Viva La Crossword

Earlier this week, the Postal Service dedicated an array of new stamps to "celebrate the century" in yet another nationwide commemoration and, as the winter International Review has pointed out, possible farewell, to America's golden age. The 30 new stamps are arranged on two sheets, each depicting one of the first two decades of the 20th century. Among the 15 stamps covering the 1910s, one in particular stands out to me: the first crossword puzzle of 1913. As the Postal Service reports, that puzzle was created by a journalist named Arthur Wynne, and it appeared in the New York World on Dec. 21 of that year. Now, some 85 years on, the crossword is a daily institution many of us cannot live without.

I first indulged in the habit about eight years ago, just a junior high school kid intrigued by the patterns of black and white, different everyday, which landed on my Long Island driveway. A real challenge it was to fill in the blanks, especially when I knew little Shakespeare and nothing of Ancient Greece. Like many fellow suburban teenagers, I began to take the train (Long Island Rail Road, LIRR) to the city (New York) on a routine basis for both leisure and work.

I had to find some way to kill the time. Newspapers offer up the new and different on a daily basis. Whether it's the latest dish on Monica's fetishes or a more sober update on Saddam's antics, the events and personalities amount to a collection of on-going stories, almost a serial novel, which one can follow with baited breath anew each morning. The missing element, however, is completion, an elusive goal at best, but a deep human longing nonetheless.

For this sense of completion, we must turn, perhaps paradoxically, to the crossword puzzle, which is the epitome of vexing emptiness. What the puzzle does not offer at first glance, however, it makes up for in promise: we know that it is possible to finish the task of the crossword puzzle, should we have the strength and skill. Further, it enables us to use our linguistic and calculating capabilities toward a pure pursuit, without the sense of response we demand from conversation, or the compensation we get from employment. The crossword puzzle is a two-dimensional siren, and it is only the uninitiated and deaf who can resist her call. During my time on the LIRR, I responded to the siren's cry, sharpened my crossword puzzle skills, and became a lifelong "solver".

Admittedly, not every crossword puzzle is deserving of such epic compliments as those lavished above. In discussing "the crossword puzzle," I am thinking specifically about a particular puzzle which is the standard of all solvers, that published in the New York Times. According to the Times's puzzle editor, Will Shortz, the Times first published a Sunday crossword in 1942--the last of the big general interest newspapers to do so--and began the daily puzzle in 1950. He credits the ironic success of the late-arriving Times's puzzle to the newspaper's current status and to the innovations of the late Margaret Farrar, who was the Times's first puzzle editor.

Shortz, who boasts a degree in "enigmatology" from Indiana University, a special concentration he says is historically unique, has been responsible for bringing up to date what many perceived as a stodgy puzzle. He began adding in clues from television (He's from Ork) and pop culture (Singer Sonny____) with the more traditional references to the Apostles and the dates of Nero's reign. Shortz explains his perspective on the crossword's evolution: "In the early days, puzzles were just words in a grid, definitions were basically out of a dictionary--bookish sounding. Today's puzzles usually have themes, generally the long answers make a connection." With reference to the injection of modernity, he adds, "I used to get a lot of complaints, but [now] even the older generation has decided that all cultures should be in the puzzle...My feeling is that puzzles should test all important knowledge".

With the future of the printed newspaper in doubt, even staunch advocates of traditional paper-and-pencil scratchwork may in the end have no choice but to download the puzzle from the Times's Web site. Still, the principle behind the crossword will remain the same that it has been since its inception at the beginning of the century: a daily challenge of knowledge and wit for those who need some mental downtime or distraction from the banalities of daily life and work. Whether we're taking about train-bound commuters or bored students in Sanders Theatre, there will always be a market for minds in need of a good game. And the beauty of a game, especially one played against oneself, is that victory is a joy in and of itself. Long live the crossword puzzle.

Joshua A. Kaufman '98, a social studies concentrator, resides in Dunster House. His column will appear on alternate Thursdays.