Category: Coincidences

More crossword weirdness…

Posted on by Dale

In my ongoing efforts to chronicle the absolutely weird coincidences between the New York Times crossword puzzle and what we laughingly refer to as “real life,” here are my notes from volume 17 of NYT Easy Crossword Puzzles. (I would like everyone to note that I have generally gone for the Sunday puzzles, but due to the brain fog caused by my recent health issues, I have fallen back on the easy stuff, as is evidenced by my ability to do two or three of these at one sitting.)

Here’s the deal: More frequently than is called for by statistics, I will be solving a crossword puzzle as we watch television, etc., and as I’m solving a clue the topic will be referenced either by the TV or by current events. Here’s the list from volume 17 with its 200 puzzles:

  • 4/11/26: In the day’s actual puzzle at the NYT site, 16A (_____ TOKARCZUK, 2018 LITERATURE NOBELIST: [OLGA]) was also a clue, and 27A (COUNTRY WHOSE NAME BECOMES ANOTHER COUNTRY IF YOU CHANGE THE LAST LETTER TO A Q: [IRAN]) was a bit on the nose given [[[Turmp]]]’s disaster
  • 6/30/26: We’re watching Second Chorus, and Burgess Meredith says, “Hit me in the lip” as I’m solving 38A (SASS: [LIP])
  • 7/4/26: We’re watching the original Ted Lasso series for the third time, and boom! — 45d (DOGIE CATCHER: [LASSO])
  • 7/7/26: The World Cup was going on, and I get 45A (ONLY PLAYER ON MORE THAN TWO WINNING WORLD CUP TEAMS: [PELE]); and the Current Administrations screw-up with the Reflecting Pool, 50D (POND SCUM, TYPICALLY: [ALGAE])
  • 7/7/26: That morning at Backstreet Writers Group, someone mentioned Throne of Blood as an influence, 14A (DIRECTOR KUROSAWA: [AKIRA])
  • 7/9/26: As I read Zardoz Speaks to You, about the making of the immortal Zardoz, 23A (CONNERY WHO PLAYED 007 SEVEN TIMES: [SEAN]
  • 7/13/26: Ginny scrolling through options to find something to watch; the preview for How to Get to Heaven from Belfast contained the phrase “You’re wearing pajamas” as I solve 57A (SOME CHRISTMAS ATTIRE: [MATCHINGPJS])
  • 7/20/26: The movie The Odyssey just opened, 2D (ODYSSEUS IN “THE ODYSSEY”: [HERO]
  • 7/24/26: Watching Ride or Die, in which Hanna Waddingham plays an undercover assassin, episode 4, 44D (UNDERCOVER ACTIVITY? : [SLEEP])
  • 7/25/26: 68A, both clue and answer, were in that day’s puzzle (BAD, BAD _____ BROWN: [LEROY])
  • 7/26/26: While driving to Atlanta earlier that day, my phone played “Rise Up!” 36A (“HAMILTON” CREATOR _____ MANUEL MIRANDA: [LIN]); and while chatting with my friend Zeff, I mentioned “acid” as I was solving 17A (LIKE HALLUCINOGENIC DRUGS: [MINDBENDING])
  • 8/3/26: Cousin Anna Catherine texts that she came across a patient in the system with the last name of Shakespeare; Ginny asks if they are a descendant and I reference Hamnet as I’m solving 45D [GERTRUDE’S SON: [HAMLET])
  • 8/10/26: Ginny pulls up the new Ted Lasso just as I hit 60A (YOUNG GENIUS: [WUNDERKIND]), which of course was Nathan Shelley’s nickname from the first series.
  • 8/23/26: We’re watching Midsommer Murders, season 10, episode 3, “King’s Crystal,” which is a parody of Hamlet, and we have 4D (BREAKFAST PASTRY FOR HAMLET?: [DANISH])
  • 9/1/26: Rewatching The Crown… 48D (WILLIAM OR HARRY, E.G.: [PRINCE])
  • 9/1/26: Watching Grantchester — the eventual murderess had been rollerskating most of the episode, 53D (USE ROLLERBLADES: [SKATE])

And there you have the most recent couple of months of my crossword weirdness.

A fun coincidence

Posted on by Dale

My life has been full of neat-o coincidences, like the time I used my favorite book from my childhood (The Color Kittens) as the palette for the set design for Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro and discovered when it arrived in the mail that it was illustrated by the illustrators of William Blake’s Inn, Alice and Martin Provensen.

Another: recently, I whiled away my time in the lighting booth of Christmas Carol by doing crossword puzzles from an old daily calendar I had on my desk, and ended up at the December 10 puzzle… on December 10.  Not only that, but the next day’s puzzle, December 11, was the final performance of CC, AND the puzzle was originally published on May 12, 2005… my birthday.

So this morning I received two children’s picture books I had ordered after encountering them at Brain Pickings (a highly recommended read).   The first, Du Iz Tak?, by Carson Ellis, is a total delight:

In it, a variety of little bugs encounter a plant.  None of them knows exactly what it might be (Ma nazoot, one says) and as the seedling continues to grow, so does the activity around it along with our understanding of their bug language.  The climax is scrivadelly indeed.

The second is What Can I Be?, by Ann Rand and Ingrid Fiksdahl King, and it is also a delight:

Shapes and colors for the young nonreader, and imaginative use of red circles, blue squares, etc., is the point of the book.  Looking, seeing, creating.

Here’s the coincidence: the back flap of the dust jacket tells me that

Ingrid Fiksdahl King is a painter and professor emeritus of architecture at NTNU Norway.  She is a coauthor, with Christopher Alexander, of A Pattern Language, one of the most influential books on architecture and planning.

You mean this A Pattern Language?  This one, right here?  The one I used to do this?  “Influential” doesn’t begin to describe it.