"Book of Night With Moon" a pun!?!

[SpacePen]

if the pun is van goh's starry night, I really, really, REALLY don't get it.

Since Penn Station was played, the Ailurian Variant sub-rule 43.a.21 comes into effect, which states that no other human-use station plays can be made until 347 points have passed (or been donated by one of the players). Since I called MC too soon in the last round, I have a deficit and can't donate points. According to Stovold, a station qualifies for 'non-human-use' status if less than 1% of the pedestrian traffic in the past year is human. Therefore, my only option is to go off-planet. (There was a precedent set for this in the 2nd round of the first Ailurian Variant game ever played).

The Crossings

[Durriken]

...in which time you're the only one who's claimed to have spotted it.

Well, my move, and I think, in accordance with the Manhatten-Winchester Variation, which trumps Grand Central in this situation, I should play...

Van Cortlandt Park

This just made me think, it could be a degenerate joke. The real joke is, that there is no pun and he gets a huge laugh out of us trying to figure it out for two years.

[dorotheia]

Does it have anything to do with the TBoNWM's other names, The Naming of Lights, say, or "The Gaze of Rhoua's Eye" (or something like that?) Or am I confused and it's just that one name?

My stabs in the dark:
Van Gogh's Starry Night
London's nuclear-wasteland-on-the-moon in To Visit the Queen
New moons, no moons. *Shrug*

Yep, I have no idea what I'm doing. Or thinking. Where's GoogleEarth? I take my place at:

Penn Station

[Lazy Leopard]

More accurately, it's been twenty-seven years, all the more reason for me to not casually spoil it.

...in which time you're the only one who's claimed to have spotted it.

Well, my move, and I think, in accordance with the Manhatten-Winchester Variation, which trumps Grand Central in this situation, I should play...

Van Cortlandt Park

[Ardub]

It's been two years!

More accurately, it's been twenty-seven years, all the more reason for me to not casually spoil it.

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

Downtown Crossing.

[Kathy Li]

Have you never played Mornington Crescent before? That is so not by Stovold. Especially if you're playing by the Ailurian variant of non-Planet-bound Earth rules as laid down in JD 2455276.50000 (like we normally do on this board).... Let's start again.

Grand Central.

[SpacePen]

mornington...

I must say I'm with Lazy Leopard above...

MORNINGTON CRESCENT. I win!

[estar9821]

Okay, please just tell us the pun. It's been two years! Even if we all say we get it, we all could get different versions of it, but yours might be the funniest so we'd all still want to know yours. I'm really expecting it to be something great if you've been keeping it away from people for so long...

[Red5]

Just say the pun!

[Ardub]

Well, well... I think I just found another layer to this joke :-)

It seems to be not only a great stealth pun, but a nod to the author of the Dune books.

Still hoping to get an official answer here someday!

[Ardub]

It's not really a matter of how easy it was to figure out, since I wasn't trying. I was thinking about word meanings in a completely different context, and realized that I had formed a play on the words of that title. Though I admit is is easier to go that way than work backwards from the title like you have to do.

Oh well, sooner or later there will be a chat, and I (or if I'm not there, someone else) can ask for a response of:

A) "Go ahead and say it"
B) "Don't. Keep it for people to discover, or not, on their own"
C) "Huh? What in the world are you talking about?"

Until then, it's option B to keep the status quo.

[kk]

Lazy Leopard: Okay, revision: "I think there is one." Though I can't seem to find a pun, the phrase seems like the type of thing that could have one. No matter how impossible it is to find, if it exists.

Ardub: How easy was it for you to figure out? And... define "Linguistic Knowledge..."

[Ardub]

This play-on-words specifically:
a) Doesn't have a spoken component
b) Doesn't even lose its impact even when "The Book of Night With Moon" is translated into other languages. Someone holding a translated copy of the book has as much chance of noticing this. And I don't mean zero ;-)
c) nonetheless requires making a linguistic connection.

[Lazy Leopard]

This thread reminds me of Mornington Crescent...

*frustrated with pun*

I know there is one,

What makes you so certain?

Of course, as it's a play-on-words, general linguistic knowledge is useful.

Puns in general, or the one you claim to have spotted specifically?

Puns in general often have a strong spoken/heard component, and may not work for everyone. Same for rhymes. I'd say tomato and potato do not rhyme. Others would disagree...