New York Times, Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Wow — I constructed this puzzle a really long time ago! I don't remember when I started working on it, though I know I submitted the first version to Will just a few weeks after I turned 15. My original puzzle included Season 13 "Dancing With the Stars" winner J.R. MARTINEZ, which Will felt was a little too obscure. So I took my idea back to the drawing board and came up with J.R.R. TOLKIEN, which Will noted was inconsistent, since the name has three initials. Finally, after a lot of digging, I found the last 10-letter entry I would need to rebuild the puzzle: J.B. FLETCHER. Will liked that including J.B. FLETCHER would give the puzzle a more even balance of real and fictional people, so I set to work on producing the final fill.

Filling around eight theme entries containing a J, some of which were stacked, was very challenging. I was and still am pretty happy with how the puzzle turned out, though I'd probably try to use a bit less crosswordese nowadays. I particularly like how crazy the upper left looks with all the O's. I hope you enjoy solving my puzzle, JCTS and all!

Ten years ago, three long theme answers was the norm. If you had three grid-spanners (15 letters long) it was kind of magical! Then came the era of four themers. Harder to construct, and it forced constructors to up their game. No so bad with the widespread adoption of computer-assistance. And these days, five is more typical than not, with the really gung-ho folks packing in six.

And then there's DStein. EIGHT theme answers jammed into one crossword? What's the emoticon for (slapping hands to face like in Home Alone), because whoa!

Interesting theme today, people commonly known by their J_ initials. Extremely tough for a Tuesday. With any name-based puzzle, opinions are going to vary widely, especially with names drawn from the deep corners of specific knowledge areas. I live in Seattle and am a Mariners fan (whenever they're not playing the Giants or A's), but it took me a while to pull out JJ PUTZ (whoops! no pun intended)*. The rest of them thankfully were easy enough, except for JB FLETCHER, which I feel like should know. Point is, this might be a love-it/hate-it puzzle depending on the solver's background.

Many experienced constructors can cleanly pull off a puzzle with five themers. Some can even handle six without an ANOA or an ULU. Since I've never tried to incorporate eight before, I can't say how truly hard or easy it is. But judging by the fact that David has some chops and there are some rough edges to this construction, I don't think I'll be attempting it in the near future.

I do like the experimentation, the pushing the boundaries to see what's possible — nothing worse than complacency, sticking with tried and true with nothing new. But the stacking of themers in the SE produces some unsightly crosses — JCTS next to random Roman numeral MMDII with ESTE nearby, oof.

And the NE and SW corners felt like they should be easier to fill, but upon closer inspection, I changed my mind. The preponderance of J's up in the NE makes it extremely difficult (what else could go where JOJO is besides JUJU?), and once you fix JOJO into place, hotchee-motchee do things get tough. Easier in the SW (no J's to worry about), so I found it an odd choice to cross two very tough names together in BROZ and JJ PUTZ. I would have much preferred something like DR OZ in there, which isn't bad to fill around and feels to me much more gettable to a bigger population of solvers. Budding constructors, try replacing BROZ with DR OZ and see what you can come up with. There are a lot of ways to do that while also putting something better in for the arbitrary ONE LB.

All in all, an interesting experiment in pushing the boundaries, and glad I learned a little about JB FLETCHER.

*He's lying