New York Times, Wednesday, September 28, 2022

This puzzle theme depended on finding four individuals with H-E-R-E initials in their name, but aside from titans of industry, presidents, and the occasional entertainer, they were in short supply, especially when trying for grid symmetry. William H. Bonney, Robert E. Lee, Gerald R. Ford, and Wile E. Coyote all had their time in the sun.

Richard E. Grant was the final E in my original submission, but the NYT team didn't think he was recognizable enough (sorry, Richard). They suggested Chuck E. Cheese, but they acknowledged that this would mess with symmetry. I put the puzzle away for five months and waited for inspiration to strike. That came in the form of Finn Vigeland's 6/1/21 puzzle that stacked names in the 3/4 and 12/13 rows and used a middle revealer. After moving my revealer to the middle and stacking the names, I finally had a layout using all the individuals that the NYT team wanted. Fill was challenging given the stacked names, but we worked through it.

I dedicate this puzzle to my boys Lucas J. and Jack P., to whom I hope I gave cool initials if they choose to use them.

I chuckled at WILLIAM MACY, imagining the crossworld outrage. He never goes by that name! It's officially WILLIAM H MACY! People love to be outraged.

Would that double into a furious tweetstorm when people filled in ALFRED NEUMAN? Or would their Spidey-sense tingle? I hope the latter, since INITIAL HERE — or more accurately, INITIAL H.E.R.E. — is super fun.

There are surprisingly few "celebs" that are never referred to without their middle initial. After two hours of searching for ones that use H, E, or R, I turned up a few others that Jeff didn't mention, but their crossworthiness was questionable.

Crucivera, the goddess of crosswords, is not benevolent. She inspires you with a NYT-worthy theme … but curses you with an 11/12/11/12/11 set? Talk about a labor of Hercules!

Jeff did well in finding one of the few possible layouts. However, working around those long themer overlaps is a Sisyphean task. Try out a skeleton of black squares, make progress … and have them collapse all over you. Repeat, ad infinitum. Some AFR BACNE (breakfast test, don't Google!) NRC YOHO is inevitable, but AH ME, it could have been much worse.

After a solid hour of constructor-OCD testing and prodding, the one improvement I could figure out: breaking up the long Downs. CIVIL LAWYER and COMMON SENSE are welcome bonuses, but look at what they demand: ALII INLA / SSE DAW SYS, just for starters.

If you black out SOL and SSE, the gridding challenge becomes much more tractable. It might even be possible to work in long(ish) bonuses elsewhere for a better trade-off of color vs. cleanliness.

Although the solver in me had too many hitches to give this POW consideration, my constructor's brain sure appreciated mulling over the layout challenges Jeff faced.