Issue
Four
April
2003 |
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©2003
by
Cliff
Johnson
All
Rights
Reserved |
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| Faith will move mountains. |
the officious newsletter of author Cliff Johnson |
Doubt is the beginning
of wisdom. |
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>Take
One<
The early
bird catches the worm. The early
worm gets eaten.
>Take
Two<
The
Vermonter had a visit from his Texas
friend.
The Texan
said “How big a spread you
got here?”
The Vermonter
said “Oh, I’ve a pretty
big place. Over 300 acres.”
The Texan
said “Why that’s pitiful,
just pitiful. Back on my ranch,
I can get in my truck and drive
all day and not get to the end of
my ranch.”
The Vermonter
said “A-yep. I had a truck
like that once, but I got rid of
it.”
>Take
Three<
A
writer in search of something to
write about writes “I loathe
the expression ‘What makes
him tick.’ Only a fool, looking
for a simple and singular solution,
uses that expression. A person not
only ticks, but he chimes and strikes
the hour, falls and breaks and has
to be put together again, and sometimes
stops like an electric clock in
a thunderstorm.”
Gee, I
wonder what makes that guy tick?
>Take
Four<
The
Vermonter went to visit his friend
in Texas and that night they attended
a Rotary Club meeting.
The Texan,
the speaker for the night, decided
he’d have a little fun with
his friend.
He said
“Can I see a show of hands
from all the Republicans in the
room?”
And every
hand went up except the Vermonter’s.
The Texan
said “Can I see a show of
hands from any stray Democrats who
might’ve wandered in?”
And, of
course, only the Vermonter raised
his hand.
“Tell
me, Sir,” the Texan said,
“how is it that you came to
be a Democrat?”
“Well,”
the Vermonter said, “my father
was a Democrat and his father before
him was a Democrat.”
The Texan
said “Why that’s a pitiful
poor reason for being a Democrat.
What if your father had been a horse
thief?”
The Vermonter
said “Well then, I suppose,
I’d be a Republican.”
>Take
Five<
Each
masthead of this newsletter contains
two proverbs.
Why?
Because
one proverb contradicts the other.
>Take
Six<
If
receiving this newsletter feels
like the press of cold steel to
the nape of your neck during a late
night transaction at the ATM and
you’re reaching for your 50,000
volt Taser™, click
here to cancel.
However,
if an enemy or ally has forwarded
this newsletter to you and you wish
to subscribe, click
here.
>Take
Seven<
Recipe
for a Fool.
Only
child. Leo. Snake. Connecticut.
Fields.
Woods. Swamps. Caves. Sand pits.
Terrariums.
Tadpoles. Toads. Turtles. Salamanders.
Crayfish.
Lincoln
Logs. Tinker Toys. Erector set.
Parcheesi.
Chinese Checkers. Stratego. Crazy
Eights.
Matinee
triple-feature monster movies. Aurora
monster models. Famous Monsters
of Filmland.
Summer
Science Academy.
Igneous.
Sedimentary. Metamorphic.
Amoeba.
Paramecium. Euglena.
Chemistry
sets. Homemade gunpowder. Chlorine
gas.
1/24th
scale car racing. Model rockets.
Super 8 camera.
Clay
animation. People pixilation. Slapstick
comedy.
Pre-heat
oven.
Half-bake
for 1,565,916,300 seconds.
Serve
with relish.
>Cut<
>Print< |
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The
First Annual April Fool’s Day Treasure
Hunt Errand has come and gone.
The nineteen
winners are posted, a solution
shown, a deconstruction
displayed, and a map
mounted. And you may still play the game
if you so desire. If so, skip to The
Fool and his Money section. I’m
about to reveal answers.
From beginning
to end, this modest metapuzzle consumed
the better part of five days in its construction.
Average solving time was 3-4 hours. |
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I
knew two things going in. I wanted
to have fun with the sixteen Royal
Highnesses awaiting the return of
their Treasures and I wanted to
do a cut-and-paste, paper-and-pencil,
print-out map.
Knowing
this, I whipped out one of my lucky
pads and sketched out the logic
of the 4 X 4 map. Instead of a beginning
and an end path, I decided upon
a circular path using 3 NE elbows,
3 NW elbows, 3 SW elbows, 3 SE elbows
and 4 E/W straights. This worked
well. One could deduce the absolute
shape of the path, but one couldn’t
deduce which exact piece went where
without further information. See
Map One
- Two
- Three
- Four.
Not unlike
The Fool’s Errand,
this information would be provided
in the story. I would give each
character one speech to serve two
purposes: to give clues as to where
that character’s piece fit
into the map layout, and, to give
out key words related only to that
character. I figured the intermingling
Royalty would hardly be enjoying
each other’s company and that
allowed me the freedom for each
character to rant and rave foolishly.
See Story One
- Two
- Three.
“I
PURSUE
NO
MAMMALS,”
the Page huffs and puffs. “Nothing
with a NIPPLE
ENTERS
my CAP.” |
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I
invented the inner sentences like
HE DASHES FOR THE LOST FISH
to indicate a starting point where
the letters of the key words were
to be entered and I used white highlighted
“answer” boxes to indicate
where the solution would appear.
The
downside of using “answer”
boxes is that the player can guess
the solution without having to put
all the letters in place. So I added
twice as many “answer”
boxes as necessary to confuse the
issue and then made sure that those
boxes would always appear next to
one of the following inner letters:
A - E - I - L - O - S - T - U -
Y.
Furthermore,
the path of the red carpet divided
the “answer” boxes into
two groups, the ones inside and the
ones outside. With this, I felt certain
no one would grasp the solution until
all map pieces and all key words were
in their proper places.
Then
“from midnight, proceed clockwise
amidst those who are OUTSIDE
and heed only those that might S-T-E-A-L”
provided the final “ah-ha!” |
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The game
was afoot at 12:01 midnight, Eastern Standard
Time. Everything uploaded properly, a
matter of no small concern to me, and
people descended upon my website. There
were 7 close-up clues which led to 7 illustrations
on 7 pages which led to 7 hidden passwords
which led to printing out 7 pages.
The most
difficult close-up clue I thought would
be the glass of milk held by Alex of “A
Clockwork Orange,” but instead,
it turned out to be the 3 talking to the
eyeball on a stick found in the Executor
Quirks section, not the 3 in Three
section.
I used Macromedia’s
Flash 6.0 to create the printing engine
and a few people discovered their graphics
card to be no spring chicken. Others choose
to screen-dump the images and assemble
them in a graphics program. Once I realized
people were doing this, from 3 AM to 8
AM, I re-programmed the print pages so
that the PRINT THIS PAGE button
wasn’t in the center of the screen
but up and out of the way in the corner.
Duh on me.
In the days
following, there were as many people writing
in with the correct answer as there were
people writing in with everything solved
but the final OUTSIDE/S-T-E-A-L
“ah-ha!” solution. Ironically,
the winning team skipped that clue entirely
and visually John Nash-ed the answer.
See you
12:01 AM, April First, 2004.
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A
new card from the seventy-eight
cards of the Fool’s Tarot
deck is revealed every day in the
Crypt
with an accompanying glimpse of
events yet to come on The
Fool and his Money page.
Many
thanks to the many Poisson d’Avril
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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 mong
the tall slender pines in
the hallowed hills to the
North, mist enshrouds the
pale blue marble of the Kingdom
of the Cups, gateway to the
Hierophant and his priests.
Quiet as the grave, silvery
streams flow into reflection
ponds mirroring silhouettes
of statuary, and by nightfall,
the waters shimmer with an
unnatural glow.
There
are no dwellings outside the
city walls. The forest creatures
are silent. Madness awaits
those who venture into the
woods by night. But the Kingdom
of the Cups is under the protection
of the Hierophant, and within
its walls, there is safety
and solace. There is also
comfort and luxury to those
who can afford to pay the
price.
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The
rocky soil and sparse wild grass
is insufficient to raise crops or
livestock, and therefore, the Cups
must rely entirely upon the Wands
from whom they purchase produce
and meat at a high price. However,
the Cups, in turn, sell their rare
commodities to the Kingdom of the
Pentacles who can afford to pay
any price.
The
Cups are the keepers and purveyors
of knowledge, for they have refined
the capacity to bind and publish
books copied by hand onto handmade
paper. It is considered treason
to sell a book to an outsider, for
there is great commerce in fees
levied for time spent in their many
libraries.
The
mineral water that issues from deep
mountain springs is known to have
remarkable healing powers and it
is bottled and sold as medicine
along with other herbs, spice, and
fungi cultivated in phosphorescent
caves. Premium prices are gladly
paid for the privilege to soak an
afternoon in the aromatic hot springs.
The
Cups sculpt and fire pottery from
the rich clay deposits in the streams
and ponds, and, they import raw
glass from the Swords to form sealed
glass containers, dazzling stain-glass
windows, and mystifying telescopes
and magnifying glasses.
With
his burro hauling his cart full
of goods up the mountain trail,
the Fool is refused entry to the
Kingdom of the Cups until it is
realized he holds a bona fide deed
to a storefront in the town square.
The Fool sets up shop with wares
he procured from the Wands, and
thus, he is presumed to be a Wand
himself and has a difficult time
convincing anyone otherwise. (The
Cups still suspect that the Wands
stole their One Treasure and are
holding it in secret. The Moon warned
“Cups, beware the staff.”)
To say
the least, business is not good,
but the Fool is content to have
a roof over his head and a securely
locked door at night. Catering to
that which most pleases the Cups,
the Fool finds out, are collections
of cups, goblets, and vases. Here,
he does a brisk business, yet he
never turns enough of a profit to
get ahead.
Then the
Fool decides the only way to get
rich quick is to buy land and be
able to sit back and collect rent
at his leisure. The town auction
is offering a choice parcel of land
in the Kingdom of the Pentacles,
but he knows only the elite attend
this auction and the bidding will
be fierce and completely out of
his price range. |
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Folks
on the David
Blaine Forum chasing
Blaine’s $100,000 Challenge
say the darnest things. Here
is a proof that the location
of the treasure is in the
dairy aisle at your grocery
store. It’s really quite
brilliant.
LEECH
M COP V VW FIT PB C UK LUMP
TO LEEK PULP CY. These
looked awfully word puzzle-ish
to me. So, I set about working
on them for several hours.
This
is what I came up with: LEECH
M. Leave it as is. COP
V VW means ‘remove
five letters from volkswagon’
leaving us with the nice word
WAGON. WAGON
breaks down into WAG ON,
and the first thing that popped
into my head for ‘wag’
was ‘shake’, so
‘wag on’ becomes
‘shake on’. What
answers this riddle? I came
up with ‘salt’.
That anagrams to ‘last’.
The word that we need for
our puzzle that’s equivalent
to ‘last’ is ‘rear’.
Thus, COP V VW = ‘rear’.
In word puzzles, ‘rear’
means to drop the last letter
from a word.
FIT
PB C: ‘Pb’
happens to be the chemical
abbreviation for ‘lead’.
I’m using ‘lead’
= ‘led’ and anagramming
LED to DEL, which is the abbreviation
for ‘delete’.
‘Fit’ = ‘trim’
(definition), and ‘trim’
= ‘cut’ (definition).
So, FIT PB C = CUT
delete C = UT.
Do you know what UT
is? It’s the abbreviation
for UTAH.
So:
LEECH M COP V VW FIT PB
C is equivalent to
LEECH M, REAR UTAH = LEECH
M, UTA.
Next
part: UK LUMP —
UK is the abbreviation
for ENGLAND. ‘England’
breaks down into ‘Glen’
+ ‘and’. A synonym
for ‘glen’ is
‘dale’, which
anagrams to ‘lead’.
Same exercise as before: ‘lead’
= led = del. So, our puzzle
thus far gives us: Leech
M, UTA delete, and lump...
Next
part: TO LEEK —
‘to’ = ‘two’
= ‘B’ (second
letter of alphabet). ‘leek
= ‘leak’ (homophone).
So far then: Leech M,
UTA delete, and lump B, leak...
Final
part: PULP CY —
CY = ‘see why’
which anagrams to ‘hew
yes’. ‘yes’
= ‘aye’ (definition)
= I (homophone). ‘Pulp’
= ‘flesh’ (definition)
= ‘shelf’ (anagram).
So, ‘pulp CY’
= shelf hew I. Namely, remove
one letter from ‘shelf’:
leaves ‘self’.
What’s the definition
of ‘self’? ‘I’.
Putting
it all together: Leech
M, UTA delete, and lump B,
leak I. Basically: subtract
M, subtract UTA,
add B, subtract I.
Like so many other things,
I applied it to MYSTERIOUS
STRANGER. Came up with
the following letter string:
YSEROSSRNGERB. So help me
God it turns out to be three
words: GROSSER BYES RN.
That’s just gotta be:
GROSSER = Grocer, BYES
= buys, and RN = nurse.
‘Grocer buys’
is ‘food’. ‘Nurse
food’ is ‘milk’.
Q.E.D.
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From
the New York Times, another
“no news”
news story on board games.
“There
was a time when I was
at the office for 12 hours
and then I would go home,
have dinner and then spend
9 hours playing Age
of Empires,”
Mr. M recalls.
But Mr. M. has hardly
touched a computer game
in months. After work
and on weekends, he is
more likely to be found
playing a board game called
Settlers of Catan
with his wife and friends.
As
the dot-com generation
experiences the first
pangs of middle age, board
games are back. With budding
families and increasing
work commitments, many
young adults now prefer
to spend scarce free time
with real people rather
than in cyberspace.
And
this reminds me of a quote
by Russell Baker. “Misery
no longer loves company.
Nowadays it insists on
it.”
Til
later.
Confounded
Jigsaw. |
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