Wordplay

You know how you spent years listening to Garrison Keillor's sonorous voice on the radio, only to be a bit surprised when you saw a photo? While maybe you didn't really have a specific picture in your mind when you heard heard him, you had some general sense, and it was difficult to integrate the voice-picture you had held with a 7-foot-tall man with a slighty froglike face.

So it is a bit of a relief that although it turned out that Will Shortz didn't quite jibe with what I had in my mind, he didn't clash with it either (another picture here -- better groomed, looks like the same shirt). I suppose if nothing else, he was much younger than I expected. And -- while this likely only makes sense to me -- he just didn't sound like he'd have a moustache. (When they showed him actually reading NPR's Sunday Puzzle it was a bit...disorienting. Like, hey, that guy sounds just like Will Shortz!)

Best part (besides seeing Will Shortz): Seeing how a crossword puzzle is constructed.
Another best part: Bill Clinton can talk and write at the same time. (I'd like to see W. do that!)
And gee whiz: You wouldn't believe how many of these people are left-handed.

The movie is quite charming and we both enjoyed it (B more than he thought he would). Who would enjoy it? Puzzlers, for sure, but I think others as well. I don't consider myself a puzzler and I liked it, but I am a geek. Oh, and while there are celebrity puzzlers (Clinton, Jon Stewart, Mike Mussina, Indigo Girls, Ken Burns) its really just not a sexy movie. (Well, maybe Mussina. Maybe I should be paying more attention to baseball...) Let's just say that the crossword puzzler convention attendees made our usual academic conferences look like Cannes.