Friday, April 15, 2011

spy museum marker

Siht ym sdneirf, si a rekramkoob morf eht Yps Muesum ni Notgnihsaw CD!

This my friends, is a bookmarker from the Spy Museum in Washington DC!

That's code, baby! A simple cipher, that I am sure no spy has ever used, on account of it being so crappy. But Spy Museum? Really? I guess so, and it gives the address right on the reverse of the bookmark. Sounds like you can walk right up there. Not very secret of them. But what do I know?

The image on this bookmark's obverse is a little collage of spyish-like-stuff. I have no idea if this is real stuff from the museum's collection, or just a bunch of receipts and train schedules from foreign countries, put together by the art department of some DC print company. I say I don't know, but thats not for lack of trying. I warmed this baby over a candle, rubbed it with lemon juice, scanned it in ultra-violet, and tried to discover ciphers in the text. I even held it up to the light of a crescent moon on midsummer's eve, but all to no avail. In the words of John Hodgman: Hello, nerds.*

This guy is actually from the International Spy Museum Store, located inside the museum. Or is it? That may explain why the address (or coordinates, as the website says) and phone number are so plainly written on the back. Its the store! The International Spy Museum itself, must be actually hidden somewhere, deep in the bowels of Washington; down where Franklin and Jefferson hid the Templar gold, and the bones of John Wilkes Booth's third brother, Fown, and Dan Brown's great-granddaddy's gold teeth, in a Mason jar full of everclear...

But after checking, I'm pretty sure its just a bookmark. Thanks to Natalie and Hope!

* for the nerds: if you know what the reference is--without googling it--put it in a comment.**
** the first person to answer correctly gets an official incunabular illumination T-shirt.

1 comment:

  1. Seriously, Phil? You call that a cipher? Please do not go around contacting the CIA, You'd be fired on the SPOT!

    -Hope

    ReplyDelete

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