New York Times, Friday, October 7, 2022

MARY LOU: Many thanks to Jeff for helping me feature KETANJI BROWN JACKSON in this grid, no easy feat given the limited number of options when the three parts of her named are stacked in the middle with those J's. A grid I had been playing around with separated the names with a line in between but didn't pull them together the way I thought they should be.

My clue for CLEAVAGE: ["There is a ___ and a divide in America like I've never seen before." -Mark Shields] sadly holds true and will, I fear, for some time.

One of my three clue options for KETANJI BROWN JACKSON was [Judge who wrote "Presidents are not kings"]. Another was [SCOTUS member with experience as a public defender]. The editors chose what I thought was the easiest of the three. I wish Judge Jackson well during her tenure.

I hope that you've enjoyed your Friday solving experience.

I'm glad I could help MaryLou out with her KETANJI / BROWN / JACKSON concept. When she approached me with it, she had spaced out the three pieces, which was smart for grid layout and fill, but it struck me as disjointed — solvers would struggle to connect the cross-references. Stacking the components felt much stronger, like a single marquee headline, but it sure proved a challenge.

I spent so much time trying to thread AUDIO JACK through the center column, with CARLS JR to its left, but KBJ kept banging her gavel at me. Hopefully, solvers don't struggle with the RIOJA crossings — I can barely tell a red from a white, but I've seen RIOJA enough times in stores that it's at least a familiar string of letters now.

After weaving in a couple of long bonuses like MAC N CHEESE (one of the few things my kids will eat (as long as it's a specific type of mac and an even more specific type of cheese) and STOLEN BASE, which felt ripe for clever cluing, I passed it on to ML to fill out the rest.

I'm still uncomfortable having CLEAVAGE in this tribute puzzle of sorts, but ML had a reasonable point, that the word can easily take multiple other definitions.

Mary Lou Guizzo and Jeff Chen win the "first to include KETANJI BROWN JACKSON's full name" race. The new Justice was sworn in on September 30. The Andy Borowitz headline in The New Yorker was Ketanji Brown Jackson Bravely Infiltrates Shadowy Alt-Right Group.

We have yet another crossword co-constructed by Mr. Chen. I presumed he made so many with partners because he was too lazy to fill the whole grid himself, but it turns out Jeff genuinely loves team-constructing, both with established constructors like Mary Lou and with newbies.

In the NYT alone, Jeff has puzzles with a record 51 collaborators. His 92 crosswords trails only the great Nancy Salomon, who paved the way for so many new constructors, including Wordplay queen Deb Amlen. Other familiar top collaborators include Andrea Carla Michaels, Erik Agard, Brad Wilber, and Doug Peterson — all respected practitioners of the art. Some constructors like Erik, Brad, and David Steinberg are also editors. You could argue that every puzzle they publish on their respective venues is a collaboration too.

Building puzzles with friends is fun, but so is solving with friends. If you're a competitive solver, you might barely remember struggling through a mid-week puzzle, bouncing ideas off someone you love, and cheering together when a tough answer breaks through, but it's a joyful activity. I don't have real data, but I suspect most solvers work with others. Try it yourself if you're used to struggling on your own. Or even if not.