When times get tough, society plays games

It's been a...tense...week for some folks. A tense year. A tense life, even. Now, more than ever, let's take a break and focus on some cheery topics such as: the blitz, the black death, and gambling addiction. Yay...This week we're talking about games on Seemingly Unrelated and their unusual habit of popping up right when the world seems to be at its lowest. Is the NYT Connections game a predictor of political disaster? How many people died when Americans refused to 'black out' their lights in World War II? Was the first notorious European gambler an advocate for mental health treatment? The answers to these questions and more will be resolved with a rush of relief in episode four of Seemingly Unrelated.  ‘A Puzzling Career, Spring 2006, Northwestern Magazine’. Accessed 8 November 2024. https://www.northwestern.edu/magazine/spring2006/alumninews/wherearetheynow/banderooge.html. Abdul, Geneva. ‘What Connects Only Connect and New York Times? Game’s Similarity Puzzles Host’. The Guardian, 15 June 2023, sec. Media. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/jun/15/connections-new-york-times-puzzle-only-connect-victoria-coren-mitchell. Bana; Cowell, Edward B. (Edward Byles); Thomas, Frederick William (1897). The Harsa-carita of Bana. University of California  Libraries. London : Royal Asiatic Society. p. 65.David Sidney Parlett. The Oxford Guide to Card Games. Oxford University Press, 1990. http://archive.org/details/oxfordguidetocar00parl. Denning, Trevor. The Playing-Cards of Spain: A Guide for Historians and Collectors. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press, 1996. Gannon, Michael. Operation Drumbeat: The Dramatic True Strory of Germany’s Fast U-Boat Attacks Along the American Coast in World War II. Harper Collins, 2011. MCNY Blog: New York Stories. ‘The “Dimming” of Times Square’, 16 August 2011. https://blog.mcny.org/2011/08/16/the-dimming-of-times-square-2/. Shepard, Richard F. ‘Bambi Is a Stag and Tubas Don’t Go “Pah-Pah”: The Ins and Outs of Across and Down’. The New York Times, 16 February 1992, sec. Magazine. https://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/16/magazine/bambi-is-a-stag-and-tubas-dont-go-pahpah-the-ins-and-outs-of-across.html. Smith, David. ‘So You Thought Sudoku Came from the Land of the Rising Sun ...’ The Observer, 15 May 2005, sec. Media. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2005/may/15/pressandpublishing.usnews. Times, The New York. ‘Answers About World War II in New York, Part III’. City Room, 1286223289. https://archive.nytimes.com/cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/04/answers-about-world-war-ii-in-new-york-part-iii/. Valinsky, Jordan. ‘Move over Wordle, the New York Times Might Have Found Its next Hit Game | CNN Business’. CNN, 28 August 2023. https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/28/business/connections-nyt-new-game-launch/index.html. ‘Wyna Liu’. Accessed 8 November 2024. https://madmuseum.org/learn/wyna-liu. Seemingly Unrelated is a podcast all about exploring how everyday things connect to major movements in history, politics and culture.🎵 Subscribe to the show everywhere 📽️ Find the videos on Youtube🎰 Want even more? Get bonus episodes for as little as $2/month and a list of sources for this episode on our Patreon Follow us on Substack Instagram TikTok Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.