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Episode 4: Kameron Austin Collins
198 Plays5 days ago
Daniel talks to Kameron Austin Collins about topics such as the visual design of themelesses, getting a “villain edit,” his intentional jumbling of cultural references, the politics of fill, personalizing and pruning word lists, the entry he was most excited to include, advice for aspiring constructors, and much, much more.
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Transcript
Introduction to Crosstalk Podcast
00:00:12
Speaker
Hello, puzzle people. My name is Daniel Grinberg, and you're listening to episode number four of Crosstalk, the crossword construction podcast. In this show, I'll be talking to other crossword constructors to learn more about how they work and what inspires them.
00:00:27
Speaker
Whether you're a current constructor, an aspiring one, or a fellow word nerd who wants to find out how a puzzle gets made, this show will be a forum to share insights and learn from each other.
Guest Introduction: Cameron Austin Collins
00:00:39
Speaker
For the fourth episode of Crosstalk, I'm joined by none other than Cameron Austin Collins. Cameron is a film critic who's written for publications like Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair and is based in Brooklyn, New York.
00:00:52
Speaker
He's had 24 crosswords published in the New York Times to date, 23 of which are Fridays and Saturdays. over 60 crosswords in the New Yorker, and many more puzzles in the Atlantic and AVCX, including their first ever themeless.
00:01:08
Speaker
Cameron, thanks so much for taking the time to speak with me today and giving us a clue about how you work. Thank you for having me. Absolutely.
Cameron's Crossword Journey Begins
00:01:17
Speaker
So first things first, what originally led you to begin solving crosswords? i grew up with a mom who really loved solving the New York Times. i grew up in New Jersey. I'm so sorry.
00:01:32
Speaker
No, no, wait a minute. Wait a minute. I'm not a New Jersey evangelist, but I do protect my state, I have to say. I'm just kidding. I grew up in New York, so we have that rivalry. No, we do.
00:01:45
Speaker
For many years of my life, I would have also shit on New Jersey, but I don't know what's happening. So I grew up with my mom solving the New York Times Sunday puzzle. think it was also a moment when I was in high school, that's when wordplay came out.
00:01:59
Speaker
The puzzle as a cultural institution was very much a thing happening in pop culture as well. Like he felt like you would see more people, sex in the city or something doing a crossword. It was very much like a signifier and the New York times in particular.
00:02:13
Speaker
So I grew up with this impression of the Sunday times puzzle as this great intellectual feat. Like you're a certain kind of person if you can solve a Sunday puzzle.
00:02:24
Speaker
All that to say, I wasn't interested in that at all at the time, but it was in the ether.
Transition from Solver to Constructor
00:02:29
Speaker
And then really it took until several years later, I was in graduate school. The app for the New York Times was new at that point. And I was studying for my oral exams and I just needed a hobby that didn't totally turn my brain off, but that also wasn't too, too challenging.
00:02:50
Speaker
And then I just became a pretty regular solver from there. And how many years did it take to go from solving to then making your own puzzles? It wasn't long.
00:03:01
Speaker
If my first puzzle was published in 2014, two and a half years maybe of me as a solver, I didn't finish too many completed constructions of my own before getting published, partially because I kept trying to make themes happen.
Challenges and Mentorship in Crossword Construction
00:03:16
Speaker
I realized pretty early on that that was not my strength. That was not my ministry. But like at that moment in the 2010s, this is when you would go cruciver.com, that website that a lot of us had to go to.
00:03:28
Speaker
There was a lot of mentors and I emailed back and forth with Nancy Solomon for a little while, who was crossword puzzle legend. And I emailed back and forth with Joe Krozel for a little while. Yeah, they kept saying all my theme ideas were bad. And I kept saying, I completely agree with you.
00:03:42
Speaker
but So i didn't I didn't do too much of that until I somehow landed on constructing theme lists as Do you remember where you were when you got that first acceptance?
First Acceptance and Submission Process
00:03:53
Speaker
I was in the library where I lived those days and graduate school.
00:03:59
Speaker
It was such a thing because not very long ago, you had to mail a printed out submission to Will Schwartz's house in Pleasantville. And I remember going to my department office on campus and stealing vanilla envelopes.
00:04:13
Speaker
Mail was not a thing that I was sending even then. It was a whole thing, and it it was more than a 90-day wait. It took maybe five or so months. Wow, that would be a struggle with my level of impatience. I have trouble waiting the three months as it is.
00:04:29
Speaker
And could you tell us a bit about what the construction process looks like for you?
Casual Construction and Multitasking
00:04:34
Speaker
Set the scene for us where you are, what you're doing, what you're listening to, maybe. It's a hobby that i started doing, hanging out with a roommate on our computers putzing around pretending to do work, maybe drinking a little wine, or maybe it's I'm on the couch and Law & Order SVU is playing and this is something to do while I'm watching the same three episodes of Law & Order SVU over and over again. You know, it's that kind of come down relaxing activity for me.
00:05:05
Speaker
And even to this day, if if I'm constructing, I'm probably watching Real Housewives. but you know Was doing that... Last night, in fact, was catching up on Real Housewives of Salt Lake City and playing around with the grids.
00:05:18
Speaker
Often what I'm doing is not doing something else. Let us just say front that this is a great procrastination activity, particularly for me as a writer, because it's a way of being on my computer and making something and using my brain so it doesn't feel like intellectual junk food.
00:05:36
Speaker
But it becomes a way of warming my brain up. That is how a lot of my construction works. I just have this, you know, like in Lion King where Simba's father's like, you know, the elephant graveyard don't go over there. That is sort of what my Dropbox folder of dead grids or incomplete skeletons of grids is like. It's just this assortment of unfinished puzzles that I've either set aside because i liked what I had, but my word list at that point in time wasn't quite up to the task of finishing the puzzle in a way that I'd like.
00:06:10
Speaker
Or puzzles that I had forgotten about, puzzles that I had finished but didn't realize, and now I'm seeing them years later and revising them. This is why I don't collaborate very much, because I'm very all over the place.
00:06:22
Speaker
I like to sometimes just let Crossfire do its thing while I'm doing something else. And so then I come back to it and it has a lot of options for me.
Strategic Use of Crossfire
00:06:32
Speaker
And then I can start to play around.
00:06:34
Speaker
I've developed a good relationship with Crossfire. think I understand how it works and I think we understand each other. Weirdly, there have become ways that I've learned how to strategically put Crossfire in the best position that it can be to do what I want it to do And then open my computer the next time and see, oh Crossfire has 50 words that could fit into this slot that are interesting words. Let's start to chip away at that.
00:06:58
Speaker
This is
Cluing 20 Puzzles: Creativity and Randomness
00:06:59
Speaker
fascinating. How many crosswords are you working on at any given point? At the moment, I'm actively cluing 20. 20? god. twenty my god So in keeping with this theme of I'm just very random, I've learned about myself that I'm actually not always in the mood to be actively constructing.
00:07:18
Speaker
I flit in and out of being interested in crosswords and these huge three to four month chunks. So I had a very active constructing chunk this year that I'm just coming out of where I made maybe 25 brids, some of which they're already earmarked for the New Yorker because I have a contract there.
00:07:39
Speaker
some of which are gonna go to the Atlantic because I'm on the roster there. And then the rest are puzzles that I think are appropriate for the times. I make the submissions PDF for all of them and put them all in Dropbox.
00:07:52
Speaker
And then casually over the course of several months, just sort of clue at random at will whenever I'm feeling creative. What determines what I submit where and when and in what order is partially a matter of which files are finished,
00:08:09
Speaker
This is just my way of making it about pleasure and making it about when I want to do it and when I feel creative. I just like to treat it like a hobby. When I'm feeling a little creative, maybe I've come home from a fun night at the bar, I'm a little tipsy and just feeling kind of goofy and feeling punny.
00:08:28
Speaker
That is a great time to draft some clues. That is really impressive that you have 20 grids you think meet that standard. I tend to labor over one theme list for a month or two sometimes.
00:08:41
Speaker
So let's say you wanted to add a 21st puzzle then to your to-do list. How would you embark on creating a new theme list?
Focus on Aesthetic Grid Design
00:08:49
Speaker
I'm very visually minded. I don't know how to explain this in a way that's going to sound mentally healthy. but There's just grid designs that appeal to me and grid designs that don't.
00:09:01
Speaker
And one thing I don't like is when a grid looks visually random. I do kind of like a sense of structure or a sense of aesthetic, but I also like to test myself or challenge myself by making grids that flow in different ways. This is also just a way to not keep getting the same five words on my word list by shaking up what a grid looks like so that what's demanded of my word list changes every time.
00:09:28
Speaker
So I usually have a bunch of blank grids that were just visual ideas. And the first thing I do is I try to find the spot in the grid that I think will open the grid up most efficiently.
00:09:41
Speaker
And sometimes that's a long entry that's going through enough things that it feels like a good place to start. Sometimes it's one across. And sometimes I start with one of those and I see how it's going.
00:09:55
Speaker
and maybe there's one anchor entry that is putting pressure on other things in a way that is creating hassle for me. I usually start with the problem spot and then build from there. And if there's nothing that I like that way, I tear it all up and start over.
00:10:09
Speaker
Part of the reason that I don't say that I use seed entries is because I'm very much an adherent of the philosophy of kill your darlings. If it's not doing its job, if it's not singing for its supper, I will eliminate it.
00:10:24
Speaker
So you're saying now you're more likely to just design the grid visually and not have a seed entry at all? Yeah, I really don't use seed entries. I have a seed list, but I want to see what Crossfire thinks can work out.
00:10:40
Speaker
And because I trust my word list, because I put a lot of time into my word list, don't really need a seed list because all the seeds are on my word list. If a grid is opportune for that entry, the program is going to tell me. But if it doesn't work, it doesn't work.
00:10:54
Speaker
I certainly don't immediately plop a word from a seed list onto a grid. A lot of wishful thinking happens. You think, oh, here's a nice stair stack. Let me just put this word in the center that it has an X in it or like a Q. And I just find myself having these debates with the program, just getting into these fights with my computer about what's aesthetic enough and what's possible.
00:11:14
Speaker
And then when you're ready to start cluing, what does that process look like?
Cluing Process and Submission Goals
00:11:20
Speaker
Then I just make the PDF and put it in Dropbox so it's synced to all my devices and it joins the folder of other puzzles that need clues. Generally, i start with proper nouns.
00:11:33
Speaker
If I get those out of the way, then it's like I've already made progress. But also there are just limited things that you can do with most proper nouns. From there, It's a free-for-all, and there's a lot of revising.
00:11:47
Speaker
By the time a puzzle of mine is getting sent to the Times, the clues are fairly polished, and a lot of my clues wind up running in the Times. I've gotten better about it. Once Will Short says to you the clues were good, you never want to hear back from him and not have him say that again.
00:12:04
Speaker
It's very addictive. Yeah, I've gotten more of my clues included than I used to, so i guess that's heading in the right direction. i think you start recognizing the voice they're looking for the more you do it.
00:12:17
Speaker
You do, and you also start figuring out how to keep getting better at matching your voice with the rules of the game for that particular publication. You learn what will fly.
00:12:30
Speaker
Then you can actually start to experiment because then you know how to experiment in a way that is still viable. There have been a couple of times when I tried a clue format that I hadn't seen before.
00:12:41
Speaker
do you have an example of that? Once I had, I'm going to mispronounce this, it's a mountain range, like low C. It's the fourth tallest mountain in the world.
00:12:53
Speaker
So the clue was in descending order, colon, then the first three, comma, fill in the blank. I hadn't seen a clue that listed a ranking of things and asked for a fill in the blank.
00:13:06
Speaker
once I clued so random as like all over the place, matching the tone of the entry. And I'm sure I'd seen something like that voice, but I had never done that before. And I wasn't sure that the team would go for it if it met for them the test of this equates to this in the way that a clue should.
00:13:27
Speaker
I wonder, too, as they get to know you, if they trust your voice more and are more willing to be more accepting than maybe a first-time constructor.
00:13:39
Speaker
I'm glad you said that because I do think there's so much to be said about how we dispense advice to newer constructors when it comes to reading the tea leaves of a publication's editors and their preferences and their rules, you know, for the vast, vast majority of things, the only honest answer is it depends.
00:14:01
Speaker
One of the variables I think that's in play is what you're pointing out, which is if you are someone who is routinely submitting high quality clues, there could be a willingness to engage a little bit more when you try something adventurous, because there is a sense of This person's coming from a place of knowing the rules and bending them on purpose rather than not knowing the rules.
00:14:23
Speaker
And I've tended to find actually what the New York Times in particular does with my clues is they find a couple of the things that I include more easily on purpose and they make them hard. They make the puzzles harder, which I say in in part to just let people know that however difficult they think my puzzles are, it's a piece of feedback that I get semi-frequently.
00:14:45
Speaker
The times makes them harder on purpose. They'll do this with two or three clues per puzzle, I've noticed. Well, I've noticed a common critique on Reddit is that Fridays and Saturdays aren't as hard as they used to be.
00:14:59
Speaker
So it's interesting to hear that they're trying to make your puzzles harder. You know, this is another one of those it depends situations because that feedback is onto something.
00:15:10
Speaker
I think it's more complicated than Fridays and Saturdays are easier. Partially, Puzzles are smoother, and smoother is easier because the words all look like words, you know, that you that you know.
00:15:24
Speaker
And also part of it is I don't think it would be a good business model for Fridays and Saturdays in the app era to be quite as difficult as they used to be because when it's so gamified, you do want people to feel like they can build up to finishing every day of the week.
00:15:42
Speaker
And I think it was different... when we were mostly solving on paper or when streaks weren't a thing. But what I will say, despite all of that, is that I do think that a few of us, Byron Walden is someone who I'm thinking of in this category, Ryan McCarty, there are a few people that mostly run on Saturdays that are allowed to be slightly outlier, more difficult Saturdays.
00:16:09
Speaker
And I think that there are some people who are allowed to still occupy a space of seamless, we more so saw maybe 10 years ago when I was first starting. And I've noticed that if the Times is making my puzzles harder, and they're already hard, I'm sure they see all the comments, so they know that this is something that people complain about.
00:16:30
Speaker
I've started to feel like, okay, maybe that's my role as a person who will occasionally show up and ruin your streak, and get the requisite letters from the editor.
00:16:41
Speaker
think I've noticed over time. There'll be a way that people talk about my puzzles or seeing my byline in the times. I feel like the final boss sometimes. It's like not a thing that I would ever choose to be, but it's a role that I'm happy to play for people. if if you need a Saturday villain who sometimes shows up and eats all your cookies, so be it.
00:17:00
Speaker
I have never been so jealous. so I would love to be a final boss. I'll sometimes watch YouTubers who do life solves and the number of them that I've had the moment starting out on a Saturday of seeing my byline and being like, oh, really?
00:17:18
Speaker
Like and not in a bad way, but in, oh, this guy's puzzles are hard. Maybe that's why I like your puzzles so much. Maybe I feel like the villain of the season or on a reality show, just getting a villain edit, it a literal villain edit, when they take some of my clues and make them harder.
00:17:35
Speaker
When are we going to see you on the traitors?
Incorporating Diversity in Crosswords
00:17:38
Speaker
So since we're talking about the kind of role you play, let me mention that I've often thought of your puzzles, maybe more than any other constructor, as really having auteurist perspective where I can clearly identify your voice and vocabulary and style.
00:17:54
Speaker
And so in addition to the grid work being at a really impressive level, technically, and think a big part of what makes your puzzles outstanding is You've brought fresh contemporary entries and clues to fairly traditional publications.
00:18:12
Speaker
And then part of that is bringing Black and queer terms to the forefront. For instance, in the times you debuted entries like Cornrose, Gaberhood, His Heirness, Olivia Pope,
00:18:26
Speaker
Soul Train Line, Roy Cohn, and Spitz Game. So I wanted to ask you, what draws you to feature those kinds of Black and queer terms as marquee entries in your puzzles?
00:18:39
Speaker
When I first started solving regularly, one of the people on the scene that was getting a lot of attention for pop culture in the puzzle was Brendan Emmett Quigley. And because I was solving his puzzles and immediately had a sense of what his priorities were and what his style was.
00:18:57
Speaker
That just became a part of the DNA of the way that I understood the puzzle to work. Not that everyone had those same interests or that everyone wanted to put more pop culture in the puzzle, but that it was a completely fair thing to do if that was your voice.
00:19:11
Speaker
I never was a solver at a stage in which this wasn't happening, where I couldn't point to someone else who was also doing it. When I was first really solving, that's when the Times did the Brown Puzzle Club week.
00:19:25
Speaker
There was a week where a bunch of college students at Brown, including the Time Last and Amy Lucido, and these were all necessarily young, fresh puzzles that were publishing things like Ghostface Killa, the rapper, in the Times for the first time.
00:19:38
Speaker
So that was my understanding of how the puzzle worked. And I think that just informed how I, like a style of puzzle that I thought was fair. The other part of it is just that like, that is the life that I live. I grew up loving pop culture, but also loving classical music and literature. it was always a jumble for me.
00:19:56
Speaker
It was always black culture, but also other cultures and queer culture, but also predominantly straight culture that I was living in. All these things were mixed together. So it just felt very natural to want to make puzzles that reflect the world that I lived in.
00:20:11
Speaker
Some of the entries that you listed out that I debuted, if I'm not mistaken, a number of those were all in the same puzzle. Those puzzles in particular, I think a real turning point for me was the puzzle that had Gaberhood at one across was the puzzle that I heard back from people quite a bit.
00:20:30
Speaker
I got emails about it and someone in my English department said something about their solving it with their husband and their son. I'd never heard back from people in that way about a puzzle.
00:20:42
Speaker
And what people were excited about was the inclusion of a wide range of culture. felt like something that people valued. And with a little bit of encouragement, I took it and ran with it.
00:20:55
Speaker
But really, that's just the world that I live in. When I'm looking at whether or not a grid feels complete, a wide range of aspects of culture has to be there because that appeals to me.
00:21:06
Speaker
Certainly, letter combinations or realms of language is something I look for all happening in the same puzzle. I just like a puzzle to be action-packed. I actually shy away from a puzzle that's totally contemporary. I got to throw Shakespeare or something in there if that's going to be the case, because that tension is what is exciting to me.
00:21:26
Speaker
So it can't be all old. It can't be all new. It can't be all high culture and it can't be all low culture. It has to be a mix of things. There has to be slang in there that reflects the way that I actually speak.
00:21:38
Speaker
Increasingly, I look for just everyday aspects of life that aren't necessarily new, but that feel new for crosswords because we just haven't put them in crosswords yet. When I see too many E's in a puzzle, I get kind of angry and tear it up.
00:21:52
Speaker
If I see a puzzle that's too much of one type of culture, like too much music, too much film, I have to start it over or change it up. I need to throw some philosophy or something in there. That's interesting because in 2021, you noted, i couldn't believe that Throwing Shade was in the New York Times crossword alongside all these Greek mythology references.
00:22:14
Speaker
And when I read that, I thought it's really cool that Throwing Shade was in there. But now that I'm hearing what you're saying, it's not just that Throwing Shade was in there, but that it was juxtaposed with Greek mythology.
Balancing High and Low Culture
00:22:25
Speaker
And that jumble of cultures is also what really attracted you, it sounds like. Absolutely. it really is both of those because that is capturing both sides of me.
00:22:35
Speaker
am a film critic, but I was also in an English PhD program. And I was in my program, I was doing 19th century and early 20th century stuff. And as a film critic, I'm interested in new films, but I'm really committed to film history.
00:22:49
Speaker
So for me, these things are fluid and I have a lot of ideas and beliefs about the ways that culture can work I walk outside of my house. I live in Bushwick in Brooklyn. live in a very Latino neighborhood. i went to a very Latino high school, like 50% non-English native high school in my graduating class.
00:23:08
Speaker
So was hearing Spanish coming up a lot. My best friends in high school were Nigerian and Pakistani. And those combos, my cousins who are Puerto Rican, all of these things are just a part of how I understand the world to work.
00:23:23
Speaker
And I just want to make puzzles that feel at home in the world that I live in. But also as a seamless constructor, that also is great because that also in a way makes puzzles harder.
00:23:35
Speaker
There's something to be said for a constructor where you can't always predict what they're going to put their finger on because they have a wide range of interests and they're going to ask a lot of you. They're going to ask you to pull from newspaper headlines, but also pop culture, but also mythology, but but also philosophy.
00:23:52
Speaker
That to me is more challenging and that's more enticing as a solver. So then you've already touched on this a bit, but another aspect of your voice I think is really identifiable is your cinephilia with your professional life as a critic and your deep knowledge of film informing your constructions. So again, in The Times, you debuted entries like The General, ah Screener DVD, and Art Films.
00:24:17
Speaker
And then in a single New Yorker puzzle from August 16th, 2021, you featured the entries Anya Sparta, Altman, and Do a Cameo. So can you touch on how you see your cinephilic interests and critical commitments intersecting with your constructing?
00:24:35
Speaker
Yeah, that's interesting. Consciously, i try to keep these worlds slightly separate, sort of like in the same way that I don't always like my food to touch on the plate. it is think I mean, sometimes sometimes that can obviously lead to a banger. It's not a rule, it's more an inclination.
00:24:54
Speaker
But at the end of the day, If a puzzle seems to allow it in a way that feels natural, of course I will allow it to happen. I should say something that I didn't mention about my process that's relevant is I have screenshots of every finished grid that are all in a folder. And what I do is I use the highlighter tool and I have a whole color coded thing that helps me evaluate how I feel.
00:25:20
Speaker
So I use green highlights for entries that are appealing and orange. for things that I'm not sure about or maybe like dislike, or maybe I'll just use orange to make me aware of where all the abbreviations are.
00:25:35
Speaker
And then pink for all the proper nouns, which helps me locate and keep in mind where things cross or if there's one neighborhood of a puzzle where there's a lot of pink, so I can think about finding ways of doing that don't necessarily rely on a kind of proper noun knowledge.
00:25:52
Speaker
And I do that very neurotically and incessantly. I'm always reevaluating, I'm always putting a puzzle away and picking it back up and looking at it, hopefully with fresh-ish eyes.
00:26:03
Speaker
Along those lines, I had a fellow constructor recently test-solve my puzzle and he color-coded the finished grid. And notably, some of the stuff he thought wasn't that good, I liked, and some of the stuff he liked, I was less sure about.
00:26:20
Speaker
So is that something that you do? Do you get others to test solve or color code for you? I don't, but I do sometimes color code on a puzzle that I've solved.
00:26:33
Speaker
And I do it in particular if I'm impressed by a puzzle or maybe it's been a number of months since I've, let's say, solved the New York Times. And I'm thinking about getting back into submitting. And so I just kind of want to see like what are the times up to?
00:26:48
Speaker
What kind of puzzles are they accepting right now? How do I feel about the puzzle? What are the entries in this puzzle that I think are interesting and how many of them are there? And how did this puzzle come together? deconstruct it using my color coding process.
00:27:02
Speaker
Earlier on, I only did this to specifically count the proper nouns and puzzles because I had a feeling that some of the complaints about proper nouns in my puzzles were ahistorical and holding me to a standard that other constructors who were using more familiar proper nouns weren't being held to.
00:27:22
Speaker
And I used it to talk myself off a ledge and realize I was correct. There were Patrick Berry puzzles that I was solving that had 23 proper nouns in them, which is a lot, but it's the nature of the proper nouns that was the difference. But deconstructing it in that way particularly early on, it really helps me just understand how other constructors work. If I'm really into a puzzle, I really love to step back and be like, wow, this is really good.
00:27:47
Speaker
Are there flaws in this grid that I just didn't notice because I got them from the crossings? Or is this grid as sparkly as it seems when I solved it? And if there are flaws, and flaws is in scare quotes, but if there are flaws, where are they such that I didn't notice them?
00:28:02
Speaker
Because there can be something to be said for putting something a visual blind spot where Maybe the crossings are so apparent that you forget. I can't say I ever really remember any East by Northeast or West by Northwest entry in a puzzle.
00:28:16
Speaker
If I do notice it, it means you just didn't hide it well enough. Like I really have nothing against those entries, frankly. Like if you need to use them, use them. But if I notice in them, then it means get more covert with your game a little bit, you know, get a little bit more sneaky.
00:28:29
Speaker
But yeah, use this process to deconstruct and be hardest of all on my own work. I hear what you're saying. It allows you to step back a bit and get ah quantifiable, somewhat objective perspective, which can be tough when I'm subjectively evaluating my own work.
00:28:47
Speaker
Yeah, that makes sense because you were in the trenches with that puzzle. but but So it's a different relationship that you, of course, have. Like your affection is a real thing. How do we put these things in balance such that you can ultimately, over the course of making many more puzzles, raise the threshold for each so that Not only is it more impressive to other people, but you're also maxing out in a way that's satisfying to you.
00:29:10
Speaker
At some point I realized there were entries that i just didn't have to use because I'd managed to make 62 word puzzles without using those kinds of entries. So once I've done it and I know that I can do it and it doesn't seem like this far off, unachievable, you'll never be Patrick Berry type thing. like Then i just feel like I'm only really ever comparing my puzzle to my puzzles.
00:29:34
Speaker
I feel like I can't dip below a certain level. I feel like I have to get better, especially as everyone else keeps getting better and better. That helps me keep my affections and my own work in check a little bit. So circling back to the subject of film, I wanted to note that you did achieve one of my long-running dreams, which is to have an essay in a Criterion Collection release.
Essays for Criterion Collection and Cinephile Interests
00:29:54
Speaker
You've done it several times, but most notably to me, you did it in a box set that I love, The Signifying Works of Marlon Riggs. And while it's not directly related to puzzles, I wanted to recommend that everyone listening check out your essays on Criterion.com to see yet another facet of your creative output.
00:30:15
Speaker
And particularly to check out that impassioned analysis of one of our great documentarians. It's a great essay, and if you're not familiar with the works of Marlon Riggs, it's added incentive to check those out as well.
00:30:29
Speaker
Thank you for saying that. Anyone writing about film, you definitely want to see your name in one of those sets with a little essay. And i like writing for Criterion. In part, I just support keeping the history of film alive. i support a really diverse approach to the history of film, caring about not only American stuff, not only Hollywood stuff, but path and films from all over the world.
00:30:53
Speaker
It's good when you don't feel pigeonholed. Something I think I'm always wary of as a Black writer, as a queer writer, it's not that I shy away from people asking me to write about Black things or queer things. and You pointed out that I did the Marlon Riggs essay, and that was a dream come true to write about a Black queer documentarian who has played such a major role in my life.
00:31:15
Speaker
But I like that they also asked me to write about Westerns, which are also another huge part of my life. This is something actually that is similar with my puzzle stuff. I don't want to be pigeonholed.
00:31:26
Speaker
I like to have the freedom to be expansive. It goes back to what you were saying. You don't want to be predictable. You want to keep us guessing with an unexpected mix of cultural references.
00:31:40
Speaker
Yeah. So going back to the subject of Phil, I wanted to ask you about iffy or even controversial Phil. have been a lot of debates about what constitutes good or passable or unacceptable, Phil, and I've seen you weigh in on that subject as well.
Controversy in Crossword Entries
00:31:57
Speaker
So to use an example I mentioned earlier, you debuted the controversial historical villain Roy Cohn in 2021 with the clue McCarthyite called out in Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire.
00:32:09
Speaker
Did you have any reservations about including that? And where do you draw the line on which names to feature or forego? This is a great question and a subject that I haven't gotten tired of seeing people debate because that indicates that norms are ever-changing. So there's never going to be one answer to this question. It's going to evolve.
00:32:32
Speaker
But it's just a good thing to think about as a constructor. I would say it's something that constructors have not always thought about. One thing that i really like about the recent surge in new voices and people with specific political desires to...
00:32:48
Speaker
shake up this conversation is that it feels like more of a conversation that we can all have. The entry that you specifically named Roy Cohn is an interesting example because I would say that at the time I didn't really give it a second thought partially because I knew that I was going to call him a McCarthyite in the clue. And even though McCarthyite is a historical designation, it's just objectively true.
00:33:13
Speaker
was very much the muscle behind the McCarthy witch trials against socialists and other people. He was also a gay man. And he's a fascinating figure for me because the way that I learned about Roy Cohn was the play and also the adapted HBO film, Angels in America by Tony Kushner.
00:33:35
Speaker
So if you see him in that context where he is still an evil McCarthyite, he is also, as happened in real life, dying of AIDS. Because I inherited my knowledge of Roy Cohn from a portrait that was complicated by this other role that he played in history, which is being an early prominent gay man dying publicly of AIDS.
00:34:00
Speaker
I have a different relationship to him. I don't dispute that he was an evil McCarthyite, but he also for me is a much more tragic figure than just that.
00:34:11
Speaker
Which is all to say that when he came up for me as I was constructing, that was the last corner of the puzzle that I did, was the chance to say, actually, i want to put this in a puzzle because if people don't know who he is, I want them to be like, what the hell? And look him up and find out who this guy is.
00:34:27
Speaker
So it's interesting look back on it now because what I would say is if he were to come up again, it only seems more urgent actually that people are more aware of these previous eras of the political suppression of liberal speech in the United States.
00:34:43
Speaker
As a scholar, as a journalist, part of my calculation with someone like Roy Cohn is would I prefer that we didn't remember who he was or would I prefer that we learned from who he was?
00:34:54
Speaker
But I wouldn't say that in the scheme of things, he's the most unpleasant name you could put in a puzzle by far. And I think sometimes I do sense that I hum at this from a slightly different angle than some people because there is for me a need to find a balance between wanting puzzles to reflect the world that I live in without crossing a line that is only unpleasant or there's nothing to be gained from it.
00:35:19
Speaker
To give you ah more contemporary example, I've been weighing if I want to include Aledo in Future Grids, and if so, how I would clue it. The vowels there are very tempting. It's appeared dozens of times already in the Times I used to be more of the mindset that including someone in a puzzle isn't the same as endorsement and you can include them, include it in a way that acknowledges that.
00:35:44
Speaker
But now I'm starting to think with the precious little real estate that I have, I'd rather feature a less contentious and less complicit entry. So I'm curious how you feel about an entry like that and if there's any other kinds of entries you've rescored or if you've shifted on any names recently.
00:36:05
Speaker
Well, my question to your question is, how do you feel about seeing Alito in someone else's grid or as a solver? It's not something that i have felt as bad about as I do currently. It's become a bummer in the way that Paolo Pasco talks about having no bummers in your crosswords.
00:36:24
Speaker
never agreed with his politics or his decisions, but I feel like as the world becomes more of a hellscape, it is becoming a distraction for me. And you know that says something about me too, that it's now crossed a line, whereas you could have drawn that line many times in the past.
00:36:41
Speaker
For me, that if it's something that you don't want to put in your grid, I would just delete them from the word list. I'm very unsparing about that. If I've turned on a word, I just don't even want it to even be floated as a possibility. I just take it off my list and I don't think twice about it.
00:36:57
Speaker
If those are your personal rules, which do not have to match the rules of publications, but your personal philosophy, if there are things that publications will allow, but you just don't feel comfortable with them, don't use them.
00:37:10
Speaker
Just In a very disciplined way, take them off of your word list so that you never have to renegotiate it. If you don't think that that'd be fruitful, we're all coming at this from a slightly different position.
00:37:21
Speaker
Even all of us who broadly agree, there are nuances, I think, from person to person that I also accept as a solver. When I was working on a puzzle, it was Tesla Roadster.
00:37:31
Speaker
So I couldn't even get out of cluing the other Tesla. And I thought, huh, it's a car. And it is an interesting entry out of context. It is a cool string of letters to me. It is a cool phrase. I like the phrase Tesla Roadster, but no, I was not going to put it in a puzzle. That's not the vibe for me right now.
00:37:50
Speaker
How would I feel about seeing it in someone else's puzzle? I don't know. I would think probably that you were trolling a little bit, but it really depends. It depends on the clue. It depends on the venue. It also depends on everything else in the puzzle and my overall composite sense of your worldview.
00:38:06
Speaker
or everything else in your body of work and my sense of where you might be coming from with that kind of entry. Even us talking about it is something that I think has only been possible within the last decade plus of people really trying to clarify what puzzles mean culturally.
00:38:22
Speaker
So I think it's such a valuable conversation for that reason. So I wanted to touch on a shift I've been noticing.
Individualized Word Lists and Creative Entries
00:38:30
Speaker
Recently, in some rejections, the Times editors have noted that they want human inspiration instead of fill the fields generated by word lists.
00:38:40
Speaker
And you've already mentioned that you work with Crossfire. So what are your thoughts on that kind of critique? I think what is being expressed is...
00:38:52
Speaker
a desire for people to lean more on word lists that are more individualized. The Times gets a lot of seamless submissions um and a desire to make really smooth puzzles.
00:39:04
Speaker
Something that happens, particularly for newer constructors, is sending in puzzles that are really smooth because we think that puzzles need to be really smooth to get in right now, and they do relatively, but that aren't necessarily popping, that aren't taking the occasional risk of one clunkier gluey entry in order to get at a greater portion of a puzzle.
00:39:27
Speaker
Things you grow more comfortable with the more you're doing this, or maybe you're better at getting more and more interesting entries into a puzzle with fewer compromises. The more individualized your word list is, the more you are taking a word list that you've inherited and adding your own stuff to it and using your own scores to more prioritize what you think is interesting.
00:39:48
Speaker
All of that will get you around the problem of too many people submitting puzzles that have too many similar marquee entries. Anyone who's been making puzzles for a while, particularly theme lists, knows there are just certain entries that you're going to see a lot because the letters are what they are.
00:40:05
Speaker
they're going to pop up in a stack. The 15-letter version would be peer assessments, right? A phrase that I've taken off of my word list, an entry that you're just never going to want to use, giving 15 letters away to the phrase peer assessment, or even at the bottom of a stack, assessment.
00:40:22
Speaker
At times editors are probably just seeing certain phrases a lot. They feel like everyone's using the same word list because everyone has the same cluster of entries that they're seeing multiple times a week. We're in a very pro word list moment, and I think we should be.
00:40:36
Speaker
The democratizing of word lists is a great thing for crossword. It is a huge reason why the barrier to entry has been lowered and why you're getting so many new voices and so many new people. But I think that people have to do more to personalize that list.
00:40:50
Speaker
The benefit that I have as someone who's been tinkering with my word list for over a decade now, and still using the same word list, but I've added thousands and thousands of entries to it. I've updated it a lot. I've deleted many, many, many more thousands of things.
00:41:05
Speaker
The reason why I construct the way that I do is because I have confidence that my word list has a lot of individual taste in it and that I've curated things in a way and scored things in a way and added the things that I like enough that I can open a new grid and just see what's going to come up from one entry because I know that the pure assessments of the world are not going to be there.
00:41:23
Speaker
I'm keeping an eye right now on a constructor named Alina Abidi who had the phrase idempotent. I couldn't even tell you. Not only do I not remember what it means, I don't even know how to say it.
00:41:34
Speaker
I just know that when I got to it and a grid, I was like, oh, she's cooking. It's like, you've told me so much. The fact that you are goofy enough to put this, you know, goofy in the most positive way possible, to put this entry that I'm telling you any other person's word list, this is the kind of thing that you'd have on someone else's word list to get a very low score because it's very science jargony. It's sort of out there. It's a thing that, unless you have a connection to it, you might not really want to use.
00:42:01
Speaker
But the fact that she has a connection to it or she thinks it's interesting She probably gives it a higher score. And there you go. That is already a word list that has a different philosophy from the one that she might have started with.
00:42:13
Speaker
So what you're saying for the people listening, if you have a peer assessments theme list right now, delete it and start over.
Maintaining Freshness in Word Lists
00:42:20
Speaker
Delete it. Delete. It was such a liberating moment for me.
00:42:23
Speaker
I just had a moment three or four years into this when I thought, you know what? I'm tired of seeing these words come up every time I try to stack 10-letter entries. I'm tired of Aria de Capo. I'm tired of oboe de moray.
00:42:36
Speaker
Things that, out of context, as a fan of classical music, I'm fine with. But they were coming up so much that it's like something went off in my brain where I thought, I've got to get these off of here. Yeah, it's like blocking that toxic X. And not unblocking them later. Don't give them low scores.
00:42:51
Speaker
Delete them. Tell Crossfire that they do not exist. But what if it's the only thing that's going to make my puzzle work? That is my fear. But that's the thing. When you get rid of these things and you're still able to keep making grids that are not only perfectly fine, but better, you realize that you never needed them.
00:43:09
Speaker
After 11 years, I just got rid of every playground retort. on my word list because I have a puzzle coming up from the times that has my last playground retort ever. As soon as I submitted the puzzle, I said, I'm going to keep it for this one puzzle because I like the stack that it's holding together and it's the only flaw.
00:43:28
Speaker
But as soon as I hit submit, I deleted it. So let's turn now to the subject of favorites. I feel like I already know what you're going to say, but I'm curious, what is your favorite part of creating a crossword?
00:43:41
Speaker
Definitely the constructing. but It's definitely the one that pairs best with wine and real housewives, the most multitasking friendly part of it.
00:43:51
Speaker
But after switching to this current way of cluing, I've started to like cluing a lot more. Something about just giving myself freedom to do it has really made me fall in love with, or no, I want to exaggerate, to go steady with, but to go beyond the talking stage, but not in love with cluing.
00:44:13
Speaker
But really it is about making the grid. Making grids scratches that same itch playing with Legos or Konexted when I was a kid. This is my version of refurbishing furniture in the garage, those classic dad hobbies.
00:44:28
Speaker
But this is my version of that. Constructing a puzzle and manual hobbies both have that shared aspect of tinkering. Let me tinker with this corner. Let me keep iterating on this entry.
00:44:42
Speaker
I love thinking that I'm done with the puzzle and then coming back to it later and being like, no, I can do better than that. It's so competitive right now that I just want every part of the grid to live up to every other part of the grid.
00:44:56
Speaker
and don't want to have chunks of grid that are not as interesting or as well-achieved as the others. But also, i love tinkering. I love one-upping myself.
00:45:08
Speaker
I was revising a corner a couple of days ago and I didn't really have to, I just wanted to, but I think I did 30 more versions of that corner and then just was weighing them against each other. I love that. I love getting nitpicky and petty.
00:45:22
Speaker
My favorite thing that happens is when I ship a Theseus across Word where I'm like, this is the final puzzle. And then tinker with each corner. And then by the end, somehow the entire puzzle is completely different than when I started. And I don't even notice because I'm so in the flow.
00:45:36
Speaker
I like having multiple versions of different grids because now I have obligations. Like if one version of it runs in the New Yorker and the other one is for the New York Times, it could be the same grid style visually, but two completely different puzzles that I probably made on the same day that are just very different from each other.
00:45:54
Speaker
One is probably the the evil sibling of the other. Probably the evil sibling actually would usually go to the New Yorker. And then do you have a favorite puzzle or some favorite puzzles among those you've made? Okay. This is cheating. One of my favorite puzzles is my next time's puzzle, whenever it runs.
00:46:11
Speaker
No, that's cheating. I know, but I just want to, like let me get my promo in. Okay. I don't know what date the album drops, but just everyone be ready when it pops up at 10 p.m. Eastern on your New York Times app any time between now and two years from now.
00:46:27
Speaker
Cam's pulling a Beyonce and surprise releasing. yeah No visuals, just just an album. One of my favorite puzzles that immediately comes to mind, think it was a Times puzzle from 2022.
00:46:39
Speaker
It was three stacks of 11s. Two were in these kind of bulbous gutters on the east and west of the grid, and then a stair stack of 11s in the center. And it had Lamaze class and Ideal Gas Law, and this is the one that had the Mountain Clue in it from before.
00:46:56
Speaker
First of all, just love the way that that grid looks. I've never seen a grid that looked quite like that, the idea of having three stacks of 11 letter entries that were all running vertically, visually was very striking to me. And I always like to think of the bulbs as pitcher plants, where like the bug will fly into this cute little plant that closes the cap up top and drowns the bug and all of its acids. I like to think of like the design of that grid as drowning the words of these little bulbs.
00:47:24
Speaker
this is just This is just where my mind goes. I liked the entries. I liked that I had something French randomly, French philosophy and cars and stuff that was interesting from a gender perspective, like Lamaze class and science and sports was in that puzzle.
00:47:39
Speaker
Yeah. And I liked the clue for Lamaze class, which was recommended labor practice, which is a nice redirect. Yeah, that was one of mine. I was so proud of that clue. When they sent the PDF preview of the puzzle, that was the first thing I looked to see if that clue made the cut.
00:47:53
Speaker
And then what about favorite entries you've been able to include? Well, I will say that from the very, very beginning of ever getting into constructing crosswords, the number one thing that I always wanted to publish, that I published, I think maybe in my second or third times puzzle, was the Destiny's Child song, Bootylicious.
00:48:16
Speaker
First of all incredible word, no notes, 10 out of 10, Bootylicious. I can't improve on that word as a word. And that is a factor for me, for sure. words as words as interesting pieces of language.
00:48:31
Speaker
That was part of it. But also part of it was when I was starting, one of the stories that was going around that was already sort of legend was of the time the Britney Spears song, Baby One More Time, came up in a grid.
00:48:44
Speaker
When Will Schwartz first saw it in a puzzle, it was by his standards premature. He just wasn't sure if it was gonna be a song that had long legs culturally. So he rejected the puzzle because of that entry.
00:48:56
Speaker
And then later, clearly the song had proven that it had staying power. But I think that was always in the back of my mind. As a constructor, I felt like it was partially my job to, like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, test the electric fence.
00:49:08
Speaker
every once in a while to see if I would get electrocuted. By the time I was putting it in a puzzle, it had several years since Bootylicious was a hit, but Destiny's Child was famous, Beyonce was obviously famous, and I wanted to see if the Times would respond to it just in its qualities as a word.
00:49:25
Speaker
And i wanted to see if they would run my clue, which is whatever year Destiny's Child sung with a lyric, I don't think you're ready for this jelly. I just wanted the whole package I just wanted to see if Will Shorts would enable me.
00:49:38
Speaker
And once he did, it was game over. You know, then it's like, okay, well then, well then you're going to get Spitz You're going to get Gaberhood because once I can do Bootylicious, it's over.
00:49:49
Speaker
know That was a really important moment. What was great about that grid was you had Bootylicious on top of Trust Fun Baby on top of Norse Deities. Like that's a great trio. Yeah. Yeah, which summarizes a lot of my philosophy right there. And then what are some of your favorite types of crosswords to solve?
00:50:07
Speaker
Well, I'm going to be honest in my answer here, and I say this with no offense to anyone, but I'm not so much a themed puzzle guy. i basically only solve themelesses.
00:50:21
Speaker
There's something to me about a smooth 15 by 15 theme list that occupies me for exactly the right amount of time that hits a certain satisfying note for me.
00:50:32
Speaker
That said, listen, if Ross Trudeau is popping up, if Eric Agard's popping up, I will be seated no matter what day of the week. Just certain people, if it's a Monday and and Lynn Lempall is there, I'm there. I'm going to solve that puzzle.
00:50:45
Speaker
but I'm less interested in what has to happen in a grid because of all the theme entries. I'm more interested in what happens when you have the freedom to do whatever you want. I don't need necessarily a low word count, but there is something about opening a puzzle and being intimidated by the way that it looks.
00:51:01
Speaker
Those are the things that really excite me. So for our listeners who are just getting started, what advice would you give to an aspiring constructor to level up their skills? One thing i would say...
00:51:13
Speaker
is absolutely sign up for the Facebook group, sign up for Discord, sign up for places where people are dispensing a lot of free advice about puzzles, where you can meet other people who will look at grids, who will mentor you.
00:51:26
Speaker
These resources are so good
Advice for New Constructors
00:51:29
Speaker
right now. They're so much better than they were when I started. But there can be such a thing as too much information. It's generally the point at which you're growing confused, where you start doing a lot of second guessing when you start trying to perform to a standard that basically is a standard of accomplished constructors who are a bit ahead of you in the game.
00:51:52
Speaker
That can be sort of defeating. You should be talking to other people who are also starting out. You should be making connections with people that you like to talk to, whose tastes you might admire, or reaching out to constructors that you like.
00:52:05
Speaker
This is a really generous community full of people who often do want to offer a little bit of help. And just start making puzzles. Don't necessarily make puzzles with the express goal of submitting your earliest work.
00:52:19
Speaker
Just give yourself a chance to sort of thrive a little bit, on your own and figure things out. The other thing, if you're weighing what makes for a good grid, just try to make it action-packed.
00:52:31
Speaker
That's the word that I have in mind when looking at my own grids. Can I look at any part of the grid and see something more interesting than usual? Yes, maybe there are entries that are regular words that are holding together other more interesting words. That's natural.
00:52:48
Speaker
But is it action-packed? Is there an interlock that brings me from one part of the grid to another part of the grid in a way where I'm always hitting on things that are interesting? And interesting doesn't necessarily always mean showy. There are a lot of regular underused words we overlook because we're all trying to get to the most exciting pop culture thing or the most exciting new thing.
00:53:13
Speaker
There are older words. Like when I put vodka crayon in a puzzle, vodka crayon is not a new thing Vodka Cran, you know, I'm sure the ancestors were drinking Vodka Cran, you know? it's like But it's more interesting because it has an interesting series of letters because it hadn't been any time as good before, I don't think.
00:53:33
Speaker
That kind of thing. And my last piece of advice is do not shortchange or overlook mid-length fill. One thing that separates a really, really good puzzle from a great puzzle can be a really, really good puzzle knows that most of the longer entries have to sparkle, but a great puzzle, a great grid finds way to sneak interesting five, six, seven letter words in there. Because I think one thing I've learned as a constructor is especially with seven letters, six letter words, a lot of really boring words are in that mid length range.
00:54:11
Speaker
But when you sneak a Wagyu in there or a Kyoto, Finding those shorter words is something that I've increasingly found to be really important for me evaluating my own puzzles. Like, okay, the 11-letter entries are good, but what is going on with my sixes?
00:54:26
Speaker
That, I think, is even more impressive because that really shows a level of intention and attention to detail. You're not taking for granted that the shorter fill is just there to hold together the longer fill.
00:54:39
Speaker
No, it's all available to you So make use of it. Start even building a grid from the shorter fill. I've been trying that actually for themelesses. I've been trying six or seven letter seed entries just because you have added flexibility and more room to play.
00:54:59
Speaker
It's a really smart thing to do. When you start from something shorter, you never know. It can go any number of directions. Just play around. should be fun. And it motivates me to think of short, interesting fill to add to my word list.
00:55:14
Speaker
And maybe that's the last piece of advice. Always be working on your word list. Always be adding to it. I just have the Google Docs app on my phone and I add words to it in proper word list format, all caps, semicolon, score.
00:55:28
Speaker
And I only really add that list, that master list to my proper word list maybe once every six months when it's thousands of entries long.
00:55:39
Speaker
And you've got to water it. You've got to take care of it. I'm constantly preening. And that's an ongoing battle. I try to add at least five entries every day. Wow.
00:55:50
Speaker
I don't always hit it, but I often do. It's a fun challenge. It pushes you to have your ears open at all times. Absolutely. And then do you have any crossword goals for the future?
Aspirations in Crossword Publishing
00:56:02
Speaker
i don't know why I'm attached to this idea, but I would really love to have published 50 Saturdays at the times. I don't know why that number. I don't know why Saturdays, and not Fridays.
00:56:16
Speaker
I think this is my version of hitting for the cycle. The idea of me on a Monday is a good joke. I don't know what that would look like, but I want to see it. I don't either. I'm sure I'll sneak up on all of you one day and do that.
00:56:29
Speaker
But I would love to have 50 Saturdays. I have two more in the pipeline, so I'm two more closer to my goals. And this is sort of a loose goal, but i guess I love the way that I grew up as a constructor, hearing the way that people spoke about Patrick Barry or the kind of immediate reputation that someone like Byron Walden had.
00:56:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:53
Speaker
or robin weinchrop their name is inseparable from a certain kind of puzzle or a day of the week i really love that so i guess what i'm saying is maybe king of saturdays i will not stop until i claim saturday is my day of the week such a weird goal but i love crossword legends I feel like you already are. Do you not feel like a legend already?
00:57:15
Speaker
No, not yet. You are to me. and let me just say that. That's very flattering. I appreciate that. I've been really proud to feel like I've made people see a worthy challenge. So you've already mentioned some pretty great names, but I'm wondering, are there other constructors you especially enjoy?
00:57:32
Speaker
Yeah. Someone I miss is David Quarfoot. I would love to see a David Quarfoot puzzle again. People should go back and solve Elizabeth Gorski's Times seamless puzzles are really interesting.
00:57:43
Speaker
And then peers of mine, like Natan Last, who's a really close friend, Ryan McCarty, of course. Some new people that I've really been paying attention to, or new to me, have been people like, I mentioned Alina, Sarah Sinclair, I'm a really big fan of, Sid, Jesse Cohn, Mike Lieberman, and many others.
00:58:02
Speaker
People doing really interesting work that tells me who they are and who write good clues and just challenge me in a way that I really like to be challenged. Is there anything you hope to see change or emerge in the world of crosswords in the future?
00:58:18
Speaker
Interesting. and want to see ever-expanding diversity, having different people's different flavors. And I mean diversity in every way and and not in an exclusionary way. I mean it not just racially, not just gender wise, but also age wise.
00:58:34
Speaker
When someone's older and has a debut, I love that. Because I have a thing against Wunderkins, no offense, if you're 13 year old and you've already had your first time's puzzle, I couldn't tell you how proud I am.
00:58:46
Speaker
I'm so proud of you, but enough of you. i want more. I want more people who are 65 70. But a lot of what I want from puzzles is honestly kind of well underway.
00:58:58
Speaker
I think that's a nice note of optimism, a lovely peer assessment, if you will, to end this episode on.
Episode Wrap-up and Feedback Invitation
00:59:06
Speaker
So with that, this is Daniel Grinberg with my special guest, Cameron Austin Collins.
00:59:11
Speaker
Thanks so much to Cameron for joining me today. And thanks to all of you for listening to episode number four. Hit me up with any feedback or ideas you might have at the crosstalkpod at gmail.com.
00:59:23
Speaker
And join me again next time for another Constructor Conversation coming your way soon. Until then, wishing you inspired constructing and happy solving.