Larry Hosken: New

I'm still excited that someo∩e solved the St. Louis Octothorpea∩ puzzle, so I wrote a little puzzle to celebrate: St. Louis is famous for somethi∩g. The clues below suggest some words/phrases that also have that thi∩g. Fill i∩ the bla∩ks a∩d the∩ the circled letters should spell out a∩other famous St. Louis dealie.

◯_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ / Moth-repelling container
_ _◯_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ / Blue wiggly line that appearing under clue this (vs red wiggly line under htis)
_ _ _ _ _ _◯_ / 📊
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _◯_ / Type of word puzzle in which answers go across or clockwise
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _◯'_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ / Average time spent commuting each day, about an hour (pretty obscure, follow that link for the answer)
_ _ _ _ _ _ _◯_ / Kinda paper, kinda leather
_ _ _ _ _ _ _◯_ _ _ _ / USA outdoor advertising (i.e. billboard) company
_◯_ _ _ _ _ _ _ / Rule by a few
_ _◯_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ / National Farm Workers Association co-founder

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Some hints, rot13'd:

Gung (bofpher, fbeel!) pbzzhgr gvzr vf Znepurggv'f Pbafgnag
Fg. Ybhvf vf snzbhf sbe vgf Tngrjnl Nepu. Lbh'er ybbxvat sbe cuenfrf pbagnvavat "nepu", creuncf oebxra hc ol fcnprf.
Gur oyhr jvttyl yvar vf n tenzzne purpxre

Solution, rot13'd:

Prqne purfg / Zbgu-ercryyvat pbagnvare
teNzzne purpxre / Oyhr jvttyl yvar gung nccrnevat haqre pyhr guvf 
one punEg / 📊
znepuvat onaQf / Glcr bs jbeq chmmyr va juvpu nafjref tb npebff be pybpxjvfr
znepurggV'f pbafgnag / 
cnepuzrAg / Xvaqn cncre, xvaqn yrngure
pyrne puNaary / HFN bhgqbbe nqiregvfvat pbzcnal
bYvtnepul / Ehyr ol n srj
péFne puáirm / Angvbany Snez Jbexref Nffbpvngvba pb-sbhaqre

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2025-12-01T16:45:57.110989

Some sidewalk chalk art on the path at the base of Hippie Hill I saw yesterday, alas mostly scuffed by the time I saw it.

sidewalk chalk art: bk1nd, I guess a stylized "be kind"

sidewalk chalk art: star of David, tessellated with colored diamonds to suggest a Q*bert-like mountain of cubes

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2025-12-01T15:52:41.563817

Somebody solved the St Louis #Octothorpean puzzle‽

https://www.octothorpean.org/ has many, many puzzles. Most of those puzzles can be solved on your couch; but some involve observing details about some place or other. To solve one puzzle, you need to see some things in a place in St Louis, Missouri, USA. For years, that puzzle has lurked, unsolved.* Until just over a day ago. Whoever did this: Nice work. You now have bragging rights at the next Puzzled Pint or whatnot.

*OK, someone "solved" it a while back by throwing the dictionary at the answer checker. But that's not so interesting.

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2025-11-30T18:09:45.248452

Current status: musing about crane operations on a day when it's too foggy to see the ground, relying on folks on the ground for feedback. I bet crane operators use this in similes for all kinds of situations.

two crane towers fade up into fog. A crane hook descends from the fog. You can hazily make out a crane counterweight at the top of the nearer tower.

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2025-11-25T15:48:55.814317

I saw some sidewalk chalk art walking in #SanFrancisco yesterday morning.

At 20th and Irving, a skateboarding fire-demon-maybe by Kal Zakzouk.

At 4th and Irving, a mermaid by, I'm guessing, two collaborators.

sidewalk chalk art. zooming in on top left of the skater. she wields a lollipop overlaid with a faint mouse skull. her arms are perhaps tattooed or are perhaps Frankenstein-ish combinations of things.

sidewalk chalk art. zooming in on top of skater. her hat appears to consist of a scarf, a cat(?) head, and a short sword through that cat head

sidewalk chalk art: an easily-recognizable fish tail connects to a human-ish figure seemingly drawn by someone still new to drawing

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2025-11-24T13:06:12.449252

This morning's mystery solved: Did someone seriously take the time to point out some dangerous wet ground on a path in the park? Oh, wait, apparently a recent Hash House Harriers (very un-serious follow-the-leader-playing running club) run, in addition to the usual trails for Eagles (speedy runners) and Turkeys (normal runners) had a separate way for Walkers. chalk marks on pavement: "↑ WET". More subtly, there is a clump of chalk dust nearby

chalk marks on pavement: "↑ WET". More subtly, there is a clump of chalk dust nearby

chalk marks on pavement. One set" "↖ W". The other: "↗ TE"

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2025-11-22T16:23:03.636670

I continue to check my little dashboard of #SanFrancisco COVID numbers each morning to figure out whether shopping for groceries in person is a good way to get the best produce or the kind of eventual-lung-problems risk that I'd be embarrassed to discuss with my doctor in a few years. Lately SF's COVID-in-wastewater numbers have been sneaking up. You'll recall that I track three statistics; when their combo gets high, I switch to getting my groceries delivered and such. Just one number's a little high; so I'll keep picking out peppers in person, but with a perhaps less-carefree mien.

graph charting three numbers over the past two months. The purple line, test positivity%, was high a couple of months ago, but is now pretty low. The red line, new cases, was low a couple of months ago, and is now even lower, yay. The green line has jiggled and wiggled high and low over the last couple of months; lately, it's been high-ish

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2025-11-20T15:15:15.534763

Some pics from walks in #SanFrancisco the past few days.

View of UCSF Parnassus from Irving Street. I wondered why one building's lights moved funny as I walked; and that's because it's not a building yet, still a construction site without walls. I guess I should snap a photo now, since in a few months it will look quite different.

Some soap bubbles clinging to leaves let me know I'd missed the Golden Gate Park sea serpent Naga's exhalation by a few minutes.

Some chalk marks clinging to the sidewalk let me know I'd missed a Kal Zakzouk artwork by a few minutes' worth of rainfall.

A new mural's going in on the public housing building at Haight/Stanyan. It's not visible from many places, kinda hidden behind buildings.

in the foreground, a retail street. behind, dimly-lit big buildings on a hill; when you peer more closely, you notice the one on the right is under construction. above the buildings hover some cranes, confirming that construction's going on. in the very background, colors of sunrise

bright green leaves. at first you might think there's a bright blue strangely-shaped flower resting on the leaves, but when you look more closely, you see it's a soap bubble reflecting something bright (the sky?)

patch of sidewalk with hints of color, where chalk has mostly washed away. Most legible is a partial signature @zakikal...something

hemmed in by other buildings, we see a mural taking shape on the eastern exterior wall of the new building at Haight/Stanyan. The mural has clouds styled as in an old-timey Chinese painting, sunflowers, poppies, rainbows. Some purple geometrical designs with 8-way symmetry. It's pretty bright and colorful

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2025-11-16T17:07:26.602026

Some chalk #StreetArt, I assume by Kal Zakzouk, at 20th and Irving in #SanFrancisco yesterday morning.

there's a lot going on here. inert human figure is somehow connected to various spiritual bits: arms performing mudras, demon head, antlers,… Uh, it's a lot

closer view of the top-right part of the art

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2025-11-10T13:48:34.060162

Some things I saw on my walk in #SanFrancisco this morning.

The simple geometric-form murals have been up at the new public housing building at Haight/Stanyan for a while, but I finally noticed the piece of paper that says they're the work of Jenifer Wofford et al. Looking at her web site, I think most of her work tends to depict real-world things instead of geometric abstractions. I'm guessing that the public housing folks, tired of listening to the local poor-people-hating neighbors' complaints said, "Please give us the most unobjectionable design you can." Anyhow, check out her website for not-so-abstract stuff.

A geometrical construction rendered in sidewalk chalk near Hippie Hill.

A fork in the path at Heroes' Grove on a foggy day.

wall with mural consisting of different-colored circles on a background of a geometrical regular wave. Below, some still-under-construction pavement and a traffic cone. To the side, a window with a little piece of paper; if this image were higher resolution, you'd see that the paper tells you that Jenifer Wofford and others made the mural

in the foreground, a sidewalk wiggles between a field and a grassy hill. drawn on the sidewalk in colored chalk are some circles and arcs which form a hexagonal construction suggesting triangles. in the background, trees obscured by thick fog. really thick fog. would you believe me if i told you there's a dog and a dog-walker back there?

fork in a path among redwood trees. the path is 'paved' with wood chips and needles. looking up, you can see the treetops, but they're kinda obscured by fog

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2025-11-08T16:56:23.245456