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Monday: September 5, 2005

Puzzle

Filed under: — site admin @ 3:59 PM GMT-0500

In the spirit of Puzzleblogger Kevan Choset at The Volokh Conspiracy, here’s a puzzle:

What fact links together the cities of Baltimore, Laredo, and Bakersfield?

There are a few other places that fit the pattern, but none that I know of is an American city. Answers may be placed in the comments.

Useless hint: This should be very easy for some readers, impossible for others. I’m curious as to how many of my readers fall into each group.

10 Comments

  1. Merle Haggard is from Bakersfield, and has performed (and written?) songs with Laredo and Baltimore in their titles.

    Comment by steevil (Dr Weevil's bro Steve) — Monday: September 5, 2005 @ 7:52 PM GMT-0500

  2. Getting very warm, but not quite there yet. The connection is tighter than that.

    Comment by Dr. Weevil — Monday: September 5, 2005 @ 7:56 PM GMT-0500

  3. OK,

    Streets of Bakersfield, Baltimore, Laredo are song titles.

    Comment by steevil (Dr Weevil's bro Steve) — Monday: September 5, 2005 @ 8:40 PM GMT-0500

  4. Exactly. I was thinking of posting another clue, that The Fat Guy would definitely know, but the whole Crooked Timber gang working together likely wouldn’t have a clue, but I thought that would make it too easy. I hadn’t noticed that there were three country or bluegrass songs with titles starting “The Streets of” until I saw them all lined up on my iTunes index earlier today.

    Comment by Dr. Weevil — Monday: September 5, 2005 @ 8:49 PM GMT-0500

  5. Well, I can be described as a “Fat Guy” too.

    Comment by steevil (Dr Weevil's bro Steve) — Monday: September 5, 2005 @ 9:10 PM GMT-0500

  6. So can I, but neither of us is The Fat Guy.

    Comment by Dr. Weevil — Monday: September 5, 2005 @ 9:14 PM GMT-0500

  7. And I was just listening to Marty Robbins (“Big Iron”) when I wheeled into the driveway. I would have been stumped by the Baltimore part, though. Who does that one?

    Comment by Scott Chaffin — Tuesday: September 6, 2005 @ 12:45 AM GMT-0500

  8. My iTunes list just has two versions of “The Streets of Baltimore” by Gram Parsons, but I’m pretty sure I’ve heard a more purely bluegrass version somewhere: I don’t think G.P. wrote it, but I have to go to work now, so no time to check.

    Comment by Dr. Weevil — Tuesday: September 6, 2005 @ 7:20 AM GMT-0500

  9. Just to complicate things, the PuzzleBlogger himself tells me that Bruce Springsteen wrote a song called “The Streets of Philadelphia”. If I didn’t have a morbid aversion to his music, I might have known that, and included it in the puzzle. The only B.S. song I’ve ever knowingly had on iTunes was a cover version by Johnny Cash, and after three hearings I deleted it: it was not growing on me.

    Comment by Dr. Weevil — Tuesday: September 6, 2005 @ 10:35 PM GMT-0500

  10. That’s true, he does.

    BS is not in my iTunes, for the same reason as yours. However, Hank Williams III did a real good version of Atlantic City that I can recommend. I don’t know if you’ve tried H3 yet, but he sounds spookily like his grandpa.

    Comment by Scott Chaffin — Thursday: September 8, 2005 @ 10:58 AM GMT-0500

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