Kevin Christian author page

This puzzle started with JUNETEENTH in the NW corner. The first time I heard that phrase, I knew it was crossword puzzle gold.

I put POST MALONE in the NE corner because my son Tim liked him at one point.

I placed WAYMO in the middle because I wanted at least one 5-letter debut entry in that area. ("Debut" means never previously appeared in an NYT crossword.)

I started the SW corner with EVIL DEAD. That movie is a classic because it's so funny and cheesy.

I did the SE corner last. I had to decide which entry I liked the best in the 38-Down spot. Once I chose PORE OVER, I liked that I could put ON THE FENCE at 61-Across and clue it with the single word "Torn."

I got an enormous amount of help with clues for this puzzle. Brendan Quigley did a zoom call with me to talk about overall philosophy for writing themeless clues. Byron Walden and I emailed back and forth a lot. I also got help from Trent Evans, Jules Markey, Julian Lim, both Tracy's (Bennett and Gray), Michael Dewey, and Robyn Weintraub. Thank you all very much!

KEVIN: It's always a pleasure to collaborate with Andrea. She's the best Monday constructor out there in my opinion.

AC/DC was a significant part of the soundtrack of my teenage years. This puzzle is dedicated to their original lead singer Bon Scott who died in 1980.

ANDREA: Some collaborations are equal back and forth, ironing out themes, grid layout, fill, and cluing. Others, one might do most of the theme (my preferred role), the other most of the grid. Today's puzzle was 90% Kevin: his idea, his grid. I merely offered advice from the sidelines, smoothed out a section or two, and clued it for Monday difficulty.

My biggest contribution was ignored all around! I wanted circles, not just to ease the solve, but to highlight how brilliantly Kevin found phrases that did not just contain the letters A, C, D, C in that order (no mean feat) but phrases that paired them together!

I was assured by Kevin (and every editor I pleaded with) that solvers would be able to pick up on that construction subtlety by the reveal alone. We shall see!

I look forward to many future collaborations between Kevin and me, or should I say, AC/KC?

This puzzle started as a collaboration with Gareth Bain. I came up with three of the four theme answers. Gareth came up with ALBERTO GONZALES, so thank you Gareth for that.

I wanted to finish the puzzle as a collaboration with Gareth, but he dropped out. Gareth is a vet in South Africa, and he was working a lot of long hours at the time we started working on this, so he ended up dropping out, and I built the grid and clued it myself.

Once I decided to place AFRICA as an across in the lower right, I tried all twenty-four options for how to do it. There are four possibilities for 43-Across, three possibilities for 56-Across, AFRICA can be at either 62- or 65-Across, and 4 * 3 * 2 = 24.

Once I'd placed THROWING A BONE TO at 43-Across and CHICKEN YAKITORI at 56-Across, there were two ways to place the other two theme answers. I put I'M A LITTLE TEAPOT at 17-Across and ALBERTO GONZALES at 26-Across because that made it possible to put UBERIZE at 10-Down, which is an entry that I really liked, and TOTO at 18-Down, which didn't have to be in the grid, but it was fun to include that as an extra little theme tie bonus.

I have a 17-year-old daughter named Kate. "Africa" is one of her favorite songs, and she and I have seen Toto in concert together. I love you, Kate.

ACME: Although we rewrote this (several times!) over a year and a half ago, I'm thrilled with the timing of the publication as I've been living for Jan 20th to shout the reveal from my rooftop!

KEVIN: I'm going to address the elephant in the room head-on. This puzzle contains the phrase YOU'RE FIRED, which is a phrase that 45, i.e., the most recent former occupant of the White House, used to say on the television show "The Apprentice." This puzzle is running five days after being "fired," and a new president has been sworn in.

Someone somewhere in the crossword blogosphere will complain that the puzzle is political and that crossword puzzles shouldn't be political because they're supposed to be "fun" and unbiased. They're wrong for two reasons.

First, they're wrong because the timing of the puzzle is coincidental. It was scheduled before the NYT noticed its timely significance.

Second, they're wrong because a crossword puzzle is a work of art, and art absolutely has the right to be political. Books, paintings, and songs can be political. So can crossword puzzles.

The timing of this puzzle delights me, and here's why: 45 was the worst president ever. It's hard even to know where to start with this guy's faults, but in case you slept through the last four years, in case you've forgotten the horrors he wreaked on our country and the world, I have not.

For these reasons and many more, I say to 45 that I'm ecstatic that YOU'RE FIRED. I didn't plan for this puzzle to run on this day, but I'm delighted that it did. If anyone in the crossword blogosphere is upset by this, I DON'T CARE.

KEVIN: I like horror movies if they're intelligent and well done. Psycho is a classic, so I felt it was deserving of a tribute puzzle. (It's my second movie tribute in the NYT; I had an "ET" puzzle published on 9/24/13).

I don't remember when I first built a version of this grid. Eight years ago, maybe. I wasn't happy with it. Two years ago, I noticed that the 60^th anniversary of the movie's release was two years away. I decided to ask for Brad's help fixing the crummy fill. I figured six months max working with Brad (it didn't take that long), six months for Will to get back to us (it didn't take that long), and we'd still be one year ahead of the anniversary date.

Brad came up with the idea to split PSYCHO into PSY and CHO and place them in those two symmetrical down spots, as a nod to the split personality of the main character. That's why I like to collaborate with people on puzzles. Two heads are better than one. I would never have come up with that on my own. Kudos to Brad.

BRAD: This puzzle has been biding its time in the vaults for a little while. My memory of the project is like Kevin says: I was invited on board to help spruce up the fill and to brainstorm with him about a revealer (eventually two three-letter words instead of one six-letter word). I didn't know if editors would go for a puzzle about fractured mental health, but on the other hand, it's not every day that an iconic movie quote and associated names fit so neatly into a grid. Kevin had packed it all in beautifully, just like he did for our Dr. Seuss puzzle of 7/14/15.

I think I've seen Psycho just once; if I rewatch a Hitchcock film, it's more likely to be North by Northwest or Rebecca. But I surprised myself by loving the "Bates Motel" TV series with Vera Farmiga and Freddie Highmore.

KEVIN: The original version of this had RICE KRISPIES BOX 15, NORTH POLE 9, KEEBLER AD 9, and JRR TOLKIEN BOOKS 15. Joel emailed Howard and me and said they weren't crazy about KEEBLER AD 9 or JRR TOLKIEN BOOKS 15. Howard and I asked if we could send a revision with LORD OF THE RINGS 14, RICE KRISPIES BOX 15, and SANTA'S WORKSHOP 14. Joel said sure they would take a look and we went from there.

Early on I fretted over whether the Rice Krispies characters are elves or gnomes. If they're gnomes, then are elves a subset of gnomes, are gnomes a subset of elves, are gnomes and elves exactly the same things, or are they totally different things? In the end I decided that the characters on the Rice Krispies box are elves, not gnomes, so it didn't matter. Crisis averted. Whew!

In the long down fill, HEAD DESK was a phrase I'd been wanting to work into a puzzle for a while. FREE WIFI is a part of everyday life, and it's never been in an NYT crossword puzzle before. There are lots of interesting ways to clue ROCK STAR, so that's a good one. We would have rather had EXCUSE ME in the spot that has ENVISAGE, but the rest of the fill in that area was cleaner with ENVISAGE, so we went with that.

HOWARD: I don't have much more to add to Kevin's comments here, except this was a fun, accessible little theme to craft with him. Also, my intensive searches about rice-based cereal mascots turned up enough evidence of elf-esteem to satisfy my doubts about its inclusion in the puzzle, and I'm glad that Kevin was also okay with it :-). Enjoy!

ACME: Every now and then, Kevin sends me a ton of creative ideas to see if anything strikes me. We have radically different styles, though complementary, so we like to collaborate. He is a grid master with out-of-the-box ideas (see his Mullet puzzle!). We've made lots of puzzles, but this is only our second one for the NYT.

Two word phrases that start with the same two letters is fairly straightforward, so we were able to generate a long list of possible theme answers. After arguing whether or not LILYPAD is one or two words, or how well-known LUKE PERRY is (who knew how timely!) we put together a set ... neither made the final cut!

What makes this unusual is Kevin managed to get SEVEN theme entries (plus a three letter reveal) into a Monday puzzle! My job was to make the fill as smooth as I could.

(There is a bonus theme answer if you parse 23D, perhaps clued as "Hollywood dog star?")

KEVIN: I like collaborating with Andrea for many reasons. She's easy to get along with and has a great sense of humor. When I bring her an idea, she always does something to it that makes it better. Most importantly, she's a fantastic judge of what is and is not clean fill.

We had a ton of LP expressions to pick from for this puzzle. Some of my favorites that didn't make the cut are LUNG POWER, LINKIN PARK (we miss you Chester Bennington), LATERAL PASS, LITMUS PAPER, LANDING PARTY, LIBRARY PASTE, LOTUS POSITION, LACROSSE PLAYER, and LEARNERS PERMIT.

I'm glad we were able to get seven theme answers into the puzzle and to make two of them downs that crossed some of the across theme answers. That was not a gimme. There was no guarantee that was going to work, but we were able to get it to work, which was great.

For the record, I still don't know if LILY PAD is one word or two without googling it. It's two, right?

Thanks for solving!

The mullet is the greatest hairstyle ever invented. It is the greatest hairstyle ever invented because it makes a man look like a lion. What man wouldn't want to look like a lion? Lions are awesome. They're the kings of the jungle. That's why mullets are awesome.

I used to have a mullet. I'm 53 years old. That means I was born in 1964. That means I was between the ages of 16 and 26 during the 80's. Of course, I rocked a mullet. In fact, I have a photo of myself from 1987 where I have a mullet and a giant ZZ Top beard. Top that. I shaved it when I returned from 4-1/2 months in Europe and had to get a real job.

I remember when my mullet disappeared. It was not of my choosing. I would go to get my hair cut, and I would say, "I want it short on the sides and long in the back." How hard is that to understand? Not very hard. However, I noticed as the years went by, the hairstylists ignored me. They didn't leave it long in the back. It kept getting shorter and shorter in the back. I was so sad. Perhaps the hairstylists were trying to save me from myself.

On a crossword note … I have a version of this grid that has JOE DIRT and CHAPPIE across the middle instead of RAMBO. That's one more theme answer and nine more theme letters. I went with the RAMBO version instead because it has cleaner fill. Plus, I didn't want to lose RAMBO. Who doesn't love Sylvester Stallone in a mullet? We all love Sylvester Stallone in a mullet. All other mullets pale in comparison.

Here's how I know when I have a good early week theme idea … I come up with a theme idea, and I think to myself "Oh my gosh, that's so obvious, that's so simple and straightforward, surely someone has done this before!" Then I check, and it turns out it's either never been done before, or it was done a very long time ago. That's a good Monday theme.

I considered MOVIE DIRECTOR instead of FILM DIRECTOR as the theme tie, but I preferred FILM DIRECTOR because that includes both movies and television, whereas MOVIE DIRECTOR left out television. Also, there wasn't a length 13 theme answer ending in LIGHTS that I liked as much as the length 12 BRIGHT LIGHTS that I used.

The construction on this puzzle was not difficult. Since it's a Monday puzzle, I just did what every Monday constructor does. I tried very hard to keep the fill as simple as possible.

Originally I had TAXI at 7-Down, but Will changed it to SIRI, which is much better. I enjoyed putting FLOTSAM next to JETSAM. I don't know for sure, but I'm going to guess that's never been done before, so that was fun. KEVIN at 26-Down is vanity fill, but I also think it yielded the simplest fill in that area. My two kids were really into Pokemon Go at the time I constructed this puzzle, so I'm sure that had something to do with how POKEMON ended up at 43-Down.

Thanks for solving!

I built the first grid for a HEY JOE puzzle in August 2011. The theme answers I used at the time had some issues:

• JACKSON HOLE … I wasn't sure if all solvers would be familiar with Joe Jackson. He's a British musician who did songs such as "Is She Really Going Out with Him?" and "Steppin' Out." (There's also Shoeless Joe Jackson, the baseball player, but Joe Jackson the musician was the one I had in mind.)
• LOUIS AND CLARK … This one was confusing (is it Joe Louis, Joe Clark, or both?).
• COCKER SPANIEL … I felt this was a strong theme answer, and still do. Cocker spaniels are awesome. Joe Cocker is awesome. This theme answer was a winner.
• MONTANA FLAG … I'm a huge fan of Joe Montana, and he was the original inspiration for the theme idea, but MONTANA FLAG is weak as a theme answer, and I couldn't find a MONTANA* answer that I liked.

So I did what I've done with about 50 other grids I've built over the years … I let the grid sit on my hard disk without clues and never finished it.

I ran the HEY JOE idea by Brad Wilber and asked him if he could figure out how to fix it. Brad suggested coming up with theme answers based on Joe's who aren't real people, such as Joe Blow, Joe Boxer, Joe Camel, Joe Cool, Joe Mamma, Joe Six-Pack, etc. I didn't like losing Joe Cocker and Joe Montana, but I liked Brad's idea, so I went with it.

Brad and I started off collaborating on this puzzle, but then ended up not because he got too busy. I'm glad I get to give him partial credit here. Thanks Brad for your help!

KEVIN: This is the first puzzle that Brad and I collaborated on chronologically, even though our Seuss-themed puzzle was published last month. I first got the idea for this theme in early 2013 but I didn't do anything with it right away because I didn't have an ODIN theme answer that I liked. I considered GOOD IN MATH, but I thought it was kind of weak. I looked at other GOOD IN ???? possibilities, but never found anything that really grabbed me. I let the idea sit until one day I ran across MOOD INDIGO.

The hardest part of the grid was the SW. I wanted to use BORA at 38-Across but Brad talked me out of it and ultimately we went with the grid that you see here.

BRAD: When Kevin and I decided to work together on something, he sent me a handful of theme ideas, and I zeroed in on this one pretty quickly, as being fully formed and ready to go without any tweaking to the theme entries. We only have a small handful of Norse gods who are household names (one maybe shading into crosswordese), and Kevin had settled on some common but lively relevant phrases.

The original grid design had an excess of 3-letter words at the center, but we were able to add a pair of white squares back in and even jazz up some of the original fill in the swath from the NW to the SE. We did a bit of haggling over the NE and SE, but it was constructive and amiable, and the final result represents a nice melding of our styles.

KEVIN: I'm happy to be collaborating with Brad Wilber on his first themed puzzle in the NYT. Brad's a very experienced constructor, but he's only had themelesses in the NYT up to now.

I have two kids: Tim (age 13) and Kate (age 11). When they were small I used to read stories to them at night before they went to bed. We had many favorites that we read over and over, many of which were Dr. Seuss books.

My only regret about this puzzle is that I couldn't figure out a way to work in THE CAT IN THE HAT. That's 14 letters, which is sometimes an awkward theme answer length to work with.

I want to give credit where credit is due. Joel Fagliano, Will's editorial assistant, came up with the idea to use quotes from the books as clues, which I think is genius.

BRAD: By the time I came on board, Kevin had already designed the grid and filled it. I was immediately impressed with the presence of five theme entries plus a revealer. Kevin was concerned about some nose-wrinkling incidental fill (I remember RRR crossing RRS, for example), so together we did some "doctoring" of Dr. Seuss. I brainstormed different ideas for some of the seven-letter entries that crossed three Seuss titles. We tinkered with the upper middle and lower middle, especially, and did some sprucing up of corners.

Helping write Tuesday clues is kind of new ground for me, but we seem to have done all right based on what the final draft looks like!

Kevin:

I'm very lucky to be able to collaborate with Andrea and very pleased that we're having a Monday puzzle published together. Andrea is one of the most accomplished Monday constructors of all time. She's had 31 Monday puzzles published (now 32), which is the 6th most in the Shortz era. Plus she's fun to hang out with, she's friendly and nice to everybody, and she organizes lunches at restaurants in San Francisco for Bay Area constructors to get together!

We started on this puzzle in early 2013. I emailed Andrea with a long list of possibilities, and we narrowed them down as follows. We started with a long list of SAY possibilities. I was trying to find a SAY 10 to go with SUE GRAFTON, but Andrea decided early on that her favorite SAY answer was SAY HEY KID, so we decided to look for a SUE 9.

Eventually we figured out it didn't have to be SUE, it could be SOO or SIOUX, so we went with SIOUX CITY. I proposed SEE NO EVIL and SO FAR AWAY (clued as the Carole King song) early on, and we both liked both of those, so we stuck with those. We had some SIGH possibilities, but none we were crazy about, and several of them were even lengths. Eventually we figured out we could do SCI FI something, with SCI FI CONVENTION and SCI FI SHORT STORY both as good options that were length 15.

I find easy puzzles are hard to make and harder puzzles are easier to make, because the universe of fill answers you can use in an early week puzzle is relatively small, but the possibilities for a later week puzzle are much broader. For this puzzle, we went through at least a dozen versions of the grid before we found one that was clean and crisp enough to be Monday-worthy.

ACME:

I love collaborating with folks who are really excited and dedicated, like Kevin. It makes me feel like there is more of a community that goes beyond just an individual little puzzle. He had a nice idea based on my vowel-run "poems" that stretched it in fun ways. It was a true collaboration.

All NYT crosswords have grid patterns that are symmetrical when you rotate them 180 degrees. For this puzzle, I decided to start with a grid that would also be symmetrical when rotated 90 degrees.

The longest answer has length 8, which is kind of short, but there are 12 of them. I keep a list of words and phrases that have never been in a NYT crossword, so I pulled that out and looked for length 8 possibilities. My three favorites on that list were JONESING, BUTT DIAL, and LOCAVORE, so I started with those.

I seeded the puzzle by putting JONESING in the NW, BUTT DIAL in the NE, and LOCAVORE in the SE. I didn't seed a 4th entry in the SW because I figured the fill would flow into that area, kind of like squeezing a tube of toothpaste, so I waited to see what entry would go there naturally. I felt lucky when it turned out that HOW'S THAT would fit there.

I like the intersecting 7's in the middle of the puzzle (PASSION, BAY AREA, LOBSTER, DESIREE): BAY AREA is nice for me because I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. DESIREE is a good one because I'm a big Neil Diamond fan. He's one of the few musical artists that my dad and I both like, and we've been to see him in concert together a few times.

A few more things: LET ER RIP is fun, as my son plays baseball and it sounds like something you would say to a kid when you're telling him to swing away. I find EPIPHANY to be a colorful word. I like ARIZONA because I have two sisters, and one lives there now, and the other used to live there although recently she moved to Florida. EMOTICON and USER NAME are nice because they both evoke the computer driven world we live in.

Overall, I'm happy with how this puzzle turned out, and I'm glad I was able to get the pangram without doing anything too unnatural.

I had a lot of theme entries I wanted to use for this puzzle, so intersecting and stacking them seemed like a good way to fit as many of them into the puzzle as possible. I lucked out in getting the intersecting letters to match up, and in getting the pairs of letters in the stacked entries to all yield possible perps.

The WP combo was tough, but I figured out that I could put either WPA or WPM there. I'm not that crazy about "TOGAE" at 6-Down because in real life most people would say "TOGAS," but I needed a word with an AE there so that's what I used there. I desperately wanted to fit another 5-letter theme entry at 37-Across to go with the ones I had at 23-Down and 35-Down, but I just couldn't come up with anything that would fit, so I ended up with no theme material in the center of the puzzle.

I spent a lot of time on this puzzle. I'm not sure how much. Probably over 40 hours. I built several versions of the grid that I rejected, and kept going back and moving black squares and changing fill, until I finally came up with something that I felt had clean enough fill to submit. Most experienced constructors will tell you that trying to cram too much theme material into a puzzle is a mistake, and I agree with that, but every once in a while it can work out.