port cities

I cannot get into the Baltimore riots. They seem a bit fake as made for t.v., as made for internal Party discussion. Plus, again it appears essential facts are omitted in reporting so the stories that emerge have little to do with actual causes so the real problems will not be addressed and never will be because at the root of them is Party. It is an interesting and unsightly fight overheard and seen by neighbors and all of the talking is by somebody who is clearly not talking to me.

I keep seeing a steady stream of images of youthful black males being criminally boisterous but all I can visualize since I'm kept reminded of this place is the rats.

All I can think about is a port city's rats. I'm imagining. Rats all through the sewers. And all through the ceilings of buildings and homes. And all through the walls that connect them. All along the alleys. If it were Photoshop then any lovely photo of the city would have a layer of rats under it and a layer of rats on top with another lawyer of rats blended into the original photo. Then compressed.  Rats below, rats above a layer of human activity that is the meat to city's rat-sandwich, with rats as the bread and the lettuce and tomato. Rats all over the place pervasive through and through. Why do I think that?

Ben.

Didn't see the movie but I heard the song. I made fun of that song one morning, of Michael Jackson for singing it, and the movie without seeing it and my sister a year younger than myself came alive to its defense, she jumped up, "Everyone has to have friends, you know!" She really meant it too. She is serious about defending the movie and song about rats. Touching. She really has a silly touching side and she surprised me with that. So I continued singing Ben even more maudlinly to get her worked up and she did not like it one bit. She became quite agitated about rodent-rights and about isolated personalities who turn to rats for companionship.

Ben, you're always running here and there. You feel you're not wanted anywhere.


I make my voice go freakishly high.

If you ever look behind and don't like what you find
, there's something you should know, you've got a place to go.

Stop it!

Ben most people would turn you away. I don't listen to a word they say. They don't see you as I do.  I wish they would try to. I'm sure they'd think again if they had a friend like Ben, like Ben.

And the movie before that, Willard. That's why I think first and only about rats. They're not necessarily about Baltimore but I still think any port city will do. They are dark and wet and creepy and stony and along the lines of Edgar Allen Poe. And also because of Nuckyman.

Nuckyman is Frank Longo, a crossword puzzle constructor who publishes quite a lot of things. We were all going, "ew, ew, ew" about rats and Frank defended them wholeheartedly and ably. He told us how calm they are, how relaxed and how interesting and friendly and clean and fun to play with. He insisted they make great pets. Nuckyman is the reason why port cities can never be rid of rats. They're impossible to evict. Even if you did manage to kill them all there will always be Willard and Ben, and Beverly and Longo to come to their defense even keep them as pets, let them loose again and repopulate the whole city all over again.

Frank lives in Philadelphia. Another port city lined up with Baltimore, lined up with New  York, with Boston. Rats all over that whole coastal string of port cities. Just be ready for it. Nuckyman insists rats are okay. Like squirrels. He's such a smart and sensible person otherwise, and clever as anybody. By his puzzles and by his name, at first I visualized Frank Longo as Snidely Whiplash sinisterly twirling his mustache stumping as many solvers as possible, and then after the strong rat defense I began visualizing Frank as skinny geekish nerd, but as time goes on I now see him in pictures develop to a good-natured stud muffin who by his puzzles is always reliably robust, brilliant, updated and fair. And now that I'm looking I can add "good." He is a good man.

You can pull any one of those puzzles linked up there on his name and look at the main entries, the long ones, and discern what they all have in common. It might not be apparent at first but they will all fit a theme, the theme being something bizarre like letter substitution that turn a common phrase into a new and nonsensical phrase but one that is amusing that fits the pattern of producing new words. Then imagine how anyone might have contrived such a thing by finding such tricks in the language that you use everyday. If you cannot figure out what Frank did then you can click through and see what the person who posted the puzzle is talking about. He enjoyed solving so much that he posted and there are hundreds of such posts. They might lay the whole thing out for you. Let's look at one. I'll show you what Frank does. I'll pick one at random and look at it certain if by Frank then it will be worthy specimen. He is reliably excellent. His name autocompletes with "crosswords."

Ha ha, the pattern of that one puzzle makes a face.

The one I picked is hand filled. Goes to Dirigonzo Solves Longo. But let's look at the puzzle filled out first. File is titled, "longo 6-15"

We're looking for the theme. That's what would make the puzzle interesting.

INFORMATIONBELIZE

SWEDENTHEPOT

Okay, do you have theme? Ordinary phrases with names of countries substituted for one of the words resulting in new nonsensical phrases. Information police to information Belize and sweeten the pot to Sweden the pot. All of the rest will follow this pattern. To a solver knowing this goofy trick helps immeasurably in solving the rest of the puzzle and it is a delight to solve as they take shape and you see what country Frank used to jack with an ordinary phrase, or which ordinary phrase Frank used the name of a country to jack with.  Will he avoid the usual childhood amusingly named countries, Chile, Turkey, Hungary, Greece, what have you?  Shall we go on and see what he did that day?

ELECTRICQATAR   Oh, good one. This is why we love you, Frank.

YEMENMEREINGUE  Yes, we do. I could kiss you for this one.

HUNGARYMOUTHSTOFEED  ding ding ding

BAHRAINBUSTER   good one

PASSTHEBHUTAN  Ha ha ha ha, you loon.

HELPMERWANDA  Stretch it, Baby, stretch it. 

NINETEENHAITIFOUR   Oh. my. god. 

A puzzle like this will take solvers 10 minutes. If it takes 30 minutes then you're relaxing having coffee, smoking a cigarette and not really trying to make time and blast through.

Man, that's a lot of great thematic entries to cram in such a small puzzle. We needn't click through to see how the poster solved it, he will be talking about the fill entries and what he first thought and what they turned out to be. The discussion interesting to other solvers who encountered the same misdirections in clues, and who used similar paths and mental connections to solve it. What is interesting as constructor, and should be for solver, is how many great fill entries Frank managed with a lot of lesser used letters, all interesting words to get at with only minor crosswordese fill. Gazetteer, Israelite, lyricists, sheriff, gym bag, yet to be, gourd, shine. road map. Robust, see what I mean? It has a plumpness to it, a fairness to it in the clues were we to look at them, a friendliness and cleverness and expansiveness to it, all in one tidy grid, all that is decidedly Frank Longo.

Just look at him. He's all over the place. He is writing education puzzles for children and like this puzzle right here and they are not the usual handmade thing that you see for school classes. I never did one of those that was the slightest bit interesting. But now, here is Frank and the whole effort is dramatically elevated. The Learning Network. This is through the New York Times. The address bar says "learning.blogs.nytimes.com/author/frank-longo" It's a blog on the NYT.

Frank put up a student crossword puzzle to test your knowledge on women's suffrage movement. Printable PDF file. Another about virus outbreaks, another puzzle about China, Winter Weather, and Thanksgiving, Voting, Fear, Hispanic Heritage, Thank You Around the World, Paleontology. All for students. This is Frank being a good man. Teaching in his way, in his unique and interesting way. And when you look at the puzzles, they're all real honest-to-goodness legitimate puzzles, not the fake-o kind of educational crossword that do not even follow the rules of crossword construction and with poor cluing. Those amateur efforts are just random key words attached at intersecting letters, without fill and without symmetry, unimaginative clues, and that is not how crosswords are made. Frank is a real solid pro. 

I wouldn't trust him with rats, though. He is too enthusiastic supporter of the vast east coast port city rat network.