Victor Fleming author page

President Clinton and I met in 1984 — we were in a couple of daddy-daughter programs with our girls. I campaigned for him during four elections: three gubernatorial and one presidential. (I was running for office myself in 1996 and Bill, of course, rode my coattails all the way to a second term in the White House!) Occasionally, we worked New York Times crosswords together — well, he solved and I kinda acted like I was helping.

After meeting Wordplay principals Pat Creadon and Chris O'Malley at the ACPT in 2005, I encouraged Bill to take a meeting with them. He did so and became a star. (Along with Will Shortz, Merl Reagle, Jon Stewart, Ken Burns, Indigo Girls, Mike Mussina, and others.)

So, it was a natural, I guess, that Will asked Bill and me to team up for the celebrity co-write series. Still, I was totally honored. Will's "assignment" to us was a themeless puzzle, but he made it clear that he wanted something in the puzzle to reflect Bill's life and work. I hope we hit the mark.

Bill wrote the clues. I tweaked them a bit and sent them back to him for review. He circled a few of my tweaks and wrote, "Too easy and boring--might as will print the answers in the puzzle!" So, I backed off. And left the editing to Will.

VIC: While in Tampa for Merl's memorial service last August, Andrea and I talked about possibly collaborating on a puzzle at some point in the future. We'd both collaborated with many others, so it seemed a logical fit.

Weeks later, I ran an idea or two by her. I was impressed by her keen insight. And her quick resolve not to delve into a theme that wasn't clearly "fun." I tend to default to "complex" and then try to make it fun.

And then … I was reflecting on my first Times puzzle—a 2005 collab with Nelson Hardy that seemed both complex and fun: theme answers were punnily clued phrases in which the present and past tense of the same verb ran consecutively. E.g., SIT SATURDAY, HAVE HADDOCK. An idea came to me: 2-word phrases consisting of back-to-back homophones.

How happy I was when Andrea wrote, "This is fun!" We exchanged a few emails, developing the theme, filling the grid, writing the clues. Will liked it, but wanted some fill upgraded. This led to several revisions. When Will finally wrote, "This turned out nicely," he was holding revision no. 15!

ACME: Judge Vic and I bonded during Merl's memorial last year in Tampa. We discussed turning one of the illustrious judge's ideas into a Monday. PARESPEARS appeared in databases, but we figured the four others were fresh.

As this appears so close to the anniversary of our dear friend's untimely passing, I hope it will do him proud.

Vic: Bruce and I have collaborated off and on for many years, starting back when he and Stella Zawistowski (then Daily) were a prolific team.

Bruce: That's right. And continuing on through the period that Vic and Bonnie Gentry were doing great work together. Every so often, we just think of something we'd both like. We've maybe done about 50 so far. So, late last year I sent Vic a grid with a theme inserted that I thought he'd go for. I like the challenge of interlocking theme entries, and I knew that Vic did, too. I already had it filled, but knew that Vic might very well improve on it.

Vic: That's right. Bruce had done a fill, and I tweaked it some, And then he tweaked my tweaking. But the grid, the theme, and the fill was excellent from the get-go, as always. You want to see some fine Venzke grid work, look at the 1/28/2007 Sunday Times puzzle, "Having Pull," and a 2007 Schrödinger we did for Simon & Schuster called "You Be the Judge" — I forget which volume it's in.

Bruce: Vic is far too generous in his compliments regarding my contribution. Especially on that Schrödinger—Vic had a great gimmick on that one. On this current puzzle, yes, I did the grid, but a puzzle — especially a NYT puzzle — without good clues is like a two-legged stool. And I enjoy consulting with Vic on clueing puzzles like this one. He recommended we clue it to a Tuesday, I think ...

Vic: Maybe even a Wednesday?

Bruce: ... and took the lead by drafting a first set of clues.

Vic: Which Bruce tweaked.

Bruce: I doubt if I changed diddly squat. Maybe three! Anyway, Will liked the puzzle and accepted it as a Monday, which he said would get it into print within a year. So, Vic wrote another set of "Monday clues" ...

Vic: And I sent those first to Bruce, and he tweaked ‘em ...

Bruce: This time I changed two!

Vic: ... and I sent ‘em to Will. And, true to form, it looks as though Will may have used a third of them or so.

Bruce: The long and short of it is that we are always glad to be on the right side of a New York Times byline.

Vic: Right, Bruce!

Friday the thirteenth, huh? It's a great day to see and solve a puzzle in the Times!

What was on my mind two years ago when I wrote and submitted this puzzle? I tend to start with two phrases that have not been in puzzles much, if at all. Ergo, ALL I WANT TO DO and OUT OF THE BLUE. Once the grid was built around them, I'm sure I just tried to fill it with ILSA's (in-the-language stand-alones)—I count 18 of ‘em, 20 is typically my goal—while minimizing the need for clunkers to glue them in. I'm sure I agonized over IN A SENSE and HAS A SHOT, as I don't like to have even that small of a dupe in a grid's fill.

I'd have preferred to avoid OST, which I like neither as a German direction nor a bony prefix. YSL would have worked if BRESL were a word. I'm not a big fan of YLEM either at 47-Across. FLEM (short for my last name) would have worked out great if only the ASSAF, a breed of Israeli sheep, were more widely known.

As for the clues, Will did a great job as always. Eight or ten of my originals survived the edit, but the final product is A-OK, in my opinion.

Matt:

Initially, I had difficulty squeezing in all the theme entries (I think I had an initial number of eight plus the entry "toast"). I was going crazy thinking I couldn't get all eight in because I was just not good at construction — even after all the years I've been off-and-on constructing. I needed Vic to slap me in the face and let me know that eight themes plus a reveal is a daunting task, even for veterans. I think I was initially writing Vic about something else when I figured I should ask for help on that theme.

I so appreciate the help Vic offered and working with him. His style of collaborating is much more methodical and different (which is NOT a negative commentary) than others I have worked with or have tried to work with in collaborations and that number has been few anyway.

I have no idea where the TOAST theme came from; it has been a while. I'd say 90% of my themes, however, come from an idea that was originally something else but developed into the final puzzle. So, TOAST may likely have started out as anything referring to HATCHES or BURNT FOODS, but the final version is what came to fruition over the then-theme development progress. For another example, I once had a 21x21 (one about anniversaries published some time ago by Rich at LAT) come out of a 15x15 because I liked a theme entry that I came up with, but, of course, the entry was longer than 15 letters.

I do like the [Oktoberfest exclamation] repeat clue idea that Will decided on, especially since he chose it for an October puzzle.

Vic:

Matt, with whom I'd had the pleasure of collaborating back in 2009 or 2010 — we had a joint byline on a Sunday Los Angeles Times puzzle called "Where the Wild Things Are" — contacted me in November 2012 with an ambitious theme: eight theme answers, 58 letters, and every answer was a toast, except for TOAST, the designated reveal. I think Matt's message to me was two-fold: (1) Would you like to help? (2) If so, I'll share the credit.

The deal looked doable to me. We brainstormed back and forth for a few days. I constructed the grid; we contributed 50-50 to the fill and the cluing. The puzzle was submitted Dec. 9, 2012.

From the outset, we were of the mind that, with short and long theme answers, this theme needed to be 100% horizontal in the grid. I think I came up with the theme cluing scheme "Word/words after a shot," since I'd had some success with repeating-clue themes before (see Feb. 19, 2008; Aug. 13, 2008; Sept. 25, 2008; and Sept. 30, 2010). Clever of Will to change that to "Oktoberfest exclamation." But then, he's a clever guy.

At some point in time, I decided that an okay puzzle theme would be two-word phrases, where the first respective letters of the theme answers' components were the same and would allow for a three-letter pluralized reveal. M.P. would have trumped MC in my book, since military police is a phrase that meets the theme's criteria; emcee, not so much vis-à-vis M.C. phrases.

My list of potential theme entries, created March 8, 2011, contains moot point, Miss Piggy, make peace, Marco Polo, Menlo Park, match play, mud puddle, milk punch, mail pouch, match point, melting pot, mobile phone, market price, massage parlor, master plan, mashed potatoes, May Pole, melting point, morality play, motion picture, mountain pass, mud pie, and mouse pad.

As a matter of style, I wanted theme entries that were "true" M.P.'s, no M.Ph.'s, M.Pr.'s, etc. I also wanted to be able to cross two pairs of answers. Being able have four 4/5 letter-count patterns crossing on P, plus two 5/4's was a tad serendipitous, but I'll take the added elegance brought about by this. The layout also facilitated placement of the reveal in a corner.

The original grid, submitted in March 2011, had only 33 blocks. Will asked for a revision to eliminate some clunkers from the fill. Adding four blocks, including the cheaters (which I don't like), did the trick.

Sam: So, Vic, do you recall how we came up with this ANAKIN SKYWALKER puzzle?

Vic: Uh ... Anakin was a classmate of yours. He friended you on Facebook. And I said, "We should totally put him in a puzzle! I loved him in that Ewok movie."

Sam: Precisely! BTW, Anakin did well in Econ last semester. So, yeah, we designed this grid with as much lively fill as possible, garnished it with some Scrabbly flair. I even learned a word; when you suggested DEMIJOHN, I Googled for a tabloid name between stars Moore and Cusack ... since when are they an item?

Vic: When you told me that story about finding an ENERGY BAR in a SEWER LINE and thinking, "I bet that TASTES BAD!", who'd a-thunk you could jam those phrases into a crossword?! You use lots of multi-unit answers. In a themeless you did in May, there were, like, 50! Where'd you learn that?

Sam: I'll never tell. [wink] But it's not like I was working alone.

Vic: How cool is it that Will kept several of our clues! Like yours for PEEN, "Part for a whackjob?"

Sam: "What Kramer often called Seinfeld" was yours for JER.

Vic: "They might like your comments" — your clue for FACEBOOK FRIENDS.

Sam: My clue for BUTTS — "Moon units?" — was changed only slightly, to "Moon views?"

Vic: Close enough! I'll give it to you.

Sam: Loved your clue for TE AMO, "Phrase cooed en español."

Vic: And I loved yours for AREA CODES, "409 and 410, but not 411."

Sam: All in all, a good effort. I hope everyone likes what they see. It's been a pleasure working with you.

Vic! Here's to many more collaborations!

Vic: As they say in the clue for IT'D BE ... my pleasure!

Sam: That wasn't in our puzzle.

Vic: No, but it coulda been.

Sam: BARCA was the better choice.

Vic: Especially with your clue, "Spanish soccer club, to fans."

At the age of six, watching the credits roll after the annual TV airing of The Wizard of Oz, I saw "Directed by Victor Fleming" on the screen. "Mother," I shouted, "my name's on TV." She looked up from her knitting, but it was gone by then. "Uh huh," she said. I knew she thought that I'd imagined it. Neither my parents nor any of their friends were movie buffs, and my efforts to find someone who would vouch for what I'd seen on the screen were futile. I had to wait a year to prove I was right!

I've used my name once before in a puzzle — a Thursday Themeless in the New York Sun, in September 2004. Symmetrically juxtaposed to VICTOR FLEMING was the answer CHAMP AT THE BIT, for a synonym mini-theme.

Back to the puzzle at hand: Nine theme answers, with two crossing and a total of 97 letters, felt reasonable, vis-à-vis the universe of titles directed by the honoree. Will helped a bit on this after my first draft needed revising. I don't remember the specifics, but he suggested a film that was not in my original lineup. It was either Red Dust or Bombshell. He also rewrote about half my clues. Okay, 60%. Would you believe 65?

I wanted phrases and compound words for the theme, and I think Will did, too. That ruled out Adventure, Hula, Reckless, Renegades, Mantrap, and The Virginian. And some of Fleming's early work is not known at all, e.g. The Mollycoddle, Mama's Affair, Red Hot Romance, Empty Hands, and several others. I hated not to use Treasure Island, Captains Courageous, and Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde, because those titles are well known, if only from the novels that bear the same titles.

I admit to being self-indulgent in this puzzle. But c'mon, man! Victor Fleming directed 40+ films over a 29-year period. And his 125th birthday fell on a Sunday! How could I not make a puzzle about this?

Sam:

To my knowledge, this is the first puzzle I'd ever had accepted by the New York Times, so it has a special place in my heart. I fell upon this kid-friendly theme after multiple attempts of trying to satisfy Vic with good theme ideas; even though I was merely a newbie at this point, I had a good feeling about this one's development. Sure enough, my mentor gave me a thumbs-up, and we proceeded with construction. Vic was excellent at explaining grid design, and guided me through creating an initial grid, fill, and clues to submit to Will. Months later, Will requested a revision, so Vic designed a new grid with fill and sent it over to me. I tweaked the fill (especially in the bottom right) and clued the puzzle. Vic revised my clues, and the rest is history! It's been a pleasure working with Vic and I can't thank him enough for his mentorship.

Vic:

Sam's right — and he's talented and has been a joy to work with. He was 16 when he made this puzzle. I'd been mentoring him for a few weeks. He developed the theme. I helped a bit on construction and fill. We submitted it Feb. 17, 2012. At that time FANCY PANTS was in the theme rather than BOSSYPANTS.

On June 26, 2012, Will told us the theme needed a "revealer of some sort." We went back to the drawing board and emerged with NICKELODEON across the center of the revised product. On March 25, 2012, Sam had a solo-byline Sunday puzzle in the Los Angeles Times. Also, while we were revising SPONGEBOB, we were at work on a themeless that appeared in the Times on July 28, 2012.

Vic: "Do you remember this puzzle?" I asked Bonnie.

Bonnie: Not so much.

Vic: So Jeff sent us a copy. I solved it in under an hour. Bonnie and I concluded that some time back one of us said to the other, "We need to collaborate on another Times crossword." That's a statement each of us has made many times over the years. Since my name is listed first, we think it was I who then said, "I'm thinking of a theme with 2-unit ILSAs*, in which the first and last unit can be the first unit in 2-unit ILSAs with a common second unit." Or words to that effect.

*(An ILSA is an "in-the-language stand-alone." I hope no one coined this acronym before I did, about five years ago. Here's to its being admitted to the dictionary someday! But I digress.)

LINE being the second unit in many a two-unit ILSA, we made a list of those, then worked with the first units to find our theme answers. We wanted at least six, and we wanted two pairs to be crossing in the northwest and southeast corners. The puzzle was submitted in October 2010 and accepted in December that year. Perhaps not wanting to risk comments like "That's so 2010!," Will rewrote most of our clues, though a couple of dozen survived unscathed. As always, he made the puzzle better.

Bonnie: I approve this message.

This was my second Times crossword with legal phrases as the theme. The first was a 9/13/2007 collaboration with Joe Krozel, in which he made a grid with seven 15-letter legal phrases! In my March 23, 2011, transmittal letter, I wrote, "Here's a puzzle you might like for a Friday. The grid is similar to puzzle 8 at the ACPT. It looks themeless and is pretty much clued as though it were. Yet, there's a theme."

If you've read my earlier notes, you'll know that for a time I obsessed over whether and to what extent my theme clues were edited. I don't even check this anymore. Factors that affect clue editing include time lapse between receipt and publication, what's in the previous and subsequent puzzle, and the editor's sense of the audience. But since I've pulled the manuscript ... Two of my four theme clues were retained verbatim! And, while over half of my other clues were changed, Will definitely improved the puzzle's overall merit with his editing!

SAM: There wasn't really much that "inspired" this puzzle, except for the fact that I wanted to be accepted by the Times. I also wanted to learn how to make a good themeless. Vic, who'd been mentoring me for some time, said we needed to come up with two backbone entries to build a grid around. He chose PHOTOBUCKET, as it was fresh and modern. I came up with GOOGLE EARTH. He designed the grid.

VIC: We split the task of filling the grid, almost literally, down the middle. As always, I was pushing for multiple ILSAs (in-the-language-standalones), and Sam delivered in spades, pushing our count to over 20.

SAM: I clued it all up. Vic tweaked my cluing. Will asked for a slight revision. Vic revised it. I revised his revision. We got accepted. And boom!

VIC: As we write this note (Dec. 2013), Sam has now had eight more puzzles accepted by the Times, including a terrific rebus that was published on 12/13/2012!

This puzzle demonstrates how using 100% of available theme units can overcome a theme's low-excitement factor. I wanted to come up with seven ILSAs (in-the-language stand-alones), preferably all phrases (vs. hyphenated or compound words), each having as its first unit a different subject pronoun. I wanted to cross theme answers in each of two corners. The one iffy entry was SHE DEVILS, which seems to have etymologically evolved into a hyphenated word. However, if you glance through IMDb, you can find this word going both ways in movie titles over a 50-year period.

I submitted the puzzle to Will by mail in April or May of 2010. I had a cross-country road trip planned for late June, with stops in Williamsburg VA and Southbridge MA, en route to a golf weekend in Killington VT. I routed myself through Will's home town and invited him to dinner. He accepted. Before dinner, he gave me a tour of his puzzle factory, showing me his collection of old puzzles, and then pulled out an envelope with this puzzle in it. He critiqued it on the spot, accepting the puzzle, but asking for revisions in a few places. It's the only puzzle as to which I can claim an acceptance in person. (He also rejected three puzzles that afternoon, but let's not go there!) We had dinner at the Pleasantville Diner. I dropped him back at his house and then drove on to Southbridge.

VIC: I admire Lynn's thematic tautness and deft touch with early-week clues. Always have. In late October 2010 she did a CrosSynergy titled "A Bone to Pick." The title made me think of "with you." as in, "I have a bone to pick with you." Her theme consisted of ILSAs (in-the-language stand-alones), the first unit of which could precede "bone", e.g. TAILWIND and WISH YOU WERE HERE.

My idea was to use "with you" as a reveal, with four partial phrases that could end with those two words. Falling flat, this idea morphed into, first, phrases ending with "you." And then into song titles, and then love song titles. I had trouble making a grid that would accommodate the lengthy theme — a good time to seek help.

Since Lynn had inspired the idea, I asked her if she'd collaborate. Her initial reaction: "Your proposed theme is pretty far afield from a bone to pick!" But she agreed, made a great grid, and wrote the clues. We pitched it to Will as a Valentine's Day special.

Hawaii's 50th birthday as a state was Fri., Aug. 21, 2009. Six months before that, I submitted this puzzle and thought it had been accepted for that day. That day, however, featured a Patrick Berry themeless. When my puzzle ran eight weeks later, the bloggers had a field day. Rex Parker had not "disliked a puzzle this much in a loooong time, ... A bunch of random !@#@ about HAWAII. How Does This Qualify As A Valid Theme???," he asked. "Ugh."

The Crossword Fiend wrote, "I wonder if Vic hoped for this puzzle to run around August 21, the 50th anniversary of Hawaii's statehood. There doesn't seem to be any particular rhyme or reason for running this theme now, but two months ago? Perfect." And a commenter at the Wordplay Blog remarked that "I thought this puzzle might have been timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Hawaii's statehood, but the actual date was Aug. 21. I wonder if this was originally intended to run on or near that date."