Issue
Three
March
2003 |
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©2003
by
Cliff
Johnson
All
Rights
Reserved |
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A man’s reach
should exceed his grasp. |
the officious newsletter of author Cliff Johnson |
A bird in the hand
is worth two in the bush. |
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>Take
One<
If
you crave political commentary, you’re
reading the wrong rag. Try any of
these:
For
those out in left field: Liberal
Slant; BuzzFlash;
Tom
Paine’s Common Sense;
Michael
Moore.
For
those caught in the middle: National
Public Radio; CNN;
UK
Guardian Unlimited.
For
those at right angles: William F.
Buckley’s National
Review.
Or
the Fool’s Choice: Political
Cartoons and The
Onion America’s Finest
News Source™.
>Take
Two<
“The
test of a first-rate intelligence
is the ability to hold two opposed
ideas in the mind at the same time,
and still retain the ability to function.”
— F. Scott Fitzgerald
>Take
Three<
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A
hoax or a hoot? A prank or a
prize? A jest or a jaunt?
The
First Annual April Fool’s
Day Treasure Hunt Errand!
The
game is afoot at 12:01
AM, Eastern Standard Time, April
1, 2003, and no sooner. |
>Take
Four<
Martin
Scorsese didn’t receive an Oscar
for Best Director — again. He’s
in good company. Alfred Hitchcock
never received one either. The abyss
between “Chicago” and
“The Pianist” could not
be deeper or wider, yet they both
won the top awards. Flabbergasting.
I love Steve Martin. He was fantastic.
No more Whoopie or Billy please. And
I’ve finally made my peace with
the foregone conclusion that the Academy
will dismiss J.R.R. Tolkien’s
and Peter Jackson’s “Lord
of the Rings” as a 10-hour special
effects fest.
>Take
Five<
A.
Whitney Brown explains “I’m
not a vegetarian because I love animals.
I’m a vegetarian because I hate
plants.”
>Take
Six<
If
receiving this newsletter feels like
the e-equivalent of being stalked
and you’re speed-dialing your
lawyer to slap me with a restraining
order, click
here to cancel.
>Take
Seven<
Steven
Wright says “Last night I stayed
up late playing poker with Tarot cards.
I got a full house and four people
died.”
I
cannot top that.
However,
if a friend (or foe) has forwarded
this newsletter to you and you wish
to subscribe, click
here.
>Cut<
>Print< |
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The
characters and events of The
Fool’s Errand are depicted
in the Tarot cards of the sequel.
The game begins with the 22 High
Arcana cards that the Fool had won
from the Hermit at the Wheel of
Fortune. As the Fool visits each
of the four Kingdoms; Wands, Pentacles,
Cups, and Swords; he has the opportunity
to gain 14 more cards from each.
From now until the end of May, look
for a new Tarot card to appear every
day in the Crypt
(home page) with further explanation
and enticement on The
Fool and His Money page.
Many
thanks to all the new True Believers
who have pre-ordered the sequel.
How
to pre-order? And why pre-order?
Here’s
how and why. |
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 ast
of the pyramids, the desert
gives way to the Kingdom of
the Wands with its rich farmland
and shady forests, welcoming
all who wish to enter. Timber
cabins and stone cottages
dot the countryside and hoof-packed
dirt roads conduct commerce
to the village that surrounds
the stout fortress that is
home to the Royal family.
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The Wands are famed for their succulent
fruits, scrumptious vegetables,
and robust nutritious grains. Of
more value than the foodstuffs are
the seeds, bulbs, and clippings
of the plants they harvest. Fed
on the food of the land, their poultry
and meat animals are considered
gourmet fare.
Windmills
and water wheels harness the energy
to run the saws of their timber
mills and the Wands export a range
of wood products from spruce lumber
for construction of town buildings
to planks of teak for shipbuilding.
The Wands import mahogany and ebony
from the seafaring Swords, however,
to carve their finest staffs.
"BAD
YAM! Bad yam!" cried five
boys brandishing staffs.
"Still
leaving your produce out in the
sun to rot?" the Fool inquired.
Five
sets of eyes glared at him.
"Hardly,"
one snorted. "We spoil our
yams in the finest kilns handcrafted
from upland riverbed clay."
"And
we bottle our elixir in hand-blown
glass from the finest desert sand,"
added another.
Finest
as in best or finest as in small-grained,
the Fool wondered.
"Finest
as in Infest," said the oldest
boy with a wink. |
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The
First Annual April Fool’s
Day Treasure Hunt Errand
is fast approaching, and as promised,
it’s an example of a treasure
hunt metapuzzle, designed to be
solved in a couple hours rather
than a couple weeks, understandably.
The
metapuzzle, a term coined by Scott
Kim in describing The Fool’s
Errand, is a tale, a set of puzzles,
a set of clues revealed by those
puzzles, and a mapping device in
which to organize the clues, leading
to the final “ah-ha!.”
In
The Fool’s Errand, the mapping
device is the Sun’s Map, and
in 3 in Three, the device is split
between the organization of the
Letter Legislature and the answers
for the Inside Track. Even Blaine’s
$100,000 Challenge has X puzzles
leading to Y clues with a unique
mapping device that organizes the
final solution.
TFAAFDTHE
takes place at dusk on the day The
Fool’s Errand ends and The
Fool and His Money begins. The Sun
invites the Royal families of the
four Kingdoms to the palace of the
Empress and the Emperor to await
the return of their Treasures, once
enchanted by the High Priestess
and now restored by the Fool.
As
night falls and the hours ebb toward
midnight, the full Moon appears
through the clouds and delivers
a message from the Fool to the assembled
Royalty.
The solution
to the Treasure Hunt are the exact
words of this speech. There are
16 clues and 16 pieces of a Map
to be printed out and correctly
assembled. The puzzles are, well,
you’ll see. |
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That
16 year old kid is me,
a Senior at Bristol Eastern
High School in Connecticut
filming my Super 8 feature
length flick, The
Return of the Freshman.
Alumnus and alumnae note
the clever use of the
school colors, blue and
gray.
Which
is more frightening? That
I actually made a feature
length film in Super 8?
Or that this was my sixth
film since 8th grade?
The previous were The
Living Dead, The Further
Adventures of Irving Evil,
The Freshman, The Truth,
and A Mad Look at Safe
Driving.
My
transition from Super
8 to 16mm to 35mm to floppy
disks was a true fool’s
errand and, in hindsight,
seems like it was a plan.
Who’s to say it
wasn’t?
Til
the end of April.
Cranberry
Juice. |
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