CROSSWORDS: 1990s

Highlights | 1990 | 1991 | 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | References

Highlights

• 1990: World Wide Web (proposed)
• 1993: Eugene Maleska succeeded (briefly) by Mel Taub, and finally by Will Shortz (4th NYT crossword editor)
• 1996: Election ('quantum') Crossword; Across Lite format

1990

• World Wide Web proposed
• Crossword Concerto (song) by Robert Wells, album Rhapsody in Rock II
• Landscape Painted With Tea (book) by Milorad Pavic;
  "A failed architect's search for his father, an officer who vanished in Greece during World War II,
  becomes a labyrinthine puzzle, inextricably bound to the history of the ancient monastery on
  Mt Athos". It's organized as a crossword puzzle: "Readers may approach the book chronologically by reading
  only the 'Across' sections, or less chronologically and with more digressions by reading the 'Down' sections.
  Either strategy gradually reveals the story of a soul-searching architect who roams a labyrinth of meditation and memory."
  "In ergodic literature, nontrivial effort is required to allow the reader to traverse the text"
• More Than Words (song) (video; 4:17) (wikipedia) by Extreme, album Pornograffitti;
  lyrics: "How easy it would be to show me how you feel; More than words is all you have to do to make it real"

1991

• Nothing Turned Out Right (song) by Demon, album Hold On To The Dream;
  lyrics: "So I walked in the sunshine / And suddenly it started to rain / So I reached for the crossword /
  But couldn't find where I'd left my brain / It's just one of those days / When nothing turns out right"

1992

• Bambi Is a Stag and Tubas Don't Go 'Pah-Pah': The Ins and Outs of Across and Down
  NYT (Sun) Crossword 50th Anniversary; 2/16/1992
• "The former president Bill Clinton... is an avid crossword solver.
  Sometimes he does as many as three puzzles a day.
  While being interviewed for a magazine in 1992,
  he completed a medium-level crossword in 6:54." ~NYT Puzzle Mania, p.11, 12/17/2017
• Happy Phantom (song) (video; 4:17) by Tori Amos, album Little Earthquakes;
  lyrics: "They say Confucius does his crossword with a pen / I'm still the angel to a girl who hates to sin"

1993

• Behind the Times: Who will succeed Maleska? CROSSW RD Magazine; .pdf; January/February 1991
• Will Weng, 86, Crossword Editor For 10 years for New York Times obit; 2nd NYT ed.; NYT; 5/3/1993
• Eugene T. Maleska, Crossword Editor, Dies at 77 obit; 3rd NYT ed.; 8/5/1993
• The Times Names A New Puzzle Editor
  Mel Taub was interim editor for 2-1/2 months between Maleska and Shortz; NYT; 10/11/1993
• Will Shortz: 4th NYT crossword editor, 1993-present; 1: Farrar; 2: Weng; 3: Maleska
• A Life In The Arts: The Life Of Will Shortz Electricka
• New York Times Crossword Editors names, # of puzzles by each; XWI
• Will Shortz's Life in Crosswords
  his favorite clues, debates in the crossword community, and unexpectedly finding his first serious romance; NYkr; 2/15/2023
• One Foot In The Grave: The Trial [S4E5] TV series;
  Victor is home alone while on call for jury service, tackles a crossword and contemplates his various ailments.
  Crossword blog: the best TV gags about crosswords; Guardian; 9/20/2012
• Crossword Compiler software for creating crosswords: shareware on DOS;
  commercial later on Windows 3.1
• How to solve crosswords origins of Crossword Compiler; 4/16/2006

1994

• The New York Times Crossword Companion Roll-a-Puzzle System from Herbko International
• Crazy Crosswords (Australia) (TV game show; 1994-1996)
• Twelve Across Barbara Delinsky; 1994
• Jigsaw (song) (video; 4:09) by Love Spit Love, album Love Spit Love;
  lyrics: "i've got to get this crossword done / of everything you've said / all the one way conversations
  words that i forget / and it would be so easy to see / if i could be there now"

1995

• Oliver's Travels TV; PBS; Top 10 crosswords in fiction, no 4: Oliver's Travels; Guardian; 7/26/2012
  "When Oliver (Alan Bates) ... is laid off by his university, he resolves to visit Aristotle, a famous compiler of crosswords.
  When Oliver discovers that Aristotle's home has been ransacked and Aristotle is nowhere to be found, ...";
• Crossword Blues (song) (video; 6:11; lyrics: 4:10-) by Rob Tognoni, album Stones and Colours;
  MayasMix @ 89:50; lyrics: "lately I've been learnin' to do the crossword everyday /
  it's just one of those things I'm gonna need to while my lonely hours away"
• The Tunnel novel by William H. Gass;
  Billy Kohler, the protagonist, describes his mother’s crossword habit with sanctimonious disgust as a waste of time,
  yet when she enters a hospital at the end of the novel, he tries to understand her by doing the puzzle. A crossword grid
  appears on the side of one of the pages, which visually as well as thematically blurs the novel and the crossword together.
• The American President movie; Wikipedia;
  (President SHEPHERD (Michael Douglas) finishing up a crossword puzzle)
  SYDNEY: Do you ever get used to helicopters dropping you off at your front door?
  SHEPHERD: How many "e"s in "kaleidoscope"?
  SYDNEY: I guess you do.

1996

• Election Day Puzzle: The clue to the middle answer across the grid was
  "Lead story in tomorrow's newspaper." The answer appeared to be CLINTON ELECTED.
  Because of intentional ambiguity in the crossing clues, however, the answer could also have been
  BOB DOLE ELECTED. Either answer fitted. For example, the crossing clue Black Halloween animal
  could have been either BAT or CAT, with the C for CLINTON or the B the start of BOB DOLE.
  "It was the most amazing crossword I've ever seen. As soon as it appeared, my telephone started ringing.
  Most people said 'How dare you presume that Clinton will win!' And the people who filled in BOB DOLE
  thought we'd made a whopper of a mistake!" ~Will Shortz; xwordinfo: the puzzle;
  Wikipedia: a quantum (or Schrödinger) crossword simultaneously has 2 states
• NYT adopts Across Lite (AL) application & .puz format
• (8/10/2021: NYT Games No Longer Available on Across Lite no more support for .puz format; 8/2/2021)

1997

• Friends: The One With The Dirty Girl [S4E6] TV series;
  Crossword blog: the best TV gags about crosswords; Guardian; 9/20/2012;
  Rachel's attempt in to surreptitiously elicit answers from Chandler after insisting that
  she really wants "to finish a whole one without any help"
• Crossword Weaver: software program for creating crossword puzzles.
• Success of firm's crossword software is no puzzle Variety Games; 2/17/1998
• Getting the lard out: The koshering of the Oreo cookie original recipe called for pig lard; 2/26/2008

1998

• USPS issues commemorative crossword stamp
• Mercury Rising (movie); "An autistic 9-year-old boy cracks the U.S. government's top-secret code
  when an unapproved test matrix gets published in a crossword magazine."

1999

• West Wing (Pilot) TV series;
  LEO (President's Chief of Staff): Margaret. Please call the editor of the New York Times crossword
  and tell him that Khaddafi is spelled with an h, and two d's, and isn't a seven letter word for anything.
  LEO: [on the phone] 17 across. Yes, 17 across is wrong... You're spelling his name wrong... What's my name?
  My name doesn't matter. I am just an ordinary citizen who relies on the Times crossword for stimulation.
  And I'm telling you that I met the man twice. And I recommended a pre-emptive Exocet missile strike
  against his air force, so I think I know how.
  LEO: [looking at the phone, then hanging up] They hang up on me every time."
  The West Wing's Leo McGarry on the Correct Way to Spell 'Qaddafi' video: 0:53; Atlantic; 8/24/2011
  
  from Season 3 (2001)
  JED: "Laissez-faire doctrine," fifteen letters.
  ABBEY: Social Darwinism.
  JED: No, that's not the answer, see, because social Darwinism isn't a doctrine.
  It's a force of nature. The answer is libertarianism.
  ABBEY: I'm going to be ready in two minutes.
  JED: Take your time.
  ABBEY: Passive aggression is not going to get me out the door any faster.
  JED: Booboo, I gave up on getting you out the door in the late seventies. Plus, it's your birthday.
  You're old, and you don't move around that fast.
  ABBEY: Libertarianism has fourteen letters, not fifteen.
  JED: I know, so I'm shading in the extra box.
  Top 10 crosswords in fiction, no 8: The West Wing; Guardian; 6/7/2012
• A Clue for the Puzzle Lady (mystery, 1st in Puzzle Lady series) by Parnell Hall;
  synopsis: "Amateur sleuth Miss Cora Felton, an eccentric, nationally-syndicated crossword puzzle columnist
  whose craving for trouble has increased with age. When the body of an unknown teenager carrying a cryptic,
  crossword-like message is found in the local cemetery". Other books: Last Puzzle and Testament, Puzzled To Death, ...
• The Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project: Bring Old New York Times Crosswords into the Digital Age
  Litz-ing NYT puzzles: 1942-1994; solve those puzzles
• Kill the Man (movie);
  "Guy: What are you doing in my parking lot?
  Bob Stein: Murder.
  Stanley Simon: Yeah, handsome guy too.
  Guy: The corpse just moved!
  Stanley: They tend to do that sometimes. I once saw a man finish a crossword puzzle after being shot five times.
  Bob: Sunday edition too."
• The Crossword Murder (mystery) by Nero Blanc from Crossword Mysteries (series)
• Nobody Knows Anybody (Nadie Conoce a Nadie) (movie);
  "Simon (Eduardo Noriega), a crossword-puzzle writer, receives a cryptic message threatening him
  with death if certain words don't appear in his puzzles."
• Your Dictionary (song) (video; 3:30) by XTC, album Apple Venus Volume 1;
  lyrics: "H-A-T-E -- is that how you spell love in your dictionary...There are no words for me inside your dictionary"
• The Story of Us (movie); Ms. Pfeiffer's character designs crossword puzzles.
  Mr. Willis goes from skepticism that anyone can make a living at such an activity to examining,
  later in his marriage, his wife's puzzles for insights into their relationship and its decidedly
  murky prospects; he starts to see her crosswords as secret messages. Wikipedia; NYT

References

• Wikipedia: 1990s
• The Decades That Invented the Future: Part 10: 1990s
  Sony Playstation; GPS-Guided Munitions; Linux; MP3 Player; RQ-1 Predator Drone; Oklahoma City Bombing;
  Photoshop; The Internet (web); Dark Energy; Women's Soccer; Web Design; venture capitalist (John Doerr); Wired; 1/25/2013
• Paleofuture: 1990s