joon pahk author page

joon: Back in late November, Amanda emailed me with the idea she had of having a crossword be a part of her wedding reception since a crossword had played a key role in her engagement back at the Westchester tournament in September. She had the AB theme idea already, and just needed help putting a grid together (she also wanted to write the clues). We went back and forth a few times about the best way to hide the two names (Easter egg #1, you might call it); I had mentioned that the least constrained way was to just include a message in the first letters of the clues, but breaking up the names into chunks (as we ended up doing) or hiding them along diagonals could also possibly work.

One of the other things we had discussed in the early exchanges was payment; normally I would charge for a job like this, especially one on relatively short notice (the turnaround time was about two weeks), but I thought this was a special case. I was pleased to be a part of it, so I just asked Amanda if she could donate / make a donation to a charity of her choice instead. When she told me that she wanted to donate to pancreatic cancer research, because she had just lost her dad to pancreatic cancer, I thought that it would be a lovely way to honor him at the wedding. But then the wheels kept spinning, and Amanda knew she wanted to use the hidden message in the clues to remember her dad, leaving me to hide the names in the grid.

At a very late stage, I asked Amanda if we should put any hint anywhere that might nudge wedding guests (who were mostly not crossword addicts) to find the message hidden in the clues, but she said 1) she thought Brian Cimmet or Will Shortz — the crosswordiest guests at the wedding—would notice; and 2) if nobody noticed, she would reveal it herself and thus set up a toast to her dad. My only regret about this whole experience is that I wasn't there in person for that toast! It must have been quite a moment.

AMANDA: Not to be outdone by my now husband who proposed to me via a New York Times crossword, this cruciverbalist bride wanted to make her own special puzzle for the wedding. I immediately came up with the AB POSITIVE theme based on our first initials. I then made a list of about 20 possible themers of varying lengths. In addition, I was determined to hide our names somewhere in the grid, as well as somehow create an attribution to my father who passed away over the summer — more on that last part in a bit.

Given the constraints (not to mention the time-sensitivity), I enlisted my friend and genius constructor Joon Pahk, who agreed to help me actualize my lofty idea. He would make the grid, and I would do the cluing. His first grid contained theme answers I wasn't wild about (ARMY BRAT, ALL BETTER), so I had the nerve to ask him to redo it, as I had my heart set on more sparkly fill like AURORA BOREALIS and AWESOME BLOSSOM. Joon generously obliged and then showed me where he had hidden our names, which leads me to how the published puzzle is a little different than the one we had at the wedding.

At the reception, guests were all given a copy of the puzzle at their seats, but Will also let me borrow one of the big whiteboards for the event. As guests completed their grids, I invited them to come up and fill something in because doesn't every recreational solver want to feel like a finalist at a crossword tournament, even if just for a moment? As for the puzzle itself, I gave it a title on the page: "Marriage is as easy as...see?" and a hint: "When read in order, the answers to the starred clues will reveal the ultimate 60−across." (Those starred clues are 16-across, 36-across, 65-across, and 68-across.) During the party, I cryptically told Will (yes, Will Shortz was at my wedding!) that I was counting on him for something, but he'd have to figure out what it was. He nodded, grinned, and accepted my challenge. (None of my five test solvers had grokked this last layer, so I deemed it best to offer the prompt, even to the puzzle master himself). When the big board was completed I talked about the puzzle, the theme, the title, and our names, much to everyone's delight. And then I asked if anyone found anything else worth noting. Will raised his hand and addressed the crowd explaining that what he found was the difference between a good puzzle and an amazing puzzle. He rightly discovered that I had coded the clues acrostic style, meaning that reading the first letter of each clue in order would reveal a message. I won't spoil that bit here, but now you know where to find it. It was my stealthy way of making sure my dad was at my wedding after all.

probably every constructor has been asked "the question": which do you write first, the grid or the clues? if you think about it, there can only be one right answer: it has to be the grid, because you need to clue every entry that appears in the finished grid, whereas if you write all the clues first, you can't possibly expect to grid every entry you've clued.

on the other hand, you can certainly start a themeless puzzle by coming up with one good clue for a marquee entry and using it to seed the grid. that's what i did in this puzzle, with the BEER GOGGLES clue. (i'm pleased to see it unchanged in the final puzzle!) my usual grid pattern in themelesses has stacks in the NW/SE corners, but i don't love doing that with 11-letter answers because it necessitates a whole bunch of 3s in the NE and SW. so this time i tried crossing staggered stacks in the middle of the grid, and i was pleased with the results. (tip of the cap to andrew ries, whose "stagger sessions" from last year inspired this grid layout.)

the most interesting behind-the-scenes story about this puzzle is that it began with an idea that didn't end up in the puzzle. it occurred to me that HEARING AIDE could be clued as a person who helps out at a trial, perhaps {Court stenographer?}. the "add a terminal E that does not alter the pronunciation" wordplay mechanism then seemed like the way to go, so i came up with a whole bunch more possibilities. looking over the whole list, i noticed that i actually preferred the ones where the changed word and the original word were not just versions of the same word, like AID/AIDE are, so the seed entry ended up on the cutting room floor. i do still like that clue, though.

cluing a 140-word puzzle is always a big job, but on this one, i think i wrote something like 90% the clues on the first sitting, and then spent several days trying to think of a good clue for MISSPELL, which seemed ripe for a fun clue. i'm pleased that my clue was kept in, both because it reminds me of my days as a physics teacher and because i enjoy at least thinking about the possibility that somebody might be double-double-crossed, thinking that "F in physics" might refer to force.

apparently it's been three years since my last NYT puzzle! lest anybody think i've dropped off the face of the earth, or at least from puzzleworld, i can assure you that is not the case. i've been devoting most of my puzzlemaking time to outside the box puzzles, where i construct variety puzzles for an audience of email subscribers.

having said that, i've been trying to get back into making "regular" crosswords on a "regular" basis. i'm pretty sure this one started with the observation that EKCO is an anagram of COKE, and then wondering if there were other people whose last name is an anagram of a soda brand. there weren't really enough to support a whole theme of just people's names; in fact, it was in researching this puzzle that i learned that JUDAS PRIEST is a band, not the stage name of a solo artist. but broadening the search to two-word phrases enabled me to go to five theme answers plus a revealer, so i was satisfied—but i think the puzzle would not have been worth making without both COKE and PEPSI represented.

it's been a while since my last puzzle in the times—so long, in fact, that i don't remember doing constructor notes for it. anyway, this puzzle is a bit of a curio, but i'm glad it's found a home. i actually thought at first it might be an early-week puzzle, but i showed the theme to a few friends and they quickly disabused me of that notion. with no "reveal" answer for the theme, it slots in nicely here in the middle of the week, i think.

in constructing this puzzle, i actually came up with two more theme answers of matching lengths that didn't make the cut. perhaps sports fans will know them: one was a former boston celtics coach of the '90s (not their heyday, I must say), and one is a very successful korean golfer. i've seen both names before in crossword puzzles, but i didn't think either was quite famous enough to be a theme answer.

i'm trying to get back into constructing more standard crosswords, so hopefully you'll be seeing my byline a little more often in the near future. and if you were a fan of the variety puzzles i made for the now-defunct will shortz's wordplay magazine, i may have good news for you quite soon.

(note from jeff: down with capital letters; such a waste of buttons and ink!)