Post by Apple on Jun 9, 2020 16:48:49 GMT -5
What are your thoughts on SB126? This SB tells an absurd story about a disgusting hat and is paired with an equally absurd picture. Credit for many parts of the rumination below goes to Nkown (I'll take responsibility for the parts people heartily disagree with).
The scrapbook's picture is a horizontal mirror image of the Stella Lake and Wheeler Peak in Great Basin National Park along the Alpine Lakes Loop Trail (easy Google image search). Superimposed on this mirrored image is a photo of Fenn in front of the lake, the hat "Mildew" floating above Fenn's head, a upright cut stone in front of Fenn, and a bear wading in the lake.
At the conclusion, Fenn challenges that "Mildew has more personality than any other hat within word distance of Santa Fe." The phrase "within word distance" is odd usage and its construction is reminiscent of a cryptic crossword clue. If we take that phrase to mean "within the word distance," two words that both describe "Mildew" and can be constructed from the letters in the word "distance" (truly "in" the "word" "distance") are "stained" and "antics."
With this in mind, perhaps this picture and the accompanying text are similar cryptic crossword type puzzles. If so, we should focus on the oddities of "Dither," "Mildew," and "Bosque."
"Mildew" refers to the disgusting hat. In the accompanying picture, this hat is floating above Forrest's head. Furthermore, the hat is associated with death as "Dither" was wearing it when he died. As the hat has a prominently discussed hole, it can be read as a "hole-y" hat. Drawing all these notions together, this yields "halo" (a holy hat). Humorously, Fenn tells us he's "not going to ever wear" such a thing. The hat's name "Mildew" can be found phonetically in the Gold and More poem's line "Your effort will be worth the cold" if one simply turns or vertically mirrors the first ""w" and horizontally mirrors the "b."
Next, recall that "Bosque" means forest in Spanish. This cues to Forrest, featured in the accompanying picture, being a homophone for forest. Fenn is behind a stone with a rounded top which vaguely resembles a mile marker or a grave marker. We already noted a halo over Forrest's head. As a forest can also be thought of as a grove, we have the confluence of grove and stone, which sounds like gravestone. Taken together, this suggests Forrest's grave site.
Finally, "Dither" means to blend together, as (coined?) by Photoshop (as was likely used to create this SB's picture). In the SB's picture, a half submerged bear is pictured in Stella Lake. We can dither, or blend, the word "bear" with "Stella" to get the words "staar," or star, and "beell," or bell. Within that same line in which we found "Mildew," we can find "locate the bell tower" (..."I offer you?") through a phonetic understanding of the line in reverse: "d/locehth/trowe/bll/iwtrofferuoy" yields locate tower bell.
My wife makes fun of me by telling everyone I'm a bell enthusiast and threatens me with a gift membership to the American Bell Association. I think it was the third Eric Sloane bell book (all lousy) that I read that had her reconsidering her marriage vows!
The scrapbook's picture is a horizontal mirror image of the Stella Lake and Wheeler Peak in Great Basin National Park along the Alpine Lakes Loop Trail (easy Google image search). Superimposed on this mirrored image is a photo of Fenn in front of the lake, the hat "Mildew" floating above Fenn's head, a upright cut stone in front of Fenn, and a bear wading in the lake.
At the conclusion, Fenn challenges that "Mildew has more personality than any other hat within word distance of Santa Fe." The phrase "within word distance" is odd usage and its construction is reminiscent of a cryptic crossword clue. If we take that phrase to mean "within the word distance," two words that both describe "Mildew" and can be constructed from the letters in the word "distance" (truly "in" the "word" "distance") are "stained" and "antics."
With this in mind, perhaps this picture and the accompanying text are similar cryptic crossword type puzzles. If so, we should focus on the oddities of "Dither," "Mildew," and "Bosque."
"Mildew" refers to the disgusting hat. In the accompanying picture, this hat is floating above Forrest's head. Furthermore, the hat is associated with death as "Dither" was wearing it when he died. As the hat has a prominently discussed hole, it can be read as a "hole-y" hat. Drawing all these notions together, this yields "halo" (a holy hat). Humorously, Fenn tells us he's "not going to ever wear" such a thing. The hat's name "Mildew" can be found phonetically in the Gold and More poem's line "Your effort will be worth the cold" if one simply turns or vertically mirrors the first ""w" and horizontally mirrors the "b."
Next, recall that "Bosque" means forest in Spanish. This cues to Forrest, featured in the accompanying picture, being a homophone for forest. Fenn is behind a stone with a rounded top which vaguely resembles a mile marker or a grave marker. We already noted a halo over Forrest's head. As a forest can also be thought of as a grove, we have the confluence of grove and stone, which sounds like gravestone. Taken together, this suggests Forrest's grave site.
Finally, "Dither" means to blend together, as (coined?) by Photoshop (as was likely used to create this SB's picture). In the SB's picture, a half submerged bear is pictured in Stella Lake. We can dither, or blend, the word "bear" with "Stella" to get the words "staar," or star, and "beell," or bell. Within that same line in which we found "Mildew," we can find "locate the bell tower" (..."I offer you?") through a phonetic understanding of the line in reverse: "d/locehth/trowe/bll/iwtrofferuoy" yields locate tower bell.
My wife makes fun of me by telling everyone I'm a bell enthusiast and threatens me with a gift membership to the American Bell Association. I think it was the third Eric Sloane bell book (all lousy) that I read that had her reconsidering her marriage vows!