you move down or across, with slang you’ve never used, movies you’ve never seen, brands you’ve never bought, songs you’ve never heard?  The problem is that you’ve been looking for crosswords in all the wrong places!  Here is where you belong, where the “wrong places” are really just silly, happy, friendly puns that just want the very best for you and yours.

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285-All-the-Wrong-Places.puz

285-All-the-Wrong-Places.pdf

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285 All the Wrong Places

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Meal preparation!  Here at David Alfred Bywaters’s Crossword Cavalcade and Fortnightly Victorian Novel Recommender, not only do we dress for dinner in correct evening attire, we also take care at every meal to provide ourselves only with nutritionally balanced dishes hand-crafted from organic ingredients gathered laboriously from our own fields.  All this takes so much time that we barely have any left in which to chew and swallow the stuff, much less to read novels and make crosswords.  So in this fortnight’s puzzle we’re combining our labors.

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284-Meal-Preparation.puz

284-Meal-Preparation.pdf

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284 Meal Preparation

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Are you worried, anxious solver?  Are you afraid that you won’t get there on time, that you won’t be welcome even if you do get there on time, that you won’t enjoy yourself even if you are welcome, that you won’t get back home safely even if you do enjoy yourself?  Well, worry no more!  This puzzle is here to show you that all will be well.

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283-All-Will-Be-Well.puz

283-All-Will-Be-Well.pdf

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283 All Will Be Well

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Why indeed?  Once we’ve met our basic needs, why bother to do anything?  Because the illusion of purpose, however ill-founded, is necessary to human contentment, that’s why.  We want to feel like we’re achieving  something.  We want to feel good about ourselves.  And if we don’t satisfy the impulse with something harmless, like the construction and solving of crosswords, we might be tempted to go around breaking things and hurting people.  If Genghis Khan, or Attila the Hun, had only had access to crosswords, what untold human suffering would the world have been spared!

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282-Oh,-Why-Bother?.puz

282-Oh,-Why-Bother?.pdf

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282 Oh, Why Bother?

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Were you ever told, perhaps in a “physical education” class years ago, to bend down and touch your toes?  I was, and I still  resent it:  I found the operation not only painful but undignified; and it just didn’t seem worth doing—there are obviously much better ways of accessing one’s toes, if that’s what one wants to do.

Anyway, if you want for some reason to perform a “bending down” exercise but lack the strength, or the agility, or the will to do it with your body, this puzzle lets you do it, like a rational creature, with your mind.

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281-Bending-Down.puz

281-Bending-Down.pdf

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281 Bending Down

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As I’ve said before, like all the best crossword constructors these days, I see my task as primarily one of social reform and human betterment.  And so, more than two years ago, in April 2020, I turned my attention to international affairs, with the purpose of promoting world peace (see Crossword 180).  But then I let the better part of a year go by without any further world-peace-promotion efforts, and in February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine.  I ask myself now—why didn’t I do more?  Am I not partly to blame?  So today I’m doubling down with a two-part crossword (replacing the multi-part series of years past) promoting the cause of international communication.  I just hope I’m not too late!

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279a-Language-Acquisition, Part 1.puz

279a-Language-Acquisition, Part 1.pdf

279a-Language-Acquisition, Part 2.puz

279a-Language-Acquisition, Part 2.pdf

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279b Language Acquisition, Part 1

279b Language Acquisition, Part 2

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Two weeks ago, you’ll recall, I headed off for my native planet, from which, some years ago, I was sent in an effort to save the terrestrial crossword from becoming a dreary echo-chamber of self-congratulatory hipster citation, tribal signaling, and celebrity fandom.  My mission was to lead by example away from such folly.  I did my best, but I’m afraid I’ve failed.  Someday maybe I’ll go back and try again.  Meanwhile, here, via the interstellar internet, is another puzzle.

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278-In-Outer-Space.puz

278-In-Outer-Space.pdf

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278 In Outer Space

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Had enough of this blighted ball, this suffering sphere, this ghastly globe?  Fly with me to outer space!  It’s time for me to confirm what you’ve long suspected.  How, you’ve asked yourselves and each other, could any mere earthling come up, fortnight after fortnight, with such brilliant puzzles?  In fact I come from the planet Lapnet—a happy place, where hipster slang, and euphemism, and jargon, and brand names, and paid athletes, and Hollywood celebrities, are unknown.

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277-Outer-Space.puz

277-Outer-Space.pdf

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277 In Outer Space

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Not now!  I’ll try to think up something to say about this week’s crossword eventually, but right now I’m just too busy.  It seems like everybody needs me all the time.  This person wants me to help with this thing, and that person wants my advice on that thing, and this other person hasn’t seen me in ages, and that other person thinks she may as well cancel the party if I don’t come.  People are counting on me, and I can’t let them down.  So I’m sorry—I’ve got to go right now; but I hope you like the puzzle anyway.

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276-Not Now.puz

276-Not Now.pdf

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276 Not Now

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I pity the poverty of imagination that forces so many crossword constructors to draw on other people’s movies and television shows when they want to add to their puzzles some of the excitement of interstellar warfare.  Here, in the constraints of a 15 x 15 puzzle, with no outside assistance, I create my very  own science-fiction universe.  I expect an avalanche of Hollywood sequels, and commercial tie-ins, and fan-fiction sites, to follow in due course.

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275-Alien-Invasion.puz

275-Alien-Invasion.pdf

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275 Alien Invasion

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I am often asked, “Why are your crosswords so much better than other people’s crosswords?”  The answer—specialization!  As I’ve said before, “I” am (is?) not a single person, but a collective, diverse in age, and race, and gender, and everything else imaginable, including skills.  So there is a specialist for Down answers, and another, altogether different, specialist for Across answers; there are specialists for clues, for blocks, for partial phrases, for abbreviations.  An entire department, with its own vice-president, handles the crosswordese.  There is a letter-addition team and a letter-subtraction team, a punning team and a parsing team.  Doesn’t this cost a lot?  Sure it does!  But you the solver deserve the best, and here at David Alfred Bywaters’s Crossword Cavalcade and Victorian Novel Recommender, the best is just what you always get.

Special thanks to test-solver Charles Montpetit for coming up with some of the theme material in today’s puzzle.

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274-Specialists.puz

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274 Specialists

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What with supply-chain issues and some strategic downsizing, our store of words has been sadly depleted.  A long course of severe weather has shut down the mines from which we imported most of our homophones. And of course a small concern like ours can’t hope to compete with the big players while the global anagram shortage keeps driving up prices.  So for now we’re going to have to make do with fewer theme answers and smaller words, such as you’ll find in today’s puzzle.

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273-Running Short.puz

273-Running Short.pdf

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273 Running Short

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Have you seen “Out of the Past”—the 1947 movie directed by Jacques Tourneur, starring Robert MItchum, Jane Greer, and Kirk Douglas, adapted by Daniel Mainwaring from his 1946 novel?  If not, do so right away!  It’s one of the best movies ever made!  I had to watch it half a dozen times to figure out its plot (and there are still some points I’m not quite clear on), but I enjoyed it every time.  I’d have hired the same cast and director for this puzzle, if puzzles had casts and directors, and if they weren’t all dead.

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272-Out-of-the-Past.puz

272-Out-of-the-Past.pdf

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272 Out of the Past