Word: crossworder
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...ostensibly innocent popular culture.Whoops! Looks like we’re out of space. To sum up, consider Foreign Cultures the Harvard equivalent of the New York Times Travel section: pretty pictures, local color, and if you get bored in the middle, you can always break out the crossword...
...Burns sees the New York Times crossword puzzle as "a set of boxes in which you practice the wordplay of this particularly exquisite language." Bill Clinton solves his Times crosswords as he would a political problem: "You start with what you know the answer to, and you just build on it." Jon Stewart begins a Tuesday puzzle with such confidence, "I'm gonna do it in glue stick...
These eminences (all left-handed; explain) are among the legion of Will Shortz's subjects. Shortz, the Times's crossword editor, is a genial gent who since 1978 has run an annual tournament for the sort of people who can finish a Sunday puzzle in 10 min.--in ink. Their number include Ellen Ripstein, a self-described "little nerd girl," and Tyler Hinman, who at 20 could become the tournament's youngest-ever winner...
...Wordplay should prove "a feline bite (6)" - catnip - to the millions of crossword addicts, and to lots of others who enjoy a tough game played with smarts and heart. For me, the movie and its milieu induced a little ache of nostalgia. For a decade or so I solved the Times crossword every day. Then, in 1981, I discovered Sondheim's book of cryptics, and the devious, luxuriant word play had me hooked. Now I search them out in Harper's, The Nation, The Atlantic (where they have been demoted to appearing only online - shame!), Games and the book collections...
...that I've finished this story, I'll go relax my nerves and stir my cerebrum with a good cryptic. The rest of you, try a Times crossword. And to Pat Corliss, happy Sudoku-solving. Sorry I never did figure out the appeal of that numbers game...