Wordplay

My wife and I are really into word games. In airports, we draw stares when we crossword-race. To do this, we buy two copies of identical crossword puzzle books, and race to connect opposing corners. By and large, Jenn wins—but we're fairly matched. But word search races? She usually beats me by seven or eight words. And the first time we played Boggle? I had maybe 23 points to her 100. And the game lasted three rounds, I think.

So what we're into, really, is the competetive use of words. That's natural for editors, I suppose.

We were excited, of course, to get an advance look at Patrick Creadon's Wordplay, a documentary about New York Times crossword editor Will Shortz and the annual crosswod puzzle tournament he organizes and hosts. The film is at times wry, at times educational (as when it lays out the process by which puzzles are created, submitted, selected, edited, and published), and at times revealing. At times it's also rather dull.

One third of the movie focuses on Shortz. Another third (or so) focuses on the contributors to (and celebrity fans of) the New York Times puzzles. (Jon Stewart was the highlight of this section, naturally.) The more interesting third of the film spends time with several of the contestants at a recent American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, held anually for almost thirty years at the Stamford, Connecticut Marriot.

Oddly, even though Jenn and I are word game enthusiasts, and even though the conclusion to the tournament is actually pretty mindblowing, Wordplay was not particularly compelling for us—from that standpoint. What was most interesting about the movie was its portrayal of a very distinct (and very white) subculture. It was illuminating in the same way that watching a documentary about, say, an Amish community (or a Colorado Springs community church) might be.

The fact is, people of similar interests are drawn to one another. And the more esoteric those interests, the smaller and more eccentric those communities appear.

So what if they all look the same? So what if they're kind of inbred? Every affinity community will appear, from the outside, to be homogenous.

But doesn't diversity in the larger community embrace crossword geeks, church geeks, film geeks, drift geeks, and hip hop geeks? I think it does.