Thank You, Amy!

… for the most complete answer so far. Since Amy has declined the prize, it remains available. And what the hell, I’ll throw in my 2005 Edward Gorey calendar, too. I would, however, like to steer the conversation away from the question of how Will Shortz maintains the high quality of his puzzle and more in the direction of what exactly those qualities are. Answer #4 is starting to get at it. Those ineffable aspects I’m trying to grasp do include “the little humorous touches, tricky clues, and ‘aha’ moments,” but I think there’s more to it.

For example, I’ve felt the need more and more to distinguish between aha! moments and ah! moments. Ah! moments, I think, have less to do with light bulbs over the head and more to do with appreciation of little moments of beauty. Once, when I was a teenager, I was solving a puzzle with my mother, and when we cracked a tricky clue playing off a word’s double meaning, she sighed in awe, “Isn’t English an amazing language?” I had never thought about it that way before. Is English more amazing than other languages? What produces the ah! moment?

I also think it has something to do with the question of cultural references. For some reason—no doubt Will Shortz’s personal taste—the Times crossword speaks the same lingua franca as the countless (how many?) readers who are in it for the puzzle. Even the many clues, mostly sports-related, that mean nothing to me seem as if they ought to be there. The Times creates that feeling of reminding you of things you already know but just haven’t been foremost on your mind lately. Often, when doing puzzles in the Sun, which are nicely constructed and suitably challenging, I find myself wondering if I woke up in the wrong universe today.