Letters, We Get Letters...
From a Sally Forth reader:
One thing popped out at me from an otherwise unmemorable Sally Forth cartoon today: in the last panel, in place of a punchline, Ted Forth chooses to break his silence with a mention of Sudoku. Although many of the products created by the Japanese frighten and baffle me, 数独 is one on which I can at least take a definite stance.
Sudoku is no good. It has replaced the creativity, banal as it may at times have been, with something that can be generated by a machine. There is no creation in writing of a Sudoku puzzle, no human spark. Just as thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind, thou shouldst not ask a human mind to work as a machine.
Though puzzles have been simplified and distilled in the past—the crossword gave birth to the word search, and Boggle is but Scrabble for those with short attention spans,—Sudoku takes another step by making the creator as well as the solver optional, appealing only to those for whom numbers are a fantastic and frightening thing, symbols of a world full not of the might and wonder visible by the mathematician, but rather of a world opaque and obscured by a veil of apathy and ignorance.
The fact that Ted noticed Sudoku at all only makes me hate him more.
--dshea
Dear dshea:
I fear your rather intense emotional reaction to both a simple diversion and a fictional character--not to mention your pronounced fear of artificial intelligence, the Japanese and Parker Brothers--speaks of an all-too cloistered existence or a troubled soul crippled by abject loneliness.
I urge you to extend your social radius. Perhaps join a book club. Frequent a dining establisment and engage in conversations with the waitstaff. Take the extra time to respond to telephone solicitors. Anything to open both your mind and your opportunities for happiness. I worry about you and wish you the very best of luck.
Take care,
Ces
One thing popped out at me from an otherwise unmemorable Sally Forth cartoon today: in the last panel, in place of a punchline, Ted Forth chooses to break his silence with a mention of Sudoku. Although many of the products created by the Japanese frighten and baffle me, 数独 is one on which I can at least take a definite stance.
Sudoku is no good. It has replaced the creativity, banal as it may at times have been, with something that can be generated by a machine. There is no creation in writing of a Sudoku puzzle, no human spark. Just as thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind, thou shouldst not ask a human mind to work as a machine.
Though puzzles have been simplified and distilled in the past—the crossword gave birth to the word search, and Boggle is but Scrabble for those with short attention spans,—Sudoku takes another step by making the creator as well as the solver optional, appealing only to those for whom numbers are a fantastic and frightening thing, symbols of a world full not of the might and wonder visible by the mathematician, but rather of a world opaque and obscured by a veil of apathy and ignorance.
The fact that Ted noticed Sudoku at all only makes me hate him more.
--dshea
Dear dshea:
I fear your rather intense emotional reaction to both a simple diversion and a fictional character--not to mention your pronounced fear of artificial intelligence, the Japanese and Parker Brothers--speaks of an all-too cloistered existence or a troubled soul crippled by abject loneliness.
I urge you to extend your social radius. Perhaps join a book club. Frequent a dining establisment and engage in conversations with the waitstaff. Take the extra time to respond to telephone solicitors. Anything to open both your mind and your opportunities for happiness. I worry about you and wish you the very best of luck.
Take care,
Ces
posted by Francesco Marciuliano at 1:10 PM
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10 Comments:
Man, you get the best nuttiest 'fan' mail I've ever seen.
I wonder if this guy wrote to the Marvin people after their two-week long obsession with "yunoklu".
jf
For the record, my wife and I had the exact same reaction to that Sally Forth: that it was easily the most Medium Large-like SF strip of all time.
I beseech you: work the phrase "poodle in the mouth" into a Sally Forth script. I don't care how you do it, just get it done!
I dunno, Ces - after seeing a Travel Channel show about seafood, the Japanese kinda scare me, too...
Wow. Just... wow. It amazes me how much attention people put in the comic strip section of the newspaper.
War in Iraq? NSA tapping phone lines? Rebuilding New Orleans before the hurricane season fires up in ernest? Guantanamo prisoners killing themselves? Genocide in Darfur?
Nope! When reading the paper, the most pressing concern of this dingbat is picking apart a comic strip and writing to its author to complain about how a fictional character makes a culturally relevant comment.
And, FYI, Sudoku is about as Japanese as Teen Titans. The deductive reasoning puzzle is British.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to drive my Toyota to my karate class. I'll rock put the Pillows on my Sony CD player. Then go home and play Animal Crossing on my Nintendo DS. Then later tonight I'll watch Inu-Yasha while downloading fansubs on my computer and working on my next cosplay. Hopefully the manga I ordered will arrive in the mail today, too. I'll read that in bed tonight while cuddling my stuffed Meowth doll. >^_^<
Arigato.
Are you sure that someone wasn't pulling your leg with this one?
I thought that the first time I read it. And the second time. But after you've received as much nut mail as I have, you can see how this may not be a joke.
Either way, when you start with a snide remark like "an otherwise unmemorable Sally Forth cartoon," I automatically have the right to label you as I see fit on the Web.
Actually, the puzzle is originally American, not British. It was created in the '70s and appeared first in Dell puzzle magazines.
At Q&As after "Wordplay" screenings, we've had side bets as to how long it takes for someone to ask what we think of sudoku. (And if I'm allowed to promote myself further, there'll be Q&As at the 7:45 and 8:45 showings at the IFC Center [6th and W 3rd] on 6/23 and 6/24.)
He said "butt Scrabble." Heh-heh. (And he can't spell.)
The fact that dshea appeals to Frank Herbert as scriptural authority is either indicative that this really is moderately clever satire or else that dshea truly has gone over the deep end. That and he/she probably does enough reading.
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