CORVI 2020
Going Viral
CORVI 2020 (Delta Variant) by Stephen Chin
“They fancied themselves free, and no one will ever be free so long as there are pestilences.” – Dr. Rieux, The Plague (Albert Camus)
Something happened way back in March of 2020 and most of us found ourselves with some extra time on our hands, at home and idle. Many of us learned to bake sourdough, or play an instrument, or make cocktails (remember the What? We are out of CAMPARI?!? crisis? – no? just me?).
Corvi 2019 (prototype)
Of course everyone responds to a pandemic in their own way. If you happen to be an Australian dentist with lots of drills and no teeth in sight, you start dreaming about a virus puzzle. In April 2020, a few of us began hearing snippets and rumors of what was keeping our friendly dentist awake at night – a puzzle box in the classic “Chinomotto” style that was not so subtly reminiscent of everyone’s new found global nemesis. Classic “Chinomotto” style, if you don’t know, means it: is made from beautiful wood turned on a lathe, is puzzling to open, is whimsical, has a wicked sense of humor, whistles, spins, and likely has a lego maniac inside waiting to blow you up with lights and sound effects. Deluxe versions also levitate and make breakfast.
Ouch!
I thought dentists were supposed to fix cavities, not make them …
I hope he cleans these for his next patient …
Corvi 2020 (prototype)
Stephen Chin was a man obsessed. It probably didn’t help that he is a huge fan of Hellraiser and the suspiciously viral looking Pinhead villain. Photos of his first hollow prototype surfaced that April, with more variations and prototypes coming in May. He finally had a working prototype which functioned the way he envisioned in June, in time to submit it to the International Puzzle Design Competition (held remotely later in the year) where his design ultimately garnered a top 10 vote. The limited edition puzzle kept mutating every time he ran out of golf tees or needed more tiny tubes of toothpaste (don’t ask, but be warned).
We have such puzzles to show you …
The visually infectious puzzle is also very clever, with many hidden steps and surprises, and there’s more than meets the eye here for the discerning observer. Stephen points out that “geniuses” will recognize that the golf tees are set in the centers of a Golden Rhombic Triacontahedron. He also explains, for non-geniuses, this means “there are 30 center points of the Golden Rhombus of the T30 … which is a dual of T30, the world famous Icosidodecahedron - of course you knew that … 20 triangles and 12 pentagons, 1 triangle is surrounded by 3 pentas, or a penta surrounded by 5 triangles.” Obviously. The colors are also not random – 1 color tee never repeats itself next to its neighbors, and each color forms an x,y,z axis configuration. Amazing! Stephen has literally “turned” lemons into lemonade (or whatever the equivalent is for a virus) with his creation, and even donated the proceeds from his first auction puzzle to the Red Cross and Australia’s Wildlife Fund. He’s a dentist who truly puts a smile on your face.
The protovirus keeps mutating …
“Then came the second phase of conflict, tears and pleadings—abstraction, in a word. In those fever-hot, nerve-ridden sickrooms crazy scenes took place.” – Dr. Rieux, The Plague (Albert Camus)
Dr. Rieux cocktail
Albert Camus published his famous work of existential fiction and social commentary, The Plague, in 1947, and the words ring true now as ever. He based his novel, about an epidemic of bubonic plague that ravaged the French Algerian town of Oran, on the historic cholera epidemic that afflicted that town in 1849, while setting the novel in the present (at the time he wrote it). Oran had a long history of plague, which decimated the town in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as well. The novel is narrated by Dr. Bernard Rieux, who tries to convince everyone to take the threat seriously, until it becomes too late. Characters wallow in their own self despair and pity, facing isolation alone, initially, but come to see the common plight and their role in overcoming it as a community eventually. It is astounding how similar the human condition remains throughout time.
You’ll rue not making this one
Dr. Rieux is also a lovely cocktail, and just what the doctor ordered for this pairing. The recipe can be found in Difford’s Guide, spirits writer Simon Difford’s comprehensive drinks compendium, where it credits a recipe from shuttered New York French restaurant Vaucluse. While open, bartender and historian Michael Longshore headed the bar program, so we may have traced the origins, but investigations continue. Regardless of origins, the cocktail is a deliciously complex prescription of fine apple brandy, light rum, and the delightfully odd Swedish Punsch, itself a delicious Jakarta rum infused with dark sugar and Java spices. The drink is almost too tasty to merit the reference to its namesake, a healer plagued by the futility of fighting a pestilence against human nature. But it may just cure what ails you. Cheers!
“What we learn in time of pestilence: that there are more things to admire in men than to despise.” – Dr. Rieux, The Plague (Albert Camus)
An infectiously delightful pair
Dr. Rieux, Difford’s Guide
1 oz Calvados
1 oz white rum
¾ oz Swedish Punsch
½ oz Orange Curacao
¾ oz lemon
¼ oz Demerara syrup (2:1)
Shake ingredients with ice and strain into a favorite coup with sugared rim. Garnish with a lemon twist, or Covid lemon wheel.
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