August 23, 2024 • 23 mins
Hello, Puzzlers! Puzzling with us today: our very own Chief Puzzle Officer, Greg Pliska.
Join host A.J. Jacobs and his guests as they puzzle–and laugh–their way through new spins on old favorites, like anagrams and palindromes, as well as quirky originals such as “Ask Chat GPT” and audio rebuses.
Subscribe to The Puzzler podcast wherever you get your podcasts!
"The Puzzler with A.J. Jacobs" is distributed by iHeartPodcasts and is a co-production with Neuhaus Ideas.
Our executive producers are Neely Lohmann and Adam Neuhaus of Neuhaus Ideas, and Lindsay Hoffman of iHeart Podcasts.
The show is produced by Jody Avirgan and Brittani Brown of Roulette Productions.
Our Chief Puzzle Officer is Greg Pliska. Our associate producer is Andrea Schoenberg.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello, Puzzlers, Welcome to the Puzzler Podcast the Grapefruit Sorbet
between your puzzle Courses. I'm your host, A J. Jacobson.
I am here in the Sleek iHeart Studios with Chief
Puzzle Officer Greg Fliska. Hey Greg, Hey a Jay.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Thanks for having me here again. I don't know if
we did that grapefruit sorbet one before, but you know what,
it doesn't matter because grapefruit sorbet is delicious.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
There you go. The more times we can add the more,
the better. Yes we are. We're going to pretend that
if we did do it, it was on purpose as
like a little easter egg.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
For those who have listened, listened exactly exactly. It's our
new sponsor, grapefruit Sorbet. Well, it's my turn to talk, yes,
because right I'm I'm yes, I'm up from the puzzle
ab and I I brought a puzzle for you to
do today. But first I had a question. You've done
a lot of different jobs in your career as a writer, right,
(01:07):
things that you've done either for a day or two
part of research, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Well, I was I wrote a book about the Bible,
and I was a shepherd. I was a shepherd for
a day.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
And got to got to shepherd sheep, got.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
To shepherd sheep who are very sheep like they do
follow orders. So that was nice. And yeah, I've done
I loved I loved doing part time gigs.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Well, if I'm correct, you've spent some time as a dissectologist.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
I'm not sure you are correct. Is that true?
Speaker 2 (01:36):
You have that is a person who loves doing jigsaw puzzles.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
I love it. I did not know that word.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Do you know where that term dissectologist comes from?
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Well, wasn't that The original name of the jigsaw was
dissected maps?
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Dissected maps? Yes, John Spillsbury invented them. There you go
and took maps and then broke them into pieces and
you had to put them back.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Together, right, And he was British, And as I pointed
out in the book, that was sort of training for
the British colonials because they would take a map of
the world of carve it up.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Oh right, they would in fact carve it out which
pieces were theirs. I think it was a symbolic training. Well,
you know, as you mentioned, jigsaw puzzles are in the
book and it seemed like a fun thing to do
a puzzle about. So what we're going to do today,
it's kind of this or that puzzle. I'm going to
give you a word or a phrase, and you have
(02:31):
to guess if it's some kind of jigsaw puzzle terminology
or the name of a square dance move.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Oh, okay, fascinating.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
So each of these is either from the world of
jigsaw puzzles or it's a move in square dancing. Love
it all right, You simply have to guess which it is.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
I mean, I know little about jigsaws, I know nothing
about square dancing.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
So it turns out there are hundreds of moves in
square lancing. Yeah. I can guarantee you doci do will
not be part of this puzzle. That'd be too easy.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Well there goes the only one I know.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Okay, all right, So here's your first one. Ribbon cut.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
A ribbon cut is that in jigsaws or square dancing?
I'm going I haven't heard it in jigsaw, so I'm
saying square dancing.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Oh, got you right up front? It was a jigsaw term.
It refers to pieces that are cut in an orderly,
grid like fashion. So money most jigsaw puzzles are ribbon cut. Oh,
I say puzzle. You know the cuts are kind of symmetrical.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Grid like I see, but not square like that.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
That would be impossible.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
That would be very hard, very hard. Actually, some of
the very early jigsaws were like just a bunch of squares, yeah,
which is not that creative.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
I we did a there's a tangent but the mit
mystery hunt as you participate and you know. But my
one year, I think I helped create a puzzle that
was a sort of jigsaw puzzle, except what we did
was take the image and put it through a shredder,
so you had to reassemble the whole puzzle from all
(03:59):
the shredded peace, which is similarly impossible.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Right, that is like I've seen that in three days
of a condor or someone.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Yes, exactly. We're laying out all the strips. All right,
here's your next one. Left hand star.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Left hands. All right, Well, I'm just gonna keep going
square dance.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
That is a square dancing move. Yes, it's a star
formed with everyone's left hand in the middle.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Okay, that makes sense, left hand.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Left hand star.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Whimsy, Oh that one I happened to. Whimsy is and
a whimsy is in the jigsaw world. It's a whimsical
shape for a jigsaw puzzle piece, so it might be
in the shape of a cowboy or a fish or something.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Like those lines butterfly in the middle of the puzzle exactly,
is it like? It's kind of like an easter egg
for the solver, right.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
And sometimes it's linked to the puzzle. So if it
was a fit a puzzle portraying an aquarium, you might
have a fish as a wind Oh.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Got it, got it. I also learned that the pieces
that surround the whimsy are called anti whimsy.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
This I did not know what's good.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
We here at the puzzler are not anti whimsy. Just
to be clear, we are the whimsy in your jigsaw puzzle.
Use that next episode good on the whimsy in your
jigsaw puzzle. All right, here's another one. Fractional tops.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Fractional tops interesting, I mean that does I'm gonna say fractions.
It reminds me of puzzles, so I'm just gonna go
for puzzles.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Ah, you should have stuck with square dancing. That's a
square dancing one's fractional tops. It's an eight person rotation
that only goes part of the way around.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
I have no idea what that means.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
I will be honest with you. When I looked up
all these square dancing moves, there are glossaries of square
dancing online. You can find hundreds of moves described. The
explanations are completely incomprehensible to non square dancers, so I've
tried to summarize them make them short. Heir apologies to
the square dancing fans who are offended by my I
miss descriptions.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Well, I mean, they shouldn't be that offensive, because even
the name square dancing sounds like a misnomer, because if
you've got these eight sided.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Right, it should be octagon dancing.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Octagon dancing.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Yeah, exactly, all right, here's another one for you. Ends
bend ends, bend e n d s b e n d.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Oh man, you are getting me because I don't Yeah,
I haven't heard that. In Jake Saw there are Jakesaw
puzzles that don't have the rectangular shape, which we'll talk
about in a moment, so they could be called ends bends.
I'm just gonna go with the square dancing.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
You're correct. In square dancing, it's where a row of
four dancers, the two outer dancers cand of turned inward,
so the ends bend towards the inside. But it could
be a jigsaw term.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
That's why it's a good puzzle.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
What about this one false edge?
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Well, that one I feel is that one is very
jigsaw like because in these tricky puzzles that we'll talk
about in a moment, they have these pieces that look
like an edge exactly. They're flat, but they are in
the middle of the puzzle. Very tricky.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
An interior piece with a flat side, Yeah, very tricky.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Love them.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Okay, a few more here. Split corner.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
All right, I'm gonna go again with square dancing.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Oh no, it's not, though it sounds like a square
dancing move, right, Well that's yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Why if your.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Partner docy dough split your corner or off you go?
You know you could imagine split corner.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Well, let me try to guess what that would be.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
It would be similar to the false edge. Actually split corner.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
So it's not a real corner. It's a false corner.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Well, it's specifically, it's where the corner is split on
a diagonal in half.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Piece.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
It looks more pointed, but it turns out the two
split corners fit together. Form a corner.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
They are sadists. Those jigs on me.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
That's their jobs, that's their jumps. Box counter rotate.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Well, square box, that's my very primitive logic. That's just
going to take me to square dance.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
It's a good logic. It is a square dance moved.
A box is a group of four, and when the
group of four in the center of a larger group
rotates the opposite direction. Okay, it's a box counter rotate.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
So if you're a squared dancer, you have to know
these thousands of names.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
I guess when you get really deep into it. Yeah,
it gets really complicated. Wow, right, this is we're here
to illuminate. Maybe we should do a square dancing episode.
I liked that one box counter rotate because it's actually
sounded like something that my wife and I do when
we're doing a jigsaw, right, because you have the box
there right to look at and when you turn it
so you can see it.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Oh right, right, So box counter rotate surely makes total sense.
And there are there are jigs enthusiasts who refuse to
look at the box, so that might be like box
counter box ignorers, right.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Yeah, right, right, counter anti box counter rotation exactly would
be that one. There's also a term in Jigsaw, the
premium poster, the term for the poster that sometimes comes
with the puzzle that shows you damage, which I guess
you if you're a purist, you burn that out. You
never look at it.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
I was just doing I was doing a cat puzzle
in my parents and we have the premium poster.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yep, it helps, it helps, all right. Your last one
dancing man.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
A dancing met Well, I mean the obvious is uh,
it seems too clearly dancing related. So I feel that
that is a your misdirection. However, it could be a
misdirection to a miss.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Direction right exactly.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
But I'm gonna sick stick with the miss planal misdirection
to say that it's it's a.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
It is in fact a Jigsaw term. You can you
know what it is?
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Well, I feel that we're going to talk about this
place called the Stave Puzzles, and they have a they
have a court jester as their signature piece. So is
it something like that.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Well, well, it is. It is a description of a piece.
It's a piece with a knob at the top, okay,
like a head, and then blanks on the other three sides.
That looks like a little dancing man.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Oh I love it. Yeah, a dancing man with no limbs.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Oh no, those limbs right, The holes make they look
like two arms. I mean the studio moving my arms
like I'm a dancing man.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
No, I get it.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
But if yeah, if you imagine the holes on the
two sides in the bottom, that means the other space,
the remaining part of the piece looks like two arms
and two legs dancing.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Very clever, very clever. I love it.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
I've got a couple extra credits. But uh, let's talk
some more about the jigsaw puzzles in the book or
jigsaw puzzles in general, and then we'll come back to those.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Absolutely I loved. I've talked before about my family's ill
fated trip to compete in the World Jigsaw Puzzle Championships
in Spain, where we came in second to last, so
we won't go into that, but you can listen on
other episodes. But I thought maybe I could talk about
my other trip to a little factory in Vermont where
(11:20):
they create some of the most frustrating jigsaw puzzles known
to humankind. And it's called Stave and it's been around
since the nineteen seventies. First of all, they're not just
really hard, they're really expensive. They are fancy, fancy. They
are we're talking four hundred dollars for the cheapest, and
(11:42):
they go up to ten thousand dollars because they are
wood cut, and they each are unique. And you go
there and they're these people sitting at what looked like
sort of demented sewing machines, and they're really just like
they're they have their jigsaw and they're creating these wild
(12:05):
shapes out of these puzzles. And some of them are
the whimsy pieces he talked about, so they could be
in you know, the Court Jester.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
But well, wait, so each puzzle is completely unique.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
It is they are guided by their muse on the puzzle.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
It could be there could be the same image cut
many different times, but each one has cut a different
way by whatever someone feels like doing. There's not planning,
and no.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
They're they're artists. Wow, And yeah, so it is. It's remarkable.
And they are the hardest puzzles that I have, well
physical puzzles that I've ever done. It's I mean, they
are hilariously hard. Because the founder whose name is Steve Richardson. Uh.
He calls himself Chief Tormentor because like he's very proud
(12:55):
of making people unhappy. He loves getting fan mail like
r like, that's the whole fan mail.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
We get mail like that.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
That's occasionally. Yeah, we I think are much nicer, we
get we yeah, exactly. So they have all sorts of tricks,
like the false edges. They've got pieces in there that
are from other Jigsaw puzzles that just don't even fit.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
That's not fair, well, we said, like leftover pieces they
drop in the box with the ones they're sending you. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
fake out pieces that.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Well, they give you a hint and they say, you know,
there are two pieces that don't don't belong. But then
they you know, there are sometimes no edges, there are
holes in the middle, there are three D things. They're
pieces that fit but don't make sense. And I asked him,
actually asked Steve, what is the hardest of all of
your puzzles and he said, it's hard. It's hard to choose,
(13:52):
but probably this one called Olivia. And I said, well,
can I try it? He said no, No, that's what
makes it so hard.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
You can't actually do it. So no one has solved
it because no one's allowed to do it.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Well, you are allowed, but you have to work up
to it. So he had to send me a bunch
of starter puzzles to work up to Olivia. And Olivia.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
It's because it's so hard you wouldn't even like, yeah,
you have to earn it. You have to earn it,
got it. You have to earn your Olivia.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
And it's not that many pieces. I forget how many.
It's like, you know, five hundred pieces. But the trick
is it's it's in the shape of an octopus, but
the pieces fit together in many different ways, but only
one way is the correct way. If only one way
will the octopus actually fit inside a coral reef, which
(14:37):
is also part of the puzzle. But yes, so we
did it, and I did it. Took me many many
weeks to do it. And I did it with one
of my nieces, not Andrea, another niece. Oh no, Andrea
helped to But yeah, this other niece, Ali said she
you know, she literally screamed, stormed out of the room
several times, said I hate this puzzle. So you know,
(15:00):
if you like that kind of puzzle, this is a
great one.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Well it is look that we I think this is
also a lesson from the book. But part of the
joy of the you know, solving a puzzle is is getting,
you know, up against the challenge and making it through.
It's that aha moment or the moment you go, oh
got it, Oh, I get it. You know, we hear
with our guests all the time when when you hear
somebody say, oh, I don't know, Oh, I know, that
(15:25):
moment of aha is exciting. And that's true with the
jigsaw too, when you find the piece and you finally
figure out where it goes and it fits and it's
very satisfying.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
So right, and the more the frustration, the bigger the moment, perhaps.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
One hopes, one hopes, but here I have a question.
So I would have thought that the hardest puzzles would
be the ones where all the pieces are very much
the same as opposed to what these pieces. These pieces
sound like. You've got a lot of whimsy and a
lot of interesting shapes, and it feels like it should
be easier because they're not all cookie cutter pieces.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Well, that's interesting. There is another famous puzzle called the
Eternity Puzzle that came out I'm going to get it wrong,
but I think in the nineteen eighties, and it was
very similar to that. All the pieces were very similar.
They all looked like sort of Midwestern states.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Like oh Utah, all like squarish.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Very squarish. And the guy who designed it actually said
it was in Britain and he said it is impossible
to solve even with a computer. And he said I
will give one million pound prize to anyone who solves it.
And what I love is that these two brilliant computer
(16:43):
scientists from I think it was Cambridge designed. They figured
out a way that it was solvable by computers because
they broke it up into parts. They didn't try to
do the whole thing. I mean this was when computers
were slower. But if you tried to get the computer
to do the whole calculation, it would take long decades.
(17:04):
But if you break it up. So they got it
and they and they won. They he had to pay
them the one million pounds, and I at points I
felt bad for him, but I looked him up. He
was kind of a weird character.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
He was.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
His other big obsession is climate change denial. He's like
one of the top climate change denialists, and so I
was like, all right, I guess.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
He deserved it. Yeah, they're also those puzzles that are
all one color.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Oh yes, I love those.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
You love those.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
I love the concept that I do not love, right,
And that was there was actually a sort of a
a fad of those types of puzzles in I think
it was the nineteen seventies, and they would have these
cute names like snow White without the seven Dwarfs and
it was all white, or little Red riding Hood's Hood
(18:03):
was all red, all read yep. And actually it reminded me.
I had a book when I was a kid, and
I can't find it on Google, so if anyone remembers,
but it was a it was a blank book, but
every page had a caption like polar Bear eating vanilla
ice cream in a blizzard. That kind of yes, I
(18:24):
remember this book, the same joke, which I love. I
love that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
I you know. I we talked about the working on
the Puzzler book during COVID, which was a nice way
to spend all our time in isolation. The other thing
that we did in my family, and I'm sure everyone
else did, was by Jigsaw puzzles. I've got twenty jigsaw
puzzles at home, all bought during that year and a
half or whatever when all we could do is sit
at home and do jigsauce.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Yeah, no, it was. I remember when I interviewed them.
They one of the factories said, we're on wartime footing.
It was like the world World War.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Two America and World War two except for producing jigsaw
puzzles for you know, lockdown stricken exact Americans.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
So it was. Yes, it was a wonderful time for jigsaws.
But I feel like it has gone down since then,
but it's still higher than it was than pre COVID.
And it was also the Depression was a great time
for jigsaws. I think. Yeah, world crises are very sucond
home with nothing to do, exact, spend a lot of
(19:27):
time with a jigsaw. That's it.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
And unlike some other puzzles, you can do them again
and again. True, right, they continue. You break it all apart,
it's not really that much easier to assemble it, you know.
I mean, I guess if there's some tricky split corners
or things like that, you'll know that that gimmick is coming.
But for the most part, when you break all the
pieces up, you don't know which one goes with which
(19:50):
one any better than you did the first time? Right?
Speaker 1 (19:53):
And some people, Yeah, some of my jigsaw fanatic friends
do these over and over. They're also so you don't
have to spend all of your salary on jigsawce there
like trading clubs, jigsaw library of that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
So that I recommend, I recommend that we've got a
bunch at home. If anybody wants one, come on over
to the puzzle lab.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Look at that full service. Well, Greg, do you have
a jigsaw extra credit? Well?
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Remember now this is the extra credit here is These
are either jigsaw terms or square dancing moves.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Got it?
Speaker 2 (20:28):
So I'm going to give you two for your extra credit,
and you have to tell me which one is.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Which I get to relax. Which is nice?
Speaker 2 (20:34):
You can just contemplate this all right. Your extra credit
words are matchmaking and the other one is alamo mix
up a mix up?
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Okay, think about that. Do some square dancing or some jigsawing.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
And then or both at once or both at once?
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Oh tricky.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
While listening to the puzzlerting like and reviewing us, rating
us and all the things you're supposed to do. Checking
out our Instagram.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Instagram at Hello Puzzlers, where they have original puzzles. So
check that out and we will meet you here tomorrow
for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Hey puzzlers, it's Greg Pliska up from the Puzzle Lab
with an extra credit answer from our previous episode. David
Wayne was our guest and we did some I rhymes.
I rhymes are words that look like they should rhyme,
but they don't. We have a lot of these in English.
In English, your extra credit clue was an arrangement of
flowers at a fancy diner, and the answer, of course
(21:43):
is banquet bouquet because the qu e t at the
ends of those two words looks like it might rhyme,
but it doesn't. Thanks for playing and we'll see you
next time. Thanks for playing along with the team here
at the Puzzler with AJ Jacobs. I'm Greg Pliska, your
(22:05):
chief puzzle Officer. Our executive producers are Neelie Lohman and
Adam Neuhouse of New House Ideas and Lindsay Hoffman of
iHeart Podcasts. The show is produced by Jody Averrigan and
Brittany Brown of Roulette Productions, with production support from Claire
Bidegar Curtis. Our associate producer is Andrea Schoenberg. The Puzzler
(22:26):
with AJ Jacobs is a co production with New House
Ideas and is distributed by AH Despotic Arts No distributed
by iHeart Podcasts. If you want to know more about
puzzling puzzles, please check out the book The Puzzler by
AJ Jacobs, a history of puzzles that The New York
Times called fun and funny. It features an original puzzle
(22:50):
hunt by Yours Truly and is available wherever you get
your books and puzzlers. For all your puzzling needs, go
visit the puzzler dot com. See you there,
Hello, Puzzlers, Welcome to the Puzzler Podcast the Grapefruit Sorbet
between your puzzle Courses. I'm your host, A J. Jacobson.
I am here in the Sleek iHeart Studios with Chief
Puzzle Officer Greg Fliska. Hey Greg, Hey a Jay.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Thanks for having me here again. I don't know if
we did that grapefruit sorbet one before, but you know what,
it doesn't matter because grapefruit sorbet is delicious.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
There you go. The more times we can add the more,
the better. Yes we are. We're going to pretend that
if we did do it, it was on purpose as
like a little easter egg.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
For those who have listened, listened exactly exactly. It's our
new sponsor, grapefruit Sorbet. Well, it's my turn to talk, yes,
because right I'm I'm yes, I'm up from the puzzle
ab and I I brought a puzzle for you to
do today. But first I had a question. You've done
a lot of different jobs in your career as a writer, right,
(01:07):
things that you've done either for a day or two
part of research, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Well, I was I wrote a book about the Bible,
and I was a shepherd. I was a shepherd for
a day.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
And got to got to shepherd sheep, got.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
To shepherd sheep who are very sheep like they do
follow orders. So that was nice. And yeah, I've done
I loved I loved doing part time gigs.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Well, if I'm correct, you've spent some time as a dissectologist.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
I'm not sure you are correct. Is that true?
Speaker 2 (01:36):
You have that is a person who loves doing jigsaw puzzles.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
I love it. I did not know that word.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Do you know where that term dissectologist comes from?
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Well, wasn't that The original name of the jigsaw was
dissected maps?
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Dissected maps? Yes, John Spillsbury invented them. There you go
and took maps and then broke them into pieces and
you had to put them back.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Together, right, And he was British, And as I pointed
out in the book, that was sort of training for
the British colonials because they would take a map of
the world of carve it up.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Oh right, they would in fact carve it out which
pieces were theirs. I think it was a symbolic training. Well,
you know, as you mentioned, jigsaw puzzles are in the
book and it seemed like a fun thing to do
a puzzle about. So what we're going to do today,
it's kind of this or that puzzle. I'm going to
give you a word or a phrase, and you have
(02:31):
to guess if it's some kind of jigsaw puzzle terminology
or the name of a square dance move.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Oh, okay, fascinating.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
So each of these is either from the world of
jigsaw puzzles or it's a move in square dancing. Love
it all right, You simply have to guess which it is.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
I mean, I know little about jigsaws, I know nothing
about square dancing.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
So it turns out there are hundreds of moves in
square lancing. Yeah. I can guarantee you doci do will
not be part of this puzzle. That'd be too easy.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Well there goes the only one I know.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Okay, all right, So here's your first one. Ribbon cut.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
A ribbon cut is that in jigsaws or square dancing?
I'm going I haven't heard it in jigsaw, so I'm
saying square dancing.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Oh, got you right up front? It was a jigsaw term.
It refers to pieces that are cut in an orderly,
grid like fashion. So money most jigsaw puzzles are ribbon cut. Oh,
I say puzzle. You know the cuts are kind of symmetrical.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Grid like I see, but not square like that.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
That would be impossible.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
That would be very hard, very hard. Actually, some of
the very early jigsaws were like just a bunch of squares, yeah,
which is not that creative.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
I we did a there's a tangent but the mit
mystery hunt as you participate and you know. But my
one year, I think I helped create a puzzle that
was a sort of jigsaw puzzle, except what we did
was take the image and put it through a shredder,
so you had to reassemble the whole puzzle from all
(03:59):
the shredded peace, which is similarly impossible.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Right, that is like I've seen that in three days
of a condor or someone.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Yes, exactly. We're laying out all the strips. All right,
here's your next one. Left hand star.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Left hands. All right, Well, I'm just gonna keep going
square dance.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
That is a square dancing move. Yes, it's a star
formed with everyone's left hand in the middle.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Okay, that makes sense, left hand.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Left hand star.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Whimsy, Oh that one I happened to. Whimsy is and
a whimsy is in the jigsaw world. It's a whimsical
shape for a jigsaw puzzle piece, so it might be
in the shape of a cowboy or a fish or something.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Like those lines butterfly in the middle of the puzzle exactly,
is it like? It's kind of like an easter egg
for the solver, right.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
And sometimes it's linked to the puzzle. So if it
was a fit a puzzle portraying an aquarium, you might
have a fish as a wind Oh.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Got it, got it. I also learned that the pieces
that surround the whimsy are called anti whimsy.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
This I did not know what's good.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
We here at the puzzler are not anti whimsy. Just
to be clear, we are the whimsy in your jigsaw puzzle.
Use that next episode good on the whimsy in your
jigsaw puzzle. All right, here's another one. Fractional tops.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Fractional tops interesting, I mean that does I'm gonna say fractions.
It reminds me of puzzles, so I'm just gonna go
for puzzles.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Ah, you should have stuck with square dancing. That's a
square dancing one's fractional tops. It's an eight person rotation
that only goes part of the way around.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
I have no idea what that means.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
I will be honest with you. When I looked up
all these square dancing moves, there are glossaries of square
dancing online. You can find hundreds of moves described. The
explanations are completely incomprehensible to non square dancers, so I've
tried to summarize them make them short. Heir apologies to
the square dancing fans who are offended by my I
miss descriptions.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Well, I mean, they shouldn't be that offensive, because even
the name square dancing sounds like a misnomer, because if
you've got these eight sided.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Right, it should be octagon dancing.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Octagon dancing.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Yeah, exactly, all right, here's another one for you. Ends
bend ends, bend e n d s b e n d.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Oh man, you are getting me because I don't Yeah,
I haven't heard that. In Jake Saw there are Jakesaw
puzzles that don't have the rectangular shape, which we'll talk
about in a moment, so they could be called ends bends.
I'm just gonna go with the square dancing.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
You're correct. In square dancing, it's where a row of
four dancers, the two outer dancers cand of turned inward,
so the ends bend towards the inside. But it could
be a jigsaw term.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
That's why it's a good puzzle.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
What about this one false edge?
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Well, that one I feel is that one is very
jigsaw like because in these tricky puzzles that we'll talk
about in a moment, they have these pieces that look
like an edge exactly. They're flat, but they are in
the middle of the puzzle. Very tricky.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
An interior piece with a flat side, Yeah, very tricky.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Love them.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Okay, a few more here. Split corner.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
All right, I'm gonna go again with square dancing.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Oh no, it's not, though it sounds like a square
dancing move, right, Well that's yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Why if your.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Partner docy dough split your corner or off you go?
You know you could imagine split corner.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Well, let me try to guess what that would be.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
It would be similar to the false edge. Actually split corner.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
So it's not a real corner. It's a false corner.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Well, it's specifically, it's where the corner is split on
a diagonal in half.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Piece.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
It looks more pointed, but it turns out the two
split corners fit together. Form a corner.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
They are sadists. Those jigs on me.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
That's their jobs, that's their jumps. Box counter rotate.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Well, square box, that's my very primitive logic. That's just
going to take me to square dance.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
It's a good logic. It is a square dance moved.
A box is a group of four, and when the
group of four in the center of a larger group
rotates the opposite direction. Okay, it's a box counter rotate.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
So if you're a squared dancer, you have to know
these thousands of names.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
I guess when you get really deep into it. Yeah,
it gets really complicated. Wow, right, this is we're here
to illuminate. Maybe we should do a square dancing episode.
I liked that one box counter rotate because it's actually
sounded like something that my wife and I do when
we're doing a jigsaw, right, because you have the box
there right to look at and when you turn it
so you can see it.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Oh right, right, So box counter rotate surely makes total sense.
And there are there are jigs enthusiasts who refuse to
look at the box, so that might be like box
counter box ignorers, right.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Yeah, right, right, counter anti box counter rotation exactly would
be that one. There's also a term in Jigsaw, the
premium poster, the term for the poster that sometimes comes
with the puzzle that shows you damage, which I guess
you if you're a purist, you burn that out. You
never look at it.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
I was just doing I was doing a cat puzzle
in my parents and we have the premium poster.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yep, it helps, it helps, all right. Your last one
dancing man.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
A dancing met Well, I mean the obvious is uh,
it seems too clearly dancing related. So I feel that
that is a your misdirection. However, it could be a
misdirection to a miss.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Direction right exactly.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
But I'm gonna sick stick with the miss planal misdirection
to say that it's it's a.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
It is in fact a Jigsaw term. You can you
know what it is?
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Well, I feel that we're going to talk about this
place called the Stave Puzzles, and they have a they
have a court jester as their signature piece. So is
it something like that.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Well, well, it is. It is a description of a piece.
It's a piece with a knob at the top, okay,
like a head, and then blanks on the other three sides.
That looks like a little dancing man.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Oh I love it. Yeah, a dancing man with no limbs.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Oh no, those limbs right, The holes make they look
like two arms. I mean the studio moving my arms
like I'm a dancing man.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
No, I get it.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
But if yeah, if you imagine the holes on the
two sides in the bottom, that means the other space,
the remaining part of the piece looks like two arms
and two legs dancing.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Very clever, very clever. I love it.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
I've got a couple extra credits. But uh, let's talk
some more about the jigsaw puzzles in the book or
jigsaw puzzles in general, and then we'll come back to those.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Absolutely I loved. I've talked before about my family's ill
fated trip to compete in the World Jigsaw Puzzle Championships
in Spain, where we came in second to last, so
we won't go into that, but you can listen on
other episodes. But I thought maybe I could talk about
my other trip to a little factory in Vermont where
(11:20):
they create some of the most frustrating jigsaw puzzles known
to humankind. And it's called Stave and it's been around
since the nineteen seventies. First of all, they're not just
really hard, they're really expensive. They are fancy, fancy. They
are we're talking four hundred dollars for the cheapest, and
(11:42):
they go up to ten thousand dollars because they are
wood cut, and they each are unique. And you go
there and they're these people sitting at what looked like
sort of demented sewing machines, and they're really just like
they're they have their jigsaw and they're creating these wild
(12:05):
shapes out of these puzzles. And some of them are
the whimsy pieces he talked about, so they could be
in you know, the Court Jester.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
But well, wait, so each puzzle is completely unique.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
It is they are guided by their muse on the puzzle.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
It could be there could be the same image cut
many different times, but each one has cut a different
way by whatever someone feels like doing. There's not planning,
and no.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
They're they're artists. Wow, And yeah, so it is. It's remarkable.
And they are the hardest puzzles that I have, well
physical puzzles that I've ever done. It's I mean, they
are hilariously hard. Because the founder whose name is Steve Richardson. Uh.
He calls himself Chief Tormentor because like he's very proud
(12:55):
of making people unhappy. He loves getting fan mail like
r like, that's the whole fan mail.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
We get mail like that.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
That's occasionally. Yeah, we I think are much nicer, we
get we yeah, exactly. So they have all sorts of tricks,
like the false edges. They've got pieces in there that
are from other Jigsaw puzzles that just don't even fit.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
That's not fair, well, we said, like leftover pieces they
drop in the box with the ones they're sending you. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
fake out pieces that.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Well, they give you a hint and they say, you know,
there are two pieces that don't don't belong. But then
they you know, there are sometimes no edges, there are
holes in the middle, there are three D things. They're
pieces that fit but don't make sense. And I asked him,
actually asked Steve, what is the hardest of all of
your puzzles and he said, it's hard. It's hard to choose,
(13:52):
but probably this one called Olivia. And I said, well,
can I try it? He said no, No, that's what
makes it so hard.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
You can't actually do it. So no one has solved
it because no one's allowed to do it.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Well, you are allowed, but you have to work up
to it. So he had to send me a bunch
of starter puzzles to work up to Olivia. And Olivia.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
It's because it's so hard you wouldn't even like, yeah,
you have to earn it. You have to earn it,
got it. You have to earn your Olivia.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
And it's not that many pieces. I forget how many.
It's like, you know, five hundred pieces. But the trick
is it's it's in the shape of an octopus, but
the pieces fit together in many different ways, but only
one way is the correct way. If only one way
will the octopus actually fit inside a coral reef, which
(14:37):
is also part of the puzzle. But yes, so we
did it, and I did it. Took me many many
weeks to do it. And I did it with one
of my nieces, not Andrea, another niece. Oh no, Andrea
helped to But yeah, this other niece, Ali said she
you know, she literally screamed, stormed out of the room
several times, said I hate this puzzle. So you know,
(15:00):
if you like that kind of puzzle, this is a
great one.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Well it is look that we I think this is
also a lesson from the book. But part of the
joy of the you know, solving a puzzle is is getting,
you know, up against the challenge and making it through.
It's that aha moment or the moment you go, oh
got it, Oh, I get it. You know, we hear
with our guests all the time when when you hear
somebody say, oh, I don't know, Oh, I know, that
(15:25):
moment of aha is exciting. And that's true with the
jigsaw too, when you find the piece and you finally
figure out where it goes and it fits and it's
very satisfying.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
So right, and the more the frustration, the bigger the moment, perhaps.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
One hopes, one hopes, but here I have a question.
So I would have thought that the hardest puzzles would
be the ones where all the pieces are very much
the same as opposed to what these pieces. These pieces
sound like. You've got a lot of whimsy and a
lot of interesting shapes, and it feels like it should
be easier because they're not all cookie cutter pieces.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Well, that's interesting. There is another famous puzzle called the
Eternity Puzzle that came out I'm going to get it wrong,
but I think in the nineteen eighties, and it was
very similar to that. All the pieces were very similar.
They all looked like sort of Midwestern states.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Like oh Utah, all like squarish.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Very squarish. And the guy who designed it actually said
it was in Britain and he said it is impossible
to solve even with a computer. And he said I
will give one million pound prize to anyone who solves it.
And what I love is that these two brilliant computer
(16:43):
scientists from I think it was Cambridge designed. They figured
out a way that it was solvable by computers because
they broke it up into parts. They didn't try to
do the whole thing. I mean this was when computers
were slower. But if you tried to get the computer
to do the whole calculation, it would take long decades.
(17:04):
But if you break it up. So they got it
and they and they won. They he had to pay
them the one million pounds, and I at points I
felt bad for him, but I looked him up. He
was kind of a weird character.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
He was.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
His other big obsession is climate change denial. He's like
one of the top climate change denialists, and so I
was like, all right, I guess.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
He deserved it. Yeah, they're also those puzzles that are
all one color.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Oh yes, I love those.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
You love those.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
I love the concept that I do not love, right,
And that was there was actually a sort of a
a fad of those types of puzzles in I think
it was the nineteen seventies, and they would have these
cute names like snow White without the seven Dwarfs and
it was all white, or little Red riding Hood's Hood
(18:03):
was all red, all read yep. And actually it reminded me.
I had a book when I was a kid, and
I can't find it on Google, so if anyone remembers,
but it was a it was a blank book, but
every page had a caption like polar Bear eating vanilla
ice cream in a blizzard. That kind of yes, I
(18:24):
remember this book, the same joke, which I love. I
love that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
I you know. I we talked about the working on
the Puzzler book during COVID, which was a nice way
to spend all our time in isolation. The other thing
that we did in my family, and I'm sure everyone
else did, was by Jigsaw puzzles. I've got twenty jigsaw
puzzles at home, all bought during that year and a
half or whatever when all we could do is sit
at home and do jigsauce.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Yeah, no, it was. I remember when I interviewed them.
They one of the factories said, we're on wartime footing.
It was like the world World War.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Two America and World War two except for producing jigsaw
puzzles for you know, lockdown stricken exact Americans.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
So it was. Yes, it was a wonderful time for jigsaws.
But I feel like it has gone down since then,
but it's still higher than it was than pre COVID.
And it was also the Depression was a great time
for jigsaws. I think. Yeah, world crises are very sucond
home with nothing to do, exact, spend a lot of
(19:27):
time with a jigsaw. That's it.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
And unlike some other puzzles, you can do them again
and again. True, right, they continue. You break it all apart,
it's not really that much easier to assemble it, you know.
I mean, I guess if there's some tricky split corners
or things like that, you'll know that that gimmick is coming.
But for the most part, when you break all the
pieces up, you don't know which one goes with which
(19:50):
one any better than you did the first time? Right?
Speaker 1 (19:53):
And some people, Yeah, some of my jigsaw fanatic friends
do these over and over. They're also so you don't
have to spend all of your salary on jigsawce there
like trading clubs, jigsaw library of that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
So that I recommend, I recommend that we've got a
bunch at home. If anybody wants one, come on over
to the puzzle lab.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Look at that full service. Well, Greg, do you have
a jigsaw extra credit? Well?
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Remember now this is the extra credit here is These
are either jigsaw terms or square dancing moves.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Got it?
Speaker 2 (20:28):
So I'm going to give you two for your extra credit,
and you have to tell me which one is.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Which I get to relax. Which is nice?
Speaker 2 (20:34):
You can just contemplate this all right. Your extra credit
words are matchmaking and the other one is alamo mix
up a mix up?
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Okay, think about that. Do some square dancing or some jigsawing.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
And then or both at once or both at once?
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Oh tricky.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
While listening to the puzzlerting like and reviewing us, rating
us and all the things you're supposed to do. Checking
out our Instagram.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Instagram at Hello Puzzlers, where they have original puzzles. So
check that out and we will meet you here tomorrow
for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Hey puzzlers, it's Greg Pliska up from the Puzzle Lab
with an extra credit answer from our previous episode. David
Wayne was our guest and we did some I rhymes.
I rhymes are words that look like they should rhyme,
but they don't. We have a lot of these in English.
In English, your extra credit clue was an arrangement of
flowers at a fancy diner, and the answer, of course
(21:43):
is banquet bouquet because the qu e t at the
ends of those two words looks like it might rhyme,
but it doesn't. Thanks for playing and we'll see you
next time. Thanks for playing along with the team here
at the Puzzler with AJ Jacobs. I'm Greg Pliska, your
(22:05):
chief puzzle Officer. Our executive producers are Neelie Lohman and
Adam Neuhouse of New House Ideas and Lindsay Hoffman of
iHeart Podcasts. The show is produced by Jody Averrigan and
Brittany Brown of Roulette Productions, with production support from Claire
Bidegar Curtis. Our associate producer is Andrea Schoenberg. The Puzzler
(22:26):
with AJ Jacobs is a co production with New House
Ideas and is distributed by AH Despotic Arts No distributed
by iHeart Podcasts. If you want to know more about
puzzling puzzles, please check out the book The Puzzler by
AJ Jacobs, a history of puzzles that The New York
Times called fun and funny. It features an original puzzle
(22:50):
hunt by Yours Truly and is available wherever you get
your books and puzzlers. For all your puzzling needs, go
visit the puzzler dot com. See you there,
Hosts And Creators
Greg Pliska
A.J. Jacobs
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