A.J. Jacobs
A.J. Jacobs is an author, podcaster, and journalist. He has written four New York Times bestselling books, including The Year of Living Biblically and Thanks a Thousand. He has given several TED talks with combined views of more than ten million, and is a frequent NPR contributor. His most recent book is The Puzzler, which inspired his podcast The Puzzler.
This interview is really special because A.J. made a puzzle just for us!
In this puzzle, the answers are titles of made-up podcasts. But they are all just one letter off from real podcasts. So if the clue is... A podcast about ornamental lace mats hosted by Michael Barbaro and Sabrina Tabernise, the answer would be...
The Doily.
Ready?
A podcast about ropes, ties, and pretzels
A podcast about the shipping of upholstered seats overseas
A podcast about a former late night host cooking for his pals
Answers are at the end of the interview.
Describe The Puzzler in ten words or less.
Play a fun daily audio puzzle with a celebrity guest!
Why are puzzles important?
For starters, I feel like puzzles are keeping me sane. These are stressful times, and I need a treat for my brain to keep from spiraling. But I also believe in something called “The Puzzle Mindset.” The great musician Quincy Jones once said, “I don’t have problems, I have puzzles.” He reframed his life’s problems as puzzles. Work puzzles, family puzzles, social puzzles. I love that way of looking at life. Problems are thorny and depressing. Puzzles are inspiring and solution oriented.
Fill in the blank: If you like ________ you will like The Puzzler.
Pacino Salad. (That’s an anagram of ‘pina coladas,’ so I thought I’d throw it out there. I don’t know what Pacino Salad would be. Maybe it’d be hammy? Sorry! I love Al Pacino!)
What made you realize that your book THE PUZZLER would be a great podcast?
A couple of years ago, I wrote a book called “The Puzzler,” which is a history of the greatest puzzles ever – crosswords, riddles, jigsaws, logic puzzles, you name it. For the book, I had to record an audio version. And that presented a challenge: How do I give listeners audio-friendly puzzles? So I created a bunch of new puzzles that worked in audio form. And I said, hey, this is not just kinda fun, this is very fun.
How do you know that the puzzles are hard enough, or not too hard? Do you test them out?
We do test them! My wife is an excellent guinea pig, for instance. We try to make the puzzles accessible for everyone, puzzle experts and puzzle-phobes alike. If the guest is a great puzzler, sometimes we throw out an extra-spicy clue. With Ken Jennings, for instance, we played a puzzle called “Putting the Pan in Panama,” in which the answers were sentences that contained the name of a country, as well as a word that was the first syllable of that country. Like “pan” and “Panama.” I gave Ken the clue “I broke my ulna in Yerevan.” And without missing a beat, he said, “I broke my arm in Armenia.” But most puzzles are much more accessible.
What’s the process for writing the puzzles?
Many of the puzzles are written by our Chief Puzzle Officer Greg Pliska, who is one of the best puzzle-makers in the country, and some are by Andrea Schoenberg, another great puzzle constructor. For the puzzles I write, a lot of them are inspired by something I see or live through or read about. A few weeks ago, someone asked Chat GPT to write instructions for removing a peanut-butter sandwich from a VCR in the style of King James Bible. They put the answer on social media. I thought it was hilarious. I thought to myself, what if we did a puzzle where we reverse that? So I give the guest a sentence, and the guest has to figure out “What was the Chat GPT prompt?” For instance, if the clue is “There’s this gnarly dude just tryin' to catch a wave back home to Ithaca after helpin' his bros win the Trojan War, but ends up hangin’ ten with this babe Calypso…” what was the Chat GPT prompt? (Answer at the bottom).
You have done so many fun and curious projects. (Explored your family tree, lived a year biblically, the Encyclopaedia Britannica from A to Z) What ties them all together?
I think the common thread is curiosity. I once interviewed the late, great Jeopardy host Alex Trebek, and he had a great quote. He said, “I’m curious about everything, even those things I have no interest in.” Which is kind of paradoxical, but I totally get it and relate.
What did you want to be when you were eight?
I was obsessed with maps when I was eight, so I wanted to be a cartographer. Which is odd, since I have a terrible sense of direction. I would have been a horrendous cartographer. The world dodged a bullet there.
What do you love about working in audio?
I love being able to give guests puzzles that would only work in audio form. We have one called an ear-bus, which is a rebus for your ears. I can’t print it, because it only works in audio! And when Ken Jennings was on the show, we did a game called “Name That Game Show Sound Effect.” We’d play a buzz or a ding or a beep from a game show, and he’d have to say “That’s the ‘wrong answer’ sound on Family Feud,” or whatever it was. He got most, but we did stump him with a glissando from the original 1970s Jeopardy!
Anything I didn’t ask you that you want to say?
Well, I’ve always loved puzzles, even as a kid. But I got back into them a few years ago. It happened because I was the answer to 1-Down in the New York Times crossword puzzle The clue was “Author A.J. ______.” And the answer was me: A.J. Jacobs.
So I was on cloud nine. As a word nerd, I thought this was the greatest day of my life. And then my brother-in-law sent me a very brother-in-law email. He did congratulate me on appearing in the puzzle, but he pointed out it was Saturday’s New York Times puzzle And as some of your readers may know, Saturday is the hardest crossword of the week. All the answers are totally obscure. So his point was: This is not a compliment. This is proof that no one knows who the hell you are. So then I was all bummed out. But the twist ending is: I told that story on a podcast, and one of the New York Times crossword makers was listening, and he did me a favor. He put me in a Tuesday puzzle. I don’t belong in a Tuesday puzzle, but I loved that he put me there.
Solutions:
A.J.’s puzzle:
Stuff You Should Knot
Armchair Export
Conan O’Brien Feeds a Friend
“There’s this gnarly dude just tryin' to catch a wave back home to Ithaca after helpin' his bros win the Trojan War, but ends up hangin’ ten with this babe Calypso…” what was the Chat GPT prompt?
“Hey, Chat GPT: Describe the plot of ‘The Odyssey in surfer dude lingo’”
Thanks, A.J.!