Byzantine Angst

Dear Friends,

Here at Hard Taco, we strive to bring you unique musical experiences. This month's song, "Welcome to the Placebo Arm," is the first recorded prog rock song about industry-sponsored pharmaceutical trials. 

For our 25th wedding anniversary, Lauren planned a secret trip for the family. We were told to pack for "normal weather," and when we got to the airport, the destination was revealed through the solution of this Strands Puzzle.  I found three words and correctly surmised that we were headed to Rome!

Except that we weren't, because the third word was supposed to be GYRO, not ORGY. Which makes a lot more sense for a family vacation. Update: We were headed to Greece!

I love rubble, so Greece has long been on my bucket list, but prior to this trip, I didn't know much about it. I grew up reading D'Aulaire's book of Greek Mythology, so I already knew that Apollo was the god of music, poetry, light, and motorcyclists who weave between two lanes of traffic. But I never got past the second chapter of D'Aulaire's book of Greek Reality. 

• Chapter 1: Socrates, Euclid, and Giannis Antetokounmpo team up to invent democracy and the triangle. 
• Chapter 2: Thousands of people stream out of a cruise ship and wander into traffic. 

Anyway, we're now four days into the trip, and it has been magical. I've seen so much rubble, and I've learned enough to be over-qualified to write this definitive guide. 

Quick Facts about Greece:

Symbolism of the flag: An overhead view of a stray cat impaled on a cypress tree.

Most common occupation: Headless, armless sculpture model.

National Flower: The hairy-chested peony.

Exports: Three-letter words that are processed overseas and reused as fraternity names.

Things that hang from clotheslines in alleyways: Laundry, octopus. feta slabs.

Width of two-way roads: 1 meter, including both sidewalks.

National anthem: A symphony of suitcase wheels over cobblestones,

Legendary battle: Thermopylae, where 300 Spartans kept 200,000 immigrants at bay by standing around on a street corner, smoking and complaining.  

How to say Cheers: Εβίβα, which means, "May your enemy's swords be melted down and used for Chobani lids."

Politics: Feuding city-states, hoplite brinksmanship.

Favorite Labor of Hercules: Subduing ten island-hopping yacht owners.

National pastime: Smashing an ancient urn that says APHRODITE and glueing it back together so it says HOT DIAPER. 

Celebrities Who Culturally Appropriated Greek Letters: Catherine Zeta Jones, PSY, Delta Burke.

National emblem: John Stamos sipping hemlock among toppled columns and marble ruins. 

Fashion aesthetic: Mosaic-core.

With warmest regards,

Zach

The Art of Pulling Your Hand Back In Time

Dear Friends,

Our youngest is starting his final semester of high school. So is he, like so many of his classmates, suffering from a case of senioritis? Nope, not my kid. 

The suffix -itis means inflammation or infection. Malcolm isn't red and swollen. The correct medical term for what he has is seniorosis, a diseased or degenerative state of the 12th grade with unclear pathophysiology. 

This month's Hard Taco song, "Boulangerie," is a braggadocio rap about French culinary prestige culture. Sadly, my public persona as a wildly self-confident baker is built on a lie born of my own seniorosis. 

In early 1993, with college applications behind me, I registered for a cooking course to close out my final semester. But it soon became clear that we would be discussing pot holders rather than braising short ribs. The class was about kitchen safety, not culinary art. 

There was a textbook, Labensky and Hause's On Cooking, but I never cracked it open. I internalized the core principles through real life experience: If milk smells bad, boil it to reset it. Point pan handles away from the stove and out into traffic. 

Leave items cooking on the stovetop unattended whenever possible. When washing a hot greasy pan, run cold water into it face first. Lean directly over it to inspect the splash radius. Use one cutting board for everything from raw chicken to fruit salad, to "season" it. 

There was no AP test, but I'm sure I would have aced it without studying. If a can is bulging, that just means you're getting more beans for the same price. Always cut towards your body, and if you accidentally drop a knife, catch it heroically. Wash mushrooms with dish soap. Guess internal meat temperatures confidently. If oil starts smoking, add water to calm it. Open steaming lids towards you. It's just common sense.

At the end of the semester, the instructor presented each of us with a signed credential card. Mine said, "Zachary London is certified to prepare simple foods safely and accurately." I carried this in my wallet for many years, flashing it when anyone questioned my kitchen credentials. But kitchen safety can't be laminated... it has to be lived. 

With warmest regards,

Zach

The Bestiary of the Unsaid

 Dear Friends,

 

The Hard Taco song for February is called, "Man, What a Terrible Scene." When you hear the smooth tones of lead singer Jonathan Barron, you will be a jealot. 

Much as an overly zealous person is a zealot, your overwhelming jealousy (and excessive jeal) will make you a jealot. 

Jealous is one of the many adjectives in English that appear to be derived from nouns that do not actually exist. And like all things that don't exist, they deserve to be the subject of a fantasy role-playing game. What follows is my Monster Manual of creatures from whom these words are secretly derived. See if you can follow along: 

Joll:
Rotund, rosy-cheeked, and perpetually humming, the Joll radiates cheer that can buoy even the weariest of travelers. 

Dizz:
The Dizz stumbles around in erratic spirals, moaning and vomiting. In some regions, this same creature is known as the Quease. 

Snazz:
A flamboyant trickster cloaked in glittering sequins and ornamental accessories. A group of them is called a Spectacle of Snazzes. +2 Spotlight Theft. 

Feist:
A small, sharp-toothed creature that picks fights with anyone larger than itself, darting in and out with fearless snaps and relentless energy.

Reck
A calculating creature that observes silently, cataloging risks and outcomes before committing to action. It never acts in haste, pausing before every movement to weigh consequences. (Note: Could be confused with the Feck, but the author of this manual never remembers what feckless means, so no description of that creature will be provided.) 

Bash:
A timid, soft-furred being that won't make eye-contact with adventurers. +1 blushing defense. 

Rowd
A boisterous and chaotic creature that moves in large disorderly packs, overwhelming spaces with sheer commotion. In the presence of a Rowd, doors slam and fragile objects shatter preemptively. 

Hein
This creature commits acts so vile, even the most hardened villains recoil. Often seen alongside a related creature called the Grue, that delights in gore and fear.

Measle
Small, meager, and frail, the measle has little to offer. HP: Technically non-zero. Often confused with the paltre, which is even more insubstantial. 

Awk
Gangly and mortifying, the Awk is characterized by dropped beverages, missed cues, and pants-wetting. In each group (called a Cringe of Awks), there is usually one Social Awk, who waits for a lull in the conversation before forcing an ill-considered remark. 

Leg (Rhymes with "hedge.")
A creature that takes the shape of large, clear, easy-to-read words.

With warmest regards,
Zach

 

Fortress Party 2025 - Midwest Max: Rural Road

My name is Max. My world is corn and propane.

In the time after the Great Dry-Out, when the coasts were swallowed by storms and the cities tore themselves apart, the last scraps of civilization drifted inwards to a Heartland that had become a wilderness of rust and potholes.

Out here, in the Midwest wastes, the powerful rule from atop customized riding mowers. Roaming clans fight over heirloom seeds and clipped coupons in the shadows of abandoned grain elevators.

I am the one who runs from both the living and the excessively polite.

Hunted by casserole scavengers, haunted by the squeak of the cheese curds I could not protect. A man consumed by a single thought...

Ope, sorry.  

 

Fortress Party 2025 - Fort Montreal 1701

Do we ever repeat room themes? Not exactly, but there are certainly overlaps. In 2014, we did The Bridge to Canada, which had plenty of great Canadian jokes. This year's room brought back the Canadian theme, but focused more on the rich history of colonial Quebec.

Guests had to follow signs attached to dead trees to find the room.

The decor could best be described as Fur Trapper-chic. Did you know that you can buy rolls of plastic tablecloths that look like old wooden planks? I can't think of another use for those other than turning a room into a Fort within a Fort. 

And the first centerpiece was a giant crockpot of poutine. Look, if animals were bigger in prehistoric times, it only makes sense that the French Fries would be four feet long and each cheese curd the size of a human head. 

The bear from 2023 Cocaine Bear Room made another appearance, this time holding a hockey stick and a wood-burned sign with the name of the room. 

This was the bar. We had three drink options: The French Canadian 75, the Maple Old Fashioned, and the Bloody Minky. 

Fortress Party 2025 - The Vault of Midnight

The first question we often ask ourselves when brainstorming room ideas is... what resources do we already have? We also like to have a little local flavor, by having one theme a year that is for Ann Arbor townies. 

So The Vault of Midnight was a perfect choice for a Fortress Party theme. It's a comic book/board game store in downtown Ann Arbor, and the origin of most of our board game collection. 

The title of the store has always sounded like an H.P. Lovecraft cosmic horror, so we decided to fill a room with games and comics and... Cthulhu.

Over 30 of the games had little QR codes on them, and when you would scan them with your phone, Chthulu herself would appear on the screen and teach you how to play the game.

Or at least that is what was supposed to happen. In reality, Cthulhu's game instructions immediately devolved into monologues about the the insignificance of humanity and the imminent and violent despoliation of the earth. 

There are 32 of these videos, with new ones released weekly on YouTube until the whole playlist is available in the Summer of 2026.

Fortress Party 2025 - Stonechella

 Welcome to Stone-Chella, the Stonehenge music festival.

First, a tour of the empty room, with three stone monoliths and a lot of plastic plants. 

The walls were covered with druidic show posters.

During the party, there were several live acts:

• Hrafnkel Beowulf (Josh Siegel)
• Cerebrospinal Druid (Brent Stansfield)
• Glunmar the Firewolfmuncher (Jeff Kleiner)
• Hey Solscticer (Forrest Heijkal) 
• Sister Andy and the Solstice Jive Jammers (Andaiye Spencer)

And after the midnight performance of Cigareets, it devolved into a karaoke stage, as usual.