It's the Report of the Con!

[tablesaw]

The following article appears in the current issue of The Enigma, the publication of the National Puzzlers' League. It's an account of my experience at this summer's NPL Convention in Indianapolis. I've added some links to the article to help nonmembers follow along and to give members something more to look at.

In With the IN Crowd
By tablesaw

On Wednesday, July 9, 2003, shortly after my arrival in the Hoosier state, this publication's illustrious editor greeted me with the words, "Tablesaw! I'm sorry, I didn't recognize you. I have your clothes."

Aha. So this is Con.

Indianapolis was my first appearance at an official NPL convention. Still, as evidenced above, I wasn't exactly the innocent. I knew several attendees from the regular Los Angeles Krewe parties. I had met or solved with many at the most recent MIT Mystery Hunt (where I accidentally left the clothing which Saxifrage had safeguarded). Others I had conversed with virtually, at the semiweekly NPL chat sessions. And a surprising number of those remaining seemed to know me, or at least my e-mail signature.*

It was a whirlwind week, and it began with a whirlwind touching down at the Brickyard, where I was to be in a few paragraphs. Writing from California, the weekend is a cyclone of games, clues and puns, with a few recognizable memories scattered around. Thither is the muted shock of Spelvin when he realized, while hosting Double Jeopardy, that he had forgotten to write Final Jeopardy. Yonder is the beefy sadness of a Steak n Shake Steakburger on a platter without any sides. Here is the vertigo of me when I brashly stuck my nose over a covered cup and inhaled bleach straight into my brain. There is a nasty old woman on a bicycle becoming the Wicked Witch of the West. Or maybe it's still the bleach talking.

On Thursday, I walked out of the Horse Brutality suite (don't ask) hoping to get some fresh air. Instead, I got a game of Puerto Rico that lasted for hours before and after the main program. Things like that happened often, as by then the Adam's Mark was filled to brimming with the puzzle equivalent of shiny things. Several times, I would collapse onto a bed or chair, my entire body intent on peacefully slumber . . . my entire body except for the arm that reached for a cryptic, and the other arm that reached for the pen, and the eyes that suddenly had to tell the brain "Vehicle, a vehicle . . . a line of vehicles."

On Friday, I bent down and kissed the yard of bricks, something which, an hour before, I hadn't known that I would want to do. Ember had worked race car magic and arranged a special tour that took everywhere except Dale Earnhardt, Jr.'s bathroom. Since most of us really didn't know what this whole "moto-racing" craze was about, we pestered the two very patient docents who enthusiastically herded us through the nooks and crannies of the place while answering all manner of question. Puzzlers, I noticed, can ask a lot of questions, even when there's not a specific Answer to be gained. They can also listen very well, in case there is an Answer to be gained, and they just hadn't known about it.

Late that afternoon, the boys of SoCal (Artistry, Bartok, cramerica and me) walked to a rotating rooftop bar a few blocks away from the Adam's Mark. Well, three of us walked; Bartok limped. ("I've had a Scrabble-related injury.") There, I marveled at a view which, in every direction, failed to include a massive body of water. I was high and dry, but surrounded by friends.

On Saturday, while munching on chocolate somewhere behind this photo, tahnan came up, and we started talking. I don't know what we said, because they were silly things. What was important was that we were using lightly silly voices of the type that demand that one thrust out one's chest to add an extra edge of Thurston-Howell-III silliness to the moment. Saxifrage asked what we were doing, and I didn't have to answer. "Duh! We're being weird!" said Tahnan. He almost sounded like a Valley boy, but I suspect it was my own Valley imagination.

Later than later that evening, I didn't sleep, couldn't sleep. We suckered Noam into proctoring one last edition of Jeopardy. Somebody's CatchPhrase was passed around so many times that the answers became old friends. Dart went through every last one of his thick stack of home-brew Chain Pictionary cards. And on and on and on until, amazingly, the sun and the sane sleeping Krewe rose, and the battle-scarred ballroom was made presentable enough to hold an awards ceremony.

Finally, with my brand-new (or at least unopened) CD-Rom Chambers Dictionary tucked safely under arm, I began to say good-byes, all of which fused into a single, massive farewell. "See you at Stamford, right? You're coming to Stamford? No? Boston, then, for Hunt or Con." Hugs and handshakes and waves. "Or maybe you'll be at Equinox. You know, you should go to Equinox; it's closer for you than Stamford." And promises and messages and reminders. "And maybe I'll make it down to one of the LA parties. But I'll see you again, definitely. Definitely."

And after I dragged my luggage in my front door and opened up the windows to let in the cool canyon breeze, I was instantly drawn into the NPL chat room. It seems I'm in it for the long haul. Definitely.

*It's the signature of the e-mail.

WedNYTX: 5:15. I think the AcrossLite font made one clue incorrect.