I enjoy solving puzzles, including those in the MIT Mystery Hunt, but I enjoy even more making puzzles and watching other people solve them.

I grew up going folk dancing with my parents, which led me to contra dancing, and now I've become a loyal member of Tech Squares.

My brother Mike is a computer geek and a circus performer. Our mother has retired from running a circus school and works part-time as a reference librarian. Our father is a pathologist, genealogist, and puzzler.

Artists whose work has influenced mine:

Beth Carney and Erin Wilson

James Christensen

Latter day Rennaissance painter with a remarkable imagination and a sense of humor to boot.

The Quilts of Gee's Bend

I saw an exhibition of these quilts at the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston) in August 2005. What struck me most was the amount of time and artistic thought that went into these quilts, although the quilters were limited by time, money, and need. Jessie T. Pettway and Annie Mae Young, in particular, use color in interesting ways; Nettie Young's quilt "Milky Way" tricks the eye with its contrasts and composition.

Andy Goldsworthy

Sculptor of nature.

Michael James

A magician when it comes to quilts. His early work struck a chord with me when I first saw it at the Renwick Museum. It's a symphony in the medium of color, in which tints and hues flow through each other, changing each other in the process. Technically, his quilts are mind-boggling: it's impossible to tell by looking at the corners whether the straight or the curved lines were sewn first. Sometime in the 1990's, James acquired a fabric printer and his work changed dramtically: he stopped using as many bright colors and complex shapes, and began focusing his compositions on images printed from his computer.

William Morris

Preraphaelite painter, designer of textiles, and founder of the Kelmscott Press).

Hilary Scott

Surrealist sculptor.

Sandy Skoglund

Surrealist sculptor and photographer.

Craig Swanson

An exceedingly witty cartoonist with an appreciation for obscure wordplay.

Some of my favorite films:

• American Beauty
• Brazil
• Dead Poets Society
• Drowning by Numbers
• Shakespeare In Love
• The Breakfast Club
• The Lord of the Rings trilogy
• The Princess Bride

Some favorite novels:

• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, by Michael Chabon
• The Yiddish Policemen's Union, by Michael Chabon
• Girl With a Pearl Earring, by Tracy Chevalier
• Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides
• Time and Again, by Jack Finney
• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer
• Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen
• Riddley Walker, by Russell Hoban
• The Cider House Rules, by John Irving
• A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving
• China Mountain Zhang, by Maureen McHugh
• The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
• Was, by Geoff Ryman
• Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson

Some favorite children's books:

• The Witch of Blackbird Pond, by Elizabeth George Speare
• The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster
• Frog and Toad, by Arnold Lobel
• The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, by Dr. Seuss
• Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, by William Steig
• Arthur the Anteater, by Bernard Waber
• Miss Rumphius, by Barbara Cooney
• Many Moons, by James Thurber