Puzzle Notes

Hi friends: 

This week's puzzle, rated 3/5 difficulty, is by Brendan Emmett Quigley and titled "Fools Around."

This week sees a return to the regular crossword form. The mail poured in about Patrick's puzzle, and Brendan's marching bands bonus as well. (I apologize that I wasn't able to answer every email this week, as I generally try to do). A couple of people were annoyed that last week's puzzles couldn't be solved in Across Lite. We know that program is limited in many ways, and we'll continue to try to provide alternatives on different platforms. Others wrote that they'd solved Patrick's puzzle, but couldn't get all of the entries. Good news! The full solution to both of last week's offerings is attached here.

On the other hand, many of you wrote rather passionately about how rule-busting puzzles are exactly why you subscribe to the AVCX. We appreciate ALL of the feedback, and consider absolutely every complaint and compliment that we hear. Striking a balance between straight and delightfully skewed puzzles is a job we take seriously. I will say that the flood of email about "Bi-Curious" has inspired me to try to put together a kind of insanely special final three months of the year. Not that we ever set the bar low, but I want the last quarter of 2014 to feel like thirteen straight euphoric journeys into crossword puzzle.

More soon,

Ben and the AVCX crew [avxwords.com, @AVCXWord]