“Bildungsroman!” O.K., English teachers. And anyone else. Any of you recognize this word? I didn’t nor did the other English teacher in our house. It turns out that a “bildungsroman” is a term for a literary genre, that of coming of age novels like HUCK FINN or A SEPARATE PEACE or dozens and dozens more. In all the English classes I took and taught, I never stumbled upon this particularly strange literary term. I learned it two weeks ago doing the Sunday New York Times Crossword Puzzle. Other words that I learned this week in the crosswords are “perdu,” an archaic term for “hidden,” “pineta,” a planted forest of pine trees, and “scup,” an Atlantic food fish. I have been to Cape Cod more than 100 times, I imagine, and in all the fish markets in all those towns, I never once bumped into a fish called a “scup.” Turns out a “scup” is also referred to as a “panfish” or a “porgy.” I thought a panfish was a fish that would fit in a cook pan. And a “porgy,” well, I can’t imagine a fish singing, “Bess, you is my woman now!”
This silliness is mentioned in my “Panera blog” because Panera is where I do a crossword puzzle while drinking my coffee almost every day. Truth be told, I have been doing a crossword puzzle almost every day for at least 40 years. I know that I was doing them in 1975, when I worked at Camp Goodwill, so that’s a clue to the duration of my pastime. Probably people wonder why I, and a lot of other people, are addicted to these adjuncts to every newspaper’s comic section. They do become a habit but a good one according to what I have read. Doing crossword puzzles and such is really good for the old grey matter with an emphasis on “old” and “grey,” I suppose. You do learn neat words, too, like “iter,” and “amah,” and “raison d’etre.” Also, you face a daily challenge. One that grows more difficult as the week goes on.
The Monday puzzle is always easy and each day gets more difficult until Friday which is pretty darn tough, but usually doable. Then comes Saturday which is about impossible. I remember completing one NY Times Saturday puzzle in all the years I have been doing them. Then comes the SUNDAY TIMES CROSSWORD which is large and has a theme, is challenging but doable, and is my favorite puzzle of the week.
Creating puzzles is an ability that I can only imagine. The complexity of running so many words down and across in a specific pattern is more than I can imagine. It’s kind of like imagining infinity. Probably not quite that hard. Will Shortz is the NY Times Crossword editor and the most influential voice on crosswords in the world, I imagine. He went to Indiana University back in the early 70’s when the school was allowing people to tailor make their own majors. Shortz devised one in puzzles and gaming. As they say, “Way cool!” He even helped the Daily Show’s John Stewart, a crossword lover, devise a puzzle with which to propose to his wife.
Without doing puzzles, you have probably never noticed that each grid is not only a super accomplishment because of the intermingling of words but because of the shape, too. To qualify as a puzzle worth publication, the opposite side of a grid along both x and y axis is the opposite mirror image of the other. Check out the grid below and see of what I speak.
That is the down and across, the short and long, of this post on “Panera 13066," the place where I go daily to do the daily crossword. Linda has a pile of crossword books, (edited by Will Shortz) as she took up puzzling when she retired. She’s addicted, also. For us, somehow, they never get old. And we always do them in pen--Greg Ellstrom
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