The rules constructed by Signor Garamond in Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum. To create a Plan of plans, to tie it all together under one seamless plot--a crossword puzzle not with words, but with concepts... seems a scary thesis resembling Everything.
The Rules
- Rule 1: Concepts are connected by analogy. There is no way to decide at once whether an analogy is good or bad, because to some degree everything is connected to everything else. For example, potato crosses with apple, because both are vegetable and round in shape. From apple to snake, by Biblical association. From snake to doughnut, by formal likeness. From doughnut to life preserver, and from life preserver to bathingsuit, then bathing to sea, sea to ship, ship to shit, shit to toilet paper, toilet to cologne, cologne to alcohol, alcohol to drugs, drugs to syringe, syringe to hole, hole to ground, ground to potato.
- Rule 2: Two says that if tout se tient in the end, the connecting works. From potatoe to potatoe, tout se tient. So it's right.
- Rule 3: The connections must not be original. They must have been made before, and the more often the better, by others. Only then do the crossings seem true, because they are obvious.
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