Puzzle pieces

If you've wondered about the origin of the sudoku puzzles that have sprouted like weeds in newspapers and magazines everywhere, check out today's NYT article on Maki Kaji, the father of sudoku and founder of what could end up becoming the next global publishing empire, Nikoli. I was intrigued to read that Nikoli was built on an open source basis; the people who buy its puzzles also refine them and design new ones. By the way, Kaji's US literary agent is none other than my own, superagent John Willig. Hmmm, wonder which one of us generates more commissions?

Speaking of puzzles, the pieces seem to be falling into place over at Portfolio, the massively-hyped new Conde Nast business magazine. According to a post over at Talking Biz News, the first issue, which will stand alone until the presses start running full time about four months from now, supposedly contains a bunch of 5,000 word articles, as well as a 25,000 word piece on hedge funds by New Journalism pioneer Tom Wolfe. For more on the ambitious new magazine, which hopes to expand the genre and broaden the audience, check out Paul Farhi's article in American Journalism Review.