Final Friday afternoon, within the foyer of a Marriott in downtown Stamford, Conn., attendees of the forty seventh American Crossword Puzzle Event, the annual confab of phrase nerds hosted by The Instances’s puzzle editor, Will Shortz, joyously convened. Veteran puzzlers greeted outdated pals with the thrill of a homecoming. First-timers smiled nervously, eyeing others’ identify tags in hopes of catching a glimpse of a favourite crossword constructor. Some broke off into teams to talk or work on one of many many crosswords stacked on the welcome desk. “Electrical!” I scrawled in my pocket book, smiling eagerly on the scene regardless of my efforts to be a dispassionate observer.
Earlier than final weekend, I considered myself as a crossword particular person, insofar as I do the Instances puzzle repeatedly and with some velocity. I had, since seeing the 2006 documentary “Wordplay,” dreamed of attending the event, however solely idly, typically musing to my one crossword buddy about the way it may be enjoyable to spend a complete weekend doing puzzles. I had no concept what an newbie I used to be. On the event I encountered puzzlers who can end a Saturday puzzle in three minutes. I met a fan who can, when offered with a constructor’s identify, recall with precision simply what number of crosswords that particular person has had revealed in The Instances. I witnessed a die-hard dressed as a cruciverbalist Phantom of the Opera, replete with grid-printed cape and masks and a rose whose stem was a large pencil.
“There aren’t any informal puzzle individuals right here,” I wrote in my pocket book after the late-night wine-and-cheese reception the place I sipped pinot grigio and listened to 2 constructors attempt to articulate the ecstasy they really feel when, whereas painstakingly crafting a crossword, they notice the grid is definitely going to return collectively, that they’re going to have the ability to full a sublime puzzle.
On Saturday, I did six timed puzzles with the opponents, solely considered one of which I didn’t handle to finish within the half-hour allotted, and I felt some measure of satisfaction that I wasn’t completely out of my league. However like a majority of the practically 1,000 individuals on the event who had no hope of constructing it to the ultimate spherical (grand prize: $7,500) my occasions had been irrelevant. The purpose was the group, the shared love and language contributors possessed. Within the lodge elevator after the primary puzzle session, strangers turned quick comrades in arms as they commiserated over the clues they didn’t get: “Wait, how is POT a three-letter phrase for ‘Money readily available’?” The puzzles they’d all simply accomplished had been sufficient of a connection to start out a dialog, to linger and chat after they received to their flooring, then make plans to get lunch collectively.
