Crossnerds

Discussed! NYT crossword puzzles from Weds 2/22/23 (Adam Wagner), Thurs 2/23/23 (Joe Deeney), and Sun 2/28/23 (Will Nediger).

Disgust! Black History Month did not seem to matter to the NYTXW. But racial representation in crosswords matters deeply to us. Find our ep with Kameron Austin Collins here.

Also!

• OPPO: British 1960s bae?
• MS PAINT and Brooke's minicity masterpieces
• Tourney szn approacheth! The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, Boswords, and  more TK.
  • Reminisce with the original 'Nerds interviewing Erik Agard back in 2019, right before Erik won ACPT.
• Anigrams.

Enjoying "Crossnerds"? Give us five ⭐️s in Spotify! Comment in Apple Podcasts! @ us on Twitter! Support us on Patreon! Or just keep listening. Or all. Ideally all. But we'll take any. Please and thank you!

SCENE: Season 8. Year of the Rabbit. 2023. Cut to: Rebecca & Brooke, Crossworld's most beloved showgirls, reviewing New York Times crossword puzzles. On this episode...they (we) peruse three (3) puzzles, from 2/2/23 - 2/4/23. Featuring.....:

• Bisexual lighting
• SARD: new year, new gem?!
• On app-lessness
• CUT TO THE CHASE: What, why, how. Jannings escapes ...
• AVCX is not sending people to the moon
• In 2022, 21% of NYTXWs were written by exclusively women (h/t XWord Info)

Enjoying "Crossnerds"? Give us five ⭐️s in Spotify! Comment in Apple Podcasts! @ us on Twitter! Support us on Patreon! Or just keep listening. Or all. Ideally all. But we'll take any. Please and thank you!

WORDPLAY ON THE FRITZ ⋇ DEFY THE HEGEMONY ⋇ THINK FOR YOURSELF ⋇ DO NOT PANIC

Happy holidaze and welcome back to the show! This week, Rebecca and Brooke calmly discuss four New York Times crossword puzzles published 11/22/2022 - 11/26/22. We also poke a stick at the curious corpus of 😱 LOGIC PUZZLES 😱 such as sudoku, ken ken, and star battles! We are two kra-z kids!!!

Plus:

• Red alert! Reds are red, but violet may or may not be blue: colors, categories, and linguistic relativity vs. universalism in this Nautilus article by Chelsea Wald
• PICTURE cards
• How not to fall for the myth of crossword's 'unwritten rules'
• The joy of connecting the dot dot dots
• Theme queries: emotional risks vs. open submissions (again)

And the Inkubator is available at https://inkubatorcrosswords.com/.

Enjoying "Crossnerds"? Give us five ⭐️s in Spotify! Comment in Apple Podcasts! @ us on Twitter! Support us on Patreon! Or just keep listening. Or all. Ideally all. But we'll take any. Please and thank you!

In this ep, Rebecca and Brooke review New York Times crossword puzzles from 11/9/22 - 11/12/22.

Including!

• The first-ever, no-details-necessary, void-where-prohibited Crossnerds challenge: ⭐ Guess Our Zodiac Signs! ⭐️ Tweet us @Crossnerds or message us to play.

Also!:

• "Reduplicative names" puzzles
• "Reduplicative": redundant?
• Repeated clues: ALLOWED!
• Non-semantic themes
• Letterbanks
• Two takes on GOTTI
• Things that don't look like boats
• Reverse reveals
• The grammar of adverbs (disjuncts, e.g. "Hopefully...")
• Evocativeness in clues
• What sound owls make (hint: it is not "PEEP")

Enjoying "Crossnerds"? Give us five ⭐️s in Spotify! Comment in Apple Podcasts! @ us on Twitter! Support us on Patreon! Or just keep listening. Or all. Ideally all. But we'll take any. Please and thank you!

👋🤓🎙 Live from Berlin and a Dalíesque sea of toilets: Rebecca and Brooke review the week of 9/12/22 - 9/18/22 in New York Times crossword puzzles, covering such topics as:

• "Noted" in crossword clues
• The world's kickiest animals
• Triple-checked squares
• Does Europe have Daylight Savings Time?
• Green paint
• "Representation Without Transformation" (h/t Sally Hoelscher's USATXW blog)
• Wacky Wednesdays
• Where difficulty comes from (misdirects, vagueness)

And if you don't know the Bob Marley song "Soul Shakedown Party," check it out.

Enjoying "Crossnerds"? Give us five ⭐️s in Spotify! Comment in Apple Podcasts! @ us on Twitter! Support us on Patreon! Or just keep listening. Or all. Ideally all. But we'll take any. Please and thank you!

Nerds here! Get yer Spicy Summer 'Ssnerds here! Featuring a husk of future residents (Rebecca and Brooke) discussing New York Times crossword puzzles (we selected 4 from the week of 8/22/22), PLUS PLUS PLUS Lollapuzzoola 2022 (puzzles still available here)!! Sundry chatter also includes:

• The great HOOHA-baloo
• Meta puzzles
• Towns with no business in crosswords
• Stacking elevens
• COVID content in puzzles
• And in hurricane news: WAIT IT OUT, or evacuate?

Enjoying "Crossnerds"? Give us five ⭐️s in Spotify! Comment in Apple Podcasts! @ us on Twitter! Support us on Patreon! Or just keep listening. Or all. Ideally all. But we'll take any. Please and thank you!

Hey bb whats ur sign? In the crossword zodiac, we mean. I bet you're a Gridbearer. The Block? Butterfly (for symmetry)? Anyway, we're both Crossnerds, and in this ep we discuss New York Times crossword puzzles (published 6/6/22 - 6/12/22), as well as the following topics (which are also great sitcom episode/children's book names ™️):

• The Trouble with Tightening Revealers
• We-all Need Will Nediger
• Carly Schuna and the German Wheel
• Question Marks (Again? 😜)
• When Misdirects Fail

Enjoying "Crossnerds"? Give us five ⭐️s in Spotify! Comment in Apple Podcasts! @ us on Twitter! Support us on Patreon! Or just keep listening. Or all. Ideally all. But we'll take any. Please and thank you!

omg have WE GOT AN EP FOR YOU. 'Twixt our reviews of New York Times crossword puzzles (5/2/22 - 5/8/22), Rebrooka discover:

• The truly absurd history of "Louie Louie" (I chose the Toots version)
• The city of Ur
• Short fill, destigmatized
• #SettlerSaturday
• Why four-leaf clovers are rare 🍀
• Brooke luvs to rollerblade

And if nothing else, pls pls pls experience Brooke's essay puzzle, then go to abortionpuzzles.com to learn about These Puzzles Fund Abortion Too, and then donate and get your puzzlepack here.

Enjoying "Crossnerds"? Give us five ⭐️s in Spotify! Comment in Apple Podcasts! @ us on Twitter! Support us on Patreon! Or just keep listening. Or all. Ideally all. But we'll take any. Please and thank you!

Happy belated Spring Festivals! We are celebrating with a new round of New York Times crossword puzzle reviews (4/18/22 - 4/24/22). Also featuring:

• A crossword for everyone(?)
• Punchline revealers
• Using a curated list to source a puzzle: 👍/👎?
• Oil wrestling

Enjoying "Crossnerds"? Give us five ⭐️s in Spotify! Comment in Apple Podcasts! @ us on Twitter! Support us on Patreon! Or just keep listening. Or all. Ideally all. But we'll take any. Please and thank you!

Rebecca and Brooke are returnt like the U.S. Football League, except that our sporty forte is tackling NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD PUZZLESSSS (from 3/28/22 - 4/3/22)!! Also in this ep:  Americanisms, Bacchanalia for marginalia, and fie-ing the ex who absconded with intimacy (which may or may not have been a STAGED disappearance 👀).

Enjoying "Crossnerds"? Give us five ⭐️s in Spotify! Comment in Apple Podcasts! @ us on Twitter! Support us on Patreon! Or just keep listening. Or all. Ideally all. But we'll take any. Please and thank you!