Have crosswords changed?

[yendi]

So, in their ongoing efforts to prevent us from canceling our subscription, the Boston Globe has tossed in the Thursday-Saturday papers for free for a few weeks (we normally only get the Sunday paper).

On Friday, I grabbed it on my way out the door and decided to take a stab at the crossword. Since it was Friday, I figured that it would be a nice challenge.

It wasn't.

There were clues like "Noted Swiss Psychologist," "Football Great Merlin," "Perry and Wilson," "Leopold's co-conspirator," and "Wrestler Hogan" in here. A lot of them. Honestly, if it weren't for four unclued items (all related to a fifth, unclued theme word), I'd call this a Monday puzzle, but at best, it's a Tuesday (as the unclued theme was pretty easy to nail).

Have I missed something in the daily crossword world? When I was doing them regularly, from the mid-80s until the late '90s, the trend was that Monday puzzles were easy, and that they got progressively harder each day, until the nasty Saturday puzzle that made me want to kill someone. That was the case with the Times, Newsday, and USA Today, which were the three puzzles I cut my teeth on, an the AJC also followed that pattern in the '90s.

And the Globe is owned by the Times, so I'd figured that they'd follow the pattern as well. Am I missing something?

The Globe still has a good Sunday puzzle, at least.

Comments

[tablesaw]

Well, the NYT Friday was pretty easy, but none of those clues were in it. I'll bring it up with my Boston friends and see who knows. If you happen to have the editor/constructor of the puzzle, that would help too.

[auryn29a.livejournal.com]

Maybe I'm stupid, but the only clue I get there is "Wrestler Hogan." I was never very good at crosswords though.

[yendi]

Allan E. Parrish.

(Since I finished on my way into work, the paper was still in my cube's recycling bin.)

[yendi]

The others were, in order, Jung, Olsen, Lukes, and Loeb. It's not so much a matter of smart/stupid as "know the fact/don't know the fact." You'll either know who Merlin Olsen was, or the clue will never get any easier for you. But puzzles that are nothing but trivia contests aren't that interesting; a good puzzle deals with wordplay, misleading clues, and stuff that tests reasoning ability as well as memorization.

[jerel.livejournal.com]

With the exception of the NYT crossword puzzle books, I've noticed that more of them are tending towards pop culture and trivia. I do the puzzles on yahoo, and that's how most of them are.

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

When did you have to become an expert on Personalities and Pop Culture in order to do a crossword? It used to be about the Language, definitions and alternative meanings or word origins, not a bunch of people from various sports etc.