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Follow Your Bliss
Leaping off the legal career track, Shortz landed a low-paying job at a crossword puzzle publication before becoming an associate editor at Games magazine. As he points out in Wordplay, the 2006 documentary about him, "I never got into crosswords to make money. I always thought if I could do what I wanted to do, I would live a life of genteel poverty, but I would be happy."Genteel poverty ended for Shortz in 1993 when, after having risen to the post of editor at Games, he fielded an offer from the Times to edit the paper's crossword puzzle.
The Times crosswords were then rather stodgy affairs, filled with classical references and formal phrases. Under Shortz, puzzles began to draw on names of rock groups and companies like Exxon—"sounds and sights that people encounter in everyday life." The editor became famous for unexpected linkages of new words and old ones. The answer to the clue "digital monitor" was "manicurist," and "hard drive" led to the solution "Tiger's tee shot."
All this has added up to celebrityhood for the man who wears the nerd label so proudly. His legions of puzzle groupies include President Bill Clinton, TV host Jon Stewart, Yankees pitcher Mike Mussina and the folk rockers Indigo Girls. Two years ago, the website gawker.com named him No. 1 Hottie at The New York Times in the "Love Him for His Brain" category.
A confirmed bachelor, Shortz, 55, can be found after work, as often as six nights a week, looping and lobbing. Question his schedule and he replies, "Seems logical to me. I can see myself doing the same things at 90, maybe drooling and confined to a wheelchair, but still turning out puzzle clues and slamming away."
Then he excuses himself to attend to business: Awful! Worse! Wham! Damn! The magnificent obsessive is back on the grid again.
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