Eurhythmy

The word above, “eurhythmy” is a solution to a clue in an anacrostic I completed yesterday. It is a new word for me.

In case you’ve not done an anacrostic, sometimes called just acrostic, it is like a crossword puzzle with the following complications:

• The ultimate solution is a quotation from a published work. All of the letters are numbered one to however many (170 in this case).
• There are clues to solve, and solution to each clue is spelled out on blanks, under which are numbers that correspond to the quotation, so that those letters are moved above.
• The first letter to the clues will spell out the author of the quote and name of the work.
• There is a lot of back and forth between quotation and clues, otherwise I think the puzzle would be insoluble.

In this case, the quotation is from James Thurber and his 1950 book The Thirteen Clocks. It reads as follows:

“The minstrel wondered if the duke would order him to cause a fall of purple snow or make a table out of sawdust or slit him from his guggle to his zatch and say “There lies your latest fool. I’ll feed him to the geese.”

There is a word “guggle” as in water going down a drain. “Zatch” is not a word, but Urban Dictionary steps up for us – it is a term for female genitalia. That’s right up there with space docking.

Imagine my consternation that parts of the quotation seemed to be nonsense words, usually a sign that a clue is incorrectly answered. Also, try to solve the missing letters for this:

F: Harmonious motion or proportion:  _ _ T _ Y _ H M _.

Clues are often difficult, and require some looking up in atlases or dictionaries, but seldom leave  me with brand new words, as this one did. As you can imagine, given oddball words and the above clue, it was a work of art to solve, and great fun.

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The picture to the side here was an iPhone snapshot taken by my wife last year in the Italian Dolomites. The horses are known as Haflingers. They are smaller than average, and so used for light tasks like pulling buggies or chariots. They are known to have sweet dispositions, and so make great pets.

I liked the photo so much that I cleaned it up using Affinity Photo, removing an electric fence in the foreground and some power lines and a small shed on the distant hillside. I wanted to remove the small pony behind these two, but my skills are not enough – I left lines and the program wanted to expand the leg of the left pony rather than fill it with grass. So I left it.

I framed it in barnwood, and wanted it in my office, as my wife’s is quite filled with photos. Mine is full too, so something had to go. I decided on the photo to the left, which I took back in the 1980s. It is of a man named Steve J, and we were in Yellowstone National Park. I looked at him skiing ahead of me and thought it appropriate that he was all alone, set next to a lone tree.

Steve committed suicide in 1998. I was in grief, and framed that photo, and on the matting around it wrote down all of the places we had traveled and hiked and skied together.

It was usually just me and him. We had a larger group of friends in Billings, but for the most part they had abandoned the mountains and were out on the prairie puddles drinking beer and fishing from their boats. Steve was a heavy drinker, and so I rarely saw him in the city.

He often needed to get away, to have clean and sober adventures. He did this either alone or he called me, and we went together.  When we went on those trips he did not drink, and even better, did not smoke. In our early years I was a smoker, but I quit in 1990 and was determined that I would accumulate equipment and experience and knowledge to manage the mountains on my own. When I met my wife in 1995, I was ready to show her those mountains, and that was much of our courtship.

I’ve had the Steve photo in my office for years now, but when it came time to decided between Haflingers or him, I chose the former. After all, as much as I enjoyed our backcountry experiences, and as much as he taught me, he drank himself to death. I do not, should not honor that. But he was knee-deep in it, and could not change his habits.

For that reason, he is now behind my office door. I often wonder how he would have aged (he died at age 46 as I recall). As a postal carrier he was wearing out his legs and ankles, walking a downtown route in Billings and loaded down with mail. He was tiring … our last trip together was around Yellowstone Lake over to Heart Lake. That trip must have been close to 1998, as he never did another trip before his exit.

Sad note to add to this, another friend, Jim, found him that morning after he used carbon monoxide for his end … his head was sticking out from under the garage door, which had closed on him. He was trying to extricate himself, maybe wanting to die another day.

But so much for Steve J. Life is for the living, and some of us can hack it better than others. He was just not up to it. Going though his things after his death I found a notebook. He was from New Jersey, and prior to moving to Montana he would do trips to various National Parks. He had a girlfriend who had moved from NJ to either Tennessee or Kentucky, and he went to visit her. He stayed one night either with or nearby her, and then went off by himself into the Great Smoky Mountains. His writing was full of youthful enthusiasm, as on awaking one morning he wrote in large letters “A BLACK BEAR!!!” He enjoyed the outdoors, even alone.

On return to his girlfriend’s place she was not home. She left for him on her front porch a six pack of beer. He never saw her again. And, dammit, she was right, he had nothing to offer her. That was his fault. He did not man up to this job called life.

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Speaking of Steve J, the guy used to kick my ass at chess. I was a little resentful, as I was a CPA, he a mere postal carrier (“glorified paper route” as he called it). I was supposed to be smarter than him. But I have also noticed that I am lousy not only at chess, but also checkers. It seems that anyone can cream me – I just don’t see the surrounding topography and am constantly taken by surprise, a triple jump or losing a queen or another important piece. Can it be, oh can it be, that this means I am not as smart as I think I am?

(Yes.)

On the other hand, we sat at a restaurant for Fort Rockvale one morning on our way to the Beartooths. As was my habit, I put 25 cents in a poker machine. Never more on any given day. That was my max. If I won, I would play with winnings until losing became painful. Usually I just just lost the quarter. On that particular day I hit it big, winning $25.00 – I collected my winnings and sat down for breakfast, telling Steve what happened. He lectured me! I said I had to get back and keep on playing, as when a poker machine pays, it keeps on paying until they unplug it. I refused. Does this mean I am smarter than him? (On that day, that morning, (yes.))

There’s a new version of Monopoly around called Monopoly Deal. It is played only with cards, and the games do not last long, maybe half an hour with five people. I also get my ass kicked at that game. I just am not cognizant of what is going on around me. Does this mean I am not as smart as I think I am? (Again, yes.)