Category: Wordplay

The Unbearable Lightness of Cryptics

2/23/2016

About a month ago, the Sunday New York Time’s crossword puzzle blew the mind of a man named Shane Ryan and he wrote a fantastic article for Paste Magazine explaining why.

The theme of the puzzle was Coriolis force (the inertial effect that causes storms to spin in different directions depending on their hemispheric position) and it is applied with such elegance, you really have to see it to appreciate it.

“Look, it’s entirely possible that I’m just a hopeless nerd,” he writes. “Maybe this doesn’t seem as impressive to you as it does to me. But:”

the amount of pleasure this act of brilliance gives me is difficult to describe. It’s just so perfect, so virtuosic, and yet so playful. It’s the Platonic ideal of a crossword puzzle. And the amount of creativity and brainpower it takes to actually conceive of and create it is astounding to me.

2 Comments

Cryptic in Translation

7/28/2015

1 Comment

The first time I saw this sign, which is painted on the side of a building by my old home, I did a double-take. The juxtaposition was so strange. What did it mean?

Was it a message of despair? A comment on the futility of a creative life? Was a hopeless artist asking, through graffiti, “what’s the point of all this, anyway?”

Or was it whispered supplication? Was it a reminder to spend our too-few days thoughtfully? Was it a two-word echo of Henry David Thoreau’s reasoning for going to the woods: “to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life”?

All of this passed through my mind in a split-second. Then, I realized I was looking incorrectly.

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Up Close and Cryptic

8/8/2014

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I wrote the cryptic crossword tutorial on this website because a friend was in a tough situation and there was nothing I could do.

This friend is an aid worker who has dedicated her professional life to alleviating the suffering of others, primarily through the prevention of starvation and malnutrition. She works in countries that have been wrenched apart by war and natural disaster.

She works extremely long hours under difficult conditions and she is often lonely. When she is, there is very little I can do to help and that breaks my heart.

When I am lonely, distraction helps and as you know from the contents of this website, I find cryptic crosswords to be a wonderful distraction. I could not give my friend a hug or make her dinner but perhaps I could distract her from her loneliness, I reasoned. Perhaps I could show her the hidden door that leads into the magically complex world of cryptics, and in so doing, give her some respite from the world around her. I wrote her a guide to solving cryptic crosswords. And, to make the process as engaging as possible, I wrote her a personalized puzzle, with clues and answers designed especially for her.

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Fifty Shades of Cryptic

8/1/2014

6 Comments

From what I can tell, people who love cryptic crosswords have certain things in common. They're clever. They're cerebral. They relish word play (I'd wager they've rarely heard a pun they didn't appreciate). But perhaps the most important thing about cryptic crossword solvers is this:

They are not satisfied with a right answer alone.

From time to time, when I'm solving a puzzle, a word comes to mind that fits the pattern of letters and blanks in the grid, and satisfies the definition portion of the clue. Technically, I've got the answer. But unless I figure out the riddle, I am not satisfied: the rush that comes from cracking the setter's code evades me.

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Why Every Writer Should Do Cryptics

6/19/2014

7 Comments

I tend to take the English language for granted.

It’s hard not to. Because English is my first language, I speak it without thinking. It is my packhorse for the daily grind, carrying me from one exchange to another, and as such I rarely consider the larger meaning behind certain words.

I only see English words anew in two situations. The first is when I learn a new French word, which leads me to compare it to its English counterpart. (For example, in French, when a woman goes into labour, you say “elle entre dans le travaille”, she is starting the work. Which is exactly what the word “labour” means: work.)

The second time I consider words anew is when I do cryptics.

7 Comments

The Unbearable Lightness of Cryptics

Cryptic in Translation

Up Close and Cryptic

Fifty Shades of Cryptic

Why Every Writer Should Do Cryptics

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