The 2021 National Puzzlers’ League Convention
I have not had a difficult pandemic, certainly not in comparison to many others. It was easy enough to work at home; it was similarly easy to hunker down with my family and wait out the storm. The harshest blow (which, I say again, was not THAT harsh by comparison) was when the 2020 convention of the National Puzzlers’ League was, inevitably, cancelled. My fellow wordplay obsessives and puzzle fanatics; which is to say, my closest friends — I wouldn’t see them for nearly two years. Oh, we tried some online conventions, and these were fun, but of course they weren’t nearly the same as gathering in a hotel and playing homemade game shows deep into the night.
As 2021 struggled to escape the black clouds of the previous year, we wondered — would the con need to be cancelled for a second year? Would we really be allowed to gather in large numbers in a hotel ballroom, or would that be deemed too risky? And if we DID have our convention — long planned for Washington, D.C. — would it be a shadow of its former self? Would people prove unwilling to travel? Would the continued need for COVID restrictions make the convention untenable?
Now the convention is over, and I am relieved to say that it felt just like every other NPL convention, except that we were missing several dozen familiar faces: We had not our usual 250 attendees but just over 100. Many people I would have liked to see and catch up with stayed away. Hopefully they will return with a vengeance next year, when we meet again in Nashville, Tennessee.
Those puzzle-minded people who took the chance and made the pilgrimage to D.C. were well rewarded. The convention always features an official program of original games, all designed for large groups, and this year the program was particularly strong. “Spelling Wasp,” by my friend Jen McTeague, was the highlight of the first night. As the name implies, this was a lot like a spelling bee… but far more likely to sting. The good news: You can choose any word to spell that you like, provided it fits that round’s assigned category. The bad news: Once you have enough letters to spell ANY word, that’s it, you’re done. So, given the category of Chemical Elements, you might choose to spell the word PROMETHIUM and thus earn 10 points (one for each letter). But, whoops, you forgot that PRO is a word. Sorry — that’s where you’ll have to stop. Please add a mere three points to your score.
Another game, ”Three-Way Switch,” by Dan Kramarsky and Todd McClary, hit the sweet spot of the NPL’s love of both crosswords and anagrams. The hosts fed the players three words at a time; these were words from three different crossword-style clues. Puzzlers who were lucky and smart enough might figure out the three answers from this limited information (helped by the knowledge that all of the answers are six letters long and anagrams of each other, as in DEPOTS, DESPOT, and POSTED). If you couldn’t figure out the answers, though, no worries: More words from the various clues were on their way — though the more clues you required, the fewer points you earned.
As always, after the evening’s official games, many puzzlers broke into smaller groups to play a wide variety of eccentric and creative homemade creations. Original “Jeopardy!” games have long been a mainstay of our after-hours activities, but even the most traditional of these have deeply puzzly categories and answers. And many other games will be miles away from anything that might be called traditional. This year I played “Makeshift Jeopardy,” which quickly overflowed into a half-dozen other classic game shows; and also “Jeo-Boardy,” which put a game show and a board game into one of those teleporters from The Fly, with hilariously nutty results.
Usually, the highlight of each year’s convention is a “puzzle extravaganza,” in which teams race to solve a dozen or so crafty, original word puzzles. Earlier this year, we didn’t know if we would be allowed to solve in small groups — would social distancing guidelines get in the way? And so, the decision was made: There would be no extravaganza at the 2021 con. (In hindsight, we could have easily accommodated the extravaganza, but it’s hard to blame anyone for being cautious.)
Losing the extravaganza should have been a major blow to the convention’s morale, but instead we got lucky: We happened to have our convention just as a new museum, Planet Word, opened to the public. Yes, an entire museum devoted to words and language, a few minutes walk from our hotel. Two prominent NPLers, New York Times crossword editor Will Shortz and Wall Street Journal language columnist Ben Zimmer, are on the museum’s board, and so arrangements were made: NPL members were given exclusive access to the museum’s exhibits for several hours.
What a delight! Where was this museum when I was a ten-year-old budding word-and-puzzle nerd? There are exhibits devoted to picking apart advertisements; to analyzing song lyrics (with bonus karaoke); to the glory of books and libraries. A large room is devoted to jokes and puns, and upstairs from that is a gigantic globe, around which are interactive stations where you can explore various topics related to linguistics and different languages. The showpiece of the place, far and away, is a huge sculpture of a thousand or more words, which transforms into a dazzling multimedia deep dive into how the English language has evolved over the centuries.
On its way is a new exhibit called “Lexicon Lane,” headed up by Mike Selinker and his team of puzzlemakers. We were given an early preview, and I am here to tell you that this is going to be dazzling. Museumgoers will be able to sign out one of 26 puzzle boxes. Objects needed to help complete each box will be found all around the exhibit — and so you will need to explore as well as think. If all 26 boxes had been available, I think many of us would have conspired to hide out in the museum overnight, a la From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, so that we could complete them all.
While this year’s NPL convention was unusual in several ways, there was, as always, the stunned amazement on Sunday morning that it had gone by so fast. Is there not time for one more game? One more puzzle? Well, rats. I arrived in D.C. on Wednesday; five minutes later, or so it seems, I am writing this on the train ride home.
Back in February, I wondered as I made my hotel and train reservations if I would really get the chance to use them — and if I did, what kind of convention would I experience? I figured that even if the 2021 convention was a mere wisp of what I was used to, I would still be glad to be there. It turned out, however, to be a superb convention from start to finish… except, of course, for all the missing friends I wish had been there. But the great thing about the NPL convention is that after one ends, the next one is only a year away. Here’s to an even better 2022.
