Another American Crossword Puzzle Tournament is in the books. Just as I expected, it was a wonderful time getting to reunite with the puzzle family. This year I finished in 33rd place overall, but that was with a mistake — a really careless one, although it made me laugh after the fact. Who knew that after you erase a wrong letter and then see what the correct letter is supposed to be, you actually have to write in the correct letter to get credit for the right answer? Not me, apparently. Without the error I would have finished in 18th, but I still would have finished just short of the B division finals, and statistically speaking I still had my best finish ever at the ACPT. I wrote about the experience and how I was able to overcome some solving anxiety in this long thread here.
The A Division finals were super-exciting, coming down to a nail-biter finish. You can watch a replay of it here, although here’s an obvious spoiler alert warning about that final puzzle. You can also order the set of ACPT puzzles for solving at home.
In other news, I had a rare publication in another outlet. In fact, it was an even rarer co-constructed puzzle for me. Anna Gundlach (an assistant editor at Andrews McMeel) and I co-wrote the annual April 1 Cuckoo Crossword for Fireball Crosswords. That’s a Something Different puzzle where most of the answers are made-up nonsense. Those are remarkably fun to construct and Anna was a blast to work with.
Today’s puzzle is based on a pair of FISH LADDERS (71A: [Structures aiding in the migration of aquatic creatures, illustrated twice in this puzzle]), or rather, word ladders with fish. In a word ladder, you start with a word and change one letter at a time to create a new word, often arriving at something that’s related or perhaps opposite to the original word. In this case, you start with a circled four-letter fish and change it to another circled four-letter fish. On the right side of the grid, we go from BASS to SOLE:
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- 24A: [NSYNC member who wrote the 2007 bestseller “Out of Sync”] is LANCE BASS.
- 41A: [Humiliation] is ABASEMENT.
- 61A: [Bundled mass of grass on a farm] is BALED HAY.
- 78A: [Early chance to buy tickets, e.g.] is PRESALE.
- 96A: [Single person getting a house, say] is SOLE HEIR.
On the left side grid, we go from TUNA to PIKE:
- 43A: [Opening movement of “Carmina Burana”] is “O FORTUNA.”
- 63A: [Catches, as a broadcast] is TUNES IN.
- 80A: [Chicago suburb with the same name as one of Rome’s seven hills] is PALATINE.
- 99A: [Coniferous trees in Canadian forests] is JACK PINES.
- 117A: [Colorado mountain viewed from the Garden of the Gods] is PIKES PEAK.
It’s been five years since the I last ran a word ladder puzzle, so I figured it was about time for another. Oftentimes you’ll see a word ladder crossword where the changing words are there by themselves, clued simply as [Start of a word ladder], [Part 2 of a word ladder], and so on. I prefer to feature the changing words inside longer phrases so there’s a little more discovery to the theme. It’d be a bit concerning if there were an actual fish ladder where a bass mutates into a sole by the time it reaches the end of it, though. We’d have to alert the EPA about that, stat.
Some other answers and clues:
- 12A: [Ball drops?] is HAIL. My favorite clue today.
- 16A: [“Barney Miller” actor Vigoda] is ABE Vigoda, whom I’m noting because his character’s name on “Barney Miller” was Phil Fish.
- 107A: [Pics on some body?] is TATS. I’ve done this joke for the singular TAT before but I still like it.
- 108A: [Tries to catch in a net] is TRAWLS. This wasn’t intended as an extra theme answer but I suppose it’s apt that somebody could trawl for fish right below one of the fish ladders.
- 119A: [River featuring the Horseshoe, American and Bridal Veil Falls] is NIAGARA. It wasn’t until I wrote this puzzle that I learned the falls at Niagara had different names.
- 129A: [Activist Bernstein named Influencer of the Year at the PinkNews Awards 2022] is MATT Bernstein. He goes by @mattxiv on Twitter. I remember seeing this exchange that he shared last year and it still makes me laugh.
- 8D: [Like the subjects of the website Love Meow] is FELINE. Yes, yes they are.
- 11D: [“Everything Everywhere All at ___” (Best Picture winner)] is ONCE. I’d just seen it for the first time when I wrote this puzzle.
- 55D: [Bills’ fans’ cries?] isn’t about the NFL, but the bills passed in a legislature. The answer is AYES.
- 100D: [Like super Giants] is ALL-PRO. This one is about the NFL.
- 113D: [Annoying messages that would at least be apt if they were about canned meat] is SPAM. I guess I editorialized a bit in that clue.
What did you think?
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