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Upon arriving at the Karpeles Document Library, there was nothing immediately apparent for teams to find. The woman at the front desk, if asked, had nothing more to offer than to look around, or perhaps to find something that she could challenge teams about.

Once teams looked around the library, one document in particular was designed to catch their eye: a handwritten set of lyrics. The manuscript purported to be the lyrics of Soul Coughing's “song of Illumination”—aka “Monster Man”—handwritten by frontman Mike Doughty. For added effect, the sheet's position in the case was illuminated by a light from above. The informational sign also claimed that the song was a staff favorite, and that teams should contact the staff and hear their challenge.

Upon contacting the woman at the front desk specifically about this piece, she responded only with the mysterious phrase, “The men pierce their ears all over and from each hole hang several little sea shells of different colors.”

The use of the word “challenge” was deliberate, in order to suggest that this was the first half of a standard challenge-response pair. What the teams needed to do now was the find the proper response. The phrase the woman uttered was actually taken from one of the signs accompanying another of the documents in the library, and the second half of the sentence, “The woman [sic] pierce their noses and wear a ring in them,” formed the proper response.

Returning to the staff member and repeating the proper response netted teams the Manual System for Interpreting Gibberish which they took back to those lyrics....