And it didn’t take long for Asian rivers and extinct insect species to disappear almost completely from Times puzzles. Shortz’s philosophy of puzzles was starkly different from Maleska’s. In fact, the argument could be made that Merl Reagle’s comedy-in-crosswords movement bore its greatest fruit when Will Shortz became puzzle editor at the Times. Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Seattle Times and 40 other papers. Merl’s almost-30-year-old syndicated Sunday puzzle now appears in the San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post, L.A. That, plus a keen sense of business and a savvy, hard-working partner named Marie, has led to considerable success in the fickle world of cruciverbalism. And that his successor surely quashed.Īpart from the Times puzzle, which just happens to be the focus of this series of columns, Reagle has long advocated fun and comedy in crosswords. All in one puzzle! Despite putting out stuff like that, Weng brought a sense of humor and playfulness to the Times that was said to be lacking in his predecessor. Merl Reagle pointed me to a Weng-era puzzle containing the following answers: AMAPA, RICAMA, TARROS, ESPIRITU, AUTOGENY, TROCOS and FLOYDOY. Will Weng was the Times puzzle editor from 1969-77, between Farrar and Maleska. My focus was exclusively on the Farrar and Maleska Eras, so called for the Times’ first and third puzzle editors. That is, obscure, nobody’s-ever-heard-of-‘em words and their clumsy, who-gives-a-darn clues. The past two weeks I’ve highlighted some stuff in New York Times crossword history that served to give crosswords a bad name.
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