Jonathan Raksin author page
2 puzzles by Jonathan Raksin
with Constructor comments
| M | I | S | C | A | S | T | M | S | N | C | U | S | S | ||
| E | N | C | A | N | T | O | G | O | O | F | O | F | F | S | |
| S | T | A | R | D | O | M | S | H | O | R | T | C | O | N | |
| C | O | N | S | O | L | E | S | O | R | E | |||||
| A | N | I | R | E | S | T | S | T | O | T | A | L | |||
| L | E | N | O | P | E | S | T | C | A | S | E | ||||
| F | U | S | E | S | T | O | N | E | P | I | T | ||||
| R | I | F | F | L | E | S | H | U | F | F | L | E | S | ||
| S | E | T | P | O | I | N | T | B | U | C | O | ||||
| P | E | R | U | D | Y | E | D | T | O | M | B | ||||
| F | L | Y | T | O | W | O | R | D | S | N | I | A | |||
| P | S | I | C | O | O | L | N | E | S | S | |||||
| A | L | C | A | P | O | N | E | A | G | A | I | N | S | T | |
| G | O | O | F | O | F | F | S | D | I | D | T | I | M | E | |
| E | G | O | T | T | O | P | S | T | E | E | L | E | R |
It's nice to be back with another crossword in the Times!
The three sets of (nonreversible, with one special exception noted below) "shuffle partners" appearing in today's puzzle are quite rare. So rare, in fact, that I was unable to find any other examples of greater than six letters across many thousands of candidates in my personal word list. This included searches for partners with an odd number of letters and for partners in which the first letter in the "shuffled deck" came from the "bottom half".
This overall rarity, in my opinion, makes it even neater that one of the only three starting word hits (GOOFOFFS) shuffles back into itself!
| P | O | S | I | E | S | I | F | S | O | A | S | P | ||
| G | R | A | M | M | Y | S | O | N | A | T | I | N | A | |
| A | D | L | I | B | S | L | O | I | T | E | R | E | R | |
| N | A | T | O | A | L | P | H | A | B | E | T | |||
| A | T | L | R | E | X | M | A | R | Y | |||||
| G | R | E | E | K | M | Y | T | H | O | L | O | G | Y | |
| R | A | I | N | W | A | W | A | |||||||
| A | M | A | Z | O | N | W | A | R | E | H | O | U | S | E |
| R | O | T | I | W | E | L | T | |||||||
| T | H | E | G | R | A | N | D | C | A | N | Y | O | N | |
| N | E | I | N | O | R | C | S | P | A | |||||
| E | C | H | O | L | O | C | A | T | I | O | N | |||
| W | H | A | L | E | P | O | D | T | R | O | O | P | S | |
| L | I | T | A | F | I | R | E | I | N | A | R | U | T | |
| Y | E | S | T | E | E | N | C | S | H | A | R | P |
Very excited to be making my New York Times debut! I've (technically) been a solver since I was around ten years old. On Sunday mornings my dad would leave a copy of that day's Times puzzle beside everyone's place at the breakfast table. The unstated expectation was that my siblings and I would at least give it a once-over in exchange for our French toast.
For today's puzzle, I remember that the revealer and theme set came to me in relatively quick succession. The only other theme answer contender that I recall seriously playing around with is the ever-fascinating LASCAUX CAVES. Gridding this one, however, was not nearly as smooth a process as theme development. The large amount of theme material left me with basically just a single viable option. Many thanks to the editorial team for allowing me to include an obscure New Wave band from New Zealand to make that option work. I was pretty psyched to tip my one Kiwi friend off to its inclusion.
Finally, just a few shout outs. Firstly, to Jeff Chen who I cold emailed in 2024 with a bunch of half-formed ideas. He has provided free mentorship ever since, and I'm a vastly better constructor for his generosity. And I know that I'm far from the only person for whom this is true. Secondly, to the Crosscord Discord community, which I only came across in the last year or so. There's just amazing levels of generosity, encouragement and flat-out talent present there that I'd be remiss not to crow about here while I have the chance.