From living room joke to international puzzle party

Jerry Slocum began International Puzzle Party in 1978. Now it's a global event

- SIOBHAN ROBERTS

Jerry Slocum likes to cause trouble — with puzzles. A celebrated collector, Slocum, 94, has so far amassed some 46,000 mechanical puzzles. He began collecting at age 8.

In one of numerous books that Slocum has written on the subject (often with co-authors), such puzzles are defined as "a self-contained object, composed of one or more parts, which involves a problem for one person to solve by manipulation using logic, reasoning, insight, luck and/or dexterity."

Slocum's favorite is the T puzzle. Also known as the Tormentor or the Teaser, it originated in the early 1900s as an advertising gimmick, and also just for fun. A big capital T is cut into four pieces. The goal is reassembly. "It looks pretty simple, but it's not," Slocum, a retired aerospace engineer, said on a Saturday morning last summer in downtown Houston.

He had just put a T puzzle on display at the latest International Puzzle Party. Slocum first threw this party on April Fools' Day in 1978; just 10 people gathered in the living room of his Beverly Hills home, where he still lives. Now, more than 500 serious collectors are on the invitation list, and the event is organized by a rotating committee. The destination moves on a three-year cycle among the US, Europe and Asia.