Piano Box

It’s time to celebrate another new designer here on the pages of B&B, someone already familiar to many by way of his mind boggling printed puzzle boxes but being featured here for the first time. He has a knack for inventing crazy mechanisms that can (practically speaking) only be realized with well executed 3D printing. Trying to solve one of his puzzle boxes is a true exercise in patience, observation, and trust that things will move or work when they are meant to! Michael (Alex) Owens, known by his moniker Mowens, has produced quite a number of innovative designs in his unique style now, and I recently found myself playing his new piano in the most unusual ways.

Alex is a mechanical engineer, with additional interests in the data science and AI/ML fields, who recently hails from Austin, Texas. He shared some insights into his background and puzzles with me. “I've always loved the idea of puzzle boxes, hidden compartments and complex treasure hunts. Something about hiding a reward behind a sort of skill/knowledge check has always fascinated me. So when I picked up a 3D printer at the start of 2020, it wasn't long before I was trying out different ideas for puzzle mechanisms. I do have a lot of inspirations, but not really any other puzzle designers. I would actually credit a lot of my inspiration to artists like MC Escher or Rube Goldberg. The closest thing to a puzzle inspiration for me are the "The Room" games that came out on the app stores many years ago. Everything is fully 3D printed. I challenge myself not to use any outside materials such as screws/nuts or glue. I think there's a beauty in being able to see every part of the design and not have to wonder at how some things work.”

One of Alex’s newest designs is this tricky little piano, complete with a small set of ebonies and ivories. Once you start to play this instrument, however, you quickly lose track of the score and the tempo. The piano plays like a wild symphony from an insane modernist composer. The scales move rapidly back and forth across the octaves and the whole piano starts to come apart from your frantic key strokes (no actual forte is needed, just a gentle pianissimo if you can find the right notes). Yet somehow, despite having pieces here and there, the structure holds and each small victory is met with another round of confusion as you search in vain for the next move. Alex is very good at constructing complex interactions between the pieces and tricky mechanisms hiding in plain sight. This leads to progress in phases, which is a very satisfying experience. His puzzle boxes are like complex interlocking puzzles which need to be taken apart, somehow, and have the added surprise of hidden compartments and a final goal. By the final coda in this overture, no fewer than 28 pieces lay strewn across the concert hall and you are left with a marvelous finale which brings you full circle. It’s a wildly entertaining and surprisingly complicated puzzle box. Good luck putting it all back together again, maestro!

“Piano was really just inspired by my love of the instrument. I've played since I was very young, and in my mind [the] piano has a lot of similarities to my puzzles. They both require you to learn a series of actions before you can truly experience what they're capable of.” Alex’s “design methodology involves creating the entire "rough draft" before printing anything off, so once I get to that step there's always things I've overlooked or that just don't work quite right. On Piano, two of the pieces towards the end of the solve definitely gave me the most heartache. It was a huge headache coming up with a design that held them together securely but didn't cause issue with other aspects, and I tried many different ideas until I finally found one I was happy with. I design puzzle based on what I like, and it's really cool to see that there are other people out there enjoying them too. I'd absolutely love to see a puzzle designed by someone else in my "style" because I've always wished I could solve one of my own with no prior knowledge.”

I’m raising my glass to Alex and his elaborately complicated whirlwind of a piano with a little piano playing of my own. I once made a cocktail that was inspired by one of my favorite Tom Waits songs, The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me), from his 1976 album Small Change. The song is archetypical Waits, featuting his growling, gravely yet sweet melodic voice, set in a corner of a dive bar and full of nonsensical lyrics and erratic notes. Listening to it transports you to the scene, and you feel sad and nostalgic for all those times you may have felt alone in the world, or may have stayed up a bit too late, having one too many, perhaps. I envisioned flavors of coffee and cigarettes when I first made that cocktail (not that I smoke, although I’m not one to judge, as evidenced by this boozy blog).

But the original version was too sweet, and too complicated. I decided to revisit it thanks to this drunken piano that swerves and zigs and zags all over the place in a messy yet contained composition. Out went the coffee, which may have been misplaced anyway. I know the espresso martini is a wildly popular nightcap these days but honestly, coffee is not what I want for a nightcap anymore. The tequila base remains, along with a little mezcal, which evokes the appropriate dive bar drunkenness and smoky ambiance at the heart of the scene. The sherry acts as the contrasting sweetener. I used a special blend of Oloroso and Pedro Jimenez called East India Solera, which is rich and layered with sweet notes. The original had ginger spice in the mix, so I kept that with a little ginger liqueur. Granted the drink is still on the sweet side, but that’s how I want to drown my sorrows, so don’t judge me. Cheers!

Drunk Piano

1.5 oz reposado

½ oz mezcal

¾ oz East India Solera

½ oz ginger liqueur

1 dash Angostura bitters

1 dash orange bitters

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and stay tuned for Alex’s upcoming website in the near future!