New York Times, Friday, September 25, 2020

I started constructing in early 2019, right after achieving my lifelong goal of appearing on (and winning an episode of!) Jeopardy!, with the support of the Universal Crossword Equal Representation Project (UCERP). Fun fact: my very first puzzle, through UCERP, was co-constructed with the very Jeff Chen on whose blog you are now reading this note!

Since then, I've constructed and published puzzles for other mainstream venues, including the USA Today crossword, where I coincidentally also wrote today's puzzle. I've also worked on a few indie crossword publications like Queer Qrosswords, the Inkubator, and Grids for Good. I'm grateful to the editors of all of these publications for their mentorship and guidance, and crossword Twitter and the wider crossword internet for being such a supportive community. Outside of crosswording, I am an assistant professor of Bioethics and Humanities at SUNY Upstate Medical University, where I work on the ethics of immigrant health policy and teach bioethics to medical and Ph.D. students.

Today's puzzle started with the seed entry THE MANDALORIAN, which I desperately wanted to be the first person to put into an NYT puzzle. Mission accomplished! I'm really pleased with the long entries I could pair with it, especially PRIDE PARADE and DON'T GET CUTE. I'm grateful to the NYT crossword editing team for excellent clue edits, and for preserving some of my favorites, including [High anxiety?] for ACROPHOBIA and the reference to the "plum pudding" model in the clue for ATOM.

Rachel! It was such a pleasure to work with her on her debut puzzle (for Universal). She's open-minded, hard-working, and not willing to say "good enough." I have a strong feeling that this will be just the first in a long line of NYT puzzles with her byline.

I wasn't a fan of THE MANDALORIAN (the show). I had issues with the pacing, unable to connect with a fully-masked protagonist, and the seemingly endless supply of minor characters who didn't play into the storyline. But how can you resist baby Yoda? Even better, the return of Carl Weathers! His portrayal of Apollo Creed was amazing, but it's his comedic role in "Arrested Development" I appreciate most. There's still plenty of meat on that bone!

I wondered if non-dorks should have heard of the TURING TEST. I've managed to fool everyone so far … whoops. I mean, I'm a totally regular, non-robotic human being organism who likes normal hominid activities such as ball sports and intake of a variety of alcoholic liquid consumables.

And that clue for ACROPHOBIA! It's such a clever play on the different definitions of the word "high." Here in Seattle, we have a third definition of "high anxiety": worry about Feds coming in and busting up our pot shops.

I did hitch at a few ESS, ELS clued as letter Ls, and TARES shorties. And THREE SCORE is an oddball. But there was the great DON'T GET CUTE, plus that amusing "plum pudding" reference in ATOM's clue and a Monty Python classic, "TIS but a scratch!"

Non-nerds might not enjoy the puzzle as much as I did, especially if they haven't heard of THE MANDALORIAN or familiarized themselves with Alan Turing through "The Imitation Game." But this dork had a ton of fun today.