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Now available for preorder:
The San Francisco Panorama.
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O N E M O R E F O R For our previous Brain Exploder, writer Dennis Mahoney presented us with an old-fashioned riddle. Each of the twelve lines of verse yielded an answer, but it wasn't enough to decipher each line. For a correct answer, the entrant had to recognize that the twelve words and phrases (Wolf, Hunger, Worm, Egg, Milk, Rose, Thunder, Red, Harvest, Hunter, Frost, Long Nights) are Native American names for the full moons corresponding to the 12 months The winner of a McSweeney's book, chosen at random, is Andrea Ross. In all, we received 22 correct answers, a number manageable enough to list their names here: Wesley Gibson
In addition, three entrants managed a reference to actress and Brain Exploder crush Amy Jo Johnson. According to the new Brain Exploder guidelines, they receive special mention and our thanks: Wesley Gibson
Miriam Attia sent in the correct answer but had so little confidence in her ability to solve the puzzle, she offered three more possibilities: 1. My usual method of answering an obscure question such as this (Google, what else?) offered the following insight: once upon a time people could buy a series of Pepsi (TM) glasses in the "moon style" decorated with various Batman characters on them, but that now these glasses are nearly unavailable. However, I find it highly doubtful that the final point of this puzzle is one item in a series of Batman-themed Pepsi (TM) glasses. 2. I think I remember, once long ago when I saw Batman Forever in a movie theater with my brother, an image of the Riddler's trademark interrogative squiggle being shone brightly against the night sky, positioned so that Batman's familiar ovoid bat-silhouette became the dot. However, this was a movie with Jim Carrey and not a classic episode with Mr. Gorshin. Why would you be referring to an imitation in your tribute to the original? 3. On a more abstract level, one could argue that the Riddler and the moon share a certain enigmatic quality. Attractive as this answer is to me, I can't help but think that it's too ad hoc to be stable. My final conclusion is that the Riddler and the twelve full moons have nothing to do with each other at all, except that this was a riddle about them, and the Riddler liked to offer riddles like this. Which he did. Also, the word "moon" and the surname "Mahoney" may be etymologically related. Liz Coen got the correct answer but thought that, "Moon phases was a little mamby-pamby for McSweeney's." She suggested each line referred to "awesome" names of Bonanza Episodes: First is fanged, howling wild: Ambush at Big Lobo
Trey Kazee guessed that each line described a movie released in 1998. That's wrong, obviously, but we thought it was a clever attempt: First is fanged, howling wild: Godzilla
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