Pleasantville, N.Y. -- Here lies ESNE. And ATUA and OBAN. In this leafy and aptly named town in Westchester County, those four-letter words for serf, Polynesian demon and Scottish port are being laid to rest.
"And I will put ANOA out to pasture," Will Shortz puns. (Clue: Four-letter word for Celebes ox.)
F: Words, of course, never really die. Long after they've
been uttered by any living, breathing person, they retire to the Florida of the vocabulary: the crossword puzzle.
But now, they'll have one less refuge. And it's the big one, the New York Times puzzle that is the top, the Coliseum, the Louvre Museum of puzzledom. It has been taken over by Mr. Shortz, 41, the head brat of the pack that has been dragging crosswords into the 20th century with clues composed of clever turns of phrases and references as likely to come from MTV as opera.
Mr. Shortz debuted as Times puzzle editor yesterday with a killer of a crossword, a brow-furrowing, dictionary-defying affair -- and entirely in the witty, puckish spirit of what he has in store for the word-crunchers among us.
Working from a second-floor study in his fastidiously tidy home, Mr. Shortz hardly looks the part of a revolutionary with his neatly trimmed hair and preppy-leaning style of dress. Yet his ascension to this most prestigious post in his field represents a true changing of the guard: He is only the fourth puzzle editor in the 51 years that the Times has run crosswords, taking over for Eugene T. Maleska, who died in August, and decades younger than his predecessors. His approach to puzzles is equally fresh.
"Crosswords should reflect the language of the times," he says. "In the past, [the Times puzzle] tested classical knowedge. I will add more updated subjects -- TV, movies, modern slang, modern names in the news.
"It shouldn't just be a test of knowledge. It should be a test of cleverness, too," he adds. "I like puzzles for people with flexible minds."
This is no surprise, of course, to fans of Mr. Shortz, the "puzzle master" whose Sunday morning quizzes on National Public Radio's Weekend Edition have a loyal following. Or those who have wrestled with the mind-twisters he's created for "Games" magazine, where he was editor until several months ago, or the annual American Crossword Puzzle tournament, which he founded in 1978.
