Crossword Puzzle

Eugene T. Maleska, 77, crossword puzzle editor of the New York Times for more than 15 years. A native of Jersey City, N.J., Maleska spent most of his career as an educator--a teacher, principal and assistant superintendent in the New Jersey and New York public school systems. A lifelong lover of words and puzzles, in 1977 he took over the New York paper's popular crossword column. He created the innovative puzzles Stepquote, Cryptoquote and Diagonogram.

If you're lazily inclined to define Diane Keaton by the crossword-puzzle-sized word "actor," you need to get out more. Add to that her work as director and producer, photographer, restorer of venerable houses, board member of the Los Angeles Conservancy and, perhaps above all, as a daughter -- as revealed by her daughter-mother memoir "Then Again. " Little Diane once sat in a neighborhood theater on North Figueroa and watched her mother being crowned Mrs. Highland Park, and wished it were her up on stage instead.

Eight letters. Begins with an I. Has helpful resources for crossword puzzle lovers.Answer: I-N-T-E-R-N-E-T. Beginning with tools to end frustration when confronted with an elusive clue, one need only point and click to the Jumble and Crossword Solver Web site at http://odin.chemistry.uakron. edu/cbower/jumble.html.

Sylvia Bursztyn, who parlayed her playful spirit and love of language into a 30-year career of creating devilishly clever Sunday crossword puzzles for the Los Angeles Times, has died. She was 62. Bursztyn was found dead at her Granada Hills home on Dec. 30. The Los Angeles County coroner ruled her death was from natural causes. Bursztyn collaborated with her puzzle partner Barry Tunick on The Times' word game from April 1980 until his death in 2007, then continued on her own. Their Puzzler first appeared in the Book Review, then moved to the Sunday magazine and finally landed in Sunday Calendar.

No one knows when or where the first crossword puzzle was devised, but a craze for puzzles swept the country during the '20s, along with mah-jongg, bobbed hair and flagpole-sitting. These reprints from 1924 (the first year that puzzles were syndicated in newspapers) are surprisingly easy. Anyone who does modern crosswords will breeze through them, even the ones that admonish readers to "put on your thinking cap."

The crossword puzzle for Aug. 5 ("Testing Your Forty-tude") incorrectly listed the clue for 86 down. The clue should have asked for the winner of the 1918 Columbia University Poetry Society prize. The answer is Sara Teasdale.

'A plus for commuting to work is that you can relax and read the L.A. Times or a book, or do a crossword puzzle, etc. Much better than the anxiety and stress of driving.' -- Esther Krisman Warschaw, Los Angeles, on the June 15 Consumer Confidential column about using mass transit for a week

The wrong Puzzler features and solutions were inadvertently printed in last Sunday's Calendar. The crossword puzzle and the Duo-Crostic that ran were, in fact, several months old. Here are the crossword, Duo-Crostic and solutions as they should have run in our Sept. 6 edition. In addition, here are the solutions to the old puzzles that were mistakenly published.

With today's Calendar Weekend, the Los Angeles Times continues its changes in content and design. Calendar Weekend gets a new look and a new focus, with 8 Days -- an expanded and more comprehensive list of arts and leisure events -- plus new sections called Going Out, Staying In and Alternatives. And Calendar Weekend continues to carry the day's news and reviews, including Quick Takes, the roundup of news briefs replacing Morning Report.

On the list of medical reassurances as to how we can prevent Alzheimer's disease, working crossword puzzles earns high marks. This is happy news indeed for a puzzle fanatic like me. My habit will not only keep me alert, but it is now rationalized by scientific research. Sorry, dear, I have to do the puzzle. But am I willing to trade mental lapses for addiction? Like my mother before me, my self-worth is entirely dependent on successful completion of the daily crossword puzzle.

By the time the majestically unstable and unfunny "All About Steve" gets to a smudged, bleeding Sandra Bullock delivering a teary soliloquy next to a scared deaf girl in a mineshaft, you might assume a film this bonkers would head straight to the center of the Earth next. Or a moon made of cheese. Someplace woefully unreal, in other words. Hollywood movies preaching nonconformity are rarely a winning proposition, and "All About Steve" is no exception: an eat-your-cake-and-have-it-too exercise that razzes oddballs to no end before nearly martyring its off-kilter heroine to guilt-trip the audience.

In today's paper, you'll find changes to the weather and comics pages. In streamlining the weather package, our priority was to preserve forecasts for as many California cities as possible. Comprehensive weather information is available at weather.latimes.com. The redesigned Sunday comics package will appear over six pages instead of eight, and two strips, "Undertown" and "Stone Soup," will no longer appear.

UNDERRATED Crossword puzzles: Mark it down (or across): Sudoku is so mid-2000s. Stretching your word power is back. Hollywood's on board as well, with Sandra Bullock fraying the edges of plausibility as a lovesick crossword puzzle nerd in the upcoming movie "All About Steve," set for a March release. We make no promises about the entertainment value of the film, but the folded page is always a safe bet.

Crossword puzzle: The solution that ran last Sunday for the puzzle of Dec. 21 contained a typographical error in two answers: For 71 Across, "Honey maker," the answer is "bee." For 49 Down, " 'Giant' jackpot," the answer is "gusher."

Jets spell it out in crosswords for Favre They're bringing Brett Favre up to speed in New York, where the Jets are breaking in their new quarterback as fast as they can. Coach Eric Mangini said they've tried all sorts of approaches to help Favre learn the offense. Some of it is going through videotape, intense conversations and extended walk-throughs, and some of it is . . . crossword puzzles? "He's into crossword puzzles," Mangini said.

'A plus for commuting to work is that you can relax and read the L.A. Times or a book, or do a crossword puzzle, etc. Much better than the anxiety and stress of driving.' -- Esther Krisman Warschaw, Los Angeles, on the June 15 Consumer Confidential column about using mass transit for a week

Every morning before rising to face the pain and laughter of another day, Cinelli and I do a crossword puzzle together. We adhere to the theory that if we use our brains in leisure rather then burning them out watching "Jeopardy" we are less likely to lapse into senility for at least another few years.

When I was young and lived in New York, I thought the New York Times crossword puzzle had been invented to keep people occupied while they were waiting around. After all, people in New York wait around a lot -- for subways, discount theater tickets, special shows at the Met, or just a table in that restaurant that serves the really good pancakes. But while I am proud to say there was a time when I could do the Sunday crossword in ink, I really had no idea what I was dealing with.