"In 2009, the year I turned 18, I was a summer intern to Will Shortz, NPR's "Puzzlemaster" and longtime editor of the New York Times crossword puzzle. For an aspiring cruciverbalist, this was a dream job. In the mornings, I'd wake up at my childhood home in Midwood, Brooklyn, take the Q to the 4 to Grand Central, then Metro-North to Westchester, an almost two-hour pilgrimage to Shortz's home in a tidy hamlet aptly called Pleasantville."
"Inside, his house was part museum, part Elks lodge, all wood panels and rafters and leaning towers of Sudoku books. Glass cases teemed with puzzle knickknacks from centuries past. There were crossword cuff links from the craze of the 1920s. There was an oddly beautiful bracelet made up of enamel five-by-five crosswords connected by sterling silver links. The clock in the second-floor office was a crossword; the hour and minute hands, you might have guessed, were pencils."
In 2009, an 18-year-old interned for Will Shortz, NPR's Puzzlemaster and long-time New York Times crossword editor. The intern commuted daily from Brooklyn to Pleasantville, sometimes riding with Shortz in bad weather. The commute passed stations with evocative names and prompted reflections on suburban meanings. Shortz's Tudor home doubled as a museum of puzzles, filled with Sudoku books, glass cases of puzzle knickknacks, 1920s crossword cuff links, and a bracelet of enamel five-by-five crosswords. A crossword clock in the office had pencil hands. Shortz worked from home in crossword-print sweatpants while the intern handled dictated email correspondence.
Read at The Nation
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