Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Host of game night fun: crossword guru

By RICK GERSHMAN
Published October 6, 2006

When I was a boy, one of my favorite days each month was when I'd come home from the Nike sweatshop - sorry, I mean school - to find a fresh new copy of Games magazine in the mail.

(So I was a nerdy kid. Hey, I also had an appreciation for the arrival of Sports Illustrated. Once a year, at least.)

My father, an avid fan of crosswords and puzzles of all types, subscribed to Games, "the magazine for creative minds at play."

Unlike those books and magazines you find at the airport with simplistic crosswords and word finds, Games had all kinds of cool stuff that reinvented old-school puzzles with crafty and colorful twists.

My dad, who passed away in 2001, and I weren't all that tight most of the time. But we did share a love for puzzle solving, and I never felt closer to him than when we worked on the toughest puzzles and came up with the answers together.

So I'll admit I'm a little stoked that Tampa's own Merl Reagle, considered one of the world's best crossword creators, will be the host of a special game night tonight at Minor's Market off Swann Avenue.

The games will include some wordplay-related trivia and other games, all in Reagle's trademark humorous, entertaining style.

Reagle, who lives in Carrollwood, was a star of Wordplay, a journey into the world of crossword puzzles that is one of this year's most critically acclaimed documentaries (it gets a stellar 95 percent positive rating on rottentomatoes.com, a Web site that collects film reviews).

Also heavily featured in the film is Will Shortz, crossword editor of the New York Times, and the former editor of Games.

In addition to his books, Reagle's crosswords can be found in such papers as the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Locally, they appear in the independent weekly newspaper Creative Loafing, formerly Weekly Planet, formerly Creative Loafing, formerly - I don't know - Prince.

Reagle, who shops at Minor's, said he's doing the game night event because he enjoys watching people try to figure out puzzles.

Sometimes he sits in restaurants and watches people trying to complete crossword puzzles, just to appreciate the process.

"I like playing word games with people long distance, but here, I get to actually see them pull their hair out," he said. "It's fun to see how people's brains work."

[Last modified October 5, 2006, 07:03:21]