Sunday, April 4, 2010

Wordplay and Will shortz

Will shortz is the chief editor of puzzles at New york times. He also comes on NPR on Sunday mornings at 7:30 am.
His wikipedia page - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Shortz
NPR page - http://www.npr.org/programs/wesun/puzzle/will.html

This is why i love NPR so much, I wrote about Garrison Keillor this morning and this is the second post that connects to NPR. Will shortz's puzzles are amazing, what martin gardner did with numbers, Will shortz is doing the same thing with letters and words. Amazing! Directly connected to it is the movie Wordplay which is a documentary on Will shortz and people who solve his crosswords everyday. There is an annual crossword tournament also done every year in Stanford, the movies covers the events and its participants for the year 2004 i think. The movie also covers people who create puzzles, who send them to Will and how Will selects them. The extras on the dvd has various other information such as some intesting puzzles, a short story - waiting for new york times, deleted scenes etc. It is a very well made documentary on a hobby that is always exciting.

I wake up every Sunday morning at 7 am, go to a coffee shop, get my coffee and sit in my car at 7:30 and listen to the puzzle that Mr. Will is going to ask today. Even with my limited knowledge of english, i can answer some of them. There is a joy. I do not get the paper, but otherwise i will also try the crossword but it is too hard and requires a lot of patience. But if i am here and i am 30, i will start that. Under the assumption that ny times exists.

But such are the luxuries of living here - good coffee and a puzzle made by a guy whose official job is to make puzzles :) I have ordered his puzzle books from amazon yesterday. Lets see when they come.

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