Puzzle Musings

REAL PUZZLES WITH REAL STORIES

Images take on new meaning when they are given a context. We think puzzles need a story.  When I was a young man I rented a room in a Victorian mansion in Seattle owned by ninety-year-old man who decorated the place with his paintings. He wasn’t a very skilled painter, but when he told you about the pictures (and sometimes about the old paintings he covered up when he painted over ones he bought for the canvas) they came alive. I often think if him recapturing his youth (“that guy in the red hat on the wagon is my little...

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JIGSAW PUZZLES ON CAMPUS

Jigsaw puzzles have become a popular distraction at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Jigsaw puzzles widen the Friday night recreational activities at a university more noted for underage drinking and couch burning. UCSB has recently lost its place on Playboy Magazine’s list of the ten best party schools in America.  

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JIGSAW PUZZLE PERK: BRAIN BOOST

And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow,  stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? . . . And he puzzled and puzzled ’till his puzzler was sore. - Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas Those “puzzlers” that we rely on — our brains — can use all the help they can get to stay in shape. Just like the rest of our body, with regular exercise our “puzzler” maintains a healthy level of fitness and is less likely to get, well, sore. Here’s the good news: jigsaw puzzles are a fantastic way to exercise...

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"Doing jigsaws doesn't build character, it reveals character"

(what John Wooden would have said if he was famous for doing jigsaws) Welcome to Hennessy Puzzles, a tiny subdivision of a small family run publishing empire. For a couple decades we have been in the map business, publishing recreational maps (KYM GUIDES) for the Western United States. As our responsibilities grew we had a less time to travel the world researching maps and more time at home doing things like jigsaw puzzles. Hennessy Communications has looked like a confusion of jobs, addresses, pets, kids, relatives, and homework assignments, but, with some concentration, patterns emerge. Sort of like a jigsaw...

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A Word is Worth A Thousand Picture (if it's the right word)

If forget who said that. No doubt some frustrated writer who just had to deal with a graphic artist who chopped off a few words so that the paragraph would fit .   We put a lot of effort into pictures here at Hennessy Puzzles, but we know the importance of a good story. I bet most of the images you have hanging in your house come with a story. “We picked this one up at a street stand in Barcelona. That one is of the kids when we first moved into the house. Uncle Joe painted that one.” Most...

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