Third Puzzle Day set at Clinton School

— Arkansas Puzzle Day, Saturday, will be a challenge to make rows of words add up to a triumph - and get the numbers to spell out f-i-n-i-s-h-e-d!

Crossword and Sudoku puzzle-solvers will compete in an afternoon of free tournaments starting at 1 p.m. Saturday in Sturgis Hall at the Clinton School of Public Service in Little Rock.

The Democrat-Gazette has puzzles of both kinds in today's comics section. Crossword puzzle-solvers fit words into a grid of black-and-white squares. Sudoku fanciers work with numbers.

Hosts of the third annual puzzle day, Vic Fleming of Little Rock and Bonnie Gentry of Scottsdale, Ariz., also willsign copies of their new book, Random House Casual Crosswords, at a reception at 5:30 p.m. Friday at downtown's Peabody Little Rock hotel.

"I'm looking forward to a big time," Fleming says.

Three clues hint at the possibilities:

Fleming and Gentry have taken over the annual Random House collection of 50 crossword puzzles with the retirement of editor Mel Rosen. The new book is out just in time for Arkansas Puzzle Day

The best part of a crossword puzzle is the "Aha!" moment, Gentry says. The theme makes sense all of a sudden, and the words seem to fall in place. It could happen.

The Peabody is the event's new co-sponsor, along with the Clinton School.

"I think this has the makings of a destination weekend," Peabody General Manager Gregg Herning says. The hotel has special room rates for puzzle solvers, and free stays at the landmark Peabody in Memphis as contest prizes.

"I'm a puzzle enthusiast myself," Herning says, one who aims to finish each day's puzzle in the newspaper no matter how hard people say it is.

And crossword puzzles are all the rage in Arkansas these days - literally so in the case of readers who don't like the Democrat-Gazette's new puzzle as much as Herning does.

CROSS IS THE WORD

Crossword puzzles have been a national passion ever since the New York World published the first one almost 100 years ago. It prompted the first angry letter to the editor about tampering with the pattern of words that interlock. The crossword puzzle is "the only thing I give a hang about," one reader let 'em have it.

Letters of a similar tone have been peppering the Democrat-Gazette's opinion pages for months, ever since a change in the daily crossword puzzle, brought about when the syndicated puzzle's editor moved on.

"Don't mess with the puzzle," one response came across. "I don't want easy, but I do want something that makes sense."

Put back "the kinder, gentler puzzle that we have been used to for many years," another went down.

But yet another reader claimed to have worked the new puzzle in a snap - 20 minutes - "though I never did figure out the name of that ski resort in Utah." Some people like the new, debatably harder challenge, and one guy wrote in to say thanks for the commotion: "Without all these letters, I would not have realized that the puzzle is different."

Deputy Editor Frank Fellone, tasked with puzzling over the crossword changes, paraphrases Abraham Lincoln ("Lanky Illinois wrestler" might be the crossword clue), in saying, "You can please none of the people all of the time."

NUMBER ONE ACROSS

The first year's puzzle party grew from a speaking appearance by The New York Times' crossword puzzle editor, Will Shortz, at the Clinton School.

"Will created the puzzles and ran the competition for the first Arkansas Puzzle Day," the school's dean and occasional puzzle-worker Skip Rutherford fills in the blanks. American Crossword Puzzle Tournament judge Merl Reagle did the confounding honors last year.

This year's co-host, Fleming, is a traffic-court judge in Little Rock. Law-abiding drivers know him better as a cruciverbalist - a puzzle-maker. Co-host Gentry is a financial planner who makes up crossword puzzles in between market shifts.

"I had put together a crossword puzzle I wanted to send to The Wall Street Journal," Gentry says. It needed fine-tuning, though, and she turned to Fleming, who thinks up puzzles for The New York Times.

Years of e-mail collaborations on more puzzles made them the team to take over editing Random House Casual Crosswords. Besides choosing the book's puzzles - some they wrote themselves - the partners' job was "tweaking the clues," Fleming says, "a whole lot of proofreading," and coming up with catchy titles.

"Don't Let the Cat Out of It" is the title of one of Fleming's puzzles, with a hint just below the heading: "Phrases that end with a container (of tricks)."

He and Gentry collaborated on "Killer Bees." The hint is that, "all the B's in the long answers have been omitted. The puzzle writers cleverly refrained from using any B's in the shorter answers as well."

"I've always enjoyed solving crosswords," Gentry says, but "I enjoy creating crosswords far more."

DOWN EASY

Besides presiding over the day's contests, Fleming says he and Gentry will talk about the mechanics of crossword puzzles, including how to solve the tough ones.

"It's good to remember that the person who makes the puzzle doesn't really want to frustrate the person who is working it," Fleming says. Insiders know how to start solving a puzzle with practically no idea what the clues mean.

Among his tips:

Start with fill-in-the-blank clues, often the easiest.

Try to gain a "foothold" by finding three-letter words. Three letters - how hard could it be?

If the clue hints at a plural answer, "go ahead and put an 's' at the end."

If the clue seems to indicate past tense, then write "ed" in the last two squares "just to give yourself something to build on."

Consider that the answer might be a phrase, Fleming advises, and a lot of phrases end with "up." If the clue is "paid," for example, the answer might be "ponied up" or "anted up."

And remember that some daily puzzles - The New York Times puzzle for one (on the Democrat-Gazette's television page) - are "progressive." Starting with an easy puzzle on Monday, they become more and more difficult as the week goes on. People don't get dumber on Friday; the puzzle really is harder.

Sunday, well ... Sunday's puzzle is like a line from Sex and the City:

"Men in their 40s are like The New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle - tricky, complicated, and you're never really sure you got the right answer." AHA!

Puzzle Day events are free, but the Clinton School accepts reservations for the day's contests at (501) 683-5239. The number for Peabody hotel reservations is (501) 906-4000.

Style, Pages 27, 29 on 08/25/2009

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