another pseudopoll

Does scratching someone's back make yours itch?

dinner

Corey brought Frank, and Frank brought the current issue of The Enigma, and we were working on a deranged "enigmatic rebus" involving a drawing of a bra, a half-familiar line of poetry, and the letter O (not your usual sponsors). The verse part [1] had "The Case of the Black Orchids", which rang a faint Nero Wolfe bell for me, so I invoked Alex from the other end of the table; he confirmed the reference and explained who was speaking to whom in the verse, and the four of us worked from the ends and nailed it down piece by piece. I love it when everything comes together.

The answer was, and stop me if you have the November issue but haven't done this one yet, but the answer was brake at, so detour." / "Nope, Nero, or bra Keats ode to urn opener O.

This issue turns out to have mysteries as its theme, so Alex then blitzed through the puzzles relating to mystery authors before we could finish reading each one. Yow.

I haven't actually read any Wolfe (Nero). My theory is there was a teeny bit stuck in my brain from when Marid in When Gravity Fails slots a Nero Wolfe personality module to try to solve his murder case.

[1] these things have three parts: the skeleton of the answer (number and lengths of words, punctuation), the rebus itself, and a doggerel verse which doesn't fully make sense until the answer is substituted in at a certain point.