Ryan M. Booker

QA Engineer/erstwhile math tutor & radio host. One of competitive crosswording's best non-god-tier solvers. I mostly post about the #puzzlingmusic I listen to.

[Ryan M. Booker @BroomYanker]

For any aspiring trivia hosts out there: I made, as a project for my web dev. bootcamp, an app that allows you to generate quizzes using the largest online database of Jeopardy! questions. You can also edit them/add your own Qs and As. #trivia #Jeopardy
https://t.co/9FvV18PdRr

[Ryan M. Booker @BroomYanker]

Friday #puzzlingmusic: the late, great Greco-American ambient composer Iasos, with a piece for Longform Editions
https://t.co/5VZdYmi9ZB
#nytxw - Probably my favorite Friday of the Fagliano era. Good mix of classic and new vocab, and some clever but not annoyingly tricky cluing.

[Ryan M. Booker @BroomYanker]

I so appreciate the biggest names in crosswording showing up to #ACPT this year to support Will Shortz. The man made crosswording what it is today and deserves every solver's respect.

Oh, and it cleared the way for me to place 3rd in the virtual division
https://t.co/czS9GBAQbh

[Ryan M. Booker @BroomYanker]

Saturday #puzzlingmusic: the psychedelic ambience of Amina Cyu - part of this impressive wave of spaced-out music coming out of Mexico
https://t.co/QCKjFalXt6
#nytxw - 3:34 - Solid, fun puzzle. Never heard of 55D's book but it sounds like pornography for white bourgeois liberals.

[Ryan M. Booker @BroomYanker]

Saturday #puzzlingmusic - Ariel Kalma with Jeremiah Chiu and Marta Sofia Honer. One for the heads, for sure.
https://t.co/7Kon0oiaac
#nytxw - 4:34 - I don't play video games or watch every crossword constructor's favorite league, the WNBA, so I hit a few snags. Fine, otherwise.

[Ryan M. Booker @BroomYanker]

Saturday #puzzlingmusic: A playlist of my favorite non-rock-oriented tunes from 2023
https://t.co/HuZmZU3eCk
#nytxw - 4:01 - An fun final Sat. The last thing I put in the grid was 1D, b/c I've never used one during a set. Also, my orig. end for 36A fit but was wrong - good trap.

[Ryan M. Booker @BroomYanker]

Saturday #puzzlingmusic: Klaus Wiese, who is apparently being rediscovered.
https://t.co/q8Brabrjra
#nytxw - 4:43 - I always dig Will N's puzzles, especially the themeless ones.
#latxw - 4:27 - If you're going to jam a grid with proper names, maybe have *one* be recognizable.

[Ryan M. Booker @BroomYanker]

Saturday #puzzlingmusic - the psychedelic field recordings of Sam Dunscombe
https://t.co/TcfAitbPdT
#nytxw - 5:21 - Can we agree on a spelling for 16D? This is why I hate neologisms.
#latxw -4:15 - Had to get a fucking Black Eye Pea song and an XBOX *peripheral* LBL. Just awful.

[Ryan M. Booker @BroomYanker]

Not my fastest Sunday #nytxw, but faster than my Saturday time (by ten seconds!), which hasn't happened in a while.

[Ryan M. Booker @BroomYanker]

Not mentioned in his obit: the year after Love Story, the name "Ryan" entered the list of the 20 most popular U.S. boys' names, where it would stay for four decades. He is, in a way, the namesake of every modern Ryan.
https://t.co/k7JJf02H7n

[Ryan M. Booker @BroomYanker]

Saturday #puzzlingmusic: The lo-fi neo-kosmische of the New Mexican Stargazers
https://t.co/SQ0X4xPcjL
#nytxw 5:46 - Was cruising until I hit 34A - yet another long pop-culture-related entry I would have to get LBL. Brutal.
#latxw 4:02 - Loved it! 14A, 31A, 52A all great answers.

[Ryan M. Booker @BroomYanker]

47D, I meant, not 41D

[Ryan M. Booker @BroomYanker]

Saturday #puzzlingmusic: One of Stephen O'Malley's dozen side projects
https://t.co/qTOOBK35Qx
#nytxw - 5:10 - the NW ate up 4 minutes because I had to get 5D letter by letter; the rest I blew through in a minute.
#latxw - 4:21 - Ditto here. 23D and 41D, LBL, because I'm not 12.

[Ryan M. Booker @BroomYanker]

Saturday #puzzlingmusic: The processed field recordings (mostly of birds) of Kate Carr
https://t.co/sqfG2EEfFZ
#nytxw - 4:20 - Loved it! Good cluing, fun vocab, nice center stack
#latxw - 3:27 - Also great. NW and SE stacks were both well done. Needed a cross to help spell 55A

[Ryan M. Booker @BroomYanker]

Sat. #puzzlingmusic - More archival Alvin Lucier recordings from Black Truffle
https://t.co/DhhnkVl823
#nytxw - 5:16 - Tough but fair
#latxw - 5:20 - Some good vocab, but too many vague - and not in a clever way - clues, like 19D. Almost had to get that answer letter by letter

[Ryan M. Booker @BroomYanker]

Sat. #puzzlingmusic: The Xenakis-y electro-acoustic drone of Siavash Amini
https://t.co/cuyIs2ao3l
#nytxw - 5:40 - I usually like Ryan M.'s puzzles but this had some odd choices (1D, e.g.)
#latxw - 3:41 - Really great. I saw a 44A movie based on a Shirley Jackson novel this week

[Ryan M. Booker @BroomYanker]

Saturday #puzzlingmusic: The 4th World-y drone of Durand/Cuni/Hohmann
https://t.co/zm7MWCcYYe
#nytxw: 4:33 - Save for the natick at 5D/17A, a pretty solid puzzle
#latxw: 4:45 - The edges took ~1 min, and the rest was spent on the fashion/teenspeak/mythic bird muddle in the center

[Ryan M. Booker @BroomYanker]

@sharpenorah I know A TON of people with NYT games subscriptions who NEVER do the crossword. I even have a co-worker who does pretty much every game *but* the crossword, which he says "just makes me frustrated." It's easy to forget how daunting it is to most people.

[Ryan M. Booker @BroomYanker]

Saturday #puzzlingmusic: The Radigue-ean minimalism of Ellen Arkbro ("Arkbro" sounds like a term for an aggressive male Indiana Jones fan)
https://t.co/hUB2rooJzN
#nytxw - 5:32 - Byron Walden makes me work for the 1000th puzzle in my current streak
#latxw - 3:56 - Clever cluing

[Ryan M. Booker @BroomYanker]

Saturday #puzzlingmusic: Autumn-inspired ambience from Wil Bolton
https://t.co/Wcx0VB3RSK
#nytxw - 4:48 - Really solid. Feel bad for any solvers who didn't live through the 80s, though.
#latxw - 4:08 - Also quite good. NW killed me since I had to get 19A letter by letter.

[Ryan M. Booker @BroomYanker]

Saturday #puzzlingmusic: Rod Modell provides more lysergic ambience for Astral Industries:
https://t.co/a2D7BQBFTR
#nytxw: 3:38 - Dug the almost triple stacks. Some good long entries.
#latxw: 4:25 - The... creatively spelled TV show I've never heard of at 40A held me up in the SE