I’ve always enjoyed crossword puzzles. (My mother solved at least one every day of her life; she died at age 91 with every cognitive asset intact.) In the early ‘90s, I caught on to the idea of actually writing them, first as a way to keep mentally alert during otherwise boring events; later, they became something of a holiday tradition, as a way to say obliquely what the past year meant to me—my theory being that one should never state anything directly when the long way around serves one’s purposes better.

I am working my way backward through the years (which makes a certain amount of metaphorical sense, perhaps). Several of the older puzzles will take a bit more prep work before they can be unleashed upon the world. For now, please enjoy (or something) those below. They are in PDF form, so you will have to print them out yourself. Hint: If you make two copies, it will save a lot of page-flipping.

The answer to your question is, no, I do not use a software application to generate my crosswords (see the above purpose!), though I do use online sources to check spellings and to look for interesting variants for the clues.

Crossing the Maelstrom: The Dreams Our Philosophies Come to Know …And sometimes (see the 2005 puzzle) catastrophe does a tango with the Phoenix’ ashes. All flesh is grass, yes, and every favored thing, too, is a blade thereof, in its time mowed and mulched. But of the seed, theorists of evolution argue about how the logic of survival playsout: Do genetic lineages compete as individuals, or,maybe, a sherds, tribes, or other social groups?As usually framed, the discussion ignores context, especially life’s delicate interplay between competition and cooperation. Yet both are undeniably important components of how people (at least )get about their various businesses. However the argument is settled, then, it is clear that, just as fish swim in the ocean, we humans ply our trades in a very social milieu. It is in this sea, this crucible, that we feed, we fight, we flee, and we love. And sometimes…sometimes, we change—perhaps voluntarily and enthusiastically, perhaps wauling and shrieking—lest we, and our lines (not to mention our essential hopes), die. Stability is not always desirable. Traversing the Great Tempest’s vortex, the trick is to discover, often in sadness but always in passion, alternate paths to the future, to exploit hidden or undeveloped potentials….Ah, but what chaotic drummer measures these long marches? What seductive demons, devout muses, and “imps of the perverse” coo into our minds’ ears; what improbable deities implore us (whether they be internal or external) to do what we do, and why (oh, why) do we heed their counsel…? Now, these are interesting, most human, and (perhaps) forever open questions….

2004: Gallows Humor Yeah, well, sure: Politically, socio-economically, ecologically it’s all UBAR. Yes, the glaciers are retreating, hurricanes are nastier than ever; we’re running out of oil, vaccines, and neighborly forbearance; species are going extinct right and left while there are too many human mouths to feed (and most of them preach the wrong religion). Remember the old Kingston Trio line? “What nature doesn’t do to us will be done by our fellow man.” “Right,” says Mother Nature, “and,you carbonic clowns, vice versa, I assure you.” So,we’re all in a hand basket and hanging by a thread. No argument there. Howbeit, I ask, why the angst?Hey, the Four Horsemen have been saddled up forever; ice ages are old news; and we’ve known, well, since birth about the hearse, yes? Anyway, we are the big-brained, problem-solving hominids; why not take the challenge, and even have some fun?And—who knows—maybe something good, besides a well-mixed metaphor, just might turn up….

2005: Levels of Analysis in a Dangerous World Does God sometimes push the reset button? Last year, I wrote of calamities, natural and human-caused, and pointed out that, hey, they’ve always been with us and, surely, they always will, so we may as well cease the fretting and stewing and hand-wringing. That puzzle was entitled “Gallows Humor.” The first part will, of course, forever hang over us—bad things do happen to good organisms, to good species, to…entire galaxies—but within a month, the waters came upon Banda Aceh, then withdrew, carrying away the dead and the still living…and it was all no longer funny. So: A year of winds and waves and crashing walls of earth might lead us to believe that, at the least, Nature is desperately trying to shake her tormentors. Perhaps there is some anthropomorphized truth in this, though the better answer is undoubtedly to point out that Nature is under no obligation to attend to human sensibilities. As Terry Pratchett notes, God may indeed keep his eye on the sparrow, but he doesn’t lift a finger to slow its fall. Or, to paraphrase Mr. Spock, the needs of the larger future are greater than those of the smaller present. Is this more or less how God should have answered Job? This is an end-of-the-year puzzle, not a theological essay. And yet, the season demands, if not a thorough exegesis of how the universe works, at least some sincere reflection. This is my attempt, short form; believe it or not, I infer, from all this, hope, on several levels. Each of us does, after all, come from a long line of survivors: Sometimes we can dance a tarantella on the cusp of a catastrophe curve.

Flipping the Hourglass: Notes Concerning the Care and Watering of History’s Arroyos Humanity is, you might say, “The Creating Ape”. Eating of the forbidden pomegranate—that fruit o incomplete knowledge and ill-informed conjecture—wesitonthesandybanksoftime’sstreamever-flowing out of Eden and rage against the gods of entropy and invent technological weaponry against their earthly avatars. To thus tack against the universal winds, to turn chaos (which, after all, wishes merely to mind its own thermodynamic business) into…product, even posterity (!), is a very human application—a religious, essential one. Hence, decay and destruction get a bad rap. Yet in our desperate, determined drive, we are sure to make an obscene (if unintended) mess. Moreover, today’s great opus is tomorrow’s fermenting muck; if we don’t clean up after ourselves, someone else—sometime and somehow—will have to deal with the infestation. Assuming the latter, might it not be easiest for our descendants to take a flamethrower to the whole sorry befoulment? That is, before recapitulating the process? Or, finally, will some divine agent of havoc be called upon to purge and purify our groaning closets and garages, to deliver our weary world from its proudest fashionings—and to compact, crush, and compost the contents of our economic, military, and tribal middens? Withal, heaven knows that a further mortal proclivity is that we love a good fight and will root for the underdog; how many rounds shall we wrestle with the angel of transformation before what was dust is dust once again?

Doubling Down: “ ’Tis Time, ’Tis Time”: Toil and Trouble Bursting Through the Lush Desolation Are lunches free? Economists say no. But this isn’t quite right: They are free, to those not picking up the tab. So…who gets stuck? This is not a usual topic in economics. Yet it is important. In the biggest possible picture, we are, of course, all provisioned by the energy harvested from the Big Bang. It trickles down to us via sun light, mostly, but also from tidal action and the heat left over from the earth’s creation. It’s all “free”, then (after shelling out for the relevant “user fees”), if we can just use the stuff—and grab fast. Energy is necessary—we know that. Many economists, though, seem to have it backward: Money doesn’t buy oil;  oil, or its equivalent, makes money possible. How, then, to keep the carnival castle, the wealth,of our existence from deflating? Toss it back up and let it hit us on the head? Is that the “pump”?Sure, but there is a thin line indeed between “trickle down” and shove it up” (aka “suck it up”). Anyway, the metaphors may be themselves upside down: The richest among us are, truly, the biggest suckers of all. The real question is, to be sure, whether, given our assets and abilities to exploit them, can we support 6 billion and more humans (not to mention a far greater bio-mass of other deserving, useful biota )in the manner to which we would love to become accustomed…without despoiling our habitats? Probably—possibly—the right materials exist, if we could only exploit them. We just need Hope…and Faith…even a sense of Wonder….Anything else? Well, consider the driver about to set off across the desert. He or she needs to expect—to hope, to have faith—that the filling station halfway (and most of a tankful) across will be open. But note that it is also necessary that, upon arrival, the station actually has a supply of fuel for sale (or at least to beg, borrow, or steal). Perhaps, then, we also need actual resources…plus a hose and compressor, maybe a pick and shovel, the skill to use them…and a few good, equally desperate friends….