Some kind of Play

Now that I’ve broken the ice and blogged, here I go again. In episode two of Suzi’s birth week I venture to give a report of last evening. Vada voom vada voom. Well, not quite. We headed to bed a little earlier than usual and popped in a DVD. It’s one that I bought with my belated birthday gift card to Border’s Books. After hours of perusing and lusting over the too many books, I broke down and purchased two DVDs—a Neil Young concert and a documentary.

We’ve kinda sorta gotten into documentaries this summer. Maybe it started when we watched one at Cornerstone on Reverend Billy and his stop shopping campaign. After coming back from our July vacation I started picking up DVDs at the library. I think the first one was “Word Wars,” a look at the competitive Scrabble champions of the world. What an odd collection of delightful eccentrics. Then we grabbed one called “Devil’s Playground” chronicling the lives of horse-and-buggy Amish teen-agers who are given the chance to sow their wild oats when they turn 16, without any parental restraints. As Laugh-ins Arte Johnson said “very interesting.”

Then it was one on the Hindenburg and then some others, but to move this story along: last night we watched “Wordplay.” “Wordplay” looks into the lives of people who complete and compete for the New York Times Daily Crossword puzzle. Besides starring Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, and the Daily Show host, John Stewart, it featured the editor of the NYT puzzle himself, Will Shortz. I was amazed at how different themes were built into each puzzle and surprised by how quickly the regulars could solve an entire puzzle. However, even with the amazement and surprise and delight, we didn’t quite make it all the way through, falling asleep before the final credits rolled.

Well, maybe tonight.