Fish Tales

Noodling Box

Catfishing used to be so simple. Just fishing, for catfish, those bottom feeding wide mouthed siluriformes of the mud that are a tasty staple of Southeast Asian and Southern US diets. Nowadays, it means something completely different - the deceptive practice of posing as someone else for ill intent or personal gain. If we forget about the negative connotations, for a moment, and just think about the subterfuge, it might be a perfect term to apply to a particularly devious puzzle box. And one of the absolute masters of puzzle box “catfishing” had to have been Eric Fuller, the original Raleigh renegade, may he rest in peace. Eric was a genius at hiding very clever mechanism and movements in plain sight on his expertly crafted creations, which were so precise it was impossible to tell that anything was out of the ordinary. He enjoyed noodling about with his ideas, making them more and more complex, to the delight of his many fans and customers.

Noodling Box by Eric Fuller

Eric’s lasting legacy is well encapsulated in many ways within his final box, the last puzzle he personally had a hand in both designing and crafting. With bittersweet sentiments I am featuring it now, wondering what Eric would have told me about it during our occasional conversations. Luckily, Eric’s team at Cubic Dissection remain committed to the shop, and their marketing front man Tom was kind enough to fill in and share his own story. “My name is Tom Messina, I started working for Eric in 2019 by answering a random craigslist job posting and was completely unaware of the world of mechanical puzzles. I've got a statistics and mathematics bachelor's degree, which certainly comes in handy from time to time here, and was absolutely astounded and hooked from my first day of work. I remember it vividly, Eric handed me a Casino puzzle off his shelf and said "This is what we do here, take this home and figure it out."

fish eye?

I've been helping out in the shop with small tasks since I started, like assembling all the copies of a burr we were selling, cutting bevels on cubes, doing small glue-ups, and that sort of thing while keeping up with fulfillment and customer service. This past summer we were short on help and struggling to get Jammed Gem finished, so I started to help out with more difficult and critical tasks like milling, notching and spraying lacquer. I really enjoyed it and have always appreciated woodworking, but I asked Eric to move to working in the shop full time and he wholeheartedly supported it. Steve, our shop foreman and the man behind the saw, has been working with Eric for the past ten years or so now and was Eric's first full time employee at the old shop downtown. He has been teaching me more about making puzzles and woodworking, as he has about 25 or 30 years of traditional carpentry experience. Steve and I built Noodling Box, and all the while he was guiding me through the craftsmanship involved and the finer details of making these confounding cubic creations.”

fine kettle of fish

Tom recalls Eric asking him to help come up with a name for the box at one point, and Tom spent some time thinking about it before approaching Eric with his ideas. "Oh, I forgot I asked you to help with that. I've already got a name it's Noodling Box and we'll put a [amusing surprise] as the prize, our customers will get a laugh out of that."

you’ll need to use your noodle

Packed with steps, including sequential discovery components and more than one great aha moment, including the hinted at namesake move, the puzzle does not disappoint and has been a recent fan favorite.

The Noodling Box is a playground of sorts, where Eric was trying out new concepts and mechanisms, so you will find some fun ideas here mixed in with his classic misdirection and puzzling conundrums, all brought to life meticulously and with extreme precision by the masterful team behind the scenes.

Philadelphia Fish House Punch

I’m punching above my weight in order to offer a proper toast to the fine craftsmen of Cubic Dissection, and the memory of their founder. By that, I mean, I’ve prepared some punch. Not just any punch, mind you, no, only the best. The oldest, most famous, and first of the fish house (for it had to be fishy for this particular tribute). In 1732, the Schuylkill Fishing Company of Pennsylvania first established itself, eventually building a clubhouse “castle” along the banks of the Delaware a few miles north of Philadelphia. They brokered a treaty with the land owners, the Lenni-Lenape natives, and in a rebellious spirit, declared their club a sovereign state and their members an independent colony with their own government. Of course, these wealthy Quaker gentlemen simply wanted a place to fish, and to drink. Their “fish house” is considered to be the oldest social club still in existence now, and their signature punch remains a classic to this day.

drink like a fish

William Black, a secretary of the Virginian embassy, visited Philadelphia in 1744 and recorded the first known mention of the famous concoction. He describes being greeted on the banks of the river by the local dignitaries with “a Bowl of fine Lemon Punch big enough to have Swimmed half a dozen of young Geese." Legend has it that honorary society member George Washington once enjoyed the punch so much he could not make an entry into his diary for three days afterwards. Spirits writer Simon Difford offers up a more temperate single serving that allows the curious fisherman an opportunity to go noodling without committing to an entire lost weekend, and historian David Wondrich provides an accurate full bowl rendition. Here’s to keeping the craft alive – cheers.

gone fishing

Philadelphia Fish House Punch by David Wondrich

1 cup sugar

4 lemons with peels reserved

4 cups black tea

1 cup lemon juice

4 cups Jamaican rum

2 cups cognac

½ cup peach brandy (not liqueur)

Combine the lemon peels and sugar in the bowl and allow at least 30 minutes for the oils to mix (creating the oleo-saccharum). Dissolve sugar with the warm tea. Add remaining ingredients and chill with a large block of ice. Garnish each serving with a lemon slice and nutmeg.

(cat)fish got your tongue?

 Fish House Punch (single serving) by Simon Difford

1 oz cognac (Remy Martin)

1 oz rum (Bacardi Gold)

2/3 oz crème de peach

1 oz cold black breakfast tea

½ oz lemon

1/3 oz rich simple syrup

Shake ingredients with ice and strain into an ice filled glass. Lemon slice and nutmeg garnish.