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Date: 7 Dec 86 16:21:12 PST (Sunday)
From: Hoffman.es@Xerox.COM
Subject: Puzzle show
To: Cube-Lovers@AI.AI.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: Hoffman.es@Xerox.COM
Message-ID: <861207-162113-1746@Xerox>

PUZZLES OLD AND NEW:  Head Crackers, Patience Provers, and Other Tactile
Teasers

[including more variations on Rubik's cube than I've ever seen before]

EXHIBITION TOUR:
  	
	Craft and Folk Art Museum, LA	Nov. 26, '86 - Feb. 22, 1987
	MIT Museum			April 6 - June 15, 1987
	Hudson River Museum		July 22 - Sept. 27, 1987
	Science Museum of Minnesota	Oct. 19, '87 - Jan 3, 1988
	Ontario Science Center		Jan. 25 - March 6, 1988

Accompanied by the book PUZZLES OLD AND NEW: HOW TO MAKE AND SOLVE THEM
by Jerry Slocum and Jack Botermans ($20).

The exhibit discusses
	The Art in Puzzles
	The Social Experience
	Cultural Values
	Puzzles in the Industrial Age
	Puzzles in Education
	Puzzles and Science

It aims "to explore the history, meanings, and design of mechanical
puzzles."  The extensive displays categorize puzzles according to their
object:
	Put-Together Puzzles
	Take-Apart Puzzles
	Interlocking Solid Puzzles
	Disentanglement Puzzles
	Sequential Movement Puzzles
	Puzzle Vessels
	Dexterity Puzzles
	Vanish Puzzles
	Impossible Object Puzzles
	Folding Puzzles

Puzzles have been lent by collectors and museums around the world.  The
exhibit consultants are Benjamin Kilborne and Martin Gardner.

There are hands-on puzzles, but too simple and too few.  It's a
wonderful and tantalizing display of puzzles.  I was SOOO frustrated not
to be able to handle all the beautiful, enticing pieces.  Of course, if
I had been permitted to, I would never leave.... 

  --  Rodney Hoffman