(Reagle, original write-up from 1 Nov 2009)
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Last Saturday, the Crosswords LA tournament entertained and challenged participants with a line-up of excellent crosswords—and now you can obtain a set of these puzzles (plus assorted bonus puzzles by other terrific constructors!) for a mere $8 from Crossword Nexus. I test-solved the tournament puzzles and particularly enjoyed Sam Donaldson’s challenging #4 and Trip Payne’s delightfully punny #5.
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The Fireball crossword is a contest puzzle this week, so watch for the write-up Sunday night or Monday. (Peter, please remind me on Sunday!)
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Merl Reagle, Henry Hook. (@ Nancy Shack)
I haven’t had the presence of mind to pull together my thoughts on legendary crossword constructor Henry Hook, who died this week (the crossword community just learned the sad news this afternoon), but I want to get something up here so there’s an open thread for comments on him. Here goes.
Diary of a Crossword Fiend readers know Henry mainly for his Boston Globe/CRooked Sunday puzzles (every other week since 1986) and for his curmudgeonly comments here (as “HH”). It was the hugest compliment that he deigned to apply his crusty persona at this blog, because he doled out his attentions sparingly.
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Hey, did you notice that you can rate puzzles on the blog’s main page now, rather than having to first click into an individual post? Please don’t be a Goofus and exploit that to assign ratings at random—just be a Gallant and give fair ratings to the puzzles you’ve solved. And if you made the puzzle yourself, maybe don’t reflexively give yourself 5 stars (we notice).
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