of a tiny atoll

to keep its advancement in motion

This was a case of a clue that didn't quite come together thematically. And I needed a clue in between the top of Coit Tower and Tower Records because y'all would have been bitching at me if you'd had to walk so far between consecutive clues. I went out late Thursday night looking for an alternative but everything I found had already been used in previous hunts, mine or Jayson's. Initially I was going to do something with the Red Jack Saloon around the corner on Bay Street, referring to the Knave of Hearts - but what does a saloon or a playing card have to do with the Battle of Midway? Besides, it's dangerous to stage clues at bars - last year we lost two teams who solved the Pier 23 clue early in the hunt and decided to hang out there drinking on the back deck all afternoon. They came back to the hunt just in time for the party with two clues solved!}

Anyway the limerick had nothing to do with the clue either - it was 3 in the morning and I thought I might try to write the whole thing in limerick but gave up after one quintuplet or whatever they're called. Although if you're interested, I have written some world class limericks (IMHO) and will be happy to send you samples. Write me at alexandra@thunts.com. You'll be sorry you asked!

Oh, back to the clue. Notice the liberal use of the word "half" - I even capitalized it once - as well as the word "middle." I guess this one was a no brainer. Probably my least favorite clue.

25 of the 29 Regular teams solved this clue.

REGULAR PLAYERS COMMENTS

a bit easy - poem is misleading

very easy

too far

easy (2)

nice level of difficulty

what was with the limerick?

relatively easy start

too easy

lots of hints in clue

2. You’ll find a Slim, Shady character at the Babble of Tower if you Listen carefully at the proper Station.

Some teams told me they didn't connect this clue with the M&Ms in your packet. Not my fault - I wrote the clue number on the candy! Next year, look at everything in your packet before you head out. I usually include some edibles as part of a clue. Last year it was chocolate truffles from XOX Truffles in North Beach, and fortune cookies with a clue in the fortune. This year we went a little downscale.

At the time I wrote this clue two weeks ago the rapper Eminem had the number one album in the country and had sold 1.2 million records in one week. His debut album was entitled "Slim Shady." I think his latest album is "My Name is Marshall Mathers." The Babble of Tower referred to the Rap section at Tower Records, (Rap = Babble) and was a word play on the biblical Tower of Babel. There is a Listening Station in the the Rap section at Tower Records on Bay and Columbus, directly behind Eminem's CD's; the license plate was tied to it.

I shadowed team 31 - the eventual winning team in the Regular division - into Tower Records while they looked for the license plate. They did just the right thing, they focused on the words "slim" and "shady" and went up to the clerk at the desk to ask if those words had any significance. But - unbelievably - when he immediately said "Eminem, he's a rapper" the person who asked didn't seem to hear it, and immediately followed up with another question "...or anything with the word 'slim' in it" and the clerk volunteered that there were lots of albums that had the word 'slim' in them - a lot of blues albums, for instance. It was very hard not to yell out, "No, he just told you EMINEM!!! Rap Section!!!"

They got to the plate just as another team got there, they both saw that the first letters were still there, and team 31 backed off and let the other team have the letters. So they win the Sportmanship award as well as first place.

By the way, this clue is a good example of capital letters being significant (Slim, Shady, Listening Station).

For those of you who complained about the clue not being age-appropriate, the people who played in the hunt this year ranged in age from twelve to (I'm guessing) over 50. The point of the hunt is not to write clues that tap into everyone's existing knowledge-base. It's to write fun clues that you can solve if you're resourceful, even if they're about something you've never heard of before. That way you'll learn something too.

21 of the 29 Regular teams solved this clue. It was the second hardest clue to solve.

REGULAR PLAYERS COMMENTS

we solved w/o looking at M&Ms

we are too old for M&M?! cultural reference lost on us. not "SF" enough

not my generation! clever for his/their (?) fans

great! loved this one

clever, good location

cool idea

easy to solve, hard to find in the store

link w/ Tower Records was vague

Tower of Babble?

cute

 

So I've got a thing for Joe DiMaggio - so sue me, Morris. Last year I worked his 56 game hitting streak into the fortune cookie clue (it led to the antique Chinese fortune cookie factory at 56 Ross Alley).

This is a photograph taken from North Beach Playground. In the background you can see the twin spires of St. Peter & Paul's Cathedral, and the tip of the TransAmerica pyramid. This is the kind of clue where, if you don't recognize it instantly, you can always ask a stranger and probably the first person you ask will be able to help you.

And of course the tie-in with Joe DiMaggio is that this is his childhood playground which the Board of Supervisors wants to rename for him. But his lawyer Morris Engelberg holds the rights to his name, doesn't think anything less than the Bay Bridge or the San Francisco Airport is a big enough honor for Joe DiM, and has filed suit against the City of San Francisco for trying to "profit" from associating his name with a mere playground. Oy veh! I mean- excuuuse me but although he grew up playing ball on this lot, he never played professional baseball in San Francisco. We should name the Bay Bridge for Willie Mays first. Or the Maze - The Mays Maze?}

The masters' clue was only slightly more difficult. The comic strip was not included, and instead of a basketball hoop, the photograph had only a basketball in mid air. The masters photo was actually a _great shot - I stood there while some guys played hoops, with my camera up to my eye, and the first shot that was lobbed, I saw out of the corner of my eye and snapped it quickly - it turned out to be perfectly positioned in the air between P&P and the Pyramid (check it out in the masters clue section).

27 of the 29 Regular teams solved this clue.

This was clearly meant to point you to a personals ad somewhere - but where? The reference to the "high pitched fraternal trio" was meant to make you think of the Brothers Gibb, more commonly known as the Bee Gees - who are famous for the soundtrack of the movie "Saturday Night Fever" starring John Travolta in a three piece white suit. The most famous song from that soundtrack was "Stayin' Alive." Bee Gees = BG = Bay Guardian!

Next, Missing Connections was capitalized, and in the Bay Guardian's personals section, the smallest section is called "Missed Connections." The Bay Guardian offers a free four week ad, with a 25 letter headline and 25 words in the body, so I took them up on it. The ad I placed read:

"YABA DABA DOO - WILMA SEEKS FRED. Our eyes locked at the Savoy Tivoli. We didn't speak. Let's meet there again on Saturday July 15th and I promise to treasure you forever."

Here's a picture of it:

I think once you figured out to look in the Guardian, this one was pretty much a lock. Wasn't it? The only drawback was that I didn't realize that the Savoy doesn't actually open until 5:00 pm or I probably wouldn't have placed the clue there.

The masters' clue was more difficult - the BeeGee's reference was replaced with a reference to Cerberus. He's the 3-headed mythological dog who guards the gates of hell = the GUARDIAN.

The Bay Guardian also gave me a voicemail box - I should check it to see if Fred Flinstone has called me.

This was both the clue solved by the fewest teams, and the clue that received the highest ranking, averaging over 9 out of 10 points. 20 of the 29 Regular teams solved this clue.

5. What does the poet laureate of San Francisco have in common with Charlie Chaplin? Hint: it’s right next door to a Neapolitan volcano, and it may soon become Landmark #228. When you figure it out, Beat it up the stairs and you’ll Howl with glee when you find it in the can.

The poet laureate of San Francisco was - I thought - Lawrence Ferlinghetti of City Lights Books. I found out while I was there following teams that in fact he is no longer the poet laureate. Anyway, he is a poet, bookstore owner, and publisher. His store was ground zero for the Beat Generation in the '50's. He is also famous for publishing the first edition of Allen Ginsberg's "Howl." He was prosecuted for - and aquitted of - obscenity for publishing it.

The thing he has in common with Charlie Chaplin is "City Lights." The Neapolitan volcano is Vesuvio, the very colorful bar/cafe next door which is also very well known in North Beach. A proposal to make City Lights Bookstore landmark #228 is wending its way through the bureaucracy right now. Not something that would help you solve the clue, but I thought it was an interesting factoid. "Beat it up the stairs and you'll Howl" refers to the Beat generation and also to the fact that the Beat section (including "Howl") is upstairs. I deliberately said it was "in the can" to make you think it was in the bathroom, when in fact the license plate was in a small trash can next to the Beat section.

The guy at the front desk said people had been coming in all day asking about three things: a poet born in San Francisco in 1874 (he didn't know), who is the poet laureate of San Francisco (he knew, but this would have thrown you off because my info was out of date), and James Joyce's middle name. Heh heh.

Now just asking a bookstore clerk about a poet born here in 1874 may not help you. Next time, read him the entire clue because he probably would have figured out the Robert Frost clue from the wording of the last two lines, which were adapted from his most famous poem.

25 of the 29 Regular teams solved this clue.

6. Quit Clowning around, and find an Alley that’s not an alley. Face the tomb of Cheops, and at 2:00 you’ll see a Kevin Costner movie. Cross Chris, and if you have half a brain, you’ll find what you seek on a street that’s short by name and short by nature.

This was my favorite clue because it just flows perfectly. Clown Alley is an Alley that's not an alley (note use of capitalization again). It's on the first block of Columbus Avenue between Washington and Jackson, a block from the Transamerica Pyramid. If you face the Pyramid (Tomb of Cheops) and call it 12 o'clock, then at approximately 2:00 you'll see a very old advertisement painted directly onto the side of a brick building on Washington Street, visible through a vacant lot. I did not include a photo of it in the clues but this is what it looks like:

Obviously the Kevin Costner movie was "Bull Durham." If you cross Chris(topher Columbus Avenue), across the street at 55 Columbus Avenue is the office of halfbrain.com. Just to the left of it is ILS Alley, perhaps the shortest alley in San Francisco (short by name and short by nature). The license plate was tied to the fence at the end of the alley.

26 of 29 Regular teams solved this clue.

7. "Hang On, you’ll find it!" (to see picture puzzle, click here)

This clue was really fun to write. And little did I know when I was searching on Google.com for .gifs and .jpgs to grab off the 'net to use for the rebus, not to mention reseaching everything else I needed for this hunt on Google, that the founder of Google would attend our treasure hunt. So thank you, Google, the best search engine ever!

Before I go on, did anybody notice the title of this clue - Hang On? If you had, and if you had looked it up in the white pages, you could have gone to Hang On Realty and Insurance Company at 751 Clay Street, directly across the street from the peacock mural, and saved yourselves a lot of time!

The rebus worked out to "PEACOCK MURAL IN ALLEY NEAR PORTSMOUTH SQUARE."

Here's a picture of it (this picture wasn't included with the clue):

28 of 29 Regular teams solved this clue.

I noticed on the map that there are two alleys in Chinatown, James and Joice, that are only a block apart at their closest points.

You were meant to think of James Joyce and not Homer (who wrote the Odyssey which was about Odysseus, who was also known as Ulysses). There's a Homer Alley in the sector, I believe, so by saying "it's not Greek" I was warning you off Homer.

This wasn't about James Joyce's middle name at all, it was about what was physically between James and Joice Alleys. The map is your friend! I picked a location on Washington Street, on the block bounded by Washington, Jackson, (two Presidents) Powell (a General - Colin Powell) and Stockton (a Commodore). The reference to busfare was to a $1 bill - Washington is on the $1 bill. And the building I wanted you to find was the Gum Moon Women's Residence. It happens to have been designed by Julia Morgan, but you weren't expected to know that, so I mentioned the words "brick" and "jade" to direct you to a brick building wth jade trim.

Somebody told me later that the Chinatown Y was also designed by Julia Morgan, and that it is brick with a jade roof and is only a block away right next to Joice Alley. I call this a "parallel universe" clue and try as I might, one or two slip in every year.

The plastic letters were missing from this site.

24 of 29 Regular teams solved this clue.

I really liked this mural and wanted to work it in somehow but it was one of the last clues I wrote and not very creative. The two Northern California cities were Sacramento and Stockton. The mural was on Stockton between Sacramento and Clay.

This is what I call a "parallel universe clue." One team went to Sacramento and Davis Streets and looked for quite a while. I would have thought, though, that it's pretty obvious this mural would most likely be found in or near Chinatown.

The plastic letters were also missing from this site. Clues 8 and 9 were the only two sites where the plastic letters were ripped off. I gave credit for this clue to the first Regular team who called me. It did not make a difference in the rankings.

28 of 29 Regular teams solved this clue.

The two Presidents were Bush and Grant. It may soon be three if George W. Bush is elected in November. There are other intersections of two Presidents' names - Bush and Taylor for instance, but the "gateway to the Orient" should have tipped you off to the Chinatown Gates. A half block south is the Baldwin Hotel (Alec, Billy, Daniel, Steven...) and across the street from that is headhunter.net. The most famous mill in the gold country was Sutter's Mill, where gold was first discovered - it's a California Historical Landmark - so you cross Sutter. Right from the start you should have been able to see the GLASS PHEASANT, a huge sign running down the side of a building on Grant between Sutter and Campton Alley. The word "PHEASANT" was litterally under the word "GLASS." It's right on the corner of Campton Alley, and there's a sign for a restaurant called Rumpus in the alley.

28 of 29 Regular teams solved this clue.

I wanted to work my dog Liberty Belle (Libby) into a clue about the Liberty Bell Slot Machine plaque on the island at the intersection of Bush, Battery and Market. I was hoping to do some anagram using the word "bet" - for gambling - and spent a good two hours taking the words bush, battery and market and trying to come up with a cool anagram, but to no avail. I got "theater bum" and other interesting combinations, but the remaining letters just wouldn't form anything meaningful. Finally in desperation I gave up and made this ridiculously easy puzzle. Perhaps I should have given you fewer letters. I mean, even if I had given you NO letters, how many intersections of three streets are there in the sector? Of course, it wasn't clear that all three streets met in the same place, but I could have made it clear in the clue.

I love word and number puzzles and would like to include a couple in every hunt, but I have to be mindful of the fact that you are on foot and therefore stopping to solve them slows you down, so I feel guilty if I put a tough one in. Next year I think I will, though, because you all seem well up to the task!

This is the only clue that all 29 Regular teams solved.

I notice in other treasure hunts in which I play that after a while, you can discern patterns in the way the clue-writers work. In my case, I have a weakness for alleys, murals, Coit Tower, Joe DiMaggio, and putting something at either the start or the finish. I've done all of the above both years in YABA. Keep that in mind for next year!

This was my "finish" clue. The Vaillancourt fountain is just too intriguing (if that's the word for it) to pass up.

The buildings with the same name are Embarcaderos 1 through 5. The Hyatt Regency (something Regal is the opposite of something Common) is technically Embarcadero 5 but it's not called that. Across the street is the Ferry Building. If you head north from the Ferry Building, the piers are numbered oddly (1 3 5 7 9) and if you head south they're numbered evenly (2 4 6 8 10) with the numbers getting larger as you go away from the Ferry Building. So technically if you continued the odd progression south, the Ferry Building would be Pier -1, and if you continued the even progression north, it would be Pier 0. Shadowed by Embarcadero 4 and the Hyatt Regency to its west at 5:00 pm when I expected most of you to finish, is the Vaillancourt fountain. I placed the license plate at the top of a stairway overlooking the fountain.

The Masters clue was tougher. Check it out.

28 of the 29 Regular teams solved this clue.

13. "Let your Fingers do the Walking"

I really like this clue! This is the one that I think a lot of people got by accident because as they were walking down Battery Street toward the Robert Frost clue, they walked right past Halo and saw the license plate tied around a parking meter.

So here's the explanation. I was leafing through the white pages one day when I came across an odd phrase. As you know, in the upper outside corner of each page in the telephone book, they list the first and last entry on the page to make it easier for you to flip through and find what you need. On page 69 of the white pages the first entry is Demented and the last entry is Devilboy, so the little phrase at the top right of the page reads "Demented Devilboy." I saw this months ago and thought I would have to use it somehow!

Once you've figured that out, you're on page 69 and you "flip" to page 70. On page 70 is a company called Digital Generation. They have two offices, both in the sector. One is on California and the other on Battery, so I mentioned a "charged up" street to get you to Battery. When I went to place the license plate outside their office at 875 Battery, I realized there was no sign for the business. Then I saw Halo Marketing across the street, and couldn't resist the tie-in (Devil - Halo - get it?). So I placed it there.

Actually, if you had noticed that Halo was capitalized you could have looked them up in the business section of the phone book. Another back door clue. This clue was way too easy to solve even if you didn't get the "Demented Devilboy" reference. I'm curious to know how many of you got it the "right" way - write to me at alexandra@thunts.com.

You should always bring a copy of the phone book with you on the hunt. Did I forget to mention that?

23 of the 29 Regular teams solved this clue.

I like this one if only for the punny title: Poetic License.

The chilly poet was Robert Frost, who was indeed born in San Francisco but became most well-known for his poems about New England. If you change the S in his last name to an N - the South Pole is the polar opposite of the North Pole - you get Front. You were meant to go N (north) on Front Street until it ends at Union Street. The North in the Civil War (1861-1865) was also known as the Union. Next head west (toward the ocean, not the bay) for one block to the corner of Battery, where there is a hanging sign on the corner brick building. It's a painting of a ship (a ship sailing in the sky). A half block further on is Icehouse alley (icehouse - frost - should remind you of him). The last two lines of the clue were meant to remind you of Robert Frost's most famous poem, "The Road Less Travelled:"

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller,
long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden back
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I----
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.

27 of 29 Regulars teams solved this clue - eventually. I got lots of calls and complaints about the license plate. I had placed it around the base of a street sign behind a dumpster and apparently somebody had piled cardboard boxes on it so it was completely hidden. Still, if you played last year you know how much easier it is to find a license plate than three 1" high plastic letters!

I used this one just as an excuse to make you climb up Telegraph Hill. Plus the eastern flank of Telegraph Hill is very atmospheric. The roman emperor's castle is Julius Castle, a restaurant at the end of Montgomery Street. If you walk back down Montgomery Street away from Julius' Castle, southbound, you'll see this cutout of Humphrey Bogart in the window at 1360 Montgomery, just about at eye level because the southbound side of the street is elevated. This is where the movie Dark Passage was set - I believe this was Bacall's characters apartment where Bogart, on the lam from San Quentin, either waits to have a face change operation, or is recovering from one. The Dark Passage was a reference both to the movie and to the stairway down from the southbound side of Montgomery to the Northbound side. Just north of the Bogie window is the poodle mural. I think that poodle lives in the apartment on the corner because he/she was yapping away from the window at Libby as I was placing the license plate.

26 of the 29 Regular Teams solved this clue.

The Initials in the title were meant to make you focus on the CT in Chinatown, and the TH in Treasure Hunt, which I hoped would lead you to Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill. The inside of the ground floor of Coit Tower is completely covered in murals, of which this was one part. The license plate was on the railing on the outside walkway of the tower.

26 of 29 Regular teams solved this clue.