Happy Friday! I hope you all have great plans for the weekend and that the weather cooperates. I'm taking a break from baby shower celebrations to give readers a brief introduction to crossword puzzles.
This weekend, hundreds of solvers from across the U.S. and around the world will gather in Stamford, CT for the 38th Annual
American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (ACPT). This event was started in 1978 by Will Shortz, a former editor at
Games magazine who is the current
New York Times crossword editor. The first tournament had only 149 contestants and the winner was Nancy Schuster (one of my former bosses, who lived in Queens at the time), but the tournament became larger each year and eventually outgrew its home at the Stamford Marriott. Ten years ago, an in-depth look at Mr. Shortz, the
New York Times puzzle, and the ACPT was captured in a movie called "
Wordplay." After the movie premiered, the tournament got so big it was moved to the larger Brooklyn Marriott in 2008. During the tournament, contestants score points for accuracy and speed. Winners are awarded prizes in 21 categories (including skill level, age, and geography). The winner takes home $5,000. For the last 10 years, two competitors have dominated the ACPT:
Tyler Hinman, who took first place from 2005 to 2009, and
Dan Feyer, the current five-time champion.
I decided to give it a shot and compete in the tournament when it moved to Brooklyn. I had enjoyed solving crosswords since I was in college, when my roommate lent me her copies of
Games. Then I started solving the puzzles in
New York Magazine, then I attempted to solve the Puzzles in the
Times. I even worked briefly for a company that published crossword magazines. Although the pay was really not enough to make a living, the job was a lot of fun. The first year I competed at ACPT, I performed dismally and decided to work on my puzzle-solving skills to prevent further embarrassment. I skipped the tournament for two years and attempted again in 2011. I competed each year until 2014. Although I never finished in the top half, my standing improved each year. However, there were grumblings that the Brooklyn Marriott was too expensive and the staff was unfriendly. I did enjoy walking around Brooklyn Heights on breaks, however, and there were many restaurant options. After taking a survey of the puzzle community, a decision was made to move the tournament back to Stamford. Sadly, there were too many logistics involved that kept me from attending this year. Good luck to all who are competing!
The
New York Times puzzle is the standard by which others are measured. Did you know that the Times didn't publish their first puzzle until 1942? Before then, the paper had called crossword puzzles "a futile waste of time." The first puzzle was published 102 years ago in the Sunday
New York World, and it was created by a Liverpudlian named
Arthur Wynne. The first puzzle (see picture on the right) was quite different than the puzzles we see today. Crosswords became a craze in the 1920s after
Simon and Schuster published the first crossword puzzle book.
Margaret Farrar was the first
Times puzzle editor and held that position until 1968. Farrar instituted the idea that the Monday puzzle should be the easiest, and the level of difficulty would increase each day. Although the Sunday puzzle is the biggest, it's the Saturday puzzle that's usually harder to solve. Farrar also introduced the theme puzzle and established many of the rules for modern crossword construction.
The creation of crosswords is called cruciverbalism. Top constructors (e.g.,
Brendan Emmett Quigley,
Merle Reagle,
Matt Gaffney,
Ben Tausig,
Liz Gorski,
Patrick Berry,
David Steinberg (probably the youngest constructor on the scene), and
Patrick Merrill) make it look so easy. However, crossword construction takes practice, patience, persistence, and a good knowledge of trivia. Some of the constructors still create puzzles the old-fashioned way (on graph paper), but software such as
Crossword Compiler cuts down the time it takes to create a puzzle, and is the preferred format for puzzle submissions. If you're interested in crossword construction and submitting puzzles for publication, check out the website
Cruciverb for tips and guidelines.
Her are a few of my favorite crossword blogs:
Rex Parker Does the New York Times Crossword Puzzle: Michael Sharp, a Binghamton University English professor, writes one of the world's most popular puzzle blogs. Sharp writes daily commentary about the themes and clues found in the
Times puzzle. He likes to link musical videos where applicable.
Diary of a Crossword Fiend: Amy Reynaldo, a top-10 finisher at the ACPT, reviews and writes about puzzles that appear in both print and online, including the
NY Times,
LA Times, the
AV Club,
Jonesin', and
Crossword Nation, Although she solves and writes about at least three puzzles daily, she has a team of crossword experts who contribute to the blog.
Wordplay (the official
NY Times Crossword blog): Deb Amlen's excellent and humorous commentary on the daily puzzles, along with insights on puzzle construction and solving, is well worth reading. Occasionally, Will Shortz pops in with a note or two. Also included is a comprehensive list of crossword resources, including books, online puzzles, databases, and other blogs.
For a comic take on the
Times puzzle, read
Across and Down by SVA cartooning student Hayley Gold. I love her refreshing take on crosswordese (those obscure words in a puzzle that you don't see anywhere else). She will also make custom comics based on your favorite puzzles.
One of the reasons I started Printastic Party Games was because I loved solving crossword puzzles and wanted to incorporate them in a fun way. As opposed to traditional newspaper puzzles, which contain "filler" words, I create freeform/vocabulary puzzles, which contain only the fun facts about the guest of honor. Samples of crosswords I created for customers appear in the picture below. For more information on ordering, please check out the "
Custom Crosswords" section of the shop. I'll create crosswords for birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, engagements, graduations, bar/bat mitzvahs, Sweet 16s, retirement, etc.
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Now for our regular features:
Freebie Friday: Because our shop is closed next weekend, I am offering two Freebie Friday games today. Both are word searches; one is for Easter and the other for Passover. Use the puzzles for the Seder table or your Easter baskets! As usual, our free printables are for personal use only.
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Women's History Month Fun Fact of the Day: Before the invention of the airplane, journalist
Nellie Bly traveled around the world in just 72 days. Bly was well known for her expos
é on brutality and neglect mental institutions. She faked amnesia to gain access to the facilities, Her book,
Ten Days in a Mad-House, brought her fame. A
movie based on this book will be released later this year.
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Next week's celebrity milestone birthdays:
Happy 30th!
Jessica Szohr (3/31)
Leona Lewis (4/3)
Happy 40th!
Pedro Pascal (4/2)
Happy 50th!
Piers Morgan (3/31)
Robert Downey Jr. (4/4)
Happy 60th!
Brendan Gleeson (3/29)
Angus Young (3/31)
Happy 65th!
Robbie Coltrane (3/30)
Ed Marinaro (3/31)
Billy Currie (4/1)
Curtis Stone (bassist, not the chef) (3/3)
Christine Lahti (4/4)
Happy 70th!
Linda Hunt (4/2)
Happy 80th!
Herb Alpert (3/31)
Still Going Strong!
John McLaughlin (88 on 3/29)
Peter Marshall (89 on 3/30)
William Daniels (88 on 3/31)
Richard Chamberlain (81 on 3/31)
Shirley Jones (81 on 3/31)
Debbie Reynolds (83 on 4/1)
Jim Brown (81 on 4/1)
Don Hastings (81 on 4/1)
Doris Day (92 on 4/3)
Click
here for a complete list of celebrity birthdays.
Next week, we'll conclude our discussion of baby showers. Topics will also include April Fool's Day, along with the holidays of Easter and Passover.
Have a PRINTASTIC weekend!
Kathy
In keeping up with the topic of conservation and nature, millions of Americans will be celebrating Earth Day this coming Wednesday (April 22). Earth Day was founded in 1969 by then-senator Gaylord Nelson to teach Americans about environmental protection. The following year, over 20 million Americans participated in peaceful demonstrations in favor of environmental reform. I was in second grade when this celebration took place and I still remember it fondly. This was the first time I learned about pollution and the effect it had on the environment and living things. With talk in recent years about sustainability and "green living," Earth Day has become the largest secular holiday in the world, celebrated by billions. Adults and kids celebrate this day by planting trees and wildflowers, making nature crafts, supporting local growers so you don't have to travel far (thus wasting gas), recycling the things you use, and donating unwanted household items, Remember, every day is Earth Day.
