Adam Aaronson author page
12 puzzles by Adam Aaronson
with Constructor comments
| G | O | S | H | D | A | R | N | I | T | B | E | D | ||
| O | U | T | O | F | T | O | U | C | H | J | A | V | A | |
| O | N | A | P | L | A | T | T | E | R | E | K | E | D | |
| S | C | R | E | A | M | S | T | U | N | N | E | R | S | |
| E | E | K | T | I | N | A | N | D | Y | |||||
| S | N | O | A | D | D | I | C | T | S | |||||
| M | I | S | T | I | T | A | L | I | A | N | L | I | T | |
| O | N | C | E | M | I | N | E | D | G | A | M | Y | ||
| S | T | A | N | D | U | P | G | U | Y | S | M | E | E | |
| S | H | R | O | O | M | S | T | O | M | |||||
| E | E | R | O | S | U | E | H | E | M | |||||
| P | L | A | S | M | A | T | V | H | E | L | E | N | A | |
| I | O | W | A | T | H | E | S | E | P | A | R | T | S | |
| C | O | A | X | M | E | N | I | A | L | W | O | R | K | |
| S | P | Y | S | U | N | D | R | E | S | S | E | S |
Excited to usher in 2023 with the first Saturday of the year! This puzzle is weird, but in a good way, I think. The long entries are weird, the fill is weird (THE U? Who puts that in a crossword?), and the chunks of black squares are weird. I kinda like it, and I hope you do too!
This puzzle's publication date caught my eye since it's my sister's birthday! Happy birthday Lindsey, you can finally [checks notes] rent a car!
| I | M | H | O | S | P | A | C | E | F | O | R | C | E | |
| C | O | A | X | T | E | L | E | N | O | V | E | L | A | |
| E | N | V | Y | A | D | A | M | D | R | I | V | E | R | |
| P | O | E | C | R | A | N | E | D | U | A | L | |||
| A | R | A | G | O | R | N | N | A | S | P | R | Y | ||
| C | A | P | U | L | E | T | T | H | A | T | ||||
| K | I | L | L | E | D | I | T | I | M | A | C | |||
| L | A | P | S | C | O | T | S | P | A | R | ||||
| N | E | L | L | Y | A | M | M | E | R | O | N | |||
| D | A | I | S | Q | U | I | T | E | S | O | ||||
| S | T | Y | W | E | K | U | P | T | O | B | A | T | ||
| C | H | E | F | A | L | E | P | H | E | R | A | |||
| R | E | A | L | M | A | T | U | R | E | B | A | I | L | |
| I | M | S | O | O | V | E | R | I | T | O | R | E | O | |
| M | E | T | R | O | A | R | E | A | S | P | S | S | T |
Happy to bring you another Saturday! This puzzle calls for a shoutout to my older sister Lindsey, who helped me brainstorm clues while we were both home for the holidays last winter. As a longtime Vans employee, she was singlehandedly responsible for the ERA clue you see today (not sponsored, but I wouldn't complain if Vans hit me up).
This summer I'm in Pittsburgh interning at Duolingo, where we have a crossword club that meets during lunch every day to solve New York Times puzzles together (hi, Alina, Ming, and Art!). I can't wait to sit there smugly as my coworkers solve this in front of me!
| L | O | G | S | F | I | F | A | A | B | I | D | E | ||
| O | V | A | L | I | D | O | S | L | U | C | A | S | ||
| L | E | M | O | N | B | A | R | S | A | G | E | N | T | |
| C | R | E | P | E | S | R | I | G | S | D | U | H | ||
| A | T | S | E | A | B | E | S | O | G | I | B | E | ||
| T | I | T | T | O | M | A | T | O | M | E | T | E | R | |
| S | M | O | G | O | W | L | D | O | T | |||||
| E | P | O | C | H | S | P | A | N | I | C | S | |||
| F | A | B | C | H | I | T | I | N | T | |||||
| B | A | N | A | N | A | G | R | A | M | S | L | A | O | |
| A | M | O | R | B | R | A | T | I | N | A | P | T | ||
| D | O | D | R | Y | A | N | A | R | E | N | T | I | ||
| R | E | E | S | E | F | I | G | N | E | W | T | O | N | |
| A | B | A | C | I | T | A | P | E | T | R | I | O | ||
| P | A | L | I | N | S | L | A | W | S | O | T | S |
ADAM: It's truly special to be sharing this byline with two real-life friends! We met in our University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign dorm (shoutout to Nugent Hall!) as freshmen, and two years later, we're roommates in what's gotta be the most crosswordy apartment in the Chambana metro area.
Last year, we were sitting in my dorm room brainstorming theme ideas when we scrolled past a note on my phone that read "BANANAGRAMS TOMATOMETER." We all thought it had potential. Only thing was, there was no way we'd find more entries to fit the absurdly specific constraint of a fruit followed by a unit of measurement. A couple of hours of scrolling through OneLook later, we found FIG NEWTON and LEMON BARS and had a theme. From there, we built the grid, divvied up the filling process, and wrote clues together on a Google Sheet. It was deeply collaborative; I hope it's proof that three heads are better than one!
JACKSON: I am from Chicago, a junior majoring in journalism and minoring in statistics at Illinois. I remember when my dad and I would open up a copy of the New York Times crossword every Sunday and get a few words before giving up. A major reason I am so obsessed with crosswords now is because of Adam, and I never thought I would ever actually construct a grid, let alone get it published in the NYT.
I'm incredibly excited to be making my NYT debut, and doing it with two of my college friends makes it even more special.
I don't remember how this theme came to fruition (pun intended). We were pleasantly surprised that our clue for TRIO survived the editing process.
P.S. Support local and student journalism!
JACK: It's super NEAT to be making my debut in the New York Times, let alone as part of a TRIO of friends! I am also from Chicago and am now a junior at Illinois studying aerospace engineering and computer science. I've always enjoyed solving and constructing any puzzles or mazes. Fast forward to my freshman year of college, where I met Adam, who re-introduced me to crosswords.
Fast forward another year to when I was celebrating my birthday with my family. Suddenly, my phone buzzed with an incoming FaceTime from Adam and Jackson. I was confused, we don't usually FaceTime, but I thought they might be calling to re-wish me a happy birthday. To my surprise, they gave me the news that our puzzle was accepted into the NYT! Talk about an awesome birthday gift!
I hope you enjoy the puzzle because we had a blast making it.
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| I | D | E | A | L | E | G | I | T | L | O | C | H | ||
| K | E | V | I | N | K | L | I | N | E | F | A | D | E | |
| E | L | I | D | E | S | N | A | R | F | D | O | E | ||
| R | E | S | O | R | T | G | R | E | A | T | F | U | N | |
| F | O | U | L | O | R | A | L | B | ||||||
| T | G | I | F | B | A | R | B | G | O | A | L | S | ||
| M | A | N | W | A | R | H | E | R | O | R | E | I | ||
| I | S | T | O | O | D | O | N | E | R | E | S | T | ||
| T | H | R | O | B | Z | A | C | H | ||||||
| F | R | E | E | D | I | V | E | P | A | Y | C | U | T | |
| R | O | Z | S | N | I | T | S | S | M | O | R | E | ||
| I | P | O | D | G | L | U | E | S | T | I | C | K | S | |
| T | U | N | A | E | L | D | E | R | N | O | E | L | ||
| O | B | E | Y | D | E | E | D | S | G | A | L | A |
Great to be back in 2022 (and on my half birthday, too)! Developing this puzzle's theme was a surprisingly involved process. Finding a symmetrical set of five entries that rhyme with all ten digits is no walk in the park.
The first theme entry I thought of was KEVIN KLINE, which sorta locked itself in as the one with the 7. Then I made a Python program that mined the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary for every word that rhymes with a single digit and searched my wordlist for every entry consisting of two of those words back-to-back. Now I had a massive list of ostensible theme entries, but I still had to manually weed out tons of false positives like DONOR [2, 4] and LIVESON [5, 1]. Eventually, I lucked into the theme set you see today!
Fun fact: the first rendition of this puzzle had no revealer like RHYMING. But after my aunt test solved it and didn't notice the significance of the numbers, I realized even a straightforward revealer would do the job. Get your puzzles test solved, kids!
Bonus clue for those playing along at home: Conflict that climaxed at the Little Bighorn [8, 2, 4].
| I | L | L | S | A | Y | S | T | I | R | C | O | Y | ||
| P | E | O | P | L | E | A | R | S | E | A | V | A | ||
| A | A | B | A | T | T | E | R | I | E | S | P | E | N | |
| S | P | E | C | A | A | M | E | E | T | I | N | G | ||
| E | M | I | T | N | I | T | ||||||||
| A | L | E | K | E | G | A | A | R | D | V | A | R | K | |
| T | A | X | T | U | S | S | L | E | O | L | I | N | ||
| R | U | G | A | A | M | I | L | N | E | O | V | O | ||
| I | R | O | N | N | O | D | S | T | O | N | A | B | ||
| A | A | V | E | R | A | G | E | A | N | G | E | L | S | |
| E | R | A | E | L | S | A | ||||||||
| A | A | R | O | N | P | A | U | L | S | H | E | A | ||
| S | U | N | D | O | U | B | L | E | A | T | E | A | M | |
| I | D | O | O | G | R | E | P | H | R | A | S | E | ||
| A | I | R | S | O | A | R | S | H | O | R | T | S |
This puzzle was brought to you by my initials. And also by my last name. Sure, this might not be the most big-brained theme of all time, but double A's are kinda my thing.
For my friends who find my Saturdays a bit steep, hopefully this was a nice change of pace! I've got more puzzles ranging from easy to hard over on Aaronson.org, which didn't quite make the cut as a theme entry today.
| G | O | P | R | O | D | I | L | I | G | D | A | Y | ||
| A | V | I | A | N | U | R | A | L | R | E | P | O | ||
| E | E | R | I | E | R | E | Y | K | J | A | V | I | K | |
| A | R | A | L | K | A | N | E | O | Z | O | N | E | ||
| S | T | R | A | N | G | E | R | T | H | I | N | G | S | |
| O | L | E | O | L | E | C | I | N | E | |||||
| D | E | B | A | T | E | T | E | A | M | S | B | B | S | |
| D | E | A | D | D | A | R | K | O | N | E | A | T | ||
| S | P | Y | S | E | C | R | E | T | S | A | N | T | A | |
| S | E | E | K | H | E | I | G | H | T | |||||
| C | L | E | A | N | P | L | A | T | E | C | L | U | B | |
| H | A | L | L | S | E | D | I | E | C | R | O | P | ||
| I | R | E | M | E | M | B | E | R | R | A | I | M | I | |
| N | A | N | O | M | O | L | E | P | R | O | B | S | ||
| O | M | A | N | A | X | E | D | M | E | N | S | A |
I first encountered the phrase CLEAN PLATE CLUB in the YouTube cooking show Binging With Babish, finding it so evocative and fun that I couldn't help but add it to my own dinner-table lexicon. But I didn't think to put it in a crossword until I encountered it in, of all places, an episode of The Handmaid's Tale. So I figured, either Binging With Babish is big in Gilead, or the phrase is a thing. (spoiler: it's a thing.)
I have a soft spot for grids that feature 14-letter entries since they have so much sparkle potential but are so often overshadowed by their 15-letter brethren. So I was thrilled to build this grid around the seed CLEAN PLATE CLUB and one of my favorite shows ever, STRANGER THINGS! Also thrilled to debut the "correct" spelling of DURAG in the crossword, at least according to the New York Times. (obligatory shoutout to Thundercat and his Dragonball Durag!)
Incidentally, of the seven Times puzzles I've had published since starting college, this one is the first one published while I'm at school and not on break. Rest assured, Mom, I'll be partying responsibly!
| B | A | T | S | I | N | I | L | L | P | A | S | S | ||
| O | N | A | U | T | O | N | E | U | T | R | A | L | S | |
| T | Y | P | I | S | T | T | E | X | A | S | T | E | A | |
| T | H | E | T | A | M | O | S | E | S | T | I | C | ||
| L | O | R | E | L | A | I | S | I | G | H | ||||
| E | O | S | R | U | G | S | T | H | I | G | H | S | ||
| L | I | G | H | T | W | E | I | G | H | T | ||||
| E | I | G | H | T | Y | E | I | G | H | T | ||||
| N | I | G | H | T | Y | N | I | G | H | T | ||||
| M | O | N | E | T | S | E | R | E | S | S | I | S | ||
| U | S | S | R | D | N | A | B | A | N | K | ||||
| L | I | T | S | T | E | N | O | L | O | U | S | Y | ||
| C | R | E | A | T | I | V | E | N | A | R | R | O | W | |
| H | E | I | N | E | K | E | N | A | R | E | O | L | A | |
| E | N | D | W | I | S | E | S | Y | D | N | E | Y |
Always good to be back! This is my first stagger-stack themeless in the Times, so of course I had to do something cheeky with it. Let's just say, crafting a wide-open web of IGHTs while avoiding dupes was... tight.
If you solved David Steinberg's beautiful Saturday from a few months back, a couple entries here might look familiar. Total coinkydink! I like to think David and I started independently experimenting with EIGHTY-EIGHT and NIGHTY-NIGHT at the same time, like a Newton and Leibniz sorta deal, but ended up with two mighty different implementations.
This puzzle's working title was "Ight Imma Head Out."
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| H | O | M | E | P | H | O | N | E | R | O | A | C | H | |
| I | N | E | S | S | E | N | C | E | E | N | T | R | E | |
| P | D | A | S | M | E | H | B | I | G | T | O | E | ||
| S | A | N | E | R | R | O | S | E | N | O | P | S | ||
| R | I | G | V | I | D | C | O | O | P | |||||
| N | B | A | P | L | A | Y | E | R | O | I | L | Y | ||
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| E | T | A | T | T | I | M | E | S | I | N | K | S | ||
| M | E | S | S | T | M | I | T | S | K | |||||
| I | T | S | T | E | E | N | S | T | Y | P | E | S | ||
| N | A | I | L | E | R | E | K | G | D | A | N | K | ||
| I | K | E | A | S | P | R | I | E | D | I | N | T | O | |
| S | E | R | B | S | O | V | E | R | U | N | D | E | R | |
| T | R | E | S | M | A | R | I | O | K | A | R | T |
ADAM: Gotta love working with Ricky! He's got such a unique voice as a constructor (see every puzzle on his epic blog Cruzzles, and it definitely shines through here—when he casually dropped COINKYDINK as a fill option, I knew this puzzle was going somewhere. We toyed at the grid for over three months last year, starting with the top-left stack and then iterating through tons of possibilities via Twitter and Discord DMs.
Speaking of Discord, I can't stress enough how fantastic the Crossword Discord Server has been at uniting the global crossword community, and Ricky built it from the ground up! If you haven't joined, what the heck are you waiting for?
RICKY: Working with Adam was such a fun experience (you guys should definitely also check out his puzzle blog; he messaged me around early pandemic time to collab on a themeless, showing me the beautiful northwest stack. We had fun cluing this grid; the editors came up with some great clues as well. We were both stumped on how to clue FORCE IN without including "in" in the clue (go ahead and try it), and the simplicity of the edited clue blew our minds.
Since Adam plugged the Discord, I'll shout out his site Wordlisted, which is a huge asset for constructors of themed puzzles. It's basically an all-purpose search for different word patterns in a wordlist, and I can't recommend it enough.
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| T | H | E | S | O | U | P | I | S | O | M | E | R | S | ||
| E | I | G | H | T | B | I | T | S | I | X | P | A | C | K | |
| W | A | R | M | E | G | O | S | D | I | A | L | ||||
| S | N | E | A | K | S | S | E | V | E | N | S | E | A | S | |
| G | W | E | N | I | S | L | E | S | O | L | O | ||||
| L | I | E | N | I | N | N | U | E | N | D | O | ||||
| S | H | E | F | I | V | E | G | U | Y | S | I | O | N | ||
| P | U | N | T | E | D | O | N | E | M | T | S | ||||
| A | N | E | W | K | I | S | S | O | H | M | S | ||||
| T | H | R | E | E | P | E | A | T | J | O | Y | O | U | S | |
| V | E | V | O | C | U | T | E | A | R | I | A | ||||
| O | C | A | N | A | D | A | N | I | N | E | W | E | S | T | |
| H | A | T | E | D | I | T | E | N | M | A | S | S | E | ||
| O | V | E | R | E | A | T | Y | O | Y | O | E | D |
CHRIS: Long story short: I emailed Adam to congratulate him on his NYT debut and say I'd be down to collab with him sometime. And then we did.
ADAM: Short story long: I first had the idea for an "867-5309/Jenny"-themed crossword back before my NYT debut last January. That's right, this zoomer came up with the ‘80s song theme. Music is the thread that ties generations together or something. Anyway, fitting seven theme entries and a JENNY revealer into a 15x15 grid proved basically impossible, especially for then-noobish Adam.
So when Chris swooped in and proposed a collab, I knew he could help realize the idea. We shot some emails back and forth, played around with different theme entries and grid layouts, and crucially decided to expand the grid to 16x15. And somehow, through some combination of collaboration* and luck**, we managed to eke out a crossword.*** Irrefutable evidence that teamwork makes the dream work.
CHIRS: *e.g. Adam suggesting we put JENNY in the lower corner rather than in the center, Adam suggesting we go 16 wide, and/or Adam suggesting US TOO in order to open up the lower corner and remove six three-letter words.
**Adam being good at what he does.
***Our email records have a bunch of stuff about theme entries, placement, grid layout, etc., but there's a mysterious one week gap where the puzzle suddenly went from an idea to the completely-filled grid you see today. I blame Nixon's secretary.
| P | L | O | T | A | R | M | O | R | B | A | B | A | S | |
| R | I | D | E | S | H | A | R | E | A | L | L | I | E | |
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| F | E | A | R | N | I | P | P | E | K | E | ||||
| T | A | N | G | L | Y | S | P | A | R | E | S | |||
| W | I | L | T | M | E | A | E | C | O | N | ||||
| A | D | S | M | A | S | T | H | E | A | D | ||||
| K | E | E | N | O | N | L | O | K | I | P | S | I | ||
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| D | O | P | E | S | S | T | E | A | D | I | C | A | M | |
| A | L | E | R | T | P | A | S | Y | S | T | E | M | S |
It's great to be back in the Times for my third puzzle, and somehow also my third Saturday puzzle! I promise I make easier puzzles sometimes.
This one's got a bit of an origin story. I'm always on the lookout for fresh entries to include in crosswords, whether it's phrases I hear in conversation or stuff I see online. One day at school, my friends and I were brainstorming random entries to search in XWord Info's database to try to find ones that had never appeared in the Times crossword before (this is surprisingly addictive, try at your own risk).
At one point, my buddy Mark suggested PLOT ARMOR — zero hits on XWord Info — and it was love at first sight. It's such a juicy little term, plus it's decently inferable if you've never seen it before. So I built this grid around it, and I'm pretty chuffed with how it turned out! I was especially happy to squeeze in 24-Down, even though the answer may or may not be missing a word at the end...
If you dug this puzzle and want more, I regularly post indie crosswords over on my site — and only some of them are Saturday-level!
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| F | U | R | Y | A | K | A | S | T | O | R | S | |||
| E | X | E | S | T | O | G | A | N | I | N | T | H | ||
| I | R | E | S | I | G | N | C | O | H | O | ||||
| D | R | A | P | E | S | F | E | E | D | R | O | W | ||
| N | A | U | S | E | A | M | S | C | U | S | E | M | E | |
| A | I | D | F | L | E | A | R | E | A | D | E | R | ||
| S | N | I | P | E | E | L | R | O | L | L | ||||
| A | D | O | R | N | T | E | A | M | T | E | C | H | ||
| M | E | T | E | O | R | C | A | B | C | I | A | |||
| P | L | A | Y | W | I | T | H | I | N | A | P | L | A | Y |
| L | A | P | S | C | H | A | N | C | E | C | A | R | D | |
| E | Y | E | K | Y | R | G | Y | Z | S | T | A | N |
ADAM: Like many great things, this collab went down entirely in Twitter DMs. I proposed the (absolutely fiendish) pairing of KRZYZEWSKI and KYRGYZSTAN to Paolo, and we were immediately off to the races!
I consider KYRGYZSTAN a shameless tribute to the quiz site Sporcle, where the nation is widely celebrated for its elusive spelling. Sporcle even hoists the Kyrgyz flag at their Seattle HQ! I've made Sporcle quizzes for nine years now (under the name BanjoZebra, which I came up with at age 10), so it's only natural to be debuting their beloved KYRGYZSTAN in the NYT crossword.
I'm thrilled with how this puzzle turned out! It was an absolute blast to work with Paolo—he's such a talented constructor (and a god-tier solver), and brainstorming clues with him was boatloads of fun. Also, if my research is correct, this is the first NYT crossword collab with both constructors born in the 2000s. Gen Z is taking over, baby!
PAOLO: This puzzle started as a normal collab in January, building from Adam's sparkling minitheme idea + NW corner. Then, in mid-March, dorms got cancelled, I suddenly had a ton of free time, and Adam and I finished the puzzle in a quarancrossword spree from our respective homes, making this the first NYT puzzle I've worked on from both coasts. It was a joy working on this puzzle—the 29D/31D/32D stretch is my favorite run of clues in the puzzle, and they're all Adam's. I'm in awe of the guy—you can see his eye for great fill/clues/puzzles in general throughout this puzzle, and on display at his site. Thanks to all involved in this collaboration—hope you enjoy the puzzle!
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| T | I | L | T | A | T | E | T | C | B | E | T | H | ||
| A | L | L | E | G | E | S | S | U | Z | E | T | T | E | |
| B | L | A | M | C | P | R | P | I | G | E | O | N | ||
| S | O | B | S | H | E | E | T | T | U | R | N | T | ||
| W | O | R | L | D | W | A | R | I | I | I | ||||
| S | L | U | I | C | E | D | I | M | L | I | C | K | ||
| C | A | T | S | M | I | S | S | S | A | I | G | O | N | |
| A | C | M | E | O | N | T | H | A | T | N | O | T | E | |
| T | E | E | N | T | O | A | D | E | G | R | E | E |
I'm beyond thrilled to be making my published crossword debut, no less in the New York Times, and no less on the very first Saturday of the 2020s!
ALL ABOUT ME: I'm a freshman at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, studying Computer Science with a minor in Linguistics. Originally from Deerfield, Illinois, I've been a puzzler for as long as I can remember. When I was little, I was obsessed with jigsaw puzzles and logic games, and I would create mazes and word puzzles for my friends at school. As I got older, I fell in love with trivia and found myself making Sporcle quizzes as early as age 10. My passion for crosswords only developed the summer before my senior year of high school, when I started solving the Chicago Tribune Sunday crossword with my family. It felt only natural to have a go at making one myself, so here we are now!
ON THAT NOTE, I made this puzzle this past summer in a mission to debut the almighty HAMBURGLAR. It was my first accepted puzzle after about a dozen rejections, and only my second go at making a themeless. After seeding the grid with HAMBURGLAR, I'm pretty proud of how many lively entries I was able to squeeze in! It feels good to breathe some Gen Z life into the crossword with entries like TURNT, LIKE BUTTON, and TECH DEMO, as well as the clues at 63-Across and 7-Down. Also, as an avid jazz trombonist, I was excited to see the jazzy clues at 34-Across, 53-Across, and 51-Down live on. My apologies to DAK Prescott and BETH Behrs, whose references fell through during the editing process—maybe next time!
I want to thank my friends and family who have test-solved my puzzles over the past year, my mom for her dependable quality assurance, and my dad without whom YESSIREE BOB would not have been in this puzzle. I also have to thank Katie, the wonderful woman who works at my local post office, for providing constant motivation and encouragement every time I came in to send in a puzzle.
I hope you all found my first crossword BEGUILING, and I can't wait to make some more!