A SIGN OF THE TIMES

When Will asked me if I'd be interested in writing a 6-part meta for the Times, of course I jumped at the chance. I'd be a fool not to … on the other hand, it had been done once before by my xword idol, Patrick Berry. There's no way I could make something as intricate or clever, but hopefully it had been long enough that people might've forgotten about his magnum opus a little. Rather than cower in the shadow of a giant, I resolved to do my own thing with it and give it my best shot. I had some ideas brewing, so I quickly set off to work on the set of crossword puzzles you're seeing this week.

This is a six-part series of interconnected puzzles, each of which contains a piece of a larger mystery which leads to a final answer. I won't say anything about the meta-challenge until the contest is over, but today's surface theme is a simple, Monday-level category theme featuring increasing units of time. Luckily for everyone involved, Will and Joel eased up the clues on this one considerably. Some of the clues that got changed (read: clues I'll use another time) include [Scientist Bill whose mother was a codebreaker], ["___ a Bully, Charlie Brown" (TV movie)], and [Josh who voiced Olaf in "Frozen"].

I like to think that part of this is due to space limitations, since the square inch-age in the paper is extremely limited (especially when it includes a big blurb about the contest every day). I've gotten used to writing longer clues for xword venues like my website and the American Values Xword Club, I guess, so a bunch of clues had their gists maintained and got truncated. Other gems like [Answer to "Paris est-il la capitale de la France?"] and [Apt anagram of CO-STAR - S] weren't my doing at all. HUARTE is an obvious outlier, but I thought all the crossings were fair; this puzzle does skew older, what with HUARTE, CLU, and HARLOW. Anyway, I hope it was a fun and breezy way for solvers to start the week, whether they're participating in the contest or not.

Every autumn since 2008 I've run either a themed puzzle week or a Sunday puzzle contest in the Times. In 2008 it was a week of daily crosswords constructed by teens. The following years were, successively, crosswords by Times contributors for 50+ years, members of the Brown University crossword club, all-Patrick Berry, and Sunday crossword contests by Caleb Rasmussen and Mike Selinker.

This year I've returned to the 2011 format with a whole week of daily puzzles constructed by one of the greats of crosswording, Patrick Blindauer. The first five puzzles, Monday to Friday, look like normal crosswords. As the instructions explain, though, they contain the start of a hidden message. The Saturday puzzle completes the message and has cryptic instructions for finding it.

Can the hidden message be identified before the Saturday puzzle is published? I'd be astonished. But then I've been astonished by Times solvers many times before, so we'll see.

BTW, the contest prizes this year have been upgraded to 20 one-year subscriptions to the online Times crossword. These prizes are nice, but (as you'll notice) still modest. Federal and state laws don't allow large prizes for contests that involve any significant element of luck, which this one does. You have to be lucky to be randomly selected from those who submit correct answers.

Still, it's really the fun of the event that's important. Also, if you win, you get your name in Wordplay next Friday.

Happy solving ... and good luck!

Contest week! Jim and I decided to keep everything quiet until the contest is over, including the grid solutions. I doubt we'd give anything away by publishing all the clues and answers, but this method better preserves the mystery.

Speaking of mysteries, this week is an appropriate time for me to delve into some of my favorite cryptological mysteries throughout history. None of these write-ups have anything to do with the contest, I promise (I'll put up a post summarizing how I solved it afterward, assuming I solve it). I simply like sharing my obsession with unsolved coded puzzles throughout history. And my posts will need to get shorter anyway, as a certain eight-day-old little dictator is giving me the stink-eye.

THE VOYNICH MANUSCRIPT

I love that one of my interests connects me to like-minded folks all the way back in the 15th century. Filled with curious drawings as well as cryptext, the Voynich manuscript was thought to be created during the Renaissance. It's been over a century since Polish book dealer Wilfrid Voynich unearthed it, but it still remains largely uncracked, despite the best minds all over the world to uncover its secrets.

And what secrets! Imagine what might have been discovered during that amazing part of history. From what we know, it likely covers topics from herbal medicine to astronomy to biology to even pharmaceuticals. Perhaps everything buried within the text of the Voynich manuscript has already been rediscovered by modern science, or has already been rendered obsolete. But what if the coded information contains, say, an easy way to prevent cataracts, bringing gigantic quality of life improvements applicable to those all over the third world suffering from the affliction?

What makes the Voynich manuscript especially compelling to me is that the C14 dating puts it definitively in the early 15th century — whether or not it contains useful information, it is definitely not a 20th century hoax. Sure, it could be full of failed attempts at alchemy or backwards medical treatments like the use of lead, but the possibilities are endless. Who'll be the first to learn the true messages straight from the best scientists and thinkers of the Renaissance? It makes me want to visit Yale for even a fleeting chance to inspect the original manuscript.