[Palindrome] A letter to the MIT hunt folk

[Thomas Weisswange <aldesuda optonline net>]

[I don't know exactly how to contact the hunt organizers and other MIT
hunt people, but maybe somebody could pass this on.  This is a bit
long and very sappy in parts--I hope you'll indulge me.]

Dear MIT Mystery hunt community,

     I have been reading e-mails that have been sent around in the last
couple of months, both by members of the MIT community and by others,
concerning the Mystery hunt.  While I agree with some things said, and
disagree with others, I have not yet felt that my opinion has been
expressed, and so I decided to write this letter.  And though I don't
claim to be a representative of all of us "outsiders," I think that
perhaps this sentiment might be shared by a few of us.  First, though,
a bit of background.

     When I was a high school student here on Long Island, New York,
back in the late 80s, I had a list of 6 colleges to which I applied.  At
the top of the list was MIT.  I got in, but due to an outside
scholarship with a limited list of schools, I couldn't go.  Now I'm
not going to say that I "settled" for Princeton, but there were two
things that I knew about at MIT that I regretted not being able to
experience: one was course 2.70 (is that right?  I mean the course
where students build competing robots) which I heard about on Nova.
The other was the MIT Mystery Hunt, which I read about in Games
magazine.

     A number of years later (that number being, um, let's see, seven,)
I had gotten involved in a couple of puzzle events and found out that
people who were not actively MIT students were welcome to participate
in the Hunt.  I was ecstatic.  Here was my opportunity to do something
that I had always wanted to do, but had thought impossible.  I hooked
up with Eric's team, and competed in my first hunt the following
January (it was the Elvis hunt that year.)  I was amazed at the quality,
variety, and above all, difficulty of the puzzles.  I loved the
connectedness of them, and was happy that I could make a contribution
to my team.

     Much to my surprise, we ended up winning that year, and the next
year I got to be involved in what, to me, is possibly the only thing
 more satisfying than solving the Hunt, and that is writing one.  I had
a blast coming up with ideas, sculpting them into puzzles, trying out
ideas, experimenting, trying to think of fun things to do.  And when we
actually ran the hunt (a deliriously joyful exhaustion) it was
completely satisfying, watching so many people enjoy what we had put
together.

     Several years have gone by, and I have been on the same team since.
We've won another Hunt, competed in quite a few more, and have seen the
Hunt grow, change, evolve perhaps, from a paper-printed set of puzzles
full of errors, to a digitized, streamlined, beautifully-crafted work of
art, put together by incredibly intelligent students and others who do
it simply for the joy it brings.

     Of late, discussions have been going on about the Hunt, most
notably about the degree of non-student involvement, but also about such
things as the size of teams.  On both of these topics, our "palindrome"
team has been a prime offender.  We have, due to our open membership
policy, grown from a small team to quite a large one, split up, and
grown again.  Since we do not have many MIT students, it is very hard
for us to add MIT students to our team.  And so, without our intention
to do so, we have grown to a rather large team of mostly non-students.
Other teams, in response, have also grown very large, though I must
admit, with a greater contingent of students.

     I don't have a solution for the team-size issue.  Frankly, I don't
even know if that's that much of a problem, however, I can certainly
see how hunt organizers might despair at the thought of having to write
enough puzzles to keep a team of 50 busy for 2 days.  The thought scares
me, and I'm not even writing the hunt this year!  Anyway, this issue is
not what this letter is about.

     I would like to address the other issue, if I might.  I have heard,
with increasing frequency, usually through third parties, that students
have been complaining that the MIT Mystery Hunt has become nothing but
another convention for the National Puzzlers' League (NPL,) a group of
which I am a member (nom de plume: Al DeSuda.)  I've heard it suggested
that we come to this event, walk around like we own it, win every year,
and make the hunt less and less of an MIT event.  Like a bunch of
ringers, we make the hunt unfair for the MIT student community, and
never give any of them a chance to run the hunt.  With the victory this
past year of an all-MIT team, I hope to see more variety of teams
winning and running the hunt.

     There were a few less-than-civil postings about team membership and
such.  Many people who are not MIT students have been involved with the
hunt for some time and feel deeply connected to it.  The central
question that it all comes down to is this: who owns the Hunt?

     There is only one answer to that question: MIT students do.

     As much as I feel that I have contributed to the hunt, as
much as I would like to feel some ownership of the event, the fact is
that MIT started the hunt, keeps it going, supports it both physically
and financially, and is nice enough to provide a place for us to do what
it is we love, every year, in the coolest big-ass building I still have
ever seen.

     Upon reading what people have written, it has given me a chance to
step back and realize what I have been able to be involved with.  It is
with no small amount of embarrassment that I have come to recognize that
I have been playing in the Hunt for so long without saying this:

     Thank you.

     Every year you invite me onto your campus and allow me to have more
fun in two days than most people have in a year.  You expose me to new
puzzle ideas.  You give me the chance to do totally ridiculous things.
You clue me in to books, comics, bands, TV shows, and other cultural
phenomena that I would have never seen otherwise (I just saw a Kaiju Big
Battel special on MTV2 yesterday and nearly peed my pants.)  You let me
be an unabashed geek for a weekend with no fear of judgement.  You let
me spend tremendous chunks of quality time with people that I sincerely
love, and for this, I can't thank you enough.

     The fact of the matter is that this is your event.  If you put a
cap on size, I would split us up so we could play.  If there were an
MIT student requirement, I would do whatever outreach was necessary to
get more students involved with us, so we could play.  If we were no
longer allowed to field an official team, I would come and solve
unoffically, so we could play.  I would be sad about that one though--I
may be a masochist, but I *love* writing the Hunt.  It gives me the
chance to try out things that would never fly anywhere else, and frankly
I happen to think that I do add something to the hunt with my own
puzzle-making skills.

     I have spent the last hour or so, writing this letter, trying to
think of the one thing that makes the Mystery Hunt great.  And I don't
mean sort of a casual "great" that is bandied about.  I mean that it is
a great event, in scope, tone, quality, and spirit.  To be honest, I'm
not really sure.  But I think it has something to do with how open it is
to everything.  It's as if everywhere is in bounds, and anything can and
does happen.  We show up every year with some vague idea of what's going
to occur, and every year something throws us a complete curveball.
Some new thing blows us away, or knocks us on our collective asses,
rolling with laughter (ask me about the "Ass, ass, titties, titties"
song sometime.)

     I feel genuinely privileged to be a part of this event.  If
anything I have said, anything I have written, or anything I have done,
has given anyone cause to think otherwise, then I wish to apologize.
The Mystery Hunt is one of the highlights of my year.  I have added to
the hunt, and I have taken a lot with me from the hunt.  Not to inflate
anyone's ego any further, but something incredible has formed here, and
I look forward to being a part of it for years to come.

                                  With sincerest thanks,

                                  Thomas Weisswange