Merl loved anagrams, and he was better at creating and solving them than anyone I've ever seen. That's why I emailed him the name CAMERON TRINGALE in 2011, after seeing it among the leaders of the Texas Open golf tournament (he was in the mix again this past weekend).
Anagramming his first and second names separately yields ROMANCE TRIANGLE. But that friendly assortment of letters has many, many more possibilities, especially when mixed together.
Merl's reaction upon seeing it was (as usual, in all lower-case letters): "wow! that's really his name? it's better than arlen specter's 'learn respect.'" He then waded into the possibilities:
"of course there's also NO CREAM-ALTERING, CRAM ONE INTEGRAL, CREMONA-RELATING, and MR. OCEAN-ALERTING, none of which I ever wanna see in a crossword (but probably will by year's end). my fave is RON CAME IN A GLERT -- even tho I don't now what a glert is."
I made no attempt to keep pace, although I did finally weigh in with CONTAIN MR. REAGLE, a clearly impossible task.
Even more apt, I'm realizing now, would have been to address that question of whether I could keep up with him: I CANNOT, MR. REAGLE.
photo: Michael Blake
