Puzzle Potluck 4
Part 1 (Display Home)
Each of the furnishings listed can be found in all rooms of the display home, and the individual furnishings are shown in either an on/open or off/closed state. Using the rooms to represent segments on a seven-segment display, each furnishing's on/off pattern can be read as a digit.
Indexing the digits back into the furnishings provides the intermediate phrase NUMBERSTOART, which clues that the digits should actually be used to extract the final solution from the painting names in Part 2 (Paintings).
| Furnishings | On/Off Rooms | Digit | Index into Furnishing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Phones |  | 4 | N |
| Faucets |  | 3 | U |
| Umbrellas |  | 2 | M |
| Books |  | 1 | B |
| Bottles |  | 6 | E |
| Drawers | | 6 | R |
| Televisions |  | 7 | S |
| Lights |  | 5 | T |
| Windows | | 5 | O |
| Fans | | 2 | A |
| Infusers | | 7 | R |
| Cabinets | | 7 | T |
Part 2 (Paintings)
Each journal entry describes a visit to a famous painting in a museum, and are listed in alphabetical order by painting name. The entries can be reordered as two continental road trips with a plane ride in between - here are a few example relationships:
- The 3rd entry on the puzzle page describes Guernica, which is located in Museo Reina Sofia ("a regal museum"). It also mentions traveling "across the pond", so it's the first stop on the European leg.
- The 4th entry mentions "the golden triangle", a reference to Madrid's famous Golden Triangle of Art, of which the Museo Reina Sofia is a part. One of the other museums in the triangle, Museo Nacional del Prado, features a statue of Diego Velázquez and houses his famous painting Las Meninas, so this is the next stop after Guernica.
- The 10th entry references Vincent Van Gogh's famous Starry Night, but describes another painting from his later days. The description of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, also known as the Gateway to the West, clues the general direction of travel to help with ordering the USA museum visits, and the St. Louis Art Museum contains Van Gogh's Vineyards at Auvers, which matches the journal details.
After the journal entries are identified and ordered, indexing into the painting names using the ordered indexes from Part 1 provides the final answer.
| Order | City | Painting | Index | Extraction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | San Francisco, CA | Woman with a Hat | 4 | A |
| 2 | St. Louis, MO | Vineyards at Auvers | 3 | N |
| 3 | Chicago, IL | A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte | 2 | S |
| 4 | Detroit, MI | Watson and the Shark | 1 | W |
| 5 | Washington, D.C. | Luncheon of the Boating Party | 6 | E |
| 6 | New York, NY | The Persistence of Memory | 6 | R |
| 7 | Madrid, Spain | Guernica | 7 | C |
| 8 | Madrid, Spain | Las Meninas | 5 | E |
| 9 | Paris, France | Liberty Leading the People | 5 | R |
| 10 | The Hague, Netherlands | Girl With a Pearl Earring | 2 | I |
| 11 | Vienna, Austria | The Kiss | 7 | S |
| 12 | Florence, Italy | Primavera | 7 | E |
The answer to this puzzle is CERISE.
Author's Notes
- Since my previous puzzles were fairly grindy and we also had some more complex puzzles in this year's hunt, I wanted to write a simpler ISIS-type puzzle. The answer lent itself to a more artistic theme, so I decided to try some topics that we hadn't written puzzles about before.
- I had fun adding easter eggs to Display Home referencing my personal hobbies and interests. Here are a few of them:
- The book in the basement is a throwback to Puzzle Potluck 3, when Julz and I wrote Stoichiometry 101 and Time (the green infinity stone).
- The four fat books at the bottom of the living room bookshelf are colored according to the published books in The Stormlight Archive.
- The bottles in the bathroom can conveniently refer to either shampoo and conditioner, or my initials.
- A few people have commented on the corgi Squishable... Julz thinks I have a plushie-hoarding problem (I have no idea what she's talking about though?)
- Best Wrong Answers:
Wrong Answer Submitted by: CUBISM Jamaica Wheels MixerOrdinalityVAMPIRESQUID ᗾ CANADIAN SYLLABICS QUEEN ALEXANDRA'S BIRDWING AMERICAN → AMERICANAIRLINES → VIRGINGALACTIC Extremely Clueless of /r/PictureGame REDPINK → DEEPPINK → VIVIDPINK → BLACKPINK NSOS
Stats
- 342 solves
- 522 incorrect guesses
- Most common incorrect guess: RISE (guessed 17 times)
- First solve: Cardinality in 1 hour, 20 minutes, and 15 seconds