Minotaur, good point. Is it just coincidence that you, ancient Crete's bull-man, posted about Theseus' ball of string (i.e. the classical origin of the word clew/clue)?
Note that the namesake charm necklace in Scrapbook 229 Medicinal Mojo Necklace consists of three circular strands of woven "cotton string" with "old and authentic" "medicinal" beads and found items. The "old and authentic" items recall Fenn's almost obsessive collecting described in Gold and More. Furthermore, the woven "cotton string" and round nature recalls the "multi-colored ball" (p.128)--i.e. the clew--that mysteriously disappeared in Gold and More. In the comments to this scrapbook Fenn stresses this connection further as he asks us to admire the handiwork of his "squaw wrap" binding--again string tied together. As discussed in my recent post on that scrapbook, I have a theory that this might be Fenn describing a systematic method to reveal hidden information from within the poem (clues!).
Getting back to TTOTC, the story of the missing giant ball of string from Gold and More is clearly ridiculous. "The ball was so large it couldn't go through my bedroom door" and therefore couldn't have gotten "out of [his] room" (p.128); this is hyperbole at the very least and at most is the result of something magical. That Fenn described this as "one of the great unsolved crimes" (p.128), and as detectives follow clues to solve crimes, this does support the idea that Fenn intended for this ball of string to be linked to the word clew/clue. A clew doesn't need to be tied together, let alone "multicolored" like a rainbow. This tied attribute of the Gold and More clew is related to the woven "cotton string" of Scrapbook 229 and to its "squaw wrap" binding. As I posted in my thread on Scrapbook 209, the creepy fairy doll is a deliberate representation of the Gold and More poem puzzle; I do not believe it is a coincidence that the doll had "woven woolen fabrics" as one of the items of its clothing.
I don't know the mechanics of it, but I was working on a theory that this--weaving together, binding, tying--is related to a systematic method of extracting hidden information from the poem puzzle (as explained in more detail, although ultimately unsatisfactorily, in other posts). Note that we can find in the chapter title
Looking for Lewis and Clark, through some rearrangement and deletion, the phrase "Looking for
Clark and
Lewis." This is what we, the players of Fenn's game, are supposed to be doing. Discovering and "precisely" following the "nine clues" (p.132), which I suspect are both overt and covert.
The Gold and More clew is circular/repetitive in nature, as is the gypsy camp and gypsies dancing in Gypsy Magic. The clew is bound together end to end, partnered like the image of Fenn at the gypsy camp "[becoming part of it as [he] moved back and forth in the sway" (p.43). I hypothesize that circles/repetition and partnering are two key concepts in the systematic method to reveal hidden information in the poem.
These concepts are found in the
Important Literature bookstore clerk who "walked away, tossing her thick braids back and forth," in the context of having knowledge--she "knew where every book was in that whole store" and "graduated from a good school somewhere" (p.10). The braid is the partnered element and the tossing back and forth is the circular/repeating element; having knowledge cues clew/clue.
They are found in other variations in
My War for Me, as out and back incidents involving things bound together. Fenn quotes a poem, misattributing the (original) author as Evetts Haley: "Far they range and fair they roam, Much they do and dare, While gray-gowned patience sits at home, And weaves the cloth they wear" (p.75). Fenn goes on a bombing run, gets shot down in the jungle, and eventually returned--a recurring circular theme to the stories in
TTOTC--to his military and actual family after being attached--tied or bound--to a "240-foot cable" (p.90).
The circular/repeating nature of the bound clew may also incorporate a reversed element. Fenn's mother "was always knitting and didn't seem to notice" that Fenn and his brother were spanked (involving a backside, hence possible reversed)--also described as "switched," also invoking a reversal--by their father in
Surviving Myself (p.40). This is directly related to Fenn being hit with the cow Bessie's tail (reversal!), tying her to his stool by her tail--bound or partnered like his clew--and being knocked onto his back side (reversal!) in a cow pie (cue "pi" and hence circles) in
Bessie and Me.
We find these concepts, with other possible attributes, in the lassoed (tied!) buffalo in the out and back misadventure (circles!) in
Buffalo Cowboys, the students in
Teachers with Ropes, and a multitude of fishing references (line and fly tying).
I will conclude this rambling with the thought that perhaps the
TTOTC colophon--a double omega--is also related to these ideas. Omega is the last letter of the Greek alphabet and is often used as a symbol of the end. A double omega could be read as end to end. Recall the
Gold and More clew: "the best saving technique was to tie one end of the new piece of string onto the end of the last one" (p.127-8).
