David Benkof author page
3 puzzles by David Benkof
with Constructor comments
See the 17 answer words debuted by David Benkof.
| A | H | E | M | S | N | U | F | F | S | A | I | D | ||
| R | A | D | I | O | S | A | S | I | A | N | F | L | U | |
| C | H | A | N | U | K | A | H | M | E | N | O | R | A | H |
| S | A | M | I | S | E | N | B | U | O | Y | S | |||
| E | K | G | C | O | T | |||||||||
| C | H | A | O | S | T | H | E | O | R | Y | M | E | A | |
| A | O | R | T | A | T | W | A | F | I | S | H | |||
| C | H | A | R | L | O | T | T | E | B | R | O | N | T | E |
| T | U | B | A | O | S | H | A | T | S | E | A | |||
| I | M | S | C | H | A | I | N | S | M | O | K | E | D | |
| K | O | S | S | A | T | |||||||||
| A | S | N | A | P | R | I | B | C | A | G | E | |||
| C | H | C | H | C | H | C | H | C | H | A | N | G | E | S |
| L | A | I | L | A | A | L | I | L | A | B | R | A | T | |
| U | N | S | O | R | T | E | D | S | C | A | R | S |
David:
The most remarkable thing about this puzzle is that Jeff and I were freshman roommates at Stanford in 1989-90. At the time, neither of us were really puzzle people. But eventually, completely independently, we became accomplished constructors — especially Jeff, who's a constant presence in New York Times puzzles and runs XwordInfo. I construct the weekly Jewish-clued Jerusalem Post crossword puzzle, which is syndicated in more than a dozen North American Jewish newspapers. This link shows several examples.
Being a crossword solver isn't so unusual. Being a crossword maker is, and being a crossword maker with lots of published work really is. It's just weird that we each stumbled across this highly specialized avocation separately.
I'm the one who first wondered if the four English ways of pronouncing the phoneme "CH" might be a good theme, and Jeff tied it all together with his brilliant 15-letter revealer at 58-Across.
My favorite clues (at least among the ones I wrote that Will kept!) are 23-Across ("Sin Alternative?" for COT), 40-Across ("It's big and brassy" for TUBA), and 11-Down ("'60s do also called a 'natural'" for AFRO). I know it drives some constructors nuts, but I thoroughly enjoy finding new ways of cluing little words that appear in puzzles all the time.
| O | M | E | G | A | T | Y | P | E | N | A | P | S | ||
| N | A | I | L | S | R | E | E | L | O | L | E | O | ||
| S | O | N | E | S | F | A | N | C | Y | T | O | R | A | |
| S | A | I | D | S | O | T | I | E | U | P | ||||
| T | O | P | S | I | D | E | S | C | A | M | ||||
| I | R | A | L | E | I | F | P | R | E | F | A | B | ||
| A | I | R | S | S | N | L | R | O | T | A | R | Y | ||
| R | O | O | S | T | S | I | T | T | O | R | M | E | ||
| A | L | L | U | R | E | N | H | L | S | R | I | B | ||
| S | E | E | P | I | N | T | E | A | K | A | N | Y | ||
| A | P | O | P | A | T | L | A | R | G | E | ||||
| P | L | A | T | E | E | S | T | E | E | M | ||||
| H | U | T | U | S | N | O | E | X | P | E | N | S | E | |
| I | N | O | N | M | A | M | A | T | N | O | T | E | ||
| L | A | N | E | E | L | E | M | O | D | D | E | R |
I "struck" upon the theme of this puzzle when I realized that a bowling theme makes the perfect rebus puzzle. It is rare in real life for someone to have a blank square and fill in a chemical element or a tiny heart or an ampersand. But bowlers fill in little white boxes with a / (SPARE) or an X (STRIKE) all the time.
For some reason, Will scheduled this rebus puzzle on a Wednesday instead of the usual gimmick day (Thursday). So regular solvers weren't expecting to run into a rebus. Of course, trying to think of an actual three-letter word at 1-Down for "Picketing, perhaps" (ONX) probably led a lot of people to realize something unusual was going on.
The grid had to be re-done once. Will liked the theme a lot, but I initially had "X YOURFANCY," which he asked to be changed to "X ONESFANCY."
Because of the unusual nature of the theme, the rebus squares aren't quite symmetrical, and the theme answer lengths range from 3 "letters" to 10 "letters."
| H | A | H | A | S | G | A | B | O | N | C | A | R | ||
| A | R | O | L | E | O | M | E | G | A | O | R | E | ||
| J | I | N | G | L | E | B | E | L | L | S | M | E | G | |
| J | A | I | A | L | A | I | L | E | T | E | Y | E | ||
| I | N | N | E | S | S | K | O | S | N | O | O | N | ||
| S | E | G | E | R | I | C | D | O | N | U | T | |||
| R | A | D | O | N | M | E | N | T | O | S | ||||
| T | H | E | J | U | N | G | L | E | B | O | O | K | ||
| T | O | E | C | A | P | P | O | L | I | S | ||||
| A | R | D | O | R | B | I | B | I | G | A | D | |||
| N | E | O | N | G | I | N | S | H | A | R | E | R | ||
| K | I | N | G | A | G | A | S | I | N | I | N | E | ||
| A | N | I | M | R | B | O | J | A | N | G | L | E | S | |
| R | T | S | A | R | E | N | A | E | L | L | I | S | ||
| D | O | T | N | Y | N | E | X | S | E | E | D | Y |
DAVID:
The first two theme answers came easily to me when I noticed how similar JINGLEBELLS and THEJUNGLEBOOK sounded — "jingle" vs. "jungle" and with a "B" word connected to each. But it seemed to me a long shot that I would ever find a "jangle" or "jongle" or "Jengle" also with a B. And with the right lengths? Forget it.
But I brainstormed anyway (this was before I had access to good computer searches), and when I hit upon "MRBOJANGLES" I began to feverishly count letters in all three theme answers, and was thrilled when I realized I had an 11-13-11 puzzle. Matt Gaffney liked the theme and agreed to make the grid for me; this is the only collaboration he's done out of his 58 New York Times puzzles.
Would today's New York Times take a puzzle with such a small number of theme letters (35)? I doubt it. But I think the JINGLE-JANGLE-JUNGLE concept is fun, and with the extra B thrown in it exposes an unusual quirk in the English language. In my opinion, some of today's puzzles get so theme-heavy that simpler grids by newer constructors (this was my first contribution — under the name David Bianco, whereas now I contribute as David Benkof) get squeezed out.