I Found a Penny Today, So Here’s a Thought
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Beguiled by a Mystery(Our guest blog for Gordon Meyer's Rebuilding a Mystery) The question isn't whether the box is foreground or background; the question is one's own place within in the mystery (in which case, thinking inside the puzzle box may possibly be preferable!) Optical illusions, phantasmic artwork, and even family snapshots ask us to consider our own beguilement, as it was, as it is, and as it will be.
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 While virtually flipping through a scanned book in Google's online library, we came across the scanner's hand. Her hand, covering a blank page, is now immortalized. Note that the pink "finger condoms" match her nail polish. And note that she slipped her diamond rings over the finger condoms. Though not the first scanner's hand we've come across in Google's library, it's the most colorful to date. In fact, we felt inspired to create a color palette in the hand's honor. TheOfficeLawyer writes: Wow.
The scan area is really interesting. It's like she's putting her hand through a rectangular digital portal.
I like that she uses the ring on her middle finger as a holder for the finger cot.
Cubic zirconia looks a lot like really tiny diamonds.
I see that you were unable to salvage any usable color from the nail polish. I agree! The cuticle, though, really is a nice off-white trim color.
Interesting fashion--the cuff looks remarkably like a sweat band. I'm sure that somewhere in there there's a statement about how fashion evolves into the reality of the workplace.
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Having come up with 100 Ways to Fail to Boil Water, we don't often stumble upon new ones. So imagine our delight to discover this terrific excuse: a recipe with a missing final paragraph! In the recipe for boiled water on page 212, the last paragraph was inadvertently omitted. It should read as follows: "Now pour the water into a kettle or pot, place it on the stove, and turn the burner on ‘high,’ leaving the water on the stove until it boils.” — Dr. Boli's Celebrated Magazine |
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Did you know that the difference between men and women is 3.14159? The hilariously insightful Robert Urbanek explains: Pi (Π) is both the sixteenth letter of the Green alphabet and the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. The difference between what is round and what is straight has no exact value. The calculation of pi begins at 3.14159 and stretches indefinitely.
The first known attempted calculation of pi was recorded in 1650 BC by an Egyptian scribe who estimated the ratio at 3.16. Today, with the help of computers, pi has been calculated to over 1.24 trillion places. Pi even has its "cult" followers: Hundreds of math mavens have joined clubs to investigate and celebrate the ratio.
Pi may provide a link between mathematics and sexuality. Since the straight line (diameter) is symbolic of the male and the circle (circumference) represents the female, one might conclude that pi signifies the unsolvable and infinite differences between men and women. The sexes will never be able to "figure" each other out. However, one can also see a positive aspect in the ratio: as the circumference increases, so does the diameter, and vice versa. Thus, whatever expands the horizons of the woman also expands the opportunities for the man.
Read Urbanek's complete explanation here. |
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Grafting common household appliances to plumbing fixtures can be fun, if Omegaword has a hand in it.
Our friend Jeff at Omegaword had some fun with circle-defying Venn diagrams, such as a coffee maker/toilet/hair dryer. Jeff didn't label his diagram, but we noticed that the toilet and coffee maker overlap in terms of having an upper chamber of water (plus, bad coffee might taste like wastewater); the dryer and coffee maker are both electric (plus, hot air makes for a frothy cappuccino); and the dryer and toilet come together in newfangled Japanese bidets (plus, they both make a whooshing sound). |
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We only just discovered this interesting review our eccentric guide to Portmeirion, Wales. We've bolded our favorite bits: Prisoner fans are frequently accused of "reading too much into" the little details and nuances of our favourite series. Here at last is a book that does the same for the programme's location. By turns weird, wonderful, and then even weirder, Puzzling Portmeirion is a strange, but oddly satisfying, companion to the more esoteric aspects of the village (few, if any, of which can have been Clough's original intention). The analysis of the spatial trickery and trompe l'oeil effects is quite well addressed, "treasure hunts" based on various details are included, and the whole book has a rather childlike innocence – reading it reminded me rather of how I felt (or at least what I can remember feeling) when I first saw Portmeirion at the age of nine. The book also wanders off down some very odd mythical and mystical paths which I found less convincing (do fairies really live on toasted cheese in the Portmeirion woodlands? Craig Conley seems pretty sure they do), but one can view Puzzling Portmeirion as an off the wall, artistic response to an off the wall, artistic place, with something, at least, of interest for almost any reader. Potential purchasers with more esoteric interests than mine will also be interested, and very probably charmed, by the two sets of tarot cards using Portmeirion landmarks and details, which are also available from the same source. —Gareth Hughes, The Unmutual Reviews |
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"Other, seemingly more profound, thoughts took over his brain, thoughts such as, To what extent would a given quantity of catnip have affected quantum mechanics in Schrodinger’s theoretical catbox? and Why was C selected to symbolize the speed of light when Z is obviously the fastest letter in the alphabet?" —Tom Robbins, Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates, 2000 |
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Our colorful friend DJ Misc has a fun collection white-space "rivers"—typographic columns of gaps in a text. This one, for example, has a delightful em-dash "bridge" crossing the river of white space. Here and here are two more dramatic examples. Joining in the fun, we discovered a deliciously ironic river of white space, in a text on how the White River area of the Black Hills region was affected by "rapid weathering and vigorous erosion." DJ Misc has added it to his collection. |
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"I mean, who wears ties these days? Come home at night, take this noose off, and my neck looks like I've been the guest of honor at a lynching." — Richard Marinick, Boyos (2004) |
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Southwest Airlines was envisaged not with a paper airplane (as Hollywood might lead you to believe) but rather on the back of a napkin. (See this BusinessWeek article for a picture of the doodle.) It could be said (though it won't be) that the napkin's flexibility has "rubbed off" on the company, not to mention elegance, durability, absorbability, and stain resistance. Speaking of napkins in Hollywood, it appears that an uncanny look-alike of former Senator John Edwards has written a book about napkin doodling. (Surprisingly, and some might say disappointingly, the book is printed on regular paper.) This is all simply to say that literary scalawag Jonathan Caws-Elwitt envisions celebrity-quality napkins in cocktail and dinner sizes, strong enough to guarantee the longevity "required by the demands of immortality." See Jonathan's proposal here. |
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"We can rediscover the continuity of time only in the novels of that period when time no longer seemed stopped and did not yet seem to have exploded, a period that lasted no more than a hundred years." — Italo Calvino, If On a Winter's Night a Traveler (the masterpiece) |
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Original Content Copyright © 2025 by Craig Conley. All rights reserved.
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