Dylan Schiff author page

Day seven of "Gotta JET" (Jeff's expressions of thanks)! There are so many amazing clues in the puzzle today, and that reminds me to give thanks to constructors who dedicate the necessary time to spicing up their solve, especially for the bigger Sunday canvas. It's challenging to keep someone's attention in this age of social media snippets, so amazing clues like [Match making?] sparks a FIRE to keep going.

The NYT editing team deserves a lot of credit as well. They're not only the ones who select what puzzles to run, but they spend a ton of time crafting and honing. I've had the pleasure of getting an inside look at how Will Shortz operates, and he spends so much energy poring over clues, writing new ones, elevating the quality of the solving experience.

Before I sign off, one more note: Finally and most importantly, I appreciate everyone who's read my commentaries over the years. Being able to express my thoughts and opinions has been a tremendous creative outlet for me, and hearing from and interacting with so many people has been a privilege. Thank you to everyone out there, from the bottom of my heart.

Although you won't hear from me regularly through this forum anymore, please do stay in touch. Best way to do that is to sign up for my distribution list (form below) or checking out Jeff Chen Writes, but you can also feel free to contact me directly at jeffchen1972 at gmail dot com. Whether that's exchanging thoughts on a potential crossword theme, sharing feedback about a particular puzzle, or simply trying to help each other keep afloat as we muddle our way through life, I look forward to supporting each other as we build further connections and community.

I spend a crazy amount of time looking for interesting letter pattern discoveries, so I rarely happen upon one whose category I've never even considered. There are three capitals overlapping in CAIRO ROME MEXICO, a three US state smash-up in OHIO IOWA WASHINGTON, and three countries jammed into PANAMA MALI LITHUANIA — triply cool. It's a neat touch that all the middle entries are four letters long and that each one of them splits in half for the overlap.

I wasn't sure what was going on at first since CAIROMEXICOCITY looks simply like CAIRO MEXICOCITY. Perhaps highlighting ROME would have heightened the a-ha: CAIROMEXICOCITY, preventing ROME from getting lost in the shuffle.

Excellent bonuses in the grid, too. With only three themers (the norm is four or five these days), I expect at least four long bonus entries. Note how wisely Dylan spaced these out: EL DORADO, MON CHERI, and MINT OREO, yum!

Dylan could have arranged his black squares to have only MINT OREO, and that would have been more than fine. But he didn't stop there — OKAY THEN sure makes for a fun addition. I appreciate the extra mile effort, especially because it's not at all a simple task, what with the adjacent long Downs both crossing two themers.

I love lexical oddities. If the presentation had been a little different, helping the discoveries stand out better, this would have been in POW! territory.

Debut! Not a new idea, having had a quad repeat a few months ago and something nearly identical a few years back, but there are some fun finds in here. I especially like the ones that go over a space break, like HAN(GIN)(G IN)DENT and CO(VER) (VER)SION. DOUBLE DOWN ties everything together so aptly, giving a reason for 1) the repeated strings and 2) why the themers run down, not across.

For themes that have been done so often, I enjoy when a constructor tries to do something a little different or add a constraint. For instance, when John Farmer did this theme type, he limited himself to only triplets at the end of the first word / beginning of the second.

Six themers is an audacious way to debut. Placing them in every other column can cause so much trouble, especially in the middle of the grid. Because there are so many themers congregating in the center, you have to spend a ton of black squares right away to separate them. Impressive how smooth that region turned out, Dylan taking care to make sure the letter combinations were all friendly.

Going outward, there were some problems, not uncommon when you've already deployed so many of your precious black squares. You tend to end up with subsections bigger than you'd like, needing bits of ALERO ONERS REWON OGEES OSS to hold things together.

I got stuck in the NE corner, unfortunately, sectioned off from the rest of the grid (another artifact of the every-other-column layout). The cluing was so difficult for JUKE, UVA, and ambiguous for GAGS KEG (I tried BAR and PUB) that it felt nearly impossible.

Amusing TONTO clue — how have I not known all these years that it's Spanish for "stupid"? — although I wonder if Jay Silverheels would laugh. And fantastic clue for BUNGEE, playing on "jumper cable"!

I like it when a new constructor strives to do something different (and I love it when a new constructor expresses humility!). In this case, I would have liked some new layer — maybe pairing repeated triplets, with HAN(GIN)(GIN)G INDENT and BRIN(GIN)(G IN) NEW BLOOD to make that GIN a double? — more than the sheer quantity of themers.