Ordinarily I don't go in for a lot of PBS or documentaries, but when your girlfriend doesn't have cable you make due with what you have. Case in point, last week Clare and I were hanging out and came across Wordplay on channel 11 (PBS in Chicago). Surprisingly, I had heard of this particular documentary.
Wordplay is about the culture surrounding crossword puzzles, the New York Times version in particular. They talk to Will Shortz, the editor of the NYTimes crossword, as well as creators, and solvers. Everything culminates in the yearly competition in Stamford, which seriously competes with Trekkie conventions on the nerdiness scale. Anyway, it's a good movie and I definitely recommend checking it out.
The surprising thing about the movie though, is that it rekindled my interest in crosswords. Luckily enough we get the New York Times at work, so I have access to the mother of all puzzles. There's something cathartic about folding up the paper and filling in the blanks. You also get this strange sense of satisfaction or pride by filling it out in pen as well. It's proven to be a great respite from the workday, especially since things are only going to get busier till the end of the year.
So now, Clare and I go through the crosswords. I'll e-mail her the NYTimes version or bring it with me from work. It's a good time, or at least as good a time as one can have without cable.
3 comments:
I hate to break it to you Joel, but you are now one step away from Hawaiian shorts and black socks pulled up to your knees with matching Birkenstocks.
If you leave now, I think the Early Bird Special and Denny's starts at 10am.
I definitely was going to make fun of you, too. But I didn't have cable this summer and it was debilitating to the point of doing things like crossword puzzles, going to bed at 9:30pm and the like. The moral of the story is that not having cable makes us act like old people and old people are lame (and upset Melissa). Get it together.
thank you FINALLY blogging.
If doing crosswords makes you lame, then what does watching documentaries about other people doing crosswords make you?
P.s. I heart crosswords. They're like sudoku for people who hate numbers (just like me).
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