Did you enjoy the hunt? Too hard? Not hard enough? There's over-easy and hard-boiled fans alike, I guess. WE hatched this plan way back. Are you shell shocked? We've got all kinds of yolks. Another egg pun? That's eggs-actly what I thought you said!
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Egg has hatched, and results are now visible to all. Thanks for joining us!
For those late to the party, these were the steps one would have followed:
The initial clue was in the Everybody Read!! post in the Rarities & Unreleased category. The post itself was a clue, with the initial letter of each section spelling "SLIMS." The new comment was a little limerick and another clue, which told seekers "I used to be a song, but I got very lonely. Now I figure I will instead help you crack some eggs. Please find me…"
The song in question was Madeline Peyroux's Bare Bones, which lives over in the Brill Bldg Becker category. For the period of the hunt, this post was replaced by a single link, which lead here:
https://www.walterbeckermedia.com/huntingforeggsintallgrass
The captions on that picture reference the song "Dirty Work," which contains a chess reference...the castle in his corner. The two eggs that would be the rooks contain links to:
http://walterbecker.com/news.html#subscribe
This part of the page on walterbecker.com talks about preserving history, and how Walter "wanted to entice readers further in." It further asked, "Where can we visit some of this preserved history now?"
The answer to that question, and the best place to view the preserved history of Walter's home on the web, is at the Frontpage Archive on walterbecker.com. Each of the pages in the archive contains text, encouraging movement forward while thinking about our first encounter with Walter here at his online home, with the most recent iteration of the homepage saying "Let's go through that entrance again now, and see what's waiting for us this time."
A return to that first page of the archive would lead one to the crow and the entrance, which had been made live, sending our intrepid adventurer through the door and to:
https://www.walterbeckermedia.com/vitalsmiles
Those amongst you with a penchant for anagrams might have picked up on the fact that Vital Smiles is an anagram of Live at Slim's, which was of course the promised egg.
All told, 48 people made it through to the end, with varying levels of help. The object of the game was never to keep the video from anyone, but to encourage a little fun. We sure had fun watching the counter trickle up, and helping those of you who asked. These kind of games aren't for everyone, which is why the secret only stayed a secret for a few days. But for those of you who made it to the end, we congratulate you. And for keeping the secret, we thank you. Hope you had fun.
Glad for people enjoying and cursing our egg hunt alike. Kulee, the "tracklist" is actually just anagrams of the relevant verse of "Dirty Work" and its chorus. As our wonderful Moderator pointed out, we toyed with a few iterations of puzzles. At some point I turned the text white on said anagram, when it was on a black background. Then a few edits later, the background was removed and the picture added, but now with the white text on white background, I kinda sorta forgot it was there. And of course you clever people found it and likely believed it was more important a clue than it was, in as much as it didn't reveal anything that the captions hadn't already told you, only more quickly and with less mental anguish.
Wow! What a special treat indeed - thanks for the fun "hunt." Now - the real special treat would be to hear that whole amazing show in all its glory. Please...make it be so some day! The sound quality was amazing...so clear, so intimate.
I registered just so I could publicly celebrate my victory over the Easter Egg challenge, while simultaneously complaining about the difficulty.
Seriously though, this site is fantastic. Thank you.
Is there anything coming out of the "tracklist" found under the chess photo?
Also, while I know it will be up to DF, have you come across a working mix of the Second Arrangement with vocals?
very belated to dwalsh...
the things we're converting now are the low-hanging fruit. we haven't even begun to look at tape ( that will take a whole new Laboratory to transfer-- but so what:-) ). but I have to tell you, I suspect that anything done before his move to Maui is unlikely to be preserved in HIS stuff, at least not as carried around by him, there was, shall we say, a "break in continuity" somewhere in there when it comes to personal possessions . But people have occasionally sent various things back to him " for safekeeping "(ha!) so like I said, you never know until you know.
take pity WBM: we had guests scouring the HTML source code looking for Clues as it was! -- OnTheCorner found the ghost of the deleted map link we were going to use for the entrance in the code until I decided to do the work for a door opening hover... and best of all, he actually found an anagram somewhere in there! you got to be careful -- the smart ones (or the OCD folks) will find clues you never intended to leave...)
cute....real cute....
WBM - NOW you're talkin'!
For the record, I still think a cryptographic cypher based on Fermi's paradox, Drake's equation, and Robert Katz's non-Newtonian calculus is a solid idea. Or some kind of semi-religious Dan Brown shit, only with the titular character from Josie as a stand-in for the Welsh fertility goddess Arianrhod.
Or a little on-screen keyboard where guests would have to play the intro from Paging Audrey to open the door, like Willy Wonka playing the Marriage of Figaro to open the door to that room with the chocolate river. I mean, who amongst us hasn't done the old GbΔ7aug - Cm7(b5) - EbmΔ9(13), walked back to Abadd9 on occasion? These guys would definitely have gotten that, right?
onthecorner -- you got the "double prize" we intended; 1, the track itself , and 2, confirmation of what we have in hand . we have to believe this is the only copy since surely in all these years something so sought after would have surfaced if it was out there . we have it now :) [PS and yes, you can bet we have convrted an transfered and backed up this baby to within an inch of her life: All these years on DAT tape -- it's a miracle it was playable at all]
Thanks again for the help last night!
Long story short, I met Walter before a show in 2011.
I got to speak to him for a few minutes. He was very nice and we had a great talk. I'll remember it forever.
Thanks everyone for the kind words on our little puzzle . I'm especially touched by those of you for whom the hurt is still fresh and who feel , as I do, that our little world here at WBMedia is somehow mitigating some of the hurt. But for whatever the reason, I'm glad you enjoyed the egg hunt (solved or not), and posted .Of course there's a couple of dozen people who at this moment are probably planning a painful demise for me and my partner in inflicted pain . I'm sure WBM will have his own comments to add, but you should know -- especially those planning our demise -- that we could have had a riot here last night instead of a frustrating but fun puzzle session ; you should have seen the things WBM WANTED to put in!
Cheers, everybody...
D-Mod
this was a lot of fun - without giving too much away, I scoured html to get to what I later found out was the next to last step early on in the day, but convinced myself it was a red herring or perhaps a mistake copied and pasted from another image map on the site. I focused way too long on the hidden text, the meaning of which I still can't figure out beyond one obvious anagram. Thankfully there were plenty of hints which got me back on track (and, to be honest, I would not have figured out the final step without them).
As for the egg itself ... all I'll say for now is that it's worth it. I mean, you all probably have an idea of what it is. But so cool to finally hear something of it after all these years. Must have been quite a night.
Thanks mod for a great hunt! Having nostalgia for a bygone internet is a strange feeling.
As for the payoff, it was superb. Here's to hoping there's more where that came from..
Thanks for the intriguging/amusing/compelling/frustrating/maddening/still amusing/cathartic adventure wbm and mod. Great way to spend a day!
pedder please post next question on Hints thread
take that back pedder29, cant seem to move. OKyour first clue is on a POST in the forum. We can assume we will be within the RARE category,, yes? Once in there we want (hint) EVERYBODY to READ it, right? so start scanning posts for what will obviously be a clue post...using hint above for where to start
pedder29 im moving your post over to the HINTS thread---will answer there
Mac OS 10.6.8 with Firefox or Chrome and tried 10.12.6 with Chrome 65.0.3325.181. Just not sure I have found the correct chess board. However, the one in Forum-1 has a Menu icon that does nothing.