The Next Best Thing

And now, even though the New York Times has done so, I still have no idea what it means.

The second puzzle in today’s magazine asks us to find the names of famous people hiding inside ordinary words. It’s a matter of restoring consecutive letters to the interior of a word. For example, when given MAST, the solver’s task is to see that putting E-W-E in the middle forms MAE WEST. “A score of 16 answers is good; 18 is excellent; 20 is superb; 22 is brilliant; only personality geniuses will get all 24.”

That’s me. Dean Olsher, Personality Genius. This might qualify as boasting were it a test of emotional intelligence, but it’s not. For some reason, though, this kind of puzzle appeals to the way my mind works. I’m sure it has something to do with all those long car rides during which my father tested my trivia knowledge. I wish, for God’s sake, that I could find some practical use for it. Or at least a remunerative one.

As an adult, I did go on to invent a car game that requires something similar. Take any license plate that has three letters and, keeping those letters in order, add new ones to form a non-capitalized word. For example, my license plate begins with DDG, which yields DODGE, ADDING, BEDDING, DADGUM, HODGEPODGE.

By outlawing proper names in my game, was I subconsciously trying to subvert the cult of personality? That would be giving me too much credit.

And you can imagine how much money it has earned me.

Anyway, I’m sitting on this list of 24 names. I thought of printing it, but why give it away when my goal is to profit from an otherwise useless talent? Maybe I’ll offer to sell the answers to the merely superb or brilliant solvers who won’t be able to rest until they have all the names.