I had to find an old hollow door (seems to weigh about 2 lbs) in the basement to extend the puzzle holding surface.  I placed it next to the puzzle table along the left side, to make an L shape.  I found 4 old wooden box speakers no longer in use, but fine pieces of furniture nonetheless, and stacked them into a T shape for legs at each end of the wooden door.  The new surface is nearly flush with the old one, off less than half an inch, and is now covered with the same cloth.  When I look at it now, the phrase "Puzzle Command Center" now seems appropriate.  It also has some Greek proportion to it-- if not a golden mean, at least the silver.

time passes...

Now the new section is filled and it appears I still have about one third of the pieces to be set out.  That's too many for the pluck board, so yesterday I began "edge diving."  That is, I am fishing edge pieces out of the bag so that I can get the border connected up and have more space to set out the rest of the pieces.  I am resisting the idea of making more surfaces.  Limiting size is an important concept when attempting to defeat the Babel Tower. 

Of the 200 linear inches that comprise the puzzle boarder I have assembled roughly 30 inches.  Yesterday the third corner piece was found

I also have started reading A.S. Byatt's Babel Tower, but not as a manual, as a counter story, as in "Music from Other Towers."  I will also re-read Fowles' The Ebony Tower, and other tower tales as well.

There is something very wrong and scary about this whole Tower of Babel myth, and I am going to get to the bottom of it (or the top?), and then by golly, then...