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Post by Emma “Emmz” Squalor on Jun 23, 2010 12:58:17 GMT -5
You're welcome, and thank you for answering my question. As for the letter, even if it hadn't been for E.R.'s note at the bottom stating his innocence, I think the reader still would have found it suspicious that a volunteer would be 'good friends' with Geraldine Julienne. E.R. certainly doesn't seem like the type who would associate with villains or, in this case, those who don't tell the truth.
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Post by Jacques Snicket on Jun 24, 2010 11:33:03 GMT -5
The Sagan Planetarium To My Kind Editor,
I have recently gone undercover as a newly-hired doorman (which is invariably the reason this letter to you is being written on my place of employment's stationery, and not my own) at the widely renowned Sagan Planetarium which was opened approximately a year ago in this City. As I observe the quiet musings of Mars against the black background of stellar space I find myself reminiscing back, a phrase which here means "remembering a poem by Edgar Allan Poe in which that ghastly paradox of Olbers' was solved by the poet in a few strokes of his pen." The reason I am hiding out in this spacious venue is that my enemies are on the hunt for me and intend to force me to listen to the dismal poetry of Edgar Guest. I would rather prefer to read Melville instead.
P.S.: With great regards and condolences I must inform you that you are in grave danger, and must go hiding elsewhere, for example a brae in the hills, or an abandoned glue factory where, as the rumors held, the Quagmires were forced to do manual labour.
P.P.S.: The charred remains of the Baudelaire mansion are not a suitable hiding place.
P.P.P.S.: The world is quiet here.
With all due respect,
Lemony Snicket
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TO: E.R. FROM: J.S.
I HAVE FOUND IT STOP. THE SNICKET FILE IS AT THE PALTRYVILLE LIBRARY STOP. OR AT LEAST A CLEVERLY FORGED DECOY STOP.
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Dear Mr. Denouement,
I hope you are doing well and that your hotel catalog is running smoothly, for I have acquired disquieting news: just yesterday the Anwhistle Aquatics center was consumed by flames. I know not who set the blaze, but the reasons are clear enough. Gregor was reckless in attempting to utilize a deadly fungus for "the greater good." Kit is thoroughly disturbed over the whole issue, and her brother hasn't been seen in months. It seems if the moral gap between fire-fighter and fire-starter is being blurred up to the point of nonexistence. I. has left for good it seems, and his knowledge concerning bathyscaphe propulsion will regretfully not be of our use. I fear the worst.
A. Watts
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Post by Emma “Emmz” Squalor on Jun 24, 2010 14:26:56 GMT -5
I like the comparison between Mars and Edgar Allen Poe's poem, even though I've never read it myself. The idea of the Quagmires working at the glue factory generates a nice link to the Baudelaires working at Lucky Smells Lumbermill as well.
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Post by Jacques Snicket on Feb 21, 2011 1:07:21 GMT -5
Dr. Fortescue,
I have enclosed the copiously scribbled notes on a transdimensional device invented by a Dr. W. Bishop. His connection to our organization is flimsy at best, and I thought it prudent to warn you of the danger we will be facing when word gets out of the plans in your possession. O. has been planning on getting his slovenly hands on my great aunt Bathilda's tea set, obviously mistaking hers for B. B.'s. The fire at Hawthorne Public Theater was no natural occurrence nor was it O.'s work (as he would have us believe otherwise). It is the opinion of this letter-writer that the fabric between universes is beginning to break, and that by retrieving the sugar bowl we can stop the cataclysm before it even starts.
Viciously Feeling Depressed,
L. P.
This letter was sent out on December 13th, 1985. The scientist mentioned here, W. Bishop, had recently lost his only son to a rare genetic disease once thought to have afflicted one of V.F.D.'s original founding members, Vergilius Flavius Daceius, whose ancestors were disciples of the great mathematician and mystic Pythagoras. — E.R.
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Lemony,
The time has arrived, you fool. You should have known that your side of the schism will be unable to beat ours. Give me the plans, and B. will be spared.
Olaf
Olaf, of course, was mistaken in his supposition that L. possessed the plans to Walter Bishop's device, which had been handed to a woman disguised as a grocer who hid it in Room 608 of the Hotel Denouement. The plans remained there until a bald man in a dark suit and a black fedora appeared out of nowhere (according to witnesses questioned after the fire), entered the room where the plans were hidden and walked calmly by while the inferno raged about him. — E.R. —————————————————————————————
TO: J.S. FROM: E.R.
MY HARROWING JOURNEY TO FIND THE WHEREABOUTS OF R.'S SIGNET RING IS FINALLY OVER STOP. FOR SEVEN EXCRUCIATING AND NASTY MONTHS I HID OUT AS A BOTANIST WHO CONVENIENTLY OWNED A SMALL PARLOR SHOP IN THE COUNTRY STOP. I AM SORRY FOR MY ERRANT DISAPPEARANCE AND HOPE THAT I CAN REPAY YOUR GENEROSITY IN AIDING MY SEARCH IN FULL STOP. IS IT TRUE THAT L HAS BEEN ON THE RUN FOR ABOUT A WEEK NOW STOP. IF SO THEN K WAS RIGHT AND THE WORLD IS ABOUT TO BECOME LESS QUIETER WITH EACH PASSING DAY STOP. I AM REMINDED OF A PASSAGE BY ONE OF OUR NOBLEST POETS "HE THAT WAITS FOR SUNRISE AWAITS A TERRIBLE DAY, WHILE HE THAT BECOMES THE SUNRISE MERRILY FADES AWAY STOP."
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Post by Emma “Emmz” Squalor on Feb 21, 2011 11:59:24 GMT -5
Oh, what a fascinating installment this was! The letter to Dr. Fortescue from L.P. was very well written and exceedingly Snickety.
I loved the rhyming in this. ;D
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Post by Hermes on Feb 21, 2011 15:51:26 GMT -5
Wow, it's back! Well, this is certainly exciting - a breakdown of the fabric between universes, eh? Many new character - I recognise great-aunt Bathilda and Walter Bishop, but who is Dr Fortescue. (Oh - is he another HP character?) And should I know what LP stands for? I wait eagerly for the next episode.
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Post by Jacques Snicket on Feb 22, 2011 11:45:13 GMT -5
To my brother Lemony,
Greetings, brother. I hope that my letter arrived intact and that you and Beatrice are having tea with our grandmother's old porcelain set. For within the sugar bowl is your nuptial notification that your wedding will be held next Tuesday. You were not supposed to have found out this way, but Esmé is not one for confidentiality (ever since she divorced Jerome, she has been trying to find herself). I wish her well in her endeavours. I assume you will be having children, yes? Kit asked me about that subject, seeing as she has begun dating one of the three managers of the Hotel Denouement (I still can't tell them apart!), she wanted to give the notion a lot of thought. Perhaps you might name your sons after you and me, or your daughters after Kit and Beatrice? But I digress terribly, brother.
Hope you are well,
Jacques
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TO: L. P. FROM: W. B.
I RECEIVED YOUR LETTER STOP. IN ANSWER TO YOUR QUESTION IT HAS BEEN THREE MONTHS EVER SINCE MY YOUNG SON WAS KIDNAPPED ON A WINTRY NIGHT STOP. I HAVE REASON TO CONCLUDE, BASED UPON MY RECENT EXPERIMENTS CONCERNING ALTERNATE REALITIES, A MAN FROM ANOTHER UNIVERSE WHO POSSESSED THE SAME QUANTUM AND PHYSICAL FUNDAMENTALS AS MYSELF STOLE PETER FROM HIS BEDSIDE AND CROSSED OVER TO THE OTHER SIDE STOP. I HEAR YOU'VE BEEN CONTACTED BY TWO CITY OFFICIALS STOP. A WOMAN WITH HAIR BUT NO BEARD AND A MAN WITH A BEARD BUT NO HAIR STOP. I WILL NEED TO SPEAK TO THEM AT LENGTH CONCERNING THE WARNING THEY HAD CLANDESTINELY SENT ME CONCERNING THE ACTIONS OF THE GROUP RESPONSIBLE FOR PETER'S DISAPPEARANCE — V.F.D. STOP.
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Dear Dairy,
I am currently sitting within a Harvard basement being utilized as a laboratory for Doctor Walter Bishop, recently released from an asylum due to his estranged son Peter. I had been called for consultant status along with the younger Bishop in the hopes of finding out what happened to that doomed transatlantic flight.
The world is quiet here,
Eltaan Renefeso
Eltaan Renefeso
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Post by Hermes on Feb 22, 2011 18:08:43 GMT -5
Oo, interesting. So, E and J were divorced when L and B were still engaged? But perhaps this has to do with the breakdown of barriers between worlds. The bit about the man with the same fundamentals as Dr Bishop is significant, I think.
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Post by Emma “Emmz” Squalor on Feb 23, 2011 9:40:35 GMT -5
Yes, indeed, that is an interesting bit about Esme's and Jerome's divorce. I liked Jacques' suggestion to Lemony about naming Lemony's children after themselves, Kit, and/or Beatrice. I also think I can guess the identity of Peter.
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Post by Jacques Snicket on Feb 23, 2011 10:49:36 GMT -5
The first two messages/letters are from the alternate universe. But I'm sure you got that already.
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Post by Jacques Snicket on Mar 2, 2011 11:43:16 GMT -5
Regarding your corrent situation,
Lemony, I have written you in the most urgent haste. B. is in grave danger. Do not befieve what G. J. has written in the Deily Punctilio. Aster your botcjed triol and subqequent flight from the bountryside, you ire surely anticihating your whereaboucs discovered by unscrepulous enemies whose aim is to incinepate any tracu of your sojourns to and from the tisguised spyglass shop in the Fish District.
Gy ragards,
This letter was decoded too late to save the writer from terrible exhaustion and, eventually, death by snow machine. The message he tried to send out proved useless in the end due to the fact that when Jacques Snicket finally arrived at the old horseradish factory where the message was found to have originated, the writer's mangled body lay like a poem soaked with dark red ink, lying broken and unfulfilled. — E. R.
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O.,
The time is right, comrade! Tonight we strike at the volunteers at their Headquarters while the iron is asleep. Flames and fire shall burn the world to a cinder, and every fortune will be ours!
McGorgi Gorgonav
The "comrade" writing to Count Olaf in actuality was X., a volunteer who went insane in the course of his work for our organization and went over to the other side when the schism broke out. — E. R.
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THE DAILY PUNCTILIO[/size] All the News in Fits of Print
MYSTERIOUS FIRE FIRES MYSTERIOUS REPORTER! By: R. A. Kuhn
Today in the City, a mysterious reporter known only by the pseudonym Mysterius has, as of an hour ago, been fired due to setting fire to one of the potted plants on display in the main lounge of the printing house of this newspaper. It is a mysteriously mysterious mystery as to how Mysterius ever was hired to be a reporter, an occupation where all mysteriousness is traded for openness and where civility and truth abide as opposed to the content of Mysterius's mysterious column which has been edited out of this issue, Mysterius's Mysterious Mysteries. Of course, then there are the rumors of some caped vigilante named "Mysterion" who prowls the City at night in order to dispense justice to wrongdoers and arsonists. The Editor-in-Chief of this paper, Eleanora Poe, sincerely believes that this "Mysterion" character is none other than Mysterius sabotaging the printing of this paper in order to ———jkldsjchjsjhckvsdchjkvdfsjkvdfjksvdfjkvdfsjvds dsfklsjfhdsjbfhcdsjfhebfdsdhfhhjfbddjsfghjsdgfhjdsgfhdsgfhdsgfgdhsfgdsfdfd dsfkmsdfkjkdsjhfhjsdhjfhjsdhjfhjdsfjhhjdshijhijsihjkhjkshjBeatrice - I will burn your mansion down dskfkdskfkjsdjkfhjdsjfjhjdfhjsdfjhjdhsXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXxxxxxXXXXXXXXXXXXXxxxXXXXXXX XXXXXXuuXUXUUXJSKHJDXJSHDJHJHhjsjhdshjhjdjhsjdhjshjjhsjhdjs [/b]
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Post by Tiago James Squalor on Mar 2, 2011 14:28:44 GMT -5
The way you write this, it's genius. 'Mysterious fire fires mysterious reporter' had me lol'ing. Great, great writing.
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Post by Emma “Emmz” Squalor on Mar 2, 2011 15:04:22 GMT -5
Aunt Josephine would certainly have her work cut out for her if she read the opening paragraph of this installment. The "mysterious" newspaper article is quite worrying. I wonder who Mysterius is, and why they set that fire to begin with? Certainly one's hatred of plants can't be that strong.
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Post by Jacques Snicket on Jun 29, 2011 11:15:07 GMT -5
TO: L.S. FROM: L.G.
I AM CURRENTLY GAZING UP AT THE LOPSIDED STONE TOWER ATTACHED TO COUNT OLAF'S HOUSE STOP. I HAVE BEEN INVESTIGATING FOR MORE THAN A YEAR NOW AND I FEEL THAT IT IS MOST UNSETTLING THAT OLAF WAS NOT AT THE CITY MUSIC HALL, WHERE I PERFORMED FOR TWO HOURS, WHEN THE CAGLIOSTRO BUILDING BURNED TO THE GROUND STOP. I FEAR OLAF IS BEGINNING A PATH MOST OF US WILL NOT FOLLOW STOP. HE IS CUTTING HIMSELF OFF FROM HIS SENSITIVITY AND THIS WILL CAUSE HIM TO DISPLACE HIS INSECURITIES UPON OTHERS STOP. IN SHORT I FEAR FOR HIS FUTURE STOP. I HAVE A SINCERE HOPE THAT MY MUSIC WILL HELP TO PUT OUT OUR INTERNAL FIRES JUST AS WELL AS OUR ORGANIZATION EXTINGUISHES EXTERNAL FIRES STOP. I CAN ONLY HOPE THAT OLAF REALIZES THAT THE DEEP PART WITHIN HIMSELF, THAT HAS BEEN SUPPRESSED DAILY EVER SINCE THE MURDER OF HIS PARENTS AND THE SUBSEQUENT AGONY TEARING APART HIS SOUL, STILL EXISTS STOP.
I attended Lisa Gerrard's performance at the City Music Hall that night and it was beyond words. She truly is a versatile volunteer, working in the dairy fields passing along secret messages in code, going out on reconnaisance work for D.'s underwater catalogue, and other deeds aimed at ceasing the other side's constant need to burn things, while making her music. Her conclusion reached on Count Olaf's psychological state reaches the bottom of this whole matter, an attitude that unfortunately is not shared within our organization. — E. R.
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Dear Dairy,
I was in the midst of crossing perilous waves of crowdspeople in order to reach the Concierge Desk in the middle of the lobby of the Hotel Denouement. Once there I was met with a strange sight. There were three concierges who looked desperately out of place. One looked small and young enough to be just out of infanthood while the other two seemed as if a quiet urgency were pressing on them. It was then I realized these were the Baudelaire children I had seen so much of during Beatrice's dinner parties. If I were to open into conversation with them and see their quiet urgency reflected in their idioms of conversation, I would not blame them in the slightest, for their parents—
I could not retrieve the bottom piece to this commonplace book entry, as the rain was too torrential and the wind too obstinate for me to venture forth into the icy freezing lake, at the bottom of which lay a locked wooden treasure chest containing the second portion of the above entry. I did discover the key though, unceremoniously displaced inside a certain vase at Veblen Hall. — E. R.
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Gatsby, James — 813 Genevieve, Esmé Gigi — 391 Gerrard, Lisa — 782 Goldsmith, Jerry — 789 Gyrdenwe, Caulfnwch — 491
I found this teared portion of a Hotel Denouement guest registry folded and hidden underneath the sugar bowl at my table at the Toscanini Café in the City. Judging by the absence of the last name Squalor from Esmé's entry, I am certain that the directory from which this page was torn from had to have been published before Jerome married Esmé, and in doing so, disregarded J.'s warning to wed her, as subsequent events concerning the Baudelaire children proved his concerns in hindsight. — E. R.
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Post by Emma “Emmz” Squalor on Jul 2, 2011 14:22:14 GMT -5
It's always nice to see this updated! I agree with your choice of the event which marked Olaf's transformation; the line And the subsequent agony tearing apart his soul was especially dramatic and poignant. I wonder who the writer of the commonplace book entry could be, or - and, perhaps, more importantly - what it is about Beatrice and Bertrand that the writer believes has had such a profound effect on their children? Certainly it isn't just their deaths... I like the mention of a Mr. James Gatsby. What other characters/historical figures served as inspiration for the remaining three guests at the Hotel D? (Obviously I'm not referring to Esme, since we all know where her names come from, LOL).
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