Here’s a puzzle that will inspire you to complete a certain pre-Christmas chore, if you happen to engage in this pre-Christmas chore. If you don’t—here’s a puzzle that will inspire you to congratulate yourself for escaping a certain pre-Christmas chore.
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If the title’s suggestion of something lurid or dangerous frightens you—don’t worry. Nothing of the sort is permitted to intrude on this website’s atmosphere of stately calm, of idyllic reverie. And if you’re inclined to doze off like the lady in the picture above, go right ahead. You’re safe here.
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People often ask me, “Why are you so wonderful? What's your secret?” Well, I'll tell you what it is: it’s my attitude! I always look on the bright side! When life gives me lemons, I make a crossword puzzle!
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And just what generation is that, you wonder? Am I a precocious preteen? A jaded old man? I’m not going to tell you. I try to make puzzles that precocious preteens and jaded old men can solve, ignorant though they may be of sixties television on the one hand, of internet memes on the other. Alas, I don’t always succeed. 55 Across in today’s puzzle is based on a Rastafarian slang phrase that may elude both demographics. But what can I say? It fits the theme.
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Are we nearing the end? Is the human race on the brink of collapse?? Is there nothing left for us but a period of hopeless mass suffering amid war, and disease, and famine that will end only in our species’ extinction???
Oh well—here’s a crossword puzzle.
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The inspiration for this as for many of my puzzles is a classic work of literature:
Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.
He must not float upon his wat’ry bier
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,
Without the meed of some melodious tear.
—John Milton, Lycidas (1637)
“Wat’ry bier”? Can you read that without thinking of a hilarious pun? I can’t. I’m sure that Milton is pleased and flattered, assuming he is in a place with web access.
I’ve now given you one hundred 15 x 15 crossword puzzles. I will conclude the second year of my website’s existence, as I did the first, with two 21 x 21 puzzles. Why do I do this? Why do I toil so long and so hard to make crosswords and recommend Victorian novels? Only because I love humanity.
But I wouldn’t mind making a little money too. And maybe you wouldn’t mind giving me a little, as a small gesture of gratitude? If not, just click the button below and follow instructions. Donate $12, and I’ll send you a 15 x 15 Victorian crossword puzzle (that is, a puzzle that uses only words and phrases current in the Victorian era)! Donate $13.50, and I’ll send you an all new 21 x 21 puzzle! Donate $15 and I’ll send you both!
And since no one claimed it last year, I am this year offering again a special bonus for the first person who donates $10,000,000 or more: not only will I send you both puzzles, but also I’ll rename this website in your honor! So if your name is, say, Warren Buffet, after your donation the website will be known as "Warren Buffet Presents David Alfred Bywaters’s Crossword Cavalcade and Victorian Novel Recommender." But don’t delay—only the first donor at the $10,000,000 level will be eligible for this bonus.
(By the way, the Squarespace system requires you to enter your name and address on its form. My privacy policy is to take no notice and make no use whatsoever of this information. But If you’d rather made a donation directly to davidalfredbywaters@gmail.com through PayPal or Venmo, please do so.)
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This puzzle’s title phrase, as the solver will probably know, comes from an old orange juice commercial. It has since been humorously appropriated to beer. “Beer: It’s Not Just for Breakfast Anymore.” Ha ha. And that’s not all. An internet search turns up several hundred other things you can insert into this ready-make little joke: pizza, bourbon, coke, chocolate, roadkill, napalm, breakfast, prozac, social media, etc., etc. It’s the hive mind at work, and I’m not too proud to make my own little contribution.
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102-It's-Not-Just-for-Breakfast-Anymore.puz
102-It's-Not-Just-for-Breakfast-Anymore.pdf
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I know what you’re saying: “But your crosswords aren't weakly, David Alfred Bywaters; don't be so hard on yourself!” And of course you’re right. They’re weakly (unclogged as they are by professional sports, super-heroes, Star Wars trivia, and the latest fratboy slang) only as some agile, clever, neatly dressed fellow sipping a cool drink at the oceanside bar is weakly in comparison to the shirtless, musclebound lout gaping emptily on the beach below.
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101-Another-Weakly-Crossword.puz
101-Another-Weakly-Crossword.pdf
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If you’ve solved my first 99 posted crosswords, you might make a shrewd guess as to the theme of my 100th. As some ancient sage said, or ought to have said, “Contempt for the obvious is as crippling as the inability to see beyond it.”
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As I’ve pointed out already on this website, there’s no fun in embedding a word in a common phrase (like WORD in FOLLOW ORDERS) when you can embed it in an amusingly uncommon phrase invented for the purpose (like WORD in COW ORDINATION). I’ve done it before (006, 042, 047, 049, 055, and 074); today I do it again.
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Okay, so it’s the same joke four times. So what? It’s a good joke. And the fourth iteration (64 Across) is not just a joke, it’s also a wry comment on the human condition.
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Speaking of pork, here is one of my favorite passages from the great Jonathan Swift, explaining the popularity of satire—and by the way, much of the social media of our own time:
“There is a problem in an ancient author, why dedications, and other bundles of flattery, run all upon stale musty topics, without the smallest tincture of any thing new; . . . whereas there is very little satire, which has not something in it untouched before. The defects of the former, are usually imputed to the want of invention among those, who are dealers in that kind; but, I think, with a great deal of injustice; the solution being easy and natural; for, the materials of panegyric, being very few in number, have been long since exhausted. For, as health is but one thing, and has been always the same, whereas diseases are by thousands, beside new and daily additions; so, all the virtues that have been ever in mankind, are to be counted upon a few fingers; but their follies and vices are innumerable, and time adds hourly to the heap. Now the utmost a poor poet can do, is to get by heart a list of the cardinal virtues, and deal them with his utmost liberality to his hero, or his patron: he may ring the changes as far as it will go, and vary his phrase till he has talked round: but the reader quickly finds it is all pork, with a little variety of sauce.”
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096-As-Ye-Sow-So-Shall-Ye-Reap.puz
096-As-Ye-Sow-So-Shall-Ye-Reap.pdf
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Today is my beloved mother's birthday. Alert solvers might be able, on the basis of this puzzle’s title and theme answers, to guess her name.
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095-Anntheme.pdf
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Poking holes in our ears so as to dangle ornamental objects from them—isn't it a little ugly and foolish, when you come to think about it? Attaching metal things that emit radio frequencies to the ears of livestock so as to keep track of them is at least practical. Has anyone thought of combining these in a movie, involving a creepy stalker and a gift of earrings? “The Piercing,” it might be called. If you’re a movie producer and you’d like to buy an option on the idea, let me know.
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If you just work hard and believe in yourself, there is nothing you cannot accomplish!—with a few possible exceptions: a living wage, for example, and good health, and maybe some other things too. But never mind: here are some exemplary stories (or titles of stories anyway; you can easily imagine the rest) to inspire you on your way along life’s journey.
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When you’re done with this week’s puzzle, you’ll have not only another happy solving memory to cherish forever, but also eight hilarious riddles certain to enhance your popularity at any convivial gathering.
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I once thought to use this puzzle’s title (in the singular) as a theme answer. The clue would have been about Paul Simon, who "lost Art"—Garfunkel, that is—in 1970. And the Wilson brothers “found Love,” their cousin Mike, to form the Beach Boys. But then what? Did any group throw “Iris Out”? or decide to “Keep Faith” after all? or to “Kill Joy”? I couldn't make it work. So I invite all you aspiring crossword constructors in need of a theme to apply to me for permission to adopt it, which I will grant free of charge if I find you worthy of my benevolence. Just email me a statement of financial need and an autobiographical essay on how you overcame an obstacle.
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Many cultural products seem meant not to amuse, or enlighten, or move us, but instead to invite us to congratulate ourselves—for being sufficiently educated, or sensitive, or hip, or whatever, to enjoy or understand them. Music made of noise, or sculpture of excrement, pleases not in itself (almost no one likes noise or excrement), but as an invitation to savor our superiority to the common herd that is offended by it.
You can't do this with crosswords: to be solvable they have to make sense. But you can still invite self-congratulation—for knowing some new slang phrase or internet meme, or for enjoying some person, place, or thing that only the enlightened enjoy. The fun is not so much in the theme, or in the process of solving, as in the supposed bafflement of the out-of-it solver in the face of these modish allusions.
Now, far be it from me to protest. Harmless sources of pleasure are so few in this sad world that I don’t begrudge anyone this one, such as it is. I mention it only to point out that you won’t find it in my puzzles, because I don’t even know what the cool kids are doing, and because I just want everybody to be happy. In today’s puzzle I provide a crossword version of another kind of art that seeks only to please: the simple, pretty, obvious landscape painting at which every undergraduate is taught to sneer.
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The painting illustrates 17 Across, sort of—of course, nothing illegal is going on here; but the man in the shadows, just to the right of the king, looks as though he might be plotting something.
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This week I unite the two parts of my website with a single title, shared by the novel and the puzzle. I don’t think anyone has ever tried this before—recommending, that is, a Victorian novel with a certain title, and then making a crossword with that very same title. Frankly, I’m a little nervous about it. But no matter— every milestone in human progress involves some risk.
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