Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
What If Klingons Spoke Burmese
Are there any realistic geek characters in serious fiction yet? I mean, not pastiches, not hapless comic relief, not dangerously obsessed grotesques. Characters who struggle along with the others under their author's burdens, viewed through the same psychological, political, motivational lenses. I'm wondering because they seem pretty common these days, with "these days" being the last quarter century or so. The once scornful epithet, after a stint as a not-really self-deprecating label akin to "jock," has become a mere commonplace, really just a synonym for "fan". Many of the jocks will self-describe as geeks now, as in "I'm a total Packers geek."
Still, distinctions remain between the simple fan and the geek, and they point mostly at distinctions between the past and the present. In 1988, you have the football fan and the math geek, the automobile afficianado and the computer geek, even the tolkien fan versus the role-playing games geek. The biggest change between then and now is so obvious that it is tedious to mention it: once you could read about football on a computer, the worlds merged. Talk about globalization. The jocks learned that computers were, like themselves, tools. Meanwhile the geeks learned that football was astronomically more intricate and mathematical than they ever knew. Duh, right? This is so old hat, it's a shoe. Our social myth iterates that when the Evil Stigma was defeated, the computer was free to lead the townspeople to fulfillment. I'm not saying it didn't. But by the time this happened (can we just agree on late 90s?), something else had taken hold.
With caveats galore, I suggest that the geek is typified by the obsessive acquisition of ephemera. Whether they are obscure facts, plot points, statistics, they are things that only the geeks know or care about. This neatly carries the concept of the geek forward through time fairly intact. The math geek of the Fifties cared about the "imaginary" square root of 1; today's Harry Potter geek cares about the Deathly Hallows. But no one else does, see? Note that some geekable topics can lead to useful specialization. However, there are always many more geeks than Specialists. You can explain that your comics are worth money all you want...you still read them for the superheroes.
OK a quick preview for those who haven't stopped reading...Reckless Speculation to follow, Accidental Conspiracies, Shopping Centers converted to Charnel Houses and Why Geeks Won't Read About Themselves.
Geek behavior, geek character, geek incapacity, geek gullibility, geek undesirability, geek gawkiness, geek gullibility. The geek's cultural identity is coalesced in one of our most enduring stereotypes, the Ubergeek: the Trekkie. Prior to 1987, this stereotype was nastier, geekier, more pariah, since it entailed the obsessive acquisition of ephemera to a really bad show that had been long-cancelled. The higher quality and wider availability of the Next Generation and its fifty or so spinoffs led to the dilution of this core group. If you didn't want to watch golf, basketball or an infomercial at dinner time on Saturday, you probably watched Star Trek. It was harmless, carpeted in maroon and had that loud bald Brit. Once you'd been wolfing down mac & cheese in front of Space Hotel every Saturday for a couple years, you could "confess" to acquaintances that you were "a total trekkie," which I suppose might have offended the original Trekkies, but, seriously, people still mostly didn't like them and their condescending loser bullshit. Still don't.
The Trekkie is the Great Example of the trend here. As little as I know about previous generations, I'm pretty sure we've seen a steady increase in the percent of the population engaged in the Obsessive Acquisition of Ephemera. It doesn't take long for marketers to notice, and once that machine gets going, you have a self-perpetuating cultural trend. The Grateful Dead. Pokemon. Same thing.
The other Force (pardon the pun, which, if you caught it just proves my point you effing geek) in this unsurprising if slightly depressing phenomena is simple peer pressure, the desire to belong. This stokes all runaway culture trains, of course...once one kid pays too much for geekiness, his mates will want it, too. I guess the more frequent Inclusion of Girls is worth noting, though I suspect with Absolutely No Evidentiary Support, that girls tend toward acquisition of more product ("Why, hello, Kitty!) and less ephemera. Still, the fire in the locomotive burns higher when the truly geeked out boy ("Wow she's really interested in Charmander") gets to share a non-awkward topic with the geek-poseur girl ("He's talking to me!").
So...sigh...it's nothing THAT new, really. A leisure class with money and time on its hands tends toward sensational fleeting distractions which in some manner feel like the accumulation of something and there's plenty of people ready to follow them around selling authorized merchandise. But have there ever been So Many things to geek out about, so much Chinese Industrial Machinery cranking out so many totally useless collectors items? The carrot of Completeness dangles in front of every collector.
So finally my point and a return to my question: Couldn't we use this exact same obsessive energy to actually reconnect people with their reality? People have learned enough Klingon to hold their wedding ceremonies in a made up language, "spoken" by a made up species. They could have just written it so that Klingon was any real language in the world and those geeks, in the inescapable Grip of Geek, would have learned it. Star Trek could have provided the FBI/CIA with all the Arabic translators they need. With its cult following tuning in to 3 shows every week, they didn't have to keep writing dippy scripts with morals from Afterschool Specials and plots from cheap Westerns. When you have people enthralled, you should help them. You'll get their cash, anyway.
So, with so many of us living with an overlay of some form of geekiness, something we think about too much and spend too much money on while proudly maintaining a general apathy on other subjects, I wonder if this regular sort of person has made it into serious fiction. Oddly enough, I don't think the geeks would read it. Unless you could figure out how to cram serious fiction (look, i'll define that term some other time...suffice it to say it's whatever there's the least of) full of intricately-interconnected, baroquely-extraneous ephemera for purposes of obsessive acquisition with the occasionally-kept promise of more.
Still, distinctions remain between the simple fan and the geek, and they point mostly at distinctions between the past and the present. In 1988, you have the football fan and the math geek, the automobile afficianado and the computer geek, even the tolkien fan versus the role-playing games geek. The biggest change between then and now is so obvious that it is tedious to mention it: once you could read about football on a computer, the worlds merged. Talk about globalization. The jocks learned that computers were, like themselves, tools. Meanwhile the geeks learned that football was astronomically more intricate and mathematical than they ever knew. Duh, right? This is so old hat, it's a shoe. Our social myth iterates that when the Evil Stigma was defeated, the computer was free to lead the townspeople to fulfillment. I'm not saying it didn't. But by the time this happened (can we just agree on late 90s?), something else had taken hold.
With caveats galore, I suggest that the geek is typified by the obsessive acquisition of ephemera. Whether they are obscure facts, plot points, statistics, they are things that only the geeks know or care about. This neatly carries the concept of the geek forward through time fairly intact. The math geek of the Fifties cared about the "imaginary" square root of 1; today's Harry Potter geek cares about the Deathly Hallows. But no one else does, see? Note that some geekable topics can lead to useful specialization. However, there are always many more geeks than Specialists. You can explain that your comics are worth money all you want...you still read them for the superheroes.
OK a quick preview for those who haven't stopped reading...Reckless Speculation to follow, Accidental Conspiracies, Shopping Centers converted to Charnel Houses and Why Geeks Won't Read About Themselves.
Geek behavior, geek character, geek incapacity, geek gullibility, geek undesirability, geek gawkiness, geek gullibility. The geek's cultural identity is coalesced in one of our most enduring stereotypes, the Ubergeek: the Trekkie. Prior to 1987, this stereotype was nastier, geekier, more pariah, since it entailed the obsessive acquisition of ephemera to a really bad show that had been long-cancelled. The higher quality and wider availability of the Next Generation and its fifty or so spinoffs led to the dilution of this core group. If you didn't want to watch golf, basketball or an infomercial at dinner time on Saturday, you probably watched Star Trek. It was harmless, carpeted in maroon and had that loud bald Brit. Once you'd been wolfing down mac & cheese in front of Space Hotel every Saturday for a couple years, you could "confess" to acquaintances that you were "a total trekkie," which I suppose might have offended the original Trekkies, but, seriously, people still mostly didn't like them and their condescending loser bullshit. Still don't.
The Trekkie is the Great Example of the trend here. As little as I know about previous generations, I'm pretty sure we've seen a steady increase in the percent of the population engaged in the Obsessive Acquisition of Ephemera. It doesn't take long for marketers to notice, and once that machine gets going, you have a self-perpetuating cultural trend. The Grateful Dead. Pokemon. Same thing.
The other Force (pardon the pun, which, if you caught it just proves my point you effing geek) in this unsurprising if slightly depressing phenomena is simple peer pressure, the desire to belong. This stokes all runaway culture trains, of course...once one kid pays too much for geekiness, his mates will want it, too. I guess the more frequent Inclusion of Girls is worth noting, though I suspect with Absolutely No Evidentiary Support, that girls tend toward acquisition of more product ("Why, hello, Kitty!) and less ephemera. Still, the fire in the locomotive burns higher when the truly geeked out boy ("Wow she's really interested in Charmander") gets to share a non-awkward topic with the geek-poseur girl ("He's talking to me!").
So...sigh...it's nothing THAT new, really. A leisure class with money and time on its hands tends toward sensational fleeting distractions which in some manner feel like the accumulation of something and there's plenty of people ready to follow them around selling authorized merchandise. But have there ever been So Many things to geek out about, so much Chinese Industrial Machinery cranking out so many totally useless collectors items? The carrot of Completeness dangles in front of every collector.
So finally my point and a return to my question: Couldn't we use this exact same obsessive energy to actually reconnect people with their reality? People have learned enough Klingon to hold their wedding ceremonies in a made up language, "spoken" by a made up species. They could have just written it so that Klingon was any real language in the world and those geeks, in the inescapable Grip of Geek, would have learned it. Star Trek could have provided the FBI/CIA with all the Arabic translators they need. With its cult following tuning in to 3 shows every week, they didn't have to keep writing dippy scripts with morals from Afterschool Specials and plots from cheap Westerns. When you have people enthralled, you should help them. You'll get their cash, anyway.
So, with so many of us living with an overlay of some form of geekiness, something we think about too much and spend too much money on while proudly maintaining a general apathy on other subjects, I wonder if this regular sort of person has made it into serious fiction. Oddly enough, I don't think the geeks would read it. Unless you could figure out how to cram serious fiction (look, i'll define that term some other time...suffice it to say it's whatever there's the least of) full of intricately-interconnected, baroquely-extraneous ephemera for purposes of obsessive acquisition with the occasionally-kept promise of more.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
SOPHATO: Stuff Other People Have Already Thought Of
An unintended consequence of the primacy of the rule of Law seems to be an overreliance on legality as a substitute for morality. "We didn't do anything illegal," is the defense of antisocial perpetrators as diverse as Wall Street usurers and activists who uncivilly harass citizens in the name of Animal Rights.
Friday, April 11, 2008
PZL: Join the Everybody Get Out and Push Committee
Okay, so here's the latest Harper's Puzzle, "A (K)night at the Opera"...already I'm guessing Parsifal or Siegfried, right? We shall see. I've solved the clues (discussion below) and filled in the grid, but now we have to
"trace further instructions by visiting each square once and only once
in a succession of knight's moves. These instructions will lead
you to the identity of the character in question."
A. Please check off article found in Paris (6) = TICKLE
Pretty good luck led me to this answer fairly quickly in that I guessed the answer right off. I'm often reminding others that despite the tricky word games, cryptic puzzles still work like regular crosswords: you just have to find a synonym for the clue. In this case the definition was pretty obviously "Please," since I can't imagine how that would be involved in the word game. "Article found in Paris" was simple since "french article" or "the french" are often used in the puzzles to represent "LE". So, what's a synonym for "please" that's six letters ending in LE? For whatever reason, the first thing that came to mind was "tickle". And to "tick" is to "check off," as on a list. Done.
H. I'm touring in Camelot--P.S., it's spirit lives on (9) = ECTOPLASM
Probably an anagram...not just the "touring" bit, but also the awkward "Camelot--P.S." give it away quickly. To editorialize a bit, I don't completely agree with this habit of Maltby's to write the clue as if the word were talking to you, even though it has a precedent in English riddles. Regardless, "I'm touring in" means "mix up the letters CAMELOTPS to get something that means spirit/ghost. I played with this one for a while...campostel, postalmec...but didn't get it until other clues gave me the first 4 letters. Answer: Ectoplasm. A weak clue.
J. Name makes appearance in verse. Effect: breaking out bubbly (12)
You want to solve the long clues early if you can, since they give you more letters for checking. This one turned out to be a piece of cake. What stands out & gives it away? The word "breaking"...anagram city. "Name" almost always indicates the letter N, so the clue is easily analyzed thus: The letter N plus the letters from "verse" and "effect" are rearranged to spell a synonym for "bubbly". The answer's not champagne, but it's close. Here, I'll let you figure it out by rearranging the letters slightly, but not completely: EFFVERSENECT.
F. Height over circumference right in the back boat (10) = HOVERCRAFT
Since I had good luck with the 12-letter clue, I next tried another long one. "Height" = H and "circumference" = C, but how should they go together? Obviously, they can't be consecutive. Hmm. Perhaps "over" is meant literally...that would give me "hoverc"...oh, duh..."hovercraft". It's a very basic charade: H+over+C+R+aft = "boat". Yay!
I. About to make music on series opener in Friends (5) = CHUMS
Five letters? Must be easy. That "series opener" means S. So, perhaps it's the letter S in a word that means "friends". Does "psals" mean "about to make music"? No. Um. Oh, wait..."About" could be either RE or C (as in circa). Five letter word that means "friends": either RE__S or C___S. Chums? Aha! "hum"="to make music".
G. Greasepaint can be obscured by spectacles (11)
Definitely an anagram. "Greasepaint" after all is eleven letters. "Spectacles" (the definition) probably does not indicate eyeglasses, but rather wild displays or shows of some sort. After a little anagrammic scribbling, I've got it! Speareating! Hm. Firstly, that's not plural and secondly I've never heard of speareating (though I imagine it puts the sword-swallowers to shame). I had to come back to this one with checked letters. With the G in third position, I finally saw the more sensible answer: PAGEANTRIES. Speareating was better, though considerably less correct.
M. Booth's primary character: mostly unpolished bad actor with a great carriage (8)
This one gave me a wonderful Aha moment. Eight letter word, clearly starting with B, that means either "great carriage" or "actor with great carriage". At one point, I suspected there would be a word, possibly from the theater, with the letters BBADACTO (B+ most of "bad actor" unpolished/anagrammed), but there wasn't--and besides that wouldn't really work. Then I supposed that "bad actor" was simply ham (it often is in these things) which gave me a word B____HAM with four letters inside that spelled most of a word meaning unpolished. "Raw"? No, that's only three letters. "Rough"? Take off the H (because of the "mostly") and put it in there for bROUGham...Yes! I know a Brougham de Ville is an old car (thankyou Tom Waits), so I'll bet a BROUGHAM is an old english carriage.
in a succession of knight's moves. These instructions will lead
you to the identity of the character in question."
A. Please check off article found in Paris (6) = TICKLE
Pretty good luck led me to this answer fairly quickly in that I guessed the answer right off. I'm often reminding others that despite the tricky word games, cryptic puzzles still work like regular crosswords: you just have to find a synonym for the clue. In this case the definition was pretty obviously "Please," since I can't imagine how that would be involved in the word game. "Article found in Paris" was simple since "french article" or "the french" are often used in the puzzles to represent "LE". So, what's a synonym for "please" that's six letters ending in LE? For whatever reason, the first thing that came to mind was "tickle". And to "tick" is to "check off," as on a list. Done.
H. I'm touring in Camelot--P.S., it's spirit lives on (9) = ECTOPLASM
Probably an anagram...not just the "touring" bit, but also the awkward "Camelot--P.S." give it away quickly. To editorialize a bit, I don't completely agree with this habit of Maltby's to write the clue as if the word were talking to you, even though it has a precedent in English riddles. Regardless, "I'm touring in" means "mix up the letters CAMELOTPS to get something that means spirit/ghost. I played with this one for a while...campostel, postalmec...but didn't get it until other clues gave me the first 4 letters. Answer: Ectoplasm. A weak clue.
J. Name makes appearance in verse. Effect: breaking out bubbly (12)
You want to solve the long clues early if you can, since they give you more letters for checking. This one turned out to be a piece of cake. What stands out & gives it away? The word "breaking"...anagram city. "Name" almost always indicates the letter N, so the clue is easily analyzed thus: The letter N plus the letters from "verse" and "effect" are rearranged to spell a synonym for "bubbly". The answer's not champagne, but it's close. Here, I'll let you figure it out by rearranging the letters slightly, but not completely: EFFVERSENECT.
F. Height over circumference right in the back boat (10) = HOVERCRAFT
Since I had good luck with the 12-letter clue, I next tried another long one. "Height" = H and "circumference" = C, but how should they go together? Obviously, they can't be consecutive. Hmm. Perhaps "over" is meant literally...that would give me "hoverc"...oh, duh..."hovercraft". It's a very basic charade: H+over+C+R+aft = "boat". Yay!
I. About to make music on series opener in Friends (5) = CHUMS
Five letters? Must be easy. That "series opener" means S. So, perhaps it's the letter S in a word that means "friends". Does "psals" mean "about to make music"? No. Um. Oh, wait..."About" could be either RE or C (as in circa). Five letter word that means "friends": either RE__S or C___S. Chums? Aha! "hum"="to make music".
G. Greasepaint can be obscured by spectacles (11)
Definitely an anagram. "Greasepaint" after all is eleven letters. "Spectacles" (the definition) probably does not indicate eyeglasses, but rather wild displays or shows of some sort. After a little anagrammic scribbling, I've got it! Speareating! Hm. Firstly, that's not plural and secondly I've never heard of speareating (though I imagine it puts the sword-swallowers to shame). I had to come back to this one with checked letters. With the G in third position, I finally saw the more sensible answer: PAGEANTRIES. Speareating was better, though considerably less correct.
M. Booth's primary character: mostly unpolished bad actor with a great carriage (8)
This one gave me a wonderful Aha moment. Eight letter word, clearly starting with B, that means either "great carriage" or "actor with great carriage". At one point, I suspected there would be a word, possibly from the theater, with the letters BBADACTO (B+ most of "bad actor" unpolished/anagrammed), but there wasn't--and besides that wouldn't really work. Then I supposed that "bad actor" was simply ham (it often is in these things) which gave me a word B____HAM with four letters inside that spelled most of a word meaning unpolished. "Raw"? No, that's only three letters. "Rough"? Take off the H (because of the "mostly") and put it in there for bROUGham...Yes! I know a Brougham de Ville is an old car (thankyou Tom Waits), so I'll bet a BROUGHAM is an old english carriage.
OK, so now things are getting tougher. I spend some time rereading clues and scratching my head until all of a sudden I remember that I have checked letters to help me fill things in. Duh!
B. Will present no need for her to be in there, say (7)
Nasty little clue, full of deceptions. That "say" at the end would lead one to think it was a sounds alike clue, but no. Fortunately, I didn't really have to puzzle it out, since checked letters gave me almost the whole word: _ESTATE.
Pay close attention: "Will present" is the definition, referring to a bequeather's documentary status at death. The rest is the game...like so: "no need for her to be in there" means we should take the letters HER out of the word THERE, leaving TE and "say" is a synonym for STATE. Thus: TESTATE. Nasty. Good thing I had all those letters.
C. Dance for a deck mixer? (7)
A tricky litttle double-definition this one, with a pun thrown in (indicated by the question mark).
I might eventually have thought of it, but fortunately I had a lot of the letters making short work: S__FFLE. See it?
A shuffle is a dance (though not one I would have thought of quickly) and a SHUFFLE also results in a mixed deck.
Yeah, I know...stupid.
L. Inauguration of hockey rink: fur coats able to be contracted (10) = SHRINKABLE
I had assumed that the last four letters of this one were ABLE or IBLE (assuming, pretty safely that "able to be contracted" or "to be contracted" was the definition--I doubt there's a word for "inauguration of hockey rink"). That's why I had the L for "shuffle" above. But still I had trouble cracking this one because of the trick played where you feel like it must start with H. It didn't help that the actual existence of the answer is questionable. Anyway, with a couple checked letters I saw what it must be--a container clue where "fur"(= sable), "coats" (goes around) "inauguration of hockey" (=H) and "rink" (=rink). Thus ShrinkABLE= "able to be contracted". Bleh.
K. Offer of returns: zero--head off talent scout (10) = TENDERFOOT
I can't really even say that I solved this one. Here are the checked letters I had:
TENDERFO_T. But to explain it, it's a basic in-order charade, broken into these pieces:
"Offer" = tender
"of returns" = fo
"zero" = o
"head off talent" = t
D. Old World figure makes big success close, reportedly (7) = HITTITE
Ditto this one, as I had checked letters for HI_TITE.
"big success" = hit + "close reportedly" means sound-alike for "tight".
E. England's initial trailer on releasing its very first Oscar-winning movie (7)
I have some serious issues with the syntax of this clue and its structure. Clearly, "Oscar-winning movie" is the definition, but the rest is told in reverse and "trailer on" is either incomplete or in the wrong verb tense. "England's initial" is, duh, the letter E, but this should say either "trails on" or "is a trailer on," in my opinion. In any event, the E comes last, after anagramming ("releasing"--also weak) ITS as TSI, with "very" (=TOO) "first". To paraphrase this cruel mess:
put an E after ITS anagrammed, with TOO first. At least the Oscar-winning film is one of the more deserving of that ever-dubious honor: TOOTSIE.
N. Find ring on broken faucet and stare down (7) = OUTFACE
Hey, I had the mechanics of this clue worked out right off...very basic anagram with an added letter--I bet even you novices can spot this one, right? You just put on O on the letters from FAUCET to get a synonym for "stare down". But perhaps you'd have the same problem I had...there's no such frigging word as "outface". I mean, yeah, it's in the dictionary, but...but...
So now the real trouble begins. This whacked out word (remember: knight's moves) search is much trouble...
of the fifth letter
take each successive
Update, that evening....got it:
B. Will present no need for her to be in there, say (7)
Nasty little clue, full of deceptions. That "say" at the end would lead one to think it was a sounds alike clue, but no. Fortunately, I didn't really have to puzzle it out, since checked letters gave me almost the whole word: _ESTATE.
Pay close attention: "Will present" is the definition, referring to a bequeather's documentary status at death. The rest is the game...like so: "no need for her to be in there" means we should take the letters HER out of the word THERE, leaving TE and "say" is a synonym for STATE. Thus: TESTATE. Nasty. Good thing I had all those letters.
C. Dance for a deck mixer? (7)
A tricky litttle double-definition this one, with a pun thrown in (indicated by the question mark).
I might eventually have thought of it, but fortunately I had a lot of the letters making short work: S__FFLE. See it?
A shuffle is a dance (though not one I would have thought of quickly) and a SHUFFLE also results in a mixed deck.
Yeah, I know...stupid.
L. Inauguration of hockey rink: fur coats able to be contracted (10) = SHRINKABLE
I had assumed that the last four letters of this one were ABLE or IBLE (assuming, pretty safely that "able to be contracted" or "to be contracted" was the definition--I doubt there's a word for "inauguration of hockey rink"). That's why I had the L for "shuffle" above. But still I had trouble cracking this one because of the trick played where you feel like it must start with H. It didn't help that the actual existence of the answer is questionable. Anyway, with a couple checked letters I saw what it must be--a container clue where "fur"(= sable), "coats" (goes around) "inauguration of hockey" (=H) and "rink" (=rink). Thus ShrinkABLE= "able to be contracted". Bleh.
K. Offer of returns: zero--head off talent scout (10) = TENDERFOOT
I can't really even say that I solved this one. Here are the checked letters I had:
TENDERFO_T. But to explain it, it's a basic in-order charade, broken into these pieces:
"Offer" = tender
"of returns" = fo
"zero" = o
"head off talent" = t
D. Old World figure makes big success close, reportedly (7) = HITTITE
Ditto this one, as I had checked letters for HI_TITE.
"big success" = hit + "close reportedly" means sound-alike for "tight".
E. England's initial trailer on releasing its very first Oscar-winning movie (7)
I have some serious issues with the syntax of this clue and its structure. Clearly, "Oscar-winning movie" is the definition, but the rest is told in reverse and "trailer on" is either incomplete or in the wrong verb tense. "England's initial" is, duh, the letter E, but this should say either "trails on" or "is a trailer on," in my opinion. In any event, the E comes last, after anagramming ("releasing"--also weak) ITS as TSI, with "very" (=TOO) "first". To paraphrase this cruel mess:
put an E after ITS anagrammed, with TOO first. At least the Oscar-winning film is one of the more deserving of that ever-dubious honor: TOOTSIE.
N. Find ring on broken faucet and stare down (7) = OUTFACE
Hey, I had the mechanics of this clue worked out right off...very basic anagram with an added letter--I bet even you novices can spot this one, right? You just put on O on the letters from FAUCET to get a synonym for "stare down". But perhaps you'd have the same problem I had...there's no such frigging word as "outface". I mean, yeah, it's in the dictionary, but...but...
So now the real trouble begins. This whacked out word (remember: knight's moves) search is much trouble...
| G | M | S | F | I | O | C | F |
| I | T | N | O | C | I | D | B |
| U | F | L | S | T | E | E | U |
| H | V | T | R | H | E | E | A |
| A | P | E | E | R | O | S | T |
| R | T | E | O | A | T | R | H |
| L | N | E | F | M | W | A | H |
| T | O | O | S | K | C | T | E |
of the fifth letter
take each successive
Update, that evening....got it:
| G | | | | I | | | |
| | | N | | | | D | |
| | F | | | | E | | |
| | | | R | | | | A |
| | | | | R | O | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| | | | | M | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| | M | | | | O | | |
| | | | O | | | | B |
| U | | | | T | | | |
| | | T | | | | E | |
| | P | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | H |
| | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | T | |
| | | | F | | | | F |
| | T | | | | I | | |
| | | | | | | E | |
| H | | | | H | | | |
| | | | | | | | T |
| | | | O | | T | | |
| L | | |