This is the illusionist in which I, Helen Zaltzman, try to remember what people used language for before they used it to talk about air fryers all the time.
This is another installment in our wordplay mini series.
Coming up next episode are some fresh adventures in crosswords.
But today we have someone who creates word puzzles, solves word puzzles, is a historian of word puzzles, and sometimes even turns his life into a puzzle content.
There are mentions of guns, historical punishments and violence, vomiting and drunkenness.
There are also a couple of category a squares and some category c swears on.
With the show.
I can't cover all of my various identities and sides, but I will boil it down to I'm AJ Jacobs.
I'm a nonfiction writer and podcaster.
I like to take on life experiments and do weird things for a month, a year, and then write about them and what I've learned.
And so the reader can hopefully have an entertaining time and learn a little something.
And they don't have to grow a huge beard like I did.
For the Bible, growing the huge beard.
Seems maybe milder than some of the other things that you've put yourself through.
That is true.
That was more of a problem for my wife, who really hated.
She did not kiss me for seven months.
But sure, yeah.
Even in that project, which was about following the rules of the Bible as literally as possible, even that one had things like stoning adulterers, which I did try to do, but I used very small stones.
I used like, pebbles, but still, even with pebbles, it is an awkward interaction, stoning an adulterer.