Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Rihanna ______ ______?

It's possible, maybe even likely, that my granddaughter might want to take up crossword puzzles at some point. Maybe she won't. But if her generation starts sharpening their pencils when they see the New York Times, Will Shortz and his disciples are going to have to get out their erasers and delete many of the old clues. They'll also have to add a bunch that reflect the current . . . um . . . culture.

I was working a puzzle last night, and thought about how, if I were doing the puzzle with Liz, she wouldn't, well, have a clue. At least for these:

Pearl _______ Bailey
Pinza and Chaliapin
Al Hirschfeld's daughter
"Knute Rockne, All American" star
Succotash bean (does anyone eat succotash any more?)
Bandleader Winding
"_________ Romantic?"

Maybe I should invite Liz to do a puzzle with me. She'll think I'm smart, whereas in fact I'm only old.

She'll be sitting there, awestruck, while I zip through these:

"The Caine Mutiny" captain
Peter Weiss drama, "________/Sade"
Skater Midori
"Picnic" playwright
"The Magus" setting

No, wait. She'll be sitting there with her laptop, Googling. Feeding me the answers faster than I can write them in. Laughing triumphantly. Not to worry, Will Shortz.

9 comments:

Helen said...

Oh my gosh, I didn't know the answer to any of these. And I'm old too.

Susan said...

At the very least you should have gotten Marat/Sade!

Helen said...

AACCKK! You're right. I'm glad I don't have any grandchildren or children, they would be so unimpressed with me!

crystal said...

Well, I did read The Magus and I can sing the words to Isn't it Romantic, but beyond that I'm lost :-)

Susan said...

Really! I'm getting rather impressed with myself. Somebody better send Maureen over.

Helen said...

Psst, don't tell Maureen I told you this, but she could only answer one of them. She's almost as stupid as me. I even think she had to resort to Google to get that one correct answer...

Sabine said...

I'm not sure whether you're implying I'm old or smart, but I only got one Midori Ito (no googling).

Helen, on the other hand, thinks flannelet can be made into sexy lingerie...

Helen said...

For the record, Maureen is both younger and smarter than me, even though I came up with the idea of sexy flannelette lingerie first. But I have better car insurance (she shamelessly plagiarizes).

Anonymous said...

Hahaha! I'm loving the comments here. Sexy flannelette lingerie.

Crosswords always boggle me, and that's part of why I love them. I rarely get one completed. There's some sort of "crossword order" that makes the frustration of missing that last word/clue actually sweet.

Liz and Helen would both Google and have answers faster than we could fill them in!