Wondrous theories have been brewing over the three clues so far. Here is another. The fourth actually, a video too (Quicktime required).
And in case you like visual things, like to see things all at once. Here are the first three images.
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Puzzle Fantastica #1: Another clue.
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
Posted on: July 12, 2006 8:38 AM, by David Ng
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Comments
Nothing but a hound-dog. And a Rube-Goldberg Machine.
Posted by: coturnix | July 12, 2006 10:41 AM
Argh.. the video isn't loading for me. What is it?
Posted by: Ryan S. | July 12, 2006 10:57 AM
You may need Quicktime. Give me a minute and I'll put that link in the post.
Posted by: David Ng | July 12, 2006 11:34 AM
What's a Rube-Goldberg Machine?
Posted by: cam | July 12, 2006 11:48 AM
If you can't see the video, it looks like someone's backyard (maybe Dave's or Ben's?), kids stuff here and there, but I guess the defining feature (or red herring) are the many birds on the lawn. Feeding I think - look a bit like blackbirds I guess. There's lots of other stuff though, so I'm sure there's plenty to read into it.
Posted by: jenjen | July 12, 2006 11:51 AM
Fertilizer, anti-biotics, bio-engineering? Genetically modified food/crops?
Birds eating off the lawn, certainly fertilized
Elvis is a crop duster in the movie
The cow is from a government movie about dairy production (antibiotics?)
The fish is... used in DNA experiments?
Posted by: Chris | July 12, 2006 7:00 PM
"Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny at The World's Fair."
Clearly.
But isn't it more interesting that Linnaeus, he who named the Humpback Turretfish ("Tetrosomus gibbosus, L. 1758") is supposedly the only botanist to go by a single letter, "L."? As in no other identification required, bit#%#s. "eL", vis a vis -- The King. Of Taxonomy.
Yet, what I wish this was secretly about was Pumping Iron, the deluxe 25th anniversary edition. Why, I ask? Why do you people continue to downplay its importance as perhaps the greatest film of all time (on a pure entertainment scale)? When that reporter asks Arnold if he drinks a lot of milk, and Arnold his voice dripping in Austrian sarcasm and wearing some kind of fruity 70s 20000 Leagues Under the Sea sailor tanktop says: "Milk? Milk is for babies!" C'mon, people. Cows. Cows and growth hormone, huskier cows means more milk-per-cow. Ah-nuld. Sweaty men with enormously out of proportion muscles grunting and sweating on each other in those cramped hot gyms?!? Read between the lines. Ontogeny --> Phylogeny. Why you continue to ignore this is beyond me. Forget the part where Ahnuld psyches out the future Mr. Incredible Hulk over breakfast. God, people. Seriously.
Hey, why I am at it, can I get a shout-out to Wikipedia? Why haven't all you professional science people got all over epistemology and the exponentially rhizomatic evolution of the nature of knowledge itself? The decentralization of authoritative knowledge, the swarm intelligence of ant colonies and flocks of birds and the human species.
Oh yeah. F$%^ those birds too. That is so blatantly a reference to James Joyce that I want to vomit. "...bird after bird: a dark flash, a swerve, a flash again, a dart aside, a curve, a flutter of wings...an augury of good or evil?...on the correspondence of birds to things of the intellect and of how the creatures of the air have their knowledge and know their times and seasons because they, unlike man, are in the order of their life and have not perverted that order by reason."
I got one word for you, Cohen et al: POCATELDIMC.
This is It.
A much better summation of the whole business.
Posted by: Sue | July 12, 2006 7:26 PM
are you for real? because i've never seen such a pretentious comment in my life. i'll just pretend that you were joking, ok?
Posted by: kurtrik | July 12, 2006 11:58 PM
What the hell is that round glowing metallic thing in around the middle of the video clip?
Posted by: Doug | July 13, 2006 1:11 AM
That is a soccer ball. At least I think it is. Also, for the number folks, which I noticed many in the previous comments (in the previous puzzle note), the number "50" is pretty clearly noted in the target at the end of the movie. So many details really - kind of makes you wonder whether it is something seriously complicated (I mean how did they get the birds to do that - or is that a normal gathering?), or perhaps just an elaborate joke.
Posted by: Hannah | July 13, 2006 1:32 AM
A Rube Goldberg machine is " any exceedingly complex apparatus that performs a very simple task in a very indirect and convoluted way." Very cool, especially for those who like their comix. More at wiki. Other examples here.
Posted by: holly | July 13, 2006 1:37 AM
kurtrik, it is, as the kids say, all good. I'm thinking Sue's sprucing up the place a bit, and anyway, dare we counter the immensity of the Joyce quote? I mean, who gets in a Joyce quote like that on an everyday blog ?
And, for clarity's sake, please don't take any of the above three sentences to be directional clues or insinuations to the answer. Sometimes a blogger jsut wants to pitch in to a nice thread of comments on a puzzle that two people have called "complicated" in two different ways. (Alan Watts? How did he get in here?)
Though I will say: it isn't but a joke, yet it is fun; there is more information than you would need, though it is all available to you; in those senses, the P.F. is sincerely scientific, in that it involves working through more than we can deal with. It's the same filtering and sifting we do in the lab or field or hallway conversation when decide what we want and what we don't, right? And how do we know what we want until we find it anyway?
Posted by: Benjamin Cohen | July 13, 2006 11:07 AM
i'm rarely serious, rest assured. except for when i'm suddenly serious.
like right now. Milk is for babies. I'm deadly serious about that.
Posted by: sue | July 13, 2006 2:53 PM
Hmm, another stab at it. Seeing this clip of a flock of birds in a feeding frenzy. Perhaps, these clues are a reference to human overpopulation?
The cow as a food factory symbolizing the lengths we will have to go to feed the teeming masses. The rare fish symbolizing the loss of biodiversity we will reek on the environment. The bird feeding frenzy obvious. However, not sure where Elvis comes into play, maybe a reference to crowds of screaming fans.
I however am having doubts already seems this is too general an answer, the order of the clues perhaps halds the key.
Posted by: Ryan S. | July 14, 2006 1:12 AM
In my seeming insane search for the correct answer I give you www.cowfish.org. If its not the answer its still a site that looks like it has some great potential. Check out the resources section, though unfinished, it has some useful info.
Posted by: Ryan S. | July 14, 2006 2:13 PM
Elvis may just be refering to the fact that this puzzle is "happening at the World's Fair", i.e., on this blog.
We have a fish, a bird, and a mammal. Are the next two clues going to be an amphibian and a reptile?
Posted by: coturnix | July 15, 2006 11:24 PM
It's the G8 Summit.
Posted by: Neil | July 26, 2006 5:41 PM
I get it...there is no God.
Posted by: thinian | July 27, 2006 1:42 AM