Even though Artie Shaw and his orchestra had a few hits with Brunswick Records, including Goodnight Angel (vocal by Nita Bradley) and Indian Love Call (vocal by Tony Pastor), Brunswick chose to let his contract expire. Shaw then signed a new contract with RCA Victor. Begin The Beguine was one of the songs they recorded during their first session (1938) and it was the first song that Victor (on its Bluebird subsidiary) released as a single. It spent eight weeks at number one and remained in the top 20 for 18 weeks. And the people at Brunswick probably started kicking themselves.
The Daily News crossword had 48 black squares, the most I've ever seen in a 15x15 grid. The black squares formed the letters H, T, U and S. The U and the S looked odd but of course a crossword grid does not allow for curves. Each of the four theme answers was an "arrangement of the letters in the grid." The answers were CABANAS, ERGO, REAR and SEAL, each of which was a synonym of a word formed with the aforementioned letters: HUTS, THUS, TUSH and SHUT. A very creative idea!
As for today's NEA crossword---38 black squares in a 13x13 grid---there were more of the usual over-used words: ACRE, AFAR, ALE, DRS, EDAM, EDEN, ELAN, ENS, ICE, OLE, SEE and SRS. I'm noticing that when crosswords include a lot of three- and four-letter words, a majority of those words end with E or S. I remember a few years ago someone made a crossword that contained no E's. I hereby issue this challenge to any crossword creator who considers himself capable: Come up with a series of five crosswords where puzzle #1 uses no A's, puzzle #2 uses no E's, #3 has no I's, #4 has no O's and #5 contains no U's. And for the Saturday crossword, construct a puzzle containing no S's. No prizes will be awarded...but think how smart you'll feel!
