CHANGE OF HEART

As the blurb on this crossword says, it was used during the most recent "Lollapuzzoola" tournament in NYC, which I cohost with Brian Cimmet. It was our dreaded Puzzle 4, meant to be the trickiest puzzle of the day (like Puzzle 5 at the ACPT), though looking at the standings just now, I see that Andrew Feist solved it perfectly in 6:45. Nicely done, Andrew! Some got stumped until they were allowed to use their Google tickets (our sanctioned method of "cheating"), and some solved it but put two letters in each of the key squares, which we had decided to count as incorrect (sorry!). Also, two solvers had an odd advantage: they chose to compete in our Downs Only Division for the day, so they didn't have the Across clues to throw them off. As such, Joon Pahk solved the puzzle correctly with only the Down clues in 4:41. Wowza. If anyone had noticed this and done some lateral thinking, it might've been a big help in deciphering the puzzle's diabolical secrets. Special thanks to Will for his support of the tourney these past 7 years and for sharing my puzzle with a much wider audience.

Next year's 'Zoola is already scheduled for 8/8/15, so save the date and join us for a day of cruciverbial silliness in a church basement on the Upper West Side (or in our At-Home Division through the magic of the internet). Most of the puzzles aren't nearly this cruel, I swear!

This year's Lollapuzzoola tournament was the first one I've missed in its seven-year history. On the day it was held, I was flying to London for the World Puzzle Championship. Patrick and Brian visited me before the tournament to borrow some supplies, though, and they told me about some of the cool things they had scheduled, including this. I asked if I could run it in the Times. But for when? It didn't feel wacky enough for a Sunday variety puzzle, or open enough gridwise for a Saturday. So I scheduled it for a Thursday (today), which is typically the hardest theme day. I know this hybrid of a crossword/variety puzzle is not to everyone's taste. I'm prepared for the "hate" comments! Still, solvers who love this will probably really love it, so I think it's worth running.

BTW, I changed a few of the tournament clues to make them slightly easier and less trivia-oriented than the originals. For example, not all solvers may know that "Pinky or The Brain, e.g." (Patrick's clue at 1A) is a MOUSE, or that "Guitarist Saul Hudson of Guns N' Roses, familiarly" (28D) is SLASH. These would have been stumbling blocks for many solvers. So I tweaked the puzzle here and there (not much) to make it more accessible.

Meanwhile, I'm just happy to introduce Lollapuzzoola to a wider audience.

It's rare for a NYT weekday puzzle to have a title, and this one was not only necessary but a perfect description. What a great theme concept, the middle letter of each across entry modified, thus given a CHANGE OF HEART. Patrick is one of the few constructors out there that pushes the boundaries like this. Even if the puzzle wasn't to your taste, I'd find it hard to deny that this one will be remembered. Trying out crazy new things is great for the crossword art form.

I stumbled upon the effectiveness of the "downs-only" approach once I figured out what was going on, but my solve of 20+ minutes makes Joon's sub-5 that much more awe-inspiring. I struggled mightily with the G of GERARDO, eventually guessing BERARDO. It would have been fantastic if the across entries could only have been one possible (wrong) thing, as that would have given some measure of "checking" each square, but to even achieve this level of what Patrick did is pretty incredible.

Frankly, I have no idea how he did it. The constraint of each across entry having to possibly be a different but equally valid word seems so constraining. It's a bit easier in that he's gone up to 84 words, thus being able to use shorter word lengths. But even then, to find such gems as TAKES PART / TAKE APART and FIREWATER / FIRE EATER is impressive. A quick software program to sort through a word list to find appropriate pairs could help there, but when you extend this constraint to the entire puzzle — wow, what an undertaking!

Finally, I find it so neat to hear about the collaboration and support Will and Patrick both mention. Will could have easily have said that Lollapuzzoola is a competitor to his ACPT so he'd prefer not to plug it, but he went out of his way to help publicize it to the enormous NYT audience. The thing I like best about the great majority of the crossword community is its exhibition of uplifting, positive qualities, and this exemplifies it to a tee.