ALT A two by two grid with images of flowers, clockwise from top left, columbine, magenta tulip, bleeding hearts, wine-colored tulips.
ALT Flyer for Adult Numeracy Network pre-conference at COABE Nashville. Math for Identity and Belonging in Community.
ALT A cylinder and cone of equal heights and diameters. The cone is filled with blue liquid (water and food coloring).
ALT The second photo in the sequence. The cylinder is now 1/3 full of the blue liquid and the cone is filled with a thick, clear syrup (Karo).
ALT The third photo in the sequence. The cylinder is two-thirds full, with a layer of the clear syrup and a layer of the blue liquid. The cone is filled to the top with yellow cooking oil.
ALT The fourth photo in the sequence. The cylinder is filled with three equal layers - yellow, blue, clear (from top to bottom).
ALT A 3 by 2 array of maps displaying data in different ways. Two are US maps, two focus on the southern US, and two are world maps.
ALT A ten by ten painting covered by the following colors: - Yellow (a 2x3 rectangle, a 1x3 rectangle and a 1x1 square) - Blue (a 2x3 rectangle and a 1x1 square) - Red (a 3x4 rectangle, a 2x2 square with a 1x1 square attached to it, and a 3x4 rectangle with a 2x2 square attached to it) - The rest of the square is a greenish/teal color. The painting was created by Sarah Lonberg-Lew.
ALT A 3 by 2 array of maps displaying data in different ways. Two are US maps, two focus on the southern US, and two are world maps.
ALT A 2x2x2 cube with 27 points
ALT A page of notes for a dance. The top of the page has the first 17 letters of a biographical statement numbered twice - once for sequence and the other with the number assigned to each letter. It starts 1 - T - 20 2 - R - 18 3 - I - 9 4 - S - 19 5 - H - 8 6 - A - 1 7 <space> The full sentence is “TRISHA BROWN WAS…” Below that are sketches of cubes with 27 points and notes with additional numbers denoting the order the points are to be “touched.” At the bottom of the page are additional notes that read: 27 points on cube Points numbered 1-26, 27 = space between words Numbers correlating to alphabet. A-Z Current biographical data.
ALT A sun (composed of a yellow numberless protractor) setting over water (composed of multicolored pairs of quarter circles).
ALT A movement of a rainbow of 3/4 circles, resembling a Pac-person.
ALT Multicolored designs made of polygons including a fish. A collection of polygons cut with lines, resembling shattered glass, and which sound like shattered glass when played.
ALT A rainbow of falling quarter circles. Many magenta, teal, purple, orange, and chartreuse circles piled over each other, with two larger white circle peering out underneath, that were set to play with a drum beat.
ALT A fence with curves at the top of each post that create circles of negative space between them.
ALT Looking up through a basketball hoop at a blue sky.
ALT A wall painted black, cut into triangles, quadrilaterals, and pentagons by thick yellow and gray lines.
ALT A painted Swedish Dalecarlian horse made of pink, sky blue, yellow, sea foam, and red triangles on the window of SK Coffee.
ALT I’ve always been fascinated by language, but it’s only in the past five years or so that I’ve become less prescriptive about the ways I think it “should” be. That’s a funny quirk of linguistic exploration: The more possibilities you discover, the less fixed you become in a single way of doing things.
ALT In the Wordplay column, which I write alongside my colleagues Deb Amlen and Caitlin Lovinger, I take an admittedly descriptivist approach. I remind our puzzlers that one person’s “Naturally!” is another person’s “Huh?” and share an earnest accounting of my own misconceptions while solving. When I encounter new ideas, abbreviations and names, I choose to be dazzled or humbled by the words, but never dismissive of them.
ALT I do all of this with the conviction that crossword puzzles, like language itself, are meant to be fun. They invite differences of opinion, and they often celebrate them. They are not the litmus test of one’s intelligence, nor are they a marker of deft cultural knowledge. You might say I’m in it for the love of the game, but you could also say something else entirely. And I love that.
