He’s one of the nation’s top constructors and solvers, who in 2018 earned acclaim both as a Jeopardy! champion and the winner of the nation’s premiere crossword puzzle tournament.īut Agard also defies the old mold, wielding the Final Say as a young biracial person. Since he was a student of African American Studies at the University of Maryland, he has been a known entity among puzzlers. The fact that Agard got the USA Today job is in some ways unremarkable. ( Note: industry style is to write answers in all caps.)
Is it offensive to use the word ESKIMO? Should someone be expected to know the term CISGENDER? Those are calls crossword editors make. The content of a crossword is one answer to the question “What do you need to know in order to be a person of the world?” as Laura Braunstein, who cofounded a women-centric indie crossword called The Inkubator, puts it. They are an American art form that, on the daily, send a signal to millions of people about who and what matter, about where we are as a culture. Patti Varol, a veteran editor and constructor in the close-knit community known as the “crossworld” describes Agard as a “beacon of inclusivity” who is “revolutionizing the way puzzles are edited and vetted and published.” I expect Agard to say something about this, about the way that he has used his position to draw women and people of color and LGBTQ people into the square-and, in the process, turned a once-maligned puzzle into what one prominent blogger called today’s “most interesting, innovative, and provocative daily crossword.”Ĭrosswords are not just some nerdy pastime. There has been resistance.Īgard, a 26-year-old puzzle phenom who has been in the job about eight months, has done unprecedented work on this score. Critics have called out editors of major puzzles for publishing far more puzzles made by men than women, for the “old white guy sensibility” that has long set standards for the industry and for spectacular slips that prove just how real the blind spots are. There has been mounting protest in the world of crosswords, as there has been in entertainment and politics and every other arena where marginalized groups have felt excluded and disenfranchised. Entertaining as that all was, it is not exactly what I’m expecting Agard to say.
0 kommentar(er)
