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Aesop Fables
-1 ¬engine ¬Greek
10-20 bankrupt louise
input: 10-28 loop victim
st = new String(out); st = StringBuffer(st).insert(1,"M").toString();
The life and times of
41st
Return (10-28)

CLARIFICATION: -1 is "minus one"

Hint

A MUCH MUCH better title would be Gratifying Enigmatic Brainteaser

Hint

Listen to some music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYouXtuk0T8

Hint

-1 is a locational clue

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5
  • $\begingroup$ Is "41th" (not "41st") deliberate? [EDITED to add:] ... ah, apparently not. $\endgroup$
    – Gareth McCaughan ♦
    Commented Apr 12, 2017 at 21:53
  • $\begingroup$ No it isn't. I changed it. Thanks for telling me, $\endgroup$
    – David Huang
    Commented Apr 12, 2017 at 21:53
  • $\begingroup$ Oh, and it is deliberate that the title says "A Enigmatic ..." rather than "An Enigmatic ..."? $\endgroup$
    – Gareth McCaughan ♦
    Commented Apr 12, 2017 at 23:02
  • $\begingroup$ Nope, me being stupid again, but for the future if I have more spelling mistakes its not deliberate (I think there are probably more) $\endgroup$
    – David Huang
    Commented Apr 12, 2017 at 23:59
  • $\begingroup$ I don't see anything else here that looks misspelled. I never like to take for granted that such things are mistakes, because sometimes they are deliberate hints or even critical parts of the puzzle. $\endgroup$
    – Gareth McCaughan ♦
    Commented Apr 13, 2017 at 0:35

1 Answer 1

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Partial answer

The first hint:

The Gratifying Enigmatic Brainteaser referenced in the first hint points to Douglas Hofstadter's book Gödel, Escher, Bach, which is sometimes called GEB.

The second hint:

The linked music is from Bach's The Musical Offering, a collection of keyboard pieces. This may just be a hint to help one see the connection to GEB. After all, GEB opens with a discussion of a piece from the same collection.

There is a hint in the title:

The strange loop referenced in the title is an allusion to Hofstadter's concept of the same name, which is discussed in GEB.

Aesop Fables

GEB includes many dialogues between Achilles and the Tortoise.

-1 ¬engine ¬Greek

-1 may refer to the introduction of GEB, which appears before Chapter 1. In it there is reference to both the ancient Greeks (p. 19) as well as Babbage's dream of an Analytical Engine (pp. 24-25). Not sure what to make of the logical negations.

10-20 bankrupt louise

input: 10-28 loop victim

st = new String(out); st = StringBuffer(st).insert(1,"M").toString();

Java code to insert 'M' into a string after the first letter. (This may be a reference to the toy formal language MIU presented in GEB, but I doubt it since the Java code is inconsistent with the syntactic rules of the language.)

The life and times of

41st

This may refer to the 41st figure in GEB:

enter image description here

Return (10-28)

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3
  • $\begingroup$ Everything is correct aside from "The life and times of" and "41st" $\endgroup$
    – David Huang
    Commented Apr 13, 2017 at 1:57
  • $\begingroup$ Your getting a bit ahead of yourself clue-wise $\endgroup$
    – David Huang
    Commented Apr 13, 2017 at 2:07
  • $\begingroup$ -1 Doesn't refer to the prologue, similar though think of prev. $\endgroup$
    – David Huang
    Commented Apr 15, 2017 at 2:04

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