Wayne is renowned as the inventor of Crossword Puzzles. It was designed into a diamond shape without the black squares. It was quite different from today’s crossword. His puzzle appeared in a Sunday newspaper, The New York World on December 21, 1913. However, the first recognized crossword puzzle that was published was produced by Arthur Wayne, a journalist from Liverpool. It first appeared in England during the19th century and printed in children’s puzzle books and several periodicals. Some people prefer to read newspapers and books, while some love to challenge their mind by solving crossword puzzles.Ĭrossword puzzles considered being the famous word game in the universe. This could mean doing physical activities, watching your favorite movies, going to the park, reading and anything that will not give you a stressful day that promotes healthy lifestyle. You can do what makes you happy and energized. We will never see the likes of him again.Sunday is the best time to relax and unwind. The kind of person who would do that, and do it so well … I will miss so much. Merl stepped in and did 30 minutes of impromptu word games and funny stories and kept everyone laughing. It was a potentially disastrous situation. Meanwhile, the ballroom was full of people waiting. We played hours of Boggle and Razzle, and I tell you, it wasn’t easy beating MerlĪ couple of years ago at the A.C.P.T., there was a problem with the scoring on the last puzzle, and the finals had to start late. Over beers, I got out old vinyl records, set the needleĭown at the starts of songs, and waited to see how long it took Merl to identify them. We both loved ’60s and ’70s music, which we could talk about endlessly. My most pleasant memories of Merl are of his visits to my home in New York. Many of today’s top constructors, in fact, got their inspiration from him. I’ve heard people say that their very favorite part of the whole movie was watching Merl construct a crossword. When “Wordplay” was filmed in 2005, Patrick Creadon flew to Tampa to film Merl at home. He continued the playoff commentary for years. Progress, and Merl did the inside-the-puz-biz remarks. NPR’s Neal Conan was the professional announcer, informing the audience of the solvers’ playoffs, and I asked Merl to be one of the two commentators. In 1999, I introduced play-by-play commentary in the A.C.P.T. It was modern and funny and would fit nicely even in today’s crossword scene. “‘Of Human Bondage’ co-feature?” was UNTIE MAME. Of the Ants’ co-feature?” was answered by LICE IN WONDERLAND. His 1980 puzzle, titled “Marquees After the Storm,” featured movie titles with missing letters. Starting in 1980, Merl contributed a crossword to nearly every A.C.P.T. As kids, we’d both read the dictionary for fun. We had the same crossword heroes, especially Jack Luzzatto (and Margaret, of course). We both loved anagrams and fancy constructions. He became a regular contributor, and he and I became fast friends. Games was targeted at a younger audience and had a more modern sensibility. York Times and other traditional publications then, whose crossword contributors were mostly older and whose puzzles to us felt old-fashioned and stuffy. This was a heady time in the crossword world, because there was a new, young generation (“new wave”) of puzzlemakers just starting up. Hook worked at the magazine then, and Mike Shenk would join soon. Once or twice a year, he came to New York for a week to lunch with Margaret Farrar and visit the Dell offices. In those days, Merl lived in Santa Monica, California. But at the time the puzzle was brash, novel, and refreshing. It featured such entries as OVERATONINGĪnd WAVES THE RED - clued as “_ flag (signals danger).” Years later, we had a big laugh at that. Titled “Wide Open Spaces,” it was a 66-word themeless with an eye-poppingly wide-open center. The magazine appeared in November/December. I don’t remember our discussions there, but we must have hit it off, because Merl immediately started contributing to Games, where I was the new “Pencilwise” editor. Everyone knows how great a constructor Merl was. He competed for his only time and finished third, behind Miriam SPECIAL POST - I first met Merl at Stamford in March 1979, at Year 2 of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.
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