Unkind Donuts
I went to a showing of WordPlay tonight. Afterwards the director (Patrick Creadon) and the puzzle constructor featured in the film (Merl Reagle) and the guy who did the graphics (Brian Oakes) stood up in front of the (smallish) crowd and talked to us. Total delight.
Here's what Creadon said — he made the movie because he and his wife (producer Christine O'Malley) are both puzzle fans. It was originally going to be a movie about Will Shortz, his life, and the people who connect to him, but then it became a more intricate project about the Stamford tournament, the world of “solvers,” and the business of constructing a puzzle. Bill Clinton was great to work with, and once he was involved all the other celebrities showed up — Jon Stewart, Mike Mussina.
Other tidbits in answer to the audience's questions: The kid won the tournament again in 2006. Al got a huge wave of applause when he came to Sundance (”we love you, Al!”). There is no dark side to the world of crossword puzzle solvers. Scrabble people and crossword people are very different. “Those Scrabble people are so weird.” Sudoku gets a cool response from crossword people. Shortz calls his Sudoku books “wordless crossword puzzles.”
The film reveals that the community of crossword solvers is very engaging — Shortz loves getting together with them, and they love getting together with Shortz, and it all seems very warm. There's a cabaret/talent show as part of the tournament which is touching. Musicians are great puzzle solvers.
And Merl Reagle, puzzle constructor, is the kind of guy who looks at a sign for Dunkin' Donuts and points out: “If you take the 'd' from the beginning of 'dunkin' and move it to the end, you get 'unkind donuts.' And I've had a few in my time.” He had some funny things to say in person tonight about Eugene T. Maleska. He pointed out that Jon Stewart was a little cruel to say “Bring it on, Will!” when working the puzzle, because it was in fact Merl Reagle who built the puzzle in the first place.
Will Shortz, to his great credit, is the first Times puzzle editor to put the constructors' names next to the puzzle.
Reagle pointed out tonight that his name is printed in 6pt type — but it's there.