It's been a year and 11 months since our last Quiz and Puzzle Issue, and in that time our unchallenged minds have become dull. Simple concepts are hard to understand, big words are frightening and we can't remember where we put our stash (of pens, of course). But perhaps the challenges that lie within this issue can renew our brains as well as yours, restoring them to their once-glorious state of mental acuity. Best of luck, eggheads. (JCC)

1) Do you have neither legs nor a wheelchair?

2) Do you insist on calling something that looks like a gravy boat your “lamp”?

3) Are your movements shrouded by wisps of smoke?

4) Are you blue, but breathing easy?

1) Are strangers wrapping blankets around you when you aren’t the least bit cold?

1) Do you see floating clocks with spinning hands?

2) Are you surrounded by Tron-like grids and metallic spheres?

3) Are you playing Jean-Claude Van Damme in "Timecop"?

Death is on our minds every day. Humans are all born with a natural curiosity and fear of the unknown. What happens when we die? Where do we go? Is there a heaven or hell? Will we retain any memories? Can we take our money with us? Hang on a second. Before we worry about the afterlife, we need to ask ourselves a more fundamental question: Are we going to die? Circle true or false to find out if you’re likely to take the eternal plunge.

1) I am carbon based. T/F

2) My name is Dick Clark. T/F

Well, it's not so much a challenge. And you don't win anything ... except a sense of accomplishment at having acquired or relearned important information about the state in which you reside. Answers can be found at www.alibi.com.

Choose “a” or “b”--whichever most accurately suits your whereabouts.

While there were a handful of excellent entries, the winner of our Hot Singles Challenge featured in "Thin Line" [Re: “Our Third Annual Review of the ‘Hot Singles’ Issue,” Oct. 18-24] two weeks ago is Miriam Gwilt. Miriam likes "to move it, move it" and describes herself as a "dyke with style." Of her responses to Albuquerque the Magazine's "Hot Singles" questions, our favorite deals with what makes a great Albuquerque date--“Going 'Schrader watching.'"

Las Cruces is not a place that comes to mind when you consider the great music centers of the universe, but every now and then the cosmos are kind and the stars line up favorably for this often-forgotten southern New Mexico town.

With the 2008 New Mexico Rocks Pinup Calendar premiere at the Launchpad this Friday, Nov. 2, corresponding with our second Quiz and Puzzle issue, we got to thinking: How easy would it be to determine what a selection of Albuquerque’s most recognizable musicians do to pay the bills? We decided this task was too difficult to do without cheating, so we found out the day jobs of this year’s pinup models and included them below (along with some incorrect answers to make it interesting). See if you’re up for the challenge, and get to know a little more about these posers for a cause. Circle your best guess and then go to alibi.com for the answers.

Misty’s Hideaway (1522 Eubank NE) keeps shaking things up in the Northeast Heights with Simfonik Plague, Torture Victim, The Grinkai and Aphotic Blitz on Saturday, Nov. 3, at 9:30 p.m. Legal drinkers only. Free. (LM)

After a prolific decade of music-making, this was the last album recorded by the highly influential foursome that has helped shape the musical landscapes of artists such as Grandmaster Flash and the Arcade Fire. Released in 1988, the record frequently incorporates Latin rhythms and, although it produced a couple successful singles, much of the album was indicative of a band struggling to form one of its last creative gasps with trite lyrics and several songs that lack clear direction. The heavy Latin influence surfaced again on the lead singer's first solo album released a year later. [SM]

Alongside the equipment commonly found in a jazz drum kit—toms, snare, kick drum, wood blocks, high hat, cymbals—drummer Dafnis Prieto mounts an unorthodox percussive instrument: a frying pan.

Homeless people need affordable places to live—an obvious statement on its surface. But a survey released last week by the New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness arrives at that conclusion and flies in the face of many assumptions people maintain about Albuquerque's homeless population, says Lisa LaBrecque, policy and advocacy director with the coalition.

When I heard the news that three employees at the Orlando Weekly were arrested on charges of deriving proceeds from prostitution and aiding and abetting prostitution, my first thoughts were: What about every other alternative weekly (including the Alibi) that runs advertisements for escort agencies? Why haven't they been targeted, and are they going to be?

How does cancer's latest foe do battle? How much is APS paying its educational assistants? How did a Northern New Mexico resident get caught by Johnny Law? And what does the "Governator" think about the sticky-icky?

I wasn’t able to attend the public meetings conducted by the search committee for a new APS superintendent. The committee’s purpose was to gather input from the community on two important issues the search will have to confront, so I’d like to toss my own two cents into the pot.

Dateline: England--Vince Mattingley of Watford, Hertfordshire, has proudly showed off his tattoo for the last 26 years. The tat, emblazoned across his chest, spells out his name in Chinese characters--at least that’s what he thought. According to England’s The Sun, Mattingley was on a recent trip to Thailand when a barman asked him why he had “Coca-Cola” written on his chest. “I thought it was a joke, then I found out that’s what it said.” Mattingley got the tattoo’s design by asking the staff of his favorite restaurant to write out his name in Chinese characters. “The restaurant staff must have had a good laugh about it.” Mattingley says he now plans to get another Oriental tattoo to cover up the name, adding, “I’m going to go with something Japanese this time.”

The locally produced slacker comedy Land of Entrapment has been completed and will premiere this Sunday, Nov. 4, at the Guild Cinema in Nob Hill at 1 p.m. (You can check out trailers on MySpace and YouTube or at www.505films.com.) Writer/director Craig Butler will be on hand if’n ya wanna ask the dude behind it all some questions. Tickets are $7 general admission, $5 for students. If you can’t make this screening, the film will show again at TromaDance NM (Nov. 16-19) and at the Santa Fe Film Festival (Dec. 6-10).

Zombies have a long and proud tradition in the film industry. The 1932 chiller White Zombie starring Bela Lugosi is considered by most to be the first zombie-related film. (“She was not alive ... nor dead!” reads the poster’s tagline.) But how well do you, gentle reader, know your cinema of the living dead? Test the power of your delicious brains with this heart-stopping quiz. Simply match the iconic zombie with the film that spawned it.

According to the closing credits, the weepy, melodramatically indulgent dramedy Martian Child is “based on a true story.” Only “the characters and events have been fabricated.” So ... what exactly is true here, the houses they used?

Evidently, Fall 2007’s stars have aligned and given birth to a whole new sort of TV psychic--the kind that’s pitted against other psychics in a battle royale. After general ridicule earlier in the decade of TV mediums like John Edward (“Crossing Over”), James Van Praagh (“Beyond”), “Montel Williams Show” regular Sylvia Browne and obvious phony Miss Cleo, the psychic set seems to be making a comeback under a different format. Of course, it was inevitable that reality TV would eventually explore the paranormal. And contrary to what intuition might tell you, this may actually be a good thing.

Matthew Bubb, cofounder of The Dolls, passed away on Wednesday, Oct. 17. Matthew had battled cancer for a year. He died peacefully at home, with friends and family at his side.

I met with the cast of 2006's The Joan Crawford/Marilyn Monroe Christmas Carol after a rehearsal at the Albuquerque Social Club. This was the first of a handful of interviews with Matt and Ken—cofounders, writers and principal members of The Dolls—I collected for the Alibi in about the span of a year.

Dear Chef,

I think we’re approaching the time to stick garlic in the ground, and I’ve forgotten which end of the clove goes up. Could you so kindly remind me?

—Grabs His Bulbs

Dear GHB,

Now is indeed the time to plant garlic—the sooner the better, with the freezing of the ground serving as your final deadline. Garlic planted in fall will establish roots and then go dormant for the winter. Come spring, it’s off to the races. Your garlic will be tall and majestic while your neighbors are still staring at the ground waiting for their radish seeds to sprout.

Why did the chicken cross the road? Easy. To get far, far away from the searing flames at Zea Rotisserie & Grill, where tender, juicy legs, breasts and thighs far surpass the level of "finger-lickin’ good."

Directions:

1) With the fortune teller face-down, fold each of the four corners to the midpoint of the page.

2) Flip your new, smaller square over, and fold each of the four new corners to the midpoint of the page.

3) Fold in half.

4) Stick your index fingers and thumbs into each of the four pockets and pinch closed.

The best Halloween costumes are the ones no one can identify. At least that's what I tell myself. Once I was a shadow. Once I was water. Once I was the little prince from "Katamari Damacy." Once I was the embodiment of a Gemini. And no one got it. Never. Not a single person. But at least I didn't dress as a pirate (sorry to all my friends who are usually pirates for Halloween). Maybe this year, I'll go as a sexy wench with cat whiskers and devil's ears and a cape with a hood on it and fairy wings and an Elvira wig and a witch hat. When people ask me what I am, I'll say, "a cliché."

Alice Cooper is a man of contradictions: A subversive performer with a golf habit. A recovered alcoholic who owns a bar. A heavy metal rocker with a strong sense of family values. During a phone interview between the legendary master of horrors and frights and the Alibi, Alice Cooper talked about everything from reality shows to miracles. We didn't have space for the full conversation, so we gathered the most choice quotes for your incongruous reading pleasure.

This was Marisa's big idea. It was based off a 2005 Alibi article in which Music and Food Editor Laura Marrich dared herself to stay overnight in a supposedly haunted East Central motel room. This time the plan was to harvest scary dares from people around the office then execute them with 49 percent skepticism and 51 percent spirit of metaphysical adventure. Because other staffers were too afraid to take part, I was the chosen accomplice. Out of numerous spooky dares, we picked a graveyard séance (for which Staff Writer Simon McCormack provided assistance), summoning Bloody Mary in a dark bathroom while drinking Bloody Marys, dining at a haunted restaurant and playing the Ouija board while listening to Slayer in a haunted room. I brought my camera to document the endeavors, some of which were unamazing, others legitimately frightening--enough so that the two of us had a hard time sleeping that night. (JCC)

A typical Farmington School Board meeting attracts 25 to 30 people. Nearly 200 attended an Oct. 11 meeting. The reason? Homosexuality.

Words. We depend on them as much as they depend on us. Once merely tools invented to give tangible life to our thoughts, we have since joined them in a long, lazy dance of co-evolution. They have helped shape our art, science, culture, beliefs and, in many ways, our humanity. We have devoted ourselves to them in our books, laws and livelihoods. And today the freedom of words, one of our most precious and powerful of creations, is under attack.

Last year's snowstorm means what for 2007? How much does it cost businesses to serve liquor in our state? Which famous actors are working in New Mexico? How many animals that see the inside of a city shelter ever see the outside again?

Environment New Mexico (ENM) has bad news for anyone who fishes, swims or drinks tap water in the state.

During “Wolf Awareness Week” you could ride a bicycle through a gigantic balloon of a red and white wolf. If you entered at the back, you emerged through the beast’s fangs, just like the UNM football team taking the field.

At the Oct. 15 Council meeting, an audit requested by Councilor Brad Winter revealed that statistics kept on the red-light camera program were too confusing to establish whether crashes had increased or decreased due to the cameras. The only thing more confusing was the program's cash flow. Councilors unanimously passed a compromise bill on jail funding, directing the city and county to jointly approach the State Legislature. Councilor Don Harris' bills extending a moratorium on cell phone tower construction and deleting a study of a road through Tijeras Arroyo both passed unanimously. Councilor Michael Cadigan was excused.

El Cucui: He's the monster under your bed, the shadowy figure parents use to frighten their children into obedience. "If you talk back/don't eat your dinner/don't stay in bed, Cucui's going to get you," they might say. Author Rudolfo Anaya likens the beast to another local ghost. "The parents used to scare little children into obeying and being respectful, much like La Llorona, the crying woman."

Dateline: England—Charles Law, a 48-year-old self-employed financial advisor from Borehamwood, promised a British judge he would shave off his oversized Edwardian-style mustache after assaulting a 13-year-old boy who teased him about the facial accessory. St. Albans Crown Court heard how Law pretended to have a knife and lashed out at a group of teenagers who made fun of his mustache on Christmas Eve last year. One of the boys was also kicked in the knee. The court was told that Law had been in trouble before for “mustache-related incidents.” Julia Flanagan, who defended Law, admitted her client has a tendency to overreact when teased, but assured a judge that he would shave off the offending ’stache. Law was given a two-year conditional release and ordered to pay 75 pounds ($150) damages to the three boys for their “frightening” ordeal. “I have mixed feelings about his decision to give up his mustache,” Judge John Plumpstead told BBC News. “It is plainly a matter of pride, and it must have taken a great deal of time and work to develop.”

“When we are intimate with the food we eat, there is intimacy with all things; when we are intimate with all things, we are intimate with the food we eat.”

My biggest issue with candy corn is that it tastes like nothing more than pure sugar.

A late brunch and a nice cup of tea—is there a better way to spend a Sunday? (It sure beats finding blender recipes to alleviate my massive, pounding hangover and surfing Cartoon Network.)

Last month it was announced that Lakeshore Entertainment would be shooting their new sci-fi action flick Game at the freshly constructed Albuquerque Studios. It sounded like a tight fit, what with Lionsgate shooting the superhero flick The Spirit there at the same time. Apparently, things have spilled out into the streets now, resulting in one of the most conspicuous film shoots in Albuquerque history. The $51 million production is busily constructing an entire cityscape in Downtown Albuquerque. If you’ve spent any time in the area recently, you may have noticed the massive structure going up around Silver and Third. This life-sized futuristic city block will soon be crowded with up to 5,000 extras. (That’s how many producers were hoping for according to a recent casting call, anyway.)

What’s gotten into Richard Gere lately? I don’t mean that in an insulting way, either. The guy looks tan, rested and ready to make some movies. Ever since his sly, self-mocking turn in 2002’s Chicago, the fiftysomething actor has been delivering some fine, unselfconscious performances in some unexpected little films. These days, the guy seems less interested in conquering Hollywood American Gigolo-style and more interested in just having a hell of a good time on the job. He also, oddly enough, seems somewhat obsessed with journalists.

Steve Carell almost (almost, mind you) makes up for Evan Almighty with his latest film, a low-key romantic comedy so darn likable not even the presence of Dane Cook can ruin it. In fact, simply labeling it a “romantic comedy” is a bit of an insult. Though the film is both romantic and comedic, viewers will have a hard time getting simple genre labels to stick.

Filmmaker Tony Kaye (American History X) chose to shoot his new documentary Lake of Fire in stark black and white. This artistic decision highlights the clear-cut feelings of people on either side of the film’s central issue, abortion. For a great many people, this is a black-and-white issue, a case of right and wrong, of moral and immoral, with nothing resembling a middle ground.

So far, the fall 2007 TV season hasn’t exactly distinguished itself with its originality. Primetime television is still a realm inhabited largely by cops, lawyers and doctors. It’s no surprise, then, that a show like “Pushing Daisies” would stand out like a sore thumb. A giant, lovable, entirely welcome sore thumb.

Enjoy the freedom of Halloween while you can. Not the freedom of trick-or-treating (… you’re getting a little old for that anyway, aren’t you?), nor the freedom of buying a sack of fun-sized candy bars at Walgreens “for the kids,” only to eat them all by yourself while ogling other people’s neighborhoods from your car (uh … never mind). I’m talking about the freedom to dance like a complete idiot because, this night of all magical nights, your true identity is completely obscured by a shame-masking costume. At long last, you’re free to Macarena! Try it out at one of these quasi-underground dance parties.

With progressing popularity, a handful of albums already under its belt, a brand-new album—Planet of Ice, released last August on Suicide Squeeze—and a world tour, Seattle indie band Minus the Bear has come of age. You may have even caught a glimpse of the band on MTV. Via e-mail, two fifths of the band, Santa Fe natives Alex Rose and Cory Murchy, tackle varying topics for Alibi readers, some music-related, some totally irrelevant.

He's the guy at the rock club with asymmetrical eye makeup and oversized knee-high boots, the animated keyboard player for Shoulder Voices and Unit 7 Drain, the dude with an angel and devil on his shoulders, both manufactured at home.

Every so often, the right song meets the right singer at the right time, producing a transcendent performance that marries them forever. Think “Come Fly with Me” and here comes Frank Sinatra. “Strange Fruit”—Billy Holiday. “Respect”—Aretha Franklin.

Belladonna Burlesque gets even freakier at this weekend-long skin spooktacular, featuring the debut teases of Miss Scarlet Grace. This Friday and Saturday at Guild Cinema. $8 at the Guild or Burning Paradise video. (LM)

The Southwest’s rich history makes the region a perfect location for supernatural folklore. And Halloween is a perfect time to hear its tales. Nasario Garcia will be reading from Brujerias: Stories of Witchcraft and the Supernatural in the American Southwest and Beyond in English and Spanish at Bookworks (4022 Rio Grande NW, 544-8139) on Tuesday, Oct. 30, at 7 p.m.

The legend, as told by Dennis Potter, technical manager at the KiMo Theatre, goes like this: On a Thursday afternoon in August of 1951, a 6-year-old boy named Bobby and a group of friends attended a Western movie at the now historic Downtown theater. While seated in the balcony, little Bobby became startled and began to descend to the lobby. When he was halfway down the stairs, a water heater in the wall exploded beside the step Bobby was standing on, sending him and eight other victims to the hospital with serious injuries. Bobby did not survive.

Let’s get this out of the way quickly: Comic books are for kids. But they’re not just for kids. They’re also for adults. And seniors. And teenagers. In India, a nation plagued by a 35 percent adult illiteracy rate and 22 official languages, educational comic books are used to teach everything from health to science to contemporary culture. In Japan, phone-book-sized weekly manga entertain salarymen on their long train rides to work. Around the world, cartoon-illustrated tracts are employed to convert nonbelievers to the born-again teachings of Jack Chick. In Hollywood, popular graphic novels are used as fodder for just about every big-budget movie that hits theaters. Comic books are for everybody. That’s one of the messages the New Mexico-based arts organization 7000 BC is trying to get across.

“Man, I love 24 Hour Comics Day!” Those are the words of Enrique “Ryk” Martinez, who has participated in every 24 Hour Comics Day since its inception in 2004. “It's like extreme cartooning. For my style, it's perfect. I just pick up my pen and go for it.”

Depending on who you ask, the quality of life for Albuquerque residents near some of the city's train tracks may be improving over the next few months. But State Sen. Michael Sanchez doesn't want to wait that long to try to save lives in other parts of the state.

Well, it's that time of year again, and while October is the harbinger of many thrilling events, Albuquerque The Magazine’s fourth annual "Hot Singles" issue (and my subsequent third annual review of it) could be the most thrilling of all. According to the magazine, Albuquerque was made for romance; and if that's true, this year's "Hot Singles" issue once again addresses our city's alleged purpose in the most ridiculous way possible. Why poor citizens subject themselves to this yearly shenanigan is a question only they can answer. Why Albuquerque The Magazine continues to pass this intellectually insulting editorial content off on the public is a question best not considered, lest you spontaneously combust.

Which Halloween costume is the most offensive? Can people in Santa Fe count? Who wants an afternoon paper? What do you have to do to get free parking around here?

After a season of bone-crunching, high-scoring Duke City Derby action, the undefeated Doomsdames will take on the Derby Intelligence Agency in the championship game that will decide who's crowned queen of the rink.

On NPR a few days ago, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman was quoted saying something that hit me with one of those “Aha!” moments. We all experience them from time to time—those slivers of insight that slip a whole gearbox of mental cogs into place and explain neatly and concisely something that may have been puzzling us for a long time.

Dateline: Nicaragua—Villagers living along Central America’s Mosquito Coast have found a new source of income: fishing for the tons of free cocaine that regularly wash up on the region’s remote shores. According to a report on the guardian.co.uk website, the bags of cocaine are coming from Colombian speedboats on “narco-routes,” which drop the drugs overboard if intercepted by U.S. and Nicaraguan patrols. Currents carry the bags to shore where people living in villages such as Karpwala and Tasbapauni find it. According to the report, locals are offered up to $4,000 a kilo for the lost cocaine—seven times less than the U.S. street value—by Colombian traffickers. “They consider it a blessing from god. You see people all day just walking up and down the beaches keeping a lookout at sea,” Louis Perez, the police chief from Bluefields, the main port on Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast, was quoted as saying. The local church even has a shiny new floor thanks to a donation from fisherman Ted Hayman, who reportedly found 220 kilograms of cocaine, guardian.co.uk reported. Mr. Hayman has also converted his shack into a three-story mansion with iron gates and a satellite dish from drug fishing money.

Business and friendship often make for a putrid mix, especially if the “business” in question is the kind where you need to put the word in quotes to make yourself understood. It’s hard enough to make friends with honest people. Friendship among thieves must be close to impossible.

The novels of Native American writer Sherman Alexie often concern themselves with the matter of race, a difficult proposition no matter how carefully it's approached—even if it’s in the guise of a book for young adults. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, recently named a finalist for the 2007 National Book Awards in Young People's Literature, is Alexie's first venture into this brand of storytelling. Like his earlier novels Reservation Blues and Indian Killer, Alexie's protagonist, a Spokane High Schooler named Junior, is caught between two worlds: that of reservation life and that of the white man's.

The Albuquerque Peace and Justice Center (located, as always, at 202 Harvard SE) will present the latest in its People Before Profit Film & Lecture Series this Thursday, Oct. 18, beginning at 7 p.m. The film will be Peace One Day, a documentary about Jeremy Gilley’s personal quest to persuade the United Nations to officially recognize an annual Peace Day with a fixed calendar date. Gilley’s efforts helped establish the annual day of global ceasefire and nonviolence as Sept. 21. After the film, the guest speaker will be Jody Oyas, state coordinator of the Campaign for U.S. Department of Peace & Nonviolence. This event is free and open to the public, athough donations to the Peace and Justice Center will be welcome.

Following hot on the horse tracks of 3:10 to Yuma, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford would seem to argue convincingly for the healthy revival of the Hollywood Western. Instead, comparing and contrasting these two films seems to prove that “The Western” isn’t so much a genre as a backdrop. Whereas 3:10 to Yuma was a rootin’, tootin’, shootin’ cowboy pic with a hint of moral quandary for flavor, TAoJJbtCRF (I’m gonna run out of words in this review if I keep typing it) is a sober rumination on fame, fortune and infamy with nary a gunfight in sight.

Casey Affleck is having a hell of a year. Actually, he’s having a hell of a weekend, starring in two major films being released this Friday: [url]http://jessejamesmovie.warnerbros.com/[/url]The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and Gone Baby Gone. The Assassination ... features far and away the showier of the two roles for Affleck, but he comes off as a credible leading man in Gone Baby Gone nonetheless.

This year’s TV dead pool has taken an interesting, almost supernatural twist. Seemingly dead shows are being allowed to remain on the air, their still-ambulatory corpses stinking up the primetime schedule.

Mention Brian Blade’s cymbal crash at 1:46 into “Indian Song,” track No. 4 on saxophonist Joshua Redman’s latest CD, Back East, and Redman waxes euphoric over the moment.

In the universe of guitar mastery, Django Reinhardt is the brightest star in his own corner of the cosmos. And, as is usually the case with legends, there's plenty of fantastic lore swirling around Reinhardt's brilliant but brief life, which spanned from 1910 to 1953.

DJ Furious Joe spins the soundtrack to Black Market Goods, an underground arts bazaar this Saturday, Oct. 20, at the Princess Jeanne Shopping Center (1520 Eubank NE at Constitution). Doors open at 8 p.m. Details at www.myspace.com/theangryyears. (LM)

With her well-established acting career on hold, Juliette Lewis is ordering off the multi-medium entertainment menu. Her main course is Juliette and the Licks, a dirty, sexy, playful, classic rock-rooted quartet featuring Lewis on vocals and former H20 member Todd Morse on guitar. The Licks got Dave Grohl to play drums on their latest release, Four on the Floor, which is the band's most well-rounded offering to date. The Alibi caught up with the band's frontwoman and got her thoughts on her genre-hopping experience.

Roquefort, a bleu-veined ewe’s milk cheese from the French town of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon, is widely known as one of the kings of cheese. Of the 500-plus cheeses made in France, this blue bully is certainly one of the most recognizable to the connoisseur and the layman alike. Unfortunately, as with the other kings of cheese (Parmigiano Reggiano, Brie de Meaux and Stilton), Roquefort has been commodified and redefined as tepid sour crumbles that lay atop crappy salads. Like the other big three, it has become a supermarket cheese, which obscures its epic history and goddamn transcendental flavor.

After a long summer of broiling in the New Mexico heat, cooler temperatures are finally in the forecast. It’s time to dump that jug of margarita mix down the drain, throw out those Coronas and serve something more seasonal.