A Day at a Park
Solution
We are presented with a sequence of fourteen text snippets written by someone over the course of a day in a park.
The references to “sport peppers” and “legume-shaped steel sculpture” (Cloud Gate, aka the Bean) suggest that the puzzle takes place in Chicago. The park is said to be an urban park named after a president (though there are actually at least three of these in Chicago!), but only one near to an art museum (the Art Institute of Chicago) and the Bean - Grant Park.
The given date, August 2nd 2024, was one of the days of Lollapalooza, a major music festival. The walk in this puzzle is set in an "alternate reality" version of Lollapalooza 2024 where the artists are people that the author meets over the course of their day.
There are fourteen text snippets. Excluding the first and the last, which are there to provide context, there are twelve text snippets, each corresponding to an artist. Not all twelve artists are explicitly clued, but between the Friday Lollapalooza lineup and schedule, the locations of the various stages, and context clues, we can determine the twelve artists and the order in which they were seen.
For example, the artist "Godly the Ruler" playing on the Bacardi stage is clued as "some weirdo proclaiming himself a divine monarch" standing next to some bottles of rum. For another example, the clue “I make my way to the opposite corner of the park, where I find 3 pink notebooks with mean things written in them” indicates that the artist is playing at the T-Mobile stage (opposite Bacardi, which is indicated in the previous clue again by “rum bottles”). This together with the schedule is enough to pin down that the artist is Reneé Rapp, and as confirmation, the pink notebooks are a reference to the Burn Book in Mean Girls (Reneé Rapp played Regina George).
The artists are listed chronologically, though as noted in the final snippet, the walker may not have “spen[t] as much time with some of them as [they] could’ve,” meaning that they might not have spent a full set’s worth of time at each location before moving on.
Each of the twelve artist snippets contains a number, which we can index into the corresponding artist’s name to get a letter (“... learned something unique from each one”). For example, there are "nine bottles of rum" in the above clue, so indexing 9 into GODLYTHERULER gives 'R'. Repeating this for the twelve artists in order gives the answer, RUDINN RANGER.
| Clue | Artist | Stage | Number | Index into artist's name | Additional explanation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| What are the chances that the first person I meet here is some weirdo proclaiming himself a divine monarch?! He's standing next to 9 bottles of rum, so maybe that explains it. | GODLYTHERULER | Bacardi | 9 | R | |
| "What time is it?" I think out loud, and a pair of nice passersby with 2 very old-fashioned timepieces tell me that it's one thirty. | SUNDIAL | Bud Light | 2 | U | |
| I walk straight until I reach the south end of the park. My reception is much better here - I somehow have 9 bars! I'll make sure to come back, if only once. | PAWPAWROD | T-Mobile | 9 | D | |
| I'm a little bit lost, but wherever I am, there are 6 fedoras here. | TWINSICK | Perry’s | 6 | I | The fedoras are an oblique reference to Perry the Platypus, helping confirm that this artist played at the Perry's stage. |
| As I walk under some trees, I see a girl sitting in the grass surrounded by no less than 11 squirrels. Definitely no bad blood there! At around a quarter past two, I get in line to buy a T-shirt from a nearby stand, and have to wait for over two hours! | TAYLORACORN | BMI | 11 | N | |
| 3 people talking over each other nearby interrupt my thoughts, and I realize that I have been biting my nails. I've been doing this since I was a kid but I really should stop. | TINYHABITS | BMI | 3 | N | Tiny Habits are a vocal trio. |
| A group of people are eating 14 hot dogs (topped with sport peppers, which seems to be a local favorite) while trying to convince me that the park we're in is a national park. I try to explain to them that it's just an urban park that happens to be named after a president, but eventually I decide to move on. | THENATIONALPARKS | BMI | 14 | R | |
| I’m back at the rum bottles - there are only 3 here now, next to a cat with orange, black and white markings. | RYANBEATTY | Bacardi | 3 | A | Ryan Beatty has an album called Calico. |
| I make my way to the opposite corner of the park, where I find 3 pink notebooks with some very mean things written inside. | RENEERAPP | T-Mobile | 3 | N | Reneé Rapp played Regina George in the musical and movie musical adaptations of Mean Girls. The pink notebook in the clue references the "Burn Book." |
| I've returned to the 3 rum bottles again. | MEGANMORONEY | Bacardi | 3 | G | |
| I’m not sure where I am now, but I've been here before. There’s a guy here playing with 2 drones. I chat with him, and find out that he was born in Russia but that he lives in Germany now. | ZEDD | Perry’s | 2 | E | Zedd is Russian but grew up in Germany. He also had drones at his show. |
| After crossing a road named for a civil rights activist for the sixth(!) time today, my final stop is a place I've only been to once so far. Here, I see 3 red lights. Then, I exit the park, next to an art museum and not far from a legume-shaped steel sculpture surrounded by throngs of tourists. | STRAYKIDS | Bud Light | 3 | R | The road is Ida B. Wells Dr, which separates T-Mobile, IHG, and Perry's from the remaining stages. Stray Kids have a popular song called "Red Lights". |